My entire family speaks of the “curse,” since the vast majority of us are prone to putting on weight. Though my cousin is a bodybuilder, and my father and I possess “neanderthal strength,” due to our natural builds. (Though we’re not very tall. I’m taller than my father at 5’7.) In the police force he was known as “mad dog,” though I’m so mild I never acquired such a name. Though I do LOOK like a bulldog, or perhaps a friendly gorilla.
Some people are just made to carry weight, and to gain weight, but it can certainly be overcome through proper dieting and exercise.
A few people manage to lose a lot of weight and keep it off. Many are on file at the National Weight Loss Registry. When you look at how these people lost weight and maintain the loss, it involves quite a lot of exercise and pretty drastic food restriction (about 1200 to 1400 calories a day pretty much forever). I would love for those who say it’s a simple deal to try it for a couple of weeks, let alone for years.
Most people can change their weight to a small degree but often have trouble maintaining that loss. They find that they have to continually decrease their caloric intake, and still sometimes they start re-gaining weight because their bodies become quite thrifty about burning calories.
There is an old book on setpoint called The Dieter’s Dilemma: Eating Less and Weighing More by William Bennett and Joel Gurin.