This guy lost 50kg eating nothing but white potatoes for a year:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/...

I personally wouldn't recommend that but it underlines the point that not all carbs are created equal. Our bodies process complex carbs with fiber very differently than refined sugars.

Additionally, carbs can be more difficult to absorb if they are mixed with fibres. Sugars in apples are an example.

It's not that they are more difficult to absorb but rather fiber blunts the insulin response. Insulin is a fat-storing hormone so the less that gets secreted, the less fat you are prone to storing. Coupling that with copious amounts of readily available carbs + fat and you're gonna have a bad time.

But that would mean taking fiber would lead to high blood sugar, and cause damage to your internals. I think the idea that fiber slows carb digestion makes more sense. With slowed carb digestion, less insulin is needed, thus the blunt response.

Not sure how you deduced that fiber would lead to high blood sugar from my response but what I was trying to convey was that fiber "slows down" carb absorption, thereby blunting the blood sugar increase which then as a corollary blunts the insulin response.

This is why most keto diets specify net carbs, which subtracts fiber out of the carb total.

Potatoes are special. If you eat them with the skin, they are the most complete food.

Little known fact... if you eat Potatoes with the skin on them, they are the only food that is BOTH a fruit AND a Vegetable.

~ Dave Thomas (Founder of Wendy's and Nutritional Scientist)

At a certain point it seems like the main benefit of all restrictive diets is just that they exclude junk and force the dieter to cook at home.

If you can't eat Snickers, and you can't buy high sugar-salt-fat restaurant food (which often comes in massive portions), you'll probably eat a smaller amount of more nutritious food. Which is great, but there's no real need to pursue arcane diet restrictions to get there. And in some cases, like 'alkaline' diets, you can quickly get into real trouble with nutrient deficiency just because the food pool is so small.

As I recall, The Blonde Vegan (a popular food blogger) managed to end up seriously malnourished off a diet that initially made her feel healthy and energetic. Just as you say, the productive step was "eat less crap", and the counterproductive step was "eat only these 10 foods".

Yup, what I'm usually missing in those is the actual difference in calorie intake. Going vegan for example will reduce a lot because you'd naturally eat less fats. Going carb-free, same story. They're probably more popular than counting calories because there's Rules to adhere to, which is more easy than trying to guess how many grams of pasta are in your plate.

> what I'm usually missing in those is the actual difference in calorie intake...

Check out "That Sugar Film," it was on Amazon Prime when I saw it. Highly recommend.

In it, he goes from a zero-sugar diet to a "recommend healthy amount of sugar" (and from "healthy" sources — he is not eating candy) while maintaining the same calorie count and exercise routine.

Spoiler: he gains weight and inches and develops a fatty liver.

He went from zero refined sugar to 200g of sugar a day. The average in America is 125g and nobody would recommend anywhere near either amount. He also only ate packaged foods - presumably no vegetables, rice, pasta etc. It's hard to see how any lessons can be learned from this.

And as for the talking heads he chose, well... http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...

Thanks for the link. I had no idea. Up until 2yrs ago, it appears that the WHO recommend up to 50g of sugar per day and recently reduced that to half that.

I still think there is a lesson to be learned. If we can assume his calorie intake remained the same (which he claims, but given your link, who knows), we can say that the source of the calories matters. I've met a few people who only subscribe to calories in vs calories out.

When I tried to find a recommendation for sugar I mostly found "added sugar should be no more than 5% of your calories". Eg https://www.jamieoliver.com/news-and-features/features/how-m...

By keeping his calorie intake the same but replacing all foods with those containing added sugar, he really tipped the scale. I suspect with more calories he might have gained some weight but would feel better and not have that liver issue.

I've never seen an honest documentary on nutrition.

Added sugar recommendations are always given as "no more than X grams per day." In other words, it's an upper limit and less is always better.

I didn't know anything about the film so I looked it up.

Spoiler: the summary given in this comment is not accurate and the film spouts a bunch of quackery.

He didn't eat he "recommend healthy amount of sugar," that would be no more than less than the equivalent amount in a can of soda.

He didn't get liver disease.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...

Just got that link in the other sibling comment. Thanks; quite interesting.

Getting x mg of fructose from eating an apple is significantly different than ingesting x mg of fructose from a soda, for example. Don’t be pedantic.

I don't see any pedantry. OP said they dropped all sugar which would imply natural sugars as well.

> I dropped all forms of sugar and corn syrup a few months ago. [...]

> I eat bananas, apples, peanut butter and chicken. Learned to cook a few things.

It's not clear to me why sugar from an apple is better than sugar from soda. Can you explain or link to a source?

>It's not clear to me why sugar from an apple is better than sugar from soda. Can you explain or link to a source?

The obvious difference is that I can only eat so many apples; I've gotta eat three apples to get as much sugar as a soda pop (or a cup of apple juice, for that matter... apple juice has more sugar than soda pop.)

There is also a claim that the effort to digest an apple makes it a lot better for you than drinking the same amount of apple juice.

I'm not sure why this is being downvoted. Fruits generally have much lower glycemic load than refined carbs, the need to chew drastically lowers the rate at which you can consume it, and the fiber makes you feel full.

Dr Robert Lustig has also written and spoken extensively on the metabolic issues with refined carbs, but he's fine with fruit: https://www.amazon.com/Fat-Chance-Beating-Against-Processed/...

I often wonder about this.

The whole "modern" food are optimized/stripped to only throw sugar at you. I had the same conclusion, most natural food I can't eat more than 3 of them: apples, oranges, even strawberries they're not just sugar, they have bits of sour, acid that balance the pleasing parts and makes you want to stop after a little.

When I was sick, apples were the only fruit I could eat that left me untouched, at that time even a minute amount of sugar would make me faint.

Carbohydrates are metabolized very differently when consumed along with fiber. This is why the glycemic load of apple juice is about twice as high as an apple and white rice is about twice as high as brown rice:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/glyce...

My understanding is that it's not about total amount of sugar, but rather the glycemic index of consuming something. The whole apple contains fiber which would give it a lower glycemic index than a soda. The glycemic index of foods affects your insulin response, which affects fat storage behavior of your cells.

I don't have a link to paste at the moment, but look into books by Gary Taubes for research and sources on this topic.

OP's remarkable point is that she is restricting food groups, not calories.

Yes, I am aware, my point stands. I highly suspect any diet that restricts most food groups will produce similar effects no matter what the food groups are. It's far from "remarkable," its what happens when you micromanage your diet plus a small dose of the placebo effect. People have written exactly the same thing about a high carb vegan diet, for example.

My mother in law also has a "I just don't eat [several random food groups]" non-calorie restricted diet as well, but the food groups are different, she says the same types of things and lost over 100 pounds and has kept it off for like seven years. Same with other people I know with omitting other random food groups.

(My mother in law actually eats outside her chosen food groups regularly, she just is really, really, really misinformed about what's in food - which further illustrates my point that it's the micromanaging and restriction, not the type of food consumed.)

Don't think so. Carbohydrates-heavy foods are the foods most associated with weight gain. Sugar is pretty bad, though not as bad as potato chips, fries etc.

The underlying assumptions are "all else equal". There are many dietary philosophies that structure what is allowed via subjective explanations of controlling cravings, etc. IOW, food choice affects selection, invalidating "all else equal".

Carbs may cause obeisity/wg more per calorie than fiber, but it's important to keep in mind a "dose response" concept.

The point is that restricting food groups ends up restricting calories as a side effect. Cutting out refined sugar means cutting out sugary drinks which is a huge source of “hidden” calories for most people.

Its the carbs that is the problem in my experience. Coconut has very little carbs. Eating low carb diet allow me to loose weight and stay down.

And my mother-in-law lost and keeps off over 100 pounds by restricting random food groups, however she still eats very high carb. And when I say random, I really mean random! There's literally no rhyme or reason to her choices other than she thinks they are "bad."

Same with my vegan+ friend, high carb, 80 pounds kept off for a decade. I say vegan+ because she's vegan plus she has other random restrictions.

Those are the two people I can think of right away because they've been doing their diets for a really, really long time and they always pack their own food everywhere they go. For these long term heavy restrictors, it's absolutely not any reduction in carbs.

I also eat carbs I just stay away from them most of the time. That sounds like your mother-in-law if she eats random.

No, absolutely not, I literally said "she still eats very high carb." Her diet does not restrict or limit carbs at all and she eats plenty of them. It's pretty silly to assume everyone's diet is low carb by default.

I believe she eats potatoes at every meal or at least almost every meal and she also eats plenty of white rice. Also fruit juice is on her "good" list. Though she claims she "doesn't eat sugar."

She claims to not eat dairy but she eats yogurt because she thinks it's non-dairy. No, she doesn't have a yogurt exception, she honestly thinks it doesn't contain dairy. I'm not sure what she thinks it is.

There's not many foods she does eat and her diet is the same thing for the most part. I honestly think the key to her diet is all the food I've ever had made by her has been bland and unseasoned. If you're eating bland food you aren't prone to overeat.

I think it's absolutely ridiculous and makes no sense but it seems to work for her so I can't judge too harshly.

So are you saying she eat high carb and random or are you saying she eats random? Not sure I understand your point.

Carbs are proven to make most people fatter. There are people with high metabolism who can eat anything but most people cannot eat too many carbs without gaining weight.