On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 9:13 PM, Peter Humphrey <pe...@humphrey.ukfsn.org> wrote: > On Tuesday 11 October 2011 00:19:08 Adam Carter wrote: > >> > Have you ever wondered why the blooming of obesity has coincided with > >> > the popularity of the low-fat diet? > >> Correlation implies causation? > > No, of course not, but it certainly makes me pretty suspicious.
Correlation != causation, but it does imply it. One needs to be careful not to allow confirmation bias to carry one prematurely to an anticipated conclusion. > >> Perhaps the blooming of obesity caused people to start looking for new > >> diets to address the issue. > > Could be, but I'd prefer to believe it was, and is, indoctrination by Those > Who Know. There's a whole industry devoted to perpetuating the myth of the > low-fat diet. You can get volumes of evidence from Atkins's books. I don't have any unique dietary problems, so I'm probably Joe Average when it comes to metabolism, et al. I can get by happily on primarily vegetarian meals, I can get by happily on juicy, meaty, fatty meals, and I can get by happily on fast food. When I spend 90% of my non-sleep time sitting at a computer, I hover around 270lbs, regardless of the types of food I eat. When I spend more time hanging around outside, biking with my fiancee or wandering parks taking pictures, I lose weight, but then hover at a lower level When I control the quantity of food I consume, I lose weight, but hover at a lower level. I got as low as 240 lbs this summer. As far as food goes, for me, it's really not the kind of food, but how much of it I eat. First step is to eat smaller portions, so that my stomach shrinks and I feel fuller sooner. I still eat enough to get enough nutrition, it just means being hungry at the end of meals for three or four days. The second step is to switch to foods which don't easily come in bulk, and don't finish off others' plates. So, soup prepared per-bowl, or meals prepared per-plate. Then, obviously, there's being physically active. That's a tougher nut to crack. -- :wq
