Heh. I just started on a slow carb diet. It’s been fantastically successful—I lost 8kg in a week (105kg down to 97kg), which is generally considered rather too fast, but I have lots of energy and feel great.
I got it fromFour Hour Body, Tim Ferriss’ latest magnum opus of, ah, broscience. He applied science to his own body! … then generalised from himself to everyone else in the world. But the diet’s promise was remarkable and it just so happened that I like all the foods he listed for it, so it wouldn’t be onerous. And it hasn’t been. I don’t miss potatoes or rice, I do miss wheat products, but there’s the scheduled binge to take care of those.
I posted about my weight loss win on Twitter and promptly got a pile of friends asking about it. I have had to give all the caveats: mostly that it works because I really like the foods in question and the diet was in fact almost no work at all. (Tin of tuna for breakfast, every day? Two tins of chickpeas for lunch, every day? OM NOM NOM.) Also that it’s, ah, a bit faddy and broscience-based. YMMV. Etc. That is, warning people off what worked for me but may well be a very bad idea for them.
Lesson learned: when giving “this worked for me”, take care to avoid hazards that may lead to other-pessimisation!
Thank you for responding . . . I wish I could up-vote your post by about 50 points.
My impression is that when people kvell about their diet success, they tend to be reluctant to update down the road if things don’t work out. Leading to a survivorship bias problem. And making it difficult to get a better understanding of how diets run off the rails.
From a meta point of view, there is arguably only one real way to diet successfully, which is to think about all the ways that diets fail and then plan and adopt strategies to deal with those problems.
The essential problem remains: humanity’s basically solved the food problem, but our genes don’t understand this so pack on the fat in preparation for a famine that will never arrive. So all diets are unnatural. Too much food for our health is a great problem to have, though, much better than the previous problem.
The essential problem remains: humanity’s basically solved the food problem, but our genes don’t understand this so pack on the fat in preparation for a famine that will never arrive. So all diets are unnatural
Well that’s one essential aspect of the problem. There are other issues too. But I think this point is important in at least one respect: There is an idea out there that there is something wrong with obsessing over one’s food intake and weight. Another poster asserted that dieting is a mental disorder.
But given that for a lot of people, System 1 (non-conscious thought) is unable to navigate today’s environment successfully, it’s not unreasonable to use System 2 (conscious thought) as a substitute. Or even what one might call “System 3” -- conscious thought plus brain extensions such as calendars, food and weight logs, written meal plans, etc.
When I tried the diet I lost 10-15 pounds reasonably fast and then plateaued after a month or two. I started losing again when I plain cut out carbs on non-cheat days. Also BP coffee and fasting seems to help but I haven’t been doing those as long as simple carb-dodging
That’s really neat. How is it that Tim Ferriss could have developed a more effective weightloss system than nutritional experts?
If such a claim is indeed true, it would necessarily lead to questioning the basis of nutritional experimentation: is it even built upon a solid enough base to be useful?
Heh. I just started on a slow carb diet. It’s been fantastically successful—I lost 8kg in a week (105kg down to 97kg), which is generally considered rather too fast, but I have lots of energy and feel great.
I got it from Four Hour Body, Tim Ferriss’ latest magnum opus of, ah, broscience. He applied science to his own body! … then generalised from himself to everyone else in the world. But the diet’s promise was remarkable and it just so happened that I like all the foods he listed for it, so it wouldn’t be onerous. And it hasn’t been. I don’t miss potatoes or rice, I do miss wheat products, but there’s the scheduled binge to take care of those.
I posted about my weight loss win on Twitter and promptly got a pile of friends asking about it. I have had to give all the caveats: mostly that it works because I really like the foods in question and the diet was in fact almost no work at all. (Tin of tuna for breakfast, every day? Two tins of chickpeas for lunch, every day? OM NOM NOM.) Also that it’s, ah, a bit faddy and broscience-based. YMMV. Etc. That is, warning people off what worked for me but may well be a very bad idea for them.
Lesson learned: when giving “this worked for me”, take care to avoid hazards that may lead to other-pessimisation!
How are things working out for you 20 months later? I would be very interested to know.
Still around 95kg. Still like the food. All is fine :-)
How are things now 3 years later? Are things working out? And if so, have you changed your thinking since the beginning?
Got thoroughly sick of it by last year, largely gave up. Now I eat it some days, ignore it others. Haven’t checked weight lately :-)
Thank you for responding . . . I wish I could up-vote your post by about 50 points.
My impression is that when people kvell about their diet success, they tend to be reluctant to update down the road if things don’t work out. Leading to a survivorship bias problem. And making it difficult to get a better understanding of how diets run off the rails.
From a meta point of view, there is arguably only one real way to diet successfully, which is to think about all the ways that diets fail and then plan and adopt strategies to deal with those problems.
The essential problem remains: humanity’s basically solved the food problem, but our genes don’t understand this so pack on the fat in preparation for a famine that will never arrive. So all diets are unnatural. Too much food for our health is a great problem to have, though, much better than the previous problem.
I thought the entire point of the paleo diet is that it is natural, er, consonant with the ancestral evolutionary environment?
So it claims. I believe this is more than slightly disputed.
Well that’s one essential aspect of the problem. There are other issues too. But I think this point is important in at least one respect: There is an idea out there that there is something wrong with obsessing over one’s food intake and weight. Another poster asserted that dieting is a mental disorder.
But given that for a lot of people, System 1 (non-conscious thought) is unable to navigate today’s environment successfully, it’s not unreasonable to use System 2 (conscious thought) as a substitute. Or even what one might call “System 3” -- conscious thought plus brain extensions such as calendars, food and weight logs, written meal plans, etc.
Thank you for responding! I’ve been doing some informal research into diet and weight loss.
When I tried the diet I lost 10-15 pounds reasonably fast and then plateaued after a month or two. I started losing again when I plain cut out carbs on non-cheat days. Also BP coffee and fasting seems to help but I haven’t been doing those as long as simple carb-dodging
That’s really neat. How is it that Tim Ferriss could have developed a more effective weightloss system than nutritional experts? If such a claim is indeed true, it would necessarily lead to questioning the basis of nutritional experimentation: is it even built upon a solid enough base to be useful?