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The Sugar Conspiracy

theguardian.com

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Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#201

Post by npsimons »

funkyy wrote: post #194
asadkn wrote: post #190

It's typical how most people really want to immediately buy into the simple fixes and religiously believe them without knowing why it worked. Overweight? Must be the fructose (recently) / carbs (a while back) / fats (further back). Same old story. Somebody makes rounds in media and makes a lot of money after publishing a book with something "new" - a simple fix. Fortunately we have people like Lyle McDonald, Alan Ara…

Very few public, true fitness instructors and dietitians are following the simplest rule ever - decrease calories to lose weight. This method is not that popular, its to tricky since it requires for person to calculate foods, which makes it unpopular for lazy. But it is absolutely the best method to lose weight fast, decrease calorie intake and create shortage.

A million times this. People think that the second law of thermodynamics doesn't apply to them because "biology is complex!", which sounds an awful lot like the creationists.

You can't outrun your fork. Even if you want to create a caloric deficit through increased activity level, you'll need to hold intake constant, therefore you most likely have to track it to begin with. These days with things like MyFitnessPal there is no excuse. And while it's possible to lose weight without tracking (I've done it), it's not nearly as straightforward.

If people are truly lazy, they'd put down the fork, as that's all that's needed, no time "wasted" at the gym necessary. But hunger is a hard thing to beat, and willpower can be used up, not to mention a lot of other factors (mindless eating, eating for comfort or to self-medicate, etc).

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#202

Post by CuriouslyC »

basicplus2 wrote: post #88

the healthy diet.. lots of vegetables, fatty meats, rice for carbs, and no addded sugars, and nothing you see in bakeries ( ie no breads etc) and virtually no pasta.

Sorry but you can't proclaim one healthy diet for everyone; people with different genes, activity levels and gut microbiomes will respond differently to different foods.

That being said, even your simplified recommendations are wrong. A ton of research exists linking saturated fat to systemic inflammation and a worsening of insulin sensitivity in pre-diabetic populations. Rice is fairly bad carb source in terms of nutrients/calorie (not to mention arsenic contamination in American rice) - the only thing it has going for it is it is hypo-allergenic. Whole wheat/multigrain sourdough bread is actually a really good carb source. Additionally, there are premium pastas like Barilla protein plus that are good as well.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#203

Post by Synaesthesia »

PepeGomez wrote: post #139
Synaesthesia wrote: post #3

Very interesting how people can all subscribe to an orthodoxy for so long, ignoring evidence to the contrary. Max Planck: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

There is no evidence for what Lustig says. He produced one mediocre paper after multiple attempts. That's it. It's not science. It's just an attempt to distract from the real issue. It started with pet food. Attempts at making plant based foods for dogs and cats initially failed, becuase the animals didn't want to eat these unnatural diets. But a solution was found: the so called "palatants". When they were added to…

There's been lots of evidence of the harm caused by sugar in many other studies, and mentioned in this article, besides the ones Lustig did, which I think, confirms he was right.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#204

Post by glaberficken »

geoka9 wrote: post #107
glaberficken wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very very powerful thing that most of us forget when we start reading all the conflicting evidence about carbs / sugar / fat: You can experiment on yourself for free! Obviously this won't prove how everyone's body works. But it will teach you something very powerful about how your own body works. Go off sugar for 3 months, make your mind and do it, and note the changes in your organism. Or go off carbs totally for…

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on this, just describing my own experience (which may be subjective/biased/completely misinterpreted by me). If you're mostly sedentary in a first-world country, going off sugar/carbs-dominated diet brings your insulin sensitivity to its natural levels (which, very probably, it hasn't been since the moment you started eating adult food). For me this had the amazing effect of becoming mor…

I had a similar experience when I removed sugar and almost all carbs for 5 months. Switched to mostly protein and fat (meat/tuna/eggs/cheese/vegetables)

One major change was much higher "energy"/"alertness levels after lunch and after dinner. No more sleepy low energy "food coma" feeling after meals.

Where I would usually feel like laying on the sofa after a long day's work and dinner, now I had the urge to go out on my bicycle, even at night and in winter cold.

Although I have to admit that like most people who do drastic diet changes I had a relapse and went back to eating sugar again after the five months. This relapse happened gradually, where I naively convinced myself that I was no longer addicted to sugar, and started by having a treat once a week, which quickly became once a day ...

The mental change is still ingrained in me though, I now treat sugar like a dangerous addictive substance and I'm trying to get rid of it like any other "substance abuser".

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#205

Post by sirtastic »

funkyy wrote: post #194
asadkn wrote: post #190

It's typical how most people really want to immediately buy into the simple fixes and religiously believe them without knowing why it worked. Overweight? Must be the fructose (recently) / carbs (a while back) / fats (further back). Same old story. Somebody makes rounds in media and makes a lot of money after publishing a book with something "new" - a simple fix. Fortunately we have people like Lyle McDonald, Alan Ara…

Very few public, true fitness instructors and dietitians are following the simplest rule ever - decrease calories to lose weight. This method is not that popular, its to tricky since it requires for person to calculate foods, which makes it unpopular for lazy. But it is absolutely the best method to lose weight fast, decrease calorie intake and create shortage.

This doesn't always work. Many people, myself included can fail to lose weight on a restricted calorie diet. I spent 12 months eating below 1200 while working out religiously (4-6 days a week with 30sh mins of cardio followed by 45sh mins of weight lifting). In the beginning I lost weight and fast. At 5'9 I went from 240 down to 148 lbs in 7 months. At 148 I still had excess fat on my body and no matter how hard I worked out it went nowhere. I was borderline starving myself and everything I read said "it's simple calorie in vs out". It became obvious to me that wasn't always true. It's frustrating to hear people spew that when I'm weighing chicken breasts with 110% certainty of what my caloric intake is vs my out and here I was, not losing a damn pound.

I wish I could say I know what was going on. I have theories as I spent months of my life trying to turn the tables. I eventually gave up and just continued to lift weights and eat normal. Now 4 years later I still have that fat I couldn't lose but I'm a lot bigger (muscle). That fat hasn't gone anywhere and in the 4 years I've yo-yo'd with different attempts to get rid of it. The fat I have is not normal.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#206

Post by soundwave106 »

funkyy wrote: post #194
asadkn wrote: post #190

It's typical how most people really want to immediately buy into the simple fixes and religiously believe them without knowing why it worked. Overweight? Must be the fructose (recently) / carbs (a while back) / fats (further back). Same old story. Somebody makes rounds in media and makes a lot of money after publishing a book with something "new" - a simple fix. Fortunately we have people like Lyle McDonald, Alan Ara…

Very few public, true fitness instructors and dietitians are following the simplest rule ever - decrease calories to lose weight. This method is not that popular, its to tricky since it requires for person to calculate foods, which makes it unpopular for lazy. But it is absolutely the best method to lose weight fast, decrease calorie intake and create shortage.

Very true. Sugar is not the entire story of why calorie consumption increased, after all.

http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf

"ERS data suggest that average daily calorie intake increased by 24.5 percent, or about 530 calories, between 1970 and 2000. Of that 24.5-percent increase, grains (mainly re-fined grain products) contributed 9.5 percentage points; added fats and oils, 9.0 percentage points; added sugars, 4.7 percentage points; fruits and vegetables together, 1.5 percentage points; meats and nuts together, 1 percentage point; and dairy products and eggs together,-1.5 percentage point.)"

I do think going light on highly processed food (including refined sugar and refined grains), and going light on calorie dense oils and fats is pretty good advice for any diet. But that's entirely due to the impact on calorie consumption, not due to any other health bogeyman.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#207

Post by talles »

I'm still waiting for a prominent figure in the nutrition world to start the debate about intermittent fasting just as Lustig is doing with sugar.

Many nutritionists are prescribing the exact opposite of it: avoid fasting for more than very few hours. Heck, my coworker have a timer that fires every 2 hours to remind him to eat something.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#208

Post by pakled_engineer »

notthegov wrote: post #81
fasteo wrote: post #62

It is sad to see how we are going from fat phobia to carb phobia, repeating the same mistakes 50 years later. I have genetic metabolic disease and I have thought about this many times. My conclusion is simple enough: Eat real food, ignore the macros, listen to your body and adapt your food intake accordingly. Paul Jaminet's diet [1] is the closest I have found to fit this idea. [1] http://perfecthealthdiet.com/

What is real food? I disagree strongly. Eating shouldn't make you tired. I could eat 2 1/3 pound greasy cheeseburgers with toppings but if I skip the buns, I feel like I ate nothing. There is something legitimate to intermittent fasting, ketogenic diets, avoiding refined carbs, avoiding bread etc. I have a serious disease that is thought to prevented by ketogenic diets. And I think there's an equal chance I got the d…

Fitness trainer here once told me don't eat any white carbs after 2pm so no white potatoes, bread, pasta ect. That pretty much has worked for me combined with daily exersize (cycle, pull up bar, walking a lot) and staying away from sugary drinks and carb snacks like chips completely. I'm not fitness model fit but good enough fit and also have diabetes in the family history which luckily so far have avoided (mid 30s)

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#209

Post by Tenhundfeld »

kdamken wrote: post #95
notthegov wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is real food? I disagree strongly. Eating shouldn't make you tired. I could eat 2 1/3 pound greasy cheeseburgers with toppings but if I skip the buns, I feel like I ate nothing. There is something legitimate to intermittent fasting, ketogenic diets, avoiding refined carbs, avoiding bread etc. I have a serious disease that is thought to prevented by ketogenic diets. And I think there's an equal chance I got the d…

If you don't mind me asking, what disease did you get?

Not the OP but since they said the disease might have been caused by refined carbs, the most likely candidate is diabetes.

There is strong evidence that a ketogenic diet helps prevent/diminish seizures in epileptic patients. And there's some initial but promising research it can help reduce symptoms of Alzheimer's disease – and possibly Parkinson's and ALS. There's also some very early research that a ketogenic diet might slow the growth of certain cancerous tumors. But specifically for cancer, there's also evidence that a ketogenic diet has no long-term improvement of survivorship – though might have short-term improvement. My conclusion is that the science is still very much out, and it's way too early, from my layman's reading, to make any claim about those diseases being caused by refined carbs.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#210

Post by traek »

PepeGomez wrote: post #189
hammock wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascinated by your response, including the history. I'm assuming you are referring to MSG and similar chemicals. What are your sources?

I mean tetrasodium pyrophosphate and similar chemicals. But there may be many more that can cause such effects.

Do you have any sources for this? I'm looking for academic literature on the effects of tetrasodium pyrophosphate on satiety, but I can't find anything.
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