High protein diet SHRINKS brain - Sorry, Alan

i'm not sure you understand how grants work

My dog eats a high-protein/low carb diet and his brain is way smaller than mine.

Sir Lance-alot wrote:

mango van mango wrote:

Jeff Volek is certainly one of the best researchers on the advantages of low-carb dieting and the damage done by the so-called "healthy" low-fat, grain-centered diets..one nice piece:

" The University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education which you are a part of was recently endowed with a generous $450,000 donation from The Atkins Foundation for continuing research into low-carb diets."

Hmmm.....there's no CHANCE of an bias in his studies based on that grant, huh??

Care to explain how that bias would work? Are you suggesting Volek lies in his published studies?

I Meathead. I lift lot of weight

Lance you again have no idea what you're talking about...

"if someone is young, a fairly natural athlete, and works out hard for most of their lives, they can be cut and fairly muscular with virtually any combination of macronutrients"

HUGE difference between "cut & fairly muscular" and "show ready". HUGE difference between 8-10% bodyfat and 3-5% bodyfat.

It may be shocking to many on this board that someone can have athletic interests other than running since runners view running as the end all be all of fitness.

The goal with "body building" is to "build a body". In order to do that you need to be confident and shameless and do things that many would call silly. The current judging views highly of conditioning...getting as lean and vascular as possible. So the goal in a contest prep diet is to lose fat without losing much muscle mass. "The Mirror" is the best assessment of progress and that is why you need pictures and since certain poses are required it would be desireable to pose and check progress over the course of time.

Lance, when you've actually built muscle and reduced your bodyfat to minimum levels then you can offer a valid assessment of what works or doesn't work. When you've helped someone lose 50lbs or more then you can tell me that my way doesn't work. Let me know when you get into contest shape, when you see striations not bones in your chest, when you can actually see the cuts in your quads, the horseshoe in your tricep, the cuts in your back, or veins throughout your body. Until then, stop being a troll. You just sound silly talking about stuff you obviously have no clue about.

My protocol, or a variation (Beverly's 50/20/30), is used quite a bit:

http://www.bodybuildingworld.com/Contest/workshop/index.html

http://www.bodymusclejournal.com/vol09/ez_diet.html

I've love to see your experience with yourself or a client cutting down to show ready on a high carb low protein diet and not lose a boatload of muscle in the process. Good luck.

Alan

One thing that I don't understand in this lengthy and heated debate is why we are discussing bodybuilding. This is a running message-board, no?

But really, if some people really want to obsess and berate each other over their precisely-calculated protein-fat-CHO percentages and other dietary minutiae (or even, for that matter, post pictures of themselves flexing in their underwear), that's fine by me.

Meanwhile I will avoid mixing mathematics and food, and keep on eating tasty real foods because I enjoy them, not because they fit a set of percentages.

Willy, your dog is smarter than you. Way smarter.

A lot of people saying they are on a high carb diet aren't even really on a high carb diet, they just eat a lot of junk food that looks like it has carbs in it, when in reality it's junk carbs and massive amounts of non-essential fat. You can eat a high carb diet if you do it right, but you can also eat a high fat diet if you do it right, such as the people who live in Mediterranean areas.

Alan is right that you don't need to count vegetable calories, although it would change the macronutrient ratios if they were accounted for in those totals, carbs would be slightly higher.

Lancedalot wrote:

i'm not sure you understand how grants work

and...

mango van mango wrote:

Care to explain how that bias would work? Are you suggesting Volek lies in his published studies?

Um, I understand how grants work, and you guys clearly don't understand how bias works. I never said he would flat out lie (I doubt he would, although he anything is possible, I know nothing about the guy). That is not how bias works. He could pull the plug on studies that were not looking promising for Atkins (instead of publishing results that would not support their low carb mantra); he could interpret results in far more promising manner than is reasonable; he could attempt to have a design that would be more favorable for the results he is looking for, etc (all sort of ways).

I am not saying that ANY time a corporation pays for a study to be done that is necessarily flawed/biased. I am simply saying that it is something to be considered. Why else do you think researchers state that they have "no conflicts of interest" when authoring a paper? Do you think Volek can truly make that statement when he authors a paper on the benefits of low carb diets when it was paid for by Atkins foundation?

I do not understand how grants and bias works? Child, you've soiled yourself again. Volek (You can contact him at

)1) has to go through official channels to GET funding for studies, he cannot "secretly" conduct studies and cancel them if they don't go "his" way--this is not his money, after all, nor Atkins money, but university money. Studies, child, are EXPENSIVE. 2) Many studies are INDEED designed to "enhance" the likelihood of a specific outcome. A drug company such as Eli Lilly, for example, may conduct a study on OTC treatments for depression--Omega 3s, for example--which may cut into their drug revenue, and formulate such a study using a dose of omega 3s which is too low, for too short a time period, using patients least likely to respond to the treatment (say, really sick people who eat a lot of fish). But of course, all of Volek's published studies that pertain to this subject are available online--as you know, as you've looked at them (right?). If you wish to punch holes in them, fire away--if you have complaints which are legit (as opposed to your puerile whining and slander) they may actually lead to...better studies in the future.

Here's another fun study you'll ignore:

mango van mango wrote:

I do not understand how grants and bias works? Child, you've soiled yourself again.

Oh seriously f*** off and go blow Volek on your own time ( I am sure it will be a nice high protein low carb snack you will enjoy). Your reading comprehension skills are embarrassing. I did not say you do not know how grants work, I said, and still say, you are apparently naive to how a study paid for by Atkins looking for specific results could influence those studies/results. Oh, and before I wrote what I did, I ran it all by someone with PhD in Genetics from Harvard University who works at the CDC, and is a published author from both places. She confirmed everything I wrote (it was the impression I already had from my own education, but I'd rather run it by someone who knows more on the subject than myself). So why don't you tell her that she is dead wrong about what I wrote (that she agreed with) and a child ? Oh don't bother I will tell her for you so she can get a good laugh. [/quote]

I had to switch to cycling over the summer with an injury and cycling TIME (not distance) does convert prettyw ell to running time if you do it with the same heart rate/power output as running. If you are a runner with no cycling background and switch to cycling, this will feel very, very intense from the waist down. I didn't run hardly any for 8 weeks and had lost very little aerobic fitness from hard and consistent cycling. If you run 80 min. with a HR of 130 or ride 80 min. with a HR of 130, I'll gurantee you are expending the same energy - your HR will reflect it. Granted, as a runner, you will have to work very hard to keep your HR at running levels on a bike until you build your power. The problem with most people who ride casually is they don't spin constantly and measure their workout in miles rather than power output for a given amount of time. Good cyclists don't log miles, they log minutes at a given wattage or, lacking a power meter, at a given HR. The key to cycling to maintain running fitness is to find the gear ratio you can spin the entire ride at 90+ rpm at the HR effort you want to mimic running.