Forgive me for hijacking this thread, but there's something nagging at me about all of this.

Yes, I remember Dr. Michael Eades' excellent blog post about "Caloric Torpedoes"

For reference purposes, here is that blog post:

Caloric Torpedoes

I find it interesting to note that the 'caloric torpedo' chosen to illustrate his points - is a bag of nuts and dried fruit. Seemingly low in carbs per portion size, but the small-ish bag contains much more than just one serving etc.

Here's what's really nagging at me...

What if it's NOT the calories or the carbs?

Why is it that we have all kinds of people with fantastic success on very low-carb, others who have success with increasing their fat content, still others who've upped their carbs and spurred on weight loss again?

Why?

We have people who are following a 'zero carb' path, people who like to do 'meat and eggs' for awhile, others who are doing Atkins '72 - and they are all finding success.

We also have people who are increasing their carbs - adding in more vegetables, fruits and so on. They are also finding success.

The common denominator seems to be the elimination of foods that combine both carbohydrate and fat. Particularly, if that food, in it's whole state - contains both carbohydrate and fat, especially in relation to portion size.

Nuts, nut butters, cheese, certain salad dressings.

The zero carbers aren't eating very much cheese, and they aren't eating nut butters or snacking on nuts. The people who have found success with a higher-fat regimen, for the most part - they seem to be choosing fattier cuts of meat, adding in olive oil or coconut oil or whatever.

Meanwhile, the South Beachers are not eating much in the way of full-fat cheese, or nuts either.

I don't find olive oil to be a problem. I don't find butter to be a problem in terms of losing some weight for most people (unless there's an intolerance to dairy foods). I don't find more vegetables to be a problem either. Even fruit, in moderate amounts.

Why is the Atkins KISS regimen working so well too? The only added fat recommended in that plan is olive oil - but one can have all the meat, eggs, veggies they want (except starchy veggies). Once again - they're not eating foods which contain both carb and fat together. I'm willing to bet that butter would actually be ok on the Atkins KISS plan - just that you don't want the cream or the cheese etc.

We wonder why there are limits on cream and cheese on the Atkins plan. Sometimes we think it must be because of the calories - but if this were the case, then why is butter not limited? Why isn't olive oil limited? Or beef?

There is a common denominator across all of these plans - from VLC or 'zero carb' to South Beach maintenance. The foods that contain both carbs and fats together have to be 'controlled'.

Is this what's meant by 'controlled carb' ? I've never quite grasped that concept.

So you take nuts, cheese, even something like pepperoni - relatively 'carby' in terms of their portion size, and also high in fat calories.

So, if the "caloric torpedo" was a little vacuum sealed pouch of butter slices - would it have the same effect on a low-carb eating plan?

Why are the low-carb desserts a problem? They're fine as a special treat, but they don't produce weight loss. When you combine cream cheese, and attach it to a nut crust - what are you getting? That same combination.

When you eat an Atkins bar of some kind, sure it has those dastardly sugar alcohols, but what else makes these potential stallers? Again, that same combination of carb and fat (ie. nuts).

So why is it that 'zero carb' all the way up to 'moderate carb' works so well? Why do we see "Atkins '72 ROCKS" and somewhere else, we see "I upped my carbs up to 60g a day and broke my stall" ?

What do all the plans have in common?