Effect of diet composition on metabolic adaptations to hypocaloric nutrition: comparison of high carbohydrate and high fat isocaloric diets.

This study was also hypocaloric, which indicates nothing for the general population.

Sebastian

One very, very important result not mentioned here was the improved blood panels by those on the Atkins, bastardized as it was with a lot of carbs. The researcher is a 25 year vegetarian and was good naturedly astounded at those results. (Still didn’t hear the train coming down the track……)

In my opinion, based on my experiences and forums like MDA, low carb weight loss at the beginning of the diet is due to, all of a sudden, no more fiber. I think a diet high in fiber can result in up to 5% water/fiber weight.

BTW, I cured my 92 year old mother’s diarrhea, two hospitalizations, a colonoscopy, the doctors could not fix it. When she was ready to do anything, she let me put her on a very low fiber diet, 6 gms a day. In two days she was fine and has stayed that way for a month now.

See that book, Fiber Menace. He’s right.

Lyle

In your discussion of this diet study, you’re not looking at the data on what these people were eating closely. Not only did the weight loss converge on the four diets, but so did the nutrient composition of the diet. After a couple of months the Atkins dieters went back to eating carbs. The data was in the paper.

Q: What do you think would happen to you, Lyle, if you switched your diet composition from (I’m guessing here) 20% carbs to 70% keeping protein the same? I can almost assure you you’d start depositing body fat at an alarming rate.

Sorry, for posting from another blog if that is poo-pooed

Excellent analysis of this article. Pulled apart very well. Started a low-carb diet 3 weeks ago and really enjoy it for a number of reasons, but this article did nothing for promoting such diets.

Thanks for the post, and sorry for my late entry.

I think it is difficult to quarrel with your take on this study. You have raised all the relavent issues so there is no need to revisit them. I agree with you that the graph tells the whole story and I would like to comment on this.

Firstly, i think that the 2 mth mark is the point to compare the diets. 4.5 kg in 2 mts looks a lot better. My interpretation of the graph is that for the first 2mts compliance was the best. That Atkins did better at this point may be due to it being a better diet, reducing appette and/or water loss, but water loss can only account for some of the difference. At 6 mts I believe that Atkins compliance continued to some extent, but compliance for the others went south. After 6 mts I believe that Atkins compliance also fell.

My experience is that Atkins is not that difficult per se, but it is so contrary to our normal eating habits and the eating habits of the rest of the world, that it is socially dfficult to sustain.

@ Juan Daniel. I believe that you have made the REAL point. I would like to add that I am a lo carb fan, but I wonder about the cost of such a diet to the poor who really need it.

Martin

Regardless of the specific composition of the diet (assuming sufficient protein is being consumed), do you think there would ultimately be much difference in overall results for people who are actually being compliant with any given type of diet, are mindful of creating a deficit but not allowing it to be too extreme for too long, and training with proper intensity and progression?

Oftentimes compliance with a specific protocol and/or an accurate idea of food intake is an issue with the “general public” but this almost goes out the window when dealing with many in the fitness community who are very dedicated (some even fanatical, hah, hah).

As always thank you for sharing your excellent analysis with us. It is always greatly appreciated when you take the time to share your insight.

Thanks for analyzing this study. I read it when it first came out and I have to say, I get rather upset when peer reviewed articles such as this get published. A diet study designed with minimal environmental control on the participants (understandable expensive) will always have results not indicative of a tested hypothesis but highlighting the design flaw. My disappointment comes when the general public receives the conclusions (generally provided by the AP) absent of any mention to how the conclusions were made. Sadly, influencing an paradigm shift of ‘conventional wisdom’ which is founded with inaccurate information.

Thanks for picking it apart. I really enjoy reading your blog and a handful of your books. I appreciate how you sift through convoluted information and simplify it for a general audience.

Keep it up!

How can I tell you this so I can try to explain my feelings of despair with the issue of fat loss: I come from another field of study and nutrition and the science of fat loss has been my “hobby” and passion for the last 5 years.

I’ve read almost all your books, and now I can’t find anything on articles, blogs, newspapers, magazines that I haven’t read or “knew” before. I really think that I kind of “know something about fat loss”.

And now that I’m coming full circle, I find this whole “lose fat” issue amazingly complicated for the majority of folks.

I mean, how can we expect to solve or at least “help” some of the 60% of overweight population, or the 30% obese (sadly in Chile, we have almost the same (bad) ratios that developed countries have)?

How can we “teach” them? How can they know how to read food labels? Not even the majority of nutritionist or “doctors” know about nutrition for the real world.

I really think that I can just help myself and try to help my wife (which started a low carb-flexible dieting strategy based on your book) and my kids.

The other 99.999% of the population is just lost on yo-yo dieting, bad advice, myths, weight loss industry “recommendations”…

In one hand, just as you say some times, weight loss is just as simple as “eat less”, but as complicated as you want it to be.

I think that the worldwide obesity problem is here to stay for a looooong while.

Sorry for the long rant, but I think that the knowledge is there, but there’s now way getting it to the masses or even to close friends or family who “say” they want to lose weight.

JD