Did you ever wonder where that idiotic advice came from? You hear it everywhere. From your own doctor, from your next door neighbor, from the health writers in all the major papers, from just about anyone you ask. How’s the best way to lose weight? Eat less and exercise more.
Would it surprise you to learn that there is no scientific evidence that people can lose weight by eating less and exercising more? Sure, there are studies showing that it works for the short term, but who wants to put the effort into losing weight for the short term. We all want long-term, i.e., permanent, weight loss. There are no studies showing that eating less brings about permanent weight loss and no group of studies demonstrating that increasing exercise promotes weight loss. So, how does one achieve permanent weight loss? It’s easy. Ask anyone. Eat less and exercise more.
Since there is no evidence that the eat-less-exercise-more strategy works other than for the very short term, how did it become so entrenched in the minds of so many? It did it by the same means that the idea that a low-fat diet is optimal for health (another unproven hypothesis, that if anything has been shown to be just the opposite) got traction. It is a meme.
The dictionary definition of a meme is that it is an element of culture or a system of behavior that passes from one person to the next non-genetically, but more like a virus. Some ideas become memes; some don’t. The ones that do can become extremely powerful. In fact they can become so powerful that, like a deadly virus, they can kill their host.
Below is an excellent video from a TED presentation on memes by the philosopher Daniel Dennett. From it you will learn how powerful memes can be. And from it you can extrapolate why all these diverse people think the only way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more. Sadly, you’ll realize how difficult it’s ever going to be to change this false idea. Gary Taubes’ book is going to make a strong run at it, so let’s all keep our fingers crossed.
A bit about TED. TED stands for technology, entertainment and design and is a get together of supposedly smart people who give talks to one another much like the Renaissance Weekends, with the difference being that the Renaissance Weekends are all off the record whereas the TED talks are filmed and made available to the public. (I’ve never been to a TED meeting but MD and I have attended a Renaissance Weekend. See my post about our experience .) Whereas the Renaissance Weekends are liberal leaning but with an opposing conservative and libertarian group to make the discussions lively, TED strikes me as a way liberal-leaning get together. I doubt that you’re going to see any Karl Roves or Thomas Sowells there. But, that’s just my opinion from watching the videos over the years.
The presentation by Dennett on memes is outstanding. Enjoy.
Click here for the video
If you’re still in the mood after watching the Dennett video, take a look at this one. The speaker, Hans Rosling, from Sweden, gives a talk that wows the TED crowd. He has some truly dazzling graphics and a stupendous stunt at the end (which impressed the heck out of me. In fact, I’m considering learning it for my own talks), but, in my opinion, his talk is extremely disingenuous. Watch as the crowd leaps to its feet in raucous applause at the close. If they’re applauding the stunt, I’m right there with them. But, if as I expect, they are applauding because they swallowed Dr. Rosling’s ideas hook, line and sinker, it tells me that critical thinking isn’t a skill much in evidence at the TED meetings.
And finally, if you’re feeling depressed and down on yourself, take a look at this last video. To increase your self esteem and make you really feel upbeat and positive about your own skills, abilities and achievements, compare yourself to this 11-year old girl selected at random from all the 11-year olds out there. You’ll feel a lot better. Really.
The official website of Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades, low carb pioneers and authors of Protein Power.
I get your meaning but a little disingenuous this time. that meme is not hard to understand. Scientific studies are one kind of evidence, but not the only kind.
We also have practitioners like Tom Venuto, with 20 years experience, advocating eating x calories, and exercising x calories, based on formulas (formulas based on 50 year old studies of college guys?) He gets results – on the segment of the population he sees (thousands over his career).
I like what Phinney said in that interview “Exercise and Low Carb Diets,” around minute 54:00 – that it works for “a small minority of people. And those are the ones who are held up as the poster children for that mode of treatment.”
I’d like to see Venuto’s (I don’t know who he is, BTW) long term results; I doubt that they’re any better than anyone else’s irrespective of how many years experience he has putting people on the wrong diets.
Phinney is absolutely correct. And a very small minority of people they are.
Eating less and exercising more has absolutely worked for me (at least a hundred times in my long life). I was a gym rat and worked out six days a week, three hours every day. My muscular definition thrilled me. I was still obese.
I did Weight Watchers and went from 265 to 138 very quickly. It was at the time that WW was awarding diamond pins to big losers. The WW leader asked me how I was able to lose a consistent 13 pounds a month. I admitted to her that it certainly was not by following the WW program. Actually, I was fasting every Saturday and Sunday.
So, here I am, 71 years of obsessive dieting (I was put on my first diet at three, the same year I sang in public for the first time). My doctor said that I’m perfectly healthy, go home and stop obsessing about your weight.
I’m doing Protein Power Purist, the three Ps, overeating protein, but feeling fantastic.
At 74, men my son’s age try to pick me up (heavy!) so I’m doing something right.
Good for you! Keep after it. And keep me posted.
Cheers–
MRE
FWIW I lost 75lbs on a low carb diet (~30g/day) and have kept it off for 4 years. Notwithstanding I’ve had 2 kids in the meantime and am currently expecting #3. (Ladies, you’re not going to give birth to a third grader!)
No other diet I had ever tried in my nearly 40 years on this earth worked long term. Ever. Always gained it back and then some within 2 years. Was never *able* to stick to them as a long term way of eating because the low fat high carb diets left me STARVING. Your body just isn’t going to let you STARVE long term.
Then again, I’m convinced some of the low-fatters take a ‘holier than thou’ approach to hunger and treat it as a sacrament.
Screw that.
Still have to lose about 25 more lbs but every time I get 3-4m postpartum and down to my pre-preg weight I get pg again LOL. Was never able to do that before low-carb. Mmmmaybe after this baby!
Hi beth–
You’re right about the starvation. Low-far diets are starvation diets for the most part. People can fight a gnawing hunger for a while, but not forever: they ultimately give in.
Low-carb diets don’t seem to have the starvation problem. People can eat fewer calories and still be full or eat more calories and continue to lose. But they don’t starve. If they’re hungry, they can eat.
Good luck.
MRE
Like every other plan, including PP, eat less move more works for some people. Generally speaking, the more naturally athletic you are the better it will work. Unfortunately for the general public, most of them aren’t athletes, nor do they live an athletic lifestyle. The problem as I see it, is that “we” know what it takes from a nutrition perspective to fuel elite, highly competitive athletes so they can sustain and improve their performance. The issue here arises is when “we” take that information and try to apply it to Joe six pack and wonder why he gets fat.
Hi Kevin–
I think it’s much more complex than that. I feel a long post coming on.
Cheers–
MRE
I agree. This notion of more exercise + fewer calories = weight loss is so ingrained into our psyche that it must be true. Even my Type 1 mother, a person who has scorned the ADA’s advice since the 70’s, will glance at my ¾ pound bowl of ground beef, cheese, and season salt combo (simple, but heavenly, I’m easy to please) and state that I probably shouldn’t eat so many calories.
She knows about low carb, she eats low carb; she understands how insulin works (thank goodness for me, otherwise I wouldn’t have been born!) but she cannot, for the life of her, get it out of her head that excess calories are stalling my weight loss.
Of course, she’s never really had a weight problem so her willingness to understand the whole issue past the old tired rhetoric is probably non-existent.
(Hey, at least I wasn’t raised on fast food; I got fat by myself.)
Hi Lyndsey–
These memes, like the herpes virus, are almost impossible to shuck. And, in my opinion, the older the individual who holds them, the more difficult to replace them. Maybe you can’t teach an old dog new memes.
Cheers–
MRE
Dr. Mike, don’t you say in your book that a calorie deficit must be created for weight loss? That can only be achieved by eating less and/or exercising more, right? So, this is a necessary condition, but it may not be sufficient, and that’s where the low carb comes in.
BTW, thanks for mentioning TED. I never would’ve come across it if I hadn’t read it here. I also read “Stumbling upon Happiness” after you mentioned it on your blog. It was quite an enlightening experience, although my fading memory is sure to conveniently forget all the lessons I learnt from it, unless I keep rereading it.
Hi Ravi–
I’m glad I’ve been your inspiration to discover TED and read the happiness book, which, as you say, is quite good. I love stumbling on to books like that one that take me by surprise.
As to my comment on a calorie deficit being required to lose weight…
In the strictest sense it’s true. But where does the calorie deficit come from? Does it come from eating less or does it come from burning more calories off? Are overweight people overweight because they eat too much and don’t exercise enough (the common idea)? Or do they overeat and not exercise enough because they’re overweight. In other words is there and underlying problem causing the overweight to be constantly hungry and have a low metabolism? This whole idea deserves a long post. Ah, so many potential posts, so little time.
Cheers–
MRE
Dr. Mike: Slightly OT for this entry, but relevant overall I think to many of the topics you have written about here and in your books is a discussion yesterday by Merrill Goozner on his blog about the NHANES study relied on by Gina Kolata in her recent NYTimes article about diabetes, cvd, etc. Gooz’s closing comment about the study was:
http://www.gooznews.com/ “Indeed, if I were writing up the study, I would have noted that while the health care system is doing a better job by identifying people with diabetes, there is, alas, something about the way we live today that is fully replenishing the ranks of those who need to be diagnosed.”
Mr. Goozner makes a crucial point, imo. I wonder why that point and other relevant counter balancing info wasn’t included in the NYTimes article.
W
Because it’s the New York Times, and it’s health coverage is directed by the aforementioned coven of Jane Brody, Marian Burros and Gina Kolata, none of whom have a low-carb bone in their bodies.
And speaking of Jane Brody, her article yesterday about her inability to lower her cholesterol and her initiation into the statin world almost made me lose my wild salmon lunch.
How can she have reached the age of 65 and still be clueless? And so annoying.
Hi Marly–
Thanks for the tip on the Jane Brody piece. I’ll have to follow up. A post might be in order.
Cheers–
MRE
Damn you Man what do you know about any of this weight loss stuff ?
What, 60 years of collective experience for you and Mrs, trifling i say, trifling !
Herewith smoke filled up yer arse compliment.
‘This is why i read yr blog’.
Bootiful
Big thanks
Thanks for the kind words, Simon, I appreciate it.
Best–
MRE
Jane’s health hasn’t been so well in recent years. Perhaps the coven will be smaller before long?
No, I didn’t say that, did I? 😉
Anna
I didn’t hear you say it. Jane is about 65 years old and she’s had her knee replaced and maybe a few other parts as well. Plus she’s a chronic whiner about her condition. She acts like she’s 103 years old. What ever diet she’s on, I want to avoid it.
Cheers–
MRE
Is the Phinney study that he did with the cyclists the only thing out there for us low-carbing athletes? It was such a small study, but has it been replicated at all? I was a person who had a whole lot of trouble making the switch to “fat burning” (the low carb adaptation) for my sports after going low carb. And Anthony Colpo seems to have some bones to pick with that study.
I’d love to see more from you on athletic performance and LC.
Thanks for the nice post!
Hi Jill–
There are other studies besides the Phinney one. I don’t have them at hand right now, but I will dig them up and try to work in a post on athletic performance and LC in the future.
Cheers–
MRE
100% agree. The whole notion that eating a carrot less per day is going to make you lose 5lbs at the end of a year is just plain ridiculous. A book which I really enjoyed which touches on this is called the “PotBelly Syndrome”.
BTW, that swedish presenter badly needs some bioidentical testosterone replacement / posture improvement.
Cheers!
Paul
Hi Paul–
Hahahahahah I agree about the need for testosterone replacement.
Cheers–
MRE
The aforementioned Brody article is hilarious. She drove her LDL from 134 to 159 to 171 through a series of “healthy” changes to her diet, which included “stick[ing] to low-fat ice cream.” It never occurs to her that the dietary changes may have caused the increase. She also mentions that she does a lot of running up and down steps, perhaps not the best exercise after knee replacements. The article is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/health/21brod.html
You can buy them their books and send them to school…
Thanks for the link.
MRE
What an absolutely fascinating post. Calling this eat-less-exercise-more advice a “meme” makes a lot of sense.
Dr. Mike, your blog is so provocative, informative and enjoyable. How you have time to post is beyond me but I’m glad you do.
I’m also really happy that you linked to the TED videos and the info about Renaissance. Talk about synchronicity! Just this weekend, while I was at this amazing speakers’ boot camp conference presented by brilliant author/speaker Sam Horn (for just 4 of us), she was telling us about TED and Renaissance. We discussed them both for quite a bit, and she’s going to Renaissance soon herself.
Anyhow, it was on my list to go to both their websites. And then there was your post!
By the way, I have “tagged” you and your blog, a phenomenon that’s capturing the attention of bloggers everywhere.
Please take this in the spirit of fun, adventure and mutual benefit in which it’s intended. You see, this tagging provides an opportunity for me to introduce my readers to your site and vice versa.
You can see here how I tagged you:
http://www.sugarshockblog.com/2007/08/playing-tag-on-.html
I sure do hope that you’re fine with the fact that I tagged you. It’ll give your readers a chance to learn some interesting facts about you, too.
Thanks again for your great blog!
Hi Connie–
I’m glad I came through with the web addresses for you at the right time.
As to the tagging, I’ve already been there. I got tagged by Regina Wilshire a while back. Here is the post in case you missed it:
http://www.mreades.wpengine.com/drmike/?p=442
At that time it was only five interesting or little known facts about the tagee. I had a tough time coming up with the five; I doubt that I could make eight.
Cheers–
MRE
Hi Mike,
Long time no post because I have moved twice well nearly twice and I am currently building a new house – and during that time I have been losing weight. Why? Well because I have been eating less (I always do when I am busy) and exercising more – not sure about moving (I hate that bit) but building is great exercise! So I’m not quite sure about your original objection – it works, at least in the short term – if it doesn’t work in the long term it is because people stop doing it – and there are not many things in life (including low carb of course) that work if you don’t do them!! Yes it is simplistic and if people find the advice impossible to follow perhaps another line of attack needs to be used. Low carb works at least partly because people eat less without feeling hungry (ie without consciously focusing on the need to deprive themselves of food). There are few low carb authors who don’t recommend exercise as part of their weight loss/health plan. Is there anything more to it? – well that gets us back to the whole metabolic advantage chestnut – which while some have demonstrated the theoretical possibility it seems highly elusive in properly controlled human trials, and if it exists, is likely to be (at least in my view) a fairly trivial difference. I am always amazed by individuals who claim they can eat thousands more calories on low carb without gaining an ounce – sadly I can easily gain weight around intervention level carbs (my normal diet) if I eat too much – but when I stop overeating and start doing something strenuous regularly … hmmm does that make me one of ‘them’?;)
Cheers,
Malcolm
Hey Malcolm–
Good to hear from you. I was wondering where you’d gone. It’s nice to see that you’re as argumentative as ever. I’m coming up with a long post on all the notions you mentioned. I’ll instruct and correct you that way instead of via the comments.
Cheers–
MRE
Looking forward to your extended blog on all this. I confess that I’m confused. I tend to pride myself on “seeing the light” in terms of being inundated with low-fat/high-carb hoopla, and yet KNOWING that low-carb is the way to go. But I’m really having trouble getting my head around what you say is the false statement that “to lose weight you need to eat less and exercise more.”
I get the part about how eating less is not true, since I tend to eat more on low-carb than I did when I followed (I’m ashamed to say) Jane Brody’s path. I’m satiated on less food (and calories) when I fill up on animal fat and animal protein.
But I’m having trouble with the idea that exercising won’t help with weight loss.
I know you advocate the slow-burn method, which I think is good. But I still like to be more active. I like walking, so I have a treadmill and an elliptical. Right now I’m trying to do 3 to 5 sessions a week on one or the other, doing a 20-minute interval workout (2 minutes of easy work followed by intervals of 30 seconds of high intensity and 90 seconds of easy work again, ending with 2 minutes of easy work).
Maybe it’s not helping with weight loss, but I feel better when I exercise, especially when I do resistance training.
And, here’s another thing. If I exercise, I gain muscle, right? And if it takes more energy to maintain muscle, doesn’t that mean that having more muscle makes you burn energy faster, thus using those calories up, and ultimately dropping fat (weight)?
Ouch.
My head hurts from thinking about this and trying to figure it all out.
Is menopause making my brain this foggy, or is it really kind of a conundrum?
I’ll be watching for that extended blog.
PS: What the heck is “Trackbacks & Pingbacks”?
Hi Kathy–
Don’t feel bad. The exercise issue is a complex one. First, there is a distinction between exercise as a promoter of fitness and health and exercise as a promoter of weight loss. There is no question that exercise is good for you. It decreases inflammation (as long as not done to excess – over-exercise promotes inflammation), it enhances flexibility, it increases muscle mass, it improves strength, it makes you feel better, etc. But, it has never been shown to bring about a permanent weight loss in the overweight. Why not? No one really knows, but studies have shown that people who exercise more tend to eat more to compensate. Exercise works up your appetite. And the problem is, that since exercise burns so few calories, it doesn’t take much to replace them. Just a couple of extra forkfuls of food will do it, so it’s not a conscious thing.
The extra muscle added with exercise, especially with resistance exercise increases metabolism a little, but just not all that much. The first time I actually made the calculations of how many extra calories would be burned by replacing a pound of fat with a pound of muscle, I was stunned. It’s not much at all.
Trackbacks and pings, eh? Don’t feel bad, it has taken me a while to figure it out, too. And I’m still not completely sure of what a ping is. A trackback is basically a post from another blog that acts as a comment on this one. In other words, if Joe Blow, the blogger, sees a post of mine he likes or hates or otherwise wants to comment on, he can simply comment on it in the same way you have done. Or, he can write his own post about it, then send a trackback to me, which ends up coming in on the ‘Comments in moderation’ queue on my blog. I can then approve it or delete. If I approve it, which I always do, then it ends up in the trackbacks instead of in the comments. If you click on one of these, it takes you to the blog post of the other blog that is about my blog. Also, if I link to one of my own previous posts, it does the same thing. If you go back to one of my old posts that I’ve linked to a lot, you’ll be able to go to the Trackback section of the Comment section and be able to see all my other posts that have linked to that earlier post. Now is it all clear as mud?
Cheers–
MRE
Dr. Eades,
The science behind my following thoughts are way out of my league, but I’ll give it a shot. By the way, this is not my original thinking, it comes from reading the Evolutionary Fitness website (at http://www.arthurdevany.com). Diet, exercise, and weight loss all seem to boil down to gene expression. What we do and what we eat, over time, turn on/off certain genes relating to body composition and metabolic fitness, and the ability to lose weight/fat.
To quote site owner Dr. De Vany: “I talk a lot about this topic when I mention that “genes are not destiny” (to remind you that even identical twins can differ enormously in their physiology based on what they do and eat and how that triggers gene expression; see my Twins post) and about muscle gene expression induced by activity and diet (through glycogen content of the muscle) or intermittent fasting (which triggers repair genetic programs).”
Based on his observations, I think an older person who has spent most of his/her adult life sedentary and eating a carb based diet has altered their gene expressions toward an unfavorable homeostasis. I would think that this condition would take quite awhile to reverse itself, and hence make it very a difficult and lengthy process to lose weight (at least on a traditional low calorie carb-based diet).
I guess that my point is that it appears that the issue is far more complex than simply “calories in/calories out”. In trying to be succinct, I hope I’ve captured the essence of gene expression and offered something of value for further discussion. Many thanks.
Hi Thomas–
Good to hear from you. You are definitely correct about the situation being much more complex than calories in/calories out, but the gene expression issue is even more complex. Genes can be turned on and turned off in a heartbeat. Just because the situation has been the same for many years doesn’t mean that a new situation can’t turn off one set of genes and turn on another. The genes are all there waiting – all it takes is the proper stimulation to make them active.
People all the time say that obesity is hereditary and there is nothing that can be done about it – it’s all in the genes. The genes haven’t changed in 50,000 plus years; what’s changed is the environment, i.e., diet, which is activating genes that have been there but have been dormant for eons.
Cheers–
MRE
Hi Dr. Mike – I’m a long time reader and lurker around here. I really appreciate your work. I have a question about this post though – doesn’t exercise increase insulin sensitivity? If so, isn’t that reason enough to incorporate some exercise into weight management? Perhaps I’ve missed something along the way here though…
Hi Nancy–
Exercise absolutely increases insulin sensitivity. There are many virtues of exercise and I recommend it highly. It’s just that all the medical literature has failed to find that exercise brings about meaningful weight loss. Many other improvements in health – but weight loss is not among them. Probably because people subconsciously compensate by eating more.
Cheers–
MRE
Am looking forward to future meme destroying post on this subject. Am in the PP(LP) camp hard core. I lift weights (not slow burn, but I do a lot of different things for a lot of fitness goals). Sometimes, I’ve been known to do some HIIT. It’s even been rumored that I’m going to start running miles soon.
In Atkins for Life (don’t steam too much), Dr. A said calories do count. In PP or PPLP, I seem to recall something about calories counting. Now, it’s been 7 years, so maybe there’s new info. But, and I’m not saying they’re the only thing that counts, but aren’t they a factor on the margin? Lemme explain.
So, I get myself burning fat with my glucagon metabolism firing hard core and my insulin in control. I am eating my five-six meals a day to keep my metabolic flux in the range where I want it. I’m factoring the metabolic effect of digesting food. At the margin, maybe I don’t want my protein pudding for meal six, and I just skip it. We are on the margin here, and maybe I might see an effect if I go without that 20g protein, 3g fat, 2g carb treat at the end of my eating day. I dunno, I’m asking.
Other stuff I’d like to see you talk to:
1- The “Fat Virus” that seems to be the talk.
2- Muscle Fatigue and LC. Colpo shared his thoughts over at Jimmy Moore’s site.
http://livinlavidalocarb.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-muscle-fatigue-inevitable-when-you.html
Am curious for another take on the issue. Have started taking about 20-30g of carb post workout and haven’t had cravings or been knocked off, and have jumped my weightloss. So, am curious to have an opinion I respect.
Hi Max–
Your comment demands much more time than I’m willing to give right now in comment form. All the issues you ask about are worthy of posts themselves. And, in fact, I’ll try to post on them in due course. The short answers are as follows: Yes, calories count, sort of. But not in the way most people think. Atkins said they count in his last book, MD and I said they did in the PP and PPLP (but with some stipulations, as I recall). Atkins and I have had an interesting dance over the years. He came out with his first book advocating a pretty strict low-carb diet, we came out with ours about 15 or so years later saying that you didn’t have to be so diligent with the carbs. We invented the concept of net carbs, which we called ‘effective carbs.’ Atkins jumped all over it and called them Atkins Net Carbs or some such thing. Then he began to back off his strict carb regimen and before you knew it he had come out with basically a revised version of Protein Power that he called Atkins for Life. At the same time, we began to see better results with more carb restriction, so we drifted more towards a lower carb diet, and even in many cases a full-meat diet. We just haven’t written a new book in a while. So in one of those bizarre twists of fate, Atkins became us and we became Atkins. Weird.
The fat virus has been around for years. It’s just that now the press has jumped on it so it seems to be a new and exciting thing. I think I even posted about it last year sometime.
I agree with Anthony Colpo on the glycogen depletion issue. Back in the 1990s I read a paper by a doctor at the Naval Hospital in San Diego that intrigued me. I called the guy and we had a nice chat. He told me he had done a lot of work with naval recruits on low-carb diets and various exercise regimens. He sent me a large envelope of all these studies that hadn’t been published. In going through them I noticed that the subjects once adapted to low-diets did great on endurance-type activities whereas their performance deteriorated on high-intensity activities. When provided with a glucose solution, these subjects were able to maintain their performance during the high-intensity workouts.
I thought a lot about this in view of our Paleolithic predecessors. Why would nature endow them (and ultimately us) with a metabolism that wouldn’t rise to the occasion using the diets they had at hand, which were primarily low-carb, high-fat diets. It finally dawned on me that these folks more than likely didn’t perform high-intensity activities for very long at a time – maybe a few seconds max. They would sprint after something that they either caught or it got away. Something sprinted after them, and they either got caught or got away. Quickly. There was no need for a system to supply large amounts of glucose quickly for long periods of time, so we didn’t evolve one. That’s why we need supplemental glucose during or immediately after a high-intensity workout. I’ve read papers showing both sides of the growth hormone argument, and I haven’t made a detailed study of any of them, so although simply from a knowledge of metabolism basis, I would say that the glucose probably inhibits the release of growth hormone, I don’t really have a lot of firm evidence to base that idea on. I guess I need to really do a read on all that literature so that I can come up with a more authoritative answer on the growth hormone issue.
Cheers–
MRE
“We just haven’t written a new book in a while.”
Which brings up the question: are we going to see a new book? If so, what would be the potential topic?
I don’t have a clue. Got any ideas? I’m all ears.
MRE
Perhaps you could write a new book addressing some of the points you made in relation to the above post made by Jill, (21. August 2007, 20:44) and Max (23. August 2007, 12:25) on physical performance and low-carb dieting, especially the notion regarding post-workout nutrition, since alot of people nowadays seem to be confused about whether or not it is beneficial to consume carbs following an intense workout. That is to say, those with whom i’ve spoken have mixed feelings on the subject; those who follow all meat diets seem to think that carbs will take them out of ketosis and result in body fat gain, while others think that carbs ingested post-workout will blunt growth hormone, and so forth.
I’m sure many people would vary much enjoy reading about what you have learned since PPLP hit the book stands, especially the idea that you and Atkins have almost adopted one another’s original low-carb philosophies. Also, alot of readers , myself included, are enthralled with the subject of intermittent fasting, and therefore, perhaps this is an area also ripe for investigation.
Hi Andrew–
Maybe I will write a post on the subject of post-workout nutrition. I’m asked that question probably as much as any other, so I ought to just write a long post and be done with it. I don’t think it would hold up for a whole book.
Cheers–
MRE
Dr. Eades,
Sorry, i didn’t mean to imply post-workout nutrition would hold up for an entire book. A long post on the topic, however, should help much towards lighting a candle in the darkness for many. With so many opposing views on the role of carbs post-workout it would be great to read your, as always, highly informed view. I think that far too many people project their views on the topic not taking into consideration that carbs may play different roles post-workout for someone who is fat-adapted, as opposed to someone who eats many carbs daily. Dr. Gregorgy Ellis who is well versed in the subject area suggests that the fat-apated individual should avoid eating carbs post-workout and, for the most part, any other time of the day. He feels that it is ketones, not carbs, that are of importance when it comes to muscle growth, and furthermore, that it is fat that fuels activity, ideas which you have discussed in previous posts.
Hi Andrew–
I really will get around to posting on this issue soon. I’ve got too many people hounding me about it.
Cheers–
MRE
Hello Dr Mike,
I got your hard cover book last week. Thank you. I was able to then lend my soft cover out to my sister. I hope to help her get her health back on track. Protein power has worked very well for me. I lost 24 lbs in 2 months and have never been this low since 11th grade ……. a very long time ago.
Again, thank you for the book and for your blogs….. I consider your book the holy grail of healthy info.
Bill B
Hi Bill–
I’m glad you enjoyed the book. I hope your sister benefits from it as well.
Cheers–
MRE