Kneebrace - You have misread my post. I never said that a caloric deficit is not necessary for losing weight. I said that a caloric deficit is not necessary for burning fat. Taubes also said that without carbohydrates it is impossible to store fat. The Eades reported that at their clinic, there were a number of people who did not lose weight on a low carb diet. On investigating the situation, they discovered that these people were indeed eating low carb, but that they were eating about 4000 calories a day. The wonder is, they remarked, that even at that level of calories, these people did not gain weight on a low carb diet.

That I think is the entire basis of Taubes book! That scientists were manipulating the data in various studies to reach the conclusions that they knew they were supposed to reach. And he is pretty darn convincing.

Stuart,
In my first read of GCBC, apparently too quick, I seemd ot have missed Gary's misguided discussion/comments regarding energy deficit/bodyfat loss. If you have the time, and are willing, would you please direct me to the chapter(s) and/or pages(s) where I can find these comments.

Best regards,

Andy

So, asks Melissa Whitworth, could Atkins have been right all along?

Yup......

Nice article! Thanks!

That's the point Andy, he doesn't refer to the importance of a calorie deficit for bodyfat loss at all. He seems to have neglected to mention it completely. As I said in my first post on this thread, he does explain in breathtaking detail how eating low carb will tend to stop you gaining any more bodyfat, at any calorie intake, and then kind of assumes I guess, and implies vaguely pretty well throughout any discussion of bodyfat gain/loss that a low carb dietary approach automatically results in bodyfat loss. Which it clearly doesn't without a calorie deficit. Some people don't have to exert much additional willpower apart from restricting carbohydrate to also restrict calories because of the appetite limiting effect of low carb food. Most need more.

Still considerably less than the hunger nightmare of higher carb/low fat, but in neglecting to give any metabolic detail to the necessity of a calorie deficit for bodyfat loss on any dietary approach, including low carb, Taubes has left himself very vulnerable to the accusation of sloppy reasoning. I'm sure he isn't a sloppy thinker at all. Maybe he just needs to discuss the metabolic details of bodyfat loss in more exhaustively with someone like Mike Eades, who seems to understand it better than most commentators. Who knows why this glaring omission was made. But it is a terrible shame, and makes the chances of his book appealing to any but the already converted very slim (pardon the pun) indeed.

Particularly because the chapters about the sorry slide into the lipid hypothesis becoming the dominant paradigm are so good.

Stuart

Ceberizin, maybe we're on the same page after all if you can see that a calorie deficit is necessary for losing bodyfat. And I agree about ( and Taubes indeed devoted considerable attention to) the difficulty of gaining on low carb. And of course a calorie deficit is not necessary to be in fat burning mode. It is breathtakingly easy to be in gourmandizing calorie surplus on low carb, adequate protein, and lots and lots of fat, and be burning fat for energy almost exclusively. The only problem is, none of it will be bodyfat. Why would your metabolic machinery go to the additional trouble of mobilizing bodyfat when there is ample dietary fat available for energy needs?

Also FWIW, Mike Eades quoted the 4000 calorie examples specifically because they were indeed remarkable for their not gaining. But let's not let that distract us (because it certainly doesn't distract Mike Eades) from the necessity of anyone, including those extreme patients, reducing their calorie intake prodigiously until they established a calorie deficit before they could lose bodyfat (I'm assuming that they weren't competitive athletes who may have been burning close to 4000 cals anyway).

Stuart

Legeon, there aren't any folks who increase low carb calories and still lose bodyfat consistently. And the folks who do experience such short term anomalies are the first to admit with the benefit of hindsight, that there were other confounding factors, not the metabolic effect of restricting calories. Plenty of Low Carb folks would certainly like to believe that they can do so (I sense you are one ). But ask any Low Carb clinician who has been observing the metabolic effects of restricting carbohydrate for many decades, and they will unanimously tell you it is a myth.

If males consume fewer than 1200 calories and women 1000, they run the risk of their thyroid gland reducing metabolic rate and it becoming even more difficult to achieve a calorie deficit and lose bodyfat. Rather than consume lower than these lower calorie limits, somebody who still wasn't losing bodyfat with a low carb dietary approach would be well advised to do some HIIT exercise to get the all important calorie deficit without getting their thyroid gland's knickers in a knot. Which is the only type of exercise that will burn a lot of calories without commensurately increasing hunger. Which I mentioned in another post is another thing that GCBC got conspicuously wrong - ie, not identifying the special role of HIIT in burning calories without increasing hunger (commensurately).

Stuart

Nyah, that sort of ignores the effect of dietary calories as a direct energy source. And on a low carb diet, that would be dietary fat and Protein. It is metabolically even easier to slot free dietary amino acids (absorbed into your bloodstream from your digestive tract dealing with dietary protein) into the Kreb's cycle (very wastefully, to be sure, but simple biochemically nevertheless) than to mobilize bodyfat for that purpose. Dietary fat is a walk in the energy supply park. Why would your body bother mobilizing bodyfat when there are blood stream borne free fatty acids (in albumin - thanks L.C FP ) and/or chylomicrons ready and willing.

It takes at least 18 hrs for a meal to make it through your digestive tract, during which time your bloodstream is being constantly being resupplied with free fatty acids/chylomicrons, which in a fat adapted person are going to be utilized very efficiently for energy needs. And most people eat at least every 9 waking hours.

Are you getting the picture, Nyah? I'm afraid in anything but a calorie deficit, your Bodyfat is going to relax and stay put while your body takes advantage of the (at least sufficient- ie equilibrium or surplus) dietary calories. In other words, you won't have to 'replenish' bodyfat reserves, because you won't ever start depleting them.

But don't forget, and this is incalculably important to the issue, a low carb dietary approach is definitely the easiest/healthiest way to achieve a calorie deficit with the least hunger. I'm amazed at the fuss a few apparently overzealous low carbers make when they can't avoid recognizing that a calorie deficit is still necessary for bodyfat loss. Anybody would think they were being asked to admit that Low Carb wasn't the best way to optimize bodycomp/health

Stuart

What a great article Demi. Well spotted. I agree with this and all my reading has told me that insulin and the carbohydrate balance are key to this.

If my choice is to believe someone posting on the internet who has an obvious axe to grind, or an acclaimed science reporter who spent 5 years researching the subject, it isn't a hard choice. It amazes me how many people in the low carb community feel the need to deny the facts when it conflicts with their personal beliefs. Nyah Levi

My point was its kind of dumb to wonder why Taubes didn't just visit the forums when all you have here is anecdotal stuff.

Nyah as I pointed out earlier, of course I don't expect you to believe an (obvious ??) 'axe grinder'. Just a quick question to the Drs. Eades, Wolfgang Lutz, Krasnewski (speaks excellent English), or any one of the many others all over the world, is all it would take to confirm that they've bee observing the necessity of a calorie deficit for bodyfat loss for decades. Not once or twice Nyah, thousands upon thousands of cases. These clinicians are very well placed to know exactly what they are talking about.

Taubes is a science journo, not a low carb clinician. He's a good science journo, no doubt about it. Most of GCBC is a very fine read. And I have no idea why he neglected to explicity mention this fundamental point.

I'm just a tad curious also, why, because I'm pointing out that one of your obvious sacred cows is well past its expiry date (easily confirmable by people who actually see how a low carb diet works metabolically every working day of their professional careers) I'm an 'axe grinder' when an obviously well meaning low carb adherent science journo, is an acclaimed science journo beyond intellectual reproach.

Nyah, the 'facts' you are referring to are very easy to check with the also acclaimed low carb medicos whose take I am reasonably sure you would respect. Give it a go. You've got nothing to lose except some tough old sacred cows which should have been quietly laid to rest a long time ago. Save the character assassination barbs, and educate yourself. We're both low carbers, Nyah. But for some reason you persist in clinging to some metabolic wishful thinking. It really wouldn't be very difficult to bring yourself up to speed in a way you wouldn't be able to obfuscate about.

Stuart

I couldn't agree more, Legeon. But Gary Taubes actually knows Mike Eades personally. It would have been pretty easy to confirm this point with him. Yet for some reason, he didn't, and the credibility of his book in its entirety will incalculably suffer as a result in the minds of anyone but the already low carb converted, like you and I.

Which is a terrible pity, you'd have to agree .

Stuart

LOLOLOL...I love this guy.

Perhaps the very reason Taubes didn't mention that point is that he's a science journalist, and there are no studies that show exactly that point? By that, I mean that the doctors mentioned all have lots of anecdotal evidence of it, but has anyone conducted double blind research (or whatever it's called - I'm obviously not a scientist) to confirm all this anecdotal evidence?

The thing is that not only do we have a lot of anecdotal evidence that people can avoid weight gain on low carb, even when consuming massive amounts of fat calories, there is also some anecdotal evidence that some people still lose when consuming far more calories than they can consume while still losing weight on a low fat, calorie controlled diet.

For instance, notice the following from deirdra's post about her own personal experience with the two types of diets:



There are lots of people on these very boards who have noticed similar relationships between calorie consumption and weight loss/maintenance/weight gain, depending on whether their calories come primarily from carbs or primarily from fat.