I think it’s interesting that you label protein and vegetables as high-satiety foods, when that just isn’t the case for me. Lean meats and veggies satiate me for longer than refined grains, but nor nearly as long as food higher in fat, as long as they’re relatively healthy fats (olive or avocado oil, grass fed butter and cream, cheese, nuts and seeds, things like that). That result definitely varies somewhat between people, but my experience isn’t out of the ordinary. Eating veggies or protein without fat just leaves me feeling full but unsatisfied, waiting until my stomach will let me eat more.
I agree with your point about the magnitude of the change. People didn’t suddenly start eating vastly more food after 1980. But that potentially cuts both ways: most of the other trends in diet and exercise were gradual and started much earlier, yet weight wasn’t increasing at a population level then. So why would slight reductions reverse the trend now, when slight increases didn’t generate it before? Why this recommend this specific slight intervention when so many other things have changed in our lives and environments, especially when you know that it just will come off as insulting to most people who’ve actually struggled to lose weight?
Yes, sometimes it is that simple. I know people who’ve just cut our soda and/or started walking for half an hour a day and lost tens of pounds in a year. And I’m glad for them! But not everyone’s body responds that way, and that’s kinda the point.
Edit to add: also, if the amount of calorie variation needed to lose 20 pounds really were as small as you say, at the level of a single cookie weighing less than 50 grams, then no, intuition for portion sizes would not be sufficient for controlling food intake, and you really would have to measure things. That would mean that being off by a teaspoon of oil when grilling a chicken breast in a pan each day is worth 5 pounds of body fat over time, and that’s just one part of one meal. Ditto for replacing a cup of strawberries with the same volume of apple or melon, or a cup of apple or melon with the same volume of banana—which are the kinds of things that over time just take way too much mindshare to keep up with for every single food decision, even for smart people who like math and measuring things.
I think it’s interesting that you label protein and vegetables as high-satiety foods, when that just isn’t the case for me. Lean meats and veggies satiate me for longer than refined grains, but nor nearly as long as food higher in fat, as long as they’re relatively healthy fats (olive or avocado oil, grass fed butter and cream, cheese, nuts and seeds, things like that). That result definitely varies somewhat between people, but my experience isn’t out of the ordinary. Eating veggies or protein without fat just leaves me feeling full but unsatisfied, waiting until my stomach will let me eat more.
I agree with your point about the magnitude of the change. People didn’t suddenly start eating vastly more food after 1980. But that potentially cuts both ways: most of the other trends in diet and exercise were gradual and started much earlier, yet weight wasn’t increasing at a population level then. So why would slight reductions reverse the trend now, when slight increases didn’t generate it before? Why this recommend this specific slight intervention when so many other things have changed in our lives and environments, especially when you know that it just will come off as insulting to most people who’ve actually struggled to lose weight?
Yes, sometimes it is that simple. I know people who’ve just cut our soda and/or started walking for half an hour a day and lost tens of pounds in a year. And I’m glad for them! But not everyone’s body responds that way, and that’s kinda the point.
Edit to add: also, if the amount of calorie variation needed to lose 20 pounds really were as small as you say, at the level of a single cookie weighing less than 50 grams, then no, intuition for portion sizes would not be sufficient for controlling food intake, and you really would have to measure things. That would mean that being off by a teaspoon of oil when grilling a chicken breast in a pan each day is worth 5 pounds of body fat over time, and that’s just one part of one meal. Ditto for replacing a cup of strawberries with the same volume of apple or melon, or a cup of apple or melon with the same volume of banana—which are the kinds of things that over time just take way too much mindshare to keep up with for every single food decision, even for smart people who like math and measuring things.