[20180201]

calorie intake and expenditure is a description not a prescription. this is about as useful as saying "make more money than you spend" in order to become wealthy. sure, that's true, but it won't help you make $10 million. how do you eliminate the desire to waste time and money on useless pursuits? that is the analogy we need to use to reframe this discussion. yes, there is a certain level of maturity and self-control involved, but you need to know what NOT to do first.

what is causing people the intense desire to overeat, and the intense lethargy that follows? probably insulin-spiking processed carbs and sugar. have you seen anyone in the throes of a carb addiction/crash cycle? it's damn near supernatural the amount of power these foods have over people.

at this point i consider them about the same level as cigarettes or alcohol. cheap, widely availabe, intensely addictive, and people who don't have a problem just telling you to "use less", "it's so easy". okay. sure.

"how do i graduate college?" "take more credits than it requires to graduate."

try telling this to the person who got sucked into the for-profit university and is $50k in debt.

the world is not as cut and dry as it seems, especially if you are burdened with a low IQ like the people who most easily fall for these schemes.

[_red]

Good points, but there is something else going on.

If you travel alot you start to see that every culture is heavy on carbs: Rice, pasta, potatoes, noodles, bread. They are ubiquitous.

Find a frenchmen that isn't eating bread from first meal to last...or an asian with rice / noodles. Or an Italian with pasta / bread, etc.

There is something else wrong here. I don't pretend to know what it is, but it seems like its almost a "food culture" problem. The most immediate things you notice are: (a) Americans portion size is double the rest of the world, and (b) Americans eat very very fast.

[cageface]

Exactly. The idea that carbohydrates, which have been the staple of most human diets for millennia, are somehow suddenly toxic makes no sense. Complex carbohydrates are fine. What's gone wrong in the US is that we are eating more processed carbohydrates along with way more chicken and cheese and our portion sizes and overall calorie intake have gone up significantly:

http://geeksta.net/visualizations/calories-us/

Excess consumption leads to obesity, which correlates strongly with just about every major chronic illness. Portion sizes are a big part of the problem. Every time I come back to the US after living in Asia I'm shocked at how ridiculously large restaurant serving sizes are.

[cageface]

Meat and animal protein is actually more insulinogenic than many common carbohydrates.

https://www.drcarney.com/blog/entry/low-carb-theory-regardin...

Pretty much everybody agrees that eating a lot of sugar or processed simple carbs is a bad idea but the demonization of high fiber, complex carbs has no basis in science.

[blueblimp]

Isn't this why ketogenic diets also limit protein? I think you're right that if someone is eating a low-carb diet but also eating excessive protein, they wouldn't be adhering to an insulin-based theory.

Ketogenic diets seem best understood as diets that put fat intake as high as possible. Some protein intake is necessary, to obtain essential amino acids, but ideally not more than that. Carb intake can almost entirely be eliminated, because there are no essential carbs, and plant consumption can focus on low-carb plants (e.g. nuts, leafy greens).

I don't mean to endorse ketogenic diets, since I don't know whether they work. But they're at least internally consistent provided protein intake is also limited.

[cageface]

The keto diets most people follow are loaded with animal proteins and fats, although they don't have to be that way. There are some benefits to a healthy keto diet but there are also some serious risks, particularly in the longer term.

https://www.thepaleomom.com/adverse-reactions-to-ketogenic-d...

[elhudy]

The idea that protein should be consumed instead of carbs couldbe due to them being equally insulinogenic to most 'complex' carbs, while also being the building blocks of muscle (rather than being stored on the body as glycogen). While I don't doubt that porridge, all-bran, and muesli enact a lesser insulin response, I'd rather eat the steak, which still beat out nearly all other carbs.

As a side-note, it would be interesting to see how the insulin responses would look if the test subjects were already following a low-carb protocol.

[cageface]

Eating too much protein is not healthy. And most Americans eat way more than the recommended amount:

https://www.healthline.com/health/too-much-protein#risks

You're also getting saturated fat and cholesterol with the steak, which is unhealthy despite recent efforts of some to cloud the issue.

[elhudy]

If you want me to take the claim that "a high protein diet is unhealthy" seriously, then you're going to have to provide something better than that article.

"Weight Gain" due to increased protein consumption is disputed[1]. In fact the premise itself can be disputed just by noting that weight gain can present itself in the form of muscle gain.

Bad breath: ...really?

Constipation: "This is because high-protein diets that restrict carbohydrates are typically low in fiber." I'm sorry, but why do high protein diets need to be low in fiber? That doesn't make any sense at all - any diet can be low in fiber if you don't eat fiber.

Diarrhea: Author provides no source.

Dehydration and Kidney damage: Both prevented by drinking enough water.

Increased cancer risk: The issue with these studies is that they don't provide necessary controls. Most people who eat red meat regularly are not doing HIIT, strength training, or going for walks. They are not eating their red meat on a bed of spinach. They are eating it between two buns and with a side of steamy fries (which are known to cause cancer[2]). If we look at the actual mechanisms for carcinogenicity, we find that eating veggies, not burning your food, and not eating cured meats, are probably as likely to keep you cancer free than switching your steak to a super whole-grain diet. Don't forget to also have a healthy gut, which prevents colon cancer[3]

Saturated Fat / Heart Disease / cholesterol: Again, no long term studies have had the right controls in place to conclude that Saturated fat, in the absence of unhealthy carbs/meats, are actually harmful. Only 20% of the cholesterol in our bodies actually comes from our food. Saturated vs nonsaturated is a debate being waged between actual RDs. It's not just "an effort to cloud an issue".

Calcium Loss: Actually, more Americans experience calcium loss as a result of NOT getting enough protein. "Despite a widely held belief that high-protein diets (especially diets high in animal protein) result in bone resorption and increased urinary calcium, higher protein diets are actually associated with greater bone mass and fewer fractures when calcium intake is adequate. Perhaps more concern should be focused on increasing the intake of alkalinizing fruits and vegetables rather than reducing protein sources." [4]

Whether high fat and protein vs high carb low fat is "better", is going to remain debated until the end of time, because studies repeatedly show discrepancies. The fact is humans from different geographies have evolved over time to accommodate different diets. This is why we see things like lactose intolerance concentrated in some regions but devoid in others [5]. Imagine ALL of the other mechanisms for body health and how they have evolved over time in different regions, and consider how silly it is to attempt to expose those which are harmful using broad studies with poor controls over only certain populations - while ignoring the underlying mechanisms for the actual harm.

[1]https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-016-...

[2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4780226/

[3]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26286349

[4]https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/87/5/1567S/4650438

[5]https://www.foodbeast.com/news/map-of-milk-consumption-lacto...

[cageface]

The dangers of excessive protein intake are very well documented. A simple Google search turns up so many references. Here's one from the Mayo clinic:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...

Saturated fat intake has been shown to boost serum cholesterol and increase risk of CVD in literally hundreds of direct feeding mechanistic trials. Genetic variability of cholesterol is high enough that cross-sectional studies are not appropriate for studying this.

https://nutritionfacts.org/2016/10/04/how-to-design-saturate...

In other words, ingesting saturated fat and cholesterol will raise your cholesterol levels and increase your risk of CVD but your baseline risk depends a lot on your genes.

[elhudy]

The mayo clinic link is actually reaffirming my opinion:

>For most healthy people, a high-protein diet generally isn't harmful, particularly when followed for a short time. Such diets may help with weight loss by making you feel fuller. However, the risks of using a high-protein diet with carbohydrate restriction for the long term are still being studied.

They are still being studied - poorly at that.

The second link is hilarious in that it fails to even describe the two types of LDL cholesterol, but lumps them both in as "bad" - which is typical of the "cholesterol is bad" crowd. In fact - the first study I clicked on in the nutritionfacts.org fails to mention the same. How can you do a study on cholesterol without even testing the two types of LDL? Frankly, it's embarrassing and is absolutely not mechanistic as you say.

Once again, these meta studies are attempting to show that a diet with lowered saturated fat intake is better in the long run than your average diet. This is not something that anyone is debating. However, it absolutely can not be misinterpreted as proof that high protein/saturated fat intake, in all cases, is bad. Which is exactly the mistake all of these authors are making, and is why there are many intelligent people on the other side of this discussion as well.

[bobdole1234]

I'd say it's harder to quit eating badly than it is to quit cigarettes: You can live a long life without ever touching a cigarette again. But you won't get far with going cold turkey on food.

[headsoup]

Food is also harder because a) the healthy option is more expensive and b) sugar and heavy processing is in so much of the food available that it's hard to avoid, or sometimes even detect.

[tdb7893]

Healthy food is often more expensive but there are healthy options for cheap. Rice, beans, and vegetables are all pretty cheap and can form the base for a lot of different meals. The hardest part for me eating healthy was having to relearn a completely different set of recipes