It's all about the calories?

[Chris-STL]

Not sure if this is out there yet or not, but I found it interesting. Seems that their sample size was pretty small.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/diet....eut/index.html

Tests on overweight people show that a calorie is just a calorie, whether lost by dieting or by running, they said.
They found there is no way to selectively lose belly fat, for instance, or trim thighs. And their carefully controlled study added to evidence that adding muscle mass does not somehow boost metabolism and help dieters take off even more weight.
"It's all about the calories," said Dr. Eric Ravussin of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, part of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
"So long as the energy deficit is the same, body weight, fat weight, and abdominal fat will all decrease in the same way."

[Keith S.]

But the point is that adding muscle mass and training that muscle mass will increase the ammount of energy (calories) used by the body to maintain the muscle.

[Chris-STL]

Thats the part I thought was interesting.

And their carefully controlled study added to evidence that adding muscle mass does not somehow boost metabolism and help dieters take off even more weight.
.
.
.
Ravussin has published other studies that also dispute the idea that exercise builds muscle that helps people lose weight.
"If anything, highly trained people are highly efficient, so they burn fewer calories at rest," Ravussin said.

[gobbla]

an untrained individual likely wouldn't loose additional body mass from diet without working out. 1 they don't have it to lose. 2 their activity levels are constant so it'd be the same as a person that weight trains, still training during a diet

the extra muscle\strength will also allow for more calories to be burned during activity.

it seems like there's a lot of blanket statements in there that aren't "wrong" but they don't apply nearly as universally as what they're being tossed out as.

edit:
my guess is that he's talking about cardio. if you do the same everything over a period of time it takes less energy to do it. it's true but again a blanket statement that isn't really relivent.

[Ogedei]

WHAT??? WE CAN'T SPOT REDUCE!!!

NEWSFLASH!!!!

[Lost Dog]

I agree with Keith. It's not the muscle, per se, that burns more calories. That old myth of 50 more calories burned for ever pound of muscle added is long gone. But, that extra muscle gives you the potential to burn more calories when you do your strength training (which I don't think they actually studied). The more muscle you have and the stronger you are, the more micro trauma you can create. Repairing that damage takes energy.

I think I agree with Gobbla, but since he ripped on a typo of mine, a while back, I refuse to give him any credit when he uses "loose," where "lose" is clearly appropriate...

Story Highlights

• Eating less, exercising more equally good at helping take off pounds, study finds
• Research adds to evidence that adding muscle mass does not boost metabolism
• Dieting alone also did not appear to cause loss of muscle mass along with fat

Aside from the first bullet, above, the rest of the story is full of blurbs that fail to look deeply enough at any of the issues.

Plus, the 3rd bullet is just plain stupid. I've NEVER heard the claim that exercise stops the loss of lean tissue. It's always stated that resistance training helps stop the loss of lean mass.

Dieting alone also did not appear to cause the volunteers to lose muscle mass along with fat, Ravussin's team found.

"There is a concept that if you exercise, you are going to lose less of your muscle," he said. But his team found no evidence this is true.

The above sentences are a non sequitur. If dieting alone doesn't cause you to lose muscle along with your fat, then of course exercise won't stop you from losing more muscle. You can't not lose more of something that you're not losing, already.

This story should never have been written.

I rarely pay attention to things like this, but why is there no writer's name attached to the story? Obviously no REAL writer with any true sense of logic was involved, but still. Is just attributing the story to "Reuters," enough?

[vuduchyld]

Nice work, LD!!!

[ParanoidAndroid]

Seems like he was telling people what they wanted to hear:"you don't have to excersice/lift"

I'm also willing to bet that the people in the study were significantly overweight. We all know that fatter people tend to lose more weight from fat than muscle than lean people when in a caloric deficit.

[Frank.S]

You will loose the same amount of weight (approx) if you eat 2500cals of 90/8/2 vs a more balanced 30/30/40 (c/f/p). Or if you are 3500cals and did 1000cals worth of cardio (including epoc and such..).

The problem is, I dont want to loose weight, I want to loose fat, dammit!

The main problem with this study is the participants.. Untrained people most likely as mentioned. Plus, I find it hard to beleive that this study was doen very fairly, some people would loose more weight then others almost no matter what, due to differences in bmr's and lifestyle..

This is the kind of artical my mom is going to read (cnn so it must be true) and is going to go on an anti-excersice plan... oh my.

[ParanoidAndroid]

Originally Posted by Frank.S

This is the kind of artical my mom is going to read (cnn so it must be true)

its the opposite in my house. CNN is tainted with "liberal bias" so obviously Fox News is the undisputed truth.

[Frank.S]

Originally Posted by ParanoidAndroid

its the opposite in my house. CNN is tainted with "liberal bias" so obviously Fox News is the undisputed truth.

Whats worse is, im in Canada..

Really, not much of the stuff on cnn really effects us at all.. Yet ill be the first to know if america gets a tax hike etc.. haha. Only here could I have 60 channels and 50 of them be american.

[ParanoidAndroid]

Originally Posted by Frank.S

Whats worse is, im in Canada..

Yeah, that must really suck!

[ichbinba]

just something to think about. this is a study. one study proves nothing, and the researcher (not the news morons) would agree. It's not uncommon to perform or read 3 different studies and get three different results, that's why extensive research on important topics is crucial.

My guess is it was one little study with some mixed results that the press took and twisted to be the next "big wight loss truth!" ... this is why I only watch shows that are animated!

[sillybubba74]

Looks like Tom Venuto jumped on this article as well.

http://www.burnthefatblog.com/

[Lisa~]

Originally Posted by sillybubba74

Looks like Tom Venuto jumped on this article as well.

http://www.burnthefatblog.com/

Excellent commentary from Tom Venuto. Great link sillybubba!

[umass]

This is a little OT, but does anybody else get really mad at ads on T.V that include the phrase "in a major University double blind study"? My poor girlfriend has had to listen to 10 minute crazed rants because of twisted advertising...in fact just thinking about it is raising by BP.