Tag Archives: energy expenditure

NRT = nicotine replacement therapy

Posted on December 1, 2012 | 8 comments

NRT improves quitting success rates and reduces cessation-induced weight gain.  It’s a fact; and there are a lot of anti-addictive pharmacological interventions that do too.

Dear obesity researchers, primary care physicians, and smokers,
Pay attention.
Sincerely,
Bill

Rimonabant is the anti-“munchies” drug that blocks the marijuana receptor CB1.  It causes weight loss.  But 20 mg daily also increases the odds of successfully quitting smoking by 50 – 60% (Cahill and Ussher, 2007).

Relevance?
Marijuana: not really addictive.
Obesity diets: delicious, but not really addictive.
Cigarettes: definitely addictive.
Rimonabant: anti-addictive.  It causes weight loss in overweight but not lean people, perhaps because lean people don’t eat obesity diets (?).

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Energy balance, mortality, nicotine, smoking

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Milo of Croton vs. concurrent training

Posted on November 26, 2012 | 93 comments

Lesson 1.  Milo of Croton

Every day since a very young age, Milo would drape his calf over his shoulders and do his daily exercises.  As his calf grew, so did Milo’s strength.  Many years passed and by the time of the Olympic games, Milo’s calf had become a full-grown bull and Milo’s strength became unparalleled in all the land (or so the story goes).

This is how strength-training works.  Increasing the amount of weight you lift progressively, consistently, and frequently makes you stronger.

Lesson 2.  Concurrent training

Resistance training builds muscle and strength.  Endurance exercise is good for the heart, burns fat and muscle, but doesn’t make you stronger.  Endurance exercise hinders the gains reaped from resistance exercise, not vice versa.  Interpretation: runners should lift; lifters shouldn’t run (sprints don’t count).

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Posted in endurance, Exercise, fat, muscle, strength

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The curious effects of calories in mice

Posted on November 21, 2012 | Leave a comment

What is the biological impact of a history of obesity and weight loss?  The metabolic trajectory of two calorically restricted skinny mice depends entirely upon whether or not they used to be fat.  The end of this story might be: ‘Tis better to have lost and re-gained than never to have lost at all; or it’s just an interesting new take on the body weight set point theory.

Caloric restriction chronically impairs metabolic programming in mice (Kirchner et al., 2012)

divide and conquer

Part 1.
Study 1. Calorie restricted lean mice: the effect of diet composition.

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, fat, pair-feeding, Sugar

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Coffee and cigars, the breakfast of champions

Posted on November 16, 2012 | 82 comments

Or more specifically, caffeine and nicotine… or really just nicotine.  Today is about the lesser of two evils: nicotine, Mother Nature’s little helper (the other evil being cigarettes [not coffee]).  This curious little molecule is an anti-inflammatory memory boosting appetite suppressant.  If it didn’t screw with the reward mechanisms in your brain, it’d be a vitamin. Part 1.  Cigarettes, nicotine, and metabolic function Exhibit A: Activation of the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway ameliorates obesity-induced inflammation and insulin resistance  (Wang et al., 2011) translation: “nicotine is good for mice.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, Energy balance, smoking

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Exenatide and tapeworms, Op. 116

Posted on October 29, 2012 | 1 comment

The great Dr. Schoeller can polish a turd like no other.  Dale Schoeller’s claim to fame is his extensive work on one of the best ways to measure total energy expenditure in free-living individuals: doubly-labeled water.  In doubly-labeled water, subjects drink stable isotope-labeled water; instead of hydrogen + oxygen = H20, the stable isotope-labeled water is deuterium + oxygen-18 = D218O.  Deuterium is excreted just like hydrogen, in water as urine & sweat.  Oxygen-18 is excreted just like oxygen, in water and carbon dioxide.  So the subjects lose deuterium & oxygen-18 in water at equal rates, but only oxygen-18 in carbon dioxide; so this technique basically measures carbon dioxide production, which is proportional to energy expenditure.  Clever. 

Being that Schoeller practically invented the technique, his interpretation of these total energy expenditure data are not flawed, but that’s not where he went astray.

Alterations in energy balance following exenatide administration (Bradley et al., 2012)

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Energy balance, insulin

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Metabolic rate per se

Posted on October 17, 2012 | 1 comment

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Admittedly, the effect of diet on metabolic rate is small (i.e. statistically non-significant in most cases), but its incredible consistency across space and time suggest it could be true.  And given the difficulty of maintaining a reduced body weight after dieting, it might even be important.  The following studies are examples of widely differing subject populations in various metabolic conditions; yet the effects of diet on metabolic rate exhibit a phenomenal degree of similarity.

disclaimer: I don’t know what’s more important – metabolic rate per se, the diet behind it, or the resulting hormonal adaptations.  All of the diets that are associated with a higher metabolic rate are also predicted to result in lower insulin levels and higher fat oxidation.  Thus, we are left with a triumvirate of diet, hormonal milieu, and energy expenditure… all of which are important for body composition and quality of life.

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, Energy balance, Exercise, insulin, Protein

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[ketogenic] elite artistic gymnasts

Posted on October 12, 2012 | 6 comments

Before you say anything, “elite artistic gymnasts” could probably beat you in a race running backwards.  (with you running forwards.)  They are elite athletes.  And given a sufficient keto-adaptation period, they perform better sans carbs.

Ketogenic diet does not affect strength performance in elite artistic gymnasts  (Paoli et al., 2012)

This study looked at body composition and various performance measures before and after 30 days of a very low carbohydrate ketogenic diet (“VLCKD,” < 25 grams of carbohydrate per day) or a normal diet (“WD,” > 250 grams of carbs per day).  25 grams of carbs is very very low, less than Atkins and Kwasniewski.  On the other hand, 41% protein is pretty high.

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, Exercise, insulin, Ketosis, Protein, TPMC

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The Laws of Energy Balance FTW!

Posted on October 9, 2012 | 3 comments

Weight loss maintenance is not determined by calorie intake… or physical activity… but by The Laws of Energy Balance FTW!!!

Odd, the sensation I felt when reading this news release (gloating?).  As reported at a meeting of the Obesity Society, results from the Utah Obesity Study of gastric bypass patients 2 and 6 years after surgery.  By the 2 year mark, they lost over 100 pounds, or 36% of their starting weight (went from 296 to 189 pounds).  Energy expenditure declined from 2201 to 1736 kcal/day.  Food intake went from 2085 to 1638 kcal/day.  (Hint: it’s no coincidence that energy expenditure and food intake declined to the exact same degree.)  Physical activity and fitness levels increased.

By the 6 year mark, they still weighed 29% less than their starting weight.  N.B. that’s an amazing level of success, it’s virtually unheard of in diet intervention studies.  +1 for gastric bypass; -1 for nutrition.

Here’s what piqued my interest: during the gradual increase from 189 pounds to 210 pounds, which occurred between years 2 and 6 post-surgery, the most significant factor associated with weight regain was not calorie intake or physical activity… it was metabolic rate.  This represents another fail for “eat less move more,” and a win for the Laws of Energy Balance.

So what’s this got to do with The poor, misunderstood calorie?

what we know about metabolic rate:

1)      It’s invisible.

2)      Fructose vs. The Laws of Energy Balance (circa December, 2011): sugar-sweetened beverages can cause fat gain, not by providing excess calories, but by reducing metabolic rate.

3)      Holiday feasts, the freshman 15, and damage control (circa January 2012): overeating a high protein diet causes less fat gain than overeating anything else because it increases metabolic rate.

4)      Missing: 300 kilocalories (circa July 2012):  after losing weight, subjects assigned to the low carb diet maintained a higher metabolic rate than those on an isocaloric low fat diet.

“Eat less move more” is not the answer.  But eating less sugar, more protein, and fewer carbs might be.  Nutrition matters.

calories proper

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, empty calories, Energy balance, gastric bypass, Protein, Sugar, TPMC

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Missing: 300 kcal… AGAIN!

Posted on October 3, 2012 | 6 comments

Or, the curious perils of crappy sleep, part II: calorie-thieving gnomes.

In part I of the Crappy Sleep series, we discussed, among other things, the malevolent metabolic effects of the most utterly abnormal sleep structure (28-hour days, 6.5 hours of sleep per night [~5.6 hours / 24 hours], and dim lighting during the days).  In this study, the sleep was disrupted to a physiologically relevant degree for two weeks: 8.5 vs. 5.5 hours per night; in a cross-over study.

In part I of Missing calories, we discussed the effects of 3 different diets on metabolic rate after weight loss.  In this study, energy balance was assessed during 2 different sleep regimens in dieters in a CROSS-OVER STUDY.  If you haven’t guessed it, I believe a well-designed and executed cross-over study is superior, necessary, and essential for most metabolism-related studies.

Insufficient sleep undermines dietary efforts to reduce adiposity   (Nedeltcheva et al., 2010)

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Energy balance, Protein, TPMC

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Why diets fail, Op. 106

Posted on September 21, 2012 | 1 comment

Correction: diets don’t fail, dieters do.  And don’t take that the wrong way; adhering to a restrictive diet is one of the most difficult tasks for ANYone; thus, the obesity epidemic.  Some recent insights into diet-induced weight loss success, or lack thereof, have shed a new light on why some dieters adhere and others don’t.

In Insulin resistance, I discussed how insulin sensitivity may influence how well someone responds to a diet.  In brief, insulin resistant obese people do much better on low carb than low fat in a closely controlled clinical setting.  If you’re one of the lucky few insulin sensitive obese people, then simply reducing calories works.  Unfortunately, however, most obese are insulin resistant.

When it comes to devising a weight loss strategy, I’m willing to cut every corner and use every trick in the book to achieve success.  Data in this new analysis came from Chris Gardner’s notorious A to Z study, where patients were given diet books and told to have at it.  It was the weakest intervention in the history of diet studies, but it is exactly what everyone who wants to lose weight does.  And just like in Gardner’s study, most people fail.

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, insulin, Protein, Sugar, TPMC

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