MsArdee, apparently, "minutiae" such as WHAT constitutes a low carb diet may not be important to you, but you and I both know that it is important to real scientists who are sincerely seeking the truth. Obviously, that is a KEY issue if one is going to study low carb diets, lest they end up with egg on thier faces as you have here.
Low carb does not mean whatever subjective measurement you decide to slap on it. The fact is that Atkins has never claimed that one can lose weight on 37 grams of carbs, nor does he recommend a 1000 a day calorie diet [which does nothing but bring metabolism to a screeching halt after the initial weight loss and is probably mostly muscle loss anyway]. The strictest phase of his diet is 1900-2000 calories a day. You posted that study *TO ME* knowing that I was talking about Atkins. The problem is that your study is nothing CLOSE to Atkins and is not relevent to the discussion.
A daily intake of 37.5 grams of carbohydrate IS a low-carb diet. That is a FACT. One can't be subjective when stating a fact.
The fact is that Atkins has never claimed that one can lose weight on 37 grams of carbs.
Actually, he does and he doesn't at the same time. How is that possible? Read this:
(Note: All comments pertain to the 1999 edition of "Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution").
- Atkins characterizes a study by Alfred Pennington as "exciting" because it demonstrated "success in dieters who restricted carbohydrate" (p. 67). Yet, he dismisses a study by Sidney Werner that did not demonstrate a low-carbohydrate metabolic advantage because the diet contained 52 grams of carbohydrate - "far too much for demonstrating ketosis and lipolysis" (p. 70). Problem is, the Pennington diet also contained 52 grams of carbohydrate. In fact, the two diets were identical. Pennington's study was rather vague: there was no control group and the amount of weight lost by the subjects was unspecified. Werner took Pennington's diet, added an isocaloric, high-carbohydrate control diet, confined his subjects to a metabolic ward for 35 - 49 days, and demonstrated that there was no difference in the rate of weight loss between the two diets.
You posted that study *TO ME* knowing that I was talking about Atkins.
Sorry, I didn't know mind-reading was a prerequisite for posting to this forum.
The problem is that your study is nothing CLOSE to Atkins and is not relevent to the discussion.
And the study you posted concerning the 35% fat, Mediterranean-style diet is??
...nor does he recommend a 1000 a day calorie diet [which does nothing but bring metabolism to a screeching halt after the initial weight loss and is probably mostly muscle loss anyway].
Let's take what you said here and apply it to that Schneider's Children's Hospital study you seem so fond of. The low-carb subjects in this study reportedly consumed an average of 1830 calories per day. The low-fat group consumed an average of only 1100 calories per day. Isn't it possible that the low-fat subjects lost less weight than the low-carb subjects because their metabolism was brought to a "screeching halt" by their low calorie intake, and that it had absolutely nothing to do with diet macronutrient composition?
That's not quite true. In the newer edition of his book, he has a chapter for people who fail to lose any weight on induction. For those people he prescribes IIRC one week of a 1,000-calorie diet with 90% of calories from fat and 10% from protein, to be followed by a week of 1,200 daily calories (same makeup), followed by induction. He warns that short-term diet is dangerous for people whose metabolism isn't so out-of-whack as to require it, but states that it will help jump-start weight loss in the few people for whom induction by itself does not work.