20
TL;DR: It works well for some people, but not everyone.
The question is tricky because:
Weight-Watchers is not a single, homogenised regime, but has changed over time.
There are likely to be subclasses of patients with different initial conditions. (Is "patients" the right word? Possibly not, but I am going to stick with it, as I am treating it as a ...
19
This is a difficult question to directly answer, for a number of reasons.
Some people tried to address it in previous answers (since deleted) by pointing out that honey and lemon are not alkaline. Unfortunately, that is undermined by proponents of alkaline diets simply shifting the definition of alkaline and pH around to use misleading, non-standard ...
14
This is a tough question to answer as there are a lot of ifs and buts.
Weight loss is all about caloric deficit, expend more energy than you consume and you lose weight. Most people do this by dieting, but the body tends to readjust the resting metabolic rate so that you don't lose too much reserves. Thus exercise plus diet is needed for weight loss to be ...
11
There's some evidence that drinking a large amount before eating a meal will help because it makes you feel more full, thus leading to eating less food, but sipping it during your meal doesn't help much because the water is absorbed much faster than the food.
People sometimes drink water with meals to promote a feeling of
fullness, in hopes of helping ...
11
Energy metabolism in humans at a lowered ambient temperature European Journal of Clinical Nutrition April 2002, Volume 56, pages 288-296 does confirm that men dressed identically at 16 degrees C do use up more energy than at 22 degrees C.
11
Since 1986, Herbalife have been under a permanent injunction from the California Courts, which restrains it from
B. Representing that defendants' products contain herbs: (1) which in
and of themselves naturally curb the appetite; (2) which burn off
calories; or, (3) which naturally cleanse the system....
C. Representing that one who uses ...
10
I love the Cochrane Collaboration. They provide meta-analyses of health-related studies. This involves critically examining all of the relevant studies on a topic, and grouping the data together to give more statistical power, and making the results freely available.
They have looked into hypnotherapy, and found the evidence to be rather limited when it ...
9
TL;DR: It's more complicated than the dichotomy "fat=jolly, slim=unhappy" or vice versa. It depends on culture.
The report that this newspaper article was based upon is:
Patrik K. E. Magnusson, Finn Rasmussen, Debbie A. Lawlor, Per Tynelius and David Gunnell, Association of Body Mass Index with Suicide Mortality: A Prospective Cohort Study of More than One ...
8
Excluding rare and serious metabolic conditions, which should be diagnosed by a doctor, people's metabolisms tend to be within 200-300 calories of each other. This examine.com meta-analysis explains this in greater detail.
They conclude that:
Metabolic rate does vary, and technically there could be large variance. However, statistically speaking it is ...
8
Disclaimer: I practice Health At Every Size myself, which is why I have these studies on hand.
Mann and Tomiyama performed a review of studies on weight loss:
These studies show that one third to two thirds of dieters regain more weight than they lost on their diets, and these studies likely underestimate the extent to which dieting is counterproductive ...
8
I suspect that no definitive answer is known, but below is some interesting research. In general, it sounds like little research has been done to directly test the question humans. Epidemiological evidence suggest otherwise, though that may be not be causation (ie overweight people trying to stem weight gain might tend to eat artificial sweeteners more). ...
8
Interesting claim(s) indeed coming from PhD graduate Linda Bacon. Here they are:
Claim 1: On average "overweight" people live longer than "normal" weight people.
True or false? False.
“Being overweight can extend life rather than shorten it,” spiked the headlines of The Independent on the 2nd of January 2013. A study was published in the peer-reviewed ...
8
No. Using a tracker does not make you fatter, and that is not what this study claims.
Lets start with the participants:
Among young adults with a BMI between 25 and less than 40
(so no already fit people here).
And this important little note:
If weight loss exceeded 6% during each 4-week period or if BMI was 22 or less, prescribed individual ...
7
I would place these claims inaccurate, due to improper representation of the study that the Cracked article itself supplied.
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/74/5/579.full
Conclusion: "Five years after completing structured weight-loss programs, the average individual maintained a weight loss of >3 kg and a reduced weight of >3% of initial body weight. ...
7
Chuck "Kali Muscle" Kirkendall, Jr. writes in XCON TO ICON - The Kali Muscle Story
[referring to the summer before his first year of high school, 9th grade, at Castlemont High School] Luckly I made the team but I barely made the cut because of weighing in at 99 lbs. Coach Green said I would have to gain 1 pound to make the team, so all summer I ate a lot ...
6
Dave already provided the scientific source that does confirm that men use up more energy when staying in a colder environment.
Nevertheless, your question puts this question into the specific context of a diet or losing weight and i feel that Dave's answer is missing this context.
At 16°C (EB), EE (total 24 h EE) was increased to 12.9±2.0 MJ/day as
...
5
Obesity might be caused very rarely by underlying medical conditions as mentioned below.
Hypothyroidism (Underactive thyroid): Condition in which the thyroid gland cannot produce optimum levels of thyroid hormone for normal hormonal activity. Harvard med education states "hypothyroidism is seldom the main reason for overweight or obesity. Treatment with ...
5
The short version is that it might have an effect, but there is no evidence to date.
I was surprised to find that there are actually quite a few scientific studies on this subject. There's an even larger literature on the effects in animals than in humans.
A good survey paper on the area (which may be paywalled) is found here. The crux of it is that the ...
4
TL;DR: No, not to any large extent - the effects are swamped by other, much larger factors.
Clive M. Brown, Abdul G. Dulloo and Jean-Pierre Montani, Water-Induced Thermogenesis Reconsidered: The Effects of Osmolality and Water Temperature on Energy Expenditure after Drinking, The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism September 1, 2006 vol. 91 ...
4
A 2007 study published in the journal Clinical Nutrition compared measurements obtained from a Tanita body-fat scale and DEXA scanning (which has replaced hydrostatic weighing as the most accurate way of measuring body-fat percentage). It reported a better than 96 percent level of agreement between the two methods (Thomson et al. 2007).
Source: "Racing ...
3
I have done a bit more research on my own question and I think I can answer the question now. Specifically I was interested in:
Is it true that most people put on weight because they consume more
calories than they burn?
I got access to some medical journals and found several articles and books on obesity and weight management. The hard thing about the ...
3
No.
It can be argued from an evolutionary standpoint that there shouldn't be much difference in metabolism rate among humans. (Except rare diseases). Because over an evolutionary scale, humans nearly all the time have evolved in conditions where food was scarce. We have wide availability of food only since very recent times and even now only in developed ...
3
At this point we don't have any studies to confirm the benefit of lemon juice with honey on reducing visceral fat. There are a couple of studies on using honey alone including this one which found improved diabetic control in rats:
Glibenclamide or metformin combined with honey also significantly
reduced the elevated levels of creatinine, bilirubin, ...
2
Yes, it is effective and safe.
Both preclinical and clinical studies have established the safety and efficacy of cryolipolysis for noninvasive body contouring [1].
Cryolipolysis has demonstrated efficacy in both human and animal studies. Histology findings also confirm the selective reduction of fat in both humans and animals, with evidence of a gradual ...
2
“A is a gene for X” is a shortcut used by scientists when they actually mean to say “gene A modifies the expression of X, all other things being equal.” [1]
In particular, it means that an allele of gene A influences X compared to another allele of the same gene.
This means that if you hear “gene A accounts for x% of trait T” then what is really meant is ...
2
The mechanism behind the "eating slower" claim is because of hunger. Whether one is hungry or satiated/full is communicated through the endocrine system, not directly through signals in the nervous system.
There is a lag time between when the body hormonally signals the stomach is "full" and when that message reaches the brain. In that intervening lag, ...
1
"The idea of using a fitness tracker is that you should pay more attention to the amount of exercise you get and, therefore, be more likely to get enough. This should support weight loss in people who are carrying too much weight."
...The above statement is erroneous and assumes that exercise alone will cause weight loss. If a person exercises but then eats ...
1
YES
Good analysis by Sean Duggan. I would like to take a look at Thermogenesis a bit closer.
Let's start with Metabolism
Metabolism refers to biochemical processes that occur with any living
organism - including humans - to maintain life. These biochemical
processes allow us to grow, reproduce, repair damage, and respond to
our environment.
...
1
No, there is not enough evidence for this claim, according to the NIH:
What the Science Says
A few small studies have found that fenugreek may help lower blood sugar levels in people with diabetes.
There is not enough scientific evidence to support the use of fenugreek for any other health condition.
Sources
Fenugreek. Natural ...
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