... It is always; calories in, calories out. Burn more calories than ingested and one will lose weight. ...
If that were universally true, then the Atkins diet would not work.
Define "work." If the only goal were losing water weight, it probably does work. If the goal is a healthy way to lose weight, it probably doesn't, because your body does need some other things the Atkins religion doesn't provide.
So saith the dietitian I have known, who is extremely frustrated with fad diets that omit segments of a healthy diet and contribute to her ongoing war with eating disordered clientele.
I have also known someone on a somewhat modified Atkins diet... he had the worst BO ever.
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"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind there are few." Shunryu Suzuki
since fiddleback was only talking about losing weight, my term "work" is defined in response to him as only about losing weight.
Discussions about diets is certainly an interesting one (though perhaps a bit off topic). In reality all diets have an abysmally low success rate in terms of long term weight loss. You can say that is because people don't stick with the diet. That is true, but not enough emphasis in diets (imho) is put on people's willingness to stick to them. These diets do not just exist in theory, they have to be able to actually help people.
.... ok, now I will try to focus on the topic at hand.
You're still going to use the calories taken in (as proteins and fats) before you start burning your fat stores for energy. If you're losing weight on the Atkins diet it is because you are burning more calories than you are taking in. Again, the calories in fats and proteins are no different than carbohydrates, except that carbs are quickly digested and the energy liberated goes to refill muscle and liver glycogen stores first. If the carbs satisfy the body's energy needs then the calories from fats and proteins will get stored as fat. If you're not eating carbs then the proteins and fats will be used when ingested, but they are much slower to be digested, so in the absence of quick glycogen then the body will get the energy needed to digest the fats and proteins from whatever sources it has available, including your fat stores. But if the body gets what it needs from fat and the ingested calories aren't needed, they will be stored as fat. So you're back to the original problem of calories in must equal calories out or you won't lose weight.
MNS
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YMMV. Viewer discretion is advised.
The key in a vegan diet to being a relatively normal weight is that one doesn't fill up on junk food - if you quit eating meat you have to sub it with nutrient dense foods that fill one up. Nuts for example are high in fat but have a lot going for them - and if one porks out on raw nuts they will pay the price down the road (ie..running for the bathroom). A diet high in fiber keeps one full. A whole foods diet does this naturally. That being a well rounded diet of say grains, nuts, seeds, vegetables and fruits.
Even a meat eater can do this. But not with things such as fried meat or organ meats. It has to be meat in moderation and preferably lean cuts.
But it has NOTHING to do with the food being organic. You can eat conventional produced foods the same way. What DOES matter is that one doesn't consume highly processed foods. An apple is a apple, same with rice. It means though cooking a rice dish from scratch versus grabbing a box of preflavored and parcooked rice that is high in sodium and bad oils. And I might add that there is plenty of cruddy bad for you junk food out there that is organic. You can still eat junk food on a 100% organic diet......the only difference is the organic junk food is artificial flavoring/coloring free. Still empty calories.
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