Diet revolution

I don't think figuring out a proper diet for weight loss is hard. If you expend more calories than you consume, you'll lose weight. A lot of people try to make it seem more complicated than that, but I don't think it is. It's just physics. Newtonian physics, even.

I think the same physics dictates that, for us fat folks, adopting a general-purpose "healthy lifestyle" is necessary but not sufficient to bring us to a healthy weight. A proper healthy caloric intake is, by definition, whatever we need to maintain whatever weight we're at (and not gain more). So if we want to lose rather than maintain, then we need to cut the calories even further until we reach our target. Yes, that means "diet", and yes, that means potentially feeling deprived in the short term.

The more I've thought about it, the more I firmly believe in the physics. If I set a dieting caloric intake at 1,200 calories/day, in terms of weight loss it shouldn't matter whether I consume those calories in leafy green vegetables or potato chips. Calories are calories. (That doesn't mean I wouldn't have lots of other health problems if I chose the chips, but I assert that I'd lose weight.)

So why do we agonize over which diet we should choose for weight loss (Atkins, Zone, South Beach, low-fat, etc., etc.)? I don't think one's choice of diet has any effect on the physics of calories. I think it's about compliance. Barry Sears is somewhat honest about this in his Zone books, and it's the foundation of the low-carb craze, and I think it's legitimate.

Slashing caloric intake is hard when we're accustomed to eating way more than we should. And I tend to believe the key balanced-carb and ultra-low-carb claim: carbs give you a burst of energy and spike your blood sugar, but then they burn off quickly, leaving you feeling down and craving more. Cutting carbs doesn't change your caloric requirements, but may make it easier to stick to those requirements. I also agree with the related claims that proteins and (good) fats are more filling and more satisfying in smaller amounts, and that bulky (good, high-fiber) carbs allow you to eat high-volume but low-calorie, which can also be filling and satisfying. Again, the calories don't change, but how we feel about the calories makes a big difference.

This doesn't address the issues of emotional or stress eating, or sedentary lifestyle, or the natural evolutionary urge we humans and animals all have to acquire the richest possible foods with the least amount of effort and consume them in the largest possible quantities. I don't know how all those skinny people's ancestors' genes survived this long, but now that we're here, the tables have turned and those genes are well-suited to our post-scarcity era. The rest of us have work to do.