I actually can’t find anything in your most recent post that I disagree with. I included you in my reply to Swordmaker because I felt you were part of the discussion.
Nutrition is an area where otherwise like thinking people (like Freepers) can have widely disparate opinions based on one's own life experience.
In a nutshell, my life experience has been this: In 2003, I discovered to my horror that I was closing in on 350 pounds. I'm six foot three so it wasn't like I was Michael Moore but I was definitely obese and while still reasonably healthy, I was running all the medical signs of impending troubles down the road like high blood pressure, early onset diabetes and heart disease.
The moment of truth came on a business trip when I was walking down the aisle of an airplane to my seat and I saw that a pretty attractive woman was sitting in the seat that was to be next to mine. I will never forget the look of disappointment and disgust she gave me when she realized I was going to sit next to her, with my gut spilling over the armrest into her area.
I knew something had to change. During lunch at work, when I would normally get a six-pack of Tacos from Taco Bell or a couple of cheeseburgers and fries from the burger joint, I decided to take a walk instead. Fortunately there was a rails-to-trails path near my workplace and so it was convenient to take a nice long walk without having to worry about auto traffic and other congestion. I also read up on nutrition and the popular diet at the time was the Atkins Diet so I thought I'd give that a try - only skipping the induction phase because I thought it was too extreme. I wasn't concerned about losing a lot of weight as once but just changing my lifestyle to a healthier one.
So I ate much more meat, eggs, nuts and cheese and a lot less breads, pizza, pasta and rice. As for junk food like cakes, pies, cookies, chips, I cut that out immediately. Lot less carbs but I wasn't counting. Just trying to be healthier.
I ended up losing over 100 pounds within a year. I have lots of posts here on Free Republic from that era as we had a lot of discussion back then.
After a few years, I gradually moved back into the diet I had before. It's easy to do. A pizza here. A plate of spaghetti there. Before long, I was pretty much eating the way I ate before except I always maintained my exercise regime and still to this day walk over 10,000 steps a day and usually closer to 20,000.
In November of 2015, I was back over 300 pounds again!
So once again, I eliminated all the carb-laden foods. No more pasta, breads, pizza (my favorite food!), candies, pies, sweets of any kind. I started drinking my coffee black.
Almost immediately the weight dropped off again. My doctor was amazed. By last summer, I was back down around 225 which is heavy but carries very well on my 6'3" frame.
I am now convinced that at least for myself, a "lower" carb diet works. But in particular, a diet based on whole foods. I couldn't care less how many carbs are in things like blueberries, apples, bananas, and such. I eat as much of those as I want. But if it comes in a package and it's labeled "low fat" or it includes high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated (trans) fats, I don't eat it.
Even yogurt is where I can pack on weight. If I ate the low-fat yogurt, it is likely to have 30 or more grams of added sugar. But with the full-milk yogurt (higher fat), you have no or very little added sugar at all and it is delicious. Especially when blueberries or blackberries are mixed in.
This by the way, goes completely against the advice of my doctors who always spout the generally accepted "balanced diet" approach which means lots of cereals, breads, rice and pasta - which I know for a fact makes me fat.