Introduction
By way of introduction, I would like to say that the following piece, and the conclusions, thoughts, claims and experiences in it, are by no means a claim to the title of final truth. What is truth? Anyone trying to take in the whole picture understands very well that, whatever field we are talking about, there is no final truth; everything is always relative. And I won’t mind if you treat the positions, claims and opinions in my lengthy reflection as relative too. If anything, the aim of my multi-part reflection is to bring you some important nuances and points to think about related to weight loss, but also to nutrition in general. I will also try to relay the various well-argued stances on the subject that circulate online. Comparing different diets, their suitability and how well they work: these were, are and will probably remain topical for a long time yet. The clash between high-fat diets and high-carbohydrate diets has recently gained especially wide resonance. I do not intend to offer fundamental, one-and-only solutions; rather, I want to present facts that I consider important in this debate (comparisons of different diets), which it would be sensible to take into account when trying one type of diet or another yourself. Likewise, the list of references given at the end of the piece, though genuinely worked through, is not scientific in nature. That was never a goal in itself for this work. So, let’s reflect together!
My piece covers the following subtopics:
1. Disputes over the best approach…
2. Three main directions in organizing diet and nutrition…
3. There is no universal diet that suits everyone…
4. The main causes of overweight…
5. Insulin sensitivity…
6. Principles to follow when determining nutrient proportions…
7. What should we understand by balanced nutrition?
8. Characteristics of an effective and flexible diet…
9. Examples of meals during a diet phase…
10. Start with a moderate approach (keeping nutrient proportions in mind)…
11. Health can’t be bought in capsules, results don’t come overnight, so you need patience and flexibility in the face of change…
12. People eat themselves sick…
13. Specifics matter: the more extreme the dieter’s particularities, the more extreme and flexible the approaches must be…
14. Elite athletes and dedicated amateurs are a category of their own…
15. Conclusions and closing words…
16. References…
1. Disputes over the best approach
Lyle Mc Donald:
If you browse the nutrition literature on diets, there seem to be a huge number of possible diets. But when you start looking at the different approaches more closely, it quickly becomes clear that this isn’t really the case. The number of fundamentally different diets is actually relatively small. Yet we can find countless testimonials and assurances about how one diet or another worked and gave amazing results. You can come across this for any diet whatsoever. The propaganda is so powerful that even the biggest cynic may start to think that nearly all the diets people practice really do work. As contradictory as it may sound, frankly, there is quite a lot of truth in that conclusion. As long as a diet is such that it makes you eat less than you expend, you will lose weight. But by no means everyone who tries it succeeds; one could even say that very many of those trying don’t always do well. This tends to go unnoticed. There are several reasons for failure. On the one hand, it is always easy to blame the diet for simply not working, but quite often the diet being followed is simply not suited to the circumstances. The dieter doesn’t always have to be doing anything wrong; often the diet being practiced doesn’t work because its character simply doesn’t match the dieter’s particularities.
Of course, this knowledge and these facts do nothing to silence the loud testimonials and claims that “our concept of diet is the only right one.” It is the same as with different religions.
This analysis intends to ignore the various “miracle concepts” completely. Food combining, blood type diets and so on: I (Lyle McDonald) frankly consider all of that rubbish. If it seems to you that such approaches work on you, fine, but I deeply doubt that these diets work for the reasons you think they do.
Janar Rückenberg:
So, when it comes to nutrition (for whatever goals), things aren’t as “black and white” as the providers of various diets try to show us. But before I continue the discussion, one important thing needs to be made clear. Very often “nutrition” and/or “diet” are seen as different things. A diet is typically associated with starving, watching your weight or weight loss. In reality that isn’t quite so. “Nutrition” and “diet” are in fact synonyms, i.e. we can ask, “Is your nutrition in order?” or “What is your diet like?” In both cases what is meant is how, and according to what principles, our eating (diet) is generally organized. From there we can go on to talk about whether it is a diet (nutrition) for weight loss, or nutrition (diet) for gaining weight, or whether we simply want our weight to stay put and to feel good. I admit I’ve made this mistake myself many times. By diet I tend to mean nutrition for weight loss, and “nutrition” is something more general. But from now on I’ll try to keep these terms and the relationships between them in mind.
Returning to the topic, you can indeed find countless diets whose creators are all convinced, and assure us, that their approach is something new, effective and the definitive solution to all problems. If only that were true. It actually sounds as absurd as saying that “one size fits all” for a pair of shoes. It simply can’t be. Yet people continue to believe catchy slogans naively, because people like “new trends”, shortcuts and miracle solutions.
Where to begin? The fundamental factor that determines how and by what principles we can start organizing our nutrition at all, regardless of whether our goal is maintaining weight, weight loss or weight gain, is our lifestyle. It defines our level of physical activity, our daily energy expenditure, and so on.
From here on, I intend to focus more on diet or nutrition for weight loss purposes. There are a great many factors to keep in mind when organizing your nutrition. Take this one, for example: there is a big difference between trying to lose weight through nutritional adjustments alone and doing it together with physical activity. What’s more, it is one thing if we choose to add sport on top of our usual activity as a hobby (free choice), and quite another if we are obliged to train and have to do so effectively. The latter situation is that of athletes, with their various sport-specific demands. Naturally, what interests me is which diet solutions would be most effective (for body weight maintenance and weight loss) for representatives of the speed-strength sports (I generalize and include bodybuilders in this category). Speaking of weight loss in this target group: if only it were as simple as being in a slight calorie deficit, munching on nuts all day (eating only protein and fat) and then doing a 10 x 5 squat workout in the evening at 85% of your record. Ketogenic diets certainly work in essence, but a big question mark remains over whether this kind of approach to nutrition, especially for the purpose of weight loss, is really the optimal option for speed-strength athletes. I tend to side with those who believe that a large share of athletes, speed-strength athletes in particular, don’t do optimally on fat and protein alone. Athletes are definitely a group of their own, with their own peculiarities and needs. I’m not saying athletes have nothing to take from ketogenic diets. They do, but only when applied in a modified and very flexible way. The debate of low carbohydrate share vs. high carbohydrate ration in the menu is at times downright silly and childish. The reality is that when calories are under control, both high-carbohydrate and high-fat diets work; you just have to take into account the situations in which you are trying to apply a given diet. It’s like choosing footwear for different seasons or different weather. If you go hiking on a hot summer day at thirty degrees, of course you won’t die and will probably finish the route, even if you decided to put on thick winter boots. Whether the trek turned out to be pleasant or enjoyable with such a choice is another matter. If an endomorph with very high insulin resistance chooses a high-carbohydrate diet for weight loss, success may of course come, provided calories are under control. But at what price, how effectively, and for how long they can stay on such a diet is a separate question.
2. Three main approaches to organizing diet and nutrition
Lyle McDonald:
Broadly speaking, the various diet schools can be classified into three different groups. Representatives of all three main concepts will, of course, loudly insist that theirs is the one true and best approach. What’s more, all of them can pull out studies, data and tables that support their positions. Many ignore the fact that, depending on context and circumstances, every diet works or doesn’t work to a lesser or greater degree. Any diet can be that “one true” approach; it simply has to suit the circumstances, individual traits, context and specifics. Of course I’d sell more of my books if I claimed there is “THE ONE AND ONLY” diet that always works, but then I’d be lying to you.
So why can we find claims online, again and again, that there is one true, genuinely effective diet? Whether knowingly or by chance, someone really did stumble on a diet that fit that individual’s needs and characteristics perfectly. And as I said, you can always find people for whom it didn’t go so well: people who chose a diet that didn’t fit their characteristics at all. Naturally, no results can be expected then either. As I hinted earlier, the big diet gurus never tend to talk about the cases where their choices and experiments went completely off the rails. Those who proclaim the superiority of their approach focus in their arguments only on those who have had good results. That is far from honest behavior.
Getting the terms straight: protein intake…
The main manipulations across different diets happen in the proportions of fat and carbohydrates; whatever diet we’re talking about, I assume that in all diets the daily amount of protein is fixed and practically identical. With that in mind, the amount of protein in the menu should be in the range of 2.2 – 3.3 g/kg of body weight.
Although I have used the terms low-, high- or moderate-carbohydrate or fat diet myself, I’m not very happy with such terms. I’ve said before that they are too general and don’t really tell us much. A diet containing nothing but 50 grams of protein per day is a very high-protein diet, since all the calories come one hundred percent from protein. Yet if we look at such a diet from the standpoint of the body’s real needs, it is an extremely low-protein diet. At the same time, however much I may dislike percentage-based recommendations, we still need some measures by which to describe and distinguish different diets. And speaking of distinguishing, my opinion may of course not be one hundred percent correct either, but it is what I use. So, in my understanding:
Low-fat diets: diets in which the amount of fat is less than 30% of total calories. I would of course point out that for hardened dieters and athletes, low-fat usually means 10% or less, down to the minimum.
Moderate-fat diets: 30 – 40% of total calories come from fat. Some nutrition scientists consider 25 – 35% of total calories to be a moderate fat intake.
High-fat diets: 40% or more of total calories come from fat.
Low-carbohydrate diets: less than 20% of total calories come from carbohydrates.
Note: ketogenic diets contain less than 100 g of carbohydrates per day. At the same time, not all low-carbohydrate diets are ketogenic.
Moderate-carbohydrate diets: 20 – 45% of total calories come from carbohydrates.
High-carbohydrate diets: 45% or more of total calories come from carbohydrates.
Since protein is always a given, at 2.2 – 3.3 g/kg, which averages out to 25 – 40% of total calories, I won’t burden you with any more terminology. Let’s call the protein content of the menu at such a ratio and proportion whatever we like. What matters most is that an optimal amount of protein is ensured within the diet.
Taking these numbers as a basis, the traditional low-fat diet common among athletes gives nutrient proportions of roughly 60% carbohydrates, 30% protein and 10% fat. With moderate-fat diets (the Zone diet and the isocaloric diet), the nutrient proportions usually split into 33 – 40% carbohydrates, 30 – 33% protein and 30 – 33% fat. A typical low-carbohydrate/high-fat diet contains about 20% or less carbohydrates, 30% protein and 50% or more fat.
Again, such percentages often don’t match an individual’s actual need for a given nutrient. When it comes to needs, I prefer to give recommendations mostly in grams per kilogram of body weight, but for convenience I use the percentage approach in this article.
Author: Janar Rückenberg
Come and train! ArtGym
