Why You Can’t Lose Weight on a Diet

Why You Can’t Lose Weight on a Diet(nytimes.com)

4 points by steve_w 10 years ago | 2 comments

xlm1717 10 years ago |

This has seemed a little suspect to me since it started making the rounds earlier this week. Does the set point not work in reverse? What I mean is, the article states "starts at 300 lbs", but no one starts at 300 lbs, people get there through poor diet. So, why doesn't the set point push them back to 200 lbs? It seems to me set point is not the complete story when it comes to weight.

AstralStorm 10 years ago | |

Sadly, or biology is hardwired to be thrifty. It's better to be reasonably overweight than starved, especially if life expectancy was short.

Case in point: Once you exceed the set point enough you get leptin resistance. This means that suddenly your organism is more sensitive to any drop in general energy store state as it is transmitted via leptin system with additional inputs from insulin and amylin.

So, the right way to diet might be to actually diet while supplementing leptin or a leptin receptor agonist and only very, very slowly reducing it over time.