sports nutrition position stand: diets and body composition

[The Solution]

International society of sports nutrition position stand: diets and body composition

https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-017-0174-y

With relation to weight loss/gain. I think the most important conclusions still reveal what anyone paying attention already knows: you want to gain LM? Eat in a surplus. Lose FM? Eat in a deficit. Keto may be another discussion all together, but all these diet fads are nothing more than tweaked ways of accomplishing just that. So people can and should attack their nutrition any way that works for them, but all these bogus claims about one diet being "superior" to another need to end *cough* IF *cough*. Each diet has it's positives and negatives, and people should do what works for them based on their goals, but it boils down to the same principles of deficit or surplus:

"Diets focused primarily on FM loss (and weight loss beyond initial reductions in body water) operate under the fundamental mechanism of a sustained caloric deficit."

"diets primarily focused on LM gain are likely optimized via sustained caloric surplus to facilitate anabolic processes and support increasing training demands."

"A wide range of dietary approaches (low-fat to low-carbohydrate/ketogenic, and all points between) can be similarly effective for improving body composition, and this allows flexibility with program design. To date, no controlled, inpatient isocaloric diet comparison where protein is matched between groups has reported a clinically meaningful fat loss or thermic advantage to the lower-carbohydrate or ketogenic diet [60]. The collective evidence in this vein invalidates the carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis of obesity. "

"Time-restricted feeding (a variant of IF) combined with resistance training is an emerging area of research that has thus far shown mixed results [106, 107]. However, the body of intermittent caloric restriction research, on the whole, has indicated no significant advantage over daily caloric restriction for improving body composition [108]."

"Increasing dietary protein to levels significantly beyond current recommendations for athletic populations may improve body composition. "

 

[The Solution]

Some better Cliffs:

1) There is a multitude of diet types and eating styles, whereby numerous subtypes fall under each major dietary archetype.

2) All body composition assessment methods have strengths and limitations.

3) Diets primarily focused on fat loss are driven by a sustained caloric deficit. The higher the baseline body fat level, the more aggressively the caloric deficit may be imposed. Slower rates of weight loss can better preserve lean mass (LM) in leaner subjects.

4) Diets focused primarily on accruing LM are driven by a sustained caloric surplus to facilitate anabolic processes and support increasing resistance-training demands. The composition and magnitude of the surplus, as well as training status of the subjects can influence the nature of the gains.

5) A wide range of dietary approaches (low-fat to low-carbohydrate/ketogenic, and all points between) can be similarly effective for improving body composition.

6) Increasing dietary protein to levels significantly beyond current recommendations for athletic populations may result in improved body composition. Higher protein intakes (2.3–3.1 g/kg FFM) may be required to maximize muscle retention in lean, resistance-trained subjects under hypocaloric conditions. Emerging research on very high protein intakes (>3 g/kg) has demonstrated that the known thermic, satiating, and LM-preserving effects of dietary protein might be amplified in resistance-training subjects.

7) The collective body of intermittent caloric restriction research demonstrates no significant advantage over daily caloric restriction for improving body composition.

8) The long-term success of a diet depends upon compliance and suppression or circumvention of mitigating factors such as adaptive thermogenesis.

9) There is a paucity of research on women and older populations, as well as a wide range of untapped permutations of feeding frequency and macronutrient distribution at various energetic balances combined with training. Behavioral and lifestyle modification strategies are still poorly researched areas of weight management.