The Problem: 
Being Fat is Hard. 

The potential Solution is to reduce one’s ongoing food energy intake in the hopes that this will cause one’s body to consume itself and become smaller.

Meaning: the Solution is to DIET, which is Hard, and to Permanently MAINTAIN Weight-Loss, which is even Harder.

The thing about intentional weight loss is that research shows that almost everyone can lose weight short term, but then almost everyone gains it back – with the majority of people gaining back more than they lost.

The body doesn’t understand that there is a certain size and shape that brings with it an increased social capital. It’s like “No problem, I’ve evolved to survive famine, I’ll just get started lowering metabolism.” Basically, the body is hard at work doing everything it can to lower the amount of food that it needs to live and store as much food as it can.

At the end of a dieting process the body is biologically different than it was when it began.

It has become biologically different than a body that never dieted, and likely has a new set point weight – higher than its original weight – that it is now trying to maintain because it now is worried that there will soon be another famine.

Weight regain has a great deal to do with the fact that keeping the body in a state of starvation is unsustainable, especially when the body reacts by working as hard to get and store all the food it can.

At the end of the day, nobody can produce research for any intentional weight loss method (call it a diet, lifestyle change, or whatever) that succeeds in the long term for more than a tiny fraction of people.

The most likely outcome of intentional weight loss is weight gain because of the elements that are ultimately out of our personal control. Instead of: “Just don’t go back to your old habits!” it’s actually:  “Just change your body biologically back to how it was before you became fat AND before you dieted!” .

So… is there any ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION for anyone with a Body-Size Problem?  Below is an outstanding discussion of this issue which proposes Acceptance as an Alternative Solution.  This means Essentially: Redefine the Problem.


To Plus-size Women
who Cannot yet Name their ...