You Are Not Different

Silverkittycat

Quit sheeping! If he can't even take on Martin in a Facebook argument how will he take on the ones that know? hmmm? Silly people.

CarmenSRT

No, he wasn't. He was clearly saying that one cannot gain bodymass, regardless of composition of that gained bodymass, in a caloric deficit. Nowhere did he say that an increased percentage of one or the other within that smaller bodymass was impossible.

Okay, I went and read some of this guy's other stuff and he does seem to think it's possible to gain LBM eating at a deficit, so I was wrong about him, at least on this issue. Here's an example:

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/adding-muscle-while-losing-fat-qa.html

As to the original post, either his writing style is poor, or this is a hot-button issue for me and I'm reading what's not there. Maybe some of both.
SNIP BY ME

You're right on the money. Lyle's writing style IS poor. He knows it too. I remember him acknowledging how boring Ketogenic was. It's a grind, no two ways about it.
Dieting issues can get heated. Take a bunch of people, some of who spend more time hungry than they're comfortable with, add some debate and it's bound to get raucous.

12skipafew99100

People on forums are sheep. The snowflake saying cracks me up. Someone made it up and now everyone throws it out there. Sorry everyone is an individual unless you have an identical twin.

Cant wait for the next years buzzwords to come out so you sheep can use it in every sentence.

Signed,
Opinionated Snowflake

Even if you are an identical twin you are still an individual.

marijasmin

I haven't read all the replies because there are way too many to get through so I hope this hadn't been covered already but I have two questions about the OP that maybe somebody can answer for me.

I have anorexia nervosa. I have been hospitalised on several occasions as a result of my ED. During each admission, I was initially on bed rest for many weeks or months and I was given a set diet of 3,500 kcal/day. On every admission, without fail, I would LOSE weight on 3,500 kcals (coming from eating an extremely low calorie diet - I won't quote numbers in case it's triggering). I was always dehydrated on admission so I know my fluid balance was probably out of whack but it still doesn't explain other week's loses.
On the flip side, I went through a period of rapid weight GAIN some years later, eating very little. Now I know it was mentioned in the OP about people under-reporting what they ate and how much. The only people who definitely don't do that are anorexics, instead we will hugely overestimate how much we've eaten "just in case" (case in point: today I ate 4 peanut halves out of a 100g/3.5 ounce bag but logged it as half the bag, which means that I've logged 4 peanut halves as 300 kcals and have been tracking my kcals this way for more than 20 years!). I was told I needed to eat more by a RD and, sure enough, many, many months later my weight evened out and dropped again.

Any ideas on what was happening there?

After a long period of annorexia or starvation, your digestive system isn't functioning fully. Therefore although you are ingesting the calories, you are not digesting and absorbing them. This happens also as we age. The calories are being eliminated. After a period of time , the digestive systems adapts again and starts producing acid and digestive enzymes. The system is designed to stop your body from digesting itself. This is a feedback loop with several different hormones involved including a hormone called grehlin.

Hope this explains my understanding.

Jasmin

wisters

OMG, I love this!

Hey snowflake, how'd you get a picture of MY cat??? Oz wants his pic back

PayneAS

Replying to save this. Great read (as much as I've read so far).

fancyacuppa

Bumping to read later

hpynh2o

Lyle McDonald is awesome.

anjoola

I thought I was a snowflake with extra fluff :brokenheart:

TeresaOH1

Love the article and love the snowflake kitty!

penrbrown

TLDR: To Sum Up:

I AM DIFFERENT. Stop trying to rob me of my uniqueness. Hmph.

DonniesGirl69

OP.......

You are my hero

AniOnFire

I've been wondering about these types of generalizations thrown out to address what is often refusal to address calorie management. In this sense he's right to address this in these terms. However I have some reserves about the "thermodynamic" arguments being used. Not only can metabolisms be vastly different from one individual to another but even the same individual can have a metabolism that varies quite a bit. How much do we vary? Up to 30% (http://examine.com/faq/how-much-does-metabolic-rate-vary-between-individuals.html) For an outlier, on a high exercise day that would be 900+ calories or more. That's a chunk of cheese!

The other element I wonder about, that these thermodynamic-based argument assume we are a closed system and therefore calories in would equal calories out. Except that the calories we talk about - nutritional calories are a best guess estimate of food energy value that assumes absorption in the gut is the same. It isn't - not only does it vary greatly and is effected by composition and transient time. A good read (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_energy). And not only are those calories only an estimated of the absorbed energy, but even those estimates vary from place to place (http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/Y5022E/y5022e04.htm) So be wary about these thermodynamic arguments, this is a best guess field.

Thank you I hate when people use pseudo science to prove their opinions and then the masses gobble it up like it's a golden rule. Also no one pointed out that he said essentially "Everyone is not different unless they are" which is essentially this entire article...and he's ignoring set point theory which is the actual reason people plateau >.> *sigh* here is some info on that one... Oh look it's something not from someone's blog or fitness journal, it's from a medical publication!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21117971

(I just realized most of you guys couldn't read it so I dug up others)

http://weightloss.about.com/od/glossary/g/setpoint.htm

http://www.chw.org/display/PPF/DocID/21747/router.asp

The last one has a great definition of it under what causes obesity.

Silverkittycat

AnoOnFire, what you've posted are studies or opinions based on adolescents and bariatric surgery patients, I am neither.

AniOnFire

AnoOnFire, what you've posted are studies or opinions based on adolescents and bariatric surgery patients, I am neither.

You might be neither, but set point theory is accepted by the entire scientific community and not conjecture. Metabolism is not a constant either, I don't believe anything I can't find on PubMed, believing what you read in blogs without real sources can lead to you doing more harm than good to your body. Just because it's popular with the public doesn't make it right.

Here is another article that doesn't deal with bariatric surgery patients or adolescents. Again it's hard to find things on it that aren't on EBSCOHOST or PubMed... which you have to have a subscription to see.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/328699-what-is-set-point-theory-in-weight-management/

http://www.examiner.com/article/biopsychological-set-point-theory-and-weight-loss

There's more on it.

You can also find articles about people complaining about it and saying it's not true... but they haven't made it into academic publications or Pubmed yet... I wonder why. I've also had a nice conversation with a professor of Neuroscience about it.

But yes, you're exactly like everyone else, and which makes medical history, weight, brain chemistry and all of those other factors irrelevant when dealing with a plateau.

Sublog

Thank you I hate when people use pseudo science to prove their opinions and then the masses gobble it up like it's a golden rule. Also no one pointed out that he said essentially "Everyone is not different unless they are" which is essentially this entire article...and he's ignoring set point theory which is the actual reason people plateau >.> *sigh* here is some info on that one... Oh look it's something not from someone's blog or fitness journal, it's from a medical publication!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21117971

(I just realized most of you guys couldn't read it so I dug up others)

http://weightloss.about.com/od/glossary/g/setpoint.htm

http://www.chw.org/display/PPF/DocID/21747/router.asp

The last one has a great definition of it under what causes obesity.

He's ignoring setpoint theory because its not proven to be true. That study does absolutely NOTHING to prove setpoint theory. People simply plateau because there is SOME variable they cannot account for.

The bottom line, and complete point of the article is this:

You can’t gain bodymass unless your energy intake exceeds your energy output because you can’t make something out of nothing (muscle or fat). And you can’t lose bodymass unless your energy intake is less than your energy output.

mmapags

AnoOnFire, what you've posted are studies or opinions based on adolescents and bariatric surgery patients, I am neither.

You might be neither, but set point theory is accepted by the entire scientific community and not conjecture. Metabolism is not a constant either, I don't believe anything I can't find on PubMed, believing what you read in blogs without real sources can lead to you doing more harm than good to your body. Just because it's popular with the public doesn't make it right.

Here is another article that doesn't deal with bariatric surgery patients or adolescents. Again it's hard to find things on it that aren't on EBSCOHOST or PubMed... which you have to have a subscription to see.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/328699-what-is-set-point-theory-in-weight-management/

http://www.examiner.com/article/biopsychological-set-point-theory-and-weight-loss

There's more on it.

You can also find articles about people complaining about it and saying it's not true... but they haven't made it into academic publications or Pubmed yet... I wonder why. I've also had a nice conversation with a professor of Neuroscience about it.

But yes, you're exactly like everyone else, and which makes medical history, weight, brain chemistry and all of those other factors irrelevant when dealing with a plateau.

Just as a point of accuracy, Lyle McDonald is not just a random blogger. He is a well respected fitness and nutrition expert and author as well. In addition, his sources are cited often in his articles or after them. He is not just some random blogger. You may agree or .disagree but the man, while not perfect, has earned the respect he is given. While you are intent on seeing the world in the light of us all being special and unique snowflakes, the fact is that a very high percentage of the factors that impact weight loss and health are the same for a very high percentage of the population.

For someone who is willing to give no credence to a 'blogger" you are citing 2 "articles" above. Lyle's article doesn't say, "you're exactly like everyone else" as you've stated above and if that's what you got from it, I'd suggest a reread. You will believe what you chose but the plain fact is we are all more the same than we are different, from a geneological level on up.

ironanimal

By all means continue your debate, but please do not cite Livestrong.com as a source and expect it to carry any kind of merit.

Morgaine_on_the_move

good info, thanks!

SideSteel

Bumping this because Lyle is brilliant.

Jester522

Bump because I agree with above post.

Mads1997

Bumping for later

WendyTerry420

The more I see from this Lyle McDonald guy, the more I know he is just spreading more bro-science.

Here's three reference that disprove his theory that it's impossible to gain muscle mass while eating at a deficit:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2662322

http://ukpmc.ac.uk/abstract/MED/3533812/reload=0;jsessionid=MEU4b8RAmpXNvw1jazad.0

http://jap.physiology.org/content/79/3/818.short

There are more if you actually care to look instead of just believing what you read on some guys blog.

By the way, this phenomenon has NOTHING to do with thermodynamics (or actually everything). He, and you seem to be forgetting that obese people are walking around with thousands and thousands of excess calories readily available for use when needed. There is no physiological reason why these calories are any different than those we eat. As long as obese individuals have sufficient protein and amino acid intake (the requirements of which are easy to do while eating at a deficit), it's not only possible, but in fact likely for an obese person new to resistance training to ADD to lean body mass.

Frankly, I think THIS may well be one of the reasons behind some of the "plateaus" people always complain about here. Though I will add that since most of them never bother to check their LBM, it's kind of hard to tell.

I don't see where those studies disprove what was stated in the article. Maybe I missed something, but I see these studies more as complementary rather than contradictory. Yes, if you are obese and burning fat, then that means you are using stored energy rather than dietary energy, but it's "six of one, half dozen of another." In other words, same damn thing!

I have increased my own lean body mass in this manner. Anyone can do it under the right conditions, with the right diet and activity.

WendyTerry420

I am still trying to find what you are referring to because I am honestly confused where you are seeing this. You seem to like extracting quotes - doing so in this case would probably clear up a lot of the confusion that appears to be happening.

ETA: I in no way disagree with you on your comments about gaining LBM while on a deficit when someone is obese, and in fact have made the same point in this and other threads, so I am definately not trying to debate that point:

So it sounds like we may be closer together on this issue that you realize. I'm not saying EVERYTHING he wrote is incorrect, but I do have 2 serious issues with his article:
1. The aforementioned statement that you can't gain LBM eating at a deficit. (I'll get to this in a minute), and
2. The remainder of the article where he talks about how some people are different, yet then goes on to say no one is different.

I think the reason I find this so offensive is because there is quite a bit of information that comes out of the bodybuilding world (such as most of this author's stuff), that simply DOES NOT APPLY to those of us that are more than 30 lbs overweight. Tons of people on MFP post stuff that may be great advice for someone trying to go from 12% to 8% BF, but is terrible advice for an obese person. The reverse is also true. Physiologically, there are some serious hormonal differences between an obese body and one just carrying a few extra pounds. As a result, we just can't make these type of generalizations. An example would be statements like "it's all about thermodynamics, just eat less than you burn and you'll lose weight." It sounds good, but it discounts the fact that our bodies are not just simple machines that respond exactly the same every time. Even the author know that or he wouldn't have made his money hyping various modified eating plans, macro requirements, etc,, and wouldn't have talked at length in this article about how some people have to really struggle to lose fat.

As to the quote that started my rant (yes I recognize it as such),

You can’t gain bodymass unless your energy intake exceeds your energy output because you can’t make something out of nothing (muscle or fat).

That is quoted from the article and is the place where I got so turned off by this guys stuff. I could easily re-write this sentence without changing the meaning by simply eliminating the parenthetical statement and instead putting it where the antecedent "something" is at: "You can’t gain bodymass unless your energy intake exceeds your energy output because you can't make muscle or fat out of nothing." Further, just to clarify, if you remove the words "or fat" from the statement it becomes "You can’t gain bodymass unless your energy intake exceeds your energy output because you can't make muscle out of nothing."

This is still the same statement. I'm not sure why you can't see that, but I suppose it's because you're a fan of this author.

The ladies are right on this one. Your quote from the article says body mass. Body mass is not the same thing as lean body mass. If you are obese, doing strength training, and taking in adequate protein, you can decrease body mass while increasing lean body mass. That is not a contradiction.

WendyTerry420

People on forums are sheep. The snowflake saying cracks me up. Someone made it up and now everyone throws it out there. Sorry everyone is an individual unless you have an identical twin.

Cant wait for the next years buzzwords to come out so you sheep can use it in every sentence.

Signed,
Opinionated Snowflake

Hate to break it to you, but the whole 'special snowflake' idiom has been around for some years. Maybe you should watch Fight Club.

ETA: This is a great thread and I'm coming back to read this whenever my inner entitled American corner-cutter wants me to think differently about physics.

That is one movie that I never cared to see. I always wondered where the "special snowflake" thing came from.

wackyfunster

You know, if people took half the effort they spend trying to prove they are a special snowflake/magical unicorn and that their motabolism is the reason they are fat, NOT the fact that they overeat and underexercise, and used that effort to eat less and move more, they would already be fit. I guess whining about how unfair life is is easier?

indianstallion

I completely agree. I used to be one of those people who kept whining that I just couldn't lose weight despite the fact that I wasn't eating huge portions of food and wasn't snacking on junk food. But I was lying to myself. I might not have gorged myself silly, but my food choices were almost always high calorie foods (fried food was pretty much my staple diet) and I didn't exercise. It was no wonder that I kept putting on weight year after year. I was a 112 kg (247 lbs) (basically obese based on my BMI) in December before I went on an exercise regime and started watching what I ate. I am now 77 kg (170 lbs) and I never felt better. So yeah the first step is to admit to yourself that you need to change your lifestyle and stop blaming genes or your low metabolism , whether you are obese or overweight.

VelociMama

Good read!

mmapags

You know, if people took half the effort they spend trying to prove they are a special snowflake/magical unicorn and that their motabolism is the reason they are fat, NOT the fact that they overeat and underexercise, and used that effort to eat less and move more, they would already be fit. I guess whining about how unfair life is is easier?

Word!

tobnrn

You know, if people took half the effort they spend trying to prove they are a special snowflake/magical unicorn and that their motabolism is the reason they are fat, NOT the fact that they overeat and underexercise, and used that effort to eat less and move more, they would already be fit. I guess whining about how unfair life is is easier?

What. I'm not a special snowflake/magic unicorn. My mommy lied to me. :sad: :sad: