Diet and Health FAQ

Tagged As: weight loss calorie diet

Question:
This is not discussed anywhere I have seen, but maybe someone knows -- note the word knows --the answer. It is possible to lose weight by diet or by exercise. Ideally, they say, the two should be combined. I know from experience that I can lose weight on a low calorie diet. I also lose strength: a couple of years ago I Iost about 25 pounds in weight and lost close to 20 kilos in strength. I know from reading that it is possible to lose weight by exercise. ( This idea does not seem to have any reflection in my activity: I work out hard three days a week -- Olympic Lifts in preparation for various national meets -- and don't lose an ounce. Although one might argue that if I didn't work out I would gain 25 pounds. Perhaps.) So my question is: which method of weight loss calorie diet is the most deleterious to strength? Or does 25 pounds of lost weight make the same loss of strength no matter how it is lost?

Answer:
Here's a paper I came across.... I plan on going to hunt for it son, but so far this is just the abstract: Diet and body composition. Effect of weight loss very low calorie diets and exercise. Donnelly JE, Jakicic J, Gunderson S. Human Performance Laboratory, University of Nebraska, Kearney. Obesity is the presence of excess body fat and is associated with a variety of medical conditions which increase morbidity and mortality. Millions of individuals participate in weight-reduction programmes which include reduced calorie diets and may also include exercise. Very low calorie diets (VLCD) of 400 to 800 kcal/day appear attractive as they generally show an increase in weight loss from 0.2 to 0.5 kg/week found with the traditional diet to 1.5 to 2.0 kg/week. Early use of very low calorie diets with poor quality protein and loose medical supervision resulted in about 60 deaths, many of which were attributed to loss of lean body mass and in particular, cardiac muscle atrophy. Although current very low calorie diets are presumed safe, concern regarding preservation of lean body mass (LBM) remains. Investigators have used exercise to slow the depletion of lean body mass during very low calorie diets; however, the results are not conclusive. A host of different methodologies and questionable documentation and design of exercise protocols precludes a definitive statement for the benefits of exercise during very low calorie diets for the purpose of LBM retention