Call him a guru or an expert Lyle needs no introduction. This man has revolutionized the concept of fat loss and continues to bring new and exciting methods to the fat loss table. Sit back and get ready to learn from one of the best in the industry.

When the name Lyle McDonald is spoken the first thing that comes to mind is, ‘fat.’ No, he’s not the king of fat gain, on the contrary, this man has revolutionized the concept of fat loss and continues to bring new and exciting methods to the fat loss table. Call him a guru or an expert Lyle needs no introduction. He has contributed to magazines, various websites and has two books out. He can be found on several websites on the internet helping, arguing with, and even annoying many people. Lyle was kind enough to allow me the pleasure of picking his brain. So blend up a protein shake, sit back and get ready to learn from one of the best in the industry. This guy really likes to talk!

Maki R: Hi Lyle. For most people who are interested in being a sucess at what they do, it’s nice to know how others who have been, and are successful, understand the driving force that got them started. What was it that first caught your attention and ultimately got you involved in nutrition as well as learning more about the manipulation of body fat stores?

Lyle M: Yikes, that’s not an easy question to answer. Because of where and how I was raised (in the south, on refined crap foods with no exercise), I was always a chubby little kid. I remember being young and wanting to lose weight, and having no clue how to do it. It was really when I got into high school, where I had mandatory athletics, that things started to change. One year, I ended up swimming for my school and doing martial arts in the same semester. The two of those, even in the face of crappy food, changed my body shape significantly. Long story short, this led me to go to college to study Kinesiology (human movement sciences) where I got even more interested in it. During that time, I was an endurance athlete, racing bikes and in-line skates and knew that being leaner would be beneficial to performance.

Unfortunately, I was also brainwashed to believe that what I was being taught in school was true: namely that carbs were great and fat was bad. So I ended up eating some horribly unbalanced diet like 80% carbs, and almost no protein or fat (this is common among endurance athletes). And I had such a tendency to overeat carbs (I could eat a bag of bagels in a sitting) that I still wasn’t losing much fat.

Maki R: So when was your turning point?

Lyle M: I guess the real obsession, as it were, hit around 1995, after Dan Duchaine’s Bodyopus diet came out. As I’m sure you know, I did the 26 week Bodyopus diaries (basically a weekly update on what I was doing, what was happening, etc). [Editors note, Lyles diary can be found here <http://low-carb.org/lylemcd/week00.htm>] Up to that point (and still to some degree), I had been interested in all aspects of training and performance (weight training, endurance training, supplements, bodyfat loss). After the Bodyopus diaries, we decided to write a comprehensive book on ketogenic diets. By ‘we’ I mean myself and Jeff Krabbe, who was another internet personality who had gotten involved in keto diets. Since I was the exercise physiologist, I was going to write that part of the book; he was the nutritionist, he was going to do the biochemistry. Things didn’t work out between he and I and I ended up having to do it all, which meant basically learning all of the nutritional biochemistry too. It took a while but was ultimately one of the best things that could have happened.

Since then, if I had a true obsession, it’s fat cell metabolism and nutritional biochemistry. Exercise physiology sort of bores me now (it would you too after 10 years) and there’s not much going on. Aerobic exercise increases VO2 max, lift weights to get stronger. Yawn. The molecular biology of nutritional biochemistry is where the research is at. And since I have friend who focus on other aspects of it (my buddy Bryan Haycock is as obsessed with muscular physiology as I am with fat loss) I let them deal with the other stuff. My focus is fat loss.

Maki R: Wow! Talk about taking a giant step in the initiative department. So how long have you been involved in this industry now? And what credentials do you hold currently?

Lyle M: I guess 1996-97 would be when I really got involved. After the Bodyopus diaries and all of the online posting I did, I got asked to write for a couple of websites. I believe Cyberpump was first, maybe another one here and there. Then I got approached to write for the now defunct Mesomorphosis (which became Thinkmuscle and Meso-Rx). For money even. That led to other writing stuff. I did an article for the now defunct Peak training journal, wrote for Dan Duchaine’s Dirty Dieting, have had pieces in Flex. Seriously, do a websearch on my name, I’m everywhere on the web. There’s stuff I don’t even remember writing out there on web pages and such.

As far as credentials, my academic credentials are a BS in Physiological Sciences (the major changed names from Kinesiology halfway through). I tried to do a graduate program in exercise physiology but, honestly, I was bored to death and wasn’t learning anything. And, while my teachers loved me, my classmates all hated me (gee, what a shock). I’m one of those people who loves to learn on his own, but hates being told what to study. I’m just not made for school, especially a program that bores me. If I try graduate school again, it’ll probably be in a new field, maybe pharmacology or nutritional sciences; exercise physiology just doesn’t hold any interest for me.

Maki R: What about any out-of-school certifications?

Lyle M: I’ve got a couple of worthless personal trainer certifications, mainly because the letters impress the rubes. But I don’t put any more stock in them than should be. Practically, I’ve had the opportunity to work with many different amateur bodybuilders (usually contest prep, sometimes other stuff) and helped train my good friend Elzi Volk to an American bench press powerlifting record.

Maki R: With such a list of accomplishments under your belt someone must have been a source of encouragement and/or motivation. Who would you say influenced you the most in terms of learning and excelling in this industry?

Lyle M: Well, I suppose Dan Duchaine probably had the greatest impact on my overall, both in terms of my overall attitude and certainly whatever level of success I’ve attained. I know a lot of people didn’t like Dan but I think that’s really because he was brutally honest and uncompromising. He didn’t care if people liked him, he cared only about giving the truth as he saw it; if people didn’t like what he had to say that was really their problem. I seem to annoy people because I won’t tell them what they want to hear, and I have no hesitation telling people what I think about them.

Maki R: So Dan Duchaine was your mentor in a way. Was there anyone else?

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