Weight loss is harder than rocket science.

Duffy LaCoronilla

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Apr 27, 2016
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I read that yesterday. Not sure why I’m still surprised when a clickbait article in my apple news feed has a headline that has almost nothing to do with the content. Shocker.

Anyways. There’s a lot of talk about “Set Point” theory where your body will fIght to keep you at a certain weight, even if you are supposedly doing everything right. Yes, there is some metabolic adaptation when in a deficit where your body becomes more efficient, but not enough to overcome thermodynamics. For the most part, it’s a theory with minimal evidence to back it up.
I can crush that theory with one undisputed fact. 100% of people that get surgery to reduce the size of their stomach, making it physically impossible to eat much at all, lose huge amounts of weight.

Losing is simple. Eat less.
 
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VonMeister

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Apr 26, 2013
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JOE BIDENS RAPE FINGER
If I had to lose weight, I would have a really hard time. My life behavior has been working out every day (and not hardcore, just every day), have fruit and a little fiber for breakfast, a healthy and spare lunch, and eat whatever the fvck I want for dinner, plus beer. I don't happen to crave the sweet desserts and cakes and cookies and donuts and snacks which are abundantly available, so that helps. Been the same weight forever.
The good news is weight is just a measure of gravity and is a completely arbitrary measure of jackshit.
 

hal9000

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Jan 30, 2016
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Urbana, Illinois
I can crush that theory with one undisputed fact. 100% of people that get surgery to reduce the size of their stomach, making it physically impossible to eat much at all, lose huge amounts of weight.

Losing is simple. Eat less.
I know a few who got stapled, lost a ton of weight, then gained it back.
 

bigglesworth

Legend (inyourownmind)
Mar 8, 2017
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Surely amidst the bacchanalia during the decline of Rome there were nobles who were this fat, right? At least that's what Asterix and Obelix led me to believe
 

grapedrink

Duke status
May 21, 2011
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A Beach
I can crush that theory with one undisputed fact. 100% of people that get surgery to reduce the size of their stomach, making it physically impossible to eat much at all, lose huge amounts of weight.

Losing is simple. Eat less.
Agreed. There are grains of truths in the mechanisms, however those have been combined into a unifying theory that does not play out in practice. There is metabolic adaptation that results in your body becoming more efficient with calories. Involuntary movements go down, and you will probably move less around the house subconsciously. There are also changes in hormonal signaling that encourage you to eat more when in a deficit.

However there is no drastic slowing of metabolic rate and calorie partitioning that forces you back to a higher weight and somehow circumvents thermodynamics. Those mechanisms are greatly overemphasized in order to give credence to the theory.