~ Kristy
Everything you said is true, mostly. Low-carb is not that different from other diets. In fact, on this forum we often point out how a low-fat calorie-restricted diet is just a low-carb diet in disguise, since a low-fat diet is a high-carb diet, and the bulk of calories we cut must invariably come from carbs. Or course, this is just the low-carb bias talking. But the point is that both low-carb and low-fat have something in common: They both restrict the same thing, but low-carb restricts it more. We could argue this shouldn't make a difference, but it does. This list of low-carb studies show low-carb is better in all things measured, including weight loss:
http://www.dietdoctor.com/science
Maybe we're all different. But in what way and to what extent? Are we different physiologically? I don't think so. If that was true, it would be the most obvious thing. Let's take lactose intolerance for example. It's an obvious difference. But it's not a big difference. The only thing different here is that during puberty, the genes that are responsible for lactose digestion get turned off. The genes are still there, they just don't do anything. So we're not different fundamentally with this lactose intolerance, but only superficially. And anyway, it's not like cow's milk is essential to our health, or even beneficial. To put it another way, somebody who can digest lactose doesn't need to anyway.
If there are things that make us different, it would be things like acquired taste, or epigenetics. Epigenetics is a very significant factor in how we deal with food. Pottenger did some experiments with cats on that. At the time, nobody understood that it was about epigenetics, but today we know more. Pottenger showed that diet-induced deficiencies can be inherited. So, feed the mother cat a deficient diet, and her progeny will also exhibit the symptoms of the mother's deficient diet. Keep feeding the same deficient diet to her progeny, and each generation grows worse, and it takes 4 generations for the species to stop being able to reproduce. Start feeding them a proper diet, and it takes 3 generations for the species to return to normal. If that's how it works with cats, there's no reason it should work differently for humans or for any other species. A deficient diet is a deficient diet, no matter which species. Epigenetics also acts throughout one's life, not just from one generation to the next. So you could eat one diet for 20 years, and it would take more than just a couple weeks to change the effects of that previous diet if you changed your diet today, because of epigenetics.
Another way we could be different is through environmental agents like infections for example. If one has an infection, and the other doesn't, but we don't know about the infection, then we could conclude that the two are different fundamentally. But we'd be wrong, of course. Fix the infection, and suddenly both are affected the same way by the same diet. The fundamental difference we saw earlier disappears. It wasn't fundamental, it was just environmental. How many people know they have an infection? Usually, it's obvious. But when it's not, we could be wasting lots of time in futile attempts that make no difference, because the unknown yet real infection hinders our efforts.
And then there's the great assumption. How many things do you think you know, when in fact you don't really know? Take fire for example. Do you really know that if you put your hand in the fire, you'll get burned? Have you ever tried it? If you've never tried, then you don't really know. You only assume that you'll get burned. With good reason of course. But the point is that it's still just an assumption, because you've never tried it yourself, or have never seen anybody else try it either. You have no direct evidence for it. Of course, the assumption is correct. Fire burns, therefore if you put your hand in it, you'll get burned. No need to try it. The point here is that this mind trick, we do it with everything. Food, calories, exercise, everything.
Take calories for example. We assume that if we eat too much, we'll grow fat. We don't really know, but we do know about the First Law of Thermodynamics, and we assume that there's a cause-and-effect thing going on here, and the obvious cause is eating too much, and the obvious effect is growing fatter. However, the opposite is just as valid, and it agrees with the First Law. If we grow fatter, First Law says energy can't be created, so the extra fat must come from somewhere, therefore we must eat more to compensate. The cause is growing fatter, the effect is overeating. But that's just one way to expose our assumptions, to expose our lack of actual facts.
Physiology is metabolism. It's not thermodynamics. However, metabolism must obey thermodynamics too, but in ways that make it look like things are not what they seem. Take exercise for example. We assume that if we exercise more, but eat the same, we'll lose weight. And we could be right. But experiments don't always agree. If we exercise more, we spend more energy, but what's to say we won't just eat more to compensate? We will get hungry. But let's say we don't eat more anyway. What's to say our metabolism won't just slow down more between bouts of exercise to compensate? We have virtually no control over that, except if we take drugs that have an effect on that. But then, doing that only proves that we have no control over metabolism, and it will slow down more to compensate. We could just do even more exercise, and just eat even less. But where does it stop?
No, it's much better to understand physiology and metabolism, so we can deal with it accordingly. Understanding physiology and metabolism allows us to understand that we're not so different, and when it looks like we are different, we know there's a reason for the difference, like with lactose intolerance for example. We do this by questioning our assumptions, and digging through the facts.
But we're talking about Atkins, right? You read the "Atkins didn't work for me" thread, I believe? Anyway, there's any number of reasons why it doesn't work for somebody. But if you look at all those reason, there's something that pops out. Most of those reasons have nothing to do with the diet itself. In fact, the number 1 reason for why it didn't work is that we didn't actually eat that way. We can't blame the diet if we didn't actually eat the diet, can we?
But this brings up a very interesting point. A diet (book) is just a set of instructions. And as instructions go, if they're badly written, or outright incomprehensible, we'll have a hard time following them, if at all. In fact, that's what drove me to write that booklet I was talking about in that thread. I wanted to write a set of instructions that was so simple so easy that anybody could do it. Anyway, the point is that we can blame the diet if it's badly written, and if we end up not following it because of that. But we can't blame the foods, only the instructions.
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