I wanted to pull out this important nugget from Paul Jaminet’s weekly roundup post (emphasis mine):
In the present experiment, the subjects reduced their intake voluntarily and were always in good spirits, while in the previous experiment, the subjects had to continually fight off their hunger and would spend the night dreaming of food.
And Stephan comments:
That, ladies and gents, is the difference between someone who is at his setpoint and someone who is not.
This may be the most informative sentence Stephan has written so far. If hunger is the manifestation of a setpoint above current body weight, and lack of hunger the manifestation of a setpoint below current body weight, then the Perfect Health Diet seems to immediately reduce the setpoint to something close to normal weight for many people, because so many have reported hunger-free weight loss on our diet. As a result of this experience, Stephan’s post actually convinces me more than ever that the body’s nutritional status is a central influence upon appetite, and that being well nourished may be the key to weight loss.
I totally agree. It’s one of the reasons I’m a carb agnostic (more on that in a later post) … I think the reason many diets work is because they reduce industrial food and increase nutrient-dense food.
Paul’s post ties in very nicely with J Stanton’s series on hunger and satiety, where he recently summarized the relationship between dieting, hunger and willpower:
Restrained eating requires the exercise of willpower to override likes, wants, and the lack of satiation or satiety; the exercise of willpower uses energy and causes stress; and stress makes you eat more. Therefore, a successful diet must minimize the role of willpower.
So chalk this up to another post in support of the idea that short-term diets make you fat … what’s needed is a permanent lifestyle change that doesn’t involve white-knuckling it every day.
I’ve been doing the following for nearly a year now (save for the last which I started this past spring):
- Avoiding Kurt Harris’ neolithic agents of disease: wheat, excess fructose, and linoleic acid (veggie oils)
- Getting sufficient nutrients, especially from healthy fats
- Managing stress
- Doing the right kind of exercise to help restore metabolic flexibility
I’m not sure how far this will take me, but it’s done very well for me so far. Now if only it could fix my damn sciatica!
Stephan & Paul have put up some great posts recently.
I, for one, don’t exactly trust my hunger signals. I’m resistant to plugging my food into FitDay, even as a short term experiment. But I suspect that sometimes I just don’t eat enough, and I’m risking becoming malnourished.
At work, when I get busy, I feel an energetic high, and I’m simply not hungry.
But I wonder if that’s my adrenals at work, and it’s no good in the long term.