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Don't look for a diet, don't "go on a diet". Don't focus on your weight.
Try to learn about the way your body processes the food you eat.

Taubes is a person who loves and understands science who wrote about bad science in physics before he started investigating the science in public health.

Anyone can lose weight - that's how weight watchers make their millions. 95% of those who loose weight, on any diet, regain it.

It's not about loosing weight. It's about what makes us fat. And what makes us fat is the way the human body processes carbs. And it is only the carbs we eat that eventually become fat in our bodies. That's human metabolism.

Go to http://www.garytaubes.com for articles and presentations if you want to know about the subject.
Taubes' new book is "Why we get fat" - a must read for anyone who is thinking of doing something about their overweight.

Taubes' "Good Calories Bad Calories" - a 700 page thorough review of the science backing conventional wisdom about nutrition had me totally convinced - two years ago I changed my eating habits in order to eat in a more healthy way - I changed the way I eat - forever. Weight loss had nothing to with it.

I discovered - as others have - that I no longer craved sweets, no longer arrived jittery at meal, and feel generally better. Loosing weight was a side effect.

If you have a bad carb addiction, try to wean yourself off the carbs and sweets gradually. Don't think of weight and whether this will help you loose weight, focus helping your body be healthy, aim for getting rid of carbs. The craving for more and more carbs, that feeling of insatiable hunger is a physical, bodily issue, caused by the way the carbs [bread potatoes pasta and sweets] are metabolized.

And before someone pop up with the "calories in calories out" cliche, let me remind you that sugar is a type of calorie you would never consider putting in your car's gas tank in order to give the car more energy. You have to know your body's processing mechanism before you decide what to feed it.

archangle wrote:
Sounds like a typical response from the medical mafia. If you bring up people who were helped by something, he'll tell you that that's anecdotal evidence and there are no controlled, double-blind, peer reviewed studies. Then he'll bring up unattributed anecdotal evidence against what he doesn't like.

Well said, archangle.

15 years ago I did a fasting glucose test. I was having low blood sugar issues. Triglycerides were high too. My doctor recommended Dr Sear's the zone. While I was not overweight, I needed to get away from high triglyceride levels and shakiness. This helped. A few years ago I was having issues with my health, cpap helped with sleepiness and not being able to exercise because I was so tired. Cpap helped in that regard. Getting back in the zone last year helped a lot. Triglyceride to hdl ratio is normal. I believe that I was on my way to a heart attack caused by inflammation or eventual insulin resistance. Either way I cannot stress how important a good nutrition and work out regimen are to us all.

Balance is needed. Too much protein results in ketosis, and too much carb intake will affect insulin / insulin resistance. If you eat carbs with proteins and fats, make sure the carbs have a low glycemic index. A slow release is better.

Evan,
Just like every thing else about our bodies and medicine there is no simple answer that fits all. I'm sure you've already figured that out from the variety of answers you've gotten here. Allow me to add to the variety. I'm pretty much of the same opinion others have expressed that carbs are the real problem, more so than fat. Here are some random thoughts I have learned through the years.

How fast the carbs you consume get converted into blood sugar is important. That's the glycemic index.

A doctor told me years ago a big problem with our bodies is that when there is excess fat to be stored our bodies generate fat cells to do the storing. Dieting (meaning eating right and sufficiently only) will cause the body to withdraw fat from the cells, but the empty cells remain. Once created they stay, and refilling is easy. That's one reason why people who lose weight find it so easy to regain it.

Our bodies are less efficient at converting fat into energy than converting protein into energy. That's why crash diets harm people. They lose muscle tissue before they lose fat.

Our bodies want to be a certain weight and have a certain cholesterol level. Forcing it to be otherwise is an exercise in futility. But knowing what those "want to be" numbers are is quite difficult, if not almost impossible, to figure out.

High blood glucose levels cause high insulin production, which leads to eventual beta cell burn out. High levels of insulin can act as a poison to the body. One reason to keep your weight down is to avoid the complications of diabetes, but it's not a guarantee you won't still have diabetes. Contrary to conventional thinking, I believe that the root cause of excess weight gain is also the root cause of diabetes. I don't buy 100% the argument that being overweight is the cause of diabetes.

Another reason for high insulin levels is what is called "insulin resistance." Insulin is the catalyst that helps muscle cells convert blood sugar into energy. As cells become more resistant to absorbing glucose the body cranks up the level of insulin to force more glucose into the cells. But high insulin levels also cause more carbs to converted into stored fat. Low conversion levels means low energy levels. It's all a viscous circle.

In order to lose weight you have to burn more calories than what you take in. But like I said, converting fat is harder than converting muscle, so you have to do it slowly and deliberately. That's why exercise is so important. It's forces the body to burn energy but also to preserve muscle tissue. Not everyone agrees with this argument.

My approach to losing weight is to try for high protein and low carbohydrate consumption, and let fats pretty much fall where they may. Is it working? Not sure. I'm getting back to the treadmill to burn up some calories, but it's tough.

Here are some references to research.

Check out the Sugar Busters book and website. http://www.sugarbusters.com/ The book gives a good explanation of the relationship between carb intake and insulin levels and how carbs get converted to stored fat. I don't buy everything they preach, but it's well worthwhile reading.

Check out the Glycemic Index website. http://www.glycemicindex.com/ They list several books. Be aware many in the medical community scoff at the value of GI, but again, it is well worthwhile learning about it.

Check out all the other diet suggestions already given. No one of them is best for everyone, but one very well may be best for you. Keep in mind, losing weight is a long term process, meaning 6 months to years. You may have to spend up to 2 or 3 years finding what works best for you. DO NOT expect to drop 50 pounds in the next 2 months. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it won't be good for your body. From everything I've read and experienced 5 pounds a month loss is on the high side of a realistic weight loss program.

Now, here's a couple of items that pretty much go contrary to everything above, and are what my doctor says he is going to follow and said everyone should follow. A fellow doctor has lost a lot of weight following the principles in the following approaches.

The China Study by T. Colin Campbell and Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease by Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D. Both of these guys argue that if the food product comes from a biological being that has a face or a mother, don't eat it. I'm exceedingly skeptical, but apparently it works for some people. You owe it to yourself to at least check out this approach.

I hope this rambling helps you some. Remember, like I said at the start, There Ain't No Easy Answers, so don't waste your time looking for one.

My doctor told me recently that she loves cheese but that it really wasnt very healthy for you. I personally eat turkey bacon (cheap generic brand) I love it. My two kids 7 and 11 have eaten turkey bacon all their lives and they love it. It tastes better though microwaved on a plate for about 2 minutes (depending on how crispy you like it). I have very little willpower when it comes to most things (sugar control, stopping the diet pepsi, hating to put on my cpap machine every night, exercising, losing weight, and on and on and on)!

ozij wrote:And it is only the carbs we eat that eventually become fat in our bodies. That's human metabolism.

Not true. Fat also gets stored as fat in our bodies through the action of insulin. This happens, of course, when you are consuming lots of carbs and some fat, because the carbs provoke more insulin to be released. Otherwise, if carbs in the diet are low, the body will use digested fat for energy. A high carb, low fat will cause you to gain weight if you are consuming excess calories. A high carb, high fat diet will cause you to gain weight even faster.

Linus wrote:Too much protein results in ketosis

Ketosis is the result of your metabolism breaking down fat for energy, not eating lots of protein. Isn't breaking down fat the goal? If not, exactly how do you expect to get rid of the fat as you lose weight?

Sugarbusters and the Zone are not low carb diet. The Zone promotes a "balanced" diet. Sugarbusters promotes moderate carbs, like substituting sweet potatoes for regular potatoes, brown rice for white rice, etc. You can lose weight on these diets, and even a low-fat diet, by keeping your calories low enough that the body runs out of dietary carbs for fuel and must resort to breaking down something stored in the body, hopefully fat.

The first priority of your metabolism is always to bring your blood glucose down to a safe level. If your blood glucose is high, then the body will use what it needs for energy in the cells and convert the rest to fat. Insulin is the hormone that facilitates both of these processes. Low carb diets are so effective because you deprive the metabolism of the easy energy (carbs), and now it must find another source to produce the energy and glucose it needs. Most cells are quite happy to run on ketones, the compounds produced by breaking down fat. This is a process you want to encourage, but it won't happen until all of the excess glucose is taken care of. The smart dieter will exploit this process by shutting of the supply of easy glucose--dietary carbohydrate.

I heard about Taubes in another thread on this forum in February. After watching his 7 part presentation on youtube I decided to try it. I knew some people in 2003 who doing Atkin's, but I had never heard the science behind it.
I picked up Protein Power (Eades) but it was too much fluff. Good Carbs Bad Carbs (Taubes) was way more than I wanted to read. JeffH recommended The Diabetes Solution (Richard K. Bernstein). I am not diabetic but it seems that we are all headed that way. That was the best read for me. No fluff or chearleading, just the meat, and I could easily skip over the sections about diabetes. He also has The Diabetes Diet that leaves those sections out. I have Why We Get Fat (Taubes) now. It is an interesting read but I got most of it out of his presentations.

So since February 21st I have been to the gym twice, continued to consume more alcohol than I probably should, eaten as much as I wanted, and lost 12-14 pounds.
I didn't eat "bad" before. I didn't think. Whole grains, brown rice, lean meat, fish, beans, lots of vegetables... So why did I gain 20 lbs in 2009? Low fat. When you cut fat, you increase carbs, then insulin, crash, cravings, then more carbs..... It's all about balancing blood sugar.
It's not as much about high protein as enough protein to maintain your lean muscle mass.
The hardest part to wrap your brain around is that you can eat that much fat and not gain weight.
I'm sticking with it. Eggs taste better fried in butter.

Who knew the pink yellow and blue packets of artificial sweeteners have sugars added as bulking agents!?

This week I started tracking everything that I eat and drink, adding up the calories, and using sane portion control. An iPhone app called LoseIt! makes this very easy. Although I was eating healthy foods before, I discovered that I was probably consuming 4000 calories a day! Apparently I can now lose a pound a week without feeling deprived by "limiting" myself to about 2600 calories a day, before exercise. I think I can handle that.

Breathe Jimbo wrote:This week I started tracking everything that I eat and drink, adding up the calories, and using sane portion control. An iPhone app called LoseIt! makes this very easy. Although I was eating healthy foods before, I discovered that I was probably consuming 4000 calories a day! Apparently I can now lose a pound a week without feeling deprived by "limiting" myself to about 2600 calories a day, before exercise. I think I can handle that.

Real shocker, isn't it? That's what I learned when I first did that several years ago. Here's a super resource for data on food values: http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/site_main. ... 2-35-45-00. The database is available for PC use and for Palm OS PDAs. I still have the Palm version.

I created my own little database program to do all the calculations. All I had to do was input the quantity of whatever food I ate. I used a 5 pound postal scale to weigh food. Kept track of grams of salad dressing, grams of butter, grams of meat, and on and on. A bit complicated and almost an anal approach, but I sure got a good picture of how many calories I was taking in from carbo, fat, and protein. I need to do it again. I'm sure I'm eating more than I think I am. I found I have to drop down to 1800 to 2000 calories/day, before exercise, to lose weight.

Maybe someday someone will take the database and make an iPhone app out of it. Or by chance does LoseIt! already use that data?

idamtnboy wrote:Or by chance does LoseIt! already use that data?

Yes, it contains a lot of data by food type, brand names, servings, nutrient values, etc., and I can input "custom foods," too. For now, I am just trying to get a handle on the calories while eating healthy food and nothing in excess. Just about everything was in excess before this week!

I found low carb much easier then the cardboard diet - with the low fat low cal diet it felt like I was living on slighly flavoured cardboard. On the low carb "life style" I got all the flavourful stuff and left out all the boring cardboard.
Of course now at my mothers place there is small pieces of cardboard covered with cream, custard and chocolate everywhere. Discipline was better today - I had fish with a salad for supper - we won't talk about the pastries at coffee time and tea time. It is incredibly hard to open the fridge and see them there, open a cupboard full of cookies and chips and other nibbles.

Breakfast: Fresh asparagus sauteed and added to a 2 egg omlet with pepper jack cheese, and 4oz salmon fillet. Mmmm. Have about a third left for a snack later.

I love it!

more ideas and recipes please

evan

BlackSpinner wrote:I found low carb much easier then the cardboard diet - with the low fat low cal diet it felt like I was living on slighly flavoured cardboard. On the low carb "life style" I got all the flavourful stuff and left out all the boring cardboard.
Of course now at my mothers place there is small pieces of cardboard covered with cream, custard and chocolate everywhere. Discipline was better today - I had fish with a salad for supper - we won't talk about the pastries at coffee time and tea time. It is incredibly hard to open the fridge and see them there, open a cupboard full of cookies and chips and other nibbles.

Make yourself a promise of a daily nibble or two. Every day - I'm serious. Make sure you never feel deprived. And sit down and enjoy those nibbles thoroughly.

I've had massive weight loss from low carb (76 lbs), but the trick is to keep with it. If you're sensitive to insulin, the weight will come back when you revert. Even going to the gym, mine came back because I was eating normally... and then because my personal life caused me to stop caring for a long time.

I'm 10 lbs into a 100 pound journey now, sticking to low carb, and slow carbs that are low GI, like beans and starchy veggies. I'm giving myself a weekly cheat day to stay sane, and it's going to work again because I know how I react to low carb diets: wonderfully.

My doctor told me that massive weight loss might make my sleep apnea go away... I wish she didn't say that. I know it's not likely to go way; I know losing fat's barely going to dent the size of my throat plumbing. However, now the thought's in there. I'd rather be surprised if I got healthier than wondering, even a little, if weightloss will do anything for SA. I know the weight loss will help my back and knee problems, and help me in dozens of other ways... I'm trying to leave SA off the list so I don't expect it to vanish.