95% Fail to lose weight. What are the 5% doing?

You'd think the person with the answer to this question would be heralded as modern societies saviour,  the person who solved the mystery of why we gain weight and can't seem to lose it.  Or perhaps at least this person would be rich in finding a way to capitalize on such a discovery.

There are indeed many who have become wealthy in selling their solution to the weight loss problem but in doing so another mystery arises; if all these people with the solution to weight loss do have the answer, why is it the population of the entire planet continues to become more overweight every year?

When humanity learned how to eradicate smallpox it was the end of smallpox.  We have the antidote for excessive weight gain, but don't use it.

More of the population is overweight.  This seems a logical explanation for why more weight loss clinics  classes, blogs, news stories, and apparently novel weight loss concepts would materialize.

It's a question of supply and demand.

Interesting that the more this problem spreads the more full-proof solutions are propagated and sold.

Maybe at some point sock makers would sell so many socks that all the worlds people would have socks so no more socks would be needed.  Too simplified.  The population grows, socks wear out, and maybe people want to upgrade from $5.00 socks to $10.00 socks and so on.

Is fat loss the same way?  Does one weight loss strategy wear-out requiring another strategy to continue weight loss? Is the more costly fat loss option more effective?

This can't be true because fat loss is about eating fewer calories than expended.  There isn't another strategy.  It is that simple, but complexities arrise in achieving that simplicity.

The National Weight Loss Registry, an ongoing study of what people who successfully lose weight and keep it off actually do has found the following:


To register people must have lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off for one or more years.

Registry members have lost an average of 66 pounds and kept it off for more than 5 years.

The study is open to US residents and has published it's findings to date.

Here is what those who have lost weight and kept it off have in common:


45% lost weight on their own and 55% lost weight with the help of some kind of program

94% increased their physical activity with walking being the most common exercise, and one hour of exercise daily being average frequency and duration.

98% of Registry participants report that they modified their food intake in some way to lose weight.

78% eat breakfast every day

75% weigh themselves at least once per week

62% watch less than 10 hours of TV per week

The increase in physical activity increases calories out and the modification of food intake decreases calories in.

I'm writing this during the Christmas holiday season, but what I'm saying is relevant anytime of the year.

A common strategy that people tell me about when they are about to enter a social feeding frenzy, be it a birthday, an after the game or after the whatever chow-down, is this:

Since we're going to overeat anyway, why bother trying to mess with that since it won't work.  Why not simply concentrate our efforts on what to do after we're finished the overeating celebration?

Makes sense.  Christmas dinners?  I've already bought the ticket to that train and I'm going to ride it out.  Plus; why ruin Christmas (or whatever)?

"I just want to have a good type two diabetes with my family".  Crap.  Freudian.

What I meant to say sarcastically is, "I just want to have a good time feeling bloated and regretful for overdoing it and gaining even more weight".  Whoops, I did it again.

The flaw in this strategy is that it is completely denial based and is merely used as an excuse to justify more overeating.  Hardly anyone is actually going to follow through with the "I'll deal with it later" self afflicted con-job.

What is the expected outcome of never preventing overeating and always thinking about what to do after overeating?

Most will tell you the expected outcome is successful weight loss.

Crazy-talk.

We are crazy about overeating, even when we know better.

Like I've said before in previous ramblings, the current consensus is that decisions surrounding eating are largely bound to seeking gratification.  Not just any gratification, but the kind that has greatest power to amputate our better judgment.

Instant gratification.

This is ultimately what the 5% of the population are tapping into when they successfully lose weight and keep it off; understand the source of instant gratification and doing something about it.

They modify their behaviors and feelings about food and eating to such an extent that they no longer fall prey to their self-generated compulsion to overeat.  Indeed the compulsion itself is greatly diminished down to a realistically manageable state.

Everyone who loses fat does it the same way.  They consume fewer calories than expended.

The 5% who keep it off do so not by short term dietary and exercise habit changes, but rather over very long periods of lifestyle management.

The success is in realizing that overeating is just not worth the trouble.

We can all follow the habits of the the study subjects in the National Weight Control Registry.

If we did we would all permanently lose weight and keep it off.  It's the "permanently" part that get most people (95%), as within mere weeks of implementing these proven habits, most people will feel like they are missing their doses of instant gratification.  Most will feel compelled to fall back into the habits and social practices that promote and celebrate overeating.

When you surly love overeating there is nothing in the world that will break that love.

Wait..  There is one thing.  It's the relationship killer.

Cheating.

No, I'm not talking about "cheat days" where you overindulge to cool your heals during a diet phase.

I'm talking about your love partner cheating on you.  I'm talking about overeating stabbing you in the arteries while making love to your tastebuds and that part of the brain that allows you interpret the sensation of "wow, this is really good".

I'm talking about the epiphany the 5% get when they realize that the way they are living is not really making things better, but worse.

The hardest part about changing to healthy living habits is letting go the reward association with overeating and inactivity and making new reward associations with healthy eating and exercise.

If you don't fall for healthy living like falling in love you will forever be chained to the old relationship. The abusive relationship where you beg for those few moments of feeling good only to be burdened with lethargy, weight gain, and health issues surrounding unhealthy living.

Call me preachy if you like.  I'm just telling it like it is and have no intentions of being a lifestyle judge and jury or diet zealot / guru.

I only write what I feel and what I have learned through reading research.  My delivery is what it is.

Implement what I say though and you won't be doing what I say, but rather doing what research suggests we can do to escape one of the greatest societal plagues ever: the love and celebration of chronic overeating.

Healthy Thanksgiving

Do you look forward to holiday dinners but at the same time have misgivings about the overeating aftermath?

One of the most common strategies to allow for overeating at holiday meals is skipping breakfast or lunch (or both) to allow for a major chow down later on.

Why do it though?  You know you're going to feel crappy about it afterwards.  It takes some doing, but the long term success strategy is to adapt to being satisfied with eating less, or to be more accurate, eating what we need.

at 2000-3000 calories for the average thanksgiving dinner, we're way over the mark.  One plate of piled on turkey, potatoes, gravy, etc is around 1200 -1500 calories, about double what we need for a meal.

Enjoy the meal and the company of friends and family, that's what it's all about.

Include physical activity before and after the T-Day meal.  A side effect of consuming a high fat high calorie meal is "endothelial dysfunction", your arteries stiffen up for about 4 hours or so.  This is thought to be, along with a spike in fats in your blood, part of the cause of the heart attack on plate, where a person has a heart attack shortly after a large meal.

The artery stiffening happens with everyone, even thin, fit, healthy people.  The post meal heart attack risk only occurs in persons in a high risk category, those with existing heart and or cardiovascular disease. 

Still, why eat so much that is causes arteries to stiffen?  Seems a little counter productive.

The best way to avoid this is not to eat the amount of food that causes this response, which is about 1000 calories of a high fat, high sodium meal.

If you do imbibe gargantuan proportions, exercise after the meal (like walking) has been shown to reduce the artery stiffening effect.

Including some kind of family physical activity with holiday meals is a great tradition that can help keep families healthy.  After all the healthier we are the better chance we have of being around to enjoy more family dinners.

I used to pack down two or three plates of food at holiday meals.  Can't do it anymore.  I got tired of the bloated feeling and the regrets of eating too much.  

I'm really looking forward to having thanksgiving dinner with the family; enjoying their company and catching up on things will be great, and so will the meal.  Not overdoing it allows us to enjoy the meal and company without the overeating aftermath so the entire experience is a good one.

Enjoy a healthy Thanksgiving meal, and we can be thankful for our health.

Some healthy eating tips for Thanksgiving dinner:

• Be happy with one plate of food, or two small plates, the second with more veggies rather than a replay of the first.

• Having all the food out in the centre of the table stimulates us to keep eating.  Keep the turkey and big bowl of potatoes on a table/ counter away from the place you eat.

• Take the skin off the turkey you eat and limit the total amount of the poultry serving to about 1/4 of the plate or less.

• Home made cranberry sauce can be about half the calories per cup than gravy, but sugar laden commercially prepared cranberry sauce can have 3-4 times the calories as gravy.  The remedy?  Use enough gravy and cranberry sauce to provide flavour, but avoid making lake out of it.

• Make healthy veggie based dishes.  Google pumpkin recipes and other healthy veg dishes, make these the centre piece.  We need more veggies than we do meat or poultry so make a family tradition of a great tasting veggie plate to accompany the old stand by turkey.

 ScienceDirect - The American Journal of Cardiology : Effect of a Single High-Fat Meal on Endothelial Function in Healthy Subjects