Why You Can’t Lose Weight on a Diet- New York Times Article- May 6, 2016

VintageFeline wrote: »

Conflating Biggest Loser where metabolic damage and huge muscle loss is a given with all diets being pointless is quite the stretch.

Yes most people regain but not because of lowered metabolisms, it's failure of the dieter to sustain the needed long term changes to maintain weight loss. Most people get to goal and think they've cracked it. Old habits quickly return and back on the weight comes.

Multiple scientific studies have confirmed the reality of thermogenic adaptation prior to the study of Biggest Loser contestants. Here's a thread introducing some of the research:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1077746/starvation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss/p1

Here's a good summary of the research:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3673773/

Basically, after losing weight, in order to maintain your lower weight, you will need to eat 10-15% fewer calories than a person of the same height and weight who was never overweight.

stevencloser wrote: »

Here's a better summary:
http://doc.rero.ch/record/30575/files/dull_ath.pdf

Summary: You can't just slap a number on it because it varies greatly from person to person and our ways of determining the impact suck.

Thanks for the reference! Will read this during Memorial Day Weekend traffic, while my wife drives.

xlgman wrote: »

This is discouraging info. My body wants me to stay fat? Great.

@xlgman No, it's hogwash. Read on in the thread.

Alatariel75 wrote: »

xlgman wrote: »

This is discouraging info. My body wants me to stay fat? Great.

And this is exactly why articles like this irk me so much. They take a study which says a lot of things, simplify it into inaccuracy, then flap it all around the media, leading to people taking it at face value and using it to undermine themselves.

This. So. Much. This.