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A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

nytimes.com

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Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#171

Post by laichzeit0 »

vacri wrote: post #165
laichzeit0 wrote: post #162

Sigh. So this is another "diet" methodology focusing on fat people losing fat, but these same people are too lazy to calculate their energy requirements, energy input and energy output by counting calories and macronutrients? I eat at 20% fat, 50% carb, 30% protein and I can gain weight, maintain or lose fat simply by adjusting my calories. It really is not rocket science. Self-discipline required, but if you lack th…

I lost 10kg last year on a low-carb diet. The diet was "eat no more than two slices of bread's worth of carbs per day", and knowing what carbs are (including rice and sugar). There's very little management or tracking required, and certainly no need for a mental 'calorie dictionary'. Counting calories is not as trivial as you make it sound, and I don't think it's warranted that you mock people as lazy for not doing s…

My main gripe is that low-carb dieting is being sold as a "one stop shop" for dieting. You'll notice how the undertone of the article is that it's more "healthy" and "lower risk" to eat low carb. This complete myth if you count your calories. It's the programming world equivalent of someone going "A call for Functional Programming" and then telling you how shit imperative languages are. If everyone just coded in Haskell the type system would take care of 90% of the bugs.

And no it's completely trivial to track your intake. You need at most a kitchen scale and an app on your phone. It probably takes me in total 5 minutes of my day to track everything. You greatly overestimate the difficulty.

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#173

Post by krob »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #161
jrapdx3 wrote: post #158

"Diet" is a subject that I've studied for most of my life, and I'm no youngster. The same arguments about dietary composition have been going on for at least 150 years. There may be many opinions but for my part, I'd rather listen to the scientific evidence. I was medical director of an obesity treatment clinic for many years. The low carbohydrate (CHO), optimal protein intake diet was often effective for weight loss…

And yet some of the healthiest people on earth eat vegetable heavy diets... The archaeological record shows that hunter-gatherers had an abysmally short lifespan, and were far from healthy... Pretty much every positive development in human health history happened after the advent of agriculture. Hunter gatherers were lucky to live past 30... I'd guess your 'low carb' diet still had more vegetables and grains than mos…

Abysmal live spans? Do you forget how savage human history is? Humans are more likely to be killed by each other than by their food source.

Do you know as fact that humans when they died did so from malnourishment? It's very possibly more likely due to some kind of famine which tended to happen from natural causes.

Yes, humans could endure longer with vegetation because it's easier to maintain it for longer periods of time in raw form, but were they in better physical health from eating the same thing over and over again? I'd imagine they had horrible vitamin deficiencies during famines.

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#174

Post by vacri »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #161
jrapdx3 wrote: post #158

"Diet" is a subject that I've studied for most of my life, and I'm no youngster. The same arguments about dietary composition have been going on for at least 150 years. There may be many opinions but for my part, I'd rather listen to the scientific evidence. I was medical director of an obesity treatment clinic for many years. The low carbohydrate (CHO), optimal protein intake diet was often effective for weight loss…

And yet some of the healthiest people on earth eat vegetable heavy diets... The archaeological record shows that hunter-gatherers had an abysmally short lifespan, and were far from healthy... Pretty much every positive development in human health history happened after the advent of agriculture. Hunter gatherers were lucky to live past 30... I'd guess your 'low carb' diet still had more vegetables and grains than mos…

The whole vegetarian vs meat-eater thing is something of a canard anyway. We're biologically omnivores. If you want to be a vegetarian, that's cool, but you need to ensure your diet covers the things you'd usually get from meats. But at this point, you're making a moral decision, not a nutritional decision - whether you get your protein from fish or from beans matters little to your body, as long as you get it.

Hunter gatherers were lucky to live past 30...

Not true. If you made it past 5-10 years, you were likely to live a fairly full adult life. Infant mortality was very high, but it wasn't like most people dropped dead before 30 if they survived early childhood.

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#175

Post by scarygliders »

jrapdx3 wrote: post #158

"Diet" is a subject that I've studied for most of my life, and I'm no youngster. The same arguments about dietary composition have been going on for at least 150 years. There may be many opinions but for my part, I'd rather listen to the scientific evidence. I was medical director of an obesity treatment clinic for many years. The low carbohydrate (CHO), optimal protein intake diet was often effective for weight loss…

Have you ever read Eat Fat And Grow Slim by Richard Hackarness, M.B.,B.S. (1958)?

http://www.ourcivilisation.com/fat/

It's a fascinating read, all the more impressive when you consider when it was written.

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#176

Post by Mikeb85 »

lukifer wrote: post #170
Mikeb85 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet some of the healthiest people on earth eat vegetable heavy diets... The archaeological record shows that hunter-gatherers had an abysmally short lifespan, and were far from healthy... Pretty much every positive development in human health history happened after the advent of agriculture. Hunter gatherers were lucky to live past 30... I'd guess your 'low carb' diet still had more vegetables and grains than mos…

> Hunter gatherers were lucky to live past 30 Most of the statistics about our ancestors having a 35ish life expectancy are skewed by high infant mortality, and high risk of death due to injury or other external ailments (a broken leg on the savannah can easily be a death sentence). A hunter-gatherer who surived those things would tend to live into their sixties or beyond.

Ask any archaeologist. Most adult hunter gatherers did not make it to 40. We're not talking averages, we're talking maximum life expectancy...

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#177

Post by vetler »

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 try to eat low carb too, and feel better when I do. I've also lost a lot of weight.

One thing I dislike about eating low carb, or paleo for that matter, is that it is not possible to measure it (other than weight, of course). It is based on randomly eating food (as long as it is low carb), and hoping you'll lose weight.

There is something you can do, though. It's measurable and it works. Bodybuilders use it, powerlifters use it, athletic fitness competitors use it, etc.

It's called counting calories. I've done it, and it worked great. It's a hassle, though! You basically have to weigh everything you eat, and it's a big disadvantage. However, by using this, you can keep track, count and graph everything you get into your body, and map it up to your weight and fat percentage.

For more information, see the /r/fitness FAQ: http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/wiki/faq#wiki_diet_details

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#178

Post by Mikeb85 »

martiuk wrote: post #167
Mikeb85 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet some of the healthiest people on earth eat vegetable heavy diets... The archaeological record shows that hunter-gatherers had an abysmally short lifespan, and were far from healthy... Pretty much every positive development in human health history happened after the advent of agriculture. Hunter gatherers were lucky to live past 30... I'd guess your 'low carb' diet still had more vegetables and grains than mos…

Are you sure your number excludes early years deaths? I've seen this number bandied around and every time it include stillbirths and early years deaths.

It's not an average...

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#179

Post by [deleted] »

jrapdx3 wrote: post #158

"Diet" is a subject that I've studied for most of my life, and I'm no youngster. The same arguments about dietary composition have been going on for at least 150 years. There may be many opinions but for my part, I'd rather listen to the scientific evidence. I was medical director of an obesity treatment clinic for many years. The low carbohydrate (CHO), optimal protein intake diet was often effective for weight loss…

[deleted]

Re: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet

#180

Post by lvh »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #161
jrapdx3 wrote: post #158

"Diet" is a subject that I've studied for most of my life, and I'm no youngster. The same arguments about dietary composition have been going on for at least 150 years. There may be many opinions but for my part, I'd rather listen to the scientific evidence. I was medical director of an obesity treatment clinic for many years. The low carbohydrate (CHO), optimal protein intake diet was often effective for weight loss…

And yet some of the healthiest people on earth eat vegetable heavy diets... The archaeological record shows that hunter-gatherers had an abysmally short lifespan, and were far from healthy... Pretty much every positive development in human health history happened after the advent of agriculture. Hunter gatherers were lucky to live past 30... I'd guess your 'low carb' diet still had more vegetables and grains than mos…

Even if "some of the healthiest people on earth eat vegetable heavy diets" is both true and the health is a consequence of the vegetable heavy diet, that's not countering a point the parent made. Parent was advocating an optimal protein, low carbohydrate diet. Parent didn't say how many vegetables are in said diet.

(I am on a low carb diet with plenty of veg.)

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