ExRx.net

It certainly is not "all just Calories in/out"!
The only thing that 1000 calories of protein, 1000 calories of fat and 1000 calories of carbs have in common is that all three produce the same measurement when burned in a bomb calorimeter! They each have a dramatically-different affect on the human body.

Sure, the extremely obese need to reduce calories, but since calories isn't their problem, just reducing calories alone won't help much, and not for very long. If just reducing calories were the solution, very few people would be obese, because they have ALL TRIED REDUCING CALORIES AND IT HASN'T HELPED!!! If it had worked, they would have kept on doing it.

They have all tried the cut-the-fat style of cutting calories, and see where it got them? Low-carb has worked much better, but it alone also obviously isn't the solution, either. Low-carb plus exercise is the best treatment known at the moment, but obviously isn't the cure. The cure hasn't been found. We (that's the royal "we" that includes all of mankind) don't know what causes, or how to fix obesity. The current state of the art just isn't adequate.

I'm all on board with the high protein, fat, 'carbs are the devil' thought process, but i'm also on board with calories in vs calories out.

Working in the gym has made me realise that telling people that Low fat/low cal diets don't work is a completely ignorant thing to say....

I'm only really jumping back in because I was working at the weekend and had a good debate with my boss which brought me down a peg or 2. I started it because I was reading through some health packages in the gym and one line said, "it's true, fat makes you fat". As you can imagine, I was angry. So the debate began.

So there I was spouting the general points that most here believe about why lowfat/calorie diets suck. Then it kind of hit me like a tonne of bricks that i'm talking to my boss, who is a former fatty, having lost 60 lbs, using a low fat/low calorie diet combined with exercise. For the record, she looks amazing, a pleasure to work for infact ( ) and you would never know she used to be fat.

Getting off track. Basically, i was telling a great looking female trainer how low fat/calorie diets suck and, just so happens that said trainer had got into the shape she's in via the very approach I was criticising. She also showed me 'before pictures'. She is a great advert for low fat diets. She lost the weight over 6 years ago so, I would imagine it couldn't be classed 'temporary'.

That got me thinking. I actually know plenty of people who have lost weight via low fat/calorie diets. I actually know very few people 'in the flesh' who have done it by cutting crappy carbs and eating lots of meat veg and fat.

Weight watchers/slimmers world/slimfast have countless example of people that it's 'worked for'. You can put it down to the support group if you like, but it's still a low fat /calorie diet and it works for some people.

That's why I believe it's just ignorance to say low fat/cal diets don't work. I think it's almost as ignorant as saying 'fat makes you fat'.

Do I think it's the BEST way to do it? Absolutely not. I also wouldn't recommend it. But you can't tell me it doesn't work when, clearly, it does. Not for eveyone, but for some. Common sense tells me that energy balance therefore does have some importance.

KPj

The problem is that all people are different. For some people, a low fat approach may work, for others it won't. The ones it won't work on are the ones that don't tolerate carbs. If one method is not working, you need to go the other way. Many just stick with the one way they've been taught, the one that works for some but not all, the one that's repeated ad-infinitum in the press. Einstien gave this definition of insanity: "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". There is room for both approaches, however one approach has been given way too much press and government support, and one way, which cleary works for those that the first approach doesn't, is condemed by conventional wisdom.

http://www.dragondoor.com/articler/mode3/319/

I agree. I don't like the low fat/low calorie approach and would never recommend it. It's also glaringly obvious that by cutting out crappy carb sources, you cut out a lot of potentially 'bad' things i.e. transfats, HFCS. In the debate mentioned above, my boss sort of back tracked and said "yes but transfats make you fat" (or something), and I said "yes but cut the crappy carbs and you'll cut most if not all the transfats!". What i'm trying to say is that the low carb approach makes sense in various different ways.

When you jump off the carb-bashing-bandwagon though, it's clear there is 'something' in a reduced calorie approach... If there isn't, then tell that to the people who have had success with it.... I'm pretty sure we'll all know atleast one person who has successfully lost weight using what we would regard as a less than optimal approach.

I would imagine that if someone that burned ~2000 calories and had a paleo-style diet suddenly started eating 3000 or more from the same food sources, it would result in some fat gain.

KPj

It should. CI/CO does have some relevancy. Ironman's comparison of 2000kcal of donuts vs. 2000 kcal of chicken and broccoli makes it clear CI/CO isn't the whole picture. But if you compared 2000 kcal of chicken and broccoli vs. 4000 kcal of chicken and broccoli, all other things being equal, the latter diet should increase body mass.

I personally think of CI/CO - total energy intake - as being like workout volume totals or total running mileage. It's a simple number derived from a complex interplay of factors that get that total. 2000 kcals of donuts and 2000 kcals of chicken and broccoli compare about as well as 5000 pounds of volume of dumbell kickbacks and leg extensions does with 5000 pounds of volume of 5RM back squats. Or even 5000 pounds of 5RM squats versus 5000 pounds of 20RM squats. CI/CO doesn't give you nearly enough information. But I don't think the fact that it is a simple number means that's an irrelevant piece of information.

I do think it's overemphasized. People start with that number and work backwards. I think they need to start with the actual food eaten and work forwards - total energy intake is much more relevant once you've started eating a diet that consists of healthy foods that fit into your eating needs. Starting with calories and working backwards always feels to me like starting with total exercise volume and working backwards to sets, reps, and exercises. Don't we start the other way around with clients or our own workouts? I worry more about "get him deadlifting, and then we'll see how much deadlifting he needs" rather than "get him doing 5000 pounds of volume, then we'll worry about what exercises we need to do."

It's not a perfect comparison, but there it is. That's how I think about it.

Huh, that came out pretty well. I should quote myself on my blog.

Good post. I do agree it's over emphasised I just don't think it shouldn't be rubbished. Most of all I felt like an idiot rubbishing it whilst talking to someone who had great success with it... But that's my bad i guess...

I think I stole this from PN somewhere, but, could be from anywhere, anyway someone said something like "blaming weight gain on calories is like blaming wars on guns"....

KPj

The article I linked above had this in it:

It's a complicated subject and there are no right or wrong answers.

Dr. Eades had a relevant blog today.
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/card ... -the-same/

It is, indeed, a complicated subject. I would say that there are FEW right or wrong answers.

Points that I keep coming back to in my own thinking:

-Low-calorie, low-fat has been the prevalent approach for decades, and obesity is a bigger problem than ever

-a calorie is not a thing. It is not something you can eat. It is merely the a unit of measurement of the thermal energy that can be extracted from a substance in a calorimeter. Total calories consumed cannot be compared without control of at least the macronutrients under consideration, and perhaps finer detail than that

-it's hard even to compare what one person eats as "LC/LF" with what another person eats as "LC/LF". (perhaps KPj's friend followed a very different diet than someone else with the same calorie and fat intake)

-people don't lose weight and maintain the loss without doing more than just reducing calories and fat in their diets. I'm very sure that KPj's friend made a lot more changes in her life than that to achieve and maintain a 60-pound loss.

This coming from someone who lost roughly 100lbs (Went from ~300 to ~200) in around 8-9 months. This is all empirical evidence as I have no formal education in nutrition.

However, when I was trying to lose weight, I basically combined a lot of the ideas talked about here.

1. Exercise. I started doing HIIT swimming for 30 minutes a day every day.

2. I unintentionally cut both my carbs and my fat intake at the same time.

- This was because I believed my calorie intake had to be less than my expenditure. My thinking was this - Logically, fat grams are 9calories each, so I should cut those out.

Carbs, while the same amount of calories per gram as protein, tend to be easier to consume. I noticed that two slices of normal bread was the same amount of calories as a 4oz chicken breast. So, I simply ate what filled me up with the least amount of calories.

Essentially, I had unintentionally stumbled upon a high protein low carb low fat diet. I was eating roughly 2000 calories a day and shedding weight easily.

Along with that, I was taking Kreation creatine which I felt gave me energy. Although, in retrospect, I believe was simply a placebo.

3. Substantially increased my omega 3 fatty acids, all unintentionally.

- Once again, I was eating lean meats including tilapia, salmon(little fattier), tuna, chicken and so on. All the while not realizing that I was getting a ton of good o3 fatty acids.

4. After I got down to roughly 210-220lbs I realized that swimming was not cutting it in terms of weight loss. I knew that my calories were already quite low so I decided to start weight training.

From purely my experience alone, I feel like weight training is the single biggest reason I've kept this weight off for almost 2 years now.

I also contribute it to the reason I rarely get sick, that I've never been injured (knock on wood) among a ton of other things.

I'm just rambling now, though, but just kind of wanted to share my experience. In my world, all my success leads back to weight training.

This is a very real effect of weight training. The actual effect on the weight loss is small, but the long term effect on maintenance of the loss is huge. This ties in directly with what JungleDoc said:

Low calorie works when it is a low carb diet in disguise. If you cut your calories extremely low, it will be low carb too by definition. THAT is when a low calorie diet works. It's a much more difficult way to do it because of the hunger, and it won't work for some people, but for some it will.

Now of course low calories work for a wile but people gain it back.

I take empirical evidence over anecdotes any day. The peer reviewed study showed the "starvation" diets did not work.

As for the trainer, maybe her genetics are good and all she did was stop drinking regular soda and eating deserts. She stopped eating the deserts for the fat and the soda for calories, but what she did was dramatically reduce her sugar intake, then her genetics took care of the rest. So as you see, things may not be all they seem to be.

That is why peer reviewed studies are good and anecdotes are meaningless.

yeah, people think that cookies are high in fat....

I don't think a low cal diet is a low carb diet in disguise when you are either penalised or told to avoid protein and fat....

You could technically define a low carb diet as low cal in disguise...

KPj

I agree on both counts, but what I'm seeing a lot of lately is people on low cal diets being told that fatty fish is ok, and sugar is bad, which I think ultimately will lead to a low carb diet.

Here's a few questions I have:

1. What's the required amount of fat a person needs while dieting/not dieting and is it weight dependent?

2. If that number is kept consistent and protein is kept higher or consistent, then wouldn't that only leave carbohydrates left to be removed?

That's how I've always looked at my diet, personally. Which is why I'm 50/10/40 right now.