Caloric "Opportunity Costs?"

[mb27]

Thanks Lyle. Yes I realized a long time ago that my body hates me

So, let's say that you were fat, you lost the weight and are pretty lean and sportin some abs. Your fat cells are now pretty sensitive because "your body hates you". Where do you go from here? I realize that if you were fat and lost it that you will always have to be carefull about what you eat. But at some point won't it all come crashing down, thyroid, testosterone etc? Is this where breaks in dieting ie refeeds come into play? Maybe rotate the calories and carbs so even though your body is in an overall deficit over the course of a week or two, it doesn't realize it. What I'm getting at is you can't have your body thinking it's starving for the rest of your life to stay lean, and be healthy.

[lylemcd]

Where do you go from here?

Dunno what you're asking here.

But at some point won't it all come crashing down, thyroid, testosterone etc? Is this where breaks in dieting ie refeeds come into play? Maybe rotate the calories and carbs so even though your body is in an overall deficit over the course of a week or two, it doesn't realize it.

Not sure what you're asking here either. Are we talking about trying to get leaner, staying lean, trying to gain muscle after you've gotten lean? Or something else entirely.

What I'm getting at is you can't have your body thinking it's starving for the rest of your life to stay lean, and be healthy.

Interestingly enough, some (if not all) of the caloric restriction = longevity mechanisms seem to be related to low leptin/low bodyfat and an overall slowing of metabolism.



You might feel like shit staying lean forever but you might live longer too.



Lyle

NINJA...RAP!

Vanilla ice is my hero.

[Par Deus]

Where do you go from here?

http://www.avantlabs.com/product.php?productID=5

[mb27]

lol, thanks Par.



Lyle what I ment was that if you used to be fat, but busted your ass to get lean, can you stay lean and be healthy even though your body is against you. Your body is fighting you to try tp go back to 15% bf while you are trying to stay at 10%. I guess you answered it above.

[lylemcd]

lol, thanks Par.



Lyle what I ment was that if you used to be fat, but busted your ass to get lean, can you stay lean and be healthy even though your body is against you. Your body is fighting you to try tp go back to 15% bf while you are trying to stay at 10%. I guess you answered it above.

Well, as to staying lean, that got discussed ad nauseum in the setpoint thread (advanced theory, I think). It doesn't look like the body will ever spontaneously 'recover' in terms of hormones or metabolism (note: if it does, it would take years).



Now, do realize that even going back to caloric balance (i.e. you've gotten as lean as you want to be so you stop trying to actively lose fat) will mean some recovery of leptin and the rest. So if you were losing 1 lb/week during the diet and decide to stop, you can raise calories by 500 and still be in balance (not losing further, but not gaining either). It'll simply be much lower than it was when you were fatter; but it'll be higher than if you were still in a caloric deficit. That should help things at least a little bit. If you pick high-volume/low energy density foods, that extra 500 calories should also mean quite a high volume of foods.



But, if you're significantly leaner than your body 'wants' to be (whatever that means), there will always be some adaptations in terms of hunger, metabolic rate, etc. that are trying to pull you back to your previous mediocrity.



What this means, practically, is that you are going to always be fighting your body to some degree to stay lean. This gets into behavioral issues as much as anything else. AS long as you don't start eating too much again, you're not magically going to get fat. Some degree of caloric restriction/control with activity is going to be required to stay lean. For an athlete or bodybuilder, this is more or less par for the course.



I do think that doing the occasional refeed even while trying to stay lean can be helpful both psychologically and physiologically. So I'll anticipate your question which will most likely be how much and how often and answer them by saying "I have no idea." I'd say see waht you can get away with. Maybe start with 2X5 hour refeeds per week, around weight training of course. Make sure to control calories the rest of the days. If that goes well, you can try 2X12 hour refeeds. Maybe you can push it to 2X24 hour refeeds in conjunctino with training.



This all assumes, of course, that it's not causing you to regain bodyfat. As long as you keep the refeeds relatively clean and low-fat, you should be ok. If you want to let loose with higher fat crap, make sure and keep the duration well under control.



Do note that trying to gain radical amounts of muscle while staying very lean is very difficult (except for the genetically lean) because hormones are going to be crashed. There was always an old saw about gaining muscle better at 12% bodyfat or so; I used to dismiss it as an excuse to stay fat but now, with knowledge about leptin and the rest of the body's systems, I think there's some truth to it.



Or try Par's magic powder, see if it does what he hopes it will do.



Or drugs.



Lyle

[virtualcyber]

can you stay lean and be healthy even though your body is against you.

Not lyle, but I want to try this staying lean until the day that I die, when I reach the muscle mass I want, for longevity purposes. I have read that one's metabolism actually improves with fewer calories.



I am not sure why some people seem to "age" quicker at very low bf -- perhaps, low bf and caloric restriction are not the same thing. Or perhaps they just look bad, but will live longer. Again, from what I have read, that shouldn't be the case with caloric restricted life style.

[lylemcd]

[quote name='mb27' date='Jul 25 2003, 06:05 PM'] can you stay lean and be healthy even though your body is against you.

Not lyle, but I want to try this staying lean until the day that I die, when I reach the muscle mass I want, for longevity purposes. I have read that one's metabolism actually improves with fewer calories.



I am not sure why some people seem to "age" quicker at very low bf -- perhaps, low bf and caloric restriction are not the same thing. Or perhaps they just look bad, but will live longer. Again, from what I have read, that shouldn't be the case with caloric restricted life style. [/quote]

I don't know, some of the pics of CR folks I've seen really look like shit. Gaunt, pallid, just not healthy. Of course, they aren't carrying much muscle either and that probably explains it (marathon runners are super lean but usually look like shit on a stick).



Lyle

Forgot that I'm a ninja in my last post!

[virtualcyber]

I don't know, some of the pics of CR folks I've seen really look like shit.* Gaunt, pallid, just not healthy. Of course, they aren't carrying much muscle either and that probably explains it (marathon runners are super lean but usually look like shit on a stick).

Lyle:



Do you happen to rememger how many calories you need to cut to get into longevity level (in terms of % of "normal intake")? Or do I need to refer to mice experiment?

[lylemcd]

Do you happen to rememger how many calories you need to cut to get into longevity level (in terms of % of "normal intake")?* Or do I need to refer to mice experiment?

I vaguely recall it's in the 30-50% of normal range but don't hold me to that. It's not an area that I pay much more than very vague attention to. I'm holding out for drugs that will prolong life without the misery of starving yourself all the damn time.



Lyle

[mb27]

Thanks again for the info Lyle.

I have found that for me personally, I have to really be strict with diet and feel like crap to maintain a 6 pack. It's not so much hunger and cravings that make it a bad experience, but having absolutley no energy or sex drive whatsoever. All I really would want to do is sleep all day and night. Once I start eating enough calories to feel somewhat normal again I would immediately smooth over. Not really getting fat or pudgey, but any and all definition would be history. My thoughts to help this situation would be for me to put on a lot more muscle without letting bodyfat levels get too high, and then like you said diet while experimenting with refeeds. I found the other thread you refered to and am about to go through it. Thanks for pointing it out.

[lylemcd]

Thanks again for the info Lyle.

I have found that for me personally, I have to really be strict with diet and feel like crap to maintain a 6 pack. It's not so much hunger and cravings that make it a bad experience, but having absolutley no energy or sex drive whatsoever. All I really would want to do is sleep all day and night. Once I start eating enough calories to feel somewhat normal again I would immediately smooth over. Not really getting fat or pudgey, but any and all definition would be history. My thoughts to help this situation would be for me to put on a lot more muscle without letting bodyfat levels get too high, and then like you said diet while experimenting with refeeds. I found the other thread you refered to and am about to go through it. Thanks for pointing it out.

Think of it from an evolutionary point of view. Being at 6-8% bodyfat is a dangerous place to be (from your body's perspective). It means your starving to death becaue there's not food available (dieting and starvation differ only by degrees).



For the same reason a women's menstrual cycle will typically stop, a man's sex drive (and ability: pre-contest bodybuilders become impotent frequently) will decrease. There's no point in getting pregnant if there's no food. So the body shuts down reproductive processes.



Have i mentioned in the last hour that your body hates you?



Lyle

[shpongled]

[quote name='shpongled' date='Jul 25 2003, 12:52 AM'] [quote name='lylemcd' date='Jul 24 2003, 07:37 PM'] [quote name='Method' date='Jul 24 2003, 07:12 PM'] ...it's the "Anarchy Stack," which has become almost a cult recipe in certain circles because the combo is purported to give you extreme insulin sensitivity and enhanced partitioning (in other words: it's a bunch of glucose-disposal/insulin-control supps stacked together).* All in all, it's not a bad stack, however, I think it's misguided to consume (r-)ALA and CLA in such high amounts-- especially the latter (unless it was strictly trans-10,cis-12 CLA, but as far as I'm aware, such a product doesn't exist).* Personally, I think there are better things one can stack ALCAR and green tea with (both of which I'm convinced really do rock), but some people swear by it.* There's a massive thread on it over @ AnabolicMinds if you're interested:



http://www.anabolicminds.com/forum/showthr...=&threadid=5553

(be warned...it's long...)

a. If I were going to piss away that much money, I'd just buy real drugs and get real results.



b. exactly how is r-ALA supposed to be beneficial, seeing as it improves insulin sensitivity in both muscle AND fat cells?



Lyle [/quote]

To add to this....



c. Why would you take 600 mg of ALA at a time, when more than 200 mg cannot be utilized at a time? And this is in fasted subjects



d. Why does it seem that the ultimate goal of this stack is hypoglycemia? Why is that beneficial?



The green tea and ALCAR I agree with, although I would not take them solely for the purpose of body comp changes. The CLA, I don't see a reason to waste so much money on it until more information is available. [/quote]

david... the results from my experiment indicated otherwise. Do you have a reference? Also is this referring to R-ALA?



The "anarchy stack" seems ok... but they all work through the same pathway... your basically bombarding one pathway in hopes of big results... it's going to help but after a certain amount it's just overkill [/quote]

I stand corrected... went back and looked at the pharmacokinetic study that I had from a while ago, and I had misread it the first time, the half-life is equivalent but not the AUC (for 200 vs. 600 mg)

[shpongled]

[quote name='shpongled' date='Jul 25 2003, 12:52 AM'] The CLA, I don't see a reason to waste so much money on it until more information is available.

Well besides the link provided, theres a bunch of people doing it at Animalkits.be and one thread alone is 20+ pages of the same positive feedback. [/quote]

Positive feedback means jack. There's a plethora of positive feedback on hundreds of worthless supps. And it's literally impossible to determine if CLA would have anything to do with it anyway as ALCAR by itself could cause all these "amazing results" people are seeing, and there's actually research to support that.

[shpongled]

Just wanted to comment about ALA.* I capped r-ALA at around 600 mg per pill, and I started taking 1 cap with 50 g of carbs ED.* Usually, after about 40 min, I start feeling drowsy and fatigued.



I know it is unscientific, but I feel as though r-ALA is mildly toxic to our body.* If there is benefit, it maybe because r-ALA stresses out our body, which would make sense in light of studies that show r-ALA's benefit occurring mostly in diabetics.* My speculation also wouldn't be inconsistent with studies that show r-ALA to be a mild pro-oxidant.* I will try switching to plain ALA, which has been shown (in one study in vitro) to be more potent anti-oxidant than r-ALA.



In any case, given that our body produces lots of superoxides during exercise, I am not sure that ALA would be beneficial for athletes -- I suppose this all depends on ALA's mechanism of action.



_If_ ALA is inducing extra leanness because it is basically stressing out the body -- well, then, I can do without ALA.* I will just eat less.

600 mg of R-ALA in a normal individual is going to cause a pretty significant hypoglycemic state. IMO ALA is useful as a general antioxidant/anti-aging supp with some mild glucose utilization benefits in low doses and in diabetics at higher doses but that's about it.

[shpongled]

[quote name='shpongled' date='Jul 25 2003, 12:52 AM'] The CLA, I don't see a reason to waste so much money on it until more information is available.

Well besides the link provided, theres a bunch of people doing it at Animalkits.be and one thread alone is 20+ pages of the same positive feedback.



And the comment about if Im gonna use that much money you would just buy drugs. Well for one, what if one cant use drugs for personal reasons, or natural contests, or some other reason. Second the insulin senstizing and fat fighting is just the tip. ALA/ALCAR has been shown, when used together to strenghthen even old mitochondria to young, strong more robust powerhouses. The stronger the mito's the stronger the ability to repair and rebuild tissue. I put up a post on GT of about 15 studies that are relevant to the stack and its benefits. CLA is also a strong antioxidant. So its also a stack that has strong health benefits. Finally there have been guys showing there bloodwork while on relatively high amounts of AS and the stack simultaneously and it appears the stack has a strong protective effect on organs under stress. [/quote]

I doubt the improved mitochondrial function is going to have many anabolic benefits at all until you hit your 40's or so, although it will have other health benefits. If this were the case CQ10 would make you huge.

[shpongled]

Not to change the subject from the above supplements, but is there anything that would improve insulin sensitivity in muscle alone? Or maybe something to decrease sensitivity in fat cells alone? Abviously weight training will help sensitivity in muscles. I was thinking possibly transdermal caffeine apllied right over some stubborn fat areas?

This may be of benefit, there is some stuff about it in some of the Lipoderm threads. The problem is the amount of caffeine you need for a significant effect would be pretty large.

[shpongled]

[quote name='mb27' date='Jul 25 2003, 06:05 PM'] can you stay lean and be healthy even though your body is against you.

Not lyle, but I want to try this staying lean until the day that I die, when I reach the muscle mass I want, for longevity purposes. I have read that one's metabolism actually improves with fewer calories.



I am not sure why some people seem to "age" quicker at very low bf -- perhaps, low bf and caloric restriction are not the same thing. Or perhaps they just look bad, but will live longer. Again, from what I have read, that shouldn't be the case with caloric restricted life style. [/quote]

There's lots of research on this (in fact, I just downloaded a bunch of journal articles and plan on reading them in the coming days) but in my present opinion caloric restriction (CR) works because less food ---> less cell division, and each time a cell divides there are small changes, telomeres shorten and there is a higher risk of mutations and such. I think insulin also plays a large part. But the standard recommendation for CR for longevity is 80% of the amount of calories that are generally recommended for someone of your body type, weight, activity level etc. So in my case that's ~2900 calories so I should eat 2300 calories to live longer. Most people dip way below this when dieting to low bodyfat levels and that can have many negative effects on health, and that's why they'll start looking 20 years older than they are.

[shpongled]

[quote name='lylemcd' date='Jul 25 2003, 06:21 PM'] I don't know, some of the pics of CR folks I've seen really look like shit.* Gaunt, pallid, just not healthy. Of course, they aren't carrying much muscle either and that probably explains it (marathon runners are super lean but usually look like shit on a stick).

Lyle:



Do you happen to rememger how many calories you need to cut to get into longevity level (in terms of % of "normal intake")? Or do I need to refer to mice experiment? [/quote]

VC there is lots of information on CR over at the immortality board,



http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=SF&f=39



I haven't really looked at it but I'm sure there's a wealth of good information. The 80% figure I gave above, I read somewhere but I don't recall where.

[Gene]

Aging is basically all about gene expression controls, which in turn has to do with physiological age rather than chronological age. CR tends to delay the diseases that come with aging, though there are definitely some neuroendocrine pathways interconnecting stress, metabolism and lifespan. If you look carefully at the oxidative stressors stuff, the evidence on that is very scanty, to say the least.



In rats, carbs basically dominate the age-caloric intake hypothesis. Life is extended with low-carb diets, even without CR. Protein/fat has no significance beyond caloric value. Insulin signalling decreases life-span through some regulatory mechanisms. CR is not favored with evolution though, because it decreases fertility and negatively impacts growth and development in the young. Remember those ad lib studies are a bit misleading too because they let the control groups grossly overeat.



Safe to say, it's a multidimensional phenomenon.



I think that as soon as we are born, someone should just tell us we are dying.

[virtualcyber]

shpongled:



(1) telomere is not the limiting factor. In certain cells, telomere regrows when needed.



(2) Here is the most recent explanation of why calorie restriction works.



To live, cells go through glycolysis. As it turns out, NADH molecules, which are involved in glycolysis, are also necessary to trigger DNA cleansing process (to correct for oxidative or other damages). When NADH become engaged in glycolysis, they are no longer in the chemical pathway to remove "dirt" from DNA.



This has been confirmed using various genetic experiments. I believe it also involves something called Sir2 gene.



(3) NAD is formed via nicotinic acid. You can purchase nicotinamide relatively cheap. I don't know if it will be able to penetrate into the mitochondria and particpate in longevity. I think athletes don't use it for the reason that it preserves body fat. Perhaps it would be best if one were to take it in calorie restricted mode.