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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

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.
      - delichon 3y ago
        I tried so hard to relieve my IBS problems by increasing dietary fiber. That's the standard advice for bloating and constipation, and I had it bad ... to the point of suicidal thoughts. As a long time vegetarian who lived on big salads it was no problem upping my fiber. It just didn't work. It made things worse. The only relief I could find was in fasting. When I finally tried the low residue approach of carnivore it relieved my symptoms by the next morning. As a result I've become skeptical that either fiber or carbs are health foods for me. I'm also much more skeptical of the epistemic capacity of nutrition research.
- xetsilon 3y ago
  The main problem is not tracking calories. I am a month in right now on tracking every calorie I eat as close as possible in a spreadsheet. It astounds me what I thought I could eat and think I am still in a calorie deficit. I would even say I had become completely delusional from diet misinformation. All these gimmicks to cause yourself to restrict calories is so suboptimal to simply counting. I think counting calories is unpopular though exactly because not counting calories allows for a level of self delusional. You can then mentally be in this super position of at the same time believing to be on a diet without actually restricting calories. Of course you don't lose any weight but you are on a "diet".
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.

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.
    - delichon 3y ago
      I tried so hard to relieve my IBS problems by increasing dietary fiber. That's the standard advice for bloating and constipation, and I had it bad ... to the point of suicidal thoughts. As a long time vegetarian who lived on big salads it was no problem upping my fiber. It just didn't work. It made things worse. The only relief I could find was in fasting. When I finally tried the low residue approach of carnivore it relieved my symptoms by the next morning. As a result I've become skeptical that either fiber or carbs are health foods for me. I'm also much more skeptical of the epistemic capacity of nutrition research.
xetsilon 3y ago
The main problem is not tracking calories. I am a month in right now on tracking every calorie I eat as close as possible in a spreadsheet. It astounds me what I thought I could eat and think I am still in a calorie deficit. I would even say I had become completely delusional from diet misinformation. All these gimmicks to cause yourself to restrict calories is so suboptimal to simply counting. I think counting calories is unpopular though exactly because not counting calories allows for a level of self delusional. You can then mentally be in this super position of at the same time believing to be on a diet without actually restricting calories. Of course you don't lose any weight but you are on a "diet".

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.