“The Fat Trap” is an article from the New York Times that’s been making the buzz-rounds over the past week.
Whew. It was hard to get through. It took three attempts to read it. Not because it was 8 internet pages long. Not because there were extra-hard werds. Because it started off with a big fat no-no. I got disgusted, yelled at it, and threw it down. (As much as one can “throw down” an overpriced electronic device.)
The article attempts to discover why so many people who try to lose a substantial amount of weight have such a hard time keeping it off. The author talks to researcher and dieter alike to get to the core of the problem.
It is, indeed, a valid question. But some of the answers they give in this article are not.
In a nutshell, the problem with the studies referenced in the article—including the very first one—is that they all tried to cause weight loss in their subjects by using the same method uninformed people use: starving it off.
Let’s take a sec and define starving: it’s different for everyone, but 1200 calories a day is generally the lowest you can go without being nutrient-deficient. These researchers reduced their subjects to 500 calories a day. Now, while I’m sure it was a nutrient-rich 500 calories, lemme repeat that: Five. Huh. Nnn. Dred.
A diet that low in calories triggers our survival alarm, so to speak (why did I picture the Enterprise on red alert just now?), and puts the body into survival mode. It tries to protect you from perceived death by hanging on to every last calorie. So when you starve yourself, you are, in effect, instructing your body to resist losing weight. And then the researchers wonder why the body resists losing weight.
Well, go ahead and insert some f@&ing profanity here. Add an incredulous eye roll, while you’re at it.
The studies that used this extreme, quickie-weight-loss method are flawed from the start. (In fact, one critical-thinking blogger took a closer look at all the studies cited in the NYT article. Read it. Liked it.)
Funny thing is, there is other perfectly valid and interesting information in the article. (Again, 8 pages long). But honestly, it seems like the focus was on the bad information. For instance, her interview with a woman who lost a lot of weight and successfully (painstakingly) keeps it off. The author spends a lot of time detailing this woman’s day and the exhausting tedium she goes through, counting her calories and maintaining dietary vigilance. Then comes the part about the woman’s exercise regimen.
“Bridge supports her careful diet with an equally rigorous regimen of physical activity. She exercises from 100 to 120 minutes a day, six or seven days a week, often by riding her bicycle to the gym, where she takes a water-aerobics class. She also works out on an elliptical trainer at home and uses a recumbent bike to “walk” the dog, who loves to run alongside the low, three-wheeled machine. She enjoys gardening as a hobby but allows herself to count it as exercise on only those occasions when she needs to ‘garden vigorously.’”
None of those activities burn a lot of calories. Keep in mind, this woman is 66 years old, so that’s a pretty active lifestyle for someone her age in our lazy-ass society. But because she’s 66, I can infer that her bike rides are probably of the casual variety. She’s not spandexing up and biking sprints. Water-aerobics classes? Also low-intensity. Gardening? Low-intensity. Elliptical trainer? Again, just judging by her age, I think it’s safe to assume she’s not jacking up the resistance for a high-intensity workout. And by the way, if you think 66-year-olds aren’t capable of high-intensity exercise, you are wrong.
What’s all this add up to? Not enough high-intensity exercise to burn off a decent amount of calories. If we wanna be more precise, that isn’t an “exercise” regimen at all, it’s an activity regimen. Nor does the author mention any strengthening exercise to build muscle mass, which helps keep your metabolism high.
Now that’s something Thou Shalt Definitely Not Forget: if you’re trying to lose weight by diet only—zero exercise—it won’t be just fat you’re losing. In fact, according to the PhD, when people rely solely on diet to lose weight (and mind you, we’re not talking about a starvation diet here, just a regular ol’ watch-your-calories diet), you lose so much muscle mass that even though your weight goes down, your body fat percentage doesn’t change much. You are no healthier than before you lost the weight. The math goes like this.
» lose weight solely by watching calories = lose muscle mass
» muscle mass is what helps keep your metabolism high
Ergoooo,
» losing weight solely by watching calories = metabolism slows down
Now that you know this, tell me again why it’s any surprise that this woman has to be disciplined with her food. Power to her, though, for being capable of such discipline. It’s just a teeensy bit misplaced.
The article also refers to something called the “set point” theory. It’s not a new theory. It’s been around since the 60′s. (The “Vermont Prison Study,” as it’s known, 1964.) What the set point theory basically says is that your body gets comfy. It gets used to being at a certain weight. In the PhD’s words:
“Set point is a culmination of physiological processes within the body that resist change in order to try and maintain the status quo. I.e., your current weight. The body resists sudden weight loss changes for safety through metabolic changes, as well as altered hunger signals from the brain, etc. This is why it is so difficult to lose weight quickly.”
But your set point can be changed. And this is something that’s acknowledged within the article by Dr. Rudolph Leibel, a researcher at Columbia University.
“For a mouse, I know the time period is somewhere around eight months,” Leibel says. “Before that time, a fat mouse can come back to being a skinny mouse again without too much adjustment. For a human we don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it’s not measured in months, but in years.”
The only way to change it is the good ol’ fashioned way. Commonly known as the Slow-as-Ass way. And nobody wants to hear that. So, as a result, no one wants to tell you that. But drastic doesn’t work. As we’ve discussed, drastic just results in gaining the weight back again. The good ol’ fashioned way means using both exercise and diet. It’s like a cake: you gotta have both the flour and the eggs. Otherwise, you don’t have a cake.
You want the recipe for losing weight? I’ll lay it on you:
» Exercise: moderate to high intensity exercise for 30 minutes, 3 to 5 days a week, and don’t forget to start some strengthening exercises. If you can do more than 10-12 reps at a time, you need to up the weight.
» Diet: baby steps. This one’s actually harder. The first and most important: get your damn metabolic rate measured. So you know how many calories your body currently needs in the first place. Then, take 250 away from it. If you’re 300 pounds and eating 3000 calories a day (which is what’s keeping you at 300 pounds), start at 2750 calories. Don’t go crazy. Don’t deny yourself everything. A registered dietician will help you figure out what should stay in your diet and what should go. After your body loses some weight and starts to become more fit, they’ll take a look at your calorie needs again and work up a new goal.
It’s certainly the longest friggin’ recipe you’ll ever tackle. But the results… mmm, delicious. Eat your fine self up.
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