I think this is a wonderful place, great for support or encouragement. SV/NSVs are awesome to hear. Unfortunately, there's also a ton of junk science posted on here daily, usually in the comments, which can be very harmful or counter-productive.
As a general rule, weight loss is a very simple concept that's very hard to achieve for most people. "CICO" really is the only way to do it, but calories in calories out is just a concept, not a plan. For instance, many people achieve a good CICO ratio through intermittent fasting. While there are mixed results about whether or not IF does much, the success is most likely coming from limiting grazing throughout the day. If you eat all of your calories in a small window, and strictly do not touch food outside of that window, you're more likely going to stick to your calorie goal. If you can do IF and stay disciplined, good for you!
Generally speaking, any type of diet that is restrictive or cuts out entire food groups is going to be pseudo-science (excluding vegan/vegetarian if you're doing it for moral reasons). The studies looking into Keto/Atkins/Paleo/Whole30/HCG/etc are all mixed. Some people achieve incredible weight loss. Some people lose a little. Some people lose nothing. Some people gain weight. The common denominator with restrictive diets is that if you fall off the wagon, you tend to binge hard. Give up all carbs for a month and you'll probably find that you crave bread a lot. Additionally, everyone's physiology is different, and studies have also shown that some people have success with high fat/low carb while others have success with low fat/high carb, etc. If you have no idea how to eat balanced meals, consider consulting a registered dietitian.
Small side note: "nutritionist" is a meaningless term. You want to speak with a Registered Dietitian. They're the ones who went to school and attained certification.
There is one diet with proven success for what it's targeting, and that's the DASH diet. DASH is designed to lower blood pressure in people with hypertension. Along with the DASH diet, you'll find a few others that touch on the same principles, such as the Mediterranean diet. From the mayo clinic: The DASH diet emphasizes vegetables, fruits and low-fat dairy foods — and moderate amounts of whole grains, fish, poultry and nuts. This is a well balanced diet that keeps sodium consumption to a minimum, and balances sources of carbs, fat and protein.
In general, homemade food is usually healthier than store bought or restaurant food. This is largely due to being able to control the amount of sodium or sugar, and you will usually use less fat when cooking than a restaurant. Salt and sugar are preservatives, as they both have bacteriostatic properties. Since you don't have to preserve homemade food, you don't need to add in so much. You can just season for taste. You can theoretically make "unhealthy" food healthier by making it yourself. Next time you're at the deli section, look at a packet of sausage. Then realize that you can make sausage yourself with good cuts of meat, without the salt and such. It's just that most people don't own a meat grinder so they're not even going to bother. You'll find these things come up when someone recommends "whole" foods vs "processed" foods. It almost always boils down to salt and sugar content.
Finally, if someone uses a word that sounds like pseudo-science, it's probably pseudo-science. My number one red flag word is "toxin". If you see the word toxin appear in a post, just skip it. They don't know what they're talking about. If you're feeling feisty, ask the person to define exactly what toxin they think is in their food. People call anything and everything a toxin (usually sugar). This is a dilution of language on par with the anti-vaxx movement, and should be ignored or challenged at every turn. It leads to doubt about basically anything you're eating. For instance, someone may tell you not to eat fish because of the mercury content. Well, smart people have thought about this before, and the benefits of eating a nice salmon filet far outweighs the small amount of mercury in the fish. There are guidelines for how often you should eat a certain type of fish in a week, based on mercury content. If someone says, "don't eat fish. They're full of toxins!" disregard.
We're all grinding it out, and we've all found individual success and failure doing different things. The thing is, we're not capable of conducting randomized, double blind studies on ourselves. We can't know exactly what worked for us vs. what didn't because we're usually just watching the scale number, or going off of our mood or energy levels. We may misattribute these successes to a certain thing (I cut out grasshoppers this week!) without actually knowing what led to the success. At our best, we can give encouragement, we can pass along advice from actual professionals, and do things that are in our wheelhouse. At our worst, we can give dangerous, unhealthy advice and sabotage someone's attempt to get healthy.
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