Top 10 MFP community falsehoods

that's correct. I included that macros should be hit when trying to generate that large of a deficit, but it's a good idea to have that detailed info laid out as well.

ETA: My primary goal for that piece of the post was for people who are very overweight or obese to (hopefully) realize that when they satisfy their nutritional needs (i.e. macros) they don't have to worry about "eating back" exercise calories. Those who are very close to their goal *will* need to worry about that. I just see a lot of people with 80-100+ lbs to lose who are also trying to measure their 150 calories burned doing housework or mowing the lawn so they can then be sure to eat the proper number of grapes or something to maintain an unnecessarily small deficit. The long and short of it is, if you have a lot to lose, it's going to be *really* tough to out-exercise your maximum "healthy" deficit. I did not intend for people to justify an unmonitored VLCD using that information.

Thanks to those who have already helped clarify this.

I did not see any mention that the OP was directed at very overweight or obese people.

You do mention in the OP that you like Lyle.

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html

You also mention "There *is* science to support the limit of roughly 6% of your body's fat mass per week as an upper limit on the rate of fat loss.". Where is this from? Not saying it is wrong - just that I have not seen this noted before.

To be fair, I intended that as the primary audience, I just did not articulate it. From my perspective, that accounts for the majority of the people here. I at least managed to post it in the weight loss thread, even if I didn't manage to make that part clear.

As for Lyle, I do like him and I've even had some email exchange with him to help clarify some theories I came up with a few months ago. He's been doing research for a very long time and has seen just about ever scenario possible.... as it turns out he had already tested those theories and proven one correct and one incorrect. He's been very helpful to me both directly and indirectly, and I have read *I think* everything he's ever published online or in print. The link you're referring to is one that made me originally think there was some truth behind the "you need to eat more to lose weight" theory. And yes, there is... he details some of that in that link. However, IMO it gets misapplied all the time here. He uses examples that are extreme in one direction, but somehow those concepts get applied to people that are extreme in the other direction. The issues of a woman who eats 600 kcal per day and runs marathons are not going to have very much intersection with those of someone who eats 1200 and exercises comparatively little.

the 6% number is based off of the 31kcal per lb of fat mass number, extrapolated to include the 3500 kcal per lb of fat loss estimate. If you have 100 lbs of fat mass, your theoretical maximum loss for the week would be 6.2 lbs. With 50 lbs of fat, it comes to 3.1 lbs. with 25 lbs, 1.5, etc.

To the poster who said something about my blindness and my high horse... I just posted a thread with a bunch of things that people get wrong here every single day. I never intended this to turn into "the fitness bible" nor am I trying to pitch it as anything of the sort. I don't have any high horse to get off of. For what it's worth, the 34 lbs I've lost is just since I started with MFP. A little over a year ago I was 350 lbs. So my ticker would say 64lbs if I had started here then.

If you read my profile you'll see that I also underwent this journey once before, years ago when I was in my very early twenties. I got down to 215 then and I was in great shape... but got lazy and slowly gained a crapload of weight over the following 12ish years. Married, happy, etc. etc... I had every excuse in the book. A few months ago I decided I'm done with that. I set a goal for myself to get back to 215, and get back to the weights I used to lift at 21. I will finish this journey and I will be in the best shape of my life by the time I hit 35 next year. I'm driven to reach that goal and I'm well ahead of schedule. I have embraced the science behind weight loss and have learned an amazing amount that has helped me get this far... and I will continue to learn.

I have read every piece of credible scientific data on the subject I've been able to find, and I'll keep doing that as long as there is more out there to find. That's the big reason I didn't list a ton of references at the time... I plainly didn't have them at my fingertips to list when I wrote it. I read and read but I rarely bookmark so I can "prove" it to someone later. Gaining knowledge is a never-ending process, and I even noted at the top of my rant that I'm just a nerd who likes research and wants to help dispel some of the nonsense that gets thrown around as fact, even though science doesn't support it. I never said I was anything more than that.

All I hope is that people will do their own research and stop buying into the hype of things that have no real foundation in fact. That's why I started this thread and so far I've gotten tons of responses from people who are doing just that. You can't please everyone, but I'm more than happy that I've helped at least a few people become skeptical and start actually reading credible scientific work themselves. I consider that my own little NSV.

^^I get the 6% now - that was a hypothetical calculation and should not be used as a recommendation as a lower limit imo - too much risk and too many things it misses - hormonal, nutrient sufficiency, adherence, energy (and therefore gym performance).

I like Lyle myself and agree that the auto 'eat more' response is very often the wrong advice. However, context is always relevant and sometimes more color is a very important thing to include, most particularly, who your target audience is.

Also, as I am sure you are aware, many people looking to lose weight are not significantly overweight or obese on here.

I do wish MFP would allow me to edit my OP, but alas they won't... so hopefully people will read the whole thread. It's a lot to sift through though. Maybe they'll at least read this page.

Trust me, if I had any inkling that this would become such a popular thread I would have taken more time with it, included references for each specific part, etc. That probably would have resulted in more TLDRs, but what can ya do?

You and I don't always agree but I do respect your knowledge and opinions and I'm definitely glad that you know how to keep it civil. That's miles ahead of sooo many posters here