> > The trick [to weight loss] is to arrange just a modest caloric
> > deficit, without causing loss of muscle and metabolic slowdown, and
to
> > do so without also causing an unacceptable hunger.

The metabolic slowdown is inevitable with calorie reduction.  But
reducing calories isn't as hard as it sounds.  What is hard is NOT the
body's actual yelling out for more food, it is the brain's struggle with
all the advertising and societal attitudes it has been bombarded with
almost continuously.  The modern person gets hungry much more often from
seeing, smelling, hearing, or thinking about food, than from actual
hunger.  Of course, there is a "real" hunger feeling, but the average
person responds very much earlier to "hunger" because of modern societal
attitudes.

> That is a major problem with caloric restriction as a route to weight
> loss-- the body's lowering of its base metabolism, making desired
results
> more and more difficult to attain.

It is the body's response to less food - we all have a "setpoint" weight.
That is the individual's body weight they tend towards, whether they over
or under eat.  The body defends its setpoint from changes a number of
ways.  For example, if we eat less, the body begins to ramp down the
least important calorie burning mechanism, heat generation (also known as
futile heat cycles).  Simultaneously, metabolic efficiency increases (up
to a max of about 0.50 - the average american is at about 0.33).  If we
increase calories, the futile cycles step up to burn off the excess
calories.

>...Incidentally, this in itself suggests that famine
>could not have been all that rare,...

Obviously the mechanisms evolved for a reason.

>The lowering of metabolism is the body's way of making more
>efficient use of the food that's coming in.  But if we want to
>lose fat we want the body's use of food to be inefficient, not
>efficient.  This is why weight loss is basically unnatural.
>
>Todd Moody

By "unnatural" it seems that you are referring to the conflict of wanting
to eat as much as possible, and wanting to maintain a certain weight.
Refer to my above point - losing weight dosen't need to be that unnatural
if you really listen to your body, and understand/control the brain
washed attitude (difficult in this society).  Weight depends on (roughly)
80% diet, and 20% genes, for those who think they are genetically
programmed to be "fat".

I must also mention that a person's setpoint weight is very dependent on
their weight/body fat as they grow up.  This is when the fat cells are
forming.  Fat kids will tend to be fat adults, because they have more and
large fat cells.  These are permanent changes once they grow up, and
reach their setpoint at around 18-early 20's.

James Crocker
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"Beautiful are the things we see.
More beautiful those we understand.
Much the most beautiful those we do
not comprehend."
Niels Steensen, 1638-1686
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