Linda Hahn's Results Doing The Cure

My wife Linda finished doing the Eades 6 Weeks Cure for the Middle-Aged Middle. She did quite well if I may say so.

Linda lost a total of 11 pounds in 6 weeks. This is excellent by anyone standards. All with no added physical activity.

I'd like to see a single study showing better results than this while including added physical activity. All she did was two, 15 minute strength sessions which came to a total of 15 minutes of total exercise per week. But she was doing this before.

Her lean mass went from 107.41 pounds on August 20th to 105.5 pounds on October 2nd. This loss of lean was accounted for by a half liter of water loss. 1/2 liter weighs 1 pound. Since she lost 2 pounds of lean, 1/2 came from warer, the other 1/2 from lean tissue. A small price to pay for such fantastic results. However, her percentage of lean mass to fat mass went up by 2%. This is more important than her total lean mass.  

Her fat mass went from 44.59 pounds to 39.04 pounds on October 2nd. A loss of 5.5 pounds.

Today she weighed in at 141 pounds with no loss of lean mass. So She went from 152 to 141 - 11 total pounds lost. 9 from fat, 1 from water, 1 from lean tissue.

Here's her electronic body fat printout before and after:

One of the amazing things about this program is that it's, well, really easy to do and to stick to.

If the entire country adopted this eating plan, my predicition is that obesity and adult onset diabetes would virtually vanish in one year - two tops. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Feel free to email me with any questions.

If your thinking of trying The Cure, do so. Don't think - just do. 
 

Comments

[fred hahn]

"The six week diet is nice. What is interesting to me is that many who low carb need to go on it; and the key is not so much how much they will lose on 6 week cure diet, but what happens to their weight after they return to their typical, and most likely eating pattern which for many i am guessing is low carb. Congrats to your wife. Was she a low carb follower before going on 6 week?"

She was - for years but she 'cheated' on drinks, chips, a lot of cheese, etc. over the years. Then manoapuse hit and well, hormones went wacky. She needed a real buckle down that The Cure gave her.

If you return to your old habits you will get fatter again.

What happens if after you quit smoking you start again?

[steve]

the six week diet is nice. what is interesting to me is that many who low carb need to go on it; and the key is not so much how much they will lose on 6 week cure diet, but what happens to their weight after they return to their typical, and most likely eating pattern which for many i am guessing is low carb. Congrats to your wife. Was she a low carb follower before going on 6 week?

[fred hahn]

"I lost 5.2 pounds the first week and then stalled for the next almost 4 weeks. It was only when I dropped my calories to around 1100, my fat to 80 grams, and my protein to around 70 grams did the weight start leaving me. After Week 1, ECC has averaged less than 10. Lowering everything did the trick. As of this morning I'm down 10.4 pounds.

I've been doing bio-identical hormones (Bi-Est and progesterone) from a compounding pharmacy for about 18 months now and 2 weeks ago switched from Bi-Est to just E2 because I read that the estriol can cause weight gain and fat storage in some women.

Linda probably isn't in the same menopausal boat that I'm in."

How many calories were you eating before going to 1100? Linda is in menopause BTW.

What were you cheating on - anything? Most people do!

[Kathy from Maine]

Hi, Fred!

You asked why I had to tweak. I'm 54 and well into menopause. It hit me like a mack truck at age 50, and I gained almost 50 pounds in the first year despite continuing a low-carb, often zero-carb, plan. I've been following a "real food" plan (thanks for that term!) for about 11 years now and had been maintaining well until age 50.

I lost 5.2 pounds the first week and then stalled for the next almost 4 weeks. It was only when I dropped my calories to around 1100, my fat to 80 grams, and my protein to around 70 grams did the weight start leaving me. After Week 1, ECC has averaged less than 10. Lowering everything did the trick. As of this morning I'm down 10.4 pounds.

I've been doing bio-identical hormones (Bi-Est and progesterone) from a compounding pharmacy for about 18 months now and 2 weeks ago switched from Bi-Est to just E2 because I read that the estriol can cause weight gain and fat storage in some women.

Linda probably isn't in the same menopausal boat that I'm in.

[fred hahn]

"congrats to linda for her amazing loss.
i have been reading the protein power forum and the thread on the 'cure it does not seem all that 'easy' to me. some of the items required may not be as easy to aquire outside of usa or may be very expensive. of course i may be wrong as i have not read the book myself.
i would like to tell you that i have persisted with your slow burn program and also protein power diet and as of today i have lost 22 lbs. :)"

Congrats to you on losing 22 pounds! :)

Once you read the book you'll see it is quite easy to do The Cure. Email me if you need help fidning anything. FHahn@seriousstrength.com.

Keep up the great work and keep me posted!

[nadine]

hi
congrats to linda for her amazing loss.
i have been reading the protein power forum and the thread on the 'cure'
it does not seem all that 'easy' to me. some of the items required may not be as easy to aquire outside of usa or may be very expensive. of course i may be wrong as i have not read the book myself.
i would like to tell you that i have persisted with your slow burn program and also protein power diet and as of today i have lost 22 lbs. :)

[fred hahn]

Great to hear Kathy. And you're right - the only essential macronutrients are fat and protein. There's no debating it. It's even stated in the DRI's. You said:

"I've had to do a bit of tweaking to find my optimal calorie range plus my optimum number of protein and fat grams..."

Really? Interesting. Linda did not even think about this and lost 12 pounds in 6 weeks at age 49. What was happening that you needed to count calories and grams of protein and fat that wasn't taken care of by the program itself?

Tell people you eat a 'real food' diet. What the cave woman would have eaten. There are no pasta bushes or pizza trees. There's no such thing as a bagel vine.

Even wheat - you can't walk into a wheat field and eat stalks of wheat.

I tell people if the food walked,m crawled, swam or flew, I eat it. If it naturally grew out of the ground - not harvested - and it's in season, I'll eat it.

Have you read Dr. Barry Groves book Trick and Treat? You'd like it.

[Kathy from Maine]

Hey, Fred! Congrats to Linda!!!

I was chosen as one of the Drs. Eades "early adopters." I began my 6WC on September 1. Yesterday marked the beginning of Week 6.

So far I have lost 9.8 pounds, 4 inches off my waist, and 1/2 inch off my hips. My SAD measurements are going down, as is my blood pressure.

I've had to do a bit of tweaking to find my optimal calorie range plus my optimum number of protein and fat grams (carbs are always below 10 grams per day), but I'm in the groove now.

I'm a very strong supporter of this way of eating, having been a low-carber since around 1998. I got into trouble when I hit 50 years of age and menopause struck with a vengeance. Within about 8 months I was up almost 50 pounds, and regardless of what I did, the weight wouldn't budge. I was low-carb the entire time, though not being as strict as I really needed to be. The 6WC gave me the boost I needed.

On a somewhat related topic, what do you say when people ask you about your "diet" (meaning your food regimen, not in the common sense of the word)?

Whenever I say "low carb," I get the rolling eyes and admonitions that it's not healthy to not eat veggies and whole grains. I really want to say that I eat "adequate protein/moderate fat/restricted carbs," but that's a mouthful! I've also said that I restrict sugar, grains, and starch, but that doesn't really get at the fact that I consider protein and fat to be the only necessary nutrients. On the other hand, I don't want to get into a debate every time I answer this question, as surely happens.

Any recommendations?

[fred hahn]

I said:

“Newsflash: When eating a large percentage of calories from carbs, weight loss is usually only possible if calories are severely restricted as in this study…”

James Krieger responded by saying:

“No. The Rumpler paper was ~1600 kcal/d...certainly not severe restriction. Low paper was ~1760 kcal....certainly not severe (in fact, weight loss was identical in the high carb group to the low carb group in this study). Nieman paper was ~2000 - 2200 kcal/d....certainly not severe. In fact, other than the Van Dale paper, none of the studies mentioned involved restriction below 1000 kcal/d.”

First of all I said “usually.” There are many factors to be considered and sometimes it does happen that moderate reductions in calories on high carb diets show decent weight loss results. But not often.

To be fair, we should first determine what is meant by the word 'severe' when discussing caloric restriction.

In the field of nutrition, ‘severe’ is determined by eating less than the person's minimum daily requirement and/or reducing total caloric intake by 40% or more. As an example, when Ancel Keys conducted his "starvation studies” he fed the men 1800 kcals/day.

Eating less than 1000kcal/day is a very severe reduction to be sure but less than this amount can also be considered severe depending on what the baseline was.

Another way to look at it is by estimating energy requirements and then subtracting 500 kcals from that number. This is considered the "rule of thumb" for weight loss and is considered to be, according the textbooks, "moderate" caloric restriction. Anything beyond this becomes "severe" according to degree.

So, let’s start with the first citation. The Rumpler study had 8 male subjects eating 50% less calories than at baseline – from 3100 down to 1550. Severe by definition.

The Low study was also a 50% reduction in calories. “…after dieting for 6 weeks on a formula diet enriched in either monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs, n = 9) or carbohydrates (CHOs, n = 8) at a 50% caloric deficit,…”

The Neiman paper had the subjects decrease their calories from 2100 to 1200. This is a 43% reduction in calories. Again, severe by definition.

As a side note, the Neiman study is yet another example of how exercise does not help to increase fat loss:

“Although exercise improved estimated maximum oxygen consumption (VO2max; 20.9 +/- 3.2% vs 2.1 +/- 3.4% in Ex vs Nex, respectively), changes in total body, lean body, and fat weight did not differ significantly between groups.”

They also mention at the end of this study:

“In other tightly controlled studies, light to moderate amounts of exercise training have also been found to have little effect on change in body weight.”

Bottom line here is that my statement stands. All of the studies mentioned had severe caloric restrictions - some very severe.

[James Krieger, M.S., M.S., no B.S.]

*************
Newsflash: When eating a large percentage of calories from carbs, weight loss is usually only possible if calories are severely restricted as in this study.
****************

No. The Rumpler paper was ~1600 kcal/d...certainly not severe restriction. Low paper was ~1760 kcal....certainly not severe (in fact, weight loss was identical in the high carb group to the low carb group in this study). Nieman paper was ~2000 - 2200 kcal/d....certainly not severe.

In fact, other than the Van Dale paper, none of the studies mentioned involved restriction below 1000 kcal/d.

[fred hahn]

Thanks for the conrgrats James. I forgot to mention that on this diet she ate freely, never counting calories or thinking about restricting them and allowing for 2 alcohol drinks per week. So this is a ‘real life’ diet – one that allows the person much freedom in choices and at the same time reduces sugar which is highly inflammatory.

http://content.onlinejacc.org/cgi/content/abstract/53/24/2283

The statement I made in the blog was:

“I'd like to see a single study showing better results than this while including added physical activity.

The point being that adding exercise to the mix won’t help one lose much added weight if any at all. I wasn’t asking for studies that showed equal or better results from diet alone. Plus Linda had only 20 pounds or so to lose at most. Obese people generally lose far more weight in the same time frame than relatively lean people.

Onto the studies you cited:

Buskirk et al (1963) 5.5 kg loss in 4 weeks, 348 g carbs per day.

This is a 12 pound loss in 4 weeks. About the same as Linda (in less time albeit). You didn’t give us much info however James. My guess is this was a severely calorie restricted diet on obese women.

And this is the average weight loss of the participants. Of course, no one loses an average amount of weight. People lose weight, not averages. I’d like to see the spread of loss in this study (as well as in the others you cited). Since you didn’t mention that there was an exercise component, I’ll assume there was none.

“Low et al (1996), 8.3 kg loss in 6 weeks, 312 g carbs per day (70% carb diet)”

18.26 pounds lost in 6 weeks. This is a fantastic result assuming this was all fat loss. And again, no exercise component.

“Nieman et al (1990), 5.5-5.6 kg loss in 5 weeks, 256-272 g carbs per day (included exercise in one group)”

About the same loss as Linda – assuming it’s mostly fat. What results did the group exercising achieve? Probably not better or you’d have mentioned it. This was the main point of my statement – how adding exercise to a diet regime does not benefit fat loss.

Rumpler et al (1991), 5 kg loss in 4 weeks, 263 g carbs per day (66% carb diet)

Again, equal to Linda’s results and no exercise. More than likely a very low calorie diet.

Surwit et al (1997), 7.4 kg loss in 6 weeks, 204 g carbs per day (70.9% carb diet)

A bit better than Linda – VG results. But again, no exercise.

Van Dale et al (1987), 8.2 kg loss in 4 weeks for diet+exercise group (don't have the full text for this paper so I don't know the dietary composition)

I searched PubMed and below is an abstract of the only study by Van Dale in 1987. I assume this is the one you are referring to.

Of all the studies you cited, this is the only one that had a greater loss of fat than Linda while including exercise in one group. But looking at the results, an interesting picture is revealed. Let’s take a look:

The effects of dieting and exercise on RMR, body composition and maximal aerobic power were studied in 12 obese women. The subjects were paired on the basis of their body mass index and divided into a diet (D) and a diet + exercise group (DE). The treatment consisted of a 5-week period with a low-energy formula diet of 2.9 MJ and an 8-week period with a mixed diet of 1.7 MJ supplemented with 1.8 MJ normal foodstuffs.

2.9-1.7MJ??? Wow. 1MJ = 239 calories. So these obese women were eating a mere 693 calories a day over the first 5 weeks (and lowered to 496 calories per day for the other 8!). There is so much I could say about this it is staggering. If I knew the subjects RMR I’d bet you my Buster Brown’s that the amount of fat lost would not equal the amount of calories eaten and burned via exercise. A calorie ain’t a calorie! We’re not walking ATM machines.

DE trained 4 h per week at 50-60 per cent of their maximal aerobic power with aerobics and fitness exercises. Body composition was determined by hydrostatic weighing and RMR was measured from 03.00 to 06.00 hours in a respiration chamber. The measurements were done at week 0, after 4 weeks (week 5), and after 12 weeks (week 13). There were no significant differences between the groups. Fat loss was also not statistically different between DE and D.

Here my point is made. No significant differences were found between the two groups in either weight lost or fat lost. This means the added exercise didn’t do squat (mind the pun) to improve fat loss.

We also see that a significant portion of the weight lost was from lean mass. Both groups lost equal amounts of lean mass ~5.5 pounds. Not good. This is mostly due to the severely restricted calorie diet no doubt.

Newsflash: When eating a large percentage of calories from carbs, weight loss is usually only possible if calories are severely restricted as in this study. But no one can live like this for long. Linda on the other hand will be staying on the The Cure for life, never having to count or even think about calories.

If you can produce a study showing that adding an exercise component to a dietary regimen is superior for fat loss in non-obese, pre-menopausal women, I'd like to see it. Ideally it will be an ad-libitum diet too as this is how Linda is eating now.

[fred hahn]

Hi Amy -

Glad to hear you are doing well too. It's nice not to have to count calories and eat virtually all we like and still lose fat.

Calorie counting is difficult even for people who know how - and a royal pain in the arse too.

Keep it up and please keep me posted. Love to hear how you do at week 6. Let Dr. Eades know too.

[Amy Dungan]

I'm doing the cure and loving it. On week 4 and down 9 lbs. My clothes are loose and I'm feeling great. It's a wonderful plan!

[James Krieger, M.S., M.S.]

First, congratulations to your wife for her achievement.

Second, you made the following comment:

"I'd like to see a single study showing better results than this while including added physical activity."

There are plenty, both with and without physical activity, and on moderate to high carbohydrate diets:

Buskirk et al (1963) 5.5 kg loss in 4 weeks, 348 g carbs per day

Low et al (1996), 8.3 kg loss in 6 weeks, 312 g carbs per day (70% carb diet)

Nieman et al (1990), 5.5-5.6 kg loss in 5 weeks, 256-272 g carbs per day (included exercise in one group)

Rumpler et al (1991), 5 kg loss in 4 weeks, 263 g carbs per day (66% carb diet)

Surwit et al (1997), 7.4 kg loss in 6 weeks, 204 g carbs per day (70.9% carb diet)

van Dale et al (1987), 8.2 kg loss in 4 weeks for diet+exercise group (don't have the full text for this paper so I don't know the dietary composition)