Complexity ruins diets

I'm unsurprised but vindicated to read of this research from the Max Planck Institute and Indiana U that says that diets are more apt to succeed when they are simple -- complexity kills. I think this is why Atkins worked so well for me (80 lbs in about a year): low-carbing is just easy to do, all you really need to do is stop eating high-carb food:

"For people on a more complex diet that involves keeping track of quantities and items eaten, their subjective impression of the difficulty of the diet can lead them to give up on it," reported Peter Todd, professor in IU's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.

Jutta Mata, now a professor of psychology at Stanford University, said this effect holds even after controlling for the influence of important social-cognitive factors including self-efficacy, the belief that one is capable of achieving a goal like sticking to a diet regimen to control one's weight.

"Even if you believe you can succeed, thinking that the diet is cognitively complex can undermine your efforts," she said.

Sticking to Diets Is About More Than Willpower -- Complexity Matters

(Image: lunch, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from malias' photostream)

• [bklynchris]

  DUDE! 80lbs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Did not know you rolled like that. Thanks for giving it in English rather than English (ie. lbs rather than stone). Kudos on the weight loss, babies will do that to you.

• [Anonymous]

  To anybody interested in weight loss, the body for life thing is simple, lets you eat normal food, and works (but only if you actually do it, or depending on what you eat and how much, sometimes it works even if you don’t do it properly). I did it and lost 60 lbs in a 3 month period, I know other people who have had success with it, and it’s simple and works.

• [Felix Mitchell]

  seeing as how boing boing likes to take the other side to debates, I’m wondering if we’ll see a post about people who have the opposite problem; we need a diet that’ll help gain weight.

  as a thin person (very thin) I find it difficult to learn about nutrition when so many discussions of nutrition start with the assumption that the reader is fat and wants to lose weight.

  personally I can’t understand why people have trouble eating too much. what’s difficult about eating a load of non-fattening stuff to make yourself feel full? My problem is that I’m never hungry enough to eat what would make me gain weight. Eating when you’re full is really hard.

  I know this is pretty off topic, sorry.

  • [Sekino]

    @Felix Mitchell

    I feel for you. I also tend to lose weight extremely easily (if I’m stressed out, I can lose 5lbs within a couple of days) and people just saying “You’re sooo lucky!!” or “Eat piles of junk food” weren’t helping one bit. They don’t understand that even skinny people can have high cholesterol, diabetes and high blood pressure, so eating junk all day is an awful advice.

    I’ve managed to gain a healthy reserve by making sure I always had something at hand to munch on. If your appetite is so-so, I found that nuts and meal replacement drinks between meals went down easy for a quick boost of extra- but not unhealthy- calories.

  • [demidan]

    Gain weight? How about your work out plan? Do you eat breakfast? If so how large or small is it? If your metabolism is normal lift weights;low rep high weight for bulk,(opposite for muscle definition) and increase protein intake. and eat a damn sandwich! (sorry couldn’t help myself)

• [Anonymous]

  Like many people, I tend to accrete bodymass over time with an unmonitored diet. I’ve done very well at shifting excess weight (though only 15kg) and keeping it off with a simplified version of the Hacker’s Diet.

  I weigh myself every morning, using the Hacker’s Diet smoothing trick to reduce the effect of random noise. And if I’m over target weight, I eat less that day than I feel like eating: enough less that I’m hungry.

  I don’t need to mess about counting calories. I don’t need to mess about with points. Or fiddling with complex Atkins rules (or others). I just eat less.

  I don’t quite understand the obsession in dieting books with avoiding hunger. Hunger is great if you want to lose weight! It’s the sign that your body has fewer calories than it thinks it wants, and is setting to on your fat stores.

  And yes, I’m entirely aware that medically speaking, exercise is much more important than bodyweight. Exercise is much better for you than dieting. But you’re not going to lose weight through exercising … unless you eat less than you feel like eating. (Or are not the sort of person who tends to pile on the pounds.)

• [demidan]

  When i read that you used a Atkins diet plan to loose 80lbs in a year, my first question is how was your health? I myself dropped from around 240# to 165# in the same amount of time (though not recommended trust me it involved dropping my T-Cell count to 60), and lost my Gal Bladder. Did you strictly adhere to Atkins or did you just eat protein? If the former good, if the later I have to ask Why, dear god why? (the bastardization of Atkins leads to kidney damage, hair loss, finger nails yellowing/breaking, crazy bad stuff). I feel better that you now eat “raw” foods and veggies but did you have any side effects from such a large loss of weight in such a short period of time?

• [Anonymous]

  I’m amused by the mcdonalds ad that is coming up on the side of this article.

• [Anonymous]

  I’m just finishing “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human.” Although it’s really a good 3-or-4-page article bloated into book form (well, that’s apt — we are talking diets here!), the point is made that raw diets have a caloric penalty. Raw foods are not as easily digested as cooked. Cooked starches and sugars (and delicious meat!) are more efficient sources of nutritional energy. This has had, according to the author, profound effects on human social development.

  The benefit of more nutrition at lower cost, both in terms of time and energy spent in procuring and processing cooked foods, was an evolutionary advantage for our species. But cheap and abundant food bit us in the ass… we just eat too darn much.

  The answer for most of us IS Marcel’s prescription: eat half… My father’s doctor called this the pushaway diet: push yourself away from the table.

  captcha: advises findings

• [CANTFIGHTTHEDITE]

  I’m sure my attitude will change once I hit 35, or whatever my age will be when I can’t get away with eating junk food, but life would really suck if I had to give up having deep-fried bacon-wrapped hotdogs and the like every Friday. Hey, that’s today! Sweet!

  • [CANTFIGHTTHEDITE]

    Sorry about the bold, forgot to close it around “really” and now it looks excessive.

• [Anonymous]

  Complexity of diet correlates to weight for another simple reason: the fewer choices you have, the quicker you get bored with food. Americans are overweight because we have so many tasty choices and partake of them all. Bored with pizza, get a sandwich, and so on. And they taste so good, we keep eating until it’s all gone.

  Compare that to places that don’t have much variety. Rice and/or beans 3 times a day. No shortage, so you can eat all you want. Go ahead. Chances are you’ll stop when you’re full. There’s just no pleasure in eating extra.

• [Jardine]

  Deep-fried bacon-wrapped hotdogs are never excessive.

• [Anonymous]

  I have a philosophy, and it’s not a new one, called “Keep it simple, stupid!” I’ve applied it to my computing needs (software engineering and development, network design, etc) and I decided to apply it to my dietary needs. I wrote about this process on my site and it has been working really well for me. I don’t really follow any diets, I just eat simple meals and augment it with a near daily workout, which is further augmented with a weekly personal training session.

  If it becomes too complex, the potential for error or something going wrong becomes high, and the drive to stick to the plan reduces. This, really, applies to a lot of things in life. Sometimes things need to be complex to work, but usually keeping it simple is the best method.

• [transiit]

  I shed a bit above 50 pounds over the last six months. Pretty simple if you take a step back: Exercise more. Eat better. That’s it. Find an activity that you enjoy (me, I took up cycling again). Eat better? Find something you can stick with. For me, it was more plant matter, less meat, more fiber, less salt, less fat. Something I can live with, no “live on this” or “never eat that again”.

• [Anonymous]

  The Atkins diet does not mean eat only simple foods or a narrow choice of foods. It means cut out the high-starch type foods. There are an awful lot of choices still left if you cut out the potatoes and rice. You could still conceivably eat dishes with 15 ingredients. Unless you mean the high-meat high-fat diet most people do when they say Atkins: a hunk of meat with a few spoonfuls of one vegetable? In which case, wouldn’t it be more accurate to describe as a “high fat” not just “low carb” diet?

  We really don’t know why some people are hungry all the time despite trying every diet out there. I am one of them. I’ve done everything from South Beach to Raw Organic to the old-fashioned food pyramid the nutritionist tried to foist on me — they don’t work long term! If you review the long-term studies for Atkins, check out what % of people relapsed? And the frustrating thing is that people who go on diets may end up gaining back a few pounds extra when the diet fails.

  Why do some people stay thin while most of us struggle with weight? Other people are full after eating only a small amount. Some people can eat a large amount and just not gain.

  There have been studies that have shown there are triggers in our modern diets which cause overeating. Some believe artificial sweeteners mess with metabolism and blood sugar, increasing hunger. Others believe eating people who crave endorphins can get them from eating “comfort” foods, and those foods become irresistible. Food additives and processing may also play a part in how well our body recognizes satiety. And with the typical American diet, almost everything has sugar or HFCS added. Even healthy foods such as sliced apples may be dosed in sugar to make them more appealing. Add to that our addiction to sugar sodas and the general lack of any sort of healthy food choices in school cafeterias, fastfood restaurants, or many convenience stores: it’s no wonder why 30%+ adult Americans are overweight to obese.

  The American food system as a whole needs to change. Even this idea of simpler foods sounds good, but good luck following this diet if you have to eat on the road or enjoy eating out socially.

• [IronEdithKidd]

  Felix, the complexity of fad diets can be used to your advantage. Especially if you find yourself eating the same thing on Tuesday (for example) every week. The same mode of failure when you’re trying to lose weight can be a mode of success if you’re trying to gain weight. Vary your diet as much as possible. Substitute butter for oil in sauté. Drink an extra glass of milk each day. In other words, use all the dieting “don’ts” to help you gain weight.

  If all else fails, start smoking weed. Seriously. If it works for chemo patients to overcome nausea to increase appetite, it should help you, too.

• [Destructor]

  I’m stunned BB would recommend a diet that’s been proven to be harmful. Bulimia’s a great way to lose weight too, but life is not a mission to lose weight at any cost. Transiit’s suggestion above is much more useful.

• [dculberson]

  Powerplate? Oh nooooooooo…

• [RedBaron]

  I don’t know much about raw-food diets. Are they exclusively vegetarian, or do sushi and steak tartar play a role? What about pickled or smoked foods? Raw eggs?

• [rawdiant]

  Hey Cory- I was going to say, “Want a simple diet? Here’s two words: RAW FOOD.” But, I see in your comment (@7) that you’re familiar w/ raw. (I’m a rather prolific raw food writer/educator now — after I lost & kept off 70 pounds doing this and my wife lost & kept off 100 pounds this way!) There are many protocols of raw, not many of which are high-protein/low-carb (unless you’re eating raw meats, I suppose). But, raw *vegans* don’t take in as much protein as compared with meat eaters (unless you’re mainlining nuts & seeds, I suppose). One branch of raw, known as 80-10-10, advocates at least 80% carbs, no more than **10% protein**, and no more than 10% fat. (And the founder, Dr. Doug Graham, has some pretty convincing science to back that up.) I tried it, and felt pretty good on it, but found it tougher to adhere to than just being a raw foods vegan. Pretty much all raw vegan educators, though, would not advise Atkins. So, I was wondering if you’d encountered ioppositeon to Atkins while visiting those LA raw foods restaurants?

• [Anonymous]

  The simplest diet I ever tried (and I had tried a lot) is the one that worked the best. I saw a TLC show with Paul McKenna, (who is definitely a cheeseball, I know).

  BUT- his method for losing weight is crazy simple, and I dropped 25 lbs. in four months on it. He says that when you are hungry, eat, whatever you like. But here’s the kicker- when you are full, STOP. And you realize you are full way earlier than you thought you would by paying attention to eating. No TV, no books, no radio, and set the fork down after every bite.

  Check in with your body as you go along, and the moment you feel full, leave the table or clear your plate away. It happens a lot sooner than you’d think if you pay attention, I found myself eating about half my normal amount from the first meal I tried this.

  At first, it’s hard to stop eating and leave half of a chunk of food that you thought was one portion. But after a while, you get an idea of how much to cook to begin with, and it all becomes very easy.

  The best part is no deprivation, no denying myself something good that everyone else is enjoying, and no keeping track of anything. Just paying attention to my body’s needs and not the compulsions to clean my plate or plow through a certain amount of something.

  A nice side effect is feeling awesome after eating, energized and calm, not sluggish and weird as I did before when I ate too much. He has other methods as part of his plan, including some self-hypnosis tricks, but I found just the mindfulness to be all I needed.

• [Anonymous]

  @Felix

  > I’m wondering if we’ll see a post about people who
  > have the opposite problem; we need a diet that’ll help
  > gain weight. as a thin person (very thin) I find it
  > difficult to learn about nutrition when so many
  > discussions of nutrition start with the assumption
  > that the reader is fat and wants to lose weight.

  I think you’re “learning” about nutrition in the wrong places. Look for medical sites (e.g. from hospitals).
  Any valuable discussion will focus on both “diet” and “exercise” . Any place that just talk about one and not the other is missing the important relationship of the two.

  The same advice for healthy diet and exercise works for fat and thin people, because both are working to the same goal – being healthy. Following the same advice, an over-weight person should lose excess fat and gain muscles, and an under-weight person should gain muscles and fat (with improved appetite/absorption from exercise and a nutrition dense diet).

• [witchdoc]

  I lost 26kg in 3 months (about 57 pounds, i think), by following diet that nutritionist from our local hospital prescribed to me. I got directions what types of food to eat in what time of the day, how to prepare it, and in which quantities I should eat it. Fresh and boiled vegetables were allowed in whatever amount. It was really not a complex diet. I’m around ~95kg now, and in summer I usually go ~90kg, my ideal weight is 92kg. I checked my blood before and after diet and there were no problems whatsoever. So, go find a good nutritionist if you have weight problems.

• [Anonymous]

  I’m working on losing about 80lbs, give or take, by counting calories. Counting every single thing can be a pain in the ass, but I’ve gotten to enjoy the ritual of it. Even have a spreadsheet to keep track. Mostly, though, I count calories b/c I can’t stand to cut foods I love entirely from my diet, like bread and pasta and beer and cookies. I just have to look at all of those, and know that I can’t have as much, and not that often. So far, it’s been working great. I’m dropping pounds, and feel fantastic.

• [Snig]

  Props to Cory for losing the weight.
  I’m generally suspicious of artificial sweeteners, largely because I have seen studies that suggest that frequent use may lead to weight gain and metabolic syndrome, and not much that suggests they lead to weight loss. I figure if those studies exist, Diet Coke people would be helpful in letting us know about them.

  In terms of complexity, I think that if people tend to think of a diet as a magic spell, where all components have to be met, they set themselvs up for failure. When they invariably slip, people gorge as they’re “off the diet”, so call a time out, and don’t realize that the gorging they’re doing is far more significant than the slip that initiated it. And people who do realize this often have biological reasons that impel them to gorge, so it’s not always possible for people to keep to the diet.

• [rawdiant]

  (Sorry, meant “opposition” above at the end of #15. Damn, when I make a typo, I REALLY make one.)

• [Xenu]

  This probably explains why I’ve been a vegetarian (simple diet) for over a decade, yet I can’t count calories (complex diet) to save my life.

• [Anonymous]

  You don’t have to give up deep fried bacon wrapped hot dogs…. Just don’t eat the bun.

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  we need a diet that’ll help gain weight.

  Since being extremely thin might help you live to 120 in good health, why would you want to?

  I myself dropped from around 240# to 165# in the same amount of time…and lost my Gall Bladder.

  Rapid weight loss from any cause greatly increases the risk of gallstones. Atkins is notorious for it. I had two gall bladder attacks post-Atkins, but elected to keep my GB. I haven’t had another attack in five years. I strongly recommend against losing more than one pound per week.

  The Atkins diet does not mean eat only simple foods or a narrow choice of foods. It means cut out the high-starch type foods.

  Atkins isn’t general diet advice. It’s a specific diet plan with specific amounts of specific foods. Although you are allowed to eat lots and lots of olives. I thought that I’d never want to see another olive after I went off the diet.

• [Marcel]

  My stephdad went to the doctor once and said he wanted to lose weight.
  So the doctor wrote out a prescription note and gave it to him.
  On it was written, only eat half of everything.

• [foobar]

  Cory, when did you have 80 extra pounds? Colour me skeptical.

• [seyo]

  Corey, I’m looking for a BB post from a long time ago, searched and can’t find it. I was wondering/hoping if you remembered it. The gist of it was that people who adhere to “extremist” diets for ideological reasons often tend to get more extreme in their views on food and their implementation of their ideology. So someone who may start of going vegan, will eventually go raw vegan, then will start eating whole raw vegan (the notion that merely cutting the plant matter into smaller pieces using a knife ruins it’s nutritional value) etc. Do you remember this? If you can find the link, or conclusively tell me that I didn’t read any such thing here, I’d greatly appreciate it.

• [Cory Doctorow]

  Foobar, I went from 248lbs in Sept 03 to 170lbs by Christmas 04. I’m presently 10-15 lbs heavier than that, and trying to do something about it.

• [ecobore]

  Cory, that is a huge amount! Do you have a blog or any online writings on your Atkins experience? I need to lose about the same amount that you knocked off and I love meat, but have been worried about the health implications.. T’would be very interested to read your about your one year diet.. Thanks

• [NickPheas]

  I’ve not lost that much, but quite a lot just from doing the bleeding obvious. Reduced portion sizes, cut out refined sugars, most alcohol, high fat foods and ramp up the veggies and exercise. At least one 3-4 hour cycle ride every weekend when the weather’s not horrible (which it is right now). About 1200 miles in three months.

• [Paul]

  Well done Cory on losing the 80lbs :)

  I agree about keeping it simple, but that means different things to different people.

  For me it was simply a case of counting calories and setting a target (currently 1800 calories a day). For me, counting calories is simple because I’m comfortable doing the maths and I’m a bit obsessive about recording things, for other people it’s complex because they find all that arithmetic and recording difficult.

  I lost 20kg (about 40lbs) last year by doing that, although christmas wasn’t so good :)
  You can see how I did it on my personal dashboard @ http://graphomatic.net/users/paul

  I think that a lot of these more complex and faddy diets play into a natural human tendency to replace things that are *hard* (like eating less), with things that are *complex* (like complex diets). I think it’s a kind of psychological defense mechanism, when we fail we have claim it was because “the diet didn’t work”, when of course any diet that involves you eating less than you use will work, if you can stick to it.

• [Cory Doctorow]

  @4: I stayed on it for 3 years, then tried to become a low-carb vegan, with mixed success. I was living in LA at the time, and gourmet raw food places were a godsend, since the raw food diet is very high protein/low carb (hard to serve a raw grain! And sugars mostly involve boiling). On returning to London, it was a LOT harder, and I’ve been struggling, even after adding fish to my diet. I’m thinking I’ll be reduced to calorie-counting next. There’s a good Android app for it, “Calorie Counter,” that my wife likes. I’m doing lots more exercise than ever — daily yoga, 2 daily brisk 25 min walks, powerplate three nights a week, and heavy physio exercises three days/week, but the love-handles won’t budge, and when they do, they come right back as soon as I slip even a little.

• [cmpalmer]

  It’s not exactly complex, but it is a lot of work. I’ve been trying to follow the following rules (which are pretty much Michael Pollan’s “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants” rules):

  1) Avoid processed foods
  2) Totally avoid fast food – limit restaurants to special occasion and go to ones that prepare fresh food
  3) Other than that, only eat foods that I prepare myself from as simple and basic ingredients as possible, so no canned soups, no frozen dinners, etc.
  4) Eat what I want, but watch portions (I counted calories until I got a good feel for what a “normal” portion is)
  5) No meat one or two days a week, limited portions otherwise
  6) One soft drink per day (diet or regular – I don’t really trust HFCS or artificial sweeteners, but I am dealing with a lifelong habit of drinking sodas).
  7) Real food means butter instead of margarine, no fake foods like cheese slices or soy-veggie burgers, no fat free versions of things like yogurt, lots of fruit
  8) Don’t sweat it if you get a craving for pizza or you’re in a hurry and have to hit a drive-thru – just don’t do it very often.

  I lost around 50 pounds doing that (I fell off the wagon around the holidays and gained about 10 back, but I’ve climbed back on).

  Any diet I’ve been on that said, “Don’t eat xx” has made me crave ‘xx’. Anything involving record keeping works until you get behind, then you (or at least I) stop doing it.

• [Teapunk]

  The only diet that ever worked for me is very simple: Burn more calories than you eat. For me that means working out four to five times a week, about an hour, doing cardio like biking, swimming, walking and some aerobics, whatever makes you sweat a lot.
  And skipping the obvious things like candy, chocolate, chips, fried, processed, take-out or fast food and so on.
  Basically, I eat what I like, exercise and don’t stress myself too much about it. Enjoy what you eat and enjoy your exercise.
  I’ve noticed the older you get, the longer it takes to lose weight again, unfortunately one doesn’t get more patient with age…

• [Anonymous]

  If you give people too much information they tend to get hooked on details, as if the diet were composed of yes/no questions of what to eat.

  I like to tweak what nutritional quantities I ingest without going overboard on eating only particular foods heavily associated with the right nutrients. But it’s not for everyone.

• [Anonymous]

  The engineering problem here is simple – how much you weigh is moderated by how much fat your fat cells store, versus how much fat your fat cells release. The fact that you put something into your mouth doesn’t mean it’s going to be processed directly.

  Knowing that the basic issue is about the fat cell, not the body as a whole, we can move a step further and ask, what causes fat cells to store fat, rather than release it as normal? Well, the Kreb’s cycle makes that pretty clear – insulin.

  So under the influence of insulin, fat cells store fat. Without insulin, they simply let fatty acids flow in and out. So what drives up insulin? Well, we know that one too – blood sugar.

  And now the $60,000 question – what raises blood sugar? Carbs. Atkins works because restricting carbohydrates reduces blood sugar levels, which prevents them from acting like out of control storage depots which actually steal energy from your muscles. When you see a 400 pound guy eating a pizza like he’s starving, it’s because his muscles are -> all the energy is being shunted to fat cells by insulin, leaving very little energy for the muscles of the body.

  So people are right when they think this is a simple equation, they just pay attention to the wrong inputs and outputs. What you put in your mouth and how much you move your body is not what drives weight gain. How much fat your fat cells store and how much fat your fat cells release does. And you can count that by reducing carbohydrates.

• [Paul]

  @Cory,

  I’m like you, unless I monitor things constantly I find myself tipping back over (as happened over christmas).

  Check out “The Hackers Diet”, it takes an engineers approach to losing weight and it’s what I based my approach on, and what inspired me to build Graphomatic, I needed something that could track lots of things.

  I weight myself almost every day, but don’t sweat the day to day fluctuations, it’s the long term trend that matters. If you look at my weight graph (http://graphomatic.net/streams/17) it bounces around a lot, but the rolling average is pretty straight, and that’s what’s important.

  Something else I’d say is don’t treat it as a “Diet”, look at it as a lifestyle change. It’s not something you can do for a few months and then stop, you need to make it a part of your life. That also means you should chill out and take your time. There have been numerous studies that show the faster you lose weight, the more likely (and faster) you will put it back on. I started out setting quite a high calorie limit and then just reduced it a little each week, adjusting my diet appropriately, rather than radically changing it in one go. I still eat chocolate and cheese, but in smaller quantities. If I gave them up entirely I’d not have the willpower to carry on.

  @Teapunk

  I’d say that’s the *only* diet that works :) All the other diets are just over-complex ways of doing just that. They try to hide that fact with weird combinations or plans, and a lot of pseudo-science, but at the heart of it all is some pretty basic laws of physics and biology.

• [MelSkunk]

  I think this is why vegetarianism works for me. I just don’t eat meat or fish. Very basic and mostly easy to avoid.

• [Cactaur]

  Heard about the high fat low carb diet years back when I was still seriously hitting the gym. This miracle process of ‘ketosis’ turned out to be diabetic ketoacidosis.

  Isn’t it a bad idea to induce a symptom of a disease that you don’t actually suffer from?

  • [Rob]

    To Cactaur @ 29 – ketosis isn’t ketoacidosis.

    • [Cactaur]

      My understanding is if you were relying on fat to replace glycogen, long term doesn’t that ketosis condition become ketoacidosis? And all those ketones building up in the system may result in DKA?

      • [Antinous / Moderator]

        No. Unrelated.