It depends what you replace it with really,” Volek says.
But researchers like Volek and Scott are beginning to put the pieces together.
In one study, Volek and his team put overweight people on a reduced-calorie diet and
divided them into three groups.
According to lead study author Jeff Volek, pH.D., R.D.,
two factors influence the amount of fat coursing through your veins.
After all, in Volek's study, participants who followed the low-fat diet-
which was high in carbs- also decreased their triglycerides.
All of which helps explain why the low-carb dieters in Volek's study had a greater loss of fat in their blood.
When we asked Jeff Volek, Ph.D., R.D.,
to roughly estimate the metabolic activity of muscle, his ballpark number surprised even us here at Men's Health.
Dr. Volek's calculations: One pound of skeletal muscle
burns about 6 calories a day, while one pound of fat burns around 2 calories a day.
And, based on the research of Volek and Dr. Krauss,
a weight-loss or-maintenance diet in which some carbohydrates are replaced with fat- even if it's saturated- will reduce markers of heart-disease risk more than if you followed a low-fat, high-carb diet.