We do not understand how the body resists weight change and why, after weight loss, so many people regain it. The concept of a set point for weight is widely accepted.

The set point is like the thermostat in our central heating system. It is switched on when the temperature falls below a critical (set point) temperature and is switched off when that is exceeded.

Using the word “rachet” might help one conceptualize the set point concept.

To rachet is to cause to increase or decrease by increments. A rachet is a mechanical device consisting of a toothed wheel or rack engaged with a pawl that permits it to move in only one direction.

A person has an existing set point. That person gains weight, and then gains and sustains even more weight gain. This causes the set point to be racheted up, and once it passes each rachet, there is no going back. The rachet is the biological set point and it can be easily driven upwards, but is very difficult to drive back down.

Using the fat cell theory is helpful to further explain how this works.

For an example, let’s assume an average fat cell contains 0.4 micrograms of fat each. A person gaining weight might see that fat cell load expand to 0.6 micrograms. This is an acceptable load increase, and when the person loses weight, the fat cell level drops back to 0.4 micrograms.

 This seesaw can go on forever, but when the weight gain loads the fat cell up to 0.8 micrograms, a tipping point is reached, and the fat cell divides. Now we have two fat cells, each containing 0.4 micrograms. Click! That was the ratchet turning irreversibly.

When we want to return to the previous weight, we must lose half the fat we gained. The problem with this is that each fat cell now has the standard fat load of 0.4 micrograms each, and to halve this to just 0.2 micrograms per cell requires us to get the cells to live a life they do not like. If we let our mind tell us what to eat, we can overcome the disgruntled fat cells which are below their fat quota. But all the time the basic animal biology of our body will be waiting to return to 0.4 micrograms per cell.

Then, along comes an event like a vacation, a holiday, or other eating occasion, and we take our eye off the ball .. lose our mental concentration, but the fat cells in our body didn’t rest, and we’ve regained our weight. The body is now back to the new set point it made when we went past the older set point and hit a new rachet.

   In a 2007 research study, a team of Swedish researchers examined fat biopsies from about 680 lean and obese Swedish people. They found obese people can have as much as twice the number of fat cells as do lean people. The researchers also followed 20 gastric bypass patients who lost weight after their operations. Over the course of two years, their fat cells shrunk in size, but the total number stayed constant.

Fat cells can shrink, but once created, they never disappear. The body’s job is to work hard to get all of its cells (including fat cells) to survive and even to thrive. It is easy to continually rachet the biological set point up, but it is almost impossible to rachet it down.

A fat cell is not merely a passive container that stores fat. Leptin is one of the hormones produced by fat cells. Among other things, leptin tells the brain how much fat is in the body, and provides a direct communication link between the brain and fat cells.

Fat cells are the hub of a complex communication system that regulates many metabolic functions, continuously telling the brain how much energy the body has left, signaling muscles when they can burn fat, instructing the liver and other organs when to replenish fat stores, and controlling the flow of energy in and out of cells.

Because fat is so vital to survival, nature has created a complex system of overlapping feedback loops that make it very difficult to override the body's imperative to store energy. People with extra fat cells tend to regain lost weight rapidly.

 This biological truth is the basic problem that exists with all of those “Non-Diet”, “Intuitive Eating” theories. A reduced obese person cannot rely on one’s BODY to make or to keep him/her lean. In fact… it is just the OPPOSITE. A reduced obese person’s BODY has the specific biological imperative of refilling EACH fat cell to its basic quota, which will return that person back to his/her former obesity set point.

The DietHobby ARCHIVES contain many other articles which also discuss this issue.

NOTE: This article was bumped up for new viewers.  Originally posted on 12/9/2012.

 
                
This article "hits the nail on the head" in the way it accurately describes my own personal experience, as well as what I’ve witnessed for years while watching the experiences of others.

It contains one of most accurate analogies for Weight-loss and Maintenance that I’ve ever heard.

Some might find it depressing, but here in my 8th year (now starting my 12th year) of maintaining a very large weight-loss, I find it encouraging and positive to hear a medical professional, who is an expert in obesity, speak the unvarnished Truth.

Despite the fact that this Truth is rather unpleasant, and isn’t something we’re ever going to hear from Marketing Interests… (which includes most doctors and nutritionists) …. Facing it, Understanding it, and Accepting it, can be very helpful.

Running Down the Up Escalator 
                 By Dr. Ayra Sharma, M.D. (a Canadian Obesity Specialist)

One of the games I used to play as a kid was to run Down the UP escalator.

To get to the bottom, I had to run faster than the escalator was moving up. If I ran any slower, the escalator would gradually but steadily take me back to the top.

In fact, even to just stay half-way down, I’d have to keep running at about the speed the escalator was moving up. If I stopped running even for a second, I’d be moving up again.

As you may guess, I am using this analogy, to illustrate the challenge of losing weight and keeping it off.

The escalator represents all the complex neuroendocrine responses to weight loss that will always want to take you back to the top – the only way to reach the bottom or to even maintain your place half-way down is to keep running.

Alas, in real life, the weight-loss escalator is even trickier. For one, there is no real bottom – i.e. no matter how fast you run, you will never reach the bottom and be able to simply get off. No matter how far down the escalator you manage to get, you are still running on the escalator and it will keep moving you back up to the top the minute you stop running.

But things get even more depressing, because, the further down the escalator you get, the faster it runs. This means that the further down the escalator you manage to get – the harder you have to keep running to just stay where you are.

Or, in other words, when you start from the top, the escalator is running relatively slowly and you may easily manage to get down the first 5 steps. But as you go down, the escalator picks up speed and so, if you just keep up running with the speed you started at, you may not even manage to hold your place 5 steps down.

And, to get to 10 steps down, you’ll definitely have to speed up – unfortunately, with every additional step you manage to make your way down, the escalator moves up even faster.

By the time you manage to get down 20 steps, the escalator is moving upward so fast that it is all you can do to just try and not be carried back up.

Depressing?

If we could only find a way to slow down the escalator. Or even better, if you could only get to the bottom and get off!

Alas – that is not how our bodies work.

Yes, for some people the escalator moves more slowly than for others – this is why they find it easier to run down and it takes them less effort to maintain their position half-way down. Others have to fight harder to get there and for others, the escalator simply gets too fast, eventually carrying them all the way back up – no matter how hard they try.

Bariatric surgery and obesity medication can help slow down the escalator or rather, prevent it from speeding up quite as fast as you try to run down. This is why you can maintain a lower spot on the escalator with the same effort as before – but go off your meds or reverse the surgery and the escalator speeds up again only to carry you back all the way to the top.

Why is the escalator analogy important to understand?

At this point I want to add a couple of important points to this analogy.

Firstly, it is important to remember that whatever took you to the top of the escalator, if not addressed, will make the descent even harder (if not impossible).

In the simplest case – to use an analogy that a reader sent in – imagine trying to run down the escalator on one leg – it’s going to be so much harder than with two legs. So if arthritis in one knee took you to the top of the elevator in the first place, trying to get back down while your knee is still killing you is going to be so much more difficult than if your knees were OK.

Similarly, if depression or binge eating took you up the escalator, trying to get down that escalator while still depressed or still not in control of your eating is going to to be so much harder than if these problems were resolved.

It may help to think of whatever took you to the top of that escalator as additional baggage that you have to lug along as you try to run down – the heavier the bags, the harder it is going to be.

As readers will realize, those excess bags could be anything – from a genetic predisposition, to medications that you might be on, to lack of sleep, to high stress levels, to intimate saboteurs, to relationship issues, to loneliness, to body image issues, to childhood trauma – the list goes on and on….

This is why it makes a lot of sense to first deal with what took you to the top before beginning your journey down that up-escalator.

Clearly, simply jumping on that escalator without first dealing with the underlying problem will make losing weight and keeping it off so much more difficult - remember, running down the escalator with no baggage is already hard enough

But, even if the underlying problem is dealt with – you will still be trying to run down the up-escalator – that unfortunately will never change – it will only get somewhat easier the less baggage you have to carry.

But why does the escalator move up in the first place and why does the escalator analogy have important implications for how we address obesity treatments?

Why use the escalator analogy at all? Why is the escalator moving up? Why does it get faster as you get further down? And why is there no bottom, where you can simply get off?

Let’s start with the upward moving escalator – most of us are on it to start with as most of us tend to gain weight with age – unfortunately, some people faster than others. Very few of us manage to keep our teenage weights into late adulthood. There are many reasons for this – for one, our metabolism “slows down” as we get older, so do our levels of physical activity. Then there are other drivers of weight gain that tend to accumulate as we get older – stress, lack of sleep, arthritis, medications, to name a few. This means that for most of us, to not be carried higher on that escalator, we already have to take the occasional step down – the faster our personal escalator is moving up, the more effort we will have to put into simply “marking time”.

But that’s the easy part (preventing initial weight gain is always easier than treating obesity). To lose weight, you have to actually start moving down the escalator faster than it is moving up. Depending on how fast your personal escalator is moving up, the more effort this will take. The tricky part comes when the escalator starts speeding up as you make your way down – this is what is often referred to as the “starvation response” – a complex series of metabolic and behavioral responses aimed at preventing further weight loss and promoting weight regain.

In previous posts I have discussed some of these factors – leptin, ghrelin, sympathetic nerve activity, body temperature – the net result is that as you get lower down on the escalator, the fewer calories you need and the greater your hunger and appetite gets. This is why, keeping weight off gets harder and harder rather than easier and easier the more weight you lose. (Many people think that if I can only lose the first 20 lbs, losing the next 20 will be easier – that is almost never true).

Finally, why is there no bottom where I can simply get off? This is because based on the “setpoint theory” (which is actually far more than just a “theory”), your body always wants to get back to its highest weight (or back to the top of the escalator). Unfortunately, from everything we know about weight management, there is no “cure” for obesity – meaning you will always have to continue doing whatever it is you did to lose the weight to keep it off.

As I noted in my previous post, anti-obesity medications or surgery may make keeping weight off somewhat easier, but they do not “cure” obesity – stop your medications or reverse your surgery and your weight comes right back. This appears to be a rule in weight management – when you stop the treatment, the weight comes back (the same goes for “diet and exercise” as a treatment).

Although depressing, I do hope the escalator analogy is helpful in understanding how weight management works, why keeping weight off is so difficult, why very few people can ever hope to reach and maintain their “dream weight”.

Anyone, who promises you anything else is simply not being honest.

No doubt we need more effective treatments for obesity and perhaps one day we may even find a “cure” – till then, we’ve got to work with what we have.

                                  Dr. Sharma’s Obesity Notes – www. drsharma.ca

 I’ve experienced a lifetime of dieting in order to avoid, and to end, my obesity. I always thought that: if, and when, I got to normal weight, and managed to stay there for 5 years, by then my body would adjust to being normal size, so that eating only what my body needed to maintain my weight-loss, would become more “natural”, and therefore be less difficult.

This has not been the case.

Here in my 8th year, (now working on my12th) I am still running Down the Up escalator, and the past several years, that escalator HAS been speeding up. Maintaining my body at a normal weight is harder now in my 8th year (now 12th year) than it was the first two years after arriving at my goal weight. … and it was NOT easy then.

Nevertheless, I am committed to continue.

NOTE:  DietHobby originally posted this article on 7/7/2013, and I'm bumping it up for new members.

Whatever method one chooses
as a “Diet”…

including Diets that are called:

• “Way-of-Eating”,
  
• “Lifestyle-change”, or 
  
• “Non-Diet”

… this Truth always remains.



 When a body with excess fat consistently takes in LESS food
(meaning: calories within one or more of the three macronutrients)
THAN IT USES as energy, that body will access stored fat for energy.

The process of losing excess fat takes a long time.

Weight-loss diets ultimately fail approximately 95% of the time.  This means that most people fail to lose very much weight on any type of diet, and very few manage to maintain any long-term weight loss.

Losing weight and losing fat isn’t exactly the same thing. However most doctors, nutritionists, dietitians ... and the people who follow their advice ... don’t clearly distinguish the process of reducing body fat from the process of reducing body weight.

Most people sort of KNOW that body weight and body fat are different, and vaguely understand that the scale can register body weight higher due to “water gain”.

 To understand the difference between these two things, it is important to understand that there are two principal components of body weight. We can label these two: constant weight and variable weight.

• The variable weight is a sum of all the digestive fluids inside the GI tract, the undigested foods already in the stomach and the small intestine, the stools inside the large intestine, and water, which can be safely lost with sweat, urine, and perspiration. These variable components of body weight normally represent between 7 and 30 pounds, depending on one’s original diet, one’s current weight, and one’s digestive health.
  
  
• The constant weight is everything else — the remaining fluids, such as the blood plasma and lymph, the weight of one’s skin, bones, internal organs, muscles, and adipose tissue, or body fat. Of course, body fat is actually the only substance in the body one actually wants to get rid of.
  
  
• Variable weight swings from day to day depending on the amount of foods and fluids one consumes and expels, workload, and environment. A day on the beach, an hour in the hot tub, or an intense workout in a sweat suit, for example, can reduce one’s body weight by several pounds simply from sweating.
  
  
• Constant weight remains stable for longer stretches of time because loss of body fat is quite slow on any diet, and requires a considerable time to produce measurable and permanent results.
  
  
• In practical terms, when anyone starts a weight loss program, the first 7 to 20 pounds of weight reduction are almost exclusively made up from the following components:
  
  (a) A reduction in the total weight of foods that have been consumed over the past few days.
  
  (b) A reduction in digestive fluids. As soon as one starts eating less, the body reduces the amount of saliva, gastric, and pancreatic juices involved in digestion. This amount can range from 5 to 7 quarts per day, and may be halved by the reduced calorie diet.
  
  (c) A loss of water throughout the body, particularly with urine. This happens because reduced calorie diets have a pronounced diuretic and dehydration effect.
  
  (d) Loss of stools from the bowels. As one reduces food intake, particularly fiber, the total volume of stools inside the large intestine may drop three to five times.

  The total of all of the above can be termed a phantom weight loss.

While the covers of diet books, magazines, and diet plans tend to ignore this fact of human physiology, it is actually the BASIS of their promises of quick weight-loss from to seven to twenty pounds.

The loss of phantom weight during the first two weeks or so of any dietary change, also explains why so many people yo-yo back to their original weight as soon as they stop dieting … the cumulative weight of foods, digestive juices, water, and stools start coming back the moment one returns to one’s regular diet.

Even a quick reduction of the waistline is a popular diet hoax: because as one’s stomach, intestines, and bowels clear out their respective contents, the waistline around them can then shrink down a few sizes, even though practically all the body fat remains exactly where it was before commencing the diet.

That claim of a weight loss plateau is another gimmick intended to absolve weight loss counselors from any responsibility for their advice, and to blame us and our metabolisms for an inability to lose weight. The simple truth is … if or when … after months of dieting effort … a person simply cannot overcome a weight loss plateau that seems to have started after the first few weeks of losing weight, … it means that person has lost the initial phantom weight, but not body fat. This is happening because their food intake (whatever it may be) is providing them with the exact amount of energy that their body requires to be that body size.

 In Summary:

• Anyone commencing a reduced calorie diet will demonstrate an appreciable loss of weight, but this is not a loss of actual body fat, but a loss of phantom weight related to the much smaller intake of foods and fluids.
  
  
• Weight loss diets that have a pronounced diuretic and dehydrating effect may demonstrate an even larger phantom weight loss at the expense of body fluids. One can accomplish pretty much the exact same effect by restricting fluid intake or sweating out in a sauna.
  
  
• Reaching a weight loss plateau normally means simply that one has lost only phantom weight, but has not lost and won’t lose any body fat…without additional restrictions on their food intake.
  
  
• A rapid weight rebound shortly after resuming a regular diet simply means that one has simply restored the weight of fluids, undigested foods, and stools in one’s body back to their original volume.

 So, why don’t all those diet books talk about this?

Probably two reasons. First, their authors simply may not know or may not want to know about this unwanted phenomenon. Second, telling readers the truth — that it actually takes a LOT of time and a LOT of effort to lose body fat — gets in the way of selling no-sacrifice diet books, cookbooks, classes, tests, diet-branded foods and snacks.

However, here’s the hard truth: If one is thinking of losing weight, the lost weight needs to be the fat under the skin, not undigested foods, fluids, and stools inside the gut. Losing actual body fat takes time, because even on a very low calorie diet the best almost anyone can count on is losing just a very few fat ounces (under 60 to 90 grams) daily.

 The next natural questions are:

1. How long does it take to lose real body fat?
2. How much Effort is required to do that?
   

 The Simple answers to these questions are:

1. A long time.
2. A whole lot.
   

 AND, In order to KEEP that fat from returning,
it will take a similar amount of Effort, … FOREVER.
 

Note: Originally posted on April 3, 2013.  Bumped up for new viewers.

The Best Online
Calorie Calculator,
According to Science.
But it might not work for you.

Another free online calorie calculator, the Body Weight Planner, is now available to the public after several years of being used as a research tool for scientists at the National Institutes of Health. This one is noteworthy because its algorithms were validated in several controlled weight loss studies in human beings, and because it takes into account a person's slowing metabolism.
 
Kevin Hall, a scientist at the NIH's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, created the tool.

Dr. Hall says the 3,500-calorie rule is accurate only if a pound of human fat is burned in a lab.  However, unlike a lab, the body is not a static environment, and instead adapts when a person changes their diet and exercise.

As a person diets and loses weight, the body slows the metabolism in an effort to conserve energy. As a result, eating 500 fewer calories a day leads to slightly less weight loss as time goes on.

Instead of 3,500 fewer calories, over 12 months, a person will need to eat 7,000 fewer calories to burn a pound of fat.

Dr. Hall said that the biggest flaw with the 3,500-calorie-rule is that it assumes weight loss will continue in a linear fashion over time. "That's not the way the body responds. The body is a very dynamic system, and a change in one part of the system always produces changes in other parts.”

He admits that dieters may be “bummed out” by news that they must double their efforts at reducing calories. “But we believe it's better to have an accurate assessment of what you might lose, that way you don't feel like a failure if you don't reach your goal.”

Dr. Hall added that very few people seem to be able to keep losing weight after 12 months.

The BWP calculates how many calories a day a person should eat to achieve their weight loss goals in a certain time (for example, to lose 10 lbs within a year).  The link can always be found here in DietHobby, under RESOURCES, Links, Body weight Calculator - NIH (Timeline Projections).

The NIH bills the planner as a cutting-edge tool that will empower people to take their health into their own hands, but research on the success of such calculators and trackers is mixed.  Although the federal government is to be praised for its official nod toward the utility of trackers and calculators,  human beings themselves are not “simple machines” who operate on a calories in, calories out basis.
 
The assumption is that calories in and calories out are independent of each other.  That is, if you reduce Calories in,  Calories out are not affected.  However, this is untrue.  

DietHobby contains many posts talking about how hard it is to get an accurate ongoing count of  “Calories in”, but getting an accurate ongoing count of “Calories out” is far more difficult.  Most everyone makes an erroneous assumption that the “Calories out” number stays constant.

“Calories out” is not under our conscious control.  There are many metabolically active tissues, including brain, kidneys, heart, liver, etc whose activity is very difficult to measure. There are numerous hormones and enzymes and genetics involved in our individual metabolic processes…and some of these are still undiscovered. 

We make the incorrect assumption that our only variable that changes is the energy we spend in voluntary exercise or activity.  This is also not true.  Basal Energy Expenditure is not stable and can change up or down 50%.  Reducing Calories In reduces Calories Out. They are not independent of each other.

This isn’t news to anyone who has ever seriously tried to lose and maintain weight. A London research study released in July 2015 that tracked 278,982 participants, using electronic health records from 2004 to 2014 estimated that for people with a 30-35 BMI (Stage 1= obesity), an obese man’s chances of reaching a normal body weight (<25 BMI) were 1 in 210 for men, and 1 in 124 for women. For the severely obese-people with a 40+ BMI (Stage 2+ =severe obesity+), only about 8 percent of obese men and 10 percent of obese women were able to lose five percent of their body weights.  Almost all of the participants who achieved weight loss regained it within five years. 

At my highest weight, 24 years ago at age 47, my personal BMI was 52.9  (Stage 4=super-obesity). I have been at-or-near a "normal" BMI for the past 10 years. See ABOUT ME.
 
Calculators can't provide prescriptions for weight loss or protections against regain. They don’t apply equally to every single individual, and are merely averages ... standardized guidelines. The problem is that not all metabolisms, circumstances and eating habits are standardized.
 
For example, if a professional athlete walked at 3 miles per hour speed for a half hour, that athlete would burn calories totally differently than an average non-athlete who was the same exact weight.
 
Many factors are at play when it comes to how people consume and burn calories. Environment matters, for example. Also, everything from stress, to genetics, to cultural influences plus more, can affect an individual’s dietary habits and exercise levels.
 
Emerging research shows that even gut bacteria affects a person's ability to absorb calories. For instance, food may be absorbed as three calories in a lean person and seven calories in an obese person simply because of differences in how gut bacteria breaks down the meal.
Therefore, it is unreasonable to expect ANY calculator to give everyone a full and accurate game plan.

In the video below, Dr. Hall demonstrates how the calculator works by using his own weight loss goals as an example:

Hall, a 44-year-old man who wants to lose 20 pounds off his 5’10, 180-pound frame, is going to have to eat about 2,300 calories per day, provided he sticks to his resolution to walk his dog in the mornings three times a week. Once he reaches his goal weight, he’s going to have to maintain that weight loss by keeping up his dog-walking activity level and eating about 2,600 calories a day.

NOTE: originally posted on 12/1/2015.  Bumped up for new viewers.

The issue of Projections about the Rate of Weight-Loss has been on my mind for a very long time, and so this article is going to be quite long and detailed.  Those who bear with me and press on through, might learn some helpful information, or at least be exposed to something other than empty promises.

The Diet Industry knows that people want to lose their excess fat ASAP, and that people also want to spend as little time possible on a weight-loss Diet.  It takes advantage of that fact by using the diet-of-the-moment’s maximum 1st week weight-loss number as a marketing tool. 

Typical is: “Lose 15 pounds in 7 days”; or 10 pounds or 7 pounds, etc.  We see that ploy used continually in the media.  It is almost impossible to look at any magazine display rack in a supermarket checkout line without seeing a similar Headline.

What is implied by this claim is that the number of the first week’s weight loss is a prediction of weight-loss for the subsequent weeks. Marketing claims: “10 pounds in 1 week”.  People think, “Wow, If I stick to this Diet for just 5 weeks, I can lose 50 pounds.” 

Then, when they don’t experience that rate of weight-loss, they feel disappointed. Upon expressing their disappointment to the medical doctor, the nutritionist, the diet guru, the group leader, the program counselor, or whoever, the most common response is: “YOU didn’t follow the diet correctly.”  People are blamed for their weight-loss failure; while the Diet Industry gets the credit for their weight-loss success.

This is universal. I’ve never seen or participated in ANY diet program that didn’t follow that line of thinking, and during the past 60 years …from adolescence on… I’ve been involved with a great many of them.  I have personal experience with a great many diets and diet programs, and I’ve closely watched the experiences of many hundreds of other people as they dieted.

People WANT TO BELIEVE the claims of rapid weight-loss that they hear, and they desperately hope that they will personally experience rapid weight-loss by following their latest Diet-of-choice.   Some of these rapid weight-loss claims are based on lies; some are based on ignorance; some are based on personal experience together with poor memory; and a few are based on the real results of very unusual people. There are those who make these incorrect rapid weight-loss projections in good faith; who stubbornly hold onto an unreasonable Belief by stubbornly ignoring the overwhelmingly-vast-weight-of-the-evidence stacked up against it. However, the fact is that almost all of those claims are false, and the rest of them are based on factors that don’t apply the the majority of dieters. 

Almost everyone on a Diet, including me, is curious about their own potential rate of weight-loss.  

Here are a few facts to consider.  Typically… all other things being equal…, males lose weight faster than females; younger people lose faster than older people; larger people lose faster than smaller people; fatter people lose faster than thinner people; athletic people lose faster than sedentary people; people who have gained weight after maintaining a lifetime of “normal” weight lose faster than people who’ve been fat for a long time.  When people become lighter, their bodies require less fuel to function, and therefore after successfully dieting, they must continually eat less than they did to maintain their old weight. 

In addition to the facts mentioned above, different people of the same age and same size naturally have different metabolic rates. The two main formulas that cite Metabolic rates, and list weights and calories together, are the Harris-Benedict formula and the Mifflin formula.  These are similar in that their numbers are based on AVERAGES… which means that there are many people ABOVE that number, and many people BELOW that number. The standard deviation of the Harris-Benedict formula is about 14%, and it is not uncommon for people to be 14% above or 14% below that Average number.  Also, the studies include  “Outliers” which are people who are situated away or detached from the main body and differ from all other members of a particular group.  An Outlier has a metabolic rate very much higher or very much lower than the rest of the Group.

It is important to understand that the calculators, charts, graphs and predictions we see online are based on the Averages used in the above-mentioned formulas, and although they are a good place to start, they may not apply exactly to you personally.  AND, even if they apply to YOU personally, it doesn’t mean that they will apply to EVERYONE personally.

I’m going to show you how this works by sharing about ME, personally.  In order to better understand, it would be helpful if you read or re-read the article: ABOUT ME.  Next read or re-read the article: How Fast…How Much…Weight Lost After Gastric Bypass?  This article contains a detailed chart of my rate of weight-loss during the year immediately after my RNY gastric bypass 24 years ago.

The rate of weight-loss that I experienced during the year following weight loss surgery is extremely valuable information because there can be NO QUESTION of whether or not I was “faithful to the diet”.  I had no other physical option, as my body would not allow me to eat in any other way.  No normal “cheating” was possible, and even a very tiniest amount of extra food resulted in severe physical discomfort, i.e. vomiting and/or other painful symptoms.

It is also important, because my diet after a gastric bypass was an extremely low-calorie diet, from less than 300 daily calories to a maximum of around 600-800 daily.  So, ….other than a total water fast… no other diet exists which would cause a faster rate of weight loss for me.

Here is a summary of my numbers (see the chart mentioned above for details).
Start: 271 pounds; End: 161 pounds.

Information from the first 7 months or so is the most relevant for this article.

Before WLS weighed 271
The first week: … week one I lost 17 pounds.
Start of week 2, weighed 254 pounds
Weeks 2-6 (5 week period) I lost 14 lbs for a 2.8 lb average loss per week.
Weeks 7-12 (6 week period) I lost 15 lbs for a 2 ½ lb average loss per week.
Weeks 13-18 (6 week period) I lost 16 lbs for a 2 ½ lb average loss per week
Weeks 19-24 (6 week period) I lost 15 lbs for a 2 ½ lb average loss per week
Weeks 25-30 (6 week period) I lost 14 lbs for a 2 ⅓ lb average loss per week
End of week 30, weighed 180 pounds.

In the weeks that followed, my body was able to tolerate more food, and my weight loss began slowing to a standstill.  Although this information is not all that relevant to this current article, I include it to satisfy those who might be curious.

Start weight 180 
Weeks 31-36 (6 weeks) I lost 3 lbs = ½ lb average loss per week
Weeks 37-42 (6 weeks) I lost 7 lbs = 1 lb average loss per week
Weeks 43-48 (6 weeks) I lost 5 lbs = ½ lb average loss per week
weight 167
Weeks 49-54 (6 weeks) I lost 1 lb = 1/6 lb average loss per week
Weeks 55-60 (6 weeks) I lost 2 lbs = ⅓ lb average loss per week
Weeks 61-64 (4 weeks) I lost 3 lbs = 3/4 lb per week
Final low weight 161.

So, regarding projections about my own future rate of weight-loss, the  information about myself shows that in the 7 or so months immediately following a RNY gastric bypass, which forced me to eat in a very low-calorie manner …. my average rate of weight loss was about 2 ½ pounds per week.

I am still female, and still 5 ft 0 in tall,
however, at this time……
I am 24 years older. I am physically much less active. Instead of being obese between 254-180 pounds, I am now a “normal” weight - 123.  All of these factors make a difference in my metabolic rate. It is now lower. My body now, simply does not need as many calories as it did before.  Because of this, it is unlikely that any type of diet … other than a total water fast… would cause an ongoing weight loss as high as that previous 2 ½ pound weekly average.

There are very few people who have kept exact and detailed long-term records of their weight-loss histories, or had the same diet experiences. So while my information is relevant to me, personally, it might not be all that helpful to others. Keeping all of that past personal information in mind, now I’m going to move on to share about making personal projections for my FUTURE rate of weight-loss on a very-low calorie diet.


This is an visual of my current weight maintenance graph.

My ultimate goal is to keep my weight within my “normal” BMI range.  At times this involves some rather serious dieting.  Currently, I am doing some more experimentation with “The 5-Bite Diet”, which is a very low calorie diet which mimics the volume of eating immediately after a Gastric Bypass.  This morning the scale said that I weigh 123 pounds.

In the next examples, I’m going to be using the Body Weight Planner Tool.  For my detailed discussion of this tool, read or re-read Body Weight Calculator -Timeline Projections. Remember, the numbers in this tool are based on AVERAGES, and people are commonly both Above and Below these Averages.

  Now, I’m going to use the Body Weight Planner Tool to run some calculations in order to see what a “reasonable” timeline projection of my rate of weight-loss would be if:

(1) I went on a “Total Water Fast”;  or 
(2) I followed the 5-bite diet eating only 2 Snickers bars or their equivalent daily (500 calories); or
(3) I followed the 5-bite diet eating only 1 Snickers bar or it’s equivalent daily (250 calories).

This following information is for those people who might be interested in learning how to use this Calculator to find out what a “reasonable” timeline projection might be for their own personal rate of weight-loss.  BTW, in order to force the tool to go under a 1, 000 calorie diet, you have to use the button “Switch to Expert Mode”. 


Scenario One….. A Total Water Fast.

In this example, I use my own numbers, to see how long it would take for me to lose from 123 pounds to a 105 pound goal on a total water fast. 

Notice the graph gives my total daily energy equivalent (TDEE) as 1,110 daily calories.  It says that after I reach 105 pounds that TDEE will drop to 1058 daily calories. In actuality, from my detailed 10 year history of personal records, my actual TDEE is a couple of hundred calories lower than  Average. 

According to this calculator, it would take 32 days of a total water fast for me to reach 105 pounds.



 Above is a graph of that same information.  Note, however, that immediately upon reaching 105 pounds, and starting to eat 1058 calories, there is a projection of an immediate up bounce, due to the increased weight of food/water/salt/waste. This projected up bounce is almost 8 pounds, leaving the final weight result 113.6 pounds.

Scenario Two….. 5-bite diet - 2 snickers bars per day (500 cal)

In this example, I use my own numbers, to see how long it would take for me to lose from 123 pounds to a 105 pound goal on a perfect 5-bite diet of 2 snickers bars or 500 calories per day.  All of these graphs will give me the same TDEE info.

According to this calculator, it would take 95 days of 2x5-bites (2 snicker bars=500 calories) for me to reach 105 pounds.



Above is a graph of that same information.  Note, however, that immediately upon reaching 105 pounds, and starting to eat 1058 calories, the projection of an immediate up bounce, due to the increased weight of food/water/salt/waste is less. This projected up bounce is about 4 pounds, leaving the final weight result 109 pounds.


Scenario Three….. 5-bite diet - 1 snickers bars per day (250 cal)

In this example, I use my own numbers, to see how long it would take for me to lose from 123 pounds to a 105 pound goal on a perfect 5-bite diet of 1 snickers bar (250 calories) per day.  All of these graphs will give me the same TDEE info.

According to this calculator, it would take 55 days of 2x5-bites (1 snicker bars=250 calories) for me to reach 105 pounds.


Above is a graph of that same information.  Note, however, that immediately upon reaching 105 pounds, and starting to eat 1058 calories, the projection of an immediate up bounce, due to the increased weight of food/water/salt/waste is less. This projected up bounce is about 6 pounds, leaving the final weight result 111 pounds.

  What does all this mean?
First, undoubtedly, it it means that I am a compulsive record keeper, who is obsessed about my weight.

Second, the information in the above pictures does not apply universally. It is applicable ONLY to me personally…. and even then… only to the “average” person whose height, weight, sex, age, and activity level numbers match my own. 

Next, the tool I’ve demonstrated can be used by anyone who wants to input their own numbers, and play the game of “how many calories = how fast a weight loss”.

Finally, my wish and hope is that everyone who is interested in their own rate of weight loss, will not simply take the amazingly erroneous weight-loss projections of any “Expert, including any Medical Doctor” as Truth, and then blame themselves for failing, when even despite their very best efforts, their bodies do not meet those impossible-and-unreal rapid-weight-loss standards.

NOTE:  Originally posted in January 2016. Bumped up for new viewers.