If you’re overweight, you’ve probably heard the adage just “eat less, move more.”

Unfortunately this saying will do nothing to help you progress.

At its most basic, weight lossisabout “eating less and moving more.”

Weight is lost when you expend more calories than you consume.

This is known as creating acaloric deficit.

However, this is where the simplicity ends.Dr.

This advice doesn’t work though.

Yes you have to do those things but telling people to do that in of itself is useless.

There are strong biological/environmental factors at play working against that very advice.

Having obesity isn’t just some decision that people wake up and decide on.

The truth is that the phrase “eat less, move more” is harmful.

There are countless amounts of physiological, psychological, and environmental factors at play.

Obesity is not just a choice that one makes.

The difficulty of weight lossshould not be an excuse not to improve.

Failure to do so is simply a lack of trying.

*There’s relatively recent research to suggest that the concept ofwillpower may just be in your head.

This is just one data point out of tons of research on the subject.

Regardless, it still makes senseto believe that willpower is finite.

What happens when we rely on willpower?

Nor does he have a firm target weight in mind.

He just wants to lose weightthe faster the better.

The pounds seem to fly off Dan’s body at first24 pounds in just six weeks.

His wife jokes that he loses a pound every time he takes a shower.

But there’s something Dan doesn’t know: his diet has already failed him.

Because he’s hungry all the time, his adherence gets a little worse every day.

And because he’s been over 200 pounds his entire adult life, Dan’s metabolism fights back.

That’s what happens when you toss a firecracker into the hornet’s nest of homeostasis.

Similarly, when you eat a lot, your appetite should decrease.

Combined, the effects are supposed to allow you to achieve a somewhat stable weight.

However, this has an implication for weight loss: your body will fight back proportionately against your success.

Dan is relying on willpower.

He’s trying to battle nature by eating less and moving more.

In the battle of nature vs. willpower, nature always wins.

Dan may have created a positive feedback loop at the start, but it was unsustainable.

He probably got extremely hungry and found it increasingly difficult to lose weight.

Undoubtedly, life also got in the way.

At this point, his feedback loop became unsustainable.

No one can rely on willpower forever.

Willpower is the ignition that gets a car started, not the gasoline that keeps it moving.

It should be protected at all costs through the creation of habit and the motivation-perpetuating positive feedback loop.

Sure, they may sound like healthy activities, but many times the opposite is true.

We’ve already talked about the relativeunimportance of exercise when it comes to weight loss.

Then don’t run.

Don’t like giving up pizza?

Then figure out a way to fit it into your diet.

Don’t like salads?

Get your vegetables elsewhere.

Images byWilliam Ismael,jacsonquerubin, andJurgen Appelo.