It’s really unfortunate how every few years “influencers” (today’s term, but celebrities and hucksters of all stripes have been doing this for decades) will come around and promote a new extreme diet that will revolutionize your weight loss and fitness “journey”. The anti carb version is particularly popular because you do see genuine short to medium term benefits thanks first to reducing water retention and the fact that these diets are essentially elimination diets so eliminating certain processed foods has an immediate benefit.
Throw in some nice cherry-picking results, human psychology where the diet didn’t fail you, you failed the diet so people aren’t willing to speak up when it doesn’t work for them, and in todays day and age paid commenters that will bombard YT videos with fake comments both pro on your videos and anti on videos by actual scientists who have studied this stuff and have seen remarkably similar results for decades.
After all, there’s not much money to be made in “eat foods. Mostly plants. Not too much”. Especially when on the other side it’s not just processed foods but even the meat and dairy industries that are massive operations making a lot of money (with some hefty tax breaks and subsidies thrown in to boot).
This is excessively cynical. Different diets work for different people. Diet is such a complex mixture of culture, social environment, work environment, personal values, the personal values of people around you, your surrounding physical infrastructure, your own psychology and finally your biology.
The answer to “what diet” is “keep trying them until you find one that works, then stick with it.” There is an infinite number of totally functional combinations.
I can personally attest to low-carb. I lost 40 pounds in two years. It wasn't easy. No diet is. Everyone told me I'd gain it right back and gave me visceral reactions when I told them how I did it and how it's been years now since I've switched back to a sensibly balanced diet to maintain it.
I don't think people want that particular diet to work. Granted, it's got its downsides. And you can do it in a very unhealthy way. But being 40 pounds overweight was probably worse than intermittent lower-carb with healthy(er) options like chicken caesar salads, stuffed peppers made with turkey, or tuna salad on celery. It just let me eat less calories without as much hunger.
Probably more just to be able to fill in the calories. For instance, I probably ate a lot more tuna salad on celery than I would've if it were on bread.
Well yes, it is personal. As such no dietary advice is worth more than the experiments one conducts on themself, to see how one responds specifically.
If something isn't working, then sure, look to the science for potential solutions and try them out. Nothing, however is guaranteed.
If you're not getting the results you're hoping for, move on. Conversely, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, even if someone out there is telling you that you're doing it wrong.
For example I have a weakness for sugar cereal. I know it's on the bad list of sweet, ultraprocessed foods. I also know that, as a pre-workout meal, I perform great after crushing a half-box of Trix or Captain Crunch.
Throw in some nice cherry-picking results, human psychology where the diet didn’t fail you, you failed the diet so people aren’t willing to speak up when it doesn’t work for them, and in todays day and age paid commenters that will bombard YT videos with fake comments both pro on your videos and anti on videos by actual scientists who have studied this stuff and have seen remarkably similar results for decades.
After all, there’s not much money to be made in “eat foods. Mostly plants. Not too much”. Especially when on the other side it’s not just processed foods but even the meat and dairy industries that are massive operations making a lot of money (with some hefty tax breaks and subsidies thrown in to boot).