John Kiefer vs. Lyle McDonald

[MC]

The other elephant in the middle of the room (at least from what I have seen), is that I haven't seen anyone with any appreciable size who claims to be natural run IF as Lyle suggests and keep any size while leaning down.

Every time I have googled his approach (Search and Images), you come up with loads and loads of pictures and stories of guys who are all gassing and having success with IF.

For kicks, I did some goolging earlier and found the same things to be true of Kiefer's approach. Now, I am not saying that Kiefer's approach won't work on someone who isn't being assisted (there don't seem to be as much evidence of people running this), but just that I am skeptical at best.

So, my personal conclusion on both approaches is: were I gassing and cutting, either approach is likely to support me in my goals of keeping a lot of muscle and losing BF based on the interaction of the dieting approach with the extra muscle-sparing support of the gas. But I wouldn't do either approach as a natural. I'd just hire Rich for diet help.

[BendtheBar]

My only real comment is that I've tried a lot of different cutting plans over the years. I've been doing this far too long. No matter what plan I was on, results were still very much about dialing things in.

As bodybuilders say, the more precise the diet, the more precise the results. The calories in/out debate can rage, but I think it misses the point a bit. It might not be about calories in/out, but it certainly is about adjustments, and adjusting calorie intake levels or macro levels will always be a huge part of this equation.

Sometimes dialing things in requires a tight monitoring of calories, and sometimes the goals are looser and require only a general adjustment that doesn't involve micromanaging everything you eat. (eat more, eat healthier, whatever)

My eating plan right now is a good example of a "loose" management of macros and calories. I eat only until satiety, restrict my food intake to only certain types of foods, and make sure I intake a minimum amount of protein. I am not after precise results, aka getting shredded, etc., so the slow and sometimes uneven weight loss I am experiencing is acceptable. If I were after maximum mass retention while also losing maximum fat, I would micromanage things to a much moire precise degree - plan meals, count calories, adjust calories, etc.