Obesity, instead, is better understood as a chronic condition that we bring upon ourselves. Although most people know how hard it is to lose weight and keep it off, our culture still casts it as a typical health condition - a problem that can be cured through the relatively simple treatment of diet and exercise. But Burant’s insight suggests a radical and necessary new way of viewing obesity. Maybe the most important message comes from my Michigan Medicine colleague, Charles Burant, M.D., Ph.D., “Don’t get heavy in the first place.”Įasier said than done, I know. Instead, powerful biological responses counter their best efforts at every turn. First, people do not regain weight because they lack willpower. Unfortunately, these insights into how our bodies work have not led to reliable interventions to control them. SEE ALSO: Can an Elimination Diet Help You Lose Weight? Since the 1980s, when most scientists thought fat cells were inert storage vessels, we have discovered that they are engines in a vast and complicated network that interacts with the brain to control hunger, metabolic rate and other key functions. The good news is that groundbreaking obesity research conducted during the past few decades has established why it is so hard to sustain weight loss. This encouraging study, then, offers more evidence of the immense challenges faced even by those who undergo the radical step of surgery to address their weight. They do not have the chiseled bodies promised in magazines and strived for on reality programs such as “The Biggest Loser.” Most patients in the study, who started with an average body mass index of 47, are still considered obese (a BMI of 30 or above). This study, however, does not herald the discovery of the mythical magical bullet (or scalpel). (Less encouraging results were found for those who had a sleeve gastrectomy or adjustable gastric banding.) For a person weighing 300 pounds, that means a sustained weight loss of 60 pounds. Researchers at Duke University found that 10 years after gastric bypass surgery, almost three-quarters of the obese patients had maintained weight loss of more than 20 percent of their presurgery weight. The pounds fell off and their health improved, but neither was completely satisfied with their transformation. They both took a serious step, undergoing bariatric surgery at Michigan Medicine. That story told an all-too-common tale: two people frustrated again and again by an inability to lose weight and keep it off. Just how hard it is to keep off lost weight was illustrated in a compelling story by The New York Times in reporter Gina Kolata’s yearlong project following two patients at Michigan Medicine, the academic medical center here at the University of Michigan. Six years later, even though most had returned to their pre-show weight, their resting metabolism had dropped to 1,900 calories per day.Īt the same time, our bodies barrage us with hormonal signals saying we are hungry all the time, an inner voice chanting “eat, eat, eat.”Įssentially, our bodies become our enemy, undermining our efforts at every turn. #Whats keeping me from losing weight tvA study of contestants on the TV show “The Biggest Loser,” for example, found that before the competition, they had an average resting metabolism rate of 2,607 calories per day. Our bodies act as if that higher weight is our normal weight, defending it like a mother embracing her newborn.įirst, our bodies slow our metabolism, so we must eat less to not gain weight. Gaining a significant amount of weight - we don’t know exactly how much - doesn’t just puff up our fat cells it changes our biology. Why is it so hard to keep the weight off? The reason is both simple and complex. This stark fact underscores how far we remain from conquering the obesity epidemic spreading across the Western world, and the urgent need for us to finally be realistic about the achievable goals and benefits of weight loss. MORE FROM MICHIGAN: Sign up for our weekly newsletter Here’s a sobering statistic: Roughly 90 percent of people who lose a lot of weight eventually regain just about all of it.
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