it's still extremely difficult for him to get people to take what he says about his experiences with food and exercise seriously.

For how many people was it extremely easy?

I maintain a healthy weight with zero effort, and I have a friend for whom The Hacker's Diet worked perfectly. I thought losing weight was a matter of eating less than you burn.

Then I read Eliezer's two posts. Oops, I thought. There's no reason intake reduction has to work without severe and continuing side-effects.