Good Calories, Bad Calories

Originally Posted by voxsartoria

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Do you think that every single person that you know who eliminated simple sugars and processed carbs from their diet who then also lost weight had lower average daily caloric intakes after than before their new diets?

It's certainly possible - I wouldn't discount it. However, I think maybe there's a little of both going on. Some of these people were on Atkins, so I'm fairly sure they weren't decreasing their caloric intake, but that's just a guess.

Originally Posted by voxsartoria

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To a degree, I certainly have concluded that there are some result optimizations possible with different nutritional regimes...and this coincides with a high protein, low carb diet being effective in caloric deficit. But I also think that that is only fine tuning within the larger ranges of caloric surpluses and deficits at various levels of energy flux. If you are working hard, carbs are essential unless your goal is to be weak and sick. There also might be saiety differences with different diets...how much of this is intrinsic and how much is psycho-cultural is not obvious to me.


I also agree. I wasn't arguing against carbs, but when they come from roots and veggies and such they have a lessened effect on insulin. You can get by without simple sugars without experiencing a loss of energy

Originally Posted by voxsartoria

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There is a lot of evidence that pre-intensive farming humans were generally healthier than humans in populations that adopted settled farming...but it is much harder to attribute cause. It could relate to population density; the ratios of energy expenditure to leisure; the amount of leisure time and its distribution among classes within a social group; the skewing of data related to the old world adopting several key domesticated animals who then lived in close proximity to humans, a pattern not replicated in other parts of the world; and perhaps diet.

The Europeans who first came to New England were pretty pathetic compared to the native population, which farmed and also were thickly settled at the coast and along waterways. The Europeans were nearly a foot shorter, and relatively deformed from disease and poor nutrition. I think, though, it would be a stretch to attribute such differences to diet as the main driving force, although it would be tempting to make that a primary cause.

- B

Well, the main difference was that instead of grain, the indians were eating corn, which is far healthier from a glycemic load perspective (at least in it's early "indian maize" incarnation, where you had to grind or boil the **** out of it to eat it). The Europeans were forced to eat corn for quite a while in Mass. I don't know if it made them healthier or not, but their diet definitely changed upon arriving in the new world.

I don't find anything inherently logically flawed with the theory Big A presented. That's not to say I am inclined to believe it though. While it would be great to have an accurate evolutionary/anthropological perspective on nutrition, there's so many factors that could be taken into account that any theory proposed would be woefully simplistic and have very sparse evidence to back it up. I do think it's important to consider these theories because they at least may be factors in the bigger picture.

Simple carbs and refined sugars (which would be products like Coca-Cola, yes?) have a high calorie to, uh, amount ratio right? (as in one relatively small can of coke is equivalent to way more tuna or chicken)

So I'm not really seeing all that much conflict between why and Taubes/Big A aside from the louder aspects of arguing - you can cut calories while eating more filling/protein-rich food, and maintain your weight loss/healthy lifestyle longer/easier.

Originally Posted by milosz

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Simple carbs and refined sugars (which would be products like Coca-Cola, yes?) have a high calorie to, uh, amount ratio right? (as in one relatively small can of coke is equivalent to way more tuna or chicken)

So I'm not really seeing all that much conflict between why and Taubes/Big A aside from the louder aspects of arguing - you can cut calories while eating more filling/protein-rich food, and maintain your weight loss/healthy lifestyle longer/easier.

The conflict isn't the end result, it's the mechanism.

I think it's widely accepted that overeating is a problem with carbohydrates because stuff like sweets are calorically, but not nutritionally, dense. What Taubes is claiming is a metabolic advantage to having a certain macronutrient profile. This has yet to be proven since the efficacy of lower carb diets has been mostly supported by theoretical musings and anecdotal evidence.

Bodybuilders on ketosis have proven it to be an effective form of cutting fat in the single digit BF area, but they definitely don't eat what they want and are on a deficit. Besides this is an extreme scenario and doesn't apply to everyone.

Unfortunately, even though this is a huge unresolved question, there haven't been any rock solid studies on the matter.

Originally Posted by turbozed

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. . . and are on a deficit.
I'm torn as I like the Thin White Duke and Big A's assistant is the cat's pajamas, but t's point is the key. lefty

Originally Posted by Big A

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Well, the main difference was that instead of grain, the indians were eating corn, which is far healthier from a glycemic load perspective (at least in it's early "indian maize" incarnation, where you had to grind or boil the **** out of it to eat it). The Europeans were forced to eat corn for quite a while in Mass. I don't know if it made them healthier or not, but their diet definitely changed upon arriving in the new world.

Maize, oats, barley, etc. The argument is fundamentally flawed since these starches are very similar and their effect on insulin usually has more to do with how finely ground they are than how many glucose molecules make up the starch chains.

If you're going to argue that grain consumption is a determinant of body composition, you'll at least have to narrow it down to which particular grains (and that's with the concession that insulin has a direct deleterious effect on body composition, which is not always true to begin with).

The argument isn't sound because it ignores so many other factors that are involved -- along with direct metabolic science -- to try and prove itself in a roundabout, anthropological way as if our sagacious ancestors left the answers to human metabolism in their petrified stool.

Originally Posted by Big A

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Basically, the "mechanical box" theory of diet has been disproven multiple times. That's not to say that if you expend more calories than you eat, you won't lose weight, because you will. However, for most people this is a bad way to go, as your body will always be telling your brain it needs more food to make up the caloric deficit. It's hard for most people to ignore the messages their brain is sending, so most people cannot maintain a caloric deficit diet.
wtf? major contradiction? How is it the "theory's" (and I use that lightly, it's not really a theory) fault that people are pussies with no willpower? If anything, it is more "proven" than anything. Just because it is not utilizable by everyone does in no way make a theory right or wrong. It makes it effective or less effective but has no bearing on its rightness. also, I want to punch everyone who brings up evolution and how we are so much better if we stick to what our ancestors did. Evolution sometimes causes creatures to become stronger, faster, etc. but that isn't the purpose behind the concept. The concept was not so much as become "better" as it was to be more suitable to your environment.

Don't get invited to many dinner parties, do you?

so, we should keep fit try our best.

aaaaand just finished the book. good read, I'd say.

Originally Posted by robertorex

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aaaaand just finished the book. good read, I'd say.

Care to clue us in on the main and most interesting points?

The 11 Critical Conclusions of Good Calories, Bad Calories:

1. Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, does not cause heart disease.
2. Carbohydrates do, because of their effect on the hormone insulin. The more easily-digestible and refined the carbohydrates and the more fructose they contain, the greater the effect on our health, weight, and well-being.
3. Sugars—sucrose (table sugar) and high fructose corn syrup specifically—are particularly harmful. The glucose in these sugars raises insulin levels; the fructose they contain overloads the liver.
4. Refined carbohydrates, starches, and sugars are also the most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease, and the other common chronic diseases of modern times.
5. Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating and not sedentary behavior.
6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter any more than it causes a child to grow taller.
7. Exercise does not make us lose excess fat; it makes us hungry.
8. We get fat because of an imbalance—a disequilibrium—in the hormonal regulation of fat tissue and fat metabolism. More fat is stored in the fat tissue than is mobilized and used for fuel. We become leaner when the hormonal regulation of the fat tissue reverses this imbalance.
9. Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels are elevated, we stockpile calories as fat. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from our fat tissue and burn it for fuel.
10. By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fat and ultimately cause obesity. By driving fat accumulation, carbohydrates also increase hunger and decrease the amount of energy we expend in metabolism and physical activity.
11. The fewer carbohydrates we eat, the leaner we will be.

If you believe that a low carbohydrate diet can be healthy, then you already believe most of the points Eades makes. He also says that you can be perfectly healthy eating nothing but meat (that it contains 12 of the 13 essential vitamins, and that vitamin C absorption is enhanced in a low carb diet). He does refer to studies where people eat three thousand calories a day on low-carb diets and still lose weight, which I'm not sure how I feel about. Overall the thing reads more like a nonfiction history book than a diet book, and it talks a lot about how much of the conventional wisdom about nutrition in the United States came to be.

Eades basically seems to come across as saying you don't need carbs, period. Even though it wasn't his goal at all, I would have liked to see at least a cursory discussion of current low-carb diets that athletes use that incorporate strategic carbohydrate consumption (such as cyclical/targeted keto diets). I mean if we don't need carbs at all, why do athletes tend to do better when they're consuming at least some?

Bit of a ramble, but I enjoyed the book. He has a few hundred pages of bibliography and makes reference to a lot of studies, so I don't understand why some people call his claims ridiculous just because they run contrary to a lot of the conventional wisdom which many of us don't believe anyway.

Originally Posted by robertorex

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I mean if we don't need carbs at all, why do athletes tend to do better when they're consuming at least some?

Because reality gets in the way of what the author is trying to sell the reader.

Bit of a ramble, but I enjoyed the book. He has a few hundred pages of bibliography and makes reference to a lot of studies, so I don't understand why some people call his claims ridiculous just because they run contrary to a lot of the conventional wisdom which many of us don't believe anyway.

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Because studies that are cited generally have no direct causal link and/or sloppy testing and can be interpreted multiple ways, ultimately making them mostly useless (ex. a study of 500 self-reporting overweight female teenagers will be cited, despite the faults with such methods of data collection and the distinct difference between overweight female teenagers and a reader of the book who may be a very lean middle-aged man -- in the end the argument is made by the author and evidence is hidden away by a subscript).

Originally Posted by Viktri

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also, I want to punch everyone who brings up evolution and how we are so much better if we stick to what our ancestors did. Evolution sometimes causes creatures to become stronger, faster, etc. but that isn't the purpose behind the concept. The concept was not so much as become "better" as it was to be more suitable to your environment.
Well, yes, but that's environment writ large. Also, if you're going to get pedantic, you should try to be accurate. There is no "purpose" behind evolution, unless you believe in creative design. Evolution through natural selection is a descriptive theory, not a programmatic one.

Originally Posted by why

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Because reality gets in the way of what the author is trying to sell the reader.

I think Taubes' prescriptions make more sense for people that don't need the muscle glycogen for high-intensity exertion, but he didn't go there at all so I don't really see what sort of falsehoods he's guilty of

Originally Posted by why

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Because studies that are cited generally have no direct causal link and/or sloppy testing and can be interpreted multiple ways, ultimately making them mostly useless (ex. a study of 500 self-reporting overweight female teenagers will be cited, despite the faults with such methods of data collection and the distinct difference between overweight female teenagers and a reader of the book who may be a very lean middle-aged man -- in the end the argument is made by the author and evidence is hidden away by a subscript).

This is a big point he makes in the book - that a lot of the studies cited by mainstream/establishment nutritionists

generally have no direct causal link and/or sloppy testing and can be interpreted multiple ways, ultimately making them mostly useless (ex. a study of 500 self-reporting overweight female teenagers will be cited, despite the faults with such methods of data collection and the distinct difference between overweight female teenagers and a reader of the book who may be a very lean middle-aged man -- in the end the argument is made by the author and evidence is hidden away by a subscript).

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