_Keeping it off_ book

Ignoramus13725 wrote:
:: I am reading a book _Keeping it Off_ by Robert Colvin and Susan
:: Olson. This is an old book from 1985, I bought it used from Amazon.
::
:: The book is excellent and a summary of it is available at
::
:: http://www.geocities.com/jenny_the_bean/success.htm
::

Do you recommend the book if one has read the summary?

:: The book is a great read and I highly recommend it. It describes what
:: is common amongst successful maintainers, which are defined as
:: people who
::
:: - lost over 20% of body weight
:: - kept it off for 2 years
:: - are not more than 5 lbs away from their lowest weight
::
:: The discuss the traits amongst those successful people, how they
:: think about weight loss, what they do, what they do not do etc.
::
:: There are very few books about weight maintenance, probably because
:: so few people can get to the point where they need to maintain
:: weight,
:: and even fewer of them actually maintain the loss. According to
:: authors, only 2% of those who started dieting can maintain
:: successfully for 2 years.
::
:: Unfortunately, the authors are psychologists, and looked at those
:: successful dieters from only psychological point of view. (I am not
:: done with the book yet). I wish they tried to look at the somatic
:: differences, if any, between successful and unsuccessful dieters.
::
:: It also does not do a good enough job at comparing those successful
:: people with controls who have not managed to be as successful. So,
:: they could fall into a trap of describing their common traits that
:: did not make a difference. Both of them had prior clinical
:: experience with "treating" obese dieters, with little (average)
:: success, so,
:: hopefully, they could detect those success traits based on their
:: experience.
::
:: All in all, it is a great common sense book that describes what
:: works.
::
:: The great majority of maintainers lost weight on their own, not on
:: any sort of commercial programs. All of them had an epiphany at some
:: point, which has been my experience exactly. They are all very aware
:: of their current weight and they actively manage it. Again, my
:: experience. They moved away from food obsessions and food takes
:: little place in their life, which I cannot say yet about myself,
:: although it has been getting a tad better later.

It would be nice if the authors, or someone, would revise the book in 2005.
20 years of new data and obesity research ought to have produced some
insights.