A recent article that’s gotten a lot of press and been made fun of by me exhaustively (which has confused many of you who got the impression that eating a low-fat diet starting in the 80’s caused the obesity epidemic), was an article entitled ?Big Fat Lies About Britain’s Obesity Epidemic. This was the photo used for the article (not my random selection).
This was a spin on Gary Taubes’s famous NYTimes article called ?What if It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie,? which later led to the monster book, Good Calories, Bad Calories.
In the article, Hannah Sutter’s low-carb ferocity brings it hard, showing that over the last some odd years the Brits have followed the government advice to eat less fat, exercise more, and watch those damn energy units called calories.
Since eating less fat basically means replacing fat with more carbohydrate, the low-carb folks are convinced that carbohydrate is driving the rising trends in obesity levels. Yep, that’s right. Brits did exercise more. They did eat fewer calories. And they did reduce fat intake.
And they got significantly fatter doing so.
But when there have been humans all over the world eating low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets for millennia without obesity? far from it ? and the Asian countries in which the LEAST fat and MOST starch are consumed claim the lowest obesity rates, it’s just a little tough for me to swallow. The low-carb claim seems, at least in part, to be unsubstantiated. It is certainly easily refuted ? I almost feel guilty doing it it’s so easy.
No, the rise of obesity in the late 20th and early 21st century can’t simply be blamed on something as simple as ‘starch? because it raises insulin for an hour or two. It runs much deeper and has much complexity.
Fortunately, there’s a nice little mouse study that shows what I believe to be a far more likely culprit, especially when practiced for a couple of decades by an entire nation. I tend to hold the other advice given to be more responsible for the rising muffin tops in the U.K. ?Reduce caloric consumption.
When you reduce caloric consumption, the metabolism slows down. When the metabolism slows down, fatty acids are not burned as effectively and are siphoned off into fat cells instead of being used for energy. In addition, free fatty acids (triglycerides) tend to pile up in the bloodstream and create insulin resistance. As a bonus, carbohydrates then become fattening and the process picks up even more steam. Meanwhile, if you are in a calorie deficit, you continue to lose lean body tissue ? which always occurs in a situation in which Ingested calories + Calories from stored fat = Less than Basal needs.
But notice that the first link in this nasty chain of events is a low metabolism. At the core, this is most likely started by fructose-induced leptin resistance, the anti-metabolic properties of omega 6 fatty acids, or a combination of both. Then, to combat this low metabolism, calories are reduced ? either through undereating, overexercising, or the glorious combination of the two. It’s like trying to cure a headache by going to a Slayer concert.
Note: Ain’t hatin? on exercise, but if you’re going to exercise hard, you better eat up. In 1936 a researcher named Schenk studied 4700 athletes participating in the 11th Olympic games. ?Schenk claimed that daily intakes of? 7,300 Cal. as observed among the Olympic athletes, are essential for hard manual work or strenuous exercise.
Yes, cut calories by a small percentage ? call it, say, 5%, and it should come as no surprise that you end up with more body fat and less lean body mass. Keep it up and you could stay primed for fat storage and hungry your whole life.
Sure, it may sound ?impossible? to some that cutting calories could make for a fatter body, but get some mice (British or otherwise) in a well-controlled laboratory setting, cut calories by 5%, and watch them transform into little marshmallows. That’s what these geeks did. And the results were:
??over 4 weeks. Relative to the AL mice, CR (Calorie Restricted) mice had a 68.5% greater fat mass (3.37 ? 0.23 g vs. 2.00 ? 0.09 g, P < 0.01), and a 12.3% lower lean mass (14.43 ? 0.24 g vs. 16.45 ? 0.31 g, P < 0.01) at the end of the treatment.
Hannah Sutter, author of ?Big Fat Lies About Britain’s Obesity Epidemic? loves to demonize carbohydrates using the example that people got fatter EVEN THOUGH they reduced calories.
Taubes loves to point out that people can amazingly become fat EVEN THOUGH they eat low-calorie diets as proof that it’s not all about calories.
Not ?EVEN THOUGH? amigos. It’s very plausible that people can become fat ? and certainly become way fatter than they already are due to other factors, BECAUSE they eat low-calorie diets. A low metabolism has a more direct causal link to obesity, not carbohydrates.
I’m not saying that a low-carb diet doesn’t have some application in triggering fat loss while sparing a maximum amount of lean body mass, because it probably does, and typically does so more effectively than a low-fat diet. But c?mon guys. Carbohydrates aren’t the root cause causing such a phenomenon. Lots of people all over the world eat carbs and never become insulin resistant, get fat, develop high triglycerides, and more.
Good to see this article given a useful twist after it got so much press a few weeks back on all the Paleo and CrossFit sites. Your reasoning is very simple and concise, it is very true. I live in the UK and it is plain to see that obesity is caused by processed junk, fruit juice, soda and high omega 6in the so called "health foods". It is rare that people eat real food…..
Jamie Oliver is trying to fix that though not only in the UK but in the USA so if you haven't already checkout his TED talk http://www.tedprize.org/jamie-oliver/
That mouse reminds me of my fat hamster I had as a kid, his name was Newton. Man was he fat, kind of like a furby. I always forgot to feed him too, my dad didn't know any better and told me to feed him less.
Newton was a vicious little bastard, always biting my finger. He loved to bite it and not let go and just hang there. hurt like hell. I guess he was just hungry and angry like most underfed vegans. He couldn't help himself, so finally after all these years I can forgive Newton for being such a rabid fucker all his life.
Thanks Matt, if it wasn't for you I would have never known this and never would have found it in my heart to forgive Newton. It's not good to hold things against those who are no longer with us.
I forgive you Newton. R.I.P
Shit Matt! You're doing my head in.
Alright, alright! I confess. I am a paleo devotee and have changed my life since doing it… Felt great, more energy, better body comp etc. I'm 42 and fell like 25 again.
I came across your blog after Richard Nikoley's kind words about you, so I had to see what the whole kerfuffle was about. Now you've thrown a spanner in the works.
I'm not fully convinced yet, but I have tried one or two of your suggestions about adding back some carbs (in the form of some rice and sweet potatoes, but not grains – they don't seem to agree with me) and eating more to boost my metabolism. I hate to admit it that I do feel better (damn!).
I'm still wrestling with the notion why the whole paleo community virtually shuns things like starchy tubers when it is so clear that MANY hunter-gatherer societies have these foods as their staples.
I don't necessarily agree with everything you write about, but you certainly present some interesting arguments that really make me think.
Shmaltzy
How many calories for body weight are considered the proper amount to start to get back to "normal"? After years of low carb and low fat and low calorie diets, I'm concerned I might go crazy the other way. I'm 6'9" and 342 pounds. I do like to eat good food, but I think the worse culprits for me was working in a candy factory for 29 years, and my love of beer. I see that you have said that the sugar in beer (maltose) is as bad as fructose. Is that correct? I guess it would explain the amount that I could drink at one sitting. I never felt full from the beer itself. Plus, back in the 90's, It's Fat Free!!
Matt, re calorie restriction and loss of LBM, isn't this excacty why so often weightlifting is recommended when redcuing calories in order to prevent muscle loss and therefore fat gain?
I wonder how much of this is due to a populations adaptations to the food that is available? Could it be that the Chinese have simply adapted to a higher carbohydrate eating strategy by necessity, but those populations that were herders and the like had adapted to a higher protein/fat diet?
Either way, Michael Pollan's rule "eat food" still seems to apply. When people start eating manufactured factory crap, low and behold our health degenerates and we gain weight! But when we go back to eating as people are meant to, with a wide variety of real food, we get better and leaner!
Thanks for the article.
Ok, first of all the girl in the photo is not even fat, her skirt is just too tight, causing the bulge over.
Second of all, how many calories does one person really need? I think this is the thing that is hard to figure out. I feel I may still be eating low calorie even though I am eating a lot more, but how is one to know this if you don't know how many calories you should be eating? There are so many different calorie calculators and they all give a different number.
So Matt, if you could tell us how many calories we shouldn't go under, this would help.
Vida
Since eating less fat basically means replacing fat with more carbohydrate, the low-carb folks are convinced that carbohydrate is driving the rising trends in obesity levels.
Oh, logic, how I love you.
I'm still wrestling with the notion why the whole paleo community virtually shuns things like starchy tubers when it is so clear that MANY hunter-gatherer societies have these foods as their staples.
Hi, Shmaltzy,
I've just recently given up paleo (or what people consider to be low-carb. As you put it there really is no good reason to believe that our ancestors diets were low-carb, it just doesn't make much sense) so I kinda share your mindset, but as it seems, you haven't ran into any problems yet, like so many ex-paleo peeps (including me) on this site did.
So keep and open mind and stay around here, maybe leave a comment every now and then. I think you won't regret it.
Ok, this is off topic, but I have to mention it.
I checked out from the library yesterday Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child and have looked through lots of the recipes. So far, I have not found any recipe that doesn't use at least a stick of butter and heavy whipping cream. The veggies she uses, if any, are carrots, peas, onions, and potatoes. It all looks pretty good, I can't wait to try some of the recipes.
So this is how people used to eat when they were thin I guess. Of course, most people say it was ok in the past because people were hard laborers…but I know this is not true. Some were hard laborers, but not most. Plus, considering how expensive butter and cream was (and still is, really) it wasn't the laborers that could afford it, it was the upper classes.
Anyways, I'm guessing if you wrote a cookbook today with all that butter in it, it would never get published.
I will add this comment to this thread as well:
It's not about the amount of calories you eat, just follow your hunger, if you are hungry: eat! This whole calorie thing needs to go away.
I can't wait for the moment that the nutritional mainstream gets so crazy about counting calories they start to talk about joules!!!
Great post Matt.
Nothing wrong with the girl in that photo that some clothing wouldn't fix. The problem is driven by fashion industry which creates designs for amazon stick insects and 12 year old waifs which look completely terrible on anyone whose actually gone through puberty or has a body fat over 15%. Then women diet, restrict calories and get in even worse trouble. It's Bridget Jones syndrome. Remember how hot Renee Zellweger looked with a few extra pounds and some clothes that actually fit her?
So if you end up eating say 2,500 calories (just throwing out a moderate number there) by only eating when you are hungry, is that ok in your eyes?
I'm trying to stick with only real food most of the time and doing IF for about 16 hours (first meal around 2 or 3, I do have cream in my coffee so it's not a no calorie fast, just a low to no insulin fast). My afternoon meal to break the fast is usually a sweet potato with lots of butter and some meat to go alongside. By having a couple of tbsp of cream, I'm usually not hungry until the afternoon. Thanks Matt.
The only issue I have with this is, anorexics are not fat. Cutting calories does lead to weight loss when people diet, even if it's just in the short-term (with a weight gain rebound effect). But I always thought if someone could actually go with an iron willpower and keep the calories low, they would stay thin. Maybe there's a difference with cutting calories only slightly, so you're a little hungry all the time? That's worse than a drastic cut? I don't quite understand.
I just read the whole study, I think I get it now. The body weight stayed about the same but the composition changed (and one could extrapolate, would also lead to further fat gain at the end of the diet)
Oh no, I'm sure that the "anorexia" point is much, much worse. It is when your body just can't keep up and "regulate" things, or rather, when it is just falling apart.
I agree with Vida and jennythenipper, The girl in the photo is not fat, she's just got a too small skirt on. She actually has a nice figure.
Anonymous, I used to be anorexic, and it does work to stay skinny, but I'm not anorexic anymore any more and the moment I got pregnant and started eating normal amounts of food I gained 60 lbs.
So yeah, it works in the short term, but once you do that to your body eventually your choice becomes get fat for awhile or die starving yourself thin.
The girl in the photo has a waist size that's too large. I think that's the primarily why men are not attracted to her.
Men are attracted to a small waist size. When the waist is greater than a certain amount, she will remain unattractive, no matter how small her waist-hip ratio is.
It isn't the thickness of the limbs that makes women attractive, it primarily has to do with the absolute waist size. When a man calls a women fat, he is not saying that their limbs are too fat. They are actually saying that the belly has too much fat.
But some anorexic women are actually attractive because they have a small waist size. That has nothing to do with how thick or thin their limbs are.
Thicker limbs are attractive to women only if their truck (especially their waist) is below a certain size. But due to the Western diet, Western women have a waist size disproportional to the thickness of the limbs. The Western diet that's high in sugar and omega-6 fats will specifically increase visceral fat disproportional to the rest of the fat in the body. So women who are on an Western diet can only achieve a small waist size by starving themselves.
That's why foreign women are so attractive. They have thick enough limbs which men find ideal. But due to their lack of excessive sugar and omega-6 fats, they can still maintain a small waist size. Foreign women also don't starve themselves. Their mood is also better, so they are nicer to men.
That's why I don't blame the fashion industry. I blame the Western diet which created this mess in the first place.
Derma-
Sorry about your loss. I grieve for many of my childhood rodent pets as well, such as Yoshi the white rat who bit my finger, my chinchilla "Herb," and my 2 gerbils… Leapin' Lanny Poffo and Coco Beware (any 30-something males who watched pro wrestling as kids remember those dudes).
Jedi-
Lean Body Mass is not just muscle mass. The more muscle mass you try to maintain through bodybuilding in calorie deficit, the more organ mass you're likely to lose. Ancel Keys noted that many organs could drop their size by over 50% during prolonged calorie deficit. Mmmm, sounds healthy!
Schmalzy-
Not trying to convince anyone, just exploring some fascinating theories and ideas. It's fun. You're right that the Paleo crowd comes up with lots of contradictory conclusions. The Kitavans, the most paleo mf'ers on earth with no heart disease and damn fine longevity for an isolated civilization use yams as currency and eat a predominantly low fat diet (and scarcely more than a trace of omega 6).
Hondo-
It may not be the maltose that's bad, but the alcohol itself when consumed in too great of a quantity. Excess fructose and alcohol are metabolized in the liver in similar ways. I think a really low-omega 6, low fructose, low-alcohol diet would probably do wonders for that liver.
Toby-
Westerners seemed well-adapted to a high carb diet in the 19th and early 20th century. At that time, lean and healthy young adult males were pounding nearly 500 grams of carbs per day. The baseline amount for Ancel Keys's control group of lean men was 482 grams of carbs per day. I honestly don't think adaptation has much of anything to do with it.
Nathan-
Joules! That's hilarious.
By the way Vida, the photo I used was the one used for the article. She is definitely not that fat.
Vida-
The trick is not going below basal levels, but remember that an overweight person can tap into fat reserves to supply caloric needs, so it's a more complicated issue than just giving "minimums." The trick is to preserve basal metabolism and lean body mass while losing weight. This probably can be done on a low calorie diet, but is riskier for sure. I'll let you know more about that as I explore it.
Anonymous-
I think you get the point. The body can adapt to a minor calorie restriction, and does so by sacrificing LBM and going into fat-storage mode. Upon refeeding, these mice will overeat until LBM is restored, gaining even more fat in the short term. Going really low-calorie exacerbates the problem even more as I showed in my post "Cut Calories to Gain Fat" which is a must-read.
Pardon me, but I have some corrections in my previous comment:
"The girl in the photo has a waist size that's too large. I think that's the primarily why men are not attracted to her."
"The girl in the photo has a waist size that's too large. I think that's the primarily *reason* why men are not attracted to her."
"Thicker limbs are attractive to women only if their *truck* (especially their waist) is below a certain size."
"Thicker limbs are attractive to women only if their *trunk* (especially their waist) is below a certain size."
sorry but I guess I have to be the dissenting opinion and the a-hole because I do think that the girl in the picture is fat. True, she's not obese or fat as in Midwestern American Woman at McDonalds fat but I am not going to lower my standards on what is a sexy female body just cause the average has gone up (just like the New York times shouldn't lower the basal metabolism standards just because average temperatures have gone down). Oh and I just want to clarify that I don't like those skinny models on TV either but I do believe there is a happy medium between them and the girl in the picture.
"The girl in the photo has a waist size that's too large. I think that's the primarily why men are not attracted to her….
That's why I don't blame the fashion industry. I blame the Western diet which created this mess in the first place."
1) All men do not think alike. What's sexy to one is not to another. That's why the internet was invented by the way. Yeah, Muffin Top is fugly. If your clothes fit you it shouldn't happen.
2) "That's why foreign women are so attractive." Enjoy your mail order bride, then.
3) My point was that The fashion industry goes out of it's way to make clothes that create a curved sillouette on someone with no curves. A small waist size with hips of any kind is actually a detriment in fashion. Try finding a dress or pair of jeans if you have a small waist proportional to your hips or bust. Try finding a clothing model with an hour glass sillouette. We had one in the last century I think…Anna Nicole Smith. Since then it's been Twiggy McStickinsect.
Here's a perfect video for this conversation. It's a good example of how the mainstream media presents this issue of fatness and thinness:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/130074/abc-nightline-tue-feb-23-2010#s-p1-so-i0
Scott
Meme Roth is obnoxious
Scott
Matt,
Thanks. I do not consume beer like I did in 70's, 80's, or 90's. Now it is more of an occasional (2 a month?) treat. Except for the 2 times a year I go fishing with the guys.
Sugar was my biggest downfall. Working with candy for all those years (sugar, corn syrup, trans fat) was probably the big nail. Candy just about every day. 2 or 3 regular bars too. No longer working for them, and I do not have a sweet tooth anymore.
I can't be trusted to eat when I'm hungry….as I'm often too busy to eat, and then, I don't eat enough.
I call it "unintentional dieting", and it's done a lot of damage to my body.
Wow Rosen, Im on the same page as you and was planning on saying the same. The girl definitely isnt obese but she is carrying around extra fat weight. She does have the muffin top (which was why the picture was on the article, because of her muffin top, not because she's hugely fat), and her legs definitely look like they are carrying around more than just lean muscle.
I think that just like the norm is to find super skinny girls attractive in the mainstream, we alternative dieting folk tell ourselves that we are attractive despite not being skinny (which can definitely be very true!) and are in fact even more attractive BECAUSE we aren't skinny and thus say that this excess, non-healthy fat is attractive. But its not.
People with a healthy level of fat are attractive, but that doesnt mean we should force ourselves to find non-healthy fat attractive just because we are trying so hard to be anti-anorexic. Many of the people here are trying to be healthy and also loose all this extra fat weight they are carrying around while their body is healing and are trying desperately to stay sane while not looking the way they want, but that isnt a reason to start saying that fat isnt fat. You can't blind yourself like this. Its exactly what you've been doing on all these other extreme diets.
And the article may have been in the direction of low-carb, but Matt your review makes this article out to be the worst article in history almost. The article had many great points, the best of which being that low-fat is wrong, low calorie could be wrong, and high exercise is wrong. For a mainstream article these are huge. Baby steps, my friend, baby steps. I dont think the article deserves such bashing just because a bunch of paleo fools decided to use it to further their own beliefs. Bashing it so means we arent any better than they are.
Jenny, you seemed to take offense when I said that she wasn't sexually attractive. I'm sorry. But that doesn't mean that I don't respect her just because of her looks. It doesn't mean that I'm shallow. I should be more careful about saying things like this.
Anyway, thank you for clarifying what you mean by your claim about the fashion industry. I agree that today's clothing isn't designed for healthy people.
Matt,I found this Blog on your list of favorites and I am even more confused now.I mean how are we supposed to know whats healthy if there are 3 opposing ways to eat out there??
http://diet-fucked.blogspot.com/
This is becoming crazy.I swear yrs back I was gonna give up and just eat Mcdonalds everyday and see how I fared.Reason was that I look and feel pretty dam good on it so it hit me that if there really is no definite healthy way to eat then just eat.
The girl in the picture most definitely is fat. Not tremendously fat, but solidly into 'fat' territory. When she goes to a bar 99% of the men take one look at her and move on looking for thinner women. Sorry but that is a fact. All this about differing tastes is just a rationalization because losing weight is very hard for some people – but the truth is the vast majority of men don't find women of that weight attractive.
Matt, In a book that you heartily endorsed, 'Food Is Your Best Medicine' by Henry G Beiler, he is strongly in favor of eating a low calorie diet.
Guys, Matt has a million books and blogs he reads or subscribes to and has pulled useful information out of. That doesnt mean he suggests eating exactly like the book/blog suggests. A certain book/blog could have one really huge amazingly useful point, but otherwise be crap. I thought we were past this. JUST BECAUSE HE SUBSCRIBES TO A BLOG OR HAS READ A BOOK DOES NOT MEAN HE AGREES WITH EVERYTHING IN IT. Why doesnt this point get through people's heads after its been said over and over?
Anonymous you said that she is fat and men in general don't find her attractive…are you all men? You made it perfectly clear what you like, but don't speak for all men. You are obviously a foreigner too and have some prejudice towards us fat Americans. Plus…are all foreign women proportionate and beautiful?
Taylor, some men may look for thinner women than the one in the photo, but not because they don't like her. They would do it because they wouldn't want to get teased. Plus, since when do men looking for women at bars have high standards? After a few drinks they'll be willing to take anyone or anything home. Even being fat most of my life I've gotten plenty of attractive men. My husband now is attractive, muscular, and rich, so yes, there are some decent men out there who find even fat girls attractive.
Just look at all the pornography options….there is something for everyone…big butts, big boobs, skinny chics, fat chics, super fat chics, and chics who are not really chics at all.
Vida, you are probably not as fat as you think. That girl is fat and I guarantee that she's not getting any attention at the bar until 2am when the prospects are dwindling. As for the porn sites you seem to know so much about, I would guess that the ones that cater to fat lovers get a small fraction of the traffic that the sites with lean beautiful women draw. Its just terribly misleading to say 'some men may look for women thinner than the one in the photo'. The very simple reality is that the vast majority, I would estimate 98%, but definitely at least 85% of men look for women that are thinner than the one in the picture.
We men like all different looks on a woman.Skinny butt,fat butt,skinny legs,thick legs,small boobs and big boobs.Yet its rare when a guy finds a female with a big midsection attractive.Same with females finding beer bellies on men repulsive.Could be am instinctual thing like how men like wide hips to signal easy child birth.Maybe large midsection signals unhealthiness??
Sorry folks, but the girl in that pic is overweight for sure.
But don't feel bad for her, at that size, she will have no problems finding a man.
I don't know about you, but I think most guy's find supermodels, a la Kate Moss, not that attractive in real life situations.
Women, idolize these other women. Not men. Most men would never watch "America's next top model"
My 2 cents.
Funny Jenny and Vida. Lovin' it!
Wolf, it's probably better to "just eat" than to become obsessively aware of health information and become neurotic about it. This site, if anything, is for those who are really interested in health and nutrition and love geeking out on it. But I'd like to think we can have the best of both worlds here, which is why I'm always so vocal about not letting this run your life. It is for infotainment purposes, and trying to hone in on a couple of very basic things we can do to become healthier without major sacrifice.
I am much healthier now that I eat occasional fast food burgers, plenty of pizza, ice cream on occasion, and some Guiness here and there. When I ate only pastured local meats, raw dairy, and farmer's market produce I was in much worse shape. Much was attributed to being lower in carbs and way too high in omega 6.
I felt instantly better eating pizza and Big Macs, which eliminates both of those major problems.
I'm now "chill" about my diet and lifestyle while geeking out on nutrition and health research harder than ever. It's great. I love exploring new ideas which is why I'm glad that I'm still "confused."
And Droo,
Good points as always my brother. It wasn't the worst article ever. It does polarize the hell out of people when you blab about "More starch + less fat = obesity"
Arguably the healthiest humans on earth (Kitavans) eat a high starch, low fat diet. They don't eat refined fructose in massive quantities, eat polyunsaturated fat, or diet, which are better rules to live by than stressing over macronutrient ratios.
Taylor-
I do eat a pretty low calorie diet (3,000 max per day for a 32-year old male), but not below basal needs. When I do, I lose muscle and become hyperphagic and gain fat (see my Vegan Aftermath post). Ironically, lost lean mass will make you hungry for more calories. So trying to eat less than you desire is likely to make you eat more, which is probably what happened to the fat rats in comparison to the controls after the 4-week trial ended (thus becoming EVEN FATTER). With full restored LBM, you are more likely to want to eat less. But you'll never be satisfied until you restore LBM, which dieter's feel guilty about doing it because they feel that their body's natural urges to do so is a lapse in willpower.
Oops.
I hear ya Matt.I actually like nutrition and the geeking out on it part.And as I said before I actually felt amazing on one huge Mcdonalds meal a day.No soda but high calorie.
Just answer me this….what do you think of that website saying we should eat high fructose?That is way out there in this day and age of Lustig and Johnson.I think you had posted on this before as Ray Peat is also pro fructose….if I remember right.
I never was a big sugar eater. I've recently totally cut out fructose containing sugars. I've replaced it with dextrose in my decaf, which I only drink occasionally anyway. I've started eating way more starch than I have in recent years. I've made your homemade french fries several times (Russets and Yukon Gold are the only varieties that work) and I eat sandwiches and pasta and french toast with real butter and dextrose sprinkled on top (Hmmm… French toooooaaasstt…). I'm really hoping that this will translate to some metabolic improvement that will get rid of some of my body fat. But really I'm just way skeptical. Until I did low-carb (which I did for several years) I was unable to get below 200. Low-carb allowed me to do that, then I settled at about 202 for a long while. On this thing I've gained weight, up 215 or 220 (I'm afraid to step on the scale, but my smaller pants no longer fit so probably 220 is more like it). I play hockey about 3 times per week and that's a really good workout. I find it hard to beleive that I'm not eating enough. I'm not someone who needs to be coaxed to eat. If there's good food around, I'm game. Maybe that means I'm not eating enough. Every time I read your blog I go fix myself something starchy and sat fatty to eat. When I mention these other authors, authors you apparently hold in high regard, that espouse low-calorie consumption, like Bieler and Barry Sears (Zone is low-cal in addition to being precise about macro comp) its because I wonder why there is the disagreement. And also how solid is the evidence that the Kitavans eat so many calories? Who was counting? I think ultimately I'll not lose any weight on this and I'll go back to minimizing portions and cutting carbs again if I don't see some results in the next few months. I mean there are no real yardsticks for if one's metabolism is 'healing' or any definitive test for whether its 'broken' so people just have to eat this way for a period, all the while gaining weight, and hope that the weight gain stops and reverses? How long? How do you know if you're getting closer. I love eating whenever I want so I hope it works, but I'm not betting heavily on it.
Oh yeah, I cook with refined coconut oil/refined palm oil and have reduced my consumption of PUFAs (man, they are in everything – I wish they made potato chips fried in tallow, lard, or coconut oil) to an absolute minimum.
Taylor, I don't think anybody actually measured the amount of calories that the kitavans ate, but what they did take into account is that there was an abundance of food and therefore they were able to eat ad libitum.
I personally think that over-stuffing on calories is probably just as bad as under-eating on calories.
The whole point really is to avoid the refined type foods that mess with your body's leptin signals like sugar, refined carbs, possibly even gluten grains, fake fats etc… AKA eat real food and your body will slowly reach homeostasis in which it will tell you when to eat and how much to eat. You gotta quit using your brain in either trying to reduce calories or over eat calories in my opinion.
I don’t get this calorie thing, some of you dudes are talking about 2,500/3,000 calories a day as being lowish/normal and at the same time referencing Asians.
Any idea how much rice you’d need to eat to get 3,000 calories? Over 2 kilos ? fuck that!
Your average Asian eats 3/4 modest bowls of rice with some sraggly bits of lean chicken a day ? there’s just no way these guys are putting down anywhere close to 3,000 calories?
Love what you guys are doing
Same in South America, dudes there eat a high starch diet, usually a very simple brekky, big lunch, and then like fuck all for dinner and very few snacks – no where near 3,000 calories and this was in the countryisde where people are grafting hard not messing about on forums like us
Thanks Barzo and Rosenfeltc. The only refined carbs that are really hard to avoid are breads. I can live without sugar – I've never been big on it. But according to one theory bread with no added sugar is fine because it breaks down only to glucose and not to fructose. If its the refinement that is the problem, then the next obvious question is why? A baked potato is ok but not potato bread? Whole grains are ok but not whole grain bread? A baked potato has the highest GI of just about anything. But GI is not supposed to matter. Ok, I'm willing to believe that but if its not the GI (Glycemic Index) then what makes the unrefined version better? I can't think of many starchy tubers that you can eat without some preparation. The only other thing that I can think of is the volume of the food. The unrefined food just takes up much more space in your stomach and makes it very difficult to consume too many calories. But if that's the case then calories do count after all and the the Kitavans and Asians aren't really eating tons of calories without gaining weight. It also means that the secret to their ability to stay lean is the fact that they don't have any food source available that is easy to overeat. It may just be that it has absolutely nothing to do with any metabolic advantage of the composition of their diet but rather just a digestive advantage in that the food is bulky and self-limiting IN CALORIES. Also if that's the case then I'm a bit disappointed because the really tasty, satisfying starches are the breads and pancakes and pureed soups and it may be that these don't have the advantage of being self-limiting. Then again maybe avoiding PUFA and fructose will give me the metabolism to eat bread and fatty meat and stay lean.
I'm not sure what to tell you on that because I differ with a lot of the 180 people here because I think all gluten grains aren't good for you and are only tolerable when handled in a certain way (soaked, sprouted or/and fermented). So in my opinion, no it's not about the glycemic index it's more on what your body can handle. Stephen Guyenet has some good posts about WGA in gluten and how there is a pretty big correlation in the decline of the health of some chinese in certain regional areas when they just made the switch from rice to noodles.
I think Troy, Matt and other 180ers would probably tell you that a healthy metabolism would allow you to eat whatever you want and stay lean but I have to disagree. Meaning I do believe a healthy metabolism will allow you to eat all the potatoes and other natural high glycemic carbs that your apetite allows but you will never get your metabolism to some incredible point where you can handle sugar, bad fats and refined carbs like white flour since these are the things that RUINED hunter gatherers that were healthy and already at an OPTIMAL metabolism.
It probably is about calories but in a subconscious way. Meaning that if your body is healthy it will know when to eat and how much to eat, it's only when you try to use a calculator to dictate how much you should eat that problems arise. Which to me means that the secret to the Kitavans is that their autonomic hunger regulation system was in homeostasis so they stayed at a healthy weight just by eating ad libitum.
I'm sure If we grabbed a healthy Kitavan male and didnt change his daily activities but force-fed him 2000 more calories a day then what he would normally eat that he would gain weight. But what does that mean? That means that an outside stimulus (in this case us)is interfering with his body's hunger regulation system. If we stop force feeding him I would bet that he would lose the weight very easily
I hear you and I don't disagree. But like you said that is a slightly different message than the one Matt is sending.
Ok, but there is more to it than calories. I think Matt is saying that with a damaged metabolism no matter what you do you won't be able to lose weight or maintain a weight you want. When I think back to my first diets I ever did, just cutting back on some calories gave me instant weight loss, sometimes even up to 10 pounds in the first couple of weeks. All diets after that it became harder and harder to lose weight, even if I lowered calories and worked out 2 times a day. Now my metabolism is so damaged I cannot even lose weight on a low carb/low cal diet. I was eating about 1500 calories or so per day before HED and was losing 0 lbs, and I am not lazy and I do workout. Now I am eating about 2000-3000 calories a day and am not gaining any weight at all. So, I think there is more to it than just how many calories one eats.
I don't think Matt is sending a different message. In fact correct me if I'm wrong since I'm not here to speak for you. But I think Matt is saying that if you have been underfeeding yourself through sheer power or starving your cells through abusing poison (sugar, omega 6, and I would include gluten grains even though Matt wouldnt)then the best option is to kickstart/give your body a boost by overfeeding on natural foods.
By overeating on natural food you will provide an abundance in calories, macro nutrients and minerals/vitamins so that you will in time raise your metabolism and bring your body into homeostasis in which it will be able to work properly without you having to think of anything.
I don't think Matt is suggesting that you have to overfeed yourself forever, the point is that if you have been starving yourself whether calorically or nutritionally then it is probably useful to kick start the system by overfeeding since your body might be used to undernourishment.
Vida, I agree with what you mean but not exactly with what your saying. I still think calories are important although I do believe there probably is a certain leeway of calories (example: its okay to go over 300 calories a day and it wont make a difference. However, I believe that the reason your comparing your previous to 1500 calories with no weight gain to now 2000-3000 calories no weight gain is that you might not be taking account energy expenditure. Yes, i know your probably thinking I havent been exercising or my daily routines are exactly the same but if by doing HED you have indeed raised your metabolism you are a more efficient calorie burning machine. This is exactly my point on why trying to calculate your daily calorie needs is insane because you can't even know for sure what your expenditure was (I mean a generic you not you vida). In fact caloric expenditure is more than just how many miles did I run today on the treadmill, here's the bad news: Your brain just can't estimate exactly how much you burned today and how much you should eat to make up for it. Now with the Good news: YOU DONT NEED YOUR BRAIN, cause if your hormones and metabolism are in check they will do the work for you!
You don't calculate how many breaths of air you need to take a day to survive do you? Do you calculate when you are going to pee and how much? So people quit trying to calculate your food intake for FU**S sake
P.S. The last part was just me ranting, sorry.
Oh and one more thing, I don't think Matt is saying that eating some ice cream or pizza or beer once in a while is healthy. Meaning that it's good for your body, what he is saying though is that it's healthier to go ahead and eat the pizza or drink the beer than to constantly stress out on food or even isolate yourself from friendships in order to achieve so marginal output of health. WE are all going to die either way so make the best out of your one life.
Dr Poppy here:
Guys, diet is a big factor, huge in fact, since it's something you have to do every day…I agree with Matt that overfeeding with whole food/macronutrients is often what is needed to heal most people's metabolisms that have been destroyed by chronic dieting, yo-yoing, excessive exercise etc. But here's the rub and it's where Matt and I differ somewhat, probably because I see pts everyday and do lots of testing on them and Matt is a researcher. The body is far too complex to be pinned down all to diet. When you start adding up Vit D def, Vit B12 def, magnesium def, chromium def, heavy metal toxin overload, adrenal fatigue or hypersecretion, hormone imbalance, thyroid dysfunction, iodine deficiency, food allergies, gut dysfunction, imbalance of omega 3/6, destructive food additives…typically the patient that comes to see me has an average of 5 to 7 things wrong all at the same time. So my point has always been that if you fail to wholistically address all these issues together, you are only going to get so far just with diet. If you don't have many of the above issues (and also have youth), sure, you can do HED and spruce yourself up quickly without too much effort. But I am strongly telling you guys, when things are not working just with the dietary end, you must begin to address some of these other factors. I think just as it is wrong to say, crap, that didn't work, I'm going back to calorie restriction, no-carbs, over-exercising, diet pills or whatever to get the weight off…it is also wrong to deny that there is often much more to the metabolic, physiologic, endocrine system than just the macronutrients/calorie intake. I also agree with Matt that when your metabolism is healed you can tolerate occasional daliances into "junk food" and tolerate it. Too much of that and your metabolism will start to revert back to its dysfunctional, weight-gaining ways. And yes, if you are a young man, you have a much better response that if you are a post-menopausal female, or heck even a cycling female. Guys, hormones run our life to a greater extent…some of this ongoing debate is really trying to compare apples to oranges.
I'm no fan of counting calories or meticulously planning macronutrient ratios. I want to eat with my own hunger as my guide.
With regard to bread and flour – if they are worse than potatoes, then why? What is it about them that makes them worse? No bread means no sandwiches. Sandwiches are a pretty big staple of the American diet. And I like sandwiches. If there really is something uniquely fattening about bread that doesn't apply to potatoes I really want to know what it is. I emphasize this question in light of Matt's recent posts about the particularly troublesome consequences of fructose metabolism as a result of its processing in the liver. Bread doesn't break down into fructose. Just referring to the fact that bread is 'processed' or 'refined' does nothing to explain why it is particularly fattening. Lustig's presentation on the metabolism of fructose did explain why fructose is particulary fattening. Is there a similarly scientific explanation about why flour and bread are particulary fattening?
Matt,
Do you really believe that eating less calories will cause a fat person to get bigger?
Do you really think that if an obese person increases their calories they will get smaller?
Yes, it is true that body comp may switch in favor of fat to lean body mass like anorexics. But as Scott Abel has stated CALORIES will control the body mass, and the type of food and exercise one consumes will determine the body composition.
Also, thousands of bodybuilders improve body composition,and lower the percent of body fat they have. How do ALL of them do it? They reduce calories intake or increase calorie burning.
Taylor and rosenfeltc,
According to Lindeberg's study of the Kitavans, they eat an average of 2,200 calories per day.
Barzo,
The wikipedia entry on "The China Study" reports: "The authors report that 'the average calorie intake per kilogram of body weight was 30% higher among the least active Chinese than among average Americans. Yet, body weight was 20% lower.'"
According to various government surveys and independent studies, the average daly calorie consumption for men ranges between 2,700-2,900 and for women, 1,700-1,900. Assuming the population is roughly half men and half women, this puts the average range at 2,200-2,400.
For the sake of argument, lets round down and say that the average American eats 2,000 calories per day. This means the "least active Chinese" with his 30% higher caloric consumption is eating 2,600 calories per day. That is just an estimate on my part. That is really close to 3,000 a day. Only about 13.33% less, in fact.
Hmm, interesting. Does anybody know the estimated average calorie consumption for the Chinese? I couldn't find any sources that addressed that. If the figure of 2,600 that I guessed at above is correct, it means that low-carbers and their excuse that Asians are "always hungry" and "eat less than Americans" and therefore escape weight gain is nonsense.
P.S. As always, take these figures with a grain of salt. For instance, the FAO (UN Food and Agriculture Organization), estimates that Americans consume an average of 3,790 calories. I think that is nonsense, but obviously there are lots of different figures and estimations out there.
The third paragraph that begins "According to various government surveys and independent studies…" was referring to Americans, not the Chinese.
I don't believe those China Study calorie figures. The least active Chinese consume 2600 calories/day? The LEAST active? Chinese people are also smaller than Americans. And they are saying the least active consume 30% more than Americans? That is rubbish. None of these calorie consumption figures are pass the smell test. Especially if they are supposedly not eating fatty foods or sugary foods. Thats a lot of rice.
So the Chinese only eat rice? Puhlease! (Rolls eyes)
Also, the 2600 was an estimation on my part–as I already said– since I couldn't find any sources that gave any figures regarding the average Chinese calorie consumption.
If someone has a figure based on some sort of official study or report, please inform me. Nonetheless, I would like to say once again that this all has to be taken with a grain of salt…
I wasn't criticizing you. I'm just saying I take all of those numbers with a grain of salt. There was an episode of Jimmy Moore show where he had a woman on who had written about about the way the chinese eat. She parrotted the calorie number from the China Study, which I don't find believable. She talked about what they eat in depth though. Its rice, seasoned vegetables and a little bit of meat almost as a condiment. And clear soups at every meal. Still hard to get to 2600 like that. Vegetables don't have a lot of calories and neither does soup. And they don't eat large amounts of meat. Usually just small strips according to Lorraine Clissold.
Hi Taylor,
I knew you weren't criticizing me. Sometimes my writing style makes me seem annoyed or aggressive even if that in not even remotely the case.
Anyway, you make some good points. Why did I ever start studying nutrition anyway? Quantum Field Theory and Astrophysics are so much simpler and much less frustrating…sigh!
"chock full of sexual innuendo about cereal mascots like Toucan Sam" Lier.
I know it's a tad late, but I would like to share my own hamster story…
He was called Nacido para Morir (born to die). I was the happiest boy in the world that day. I had wanted a hamster for so, so long. But the magic was all over when my biology teacher took his little head in one hand and his feet in the other and…
Shit, I had to open it with a scalpel, and dismember every little bit of his… ARRRRGHHH. ALL IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE! I was one sick little bastard though, so I think I actually enjoyed it to an extent.
This is one sick world…
Oh, and the girl is fat. Though, the implications of such categories (and the categories themselves) are unavoidably a cultural thing. "http://ryan-koch.blogspot.com/2009/10/tribal-fattening-practices.html" Ryan showed it pretty well with that post. To be honest, very rarely have I come across a "native" (in photographs, of course) that I find atractive. They all get a partner, though, and surely enjoy the process mutually. Of course, I'm talking about 32 teeth, huge nostrils, haging teets kind of women. My point is, beauty is a variable concept, but to say that, for most people, a girl like the one in the photo could be considered first choice meat is simply lying. I'd hit it, though, without much remorse. Ehem, I mean, I wouldn't say she is ugly, nor would I expect most people to share that belief.
Sorry about the spacey post, but I'm sleep deprived :-) Not fun
Yeah I don't buy thise China Study calorie figures at all…
Your average (non westernised) Asian diet primarily consists of rice, some vegetables that are in season and a very small amount of lean meat…
I dare, I double dare you motherfuckers, to try and get anywhere near 3,000 calories on that kind of diet
as for why white flour is worse than a potato i think someone said that it might be because most of the flour people eat now sits around for months before being used and oxidises or something like that.
Honestly, that's just silly. Guys, the China study was a goddamn scientific study and a very meticulously executed one as well, at least from what I heard, haven't read the book. They didn't just make up those calorie measurements (at least I don't believe they did). There's probably a very solid basis behind those numbers and they probably took track of all their stuff enough to make the data reliable.And all you guys are saying is "I don't believe it". I honestly don't think this is the way to approach such a subject.
Oh and about the whole refined flour things. Here are just a few downsides to it:
It is unsprouted and unsoaked. So it has a very high gluten, lectin and especially phytic acid content (Flour is much higher in phytic acid than whole grains as far as I'm concerned) which inhibit nutrient absorbtion and do damage to the gut/metabolism etc. Flour is much more prone to oxidization which will reduce the nutrient content and create harmful substances. Flour is heavily processed and thus probaby does has some chemical residues and dangerous additives (not all) in it. The more refined flour is the more nutrients will get lost (white flour is pretty much devoid of nutrients). So, all in all flour simply is a net loss for the body since the poor nutritional value is not enough to outweigh all the damage it does.
Dr. Poppy. The dietary recommendations I'm making try to address each one of the issues you just mentioned. Increase the metabolism and your excretion pathways are enhanced (a person is not healthy because of heavy metal exposure in most cases, they have a lot of heavy metals in their body because they are not healthy). Eating a nutrititious diet while resting tops off nutritional reserves and addesses many underlying low vitamin and mineral levels, particularly something like the milk diet.
Food allergies are also caused by a low metabolism and omega 6 overload for the most part.
Digestive problems are often a result of delayed stomach emptying, a long transit time, putrefaction in the gut, and immune system hyperactivity. Eating and living in a way to maximize the metabolism addresses all systems.
Trying to pinpoint and tweak isolated body systems is a mistake that doctors have made for centuries.
Most doctors underestimate the power of what food can achieve because they have no idea how to use it. I've been studying it obsessively for 4 years, and pondering it for much longer and I'm just now starting to see what it is capable of.
Even Schwarzbein hasn't solved the diet puzzle. Her diet is high in omega 6 and too low in carbs, which causes food allergies and digestive problems which she evolved to address, thinking that it doesn't "work" for some people because their digestion gets in the way. I disagree. After low-carbing on high omega 6 foods my own girlfriend developed an autoimmune disease, stopped menstruating, and has to carry an epi pen with her for all the anaphylactic food allergies she developed during that time. Granted, running marathons was probably a HUGE factor in the development of those.
But there are certainly occasions in which complementary additional therapy is needed. No doubt about it. And a holistic approach with a shrewd knowledge of hormones is needed. But correcting the mistakes that led to those health problems is always the first step, and the most common mistakes are extreme dieting, overexercising, and eating a SAD diet.
For example, to eat 2,000 calories you'd have to knock back about 300g of chicken and almost 1.5kg of rice – a day!
That's just ridiculous… People eating a traditional Asian diet get no where near 300g of meat a day and I reckon its physically impossible to eat anywhere near that much rice.
The only way you could get calories up that high is by throwing in like 100g or more of butter or something and shit loads more fatty meat, but that's just not the case in traditional Asian, African, South American cultures…
I just spent a year living in Bolivia, the dudes there have a bread roll and warm milk in the morning, a two-course lunch based on a clear liquidy vegetable soup with a bit of meat in it and a big plate of starch (pasta/potato/platano/rice) with a little of lean meat, and a dinner consisting of a bread roll, maybe some soup again sometimes another small plate of starch.
I'm not saying we should eat like these dudes. Just saying that there's no way these guys are gobbling on 2,000 – 3,000 calories (a level that seems to be considerd as being low here)and that's whilst working hard all day in the fields
JT-
I believe that obese people will remain stuck forever if they do not rebuild lean body mass lost during dieting. Until they do, they will have a slow metabolism, excessive hunger, will not be able to shed body fat, and so on. Cutting calories will make them lose more lean body mass, not to mention EAT MORE after that lean mass is lost, but in a state that is more primed for fat storage. Low-calorie diets for weight loss are a vicious cycle.
There's no point in saying that all one has to do to lose weight is eat fewer calories if doing so primes you for fat storage while making you want to eat more. You must look at how the body is impacted by certain strategies to see if they are in alignment with your desired outcome. If you want a higher metaoblism, want to have trouble gaining weight while eating to appetite, decrease hunger, and put the body into a state primed for fat loss, is a low-calorie diet the best approach? I'll let you decide.
My argument is that people like the Kitavans or Asians eat less because they haven't lost a bunch of lean body mass, don't eat less than maintenance calories or believe that doing so will somehow help them out, etc. They are not leptin resistant, so they do not eat more. They need less food because the food they eat is not being siphoned off into fat tissue for metabolic reasons. It is delivered straight to lean tissues. Using willpower to eat less doesn't work. It is counterproductive. If you want to eat less, then you have to go through the process of doing the things that make you want to eat less naturally – which is restore lean body mass, overcome leptin resistance, and so on. You cannot make significant steps in the right direction until you do so.
Actually overfeeding is something that probably only needs to be done for a month or so to get the intended results, but continuing to eat to appetite is important. Over time weight will be lost. There may be dietary strategies targeted for fat loss that do trigger fat loss without losing lean body mass or slowing down the metabolism. But you still must "heal" first before you can pursue those strategies – get out of fat storage mode.
Barzo-
The question is why is that amount of food satisfying for them? Is it because they are physically smaller? Leptin sensitive?
And I can be satisfied on small amounts of food now also – now that I've regained lost lean mass from overexercising and doing a 2-week vegan diet, which caused massive hyperphagia from the lost lean tissue and rapid fat gain.
But even Ethan Sims could not change the weight of sedentary prisoners long-term by force-feeding them 10,000 calories per day for 6 months. The body self-regulates.
Still, in the China Study it was shown that sedentary Chinese office workers consumed considerably more calories than sedentary American office workers, with much lower levels of body fat. Energy regulation, and how fuels are partitioned is much more complex than it is given credit for.
I'm a big fan of travel shows, especially No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods. I have seen many shows where they are in China or other places in Asia, like Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Japan, and Korea. These shows are popular because they show what the average person eats. It seems like these Asians don't eat only rice. Chinese have very balanced flavors and add sugar to almost everything. Plus, they eat lots of fried food…lots. That there will add a bunch of calories. They also do eat beef, pork, chicken, fish, and eggs. Asians eat lots of eggs, in fact, the Japanes eat the most eggs of any other people. In Thailand and the Philippines they eat just about everything with coconut in some form or another which is very high in calories. Plus, the number one thing I noticed in these countries is that they eat many times a day…not just 3. They eat like 3 meals and many very generous snacks, lots of street food.
Considering Americans for the most part try very hard to eat reduced calorie/fat/sugar free, I can totally believe that Asians eat more than us.
Also, rice is less filling that bread or pasta. Like if I make spaghetti with some sauce or something my husband and I will only eat a couple ounces (dry weight) of pasta, which is one serving only. When I make something like basmati rice with curry, my husband will eat a huge plateful, at least 3 servings of rice.
I know for a fact that the Mediterranean diet which is always referenced by mainstream is not at all what they say it is. Maybe it is the same for Asians.
Thanks MadMuhh. I agree these studies are very meticulous. Sure, they make claims out of context afterwards while sweeping over contradictions and fine details, but the data itself is usually quite meticulous. I don't believe it is not a valid critique in most cases.
Thanks Vida. And I'll say that the point of all of this is to maintain a healthy weight without so much as thinking about how much food we're eating. Eat when you're hungry. Don't when you don't. Feel good. Look good. Forcing yourself lean is not an option. Humans never had to think about calories in the past to remain relatively lean. We shouldn't have to now. There is a way to get there, and the point of the article is to show that cutting calories is not it.
Hey Vida,
Yeah I'm talking about traditional diets.
In La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, people are fat, those guys suck down coca-cola with every meal like its going out of fashion – diabetes is huge in the city, I met and heard of loads of dudes who need insulin. Also there's street stalls everywhere selling fatty fried stuff, bready stuff – you could go nuts on calories.
In the countryside it's a totaly different story – there you just don't see obesity, diabetes, etc…
It's the same in Asia. I'm talking about a traditional non-modern-food-fucked-up-a-fied diet – when considering that I just see no way how people could be eating 2,000 let alone 3,000 calories a day.
Matt,
Humans in the past didn't have to think about food in the past to remain lean because food was MUCH more scarce, and energy output was MUCH higher.
Calories do matter even if we wish they didn't. But, most fat people would be better off if they would focus on making healthier food choices by eating real food, eliminating all processed food, and getting into a healthy exercise program. The key is that it is very difficult to eat too many calories when you are eating natural foods. It is very difficult to eat 10000 calories of potatoes and fish, but it can be done if you are eating processed foods.
It has been shown again and again that overweight people greatly underestimate the amount of calories they are eating. No one is going to be obese if they are only taking in 1500 calories a day.
Are you really encouraging your obese followers to eat more and exercise less?
Matt,
I know you have looked at Scott Abel's work. In his Cycle diet program, he has people go on extremely low calorie diets for months until they reach a state of what he calls supercomp. At this point he introduces refeeds 1 day a week in which the person would consume massive quantities of calories. With this system he is able to keep people lean and their metabolisms firing high.
JT you really need to do more research…
On what Rosenfeltc? D
Hey Matt,
I think I get your message. Eat real foods to satiety. Avoid refined sugars and refined vegetable oils as much as you can. Calorie content and body fat will regulate as the metabolism heals and takes over. Don't over-exercise. Within this line of thinking, do you believe that some allergic foods, like nuts and wheat, will be better processed by a stronger metabolism and therefore shouldn't be avoided as much as refined sugar and refined vegetable oils?
I'm going to try and stick with no refined sugar, artificial sweeteners, and refined vegetable oils. Wheat will not be a staple but it will be around, here and there. Do you feel that if eggs are farm-raised, then the poly-fats in them are OK or do you want to avoid all poly's no matter what?
Lastly, have you been able to look deeper into Brian Peskin's points? I have bought his books and some of his stuff makes a lot of sense. I'm not really following his lower carb approach though. Thanks Matt.
-Vida, thanks for providing a good perspective.
Actually I wanted to post this earlier already, but didn't. But I think it fits even better now. There's a nice new article on wholehealthsource that tackles the whole traditional diet/calories/ food scarcity thing. here are some quotes:
Few people are able to maintain their [youthful] waistline after age 50. The usual explanation – too little exercise and too much food – does not fully take into account the situation among traditional populations. Such people are usually not as physically active as you may think, and they usually eat large quantities of food.
The circumference of the upper arm [mostly indicating muscle mass] was only negligibly smaller on Kitava [compared with Sweden], which indicates that there was no malnutrition. It is obvious from our investigations that lack of food is an unknown concept, and that the surplus of fruits and vegetables regularly rots or is eaten by dogs.
So this stands in stark opposition to your point JT, that Humans in the past didn't have to think about food in the past to remain lean because food was MUCH more scarce, and energy output was MUCH higher.
Mark-
Peskin requires a certain caution I feel. I haven't even had close to enough time to read his stuff, but hope to later this year. As for eggs, it's the total poly you consume. A few eggs per day is probably insignificant, even with the pre-formed AA, is you are avoiding vegetable oil, chicken fat, lard for cooking, and nuts as discussed in the last post comments.
JT-
I haven't looked into Abel's program in detail. I did get the gist of it though. All researchers trying to preserve lean mass while losing body fat are light years ahead of the average diet guru, and there may be ways to shed fat quickly without rebound. I'm trying one of those ways right now as I was captivated by it in Ancel Keys's book and will let everyone know what I think.
I'm DEFINITELY recommending for obese people to eat more and exercise less. Not count calories, but eat as much unrefined food as possible while resting more and sleeping more. This is step 1 in healing the body from the dieting that took them from overweight to obese.
And the calorie consumption in the past blows my mind. It's unbelievable how much food some cultures ate. And not all of them were off-the-charts active. Some cultures averaged 330 grams of fat per day.
Keys throws up an amazing chart of calories consumed vs. body weight of various peoples. There is no correlation at all.
There is no correlation across the U.S. and other countries either amongst individuals. Even if exercise were determined to be the missing variable, that still does not answer the question – do people exercise more because they are lean, or are they lean because they exercise?
That's the key MadMuhh,
They maintain energy balance because they are healthy. There are always ways to force weight off, but it should be effortless. Until it is effortless, a person has not solved their underlying reasons for storing excess fat in the first place.
Matt,
So you are not advocating that obese people take in more calories? You are advocating that they eat more unrefined food, which will end up giving them less calories? If you can take an obese person in a controlled study and have them eat more calories while decreasing energy expenditure, and have them lose weight at the same time, then I think you might win a nobel prize.
I can personally say for myself that I am lean because I exercise, not exercise more because I am lean. I know this because I can change my body fairly quickly by my exercise and eating habits.
Thanks for the reply Matt. If you have time, could you look at my other question surround wheat consumption? I guess throwing legumes in the same camp would make sense too. Thanks again.
JT, I really wish it were how you say because then it would be so easy. Eat a reasonable amount of food and exercise, that would be so easy to do and hey, it is what I have been doing for 5 years with no weight loss. I mean, seriously, I haven't eaten fast food in more than 5 years. I have not had a soda in more than 5 years. We do not go out to eat on a regular basis like most thin people I know. In fact, I haven't been out to eat since early this last December. We (4 people) have used in more than one year only a one 1 pound bag of sugar and one pint of raw honey, so I am not a sugar eater either. We only eat whole grains, except for white basmati rice. No junk or processed food passes through my door, I cook every single meal from scratch. So please don't say fat people should eat less and exercise more and they will be fine, because you are right on one thing…it is difficult to take in a lot of calories when eating only whole foods. On a normal day when I am not calorie restricting, I will eat no more than 2,000 calories, and this is on a day where I eat a lot of food. Now on HED it is very hard to go over that and I feel like sometimes I need to force myself to eat more. I have been working out at a gym for a very long time and even before that I was very active. So calorie restriction and exercise does not work for everyone. Please don't think that it does. I hate fat people being criticized, everyone says they are fat because they are lazy and all they do is sit on the couch and eat potato chips and Mcds all day, but that is just not the case.
Vida,
I know it is not easy, and I am not trying to make overweight people feel bad. For years, I have only eaten "healthy" foods, to the point where people would make fun of me for being a nut about it. But, I started to get fat even though I ate HED and healthy foods. So, I started a strict diet where I actually weighed and measured everything I ate. Increased protein intake, reduced fat and carbs. I went to a specialist and got my hormones in check. I also started an intense exercise program. After 6 months I am now lean and muscular. Now that I have changed my metabolism I can pretty much go by my natural hunger response and eat as much as i want without getting any fatter. Actually, I have changed my metabolic setpoint so that I can now take in more calories while remaining lean, to the point where I am force feeding myself now. I still eat low fat higher carb and moderate protein. If I was eating high carb and high fat I would probably look fatter. The point is, I had to go to extreme in my diet and exercise to get to the point where i can now coast and maintain a good physique without too much effort. Also, keep in mind that I did this while being diagnosed with extreme adrenal burnout, and this has improved as well.
If you are really eating less than 2000 calories a day while exercising intelligently, and still obese, then there is something else going on. You definitely need to get your hormones checked by a specialist. Nothing will work right if your hormones aren't functioning properly. Maybe you should consult with Dr Poppy to find a good specialist in your area. I know it is extra difficult for women when it comes to the hormones.
The truth is that many fat people greatly underestimate the amount of calories they consume. Also, in my experience, most of the people, especially women, don't really know how to exercise with a good intensity and push themselves. Why is that every single person on The Biggest Loser loses weight extremely quickly as soon as they drop calories and increase exercise?
Maybe you could keep track of everything you eat over the period of a week. Also, keep track of your exercise as well. If you provide this information, we may be able to figure out what is going wrong and how to fix it.
Great discussion guys!!!
JT, I appreciate your "opposing" view point on the matter. Though I do think that there is a touch of naivete in your arguments.
Hey I love simplicity, I really do, and I'm not saying the solution isn't simple. I could easily theorize that we are all just reading too much into this, and making it significantly more complicated than it is.
But. You have to listen to people and their experiences in order to properly come to "the" solution. If there is one.
Speaking of simplicity I take the other point of view in terms of caloric "restriction". I easily can rationalize how the body would say, "i am going to stockpile some reserves for the next time this dip shit does that (less calories/more exercise) to me".
I know that I have been trying to change my close friends and family understanding how food is defined, and the ridiculousness of using the calorie as a measurement of food.
Vida I do however take issue with not being able to ingest enough calories on "whole" food.Especially when I see people eating their 400 calorie box of whatever compared to what I am slapping down on my plate.
I dont know Vida, there are a pretty good number of fat people that do sit around all day eating shit, or if they arent sitting around all day they are still eating gargantuan amounts of shit. Ive seen people bitch and moan all day because they're so fat and want to be thin and I turn around and they're eating Skittles by the handful or chomping down on a supersized meals like they're going outta style. Sounds like you are definitely NOT like that at all but I do know that many are and they should be criticized, especially when so many of them insist on wearing skimpy bathing suits and things of that nature (ie shoving it in our faces)
On a semi-similar note, did anyone read about the fat woman that got shot and didnt die supposedly because the bullet hit her love handle fat and somehow got directed differently so it didnt go into her body and do serious damage? She's now saying instead of doing some weight loss that she was thinking about prior to that she is going to get fatter so she can block bullets. Fricken hilarious.
Nathan,
Please point out my naivete!
99% of all serious researchers and PHDs in the field would agree with me. Same with the top coaches in the world who deal with physique athletes. I guess everyone who disagrees with you is naive.
JT the people on the biggest loser cut calories a ton and exercise like there's no tomorrow to lose all that weight. The thing you dont see is that a lot of them balloon right back up after the show is finished for the season because their bodies are craving food to rebuild itself after its been starved. So yeah if weight loss is your only guideline then yes you can lose weight by intense exercise and caloric restriction. But if you want to be healthy and eventually lose all that weight then caloric restriction and lots of exercise is not the answer and you will see if you look just about anywhere, especially with women who cant keep weight off no matter how much they exercise or cut calories.
I mean hell, a friend's mom works out literally 2-5 hours EVERY DAY, and she looks pretty damn hot, especially for someone in their 40's. But she STILL has trouble keeping weight off despite a low calorie diet and gobs of exercise.
Dadroo,
Yes, I agree with you. I was only using the Biggest Loser as an example of the that calories in and calories out will be the most important factor when it comes to losing weight. If this was not true, then there would have been some people who didnt lose any weight.
I do not think that this is a good program to follow though. It is just more yo-yo dieting and it doesn't work in the long term. As I have mentioned above, I like Scott Abel's cycle approach. i think that in the long run Matt will come up with the same conclusion.
The reason your friends mom is having a problems keeping weight off is because she is exercising too long, which means her intensity is low. Also, she is an older female which means her hormones probably need to be balanced out.
JT, I'm willing to bet that more than a few commenters here have done the cut-calories-increase-exercise thing and lost significant body fat.
Or they've gone Paleo and felt leaner and healthier.
Or they went on a 2-week water fast and drop several clothing sizes.
I mean, losing weight isn't always hard. I've done it many times, using more and more extreme measures each time to get the same results. So Matt's point is that dieting damages your metabolism and the more often you do it, the worse it gets.
Remember the first diet you ever went on, guys? It worked, right? And then you tried to do it again and it didn't work quite so magically? Yes, the weight may come off and it may stay off for 6 months or even longer (or even forever if you're really really lucky) but more often than not, it's going to come back.
THAT'S what we're talking about here. The fact that it gets harder and harder to lose weight by restricting calories, until you get to the point where it stops working altogether.
And that's when, if you're smart and don't want to keep banging your head against the wall, you start looking for another way.
Gazelle,
I agree with you. There is a whole industry built around yo-yo dieting. The way most people try to reach their goals end up doing more harm than good. That is why I say, look to the people who are able to maintain it over long periods of time and see if we can find some clues.
I actually agree with Matt pretty much on his advice on healthy eating and lifestyle. But, I am pretty sure that calories do matter. I also agree that the key is to raise the metabolic rate so that you are burning more calories all the time. Many physique athletes increase the amount of calories over time so that they can prod their bodies into burning more calories. Then when it comes to dieting down to low bodyfat levels they can eat more food while still losing. This is where I am at now. I keep having to up my calories because I keep losing weight and I am already lean. I have had to resort to liquid carbs and protein to increase the amount because i cant eat enough.
Gazelle, I wrote a blog post yesterday that sounded a lot like your comment: nobody (or almost nobody) ever goes on *one* diet. And that is what makes dieting unsuccessful. It's not that cutting calories/fat and exercising more never works. It's that it becomes less and less effective over time, and it generally spawns cravings, emotional issues and other health problems–that's what makes it ineffective.
JT, you speak of balancing hormones, but what about the fact that dieting can cause hormone imbalances in the first place? Or make current hormone imbalances even worse?
After all this omega 6 discussion… i think that may have been what triggered my hiatal hernia last year. When i was low carbing, i ate alot of omega 6 just like matt describes himself doing…. fatty chicken, lard, too many eggs, etc. I still remember the meal that triggered it and caused my breathing problems… it was a Chicken leg. Ever since i adapted the starch principles, i probably cut my omega six intake in half. My hiatal hernia has been healed for sometime now. The past couple of weeks my omega 6 intake has been really low, and i am feeling damn good… this is with a huge intake of gluten also.
I think omega 6 fats probably do the most harm to the digestive tract, which triggered my hiatal hernia. I am going to really watch my omega 6 intake for awhile and see what happens!!!
Really good info Matt!!! Thanks!
troy
Elizabeth,
I agree, but it depends on the kind of diet you are undertaking. Schwarzbiens diet will improve hormone funtioning for most. Like I have mentioned before, I had SEVERE adrenal burnout, the doc said it was the most severe case they had seen. I was not dieting or exercising during this time and only eating the healthiest foods. I was able to improve my hormonal situation greatly by dieting and exercise.
Hey JT meant to offense man…
Most of time I consider myself the naive one. Hence the reason I hang out here.
From your last comments you are painting a better picture of the approaches you are using. And promoting?
Well it sounds as if you are loosing weight by not "restricting" calories? Because you have increased your metabolism, which is Matt's overarching theme as of late.
So we may in fact agree that if at the end of the day you have nutritional surplus you will have a stronger, healthier, more metabolically sound body.
But when people diet they tend to take the approach of chronic nutritional deficiency which will only cause long term health issues.
Should say "meant no offense"
I think the biggest difference in the U.S. and the rest of the world, is the quality of the calories. Plus a lot of what we eat has no real flavor. It is either sweet (cheap to make) or salty (even cheaper)
When visiting Germany 4 years ago, I lost 5 pounds in 2 weeks. How? Eating three great meals, which consisted of cheese and sausage and bread, plus coffee and juice for breakfast. Lunch was usually a pork dish or sausage, with bread, and dinner was usually a pork dish (old joke..what do you eat in Germany if you don’t like pork?..Get a vegetable salad, it only has a little pork in it) plus a salad, or cream soup (real cream, not some kind of thickener) plus potato or spaetzle or dumpling. It was summer, and the beer gardens were in full swing. We would get to the town we were staying at by noon. Park the car for the day, have lunch, have beer, walk through the town, or museum. (walking was probably no more then 2 to 3 miles per day, my knees won’t take much more.) Stop after the museum, sample at least 3 beers, check into the motel, take 4 Advil for my knees, snooze for a half hour, get up, go to dinner (walking) Maybe a bite of my wife’s dessert. Sometimes stop in a bakery or chocolate maker and get a few pieces to split. The next morning, do it all over again. No hard exercise, no ?diet? other then the danke diet. If it is set in front of you, say thank you, and eat it. Not large portions of food, but always filling, and usually presented on the plate very well. We would always finish the meat, and usually leave some of the starch, because we would be too full. BUT, no packaged foods or fast foods. When I got home, 5 pounds were gone for me and my wife was down 5 also.
As is when we went to Northern Italy, 10 years ago. Only, instead of beer it was the local wine. You do not get a plate of pasta. It’s usually in the meal or on the side, but usually, it was a meat and veg. Bread on the table. Same eating and exercise patterns. 6 pounds gone on return.
Hondo, that sounds enticing: Go to Europe, eat well, have a wonderful time and lose 5 lbs to boot! :)
@Hondo: ha, i wish it really were that way. I'm from Germany and while you certainly still will find a lot of places in Europe where the food is really good and people care about real food/traditional dishes, we are much more Americanized than you think. Let me tell you out of experience that the normal diet of someone at my age is no better than the Standard American Diet. There's just so many crap out there and it's getting harder and harder to find good food without making a great effort.
Hondo, I too always lose weight in Italy, I don't get it. I eat like a king when I'm there. Your friends and family are just dying to shove food down your face. Lunches are big and dinners are huge and go on all night, then you sit on your butt and play cards and eat ice cream. Every time a visitor comes or you visit somewhere, there is always coffee or liquor and something sweet. Sugar is daily, but it is usually in something high fat like ice cream or butter cookies.
You are right though, the food is just awesome, it tastes so much better than here.
madMUHHH,
I'm sure it is getting Americanized. I used to work for Nestle, so whenever we would be in an area that had a supermarket, I would stop to get a few driving supplies, but, also to look at the shelves. Lots and lots of colorful packages that are filled with the same crap we have in the states, produced from 20 different ingredients and a shelf life of 12 months. When we would pull in for gasoline, most of the stations had shelves and shelves of the same things we have in ours. Just wait until the hardware stores start to sell you the fake food also. Then you'll be just like us :-)
We ate mainly at locally owned restaurants, of which are getting few and far between in the US. Keep fighting for good food, or you'll one day be eating "Hot Pockets" and saying…Hey, their not too bad.
"Not too bad" means it is crap. Crap does not fill you up and make you happy. Crap only keeps you going until you come across another pile of it.
The problem i see with what is being promoted here is in telling fat people to eat more calories. All fat people are already eating too many calories and that is why they are fat(unless you have a severe endocrine problem).
Most fat people are already deceiving themselves into thinking they aren't eating so many calories when they really are. This is widely know and accepted. I have seen this over and over again in people I have trained. My girlfriend is a manager at a gym and has to train a lot of people. I like to review her client feedback and find it interesting to observe how so many of the people who don't get results are totally confused on what they are eating. Once you have them keep a detailed food log you can see how obvious it is. Also, you see the same thing with the exercise, the ones who dot get results are the ones who just go through the motions with no intensity.
My dad is fat and he tells me his diet and complains how he isn't getting the results. We will get into arguments because I will tell him it is physiologically impossible that he is that fat while eating what he says he does, but he will swear up and down that it is true, and he really believes it. Then when I go to visit and actually monitor what he eats it is completely different.
Once you are already lean, then you can try to up the calories and increase the amount your body can run on without storing fat. If you do this while a person is already fat then they will just get fatter. You have to get lean first! This is how you prevent the yo-yo diet effect.
Nathan, no offense taken.
I agree with Matt on a lot of things.
I am loosing weight by not restricting calories, but to get to this point I had to get lean first. To do this I had to be extremely strict about my diet and exercise. Also, my workouts are extremely demanding, so I have to eat a lot just to fuel this. This is not increasing calories and exercising less like Matt is saying.
The type of exercise you do is extremely important. If you are a cardio bunny then you are just setting yourself up for rebound.
I love this because now we are getting into the nitty gritty. In a purely theoretical sense, once the lean cells are getting enough energy and leptin and insulin resistance have declined, appetite should decrease, fat stores should be mobilized, and the person should start eating less without trying to and losing weight as a result. This scenario doesn't require the loss of weight first. Maybe the loss of some body fat first facilitates the process but its not clear why it would be needed. Lowering insulin resistance and leptin resistance via keeping fructose and PUFA low should result in the lean cells getting more energy, thereby simultaneously decreasing appetite and increasing metabolic rate.
JT,I guarantee you that 99% of fat people did not get fat by overeating on Natural Foods! Something other was involved like sugar, or high fructose corn syrup or excess omega 6, possibly white flour etc…
Did you even take a look at the link el66 provided? This one —>http://ryan-koch.blogspot.com/2009/10/tribal-fattening-practices.html
Look how many calories does women were FORCE FED to eat in order to gain weight on NATURAL FOODS.
So, no, Matt isn't offering any bad advice by telling fat people to quit eating sugar, junk food, excess omega 6 and to eat A LOT of NATURAL FOODS because even if they gain weight in the beginning they will heal their bodies by:
1. Quitting the consumption of poisons (sugar, excess omega 6, etc…)
2. By providing a lot of vitamins/minerals, macronutrients that their bodies have probably been lacking for a long time.
It's NOT CONSTANT OVERFEEDING, as the body heals, (stops being leptin resistant and insulin resistant) it will regulate its hunger levels to an appropriate body fat level (probably determined by that person's genes) and it will raise the metabolic rate so that it not only becomes a more efficient calorie burning machine but it will also increase energy expenditure.
So I still agree with calories count but NOT in the way you are saying, It's like to you 100 calories of coca cola are the same than 100 calories of potato and I do not believe that at all.
"The problem i see with what is being promoted here is in telling fat people to eat more calories. All fat people are already eating too many calories and that is why they are fat(unless you have a severe endocrine problem)."
Yeah they have a severe endocrine problem their metabolism is broken from dieting. Same with many people here. That should be the focus for health, not the amount of weight people need to loose. Fix the system and the system will fix that problem.
That's what pisses me off about that picture so much where everyone is arguing whether that woman is fat or not. You can't say whether that is a healthy weight or not. Frankly I think that's a healthy weight if you're gonna stick with it, live your life and be happy. Dieting through life does a lot more damage to your overall health than carrying 20 extra pounds, which is about all that woman in the photo needs to loose.
rosenfeltc,
I am sorry if I offended you by questioning the dogma. You need to check your reading comprehension. I never wrote or implied any of the things you stated.
I wrote, "calories will control the body mass, and the type of food and exercise one undertakes will determine the body composition." How does this seem like I am saying 100 calories of coke and potato are the same?
I also wrote, "You are advocating that they eat more unrefined food, which will end up giving them less calories." How am I misinterpreting what Matt wrote. How is this in conflict with what you wrote on the difficulty of overeating natural foods?
I think the best method for the average Joe to maintain a healthy bodyfat is to just eat natural foods and exercise (not cardio).
Jenny,
I agree with you that the focus should be on health and function, not just fat loss. I know plenty of lean muscular people who are unhealthy and emotionally unhappy.
How many people here know if they have a severe endocrine problem? I am the only person on here who has mentioned that they have been clinically diagnosed by several medical doctors. I have done multiple labs on a regular basis to keep track of my situation. I am getting better by doing the opposite of what you are advocating.
Too many people are saying they have adrenal fatigue or hypothyroidism, or whatever else, without ever getting the proper tests to know or sure.
Having super high excess cortisol could be an example of an endocrine disease where people might be under eating yet still can't lose fat. You will notice these people because they will have humps of fat on their upper back/neck area. These people could have tumor or something that needs to be removed before their body will stop the excess production. Excess estrogen will cause a lot of weight gain as well.
lol I need to check my reading comprehension? I've read every comment on here including all your "eat less calories and exercise more to lose weight" bullcrap and your direct quote "If you are really eating less than 2000 calories a day while exercising intelligently, and still obese, then there is something else going on."
Right something else is going on because everyone knows that it's just ALL about calories.
I don't even know why I'm wasting my time replying, most of the people that are here is because they've already tried what you said with no success.
Besides how can I take anything you say serious after you said "Humans in the past didn't have to think about food in the past to remain lean because food was MUCH more scarce, and energy output was MUCH higher."
Don't waste your time replying to me as I am done talking to you, instead I suggest you do a little reading on different hunter gatherer civilizations that were even more sedentary than the average American yet remained lean and healthy on about the same caloric intake but FROM DIFFERENT TYPE FOODS.
Rosenfeltc,
Like I said,I am sorry I have offended you. Diet is like religion for most people and they have a lot of emotional ties to it.
Can you point to any metabolic ward study where someone was eating calories below maintanence and did not lose any weight? I am definitely open to other possibilities. I am also very interested in hunter gatherer research as well, please post details of examples where their calorie intake was higher than output, yet they still remained lean.
Actually, I agree with Matt on most of this. Our only disagreement is that he thinks people should overeat before getting lean and do it chronically. I think one should get lean first, and then do excess calories intermittently.
Can you tell us your own personal story? It seems like I have unintentionally hit a nerve.
JT,
I think one problem with trying to lose the weight with calorie reduction is: How many calories should you eat to lose weight?
I think the problem is not HOW many calories, but WHAT is causing those calories to be siphoned into fat storage instead of building lean body mass or cellular repair.
Jenny, ITA. If the discussion becomes about what is a "healthy weight" it becomes completely pointless because there is no "healthy weight". If I weigh 160 and feel great physically and emotionally while eating nourishing foods, than that's a healthy weight. If I weigh 120 doing the same, thats a healthy weight. If I weigh 120 and diet obsessively and have anxiety, then it's not a healthy weight. Same thing for 160.
I'm really starting to think that weight (ruling out severe obesity and skinniness) is almost irrelevant.
If you check out Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by W. A. Price you'll find photos of women who are "fat" yet Price considered them the epitome of health and fertility. ( fat waists and all) Prices wife was also heavy to todays standards.
I'll be the first to admit that I'd love to lose 30 lbs and get back to what I consider my natural weight, but I also have to say that I'm waaaaaay healthier now than I was when I was thin.
Also, I know most of those commenting are guys, so I'm probably about to piss ya'll off, but where do you get off declaring what size waist men are attracted to in a woman and then claiming it's because smaller waists are healthier adn more fertile?
That's like me saying that women are not attractedto the photo of Matt on the front page (no offense Matt;) because his lats and delts are not large enough which means he's not healthy or fertile enough.
JT. Hypothyroidism type II, undetectable by STANDARD tests. Matt says (though I think he is not totally right) that this is because it is actually caused by a lack of leptin, either because of LACK of calories or lack of leptin signaling (leptin resistance, not because an actual problem with the glands). Now, being atacked by poisons (refined carbs, pufas) can lower or disrupt the endocrine balance of the body. Same, of course, with caloric restriction.
JT, here's some studies. First, the one that Matt wrote about in this very post: http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v18/n3/full/oby2009312a.html In mouses, a mild caloric restriction leads to weight gain, disrupted lean mass to fat ratio, and rebound hyperphagia. Second: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/09/acne-disease-of-civilization.html In this post, in the comments, Stephan says: "SL (Lindeberg) mentions repeatedly in the series of papers that the Kitavans have abundant food and virtually do not know shortage. So I think their diets are pretty much ad libitum.". They also have moderate physical activity. Excuse me because I can't give you the specific sources, but Stephan is always someone to trust.
Now, calculating energy output is, as you know, much more tricky that energy input. Of course, calories in>calories out is a player in obesity, etc. BUT a huge part, maybe the greatest one, is that calories out is low, not the other way around. If refined foods disrupt the metabolism, the energy output gets lower, the basal metabolism gets lower. This, in turn, funnily, raises the apetite and makes you much more vulnerable to weight gain. You're eating lots of food but starving for actual energy. Just eating less food can't be a solution for that core problem, in any way. It wasn't the cause for starters, also.
You said you recieved treatment for your hormonal issues. Well, hypothyroidism type II CAN be treated by thyroid supplementation. Please, be more specific about how you ate before starting your weight loss program, and what other measures you took to improve your health, if not, understanding what happened is difficult. A person with an already damaged metabolism may not get healed by just eating "natural foods", you may have to go the extra mile. I won't put in question the fact that you feel better now than how you felt before, but I have to wonder what role the calorie restriction had to play in that, and how much actually comes from the treatment of your hormonal issues, or a change in the actual quality of your diet, the high calorie days, etc.
And may I repeat:
"chock full of sexual innuendo about cereal mascots like Toucan Sam" Where is the sexual inuendo, Mr. Matt, where? No cereal mascots either…
JT-
The point or objective of Matt's work or this site has never been to 'lose weight.' Anyone can lose weight; it doesn't equal being healthy. Especially done so negligently as seen on shows like THE BIGGEST LOSER(any fitness professional worth anything should never use that show as an example of anything more than what NOT to do and/or how to harm someone; criminal that show is.)
Additionally, I don't get where people deduce Matt suggests to STUFF yourself silly? As I understood what I have read; it is eat until satisfied and eat whenever you are hungry. Do not starve yourself; as this is obviously going to SLOW your metabolism and possible INCREASE insulin resisitance. The 'trick' is to eat REAL, nutrient dense foods when you eat.
As you mentioned there can be endocrine and other issues at play; all of which would logically be negatively effected if calories are restricted to the point of being deficient of any essential vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. Trying to lose weight correctly and be healthy while being nutrient deficient is an exercise in futility.
JT, I totally agree with you that fat people are probably eating way more than they actually believe, especially if they eat junk food or fast food…I really don't understand how that food can contain so many calories. However, I also believe that many thin people eat way more than they believe too. I have had many friends who ate way more than I ever did and they stayed thin no matter what, and no, they did not exercise. I had this friend who used to go to the store every other day and buy herself for lunch a birthday cake and a whole roasted chicken (of which she would eat only the skin.) She ate like a pig and was super lazy, she now has 4 kids and still eats that way and is still super thin. I want to know why people react so differently to food.
So what exercise do you recommend? Not cardio? To be honest, when I go to the gym I see mostly fat people or thin (but flabby) women on the treadmills for very long periods of time. The big muscular guys I never see on the treadmills or if they are, they stay on for about 10 minutes only.
I do not advocate dieting and calorie restriction as a healthy lifestyle. I advocate eating natural, balanced, unrefined foods without worrying about diets. I think this will work for most people better than calorie counting. But, the reason people lose fat eating this was is because it is difficult to overeat potatoes and carrots, and this causes calories to go down without trying!
The way I ended up screwing up my metabolism was through extreme low carb/ paleo dieting. The best thing I ever did was add starch back into my diet! Now I pretty much just eat as much as I want of starch(white rice and potatoes), meat, and small amounts of ghee and vegetables.
Also, like Dr Poppy and Schwarzbein, I advocate getting your hormones checked out and addressed while getting into an healthy diet, exercise, lifestyle.
Vida,
In my experience fat people always underestimate the amount of calories they eat. Skinny people frequently overestimate their calories as well. Look at all the scrawny guys at the gym who think they are eating enough to get big. Absorption can be a factor too.
Slow steady state cardio is not good, but casual walking is fine. I like lifting weights and doing Bikram yoga. I use Scott Abel's training methodology, his material is the best. Get one of his DVDs like MET (Metabolic Enhancement Training)and follow the program. You can also see his stuff on youtube.
JT, site is called 180degreehealth for a reason. The exact opposite of the calories in / calories out hypothesis are discussed here. I guess that is the nerve… i hope you stick around, lots of great discussions here.
Most of us are following the premise: "You need to be healthy to lose weight, not lose weight to be healthy"
I have been on HED for 5months now, and have gained considerable lean mass in my core, my total body weight has increased about 10lbs, I have done no exercise for 5months at all, I'm bearly even walking lately (too cold up here). Sleeping and packing in huge amounts of food 4 to 5 times a day, seemed to being doing something great for me. As my broken endocrine system and temps start to heal up, this extra fat I added will leave on its own without having to resort to a gym (well that is the experiment right now, for some it will happen fast, others it may take years, I am in it for the long haul). Like madMUHHH linked; natives didn't hit the gym, lots were very inactive, eating lots food and LEAN, compared to this culture of hitting gym 3 or 4 times a week, and starving yourself. Wouldn't you rather be lean with little to no effort other the planning what great food you are going to eat?
Prior to this, following a 5×5 squat/deadlift routine for a year, eating whole foods, but probably too low cal, I got no where. I got leaner but looked like shit. Leaner on a broken metabolism = skinny fat.
My core was no where near as strong as it is now, and I do nothing but eat and sleep. I suspect that as my core heals the body will move on and I will see improvements in the extremities… just a theory… but again only time will tell.
Lots of great discussion here in the past 2days!!
"But, the reason people lose fat eating this was is because it is difficult to overeat potatoes and carrots, and this causes calories to go down without trying!" Sorry, JT, but I don't think you're right. It is hard, but not impossible to oevereat potatoes (and yeah, they are culturally regarded as fattening, even if they really aren't). However, I doubt you would call a diet with medium to high fat inherently unhealthy (and if you do so, then I don't know what are you doing here), and with fat in the mix the calories can go up very, very easily. I can make a dish with baked potato slices and butter that is not much bigger than 2 handfuls but can easily amount to 800 calories IN ONE MEAL. I wouldn't doubt hunther gatherers could do the same. Specially because HG's diets tended to be high fat. Do you think kangaroo tail is "lite"? Don't kid.
1000 calories actually, sry.
Undertow, I have been reading Matt's blog for a long time. I know Schwarzbein's quote "You need to be healthy to lose weight" not lose weight to be healthy", and i agree with her. I followed the HED/Schwarzbein eating style for about a year before doing what I am now which is lower fat higher protein.
EL66K, you are right I could defintitely fatten someone up very quickly if I added a lot of fat to those potatoes. High fat plus high carb will make you fat fast! You can stay lean high carb low fat, and you can stay lean on low carb high fat. Find what works best for you and stick with it.
After doing so much damage to myself sticking to supposed "paleo" diets, I don't concern myself much with what hunter gatherers ate. Most of them don't look how I want to look.
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Jt… I weight a meager 134 pounds (1,8m tall), and I eat like that. Lots of fat and starch, free for all. Of course, we are not HG's, but it is good to remember that not all fats are equal. I really doubt you would gain weight if you added an even indecent amount of coconut oil to each bite of food you took. A potato with butter is 180 degrees away from a donut (also not like quinoa with chicken). I asked how you ate before what you're doing now because not only "real foods" and macronutrients ratios are important. Specially for sick people.
And yeah, to be honest I don't want to look like most of those guys either… But fines clothes, hairstyle, lot's of genetic scrambling, and an even better diet can do wonders for your looks. Anyway, you haven't given an argument as to why the HED diet is inherently fattening. I'm sure it is not the case. Maybe you could have obtained the same results by reducing your PUFA consumption, or by other means. You actually did other changes, didn't you?
"You can stay lean high carb low fat, and you can stay lean on low carb high fat" I'm sure many people here can come and tell you that such is not always the case. A hypothyroid person may not be lean in any diet, for instance. A person with an unlimited supply of Armour Thyroid, though, will be lean in a ton of diferent diets (maybe even in unhealthy ones), I believe, as long as the dose is adjusted.
"High fat plus high carb will make you fat fast!" Yeah, it's really a shame that the worst diet for us is one that mimics mother's milk…
I may be wrong, of course, but I don't see you bringing any arguments to the table.
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EL66K,
Are you a man or woman? 135 pounds seems to light. Try eating high carb, low fat for a while and see if you can put on some mass.
I have been following Ray Peats work for a long time and have consulted with him personally. I have maintained a low PUFA diet for years. I cannot tolerate any form of coconut oil. The only fat I use is ghee, but i eat lower fat in general.
I never said HED is inherently fattening. I already said many times that calories will control body mass. The Zone diet is HED and plenty of people stay lean on that. But, when you mix fat and carbs together it is easier to overeat. When you find lean muscular people like bodybuilders and fitness models most eat high carb low fat, some eat low carb high fat, almost none eat high carb and high fat. For some reason that I don't know eat seems to work that way better.
I know plenty of fat people taking armour and they are still fat. Taking straight cytomel (T3) usually works better. That is what bodybuilders and fitness models use to get ripped.
All babies get fat on mother's milk. That is what it is designed to do. i never said having a little excess bodyfat is unhealthy.
I have tried pretty much every diet there is. Paleo/low carb caused me the most harm. I had always obsessed over the quality of the food as well only eating healthy, organic, local, free range, etc…
It is really funny for me to be on this side of the argument, because I was always on the other side for so long. My ex girlfriend ate an extremely low fat, high starch diet. I used to always lecture her about how obviously stupid her diet was because paleo man never ate that way, and how she needed to eat more fat and less carbs. She was always very lean and muscular, not skinny. She had abs without even trying, which is very difficult for most women. Looking back I see how stupid I was to try and argue with her in spite of her results. Luckily she had a PHD in Biochemistry and nutrition, so she never took my advice.
JT,
What do you think high fat plus high carb entails in terms of percentages? I ask because it means different things to different people.
I would consider something on the order of a 50%, 35%, 15% (fat, carb, protein or carb, fat, protein) to be high fat high carb; I have experimented with this, and do not actually gain weight on this type of diet, despite your claim that it will make one "gain weight fast." Hence, your statement is too broad and general.
Regarding the calorie in/calorie out issue: body weight regulation appears to be much more complex than just how much–or little–we are eating. Anybody who has been reading Matt's posts on leptin resistance, for instance, will be be cognizant of the complexity–whether they agree with his perception of the issue or not.
Another thing to consider is the apparent role of "gut flora" in regulating body weight (fat). There is evidence that the ratio between two types of gut flora, Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes, determine body fat percentages. Researches have found that ob/ob mice, which are bred to lack leptin, have a lower Bacteroidetes to Firmicutes ratio than their leaner counterparts. Moreover, when the gut flora of obese mice are transplanted in lean mice, the lean mice became obese, despite eating fewer calories. Reference: http://www.pnas.org/content/101/44/15718.long
The same correlation of a lower ratio of Bacteroidetes to Firmicutes can be observed in obese people vs leaner individuals. I could be mistaken, but researches have also observed that gut flora shifts, from fecal transplants, will cause leaner individuals to gain weight, and vice versa. Don't quote me on that though; I could not find any reliable sources after a quick search, but I am sure I read a research paper on that somewhere.
In the end, in the light of such evidence, it does not make sense to promote the "calories in/calories out" paradigm.
Heeha' Heeha'…..
troy
I was just thinking that it is interesting that it is the leptin lacking ob/ob mice that have the same low ratio of Bacteroidetes to Firmicutes that is observed in overweight people. Based on Matt's post: "Omega 6, Cytokines, and the Cortisol Loop" I have to wonder what comes first in people? Does leptin resistance cause the gut flora shift? Or does the gut flora shift cause leptin resistance? Can people have one without the other?
Assuming that the problems are indeed connected:
Stephan, over at wholehealthsource, seems to think that it is diet that shifts the gut flora ratio. If that is so, is the chain of events thusly: (bad) diet leads to gut flora shift leads to leptin resistance? Or is it bad diet leads to leptin resistance leads to gut flora shift?
Questions, questions…
It would be interesting to see a study that actually addressed the correlation between leptin resistance and gut flora problems.
Just my random thought for the day…
Parenteral nutrition with glucose and aminoacids can bring someone to rapid "efa deficiency" very rapidly (high metabolism?): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1344478/ Of course, a high carb diet can have specific properties that are benefical. Kitavans are very healthy, I would dare say that more than the eskimo. I'm thinking of maybe using a extremely low fat diet in the future. I'm male, BTW.
However, you said: "EL66K, you are right I could defintitely fatten someone up very quickly if I added a lot of fat to those potatoes. High fat plus high carb will make you fat fast!" If you don't really believe HED is inherently fattening then that was very misleading. If people go lean with Armour or Cytomel, that shows that you can be lean in many different diets as long as your metabolism is high. Also, I'm lean with lots of potatos and butter, maybe 3000 calories or more. Extremely sedentary. Calories don't control body mass, rather the metabolism controls both caloric consumption AND body mass. Of course, the quality of the nutrition and other factors affect the metabolism. I would like Matt to bring some of the overfeeding studies because they are vey good examples of this. The link I posted of Ryan Koch's blog is also an example of this. In short, a healthy person needs massive (and uncomfortable) overfeeding for long periods to become overweight, and even then the weight is easily lost and there are not the same risks of disease as in people overweight on SAD. In these people, the metabolism (heat production and respiation) goes up along with the calories, and that explains why the body mass does not correlate directly with calorie consumption. Besides, a lot of the weight gain ins't fat, as the overfeeding studies Matt mentions show.
It's easier to "overeat" carbs and fats together because they are tastier. I don't believe that really says anything bad about them, specially since evolutionary it is not out of place to imagine such a diet (unlike a diet of fructose and white bread, for instance) AND it resembles mother milk. Maybe it's not simply easier to overeat, but rather to just eat. If you have been in a calorie restricted diet like most people here, even if low carb (maybe not hungry), re-introducing fats and carbs will result in rebound hyperphagia, a natural phenomenom. I was in a frutarian diet (silly me) and only both fats and carbs together satiated my GALACTIC apetite when I resumed normal eating. The body uses both macronutrients, so it is not hard to imagine that things get easier when both are present in spades and quality. In other words, if people are overeating when exposed to carbs and fats, that may represent an actual healing reaction which could not happen in other conditions. Specially when coming from low carb, since I actually believe high carb is easier on the body (glucose to fats easier than protein to glucose). Low carb people surely "overeat" carbs when exposed.
That may not be the case in high carb nutrient dense diets, and here the experience with that is limited. My point is, however, that the calorie debate is just sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo old and rusty. I mean, get over it :-).
Calorie restriction may even work in the right conditions for the right people, but it's boring, and stuffing your way to freedom sounds much more badass. Now, seriously, the most important and critical aspect of weight loss is restoring energy, wether that is made by overstuffing or hormone replacement is not the point. Except that the more "natural way" (rebound hyperphagia) may mean more permanent and complete healing as it is not overriding natural processes.
In conclusion(yeah, I have lots of free time and love the discussion, really), calorie restriction (relative to what your body is asking) does not seem like a good strategy to health. You do seem to advocate it, why? I doubt mother's milk would make us chubby, but even if so, I would highly doubt (as you pointed out) it would be detrimental to health.
Oh, and kitava women are one sexy group of natives. Maybe it is the sleep deprivation (again), or the overall nudity (and non-flacid breasts), or maybe it is because among the possible fine human diets, one that is closer to theirs actually allows us to express our sexy-genetical potential more, but I digress…
Regarding the calorie in and out theory I would like to give you a link to a Swedish professor, Fredrik Nystrom, who inspired by Supersize Me did an overeating experiment. Unfortunately I have only seen a speech of the results on this in Swedish but BBC contacted him and did a documentary on it. I can truly recommend watching it. http://www.imh.liu.se/kardiovaskular-medicin/staff/fredrik-nystrom?l=en
Another very interesting thing is this comment "The fast food trial also spurred a short term study in which isocaloric hyper-alimentation based on peanuts or candy for two weeks was compared. Interestingly, eating about 400 grams of candy per day, caused weight gain and increased fasting insulin levels when compared with 250 grams of peanuts. In line with this an increase in basal metabolic rate was only observed in the peanut group."
Thank you Subcalva. Watching the whole thing on Youtube now. Very interesting!
This Guardian article about it is interesting too. Check it out guys: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2006/sep/07/healthandwellbeing.health
Here's the doc on Youtube! OMG everyone has to watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6-A0iHSdcA
Hey JT,
I'm curious as to your position on carbs and exercise. I think you're a trainer but if you eat higher carb and lower fat (some amount of macro ratios would help get an idea) with only working out three times a week, working two major lifts at 5×5 (pretty much starting strength stuff) per day with not much cardio outside of that. Do you still think that is fine? I feel good on a moderate fat, moderate carb, and lower protein. I don't tend to eat 1g/lb/bdwt of protein naturally. Thanks for your insight.
"Nystr?m is puzzled about why Spurlock had such an extreme reaction, musing that he could perhaps have had an undiagnosed problem with his liver or, he says, "Maybe his hardcore vegetarian girlfriend held him to a low-energy diet, making him incapable of coping with this kind of food."
Interestingly, in the Swedish experiment, while the liver readings got steadily worse until the third week, they then took a turn for the better. The liver, it would seem, adapts. Cholesterol, meanwhile, was hardly affected."
thats incredibly interesting…when do we get to see the nitty gritty of the study though?
also, there is a HUGE GINORMOUS difference between feeding already healthy people and feeding underweight/overweight people… like huge
Nice link Gazelle, thanks! To bad the study didn't include low fructose and low omega6, i'm sure the results would be quite different.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/02/corn-oil-and-cancer-reality-strikes.html
Mark,
I don't train people anymore. My ratios of carbs/portein/fat is probably around 60/30/10. You are doing very low volume, so I wouldn't worry about getting enough carbs. I do way more volume than that, and find I need more carbs to function well and stay strong. I know people who do better on higher fat lower carb, and you might be one of them. If you are happy with your curent body composition, then keep doing what you are doing.
Matt,
And any others who believe in this as a cure for obesity.
Can you please give us an example of how you would treat an obese person who is sedentary using your principles? Say they are eating 10,000 calories a day and doing no physical exercise.
Please do not say you would just have them switch to eating as much natural unprocessed food as they want. This switch would automatically lead to caloric reduction. Every dietician in the country would give that advice, and that makes it boring.
BTW Prof. Nystrom's study can be downloaded for free here http://gut.bmj.com/content/early/2008/02/14/gut.2007.131797.abstract
It's a pity the lecture isn't in English since he speaks very informal telling you a lot of small things on how the participants reacted apart from the actual tests that were done. One guy had to quit after only 2 weeks since his liver readings went sky rocketing. Unfortunately they were not able to do an MR on his fat at that point but Nystrom said that he still had visible muscles on his stomach.
JT,
You are still missing the point; we(us or Matt) aren't trying to cure obesity here. No one has claimed that they can. We are a bit more concerned with things like Type II Diabetes, IBS, mood, and a whole host of other conditions; as well as dispelling dogma such as the vilification of saturated fat etc. Weight is far down the list(if even on the list at all); and an eventual by-product of healing.
Quit making an argument that isn't there.
Hey JT,
Due to my day job (sitting on a trading floor) and my night job (personal trainer), I have left myself very little time to workout so I thought that trying to maintain my strength would serve me best from an efficiency standpoint. I will join my clients in some boot camp type stuff at least a couple of times a week, so I get some cardio there.
I'm not very overweight, probably around 16% bodyfat (6'0" and 211 lbs) but I would like to lean out some more. I'm guessing getting down to 195 with the same amount of LBM would be a good fit.
Right now I'm hoping that by eating natural foods and avoiding all sugars and excess omega-6 oils (staying mostly in the low and extremely low categories of Matt's prior post), that I can lean out naturally with my low level of activity. I eat when I'm hungry and that usually leaves me with three meals a day, not much snacking. I do feel much better including starches than my previous paleo days of meat, veggies, nuts, and fats only.
Listening to what you are talking about, I have started to cut back a little on the fat while keeping my carbs and protein the same. I'll see what happens but I don't plan on fighting hunger pains either. I'm guessing 2,000 to 2,500 calories is a good range for me. I don't track food everyday but I will punch it in every once in awhile to see where I stand.
Thanks for any advice you can give, I really appreciate it. Good discussions everyone!
By the way Half Navajo, I have included more gluten the past two days but without the usual accompaniment of sugar or veggie oils and I feel fine. No stomach pains or headaches. I always blamed wheat but maybe it's the sugar and veggie oils that really bother me. I think this is what you experienced too. Interesting…
Great commentary homies. You are going off! I don't even have time to read through them all, but I will post on this in early March I promise, as I've got some interesting insights on the matter.
JT-
You can now eat what you want without gaining weight. That's what we're all trying to do here, so I will NOT, for a second, take your experiences lightly.
Since I'm short on time, here is something that I sent to Lisa Sargese of http://www.theskinnyonline.blogspot.com that will give you guys more to think about while I finish reading Ancel Keys book over the next few days. This was in response to a young kid on a tv special called "half ton kid" or something like that. He weighs 800 pounds…
Hey Sister Lisa,
You'll notice in the quote you selected of mine I mention that Body fat lost + Calories ingested must equal basal needs to work without slowing down metabolism, losing lean body mass, and otherwise triggering the starvation effect and rebound overeating and weight gain.
The thing is, on 2,500 ingested calories, the kid wouldn't lose much weight (although definitely some). That's why most would rule it out. What's more important is what would happen physiologically. On a low omega 6, low fructose diet devoid of other refined carbs and heavy in meat, vegetables, and some starch – a greater level of fat loss would be triggered. When fat loss is triggered, as long as some carbohydrate and protein is delivered, lean mass can be maintained, as well as metabolic rate, even when calorie ingestion is low.
The problem with a high-carb, low fat diet for this kid is that it doesn't trigger enough fat loss to keep him from losing lean body mass.
Here's the calculation:
He lost 40 pounds in 6 months. That's a maximum of 765 calories per day supplied from fat stores.
He ate 1200 calories.
The total is 1965, which is NOT enough to supply basal needs for a male his age with his total basal calorie consumption (which is actually higher than a normal person's as fat tissue is at least a little bit active, and he's got lots of it).
That's why it didn't "work."
I found a study done ages ago in which 187 obese subjects lost weight at a much faster rate (1,350-2,700 calories of body fat per day), and with the protein supplied and the amount of carbs added – just enough to "spare" the protein, packing it into muscle cells instead of keeping it from breaking down into glucose – their lean tissues were completely spared.
They were in nitrogen balance while losing weight – even at lightning speed, which is HUGE. They also had metabolic rates in the normal range even after months, which is also HUGE.
So I'm down on being too low in calories because if your lean tissues aren't getting what they need, you are doing great harm, slowing down metabolism, losing LBM, and inducing rebound hyperphagia and intensifying insulin resistance and fat storage tendencies.
But calories ingested, for someone with lots of excess fat to lose, is only half the story. If you assume the fat kid needs 3,000 calories supplied to his lean tissues daily, those needs could be met with:
2000 + 1000 as body fat
2500 + 500 body fat
or 500 + 2500 body fat
Where the calories come from doesn't really matter. What matters is that the lean tissues receive full basal requirement.
That's why 1200 + 765 as body fat stopped working, and made weight loss rate slow down and hunger increase.
When obesity researchers get basal needs down to a science, monitor nitrogen balance carefully, monitor the rate of fat loss diligently, etc. – then they MIGHT be able to reverse obesity on a more permanent basis. But as long as they have a casual "just eat less," it's that simple approach they will ALWAYS fail.
First explain this:
"This switch would automatically lead to caloric reduction."
By the way, just to clarify. I think that by avoiding sugars and excess omega-6 oils, we can avoid most metabolic diseases (given that we eat enough). Weight loss for aesthetics, my goal, is the cherry on top of an otherwise healthy metabolism. I think this is similar to Matt and most posters here point of view. Please let me know if you think otherwise.
To clarify, calories are everything! But what matters is not how many you eat, but how many you receive to the lean tissues.
That's why someone, such as the 187 subjects in the study I made mention of above, can be satiated and feel amazing eating 500 calories per day (if losing 2,500 from body fat in addition to that to supply 3,000 calories to lean tissues), while the fat kid that weighs 800 pounds can be ravenously hungry on 6,000 calories per day if 4,000 calories are going into fat cells but only 2,000 are making it to the lean tissues.
This could also explain why people often do great on low-carb while losing body fat, but instantly start metabolically-destroying themselves the second that fat loss stops. Then they cut calories and carbs even more only to make matters worse.
Yes Mark. Being healthy without health problems is great. Being simultaneously lean and very proud of our physical appearance, if it's possible to have both, is the ultimate objective.
Don't worry, we'll exhaust every possibility until we are able to have our cake and eat it too. But step 1 is always going to be restoring all lean body mass that may have been lost through dieting by eating really well – aka, "getting healthy to lose weight, not losing weight to get healthy."
Thanks Matt. So with your reasoning of "on a low omega 6, low fructose diet devoid of other refined carbs and heavy in meat, vegetables, and some starch – a greater level of fat loss is triggered" would you say that it's appropriate for someone to eat a diet of higher carb and protein and low fat as long as they are following the guidelines in the quote above and they're metabolism is healthy? I think this would be because the body fat would be providing all the excess fat energy that is needed so the body would not be starved and excess body fat would be lost at the same time, kind of going for the holy grail here. I'm not saying cutting out all fat but in this line of thought, I don't think much extra would be needed. Am I going down the wrong rabbit hole?
If not, I might try eating higher carb and protein and cutting down on the fat and see how hunger reacts (following your guidelines of low fructose/omega-6 as well). If done right, I would imagine that you wouldn't be hungry as long as you get enough protein and starch. Sorry for all the comments but this post has really got me going! Thanks, this stuff makes a lot of sense.
"Jedi-
Lean Body Mass is not just muscle mass. The more muscle mass you try to maintain through bodybuilding in calorie deficit, the more organ mass you're likely to lose. Ancel Keys noted that many organs could drop their size by over 50% during prolonged calorie deficit. Mmmm, sounds healthy! "
this is very interesting Matt, and something I wasn't aware of. Are you saying that even though I have managed to gain quite some muscle mass over the past 4 years of overexercising and undereating at the SAME time I may have reduced the size of some of my organs? I am assuming with the fat gain maybe the organs will grow again???
Mark. The study I referred to set up the diet precisely like you are thinking.
Adequate protein (1 gram per kg of "ideal body weight" – which I would estimate on the high side of the BMI)
Some carbs to "spare protein" from being broken down into glucose for needed glucose.
And no added fat other than what can be found in lean meats, fish, shellfish, etc.
Keep in mind this can work IF, and only if you are losing body fat at a rapid rate. When you stop losing body fat, such a diet becomes a metabolic disaster. It is a fat loss strategy, not a healthy diet. When you've lost that fat, those calories must be replaced – probably with whatever macronutrient you like, doesn't have to be pure fat.
This could work great, but MUST be used wisely, or you will jack yourself up. Quit immediately if you stop losing weight or get hungry or notice a drop in temperature (other than what might occur during the first couple weeks as your body adjusts).
But if you are feeling good now and 15 pounds above what you assume to be your ideal weight, I wouldn't recommend it. If you weighed 800 pounds like the fat kid that would be a different story.
Jedi-
Hard to imagine you were losing organ mass if you were gaining muscle mass, but you never know. If you induced hyperphagia and a low body temp. doing it then I would say it's certainly possible.
Okay I just listened too all 7 of those fat gain documentaries and can only draw one conclusion from them? your body weight is predetermined by you genes and how you were as a child’so it’s pretty much down to heredity? am I incorrect to conclude this? And if this is the case, I am screwed because I was a fat child/kid/teen? then developed anorexia? I don’t think the scenario could get any worse for me. ?bad genes? I guess you could call it, a screwed metabolism, a starved brain that wants food even when I am full and desire anything BUT food, and practically no muscle. I was just in one of those bod pods they show like 3 weeks ago I think? Maybe 4 weeks. Anyway, it said my LBM compared to my fat % was way off? I had low lean mass compared to my body fat mass. It also said my body only uses about 1025 calories a day I think. So’slow metabolism, bad genetics and heredity predisposed to being fat? I don’t know what to think really. I meet and exceed what my body uses a day currently. from jan09 to jan10 on zero carb which was definitely high omega6. Now, feb10 added back veggies, lowered omega 6, upped calories to around 2500 a day and added sour cream galore, butter, coconut oil, tons of cheese, cream, attempted to only moderately eat protein. When I made the initial ‘switch? out of zero carb starving my body and to what I do now I went from 113 to 108 in like 2 days(adjustment I guess?). Freaked me out so I added tons of almond butter and tahini in bowls of sour cream/cream cheese all mixed together. This nut butter definitely upped my omega 6 pretty crucially but I didn’t realize that at the time. Now I am sitting around 111-113 again, fluctuating a lot day to day. When I got myself up from 108 to 113 last week, my BMI went from 15-16.2?.I weighed in this morning at 111 and 14.9BMII have been actively lowering my omega 6 and using butter or coconut oil for all my cooking.
Now? my carbs are usually veggie form. Is it still recommended or good to eat my starches in the form of starchy vegetables? Like root vegetable like rutabaga and celeric root or squashes like acorn and butternut? Im simply not a huge white potato fan at all(taste wise) unless it is sweet potatoes but I like them plain or sliced and oven roasted. I have never seen a yam for sale so never tried one. What starches besides potatoes are good? Are the starchier vegetables good?
Russell,
I am not missing the point. Re-read matts blog post and see that the topic was fat loss.
Matt,
Thank you for clarifying. I hope everyone will see that you are indeed talking about calories. I don't know why they couldn't see that since you mentioned it multiple times in your blog post.
Mark,
If you are worried about feeling hungry while losing body fat, you would probably be better off doing low carb since it seems to blunt the hunger. I was never hungry when I was low carb, but I looked and felt like crap and lost a lot of muscle too. Sometimes hunger is a sensation you have when you are trying to get really lean. Why not just be happy with where you are at and quit worrying about getting leaner? 16%bf is ok.
Thanks JT. I am pretty happy with where I am but its just that OCD side of me that takes over sometimes. Never been lean so I probably have some body image issues. Ah well.
Thanks for the clarification Matt. I'm not going to go to that level of restriction. I'm just avoiding sugars and omega-6 fats while eating all other real food stuff to satiety and see where this takes me. I'm really shocked to be feeling fine even with wheat intake in the past couple of days.
Hey again JT, sorry for the multiple comments. I just wanted to clarify why I mentioned hunger. I'm not afraid of it at all, I've done IF a lot and hunger pains aren't a problem to go through. The issue I was trying to address is that I was worried that if I had a lot of hunger then my metabolism would be affected and I would lose weight through starvation, not what we're shooting for here right? That's all I was going for. Thanks again for your feedback.
What a great discussion!!!
So JT sure calories (as mentioned by Matt and others) matter in context. And that context is how many of those "calories" nutrition/energy are getting to the systems of the body so that it can function properly. That has always been the case. You are probably more versed in human physiology that I, so I am sure you know this by hart.
But when you make comments such as,
"All fat people are already eating too many calories and that is why they are fat(unless you have a severe endocrine problem)."
You are making overly simplified assessments as to the true issue. Which then frustrates people, especially those individuals who have cut calories and didn't lose body fat.
May have just stated what already has been.
Note: this also is coming from a 6' 170lb 30yr old male who has never really had a problem with weight. Though I have fluctuated between 155 and 195 in the last 10 years.
Malpaz-
It is 90% hereditary. Anyone who hasn't come to this conclusion hasn't studied obesity enough or doesn't want to face the truth. That's the ONLY solid conclusion that top obesity researchers like Jules Hirsch or Jeffrey Friedman have arrived at.
But there is cognitive dissonance amongst the research community because obesity is rising rapidly, and if it is hereditary, then how could that be so? They are in the genetics paradigm.
What they don't realize is how much heredity is influenced by the diet, lifestyle, and hormonal state of the parents at conception, and of the mother while the baby is chillin' in the uterine suite.
But if diet and lifestyle screwed up heredity, then the most likely way out is to correct the lifestyle and diet factors that led to the problem. Some have damage done (like hypothalamic lesions) that may make such strategies ineffective, but the problem as a whole must be addressed this way if ya axe me.
Mark and JT-
My next post in early March will talk about obesity and calories and I promise not to disappoint. I hope to bridge the gaps between your comments and those in stark disagreement above. Not to overhype, but the thoughts will be like nothing else that's ever come before it on this topic.
JT said,
"Matt,
Thank you for clarifying. I hope everyone will see that you are indeed talking about calories. I don't know why they couldn't see that since you mentioned it multiple times in your blog post."
Yes, of course Matt is talking about calories. And so was I. And so are many of the other commentators here. The disagreement comes from the fact that you seem to support, to some extent, a simplistic calories in/calories out view of body fat percentage. Notice that when many of the commentators are challenging you, that calories in/calories out is the idea they are taking issue with. They are not saying that calories don't matter.
Observe Matt's full quote: "To clarify, calories are everything! But what matters is not how many you eat, but how many you receive to the lean tissues."
If that is what you are saying, then we have no disagreement. However, as noted above, you really do seem to support calories in/calories out.
Would the real JT please step forward?
I can't stop thinking about that documentary. And the question of heredity. I think the key is that heredity *predisposes* us to stay lean or get fat when overeating or eating bad s**t. It's like some have immunity to the ill effects of overeating built in, while others have a predisposition to leptin resistance if they overeat. That's what we're saying, right? And overeating PUFAs and fructose is most damaging, as we all believe here.
So yes, the "naturally thin" can continue to eat whatever they want because their bodies are resistant to gaining fat (or put it all into muscle, like that lucky kid in the doc!). Those of us with more "fragile" metabolisms or endocrine systems can't withstand that same overeating without gaining weight, and if we have bad habits as children, it sets us up as adults.
I think about my parents – both of whom growing up ate what was the SAD in the 1940s and 1950s. Dad was skinny as a beanpole, but had overweight grandparents and diabetes in his family. Mom was skinny and has stayed skinny to the age of 71. She eats healthily but has never had a food or weight problem. She always eats toast for breakfast. With butter.
Dad is a compulsive eater with a sweet tooth, so he's had a weight problem since middle age and can't stop eating stuff like chocolate and jam. Interestingly, he was the one who introduced me to the Paleo diet years and years ago. He lost lots of weight on it but then slipped off it eventually.
Brothers and I grew up stuffing ourselves with sugar. Oldest brother became obese with multiple health probs (was super skinny until college), other brother is pretty normal sized (though not in good shape, eats tons of carbs and chugs soy milk and fruit juice), and I have yo-yoed 20-30 extra pounds ever since my first diet at age 13.
Soooo… we probably all ruined our metabolisms by overeating sugar and other bad stuff, but we could have turned out like my mother if we hadn't had the compulsive streak and had developed better habits. Oh, and both my parents, me and my maternal uncle and grandmother are hypothyroid (diagnosed and treated).
Of course, the Holy Grail is a method for reversing that damage and getting us back to being "calorie resistant" like we probably were when we were born. Is it possible? I'm fascinating by over-feeding experiments and am sort of doing my own right now – eating at least twice the calories I "need" every day for the last week. It's kind of thrilling to face my fear of weight gain head on.
Mark,
People in our society are afraid of feeling the sensation of hunger. Just because you are hungry doesn't mean you are doing metabolic damage. If you are in in for extreme physique enhancement, it may be something you have to learn to live with. If you just want to be healthy with an average body then you don't need to live with it.
Nathan,
It is true, and an established FACT. It has been shown over and over again in metabolic ward studies. Matt even agrees with this. The issue is compliance over the long term, and down regulation of BMR.
DML,
Please read my above posts to clarify what I am saying. Calories arent the only only factor when it comes to bodyfat %. Macronutrient ratio will play a big role, as well as type of exercise, and hormones. But, body mass is determined by calories in/calories out, what determines if it is going to be muscle, fat, or burned for energy is determined in large part by the above factors.
Gazelle,
We are not calorie resistant when we are born. Babies get VERY fat too! If not our chances of survival in nature would have been threatened.
Gazelle
If what you meant by "calorie resistant", was being more sensitive to proper hormonal activity, the two coming to mind are leptin and insulin, then yes that would be a Holy Grail.
Though I don't think that the simple act of overfeeding is enough to cause leptin resistance in its self. It seems from my understanding, it has to do more with the types of calories your ingesting.
JT just to clarify. What do you mean by compliance? Sticking with a natural highly nutritious diet over the long haul?
Nathan,
By compliance I mean a diet with calories not in excess of energy needs. Highly nutritious food is not necessary if your only goal is to lose fat, but it is obviously preferable for health reasons.
JT,
With that in mind, would you recommend at 60/30/10 or 50/30/20 carb/pro/fat breakdown if I seek "extreme physique enhancement"? Also, what calorie levels would should I shoot for? If that is what you are talking about, it sounds just like what Tom Venuto recommends. Thanks again.
Mark,
Probably wouldn't make a big difference man. Just go with what you can stick to and make adjustments based on how your body reacts over time. Try 10 X bodyweight to start out.
A healthy baby only gains fat for a short period of time. Then the baby experiences the greatest increase in lean mass to body fat by proportion than at any other time of life.
But children are coming into this world insulin resistant, and there are 6-month old kids that are obese relative to what can be considered healthy. Generally, the fatter the mother, the fatter the kid. Only problem is, the entire issue continues to get worse and worse and worse with each generation.
There's no question in my mind that kids are coming into the world with lower body temps, are producing more insulin in response to insulin resistance, hyperphagic, and generally show all the signs of being leptin resistant. They inherit these things.
They overeat because they store too much fat. They must overeat in order to satisfy lean tissues and hunger. If they do not with willpower they will feel the same extremely powerful physiological effects of starvation. The matter is far more complex than making the simple provision to eat less and exercise more. In fact, that advice can be counterproductive to the core problem.
Overeating does not cause leptin resistance. Ethan Sims showed that taking normal men and force-feeding them 10,000 calories per day for 6 months had no lasting effect on their weight. At the end of the experiment they simply had no appetite, had a huge metabolism, were primed for fat loss, and did so until they reached their starting weight (although I suspect with greater proportion of muscle to fat than they had at the start, the perfect mirror to cutting calories for 6 months).
A similar study has been pointed out by Russ Farris, where girls were overfed and insulin resistance decreased, a fairly reliable result of overfeeding – even if weight is gained in the process.
Also keep in mind that the fatter you are, the more calories you need to maintain basal balance. It takes a TON of calories to keep 800 pounds at 98.6F, circulate blood through all of that, etc. That's probably why overweight people can lose weight on high-calorie diets if they trigger fat release – whereas the thinner people who increase calories typically gain weight, as their maintenance calorie levels are typically much lower.
And yet another reason why small people can have high body temps and good health eating very little food.
JT said,
"DML,
Please read my above posts to clarify what I am saying. Calories arent the only only factor when it comes to bodyfat %. Macronutrient ratio will play a big role, as well as type of exercise, and hormones. But, body mass is determined by calories in/calories out, what determines if it is going to be muscle, fat, or burned for energy is determined in large part by the above factors."
I am aware that is the position you take when someone challenges you about calories in/calories out, and if you were consistent, I would be in agreement with you. But sometimes you seem to slip into calories in/calories out never-never land.
For instance:
"Matt,
And any others who believe in this as a cure for obesity.
Can you please give us an example of how you would treat an obese person who is sedentary using your principles? Say they are eating 10,000 calories a day and doing no physical exercise.
Please do not say you would just have them switch to eating as much natural unprocessed food as they want. This switch would automatically lead to caloric reduction. Every dietician in the country would give that advice, and that makes it boring."
Sounds like a subtle reference to calories in/calories out to me (and other people too, apparently). And how many overweight people literally eat 10,000 calories per day? Very, very few. And even if they do, what causes them to eat so much? Moreover, how do you explain the people, myself included, who have lost weight on HED?
–continued below–
–continued from above–
How about:
"Vida,
In my experience fat people always underestimate the amount of calories they eat. Skinny people frequently overestimate their calories as well. Look at all the scrawny guys at the gym who think they are eating enough to get big. Absorption can be a factor too."
If you said "some fat people" I would agree. However, you said "fat people always." This is nonsense. I have known fat people that eat considerably less than their leaner peers, while being only moderately less active. In sum, you seem to be subtly channelling calories in/calories out once again.
And:
"Can you point to any metabolic ward study where someone was eating calories below maintanence and did not lose any weight? I am definitely open to other possibilities. I am also very interested in hunter gatherer research as well, please post details of examples where their calorie intake was higher than output, yet they still remained lean."
Well, I don't know of any metabolical ward studies myself, but I think Ray Peat might be aware of some sort of study like that. On his Eluv interview, he mentioned women who were failing to lose weight on 700 calories a day. Moreover, there lots of anecdotal reports from people who have dramatically cut calories and still cannot lose weight. Some of those people are here, on Matt's blog. Are you going to turn around and tell them that they were still eating "too much?" What an elitist attitude; if I were one of those people, I would be justifiably annoyed. Anyway, the quote above seems to be once again subtly relying on calories in/calories out.
How about this as an example of calories in/calories out in terms of body fat:
"It has been shown again and again that overweight people greatly underestimate the amount of calories they are eating. No one is going to be obese if they are only taking in 1500 calories a day."
Oh come on! Really? I had an overweight roommate once who ate about that much everyday. He seemed to have reached equilibrium: he was not gaining or losing weight. He had very little muscle mass, and I bet that cutting calories would have only made the situation worse.
I agree that calories determine body mass, and that whether it "is going to be muscle, fat, or burned for energy" is determined by the factors you mentioned– and probably some others you didn't. What I object to in particular is the somewhat simplistic idea–an idea that you seem to promote– that all overweight people are overeating, that they are eating beyond appetite or energy needs. For instance, your statement about 10,000 calories a day or "fat people always underestimate the number of calories they eat." That is where calories in/calories out fails: It cannot explain why there are overweight people who are eating to appetite and their energy needs, who are, in fact, sometimes eating less than their leaner peers. Nor can it explain why there are obese individuals who are ravenously hungry, who eat loads of food and remain hungry, and are eating way beyond energy needs. It does not explain why these physiological phenomena occur…
So when you talk about how much the overweight are eating, as you did in the quotes above, you seem to be missing the point. Even if you do add nuance, and can give a nuanced explanation when asked.
Solid DML. Way to keepz it real.
D as in "dat's"
M as in "my"
and
L as in "logic"
Matt, DML, and all other believers,
I will repeat my question from above.
Can you please give us an example of how you would treat an obese person who is sedentary using your principles? Say they are eating 10,000 calories a day and doing no physical exercise.
Please do not say you would just have them switch to eating as much natural unprocessed food as they want. This switch would automatically lead to caloric reduction. Every dietician in the country would give that advice, and that makes it boring.
Nice post DML, you seemed to have noticed the same as I did from JT the only difference is that I didn't have the time/need/will/care to pursue it any further with JT cause after all I just don't comprehend what I read very well and obviously you don't either lol
DML, if the calorie theory isn't true, then why is it that it ALWAYS work once they are in a controlled situation like metabolic ward studies?
Don't underestimate the power of self deception. Especially when it comes to emotionally charged things like diet. Just because people think they are eating a certain amount doesn't mean it is true.
Recently read a hypothesis that humans' larger primate brain allowed for finding food using digging tools. Some dug up foods, surprise-surprise, contain carbohydrates e.g. yams, sweet potatoes, etc. Others have protein and fat, clams, oysters, etc. Then there are the root vegetables, carrots, beets, onions, etc.
You heard it here first -The Underground Diet- Mole people of the world unite!
Dr. Poppy here. Matt et al, there is exploding research that breastfeeding can counteract many a genetic predisposition to weight problems, heart problems, metabolic syndrome in the baby and get this, the nursing woman herself later in life. I have a lot of the research links on my Facebook page if you're interested. I guarantee you those obese 6 month olds are all formula fed (see Dr. Lustig's formula=baby milkshake comments). However, I will also say that exclusively breastfed babies are often quite chubby with lots of fat rolls that amazingly dissolve away when they become mobile. So the best way to address the genetic component is to breastfeed a child as much and as long as possible. To those adults who were not breastfed and have poor genes, they are clearly at a metabolic disadvantage which is why so many people struggle with this issue. However, as to the calorie debate…our bodies are designed to maintain homeostasis, which is to say that with hormonal and leptin balance, increasing calories would cause us to upregulate, decreasing calories would cause us to downregulate. However, since the thyroid is the seat of the metabolic rate and the body temperature, if it is dysfunctional, either overtly with obviously detectable hypothyroidism, or sub-"clinical" with normal blood work and low iodine levels, then the body is unable to compensate for increasing caloric rates and decreasing exertion and weight gain ensues. As for the chicken and the egg argument about which comes first, weight difficulties or hormone imbalance, my belief is that men and pre-menopausal women will have better response just focusing on dietary issues for awhile in hopes of improving their hormones, it will just take longer. Post-menopausal women have almost no choice in the matter and most have to have some attention paid to their hormonal dysfunction if they have any hope of restarting their metabolism.
Dr. Poppy – definitely.
JT-
If you find a metabolic ward study where subjects lose weight via calorie restriction and maintain that weight loss for over 2 years, please let Jules Hirsch and Jeffrey Friedman know. They have spent their entire lives doing obesity research and haven't found anything that can perform that yet.
I'll get into specific calculations on our 800 pound kid in my next blog post and podcast.
Matt,
I have already said that the problem is long term adherence. This is no secret! Every person working in the field knows this. That is why I advocate hormone therapy and calorie cycling for long term maintenance.
But, it still doesn't dispute the FACT that calories will determine body mass.
I can't wait to see how you will increase calories on people already eating over 10k calories and yet still cause them to lose fat without exercise.
I have done a lot of readng up on the gentic/heredity and breastfeeding….most of what i have concluded is if you were fomula fed(like myself) then you are at a disadvantage, no matter how you play your cards, mend your diet, over or undereat, you will have more hormonal/leptin/insulin problems than the breast fed baby
Oh man, I've missed a good conversation! LOL @ the discussion on whether the girl in the photo is fat/normal/attractive/unattractive/all of the above.
Personally, I've never had any trouble finding men to worship my fine self. Including when I was over 200 lbs. (So yes, definitely fatter than the badly-dressed girl in the photo.)
In my experience guys will always have sex with a hot, yet fat, girl… they just won't always admit it to their friends.
I have done a lot of readng up on the gentic/heredity and breastfeeding….most of what i have concluded is if you were fomula fed(like myself) then you are at a disadvantage, no matter how you play your cards, mend your diet, over or undereat, you will have more hormonal/leptin/insulin problems than the breast fed baby
JT, you didn't answer my post.
Anyway, let me get some facts straight. If a person eats less when he goes from Satan's Aproved Diet to a natural foods diet, that fact is not boring or simple.
Going from a restricted diet (low carb, low cal) to a free diet can cause overeating. Yet going from SAD to whole foods may cause the contrary effect. If you were really hungry, if you really wanted to eat us much as you did on Sadistic Atherogenic Doer, I doubt it would be difficult to do so on natural foods only. Potatoes and butter, for instance, are foods easily eaten, easily digested, tasty and add up calories fast. IF people indeed eat less, it is not because natural foods are just less appetizing or "eatable", I believe. The reason would be that whatever that was disrupting THEIR NATURAL BODY MECHANISMS OF ENERGY INTAKE (HUNGER) AND EXPENDITURE has been removed.
If fructose with linoleic acid and inflammation cause leptin resistance (inadequate satiety) among other issues, and if populations living of natural foods ARE NEVER OVERWEIGHT, then the sole factor of allowing the body to stay away from those toxins, get nourished and heal should suffice to, in time, REDUCE THE APPETITE ADN INCREASE THE ENERGY UTILIZATION AND EXPENDITURE. In other words, the calories are not to be blamed, it is Sam's Assisted Destruction what shoult be blamed, because if the person hadn't been born in such an unhealthy enviroment, his natural hunger would be adequately regulated, etc.
Even if a person manages to lose weight with the mere reduction of calories, the fact that he has to excersice willpower to stick to the diet means that he is still unhealthy and that his own body is telling him that he is undernourished. And of course, it's not hard to stretch that a bit and say that he is indeed very, very undernourished.
In short, the sole reduction in appetite a natural foods diet can bring is not a simple matter of "carrots and potatoes are hard to eat", it's a matter of the body finally getting in homeostasis. Any counter-arguments?
And Matt, really, man, what goes up in your mind. Sexual inuendo? Cereal mascots? WTF? Besides, I don't see any, want my money back.
Malpaz, I was formula fed also. I hope, however, that at least a great part of the disadvantage can be overcomed through the right choices. Haven't you heard of epigenetics? The enviroment can movilize your cells to activate or de-activate genes, so things are not written in stone.
Besides, Matt's advice of eating to satiety (how risky) or even overeating is not directed to obsese people eating SAD, but rather to people damaged by dieting or just sick people. I actually believe that an obese boy who eats 10k calories a day would most likely reduce his caloric intake once he changed his diet to a "natural" one, maybe feel really satiated for the first time in his life, though that depends in how damaged his hormone system really is. I also believe someone who comes from a restrictive diet would probably overeat in that same "natural" diet compared to what he ate before, and at the same time I'm convinced that such behavior is just natural and actually a healing process. Going against your urges even more certainly won't "break the cycle of hunger", nor will stop the deteriorating health.
It's like the balancing effects thyroid supplementation can have (channeling Peat here), with the underweight hypothyroid gaining waight, and the overweight one losing it.
@JT
I'm getting a bit frustrated reading this, so here's another explanation… Your fat person who now eats 10 000 cals of SAD per day – if this person switched those 10 000 cals/d to unprocessed, nutritious foods, isn't it logical that all those nutrients would make this person's body work better -> increase metabolism -> burn more calories… and suddenly this person, eating the same amount of calories, would be losing weight? Maybe weight loss could even be achieved with him/her eating more calories than before, I don't see why that would be impossible at all.
Not to even mention the other argument that a healthy body would probably normalize excessive appetite in the long run and people would lose weight for that reason as well – like ELK66 said, this argument is definitely not "boring".
Why is it so hard to understand that calories do matter, but in a context of HOW MANY YOU BURN, i.e. your basal metabolic rate? Since like forever, when I wasn't into all this nutrition/health stuff at all, with hardly any knowledge of biochemistry etc., I've been asking myself why everyone thinks it's all about the amount of ingested calories. I've known back then that when someone is hypothyroid, they will get fat and vice versa. So it's obviously not so simple.
Also, I'm one of those people who can eat anything and everything they want and not gain weight. And I can tell you, I don't eat few calories at all (and no I'm not exaggerating my calorie intake, I measured it several times and it is high). I am quite a hungry person and very often stuff myself – never in my life with SAD though, but still my diet used to be far from perfect – and people around me are always amazed how come I can eat so much and never gain weight. I've tried eating even more to get fatter in the past and have never succeeded – my metabolism just adjusts. The only time I gained a little bit of fat was when I stopped low-carbing, which slowed my metabolism. Well I guess after it |'m not skinny anymore, so it's not all that bad :-)
So JT, I really don't understand your argument – or am I missing something?
Sorry guys I am really not meaning to offend anyone. I know that it is very hard for those struggling with obesity. Underestimation of food intake is not some sort of new idea I am coming up with. Every professional in this area knows this is a big problem. Those in the struggle may take this as a personal attack on them, but it is not.
I am guilty of this as well. When I first bought a scale and weighed and measured everything I ate and wrote it all down, I was shocked. There was a huge disconnect between what i thought I was eating, and what was really going down.
Everyone has anecdotal reports about someone who they think eats nothing, yet is still obese, or the skinny guy who eats a ton yet never gains a pounds. The problem is, all the controlled studies where they can actually verify this show that this isn't true.
If I was fat and had verified that I had only been eating 1500 calories a day, I would go to the doctor immediately and get checked out. I know of a case where this happened to a woman and she ended up having a tumor on her pituitary causing to much cortisol to be produced. If you have a severe hormonal problem like this, then no diet will work for you. Hormones are king, and anyone with severe weight problems should have them checked out by an expert who specializes in this area.
I don't know how many times I have to repeat this. I agree that the best choice for most is to eat a healthy natural diet, and avoid all processed food. It is difficult (not impossible) to consume excess calories eating this way, and this is why people lose weight. Like I said before, every dietician in the world reccomends this.
This is not what we are arguing here, and this is not what makes Matt's idea interesting. He is focusing on CALORIES. He is saying that it is the decrease in calories that causes people to be fat, not the increase. Please re-read Matt's post before you tell me that it is not about calories, he even said it was all about calories.
JT, please don't complicate things so much – Matt thinks about calories, but in the context of health: one has to get healthy to normalize appetite (decrease calorie intake) and increase metabolic rate (burn more calories). Forced restriction of food intake is a step towards starvation and can, despite short-term success, further damage your health and slow down your metabolism, which leads to more weight gain in the long run. I know people who lost, and then gained back, literally a ton in their lifetime with various diets – do you really think that was good for them? These people are all pretty much mental by now and on yet another diet.
And one does not have to have a severe hormonal problem to be prone to storing fat – things are not black and white, there are plenty shades of grey in between. Go and read books Matt recommends on hypothyroidism, for example.
No I don't think you should repeat yourself more because it seems we're not getting anywhere with this discussion…
Calories, even if they do determine body mass, do not determine body composition. In addition, when one eats over maintenance levels, certain physiological feedback mechanisms are supposed to kick in – everything from raised metabolism and decreased hunger to increased fecal calories. These don't kick in for an obese person because the lean tissues are starving and they remain in starvation mode.
I wouldn't have an obese person eating 10K calories increase calories. Rather, the key is feeding them foods that decrease hunger. The foods decrease hunger BECAUSE they trigger fat release, whereas how they are eating currently as they gain weight causes fat storage.
Obesity researchers can't get adherence because their patients are starving their lean tissues, which causes lack of adherence. Their diets cause starvation of lean tissues and metabolic adaptation to that. That's what this post is about. The mice adapted to lowered calories by sacrificing lean tissues and storing more fat (and we all know they were hungrier afterwards and gained even more).
So yes, cutting calories will make you lose weight. If done with willpower instead of automatically through various food choices, then your metabolism will slow down, your hunger will go up, and you will be physically fatter – even on fewer calories than you ate prior. The short-term impact is typically the exact opposite of the long-term impact.
And… If the goal is to eat to appetite without gaining weight, lowering intake will typically take one farther away from that destination.
Great commentary everyone.
Excellent response by El66k in particular.
And life goes on after bottle feeding. I've yet to have a single drop of breast milk in my life.
I just posted a podcast furthering this conversation a bit. You can access it through the podcast tab on the upper right or paste this into your browser.
http://youtube.com/180degreehealth
Go listen to Matt's podcast!! And thanks for the mention, Matt :-)
Hey, I was an obese person who ate (binge ate) on the SAD. Now I'm an obese person who eats moderately on a whole foods WAPF-type diet. My body may not have changed much (except for glowing skin, years long psoriasis disappeared, no more binge eating or deep cravings, better energy overall) meaning I have not lost any weight but my eating has changed. I don't binge. I don't crave sweets all the time. So whoever is arguing that better foods make a difference I can say "you're right". They do. Now to heal my metabolism (armpit temp was 96 this morning) so I can have a slender strong body that works! Can't wait for Matt's revised book in April.
The original article claims that calories consumed in the U.K. are down 20%–is that true? I find that very hard to believe and I certainly don't believe it is true in the U.S. Pollan provides information of the increasing number of calories per person and that can't all be food waste.
I have no doubt that caloric deficiency can suppress metabolism, especially after multiple attempts, and that can contribute to greater difficulty losing weight with caloric deficiency, but not no ability. If people keep applying a lot of willpower, they can keep losing by cutting calories enough, but they will make their metabolisms worse, so when they finally give up, fewer calories are needed to make them fat. So constant dieting could be a contributing cause of obesity for people _once they've given up on dieting_. But surely, at a population level, very few people actually cut their calories much ever at all–far from it, calorie consumption along with sedentary lifestyles, has increased. If I'm wrong on this, I'd like to be corrected.
Of course, I don't think greater calories than energy expended is the primary reason for the obesity epidemic, and I think you miss the point of Taubes' discussion of low-calorie, low carb diets. The idea is not low carb is a good way to do low calorie, but that low carb doesn't make you ravenously hungry like high carb does, causing you to gorge on more carbs, and pump more insulin, etc. This does not mean that low-carb eaters consume fewer calories in real life. Even if they go for longer periods between meals, they may eat more calories at those meals. I don't know if low carbers end up with suppressed metabolisms (or just how low carb for how long would be needed for this), but what is clear is that the macronutrient ratios have shifted over the past couple decades against fats and in favor of carbs.
And many of those carbs are refined, including lots of sugar and HFCS. So it may or may not be total carbs alone that is causing the obesity epidemic, but it is a good guess that there is some kind of connection to some kind of carbs. From my reading of Taubes, he is agnostic about whether carbs in general or just refined carbs are the key villain. Part of his point is that this requires new research that has not occurred because of the continued assumption that dietary fat is the key problem.
Matt,
So you are not saying that you would raise calories in an obese person? You would have them eat less by having them eat foods that decrease hunger? This is why low carb works so well, it naturally blunts the appetite, and creates a calorie deficit. If this is what you are saying, then we have no disagreement. That is the goal of every professional in the biz. But, it really seems like your article did claim that they were fat because they decreased calories.
You also agree with me that calories will determine body mass, but not composition. Again, hormones are the key here as well. I really believe that the future of treatment in this area will focus almost completely on hormone manipulation.
One of my best friends lives on Doritos and cookies, almost never eating normal food. He is huge and completely ripped. He almost never works out. He can gain and lose weight, by how much he is eating, but his body composition always stays the same. He is a genetic freak, and his hormonal situation is superior to 99% of the population. I believe the average person could benefit greatly if they could manipulate their hormonal situation to mimic that of the genetically elite.
Just listened to the podcast. All I can say is I hope the rabbit hole we're about to go down isn't a PSMF. because I've been there/done that/hated it…
JT,
C'mon man, you are killing us here.
You make an arugment against anecdotal reports by saying:
"Everyone has anecdotal reports about someone who they think eats nothing, yet is still obese, or the skinny guy who eats a ton yet never gains a pounds. The problem is, all the controlled studies where they can actually verify this show that this isn't true."
Then 2 posts later say:
"One of my best friends lives on Doritos and cookies, almost never eating normal food. He is huge and completely ripped. He almost never works out. He can gain and lose weight, by how much he is eating, but his body composition always stays the same."
Again, the focus here is not to cut or harp on calories – it is to heal by eating real, unprocessed, nutrient dense foods to satiety so that your bodies natural feedback mechanisms are now free to function normally now that the poisons have been removed.
So for some, that may mean more calories SHORT TERM; for others it may not.
What we are saying is if your hypothetical 10k calories/day person came to us; we would instruct him or her to eat REAL, unprocessed, nutrient dense foods when they are hungry…and to satiety.
Whether that ends up being more or less calories than they currently consume…WE DON'T CARE. As the primary focus is to heal the system FIRST so that it can then function properly – so that the calories that you do ingest are used properly.
There is either some lack of reading comprehension or communication issue at play for this to have gone on this long….
I don't know if low carbers end up with suppressed metabolisms (or just how low carb for how long would be needed for this)
Let me tell you one thing. It absolutely does suppress the metabolism. I'm living proof of that. At the moment I am thinking that low-carb becoes dangerous the moment you aren't obese anymore. I never was obese, quite the contrary, so it didn't took much time for low-carb to mess me up, even though I didn't wanna admit this for a long time.
Russell,
Yes, like i said everyone has anecdotal reports. Their is no contradiction there. And my anecdotal report does not conflict with the metabolic ward studies which confirm that calories will determine body mass. This has been the only FACT where there is disagreement. But, Matt does not disagree with it, only some of his followers dispute the calorie theory. If you will look closely at what I have said, and what Matt has said, you will see that we don't disagree on much.
Please re-read Matt's blog post. It is 100% focused on calories and he said the reason they were fat was because of the chronic calorie deficiency which reduced the metabolic rate. This is what makes Matt's post interesting, if he was just saying to eat healthy food, then it would not be very interesting because every mainstream nutritionist says this.
I agree completely that we need to focus on healing the system first like Schwarzbein said. I am a big fan of her's.
..the problem is most mainstream nutritionists don't know what healthy food is. God knows the one at my club doesn't. But I digress.
This is in addition to having people focus on restricting the calories BEFORE the system has been healed. That's why there is no long term success because they have never healed the system and restored lost lean tissue, etc. The body is still starving for nutrients.
While this one specific post may have dealt with calories, other posts focus on a host of other interacting mechanisms/variables which ALL play a role in health and obesity – not just calories alone. We discuss the WHOLE SYSTEM as we understand it, as opposed to the industry that I work in focusing strictly on eating less and exercising more..which is why we have failed people miserably.
We are simply asking folks to see the forest through the trees as the saying goes…..
Russell,
Good point.
What is healthy food? Is what is healthy for one person healthy for another? In my experience, no. I just about killed myself eating low carb/paleo for many years, but for an obese person, this may be the way to go until they can get lean enough to handle more carbs.
Also, how many people stay fat on a "healthy" diet? Look at Andrew Weill. There are plenty of people who can stay fat eating all organic, homemade natural foods. I could down 10k of organic chocolate cake pretty easily, and then justify it by saying it is all natural. People were fat back in the old days eating traditional foods, even though it wasn't as prevalent as today.
If you want to just focus on eating healthy food and enjoying your life, then do that, but don't think that just because you are eating "healthy" foods you are going to get lean and muscular. Don't worry if you are a little overweight, you can be healthy and a little plump. People obsess over the aesthetic aspects to much in my opinion. Look at Opera, she has everything, but she is still unhappy and obsesses over her weight.
Matt,I know how you are against LC diet as optimal and that you are an intelligent guy who is open to all possibilities.Is it possible that LC went down the wrong road when people started dropping the protein and upping the fat.Could this be why the body starts to shut down and people gain weight while VLC?
I say this because I googled hypothyroid and found links stating that protein deprivation actually reduces thyroid hormones since they are made from protein.Just want you to maybe look into that for us as you seem to be able to find out a ton of stuff that maybe could help out LC'ers who say have diabetes and cannot benefit from your advice of upping metabolism because of increased starch.
So, a lot of people are coming here with the question: to carb or not to carb?
I think that going on a low-carb diet is still a good idea for weight loss for the same reason that feeding carbs to farm animals induces weight gain. Do these animals have insulin resistance? Thanks to Matt, I now doubt it. But they do get fat. This has historically always been known.
It's because of the insulin. Insulin is the fat storing hormone, is it not? And I believe Dr. Eades that when there is insulin higher than glucagon, it is physically impossible to be burning the fat stores in your body.
So while I now believe that insulin spikes do not necessarily cause insulin resistance, if you are trying to lose weight, it makes sense that the less insulin is provoked, the more rapidly you will lose weight. Maybe this also requires a calorie deficit so that you actually use your own fat stores. This is why people lose weight on low carb diets.
But, thanks to Matt, I am questioning: Is this healthy? Does this fix the underlying metabolic problem, or is it a way to constantly sidestep the issue?
People are most likely obese because of insulin resistance, which makes insulin elevated all the time, and it gets even higher with meals with carbs. In this case there's no time to really unload the fat stores, as there normally should be. Perhaps people can lose fat but still not be healthy. The theory that Matt is proposing here is that correcting the metabolism is the true cure.
Perhaps on Matt's diet, people can expect to temporarily gain weight, because of the insulin spikes, and also because lean body tissue is rebuilding. But, (and I don't know why he proposes this), the insulin spikes will supposedly CURE leptin resistance (along with ommision of fructose, omega 6's), thus correcting the metabolism and curing insulin resistance. When this happens, even if the carb eating continues, the person may start to lose weight because the fat stores will have a chance to be released inbetween meals. (Although, perhaps carbs aren't necessary at this point, and a person will lose weight even faster by avoiding them?)
So, according to the farm animal model, a person could get fat by constantly eating a ton of carbs. Also, if the person does NOT have insulin resistance, the fat could be lost by taking a break from carbs once a day and being active. But thanks to fructose and omega 6's, people usually get obese because of insulin resistance (though, I have still not heard the proposed mechanism as to how fructose/O6 causes this). And so, until that problem is solved, these people have a disposition to gain weight, whenever there's an instance of carb-eating or calorie surplus. That's why I'm theorizing that low carb may work, but it may be sidestepping the issue.
Jared,when you eat protein glucagon is also secreted alongside of insulin.This is why I wonder if a high protein lowfat/low carb diet is optimal for fatloss.
If you look at a professional bodybuilders diet you will find they eat a super high protein diet with super low fat and just enough carbohydrates to workout.Some of these guys are eating 10 pounds of fish per day to grow on and cutting down to 5 pounds to get cut on.
Now how is it that they are eating 500gms protein per day and losing bodyfat to ridiculously low levels if protein also causes insulin secretion……and there in we go back to glucagon.
Is it possible that LC went down the wrong road when people started dropping the protein and upping the fat.
I believe that is absolutely NOT the case. If you go low-carb, you better eat fat like crazy, or you'll be sure to mess your metabolism up. You need to get your calories from somewhere and gluconeogenesis isn't the most advantageous thing as far as I'm concerned. High fat is an absolute must on a low-carb dietif you ask me.
I think that going on a low-carb diet is still a good idea for weight loss for the same reason that feeding carbs to farm animals induces weight gain
Could you please elaborate on that? Do you have any concrete examples? The only example that comes to my mind right now is feeding grains to cows and that does not count at all. Cows were never meant to eat grains.
Many obese people NEVER restricted calories in their entire lifes, so prolongued dieting and subsequent binges destroying metabolism are not the only ways of packing on excessive body fat. Some people eating a low-fructose diet based on natural foods can still be fat, like Sumo wrestlers, as Matt has mentioned.
So what do all have in common? They mantained a calorie surplus for too long.
On the other hand, lots of people are lean while eating lots of sugar, n-6 fatty acids, etc. I know closely a man (he is in his mid 50s now) who has been drinking for decades liters of tea per day with lots of refined sugar in it. He works in a farm and he is ripped as hell. Do you know which food is his main calorie contributor? Sugar. The fructose-leptin theory clearly can’t explain this. And of course, many people are lean eating only natural foods, low-fructose, low n-6, etc. I am an example.
What we all have in common? We don’t ingest more energy than what we expend.
In the end, it’s all about calories. They explain every exception to the many theories going around. And metabolic ward studies clearly show that when researchers actually control what subjects eat, NOBODY escapes to the reality of calories.
Now, Matt’s novel approach of satiating appetite by eating natural foods without restricting any macronutrient is the best strategy to eliminate food obsessions and binges, which are so typical during prolongued dieting.
Max.
I'm not sure what you're arguing against with that post Max, but the interesting question isn't why some are lean and some are obese. It's why some are spontaneously lean even though they always eat to satiety and don't exercise more than they want to, while others have to work actively against weight gain, every day of their lives, else become obese.
@Wolf…
Regarding the high protein low fat idea, there is a chapter on this in Barry Groves' book. A few reasons he gives against this are: 1) even lean meat is mostly fat, calorically speaking, 2) ketones are a preferred source of fuel for most body tissues 3) vitamin A, which is only readily available in animal fats, is necessary for the metabolism of proteins. He gives examples of Stefansson's experimenting with the ratios. I also remember learning from the WAPF that the American Indians knew of "rabbit sickness", or sickness from eating only lean meat; and also that fat was very well liked and sought after by hunter-gatherers across the board.
But, now that starch isn't demonized to me, maybe it's suitable if you get the non-protein calories from starch rather than fat, as long as you get enough vitamin A somehow. Maybe that's how the body builders are doing it. I agree that the increased glucagon would counteract the increased insulin, which isn't that much with protein anyways.
@madMUHHH (lolwut?)
I can't remember where I heard that, other than from my mother, but I'm sure it's well known. They fed grain to cows, pigs, chickens, whatever, to make them fatter, because they actually preferred fatty meat. I assume that's why fatty meat used to be the most expensive– because it was more expensive to feed the animals grains than just grass (in the days before government subsidized corn, that is!). I just came across a concrete example when I looked up the "Foie gras" that Matt was raving about. On the Wikipedia article you can see the relief of how the Egyptians used to force feed grain to geese in order to make them have fatty livers. And they really mean force feed– it shows them wetting the grain so they could better cram it down the birds' throats… which really seems quite cruel. :(
I wonder if they could have had the same effect by feeding the birds fructose, as the same effect seems to occur with "Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease", as seen in soda-drinking children.
On a sort of related note, I find it strange that Matt's list of Omega 6 sources has grain-fed beef as lower omega 6 than grass-fed. That really doesn't match up with this evidence: http://www.texasgrassfedbeef.com/id73.htm. (I guess someone should tell nutritiondata.com.)
Max, good points.
You can definitely stay lean eating high sugar/fructose. Even Schwarzbein who everyone loves around here says she stayed skinny by eating mostly sugar. And, even though I avoid omega 6 and all PUFAS for health reasons, you can still stay lean eating them.
Your example of the sumo wrestlers was a good choice. It also interesting to note that they eat high carb and fat. When eating high carb and high fat it makes it much easier to overeat, which is what they are aiming for. They would have a really hard time maintaing their weight if they had to eat low carb or low fat. That is the diference between sumo wrestlers and bodybuilders, the sumo wrestlers eat high carb and fat, and the bodybuilders are either low carb or low fat.
I doubt anyone really knows what the cause of leptin resistance is yet. My guess in regards to leptin resistance is chronic excess calorie consumption and low activity levels over long periods of time.
Jared,
You have to have either carbs or fat as a protein sparing nutrient or you will get sick from "rabbit starvation" from too much protein.
Carbs are not fattening. How many fat fruitarians have you seen? Look at all the skinny asians who only eat grains.
I think my point didn't get across.
One starts lowering the protein amounts=lowering of metabolism.
I say this because of how well people lose bodyfat on high protein.I think that just eating meat to appetite might be what the people who seem to be gaining bodyfat on VLC actually need.
I don't agree with rabbit starvation and here is why.I believe that happens only when someone is very lean from say a harsh winter.Then without any bodyfat to make ketones the exrta lean rabbit meat will cause a condition where there is no energy able to be made.If you look at PSMF diets that are around 1000calories of pure protein you hear of no rabbit starvation from people who do this for months at a time.
I agree we need to eat alot of fat also.Its easier on the body then to go high protein.But as I said above….
What if going low protein is the cause of metabolism slowdown for many LC'ers……Matt??
I don't agree with rabbid starvation
Now that's just silly. That's like saying "I don't agree with rain". Rabbit starvation is a fact, a (relatively) well observed phenomenon and you are starting to feel the adverse reactions of it (diarrhea etc) very soon, if you only eat protein, regardless of body fat.
Also even the leanest person has enough bodyfat to keep going for a very long time and the Indians who experienced rabbit starvation weren't all nearly starved to death.
And I think it is equally silly to say that lowering the amount of protein will lower the metabolsim 8except if you go so low that you can't meet your body's structural needs). Protein is the macronutrient that's the hardest to metabolize, simply because it's not meant to be metabolized in a significant way in the first place. Protein is mainly a building material for your body, not a fuel source. Gluconeogenesis is the most ineffective way to get you caloried and if anything will only lower the metabolism.
I think rabbit starvation is a digestive phenomenon and has nothing to do with metabolism.
Madmuhhh,
Granting you are right about low carb suppressing your metabolism, the question is whether the cause of the obesity epidemic is more likely to be calorie-deprivation metabolism issues or excessive carbs or sugar. I find it very hard to believe that all those very fat people out there are fat because they've been dieting too much and not because they eat massive amounts of junky carbs.
Then the debate can be about whether its sugar, refined carbs, or all carbs that are responsible, but it can't be calorie-deprivation because people, by and large, are not depriving themselves of calories. Instead, they've eaten more carbs to try to be low-fat, or they just ate more of both.
Bill
To be clear: I never said that calorie deprivation is the cause of the obesity epidemic. In fact I don't think I ever said anything about the obesity eipidemic. Just wanted to state that, because your last comment made it a bit sound like that.
The reason people lose so much weight on the all protein diets is because you can eat that much straight protein or you will get sick. It is also wasteful, because you body will just turn the proteins into glucose anyways. A lot of the fitness competitors will do this for their shows and completely destroy their metabolisms. If you want to see cases of real and severe metabolic damage look at these people, it is a sad secret in the business.
You do need an adequate amount of protein to have a healthy metabolism. If your protein intake is not sufficient, it will slow down, Ray Peat talks about the importance of protein intake.
Madmuhhh,
Well, my discussion about metabolism vs. carb theories of obesity was directed at the post by Matt. You pointed out that LC damaged your metabolism in response to my post, and I was just trying to suggest that even if this was common among low-carbers and other dieters, it would not explain the obesity epidemic as Matt had claimed.
I used to always post about rabbit starvation and how we must eat fat.
Madmuhhh,my stance on rabbit starvation changed when I found people doing just straight protein and dropping massive amounts of bodyfat.So the only thing I can think of that would make sense here is that the people(not just indians) who experienced this were super thin.
Also from what I gather rabbit starvation starts to happen towards end of a winter when the rabbits become super lean from exhausting their bodyfat reserves.So why wouldn't people be super lean?To begin with I doubt there was obese people back then and so they would be getting lean rather quickly when times were tough.
Now lowering the amount of protein might actually lower metabolism is silly?Why is that silly but lowering carbohydrates is fact?If people are experiencing metabolic slowdown that seems to get bumped with carbohydrate then why not from excess protein injestion…..it does raise blood glucose levels after all.
And if you google protein deficiency and hypothyroid you get alot of sites that claim protein malnutrition can cause hypothyroidism.When people are dropping protein to levels below what they even feel satiety from then this could very well occur…IMO
Just two:
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:FZFMLq8QoscJ:www.drwells.net/nutrition/topics/Hypothyroid.htm+protein+deficiency+hypothyroid&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:Aw3ZsRTG4qcJ:www.thyroid-info.com/articles/ray-peat.htm+protein+deficiency+hypothyroid&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Also why is it that the natives that are known to prize the fat and eat very little lean.Now why would they do this I always ask myself.To lose bodyfat?No way!
So I think that overtime people came to realize that lowering the protein amounts would cause weight gain.Just a theory I have and nothing more.
@Vida
Not all of China uses sugar; at least not Wuhan, which is central and where my mom taught English for a summer. She was amazed to find that they really don't have a taste for sweet things. They don't sweeten their tea, they don't have desserts, and what they called "cake" over there was largely unsweetened. For the record, they also don't eat a lot of rice; it was served last at meals and considered to be cheap food for the poor. Meals were largely meat, broth, vegetable, and noodles. A yogurt drink was also popular. Maybe you saw the more Americanized Chinese cities like Shanghai or Hong Kong on TV. Also, while Matt has a point that they typically aren't obese, even if they eat a lot of starch, we shouldn't hold the Chinese as a whole as examples of great health. Dr. Eades said something about the China Study like, sure their heart attack rate was half of the US's, but their stroke rate was six times as much. Diet and habits probably vary greatly by region. (One thing I think is terrible is that they use a TON of MSG; probably moreso than Americans. The name they give it translates to "Flavor Gold"!)
@madMUHHH
Why do you think white flour is higher in phytic acid? I thought that the phytates are mostly in the bran and outer covering. I take Barry Groves' advice and only eat white bread, now that I've reintroduced bread. Sure I think that organic, sprouted, freshly ground bread would be more nutritious, but I don't think it's necessary, and there's actually a lot of reasons to avoid whole grain bread from stores: 1) way more pytates, even sprouted, 2) bran is irritating, undigestable fiber 3) unless freshly ground, the vitamin E is oxidized, 3) if not organic (and maybe even if, I don't know), the outside of the grain, which is usually stored in silos for months, has either highly toxic molds growing on it (which gets left in the cracks), or is covered with the fumigants that they fill the silo with in order to prevent the molds. Personally, I'd rather they shave the outside of the grain off. It's not like there's some sort of vital nutrition in it that you can't get elsewhere. I'd consider bread as a source of starch and that's it. I buy a cheap kind of sourdough bread that has been naturally leavened with sourdough culture (hopefully that helps with the remaining phytates/toxins).
@JT
Carbs are not fattening. How many fat fruitarians have you seen? Look at all the skinny asians who only eat grains.
See above regarding some misconceptions about the Asian diet, although you're right– there are places that eat a lot of carbs, perhaps even without the protein and fat that would maintain optimal health, and are still skinny. My guess is that in these places there is probably a sizable calorie deficit, although it's possible these people are also better adapted genetically to carbs– isn't it true that rice was one of the first cultivated grains? And as for fruitarians or raw vegans, they are often emaciated because you can never get nearly enough calories from these sources (not to mention protien). Besides, fruits are low-GI, thanks to fructose, and I was talking about the effects of frequently stimulating insulin. (Vegetarians, however, I've often known to be quite chubby, though maybe it was the sugar and/or hormonal disturbance.)
I was just pointing out why low-carb does often work for weight loss, whether it adresses the true problem or not.
Jared,
I have lived and Asia and i can assure you that the diet is high in starch, mostly white rice. But, they do eat a lot less food than westerners. I would be embarrassed sometimes because I would have to eat double or triple what everyone else ate just to feel normal.
But, again it all comes down to calories. That is what will determine body mass.
Frequently stimulating insulin does not cause one to be fat either. Almost all bodybuilders, even when dieting for shows stimulate insulin many times a day by eating high GI carbs. They usually eat starch like white rice/rice cakes, and chicken breast/tuna 6 times a day. THey do this and obtain extreme low bodyfat levels.
JT,actually a VLC diet is used by most professional bodybuilders since they want very low insulin levels.Some go keto while others stay out but do one day with carbs and the next low carb.They do high glycemic post workout.
In my experience, low-carb does not actually help with fat loss or help you to shred anything but lean mass. I starved 80 lbs off and then switched to low-carb, hoping it would help me lose the rest. Not only did I NOT continue to lose, I started to slowly gain weight, even on a diet of no more than 1400 calories a day (weighing, measuring and charting everything). Even on a zero-carb carnivorous diet for over 2 years, I did nothing but find myself going cold, losing energy, feeling depressed and obsessed and losing all my muscle. I gained 15 lbs in that 2 years, even on caloric restriction. I now have 'subclinical hypothyroidism' and am battling a completely wrecked metabolism.
And the comments continue!
Low-carb only "works" and is not harmful in one situation – when it is triggering a great deal of fat loss. When it does so, lean tissues get flooded with calories, lean mass is maintained, and even eating very few calories, as long as the fat is pouring off at a quick rate, there is little downside.
Unfortunately, there are 2 sides to the protein issue. Too much or too little are both a big strain on the metabolism. Although fat and carbohydrate intakes vary across the globe and have for millenia, from nearly zero carb to nearly zero fat, traditional diets all had almost identical protein amounts.
I think the pitfalls of low-carb are:
1) With too little carbohydrate and excessive protein you trigger gluconeogenesis, which seems to me to be major negative and can cause tons of lean tissue loss as the body becomes more adept at breaking protein into glucose.
2) Ketosis intensifies insulin resistance and is a state of starvation that slows down the metabolism.
3) Too much protien slows down the metabolism.
These 3 together signifies that if you want to take advantage of low-carb without negative recourse, you need some carbohydrate to keep you out of both ketosis and gluconeogenesis.
If you manage to do that, and you are not in a starved state going into it (like Annabelle), you will probably trigger fat release, have a huge drop in hunger, and lose body fat at a greater rate, and with minimal lean tissue loss, than any other diet. This could even work with a pretty low calorie diet as long as adequate protein and carbohdyrate were present at each feeding.
Only problem is, once you stop losing fat, it's time to jump off of low-carb just as quickly as you got on it. There's no question that a lean person on low-carb will be more prone to damage themselves than an overweight person who is flooding their system with hundreds of calories of released body fat every day. Low-carb was great for me for a few months. Then it was a slow, slow trip to trouble town. Even Dr. Atkins knew that prolonged low-carbing was metabolic suicide, and stated that clearly and boldly on page 303 of Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution.
2 more points:
Sumos eat a low fat diet, not a high-fat diet.
Is it the carbs that make farm animals fat? Or do they feed them tons of soy, corn, and soy/corn oil to slow down their metabolism – making more profits by having them maintain body weight on fewer calories? Furthermore, if the carbs are making them fat, is it because they have a metabolic problem as a result of the vegetable oil? The typical low-carb belief that starch is fattening on this basis is really annoying.
And yes, I'm saying that cutting calories slows down your metabolism and makes you want to eat more. Plenty of people are fat before they ever give dieting a shot, but dieting almost invariably makes matters worse for this very reason. If you want effortless energy balance, I strongly feel you'll have better luck upping calories, which raises your metabolism and makes you want to eat less.
And fructose, by itself, is not fattening. That's why the biggest fructose eaters in the health world also happen to be ultra low-fat like Fuhrman, Barnard, and 80-10-10 Dougie Graham Crackhead.
Combine fat, particularly some new-fashioned anti-thyroid vegetable oil with that fructose, and the likelihood of becoming leptin resistant increases dramatically.
Still, even pounding fat and fructose together is unlikely to make you fat if you have a high metabolism. The metabolism is still central, and it could just be that a century of omega 6 accumulation is really on of the more primary root causes of declining metabolisms worldwide.
That is my feelings as well Matt. Fructose is really only dangerous after the metabolism has been slowed, sugar is probably only a displacing food. And I feel the main factor behind the metabolism is O6. I believe that is why McCarrison found that the mice died quicker on a deficient diet of white rice and butter as opposed to rice alone. The low 06/high sat fat sped the metabolism causing the deficiency to kill them quicker.
@Jared:
Two things. First phytic acid and phytates are not the same thing. The reason why I think flour is high in phytic acid is because I know that coconut flour is rather high in phytic acid, so it just makes sense to me to assume that this goes for almost all kinds of flour.
And you said:
3) unless freshly ground, the vitamin E is oxidized
I think this only applies to fresh ground vs not fresh ground. I do not think that the Vitamin E will be oxidized if you do not ground the flour at all.
Hey Matt. I have been avoiding most sugars and omega-6 fats while eating moderate protein (over 100g but less than 175g for most days), moderate fat, and slightly higher carbs. I don't count calories but I do keep track of meals to see how my body reacts. When I want to focus on getting lean, I may count calories. My main question revolves around eating good white bread (no added HFCS or oils) instead of Ezekiel or other whole wheat bread. I think white may be better because it is a pure starch as opposed to one with excess fiber, as Jared Bond talked about earlier. I have been thinking a lot about the potential intestinal lining damage caused by excess omega-6 fats and thus I think if I avoid them, then wheat might not be a problem. What are your thoughts on this?
I know that in the past week, as I have been avoiding o-6 and sugars, pizza and restaurant bread hasn't bothered me but Ezekiel bread has. Thanks Matt. Great comments everyone, keep it going!
Riles,
Interesting insight. With my understanding as it is today I have to agree.
I think that much of the hormonal unbalance found in people in particular with our discussions of leptin, and insulin cellular resistance, is an inflammatory response.
http://ajpregu.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/294/3/R673
Though I don't think that high concentrations of dietary fructose (sugar) is good for anyone, but O6 seems a more likely culprit of serious metabolic disruption.
Of course the poison is in the dose. So if you were to displace a large portion of good nutritious foods with sugar then you are obviously going to see issues.
Fascinating discussion.
Still comments about starch causing hormonal disruption, obesity, and disease…really?
Dale,
There are a few bodybuilders that eat VLC with high carb spikes throughout the week, and it is popular for fitness competitors to do VLC. The truth is that most professional bodybuilders do not eat a VLC. They do want the insulin spikes, and the pros even inject themselves with more insulin because it is so anabolic. The closer it gets to contest they will drop carbs and all other macros while trying to keep protein at least 1g per lb. The post workout shakes with high glycemic carbs mostly came about form the supplement company marketing campaigns so that they could sell their "special" protein and carb drinks.
Matt,
I agree with your points on VLC being beneficial for the obese, and detrimental for the lean.
The sumo diet is HED in the truest since. Eating chankonabe and fried rice every day is not McDougal or Ornish friendly. But, they do eat much more carbs than fat, but i wouldn't call it low fat for sure. They say their secret for getting fat is to slow down the metabolism by skipping breakfast to work out on an empty stomach, and eat huge meals followed by a nap. Of course the real reason they are getting fat is because they are eating so many calories.
Much of the problem with fructose probably stems from how it is processed by the liver unlike other carbohdyrates. The fructose converts to fat and floods the bloodstream with triglycerides. If you have a high, healthy metabolism you will burn those triglycerides like nobody's business.
If you don't, triglyceride levels will go through the roof. Throw fat into the mix and you've got double trouble.
This is probably why diets that lower triglycerides include very low fat diets, and very low carb diets – from Eades to Furhman.
But it's really a slow metabolism that keeps those triglycerides from getting incinerated and used to build healthy tissue.
The goal here of course, is to eat everything and be healthy doing so, not pick a restricted diet to live on.
As far as the wheat conversation is concerned, most "problem" foods or allergens are not caused by the allergen itself, but by your body's reaction to it. I wouldn't call dust, pollen, and cat hair a threat to mankind. Nor would I start comdemning lectins, salicylates, etc. Of course, there are circumstances where there is a physiological reason to have a poor reaction, such as an inflamed or leaky gut. And yes, if you have an allergic reaction, you should avoid the trigger as a lot of collateral damage is done with the allergic response. But avoidance is not the cure. There are deeper fundamental factors, and omega 6 accumulation is certainly a prime suspect.
Very few bodybuilders train on a day-in, day-out low-carb diet. LC provides poor performance and meager muscle building. What it can do, if you keep your metabolism raging high by other means, is help you drop water weight and fat rapidly with a minimum of lean tissue loss when done right before competition. Others carb cycle for the same reason.
Matt, on heredity and obesity.
I think you'll want to take a look at the Time magazine that came out on January 18th, 2010. The cover story is "Why Your DNA Isn't Your Destiny". It has a very long article on (Im going to paraphrase here, and they use more scientific words that I likely will not use) how certain aspects of our DNA can change within our lifetime (compared to the thousands of years needed to 'evolve' some trait).
To boil it down they say that our genes are basically our "hardware", but that we have a kind of "software" genes that control how much and in what way our "hardware" genes are expressed. The article says our "software" can change by environmental factors like a famine or cold weather or whatever and that these "software" type genes can remain in the progeny of the person, but can go away in both parent and child if the environmental factor goes away (if it does not then it could become part of the "hardware" after so many generations). This would explain why obesity is genetic but that obesity mostly started this century and wasnt seen in prior generations. Some dietary factor (be it omega 6 or fructose or something) made someone obese which changed the software genes which then persisted in the next generation, predisposing the child to obesity.
I didnt do a very good job explaining it so I definitely recommend you checking out the article. It is by a man named John Cloud so maybe the article is online or something similar can be found on google. This is exactly what we've been talking about so I'm sure it would be worth whatever Time is worth. But if you cant get that issue anymore, email me at Dadrooooo@hotmail.com and I could probably scan it to you.
Drooooo, the software you commented on is epigenetics. Some research suggests that 'software' changes (food, environment, etc…) can greatly affect DNA from generation to generation. NOVA on PBS had a good episode on some areas:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3411/02.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/genes/issa.html
Like you say, I agree that O6 and fructose intake have increased over the last 100yrs and we are seeing the effect in our generation now and to come. Broken metabolisms handed down like old raggedy clothes.
One thing where I very much agree with Mark Sisson is that epigenetics is where it's at and the genes themselves might just play a secondary role.
This is a very good post from him about the subject and even though I haven't read the Time magazine article I'd say that it's probably in alignment with the article.
Oh, and a question about triglycerides: Now I don't know much about triglycerides, but it very much seems to be that a high triglyceride level is not necessarily a bad thing. The Kitavans have high triglycerides levels and it just seems to be a indicator of the amount of carbs you ingest.
Does this still mean that the Kitavans probably burn the triclycerides as they definitely are some healthy peeps?
Yes. There are a lot of misconceptions about genes. 2 arms and 2 legs are genetic. Most other things, such as insulin resistance of being hypometabolic are much more mutable.
The Kitavans don't exactly have "high triglycerides." They are higher than what many low-carbers would consider to be ideal, probably because they consume plenty of fructose and saturated fat and protein all mixed together. That will trigger more de novo lipogenesis in the liver… But if you use the triglycerides effectively, which are packets of energy, then there is no problem.
But it's not like the Kitavans have triglyceride levels of 500. That would be a legitimate sign of not using them properly.
Hey Matt. Sorry to hit you again on this but I just want to make sure I'm thinking right. So with wheat, would you recommend eating white bread if you handle that better than wheat/ezekiel bread? I don't think we're concerned with glycemic index levels here and or vitamins/minerals in whole wheat/ezekiel bread. I'm hoping that by cutting down on o-6 and fructose that I can get my metabolism roaring for the first in probably a long time. Thanks
I believe white bread would be fine if its made from real white flour rather than bleached enriched flours. We have a bakery near me that uses only good quality, non bleached/enriched flours (including white) and otherwise only uses water, honey, yeast, and salt. Try and find one of those.
I do remember seeing a study a year or so ago showing how easily different breads were digested and white bread was easier to digest than wheat breads, but I dont recall the location of the study or what they did to test these results.
I think white bread is not the greatest dietary evil, but that finely pulverized flour is a little much for some people, and refined carbs aren't always the safest bet. Still, I can't deny that white flour products treat me well from a digestive standpoint and otherwise. I'm pretty sure I could live off of burgers and pizza and feel outstanding.
Doughnuts and chocolate milk on the other hand…
I use dextrose to sweeten things, including chocolate milk. You have to buy the unsweetened cocoa powder and you need a blender to mix it because it only mixes easily in hot water or hot milk, but the chocolate milk tastes like chocolate milk and there is no fructose, just dextrose and lactose. A lot of bread has O6 and/or trans fat. You have to find one that doesn't. I've never found bread that doesn't have at least a gram or 2 of sugar.
Taylor
How long have you been using dextrose to sweeten things?
I have thought about this for those occasions that I want to make a desert. Mainly for making ice cream, custards, etc.
Do you obtain the type of sweetness you want? Any brand you would recommend?
I got it on Amazon. NOW is the name of the brand. Its not as sweet as sugar so you need to use about 13/ more but it dissolves easily. I also sprinkle it on french toast with butter. That is good. I've been using it for just a few weeks. I haven't tried to bake with it or anything like that. My next attempt will be to make my own ketchup with it because burgers just aren't the same without ketchup. I'll get around to that experiment one of these days.
one third more
Mark,
I wouldn't worry so much about white bread, the French eat it 3 times a day with no problems. I can tolerate it much better than ezekial bread.
I am with Matt, I can eat hamburgers on white bread every day and feel fine.
Sugar and Fructose phobes,
You might want to check out getting some rilose, it is pretty much pure glucose made out of brown rice. Tastes like dextrose and maltodextrin, but is not made out of GM corn.
I have been using glucose instead of sucrose for a while now, but I have switched back to sucrose because of the beneficial metabolic effects.
JT
Not really a phobe, not really looking for any long term "restricted" style diet. I just like to experiment with things. So I was thinking about going on an "ultra" low fructose diet.
What metabolic benefit does the added fructose afford?
There may be be several advantages to sucrose. Here is a quote by Ray Peat,
"Fructose inhibits the stimulation of insulin by glucose, so this means that eating ordinary sugar, sucrose (a disaccharide, consisting of glucose and fructose), in place of starch, will reduce the tendency to store fat. Eating ?complex carbohydrates,? rather than sugars, is a reasonable way to promote obesity. Eating starch, by increasing insulin and lowering the blood sugar, stimulates the appetite, causing a person to eat more, so the effect on fat production becomes much larger than when equal amounts of sugar and starch are eaten."
He also thinks that sucrose is a pro-thyroid food.
so what should you eat and avoid with bad skin? My skin is SO sensitive and I dont know what to do, seems anything i change makes me break out in a different spot…help!
JT,who to believe??Peat and his sugar is better since half is fructose which elicits no insulin response or the new studies showing fructose is actually a poison and behaves in liver the way alcohol does.
I can tell you that after my binge drinking friday night festivities I get super hypoglycemic saturday and sunday even eating low glycemic carbs and small amounts to boot.I have suffered from severe hypoglycemia my whole life and can tell you when its severe its no joke.Your body just shuts down,eyes get super blood shot and you get severe panic attacks from the adrenaline pouring out in attempt to raise your blood sugar since the insulin mechanic is faulty.Years of this is what then started me on severe insomnia where at worst times I would stay up for 2 to 3 days,extremely exhausted yet at same time wired up.
Now I can say that when I try HED I actually feel good alot of the time and only get hypo if I eat unnatural amounts of carbs….like half a pound of pasta as a meal.
If you watch the Sugar:the bitter truth video it goes on to say that a small percentage of glucose is also shuttled to liver and behaves the same way as fructose.The small percentage being the key as to why its better than the full amount of fructose that hits the liver.
And about protein having to be kept at a certain range seems wrong to me.I think that when people consume carbs in a meal they reduce the protein because its then palatable to eat this way.But if you have no carbs around then you need to up the protein amounts to compensate.
Hamburgers and pizzas are the perfect foods!!!
troy
Wolf,
Have you had your adrenal glands checked? When I had severe adrenal insufficiency I could not tolerate sugar or fruit by itself or i would get severe hypoglycemia, and my body temp would drop fast. I had to eat Schwarzbein style until my adrenal glands got better.
Fructose and sucrose have a strong relaxant effect on the adrenal glands, so if you are already low then this could put you over the edge. I try to have the sugar during workouts when I take caffeine (also pro-thyroid), or at night before bed when I don't mind relaxing my adrenals. If I have sugar in the mix of a big meal it doesnt effect me at all, so I can have it any time.
Peat ignores fructose's inherent ability to stimulate glycerol phosphate, and he also misunderstands insulin – thinking that triggering a rise in insulin causes hunger. No, giving a rat insulin injections induces hunger only because it drops blood sugar. As a response to a meal, insulin is satiating, not hunger-triggering.
Taubes gives a more accurate assessment of fructose's ability to stimulate fat storage, especially when combined with glucose. Again, many in good health probably can be totally immune to such an effect, but many clearly aren't. Taubes writes, one of the key passages in GCBC if you ask me…
"Regarding the potential dangers of sugar in the diet, it is important to keep in mind that fructose is converted more efficiently into glycerol phosphate than is glucose. This is another reason why fructose stimulates the liver so readily to convert it to triglycerides, and why fructose is considered the most lipogenic carbohydrate. Fructose, however, does not stimulate the pancreas to secrete insulin, so glucose is still needed for that purpose. This suggests that the combination of glucose and fructose – either the 50-50 mixture of table sugar or the 55-45 mixture of high-fructose corn syrup – stimulates fat synthesis and fixes fat in the fat tissue more than does glucose alone, which comes from the digestion of bread and starches."
But again, the question arises, can the negative impacts of fructose be not only avoided but even turned upside down if you have a healthy metabolism? I've considered it. But the refined fructose link to health problems as witnessed by everyone from Weston A. Price to Cleave, Burkitt, Trowell and others is too closely tied to casually ignore it.
Troy,
You are right hamburgers and pizza really are the perfect foods if you are on the HED. Just make sure you get ones that dont have a ton of PUFAs in the bread. I have always thought of them as health foods except for when I was paleo.
Both caffeine and sugar increase ATP production in the short-term. But I think this is a major head fake, as they can exhaust cellular energy and lead to low ATP consequences. Diet pills are a perfect case in point. They will make you lose weight by stimulating thermogenesis, but the effect wears off as the body upregulates to stimulants, an ever-higher dose is needed to get the same effect, and when you stop taking the pills you are likely to see rapid weight gain.
The associations between obesity and soft drinks, a blend of near-equal amounts of fructose & glucose with added caffeine is enough in and of itself to dispel any theory one could conjure up about the metabolic stimulation they might provide.
Matt,
You said, "he also misunderstands insulin – thinking that triggering a rise in insulin causes hunger. No, giving a rat insulin injections induces hunger only because it drops blood sugar."
Do you really think that Peat doesn't understand insulin?
Even Schwarzbein said that she was able to stay skinny by eating a high sucrose diet. Then when she switched to a high starch diet she go fat.
This is exactly why he said insulin will cause hunger, because it drops blood sugar, which will cause hunger again in an attempt to raise blood sugar. We have all experienced this after Chinese food meals that are low fructose high starch.
Matt,
The reason there is an association between obesity and soft drinks is because you can easily drink 1000s of extra calories of Coke, not because of some sort of metabolic black magic.
My adrenals are burnt out sadly.I need a large cup of coffee to function in morning and another a few hours later to finish my work day.
I must say all this sugar stuff is super interesting.I would love to pound a quart of ice cream per day per Peat.And to eat homemade low PUFA cookies and the like for health reasons.
But what if the anti-fructose crusade is right.Then you think about why one needs to balance the glucose out with fructose when they could just eat less carbohydrate in general and forgo the sugar roller coaster ride.
Wolf,
Give us a little background on yourself. Diet history, health, etc… Have you had tests confirming the adrenal burn out.
If your adrenal glands are burned out and you have low cortisol, you will have a hard time tolerating sugars and fruits until you heal the adrenals.
If you are eating excess protein like you have been talking about, you could make your adrenal burnout worse, because they will have to work harder to convert the protein to glucose.
"Even Schwarzbein said that she was able to stay skinny by eating a high sucrose diet. Then when she switched to a high starch diet she go fat."
You do realize that Scwharzbein was very ill on her youth sugar diet, and it was when she switched to starch, she healed. Gaining weight while she healed her broken metabolism… destroyed by sugar.
Undertow,
Yes, I know that, I am very familiar with her work and her story. I was addressing Taube's claim that sucrose leads to fat storage, and Matt's point on the association of soft drinks and obesity.
Also, I think Schwarzbein needn't be so certain that sugars were the cause of her problems. Maybe she just needed to have more protein and fat with her sugar instead of eating just bags of cotton candy.
I'm not aware of Scharzbein getting fat because she switched to starches. She seems to suggest that once her adrenals wore out she gained weight from the sugar as if a switch had been flipped.
As a kid I ate tons of fat and protein with my sugar. Was sicker n' a mufugger. My teeth decayed despite going to the dentist (which I no longer do) and brushing my teeth 4 times as often as I do now.
Asthma, allergies, sick all the time missing 20 days of school per year on average, overweight, appendicitis, tonsillitis, walleye vision…
I ate a very nutritious diet with sugar on top. Mom used real butter. We ate squares at home. Mom cooked 3 meals a day. Whole milk or 2%, whole eggs, fresh vegetables, etc.
So you're saying that people chug 1,000 calories of soda because the fructose, not stimulating insulin, is so damn satiating?
Switch the sweetener to dextrose and they'll drink less. Guaranteed.
It seems as though many of us are slowly spinning around (again) to the realisation that calories in/out do very much count and probably contribute most to the development of metabolic syndromes? Prolonged inactivity and excess calories causing leptin resistance, makes sense right?
All this other nutrition stuff is very interesting from a broader health standpoint, but perhaps for the obese it is more of a red herring.
The head still spins.
Matt,
Read Schwarzbein's books again, she is very detailed in her account. SHe went from a high sugar diet to a high "healthy carb" (starch)diet and she got fat because her insulin levels went up. She even mentions how she would contemplate going back to here high sugar diet so she could be skinny again. But, she needed the high insulin levels to rebuild, so this wasn't a bad thing for her.
How can you guarantee that they will drink less if it is dextrose instead of sucrose? I have used both, in large amounts for workouts, and I have noticed I am hungrier after when I use the glucose, but its not a big difference.
People drink that much because of the sweetness, we have a natural desire for sweet things, which could mean we are meant to eat it. I know people who drink several liters of diet soda a day, so it probably won't make a difference what they use to sweeten it. The food scientists know how to make things people will eat large quantities of, they know the sweet/salt combo puts us into eating overdrive. Soda is very sweet with salty with a lot of other chemicals that cause us to desire it.
My experience with cavities was the oppositte of yours. I never had cavities growing up and ate most junk, only getting real food when grandma was around. After going low carb for several years I went to the dentist and was shocked to find that I had 6 cavities! I really couldn't believe it since i had thought low carb was some sort of magical diet. I think the high cortisol levels are what ate my teeth away.
Matt,
It also seems strange that you blame your problems on sugar when you ate a high everything diet. If you ate a lot of protein, sugar, fat, and starch, how can you be sure it was the sugar? Maybe it was the milk.
@JT
We have all experienced this after Chinese food meals that are low fructose high starch.
Chinese restaurants really sweeten up their sauces, which is a hefty source of fructose I'm sure. At least, that's how they are in the US. Fructose does not stimulate leptin– that could be a reason for continued hunger.
a ton of PUFAs in the bread
You said that twice, but Matt's list on omega 6's convinced me that wheat, as well as grain-fed meat or milk, is not a significant source of O6. My bread says "99% fat free"– that includes omegas.
@Matt Stone
The associations between obesity and soft drinks, a blend of near-equal amounts of fructose & glucose with added caffeine is enough in and of itself to dispel any theory one could conjure up about the metabolic stimulation they might provide.
Thank you– people endorsing sugar is pushing me past the limits of cognitive dissonance. I have yet to look into Ray Peat, but if sugar is metabolically stimulating, you'd think we'd have the healthiest country in the world. There are so many examples of the ill effects of sugar. What about the rich people getting gout in the days when sugar was only available to them? I'm sure they were on a HED, and had no vegetable oils. How about the famous toothaches of royalty?
I'll quote Japanese doctor Nyoiti Sakurazawa, 1965, from Sugar Blues: "I am confident that Western medicine will one day admit what has been known in the Orient for years: Sugar is without question the number one murderer in the history of humanity– much more lethal than opium or radioactive fallout– especially for those people who eat rice as their principle food. Sugar is the greatest evil that modern industrial civilization has visited upon countries of the Far East and Africa. …Foolish people who give or sell candy to babies will one day discover, to their horror, that they have much to answer for." This statement is not to be taken lightly from a country that was nuclear bombed only 20 years prior. And of all the enslavement, imperialism, and drugs brought to the Far East and Africa, he called sugar the "greatest evil"? Perhaps because the memory was still recent of what sugar had done to his country, which was not largely introduced to Japan until the 1890s-1900s. Perhaps this is why the Japanese widely sweeten things with stevia to this day.
I know, I know, Peat fans will say it was the combination with the high starch… I'll look into Ray Peat soon.
Anon
"Prolonged inactivity and excess calories causing leptin resistance, makes sense right?"
Then reversing obesity would be a simple matter of reducing calories or exercising more. However, neither has ever been shown to produce significant lasting weight loss.
I successfully restricted calories and stayed very lean for several years using an intermittent fasting scheme, then when I actually began having breakfast and eating according to appetite again, I blew up like a balloon in the beginning. Now, after almost 5 months of HED at 4000-4500 kcal a day, I have become very resistant to fat gain, my clothes fitting just about as well now as they did three months ago. My appetite has if anything gone down drastically lately (though hunger has stayed about the same), my food cravings and desire to binge eat disappeared within weeks on the HED, all the while I've taken an extended rest from my usual weight training scheme.
None of this I find consistent with the idea that eating too many calories or exercising too little causes leptin resistance.
My take on fructose/sucrose:
I do think that fructose is safe, non-detrimental and can, maybe even should be part of a healthy diet. Whether it's suited for a metabolism-healing diet is a completely different matter. However, I believe that the only safe form of fructose is, you might have guessed it: fruit!
I don't think that fruit is damaging for a healthy person and depending on climate pretty much always were part of the human diet. It's the whole poison together with the antidote thing once again. However there are good reasons to believe that fructose out of fruit is poisonous and so I'd personally strave away from any other form of ingesting fructose apart from fruit and the veggies/nuts (coconut) that naturally contain it.
Everyone seems to be so sure that sucrose/fructose is the cause of the obesity epidemic, and they like to use soft drink consumption as the perfect example. If this is true, why is that diet soda increases your risk for obesity more than soda with sugar/HFCS. This would make it seem like sugar actually protects one from obesity.
I suspect it may have something to do with the intensity of the sweetness. Yet another reason why fructose is fundamentally different than glucose – and has more addictive properties. Seth Roberts has interesting thoughts on the "flavor-calorie theory" of weight gain, in which a highly-sweet beverage consumed with a large, mixed meal would be the most fattening combination.
I definitely agree that consuming a sweet beverage along with a large mixed meal would be the most fattening combo, as it would cause one to eat much more of everything by stimulating appetite. I can definitely put down way more food if I am drinking something sweet with it. I could easily polish off a whole large pizza with a bottle of coke, and then follow it up with dessert.
Still, the fact that beverages sweetened with sugar/fructose are less fattening than diet drinks, is a direct contradiction of the belief that that sugar causes obesity.
If in fact diet soda actually does increase your tendency to become obese (I'm not convinced) it poses some interesting questions.
1. Can the artificial sweeteners used in diet soda be seen by the body a more toxic substance that sugar, which could cause increased inflammation, increased cortisol, and subsequently the slowing of the metabolism?
2. Again IF diet soda causes "greater" fat accumulation than sugared sodas, then is it safe to assume that diet soda are lower in calories (some with 0 calories)? And if they cause greater propensity of fat accumulation and are "low" calorie then does it not contradict the calories in/calories out theory.
"I suspect it may have something to do with the intensity of the sweetness."
M,
I think direct taste is as good a guideline as any – ie – when a foodstuff starts to taste too sweet ('sweet' that starts to taste 'bad sweet') then that is definitely enough.
Incidently, its not just sugary foods that taste sweet: meat can taste sweet, butter/fats can taste sweet and too much of these may also register as uncomfortably 'sweet'.
Of course the same applies to sour, bitter, etc also.
Anyway, for what its worth,
best, j.
"If this is true, why is that diet soda increases your risk for obesity more than soda with sugar/HFCS. This would make it seem like sugar actually protects one from obesity."
Is this the result of a study that you can link for us?
Nathan,
No, It doesn't contradict the calorie theory. More than likely, what happens is that people end up eating more when they have sweet tastes. Giving it the sweet taste without the calories may stimulate the appetite even more than when it contains sugar.
The only thing that it contradicts is the belief that the association with soft drink consumption and obesity is proof that sugar/fructose is the cause of the obesity epidemic.
There are many bodybuilders/fitness models that live on tons of diet soda, especially when dieting down for shows. Yet, they still remain lean because they are very precise with calorie control.
You can read about the study here:
http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20050613/drink-more-diet-soda-gain-more-weight
I've known about this study for a long time, and have always noticed that the very overweight often have an intense obsession with diet drinks.
But it's not purely about calorie consumption. Like Ethan Sims's study showed, even force-feeding subjects 10,000 calories per day had little influence on many of the subjects short-term weight and had no influence on any of the subjects long-term weight. Some people simply don't gain weight in response to a high calorie diet. Body temp increases, energy increases, fecal calorie content increases, and energy balance is maintained within very tight parameters. That was Ethan Sims's original problem. Just doubling the calories in a normal, young, person at a healthy weight would not increase their weight, which is what led him to the extremes of using sedentary prisoners and 10,000 calories daily as his subjects.
Seth Roberts, for those who are unfamiliar, has pointed to studies showing that there is a connection between the flavor intensity of food and weight set point or "ponderstat." The 3 factors in causing obesity according to his theories are:
1) Rate of ingestion and absorption (liquid calories have always been known to be more fattening and trigger greater consumption than dry calories – even when it comes to sucrose). Also, in general the more processed a food is, the faster it is absorbed.
2) Flavor intensity – flavor enhancers like MSG and aspartame as used in commercial foods as well as uber-sweet fructose take flavor intensity to an unnatural level.
3) Calorie load that accompanies the taste. The more calories mixed with the highly-intense flavor, the greater the psychological and physiological response to the food.
It's not a theory to be ignored that's for sure. Roberts also feels like repetition is a key factor as well – forming greater flavor-calorie associations. This once again points to processed foods with chemical flavor enhancers added, as natural foods always have subtle variation that makes this phenomenon impossible.
JT,no tests done for adrenal but I have been diagnosed as slightly hypothyroid.I lost alot of weight around 15 yrs back going from above 300 to 165 pounds in span of a year with Atkins.I remember just eating meat with disregard to fat amounts.When I got super lean I also noticed I could go further by actually controlling how much I consumed.
Of course yrs later my metabolism is screwed.Crazy annoying flaky dry skin and low body temps being my prime examples and of course inability to easily lose weight as I did in past.This got me thinking of professional bodybuilders.When they do a heavy yr long bulk and say go from 220 ripped to 300 fat pounds they claim that the fat melts off amazingly fast.All that time spent over consuming calories revs up the metabolism and the degree is magnified largely by length of bulk.One guy claimed to have not needed to do the last 4 weeks of a certain diet where they basically do PSMF.He instead ate meat and fats all the way up to the show again due to his yr long bulk.
Ok back to me.Today I woke up and said Im gonna give Ray Peats ideas a try.Eggs and bacon with pint of OJ and a plum for breakfast.Lunch was a quart of lowfat milk and a pint of OJ and can of pepsi.Dinner was steak with a pint of Hagen Daz.As I mentioned before that I get severe hypo from alcohol…well by the end of today I was getting that feeling of BS just dropping.I ate 3 plums in last 2 hours just trying to keep my blood sugar stable.Just had some eggs with a 1/2 cup mixed veggies and I seem to be stabalized so…..
But this also happens when I do alot of starch.I feel amazing when I follow Optimal diet ala Panu rules.I do all 12 steps of Panu and feel amazing.Wake up and eat 5 jumbo eggs w/tortillas and mixed veggies and a ton of butter and coconut oil.This meal has me feeling full from 5am till when I get home at around 3pm.Then I eat another similar meal.Started it again so tomorrow is back on.
I am on the fence in regards to fructose/glucose.In my heart I don't believe the new studies showing fructose being bad.It doesn't make sense to me.And when Lustig says that from fructose the body makes a dangerous fat I can't help but think Peat is correct here.Peat says that body makes saturated fat(its prefered fat)from fructose.But I also believe that more and more studies will come out to support the fructose as public enemy number one.I'm lost!!
Matt,
"This once again points to processed foods with chemical flavor enhancers added". Definitely agree with this, the food companies have really perfected this science, and they know how to make us overeat and become addicted to their processed food.
Do you have a link for the Sim's study?
Wolf,
You should always do what works for you, because it might be completely different from what works for another person. Always put your own personal experience ahead of any guru's advice.
Your story is a lot like mine. Going low carb for too long, and then suffering long term metabolic damage because of it. My doctor who specializes in this area says he has seen it many times as well.
If you really have adrenal problems, then the higher sugars will make you have problems, because they will relax the adrenal glands even more. You should stick with the higher fat and more moderate amounts of carbs and protein if that is what works for you. That is what I did for a while and it worked for me, and it is what Schwarzbein recommends for the people with adrenal burn out.
Worrying about fructose/glucose ratios is a waste of time and energy. The importance is small in the grand scheme of things. Take care of the big stuff first, then when you have that done worry about the minutia.
Wolf-
I agree that you probably overdid it with the dieting which is why you screwed yourself. Bodybuilders gaining weight is just as key to their long-term success and metabolic health as the weight loss phase – and yes, bulking up makes weight loss ridiculously easy in comparison to trying to drop fat when you are in hibernation mode. Once again, get healthy to lose weight… in that order.
Optimal/Panu rules are exactly what Broda Barnes recommended…
For those who couldn't get "treatment," i.e. bring their metabolisms back up which would allow dietary freedom. Barnes didn't know that something like the HED could be so effective as a core "treatment" though.
Eating sugar all day like that is always going to be the biggest aggravator of your condition though. I know it well. But Peat is probably right to feel that when you are healthy you won't have such a reaction.
Sorry JT – no Sims links. You can read about it in detail in GCBC pages 272-273 and other excerpts that are noted in the index.
The bulk and cut approach that most competitive bodybuilders use is very similar to the yo-yo dieting that a lot of fat people do. They will spend 16 weeks dieting down to extremely low body fat levels by cutting calories, then they will hold this condition for 1 day. After this they will blow up again for the next few weeks sometimes gaining 20-30 pounds in a few days. Then they go through this process again and again doing more damage every time.
Top bodybuilding coach Scott Abel is not a fan of this approach because he deals with so many cases of metabolic burnout, especially in fitness girls. he like for his people to stay relatively lean most of the time, and that is what the cycle diet is used for. Charles Poliquin is another top strength coach who focuses a lot on adrenal burnout and he really does not like the bulk and cut approach either.
Thanks fellas.Already I feel better as my BS is stable.Matt,I have seen you mention before about Broda Barnes and how his diet was very close to Optimal and that Broda said to never drop below 50gms of carbs for thyroid health.It works for me and I feel great BUT I'll be honest and say that if my body could eat carbs I would eat them.It feels so right to me to eat starch,fat protein and even sugar together.
Matt and JT,your so right about the rebound a professional bodybuilder experiences.This sucks because I feel I am also in rebound mode and have been for years.Sadly,I am gonna order from Nutri-meds and just deal with this artificially.
I'm not endorsing a bulk and cut type program. With bodybuilders, it is different. They reach a level of leanness that is ALWAYS going to be harmful.
What I'm talking about is more of a reverse yo-yo. Maybe I'll call it "oy-oy" dieting.
Bursts of low-calorie eating cause weight loss while inducing hunger in a fat storage mode.
What I recommend more is bursts of high-calorie eating that causes lack of hunger in a fat burning mode. I think this is much more likely to improve body composition over the long haul, and allow a person to be lean while eating to appetite and not overexercising.
Like Keys's study, getting really lean caused loss of lean body mass, massive hyperphagia in a reduced metabolic state, and the end result, while eating to appetite, was a greater proportion of body fat to lean mass. To achieve the opposite, I think doing the opposite is much more likely to yield the results you seek.
With all the mentioning of adrenal fatigue in this thread, a timely article over @ Tmuscle on the subject..
http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance_nutrition/the_truth_about_adrenal_fatigue
While I'm linking…more insight on roles leptin may play?
http://www.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=636545
Matt,
The Key's study reminded me lot of what happens to the bodybuilder and especially the fitness competitors.
So are you coming around to a cycle diet approach? You really ought to get Abel's dvd on it, very informative.
I think you are on the right track, but need to qualify your statements more depending on the type of problem someone has. I think if you are dealing with a skinny overtrained person then, getting fat and healthy first is a good idea, because they have been in a catabolic state for so long so they need to balance out. Fat people who are sedentary need the opposite in order to balance out. The key is finding balance so that the metabolism will run smoothly.
This is why I like Ayurveda so much, the goal is to balance the doshas so that everything will work right. Different people have different imbalances, so they need to be treated differently.
Awesome leptin link Russell. Good to hear after telling Jimmy Moore that leptin is more important than insulin, which invoked a "this guy must be a crackhead" kind of response.
JT-
Cycling may have an important role in losing body fat without negative metabolic consequence.
However, I do feel that obese people are starvation much more so than underweight people. Low body temps are typically very severe in obese people. 2 that comment here frequently have trouble hitting 96 in the morning, a sign of the body in major energy conservation mode, as if storing excess body fat with calories ingested isn't.
For them, I still think it's important to restore the metabolism first. It is simply very difficult for many obese lifelong dieters to trigger fat storage unless they get out of this paralyzed, frozen metabolic state – no matter what diet they try.
It's a multi-step process, but it's just flippin' hard to get anywhere until you heal first, whether thin or fat.
JT wrote:
"You can read about the study here:
http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20050613/drink-more-diet-soda-gain-more-weight"
Or, it could be as simple a fact as people tend to switch to Diet Soda when they are already obese or overweight, that this correlation has nothing to do with the cause of obesity and is just an artifact of thin people tending to not drink that crap as a preventative measure. The body's metabolism may already be damaged enough from previous soda, other sugar and 06 consumption that there is no loss of weight when the switch is made from sugar soda to artificial.
There's caffeine in (most) diet soda. I realize it's far less than in coffee, but if people are drinking cans and cans of it all day long… what might those constant doses of caffeine be doing to them?
Matt,
To me it seems like the Obese are in a type of hibernation like a bear in the winter. Sure, the metabolism is slowed down, but it is not for the same reason as someone who has been dieting and exercising excessively to the point where they are burned out. On one hand we have the obese that needs to get active to wake the system up, and on the other hand we have the burned out person who needs to rest and let the system heal.
Also, if the obese are starving, then why do they usually have high amounts of lean body mass and muscle?
Mike,
Who knows, the only way to find out is a metabolic ward study. My whole point for bringing that up is that the association of soft drink consumption and obesity does not prove that the cause is sugar.
Good stuff, Matt. I couldn't agree more. I met an indigenous man from Ecuador at the primitive skills gathering I was at recently, the Wintercount Rendevous. I interviewed him about his diet growing up — lots of carbs! And I introduced him to Weston Price's studies, which he responded to with much interest. He grew up eating fresh, home-grown foods: quinoa, wheat, and corn mostly with very little animal foods. Interestingly, unprocessed, raw sugar from the Amazon was a significant part of his diet as well.
The man had beautiful facial structure and the broad dental arch characteristic of the cultures in Weston Price's studies. He identified with the physical degeneration seen in Price's studies, too, saying that the same changes happened as people from his village went to work in the city. I'm posting the video of the interview on my blog as soon as I edit it.
Anyway, yeah, carbs aren't the devil.
Sugar… *puts orchestral suspense music*
Matt, an interesting little study: http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=963955 Of, course, it is not the same as long term, but is good to see stupid (ignorant) hypotesis getting punched in the face. :-)
Jt, hiberneating animals are full of PUFAs, just as obese people (vegetable oil). They wake up because of metabolic, endocrine and homeostatic reasons. PUFAs and light deprivation, and in total, the whole enviroment supresses their energy expenditure and thyroid. Once those external factors are gone, the hibernation stops. For instance, when the PUFAs used for stored energy (because they are not solid at the low temperatures of hibernation) are used, the thyroid becomes less supressed, and this helps wake up the animal. This would be like a fat person stopping the intake of vegetable oil. You theory of excersice waking up the "hibernating human" or the hibernating man is both atupid and ignorant. Rather, increased energy leads to excersice, they as an increased metabolic rate leading an animal out of his hibernation. Of course, excersice can induce specific changes in the body, but when a low metabolism is the problem, excersice is no use. Rember, overfed, but undernourished. "undernourishing" yourself even more as a way to overcome that proble is frankly idiotic.
Rice Burner
Can't wait Ryan. Sounds awesome. Yeah, I don't think Price just failed to notice that all those healthy people were on low-carb diets.
And he ate wheat! OMG.
How's his autoimmune disease? Jeez that is so dumb. Can't wait to hear what cap'n Kurt has to say about your wheat lovin' healthy dude.
And let me guess, he didn't even sprout and ferment the wheat for a jillion hours either.
Excellent summary rice burner. All my conclusions point to the fact that overweight people are demonstrating all the signs and symptoms of starvation.
Lean body mass can be normal or above normal because of the sheer workout of having that excess body fat when moving anything.
But dieting down rips through lean mass quite quickly if it's not performed right.
*both the "hibernating human" or the hibernating animal is both stupid and ignorant.
Besides, what's your proof of lean body mass PROPORTION being greater in obese people? For their weights, they are always tiny wimps. A sumo is a different story, whoever. If you look photos or videos of sumos they don't have celullite and seem better proportionate than the average overweight, even if their healths are not optimal. Edema and low lean body mass tend to be big problems in obesity. Overweight mothers have babies with more body fat, not more lean mass: "http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16875645". BMI is not a good tool for the diagnosis of obesity: "http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/content/28/17/2087.abstract". Body composition is. Your arguments are ridiculous and uninformed. Use real facts and study more if you want bring a valid discussion.
Rice Burner
Oh, thanks Matt. Actually I was a bit pissed off…
Rice Burner
Hey, Rice Moron, for being someone that asks for proof you didn't substantiate any of your hibernating and PUFAs stuff. There is proof, however, I'm just screwing with you: http://ajpregu.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/00688.2007v1 and http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/38/2/341.pdf
It's completely flabbergasting that with knowledge like this the scientific community is that blind and keeps pushing the magic omega 3 like there's no tomorrow. Nah… Just kidding, is the expected.
JT, BTW, one question. What do you think a bear feels when the hibernation ends? Sure it is not hunger…
Thanks, Juanito, is always good to have someone with OCD on board.
Rice Burner
Go to hell :-)
Ryan, how is it that you can you obtain raw sugar? Was it a syrup of some kind extracted from a tree? Are you talking about fruits? It would be very interesting to find a culture with high sugar consumption and good health.
Interesting!
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Multivitamins-may-help-weight-loss-in-obese-women
Gazelle,
Good point about the caffeine in the diet colas. My husband has/is breaking an unbelievably huge caffeine addiction. I feel really bad for him, it's tougher than quitting smoking I think. So I'm doing my best to load him up with saturated fats and good nutritious calories, hopefully he'll be able to wean off the caffeine soon.
Rice burner,
Sorry that you were so upset by my comments.
Why is it that my comments regarding exercise stimulating the metabolism are stupid, ignorant, and idiotic? What is your proof this is the case? I had severe metabolic damage and used exercise to heal. My thyroid and growth hormone levels improved the most according to my labs, oh yeah I was also on a very low calorie diet at the time too. My situation is not uncommon either.
Regarding my position you are uninformed because you haven't read my other posts. I have mentioned numerous times that hormones are the most important thing regarding the metabolism. I am all for HRT if needed, and have said hormone manipulation will be the future of obesity therapy. Hormones are the reason they hibernate, and hormones are probably the reason most are obese. The trick is getting the hormones to work in their favor.
I have been anti-PUFA for a long time because of the thyroid inhibiting effects, so you aren't saying anything new here.
Obese people do have more muscle mass unless they are suffering from sarcopenia. It is obvious a perso that has to carry around 500 lbs all day will have large amounts of muscle mass.
@JT, you have commented that sugar relaxes the adrenals when someone has a fully functioning metabolism.
Can you post reference/studies for this. Is this info is coming from Peat's research?
Curious how sugar relax healthy adrenals, yet 'destroy' them when some is in the depths of burnout. Scwharzbein, Weston, etc… write that sugar is 'not' part of a nourishing diet. Healthy people degenerated on sugar, flours, food refinement.
@Ryan, sugar cane is local to Brazil, is that the source. Any comments on the daily amounts used?
Undertow,
Yes, this is coming from Peat. I have been able to verify this from my own usage as well. I was unable to tolerate sugar or fruit for a long time when I had severely low cortisol levels, because this would drop it even lower.
This may be slightly random but if low carb doesn't work and cutting calories doesn't work how is one supposed to get a lean body? My temperatures are okay and right now I just have an average body. I know that Matt is more about optimizing health than having a super lean body but what about those of us who want a lean, muscular body? I know it may not be the best for health but how would one accomplish that kind of body with the least damage to your longterm health?
Right now this desire is probably my foolish teenage wish but I plan on losing fat anyway. I just want to do it in the best way possible and without losing too much muscle mass. How can this be accomplished?
@JT
You think you have it all figured out but it really is true, people who think that about themselves in regards to nutrition simply don't know enough. Just one example, you say sumo wrestlers eat HED and support your argument as they are fat and eat loads of calories… well, they do eat a lot but they also do many other things like skip meals, eat late in the day, eat loads of protein (160-400g per day) and go to sleep after big meals. So there is no way you can tell that it's the amount of calories and not something else about their regime (or a combination of factors) that makes them fat. But nevermind that, you state with confidence "yes they do all those various things… but of course the real reason they are getting fat is because they are eating so many calories." Please! Comparing a sumo diet with HED is totally off-base for at least one reason – HED is fairly low in protein.
Most of your arguments can be dismissed similarly to this one. It's getting a bit boring. Where the hell is Bruce K?? :)
Piki,
I never said I know everything about nutrition. I know I don't! I would never dare to put myself on the same level as experts in the area like Schwarzbein, Ray Peat, or Scott Abel.
Guys, please quit denying that it is caloric excess that increases body mass. Even Matt has admitted this, and every metabolic ward study proves it.
I agree, we should bring back Bruce K! What do you think about his results from the HED? I really am I big fan of his, and have read his AV Skeptics material.He went through some tough times, but is a genius.
I eat a sugarless diet, but I used to eat fruit. Two weeks ago I cut out all fruit entirely.
But my blood sugar levels skyrocketed. I believe it's due to the micronutrient deficiency from the increased metabolism. I still don't get enough magnesium, iodine, chromium, vanadium, and vitamin D.
There was one theory that was going around the AV-Skeptics back in the Bruce K days about diet sodas and their sweetness and causing obesity. I am not knowledgeable enough to know what exactly happens to cause insulin to be released (as in at what time in the digestion process it occurs) but the thought then was that tasting sweetness causes the release (or rather probably causes extra release) of insulin. The thought then was that the high sweetness causes extra insulin to be released expecting a bunch of extra calories when in fact there arent any because its a 0 calorie drink. So now there is all this extra insulin which stores more fat than if the 0 calorie sweet drink had not been drunk. As a made up example You just ate 800 calories of food and drank a diet soda that the body believes is worth say 200 calories but actually is worth 0. So it's released insulin expecting 1000 calories but only gets 800 so the insulin stores more fat/causes more problems because of the excess. Like I said this was just a theory of Bruce and some other people's but is interesting all the same.
-Drew
Jt-
I'll quit denying that caloric excess leads to increased body mass the moment you quit denying that eating a low-calorie diet tends to make a person naturally want to overeat in a reduced fat burning/increased fat storage state.
What good is cutting calories if it puts you in a reduced fat burning state and gives you a monster appetite – particularly for the most fattening foods?
Anonymous looking for leanness-
If I was to personally try to get really lean for the sake of vanity, I would monitor my basal temperature. First I would eat until my hunger disippated and body temperature was up to the healthy level (near 98.0). I would then go moderate-carb/low-calorie until I either got extremely hungry or noticed a drop in basal temperature – both probably signs of lost lean tissue.
At that point I would do a massive refeed with an emphasis on carbs until I recovered and then would repeat the process.
Some lean freaks usually get this timing to about 3-4 days. Scott Abel does a huge refeed one day per week. Tim Ferriss has also reported good results with this kind of thing.
But the key would probably be to obey hunger for the most part (not force yourself through it), and stop dieting immediately when you noticed a drop in basal temperature. Dieters do the most harm to themselves at the end of dieting, not at the beginning.
Doing this you could probably lose 3 then gain 2, lose 3 then gain 2, lose 3 then gain 2 until you got really lean. But eventually, you get to a point of leanness where you can't go any further. But if you choose to do that, make sure you stay there only briefly and then get back to a healthy level soon afterward.
In other words, you could probably get lean successfully if you were really careful and methodical about it, but it's still a major stress no matter how you "cut" it. I've been in the 3-4% body fat range before. It was very destructive and took a long time to recuperate.
Matt,
Yeah, crazy, right? Fresh ground, unsprouted, unsoaked wheat. Like we've said before, wheat isn't the problem, it's poor health that is.
EL 66K,
I'll get into it more in my post, but Marcelino (the indigenous man from Ecuador) obtained the sugar as brown cones, much like one might find in Mexico. The color and texture he described is similar to the brown, translucent raw sugar found in health food stores. From a raw sugar product's website:
Sugar In The Raw natural cane turbinado sugar is grown and cut exclusively on a 37,000 acre plantation in central Maui, Hawaii. There, nature’s own sweetener is gently converted into the natural crystals that make Sugar In The Raw. The secret lies in the fact that Sugar In The Raw is never bleached or over processed. It is the result of slow boiling layer upon layer of high colored cane? allowing the golden crystals to retain their natural molasses and bringing the extra flavor and richness that nature intended. You’ll immediately recognize the difference in our large crystals and deep golden hue.
undertow,
He described his source as "tribes from the Amazon," so take that for what you will. Maybe they grow sugar cane slash and burn style. Amounts used? Probably 50 to 75 grams per day I'd estimate by his description.
Matt, this is pretty much what I'm going to be experimenting with (after my recent period of serious, very satiating HED overfeeding). As many days of low carb/low cal as I can comfortably tolerate (I'm guessing 3-4 days max) before the weight loss stops and the fatigue/hunger/coldness kicks in, then refeed until I feel "normal" again. I like to think of it as diet sprints.
High Intensity Interval Dieting, or HIID if you will.
I call dibs on coining that phrase.
Gazelle, i have been thinking about something like this too :)
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Matt,
I never did deny that! It is no secret that people who go on low calorie diets end up binge eating. I have already pointed out the problems with yo-yo dieting.
I have said multiple times that for the average person the best thing to do is just eat natural whole foods. This will lead to natural regulation of the appetite, which will lead to a caloric deficit, which will lead to greater weight loss. For those wanting greater leanness, more caloric deficit is needed, so i like a cycling approach to calories to boost metabolism and control the binges, thus making it sustainable long term.
You said, "What good is cutting calories if it puts you in a reduced fat burning state and gives you a monster appetite – particularly for the most fattening foods?" This is exactly what happens with people on Abel's cycle diet. The have extremely low caloric intake, and then binge on HUGE amounts of fattening food. They are consistently some of the leanest, most muscular people around. Another benefit of this diet is how it restores metabolism!
So where exactly in your opinion am I so off with these beliefs?
One thing that really bugged me about the Lusting presentation was that Lustig undermined his own argument by saying repeatedly that it was a volume issue. If you listen carefully to his presentation you’ll see that its not a volume issue at all. Yes the liver has to process 100% of the fructose that is ingested as opposed to only 20% of the glucose in his example. However by repeatedly stating ?it’s a volume issue? he is giving the impression that the liver processes glucose in exactly the same way that it processes fructose. He doesn’t say this but he inadvertently implies its. His presentation shows clearly that the processing of fructose by the liver is very different than the processing of glucose in ways that have nothing at all to do with the relative amounts that need to be processed. In addition to the processing by the liver being totally different, the stimulation of insulin is different. Glucose stimulates the secretion of insulin which blunts appetite. Fructose does not stimulate secretion of insulin and therefore doesn’t satiate. This is bad, not good. But getting back to the liver, the processing of fructose creates uric acid, the processing of glucose does not. Another difference is in the making of new fat. The liver makes very little new fat from glucose but it makes fat out of 30% of the fructose calories that it processes. As a result it increases free fatty acids far more than glucose. It is not a volume issue at all. Fructose is just plain different from glucose and we weren’t designed to get a substantial portion of our calories from it for an extended period of time. I wish Lustig would stop saying ?it’s a volume issue?. Its confusing people.
I've already wondered about this before, but didn't post it yet. Now seems to be a good time.
My question is: Is constant overfeeding actually as successful as "intermittent overfeeding". My prediction would be that the body gets used to it after some time and even though it still will have a calorie/nutrient surplus, I really wonder whether eating much larger amounts than you're used to would have a unique benefit on its own. If you would eat high calorie all week long it perhaps might not have such a "stimulating" effect on the metabolism. My question is whether overfeeding once per week might perhaps be equally effective, maybe even more effective.
Now this is just some (un-)educated guessing and I just wanted to know what you guys have to say about this.
Anyone here carb cycle to lose weight and how do you do it?
I posted a comment, but don't see it, so I'll just repost.
Just wondering if anyone here cab cycles to lose weight and how do you do that?
Thanx
JT,
Your diet soda study — while interesting — is quite lame relative to your categorical statements:
"…diet soda increases your risk for obesity more than soda with sugar/HFCS."
"…the fact that beverages sweetened with sugar/fructose are less fattening than diet drinks, is a direct contradiction of the belief that that sugar causes obesity."
For such authoritative statements I expected something more than an epidemiological study that proves nothing. No sentences which start with "the fact that" can be written based on this study. C'mon man.
Someone mentioned Bruce K earlier. I ran across this comment from Eades on the PaNu blog:
"I remember the guy well who came on my blog and pushed the high everything diet (I'm assuming that's the guy you're speaking about).
A few months ago I got another comment from the same guy telling me that he had regretted going on the high-everything diet and that his health had been compromised as a consequence. And he apologized for what the many comments he had written. His comment was so heartfelt and sincere that I never approved it simply because I wanted to save him the embarrassment of having it out in his own words where everyone could see."
Scott
Vida, in response to your question about carb cycling, yes I did but I can't say I had good results. BUT (big but) this was after a couple of years of VLC and ZC dieting that burned me out metabolically. I was pretty active on one of the low carb boards and several people were trying the Wndy Chant "Crack the Fat Loss Code" diet adn I'm half embarrassed to say I joined in on that. It's lC and low fat and I nearly starved to death. After that I began IF and JUDD and had a little success with both but I was so f'ed up that I couldn't hang with either very long.
I wonder now that I feel so much better if I could handle some form of carb cycling. Your take on that Vida?
That's a BIG question Madmuhh and one that I'm asking myself right now.
It's hard to say. In rehab from starvation, Ancel Keys's subjects overfed for 33 weeks before they fully healed and started to lose fat.
I've read on bodybuilder forums that 2 week intervals of overfeeding provides maximum lean body growth, and that you can gain more muscle and less fat overfeeding for two weeks and then lose less muscle and more fat for 2 weeks of underfeeding afterwards, and that this 2 week high/low cycle can be repeated over and over again to get a better body composition.
The study cited was with women not weightlifting, and there were lean gains and fat losses by doing this 2-week cycle.
Then there is Scott Abel, doing just 1 day per week of overfeeding. Perhaps if you underfeed for only 6 days, 1 day of overfeeding is enough to keep the metabolism high. Most dieters underfeed for months, which takes months of overfeeding to recuperate.
It's probably best to let the body decide. I'd love to hear what people experience doing a part-time "intermittent" HED are.
Taylor. Excellent points. The fructose issue is not just about how the liver processes it. Many other factors from uric acid to fructokinase enzymes are involved. Interestingly, the historic consumption of fructose-rich foods on a consistent basis was only possible in the tropics where polyunsaturated fats are largely absent from the food chain.
Ryan- That's the exact type of conclusion that I've been leaning towards for a while now. The healthier you are, the larger the list of "healthy foods." Blaming the autoimmune, obesity, and diabetes epidemics on wheat is almost as foolish as blaming it on saturated fat. Sure, it can probably be an aggravating factor for some, but it seems painfully obvious that it cannot be causal at the core. I'm interested in the core.
Hmm, but wouldn't this also put intermittent fasting/the warrioir diet into a better light, as long as you make sure to OVEReat at your eating phases?
I think periodizing the overfeeding might be a valid approach, but I really have to read a bit more about that before jumping to any conclusion. Right now, I'm just gonna focus on eating enough, eating lots of fat and carbs (probably a little more carbs), maybe even eat a little too much every now and the and see ow it goes. My temps have risen already (though they are a little lower at the moment (stupid cold. I never used to get so many colds, thanks low-carb for messing up my immune system)) and my weight has gone up too. So far the weight is still not bothering me at all, but in case it gets much more and my temps have come up into a rather safe range I might experiment with that. I'm already planning to get a little more exercise, since I think I can handle it a little better already.
One wacky idea I've had for a while for those of us with stubborn and quick-to-adapt metabolisms is to cycle calories and macros on a truly random schedule. Paleo folks like to talk about how intermittent fasting and HIIT workouts should be as random as possible to mimic conditions during human evolution.
So I got geeky and starting considering using a random number generator to dictate cal/carb levels on a daily basis. If you didn't know in advance how you were going to eat on a certain day, your brain couldn't even unconsciously brace your metabolism for it.
Am I nuts? I get the feeling that if I did a regular carb cycle, my body would instantly adapt to it and figure out a way to still efficiently store fat.
Maybe I'll try it. I have the random number generator app for my iPhone.
@Swede
"A few months ago I got another comment from the same guy telling me that he had regretted going on the high-everything diet and that his health had been compromised as a consequence."
Everything is possible (as Bruce himself would say), but to be honest, I lost some of my trust in Eades after reading this. Bruce is such an honest guy he would probably write about this more if he really believed it was so. But he never did, quite the contrary, he still keeps repeating on his Yahoo group how HED made his health superior to ever before (not saying that his health really was superior back then, only talking about his beliefs).
But anyway, he is indeed a genius, all else aside…
I find it difficult to believe that the two mice in the picture are actually the ones in the experiment; which put on the SAME amount of weight during the 4 weeks.
It was just that the body composition changed ie the fat/muscle ratio increased in the CR mice.
The poor CR mice gulped down the majority of their food within 2 hours and then were hungry from 6am till 4pm that afternoon. The experiment much more closely represents yo-yo dieting or binge eating in people and can't be used to argue about different diets because the mice all ate the SAME food 19% protein, 26% carbs (from memory.)
Those are not the mice from the experiment. The difference in the 4 week experiment was very subtle. They were the same weight after all, but one had favored fat storage while evaporating lean mass as a response to caloric deprivation.
After browsing your blog for 5 minutes, I found that there are far too many posts on your blog that don't cite enough or any evidence at all and post utter nonsense. This post is the final nail in the coffin before I leave.
You use strangled reasoning to arrive at faulty conclusions. Meanwhile, there are some superb blogs out there using actual science. Hope you get it right someday.
I don't rely on "cheap" tactics like using scientific studies to prove a pre-asserted hypothesis. Instead, I incorporate reasoning, logic, history, observation, and more.
That's what makes this blog superior to other blogs that rely on isolated studies that are fully citable. You don't get it. That's the problem.
Anyone can prove whatever they want. It's easy. I could "prove," via those mechanisms that carbs are the devil, fat is the devil, protein is the devil, grains are the devil, fruit is the devil, fruit is the salvation of mankind, dairy is the perfect food, dairy is atherogenic, dairy causes autoimmune disease, dairy cures autoimmune disease, fat makes you fat, fat makes you thin…
No wonder everyone else is so confused. I would be too if this is what I primarily relied upon to investigate the vast topic of human health.
Matt, once again, you hit the nail on the head. Maybe you should fit this in somewhere in your "About 180" section.
Although, I can see where this fellow is coming from. I have to admit, I initially skimmed through your site and brushed you off too. (This may have been before the "read me first" link.) What changed my mind was your impressive reading list, and your responsiveness to comments (I don't know how you do it). I now gather that convincing the skeptics is not your first priority, but rather, trying to get the big picture in your head.
But, if your goal someday is to save more people who are misled by diet religions such as low-fat or low-carb, you should reference a few specific unrefutable examples to back up key points. People don't initially believe contrary claims unless they see the science.
Thanks Jared. I'll take that into consideration. I certainly appreciate the feedback, as reaching a very vast and broad audience is ultimately my goal long-term, and how people respond to me at first blush is the most important part in establishing a strong and curious following.
The free eBook that I almost have wrapped up, and that will go out to all new subscribers will now begin with a short page describing my research style, and why it differs from what is considered standard. I'll include it in all my materials from now on.
Thanks again. I really appreciate it.
Hey! I feel like I'm a part of 180degree history now! Matt, you say that you listen to feedback, and you certainly do follow through with that. I think your new ebook is the perfect introduction for a judging public.
And, I kind of take back what I said. You do give a few good specific examples, which should convince the skeptics. What's different about you compared to the other science writers is that you tend to focus on the broad observations of entire cultures, rather than getting mired in arguing over biochemical pathways and the validity of controlled studies. It's hard to believe how some people miss the big picture. Oh, also your specific self-tests are convincing too.
On the other hand, I'm sometimes surprised by the level of detail you go into in your comments, things that aren't covered in your blog posts (or even your books, though I haven't read them all). I take it you're still sorting things out, and don't want to finalize something you're not completely sure of?
Anyways, it's funny that we should be talking on the very blog post that first rocketed you to over 300 comments. I don't know if you remember, but this coincided with your comment about leptin resistance that you left at the top of Eades' blog post. Apparently that was the comment that attracted a sudden increase in readers for you, including myself. You say that your goal is to reach a vast audience, and I'd say you've got a good strategy– by posting bold comments on the top of blog posts with opposing views. The only other thing I can think of that would be great for attracting readers, if you haven't done it already, is writing book reviews on Amazon. A LOT of people read those who are trying to figure out what health book they should get, and you can really make a name for yourself there.
Thanks Jared. Yes, I was pretty desperate during this time period to get people to the site. I needed about twice the amount of revenue that I was generating at that time. So I did get crazy going around everywhere and leaving comments. My Jimmy Moore podcast, Fathead guest post, and big comments left at Eades, the Well Blog, and the freetheanimal controversy is what got my numbers up so quickly.
I'm tired of that though. It wears me out, and several sites have now banned my IP address :)
Thanks for the tip on the Amazon book reviews. I've yet to consider that.
I do have a lot going on now to drive traffic, including a company that is about to start selling my eBooks for me via clickbank and their own customer base. It should make a big splash, and free me up to do more writing and research and less "hey, look at me!" commenting all over the internet.
But yes, big picture is huge. That's what is so powerful about guys like Weston A. Price. That's as big picture as it gets. It was global, and sought to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy peoples – and pinned it quite easily on diet being 95% responsible for most modern disease. High-carb or low-carb.
All dietary sides have their points, and their highlights, but ultimately they are all wrong and have to work overtime to shut down plain observations that easily refute their hypothesis – like the Kitavans for example, eating a high-carbohydrate diet and having no metabolic syndrome and some of the lowest blood glucose readings on earth.