Seejay: Hmm, I don't see how I'm using the term in two different ways. By 'calories' I mean 'energy'. The fact that CI affects CO doesn't change the fact that CO needs to be greater for one to lose weight.

I have to say -- I already had a sense prior to this thread that CI/CO was a sensitive issue in the LC community, as we're all sick of the "eat less exercise more" nonsense spewed by the supposed experts. But I see now that I wasn't aware of the full extent of it, or that CO is often meant to only mean "exercise". (Which still amazes me in an LC forum. I could maybe undestand it in an LF forum.) So this has been a learning experience indeed.

The Body by Science blog has a lot more info and routines posted by people following the protocol (more or less). Also several videos of workouts and McGuff's lectures. The videos are really good for giving you an idea of the appropriate pace and breathing. I go to a facility with machines for motivation and because I'm rehabbing an injury (not related to HIT), but a lot of people do bodyweight exercises and/or free weights. The main thing is the intensity and technique, not what kind of equipment you're using.

So we stand firm on our response to you that you're wrong.

I don't think CI/CO is a sensitive issue, just one that many people have found to be, well, not true in their case. I'm not offended by the whole thing It's just that, well, I think it's a shame that people stand by these faulty beliefs -- researchers and such -- instead of trying to learn what is really going on. I don't blame people with not much training if any in the area for believing the story that sounds so good.

There is evidence that barely any glucose, or glycogen, is used up or depleted when eating no or very little carbohydrate. It's a simple question of mathematics. How much glucose can we get from protein, and from fat? How much protein, and fat do we need to eat to get that much? I've done some thinking lately on this and my conclusion is that it takes so much fat meat to produce even 86g per day that it looks impossible that glucose, or glycogen would be deplete, if used at all.

To give you an idea of where to start, when eating only meat, us zero carbers eat about 200-250g of fat per day which makes up about 70-80% of total calories. Considering that the rest of our calories come mostly from protein in the meat, and considering that carbohydrate intake is nil or nearly so, how much more meat should we eat to give us what we should be using up in glucose?

Well iirc 54% of protein can be converted to glucose. If you are exercising you probably want 1.5 grams of protein per kg body weight so a 180 lb male would need 123g protein for that. Then assuming protein was used to create 150g of glucose you would need 300 more grams of protein. Thats about 423 grams of protein. If we are generous and say that protein makes up 25% of your daily calories that would mean you would need 564g of fat. Total caloric intake of 6768 cal.

So yea thats a lot but not an unreasonable intake for a person who exercises intensely. However that is also way more than the average person eats. So I am not sure. Honestly this is the part about LC that has me the most confused since I have been very interested in exercise and exercise physiology lately too.

Ok first you are partially correct. If CI < CO then you can lose weight, its called starvation. However the body adapt to this and adjusts metabolism. However that does not automatically mean that CI > CO will result in weight gain, or that CI MUST BE < CO to lose weight.

It's a lot when it's all meat. Meat is only 20% protein by weight. So, 423g of protein requires about five times that in meat, or about 2kg. Add the fat on top and we end up with about 2.5kg of fat meat. That's 5.5 lbs.

But when we look at it from a realistic perspective, i.e. what we actually eat, I can't imagine that 750g-1kg of fat meat per day, which is what I eat normally, is nearly enough to supply even a tiny bit of glucose. Yet my fasting (>12 hours) blood glucose is quite normal at around 4.8 mmol/L or 86 mg/dL.

No. Any time you lose weight, CO is greater than CI by definition.

Unless, of course, calories aren't the complete story. You really are just repeating yourself without any evidence -- which is how many of our current dietary "truths" have come into being. Along with "fat makes you fat" and "healthy whole grains," and "artery clogging saturated fats." And again, since our experts take this stuff as basic truth though none of it has been proven, it's easy to understand why most people also believe it.

Of course, reducing calories may, for a time, result in weight loss, it's not as effective as eliminating things OTHER than calories. I find it hard to believe that our bodies end up wasting more energy on a diet that seems more in line with what makes us healthy which is what you seem to be saying (low carb = more entrophy).

Actually if you want to claim that weight loss and weight gain don't eventually come down to CI and CO at the end of the day, the burden of proof is on you.


None of these things have anything to do with the basic truth of CI and CO. Again, the sensitivity of this forum to CI/CO is amazing to me. I challenge anyone to offer a theory to explain how any of these things are possible:

1) Long-term weight maintenance when CI != CO
2) Long-term weight gain when CI !> CO
3) Long-term weight loss when CI !< CO

I specify "long-term" because calories moving from muscle to fat tissue or vice-versa in the short-term can potentially cause any of the above scenarios. But if you have a fundamental objection to what I'm saying about CI and CO you need to be able to explain the long-term.

It has already been proven....repeatedly.

Actually, no, I don't have to prove a negative. I'm not the one who continually repeats a theory as an absolute fact. I am saying that it hasn't been my experience -- that raising calories seems to facilitate weight loss as long as the calories are fat calories and carbohydrates are kept to a minimum. You can keep repeating all you want -- you were understood to begin with, though. And if eating in the way that seems to be the way humans evolved to eat causes more waste is your argument as to why low carb works, it makes very little sense.

And I still haven't seen anyone reacting in a sensitive way. Disagreement is not the same as sensitivity Yet you repeating THAT as well shows the absolute weakness of your argument. "Everyone knows, and if you're experience is different, you're still wrong" is not a great argument.

Have a great day!

Edit to add: "If you disagree with me, you're just being overly sensitive" is not a great argument either! I can honestly say that at carb levels above ketogenic, it's wheat and sugar that cause fat gain for me and my family, and raising calories with fat while keeping carbs above ketogenic levels but much lower than advised (about 100 - 150) still lead to fat loss over a highly processed, low-fat, lower calorie diet. That truly is not being sensitive -- it's understanding that it's far more complicated than you understand the issue to be.

How does one waste calories? The calorie is how we guage energy use. If not used, it gets stored as fat. That's how the caveman survived famine. He didn't waste calories and modern man is no different. Are you suggesting metabolic advantage? I think Eades and others have stated if it exists it's minimal, no more than 200 calories a day.

Dealing with a stall is what started this thread. Nobody has shown me how to break a stall when eating CO > CI. Has anyone ever died of starvation while on a low carb or zero carb free choice diet? Those who say they're losing weight while eating 5000 calories a day will eventually die if their weight loss continues unabated. But then a stall occurs. Maybe the stall is another survival mechanism. But it's still CO not less than CI. That's where exercise comes in. Mainenance CI plus exercise equals weight loss. Maintenance CI without exercise means a stall.

Government guidelines say we need X calories per pound of body weight per day to sustain. But if I follow those guidelines I gain weight, even when running 30 miles a week. So for some things are worse than they thought. They don't need 2000 calories a day to live. They might need 1500 or 1000. The point is government guidelines are wrong. I believe they were developed back when the majority had labor-intensive jobs. These days the majority sit all day. I certainly do, unless I'm running.

tiredangel: The fact that raising CI can cause weight loss doesn't disprove what I'm saying in the slightest. Any claims to the contrary just show a lack of understanding about what I'm saying. Perhaps it's my fault for not being clear enough.

If increasing CI results in weight loss, it simply means that CO also goes up. If you're saying CO doesn't go up such that CI > CO, you need to explain where those extra calories go. Calories are energy and energy is mass. Where does that mass go if weight is decreasing? If you can't answer this very basic of questions, I'm sorry but your theory has nothing to stand on.

BTW, to assume that energy is wasted in this scenario when CO goes up (and then to base your objection to the theory on the fact that wasted energy doesn't make sense) is invalid. First of all LC tends to increase one's energy, which will result in more movement one way or another. Second, there's no basis to assume that any energy is "wasted". The body could be using that energy for useful functions of which we have no idea. And indeed, this makes far more sense than wasting it -- otherwise why would the body have increased CI in the first place? (Hunger regulation caused CI to increase, unless you're intentionally stuffing yourself with calories when you're full.)