This article by Steve Connor was in The Independent on Tuesday
21st.I thought you might find it interesting-


Bad news for people trying to lose weight. A new assessment of
how the body responds to dieting shows that it is about twice as
difficult as previously thought to shed fat.


The calculations also puncture the myth that cutting calories
will lead to continued weight loss. In fact, the effect of
reducing the intake of calories levels off after about three
years, scientists said.

Obesity experts had previously suggested that cutting 100
kilocalories a day from the diet for six months would lead to the
loss of about 5lb in weight. But it turns out that this amount of
weight loss is more likely to take a year and that any further
weight loss will reach a plateau after three years, rather the
continuing forever at the same rate.

"People have used this rule of thumb for how to lose weight for
decades and it turns out to be completely wrong," said Kevin
Hall, a mathematical modeler at the US National Institute of
Diabetes and Kidney Diseases in Maryland. "The reason it's wrong
is that it doesn't account for the metabolic changes that take
place when people change their diet. If you cut the calories in
someone's diet, the metabolism slows down and it slows down the
more weight that is lost until it reaches a plateau."

A popular misconception is that overweight or obese people have a
slower metabolism, which would mean that they do not burn off the
calories as fast as leaner people. In fact, the fatter someone
is, the higher their metabolism is likely to be be, Dr Hall told
the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"Unlike the popular notion out there that heavier people have
slower metabolism, the heavier you are the more calories you are
burning," he said. "And the more of that mass is lean tissue
compared to fat tissue, the more calories still you are burning
– and obese people tend to have both an elevated fat mass and
an elevated lean-tissue mass."

Thats all for now

Regards


Biodun Ogunyemi
ANLP,BNLP,SNLP,C.H,Dip.Hyp