Photo Credit: schizoform
I recently viewed the movie Religulous after reading quite a bit about the film, particularly how controversial it was. In case you haven’t seen it yet and/or know nothing about it, the film is a particularly biased documentary about how religion, in general, has it’s fair share of fanatics and zealots. The documentary touches on how many religious fundamentalists dispute some of the most widely known and accepted scientific evidence(on many topics such as evolution, earth age, etc) for a religious belief that has been passed down over time. Many of the religious zealots interviewed in the movie do not seem to be very educated or knowledgeable on the subject matter they so firmly “believe” in(much less the opposing viewpoints) as Bill Maher points out with his probing questions. Many folks are interviewed and asked “why” questions, many of them simple questions that they should be able to answer. The sad reality is that most freeze up mid sentence when they are attempting to explain themselves. It’s almost as if they are pausing for a moment to ask themselves “why do I believe what I believe?”
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I am not trying to start a religious debate as I am not particularly interested in what your spiritual beliefs may be. Starting a debate is NOT my intention whatsoever.
I simply want to point out the similarities between religious fundamentalists and fitness fundamentalists. The plain and simple fact at hand is people will accept something blindly without taking the time to research and “prove” it to themselves. They take the advice of someone who has some supposed authority and by taking their word as gospel, they don’t think twice about it.
Dietary Heresy
If you have been interested in this whole fitness thing for any amount of time I am sure you know that you are supposed to follow a bunch of stringent diet guidelines to ensure maximum results. I don’t doubt that you probably believe 6 small meals per day is superior to 3 and that it will stoke your metabolic fire more efficiently than a few large meals would. I don’t doubt that you probably believe in the clean and unclean eating philosophy. You probably even believe your body can only process 30g of protein in one sitting. You most likely buy into the idea claiming that if you don’t eat every 2-3 hours your body will go into starvation mode and cause your muscles to fall off.
It’s all BS. I use to buy into this line of thinking a few years ago but then decided to ask a bunch of “why” questions. I wanted to know what was true and what wasn’t. I was seeking answers and I eventually found them. I wrote about my experience in the meal frequency article if you haven’t had a chance to explore my viewpoint on this matter. No research proves multiple meals to boost metabolism. No research proves that a complex carb to be treated much differently than a simple carb. There are no good calories or bad calories(or that they are treated any differently by the body) as Lyle points out in an article titled: Is a Calorie a Calorie? He also wrote a very good research review discussing the fact that as long as calories are controlled it doesn’t matter if you eat fast food or clean food. As long as protein requirements are met, the rest is minutiae.
Before I get off my soapbox I want to address one more thing that really chaps my ass. Because this industry is so full of mindless dogma, people are developing serious eating disorders, losing their sanity and stressing out over the small stuff. I just got an email from a lady a few weeks ago who read my article on binge eating. She has been struggling with binge eating for 15 years. 15 years! She told me her story and how it began by reading a fitness magazine back when she was 17 yrs old. She wanted to achieve the look those girls had in the magazine, so what did she do? She followed all of the die hard, clean eating principles, trained too much and deprived herself of any food that was remotely enjoyable. So, what happened? She found herself restricting her diet to no end for weeks, then completely losing her mind and pigging out on all the junk she could stomach for a few days straight. This cycle repeated and turned into a full blown eating disorder. She has always viewed food as either being bad or good. There is no such thing as a bad food. Food is simply an energy source we need to live. That’s it. Nothing else.
Training Blasphemy
We all know that you must exhaust every muscle group once per week to ensure maximal muscle growth. We also know that you shouldn’t train them more than once per week because they simply cannot recover with anything less than 6 full days of rest. Most people who have read the magazines and listened to the bodybuilding pro’s subscribe to this philosophy. It couldn’t be any further from the truth. So why do people buy into all this information that will not serve them? Are they ignorant, mislead or a bit of both? I say it’s both.
Allow me to present to you an example of the young Joe Bleux who is still in high school(if I had a nickel for every time I have come across this situation, I would be writing this from a hammock in Australia). He decides he wants to add some mass to his skinny, bony frame. After school he runs down to the local newsstand, picks up the latest issue of Flex and studies every ad-plastered page in hopes of discovering the truth. Nick Bromberg wrote a good piece on what you can expect to find in these silly magazines. So, Joe heads to the gym to do the same body part split that his favorite bodybuilder recommends. Afterwards he heads to the local supplement shop and drops a ton of money on all of the recommended supplements. He doesn’t think twice about the advice and continues to do the same workout for the next six months with NO results, yet he continues to do it. Why is this? He believes(blindly) that what he is doing is the right thing despite all of the anecdotal and scientific evidence proving it to be false. Turns out, the author of the article forgot to tell Joe two things. He forgot to point out that Joe is a newbie and has no business training in the same fashion that an advanced athlete would(I am not too concerned with this as it’s easily fixable). However, the main point the author forgot to mention is that Joe’s favorite bodybuilders are juiced to the gills! I said it! Yes, Joe, they may be pharmaceutically enhanced(read steroids).
So Joe continues to spin his wheels in lieu of his false belief in something that is not serving him. I see this so often and it pisses me off. Of course the industry dogmatism is the real root of all evil as Jamie Hale points out.
Regarding training, Matt from Amped Training wrote a really good piece(Body-Part Splits: Making Them Work) on training programs and how to get the most out of them. He is not pimping the low frequency training either. Matt is more in tune with the ideals of hitting each muscle group 2-3 times per week and does a really good job of explaining the reasoning behind higher frequency training. Training in this fashion also tends to suit those in pursuit of muscle mass gain very well.
Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged
One more thing. This is probably my biggest pet peeve within the industry. Why are so many fitness fundamentalists so quick to judge others? I used to get really angry about it all but now I just laugh to myself. I will never forget the looks and comments I used to receive during my first year of college. I was very active and had a very large energy expenditure at the time. I used to walk in the morning to wake myself up before class. Then I walked all day long to and from class. Once the day was over I would head over to the gym to train and chat with the girls on the treadmill. There was a McDonalds near campus and they always had Big Macs for .99 cents. Talk about a bargain! I would drop by on my way to the gym and grab one to eat on the walk there. As I walked through the gym with some dirty food in hand people would stare and point. Some used to even ask “what are you doing!?” with the implication(judgment) that I was sabotaging my training efforts. I would reply with “this is my pre workout meal, don’t you eat before you workout?” This usually left them confused while I finished my burger and headed to the locker room to change. My question is “why the hell do you care if I decide to eat a juicy Big Mac instead of chicken breast and brown rice pre workout?”
My reasoning is this: grabbing a Big Mac was a very easy solution for me to get an extra 500+ kcals into my diet. I needed the energy especially when my expenditure was 4000+ kcals per day. That does not take into account how much I was eating to gain. I think I figured out why they were judging me though. They weren’t really being self-righteous nut jobs, they were jealous because of their own false belief in the clean and unclean eating philosophy.
A Final Note
A few weeks ago Martin Berkhan wrote an incredible piece that has gotten tons of attention when he addressed there being no real evidence that low-carb diets are superior to any other diet(given equal protein intake) for burning body fat. I absolutely love the title: Low Carb Talibans. Go check it out but if you plan to read all of the comments, you better have a solid 30 minutes and a strong cup of coffee to wade through the commentary.
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{ 40 comments… read them below or add one }
RE: “Doctors wrote it!”
That’s awesome. Now go to Pubmed and find me some peer-reviewed journal articles. That’s my standard of evidence, not “some shit I Googled”.
If you can’t find primary sources, I’m not interested.
Fine Captain Semantics, substitute sugar with grains. It’s all turning into glucose in the bloodstream.
So if a fat person is eating 800kcal of and nothing else, is that person 1) still going to be fat in a year and 2) die of starvation while still being fat?
Because those starving Africans think you’re full of shit.
It’s becoming pretty clear you can’t actually answer this substantively (note: “go read Google” is not substantive). Which is kinda shitty for the Low Carb Magic side of the argument.
Actually the sugar is turning into glucose AND fructose, and concentrated fructose is what I’m saying is damaging. Why is that so hard for you to understand. Fructose causes fatty liver disease, high tri-glycerides, and insulin resistance, the later of which directly causes obesity.
You seem to be incapable of fathoming the difference between a molecule of fructose and a molecule of glucose? Why do you insist on alleging they are the same thing? If you can’t grasp this simple distinction, you are doomed to never grasp what’s going on in your own body. It’s tragic.
I’m not going to “find you anything.” If you absolutely refuse to accept this fundamental difference, you have proven that this discussion will never go anywhere.
You keep going back to starving Africans, but in the same areas with rampant malnutrition in children, obesity is observed in adults, especially females, when the diet is high in refined carbohydrate.
I was enjoying our discussion. It’s a pity that you have to resort to ad hominem name calling and profanity because the science fails you. Clearly you aren’t as interested with the truth as you are with being the “winner.”
Fine, you ‘win.’ I’m done here.
That’s all very nice, but at what dosages?
Everything is bad given a high enough dosage, so now go and check what the figures are for fructose causing all that damage and compare that to what the average persons intake will be. (one study was done using 60% kcal from fructose, thats realistic in an everyday diet isnt it?)
Bryce, why didn’t you answer the question?
Type II diabetics are not a rebuttal because they don’t reflect a healthy person by definition.
So I’ll ask you again: If you take a fat person and feed them nothing but 800kcal a day of pure sugar, will that person still be fat in a year?
Your model of physiology says that person will. So why is this never observed, ever, anywhere, by anyone?
This is a simple question, doesn’t require tap-dancing.
Matt, I did answer you. Didn’t you read my reply? I said that I didn’t know, but I honestly think that person would die. It is possible they’d burn some fat but their liver would fail and they’d simply die of internal starvation.
As I said, sugar is metabolized much in the same way ethanol is, and with many of the same damaging effects on the liver. If you fed someone nothing but 800kcal of ethanol for a year, would they still be fat? What about 800kcal of wood. They’d have “calories,” but it wouldn’t keep them alive, because their livers would fail, their internal organs would starve, and they would die. Remember, sugar does not equal glucose. Half of it is fructose, which the body metabolizes like a toxin.
And type II diabetics are very much a relevant part of the discussion, because healthy people BECOME type II diabetic when they eat lots of sugar. 10% of Americans over 20 have developed type II diabetese. That’s about the percentage of left handed people! We’re talking about a growing epidemic with a scientifically understood cause: sugar. So it’s extremely germane to our discussion.
I think it’s amazing that you accuse me of tap dancing when I legitimately try to answer your questions. I don’t owe you anything, I have nothing to prove here. I’m just explaining my perspective.
I admit I I am not as well versed as Lyle or Matt on the entire metabolic processes of sugar but to say that fructose(which is found in fruit – a natural, wholesome food) is treated like a toxin sounds a bit crazy to me…
That’s because it is crazy. Nothing about fructose is toxic.
RE: Bryce, you “think” they would die, yet there’s a lot of starving Africans and perhaps even a few concentration camp survivors that would disagree.
Perhaps you need to go tell them that all the carbs they’re eating are making them fat?
Those insulin spikes just pork them right up.
Understandable, JC.
Again, if we look at alcohol, a little bit of it can be a good thing, but a lot can kill you. Fructose is no different. In fruit you have a tiny amount of fructose wrapped in a big ball of fiber which slows its absorption, so it’s fine. If you take it in the doses we as Americans do though (colas and such), you are intaking an amount that is literally toxic to your body, in the same way that drinking a whole bunch of alcohol is toxic to your body.
It’s a bit long, but if you have the patience, watch the video I linked below which explains in detail the biochemistry involved with fructose metabolism, the tremendous parallels between that and ethanol metabolism, and the overwhelming evidence showing high fructose in the diet leads to insulin resistence, fatty liver disease, high trigylcerides, and a host of other ailments.
Again, not dangerous in tiny amounts surrounded by loads of fiber – very dangerous in a highly concentrated liquid. And high fructose corn syrup is in everything – ketchup, white bread, salad dressings – you can find it everywhere.
Makes me shudder as I watch those with weight problems suck down cokes and gatorades. As lyle points out, few people workout with enough intensity, yet many people follow their book-reading elyptical sessions with a gatorade. It’s tragic,
-bryce
Matt I think you need to qualify the statement “nothing about fructose is toxic” with fact. Google “fructose poison” and you’ll get so many hits explaining this concept it’s overwhelming. I guess all of them were written by crazies? Oh wait, actually a lot of them were written by doctors . . . weird. I guess they’re crazy too.
It’s clear you simply aren’t giving my arguments a chance. If you were really trying to find the truth, instead of trying to be right, then you’d watch that video I linked you to below. I know that you haven’t, because no logical person can watch that video and still think that fructose, in the concentrations westerners consume it, is not dangerous. You seem to be a logical guy, so that means you can’t have watched the video.
And your references to starving Africans and Concentration camp victims is deeply flawed, because sugar is one of the first commodities to become scarce in war torn economically depressed areas. In europe sugar become almost non-existent during world war II, so no, referencing those two groups does not prove me wrong when I say that eating nothing but 800kcal, or 32 cubes of sugar, will likely kill you in a year.
Perhaps you can answer this Bryce: if Taubes spent so many years looking at ‘all’ of the rsearch, why is it clear that he cherry picked his data?
For example, he cites as proof that ’something other than calories makes people fat’ a 1980 survey indicating that the obese ate the same as the lean. This was his basic data point for looking for another explanation and ending up at insulin.
Yet numerous studies between 1980 and 2009 point out that the obese systematically underestimate their food intake, they DO eat more. George Bray who was involved with the original 1980 report has gone on record stating that they know now that the data set was incorrect.
Was Taubes simply unable to find those studies that were done between 1980 and 2009? Because they are numerous and available on Medline for anybody who cares to look.
In his years of research, did he simply not find them, or did he see them and ignore them? Or, with a conclusion that he liked in hand (a 40 year old piece of data that we know is wrong), did he simply quit looking?
That is, is he as guilty of making his conclusion and finding data to support it as the cholesterol hypothesis people he decries in the first half of the book?
Because if you want to call his book a meta-analysis of ALL the literature, than you might want to consider that he ignored the stuff he didn’t like because it didn’t support his hypothesis. But that’s exactly what he did.
Lyle
Yes there are studies showing that obese people eat more than they claim. I’m afraid that doesn’t take away from my understanding of how insulin works. There are also studies showing that obese people can remain obese while in caloric restriction for 6-24 months, and that some obese people eat less than some thin people.
I agree Gary must have selected studies he felt were important to talk about. Still, accusing him of basing his assumptions on one 40 year old inaccurate piece of data is a bit of a simplification. There is 100 years of research supporting the idea that insulin inhibits the release of FFA’s in those with insulin resistence. And finally, there are simply too many people, myself included, who have lost a significant amount of weight while not counting calories. We can get into the weeds on whether they’e caloric intake lowered over time (mine certainly did not), but in the end, by eliminating refined carbohydrate, lowering the intake of starchy fruits and vegetables, and thus drastically lowering fasting glucose and insulin load, they lost the weight.
Lyle, I think you make a good point in that no attempt at a meta-analysis can really ever be complete. Some studies will always be ignored. That’s unfortunate, but I don’t think it takes away from the fact that Taubes presents a strong case with a lot of evidence, and the studies that you and others mention fail, in my mind, to satisfactorally dispute his argument. I think they suggest his work is less than perfect, but of course it is. Still, the research gathered by the missionary doctors working w/ preagricultural societies is only one tiny example of the enormous amount of data in GCBC that hasn’t been effectively disputed.
I think we’re getting away from the issue here, which is that low-carbers are accused of not understanding thermodynamics or endocrinology. I understand both of those things, and only used Taubes Book as an example of where you could see my logic spelled out in greater detail.
And incidentally, Lyle, I think you have an excellent site, and in the grand scheme, I would have thought you’d be more likely to agree with Taubes’ book.
Perhaps I need to read more on your site, but from the articles I’ve read so far, it seems like you have more in common with Taubes’ than you do different. His general recommendations that people need to be less afraid of fat and instead worry about eating 150lbs of sugar each year seems to be something that wouldn’t be hard to reconcile with you’re writings.
Am I way of base here?
-Bryce
Yeah, pretty much.
You’re effectively claiming that somebody can’t get fat by overeating on fat and protein.
And completely ignoring the fact that rate of digestion will affect the insulin response to a meal.
To claim you can’t get fat without elevated insulin is wrong.
Not quite . . . Your body can store fat without insulin, but that fat will quickly mobilize in insulin’s absence. Fat will not mobilize when insulin is elevated, which is what causes fat to accumulate over time. Even if you are in caloric ‘defecit,’ where you’re trying to eat less and exercise more, if you keep insulin levels elevated, your fat just won’t mobilize well.
That’s how insulin works, it preps your body for nutrient absorption by clearing the blood of nutrients, storing them in the muscles and adipose, and then preventing them from being released while new nutrients from food come in. Your body releases much more insulin from glucose than from protein because, from an anthropological perspective, glucose was a rare commodity for most of the year. During the winter, your ancestors (especially if you’re of european decent) would likely have survived entirely on meat and maybe some stored seeds. Only a minority of pre agrarian societies had high year round carb intake, like the kitavan, but even they had no sugar intake of any kind. And when you did find fruit, it wasn’t as sweet as the crossbred fruits we eat today. Not that I’m against fruit really.
In order for fat to packaged into a triglyceride, it needs to be attached to a glycerol, which is an end product of glucose metabolism. If you eat zero carbohydrate, your body will run mostly on ketone bodies, and you’ll manufacture your own glucose from protein through gluconeogenesis in the liver. However, you’ll only make just enough to do what your brain needs glucose for (and I’m not sure about this part, but enough to store glycogen as well? perhaps Lyle or someone can clue me in here), and the rest of your body will run just fine on ketones. So you’ll have a very limited supply of glycerol molecules to begin with, because you won’t be routinely saturating your body with glucose everyday. Thus the amount of fat you’ll be able to pack into your adipose will be limited.
This is part of why intermittent fasting works so well. Yes you eat fewer calories, but another great thing about it is that you spent more time with lower insulin. If you fast for 18 hours as JC does, that’s 18 hours with minimal insulin and thus maximum fat mobilization. And then when you do finally eat, your insulin sensitivity is heightened, so your body needs to produce less of it to get the nutrients absorbed. If you were to fast but inject yourself with insulin, I doubt it would work very well (hunger, lethargy, and muscle waisting would ensue of you didn’t eat more).
So really, if you were to go zero carb for a day, it would have a similar (but not quite as potent) effect on your insulin production. After you ate, you wouldn’t have to wait the several hours most people do for their insulin to die down and their fat to start releasing. I think we get too caught up with whether it’s the calories or the insulin. I think there’s evidence to support the later, but at the end of the day, both a low carb diet and an Intermittent fasting diet probably reduce calories for most people, and they definitely heighten insulin sensitivity and decrease insulin load for everyone. It’s tough to say which is working the magic.
Perhaps I took the wrong approach in taking an antagonist position here. For a long time I considered myself a low-carber, and I still try to minimize them, but really I’m more of a paleo-eater, where occasionally I’ll have a sweet potato or other starchy vegetable, I have fruit several days a week, I try to fast once a week, and I try to go very low carb a few times per week. I do avoid refined carbs like the plague though (but that’s also because fructose in bulk and gluten are, in my opinion, poisons). But be absolutely assured I average a high calorie intake (at least 2500-3000), and I am 40lbs lighter, and far more muscular, then I was when I used to try to cut calories and cardio away my fat, and I only work out maybe 2-3 times per week, so I know that I’ve decreased the amount of calories I burned through exercise. I do stand by the notion that most americans would benefit from significantly reducing the amount of refined carbohydrate in their diets.
So you’re suggesting that if I keep insulin elevated I won’t lose fat?
If you lock me in a closet and give me nothing but 800 kcal worth of pure sugar, will I be fat in a year?
Insulin keeps you fat, right?
So why can people starve to death on sugar?
Well, I’m suggesting that if you keep insulin elevated, losing fat will be harder than if you didn’t.
Is it really so hard to believe? America is obese, and we eat MUCH more sugar, more carbohydrate, and slightly less fat than we used to. Almost every preagrarian society who is introduced to a western high sugar diet becomes largely diabetic, obese, and atherosclerotic. This is true even when they previously ate more fat and similar calories and were free of these diseases (Such as tribes from new Guinea and the Masai, the Sioux Indians, and the eskimos, the latter two of which ate an almost 95% meat diet year round).
And starving on sugar is exactly what we’re talking about here. If you are very insulin resistant (read: an obese person), and you’re keeping insulin levels elevated, than the rest of your body is starving while the fat grows. It’s why an obese person always feels hungry. Their cells are literally begging for nutrients, but very little is being released from their fat.
That’s part of the reason why a type II diabetic can eat all they want and still have muscle wasting and blindness. Their vital tissues are quite literally starving, but their fat tissues are swelling. The fat goes to the fat tissue as it is supposed to, but then it doesn’t get released. A type I diabetic is thin, but a type II diabetic is usually not because their muscle cells are insulin resistant while their fat cells are not. What better example is there?
And I honestly can’t stipulate as to what would happen to you if you ate 800 calories of sugar in a year. Do you really think it’s a useful question to ask? It’s not a situation we’re likely to find ourselves in. I imagine you’d probably starve to death or at least very sick. However, I know for a fact that an average individual fed 800kcal of steak everyday wouldn’t. There are several studies that show that 800kcal of meat is actually enough to produce satiety, and reasonable health. This is not an opinion. The long term studies proving that last statement have been performed, and then repeated. It’s not up for debate. Period. The same is not true of sugar, however.
But the average American eats 150lbs of sugar a year. This is such an astronomical number, and it’s 10 times what your great grand parents ate. Sugar is also doubly dangerous because the fructose half of a sugar molecule is PROVEN to CAUSE insulin resistance. Not only do you get the insulin spike from the glucose, but your body must produce more of it because your tissues are insulin resistant. Watch this for a metabolic explanation of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM.
After you watch that, tell me what you think about sugar.
JC,
I’m definitely on board with the idea that fundamentalism is all too rampant and only counterproductive. I think if you can find a way to get in shape, it must be the right way for you. For me, that happens to be a relatively low carb diet with IF, but it’s not for everyone.
I will say that I think Martin and many others mischaracterize the low-carb view about energy balance. Anyone who thinks you can get truly ripped without somehow reducing calories isn’t (I think) considering all the evidence. He is right in that regard. Still, if you give Gary Taubes “Good Calories, Bad Calories” a good read, he explains the energy balance issue as follows:
If your insulin is jacked up high, and you are fat, then calories are being partitioned away from your musculature (insulin resistence), and are stored as fat. If you reduce calories but keep insulin the same (i.e. only reducing your fat intake), then your body is capable (for many people), of partitioning the same number of calories for fat storage as before. Then it’s your musculature that is starved, and in turn you become constantly hungry.
Once insulin is under control, you CAN in fact lose wait while being (and I know here comes the crazy part), in a (dare I say it?) positive energy balance. You can’t get ripped like this, but your body can lower to a normal body fat percentage (say from 30% to 13-18%). This is because you won’t actually be in a positive energy balance, even if you are eating more than you are “burning.” When your metabolism is not being twisted by the nutrient partitioning that occurs when your insulin levels are 100 times higher then they were for 99.9% of our evolutionary history, then your body is capable of increasing cellular activity (heat, spontaneous fidgetiness, etc), to get rid of those extra calories.
The thing many people fail to consider is that one side of the energy balance equation affects the other. When you decrease calories consumed you will almost invariable decrease calories expended, and vice versa. This was shown scientifically over 100 years ago, and has never been disproven. Similarly, if you increase activity, and try to keep your calories constant, but you aren’t decreasing insulin or improving insulin sensitivity, what can happen is the calories may continue to be partitioned towards fat (i.e. no fat loss), and you can undergo muscle wasting, and other metabolically expensive processes like immune functions can suffer.
If you think about it, when animals have abundant calories, they put on a healthy amount of fat, and then become active and make lots of babies. They don’t become so obese they can’t walk. It just isn’t evolutionarily sensible, don’t you think? I have no doubt I’m preaching to the choir here, but I just felt that ours (low-carbers) understanding of the laws of thermodynamics are being poorly characterized.
I’m not fundamentalist, and I don’t scoff at people who eat pasta, or who do ‘cardio.’ I’ve found a way that works for me, and I think that’s what we’re all about. I just think that in the name of bashing fundamentalism, some people can seem a little fundamentalist themselves, especially when they only consider some of the science and use this slightly incomplete model to cast lunacy at anyone who doesn’t eat bread (which has also only been part of our diet for about 1% of human evolution).
-Bryce
Where’s your evidence that the body can’t or won’t burn fat in the presence of elevated insulin? If that were true, protein would stop fat loss as well.
Hint: look up Acylation Stimulating Protein
Nobody’s arguing that low-carb isn’t a useful strategy. What we’re arguing is that it significantly effects energy balance in the way the LC zealots claim.
I’m quite aware of ASP, and what I’m alleging is not that you CAN’T burn fat when your insulin is elevated, but that in a person with insulin resistance (read: overweight), a large portion of calories will be shunted towards fat storage when insulin is high, regardless of that person’s total caloric intake or activity level. Also the amount of insulin secreted in response to protein intake is not even remotely comparable to the amount secreted by a comparable amount of carbohydrate.
An already relatively lean person who wants to get leaner is probably not insulin resistant, and so they can effectively cut their calories and have success losing the weight. For someone who is rather overweight however, they are shooting themselves in the foot if they don’t first address their terrible insulin resistance and their overactive pancreas which is secreting huge loads of insulin in response to tiny amounts of carbohydrate.
Incidentally, Intermittent Fasting has been shown to significantly increase insulin sensitivity, and to decrease the daily average insulin load, and this is a large part of it’s effectiveness.
We keep getting back to energy balance, but when your insulin is at normal levels, your body simply won’t store fat past a healthy window of say 15-18% bodyfat for most people. Yes, this has been shown many times in many pier reviewed studies. There are simply too many people out there who have gone low carb, eaten 3-4kCal a day, and normalized their weight. You guys are CORRECT in that few of these people are ripped, because I believe you do need a caloric deficit to go from healthy body fat to extremely low bodyfat. But to simply normalize your overweight, which is being caused a metabolic imbalance in hormones, all that is required is that you correct the disorder (restore insulin to proper levels). You can do this by cutting calories, or by low carbing. Many just happen to like the fact that they can eat protein and fat indiscriminately and well above their caloric ‘need’ and still normalize their bodyweight.
Oh, for evidence, I’d recommend you read Gary Taubes’ Good Calories, Bad Calories. Many people tend to knock this book without actually having the temerity to read it’s over 400 pages of meta-analysis on the past 100 years scientific research on obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. There simply is no more complete look at the whole research picture, and I think you’re doing yourself a great disservice if you don’t give it a read. I’ve read all the rebuttal’s to Gary’s book, and all of them smack of a critic who didn’t really read it, or who is ignoring some of the well explained evidence he sites in his book.
Hi Bryce,
I suggest you actually spend the time to understand what a meta-analysis actually is, and why GCBC is not a meta-analysis and why it is not infact a good review of the literature, but the fantastic biased ramblings of a journalist telling a story.
@Jenna: I am glad you enjoyed the article. I was almost afraid to hit publish on this one.
It is very easy to get caught up in the madness. I have been there. Thankfully I was tired of spinning my wheels and did something about it. You are definitely right, conventional and even popular wisdom is not always right nor the best.
Hey JC–You rock! I’m just going through your old articles slowly, as I’ve newly discovered your site. There’s so much of good stuff here.
As I’ve mentioned to you, I love your no-nonsense perspective. I’m just in the process of trying to redevelop my training and nutrition programs in order to ramp it up a notch. I agree with some of the other commenters that it can be confusing to know who to listen to. Still, I love being able to dig in to the process with a more open mind, realizing that conventional wisdom does not necessarily equate with gospel.
Keep preaching, my brother!
J
@Coach Hale : I am from the south and have lived my entire life in what’s know as the “Bible Belt.” I know exactly what you are referring to when it comes to mixing religion with business. It doesn’t offend me in any way but I know that discussing personal religious beliefs makes some very uncomfortable. I would never intentionally discuss that kind of stuff with clients or people at my place of business simply because it’s not really the time nor the place.
I couldn’t agree more. It’s a very touchy subject and would rather not get into that kind of discussion here but I know many people that claim a belief in this or that and have no real foundation behind those beliefs other than “it’s what I’ve always been told.”
“why do I believe what I believe?” I think many people that claim to have a fundamentalist christian belief really don’t believe. It is easier to say they do to avoid conflict with loved ones and friends in some cases. Depending on where you live Fundamentalist Christianity may actually be the norm. I know it’s horrible but it’s true. I went into an office building about two months ago in a small town in Eastern Ky and the ten commandments and a picture of Jesus hanging was the first thing I seen when I walked through the door. I was there looking at a space that was offered to me to run a nutrition consulting business. Needless to say I don’t think my business would thrive well in this location. Why mix religion and business? Not a big deal in that town.
thanks,
Coach Hale
Eh. Maybe. At least you have arrived.
Heh. Maybe it just took me years.
@Christy:Thanks for the comment. I used to be the rigid guy. I was so anal about going out to eat with my friends that I would make excuses to miss out on the fun so I wouldn’t have to eat pizza and drink coke, as it wasn’t “on my diet”.
I disagree that it takes years of learning and researching. I think it does require those things but definitely not that long. One just has to be open minded, really.
I think the 5-6 small meal/day thing is good for overweight newbs who have the most terrible eating habits. It may help them establish some kind of portion control. I personally would rather see them go to a strict whole food diet with lots of fruits and veggies though instead of the 5-6 meal thing.
different strokes
Great article! I’ve only recently started moving away from the clean/unclean food mentality (though I’ve never been super ultra “I only eat chicken and broccoli” strict about it). I think that it takes years of learning and researching in order to figure out what works for you. The “5-6 meals a day, only whole foods” approach is probably as good a place to start as any.
LOL
I didn’t think you meant that. Just wanted to clarify for anyone else lurking.
and yea… so far. I plan to keep it that way for a long while!
“I am not condemning them(if that is what you thought)”
Not at all what I thought!
“oh man. That is DEFINITELY something I have zero experience with”
so far.
@Dawn
yes Dawn, there is a plethora of information out there. Both good and bad. I understand that it’s easy to get lost in all of it. The newbie is not supposed to know what is good and what isn’t because they are a newbie. They have to learn. I am not condemning them(if that is what you thought), I merely want to help them. I just get pissed that they are spinning their wheels from following all kinds of shoddy advice. So, I hope that in time I will be able to help a few folks as I continue my incoherent babbling in written form.
You really are lucky you have found the resources you have. I lurk on a few forums now and again to see lots of people that still don’t get it. Even 2-3 years and 10k posts later. For some reason it just doesn’t click. I am glad you found JP, FLzine and the other resources to keep you moving in the right direction.
oh man. That is DEFINITELY something I have zero experience with
The thing is….there is *so much* information out there. How is the newbie supposed to know what is good and what isn’t? I mean, besides the obvious, “do this easy 5 minute workout every day and have a six-pack by summer” stuff (and usually on the cover of that magazine there is also a chocolate cake.) It’s overwhelming. And to try to research it….you get into discussions of adenosine triphosphate and hormonal influences on metabolic pathways and (my personal favorite) non-exercise activity thermogenesis. I studied microbiology and nursing in college. Lots of picky physiology. But that was many moons ago. It’s gone. Long gone. So the only really practical thing for me to do is to do what experts say to do.
I only happened onto NROL4W via Weight Watchers online. And from there to JP and FLzine. But if I hadn’t, maybe I’d be reading Shape or something. No, I’d still be doing the machines. Thing is….when you don’t know, you don’t know that you don’t know. (this, BTW, is exactly the same realization one has after having their first child)
@David
sure, even I can get stringent at times when I am trying to drop some fat at a rapid rate or if I have a deadline. I am not saying everyone wants to be ripped but for those who wish to be… it doesn’t have to be a super anal process either.
Well sure. By drastically changing someones habits, you most likely will see major improvements. Whereas you are speaking about the majority of the US population, my article was more so focused on the fitness crowd who is already very familiar this type of stuff.
cheers
Haha this was a great read. Still a Big Mac? come on haven’t you ever seen super size me, or heard of trans fat? =p
Still if I were to eat one meal/day I don’t think I could handle all the bulk without throwing up… unless i was in an extreme deficit. Plus if I purposely don’t eat for several hours I get very hungry and am prone to binge… Possibly from the adaptation to a certain schedule…
Also as Lyle has pointed out, sometimes being more stringent helps people stick with what they’ve set out to do. And not everybody, even in today’s day and age, wants to be ripped.
But hey, 3-4 meals isn’t a pain in the ass at all to me, I prefer 4 or 5 personally. Anything much above 5 IMHO would be.
Giving someone who is new to bodybuilding/fitness or who is overweight a higher meat diet with some healthy fat, veggies, some fruit and some grains around training seems to be a simple way to drastically improve results and possibly reduce hunger/temptation. I guess you have to know what the person has been doing for the past year or 6 months. Hell maybe I’m wrong, I’m no expert(in spite of how much I’ve read – a lot of it BS), but it seems to me that, the above would be a vast improvement for the majority of the US population.
Also I know that for me in the past when on NoCARB or on strict Very Low Carb diets with a good amount of fat, my hunger was def. blunted in contrast to a more moderate approach. Plus my teeth seemed to stay quite a bit cleaner in spite of brushing them less. Also I didn’t ever get energy swings and really tired (except in the beginning). Whereas if I have too much of certain types of carbs/sugar it makes me take a nap – something I NEVER did on low carb.
“However, the main point the author forgot to mention is that Joe’s favorite bodybuilders are juiced to the gills! I said it! Yes, Joe, they may be pharmaceutically enhanced(read steroids).”
I laughed at that. Overall I liked this a lot! Great job JC
Thanks guys
Nice one, JC.
Great article! Nothing more to say.
GREAT ARTICLE! damn that was good. I’m stumbling and digging this one for sure!