7 ms·

While correct and useful advice for some people, this advice is useless for many (I suspect most) overweight and obese people. I'm on the border of overweight/

• mathverse 4y ago
  Have you tried protein heavy diet? Just try drinking protein whey protein powder drinks the whole day for a week and see what it does to you. I dont have a problem with losing weight but It's incredibly difficult and annoying to get lean and burn fat while building muscles. I literally cant force myself to eat more if I try to do at least 200g protein every day. 2xmozarella light (42g protein), 2x66 protein drinks (132) and I am on 174g of protein and I cant force myself to eat anything else.
  • msrenee 4y ago
    It completely depends on your lean weight, but 200g of protein is very high for most people who aren't athletes. I'm not in a state to work out whether the normal chorus saying that much protein will damage your kidneys is true or if I've just heard it enough times that it sounds true. Here's a publication that looks informative, but I haven't worked all the way through it and it may or may not support my presumption that 200 g of protein a day is too much for a male of average height who is not in an intense exercise regimen. https://jasn.asnjournals.org/content/31/8/1667 https://jasn.asnjournals.org/content/31/8/1667
    • netizen-936824 4y ago
      I am not a physician. You don't need to worry about protein intake damaging kidneys unless you have preexisting kidney problems.
    • zemvpferreira 4y ago
      Not to defend (or bash) the proposed extreme diet but as far as we know your kidneys will be fine handling pretty much any amount of protein you can consume unless you have kidney disease. Most of it will end up being converted to glucose via gluconeogenesis. Said diet is certainly better for you than 30 years of fast food, as evidenced by the complete lack of protein-caused-disease in medical case studies opposed to... the obesity epidemic? Don't worry about hypothetical lions around the bend when you're sprinting away from an angry tiger.
      • msrenee 4y ago
        Definitely agree. If it helps control your appetite, it's not worse than continuing to carry all that weight. I just thought I'd throw that paper up because it seemed like a different take than I usually see. And just to stick my nose in and mention that 200 g a day is more protein than the vast majority of people need. My gut would have something to say about all that protein before my kidneys even noticed, honestly.
  • jimmydoreornot 4y ago
• blobbers 4y ago
  Try to take a period of reprograming, where you just stick with it. Also consider a detox. Get all the garbage you don't want to eat out of the house, and insist on not buying it. Whenever you get a craving, just go drink water instead. Lastly, consider carnivore or alternate day fasting. You can get there, if you want to.
  • stjohnswarts 4y ago
    I just want to add that a "detox" as a holistic medicine approach is total bullshit. If you're talking about hitting reset on what you have in your house then that's different. That's just getting rid of temptation.
    • blobbers 4y ago
      Yeah detox your house.
  • krainboltgreene 4y ago
    > Try to take a period of reprograming, where you just stick with it. While I'm sure you mean well, but "just try harder for longer" isn't new advice and certainly not good advice. All evidence we have is that you are entirely unlikely to stick it through. Dopamine is the most powerful mechanism in our existence.
  • lozenge 4y ago
    They said they lost 25kg and your response is "it would have worked if you had kept at it for longer"? Your view is contradicted by the scientific evidence.
  • jimmydoreornot 4y ago
    I have done fasting, I have done alternate day fasting. I have done fast-5. Yes, I can get there if I want to. My point is that "there" is a miserable place, and so I don't stay "there".
    • keybored 4y ago
• xurukefi 4y ago
  It's genetics. I think it's called the set point theory. You're genetically programmed to keep a certain body fat percentage. Anything below (or above) that set point and you're body will regulate your appetite with hormones. You can manipulate this set point with things like diet or exercise, but there is only so much you can do. If you're genetically programmed to keep a body fat percentage of 25% for example you're not gonna have a lot of fun staying below 15%.
  • commandlinefan 4y ago
    You’re being downvoted, but as a genetically lean guy, I believe you’re right. I’ve never been particularly health conscious, but I’ve always been in “decent” shape - I eat the same things fat people eat, it just doesn’t stick to me for whatever cosmically unfair reason. Fat parents have fat kids - a fat five-year-old isn’t fat because he ate too much ice cream, it’s because he’s genetically predisposed to be.
    • gonehome 4y ago
      I don’t think this holds up to scrutiny when you actually look at how much people are eating. What does probably vary is the pleasure people get from eating which then directly relates to how much they do it.
  • jimmydoreornot 4y ago
    I suspect something like that is going on. It is pretty clear to me that there is a strong genetic component. We know the hunger system is very complicated. It's the reason we still don't have a weight loss pill. If you decrease hunger along one channel, the other channels ramp up to compensate. But there also may be other components that we can do something about. For example, perhaps the bacteria in my gut are causing half of my hunger, insisting that I eat bread (because they want it, not I). And if I starve them out on a zero carb diet, I can break free of the excess hunger. Hope springs eternal.
    • MintsJohn 4y ago
      I don't think it's just genetics, or genetics are rapidly changing in the last 100 years. Personally I think it's some combination of gut biome, all than not messed up childhood eating habits (I've been taught to eat till stuffed, not so great in combination with my next point) , and way too calorie heavy (processed) food (it's not a challenge to find food where a quarter package is a healthy amount, way more challenging to find food where they food for a full package) not too mention it's made to keep you eating (so more is sold, sigh) . I'm always surprised people claiming not to have cravings whatever (even when the stuff is put in front of them), or be satiated by eating what for me is half a meal (even when I maintained a normal weight) . Regardless eat less and try harder are hard to keep up, for me personally protein doesn't help to satiate me either. Part of it is that (for me) it's much easier to get into a habit to eat too much than to keep up the habit of eating just enough (I dare say 2+ years of keeping it low is a habit, but now for 3 wars annually 5kg was added: next try keto, hope it works as well as advertised)
• stevebmark 4y ago
  Counting calories may not be correct and useful advice for most people. It ignores what the calories do in your body. As an absurd example, sand is very calorically dense, and you'll lose a lot of weight and then die if it's all you eat. Telling people they "eat too much" is usually ineffective, it just makes people feel bad that they can't tolerate hunger. Ketosis will work (it's very low carb, not zero carb). You (as in you personally) won't be able to do it, you likely lack the willpower, and if you're social, it's difficult to do in a social setting, especially without taking a deep dive into the science to help understand the how and the why.
  • louhike 4y ago
    Ketosis can really mess your health though. My dad had serious problems after trying it, so be really wary if you want to try it.
    • stevebmark 4y ago
      I've done ketosis for 5 years, and now on and off for 2 years later. I had a full blood lipid panel done and it went well. Volek and Phinney have good literature for learning more. What problems did your dad encounter?
      • louhike 4y ago
        Issues with kidneys.
    • stjohnswarts 4y ago
      Ketosis is not going to mess with a healthy person. Obviously if you have something like kidney problems then it could put a real strain on your kidneys if they are not healthy. If you have preexisting conditions obviously _any_ diet should be carefully monitored by your physician.
  • lmariscal 4y ago
    What is this answer? Are you being serious comparing eating actual sand to caloric dense food? Obviously calories aren't everything in terms of diet and health; vitamins, nutrients and other parts come into play. But when it comes down to actual physical weight, nothing else matters, unless you have a medical problem. Learning how calories work and counting them for some time, so you understand what you are actually eating, is the first step. Ideally this work would be done with a professional nutritionist, since calorie counting will get you to the weight you want, but it speaks nothing of how healthy your diet is. Sadly this is not something everyone is privileged enough to be able to do. It is also important to remember that most people who struggle with their weight, and are making an effort, are actually struggling with their relationship with food. This is something that no matter what diet you are on, or how deep your understanding of biology and nutrition is, nothing can replace actually working that deeper issue, which is not trivial and something truly personal.
• Smaug123 4y ago
  By the way, I recently read Slime Mold Time Mold's hilarious diet proposal (https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2022/04/29/potato-diet-community-trial-sign-up-now-lol/ https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2022/04/29/potato-diet-communi...), namely "only eat potatoes, fry them lightly in vegetable oil if you want but prefer no extra fat, use hot sauce if you want but ideally literally just potatoes, supplement B12 and Vitamin A, definitely no dairy". They claim that this diet… just doesn't require willpower? Might be worth a quick go. God knows what nutrients are absent from the diet, but :shrug: Since the big selling point is that it doesn't take willpower, you'll know nice and quickly if it's failed - it's a very low-commitment diet. (I have never tried it, I lift and I want more protein than the diet can provide.)
  • stjohnswarts 4y ago
    this is nutritionally a very bad idea. Potatoes are actually pretty nutritious but they are not a complete food. If you're going down the "bland food diet to kill cravings" then follow one of the nutritionally complete diets like soylent green (or any of the numerous competitors)
    • Smaug123 4y ago
      I can barely stick to an only-Huel diet (one of the competitors you speak of) for even a few days. It does sound like the potato diet may be uniquely interesting for someone who is desperate enough.
• ThrowITout4321 4y ago
  I've been told that the reason carbs are such a problem is that once metabolized into glucose the body has to produce insulin to balance the blood sugar. Eventually this process makes us hungry especially if we eat too many carbs. One way to reduce the affect of excess carbs is to follow a low glycemic diet similar to what people with diabetes follow. You might want to look into it.
  • stjohnswarts 4y ago
    The basic theory is that humans never evolved to handle the sheer amount (at least, a lot of us can't) of simple carbs and sugars that modern life makes available to us via a “typical” diet. The sheer amount of insulin that is needed to handle that much sugar in the bloodstream is constantly pumping, the body builds up a tolerance to it, which in turn stresses the pancreas. That can lead to pre-diabetes and diabetes, which is one of the most common chronic diseases, at least in the USA. Also leads to weight gain as a primary side effect.
    • ThrowITout4321 4y ago
      We should learn from ranchers. The fastest way to fatten livestock is to feed them carbs. So you see ranchers feeding cattle sugar bi-products that can't be sold to humans. Carbs will fatten you(us) up.
• stjohnswarts 4y ago
  Yes, 75% of the diet is psychology and not calories-in-calories-out. Obviously CICO is a thing inasmuch as it's a thermodynamic process. Those people who parrot it though aren't really using their brain and are trying to simplify a complex human process down to "eat less". Nutrition in humans is complex and psychology is more important than other factors (assuming you don't really have some limiting health issue). The only way I could lose weight was low carb. It lowered my cravings and I started eating two meals a day (I usually had a sizeable breakfast which I dropped). the first two weeks to a month were rough but after that the amount of will power needed decreased dramatically. I lost 80lbs this way and have kept it off by staying away from refined carbs and eating much much less sugar. Will it work for everyone? Probably not, but even if it works for a sizeable minority it's worth it, and I think it's like hitting a reset button on your relationship with food. You realize you're in control, your physical cravings lessen. I had tried all kinds of diets before, but low carb worked for me.
  • edanm 4y ago
    > Obviously CICO is a thing inasmuch as it's a thermodynamic process. Those people who parrot it though aren't really using their brain and are trying to simplify a complex human process down to "eat less". Speaking for myself, the reason I often parrot the Cico advice is because it's become "common knowledge" that Cico is wrong, which is ridiculous. Three years ago I would parrot all the usual anti Cico talking points, about how human fat gain is far more complex, there are good calories vs bad calories, hormone response matters, etc. Then when learning more about this, I eventually understood that really, if I count calories and start eating less, I'd lose weight. I'm not f that explicitly counting calories is the correct strategy for everyone to create a caloric deficit. Your points are absolutely valid. But after I lost weight, I've had multiple conversations with people insisting that the only thing that could work is cutting out carbs, or only eating meat, or intermittent fasting, etc. Those are great strategies to try, but it's fundamental to understand that they're only strategies to induce that caloric deficit. Otherwise you are setting up for eventual failure.
• birksherty 4y ago
  > Why do some people's bodies/minds insist so insistently that they eat more when they clearly are already overweight? That's the question I would love to have answered. Pretty sure it's habit. Eating calorie all the time makes our brain want that food all the time. People are not used to being actually in empty stomach since their childhood. I did intermittent fasting and now I'm completely okay not eating during that time. For other times it becomes easy, after not eating like before. The food doesn't have to be calorie heavy either. Replace with meat, nuts, vegetable, fruits (not juice).
  • Zababa 4y ago
    Nuts are very calorie heavy, more than most foods.
• pnt12 4y ago
  How long do those thoughts last? I used to eat a lot of snacks past dinner, and then tried intermittent fasting - after an (annoying) week without that habit, my body just got used to it and stopped craving for them.
• FlyingCapybara 4y ago
  Of course it's useless, the author is selling himlself, he's a fitness coach...