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Jack Lalanne's Advice
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JerSchmare wrote: »Very interesting. ^^^
So, the idea that eating less cake, instead of no cake, may not have been understood during Jacks time.
Is that possible?
We’re arguing about a concept now that wasn’t understood very well, or at all, then.
I'm confused by the notion that no calorie labels means one wouldn't understand moderation. Cake does not normally have labels on it, IME -- especially back in the '70s it would have been homemade (although perhaps from a box, I have a book about the rise of cooking from packages). Now cake that is homemade or from a bakery won't have a label.
Lalanne was basically a clean eater if you read his other comments, I don't think it had a thing to do with calorie labels.0 -
I grew up in the 70's watching all my aunt's going "elimination" diets and just complaining all the time. And Jack was a big influence back then.
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Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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People had books like this about calories. My mom had one:
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stanmann571 wrote: »...There's very little new information or understanding regarding nutrition...
You really, truly believe that?
That between the '50s/'60s and now, there's "very little new information or understanding regarding nutrition"?3 -
JerSchmare wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »People on here are not a random subset of the "Average American". Through the fact that they're already trying to lose weight they are a minority. If you went to the Keto group and posted this it would be even less useful. That's context.
I would sure think those in the minority who are trying to lose weight would be interested in the guidance of the researchers at the USDA and WHO
If the recommendations don’t apply to an individual’s situation, they are not helpful.
I think that’s the point you’re missing.
Lemurcat and GottaBurnEmAll aren’t saying the guidelines are useless because they have their diets dialed in...they’re saying that they’re misguided for recommending an approach which may not resolve the issue. For instance, they gained weight while following these recommendations. Thus, blindly saying “reduce sugar intake” is not necessarily good advice.
What would be helpful is advice to identify the source/cause of the calorie surplus and act accordingly to achieve a deficit.
Let the solution be tailored to the problem.
Well if you you look back 2 of the top 4 sources of calories in the American diet are grain based desserts and pop/energy/sports drinks. So for many people, looking at these items with added sugars (and in the case of grain based desserts unhealthy fats) and low nutrient density is a going to be an excellent starting point.
And for many people (those who already don’t eat many grain based desserts or drink caloric drinks) its a useless waste of time.
Never mind the fact that blindly saying “to be fit and trim, cut out the desserts” also further confuses people into thinking that desserts themselves cause fat gain, opposed to the caloric surplus they may or may not cause.
If you look back at this thread or any post I've put on these boards related to the subject I say CICO is king regarding weight loss/maintenance.
IMO, the fact that grain based desserts and pop, etc are 2 of the 4 highest categories of calories in the US diet means reduction of these high calorie/low nutrition foods really is low hanging fruit for many people regarding weight loss/control.
Yes, and THOSE people would probably benefit from reducing grain-based desserts and pop. If my diet plan had considered of reducing pop (which I consumed only in diet form, and only occasionally) and grain-based desserts (which weren't a regular part of my diet), I would still be fat and perhaps be whining "it's not fair, I don't eat "bad" foods, I must be doomed to be fat). Instead, I looked at my own diet with honesty and identified what I was doing wrong -- that is what I'm recommending.
Also, I don't think Lalanne was saying REDUCE, he was saying cut out. Read his comments on sugar that I quoted above. (For NorthCascades, I think those comments about sugar being worse than smoking and causing you to do bad acts count as demonization.)
I don't consider myself a "clean eater" in any way, shape or form - yet of LaLanne's list, the only items I consume regularly are ice cream (Halo Top, so reduced calories/fat) and soda (diet soda, so zero calories). All the rest I consume anywhere from seldom to very seldom/almost never. Even at my fattest and my sloppiest/most lax levels of food intake, those foods weren't my vices, so his supposedly wonderful advice to cut all those virtually non-existent foods out of my diet would have been of basically zero benefit to me. It's about as useful as telling a vegan that the best way to lose weight is to cut meat products out of their diet. Or telling a marathon runner that they should take up running for weight loss.
I gained weight by eating too much of foods I like - virtually none of which are on that list. I lost weight by eating those same foods, but in smaller quantities, and increasing my caloric expenditure by becoming more active.
Ditto. A big part of my weight gain was lean chicken, cheese and long grain rice.
I so wish I had that problem rather than an Oreo, chocolate, ice cream, and Reese’s peanut butter cup problem.
Same here!
I gained weight due to the usual culprits... Sweets, take away, chips, dips, cookies, chocolate, bread, desserts - generally too much junk food and fast, tasty low nutrient/high calorie foods that are easy to eat, and eat in excess.
Gaining weight eating "healthy" foods, such as lean meats, grains, fruit, vegies etc etc is a totally foreign concept to me, as those are the things that there is no threat of me overeating! Sticking to those types of foods and greatly reducing or completely omitting the foods in my first paragraph allowed me to lose weight without too much bother.3 -
JerSchmare wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »JerSchmare wrote: »Very interesting. ^^^
So, the idea that eating less cake, instead of no cake, may not have been understood during Jacks time.
Is that possible?
We’re arguing about a concept now that wasn’t understood very well, or at all, then.
I don't think it is.
Wait what?
Calories were not known. People don’t understand what “less cake” means. How is this not relevant?
I know this has already been fully rebutted, but I have to say: Good one! As someone who was actually alive and sentient in 1960, this has to be one of the funniest misperceptions I've seen lately.
Somehow, in "Olden Times" like 1960, everyone, including nutritional scientists, was too stupid to notice that people who ate too much cake (or anything else for that matter) got fat.
HaaaHAHaaaHaHAa!
Sure.
(You realize people have been feeding farm animals more food to make them fatter faster pretty much since the dawn of domesticating them, right?)
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Packerjohn wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »People on here are not a random subset of the "Average American". Through the fact that they're already trying to lose weight they are a minority. If you went to the Keto group and posted this it would be even less useful. That's context.
I would sure think those in the minority who are trying to lose weight would be interested in the guidance of the researchers at the USDA and WHO
If the recommendations don’t apply to an individual’s situation, they are not helpful.
I think that’s the point you’re missing.
Lemurcat and GottaBurnEmAll aren’t saying the guidelines are useless because they have their diets dialed in...they’re saying that they’re misguided for recommending an approach which may not resolve the issue. For instance, they gained weight while following these recommendations. Thus, blindly saying “reduce sugar intake” is not necessarily good advice.
What would be helpful is advice to identify the source/cause of the calorie surplus and act accordingly to achieve a deficit.
Let the solution be tailored to the problem.
Well if you you look back 2 of the top 4 sources of calories in the American diet are grain based desserts and pop/energy/sports drinks. So for many people, looking at these items with added sugars (and in the case of grain based desserts unhealthy fats) and low nutrient density is a going to be an excellent starting point.
You may be fascinated with the anthropology of it all but, based on multiple posts from multiple people, most of us just don't care about that. It doesn't take statistics on the "average American diet" to know that overconsumption of calorie dense foods like "grain based deserts", which get the majority of their energy load from fat BTW, or high sugar drinks cause people to get overweight. Same goes for WHO statistics.
That knowledge is pretty much useless and irrelevant to folks that are on MFP.6 -
I well remember my mother consulting her pocket-sized calorie count book and using a small plastic food scale back in the 1960's. There was a lively interest in nutrition and plentiful information about it, at least among my family. The info available back then ran the validity gamut, just as it does today.3
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I hope you don't think everyone is dumping on you. We just remember the olden days. ;-)1
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I still don't understand how "eat less cake if you want to lose weight" is invoking demons. Sure, it's possible to get fat eating nothing but too much broccoli, but who thinks we're in the midst of an unprecedented obesity epidemic because people eat too much broccoli? There's nothing wrong with acknowledging the truth: among the overweight, far and away more people have difficulty with things like chips and iced cream than with lentil beans and carrots.
There's nothing demonic about that. You can still eat sugar, too. But you have to eat it in moderation. Because calorie-dense things aren't really helpful towards a goal of weight loss. You can fit them in, but you might have to eat less of them than you'd like to.
We evolved in a time of food shortage. We're primed to want to eat, especially sugars and fats, we can taste them because it benefited our ancestors to seek them out and eat them. And they taste really good because they're rich with energy. Now, those of us in the first world live in a time of abundant food, and we work desk jobs instead of foraging and hunting. We don't need the energy but still appreciate the taste, some of us have a strong drive to seek some of it out. It would be a lot easier to practice moderation if the stuff wasn't appealing.5 -
Packerjohn wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »People on here are not a random subset of the "Average American". Through the fact that they're already trying to lose weight they are a minority. If you went to the Keto group and posted this it would be even less useful. That's context.
I would sure think those in the minority who are trying to lose weight would be interested in the guidance of the researchers at the USDA and WHO
Let me rephrase it in a different example.
Do you think financial advice aimed at someone with average income is going to be useful to someone with a Master's degree?1 -
stevencloser wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »People on here are not a random subset of the "Average American". Through the fact that they're already trying to lose weight they are a minority. If you went to the Keto group and posted this it would be even less useful. That's context.
I would sure think those in the minority who are trying to lose weight would be interested in the guidance of the researchers at the USDA and WHO
Let me rephrase it in a different example.
Do you think financial advice aimed at someone with average income is going to be useful to someone with a Master's degree?
Not your best ever argument, though usually I like your arguments.
I had (about) median income. I had a big chunk of a master's degree (MBA, didn't quite finish). I read lots of financial advice for average-income people. I followed quite a bit of it. I retired, comfortably but not luxuriously, at 51.
I understand what you're trying to say, I think. Still not your best argument.
I pay attention to USDA/WHO, too. Just not slavishly.
If packerjohn's point is that we should all read USDA/WHO recommendations as part of our personal nutritional education and analysis, I'd totally support that. I mean, it's a consensus of mainstream experts. Not unchallengeable at the margins, not tailored exactly to ever unique one of us, but great stuff.
Jack Lalanne, circa 1960 (?), with a dozen or so words on a chalk board, is not 2017 USDA/WHO. Not close.
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Christine_72 wrote: »JerSchmare wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »People on here are not a random subset of the "Average American". Through the fact that they're already trying to lose weight they are a minority. If you went to the Keto group and posted this it would be even less useful. That's context.
I would sure think those in the minority who are trying to lose weight would be interested in the guidance of the researchers at the USDA and WHO
If the recommendations don’t apply to an individual’s situation, they are not helpful.
I think that’s the point you’re missing.
Lemurcat and GottaBurnEmAll aren’t saying the guidelines are useless because they have their diets dialed in...they’re saying that they’re misguided for recommending an approach which may not resolve the issue. For instance, they gained weight while following these recommendations. Thus, blindly saying “reduce sugar intake” is not necessarily good advice.
What would be helpful is advice to identify the source/cause of the calorie surplus and act accordingly to achieve a deficit.
Let the solution be tailored to the problem.
Well if you you look back 2 of the top 4 sources of calories in the American diet are grain based desserts and pop/energy/sports drinks. So for many people, looking at these items with added sugars (and in the case of grain based desserts unhealthy fats) and low nutrient density is a going to be an excellent starting point.
And for many people (those who already don’t eat many grain based desserts or drink caloric drinks) its a useless waste of time.
Never mind the fact that blindly saying “to be fit and trim, cut out the desserts” also further confuses people into thinking that desserts themselves cause fat gain, opposed to the caloric surplus they may or may not cause.
If you look back at this thread or any post I've put on these boards related to the subject I say CICO is king regarding weight loss/maintenance.
IMO, the fact that grain based desserts and pop, etc are 2 of the 4 highest categories of calories in the US diet means reduction of these high calorie/low nutrition foods really is low hanging fruit for many people regarding weight loss/control.
Yes, and THOSE people would probably benefit from reducing grain-based desserts and pop. If my diet plan had considered of reducing pop (which I consumed only in diet form, and only occasionally) and grain-based desserts (which weren't a regular part of my diet), I would still be fat and perhaps be whining "it's not fair, I don't eat "bad" foods, I must be doomed to be fat). Instead, I looked at my own diet with honesty and identified what I was doing wrong -- that is what I'm recommending.
Also, I don't think Lalanne was saying REDUCE, he was saying cut out. Read his comments on sugar that I quoted above. (For NorthCascades, I think those comments about sugar being worse than smoking and causing you to do bad acts count as demonization.)
I don't consider myself a "clean eater" in any way, shape or form - yet of LaLanne's list, the only items I consume regularly are ice cream (Halo Top, so reduced calories/fat) and soda (diet soda, so zero calories). All the rest I consume anywhere from seldom to very seldom/almost never. Even at my fattest and my sloppiest/most lax levels of food intake, those foods weren't my vices, so his supposedly wonderful advice to cut all those virtually non-existent foods out of my diet would have been of basically zero benefit to me. It's about as useful as telling a vegan that the best way to lose weight is to cut meat products out of their diet. Or telling a marathon runner that they should take up running for weight loss.
I gained weight by eating too much of foods I like - virtually none of which are on that list. I lost weight by eating those same foods, but in smaller quantities, and increasing my caloric expenditure by becoming more active.
Ditto. A big part of my weight gain was lean chicken, cheese and long grain rice.
I so wish I had that problem rather than an Oreo, chocolate, ice cream, and Reese’s peanut butter cup problem.
Same here!
I gained weight due to the usual culprits... Sweets, take away, chips, dips, cookies, chocolate, bread, desserts - generally too much junk food and fast, tasty low nutrient/high calorie foods that are easy to eat, and eat in excess.
Gaining weight eating "healthy" foods, such as lean meats, grains, fruit, vegies etc etc is a totally foreign concept to me, as those are the things that there is no threat of me overeating! Sticking to those types of foods and greatly reducing or completely omitting the foods in my first paragraph allowed me to lose weight without too much bother.
Ditto.2 -
NorthCascades wrote: »I still don't understand how "eat less cake if you want to lose weight" is invoking demons.
I don't think it is. I think you are arguing against a strawman.
My objection to the original post was not demonization, but let's be clear as to what Lalanne's advice actually was (as I posted before):
From http://modernhealthmonk.com/habits-of-the-jack-lalanne-diet-healthy-and-fit-over-40/:“There’s nothing more addictive on this earth than sugar. Not heroin, booze, whatever. It’s much worse than smoking.”
When he was young, he was a massive sugarholic which he blamed many of his health conditions on, including his childhood rage (involving setting his house on fire).
“As a kid,” he flatly states, “I was a sugarholic and a junk food junkie! It made me weak and it made me mean. It made me so sick I had boils, pimples and suffered from nearsightedness. Little girls used to beat me up. My mom prayed… the Church prayed.”
So to present this as suggesting that people cut down on desserts to lose weight is, I think, not fully accurate.
Also, I would not object to "cut down on desserts to lose weight" as demonization but I wouldn't say it to someone without knowing how they ate. I think that's presumptuous (you need to lose weight? must be eating lots of sugar). I'd suggest instead (if they were asking for help) that they go through their diet and figure out where they are getting extra calories. I have never met one person, not one, who did not know that if they were eating huge amounts of sweets that that was an obvious place to cut down (more often people think they should give them up entirely -- which, for the record, I did when I started even though I didn't eat a whole lot of sweets). Thus, telling someone "you know, your diet probably shouldn't include 1000 calories of cake strikes me as not only presumptous (if you don't know their diet) but as if you are calling them stupid (they supposedly don't know cake has lots of calories and fewer micronutrients than many other foods?).
I would really love a response to this rather than the (untrue, IMO) suggestion that people are objecting to the notion that limiting sweets is generally a good idea, whether you do it naturally because it's not your particular taste (I don't eat most of the things on the list very often) or to reduce calories (like I did with a number of things not on the list, like cheese and olive oil, which I used more than I should).Sure, it's possible to get fat eating nothing but too much broccoli, but who thinks we're in the midst of an unprecedented obesity epidemic because people eat too much broccoli?
Many foods are high cal (unlike broccoli) and not on the list presented. I didn't get fat from broccoli (I ate lots of it, but it's not why I got fat). I also would not have gotten thin if my diet had consisted only of cutting out added sugar.
But again, that's not actually my objection -- I do think the average American eats too much added sugar (although why not give advice tailored to specific people actually interested and their questions?). Is the average person trying to lose weight on MFP unaware that limiting dessert foods might be a good idea (I kind of doubt jam or canned fruit is a serious issue, but who knows).
Also, in reality Lalanne had a bunch more rules, like no dairy and no coffee. I, for one, think that dairy and coffee can be quite helpful in weight loss.4 -
If packerjohn's point is that we should all read USDA/WHO recommendations as part of our personal nutritional education and analysis, I'd totally support that. I mean, it's a consensus of mainstream experts. Not unchallengeable at the margins, not tailored exactly to ever unique one of us, but great stuff.
Jack Lalanne, circa 1960 (?), with a dozen or so words on a chalk board, is not 2017 USDA/WHO. Not close.
Yes, this.2 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »I still don't understand how "eat less cake if you want to lose weight" is invoking demons.
I don't think it is. I think you are arguing against a strawman.
My objection to the original post was not demonization, but let's be clear as to what Lalanne's advice actually was (as I posted before):
From http://modernhealthmonk.com/habits-of-the-jack-lalanne-diet-healthy-and-fit-over-40/:“There’s nothing more addictive on this earth than sugar. Not heroin, booze, whatever. It’s much worse than smoking.”
When he was young, he was a massive sugarholic which he blamed many of his health conditions on, including his childhood rage (involving setting his house on fire).
“As a kid,” he flatly states, “I was a sugarholic and a junk food junkie! It made me weak and it made me mean. It made me so sick I had boils, pimples and suffered from nearsightedness. Little girls used to beat me up. My mom prayed… the Church prayed.”
So to present this as suggesting that people cut down on desserts to lose weight is, I think, not fully accurate.
Also, I would not object to "cut down on desserts to lose weight" as demonization but I wouldn't say it to someone without knowing how they ate. I think that's presumptuous (you need to lose weight? must be eating lots of sugar). I'd suggest instead (if they were asking for help) that they go through their diet and figure out where they are getting extra calories. I have never met one person, not one, who did not know that if they were eating huge amounts of sweets that that was an obvious place to cut down (more often people think they should give them up entirely -- which, for the record, I did when I started even though I didn't eat a whole lot of sweets). Thus, telling someone "you know, your diet probably shouldn't include 1000 calories of cake strikes me as not only presumptous (if you don't know their diet) but as if you are calling them stupid (they supposedly don't know cake has lots of calories and fewer micronutrients than many other foods?).
I would really love a response to this rather than the (untrue, IMO) suggestion that people are objecting to the notion that limiting sweets is generally a good idea, whether you do it naturally because it's not your particular taste (I don't eat most of the things on the list very often) or to reduce calories (like I did with a number of things not on the list, like cheese and olive oil, which I used more than I should).Sure, it's possible to get fat eating nothing but too much broccoli, but who thinks we're in the midst of an unprecedented obesity epidemic because people eat too much broccoli?
Many foods are high cal (unlike broccoli) and not on the list presented. I didn't get fat from broccoli (I ate lots of it, but it's not why I got fat). I also would not have gotten thin if my diet had consisted only of cutting out added sugar.
But again, that's not actually my objection -- I do think the average American eats too much added sugar (although why not give advice tailored to specific people actually interested and their questions?). Is the average person trying to lose weight on MFP unaware that limiting dessert foods might be a good idea (I kind of doubt jam or canned fruit is a serious issue, but who knows).
Also, in reality Lalanne had a bunch more rules, like no dairy and no coffee. I, for one, think that dairy and coffee can be quite helpful in weight loss.
None of this answers my question about where the demons come into this. I guess we agree it's shrill and kind of over the top.2 -
stevencloser wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »People on here are not a random subset of the "Average American". Through the fact that they're already trying to lose weight they are a minority. If you went to the Keto group and posted this it would be even less useful. That's context.
I would sure think those in the minority who are trying to lose weight would be interested in the guidance of the researchers at the USDA and WHO
Let me rephrase it in a different example.
Do you think financial advice aimed at someone with average income is going to be useful to someone with a Master's degree?
Not your best ever argument, though usually I like your arguments.
I had (about) median income. I had a big chunk of a master's degree (MBA, didn't quite finish). I read lots of financial advice for average-income people. I followed quite a bit of it. I retired, comfortably but not luxuriously, at 51.
I understand what you're trying to say, I think. Still not your best argument.
I pay attention to USDA/WHO, too. Just not slavishly.
If packerjohn's point is that we should all read USDA/WHO recommendations as part of our personal nutritional education and analysis, I'd totally support that. I mean, it's a consensus of mainstream experts. Not unchallengeable at the margins, not tailored exactly to ever unique one of us, but great stuff.
Jack Lalanne, circa 1960 (?), with a dozen or so words on a chalk board, is not 2017 USDA/WHO. Not close.
It was 3 am when I wrote it.1 -
stevencloser wrote: »Packerjohn wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »People on here are not a random subset of the "Average American". Through the fact that they're already trying to lose weight they are a minority. If you went to the Keto group and posted this it would be even less useful. That's context.
I would sure think those in the minority who are trying to lose weight would be interested in the guidance of the researchers at the USDA and WHO
Let me rephrase it in a different example.
Do you think financial advice aimed at someone with average income is going to be useful to someone with a Master's degree?
Not your best ever argument, though usually I like your arguments.
I had (about) median income. I had a big chunk of a master's degree (MBA, didn't quite finish). I read lots of financial advice for average-income people. I followed quite a bit of it. I retired, comfortably but not luxuriously, at 51.
I understand what you're trying to say, I think. Still not your best argument.
I pay attention to USDA/WHO, too. Just not slavishly.
If packerjohn's point is that we should all read USDA/WHO recommendations as part of our personal nutritional education and analysis, I'd totally support that. I mean, it's a consensus of mainstream experts. Not unchallengeable at the margins, not tailored exactly to ever unique one of us, but great stuff.
Jack Lalanne, circa 1960 (?), with a dozen or so words on a chalk board, is not 2017 USDA/WHO. Not close.
And yeah, a couple buzzwords on a chalkboard can at best be general, non-specific things that may or may not be relevant to you but are presented as "that's the reason people are fat" à la clickbait headlines "These 5 foods are keeping you fat!". What if I'm fat and already eat little to none of those things? Am I just f***ed? Nope. If I'm counting calories and can fit all of those things into my diet no problem, do I still need to religiously throw them out? Nope.
Advice like that is aimed at the population at large who do not count calories, who do not know anything about nutrition and who do not care enough to find out and just want a general pointer and who eventually, if this doesn't work, just give up and stay fat. Why? Because they keep overeating other stuff or even better, as a result of the advice, substitute that other stuff for the "bad" foods and keep calories the same unknowingly because they think it's those foods that caused it and not overeating. I dislike that.5
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