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Comment by radicalbyte | Hacker News Reader

I love how the "advice" is to not drink, no soda/sweet drink, eat greens, whole-wheat and limit fatty red meat.

I do all of that.

I systematically consume more calories than I use and am on the path to becoming a type 2 diabetic (and recently started corrective changes).

#1 piece of advise should be to not run a systemic calorie excess.

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It's a lot easier to consume excess calories through sodas, alcohol and junky food, and a lot worse for you.

That is one set of recommendations, but it's not necessarily the best. Under a ketogenic diet (high-fat, low-carbs), nearly all Carbs should be eliminated---including whole wheat, and fatty meats (red or not) should be consumed to satiety.

Such high-fat low-carbs diets have been shown to be particularly effective in insulin resistant individuals.

> #1 piece of advise should be to not run a systemic calorie excess.

Sure, but that specific advice you quibble over is just a suggestion on how to achieve that result. A quote in the article from one of the professors expressly says:

> So if you ask how much weight you need to lose to make your diabetes go away, the answer is one gram. But that gram needs to be fat from the pancreas. At present the only way we have to achieve this is by calorie restriction by any means, whether by diet or an operation.

It's worth emphasising the last bit: surgery is a much more effective way to restrict caloric intake than lifestyle changes alone. A very low percentage of people with obesity are able to lose weight and then maintain a healthy body composition without surgery, and the risks of gastric bypass seem completely justified in cases where it allows a patient to be "cured" of Type 2 Diabetes.

A shocking number of people are quite ignorant about the nutrition of the food they consume.

We all different which is why studies involve many people and statistics, control groups, etc. I'm glad you found something that's working for you, but it is faulty logic to generalize it to other people based on your personal experience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence

I don't count calories anymore. I feel it's a waste of time and frustrating at times.

Instead, I focus on nutritional quality including density and variety. I find it leads to better health at a lower calorie count. Yes, you have to adjust for your lifestyle like working out, etc. However, it's much easier to manage and squeeze in those indulgences.

Actually, everything you wrote besides "eat greens" is outdated incorrect information according to current first class research.

Soda and sweet drinks?

Yeah, posted too quickly, that is of course known and proven. The bits that he got wrong were the avoid fatty red meat and eat whole wheat (full of antinutrients as are all seeds meant for birds and not mammals) and the old calorie hypothesis which has since been soundly disproven but is probably the most common fallacy out there today.

I wasn't aware caloric restriction was disproven. See, for example: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor

What's the old calorie hypothesis?

Care to provide citations for the claims that fatty red meat is at all healthy (last I checked, saturated and trans fat cause cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, atherosclerosis - just to name a few problems), or that whole wheats contain antinutrients, or are somehow unhealthy?

Again, your basic scientific knowledge is lacking. There is no meaningful transfat in red meat, fatty or otherwise.

> There are two broad types of trans fats found in foods: naturally-occurring and artificial trans fats. Naturally-occurring trans fats are produced in the gut of some animals and foods made from these animals (e.g., milk and meat products) may contain small quantities of these fats.

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter...

> Because trans fats are unavoidable on ordinary, non-vegan diets, getting down to zero percent trans fats would require significant changes in patterns of dietary intake.

http://www.worldcat.org/title/dietary-reference-intakes-for-...

> Processed foods and oils provide approximately 80 percent of trans fats in the diet, compared to 20 percent that occur naturally in food from animal sources.

http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/document/html/ch...

20 percent is not meaningful? Next, are you going to try and convince me that trans fat is good for you?

I can't reply in-context to noondip's reply here yet, but note that he now says meat has "small amounts" of transfats where he previously wrote "laden with".

I haven't downvoted you, man (it isn't possible to downvote direct child comments, as far as I can tell). Why are you being so hostile? You're also quoting me out of context; I wrote, "laden with cholesterol, saturated and trans fats" which isn't an exaggeration.

By the way, you can reply directly by clicking on the timestamp (e.g. n minutes ago).

  which isn't an exaggeration

Suppose, then, that you quote for the class the specific average quantity of transfats in, say, a 6 ounce steak serving... and how that qualifies as "laden with".

Well, the only "safe" intake of trans fat is exactly zero, so again I assert what I've said wasn't exaggerated.

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