You posted a question to this newsgroup, but you are apparently not at
all interested in an answer: you end up with exactly the answer you
were looking for initially.

Several people have stated unequivocally that you are incorrect: many
of us lose weight on LC, WITHOUT REDUCING CALORIE INTAKE. The reason
appears to be that using fat for fuel is inefficient, and broken-down
fat is flushed from the body rather than being redeposited.

Studies have indicated that LC diets are more sparing of lean body
mass. It's for this reason that many body-builders prefer low-carb
over low-fat. This is not fully accounted for yet--or the studies
wouldn't be surprising--but it APPEARS to occur because reducing fat
has as a side-effect the reduction in protein, since most dietary
protein sources are also high in fat. See <http://tinyurl.com/3gop4>

No. Lost ketones represent broken-down, unburned fat. They result
because the body uses fat inefficiently. This inefficiency is the
"metabolic advantage" cited by Atkins.

Meanwhile, low-fat diets tend to be low in protein. As a result, the
body catabolizes muscle protein, simultaneously reducing lean mass and
freeing up protein for body repair. This effect is not observed when
adequate dietary protein is available, so low-carb diets are more
protein-sparing.

Regards,
Len.

You'd think so wouldn't you. But if that were true obesity would be
less a problem.

Look at it from another angle... why do you feel hunger? putting aside
psychological attachment of the act of eating, the simple answer...
because your body say it needs energy. Now I'm about 350, but I've
been overweight since 4-5 years old. At 18 I was 315, i'm 37 now. IF
simple caloric intake/outtake is applied i've been overconsuming since
I was a toddler. And even when over 300 lb (with over 3000 caloires a
day to maintain a 300lb person) i continue to overconsume. So why do I
feel hungry? SHouldn't the body automatically consume the vast reserve
of excess fat and not cause hunger multiple times a day? Is my body
storing fat for armageddon?  Atkins recognizes that something is
broken there and causing excessive hunger when there is plenty of
energy stored in the body.

The idea that the 50 calories will only come from fat is a mistake.
One of the reasons that exercise is stressed with diets is it counters
the loss of lean tissue that occurs on a standard diet. Atkins
structured the diet around two major physiological factors...
disabling insulin-caused problems, and focusing the body on fat loss
(ketosis).

His book has a nice example from a nine week Cornell study with three
different diet groups.

1800 cals / 104 gms carbs / -2.73 lbs per week / -2.00 lbs fat ( 73%)
1800 cals /  60 gms carbs / -3.00 lbs per week / -2.50 lbs fat ( 83%)
1800 cals /  30 gms carbs / -3.73 lbs per week / -3.73 lbs fat (100%)

All the studies he quotes illustrate that simply counting calories
isn't the most efficient. It is the make up of those calories and how
they interact with your metabolism that determines the effectiveness
of dieting. I don't get the science of the trigger--and I don't know
if anybody does, but at some point the body shifts gears when carbs
are removed and starts burning fats more exclusively, which other
diets don't trigger. It also is more effective when there is greater
weight to lose. A person with more than 50 lbs to lose will drop TWICE
as much weight during induction as a person with less than 20 lbs to
lose.

DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email)

Atkins quotes one of the skeptic scientists that may give you an
interesting way to look at weight loss. On a study, people lost 650gms
of fat weight per day(average). To dispute the claims of the ketogenic
diet results, the critic said that 650gms of fat, at 9 calories per
grams, would mean a person had a 5760 caloric deficit per day with a
1000 calorie daily intake. 6760 calories "burned", daily! Since no one
could maintain such a deficit the critic said the results were not
possible because standard caloric dieting theory said it was
impossible. (Basically the world can't be round cause I know its
square)

Unfortunately we don't have the ability at home to determine how much
of our weight loss is fat vs water vs lean tissue. So exact
calculations are lost to us. Studies did show much greater fat loss on
a ketongenic diet than typical diets or fasting.  

Just for fun, if just 50% of the 13 lbs you lost was fat... that's
about 420gm per day average, * 9 (kcal/gm)= 3790 caloric deficit per
day. Which means you "burned" 3790 calories + whatever your average
calories consumed each day. Atkins says on a ketogenic diets the total
amount "burned" is much higher than daily exercise can account for,
proof of the metabolic advantages.

DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email)

this isn't what your original question asked, though.  you burned more
calories doing induction than you would have burned had you been eating
low-fat, high carb.  so if you had consumed the same amount of calories on a
different type of diet, you would have burned less of them off.

-kelly

But your hunch is incorrect.  Early Atkins puts you in ketosis.  Getting
into ketosis requires the liver be drained of its stored glycogen.
Glycogen is a carb and it is stored in water.  Burn away stored carbs
and the water it was stored in also go away.  Any plan that does not
put you into ketosis does not completely drain your liver of stored
carbs and the water that stored them.  So any other plan would not have
caused 13 pounds of loss.

Now exactly how much of the 13 pounds was fat and how much is water is
not something you can reasonably calculate for a couple of months.  To
find the fat portion you must approximate.  The way I approximated was
to take my loss in weeks 3-8 and average the rate (it came out something
like 1.5 per week at the time).  So my best estimate of my fat-only loss
during Induction was 3 pounds, leaving in my case 5 pounds of carb+water.
Unless something is unusual in your metabolism, your fat-only loss will
have been no more than 2 per week.

Just how you calculate your burn rate is an interesting question.  BMR
is much more variable than formulas going around.  But from simple
arithmatic, with fat 3500-4000 calories per pound, if you are burning
1000 excess calories per day, you'll lose 2 pounds of fat per week.
With 80 to lose, that is not an unusual rate but it does drop when
there is less to lose.

On the original 1000 calorie diet experiment that set Dr Atkins on his
path: There were these groups: 90% carbs, 90% protein, 90% fat and true
fast.  The astonishing result was that the 90% fat group lost *more*
than the true fast group.  Simply put, calories are NOT the be-all and
end-all of loss in all cases.  Folks with enough to lose and folks very
sussepible to ketosis will lose faster than calorie can account for.
That's because for the relative levels of glucagon and insulin withdrawing
stored fat.  Even if it is not burned, once it is withdrawn it must go
somewhere other than back into storage.  Ah well, by the time folks have
20-30 to lose, none seem to lose faster than that magic 2 per week and
they return to the calorie dominated realm.