If you had not started on Atkins prior to reading this research, then you ought to have revised the odds of it working downwards and probably picked some other diet instead. However, since you had personally tried Atkins and it was working for you, then this first-hand evidence overwhelms any statistical analysis from Northern Sweden. It does not invalidate it in any way for others, but it is pretty much useless for you personally. Similarly, anyone looking to start a diet should discard your anecdotal evidence and favor the research data. So, no update for you, downward revision for others.
I think the reasoning behind this is worth making explicit. even if the expected value of the Atkins diet is negative to a randomly selected member of the population, it may still be reliably positive for some very specific small subset. if you have a strong reason to believe that you’re a member of that subset, then information about the average is less relevant to you than it might otherwise be. for example, a reduction in calorie intake, while beneficial for the average member of the population, is not beneficial to people who are severely underweight.
If you had not started on Atkins prior to reading this research, then you ought to have revised the odds of it working downwards and probably picked some other diet instead. However, since you had personally tried Atkins and it was working for you, then this first-hand evidence overwhelms any statistical analysis from Northern Sweden. It does not invalidate it in any way for others, but it is pretty much useless for you personally. Similarly, anyone looking to start a diet should discard your anecdotal evidence and favor the research data. So, no update for you, downward revision for others.
I think the reasoning behind this is worth making explicit. even if the expected value of the Atkins diet is negative to a randomly selected member of the population, it may still be reliably positive for some very specific small subset. if you have a strong reason to believe that you’re a member of that subset, then information about the average is less relevant to you than it might otherwise be. for example, a reduction in calorie intake, while beneficial for the average member of the population, is not beneficial to people who are severely underweight.
Right, thank you for making it explicit.