'After "The Biggest Loser," their bodies fought to regain the weight'

Did we ever talk about this on here? I think it was mentioned on one of the "Anything Goes" fitness threads, but didn't get a standalone thread.

The basic premise is that contestants on "The Biggest Lower" reality television show were studied, and their metabolism, after the weight loss, is way lower than a normal person's metabolism for their size. (Prior to the weight loss, they had normal metabolisms for people their sizes):

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html

I didn't lose 150 or 200 pounds but I did lose 70. The struggle is real. I'm constantly struggling to find a nutrition lifestyle in which I:

1) Am not hungry all the time;
2) Have energy to work out and compete hard;
3) Keep my weight down where I want it to be. It's been a couple years, though.

It's not easy. My body desperately wants to be fat. It really does.

 

I'm 290 but don't necessarily look like I'm 290 but it's a goddamn bitch to get back to where I'd like to be, 225-235, where I was 6-7 years ago.

 

I'm convinced the key to resetting metabolism after weight loss is:

1. Go on an extended fast of 5 days, which has been scientifically proven to replace most of the body's white blood cells.
2. Aggressively reset your gut microbiome, through the use of the correct mix of probiotics for your body...which can only best be discovered through trial-and-error in the months following the weight loss.

 

The article makes some real sense to me, in part because such things were discussed prior to, during and throughout two years of monthly post-surgical support-group meetings following my gastric bypass procedure in 2008.

I know there's a significant physiological/biochemical component to most weight-loss surgeries. People tend to think that the smaller stomach that results from weight-loss procedures is the primary reason for the loss of weight. But I remember my surgeon saying that, yes, that's part of it, but that the real reason is more biochemical and the result of the sheer lack of hunger that follows gastric bypass surgery.

And I know from experience that that lack of hunger is very real and true (and effective ), particularly during the first year or 18 months immediately after surgery. That period, in weight-loss surgery circles, is well known as the "honeymoon phase," and it is the key to a successful weight-loss journey through surgery. During this time, it is drummed into patients that that is when they MUST try to take full advantage of the chemical changes brought on by surgery to change our eating and exercise habits and establish a new lifestyle for ourselves that, it is hoped, becomes a new routine that you carry on after that by force of habit.

If you do not establish new patterns during the honeymoon period, you will, more than likely, have well and truly wasted your surgery opportunity. Because the loss of hunger pangs does not last forever, and after that, you are pretty reliant on healthy eating and exercise habits to maintain your weight -- just like most of the rest of the world.

You still will probably eat less than you might have before your surgery. But if you don't keep exercising and eating healthfully, you still are likely to regain some weight because you do eventually lose the lack of hunger -- that ace up your sleeve that really kept you from eating while you lost your weight -- in my case a total of 146 pounds.

I worked really hard during my post-surgical honeymoon phase and have maintained much of my new eating routine and some (but not all) of my faithful exercise habits, and have managed to maintain my weight pretty well. Even so, I've still regained about 15 pounds.

And I know I'm one of the fortunate, pretty successful ones, now going on eight years still at what could be considered a normal post-surgical weight. That was my goal when I decided to have weight-loss surgery -- normalcy, and I've managed to maintain it. But it's no longer anywhere near as easy as it was to do during that exciting, almost euphoric 18 months or so that followed my procedure.

 

Three or four times in my life I've lost a significant amount of weight (30-80 pounds). Each time I said I was going to keep it off. Each time I didn't.
The old habits have a way of creeping back, sometimes without you even noticing it.
I'm trying a different approach now. I'm eating pretty much whatever I want but making sure to stay within a certain calorie budget and getting enough protein each day.
I've also stopped exercising to lose weight. In the amount of time most adults have to exercise, 30-60 minutes a day, if that, you just can't burn enough calories to offset any overeating. I exercise to get stronger, have fun and improve my conditioning, not to burn calories.
I'm probably going to have to do this for the rest of my life.
The Biggest Loser program is extreme, a very low calorie diet and 6 hours or so of vigorous exercise a day. Nobody in the real world has time for that and even if they did it's so extreme that it's unsustainable. Who wants to live like a monk for the rest of his or her life?
Perhaps it would be worth looking at people who took a less drastic approach and see how they do long-term.