Weight Loss Diet Contradictions
I only believe what the read button says
We ended up with a pretty good list of weight loss diets yesterday, thanks for your contribution. So can all of the diets listed work? (of course as long as they get you to eat less calories than you burn). Are all of these complex strategies necessary?…of course not.
But what about the specific mechanism of how they work? Isn’t there an advantage to one style over the other?…nope.
The one that is easiest for you to follow is the one that will work the best for you. For me it comes down to simplicity, the simpler the diet the more effective it is likely to be. (by the way this is also shown in the research to be true)
Most of the diet books you ever come across will be based on a marketing gimmick to sell a new concept, but in the end the only way any diet can actually work is by getting you to consume less total calories.
Think about how impossible it would be to combine some of the diets listed on yesterdays post.
How could you eat for your blood type, as well as eat low carb, and then cycle your carbs (which contradicts the theory of low carb), and then eat low fat (which contradicts low carb and carb cycling and blood type dieting), and then try to eat ‘zone’ style with a 30/30/40 nutrient ratio split (which contradicts low carb low fat carb cycling and blood type diets), then fast (contradicts all diets), then try to avoid cooking your food, then try Mediterranean dieting (whatever the hell that means), point counting systems like weight watchers (contradict all of these diets) etc…
How could the rules of any of these diets fit together?…They can’t.
The truth is that you can eat whatever you like and lose weight, as long as you eat less than you burn.
And if you’re getting ready to drop me a comment and say (but what about_______ diet)…stop for a moment and look at the diets listed above and how they all contradict each other and yet each one has a list of people who will swear by them as the best way to lose weight. The only way this can be possible is if all of these diets share a common theme, and that is less total calories.
Calories in vs out is not a sexy marketing angle so it has to be hidden behind crazy stories about blood types, specific times of day to eat, evil nutrients and bad foods to avoid, fat burning foods to consume, romanticism about other countries and ways of eating from the distant past etc.
It’s all nonsense. When they’re put to the scientific test the only way any diet produces weight loss is a caloric deficit, the food choices and eating patterns are up to you.
John
P.S. my new diet book is actually going to be about calories in vs calories out. I know that doesn’t sound very interesting but I think you’ll be surprised to see how much more there is to the calorie story…It’s not as simple to count calories as you think.
33 Responses to “Weight Loss Diet Contradictions”
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May 4th, 2010 at 10:37 am
I like the theme of your book John b/c it’s the message people need to hear.
but while you’re doing so, could you PLEASE, at some point in the book, use some academic research from somewhere to try to contradict the whole “eating 5 meals for weight loss” thing and also the whole “control your hormones / blood sugar” style of dieting where you can never have sugar or white carbs. Also, losing muscle if you miss a meal.
I’ve been doing a low cal lifestyle with whatever carbs I want since January and lost 2 inches on my waist. My energy has never been better. And my muscles got bigger. I want to be able to point to something when I tell ppl about this who respond “I can’t do that, you’ll lose your muscle / my blood sugar would tank”
May 4th, 2010 at 11:36 am
So why make Adonis Effect diet so complex if it all comes down to 1500 or 1800 calories a day for recomp, and macros including protein don’t matter?
May 4th, 2010 at 11:36 am
so yeah, it’s very clear that to lose weight one must lower calories. However, you must STILL address the fact that there is a MINIMUM amount of protein on average to maintain so one doesnt lose muscle. This affects diet to a great degree. Because if one is to maintain a degree of protein while cutting calories, then either carbohydrates or fat, or both, must be lowered. And fat is necessary to maintain an optimal hormonal cascade while carbs are especially helpful for high intensity exercise. In this way, I do find it helpful to maintain higher carbohydrates on training days (also raise leptin–>decreasing hunger/lethargy) and more fat and less carbs on non training days. The main issue though is maintaining a sufficient protein intake while cutting calories to preserve muscle (not astronomically high, just enough) so macronutrient balance DOES matter. Re: How Much Protein?
May 4th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
John 2 things i will love for you to research and add to the diet book:
1.The claim from these alternitive health gurus, that claim that when you ingested sugar it will supress your inmune system for 4 hours?i will like to know where is the specific research that proves this?this urban legend must die.
2.Revestrol as the new anti-agin pill hype miracle,these days this has been selling as the best anti-aging product in the market maybe you could disect this and point what is fact and fiction?John the yesterday i went to GNC to buy some liquid soap and i was blown away with all the new revestrol supplements they have and since you like the anti-aging stuff this revestrol hype has to be disected.
May 4th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Hmm, I was planning to get Adonis index in 2 weeks time.
But from what RX says it is just another workout plan with dieting?
Is it? I don’t want to do more diets anymore? Isn’t ESE enough for Adonis Index? I though that if i get the minimum protein I will be set? John what is your take on this?
May 4th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
John,
Amen!
~Tim
P.S. I’ve started to try to help some friends out by trying to explain to them that it’s all about calories, but EVERYONE these days believe in the 6 meals a day thing and how the timing of your eating affects your metabolism and crap. I even had one friend who had the AUDACITY to say that the problem why he isn’t losing enough weight is because he isn’t eating enough calories. WHAT THE F*CK?????????????
May 4th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
Also, for some people, no amount of sound logic will ever persuade them. For these people, truth lies in what’s most popular. And unfortunately, the whole 6 meals a day crap is not only overwhelmingly popular, but also the norm.
May 4th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Bart,
The Adonis Index is a workout plan for building muscle. It’s not a diet plan, but it does say in one of the chapters that losing fat is easy – just eat less calories than you burn, and that is 100% true. It also recommends ESE to help eat less calories than you burn. ESE is just one of many ways to achieve this goal, but ESE is also probably the easiest and sustainable method.
So yes, you are set if you have your calories, minimum protein, and workouts in check.
May 4th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Bart, in my opinion yes you can achieve your adonis waist with eat stop eat. BUT the kicker is if you don’t have very broad shoulders naturally (most people don’t have shoulders equal to 1.6 x ideal adonis waist) then you will have to workout to get them bigger. That’s where the adonis workouts help. Sure you can probably get there on you own, but the adonis workouts are optimized to get you there faster. I’m sure there’s a lot more cool stuff besides that in the program too
May 4th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Joshua,
The 70-120 grams of protein is just an average daily for BUILDING muscle. I’m sure this figure is also a “safe bet” as our understanding of protein vs. muscle is still dodgy at best. I wouldn’t be surprised if we can still build protein with less than 70 grams, but we don’t know that for sure yet so I think the 70-120 grams is just to play it safe.
Now, MAINTAINING muscle is a whole different store. You can go way below 70 grams of protein. What determines whether your muscle atrophies or stays is whether you’re working them out.
May 4th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
great, this is what i was hoping to hear
i will start Adonis in 2 weeks after i am done with my core training.
May 5th, 2010 at 9:31 am
If all you are trying to do is lose weight, then as you say, you can eat whatever you want and just restrict calories, and it work’s, I’ve done it. But if you want to improve your health as well, food quality is just as important as food quantity. I used to have digestive issues, lacked energy, got headaches, bad skin and had sleep issues. Changing my diet to a paleo / primal diet has eliminated all these issues while still maintaining my weight loss and I am stronger and feel healthier than ever. For me it has been an enlightening experience to not only consider what and how much I should be eating, but also what I should not be eating and the effects it has on how I feel and perform if I go and ignore the advice and eat it anyway.
May 5th, 2010 at 11:35 am
In theory, just making sure you cut calories to lose weight while maintaining resistance exercise to preserve muscle SOUNDS great. But I am first-hand witness to the fact that, although I lost a buncha weight (about 15-17 lbs), low protein diets in a calorie deficit are muscle-wasting–I lost strength and muscle (by bf% measurements and strength marks). I now believe maintaining a minimum of protein wouldve helped, as it did in the past. In fact it is more important to keep protein levels moderate while in a DEFICIT, than while in MAINTENANCE level or at SURPLUS. This is because, the body will not break down muscle when a)lifting and b)it doesn’t need to convert proteins to glucose . Btw, 70-120g is a substantial bit of calories when on a low calorie diet. the other macronutrients must be manipulated to optimize glycogen repletion, leptin/T3 levels, steroid synthesis, and EFA (Omega 3) status.
May 5th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Joshua, that is very interesting. I’d like to hear John Barban’s thoughts!
May 5th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Joshua, by the way, how did you measure BF%? And did you consider water retention/loss? And how did you measure your strength? I think it’s important that we establish really objective metrics that aren’t influenced by natural bias.
Also, I did some quick calculations:
100 calories of chicken tenderloins = 22 grams of protein
So for about 70 grams of protein, that will be about 318 calories.
For about 120 grams of protein, that will be about 545 calories.
May 5th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
That’s grams of protein coming from chicken tenderloins. Obviously, the calories will differ depending on the protein source.
May 5th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Joshua,
How much strength and muscle did you lose? How did you measure it?
I have a similar experience to the one you had. I’ve shed about about 15 pounds over the past 2 months (25 pounds total over the past 3 or 4 months, from 14 to 9 percent bodyfat) following the low calorie protocol and using resistance training to retain my muscle mass. My goal for protein started at about 120g per day and about 4 weeks ago I lowered it down to 100g and now I really don’t even count protein. Over my cutdown I noticed a decrease in muscle fullness and size, about 3/4 inch in my biceps and an inch off my shoulders. I believe this is just fat and water due to the fact that my strength has been consistent since I started my calorie deficit. I can still hammer curl 60lb dumbbells for reps, chest press 100+ dumbbells for reps and shoulder press 80s for reps as when I weighed over 200 pounds.
the point I’m getting at is that I think strength training has more to do with preserving and building muscle than protein does. If I ever noticed that I looked ‘smaller’ I would take a look at my workouts and saw that I’ve been half-assing them. And as soon as I got back to hardcore working out I got my size back.
May 5th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
I agree with everything Joshua has said.
There’s quite a few factors to consider, and if overlooked, it’s easy to blame it on something else.
I’ve been doing ESE and the Adonis Effect for more than 3 weeks now, and I have lost an inch in my waist and 0.5 inches in my shoulders. Someone might assume that my decrease in shoulder size is a loss of muscle (and maybe even strength), but I know it’s fat. Men gain more fat in the stomach, so it makes sense that I lost more inches in the waist. And I know I’m not only not losing strength, but gaining it.
I actually just created a work journal that I’m going to start using today. It will take into account my PREVIOUS weight, so I can know without any doubt whatsoever that I’m actually getting stronger. As for gaining muscle size, muscle grows a LOT slower than one can lose fat, so the best I can do is take measurements every 4 or so weeks. Anything less than that will be inaccurate do to the fact that we can easily fluctuate in weight and size by 8 pounds due to water loss/retention.
May 6th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
I went from 3 sets of 245×5 to 3 sets 200×5 on bench,
and 2 sets of 280×5 to 2 sets 225 x5 on deads, just to name a couple.
May 6th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
I definitely think strength training is the KEY component to muscle size and strength; that said, insufficient protein WILL result in muscle wasting, which WILL result in strength loss. Performance is also better with more muscle which translates into–in turn–more growth.
May 6th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
basically, I think this is the reason M. berkan advises such high protein intakes when cutting calories
May 6th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
Interesting, Joshua. Can’t really argue those numbers. Maybe I’m wrong about protein. Have you tried emailing John Barban to see what he says? I’d be interested in his thoughts here.
May 6th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
By the way, how much protein were you taking on average a day? 5 grams a day is probably unreasonably low and I can see that being a problem.
May 6th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
This from Brad Pilon’s “How Much Protein” book:
“A group of scientists decided to study the effect of resistance training on people with chronic renal insufficiency [Castaneda C, 2001]. The scientists postulated that these people would be at risk for losing muscle mass because of their inability to eat enough protein. These scientists were working under the assumption that weight training would be the best way for these people to maintain their lean body mass and build their muscles.
“The people in this study were all over 50 years of age and were eating a very low protein diet. On average these subjects were eating under 0.3 grams of protein per pound of body weight. To put that into perspective, a 180-pound man would be eating about 50 grams of protein per day, for 12 weeks. According to the current fitness industry dogma, this amount of protein is probably 3 times lower than the amount of protein needed for building muscle.
“At the end of the study, the subject working out 3 times per week maintained their body weight, while the group that was not lifting weights lost about 7 54 pounds. This type of weight loss is very typical with this disease (to be clear, a low protein diet alone will not cause this kind of rapid weight loss). The group lifting weights also saw increases in muscle strength and muscle size. Meanwhile the group that was not weight training lost some muscle and a little bit of strength.
“This study is a great example of people actually maintaining and possibly even gaining muscle size as a direct result of resistance training while on a low protein diet. I realize the study was done on people who were over 50, and had a medical condition, and who were eating a diet much lower in protein than I would ever recommend. Despite these facts, this research does show that weight training alone can build muscle even in these people who for medical reasons can barely reach the minimum daily requirement of protein.
“From this collection of research it seems that the range of 70-120 grams of protein per day was enough to allow for substantial muscle growth. Going below this range did not cause muscle loss, but it also did not result in large increases in muscle mass.”
I’ve talked with Brad briefly about whether there is a minimum caloric requirement to build muscle. He gave me a range that wasn’t so radically below the maximum BMR. However, that is for BUILDING muscle. I know he talks about a study done where subjects did not lose muscle while on a 400 calorie a day diet. 400 calories is VERY LOW though. You might as well tell us how many calories you were also consuming on average (I think you said you were doing ESE).
May 7th, 2010 at 9:18 am
Interesting data from brad’s book, and I totally agree. You really have to make sure you’re working out HARD when on a deficit or you will lose some strength and quite possibly muscle mass. I’ll say again that when I noticed my strength dropping or I looked a little flat while on a deficit, it was because my workouts weren’t as intense. As soon as I bumped them back up everything was fine. And it’s easy for that to happen when eating less due to low energy.
There’s also the factor of less water in the muscles because of restricted calories. That can have an effect on strength levels and size, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re losing muscle mass. Just that on a low calorie/fasting day you might not be able to lift as much on a day when eating at maintenance or above maintenance.
May 7th, 2010 at 11:49 am
joshua how come your bench and deads are alomost the same ?
i bench 225 for about 8 but i can deadlift 405 for eight .
cheers b.
May 7th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
username-
I’d be interested to actually see that study. Who knows, they might not have been lifting before they started that 400 cal diet. That would have a control factor problem.
I went from an on average calorie intake (estimation) of about 2200 calories to an average of about 1200 (taking into consideration twice weekly 24hr fasts).
Branko-
because I care more about my bench than my deadlift. period. I’m not gonna get into the “your deadlift should be 5/3 the amount of your bench press” conversation. That’s just not one of my goals.
May 7th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
maybe if you deadlifted more your bench would go up, I mean that’s pretty common knowledge right…
haha jk
May 7th, 2010 at 7:20 pm
Joshua,
Here’s the problem with your claim:
At first, I wanted to “give you the benefit of the doubt” by assuming you were training hard, sleeping sufficiently, measuring your strength accurately, etc. etc. etc. (there’s more variables than I listed). However, we don’t for a fact if this is the case. But we do have reputable studies affirming this. So the most reasonable thing for us to do is to speculate that one ore more of your variables was not up to par, thus causing your strength loss, real or not. If I were in your shoes, I would first examine everything I did before assuming it was the amount of protein I consumed. Only until you know for sure that had the same rigid conditions as those in the studies can you then start to speculate if maybe it was the protein.
May 8th, 2010 at 12:12 am
“WE” dont have any reputable studies regarding my claim. “We” have no idea what the variables were in this SUPPOSED study. I will CERTAINLY not doubt my own rationality because someone brought up a “study” that someone else “heard about”. I have cut down before on a high protein diet, and did NOT experience the same kind of strength and muscle loss that I experienced with the ESE protocol, i.e. just eat “responsibly” (whatever that means) and drop your calories as low as you can tolerate.
Keep in mind, I DO believe ESE is a great strategy. However, Berkhan’s got it right as far as monitoring macronutrients at LEAST until you get to where you wanna be bodyfat-wise, in order to spare lean mass, keep leptin optimal, and keep satiated.
May 8th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
Joshua, the difference between your case and the case referenced in ESE is that the latter was published, which is a significant difference.
May 9th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
We’ll have to leave it at that. I can see what has worked for me and have deduced what factors contribute to that after training for a while.
June 17th, 2010 at 5:16 am
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