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Originally Posted by bubbsy
Is it a sheer biological issue that body itself will gravitate back to original/higher weight? Or is it the psychological issue that sustaining a change in diet and doing regular exercise in order to lose weight is just too difficult for a lot of people to maintain forever?
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It's both. There's a psychological issue of course, change is hard and sustaining a change can be hard (some people adjust some people never do), if patterns are established really early (i.e. if someone's parents never fed them healthy food and trained them to eat junk) then it's even harder.
But there is a sheer biological issue as well, the body wants to get back to its maximum weight and will do whatever it can to try and do it, you can think and want but you can't control your body chemistry entirely with your mind, so it's a huge factor.
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Originally Posted by bubbsy
should be a motivator that 95% of all of us end up giving up on the tall task, but there is still a % that is able to push thru....
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There's always a % in everything that go against the norm. Sometimes people with cancer experience spontaneous remission too. But 5% success rate in a treatment is no treatment at all, and while it's easy for people to just blame the 95% that do not succeed and deride them for their inadequacy, I think we can do far better than pretending there's a path to success when in fact for most people there isn't.
I've read interesting research about different kinds of intestinal bacteria that impact how food gets absorbed with experiments that resulted in mice that were fat despite not being overfed turning into mice that were typical weight for example, there's still tons left to be learned.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bubbsy
Curious what % of addicts (drugs/alcohol) who go into treatment and get clean, are able to maintain that for a decade? Is there such a statistic?
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Not sure about alcohol, but I mentioned earlier the success rates for self-quitting smoking (i.e. no medication, just cold turkey or slow reduction).. it was about the same, 4-7% success each attempt. But after 2 years there's an 80% chance the person will stay smoke free, where weight loss has no such increase after time (it's the opposite, longer usually results in more chance of putting the weight back on).
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Originally Posted by bubbsy
i actually don't feel this is a "will power" issue. i think we all create a lifestyle/routine that suits us and brings us contentment.
..snipped rest..
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Yeah I tend to agree, a simple parallel would be an alcoholic. It's not about will power, it's about structuring your life so you don't fall into the same patterns and routines. But even with the best efforts in that respect, everything I've read still says the success rate overall is in the single digits (I'm sure you can find demographics that are better, it's easier when young, male, socioeconomic factors (there's a big correlation between poverty and obesity)).