Modern weight loss plans focus on making sure people feel full, and have tricks to help people feel like nothing is forbidden (you could still eat cheese or chocolate, just controlled small amounts), while helping them make better choices.
There's not much evidence, and the evidence is about as good as all the other dietary stuff (not great) but they do seem to work and be maintainable.
Why is this concept so difficult to get across? There are _constant_ advertisements in every medium for weight loss programs of every sort. We've already explored the entire parameter space of dieting. Tweaking the food mix and saying, "No. This time we have the perfect mix to keep you health and full!" isn't science. It's quackery that belongs on the cover of Cosmo.
You know what works in reality?
* Amphetamines
* Nicotine
* 2,4-Dinitrophenol
* Gastric surgery of various sorts
* Cancer
You know what might actually work?
* Pigovian taxes on high glycemic index food and drink
* A ban on food advertisement
* Portion size regulation
* Weight-based airfare
It's time we stop pretending that yelling at people about diet and exercise is going to make a bit of difference. We might as well yell at the sea and tell it to stop rising.
N=1 sample, not to prove anything but sharing an anecdote: I'm nicotine-taking non-smoker, consuming it in form of nicotine gums. I haven't noticed any effect of it on my weight over the period of last two years. I did respond to ketogenic diet however, but found it hard to maintain over long periods of time - basically it's a big time and cognitive investment to invent new foods that you won't puke on out of a limited set of ingredients. I do think that a lot of diets would work if they were the only thing people have to think about during the day. Alas, the cognitive demands of our fast-moving, competitive world are strong.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/852616?nlid=89075_2052&s...
> Suicide attempts increase substantially in morbidly obese patients in the years following bariatric surgery, when the "honeymoon" period of substantial weight loss comes to an end, new research shows.
I agree that death does have a slimming effect.
> yelling at people about diet and exercise
Nothing in my posts can be seen as advocating for yelling at people. Please don't bring your bickering with other people into your replies to me.
What I'm talking about is an "Every Contact Counts"[1] style approach of supporting people to access a modern weight loss programme[2], for free if they can't afford it. This will be "prescribed" by their GP, paid for by Public Health[3] or perhaps their Clinical Commissioning Group. I've accepted that the evidence is not great, but if you want to find what's wrong with the evidence[2] used by NICE I'd be interested to hear it.
I haven't said anything in this thread about exercise, but I have said in other threads that exercise does not help weight loss. We should be recommending that people do exercise because it has other undeniable health benefits.
[1] http://www.makingeverycontactcount.co.uk/
[2] http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ph53
[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/public-health-en... England's use of generic names is nice, but feels a bit weird sometimes.