For more, see the video below:

Yesterday I posted a scientific research article about biological adaptations that promote weight regain in obese humans, with a link to a less technical article explaining the same issue. 

The article below addresses that issue from a “Health at Every Size” position.  

I agree with the article, and I admire the positions of “Health at Every Size” and “Size Acceptance”.   I spent many years of my life working to diet while living with morbid obesity.  I’ve experienced having the Fat Bias of others directed against me, and I didn’t like it.  Those cultural experiences were unpleasant enough to cause me … even now at 70 years of age … to continually struggle to keep my body in a state of starvation so that it will consume itself and be smaller than it wishes to be.

At this point, I’ve chosen NOT to personally adopt an “Intuitive Eating” non-diet lifestyle for myself.

I don’t plan to allow my body to ever tell me what to eat because, if there’s any way to avoid it,  I don’t want my body to become enormously fat again.  There’s a good chance that keeping up my constant struggle to eat a very tiny amount will - at least - reduce the speed of my weight regain.

I’m old now, so I figure that my life won’t be long enough for the what-now-appears-to-be-an-inevitable-weight-creep-upward to return me all the way back into morbid obesity.

Would I make the choice to continue the struggle if I were now in my 30’s or 40’s or even my 50’s?  If I knew, — that even though I continued to vigilantly and consistently work to successfully eat only 500 to 800 calories every day, — that eventually, my body would still wind up extremely fat again?  Probably not.

Why Do Dieters Gain Their Weight Back?
                    by Regan Chastain, of www. danceswithfat. org

…I think that one of the persistent myths that allows the diet industry to increase their profits every year with a product that doesn’t work is the idea that  “well, people gain the weight back because they just go back to their old habits!” (Of course in this case “their old habits” means not putting their body into a state of starvation so that it will consume itself and become smaller, but we’ll get to that in a minute.)

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 &nd...

There is a “widespread misimpression” that weight-loss and maintenance for bodies which have become and stayed obese for more than a couple of years, is essentially the same as that for bodies which always have been:

• normal weight (BMI between 18.5-24.9);
• overweight (BMI between 25-29.9); or
  
• have spent a brief time within Grade 1 obesity (BMI between 30-34.9).
  
  

In a commentary published February 26, 2015 in the journal Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, four weight-loss specialists set out to correct what they view as the widespread misimpression that people who have become and stayed obese for more than a couple of years can, by diet and exercise alone, return to a normal, healthy weight and stay that way.

"Once obesity is established, however, body weight seems to become biologically 'stamped in' and defended," wrote Mt. Sinai Hospital weight management expert Christopher N. Ochner and colleagues from the medical faculties of the University of Colorado, Northwestern University and the University of Pennsylvania.  

“Few individuals ever truly recover from obesity.” Those that do "still have 'obesity in remission,' and are biologically very different from individuals of the same age, sex and body weight who never had obesity." They are constantly at war with their bodies' efforts to return to their highest sustained weight.

That February 2015 commentary together with the August 2013 research article below explain many of the things that I have experienced personally, and that I have personally observed.

An additional article dealing with this issue is located HERE in the DietHobby Archives.

Biological Mechanisms that Promote Weight Regain Following Weight Loss in Obese Humans
          by Christopher N. Ochner; Dulce M. Barrios; Clement D. Lee; F. Xavier Pi-Sunyer
                     Published August 2013

Abstract

Weight loss dieting remains the treatment of choice for the vast majority of obese individuals, despite the limited long-term success of ...

Struggling with Body Troubles?  Here's how to recognize and fix them.







 

The Article Below makes
some Really Good Points.
 

Why I'm Not Fazed by Long Term Weight Management Stats
             by Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, M.D.,
                       author of The Diet Fix, - which is featured here on DietHobby in BookTalk.

It's no secret that I believe modern day dieting is broken.

Traditionally it has relied on extremes of restriction, under-eating, over-exercising, and cultivating lives that often at best are describable as merely tolerable.

Not only are these regularly extreme approaches the ones that society has adopted, but they're also often the approaches that medicine has studied.

Is it no wonder then that long-term weight management has proven itself to be elusive?

Expecting people to live lives where food can't serve to provide comfort and pleasure, where guilt and shame are meant to shape decisions, where fighting hunger with distraction is encouraged, where reality is ignored - go figure the long term stats stink.

We need new goalposts. Where goals aren't number based, where the healthiest life you can enjoy is the aim, where food retains its ability to provide comfort and celebration, where our personal bests are considered great, and where like everything else in our lives, we're comfortable with the fact that our personal bests will vary - both between individuals, and even within individuals.

Ultimately if your diet gives your life the finger, don't be surprised if you eventually tell that diet to kiss off.