I've been studying this peripherally for the past year or two. Nothing too scientific but, yes, methodical little experiments here and there. I might put-up a

I've been studying this peripherally for the past year or two. Nothing too scientific but, yes, methodical little experiments here and there. I might put-up a website to see if my thoughts help others. I think I would say that my first finding is perhaps an obvious one: The very first requirement for weight loss is behavior modification. Obvious from the outside. But I think the reality is that from the inside, if you will, a person can focus too much on the wrong behaviors. For example, if you need to work out for an hour a day, five days a week to loose weight the entire endeavor is destined to fail from inception. That is not a sustainable modification in behavior but for a few individuals for whom the new regime becomes a fun part of their lives. Health clubs make their money by signing-up ten times more people that will fit into their buildings and they can do this because they know that people will not stick with the program. The other finding might be that fast weight loss is another formula for failure. My opinion is that fat loss should take one to two years. Many reasons for this. Perhaps the most important of them is what I mentioned above: behavior modification. Without permanently changing the way you do things, failure is guaranteed. Slow weight loss allows you to have a long "conversation with yourself", if you will, where you explore strengths, weaknesses, desires, success, failure, ideas, methods and, in general, converge on a path that is sustainable. And that's the third idea: Converge on a long term sustainable solution. No solution is worth the effort and expense if it makes you do things that you can't reasonably do for the rest of your life. Signing-up for programs that ship you food on a weekly basis is not a way to live your life. What if you travel or don't have the money? Going to the gym 10 hours a week is ridiculous for most of us. That is not a long-term solution. Living on beans and lettuce and diet drinks is, well, not living. A long and carefully managed process of converging on a sustainable solution has major benefits that can and should last for the rest of your life. You should be able to pig out during the holidays and have that slice of cheesecake or ice-cream when you want to. However, your long-term modified behavior should kick-in with enough regularly to guide you back onto that sustainable long-term path I was talking about. I don't know what the motivation behind a lot of these studies might be. Sometimes it seems that all they are after is a pill or a new surgery they can sell you. Humans don't need any of that to maintain healthy body composition, they just need to do the right things, nature and biology will take care of the rest.