I heard a talk today by Professor at one of our local college's. And she gave a lot of interesting facts about weight/weight loss/exercise. A few of the things were like, okay now that makes sense.
One thing she is said (all of these studies were on a national level, and published in medical journals) is that ALL diets regardless of which one it is Low Calorie (calorie counting), Atikins, Zone...any of those will eventually plateau. There hasn't been a lot of research on why but she said early evidence is pointing to the fact that the brain see's that you are in a deficit and is able to somehow go into survival mode. Essentially your brain see's it as you could potentially die, so it is able to somehow slow or halt weight loss. And that makes sense to me.
Also they did a study on women who exercised vs. those who didn't over 13 years and found that regardless of whether they exercised or not both groups gained an average of 5 pounds over the 13 years.
There was more but these two things were interesting. It doesn't make sense that weight loss is so hard when you think about it, but statistically even those who lose weight will gain it back and even a little more. It makes you wonder how to by pass some of the information in the brain. Its sending and recieving so much information all the time on the condition of the body, that it almost seems its the barrier!! Just thought I would share. I find this stuff interesting for some reason.