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The Science of Fat-Loss: Why a

Calorie Isnt Always a Calorie206 Comments

Written by Tim Ferriss

Topics: The 4-Hour Body -4HBCalorie counting can work, but its often based on pseudo-science.

Ive examined before how people can lose 20+ lbs. of bodyfatorgain34 lbs. of lean masswithin four weeks, replete with measurementsand photographs, but there is still a chorus: Thats impossible! Youd

need to have a 4,000-calorie daily deficit or Thats impossible! Youd

need to consume20,000

calories per day!

Nonsense. Thermodynamics isnt so simple, and you can accelerate

your body optimization results by understanding the real science

Ive invited Dr. Michael Eades, one of my favorite bariatric (obesity

treatment) doctors in the US and the first to introduce insulin resistance

to the mainstream, to explain the facts vs. disinformation. He is author

of one of the few research-driven weight-loss books I recommend,

Protein Power.

Take it away, Dr. Eades

Dr. Eades:

Ive taken some heat for my writing that weight loss or weight gain

involves more than a simple accounting for calories.

The entirety of mainstream medicine and nutrition believe that calories

are the only thing that counts and that a low-carb diet is nothing more

than a clever way to get people to cut calories. Weight loss on low-carb

diets, so they say, occurs only because subjects following low-carb

diets reduce their caloric intake. A calorie is a calorie is a calorie they

say. But is it?

I could argue that this idea isnt necessarily true becauseof a number ofrecent studies that have shown that subjects following low-carb diets

actually lose more weight than their counterparts on low-fat, high-carb

diets despite the fact that the low-carbers consumed considerably more

calories. But instead of going through these modern day studies, lets go

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back and look at a couple of earlier famous studies to see what we can

learn.

ANCEL KEYS STUDY

In 1944 Ancel Keys, Ph.D., decided to undertake a long-term study of

starvation. It was apparent that WWII was going to be over soon and

that much of Europe was starving. Although word of the mass starvation

in concentration camps was just starting to filter out into the world, it

was well known the Europeans, especially Eastern European, were not

getting enough food. Keys wanted to do a study of starvation to see

what really happened during the process so that at wars end the victors

would have a better idea of how to deal with the starving masses theywere sure to encounter.

Keys recruited 36young male volunteers from the cadre of theconscientious objectors. These were healthy, normal weight men, most

of whom were working for the Civilian Public Service (CPS), an entitycreated to provide jobs of national importance for conscientious

objectors. The men responded to brochures and bulletins distributed in

the various CPS barracks showing a photo of three French toddlersstaring at empty bowls over the question: WILL YOU STARVE SO

THAT THEY WILL BE BETTER FED?

The subjects came to the Universityof Minnesota where they werehoused in the cavernous area underneath the football stadium for the

course of the study. They were basically kept under lock and key for the

study so that Keys and his colleagues could ensure compliance. At the

start of the experiment the men were fed sumptuously for the first 12weeks.

A full-time cook, two assistants and a dietitian monitored the food intake

to the smallest fraction. According to The Great StarvationExperiment**, an excellent book about this famous study, during this

lead-in phase the men ate well. A typical days food would include

a typical lunch [that] consisted of fricasseed lamb with gravy, peas, and a

carrot and raisin salad. For dinnerthe men ate roast beef with gravy,

whipped potatoes, tomato salad, and ice cream for dessert.

Although the three meals per day the men received added up to around

3,200 calories, which they were told approximated the normal American

diet, the men said that they had never eaten better in their lives.

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On day one of the starvation portion of the study, February 12, 1945,

the rations were cut substantially.

The group shifted overnight from the three relatively generous meals of

the control period to only two Spartan meals per day, a breakfast at 8:30AM and supper at 5:00PM.The meals were designed to approximate the food available in European

famine areas, with a heavy emphasis on potatoes, cabbage, and whole wheat

bread. Meat was provided in quantities so small that most men would swear in

later years that none was included at all.

One of the three dinners included the following:

SUPPER #2

185 grams of bean-and pea soup (made with 5 grams dried peas, 16 grams ofdried beans, and 15grams fresh ham)255grams macaroni and cheese (made with 130grams wet macaroni, 12grams lard, 108grams skim milk, 2grams flour, and 35grams Americancheese)

40grams rutabagas100grams steamed potatoes100grams lettuce salad (80grams lettuce, 10grams vinegar, 10gramssugar)

The relatively bulky 255 grams of macaroni made that particular meal an

anticipated favorite among the volunteers. The wet macaroni served was

roughly the amount required to fill a coffee mug about three-quarters full.

Over the twenty-four week starvation part of the study, the subjects not

only lost a considerable percentage of their body weights, but suffered a

number of problems as well. As the time wore on the men thoughtceaselessly about food, they became lethargic, they were cold all thetime, they became depressed, they developed bleeding disorders, their

ankles became edematous, and some developed more serious

psychological disorders.

Below is a photo of one of the young men in this study (the book shows

multiple photographsthis one is typical of all the subjects). The firstphoto was taken a couple of years prior to the start of the study, the

second is with about a month shy of the end of the experiment.

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This young man suffered such psychological turmoil from the semi-

starvation that he chopped off several fingers of his left hand a month orso after the bottom picture was taken.

The men in this study consumed macronutrients in the following

amounts daily: protein 100 gm, fat 30 gm, and carbohydrate 225 gm. If

you express these intakes as percentages, you come up with 25.5%

protein, 17.2%fat and 57.3%carbohydrate.Average energy intake of the subjects in the experiment: 1570caloriesper day.

Now lets look at another experiment conducted about25years later.JOHN YUDKIN STUDY

In the late 1960s John Yudkins group at the University of London

performed a study that is most interesting in view of the Keys semi-

starvation study. (Click hereto get the complete pdf of this study)For about 15 years Dr. Yudkin and histeam had been running a weight

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loss clinic out of the university hospital using a low-carb dietary

approach. Despite the patients doing well on the program, he and his

staff had received the same criticisms all of us have who treat obese

patients by restricting carbohydrates. In addition, because of his

academic standing and long list of scientific publications, Yudkin

s peershad given him heat over the fact that his diet didnt provide enough of allthe vitamins and minerals required for health. As a consequence, he

decided to do a study to see if there was any substance to their fault-

finding.

He recruited 11 subjects aged 21-51 years for his study. He and his

staff evaluated the regular diets of these 11 subjects over a two week

period. The volunteers were then instructed on the basics of low-carb

dieting as it was done in the hospital clinic and followed for two weeks

on this regimen. The goal of the study was to determine the dietaryintake of the essential nutrients in the low-carb diet to see if there were

inadequacies.

Here were the low-carb instructions:

The instructions relating to the low carbohydrate diet were identical to those

given to patients attending a hospital overweight clinic under our supervision.

Essentially, the subjects were asked to take between 10 and 20 oz milk daily

(about 300-600 ml), and as much meat, fish, eggs, cheese, butter, margarine,

cream and leafy vegetables as they wished. The amount of carbohydrate inother food was listed in units with each unit consisting of 5 g carbohydrate;

the subjects were told to limit these foods to not more than 10units (or 50g)carbohydrate daily.

As the low-carb portion of the study was progressing, Yudkin and his

staff evaluated not only the intake of these subjects, but their mental

status as well.

In conformity with our experience with this diet during the last 15 years, none

of our subjects complained of hunger or any other ill effects; on the otherhand, several volunteered statements to the effect that they had increased

feeling of well-being and decreased lassitude. The average intake of calories

and of protein, fat, and carbohydrate for the 11 subjectswere remarkably

similar to those obtained for the six subjects of the previous study. [Yudkin

had published a study in The Lancet in 1960looking at the caloric andmacronutrient intake of subjects on low-carb diets.]

Here is the chart from Yudkins paper showing the caloric and

macronutrient changes when the subjects shifted from their regular diet

to the low-carbohydrate diet.

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The macronutrient consumption was 83 grams of protein, 105 grams of

fat and 67 grams of carbohydrate. Putting thisinto percentages ofoverall intake, we find that diet was 21.3%protein, 60.6%fat and 17.1%carbohydrate. The energy intake was 1560calories per day, almostexactly the same as the Keys study described above.

And, remember, these people were given all the food they wanted to

eat. They werent forced to drop their calories to 1560per daythey didit spontaneously because they had eaten until sated.

Here is the data in tabular form.

As you can see, the big difference is in the carbohydrate intake and fat

intake. They are just about the reverse of one another in the two

studies.

Both studies provided between 1500 and 1600 kcal per day, but with

huge differences in outcome. In the Keys semi-starvation study (high-carb, low-fat) the subjects starved and obsessed on food constantly. In

the Yudkin study (low-carb, high-fat), the subjects, who had no

restriction on the amount of food they ate, volitionally consumed the

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same number of calories that the semi-starvation group did, yet reported

that they had an increases feeling of well-being. Instead of lethargy

and depression reported by the Keys subjects on their low-fat, high-carb

1570calories, those on the same number of low-carb, high-fat caloriesexperienced decreased lassitude.

Both groups of subjects were consuming the same number of calories,

but one group starved while the other did just fine. One group had to belocked down to ensure they didnt eat more than their alloted 1570

calories; the other group voluntarily dropped their intake to 1560

calories and felt great. What was the difference? Subjects in both

groups ate the same number of calories.

Maybe, just maybe its not the number of calories that makes the

difference, but the composition of the calories instead.

I know that Im not truly comparing apples to apples with the Keys and

the Yudkin studies. But the Yudkin study does confirm Yudkins 15

years of experience before he wrote his paper and they confirm my 20

plus years of experience taking care of patients on low-carb diets. Ive

had many, many patients who have stayed on low-carb diets for much,

much longer than the men in Keys experiment stayed on their diets of

roughly the same number of calories. Most of the papers in the medical

literature on low-carb diets show a spontaneous drop in caloric intake

thats about what Yudkin documented when people switch over tolow-carb diets. It stands to reason that if someone had replicated Keys

experiment using the same number of calories, but with much more fat

and a lot less carbohydrate, that the outcome would have been much

different.

Yet the calories would have been the same.

So, Ill say it again. Its not simply a matter of calories, and anyone whosays it is should perhaps give the issue a little more thought.

** Gary Taubes book Good Calories, Bad Caloriesdevotes a couple of pages to thissemi-starvation study as well.

Enter Tim:This is just one of several topics I d like to explore within thereal-world science of body redesign anything in particular youd liketo hear about?

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