How weight loss can be achieved and kept
Obesity is a hard disorder to treat – but even modest weight losses can result in better well-being, specialists say. From the Paleo diet to five-minute work outs and raspberry ketone nutritional supplements. There is always something new and fashionable in weight loss – enough to get Americans to spend almost $60 billion a year. But all that spending appears to generate, at best, small results: Two thirds of U.S. grownups stay overweight or fat. And those who do lose weight regularly lose just a couple of pounds. Many subsequently recover the weight.
“Obesity is a difficult disease to treat,” says psychologist Martin Binks, an associate professor of nutritional science at Texas Tech University. He was among experts in Los Angeles this week for Obesity Week, an annual research meeting hosted by two professional groups, the Obesity Society and the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. Binks and other specialists who discussed at the assembly say how weight loss can be reached isn’t a hopeless interest. But, they say, it is not surprising the dieting public is confused and disillusioned.
How weight loss failures affect people’s lives
“We have individuals wearing medical uniform on television feeding folks truly improper advice about magic potions and quick fixes,” Binks says.

How weight loss can be reached
When people don’t lose weight, he says, “they blame themselves, setting up a cycle of failure and self-blame.”
These are among the myths he and other specialists say can get in the way of reaching a healthy weight:
The diet that seemed the finest in the most recent study, or sells the most books, or worked for my neighbor, is the one for me.
“We haven’t found any method how weight loss can work for everyone. If we did, everyone who wanted to lose weight would get on that diet, it would work, the obesity epidemic would be over”, says Christopher Gardner, a nutrition researcher and professor of medicine at Stanford University.
What are the main factors?
Variables including genetics, metabolic differences and even differences in bowel microbes might impact how simple it is for someone to follow a diet and slim down on it, he says.
In a study of 609 heavy and obese individuals now underway, Gardner says, he and his co-workers are finding that some players on either lowfat or low-carb diets are losing more than 50 pounds in a year. While some are losing little or nothing. The purpose of the study, not yet assessed, will be to find what individual differences might help clarify those consequences, he says.
An estimated 30% of U.S. adults use dietary supplements for weight loss. But unlike over-the-counter and prescription weight loss medications, those products have not undergone Food and Drug Administration review for safety and effectiveness. Though they should, the Obesity Society and three other groups said in a statement released in October.
Nutritional supplements are the response.
The need for wonders
The statement came on the heels of a study printed in the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrating dietary supplements send 23,000 people a year to emergency sections. Weight loss supplements, which frequently include stimulants, accounted for 25% of those visits in adults.
“Individuals so need to consider that these items are wonders”, says Laura Shane-McWhorter. She is a professor of pharmacotherapy at the University of Utah. “But with most of these items, there isn’t any convincing evidence that they cause lots of weight loss. And there can be side effects.”
The royal way to weight loss
Exercise is the “royal” method how fat loss can be achieved. Or it’s worthless unless you work out for hours every day.
While exercise has many health benefits, “obesity WOn’t be fixed by exercise alone,” Binks says.
“We primarily control our body weight through the energy-intake side of the equation”. Which means the calories we eat and drink, says Martin Gibala, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Canada.
But the calories we burn off also matter. Research on methods to burn them off more effectively and economically is showing some promise, Gibala says. His own studies focus on high-intensity interval training (HIIT). It’s work outs in which bursts of extreme exercise alternate with intervals of less extreme action. Little studies indicate such work outs can modestly improve calorie burn, even after exercise – the “afterburn” effect.
Even small changes are great
“Even small changes in strength look successful,” Gibala says, citing studies in which overweight people who have type 2 diabetes have lost more weight and burned off more fat by switching fast and slow walking.
One allure is that these work outs can be finished quicker than conventional workouts. Will science ever give us a five-minute regimen that keeps us healthy and lean? Likely not, Gibala says – but 20 minutes, warm up to cool down, might not be unrealistic. You must lose lots of weight to get fitter.
So, how real weight loss can be reached? “The message that folks have been getting for decades from the popular diet plans is that it’s important that you lose lots of weight and you need to lose it quickly,” Binks says. “But there are multiple health benefits related to the 5% to 10% weight loss range.”Those include improvements in quality of life, cardiovascular health, joint pain and sleep apnea, he says.