> According to you I'd be overwheight and dying of diabetes, cancer, metabolic syndrome and whatnot.
Nope, not sure where you get that idea from.
> Exercise daily, provide adequate protein intake and watch out the calories. That's it.
So I can eat a few chicken breasts a day, and then 1,500 kcal of mars bars? Sounds great!
Alternatively if you're trying to lose weight, you can simply cut out the sugar. Exercise is of course important for a host of reasons, but for weight loss it's probably just about the hardest way to do it. I'm in despair when my severely overweight friend relays the advice from her doctor and nutritionist:
"Eat less calories, and get on the treadmill".
Doesn't sound fun, or easy at all. There are other ways.
> So I can eat a few chicken breasts a day, and then 1,500 kcal of mars bars? Sounds great!
Doesn't it?
The only issue with sugars are the null effect on satiety and promotion of binge eating. The reason some folks work so well on lowcarb diets is because sugars make it easy to overeat, but that's just a way to create a caloric deficit for them.
Now, I bet most folks here on HN are much more quantitative oriented than the average person, so why limiting yourself to a small set of foods (paleo, keto), when you can free yourself and get away eating pretty much whatever you want, as long as you track the calorie intake?
> The only issue with sugars are the null effect on satiety and promotion of binge eating.
> sugars make it easy to overeat
Those are issues, for sure! And great reasons why when dieting, a good foundation is exclusion of carbs.
But that's only scratching the surface. Let me give you another downside. Eating sugar causes arterial inflammation. When your arteries inflame, your body packs it with oxidized LDL which can lead to heart problems and strokes due to constriction in your arteries. Guess what causes arterial inflammation?
There's more as well. We need to brush our teeth because of our high carb diets. It causes tooth decay and gum disease. Before high carb diets, our ancestors had healthier mouths than we do today.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/02/24/172688806/ancient...
> "You're walking around with a permanent immune response, which is not a good thing," says Cooper. "It causes problems all over the place."
There are so many reasons carbs are bad for you, not just from a satiation point of view but also from long term health points of view.
I'm confident this post has actually done a disservice to the question why should we eat less carbs, but hopefully it's something you might find interesting and read more about and maybe change your opinion on. All the information, studies and evidence is out there.
Assuming LDL is a bad thing, low carb diets (which are usually high fat diets) tend to spike it up as well, and at a greater rate.
People on ketogenic diets and below maintenance calorie intakes end up reporting high levels of LDL, with high levels of HDL to balance it out. Now, give them a hundred more calories above maintenance and things start to get funny.
Calories in vs calories out might be an oversimplified model, but so is blaming everything on insulin as Taubes does, as he still believes it's the only factor promoting fat storage.
> I'm confident this post has actually done a disservice to the question why should we eat less carbs, but hopefully it's something you might find interesting and read more about and maybe change your opinion on.
Been there, done that. I've been in keto for years until I crashed. Not anymore.
But the problem is with arterial inflammation. That's what people need to work towards reducing. My understanding is that the inflammation is the root cause of all the problems.
Perhaps Taubes is over simplifying it, but you have to admit that there are far more problems and negative health consequences with eating sugar than simply satiation which you originally asserted.
Well I'd say inflammation is rather a symptom of problems, but yeah, it sucks and should be avoided.
But can't blame all on sugar, since some processed foods and lean meats (!) promote that cycle as well. So the best way to avoid it is by not overeating.
I agree with you though, that since it's difficult not to overeat when abusing simple sugars, most folks will do better without them.
> Doesn't sound fun, or easy at all. There are other ways.
You'd think, with the title of this webpage, that most would be interested in ways of elegantly and easily solving problems that are important to themselves. But it seems that the constant chanting of no pain no gain has left a lot of people with the conviction that, when it comes to health, things should not be easy nor simple.
What if people took the same tack when it comes to mental processes? "Math is challenging, so I refuse to do any". "Reading books is too hard because I have to look up some of the words". Surely we can agree that challenging your mind is a good thing.
Is it impossible to find any enjoyment in challenging your body as well as mind?
> What if people took the same tack when it comes to mental processes? "Math is challenging, so I refuse to do any". "Reading books is too hard because I have to look up some of the words". Surely we can agree that challenging your mind is a good thing.
Don't try to generalize my argument into absurdity. Simply not doing math because it is difficult doesn't solve the underlying problem, which is probably to become proficient at math. Now if there were easier ways to become proficient at math than what you were already doing, that would be more in line with my argument.
The key thing is solving problems. Simply giving up on learning math, or reading, solves no problem.
> Is it impossible to find any enjoyment in challenging your body as well as mind?
Challenging your body and maintaining good health are distinct goals, though they may be satisfied through the same processes. If you want good health, and a certain diet makes that easier, then I will say that it is no sense in maintaining whatever old diet you had simply because that would make it harder. If you want to challenge your body, and simply maintaining good health is not challenging enough, there are endless possibilities. Recreational sports, for example. Gymnastics. Parkour. But personally I would not choose to do things that were clearly suboptimal for my body solely because it would be more challenging. I might do it because I gain other things, such as eating tasty but unhealthy food, but I wouldn't choose to do it if the goal was only to make things harder for myself.
My argument is that challenging yourself is healthy, and that applies to both physical and mental activities. I suspect the difference may lie in what we consider "good health".
Being challenging also doesn't imply an activity is unenjoyable or unrewarding.
> But personally I would not choose to do things that were clearly suboptimal for my body solely because it would be more challenging.
And where did I ever say that challenging yourself is not healthy? It seems that you went on a tangent from the start (the math and reading examples were clearly perversions of my original argument). Is your tactic now to gradually water down your argument until we arrive at something so non-disagreeable that I will just sheepishly agree, wondering what kind of misunderstanding lead us to this point? The original claim was that; assuming that a low-carb diet is superior to a more generic diet, it is better to use such a diet rather than simply doing something harder that yields the same end result, simply because of the attitude of "no pain no gain" (notice this last phrase. It describes a challenging activity that is also not enjoyable). So, no. I don't find value in challenging myself in masochistic ways. I might build character by hopping on one leg to work each day, but I'd rather spend my time in other ways, which may involve challenging myself in ways that also yields other rewards
> it is better to use such a diet rather than simply doing something harder that yields the same end result
You assert that exercising and changing your diet have the same end result when they clearly do not, unless you are using "healthy" as a euphemism for "lose weight" or something similar. Do you have a factual basis for asserting that changing your diet and exercising result in the same end results?
Thank you for clarifying that you do not find exercise enjoyable, I was curious if that was the case. I find exercise to be rewarding in it's own right - it's unfortunate that you don't experience it the same way.
"No pain, no gain" can be interpreted as saying that sometimes it is worth enduring discomfort or pain in the short term for a longer term reward. It's more a comment on dealing with delayed gratification than a description of whether an activity is enjoyable or worth doing.
> You assert that exercising and changing your diet have the same end result when they clearly do not, unless you are using "healthy" as a euphemism for "lose weight" or something similar.
Do you know what a euphemism is? A euphemism is calling something that is undesirable, unpleasant or offensive by a word that sounds nicer or has better connotations. How is "lose weight" - which in this thread clearly is about losing excess fat and not about something like being anorexic - undesirable, unpleasant or offensive?
Yes, eating well is one facet of being health - try to find someone who thinks ones diet is inconsequential to ones health. That does not mean that it is the only facet of being healthy, just like I can't accuse you of using exercise as a "euphemism" for health since doing a lot of exercise and only eating ice cream is clearly not healthy overall (even though the exercise in isolation is).
> You assert that exercising and changing your diet have the same end result when they clearly do not, unless you are using "healthy" as a euphemism for "lose weight" or something similar. Do you have a factual basis for asserting that changing your diet and exercising result in the same end results?
I have NEVER said anything remotely similar to that. My argument has been that assuming (I've always said assuming or some variation; it's a premise, not an assertion) that low-carb is superior to some other method, like a more generic diet, AND it is easier to follow, you should do that. Nowhere have I said ANYTHING about exercising and dieting being the same. The argument is more general; given that doing some thing (ANY thing, exercising, standing on one foot, low-carb, etc.) is easier AND yields better results compared to another thing (AGAIN, any one thing; standing on one foot, exercising, etc.), you should do the former.
My argument does not rely on low-carb actually being better than something (anything) else; that was simply the premise.
> Thank you for clarifying that you do not find exercise enjoyable, I was curious if that was the case. I find exercise to be rewarding in it's own right - it's unfortunate that you don't experience it the same way.
Thank you for for repeatedly misrepresenting, or even inventing, what I've said. I wonder what leads you to jump to these specific conclusions; is it the fact that I've been writing about 'challenging' things, or 'no pain no gain'? Well, exercise is not solely the domain of 'challenging'; a diet can be challenging. That was what was after all what was discussed originally, namely the fact that a person scoffed at using a specific, claimed to be easier and better diet, over another diet. Nothing about exercise, or that it replaces it. "No pain no gain"? I'd venture to say that people that are one something like "one apple for breakfast, one banana for dinner and that's it" are probably going to feel some pain while on this diet, certainly compared to someone that is on a diet actually lets them eat enough food to become somewhat sated. Exercise can be painful, but not necessarily. Nowhere have I ever said that all exercise is just painful.
My sentence about "jumping on one leg to work" has nothing to do with exercise in general. It is just a silly everyday limitation. I might like to play rugby instead, because that is a sport that I enjoy.
As for if I find exercise enjoyable or not: it depends. Lifting weights can be 'enjoyable in its own right', i.e. simply the act of doing it. On the other hand, something like high intensity interval training is often downright miserable. In fact, let me for a moment take a page out of the exercise masochists and say; if you are enjoying exercising, you are simply not exercising hard enough! Which leads me to the last point:
> "No pain, no gain" can be interpreted as saying that sometimes it is worth enduring discomfort or pain in the short term for a longer term reward. It's more a comment on dealing with delayed gratification than a description of whether an activity is enjoyable or worth doing.
...and it can be eventually be taken so far as to become and end in itself rather than something that serves a higher purpose. There are plenty of fitness-geeks that use how much pain they are in to gauge how well they are doing, but that is certainly not always the best strategy. You can bench press a weight until you are so exhausted that you could hardly lift anything, but you might be better off not lifting until failure if your main goal is to increase strength and stress your nervous system, over building muscle.
Assertion: Something declared or stated positively, often with no support or attempt at proof.
Euphemism: The substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt.
Premise: A proposition upon which an argument is based or from which a conclusion is drawn.
Your usage of "premise" is odd. An argument is made up of premises which support a conclusion, suggesting that the conclusion does not rely on the premises of that argument is false.
> My argument has been that assuming (I've always said assuming or some variation; it's a premise, not an assertion)
It's an assertion, but also a premise of your argument. Whether or not it is an assumption is irrelevant.
> If you want to challenge your body, and simply maintaining good health is not challenging enough, there are endless possibilities. Recreational sports, for example. Gymnastics. Parkour. But personally I would not choose to do things that were clearly suboptimal for my body solely because it would be more challenging.
Here is where you list examples of exercise and call them "suboptimal" (for obtaining "good health") compared to a diet.
> The original claim was that; assuming that a low-carb diet is superior to a more generic diet, it is better to use such a diet rather than simply doing something harder that yields the same end result
Since, as you say and I correctly interpreted, this is a general statement, it can also be applied to your previous conclusion that exercise is suboptimal compared to a diet and is therefore "something harder that yields the same end result". You contradict this now with a much more balanced view on exercise.
> There are plenty of fitness-geeks that use how much pain they are in to gauge how well they are doing, but that is certainly not always the best strategy. You can bench press a weight until you are so exhausted that you could hardly lift anything, but you might be better off not lifting until failure if your main goal is to increase strength and stress your nervous system, over building muscle.
Doing bench presses until failure does not mean you're in pain. Doing bench presses until failure doesn't even mean you'll feel pain the next day. I'm also curious what you think is the best way to "increase strength and stress your nervous system" if working to exhaustion is not optimal.
Maybe your arguments would be clearer if you didn't spend half of them on snide remarks and potshots. I'm tired of this so I won't be returning.
> You'd think, with the title of this webpage, that most would be interested in ways of elegantly and easily solving problems that are important to themselves.
I sincerely hope not. This is the opposite of what we should be doing. We should be interested in working hard to solve difficult problems important to the world.
Pff, you are the one who implied that it was an either or proposition by saying that you hope that people here would not be concerned with problems that are important to themselves. My original statement certainly didn't imply that people here are likely to only be concerned with problems that only affect themselves. So, remind me, what is it that you find objectionable?
I assumed you meant that people here would be interested primarily in problems related to themselves. It would have sufficed to say "People here are interested in elegantly solving problems."
I never said 'primarily' or any such thing. 'Most people' means that most people are interested in it, but it says nothing about the degree to which they are interested in it.
I think it's actually different for different people. My understanding is that someone with a high body fat percent can sustain quite a bit of an exercise regimen for a while with low carbs, consuming their fat for energy. But eventually as their body fat percent comes down, they'll need to supplement their diet with carbs to maintain their energy level for the same exercise.
The P90X diet program is based on this idea, with 3 phases of the diet with very low carbs in the first phase, medium carbs in the second phase, and more carbs in the third phase.
To be fair, you probably know how carbohydrate works in your body and why you need them when you exercise, etc. The problem is, most people don't have a clue and are not really interested in knowing, and most people are not going to start exercise ever. I eat 300-500g of carbs after the gym as well, but at the same time my recommendation for anyone that doesn't go the gym (and is rather sedentary) would be to cut most of the carbs.
I have a daily intake of 400g of carbohydrates. According to you I'd be overwheight and dying of diabetes, cancer, metabolic syndrome and whatnot.
Exercise daily, provide adequate protein intake and watch out the calories. That's it. No need to blame food but yourselves.