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I would be interested to know how many members are former dieters or Zoners
who have found that they have lost lean body mass and now have a lower
resting metabolic rate (and thus are prone now to regain weight rapidly).
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Arthur De Vany


I practice Calorie Restriction (for about 3 ½ years now).  The first 1 ½
years of this went very smoothly as I gave up high glycemic, low fiber, low
nutrition foods and concentrated on getting the most nutrition per calorie
and on keeping daily calorie count to about 1500-1600 per day.  I lost
weight consistently and relatively slowly, as planned.  However, then I came
upon some of Art’s writings on the web and was fascinated and very much
attracted to the notions of brief, intense exercise sessions and Paleolithic
diet.  I had been doing a bit of aerobic work and low level strength
conditioning to that point.  I changed to interval sprints and a little more
intensity in the strength training.  Almost immediately, my body fat
percentage dropped (from about 10% to 9% in just about one month) and my
weight increased by one or two pounds.  I continued in this way for several
months, but my weight decline became much slower and more difficult.  I
found it much more difficult to stick to the CR diet (that is, I became
exceedingly hungry at times and had occasional bouts of modest binging that
had never occurred before).  Then, I suffered a torn meniscus in my R knee
in an accident, and the subsequent surgery and rehab stopped the sprinting
for almost one year.  I have returned to that now, although I still have
some soreness (ironically and unfortunately now in both knees and even more
so in the L one).  However, the rehab efforts on my lower body and the focus
on upper body strength training for several months have added even more
muscle.  Of course, I certainly am not a muscle man and probably would be
perceived as scrawny with my clothes on.  I believe my lean mass has
increased from about 118 lbs when I began CR to perhaps 124 or 125 at this
time.  This is based on consistent skin fold measures and weight measures
using the same instruments.

At this time I weight about 138 lbs.  My best estimate is that my weight in
my mid 20s was about 145.  I am 5’10’’ and always was lean, although before
beginning CR, I had gained weight to about 157 lb because of middle age,
poor diet, and relative inactivity.  My goal is to get down to about 130-132
lbs over the next several months.  But, as I said, limiting calories has
been a struggle over the last 18 months during the period when I have
increased muscle mass.  Essentially, I am trying to combine evolutionary
fitness and CR.  Ultimately, this may prove to be impossible.  But, I
believe (or hope) there may be a narrow margin in which I can combine them
successfully.  This will require body fat percentage of about 5% or 6% and
maybe some loss of lean mass but that should be doable.

Best regards,

     - Robert.