Battle Of The Bulge: Why Losing Weight Easier Than Keeping It Off

Battle Of The Bulge: Why Losing Weight Is Easier Than Keeping It Off For
Good

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0108230206.htm

You've successfully dropped those extra pounds only to discover that
they creep back on again. Columbia University researchers may have now
worked out why.

In a study appearing in the December 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical
Investigation, Michael Rosenbaum and colleagues from Columbia University
College of Physicians and Surgeons show that body weight is regulated by
coordinate metabolic, neuroendocrine, and autonomic systems that act to
actually restore fat mass in individuals attempting to maintain their
slim new figure. The authors suggest that our bodies interpret the
weight-reduced state as one of relative deficiency in the hormone leptin.

To test their hypothesis, the authors administered "replacement" doses
of leptin to lean individuals that had recently lost weight as well as
to obese individuals. The authors found that most of the metabolic,
neuroendocrine, and autonomic changes that oppose the maintenance of a
reduced body weight were actually reversed once circulating levels of
leptin were restored to levels that were present prior to weight loss.
These mechanisms lie at the center of why more than 85% of obese
individuals that have lost weight eventually relapse.

These findings suggest that therapeutics directed at the leptin
signaling pathway may, pending longer studies, assist in the maintenance
of reduced body weight.

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LEPTIN .... Maybe these human studies show the real role of leptin, at
last. To assist in the maintenance of reduced body weight.

Maybe not....

85 % relapse is a frightening statistic for weight loss regain .....

Yes, keeping it off is getting a little harder even after 16 months of
stability after 50+ pounds loss.... and maybe it is not just the dreary
winter and decreased exercise....





--
1) Eat Till SATISFIED, Not STUFFED... Atkins repeated 9 times in the book
2) Exercise: It's Non-Negotiable..... Chapter 22 title, Atkins book
3) Don't Diet Without Supplimental Nutrients... Chapter 23 title, Atkins
book
4) A sensible eating plan, and follow it. (Atkins, Self Made or Other)

jbuch quoted:

These findings suggest that therapeutics directed at the leptin
signaling pathway may, pending longer studies, assist in the maintenance
of reduced body weight.

---------------------------------------------------------

LEPTIN .... Maybe these human studies show the real role of leptin, at
last. To assist in the maintenance of reduced body weight.

Interesting - Something that helps during maintenance and needs
to be taken forever. Drug company's dream if they can come up
with a patented variation.

Leptin is released in our bodies in response to currently stored fat
and recently eaten carbs. So folks who still have a lot to lose tend
to have high leptin levels while folks with little to lose tend to have
low levels (the point of the article that low body fat tends to push
against maintaining). But also folks who eat too low carb for too
long tend to drop leptin levels. It's why lower isn't better.

Does this mean that maintenance tends to be easier for low fatters
than low carbers? It could offset the losing phases being easier
for plenty of low carbers.

Speculation - The article appears to say that somehow our bodies
take the highest amount of body fat percentage we've ever had
and use that to determine relative leptin levels. If so, now to find
out how to control that setting? Turn the knob, reduce your body's
goal weight, what a magic bullet that would be.