On this episode of The Paleo View, Stacy and Sarah discuss some of the latest research available on the topic of weight loss, and specifically look into a thorough study that was completed on ‘The Biggest Losers’ contestants’  significant weight loss and their ability to maintain the weight loss.

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The Paleo View (TPV), Episode 195, The Latest in Weight Loss Research

• Intro (0:00)
• News and Views (1:18)
  • Stacy is leaving for a country that doesn’t speak english
    • She has only used her passport once before
    • Stacy is heading on a cruise with her father and sisters down the Mediterranean
    • They will fly into Rome by way of Ireland, and then will stop by a couple of ports in Italy, Turkey and Greece
    • Stacy will be visiting some family members overseas while traveling
  • Planning ahead with podcast recordings
  • This week’s topic will likely take Stacy and Sarah through three episodes – covering a number of discussions around weight loss, utilizing the latest research available on the topic
• Weight Loss and Paleo (8:35)
  • There are three different major communities that come into Paleo – athletes who want to optimize performance, people who are looking to mitigate disease, those who are looking to sustainably and healthfully lose weight
  • There is overlap in these three communities , but these are the most common motivators to adopt a Paleo diet and lifestyle
  • Reminder, Paleo is a template – a set of dietary guidelines with plenty of room for self-experimentation and individualization
  • There are a lot of gray areas to Paleo – a lot of, ‘try this – see how you feel’ things, and a lot of room for tweaking, which can get overwhelming very quickly
  • The great thing about this is that you can use the general starting point and then take advantage of the flexibility to see what will work best for your lifestyle
    • You can essentially figure out how to Paleo in a way that works best for your body and is the most sustainable for your life
  • New science helps us make informed decisions about how we tinker with our individual Paleo template, and how we manage these gray areas, and how we can adapt Paleo to best suit our individual health goals
• Science with Sarah (14:20)
  • New York Times article – After ‘The Biggest Loser’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight
  • Things that can happen when you lose a significant amount of weight
  • Some of the latest in weight loss research:
    • It doesn’t matter what diet you are on, if you want to lose weight you simply must be on a diet and be mindful of your eating
      • Low fat and low carb are basically tied for their effectiveness at supporting weight loss
    • Rapid weight loss may increase your chances of maintaining it
    • There are lots of strategies to getting people to lose weight, there are lots of diets that work – and there is no magic ‘this diet is better than this diet’
    • What is difficult if finding the path to maintaining weight loss
      • Studies show that only 20% of people maintain weight loss no matter what weight loss program they followed to initially lose the weight
  • The calories in/calories out model that is used on ‘The Biggest Loser’
    • The hormone changes surrounding this model
    • Contestants on this show have a much higher percent that maintain a greater than 10% weight loss over six years, compared to other studies
    • The significant changes that happened to contestants resting metabolic rates and leptin levels
    • What the research found in thyroid function
    • The contestants were not more insulin sensitive after six years as they were before they started the diet, independent of whether they maintained a 10% weight loss or not, and they have about the same lipid panel as when they started
    • What the other measurements showed
    • Sarah’s take home from this study – rapid weight loss causes a massive slow down in metabolism
      • When you lose weight rapidly you lose lean body mass at the same time, which will happen no matter what diet you are following, and this impacts your resting metabolic rate
    • It is important to understand that rapid weight loss has these other consequences, and what it meant for ‘The Biggest Loser’ contestants is that more effort was needed on maintenance than was needed on weight loss
  • It begs the question – what is a better way to do it? What is the key to maintaining a dramatic weight loss?
  • All the effort that Sarah has to put into her weight loss maintenance
  • There is no magic formula, but there are lots of things that we can do to set ourselves up for success, which we will discuss on next week’s episode
• Thanks everyone – we will be back next week!
• Outro (43:17)