Sunday, November 8, 2009

Too Much, Too Fast

Have you been watching the The Biggest Loser? Don’t you wonder how those people can take off so much weight in such a short time? They have to live, breathe and eat (or not) weight loss! Is pushing yourself to the limit really worth it?
Depressingly, studies show that 80% of weight loss is gained back within 3 to 5 years. It’s also been demonstrated that if you lose weight too quickly the odds are against you and without a maintenance plan there is little hope for keeping it off.

So look at those Biggest Losers, they are dropping huge amounts of weight in astonishingly short time periods.

I’ve seen contestants lose up to 22 pounds in just one week. This makes for compelling TV but that’s about all. Browsing through MSN’s article Biggest Losers': Where Are They Now? you can see who kept it off and who fell off the diet wagon.
One fellow gained back 92 of the 122 pounds he lost while others gained back far less, typically 20 to 40 pounds, a significant amount considering all they went through to take it off. Was the deprivation and grueling exercise worth it?
Too much, too fast is not a good thing. I would much rather take it off slowly, making a healthy lifestyle change and keep it off! How about you?

4 comments:

FOODalogue said...

The gain-back is really sad for these contestants perhaps because, as you say, the loss was unrealistic for normal day-to-day living.

Anonymous said...

Too much too fast definitely is a bad thing.

One of my friends lost a pile over weight very fast through Herbal magic supplements and extreme dieting and although she dropped the weight fast she looked seriously ill for a while. White, pale, very thin... almost brittle looking.

So yes there definitely is such a thing as losing too much too fast.

Ellen said...

Slow and steady seems to be the best!

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