Obese Monkeys Lose Weight On Drug That Attacks Blood Supply of Fat Cells

Person begins to diet, they actually do lose weight (rather than just the usual water weight), but up to 25% of the weight they lose is actually lean mass, that is muscle. Your body devours itself when it is lacking caloric input, via fat reserves, and muscle tissue. In order to minimise the muscle loss and maximise fat loss, you need to be doing an appropriate amount of strength training, as well as eating enough protein.

The worst possible outcome is that you do a number of cycles of a diet, with zero strength training, and every time you gain weight after a diet, you've gained more fat, and are now the proud owner of a body with even less lean mass.

Muscle burns energy even when idle, fat does not. So you are spot on, the easiest way to lose fat is to gain muscle mass. Most of us are physically piss weak and shouldn't be.

Q: Does adding muscle burn more calories?

A: "Some of this also comes from the still gross misconception that ‘muscle burns a ton of calories’ (a myth I took apart in Dissecting the Energy Needs of the Body – Research Review). That is, they hope to jack up metabolic rate by increasing muscle mass. Which is a futile activity because the effect is minimal (on top of the fact that the obese are already carrying extra muscle mass). A pound of muscle burns about 6 calories at rest, you have to add a ton to impact on metabolic rate (see also the next issue I discuss, low metabolic rate isn’t a problem). And that takes a lot of time, time better spent focusing on active fat loss."

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/training-the-obese...

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/research-review/dissecting-...

I do daily exercise, have done strength training for years, and am careful of what I eat and how much of it — even with this scheme it’s not easy to keep my weight at its present level, so while I’m definitely physically fit, it is a big struggle to avoid gaining weight.

If I compare my activities, food intake, etc. to those of my slim peers, it’s clear that the cards are just stacked differently.

Willpower can stop you from originally gaining the weight, but once on, it's a different story, and one that society doesn't really solve yet in a repeatable fashion.