Still amazed that people are still considering this a pure caloric issue and not a food quality issue.
When you look at how various hormones (namely insulin) are affected by blood sugar & affect body composition, it seems you'd want to promote a method that bears that in mind.
That said, I think the focus should be on "eating better" not just "eating less."
Eating 3000kcal of "quality food" every day will still make you gross fat and give you heart problems. And did you know that protein also affects insulin? Insulin is essential for muscle building.
Still find it hilarious how so many people still don't understand that a caloric deficit or surplus is the #1 thing to do when trying to cut or bulk.
You have to see it from the other side. It's about sustainability of the diet.
Eating 1800kcal of white bread, salad and skinless chicken breast will leave you with a raging hunger. Sure, you have a caloric deficit but how sustainable is that going to be? On the other hand eating 1800kcal of salmon, bacon, vegetables and eggs is the same caloric deficit but (for most of us) with way less hunger involved.
Plus your salmon, bacon, vegetables and eggs diet will provide micronutrients needed for proper functioning of organs and immune system. A micronutrient deficit might not be obvious on the short run but can do serious harm to the body long term.
> Still find it hilarious how so many people still don't understand that a caloric deficit or surplus is the #1 thing to do when trying to cut or bulk.
But it is far from the only thing, which I think is the point being made by the post you replied to. If you take in your exact calorific requirement each day bot solely in the form of bacon and chips, you are going to be rather unhealthy. You may even gain weight partly because feeling bad makes you do less activity (so you should be eating less to account for that) and partly because the lack of certain nutrients in the balance (and over abundance of others) causes hormone and digestive changes which change the way your body uses those calories.
As you rightly point out the opposite is true too: more in than out will result in weight gain even if everything coming in is in a healthy balance, but there is more to being healthy than being in the recommended weight band for your height.
FYI: I'm no nutritionist, but I have completely changed my form in the last 18 months (dropping from ~15.5 stone to ~10.25 and now running 5K in the real world in ~24.5 minutes (22m27s is my PB on the treadmill, one of my regular routes in the great outdoors is 8K) from previously not being able to jog to the corner shop without being out of breath for the afternoon). All this change was achieved in a large part by monitoring and controlling my intake against activity, but I'm pretty sure changing diet balance and exercise has helped greatly.
I think people who work purely on calorie counting and ignore other factors are as deluded as those who think they can eat too much simply because what they are eating is in healthy ratios.
Sure, but they don't vary that much between - and + 1 stddev. Eating 500 kcal / day less (or more) will affect the weight of pretty much everybody, over several months.
Humans eat for taste and I believe some research has indicated that we depend on taste to convey what will satisfy our hunger (and nutrient requirements). The problem is that most of our food is caloric dense, but nutrient poor. So, we cover the metabolic calories needed to live, but not much else. It's one thing I've learned from getting back on a diet is how much 'diet' food is empty calories and how often I have to eat other foods to cover nutrient deficits (calories are easy, getting enough Vitamin A is hard if you keep eating the 'diet' food).
The "food quality" argument (as it is put above) or really any argument claiming that caloric accounting is only a part of the picture basically say:
It's a lot more complicated than that. Even if is caloric accounting is true in the sense that you could control weight gain/loss via caloric surpluses/deficits (pretty hard to deny) this does not account for why caloric surpluses are so common.
A daily surplus of just 100 calories per day (~4% of daily total) will earn you an extra kg every couple of months (7000 calories per kg), 5-6 per year. Being off by in your "calculations" by this much will take you from underweight to obese in a few years. How then, do the many people who don't fluctuate their weight wildly manage to balance out their caloric input/output without precisely measuring their food. In fact, even highly disciplined people who weigh and record every bite could be off by 100 calories just because of inaccuracies in labeling. If your lemons are more caloric than the average lemon, you're screwed.
In the context of intentional and highly disciplined rapid changes in body size (like dieters or body builders) the caloric accounting method works. Add/remove 500 calories per day to add/remove about a pound per week, all else equal.
It's obviously "true," but just as obviously is not a complete picture. The relevance is contextual and practical. IE, body builders and crash dieters should and do reference it. A parent trying to make sure their kids are healthy does not.
We don't really understand metabolism enough to have real science based answers to our questions. That's why I think all these accusations of "bro science" are silly. There is no alternative. Referencing caloric accounting is attractive because it can be lab tested and it works in a lab, but labs control for other factors (like apetite). That doesn't mean it's a complete picture. It's relevant only to the extent that you can mimic lab conditions in your life.
Just like caloric deficit is true when isolated, so are other ideas that get thrown around. Hyper-palatable processed foods. Sugar addiction. Carbs. Insulin responses and appetite. Glycemic indexes. Gut flora. The carb/insulin people are interested in how food affects appetite.
I'll give you an example just to demonstrate how little we know. Say you take a morbidly obese individual and have them lose 100kg of weight, they have a capacity to regain that weight in a very short period much faster than anyone who has never been obese. A regular person usually cannot gain 25kg in a year. Biggest losers do it regularly
The same is true of body builders (power lifters, rugby players, etc). If they lose their 25 kg of "excess" muscle, they will often be able to regain much faster than anyone starting from scratch. IE take two 75kg guys with 15% body fat. One was 90kg with 10% body fat 5 years ago. Have them both exercise and diet hard, racing to put on 10kg of muscle. Use trainers to "control" for experience as much as possible. The ex body builder will leave the other guy in the dust.
I've heard this called "cellular memory," "muscle memory" (which is already takes, so rude) and such. But naming it does not mean we understand it. We don't have any kind of understanding of how or why this works. We just don't know.
This is why diet debates, especially among HN-like intellectual crowds can be annoying. Everyone has their tidbit of "scientifically proven" knowledge, but the truth is that we're in the dark ages. It's like geology before plate tectonics or biology before darwinian evolution.
It would make for an interesting experiment. Eat 3000kcal per day of doughnuts and cakes for a few months. See how much you weigh. Then switch to 3000kcal of organic meat, veg and healthy fats per day. Would your weight change in the same way? I can't say what the answer is. Has anyone tried experimenting with this?
Yes, it has been scientifically proven about a bajillion or so times that a caloric deficit causes weightloss, and a caloric surplus causes weight gain, irrespective of the source of calories.
However, eating 3000kcal of "healthy food" is a lot harder than eating the same amount of "junk food", because "junk food" has a higher caloric density -- that is the very thing that makes the food "bad".
A person can easily eat 3000kcal of junk food in a day and still not be satisfied, while a person who eats as much healthy food as they can may still fall shy of 3000kcal.
And this is why it in practice would be different: Different foods makes you feel different, and affects your willingness to be active and your ability to do hard exercise.
If you do control for activity (incredibly hard), then there's no reason why it would be different. If you don't, there are plenty of reasons why it would.
I think what you really mean is - healthier food makes you feel fuller, because it is less calorically dense
Because of that, it is easier to consume less calories when you eat healthier foods.
> Still find it hilarious how so many people still don't understand that a caloric deficit or surplus is the #1 thing to do when trying to cut or bulk.
Don't you think that there's more to human nutrition than "cut" or "bulk"?
Of course there is, but getting your priorities wrong is counter productive. Set the calories first based on your goal to cut/maintain/bulk, then you automatically figure out that junk food is a calorie thief and unconsciously start eating quality food, then you start adjusting your macros for body recomposition and the list goes on forever. Calories are #1 though.
I workout, I do my best to keep my nutrition in order, but I think cut/maintain/bulk are the wrong priorities. It's just the Internet fitness community thing; it's not wrong per se but implies a focus on what is less relevant.
The priority should be your health, and I always saw nutrition and health professionals advocating diversity. Focusing on calorie balance almost always overlooks this.
Counting calories is definitely NOT the way to a healthy body. That's all marketing fluff. 500 calories from Macdonalds is not the same as 500 calories of fresh vegetables. And why did you put "quality food" in quotes?! The type of food you eat make a huge difference!
> 500 calories from Macdonalds is not the same as 500
> calories of fresh vegetables
You will find yourself in the "No True Scotsman" fallacy very quickly there. It is a microsecond of thought experiment to find 500 McDonald's calories that are better for you than a specific 500 fresh vegetable calories.
McD's sells fresh fruit bags, grilled chicken, all manner of salads that you don't need to add dressing to, and so on. But you want a specific example?
I give you the Ranch Snack Wrap® (Grilled), Artisan Grilled Chicken Filet, mostly because if you eat two of them, you're near the 500kcal (580) mark, macronutrient ratio breakdown by calorie being 25% protein, 33% carbs, 41% fat, which ain't bad at all. Sugar by weight is 2%, by macronutrient calorie breakdown is 6%.
Let's say you ate 7 of them(!?!?) to hit your daily intake, which would be dumb, but whatever: your salt intake is 2x RDA, and you're probably shorter than you'd like to be of fibre.
If you ate exclusively this item for your calorific intake for a month, you might find you were passing your poop a little uncomfortably towards the end, but you'd find yourself significantly more healthy than most of the Western world. Take a multivitamin once a week, and if you eat exclusively this for the rest of your natural life, your only real concern is going to be potentially raised blood pressure and you'll probably get haemorrhoids.
Now let us consider the humble rutabaga (or swede), a root vegetable, allowed by the NHS to count towards your five vegetables a day. At 86% carbs, and 10% protein, it's pretty unbalanced, but whatever. Oh, did I mention? It's 64% (SIXTY FOUR) sugar by calories. Try living off that for a week.
> How is that No True Scotsman in any way? Seriously?!
Sorry, I was pre-empting your response to this post where you find some reason that the Ranch Snack Wrap, fruit bags, etc aren't real McD's, and rutabagas aren't real vegetables.
Fine, I concede. The term MacDonalds may be too ingrained in my mind as a synonym to junk food.
I should have said "500 calories of sugar-rich junk food will not affect your weight and health in the same way as 500 calories of protein. Doing calorie maths is pointless for any relevant overview of your diet."
It seems a bit pedantic to be bothered by me bashing MacDonalds.
> Eating 3000kcal of "quality food" every day will still make you gross fat and give you heart problems.
Well, depending on your size, activity level and metabolism - maybe. Maybe not.
> Insulin is essential for muscle building.
Sure - post workout. If you get a massive insulin spike first thing in the morning (juice plus bagels and cereal), at the exact time where your body's hormone levels are optimal, you're not doing yourself any favors.
I'm not vilifying any hormones - but there are optimal times to take advantages of the benefits of specific ones (and optimal times to make sure they're not spiking all over the place).
The literature shows that a caloric deficit is what matters the most for weightloss, by an extremely large margin, so large that all other factors can safely be ignored for "normal people".
Nutrient timing is completely irrelevant for normal people who want to lose weight, and only becomes relevant for bodybuilders with extremely low body fat levels, as well as athletes who train or compete multiple times a day, and even for them it is not one of the most important factors.
I just said nutrient timing is not important; i.e. the exact moment when you eat things, or don't eat things, is not important, for most normal people.
And they are not "my sources"; I'm refering to the available scientific evidence, they are everyone's sources.
And, lastly, the idea that you need to "break down" muscle in order to build it up is not really correct, either. Muscle breakdown happens yes, but it happens whether you workout or not, working out just elevates muscle protein synthesis, thus both the breakdown and build up of muscle protein. But it's not like the breakdown causes the build up, and it's not like there can't be buildup without breakdown, it's not a very good analogy and it's not a really good illustration of the mechanics at work.
> Most adult males who lift enough weights to care about cutting and bulking are burning 3000+ kcals daily.
I very much doubt that. Most adult males that combine lifting 1 hour+ a day with a physically demanding job and who is otherwise highly active, maybe. That includes a very small proportion of people who "lift enough weights to care about cutting and bulking".
I've done power lifting for ten years. I'm 108kg, carry around far more muscle than the average man. I exercise hard 3+ times a week. That's enough that my lifts according to strstd.com are all in the "advanced" range - much more than that is a waste when doing power lifting unless you're aiming to compete internationally. Yet my daily calorie need is on average ~2300kcal because I have a sedentary office job.
Most guys I see that worry about cutting and bulking have no clue what they're doing, and end up getting fat and bloated when bulking, so I tend to discount what people think they need quite heavily. I gained most of my muscle early on with a diet that saw me on 1600kcal-1800kcal. It's just the last few years I've been able to increase my intake above that without adding too much fat (and if you think I'm super defined and low body fat, think again)
This is why the human body is so fascinating. If my conversions are correct I weigh 88kg, perform about an hour of exercise a day and by limiting my calories to 2500/day I'm losing ~.8kg/week. I'm weighing all my food at home and at work so I doubt I'm out by more than maybe 100 calories.
Yet you are much larger, and fitter, but only need 2300 to maintain. I used to have more than 25% of your total daily intake in my coffees! And I've never been fat fat.
In livestock, they selectively breed for animals with good feed conversion ratios. i.e. for two pigs of the same breed given the same food, one will put on 1kg of mass and one will put on 1.5kg.
It would be daft to assume the same thing couldn't happen with people.
Be amazed all you want, but you're conflating two different issues, as does everyone who discusses it the way you do. Your attitude on this is actually a public health risk, because you're implying eating "better" is necessary to lose weight, and eating "better" almost always puts "better" out of reach of low-income families. "Yes, you can lose weight, you just need to spend $60 more a week on things I consider better at the grocery store."
Better is a relative term. Your better is not my better. How do you quantify better? Can you explain that to me?
Eat fewer calories than you need. Lose weight. Not rocket science. Sweat the other stuff later, and treat it like a separate issue, because it is.
Wouldn't disagree so strongly with you if you said "this is good. In addition to just figuring calories out, people should also eat better." Then I'd agree with you, but you're indignant and "amazed" like nobody understands the nuances of one value minus another, and if you're not making a salad, why even try. My entire life I've been overweight, and everybody has told me I need to eat "better," and I just started eating less of exactly what I ate before and it works. It's mysterious.
> eating "better" almost always puts "better" out of reach of low-income families.
I learned to cook cheap, unprocessed, healthy food as a student, in order to save money. A big bag of potatoes doesn't cost much and can make the bulk portion of many meals. I currently cook a lot of beans in my pressure cooker - easy, cheap and healthy.
Admittedly, the preparation time increases, which may be a problem for lower income families, but I always see the cost argument as false.
The people who advocate healthy food will tell you that potatoes and beans were among your worst choices. Ask them. I have a 700 calorie thing of rice and chicken that I love, and I have been repeatedly told it's awful for my diet and I need to eat healthier, completely ignoring the fact that an entire race on the planet has done pretty okay with rice and meats for centuries.
The one thing I know for sure is that almost nobody who discusses this stuff on the Internet, particularly people who throw acronyms like TDEE and BMR around, have any clue what they're talking about and only you can listen to your own body. Weight loss and the Internet is a stupid, stupid place. I saw a thread once where people were sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jared from Subway was lying because there's no way such a diet could have ever worked. All he did was eat less. That's it. It's not hard. It worked. Look at him. But no, the Internet knows better.
Cooking healthy food can indeed be cheaper than buying junk if you go about it the right way. Buy kale, cabbage, sweet potatoes, carrots etc. in bulk and combine with chicken or meat when on offer. The thing many people miss about healthy food vs cutting calories is that all this green stuff fills your stomach with less calories than a traditional western diet making it easier to cut calories.
The only difficult thing about eating better food is getting into a rhythm and setting aside 30 minutes a day to do it. Plus you obviously need a kitchen.
Yeah, the GP sounds like my wife - "I need to lose weight, better buy two extra broccoli's". Uh no, to lose weight, you need to eat less, not more - just leave that bag of crisps and forget about the broccoli.
Just stating that there's other things besides such strict calorie counting. On top of the fact that when practically put into play for people in real life, "calorie counting" feels restrictive, doesn't account for satiety (which then causes hunger & tends to lead to binges).
Re: better - tons of vegetables, high quality meats, low-sugar fruits, nuts and seeds. Carbs when-appropriate pre/post workout.
You are confusing "calorie counting", which is a method of losing weight, with a "caloric deficit" being the number one factor for losing weight, which is a fact.
It doesn't matter if you count calories or not. What matters is that you achieve a caloric deficit. Any method that is applied successfully to achieve weight loss has resulted in a caloric deficit, whether or not that method was calorie counting.
Calorie deficit is harmful for you though, there's an imbalance. You tell your body it's starving. As soon as you have an extra calorie to spare, you're body will immediately store it as fat, making your hard work essentially meaningless in the long run.
What scientific evidence? Let me guess, some blog post from a company that sells said diet? Give me a break.
Starving your body does indeed make you lose weight, that's true. It's just not a healthy way to do it. Nor is it long term. Your body will more than compensate for it as it regains all the weight you lost as soon as you eat like a regular person.
No, I'm talking about actual scientific evidence published in peer reviewed scientific journals. There are mountains of it available.
Being in a caloric deficit is not starving yourself, it just means that over a period of time, usually a full day, you spent more energy than you consumed, and the difference is taken out of your energy storage, which is mostly adipose tissue. This is how fat loss happens.
Oh I get it now, there's a misconception here.
A caloric deficit DIET is detrimental to you. But you can still obtain calorie deficit process by simply increasing the output (i.e. exercise). Eating quality food helps too.
There is nothing detrimental about being on a caloric deficit diet if are overweight. It's not starving yourself, it's not bad for you, it's the ONLY way you can lose fat. Reducing intake is much more efficient than increasing output, as the article we are discussing elaborates on.
> There is nothing detrimental about being on a caloric deficit diet if are overweight.
Yes, there is. Sustained calorie deficit has a number of potential adverse effects. OTOH, if you are overweight, those detrimental effects may be justified by the expected long-term health benefits of weight loss.
Yes you do lose weight, I don't disagree. If you do have a weight problem, it might be an option. But I don't think it's not detrimental for you or that it's a viable long term solution.
You are making the claim that a caloric deficit is detrimental to health (although you choose to call it "starving yourself" for unknown reasons, even though starvation is something completely different), the onus is on you to show evidence for that.
And I gave you links explaining the downsides. A calorie deficit diet does not guarantee fat-loss, it's more likely that your muscles break down before your fat. Your metabolism slows, making it even harder to lose weight, you'll be stuck in a vicious cycle. And finally, a big enough deficit can trigger starvation (medically) which tells your body to store fat as much as it possibly can. Meaning that as soon as you stop the diet, the weight will come right back, as fat. The proper way to lose weight is to increase the output (i.e. exercise) and eating more quality food. Not eating less.
I'm not against obtaining a calorie deficit because of more exercising or eating less sugar, I'm against having a calorie deficit diet by eating less, as the article suggests.
Must be fun to be able to ignore everything everyone says unless they did a Phd on the subject, while never actually presenting any arguments yourself.
>>> Among the conclusions from the study was the confirmation that prolonged semi-starvation produces significant increases in depression, hysteria and hypochondriasis
>>> Participants exhibited a preoccupation with food, both during the starvation period and the rehabilitation phase
>>> There were marked declines in physiological processes indicative of decreases in each subject’s basal metabolic rate (the energy required by the body in a state of rest), reflected in reduced body temperature, respiration and heart rate.
Depending on the amount of calorie deficit, the symptoms may not be as sever, but they are there. I don't really understand why you can't accept basic science.
My experience is different. I can go days without eating, and not suffer. Food occurs to me, but I'm not preoccupied. I work normally or with extra concentration, for longer. Fasting is the route to focus for me.
Call nutrition science if you like, but begin by admitting each experience may vary. We're not all built the same.
Yes, every person is different. But there are standards and averages and common approaches to these things. Otherwise medicine wouldn't exist since no two people have the same physiology. This is not an excuse to ignore scientific results.
Days without eating is not normal in any sense of the word.
Well, depends. For the first million years it was the norm. In a sense we're designed for it. Modern city-dwellers are all soft and weak and think they have to eat three times a day. But there's absolutely no biological reason its necessary.
A moderate caloric deficit is not starvation, however. So the experiment in question is completely unrelated to your claims. Science does not say that a caloric deficit automatically is starvation, you alone are making that claim.
>>> Science does not say that a caloric deficit automatically is starvation, you alone are making that claim
I never said that. Eating 100 calories less a day is not starvation, duh. But that diet it's not really effective at losing weight, now is it?
I know it's hard to admit being wrong on the internet, but you have no argument here.
You don't need to starve yourself to suffer from those symptoms. Your metabolism slows because it literally doesn't have the same energy to work. Meaning you'll get fat very easily. This doesn't even need a scientific paper, it's just common sense.
If you read closer, the Minnesota experiment showed that when terminating a low calorie diet the body becomes primed to gain fat FIRST before anything else. And your metabolism slows, making it extremely hard to continuously lose weight.
And most importantly, it doesn't work long-term. You can't just lose the weight, you have to stay like that.
Finally, no medical organisation recommends it unless you have a valid medical reason to do so.
"For people who are overweight but not obese (BMI of 27-30), very low-calorie diets should be reserved for those who have weight-related medical problems and are under medical supervision."
I've practically put calorie counting into play in real life, it doesn't feel restrictive, and I ignore hunger. It's almost like broad, sweeping generalizations are tough to make about human bodies and people.
You didn't answer my question about "better."
EDIT: You still didn't answer my question about quantifying "better."
There exists a group of people for whom ignoring hunger is not an option. I have been interviewing a bunch of nutritionists here in London about this and if they are to be believed this group make up a large percentage of obese people, which kinda makes sense :-)
Hence the advice to eat foods that make you feel full before you reach your desired calorie intake.
> considering this a pure caloric issue and not a food quality issue
I'm sure this will get a bunch of "but calories in calories out" replies - nobody is doubting the laws of thermodynamics, but there is an world of difference being, say, 400kcal under your TDEE eating "better" foods versus junk, both in terms of your mental outlook, how your body will look at the end, and whether you will stick to the diet and therefore succeed at your weight loss goals.
How so (in terms of body composition)? Say TDEE = 3000 and one disregards macro/micros and eats at 2500 for 20 weeks opposed to one who ensures appropriate amounts.
What you are defending is fitness, what we are discussing is weight loss
If you are 580 pounds heavy, restricting the number of calories you consume is far more important than making sure x% of your calories are from fats/carbs/proteins.
The only bearing food choice has on this matter is how full you will feel, and that is matter of personal preference and a small bit of choosing more protein rich foods, but if you don't mind feeling hungry you can lose weight just as well on 3 snickers bars as 3 chicken breasts with rice.
see http://www.boredpanda.com/what-200-calories-look-like/ for a visualization of how healthier foods will make you feel more full.
for example, 200 calories of M&Ms is 40 grams, the same number of calories from apples is 385 grams - almost 10 times as much physical stuff occupying your stomach
>but there is an world of difference being, say, 400kcal under your TDEE eating "better" foods versus junk, both in terms of your mental outlook, how your body will look at the end
I agree with those points, I was referencing this above. Especially the last sentence.
Yeah, this looks like one of the (many) downsides of the quantifiable self.
Nutrition professionals almost always advocate for diversity, but the Internet-wisdom thing is this approach. I guess it's just easier to do the simple math of in minus out (instead of actually trying to understand the nutrition of a complex organism).
Yes, of course, but - still - it's "Internet-wisdom". And mostly from fitness communities which may or may not be adequately knowledgeable.
The split thing could make one focus too much on macronutrients, possibly eating the same thing over and over to hit the desired macros, while overlooking micronutrients. Yet, if one followed the simplest nutritional advice (diversity) instead of Internet-wisdom, that would be addressed.
> That said, I think the focus should be on "eating better" not just "eating less."
I found that as I was looking for ways to reduce what I ate, I ended up eating better.
Once I had lost the weight, someone asked me how I could still stay the same weight even though I was eating jelly babies. My response was that I am more conscious now of how much of something I eat and will adjust for it.
That's exactly his point. The approach of merely counting calories ignores the fact that some foods such as diet soda are low in calories but can have an effect on body composition.
You shouldn't just "eat less" you should "eat better", and that means eating an appropriate amount of healthy good.
Research has shown that, among dietary and health guidelines, switching soda for diet soda is the most effective guideline that exists.
Eating better is obviously preferable, but the reason most people fail their diet is because it is too hard for them to comply with it. This is where the "switch to diet soda" is so effective; people can actually do it.
I wasn't comparing regular soda to diet soda, I was comparing having diet soda to not having diet soda. Diet soda affects gut flora and insulin levels. Calories are not the whole story.
That has only been demonstrated in mice, however, and only with semi-unrealistically large dosages of sucralose, if memory serves me right.
In humans, we have a lot of evidence that shows that the source of calories does not matter, for fat loss. Long term health is another issue, of course.
IMHO, putting focus anywhere but on calories is doing oneself a very big disservice, except for some athletes and bodybuilders for whom other factors are important as well.
What effect on body composition is that? Artificial sweeteners don't cause insulin resistance, so they should be fine for you.
The acid in Diet Coke is real bad for your teeth, but fruit juice is more acidic and has more sugar than diet soda and yet you probably think it's healthy, right?
Have you tried that though? I'd say the reason why people associate bacon with being fat is because people that overeat bacon tend to overeat junk food, sugary snacks, industrial bakery and drink litres of sodas. Truth is though, that over the last few years more and more studies are disproving[0] the connection of saturated fat with obesity and heart disease.
When you look at how various hormones (namely insulin) are affected by blood sugar & affect body composition, it seems you'd want to promote a method that bears that in mind.
That said, I think the focus should be on "eating better" not just "eating less."