Hay Diet

Originally posted by FMF
As I say, I eat pretty much the same stuff and just as much of it. I would estimate that the calorie intake has not changed. My amount of exercise has not really changed either. I don't really buy the placebo effect idea; not for the steady loss of 33 lbs. I can only really put the loss of weight to the different permutation of my food. Apparently almost no rese ...[text shortened]... as been done into it (according to Penguin's post) so it seems to be a bit of an unknown area.

Your body and mind are an endless source of self-deception. Always assume they are playing tricks on you unless you have empirical evidence to the contrary (or it doesn't matter).

Originally posted by twhitehead
It is my belief that our weight gain or loss is largely about what we eat in total. It is also my belief that the main battle is a psychological one.
It is also the case that what we eat and how we eat it has a significant effect on how easy it is psychologically to maintain a healthy diet.
I believe exercise is good for the health, but that it does not ...[text shortened]... . It also affects our eating habits which may benefit or harm us depending on the effect it has.

I believe exercise is good for the health, but that it does not in itself burn off nearly as much fat as we are led to believe.

It all depends on what you mean by 'exercise'. Someone who walks for 30mins each day isn't going to burn as many calories as someone who performs four sessions of resistance weight training and two hill sprint sessions a week.

The problem is that people don't know how to exercise. They think that going to the gym and doing 45mins of steady state cardio is all that's needed. If you train correctly and eat correctly the weight will come off, but people don't.

Originally posted by FMF
As I say, I eat pretty much the same stuff and just as much of it. I would estimate that the calorie intake has not changed. My amount of exercise has not really changed either. I don't really buy the placebo effect idea; not for the steady loss of 33 lbs. I can only really put the loss of weight to the different permutation of my food. Apparently almost no rese ...[text shortened]... as been done into it (according to Penguin's post) so it seems to be a bit of an unknown area.

The thing is, you cannot come to the assumption that X causes Y because you yourself have experienced Y after doing X, even if Y appears to be a long-term effect and you have seen the effect multiple times. The only way we have found to remove the huge number of different ways our bodies and minds will deceive us is through the placebo-controlled double-blind randomised trial.

Placebo Controlled - subjects are divided into groups: some get the real treatment, some get something that seems like the real treatment but is not (a placebo), some get no treatment. This allows us to see whether the (amazingly powerful) placebo effect, or some other effect such as other aspects of the treatment is in play.
Double blind - neither the researchers nor the subjects can, even sub-conciously, affect the results because neither knows which treatment is being given to which patient.
Randomised - Subjects are assigned randomly to each group. This avoids the danger that researchers conciously or sub-conciously assign people to the real treatment who are more likely to give the desired response.

Compelling though it is to take your own personal experience and draw conclusions from it, there are so many hidden effects that a large number of times your conclusions will be wrong. Have a look at this 5-minute video on the placebo effect:
YouTube

The study I found does not appear to have been placebo controlled or double blind so it does have failings but I think it should still carry more weight than a single annecdote.

Note that I am definitely not saying that your diet is not causing your weight loss. Just that the evidence we have does not indicate it is any better (or worse) than a normal calorie controlled diet.

--- Penguin.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Your body and mind are an endless source of self-deception. Always assume they are playing tricks on you unless you have empirical evidence to the contrary (or it doesn't matter).

I have the empirical evidence of actual weight loss. And the experiment has been repeated three times with the same result.

Originally posted by Penguin
Note that I am definitely not saying that your diet is not causing your weight loss. Just that the evidence we have does not indicate it is any better (or worse) than a normal calorie controlled diet.

Normal calorie controlled diets have never worked for me. The Hay Diet has worked for me, for my wife, for other family members and for several people who have tried it on my suggestion over the years.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Your body and mind are an endless source of self-deception.

Surely dramatic weight loss caused by delusion would constitute some kind of serious and potentially dangerous mental illness. Are you suggesting that I am perhaps insane to separate my proteins from my carbohydrates?

Originally posted by FMF
Surely dramatic weight loss caused by delusion would constitute some kind of serious and potentially dangerous mental illness. Are you suggesting that I am perhaps insane to separate my proteins from my carbohydrates?

Surely not. I am saying that there is at least a possibility that you have simply eaten less (in terms of calories). Unless you have actually measured what you have eaten, there is no way to exclude this possibility. Past experience and perception are simply not reliable enough to determine this.

Originally posted by FMF
Normal calorie controlled diets have never worked for me. The Hay Diet has worked for me, for my wife, for other family members and for several people who have tried it on my suggestion over the years.

I am sure it has worked. That is not in question. What is being discussed, is why it works. I for one, am not even claiming that your explanation (an effect on digestion) is wrong, I am merely interested in what alternative explanations there are, and whether there are good reasons to think your explanation is the correct one.
Since you have not apparently been measuring your food, it is hard to rule out the possibility that you are eating less.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
It all depends on what you mean by 'exercise'. Someone who walks for 30mins each day isn't going to burn as many calories as someone who performs four sessions of resistance weight training and two hill sprint sessions a week.

I actually don't know how many calories are burnt for each type of exercise.
My point was that although exercise does burn calories and can lead to weight loss, we often over estimate how many calories it burns and many people then reward themselves by taking on more calories eg "I've done my 30 minutes walk, now I deserve a chocolate bar". End result: weight gain.

If you train correctly and eat correctly the weight will come off, but people don't.
I agree. However, I believe eating correctly is more important (for weight loss) and generally more effective (than exercise). I am not saying 'don't exercise' as there are many health benefits to it.

Originally posted by FMF
Surely dramatic weight loss caused by delusion would constitute some kind of serious and potentially dangerous mental illness. Are you suggesting that I am perhaps insane to separate my proteins from my carbohydrates?

We are most certainly not trying to imply that you are 'insane'. Please try not to take offence at what we are saying. Sometimes our words are not well chosen and this topic can easily raise temperatures.

I (and I don't think anybody that has posted here) am not saying that the diet doesn't work. Just that we cannot say for sure why it is working for you. It might be due to the separation of food groups but it could also be for any number of other reasons, some of them psychological but none of them implying any mental illness. One thing we do know from extensive research is that our perceptions

The only clinical trial we have so far found on food combining diets did not find any difference between them and a traditional calorie controlled diet with the same basic composition. They both worked.

The proposed mechanism of the Hay diet does not make much sense. That does not mean it is not right, just that we need to be cautious about accepting it. If separating food groups helps you to digest your food, then surely the result would be weight gain, not loss.

We really cannot take subjective (not the weight loss, but the attribution of the root cause) anecdotes as evidence.

--- Penguin

Originally posted by Penguin
We are most certainly not trying to imply that you are 'insane'. Please try not to take offence at what we are saying. Sometimes our words are not well chosen and this topic can easily raise temperatures.

It was ironic wordplay. Mind plays tricks. Self-deception. Delusion. Mental Illness. Insanity. I avoid signalling with tawdry emoticons because I was raised a Briton.

Originally posted by Penguin
If separating food groups helps you to digest your food, then surely the result would be weight [b]gain, not loss.[/b]

I will admit that I haven't really bothered to read anything about the Hay Diet since the first time I tried it in the 1980s. I seem to recall the issue is how relatively inefficiently the stomach digests a mixture of protein and carbohydrates - for which the digestion processes are not exactly the same - and how much of this inefficiently digested food basically ends up being metabolized as extra or excessive weight. Drinking water at the same time as eating simply dilutes the digestive fluids. Here's an experiment you can try. If you try separating your foods for a week or so and then try a 'mixed' meal. Feel how heavy and kind of indigestible it feels compared to the separated food.

Originally posted by FMF
I will admit that I haven't really bothered to read anything about the Hay Diet since the first time I tried it in the 1980s. I seem to recall the issue is how relatively inefficiently the stomach digests a mixture of protein and carbohydrates - for which the digestion processes are not exactly the same - and how much of this inefficiently digested food b ...[text shortened]... eal. Feel how heavy and kind of indigestible it feels compared to the separated food.

Now that you have suggested the result of such an experiment, we can't actually perform that experiment anymore!

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Now that you have suggested the result of such an experiment, we can't actually perform that experiment anymore!

Now that I've told you that on the three occasions I followed the Hay Diet, my body quite swiftly moved towards its 'ideal weight', it won't work for you. Psychosomatics are in the eye of the beholder.

Originally posted by FMF
I will admit that I haven't really bothered to read anything about the Hay Diet since the first time I tried it in the 1980s. I seem to recall the issue is how relatively inefficiently the stomach digests a mixture of protein and carbohydrates - for which the digestion processes are not exactly the same - and how much of this inefficiently digested food b eal. Feel how heavy and kind of indigestible it feels compared to the separated food.

Glad you weren't really taking offence. British though we both appear to be, I think the web medium does demand some way of indicating non-verbal cues.

I am trying to think of a way this could work. I suppose if partially broken-down food was still absorbed but a far higher proportion of it went into fat stores, then improving the efficiency of the digestive tract could then lead to weight loss but I don't think the current understanding of digestion supports this. <edit>I also don't think there is any evidence that mixing food types has any effect on digestive efficiency</edit>

I still think the most likely mechanism is that following this particular diet is making you subconsciously choose quantities and types of food that end up with you eating fewer calories, without you being aware of it. And that seems to me to be a really good thing for a diet to do.

--- Penguin.