Losing the Last Ten Pounds is the Hardest

Author: Siegal Medical Group
Published: 2009/04/20

Contents: Synopsis - Introduction - Main - Related Publications

Synopsis: One of the great ironies in losing weight is that your own weight helps you to lose pounds.

Introduction

Main Content

Losing the Last Ten Pounds is the Hardest Part of any Diet Confirms Weight-Loss Expert and Author Dr. Sanford Siegal

South Florida physician Sanford Siegal, D.O., M.D., explains why the Law of Diminishing Returns applies to weight loss and reveals how to overcome this obstacle to reaching a normal weight.

Dr. Sanford Siegal, Medical Director of Miami, Florida-based weight-loss practice, Siegal Medical Group, today confirmed the widely held suspicion among dieters that the most challenging part of reaching a healthful weight is shedding the last ten pounds.

Losing that last ten pounds is, in fact, the greatest challenge, but it's more complicated than that," said Dr. Siegal. "It's more accurate to say that the next pound is harder to lose than the previous one because, like it or not, the Law of Diminishing Returns applies to weight loss. The more you lose, the harder it is to lose more."

In his forthcoming book, Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet Book (Hyde Park Publishers, Ltd.), Dr. Siegal explains that the more one weighs, the more calories he burns just transporting his own weight. As a dieter sheds pounds, the amount of calories he burns simply going about his normal routine decreases.

"One of the great ironies in losing weight is that your own weight helps you lose it," continued Dr. Siegal. "A person who weighs 250 pounds burns many more calories performing the same activity as one who weighs 150 pounds."

According to Dr. Siegal, many overweight people don't recognize that carrying excess fat inside their bodies takes the same amount of energy as carrying around an object of the same weight.

In his practice, in order to put things into perspective for his patients, Dr. Siegal asks them to imagine what their life would be like if they were to strap a fifty pound weight to their body and never take it off except to sit or lie down. In most cases, he says, people recognize the tremendous amount of effort they would have to expend just to go about their normal activities. They have no trouble imagining how taxing it would be to ascend a flight of stairs, take out the trash, or put away the groceries. Yet, while they are able to imagine the consequences of carrying around a heavy weight, few of his patients recognize that they are already doing so.

"Someone who is fifty pounds overweight at 200 pounds uses the same amount of energy to get around as a 150 pound person with a fifty pound weight strapped to her body," continued Dr. Siegal. "Imagine how many extra calories you would burn if you were to lug a fifty pound barbell everywhere you went!"

In his book, and on his web site Dr. Siegal provides free tools to help people cheat the Law of Diminishing Returns and lose weight at a fast, predictable, and consistent pace, even when they reach the hurdle of the last ten pounds.

Reference

Sanford Siegal, D.O., M.D., is a practicing physician whose South Florida medical practice, Siegal Medical Group, has treated more than 500,000 overweight patients. Although he has achieved notoriety for his books on such subjects as high fiber diets, hunger control without drugs, and hypothyroidism, he is best known as the Cookie Doctor behind the venerable Dr. Siegal's COOKIE DIET weight-loss program and hunger-controlling foods. Dr. Siegal is frequently in the news and has been profiled by dozens of media including Good Morning America, The New York Times, The Today Show, National Post, and Forbes.