Body Fights Back Against Weight Loss, Study Suggests.

reports on how contestants on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” program struggle to retain their lower body weights in the months and years after the program. After following 14 former contestants for six years “after they had lost large amounts of weight with intensive dieting and exercise,” researchers found “just how hard the body fights back against weight loss.” The Times adds the research shows the participants’ resting metabolism plunged during the program, but did not recover in the period afterward. the research, which was published online in Obesity Biology and Integrated Biology, revealed that 13 of 14 contestants “regained weight within six years and four are even heavier than they were before the competition began.” One contestant did sustain weight loss despite a slower metabolism, the study found. Also covering the story are the NPR (5/2) “Shots” blog and “All Things http://abcnews.go.com/Health/extreme-weight-loss-linked-slower-metabolism-explaining-hard/story?id=38826362 "Long-term weight loss requires vigilant combat against persistent metabolic adaptation that acts to proportionally counter ongoing efforts to reduce body weight," the authors concluded. So let's say you've lost a lot of weight, let's say you lost 100 pounds and now you're 150 pounds. Another person who is 150 pounds — they can still eat the calories they want, right? But you've got to eat less to maintain that level. That is correct. You must eat less than a person who weighs exactly the same as you. But you'll be hungrier, right? Because the research is also talking about another way your body fights against it. Absolutely. All of the hormones that your body produces that regulate appetite are also altered disproportionately. So you're hungrier than that person. You're more susceptible to highly rewarding foods, to snacking. http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/05/02/476498729/biggest-loser-lessons-why-the-body-makes-it-hard-to-keep-pounds-off