I have no substance to contribute, but I wanted to say how much I enjoy reading this thread and the articles linked. You guys are geeky and I am learning so much, so THANK YOU.

Knowledge and good science, it's important to me. I teach physics.

Low calorie sources of protein are not as easy to find as you may think. Chicken, boiled eggs and tuna are fine, but I struggle to live off of them every single day.

So I am now on to canned fish...salmon, sprats, sardines, oysters, eel, kippers, mackeral, crab, shrimp, trout, clams, octopus, snails...all to give me a protein boost in a low calorie way. Pan-seared scallops at the weekend are about as good as it gets. I also take a protein shake if I am working out hard, but again all are not low calorie. I use Isoflex.

Building muscle is therefore hard on a calorie restricted diet because good sources of protein can be high calorie. I think I am managing it but I am definitely getting the toned look rather than beefing up. Maintaining as much muscle mass as you can is really the name of the game. But again you need low-calorie sources of protein to do that. And, of course, you need to bust your @rse.

Regarding weightloss, the biggest headache with exercise is not muscle gain but water weight from sore limbs. Expect your weight to get more volatile.

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It's a subscription but for $10 you can download all the PDFs and then cancel if you chose to.

Also, Lyle McDonald is fantastic and has hundreds of free articles.

Bookmarked.

Grazie, JohnP. I will definitely look into it. Somebody, it might be you, linked to Tom Venuto recently and I really enjoyed his approach and knowledge. I must say that he solely shattered the bodybuilder stereotype.