B
Bob
Guest
Chris Malcolm wrote:
> "Bob (this one)" <[email protected]> writes:
>
>> Chris Malcolm wrote:
>>> that there is a possibility that average modern human
>>> diets and preferences might well cause things to average
>>> out so that a reasonably balanced diet from conventional
>>> ingredients for the average sedentary person might well
>>> settle down with 2lbs close to the breakpoint of
>>> starting to lose weight.
>
>> Notice all the qualifiers in that overlong sentence.
>> "...the possibility... average... might well...
>> average... reasonably balanced... conventional... average
>> sedentary person... might well... close to the...
>> starting to..."
>
>> What it all says is that Chris lives on this ascetic diet
>
> If you had actually bothered to read this or any of my
> previous "standard" postings carefully you would have
> realised that I don't live on this ascetic diet.
"...this ascetic diet" refers to what you *do* live on. Your
diet. How you say you actually eat. That diet.
> The sentence is clearly too long for Pastry Bob to parse,
> because
> had he done so, he would have discovered that the reason
> for those
> qualifiers is precisely because *not* everyone else is
> covered.
I think you're saying it backwards: after factoring in all
those exclusionary criteria, almost everyone is out. So many
are excluded by that list that it leaves only a very few
"average, sedentary" people of indeterminate size, activity
and metabolic function.
And "close to the breakpoint of starting to lose weight" is
exactly what isn't desirable. It's to lose weight. Close is
for horseshoes.
> And had you bothered to finish the post before starting to
> clatter out your mocking dismissal, you would have
> discovered that far from supposing that everyone is
> covered by the simplifications of the 2lb diet, I actually
> proposed the simple beginnings of an empirical test of
> that hypothesis.
The essential question is this: why do the test at all if,
as you posit, people are succeeding on a different regimen?
If they've already found a way that works, why fix it if it
isn't broke?
And, if any given day on some diet does come to 2 pounds, it
proves nothing. It's most likely a coincidence. It also
assumes a rather constant menu, otherwise substituting
quiche for a grilled chicken breast skews it badly.
> I mostly eat prepared packaged meals. The weight, the
> constituents, the amounts of carbohydrate, various kinds
> of fat, protein, fibre, etc., are all printed as required
> by law on the label.
But you say none of that matters. That only the weight is at
issue, and, you imply, it'll all work out somehow. I can't
see the conditions where packaged foods will contain the
same nutrient composition because they weigh the same. I
just went downstairs to look in my freezer at some prepared
foods. I just picked the ones at the front. No special
searching to affect the ratios. Here are some foods, portion
sizes specified on the package and caloric content.
Food port. cal. cal/g
Mini quiches 139 g 440 cal 3.16 personal pizzas 155 g 390
cal 2.52 chicken bakes (in crust with veg) 227 g 290 cal
1.28 roasted potatoes w/herbs 154 g 270 cal 1.75 veg pot pie
w/turkey 198 g 450 cal 2.27 pot stickers (shao mai) 150 g
280 cal 1.87 corn pudding 125 g 138 cal 1.10 cut wax beans
120 g 20 cal 0.17 vegetable kofta pilaf 128 g 229 cal 1.79
I don't have any full meals prepared in single packages, so
I can't speak to that directly. But the USDA has them in the
database and here's a sampling:
BANQUET, OUR ORIGINAL Fried Chicken Meal, frozen, with
Mashed Potatoes & Corn, Seasoned Sauce 228 g 470 cal 2.06
MARIE CALLENDER'S Escalloped Noodles & Chicken, frozen
entree 368 g 629 cal 1.71 TYSON Roasted Chicken with Garlic
Sauce, Pasta and Vegetable Medley, frozen entree 255 g 214
cal 0.84 BANQUET EXTRA HELPING Salisbury Steak Dinner, with
Gravy, Mashed Potatoes and Corn in Seasoned Sauce, frozen
meal 468 g 782 cal 1.67 STOUFFER'S LEAN CUISINE HOMESTYLE
Beef Pot Roast with Whipped Potatoes, frozen entree 255 g
207 cal 0.81 STOUFFER'S HOMESTYLE Salisbury Steak in Gravy &
Macaroni and Cheese, frozen entree 272 g 386 cal 1.42
The range of possibilities shown above is rather wide.
Obviously, more food than just this is necessary to reach
the 2 pounds. Caloric beverages. More fruit and veg.
If only eating two meals a day for a total of 2 pounds and
assuming a lightish breakfast as you imply; two poached
eggs, large 100 g 294 cal
1/2 cup muesli with 1/2 cup milk 93 g 195 cal apple, medium
138 g 72 cal makes for a total of 331 g 561 calories.
Nearly 12 ounces of food at 561 calories. Obviously, to stay
at 2 pounds, more food will need to be eaten, either at the
meals or between them. I distantly seem to recall that
you've said you have some small things to eat between meals,
but I'm not sure about that.
> My breakfasts aren't pre-package, but it is trivially easy
> to discover how much an egg, half a cup of muesli, an
> apple, etc., weighs.
Sure it is. All you have to do is weigh it. And all you
learn is how much it weighs.
>>> Of course you can invent diets consisting entirely of
>>> (say) chocolate which make nonsense of the 2lb diet
>>> idea. It is also easy to find folk, such as athletes or
>>> diabetics, for whom it would be inappropriate. That is
>>> missing the point.
>
>> It is most assuredly not missing the point. For the diet
>> to work intelligently, it presupposes a balanced diet to
>> begin with. Merely restricting "conventional ingredients"
>> (whatever that could mean in the particular country,
>> culture, region) intake by weight alone is essentially
>> prompting starvation. Of course people lose weight when
>> they're undernourished. But the rather significant
>> question of completeness of nutrient composition is
>> simply brushed aside as a "possibility." And the reality
>> is that unless the dieter knows within a reasonably close
>> range the caloric composition of what they're eating, all
>> those qualifiers above are meaningless. Unless the dieter
>> knows what the nutrient composition is, they have no way
>> of knowing if their diet is healthy by any accepted
>> criteria.
>
> You have completely missed the point of my posting, which
> was first of all to acknowledge the simplifications
> inherent in the 2lb diet approach,
C'mon Chris. Of course it's a simplification. The only issue
is whether it's a generally useful one. Whether it, in its
simple form, can be posited to be constructive for enough
people to adopt as a reasonable standard.
> secondly to explain the possibility -- only the
> possibility -- that these simplifications, which we know
> apply to my diet, and that of several other posters --
> applied generally (i.e. with few exceptions),
The possibility is merely that. A possibility with no
impetus of substantiation beyond a very few examples. I
trust your word here and a very few others (Carol Frilegh,
and I can't think of another but I'm sure I've found one or
two more credible), but that's insufficient to extrapolate
to a larger population.
That long string of exemptions and qualifiers can
effectively discount most people. And you omit the ones that
have to do with the differences between the larger
percentage of the general public of size, activity level and
metabolism. The assertion of the possibility is supported
only by a very slim sample.
> and thirdly and finally, to propose an exploratory
> experiment to assess the plausibility of that hypothesis.
But here's the problem. Suppose that some other people who
do different sorts of regimens find that they sometimes do
eat only 2 pounds in a day. It's 2 pounds based on other
criteria than weight. If it isn't constant, daily, almost
always, it has no value as corroboration. If it isn't at
least an average, it disproves the (not well-elaborated)
theory. But even if it is around 2 pounds, it merely shows
one element that is an imposed value rather than the
deciding one.
>> Extrapolating from the particular experience of one
>> ascetic to the general population is bad logic and worse
>> science.
>
> Of course it is. That is why I concluded my posting with
> an invitation for readers who could to supply particular
> data. An empirical test. We know already from past
> postings that at least several posters do eat diets that
> conform to the simplifications of the 2lb diet. However,
> despite all the furious derision the diet has attracted
> from those who "know" it is "obviously" rubbish, nobody
> has actually supplied an actual weight maintaining
> personal diet which shows it to be nonsense.
Chris, any of the regimens that people actually use are
evidence enough. And you're still talking about it as a
maintenance diet when Chung et al talk about it as weight
reduction.
I know people who do weight watchers who have taken weight
off and kept it off. They eat a good bit more than 2 pounds
of food a day. Their approach is based on the very simple
chart they use. Likewise the many more people who post to
low-fat and low carb newsgroups and lists that have
succeeded in losing weight and maintained a stable result.
I'm not saying that limiting intake is nonsense, I am saying
that using a single universal standard irrespective of any
other implications or considerations is an
oversimplification tending towards irrelevancy.
>> This idea takes no account of different sizes, different
>> metabolic levels, or different activity levels. It's the
>> same prescription for an 80 year old, 5'2" 105 pound
>> woman as a bubba 6'3" 235 pound bricklayer.
>
> Whereas all you can find to do is to repeat once again
> what you have already probably posted a thousand times,
> the school science teacher's "obvious" explanation of why
> the thing is absurd.
But your reply offers nothing to deal with the issues raised
here, nor has anyone else. Are you suggesting that everyone
consume the same weight daily? If not, what are the criteria
for differentiating?
If you were to offer a range for people to experiment with
including some suggestions for what to eat and what to avoid
and why, I might be more convinced. If other significant
variables were included in the structuring of the approach,
I might be more convinced. If there were *any* reliable
studies that deal with the question, I might be more
receptive. The fact that no one has done such a study
reported in any reliable journal seems to emphasize the
insufficiency of the idea.
>>> I don't follow this diet, but I have for decades noticed
>>> that I very slowly gain weight if I eat lunch (as well
>>> as breakfast and dinner), and very slowly lose it if I
>>> omit lunch. The weight of my average breakfast and
>>> dinner is 2lbs plus or minus no more than an oz.
>>>
>>> Of course the 2lb diet idea is a gross simplification:
>>> that is the whole point. The question is whether it is
>>> an oversimplification, or whether it is a simplification
>>> which works.
>
>> It is a simplification that likely is an
>> oversimplification
>
> Yes, "likely". It is not, as I hope you're beginning to
> realise, a question that can be settled simply by arguing
> from common sense, because it is a question of empirical
> fact, not of principle.
And yet, I see only your example and a very few others to
support it. It's the general rule in the development of a
thesis that the proposer has the burden of proof to carry. I
don't doubt your sincerity, and that's not at issue. But
Chung claims that he has many patients doing it yet not a
shred of data.
I disagree about the empirical imperative of the question.
The reality is that none of the objections or questions have
been dealt with substantively. Balance, long-term results,
achievability, comfort and the whole host of complaints
leveled against other dietary plans can be as easily pointed
at this one.
>> and it may work in the short term, but to what cost in
>> the longer term for most people? As long as considered
>> nutrient balance isn't an integral part of it, the
>> likelihood of good guesswork for health maintenance is
>> slim to none.
>
> If it was true that the natural uneducated predilections
> and tastes of humans when choosing their diet from the
> available resources had a "slim to none" likelihood of
> meeting the nutrient requirements for health maintenance,
> how do you explain that the human race did not die out of
> malnutrition during the million years when there were no
> scientifically trained nutrition specialists to advise us
> on what to eat?
Is it your position that humans have been well-nourished
through history? That people ate wisely and well? There's a
world of difference between starving to death and being
habitually malnourished. People can go on for rather a long
time with drastically unbalanced menus; look at war
prisoners through history. They lose fat, muscle mass and
bone matter. And they can live much shortened lifespans.
And there can be famines that kill millions and millions
over time.
Likely, 2 pounds of food will sustain most people to an
equilibrium point when mass loss will stop. But I submit
that it will be rather different from person to person with
differing effect and final result, too much so to offer it
as *the* universal prescription.
>>> This is an empirical question which is not too hard to
>>> answer on an individual basis.
This "individual basis" notion begins to let light in. It
points to the prospect of two pounds not being an ideal, but
more a touchstone. So that little, old granny can do with 1
pound 12 ounces and big, young junior needs 3 pounds 7
ounces. But even then, the composition of the diet needs
some scrutiny.
>>> If you are overweight, and you have already established
>>> a diet which you *know* by practical experiment causes
>>> you to lose weight very slowly (e.g. less than a pound a
>>> fortnight), how much does it weigh?
>
>> And what if this successful diet is predicated on caloric
>> density and the weights are all over the place?
>
> You average them of course. And if you think that they are
> so much "all over the place" that this is a serious
> problem for the 2lb diet idea, then you supply the actual
> figures and explain why it is a problem.
Just looking at packaged meals you can see the rather large
variation in caloric content. It's a problem because of its
inconsistency.
I think it's about time you did some of the work you want
everyone else to bring to you. Go wander around the USDA
database and see the vast differences in caloric content
for 100 grams of many different foods. They even have
packaged foods to help you understand why the correlations
are so weak.
As for that question of serious variations between days of
balanced meals and the averages, you're the one saying it
doesn't matter. You're still trying to extrapolate from one
experience.
>> And what if it's predicated on low-fat or low-carb and
>> it works but it's utterly not correlative with weight
>> of food?
>
> It couldn't possibly be *utterly* uncorrelated with the
> weight of the food. If you cast an eye over the published
> tables of the calorific densities of various kinds of food
> you will see that there would have to be a fairly strong
> correlation.
See, Chris, you're doing it again. You're saying that there
has to be a "fairly strong correlation" between weight and
caloric density. The differences between like weights of
lettuce and carrots are significant. Between potatoes and
cauliflower. Between grains and soybeans. Between ham and
turkey. Between strawberries and bananas.
I've made my living by casting my eye over the calorie
tables and writing about them. Talking about them on radio.
Consulting about them in product design.
But I'll agree that "utterly not correlative" is
overstating the case.
> The empirical question is how strong, and whether it is
> strong enough to support the idea of the 2lb diet.
>
> I have invited you before to do the arithmetic on the
> various extreme diets you always quote at this point in
> your standard 2lb counter-argument, but you never have.
I don't talk about extreme diets. I advocate caloric
limitation and caloric expenditure irrespective of the
regimen. I further advocate watching nutrient balance and
adjusting as needed with either dietary alteration or food
supplements.
> Instead you have posted this same speculative counter-
> argument again and again hundreds of times since then.
> Indeed. you have spent far more time repeating yourself in
> your obsessive hounding of Chung and the 2lb diet approach
> than it would have taken to analyse a few sample diets and
> publish the refutation which you are so sure exists. That
> would have destroyed the credibility of the 2lb diet for
> ever. Yet instead of doing that, you simply repeat your
> speculative "common sense" sneerings a thousand times.
Chris, this is simply nonsense and sends the whole thing in
irrelevant directions. If you look at the infinite
permutations of an individual dietary regimen that provides
slightly less than maintenance caloric levels (factoring in
caloric usage), the weight of the food can range rather
wider than 2 pounds can accept. Since you're advocating a
universal, daily, fixed quantity, all advice from experts
(of whatever stripe) in nutritional questions runs counter
to that position.
Rather than consider the question of anyone destroying the
credibility of a wide-reaching plan of 2 pounds of food per
day for everyone, it would seem that support and proof of
effectiveness is incumbent on the proponents. One or two or
5 is a small universe, indeed.
> Could it be that finding the simple facts to support
> your speculative rebuttals is actually rather harder
> than you claim?
They're above.
>> How can an irrelevant criterion be forced to fit?
>
> You think it's irrelevant because you don't really
> understand how degrees of correlation work when combined
> in proportions with strict limits on the degree of
> variation, and can only see this question in black and
> white terms of specific high correlation or its absence.
Give it a rest. This is the same spiel you started your
other post with. According to Chung, there is no issue of
degrees of correlation. It's absolute. You seem to be saying
pretty much the same thing. For yourself, it's 2 pounds +/-
an ounce a day of what sounds like a rather constant menu.
But you also hint at individual differences. Need to make
that clearer.
>> And why bother if it already works?
>
> If what works, the irrelevant criterion?
The other dietary approach.
> Are you asking why bother to test something in dispute?
> You've lost me here.
Your whole premise here is to test the weight of foods in
other diets that are successful for people. I say that if
it's working, what's the point of weighing? All other
dietary plans are intended to maintain balance through
design. The details are being considered. The nutritional
variables are being taken into account. No such thing is
being offered for the 2PD.
If the average weight is approximately 2 pounds a day, are
you going to tell people to forget the rest of the criteria
they're applying now and just go to 2 pounds? Forget the
ratio of macronutrients? Forget consideration of vitamins
and minerals? This is where I have to part company with the
idea. Simplistic rather than merely simple.
>> And what about different goals or progress rates?
>
> You seem to have forgotten that the basic idea behind the
> 2lb diet is the idea of a balance point, the point at
> which nutrient intake is balanced by expenditure.
Chung and Mu have talked about it as a weight loss
program. It's on Chung's web site as a weight loss
program. He talks about it as a weight loss program and
now, in a change from when he advocated "common sense" as
the only additional ingredient, tells people to talk with
their doctors about it. I've mentioned it to a few doctors
to be greeted with laughter.
I think you have a broader, more coherent picture of this
concept than Chung does.
> The hypothesis behind the 2lb diet is that, generally
> speaking, this is slightly over 2lbs for those who are
> overweight, so that 2lbs would result in a slight loss
> of weight.
This seems unclear to me. Are you suggesting that everyone
consume the same weight daily? If not, what are the criteria
for differentiating? Can it be done predictively?
> Different goals? Well, if the goals are outwith the
> claimed scope of the diet, then it is not applicable. Is
> that so difficult to understand?
>
> Different progress rates? Well, if the progress rate
> required is not the progress rate claimed for the 2lb diet
> then it is not applicable. Is that so difficult to
> understand?
What progress rate is claimed for the 2PD? You keep saying
it's for weight maintenance, a balance point, while Chung
says it's for weight loss. I think that your note about
losing a pound per fortnight finally puts a definitional
element in place that hasn't been in discussion before.
I see the utility for you as you've looked at it for
yourself with a critical eye. But I remain unconvinced that
weight alone is a sufficient criterion for an entire dietary
regimen for anything approaching mass usage.
Bob
> "Bob (this one)" <[email protected]> writes:
>
>> Chris Malcolm wrote:
>>> that there is a possibility that average modern human
>>> diets and preferences might well cause things to average
>>> out so that a reasonably balanced diet from conventional
>>> ingredients for the average sedentary person might well
>>> settle down with 2lbs close to the breakpoint of
>>> starting to lose weight.
>
>> Notice all the qualifiers in that overlong sentence.
>> "...the possibility... average... might well...
>> average... reasonably balanced... conventional... average
>> sedentary person... might well... close to the...
>> starting to..."
>
>> What it all says is that Chris lives on this ascetic diet
>
> If you had actually bothered to read this or any of my
> previous "standard" postings carefully you would have
> realised that I don't live on this ascetic diet.
"...this ascetic diet" refers to what you *do* live on. Your
diet. How you say you actually eat. That diet.
> The sentence is clearly too long for Pastry Bob to parse,
> because
> had he done so, he would have discovered that the reason
> for those
> qualifiers is precisely because *not* everyone else is
> covered.
I think you're saying it backwards: after factoring in all
those exclusionary criteria, almost everyone is out. So many
are excluded by that list that it leaves only a very few
"average, sedentary" people of indeterminate size, activity
and metabolic function.
And "close to the breakpoint of starting to lose weight" is
exactly what isn't desirable. It's to lose weight. Close is
for horseshoes.
> And had you bothered to finish the post before starting to
> clatter out your mocking dismissal, you would have
> discovered that far from supposing that everyone is
> covered by the simplifications of the 2lb diet, I actually
> proposed the simple beginnings of an empirical test of
> that hypothesis.
The essential question is this: why do the test at all if,
as you posit, people are succeeding on a different regimen?
If they've already found a way that works, why fix it if it
isn't broke?
And, if any given day on some diet does come to 2 pounds, it
proves nothing. It's most likely a coincidence. It also
assumes a rather constant menu, otherwise substituting
quiche for a grilled chicken breast skews it badly.
> I mostly eat prepared packaged meals. The weight, the
> constituents, the amounts of carbohydrate, various kinds
> of fat, protein, fibre, etc., are all printed as required
> by law on the label.
But you say none of that matters. That only the weight is at
issue, and, you imply, it'll all work out somehow. I can't
see the conditions where packaged foods will contain the
same nutrient composition because they weigh the same. I
just went downstairs to look in my freezer at some prepared
foods. I just picked the ones at the front. No special
searching to affect the ratios. Here are some foods, portion
sizes specified on the package and caloric content.
Food port. cal. cal/g
Mini quiches 139 g 440 cal 3.16 personal pizzas 155 g 390
cal 2.52 chicken bakes (in crust with veg) 227 g 290 cal
1.28 roasted potatoes w/herbs 154 g 270 cal 1.75 veg pot pie
w/turkey 198 g 450 cal 2.27 pot stickers (shao mai) 150 g
280 cal 1.87 corn pudding 125 g 138 cal 1.10 cut wax beans
120 g 20 cal 0.17 vegetable kofta pilaf 128 g 229 cal 1.79
I don't have any full meals prepared in single packages, so
I can't speak to that directly. But the USDA has them in the
database and here's a sampling:
BANQUET, OUR ORIGINAL Fried Chicken Meal, frozen, with
Mashed Potatoes & Corn, Seasoned Sauce 228 g 470 cal 2.06
MARIE CALLENDER'S Escalloped Noodles & Chicken, frozen
entree 368 g 629 cal 1.71 TYSON Roasted Chicken with Garlic
Sauce, Pasta and Vegetable Medley, frozen entree 255 g 214
cal 0.84 BANQUET EXTRA HELPING Salisbury Steak Dinner, with
Gravy, Mashed Potatoes and Corn in Seasoned Sauce, frozen
meal 468 g 782 cal 1.67 STOUFFER'S LEAN CUISINE HOMESTYLE
Beef Pot Roast with Whipped Potatoes, frozen entree 255 g
207 cal 0.81 STOUFFER'S HOMESTYLE Salisbury Steak in Gravy &
Macaroni and Cheese, frozen entree 272 g 386 cal 1.42
The range of possibilities shown above is rather wide.
Obviously, more food than just this is necessary to reach
the 2 pounds. Caloric beverages. More fruit and veg.
If only eating two meals a day for a total of 2 pounds and
assuming a lightish breakfast as you imply; two poached
eggs, large 100 g 294 cal
1/2 cup muesli with 1/2 cup milk 93 g 195 cal apple, medium
138 g 72 cal makes for a total of 331 g 561 calories.
Nearly 12 ounces of food at 561 calories. Obviously, to stay
at 2 pounds, more food will need to be eaten, either at the
meals or between them. I distantly seem to recall that
you've said you have some small things to eat between meals,
but I'm not sure about that.
> My breakfasts aren't pre-package, but it is trivially easy
> to discover how much an egg, half a cup of muesli, an
> apple, etc., weighs.
Sure it is. All you have to do is weigh it. And all you
learn is how much it weighs.
>>> Of course you can invent diets consisting entirely of
>>> (say) chocolate which make nonsense of the 2lb diet
>>> idea. It is also easy to find folk, such as athletes or
>>> diabetics, for whom it would be inappropriate. That is
>>> missing the point.
>
>> It is most assuredly not missing the point. For the diet
>> to work intelligently, it presupposes a balanced diet to
>> begin with. Merely restricting "conventional ingredients"
>> (whatever that could mean in the particular country,
>> culture, region) intake by weight alone is essentially
>> prompting starvation. Of course people lose weight when
>> they're undernourished. But the rather significant
>> question of completeness of nutrient composition is
>> simply brushed aside as a "possibility." And the reality
>> is that unless the dieter knows within a reasonably close
>> range the caloric composition of what they're eating, all
>> those qualifiers above are meaningless. Unless the dieter
>> knows what the nutrient composition is, they have no way
>> of knowing if their diet is healthy by any accepted
>> criteria.
>
> You have completely missed the point of my posting, which
> was first of all to acknowledge the simplifications
> inherent in the 2lb diet approach,
C'mon Chris. Of course it's a simplification. The only issue
is whether it's a generally useful one. Whether it, in its
simple form, can be posited to be constructive for enough
people to adopt as a reasonable standard.
> secondly to explain the possibility -- only the
> possibility -- that these simplifications, which we know
> apply to my diet, and that of several other posters --
> applied generally (i.e. with few exceptions),
The possibility is merely that. A possibility with no
impetus of substantiation beyond a very few examples. I
trust your word here and a very few others (Carol Frilegh,
and I can't think of another but I'm sure I've found one or
two more credible), but that's insufficient to extrapolate
to a larger population.
That long string of exemptions and qualifiers can
effectively discount most people. And you omit the ones that
have to do with the differences between the larger
percentage of the general public of size, activity level and
metabolism. The assertion of the possibility is supported
only by a very slim sample.
> and thirdly and finally, to propose an exploratory
> experiment to assess the plausibility of that hypothesis.
But here's the problem. Suppose that some other people who
do different sorts of regimens find that they sometimes do
eat only 2 pounds in a day. It's 2 pounds based on other
criteria than weight. If it isn't constant, daily, almost
always, it has no value as corroboration. If it isn't at
least an average, it disproves the (not well-elaborated)
theory. But even if it is around 2 pounds, it merely shows
one element that is an imposed value rather than the
deciding one.
>> Extrapolating from the particular experience of one
>> ascetic to the general population is bad logic and worse
>> science.
>
> Of course it is. That is why I concluded my posting with
> an invitation for readers who could to supply particular
> data. An empirical test. We know already from past
> postings that at least several posters do eat diets that
> conform to the simplifications of the 2lb diet. However,
> despite all the furious derision the diet has attracted
> from those who "know" it is "obviously" rubbish, nobody
> has actually supplied an actual weight maintaining
> personal diet which shows it to be nonsense.
Chris, any of the regimens that people actually use are
evidence enough. And you're still talking about it as a
maintenance diet when Chung et al talk about it as weight
reduction.
I know people who do weight watchers who have taken weight
off and kept it off. They eat a good bit more than 2 pounds
of food a day. Their approach is based on the very simple
chart they use. Likewise the many more people who post to
low-fat and low carb newsgroups and lists that have
succeeded in losing weight and maintained a stable result.
I'm not saying that limiting intake is nonsense, I am saying
that using a single universal standard irrespective of any
other implications or considerations is an
oversimplification tending towards irrelevancy.
>> This idea takes no account of different sizes, different
>> metabolic levels, or different activity levels. It's the
>> same prescription for an 80 year old, 5'2" 105 pound
>> woman as a bubba 6'3" 235 pound bricklayer.
>
> Whereas all you can find to do is to repeat once again
> what you have already probably posted a thousand times,
> the school science teacher's "obvious" explanation of why
> the thing is absurd.
But your reply offers nothing to deal with the issues raised
here, nor has anyone else. Are you suggesting that everyone
consume the same weight daily? If not, what are the criteria
for differentiating?
If you were to offer a range for people to experiment with
including some suggestions for what to eat and what to avoid
and why, I might be more convinced. If other significant
variables were included in the structuring of the approach,
I might be more convinced. If there were *any* reliable
studies that deal with the question, I might be more
receptive. The fact that no one has done such a study
reported in any reliable journal seems to emphasize the
insufficiency of the idea.
>>> I don't follow this diet, but I have for decades noticed
>>> that I very slowly gain weight if I eat lunch (as well
>>> as breakfast and dinner), and very slowly lose it if I
>>> omit lunch. The weight of my average breakfast and
>>> dinner is 2lbs plus or minus no more than an oz.
>>>
>>> Of course the 2lb diet idea is a gross simplification:
>>> that is the whole point. The question is whether it is
>>> an oversimplification, or whether it is a simplification
>>> which works.
>
>> It is a simplification that likely is an
>> oversimplification
>
> Yes, "likely". It is not, as I hope you're beginning to
> realise, a question that can be settled simply by arguing
> from common sense, because it is a question of empirical
> fact, not of principle.
And yet, I see only your example and a very few others to
support it. It's the general rule in the development of a
thesis that the proposer has the burden of proof to carry. I
don't doubt your sincerity, and that's not at issue. But
Chung claims that he has many patients doing it yet not a
shred of data.
I disagree about the empirical imperative of the question.
The reality is that none of the objections or questions have
been dealt with substantively. Balance, long-term results,
achievability, comfort and the whole host of complaints
leveled against other dietary plans can be as easily pointed
at this one.
>> and it may work in the short term, but to what cost in
>> the longer term for most people? As long as considered
>> nutrient balance isn't an integral part of it, the
>> likelihood of good guesswork for health maintenance is
>> slim to none.
>
> If it was true that the natural uneducated predilections
> and tastes of humans when choosing their diet from the
> available resources had a "slim to none" likelihood of
> meeting the nutrient requirements for health maintenance,
> how do you explain that the human race did not die out of
> malnutrition during the million years when there were no
> scientifically trained nutrition specialists to advise us
> on what to eat?
Is it your position that humans have been well-nourished
through history? That people ate wisely and well? There's a
world of difference between starving to death and being
habitually malnourished. People can go on for rather a long
time with drastically unbalanced menus; look at war
prisoners through history. They lose fat, muscle mass and
bone matter. And they can live much shortened lifespans.
And there can be famines that kill millions and millions
over time.
Likely, 2 pounds of food will sustain most people to an
equilibrium point when mass loss will stop. But I submit
that it will be rather different from person to person with
differing effect and final result, too much so to offer it
as *the* universal prescription.
>>> This is an empirical question which is not too hard to
>>> answer on an individual basis.
This "individual basis" notion begins to let light in. It
points to the prospect of two pounds not being an ideal, but
more a touchstone. So that little, old granny can do with 1
pound 12 ounces and big, young junior needs 3 pounds 7
ounces. But even then, the composition of the diet needs
some scrutiny.
>>> If you are overweight, and you have already established
>>> a diet which you *know* by practical experiment causes
>>> you to lose weight very slowly (e.g. less than a pound a
>>> fortnight), how much does it weigh?
>
>> And what if this successful diet is predicated on caloric
>> density and the weights are all over the place?
>
> You average them of course. And if you think that they are
> so much "all over the place" that this is a serious
> problem for the 2lb diet idea, then you supply the actual
> figures and explain why it is a problem.
Just looking at packaged meals you can see the rather large
variation in caloric content. It's a problem because of its
inconsistency.
I think it's about time you did some of the work you want
everyone else to bring to you. Go wander around the USDA
database and see the vast differences in caloric content
for 100 grams of many different foods. They even have
packaged foods to help you understand why the correlations
are so weak.
As for that question of serious variations between days of
balanced meals and the averages, you're the one saying it
doesn't matter. You're still trying to extrapolate from one
experience.
>> And what if it's predicated on low-fat or low-carb and
>> it works but it's utterly not correlative with weight
>> of food?
>
> It couldn't possibly be *utterly* uncorrelated with the
> weight of the food. If you cast an eye over the published
> tables of the calorific densities of various kinds of food
> you will see that there would have to be a fairly strong
> correlation.
See, Chris, you're doing it again. You're saying that there
has to be a "fairly strong correlation" between weight and
caloric density. The differences between like weights of
lettuce and carrots are significant. Between potatoes and
cauliflower. Between grains and soybeans. Between ham and
turkey. Between strawberries and bananas.
I've made my living by casting my eye over the calorie
tables and writing about them. Talking about them on radio.
Consulting about them in product design.
But I'll agree that "utterly not correlative" is
overstating the case.
> The empirical question is how strong, and whether it is
> strong enough to support the idea of the 2lb diet.
>
> I have invited you before to do the arithmetic on the
> various extreme diets you always quote at this point in
> your standard 2lb counter-argument, but you never have.
I don't talk about extreme diets. I advocate caloric
limitation and caloric expenditure irrespective of the
regimen. I further advocate watching nutrient balance and
adjusting as needed with either dietary alteration or food
supplements.
> Instead you have posted this same speculative counter-
> argument again and again hundreds of times since then.
> Indeed. you have spent far more time repeating yourself in
> your obsessive hounding of Chung and the 2lb diet approach
> than it would have taken to analyse a few sample diets and
> publish the refutation which you are so sure exists. That
> would have destroyed the credibility of the 2lb diet for
> ever. Yet instead of doing that, you simply repeat your
> speculative "common sense" sneerings a thousand times.
Chris, this is simply nonsense and sends the whole thing in
irrelevant directions. If you look at the infinite
permutations of an individual dietary regimen that provides
slightly less than maintenance caloric levels (factoring in
caloric usage), the weight of the food can range rather
wider than 2 pounds can accept. Since you're advocating a
universal, daily, fixed quantity, all advice from experts
(of whatever stripe) in nutritional questions runs counter
to that position.
Rather than consider the question of anyone destroying the
credibility of a wide-reaching plan of 2 pounds of food per
day for everyone, it would seem that support and proof of
effectiveness is incumbent on the proponents. One or two or
5 is a small universe, indeed.
> Could it be that finding the simple facts to support
> your speculative rebuttals is actually rather harder
> than you claim?
They're above.
>> How can an irrelevant criterion be forced to fit?
>
> You think it's irrelevant because you don't really
> understand how degrees of correlation work when combined
> in proportions with strict limits on the degree of
> variation, and can only see this question in black and
> white terms of specific high correlation or its absence.
Give it a rest. This is the same spiel you started your
other post with. According to Chung, there is no issue of
degrees of correlation. It's absolute. You seem to be saying
pretty much the same thing. For yourself, it's 2 pounds +/-
an ounce a day of what sounds like a rather constant menu.
But you also hint at individual differences. Need to make
that clearer.
>> And why bother if it already works?
>
> If what works, the irrelevant criterion?
The other dietary approach.
> Are you asking why bother to test something in dispute?
> You've lost me here.
Your whole premise here is to test the weight of foods in
other diets that are successful for people. I say that if
it's working, what's the point of weighing? All other
dietary plans are intended to maintain balance through
design. The details are being considered. The nutritional
variables are being taken into account. No such thing is
being offered for the 2PD.
If the average weight is approximately 2 pounds a day, are
you going to tell people to forget the rest of the criteria
they're applying now and just go to 2 pounds? Forget the
ratio of macronutrients? Forget consideration of vitamins
and minerals? This is where I have to part company with the
idea. Simplistic rather than merely simple.
>> And what about different goals or progress rates?
>
> You seem to have forgotten that the basic idea behind the
> 2lb diet is the idea of a balance point, the point at
> which nutrient intake is balanced by expenditure.
Chung and Mu have talked about it as a weight loss
program. It's on Chung's web site as a weight loss
program. He talks about it as a weight loss program and
now, in a change from when he advocated "common sense" as
the only additional ingredient, tells people to talk with
their doctors about it. I've mentioned it to a few doctors
to be greeted with laughter.
I think you have a broader, more coherent picture of this
concept than Chung does.
> The hypothesis behind the 2lb diet is that, generally
> speaking, this is slightly over 2lbs for those who are
> overweight, so that 2lbs would result in a slight loss
> of weight.
This seems unclear to me. Are you suggesting that everyone
consume the same weight daily? If not, what are the criteria
for differentiating? Can it be done predictively?
> Different goals? Well, if the goals are outwith the
> claimed scope of the diet, then it is not applicable. Is
> that so difficult to understand?
>
> Different progress rates? Well, if the progress rate
> required is not the progress rate claimed for the 2lb diet
> then it is not applicable. Is that so difficult to
> understand?
What progress rate is claimed for the 2PD? You keep saying
it's for weight maintenance, a balance point, while Chung
says it's for weight loss. I think that your note about
losing a pound per fortnight finally puts a definitional
element in place that hasn't been in discussion before.
I see the utility for you as you've looked at it for
yourself with a critical eye. But I remain unconvinced that
weight alone is a sufficient criterion for an entire dietary
regimen for anything approaching mass usage.
Bob