Andrew Huberman's weight loss diet.

I was tagged in this video of Andrew Huberman saying if you want to lose weight, "you can eat meat, fish, eggs, fruits, vegetables... if it is not in that list, you are not eating it".

I think this serves as a very useful lesson.

What is being described is actually very similar to a paleo (caveman) diet, with the further removal of nuts and seeds.

In short, you can ONLY eat meat, fish, eggs, fruits and vegetables.

And it *can* work. There are numerous research papers showing that people who follow a paleo diet will often 1) lose weight 2) improve their health markers.

And this can happen even when people are NOT given calorie goals. They just naturally consume fewer calories by the prescription of food choice. They are prioritising nutritious foods that are good for appetite regulation (on average) and also eliminating all ultra-processed foods which are worse for appetite regulation (on average). This obviously sounds great.

But there is a flip side. This diet has also been criticised for being 1) unnecessarily rigid (especially with the removal of dairy, grains and legumes, let alone STRICT avoidance of everything else) 2) unnecessarily expensive 3) difficult to adhere to in the long term.

For example, a mere 4-week feasibility study described it as possibly being impractical for use in clinical and public health settings.

So I think this is a good lesson for you which you can apply to any dietary approach you like.

Focusing on food quality can be great.

But sometimes it goes too far, and if a diet is so strict that is it difficult to stick to long term, it might not be a smart idea for you to follow it.

Does that make sense?

References:
- A paleolithic diet is more satiating per calorie than a mediterranean-like diet in individuals with ischemic heart disease
- Influence of Paleolithic diet on anthropometric markers in chronic diseases: systematic review and meta-analysis
- The feasibility of a Paleolithic diet for low-income consumer
- Experiences of barriers and facilitators to weight-loss in a diet intervention - a qualitative study of women in northern Sweden
- Paleolithic nutrition for metabolic syndrome: systematic review and meta-analysis.
- Compliance, Palatability and Feasibility of PALEOLITHIC and Australian Guide to Healthy Eating Diets in Healthy Women: A 4-Week Dietary Intervention

свернуть