# Controversial opinion - dieting is just about self control.



## Edwin Wine (Sep 1, 2020)

I have been reading a large number 9f the threads on here and elsewhere regarding dietary control.  I am T2 and it took me a while to come to terms with some simple processes for dietary control.

Firstly if you make your dietary control overly complicated it will break down as a discipline. Complex measurements or high food variety makes it very difficult to maintain.  I have accepted a simplification in my 'food lifestyle' as a consequence. Trying to introduce variety to keep a specific diet interesting makes it more difficult to maintain IMHO. I eat exactly the same breakfast every day for example.

Secondly self discipline is crucial. If you have a disease which may kill you prematurely  or  in some way  mess with your life quality then ...
. I had to get real about recognising this. This discipline also applies to excercise.

Thirdly I personally don't believe in extreme diets. High Fat or low carb or keto or water or whatever.  I simply eat a balanced diet just not a lot of it. I only have 2 rules 

I do not snack between meals

I do not eat any whitecarbs after lunch.

Fourthly do your own research from a variety of sources. Only peer reviewed scientific papers can really be regarded as reliable. Anything you use should be based on this type of material. 

Work out what works for you, keep it simple and stick to it.  It's self discipline that really works.


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## silentsquirrel (Sep 1, 2020)

Agree with "what works for you" - white carbs before lunch would be a total disaster for me and for many others!

For me carbs above a small amount are addictive, and my self control would be non-existent on a "balanced diet".  Lower carb higher fat works very well for me, and my self control is achieved when I stick to that.


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## rebrascora (Sep 1, 2020)

I'm with @silentsquirrel It is easier for me to eat low carb high fat as I don't feel hungry and rarely have cravings and only need a small amount of food. 
Once I eat more carbs, even brown/wholemeal/wholegrain/oats etc, I start getting the cravings and it makes it so much more difficult to stick to. Eating a high fat diet I feel fitter and healthier than I have for 30 years. Weight is stable at a normal BMI and I can look a chocolate bar or biscuit or even a plate of chips in the eye and not want it.


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## Inka (Sep 1, 2020)

*Work out what works for you, keep it simple and stick to it. It's self discipline that really works.*

I agree with that. I also agree keeping to the same breakfast (or a choice of two or three) or whatever helps a lot. It removes too much thought for at least one meal and makes planning less of a slog.

I also agree that extreme or fad diets are a bad idea.


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## Docb (Sep 1, 2020)

Can't argue with anything you said @Edwin Wine


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## nonethewiser (Sep 1, 2020)

Edwin, well said Sir, so true.


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## Drummer (Sep 1, 2020)

Do you have normal blood sugars and Hba1c levels?
If you do, then the diet is working for you - it would not work for me to be eating carbs, of any colour and at any time of day if they exceeded the amount I can cope with.


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## Edwin Wine (Sep 1, 2020)

Sure whatever works for you. My main points were really about self discipline and finding a simple solution


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## Drummer (Sep 1, 2020)

'Self discipline' is a bit of a trigger for me - I have had negative comments about my failure to lose weight on magic diet sheets printed out in GP surgeries for about the last half century.
I have been called a liar, delusional, a glutton, I have been told that I gorge on the wrong foods, that my increasing weight is what I deserve for eating too much.
My simple solution is not eating carbs in the amounts considered normal.


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## rebrascora (Sep 1, 2020)

The simple solution for me is to avoid carbs as much as possible... and that makes the self discipline easier.
Many people suffer from eating disorders and It is all very well to say have self discipline but when your body and mind are craving comfort food, knowing what we should do and actually doing it are two very different things.


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## trophywench (Sep 1, 2020)

I'm much with @Drummer here - never in my life have I required as many grams of carb a day as the NHS has ever said is normal.  I literally do not know how quite a lot of my own family get through the huge plates of food they are happy to consume.  I had grave difficulty eating my lunchtime sandwich today even though about an inch of the filling was shredded lettuce!


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## Ditto (Sep 1, 2020)

This is a most interesting thread.  I agree with _everybody!_


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## Eddy Edson (Sep 1, 2020)

Me too!

In the sense that this kind of approach works for me.

But I don't think it works for everybody, or even for most people. 

It's not just a matter of "discipline", or better - the amount of "discipline" needed varies a lot between different people.  People's bodies/brains fight against weight loss, some a lot more than others. I'm lucky: my body/brain combo is a weight-loss-resistance wimp.

Kevin Hall, lead obesity researcher with the US National Institutes of Health, has really excellent work in this area. This is his highest-profile thing: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html


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## Edwin Wine (Sep 2, 2020)

Interesting research.  It shows some people appear to have changes which when  they lose weight require a much greater determination to maintain a lower weight.  It seems this came out of studies of people who were morbidly obese which is not everyone. It also so seems to suggest keeping weight off is harder for some as their metabolic rate is depressed. It doesn't mean discipline isn't required in greater quantities.


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## Eddy Edson (Sep 2, 2020)

Edwin Wine said:


> Interesting research.  It shows some people appear to have changes which when  they lose weight require a much greater determination to maintain a lower weight.  It seems this came out of studies of people who were morbidly obese which is not everyone. It also so seems to suggest keeping weight off is harder for some as their metabolic rate is depressed. It doesn't mean discipline isn't required in greater quantities.



This is one of his major papers looking at the issues: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5568065/

It's well worth a look.  There are incompletely-understood changes in both energy expenditure and also appetite mechanisms which can conspire to frustrate efforts to maintain weight loss "by willpower alone":

_Unfortunately, we do not yet know the quantitative effects of non-homeostatic influences on the set point model, but there is likely to be a wide degree of individual variation. Some people may experience substantial changes in the energy intake, along with correspondingly large weight changes, whereas others will be more resistant. Re-engineering the social and food environments may facilitate shifts in the energy intake line, but losing weight and keeping it off using willpower alone to reduce energy intake is difficult because considerable effort is required to persistently resist the physiological adaptations that act to increase appetite and suppress energy expenditure. _


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## Edwin Wine (Sep 2, 2020)

Quote

In other words, for all practical purposes “a calorie is a calorie” when it comes to body fat and energy expenditure differences between controlled isocaloric diets varying in the ratio of carbohydrate to fat.


Good article. My conclusions are 

1. It's likely some people need an increased effort of will to keep weight off once they have lost it
2. Some people will have to stabilise calorie intake at a lower level than others due to metabolic drivers to increas consumption
3. As per the quote above there is no getting away from the challenge that it's all about the calories you consume and burn.  Some people may have a combination of resting plus excercise metabolisms which mean  a  lower calorie intake is required long term.
4. Micronutrients seem to have some impact.
5. It's complex and everyone is different so you have to work out what works for you.

Thanks it's very informative.


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## Eddy Edson (Sep 2, 2020)

Eddy Edson said:


> This is one of his major papers looking at the issues: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5568065/
> 
> It's well worth a look.  There are incompletely-understood changes in both energy expenditure and also appetite mechanisms which can conspire to frustrate efforts to maintain weight loss "by willpower alone":
> 
> _Unfortunately, we do not yet know the quantitative effects of non-homeostatic influences on the set point model, but there is likely to be a wide degree of individual variation. Some people may experience substantial changes in the energy intake, along with correspondingly large weight changes, whereas others will be more resistant. Re-engineering the social and food environments may facilitate shifts in the energy intake line, but losing weight and keeping it off using willpower alone to reduce energy intake is difficult because considerable effort is required to persistently resist the physiological adaptations that act to increase appetite and suppress energy expenditure. _



And this one, specifically on the appetite response: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27804272/

As you lose weight, you burn fewer calories while resting but your appetite increases to induce you to eat more than 3X the calorie difference. On average - there's wide individual variability. I'm lucky - the effect seems to be much less than the average for me.

*Results: *_It was discovered that weight loss leads to a proportional increase in appetite resulting in eating above baseline by ∼100 kcal/day per kilogram of lost weight-an amount more than threefold larger than the corresponding energy expenditure adaptations.

*Conclusions: *While energy expenditure adaptations have often been considered the main reason for slowing of weight loss and subsequent regain, feedback control of energy intake plays an even larger role and helps explain why long-term maintenance of a reduced body weight is so difficult._


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## Edwin Wine (Sep 2, 2020)

Exactly. Which goes back to my core point. It's all about willpower and it becomes more challenging the more successful.you are at losing weight.


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## grovesy (Sep 2, 2020)

Well some struggle as they have other issues with health conditions.


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## Robin (Sep 2, 2020)

You’re right, it is controversial to say it’s all about self control of willpower. I spent most of my late teens struggling to lose weight, because I’d feel positive, do fine for a couple of weeks, then get such cravings that I couldn’t stop myself eating junk, (especially chocolate). I felt a complete failure, I despised myself for having no willpower or self control, and I just ended up eating and gaining more weight. I was about 2 stone overweight by the time I went to Uni and hated myself. Fast forward a few years, I'd lost a stone at Uni just through being busier, and happier, but I still needed to lose that other stone. Then I read an article about hormonal changes connected with the monthly cycle, and realised that every time I'd failed and binge eaten, it had been my premenstrual week. I then worked out a successful diet strategy, which involved dieting for three weeks out of every month and exercising 'damage limitation' during the fourth, and lost the other stone I needed to.


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## Edwin Wine (Sep 2, 2020)

So great,  in the end you have discovered what works for you. Your willpower is keeping you going.


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## Robin (Sep 2, 2020)

Edwin Wine said:


> So great,  in the end you have discovered what works for you. Your willpower is keeping you going.


Yes. But the point I was making was that if you haven’t discovered your own personal willpower yet, or got over the stumbling blocks along the way, you can read a thread like this and feel a total failure. I would have, once,


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## Drummer (Sep 2, 2020)

I've just realised that it is 17:39 and I have not eaten nor drunk anything today - not even the mug of water I ought to have had first thing.
My needs are very low - even after going out to a jig workshop yesterday. I do not need willpower nor to deliberately avoid eating, it is just not important to me. It probably isn't a good idea - my BG is 9.0 mmol/l (thank you, my liver) which is what I usually see if I do not eat when I get up. Best results are if I have about 10 gm of carbs first thing.


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## Largesse1! (Sep 2, 2020)

Edwin Wine said:


> Sure whatever works for you. My main points were really about self discipline and finding a simple solution


This is a big problem - the idea that it boils down to self- discipline. We’ve been sold a dummy about fats v carbs over the last few decades and the result is a crisis of obesity. Where there is evidence that diet advice doesn’t help people lose weight, rather than blaming people for a perceived lack of self discipline it Is better to consider what might be causing the problem. 

For many years the tobacco industry claimed that nicotine wasn’t addictive. We now know that it was a massive scam and addiction was known problem from the outset. Conquering addiction is never as simple as self-discipline as all the evidence about smoking, as an example, shows. If carbs area clear known factor in causing blood sugar spikes why on earth would a so-called ‘balanced‘ diet which features a large precent age of carbs per meal be in any way reasonable advice - yet that is the world we live in.

I gave up smoking over a decade ago and I now know that carbs were as much of an addiction. I have reduced my carbs to a very low amount and eat very healthily without that nonsense of ‘balance‘. By not consuming the food that causes me to eat in response to hormonal responses to that food I have conquered my addiction to them but it has nothing to do with ‘self-discipline‘ which sets folk up to fail If they think that’s what it boils down to. I am working with my body’s metabolic workings and information is key. The motivating factor is my health and the most important tool is information and it has nothing to do with self-discipline or a balanced diet. It is that very notion that got me in this situation in the first place.

And, yes, I am angry. It is ignorant to claim it’s down to self-discipline And it’s that idea that causes so much trouble.


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## rebrascora (Sep 2, 2020)

Wow @Largesse1! Really good post!


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## ianf0ster (Sep 3, 2020)

I agree with @Largesse1! , its not CICO and having will-power!
It is all about hormonal response to what you ate and eating things you enjoy which are also nutrient dense and good for *your body. *In this way you minimise the amount of will-power required.
Don't rely on will-power because it always runs out!


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## Kirth (Sep 5, 2020)

Have a look at Fat Chance, Robert Lustig the government and many health professionals are still flogging the misconception  that Type 2 diabetes is caused solely by gluttony and sloth. 
I'm 60 next week and was diagnosed diabetic last July and immediately it was presumed to be Type 2 because of my age, despite walking 3 miles to work most days, cooking from scratch, never having fizzy drinks or have ever been to a MuckDonalds. I have now been diagnosed with LADA and started on insulin.


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## Vonny (Sep 5, 2020)

@Kirth that's really good news that you've been properly diagnosed. However, I have to admit that my T2 is almost certainly the result of gluttony and sloth. I've been overweight for around 12 years, managed to lose a stone through exercise until breaking my ankle, then piled 2 stone on with being non-weight bearing, thus becoming obese. At that point I thought what the heck...might as well enjoy my grub and not being able to exercise. I knew it was stupid, I just didn't realise *how* stupid.

Where I live there are a lot of obese people, in fact our surgery has it's own diabetic clinic and retinopathy department, and the town itself is littered with fast food outlets. I suspect that the majority of these people are also slothful gluttons. I'm not criticizing them, just making an observation.


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## Kirth (Sep 5, 2020)

Hi Vonny, sorry to hear about your ankle. Did you get a chance to see the youTube video.
It explains the physiology of too much fructose in your diet.
Fructose has the same effect on the liver as alcohol.
It causes fatty liver, suppresses the desire for activity and is addictive.
It is added to processed food and drinks, and is a huge factor in the rise in obesity.


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## Vonny (Sep 5, 2020)

Yes Kirth, I watched the youtube vid, and a lot of it makes sense.

So blame the fructose, or just my plain old greediness, at least now I know I'm eating the right foods, in the right amounts, and the weight loss and feeling of well-being just goes from strength to strength


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## Kirth (Sep 5, 2020)

Keep up the good work, your a few months ahead of me on the diabetes journey, lets hope you go into remission.
My journey is going to be different as my islet cells fail, l will have to take more insulin and count my carbs more carefully.


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## everydayupsanddowns (Sep 6, 2020)

I don't think the impact of genetics should be underestimated here either. there is research that suggests something like 40-70% of each of our propensities to put on weight is genetically derived. everything from the sorts of foods that appeal, to appetite, and satiety,  to what the metabolism does with the food after eating. plus the effect of the gut biome of course.

Not that i dont think education, environment, and personal responsibility dont also have a major effect too... but i do believe that some people really have the cards stacked against them, and perhaps an over reliance on the explanation of (lack of) will power and self-control can unintentionally lead to unhelpful stigma and blame


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## Edwin Wine (Sep 16, 2020)

I come back to this thread after a few days and a lot of comments on various topics like genetic components, metabolic variations, hormones, research on how the body tries to make you eat more as you lose weight.  Some people seem to have been triggered by references to  will power and self discipline.

Frankly everyone responding who is finding their way through their own Gordian knot of solutions is actually demonstrating will power and self discipline.  My case rests


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## zuludog (Sep 16, 2020)

For most of my adult life I worked on product development in the food industry, climbing the greasy pole to become a Project Leader  
Then after redundancy I retrained as a chef
I have the appropriate qualifications, including HNC in Applied Biology and NVQ3 in catering
Besides this I have read & learned quite a bit about diabetes
At the risk of sounding big - headed, I reckon I know a bit more about food, diet, and nutrition than most people

Ah But!  -- knowing and doing are not the same!

At the end of 2019 I was about 95kg, and about 90kg in Jan this year
I lost that 5kg by my own changes, but was stuck at about 90kg for ages, yet the crazy thing is that I knew what to do, and I live on my own I had a decent kitchen all to myself, and didn't have to shop or cook for anyone else

As I've reported elsewhere I started a diet scheme on 3rd Aug, based on Roy Taylor's book and Exante meal replacements, with the result that my weight has steadily gone down, though there's more to go

A couple of weeks into this new regime I realised that although in theory I could plan it myself, I found I needed the strict limits and guidelines that were set out for me
Also that the Meal Replacement Powders and Diet Bars do not in themselves have any magical properties, they just provide a controlled food and calorie intake


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## Ditto (Sep 16, 2020)

Kirth said:


> MuckDonalds


 That is so funny. I'm going to call it that from now on.  I can't believe you've never been in one!


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## pm133 (Sep 28, 2020)

Whilst I agree that losing weight is "simply" a matter of eating fewer calories than you are burning, the reason that, in my opinion, diets don't work is that they deal with the symptoms (weight gain) of a problem and not the root cause (where do we even start).

Unless a person makes lifestyle changes, dieting alone will not be sustainable. People comfort eat, for example, for all sorts of reasons. They can lose however much weight they want but unless the reason behind the comfort eating is not dealt with they'll put that weight back on again very quickly. Also, I would say that unless you are standing in the shoes of the person who is overweight, it is unfair to be talking about "willpower". Technically I agree but the levels of will power required by person A will be different from that required by person B. Too often we have a habit as a society of using these words to bully people who are probably already damaged and on their knees desperate for help. It would be wrong to trivialise the problems people have to overcome to lose weight.

Just my thoughts.

I would also add that having been overweight several times in my life, I am not now. That, however is solely due to having type 1 diabetes which saw my weight drop 5 stone in 4 years. Without type 1, I'd probably still be pretty hefty today. I absolutely feel the struggle and pain of anyone who is having to shift that sort of weight by "willpower" alone.


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## Edwin Wine (Sep 28, 2020)

Without wishing to pick a fight over this

Everything you comment on is related to willpower to change your behaviour/ activities.

It's more difficult for some than others. This means some people need more support than others.

There is no escape from self discipline. It's not bullying to say so it's just reality.


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## Drummer (Sep 28, 2020)

Thinking about it, though - as a child I ate low carb foods - because that was 'normal'.
My grandmother's house was full of slender blondes who became larger and darker as they left her house and were married, living with husbands who  - presumably - expected a more normal diet. My father worked shifts and ate at the works canteen most of the time, and rarely ate with us as his sleep patterns did not synchronise with ours.
I have never found any great difficulty in eating low carb, because that is my normal, and I think it is what my body expects. It is certainly wretched and miserable on a high carb low fat calorie restricted regime.


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## pm133 (Sep 28, 2020)

Edwin Wine said:


> Without wishing to pick a fight over this
> 
> Everything you comment on is related to willpower to change your behaviour/ activities.
> 
> ...



Losing the weight requires willpower.
Fixing the underlying reason behind the weight gain in the first place absolutely isn't and without that fix any weight loss will be temporary. It's not bullying to say that self discipline is required. It is a little ignorant and disrespectful though.


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## rebrascora (Sep 28, 2020)

I have imposed willpower and lost weight in the past. I then gradually put it back on over a number of yearsa. Now I feel I have the knowledge to make the weight loss sustainable. For me eating more fat and avoiding high carb foods is the key. The more carbs I eat, the more I want, so avoiding even those "healthy" carbs means that I don't get sucked down the same yoyo route. Fat makes my diet enjoyable and keeps me feeling full, so I am not craving extra food that I don't need and therefore I eat a lot less and I don't seem to need much willpower at all to do that..... which is a total revelation!  
So for me, having appropriate dietary advice has been key and I would like to thank @Drummer for being instrumental in setting me on that path.


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