Not snippy at all and I understand where you are coming from. If you want to look at data, pubmed is where its at...or google scholar. This issue as well as amount v. type of calories have been debated among the intellectual meatheads (i know this is usually an oxymoron) for a long time...but, when you begin to look at a few factors you begin to see a pattern. First, how your body metabolizes carbohydrates (CHO is the abbreviation from now on)...in diabetics we study this pretty thorough because if one drug company can come up with something that keeps blood sugar more stable than another company, you just made a few billion dollars that year. Non-pharmaceutical CHO metabolism can be impacted by exercise, it can be impacted by glycogen (this is the stored form of glucose in the body), it can also be impacted by what you eat with it, such as a potato by itself or a potato with a steak. Protein and fat metabolism can also be messed around with (i'll save you the science).aliantha wrote:Sorry in advance for the double-post. And apologies if I came off snippy in my last post, Storm.
I used to be a reporter, so it's second nature to me to check stuff out. So after I posted above, I did a quick Google check on the issue of time of day one eats v. weight loss/muscle retention. I did not see anything as specific as what you're recommending, Storm, but admittedly I didn't go very far into it. I did get the sense, however, that this issue (caloric intake v. macro nutrient intake) has been hotly debated in bodybuilding circles for decades. So I'm pretty sure we're not going to resolve it here at the Watch.
The bottom line is that nutrition is an evolving science. Thirty years ago, nutritionists recommended counting calories. Twenty-five years ago -- the last time I got serious about weight loss -- we were counting fat grams. More recently, it's been grams of complex carbs. Today I ran across an article from Prevention magazine saying you should include monounsaturated fats in every meal, and eat four small meals throughout the day. The gods alone know what it will be tomorrow. And this is all advice from the *experts*.
I've been at this weight loss thing for easily 30 years now, off and on, and at this point it all just makes me tired: tired of analyzing what I'm buying, tired of counting some new number on the box, tired of keeping track of every bloody mouthful. The thing that really, really appeals to me about the WW Core program is that *I don't have to keep track of anything*. They give me a food list. It's all healthy stuff. I eat from the list 'til I'm full. Done. The only time I have to write anything down is if I stray from the list -- a powerful inducement for me to stick to the list, since I'm so sick of keeping track of what I eat.
Anyway. Sorry for the rant.
You are right though that science constantly changes...fat is good, fat is bad, carbs are ok, carbs are lord foul...for those in fields outside of science it can be irritating to sort through because everyone in nutrition has a soapbox and an agenda. Programs like WW are great because it takes out a lot of the micromanagement that people don't have the time to do.
I am a firm believer in nutrient timing because i've read enough research and put enough of it into practice myself and for those i've helped with their diets to see that it can improve fat to lean body mass ratios. As you said its not an issue that will be "resolved" on the Watch, but i hope people who read the thread will at least look at both sides of the argument and do some digging for themselves...in the US diabetes and obesity are epidemics because people do not take responsibility for their health and wellness. When people get overweight they often get frustrated and quit trying to improve their health because they are confused and not seeing results by so-called experts...people need to educate themselves and use what works for them...even if meatheads like me tell them its wrong.
) is to change up what you're doing: either decrease your food intake or increase your exercise. Which you probably already knew, so I'm sure I'm no help at all....
).