The sad reality is that you have about as great a chance of losing weight and keeping it off as you do of winning the lottery. This is just a simple fact of life. Everybody knows it. Every magazine article and television show on the topic gives the same facts: 95% of diets fail, and for those who do lose weight, it’s just about guaranteed that they’ll gain it all back.
When the media interviews experts who study weight loss for a living, they all say this is true. The results of weight-loss failure surround us. Everybody has coworkers, neighbors, friends, and family who have lost weightlots of itonly to gain it back within a relatively short period of time.
There are many reasons why sustained weight loss is impossible.
For some people, it is because they have a medical condition like a slow thyroid or a naturally slow metabolism. Another reason is that losing weight slows down the metabolism, forcing your body to regain the weight even though you’re eating less. Losing weight and keeping it off ? It’s just not possible! There are reports from credible sources that give some pretty negative statistics. In the 1950s, Dr. Albert J. Stunkard summarized his findings about weight-loss methods available at that time. The finding was that 95% of diets fail.
Likewise, an expert panel from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reported in 1992 that people who completed a weightloss program could expect to regain about two-thirds of the loss after one year and virtually all their lost weight after five years. These two reports are widely used and reused in the media and in scientific circles. Another kernel of truth is that no single weight-loss method available today can help every overweight or obese person get down to an ideal weight and stay there forever.
This article shows that that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to weight loss. Every person needs a slightly different approach. It’s also true that weight loss means a lower metabolismthe number of calories burned in the course of daily living. A smaller body typically has less muscle on it, and this translates into a lower metabolism. In addition, restricting calories during the weight-loss process can cause metabolism to slow down a bit, especially if the restriction is extreme (for example, an 800-calorie-a-day diet).The effect isn’t enough to prevent weight loss, but it will slow down the rate of loss. And it’s also true that certain medical conditions and treatments can make weight loss more difficult.
A slow thyroid, called hypothyroidism, slows metabolism and calorie burning. Medications, such as steroids used to treat inflammatory diseases, several drugs used to treat anxiety, depression, and similar conditions, and some drugs used to treat diabetes, stimulate the appetite. For people taking these medications, it’s tough to stay committed to a weight-loss program because they are truly hungry. Finally, our environment works against sustained weight loss. We are surrounded by a lot of food that is filled with calories, tastes good, and is heavily advertised.We also live in an environment where modern technology has taken away a lot of our opportunities to burn calories.
We don’t even have to get up from the couch to change the channels on our televisions anymore.The combination of the twotoo much great-tasting food and too little activitycan make sustained weight loss a challenge.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
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