I'm surprised that cardio alone was sufficient to prevent the loss of lean tissue. I would have thought resistance exercise of some kind would have been required. Apart from that, I am not enamored with the design of the study. The article cites that the study's conclusion is the opposite of conventional diet wisdom. But the study did not make such a direct comparison of reduced calorie intake in conjunction with exercise. Rather, the study had a control group, an intermittent diet group and an exercise group with no calorie restriction for comparative purposes. For the study to conclude that intermittent calorie restriction with exercise is better than conventional calorie restriction and exercise, they would have to have the latter in the study for comparative purposes. In any event, I question how long obese participants, or most anyone for that matter, could continue consuming only 450 calories every other day for any meaningful length of time. I'm thinking yoyos. That may explain some of the weight loss.
My stomach is now growling just thinking about having only that one post-workout meal for an entire day. So the yo-yo nature of the study has me wondering if they gave the participants any appetite suppressants on the days they only had one small meal in order to maintain their sanity.
The yoyo context I was thinking of is more along the lines of some participants eventually going into take-no-prisoners bingeing mode and undoing all of their progress in a fraction of the time. Because relying on that kind of willpower to endure for any meaningful length of time and then assuming the person will just taper off such a medieval diet and ride off into the sunset is not a smart money bet. It could happen. It just usually doesn't. The smart money is on sustainable lifestyle changes. And I like the idea of intermittent fasting since I do a version of it myself, but not the commando variety prescribed in the study.
Oh, and did someone mention Martin Berkhan for some reason in this thread? And if so, why? The man is certifiable. https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/how-much-protein-can-muscles-use.308466/#post-4440985
Precisely what I was thinking. Unless the subjects had no/little lean body mass to begin with (they were obese so probably didn't use their muscles a lot?).