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No reasonable person has ever argued against eating less calories. It's just that "less calories" is not a meal you can eat. The conversation is about translat

No reasonable person has ever argued against eating less calories. It's just that "less calories" is not a meal you can eat. The conversation is about translating "less calories" into a list of foods to eat and schedule to eat them. When you design such a schedule you must address things such as the person's health and well being, energy levels, feasibility and convenience, cost, and difficulty of commitment. So when you say just eat "less calories" you've stated the obvious and left the actual question as an exercise to the reader. Nutrition is trying to answer that question.

bumholio 8y ago
No, not a reasonable person, but a person inclined to fall for diet fads, i.e 90% of the general population. Counting calories is hard, and it's OK to come up with methods to make the effect of calorie restriction easier obtain by the general public. What's not OK is to then proclaim "Calorie counting does not work". The nutrition gurus might understand that figuratively, "calorie counting is an impractical weight loss method for most people that lack the self discipline it requires long term". But when the general public is exposed to these ideas, the takeaway is magical thinking, "bad" calories you cannot touch versus "good" calories that you can gorge on. It's something very satisfying to believe, it's a shortcut. It's not my fault and my choices, it's industry X that is making all of us fat. It's an "epidemic".
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > What's not ok is to then proclaim "Calorie counting does not work". It's literally true in the way intervention effectiveness is usually measured, as imperfect execution is included as a source of failure.
- seventhtiger 8y ago
  You have created a strawman and attacked a nonexistent demographic. You might be underestimating the vast majority of people. When someone is overweight and they say calorie counting doesn't work that mean it really doesn't work. They're not saying they do it perfectly with no results. They're saying that they can't stick with it. Then they try a "fad diet" and suddenly they are eating less calories but they no longer get overwhelming cravings or feel drained. I think we need more fad diets to get people to try different things because so far we haven't made any progress on the perfect weight loss "just eat less" plan. The more diets we have the more likely someone is to try something and find something that works for them.

bumholio 8y ago

No, not a reasonable person, but a person inclined to fall for diet fads, i.e 90% of the general population. Counting calories is hard, and it's OK to come up with methods to make the effect of calorie restriction easier obtain by the general public. What's not OK is to then proclaim "Calorie counting does not work". The nutrition gurus might understand that figuratively, "calorie counting is an impractical weight loss method for most people that lack the self discipline it requires long term". But when the general public is exposed to these ideas, the takeaway is magical thinking, "bad" calories you cannot touch versus "good" calories that you can gorge on. It's something very satisfying to believe, it's a shortcut. It's not my fault and my choices, it's industry X that is making all of us fat. It's an "epidemic".

dragonwriter 8y ago
> What's not ok is to then proclaim "Calorie counting does not work". It's literally true in the way intervention effectiveness is usually measured, as imperfect execution is included as a source of failure.
seventhtiger 8y ago
You have created a strawman and attacked a nonexistent demographic. You might be underestimating the vast majority of people. When someone is overweight and they say calorie counting doesn't work that mean it really doesn't work. They're not saying they do it perfectly with no results. They're saying that they can't stick with it. Then they try a "fad diet" and suddenly they are eating less calories but they no longer get overwhelming cravings or feel drained. I think we need more fad diets to get people to try different things because so far we haven't made any progress on the perfect weight loss "just eat less" plan. The more diets we have the more likely someone is to try something and find something that works for them.