The "truth" about weight loss…
Published on 3.25.2025: It's been awhile since I did this, but I decided to register for the plant based seminar, The Truth About Weight Loss from February 15 through February 23. Apparently this was an annual seminar hosted by Dr McDougall (RIP) and Chef AJ, and despite the good doctor's death, the show must go on.
The summit is free to attend, but you have to pay to get a copy of the talks once the next day’s talks starts. I never pay for the talks, and as I'm writing this before it starts, I don’t know how many I will actually get to listen to.
I’m NOT going to take copious notes, unlike past seminars. I really don’t expect to hear anything new. I think I can confidently say that the message is going to be: Eat more plants. I am interested if the topic of fiber will come up, since that’s a current interest of mine.
The first talk is about food addiction, something that I don’t actually agree with. Do food companies work to make their products palatable? Of course they do. That doesn’t make them addictive.
Anyway, Fuhrman is the second speaker and he is, in part, why I signed up (I am currently reading his book Eat for Life. YES, I am also reading the book, Exercised, too.).
Apparently, food addiction (something the host, Chef AJ, believes she has) is going to be the theme. So they are focusing on “success stories” which I don’t really care about, so I may not listen to those. This is the 7th year of the seminar, and people who've attended in the past wanted to see more inspiring stories.
Frankly if you've attended SEVEN of these (and the info doesn't really change, the answer is ALWAYS to eat more plants— I think that's an indication that this way of eating is not real answer to the problem. People don't like eating this way.
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT any sort of medical professional. This notes are based on my personal opinions and biases. Do NOT take medical advice from me!!
The summit is free to attend, but you have to pay to get a copy of the talks once the next day’s talks starts. I never pay for the talks, and as I'm writing this before it starts, I don’t know how many I will actually get to listen to.
I’m NOT going to take copious notes, unlike past seminars. I really don’t expect to hear anything new. I think I can confidently say that the message is going to be: Eat more plants. I am interested if the topic of fiber will come up, since that’s a current interest of mine.
The first talk is about food addiction, something that I don’t actually agree with. Do food companies work to make their products palatable? Of course they do. That doesn’t make them addictive.
Anyway, Fuhrman is the second speaker and he is, in part, why I signed up (I am currently reading his book Eat for Life. YES, I am also reading the book, Exercised, too.).
Apparently, food addiction (something the host, Chef AJ, believes she has) is going to be the theme. So they are focusing on “success stories” which I don’t really care about, so I may not listen to those. This is the 7th year of the seminar, and people who've attended in the past wanted to see more inspiring stories.
Frankly if you've attended SEVEN of these (and the info doesn't really change, the answer is ALWAYS to eat more plants— I think that's an indication that this way of eating is not real answer to the problem. People don't like eating this way.
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT any sort of medical professional. This notes are based on my personal opinions and biases. Do NOT take medical advice from me!!
Food Addiction
Dr Nicole Avena is up first. This is the first day of the seminar/summit (I think I'm going to use those words interchangeably) and I began by taking notes as I have in the past. I also began listening in real time— as the presentations were being given. However, I quickly learned that most of the speakers spoke too slowly for me, and it would be better for me if I watched the replay. So after the first 2 speakers, that's what I did.
In addition, there was a surprise replay that allowed me to snag a copy of her slides. That's new for me, but rather than take notes, that's what I did for most of the presentations. Ironically, it was AJ who gave me the idea. This allowed me to actually listen to the talks, and then remind myself of what was said.
I'm not going to regurgitate my notes here, I don't think that's useful. Instead I will point to the highlights that impressed me. The definition for the world, addiction, has expanded. The definition (as defined by the DSM-5) includes behaviors such as gambling, rather than just chemical addiction. That's why food addiction qualifies.
It's not all foods though, just those that include the so-called "bliss point" of salt, sugar and fat. The original hyper-palatability definition was based on salt and fat, the woman added sugar after complaints. Even AJ noted that no one gets addicted to broccoli. This notion that food addiction is similar to heroin addiction will be mentioned a number of times in these talks, but I'm still skeptical.
Avena wants everything to come down to sugar, but even her rat studies don't prove that. Her list of "problematic" foods (supposedly high in sugar) are ALSO high in fat and salt. In other words, it's NOT the sugar, it's the combination of sugar, fat and salt that makes the difference. A donut may be a high sugar food, but it's also high in fat, and it contains enough salt to make it hyper-palatable.
Food addiction might better be described as ultra-processed food (UPF) addiction— though some of these (all vegan) presenters don't consider UPF to be real food. And if UPF aren't hyper-palatable, people DON'T eat them to excess (Kevin Hall's latest research showed that). I went looking for the Twitter thread where he talked about preliminary results, but couldn't find it. That is a summary of his previous work, where he didn't match the hyper-palatability of both diets. Now he has, and it looks like a win for team hyper-palatability.
The bottom line is that I don't really buy the food addiction line, perhaps the HPF (hyper-palatable food) may be "addicting," but people don't binge or overeat on broccoli. On the other hand, there are people who are so focused on bingeing that they will risk losing other things to eat.
In addition, there was a surprise replay that allowed me to snag a copy of her slides. That's new for me, but rather than take notes, that's what I did for most of the presentations. Ironically, it was AJ who gave me the idea. This allowed me to actually listen to the talks, and then remind myself of what was said.
I'm not going to regurgitate my notes here, I don't think that's useful. Instead I will point to the highlights that impressed me. The definition for the world, addiction, has expanded. The definition (as defined by the DSM-5) includes behaviors such as gambling, rather than just chemical addiction. That's why food addiction qualifies.
It's not all foods though, just those that include the so-called "bliss point" of salt, sugar and fat. The original hyper-palatability definition was based on salt and fat, the woman added sugar after complaints. Even AJ noted that no one gets addicted to broccoli. This notion that food addiction is similar to heroin addiction will be mentioned a number of times in these talks, but I'm still skeptical.
Avena wants everything to come down to sugar, but even her rat studies don't prove that. Her list of "problematic" foods (supposedly high in sugar) are ALSO high in fat and salt. In other words, it's NOT the sugar, it's the combination of sugar, fat and salt that makes the difference. A donut may be a high sugar food, but it's also high in fat, and it contains enough salt to make it hyper-palatable.
Food addiction might better be described as ultra-processed food (UPF) addiction— though some of these (all vegan) presenters don't consider UPF to be real food. And if UPF aren't hyper-palatable, people DON'T eat them to excess (Kevin Hall's latest research showed that). I went looking for the Twitter thread where he talked about preliminary results, but couldn't find it. That is a summary of his previous work, where he didn't match the hyper-palatability of both diets. Now he has, and it looks like a win for team hyper-palatability.
The bottom line is that I don't really buy the food addiction line, perhaps the HPF (hyper-palatable food) may be "addicting," but people don't binge or overeat on broccoli. On the other hand, there are people who are so focused on bingeing that they will risk losing other things to eat.