Of any area that is fraught with bad advice and poor thinking, it has to be nutrition. Because of the emotions tied up in body image, I think it may even surpass politics as a mindkiller.
As far as anecdotal evidence goes, I’ve always been very thin, but my wife has struggled with multiple diets. She tried Shangri-La at my suggestion, and experienced the appetite suppression, but with no weight change. That seems even stranger for Roberts’s theory than it just not working.
Diet is heavily moralized, and advice often boils down to “try harder and it will work, otherwise it is your fault”. It may be the case that the only existing way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more, but I’m beginning to doubt it.
Thermodynamically, it has to be the case that “calories in—calories out = calories stored”, but that equation says nothing about causality. The standard advice assumes that the left side determines the right side, but there is no clear reason why that should be the case. Gary Taubes [1][2] makes a fairly convincing case that the causality tends to go in the reverse direction. He argues that weight loss is a lot more effective if you change your metabolism, and your body will adjust your hunger and energy levels to compensate.
I’m not entirely sure I buy Taubes, but he’s made me strongly doubt the standard story. If the best weight loss program is one that tries to influence metabolism, you should cut carbs, eat small frequent meals, eat a greater variety of food, include flavorless calories ala Shangri La, avoid sweet calorie-free food, and exercise moderately, but not heavily. Under this story, if you are hungry, you’re doing something wrong because that means your body is trying to store more fat.
I just want to emphasize again that I’m not speaking with certainty, but the Taubes hypothesis definitely needs more consideration.
Addendum: Noticed Taubes’s book Good Calories, Bad Calories was mentioned by mattnewport. If someone is very interested, I’d recommend it. It appears very well-researched, but in this case, that translates into a very dry and technical style that I had trouble staying interested in.
She tried Shangri-La at my suggestion, and experienced the appetite suppression, but with no weight change. That seems even stranger for Roberts’s theory than it just not working.
This is indeed peculiar. For how long did she attempt the diet, if I may ask?
Of any area that is fraught with bad advice and poor thinking, it has to be nutrition. Because of the emotions tied up in body image, I think it may even surpass politics as a mindkiller.
As far as anecdotal evidence goes, I’ve always been very thin, but my wife has struggled with multiple diets. She tried Shangri-La at my suggestion, and experienced the appetite suppression, but with no weight change. That seems even stranger for Roberts’s theory than it just not working.
Diet is heavily moralized, and advice often boils down to “try harder and it will work, otherwise it is your fault”. It may be the case that the only existing way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more, but I’m beginning to doubt it.
Thermodynamically, it has to be the case that “calories in—calories out = calories stored”, but that equation says nothing about causality. The standard advice assumes that the left side determines the right side, but there is no clear reason why that should be the case. Gary Taubes [1] [2] makes a fairly convincing case that the causality tends to go in the reverse direction. He argues that weight loss is a lot more effective if you change your metabolism, and your body will adjust your hunger and energy levels to compensate.
I’m not entirely sure I buy Taubes, but he’s made me strongly doubt the standard story. If the best weight loss program is one that tries to influence metabolism, you should cut carbs, eat small frequent meals, eat a greater variety of food, include flavorless calories ala Shangri La, avoid sweet calorie-free food, and exercise moderately, but not heavily. Under this story, if you are hungry, you’re doing something wrong because that means your body is trying to store more fat.
I just want to emphasize again that I’m not speaking with certainty, but the Taubes hypothesis definitely needs more consideration.
Addendum: Noticed Taubes’s book Good Calories, Bad Calories was mentioned by mattnewport. If someone is very interested, I’d recommend it. It appears very well-researched, but in this case, that translates into a very dry and technical style that I had trouble staying interested in.
This is indeed peculiar. For how long did she attempt the diet, if I may ask?
Around two months. She is trying it out again, but this time in conjunction with another diet because even appetite suppression alone is helpful.