Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss

For me weightloss worked over a long period of time with a couple of strategies.

1. One was not eating breakfast, this works well when I'm in the office. Then you have fasting built into your daily routine. This has many metabolic benefits.

2. Switching to a low carb diet (keto). I never thought I'd quit eating bread, but reducing carbonhydrates (esp. sugar) and eating more eggs & meat had the biggest effect on my weight. More so than doing sports. This is just a rough guideline, I don't follow this very strictly.

3. Sports + Fasting: Sometimes on the weekends I go on a hike or do some sports and only eat when I get home in the afternoon (e.g. steak). This forces my body to take the energy from the fat reserves.

I don't understand why I get downvotes for that. Those are the things I did in the past two years to get to my dream weight and hold it without yoyo effect.

because "this worked for me" is a poor premise, especially if you're talking about an extreme diet (keto)

I'm not an expert on this topic, so take it with a grain of salt. The reason a low carb diet works for many people (not necessarily extreme keto) is that it reduces the volatility of blood sugar levels, and this results in fewer cravings and being less tired over the day. So taking in fewer calories becomes easier. And then I learned about gluconeogenesis. The body can create glucose on its own and perfectly regulates glucose levels in the brain, etc., once it switches to that mode.

In the end, these tips help to get into a different lifestyle and then reinforce the habits to stay there because it feels better.

This is pretty extreme. :-)

The magic is that just counting calories basically leads to the same outcome: less carbs and sugary stuff, less fatty meats, more lean meat, more veggies, etc.