brynndragon | (Reply)

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You do things to shift your body into a higher calorie processing mode. Exercise is the obvious thing; I believe the baseline (non-active) calorie consumption of muscle mass is much higher than other tissues. There's some suggestion that walking/hiking/running (bone impact) triggers some hormones that specifically increase metabolism rate. And you make sure to eat reasonably healthfully and not eat things your body doesn't need. That has two wins: a) if you're getting all your micronutrients, you're less likely to feel hungry when you have enough calories (mind you, habit can be a bitch to break), and b) I believe (no evidence here) that just being in better health will tend to improve your weight.

But I have an intense aversion to starving yourself. It strikes me as being based on an extremely (and obviously) simplistic view of this large collection of feedback systems known as the human body.