[robchez]

I really wish the count calories, calories in = calories out, calorie is just a calorie mantra would just go away and die.

The idea that your body has no clue as to what type (fat, protein, carb) of you're eating is stupid.

I have advised nearly everyone in my family as well as lots of friends and colleagues to weight loss success with the following simple rules:

1. Get rid of grains, legumes and sugars

2. Eat healthy fats (coconut oil, lard, tallow grass-fed butters)

3. Eat a decent amount of protein from meat sources.

4. Lower your carbs overall (this is sort of automatic as you will not feel as hungry if you eat plenty of fats and protein)

5. Eat to satiety

Also, you don't need to go for runs, or exercise to lose weight. It's great for your overall health, but if you are overweight and the thought of exercise is stopping you, then forget it and just change your diet.

As an aside, if anyone else wants further advice please feel free to ask.

edit: formatting

[angdis]

Nah, humans can thrive with eating a huge variety of foods. The atkins-type diets, as far as I've seen, are followed by panda-bear-shaped folks who maintain that panda-bear-shape no matter what.

If we really understood (as a society) what truly makes for a good diet, people would be getting slimmer and not fatter.

IMHO, the most sensible diet advice comes from Michael Pollan: "Eat real food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

[robchez]

Society doesn't understand thanks to the government pushing the food pyramid/plate down their throats and the low-fat diet crud.

Check out a cross-fit gym anywhere and see if you can find the pand-bear-shaped folks.

[sliverstorm]

I would guess the lack of panda-bear folks at a cross-fit gym is not because cross-fit works, but because cross-fit culls the panda-bears very quickly.

[fanboy123]

Sounds like a recipe for being hungry all the time.

[sliverstorm]

You might be surprised. I'm not a health nut- I'm too in love with breads to give up grains, for starters- but I've found that some foods really are a lot better at making you feel full than others. Pasta? Terrible. The shepard's pie I ate today? Really good. Stew or soup? Amazing.

[ebzlo]

I don't think it needs to necessarily "go away and die," the method works. I lost 40 pounds last year counting calories to the tee. I'm talking about 6 months of not cheating a single calorie (I wouldn't even have a bite of someone's ice cream, etc).

I will say that following that mantra is unnecessary for weight loss unless you're very serious about it. Following my diet plan I lowered my body fat percentage to < 9% (It was the strangest thing, I was a computer geek with abs).

Everything works, some things just work better than others.

[beagle3]

It works for some people (my not-really-scientific observation is around 70%), but not for others. And part of the culture is dismissing anyone for which it doesn't work with "you're doing it wrong". It's like telling someone who has a magnet "gravitation is the only force". There was a point in history when that was common, but it no longer is. In 100-200 years, calorie counting will probably be revised to the point that it is only a small part (and when properly managed, negligible) part of the weight management equation.

For me the rule seems to be something like: no carbs - weight goes down at a rate of ~0.4kg/day (with a lower limit at ~82kg), regardless of calorie count, and yes, I varied the amount of taste-free-fat from nothing to ~2000kcal/day. With wheat: wait gain with sickness-upper limit of ~100kg (when I get there, I feel physically sick to the point of not eating) -- REGARDLESS OF CALORIC INTAKE (~800 average daily for over a few months, while constantly gaining weight). Some carbs but no wheat - mostly stable weight, I'm still working on figuring out the good carbs from the bad carbs.

[battlebee]

Really? Because I lost 40lbs in four months last fall by meticulously counting my calories.

* You're strategy is vague and difficult to determine compliance. How much is a "decent amount"?

* My method is quantitative. Everything I ate had a number, and that number totaled less than 15 by the end of the day.

The problem I have with your method is the idea that I need to have a huge knowledge-base to make it work. How many people do you think know if their butter is "grass-fed"? If I go to Applebees, the calorie number is listed right on the menu, yet I would never be able to find out if their butter is grass-fed.

I put off trying to lose weight for years because I thought I needed to read 10 books to figure out how. Turns out all I needed was a calculator.

[robchez]

that's great you lost weight, but for me, and i assume others, counting calories is just another thing to think about in life.

forget the grass-fed butter, i shouldn't have added it in. the reason i said decent amount, is because it's not a quantitive amount. have a steak or some chicken every day.

a good diet is one that has the least work and you can stick with for life.

Eat lots of fat, some protein, little carbs.

[JohnsonB]

> 1. Get rid of grains, legumes and sugars

This is only partially true; there is nothing wrong with unprocessed grains/legumes if eaten in moderation. This means whole grains and not processed wheat products. Actually the rest of your advice usually lines up with the "healthy carbs" mantra which refers to whole grains, legumes, nuts and some starches.

The other thing that should be mentioned is to eat as much low-calorie vegetables/greens as possible which helps fill you without adding to your calorie count (which is still important to some degree) and also important for getting vital minerals/nutrients.

[Evgeny]

there is nothing wrong with unprocessed grains/legumes if eaten in moderation

It probably depends on one's definition of "nothing wrong". The fact that grains, whole or not, are packed with antinutrients like gluten, phytic acid or lectins is well-known.

Here's the best summary on the subject that I've found so far: http://anthonycolpo.com/?p=852

Edit: lectins

[kenjackson]

Here's the best summary on the subject that I've found so far: http://anthonycolpo.com/?p=852

That summary is pretty horrible. Maybe you were testifying to the state of the literature, but it read like two children arguing. Both kind of referring to literature, but little really putting together coherent arguments.

Based on this, I think I'll eat what tastes good. :-)

[Evgeny]

Well, I would say that it's understandable for a layperson, logically sound and has heaps of links to peer reviewed literature. This alone brings it to the top 1% of everything written on the subject.

Based on this, I think I'll eat what tastes good. :-)

Based on this:

You claim whole grains have sufficient minerals to negate their toxic effects. Pity that the high phytate content of whole grains binds to minerals such as iron, calcium, magnesium, and zinc in the gastrointestinal tract, significantly reducing their absorption by the body[6-8]. While they increase the dietary content of zinc, iron, magnesium and calcium when compared to refined grains, they also promptly increase the excretion of these minerals from the body. The end result is that overall mineral status improves only marginally, remains unchanged, or even worsens[7-12]. If you want to increase your mineral intake, whole grains are a pretty poor way to do it. Far better choices would be fresh non-cereal, non-leguminous plant foods, mineral-rich waters (look for a high magnesium:calcium ratio), ionic mineral solutions such as those sourced from Utah’s Great Salt Lake, and highly bioavailable mineral supplements such as those complexed to citrate, picolinate, etc.

I will not. :-)

[kenjackson]

Foods have complex interactions with humans. I can grab 20 papers that talk about the benefits of whole grains. It's extremely easy to cherry pick the data.

Take this quote from one of the papers noted by the author:

The studies summarized in this review show that the recommendation for increasing dietary fiber in Western communities would not be expected to have any adverse effect on mineral absorption if we increase not only the intake of fiber, but also the dietary intake of other food components such as protein (both vegetable and animal protein) and ascorbic, citric, and oxalic acids (in fruits and vegetables). The adequate intake of minerals, fat, and simple sugars are maintained with this type of diet. The recommendations should be best interpreted in such a way as to prevent the consumption of excessive amounts of phytate, particularly for those whose mineral needs are great. Further studies are still needed in this field in order to understand the conflicting results published in the literature regarding the effects of fiber on the utilization of minerals; however, the studies reviewed in this article may give us an idea of the complexity of mineral availability in fiber-rich, phytate-rich diets.

From a cursory skimming of the references that even your author gives, it seems like only diets exceptionally high with phytate are problematic -- in areas such as Iran. I don't think the typical US diet (even at a 1 std dev) is likely to approach a problem. And as noted here, with reasonable diet modification, the problem can be almost completely mitigated.

I'm not a nutritionist, and don't think about this daily, but the evidence just isn't compelling. And often completely contradictory. Given that, if whole grains in moderation lead to a better quality of life, that's my choice.

Of course if we see that most NBA athletes and centurians avoid whole grains, I would strongly reconsider.

With that said, I actually don't eat many whole grains, and eat more fice. But purely for non-health related reasons.

[sliverstorm]

This article operates on the presumption that we need to increase our mineral intake. More of X mineral is not unilaterally desirable or even better.

[robchez]

i think you mean leCtins not lePtins

:)

[robchez]

as per a post below the reason i shy away from grains/legumes are due to their lectins/protease inhibitors/phytates.

Sprouting them may limit these issues, but for me, healthy carbs are sweet potatos and some white rice now and then.

[xyzzyb]

I don't get it. The unit "calorie" already takes the different compositions of the food into account. It's simply a measure of how much energy a typical person's body will extract from that specific food.

A sugar calorie is completely different from a edamame calorie, but their end result regarding weight loss will be the same.

You'll feel completely different from both calories, but your scale won't.

[bchjam]

The main problem I have is finding good, reliable research material. So many of the studies I've seen have tiny or overly narrow samples. If you know of any good sources that are available online please let me know.

[ciupicri]

If you get rid of grains from where are you going to get the B vitamins? The grains have the advantage of having a lot of B vitamins while being ubiquitous.

P.S. I eat pork muscle, chicken breast, tuna, sardines, mackerel and eggs and while they are rich in vitamin B12 and some of the others, they don't seem to provide the full spectrum of B vitamins. On the other hand with grains you can't go wrong, you can be sure that you're going to get B1-B9 vitamins, especially if you eat a lot of bread like I used to.

[Evgeny]

Wikipedia suggests that B vitamins are particularly concentrated in meat such as turkey and tuna, in liver and meat products.

[ciupicri]

http://www.nal.usda.gov says that 70 grams (~ a can) of "Fish, tuna, light, canned in water, drained solids" has:

- 0.022 mg of Thiamin; RDA is 1.4 mg

- 0.052 mg of Riboflavin; RDA is 1.2 mg

- 9.296 mg of Niacin; RDA is 16 mg

- 0.150 mg of Pantothenic acid; RDA is 5 mg

- 0.245 mg of Vitamin B-6; RDA is 1.3 mg

- 2.09 mcg of Vitamin B-12; RDA is 2.4

So while tune does have enough of some B vitamins, it does not have enough of the others.

[robchez]

Meat. You would be surprised how nutritionally dense a good steak is!

[csshelton]

Why do you suggest forgoing legumes?

[robchez]

this has got to do more with health rather than weight loss i guess.

legumes have 3 things that suck - lectins, protease inhibitors and phytates

lectins - known to cause inflammation and have been show to cause gut permeability which is followed by auto-immune type diseases.

protease inhibitors intefere with the breakdown of proteins into amino acids

phytates have been shown to inhibit mineral absorption

[dgrant]

I call bull shit. This sounds like some Paleo-diet nonsense rather than the result of rigorous scientific study.

[robchez]

call it what you like but that some basic biomedical info there. just wikipedia/google it.

:)

[subsection1h]

Why did he make any of those suggestions? I don't know because he didn't provide any citations to research papers.

[antidaily]

Worked for me. Ive lost about 20lbs in the 6 weeks on the Tim Ferriss version of the "slow" carb diet, which is pretty easy to follow and offers a cheat day so you keep your sanity.