I don’t want to hash through the book and start another huge argument, but my very broad take-aways were:
Carbohydrates affect many people’s bodies in a way that makes it more difficult for them to control hunger.
A low carb diet is a reasonable way to lose weight, which many people can benefit from because they fill fuller more easily, not because they are eating an insane amount of food.
Insulin plays a role in weight gain that is still being understood.
Stop eating so much shit.
OK, here’s my thing.
Does anyone seriously believe that you can eat 3,000+ calories per day and not gain weight? I mean, seriously believe that.
Because I can buy that eating a high-protein high-fat diet lowers your cravings and raises your satiety to the point that you are naturally eating fewer calories. That makes a lot of sense to me. But the idea that you can eat an unlimited number of calories and still lose weight because calorie deficit is not the mechanism by which you lose weight seems a little bit crazy. That’s what this experiment is meant to disprove. I don’t know, though; I hate to be a welsher (no offense to Prince Charles), but I’m sitting here thinking about seriously cramming 3,000 calories worth of bacon and heavy cream down my throat every day and it sounds kind of gross.
On the other hand, it will at least keep me away from the Girl Scout cookies. I’m waffling here, people.
MsWhatsit
I think the mechanism of the low carb is the lack of stimulation to the insulin response.
Think for a sec: Type 1 diabetics lose masses of weight regardless of the calories they eat. They also don’t make insulin.
And I seriously believe that about the calories because I have done it. Nothing like personal experience to convince a person.
Taubes, from what I understand, is simply rehashing the Atkins diet. The claim is indeed that it is the type of food you eat that counts, not the amount of calories.
Posted in the other thread:
United States Department of Agriculture
Popular Diets: A Scientific Review 1/2
Obesity Research 9(2001):1s
by Marjorie R. Freedman, Janet King, and Eileen Kennedy
http://www.atkinsexposed.org/atkins/107/United_States_Department_of_Agriculture.htm
That seems to be the issue to me: is it ‘restricting energy intake, increasing expenditure, or a combo’ or is it ‘diet composition’ (in this case, high-fat, low-carb) because of how metabolism works?
That’s the issue (I come down on the first position).
P.S. I didn’t say it was EASY. I’m saying it’s possible to lose weight without a calorie deficit.
Malthus: If you are correct, than MsWhatsit should report back in 10 days that she gained a couple of pounds. That’s the whole point of the exercise.
OK, look. I’m going to do this for a couple of days, following the terms I laid out in the OP, and see how it goes. If I feel like total ass, it is impossible to actually eat this diet, or something else untoward happens, I’m quitting. Just so we’re all aware of my level of investment in this thing. 
Well, sure! Taken at face value I think it’s quite easy to eat 3,000 calories per day and not gain weight. It all depends on what else you do that day! If you sit around and do nothing, I’ll grant you weight gain.
A local runner, John Price, is currently running across the US. He’s putting in 25-30 miles a day. That’s close to 3000 calories right there.
I’ll admit that it’s unlikely that most folks will want to, say, run the 10-15 miles a day it might take to break even on a 3000 calorie a day diet. (Based on 1600 metabolic base, which seems to be what most calculators come up with for my weight/age/height.)
Maybe you can do that experiment next 
Not necessarily. According to the same cite:
In an experiment lasting only 10 days, one would predict a loss of water-weight (assuming the cite is correct) which would be quickly regained when the diet is concluded.
Another cite goes into greater detail:
Margo A. Denke, M.D.
Metabolic Effects of High-Protein, Low-Carbohydrate Diets
American Journal of Cardiology 88(2001):59.
http://www.atkinsexposed.org/atkins/95/Margo_A._Denke,_M.D..htm
As I think is clear from my previous couple of posts, I am seriously debating the wisdom of this whole thing, so if I can get some consensus that this isn’t even going to prove anything one way or the other, that would be swell.
MobiusStripes, that sounds a lot more fun and healthy than this experiment does! I’ve actually put my half-marathon training on hiatus for the moment due to severe shoulder pain. (I’m having surgery on it in two weeks and hope it helps.)
In order to really test it, you oughtta do the diet for, say, six months. 
But seriously: the cites (assuming they are true) all seem to claim that weight loss initially is pretty good on this diet. The problem is that it isn’t fat being lost, and you get it all back when you stop.
3000 isn’t really that much if you are reasonably active male adult. I average about 2600-2800 calories a day and have maintained my weight for a long time. If I were an athlete I’d be eating a lot more.
These days many American restaurant entrees have over 2k calories just in one meal.
If you are female, obviously your calorie requirements are going to be a little lower though.
I’ve yet to see a study that actually studies anything similar to what atkins advocates. You often see shuffling macronutrients around - instead of 70% carbs / 20% fat / 10% protein they’ll compare it to someone who does 40% carbs / 40% fat / 20% protein and conclude their results didn’t differ, but no one who seriously advocates low carb diets would consider 40% remotely low carb.
Is there an actual test amongst those that actually studies a real low carb diet?
And yes - depending on the OP’s normal calorie expenditure rate from lean body mass and whatever excercise they do, in addition to the excess water you shed when you stop eating carbs, along with day to day weight fluctations, it’s actually quite possible the OP will end up with a slight net loss.
I don’t know what this Taube guy advocates, but Atkins doesn’t advocate that calorie intake is irrelevant, but a combination of eating less due to hunger not being as frequent due to blood sugar drops, more satiety from fats, and a general metabolic rate change from fundamentally shifting your metabolism from primarily burning glucose to fat. (There are other benefits besides the fat loss too)
Part of the point of low carb diets is that you don’t force-feed yourself. Without your blood sugar spiking and then plumetting, you have a better idea of when your body is actually hungry and when you’re full. Your energy intake much more closely matches your energy expenditure than when you’re eating based on blood sugar levels.
If the OP ate as much fatty food as they wanted to eat, they’d almost certainly lose weight, but if you force feed yourself obviously at some point it’s going to overtake you - it’s not as if you could eat 30,000 calories of bacon per day and lose weight and I can’t see anyone seriously advocating that. Most likely it is a misunderstanding of their position.
10 days won’t kill you, probably. I gained weight during 2 weeks of my diet (but lost weight over the 2.5 months) even though I was adhering to the 1300-1500 calorie limitation, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you managed to lose weight on 10 days of this “meal plan.” It’s what happens over a few months of eating like that which would be notable.
Dude, 3000 calories a day isn’t very much. There are millions of people in the world that need to eat more than that to survive. This isn’t risky at all, just take a multi vitamin.
Well, there’s proving something per se, and then there’s proving something to the Dope.
Not always the same thing. I’m of the belief that you would lose weight with this endeavor. However, I also believe that it won’t prove anything on this board because any weight lost will be explained away glibly by those who already espouse the ‘calories in, calories out’ theory and any weight gained will be dismissed equally glibly for those who already believe in the low carb theory. In other words, I have doubts that your experiment, no matter what the outcome, will convince anyone one way or the other. I could be wrong.
So, what’s in it for you? As far as I can see, not much. It will be a difficult endeavor at best, and it seems unlikely to convince anyone who has already made up their mind. And people as a rule tend to be a lot less open minded than they think they are. Yes, even people here on the Dope, fighting ignorance on all fronts…
What if someone can eat 3,000 calories a day high in protein but containing an unrestricted carb amount and not gain any weight? Does that prove anything?
Speaking as someone who knows a little something about diet, I do agree with this. A 10 day diet shouldn’t show instant results.
I have a very dear friend who went totally Adkins. He didn’t lose any weight during his first few weeks. Its been a year and he’s lost over 40 pounds and has stopped needing blood pressure and cholestral meds.
Me. I’m hyperthryod. I need carbs to keep my weight on. At this time, my friend…who is loving being skinny looks like me when I forget to eat every day. I don’t think he looks very attractive and he seems to have memory problems. I’ve had to email him stuff just so I can pull up the email and show him that we did indeed talk about it. That could just be the getting old stuff, my friend is almost 54, but he’s changed a LOT since he went Atkins.
Just MHO.
Okay, I don’t mean to sound like a dick, or like I’m thread shitting or anything, but how big are you?
I’m six one(ish). I eat between 1800 and 3200 calories a day, and for weeks at a time I’ll be on one end of the spectrum or the other. My weight varies between 190 and 210, depending how much I eat and how much activity I’ getting.
As I said in the other thread, you will initially lose quite a bit of weight (assuming you currently eat a regular complement of carbs) because low-carb diets (and this is very low carb and mimics the Atkins induction phase) cause rapid water and glycogen loss for people who were eating carbs. That rapid water and glycogen loss would be completely recovered if you then ate normally for a couple of days. I’ve heard of people losing up to ten pounds in the induction phase (heck some probably lose more), but anyone who thinks if you lose ten pounds in two weeks that you are actually losing ten pounds of your body fat is not exceptionally well-read.