I am one of *those* people - the three cups of vegetables a day people. And, as far as I can tell - there isn't anything smoke and mirrors happening.

Meanwhile, I agree with your choice to treat vegetables as condiments, and can see how beneficial it would be - for you and lots of other people. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to overeat when there are no vegetables in my daily menus.

No amount of reading studies, books or what have you is going to make one whit of difference here. This is about me, my life and my experience.

And yes, you're right - having some vegetables in my menus keeps hunger at bay and means I stick to plan a whole lot better.

This is where I disagree. With enough (a whole lot) of understanding, you can not only make better choices, but you can also understand why something worked for someone and not for yourself. Or course, in order to do so, you actually have to get to a point where you can sort through bogus scientific information and it's possible that not everyone is interested in getting to that point. It took me three years of research on human metabolism before I could even start to discern what was non-sense and what was proper science.

Anyway as far as I'm concerned all the answers are currently here.

Patrick

Good points Sara!
I don't use veggies as condiments as they are a bigger part of my food plan. They certainly do help to fill me up and I totally enjoy eating them.

I'm also with you on not needing to know all the science about whats going on behind the scenes....I have my very own set of (very valuable to me)experiences that I've used to guide me through this maze of how to get all the frigging pounds off. Trying and failing so many times gave me an advantage from my mistakes.
I'm not perfect and still make mistakes but I've learned an awful lot these past 5 1/2 years. I knew how to lose weight but I did not know how to eat to keep it off. Now.....I can say that I know this too.

Patrick, you are right, I am wrong.

Ah sarcasm. But that does not answer any of the assumptions I was trying to confirm with you.

I will take it that you do not understand enough about human metabolism to discuss the matter. It's a shame really. I was like you before and now that I know how it really works, I'm able to help myself and others with a lot more precision.

Patrick

What's interesting to me is that I'm already doing those 12 steps. Ok - so I haven't done the 'interval' training yet, but it's on my to do list to learn how. I found Mark Sisson's discussion of 'chronic cardio' useful in this regard, and didn't get into too much of that hamster-type stuff. Also, the meat I buy isn't always the grass-fed kind. ($$$)

Everything else is pretty much exactly what I'm doing.

I'll have to read around his site some more, I'm interested in his views on vegetables. I eat berries (in season) once in awhile, and that's pretty much it for fruit.

Meanwhile - I thought Jenny's blog post was pretty good. There are some things in there that ought to be considered and it's useful and valuable information. She's right that calories do count, she's right that lots of people stall out at some point, and need to re-adjust their plans, and she has a valid point about the thyroid issue.

I had never heard of 'fat induced insulin resistance' though. That's a new one on me.

Speaking of which, I noticed something - I think weight training has helped in this 'insulin resistance' dept. Or, is it possible that when you lose weight, you're not as insulin resistant? I dunno - no scientist here. Is it possible that low-carbing heals things to the point where you're not as insulin resistant as you were when you started out?

Oh, the hubris.

I think you'd find that all the scientists and folks who study metabolism will readily admit there's a whole lot they don't know! Or that what they think they know is probably wrong.

If all the mysteries of human metabolism were unraveled I don't think anyone would be fat or diabetic.

Hey I'm willing to start from the beginning and explain everything step by step. My big post is there to start a discussion, but I get sarcasm instead and the person continues on his merry way thinking they have the answers already when sometimes their basic precepts are not even wrong.

I am so far from knowing enough ! No one ever could. But could we at least start somewhere?

What I'm trying to do is take the discussion one step at a time and resolve any misunderstanding along the way.

I really don't know why I bother though.

Patrick

Hey....we are in agreement!!

Right then. If anyone is ever interested in having a scientific discussion about calories, I'll be available. It is absolutely possible to make me change my mind, it's not even hard. But we have to discuss it and we never know, it could be you that changes your mind along the way. That is certainly what happened to me.

Patrick

Hey Patrick,

I am VERY interested in what you are saying. I have a fitness bootcamp with some very overweight clients. I am trying to find answers for them--especially one of my clients. He's been on Atkins for 6 months and is severely stalled.

I found this thread and would love some help!

I don't fully understand the "eat fat to lose fat" idea. He pretty much eats eggs and bacon every day, some chicken and that's pretty much it.

He's been stuck for about 6 weeks now with no loss.

I'll read your site for some ideas, but any help will be appreciated.

He's already sugar free, grain free, pretty much fruit free.

I recently took him off dairy, and he lost 2 pounds in the last 2 weeks. Is that a ray of hope?

I don't want to try and 'change your mind'. You could be 100% right. Meanwhile, there is the possibility that things might change - like when you're within 10-20 lbs. of your goal weight, and 'the plan' isn't working as well as it did earlier on in the game. I am not saying that this will happen, just that it could.

In the meantime, there's lots of support and encouragement here for just getting onto a plan and sticking with it. Even though your plan might be different than my plan (maybe it's not that different? I don't know) - I'll still be around, cheering you on. Seriously.

If you have to change things up, then you change things up. It doesn't mean the 'plan' was wrong...it's just the nature of the journey. And furthermore, you don't have to have all the answers right up front, and you don't have to be so careful to pick 'the best' plan right off the bat. It's just, "This sounds about right, I'm gonna do this...".

You don't have to be perfect - you just have to be good.

I like reading your posts Patrick

I like PaNu too ... I do Atkins, but I pretty much do it PaNu style since I never eat grains, have been experimenting with IF and was already doing all the steps except eliminating dairy. I loooooove cream for my coffee and just can't phathom giving it up, so if you have a subsitute for that I'd be all ears! Other than that I use dairy only sparingly. I used to use soy milk, but I'm not sure that would be any better since it's based from legumes. I suppose my exercise is probably more than PaNu recommends too, but I'm training for a marathon so I'll have to adjust.

I have a *very* hard time losing weight ... I lost about 6 lbs right away, then another 2 when I cut out nuts, but other than that my body seems to be incredibly resistant to losing. Plus about every other week I have to travel for some reason or another so it's tougher to stay 100% on plan and I need to rely on nuts and snacks like that to get through. My carbs are usually less than 20, no more than 30 max. I'm always in ketosis... like 95% of the time over the last 6 months, I check several times a day. I've just started counting my calories too because I need to get this last 15 lbs off!

Like you I like to research the science of what happens chemistry wise in the body ... I eat up books like GCBC and Atkins and websites like PaNu and Hyperlipid.

Ok - so I went looking to try and understand what the author of the PaNu site thinks about vegetables.

So far, all I've found is this:



http://www.paleonu.com/panu-weblog/...ng-reasons.html

Sometimes it feels like this splitting of hairs re: ZC/vLC versus LC is like all of us debating over whether Dr. Atkins' induction plan at 20 carbs is better or worse than Drs. Eades' intervention plan at 30 carbs.

I guess the term 'statistically significant' comes to mind. I mean, is there that much difference here?

Meanwhile - looks like Jenny's post and her very valid points are getting a bit lost in this discussion that always seems to come up.

Citruskiss, I really understand what you are talking about. But what I'm saying is that when you are on a plateau and you reduce your calories to brake the plateau; It is not the reduction in calories per say that made it work, it's just that less food automatically reduces the hormonal response that was preventing fat loss. At the metabolic level, less food equals less insulin and so fat cells are able to release more fat in between meals.

Of course, the effect of lowering your calories is the same for you, better weight loss. But if someone would try lowering calories, on a stall, by replacing some fat by a bit more carbs, weight loss might not happen. They won't understand why. Fat has more calories than carbs, so they reduced their calories, but the impact of more carbs on insulin prevented weight loss.

So I hope you see why I say that calories do not mater in any meaningful way. It is much better IMHO to actually understand why it works when it works.

Patrick