
Vegetarian Diets May Be More Effective for Weight Loss Than Restricting Calories - Mz
http://www.msn.com/en-us/health/healthtrending/vegetarian-diets-may-be-more-effective-for-weight-loss-than-simply-restricting-calories-according-to-a-study/ar-BBCz1Jw
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mnm1
Maybe the specific vegetarian diet used here leads to that conclusion, but
extrapolating it to all vegetarian diets or vegetarian diets in general is not
science and it's not a conclusion they can make. I wish it was true, but
experience, common sense, and actual science tells otherwise. So the headline
should be "Some Vegetarian Diets May Be More Effective for Weight Loss Than
Some Non-Vegetarian Diets." Because there's plenty of counter examples
otherwise. Well, no shit. The corollary is also true: "Some Non-Vegetarian
Diets May Be More Effective for Weight Loss Than Some Vegetarian Diets."

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joelrunyon
This.

An all "oreo" diet, could technically be a vegetarian diet.

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rangersanger
Vegan, even.

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SomeHacker44
You can't have a vegan all-Oreo diet... Oreos and milk forever go together!

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piva00
Embrace the goodness that is oat milk! Or almond milk. I'm not even a strict
vegetarian, just try to eat meat as little as possible but these taste much
better for me nowadays than cow milk, I'm not used to it anymore and it tastes
weird.

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simonsarris
It's really "Vegetarian Diets May Be More Effective for Weight Loss" _for
people who have Type 2 diabetes AKA are already eating very unhealthy diets,
and versus the control group eating diet X._ That's two separate enormous
caveats.

I want to see a vegetarian diet for weight loss vs a high fat high protein
meat based diet, a la: [http://www.empiri.ca/p/eat-meat-not-too-little-mostly-
fat.ht...](http://www.empiri.ca/p/eat-meat-not-too-little-mostly-fat.html)

> The vegetarian diet (∼60% of energy from carbohydrates, 15% protein, and 25%
> fat) consisted of vegetables, grains, legumes, fruits, and nuts. Animal
> products were limited to a maximum of one portion of low-fat yogurt a day.

> [non veg diet] contained 50% of energy from carbohydrates, 20% protein, less
> than 30% fat (≤7% saturated fat, less than 200 mg/d of cholesterol/day).

What is less than 30% fat? Were they encouraged to eat low fat foods? Were
some of them eating only 10% fat?

To any high fat/keto/low carb adherents, these sound like crap diets.

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panglott
It's hard to read a ketogenic diet page that begins with a long disclaimer
about you only you are responsible for your health and diet and "we can't take
any responsibility for the consequences", and then conclude that the result
represent good advice for the overall health of average people. Normal people
are not going to tune their diet by measuring their blood chemistry.

Edit to say that the point may be that those diets were broadly comparable
except in consumption of animal foods; the vegetarian diet was modestly higher
and lower in protein and fat, but not by much.

~~~
undersuit
>Normal people are not going to tune their diet by measuring their blood
chemistry.

Not consciously, but that's what normal people already do.

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jtwebman
I have been on a whole food no oil starch based vegan diet eating mostly
potatoes and some other veggies with no fat for 5 months. I have lost 43
pounds eating as much as I wanted. I have done only a little exercise walking
a little more but nothing crazy. I feel like I am 21 again though I turned 41
this weekend.

The Starch Solution by John A. McDougall is a great book. Also this video that
just came out has a bunch of studies that I read before going on the diet. He
does a good job at explaining them.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHfbqodBXdw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHfbqodBXdw)

~~~
FungalRaincloud
Counterpoint here: I went on a ketogenic, high fat, medium protein, low carb
diet this past year, and managed to lose roughly the same amount in probably
the same amount of time (if not less), doing basically the same thing. I ate
what I wanted. I got full a lot faster, though. I also felt like I had more
energy and suffered less brain fog while on the diet. I'll likely go back on
it pretty soon here.

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tutufan
It could well turn out that the common factor here is not consuming a lot of
highly refined carbohydrates (sugar, flour, etc.).

More importantly, metabolism is just incredibly complicated, with many complex
relationships and effects. On top of that, there is significant genetic
variation, so these will differ across individuals. For now, we pretty much
have to experiment on ourselves and observe what works.

~~~
com2kid
> It could well turn out that the common factor here is not consuming a lot of
> highly refined carbohydrates (sugar, flour, etc.).

Also monitoring food intake.

I am a huge proponent of ketogenic diets, but I also realize having a diet
that completely forbids me from eating all common dessert and snack foods is
what contributes in large part to calorie reduction.

Sure, I love all the other benefits from the diet, but part of what works
about restrictive diets is that they are so restrictive.

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dpflan
The MSN page is pretty distracting (maybe it needs an ad/sponsored-content
removal diet :)) - here is the linked article which has a pretty good summary
(probably as good the MSN article) at the top of the page:

[http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07315724.2017.13...](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07315724.2017.1302367)

~~~
panglott
"The aim of our study was to compare the effects of a vegetarian and a
conventional diet on thigh adipose tissue distribution in subjects with type 2
diabetes (T2D)."

The broader conclusion seems plausible to me, since a healthy vegetarian diet
can have lots of high-fiber foods that give high satiation with relatively low
calories. But: The study focused only on diabetic patients.

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intopieces
Could the result, if validated, also be attributed to the reduction of
antibiotics consumed by the ones on the diet?

[http://www.berkeleywellness.com/healthy-eating/food/food-
saf...](http://www.berkeleywellness.com/healthy-eating/food/food-
safety/article/are-antibiotics-food-making-people-fat)

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MisterBastahrd
Here's what I've learned about diets over the past 5 years, anecdotally:

Being conscientious about what you eat is the most important part of losing
weight. There are plenty of fat vegetarians out there. They've gotten very
comfortable with what they can eat because they aren't reading every label
anymore.

Oreos are vegan. There are new and improved vegetarian and vegan ice creams
coming out weekly, it seems. When there are as many bad food choices for
vegetarians and vegans as omnivores, they'll make the same bad food choices
and suffer for it.

Why?

When the final word is written on how diets have destroyed the health of
people in the Western world, it's gonna be the fat / sugar combo that is shown
to be the culprit. It's much easier to be sated if you eat a lot of fats or a
lot of sugar (well, starches, really) than eating a lot of fat AND sugar.

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dreen
74 subjects over 6 months? Is that even a meaningful sample? Especially
considering all the other factors like stress levels etc...

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coldtea
Sounds way higher than most such studies, so I'd say yes.

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jeffdavis
We have a tendancy to try to isolate variables, like "meat is bad" or "carbs
are bad". There are probably multiple diets that work, but not all of the
combinations.

I suspect that we have so much choice today that we combine things not meant
to be combined in the same diet.

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stcredzero
Does anyone who has studied this in depth know: How much of the lost weight is
muscle mass?

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grnadav1
Given that top body builders are vegans, I'd guess - not much

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serg_chernata
Gonna need a source on that.

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zzalpha
I somehow doubt you'll get one. A quick Google search suggests they exist, but
they're hardly a large portion of the overall bodybuilding community.

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serg_chernata
Oh I know, I just wanted him to answer that. :)

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coldtea
Why though? He didn't say that "Given that ALL/MOST top body builders are
vegans", but that "Given that top body builders are vegans".

And indeed there are some. Which points that there's no necessary connection
between being vegan and losing muscle.

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Mz
It would be seriously cool, though, if anyone here could leave a link as a
citation to any article, tweet, FB page, whatevs that shows even one top body
builder who is vegan as back up for the claim.

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coldtea
Because Google is too difficult? (note to self: cut down snark)...

[http://www.greatveganathletes.com/bodybuilders](http://www.greatveganathletes.com/bodybuilders)

[http://pulptastic.com/beef-up-without-beef/](http://pulptastic.com/beef-up-
without-beef/)

~~~
Mz
Google is a thing?

(note to self: quit trying to crack jokes on HN)

;-)

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GhostVII
Wouldn't it be more likely thay the vegitarian diets are better at restricting
calories than non-vegetarian diets? In general you can't lose weight without
reducing calorie intake until it is lower than the amount you use

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Simulacra
Does not one lead to the other? A diet that is vegetarian would seem to have
less calories overall. What a strange headline.

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undersuit
Why would a vegetarian diet have less calories? I could eat cups of rice
drowned in olive oil and suck down a gallon of Coca Cola a day and I'd still
be Vegan.

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epmaybe
It's less dense, so you generally feel more full than if you eat more dense
foods like meats. That's just personal experience though.

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undersuit
A pound of rice and a pound of meat contain equivalent calories.

I do agree with your experience though. Throw a bit of squash and onions in
with your bland rice and you'll feel bloated in no time.

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epmaybe
But a pound of rice takes up more physical volume than a pound of meat, right?

I also would have thought that meat was more energy sense given the fat
content, but that is fascinating!

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logicallee
In my experience the most effective diet of all is vegan, non-GMO, gluten-
free. Not that there's anything special about that combination, but good luck
scrounging together more than a handful of calories in the course of each day
about town!

EDIT: what I mean is if society had such options plentifully available it
would negate the effect. So it is similar to a diet where you can only eat
foods beginning with the letter 'A'. If it's harder to meet some arbitrary
criterion, it will reduce your caloric intake.

