Help! 800cal/day = good diet or ED? "Eat less, do more" not working? VLCD trap?

(vlcd_hell) wrote in message . com...
OK, the organ argument scares the hell out of me, as I have said. Just
how does this work? So even with 96 days worth of free calories to
burn in my hideous 26% body fat state, the body instead decides to
burn heart muscle. This doesn't ring true from an evolutionary
standpoint. Wouldn't heart muscle be the LAST calories to be
cannibalized. Sure, Karen Carpenter died from her heart muscle being
eaten - but just LOOK at her - it's obvious from her anorexic state
that there was nothing but skin and bone left to her, where heart
muscle was the last resort.

From an 'evolutionary standpoint' you'd be ****ed already: you're not
likely to be capable of reproduction (and I think you mentioned
problems that way up-thread) with your body being mucked around as it
is. You'd also probably want to observe that it's unlikely any of your
long-distant ancestors would have got into the over-fat but under-fed
state you're in.

Do you really think a fat person like me has to worry about organs?
Which ones and why?

Heart: you're not likely to kill yourself right now because your body
metabolises your heart muscle, but it's not going to be doing good
things.
Otherwise, it's worth observing that human lifespan tends to correlate
fairly well with amount of food available: look at history books.

When I do eat a "big" (ie, for me) meal where I combine forbidden
carbs with protein, I experience a heart pounding and head rush that
keeps me up at night. Combined with a tightness of the chest, the
passing thought is about heart issues. Or are both conditions
(tightness and heart pounding) caused by that day's lifting or from
soreness lifting two days ago or from that night's roller sprints or
from eating "too much" carbs?

It's mainly caused by a guilt trip you're having over your 'forbidden
calories'.

The only way you're going to get out of the vicious cycle you're
currently in is to eat enough that your body goes out of starvation
mode. That is going to cause you to put on fat for a few weeks,
probably quite rapidly.

And in fact that's exactly what happened the last four times I tried
to follow this advice. I steadily gained 10lbs in two weeks, four
times in a row, at the same exact rate! Reproducible.

And then you decided it wasn't working, and you went back to eating as
little as possible? Which is why I said 4 weeks, which is more like
enough time to recover properly, and then that you should keep eating
sensible amounts (i.e. over 2000 calories a day) while you train. You
will lose weight doing that, because you will be doing enough work to
burn all those calories and more. Think back to when you were a thin
racer - you probably ate at least that much, yes? Try to remember what
you ate and write down everything for one day, and count calories on
that - post it here, perhaps.

The hardship here is that riding season is only months away. If I show
up as you suggest, another 20lbs heavier over the 55lbs heavier I
already am, my season is shot. You need to be able to stay with the
pack in order to sprint with them. Hanging back and declaring that
year a "building year" is what hurt me past years - you end up riding
LSD alone instead of sprinting up hills with the group.

You'll quite probably find that when you're eating carbs you have
enough energy to get the extra weight (and it'll be less than 20
pounds well before the season's over) up the hill fast enough. If not,
then you've an opportunity to practice your time trialling to catch
back up to the group after the hill. If you're not able to time trial
back up to them after a **** break or hilltop, then you are going with
too fast a group for your current ability - you'll get more benefit
out of going with a slightly slower group and spending more time
working at the front.

My middle ground is to FORCE myself to eat even more protein where I
finally will get up to the 1g/lb level (170g or 680 calories). The
cyclists want me to consume carbs to fuel my workouts, but I probably
should not.

Did you ever end up 'hitting the wall' when you were younger?
That's what happens when your body runs out of everything but fat to
produce power. You get significantly slower. Conversely, if you're
eating carbs, then you will go significantly faster in your workouts.
Then you'll burn all the carbs you ate plus change.

If I can eat 170g protein and keep daily calories to double now (1600
cal/day, boy that's a lot) - would this be enough for me to GAIN lean
mass while losing body fat? To get higher metabolism and a cut lean
muscled look?

1600 calories is not enough for the work you're doing. In any case,
you won't really be able to gain much lean mass while you're losing
weight, no matter how much protein you eat.
However you've got more muscle under the fat than you think. You've
got 129 lbs lean mass now, which is pretty much the amount you say is
your goal.

I don't want to look like a heavy bulging over-sized Hulk power
lifter, but a "cut" bodybuilder with defined muscles and limited body
fat (not too much excess weight). Not as anorexic as classic cyclists
look with no upper body muscle mass at all, but closer to a triathlete
who has maintained some of his upper body muscle mass, where cycling
isn't a total joke (like it is now). An elephant on two wheels.

Is it possible to do on 1600 cal/day? Or do I have to do the Bill
Philips bulking phase followed by a cutting phase every two weeks in
order to do this?

1600 calories per day is still too low for the work you're trying to
do.

You'll probably find that once you get your body working normally
again, and the fat comes off, which it will, you're about that shape.
In any case, worry about bulking and cutting after you're back to
normal.

Peter

(vlcd_hell) wrote in message . com...
OK, the organ argument scares the hell out of me, as I have said. Just
how does this work? So even with 96 days worth of free calories to
burn in my hideous 26% body fat state, the body instead decides to
burn heart muscle. This doesn't ring true from an evolutionary
standpoint. Wouldn't heart muscle be the LAST calories to be
cannibalized.

I believe the word is catabolized. Regardless, I never read anything
that indicated that catabolization was so well organized. Of course,
there is also no reason to think that a VLCD would result in
catabolization. Only poorly-formulated or poorly-complied-with VLCDs
present that risk.

By the same token, the risk is sufficient enough that medical
supervision is required for any responsible application of a VLCD.

Do you really think a fat person like me has to worry about organs?

Life is a matter of balancing risks. For most morbidly obese people,
the risk of properly-formulated and properly-complied-with VLCDs is
less than the risk from obesity.


--
¤bicker¤
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than
to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."
- Carl Sagan

People are, of course, welcome to place whatever irrelevant
limitations on their ability to enjoy something that they wish.