The Carb-Sane Asylum

Post Overview: In the context of weight loss, maintenance or gain, eventually all roads lead to the acceptance that *calories matter* ... you must be in deficit, balance or surplus respectively. In the wake of the recent The Biggest Loser Regain study , there has been a lot of doom-and-gloom reporting, led by Gina Kolata and Sandra Aamodt  in the New York Times .   I've distilled the results down to the bare bones: Summarized from Table 1 from Fothergill et.al.   14 Contestants (6 Men , 8 Women) The "alarming outcome" was that resting metabolic rate was reduced as might be expected, but seemingly remained suppressed and even further declined despite significant re-gain (70% re-gain/loss for the mean) after 6 years.   However the TEEs -- the TOTAL energy expenditures for the day -- tell a different tale.   These were measured over a roughly two week period by doubly labeled water in free-living conditions. The TEEs remained high at 30 weeks  The TEEs i

Is Gary Taubes losing it?  His grip on reality, that is?  I submit that it is the only "innocent" explanation for his behavior of late. Gary Taubes and Mike Eades in Better Days for Low Carb "Science"  8/13/2008 direct image link I'll have more to say when I can recoup from the busy time of year in my real job coupled with traveling weekend before last.  But if you haven't heard, two studies conducted by NIH scientist Kevin Hall: The unveiling of the results of the NuSI funded multi-center study at an obesity conference.  See Nutrition Wonk for the most info.  This was a 2 month metabolic ward study. The followup results of a study on The Biggest Loser with some confusing metabolic outcomes.  I say confusing as the numbers don't add up, but that hasn't stopped pretty much everyone from painting a picture of doom and gloom topped with a large dollop of CICO/ELMM is going to destroy your metabolism fatalism.    I will have more to say

I just came back from a trip to Kansas City to meet the public (grin) and was immediately bombarded from several sides with the above video.   Nutrition Wonk has transcribed the talk so head on over to see that and the poster!