http://www.active.com/story.cfm?story_id=12207

This article is really good. I think someone mentioned it, or the findings on here. I just ran across the whole thing.

Study: Eat less vs. exercise more

How is it best for an athlete to lose weight? Unfortunately, there have been few studies of serious athletes that looked at this question.

One group of researchers, however, has examined the issue in an interesting way. They compared eating less to exercising more to see which was more effective in dropping excess body fat.

They had six endurance-trained men create a 1,000-calorie-per-day deficit for seven days by either exercising more while maintaining their caloric intake, or by eating less while keeping exercise the same. With 1,000 calories of increased exercise daily -- comparable to running an additional eight miles or so each day -- the men averaged 1.67 pounds of weight loss in a week. The subjects eating 1,000 fewer calories each day lost 4.75 pounds on average for the week.

Ok, so you keep reading and find out the fewer calories group lost muscle mass. But the author, Joe Friel, speculates, based on a study of sedentary women, that the cure for that is to eat an adequate amount of protein.

Nanci