there are other sources of energy such as water, light, magnets, direct currents, etc. If you read Dr. Doug McGuff or Ellington Darden, they speak of 'super hydration' and have gained muscle by drinking massive quantities of water and quantified it through use of BodPod's, it wasn't just water weight. Dr. Kruse has spoken of the Russian cosmonaut studies where they gained bone density and lean body mass through use of magnetic fields. Dr. Peat has also spoken about Russian studies in which they used brain activity in studies on weight and that walking through sensory-stimulating areas burns a lot more fat/calories than simply walking. Calories/food are not the only sources of energy. It even makes sense that red lights can help muscle growth, it increases mitochondria/mitochondrial function and the three largest sources of mitochondria are the brain, heart, and muscle cells.
Certainly light, magnets, and so forth can be sources of energy, but I am unaware of any biological processes that can turn light or magnetic fields (or water) into matter such as protein, lipid, or polysaccharide structures. It's certainly possible that those women did synthesize new muscle on only 800 calories, but only if those calories contained enough protein and they were able to use stored bodyfat for energy purposes.
As for the water intervention: I have read Dr. McGuff's book, Body by Science, and although he does spend a couple of paragraphs advocating drinking lots of water, his program is not at all about gaining muscle through water drinking alone--it is about a slow and steady cultivation of muscle through proper diet, exercise, and sufficient recovery times.
I could see magnets possibly enhancing metabolic or synthesis processes for muscle growth or bone density (though I have not seen any evidence of this).
I'll additionally specify that what I am trying to discover with these experiments is not "what works"; rather, my question is "what provides the greatest results for my biology, in the least time, with the least effort to be effective?" I doubt I would gain 20 lbs of muscle in a month with magnets.
Thus, since Dr. Kruse's work seems wildly theoretical (and difficult and time-intensive to follow--buying that much ice would probably be more expensive than all the bodybuilding supplements and protein I just bought), and I do not yet know of any specific modalities for using magnets or light for weight gain (nor what the mechanisms or results of those would be), I'll stick with more traditional approaches this time. But I will look forward to seeing evidence of other approaches, and will keep an open mind.
Edited by AscendantMind, 23 September 2013 - 08:40 PM.