[dalore]

"Eat less, move more" is the advice professionals have been giving for years. This advice doesn't work though. Yes you have to do those things but telling people to do that in of itself is useless. There are strong biological/environmental factors at play working against that very advice. Having obesity isn't just some decision that people wake up and decide on.

The main advantage of the low-carb diet is that it may cause you to want to eat less. Even without counting calories, overweight people tend to eat fewer calories on low carb. Sugar and starch may increase your hunger, while avoiding them may decrease your appetite to a more manageable level. If your body wants to have an appropriate number of calories, you don’t need to bother counting them. Thus, calories count, but you don’t need to count them.

[shlant]

> This advice doesn't work though

It does work in the vast majority of cases. "biological/environmental factors" that may make this harder are the exception, not the norm

> The main advantage of the low-carb diet is that it may cause you to want to eat less

But this isn't unique to low-carb diets. You can also swap out a portion of your food for vegetables and get similar satiety while eating less calories. Eating slower can also help you eat less. The point is, an extremely restrictive diet is not necessary to achieve the same results.

[amanaplanacanal]

The advice doesn’t work. If it worked, why do we still have an obesity epidemic? Are there still people who haven’t heard this message?

[shlant]

> If it worked, why do we still have an obesity epidemic

not everyone follows the advice? It takes a LOT of effort and discipline? Food is a powerful vice and coping mechanism. Addiction of any kind is not an easy thing to overcome especially when that addiction is so normalized.

> Are there still people who haven’t heard this message?

I think in most first-world countries no, but there is a massive difference between hearing something, understanding something and successfully implementing something

[PeterisP]

Yes, that's the whole point. Advice "Eat less, move more" does not work because people won't follow that advice, so it's ineffective advice and we need something better.

The appropriate measure for effectiveness of public health recommendations is whether the recommendations get results. It doesn't matter if simply eating less and moving more would get results, if advising people "eat less, move more" does not result in them actually eating less and moving more.

It's not useful to compare diet A with diet B, you need to compare the effect of "tell people to follow diet A" versus "tell people to follow diet B", because the likelihood of actually following the advice (influenced by ease, convenience, and compatibility with natural urges) is probably the most important part that determines what results (if any) it will achieve.

If one system or diet is much more difficult to follow than another, if "it takes a LOT of effort and discipline" then that's a serious limitation, a legitimate flaw of that system or diet. It's worthless to evaluate the effect of a process that almost nobody will do.

And this is a key argument in favor of the keto diet - that people who don't manage to achieve a calorie reduction through simply eating less or calorie counting find it easier to get a calorie reduction through this system, because it better aligns with our normal satiety mechanism.

[dalore]

Another problem with the advice of eat less move more is that you are putting blame on the person. If they only tried harder they wouldn't be fat. No matter if they have tried really hard only to get told they aren't good enough. When really the whole game is stacked against them. Companies creating highly desired, but low in nutrition and satiety food. Cereals full of sugar being marketed as heart healthy. It's all stacked against them and the message needs to change.

[shlant]

you can certainly cite the multitudes of factors working against staying healthy in todays modern environment, and those are super valid and should be considered. However, ULTIMATELY nobody can force you to be healthy and bar getting rid of any possibility of anyone obtaining "unhealthy" food, the responsibility in the end lies with the individual in most cases.

[ubercow13]

>It takes a LOT of effort and discipline

That's the whole point, low-carb takes less effort and discipline for the same result

[smoe]

How does it take less effort? I lost around 30 kg from being obese without doing low, high or abstain anything. Also no calorie counting except in the very beginning.

After going down the rabit whole of trying to understand all the details of nutrition. What eventually worked is the simple and stupid advice: eat less, move more.

The problem is that there are no easy 30 day hacks, which is what people often expect.

From my perspective, whichever diet, it will take time and you need to make lasting lifestyle changes. The rest are implementation details.

[ubercow13]

The claim (which the above comments are seemingly ignoring, and I kind of believe myself but am not asserting) is that low-carb diet decreases hunger, making it naturally less effort to eat less (or at least requiring less willpower)

[AnonC]

> low-carb takes less effort and discipline for the same result

For which group of people and what cultural background?

Any advice on diet that tends towards “this works for all or most” is very likely riddled with personal bias.

[shlant]

> low-carb takes less effort and discipline

"less effort and discipline" than what? depends on the comparison

Also, I'm sure a lot of people who have had trouble staying on the diet would disagree. Regardless of the specific regime, if a diet is restrictive (especially of things people are used to consuming) it can require a lot of discipline.