On a side note, I'd love to hear what sort of issues you have with maintaining?
All the problems can be summed up with "crappy carbs". It's actually a long story about what started me down that path (dealing with health issues), but I've actually put back on some weight (around 40 pounds...it's easy to be blind to oneself :().
What I've found is that when I start eating carb-rich food, my ability to stop snacking on carb-rich foods goes to zero. So I've cycled between maintaining where I eat a low-glycemic diet and not doing that and gaining. When I spoke of "biological imperative", I mean me: when I eat carbs, I can't stop. I never get full. I'm sure I'd be a Type 2 diabetic in about 5 years if I didn't make this change.
A few weeks ago, I dumped the crappy carbs again. I'm back full-on low-carb and have lost about half of that[1]. This time, I'm going to learn from my mistakes. :) I'm going to follow the Atkins notion of gradually increasing carbs until you find your "critical carbohydrate level". Since I've bounced back and forth, I figure realizing that fact will be helpful in my long-term maintenance.
1. Yes, a very large percentage of this is water. I'm OK with that. :)
I've attended hundreds of Weight Watchers meetings over many years and I've personally seen at least 1000 people go from being completely helpless with weight loss to losing somewhere between 50-200lbs each. It's a great achievement.
> What the basic calorie-in-calorie-out equation doesn't take into account is that it is a biological imperative to eat.
I didn't say eating less calories than you burn is mentally easy. It takes discipline and hard work, no doubt about it. We all have slip-ups and set backs along the way, which is all part of it. Nothing worth doing is easy.
> And just saying "cut calories" does not work. Three percent of obese people will manage to lose weight by dieting. Do you think they are just "too ignorant" to "get" the equation? Or are they just "too lazy" to do what needs to be done? Because I know that neither is the case.
In my experience watching at least a thousand people lose a massive amount of weight, every single one of them did it by slowly reducing their calorie intake, and increasing their activity to burn more calories. Why did they need WW for that? There are a variety of reasons, though I think Number 1 is that people honestly don't know fries, coke, burgers, chocolate, alcohol, etc. aren't food and you shouldn't eat them regularly. They are so enormously calorie dense they mess everything up.
Reason number 2 is simply being completely and utterly overwhelmed by the contradictory and complicated information about weight loss, causing them to give up completely. This is evidenced by the > 200 comments here.
> Your "engine" becomes more efficient the less you feed it.
Of course it does!
So next week/month will be a different intake/burn than last week/month. It's a constant process to make sure you're eating less than you take in. Although, again being honest here, anyone that is 100lbs+ overweight can likely just cut out one enormous calorie dense food (soda or fast food for a lot of people) and they will lose weight for a long time before they need to re-jig the equation, because they've been eating an enormous number of calories for a very long time.
Don't be confused and think I said it's an easy process to achieve. Many people find it one of the hardest things they will ever do in their lives. I said it's a simple process to understand.
What the basic calorie-in-calorie-out equation doesn't take into account is that it is a biological imperative to eat. That means you have to find the way to balance those calories that overcomes that.
Some people (usually the people espousing "it's just a calorie") have a metabolism that, for whatever reason, either doesn't cause them to be hungry or allows them to eat whatever. Great for them.
For those of us who struggle daily with this issue, "willpower" isn't enough. We need to find the way that overcomes the biological, hormonal imperative that drives people to eat.
And just saying "cut calories" does not work. Three percent of obese people will manage to lose weight by dieting. Do you think they are just "too ignorant" to "get" the equation? Or are they just "too lazy" to do what needs to be done? Because I know that neither is the case.
Edit: The other component, which really screws up an "engine" analogy, is that your "engine" becomes more efficient the less you feed it. If you need 1500 calories a day today and so start eating 1300 calories a day, soon, your engine will only take 1300 calories a day to run. Great, bump up the exercise so you burn 200 calories a day. Soon, your engine only needs 1100 calories a day and you feel lethargic all the time.
Your body is not an car motor.