The psychology behind why some people overeat is the most important aspect of losing weight and it's the one thing the diet world doesn't really address. If you're unhappy or stressed and eat to compensate for that, there's no food group or white paper that's going to be the silver bullet many people spend years if not decades searching for because you're trying to fix the symptom, not the underlying problem. The weight loss industry would collapse overnight if people took that to heart.
I personally agree with this. A lot of focus is on the BEST diet and very little attention is placed on reasons why people often eat more in the first place. Psychology is a hard thing to study but there are more and more research papers on behavioural traits that link with long term weight loss/maintenance versus relapse. 🙂
I know why I eat more than I should. It is simply because I like the taste of cheats in food, and I lack the motivation to stop eating when I should. When I didn't like food, back in my youth, because I didn't like to stop the things I was doing I was super skinny to the point people kept telling me I was sick. Oh well, after becoming a mom of a kid with severe special needs and had to be at home, I got bored and found food ... cooking... cooking shows... I started to eat and because of endless nights awake for several days straight just on a rocking chair with my girl because if I put her down she would have seizures despite having hight doses of medication that she still has to this day, she is now 20yo. I did these not sleeping for several night's straight until she was 10yo, when I finally found CBD and THC along with all the other medications she still taking for seizures. Now I can sleep, but I don't know how, so I enjoy staying up eating ice cream and other delicious food. When I hit 160lb, I go in calories restricting fasting. Works every time. After menopause I find hard to lose weight, but still, if I eat less, I lose weight. So I know why I eat. Not because I am hungry, sometimes I eat to the point I throw up, then I think I just made space for more ice cream. I don't throw up because bulimia, just because I am too full. But when I hit those 160lb, I stop eating. Some people say I have no self control. I think I do have a lot of self control. I go down to 135lb and I start eating all my delicious food again well knowing I will gain weight. I excuse myself because I know what we, my girl and me endured for ending 10 years. Do you think that if we don't make excuses, would we all know why we eat more than we should? I think that even doctors help you to lie to yourself. My doctor, a woman, told me it is menopause, I said, "no, it is food"
I am so damaged by decades of dieting that the very second I even think about restricting or 'eating healthy' or IF or anything even slightly dietish in any way, shape, or form, my mind goes... well, bizarre. That's the only way I can describe it. I become insanely obsessed and suddenly hungrier than ever. It's a terrifying spiral. 😢 My mental health is worth much more to me than the extra bit of weight I carry. ❤ I stay fit and listen to my body's desire for food, taking internal note of how these foods make me feel. The best thing is when I simply enjoy a meal without any self-consciousness whatsoever.
See the problem is that I want to keep a steady body weight. Its just that the body weight that I "want" is not the weight that my body wants. So I am always in this perpetual fight and feeling like shit because I cannot get the weight that I "think" is healthy.
I lost about 60 pounds from a year of dieting... the issue i learnt was that i had chronic diet fatigue once i reached my goal weight and once i started to ease off the diet i was never full... eating, eating and eating... you have to try to maintain your diet and weight within a few pounds or so and not go too crazy with food for a few months more... and slowly increase food over time like you slowly decreased it through dieting, I.E reverse dieting so your eating abit more each month. If you don't and you eat like a pig....within 3 months you will put all the fat back on, it's amazing how fast you can get fat so quickly. I made this mistake... and it took me another 6 months to get back in shape. lesson learnt.
FWIW. When I decided to try and lose some fat and gain lean muscle, at 61 years old, I decided to go slow. I went on IF but only because I knew I didn't want to try restricted food dieting and this was the easiest way I could come up with to limit calories while not counting calories. Over 3 years, from ages 61 to 64, I lost 60 pounds. 250 to 190. That's just over a pound and a half a month. At that rate I found it quite easy to keep the weight coming off while not feeling overly hungry or food deprived. As I ramped up my weightlifting workouts, I could play with my eating to hit that sweet spot as I progressed. I also made sure I was just moving around a lot. NEAT I think it is. I have been at my target weight of 190 for a year now (I turn 65 this month). My weight can vary between 189 and 191 but I believe that's fairly normal. I do not freak out when I hit 191. I make sure I'm getting in my activity, and I monitor my calorie intake. Monitor, not lose my mind. My goal is an active, healthy longevity. I want to thank you and your lovely wife for all the truth, common sense and encouragement. You two are my go to for all of this stuff. Frankly, I have stopped listening to all the fitness gurus. So much BS and outright lies. Keep up the good work Ben. Much appreciated.
For the past 2 1/2 years I’ve slowly been losing weight - I’m at about 30 pounds lost so far while I still enjoy the foods I love and not feel restricted.
worth noting is that while the evidence indicates that "going on a diet", going hungry to lose weight, does seem to have a relatively low long term success rate, that doesn't mean that long term weight loss is impossible increasing your activity level and changing your food from very energy dense foods to more filling, high fiber or protein options can lead to weight loss without constantly feeling hungry, and as such not lead to re-gaining the weight
I am curious about the research (if any) about easing off a hypo-caloric diet to help maintain as much weight loss as possible. I've heard slowly increasing caloric intake but not much about how to figure out how to do that!
Together with the physiological impact yo-yo dieting can have on your body, add all the metal load of failure, shame and bullying people also feel and experience.
This is interesting. I thought at first it'll be hard to study permanent metabolic damage from long term dieting alone because I thought people's metabolisms slow as they age anyway, so if they yo yo diet over time then it'll be harder to succeed in losing weight. But recent research states that from adulthood until around age 60 people's metabolisms are largely the same, so maybe that's not it either. Stephanie's 'all in' method to increase her metabolism after repeated dieting makes me doubt that metabolic damage from dieting is 'permanent' as well, because while at first the dieter's metabolism is still suppressed even after gaining weight, I think there's a point where eventually it will increase. Definitely things like muscle size might also help with correcting the metabolic suppression. But with the Biggest Loser case I think it's not unusual that their metabolisms are permanently lower now that they're smaller, because larger people usually have faster metabolisms anyway. Thanks for the video!
Adding on to what you said about metabolism and age, I've heard that people's metabolism don't technically slow down as they age, it's just that typically as people age they are less active, therefore they have less muscle mass, and since muscle burns more calories than fat it appears as if their metabolism is slowing down. I thought that was an interesting tidbit to consider since most people believe their metabolism naturally slows down as they age.
I lost 30 pounds over 7 and a half months. Kept it off for two months. Have slowly gained 15 pounds back over the last 7 months. But, my energy is up, and my strength has improved. Greater endurance. So, while some of the weight has retuned, I have to assume some of it is muscle mass and not just fat. But, as I hadn't done specific measurements before or after the weight loss so I can't say for sure.
Regaining some weight is almost so common it could be viewed more like a statistical probability rather than a possibility. I think it’s great to see progress elsewhere rather than just relying on the scale. Well done 🙂
@@BenCarpenterI’m doing a post-diet maintenance phase to help avoid regaining the weight I’ve lost (40lbs). I’m glad I found about this and, unsurprisingly, there’s very little discussion around how to keep weight off because there’s not much money in that. It’s like my brain thinks I still weigh 230lbs instead of 190lbs. It doesn’t want me to stay trim 😄 🧠. It’s so easy to regain weight, especially when you make rationalisations like “this means my body needs this. The craving is never wrong” 😂 Edit: I read that it’s worth doing a maintenance phase for however long your diet was. For me that was 10 weeks to lose the last 20lbs. Have you ever done this to keep weight off, post-diet?
So true! I always say to my clients no one discusses maintenance of new body weight. It's only weight loss as the spotlight. Definitely needs to be discussed
@@staceyg1719 And how to maintain weight ? Because I am 164 cm and 45 kg and I don’t want to gain weight and I do strength training 3 days per week so should I do more strength training and reverse dieting ?
One interesting fact worthy of discussion is that that most of the food consumed in the experiment was carbohydrate heavy, ergo insulin must have been sky high all of the time. I wonder what the outcome would have been had the diet been based on fat and protein.
There is some research on diet breaks *possibly* being beneficial, but the research is a bit too inconsistent to say for sure. It’s a very complicated topic, unfortunately
@@BenCarpenter I thought the current research showed that on a physical level, it has no benefit. (To prevent metabolic adaption, for example) On a psychological level however, it of course is a great tool. In fact, I think it's one of the most important tools you can provide to someone losing weight. If they can learn to alternate between weight loss and maintenance, instead of weight loss and weight regain... They've already won.
@@Junotekh How about a 'main-gain' phase, where the dieter eats at maintenance (or slight surplus) while lifting weights to gain more muscle? Would that help with correcting the metabolic adaption, at least partially?
@@vtheory7531 I exclusively work with obese women, so while I would love all of them to lift weights, it's not feasible in reality. So my scope of knowledge and experience is a little more limited here. There are two studies of interest: The psychological effects of weight-cycling: a review of current evidence Metabolic damage: do negative metabolic adaptations during underfeeding persist after refeeding in non-obese populations? Which seem to conclude that, at least in 'healthy' individuals, the adaptations are simply temporary due to the weight loss phase. And thus can indeed be countered by following up with a maintenance phase/ slight surplus - while you learn to increase satiety at this lower body weight to sustain it. I think that's really what it comes down to. To sustain a lower weight, you're required to increase satiety on a lower kcal budget. New routines, eating and exercise habits, etc.
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The psychology behind why some people overeat is the most important aspect of losing weight and it's the one thing the diet world doesn't really address. If you're unhappy or stressed and eat to compensate for that, there's no food group or white paper that's going to be the silver bullet many people spend years if not decades searching for because you're trying to fix the symptom, not the underlying problem.
The weight loss industry would collapse overnight if people took that to heart.
I personally agree with this. A lot of focus is on the BEST diet and very little attention is placed on reasons why people often eat more in the first place.
Psychology is a hard thing to study but there are more and more research papers on behavioural traits that link with long term weight loss/maintenance versus relapse. 🙂
Well said
@@BenCarpenter as a psychologist who did research in graduate school (though about far different topics) I agree psychology is hard to research!
I know why I eat more than I should. It is simply because I like the taste of cheats in food, and I lack the motivation to stop eating when I should. When I didn't like food, back in my youth, because I didn't like to stop the things I was doing I was super skinny to the point people kept telling me I was sick. Oh well, after becoming a mom of a kid with severe special needs and had to be at home, I got bored and found food ... cooking... cooking shows... I started to eat and because of endless nights awake for several days straight just on a rocking chair with my girl because if I put her down she would have seizures despite having hight doses of medication that she still has to this day, she is now 20yo. I did these not sleeping for several night's straight until she was 10yo, when I finally found CBD and THC along with all the other medications she still taking for seizures. Now I can sleep, but I don't know how, so I enjoy staying up eating ice cream and other delicious food. When I hit 160lb, I go in calories restricting fasting. Works every time. After menopause I find hard to lose weight, but still, if I eat less, I lose weight. So I know why I eat. Not because I am hungry, sometimes I eat to the point I throw up, then I think I just made space for more ice cream. I don't throw up because bulimia, just because I am too full. But when I hit those 160lb, I stop eating. Some people say I have no self control. I think I do have a lot of self control. I go down to 135lb and I start eating all my delicious food again well knowing I will gain weight. I excuse myself because I know what we, my girl and me endured for ending 10 years.
Do you think that if we don't make excuses, would we all know why we eat more than we should? I think that even doctors help you to lie to yourself. My doctor, a woman, told me it is menopause, I said, "no, it is food"
I am so damaged by decades of dieting that the very second I even think about restricting or 'eating healthy' or IF or anything even slightly dietish in any way, shape, or form, my mind goes... well, bizarre. That's the only way I can describe it.
I become insanely obsessed and suddenly hungrier than ever. It's a terrifying spiral. 😢
My mental health is worth much more to me than the extra bit of weight I carry. ❤
I stay fit and listen to my body's desire for food, taking internal note of how these foods make me feel. The best thing is when I simply enjoy a meal without any self-consciousness whatsoever.
I like the subtle support for your wife in the background 👍
Haha, thank you. This is actually legit how my office is set up and I just realised it makes for a better backdrop than my wall and poster corner 🙂
See the problem is that I want to keep a steady body weight. Its just that the body weight that I "want" is not the weight that my body wants. So I am always in this perpetual fight and feeling like shit because I cannot get the weight that I "think" is healthy.
I lost about 60 pounds from a year of dieting... the issue i learnt was that i had chronic diet fatigue once i reached my goal weight and once i started to ease off the diet i was never full... eating, eating and eating... you have to try to maintain your diet and weight within a few pounds or so and not go too crazy with food for a few months more... and slowly increase food over time like you slowly decreased it through dieting, I.E reverse dieting so your eating abit more each month. If you don't and you eat like a pig....within 3 months you will put all the fat back on, it's amazing how fast you can get fat so quickly. I made this mistake... and it took me another 6 months to get back in shape. lesson learnt.
FWIW. When I decided to try and lose some fat and gain lean muscle, at 61 years old, I decided to go slow. I went on IF but only because I knew I didn't want to try restricted food dieting and this was the easiest way I could come up with to limit calories while not counting calories. Over 3 years, from ages 61 to 64, I lost 60 pounds. 250 to 190. That's just over a pound and a half a month. At that rate I found it quite easy to keep the weight coming off while not feeling overly hungry or food deprived. As I ramped up my weightlifting workouts, I could play with my eating to hit that sweet spot as I progressed. I also made sure I was just moving around a lot. NEAT I think it is. I have been at my target weight of 190 for a year now (I turn 65 this month). My weight can vary between 189 and 191 but I believe that's fairly normal. I do not freak out when I hit 191. I make sure I'm getting in my activity, and I monitor my calorie intake. Monitor, not lose my mind. My goal is an active, healthy longevity. I want to thank you and your lovely wife for all the truth, common sense and encouragement. You two are my go to for all of this stuff. Frankly, I have stopped listening to all the fitness gurus. So much BS and outright lies. Keep up the good work Ben. Much appreciated.
For the past 2 1/2 years I’ve slowly been losing weight - I’m at about 30 pounds lost so far while I still enjoy the foods I love and not feel restricted.
Superb and concise video 💪🏼
worth noting is that while the evidence indicates that "going on a diet", going hungry to lose weight, does seem to have a relatively low long term success rate, that doesn't mean that long term weight loss is impossible
increasing your activity level and changing your food from very energy dense foods to more filling, high fiber or protein options can lead to weight loss without constantly feeling hungry, and as such not lead to re-gaining the weight
Thank you for the video.
My pleasure 🙂
Trying to lose 15 lbs I gained 60. 15 stinking pounds wasn't worth the hell of the fight.
What happened ?
I am curious about the research (if any) about easing off a hypo-caloric diet to help maintain as much weight loss as possible. I've heard slowly increasing caloric intake but not much about how to figure out how to do that!
Together with the physiological impact yo-yo dieting can have on your body, add all the metal load of failure, shame and bullying people also feel and experience.
This is interesting. I thought at first it'll be hard to study permanent metabolic damage from long term dieting alone because I thought people's metabolisms slow as they age anyway, so if they yo yo diet over time then it'll be harder to succeed in losing weight. But recent research states that from adulthood until around age 60 people's metabolisms are largely the same, so maybe that's not it either.
Stephanie's 'all in' method to increase her metabolism after repeated dieting makes me doubt that metabolic damage from dieting is 'permanent' as well, because while at first the dieter's metabolism is still suppressed even after gaining weight, I think there's a point where eventually it will increase. Definitely things like muscle size might also help with correcting the metabolic suppression. But with the Biggest Loser case I think it's not unusual that their metabolisms are permanently lower now that they're smaller, because larger people usually have faster metabolisms anyway.
Thanks for the video!
Adding on to what you said about metabolism and age, I've heard that people's metabolism don't technically slow down as they age, it's just that typically as people age they are less active, therefore they have less muscle mass, and since muscle burns more calories than fat it appears as if their metabolism is slowing down. I thought that was an interesting tidbit to consider since most people believe their metabolism naturally slows down as they age.
I lost 30 pounds over 7 and a half months. Kept it off for two months. Have slowly gained 15 pounds back over the last 7 months.
But, my energy is up, and my strength has improved. Greater endurance. So, while some of the weight has retuned, I have to assume some of it is muscle mass and not just fat.
But, as I hadn't done specific measurements before or after the weight loss so I can't say for sure.
Regaining some weight is almost so common it could be viewed more like a statistical probability rather than a possibility. I think it’s great to see progress elsewhere rather than just relying on the scale. Well done 🙂
@@BenCarpenter Thank you. As you and other health content creators have pointed out. It's just a number.
@@BenCarpenterI’m doing a post-diet maintenance phase to help avoid regaining the weight I’ve lost (40lbs).
I’m glad I found about this and, unsurprisingly, there’s very little discussion around how to keep weight off because there’s not much money in that.
It’s like my brain thinks I still weigh 230lbs instead of 190lbs. It doesn’t want me to stay trim 😄 🧠. It’s so easy to regain weight, especially when you make rationalisations like “this means my body needs this. The craving is never wrong” 😂
Edit: I read that it’s worth doing a maintenance phase for however long your diet was. For me that was 10 weeks to lose the last 20lbs.
Have you ever done this to keep weight off, post-diet?
So true! I always say to my clients no one discusses maintenance of new body weight. It's only weight loss as the spotlight. Definitely needs to be discussed
@@staceyg1719 And how to maintain weight ? Because I am 164 cm and 45 kg and I don’t want to gain weight and I do strength training 3 days per week so should I do more strength training and reverse dieting ?
One interesting fact worthy of discussion is that that most of the food consumed in the experiment was carbohydrate heavy, ergo insulin must have been sky high all of the time. I wonder what the outcome would have been had the diet been based on fat and protein.
Are maintenance phases the solution?
There is some research on diet breaks *possibly* being beneficial, but the research is a bit too inconsistent to say for sure. It’s a very complicated topic, unfortunately
@@BenCarpenter I thought the current research showed that on a physical level, it has no benefit. (To prevent metabolic adaption, for example) On a psychological level however, it of course is a great tool. In fact, I think it's one of the most important tools you can provide to someone losing weight. If they can learn to alternate between weight loss and maintenance, instead of weight loss and weight regain... They've already won.
@@Junotekh How about a 'main-gain' phase, where the dieter eats at maintenance (or slight surplus) while lifting weights to gain more muscle? Would that help with correcting the metabolic adaption, at least partially?
@@vtheory7531 I exclusively work with obese women, so while I would love all of them to lift weights, it's not feasible in reality. So my scope of knowledge and experience is a little more limited here.
There are two studies of interest:
The psychological effects of weight-cycling: a review of current evidence
Metabolic damage: do negative metabolic adaptations during underfeeding persist after refeeding in non-obese populations?
Which seem to conclude that, at least in 'healthy' individuals, the adaptations are simply temporary due to the weight loss phase. And thus can indeed be countered by following up with a maintenance phase/ slight surplus - while you learn to increase satiety at this lower body weight to sustain it.
I think that's really what it comes down to. To sustain a lower weight, you're required to increase satiety on a lower kcal budget.
New routines, eating and exercise habits, etc.
@@vtheory7531 Good question I am eager to know
Four twenty💪