

Sugar 50x more potent than total calories in explaining diabetes [video] - fhoxh
http://www.uctv.tv/skinny-on-obesity-sickeningly-sweet/

======
dschleef
Lustig's premise (from this and other sources) is essentially: (translated for
a techie audience)

1\. There is a clean pathway and dirty pathway for converting fructose to
glycogen in the liver. The clean pathway is easily overloaded by consuming a
lot of fructose at once. ("A lot" being more than 12 oz of soda, roughly.) The
key bit is that the bad effects are non-linear.

2\. The dirty pathway produces metabolites that cause the body's metabolism to
switch to an imbalanced state, which if not corrected, leads to metabolic
syndrome and type-II diabetes.

3\. The dirty pathway is similar to alcohol consumption, with similar long-
term effects. This is why he calls fructose a poison.

4\. Dietary fiber slows down absorbtion of fructose, thus giving the liver
more time to process fructose using the clean pathway. So an apple (fiber!)
causes less of a fructose overload problem than a similar quantity of apple
juice.

From this, Lustig hypothesises that metabolic syndrome is primarily caused by
overconsumption of fructose, and that a diet that has low or zero fructose and
high in fiber will correct metabolic syndrome. This is a testable hypothesis,
and should be relatively easy to test, even by individuals.

My added notes:

1\. There's lots of talk about "sugar", which is dumb, because "sugar" means
different things to different people. Lustig means "fructose", which is
present in sugar, HFCS, agave nectar, honey, all sweet fruits, fruit juices,
etc.

2\. Everyone's body, lifestyle, eating habits, exercise habits, and metabolic
syndrome level is different, thus everyone will respond to fructose (and
indeed any food) differently. If you care, learn how food works in your body
and create a diet that fits your needs. And especially, don't extrapolate from
your own experience to all people.

3\. Several fad diets of recent years fit rather neatly into Lustig's
recommendation, including Atkins, South Beach, mediterranean, raw vegan. If
you care, find one that works for you.

~~~
waveman
> should be relatively easy to test, even by individuals.

I did this. I cut my fructose consumption to the equivalent of two pieces of
fruit a day and easily lost weight after years of struggling. My cholesterol
fell from 255 to 160 mg/dl with an inprovement in the good/bad cholesterol
ratios and a fall in triglycerides and uric acid. Also my inflammatory markers
fell dramatically in some cases to unmeasurably low levels.

Lustig is spot on. A lot of people are heavily invested in the old orthodoxy
and react accordingly. Fructose is a carbohydrate, but in any but small
quantities it is _metabolically_ a fat.

~~~
nilsimsa
Can you tell me how you reduced your fructose consumption? What foods did you
eliminate and what did you replace them with?

~~~
waveman
> Can you tell me how you reduced your fructose consumption? What foods did
> you eliminate and what did you replace them with?

Basically I stopped adding honey to my coffee (sad - it's delicious) and cut
my fruit intake from 10-15 pieces to 2 per day. Also I eliminated all other
sources of sugar such as cake, though these had been pretty minor in my case
anyway.

I agree with Lustig that fruit is less toxic than concentrated sucrose or
HFCS, but I am living proof that in sufficient quantities it is still bad
news.

I added some extra fats (nuts, flax oil) and some extra protein (beans, peas,
fish, red meat, chicken).

The best thing about the weight loss is that I lost weight in the bad places
(ie my stomach) which previously had been impossible to move.

------
moonlighter
It's easy to miss, but if you care to watch the video, you also want to read
the comment on that same page by Professor Richard Feinman.

In summary, he concludes that while it's a nicely presented video, it is
factually incorrect.

[http://www.uctv.tv/search-
details.aspx?showID=23591&fb_c...](http://www.uctv.tv/search-
details.aspx?showID=23591&fb_comment_id=fbc_10150658918813898_22971402_10150763387093898#f20916dc78)

~~~
oomkiller
The actual quote: "This is incorrect. Increase in diabetes and obesity
correlate not just with sugar but with all carbohydrates. Fructose is
metabolized through pathways that are most similar to the way glucose is
processed, notwithstanding the important differences. Alcohol is metabolized
by a completely different pathway. At high levels, alcohol is metabolized
through a different pathway, the cytochrome P450 -- in other words,
detoxification. Whereas part 1 emphasized how fructose does not turn to
glycogen, I am flattered the Lustig has learned that it does in fact lead to
glycogen, sometimes preferentially. The presentation is terrific (I wish I
could speak as well) but the content is the kind of thing that makes
professors shake their head at lunch over how screwy student presentations
are. The very detrimental effects of fructose occur at high levels of total
carbohydrate intake and whereas it is good to point out that low fat has been
bad advice, the label from the low-fat food was on screen long enough to see
that flour was the second ingredient. Frequently, it is the first. Reducing
carbohydrate is the best strategy for improving diabetes and obesity -- you
can do it by emphasizing sugar but if you keep those healthy high starch
fibers high, you will still have a problem. Lustig is nice guy and we try hard
to avoid personal things, but the CONTENT of this talk is dishonest, biased,
inaccurate and, again has the danger that it will continue to encourage high
consumption of starch with or without grains. On the other hand, I have
elsewhere suggested that it would be great to hear some sugar-eater jokes,
like drunk jokes. Two sugar-eaters go into a Dunkin' Donuts...."

~~~
latch
This boggles my mind. I understand that much of our knowledge around nutrition
(both at a micro and macro level) is still vague..but...

Surely he's either right or he's wrong. Either the ingestion of fructose leads
to 3x the number of calories that must be phosphorylated or it doesn't (versus
glucose). The need for this extra phosphor either leads to more uric acid, or
it doesn't. So on and so forth.

It's like watching 1 politician argue "This budget will save $X billion over 5
years", while the opposition argues that "No, it will COST $X Billion over 5
years".

Isn't this shit basic chemistry for these professional?

~~~
dschleef
They are technically both correct, but in different situations. If you drink a
glass of orange juice, you get Feinman's case and no problems. If you drink a
72 oz soda, you get Lustig's case. Lustig goes into details about the
differences in other videos, and makes the point that the 72-oz soda case is
very common in America.

~~~
latch
Thanks, and if that's true (which I believe you), then I'd argue that Feinman
is out of touch with reality. It seems like Lustig is both a researcher and an
actual MD, while Feinman is pure research. This is possibly what is keeping
Lustig in better touch with the realities of western nutrition.

Quickly going Feinman's blog, he seems like a bit of an ass too..

"Avoiding ad hominem is tough. Lustig’s Nature paper contains the single
stupidest line in the history of the journal..."

~~~
dschleef
Meh. I generally assume people have good motives, unless proven otherwise.
Lustig is screaming "the sky is falling!" Feinman is responding in a perfectly
natural fashion, "If they sky were falling, we would have noticed by now."

~~~
skyfex
Uhm.. But the sky IS falling. You can't argue that there's not an obesity
epidemic.

~~~
ekianjo
Please stop using the word epidemic in this way. Especially for a medical
condition which is not contagious. I know what you mean but the wording makes
it sound you can get obese by being around obese people. Thats tabloid
vocabulary at best.

~~~
andrewfelix
But it's not an incorrect usage of the term. Epidemic is not exclusive to
contagious conditions.

~~~
ekianjo
I know. That's why I mentioned clearly "especially for a medical condition" -
because then you use a figurative word associated with a medical term, while
you would expect in that context the other meaning of "epidemic". If you were
talking about "epidemic unemployment" there would be no ambiguity, but
"epidemic obesity" is a very improper use of the word, ambiguous in this
context.

Anyway, most of the time if you use the figurative sense of the word, just
replacing it with "growth/increase/spread" is good enough. Why use an overly
dramatic word ?

~~~
andrewfelix
But it's not incorrect or even unusual in a medical context. Epidemic has
often been used for non contagious conditions including diabetes, ADHD and
obesity. It's a dramatic word, but the obesity rate in the US is dramatic.

------
bad_user
My father used to tell me that I shouldn't eat so much sugar as it causes
diabetes. This was happening 20 years ago. My grandmother also used to tell me
that, above all else, sugar and starch makes people fat.

My country also has lots of traditional recipes for food that are rich in
meats and fats. We eat more pork than beef or fish combined and some dishes
would make anyone that's concerned about high cholesterol scream. On every
national holiday, we celebrate by preparing lots of food and eating like pigs.
That didn't stop my grandfather from dying at 99 years old, even though he was
a total raw bacon junkie (when I say raw, I actually mean it, as in not
smoked, not cured).

It seems to me that when it comes to nutrition, you're better off listening to
the wisdom of older people.

On sugar ... a friend works for a local tobacco factory and he was describing
to me how they add sugar in the mix, because when it comes to dependency,
sugar is even better than nicotine.

I'm from Europe and while visiting the U.S. there's one thing I immediately
noticed straight from the airport at arrival ... I have never seen so many fat
people in one place. In fact this was the first time I ever saw people that
are so fat they needed a wheelchair to move around.

I hope I don't offend anyone by this, but seriously consider eating real food,
instead of sweetened junk or diet bars or low-fat milk. Also drink water or
herbal tea, instead of soda.

~~~
guga31bb
>instead of sweetened junk or diet bars or low-fat milk

Likening milk to the other two seems odd. What's wrong with milk?

~~~
bad_user
Milk is good. The problem with low-fat milk is that the process for pulling
the fat out leaves this liquid without taste.

Therefore, for regaining the right texture and taste, companies producing low-
fat milk actually add milk powder and other chemicals. Also the process
doesn't just remove fat, so just like with refined carbohydrates, low-fat milk
or yogurt loses nutritional value.

Do a test sometimes with your favorite yogurt for instance. Leave it on the
table for a few days. If it doesn't grow mold, then it has no nutritional
value in it. It can also happen to have the same taste after a week (I don't
know if ever noticed this, but I did, especially with products from Danone).

Few people these days drink real milk straight from a cow. The difference in
taste is huge. And do you know what happens when you leave such natural milk
on the table for a few days? It goes sour and turns to yogurt ... has a great
taste and is really healthy. Really, you don't have to do anything else, other
than just leaving it there. Cheese is also easy to make from such milk and you
won't find such great-tasting cheese in the supermarket ;-)

Try doing that with bottled milk, especially the low-fat variety. You'll have
a surprise.

What's worrying me is that a lot of mothers are giving their toddlers low-fat
milk these days, without considering the process of producing it, taking it as
a given that it's healthier than normal milk because it has less fat. Well
actually, giving low-fat milk to children is just as irresponsible as exposing
them to passive smoking.

Our stomach and metabolism is used to digesting normal high-fat milk. If
you're concerned with the high-fat, just drink less of it and concentrate on
quality, not quantity.

My point was that people shouldn't put processed crap in their mouth. The more
natural it is, the better.

~~~
guga31bb
>And do you know what happens when you leave such natural milk on the table
for a few days? It goes sour and turns to yogurt ... has a great taste and is
really healthy

First, your post was very interesting -- thanks for taking the time to
respond. However, I make yogurt from nonfat milk every week, so I'm not
entirely sure how much to believe.

------
rollypolly
Many of us love sugary drinks, and sit inordinate amounts of time[1].

Things aren't looking up if we don't change attitude. We all feel
indestructible in our 20s, but soon enough, we'll have to pay the Pied Piper.

I hope the next generation of startups will offer healthier perks than
redbulls, soft drinks, and sugary snacks.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3874024>

~~~
mahyarm
I agree. I would of been very interested in a startup that offered ketogenic
meal options and treadmill desks. Right now a treadmill desk would be too
disturbing to my coworkers, and I got to do the meals myself since they're so
specific.

Instead of sugary drinks, you can try creamy drinks and butter coffee/tea (it
sounds gross, but is actually very tasty). That and a sparkling water
dispenser would satisfy most my desire for drinks to be honest.

[http://www.bulletproofexec.com/how-to-make-your-coffee-
bulle...](http://www.bulletproofexec.com/how-to-make-your-coffee-bulletproof-
and-your-morning-too/)
[http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.com/2011/12/brilliantly-
si...](http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.com/2011/12/brilliantly-simple-idea-
treadmill-desk.html)

~~~
doktrin
I'm a big fan of lemon water. I personally use a lemon press to squeeze half a
lemon into a tall glass of water. It tastes great and is quite refreshing, and
often does the trick when fighting a sweet tooth craving.

~~~
Produce
Wouldn't this result in the dentin on your teeth being eroded all day?

~~~
doktrin
I think anything in excess (lemon water included) is probably going to have
unpleasant side effects. I personally don't drink more than 1-2 glasses a day.

I certainly wouldn't encourage that anyone _replace_ water with lemon water -
but it's really just lemonade without the added sugar.

Lemonade is of course not particularly great for your teeth in excess - but no
worse than gatorade. Sugar is also famously not great for teeth, and therefore
lemon water is less damaging - in equal volume - than lemonade.

What's also particularly important with regards to dental health is how long a
given substance lingers in the mouth. Drinking a glass of lemon juice isn't
the same as swishing it around for 20 seconds.

TLDR; No.

------
fragsworth
What does this mean exactly? How can you say something is (n)x more potent
than something else in "explaining a disease"?

I find this quote to be very confusing.

~~~
drucken
The professor specifically meant the statistical inference, e.g. that
accounting for all other factors that some factor X1 (in this case sugar) is Y
times more correlated with Z observation (diabetes) than X2 (total calories).

The main issue I would have would this video is the excessive focus on sugar
the product and its direct sweetness associates rather than _blood sugar_
levels which is far more directly relevant to diabetes and obesity in general.
For example, common wheat bread and many sodas have a higher glycemic index
than granulated table sugar! Therefore, they are converted into higher levels
of blood sugar while at the same time being incredibly easy to over-consume
(compared to trying to eat sugar directly).

There is an excellent documentary created three years ago which explained in
simple terms a huge amount to laymen about current scientific understanding
and the unbelievable lengths to which industry and governments have gone to
"encourage" a specific type of modern agriculture and associated food industry
regardless of its health effects or consistent scientific evidence, especially
in the US. It also covers why the Lipid Hypothesis is completely unvalidated,
if not provably wrong.

It is called "Fat Head (2009)" and it was available in full on Youtube until
copyright notices removed it. It starts a little slowly and actually begins
with a deep criticism of the logical fallacies in "Supersize Me" the movie,
uses at one point slightly silly comic imagery, but by the second half there
is excellent up-to-date food science and historical explanation as to why
society is at is now. I am very grateful to another HN user that referred it
to me about a year go.

Anther superb and complementary programme was a Feb 2009 BBC Horizon episode
called "Why Are Thin People Not Fat?" which is available on iPlayer
(<http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hbsk2>). It is almost two programmes
side-by-side. One sub-programme is a loose experiment to attempt to make a
random group of young adults fat and why in some cases it effectively failed.
The other sub-programme covers the summary results and science behind a deep,
long and published study of a large number of obese people at a specialist
clinic which profoundly contributed to scientific understanding of how obesity
develops and what makes it so difficult to reverse beyond a certain point.

I highly recommend both programmes. They will change they way you think, even
if you have absolutely no interest in changing your food or lifestyle, and in
some cases are surprisingly uncommon "common sense". But the kind of common
sense only your grandparents and all those who were born before the 1970s
would implicitly understand.

~~~
oomkiller
I've seen "Fat Head," but I found it focused too much on bashing "Supersize
Me" rather than explaining/advocating the right thing to do, and why. One book
I've read recently that talks a lot about this is "Why We Get Fat" which is a
sort of abridged version of "Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the
Controversial Science of Diet and Health" both by Taubes. Definitely check
them out if you're interested. I've applied the reasoning in these books
personally with great success, so there's my anecdotal evidence :)

~~~
boothead
I'd also recommend "The perfect health diet" [1]. Awful title but the book is
superb, easily as good as Taubes, practically every paragraph has references
to studies.

[1] <http://perfecthealthdiet.com/>

------
dbbolton
Regardless of the controversy issued herein, I firmly assert that one has
nothing to gain by consuming fructose, the sole exception being if that
fructose just so happens to come bundled with some other necessary nutrient.

~~~
nasmorn
Exactly. It is especially odd considering that not adding extra sugar to ones
diet quickly makes lots of things taste sweet that one formerly hasn't thought
of sweet. Fruit is now about as sweet to me as cake used to be and candy or
cake I cannot eat anymore. Fast food also tastes more disgusting since the
added sugar is too prominent for me.

------
bcowcher
If anyone is interested in a more informative video from Lustig, I'd recommend
this one: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wSu6U8OzPk>

Its long, but it covers a lot more information and history of this fine mess
we're in..

------
tferris
I don't get it: he claims that sugar is bad because the fructose in sugar is
bad leading to dozen disease including diabetes. But fructose is is the core
of many fruits which are considered as healthy.

Nutrition/metabolism is still a black box and this video confuses more than it
clarifies.

~~~
latch
He's talked about fructose in fruits before. It's the presence of fiber which
makes the difference. Fiber alters the chemical process some way (he does
explain it though). It's also why he's dead against fruit juice, even if they
are made from 100% real juice. It's fructose without the fiber.

Also worth mentioning that, in addition fiber, fruits have other nutrients.
fructose+fiber+vitamins+anti-oxidants+minerals vs fructose+fat+salt .

edit:

Sorry, just to be clear, he explains it in other papers/talks. I know it's at
least briefly mentioned in: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM>

~~~
tferris
Ok thanks, where did he say this about fruit juices? In the same video?

~~~
mkl
I haven't watched this particular video, but that information is in another of
his talks, "Sugar: The Bitter Truth",
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM>

------
Klinky
I think he could have simply said "overeating fructose is bad for you, just
like overeating practically anything else is". The lengths he went to vilify
fructose as a poison, despite it naturally occurring in a very likely primate
food source(fruit), just makes him seem to come off as an anti-fructose zealot
- an anti-fructite.

Edit: Looking at other materials from him, it sounds like he's against the
over consumption of fructose rather than fructose itself. This video does a
pretty poor job expressing that though.

~~~
CMay
The first words spoken in the video: "Now I am not against sugar when it's
appropriate and rare."

It might have been nice for him to spend a little more time focusing on
appropriate sugar intake scenarios and what makes them appropriate. In
previous videos he discussed the importance of fiber in more depth.

~~~
Klinky
>Now I am not against sugar when it's appropriate and rare.

Yes and later goes on to say it's a _poison_ , unless you just finished a race
or exercised. I don't think that's how poisons work. Sugar is not rare either,
as pointed out by the video itself our bodies run on sugars. We require it. I
am not sure you can say that about real poisons. Carbs we eat breakdown to
sugars. Given how he classifies fructose as a poison, anything we eat could be
classified as a poison, if we ate too much of it.

~~~
CMay
He did refer to it as a poison and a dose-dependent toxin. There's room to
quibble over their definitions and whether he's exaggerating a bit for effect,
but he's very clear on his message that it's a substance which requires
serious moderation that can lead to death in various ways.

Sure, if you don't take water in moderation it can kill you, but in this case
the dosage required in order to produce negative effects is low enough that
its side effects have become commonplace.

You are confusing all sugar as meaning "glucose", but there are a number of
sugars. Fructose is the sugar he takes issue with, because it's much more
common in products than it should be due to the body's limited ability to cope
with it. When he just calls it sugar, he's making it easier for people to
relate with.

And yes, with him calling fructose a poison a large number of products
available could be a serious issue if you eat too much of them. Unfortunately,
what constitutes "too much" is very little and fluctuates a bit depending on
your rate of digestion which can be slowed by taking in more soluble fiber at
the same time.

It's been added to products as a flavor compensation too liberally, because
it's cheap, addictive, legal and increases sales. This is used as the basis
for why the issue is widespread, it's been put into so many products.

~~~
Klinky
_You are confusing all sugar as meaning "glucose", but there are a number of
sugars._

No I am not confusing them. I know there is a difference.

 _When he just calls it sugar, he's making it easier for people to relate
with._

He goes back and forth between calling it sugar and fructose. His advocates
are often anti-sugar zealots espousing zero sugar diets & parrot his "sugar is
poison" line. I also doubt if we changed all the fructose in products to
glucose, that would really make him happy nor do I think that is a real
solution. You still need to burn the calories if you're eating them.

~~~
CMay
You're right, I probably phrased that wrong. It's apparent you are aware of
there being multiple sugars. What I should say is that you're not giving him
enough credit by assuming that he's somehow unaware that glucose is not rare.
I attempted to show you that he is referring to fructose, not glucose.

I should have realized you are not at all familiar with his actual research
and what he is saying.

A quick and simple overview is that fiber is critically important here and was
not given proper emphasis in the posted video compared to his previous videos.
It is not just "fructose is bad, the end", it is the combination of the lack
of fiber and excessive amounts of fructose that leads to a situation not found
abundantly in nature.

Go eat an orange, an apple, some grapes, etc. These are all pretty much fine
and yet have fructose in them. So why shouldn't an equal amount of fructose in
canned soda not be the same? The complete absence of fiber. This carries on
even outside of the liquid/direct forms, in fast food or other processed
foods.

Yes, this does mean if you drink nice wholesome orange juice or apple juice
without eating the actual fruit, you could potentially be doing more harm than
good depending on the rest of your diet.

Why is fiber almost entirely removed from so much food you'll buy at the
grocery store or in drive-thrus? High fiber stuff doesn't preserve/freeze well
in many situations for distribution and long term storage. Why is so much
extra fructose added to these foods? The things they do to increase the shelf
life on some types of food can result in some bitterness, which they
compensate for with things like fructose.

If fructose is indeed a problem in this scenario and fiber cannot be
reasonably added to the products, you get people saying the fructose should be
removed, replaced or severely limited. Even if fiber did make it back as a
larger part of the diet, fructose would probably still need to be toned down a
bit considering how widespread it has become.

Does that make more sense? If you need more information and actually have a
legitimate interest in this topic outside of the entertainment value of
criticism, look up some of his other videos that go much more in depth. He
goes into how he got into this, how it actually works, what studies he has run
and what the results were that lead him to this conclusion. Then for future
conversations you can have more well-formed thoughts on the topic.

------
peterwwillis
Some people will make the claim that alcohol is treated "just like fat" in the
body, and that this is why people have beer bellies. While at the same time
studies show that people with high-alcohol diets and low carb intake actually
weigh less than their non-drinking counterparts. The metabolism of alcohol is
quite complex, so it becomes silly to make over-generalizations like "alcohol
metabolizes to fat" (ex.
[http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/images/642alcoholmeta...](http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/images/642alcoholmetab.gif)).
I think a lot of people end up taking this as gospel, such as the people who
parrot that "alcohol kills braincells." Well yes it does, but not much more
than will die naturally or due to other causes, more studies have shown. The
real danger lies in permanently damaging or killing your liver from which
there is no coming back.

When I see television pieces done telling me there is a single simple culprit
for a huge problem like obesity, my brain tells me that this is probably not
the case. In fact, most of the people I know who are obese don't seem to be
eating handfulls of cupcakes or sodas. They're eating chicken wings and
burgers and fries and nachos and big macs. Not to say fat is another single
cause of obesity, but it's clear that an overabundance of fat, or perhaps
simply just over-eating, is another simple cause for obesity which needs to be
weighed with all the rest.

Technically just drinking alcohol could lead to diabetes as it lowers the
blood sugar and insulin swoops in to fill the gap. Sure, sugar can be very
detrimental to your health, but let's not make it out to be the devil.
Promoting nutritional balance and moving away from non-fresh foods would
probably go a lot farther towards preventing diabetes than never eating sugar.

~~~
Sapient
> chicken wings and burgers and fries and nachos and big macs

Thats loads of carbs. And they are probably also eating a lot of crisps, along
with all the sodas and sweetened drinks they are drinking. What I am trying to
say, is that its not the fat in those meals which is making them fat, its the
carbs.

I am on a diet which has cut out all carbs entirely, and increased the amount
of fat I eat drastically. I lost a large amount of weight fairly quickly on
this diet, and the loss continues.

Edit: Americanized chips to crisps.

~~~
bad_user

         I am on a diet which has cut out all carbs
         entirely, and increased the amount of fat I eat 
         drastically
    

Be careful about it, because your body needs those fruits and vegetables.
Like, I know it is trendy to hate the potato, but it still has an unique
nutritional value that can hardly be replaced.

Unfortunately you can't precisely measure the effect carbs can have on your
body. Things like the quantity of carbs, or the glycemic index, or the
insulinemic index ... are clues, but not proofs of what you should eat. To
make matters worse, we don't actually know what nutrients our body needs, we
just know that this shit is really complex.

What you have to really watch out for are the refined carbohydrates (sugar,
white flour, white rice) and keep in mind that not all carbs are created
equally ;-)

Personally I think the best diets are those dissociated. You may lose weight
slower than on more drastic diets, but that's also good for preventing loose
skin and other health related issues.

~~~
Sapient
I should have been more specific - I have completely cut out all refined carbs
like bread and sugar, and massively cut down on the rest (I do still eat some
fruits, vegetables and even a little starch in the form of sweet-potatoes etc,
but very little while I am losing weight).

Once I have lost enough weight, I will increase the amount of carbs in my diet
(NOT refined carbs) until I find the point at which I start putting on weight
again.

------
SpaceDragon
Can we just shut up about sugar already?

Yeah, it's freaking terrible, even though I eat sugar every day of my life and
I have no health issues.

Drop the agenda.

P.S. I'm not bragging that I'm superman or anything, and I'm grateful for my
health. I just want to make the point that this stupid propaganda fear
mongering has to stop.

~~~
lukifer
Congratulations on your good health. Not everybody is you.

Also: what's (inherently) wrong with agendas? We've all got 'em.

