This is what's known as an 'anecdote', and is at the crux of the issues surrounding weight loss.
Virtually every _controlled_ study shows that metabolic differences between adults are within a margin of +/- 15%, with essentially no way to eat the same amount of calories as a 200lb person and stay at 465lbs. Not least of which because your basal metabolic rate is much higher at that weight.
Virtually every study shows that overweight people significantly underestimate their input (whether intentionally deceptive or simply unaware) and overreport their physical activity, like "I can jog 10 miles", or "I play tennis about 7 hours a week", or "I regularly make 60 mile bike rides". If you do, you're the extreme outlier, and it doesn't change the data. Assuming you can do those things, you're almost certainly still in your 20s, and the health effects of your weight haven't really caught up with your body yet.
Very simply, it's far more likely that you miss some of the calories you consume, either because you don't actually weigh your food or you discount the signficance of "small" things. A pound of fat is 3500 calories. That's more complicated inside metabolic processes, but it means that "an apple a day" is 10lbs per year.
That isn't to say that "prescribe more medication instead of correcting the underlying issue" (trauma, self-medication, dopamine flush, whatever) is the answer, but that diets perform poorly for a large fraction and fail abysmally for another third because we are bad at tracking things, we are bad at being uncomfortable, and we bad at self control, etc. Diets do work. It's sticking to the diet and recognizing when you're off the rails which is difficult.
It's also difficult to acknowledge that this "diet" is not temporary and you can go back to old eating habits once the weight is off. The new caloric consumption is forever, because that's what brought you to the new homeostatis.
Virtually every _controlled_ study shows that metabolic differences between adults are within a margin of +/- 15%, with essentially no way to eat the same amount of calories as a 200lb person and stay at 465lbs. Not least of which because your basal metabolic rate is much higher at that weight.
Virtually every study shows that overweight people significantly underestimate their input (whether intentionally deceptive or simply unaware) and overreport their physical activity, like "I can jog 10 miles", or "I play tennis about 7 hours a week", or "I regularly make 60 mile bike rides". If you do, you're the extreme outlier, and it doesn't change the data. Assuming you can do those things, you're almost certainly still in your 20s, and the health effects of your weight haven't really caught up with your body yet.
Very simply, it's far more likely that you miss some of the calories you consume, either because you don't actually weigh your food or you discount the signficance of "small" things. A pound of fat is 3500 calories. That's more complicated inside metabolic processes, but it means that "an apple a day" is 10lbs per year.
That isn't to say that "prescribe more medication instead of correcting the underlying issue" (trauma, self-medication, dopamine flush, whatever) is the answer, but that diets perform poorly for a large fraction and fail abysmally for another third because we are bad at tracking things, we are bad at being uncomfortable, and we bad at self control, etc. Diets do work. It's sticking to the diet and recognizing when you're off the rails which is difficult.
It's also difficult to acknowledge that this "diet" is not temporary and you can go back to old eating habits once the weight is off. The new caloric consumption is forever, because that's what brought you to the new homeostatis.