Yet another study shows no weight loss benefit for low-carb
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stevencloser wrote: »Or you could stop wildly speculating and taking what was actually shown in controlled environments to be true time and time again.
Or you could also look into the success people have had and see if there is anything to it. You are cherry picking your studies. I don't know how much LC / IF , etc help, but I do know that there is a lot of evidence that they do and also they are not an impossibility due to laws of physics (thermo).
First, and please lets get this straight. No one on this site, regardless of how biased they are, will deny that there are benefits of lchf to people. But this us no different than any other diet. All diets work. It really us that simple. If it enables compliance and adherence, and addresses any medical issue, it will work. But in terms of science, like actual studies, when protein and calories are constant, there is zero additional benefit. All the other studies that dont maintain prrotein benefit from more protein. That is why there is that article from authoritynutrition on 23 studies that low carbers frequently promote. To me, it demonstrates the effectiveness of increased protein.
If you look at this site, a large portion of the more lean and fit people mainly follow moderate to higher carb diets. There are a lot of benefits from a moderate carb or even high carb program if you goal us muscle gain in a deficit... something muscle harder to achieve in keto or lchf. Dont get me wrong there are other factors such as exercise programming, newness to lifting, genetics and nutrition.
And honestly i am trying to give you a benefit of the doubt but all of your arguments are based off of anecdotes and not studies that are controlled. And for every one that you can find showing huge metabolic advantage for one person, you will find another blog saying the opposite.
Personally, i low carb 3 days a week and and high carb 4 days a week. Right now, as painful as the low carb days are, it has given me a but more vigor for compliance and staying on track with calorie counting. Because at 16% body fat, i have a lot less room for error.
I've seen many replies with just a simple "NO doesn't work that way" so I'm not sure everyone thinks lchf benefits anyone. I personally don't like lc myself but have given it a go the last 5 days after having done IF for a long time. I've lost 4-lbs this week and might have 5 by tomorrow. I suspect some is due to water loss, some due to exercising more, and some to reduced calories also. I don't know if that accounts for it all or not. I will keep trying for a couple more weeks to see if it is an improvement of what I've been getting. I think there is evidence that isn't just anecdotal. What about the mice study where they fasted a goup twice a week and didnt' another and they both had the same weekly calories and the fasting group got leaner than the control group? Jason Fung has a lot of references in his book "The Obesity Epidemic" I haven't really checked them out so don't know how rigorous the tests were (not sure I could judge them if I did). I will keep reading and learning. I believe some of those things help but don't know for sure, but I do know that they are not an impossibility which I've heard many say.1 -
SusanMFindlay wrote: »Amongst all this thermodynamics and insulin discussion, we must remember that the body naturally wants to be lean if you let it.
No, it doesn't. The body wants to have enough fat to serve as "insurance" against future famines. We evolved to survive cycles of feast and famine. That doesn't mean the body wants to be obese, but it's not going to "waste" calories; that's not what it evolved to do.
Well, if that is the case, why do people who store fats become more prone to diseases and abnormalities within the body because of it? The body performs its best and is healthiest when lean (that term is loosely used...there is allowance for body fat as you state). It has less metabolic defects, less overall health problems, better reproductive health, and better stamina...
There are both upper and lower limits where that doesn't hold true. No, obesity is not a good thing and I haven't seen anybody say we're better off being obese, or that we were designed to be that way. But being very lean can create health problems and hormonal disruptions as well. As for "better reproductive health", I've seen plenty of guys in bodybuilding-related forums complain about their sex drive (and "abilities") plummeting to zero when they're cutting and getting pretty lean. Many women lose their periods and have all kinds of screwy hormonal issues when they get lean. A little further over on the spectrum, anorexics, many of who are very lean, have just as many or more health issues than obese people do.
Maybe your thought holds water if you're defining "lean" as loosely as "being something less than obese" - say maybe the 18% - 25% BF range (for males), which is generally categorized as "Average". But in the terms of people into fitness, that's not lean at all. "Lean" would be somewhere around 10% - 12% or less (for males), and no, the human body doesn't naturally want to be that lean. It's pretty easy to get into the "average" range and maintain it, but getting down into that "lean/ripped" territory is a battle and it takes a lot of effort, restraint and self-discipline to maintain it. Ask any guy at 10% BF if he got that way just by letting his body do its thing and be where it naturally wanted to be.
(I'm excluding the discussion of third world countries where food scarcity/malnutrition is a fact of everyday life. I don't imagine there are a lot of fat dudes wandering around Burundi or Eritrea. It's not hard to maintain extreme leanness when you have nothing to eat most of the time, and that's an entirely different topic with plenty of attendant health problems.)
When I was a freshman in college, I took a fitness for life class and they did body caliper measurements. I know that there can be a great variation in those results but they said I was 3.5% BF. I don't know if I was that low (probably not) but I very well could have been 5%. I was 6'1" and weighed 155. I worked as a hod carrier in the Las Vegas sun for a couple of summers before that and during my junior year in high school and I ran track. The summer before college I worked 8+ hours a day carrying hod (brick mason's helper - like lifting weights all day) and then I would take a nap and then go out and run 7 or so miles after (I ran track in high school and college as a walk-on). In college my weight got up to 160 but I could not gain any more weight no matter how hard I tried. I counted calories for 1-week there out of curiosity and I got 4000-5000 cals a day. I could not gain no matter what and I tried with supplements, eating tell I couldn't eat any more. I was very active, but I swear that my body just didn't want to gain any weight.0 -
samhennings wrote: »Blambo - I have completely lost track of your point, it reads to me like a few disparate ideas being conflated.
I understand there is an energy cost in both storing and retrieving enerygy as/from fat.
I would imagine it is something of a constant, IE - it happens regardless of diet type.
I would also imagine this is essentially factored into the average CICO calculation. IE, if you are losing weight you are using more energy than you consume, and the fat storage/retrieval plays part of that.
I lost weight right on que, as per projections. All of this "extra" burn was happening but didnt make me lose weight any faster.
Are you saying that keto/low carb diets somehow make the "cost" of retrieving energy from fat higher? Consequently increasing the CO part of the equation?
If so, why?
I'm just saying there is the possibility of it, that that concept is not impossible. I'm not saying it happens definitely but there is evidence that it does help.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »spinningmadlyon wrote: »Keto is not just about appetite suppression (ie calories in calories out). Its about improving insulin sensitivity. Most overweight people have higher than optimum AC1 numbers approaching prediabetes or may even have T2 diabetes already.
That's overstated, and of course lots of people who do get their numbers back to normal just by losing weight. Another great way to increase insulin sensibility for most people is exercise.
Also, does keto actually improve insulin sensitivity (outside of weight loss)? Or does it reduce the need for insulin (with respect to carbs anyway) so that IR is less of a problem? The test would be whether one can do keto for a while, without weight loss as a contributing factor, control blood glucose levels that way, and then reintroduce carbs and respond as an IS to them. I don't think that's normally the case. If it leads to weight loss, of course, that often cures the problem.If you are a "sugar" (carb) burner, you need to eat fairly frequent.
I don't get this idea that people are "sugar burners" or "fat burners." People burn both, in percentages consistent with what they eat (and with body fat being used to make up for any deficit). You don't have to be on a low carb, let alone keto diet to burn fat. We all burn fat, especially when sedentary or exercising at a low level (walking, sitting, sleeping).
And no, you don't need to eat all that frequently. People did fine on three meals a day with typical diets with carbs as the largest source of calories. People follow similar eating patterns on high carb diets all over the world in various cultures. I personally always found that they easiest diet, even when eating higher carbs--I think the need to eat a bunch is cultural, we have food offered all the time, not about macros. And even without being on keto it has never been that big a deal to me to fast for a day (and others do various forms of IF without doing low carb).Each time you have that low calorie high carb rice cake or piece of healthy fruit your insulin spikes. These frequent insulin spikes from low calorie but high glycemic index foods contribute to a progression of hormonal malfunction of insulin (increasing your blood sugar levels). So long as you have higher than normal blood sugar levels you will not break down fat for energy. Your body doesn't need to. Calories in calories out do count, but not nearly as much as how your food choices impact the release of insulin in your body.
This is just wrong. People lose fine on high carb diets. When you have a deficit you burn the carbs, but then still need to burn fat when they are gone -- there's no difference, that claim that you can't lose eating carbs makes no sense and is part of keto rhetoric that is a lie. Also, blue zone diets and lots of other very healthy diets are higher carb than the US diet, and yet people are normal weight and don't have problems with IR or T2D. So scaremongering about fruit makes no sense.
They were not saying you can't lose eating carbs. Only that some things help burn fat more than the deficit requires. Insulin has been shown to inhibit fat formation.
Yes, he or she was were suggesting that even at a deficit you will not lose if you eat carbs too frequently. You have claimed that in the past too, and that you will lose a lot more if you low carb or fast -- I recall psulemon explaining in detail why you were wrong (I think it was him, could have been stevencloser, or both).
It is true that while insulin is high you won't be burning as much fat (but you also won't be adding it if you are burning it or need to fill glycogen stores, both of which are going to be true if at a deficit, most likely). But the bigger point is that amount of carbs doesn't affect overall fat burning, as you will either have lots of short spikes followed by fat burning or fewer longer periods of high insulin followed by periods of fat burning. In neither case will you be unable to ever burn fat but still have a deficit -- that makes no sense, as you can't be active/alive and burning nothing, and with a deficit by definition you will run out of carbs to burn (and plus everyone tends to burn fat when sedentary/asleep).
I have never claimed that if you eat at a deficit you will not lose. Re-read everything I've posted in this thread or elsewhere. That would violate laws of physics. I have said that I think low carbs can help you lose more than a deficit would predict. You have not read very closely what I've written.1 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »I've been sick so have been away from MFP for the past few days. I'm still not feeling very well, but let me see if I have this straight:
Has blambo been saying that it theoretically doesn't violate any thermodynamic principals for more fat to be burned than would be accounted for in the CICO model given the correct substrate ratio and is offering Peter Attia to back up this theory while ignoring the fact that in controlled conditions, such an effect has not been observed?
I think the notion is that in certain foods not all calories are turned into energy and just wasted (i.e., if you eat 1000 cals of nuts, not all 1000 calories would be converted into energy). But who knows because actuals studies confirm otherwise.
My reading is that he's claiming that this happens not so much with certain foods (although it could be that our usual counts are somewhat off on some things, like nuts, and will be corrected eventually), but with certain ways of eating. Some months ago I remember he was off on the theory that if you ate a huge amount of calories in one sitting you would excrete a lot of them without using the calories (hmm, a theme?), and now it's supposedly keto does this. But like you say, the studies haven't supported this, and I still don't see a logical mechanism whereby the body would do this. I mean, sure, initially converting to ketones might require a bit of excess output (which is what the studies seem to show) and maybe making glucose from fat takes some extra (as does making fat from carbs, actually), but that is unlikely to be meaningful--mostly you don't need to make glucose from carbs when on keto (you need a little bit of glucose for the brain, but usually you aren't that low and anyway it's not that many calories).
Beyond that, the idea that your body would, in essence, waste calories when in keto probably seems appealing if one needs to lose weight or wants to eat more than maintenance, but it would not be an efficient or useful thing for the body to do, so why would it have evolved to do this? Indeed, the body tends to interpret keto as starvation or food scarcity, so the idea that it starts wasting calories in keto makes no sense to me.
Might there be more energy to fuel food search or some such or diminished hunger? Sure, that could make sense. Might IR people have impaired energy output with higher carb diets (since they are not able to effectively convert the carbs to energy properly)? Yeah, that makes sense to me. But a major wastage of calories as suggested? Don't see it.
I also think wanting that reads as messed up to me, but this could be my own food biases. The idea that there's some desirable state of eating a lot and having calories go through us feels wrong to me (even if it were possible to achieve, which I don't believe). How would that be different in kind from that horrible stomach pump device that has been talked about in the forums?
I hate being misrepresented which seems to happen a bit. I have previously said that all CI don't get used which makes total sense.
Which is what I said you said, so no, not misrepresenting. You also said that if doing keto we are for some reason going to use less of our food, which makes no sense (fat is one of the more efficiently used macros, especially when you are talking about adding fat (if not at a deficit), and the body tends to perceive keto as starvation, so why would it waste calories as you keep claiming).I've never proposed that we should try to not digest our food.
You keep arguing that it's valuable to try to eat in ways that would lead to food being excreted or otherwise wasted by the body without the calories being used. Seems to be the same thing to me.
Please re-read what I wrote because I didn't say either of those.0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »The article actually contradicted itself. It said that the fat is burned and gives off heat and then said all fat loss isn't due to cico. They could have clarified that a bit I think. I'm raising the possibility that stored fat can be burned independent of energy requirements. I don't know if it can be excreted without giving off heat or not. If the macro composition of what you eat drives a set point in your body, then it could possibly be telling the body to burn off stored fat independent of the bodies energy needs. I think LC moderate protein could do this, probably due to the low insulin levels that result from that kind of macro comoposition. This would be fat lost in addition to what the traditional CICO model would say you would lose due to energy requirements.
So now we're assuming that (1) set points are a real scientific thing, and that (2) evolution designed a species that would have to avoid starving to death, but that would waste food for no reason?
I said, "If" I didn't say when. The "If" means if there is a set point. I didn't say there was one.
If there was a setpoint, it doesn't have to mean that the set-point is starvation, it could also mean it might be set for a lower BF% that is still healthy.0 -
When I was a freshman in college, I took a fitness for life class and they did body caliper measurements. I know that there can be a great variation in those results but they said I was 3.5% BF. I don't know if I was that low (probably not) but I very well could have been 5%. I was 6'1" and weighed 155. I worked as a hod carrier in the Las Vegas sun for a couple of summers before that and during my junior year in high school and I ran track. The summer before college I worked 8+ hours a day carrying hod (brick mason's helper - like lifting weights all day) and then I would take a nap and then go out and run 7 or so miles after (I ran track in high school and college as a walk-on). In college my weight got up to 160 but I could not gain any more weight no matter how hard I tried. I counted calories for 1-week there out of curiosity and I got 4000-5000 cals a day. I could not gain no matter what and I tried with supplements, eating tell I couldn't eat any more. I was very active, but I swear that my body just didn't want to gain any weight.
But that's because you were burning an obscene number of calories every day (presumably in the 4000-5000 range) due to your active job and lifestyle (exacerbated by being a tall young male). Not because your body "wanted to be lean". There comes a point where it become difficult to physically fit in more calories.
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samhennings wrote: »Blambo - I have completely lost track of your point, it reads to me like a few disparate ideas being conflated.
I understand there is an energy cost in both storing and retrieving enerygy as/from fat.
I would imagine it is something of a constant, IE - it happens regardless of diet type.
I would also imagine this is essentially factored into the average CICO calculation. IE, if you are losing weight you are using more energy than you consume, and the fat storage/retrieval plays part of that.
I lost weight right on que, as per projections. All of this "extra" burn was happening but didnt make me lose weight any faster.
Are you saying that keto/low carb diets somehow make the "cost" of retrieving energy from fat higher? Consequently increasing the CO part of the equation?
If so, why?
I'm just saying there is the possibility of it, that that concept is not impossible. I'm not saying it happens definitely but there is evidence that it does help.
So you are arguing quite vigorously over a vague "maybe" that, even if true, would likely offer only negligible advantage?
This is all a bit majoring in the minors/forum sport to me.
Do I have your basic premise right? Low carb increases the cost of releasing energy from fat? If so, how/why?2 -
samhennings wrote: »samhennings wrote: »Blambo - I have completely lost track of your point, it reads to me like a few disparate ideas being conflated.
I understand there is an energy cost in both storing and retrieving enerygy as/from fat.
I would imagine it is something of a constant, IE - it happens regardless of diet type.
I would also imagine this is essentially factored into the average CICO calculation. IE, if you are losing weight you are using more energy than you consume, and the fat storage/retrieval plays part of that.
I lost weight right on que, as per projections. All of this "extra" burn was happening but didnt make me lose weight any faster.
Are you saying that keto/low carb diets somehow make the "cost" of retrieving energy from fat higher? Consequently increasing the CO part of the equation?
If so, why?
I'm just saying there is the possibility of it, that that concept is not impossible. I'm not saying it happens definitely but there is evidence that it does help.
So you are arguing quite vigorously over a vague "maybe" that, even if true, would likely offer only negligible advantage?
This is all a bit majoring in the minors/forum sport to me.
Do I have your basic premise right? Low carb increases the cost of releasing energy from fat? If so, how/why?
Fat is not a readily available energy for (ATP?) for the body to use. The liver must convert the fat into something usable by the bloodstream. This requires more autonomic energy, increased by higher physical activity. Carbs have glucose molecules that can go directly into the bloodstream, so less work is needed to transform them, even complex ones that go through the citric acid cycle are processed quite easily. A byproduct of this process of transforming fat into expellable energy by the body is beta-ketone bodies, which those who wish to be in ketosis look for.
If the body can be trained to stop looking for glucose and instead process the fat that is either stored or metabolized, the output of energy is greater and over a more steady period of time, requiring one to eat less than those who have bodies trained to live on carbohydrates.
(yes, I understand, every body is different, but this is the general rule. A meal dominated by carbs lead to quicker hunger because the energy is processes quicker)
Here is a short article I found from Clackamas Community College in Oregon City, which simplifies the organic chemistry:
http://dl.clackamas.edu/ch106-07/carbohyd1.htm0 -
All diets work, and all diets fail. The real key for a fat person is to find a way of eating that will get you to your ideal weight and sustain it. I know this because I have reached my ideal weight 4 times in my adult life only to gain a little more back each time. I've used every diet you can imagine. If someone likes LCHF and IF and is successful what do you care?0
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samhennings wrote: »samhennings wrote: »Blambo - I have completely lost track of your point, it reads to me like a few disparate ideas being conflated.
I understand there is an energy cost in both storing and retrieving enerygy as/from fat.
I would imagine it is something of a constant, IE - it happens regardless of diet type.
I would also imagine this is essentially factored into the average CICO calculation. IE, if you are losing weight you are using more energy than you consume, and the fat storage/retrieval plays part of that.
I lost weight right on que, as per projections. All of this "extra" burn was happening but didnt make me lose weight any faster.
Are you saying that keto/low carb diets somehow make the "cost" of retrieving energy from fat higher? Consequently increasing the CO part of the equation?
If so, why?
I'm just saying there is the possibility of it, that that concept is not impossible. I'm not saying it happens definitely but there is evidence that it does help.
So you are arguing quite vigorously over a vague "maybe" that, even if true, would likely offer only negligible advantage?
This is all a bit majoring in the minors/forum sport to me.
Do I have your basic premise right? Low carb increases the cost of releasing energy from fat? If so, how/why?
Fat is not a readily available energy for (ATP?) for the body to use. The liver must convert the fat into something usable by the bloodstream. This requires more autonomic energy, increased by higher physical activity. Carbs have glucose molecules that can go directly into the bloodstream, so less work is needed to transform them, even complex ones that go through the citric acid cycle are processed quite easily. A byproduct of this process of transforming fat into expellable energy by the body is beta-ketone bodies, which those who wish to be in ketosis look for.
If the body can be trained to stop looking for glucose and instead process the fat that is either stored or metabolized, the output of energy is greater.
Here is a short article I found from Clackamas Community College in Oregon City, which simplifies the organic chemistry:
http://dl.clackamas.edu/ch106-07/carbohyd1.htm
The output of energy may technically be "greater", but that doesn't mean it is a significant amount. In the Hall study, even though those in the reduced carb group had a higher rate of fax oxidation, their net fat oxidation per day was less than the higher carb/reduced fat group--because their intake was so much higher. Also, when looked at from the larger perspective, the increased "energy output" (i.e. the Thermic Effect of Food) is not that big a deal--maybe 40-50 calories a day, which is too small to be considered outside the error factor of trying to estimate calorie intake.
Again, this the classic case of being overly concerned with micro processes and completely missing the big picture.
Overall it doesn't make any difference from where the body draws its energy. If you go low-carb, the body will burn more fat as fuel, but that is primarily because fat is the main fuel source available. It doesn't just walk over to your belly or thighs, scoop out a heap and burn it up. The body is constantly regulating, storing, breaking down, etc, etc. At the end of the day, whether or not you gain or lose stored body fat is determined by.....energy balance (aka CICO).
The reasons why this is even an issue are because: A/: there are a million details involved in human metabolism so it is easy to get bogged down in the arcane details or to concoct an elaborate rube-goldberg mechanism to explain any theory you want; B/: people have books to sell and, as cable news programs have proven--it is easier and more lucrative to be glib than it is to be accurate; and C/: as humans, we have a tendency to look for easy, "new and improved" solutions to stubborn problems, and a subgroup of humans has a predilection towards "contrarian" ideas, so there is a ready market available. And finally, there is a subgroup with certain medical conditions that seems to respond well to a lower-carb approach.
And, as always, no one is arguing AGAINST anyone taking a low-carb approach to weight loss, only against the "one true faith" argument, and the misleading claims about why low-carb works at all.
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Gallowmere1984 wrote: »leanjogreen18 wrote: »domeofstars wrote: »Its a bad idea to restrict carbohydrate when dieting because when you come off the diet, you will binge/become obsessed with thinking about carbs. When dieting think: is this something you could do everyday for the rest of your life? If it isn't, then once you stop dieting the weight will more than likely pile back on. What I did that worked for me is still having carbohydrate BUT the carbs that I had are low-glycemic index carbs. That is, carbs that have a more stabilizing impact on blood sugar levels and that keep you fuller for longer. These are things like grainy/whole wheat/brown breads, high-fibre low sugar cereal, brown rice, brown pasta etc and minimizing the inclusion of white carbs i.e. white bread, rice, pasta or combining white carbs with a good serve of lean protein and vegetables.
I would argue that you dont need to pick a diet you can stick with the rest of your life. Quite frankly what i am doing now is only a method to the means. The only thing you need is finding a strategy to allow you to achieve what you wsnt and then a strategy to reintroduce you to another strategy.
Dont get me wrong, a lot of people dont take on that type of thinking, so it might be beneficial for them to figure out a diet they can sustain long term.
I think very few can do that though. Mostly because the goal is to lose weight without the focus on maintaining so fad/crash/overly restrictive dieting ensues, after said diet eat what they want and regain.
If the goal from the beginning is to maintain and they have a grasp on their habits then I think some can make a switch.
But I have nothing to back that up:)
Pretty much whatever people do, they have about a 80 to 90% failure rate. Its unfortunate. I will say, i believe the strategies i mention are more prevalent in thr fitness community as opposed to those looking to just lose weight. .
This is honestly a problem that I run into in a lot of these debates. I have a "feed the machine" mentality, and often forget that most people have less self-control than a dog in a Skinner Box.
My cuts usually involve removal of all but trace anounts of carbs and fats, EFAs and supplements. Works great for me, because my goal is fast loss so I can get back to a more rapid progression as quickly as possible. I have a feeling though, that if most people tried it, they'd either end up binge bailing halfway, or bingeing at the end, which is the worst possible time to do so, as your body is primed to put on all kinds of fat at that point.
I would honestly kill myself or others on your plan. I tried a few weeks at 2k and i almost lost my crap, lol.
It's definitely not for everyone, and honestly, I do get irritable as hell after week one. However, all of that anger is just more fuel for me. When I go to bed hungry, miserable and angry, then wake up every morning to clear visibile and measurable losses in fat, it just makes it all worth it.
Two weeks of cutting like that gives me better results than a month and a half of "slow and steady". So I'm back to maintenance and subsequently bulking again before most cuts even show a change in the mirror.0 -
Gallowmere1984 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »leanjogreen18 wrote: »domeofstars wrote: »Its a bad idea to restrict carbohydrate when dieting because when you come off the diet, you will binge/become obsessed with thinking about carbs. When dieting think: is this something you could do everyday for the rest of your life? If it isn't, then once you stop dieting the weight will more than likely pile back on. What I did that worked for me is still having carbohydrate BUT the carbs that I had are low-glycemic index carbs. That is, carbs that have a more stabilizing impact on blood sugar levels and that keep you fuller for longer. These are things like grainy/whole wheat/brown breads, high-fibre low sugar cereal, brown rice, brown pasta etc and minimizing the inclusion of white carbs i.e. white bread, rice, pasta or combining white carbs with a good serve of lean protein and vegetables.
I would argue that you dont need to pick a diet you can stick with the rest of your life. Quite frankly what i am doing now is only a method to the means. The only thing you need is finding a strategy to allow you to achieve what you wsnt and then a strategy to reintroduce you to another strategy.
Dont get me wrong, a lot of people dont take on that type of thinking, so it might be beneficial for them to figure out a diet they can sustain long term.
I think very few can do that though. Mostly because the goal is to lose weight without the focus on maintaining so fad/crash/overly restrictive dieting ensues, after said diet eat what they want and regain.
If the goal from the beginning is to maintain and they have a grasp on their habits then I think some can make a switch.
But I have nothing to back that up:)
Pretty much whatever people do, they have about a 80 to 90% failure rate. Its unfortunate. I will say, i believe the strategies i mention are more prevalent in thr fitness community as opposed to those looking to just lose weight. .
This is honestly a problem that I run into in a lot of these debates. I have a "feed the machine" mentality, and often forget that most people have less self-control than a dog in a Skinner Box.
My cuts usually involve removal of all but trace anounts of carbs and fats, EFAs and supplements. Works great for me, because my goal is fast loss so I can get back to a more rapid progression as quickly as possible. I have a feeling though, that if most people tried it, they'd either end up binge bailing halfway, or bingeing at the end, which is the worst possible time to do so, as your body is primed to put on all kinds of fat at that point.
I would honestly kill myself or others on your plan. I tried a few weeks at 2k and i almost lost my crap, lol.
It's definitely not for everyone, and honestly, I do get irritable as hell after week one. However, all of that anger is just more fuel for me. When I go to bed hungry, miserable and angry, then wake up every morning to clear visibile and measurable losses in fat, it just makes it all worth it.
Two weeks of cutting like that gives me better results than a month and a half of "slow and steady". So I'm back to maintenance and subsequently bulking again before most cuts even show a change in the mirror.
Curious here - how often do you have to do this? Is there a point you'll be happy and don't have to do this? Or is this something you have to continually do? I know zero about bulking they way you mean it anyway:)0 -
stevencloser wrote: »Or you could stop wildly speculating and taking what was actually shown in controlled environments to be true time and time again.
Or you could also look into the success people have had and see if there is anything to it. You are cherry picking your studies. I don't know how much LC / IF , etc help, but I do know that there is a lot of evidence that they do and also they are not an impossibility due to laws of physics (thermo).
First, and please lets get this straight. No one on this site, regardless of how biased they are, will deny that there are benefits of lchf to people. But this us no different than any other diet. All diets work. It really us that simple. If it enables compliance and adherence, and addresses any medical issue, it will work. But in terms of science, like actual studies, when protein and calories are constant, there is zero additional benefit. All the other studies that dont maintain prrotein benefit from more protein. That is why there is that article from authoritynutrition on 23 studies that low carbers frequently promote. To me, it demonstrates the effectiveness of increased protein.
If you look at this site, a large portion of the more lean and fit people mainly follow moderate to higher carb diets. There are a lot of benefits from a moderate carb or even high carb program if you goal us muscle gain in a deficit... something muscle harder to achieve in keto or lchf. Dont get me wrong there are other factors such as exercise programming, newness to lifting, genetics and nutrition.
And honestly i am trying to give you a benefit of the doubt but all of your arguments are based off of anecdotes and not studies that are controlled. And for every one that you can find showing huge metabolic advantage for one person, you will find another blog saying the opposite.
Personally, i low carb 3 days a week and and high carb 4 days a week. Right now, as painful as the low carb days are, it has given me a but more vigor for compliance and staying on track with calorie counting. Because at 16% body fat, i have a lot less room for error.
I've seen many replies with just a simple "NO doesn't work that way" so I'm not sure everyone thinks lchf benefits anyone. I personally don't like lc myself but have given it a go the last 5 days after having done IF for a long time. I've lost 4-lbs this week and might have 5 by tomorrow. I suspect some is due to water loss, some due to exercising more, and some to reduced calories also. I don't know if that accounts for it all or not. I will keep trying for a couple more weeks to see if it is an improvement of what I've been getting. I think there is evidence that isn't just anecdotal. What about the mice study where they fasted a goup twice a week and didnt' another and they both had the same weekly calories and the fasting group got leaner than the control group? Jason Fung has a lot of references in his book "The Obesity Epidemic" I haven't really checked them out so don't know how rigorous the tests were (not sure I could judge them if I did). I will keep reading and learning. I believe some of those things help but don't know for sure, but I do know that they are not an impossibility which I've heard many say.
The "no, it doesn't work like that", isnt that the dietary approach is wrong. It's about the misunderstanding of how the program works or the "perceived benefits". I can't tell you how often i hear, when it comes to keto, that they are "fat burners", not "sugar burners". They say this because they are led to believe they burn more fat that anyone else. And what is left out of the discussion is a few things; 1. They eat more fat and store more fat, 2. Substrate utilizes doesnt mean anything without the context of energy balance, and 3. They are still burning sugar... because the human body runs off of glucose.
Really the bigger issue is people tend to get a bit overzealous with a new dietary approach. They hear things that seem to be logical and repeat what they hear. And i am not suggesting its bad, its generally just non semantically correct. The same can be said about many programs: veganism, IF, and the alike are no different.
Regarding mice studies. They are a good introductary start to suggest we can study something further. Often, what is found in mice do not pan out in human models. There are also a ton of variables used in mice studies that would never occur in human diets (e.g., aspatame causes cancer). Over time, i suspect that like all diets, the benefits come from weight loss and exercise. There might be a subgroup that benefit from a particular diet, mainly from adherence and compliance, but I can guarantee that IF will be found to be no more special than 3 to 6 meals a day when calories and protein are accounted for.
6 -
leanjogreen18 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »leanjogreen18 wrote: »domeofstars wrote: »Its a bad idea to restrict carbohydrate when dieting because when you come off the diet, you will binge/become obsessed with thinking about carbs. When dieting think: is this something you could do everyday for the rest of your life? If it isn't, then once you stop dieting the weight will more than likely pile back on. What I did that worked for me is still having carbohydrate BUT the carbs that I had are low-glycemic index carbs. That is, carbs that have a more stabilizing impact on blood sugar levels and that keep you fuller for longer. These are things like grainy/whole wheat/brown breads, high-fibre low sugar cereal, brown rice, brown pasta etc and minimizing the inclusion of white carbs i.e. white bread, rice, pasta or combining white carbs with a good serve of lean protein and vegetables.
I would argue that you dont need to pick a diet you can stick with the rest of your life. Quite frankly what i am doing now is only a method to the means. The only thing you need is finding a strategy to allow you to achieve what you wsnt and then a strategy to reintroduce you to another strategy.
Dont get me wrong, a lot of people dont take on that type of thinking, so it might be beneficial for them to figure out a diet they can sustain long term.
I think very few can do that though. Mostly because the goal is to lose weight without the focus on maintaining so fad/crash/overly restrictive dieting ensues, after said diet eat what they want and regain.
If the goal from the beginning is to maintain and they have a grasp on their habits then I think some can make a switch.
But I have nothing to back that up:)
Pretty much whatever people do, they have about a 80 to 90% failure rate. Its unfortunate. I will say, i believe the strategies i mention are more prevalent in thr fitness community as opposed to those looking to just lose weight. .
This is honestly a problem that I run into in a lot of these debates. I have a "feed the machine" mentality, and often forget that most people have less self-control than a dog in a Skinner Box.
My cuts usually involve removal of all but trace anounts of carbs and fats, EFAs and supplements. Works great for me, because my goal is fast loss so I can get back to a more rapid progression as quickly as possible. I have a feeling though, that if most people tried it, they'd either end up binge bailing halfway, or bingeing at the end, which is the worst possible time to do so, as your body is primed to put on all kinds of fat at that point.
I would honestly kill myself or others on your plan. I tried a few weeks at 2k and i almost lost my crap, lol.
It's definitely not for everyone, and honestly, I do get irritable as hell after week one. However, all of that anger is just more fuel for me. When I go to bed hungry, miserable and angry, then wake up every morning to clear visibile and measurable losses in fat, it just makes it all worth it.
Two weeks of cutting like that gives me better results than a month and a half of "slow and steady". So I'm back to maintenance and subsequently bulking again before most cuts even show a change in the mirror.
Curious here - how often do you have to do this? Is there a point you'll be happy and don't have to do this? Or is this something you have to continually do? I know zero about bulking they way you mean it anyway:)
Depends on how long I can stretch my bulk while still making appreciable gains. Currently eating 3200-4500 kcals/day depending upon activity level, and gaining an average of 0.67 lbs./week.
I'm planning on ending the current bulk at 180, which are my current rate of gain will be in late March. Is started it in early December ar 168. Then I'll be cutting for a couple of weeks, spending a couple of weeks at maintenance, and then seeing where I want to go from there (either another short cut or slowly climbing back into gaining). For me, it's become an indefinite cycle, because I operate best under extremes, and wish to keep progressing until my body decides it's over.2 -
leanjogreen18 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »leanjogreen18 wrote: »domeofstars wrote: »Its a bad idea to restrict carbohydrate when dieting because when you come off the diet, you will binge/become obsessed with thinking about carbs. When dieting think: is this something you could do everyday for the rest of your life? If it isn't, then once you stop dieting the weight will more than likely pile back on. What I did that worked for me is still having carbohydrate BUT the carbs that I had are low-glycemic index carbs. That is, carbs that have a more stabilizing impact on blood sugar levels and that keep you fuller for longer. These are things like grainy/whole wheat/brown breads, high-fibre low sugar cereal, brown rice, brown pasta etc and minimizing the inclusion of white carbs i.e. white bread, rice, pasta or combining white carbs with a good serve of lean protein and vegetables.
I would argue that you dont need to pick a diet you can stick with the rest of your life. Quite frankly what i am doing now is only a method to the means. The only thing you need is finding a strategy to allow you to achieve what you wsnt and then a strategy to reintroduce you to another strategy.
Dont get me wrong, a lot of people dont take on that type of thinking, so it might be beneficial for them to figure out a diet they can sustain long term.
I think very few can do that though. Mostly because the goal is to lose weight without the focus on maintaining so fad/crash/overly restrictive dieting ensues, after said diet eat what they want and regain.
If the goal from the beginning is to maintain and they have a grasp on their habits then I think some can make a switch.
But I have nothing to back that up:)
Pretty much whatever people do, they have about a 80 to 90% failure rate. Its unfortunate. I will say, i believe the strategies i mention are more prevalent in thr fitness community as opposed to those looking to just lose weight. .
This is honestly a problem that I run into in a lot of these debates. I have a "feed the machine" mentality, and often forget that most people have less self-control than a dog in a Skinner Box.
My cuts usually involve removal of all but trace anounts of carbs and fats, EFAs and supplements. Works great for me, because my goal is fast loss so I can get back to a more rapid progression as quickly as possible. I have a feeling though, that if most people tried it, they'd either end up binge bailing halfway, or bingeing at the end, which is the worst possible time to do so, as your body is primed to put on all kinds of fat at that point.
I would honestly kill myself or others on your plan. I tried a few weeks at 2k and i almost lost my crap, lol.
It's definitely not for everyone, and honestly, I do get irritable as hell after week one. However, all of that anger is just more fuel for me. When I go to bed hungry, miserable and angry, then wake up every morning to clear visibile and measurable losses in fat, it just makes it all worth it.
Two weeks of cutting like that gives me better results than a month and a half of "slow and steady". So I'm back to maintenance and subsequently bulking again before most cuts even show a change in the mirror.
Curious here - how often do you have to do this? Is there a point you'll be happy and don't have to do this? Or is this something you have to continually do? I know zero about bulking they way you mean it anyway:)
Have you looked at the leangains guy's websight. He wanted to avoid bulking and cutting and was able to be very lean and get strong at the same time by doing a 16:8 fasting diet.0 -
stevencloser wrote: »Or you could stop wildly speculating and taking what was actually shown in controlled environments to be true time and time again.
Or you could also look into the success people have had and see if there is anything to it. You are cherry picking your studies. I don't know how much LC / IF , etc help, but I do know that there is a lot of evidence that they do and also they are not an impossibility due to laws of physics (thermo).
First, and please lets get this straight. No one on this site, regardless of how biased they are, will deny that there are benefits of lchf to people. But this us no different than any other diet. All diets work. It really us that simple. If it enables compliance and adherence, and addresses any medical issue, it will work. But in terms of science, like actual studies, when protein and calories are constant, there is zero additional benefit. All the other studies that dont maintain prrotein benefit from more protein. That is why there is that article from authoritynutrition on 23 studies that low carbers frequently promote. To me, it demonstrates the effectiveness of increased protein.
If you look at this site, a large portion of the more lean and fit people mainly follow moderate to higher carb diets. There are a lot of benefits from a moderate carb or even high carb program if you goal us muscle gain in a deficit... something muscle harder to achieve in keto or lchf. Dont get me wrong there are other factors such as exercise programming, newness to lifting, genetics and nutrition.
And honestly i am trying to give you a benefit of the doubt but all of your arguments are based off of anecdotes and not studies that are controlled. And for every one that you can find showing huge metabolic advantage for one person, you will find another blog saying the opposite.
Personally, i low carb 3 days a week and and high carb 4 days a week. Right now, as painful as the low carb days are, it has given me a but more vigor for compliance and staying on track with calorie counting. Because at 16% body fat, i have a lot less room for error.
I've seen many replies with just a simple "NO doesn't work that way" so I'm not sure everyone thinks lchf benefits anyone. I personally don't like lc myself but have given it a go the last 5 days after having done IF for a long time. I've lost 4-lbs this week and might have 5 by tomorrow. I suspect some is due to water loss, some due to exercising more, and some to reduced calories also. I don't know if that accounts for it all or not. I will keep trying for a couple more weeks to see if it is an improvement of what I've been getting. I think there is evidence that isn't just anecdotal. What about the mice study where they fasted a goup twice a week and didnt' another and they both had the same weekly calories and the fasting group got leaner than the control group? Jason Fung has a lot of references in his book "The Obesity Epidemic" I haven't really checked them out so don't know how rigorous the tests were (not sure I could judge them if I did). I will keep reading and learning. I believe some of those things help but don't know for sure, but I do know that they are not an impossibility which I've heard many say.
The "no, it doesn't work like that", isnt that the dietary approach is wrong. It's about the misunderstanding of how the program works or the "perceived benefits". I can't tell you how often i hear, when it comes to keto, that they are "fat burners", not "sugar burners". They say this because they are led to believe they burn more fat that anyone else. And what is left out of the discussion is a few things; 1. They eat more fat and store more fat, 2. Substrate utilizes doesnt mean anything without the context of energy balance, and 3. They are still burning sugar... because the human body runs off of glucose.
Really the bigger issue is people tend to get a bit overzealous with a new dietary approach. They hear things that seem to be logical and repeat what they hear. And i am not suggesting its bad, its generally just non semantically correct. The same can be said about many programs: veganism, IF, and the alike are no different.
Regarding mice studies. They are a good introductary start to suggest we can study something further. Often, what is found in mice do not pan out in human models. There are also a ton of variables used in mice studies that would never occur in human diets (e.g., aspatame causes cancer). Over time, i suspect that like all diets, the benefits come from weight loss and exercise. There might be a subgroup that benefit from a particular diet, mainly from adherence and compliance, but I can guarantee that IF will be found to be no more special than 3 to 6 meals a day when calories and protein are accounted for.
Thanks for the reply. I would like to see more controlled fasting studies. I do think the fasting studies will come out ahead. I know mice studies don't translate over in many things but for energy studies, I would think a lot of it would transfer over (I do believe the study groups got the same macro nutrition). I know there are tons of fads and I do think most are non-sense.0 -
leanjogreen18 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »leanjogreen18 wrote: »domeofstars wrote: »Its a bad idea to restrict carbohydrate when dieting because when you come off the diet, you will binge/become obsessed with thinking about carbs. When dieting think: is this something you could do everyday for the rest of your life? If it isn't, then once you stop dieting the weight will more than likely pile back on. What I did that worked for me is still having carbohydrate BUT the carbs that I had are low-glycemic index carbs. That is, carbs that have a more stabilizing impact on blood sugar levels and that keep you fuller for longer. These are things like grainy/whole wheat/brown breads, high-fibre low sugar cereal, brown rice, brown pasta etc and minimizing the inclusion of white carbs i.e. white bread, rice, pasta or combining white carbs with a good serve of lean protein and vegetables.
I would argue that you dont need to pick a diet you can stick with the rest of your life. Quite frankly what i am doing now is only a method to the means. The only thing you need is finding a strategy to allow you to achieve what you wsnt and then a strategy to reintroduce you to another strategy.
Dont get me wrong, a lot of people dont take on that type of thinking, so it might be beneficial for them to figure out a diet they can sustain long term.
I think very few can do that though. Mostly because the goal is to lose weight without the focus on maintaining so fad/crash/overly restrictive dieting ensues, after said diet eat what they want and regain.
If the goal from the beginning is to maintain and they have a grasp on their habits then I think some can make a switch.
But I have nothing to back that up:)
Pretty much whatever people do, they have about a 80 to 90% failure rate. Its unfortunate. I will say, i believe the strategies i mention are more prevalent in thr fitness community as opposed to those looking to just lose weight. .
This is honestly a problem that I run into in a lot of these debates. I have a "feed the machine" mentality, and often forget that most people have less self-control than a dog in a Skinner Box.
My cuts usually involve removal of all but trace anounts of carbs and fats, EFAs and supplements. Works great for me, because my goal is fast loss so I can get back to a more rapid progression as quickly as possible. I have a feeling though, that if most people tried it, they'd either end up binge bailing halfway, or bingeing at the end, which is the worst possible time to do so, as your body is primed to put on all kinds of fat at that point.
I would honestly kill myself or others on your plan. I tried a few weeks at 2k and i almost lost my crap, lol.
It's definitely not for everyone, and honestly, I do get irritable as hell after week one. However, all of that anger is just more fuel for me. When I go to bed hungry, miserable and angry, then wake up every morning to clear visibile and measurable losses in fat, it just makes it all worth it.
Two weeks of cutting like that gives me better results than a month and a half of "slow and steady". So I'm back to maintenance and subsequently bulking again before most cuts even show a change in the mirror.
Curious here - how often do you have to do this? Is there a point you'll be happy and don't have to do this? Or is this something you have to continually do? I know zero about bulking they way you mean it anyway:)
Have you looked at the leangains guy's websight. He wanted to avoid bulking and cutting and was able to be very lean and get strong at the same time by doing a 16:8 fasting diet.
There is a plethora of people who do that. It's called recomposition. There is like a 30 page thread on it in the maintaining weight section about it. It's not really the IF protocol that is the reason why people can gain some muscle and lose fat. But this isn't something that you can do is you are overfat.
There might be some benefits from doing IF, but largely, as Martin explains, its mainly from adherence. The majority of people here would probably not eat how or what he does, nor probably train like him. He largely eats a lot of starches and fruits for carbs, proteins and times his nutrients around exercise; he often eats ice cream, too. He also cycles calories and nutrients (low carb and high carb dates). He still eats 3 meals a day, but in a much shorter period. It works for him, but recognizes it won't work for everyone based on hunger. The biggest potential benefit from IF, is it appears to improve insulin sensitivity. For those who have issues around insulin, it might be a benefit to have a smaller window for meals.5 -
samhennings wrote: »samhennings wrote: »Blambo - I have completely lost track of your point, it reads to me like a few disparate ideas being conflated.
I understand there is an energy cost in both storing and retrieving enerygy as/from fat.
I would imagine it is something of a constant, IE - it happens regardless of diet type.
I would also imagine this is essentially factored into the average CICO calculation. IE, if you are losing weight you are using more energy than you consume, and the fat storage/retrieval plays part of that.
I lost weight right on que, as per projections. All of this "extra" burn was happening but didnt make me lose weight any faster.
Are you saying that keto/low carb diets somehow make the "cost" of retrieving energy from fat higher? Consequently increasing the CO part of the equation?
If so, why?
I'm just saying there is the possibility of it, that that concept is not impossible. I'm not saying it happens definitely but there is evidence that it does help.
So you are arguing quite vigorously over a vague "maybe" that, even if true, would likely offer only negligible advantage?
This is all a bit majoring in the minors/forum sport to me.
Do I have your basic premise right? Low carb increases the cost of releasing energy from fat? If so, how/why?
Fat is not a readily available energy for (ATP?) for the body to use. The liver must convert the fat into something usable by the bloodstream. This requires more autonomic energy, increased by higher physical activity. Carbs have glucose molecules that can go directly into the bloodstream, so less work is needed to transform them, even complex ones that go through the citric acid cycle are processed quite easily. A byproduct of this process of transforming fat into expellable energy by the body is beta-ketone bodies, which those who wish to be in ketosis look for.
If the body can be trained to stop looking for glucose and instead process the fat that is either stored or metabolized, the output of energy is greater.
Here is a short article I found from Clackamas Community College in Oregon City, which simplifies the organic chemistry:
http://dl.clackamas.edu/ch106-07/carbohyd1.htm
The output of energy may technically be "greater", but that doesn't mean it is a significant amount. In the Hall study, even though those in the reduced carb group had a higher rate of fax oxidation, their net fat oxidation per day was less than the higher carb/reduced fat group--because their intake was so much higher. Also, when looked at from the larger perspective, the increased "energy output" (i.e. the Thermic Effect of Food) is not that big a deal--maybe 40-50 calories a day, which is too small to be considered outside the error factor of trying to estimate calorie intake.
Again, this the classic case of being overly concerned with micro processes and completely missing the big picture.
Overall it doesn't make any difference from where the body draws its energy. If you go low-carb, the body will burn more fat as fuel, but that is primarily because fat is the main fuel source available. It doesn't just walk over to your belly or thighs, scoop out a heap and burn it up. The body is constantly regulating, storing, breaking down, etc, etc. At the end of the day, whether or not you gain or lose stored body fat is determined by.....energy balance (aka CICO).
The reasons why this is even an issue are because: A/: there are a million details involved in human metabolism so it is easy to get bogged down in the arcane details or to concoct an elaborate rube-goldberg mechanism to explain any theory you want; B/: people have books to sell and, as cable news programs have proven--it is easier and more lucrative to be glib than it is to be accurate; and C/: as humans, we have a tendency to look for easy, "new and improved" solutions to stubborn problems, and a subgroup of humans has a predilection towards "contrarian" ideas, so there is a ready market available. And finally, there is a subgroup with certain medical conditions that seems to respond well to a lower-carb approach.
And, as always, no one is arguing AGAINST anyone taking a low-carb approach to weight loss, only against the "one true faith" argument, and the misleading claims about why low-carb works at all.
http://harvardmagazine.com/2016/05/are-all-calories-equal
Harvard Endocrinologist Dr. Ludwig would argue that it actually is a significant difference, on the order of 200-300 calories per day. His high fat subjects experienced less hunger while burning more calories on a isocaloric diet with the high carbohydrate.
He has multiple studies on this, but also stresses the drawbacks: those on high fat diets need to move a lot more in order to avoid certain cardio-related diseases (they did not in his study). Cholesterol was high as well as LDL. So, this high fat way of eating is not meant for Couch Potato McGee.
I disagree with the exclusions of any type of diet. Look at that dude jerking 12 or so 45lb weights on his high carb, intermittent protein only diet. That's more than I can do with my legs! In the end, it is all about how you use the types of calories to your advantage. For me, high fat leads to less opportunities to eat, long term endurance in my activities, and (much to my surprise when I started doing this) better lipid panels.
Plus, avocados are about to become a heck of a lot more expensive...0 -
...I disagree with the exclusions of any type of diet. Look at that dude jerking 12 or so 45lb weights on his high carb, intermittent protein only diet. That's more than I can do with my legs! In the end, it is all about how you use the types of calories to your advantage....
So you think diet has something to do with how much weight somebody can lift?1
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