8 ms·

Haven't read the paper, but I can't tell from this summary article if they tested any other diet programs as a control - is it possible that the improvement com

Haven't read the paper, but I can't tell from this summary article if they tested any other diet programs as a control - is it possible that the improvement comes from being more ordered and thoughtful about food choices, rather than from the specific diet used?

jokethrowaway 3y ago
Definitely worth doing other experiments with other diets - but having tried both I think there is a qualitative difference. I lost 10kgs twice in my life; the first time with a high carb, low fat diet and the second one with a no carb, high fat diet. Roughly same weight interval 84kg->70kg and roughly the same timeline (I was aiming at -1kg per week). The high carb diet was tough: I was hungry all the time and I had to count calories precisely. Mentally I felt roughly like I did before the diet. Mostly tired. I didn't do much adjusting to my diet, I just had less food than before in order to create a caloric deficit. The no carb diet was easy: I was never hungry, I had mental clarity for the first time in my life. After the occasional sleep deprivation I was feeling much better than before. I started eating twice a day with no snacks, then migrated to one meal per day with no hunger. Adjusting to the new diet came with some mistakes (eg. balancing elecrolytes to get the optimal level of energy) but after fixing them I was much better than before.
- delichon 3y ago
  I was a world class yo-yo dieter (having lost and regained > 100 pounds four times) and I agree with you. After 50+ of years of trying many many diets I finally tried very low carb carnivore and that was the first thing that stopped the yo-yo. For 3.5 years now. I wish I had tried it earlier and life, but I was never a particular meat eater before, and an anti-meat vegetarian and vegan for years. It took extreme desperation to make me try it, and the benefits were almost immediate. I can confirm that for this N=1, both clean vegetarian and carnivore diets are a large improvement over the standard American diet health wise, but the later has been much more sustainable.
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    "both clean vegetarian and carnivore diets are a large improvement over the standard American diet health wise" I think this is why there is so many arguments about one or other, people get fired up over veg v carnivore. Because they are both better than the Standard American Diet. It is really important for people to note their starting position. If they were from Standard diet, almost anything is improvement. Just like someone can be a vegan but is eating vegan oreo's, then that is not healthy. Or carnivore and just downing ribs all day. Seems like just less processed is the best.
    - coffeebeqn 3y ago
      Also because the hard part of a diet is entirely in the mental realm. Dieting is extremely simple to “perform” on paper but no matter what knowledge or tools you have , you’ll end up feeling hungry and have to have the fortitude to deal with that. Consistently over months and years
    - delichon 3y ago
      > Or carnivore and just downing ribs all day. That pattern has been very successful for me. Beef short ribs are my favorite food now, and I have them for my main meal of the day (breakfast) on most days. I'm eating a plate of them as I type this. On that diet I've gone from morbidly obese to merely overweight, my diabetes is in remission, and my IBS has become manageable. The duration of the satiety from this meal is very high, so I'm not at all tempted to try to down them all day. I was a binge eater on carbs. I wonder why you consider ribs to be carnivore junk food? Is it the fat? On any low carb program you're practically obliged to replace carbs with fat for energy. If it's the saturation of the fat, carnivores like me tend to disagree that it's unhealthy. Of course that doesn't work very well if they're covered in sugary BBQ sauce, but my breakfast has just three ingredients: ribs, salt and butter.
      - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
        Guess my objection is generally the saturated fat, and the lack of fiber, and the sauces. But you are correct. If it is just salt and butter, then ribs is a low processed food and probably not even as bad fat wise as other cuts. Probably also not the most fatty either. Maybe a better carnivore 'junk' food example is like someone making a 'lasagna' with just layers of hamburger and a layers of cheese. So it is just all hamburger and cheese slop. I've done both keto and vegan. And lost weight with both. At the moment, I'm not sure I can define which one is better.
- brodouevencode 3y ago
  High carbohydrate diets do not do a good job of suppressing ghrelin levels in the bloodstream - meaning you stay hungry for longer. High protein diets (not necessarily high fat) do a much better job of appetite suppression. This has been known for quite some time. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19820013/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19820013/
  - hombre_fatal 3y ago
    Then again low carb vs high carb are worthless labels if you are drastically changing your protein consumption between the two diets yet fixating on another macronutrient. Though those labels were always suspicious to begin with, especially since the carb in the “low carb” meme seems to only cash out into refined grains, not beans or broccoli.
- keybored 3y ago
  > The no carb diet was easy: I was never hungry, I had mental clarity for the first time in my life. After the occasional sleep deprivation I was feeling much better than before. I started eating twice a day with no snacks, then migrated to one meal per day with no hunger. Adjusting to the new diet came with some mistakes (eg. balancing elecrolytes to get the optimal level of energy) but after fixing them I was much better than before. I have no study to back me up but I think all anecdotes and studies about weight-loss without self-denial is bound to get more push-back than normal. Weight-loss and fitness above a certain level is “supposed to” (we think) involve hard work and sacrifice. No doubt colored by the hard workers who pushed through and have now have built a minor identity around how their strong character compared to their former selves.
matthewdgreen 3y ago
Many elimination diets will help you lose weight. The main difference is sustainability over the long-term.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  That's the thing, diets are temporary, long term sustainability require lifestyle changes.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Zetobal 3y ago
At least for bipolar and schizoaffective people it's pretty much this. A big part of ipsrt is about eating & scheduling when to eat.
- lewispollard 3y ago
  Right; for ADHD a keto diet did very little to improve my symptoms, but when I was doing it I was still eating quite impulsively and without a proper schedule or meal plan. Doing those things, creating a routine, regardless of what I was eating, made a big improvement to my symptoms in that it created a lot of structure, routine and planning that was previously absent.
keybored 3y ago
Because that’s the causation that you prefer?
- lewispollard 3y ago
  No? Scientific experiments should work to rule out alternative causes, that's the whole point of it. Introducing a lot of structure to someone's life that was previously very unstructured (as diet often is in mentally unwell people) could be part of the reason their symptoms improve, rather than necessarily the diet itself. It's an alternative cause that I think should be ruled out before assuming it's the content of the diet itself that caused the difference. Control groups are not "whataboutism". If adding that kind of control showed keto was specifically helping these people, then that'd be great; but since the study doesn't seem to have done that, it's hard to be confident in the conclusion. Instead, they gave the participants cookbooks, and assigned them a personal coach to help them plan and cook their meals and follow through with the diet change. Giving that kind of personal support to change habits and make more considered choices to someone with mental health challenges is bound to make them feel better, no?

jokethrowaway 3y ago

Definitely worth doing other experiments with other diets - but having tried both I think there is a qualitative difference. I lost 10kgs twice in my life; the first time with a high carb, low fat diet and the second one with a no carb, high fat diet. Roughly same weight interval 84kg->70kg and roughly the same timeline (I was aiming at -1kg per week). The high carb diet was tough: I was hungry all the time and I had to count calories precisely. Mentally I felt roughly like I did before the diet. Mostly tired. I didn't do much adjusting to my diet, I just had less food than before in order to create a caloric deficit. The no carb diet was easy: I was never hungry, I had mental clarity for the first time in my life. After the occasional sleep deprivation I was feeling much better than before. I started eating twice a day with no snacks, then migrated to one meal per day with no hunger. Adjusting to the new diet came with some mistakes (eg. balancing elecrolytes to get the optimal level of energy) but after fixing them I was much better than before.

delichon 3y ago
I was a world class yo-yo dieter (having lost and regained > 100 pounds four times) and I agree with you. After 50+ of years of trying many many diets I finally tried very low carb carnivore and that was the first thing that stopped the yo-yo. For 3.5 years now. I wish I had tried it earlier and life, but I was never a particular meat eater before, and an anti-meat vegetarian and vegan for years. It took extreme desperation to make me try it, and the benefits were almost immediate. I can confirm that for this N=1, both clean vegetarian and carnivore diets are a large improvement over the standard American diet health wise, but the later has been much more sustainable.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  "both clean vegetarian and carnivore diets are a large improvement over the standard American diet health wise" I think this is why there is so many arguments about one or other, people get fired up over veg v carnivore. Because they are both better than the Standard American Diet. It is really important for people to note their starting position. If they were from Standard diet, almost anything is improvement. Just like someone can be a vegan but is eating vegan oreo's, then that is not healthy. Or carnivore and just downing ribs all day. Seems like just less processed is the best.
  - coffeebeqn 3y ago
    Also because the hard part of a diet is entirely in the mental realm. Dieting is extremely simple to “perform” on paper but no matter what knowledge or tools you have , you’ll end up feeling hungry and have to have the fortitude to deal with that. Consistently over months and years
  - delichon 3y ago
    > Or carnivore and just downing ribs all day. That pattern has been very successful for me. Beef short ribs are my favorite food now, and I have them for my main meal of the day (breakfast) on most days. I'm eating a plate of them as I type this. On that diet I've gone from morbidly obese to merely overweight, my diabetes is in remission, and my IBS has become manageable. The duration of the satiety from this meal is very high, so I'm not at all tempted to try to down them all day. I was a binge eater on carbs. I wonder why you consider ribs to be carnivore junk food? Is it the fat? On any low carb program you're practically obliged to replace carbs with fat for energy. If it's the saturation of the fat, carnivores like me tend to disagree that it's unhealthy. Of course that doesn't work very well if they're covered in sugary BBQ sauce, but my breakfast has just three ingredients: ribs, salt and butter.
    - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
      Guess my objection is generally the saturated fat, and the lack of fiber, and the sauces. But you are correct. If it is just salt and butter, then ribs is a low processed food and probably not even as bad fat wise as other cuts. Probably also not the most fatty either. Maybe a better carnivore 'junk' food example is like someone making a 'lasagna' with just layers of hamburger and a layers of cheese. So it is just all hamburger and cheese slop. I've done both keto and vegan. And lost weight with both. At the moment, I'm not sure I can define which one is better.
brodouevencode 3y ago
High carbohydrate diets do not do a good job of suppressing ghrelin levels in the bloodstream - meaning you stay hungry for longer. High protein diets (not necessarily high fat) do a much better job of appetite suppression. This has been known for quite some time. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19820013/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19820013/
- hombre_fatal 3y ago
  Then again low carb vs high carb are worthless labels if you are drastically changing your protein consumption between the two diets yet fixating on another macronutrient. Though those labels were always suspicious to begin with, especially since the carb in the “low carb” meme seems to only cash out into refined grains, not beans or broccoli.
keybored 3y ago
> The no carb diet was easy: I was never hungry, I had mental clarity for the first time in my life. After the occasional sleep deprivation I was feeling much better than before. I started eating twice a day with no snacks, then migrated to one meal per day with no hunger. Adjusting to the new diet came with some mistakes (eg. balancing elecrolytes to get the optimal level of energy) but after fixing them I was much better than before. I have no study to back me up but I think all anecdotes and studies about weight-loss without self-denial is bound to get more push-back than normal. Weight-loss and fitness above a certain level is “supposed to” (we think) involve hard work and sacrifice. No doubt colored by the hard workers who pushed through and have now have built a minor identity around how their strong character compared to their former selves.

matthewdgreen 3y ago

Many elimination diets will help you lose weight. The main difference is sustainability over the long-term.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago
That's the thing, diets are temporary, long term sustainability require lifestyle changes.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

Zetobal 3y ago

At least for bipolar and schizoaffective people it's pretty much this. A big part of ipsrt is about eating & scheduling when to eat.

lewispollard 3y ago
Right; for ADHD a keto diet did very little to improve my symptoms, but when I was doing it I was still eating quite impulsively and without a proper schedule or meal plan. Doing those things, creating a routine, regardless of what I was eating, made a big improvement to my symptoms in that it created a lot of structure, routine and planning that was previously absent.

keybored 3y ago

Because that’s the causation that you prefer?

lewispollard 3y ago
No? Scientific experiments should work to rule out alternative causes, that's the whole point of it. Introducing a lot of structure to someone's life that was previously very unstructured (as diet often is in mentally unwell people) could be part of the reason their symptoms improve, rather than necessarily the diet itself. It's an alternative cause that I think should be ruled out before assuming it's the content of the diet itself that caused the difference. Control groups are not "whataboutism". If adding that kind of control showed keto was specifically helping these people, then that'd be great; but since the study doesn't seem to have done that, it's hard to be confident in the conclusion. Instead, they gave the participants cookbooks, and assigned them a personal coach to help them plan and cook their meals and follow through with the diet change. Giving that kind of personal support to change habits and make more considered choices to someone with mental health challenges is bound to make them feel better, no?