Dude, eat a balanced diet and lower your calories. You will be happier and you'll still lose weight. Calorie Reduction + Exercise is still the only proven method to lose weight and keep it off.

Hey Schubwa

i have been using the Zone plan for 5 years, very close to the south beach, and it works fine! i'm 6'1' 165, and was close to 185 or 190 before i started. i'm just a cyclist and a pritty good AG racer in TT and cylcocross. and i take in about 2000 calories a day and a tad more if i'm on a long ride day. you will get alot of flack from old school people who will say you have to stick to the carbo thing, but the Zone/south beach will work. you may want to look at the first Zone book, it has alot of the science of what the plans are doing for you.

ridehard

dan...

The basic formula that we all learned years ago still applies - weight is fundamentally a matter of calories in versus calories out. Beyond that, a balanced diet keeps you healthy. For endurance athletes, carbs are fuel! They are an absolute must have. Since carbs help your body hold hydration, cutting carbs also cuts retained water (also known as being hydrated) and therefore also reduces the weight that goes with it. I've read much more on Atkins than I have the South Beach diet, but on the whole, any diet that tells you candian bacon is fundamentally good, and fruits and veggies are fundamentally bad, is pretty scary to me. I have yet to talk to a Sports Med doctor or a coach (endurance athletics, not baseball or other fast twitch sports) that is behind these low carb diets.

Forget all of the fad "South Beach Diets" and "Atkins" diet crap. Any program that stresses the elimination of a certain food group is cause for concern.

Eat a well balanced diet that meets your caloric and nutritional needs. Couple that with an exercise regime and your body will "find" its optimal weight.

Don't worry about weight per se. Concentrate on your body fat %, bmi, and how you feel. The scale doesn't always tell the whole story.

totally agree with the zone thing. was on it for awhile and got away from it but i'm back now and even more of a believer. lots of energy, feel good, and losing weight. to the original poster, keep in mind that by cutting your carb intake, all that initial weight loss is purely water loss as the lack of carbs reduces the bodies ability to store water. once you kick into fat burning mode, the weight loss will be slower, but it will be true fat loss. what i like about the zone is there is no cleansing phase, no real deprivation, just cut out high glycemic index foods and make sure you get some GOOD fat with every meal. i don't consider the zone to be a diet, more of a way of living.

check out http://www.zoneperfect.com

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Ian MacLean
http://www.imfit.ca
Success comes when fear of failure goes

Also worth mentioning... a very important aspect of the aerobic pathway of ATP production is the burning of highly efficient fat. Fat supplies more than double the caloric value of carbs (9 calories versus 4 calories per unit). HOWEVER... the aerobic process of burning fat and oxygen requires carbs as a sort of catalyst. The cheezy way that ACE explains it is "fat burns in a fire of carbohydrates. Carbs are necessary to enable full efficiency of the fat burning aerobic process.



Yes... Carbs are your friend! No - that doesn't mean you should eat Dairy Queen Blizzards all day, but carbs are required for maximum efficiency in an endurance athlete.

I'm not trying to defend the SBD, but there are some common misconceptions of what foods are allowed or eliminated, especially at first. During Phase One you do eat a lot of carbs, they're just very low glycemic: steamed veges, salads, celery snacks, etc. All the meat you eat is in moderation and is just the leanest cuts of beef, fish and skinless chicken. Good fats like olive oil, nuts and avocados are encouraged. The book will scare you away from beer for a while, and everything that goes good with it! After two weeks you can add in some moderate glycemic carbs such as yogurt, berries,apples and pears, whole wheat crackers, etc. For me this wasn't a difficult assignment as I wasn't in a high volume/peaking phase. Phase Three in the book describes what one would describe as a very well balanced, sensible diet. I would definitely add in more volume of food when I start to ramp up my training hours. This time I'll be seven pounds lighter.

I have to say I'm impressed with the marketing geniuses who think these things up. What you just wrote is nothing new and in fact is just good common sense. Add exercise and you have a pretty healthy lifestyle there. If you caloric intake is less than that your output, you'll lose weight.

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Pretty obvious really. Who would have thought of that? Pity you can't write much more of that to make a book of it.

The issue really is one of appetite: I don't think anyone would argue that if you want to lose weight you have to eat less. The problem is, they are hungry, so hungry that the need to eat overwhelms their need to lose weight, despite all the motivation to look better, be healthier and run faster. I have found that reducing carbs, or eating low GI foods, substantially reduces my appetite. I have found that doing exercise substantially increases my appetite. I still weigh more than I want to because I can't balance what I need to eat and what I want to eat. Do you have any advice on this area?

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Those who know do not speak, those who speak, do not know.

Do I sense some sarcasm? :)

The one thing that was hard for me learn was that I don't have to eat until I am full. I would sit down at a meal and I would eat until I couldn't take another bite. I still don't eat as well as I should(Nice way of saying that I still eat some crap) but I don't eat as much of it.

Spend a month tracking what you eat, how much you eat(calories), when you eat it and your morning weight. You will get all of the information you need from your log(Average Daily Calories, Where these Calories come from and your weight).

Use the above information to plan your meals. The wife and I spend an hour on Saturday planning meals for the following week. I know that 2800 calories a day keeps me at the same weight so I plan my meals like this: 750 for Breakast and Lunch, 600 for dinner and 700 for between meal "snacks". All main meals are balanced between lean meats, fruits and veggies.

I have lost 50+ pounds since I started this and I can gain/lose weight simply by adjusting each meal/snack by a little bit.

Whenever you think you're hungry, drink some water. Then eat sparingly.

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Marty Gaal, CSCS
One Step Beyond Coaching
Triangle Open Water Swim Series | Old School Aquathon Series
Powerstroke® Freestyle Technique DVD

You can read all about it in my new book - just Western Union me the money ;)

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I don't think my book would sell. "Control what you eat and workout." The 96% of the population that does not exercise and are looking for the magic pill wouldn't fund me like they did Atkins before he died of a heart attack (yes he fell and hit his head, but read the autopsy report... he fell because he was having a (second) heart attack). Maybe bacon every meal isn't the best idea?

 "Calorie Reduction + Exercise is still the only proven method to lose weight and keep it off."

I am not sure what it is. Perhaps it is the absolute simplicity of it all the scares many people off.

Fleck

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

It doesn't directly relate to your question about whether the SBD has any merit for athletes, but I've always liked Malcolm Gladwell's take on diets and diet books as published in this article that originally appeared in 'The New Yorker' circa 1998:

http://www.gladwell.com/...998_02_02_a_pima.htm

One of the premises of the article is that all diet books are basically theological and that they all follow the same general literary formula/plot line. He also notes that many of the current best selling diet books with "scientific" explanations for why they work are based on obscure research that may have been taken out of context...

Yes, there was a tiny bit of sarcasm :) But what you are recommending is along the lines of what i want to do: I lost a lot of weight through Atkins, but have got myself to a plateau where I want to lose 15lbs to hit my "fighting weight". I'm down to 13.5% body fat from 19.5%, but the lighter I am the faster I will go. I want to keep some real balance in things now, because I want to make sure I am fuelling myself right. I am going to take myself off to a nutritionist so i can work out exactly what I can be eating and when. Thanks for the clarification.

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Those who know do not speak, those who speak, do not know.

Very interesting article, but first he disses everyone else for having a standard approach: I was a fat slob! I overheard something! I tried it and wow, look at me! Give a "because" reason, but any reason will do, and reap in the royalties from the book. And then he does exactly the same thing: to paraphrase "None of these really work, but now theres this new thing, called Leptin. Then there's some scientific mumbo-jumbo and a sort of promise: Perhaps this is the answer! Watch this space". Seeing as it was written in 1998, it has been a long wait. The other premise, though, that we are simply eating too much, has gained a lot of prominence lately, especially with "Supersize Me!". I have been spending some time working (and eating) in Malaysia, and as a observation the population is far slimmer than that in a Western country. They eat out a lot there, but the style of eating may offer some clues: They don't drink a lot of carbonated sugary drinks. The portion sizes are reasonable, not huge. There are no fried potatoes used as a general filler. The meal will have a generous amount of vegetables in it. I am sure if you examined ithe constituents it would be a fairly even spread of protein, fat and carbohydrate and a good dose of fibre. They drink tea with their meals, not soft drinks or beer or wine. I feel a bit embarassed at the amount that I eat compared to my companions, whereas by western standards (13.5% body fat) I am in reasonable shape.

You can see though, in the more affluent areas where shopping mall culture is taking over that there are more obese individuals around. KFC and McDonalds are very popular. As Western Habits are adopted, I am sure they will adopt Western waist-lines

The overall problem in Western Countries seems to be that we are fed on very high quality "rocket fuel" that is very abundant. In the kitchen at work we have a fridge full of soft drink and a stack of biscuits that are freely available. As in 'Supersize Me" it takes constant effort not to eat too much, an effort that is beyond the self control of most of the population. The plight of the Indian population in the article reflects our plight: it is not lack of information that causes the problem, but lack of true fixes.

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Those who know do not speak, those who speak, do not know.

As I was reading the latest post in this thread, a commercial came on KTVU TV here for Round Table Pizza's new "low carb" crust. 30% less carbs. Evidentially they didnt feel the stack of sausage, pepperoni and grease dripping cheese on the extra large pizza is fine as long as there are 30% fewer carbs in the crust...