I'm sorry that this went first to just Debbi, but the mail went to me and brin-l, and my reply to user just went to her, not brin-l.
Debbi convinced me that this study found a long term weight loss. From studies I'm familiar with, weight loss is usually short term...the average weight change 5+ years after various diets have been tried is positive; yet this study has found that there was an overwhelming number of people who kept at least a third of the weight off. So, I looked around, and there were few free references to long term weight loss that were not advertisements. I didn't feel like buying papers; so I just found a couple of free references. http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/pa-04-092.html http://tinyurl.com/yds2l83 The first is a grant announcement from the NIH for studies looking into why people don't keep off weight. The second states with a footnote that I'd have to pay to refer to how weight loss is rarely maintained. Then I got creative, and found other studies with long term follow ups, which also showed about a third of the weight staying off. Why the contradiction? Then it hit me....studies usually _pay_ participants. Someone who is paid to stay in a study, and gets support for weight loss during that entire time is a unique individual. Thus, they are far more likely to maintain weight gain than folks who do not have this type of backing. Thus, we have a reason for the inconsistency, and why most folks don't keep weight off after they diet. I think there is little argument that losing weight is the first option for pre-diabetics, people with high cholesterol etc. But, in the real world, physicians tell people they need to change their lifestyle and most don't. That's why I see a strong correlation between abstinence before marriage and fidelity in marriage (include gay marriages if you will) as the best form of AIDS prevention and lifestyle changes as the best means of improving health. Both, if practiced, have shown tremendous results. Condoms, for example, only decrease the chances of pregnancy and getting AIDS, they don't prevent either. Given the fact that most folks are promiscuous, and education doesn't prevent it, talking about safer sex in schools makes sense. Just like it makes sense for a physician to tell a patient to try diet and exercise at the first signs of weight related problems and then go to meds at the next visit when the weight is either unchanged or increased. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
