> The question of how an individual can lose weight is pretty well understood (if difficult for many to practice).
From reading discussions and articles about it that pop up here from time to time, and also from talking with my family and friends, I'd disagree. What I actually perceive is that in discussions about loosing weight:
- a) people generalize personal anecdotes,
- b) there are dozens of popular diets, and people usually quote their favourite,
- c) whatever Real Science gets quoted, will soon be challenged by another paper saying something opposite,
- d) people try to reason from common sense ("surely if you eat less X you'll be less fat, because X does this-and-that"); I was a believer of the thermodynamics-like theory that deltaWeight = weight + (calories in - calories out)*stuff; many a post on HN convinced me that it's not true, even though it sounds much more obvious than typical dietetary nonsense you'll hear from your random friend.
I'm against blaming everything on people being not determined or hardworking enough. For one, it's wrong attitude (any system that assumes strong willpower or moral high ground from people will fail because of human nature; it's better to engineer around it), and secondly, there are indications that the same diet/exercise combination executed with the same determination will have great effects on some, moderate on others, and zero-to-negative on few unfortunate people.
From reading discussions and articles about it that pop up here from time to time, and also from talking with my family and friends, I'd disagree. What I actually perceive is that in discussions about loosing weight:
- a) people generalize personal anecdotes,
- b) there are dozens of popular diets, and people usually quote their favourite,
- c) whatever Real Science gets quoted, will soon be challenged by another paper saying something opposite,
- d) people try to reason from common sense ("surely if you eat less X you'll be less fat, because X does this-and-that"); I was a believer of the thermodynamics-like theory that deltaWeight = weight + (calories in - calories out)*stuff; many a post on HN convinced me that it's not true, even though it sounds much more obvious than typical dietetary nonsense you'll hear from your random friend.
I'm against blaming everything on people being not determined or hardworking enough. For one, it's wrong attitude (any system that assumes strong willpower or moral high ground from people will fail because of human nature; it's better to engineer around it), and secondly, there are indications that the same diet/exercise combination executed with the same determination will have great effects on some, moderate on others, and zero-to-negative on few unfortunate people.