[quote]laroyal wrote:
Hey great to hear from you ksommer:-)
People need to realize that kcals are not always the most important part of the equation, it is nutrients. Consider the TEF (thermic effect of food) if you eat 3000 kcals of protein, fat, and carbohydrate there are going to be 3 signifigantly different outcomes and I am sure we can all agree on this.
That does not even factor in the effect of hormones. When you look at the best bodybuilders in the world I am sure we can agree on 2 points. 1.) they are huge & ripped 2.) they are not natural.
This being said, we know they eat about they same foods most people on this site do infact, some people on here try to emulate their diets to no avail.
The “x” factor is hormonal enviornment and if we can optimize our own with the right food and supplement choices wouldn’t you agree our physiques will reflect this more than a “500 kcal” reduction.
Calories are a small slice of the physique pie and obsessing over them is foolish. Heck, if you keep lowering those kcals as some here have suggested your thyroid will down regulate, your ability to oxidize BCAA’s will be comprimised and you will loose muscle (the ultimate fat burning furnace), and your leptin production will be decreased.
Look no further than better food choices and I am confident you will reach your goals. IMO your kcals are already on the low end.[/quote]
you really are dumb aren’t you? i don’t care who’s certification you got, you can go back and tell them that you’re getting schooled in nutrition by a 20 year old communications major. Ok, now on to what you wrote…
first of all, energy balance (energy intake vs. energy expenditure) is the bottom line in weight loss. Similarly “fat balance” (fat intake vs. fat oxidation) is the bottom line in fat loss.
Thermodynamics teaches that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it only changes form. Nobody on earth is exempt from this law. The thermic effect of food does not disprove this law, it only means that some of the calories are expended in the process of digestion but the energy is still accounted for. Calories STILL count.
Secondly, nobody is suggesting that anyone eat 3,000 calories of any single macornutrient, as anyone who doesn’t have their head up their ass will tell you that all three should be present in a diet to some degree.
Moving on to your point about pro bodybuilders…if you think that anyone on THIS SITE (with perhaps the exception of a few very large individuals) eats the way they do, you are a bigger fucking moron than I thought.
if you want to “optimize the hormonal environment” go abuse some pharmaceuticals like pro bodybuilders do, cause that’s about all you can do. YOU YOURSELF stated that they are not natural, so why even make the comparison? apples to oranges much?
You stated to “focus on calories is foolish”…umm, no it isn’t. What’s foolish is believing that certain food choices (i.e. natural vs. regular PB or brown rice vs. white rice) will have any effect on fat loss given equal calories (hint: they don’t)
To quote from an article by Matthew Perryman, CSCS: “The magic of clean eating then is not because of the quality of the foods, but rather the simple fact that “clean” foods on average have less calories for any given amount. The “clean” dieter has
thus reduced his or her calorie intake simply by changing food choices.”
Read that again, and focus on the part about REDUCING ONES CALORIC INTAKE.
Finally, you wrote that if one continues to reduce ones caloric intake, he will experience some degree of metabolic shutdown. Yes, this is a valid point.
However,
(1) someone at 25% BF has a long way to go before this becomes an issue (typically when ones tries to go from 10-12% to single digit this becomes more of a problem) and
(2) that’s precisely the reason you shouldn’t diet for long stretches of time before taking a 2 week “break”, where one raises the calories to maintenance levels or slightly above and increase carbs to non-ketogenic levels (i.e. over 100g per day)
beyond that, when dieting down to single digit levels, a cycical ketogenic diet should be implemented in which regular high carbs refeeds are used to prevent metabolic slowdown.
However, the OP needs not to be concerned with all this until he reaches a significant degree of leanness. Right now he needs to focus on (1) ensuring a sufficent protein intake (1-1.5g per lb.) and creating a energy deficit (through increased training, decreased food intake, or both)
/thread
