
 The diet that really works - prakash
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/diet_and_fitness/article4523487.ece
======
ars
Blah blah blah blah blah. The entire article is just blah blah blah. The guy
needs an editor to cut it to 10% of it's size. Is he paid by the word or
something? He sure knows the art of saying nothing using many words.

Heck I can summarize it in 2 words:

Modified atkins.

~~~
gojomo
It's easy to criticize 'blah blah blah'. But the style of the article is
personal testimonial plus character study. It's going to include discursive
storytelling, and it's not trying to boil down a diet/lifestyle/person to the
fewest possible words. The cheapest form of criticism is to skewer a work for
not meeting some ideal it wasn't even aiming for.

DeVany is a very interesting and credible guy with a different spin on eating
and training than you'll usually find.

Check out especially his warnings about marathon/endurance running [1]
compared to the typical media celebration of marathon running as some ideal of
fitness [2].

[1] "Top Ten Reasons Not To Run Marathons",
<http://www.arthurdevany.com/2005/08/top_ten_reasons.html>

[2] "The Perfect Human",
<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.01/ultraman.html>

~~~
streety
I've got to give the guy respect for giving references with his arguments but
I don't think his sources are sufficient to suggest that marathon running is
bad for you.

It's a shame he loses much of that respect as we near reason #1 and they get
increasingly 'silly'.

Let's take #2: "At least four particiants of the Boston Marathon have died of
brain cancer in the past 10 years. Purely anecdotal, but consistent with the
elevated S100beta counts and TKN-alpha measures. Perhaps also connected to the
microthrombi of the endothelium found in marathoners."

I'm researching this with google but, "In the United States, the annual
incidence of brain cancer generally is 15-20 cases per 100,000 people."
<http://www.oncologychannel.com/braincancer/index.shtml> "In 2007 more than
20000 runners completed the race." <http://www.bostonmarathon.org/>

I can't quickly find numbers for the preceding years, nor how many each year
had run it previously, so lets assume the numbers increased linearly over the
preceding 10 years to give a total number of runners as 100,000. That, rather
conveniently, suggests 15 - 20 incidents of brain cancer should result. Shock
result - marathon running prevents brain cancer!

#1 is the first runner of the marathon, Phidippides, died. Hopefully I don't
need to explain why this one is silly.

Some of his other points would be worth further study but I can't find a
single point without weaknesses.

~~~
cujo
The obvious problem wiht your retort is, of course, you're assuming that every
year, the runners in the BM are new to the race. This isn't true.

I'm not saying his reasoning is sound, but your rebuttle isn't either.

~~~
streety
As I poorly stated in my initial comment I am aware of this problem. My hope
was that by assuming virtually nobody ran the race 10 years ago, which I
assume/hope is totally inaccurate, the two errors would cancel each other out.

It's a 'back-of-a-napkin' calculation. Certainly not accurate but a nice place
to start for future refactoring.

------
Tichy
I thought low-carb was already the fad of the past.

From "The China Study" about high-protein diets:

"And yet these books are immensely popular. Why? Because people DO lose
weight, at least in the short term.[...](about a study) The first sign that
all is not rosy is that these obese subjects were severely restricting their
calorie intake during the study (35% fewer calories). [...](list some
problems) Additionally, they found that the dieters had a stunning 53%
increase in the amount of calcium they excreted in their urine, which may
spell disaster for their bone health. The weight loss, some of which is simply
initial fluid loss, might come with a very high price. [...](from an
Australion study:) 'Complications such as heart arrhythmias, cardiac
contractile function impairment, sudden death, osteoporosis, kidney damage,
increased cancer risk, impairment of physical activity and lipid abnormalities
can all be linked to long-term restriction of carbohydrates in the diet.'".

------
swombat
_Arthur asked himself what was going on here – and, basically, decided almost
everything we thought we knew about diet and metabolism was wrong._

Yeah, that sounds likely.

</sarcasm>

------
hussong
I was really surprised to learn that the horny old caveman was the same guy
that wrote one of the most interesting papers I came across in media
economics:

De Vany, Arthur & Walls, W. David, 1996. "Bose-Einstein Dynamics and Adaptive
Contracting in the Motion Picture Industry," Economic Journal, Royal Economic
Society, vol. 106(439), pages 1493-1514, November.

------
josefresco
I hereby nominate timesonline.co.uk for temporary suspension from Hacker News.

Too many articles submitted recently that were poorly researched and written.

~~~
andyjenn
Agreed. A terrible daily, bereft of insight or intellect in keeping with
Murdoch's other rags.

------
teuobk
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." -- Michael Pollan

~~~
mattmaroon
\+ exercise.

------
fendale
I gave up on this article before I got to the 'meat' as it was too waffley ...
anyway, to lose weight my best advice is to:

* avoid fizzy drink as much as possible * avoid crisps (do americans call them chips?) * go easy on fried and fast food (no need to cut them out completely) * Try to cut down on alcohol, but I don't really follow my own advice here!

Then

* walk or cycle as much as possible * take the stairs instead of the lift for 5 floors or less * and exercise 4 or 5 times a week doing whatever you find fun.

Maybe I am just lucky, but I never seem to put on any weight, and I do eat
fast food and drink plenty of beer, but I do exercise a lot and cycle to work
each day.

------
mattmaroon
This guy should have just read In Defense of Food. Not much that he says here
hasn't been known for quite some time. And it's very interesting to learn
exact where our diet went wrong.

------
thomasmallen
"Eat less, move more." - Mad TV

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vaksel
Diet doesn't really matter, I have a horrible diet I eat anything I want, I
don't deny myself anything(junk food, fast food) but I'm in good shape because
I work out an hour every day and burn off the calories I gain during the day.

~~~
swombat
Wait until you hit your mid-thirties and let's talk again.

~~~
vaksel
As long as your calories out => calories in, it shouldn't matter. Should it?

~~~
orib
Yes. Food isn't only calories. If it was, we'd be able to live off of nothing
but sugar water.

Food brings in not only calories, but various other nutrients that your body
needs to keep itself in good condition. It can also bring in things that the
body works hard to get rid of, and still do damage while they're being
removed.

~~~
unexpected
there are people that do live off sugar water! People in hospitals, people
doing the master cleanse.

You really only need calories. It's a terrible life, and no fun, but you could
live off sugar water + a multi-vitamin.

------
caglouq
Here is the ultimate diet "Slow down on the food you like the most" ... you
may add to this diet the (always right) corollary "never stop your diet"

~~~
swombat
Hardly. "Slow down on the unhealthiest foods," perhaps. I love fruit. Should I
slow down on fruit?

~~~
Tichy
I've actually read one book about "sugar addiction" where one candidate
allegedly got their sugar fix from eating lots of fruit. Not sure how credible
the book is, though, but I thought it was interesting.

It did not say that fruits in general are bad.

~~~
jordiculous
Fruits aren't bad. Yes, fruits have sugar, but many fruits have a decent
amount of fiber, as well. Fiber helps slow down sugar absorption. It's not
that shouldn't have any sugar in their diet, ever. Natural sugars, eaten at
the right time, in the right combination are better than processed garbage
which will spike your blood sugars instantly. A good rule of thumb is whenever
you're having anything that has fruit in it, it's a good idea to have protein
right along with it. Even if it's just a few almonds or walnuts alongside that
piece of fruit.

------
defen
Call me skeptical, but I doubt a 71 year old is capable of driving a golf ball
340 yards without some serious help from the wind.

------
brm
why is food always the culprit? what ever happened to just increasing the
amount of exercise you do? Michael Phelps seems to be doing ok on 10,000+
calories a day

This also bothers me: "But what’s different about Arthur is, first, he is not
selling anything, except for subscriptions to his website."

~~~
gaius
Because, unless you are very genetically gifted and/or using steroids, there
are surprisingly low limits on the amount of exercise you can do and still see
gains. After 45 minutes or so cortisol (stress hormone) levels rise and a
process called gluconeogenesis sets in - your body begins burning muscle
tissue for energy. The net effect of this is to lower your resting metabolic
rate, which is what burns most of most people's calories. Which means you can
cut back on the calories you consume, train like a madman _and still get
fatter_.

3-4 sessions of 45 minutes per week, at a decent level of intensity, is about
right for most people.

~~~
menloparkbum
_you can cut back on the calories you consume, train like a madman and still
get fatter._

Could you post a link or reference for one example of someone who cut calories
and "trained like a madman" and still got fatter?

There's a lot of debate about hormones, metabolism, calorie quality and
optimum exercise. However it has still proven difficult to break basic laws of
physics.

~~~
gaius
There's no breaking of the laws of physics involved here. Firstly you are
still losing mass in this scenerio - but it is muscle tissue, not fat.
Secondly, lower resting metabolic rate manifests itself in forms such as lower
body temperature, or general lethargy, so you are burning fewer calories just
for maintenance. Your body is a survival machine. If it thinks you are under
threat of starvation, it will prioritize fat storage and energy conservation.
It will even cut back on your immune system to do so if it thinks starvation
is the most immediate threat.

Google for "overtraining" or read the articles on t-nation.com or
musclebulletin.com.

~~~
menloparkbum
I read the first article listed on t-nation.com and it starts up with this
poignant observation about olympic swimmers:

 _"I'm sorry but these dudes look like AIDS patients. Would it kill you to at
least get a tan and not remind the world of the Holocaust? And could you butch
up the sport a little bit? Because deep down I know the male divers I just saw
are in shower right now, naked, loofahing each other's taut athletic bodies...
."_

With a bit of literary magic, over the course of 2 pages, we go from the
Olympics to colorful commentary about Japan:

 _"You gotta wonder about the Japanese some times. These are the guys who
invented vending machines that distribute soiled panties that you can take
home and either use as Dennis Hopper ether masks or make soup with them. And
they're the ones who invented underwear that you can wear six days straight by
rotating them 120 degrees each day for three days and then turning them inside
out and then repeating the underwear carousel thing for another three days.
And then there's the bukkake thing, which is kinda disturbing even for a
preternaturally open-minded guy like me."_

So... I guess thanks for the exercise tips and the obviously credible
reference but I think I'll stick with training like a madman and not eating as
much.

~~~
scott_s
Whenever I read t-nation, I'm struck by how self-conscious some of them are
about being big. I see little regard for the fact that some sports don't
require athletes to have enormous amounts of muscle mass.

~~~
gaius
It's the same on any site tho'. If you read crossfit.com you'd be struck by
how smug they are about being smarter than everyone else about training.

~~~
scott_s
And, say, at technology sites about their methods. (Irony intended.)

I have seen the elitism at Crossfit, but I read the t-nation forums for a few
months. They were much more negative than, say, Crossfit.

~~~
gaius
I rarely look at the forums actually. There is some great content on t-nation
once you know what to look for. Their Physique Clinic stuff is brilliant, for
example.

------
jgamman
OMFG - diets!!?? on HN?? good grief.

------
edw519
Much better:

<http://www.tbkfitness.org/>

------
dejb
We need down-voting of articles

------
qqq
This is why we should have topic limitations. Yeah, people will post stuff
like this anyway, and I don't think we should punish them.

But we also shouldn't make it officially legitimate which will encourage a
higher volume of such posts.

Edit: Umm, you guys like wordy articles about fad diets with bad signal/noise
ratio?

------
albertcardona
Someone rediscovered the paleodiet.

------
weegee
this is a classic Atkins diet, and it will work, but it's a diet you need to
stay on for the rest of your life if you want to remain lean. I'm currently
addicted to carbs at the moment, and would have a real difficult time giving
up beer.

