Weight-loss and Maintenance of that weight-loss is hard work. This is a Truth that needs to be faced in order to achieve long-term success.  Everywhere we turn we see advertising statements about how quick and easy weight-loss is... IF you just buy and use that One Specific Product.

That product could be a food, a supplement, a diet plan, exercise equipment, clothing, a book, a video, or an idea. It could be just about anything that can be sold for money.

Those marketing lies are common, but seldom do we see in bold black-and-white the truth that no matter what product we might use,
weight-loss is slow and hard, and maintenance of that weight-loss is seldom achieved.

There are now quite a few "reality" TV shows concerning weight-loss. These consist primarily of a trim and muscled, naturally thin, person, setting forth difficult physical tasks for very fat people, then berating and encouraging those people in order to "help" them "start to live their lives".

I find this prejudiced-against-fat people statement particularly offensive, because fat people have lives that are just as productive and enjoyable as thin people.The quality of one's life depends on that person's attitudes and thoughts,
not on their physical size, or even their physical condition.

I didn't start "living my life" only when I was a normal weight,
I've lived my life for all my life, whether fat or thin.

Sometimes it seemed good, sometimes it seemed bad, but it is the only Life that I have here on earth (as far as I know), and it's been continuous since I was born.  It didn't only "start" after weight-loss.

The action shown in these television shows mostly involves physical tasks, including exercise.  Because, otherwise, for long periods of time, we would just be looking at people NOT EATING the amounts or kinds of higher-calorie foods that are currently considered socially acceptable and desirable in our culture.This would be about as entertaining as watching paint dry.

Everywhere you hear people being told to "change their lifestyle". Like THAT is a different process than dieting forever. But, it isn't.

Our lifetime eating habits are culturally and emotionally based, and are extremely difficult to change long-term. To make it even harder, habit and emotion are only part of the equation, because physical elements are also involved. 

The bodies of the "reduced obese" do everything possible to return that person to their previously obese condition. There are quite a few articles already here at DietHobby addressing this issue,and this will continue to be an ongoing topic here.

Accepting the rather unpleasant Truths about weight-loss and maintenance has helped me become successful in that area, and personally, I don't see how it is possible for an obese person to achieve long-term weight-loss success without coming to terms with those Truths.

Today I posted another cooking video, Apple Tuna Salad
which is located at DietHobby, under RECIPES, Mealtime.
This is a low-calorie, low-fat, and reduced carb recipe.

 Here is my Halloween treat  to you.

  A Joke.

Okay, maybe it was a trick.☺

This morning I watched an inspiring video
that reflects my own beliefs and experience in life.
These truths are relevant for our efforts towards
weight-loss and maintenance of that weight-loss
as well as for all of the other areas of our lives.
So, I'm sharing it here with you.

The  video below, "Positive Thought Power", is also located
in DietHobby under RESOURCES, Videos, Interviews.

For those who are following my “Ask Grandma” videos
click to see my latest one: “How To Attract A Boy"
which is located in DietHobby under RESOURCES, Videos, Ask Grandma.

                         
About six years ago, I reached my goal weight,
and now for all of that six years, I’ve been working
to maintain my body at that normal weight.

Here in the DietHobby Archives you can find many articles
that talk about how I do this, my own experiences and viewpoint.
The recent LA Times article quoted below
confirms that my own individual experiences are generally true.
I can personally testify that this hunger persists…even after 6 years.

"Dieters face a long battle with hunger.
Study finds weight loss triggers hormones that tell you to eat,
making it clear why it is so difficult to keep those lost pounds off.

As if people needed a reminder that losing weight is hard
and maintaining weight loss is even harder,
a study has found that for at least a year,
subjects who shed weight on a low-calorie diet
were hungrier than when they started and had
higher levels of hormones that tell the body to eat more,
conserve energy and store away fuel as fat.

The report, published Wednesday in the
New England Journal of Medicine, helps explain
why roughly 80 percent of dieters regain lost pounds
within a year or two of losing them -- and, sometimes, regain more.

After weight loss, "multiple compensatory mechanisms" spring to life,
the study shows, and work together to ensure that weight loss
is reversed quickly and efficiently.

The researchers, led by Joseph Proietto of the University of Melbourne's
Department of Medicine, write that
more than one solution to obesity will likely be necessary:
"a combination of medications" that will have to be safe for long-term use.

Two-thirds of Americans and a growing proportion of the developing world's population
are overweight or obese, and though obesity rates in the United States have begun
to stabilize, there's been no significant decline.

The Australian study paints a "very comprehensive" and "really discouraging" picture
of the breadth of the body's response to weight loss, said Dr. Daniel Bessesen,
an endocrinologist and obesity researcher at University of Colorado's
Denver Health Medical Center.
It captures just how many resources the body musters to ensure that weight is restored
-- a long list of hormones that regulate appetite, feelings of fullness after eating
and how calories are used.

The study enrolled 50 obese men and women without major health problems
and put them on a strict low-calorie diet for eight weeks. Within two weeks
after that diet, and again a year later, researchers measured subjects' blood levels
of nine distinct hormones that affect appetite and metabolism, and asked subjects
about feelings of hunger after meals, between meals and as mealtimes approached.

The challenges quickly became evident.
Thirty-four of 50 enrolled subjects made it to the one-year mark.
Four withdrew during the eight-week period of dieting
-- a rigorous 550-calorie per day regimen.
Seven failed to lose 10 percent of their body mass,
which had been set as a condition of continued participation.
And five withdrew during the yearlong "weight maintenance" phase,
when subjects got regular counseling on a diet-and-exercise plan
to stay at the new weight.

Of those who remained,
the average weight loss at 10 weeks,
when hormone levels were first measured, was just short of 30 pounds.

One year out, those subjects had gained back
an average of just more than 12 pounds.
But after and between meals, their appetites
-- and the hormones that influence hunger -- rebounded even more robustly.

The hormones -- including leptin, ghrelin, amylin, cholescystokinin and insulin --
vary widely. Some are secreted from the gut,
others by the pancreas or fat cells themselves.
Some increase appetite, some tell the brain that enough food has been eaten
and others help regulate how calories are used.

And for the dieters,
those hormones were sending a single message a year later:
 ".Eat more".
The subjects said they were just as hungry
as they had been upon completion of their crash diets
and significantly hungrier than they had been before their diets had begun.

"The high rate of relapse after dieting is not surprising," the authors concluded".

Article by: MELISSA HEALY, Los Angeles Times October 26, 2011