I think the calculator is useful, however the rest of the article is already familiar information. I wonder what is different from Chow's work and other work about metabolism -- the idea of three years to stabilize weight?

Many diet programs ignore changing metabolism. Typically the first and second week of a diet brings about the most weight loss, then you typically lose about one pound if you follow the program exactly. Eat a few extra of something and you will not lose any weight. If you ate a few extra something during the first or second week, you will still lose several pounds.

Many commercial diet plans, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, etc. do not utilize this information. I do not see how they could fully incorporate the three years that it takes for your body to stabilize its weight into their diet plan. No one would tolerate the length of time necessary. Yet when you look at the success rate of people on plans like Weight Watchers (provided by WW) the statistics for someone maintaining their weight three years later is extremely low. In essence, they are ineffective.