Atkins dieters experience positive results due to calorie restriction
When you're on a low carb diet, your carb cravings are reduced or go away. You tend to eat less.
It seems like you wanted to be snarky about the analogy I made but you didn't really understand it.
More importantly, I'm not trying to be a critic on your writing style, which is why I have 1 sentence about the analogy followed by paragraphs about your larger point.
Looking at the mental portion of this, the learning to eat less and better, your comments about atkins..."tend to eat less" reminds me of exactly what I say about my strategy of "intermittent fasting." (Which is a phrase I didn't learn until recently, well after I've lost the weight). What I mean is, in both cases, behavioral changes lead to eating less.
And I firmly, 100% believe that THAT is the primary mechanism that worked for me. Not changes to insulin levels effecting metabolism. But specifically: I eat far less than I used to. Far less. And THAT is why I've lost weight. And intermittent fasting helps me to accomplish that the way Atkins does to followers of that diet, ditto Paleo, ditto the Cookie Diet, etc.
Most importantly: I hope everybody acknowledges that there's mountains of contradictory research and a lot of complicated science here that nobody really understands. All we know for sure is what has worked for us, not even always why, and we are on very thin ice advocating to others what they should do.
First link briefly covers the insulin response second link is general information regarding insulin.
http://www.spinalhealth.net/insulin.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin
See the Gary Taube youtube link elsewhere in this thread for a great deal more information.
mountains of contradictory research
Not really. There's mountains of research and then public policy officials and non-scientist nutritionists that have let the food industry provide guidelines and cheap foods that aren't really good for us.
As Gary Taube points out in the video link, the science is old news. The puzzling thing is why the science has been ignored for so long.
But most of what I've learned about weight gain/loss and nutrition I've learned from books and research that look at the subject from a macro level.
The summation of everything I've read on the subject -- and I read a lot through my year long experience of losing weigh and changing almost entirely how I thought about food -- and my own experiences make me believe firmly that this is primarily an I/O issue.
And as much as you say "the science is settled and I am right" it's contradicted by a lot of smart people who study this and admit essentially 'the science of nutrition is immature and in many times conclusions are contradictory.' The most recent time I heard that was just last week in the same Pollan NPR interview I mentioned elsewhere. (Though i think this was a re-broadcast, not sure the original broadcast date)
To be clear, here's my take:
1. Primarily an I/O issue. Everything else is a distant 2nd place.
2. How much of the equation is I/O? I don't know. 75%? 50%? It's not the whole story, though, I don't think. Our bodies are adaptive and complex.
3. There are no silver bullets and anybody peddling one is probably wrong (not to say they are entirely without merit.)
4. Nutrition is a science that is not nearly as well understood as most people think.
At the end of the day, here's what I know from going on and off low-carb eating for the last ten years.
I eat carbs, I crave carbs, I binge eat, I gain lots of weight. Contrarily: I stop eating carbs, I lose the cravings, I eat moderately, salads even look satisfying, I lose weight.
Oh, for those of you who are fans of the Security Now podcast, Steve Gibson went into geeky detail in his switch to a low carb diet: https://www.grc.com/health/lowcarb-podcasts.htm
Maybe we've been talking past each other or maybe you just see this differently than I do.
I see a difference between the physical mechanism of weight gain and the mental part of hunger and eating.
Your comment here is something I can totally agree with: When you eat carbs, you crave them and binge eat and over eat and gain weight.
For you, eating carbs leads you to increase your input too much. Now this could be insulin like you insist, or it could just be bad habit. Either way, it's what I consider "mental." Because even if blood sugar issues with carbs triggers the hunger, you're still choosing to satisfy it by eating.
But there's some basic science behind the thermodynamics of weight gain and weight loss that cannot be waved away IMO.
Also, worth noting that carbs do not trigger me to over eat. They are and have been a staple in my diet and I cut them from my lunch meal entirely for reasons of caloric restriction and eat them liberally at my dinner meal. I load UP on carbs at dinner. And still, I don't eat again for at least 18 hours.
There is so much pseudo-science on every side of this debate that I'm against just about anybody who takes an absolutist position in the way you have.
Personally, from my own research and experimentation in my own diet, I firmly believe that weight is an I/O issue though good health is more complex than that.
While Atkins never specifically advocated for calorie restriction, it strikes me as common sense that some portion of new Atkins dieters experience positive results due to calorie restriction. It can be difficult to replace the number of calories in pastas, pizza, etc, in part just based on caloric density.
It's also confused by the fact that Atkins and other (if not "fad" then "theme" might be a better word?) diets have to change both physical, calorie I/O issues, and mental issues to truly be effective long term. While I truly believe that for weight loss, 2000 calories of fast food is the same as 2000 calories of lean protein, fruits and veg, after the period of strict control (the "diet") the person eating 2000 calories of fast food has not done much to truly change their habits and mindset.
I, personally, have accomplished a lot by intermittent fasting (didn't know it had a name until later, to me it was just about not eating as much during the day in favor of a bigger dinner) and learning that it's OK to feel not-full. And to learn the difference between hunger and feeling not-full. I went from 210 to 170 and lost 55 pounds!! of fat during the process. I have a big dinner (usually 50% of my daily caloric intake) and dessert every night (another 20%). That's complimented by a lunch of around 25% of my daily intake. Very infrequent snacking. No breakfast, even on Gym days, and no soft drinks only water, aside from alcoholic beverages.