Why are people consuming 6000 calories? They are always hungry and eat too much food.
Why are they always hungry? They eat and drink too many carbohydrates. Too many carbohydrates leads to high blood sugar which leads to too much insulin. After the insulin does its job, the blood sugar crashes causing hunger. The cycle repeats, causing problems including insulin resistance, excess fat storage and type 2 diabetes.
What is the solution? Don't consume carbohydrates and avoid the hunger/sugar/insulin cycle.
The only mention of carbohydrate's effect is because it's chosen as a large, easy number to reduce in favor of raising the protein amount, raising the overall inefficiency of the system. They listed, in Atkins-like diets, that shifting from 55% carbs to 8% carbs (with the change going to increased protein intake) results in about 140kcals less useful energy.
That's it. From where in the article are you drawing insulin/diabetes/hunger connections?
As soon as your insulin spikes due to high amount of carbs ingested, your body immediately starts to convert excess carbs into fat.
I've done very low carb diets and easily lost 20 lbs in a month even though I've never weighed over 200lbs. Its pretty difficult though.
After stating that the now-great-great-grandparent had missed the point of the article, they proceeded to talk entirely about things not at all contained in the article. I'm sure there's a better term for it, but the post is pretty blatantly contradictory in that way.
Upvoted y'all :)
What about it? It's not necessary. If you look for it, you can find lots of examples of societies that were quite healthy on diets that weren't "balanced". One popular example is the Inuit, who got 75% of their energy intake from fat (largely seal and whale blubber) because that was what was available to them whereas fruits and grains and vegetables were not.
Putting it in practical, personal terms -- I was laid up for six weeks for medical reasons this winter, and my bad habits continued for the next six weeks as well. Over that period I gained about 18 pounds, one of the worst periods of weight gain in my life. Simple math (and ignoring the data presented in the article!) tells you I must have been eating about 5250 excess calories a week. Roughly speaking I was probably eating 23,000 calories a week when I should have been having 18,000.
Now suppose I had gained that weight on a low-fat diet. The study cited in the article suggests that if I had been on a low-carb diet instead, I wouldn't have gained any weight at all! That's a pretty significant result. (Of course, in practice I was on a "whatever" diet.)
For those of us living on the edge, trying to shave off 500 calories a day, the knowledge that not all calories are created equal is a Big Deal.
For your example: If you had eaten a low-carb diet, you'd probably need to have eaten 50% more food in terms of quantity in order to meet the caloric intake you were getting on the "whatever" diet.
That's my point. If you simply focused on the caloric intake and kept it at 18,000 a week (which seems high for someone lying in bed, to be honest) and still ate whatever you wanted, you would't have put on 18 pounds.
I do know that I will have to track my weight and count calories for the rest of my life. That’s ok. (As a teenager I already lost a substantial amount of weight with the same method but I gained it all and more back because I stupidly stopped tracking my weight and counting calories. I’m confident that I won’t make the same mistake again.)
Can hard boil eggs with minimal attention (set the alarm on your cellphone), can make 6 or 12 at a time and those will last you a couple days.
Get some vegetables that require minimal preparation - I used pickled vegetables and like them, but canned would be fine too. Maybe tuna or sardines, try them all and see what you like.
Then you've got rice+beans, and you add on some vegetables to it, and then either hard boiled eggs, tuna, or sardines - fast, cheap, healthy.
But yeah if you want to eat carbs and be healthy you have to basically count calories for the rest of your life.
Counting calories is not that hard. I can do it in my head by now. Tracking my weight (which, I think, is equally important, especially for motivation) is more or less a reward and not a chore by now.
As someone who does not get food cravings and does not have blood sugar regulation issues, it's hard for me to understand, but the only way some folks can manage to eat less is by banning certain foods from their life.
I used to eat rice, pasta, potatoes, and bread all the time. I only miss the bread, but I make exceptions when I go to a restaurant and they have a really good bread.
Perhaps it's a diet of coffee/cigarettes (appetite suppressants) that made me go from 200 lbs to 172 in a year but oh well.
People aren't fat because they are consuming 2500 calories from a Big Mac and Fries rather than 2500 calories from carrots. People are fat because they are consuming 6000 calories and burning off 1300.
The message is simplistic, sure. For a large majority of overweight people though that's all that is required. Somewhere between reducing caloric intake and becoming fit, the message that not all calories are created equal sinks in, if for no other reason that it quickly becomes apparent that you'll starve only eating one meal of McDonald's a day.