*Total Metabolism Forecaster Thread*

[gryphon5]

I had copy/pasted the links directly from another post, so some were in the wrong syntax (had "...." in the middle and was put in as part of the URL itself which led to link not working). I apologize.

Here are all the correct working links:

http://www.newser.com/story/18960/su...and-light.html
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine...-Gain-11526-1/
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/96849.php
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20041103/cth2.htm

All links refer to the same study which states that the use of artificial sweteneers (in fact this study was only with saccharin) increases appetite in rats. The whole idea of using this spreadsheet is to calculate calorie requirements for the purposes of controlling intake. In other words, appetite doesn't matter when counting calories.

If I enter that I regularly use artificial sweeteners, the forecaster states my daily caloric requirements are reduced - leading me to consume fewer overall calories. When in fact this doesn't appear to be necessary. The caloric requirements remains the same, it just may be harder to stay within your daily requirement if you are controlling your intake naturally.

[gijoe985]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I will go ahead and add these along with a field in the regimen forecaster area for recommended protein intake (in grams) [which someone else suggested a while back].

I'm going to start a new version this weekend.

For the conversion of the project to visual basic, I plan to start this sometime next week.

I'm sure you can find it on your own, or search for my posts, but if you need a copy of the excel formulas I used for caliper readings, I'll send them to you. For mine I had it give me the 3pt, 4pt, and 7pt readings, and then average the three. I like going by the average number. I typically have a 2.5% spread between the three readings.

[gijoe985]

I have started on the next version of Total Metabolism Forecaster.

Do you guys have any other feature requests?

Aha, I thought of one... One thing that I like to do is forecast where I will be at what time. So I don't know how you could do this in a way that didn't take up space, but something like this. You plug in that you are bulking, the start date, etc. It tells you what your final weight will be when you hit your cap. But having a way to see what you will be at in 2 months, or 3. For instance, I am hoping to try a 8 week super bulk. I want to hit the weights, diet and supplements hard for 8 weeks. I'd like to be able to plug into the calc my expected gain (let's say 2lbs a week, with X% being muscle) and then be able to put in a start date, and see what my BF% and weight will be after 8 weeks time, or 12 weeks.

I hope I'm makig sense? Maybe just a a box where you could put a date that fell between your start date and your goal reach date and then it would output what your weight, BF%, and lean body mass would be for that given date...

Just an idea, I don't know how interested others would be...

[Robby Coker]

All links refer to the same study which states that the use of artificial sweteneers (in fact this study was only with saccharin) increases appetite in rats. The whole idea of using this spreadsheet is to calculate calorie requirements for the purposes of controlling intake. In other words, appetite doesn't matter when counting calories.

If I enter that I regularly use artificial sweeteners, the forecaster states my daily caloric requirements are reduced - leading me to consume fewer overall calories. When in fact this doesn't appear to be necessary. The caloric requirements remains the same, it just may be harder to stay within your daily requirement if you are controlling your intake naturally.

The primary mechanism with artificial sweeteners slowing down metabolic rate is that they inhibit dietary thermogenesis. This is because the carbohydrates in the form of sugar used to sweeten the given food or beverage are replaced by the artificial sweetener to sweeten it.

This tricks your body into thinking that it has gotten Calories from sugar when it actually has not (carbohydrates taken in raise metabolic rate post-meal). Thus, your body does not increase its metabolism after the ingestion of the given food as it would otherwise if you had ingested that same given sweet food or beverage with carbohydrates in the form of sugar.

Another mechanism of metabolic slowdown is possibly the decrease in serotonin levels (may also play a part in appetite effect as serotonin levels affect that department) as mentioned in the tribuneindia page.

The formaldehyde component in aspartame has been said to play a role in the increases in cravings as well.

Frequently, however, a higher appetite tends to go hand in hand with a lower metabolic rate.


Let's suppose the following example:

Macronutrient ratios:
15% Protein (P), 45% Carbs (C), 40% Fat (F)

Base TEF (for normal weight person):
9.5%

TEF of Carbs (for normal weight person) (CTEF):
11%

Percentage of Calories in diet from added sugar (on average) (%ADDSUG):
24%

Frequency of sugar-substitute use (SSFREQ):
Moderate

Type of sugar-substitute most commonly used:
Aspartame

Initial REE (resting energy expenditure) (IREE):
1750 Calories

Formula for new TEF for carbs with sweeteners factored in:

NCTEF = CTEF * (1 - ( %ADDSUG * ( SSFREQ ) )

Here is the calculation for new TEF for carbs after the sweeteners are factored in.

11% * ( 1 - ( 0.24 * ( 2 / 3 ) ) = 9.2% TEF of carbs

Formula for new overall TEF with sweeteners factored in:

NTEF = ( P * PTEF ) + ( C * NCTEF ) + ( F * FTEF )

The calculation:

( 15% * 0.25 ) + ( 45% * 9.2% ) + ( 40% * 0.02 ) = 8.7% base TEF

Change in base TEF = 0.8% decrease

Base TEF decreased by 8.4%
(100% - ( 8.7% / 9.5% ) )

Formula for change in REE brought by the sweeteners:

NREE = IREE - IREE * CTEF * %ADDSUG * SSFREQ

The calculation:

1750 - 1750 * 0.45 * 0.24 * ( 2 / 3 )
^
1750 - 126 = 1624 Calories

Change in REE = decrease in resting metabolic rate by 126 Calories

[Robby Coker]

I'm sure you can find it on your own, or search for my posts, but if you need a copy of the excel formulas I used for caliper readings, I'll send them to you. For mine I had it give me the 3pt, 4pt, and 7pt readings, and then average the three. I like going by the average number. I typically have a 2.5% spread between the three readings.

I found it yesterday. I finished implementing the caliper measurement fields into the BF% calculation section. I'm going to begin implementing the formulas today.

To accommodate for caliper measurement section, I re-arranged the user input area.

For the BF% calculation area, the first field is for Method selection. Then the selection below that is labeled as Circumference Measurements. Then the section Caliper Measurements is to the right.

For the caliper methods, users will be able to select 3-Point, 4-Point, 7-Point, or Average of 3-4-7 Point. For the latter one to work, they will have to enter valid values into all 10 fields.

Aha, I thought of one... One thing that I like to do is forecast where I will be at what time. So I don't know how you could do this in a way that didn't take up space, but something like this. You plug in that you are bulking, the start date, etc. It tells you what your final weight will be when you hit your cap. But having a way to see what you will be at in 2 months, or 3. For instance, I am hoping to try a 8 week super bulk. I want to hit the weights, diet and supplements hard for 8 weeks. I'd like to be able to plug into the calc my expected gain (let's say 2lbs a week, with X% being muscle) and then be able to put in a start date, and see what my BF% and weight will be after 8 weeks time, or 12 weeks.

I hope I'm makig sense? Maybe just a a box where you could put a date that fell between your start date and your goal reach date and then it would output what your weight, BF%, and lean body mass would be for that given date...

Just an idea, I don't know how interested others would be...

I'll see what I can do with these.

[Robby Coker]

Here is an update on Total Metabolism Forecaster. This release is a bug fix.

02/18/10 - Version 1.7 to Version 1.71
-------------------------------------

* This version fixes several bugs.

-In the resting energy expenditure (REE) part, for females, the REE based on lean body mass was not getting used whenever a body fat percentage was entered or calculated. This has now been fixed.

-For the U.S. Navy-Based method, for females, the body fat percentage was being calculated as each measurement was being entered. This is now fixed, and the calculation is now performed after all required measurements have been entered.

-Lastly, whenever a body fat percentage measurement method was selected without a body weight input, a "divided by zero" error, shown as #DIV/0!, would appear all over the place. This has now been solved. This would happen because most of the body fat percentage formulas here involve dividing by body weight, and when there is no body weight entered into the program, it is recognized in the program as zero.

[aussieangie]

wow the forecaster is amazing. Just gotta know how to use it now.

[Robby Coker]

wow the forecaster is amazing. Just gotta know how to use it now.

Thanks.

Version 1.71, which I put up yesterday, has bug fixes on the body fat calculation and resting energy expenditure sections. One of the bugs was one where, for female users, whenever they had a body fat percentage entered in or had it calculated, it was not being taken into account when determining resting energy expenditure (REE). That is, even with a valid body fat percentage, the REE function for lean body mass was not being used to calculate the REE, and instead, one of the others were.

So, if you are entering body fat percentage or calculating it as part of entering your stats up top, make sure to use v1.71

[ML03]

There was a study done at Purdue University which revealed some metabolic changes caused by saccharin such as blunted thermogenesis, post-meal. Authors also suggested that other sugar-substitutes may have similar effects on metabolism.

According to this, aspartame may slow metabolism through a decrease in serotonin levels, a neurotransmitter responsible in regulating appetite.

Thank you for the information, I didn't know about such studies and I couldn't find any info about it, search things in english is kind of hard ...
I won't use sweeteners for a month and see how it goes, I wanna see how my metabolism reacts to it ...

TMF is really helping me with my diet.

Thanks again!!

[Robby Coker]

Here is the progress as of now on the upcoming version of Total Metabolism Forecaster.

1) For the body fat % calculation sub-area:

-For the method part, I added several caliper method selections and added a sub-section for caliper measurement inputs. Thanks goes to gijoe985 for providing formulas for the caliper methods.

-Re-arranged the user info area to accomodate for the above changes.

-Added labels for the sub-areas of the user info area

The caliper functions in the body fat % sub-area now work, and they work for both genders. I found the female formulas from several other places. The data validation routines for this part have all been completed.

2) For the regimen forecaster area:

This area is having many things added to it and also having some major modifications done.

-Along with starting weight and starting body fat %, a display for starting lean body mass has been added

-Along with weight required to reach body fat % goal, a display for lean body mass after reaching goal has been added.

-Along with maximum suggested rate of loss/gain, a display for suggested protein intake has been added.

-In addition to being able to enter a starting date, you will also be able to enter a date between the starting date and the projected arrival date, or some amount of time (e.g. 6 weeks) after the starting date. After you do so, you will be able to see what your projected weight, body fat %, and lean body mass will be for that given point in time.

-As with the other areas, the Regimen Forecaster area will now divided into three sub-areas. The labels for them will probably be: Goal Setting (where you enter goal parameters), Time (where you enter dates), and Goal Information Display.

-To accomodate these changes, the arrangement of the Regimen Forecaster Area has been completely overhauled. It is very much different from the previous versions of TMF.

It is going to take me quite a bit of time to implement the functions for these new features as, for the body fat % part in the Regimen Forecaster area, I have not done anything with it (aside from one minor bug fix) since May 2009, which is when the most current features of this part were implemented.

[ricohitman]

Here is the progress as of now on the upcoming version of Total Metabolism Forecaster.

1) For the body fat % calculation sub-area:

-For the method part, I added several caliper method selections and added a sub-section for caliper measurement inputs. Thanks goes to gijoe985 for providing formulas for the caliper methods.

-Re-arranged the user info area to accomodate for the above changes.

-Added labels for the sub-areas of the user info area

The caliper functions in the body fat % sub-area now work, and they work for both genders. I found the female formulas from several other places. The data validation routines for this part have all been completed.

2) For the regimen forecaster area:

This area is having many things added to it and also having some major modifications done.

-Along with starting weight and starting body fat %, a display for starting lean body mass has been added

-Along with weight required to reach body fat % goal, a display for lean body mass after reaching goal has been added.

-Along with maximum suggested rate of loss/gain, a display for suggested protein intake has been added.

-In addition to being able to enter a starting date, you will also be able to enter a date between the starting date and the projected arrival date, or some amount of time (e.g. 6 weeks) after the starting date. After you do so, you will be able to see what your projected weight, body fat %, and lean body mass will be for that given point in time.

-As with the other areas, the Regimen Forecaster area will now divided into three sub-areas. The labels for them will probably be: Goal Setting (where you enter goal parameters), Time (where you enter dates), and Goal Information Display.

-To accomodate these changes, the arrangement of the Regimen Forecaster Area has been completely overhauled. It is very much different from the previous versions of TMF.

It is going to take me quite a bit of time to implement the functions for these new features as, for the body fat % part in the Regimen Forecaster area, I have not done anything with it (aside from one minor bug fix) since May 2009, which is when the most current features of this part were implemented.

This program has become the standard for me calculating my bulking and cutting. Thanks so much. Every fitness enthusiast should have this program.

[StephanieShine]

I have been using this for my case studies in my fitness classes and my teachers always wonder how I get such specific numbers =] This could potentially be marketed as a software component to some exercise or dietetic planning textbooks.

[Robby Coker]

Thank you for the information, I didn't know about such studies and I couldn't find any info about it, search things in english is kind of hard ...
I won't use sweeteners for a month and see how it goes, I wanna see how my metabolism reacts to it ...

TMF is really helping me with my diet.

Thanks again!!

You're welcome.

This program has become the standard for me calculating my bulking and cutting. Thanks so much. Every fitness enthusiast should have this program.

You're welcome.

This project is still in fairly early stages. I hope that in the near-future, I will be able to put in more key features that are currently not present such as one where you are able to click something like "clear", and it automatically clears all parameters from the program so won't have to do it one by one manually or close the program (discarding all changes) and then re-open it. Another one I would like to implement is one where you can print out the results onto paper.

Currently, I'm putting the project into Visual Basic so that it will be a Windows program also. I started with this past Thursday. I'm creating the graphical user interface (GUI) right now, getting the titles, labels, text boxes, etc. all set up for each area, sub-area, section of the program. I will be doing all of that first before I begin the actual coding. The coding here will be more of a matter of translating the functions I have in the spreadsheet into Visual Basic code.

[Robby Coker]

I have been using this for my case studies in my fitness classes and my teachers always wonder how I get such specific numbers =] This could potentially be marketed as a software component to some exercise or dietetic planning textbooks.

This is something I'm considering doing sometime down the road.

[Robby Coker]

As of now, on the upcoming version, all of the new aforementioned features in the Regimen Forecaster area have been completed and are now fully functional. The data validation routines for all of these have now been finished as well.

This area also now has a completely different arrangement to accommodate for these changes.

This area is now divided into four sub-areas. The labels for each one will go like this:
-Goal Setting - where you enter you weight, body fat goal parameters and desired rate of loss/gain
-Time - where you enter your date parameters
-Energy Intake - displays energy and macronutrient needs
-Information Center - displays data such as the starting stats, weight required to get to given bf%, suggested rate, projected arrival date, etc.

For the Time area, there is going to be a section where you can select a time unit for the field where you enter the amount of time after the starting date. The selections are day, week, month.

In the body fat % calculation sub-area, there is now a display for the result. It is at the top left of the sub-area.

All I have left to do are the pictures, testing everything out, porting to open office, and updating the documents.

[ricohitman]

As of now, on the upcoming version, all of the new aforementioned features in the Regimen Forecaster area have been completed and are now fully functional. The data validation routines for all of these have now been finished as well.

This area also now has a completely different arrangement to accommodate for these changes.

This area is now divided into four sub-areas. The labels for each one will go like this:
-Goal Setting - where you enter you weight, body fat goal parameters and desired rate of loss/gain
-Time - where you enter your date parameters
-Energy Intake - displays energy and macronutrient needs
-Information Center - displays data such as the starting stats, weight required to get to given bf%, suggested rate, projected arrival date, etc.

For the Time area, there is going to be a section where you can select a time unit for the field where you enter the amount of time after the starting date. The selections are day, week, month.

In the body fat % calculation sub-area, there is now a display for the result. It is at the top left of the sub-area.

All I have left to do are the pictures, testing everything out, porting to open office, and updating the documents.

Dude, I am so excited I can't wait to see the new shiz!

[ElementA]

So here it is! My first post on this forum! And I want to use it to thank Robby Coker for his really really really usefull Total Metabolism Forecaster. It took me a moment to figure out how it work, but after that, it's fabulous!
Like a lot of members here, I will always use this program when my objectives changes!

Keep up the good work!
And Thank you!

[Robby Coker]

So here it is! My first post on this forum!
And I want to use it to thank Robby Coker for his really really really usefull Total Metabolism Forecaster. It took me a moment to figure out how it work, but after that, it's fabulous!

Welcome to the forums, ElementA. We are glad to have you here.

Like a lot of members here, I will always use this program when my objectives changes!

Keep up the good work!
And Thank you!

You're welcome.

[keun]

You're welcome.


You're welcome.

This project is still in fairly early stages. I hope that in the near-future, I will be able to put in more key features that are currently not present such as one where you are able to click something like "clear", and it automatically clears all parameters from the program so won't have to do it one by one manually or close the program (discarding all changes) and then re-open it. Another one I would like to implement is one where you can print out the results onto paper.

Currently, I'm putting the project into Visual Basic so that it will be a Windows program also. I started with this past Thursday. I'm creating the graphical user interface (GUI) right now, getting the titles, labels, text boxes, etc. all set up for each area, sub-area, section of the program. I will be doing all of that first before I begin the actual coding. The coding here will be more of a matter of translating the functions I have in the spreadsheet into Visual Basic code.

Don't do this dude.
I am not a windows user...Or you plan to release the program for Mac or Linux too ?

BTW: nice, nice program

[Robby Coker]

Don't do this dude.
I am not a windows user...Or you plan to release the program for Mac or Linux too ?

I plan to as well although this will be a bit later. However, the current form will still be getting releases.

BTW: nice, nice program

Thanks, and welcome to the forums. It's great to have you.

[ricohitman]

Hey man I just took my morning body temperature and it was 96.5. I'm assuming that some serious Adaptive thermogenesis is going on. What do you suggest to fix this? Refeed day? Eat at maintenance calories for a week?

[Robby Coker]

Hey man I just took my morning body temperature and it was 96.5. I'm assuming that some serious Adaptive thermogenesis is going on. What do you suggest to fix this? Refeed day? Eat at maintenance calories for a week?

How large has your deficit been?

A several day refeed at slightly above maintenance (e.g. 150 Calories above) should help.

The lower your body fat % gets, the more often you have to refeed as your metabolism tends to slow down more readily when you cut Calories to below maintenance level.

[ricohitman]

How large has your deficit been?

A several day refeed at slightly above maintenance (e.g. 150 Calories above) should help.

The lower your body fat % gets, the more often you have to refeed as your metabolism tends to slow down more readily when you cut Calories to below maintenance level.

This makes sense because last spring when I cut down to about 9-10% I had to carb cycle. Essentially, 2 days out of the week I was pretty damn high on carbs. I'll do 3 days of above maintenance calories then start cycling my carbs/refeeding 2 times a week. Thanks Robby.

Edit: by the way I was about 500 calorie deficit. For 3-4 weeks this worked, then bam! I abruptly halted and fatigue at the gym began happening and I got more easily sick, and all the stuff that tells me I need more calories.

[hankst]

On the whole "artificial sweeteners decreases TEF"-thing: my thoughts, summed up - eloquently as ever - by Lyle McDonald in his forum:

You're not a rat and I can anticipate any damn thing I want. Doesn't mean it will happen. And it won't.

As long as there are no conclusive studies done on humans, I'll gladly keep drinking my green tea with a healthy dose of saccharose!

[ricohitman]

Hey robby question about the forecaster:

Does the glutamine in whey/casein shakes count towards the glutamine, or is that just seperate doses of glutamine by itself?

[Robby Coker]

Hey robby question about the forecaster:

Does the glutamine in whey/casein shakes count towards the glutamine, or is that just seperate doses of glutamine by itself?

Separate doses of Glutamine

[Robby Coker]

On the whole "artificial sweeteners decreases TEF"-thing: my thoughts, summed up - eloquently as ever - by Lyle McDonald in his forum:

As long as there are no conclusive studies done on humans, I'll gladly keep drinking my green tea with a healthy dose of saccharose!

Most of the studies concerning artificial sweeteners on overall weight control are short-term.

There is one performed in 2000 at the Department of Internal Medicine and Nutrition, H?tel-Dieu Hospital, FRANCE, which tested for the different effects of the sweet-taste of sucrose, maltodextrin, and aspartame on dietary induced thermogenesis.
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1468983

With sucrose, the increase in postprandial energy expenditure was the highest compared to maltodextrins and maltodextrins plus aspartame, in which there was no significant increase.

This was for the first two periods of measurements; 1/2 to 1 hour after meal and then 1 1/2 to 2 hours after meal.

Here is a research communications paper I found that was done in October 2002 by Research Department of Human Nutrition, Centre for Advanced Food Studies, The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Frederiksberg, Denmark.

This one compared effects of sucrose and artificial sweeteners on overweight people.
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/76/4/721

According to it, the effects of artificial sweeteners on body weight regulation itself are still not clear.

This study was done over ten weeks.

After the period, the sucrose group had increases in total energy & carb intake and lower fat and protein intake. The artificial sweetener group had some decrease in sucrose intake and and also a decrease in energy density (ate greater volume of food for less intake of energy).

The sucrose group gained body weight/fat, and blood pressure also increased. For the artificial sweetener group, the parameters dropped.

The researchers expected this to be the other way around, but one possible reason for the dramatically increased intake of the sucrose group (3x that of the artificial sweetener group) leading to the body mass gain may be the fact that the majority of their energy intake came from beverages, which are less satisfying than foods. Their energy intake was also triple that of the artificial sweetener group.

This agrees with studies which find that sugary beverages increases childrens' risk of becoming overweight.

The inability of overweight people to adjust their dietary intake to match their TDEE due to lower sensitivity to diet manipulations may be another possible reason. The subjects also consumed large amounts of sucrose to start with.

If lean subjects were involved, results would probably be different.

Inspite of this, however, It is mentioned that the usefulness of artificial sweeteners in weight control is still questionable. One theory that has been suggested is that cutting sucrose from the diet increases relative fat intake. However, when replacing sucrose in your diet with artificial sweeteners as part of a body composition regimen, and you are lowering your fat intake as well, then it's likely that your relative protein intake will be higher also.

There are some people, however, that report having their appetite intensify when using artificial sweeteners. Whenever this effect occurs, of course, any benefits the sweeteners may yield in a body composition regimen will get canceled out.

The drop in energy expenditure alone caused by the sweeteners will not cancel out the overall benefits they may yield to your regimen, but if you also experience an increase in appetite along with it, then they can be far more trouble than they are worth, and the effect would certainly be the other way around from that above study (as a slower metabolism COMBINED with increased appetite favors the most weight gain).
So, overall, a change in metabolism itself does not necessarily guarantee a change in body weight, but if you experience a slow down in metabolism AND increase in appetite at the same time, then you have a very high likelihood of gaining weight as an energy surplus will far more likely be generated here, and fat intake might would be relatively higher.

Aspartame, if consumed in high enough amounts, has been shown to lower the neurotransmitter Serotonin as it contains Phenylalanine, and high levels of this in the brain can break it down. One of the things that cause high levels of Phenylalanine is Phenylketonuria (PKU), and there are warnings concerning this condition on the back of foods containing this artificial sweetener.

Serotonin plays a key role in regulating appetite. Cravings, carbohydrates particularly, is a symptom of Serotonin deficiency. Depending on your baseline Serotonin levels, Aspartame may or may not have any effect on your appetite. If your Serotonin levels tend to be low to start with, then it could have an effect, and this will likely occur at lower amounts of consumption than that of the average person.

However, along with PKU, there are other conditions where avoiding Phenylalanine or anything containing it is necessary. Some psychological disorders such as manic-depression involve excess levels of dopamine and norepinephrine, and Phenylalanine, which converts to Tyrosine, is a precursor to these neurotransmitters, so Phenylalanine here should also be avoided in these cases.

Overall, negative reactions to artificial sweeteners are more likely to occur if you have metabolic dysfunction(s). These reactions in people with these issues are probably a reason why artificial sweeteners get the bad reputation that they do.
The following concerns fibromyalgia.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...?dopt=Abstract

[hankst]

= as long as you are healthy and are not prone to cravings, you're golden.

I'd still take the artificial sweetener thing out of the forecaster. It's a bit like comparing apples to oranges. The calories you save because you use sweeteners instead of plain sugar should vastly outweigh any possible (tested on rats) metabolic slowdown. And you can't really factor in cravings in any way, as they vastly depend on the individual.

Plus:
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1468983

(1) variation in sweet-taste induced by aspartame or by sucrose does not seem to have a major effect on DIT in healthy humans;

You provided the link yourself.


I'd really like to add that I really don't mean to piss you off, and I'm not a nutritionist. I just want to gather as much knowledge as possible, even if that means I have to question things that are not 100% clear to me.

[Robby Coker]

= as long as you are healthy and are not prone to cravings, you're golden.

I'd still take the artificial sweetener thing out of the forecaster. It's a bit like comparing apples to oranges. The calories you save because you use sweeteners instead of plain sugar should vastly outweigh any possible (tested on rats) metabolic slowdown. And you can't really factor in cravings in any way, as they vastly depend on the individual.

Plus:
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1468983



You provided the link yourself.


I'd really like to add that I really don't mean to piss you off, and I'm not a nutritionist. I just want to gather as much knowledge as possible, even if that means I have to question things that are not 100% clear to me.

It's alright.

I might remove the section afterall.

[Robby Coker]

Since this is now on page 18, here are the links to the current version of Total Metabolism Forecaster.

TMF v1.71 (MS Excel)
TMF v1.71 (MS Excel 2007+)
TMF v1.71 (OO.org)