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What worked for them won't work for everyone. Try snacking on 2,000 calories worth of nuts a day (which isn't that hard) and see how much weight you lose! What

What worked for them won't work for everyone. Try snacking on 2,000 calories worth of nuts a day (which isn't that hard) and see how much weight you lose! What this person likely did was, eliminate the foods that caused them to over-eat, and they lost weight, which happened to be sugar.

robsh 3y ago
I have eaten nuts for days and I can tell you it will get old quickly. It’s no coincidence that sugar leads to over-eating. The body sends a very strong signal to eat when the sugar is digested. The same signal does not happen when nuts are digested.
- anthonypasq 3y ago
  its not just sugar. its the mixture of sugar and fat and other things that make food items more likely to cause over-eating. its called palatability. Theres a huge difference between chocolate, or ice cream, and chowing down on spoonfuls of pure sugar.
  - fy20 3y ago
    This is why 'low sugar' and 'low fat' foods aren't really any better for you. They usually make up for the reduction by increasing the other thing.
leptons 3y ago
I have a sweet tooth, but I'm also diabetic. I still snack on sweets but I replaced sugar with pure monk fruit extract. I've lost 40 pounds in the last year. I make all kinds of monk fruit sweetened deserts and buy all kinds of low/no-sugar snacks and eat plenty of them every day to the point where my sweet tooth is very well satiated. You can say it's coincidental or whatever you want, but I have no doubt my weight loss and improved health is from cutting out sugar from my diet.
- sharadov 3y ago
  Congrats that's amazing! I know someone who has replaced regular sugar with date sugar, it tastes amazing, especially in deserts with none of the weird aftertaste.
  - leptons 3y ago
    That was the second time I reduced my sugar. The first time, about 20 years ago I was on the "candida diet", which eliminates all sugar intake, and it's extremely strict. It's done to reduce/remove candida from the gut. I lost 60 pounds. Reducing sugar isn't just about reducing calories. More sugar means more gut imbalance, and that can cause some serious problems. It's not always easy to connect the dots, and not many people really get to know or understand the messages their own bodies are sending them. And doctors DNGAF about nutrition or diet, not really at least - they just treat symptoms with pharmaceuticals but a real cure for some ailments means a serious change in eating habits, and one of the best changes to promote health is reducing sugar intake.
coldtrait 3y ago
Were you actually recommending that or being sarcastic? Nuts are calorie dense, since they're mostly made of fat and eating them makes it easy to gain weight.
- chucksta 3y ago
  > snacking on 2,000 calories worth of nuts Density would not matter if its a hard limit
  - ajuc 3y ago
    You'd be far more hungry if you eat 350 g of nuts than ~1kg of regular dinner food.
ravenstine 3y ago
It's almost as if calories aren't relevant, but that the effect that different foods have on the body is. Also, I'm not sure what you're communicating with the point about nuts. Are you saying that a person will gain weight? Lose weight? Lose nothing? Depending on what you were implying, you might actually be proving the author's point. By the way, I actually have done many experiments eating various monodiets, including nuts. The worst was walnuts. I love walnuts, but the end result was horrendous. I almost certainly would have lost weight because so much of the fats were not being absorbed (ALA is poorly metabolized) and passing through. On the other hand, fresh raw peanut butter (with a little salt) was not only satiating but well tolerated. My experience reflects exactly why people object to CICO. Nobody is saying that two different substances can emit the same amount of heat measured in calories when burned in a bomb calorimeter. The root objection is that the body will treat different substances the same way. It's wildly untrue that you can just eat anything and predict a health outcome with 3rd grade arithmetic. CICO doesn't explain why I could sustain a diet solely of peanut butter (no sugar added) but couldn't eat a diet only of walnuts, to the point where the "calories" were coming out in my shit having not been oxidized.
- anthonypasq 3y ago
  youve found an extremely bizarre edge case where CICO doesnt perfectly hold and you think thats some sort of death knell to the general principle that if you eat more calories than you burn you will store it as fat?
  - ravenstine 3y ago
    It may be an extreme case, but it's no more an edge case than the millions who drop weight eating a vegan diet or a high fat diet. By definition, there is no edge case for the human body because nobody designed it. It developed with pressures to encourage it to handle foreign substances in different ways. There's no programmer who made the human but left out the part of efficiently metabolizing walnuts as a form of oversight. > you think thats some sort of death knell to the general principle Yes, it completely defeats the general principle, and if it didn't then those insisting on CICO would reply with more than "how can you actually believe what I don't believe?" > if you eat more calories than you burn you will store it as fat? If it was simple as that, then we wouldn't have glycogen stores because... why bother when anything not immediately oxidized turns to fat! If it's as simple as that, protein wouldn't ever be used to maintain lean mass but would be all converted to glucose and then into fat by the liver (not at all efficient). If it's as simple as that, then we would never shit. Don't believe me? I challenge you to collect your stool, dry it out, and light it on fire. Look – calories!
helij 3y ago
Exactly this. I threw bread out of my diet and counted calories for a year. I ate plenty of chocolate and sweets but still lost a substantial amount of fat. 0.5-2kg a month, depending on a month. All together I lost 16kg in a year.
vlod 3y ago
I think 'snacking' is the general problem that people need to stop. I suspect most people don't snack on nuts, but carb rich sugary-salty snacks, which keeps your insulin levels high. High insulin levels means you can't burn fat.

robsh 3y ago

I have eaten nuts for days and I can tell you it will get old quickly. It’s no coincidence that sugar leads to over-eating. The body sends a very strong signal to eat when the sugar is digested. The same signal does not happen when nuts are digested.

anthonypasq 3y ago
its not just sugar. its the mixture of sugar and fat and other things that make food items more likely to cause over-eating. its called palatability. Theres a huge difference between chocolate, or ice cream, and chowing down on spoonfuls of pure sugar.
- fy20 3y ago
  This is why 'low sugar' and 'low fat' foods aren't really any better for you. They usually make up for the reduction by increasing the other thing.

leptons 3y ago

I have a sweet tooth, but I'm also diabetic. I still snack on sweets but I replaced sugar with pure monk fruit extract. I've lost 40 pounds in the last year. I make all kinds of monk fruit sweetened deserts and buy all kinds of low/no-sugar snacks and eat plenty of them every day to the point where my sweet tooth is very well satiated. You can say it's coincidental or whatever you want, but I have no doubt my weight loss and improved health is from cutting out sugar from my diet.

sharadov 3y ago
Congrats that's amazing! I know someone who has replaced regular sugar with date sugar, it tastes amazing, especially in deserts with none of the weird aftertaste.
- leptons 3y ago
  That was the second time I reduced my sugar. The first time, about 20 years ago I was on the "candida diet", which eliminates all sugar intake, and it's extremely strict. It's done to reduce/remove candida from the gut. I lost 60 pounds. Reducing sugar isn't just about reducing calories. More sugar means more gut imbalance, and that can cause some serious problems. It's not always easy to connect the dots, and not many people really get to know or understand the messages their own bodies are sending them. And doctors DNGAF about nutrition or diet, not really at least - they just treat symptoms with pharmaceuticals but a real cure for some ailments means a serious change in eating habits, and one of the best changes to promote health is reducing sugar intake.

coldtrait 3y ago

Were you actually recommending that or being sarcastic? Nuts are calorie dense, since they're mostly made of fat and eating them makes it easy to gain weight.

chucksta 3y ago
> snacking on 2,000 calories worth of nuts Density would not matter if its a hard limit
- ajuc 3y ago
  You'd be far more hungry if you eat 350 g of nuts than ~1kg of regular dinner food.

ravenstine 3y ago

It's almost as if calories aren't relevant, but that the effect that different foods have on the body is. Also, I'm not sure what you're communicating with the point about nuts. Are you saying that a person will gain weight? Lose weight? Lose nothing? Depending on what you were implying, you might actually be proving the author's point. By the way, I actually have done many experiments eating various monodiets, including nuts. The worst was walnuts. I love walnuts, but the end result was horrendous. I almost certainly would have lost weight because so much of the fats were not being absorbed (ALA is poorly metabolized) and passing through. On the other hand, fresh raw peanut butter (with a little salt) was not only satiating but well tolerated. My experience reflects exactly why people object to CICO. Nobody is saying that two different substances can emit the same amount of heat measured in calories when burned in a bomb calorimeter. The root objection is that the body will treat different substances the same way. It's wildly untrue that you can just eat anything and predict a health outcome with 3rd grade arithmetic. CICO doesn't explain why I could sustain a diet solely of peanut butter (no sugar added) but couldn't eat a diet only of walnuts, to the point where the "calories" were coming out in my shit having not been oxidized.

anthonypasq 3y ago
youve found an extremely bizarre edge case where CICO doesnt perfectly hold and you think thats some sort of death knell to the general principle that if you eat more calories than you burn you will store it as fat?
- ravenstine 3y ago
  It may be an extreme case, but it's no more an edge case than the millions who drop weight eating a vegan diet or a high fat diet. By definition, there is no edge case for the human body because nobody designed it. It developed with pressures to encourage it to handle foreign substances in different ways. There's no programmer who made the human but left out the part of efficiently metabolizing walnuts as a form of oversight. > you think thats some sort of death knell to the general principle Yes, it completely defeats the general principle, and if it didn't then those insisting on CICO would reply with more than "how can you actually believe what I don't believe?" > if you eat more calories than you burn you will store it as fat? If it was simple as that, then we wouldn't have glycogen stores because... why bother when anything not immediately oxidized turns to fat! If it's as simple as that, protein wouldn't ever be used to maintain lean mass but would be all converted to glucose and then into fat by the liver (not at all efficient). If it's as simple as that, then we would never shit. Don't believe me? I challenge you to collect your stool, dry it out, and light it on fire. Look – calories!

helij 3y ago

Exactly this. I threw bread out of my diet and counted calories for a year. I ate plenty of chocolate and sweets but still lost a substantial amount of fat. 0.5-2kg a month, depending on a month. All together I lost 16kg in a year.

vlod 3y ago

I think 'snacking' is the general problem that people need to stop. I suspect most people don't snack on nuts, but carb rich sugary-salty snacks, which keeps your insulin levels high. High insulin levels means you can't burn fat.