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> eating "better" almost always puts "better" out of reach of low-income families.

I learned to cook cheap, unprocessed, healthy food as a student, in order to save money. A big bag of potatoes doesn't cost much and can make the bulk portion of many meals. I currently cook a lot of beans in my pressure cooker - easy, cheap and healthy.

Admittedly, the preparation time increases, which may be a problem for lower income families, but I always see the cost argument as false.

The people who advocate healthy food will tell you that potatoes and beans were among your worst choices. Ask them. I have a 700 calorie thing of rice and chicken that I love, and I have been repeatedly told it's awful for my diet and I need to eat healthier, completely ignoring the fact that an entire race on the planet has done pretty okay with rice and meats for centuries.

The one thing I know for sure is that almost nobody who discusses this stuff on the Internet, particularly people who throw acronyms like TDEE and BMR around, have any clue what they're talking about and only you can listen to your own body. Weight loss and the Internet is a stupid, stupid place. I saw a thread once where people were sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jared from Subway was lying because there's no way such a diet could have ever worked. All he did was eat less. That's it. It's not hard. It worked. Look at him. But no, the Internet knows better.

Cooking healthy food can indeed be cheaper than buying junk if you go about it the right way. Buy kale, cabbage, sweet potatoes, carrots etc. in bulk and combine with chicken or meat when on offer. The thing many people miss about healthy food vs cutting calories is that all this green stuff fills your stomach with less calories than a traditional western diet making it easier to cut calories. The only difficult thing about eating better food is getting into a rhythm and setting aside 30 minutes a day to do it. Plus you obviously need a kitchen.

Yeah, the GP sounds like my wife - "I need to lose weight, better buy two extra broccoli's". Uh no, to lose weight, you need to eat less, not more - just leave that bag of crisps and forget about the broccoli.

Nothing I said was "indignant."

Just stating that there's other things besides such strict calorie counting. On top of the fact that when practically put into play for people in real life, "calorie counting" feels restrictive, doesn't account for satiety (which then causes hunger & tends to lead to binges).

Re: better - tons of vegetables, high quality meats, low-sugar fruits, nuts and seeds. Carbs when-appropriate pre/post workout.

I've practically put calorie counting into play in real life, it doesn't feel restrictive, and I ignore hunger. It's almost like broad, sweeping generalizations are tough to make about human bodies and people.

You didn't answer my question about "better."

EDIT: You still didn't answer my question about quantifying "better."

There exists a group of people for whom ignoring hunger is not an option. I have been interviewing a bunch of nutritionists here in London about this and if they are to be believed this group make up a large percentage of obese people, which kinda makes sense :-)

Hence the advice to eat foods that make you feel full before you reach your desired calorie intake.

You are confusing "calorie counting", which is a method of losing weight, with a "caloric deficit" being the number one factor for losing weight, which is a fact.

It doesn't matter if you count calories or not. What matters is that you achieve a caloric deficit. Any method that is applied successfully to achieve weight loss has resulted in a caloric deficit, whether or not that method was calorie counting.

Calorie deficit is harmful for you though, there's an imbalance. You tell your body it's starving. As soon as you have an extra calorie to spare, you're body will immediately store it as fat, making your hard work essentially meaningless in the long run.

Let me guess you are female and practice haes? Only there I have heard such delusions.

None of what you just said is correct, not a syllable of it, really. You should read up on the available scientific evidence.

What scientific evidence? Let me guess, some blog post from a company that sells said diet? Give me a break.

Starving your body does indeed make you lose weight, that's true. It's just not a healthy way to do it. Nor is it long term. Your body will more than compensate for it as it regains all the weight you lost as soon as you eat like a regular person.

http://healthyenough.net/calorie-counting/ http://breakingmuscle.com/endurance-sports/calorie-restricti...

No, I'm talking about actual scientific evidence published in peer reviewed scientific journals. There are mountains of it available.

Being in a caloric deficit is not starving yourself, it just means that over a period of time, usually a full day, you spent more energy than you consumed, and the difference is taken out of your energy storage, which is mostly adipose tissue. This is how fat loss happens.

Oh I get it now, there's a misconception here. A caloric deficit DIET is detrimental to you. But you can still obtain calorie deficit process by simply increasing the output (i.e. exercise). Eating quality food helps too.

Nope, still wrong. There is nothing detrimental about eating less than you need within reason.

Agree to disagree. Starving yourself should never be an option.

This isn't "agree to disagree" territory, this is published and peer-reviewed science. You are wrong. There is no disagreement.

Fine then, show me. Show me some "science" that show how starving yourself is good for you.

Put up or shut up, this isn't productive.

You are making the claim that a caloric deficit is detrimental to health (although you choose to call it "starving yourself" for unknown reasons, even though starvation is something completely different), the onus is on you to show evidence for that.

And I gave you links explaining the downsides. A calorie deficit diet does not guarantee fat-loss, it's more likely that your muscles break down before your fat. Your metabolism slows, making it even harder to lose weight, you'll be stuck in a vicious cycle. And finally, a big enough deficit can trigger starvation (medically) which tells your body to store fat as much as it possibly can. Meaning that as soon as you stop the diet, the weight will come right back, as fat. The proper way to lose weight is to increase the output (i.e. exercise) and eating more quality food. Not eating less.

I'm not against obtaining a calorie deficit because of more exercising or eating less sugar, I'm against having a calorie deficit diet by eating less, as the article suggests.

Hope I was more clear enough now.

Here's some more reading:

http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/how-to-lose-fat-without-losin... http://www.livestrong.com/article/518807-negative-side-effec... http://www.acaloriecounter.com/diet/daily-calorie-intake-cal...

None of the claims you just made are correct.

You did not link to scientific evidence, you linked to articles on the Internet.

Here you go. Clinical study performed at the University of Minnesota on the effects of reduced calorie intake. At least those men did lose weight.

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

>> None of the claims you just made are correct.

Must be fun to be able to ignore everything everyone says unless they did a Phd on the subject, while never actually presenting any arguments yourself.

That experiment does not support any of your claims.

Quoting:

>>> Among the conclusions from the study was the confirmation that prolonged semi-starvation produces significant increases in depression, hysteria and hypochondriasis

>>> Participants exhibited a preoccupation with food, both during the starvation period and the rehabilitation phase

>>> There were marked declines in physiological processes indicative of decreases in each subject’s basal metabolic rate (the energy required by the body in a state of rest), reflected in reduced body temperature, respiration and heart rate.

Depending on the amount of calorie deficit, the symptoms may not be as sever, but they are there. I don't really understand why you can't accept basic science.

A moderate caloric deficit is not starvation, however. So the experiment in question is completely unrelated to your claims. Science does not say that a caloric deficit automatically is starvation, you alone are making that claim.

>>> Science does not say that a caloric deficit automatically is starvation, you alone are making that claim

I never said that. Eating 100 calories less a day is not starvation, duh. But that diet it's not really effective at losing weight, now is it?

I know it's hard to admit being wrong on the internet, but you have no argument here.

You don't need to starve yourself to suffer from those symptoms. Your metabolism slows because it literally doesn't have the same energy to work. Meaning you'll get fat very easily. This doesn't even need a scientific paper, it's just common sense.

If you read closer, the Minnesota experiment showed that when terminating a low calorie diet the body becomes primed to gain fat FIRST before anything else. And your metabolism slows, making it extremely hard to continuously lose weight.

And most importantly, it doesn't work long-term. You can't just lose the weight, you have to stay like that.

Finally, no medical organisation recommends it unless you have a valid medical reason to do so.

http://www.webmd.com/diet/low-calorie-diets

"For people who are overweight but not obese (BMI of 27-30), very low-calorie diets should be reserved for those who have weight-related medical problems and are under medical supervision."

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/loseweight/Pages/very-low-calorie...

"Most people who want to lose weight do not need to eat a very low calorie diet."

My experience is different. I can go days without eating, and not suffer. Food occurs to me, but I'm not preoccupied. I work normally or with extra concentration, for longer. Fasting is the route to focus for me.

Call nutrition science if you like, but begin by admitting each experience may vary. We're not all built the same.

Yes, every person is different. But there are standards and averages and common approaches to these things. Otherwise medicine wouldn't exist since no two people have the same physiology. This is not an excuse to ignore scientific results.

Days without eating is not normal in any sense of the word.

Well, depends. For the first million years it was the norm. In a sense we're designed for it. Modern city-dwellers are all soft and weak and think they have to eat three times a day. But there's absolutely no biological reason its necessary.

That's just not true. If you are talking about hunter-gatherer societies, you'd be surprised to find out they didn't starve themselves regularly. They ate well and worked fewer hours than us, with a surprisingly high life expectancy.

"According to Sahlins, ethnographic data indicated that hunter-gatherers worked far fewer hours and enjoyed more leisure than typical members of industrial society, and they still ate well."

"Sackett found that adults in foraging and horticultural societies work, on average, about 6.5 hours a day, where as people in agricultural and industrial societies work on average 8.8 hours a day.[26]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer

...and Japanese farmers work 10 hours a day. What a world.

There is nothing detrimental about being on a caloric deficit diet if are overweight. It's not starving yourself, it's not bad for you, it's the ONLY way you can lose fat. Reducing intake is much more efficient than increasing output, as the article we are discussing elaborates on.

> There is nothing detrimental about being on a caloric deficit diet if are overweight.

Yes, there is. Sustained calorie deficit has a number of potential adverse effects. OTOH, if you are overweight, those detrimental effects may be justified by the expected long-term health benefits of weight loss.

Yes you do lose weight, I don't disagree. If you do have a weight problem, it might be an option. But I don't think it's not detrimental for you or that it's a viable long term solution.

having a caloric deficit is literally the ONLY way to lose weight, this is described by the laws of thermodynamics.

If you eat exactly as many calories as you burn, you will never gain nor lose weight. If you consume more calories than you burn you will gain weight.

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