Eat less food and move more. There's literally nothing to losing weight beyond that. It's incredible to me the amount of mental gymnastics that people will perform to avoid facing this.
There is a persistent myth that the obese person lacks some spiritual strength or willpower. I think your comment implies this.
And yet they do have the willpower to lose weight? And something happened in 1980 which turned 30% of adults into weak-willed moral degenerates, and more and more every year? Is that actually plausible in an era with unsurpassed interest in healthy eating, where people voluntarily exercise more than they ever have, with better quality food than we have ever had?
The original researchers who suggested a mass trial of the potato diet over social media aptly said "the study of obesity is the study of mysteries". They're investigating some high-risk hypotheses that chemical contaminants are the cause of skyrocketing obesity. Worth a read.
> People in the 1800s did have diets that were very different from ours. But by conventional wisdom, their diets were worse, not better. They ate more bread and almost four times more butter than we do today. They also consumed more cream, milk, and lard. This seems closely related to observations like the French Paradox — the French eat a lot of fatty cheese and butter, so why aren’t they fatter and sicker?
https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-hunger-p...
...actually when you put it like that it sounds pretty plausible. Ronald Regan was elected in 1980, officially beginning the Reign of the Boomers.
...With the election of a GI president? Boomers didn't take over until Clinton.
For example, I put on about 20lbs early in the pandemic just from being around the house and being able to snack all the time, plus having ice cream a lot in the evenings before bed (I don't think I was particularly "stress eating", but maybe more like... boredom eating?). And yes, if a dietician or trainer had had me keep a food log, this would have clearly shown up and it would have been obvious what needed to change.
What actually worked for me, though, was not just cutting out the snacking but also shifting my mindset back to a place where I'm okay with being slightly hungry some of the time. Like, it's okay to feel peckish in the afternoon— it's not a problem that needs to be solved by having a snack, it's just a sign that I'm going to be good and hungry come dinner time. Same in the evening: I don't need to go to bed stuffed, I can just make sure to eat a solid dinner, and then plan on eating well at breakfast in the morning. That plus some protein shakes and getting more cardio (swimming, cycling), and I've been steadily shedding about a pound a week; I'm now below my pre-pandemic weight.
* You can't sell a book with just 6 words in it
* People will pay you a lot of money if you can convince them they don't have to do that
Unless you have a way of motivating most people to follow this advice, day in and day out, it will not be a solution.