NU_nutrition_TS

This is interesting. James Kreiger looked into this before and found the drop in metabolism was primarily due to decreased NEPA (Non-Exercise Physical Activity), which is basically just generally moving around outside of structured exercise.

Simply put, when you lose massive amounts of weight, your brain starts picking this up, and send out lots of signals to move around less because it thinks you are going to starve to death at the current rate of weight loss (even when you consciously know that's not true).

Even with all the activity and caloric restriction the participants were forced to endure, there was no measurement of NEPA caloric expenditure, and studies put forward by Kreiger suggest that it is likely NEPA would have continuously dropped with the rapid weight loss.

A key strategy to keeping weight off once you lose it is to not reduce your activity levels. You need to be aware if you gradually begin to take more and more shortcuts to avoid activity (i.e cutting cardio, parking your car more and more closer to work to avoid walking, Getting off the bus closer to your destination, using the lift instead of the stairs, etc.)

BTW i absolutely despise this show. I saw one episode of it. Its humiliating and degrading, and the exercise routines are obscene and unrealistic, and every time that woman who was the PT in the UK version of the show opened her mouth i just wanted go postal.

To be honest, if I was horsewhipped into doing the insane amount of exercise these poor retches have to perform on this show, I think I would spontaneously reduce all other physical activity too!

They also fail to address the reasons why people are not as active as perhaps they should be (and it is not just about being lazy in a lot of cases) but just bully them into taking up 'structured exercise programs' instead. Clearly the whole thing is aimed at producing 'voyeur television' and is not a serious attempt at improving the long-term health of the participants.

There is no way any sane person would continue these kinds of punishing diet and exercise regimes, without these TV celebrity fitness tyrants barking at them (and without putting themselves in the media spotlight). But, of course, once filming is over and the show has aired, no-one involved in their making really cares what happens to these poor guinea pigs after they go home.