What is wrong with whole grains or fruit? I have never heard of that before.
You should also have fish/meat, nuts and seeds for proteins and fat. And if you can, do have veggies instead of sugar rich whole fruits. But its hard enough eating healthy, I've found that the first thing to do is focus on eating better and not the healthiest. So fruits are the best deserts, and are better then most snacky thing people eat between meals. Yet they're easier to adopt in your diet because most people find them tastier.
For example, I see some people who when hungry and looking to snack down a whole bag of chips, or a whole box of oreos without thinking. But who'd mentally find it excessive to down a whole container of strawberries. Changing that attitude is a good place to start, and eating a whole strawberry container instead of a box of oreo is a pretty easy and simple change. Easier then just not snacking at all, or then eating coliflower instead.
But if you process fruit by removing that fiber, as say fruit juice, you're easily consuming tons of calories.
Avoiding omega-6-rich oils is probably a good thing for most people, since most don't get enough omega-3 to balance out, but beyond that and crap like trans-fats, fats are something to embrace not shy away from. And, what's more, getting off the beaten track of traditional oils can add a lot of interesting flavor to foods. Beyond olive oil, which is pretty common, coconut, avocado, walnut and macadamia nut oil have all become favorites of mine and I find the tastes of the food I cook/prepare so much more interesting than when I used to use corn/soybean/canola oils or tried to avoid fats all together.
Source: Tons but the book Wheat Belly is one of the most succinct. Also, every trainer who is even half-way decent at transforming clients tells them to avoid grains, don’t discount what people are ACTUALLY doing to get results, even if a definitive study hasn’t been done on it (although many studies have been done, see Wheat Belly).
Fruit falls under the category of “healthy, if you’re healthy.” If you’re overweight and inactive, and you want to lose weight, then you should not be eating fruit, or any high-sugar, high-carb food for that matter. Once you’re lean and physically active, it’s fine.
I said source: Wheat Belly (book by Dr William Davis), but also my experience working with clients and with trainers who are experts at transforming clients from fat to fit.
Edit: hate my tone all you like, but keep in mind if this weren’t fringe bullshit I’d be met with more than downvotes and attitude.
But really, your problem is not that the GP did not cite their facts, you just don’t like the sound of their claims, so you’ll respond in a toxic way. I hardly expect the actual scientific literature to change your views.
Just bury me in good citations and we can both be happy.
Isn't it more likely that trainers tell people to avoid wheat and corn because they tend to be high-calorie, low-satiety foods? I've lost 70+ lbs over the past year on IIFYM-style caloric restriction. I still enjoy corn and wheat products, but somewhat sparingly because I'd rather have an extra half pound of chicken than a piece of bread.
Cutting out grains is a quick and easy way to help people hack their caloric intake more than anything else, IMO.
Yes that’s also true. But cutting grains also fixes your sense of satiety. Ever had a piece of bread and then next thing you knew the whole bread basket was gone? Many people feel like they can’t control themselves when eating bread. No one does that with steak. And even other high-carb foods like potatoes present less of a problem for people (in terms of whether they feel full and stop eating vs continuing to eat past the point of satiety).
IIFYM is very effective at fat loss BUT (and I know I’m going to get shit for saying this) it requires a very specific personality type that can be very mechanical about eating. Most people don’t have the time or interest to count their macros, and even if they did they still have difficulty overcoming the urges that come with consuming junk food such as modern grains in the U.S.
I actually agree with you about IIFYM needing the right personality type. http://physiqonomics.com/fat-loss/ is probably my favorite "how to be not fat" page in existence and it outlines that issue quite well - if you can be disciplined to stop eating, then IIFYM works great. If you can't, then full abstinence is pretty necessary. I find that I'm much more successful on an IIFYM diet than an abstinence diet, because on the latter I find myself craving the "forbidden fruit" and it eats at me until I crack, then I feel guilty, and it spirals from there. On IIFYM, I can let myself have whatever I'm craving, knowing that I just have to make up for it with the rest of my intake that day. The actual mechanical part of counting macros is pretty trivial once you've learned how to do it (MyFitnessPal learns your dietary habits quickly, and trivializes the process).
Not every approach works for everyone, but I have a lot of frustration around a lot of the diet fads that are constantly looking for the "magic bullet" - no fat! no sugar! only specific carbs! lots of carbs! 3 gallons of coconut oil daily! Only eat every 6 days! - when, IMO, the only magic bullet is self-discipline to find out how to keep yourself from overeating, and my experience has been that that can be different for each person based on their psychological tendencies.
My biggest issue with it, and all diet advice that wants to “give it to you straight, it’s all about calories” is this — YES in order to lose weight you HAVE to burn more calories than you consume, there is no question about it, it’s tautological. But it’s kind of like saying, “in order to stay sober every night, you have to drink alcohol slower than your liver can process.” It’s true...but it doesn’t really answer the question you should be asking, which is “why are you an alcoholic?” The answer to that question is more complicated, but it’s the only question that matters.
Back to diet, when it comes to being lean — why were the vast majority of Americans lean in the 1950s back when almost no one did any formal exercise, especially women, and hardly anyone was counting macros, calorie counting, etc? They just naturally ate about as many calories as their body burned off. Their bodies had a mechanism to tell them to stop eating when they were full. So what’s the difference between people and food 60 years ago and people and food today? No other mammal on earth has gotten so obese as a percentage of the population as humans have. The answer to that question, I’d argue, is the only one that matters!
I think this is why the Paleo diet has taken off so well, because frankly we shouldn’t have to count calories, macros, etc to stay lean — yes, those methods work, but we should be able to simply rely on the signals our bodies are sending us, every other lesser mammal does this, and humans did it just fine 60 years ago.
TL;DR Yes, it’s all about eating fewer calories, BUT how you eat fewer calories has a big effect on whether you can sustain it long term and feel satiated.