Keeping your metabolism from tanking.

You won’t tank your metabolism..
A couple of those points are “interesting “

If you take a slow and steady approach, with periodic refeeds and diet breaks, and keep your protein high and lift weights, you should be fine. You'll lose mostly fat, retain most of your muscle, and your metabolism will remain fine.

There's some truth in the article, but mostly it's majoring in the minors, other than the theoretical potential of the "increase movement" stuff (where there are pitfalls they don't mention, BTW).

For one, what they're not telling us is that generally when they say "improves metabolism by XX%", the improvement percent isn't a percent of BMR, it's a percent of something much smaller.

For example, the statement that "eating protein temporarily increases metabolism by about 20–30% compared to 5–10% for carbs and 3% or less for fat" is true, sort of . . . but it's 20% of the calories from protein in that particular food, or the total of one's protein intake for the day. It's not 20% of basal metabolic rate (BMR). Personalizing, 20% of my daily protein minimum is 80 calories; 20% of my estimated BMR would be at least 240 calories. That's an important difference!

If you read the scientific article they link for that point, it says "The main determinant of DIT is the energy content of the food, followed by the protein fraction of the food. The thermic effect of alcohol is similar to the thermic effect of protein." ("Diet induced thermogenesis (DIT) can be defined as the increase in energy expenditure above basal fasting level divided by the energy content of the food ingested and is commonly expressed as a percentage.")

The DIT of a typical mixed-macros diet at maintenance calories tends to be average around 10% of calories. (TEF, thermic effect of food, is another common term for pretty much the same idea as DIT.) None of us would benefit from eating all of our calories in protein, but none from other nutrients, so there are limits on the useful benefits of DIT for calorie burn.

(I hope I don't need to say that drinking more alcohol to burn more calories would be a good plan, even though it "increases metabolic rate" by as much as protein does? )

The percentages in the article about exercise "afterburn" have a similar problem. Is metabolism increased by X%? Yeah. But generally, if we dig in to the supporting links, it's X% of the exercise calories. In other words, if my exercise burns 100 calories, and there's a 20% "afterburn" increase in metabolism, it's 20% of 100 calories, or 20 calories . . . not 20% of my BMR. (Another term for "afterburn" is EPOC, excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. There are other sources of "afterburn" than EPOC, but that's an important one.)

That percentage stuff is just one example. I'm not any kind of expert, but in general, I consider Heathline an iffy source. It's usually not false, but it's often clickbait-y, and resorts to what I think of as "gee-whiz science reporting" . . . stuff (like that reporting of the percentages) to imply drama, without any context that lets a novice reader without relevant background understand the implications and put the material in context. (I'm not even sure the writers understand it well, sometimes.)

All of the things in the article are worth doing. They're mostly worth doing for (usually small) calorie benefits, but in some cases also for other worthwhile benefits. If someone expects dramatic weight loss results from doing these things, I think there are high odds they'll be disappointed.

Please understand: I didn't post this reply to criticize you for posting the article. Not even a little. Please, do keep posting! You post some good and helpful stuff. There's even good and helpful stuff in this article, it's just missing a bit of context. For me, one of the good things about the MFP Community is people helping other people learn and evaluate relevant information, and that's a thing that takes all of us working together to accomplish.

Best wishes!

AnnPT77 wrote: »

(snip)

(I hope I don't need to say that drinking more alcohol to burn more calories would be a good plan, even though it "increases metabolic rate" by as much as protein does? )

(snip)

Oh, my bleepin' bleep. I don't think anyone got the wrong message here, because the right one is obvious . . . but I just reread my post and feel absolutely obliged to post a correction, out of sheer embarrassment.

I meant "I hope I don't need to say that drinking more alcohol to burn more calories would NOT be a good plan . . . ."

I think some internal devil momentarily possessed my typing fingers there, or something.

trixsterjl31 wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

(snip)

(I hope I don't need to say that drinking more alcohol to burn more calories would be a good plan, even though it "increases metabolic rate" by as much as protein does? )

(snip)

Oh, my bleepin' bleep. I don't think anyone got the wrong message here, because the right one is obvious . . . but I just reread my post and feel absolutely obliged to post a correction, out of sheer embarrassment.

I meant "I hope I don't need to say that drinking more alcohol to burn more calories would NOT be a good plan . . . ."

I think some internal devil momentarily possessed my typing fingers there, or something.

That's why I dont tell stories like how I used to do a beer day during dieting where all my calories were beer. The next day my weight was always way down. LOL. (well not so funny) dehydration works wonders for the scale.

Many people benefit from completely eliminating alcohol, and that's a health-promoting strategy, a good thing.

That said, I enjoy a good craft beer or nice wine myself sometimes in the context of an overall calorie-appropriate and nutrient-dense way of eating.

If it's something a person can moderate, I think of it like any other calorie-dense, not very nutritious "treat food": It's fine, kept in the context of an overall generally healthful way of eating. A rare day with more, a small amount in a rational context a bit more often, NBD.

But still not a thing I'd suggest using as a "diet aid" because it has a high DIT/TEF as my typo (?) might have implied! Yikes!