FOR the past century, the advice to the overweight and obese has remained remarkably consistent: consume fewer calories than you expend and you will lose weight. This prescription seems eminently reasonable. The only problem is that it doesn’t seem to work. Neither eating less nor moving more reverses the course of obesity in any but the rarest cases.
This contradiction has given us a catalogue of clinical literature almost mind-boggling in its internal inconsistency. “Dietary therapy remains the cornerstone of [obesity] treatment and the reduction of energy intake continues to be the basis of successful weight reduction programs,” observes
