*promote science

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012 1:10pm PDT - promote requested by eric3579.

good info.

In "Why we get fat", Gary Taubes argues very persuasively that the above is almost entirely wrong. Increasing exercise will have have the effect of increasing hunger or reducing your activity at other times through tiredness. Eating less will likewise reduce your activity level or lead to levels of hunger that are intolerable in the long term. The way to lose weight according to him is the Atkins, South Beach, Primal method of reducing sugar and carb intake to something very low. Personally I found it very convincing and I strongly recommend the book.

So in short, "eat less, move more".

never heard of stress increasing hunger...always felt it was the opposite

>> ^Kalle:

never heard of stress increasing hunger...always felt it was the opposite


I might be less hungry in general, but it makes me much more likely to eat stuff that's less good for me.

>> ^pyloricvalve:

In "Why we get fat", Gary Taubes argues very persuasively that the above is almost entirely wrong. Increasing exercise will have have the effect of increasing hunger or reducing your activity at other times through tiredness. Eating less will likewise reduce your activity level or lead to levels of hunger that are intolerable in the long term. The way to lose weight according to him is the Atkins, South Beach, Primal method of reducing sugar and carb intake to something very low. Personally I found it very convincing and I strongly recommend the book.


Yup, I've done Keto combined with Intermittent Fasting (I usually eat one meal a day after I get home from work, sometimes I eat lunch too if we go out and eat at my workplace) and I've lost ~30 kg (~66 pounds) in 5-6 months and I have not been hungry once since I entered ketosis. No exercise involved at all either. (Yes yes... 1 data point does not a fact make, especially when they are subjective feelings)

So instead of eating sugar with more sugar and fat-free foods with added sugar in it to make it palatable... eat natural full-fat products and protein and be full all day... or you could eat sugar and have an insulin spike 30 mins later and end up with a lower blood sugar than you started with... unless you eat again. Ergo the "You should 5 meals a day" thing.

Some linky things
Scientific sources about the effects of Ketogenic Diet
1 Cancer
2 Alzheimers
3 Diabetes (Type 2)
4 Cardiovascular health and Dietary saturated fat
5 Review of LC diet and health markers

Blog
6 Cholesterol (Blog by a doctor so iffy source but interesting stuff anyway; I recommend reading all parts really)
7 How we came to believe cholesterol and fat is bad for us (From the same blog. 1 hour talk on the subject)

Video series/lectures
8 Cancer again (Video lecture)
9 The role of fat in weight loss (Video series, 3 parts)
10 Why we get fat (Video series, 3 parts)
11 2011 Public Forum in San Francisco at Nutrition and Health Conference (Video series, 4 part playlist)

You can also look into some of the videos on the sift such as:
12 The Food Revolution (Video/lecture sifted on VS)
13 Sugar the bitter truth.

(Seems they are both sifted by me... Oh my... self promotion galore!)

>> ^pyloricvalve:

In "Why we get fat", Gary Taubes argues very persuasively that the above is almost entirely wrong. Increasing exercise will have have the effect of increasing hunger or reducing your activity at other times through tiredness. Eating less will likewise reduce your activity level or lead to levels of hunger that are intolerable in the long term. The way to lose weight according to him is the Atkins, South Beach, Primal method of reducing sugar and carb intake to something very low. Personally I found it very convincing and I strongly recommend the book.


As a medical doctor, I call bullshit on this guy. Look at Atkins/South Beach's effect on peoples weight 1 year AFTER the diet. I see people go on diets all the time. They almost universally fail after 1 year. (Remember, we're talking about LONG-TERM weight loss, not SHORT-TERM weight loss...Atkins/South Beach perform very well in the short term!) My patients that go to the gym to lose weight do much, much better....but only if they KEEP going to the gym.

That's interesting. When you say people fail, do they start to eat sugar and carbs again and get fat or do they stay not eating sugar and carbs and even so start to get fat again. If it is the former it doesn't mean it's not the correct way to lose weight, it just means people need more determination not to eat sugar and carbs. My impression is that the usual prescription of eat less exercise more is also very hard to maintain in the long run.

Again I strongly recommend the book. It's not so much a diet book as a book about the evolution of the dietary science.

>> ^DocDarm:

>> ^pyloricvalve:
In "Why we get fat", Gary Taubes argues very persuasively that the above is almost entirely wrong. Increasing exercise will have have the effect of increasing hunger or reducing your activity at other times through tiredness. Eating less will likewise reduce your activity level or lead to levels of hunger that are intolerable in the long term. The way to lose weight according to him is the Atkins, South Beach, Primal method of reducing sugar and carb intake to something very low. Personally I found it very convincing and I strongly recommend the book.

As a medical doctor, I call bullshit on this guy. Look at Atkins/South Beach's effect on peoples weight 1 year AFTER the diet. I see people go on diets all the time. They almost universally fail after 1 year. (Remember, we're talking about LONG-TERM weight loss, not SHORT-TERM weight loss...Atkins/South Beach perform very well in the short term!) My patients that go to the gym to lose weight do much, much better....but only if they KEEP going to the gym.

Just wanted to point out the mathematics of reducing the plate size from 12" to 10".

Measuring my own plates (which are 10") I noticed that the border for the plates is approx 1.5" wide, which reduces the effective area of the plate by 3" diameter.

A 10" plate will have a 7" effective diameter, and using pi*r^2 we have an area of approx 154.

A 12" plate would have a 9" effective diameter, and calculating it's area we get approx 254.

A 10" plate is 40% smaller in effective area than a 12" plate, so to me it's actually surprising that there is only a 22% reduction in food consumption (which can probably be explained by the psychology of perceived portion sizes and wanting to fill in the empty space of a plate).

This is all good info, but he misses a couple of big ones:

- Eating smaller portions 6x a day (rather than 3x): You still have to control your overall caloric intake, but spacing out your food consumption keeps you in a thermic digestive state (which burns calories) during more of your waking hours and over time has an effect on the portion you eat to feel "full".

- Tearing/Repairing Muscle: weightlifting and the associated cycle of tearing and repairing your muscle tissue burns a ton of calories. For people over the age of 35, this extra boost is nearly always necessary to counteract slowing metabolism and assist effective fat burning.

Everytime I hear about all these efforts people have to undergo to lose weight, I'm quite relieved that 30 minutes on an exercise bike every morning was sufficient to get rid of the surplus weight I accumulated during my years at university. Took 4-5 months to drop down from 91kg to 68kg, but at least I didn't have to change my eating habbits.

Two years later and I'm still eating enough for two.

I guess that is because they look at it as a temporary diet (Yoyo dieting) and not a change in their diet for the rest of their lives... I'm a (self-described) "carbaholic" and as such when I "fall of the wagon" I eat carbs like nobodies business (as in 4 doughnuts, a pound of chocolate, about a gallon of soda and energy drinks, 3-6 candy bars and ~2 pounds of assorted pick-and-mix candy every single day). As it is now I will never return to a carb heavy diet because I cannot handle it, in the same way that an alcoholic can't handle drinking just one beer. And not to go all Ad-Hominem on you but as an MD you are specialised on disease and not health.

I recommend that you look at this page as it has 17 links to 17 RCT studies on the effects of LCHF diets.

Also from the mayo clinic which I assume is a pretty good source: "There have been a number of studies comparing weight loss with these two types of diets [LCHF/HCLF - My clarification]. In general, low-carb diets may result in a little more weight loss in the first 3 to 6 months. However, after 1 to 2 years there isn't much difference. What's interesting is that the amount of weight loss varies widely among people following either diet. So which type of diet you choose may matter less than whether you stick to it."
On an LCHF diet where you are full all and have a stable blood sugar level all the time it is a lot easier to stay on the diet and not splurge... (Kind of an anecdote... see my previous post in this thread)

Also some more science posts here
1 LCHF vs. HCLF diet (I recommend reading all of it)
2 (A full text from 2002 that might not be available for all [I logged on my Uni resources to search databases for the it] and it is a decade old but still a bit interesting. Name of the study is: Very-low-carbohydrate weight-loss diets revisited. Authors: Volek JS; Westman EC in case you need to search for it on Google scholar or the like)
3 Long term (1 year +) effects

I'm drunk right now so can't be arsed to find more sources.. it is Friday Damn it!!


>> ^DocDarm:

>> ^pyloricvalve:
In "Why we get fat", Gary Taubes argues very persuasively that the above is almost entirely wrong. Increasing exercise will have have the effect of increasing hunger or reducing your activity at other times through tiredness. Eating less will likewise reduce your activity level or lead to levels of hunger that are intolerable in the long term. The way to lose weight according to him is the Atkins, South Beach, Primal method of reducing sugar and carb intake to something very low. Personally I found it very convincing and I strongly recommend the book.

As a medical doctor, I call bullshit on this guy. Look at Atkins/South Beach's effect on peoples weight 1 year AFTER the diet. I see people go on diets all the time. They almost universally fail after 1 year. (Remember, we're talking about LONG-TERM weight loss, not SHORT-TERM weight loss...Atkins/South Beach perform very well in the short term!) My patients that go to the gym to lose weight do much, much better....but only if they KEEP going to the gym.

>> ^LarsaruS:
I'm drunk right now so can't be arsed to find more sources.. it is Friday Damn it!!Maybe you're right and maybe you're wrong, but if only everyone were as coherent when intoxicated!

>> ^ReverendTed:

>> ^LarsaruS:
I'm drunk right now so can't be arsed to find more sources.. it is Friday Damn it!!Maybe you're right and maybe you're wrong, but if only everyone were as coherent when intoxicated!


Well you know... This

I'm on a weight-loss journey at the moment - here's my take...

I'm following in the footsteps of my sister who's super slim now and very healthy. She's virtually a vegetarian and regularly sees a nutritionist and gets her blood tested (due to a medical problem she's hopefully overcoming).

She eats every three hours and is militant about avoiding sugar. It's the big problem in most people's diets. The mileage from exercise seems to vary for many but she takes regular brisk walks whenever she can and is also now biking.

She gives me good tips all the time, like avoiding the low-fat options. Those will almost always contain a bunch of unhealthy additives and you're better off with the full-fat version.

Finally my standing desk bits just arrived from IKEA. Not looking forward to putting it together...

http://howto.videosift.com/talk/Standing-desks-may-improving-your-Sifting-and-your-health