Weight Watchers doesn’t work, but it is the perfect business model

From this article, Oprah’s Investment in Weight Watchers Was Smart Because the Program Doesn’t Work, this quote: 

“It’s the perfect business model. People give Weight Watchers the credit when they lose weight. Then they regain the weight and blame themselves. This sets them up to join Weight Watchers all over again, and they do.”

And this:

“According to Weight Watchers’ business plan from 2001, its members have “demonstrated a consistent pattern of repeat enrollment over a number of years,””

Fat is life-preserving energy for lean times. Whether those lean times are natural (famine) or self-induced (diet) our body’s gastric hormones are programmed to respond a certain way to restore those fat stores. Reporting on the follow-up of a diet study this NY Times article, The Fat Trap, stated:   

“A gastric hormone called ghrelin, often dubbed the “hunger hormone,” was about 20 percent higher than at the start of the study. Another hormone associated with suppressing hunger, peptide YY, was also abnormally low. Levels of leptin, a hormone that suppresses hunger and increases metabolism, also remained lower than expected.”

“It was almost as if weight loss had put their bodies into a unique metabolic state, a sort of post-dieting syndrome that set them apart from people who hadn’t tried to lose weight in the first place.”

“Preliminary research at Columbia suggests that for as many as six years after weight loss, the body continues to defend the old, higher weight by burning off far fewer calories than would be expected.”

So the end result of the WW diet, or any diet for that matter, is a lower metabolism and increased hunger for a very long time, long enough to slowly gain back most or all that lost weight.

I have five years and four months to go; I am 35 pounds lighter for eight months now. My solution for the occasional hunger pangs is to keep telling myself that the dietary self-discipline is well worth being in a healthier state.

For a lower metabolism the solution is to increase your strength. A stronger body will burn more calories even at rest. The high intensity training (HIT) for strength offered at Austin Personal Training and New Orleans Fitness Training effectively burns calories four ways. With modest changes in eating habits and increased strength you can lose fat, keep it off, and feel the best you have in decades.

The results of a study on the effectiveness of targeting fat loss

A woman did a quarter million leg raises in a year, and there was no change, not a scintilla.  There was no spot reduction of fat deposits from her amply marbled hips. Well, that is just one person, and a sample size of one has no statistical power.  Maybe a larger sample size and more accuracy (MRI assessments) would produce a result of statistically significant spot reduction of fat from the area targeted with exercise.

Maybe not, from this article, Targeted Fat Loss: Myth or Reality?, this quote from a study:

“Tennis players constitute a population whose right and left arms have been consistently subjected to very different amounts of exercise over several years. Consequently, if spot reduction were a valid concept, one would expect the players’ dominant arms to have thinner layers of subcutaneous fat compared to their non-dominant arms. When the researchers measured the thickness of subcutaneous fat at specific points along the players’ arms, however, they found no statistically significant difference between right and left arms.”

Fat burned as fuel during exercise or even resting can come from anywhere in your body, not just the part that is being worked the most.  You don’t have a say, your genetics do. It is best to choose a form of exercise that burns the most calories and will continue to burn calories long after the exercise session is completed.

Another quote:

“High-intensity interval training (alternating between brief periods of high-intensity and low-intensity exercise) can be particularly effective, due to the phenomenon of after-burn – that is, an increase in resting metabolic rate that occurs for up to 24 hours post-exercise. “

That after-burn is excessive post-exercise oxygen consumption, (EPOC), and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) results in more EPOC than any other form of exercise. HIIT is the type training we do at Austin Personal Training and New Orleans Personal Training. 

Losing weight and keeping it off - what you are up against

This New York Times article, The Fat Trap, explores how people lose weight, but almost without exception, gain it right back.

In one study, 50 obese men and women consumed just 500 to 550 calories a day for eight weeks and lost an average of 30 pounds. A year after the study, subjects had regained an average of 11  pounds and reported feelingfar more hungry and preoccupied with food than before they lost the weight. Yeah, I know the diet was too restrictive, but regardless, it is interesting to note what is going on hormonally. A quote from the article:

“A full year after significant weight loss, these men and women remained in what could be described as a biologically altered state. Their still-plump bodies were acting as if they were starving and were working overtime to regain the pounds they lost. For instance, a gastric hormone called ghrelin, often dubbed the “hunger hormone,” was about 20 percent higher than at the start of the study. Another hormone associated with suppressing hunger, peptide YY, was also abnormally low. Levels of leptin, a hormone that suppresses hunger and increases metabolism, also remained lower than expected. A cocktail of other hormones associated with hunger and metabolism all remained significantly changed compared to pre-dieting levels. It was almost as if weight loss had put their bodies into a unique metabolic state, a sort of post-dieting syndrome that set them apart from people who hadn’t tried to lose weight in the first place.”

And this:

“How long this state lasts isn’t known, but preliminary research at Columbia suggests that for as many as six years after weight loss, the body continues to defend the old, higher weight by burning off far fewer calories than would be expected.”

Who wants to lose significant weight only to feel pangs of hunger more often than not and have a lower metabolism? That is kind of bleak, but there is a solution. To offset that undesirable metabolic adaptation begin strength training, preferably high intensity straining training.

High intensity training (HIT) for strength will burn more calories than other forms of strength training.HIT effectively burns calories four ways. HIT produces higher sustained excessive post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) than any other form of exercise. Muscle is metabolically expensive. HIT will make you stronger, and a stronger body will burn more calories even at rest.

At Austin Personal Training and New Orleans Fitness Training we offer high intensity training (HIT)that has been show effective for weight loss. All you have to do is stick with it and make modest changes in eating habits. You will lose fat and more likely keep it off.