Legeon, I've mentioned this elsewhere, but it bears repeating. It is a terrible pity that the meticulously kept records of clinicians over decades don't count at least as much scientifically as woefully short (for obvious expense reasons) , badly designed (as Gary Taubes so brilliantly showed, because the researchers were hamstrung by preconceptions or funding considerations) or badly interpreted (for some of the same reasons as the bad design) 'studies' that are usually held up as the gold standard of the scientific method. Anecdotal? Sure. More reliable and persuasive (by sheer volume alone) than 'cherry picked' anecdotal reports by individuals? I would have thought beyond doubt.

Long term clinical studies would be the best. But hang on, clinicians records are long term clinical studies, aren't they, not the anecdotal evidence you rightly identify them as being conventionally considered ?

Now none of this is Gary Taubes fault of course. But there is considerable clinical evidence (ie actual clinical studies of the type you are referring to) that a calorie deficit is (usually?) required for bodyfat loss, regardless of macronutrient ratio, evidence which he just ignored or missed completely. So if he's going to (rightly) trash Ancel Keys for cherrypicking the evidence his own preconceptions favoured (in the context of the Lipid Hypothesis), then he should apply the same standard to himself (in the context of bodyfat loss metabolic mechanisms).

What I should have said was that a quick glance at any Low Carb forum should surely have alerted him to the inescapable fact that for most low carbers, calories are considerably more important for bodyfat loss than gain, and he'd better start trying to find out why. The fact that he didn't fatally flaws what is otherwise a marvellous read.


Stuart

For me Stuart, it is a little of both. I lost quickly at first with no reduction in calories. Now I am stalled so I will have to make adjustments.

Wifezilla, the closer a person gets to goal, the more important calories are for most low carbers I suspect.

What is an interesting further point to consider in relation to the whole hormonal mediation of bodyfat loss/gain issue is how the calorie factor changes in relation to fat gain the close a low carber gets to goal. I mean most of this discussion has been about Taubes perhaps getting it completely wrong about the hormonal influence of calories as well as macros in relation to bodyfat loss.

But I would hazard a guess that the closer you get to goal, the more any excess calories are likely to be stored (ie gain) regardless of how much you are restricting carbohydrate. Which makes calories (ie. whether in deficit, equilibrium, or surplus) an even more important hormonal factor in whether you store bodyfat or burn it, than we realize, not just macro ratio.

Stuart.

I found Taubes' book so fascinating because it illuminated a lot of things I'd observed with myself. Previously, through a heck of a lot of reading and personal experimentation, I had already reached a bunch of conclusions: First, there HAS to be various hormal connections, probably differing with each individual. I was NEVER overweight from birth to age 37, despite being a sugar junky. I have no idea how much I used to eat calorie wise, but I suspect I naturally moderated myself...if I pigged out on a cheesecake, for example, I might not eat much the next day (not deliberately, but I just didn't want much). After my son was born at 36, I was left with about 40 extra pounds, maybe more, and suddenly it seemed impossible to remove. About 20 came off without much effort over a year or so, but I was left with 20 lbs too many from that point on. I was a sporadic exerciser, careful with sweets when I was in weight loss mode, but basically, I couldn't seem to drop that weight.

In 2000 when I was 51, I reached my highest weight of 173 at 5'7". Wanting to get back to my previous best weight of 130 to 135, I did 12 weeks of Body for Life....really serious and strenuous exercise for 6 days a week, 12 weeks, and careful eating. Body for Life included "good carbs", which for me was basically limited brown rice and oatmeal, not much else.m Five to six small meals a day, probably around 1500 calories a day. I lost about 25 lbs in the 12 weeks, and have been stuck in the 150-160 range since then. I've moderated my eating and exercised like the devil and lost not a single pound, so I KNOW exercise isn't necessarily the missing link in weight loss. There's a lot more to it than that.

In 2003 I did 6 weeks of Atkins, with zero exercise because I had a bad ski fall and sprained my shoulder and broke a rib. So my lengthiest Atkins experience was purely based on dietary change. I went into it with a rather negative attitude since I felt I would not succeed lacking exercise. Amazingly, I soon realized I felt fabulous, had tons of energy, had no cravings, and really muted hunger. I had a seriously difficult time consuming even 1,000 calories a day, and often ended up with about 850 or so. The weight and fat dropped off steadily, and after the 6 weeks I was wearing size 6 jeans again and weighed about 140. I couldn't believe how easy it had been!

I've done other things since then, but thru experimentation I can say ME, MY BODY, MY METABOLISM, MY HORMONAL SYSTEM, responds best to a diet with: no grains, no rice, no sugar, very very limited fruit, and I thrive on meats, fish, veggies, limited cheese, eggs, water, and all of these foods in limited quantities. I simply cannot overeat these things, whereas I could really pig out on the high sugar/high carb type things....I could eat 12 Krispy Kremes in one sitting! But could I eat 12 one-oz chunks of cheese? No way! I could eat an entire cheesecake in 2 days. Cookies, pastries, all of these things just created an addiction which had me eating more and more, day after day....and my digestive system was a mess, everything upset me, I had headaches, I felt sluggish, sleepy and horrible. Any time I eat an Atkins type diet I feel unbelievably wonderful. I would ask myself: How could this diet be so terrible when I feel so good???

On Atkins, I still eat somewhat limited meat, usually low fat things like fish and chicken, only an occasional steak, and I also limit cheese and dairy as well. So I don't believe I'm eating what ANYONE would consider an overly fatty, unhealthy diet, not even those who hate Atkins and dispute what Taubes has to say. I AM eating fairly low fat, but the thing is, I am not eating the carbs and sugar which I am convinced made me overweight and which made my system totally unable to drop fat.

I've really concluded based on my own past experience that hormones DO play a role, particularly at later stages of life, that to lose weight you DO have to create some sort of calorie deficit relative to what you would eat to maintain a certain weight, that perhaps some people are way more carb sensitive than others, thus triggering a greater release of insulin which in turn fuels fat storage and leads to what Taubes dubbed the disorder of fat storage. Perhaps over-consumption of carbs/sugar/high fructose corn syrup etc. over time exacerbates the disorder. While I had a sweet tooth, it was mostly in the realm of pastry type things. I was never a soda drinker, for example. I wasn't a big fan of fried foods (note: many people are now implicating the role of vegetable oils in the diseases of western civilization and obesity, etc.). So perhaps because of my own particular eating habits, AND my own particular hormonal makeup, I didn't gain weight for a long time but at a later point in time when my hormonal profile altered, suddenly what I ate mattered a whole lot more.


I still have to wonder about the dietary connection and in this, I really do concur with Taubes. When I was a kid in the 50's and 60's, you didn't see a lot of overweight people. Fat kids were rare. You have to ask why this is, because humans don't evolve that quickly within one generation. There has to be something about how we are living that has changed all this, and it really has to be diet. Perhaps we are less active, but I really think it is mostly, if not all, diet induced.

Side note: A few years ago I did a body builder diet which was very interesting. Basically, you had a starting calorie level (also very rigid in composition with fat/protein/carbs), and over about 8 weeks you gradually bumped up your calorie levels to a MUCh higher level. I got up to 2400 cal/day, which was killing me to do because I just could not naturally eat that much. Once at that level, you would then start cycling calorie levels: Drop down to 1800 one day, down to 1600 the next, 1400 the next, then up to 1700 the next, work back up to 2400, then do the cycle all over again each week. Oddly, I did not gain any weight doing this, but I just couldn't maintain the rigidity of the program and all its planning long enough to see if I lost fat on it. People claimed they did. The idea I guess was keeping the body "fooled" and thus preventing the starvation response or something. It was a very weird experiment for me, though, further confusing the whole issue of how to drop weight. The thing it did show me, though, is how complex this whole thing is.

Taubes' observations are fascinating, thought provoking, perhaps right on the mark for the most part, and I find it typically short sighted that the entire medical community wants to dismiss the information. I'm not surprised at the reaction, though.

You'll be able to tell by my next question that I haven't read Taubes' book yet. Bear with me in my ignorance, ok?

I have to ask if he ever actually said that bodyfat loss has nothing at all to do with a calorie deficit, that it only has to do with carb intake, because the implication I got from previous posts on here is that he just didn't mention the need for a deficit to lose bodyfat.

Calianna, you'd think in such a huge book about the what we know of the mechanisms of bodyfast loss/gain and the history there of, it would have been a good idea to mention that it was at least usually necessary?. Whatever it was, neglect, bad editing, it's hardly likely to be down to sloppy research. But it gives an otherwise wonderful book a distinctly amateurish feel. And don't forget I'm a low carber.

OOps, sorry, I should have said I'm an axe ginding low carber

Stuart

There's another way to think about Calianna's point.

I remember an interesting post by Mike Eades in which he discussed Karl Popper and the concept of the valid hypothesis. According to Popper, a valid hypothesis must be negatable. So the statement: “a caloric deficit is not necessary for losing weight,” would not be a valid hypothesis because an incidence of someone losing weight with a caloric deficit does not refute the statement. It’s just an example of something different. However, statement: “a caloric deficit is necessary for losing weight,” would be a valid hypothesis because one instance of someone losing weight without a caloric deficit would refute the statement.

I had a similar experience to LCFP’s experience. I didn’t have as much weight to lose, but I did lose 22lbs in six weeks; that’s roughly half a pound a day. Even considereing water loss, in terms of caloric deficit, it would be a similar amount to LCFP’s calculation of about 1500 calories a day deficit, which doesn’t seem likely. So the hypothesis that a caloric deficit is necessary for losing weight seems disproved.

I believe Dr. Atkins was worried when he discovered after a time the diet "stops working" -- something about an e-mail he sent to his wife.

I don't think you can get to a very low body fat by just carb restriction; gross weight loss though is relatively easy compared to most other plans.

You would be hard pressed to say Taubes ignored or missed the "evidence" (my god have you read the book? Evidence galore!!); he lists in Chapter 20 "Unconventional Diets" dozens of studies which show no evidence that a caloric deficit is required in bodyfat loss. As he says halfway down page 339 in my book:

"But if a calorie is a calorie, why is it that a diet restricted in carbohydrates-- eat cheese, but not crackers-- leads to weight loss, largely if not completely independent of calories? If significant weight can be lost on all these carbohydrate-restricted diets, even when subjects eat 2700 or more calories a day, how important can calories be to weight regulation?"

Maybe you should reread that chapter. And you state many times the "truism" that a calorie defecit is "required". Taubes would scold you, as he did Yudkin on page 344:

"Here again, however, Yudkin was confusing an association with cause and effect. Even if Yudkin's subjects had reduced their calorie consumption on the carbohydrate-restricted diet, which is a common finding in these studies, it does not mean that the reduction in calories caused the weight loss, only that the diet was associated with a reduction in calories as well as a reduction in weight. The diet could have worked by some other mechanism entirely, but both weight loss and decreased appetite were consequences. The fact that a reduction in appetite associates with weight loss does not mean that it is the fundamental cause."

As I stated (truthfully) in my experience, it certainly felt like "some other mechanism" was in control of my weight loss.

But as happens to most on the board, this mechanism quit prior to my reaching my goal. Being the lazy person that I am, I rationalized this as a sign from my body that my goal was unrealistic, so I'm content to sit at a BMI of 26-27 and not worry about it.

But not the contrary evidence. Don't you find it a bit odd that in such an apparently exhaustive book he leaves out the equally numerous clinical studies which show that a calorie deficit is required for bodyfat loss? Just writing a huge book that includes only evidence he likes is a bit sloppy, even for a science journo.



The importance of a calorie deficit seems to vary depending on how much bodyfat you've got to lose. So that the closer you get to goal the more important it is. You found exactly the same thing didn't you L.C ? Except you have decided that you are happy with not losing any more body fat. But instead of describing further bodyfat loss as calorie deficit dependent you are calling your current bodyfat a set point. I wonder if you are suggesting that if you kept restricting carb, and reduced calories to a deficit, you wouldn't lose further weight? Also I wonder why Taubes never considered the importance of calories in determining bodyfat gain when bodyfat was moderate or low. I mean he goes on and on about how you can't possibly store bodyfat if carbohydrate if carbs are restricted, when most people on this forum do in fact gain bodyfat when their calories sneak up even if carbs are kept rigorously low. As I've suggested in my previous couple of posts, he seems to be ignoring the hormonal influence of calories in both bodyfat gain and loss at anything but high bodyfat levels.

"

That's pretty dumb. I'm sure Yudkin would accuse him of exactly the same confusion of cause and effect.

LC. I have no personal story to support Taubes hypothesis about the hormonal role of calories. Both his theory that carbs drive insulin drives bodyfat and the one that lack of carbs drive low insulin drive bodyfat loss are completely meaningless to me. It doesn't matter how much carbohydrate or fat I eat (I've always consumed just above adequate protein), I've never either lost or gained much bodyfat. Which I suppose lends support to your bodyfat set point theory. What I do know personally is that I feel a lot healthier on low carb, most of which I attribute to the fact that I naturally eat much less food.

My take on how low carb affects peoples bodyfat is gleaned only from avid reading of reports from people who post their successes or failures on this and several other low carb forums. These people all attest their experience of improved health whether or not they lose bodyfat. Most of those who do lose bodyfat seem to have to be just as aware of restricting calories particularly when they reach moderate bodyfat levels, to continue losing fat. I'm not disputing your personal experience, nor any of the several other posters on this thread whose experience would appear to support Taubes hypothesis. My feeling is that you are the exceptions, and that because low carb leads you to feel satisfied on far lower calories, it is deceptive how signifigant a factor calories are in bodyfat loss even at high bodyfat levels, and certainly at lower bodyfat levels.

This discussion shouldn't descend into an 'I'm right and you're wrong' exchange, because if anything is clear it's that neither position is telling the whole story. I do think Taubes' book suffers from giving the impression from its size that it was an exhaustive consideration of the available evidence when it is not. And the cause / effect obfuscation of Yudkin's work only highlights this.

Stuart

Colpo is far from "Hapless".

He may write what you don't agree with but he is still on the front lines taking heat everyday from wackos that couldn't see science or logic if it hit them in the face.

Hang on here ...

We have an equation that has to hold: Calories stored = Calories in - Calories out

Now, a simple definition of "deficit" is "Calories out > Calories in". Losing fat from fat cells (and thus losing weight) is a reduction in Calories stored.

Thus, saying "a calorie deficit is required for bodyfat loss" is a tautology.

In other words, if one is losing weight, it follows that one's body is dumping energy and is by definition running a calorie deficit.

This in and of itself doesn't address the mechanism by which the energy is dumped. It could be burned to produce heat, it could be used for muscular effort, it could be dumped in the urine as ketone bodies. From what I'm reading, I suspect energy is dumped (literally) by mechanisms other than burning for heat and body activity.

Beth

Ok, now bear with me because I'm not as knowledgable as some of you here but I have a question. (I haven't read Gary Taubes book yet)

Could it be that a calorie deficit is needed but not in the traditional understanding of eating less.

Dr Atkins talked about a metabolic advantage which would mean a calorie deficit in a low carber would be still be what most term a high calorie diet simply because our bodies are more effective at burning them.

I don't eat as much as I used to but I eat as many if not more calories than I was before LC and am still slowly losing.

Yes, I think you are right Beth. And that ability to 'waste' energy in the context of restricted carbohydrate seems very dependent on how much body fat you have to lose. Which is why the 'effective' calorie deficit you describe as being more important a description of a necessary prerequisite for bodyfat loss is much more likely to be an obvious calorie deficit (as currently measured) when you have less bodyfat to lose.

People like Anthony Colpo still maintain that at any bodfat level a ('simple'?) calorie deficit is required for bodyfat. But I think that this is probably just as simplistic as Taubes thinking that someone can always lose excess bodyfat by just restricting carbohydrate, regardless of total calories.

The importance of the interaction of calories and macros in mediating bodyfat loss/gain is probably because both calories and macros have a very powerful hormonal effect. It does seem a bit dense that Taubes apparently thinks that only macros, and not calories influence hormonal bodyfat loss/gain environment. In other words he talks so much about the importance of hormonal environment in bodyfat loss/gain, then forgets that calorie deficit/equilibrium/or surplus also has a huge hormonal effect.

So discussing whether or not a calorie deficit is necessary for bodyfat loss is a bit misleading. Surely it's more accurate to observe that a calorie deficit definitely is necessary but with present measuring techniques, we don't even really know how to measure that it is a calorie deficit. As Beth points out, at some levels of excess bodyfat, the body is just better at 'wasting energy pathways of ensuring a calorie deficit.

The amount of excess bodyfat seems to influence just how easily we discern (with present measuring techniques) that a calorie deficit is occurring when bodyfat loss is also occurring.

What this means in effect is that in the context of a low carb dietary approach, if there is more excess bodyfat, calories won't have to be as low for bodyfat loss to occur as when excess bodyfat is less.

Which makes evolutionary sense too. Carrying a lot of excess bodyfat around slows you down, so ways of using energy inefficiently probably developed to ensure that a calorie deficit (or at least calorie equilibrium) was much more likely. But carrying a certain amount of excess bodyfat is a definite survival advantage too if food gets scarce. Anything above or below that set level of excess bodyfat (which probably varies between individuals too) will require a more pronounced calorie deficit to lose , because those wasteful/inefficient energy utilization mechanisms won't be as likely to kick in.

So saying calories don't matter at all for bodyfat loss is just as innaccurate as saying that they are the only thing that matters. Funny isn't it, that seems to be exactly what most low carbers discover. Biochemically of course, calories matter all the time. But depending on just how much excess bodyfat you've got to lose the amount of low carb food you can put into your mouth to ensure that biochemical calorie deficit is occurring will also vary. Calories in = calories out does hold at a biochemical level, but it is a meaningless concept with present measuring techniques. When and if we ever develop measuring techniques that are accurate enough, it will be fascinating to see how the various energy wasting energy mechanisms kick in at different excess bodyfat levels, to not only explain why calories indeed always equal calories out, but influence the amount of low carb food you can put in your mouth and still lose bodyfat.

MM, I don't know Dominic A personally, but I used to actively participate in his Kefir forum (before I ditched the carbs five years ago and got distracted by this one ). I corresponded with him directly in many threads on that forum. He is a gentle, charming, and very interesting person, as well as being perhaps the world authority on all aspects of kefir.

Stuart

Stuart, I think you're on the right track here. Like many on this forum, all I had to do was restrict carbs to lose the first 20-odd pounds, which was about half what I wanted to lose. Since then, it's been a struggle to lose, and, more recently (being a few years older and having age-related hormonal changes) to even maintain. It's a constant juggling act --monitoring and tweaking activity, carbs, fat, and calories. Many others at or near goal weight report the same (check out the Maintenance forum).

I, too, have a sneaking suspicion that there's an evolutionary advantage, especially for women, in having a few extra pounds. Low carbing, I think, brings most of us to our "healthy" weight, which may, in fact, be 10-20 pounds over our "ideal" weight.

Rachel