So this is fascinating

nettiklive wrote: »

singingflutelady wrote: »

sarahbums wrote: »

I've seen a few studies on this that draw the same conclusion. I'm inclined to believe it just based on personal experience. When i first started eating more after years of an ED, I gained weight (like half a pound/week) on 1600-1700 calories a day. It sucked. And it stayed that way for at least 5 years. Now i seem to have bounced back and i'm finally able to maintain on 1600 with very little exercise.

I had the opposite experience during refeeding as an in patient and day hospital patient. I was on 3600 cals a day no exercise and I only gained about a 1 lb a week. My metabolism went into overdrive

Yet when I tried suggesting just that in the CICO thread - not that it 'doesn't work', but that some people's bodies simply rev up or slow down metabolic processes dramatically in response to changes in intake - I was shot down and accused of 'woo'.

This paragraph in particular struck me - while it's possible of course that the writer is lying through her teeth, I would doubt it.

"My resting metabolism, taken when lying down, showed that my caloric needs per day (if I wasn’t moving at all) climbed from 1,740 kcal to 2,277. My protein-burning declined from 19 percent to 14.5 percent, and fat-burning at rest went from 0 percent to 58 percent. The results, Dr. Cooper said, indicated that my body now felt adequately fueled and was able to utilize fat reserves"

Seems to go against most of the gospel on this forum, where most posters dismiss individual differences in metabolism as not significant enough to affect weight loss. These figures sound pretty significant to me...

...But irrespective of that, let’s address what seems like a fairly simple question: Can the drop in metabolic rate, due to the drop in bodyweight and the adaptive component EVER be sufficient to completely eliminate true fat loss?

And the answer, at least based on the last 80 years of studies into the topic (in humans, NOT animal models) says no. Perhaps the classic study in this regard was the oft-quoted (and oft- misunderstood) Minnesota Semi-Starvation Study. In it, a dozen or so war objectors got to avoid going to war and arguably got into something worse. That is, researchers wanted to study long- term starvation as might occur during war or famine or being held in a prisoner camp.

Specifically the men were put on 50% of their maintenance calories, subject to forced daily activity (walking, NO weight training) and basically had their lives controlled and managed for 6 months. And in various sub-analyses, it was found that, by the end of the study the total drop in metabolic rate was nearly 40%. That is, of the original 50% deficit in calories, 80% of it had been offset. Of that 40%, a full 25% was simply due to the reduced bodyweight. Again, lighter bodies burn less calories and there’s no getting around it. But that also means that the adaptive component of metabolic rate reduction was only 15%. Which is about the largest drop ever measured (most studies measure less).

But here’s the punchline, the men had also reached the limits of human leanness. They were in the realm of 4-5% body fat by this point in the study. Even though their fat loss had basically stopped (and at some points in the study WEIGHT loss stopped due to severe water retention) it didn’t occur until they reached ultimate leanness (NB: the claims of bodybuilders to be 2-3% bodyfat is a measurement error). And even they were still losing tiny amounts of weight/fat. It just wouldn’t have amounted to much since most of the deficit had been offset by the metabolic rate reduction...

...Because in no study that i have ever seen or ever been aware of has the drop in metabolic rate (whether due to the drop in weight or adaptive component) EVER exceeded the actual deficit whether in men or women. Fine, yes, it may offset things, it may slow fat loss (i.e. if you set up a 30% caloric deficit and metabolic rate drops by 20%, your deficit is only 10% so fat loss is a lot slower than expected or predicted) but it has never been sufficient to either stop fat loss completely (or, even to address the even stupider claim being made about this, to cause actual fat gain).

But even when the drop in metabolic rate is massive, sufficient to drastically slow fat loss, even when it occurs it’s only when that person’s body has more or less reached the limits of leanness in the first place. So for ‘hundreds of women who are self-reporting this in emails’ to a certain coach to exist, well; just let me call that what it is: bull*kitten*.

I think what’s really going on is you have a bunch of neurotic crazed female dieters, who are misreporting their food intake (especially the crazy food binges we KNOW happen in this population) and who are holding onto massive amounts of water due to the combination of low calories, high-cardio and being bat*kitten* stressed mentally about the whole process. And who magically start losing fat again when their poorly controlled 1200 calories becomes a well-controlled 1250 calories, well….you’ll have to call me incredulous about the whole thing.

Because the science doesn’t support it in any way shape or form. No study in humans in 50 years has ever shown the claimed phenomenon. I mean not ever. Not a single study showing truly stopped fat loss in the face of a controlled deficit much less fat regain. And with plenty of other mechanisms (like water retention) to explain the “apparent” lack of fat loss that make more logical sense (Occam’s razor for the win).