Calories, Starvation, and Bygone Gurus

As I am spending more time working on my upcoming book, Calorie Clarity: Entropic Thoughts on a Hot Topic,  I have had a bit less time for blogging of late.  I don't know what it is about this calorie debate, but just when you think the latest scheme to convince you that calories don't count has been beaten back, another huckster comes flying down the poop slide regurgitating the crap they swallowed on the way down.  Apologies to those who have eaten recently.  I use the term huckster because my name was used in vain in an exchange with one of the best hucksters in the low carb sphere, Dr. Mike Eades.

Who?  If you're asking that question, congratulations, you've either forgotten everything you've ever read on his blog or never read it at all.  Either of which would be a good thing.   Eades imagines himself a scientist in a doctor's coat and apparently still tweets his pearls of critical thinking wisdom.  Yeah, I'm being snarky because, well, it's a goose gander thing ... or is there a black swan needing some love somewhere?    Now a little while ago now, Tim Noakes gave leave of his own critical thinking skills and jumped on the LC "science" wagon.  A couple of days ago, Noakes tweeted a link to a 2007 post by Dr. Eades hailing it as an example of "supreme logic" in the (for some reason ongoing) debate over calories.



Warning:  This post is a compilation and linkfest of sorts.  I don't expect anyone to necessarily follow all of the links, etc., but this is a bit of an indication into how deeply this topic has been delved into, and thus the doggedness of the low carb shills that keep trying to repackage their message for profit.  It also gives me the opportunity to collect things in one place.

So ... Anthony Colpo.  His favorite troll pal Razwell is off his meds again and busy spamming my YouTube channel at the moment, but AC hasn't been making all that many waves of late.  One could almost forget his monumental smackdown of Dr. Eades back in 2010 occurred!  But ... Clearly Eades still thinks he won that debate, which is laughable.  There is no freakin metabolic advantage for low carb diets.  There just isn't, and if Eades is holding his breath for NuSI to find one, he won't be around for much longer!


You see, in the end, the so-called metabolic advantage Eades imagines turned out to be a few grams of insensible water loss and an advantage so non-advantageous that you can't measure it with your bathroom scale.  Whatta joke folks.  

But let's look at the 2007 post Noakes is resurrecting as "supreme wisdom" as regards calories:  Is a calorie always a calorie?    First of all, at this point I'm going to call intellectual dishonesty on anyone who argues carbs vs. fat calories when it is protein content in the diet that is responsible for differences, if any, observed.   For the umpteenth time, everyone who knows even the most basic concepts of nutrition and metabolism recognizes that a certain amount of protein goes to repair and maintenance functions and are not used for energy.  Further, different amino acids that are used for energy have different fates.  Yet, still, within a fairly wide range of normal intakes, even protein doesn't produce magical metabolic miracles in studies where intake is tightly monitored and verified.  But I digress ...

Eades first erects a strawman:  
The entirety of mainstream medicine and nutrition believe that calories are the only thing that counts and that a low-carb diet is nothing more than a clever way to get people to cut calories. Weight loss on low-carb diets, so they say, occurs only because subjects following low-carb diets reduce their caloric intake. A calorie is a calorie is a calorie they say. But is it?
Because even back in 2007 the mainstream was very cognizant of the role of protein in reducing diets.   And this was before Colpo wrote his Fat Loss Bible, but most of the studies cited in that book long predated Eades' post.  No the supreme wisdom of this post was Eades misrepresenting the Minnesota Starvation Experiment and comparing it to a LC weight loss study in the obese conducted by Yudkin.  His "supreme wisdom" includes gross errors in his analysis which he repeated in a print interview with Tim Ferris.  I blogged on that in:  Dr. Eades on Starvation Diets.  In summary:  Keys took initially lean men and starved them to considerably below normal weight over the course of six months on a diet that contained so little meat that Eades' own quote had the men claiming it contained none.  Yudkin took overweight individuals and put them on a low carb diet.  Eades misrepresents both the absolute protein content of the Keys diet and the macronutrient compositions percentage-wise.  He then makes the understatement of the year with:
I know that I’m not truly comparing apples to apples with the Keys and the Yudkin studies.
You don't say.  Ahhh tripping down memory lane we can officially add Tim Ferris to the calorie denial hack list with the opening of his interview:
Calorie counting can work, but it’s often based on pseudo-science.
Yeah right.  No, it is based on science.
I’ve examined before how people can lose 20+ lbs. of bodyfat — or gain 34 lbs. of lean mass — within four weeks, replete with measurements and photographs, but there is still a chorus: “That’s impossible! You’d need to have a 4,000-calorie daily deficit” or “That’s impossible! You’d need to consume 20,000 calories per day!”
If anyone has time on their hands, please debunk that garbage for me.
Nonsense. Thermodynamics isn’t so simple, and you can accelerate your body optimization results by understanding the real science…
Cue Dr. Eades for "real science"  ... laughable.  Sorry but at this point if I don't laugh at the lengths these hacks will go to make a buck off of people in the name of science, I'd get depressed.   

OK ... now here is where it just gets comical, because Dr. Eades claims to practice what he preaches ... most of the time.  And yet, in 2009 he and his wife wrote the absurd 6 Week Cure for the Middle Aged Middle.  In that book you basically "detoxify" your liver in the first two weeks thinking that's your visceral belly fat.  Then it is suggested you unload a pint of your liver-toxin infused blood off on unsuspecting transfusion recipients.  I kid you not.  But the disaster that is the book is not as important as it's entire reason for being.  You see, why was it that doctors who claimed to enjoy lasting weight loss and management using their own magical diet, NEEDED this diet?  Yes, 6WC was a crash diet plan hatched by the Eades after Dr. Mike was stuffed into a neoprene sausage casing to hide his belly while shooting a cooking show pilot.  Newer readers of this blog, I kid you not!  Hey Dr. Mike, Men's lingerie is on the second floor (just ask Wheat Belly).   

Why is this relevant?  Well, Eades is a diet weight loss guru and he unequivocally promotes his diet as superior.  It would help if it worked for him, no?  Last we heard in January 2012, the Drs. Eades had resolved to diet yet again.  This should simply not be the case if what they claim was true... or their own "doctor developed" Metabosol actually worked!   So ...

Supreme wisdom?  Low carb diets work for other magical reasons, not because you are eating fewer calories. 


usda1 foods eaten blogsize Low carb and caloriesSupreme irony:   Eades was so fascinated by his Keys/Yudkin analysis that he had to look at how many calories he himself consumes in a day on his magic diet.   On this "typical day" he ate 3 fried eggs, 3 sausage patties, some berries and coffee for breakfast, a bite of hard Italian sausage and an ounce of nuts for snacks, several cups of espresso throughout the day (because you know how energetic being a keto-adapted fat burner can be), a steak with some veggies for dinner, and berries with cream and a glass of wine to round out the day.  You can click to enlarge his image of the details if you like.  Sounds luxurious!  Well, to his surprise (?) :
image link


... all that food [... was] only 1749 Calories, which is not quite 200 Calories more than the subjects on both the Keys and the Yudkin studies ate.  I’ve followed this diet for a lot longer than the 24 weeks the Keys subjects followed their ‘semi-starvation’ diet, and I can assure you that I don’t look like the guy in the bottom picture. [I don't see a picture in his post, presumably it's like one at right]  The kind of calories one eats – not simply the number – makes an enormous difference.
Perhaps blinded by all the wisdom, Eades doesn't get the supreme irony here.  That is, that he is, however inadvertantly, consuming a rather low calorie diet for a man, and yet he is moderately overweight.  For the record, I would never call him fat as some do, but rather he's pretty average for a man his age/build.  Indeed I don't think anyone would find his physique notable one way or the other were it not for his grandiose claims regarding his low carb diet.  It remains laugh-worthy that a diet guru has to resort to wearing girdles and hiding behind kitchen appliances and under a doctor's coat he hasn't worn for its purpose in many years.   What the doctor has inadvertently shared here is a metabolic disadvantage of long term low carb dieting.    You see:
... according to the USDA, I’m 727 Calories below what is required to maintain my weight as it is. If you believe the old calories in/calories out theory that tells us that 3500 calories equals a pound of fat, I should be losing a pound of fat every 4.8 days (727/3500), which, again, I am not. My weight is holding pretty steady despite this caloric deficit.
No.  If Eades' weight was holding steady, it was not "despite" a caloric deficit, it was because he was in energy balance.   Another way of putting this is that Eades is yet another example of a long term low carber with a depressed metabolic rate. How big is this metabolic disadvantage?  Well, 727 calories is about 3.5 cups of rice, or a Big Mac & small Coke, or 1.5 cups Haagen-Daz vanilla ice cream. Or ... almost half of what the subjects in Keys' starvation diet are eating, or ... Eades himself.   That's some caloric "depression"!!  Which would only be a little sad for Dr. Eades were he not still out there spreading lies about how the human metabolism works in the name of science and health.  

Put even more succinctly, put normal weight men on Eades-level calories for six months and they become skeletal.  Put Eades on his diet for far, far longer, and he needs a girdle to go on TV.  So finally, in his post he writes:
What’s interesting, though, is that if an obese person goes on this same diet, that person will lose weight like crazy. Why does the obese person lose while I don’t on the same caloric deficit? Because the obese person has a deranged metabolism, which is what makes that person obese in the first place. This diet fixes the problem, which allows the fat to be burned off instead of stored.
No, Dr. Eades, all those mainstream idiots are just not so blinded by their own dogma that they realize that the obese person loses weight (usually!) on that level of calories because they ARE in caloric deficit, while you are not because you are in caloric balance.  What is truly sad is that there are so many long-term low carbers who must eat even less than that and are nowhere near a normal weight (which is what happens to me on sustained LC ... my metabolism tanks big time).  This was the point of the Fast or Feltham posts here ,  here and here -- especially that last one featuring a woman who low carbed for three years without much weight loss success, and then had to reduce intake to under 1000 cal/day to lose 60 lbs.  All of this is quite counter to Eades' claims in 2008 when he was already dealing with the nemesis from down under.   The first comment in that post caught my eye.  You might recognize the author.   


I have seen Wooo claim she has a supremely slow metabolism and eats a lot ...  crediting, as she did above, LC with the ability to do so.  Well, in 2008 her RMR was measured at 1000-1200 cal/day which is exceedingly normal (if perhaps on the low side of normal) for a woman of her size and age.  This would translate into 1333-1846 cal/day TDEE if one uses a RMR/TDEE factor of 0.75 (sedentary) on the low end or 0.65 (normally active) on the high end RMR.  See?  Nothing spectacular.  Nothing miraculous about maintaining her weight at around 1650 cal/day.  Interestingly she has gained a bit of weight since (10 lbs? not a bad thing at all in her case) and she did that by ... drumroll ... not engaging in as much restriction as she has blogged about on multiple occasions.  She now claims to be eating around 1800 cal/day (and I don't want to track down cites or do what she so often does to me, which is to misrepresent things, so if I'm wrong, please correct me in comments).  Miracles?  Magic?  No.  CICO.  That her metabolic rate hasn't gone in the tank like so many others is likely due to other factors and you can read her blog if you're interested in what those might be.

All of the sensationalistic "success stories" aside, the long term record of the low carb diet is no better and likely worse than the so-called CICO based "bad science".  Only CICO is *the* science, good or bad, it is what it is!  And yet these hacks keep on keeping on re-inventing the same metabolic wheel and denying that the laws of thermodynamics do indeed still apply to living beings after all.  

Interspersed with his formally titled "AC Fat Bible critiques", Eades penned:  Thermodynamics and the metabolic advantage  (3/6/10).  This is an amazing display of hubris on the parts of both Eades and Dr. Richard Feinman -- he of the 2nd law violates the 1st law fame.  At the end of some response Feinman made to Colpo's dismantling of his bad science (you can go to the link to read the rest), we have this:
11. Relevant ideas to ponder: I once challenged Colpo to give me a definition of the nutritional calorie (because this makes clear what the issue is), that is, not the definition of the physical calorie (raises a gram of water 1 degree C ) but what we mean when we say carbohydrate has 4 kcal/g. His answer suggested that he had undergone spontaneous combustion but anybody else can answer the question. The other question is that in bioenergetics we talk about calories as the free energy, G, which is a potential, analogous to gravitational potential. When you throw the boulder off the cliff its potential energy is converted to kinetic energy and then goes to zero when it hits the bottom. Where does the energy go? The delta G (energy of reaction) for hydrolysis of a peptide bond is about 2 kcal. When it reaches equilibrium (amino acids) the energy is zero. In other words, thermodynamics talks about dissipation of energy, not conservation. How is that possible? Where does the energy go? 

Hope this helps.
Richard David Feinman
Professor of Cell BiologyTher
SUNY Downstate Medical Center
Whoa. The energy doesn't go to zero.  If the boulder doesn't bounce or physically break apart and scatter about, then that kinetic energy is absorbed by the ground and the boulder in the form of deformation and cracks in both (a little crater or at least a dent) and some heat evolved due to friction that is "lost" to the surroundings.  If you don't believe me, go have a chat with Dale Earnhardt's widow and the engineers working for NASCAR designing the safer barriers and vehicle bumpers.   And don't even get me started on his description of breaking a protein down to amino acids as a system going to equilibrium and the energy going poof!  It's just too bizarre for words that someone of his stature should write this.  So yeah, maybe a calorie is not a calorie and carbohydrates are essential in the diet after all... I just can't think of any other reason for this ...  [ I've addressed this here before: Of Thermodynamics, Chemistry, Biology and Biochemistry (7/3/10) , Of Thermodynamics, Chemistry, Biology and Biochemistry ~ Feinman Reply(7/7/10) , A Fein(man), Fine Mess of Thermodynamics (7/29/12) ]

And then along came Nikoley to remind Dr. Mike of his previous lies to explain the metabolic advantage.  Futile cycles and uncoupling.  There is no evidence that either of these energy "wasting" processes are upregulated by the LCHF diet.  None.  But that doesn't stop Eades from stating that they are with nary a "might" or "can" interspersed. 

And STILL, Eades wasn't done with Colpo: More on the thermodynamics of weight loss (3/13/10) but that mostly works off the writings of another blogger here, that I blogged on in:  Of Thermodynamics, Complexity, Closed Systems & Equilibrium.  Like I said, this has been a linkfest, but that last one might be worth a read.

So Eades is questioning @KateinAustin's scientific credentials because she isn't buying his schtick.  For the record, I question credentials when people in positions of so-called authority don't have any credentials or espouse junk science like Eades does. I don't recall if he's ever mentioned what his undergraduate scientific credentials are, but Dr. Eades is in agreement that medical school isn't the place to hone one's critical thinking skills in this area.


It is too bad medical school stunts the critical thinking processes of future doctors and diet doctors turned book authors as well.    Perhaps had he not had his mind turned to rote and repetitious mush he wouldn't have turned acritical thinking into a spectator sport.  As these "alternative" enlightened doctors look down their noses as their peers, they might just want to glance in the mirror from time to time and realize that their thoughts apply to the guy/gal staring back at them.

Comments

River Rance said…
Yikes, Eades again! Anthony C definitely got the better of him on the CICO debate, in fact, IMO, AC made Eades his... well, you know.. his little.....OK you know, he made him his _ _ _ _ _ can't use the word here....but clearly Anthony won that one. In fact he OWNS Eades and if memory serves....smacked the angry animal around a bit also when he chimed in. Eades has a bit of the Wacky Uncle Syndrome in him these days. Anyway,help me here Evelyn. If CICO doesn't matter then why do people have very risky bariatric surgery that enables them to reduce the amount of food intake? Isn't that an indication that calories DO matter?
George said…
I think the Yudkin/ Keyes comparison was about the low-carbers experiencing less hunger at that low calorie intake, and less lowering of BMR, than the across-the-board calorie restrictionists. I guess you could call that a "metabolic advantage" of sorts. Yudkin always said that was the benefit, that it is easier to restrict carbs than calories plus the selectively carb-restricted diet is more nutritious in terms of the essential nutrients than a normal diet with portions cut.
Anthony said…
Hey Evelyn,

I don't normally leave comments on other people's blogs, but will make a brief exception in this instance to point out 2 things:

1. This was a great post :)

2. That my eyebrows just did that raising/arching/"WTF?" thing when I read your reprint of Feinman's comment:

"I
once challenged Colpo to give me a definition of the nutritional
calorie (because this makes clear what the issue is), that is, not the
definition of the physical calorie (raises a gram of water 1 degree C )
but what we mean when we say carbohydrate has 4 kcal/g. His answer
suggested that he had undergone spontaneous combustion but anybody else
can answer the question."

Bullshit. Not sure which mythical
creature Richard Feinman sent his email to, but it sure as heck
never arrived in any of my inboxes. I did get an unsolicited email from
him at my now-defunct TheOmnivore.com inbox circa late 2005 when the
low-carb movement first got its knickers in a knot at my temerity to
point out the unassailable facts about calories, dietary macros and
weight status. In it, there were no challenges by the almighty Dick for
yours truly to craft any definitions about calories, instead he boasted he had thirty
years of experience teaching thermodynamics and that he would be happy
to "teach" me some of this supreme wisdom with me if I so wished.

My
response when I read this bemusing display of cocksuredness was the
same one I instinctively employ whenever I'm confronted with a braggart
who in reality is woefully ignorant of the subject he thinks he knows so
much about: I shook my head, muttered "What a tool!", and promptly went
back to scouring eBay for Ramones memorabilia.

So don't worry Richard, I didn't spontaneously combust - I was probably busy scoring the signed music sheets for I Wanna Be Sedated and Rock'n'Roll High School.

I'd actually
forgotten Feinman existed until I read your post (thanks Evelyn LOL),
however if he's still around, I have a counter-challenge for him:

Dear
Richard, oh he of such supreme thermodynamic wisdom, you claim the
common body of knowledge regarding calories is so deeply flawed, so why
in your convoluted paper of 2004 that you co-authored with Eugene Fine,
whose specialty is not nutrition but nuclear-something, did you
selectively cite a small cherry-picked handful of studies that appeared
to show greater weight loss on low-carbohydrate diets, when the caloric
data from those studies was based on the same widely accepted body of
caloric knowledge that you claim to find so distastefully flawed?

Let
me answer that for you: Like most dogmatists, you really don't give a
rat's ass about the quality of evidence unless that evidence happens to
conflict your own cherished beliefs. You, and your buddy Eades, are
happy to accept the most appalling slop if it supports your own
argument, but come up with the most inane (some would say insane)
objections to evidence that refutes your easily-refuted hogwash.

My
initial judgement about Feniman stands as confirmed. He needs to quit with the theoretical wankery and provide concrete evidence conducted under tightly controlled ward conditions that people lose more weight on low-carb than high-carb diets despite EATING THE SAME CALORIE INTAKE on both. I've been asking the Latter Day Church of Low-Carbers for this evidence for some eight years now, and all I get in response to this rather straightforward request - aside from the occasional plea to insensible water loss ROTFLMAO - is nasty names. Tsk tsk.


You know, low-carbers are a lot like vegans in this regard, except more constipated.

Now excuse me
folks, there's a signed Joey Ramone t-shirt on eBay, I need to go check
how my bid is progressing ;)

Punk rock memorabilia 10, thermodynamic pseudoscientists 0.

Peace, love and olive oil everyone,

Ciao,

Anthony Colpo.
Kindke said…
gastric bypass does substantially more than just make people eat less.

evidence suggests that the success of these two surgeries is attenuate the normal adaptive response to energy restriction and weight loss. For instance, whereas weight loss byenergy restriction typically plateaus within a few months –indicative of energy-conserving effects – patients with Roux-en-Y gastric bypass continue to lose weight without major plateaus until about 1 year post-surgery

educate yourself.......

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22070225
carbsane said…
patients with Roux-en-Y gastric bypass continue to lose weight without major plateaus until about 1 year post-surgery


And then they plateau. Your point?
carbsane said…
I guess all Wacky Uncles go into the supplement business ;-)


Despite what Kindke says, weight loss on GBP is due to eating less. There are less well understood metabolic changes.


Kindke, I think one of the more heart breaking things is the GBP's that regain the weight several years down the line. They either (1) stretch the stomach back out and/or (2) learn to eat around the small stomach - e.g. liquid calories.

I think a lot of people are (intentionally?) interpreting acknowledging that CICO "rules" as some sort of moralistic judgment or simple solution. It is not, it is just reality.
carbsane said…
BTW -- Kindke's post is showing as Spam on my Disqus dashboard. I do not see a "not spam" designation so I have approved it -- several times -- then refresh the Spam folder and it's there again. Just an FYI in case it starts "bouncing".
Adam said…
The reason people think it is a moralistic judgement is pretty clear: A lot of uninformed people who are not prone to fattening in a fattening environment conflate people who are prone to fattening as gluttons. You do not think that but quite a few people do. Of course people who continue to claim that you think that are just burning straw men and chanting in echo chambers.


I remember reading some of the responses when obesity was classified as a disease and being pretty shocked (especially at a few doctors) at the moral undertones of their criticisms.
carbsane said…
Yeah but there's no moral undertones in calling people addicts ;-)


I think the most depressing thing was almost 3 years ago now when Gary Taubes came out with this notion that some people are probably so metabolically broken that even leafy greens or a few blueberries are making/keeping them fat.
lucyricardanon said…
The comparison still doesn't work though, because in addition to the difference in diet composition, the men in the MN study were already lean, and would have experienced an extreme level of hunger at that deficit regardless of macros.
eulerandothers said…
'It is too bad medical school stunts the critical thinking processes of future doctors and diet doctors turned book authors as well.'



I don't think of Eades as a book author - I think of him as a pure businessman. Is he still trying to sell his sous vide machine? Way back, before I ever read him, he was trying to sell some concoction (which I learned about when he had to unload some surplus).


Nothing wrong with being a businessman. But it's a different animal from 'book author.' Taubes jumped from book author to businessman rather quickly.
carbsane said…
Yes he's a businessman. Most of them are, the books are to increase exposure more than anything. He is still selling the sous vide but I have yet to see an informercial for it or seen it change the world as he thought. In this regard he's not a very good businessman though if he got enough investors then whatever he gained that's all gravy. By that I mean I could have predicted it would have a small market but not take off. People are temporarily stupid or perhaps optimistic for $20 or even $50, not $400 or even $100. There are so many issues with that sucker that far outweigh the bennies unless you can see yourself using it 2-3 times per week. Oh ... and yes ... he gave away the expired Metabosol but there's a new bunch for sale now.


Taubes strikes me as less of a businessman than someone who wants to be renowned for something. If he never writes another book he will forever be known for that NYT article and GCBC. Same with NuSI. It's more about legacy building but whatever annual salary he draws is icing.
carbsane said…
This has nothing to do with carbs, it's about protein and nutrient diversity. As lucy said, the comparison would still not work because even a PSMF would not be tolerated well by a lean person restricted to the underweight state.

Where is there any evidence that LC lowers BMR less?
carbsane said…
Honored that you stopped by! Somehow I knew the rumors of your sponaneous combustion were premature. Ramones rock ... as do you!
Mike Victor said…
Look at the ridiculously patronizing comment Feinman left on this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0O8hXK-330

Unprofessional or what? Also, either the guy lets his kids use his YouTube account, or he's spent the last eight months watching Minecraft videos.
carbsane said…
WOW. I wish I could color myself surprised but I'm not.


Speaking of funding ... Volek and Westman were both funded by Atkins so ...
Mike Victor said…
Just a note. I did not intentionally post that picture. I can only
assume that it happens automatically when you post a link to a YouTube
video.
Sanjeev Sharma said…
note to Noakes: post-1966 Pauling called: he wants his playbook back
Sanjeev Sharma said…
> and your scientific credentials are?

skepticism

a willingness to admit I'm wrong

lack of cherry picking

lack of gull

lack of girdle

> mikey, you sound like carbsane

eh ... been a long time since Eades sounded balanced, somewhat reasonable and smart.

Nice try though
Sanjeev Sharma said…
>too bad medical school stunts the critical thinking processes of future doctors

this reminded me of the guest post by a soon-to-graduate med student on Dr. Friedhof's blog - the woman who wanted more nutrition education left me wishing she had taken more "know your biases and how to overcome them" (ie, a skeptical thinking course). I don't know how much of this she had been taught, and a short article was not the best way to figure it out, but it really smacked me as something a non-critical thinker could have written.

http://www.weightymatters.ca/2013/04/guest-post-do-medical-schools-teach.html

I've heard Steve Novella [0] claim that unless an Eng/Sci/Med student's taken several critical thinking courses, they don't become what we consider critical until well into grad school.

And since Novella sees students on the track to becoming researchers he doesn't see MDs intending to work ASAP, and he probably doesn't get to influence surgeons in training.

[0] and others at his level of higher US ed (Brown's Ken Miller's another who's said it, IIRC)
Sanjeev Sharma said…
disqus does a lot of things automatically - they put the kibosh on my old practice of making a clickable link and separately typing out a link and a copy-and-pasteable address so people can read the link's address for work safety
Sanjeev Sharma said…
don't forget the restaurant
Josh said…
Hi Anthony

While you are here for a second, I have a quick off topic question:

In the 'Danny Albers Replies to My Recent Article' post on your site you posted a screenshot of a facebook conversation where you stated:

"For the record, my website is not a blog, there is no comments function"

Which I found a little bit confusing as your site is quite clearly a wordpress site. If you choose not to have comments on your blog then that's fair enough, just wondering why you would say that?

Cheers
Nigel Kinbrum said…
Here's a possible explanation http://anthonycolpo.com/can-low-carb-diets-make-you-crazy/ ;-)
carbsane said…
A lot of the problems were related to the external nature of the restriction. The goal was to starve them and they did a lot of physical activity as well. If they weren't losing weight their intake was cut even further. I do think that the protein content of an LC diet may have mitigated SOME of the issues, but you're right that they wouldn't be happily existing hunger free as they wasted away.
carbsane said…
Hi Josh, I doubt AC will respond here, but here's my paraphrased take on what he has said in the past. He uses a WP blog platform because of the "ease of publication" and has always had comments turned off. For quite a while there people used to harp on and on about how he was a coward for turning off comments on controversial pieces when that just wasn't the case, he just doesn't do the comment thing.
carbsane said…
Hi Josh, I doubt AC will respond here, but here's my paraphrased take on what he has said in the past. He uses a WP blog platform because of the "ease of publication" and has always had comments turned off. There used to be a notice "comments are disabled" or something like that after each post. For quite a while there people used to harp on and on about that ... how he was some sort of coward for turning off comments on controversial pieces, where for better or worse, he didn't host comments on any of his content.


I see that nowadays there's no indication that there's even a comment function hidden. So whether there's a function on the platform or not, he chooses not to use it and use WP as a website only.
lucyricardanon said…
I think some added protein would've helped with the muscle wasting, but probably not much in terms of perceived hunger. Maybe a little, but considering the level of hunger they would've felt, a small difference wouldn't have been too noticeable.
eulerandothers said…
I see Taubes as a businessman; his gig with NuSi gives him a paycheck. He will be known for GCBC.
I wonder if it allows you to put a text URL if you omit the http ... sometimes that works: carbsanity.blogspot.com
carbsane said…
No probs on the picture anyway.
carbsane said…
Agreed.
Gene said…
If Eades' weight is relevant, so is yours. Why, with all your knowledge and apparent understanding are you still overweight, Evelyn?
carbsane said…
When I write a diet book then my weight will be relevant. Eades' weight is relevant because he claims to have lost weight himself on LC and is an ardent promoter of a diet that has failed him and his wife from time to time. Just as anyone selling a diet book's weight is relevant. K?
carbsane said…
That one was funny too. He got into that after his LC schtick so it was uber hypocritical to go into the Mexican fast food business dontcha think? :D
Anthony said…
Hey Josh,

I'll quickly answer this because every now and then someone seems to bring this up. Before I do, let me quote from the Wikipedia definition of a blog:

"A majority are interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments and even message each other via GUI widgets on the blogs, and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites.[2] In that sense, blogging can be seen as a form of social networking. Indeed, bloggers do not only produce content to post on their blogs, but also build social relations with their readers and other bloggers.[3] There are high-readership blogs which do not allow comments, such as Daring Fireball."

I've been running websites since the early 2000s, long before I'd heard of the term "blog". My website is static, meaning I post articles on a relatively infrequent basis, then turn the damn computer off and go live my life out in the real world. That's the way I've always done it, except for a brief flirtation in the mid-2000s with running a forum, which I pretty much found to be a waste of time, not to mention a magnet for trolling low-carb nutters.

As for using my website for "social networking"...quite frankly, I couldn't give a rat's ass about social networking. The sole purpose of my website is to relay information about diet, health and training, not to pick up chicks or establish Amway contacts.

Yes, I use Wordpress as the platform for my website, I began doing so several years back upon the advice of my tech guys. Interestingly, Wordpress never made me sign an agreement saying that "By using our site, you hereby agree to adopt and apply to yourself the label of 'blogger', and you hereby agree to allow comments on your website because that's what bloggers are expected to do by...someone. Failure to abide by these conditions will attract severe penalties under the Cyber Sheep Act of 2008, section 573C."

The graphics you see on the site were purchased as part of a ready-made Wordpress-compatible template, which includes a website function and a blog function. The blog function remains dormant, I only use the "static" function, which contains no comments option.

If people want to "comment" on my website content, they're more than welcome to go start a discussion group or write a letter to their local paper or something. Not to mention that there are already several trillion discussion forums on the Internet they can post to (rumour has it low-carbers have been using these forums to vigorously piss and moan about me since late 2005!)

I simply don't have the time nor the inclination to sit and answer endless questions and moderate all the demented vegan/low-carb trolls that a comments section would inevitably attract.

Oh, and any brave, mighty, fearsome cyber-warriors who think this makes me a "coward" are more than welcome to step out from behind the safety of their computer screens and explain to my face just why this is so ROTFLMAO

Sorry folks, but I refuse to let the Internet run my life, I spend my time at my computer on my terms. There's way too much else going on here for me to become one of these types who pays homage to their computer all day...

OK, now I'm really out of here lol

Ciao,

Anthony.
Nigel Kinbrum said…
This reply is for Josh, whose comment is in moderation & can therefore not be replied to.

Which part of "OK, now I'm really out of here lol" did you not understand? Why are you trying to leave a comment aimed at Anthony, when he clearly stated that he's really out of here i.e. he has no intention of reading any more comments on here or replying to them?

I feel the need to ask, as I had exactly the same thing happen to me on a different blog. http://www.avatarhosting.net/pics/12721/picardfacepalm.jpg
carbsane said…
Nigel, his comment has been approved. Please respect the moderation feature here and do not respond to comments unless they are visible to everyone.
Nigel Kinbrum said…
Sorry about that. Comment deleted.
Josh said…
Hi Evelyn. Sorry, I fixed a couple of typos that I noticed and I think that put the comment back in to moderation. I didn't realise it did that when you edited a comment.
Anthony said…
Josh,

seeing as you've so kindly taken it upon yourself to call me a bullshitter, let me call a spade a spade:

You are a malevolent fool.

Before you accuse someone of dishonesty, get your facts right, sunshine. I've just explained how I use my site as a static website. I use a template called LondonCreative from ThemeForest.

Go to the website for this theme, read the specifications, and use the interactive demo. There IS a static component and a blog component. I do NOT use the blog component.

Look at the live preview of the theme here:

http://themeforest.net/item/london-creative-portfolio-blog-wp-theme/full_screen_preview/70613

You'll note there is a tab up the top that says "BLOG".

Now, go to my website and see if you can see a tab that says "BLOG":

http://anthonycolpo.com/

Tell me again who the blatant bullshitter is, Josh?

As for whether others have had trouble turning the comments section off ... what, exactly, does this have to do with me? I've never had problems with turning the comments function on or off because, for the umpteenth time, I've NEVER used the blog function! I have only used the static function which has NO comments function!

Am I getting through to you Josh, or do I need to slow down and use B-I-G hyphenated letters and shorter words, so your struggling brain can comprehend what I'm saying?

As for the Sociable plug-ins, these acknowledge the reality that while I couldn't give a shite about Twitter, LinkedIn, etc and firmly believe that a lot of people spend way too much time on Facebook enlightrening others about every last banal aspect of their lives, other people do use these services to discuss health matters and share links and articles on the subject. Countless non-blog, non-interactive websites have these functions for the exact same reason. I will reiterate once more - my website is for me to relay my findings and thoughts on training, diet and health, not to make new buddies or to spend all day "interacting" with faceless people on the Internet.

Thank you Josh, for providing a sterling textbook classic example of why I would never have a comments function on my site. Too many antagonistic fools who have no idea what they are on about, using the safety and distance of the Internet to make their presence felt the only way they know how - by being obnoxious, argumentative, libelous jerks.

Without any evidence whatsoever, and based only on your thoroughly deficient knowledge of the theme I've chosen to use for my website, you accuse me of dishonesty. What a manly man you must be!

Adios,

Anthony.
Anthony said…
Josh,

seeing as you've so kindly taken it upon yourself to publicly call me a bullshitter, let me return in kind and call a spade a spade:

You are a malevolent, ignorant fool.

Before you accuse someone of dishonesty, get your facts right, sunshine. I've just explained how I use my site as a static website. I use a template called LondonCreative from ThemeForest.

Go to the website for this theme, read the specifications, and use the interactive demo. There IS a static component and a blog component. I do NOT use the blog component.

Look at the live preview of the theme here:

http://themeforest.net/item/london-creative-portfolio-blog-wp-theme/full_screen_preview/70613

You'll note there is a tab up the top that says "BLOG".

Now, go to my website and see if you can see a tab that says "BLOG":

http://anthonycolpo.com/

Look's like I'm not the one guilty of "blatant BS", Josh...


You may work for Wordpress, but that doesn't mean you have a clue what you're talking about.

As for the Sociable/Facebook "like" plug-ins, these acknowledge the reality that while I couldn't give a shite about Twitter, LinkedIn, etc and firmly believe that a lot of people spend way too much time on Facebook enlightening others about every last banal aspect of their lives, other people do use these services to discuss health matters and share links and articles on the subject. Countless non-blog, non-interactive websites have these plug-ins/functions for the exact same reason. I will reiterate once more - my website is for me to relay my findings and thoughts on training, diet and health, not to make new buddies or to spend all day "interacting" with faceless people on the Internet.

Thank you Josh, for providing a sterling textbook classic example of why I would never have a comments function on my site. Too many antagonistic fools who have no idea what they are on about, using the safety and distance of the Internet to make their presence felt the only way they know how - by being obnoxious, argumentative, libelous jerks.

Without any evidence whatsoever, and based only on your thoroughly deficient knowledge of the theme I've chosen to use for my website, you accuse me of dishonesty. Good on ya, Josh!

Adios,

Anthony.

PS. I guess I should take solace in the fact that nitpicking over the technicalities over what makes a website a "blog" or static site, and maliciously claiming I engage in "blatant BS" when I state my site is the latter, evidently marks a new level of desperation among my critics.

Get a life, Josh.
Pochy said…
I don't get why so many reputable researchers have been convinced by NuSi? What does it hold? It doesn't even have NIH Stipends or R01 grants, let alone any backing except philanthropy. Yet some really credible scientists have been hypnotized by it.
SpiritSplice said…
" My weight is holding pretty steady despite this caloric deficit."

More likely he is simply lying or doing a shit job counting. He didn't get so fat by eating little.
carbsane said…
From what I hear, the Eades are famous for taking vacations from LC.
SpiritSplice said…
I think that is pretty obvious considering his condition. In fact, I am willing to bet he never eats LC at all.

I also heard the same of Atkins, that he didn't actually follow his own diet.