[Sapient]

> chicken wings and burgers and fries and nachos and big macs

Thats loads of carbs. And they are probably also eating a lot of crisps, along with all the sodas and sweetened drinks they are drinking. What I am trying to say, is that its not the fat in those meals which is making them fat, its the carbs.

I am on a diet which has cut out all carbs entirely, and increased the amount of fat I eat drastically. I lost a large amount of weight fairly quickly on this diet, and the loss continues.

Edit: Americanized chips to crisps.

[bad_user]

     I am on a diet which has cut out all carbs
     entirely, and increased the amount of fat I eat 
     drastically

Be careful about it, because your body needs those fruits and vegetables. Like, I know it is trendy to hate the potato, but it still has an unique nutritional value that can hardly be replaced.

Unfortunately you can't precisely measure the effect carbs can have on your body. Things like the quantity of carbs, or the glycemic index, or the insulinemic index ... are clues, but not proofs of what you should eat. To make matters worse, we don't actually know what nutrients our body needs, we just know that this shit is really complex.

What you have to really watch out for are the refined carbohydrates (sugar, white flour, white rice) and keep in mind that not all carbs are created equally ;-)

Personally I think the best diets are those dissociated. You may lose weight slower than on more drastic diets, but that's also good for preventing loose skin and other health related issues.

[Sapient]

I should have been more specific - I have completely cut out all refined carbs like bread and sugar, and massively cut down on the rest (I do still eat some fruits, vegetables and even a little starch in the form of sweet-potatoes etc, but very little while I am losing weight).

Once I have lost enough weight, I will increase the amount of carbs in my diet (NOT refined carbs) until I find the point at which I start putting on weight again.

[peterwwillis]

See, if I was going to take on an extreme fad diet that cut out entirely one of the three basic building blocks of nutrition, I would have gone with the junk food diet: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/...

[Sapient]

I have only cut them out completely until I have reached a healthy weight. Once I am there, I will not introduce any refined carbs (sugar, flour etc) into my diet, but will increase certain carbs (Sweet potato, other fruits etc) until I find the point at which I put on weight again.