I don’t think anyone needs to diet. What one needs is a little bit of knowledge about what certain processed foods are doing to our pancreas.
One needs to deplete the glycogen storage before the body burns fat. An example of depleting the Glycogen storage in a traumatic way is when a marathon runner, “hits the wall” and collapses at the end of a race. There is no glucose in the body.
The body will always mobilize tissue to maintain glucose levels to feed the brain, but people do not lose weight because they don’t understand what’s going on inside.
They buy Nutra Systems. They lose their 25 lbs, then stop and gain it back. They don’t understand why a low carb, high protein diet works.
A lot of it depends on the genes. Some people’s bodies are really geared towards storage. Some people have really high metabolisms and not only can eat constantly but must. I have a body that’s geared towards endurance athletics, very little explosion (ie, I don’t do anything fast, can’t jump for crap) but I can keep going and going at anything for basically ever. Did a 54 mile bike ride in July in my 40s and wasn’t even sore, tired and needed to sit for a while and grab some nosh, but no pain. All of which sounds great on paper but in practice it kind of sucks because what it means is I have a very slow metabolism, I don’t burn as many calories in any physical activity as one would expect, and my body stores EVERYTHING. I can eat 2 mid-sized meals a day, no snacks, swim hard for half an hour and gain weight. I either need to do a LOT of exercise everyday, or eat so little I’m painfully hungry. And the math only gets harder as the normal process of aging slows my metabolism even further.
Which is again why the studies are telling us it’s not weight, it’s ability. Outside of the weight and some flexibility issues (working on those) I’m in fantastic shape and if I’ve managed to avoid some of my families other genetic pitfalls I should live to a ripe old age, but I ain’t gonna be skinny while I do it.