Originally Posted by Leisesturm

My point isn't to collect exceptions to my point. I mean ... look at how far you people have to reach to find them ... seriously ... 200 watts for an hour? ... how many people with 50lbs. to lose are capable for sustaining ... hell attaining, 200 watts output? Rowing? I average 80 to 100 watts @30spm, and do intervals where I might hit 150W peaks. I challenge the average punter do do better than that. But come on, we are talking about using up excess calories on a daily basis, not post Strava KOM's. The 50lbs on your waist might be appear to be static avoirdupois but everyday, people are adding 1600 to 2000 and more (lots more) to the metabolic balance sheet and some of that is bound to wind up as 'static' avoirdupois on their stomach and backsides. It is a moving target that people are trying to treat like a fixed one. HIIT is great if you can. Those who can, don't seem to have a lot of understanding of how special their situation is.

Since you must also address the ongoing daily intake of calories, the best way to do that is through some kind of balanced food intake reduction. Not 'low carb', not 'vegan', not anything special, except a balanced reduction in food intake. Fairly drastic reduction at that. I know a couple of sedentary women that have ONE meal a day and are not skinny! Just one meal can provide sufficient calories to maintain weight. The main reason a Keto diet isn't sustainable long term is because of the geo-politics of agriculture. A meat/fat based diet is simply financially unsustainable for most Americans. In much of the world people pay rent by the year. And what they pay in a year is what an American pays in a month. And I'm not talking about Cambodia or Bangladesh.

Maybe in Western Europe you aren't going to pay $1200/yr. for rent, but you are NOT going to pay $2500 for a root canal. You don't HAVE to have a $30K car to get to work everyday. You can afford meat, butter, eggs, etc. to excess. Americans think they can, but every month they are going >$500 in debt on their credit cards to sustain what isn't even a Middle Class lifestyle anymore. Without even realizing it we bias our diets to the carby side of things because it is more financially sustainable to do so. Carbs are cheaper sources of nutrition. Period. Keto appeals to those who (think they can) afford it like many behaviors humans engage in. The Achilles heels of all these 'diets' being discussed is that by definition they are term limited. Once a specific goal of weight reduction or blood pressure level or blood sugar level ... once the 'goal' has been reached, the person subjected to the torture is only too happy to end the diet program and ... well you all read these forum posts just like I do. How many are on their second and third cycles of weight gain/loss? At the end of the day, prevention is always better than cure. Do not allow yourself to become morbidly obese, because getting it under control is way more difficult than it is being made out to be here. It's damn hard, and fairly expensive to do. But even more important is to realize that, like a recovered alcoholic, once you have come back from morbidly obese territory, the methods that brought about the weight loss must be normalized. You can never 'eat normally' again. That sounds awful but its all in the interpretation. I didn't have 50lbs. to lose but I do have an A1C that I'd like to get below 6 and keep it there. The way I eat and the exercise regimen that I have adopted have to be maintained for as long as I live. That's just the way it is.

Edit: Bonus weight loss and Super Saver tip: whatever you served yourself for dinner ... eat half of it, and eat the other half for lunch the next day!