Strength training while dieting = weight gain?

skaai

Bohm2, first of all, we’re going off-topic here. The original post was why someone who was on a diet and losing weight would stop losing weight when the only thing they changed was their activity level from sedentary to 2/week resistance training.
I tried to explain that there are many potential ways this “weight-loss plateau” can arise including:

• resistance related muscle gain not necessarily "buffing up" but more volumizing.
• the OP simply ate more (who doesn’t cheat on a diet?)
• hormone ratios out or balance due to improper intake, rest, drugs, etc.
• illusory plateau: the OP is losing weight, but not accounting for potential fluctuations that may mask the true weight loss which might be more modest

The point of my responses was to explain that we are not biochemical machines where calories in equal calories out. While on a molecular level, this law holds, there are simply too many ways in which the calories in calories out model can be sidetracked, and NOBODY SEEMS TO WANT TO RECOGNIZE THEM.

I then addressed your post on some of the background on why food is more than just fuel and how overwhelming the behavioral aspect of food control is: it is not about putting the fork down nor about exercising more… too many obese people are drowning their sorrows in drugs today because well-meaning, but misguided friends tell them this crap.

For you math nerds: you know how bad confounding variables can be. Well, in dieting, they can be even more significant than the effect you are trying to measure: try making sense of one variable that varies from 1 to 10 when the counfounder is varying from 1 to 20.

Think about that for a minute…

Think about it a little longer…

This means that we can talk about the biochemical “advantage” of low carb diets in carefully controlled environments, but such discussions are purely academic because in free-living conditions, the behavioral confounders will often overwhelm any small biochemical effects.

Metabolic wards aren’t all you think they are… they can sometimes be worse (as far as controlling for confounders) than outpatient diets, it all depends on

• the food you are being deprived of
• how severe the deprivation is
• and who you are starving: some folks can deal with diets better than others, even when controlling for food addiction

... in other words..more confounders...

I have a few sources from the 1970s that discuss the problems with the rampant cheating in metabolic ward diets… if you really need them, I can go to the library and get them, but it will take a few days as I’m not at school right now.

Nevertheless, if you insist on an academic discussion of the biochemistry of the metabolic difference: If you read the links I put in post 15 (especially Gardner 2007, Volek 2004, and Buchholz 2004), you will see various studies of different qualities showing a metabolic advantage. Yes, most of them are tainted by the behavioral confounders, but keep in mind that even if we didn’t find a metabolic chamber study, 95% of all studies where low carb diets were compared with high carb diets, the worst that low carb diets came out was that they were no different, but 75% of all studies show that there is at least a small advantage, even when the authors deem it insignificant. Read the three articles to see what I mean… I mean, even Buchholz’ studies showed this additional expenditure with lower carbohydrate diets!

In science, I generally trust those trying to defeat a particular hypothesis as their bias is against a particular proposal and so you should be more likely to see them try to confirm it. As such, when you see someone come up with the opposite results, it’s likely their results are more trustworthy because—as foes of the original idea—they scrutinized the idea far more than those who were friends of the idea.
1979 [Rabast] Dietetic treatment of obesity with low and high carbohydrate diets
This guy actually was against low carb diets and for most of his life didn’t care for them… yet he gave them credit where his studies proved him wrong: the metabolic advantage in a carefully controlled “metabolic ward” like you requested (notice he raises the same objections you raised in your post):

But keep in mind, we are not robots… this explains why, for all its benefits, most diets… including low carbohydrate diets… will fail… not because the diet is biochemically flawed, but because humans are so behaviorally modified by food… as such, most long-term studies comparing low carb to other diets often show “no difference” … but confounders are even harder to control over the long run… humans cheat.

So to close:

• Biochemically: a calorie is a calorie
• Realistically: We are not biochemical robots, so we throw the whole equation out the window
• Academically: there is a metabolic advantage of about 200-300 calories for low carb diets
• Real life: the metabolic advantage is usually NOT the source of the advantage of low carb diets… that usually comes from simply denying yourself your addiction (read my note in the Rabast paper).

skaai

not even close...

• 2000 Poortmans: Do regular high protein diets have potential health risks on kidney function in athletes? not in athletes
• 2005 Martin: Dietary protein intake and renal function not in all other people except those with KIDNEY FAILURE
• 1980 DeHaven: Nitrogen & Sodium balance and sympathetic nervous system activity in obese subjects treated with a low-calorie protein or mixed diet This was the discredited paper that started the whole "protein is bad" drama that you are so eager to quote (and that WebMD still clings on to)
• 1980 [Phinney, Blackburn, Bistrian] Rebuttal to DeHaven 1980 Nitrogen & Sodium Balance. Within months, the DeHaven paper was discredited on multiple grounds... too bad the intellectually lazy press went "la la la la la... I'm not listening!" and continue to do so to this day. Yes, new studies have cropped up, but they all fail for the same reasons, and a few more...
• 1984 [Hoffer] Metabolic Effects of very low cal diets. DeHaven was so butthurt from the excoriation he suffered at the hands of more capable scientists that he told them to "put up or shut up".. so Hoffer and Bistrian did... and 4 years later, they duplicated his study, but with REAL controls, and came up with the results he claimed to not get... QED. owned.

this is only a sampling... there is plenty more from real researchers...

while there are studies that attempt to show kidney damage from elevated nitrogen... they are rather esoteric, so we'd spend the rest of the month discussing how they are mostly applicable in lab conditions and not as a supplement to your nutritional advice.

in short, protein ... even elevated protein... is perfectly ok for anyone (read Martin 2005's terrific summary on this point, it will answer even your worst doubts) except perhaps those who's kidneys are on their last leg... and you'd know it if they were (edema, lethargy, immune problems, inflammation, etc).

frankly, you should reconsider your sources
WebMD... i rarely pay attention to screwballs that try to push drugs on you while giving you tests to see if you are a candidate for other drugs...
I'd rather go to the primary sources and talk to folks who are doing the work in the labs

bohm2

Thanks again. That was the study I was looking for. That 200-300 extra kcal you mention seems really phenomenal (to me, anyway). All other things being equal, that would be an extra ~ 1 lb. body weight/fat loss every 2 week period, I think, even though isocaloric? I recall that some loss of ketones via the urine can contribute to the greater weight loss of low-carb diets but I think that is much smaller than that value you mention, so it can't be just the excretion of ketones.

Aero51

If you are building muscle than there is a good chance that you are breaking even with calories in/out. For a beginner in strength training the maximum amount of muscle you can possible gain is ~2lbs/month, which is consistent with your claim that you were losing about 2lbs/week. This wont last forever as your metabolism changes due to the increased lean muscle you've developed. If you want to develop more strength it is recommended that you increase your appetite.