> The interesting thing is when this breaks down. Obviously if you eat a weeks worth of food every day for a sustained period of time, you will start to gain weight. Or if you run 12 miles every day, you will be in such a deficit that it won't be possible to lower your metabolism enough. Outside of the extremes, I think it's a cliff, where you have to have some kind of shock for some period of time for your body to react.

Objectively, I don't think this is accurate.

Most people who are overweight got that way slowly.

Dr Mike[1]'s theory is that modern processed food is to blame - not because it's unhealthy, but because it's too tasty. Companies that make food are in an evolutionary arms race with other companies to get consumers to choose their products. And one of the best ways to do that is to make the food as tasty as possible.

Another things many companies probably try to optimize their food for is low satiety[2]. That way consumers consume, and therefore buy, more of their products.

---

1. From Renaissance Periodization

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satiety_value

In addition to food being much tastier than ever before, it’s also much cheaper. Despite current inflation and cost of living concerns, we spend far less on food than any time in history. Food in the 1960 was almost twice as expensive as it is today. Food costs used to be higher than housing costs!

https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2020/november/average-s...

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/how-ame...