You discussion on "Experts" interests me. Who would know better than the experts? I think a lot of studies are taken out of context and not the other way around. If two studies are contradicting each other I would bet that the case is that the studies are testing different things.

It is just like this thread for example. When I say lose weight, I am talking about fat weight. I believe that most people here are talking about scale weight. The lady that gave the example of losing all this weight on a liquid diet is an interesting example. According to my philosophy after she lost all her weight she would be unhealthy because she ate such low calories that her body consumed her muscle mass. IE she lost scale weight but her body fat % probably isn't all that great.

Getting thin and lowering scale weight isn't the right goal in my opinion. I think this issue is the crux of this discussion.

Yes you can starve yourself to thinness or low scale weight but you cannot starve yourself to good health.

Tom

Tom, how do you know it is fat weight? We actually have very little ability outside of laboratories and very expensive facilities to determine whether weight we lose is fat or not. If you're trusting to the devices you find at your gym or calipers you're probably not getting a very accurate reading.

At best, we can only guess what we're losing is fat or muscle. That's why you need to read the studies. Because those folks have access to equipment we don't have and they can actually tell the difference between loss of muscle and loss of fat.

Actually, there is one way they do it and that is to measure the amount of nitrogen in your urine. I think catabolizing muscle affects that in one way or another.

If two studies are studying the same thing and contradict one another then you can't say either one is right. You gotta look over the methods used in the studies and see if one was faulty somehow. And then you have to do a third study and see if your results validate one of the other two studies.

High protein, very low calorie diets have been studied to death and they have been proven to be sparing to muscle mass. They're used pretty often by doctors for the extremely obese.

It makes sense. If you don't have glucose your body starts to use proteins to make glucose. You eat enough protein you're golden. Your body will use that to satisfy the glucose requirements and to repair tissues that need repair. Don't eat enough protein, you're going to start using your own muscle to provide glucose. It doesn't have anything to do with total calories, more to do with nutrients.

In a very unhealthy manner. Many of those patients suffer from malnutrition because they cannot get even close to what their body needs in nutrients on such a small volume of food and some of the procedures alter how effectively your body can absorb nutrients. Many of them also lose a lot of lean body mass as well since it's nearly impossible to meet your protein requirements eating so little.
I don't think anyone can argue that you can't lose weight if you starve yourself. The real question is what kind of shape is your body and metabolism in when you're done.

Where did 1,200 calories come from? It's based on the idea that this is the minimum amount that can be consumed and still meet basic nutritional and BMR energy requirements. Going below that over a period of time (more than a few days or a day here and there) means that you are most likely not getting something that you need for health maintainence as well as creating an energy deficit that the majority of bodies will not respond to favorably.
Yes, you can take a multivitamin but they are not absorbed as well as that which you get from food and also require specific fats in many cases as well as specific types of fats to be absorbed properly. If calories are cut very low, chances are that person isn't getting the fats they need in the quantity they need them.

After all..the goal shouldn't just be to get thinner, but to also improve your health in the process.

You can eat 3000 calories and still not get the nutrients you need either. In fact, I'd be willing to bet I could come up with as close to 100% RDA averaged out over a week on 1000 calories as the average low carber does. Probably better even. When you're cutting calories you gotta get full off things like veggies and you can't afford to load up on things that are highly caloric and have little nutritional value.

I'd be really interested n seeing where you got that statistic that the average low carber consumes on average 1000 calories per day. I've seen reports that state that they consumed on average 1000 calories less per day, but never one that showed an average consumption of 1000 calories per day. Also, the average low carber is supposedly not afraid of fats. So, let's say that they consume 100 grams of protein from a moderately fatty source; I plugged into Fitday the following: 5 oz. roast beef, 5 oz. chicken breast, skin on, and 1 egg and got 97 grams of protein. I also got 740 calories. That leaves less than 300 calories left for veggies and other things. Okay...I'll eat a cup of cooked spinach, 1 cup of cooked broccoli, 1 cup of shredded Romaine lettuce. I also use 1 tablespoon of butter between cooking the eggs and adding to the veggies and 1 tablespoon of ranch dressing on the lettuce. That puts me at 1,016 calories. Nutritional needs met? Nope. I'm short on Vitamin D, Vitamin E, Thiamin, Iron, Calcium and Magnesium.
Too much protein? Okay...let's cut that back to about 80 grams but cutting back the chicken to 3 oz. That leaves me an extra 95 calories to work with. Let's eat 1 cup of green beans and add 1 medium tomato to my salad. That brings me back up to 1,008 calories. Nutritional needs met now? Nope. I've now met my iron RDA, but I'm still short on all the others previously listed.
Maybe it's possible to find a menu that meets RDA of everything a person needs on 1,000 calories a day (though I doubt it), but it's certainly not an easy feet.

I find the catabolizing muscle issue interesting. It seems before when I lost weight on low fat I was 130 lbs and size 7. Now after LCing I am 140 and size 7. I thought it was from gaining muscle, but 10 lbs of muscle? What makes more sense is that the 130 lbs was muscle LOSS, and when I lost it again the muscle stayed intact. I makes more sense that I burned up 10 lbs muscle than gaining 10 lbs of muscle.

I lost a lot of muscle weight low-fat veganing and kept my fat. So I looked smaller - like a skeleton with fat. These days I look 'bigger' but leaner. It's very odd. Before when I first did Atkins I became very lean indeed - I had A LOT of muscle. I think I was like 12 (or was it 15 can't remember)% body fat. For a woman that's very low I think. The nutritionist here in Chile was very happy though, although was trying to get me to eat lots of yoghurt and fruit, despite me saying I'd rather eat more vegetables instead.

It didn't take me long to build back up the muscle after veganing - about a week I think (really - it came back very fast with tennis training every day and lots of animal protein).

Loops

Huh? I didn't say the average low carber eats 1000 calories or at least that wasn't what I was trying to say. However, I can see how you came away with that impression.

I was trying to say I could probably eat just as nutriously as the average low carber, on 1000 calories a day. I.e. Low carber eating 3000 calories and me eating 1000 calories. The difference being that I'm eating a ton of veggies and very high quality protein. The average low carber is probably getting far more calories from fat than they need. While there are good things in saturated fat, you don't really need unlimited number of calories from it to be healthy. There's only so much nutrition in all that fat.

Probably the average low carber isn't eating anywhere near the number or variety of veggies I am. I actually really require them to stay somewhat satiated and content and feeling full and getting much needed variety and taste in my diet and still keep the calories low. I know a lot of low carbers still sort of shun the veggies, yes, many of us are not average low carbers.

I'm looking forward to the days when I can have more of the good old yummy fat I have grown to love, but until then, its being somewhat sacrificed in order to lose some weight.

The history of science shows us how false this statement is....

If you want to challenge the bodybuilding knowledge I would suggest to go to www.t-nation.com and check how unrespectfull statements about the bb world hold under the intelligence of educated professionals.

For the LC forums here it is important to stick to the facts because many people new here could take simplified opinions for truth without informing themselves about the difference between science and 'common knowledge'.

I'm not sure I understand this assertion. Do you mean as in when the "experts" felt the world was flat, but it was actually round? Can you give an example that overtly refutes the validity of the statement.



Again, I'm not sure I understand. Are you under the impression that the statement was made in an effort to belittle the BB world? If so, how did you reach that conclusion? Or, as per the spirit of the statement, is there an intrinsic difference between "experts" in the BB world as opposed to experts in the cardio, football, baseball, or any other world that confers more validity to what the BB world experts espouse over, say, Formula One world?



Again, how that statement could be construed as a pure falsehood leading to a wide range of deleterious effects unleashed on the newbie world is truly astonishing. May I ask why you feel this way?

Well Nancy, it is like this:

A couple of years of heavy googling and processing (for me) incredible amounts of info have resulted in that I have a couple of websites which provide me of the highlights in the development of diets and food-related health issues. This site is one of them. The mentioned issues I'm interested in are checked by me to see if they have their roots in scientific research.

I check if the conditions of the research apply to my personal situation, or that of people near to me. The presented info has for me then a kind of 'watch this, be prepared for a change' status. Then I follow the issue to see whether more research is contradicting or supporthing the conclusions. Depending on how this develops I adjust my diet or exercises.

So while I don't want to hold any opinion about the whole subject I do want to hold a scientific correct opinion on the small part of reality that concerns my personal life and that of some around me.

For the parts of reality which are not covered this way I try to hold an educated guess based on the facts other peoples and my own experiences. I try to stick to first hand facts only. A fact from other people is in my perception just that someone states this or that. Not the content of the statement itself. The validation of the statement I get from the perceived factial results by the person stating.


(Since I really like to use a scientific argumentation for as good as possible you may advise me on the logic of this if you please )

Just a point I'm confused on... regarding the statement:



Then, in theory, if my BMR is 2500 and my activities burn another 500 cals a day...then I need to eat 2500 cals to avoid burning muscle instead of fat. That's how it reads to me, yes?

Just gotta say i dont buy it. I for one would burst.

Far too many low-carbers reach a smaller size at a higher weight for this to be accurate. (indicating muscle retention)And while low-carbing is not specifically aimed at low-caloric intake...it has been noted that most low carbers will eventually eat significantly fewer calories simply due to reduced appetite. In fact, the reduced caloric intake has been given as one of the main reasons that low-carb diets work.

I just dont believe that low-carbing or low-calorie WOE's cause muscle loss in and off themselves....even when consuming more than 500 cals under your body's daily usage. I base this partially on articles read, partially on personal experience, and partially on my own observations of others using the same WOE.

Just an opinion.
Gonna have to start a poll on this one...hmmm

PS ...edited to say that i get 75-150 cals a day from veggies(depending on my moods but I average at least 75) and the veggies are almost always a combo of the following: Arugala, spinach, romaine, cucumber, tomato, asparagus, zuchini, & mushrooms. Thats' alot of veggies. 3 big salads, with toppings, sauteed mushrooms on my steak, and a cup of side veg at least once a day. I think I eat more veggies than anyone in my non-lc-ing family.

That would very much depend on what each of you was eating, Nancy. If you're going to compare a worst-case diet of 3,000 calories coming mostly from fat against the most nutrient dense choices possible on 1,000 calories, it's stacking the deck a bit, don't you think? Still, as I pointed out with my figures from Fitday, it's very difficult, if not downright impossible, to get adequate nutrition (other than protein requirements) on 1,000 calories per day or less. Even at 1,200 it's tough unless fat intake is limited quite a bit; and remember fat is needed to absorb many nutrients properly so if you consume 850 calories coming mostly from very lean protein sources and veggies but very little fat, all those veggies aren't doing a lot for you other than adding fiber because of the poor absorption of the nutrients due to lack of fat.



Again, Nancy, it very much depends on how you define 'the average low carber'. If it's someone who eats mostly bacon cheeseburgers, sausage, eggs and cream cheese, you're right. OTOH, if the plans are being followed correctly, the average low carber should be getting 5-6 servings of veggies per day minimum. Yes, there are some who shun veggies but IMO they are very much in the minority, especially here on the forum.

Does this take into consideration the supplements that people take? Would it be possible if one is heavily supplementing what they aren't getting in their diets?


L

Ideally, one should get their nutrition from the food that they eat, not out of a bottle. Sure, it's possible if you are supplementing but again, without adequate amounts of fat and the correct types, many of those supplements aren't going to be well-absorbed and if calories are being cut that low, chances are it's the fats that are being cut to achieve that low caloric intake. A better question would be why would someone feel it necessary to cut their intake so low that supplements are required to meet basic nutritional needs (not just an insurance policy of a type that most people use them for)? If you can't lose weight unless you are dropping below 1200 calories on a consistant basis, I'd say a trip to the doctor is in order along with some blood tests because that is not a normal state and if you can lose weight without going that low, why would you do so and risk shorting your body on nutrition that it needs to function at its best, keep a healthy immune system to fight off illness and generally be healthy?