Keeping Fit after Aging Out - A new diet book

[year1buick]

I always wondered what would happen if gyms started offering "drum corps" fitness classes. An hour of varying between high mark time and low mark time with horns (weights) up and down, with 20 pushups every 5 minutes.

I think I'd be the only one in there....

LOL. I used to wonder what kinds of looks I'd get if I used my breathing tube while on the treadmill.

[Mellofello01]

I always wondered what would happen if gyms started offering "drum corps" fitness classes. An hour of varying between high mark time and low mark time with horns (weights) up and down, with 20 pushups every 5 minutes.

I think I'd be the only one in there....

You might not be the only one there, but I betcha you'd be the only one left standing.

Edited September 14, 2010 by Mellofello01

[Jeff Ream]

march a DCA corps

[emtbill]

That's not possible. The situation you describe is a scientific miracle. Why did no fat people come out of concentration camps? How do people starve to death? You've solved world hunger if you can explain how someone can create mass out of nothing.

Stuff like paleo and low-carb works because it subconsciously limits your calories. I've gotten a six pack eating sugary cereal within the limits of my macronutrient ratios. It's about how much you eat, not necessarily what.

And I'm also about 35 pounds lighter than when I aged out.

Bottom line, the diet to which you can adhere is the best one. As long as you're somehow in a caloric deficit, you'll lose weight.

Richard and year1buick.... its absolutely possible. You miss the concept of what hormonal response from food can do. Why did no fat people come out of the concentration camps? Because they were truly starved, not undernourished, but starved. And how to people starve to death? By not eating anything. It seems like you haven't taken the time to check out any of the educational links posted on this thread.

Here's a quote from a new's article on Latin America. Here is the full article.

"Food products are chosen on the basis of price, and high-calorie foods are cheaper than those that are high in nutrients, she explained. As a result, the traditional view of malnourished children as nothing but "skin and bone" is being replaced by the new reality of children suffering from both obesity and malnutrition."

You can check out the video with the info about the American Indians and obesity. http://www.youtube.com/user/livinlowcarbma.../13/dSAZ1voWjGU

I encourage you all to check out all the videos in the series.

Better yet, read the book "Good Calories, bad calories" by Gary Taubes. Here's a bit of what he talks about:

"When examined together, the historic parade of studies, theories and treatments for obesity range from the merely silly to the downright cruel. Starvation studies with healthy, male volunteers in the first quarter of the last century showed over and over again that very low-calorie, lowfat diets did not, in fact, promote significant weight loss, but did make volunteers miserable with constant, gnawing hunger, depression, loss of energy and libido, and even provoked homicidal and suicidal tendencies.

Other studies showed that increased exercise did not lead to weight loss in the corpulent, but instead, to an increase in appetite and subsequent increase in calories eaten. Still more trials that fed healthy, normal volunteers enormous meals of up to 10,000 calories a day exclusively from protein and fat sources found that only very modest weight gain occurred. The same protein and fat diet, in more moderate proportions, fed to the overweight caused significant and relatively easy weight loss with no discomfort of hunger, and in fact a feeling of wellbeing."

Paleo and low-carb diets work because of the carb restriction. They do restrict some calories because the people are not hungry. That's a unique thing about high fat/protein diets, is that they are filling and promote satiety. The same can't be necessarily said for low-fat diets. And even though people lose weight on low-fat diets, its because of the carbohydrate restriction.

So Richard, by you eating within your macronutrient ratios, you've limited your carbs. And you might be someone who can tolerate more carbs than the average American.

I used to think like you Richard. But since I've been studying this for the past (almost) 2 years, I've changed my thinking.

It is about what you eat.

Edited September 14, 2010 by emtbill

[year1buick]

Look, I get where you're coming from here but nothing you just posted contradicted what I just said-- you can't add more body mass, for any given time period, if you have a caloric deficit for that same amount of time. It's just not possible. If you only take in 1000 kcal (roughly equivalent to 250g protein or 111g of fat) during any given day but you do 1200 kcal of work, your body has to come up with the extra 200 kcal (50g protein/22g fat) from somewhere, on its own; in other words, pull from it's own stores. (Be it fat, sugar or protein) You can't end the day with more "stuff" (fat, protein, sugar-- whatever) than what you started with and put in--it's simply not possible. NO hormonal response can add mass out of thin air--it can only initiate the conversion of one type of body store to another (which itself uses some energy). Any NET increase in OVERALL mass has to come from outside, e.g. an overall energy surplus. Sorry, but anybody trying to sell a book stating otherwise is full of it. [edit: to be clear, I'm not saying this was what the specific book you quoted is saying. Nothing posted, at least, indicates this. I'm just speaking in general terms here...]

As one of your quotes states, it's fairly typical for someone initially in a dietary deficit to overcompensate and then eat to much, swinging the pendulum back into caloric surplus. Read this passage again: "Other studies showed that increased exercise did not lead to weight loss in the corpulent, but instead, to an increase in appetite and subsequent increase in calories eaten." This means that that there was no NET weight loss, because of behavioral changes and an increase in caloric intake. (Which is easy to understand and makes sense.) That's all I'm sayin...

Edited September 14, 2010 by year1buick

[Richard]

Paleo and low-carb diets work because of the carb restriction. They do restrict some calories because the people are not hungry. That's a unique thing about high fat/protein diets, is that they are filling and promote satiety. The same can't be necessarily said for low-fat diets. And even though people lose weight on low-fat diets, its because of the carbohydrate restriction.

So Richard, by you eating within your macronutrient ratios, you've limited your carbs. And you might be someone who can tolerate more carbs than the average American.

I used to think like you Richard. But since I've been studying this for the past (almost) 2 years, I've changed my thinking.

It is about what you eat.

I won't reiterate what year1buick said but I agree 100%.

I read the article, and those children are obese because they're eating too many calories. It's easy to overeat on carbs. They're also not eating any fruits or vegetables or any foods containing micronutrients and probably not taking a multivitamin or anything, but malnourished isn't about calories, it's about nutrients. Anyway, they're still eating more calories than they're using so they're fat.

Taubes I disagree with 100% and there is a good deal of criticism about his narrow views out there (just Google “Gary Taubes criticism” and you’ll see what I mean). With his logic, I could eat 5 pounds of bacon fried in butter or any other non-carb meals of 5000-10000 calories a day and not gain weight. Trust me, I can easily eat 4000 kcal/day of low-carb foods. Where are those calories going?

The first study he sites is likely the Minnesota Study, where war objectors were placed on approximately a 50% reduction from maintenance calories (which only put them around 1500 calories/day or thereabouts in the first place) and were held there for 6 straight months. Activity (walking) was enforced and most men reached the lower limits of body fat percentage by the end of it.

Their maintenance calories changed, but the total reduction in daily energy expenditure only amounted to 40% (of which the majority of that was due to the weight loss). Weight and fat loss had basically stopped at the end of the study which makes sense; the original 50% deficit had been reduced to at most 10% due to the 40% reduction in metabolic rate.

For what it's worth, when I'm REALLY cutting down to 10% body fat or less, I do two weeks at a time of about 1200 calories a day from almost ONLY protein (or a protein-sparing modified fast or PSMF). It's pretty torturous but it works. You experience a lot of the stuff Taubes mentions about like getting moody, loss of energy, hunger etc (although no suicidal tendencies haha) because you’re starving yourself (this is true any time you diet). But that level of ridiculousness is NOT necessary if you just want to be fit. You can reduce calories to something like 11-13 x lean body mass and get down to ~15% body fat comfortably and sanely.

During maintenance I eat maybe 200g carbs per day with no ill effects. Right now I'm trying to put some mass on so on workout days I eat about 350-400g carbs. And at any given time I can be prone to eating a giant cookie, or massive dessert, or 30 pieces of sushi, or a cheeseburger with fries, or all of those in one sitting. I just don't do those things too often.

You’re right though that going too low-fat is a bad idea, because fat does provide long-term satiety (and protein provides short-term satiety) and you’ll likely end up binging if you try to go low-fat for a prolonged period. I keep fat around 20-25% of my calories at all times, unless I’m doing a PSMF, which is a short-term thing only.

In 2009 I ate whatever I wanted but limited calories to ~2000-2300 kcal/day and I got pretty lean but everyone kept telling me I was “too skinny”. Back then, I didn’t know anything about nutrition and I wasn’t eating anywhere close to enough protein. This past summer, I discovered Lyle McDonald’s stuff and was significantly lighter and leaner than in 2009 but I spared a lot of lean mass, so I looked a lot better. The point is, the weight comes off as long as calories are restricted. If you want mostly fat to come off, you need to watch your macros.

I went in the opposite direction of you Bill, I tried low-carb with no calorie restriction but still tracked my calories for the hell of it. Last fall I had gotten too chubby and so I tried low-carbing it off. I was eating ~3000 kcal a day and lost maybe 5 pounds in water weight that quickly came back. When I combined low carb with calorie restriction (~2000 kcal/day) I started making real progress and went from maybe 18%bf to ~15%. Then I started reading Lyle’s stuff and attained a very good understanding of nutrition, did a modified version of his Ultimate Diet 2.0 to get down to maybe 12-13% body fat and then did a PSMF down to <10% this past summer.

With my current understanding and some discipline, I am confident in my ability to manipulate my body mass as I choose. I’m still figuring out the lean mass gaining thing though (I’m actually trying to gain weight for the first time in my life), so we’ll see how that goes.

But to most people reading this thread, you can get relatively fit with a simple calorie deficit either through diet or exercise (ideally a combination of both).