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> It sounds like a dumb gimmick that could never work, but there are a surprising number of people out there saying that they tried it, it worked for them, and
by DeWilde 4y ago
> It sounds like a dumb gimmick that could never work, but there are a surprising number of people out there saying that they tried it, it worked for them, and they kept the weight off for months or even years after.
Losing weight isn't causal to being healthy. In most cases it correlates because gaining weight is usually done through eating unhealthy (excess calories, refined sugars, etc.) so going on a healthy diet means losing weight gained from unhealthy diet.
Also, there are unhealthy diets on which you can lose weight but the effects on your hormones might be even worse than an unhealthy diet that causes you to gain weight.
- adrianN 4y agoYou can gain weight on a diet of "healthy" foods. It's the amount of calories. Being overweight is bad for your health even if you only eat healthy foods.
- sinsterizme 4y agoSure, but healthy foods contain more nutrients, that’s why they can be called healthy. So fueling your body to excess with a lot of nutrients will lead to a much better functioning body than doing the same with garbage
- automatic6131 4y ago>fueling your body to excess with a lot of nutrients A commonly held myth about eating is that fueling the body with an excess of (micro)nutrients is healthier than fueling the body with an adequate amount of micro nutrients. It is not healthier, it is exactly the same (and then becomes toxic again in excess!) And as you know, fueling the body with excess macronutrients is unhealthy. Indeed, eating a diet poor or absent in micronutrients is bad for you, but also quite rare.
- sinsterizme 4y agoI don’t think it’s quite as rare as you think. I don’t have sources to back this up at the moment but some common deficiencies include vitamin D, b12, magnesium, zinc, sulphur. Our modern practices have denuded the soil, plants and animals of a lot of their nutrients so nowadays it’s indeed hard to be at good levels of nutrients from diet
- mvdwoord 4y ago"Losing weight isn't causal to being healthy." Strictly spoken, true, but being overweight definitely is causal to decreased health.
- smcl 4y agoI think the important point in the context of this diet is: it may help you lose weight, but that doesn't necessarily mean you'll become more healthy. I guess it's very dependent on individual circumstances, and "healthy" is a fairly broad term.
- cassianoleal 4y ago> being overweight definitely is causal to decreased health. Even that is not necessarily always true. I imagine being oevrweight is generally much healthier than going through famine.
- inglor_cz 4y agoIt does not help that we are colloquially using the "overweight" label as an euphemism for morbid obesity, because we do not want to offend anyone including ourselves. I have never met a person who claimed to be merely "overweight" and wasn't actually massively obese. In doctor's parlance, overweight means BMI between 25 and 30. This tends to correlate with the lowest all cause mortality in older people [0], so it might not be a big deal. But outright obesity (BMI > 30) and morbid obesity (BMI > 40) are definitely a health problem. [0] https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/99/4/875/4637868 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/99/4/875/4637868
- ajuc 4y agoIf you're obese you have increased risk of lots of health problems. No matter the diet that got you there. So becoming less obese is in fact causing better health. Of course there are unhealthy ways to lose weight, but that's a separate issue.
- Smaug123 4y agoThere is at least one case where your argument is clearly false: sleep apnea is often directly mechanically caused by bodyweight, causes health problems when untreated, and is strongly associated with being fat and/or muscular.
- nvrspyx 4y agoThey never said being overweight is healthy, so this isn't really a counterargument. They're saying losing weight != healthy, which isn't the same thing. Take anorexia or bulimia for example. You could be overweight, but that doesn't mean losing weight from an eating disorder is healthy. Same is true for a diet. Just because you're losing weight from a diet, doesn't mean the diet is healthy for you.
- Smaug123 4y agoFine, to be extremely pedantic I'm replying to the assertion "Losing weight doesn't help you stop being unhealthy" which I invented; what they really said was "Losing weight isn't causal to being healthy".
- poulpy123 4y agoAFAIK sleep apnea isn't reversible by losing weigth (which doesn't mean that overweigth isn't at least one of the cause)
- closewith 4y agoObesity is the most prevalent causal factor for obstructive sleep apnea and in weight loss is the most effective treatment for obstructive sleep apnea in overweight patients. Weight loss can be (but is not always) an effective cure. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/weight-loss-breathing-devices-still-best-for-treating-obstructive-sleep-apnea-201310026713 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/weight-loss-breathing-de...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- TJSomething 4y ago> Losing weight isn't causal to being healthy. Except that's not how it works. An excess of fat can directly cause problems. Above a certain point, having too much fat causes chronic hypoxia in fatty tissue, leading to chronic inflammation, which can eventually lead to systemic problems like insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, kidney failure, liver disease, and cancer. Edit: I am specifically referring to abdominal fat in excess of what a given body is able to cope with.
- naraic0o 4y agoExcess dietary fat or do you mean obesity?
- arghwhat 4y agoI don't think OP was suggesting that being overweight was healthy or that losing weight was bad. They merely suggested that weight loss does not occur as a result of a healthy diet, but rather as a result of an intentionally deficient diet (technically an "unhealthy" diet). That you can lose weight eating only potatoes is therefore not very interesting and does not imply that the diet is healthy.
- dgfitz 4y ago> an intentionally deficient diet Aren’t all diets whose goal is weight loss “intentionally deficient” ?
- notahacker 4y agoThere's a difference between "slightly too few calories to sustain current weight level" and "total absence of certain essential nutrients meaning the body can't grow or indeed adequately replenish cells regardless of the mass of food consumed"
- dgfitz 4y agoSo, yes?
- iasay 4y agoExactly this. I lost 34Kg without resorting to eating just potatoes or some other ridiculous fad. Just less input than output with a balanced diet.
- worker_person 4y agoLost 50 pounds once eating Chef Boyardee. Smart, no. But it was measured portions. So counting calories was trivial.
- refurb 4y agoLosing weight isn't causal to being healthy. Sure it is. I mean there are healthy ways to lose weight and less healthy ways, but losing weight if you're overweight is better for your health.
- YetAnotherNick 4y agoIt is still causal. You can't add sum of components that "eating x is overall worse than y because it is better in one thing but worse in another". It's hard to compare two axis and specially if one axis is unscientific land of hormone disturbance.
- DeWilde 4y agoReplacing obesity with malnutrition will still leave you unhealthy but with different health problems. Also hormone imbalance isn't unscientific. It has been widely been studied that women will have their periods change timing when malnourished. Anectdotally: I had my testosterone levels wiped out when switching from a diet with excess calories to a one with not enough calories and nutrients. The condition fixed itself when I started practicing a balanced diet (with exercises).
- janekm 4y agoSorry but this is not compatible with the clinical evidence base: https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/files/docs/guidelines/ob_gdlns.pdf https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/files/docs/guidelines/ob_gdlns.pdf See page xxi, chapter A. Weight loss is recommended for lowering blood pressure, levels of total/LDL cholesterol, and blood glucose, and for blood pressure and blood glucose these effects have also been shown in RCTs with weight lowering medications, so we can't say they were due to more healthy diets alone. See also this summary of evidence of the benefits of moderate (5-10%) weight loss: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5497590/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5497590/ (saying that I agree with you that we shouldn't all adopt the cabbage soup diet, or potato-only diet for extended periods, but let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater) (I wouldn't recommend the potato-only diet for someone who hasn't already attempted a healthy, balanced diet with consistent tracking, that should always be the first thing attempted as it can be continued indefinitely with less dependence on tracking over time, but some people find the effort of tracking hard to maintain)
- DeWilde 4y agoI wasn't arguing that being overweight is healthy. I was just saying that losing weight will lead to bad health if the way you lose weight is by depriving yourself of nutrients needed for your body to function properly. Potatoes lack a lot of vitamins and nutrients needed in order for them to be the sole food you can eat and stay healthy.
- janekm 4y agoAh, that’s fair, I thought you were arguing that the health benefits seen from weight loss can be attributed to healthier diets alone.
- kuhewa 4y ago> Losing weight isn't causal to being healthy In many ways it certainly is. Knees don't go bad because they are carrying excess serum triglycerides that just happen to correlate with body mass.
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoThe term 'healthy' is thrown around too easily and conflated with 'low calorie food'; I try to call out people who call food healthy too easily. That said, being overweight (fat) is not where you want to be at, it results in big and small health issues like joint troubles, high blood pressure, diabetes, and finding trivial things like getting up from the couch or walking up the stairs difficult.