The Real Reason Diets Fail and What You Can Do About It

unchatenfrance

I came across this article and thought it may be of general interest here - about why focusing on scale (weight) loss is essentially a misguided approach to losing fat and seeking optimal health.

http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/the-real-reason-diets-fail-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/

entropicbeauty

Most of that makes sense, but saying that weight loss plateaus don't exist for real fat loss is just silly, because many of us have experienced them and I most certainly HAVE reduced my fat over the past year and a half...

cnf2013

Interesting read! And a great explaination to everyone who is frustrated the second week of a "diet" when they dropped like 10lbs the first week and nothing the second. Though I agree with Entropic. That was my thought too. I lost about 25lbs over a year plus before hitting my first real plateau and I definitely lost fat in that time frame and weight loss amount. There's just no way that at only 5'3" I would have only lost GI fluid and poo and not real weight. 

unchatenfrance

I hear you all. I think what the author is saying is not that fat loss plateaus don`t exist: they do, by simple virtue of the fact that fat loss is not linear and requires constant retooling of your diet and exercise. So if doing x and y has helped you shed 10 pounds of fat, it will eventually lead to a plateau. Then you must re-evaluate and try something different, because more of the same is bound to stop being effective. I read the plateau discussion as specifically within the context of fad diets and weight loss (not fat loss): that once you`ve lost those first 10 pounds and have stopped losing, it`s because you`ve only lost `phantom weight` and that the fad diet is not helping you lose fat. And the main reason for this is that there is zero causation between scale weight and fat loss. A lot of people who go from "lean" to "very lean" (by losing fat and gaining muscle) end up weighing more at the end of their transformation.