LeanGains

[HST_Rihad]

There's a fine line between daily 500-700 cal deficit, and two 24-hour fasting periods weekly. That way you still get some immediate surplus + opportunity to grow on days you work out.

BTW, I'm so happy Brad's book confirms this:

While the common belief that you need to ‘eat big to get big’, recent research has shown that
any extra calories above your estimated daily needs does not contribute to muscle
gain. In fact, almost every single extra calorie can be accounted for in fat mass
gains. So while there is an obvious caloric need for muscle building it does not seem
to be any higher than your daily calorie needs (building muscle does take energy, but
it also happens very slowly).

This is where Eat Stop Eat may actually be BETTER than traditional dieting for muscle
gains. With Eat Stop Eat you are only in a calorie deficit for one or two 24-hour periods
per week. The rest of the time you can eat to maintenance if you choose to. This is in
direct contrast to traditional dieting where you may spend months in a constant
calorie deficit.

 

[Sci]

BTW, I'm so happy Brad's book confirms this:

What research? What research confirms that no extra calories go to lean mass?

 

[Jester]

BTW, I'm so happy Brad's book confirms this:

Prove Brad is correct ... any savage can print their opinions ...

Oh yeh, the body still doesn't grow-cut-grow-cut on a 3-1-2-1 day basis ... please please PLEASE learn more about hormone pathways and the timing involved for muscle building and fat loss.

 

[HST_Rihad]

What research? What research confirms that no extra calories go to lean mass?

"While the common belief that you need to ‘eat big to get big’, recent research has shown that
any extra calories above your estimated daily needs does not contribute to muscle
gain. In fact, almost every single extra calorie can be accounted for in fat mass
gains [42]. "

...
[42] Bray GA, Smith SR, De Jonge L, Xie H, Rood J, Martin CK, Most M, Brock C, Manscuso S,
Redman LM. Effect of Dietary Protein Content on Weight Gain, Energy Expenditure, and Body
Composition During Overeating. JAMA. 2012;307(1):47-55

 

[HST_Rihad]

Oh yeh, the body still doesn't grow-cut-grow-cut on a 3-1-2-1 day basis ... please please PLEASE learn more about hormone pathways and the timing involved for muscle building and fat loss.

It's actually quite simpler than that. According to Brad, our body is always in either one of two states: fed or fasted. When we eat, we store glycogen & fat in their respective depots. When we fast, we start burning the fats from the adipose tissue. It occurs as soon as after 4-8 hours after last meal:

In actuality your body begins to burn significantly more fat four to eight hours after
your last meal (depending on the size of your last meal). This effect begins to level off
after 30 hours. If you don’t quite make it to the 24-hour point some days, don’t sweat
it. You’re still getting a benefit.

 

[Totentanz]

"While the common belief that you need to ‘eat big to get big’, recent research has shown that
any extra calories above your estimated daily needs does not contribute to muscle
gain. In fact, almost every single extra calorie can be accounted for in fat mass
gains [42]. "

...
[42] Bray GA, Smith SR, De Jonge L, Xie H, Rood J, Martin CK, Most M, Brock C, Manscuso S,
Redman LM. Effect of Dietary Protein Content on Weight Gain, Energy Expenditure, and Body
Composition During Overeating. JAMA. 2012;307(1):47-55

Come on. Did you even read that study? You do realize that the study does NOT say what this idiot Brad is claiming it says. Don't believe me? Read the abstract. The study is about the effect of protein intake when you are overeating and deals with SEDENTARY individuals.

Not only does this NOT say what Brad claims it says, in reality, the study determined that eating more protein resulted in significantly more lean mass gained compared to the low protein group. Here is the url to the abstract and I quoted it below.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22215165

Abstract
CONTEXT:
The role of diet composition in response to overeating and energy dissipation in humans is unclear.

OBJECTIVE:
To evaluate the effects of overconsumption of low, normal, and high protein diets on weight gain, energy expenditure, and body composition.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS:
A single-blind, randomized controlled trial of 25 US healthy, weight-stable male and female volunteers, aged 18 to 35 years with a body mass index between 19 and 30. The first participant was admitted to the inpatient metabolic unit in June 2005 and the last in October 2007.

INTERVENTION:
After consuming a weight-stabilizing diet for 13 to 25 days, participants were randomized to diets containing 5% of energy from protein (low protein), 15% (normal protein), or 25% (high protein), which they were overfed during the last 8 weeks of their 10- to 12-week stay in the inpatient metabolic unit. Compared with energy intake during the weight stabilization period, the protein diets provided approximately 40% more energy intake, which corresponds to 954 kcal/d (95% CI, 884-1022 kcal/d).
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:

Body composition was measured by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry biweekly, resting energy expenditure was measured weekly by ventilated hood, and total energy expenditure by doubly labeled water prior to the overeating and weight stabilization periods and at weeks 7 to 8.

RESULTS:
Overeating produced significantly less weight gain in the low protein diet group (3.16 kg; 95% CI, 1.88-4.44 kg) compared with the normal protein diet group (6.05 kg; 95% CI, 4.84-7.26 kg) or the high protein diet group (6.51 kg; 95% CI, 5.23-7.79 kg) (P = .002). Body fat increased similarly in all 3 protein diet groups and represented 50% to more than 90% of the excess stored calories. Resting energy expenditure, total energy expenditure, and body protein did not increase during overfeeding with the low protein diet. In contrast, resting energy expenditure (normal protein diet: 160 kcal/d [95% CI, 102-218 kcal/d]; high protein diet: 227 kcal/d [95% CI, 165-289 kcal/d]) and body protein (lean body mass) (normal protein diet: 2.87 kg [95% CI, 2.11-3.62 kg]; high protein diet: 3.18 kg [95% CI, 2.37-3.98 kg]) increased significantly with the normal and high protein diets.

CONCLUSIONS:
Among persons living in a controlled setting, calories alone account for the increase in fat; protein affected energy expenditure and storage of lean body mass, but not body fat storage.

 

[HST_Rihad]

Totentanz, he later goes on to say adequate protein is important for mass gains, however, this quote above talked about caloric surplus alone, which the study confirmed:

calories alone account for the increase in fat

Of course a person's metabolic rate (energy expenditure) goes up with training, so we need to cover that too, but not by too much.

 

[Totentanz]

That does not mean that all calories above excess go to bodyfat. Reread the abstract.

What it is saying is that macronutrients are not what determine fat storage, calories are.

It is pretty obvious in the abstract.

 

[HST_Rihad]

Body fat increased similarly in all 3 protein diet groups and represented 50% to more than 90% of the excess stored calories.

Still that's pretty damn huge. The rest were probably used for digesting the food itself (thermic effect).
He didn't say every calorie.

In fact, almost every single extra calorie can be accounted for in fat mass
gains[42].

 

[HST_Rihad]

What it is saying is that macronutrients are not what determine fat storage, calories are.

Exacly what he said, calories. He's (intentionally?) careful not to talk much about nutrients, partitioning and such, as such things are better addressed in specialized literature, and fasting does its thing irrespective of what they are.

 

[Totentanz]

Still that's pretty damn huge. The rest were probably used for digesting the food itself (thermic effect).
He didn't say every calorie.

He did. He said "In fact, almost every single extra calorie can be accounted for in fat mass gains"

In reality, the high protein groups gained more lean mass than the low protein group. So fat mass gains may have been similar but due to the gains in lean mass, the change in body fat percentage would have been different in the higher protein groups.

Have you read the abstract instead of just blindly trying to hold on to what Brad states in his book? You do know that it is ok to be wrong and that this is not a competition to see who can be more correct, right?

 

[Totentanz]

Exacly what he said, calories. He's (intentionally?) careful not to talk much about nutrients, partitioning and such, as such things are better addressed in specialized literature.

Uh... how did he not talk about partitioning?

He says pretty much all extra calories go into fat stores. That is partitioning.

What do you think partitioning is?

 

[HST_Rihad]

Uh... how did he not talk about partitioning?

He says pretty much all extra calories go into fat stores. That is partitioning.

What do you think partitioning is?

Sorry, I thought partitioning referred to protein/carbs/fats/vits/minerals composition of a diet, which he doesn't go into much detail about.

There's a difference between "every" calorie and "almost every", which he used

 

[HST_Rihad]

Have you read the abstract instead of just blindly trying to hold on to what Brad states in his book? You do know that it is ok to be wrong and that this is not a competition to see who can be more correct, right?

Quite frankly I did not, but with the data presented I don't see anything wrong. Almost every calorie above daily needs accounts for fat loss? Sure.

 

[HST_Rihad]

I know excess protein probably doesn't somehow get converted to fat and stored, it's either broken into AAs and utilized in muscles, or oxidized for energy in the gut itself. But carbs and fats do. That's probably one of the reasons he said "almost every".

 

[Totentanz]

Maybe you should read the abstract, seeing as how it basically does nothing to support his statement. The only thing that the study supports is that it is calories in vs calories out that effect weight gain and that increased protein intake results in a gain in lean mass.

Not really sure how that supports "almost every extra calorie goes into fat" seeing as how it doesn't.

 

[HST_Rihad]

Totentanz, he was probably saying that calorie surplus alone isn't what contributes to muscle gain. After the paragraph referencing the study, he mentions the importance of "adequate" protein for muscle gains at maintenance caloric levels.

 

[Sci]

What he's saying, and what the research says are entirely different things. He's grossly misinterpreting the research to fit his ideas.

 

[Totentanz]

Totentanz, he was probably saying that calorie surplus alone isn't what contributes to muscle gain. After the paragraph referencing the study, he mentions the importance of "adequate" protein for muscle gains at maintenance caloric levels.

Unfortunately, that's not what he said or else he would have elaborated and said that instead of saying that almost all excess calories go to fat, then linking a study that proves that if protein is high enough, that you will gain significant lean mass when you eat extra calories. Keep in mind that the study was on sedentary subjects, not people who lift, so that increase in lean mass was from DIET ALONE. What this study seems to be suggesting is that one who is lifting, eating over maintenance and keeping protein high could gain quite a lot of lean mass.

The fact is, making a statement and then linking to a study as proof that does not support what you said is dishonest. I hate it when authors try to add credibility to what they say by linking to studies, then when you read the studies you find that it has nothing to do with what they said. Where is the integrity in that?

 

[HST_Rihad]

Guys, it's quite easy to nitpick about someone's words. He said that caloric surplus above daily needs can cause fat gains. That much is obvious from reading the abstract, although he most probably read the whole study from where it could be concluded that it wasn't surplus per se contributing to muscle gains (for example, note weight-stabilizing diet for 13 to 25 days), the fact which wasn't reflected in the abstract. Without having access to the paper we cannot say that he's outrightly wrong or dishonest.