Argghh! Weight-loss does not make sense. (Page 2)

The benefits to weight loss from low GI is largely due to the fact that it helps "control appetite and delay hunger", i.e., to take in fewer calories.  Believe what you want, but stating that a 60% carb diet will make you "hold onto that extra body fat" and prevent weight loss on its own is going to require some better info than you've provided.  In fact, I'm fairly certain the evidence simply does not exist. 

It IS as simple as calories in/calories out.  However, both sides of that equation usually involve some estimation and guesswork (the calories out part, in particular), which frustrates people and makes it seem far less simple in practice.


Edit: Sorry, I can't seem to fix the formatting on my reply.

Here's a good article with research studies backing it to debunk the popular misconception that "a calorie is a calorie":
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/family/articles/2009/05/13/why_a_ca...

As far as not believing that cutting carbs from 60% to 50% of your diet wouldn't help with losing body fat, all I can tell you is that it's worked for me and countless other people I know who had trouble losing those last few pounds despite several hours a week of exercise and moderate consumption of calories, just the girl the original author of this post is attempting to assist. I myself am living proof that it works having been 20% body fat or higher my whole adult life despite exercise and a healthy diet until I cut the carbs down to 50%. Now I maintain about 17% bf without much trouble at all, as long as I stick to the 50% carb intake, stay away from the white flour/sugar/etc, and keep up my exercise routine. That's all the proof I need!

All that article says is that some types of calories will make you feel more "full"  or satiate your huger desire better.  That's great.  Because it will help you to consume fewer calories.  (The actual study discussed found that weight loss was no different for people following diets with different macro--fat/carb/protein--mixes).

If a lower carb diet helps you (or anybody else) to eat better in general, then I am all for it.  If it keeps your hunger in check better, you will eat less and be able to lose weight.  That's great too.  But if you don't eat fewer calories (or burn more), you don't lose weight.

I have struggled with weight my entire life.  I was over 300lbs at 16, weighted 183lbs when i competed for Mr Junior Ottawa at 19, gained all the way back to almost 280lbs with sympathy weight for the birth of my two daughters. (Bad excuse, but gives it a great name!)

Currently after 5 weeks of moderately intense training for a sprint in august, roughly 35 mins to 1 hour with stretching and warm up, 5 to 6 times a week.  Either a run, ride or swim.  Maybe 20minutes here or there of pushups, crunches, assisted chins, lunges or squats, I am down to 232.  Probably 230 lbs today.
I am eating between 2200 and 2600 calories a day, and burning probably 300 to 600 a day.
I feel energetic and alive. 
Some things that have always helped me in the past, keep the carbs before the second half of your day.  With the exception of a balanced post workout snack, for me chocolate milk, and a banana, with maybe a whey powder and water mix on the side.
Most people can tell what types of carbs their body likes and dislikes.  For me, pasta is a bad one, whole wheat linguine not too bad, the rest, feels like I ate a few bricks, just sits.
It is a hard thing to teach, but getting people to listen to their body is important.  What comes out also, how often, regular and comfortable is a huge indicator of how that fuel is being used inside too.
Try a carb only first half of day, with exception of post workout, watch sugar intake, watch eating late in the evening, like too soon before bed, should wake up slightly hungry if metabolism is working well overnight, also try the eating within the first 30 minutes of waking up to jump start metabolism. 
These tricks have worked for me in the past, and are now, my metabolism is comparable to that of a sloth, and I need to manipulate as much as possible.
All the best.

This illustrates my point. What I'm saying is that people I work with are keeping their calorie intake the same, yet changing the amount of carbs and TYPE of carbs and that is what is helping them lose the extra weight. Again, their number is CALORIES is the SAME, activity level is the SAME, and the only thing changing is the TYPE & AMOUNT of CARBS. It is equalling fat loss.

This is just my experience over the past 5 years with people who have tried other methods of fat loss and never had success until they cut back the carbs to about 50% and stayed away from the whites, yet kept the SAME NUMBER OF CALORIES.

Are they losing WEIGHT?  If so, they are taking in fewer calories or burning more (or retaining less water for one reason or another).  Sorry, it's the way it works.

Nope, sorry but they aren't just losing weight. We're measuring their weight and their body fat so we can be sure it's fat loss and not attributable to water or lean tissue loss. I've been a trainer for awhile and have studied the way diet affects people that I know and train. Granted, I don't watch over them 24/7 but require them to provide me very specific food logs that measure literally everything that goes into their mouths.

It's been like one big experiment over the last few years and the results have been very conclusive. When I manipulate the amount of and types of carbs WITHOUT CHANGING THE NUMBER OF CALORIES, they lose body fat; not just weight, body fat. It happens over and over. Some are even ending up eating a few hundred more calories per day and still losing body fat by keeping the carbs around 50% and avoid the whites. Sorry Johnny, but these are just facts I'm providing directly from experience, not just what I've read in a book or on the internet. And again, the best example I have that this works is me!

I'm glad you say "it works".  Only the fact remains that you can't take more in without burning more and lose weight.  You can try to say it however you want, but it just doesn't work that way and the "evidence" you've linked to has essentially said the same thing too.  Your "facts" are missing data (either the in or the out is wrong).  But since it's only the end result that matters to people and it's "working", keep at it.  It really doesn't matter as long as you find a diet that you can consistently maintain and achieves the results you are looking for.

Yes, just like I said originally a calorie is not a calorie! Different foods have different results physiologically when you eat them. That was whole point from the start Johnny, that our poster needs to look more closely at WHAT she's eating, not just her total cals. because the WHAT is affecting her body fat, not just the HOW MUCH.

Noelle, we're talking in circles here.  The OP's friend wants to lose WEIGHT (though targeting body fat MAY be better idea for her--not enough info to know) and can't understand why they aren't.  Changing WHAT she's eating without changing HOW MUCH won't do it (holding "burn" constant).

Now the point you are trying to make is that a high carb diet will make it more difficult to lose body fat, not necessarily weight.  That may or may not be the case and I *think* there are studies on both sides of this (nothing you pointed to discusses this, BTW).  But I'm not arguing that right now.  Sorry if that got lost.

I can tell ya that when a woman says she wants to lose "weight", 99% of the time that means fat! I guess there may be a few women out there who want to just lose water or lean tissue, but I haven't met any of them!

All other research which isn't worth arguing over aside, I'll just tell you that I've been tweaking my diet for years trying to attain that "elite" level of body fat. I'm talking, I really wanted a six pack. I could always get down to about 19% using the basic stuff, clean diet, balanced fitness routine, etc. but could never get lower to acheive that cut, cover of Oxygen magazine look. I knew enough to not cut my calories too low or risk loss of energy and muscle. I started cutting my carbs from 60% to 50% and that helped me lose a little bit of the fat but not even to satisfy me.

I'm very, very controlled with my diet and workout routines. The only, only, only thing that ever made the difference that I was looking for was swapping all white flour, sugar, rice & pasta in my diet for whole grain carbs or fruit of exactly the same number of calories. I promise you that I literally eat the same thing at the same time, with the same amount every week. From before the swap to after the swap, I was taking in exactly the same number of calories on a weekly basis and was doing the exact same workouts each week (with my HR monitor ensuring that I was burning about the same number of calories), drinking the same amount of water (I'm a very routine oriented person so it makes me a good candidate for this type of experiment); yet only after the white to wheat swap did I finally lost those last few pounds of body fat. I didn't even need the scale to measure this. I could now see all six of the pack :-) The scale and the body fat calipers backed up my findings and best of all, keeping the whites out of the diet has kept the new six pack entacted.

If they lose weight, they will almost certainly lose fat.  Body fat PERCENTAGE may or may not change.

You may continue to believe otherwise, but calories in/out DOES work.

No, I've had many female clients cut their calories too low, be happy about a lower number and a scale and then disappointed when the calipers had no change.

Sorry, but the very simplistic idea of cals in/cals out did not work for me and I kept everything as controlled as if it were a research lab.

Oops...that should be "a lower number ON THE scale"......sorry.....

Your "lab" needs work.  Sorry. 

We're going nowhere, so I'll just close in saying I'm really glad you've found something that works for you (and your clients).  The results are really what matters and you're where you want to be.  In my opinion you need some help with "why" it works, but that's really less important.

Hmm....well, I've actually attempted controlled experimentation on myself and other participants and have results to be interpreted as I may. Have you????????

I let others design and carry out studies.  Yours have zero peer review and I have no choice but to discount them almost entirely.  You may research the topic if you like or rely on your "lab".  But unless you want to present your data in a more complete, you have no more than I.

Right, so you'd rather just believe what you read rather than believing what you've tried for yourself......have you ever even had a weight problem or coached someone who has?? You said yourself that there's just as much research supporting your viewpoint as there is mine. The difference is that I've applied it to reality (i.e. my life as a peson wanting to lose weight/body fat).

If you really and truly believe that a calorie is just a calorie, I challenge you to the chocolate cake test. Record your current weight and have your body fat measured. Calculate your average current weekly calories. Now for 3 weeks, consume that amount of calories from ONLY chocolate cake. Resume all other normal activity and water intake. After three weeks, weigh yourself and have the same person measure your body fat. We'll see if a chocolate cake calorie is more likely to add body fat than a whole wheat calorie.

Could you please publish this extensive research???  After decades of scientific study and my own experiences with the calories in/calories out model, I think I speak for most of us when I say we would be interested in actual data.  I believe that swapping bad calories for good calories is going to have positive results - like more energy, leading to increased intensity of workouts, leading to more calories burned, higher metabolism, etc.  For your claims to be valid, you must have controlled the exact calorie burn these women were achieving each week.  That means tightly controlling not only their exercise in the gym (length, type and intensity), but also all non-gym related activities.  How much sleep were they getting?  Did they start taking walks at evening.  Can you tell us how many times these women were having sex each week?  Seriously - a 15 minute romp in bed can burn quite a few calories.  These are all factors that have to be controlled if you want to make a claim that the calories in/calories out model doesn't work. 

Again, I'm not questioning that you saw results.  But I don't believe you have provided any evidence that holding ALL things equal, you can simply change the type of calories you consume and expect dramatic changes.  For some of us that have done some reading on this topic, claims without evidence aren't going to get you anywhere.

You need to read what I've said closer. 

So. how about this.  Person X burns 2000 cal/day (from all activities and BMR).  They consume 2000 cal/day, including some "evil" carbs.  Person Y also burns 2000 cal/day the same way.  They eat 2000 cal/day but avoid all "evil" carbs and even reduce their total carb intake (replaced with cal from protein or fat).  Who gains weight?  Who loses weight?

I might believe that it's possible that your chocolate cake diet could have some negative health consequences, including altering your metabolism.  That could change the calories burned if not otherwise adjusted.  Might be an interesting study, but not sure you could get many takers. 

However, there HAVE been studies on varying the percentages of carbs/protein/fat in diets.  As long as calories are controlled (and the diets are reasonable, i.e., not 100% chocolate cake), there was no significant difference in weight loss (one of the articles you linked to actually refers to one of these studies).  So, in reality, it is unlikely to make a big difference.  Eat a well balanced diet and consumer fewer calories than you burn and you will lose weight.

Johnny, this is EXACTLY the point I've been trying to make to you all along. You have to eat a balanced diet, not just calculate calories in and out. The problem people have is how do you define "balanced diet"? All I've done is given clients better ways to acheive that balance.

Dale, I never said I've done "extensive research". All I'm saying is that as a trainer who has worked with many clients and had success helping them reach their goals when they have never had success reaching them before, I'd say I must be doing something right. Maybe I haven't published results in a scientific manner, but would you sooner trust someone with a proven track record of results or someone like yourself who has never trained anyone, only read about it??

actually this has been debunked by CONTROLLED diet studies, where calories were matched between participants.  In well-controlled studies (read, not ad libitum dietary studies) GI and macro ratio does not effect weight loss. 

Show me a controlled study that debunks it and I'll show you one that backs it. There are just as many out there on one side of the arguement as there are on the other. That proves nothing.

Show us then.  You already know of one on the other side if you read the articles you post.

The "balanced diet" I referred to is only to rule out your "chocolate cake" diets which may (or may not, I don't know) have more meaningful impact on your metabolism (and, therefore, CALORIES OUT).  In more realistic macro ratios, there is no significant change in weight loss.  There is a broad universe of balanced diets and no good evidence that yours is "better".

Sorry, unless you want to provide some REAL info or studies that counters calories in < calories out = weight loss, I'm done here.  You ONLY lose weight if you consume less than you burn.  You need to change one side of the equation or the other.

I never said anything about not agreeing with the fact that a body burning more cals will lose more body fat. The only arguement I've made is that a calorie is not a calorie, and all carbs are not created equally. Extensive reserach has been done by supporters of the Glycemic Index (GI) which measures not only the amount of carbs in foods, but also the exact effect of different types of carbs on the body. There are hundreds of articles and books that support my position that changing from high GI foods to low GI foods will lower body fat. Here's one. For more, do your own homework.

http://www.life-enhancement.com/article_template.asp?ID=1877

And as I mentioned, on a personal basis these theories have shown results among my clients. Controlled experiments are lovely, but it's how they translate to our very NON-CONTROLLED reality that is really important when putting people on weight or fat loss programs.

And no, I've never ask my clients to go so far as to log their sexual activity as the last poster suggested. Please, show me a study where the subjects are put through such rigourous circumstances that it absolutely allows for zero extraneous variables. Please, I'd love to see such research.