This article "hits the nail on the head" in the way it accurately describes my own personal experience, as well as what I’ve witnessed for years while watching the experiences of others.

It contains one of most accurate analogies for Weight-loss and Maintenance that I’ve ever heard.

Some might find it depressing, but here in my 8th year (now starting my 12th year) of maintaining a very large weight-loss, I find it encouraging and positive to hear a medical professional, who is an expert in obesity, speak the unvarnished Truth.

Despite the fact that this Truth is rather unpleasant, and isn’t something we’re ever going to hear from Marketing Interests… (which includes most doctors and nutritionists) …. Facing it, Understanding it, and Accepting it, can be very helpful.

Running Down the Up Escalator 
                 By Dr. Ayra Sharma, M.D. (a Canadian Obesity Specialist)

One of the games I used to play as a kid was to run Down the UP escalator.

To get to the bottom, I had to run faster than the escalator was moving up. If I ran any slower, the escalator would gradually but steadily take me back to the top.

In fact, even to just stay half-way down, I’d have to keep running at about the speed the escalator was moving up. If I stopped running even for a second, I’d be moving up again.

As you may guess, I am using this analogy, to illustrate the challenge of losing weight and keeping it off.

The escalator represents all the complex neuroendocrine responses to weight loss that will always want to take you back to the top – the only way to reach the bottom or to even maintain your place half-way down is to keep running.

Alas, in real life, the weight-loss escalator is even trickier. For one, there is no real bottom – i.e. no matter how fast you run, you will never reach the bottom and be able to simply get off. No matter how far down the escalator you manage to get, you are still running on the escalator and it will keep moving you back up to the top the minute you stop running.

But things get even more depressing, because, the further down the escalator you get, the faster it runs. This means that the further down the escalator you manage to get – the harder you have to keep running to just stay where you are.

Or, in other words, when you start from the top, the escalator is running relatively slowly and you may easily manage to get down the first 5 steps. But as you go down, the escalator picks up speed and so, if you just keep up running with the speed you started at, you may not even manage to hold your place 5 steps down.

And, to get to 10 steps down, you’ll definitely have to speed up – unfortunately, with every additional step you manage to make your way down, the escalator moves up even faster.

The Statement:

"You could
stand to lose a few pounds."

A Proper Response:

"Thank you for sharing
your meaningless value judgment."

Are BMI and BMR
interchangeable terms?

In a recent conversation with an M.D., when giving an opinion he incorrectly used the term BMI instead of BMR. I interjected “BMR?”, and he frowned & shook his head sideways indicating “no”. 

I continued with “BMR, not BMI,.. you know .. Basil Metabolic Rate, … from formulas like Harris-Benedict, or Mifflin? The calories burned without activity, like when you are in a coma.”  He responded on a different track, saying people used a lot of energy even in a coma, and never made any correction, or acknowledgment that he even understood his error.

So I thought, Is there some basic information about BMI & BMR that I missed? Are they, in some way, interchangeably connected?  Further research verified my original understanding, which is spelled-out below.

BMI or BMR?

First, although the abbreviations BMI and BMR sound similar, they stand for two separate things.

Your BMI, or body mass index, is a number calculated from your height and weight which is then used to assess your body composition.

Your BMR, or basal metabolic rate, is the number of calories you burn when your body is at rest. 

These two terms are independent of each other, but your BMI may indirectly affect your BMR.

Body Mass Index (BMI)

Your BMI is an indirect measure of your body composition -- or how much body fat you have. Although BMI doesn’t measure body fat directly, it uses your weight and height to determine whether you’re classified as underweight, normal weight, overweight or obese. This measurement correlates moderately well with other measurements of body fat such as skinfold measurements and underwater weighing.

BMI is based on your height & your weight.   There are many online calculators that will easily run BMI equations and provide your individual numbers.   Here’s a link to one that I commonly use.

The equation looks like this: BMI = (weight / height x height) x 703.

A BMI below 18.5 indicates that you’re underweight; a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 classifies you as a normal weight; a BMI between 25 and 29.9 puts you in the overweight category; a BMI of 30 or above classifies you as obese.

Limitations of BMI

Because it's not a direct measurement, BMI is only used as a screening tool and is not considered a diagnostic te...