Second, what Dean and Elizabeth are asking for is not "moving the goal posts." Dean asked for this:

The fact of the matter is that an incredible number of studies have been done with all sorts of programs, and NONE can consistently reverse obesity beyond a relatively small number of pounds.

Klem, Wing et al does not provide it. Klem, Wing et al  examines data in the National Weight Control Registry containing people who have been successful at losing large amounts of weight, doing so using a variety of different methods and programs. The paper is attempting to determine how they have been successful, as similar studies on long term HIV+ survivors have done. The latter studies don’t leap to the conclusion that HIV is not a fatal disease; similarly Klem, Wing et al doesn’t conclude that it is likely for people to diet and exercise and keep the weight off permanently. It even recognizes what Dean, Elizabeth and others have been saying about the failure of dieting. The study states:

Unfortunately, long-term follow-up indicates that most patients return to their baseline weights within 3-5 y after the end of treatment.

What Klem, Wing et al does do is provide a rebuttal to Dean’s statement:

I’m pointing to what all the data says, which is that even people who exercise regularly as part of a permanent lifestyle change, and who change their diets as part of a permanent lifestyle change, will never lose more than 5-40 pounds and keep it off.

By not qualifying the word "people" with "most" Dean’s statement was a bit too broad; Klem, Wing et al shows that it is possible for some people to keep the weight off. The paper examines how they have done it – and there doesn’t appear to be anything more than cutting calories, changing eating habits and being "highly active."

So why hasn’t that worked for the vast majority of people? Klem, Wing et al don’t say.  What will work for them? We don’t know.

It’s akin to the problem we have with AA – long term sobriety rates are abysmal, but it’s the best method we’ve found so far that works for some (less than 20% of people). Does that mean that 80% of drunks lack willpower? Does that mean that we know everything there is to know about alcoholism? Of course not.

To state that cutting calories, watching what we eat, and becoming "highly active" is no different than telling a drunk "just don’t drink," and apparently just as effective.

http://www.nutritionj.com/content/3/1/9
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18307855?ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17260010?ordinalpos=10&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v30/n11/abs/0803326a.html

Surely you will now show me the article documenting the successful intervention?

I’m sorry, it still doesn’t fly.  A study relying on self-report out of an entire population doesn’t at all represent what Dean and I are looking for.  If you don’t get that, I’m not sure that I can explain it to you any more clearly than I have.

Rather than waiting for me to accept this study, why don’t you find one that conforms what I was actually asking for?  One that documented an intervention and showed that any significant percentage of the obese people in the study lost weight and kept it off long-term?  Is there a reason you can’t produce that?

The reason I keep mentioning anorexia, since I need to spell it out for you, is that it is OBVIOUS that it is possible for some people to exercise the strength of will to essentially keep themselves in a short-ration prison camp for life, and anorexics are a ready (if pathological) example.  What is not clear is that it is possible for most people to do it.  It’s possible for some people to run a three-minute mile, but that doesn’t mean that with all the support and training and intervention in the world that it is possible for most people.  Do you get this at all? 

Anyway, if what passes off here as physiological fact in humans is some RNAi experiment in FRUIT FLIES it really doesn’t matter what we present, and how directly applicable to humans it is.  As we just saw a massively accepted article reporting sigificant weight loss and maintenance of the lost weight in HUMANS has been brushed aside because it doesn’t fit the ‘it’s not the obese person’s fault’ script.  

Seriously Dean, if you believe a piece of work done in fruit flies is at all representative of physiological reality in humans, then you’re scientific understanding is moored on the moon.  Fruit flies aren’t used because they in any way mirror human physiology, contrairy to what that article you linked to claimed.  They are used in research because their genome is sequenced, they’re an established model system that has all kinds of genetic resources available to it, they’re small, have a very fast generation time, and exceedingly cheap to maintain and work with.  

If fruit flies even remotely represented physiological reality in humans the FDA would accept trials on them as a level of clinical trials for pharmaceuticals.  NOBODY that I’ve read in my years as an academic researcher has EVER used fruit flies in any sort of trial like that, or even on the academic level to try to extrapolate effect in humans.  It just doesn’t make sense.

I’m not trying to attack you in any way. Like I’ve said I understand it’s difficult to lose weight. But lying to yourself and your readers that it’s impossible for the vast majorit of obese people to lose weight and keep it off is not just factually wrong, but morally disengenuous. You could be using your platform here to help yourself and your readers to live a better lifestyle, instead of wallowing in self pity and resolving yourselves to it’s too hard to lose weight.

If anything I’m fighting FOR YOU by telling you this. At least with what I’m saying you can lose the weight, you just have to develop the willpower to change your lifestyle.

Ditto. Besides, the burden of proof is on them, not us. But even if we provide evidence of our own, they will simply shift the goalposts.

By the way, the study showed an average loss of 30 kg, not pounds, that was maintained long-term. That’s a loss of about 65 lbs, an amount of weight Dean claimed nobody has been able to keep off in 100 years.

I think everyone can plainly see what’s going on now.

To any research group a sample population of >700 is statistically significant.  If you even bothered to read the work you’d have seen that it didn’t ask for people to report only if they lost >30 lbs and kept it off for >5 years.  That would have skewed the data in the way you’re suggesting.  This work doccumented people losing almost no weight, to losing massive amounts of weight.  With the exception of no weight change this report spans the whole specturm of possibilities.

Additionally, this report took in people’s data on weight loss through healthy approaches!  Anorexia is an eating disorder, and not a cited strategy in the work, so I don’t understand why you persist on bringing it up.

Look I provided a hugely accepted peer reviewed article that’s been cited beyond standard expectations of Nature or Science articles.  Even confronted with this article doccumenting >700 successful people, if you don’t believe that a regime of exercise and diet can be successful in losing weight and keeping it off in obese people it really doesn’t matter how much evidence I’d provide to you, or how much detail I provide to you in terms of physiology, metabolism, and nutrition.  You’re going to persist in lying to yourself that it’s impossible for most obese people to lose weight and keep it off.  

Just as a special note I have yet to see a single peer reviewed article supporting any of your outlandish contentions.  Just to be clear, there’s a difference between it’s ‘very hard’ and ‘impossible.’  You are advocating the latter.  

Obese people, while having slightly different metabolic rates compared to healthy individuals still have a metabolism.  They still consume energy to maintain their bodies, and perform daily tasks.  They do not in some sort of SciFi way defy thermodynamics.  Trust me, if they did we would have the solution to the worlds energy crisis in obese people!  This means that it still comes down to calories in – calories out for obese people to lose weight.  

Just to end this, I’ll finish with posing a simple question;  Could the reason why ‘most’ of the obese people you know who fail at losing weight do so because they’ve resolved themselves to the ‘fact’ that they can’t?  In that case it has nothing to do with diet or exercise but rather a motivational issue and which means it’s not impossible but the desire and willpower has to be developed.  You may want to read the article I cited, specifically noting the proportion of the sample group that had a significant life event that motivated them to lose weight.

No, the study you present is not at all what Dean (and I) have been asking for.

The National Weight Control Registry a self-report registry of people who have been able to lose weight and keep it off.  Certainly such individuals exist (as I pointed out earlier, people with anorexia nervosa are so successful at this that sometimes it results in death).  To assess what Dean and I are talking about, you have to compare the number of people who are successful with the number of people who have attempted to reverse their obesity.  The NWCR is useless for this comparison; there is no ‘control group’, unless you want to count the entire population of the USA as the control group, in which case the registry members are an extremely tiny fraction of dieters.

What I’d like to see is a study that starts with a group of obese people, teaches them to do portion control and exercise and whatever else you think constitutes a successful intervention, and ends up with a group of people who are no longer obese and remain so after five years.  Is there any such study that you know of?  Or one where even half of the subjects are no longer obese?  Or even a third?

Any basic scholar.google.com, or pubmed.com search for these sorts of studies will bring up a number of acredited research works doccumenting weight loss in significantly large sample groups.  The purpose of large sample groups is to establish they’re not cherry picking the so called 0.1% you so strongly cling too.  To put it simply, that’s statisitcis.

For a single source I’d suggest you read;
Am J Clin Nutr. 1997 Aug;66(2):239-46.
"A descriptive study of individuals successful at long-term maintenance of substantial weight loss."

To give you an idea of how useful this work was, it has been cited 384 times.  That represents a hugely valuable doccument.  Most Science or Nature articles could only hope to reach that level of citation after 20-30 years. Forget that many citations in just a decade.  

This work doccuments >700 subjects who lost an average of 30 lbs and maintained that lost weight for >5 years.  The strategies varied but they all incorporated diet and exercise.  I believe this piece of work actually duccuments quite well what you’ve asked for. 

If you’re curious about any terminology or have any questions about the methods used I would be more than happy to explain them if the wording is confusing in the article.  

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/66/2/239

Follow the above link to access the article itself.  It’s a freely available article.

I believe this solves the problems.  If you believe so much in the use of apologies, I believe you owe myself and Edgar one.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9250100

Oops, Dean. You still have a change to admit you’re wrong.