On Diets, Losers, and Keeping it Off

The study goes on to find:

Those who had undergone surgery ate more fat and more fast food and were less active than those who had lost weight without surgery, the investigators found.

The only factor that predicted whether or not a person would keep the weight off was their level of disinhibition, or loss of ability to control their impulses, at the study’s outset, as well as any increases in disinhibition over the following year.

Those stats come from the International Journal of Obesity. Okay, after a quick read, I thought … well DUHHHHHHHH. You can’t cut your calories and increase your calorie burn enough to lose the weight, and expect that you’ll be able to maintain when you change your behaviors back. After all, how did you get overweight in the first place?

Then, I took a step back. My own struggle with weight has never really been with losing it — I get the math. It’s certainly never been with packing it on. The proof is not in the pudding … it’s in the maintenance. I would never dare to say that weight loss surgery — bariatric or otherwise — is easy, or that it’s without work. But it seems to me that it’s through the process of losing weight, and the education that makes it possible, that the real life-changing learning is done.

Okay, so you need more incentive to watch your calories? Look across the cubicle.

Dieting? Put Your Money Where Your Fat Is

Mr. Ee, 30, worked at an Internet company in SoHo, and had been competing with a colleague to see who could lose more weight. But they had both stopped going to the gym because of long hours at the office. In search of more motivation, they turned up the pressure: they entered into a formal one-month wager to see who could cut the higher percentage of their body mass index.

“It got pretty competitive,” said Mr. Ee, who weighed 248 at the time. “We used to do push-ups every hour in front of each other’s cubicles. And he used to leave really good chocolate on my desk.”

After a while, others in the office got in on the game:

It was an eight-player example of a diet bet, in which those seeking to lose pounds give themselves a new incentive: money. If they don’t lose more weight than the competition, they lose cash. Internet sites that facilitate diet betting have seen an increase in traffic, and recent studies have supported what Mr. Ee and his co-workers discovered: diet bets work for many people who couldn’t seem to shed pounds any other way.

Okay, this I can get behind! Any incentive that gets someone started on a healthier life is okay with me. Anyone who’s into healthy eating in fitness plays games with him or herself … “If I run another mile, I can have that glass of wine tonight.” “As soon as I drop 10 pounds, I’ll spend $50 on some new clothes.”

But again, how does this help you maintain? It seems like it still comes down to learning how to drop the weight safely, so it stays off.

One more article that interested me:

For ‘Loser’ Contestants, It’s Back to the Basics in the Kitchen

NOTHING is off-limits on “The Biggest Loser,” the reality show that pits morbidly obese people against one another to see who can lose weight the fastest and win the $250,000 prize.

Contestants endure tearful, grueling workouts and submit to public weigh-ins wearing only bike shorts (and for the women, sports bras). They cry. They vomit. They backstab.

The one thing they almost never do on camera is eat.

“The food that you’re used to, you can’t have, and the food you can have, you do not want,” said Vicky Vilcan, a 5-foot-6-inch finalist from Houma, La., who weighed 246 pounds at the beginning of the last season. Now at 145 pounds, she eats broccoli and spinach but says she was “repulsed” by most vegetables when she was on the show. “I wouldn’t eat a string bean that wasn’t smothered in bacon and onions.”

Hmm, you can probably guess how I feel about Vicky’s comment. Forget the fact that I HATED her, like many in America (did you know she got death threats after her season?), I just don’t understand her feelings toward food.

And more than that, I find it irresponsible — she’s the mother of two young children, both of whom are learning the same unhealthy habits. Ruin your own life, but give them a fighting chance. (Yes, this goes back to my stance on childhood obesity.)

The article continues:

While on their “ranch” — a luxurious house outside Malibu, Calif., — in the four months of taping, contestants are g

iven a calorie budget, recipes and a list of forbidden foods: no white flour, white sugar, butter, or anything that contains them. From there, they have to learn to feed themselves.

“It wasn’t pretty,” said Mr. Brantley’s wife, Heba Salama, who began the show as the heaviest woman ever to compete, at 294 pounds. “The kitchen was full of weird ingredients like quinoa and kale. It was the blind leading the blind.”

Weird ingredients like quinoa and kale. Give me strength.

Okay, these people put it all on the line in front of the cameras, and they did it in bike shorts. So they get credit, in my book. They admitted that they didn’t know how to eat well, and reached out for help. I’m trying to hold my judgement. Because what about the people that are equally uneducated, but desperate to learn how to make change? Who helps them?

I’ve wandered enough, and my tofu is getting crispy, so I’m off for now. Feel free to leave me a comment if you like this type of post, or if you never want to see one like this again.