Haha, ditto Leigh, we were posting at the same time.

Great minds Steve

And looking forward to the results of your 'study.'

Were you working with any obese individuals?

Yup, you both are.

Like I said in the email, can't wait for the study!

Thanks Trevor

Steve little short on time but here is a snippet from an interview I did with Craig ballantyne that give s a little brief look at what I was up to and what the study is about.

Believe me, now one would ever claim that I under eat. When I was commuting to work in phoenix I was regularly taking in 4000 calories to make up for the deficit. The poor little skinny kid grew up into a hulking guy that weights 200 lbs when I am trim. As a teenager, I was the garbage disposal who would eat anything. Unfortunately, metabolism changes with age and incredibly stressful events take their toll. I am only about 30 pounds overweight now. I had lost a good deal, but the stress of thesis writing, moving to a foreign country and taking care of a family led me to be less careful and I just regained weight up to the setpoint and here I am again. Such a pain in the butt.

Steve you asked what I would do when I get to my desired weight. I will simply move my calories to my maintenance level and then maintain until my body accepts the new weight. You ask how I know my BMR, and I am a science guy. I measured it. I varied my calories through a large range, measured my weight, and then did a linear regression (It is not easy to line the calories up if you do not behave on the spacing of the weighing). Nice straight line. All the way from negative calories (Cals in – Exercise) to positive calories, No variation within the errors of the method. This is what made me wonder about the starvation mode thing. But I know that one person does not make a result, so I decided to ask. I assume that others have done this work as well, but I may be wrong.

As for the contention that the great majority of people who diet at home do not lose weight, experience says that this is more than a little correct. I only personally know one person who has lost more that 10 pounds and kept it off. I thought really hard about this too. 1 person out of probably 100 people that I know personally! This includes quite a few that are on commercial diets. Have you been to Disney land lately? Seriously, dieting slow or fast is not working in America!

As for why I didn’t major in nutrition… Physics allows you to invade any discipline. That is why I am a biophysicist. Biologists do awful science, so we invaded to add a little bit of real science to something that was just experience, half answers and junk. Kind of like nutrition and weight loss. Man, most of these studies wouldn’t even be good enough for an undergrad project in physics.

Leigh. Thank you for the very complete answer. I can understand the increased need for nutrition. That is a very good reason to eat more . On the BMR thing, I am finding that the only thing that really seems to affect it is extreme sickness, but like I said, I do not have full access to the health studies. I will just stick to what works for me. Mostly reducing my stress load so that I can endure my dieting induced stupidity long enough to get the weight off. (By the way, the car example almost works, except engine wear is only determined by running time and gas quality. Car doesn’t care if you run out of gas. I was also a mechanic and carpenter and …) Thank you for your patience.

I will try a copy of a nutrition book and see if it has more complete information than the copy of Cell that I now have.

Thanks Leigh... nothing earth shattering but certainly reinforces what we've known all along. Congrats on that interview btw!

My interest lies primarily in obese subjects and what level of dieting they can 'handle' not factoring in the psychological side of things. I have a feeling you and I have differing viewpoints on the subject.... but I could be wrong since we've never discussed this in detail.

800 cals a day plus exercise!!! Dang that's dangerous (and I know next to nothing.) But I couldn't imagine. At one time I tried a 1000 cal. diet (just on my own, didn't read into it or anything.) But once I started incorporating exercise, the weight didn't fly off and then I had to up my cals to start losing weight again (plus most days I felt horrible and exhausted!) I figured out on my own that that was just stupidity (yeah I know, stupid, stupid!) But what did I know.

I'm surprised all of the women didn't drop out! I know I would've. LOL

I would love to chat about it sometime Steve. In short from the research I have done and from general case client work I believe the more fat you carry the more extreme of level you can take a deficit before you hit muscle loss or stunt fat loss due to a lot of factors but mainly because of the release of hormones from the heavy amount of fat cells they carry. This is of course assuming that the obese individual is operating under a normal gland/hormone function (most are). I will say my feelings on this used to be otherwise but I have since been proven wrong by solid reasearch and my own experiments. That doesn't meant that the eat more/move more style of program can't work for an obese individual, but it does mean you have a lot more room and a deficit to work with. Just my opinion from gathered material and experiance thus far. There aren't a tons of studies that support it that I believe to be great studies, but a few.

Well then we whole-heartily agree!

I thought your take was different, but I was wrong. Glad to hear this too!

I'll admit, after working with a wide array of obese clients.... the relatively extreme caloric deficits these people are able to handle aren't always the best approach, once you factor in the psychology of it all.

That said, for some, it works. Works well I might add.

It's certainly a clear indication that you don't have to 'tread' as lightly with regards to calorie manipulation as you do when working with their leaner counterpart.

Great thread guys I learned a lot.