sarah_TO said:

Order of operations matters more than any single choice here: establish a baseline, change one thing, wait long enough for it to express itself, then…

That is right, and it stops being right at the edges. The general case is well behaved; the interesting cases in this thread are all at the boundary where the general case breaks.

jason_paloalto said:

Agreed on the target, with the caveat that reference weight and current weight are different numbers.

Saving this. It is the first explanation that did not require me to already understand it. Printing the relevant bit and taking it with me.

sarah_TO said:

Order of operations matters more than any single choice here: establish a baseline, change one thing, wait long enough for it to express itself, then…

This is where I part company with the consensus forming above. The counter-case has not been addressed. Somebody upthread described the situation that does not fit, and the thread moved on rather than engaging with it, which is the failure mode this board is supposed to avoid.

If somebody has the primary source to hand I would rather cite it than paraphrase it.

Adding the numbers, since they settle part of this. Keep the original post as written when you update it, and add the correction underneath. An edited-away mistake is invisible to the next person who makes it.

Moderator note: reminder that nothing in this thread is medical advice, and that clinical claims need a source. Carry on.