Clean eating made me fat but icecream/subway got me lean

"Clean" eating didn't make him fat, just like paleo didn't make you fat. In both cases you decided to eat above your maintenance and you gained weight.

You made yourself fat. And you both decided to reverse the trend while eating in other ways. But you could have lost on paleo, just as you gained. The choice was yours.

"In my restrictive Paleo days, I’d been prone to binge eating. I’d go three or four weeks sticking perfectly to my plan, then find my cravings for non-Paleo foods got so huge I’d succumb to 5 -6,000 calorie binge on cereals, cake and chips"

So it's not the fault of a Paleo diet or clean eating that got this guy fat, it's his complete lack of willpower and self control. Just like a junkie blaming their addiction on everything else but themselves.

You basically just said that your lack of willpower lead you to binge. Not the paleo diet. Not everyone has such little self control.

Congrats on finding what works for you Mike.

I wasn't trying to be rude or judgemental, but I don't agree with blaming a diet for binge eating. There are plenty of paleo dieters (myself not included) who do just fine. Nevertheless, Subway and ice cream sound better by far.

Mike, it wasn't clean eating that made you fat, you have to know that, right? You said it yourself, you ate 5 eggs for breakfast. You never counted calories on the Paleo, just ate whatever you wanted.

Now this paragraph was good:

"What’s the point of this post?

It’s not an attempt to bash anyone for following any type of restrictive, or rules-based diet, like Paleo, Atkins, Primal, Dukan, or whatever, and it’s certainly not meant to encourage people to base their diets around junk foods.

What it hopefully serves to do, however, is to make you realise that there’s much, much more to a diet than good vs. bad foods. You needn’t cut out any food when trying to lose fat – it’s simply about eating mostly healthy, unprocessed foods and controlling your calorie and macronutrient intake, but not freaking out if you do include high-sugar, high-fat and processed foods, provided they fit in with your plan as a whole.

The main reason people screw up when dieting is a lack of consistency. This inconsistency comes through boredom, or feeling that a diet is simply too hard going. For most people, this is almost bound to happen when following a diet with lots of rules, that doesn’t permit them to eat their favourite foods.

Moderation is key. Moderation lets you eat ice cream and Subway and get lean. Moderation is awesome."

Mike, it wasn't clean eating that made you fat, you have to know that, right? You said it yourself, you ate 5 eggs for breakfast. You never counted calories on the Paleo, just ate whatever you wanted.

Now this paragraph was good:

"What’s the point of this post?

It’s not an attempt to bash anyone for following any type of restrictive, or rules-based diet, like Paleo, Atkins, Primal, Dukan, or whatever, and it’s certainly not meant to encourage people to base their diets around junk foods.

What it hopefully serves to do, however, is to make you realise that there’s much, much more to a diet than good vs. bad foods. You needn’t cut out any food when trying to lose fat – it’s simply about eating mostly healthy, unprocessed foods and controlling your calorie and macronutrient intake, but not freaking out if you do include high-sugar, high-fat and processed foods, provided they fit in with your plan as a whole.

The main reason people screw up when dieting is a lack of consistency. This inconsistency comes through boredom, or feeling that a diet is simply too hard going. For most people, this is almost bound to happen when following a diet with lots of rules, that doesn’t permit them to eat their favourite foods.

Moderation is key. Moderation lets you eat ice cream and Subway and get lean. Moderation is awesome."

Moderation is awesome!

Bump. IN for the clean eating vs. IIFYM debate. Mike - Congrats on the results from your hard work and finding CICO and IIFYM.

This is a great article! I'm not really sure how people can nitpick a personal story that doesn't preach anything other than the fact that calories matter.

that's why we have the word "zealot" in our dictionary.

to the true believers of "clean" eating and paleo and primal and all of those other deprivation/restriction diets, no evidence to the contrary can convince them the error of their ways.

keep in mind, i have nothing against the foods they eat and if they were logging and tracking their macros while only eating those foods (in essence becoming IIFYM'ers who choose to follow certain food restrictions), i'd say "more power to them". what i have a problem with is the misunderstanding that "what" you eat is all important and that calories in vs. calories out doesn't really matter.

Hey guys, Mike (article author) checking in -

"So it's not the fault of a Paleo diet or clean eating that got this guy fat, it's his complete lack of willpower and self control. Just like a junkie blaming their addiction on everything else but themselves."

It's the fault of the paleo diet for being so restrictive that leads to binging. I don't have a complete lack of willpower now I employ flexible dieting strategies. I've refrained from commenting on the (very small number of) negative comments, but there was so much ignorance in yours I'm afraid I was compelled to respond.

Then maybe paleo wasn't for you. I know that keto is for me because I don't feel deprived. In fact, I find low carb and high fat foods to be more delicious.