The FastDay Forum

http://yourdoctorsorders.com/2013/03/di ... best-diet/

There are hundreds of different diets out there all claiming their way is the best way. So which one is the best?

Dr. Simpson explains what is wrong with these diets and the science behind them.

http://yourdoctorsorders.com/2013/03/diet-studies-is-there-one-best-diet/

There are hundreds of different diets out there all claiming their way is the best way. So which one is the best?

Dr. Simpson explains what is wrong with these diets and the science behind them.

Not more from the good doctor!? In fact, there's precious little 'science' in this article either and it seems to me just a vehicle for pushing his book entitled - imaginatively - Just Cook.

I really can't see how it pertains to 5:2, which he rubbished in an earlier article, and, in my opinion, adds nothing useful to any serious discussion on diet and health related problems.

I have to say, with respect, that his opinions are generalised scaremongering and ridicule put forward to promote his own professional interests, i.e. buying his book and/or bariatric surgery.

Sorry but I completely disagree. I wonder do you have the same views on the 5:2 diet and Dr. M pushing his books? Probably not.

This doctor is a weight loss surgeon, he specializes in diet and weight loss and specifically morbidly obese people. Dr. M is a journalist with a medical degree, he has never been a practicing medical doctor. In my opinion there is no question that Dr Simpson is more knowledgeable about diet and weight loss than Dr M.


"Dr. Simpson resides in Phoenix and his great passions are research, writing, cooking, surgery. and above all his son. He received his bachelors, masters, and medical degree from The University of Chicago . He has authored a number of scientific papers, as well as books, and a few blogs. His current area of research involve satiety and stomach hormones, as well as their implication with various forms of surgery and diets."
http://yourdoctorsorders.com/about/


Compared with:


"Mosley upon graduation joined a trainee assistant producer scheme at the BBC.[2]
He produced a number of science programs, including The Human Face, three series with Professor Robert Winston, and the 2004 BBC Two engineering series Inventions That Changed the World starring Jeremy Clarkson.[3]
He presented Blood and Guts, Medical Mavericks and The Story of Science for television, and was the subject of a television documentary, 10 Things You Need to Know about Losing Weight. He presented The Making of Modern Medicine for Radio 4 and Make Me. In April–June 2010 he produced and presented the television series The Story of Science: Power, Proof and Passion broadcast by BBC Two."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_J._Mosley


Dr Simpson writes about diet related pseudoscience. Dr. Simpson is an actual scientist, not a journalist, involved in diet related scientific research. He knows what he's talking about and he knows how to spot dodgy science.

There is no denying that the fast diet is based on a handful of studies, mostly on rodents, and none of which have included enough test subjects to make any solid conclusions of the results observed. The science behind the fast diet is sketchy. There is no doubt that fasting = weight loss as you are consuming less calories overall, but the claimed health benefits still don't have substantial evidence to back them up.


I have found this article to be very useful. It's important to see the whole picture, so you're not bias and don't get swept away in the cult- like following.

Until the science is proven, i take it all with a big pinch of salt.
5:2 is good for weight loss, and that's all that can be said with confidence at this point.

Are you his secretary, wife or mother?

This feels like spam to me.

No, neither. I am a mother of 2 with a degree in biology and a keen interest in pseudoscience. Why don't you read Ben Goldacre's book, Bad Science, it explains all about it

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Science-Ben ... 059&sr=8-1

Demi. I assume you are following this WOE?

Demi. I assume you are following this WOE?

Yes, at the moment, to loose weight. And i have nothing against fasting for weight loss. I am not convinced of the additional claimed health benefits besides weight loss.

I cook, and I'm fat.

Why do we eat more than we need to maintain a normal body weight? I don't see any reason to believe there's just one answer to that question. If everything were working properly, we could eat as much as we want, because we wouldn't want more than we need. For some people, that's exactly how it is. They eat as much as they want. They don't gain weight. What they want is in sync with what they need. For the rest of us, the sync is broken.

The best diet is the one that restores the sync. It's the diet that somehow restores you to wanting no more than you need to maintain normal body weight. I don't know if it exists, and neither does Dr. Simpson. More to the point, I don't know if there's any single diet that will restore the sync for every person in whom it's broken. I'm inclined to doubt it. I do know that just cooking with fresh foods, important as that no doubt is, is not the magic bullet.

For a long time I was a True Believer in the premise that a paleo diet must restore the sync between appetite and normal weight, because in theory it just had to. For some people, it seems to work; for others, not so much.

When something is broken, returning to a state that would have prevented the breakage won't necessarily fix it. Depressingly, there's no guarantee that broken things can be fixed. If I fiddle with the electric circuits in my home and burn out a light bulb, setting the power back to normal won't fix that bulb. You can't really fix light bulbs, and you can't screw in a new metabolism either.

If the Holy Grail of diets is to get us to want no more than we need to maintain normal body weight, then 5:2 fails, since no one really wants to starve two days a week. But if it results in pretty good sync the other five days, it may be as close as we can get.

Exactly as Ubizmo says! Weight management is a very complex issue, and Dr Simpson has done absolutely NOTHING to advance the discussion. I posted a polite reply to the, no doubt, superb academic, suggesting that his rebuff of 5:2 was a bit of sour grapes on his part, but of course he didn't publish it! Maybe because I questioned him as to why he brought up the topic of earnings from Dr M's book. If he really wanted to help all the unhealthy bods out there, then a straightforward list of 5:2s good and not-so-good points would have sufficed, and been a far more credible critique. Getting personal about Dr M destroyed Dr Simpson's whole article. His sort of approach to obesity just happens to be one of many, and is not a particularly pleasant one. 5:2 is doable, personal, liberating, FREE, and WORKS, so the people posting on this Forum who are despairing at the outset, PLEASE, PLEASE keep at it, and you will see benefits. There are few people able to access Dr Simpson's solution. 5:2 is freely available for everyone, except the few exceptions mentioned right at the beginning of the book. Its a no brainer. All of us posting here can't be that wrong, can we?

[carorees]

No-one actually knows what either person's motivation is.

The main difference that I see between the two is that one has proposed a new way of life [5:2] which, even if its suggested extra benefits prove not to exist, is a cheap and effective way of losing weight and retraining the appetite, which could be carried on for as long as is needed to maintain weight loss in some form or another and is accessible for all. The other has suggested a solution [just cook] which does not lead to weight loss unless you only cook healthy food and which is not accessible to all. The fact that so many of us here do in fact cook from scratch and yet still managed to become obese shows that his approach will not work. His only other option is bariatric surgery which is an intervention of last resort and will certainly not be suitable for all, or cheap.

Finding out whether 5:2 will have benefits beyond weight loss will be difficult because losing weight affects so very many body systems. And by the same token any diet that can promote weight loss and keep it off will be a big improvement over the scientifically proven weight loss methods which in the real world result in only temporary reductions.

We're all hoping that 5:2 will be the answer for at least a reasonable number of us. For those who plan to stop fasting once they teach their target weight it will definitely be no better than other diets as the weight is almost certain to return. We have to think of it as a new way of life not a temporary fix.

Sorry but I completely disagree. I wonder do you have the same views on the 5:2 diet and Dr. M pushing his books? Probably not.

Which same views? I have made no reference to 'Dr M' nor do I feel the need to defend him since I have been aware of Intermittent Fasting for many years, long before the Horizon Programme aired and the book published. My comments were directed specifically at your contention "Dr. Simpson explains what is wrong with these diets and the science behind them" and my failure to detect any scientific basis for the claims he makes.

Dr Simpson writes about diet related pseudoscience. Dr. Simpson is an actual scientist, not a journalist, involved in diet related scientific research. He knows what he's talking about and he knows how to spot dodgy science.

You really are a fan, aren't you?

I have found this article to be very useful. It's important to see the whole picture, so you're not bias and don't get swept away in the cult- like following.

I am not biased and have certainly not been swept away in the cult-like following, not do I expect to be any time soon. Your comments are incredibly patronising.

Until the science is proven, i take it all with a big pinch of salt.

Which, of course, you are entitled to do, in much the same way as I take your objectivity with a similar big pinch of salt.

Sorry but I completely disagree. I wonder do you have the same views on the 5:2 diet and Dr. M pushing his books? Probably not.

Which same views? I have made no reference to 'Dr M' nor do I feel the need to defend him since I have been aware of Intermittent Fasting for many years, long before the Horizon Programme aired and the book published. My comments were directed specifically at your contention "Dr. Simpson explains what is wrong with these diets and the science behind them" and my failure to detect any scientific basis for the claims he makes.


Your views that Dr Simpson is only promoting his book are wrong, and you can say that Dr M's motivation for inventing the 5:2 diet was to sell his book, so i don't see where you're argument is coming from.

Dr Simpson writes about diet related pseudoscience. Dr. Simpson is an actual scientist, not a journalist, involved in diet related scientific research. He knows what he's talking about and he knows how to spot dodgy science.

You really are a fan, aren't you?

I wouldn't say im a fan, i just read his articles because he gives an educated professional opinion on diet related issues, mostly debunking the latest media crazes.
I am a fan, however, of Ben Goldacre, Simon Singh, Brian Cox ( although he's physics ) and other scientists who specialize in debunking pseudoscience.I find it scandalous how the media distort findings to make it seem more significant than it really is just to sell papers/books/tv programs......

I have found this article to be very useful. It's important to see the whole picture, so you're not bias and don't get swept away in the cult- like following.

I am not biased and have certainly not been swept away in the cult-like following, not do I expect to be any time soon. Your comments are incredibly patronising.

As are your's

Until the science is proven, i take it all with a big pinch of salt.

Which, of course, you are entitled to do, in much the same way as I take your objectivity with a similar big pinch of salt.

Really, i don't see why you feel so defensive. Even Dr. M admits to being skeptical. You seem to be in denial of the sketchy evidence.

Oh dear, emotions run high. Each to his own and all that. All diets promote their own interests whether it is books or whole ranges of food. Weight loss is difficult enough without high pressure from the latest diet guru. I am not a clever person and I live a simple life trying to be self sufficient. I make as much as I can myself and buy very little processed food. I still over eat though and gain weight. 5:2 works for me and makes sense and that is what I will stick with. Yes I bought the book, it is on a shelf with all the weight watchers, GI, GL, cooking without, food doctor etc, etc. but that was my choice. I will not try any other weight loss programme as I really feel this is for me. Yes it may be unproven but there is nothing dangerous in it. Are there any long term studies of those who had bariatric surgery? Success or otherwise.
Don't have a go at me for deciding to do what I am comfortable with. I am happy for you to follow what you believe in.
I must now go and let my chickens and ducks out, check on the babies in the incubator and light my wood burning Esse ready for today's cooking. I am excited to see my Damson tree covered in blossom, could be some good jam this year. Give me the simple life every time.

Oh dear, emotions run high. Each to his own and all that. All diets promote their own interests whether it is books or whole ranges of food. Weight loss is difficult enough without high pressure from the latest diet guru. I am not a clever person and I live a simple life trying to be self sufficient. I make as much as I can myself and buy very little processed food. I still over eat though and gain weight. 5:2 works for me and makes sense and that is what I will stick with. Yes I bought the book, it is on a shelf with all the weight watchers, GI, GL, cooking without, food doctor etc, etc. but that was my choice. I will not try any other weight loss programme as I really feel this is for me. Yes it may be unproven but there is nothing dangerous in it. Are there any long term studies of those who had bariatric surgery? Success or otherwise.
Don't have a go at me for deciding to do what I am comfortable with. I am happy for you to follow what you believe in.
I must now go and let my chickens and ducks out, check on the babies in the incubator and light my wood burning Esse ready for today's cooking. I am excited to see my Damson tree covered in blossom, could be some good jam this year. Give me the simple life every time.

Yes Dr. Simpson, and all the other surgeons preforming these weight loss surgeries on their morbidly obese patients, follows up with all his patients to see how they're doing in the future. If you read through his site you'll find lots of information on what he is doing, the success rates of the surgeries ect ect
But weight loss sugary is irrelevant to us and is only a small part of what Dr Simpson does. Most of his work is research on diet and health making him very knowledgeable about the subject.
I agree some of his articles should be more in depth, like the fast diet article, but others, like this one, i think are well written.

Obviously not everyone who is over weight cannot cook. But note that this guy is American and they have the highest obesity rates in the world and the vast majority of those people live on junk food and do not cook with fresh ingredients and that's who he is aiming his book at. I find it highly unlikely that someone who cooks everything from scratch using lots of fresh vegetables and eats lots of fruit and never eats junk food can become morbidly obese.

We are much like you, Bobshouse. We also live self- sufficiently ( as much as possible ) and right now iv got beans boiling on the wood burning cooker, making bean chili for dinner all from home grown and preserved produce from last summer Such a good feeling

I am fortunate to be only 12lbs over my recommended weight which is not too bad! I do love home made cake and biscuits and don't get me started on the joys of warm bread fresh from the oven! When making batches of fudge I have to test it for flavour! You can see why I am over weight! But I do try to eat food that is not laden with chemicals and my veggie patch is organic. My chickens and ducks are free range and give beautiful eggs with deep yellow yolks that taste so different from commercially produced eggs. I am fortunate I know but love this way of live.