4 ms·

Going from 4K-5K calories per day to 900 is an extreme swing. These type of diets are shown not to work. There is also some evidence they convince your body it

by keefe 17y ago

Going from 4K-5K calories per day to 900 is an extreme swing. These type of diets are shown not to work. There is also some evidence they convince your body it is living in feast/famine time which triggers a fat accumulation response. I do not believe that it is healthy to remove carbohydrates from your body. The body is a complex machine indeed, but we have a pretty good understanding of how it works regarding nutrition. Most structures run on glucose, muscles are made of protein, fiber helps digestion and micronutrients are used all over the place. The bottom line is that fat is used for storing extra glucose. The function of protein in nutrition is very interesting. If you don't get enough, then your body will cannibalize muscles to get it. Proteins can be broken down to provide glucose, but it's inefficient and generates toxins. Carbohydrates break down to glucose much better. I would suggest you try a conventional approach : Checkout nutritiondata.com or one of the numerous calculators and for your weight and height calculate your daily needs. Pay particular attention to the grams of fiber needed and setup a plan that leads to 1-2lbs of fat loss per week - a deficit of only 500-1000 calories per day. Changing habits faster than that is generally not practical, it certainly never was for me. Make sure you are getting enough protein without overwhelming calories, supplementing with a protein shake if necessary. Try that out for half a year or a year with daily measurements and diet recalculation every 10 lbs lost. Never, ever deviate from the selected diet (you accomplish this by leaving wiggle room in your estimates), weigh yourself daily and keep careful records. I really don't think carb free living is either sustainable or healthy.

thras 17y ago
It did work. I lost the weight. Pay attention to fiber? The research in support of that suggestion is execrable (pun intended). I did try the 500-1000 calorie deficit for a number of months. My weight loss was on the order of 5-10 pounds, and I was hungry the entire time. And then I gained the weight back and more when I wasn't able to carry through. People simply do not lose large amounts of weight on small deficits. It's bizarre. According to the trash bin theory of body fat it should work. It doesn't. Almost like the trash bin theory is wrong... The carb free living is sustainable and healthy. If you aren't going to read Taubes, then at least read Victor Steffansson. He's a bit more fun.
- gruseom 17y ago
  The research in support of that suggestion is execrable (pun intended). It's not really a pun. "Execrate" and "excrete" aren't related. (Sorry for the distraction; I find these things interesting.)
  - _pius 17y ago
    It is a homophonic pun. The associated Wikipedia article is pretty fascinating: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pun
    - gruseom 17y ago
      Execrate and excrete are not homophones. But yes, that is a good Wikipedia article.
- keefe 17y ago
  the point of paying attention to fiber is that if you get your daily needs in fiber, you'll have eaten so many vegetables that your tastes regarding carbs will change. Your belly will also be full, which cuts down on the feeling of hunger. People do lose large amounts of weight on small deficits, get serious!! It just takes a while. I personally dropped nearly 40 lbs this way and large people can also certainly do this - go ask a nutritionist. Of course you were hungry all the time, your body was down regulating. You are sitting here attacking a theory immediately after admitting that you could not maintain the 500-1000 calorie deficit? That has nothing to do with the theory! You chose to eat more, you gained weight again - if you had maintained your discipline, you would not have gained the weight back. I've researched the carb-free diet in detail and my conclusion is carbohydrates play an important role in human nutrition and it is very unwise to cut them out. We evolved to run off a particular type of fuel, continue with this diet for a couple more years and then consequences will become apparent. There is a wide variety of material from credible mainstream nutrition researchers on this. The healthy thing to do is to make sure your nutrients are handled in a balanced way and then slowly burn off fat and actually maintain discipline for years. This book has a lot of good info : http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Well-Optimum-Health-Essential/dp/0375407545 http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Well-Optimum-Health-Essential/d...
9oliYQjP 17y ago
They do work. Thras looks like he was on a form of Protein Sparing Modified Fast. They work really well. I've done the same thing. The tough part about these diets is transitioning out of the diet, but if you follow the "maintenance" modes that most of these diets advocate, you'll be absolutely fine. The promoters of these diets do not advocate these as long term solutions. For people that are > 30% body fat, the longest recommended time to stay on this diet is about 12 weeks before moving to maintenance. For someone whose body fat percentage is less than 30 but greater than 20, the longest recommended time to stay on the diet is 2 to 6 weeks before, again, moving to maintenance. After two weeks on maintenance but not yet reaching the target weight, the person may choose to proceed with the diet or opt for a more moderate one. Checkout http://bodyrecomposition.com http://bodyrecomposition.com which promotes a form of Protein Sparing Modified Fast that the author has dubbed "Rapid Fat Loss". He is not an advocate of protein shakes on this diet but rather obtaining macronutrients from actual food, because protein shakes are metabolized so quickly that the body feels hungry soon afterward.
- thras 17y ago
  No no. I just eat a lot of meat, eggs, and cheese. I average 2-3 pounds of rib-eye per day, 6-9 eggs, and 3-6 ounces of cheese. Googling for calorie information...good god, that's 2900-4500 calories a day. And I'm only 5'10". No modified fast for me. Lost 65 pounds in the last year. Not an amazing result. On the other hand, an amazing result -- on a 3000-4000 calorie diet.
  - 9oliYQjP 17y ago
    Ahh I misread your first post. So you went on a 900 calorie diet that wasn't necessarily a protein modified sparing fast. Now, at a macronutrient level you just eat higher protein and fat whilst avoiding carbs. Are you certain that you didn't have pre-diabetes or some form of insulin resistance before starting your diet? It might be the reason why you feel like crap when having carbs. At a healthy weight, reasonable levels of carbs shouldn't cause you to feel like crap unless you have some underlying condition that's affected by them. UPDATE: Another thing that can be going on here is that when you lose weight, you don't necessarily get a reduction in fat cells. Normally, fat cells contain 90% triglycerides. When you lose weight, some fat cells release their triglycerides. But they can fill up with water instead (e.g., perhaps the body's adaptation to famine conditions... where there's no food there's likely no water). Your carb intake may have simply been causing you to bloat with water, and some of your fat cells may have been storing this water too. How long did this 10-20 lbs weight gain last? It's not abnormal to gain 10-20 lbs after losing such a substantial amount of weight because some of that weight lost will have been water-weight.

by keefe 17y ago

thras 17y ago

It did work. I lost the weight. Pay attention to fiber? The research in support of that suggestion is execrable (pun intended). I did try the 500-1000 calorie deficit for a number of months. My weight loss was on the order of 5-10 pounds, and I was hungry the entire time. And then I gained the weight back and more when I wasn't able to carry through. People simply do not lose large amounts of weight on small deficits. It's bizarre. According to the trash bin theory of body fat it should work. It doesn't. Almost like the trash bin theory is wrong... The carb free living is sustainable and healthy. If you aren't going to read Taubes, then at least read Victor Steffansson. He's a bit more fun.

gruseom 17y ago
The research in support of that suggestion is execrable (pun intended). It's not really a pun. "Execrate" and "excrete" aren't related. (Sorry for the distraction; I find these things interesting.)
- _pius 17y ago
  It is a homophonic pun. The associated Wikipedia article is pretty fascinating: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pun
  - gruseom 17y ago
    Execrate and excrete are not homophones. But yes, that is a good Wikipedia article.
keefe 17y ago
the point of paying attention to fiber is that if you get your daily needs in fiber, you'll have eaten so many vegetables that your tastes regarding carbs will change. Your belly will also be full, which cuts down on the feeling of hunger. People do lose large amounts of weight on small deficits, get serious!! It just takes a while. I personally dropped nearly 40 lbs this way and large people can also certainly do this - go ask a nutritionist. Of course you were hungry all the time, your body was down regulating. You are sitting here attacking a theory immediately after admitting that you could not maintain the 500-1000 calorie deficit? That has nothing to do with the theory! You chose to eat more, you gained weight again - if you had maintained your discipline, you would not have gained the weight back. I've researched the carb-free diet in detail and my conclusion is carbohydrates play an important role in human nutrition and it is very unwise to cut them out. We evolved to run off a particular type of fuel, continue with this diet for a couple more years and then consequences will become apparent. There is a wide variety of material from credible mainstream nutrition researchers on this. The healthy thing to do is to make sure your nutrients are handled in a balanced way and then slowly burn off fat and actually maintain discipline for years. This book has a lot of good info : http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Well-Optimum-Health-Essential/dp/0375407545 http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Well-Optimum-Health-Essential/d...

9oliYQjP 17y ago

They do work. Thras looks like he was on a form of Protein Sparing Modified Fast. They work really well. I've done the same thing. The tough part about these diets is transitioning out of the diet, but if you follow the "maintenance" modes that most of these diets advocate, you'll be absolutely fine. The promoters of these diets do not advocate these as long term solutions. For people that are > 30% body fat, the longest recommended time to stay on this diet is about 12 weeks before moving to maintenance. For someone whose body fat percentage is less than 30 but greater than 20, the longest recommended time to stay on the diet is 2 to 6 weeks before, again, moving to maintenance. After two weeks on maintenance but not yet reaching the target weight, the person may choose to proceed with the diet or opt for a more moderate one. Checkout http://bodyrecomposition.com http://bodyrecomposition.com which promotes a form of Protein Sparing Modified Fast that the author has dubbed "Rapid Fat Loss". He is not an advocate of protein shakes on this diet but rather obtaining macronutrients from actual food, because protein shakes are metabolized so quickly that the body feels hungry soon afterward.

thras 17y ago
No no. I just eat a lot of meat, eggs, and cheese. I average 2-3 pounds of rib-eye per day, 6-9 eggs, and 3-6 ounces of cheese. Googling for calorie information...good god, that's 2900-4500 calories a day. And I'm only 5'10". No modified fast for me. Lost 65 pounds in the last year. Not an amazing result. On the other hand, an amazing result -- on a 3000-4000 calorie diet.
- 9oliYQjP 17y ago
  Ahh I misread your first post. So you went on a 900 calorie diet that wasn't necessarily a protein modified sparing fast. Now, at a macronutrient level you just eat higher protein and fat whilst avoiding carbs. Are you certain that you didn't have pre-diabetes or some form of insulin resistance before starting your diet? It might be the reason why you feel like crap when having carbs. At a healthy weight, reasonable levels of carbs shouldn't cause you to feel like crap unless you have some underlying condition that's affected by them. UPDATE: Another thing that can be going on here is that when you lose weight, you don't necessarily get a reduction in fat cells. Normally, fat cells contain 90% triglycerides. When you lose weight, some fat cells release their triglycerides. But they can fill up with water instead (e.g., perhaps the body's adaptation to famine conditions... where there's no food there's likely no water). Your carb intake may have simply been causing you to bloat with water, and some of your fat cells may have been storing this water too. How long did this 10-20 lbs weight gain last? It's not abnormal to gain 10-20 lbs after losing such a substantial amount of weight because some of that weight lost will have been water-weight.