Just another gimmick?

[ApolytonGP]

What's your body fat percentage. Calipers by a trained person is surprisingly accurate. Alternately, you could post photos and get feedback. In the end, you know the answer: drop enough fat overall and it will leave the stubborn areas. Calorie deficit causes fat loss.

[Jungledoc]

Low insulin levels and low carbohydrate intake in the presence of an over-all ENERGY deficit (which may or may not be accurately represented by calories) causes fat loss.

[ApolytonGP]

Assuming you are adequately supplied with nutrients (other than calories) and your body has normal homeostasis, than being in calorie deficit will make you lose weight. You don't need to monitor your insulin or your carbs per se (but do make sure you get adequate vitamins and protein).

I know. I dropped 70 pounds in 6 months while retaining (gaining) strength. 3#/week implies 1500 calorie per day deficit.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?t=189884

[stuward]

Yes it's the calorie deficit that causes the fat loss. Adequate protein is essential to retain the muscles and there is a metabolic advantage to a high protein diet. Beyond that, assuming no major swings in fat intake, reducing calories will by itself reduce carbs and vice versa. Therefore unless specific attention is spent on adjusting fat levels, there is no real difference between a low calorie diet and a low carb diet.

However, increasing the fat intake, thereby reducing the calorie deficit, makes the diet more satisfying and sustainable over the long term. A 1500 calorie diet, although effective in the short term, will, in most cases, lead to a regain of the weight and often more. In fact, it's about 80% certain that this will lead to regain and yo-yo dieting will result leading to long term health problems.

A better method is to reduce grain consumption and increase animal consumption. Avoid all processed foods, minimizing sugar, vegetable oils, MSG and other additives and eat real foods. Don't fixate on deficits. Eat enough to satisfy your hunger but still allows a stable, gradual weight loss. Keep a flexible eating system that allows you to eat what you want without over indulging.

Just reducing calories and increasing activities does not work. It's a simplistic formula based on wishful thinking and bad science.

[ApolytonGP]

veggies rule!

I actually made a project to try every single veggie in the supermarket. And I literally did not know how to cook when I started my diet. But I went from one end of the supermarket to the other and tried every single veggie. Read the Joy of Cooking on each veggie (to learn something about it). And posted threads (on NS) as I tried each new one. I did collard greens, jicima, rutabagas...even the scary dreaded beets!

[ApolytonGP]

veggies will major league fill you up too. Big mess of veggies (stir in your meat) and eat. I'm talking BIG mess of veggies. Big frying pan an inch deep for one man. And huge honking mixed salads for lunch and for "second dinner". My gut developed muscles inside it from all the fiber (was a rough first few weeks though... )

And learning about veggies made it intellectually fun. Took my mind of "dieting" and engaged it in learning.

[Ricky]

I'm going to invent something similar. It's going to be a body-sized penis pump... I'll call it the "body-pump" and it's guaranteed to make you bigger within months along with proper diet and exercise.

Dredge up some stupid scientific fact that makes it sound like it will work, stick a nice picture on the front and it's guaranteed to sell

Dude, I'll be rich!

[Ironman]

Assuming you are adequately supplied with nutrients (other than calories) and your body has normal homeostasis, than being in calorie deficit will make you lose weight. You don't need to monitor your insulin or your carbs per se (but do make sure you get adequate vitamins and protein).

I know. I dropped 70 pounds in 6 months while retaining (gaining) strength. 3#/week implies 1500 calorie per day deficit.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?t=189884

WTF?! I am telling you, that does not work for 99% of people. I saw your picture. You have very good genetics. You have to eat a lot of junk food to get fat with those genetics. So obviously if you stop doing that, you will lose weight.

Imagine that, you stop gorging yourself on junk food and you lose weight..... Who would have thought.....

[Jungledoc]

I know. I dropped 70 pounds in 6 months while retaining (gaining) strength. 3#/week implies 1500 calorie per day deficit.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?t=189884

You've told us that a lot. It sounds like you think you're the only person on this forum who has ever lost weight, and that you think you are the standard by which the world must measure itself. Just because you did this does NOT prove that it's the best way to do it. It doesn't prove that a calorie is a good unit of measurement of the metabolic energy content of food.

I don't measure up to your standard. I only lost 60 pounds in 8 months or so. I didn't count a single calorie the whole time. I'm sure that I reduced the number of calories that I took in, but sure couldn't tell you by how much. I certainly increased my energy expenditure (for which calorie is a particularly bad measure) a little, however much I "burned" in a few hours in the gym per week. The main thing I did was to decrease my carbs from non-fruit and veggie sources. I also gained strength during that time. When I lost enough weight that I felt that strength gain was more important than further weight loss, I had to work at putting 10 pounds on.

So if individual experience proves anything, there are lots of people with experience that is quite different than yours. Your experience is not the ultimate source of human knowledge.

[Ironman]

This is my story in a nutshell.

I used to be more than 100 lbs overweight. At one time I needed 46 inch pants. Now 34's are loose in the waist. I'm only about 50 lbs lighter though. I gained a lot of muscle.

The first year to year and a half I was doing this, I went from 46's to 38's, but only lost about 25 lbs (probably 8 to 10 of that was water due to me going on Atkins). My lifts more than doubled too.

My blood levels indicated pre-diabetes before I started. In under 3 months, they were perfect.

Being 100 lbs overweight is the criteria for having gastric bypass. I was over that. Sure I did some of it to myself, however my genetics for fat are very bad.

I have to eat very clean just to keep from gaining weight.


Then of course there are all the people I have helped who have interesting stories as well....

[jml]

This is a pretty good thing on energy balance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SNC6Q8FcBY
I would recommend the rest of the parts

[ApolytonGP]

JD and Ironman, props for losing the weight. My view is that any diet that creates a deficit will work. Your diet did that. Kudos.

BTW if you look at page 14 of AA's second research report, he says that calorie deficit is the most important thing and it is irrelevant whether you do low carb or high provided there is adequate protein. He discusses a survey which was a "monster" in terms of the number of participants and the tight controls (great survey).

Furthermore, energy math is common sense!

[KPj]

http://www.evo-performance.com/articles/calorie.htm

Saying that the human body is significantly different from a 'heat engine' is just common sense, too.

KPj

[pdellorto]

Saying that the human body is significantly different from a 'heat engine' is just common sense, too.

Yeah. My experience has been that energy balance - calories in vs. calories out - is a critical element to weight loss. But the composition of that energy balance - macronutrient breakdown of the calories in, how you burn the calories out - determines what body comp you end up with.

So if you cut to 1400 kcals a day and do cardio and eat high-carb, low-protein, you'll lose weight, but a good chunk will be muscle. If you cut to 1400 kcals a day and do weight training and intervals and eat high-protein, low-carb, you'll lose weight and most of that chunk will be body fat. In my experience, anyway.

Both are important - if you just worry about CI/CO, you're missing half of the picture. If you only worry about macronutrients and not quantity, you're still missing half the picture. The workouts are more self-evident, I think - if you build muscle while you train, you'll burn more energy. If you do too much aerobic/low-strength workouts you'll encourage your body to cut back on the "unneeded" muscle to return more quickly to homeostasis.

This is all IMO and IME. YMMV. ETC. :)
For my part, when I biked a lot and ate a low-calorie diet (and only cared about calories), I lost a lot of weight and all my lifts went down, too. When I switched to low-carb, lower-calories, my body fat went down but my lifts didn't. When I switched to low-carb, eat all I could eat of protein and fat, my weight went up and my lifts didn't. Now, well, all hail carb cycling! :)

[Nevage]

I agree. I've lost over a stone in the last couple of months and my strength hasn't decreased even slightly. In some cases, even gone up. I look a lot skinnier and it's weird getting used to it, but if my strength hasn't changed than the majority of my weight loss must be fat, guess I didn't realise how much fat I was carrying! Loving the abs though.

3 more weeks and I'll be off on holiday and it'll be worth it all. After that I'm going to up my calories again but in an anabolic style diet as I still want to be relatively lean through summer. Then I'll do my favourite 'eat anything and everything diet' during winter again to bulk. I think this time I'll be a lot stricter on timing of carbs and have the odd no carb day, losing fat isn't as fun as gaining muscle.