Janknitz wrote:
My response is that he had a fairly healthy metabolism to begin with. And for people with healthy metabolisms, his approach can and should work very well.
For what it's worth, my metabolism was total trash, because (I'm told by my endocrinologist) of several decades of following the diets I'd been prescribed by experts. It was hell on wheels trying to mend it, and I'm not done yet (may never be).
Because of severe insulin resistance, a so-called “balanced approach” that includes any grains or more than very limited carbs is NOT ever going to work for me. For ME and my impaired metabolism, those foods are “inherently evil”. They may not be for YOU—you’re lucky that is so. But they are for me.
That in a nutshell was my central point - it is not, and never will be, one size fits all. That's why it can only be up to each of us to figure out what works for us given whatever hand we're dealt in metabolism, health, food sensitivities and physical ability. Experts usually have a one size fits all approach that they think works, but it may or may not work for any given individual. Nobody knows exactly how you feel after you drink an orange juice or eat a bread roll, or whether you can handle the low-carb lifestyle, or whether eating a particular kind of food will bother your psyche, except you. Nobody knows the entire package that is your body, mind and spirit, except you.
BTW, do you want me to post the studies that show that exercise is not such a big factor in weight loss? It’s very, very good for you, but if you think you lose weight because the exercise causes a calorie deficit, that theory does NOT prove to be so. Some types of exercise (resistance) do reduce insulin resistance in your muscles and can augment weight loss, but the effect is not as much as many would like to think. Gary Taubes writes persuasively on that.
I thought it had become pretty well accepted that the benefit of exercise is not in the calories burned. I probably wouldn't read the studies unless there's something really unique about them, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't post them, because others might like to see. Exercise was key for me, not because it burns calories, but because the endorphin rush kills cravings. Plus, if I don't move constantly, I freeze up and that hurts
So basically, I think you and I are saying the same thing - if a person tries to force a diet or exercise program or whatever that genuinely doesn't work for his/her particular self, it doesn't matter how well it suited somebody else - eventually, it will fail. Either he/she won't be able to keep it up, or will get sick, or get injured.
We each had to find what works for us, personally. Your mileage varies from mine, and we both finally found what seems to work for us. I think that's how it should be, and that was the whole point of what I wrote.