So not getting fat in the first place is the answer, so I would not have to lose weight later, because everyone one has a piece of the puzzle and no one actually knows what's going on?
Anyway I want to add water to your list. IDK why.
But the more foods I eat that are high in water (meats, milks, eggs, cooked rice, potato etc.) the less thirst I felt. I drank less, was sweating less, pooping was the same etc. Maybe it's just salt. Or salt is a consequence of excess fluid intake. (With excess I mean unnecessary/not needed for the body). Probably nothing 🤷🏼♀️
I mean it kinda makes sense, right? If you eat more soup, you'll get more water from your food. If you ate dehydrated food, you'd need to drink more water to get the same amount total.
I do think they're related, if you have more water it will "dilute" your electrolytes and you might need more of those.
"not getting fat in the first place" has been my focus for my adult life. I believe I'm lucky (genetic lottery?) to not have gotten into the "danger zone" before realizing what the consequences might be.
Fred Provenza is one of my mentors and has helped me a lot in my cattle nutrition concerns. Wilted Cherry is supposed to be highly poisonous to livestock and I was a nut about making sure they had no access to the cherry trees on the farm (of which there are a lot from the 1800s throughout the farm so tough to do) BUT the cattle still munched when they can and broke into one section and mowed down everything they could. NO SEQUELAE! Talked to Fred and he said my cows are obviously used to the wilted cherry - at least the ones on the farm - so what might bother others wouldn't bother them. I took down all cherry barriers and have never had a problem - and that was years ago. SO do problems with foods / nutrients have something to do with what you are used to - or your heritage is used to? I can eat dairy - and especially HWC ad lib - NO amount of "calories" of HWC will make me gain weight and I have to problem digesting any dairy. But I am of Dutch heritage and was raised on it. one of the best things I ever did for myself was go on a 7 day organic, raw goat milk fast that my old aunt told me to do to help with my sinuses. Since that was all I was consuming I took in 2-4 times as much "calories" as is estimated for me to not gain weight - and I LOST weight. I also got rid of my sinusitis. I tried it again with regular goats milk and gained weight, even though I didn't consume as much as the first time (maybe Westin A Price was actually right on raw milk like my grandfather said [who knew him]). anyway, I think ALL NUTRITION is an n=1 for the person - so many factors are involved (I did a fast as I had a tummy thing for a week. pooped my brains out, drank only water. lost almost nothing). I lost almost 100lb pre covid era - and gained some back with changed eating patterns - now, even doing what I did before, I am on the stuggle bus to lose every lb......... so something in ME changed and now I have to find my best n=1 again. I not only don't believe there is any ONE answer, I don't believe if a person finds an answer that the question won't change as life goes on. ....... But in being n=1s, we need to pay attention to what works and what doesn't FOR US at THE TIME. muscles change, hormones change, digestion & biome change - why shouldn't what it takes to run those efficiently change? my 22cents...... sorry, started out commenting on Fred......
For one, I arrived there empirically; I could never lose fat until I started restricting protein. I stumbled upon it pretty accidentally and it worked like crazy.
I've written about some studies that explore mechanisms here:
All true. It's probably also true that a child raised with clean water and no 'ultra processed food' will turn out healthy-enough, even though that isn't a weight loss diet for adults.
I basically agree, but I think it's more than "ultra" processed food. Weston Price observed generational declines in health with only the introduction of white flour, sugar and vegetable fats (not sure which ones).
the term 'ultra processed foods' is in scare quotes because as EFL was pointing out it's a nonsense term, but one which by any reasonable definition should include vegetable oil. We've all seen the videos.
So now we know no one seems to have the answers. Again people love to frame the problem but get lost trying to provide realistic healthy solutions to leading healthy, attractive weight lifestyle. Well written again. I have been down each of these paths and not found the answer. Maybe the joy in life is truly the journey. We are not meant to get the "answer"
I am very much a "there is an answer" guy. And unlike some, I don't think it's hyper complicated with 1000 factors.
I think the more of the population you want to cover, the more complex it'll get, but there are huge wins the first 1-3 items.
I.e. consider this.
Intervention - no of factors - % of the population it'd make mostly healthy (in diabesity terms)
keto - 1- 25%
carnivore - 2- 50%
HCLF - 1 - 25%
keto AF - 3 - 75%
HCLFLP (no PUFAs) - 3 - 75%
ex150 style (HFLCLP, no PUFAs) - 3 - 75%
So we'd probably get 25% or so with 1 factor, 50% or so with 2 factors, and 75% with 3. The % number of people who won't normalize glucose & weight rapidly doing PUFA-free HCLFLP or PUFA-free HFLCLP is probably pretty small.
They do exist, but I expect the vast majority of America would rapidly get healthy if they just tried an increasing number of the factors: cut PUFAs, restrict protein, restrict swamping carbs + fats.
It's just hard. During lockdown I got under 180 for the first time since 1986 picking up groceries - online order curated by girlfriend - once per week and lifting weights - setting 21st-century PRs - and walking the dog several miles per day; this is not what my life looks like when I can be around people instead. Restaurants, office junk food, dancing and unicycling and juggling instead of edited words deadlift PRs... I'm back up to 196.
Sep 23·edited Sep 23Liked by Experimental Fat Loss
You covered a lot of bases, but you left something out. The reason junk food is called junk food is because it is literally made of junk. Meaning, unnatural non food items.
Surely you’ve heard of flavor enhancers added to food.. Or excitotoxins.
Basically the big processed food industry is enticing us to eat UNNATURAL food items.
They put pseudo food flavoring, food like enhancements in their products.
Which manipulate our tastebuds. Our brains, our body chemistry.
That’s WHY you can’t eat “only one” like the old food lingo used to say.
Because they’ve made them that way in order for you to keep eating and eating them and buying and buying them in order to get your fix. And it makes ya fat.
If you continue to eat fake food stuffs over and over which don’t feed a body something it can use, you get fat. Our bodies don’t know what to do with this stuff.
These enhancers cause inflammation because they are not natural. Chemical concoctions designed to make us have an insatiable appetite for them.
And I haven’t even mentioned the nanoparticles they are injecting into our food.That’s a whole other story.
Did ya hear recently about the Doritos that when fed to mice, made them glow? Something like that.
Impossible burgers.Impossible because your body doesn’t recognize it.
Lab created food. Lab created chicken and so on and so on.
It is indeed a brave new world. One we do not recognize because it’s being turned on it’s head.
I'm not FOR "unnatural non food items" but I largely disagree with this hypothesis. If you look at the ingredients of some "junk foods" it's not that different except often seed oils.
For example, french fries and chips are THE junk foods and are still just potatoes and oil they are fried in. It's just that the oil used to be tallow, and is now seed oils.
Ice cream is also still largely the same, although I've seen some companies put more stuff in there.
Maybe cheetos or mountain dew or some things are worse, but as someone who gained 100lbs eating home-cooked, whole-foods 99% of the time, I just don't see it.
I didn't eat those fake foods, and it didn't matter.
Sep 23·edited Sep 23Liked by Experimental Fat Loss
I didn’t suggest or imply that you are “for” unnatural food items. I think you addressed a lot of the different streams of understanding many in the bioenergetic world are discussing. I was just adding another component to “why” people are getting fatter and fatter. In my humble opinion.
As to you gaining 100lbs. eating home cooked whole foods, it then begs the question as to what home cooked foods you were eating and why you were eating so much of it.
Just looking at it objectively, you obviously were not getting satiated on the amount of food you ate. Or, you were eating larger amounts to fill a void as many of us do when we are going through emotional events. Or like myself, when I watch a scary movie or read about a scary event, I eat more snacky comfort food as to take the edge off the scary event.
And I usually do not eat a steak when watching a scary film. Most people wouldn’t turn to a steak to fill that need. What does fill the need is usually the kinds of foods someone wants to eat more and more and more of, which are the kinds of food where you get a big dopamine hit.
So I’m suggesting you were probably eating lots of the wrong kinds of wholesome foods to end up gaining 100 lbs.
I was eating mostly ground beef, green vegetables (like broccoli), eggs, bacon, tomato sauce, cheese, roast chicken, nuts. Also was doing lots of cream then, in coffee, though of course not as much as now.
I think it's the very high protein + the PUFA (eg. nuts, bacon, chicken, and the 1% I wasn't home cooking, eg. restaurant salad dressing) that did me in.
I didn't snack at home much if any, maybe cheese. But at work the only keto snack they had was nuts + cheese, so I'd eat that a lot.
> So I’m suggesting you were probably eating lots of the wrong kinds of wholesome foods to end up gaining 100 lbs.
Agreed, but if that's possible then "wholesome foods" seems pretty orthogonal to "healthy." If half the wholesome foods are bad, and half of the refined foods are ok, we should use a better heuristic.
On the insulin resistance stuff: it's interesting because I'm a low-20s BMI but my fasting glucose is consistently mid-90s to 100 (but never too far above 100). Some people would say that's bad ("borderline pre-diabetes!"). But every other aspect of my health seems to be fine. Goes to show that these heuristics can be oversimplified which I think was your main point in this post.
Nice article; I laughed out loud multiple times. (esp at "fat is fattening")
To be fair to Bikman, he was my original source for learning that linoleic acid oxidizes LDL, causing oxidative stress and inflammation and foam cells and all that.
I only write from personal experience. I eat carbs and protein, but keep fat relatively low. I lost a bunch of weight and kept my new weight for now 9 years. I do think that the NOVA approach has merit, and here's why: something in our diet is causing our bodies to get out of balance. Forget BMI or obesity, my worry is diabetes, high blood pressure, extremely fatty liver disease, heart disease, kidney disease and stroke. Those ailments seem to be on the rise and it's creating massive public health issues as well as individual tragedy.
It looks like certain chemicals that are added to food may be responsible for it. It could be PUFA, or microplastics or??
NOVA offers a simple test for anyone to try: eat as much unprocessed or lightly processed foods as you wish (ingredients you can find in a home kitchen), don't fret about processed food (canned fish or vegetables, bread without additives) and avoid highly processed food defined as anything produced in a factory setting with added ingredients not available to the home cook and usually created in a lab. We can discuss if added sugar or sweeteners should be included. That's the least of the concerns.
Because NOVA comes from Brazil, the advanced Western world is suspicious or thinks its not scientific enough. BS. You can define highly processed food by reading the label.
As you correctly pointed out, people with different types of diet (from high carb to high protein to high fat) do just fine. But in any population, when you introduce mass produced foods with ingredients created in a lab, health outcomes suffer. We have a way to go to pinpoint if there is one cause or if it is just the combination of chemicals hurting us.
> NOVA offers a simple test for anyone to try: eat as much unprocessed or lightly processed foods as you wish (ingredients you can find in a home kitchen), don't fret about processed food (canned fish or vegetables, bread without additives) and avoid highly processed food defined as anything produced in a factory setting with added ingredients not available to the home cook and usually created in a lab
Well yea, and I think that's why NOVA fails. That's good enough for 10-20% of the population, and won't work for the rest.
If you make everyone go NOVA 1 maybe it's higher, but you also cut out TONS of false positives (canned beans, butter, lol). If you just cut out NOVA 4, it's the 10-20% because you have tons of false negatives in there.
It's just pretty orthogonal to almost all things I consider the root(s) of the diabesity epidemic, so at best you get lucky.
I constantly see people putting on their Knowledgeable Nutritionist hats and declaring that the problem with today's food is that its just too "nutritionally-poor," which makes people want to eat too much of it to get the nutrients they need, which makes them obese. This is usually paired with vegetable propaganda since they're so low-calorie. Guess we'll just ignore all those slim & trim societies that lived on polished white rice and nearly nothing else.
Right. If you can demonstrate to me that the average Westerner has an actual vitamin C deficiency or something similar, I'm all ears. But that does not seem to be the case. All they can ever demonstrate is that some arbitrary, made-up number is lower than they'd like it to be.
But the SAD is certainly not "nutrient-poor" and I've yet to see convincing demonstrations that the diseases of civilization are due to lack of micronutrients.
I feel a little confused about the circular definitions phenomenon. Take this one: Being overweight is bad. It's bad because at these high values of BMI many people start experiencing health issues and appearing less attractive in the mirror. And that's why we call these high BMI values OVERweight.
I can see the circularity, but also that it seems reasonable. If the cutoff point of overweight would be placed at some other point on the BMI scale, e.g. where no-one's having health issues yet, or where everyone's already long past feeling healthy, then it wouldn't make sense.
I'm not disputing that being overweight is (eventually) unhealthy, or that you have to pick SOME numbers and they're gonna be somewhat arbitrary.
I'm talking about proposed mechanisms/causes, and solutions here. E.g. if you say whole foods are healthy and I ask why, and you say because they make you lose weight, and I ask why they make you lose weight, and you say because they're whole.
That's circular with no detour. If you add a proxy or accounting tautology in the middle, it now has a detour. You can add as many detours as you want, but at the end of the day, it has no explanatory power.
For your BMI example it would go like this:
Why is being overweight unhealthy? Because it means you have a high BMI. How does it mean you have a high BMI? Because the BMI is defined by your weight (and a static variable, your height).
The BMI does not explain WHY your are overweight, or why it's unhealthy, it's just a measure of being overweight.
The problems are the vagueness in these descriptions. A person being overweight is as accurate as saying a car is uneconomical.
The reason why it is classified as overweight or uneconomical are what matters.
If you were overweight because you have a lot of muscle, that's usually not considered a problem.
If you're overweight because you have too much fat that normally is. But if you were overweight because you have lots of fat cells and the cells are very small, this is not considered a problem. Whereas if you have fewer fat cells but they're very large this can be a problem.
The Lineman Diet - abundant protein and calories - seems to work on its intended audience - young male athletes - really well for *adding* size. If it's not working add more isn't circular, it's recursive.
I think this is pretty much the opposite of true, or at least largely orthogonal. My diet is low-protein, mostly liquid, mostly high-density, low-fiber, and it's by far the easiest weight loss I've ever had and I feel better than ever.
So not getting fat in the first place is the answer, so I would not have to lose weight later, because everyone one has a piece of the puzzle and no one actually knows what's going on?
Anyway I want to add water to your list. IDK why.
But the more foods I eat that are high in water (meats, milks, eggs, cooked rice, potato etc.) the less thirst I felt. I drank less, was sweating less, pooping was the same etc. Maybe it's just salt. Or salt is a consequence of excess fluid intake. (With excess I mean unnecessary/not needed for the body). Probably nothing 🤷🏼♀️
I mean it kinda makes sense, right? If you eat more soup, you'll get more water from your food. If you ate dehydrated food, you'd need to drink more water to get the same amount total.
I do think they're related, if you have more water it will "dilute" your electrolytes and you might need more of those.
"not getting fat in the first place" has been my focus for my adult life. I believe I'm lucky (genetic lottery?) to not have gotten into the "danger zone" before realizing what the consequences might be.
Have you ever read any work from Fred Provenza?
No, who is he?
Fred Provenza is one of my mentors and has helped me a lot in my cattle nutrition concerns. Wilted Cherry is supposed to be highly poisonous to livestock and I was a nut about making sure they had no access to the cherry trees on the farm (of which there are a lot from the 1800s throughout the farm so tough to do) BUT the cattle still munched when they can and broke into one section and mowed down everything they could. NO SEQUELAE! Talked to Fred and he said my cows are obviously used to the wilted cherry - at least the ones on the farm - so what might bother others wouldn't bother them. I took down all cherry barriers and have never had a problem - and that was years ago. SO do problems with foods / nutrients have something to do with what you are used to - or your heritage is used to? I can eat dairy - and especially HWC ad lib - NO amount of "calories" of HWC will make me gain weight and I have to problem digesting any dairy. But I am of Dutch heritage and was raised on it. one of the best things I ever did for myself was go on a 7 day organic, raw goat milk fast that my old aunt told me to do to help with my sinuses. Since that was all I was consuming I took in 2-4 times as much "calories" as is estimated for me to not gain weight - and I LOST weight. I also got rid of my sinusitis. I tried it again with regular goats milk and gained weight, even though I didn't consume as much as the first time (maybe Westin A Price was actually right on raw milk like my grandfather said [who knew him]). anyway, I think ALL NUTRITION is an n=1 for the person - so many factors are involved (I did a fast as I had a tummy thing for a week. pooped my brains out, drank only water. lost almost nothing). I lost almost 100lb pre covid era - and gained some back with changed eating patterns - now, even doing what I did before, I am on the stuggle bus to lose every lb......... so something in ME changed and now I have to find my best n=1 again. I not only don't believe there is any ONE answer, I don't believe if a person finds an answer that the question won't change as life goes on. ....... But in being n=1s, we need to pay attention to what works and what doesn't FOR US at THE TIME. muscles change, hormones change, digestion & biome change - why shouldn't what it takes to run those efficiently change? my 22cents...... sorry, started out commenting on Fred......
You are very lucky. Loved his book. He is definitely not getting the credit he desrves. Smart person.
Curious on your reasoning to restrict protein. Can you elaborate or direct me to something you've already written?
For one, I arrived there empirically; I could never lose fat until I started restricting protein. I stumbled upon it pretty accidentally and it worked like crazy.
I've written about some studies that explore mechanisms here:
https://www.exfatloss.com/p/show-me-the-bcaa-studies
All true. It's probably also true that a child raised with clean water and no 'ultra processed food' will turn out healthy-enough, even though that isn't a weight loss diet for adults.
I basically agree, but I think it's more than "ultra" processed food. Weston Price observed generational declines in health with only the introduction of white flour, sugar and vegetable fats (not sure which ones).
That would be interesting to A/B test. Was he seeing the early influence of seed oils, or is it really something else?
🤷
the term 'ultra processed foods' is in scare quotes because as EFL was pointing out it's a nonsense term, but one which by any reasonable definition should include vegetable oil. We've all seen the videos.
So now we know no one seems to have the answers. Again people love to frame the problem but get lost trying to provide realistic healthy solutions to leading healthy, attractive weight lifestyle. Well written again. I have been down each of these paths and not found the answer. Maybe the joy in life is truly the journey. We are not meant to get the "answer"
I am very much a "there is an answer" guy. And unlike some, I don't think it's hyper complicated with 1000 factors.
I think the more of the population you want to cover, the more complex it'll get, but there are huge wins the first 1-3 items.
I.e. consider this.
Intervention - no of factors - % of the population it'd make mostly healthy (in diabesity terms)
keto - 1- 25%
carnivore - 2- 50%
HCLF - 1 - 25%
keto AF - 3 - 75%
HCLFLP (no PUFAs) - 3 - 75%
ex150 style (HFLCLP, no PUFAs) - 3 - 75%
So we'd probably get 25% or so with 1 factor, 50% or so with 2 factors, and 75% with 3. The % number of people who won't normalize glucose & weight rapidly doing PUFA-free HCLFLP or PUFA-free HFLCLP is probably pretty small.
They do exist, but I expect the vast majority of America would rapidly get healthy if they just tried an increasing number of the factors: cut PUFAs, restrict protein, restrict swamping carbs + fats.
It's just hard. During lockdown I got under 180 for the first time since 1986 picking up groceries - online order curated by girlfriend - once per week and lifting weights - setting 21st-century PRs - and walking the dog several miles per day; this is not what my life looks like when I can be around people instead. Restaurants, office junk food, dancing and unicycling and juggling instead of edited words deadlift PRs... I'm back up to 196.
You covered a lot of bases, but you left something out. The reason junk food is called junk food is because it is literally made of junk. Meaning, unnatural non food items.
Surely you’ve heard of flavor enhancers added to food.. Or excitotoxins.
Basically the big processed food industry is enticing us to eat UNNATURAL food items.
They put pseudo food flavoring, food like enhancements in their products.
Which manipulate our tastebuds. Our brains, our body chemistry.
That’s WHY you can’t eat “only one” like the old food lingo used to say.
Because they’ve made them that way in order for you to keep eating and eating them and buying and buying them in order to get your fix. And it makes ya fat.
If you continue to eat fake food stuffs over and over which don’t feed a body something it can use, you get fat. Our bodies don’t know what to do with this stuff.
These enhancers cause inflammation because they are not natural. Chemical concoctions designed to make us have an insatiable appetite for them.
And I haven’t even mentioned the nanoparticles they are injecting into our food.That’s a whole other story.
Did ya hear recently about the Doritos that when fed to mice, made them glow? Something like that.
Impossible burgers.Impossible because your body doesn’t recognize it.
Lab created food. Lab created chicken and so on and so on.
It is indeed a brave new world. One we do not recognize because it’s being turned on it’s head.
I'm not FOR "unnatural non food items" but I largely disagree with this hypothesis. If you look at the ingredients of some "junk foods" it's not that different except often seed oils.
For example, french fries and chips are THE junk foods and are still just potatoes and oil they are fried in. It's just that the oil used to be tallow, and is now seed oils.
Ice cream is also still largely the same, although I've seen some companies put more stuff in there.
Maybe cheetos or mountain dew or some things are worse, but as someone who gained 100lbs eating home-cooked, whole-foods 99% of the time, I just don't see it.
I didn't eat those fake foods, and it didn't matter.
I didn’t suggest or imply that you are “for” unnatural food items. I think you addressed a lot of the different streams of understanding many in the bioenergetic world are discussing. I was just adding another component to “why” people are getting fatter and fatter. In my humble opinion.
As to you gaining 100lbs. eating home cooked whole foods, it then begs the question as to what home cooked foods you were eating and why you were eating so much of it.
Just looking at it objectively, you obviously were not getting satiated on the amount of food you ate. Or, you were eating larger amounts to fill a void as many of us do when we are going through emotional events. Or like myself, when I watch a scary movie or read about a scary event, I eat more snacky comfort food as to take the edge off the scary event.
And I usually do not eat a steak when watching a scary film. Most people wouldn’t turn to a steak to fill that need. What does fill the need is usually the kinds of foods someone wants to eat more and more and more of, which are the kinds of food where you get a big dopamine hit.
So I’m suggesting you were probably eating lots of the wrong kinds of wholesome foods to end up gaining 100 lbs.
I was eating mostly ground beef, green vegetables (like broccoli), eggs, bacon, tomato sauce, cheese, roast chicken, nuts. Also was doing lots of cream then, in coffee, though of course not as much as now.
I think it's the very high protein + the PUFA (eg. nuts, bacon, chicken, and the 1% I wasn't home cooking, eg. restaurant salad dressing) that did me in.
I didn't snack at home much if any, maybe cheese. But at work the only keto snack they had was nuts + cheese, so I'd eat that a lot.
> So I’m suggesting you were probably eating lots of the wrong kinds of wholesome foods to end up gaining 100 lbs.
Agreed, but if that's possible then "wholesome foods" seems pretty orthogonal to "healthy." If half the wholesome foods are bad, and half of the refined foods are ok, we should use a better heuristic.
On the insulin resistance stuff: it's interesting because I'm a low-20s BMI but my fasting glucose is consistently mid-90s to 100 (but never too far above 100). Some people would say that's bad ("borderline pre-diabetes!"). But every other aspect of my health seems to be fine. Goes to show that these heuristics can be oversimplified which I think was your main point in this post.
Nice article; I laughed out loud multiple times. (esp at "fat is fattening")
To be fair to Bikman, he was my original source for learning that linoleic acid oxidizes LDL, causing oxidative stress and inflammation and foam cells and all that.
You were in a feisty mood, Sir!
I only write from personal experience. I eat carbs and protein, but keep fat relatively low. I lost a bunch of weight and kept my new weight for now 9 years. I do think that the NOVA approach has merit, and here's why: something in our diet is causing our bodies to get out of balance. Forget BMI or obesity, my worry is diabetes, high blood pressure, extremely fatty liver disease, heart disease, kidney disease and stroke. Those ailments seem to be on the rise and it's creating massive public health issues as well as individual tragedy.
It looks like certain chemicals that are added to food may be responsible for it. It could be PUFA, or microplastics or??
NOVA offers a simple test for anyone to try: eat as much unprocessed or lightly processed foods as you wish (ingredients you can find in a home kitchen), don't fret about processed food (canned fish or vegetables, bread without additives) and avoid highly processed food defined as anything produced in a factory setting with added ingredients not available to the home cook and usually created in a lab. We can discuss if added sugar or sweeteners should be included. That's the least of the concerns.
Because NOVA comes from Brazil, the advanced Western world is suspicious or thinks its not scientific enough. BS. You can define highly processed food by reading the label.
As you correctly pointed out, people with different types of diet (from high carb to high protein to high fat) do just fine. But in any population, when you introduce mass produced foods with ingredients created in a lab, health outcomes suffer. We have a way to go to pinpoint if there is one cause or if it is just the combination of chemicals hurting us.
> NOVA offers a simple test for anyone to try: eat as much unprocessed or lightly processed foods as you wish (ingredients you can find in a home kitchen), don't fret about processed food (canned fish or vegetables, bread without additives) and avoid highly processed food defined as anything produced in a factory setting with added ingredients not available to the home cook and usually created in a lab
Well yea, and I think that's why NOVA fails. That's good enough for 10-20% of the population, and won't work for the rest.
If you make everyone go NOVA 1 maybe it's higher, but you also cut out TONS of false positives (canned beans, butter, lol). If you just cut out NOVA 4, it's the 10-20% because you have tons of false negatives in there.
It's just pretty orthogonal to almost all things I consider the root(s) of the diabesity epidemic, so at best you get lucky.
Based.
I constantly see people putting on their Knowledgeable Nutritionist hats and declaring that the problem with today's food is that its just too "nutritionally-poor," which makes people want to eat too much of it to get the nutrients they need, which makes them obese. This is usually paired with vegetable propaganda since they're so low-calorie. Guess we'll just ignore all those slim & trim societies that lived on polished white rice and nearly nothing else.
Right. If you can demonstrate to me that the average Westerner has an actual vitamin C deficiency or something similar, I'm all ears. But that does not seem to be the case. All they can ever demonstrate is that some arbitrary, made-up number is lower than they'd like it to be.
But the SAD is certainly not "nutrient-poor" and I've yet to see convincing demonstrations that the diseases of civilization are due to lack of micronutrients.
I think you were being a little bit pedantic today. But it was good to read.
Do you ever watch The YouTube videos by pottinger's human?
Pedantic is my middle name
Ex Pedantic Fatloss.
I haven't heard of that, what is it about?
I think Pedantic Ex Fatloss has a better ring to it.
I feel a little confused about the circular definitions phenomenon. Take this one: Being overweight is bad. It's bad because at these high values of BMI many people start experiencing health issues and appearing less attractive in the mirror. And that's why we call these high BMI values OVERweight.
I can see the circularity, but also that it seems reasonable. If the cutoff point of overweight would be placed at some other point on the BMI scale, e.g. where no-one's having health issues yet, or where everyone's already long past feeling healthy, then it wouldn't make sense.
I'm not disputing that being overweight is (eventually) unhealthy, or that you have to pick SOME numbers and they're gonna be somewhat arbitrary.
I'm talking about proposed mechanisms/causes, and solutions here. E.g. if you say whole foods are healthy and I ask why, and you say because they make you lose weight, and I ask why they make you lose weight, and you say because they're whole.
That's circular with no detour. If you add a proxy or accounting tautology in the middle, it now has a detour. You can add as many detours as you want, but at the end of the day, it has no explanatory power.
For your BMI example it would go like this:
Why is being overweight unhealthy? Because it means you have a high BMI. How does it mean you have a high BMI? Because the BMI is defined by your weight (and a static variable, your height).
The BMI does not explain WHY your are overweight, or why it's unhealthy, it's just a measure of being overweight.
The problems are the vagueness in these descriptions. A person being overweight is as accurate as saying a car is uneconomical.
The reason why it is classified as overweight or uneconomical are what matters.
If you were overweight because you have a lot of muscle, that's usually not considered a problem.
If you're overweight because you have too much fat that normally is. But if you were overweight because you have lots of fat cells and the cells are very small, this is not considered a problem. Whereas if you have fewer fat cells but they're very large this can be a problem.
The Lineman Diet - abundant protein and calories - seems to work on its intended audience - young male athletes - really well for *adding* size. If it's not working add more isn't circular, it's recursive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satiety_value
Thoughts?
I think this is pretty much the opposite of true, or at least largely orthogonal. My diet is low-protein, mostly liquid, mostly high-density, low-fiber, and it's by far the easiest weight loss I've ever had and I feel better than ever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieting#Water