The Great Eades Smackdown, 2010!

Part 2

Anthony Colpo,
March 26, 2010.

The Fairy Godfather of Low-Carb Strikes Back – and Strikes Out!

Note: This article contains strong language. Please close this page immediately if you are a minor or easily offended.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Part 2 of The Great Eades Smackdown, 2010!, where we continue our unmerciful obliteration of the fraudulent claims made by Protein Power author and incurable low-carb shill, Dr. Michael Eades. In his recent nonsensical “dismemberment” of Chapter 1 of my book The Fat Loss Bible, Eades tried to pull off some pretty outrageous whoppers in support of metabolic advantage dogma (MAD). In Part 1 of the Smackdown, I blasted away these lies in systematic fashion, revealing that:
Eades lied about a pivotal study conducted by University of Rockefeller researchers, claiming it showed a 630 calorie-per day metabolic advantage when it actually showed no such thing;
Eades first claimed the metabolic advantage was so powerful that it explained the obesity epidemic, but then back pedalled faster than a clown on a unicycle, claiming the effect was so small it can’t even be measured on a bathroom scale;
Eades’ insistent claim that metabolic ward studies are rife with cheating actually supports a metabolic advantage for high-carb diets, not low-carb diets!
There is indeed a tiny diet-induced thermogenic metabolic advantage for high-carb diets, but it’s too small to make any noticeable difference in weight loss.

http://www.anthonycolpo.com/The_Gre...010_Part_2.html

I kind of wonder why metabolic advantage even matters? It's all about increasing calorie burn, when eating a certain diet. But does how many calories you burn really matter, when it comes to fat loss? It's not about calories in, calories out, it's about whether or not the release and oxidation of fat surpasses the synthesis and storage of fat. And glucose, whether from the diet or from gluconeogenesis or from glycogen stores, is a rate-limiting factor in the storage of fat.

Colpo mentions increased thermogenesis from carbs vs fat. But what is the body doing with all those carbs? Well, for one it's working hard to return to the fasted state-- which is a state in which most of the calories burned come from fat rather than glucose.

If Colpo was a woman people would be saying she clearly needed to get laid.

(Hey. It's the war zone!)

Thanks PJ! I needed a good laugh!

OK....that was so worthy of a spew alert!

Maybe *he* needs to get laid.

Know what I wonder? How warped is our whole perception of nutrition when it's considered an "advantage" to eat the most possible calories and get the least possible energy out of them?

Why is it that diets want to advertise the possibility of eating more and more but getting nothing out of it? What is the value of just stuffing food in one's face? I've often thought: people who have known starvation must think it completely batsh*t crazy to pursue a way of eating where calories are wasted and are eaten just for the sake of chewing and swallowing. I think this must be just me as I've not heard anybody else comment that it's weird. But everytime I hear metabolic advantage it makes me cringe.

On another note, every time there's a Colpo thread it's interesting to see the percentage of posts that are about his delivery and not his message.

There is at least one thread where we discuss his message.

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=408837

Patrick

Aye, I've been following that thread. There are posts in it by people who say they choose to take information from Eades rather than Colpo because they prefer his humble style. WTF? My interest in metabolic advantage is purely curiosity. I have no book deal on the line, nor have I spouted off to people about how they should eat.... my only agenda is my own health, and curiosity. Tone is about as relevant as good spelling in regards to the worth of the information in what I read. I haven't got anything at all invested in metabolic advantage... but as evidence goes, Colpo appears to be kicking Eades' ass. Whether Colpo is an asshole or needs to get laid is of no interest to me. I'm just surprised those seem to be the main topics of his detractors.

Naw, you misunderstand. I'm not a Colpo detractor (he does enough for himself in that regard without my assistance). I don't even agree with Eades. I simply don't care about that detail to the hysterical bitch-slapping degree these guys do, which makes the entire argument more a circus sideshow than any reasonable discussion of any kind of fact -- hence, you hear more about the carney quality than the facts, because that's the dominant theme they're presenting.

There may be several reasons why low-carb works. Since I tend to think that different things work for different people anyway -- and some people might do better living on fruits and grains for all I know, only my body is my business -- I just don't have anything vested in whether or not some 'metabolic advantage' exists.

Personally I find the ability to eat more protein/fat and not be hungry for crapfood to be a helluva 'metabolic advantage' on its own, albeit not quite as directly as the chemistry being argued.

Best,
PJ

I was generalizing about 3 or 4 threads... for what it's worth your comment was pretty funny

Dr Eades has some pretty convincing arguments about Mr Colpo's position. What I don't understand is why the discussion can't be scientific and has to be so personal. I'm on Eades' side.

Well, allow me to retort. I perused his various messages. Nothing jumped out at me as worthy of Buddhahood. He may have some good points and poke some holes in Eades' statements, but if this personal trainer comes up with some revolutionary discovery or information, I'm sure it'll get around to me sooner or later. Life is filled with enough assholes, and I don't find it pleasant to watch some guy try to denigrate the reputation of another person who, for all his faults, seems to me like a good guy. That's not the kind of mind I have or want to cultivate. I think state of mind relates to health. If choosing to spend less time listening to belligerent prose endangers my health and understanding of the world, so be it. His message, relayed by his tone, is that Eades is a quack. He doesn't just disagree with Eades, he wants to humiliate him. I'll take the crazily dangerous course of not frequenting Colpo's site, and "limit" myself to listening to Taubes, Eades, Panu (Harris), Hyperlipid, Whole Health Source, and others who don't make it a point of their work to denigrate the reputation of others. Colpo's message: Lowcarbers are depressed idiots. He cherrypicked the data to prove his point. You got it yet?

Obviously Tone does matter: "Colpo appears to be kicking Eades' ass." Not just what Colpo wants you to think, but HOW he wants you to think. Not just that the facts are in his favor, but that he is the victor of some contest. I'm not here to see anyone's "ass getting kicked." Rather than engage in an intellectual disagreement based on facts alone, Colpo took it to an emotional level. Apparently this is important to him.

Tone is important. Spelling is important, too. It communicates how careful a reader and thinker someone is. The forum of nutritional and scientific information we engage in requires people who claim to be professionals in its practice to be careful readers and writers. Tone relays just how unbiased the person's mind is toward the information they are putting out, if they can be trusted to have weighed different aspects of the information. If they have to ability to admit when they're wrong, or that they can be wrong. The language of smackdowns and ass kicking doesn't exactly describe this.

Only in the low carb life style your body needs to make glucose from protein. When eating high carb, glucose is directly available. That's a fact.

It is a no brainer to realise the body uses energy to change the protein into glucose. And it's a biochemical fact that some 0,7 grams of glucose come out of 1 gram of protein.

That is all Dr Eades has said. The net effect per day is limited, but the effect is there.

When in ketosis your body can't store fat (no insulin around to do that). So where does the fat go to when you overeat a bit? 2 processes : futile cycling (creates the warmth in your body) and mitochondrial uncoupling (wasting energy).

I experienced the warming effect of futile cycling after a fat meal. I don't recall having that in my former carb life.

I think there is a lot of ego at stake in the argument between Culpo and Eades. I just want facts and evidence.