[LouisSayers]

> It’s so hard to eat healthy, I honestly cannot fathom how people do it.

It's honestly just what you're used to.

If you eat tonnes of sugar and fat then that's what you crave.

If you cut sugar out of your diet, after a while the amount of sugar you used to eat will taste wayyy too sweet. Same with fat - eating chips for example will leave a gross fatty taste in your mouth.

99% of food bought out will have a whole lot of oil, fat, and sugar in it.

Eating healthy starts by controlling what goes into your own food. Cook and prepare meals yourself. Once you're in the habit of doing this you simply start to replace bad food for good.

Don't buy junk in the first place, then you won't eat it. Always shop for food when you've already eaten (and thus not hungry). Slowly reduce / eliminate the amount of fatty and sugary food in your meals. Just drink water (seriously, just water, no sweeteners).

Combine that with an exercise routine and you'll be set.

[tptacek]

This would be more persuasive if it wasn't more or less the opposite of what current nutrition research suggests about fat and satiety.

[depressedpanda]

Fat and non-satiating carbs in combination (e.g. chips) is bad because you will consume loads of calories without feeling full. Most seed oils (i.e. fat) actually seem to be quite unhealthy. If people avoid that shit when being told to avoid fat in general, I think it's actually a net positive.

Apart from them seemingly equating fat and sugar as equally bad, the comment was spot on.

[tptacek]

"Potato chips are bad for you" is a noncontroversial statement. "If you want to lose weight, avoid fats", on the other hand, is deeply controversial and probably wrong.

[nordsieck]

I think that many people discover a particular diet that works for them psychologically and expect that to be the case for everyone.

I do wish that more people understood the basic research on satiety, though. I suspect more diets would be successful if people were eating ~2g of lean protein per kg of goal weight along with a lot (I'm not sure if people have studied amounts here) of dietary fiber.

[moring]

This is exactly what helped me get my weight down: Lots of protein (whey / casein powder is pretty cheap nowadays if you search online; the exact formula is irrelevant unless you are doing top-tier bodybuilding; I'd suggest casein since it digests more slowly so it keeps you "full" for a longer time, and for me this seems to work) and lots of dietary fibers (wheat bran; drink a lot of water and eat it piece by piece over time; getting a lump of this stuck in your throat really sucks...)

Other than that your comment seems to contradict itself, I'd fully agree.

[nordsieck]

> Other than that your comment seems to contradict itself, I'd fully agree.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Could you elaborate?

[moring]

I meant that you stated,

> I think that many people discover a particular diet that works for them psychologically and expect that to be the case for everyone.

and then did just that for a high-protein, high-fiber diet. OTOH, that worked for me too, so it is certainly something to try.

Re-reading your comment though, I realized that I probably misunderstood it and that you were referring to independent research that came to the same conclusion.

[nordsieck]

I see. That makes sense.

Yeah - I probably didn't word that the best.

[LouisSayers]

When I said fat I was thinking of the types of fats you eat when eating out.

Lots of deep fried, Canola oil or vegetable oils, bacon etc.

I agree that "fat" isn't harmful, but I do think people get a taste for the nasty ones.

[tptacek]

"Deep fried" is a problem because it almost always saturates carbohydrate-heavy food in fat. There's no debate about whether potato chips are probably just as harmful! But it turns out: the baked potato chips are just as harmful. Vegetable oil on its own is probably not a problem at all. Research on ketogenic diets suggests bacon simply isn't a problem: it's an extremely high-satiety food (it's physically difficult to eat a lot of it!).

Bacon might be a problem for other reasons; for instance, maybe the CVD correlation with saturated fats will pan out. But in terms of basic metabolism, appetite, and hunger, the current trend seems to be away from the idea that people should avoid bacon-like fats.

I'm not here to say "bacon is the answer" so much as to say that your original post, suggesting that there's a simple nutritional answer to this problem, is both glib and not especially well-informed. The truth is: this stuff is very complicated, and there's a lot of uncertainty.

[LouisSayers]

Aren't baked potato chips generally cooked in oil?

I agree that nutrition is complicated, and I am in no way an expert, but I really don't think we need to get so complicated to live a moderately healthy lifestyle.

In general most people know what foods they should be avoiding. I'm not saying stop eating avocados and almonds (although I've heard avocados use a ridiculous amount of water to farm). I am saying maybe don't chow down on potato chips, pizza and then eat a muffin - and then repeat roughly the same diet the next day... when I think of fatty foods, these are the types of food that come to my mind (and I'm assuming that's what comes to mind for the general population as well).

Of course if we go down a technical track or move away from the general population nutrition gets complicated super quickly.

On the subject of vegetable oils, this is why I say to avoid them - https://chriskresser.com/how-industrial-seed-oils-are-making...

Lastly, bacon is delicious.

Here's some more of my non-expert opinion: delicious things should be eaten in moderation.

[tptacek]

It's complicated.

People with satiety issues (for instance, with hormonal disregulation, issues with insulin resistance, etc) aren't necessarily as well served by the "everything in moderation" message.

Food cravings aren't purely intellectual any more than needing to urinate is; intellectually, I can hold it until I find an acceptable bathroom, but physically, the severity of the urge and thus the energy required to regulate it varies based on how much liquid I've consumed, how long I've been waiting, and whether anything I drank is diuretic.

Similarly: depending on your hormonal profile, different foods will probably have different impacts both on satiety (the feeling of being full, of additional food being a welcome stimulation) and on "cravings". Some people can eat a "balanced" diet in moderation, across all the macronutrients, and be just fine; some people will consume simple carbohydrates (bread, rice) and immediately have an urge to eat more, as a dose-dependent response to the carbohydrates they've consumed.

For those people, "eat a little of everything, don't overdo it on the bacon" might not be good advice. There is in fact not that much evidence that eating bacon (or other high-fat, high-protein foods) is especially bad for you. But those foods also tend to quickly produce satiety, and they don't seem to generate food cravings directly in response to their consumption. Maybe for them the bacon, cheese, and eggs is a good call, as long as they're steering clear of the carbohydrates. It's a very big open question right now.

(Again: I'm only considering the goal of minimizing caloric consumption --- weight management --- not other food health considerations.)

Different people are different, and one of the things we are probably getting very wrong in dealing with nutrition is trying to come up with a single set of guidelines for everybody.

[raspberry1337]

There's no conclusive single position of "current nutrition research".

[tomp]

Citation?

[tptacek]

Every study done on ketogenic diets, for starters.

[wink]

I don't buy that line of reasoning. I'm personally going between "I don't crave sweets at all" for weeks to "give me everything we have at home and when I go for groceries I will buy more". Maybe there are people who keep certain preferences or bodily functions for years, I am not one of them. My need for sleep is also drastically going up and down in bouts of months (when I need 8h, I need 8h and 9h is better, and when I am fine with 6h I am fine with 6h or if need be 5h, this changes every few months and then stays for a few months, not limited to a certain time of the year).