What does science say about fad diets and health?

[SWPIGWANG]

Recently I've been trying to become more healthy, and I've been looking into improving my diet. What I find is disagreement all over the place (even within the scientific establishment?...at least science-y looking establishments) and a serious need to sort information by reliability and logic. I think the logical tools used in SLAM may be helpful here.

So, have anyone sort though all the information on diet, effective exercise regimes, and such?

If one is to start from scratch, what would be good starting points and how would one process conflicting information? Who and what kind of authority to follow at start?

[Maj]

Good Calories, Bad Calories, by Gary Taubes. It's not a diet book; it's pretty much wall-to-wall science on what happens when you eat food, and seriously the best one I've read. Despite criticism of the author, the actual science he presents has remained pretty much unchallenged since the book was published three years ago.

As a follow up to that, I'd probably recommend something a bit more squishy like The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. He doesn't really go into biological science so much as he investigates what food [in the US] actually is.

Personally, I've found that changing your diet and eating more healthily works much, much better when you decide what your own goal is when you eat (which is why I didn't recommend a diet book). Essentially, when you define where your own boundaries are, then it's a bigger deal when you cross them.

[Spoonist]

You should really give more info on your own position for anyone to give you sound advice. You see most dietary tips are depending on where you are and where you want to go.

[Losonti Tokash]

Spoonist is right, without more information, all we can do is give you the most basic advice there is.

Eat several smaller meals instead of just a few big ones, keep track of your calorie intake and the types of carbohydrates you're eating, stay active, etc. There are tools online that can help calculate your resting metabolic rate and such, but of course your best bet is to see a dietitian for that sort of thing.

[adam_grif]

Eat several smaller meals instead of just a few big ones,

That's a myth.

Several epidemiological studies have observed an inverse relationship between people’s habitual frequency of eating and body weight, leading to the suggestion that a ‘nibbling’ meal pattern may help in the avoidance of obesity. A review of all pertinent studies shows that, although many fail to find any significant relationship, the relationship is consistently inverse in those that do observe a relationship.

However, this finding is highly vulnerable to the probable confounding effects of post hoc changes in dietary patterns as a consequence of weight gain and to dietary under-reporting which undoubtedly invalidates some of the studies

We conclude that the epidemiological evidence is at best very weak, and almost certainly represents an artefact. A detailed review of the possible mechanistic explanations for a metabolic advantage of nibbling meal patterns failed to reveal significant benefits in respect of energy expenditure.

Although some short-term studies suggest that the thermic effect of feeding is higher when an isoenergetic test load is divided into multiple small meals, other studies refute this, and most are neutral. More importantly, studies using whole-body calorimetry and doubly-labelled water to assess total 24 h energy expenditure find no difference between nibbling and gorging. Finally, with the exception of a single study, there is no evidence that weight loss on hypoenergetic regimens is altered by meal frequency. We conclude that any effects of meal pattern on the regulation of body weight are likely to be mediated through effects on the food intake side of the energy balance equation.

Three squares a day will do you just fine.

Recently I've been trying to become more healthy, and I've been looking into improving my diet. What I find is disagreement all over the place (even within the scientific establishment?...at least science-y looking establishments) and a serious need to sort information by reliability and logic. I think the logical tools used in SLAM may be helpful here.

Most of the disagreements are about relatively minor things, or are crap pushed by people who want to sell you their diet. Here are a few very basic things you should keep in mind:

First, the obvious stuff: fast food and soda. Cut it out.

Fast food is almost always extremely unhealthy, high in saturated fat and trans fat, very calorie-dense, and should thus be avoided by everyone. The occasional burger is harmless in the grand scheme of things, but if fast food is a staple of your diet, cut it out or you will almost certainly never accomplish a damn thing fitness-wise. You may have read about some bodybuilder dude eating McDonalds for a month to disprove this. Guess what? He was already a super-fit bodybuilder. Normal humans can't get away with that.

Soda is the other thing that should be massively reduced by almost everyone. Soda is extremely calorie-dense, has no nutritional value, and for various reasons you shouldn't be dumping massive amounts of simple sugars into your system. There is debate over if diet soda is neutral or still bad for you; my suggestion is to limit it, too. Drink water instead, with the occasional coffee or tea for variety. After a few months of this, your soda cravings will slowly dissipate.

For those with a sweet tooth, all kinds of sweets are calorie monsters. But the worst of the worst may be ice cream, especially premium ice creams; a pint might give you a few days worth of saturated fat and half the calories you should be taking in. You don't need to never eat something sweet again - that's stupid. But eat it rarely and in smaller amounts.

Finally, be aware that many "frappuchino" coffee beverages are made almost entirely of dairy fat and syrup, and can have absurd amounts of calories. Brewed tea and coffee are almost calorie-free, and a packet of sugar only adds about 20 calories, but some of these blended "coffee" things have on the order of 400 calories.

Many people stop being fatasses just by cutting out soda and dropping the Big Mac content of their diet. Aside from being made of unhealthy ingredients, fast food and soda are so awful because they make it easy to ingest immense calories without being especially aware that you're doing it. I'm not telling you that you need to abandon everything you like forever. You just can't have obviously unhealthy foods be a main component of your diet. Having a reasonably-sized portion of something "unhealthy" that you really like 1-2 times a week is not a problem if the rest of your diet is in order. But for too many people, unhealthy foods are their diet.

Make sure you throw in some regular exercise with a diet change. Nothing too strenuous, just go for walks frequently or something if you're not already.

[Ariphaos]

That's a myth.

No, all that study says is that frequency of intake does not change the amount of energy generated. This surprises no one (it is over a decade old, anyway). It goes from there to conclude that leanness reported in actual studies that showed eating smaller meals more often resulted in actual leanness must have been in error somehow.

Rather than
1) By reducing individual meal intake, you are more likely to eat more varied meals, gaining a better nutritional balance, and be less susceptible to cravings due to malnourishment.
2) By reducing individual meal intake, your stomach shrinks so that you feel full, sooner, and thus are less susceptible to binging.
3) By reducing individual meal intake, you have a higher daytime energy level (your linked study even admits this! Page S67) - which is critical for people who do in fact store energy more efficiently at night, which is a more recent genetic discovery than this study had access to.

[Broomstick]

Three squares a day will do you just fine.

The only qualification I'd add to that is that for people with certain disorders (diabetes probably the most common among them) actually do better on more frequent meals as that tends to even out their blood sugar. However, that's not a weight control issue (though weight control is also important for diabetics). That said, I'll assume the OP is basically healthy at this point.

Look the ONLY way to become more healthy via diet is the old, boring, unexciting, non-fad way - eat a variety of healthy foods, and don't eat more calories than you burn. The most reliable way to do that, other than calorie restriction (which is tough long term) is to exercise frequently. Everything else is detail.

Not that details aren't important - if you're exercising and trying to add muscle that may require a different diet make up than maintaining your current activity level and wanting to lose weight. Attempting to lower cholesterol/lipids/fats in your bloodstream is a different matter than increasing your vitamin C and D levels which is also different from trying to regularize your bowel habits. All of the above are affected by diet, none of them require fads or extremes, and all of them can be maintained long term.... given sufficient self-discipline.

So, answer the following:

1) How old are you?
2) Are you male or female?
3) Are you overweight, and if so, by how much?
4) Do you have any current chronic or acute health issues?
5) Do you want to concentrate on muscle or endurance or general fitness?

They're pretty basic questions, but they're important. Without at least that basic information it's hard to be any more specific than we've already been.

For a summation of what's basically in Omnivore's Dilemna I refer you to the post entitled "What You Need To Know About Food" in this thread (scroll down until you find it).

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Recently I've been trying to become more healthy, and I've been looking into improving my diet. What I find is disagreement all over the place (even within the scientific establishment?...at least science-y looking establishments) and a serious need to sort information by reliability and logic. I think the logical tools used in SLAM may be helpful here.

So, have anyone sort though all the information on diet, effective exercise regimes, and such?

If one is to start from scratch, what would be good starting points and how would one process conflicting information? Who and what kind of authority to follow at start?

This is a serious health question. What do you do when you have a serious health question? Do you ask random interweb denizens, or do you talk to somebody who knows what they're talking about . . . like, you know, a fucking doctor? This is really a no-brainer. If you want authoritative advice on a diet and exercise plan that would work right for you and improve your health . . . the first person you should be talking to is your family doctor.

Otherwise, eat more vegetables and grains, less red meat, and way less greasy saturated-fat laden, and sugary foods. You can find this advice in any health textbook going back to the sixties or seventies. Also, to lose weight; burn more calories in a day than you eat (or eat fewer calories than you burn. The latter is harder to do than the former; because it's easy to overeat, and it is easy to add activities to your day that would increase the calories you burn.) To maintain weight, burn as many calories per day as you eat. Both of these require carefully monitoring your caloric intake. To burn more calories do exercise. The kind of exercise depends on what sort of physical shape you're in, and what sort of preexisting physical conditions you have which may prevent you from safely engaging in certain exercises.

[Korvan]

Also, to lose weight; burn more calories in a day than you eat (or eat fewer calories than you burn. The latter is harder to do than the former; because it's easy to overeat, and it is easy to add activities to your day that would increase the calories you burn.) To maintain weight, burn as many calories per day as you eat. Both of these require carefully monitoring your caloric intake. To burn more calories do exercise. The kind of exercise depends on what sort of physical shape you're in, and what sort of preexisting physical conditions you have which may prevent you from safely engaging in certain exercises.

Monitoring your caloric intake is actually a lot harder to do than it would appear. I saw a news program that mentioned the legally allowed error rate in reported nutritional information is something like 25%, and even then many products exceed even that high rate. This is quite a problem as even a 5% excess daily caloric intake will result in a gain of 10 pounds over a year.

You will need to be prepared to adjust your exercise routine to account for a possible maximum caloric intake and then monitor your weight to make sure you are actually burning fat. (another difficult thing to do as hydration level and changes in % muscle mass also affect your weight).

[Knife]

If you like to cook, start buying fresh food. No box rice, get some actual long, brown rice. Make your bread, or buy multigrain bread. Buy fresh veggies and fruit. If you buy sugar, get the sugar in the raw, or other such products. Hell, me and the wife buy local chickens, and local grain fed beef, along with pork. Eat less meat. Plan your meals, eat meat a couple times a week and all veggie the others. If you plan your meals, a week or even a couple days, then you buy the healthy stuff to make them and none of the garbage. No 'prepare in 10 minutes' stuff either. You can buy rolled oats.

Lots of fiber, lots of veggies and fruit, lots of different kinds too, fill yourself up with veggies and fruit, small portions of starches and meat.

I'm still fat, but in a lot better shape, health wise. Hell, I'm at the point where I think canned soup tastes terrible. Fresh, or as fresh as you can get, and not-from-a-box is a good way to go. But I like to cook, so it's not a pain in the ass for me.

[Xon]

When you eat relative to how long after exercise can actually be more important than what you eat. Physical exerision triggers a significant release of insulin, which is used by your body to metabolize food into sugars, glucose, which your body will readily store into fat if there is excess. The higher your blood-insulin level the more efficient your body's metabolism will be, and the hungrier you will be. Basicly, if you do a bunch of cardio execise which does not burn enough to trigger your body to start depleting fat stores and then eat, you will put on more wieght.

This might seem counter-intuitive, but don't eat anything significant when you are hungry after exercise since it's probably likely your body will metabolism more energy than you burnt. It's like food shopping, doing it when you are hungry vastly distorts your presumption of what you 'need'.

You will also want to avoid foods with a high glycemic index, these are foods which can be broken down into glucose fast. A spike of glucose will cause your body to squirel it away as fat if the blood-sugar level is too high. Low glycemic index foods will slowly breakdown, which gives you a more stable release of glucose rather than sea-sawing peaks and lows. This can avoid a feast/famine cycle which will prime your body to store glucose into fat faster to last through the "famine" part.

[madd0ct0r]

It's like food shopping, doing it when you are hungry vastly distorts your presumption of what you 'need'.

oh god. I once went to tescos for a three day shop and came back with 8kg of carbohydrate and some food.

the counter-intuitive spike thing makes sense to me - but I've always held to the "exercise enough and eat whatever you want' theory. Sometimes it hasn't worked, and that's clearly eating after exercise or not burning enough in the slot.