The hard part about losing weight isn’t knowing what to eat, it’s having the willpower to eat less (or exercise more).
No, this is wrong. If you have to use willpower to suppress your appetite, then either one of your appetite-regulation mechanisms is malfunctioning, or your appetite-regulation mechanisms are working correctly but you’re deficient in a vital nutrient. Telling people to use willpower to eat less is harmful in both cases—in the former case, because it stops them for looking for the real cause of their overeating (usually sugar), and in the latter case by making them starve themselves (usually of protein).
I agree with everything you said until you mentioned that sugar is the real cause of people overeating. There are a lot of possible reasons for someone to overeat, and none of them, in my opinion, are solely dietary. The cause may be psychological—for example, a lot of people eat when they’re depressed or bored. I myself sometimes succumb to the latter. Some people hate to exercise. Willpower will help in all of those cases.
The only case I can think of where sugar might be considered the culprit is if someone drinks way too many sodas, for example. But the problem isn’t the fact that it’s sugar in the soda, it’s that the person is consuming a lot of extra calories they wouldn’t otherwise get. They’d be just as overweight as if they ate a calorically equivalent amount of potato chips. They need the willpower to stop their soda habit.
Regarding nutrient deficiencies, I’ve only been talking about calories, not other types of nutrients. I apologize for not making this clear in my first post. Obviously, if you need more vitamin C, you’re better off drinking some orange juice than a calorically equivalent amount of soda. You should always have a varied diet that contains enough essential vitamins, minerals, and amino acids.
The bit about sugar being a cause for misregulation of appetite was a parenthetical remark, which the rest of the comment does not depend on. That said, I think you’re drastically underestimating the amount of harm sugar does. Blood sugar is one of the main mechanisms for regulating appetite, and drinking soda completely destroys its functionality.
Regarding nutrient deficiencies, I wasn’t just talking about micronutrients like vitamin C, but also to macronutrients. For example, if someone’s problem is that they aren’t eating any fat, then no amount of low-fat food will ever suffice to make them feel full.
It’s definitely true that some amount of dietary fat and protein should be considered nearly essential (but a typical fast food diet will far exceed all those minimums). I think the same is also true of carbs but almost nobody fails to get enough sugar.
No, this is wrong. If you have to use willpower to suppress your appetite, then either one of your appetite-regulation mechanisms is malfunctioning, or your appetite-regulation mechanisms are working correctly but you’re deficient in a vital nutrient. Telling people to use willpower to eat less is harmful in both cases—in the former case, because it stops them for looking for the real cause of their overeating (usually sugar), and in the latter case by making them starve themselves (usually of protein).
I agree with everything you said until you mentioned that sugar is the real cause of people overeating. There are a lot of possible reasons for someone to overeat, and none of them, in my opinion, are solely dietary. The cause may be psychological—for example, a lot of people eat when they’re depressed or bored. I myself sometimes succumb to the latter. Some people hate to exercise. Willpower will help in all of those cases.
The only case I can think of where sugar might be considered the culprit is if someone drinks way too many sodas, for example. But the problem isn’t the fact that it’s sugar in the soda, it’s that the person is consuming a lot of extra calories they wouldn’t otherwise get. They’d be just as overweight as if they ate a calorically equivalent amount of potato chips. They need the willpower to stop their soda habit.
Regarding nutrient deficiencies, I’ve only been talking about calories, not other types of nutrients. I apologize for not making this clear in my first post. Obviously, if you need more vitamin C, you’re better off drinking some orange juice than a calorically equivalent amount of soda. You should always have a varied diet that contains enough essential vitamins, minerals, and amino acids.
The bit about sugar being a cause for misregulation of appetite was a parenthetical remark, which the rest of the comment does not depend on. That said, I think you’re drastically underestimating the amount of harm sugar does. Blood sugar is one of the main mechanisms for regulating appetite, and drinking soda completely destroys its functionality.
Regarding nutrient deficiencies, I wasn’t just talking about micronutrients like vitamin C, but also to macronutrients. For example, if someone’s problem is that they aren’t eating any fat, then no amount of low-fat food will ever suffice to make them feel full.
It’s definitely true that some amount of dietary fat and protein should be considered nearly essential (but a typical fast food diet will far exceed all those minimums). I think the same is also true of carbs but almost nobody fails to get enough sugar.