izzy wrote: Yes, perhaps it's more about lifestyle changes and
what you eat. Surely not everyone puts weight back on after losing it. If,as Franglaise suggests, you eat a healthier diet, then you are much more likely to keep the weight off. What a shame that we consider being unable to eat certain foods as a "sacrifice", when most of those foods are probably what made us fat and unhealthy in the first place - it's crazy when you think about it.
I wonder how many people have regained weight because they couldn't live without spinach? Or they caved when someone offered them a lovely lean chicken breast?
Is it not more about the dodgy food choices made after losing weight, than just our body telling us to eat? The science might explain what happens to make us hungry after losing weight, but we are the ones who decide what to eat
There's a statistical failure rate for long term weight loss success of around 80-95% depending on the study. So actually, most people do in fact put the weight back on after losing and many actually end up gaining more weight, than what they initially lost.
The interesting part is that it doesn't seem to matter what method people used to lose the weight or are using for maintenance-low carb, low calorie etc all have a similar rate of failure. This would suggest that it actually doesn't matter so much what kinds of foods you're eating
A great book to read for more information on the statistics, as well as the history of the dieting industry is Rethinking Thin, by Gina Kolata. It also goes into some detail about Leptin and how it plays a role in this whole thing, as well as genetics (she dives into the adoption studies that have been done, which is really fascinating as it compares adult adopted children with their biological parents vs their adopted parents/families and how it relates to obesity).
IF/5:2 has probably not been included in the studies that have been done up to this point as it's a fairly new weight loss method (though it's been studied for years for it's health benefits), and an even newer maintenance method-we really are guinea pigs here
However, knowing that pretty much everything else leads to long term failure, I'm definitely open to exploring IF as an option!
I'm excited to see what Krista Varady does in the future, as she's one of the leading scientists in the field of IF and weight loss. I hope she continues to explore IF and long term weight loss maintenance. However, at this point it's such a new field, it will be many years before we can really start to get a clear picture of the long term ramifications of IF and weight loss maintenance. I'm willing to go along for the ride though