NY Biker, I totally agree with the response article from the Atlantic.
I am one of those people.
I lost 25 lbs. when I was 25 years old and I never regained it, even after being pregnant; I lost the pregnancy weight in 4 months, both times. And I did this by exactly what the article described. Losing weight at a glacial pace ( a year), changing my eating habits for good, and starting to exercise regularly.
When I started gaining again in my mid forties, I got disgusted with myself and I was bored with my exercise. That's when I started cycling and it didn't take me more than a year to get back to a reasonable weight for my size. While I didn't look as "big" as I did when I had to lose the weight the first time, because I was exercising, albeit, in a half-assed way, there is a picture of the 4 of us, about 2 years before DH started cycling and maybe 3 or 4 years before I did, that scares the crap out of both of us. We take it out as a reminder about why we have to be diligent. I will post it here if I can find it.