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Freebase Dali · 09-07-2012, 09:10 PM

Diets do work. It's just about the kind of diet you choose.
Me, I went from 182 to 166 in 3 months simply by doing this weird new "not drinking beer every day" diet and cutting out sodas. But I think that sorta thing should be obvious.
Dieting just means manipulating the way you consume. Whether it's portioning, calorie tracking, changing habits, or whatever, that is a diet as long as you are doing something different for a specific goal.
I think that people probably need to focus more on eating and living normally, and not the normal that our cultures are making us believe is normal, be it through convenient food availability or image enforcement.

I definitely agree that eating regularly is good if you want to maintain a constant metabolism and not put your body into starvation mode, but it's not out of the realm of nature for your body to actually need to use reserves for its fuel. It's the purpose of fat storage, and very much a natural thing for a human being, among many other animals. If a person wishes to lose weight, however, they will need to purposely intake fewer calories than they burn, pure and simple, so that fat storage can be utilized instead of new caloric energy.

Back in the days where we had to scavenge and hunt for our food, surplus caloric material was a matter of survival. These days, not so much, obviously. And in the kind of world we live in where food is as abundant as it is, it's hard not to be the envy of every caveman that ever lived. But at the same time, it's not natural for us to have as much as we have. Our systems were evolved from such that expects us to not always have everything we desire.
When we pour surplus into our bodies, the body just says "hey, I'll be able to use this later!". And of course, there's never any "later" now days.

So, I think that the best course of action would be to not fear hunger. Let it tell you when you should eat, and eat when it tells you. Sate it with natural food, but not mounds of it every time. Think of the hunger response not as a sign that you are deprived, but that your body is functioning as it should be, and sate the response as necessary.

And, above all, exercise like a hunter-gatherer.

09-07-2012, 09:10 PM	#28 (permalink)
Freebase Dali Partying on the inside Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 5,584	Diets do work. It's just about the kind of diet you choose. Me, I went from 182 to 166 in 3 months simply by doing this weird new "not drinking beer every day" diet and cutting out sodas. But I think that sorta thing should be obvious. Dieting just means manipulating the way you consume. Whether it's portioning, calorie tracking, changing habits, or whatever, that is a diet as long as you are doing something different for a specific goal. I think that people probably need to focus more on eating and living normally, and not the normal that our cultures are making us believe is normal, be it through convenient food availability or image enforcement. I definitely agree that eating regularly is good if you want to maintain a constant metabolism and not put your body into starvation mode, but it's not out of the realm of nature for your body to actually need to use reserves for its fuel. It's the purpose of fat storage, and very much a natural thing for a human being, among many other animals. If a person wishes to lose weight, however, they will need to purposely intake fewer calories than they burn, pure and simple, so that fat storage can be utilized instead of new caloric energy. Back in the days where we had to scavenge and hunt for our food, surplus caloric material was a matter of survival. These days, not so much, obviously. And in the kind of world we live in where food is as abundant as it is, it's hard not to be the envy of every caveman that ever lived. But at the same time, it's not natural for us to have as much as we have. Our systems were evolved from such that expects us to not always have everything we desire. When we pour surplus into our bodies, the body just says "hey, I'll be able to use this later!". And of course, there's never any "later" now days. So, I think that the best course of action would be to not fear hunger. Let it tell you when you should eat, and eat when it tells you. Sate it with natural food, but not mounds of it every time. Think of the hunger response not as a sign that you are deprived, but that your body is functioning as it should be, and sate the response as necessary. And, above all, exercise like a hunter-gatherer.