5 ms·

If it’s about calories then just say it. “High calorie foods are unhealthy” makes perfect sense. This vague “ultra processed” definition is confusing.

jfengel 5y ago
The problem is that they've been saying "eat less calories" for decades, and it hasn't fixed the problem. Why? Lots of reasons, one if which is that calorie counting is hard. Totting up every calorie you eat is incredibly tedious. "Eat fewer calories" would be less onerous, but only if you're eating regular and consistent meals so that it's easy to identify what "less" means. So they try to give easy-to-follow advice, like "eat fewer foods with a lot of calories". How do you identify those? Well, they're the ones that have been through a lot of industrial processes that take out not-fun stuff (water, fiber) and add in a lot of things that are purified to the calorie-rich parts (sugar, oil, butter). They're looking for another way to say "Don't go to McDonald's and don't eat candy bars or drink soda" for a long time. If those are things that you do, and you stop it, you will almost certainly lose weight. But we can't even get people to do that, even though it's been the same advice for decades. "Ultra processed foods" are convenience foods. If "convenience foods" were to be their next iteration of the advice, I'd be fine with that. It's not about the fundamental nutrition; they've been trying to get people to do the same thing for decades without any headway. It's about communication and persuasion, which are far harder jobs.
- lbotos 5y ago
  The problem with calorie counting is that we cannot reason about what a calorie looks like. what does 1 calorie of ice cream looks like? What about 1 calorie of broccoli? 1 calorie of steak? The solution is to switch to a macro focused diet, which still uses calories under the hood. With Macros you'll get a target of x g fats / y g protein / z g carbs which makes it much easier for a person to learn and reason about the food they are eating by sight and weight. The second factor is, our much more sedentary lifestyle means that often a 2000 calorie diet is 200-400 calories off or a lot of people.
  - jfengel 5y ago
    Counting anything is hard, so I prefer to develop a feel for it, if you can. Cut the obvious junk. Cook more for yourself, with more focus on vegetables. Don't worry about trying to limit yourself; just aim for sensible foods. Try that alone for a few months, and see if your weight stabilizes and declines a little, which it should. If that works, you can start substituting more processed stuff, as a treat or convenience. There you can look at calories or macros to help: "Ok, I was going to eat dinner, which is ordinarily around 800-1000 calories. This frozen pizza is... holy crap!" Have it anyway; you just know what it means now. Overall, what I recommend is not to go on a restrictive diet, but to start eating for the weight you wish to be, and plan to remain there forever. (If you're a lot overweight, you may need to do that in stages.) A lot of people want to diet and then switch to a maintenance phase. I think it's better to go directly to maintenance, and let that asymptotically lower your weight. You suffer less and thus bounce back less. But that's just my $.02. This is all brain stuff; whatever persuades you to eat right and exercise is good.

jfengel 5y ago

The problem is that they've been saying "eat less calories" for decades, and it hasn't fixed the problem. Why? Lots of reasons, one if which is that calorie counting is hard. Totting up every calorie you eat is incredibly tedious. "Eat fewer calories" would be less onerous, but only if you're eating regular and consistent meals so that it's easy to identify what "less" means. So they try to give easy-to-follow advice, like "eat fewer foods with a lot of calories". How do you identify those? Well, they're the ones that have been through a lot of industrial processes that take out not-fun stuff (water, fiber) and add in a lot of things that are purified to the calorie-rich parts (sugar, oil, butter). They're looking for another way to say "Don't go to McDonald's and don't eat candy bars or drink soda" for a long time. If those are things that you do, and you stop it, you will almost certainly lose weight. But we can't even get people to do that, even though it's been the same advice for decades. "Ultra processed foods" are convenience foods. If "convenience foods" were to be their next iteration of the advice, I'd be fine with that. It's not about the fundamental nutrition; they've been trying to get people to do the same thing for decades without any headway. It's about communication and persuasion, which are far harder jobs.

lbotos 5y ago
The problem with calorie counting is that we cannot reason about what a calorie looks like. what does 1 calorie of ice cream looks like? What about 1 calorie of broccoli? 1 calorie of steak? The solution is to switch to a macro focused diet, which still uses calories under the hood. With Macros you'll get a target of x g fats / y g protein / z g carbs which makes it much easier for a person to learn and reason about the food they are eating by sight and weight. The second factor is, our much more sedentary lifestyle means that often a 2000 calorie diet is 200-400 calories off or a lot of people.
- jfengel 5y ago
  Counting anything is hard, so I prefer to develop a feel for it, if you can. Cut the obvious junk. Cook more for yourself, with more focus on vegetables. Don't worry about trying to limit yourself; just aim for sensible foods. Try that alone for a few months, and see if your weight stabilizes and declines a little, which it should. If that works, you can start substituting more processed stuff, as a treat or convenience. There you can look at calories or macros to help: "Ok, I was going to eat dinner, which is ordinarily around 800-1000 calories. This frozen pizza is... holy crap!" Have it anyway; you just know what it means now. Overall, what I recommend is not to go on a restrictive diet, but to start eating for the weight you wish to be, and plan to remain there forever. (If you're a lot overweight, you may need to do that in stages.) A lot of people want to diet and then switch to a maintenance phase. I think it's better to go directly to maintenance, and let that asymptotically lower your weight. You suffer less and thus bounce back less. But that's just my $.02. This is all brain stuff; whatever persuades you to eat right and exercise is good.