Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 248 posts

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#61

Post by jerf »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #54
tootie wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The study they are discussing set up test subject with two different diets. One low in fat, one low in carbs. Low in carbs had far better outcomes. I agree that cutting anything will implicitly cut calories, it seems low carb really is superior.

They didn't test low fat. It was just carb restricted versus 30% fat (not low fat). Feeding was ad libitum, so it just confirms what we already knew: fewer food choices leads to spontaneous calorie restriction.

If it just told us that "fewer food choices lead to spontaneous calorie restriction", then both groups should have roughly equal results. They didn't. Any putative explanation of the results really needs to, well, explain the results. Not explain results other than the ones obtained.

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#62

Post by arjie »

Admittedly with little research I tried out a low-carb (more like no-carb) diet (of my own invention). I ate pretty much only meat and green leafy vegetables. I was ravenous all throughout. I remember eating large amounts of meat and still feeling like I was starving.

It was hard to concentrate on pre-exam days because I was so hungry.

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#63

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

balls187 wrote: post #52

First, congrats to all the commenters who have lost weight. I know it's not as simple as "make better food choices" so it's awesome to read so many people who have found success in weight loss. I follow a diet similar to low-carb, moderate fat and protein, and I'm still concerned about not getting enough plants, and fiber. While the low-carb diet encourages consumption of veggies, I find it tough to make sure I get e…

> I find it tough to make sure I get enough veggies (not fruit), in a day.

When most people think veggies they think "lettuce", which makes it hard to eat a lot. Try these recipes:

Broccoli (steam cooked, with olive oil and fried garlic), avocado (salad or with honey + lemon), eggplant (roasted in slices) and Chinese cabbage (it's crunchy and great to eat raw as salad).

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#64

Post by wdewind »

ghshephard wrote: post #58
wdewind wrote: post #4

This study adds nothing new to the debate: > “To my knowledge, this is one of the first long-term trials that’s given these diets without calorie restrictions,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, who was not involved in the new study. “It shows that in a free-living setting, cutting your carbs helps you lose weight without focusing on calorie…

The lack of caloric control is key to this study - any diet which restricts caloric intake, long term, will be self-defeating. Allowing people to eat as much as they want, but simply choosing from a particular food group, is one key to long term success. Another big part of this - an apparently non-biased researcher (presumably they don't run a food supplement business) - has suggested that eating fats of all things…

> The lack of caloric control is key to this study - any diet which restricts caloric intake, long term, will be self-defeating. Allowing people to eat as much as they want, but simply choosing from a particular food group, is one key to long term success.

Sure, I guess to me whether or not high fat diets have higher satiety is just not interesting - it's a settled issue and it's obvious to me.

> Another big part of this - an apparently non-biased researcher (presumably they don't run a food supplement business) - has suggested that eating fats of all things does not necessarily lead towards heart disease.

Right, but with similar weight it suggested eating less calories helps prevent heart disease. This study doesn't answer the question of whether or not diet composition affected heart disease.

> It also, in my mind, emphasizes that the bulk of "Nutritionists" for the last 50 years have been a bunch of cargo-cult practicing members of the mob - and it makes you wonder what other so-called-scientific disciplines are behaving in a like manner.

Let's not get dramatic. Don't forget that people are significantly less active than they were 50 years ago, and that just because low carb diets happen to be in fashion right now doesn't mean they are right for everyone. That being said, I agree, the diet/nutrition industry is a joke, and most people could do a lot worse than cut carbs out of their diet.

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#65

Post by adventured »

drcode wrote: post #26

I know this is just anecdotal coincidence (and not really that interesting to most people other than myself) but today when I weighed myself I had my ideal body weight for the first time in my life. This is after following a low carb diet for six months and losing 50 pounds... so throw another vote in the "yes, low carb seems to be effective" bucket. The findings in this article are certainly music to my ears. (Here…

I had a bit of a freak metabolism growing up, and never worried about anything I ate, I simply couldn't gain weight. I lived on nothing but carbs. Until about 25, and my metabolism slowed, I gained 20 pounds; then again around 30, another 20 pounds. So I ended up at 197 pounds (I'm 6'2"), and the 200 number starring at me convinced me once and for all that my carb heavy days were permanently over.

So I slashed the carbs and sugar out of my diet, lost about 30 pounds in four months, with some minimal weight lifting thrown in every other day to boost muscle and amplify my body's resting burn rate some. Used a 1500 calorie diet roughly. I give about 90% of the credit to eliminating specifically pizza, pasta, and most sugar (particularly anything sugar heavy, soda, snacks, etc) from my diet. So long as I stayed away from those things, I found I could eat a lot of what I wanted.

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#66

Post by dpweb »

This is no secret. There will be endless mostly uninformed debate but the idea that less carbs - less stored fat - its not counter-intuitive.

I wouldn't doubt keeping the blood sugar levels from spiking (especially processed carbs) plays a big part. Weight watchers giving you credit for fiber always wondered about that.

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#67

Post by brandnewlow »

After we got acquired in June I hired a nutritionist to help me get onto a low-carb diet. I'm down about 42 lbs so far and it hasn't been hard at all. The trickiest part is the questions, comments and eye-rolling when I take the bun off my burger or whatnot.

The other thing I've noticed is how different my moods are when I'm "sugar-free". Routine tasks that typically bore me to tears become much more manageable and I'm able to just sit and think for longer. YMMV

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#68

Post by fintler »

alrs wrote: post #44
throwaway5752 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reddit thread, you mean? Are we calling those articles now? The vegetarian thing does not folow . Just because keto/atkins/paleo works, doesn't mean anything else works. Nothing is better than the low calorie diet.

No, not Reddit. The NYT article that we are commenting on. I offer up the reddit link for anyone interested in the mechanics of HFLC.

It might be a good idea to link to the FAQ instead of the subreddit. It has an overview of the chemistry behind the diet -- for example, the use of urinalysis test strips.

http://www.reddit.com/r/keto/wiki/faq

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#69

Post by adventured »

balls187 wrote: post #51
latch wrote: post #11

It'd be nice to have this squared with research in vegetarianism (high-carb, low-fat) which long term studies indicate has a number of health benefits [1] My own take, which I've mentioned before, is that the the starting point is so bad (refined carbohydrates) that you can pretty much walk in any direction and get positive results. That is, what people are eating doesn't matter nearly as much as what people aren't.…

Vegetarianism isn't necessary high-carb low-fat. Plenty of vegetarians stay away from pastas, grains, and other refined carbohydrates. Yes fruits and dairy are also sources of sugars, but linking vegetarianism to high-carb, is like linking low-carb to risk for heart disease. Vegetarians who do gain wait, are likely substituting high fat animal products for refined carbs like pasta, grains, starches, etc.

This is just my own personal observation, but all the vegetarians I know try to stay away from high carb diets, and specifically do not eat a lot of pasta or grains. Some do consume far too much fruit (often in the form of guzzling fruit juice), thinking that fructose is fine in any quantity so long as it's "natural sugar."

I just always assumed a carb heavy vegetarian diet is entirely contradictory to the health benefits a vegetarian is often seeking from their diet.

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#70

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

jerf wrote: post #61
a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't test low fat. It was just carb restricted versus 30% fat (not low fat). Feeding was ad libitum, so it just confirms what we already knew: fewer food choices leads to spontaneous calorie restriction.

If it just told us that "fewer food choices lead to spontaneous calorie restriction", then both groups should have roughly equal results. They didn't. Any putative explanation of the results really needs to, well, explain the results. Not explain results other than the ones obtained.

Well, they did have roughly equal results if you look at the study. Both groups went from obese to slightly less obese. That said I don't follow your reasoning about equivalence. One diet was low carb. The other allowed for quite a bit of both fat and carbohydrate. Can't you see the difference?
Post reply on HN