[bad_user]

> "Placebo effect caused me to not want a nap in the afternoon?"

No, it was probably the adrenaline being pumped due to the caloric deficit — without which you wouldn't have lost weight — or at the very least your diet being eucaloric, because eating too much does make one sleepy ;-)

> "Not being hungry until meal time?"

This can be attributed to — (1) extra proteins compared with your regular diet and (2) eating foods that aren't highly palatable. (speaking of which, high carb diets made of whole plants also have the advantage of fiber and volume)

There is a lot of evidence in the scientific community for these claims, while there is none for any specific effects of the keto diet. This isn't about anecdotes, although keto proponents sure seem to have a lot of them.

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> "Did I imagine the 60 pounds weight loss, too?"

Good for you, I lost 55 pounds too (not on keto), I know how challenging losing fat can be. And I'm genuinely glad to see other people succeeding.

If you feel good, keep doing whatever it is you're doing. If not, then know there are plenty of other options.

[com2kid]

> eating foods that aren't highly palatable.

The keto community has recently learned how to make good meals, it was pretty bad for awhile, but I'd like to note that nearly all Indian curry dishes are keto friendly.

And while ymmv, I consider them rather palatable.

Lots of Chinese dishes as well, obv. not noodle and rice dishes, but a large swath of Chinese cuisine is perfectly keto friendly.

Heck my local ramen shop now offers keto friendly noodles.

[bad_user]

I know and it would be pretty hard for Keto meals to not become palatable due to all the fat.

Long term all weight loss diets are equally disappointing, because appetite does come back and compliance becomes an issue. At maintenance we can actually tolerate a lot, esp if we are lightly active, but if you want to lose weight, striving for better tasting food is a poor strategy.

An excelent book on this subject is "The Hungry Brain" by Stephan Guyenet:

https://www.stephanguyenet.com/thehungrybrain/

This guy's blog is awesome too and if you're interested for example into why the "carbohydrate insulin model" is wrong, checkout this list of references produced by him:

https://www.stephanguyenet.com/references-for-my-debate-with...

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We have a brain hard-wired to seek foods high in calories and salt and we also prefer diversity. People on keto when looking at sweets, like brownies, they see the carbs, however the bigger problem is the fat + refined carbs combination. All junk food is a combination of fat + refined carbs, because this is a recipe for making the food hyper-palatable. This goes for French fries too, it's not the actual potato, because potatoes have a lot of water, a lot of volume and if you eat them boiled, few things are as satiating. Combine potatoes with fat by deep frying, then add some salt and both calories and palatability goes through the roof.

How can you make veggies and greens, like spinach or brocoly, tasty? You add some fat. Incidentally this is how you can trick your brain to like greens.

Most people have issues losing weight while eating brownies, not because you can't lose weight when eaten in moderation, but because it's so hard to not binge on brownies, especially if you have emotional issues too (and many overweight people have emotional issues), foods like brownies being perfect as a comfort food. You can binge on fruits, veggies, lean meat or beans of course, but it doesn't have the same impact.

(N.b. I love brownies, brownies are awesome, they just aren't good to have around when losing weight)

People in the keto community talk about carb cravings, however there is such a thing as craving fat or any food high in calories too, because it's not really about any particular macro nutrient. When I was on keto, I used to binge eat plain full fat butter. I also used to eat 1 Kg of grilled pork chops in a single seating and then I was hungry again at the next meal.

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On the whole however, both low carb diets and low fat diets lead to a spontaneous loss in appetite in many people. It's why they work short term.

This doesn't necessarily last for long, because you get used to what you eat and because we tend to diversify our meals in our search for better tasting food. Then the dreaded plateau appears, which can happen pretty fast on keto, esp due to the propaganda that calories don't matter.

Such diets are still better than the SAD, but you'd get a similar bang for the buck in terms of satiety and healthfulness ... if you just stuck with whole foods at least 80% of the time.

[com2kid]

> Such diets are still better than the SAD, but you'd get a similar bang for the buck in terms of satiety and healthfulness ... if you just stuck with whole foods at least 80% of the time.

Another useful benefit of Keto is that the rules are really simple.

That sticking with whole foods 80% of the time is the hard part, there is temptation everywhere, e.g. the Girlscout cookies on desks at work, free granola bars, etc etc. A decent % of our society is geared towards getting people to eat more.

Keto says "you can't eat any of that junk". Just, flat out. No points, no "a little bit of ice cream", just, no. The easy calories are not an option.

> Then the dreaded plateau appears, which can happen pretty fast on keto, esp due to the propaganda that calories don't matter.

Plateau's happen for many reasons, and a lot of them are not yet fully understood. For years there were stories of people eating below maintenance who aren't losing weight, and just recently science has learned that gut biomes can drop (increase?) their efficiency and result in a lower BMR than normal.

Of course at the end of the day, getting a 6 pack requires being hungry. There is no getting around that! (Well other than being under 24 and very physically active, but that's a very time boxes solution! ;) )

[bad_user]

I've been on Keto before — eating whole foods is much simpler, there's no counting of carbs involved, no danger of developing a nutrient deficiency and no fearmongering ;-)

> "Keto says "you can't eat any of that junk". Just, flat out. No points, no "a little bit of ice cream", just, no. The easy calories are not an option."

This is also a recipe for getting an eating disorder. You can't stick with this mentality unless you end up thinking that carbs are poison, which is factually wrong and a very unhealthy mentality. And do you have the same mentality about fats? Those are "easy calories" too.

Sometimes it's OK to just have one cookie. If that doesn't work for you, fine, I've been there and I can understand wanting 100% compliance, but personally I feel much better since giving up on such a goal — because no, food is not poison, food is not alcohol, chronic overeating is the problem (aka energy poisoning) and chronic overeating can happen once you develop what they call "an unhealthy relationship with food".

I now naturally want whole foods, because I get to eat more volume and it keeps me full for longer. Once I got the taste of it, I don't need to fear food categories in order to stay on path.

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> "For years there were stories of people eating below maintenance who aren't losing weight"

There's no such thing. People that eat below maintenance and not losing weight are either:

(1) underestimating their calories intake or

(2) have overestimated their maintenance requirements

If you're not losing weight, then by definition you're not eating below maintenance. And note that it is true that some medical conditions, like hypothyroidism, lead to a lowered metabolic rate (the thyroid is responsible for raising your body temperature for example), but in all cases we aren't talking about more than 200 - 300 kcal. So in order to lose weight, even people suffering from hypothyroidism can simply eat 2-300 kcal less — it's harder but it can be done. And if you claim a bigger penalty than that, you start breaking the laws of physics.

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> "just recently science has learned that gut biomes can drop (increase?) their efficiency and result in a lower BMR than normal"

No, that did not happen. The research you're talking about was inconclusive and it was done IN MICE.

There are indications that the health of the microbiome is important, however the associations between the _human_ microbiome and obesity are weak and don't appear to be causal.

I.e. people that are obese tend to eat a less diverse diet (less whole plants). Such people also have less diversity in their microbiome. You cannot infer from that the microbiome is what caused their obesity, the huge confounder in such associations being the diet itself.