You May Not Be Doing Anything Wrong

dissonancesquared

I agree. I think you have to find a new normal that is healthy which is the only way to keep it off but also I think what most diets and studies don't take into account is muscle mass. A person who is lean at 165 doesn't look like a person with high body fat % at 165. That also accounts for how you burn calories and your caloric intake.

Yeah, this was kind of my point earlier. Whenever I see these studies, it's always people on severely restricted calories (I usually see 500-800 calories per day cited) and if they do any exercise at all, it's cardio. So of course they're going to lose a lot of muscle mass along with the excess fat. They'd probably see a lot more long term success with a less severe calorie restriction plus weight lifting to maintain lean muscle.

i never thought of this, but you're right. she worked out a lot, but it was all cardio. interesting.

theres still the issue of the biochemistry though. all the people in the study showed screwy levels of some hormones related to appetite, even when they were put back on maintenance level diets. this would indicate that there are physiological differences between people maintaining a weight vs having dieted to get there that can contribute to the difficulty in maintaining long term weight loss.