As long as your fat intake remains about the same, Gov't Calories and True Calories will be proportional to each other. As long as you keep your fat in the recomended [as per some folks on this board's suggestions] range, you can just go by the calories listed on the fitday. The only time True Calories really become an issue is when you are talking diets of very different levels of Fat. For example, if you eat vLF (10% Fat), you will burn 178 Calories less than a person who eats LF (30% Fat). Now, a person who eats HF (65% Fat), will burn 489 Calories more than the guy eating vLF (10%) and 311 Calories more than a guy eating LF (30%). This, as another poster pointed out, is what Atkins calls the Metabolic Advantage.

I would prefer the gov't use "True Calories" because they reflect the true Caloric effect of a meal. As things are now, the Gov't just lumps the 267 Calories you burn eating 30% Fat into your Metabolism. The problem with this is, if you eat a vLF Diet (10% Fat) your Metabolic Rate will be 178 Calories slower than it would be if you ate 30% Fat. If you were eating 30% Fat and taking in exactly maintnance Calories, then decided to reduce your fat to 10% of your Calories without changing your Total Calories...over one year, you would gain 16 pounds due to the Metabolic Slowdown. That doesn't even include the effect of adding more Carbs (more carbs = more insulin = more stored fat.)

All these numbers are based on a 2,000 Calorie diet. The metabolic advantage is even more pronounced on a 3,000 Calorie diet. The metabolic advantage is less pronounced on a 1,000 Calorie diet than on a 2,000 Calorie or 3,000 Calorie diet. Plus once you go below a certain level (I believe 1,200 Calories,) your Metabolism further slows down thinking there is a famine, it tries to conserve its resources. So, in reality compared to vLF/vLC, there is an enormous Metabolic Advantage to HF/LC/Normal Calories.

In fact numerous studies have shown Low-Carb diets to be more effective than even Very Low-Calorie Diets, and Very Low Calorie Ketogenic Diets (I.E. Fat Fast type diets) to be more effective than a total fast.

Yes, just because we can eat eggs, bacon and cheese without remorse, we must remain in control. These items do not permit us to become glutons. I do not count calories but that is because I watch my servings and I don't eat second helpings. I never stuff my self as I have in the past. I don't have the need to stuff myself as before because I will feel full for a long time before my next meal.

Black57

I eat as much as I want so long as it doesn't have a lot of carbs. For lunch yesterday I ate two McDonalds double cheeseburgers (just tossed the roll and ate the rest with a knife and fork) and one of their caesar salads (avoiding the carrots and grape tomatoes). May have been 10 carbs, total.

Speaking of Atkins Urban Legends...how about the one that if you follow this "diet" your liver and/or kidneys will surely fail! Whatever...

BTW, I basically allow myself as much meat/eggs/cheese as I want. My numbers are great (confirmed by my doctor) and I feel wonderful. Thing is, I don't gorge because my appetite doesn't allow for it. But between us (wink wink) I think I could eat a half pound of bacon!

Donald

It all boils down to what the book says..eat until satisfied, not stuffed.

Really, though, I understand where the steak and butter misconception comes from. Every bit of information I had seen before reading the book, was about eating steak and butter, while the low-calorie people around you are starving and still losing weight..a heaping table of food with the headline "Eat these sumptuous foods and still lose!"...the infomercial hocking the tape/book set where the man and woman discuss being able to eat ALL you want and still lose...

So I really understand where it comes from. Until I read the whole book, this is the only information that had been presented to me BY the people promoting it!

Don't worry. I'll kidneys will explode, our liver shut down, our teeth rot, and we'll lose our sex lives before the butter and steaks kick in ;p

[QUOTE=DWRolfe]Speaking of Atkins Urban Legends...how about the one that if you follow this "diet" your liver and/or kidneys will surely fail! Whatever...

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This is so true. I have been doing Atkins for almost 2 years and I still have people, who know I have been doing Atkins for a long while, tell me that this diet will ruin my liver and kidneys. I am like .........Hello. It's been two years don't you think if my kidney and liver were going to fail it would have happened by now.
Sometimes I wonder about people.

Ok... I dunno about the kidneys.. the liver or the teeth... but.. is the exact opposite of true