I watched that documentary. It's all about "living less to live longer". Yes it's a different beast to the sort of dieting/fasting then binging that overweight people tend to do. Overweight people just don't seem to be able to turn themselves into lean-burn lean-living people on a permanently reduced calorie intake. Instead they seem to live in a state of permanent denial.
EHocking
Penultimate Amazing
Could you elaborate on the "living less"? Are you saying that this sort of approach to eating diminishes the quality of the life being lived? Along the lines of, "You may not live longer, it just feels that way"?
Anyway, if that was the point of the remark, I have to disagree.
I've been on the 2/7 fasting diet since mid-May. On fast days I can still enjoy an evening out at a restaurant that includes a martini before, and a glass of wine during the meal.
If anything, it has made me more aware of just how many calories I consume in "junk" food such as snacks. I was surprised to find out that pound for pound, potatoes have fewer calories and on the whole, a wider range of nutrients, than rice. Many of my wooish, new ager friends were not happy to be disabused of the "brown rice healthiest" myth.
I primarily took it on for the potential future health benefits rather than the weight loss. For the record? 88kg to 82.5kg in 8 weeks - the rate of loss has tailed off in the past month, only about a 1/2kg a week.
On top of this, I'm in the process of giving up smoking after nearly 35 years. Currently day 139 on that....
mutile
Muse
- Joined
- May 20, 2010
- Messages
- 755
Have tried qod before but I found I was getting headaches and it had too great effect on my mood, more recently tried 5+2 and I didn't really have a problem with it at all, could envision that as a viable lifestyle, I was enjoying food more and able to control calories easier on off days.
I have stagnated in my weight loss attempts and started reading about this area again to see if there's anything I can do about it.
To summarize I started successfully losing weight the last week of 2011. (6 lbs). I did well in 2012 (50 lbs) but have only lost 4 lbs so far this year.
I'd like to lose about 25 more pounds or 3 more inches around my waist -- whatever happens first. I could decide to just continue with an average of a 1/2 lb loss per month and take another 4 years or so to lose the weight or I could try to figure out a way to jump start this again.
This Dec 2011 article in Science Daily supports the idea of having an intermittent low-carbohydrate diet a couple of days a week. The study showed that there was no additional health or weight benefits to be gained by cutting back on protein or fats. So in other words there's no point in fasting intermittently, especially if its difficult for you. But as mentioned up thread, some people like the idea of fasting intermittently because they don't want to be bothered with eating or making decisions about food all the time and they find fasting an easier approach.
Going back to the idea of just cutting carbs, FWIW, that is also what Gary Taubes believes and has described in his books: Good Calories, Bad Calories and Why We Get Fat
My main beef with the above linked article is that they don't define how many grams of carbs is considered low carbs in that study, and I can't find the abstract in pubmed.
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EHocking
Penultimate Amazing
I believe that you have misread that article - it says the exact opposite to your conclusion here. The answer is in the article's title, "Intermittent, Low-Carbohydrate Diets More Successful Than Standard Dieting, Study Finds.
Note that the article quoted is about research by Dr.Michelle Harvie into intermittent dieting which was the basis of the Dr.Mosley's conclusions in the BBC documentary you cite in the OP.
... and also, as per this article as well, "An intermittent, low-carbohydrate diet was superior to a standard, daily calorie-restricted diet for reducing weight and lowering blood levels of insulin, a cancer-promoting hormone, according to recent findings."
Read the article again. On the subject of carbs, it suggests not "just cutting carbs" but a 2/5 intermittent diet where, instead of 2 low calorie days, they substituted 2 days of low carbs.
Again, the finding was that the intermittent approach was superior to the "standard" calorie restricted diet.
The paper I've found by the author in pubmed seems to reach the same conclusion as you in that :
IER [intermittent energy restriction] is as effective as CER [continuous energy restriction]with regard to weight loss, insulin sensitivity and other health biomarkers, and may be offered as an alternative equivalent to CER for weight loss and reducing disease risk.
Whereas the article you cite and subsequent articles quoting the author conclude that;
Intermittent, Low-Carbohydrate Diets More Successful Than Standard Dieting, Present Possible Intervention for Breast Cancer Prevention.
Emphasis being that the intermittent part of the dieting is the critical factor.
Cite from the WCRF who funded the study :
http://www.genesisuk.org/media-centre/articles/Intermittent-diet-research.html
Oddly, that article refers to the Pubmed paper I found - but the conclusions in the pubmed paper are not the same as the subsequent articles released by the author.
The low-carb 2 day diet promoted by the author can be found here.
http://thetwodaydiet.co.uk/
I meant to compare an approach that only restricted carbohydrates two days a week to an approach that restricted ALL macro-nutrients two days a week.
I see that I wasn't clear and I also see that this article didn't actually address a direct comparison of those two approaches.
However I think that there may be enough data to support that there is no long-term advantage to fasting intermittently a couple of days a week over restricting only carbohydrates but eating proteins and fats ad lib a couple of days a week. If that is the case, one might as well only do the latter.
I'll see if I can find an article or a page in one of Taubes's books that supports that.
In the meantime, thanks for the geniusuk link. Per that link the diet mentioned in the Science Daily article limited carbs to 40 grams per day (on the days that carbs were restricted) and that is very helpful info.
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EHocking
Penultimate Amazing
Gotcha. I misunderstood.
Basically they are the same thing.
Restricting calories twice a week.
Restricting carbs twice a week.
The important part being the intermittent nature of the "diet".
Just looking back at the diet diary I use to count calories, on the 2 days that I "fast", e.g., 600 calories a day, my carb intake average per day was 45. So basically, they are one and the same, except that I have one less thing to think about and track (carbs) when I am putting together a 600 calorie day menu.
Mondays intake for instance was.
Snacks during the day : an apple (17g carbs) and low-cal miso soup (2g) for lunch.
Dinner was fillet steak (0g carbs) with garlic & spices, grilled mushrooms (0.1g) and asparagus (0.7g) and corn on the cob (15.7g carbs), a glass of red wine (0g).
602 calories for the day, and 35.8 g carbs.
For me, the simple low cal approach is the easiest to manage. The negligible advantage of a tracking carbs as well is far outweighed by the simplicity of merely restricting calories.
I agree that if people sharply cut back on their calories that they will most likely also sharply cut back on their carbs -- unless of course they do something like to decide to use up all of their daily calories on cake.
But a hungry person could probably eat a lot of food and not necc. eat a lot of carbs. I tend to get very hungry at night and last night I decided to go ahead and let myself eat even though I had already eaten my 3 meals and a snack for the day. I have been feeling very hungry every single night for weeks and I was too hungry to sleep but too tired to try to walk or run the hunger off. But I decided to make sure I didn't eat carbs, just proteins and fats. I ate a lot, I was really hungry and I just dug into what I happen to have in the fridge -- over 700 calories worth of mostly scrambled eggs, tuna salad and curry (just the meat). This morning when I stepped on the scale to see what the damage was I had dropped a pound from yesterday. *
I'm skimming Taubes' book, Why We Get Fat, and he believes that weight is driven and controlled by hormones and is not due to a calories in/calories out energy balance. Carbohydrates raises insulin levels which in turn drives fat accumulation. Taubes believes that if most people stay away from carbohydrate-rich foods that their weight will "get corrected."
This explanation seems to explain this section of the Dec 2011 Science Daily article:
* FWIW, I don't intend to do that often. I got very hungry again around 9:30PM earlier today. I took a long walk and was able to deal with the hunger pangs that way.
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EHocking
Penultimate Amazing
My weight can vary as much as 1kg in 24 hours, since I started actually weighing myself. I wouldn't put too much emphasis on this anecdote as an indicator of anything much.I agree that if people sharply cut back on their calories that they will most likely also sharply cut back on their carbs -- unless of course they do something like to decide to use up all of their daily calories on cake.
But a hungry person could probably eat a lot of food and not necc. eat a lot of carbs. I tend to get very hungry at night and last night I decided to go ahead and let myself eat even though I had already eaten my 3 meals and a snack for the day. I have been feeling very hungry every single night for weeks and I was too hungry to sleep but too tired to try to walk or run the hunger off. But I decided to make sure I didn't eat carbs, just proteins and fats. I ate a lot, I was really hungry and I just dug into what I happen to have in the fridge -- over 700 calories worth of mostly scrambled eggs, tuna salad and curry (just the meat). This morning when I stepped on the scale to see what the damage was I had dropped a pound from yesterday. *
The intermittent 2/5 diet extolled by Dr.Mosley identifies exactly this and discusses the importance of of reducing insulin production for both fat generation reduction and, of course, prevention of type-2 diabetes. He discusses the effects of a food's Glycaemic Index and Load (GI, GL) for a dieter.
I think, also, that to take Taube's belief as just to stay away from carb-rich foods is to oversimplify his approach (unless he actually says this), since not all carbs are created equal. Low GI foods, even though they may be full of carbohydrates, do not cause rapid rise in blood glucouse. This is helpful for a dieter, since the resultant blood sugar "crash" from a spike makes you feel hungrier. Rather self defeating.
At the end of the day, the 2/5 diet effectively reduces blood sugar levels anyway - achieving exactly what Taube is extolling. As I said, for me, the convenience of not needing to track carbs, fats, calories, whatever on my "days off" makes the 2/5 diet much easier to manage - with the exact same results as you are looking for anyway.
Again, note that it is the intermittent nature of the diet that is the superior model to a merely calorie or carb reduction diet.
Again, a one day failure with the 2/5 dieting approach is no biggie. Wait a day (idea is not to fast on consecutive days) and "fast" then.
This is one of the psychological advantages of this diet too.
Just because you "lapsed" does not mean you "failed".
cosmicaug
Graduate Poster
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Taubes is very good at cherry picking and at doing what he accuses the orthodoxy of doing.
Well, it's been a couple of years since I read his first book GCBC and I just skimmed his second book, WWGF, but yeah -- I believe that is what he is saying. He wrote his second book to basically present the same info that was in his first book but with half the text for people with less time. I just wanted to refresh my memory as to what he had to say which is why I skimmed his second book. In the first chapt he does essentially say that if people just want a quick take away message, then the message is to go for a low carb diet.
I think Taubes and others who believe in the Atkins style approach to weight management would say don't worry about tracking calories, fats or proteins -- just track the carbs. And I believe that I would find it easier to follow a plan that basically said just cut your carbs twice a week (or even every day) than one that said cut ALL of your calories twice a week. But everyone's mileage varies, no doubt about that.
Or perhaps its the reduction in carbs which is helpful. Upthread there is a post on some experiments by Panda which support that when we eat may be as important as what we eat. One possible reason being that if we restrict our eating to regular times during the day and have an overnight fast it gives our body time to recover from the effects of eating carbohydrates.
Here's a link to either the same article posted upthread or a similar one:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120517131703.htm
Oh, I've been at this since Dec 2011. I'm not ready to call it quits yet! Considering changing tactics, yes. Considering quiting -- no. But I appreciate the encouragement.
ETA: Oh just want to add that Taubes does go into detail about the difference between the various types of carbs available. He does distinguish and elaborate upon the differences between whole grains and refined grains, and carbs based on grains vs. carbs included in non-starchy vegetables for example.
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That may very well be -- but if he is I am not knowledgeable enough about this subject to be able to see where he is doing that.
Another issue is that since we can't treat people like lab rats, the science of nutrition will probably always have challenges that other areas in science do not.
EHocking
Penultimate Amazing
ah, I think this is the nub of it. I'm extremely sceptical about diet plans (especially) that focuses on a single item to either exclude or eat exclusively.
Perhaps you might want to retread Mosley's research where he comes up with quite solid arguments against the Atkins and Taude et al approach.
It shows that Intermittent fasting appears to return better results, be it health benefits or weight loss than "fad" diets such as a carb-reduction only.
For the record this is the first diet I've ever bothered with and my reason was the potential health benefits rather than a target of weight loss, which is merely a bonus consequence for me.
The good Doctor Mosley has helped me lose 12 kg in 7 weeks (that's about 26/ 27 lbs), but unfortunately that is rather more than I wanted. I've now got to put the brakes on and swap to a 6:1 before someone carts me off to hospital for force-feeding . The very best thing about his regime is that it is just so damn easy. It takes no will power at all to cut down for a couple of days a week. This is powerful medicine, and I highly recommend it.
Mike
. The very best thing about his regime is that it is just so damn easy. It takes no will power at all to cut down for a couple of days a week. This is powerful medicine, and I highly recommend it.Mike
EHocking
Penultimate Amazing
That's what does it for me too. No carb, fat, omega whatever tracking at all, just have a smaller dinner twice a week. Also, if you happen to fall off the wagon on a fast day - it has absolutely no consequence on your diet. Just fast on another day.
And I feel better about this approach than taking 1/2 an aspirin a day to protect against future heart problems.
And I feel better about this approach than taking 1/2 an aspirin a day to protect against future heart problems.
....and no lunch! Don't forget the "no lunch" thing.
icerat
Philosopher
It's pretty clear from the research that GI is a pretty good measure of this.
On a related note, research out in Sweden this week was pretty scathing of LCHF, which has been a huge fad here recently. They're linking it to an increase in strokes and cardiovascular disease.
It's only correlational, so fairly weak research, but I suspect what may have happened is LCHF has made people less scared of fats (particularly animal fats) but they haven't actually cut back on the carbs much as well, which is a crucial part of that diet.
"Compliance" is the toughest part of diets, and it may be that makes LCHF bad for your health for a significant number of people. I like the simplicity of the fasting diets.
EHocking
Penultimate Amazing
I've found a 28 cal miso soup paste pouch that I use if I get hungry at lunch time. That's another thing about the "fasting", you don't actually have to stop eating on your fast day for it to be effective. You can manage your calorie reduction day in any manner you like. Yes, total fast period days probably give the diet an edge, but it is not essential for it to achieve its aim either.
Again, the unobtrusiveness of the diet on your life is a major factor in its effectiveness and your inclination to stick with it.
I actually quite like the feeling of being hungry, now. It tells me that fat is being burned (OK, that's not strictly what it's telling me, but that's how I interpret it ), and it only lasts for seconds anyway.
The other thing this diet does, which may be counter-intuitive for those who haven't tried it, is that far from providing an incentive to eat more on your non-fasting days, it actually does the reverse. I find myself saying "I did so well yesterday, that I won't jeopardise it by eating silly stuff today....."
Mike
), and it only lasts for seconds anyway.The other thing this diet does, which may be counter-intuitive for those who haven't tried it, is that far from providing an incentive to eat more on your non-fasting days, it actually does the reverse. I find myself saying "I did so well yesterday, that I won't jeopardise it by eating silly stuff today....."
Mike
EHocking
Penultimate Amazing
Agreed. I've said earlier, this is the first diet that I've actually ever started and I track the calories I eat on the "off" days just out of curiosity. While I knew that the "silly stuff", such as snack n sodas, weren't the best foods I could be stuffing in my face, I hadn'te realised how much they bloat your calorie intake. Just being made quantitively aware of just how much has helped me change some bad habits too. Not stop completely, just less frequently than I did, and without the guilt.
Again, having a food blowout or indulgence doesn't constitute "falling off the wagon" with this diet approach - so much less stress with it too.
Both my wife and I have noticed that our meals on the "off" days tend to be smaller. Basically because these days we just can't finish what was a normal serving.
Again, having a food blowout or indulgence doesn't constitute "falling off the wagon" with this diet approach - so much less stress with it too.
Both my wife and I have noticed that our meals on the "off" days tend to be smaller. Basically because these days we just can't finish what was a normal serving.