I personally guarantee that if you eat less, eat higher quality fresh produce, less sugar, less meat, and less processed food you will lose weight and live longer. If this revolutionary new diet does not work, please contact me.
The problem with that advice is that the reasons people eat unhealthy foods and fail to exercise often have nothing to do with willpower.
For example, I have a friend with a very limited sense of smell, so she doesn't really get any enjoyment from food unless it is relatively fatty.
I'm personally not overweight, but if I ever do start getting overweight I'll be in trouble because I've had some medical issues that make it difficult to get my RDI of exercise.
Also don't forget the vast majority of the population has extremely limited information about health. For example, only 6% of parents have even HEARD of the recommendation from the AAP that kids under two shouldn't watch any TV. Not that people should treat the AAP as the absolute source of truth, but if you don't even know what they're saying then clearly you aren't doing your job as a parent.
This isn't just because people are stupid. It's because our media is owned and supported by companies who make physical products. Because of this if Nintendo releases a new videogame system they'll sell millions the first day, and yet by age 18 over 80% of girls haven't gotten enough calcium to prevent osteoporosis. We have great systems for spreading the word about new physical products, at least if they're made by big companies, but our processes for spreading the word about new best practices are virtually non-existent.
By placing blame solely on the individual you're also failing to understand the last 60 years of social science research. The lesson of Milgram, Asch, and many others is that by and large the decisions we make are less than 50% the result of any intrinsic quality or character within ourselves, and are mostly the result of the environments we're surrounded by.
Most people may not have the detailed info you have, but they aren't even acting on the info they have.
Like 94% of parents (not that I am a parent), I've never heard of that specific AAP recommendation and I don't even know what AAP stands for. I do, however, know that I shouldn't expose my kids to much TV (I'd stick to an hour a day, tops).
Similarly, I don't know off the top of my head how many calories I should be eating. I do know that fusilli with broccoli == good and ravioli with cream sauce == too much. That fat guy with the potato chips knows they are making him fat (even if he doesn't know the exact amount), but he chooses to consume them anyway.
Most likely he also knows he can use the google to learn more information.
I think you miss the point of the article. The article doesn't say that this won't work. It says that obese people have genes which tell them to eat more than they should. For example: You need 2200 kcal a day. Your genes tell you to be hungry until you've eaten 2300 kcal a day. The consequence is obvious: You will gain weight.
That is the statement of the article, nothing else. It doesn't say "obese people cannot be lean" or "diets won't work on obese people." It simple states that obese people are obese 'cause their genes tell them to eat more than they should eat. And that we shouldn't prejudice people because they have 'bad' genes.
And yet somehow we have entire continents full of thin people living outside the McDonalds belt, many of whom must have this same genetic disorder. How are they managing to keep the pounds off?
Even simpler: when caloric intake is below energy output, the result is weight loss. When caloric intake exceeds energy output, the result is weight gain.
This is in theory correct, but there's many factors which decides how much your body will uptake, store and burn. It is possible to eat less but gain weight. It is also possible to gain weight and loose fat. I don't know what this obsession with weight comes from as it's generally a very poor measurement of fitness.
However, by far the most common explanation for "I started eating less, counting calories, and I gained weight" is not a tremendous increase in metabolic efficiency, but a combination of:
1) spontaneous fidgeting and unscheduled exercise dropping off (sitting in your chair all day without getting your normal couple trips to the water cooler/bathroom, not shopping today because you're tired) - this is called "NEAT" if you want to Google
2) self-delusion as to the degree of reduced food intake
The latter is the most likely cause of severely failing diets.
No. Unless you cut energy expenditure as well, the energy has
to come from somewhere. If you are consuming 1500 Kcal and using 2000 Kcal, you will loose weight. Thermodynamics is not out to get you.
It might be possible to eat less but gain fat, however.
Your body can regulate how efficiently it stores what you are putting into it. If you restrict your diet too much, your body will think that food is scarce, and it will store more.
For example, several years ago I wanted to lose weight so I was trying to eat as little as possible and skipping breakfast. My weight stayed mostly constant. Then I decided to start eating breakfast and lost about 10 pounds very quickly. (I know you might think that by skipping breakfast I was eating a bigger lunch, or something like that, but it wasn't the case. I was in college on a very regular schedule, eating the same thing for lunch from the same food truck every day).
I realize this is just one person's anecdotal evidence, but from what I understand this is very common among people who skip breakfast in trying to restrict their caloric intake.
This is why experts recommend eating many small but healthy meals throughout the day, and never skipping out on breakfast.
You can and do change your energy expenditure, sometimes dramatically. I've lost 1-2 kg over the course of a weekend of being sick before, but that's just an extreme. All of "eat less loose weight" strategies work only if you consider amount eaten and energy expended to be independent. Which, to me, sounds incredibly unlikely considering how fine-tuned we are in every other respect.
When all said and done, my personal weight loss method is still eating less: but eating dramatically less then normal for relatively short periods (4-10 weeks). I'm a bit scared to think about everything my body is shutting down in this time. For starters, it takes about a week for my brain to catch up with the changed diet.
The human body is not 100% efficient. The efficiency of a human body can change. The amount of Kcal in a food item measured in a lab is not necessarily going to be the same amount a human absorbs.
