Allergies, Weight Loss - I need help! Oh my.

[Sionnach]

Hello, all. Of course I register and first plop down here.

I'm milk allergic (have been for 20 years, only recently found out) and am wondering if anyone here has advice on what to eat. The elimination of whey and dairy in the diet of someone who really doesn't eat meat much save for once a day is kind of a huge food eliminator. It's good to start taking off weight (lost around 2 pounds in one week from doing it, yay!) but has really been leaving me quite hungry. So. Any advice..?

Secondly, I vowed to lose a great deal of weight recently. (as it looks like most people here have..) to get an idea out there. I'm 5 foot 7, female, 20 years old, and around 220 pounds. I am hoping to lower that weight down to 141 (a sensible weight for someone my height, yeah? My frame is actually quite lean and narrow once you get past the excess here) over the course of a year. My goal is to lose 50 pounds in 6 months (again, I feel a pretty sensible goal.) My question is - how do I get started?

For background, last year I broke both of my feet just from walking too much. I would really like to be able to run and to rebuild my strength, but I am uncertain as to how to begin this. I have some free weights (5 pound, 8 pound), a treadmill, a stationary bike, and an exercise ball. Whenever I try to do crunches it really hurts my tailbone so I don't know if I'm doing it wrong or what. I was hoping to break into this as one would a crash training course just to really get started off on the right foot.. (or at least a non-broken one!)

Thank you in advance helpful XKCD people >.>;

-Sionnach

[Nath]

I'm milk allergic (have been for 20 years, only recently found out) and am wondering if anyone here has advice on what to eat. The elimination of whey and dairy in the diet of someone who really doesn't eat meat much save for once a day is kind of a huge food eliminator. It's good to start taking off weight (lost around 2 pounds in one week from doing it, yay!) but has really been leaving me quite hungry. So. Any advice..?

If you don't eat dairy and don't eat much meat, what are your main sources of protein? Legumes and nuts are one option, though nuts tend to be pretty energy-dense.

Secondly, I vowed to lose a great deal of weight recently. (as it looks like most people here have..) to get an idea out there. I'm 5 foot 7, female, 20 years old, and around 220 pounds. I am hoping to lower that weight down to 141 (a sensible weight for someone my height, yeah? My frame is actually quite lean and narrow once you get past the excess here) over the course of a year. My goal is to lose 50 pounds in 6 months (again, I feel a pretty sensible goal.) My question is - how do I get started?

Eat less, exercise more. Shocking, eh? About how much are you eating and exercising now?

For background, last year I broke both of my feet just from walking too much. I would really like to be able to run and to rebuild my strength, but I am uncertain as to how to begin this. I have some free weights (5 pound, 8 pound), a treadmill, a stationary bike, and an exercise ball. Whenever I try to do crunches it really hurts my tailbone so I don't know if I'm doing it wrong or what. I was hoping to break into this as one would a crash training course just to really get started off on the right foot.. (or at least a non-broken one!)

Firstly, ouch. How does one go about breaking one's feet by walking? Are these stress fractures?

For rebuilding strength: depending on your initial strength level, you might be able to make progress from bodyweight work initially (squats and such). Pretty soon, bodyweight work will become more of an endurance workout than a strengthening workout, so you'll want to switch to weights to continue to make progress. 5 and 8 lbs weights aren't really useful for strength work; is there a gym nearby?

As for crunches, what sort of surface are you doing them on? Does it hurt when you do them on a soft surface? Some people even use exercise balls.

[Mauersegler]

Hey Sionnach,

the hunger you feel is quite normal and it will pass after a few weeks, unless you keep bouncing back to eating milk-products. Your body is just adapting to the changed diet.

I'm a vegan 6'6'' and roughly 175 lbs and here's what I eat:

For breakfast (I get up between 8 and 9) usually some fruits. Say two apples or two pears. Sometimes I also eat a couple of almonds (usually when I have some). That lasts for 3 to 4 hours (if I get hungry again, I just have another pear/apple). For lunch I usually either have rice or pasta with shortly steamed vegetables (they still have to crunchy, but also warm). Sometimes I get the carbs from boiled spelt, quinoa or millet. The vegetables are usually what's in season (this time of the year that would be asparagus, pastinaca, black salsify, celery, to name a few). Every now and then I also put a handful of almonds in the mix or add a ready-made pasta sauce.

What's also delicious is falafel. You just have to fry chickpea flower (main ingredient of falafel, you also have to add some other stuff which I don't know from the top of my head) in sunflower oil. The most important factor for my cooking usually is the time it takes to prepare in relation to the supplied nutrients. If it takes too long and or doesn't supply a sufficient amount of nutrients, I won't do it

On the squats: You have to fold at the hips and sit back rather than dip down and your shins have to stay close to vertical. To maintain balance you have to tilt your upper body forward. Here is an explanation - maybe later someone will come up with something better.

On weight loss in general: I think this topic has been covered in several other threads and although I usually don't like pointing people to other threads, I think you'd also benefit from the advice that has been given to other people who were trying to loose weight. The easiest thing to do in the very beginning is to throw out all the sodas, coffees and whatnot. Just drink plain water (spring water preferably. I think you'll find that it restores your normal gustatory senses very quickly and after some time it just tastes great. I don't drink anything else).

[Solt]

This is definitely a case where you should consult your doctor before starting an exercise regimen just to make sure everything is good and to take any advice they might have.

As for losing weight, that is mostly diet. Running at 8:30 mile pace burns 636 calories per hour. If you want to lose 40 pounds of fat by running, that is 220 hours of running. 6 months is 180 days so you'd have to run over an hour a day every day to burn off that weight? And that is at a very fast pace.

On the other hand, 1 pound of muscle uses 50 calories per day to maintain. If you put on 5 pounds of muscle (fairly easy for a first time weightlifter in 2-3 months) you will be burning 250 calories per day sitting around. Augment that by cutting out 250 calories of carbohydrates from your daily diet (but increase meat intake to build that muscle) and you can lose a pound a week (consistently... the loss from cutting dairy from your diet will slow down). That is 24 pounds in 6 months. I don't know how bad your diet is currently, but if you can cut out 500 calories plus lifting weights, that is 36 pounds in 6 months. I guess losing the dairy is probably already 200 or more calories off. Running half an hour every day (fast) would take off an extra 300 calories, putting you at your goal, but it won't last. As you lose weight, you burn fewer calories while running so you will have to increase pace or time spent running.

This is a very aggressive schedule and I recommend you reduce your 6 month goals unless you are ready to spend an obscene amount of time every day maintaining your health (not just workout time, but time preparing proper foods to achieve that 500 fewer calories per day). If you lose 25 pounds in 6 months I think you will be very encouraged and will not have problems losing the rest within a year. Healthy living is a lifestyle choice, not something you can achieve in 6 short months and then walk away from.

[Sionnach]

The idea was 50 in 6 months followed by the final 30 or so that I wanted to lose to reach my goal-weight. I want to remain fit following this so I was hoping that the lifestyle choices I made to lose all of it would continue on to help me maintain the weight lost

[spudtheimpaler]

The idea was 50 in 6 months followed by the final 30 or so that I wanted to lose to reach my goal-weight. I want to remain fit following this so I was hoping that the lifestyle choices I made to lose all of it would continue on to help me maintain the weight lost

I agree, losing that much is very ambitious. People measure in pounds or kilos and if you lose a pound then it doesn't sound like much, and the bigger you are, the less visible difference a pound makes...

I promise you, however, that 24 pounds lighter and you'll notice the difference, and you'll keep it up, and you'll still be able to maintain the lifestyle as it isn't killing you trying to keep up.

tl;dr - Solt's post +1

[shocklocks]

1 pound of muscle uses 50 calories per day to maintain

Could you please show me a source for this. I'm not disagreeing I'm just extremely curious about that. I've never seen an article that says anything beyond "more muscle = more calories burnt."

[poohat]

Eating more meat is the obvious solution. Its a very important part of your diet (particularly if you cant eat dairy). Even apart from the other benefits, protein-rich food tends to be the most filling, so you should really be eating (good) meat 3-4 times a day.

50 pounds in 6 months is certainly doable, but ambitious. Aim to lose 1-2 pounts a week and dont be upset if you only manage 30-40 - that will still make a huge difference to your appearance.

Doing cardio is fine but weight training is more important, try to join a gym. Also make sure youre eating enough, at 220 pounds youll probably want to eat 1800-2000 calories to lose weight if youre exercising, but experiment. Certainly dont go below 1500.

[Nath]

If you put on 5 pounds of muscle (fairly easy for a first time weightlifter in 2-3 months) you will be burning 250 calories per day sitting around.

5 pounds of muscle in a couple of months is quite doable under normal circumstances, but I don't know how feasible it is during caloric deficit.

[Victoria Maddison]

1 pound of muscle uses 50 calories per day to maintain

Could you please show me a source for this. I'm not disagreeing I'm just extremely curious about that. I've never seen an article that says anything beyond "more muscle = more calories burnt."

Take a 70 kg adult male with 35 kg muscle mass. At 50 kcal/lb that works out to 3850 kcal/day burnt at rest, clearly wrong. Usually studies report on resting energy expenditure (REE) per unit fat free mass (FFM). The studies I've read all hover around 30 +/- 5 kcal/kg REE/FFM. Using this figure and assuming the 70 kg male has a body fat percentage of around 10%, his lean mass would burn 1890 kcal/day at rest which sounds about right to me.

As to the energy cost of muscle itself I found reference to one study by Elia M. that states 10 to 15 kcal/kg (4.5 to 6.8 kcal/lb):

"Although muscle is the largest tissue of the whole body, accounting for about 40% of adult body weight, its estimated resulting metabolic rate is low (~10-15 kcal/kg/day) so its contribution to the total energy expenditure of the body is about 20%. The majority of the resting energy expenditure of the body (~60%) arises from organs such as liver, kidney, heart, and brain, which account for only about 5-6% of the body weight (Table 4.2). These tissues have a metabolic rate that is 15-40 times greater than an equivalent weight of muscle and 50-100 times greater than adipose tissue ..."

Human nutrition and dietetics, J.S. Garrow, A. Ralph, William Philip Treheame James, Elsevier Health Sciences, 2000, 0443056277, pp38

[psyck0]

Hey Sionnach,

the hunger you feel is quite normal and it will pass after a few weeks, unless you keep bouncing back to eating milk-products. Your body is just adapting to the changed diet.

I'm a vegan 6'6'' and roughly 175 lbs and here's what I eat:

For breakfast (I get up between 8 and 9) usually some fruits. Say two apples or two pears. Sometimes I also eat a couple of almonds (usually when I have some). That lasts for 3 to 4 hours (if I get hungry again, I just have another pear/apple). For lunch I usually either have rice or pasta with shortly steamed vegetables (they still have to crunchy, but also warm). Sometimes I get the carbs from boiled spelt, quinoa or millet. The vegetables are usually what's in season (this time of the year that would be asparagus, pastinaca, black salsify, celery, to name a few). Every now and then I also put a handful of almonds in the mix or add a ready-made pasta sauce.

What's also delicious is falafel. You just have to fry chickpea flower (main ingredient of falafel, you also have to add some other stuff which I don't know from the top of my head) in sunflower oil. The most important factor for my cooking usually is the time it takes to prepare in relation to the supplied nutrients. If it takes too long and or doesn't supply a sufficient amount of nutrients, I won't do it

On the squats: You have to fold at the hips and sit back rather than dip down and your shins have to stay close to vertical. To maintain balance you have to tilt your upper body forward. Here is an explanation - maybe later someone will come up with something better.

On weight loss in general: I think this topic has been covered in several other threads and although I usually don't like pointing people to other threads, I think you'd also benefit from the advice that has been given to other people who were trying to loose weight. The easiest thing to do in the very beginning is to throw out all the sodas, coffees and whatnot. Just drink plain water (spring water preferably. I think you'll find that it restores your normal gustatory senses very quickly and after some time it just tastes great. I don't drink anything else).

Awful advice. Ignore the lot of it, except the throwing out of pop and coffee (and alcohol) to drink only water. Mauersegler, you do NOT eat well. No protein for breakfast or lunch at ALL and I doubt you're getting enough calories, either. Falafals are VERY unhealthy, by the way- absolutely full of saturated and trans fats. You sound like you've chosen a really restrictive vegan diet so you can't eat much and stay slender, but you clearly don't know enough about nutrition to follow it healthily (I would argue that it is virtually impossible to be a healthy vegan, period, but it is indisputable that your meal compositions are terrible).

OP, you should get some whey protein isolate to up your protein intake. Isolate shouldn't have enough lactose to bother you. Have a shake a day, in the longest gap between meals (probably mid-afternoon). Try to lose the weight through exercise, not diet- don't starve yourself. Work out how much you need to eat to maintain your current weight and try to get about 200-300 fewer calories/day. Tell us what kinds of exercise you enjoy and whether or not you're interested in learning to weight-train (NOT with 5 lb dumbbells).

[Nath]

Falafals are VERY unhealthy, by the way- absolutely full of saturated and trans fats.

Er. You might want to look this up. It isn't health food, but it's not utter junk food either. Chickpeas and fava beans are both pretty low fat, so the falafel won't contain much saturated or trans fat unless that's what you cook it in.

I would argue that it is virtually impossible to be a healthy vegan, period, but it is indisputable that your meal compositions are terrible.

It's hard to be a healthy vegan, but there are several examples of successful vegan athletes.

[poohat]

OP, you should get some whey protein isolate to up your protein intake. Isolate shouldn't have enough lactose to bother you.

She'd be better off eating more meat. Real food is better than supplements and fills you up more. You shouldnt get too many calories from liquid if youre losing weight or youre just giong to be constantly hungry. Shes not vegetarian, theres no reason why she shouldnt be eating meat more than once a day - lots of people dont particularly like vegetables but they eat them anyway for health reasons, this is no different.

[psyck0]

She'd be better off eating more meat AND having a mid-afternoon snack. Protein shakes are a nutritious snack (tasty, too, if you mix 'em well). Most people eat too much meat for dinner and don't get enough protein other times of the day (perhaps she should have the shake closer to morning for that reason, but I was plugging a likely hole in her eating schedule).

Falafels are deep-fried, unless you have some special way of making them which I am not aware of.

[Nath]

Falafels are deep-fried, unless you have some special way of making them which I am not aware of.

Yes, they generally are, which is why they aren't health food. But deep frying doesn't necessarily imply saturated or trans fats.

[Solt]

1 pound of muscle uses 50 calories per day to maintain

Could you please show me a source for this. I'm not disagreeing I'm just extremely curious about that. I've never seen an article that says anything beyond "more muscle = more calories burnt."

Take a 70 kg adult male with 35 kg muscle mass. At 50 kcal/lb that works out to 3850 kcal/day burnt at rest, clearly wrong. Usually studies report on resting energy expenditure (REE) per unit fat free mass (FFM). The studies I've read all hover around 30 +/- 5 kcal/kg REE/FFM. Using this figure and assuming the 70 kg male has a body fat percentage of around 10%, his lean mass would burn 1890 kcal/day at rest which sounds about right to me.

As to the energy cost of muscle itself I found reference to one study by Elia M. that states 10 to 15 kcal/kg (4.5 to 6.8 kcal/lb):

"Although muscle is the largest tissue of the whole body, accounting for about 40% of adult body weight, its estimated resulting metabolic rate is low (~10-15 kcal/kg/day) so its contribution to the total energy expenditure of the body is about 20%. The majority of the resting energy expenditure of the body (~60%) arises from organs such as liver, kidney, heart, and brain, which account for only about 5-6% of the body weight (Table 4.2). These tissues have a metabolic rate that is 15-40 times greater than an equivalent weight of muscle and 50-100 times greater than adipose tissue ..."

Human nutrition and dietetics, J.S. Garrow, A. Ralph, William Philip Treheame James, Elsevier Health Sciences, 2000, 0443056277, pp38

I find it hard to believe that a 154 pound person can have 75 pounds of muscle unless they are very short. It is a very aggressive estimate you are doing there. In any case, I concede that my figure sounds high (I don't have a lot of faith in it myself, it is from articles that come up when you google the term), but it is probably accounted for, at least in part, by net added caloric consumption as a result of daily activity, ie, someone with a lot of muscle expends more energy moving about doing normal daily tasks than someone with mostly fat. If there was no huge downside to maintaining all that muscle mass our bodies would have no problems doing it, but clearly there is a huge caloric cost since we will only put on muscle if we regularly use it and if we have excess calories. Part of the 50 cal/day figure might also come from the needs of active muscle growth or even a daily workout regimen.

[Victoria Maddison]

I find it hard to believe that a 154 pound person can have 75 pounds of muscle unless they are very short. It is a very aggressive estimate you are doing there.

I didn't make up the 70 kg man with 35 kg muscle mass, it was from an example in Harper's Illustrated Biochemistry 26th Ed showing how to calculate the amount of glycogen an individual can store. It always comes to mind when people talk of muscle mass instead of lean body mass.

However if you think about it the figures aren't aggressive at all,
Man A (Athletic): ...... 70 kg, 10% body fat, 35 kg (50% bw) muscle mass.
Man B (Sedentary): ... 70 kg, 20% body fat, 28 kg (40% bw) muscle mass.

The difference in body fat between an athletic individual and an average American accounts for the additional muscle mass at the same body weight.

[spudtheimpaler]

50 pounds in 6 months is certainly doable, but ambitious. Aim to lose 1-2 pounts a week and dont be upset if you only manage 30-40 - that will still make a huge difference to your appearance.

I would say it is much better to overshoot an attainable goal, than to only ever come close to an unobtainable goal. Managing expectations badly is a surefire way to lose motivation.

[Mauersegler]

(...).

No protein for breakfast or lunch at ALL and I doubt you're getting enough calories, either.

There is protein in there:

Almonds: 21 g of protein per 100 g serving
Pasta: 3 g of protein per 100 g serving
Rice: 2 - 4 g of protein per 100 g serving
Spelt: 5 g of protein per 100 g serving
Quinoa: 4 g of protein per 100 g serving
Millet: 4 g of protein per 100 g serving

but the question that remains is: How much do you need? And please bear in mind that we're not talking about someone who wants to build muscle, but someone who wants to loose weight. I know numerous people who are on a vegan diet and none of them have any protein-related problems. In my opinion you don't need extra sources of protein if you're not going for muscle gain. Having a couple of nuts throughout the day and eating whole grain products provides plenty of it.

Falafals are VERY unhealthy, by the way- absolutely full of saturated and trans fats.

I said they were delicious. I didn't suggest for them to be the staple food. I dare say the overall impact on health of having a couple of falafels every two weeks is negligible, if you have fresh vegetables, fruit and whole-wheat products as the foundation of your diet that is.

You sound like you've chosen a really restrictive vegan diet so you can't eat much and stay slender, but you clearly don't know enough about nutrition to follow it healthily (I would argue that it is virtually impossible to be a healthy vegan, period, but it is indisputable that your meal compositions are terrible).

I haven't chosen any diet. I eat what I feel like and if I feel bad after eating something, I won't eat it again. I also eat more than enough and stay thin (actually I'm slowly gaining weight, like 1 lbs per month). Oh, and I know enough about nutrition to be able to tell the foods with "no protein ... AT ALL" from those with protein. Via fitday.com I've also established that I meet all RDAs without problem (except B12 and some others of course, but I can't shake the feeling that I don't want to have this discussion )

I've never liked meat and never had much of it as a child. Most days went completely without (on the others I had one or two slices of ham or salami). I also never had a lot of cheese (but did drink ~ 300 ml / day of milk as a teen - that's about 10 fl oz by the way). I was always the thinnest of my peers. These days I'm still the thinnest, but also the strongest. And I don't eat meat or dairy "AT ALL" (this time actually meaning zero). That is why I can't understand why someone who want's to loose weight should drink protein shakes.

[shocklocks]

but the question that remains is: How much do you need? And please bear in mind that we're not talking about someone who wants to build muscle, but someone who wants to loose weight. I know numerous people who are on a vegan diet and none of them have any protein-related problems. In my opinion you don't need extra sources of protein if you're not going for muscle gain. Having a couple of nuts throughout the day and eating whole grain products provides plenty of it.

That is why I can't understand why someone who want's to loose weight should drink protein shakes.

Quoted directly from: http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nut ... judice.htm

So, for those of you who staunchly believe that you're only required to eat enough protein to meet your needs,go right ahead and reduce your protein intake from 2.0g/kg to 0.65g/kg. In the meantime, I'll be encouraging everyone else to actually increase his or her protein intake beyond the current 2.0g/kg recommendation.

If this recommendation seems excessive, it's because you have a narrow view of how protein fits into one's dietary strategy. You're looking at protein in the same narrow way that people used to look at vitamin C; essential at a specific dose but conferring no additional benefits with a higher intake.
With vitamin C, we all know it's important to consume enough of it (at least 10mg/day) to prevent scurvy. However, it's also commonly known there are a host of health benefits associated with much higher doses (200mg/day or more) including a reduced risk of cancer, increased HDL cholesterol, reduced risk of coronary artery disease, and a reduced duration of cold episodes and severity of symptoms.

Like vitamin C, instead of thinking of protein as a macronutrient that provides no benefit beyond preventing protein deficiency, we need to recognize the benefits of eating protein (at any dose).

Increased Thermic Effect of Feeding — While all macronutrients require metabolic processing for digestion, absorption, and storage or oxidation, the thermic effect of protein is roughly double that of carbohydrates and fat. Therefore, eating protein is actually thermogenic and can lead to a higher metabolic rate. This means greater fat loss when dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding.

Increased Glucagon — Protein consumption increases plasma concentrations of the hormone glucagon. Glucagon is responsible for antagonizing the effects of insulin in adipose tissue, leading to greater fat mobilization. In addition, glucagon also decreases the amounts and activities of the enzymes responsible for making and storing fat in adipose and liver cells. Again, this leads to greater fat loss during dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding.

Increased IGF-1 — Protein and amino-acid supplementation has been shown to increase the IGF-1 response to both exercise and feeding. Since IGF-1 is an anabolic hormone that's related to muscle growth, another advantage associated with consuming more protein is more muscle growth when overfeeding and/or muscle sparing when dieting.

Reduction in Cardiovascular Risk — Several studies have shown that increasing the percentage of protein in the diet (from 11% to 23%) while decreasing the percentage of carbohydrate (from 63% to 48%) lowers LDL cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations with concomitant increases in HDL cholesterol concentrations.

Improved Weight-Loss Profile — Brand spankin' new research by Layman and colleagues has demonstrated that reducing the carbohydrate ratio from 3.5 - 1 to 1.4 - 1 increases body fat loss, spares muscle mass, reduces triglyceride concentrations, improves satiety, and improves blood glucose management (Layman et al 2003 — If you're at all interested in protein intake, you've gotta go read the January and February issues of the Journal of Nutrition. Layman has three interesting articles in the two journals).

Increased Protein Turnover — As I've discussed before in my article Precision Nutrition, all tissues of the body, including muscle, go through a regular program of turnover. Since the balance between protein breakdown and protein synthesis governs muscle protein turnover, you need to increase your protein turnover rates in order to best improve your muscle quality. A high protein diet does just this. By increasing both protein synthesis and protein breakdown, a high protein diet helps you get rid of the old muscle more quickly and build up new, more functional muscle to take its place.

Increased Nitrogen Status — Earlier I indicated that a positive nitrogen status means that more protein is entering the body than is leaving the body. High protein diets cause a strong positive protein status and when this increased protein availability is coupled with an exercise program that increases the body's anabolic efficiency, the growth process may be accelerated.

Increased Provision of Auxiliary Nutrients — Although the benefits mentioned above have related specifically to protein and amino acids, it's important to recognize that we don't just eat protein and amino acids — we eat food. Therefore, high protein diets often provide auxiliary nutrients that could enhance performance and/or muscle growth. These nutrients include creatine, branched chain amino acids, conjugated linoleic acids, and/or additional nutrients that are important but remain to be discovered. This illustrates the need to get most of your protein from food, rather than supplements alone.

[Victoria Maddison]

How much [protein] do you need? And please bear in mind that we're not talking about someone who wants to build muscle, but someone who wants to loose [sic] weight.

In my opinion you don't need extra sources of protein if you're not going for muscle gain. Having a couple of nuts throughout the day and eating whole grain products provides plenty of it.

Protein requirements are highest in those losing weight because the body likes to break down muscle and fat. Giving the body a steady stream of amino acids reduces the muscle loss.

Rough figures that may be of use,
Fat loss: ........................ 1.0 - 1.5 g/lb (depending on how aggressive the rate of loss is)
Muscle gain: ................... 1.0 g/lb
Maintenance (athlete): ..... 0.7 - 1.0 g/lb (depending on how active the individual is)
Maintenance (sedentary): .. 0.5 - 0.7 g/lb (individual variation)

P.S. Can we stop with this vegan nonsense? Humans thrive as omnivores and it's extremism to try and push them into a herbivorous/carnivorous diet for your own ideological reasons. It's not healthier, it won't help her lose weight, it won't do anything to benefit the OP that a balanced plant and animal based diet won't. It's just plain not helpful advice. Animal products are healthy, rich sources of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. There's no legitimate reason to try and get her to stop eating them, so cut it out. End rant.

[TheSkyMovesSideways]

Rough figures that may be of use,
Fat loss: ........................ 1.0 - 1.5 g/lb (depending on how aggressive the rate of loss is)
Muscle gain: ................... 1.0 g/lb
Maintenance (athlete): ..... 0.7 - 1.0 g/lb (depending on how active the individual is)
Maintenance (sedentary): .. 0.5 - 0.7 g/lb (individual variation)

Are these figures per pound of bodyweight, or per pound of lean bodyweight?

Thanks.

[Victoria Maddison]

Are these figures per pound of bodyweight, or per pound of lean bodyweight?

For fat loss use LBM for everything else use total bodyweight.

[Mokele]

I find it hard to believe that a 154 pound person can have 75 pounds of muscle unless they are very short.

It's pretty simple to see, actually - find your center of mass. In a normal, standing pose, it'll be at about the level of the top of your hips (give or take a bit for individual variation). 50% of your mass is beneath that point, and what's beneath that is almost entirely legs, which are almost entirely muscle.

Remember, there's muscle *everywhere*, even if we only count skeletal muscle (as opposed to smooth & cardiac). Not just your limbs, but also surrounding your hip and shoulder joints, holding your head in place, along your back, in your face, your diaphragm, your abdominal wall, etc.

Consider your psoas - the psoas minor & major combined are about a foot and a half long, and at the midpoint are as thick around as your wrist. Each of them (right and left) lone weighs several pounds, but the vast majority of it is inside the abdominal cavity, so you never notice.

Also, these numbers aren't estimates - the methodology behind them is as simple as "weigh dead body, cut all the muscles out of dead body, weigh muscles, divide." And speaking as someone who's cut up a fair few dead people, they're pretty accurate. I'd say each individual gluteus maximus weighs a good 4 lbs, just based on 'heft' when cutting them off.

[ice__101]

Quoted directly from: http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nut ... judice.htm

So, for those of you who staunchly believe that you're only required to eat enough protein to meet your needs,go right ahead and reduce your protein intake from 2.0g/kg to 0.65g/kg. In the meantime, I'll be encouraging everyone else to actually increase his or her protein intake beyond the current 2.0g/kg recommendation...

I just wanted to throw in that it would be worth it for you to take a look at the rest of the articles on this site. John Berardi is a very knowledgeable person when it comes to training and especially diet. And if memory serves, he is lactose intolerant so he likes to stay away from milk products.

One other thing of note, is he is a writer for T-Nation which is owned by Biotest. I don't remember if that is the deal with his page (and I can't access it right now because I am at work and it is blocked), but I know T-nation has an obvious bias towards Biotest products, so keep that in mind when reading his articles.