It is amazing how abusive readers of this group can be toward
Dr.Chung. I hate it. His 2 pound diet is a service to people who
have trouble with the complexity of many diets. It is foolish to
argue much of what is argued when it has been known for centuries that
the principle cause of obesity is eating too much. If one takes some
care to include reasonable balance in a diet that is measured by
weight one should not become malnourished and one should weight control.
To make it more than that is absurd and rude. All this stuff about peer
reviewed studies, etc. is just a polemic smoke screen There is no claim
that the two pound measure is a profound nutritional discovery. It is
just a simplification that is safe and will work where more complex systems
fail due to their complexity.
My wife recently joined weight watchers and I have learned that their
approach is darn near equivalent to the two pound diet except that they
replace weight by points.Then you purchase their food products in regular
stores and keep track of the point values on each product. The products
are reasonably balanced nutritionally so the dieting process is greatly
simplified. I think the essence of both weight watchers and Dr. Chung
is to keep it simple and keep some balance. Dr. Chung's advice has been
free of charge and his weight intake prescription is darn near free, certainly
more so than a diet of Weight Watcher's Smart Ones. Dr. Chung also makes
the point that weight loss is possible on almost any diet if one restricts the
total food intake enough. One just has to take care a.) Don't go too close
to zero. b.) Keep the total below a limit such as two pounds. c.) Have some
nutritional variety with sensitivity for fats and sugars being less than
desirable parts of the "two pounds". Dr. Chung did make one strategic mistake
in basing his two pounds on the food weight rations of mountain climbers. The
two pounds there is concentrated and dehydrated. When properly hydrated before
consumption it ends up to be more like 5 or 6 pounds. When I spent two weeks of
25 mile per day rocky mountain hiking I dropped from 185 to 175 on such a diet,
but could probably gain on that same diet at today's activity level.
My apologies to Dr.Chung if I have badly screwed up any of his ideas. I think
we both have it basically correct.