Less is less
Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 4:16 pm
So, the other day I followed a link, and found myself staring into the yawning abyss of Nutritional Debates on the Internet. Endless back and forth about whether the Low-Carb People or the Low-Fat People are lying to you and trying to trick you into unhealthy eating ... Endless throwing around of different studies and citations with varying degrees of experimental evidence. I thought, "Wow, how would I *ever* sort through all this?" I'm a practicing scientist, but that doesn't give me some magical ability to see what's true. It might help with the vocabulary, but we're still talking about weeks or months of reading, to try to get myself into a position where I could comment in an informed manner on which of the various "this is the best thing" claims might be most true.
But then I thought: I can summarize in three words why I don't *need* to do all that, unless I want to get into it as a hobby (which I really, really don't) [*]. The three words are: "less is less".
Let's say your weight is currently stable (maybe not where you want it to be, but stable). I don't care what mixture of foods or food-elements you're eating, if you eat a bit less of them, you will eventually start to lose weight. Possibly slowly, but it'll happen. I don't think that's a controversial statement -- even the "starvation response" claim that your body reacts to lower food by "holding on" to your body mass is only applied to really severe restrictions, and I'm talking here about the moderate reductions that NoS makes possible: eating maybe 5 or 10 percent less than you used to.
So, although you may want to "optimize" your diet for other reasons, like nutritional balance and general health, I would claim that if you just want to lose weight, you don't need to feel obliged to get locked in to some highly specific eating scheme, and you don't have to take a side in (for example) the great Fat vs Carbs wars. Take what you're eating now, and be more moderate about it. Less is less.
(I realize some people love doing the background reading that allows them to assess these nutritional claims, and more power to 'em. For myself, I don't want my relationship with food to be mostly about its chemical constituents, and I don't find it fun to pore endlessly over that kind of detail. I get enough of that in my day job.)
[*] But best of luck to our very own BrightAngel, who does indeed refer to her dietary efforts as a hobby, and has launched a blog with that very name! Hope it goes well, BA.
But then I thought: I can summarize in three words why I don't *need* to do all that, unless I want to get into it as a hobby (which I really, really don't) [*]. The three words are: "less is less".
Let's say your weight is currently stable (maybe not where you want it to be, but stable). I don't care what mixture of foods or food-elements you're eating, if you eat a bit less of them, you will eventually start to lose weight. Possibly slowly, but it'll happen. I don't think that's a controversial statement -- even the "starvation response" claim that your body reacts to lower food by "holding on" to your body mass is only applied to really severe restrictions, and I'm talking here about the moderate reductions that NoS makes possible: eating maybe 5 or 10 percent less than you used to.
So, although you may want to "optimize" your diet for other reasons, like nutritional balance and general health, I would claim that if you just want to lose weight, you don't need to feel obliged to get locked in to some highly specific eating scheme, and you don't have to take a side in (for example) the great Fat vs Carbs wars. Take what you're eating now, and be more moderate about it. Less is less.
(I realize some people love doing the background reading that allows them to assess these nutritional claims, and more power to 'em. For myself, I don't want my relationship with food to be mostly about its chemical constituents, and I don't find it fun to pore endlessly over that kind of detail. I get enough of that in my day job.)
[*] But best of luck to our very own BrightAngel, who does indeed refer to her dietary efforts as a hobby, and has launched a blog with that very name! Hope it goes well, BA.