Why do VLCD's fail?

I've read a lot that they always fail, but I'm wondering why?

because we're descended from millions of survivors of food shortages, and the changes that our bodies make in response to a severe or prolonged food shortage are exactly the things that we *don't* want happening when we're trying to diet.... like burning muscle to reduce the body's daily energy demand and make fat stores last as long as possible...... like binge eating (imagine a half starved Homo erectus when they finally get a decent amount of food... he or she will survive best if he or she eats the whole lot as quickly as possible)..... like obsessing about food (again, imagine a Homo erectus in a food shortage... the more mental energy they devote to finding food the more likely they are to actually find some and survive the food shortage);;;; we've inherited these characterisics so that.s how our bodies respond to a big calorie deficit. And it's not what you want to be battling with while dieting.

Instead, it's better to emulate a mild and short lived food shortage, where you're successfully hunting to get more food, i.e. do strenuous exercise to maintain your muscle mass (used muscle doesn't get burned off in a mild food shortage because used muscle is needed to hunt/gather food, at least in our evolutionary ancestors whose genes we've inherited) while eating just a little less, for slow and steady fat loss, because this increases the likelihood that what you lose will be pure fat...

that's pretty much why... I'm sure some people will go into the biochemistry of it in a bit more detail, but the bottom line is that our bodies are adapted for surviving food shortages, not for having ripped abs while surrounded by an excess of food in a society where you can telephone for pizza and have it delivered through the living room window directly to your sofa.

Fat storage is not a vestigial thing, some leftover function from times when going hungry was common.

People continue to starve to death today because there is no food.

Here on this board, we are lucky enough to have the opposite problem, but it is happening right now. No need to think about ancestors.

I didn't say that fat storage was vestigial. Our bodies work the same way our hunter-gatherer ancestors' bodies work, by and large, and all of what any organism inherits are the traits that helped their ancestors survive. People seem to expect their bodies to work in ways that would result in rapidly dying in an actual food shortage, i.e. that they can go on a starvation diet and do x minutes a day workouts and rapidly burn off all their fat while their muscles get bigger.

But yeah, you're right, for many parts of the world, surviving food shortages is still an issue, so I take your point on that, which is your general point I believe.

Yes, that was it. We are still hunters/gatherers, just some of us have a much easier time and do our hunting in grocery store aisles, while others are out hunting and fighting in the wild for their food.

We are all one plane crash, kidnapping, act of war or illness away from having to depend on our fat to get us through...but many people live a hunter/gatherer life now,

As a species, fat storage is still vital.

That's all I meant. Sorry if it didn't seem that way.

Can someone please post a kitty gif already??? :laugh:

Can someone please post a kitty gif already??? :laugh:

Was that your purpose for asking the question or is that just to bump it? Because you know you can google 'kitty gif' and go to town and spare the readers the scrolling, right? :ohwell:

VLCD's often fail because the people doing them don't take the time to address the underlying issues that got them where they were in the first place. It takes more than just meal replacements, it takes a willingness to address psychological issues, and dietary issues combined - if these aren't addressed then the subject will just go back to old habits and the weight rebound is inevitable.