Define "reasonably" and "restricted". Otherwise, you might as well say "If everyone just did the right thing, everything would be as it should!" which has no actionable component.

>>"people who have lived on nothing but twinkies or McD for a month and stil lost weight?"

....but suffered dozens of other health problems that'll lead to an early grave.

"Super size me" -- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390521/

http://www.sott.net/article/126285-Supersize-me-revisited-un...

http://www.cracked.com/article_20585_6-famous-documentaries-...

Moral: popular media is a horrible source of scientific knowledge

http://observer.com/2015/10/here-are-the-people-coca-cola-ha...

And? Did he did he supplement the diet by eating Coca-Cola's money as a source of fiber? Because it still sounds like he only ate twinkies and lost weight.

Or are you suggesting that his data was falsified?

Better demonstrations would be: * Compare people eating the same number of calories below requirements, but one on the twinkie diet and one on a healthy diet to see comparative changes in markers * Perform the same experiment as before, but this time with both groups eating the same number of calories above maintenance.

Which, if I understand correctly, is the whole point of the demonstration. You'll lose weight on a calorie restricted diet almost no matter what you eat. So long as people understand that weight loss should not be the sole measure of health, I don't see what the problem is.

The problem is, a calorie restricted diet alone isn't always sustainable. Eg if you're eating crap, but so little that you don't gain weight, it's still going to mess you up (lethargy, irritability, lack of focus).

A twinkie has 135 calories (or 270 for a pair). It isn't a hard thing to fit into your diet if you aren't constantly snacking on things.

On the other hand, if you're riding the razor's edge and trying to do something crazy like get into lower single digit bodyfat while gaining muscle and strength, even a little junk food can make a noticeable difference. I recognize that isn't the typical case though.

But hey, maybe 20 different scientists ran the same experiment and only the one time when it was successful got published. No way to know for sure.

Eating only one type of food for weeks will almost always result in losing weight, because it would disrupt the gut flora, as well as deprive one of necessary vitamins/minerals.

Anecdotal evidence if fine for discussion, but no one should act upon it without medical supervision.

The problem is that nobody can seriously eat only twinkies at a caloric deficit indefinitely. He was getting his caloric needs from sugar, and he was avoiding weight gain by undereating. If he kept it up for say, a year, he would have experienced all sorts of nasty symptoms– irritability, etc.

I'd liken it to staying awake for 3 days. Sure, you can do it, but it's not sustainable.

I mean, I could have a diet of pure whiskey for a month and lose weight. Weight loss on its own isn't healthy, especially if its only temporary.

10 weeks of changing your diet in general will probably lead to weight loss as long as you're not increasing your total calories, but that doesn't mean that the diet is sustainable long-term. If you live on say, a few donuts a day, you'll lose weight, but it'll also give you terrible sugar crashes and you won't be able to focus. You'll be irritable. It will really suck, and you'll either end up eating more or seeing your quality of life suffer.

I used to weigh about 100 kilo's, until I changed my diet to LCHF, now I'm about 70. A few months ago, as a test, I switched to Soylent for 2 months, and gained almost 10 kilo's.

I just think a high carb diet is not something that is compatible with an office job.

But how much you are able to stuff yourself with isn't the full story without knowing how long it takes you to get hungry again.

How much?

> But how much you are able to stuff yourself with isn't the full story without knowing how long it takes you to get hungry again.

Certainly less than 2 days.

WHAT?! Please make a YouTube video. I will show all my friends and family. The amazing Peanut Butter Eating Hero.

My issue is keeping the weight down. I've been in Dublin for three months and lost about 10 kgs (nasty commute, stressful job and so on). I've been back for two weeks and gained back two kgs. Wife's a great cook :)

I think you've succinctly expressed one of the core issues that we have as individuals and as a society: we love tasty food more than we love healthy food. We generally consider meals that derive flavor from fats and sugars as great/tasty/enjoyable while we relegate more healthy options as that which we only eat to either make up for or "save calories for" the meals that we really enjoy.

It not only helps in counting calories it also gives daily articles and a set of TO-DOs. I was 275 lbs around 2.5 months ago but since then have lost 22 lbs.

Regarding 'keeping the weight down', I learned from this app itself why it is difficult:

1. Not eating anything for a week is not only a bad strategy to lose weight it is actually a good strategy to gain weight afterwards. In my own experience whenever I tried to lose weight by eating less I lost a lot of weight but gained more than what I lost afterwards. You cannot stay hungry forever and if you lose more than 2 lbs per week your body goes into starvation mode, burning any stored energy rapidly, and rapidly storing anything you eat afterwards as fat just in case you don't get food again. Body is more intelligent than we think. 2. Once a fat cell is born it craves fat and that makes you hungry. Rapidly losing weight by staying hungry will only remove fat from fat cells but won't kill them. Weight loss must be sustained for longer time to have any permanent effect. 3. I have replaced white rice with brown rice, white bread with whole grain wheat bread and started eating sprouts and corn, oranges, guava etc. other fruits. Sprouts are killer deal man - you eat 200g of it you will hardly feel hungry for hours. 4. You need to do some physical exercise everyday - not intense, just walking is okay. But you have to be consistent so your body learns how much energy you are going to lose anyway and doesn't store much fat.

I have yet to start heavy exercises but I like the effect on my body :)

Fats, proteins, etc. are all important. Within eating a reasonable number of calories, make sure that the portion of calories from each source is appropriate. If you focus solely on calories, you will lose weight but you will also lose other aspects of your health.

My diet is primarily comprised of vegetables, beans, eggs and whey protein with a moderate amount of lean meat. I easily clear 225g/protein/day and ~120g/fiber/day, and I consume a lot of fermented vegetables (which definitely have a strong satiating effect).

It tends to ignore the fact that energy expended by metabolism is a black-box function that takes energy absorbed from food as just one of its input parameters.

If you restrict calories below a threshold (that varies by individual), the body will flip genetic switches to enter famine survival mode. It will adjust metabolic functions to slow down weight loss by any means possible. When the restriction ends, some of those switches do not get toggled back to their previous state. So if you have ever tried a diet that included severe calorie restrictions or extended fasting, you may forevermore find it much easier to gain weight than lose it.

So if you want to go by the thermodynamic hypothesis, it is far safer for you in the long run to hold your diet constant and either increase exercise or thermogenesis (i.e. live through a winter at one of the poles).

Channel swimmers burn about 40 Mcal of energy. Marathon runners burn about 3 Mcal. But their bodies will prefer to use up all glycogen stores before digging in to body fat, and now some will eat glycogen gel during the event to avoid "hitting the wall" entirely. Fat-burning is maximized only after depleting glycogen, or when exercising below the aerobic threshold (and possibly also below the lactate threshold), between 60% and 70% of your maximum heart rate. Obviously, this would ordinarily set a hard limit on the number of kcal you can reasonably expend via exercise to lose body fat.

Thus, the uncanny effectiveness of ketogenic diets and "bonk training". Those practices intentionally deplete glycogen stores beforehand, so any exercise done in that state burns more body fat, regardless of your exercise intensity. Ordinarily, you could have 1500 kcal or more of glycogen stores. That's enough for 15 miles of running, or 2 hours of cycling. And that's a lot of exercise to do before you start to get more permanent fat-loss results.

It is much easier to eat just enough protein to serve the short-term needs of your body, eat the remaining caloric requirement to avoid switching to starvation mode as fat, and avoid all carbohydrates like the plague. Your body converts only as much protein as it needs into sugars, but not enough to replenish its glycogen, and switches to using fat as its primary energy supply, so any additional kcal you expend are coming directly from adipose reserves. (This sort of lifestyle may have unintended side effects.)

People don't want to just "lose weight". When they say that, they usually mean "lose fat". And that goal is a lot more complex than just kcal in minus kcal out.

We still don't fully understand how diet, exercise, metabolism, and appetite work together to produce visible effects on the body. But we do know that a single dietary strategy will not work for everybody, particularly the "just reduce calorie count" strategy.