STOP DOING DIETS THAT HAVE A NAME
-Keto, intermittent fasting, and carnivore all work temporarily, but they're not sustainable.
Start doing a diet you can sustain for life; track calories and protein.
-Stop worrying about carbs.
The fear of carbs is marketing, not science.
Start focusing on calories because that's what actually determines if you gain or lose weight.
Intermittent fasting is just eating like a normal person. It is sustainable.
You shouldn't focus on calorie. If your diet was actually fine and you were eating in reasonable time window you wouldn't have to count calories.
Counting calories is not spiritually healthy. It's weird.
It depends. If you have a solid diet and eat intuitively, you might not need to count calories. But if you’re trying to lose weight, build muscle, or understand your intake better, tracking can be a useful tool. Just don’t let it run your life.
High fat, high protein whole foods diet in a 7-9hr time window - you won't have to count calories.
A simple but plausible explanation for a key issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
I am not an expert, so my voice has no weight in this, just that I think his explanation makes sense.
I agree with not doing 'diets', but rather making new habits and lifestyle choices. What about intermittent fasting makes it unsustainable? I have been eating this way about 80% of the time for a number of years and I find it quite easy to stick to.
I used to think calories were important, but I don't think that's the case anymore. However, I think lifestyle changes like 'carnivore'-style eating and IF are effective because of the simplicity in the approach. When I'm strict, it can't put on weight no matter how much I try eat.
I think timing of food as well as light conditions have quite a significant impact too, and I'm warming up to the idea that they are more important than most other factors.
Personally, these changes had some of the most profound effects for me in terms of body composition and wellbeing. Meaning eating close to sunrise, minimising eating after dark, especially late at night, and trying to eat outside as much as possible.
I don’t disagree completely. But 80% of the time is 20% short of not being sustainable.
In the end, it all depends on your goals and where you’re starting from.
There are three positions:
1. You’re overweight – focus on losing weight by reducing calories.
2. You want to build muscle – increase “good calories” to support growth.
3. Sustainability – maintain a balanced intake for long-term health.
It's not that I can't sustain it all the time, it's just that I don't think about it on weekends for the most part, so if I'm going out then I won't go out of my way to stick to a specific schedule. So while I am still fasting, it may not be strictly 12 or 18 hours, for example.
My main point is that you can lose weight by adjusting your habits and what you eat without thinking about calories at all, but I am biased towards a meat/egg-based diet based on my experience with it.
Insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction are what I would consider the driving factors of obesity; if you suffer from those issues, then carbs are going to hamper progress if the goal is weight loss, but if you don't, then you are more likely to get away with eating from most food groups without getting fat. So in that sense, goals definitely play a factor.
