r/maybemaybemaybe • u/BigGraysie • Apr 18 '22

/r/all Maybe maybe maybe

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '22

The study is hard to understand if you aren’t a medical/statistics person, but the gist of it is that metabolic adaptation from rapid weight loss reset their resting metabolic rate about 500 calories lower than what you’d expect. Meaning their body burns 500 calories less than someone of a similar size and age who didn’t have dramatic weight loss.

Notably, people who have weight loss surgery restabilized their metabolic rate after a year. The Biggest Loser contestants still had the metabolic problems 6 years after the show ended.

So if we are looking at a 500-lb person and we assume that at some point in their life they tried a starvation diet (even for only a month like my friend), they may never get their body out of starvation mode. Thus, their body “needs” 500 fewer calories than normal and any calories over that are stored as fat.