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Forgive my flip dismissal, bad use of caps, and general un-hacker newslike tone just this once, but: NO MORE FAD DIET BULLSHIT, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!! It's

Forgive my flip dismissal, bad use of caps, and general un-hacker newslike tone just this once, but: NO MORE FAD DIET BULLSHIT, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!! It's just like we have known since the Ancient Greeks and probably earlier -- eat fewer rich foods, more light foods, a big variety of foods, and get lots of moderate activity. Want to lose weight? Eat fewer calories than you burn. Want to gain muscle mass and tone? Work out regularly. Etc. Jesus christ, the next time I hear the words "Gluten Free" I am going to scream, jumping up and down, Remember The South Beach Diet!?? Remember the no-fat diet????!!! Don't you people ever learn!?!?!?! Sorry. I promise to write more grown up posts in the future.

prawn 12y ago
You could probably pick a better target than "Gluten Free". A coeliac can experience debilitating stomach pain (almost wanting to scream or not being able to jump up and down) from a tiny piece of everyday bread, as one example. Being able to eat out with such information readily available is liberating for a coeliac and I think it's a really positive thing that restaurants and manufacturers have become more forward-thinking with their labelling.
johnking 12y ago
The study doesn't condone any of the diets you mentioned. Instead it compares a lower fat diet (<30%) with a higher one (>40%). No measuring of calories. It's just a study with interesting data, no fad diets. Although when you consider how prevalent carbohydrates are in western diets, you could be forgiven for jumping to the conclusion that lower carb diets are a fad.
perplexes 12y ago
> Want to lose weight? Eat fewer calories than you burn. Want to gain muscle mass and tone? Work out regularly. Etc. This is why research about diet is important. Animals are complex systems, and rarely are "simple" explanations correct (or correct enough). What we know about about food and how we process it is remarkably incomplete considering how important it is to supporting life. So with that in mind, I'm excited that the prevailing view of diet, nutrition and health in our society for the last century or so is getting challenged, just as science should be challenged and overturned ("disrupted" in SV parlance) in the face of new, better, more sound evidence. What's coming out of this new research is that, perhaps, the mechanisms concerned with storage of energy (fat) are unconcerned with the rest of what's going on in the body. That perhaps the reservoir of energy available to your muscles and brain to burn, intentionally and with conscious control, are in competition with a sometimes overly-aggressive energy storage system. It reminds me of how the U.S. does income tax - it comes directly out of your paycheck, before you can even think of spending it. Even if you wanted to go negative, the Govt still gets theirs. And let's say that the regulator of storage vs. use is controlled by the kinds of food that you eat... that, stretching this metaphor, your income tax bracket was affected by where you worked, or where you got the money from. Anyway, a more complete picture of how our bodies actually function is a good thing, and the more people try these "fad diets" is actually a boon for the people studying them. ;) (As an aside - the gluten free craze has helped a lot of people who actually have celiac disease to have more options in eating things that don't taste like crap, or, you know, eat out once in a while.)

prawn 12y ago

You could probably pick a better target than "Gluten Free". A coeliac can experience debilitating stomach pain (almost wanting to scream or not being able to jump up and down) from a tiny piece of everyday bread, as one example. Being able to eat out with such information readily available is liberating for a coeliac and I think it's a really positive thing that restaurants and manufacturers have become more forward-thinking with their labelling.

johnking 12y ago

The study doesn't condone any of the diets you mentioned. Instead it compares a lower fat diet (<30%) with a higher one (>40%). No measuring of calories. It's just a study with interesting data, no fad diets. Although when you consider how prevalent carbohydrates are in western diets, you could be forgiven for jumping to the conclusion that lower carb diets are a fad.

perplexes 12y ago

> Want to lose weight? Eat fewer calories than you burn. Want to gain muscle mass and tone? Work out regularly. Etc. This is why research about diet is important. Animals are complex systems, and rarely are "simple" explanations correct (or correct enough). What we know about about food and how we process it is remarkably incomplete considering how important it is to supporting life. So with that in mind, I'm excited that the prevailing view of diet, nutrition and health in our society for the last century or so is getting challenged, just as science should be challenged and overturned ("disrupted" in SV parlance) in the face of new, better, more sound evidence. What's coming out of this new research is that, perhaps, the mechanisms concerned with storage of energy (fat) are unconcerned with the rest of what's going on in the body. That perhaps the reservoir of energy available to your muscles and brain to burn, intentionally and with conscious control, are in competition with a sometimes overly-aggressive energy storage system. It reminds me of how the U.S. does income tax - it comes directly out of your paycheck, before you can even think of spending it. Even if you wanted to go negative, the Govt still gets theirs. And let's say that the regulator of storage vs. use is controlled by the kinds of food that you eat... that, stretching this metaphor, your income tax bracket was affected by where you worked, or where you got the money from. Anyway, a more complete picture of how our bodies actually function is a good thing, and the more people try these "fad diets" is actually a boon for the people studying them. ;) (As an aside - the gluten free craze has helped a lot of people who actually have celiac disease to have more options in eating things that don't taste like crap, or, you know, eat out once in a while.)