----- "Don Wiss" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: 
> There is a place to discuss the article. No comments yet. I would 
> think one should read the entire article before commenting. 
> 
> http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/why-lost-pounds-come-back/ 

Thanks for posting that; I found it very interesting. 

I can certainly confirm the main points of the article from my own experience. In my opinion, the Holy Grail of weight loss is a program that restores balance between eating behavior and body composition. Every overweight person knows the frustrating paradox of feeling ravenous hunger when it is abundantly clear that there is more than enough fuel available in fat storage. And many of us know the bitter experience described in the article, of finding that even when we are successful in losing weight, and highly motivated to keep it off, we just can't manage to do it. 

Having experimented with so many variations of paleo, semi-paleo, and so on for the past 15 years or so, I am personally convinced that the problem is far more subtle than any list of "forbidden foods." I have gone zero carb for months at a time and failed to lose more than a pound or two, when I needed to lose 60 or so. My appetite for meat was huge, and my desire for non-meat foods remained undiminished. For me, this was simply unsustainable. To try to adhere to a diet that leaves me constantly hungry for an entire class of foods is, in my opinion, both pointless and ultimately doomed to failure. 

Nonetheless, in the past year I managed to drop 50 pounds. I could stand to lose more, but I'll settle for this, since weight loss appears to have stopped. My approach has not been strictly paleo. I took to logging everything I ate, using FatSecret, and noting my appetite swings, so that I could see what kinds of things worked, and what didn't. I started out with a very high fat diet, inspired by Kwasniewski's "optimal diet", but tilted more toward paleo foods. This worked well for a while, and I lost the first 30 pounds that way. Then I reached a point where, with no change in diet that I could discern, weight started to return, slowly. 

I started reading about other factors in obesity, especially leptin. I read Byron Richards' book, Mastering Leptin. I didn't find the book all that well organized or argued, but it had enough interesting information to get me delving into more sources. I found Jack Kruse's blog, http://jackkruse.com, which is a more paleo-oriented approach to leptin control. I tried to work out the points of convergence between the two sources. This wasn't difficult, since they agree on the main points. They are: 

1. Eat breakfast, with a substantial amount of protein. Kruse says 50g minimum. I'm skeptical of that sort of round number absolute approach, but I take the message to be to get a hefty amount of protein at breakfast. 

2. Eat three meals a day, until you reach a point where you only feel like eating two. Don't deceive yourself into thinking that you only need two before you're really there. 

3. There should be five hours between meals. 

4. Dinner should be no later than 7 pm. Kruse says 7:30, I think. 

5. Don't snack, at all. Ever. 

So, I followed these rules, choosing mostly paleo foods. I found that I did better if I included some starch. By "did better", I mean that I found it easier to stay on the regimen without experience sharp surges in appetite. 

I started losing weight again. 

Although these rules are pretty unexciting, I immediately noticed that my "normal" eating habits had strayed pretty far from them. For example, I'd often skip lunch or breakfast, and I'd *always* snack, thinking that if my snack was "paleo" there should be no problem. 

So, this worked for me, and in fact is still working. Is it "easy"? No, it isn't. It still requires a lot of vigilance, and vigilance just isn't easy. But it's a form of vigilance that is, for now at least, psychologically manageable for me. I don't want my life to be about What I Can't Eat; it's somewhat easier to deal with When I Can't Eat, and then make an effort to eat healthy real foods. 

The exercise portion of all this is unchanged from what I'd been doing, which is two to four short, intense workouts per week. "Short" means 20 minutes or less, sometimes a lot less. "Intense" means one set of 10-12 reps to failure, and maybe 20 seconds later a second set of 3-4 more reps, per exercise. But I vary it a lot, trying never to do the same routine twice in a row. Some days I just go in, put some weight on a bar, do 10 squats or so, and that's my whole workout. Other days I might just swing a heavy kettlebell around for a few minutes. I make no pretense of being scientific about this. As far as I'm concerned, I'm simply sending my body the message that I'm not done with it yet. 

Whether this approach will keep the weight off remains to be seen. 

Todd Moody