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Comment by thras | Hacker News Reader

It did work. I lost the weight.

Pay attention to fiber? The research in support of that suggestion is execrable (pun intended).

I did try the 500-1000 calorie deficit for a number of months. My weight loss was on the order of 5-10 pounds, and I was hungry the entire time. And then I gained the weight back and more when I wasn't able to carry through. People simply do not lose large amounts of weight on small deficits. It's bizarre. According to the trash bin theory of body fat it should work. It doesn't. Almost like the trash bin theory is wrong...

The carb free living is sustainable and healthy. If you aren't going to read Taubes, then at least read Victor Steffansson. He's a bit more fun.

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the point of paying attention to fiber is that if you get your daily needs in fiber, you'll have eaten so many vegetables that your tastes regarding carbs will change. Your belly will also be full, which cuts down on the feeling of hunger.

People do lose large amounts of weight on small deficits, get serious!! It just takes a while. I personally dropped nearly 40 lbs this way and large people can also certainly do this - go ask a nutritionist. Of course you were hungry all the time, your body was down regulating. You are sitting here attacking a theory immediately after admitting that you could not maintain the 500-1000 calorie deficit? That has nothing to do with the theory! You chose to eat more, you gained weight again - if you had maintained your discipline, you would not have gained the weight back.

I've researched the carb-free diet in detail and my conclusion is carbohydrates play an important role in human nutrition and it is very unwise to cut them out. We evolved to run off a particular type of fuel, continue with this diet for a couple more years and then consequences will become apparent. There is a wide variety of material from credible mainstream nutrition researchers on this. The healthy thing to do is to make sure your nutrients are handled in a balanced way and then slowly burn off fat and actually maintain discipline for years. This book has a lot of good info : http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Well-Optimum-Health-Essential/d...

Slow and steady works. Rapid and fast works also. Different tactics are needed for the different strategies. Your hunch that carbohydrates are important is indeed correct. The protein sparing modified fast that I was on, as outlined over at http://bodyrecomposition.com suggests strategic re-feeds incorporating starchy carbs once you get do more reasonable body fat percentages (e.g., under 30% for males). Lyle McDonald, the author of the site, is one of my favourite experts in physiology because he takes a hacker-like approach by researching studies, skeptically reviewing them, and then testing strategies that he thinks will work. If you peruse his forums you'll find all sorts of people, from athletes and bodybuilders to morbidly obese who have successfully adopted strategies that he has advocated (not necessarily devised).

In fact, Lyle starts off his book on Rapid Fat Loss (his PSMF) by specifically stating that if you can go the slow and steady route, then do so. It's certainly healthier and carries fewer risks. But some people can't or won't, for whatever reason, go slow and steady at losing weight. For them, it's much better to have lost the weight rapidly than carry it around having never lost it. For people like this, he suggests his form of PSMF.

I'm not necessarily against doing it quickly, but I see that as orthogonal to the protein/carbohydrate mix in the diet. As I see it, Person A currently has an average calorie intake of C, burns C' calories a day and requires P grams of protein and F grams of fiber. I would contend that it if you construct a diet plan with D<C' calories, then you will receive more favorable results with a proper diet that covers protein and intakes proper amounts of fiber and carbs and micronutrients. For me, this is a very vegetable heavy diet with daily protein supplements (I prefer brown rice protein + orange juice, to which you may add active culture yogurt)

The research in support of that suggestion is execrable (pun intended).

It's not really a pun. "Execrate" and "excrete" aren't related. (Sorry for the distraction; I find these things interesting.)

It is a homophonic pun.

The associated Wikipedia article is pretty fascinating: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pun

Execrate and excrete are not homophones. But yes, that is a good Wikipedia article.

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