My weightloss just stopped

Darth Pooh said:
No way. As far as I am concerned, I place myself out there to be "judged", it's just how we are as humans, please don't think I'd be offended for your honesty.
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Good, I'm glad you're granting permision for people's 2 cents, so here comes more of mine (warning, bubble-bursting data ahead).

The CLA thing isn't for muscle gain, I used it for almost a year and a half while losing the weight. Actually, and this is purely non-scientific, I found that I have better recomp when I used the CLA (it's congugated linolic acids, basically a fat). It's purely anecodatal however, and for 20 bucks every 2 months... I am content with that.
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I can tell you objectively that it's your belief in CLA that's helping you out, not the CLA per se. In otherwords, your sincere belief in a magic fat loss crystal, or magic fat loss bracelet, or magic fat loss rabbit's foot in your pocket all day will do the same thing. It's the placebo effect at work.

But you wanna know the kicker? None of those magic charms have been seen to adversely impact markers of cardiovascular health. Look back at the studies I posted showing the adverse health effects of CLA (not to mention its non-effect on body composition), and ask yourself if you're not better off trading out your CLA for a lucky rabbit's foot that you only pay for once.

On the subject of useless supps, you can go ahead and dump your glutamine in the trash too, unless you just want to stimulate the economy (granted it's a US-based glutamine source). Glutamine has consistently failed to increase strength and lean mass (not to mention, your dietary BCAA will act as a presursor to glutamine synthesis anyway). I'd post the links to the references if I could, not enough posts yet. Let me quote a recent scientific review [Curr Sports Med Rep. 2007 Jul;6(4):265-8]:

"Even using protein breakdown as a measure of recovery, the effects of glutamine are mixed at best. Though one investigation demonstrated an inhibition of total body proteolysis as measured by improved leucine flux after glutamine supplementation [21], a separate study showed glutamine supplementation did not affect urinary levels of 3-methylhistidine, another marker of protein degradation [14]. Therefore, whether considering buffering capacity, time to fatigue, or protein balance, glutamine supplementation fails to consistently demonstrate any positive ergogenic benefit on measures of recovery from exercise."

"Unfortunately, this appears to be another example of commercial marketing trumping scientific evidence that in this case demonstrates how nonessential glutamine supplementation is to athletic performance."
 
My question is, why not address the root of the problem (too many calories, suboptimal macronutrition and food choices) rather than focusing on increasing their meal frequency right off the bat?
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I agree with you 100%. The underlying problem of probably eating too many calories and not the proportion of macronutrients should be the focus. I was not planning on writing a nutritional program merely just providing a quick observation. Someone that doesn't eat breakfast would probably benefit from eating breakfast. In my original post I actually just recommended that they should look at there caloric intake and their activity level. I'm not sure how we got onto meal frequency anymore but that is ok.

I'm not sure how fresh off of your graduate degree you are, but I completed master's in nutrition in 2001. And guess what? At that point I was absolutely crammed with textbook and classroom dogma.
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I received it alittle later than you but I agree, since I have graduated and have been on my own I have learned a lot more than I did in the classroom. I did not bring up the fast that I have a Master's to show off or say that what I say is right I just wanted it to be known that I have done research on this and I wasn't just saying things that I thought sounded right.

I'd love to hear your opinion on nutrient timing though. I really am a proponent of pre/post workout snacks or meals. I know that not everyone can do this but when possible I try to involve it into a diet plan. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
 
SDPT said:
I'd love to hear your opinion on nutrient timing though. I really am a proponent of pre/post workout snacks or meals. I know that not everyone can do this but when possible I try to involve it into a diet plan. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
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Nutrient timing is more important for some goals than others. I think that in general, sandwiching a training bout with protein and carbs on both sides is a wise thing to do. The precise amounts and precise timing of these meals is open to speculation. Generally speaking, if a training bout approaches or exceeds 90 minutes of continuous, exhaustive work, intra-exercise protein and carbs can be useful from a performance standpoint. The whole idea of quickly assimilated carbs postexercise is only a concern for endurance athletes who deplete glycogen and need to compete with those same glycogen-depleted muscles again in the same day. The idea of needing to spike insulin postworkout for recovery or protein synthetic purposes is incorrect in the sense that it only addresses the suboptimal condition of absent preworkout nutrition. Preworkout substrates, timed correctly, should still be elevated in the blood when the trainin bout is over (granted we're not discussing prolonged endurance work). The idea that fat should be avoided postworkout is yet another myth that's very easily debunked with data, as is the unnecessary insulin spiking objective (I cover these topics at length in the research review pdf that Steve linked on post#22 in this thread). There's a whole lot more to nutrient timing than this, but it's important to maintain the perspective that total amounts by the end of the day are of primary importance, with nutrient timing being distantly secondary. That's REALLY putting things in a nutshell; I've written much more extensively on this topic in my research review.
 
SDPT said:
I'm not sure how we got onto meal frequency anymore but that is ok.
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One of the things you stated:

Also, skipping meals and then eating dinner until you are full is a huge problem. You body cannot process more than approx 700 calories at a time(this number will depend on the person.) so anything more than that will be stored as fat even if you have not had eaten a lot the rest of the day.
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This throws red flags up everywhere IMO.

I'd love to hear your opinion on nutrient timing though. I really am a proponent of pre/post workout snacks or meals. I know that not everyone can do this but when possible I try to involve it into a diet plan. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
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Definitely check out Alan's research review. See the link I posted to his free issue where he talks about nutrient timing with regards to fat intake and the next issue discusses extensively protein and carb timing.
 
While I understand there are several studies that can bash CLA's, there are several that support their use.





I have read that the IR effects of CLA has been observed in mice in other studies. I suppose I am interested in finding out if it has done the same to me, I take about 6 grams a day... I should get blood work done again to just make sure levels are ok. I know you think the recomp is all in my mind, but there have been studies with no placebo effect.

As far as the glutamine goes, I haven't taken that in a while actually, I don't even know why I brought that up in the previous posts. My PRE-W/O drink consists of Creatine, Beta Alanine, and caffeine. I will start taking Animal Pump instead of that just for convenience sake and not because I think it's a miracle supplement.

On a positive note... I went up 50 lbs on my Stiff Leg Deadlifts today, all time high of 325. :) Pretty happy since I had a shitacular upper yesterday...
 
Darth Pooh said:
While I understand there are several studies that can bash CLA's, there are several that support their use.
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The first study you linked was sponsored in part by Cognis, the maker of Tonalin. Connect the dots, broski :).. The second study you linked was rodent research. Scroll back a bit, I provided you with a meta-analysis (a systematic pooling of all of the relevant human studies on CLA) that was NOT industry funded. I'll quote their conclusion:

"After analyzing the few studies published to date in reduced samples of healthy humans or patients with overweight, obesity, metabolic syndrome, or diabetes, we deduce that there is not enough evidence to show that conjugated linoleic acid has an effect on weight and body composition in humans. However, some of these studies have observed that the administration of various CLA isomers has adverse effects on lipid profile (it decreases HDL cholesterol concentration and increases Lp(a) circulating levels), glucose metabolism (glycemia, insulinemia or insulin sensitivity), lipid oxidation, inflammation, or endothelial function."

Darth Pooh said:
I have read that the IR effects of CLA has been observed in mice in other studies. I suppose I am interested in finding out if it has done the same to me, I take about 6 grams a day... I should get blood work done again to just make sure levels are ok. I know you think the recomp is all in my mind, but there have been studies with no placebo effect.
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Please refer to the 1st comment of mine in this post. An independent (not industry-funded) meta-analysis has been done on the collective body of human CLA research, and its safety & effectiveness has been called into question.
As far as the glutamine goes, I haven't taken that in a while actually, I don't even know why I brought that up in the previous posts. My PRE-W/O drink consists of Creatine, Beta Alanine, and caffeine. I will start taking Animal Pump instead of that just for convenience sake and not because I think it's a miracle supplement.
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Beta-alanine research for the most part is a tag team effort between NAI & EAS. Early adopters such as yourself will in the very least enjoy a placebo effect if indeed it's not all it's cracked up to be. The vast majority of BA research is cranked out from a small cluster of labs that have a vested financial interest in the trial outcomes. BA is not at the level of credibility creatine is at, where countless independent labs all over the globe have confirmed its effects. Furthermore, BA depletes taurine within the the retina & brain of animals at doses way higher than humans typically take. This can potentially be of concern to humans taking lower doses, but there's really no ethical way to biopsy brain & retina tissue in live humans. Just some food for thought.
Darth Pooh said:
On a positive note... I went up 50 lbs on my Stiff Leg Deadlifts today, all time high of 325. :) Pretty happy since I had a shitacular upper yesterday...
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Schveeet. Keep up ze good verk (that's my best Arnold impression).
 
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Oh and by the way, just because your blood work is great despite the snake oil, I mean, CLA intake, the likelihood is that it can improve if you tossed the stuff. I find it interesting how people foster emotional attachments to their supplements and defend them vehemently despite the weight of the scientific evidence. I'm not singling you out personally, but discussions like this give me an interesting perspective on the thought process of the consumer.
 
Ok... first off, horrible Arnold. ;) heh. (That wasn't my only exercise that I went up in, actually all around went up for the lower, it's just my upper sucked ass yesterday, went to a different gym, different equipment? dunno really, we are thinking about moving the heavy upper lift day from Monday to Thursday, we really seemed to lag hard yesterday).

Secondly, I have no problem ditching the CLA's, this will be my last week of dosing them, primarily because they are in my pill box and they look just like two other pills from my Flex pack :) lol. So, I will drop from 6 grams down to 2 grams (Flex is taken with my morning dose) until the end of the week, in which I will be taking nothing. I have read that the IS repairs itself over time, and that should be good for me.

Do you think 2400 mg of Fish Oils is too much per dose? I take that 3x daily.

Beta Alanine won't be in the Animal Pump pack and therefore won't be something I am taking anymore.

As of next week, the ONLY supps I will be taking are:

Fish Oil
Multivitamin
CoQ10
Animal Pump (and Creatine Mono for post w/o shakes)
Animal Flex

Both you and Steve have really opened my eyes this week in terms of my supplements and the necessity of them. I appreciate all of your responses and advice... and Steve knows I so totally HEART him. No homo. ;)
 
HealthyEating said:
I wouldn't agrue with pooh. He went ape shit on me for disagreeing with his crappy weightloss theory on another thread. :rant:
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You didn't disagree with me. If you're going to give the facts... you told someone information that was INCORRECT. Scientifically INCORRECT information at that. You gave no research or proof of your "theory" but mine is crappy? I suppose you don't believe in mumbo jumbo research... that explains why you've been in a plateau. The truth of the fact is, if you approach a diet the way it should be done, sensibly... than your body should never plateau, but if you cut out calories the way you were suggesting to cut them to another member, than plateaus will be a common occurrence.

You came into this thread just to start shit... you're a loser.
 
I have Mega-PhD in Nutrition, I've lectured before the FDA and I can order any item on a Thai, Korean or Japanese menu with perfect pronunciation!

It all comes down to eating food using only the small fork. Clinical trials and research have proven that the "Fat" calories can't fit on a small fork and instead only reside at the end of the larger regular forks. If we'd all start using our salad forks to eat, the world would be a leaner place and the buffet lines wouldn't be such a feeding frenzy. Plus, manufacturers could reduce the heavy-duty framing in trailer parks! :sifone:

Okay, enough of the obnoxious entry......

I really can't add or offer much in the way of real science to this discussion, being a client (freak client) of Alan's...most of what I know & preach came from his mouth anyways.

Surely we're not discussing the 1-2 large meals per day VS. the 5-6 meals per day approach? Here's how I see it:

Your body can tolerate 100-degrees as well as 50 degrees, but both are a bit extreme. Just the same, if you combined these two temperatures to form an average of 75, you'd be fairly comfortable. In the similar sense, your body can swing from empty-stomach to very-full stomach and at the end of the day it's "calories in vs. calories out"....but having smaller/regular meals is optimal and nobody is seriously arguing that point.

CLA....OMG; is it being suggested that VitaminShoppe has once again found a new miracle product that promises some benefits? Seems like every year they discover a new plant, mold or coral that has a gazillion antioxidants or promises to melt fat off your body. Has anyone ever stopped and realized that storing fat is genetically a survival mechanism and part of what a healthy body does: so just what is in this substance that alters your body from doing such a thing? Not to worry, in a few years we'll have a report & book all about the dangers.

BCAA's? If you have any semblance of a healthy well-proportioned diet, seems like we're already getting plenty of 'em. But hey, I used to think they were a magic bullet that stopped catabolism in it's tracks until Alan slapped them out of my hand. (That's okay, ViatminShoppe will sell me some more, last I checked they were buy one get one free!)

As for the title of this thread....sounds like the OP just blew through his easy-fall-off weight and now it's time to get militant to get the rest of the job done. "Eating until your full"?...for me that's about 2,500 calories PAST when I should have stopped. I agree, as we lose weight our bodies have lower caloric needs and intake adjustments must be made....otherwise we hit a maintenance issue.
 
What I'd like to discuss/ask is about that article that Lyle wrote. I completely understand (and am HAPPY) to figure that our 'gains' in efficiency are marginal. Indeed, an 8% gain (averaging 1% per year) is pretty negligible, especially considering it required 5-6 hours per day several times a week to achieve. BBBBBBBut, let me run this by you, and this is purely inquisitive in nature, I'm not trying to undermine the article.

We've all seen those people on Biggest Loser and how they drop HUGE poundage each week. Interesting how they spend the last 4 months outside the show for the finale...it's as if the results start to slow, become less interesting and so they work around that period. Now, let me run this by ya: once those people start to approach only needing to lose 18-25 pounds, do ya really think they're still losing double-digits each week? Heck no, like the rest of us, I imagine they wage caloric battle
on a much slower-moving scale. They have plateaus and only drop a few pounds per month. My point is, if you were to look at their statistical progress towards the end of their journey, it wouldn't seem all that exciting.

Well....don't ya think that when they first started that research on Lance Armstrong (when he was sub 8% improved)...he was already a stronger cyclist then 99.9% the rest of the population??? Seems like Lyle was comparing the increase in efficiency from an already elite performance athlete to an untrained subject.

Understand, I would LOVE to think I'm burning the same or nearly the same amount of calories that I used to when I go on my long bike rides....but before I entirely embrace this doctrine that increased efficeincy is negligible for mortals, I'd just like to re-think it a bit.

Now....I understand that if a person loses 40 pounds they no longer have to carry that weight during the exercise, so this accounts for one type of decrease in calories required to perform the same exercise. The contention is that the body becomes more efficient, like an engine that somehow produces more horsepower using less fuel. Hmmm....calories are calories and muscles still run on calories, so just how would this work? Let me forward this premise:

If I ride my 14-mile ride slow I'll burn a total of some 700 calories, but if I ride the same distance hard, I can burn closer to 950 calories or more...or so the heart-rate monitor's calorie-counter suggest. Not to mention, riding hard brings some EPOC (under the same banner as HIIT)...so we see that the body is less efficient and has higher calorie consumption at greater intensities. So when I ride a lot my body adapts by building more muscle and conditioning those muscles so they don't have to work as hard....thus reducing the intensity and consequently affecting the calories burned? That was me going from a novice cyclist to more of a regular enthusiast. I do believe I became significantly more efficient and I noticed my rides had to increase from 1-hour to 3-hours to help me continue making progress; 1 hour didn't phase me. I know I lost weight and that helped, but can increases fitness and loss of weight entirely account for this perceived greater efficiency?

Is Lance's 8% only a nominal percentage because he was already towards the end of his performance peak? We're all familar with the Law of Diminishing Returns.....I think snapping a statistic from Lance offers a very shallow perspective/glance at the end of a spectrum that was already narrowing. My hunch is that we may see very different results from a subject who hasn't biked before and is 60 pounds overweight to start with. Using Lance as a subject is like trying to see how much more you can spoil Paris Hilton.

Again, I'm not discounting Lyle's notion....just questioning it. And his explanation of "fitness" being accountable for why exercise seems so much easier...what exactly are the components of that? Greater VO2? More glycogen storage??
 
I highly suggest you copy and paste this forum to Lyle on his forum directly. You want direct answers from the guy who wrote the article, and he's easily accessible.

Do you know the address of his forum?

If not, you can find it at

Not all adaptations are created equal is my original thought to some of the questions you're asking. I'd discuss my thoughts further but I'm honestly not sure and don't want to be speaking for Lyle. I'll anxiously await your thread over on BR.

Thanks for joining us.
 
I am very intimidated to post over there. I just got UD2 and Stubborn Body Fat, and I don't even want to register. I will probably lurk and read as much as I can for as long as I can.
 
BikeSwimLaugh said:
I really can't add or offer much in the way of real science to this discussion, being a client (freak client) of Alan's...most of what I know & preach came from his mouth anyways.
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Glad to see you here, BSL :)

By the way, we all love and respect this "Freak of Nature" ;)

Hope your Christmas was a great.

Happy New Year.

Best wishes,

Chillen
 
Darth Pooh said:
I am very intimidated to post over there. I just got UD2 and Stubborn Body Fat, and I don't even want to register. I will probably lurk and read as much as I can for as long as I can.
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You realize there's a 'nice' and a 'mean' forum, right?

Completely different sites.
 
I believe that's the nice.

The mean is found here:



That's the original forum.

He recently opened the 'nice' forum since his original wasn't great for business. It's very informational, yet it's harsh and not conducive to helping out some misinformed people who buy his products.

Being smart, he started another forum better suited to less informed customers. Mind you, being less informed than members of the 'mean' forum still puts most members of the 'nice' forum miles ahead of the average. The active members of the 'mean' forum are very experienced/intelligent.

I just confirmed, the nice forum is the one you listed above.
 
Steve said:
I highly suggest you copy and paste this forum to Lyle on his forum directly. You want direct answers from the guy who wrote the article, and he's easily accessible.
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Ya know....it sounds like a good idea, but I'm hesitant. I'm not sure if you're old enough to remember, but SNL used to have a skit where one newscaster would turn to the other and say "Jane, you ignorant slut..." and then proceed to rip on her into submission.

My question is an honest question and I'm only asking because I'm truly curious....but based on Lyle's writing style, he seems a bit hostile and I'd fully expect a response along the lines containing phrases like "If you'd even think about it" and a few other implications that I'm some sort of peon who dares to question the master. I've got an appointment with Alan in a week or so, I'll just save my query for our lunch conversation.

In the end, my knowing how many calories I burn is just trivial....knowing the number doesn't change the facts.

When I started my long-haul mountain biking rides I would expend many more calories then I do today. My HR-monitor projects calories burned using my numbers and running it through an algorythm or sorts. The higher the heart-rate, the more calories you burn. What I've noticed is that I still maintain a cruising HR of about 155, but I'm turning higher gears and covering ground quicker...so my rides are shorter in time and thus calories. Part of this figures entirely into the concept that we become more efficient over time, but Lyle's article would more so write this off to increased fitness. Well, this makes sense: it should take a given amount of energy to move a set amount of weight a certain distance/altitude.

See...that's interesting. My old ride (14.4 miles) used to burn about 1,180 calories but today it burns about 790 calories. As mentioned above, I make the ride faster because I'm in better shape. Also, I've lost weight....but still, by Lyle's contention, the change in reported calories burned would just be accounted for by equipment inaccuracy. So he's likely say I'm still burning about the same calories as before, just that my improved fitness level alters the perceived measure made by the HR-monitor. Definitely interesting stuff....
 
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