[nessus42]

What's your evidence for this? I've definitely lost weight going on a low carbohydrate diet, and I ate as much protein and fat as I wanted. (I tried to keep the fats mostly "good fats".) Maybe if you don't eat any carbohydrates, you just don't end up wanting to eat as much.

[b3b0p]

Did you track caloric intake (accurately) on a daily basis? Do you have a base line estimate of how much you burn?

Eating as much as you want can be different things for different people. I know if you gave me a rib eye and eggs cooked in butter or eggs and bacon I could more than eat my fair share of calories burned for the day in that single sitting. No problem. I've done it, multiple times.

I found I got fatter on a too high fat diet. The amount of food, in quantity/volume, not calories, was less since fat has double the calories of carbs and proteins and I always could fit in more.

[nessus42]

No I didn't track caloric intake. Why would I do that? One of the selling points of these low carb diets is that I wouldn't have to track such things -- that all I would have to do is not eat many carbs and that I would lose weight.

I'm certainly not claiming that this style of diet would work for everyone, but it certainly seems to work for many people. One thing I noticed is that when I wasn't eating carbs, that eating a rib eye with eggs and butter and bacon didn't seem nearly as appealing in large quantities as it otherwise would have. The diet did take away a lot of the pleasure of eating, which may be in part why it worked. I just ended up not being terribly excited by foods without carbs in them and consequently perhaps didn't over-eat. I would have killed for a saltine, though.

Another thing I noticed is that I wouldn't lose weight if I ate lots of nuts. It seems likely that the reason for this fact is that nuts are just too high in fat to eat in large quantities and continue to lose weight. But the diet warned against eating many nuts.

In any case, I think the point is not that you can eat any amount of fat and protein and lose weight, but rather than you can eat as much as you will end up wanting. (With the exception of nuts.) And that you won't end up feeling hungry.

[hobin]

Make sure you're not simply stocking up on proteins. This can cause you to lose a lot of water, leading you to believe you're losing 'weight'. You might be, but in this case unfortunately, water != fat. Though if you're just 'eating as much [as you want]', you're probably fine.

Though, in all honesty, I don't care so much for special diets. Me, I prepare my own food and don't eat the refined crap, and I'm as healthy as a horse. My ancestors did not evolve to eat that crap.

[nessus42]

I kept the weight off for quite some time, so I doubt it was all water. I also fit into my old jeans. My brother just lost about 75 pounds on a low carb diet. That is certainly not 75 pounds of water! I don't know if he also ate as much as he wanted, though.

I do have to say when I went on the low carb diet, it did make me very cranky for the first week or two.

[brianmwang]

I agree that satiety from your macronutrient breakdown is a huge factor here. But some go so far as to claim you can eat FAR beyond your daily caloric burn in protein and fat and still lose weight. I have yet to meet anyone who can credibly back up that statement.

[frankc]

Part of the point here is that you don't know you daily caloric burn. It's not even possible to measure the calories in the food you eat precisely enough so that you could actually maintain weight homeostasis by literally counting calories. And if you get it wrong by even 20 calories a day? In 20 years you will gain over 40 pounds, by the calories in/calories out way of thinking. Clearly there must be some homeostatic mechanism controlling the weight in humans and other animals in the same way that homeostatic mechanisms control your body temperature. The Taubes argument in a nutshell is that excess carb consumption, especially fructose because of how it causes fatty liver issues, throws that homeostasis out of whack.