The FastDay Forum

I came across this saved on my computer, a post I read a few years ago; sorry, didn't track from where.

It's a boiling frog thing, I believe. When people first lose weight, they're passionate and enthusiastic and don't mind the commitment of time and mental real estate. The gushing we see at the end of Biggest Loser is real. They really do think they are "new" people and are so happy to have "taken control" of their lives and bodies. They are proud of spending two hours a day (or more) at the gym. They enjoy that time, even. They are delighted to plan their every bite, and to show you how you may too. This is real and uncynical on their part.

Slowly, however, the water heats as the passion fades (and this coincides with a decline in the praise and encouragement they have enjoyed during the weight-loss phase). As the passion fades, their volume and "enthusiasm" for promoting weight loss may, oddly, increase. They are fighting to re-energize, get their passion back (it looks a lot like Kim Benson in the video featured in the "Is it okay to be fat?" thread). Essentially, the subtext is, "I'm saying this loudly and passionately in order to convince myself as much as I'm trying to convince you."

Our society really has no model for quietly maintaining weight loss, because there is no honest road map. There's only jargon, such as "healthy lifestyle." Presumably there is some "lifestyle" that maintains a "healthy weight." But this starts to feel like a lie when you have to ask yourself whether it is "healthy" to exercise till your joints fail in order to maintain a particular weight? Is it "healthy" if you miss an important conversation point, because you were mentally counting the calories in an appetizer you just popped in your mouth? Instead of asking weighty questions, for a while it is easier to adopt the jargon and join the fray. For a while (months or more), people do not think you are tedious doing this.

It is a rude surprise one day to discover you are NOT a "new" person, who has "taken control." You cannot let up, not even a little bit. You cannot take a rejuvenating vacation (even a few days) from exercise, as the naturally trim gym rats can, without suffering weight consequences. And weight regained doesn't "come right off" as the know-it-alls love to pontificate. Weight regained from below your body's natural weight range requires Herculean effort to relose.

The water is boiling when you recognize that you are still a fat person who merely doesn't look fat because you live a life that is radically more active than most people's and you are radically more scrupulous about the quantity and quality of the food you eat than most people. You suddenly realize you are not in "control"; your weight loss maintenance has taken control of you. For a while you try to convince yourself and others that this is "healthy," this is what you have always wanted.
Your choice: stay in the water and keep up the regimen, acknowledging that it may be obsessive or disordered, or jump out of the water. But if you do jump, if you live a more relaxed life, even one that is genuinely "healthy," you may be sure that it will lead to regaining the weight—all of it. It is not my experience that people go on diets expecting to "go back to their old ways," as the pontificators say. Most dieters enter with the best of intentions—to live "new" lives forever. And when they relax their diets and moderate their exercise, they still try nobly to be healthier than they were in their fat days, but the physical evidence defies them.

Many people pooh-pooh the idea of set point, but I think it's amazing that most people's body will almost magically return them to their former weight (sometimes plus about ten pounds) then, just as magically, it stops.

Sadly, at this point, society shakes its head—she's "let herself go," they say.

Truer words were never spoken, Dee, than yours: "You know what's full of beauty and greatness? Fat people who refuse to be shamed." (They can't stop the dumping itself, I'm afraid.)

This sounds a lot like Debra Sapp-Yarwood (of the [url]Debra's Just Maintaining[/url] blog) to me. It's so bleak. Yes, maintenance is hard; yes, not enough attention is paid to it in the popular press, which goes on about losing weight ad nauseum. But is it really SO bad? I think if you're expectations are realistic, it's not SO bad.

Having said that, I once posted something from the TV show Elementary. A monologue by Sherlock about drug addiction, and the relentlessness of staying off drugs. It was a pretty over the top comparison, too. (Weight maintainers have a lot more leeway for messing up than drug addicts, e.g.)

I guess the point is, perhaps for all of us, it feels that hard to maintain weight loss sometimes. I'm curious where it's from since it's likely to have some interesting discussion around it. I googled around a bit but couldn't find it.

I guess the alternate view, is that for some people, because of their particular levels of hormones (or whatever), is really is SO hard all the time. There really needs to be more science on the metabolic changes caused by weight loss and, importantly, how to overcome them so that weight maintenance is easier.

Well, since it's using Biggest Loser as an example, I think it's more about the whole extreme weight loss/fitness craze, where someone very overweight is transformed into a gym rat with a six-pack. For me, it's about having reasonable expectations and not pushing the envelope constantly... I have read in other venues as well, that if you ask one of those (unusual) persons who've lost a lot of weight (without surgery) and have kept it off successfully how they do it, their answer is some version of "I can't relax my vigilance, never never never...can't skip gym days, can't have pie on Thanksgiving." Well, to each their own; wouldn't work for me... as evidenced by the many times I lost and regained.

Sadly there may be something in this.

I am still in the water and am seven pounds up from my low 2 years ago. What I am doing is dead simple; eating in a 2 - 3 hour window every day, so it's not as if there is carb creep or calorie creep because I don't count 'em! Apart from fasting and virtually eliminating sugar and starches, there are no limits so my WOE does not require much thought or day-long applications of willpower.

Interesting to see where my n = 1 takes me in another 2 years.

[Tracieknits]

While this is depressing (mostly because it's real, I've lived it), I keep hoping my new method will be more manageable long term. I've built a rhythm of low calorie days and higher calorie days (within limits - the weekly calorie consumption is still controlled).

I have just tested this with a vacation from my home *and* from my diet plan. while I've already returned home, the return to the diet will wait until Monday. I fully expected to gain back up to five pounds. Sigh. I hope they aren't too difficult to lose, but even if they are, it was completely worth it.

But is it not about finding a method that you can live with for life? I started 5:2 three and a half years ago, lost nearly three stones over 6-9 months, and am still losing very very slowly (about another 4-5 lbs) but very very happily, doing exactly the same. Two fasting days of 500 cals and 5 lowish carb, normal days. Go to gym 3 days a week doing a mixture of weights, cardio and Pilates, not working massively hard, but I know I've been! Love meeting friends for lunch, occasionally have pudding, feel fitter than ever in my life (at 67) and envisage living like this for ever. Before this I was constantly dieting, losing, gaining, the usual yo-yo, but for me, 5:2 works and I love it!

Here! Here!, @LindyLoo89! I too lost my weight with 'vanilla' 5:2 i.e. doing it just as Michael Mosley described and have been (more or less) maintaining that way for the last three and a quarter years. If I have a few weeks of not fasting then some pounds go on and if I fast twice a week the pounds come off. I am also 67, so no hormones to interfere with this process and, like you, I am so relieved to be off the yo-yoing, diet roundabout! I love 5:2!

[carorees]

I have quite a lot of thoughts on this which would take too long to post in full, but in brief...
For women, oestrogen and for men, testosterone, are insulin sensitising hormones so as we age and their levels drop, insulin resistance worsens so our carb tolerance decreases. This means that even without any carb creep occurring after reaching target, eating the same way as during the weight loss phase can result in weight gain from worsening handling of the dietary carbs. Reduced muscle mass with age (also occurs as a result of hormone drops) means we need fewer calories as we get older.
A major contribution to weight problems is stress and if you change your way of eating but don't deal with the stress you'll still have the weight gain from cortisol going on.
Despite those depressing facts, consider that if you don't take action and lose weight you'll still gain year on year so that in 10 years time you'd be considerably heavier than if you change your way of eating and lose weight and slowly regain. I was 105kg before I started 5:2. If I hadn't started I'd be 109kg by now. Instead, although I'm 3kg heavier than the lowest I reached, I'm still 39kg lower than before I started and 43kg lower than I might have been.

I think this hypothesis describes very well the traditional weight loss scenario in which the slimmer can never let their guard down, long after reaching their goal, which is why so many do regain their weight, plus some. I believe that the big hitters in the diet industry rely on this failure for a lot of their income.
However, this is why I think intermittent fasting is so great as it isn't a construct designed to get to a goal weight, it's a way of eating based on how our ancestors ate, and is still the way people eat in many parts of the world where they don't have the same food security we have, and also have to work much harder for their food - fetching water, hunting and gathering still is the norm in many places, we easily lose sight of how extremely fortunate we are in richer countries where we have options. ....
In order to truly thrive, not just survive humans have always had to adapt to circumstances and this remains true in our present situation of almost unlimited food choices 24/7. As someone said on the site a while ago (? Stowgateresident) we are "early adopters" of a way of life which will hopefully become the new norm - something does have to change in our western societies or we will reverse all the fantastic medical advances made in the past 100 years ....just by over eating

For me, it's also about the societal expectations of "weight loss" that do not acknowledge differences in the way that those previously overweight process food vs those who are "naturally" thin. For example, the oft quoted "a calorie is a calorie is a calorie"...which I think most of us know isn't true. And the irritating "Eat less, move more," which while true to some extent, isn't useful most of the time--how much less can I eat?? And how much more can I move--especially with age-related physical limits, such as sore knees? Oh, and my personal favorite (NOT!), "I'm just concerned about your health..." (usually from someone who eats a lot of junk in my eyes)

Of course, this isn't meant as a denigration of 5.2 at all; it's more an observation of the usual path of those who lose a significant amount of weight (many of us have been there!). And why it's so freaking hard to maintain that type of loss achieved that way. And why seeing 5.2 as a Way of Life rather than a diet is so important... Although I recognize that one of the strengths of 5.2 is its flexibility, I also wonder at what point it ceases to be 5.2 with the advantages thereof...? It bothers me that some mess with the basic principles, then when it doesn't work, they proclaim that 5.2 doesn't work...even though in my book, they haven't been following 5.2! Or just that they say they are on 5.2, but observation shows they are imposing far more limits...what would someone who doesn't know about 5.2 assume? That those limits are an integral part of 5.2, not that they have been grafted on to the basic 5.2 concept. Might not this lead some observers to have inaccurate perceptions about 5.2? Just my thoughts...