Quick weight loss leads to lasting results?

El_Dangeroso

Found this really interesting study as it challenged a preconception of mine, namely that 'slow and steady wins the race' when it comes to weight loss:

Scientists at the University of Florida, who studied the link between the rate of initial weight loss and overall success long-term, said shedding weight quickly is the best way to achieve lasting results.

"Women who lost at a faster rate, greater than 1.5 pounds a week, had lost more and maintained a greater loss in the long run than women who lost at a slower rate of half a pound a week or less," said researcher Lisa Nackers, whose findings are published online by the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine.

I'm generally a slow loser, took a year to lose 4 stone. But I was happy enough eating the food I wanted, and indeed I'll be happy eating this way for the rest of my life with the odd treat chucked in for good measure.

There's one flaw in this study in the way that the subjects were assigned to groups, they didn't randomly assign people to groups but rather just put the people who lost at different levels together. But this does seem to tally with other studies that suggests that people who go on more severe diets tend to keep the weight off easier.

Does this tally with your experience? How fast do you lose weight? Is it easy to keep it off?

FruitLover

Temple_Grandin wrote: »

Lisa Nackers

Best (as in entertaining for others) name ever.

alpha2010

well for me im losing weight every week since i started i have had bad weeks but for some reason i always lose weight on average i lose between 2 to 4 pounds a week i know its a lot and its starting to worry me because im losing weight so quickly it only took me 2 months to lose 2 stone and im afraid that im gonna put it all back on really quickly

Khannie

Doesn't fit in with my experience tbh. I lost the weight nice and slow and I've kept it off. While I hit the scales at 60KG, most of the time I'm walking around at around 65 which is about 2 stone under my peak. Id say it took me nearly a year to lose the 2 stone, but I wasn't really trying, it just happened naturally when I took up Muay Thai.

My understanding was that people who shed a *lot* of weight quickly (i.e. using the vlcd's like lipotrim or whatever) tended to put it back on and then some. Maybe it's that losing > 1.5lb's per week (but not > 4lb's per week or whatever) requires enough of a change in your diet that it may turn into lifestyle change whereas losing less than that may see the bad habits sneak back in eventually.

Interesting stuff anyway.

corkcomp

it probably depends how one loses it! any diet / routine that involves muscle loss or slowing of metabolism will almost certainly cause weight to be regained

El_Dangeroso

A little update. Another better designed study has come out testing the hypothesis that faster weight loss leads to longer lasting results, this time the groups were assigned to diet rather than being grouped by rate of loss:

Katrina Purcell of the University of Melbourne in Australia, presented a study in which she compared a rapid diet to lose around 1.5 kilos (three pounds) a week over 12 weeks, to a gradual 36-week diet to lose 0.5 kilos per week.

"Surprisingly, and against current beliefs, this study shows rapid weight loss appears to be superior to gradual weight loss in achieving target weight," she said of the study conducted on subjects weighing around 100 kilos.
Her results showed that 78 percent of those on the rapid diet achieved the target of losing 15 percent of their body weight within the determined period, while only 48 percent of those on the gradual diet met the target.

One of the reasons, she said, is psychological and has to do with motivation.
On the rapid diet, "subjects lose 1.5 kg a week and that keeps them going. On the gradual diet, when you lose 0.5 kg now and then" motivation is harder to keep, she said.

So it seems that we're more likely to stick to a diet if we see more tangible results, and we're more likely to abandon diets that produce a gradual loss. Makes sense to me.

Dymo

Psychologically I could see some one who lost weight quickly thinking that it was easy for them to lose it and then regaining weight isn't a problem as they think they can loose it quickly again.Until they put on too much.

El_Dangeroso

Dymo wrote: »

Psychologically I could see some one who lost weight quickly thinking that it was easy for them to lose it and then regaining weight isn't a problem as they think they can loose it quickly again.Until they put on too much.

That's definitely a danger. The temptation to yoyo is always there for someone who loses weight easily. 'The diet starts on Monday'