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#Post#: 1212--------------------------------------------------
TV's "biggest losers" 6 years later?
By: agate Date: May 11, 2016, 8:51 pm
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Maintaining an ideal body weight can be a tough battle if you
have MS. This report on some of the "biggest losers" from the TV
show contains the unwelcome news that once you've lost a lot of
weight, you'll have to work especially hard to keep the weight
off.
[quote]
WHAT HAPPENED TO TV'S BIGGEST LOSERS SIX YEARS LATER?
Bonnie Liebman
If people lose a lot of weight, do their bodies fight to regain
it?
Sixteen obese contestants on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” lost an
average of 128 pounds after an intensive seven months of dieting
and exercise in 2009. That amounted to shedding an average of 39
percent of their body weight.
Could they keep that weight off? Researchers at the National
Institutes of Health set out to find out from the 14 contestants
who agreed to be studied.
Six years later
Unfortunately, after six years, most of the 14 had regained a
significant amount of their lost weight, an average of 90 pounds
per person. Only one hadn’t regained at least some of the lost
weight. On average, the 14 weighed just 12 percent less than
when they made their first appearance on the reality show.
Metabolism slows down
Researchers know that losing weight leads to a slower resting
metabolism. That’s the number of calories your body needs to
keep your heart beating, keep your kidneys filtering blood, and
to do whatever else is necessary to keep you alive 24 hours a
day.
“Your metabolism slows down when you cut calories,” says Kevin
Hall, senior investigator in the Laboratory of Biological
Modeling at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and
Kidney Diseases. “It’s as though your body is hunkering down to
face scarcity, so it burns fewer calories per minute.”
Biggest_Loser_Revised
The metabolic rate of “The Biggest Loser” contestants had fallen
by an average of about 660 calories per day by the end of the
competition. “You could explain only about 350 of the 660
calories by their smaller size,” says Hall. The remaining 310
calories were due to slower metabolism.
Here’s what stunned the researchers
The big surprise was what happened over the long term. Hall
found that six years later, after the “Biggest Losers” had
regained much of their weight, their resting metabolic rates
hadn’t climbed back up toward where they were before the
competition began. In fact, their metabolisms were even slower
than before, given the weight they had regained. That’s what
stunned the researchers.
It was as if their bodies were still fighting to restore the
lost weight, even though they had already regained much of it.
On average, the contestants would have to eat 500 fewer calories
a day than other people of the same weight just to avoid putting
on even more pounds.
What about other people?
“Now, their case is an extreme,” Hall cautions. But even if you
went from, say, 165 pounds to 145 pounds, to stay at 145
you would have to eat fewer calories than you ate when you used
to weigh 145.
“Once you lose at least 10 percent of your weight and your
weight is stable, you may need to eat  about 10
percent fewer calories to keep the weight off,” says Hall.
That’s because your now-lighter body burns fewer calories both
at rest and when you move.
Another reason not to gain the extra weight in the first place.
___________________________
Source: Obesity (Silver Spring). 2016 May 2.
doi:10.1002/oby.21538.[/quote]
(from NutritionAction.com)
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