Velocity Undetermined

Kaz Kylheku wrote:
DJ Delorie wrote:

This might be interesting reading...

"Determining the Maximum Dietary Deficit for Fat Loss
"http://www.mindandmuscle.net/articles/lyle_mcdonald/maximum_fatloss

Damn, how did I miss this one? I thought I had read every one of
Lyle's article on bodyrecomposition.com. The page says that this
article was added in early 2006, but I'm sure I've visited the page
since that time.

Lyle's material is uniformly good in my experience.

The very neat and tidy claim is that, through dieting, body fat can be
coaxed to yield only 31 calories per pound.

Since there are 3500 calories in a pound of fat, 31 calories per pound
represents only 0.8% of the energy. In other words, your fat stores
can dwindle by at most 0.8% per day.

Loss of fat is therefore regarded as exponential process, simialr to
radioactive decay, capacitor discharge or cooling.

With one good part - We don't target zero percent body fat and the
numbers include all of the body fat both the part that needs to be
retained for health and the excess we want to lose.

We can determine the half-life of fat: the theoretical number of days
required to cut your body fat in half, no matter where it is at.

This is simple:

log 0.5 / log (1 - 0.008) =~ 86.3

So, at least eighty six days to cut your fat in half. Let's call it an
even ninety.

At least is right.

E.g., assuming no lean mass change, to go from 50% body fat to 33%
body fat, 25% to 14.3% or from 10% to 5.3%.

The first going from quite heavy to well on the way. The second
hitting target. The third for competitive body builders who want to
look ripped at the expense of potential problems.

These numbers seem overly optimistic, but not wildly out of reach,
like they are about the right ballpark for a theoretical maximum.

It is a good way to explain the observed trend - More to lose faster
to lose it, less to lose slower to lose it.

On Oct 18, 10:16 am, Doug Freyburger wrote:
Kaz Kylheku wrote:
So, at least eighty six days to cut your fat in half. Let's call it an
even ninety.

At least is right.

E.g., assuming no lean mass change, to go from 50% body fat to 33%
body fat, 25% to 14.3% or from 10% to 5.3%.

The first going from quite heavy to well on the way. The second
hitting target. The third for competitive body builders who want to
look ripped at the expense of potential problems.

Interestingly, 86 days is almost exactly twelve weeks, which
corresponds to the a commonly cited duration for a cutting program.