Favorite passages from Gary Taubes' new book

[ReginaW]

Let me ask you again Angeline, take a young (say mid twenties) woman with a completely normal metabolism (ie, defect free) who consistently eats more carby/fatty calories than she is burning because the food is just so damn delicious that she just enjoys eating that amount. Bear in mind that I'm making no value judgement here. Food is delicious, and abundant but it is the type of food that as Gary Taubes has so eloquently pointed out, just happens to also set up a hormonal environment in that healthy young woman that tends to store fat faster than she thought possible. No defect, her body is just doing with an abundance of a particular macronutrient ratio what evolution has expressly designed it to do - store fat.

This assumes that self-satisfaction is driving excessive consumption rather than the metabolic environement within the body causing it. It maintains the status quo that obesity/weight gain is psychologically based rather than considering it metabolically based as effect rather than cause - it also fails to appreciate that with each pound gained, requirements to maintain said new higher weight increase, thus one must consume more to run the higher weight body and maintain it.....it, quite frankly, is a vicious cycle.....and not one necessarily of "choice" to eat too much, but the effect of doing so with inappropriate fuel for the body to self-regulate - consuming excess carbohydrate calories is throwing the mechanism to regulate intake completely off balance, driving hunger up, driving intake up and driving body fat accumulation up.

[confession]

What possible advantage could there be in storing so much bodyfat that the person becomes almost unable to walk or care for themselves. I can see no example of this as an advantage in the animal world. In fact, being in a state like morbid obesity would most surely have gotten most animals killed by predators.

Stuart- You say these are the individuals who would do best when food is scarce. Do you have proof for that? I have heard that obese people die just as quickly during times of starvation-- as I remember it was in reference to war /concentration camp survival. The problem becomes, that the body does not really run out of fat, but turns to eating up muscle and organs before it has a chance to use up all the fat.

I think that using the phrase " too much fat" is less a value judgement, and more a statement related to the point at which the organism is so hindered by fat that it becomes a physical disadvantage, IMHO. Why would the body be designed to store fat to the point of harming or hindering itself? Starvation is not the only factor related to survival.

[kneebrace]

This assumes that self-satisfaction is driving excessive consumption rather than the metabolic environement within the body causing it. It maintains the status quo that obesity/weight gain is psychologically based rather than considering it metabolically based as effect rather than cause - it also fails to appreciate that with each pound gained, requirements to maintain said new higher weight increase, thus one must consume more to run the higher weight body and maintain it.....it, quite frankly, is a vicious cycle.....and not one necessarily of "choice" to eat too much, but the effect of doing so with inappropriate fuel for the body to self-regulate - consuming excess carbohydrate calories is throwing the mechanism to regulate intake completely off balance, driving hunger up, driving intake up and driving body fat accumulation up.

Ah, now we're getting somewhere Regina. I agree that the metabolic environment conducive to fat gain is necessary ie high carbs/fat. But then many people make the astonishing leap that continuous high fat/carbs will only cause continuing weight gain if there is some underlying metabolic disorder. But I think we should distinguish between morbid obesity and just obesity. I think it probably is 'more likely' that someone maintains morbid obesity if there is some underlying metabolic defect. But we should also recognize that someone may reach morbid obesity without any metabolic defect, and then develop it after some time spent being so, which will make it much harder to stop being obese if they ever start eating a more evolutionarily (and bodyfat loss hormonal environmentally) appropriate diet. There are plenty of psychological states that tend to produce chronic over eating of the wrong food. Spend long enough doing that and anyone will trash their metabolism. And sometimes eating too much of the wrong macronutrient ratio (not crap mind you, just too much 'healthy' carby fatty food) will produce the metabolic disorder, even though obesity is not even involved. I personally was showing all the classic signs of prediabetes when I discovered low carb, and I've never gained much bodyfat. So weight gain or lack of it and any underlying metabolic defect are often associated, but by no means integral factors to becoming obese, ie. not necessarily related, works both ways.

Then there are the systemically super efficient food utilizers like my Mum, who never overate the wrong foods, and thus never stressed her metabolism into developing some defect, yet is reaching a ripe old age still morbidly obese.

It's just not as simple as obesity necessarily being 'caused' by some metabolic defect. I'm certainly not denying that it is a common underlying factor. But like almost anything else, there are many ways to reach the same destination, and arguing that you simply must have some metabolic 'defect' before you can become morbidly obese just isn't helpful to understanding the way the wrong hormonal (food intake mediated) environment is conducive to continuing weight gain.

I think Angeline mentioned that Gary Taubes speculates in GCBC that there 'must be' some (evolutionary) mechanism which in the wild prevents 'excessive' weight gain. I think that may be wishful thinking. There really wasn't any need (Until now, with human cleverness engineering constant food abundance). Food Abundance was only seasonal. Small wonder that we are expressly designed to be super efficient fat gainers when times are good, so that we are more likely to have sufficient to tide us over the scarce periods.

Someone like me, who doesn't gain weight very well with any quantity/macronutrient ratio of food, would die in the wild very quickly. Gaining bodyfat quickly when food is abundant is a very strong selective advantage.

And as I mentioned in an earlier post, although restricting carbohydrate intake is the most powerful dietary approach we know to both minimize the hormonal factors conducive to bodyfat storage, and the appetite driven likelihood of not wanting to stop eating, this board alone is testament to the fact that it is not enough for most people, who also need a hefty dose of self discipline to not overeat (low carb food).

Saying that you simply can't overeat low carb food is nonsense IMHO. Less likely for most folks to be sure, but impossible? Not in my experience. And weight gain is neither an unavoidable consequence of overeating low carb or high fat/carb food.

RN I think it's interesting that you mentioned the athletes who ballooned up when they stopped training. Presumably if they hadn't made a conscious descision to stop eating as much they would have gone on gaining bodyfat. I doubt whether many of them even went low carb. But someone who didn't have as good self esteem may not have been able to stop eating. Eating can be used as such an emotional crutch. Some people overeat for fun, some because it's fun and they think they can do so without dire (even sometimes non bodyfat gain() metabolic consequences (like I used to). And some perfectly healthy people overeat and gain tremendous amounts of bodyfat because they are simply desperately unhappy. Still others, like my Mum, are both perfectly healthy and happy and are merely super efficient food utilizers.
It's never a case of one size fits all. Saying that a metabolic defect is a necessary precondition to massive weight gain is in my view a definite case of the one size fits all mentality.

Stuart

[Nancy LC]

From my experience in debating Stuart he probably won't read the book, click any links, watch the web cast and will express all kinds of opinions that are covered endlessly elsewhere. He will avoid answering the questions you pose. He is rather a lot like the "experts" that Taubes writes about, people immune to acquiring new information. He just likes to stir things up. Save your fingers for someone that has intellectual curiosity.

[Angeline]

I think Angeline mentioned that Gary Taubes speculates in GCBC that there 'must be' some (evolutionary) mechanism which in the wild prevents 'excessive' weight gain. I think that may be wishful thinking. There really wasn't any need (Until now, with human cleverness engineering constant food abundance). Food Abundance was only seasonal. Small wonder that we are expressly designed to be super efficient fat gainers when times are good, so that we are more likely to have sufficient to tide us over the scarce periods.

I don't remember any mention of an evolutionary mechanism for preventing weight gain. What does exist is a mechanism for controlling weight. What Gary said is that weight is controlled within a certain range, just as blood pressure and temperature is.

Also we tend to assume there were scarce periods during human evolution, enough scarce periods to effect an evolutionary pressure, but that might not be true to a great extent. Scarcity is something that has been introduced with agriculture. Human are extraordinary resourceful and have the advantage of being omnivores. They was probably always something to be had. Gary made the point that during the drought in some parts of Africa, where farmers were starving, the neighboring hunter-gatherer tribe (I'm sorry, I forgot the name) did not suffer in the slightest. There had many alternatives to eat and the drought caused animals to gather at the few remaining water holes. Easy pickings. In a rich environment, there is always something to eat. And our ancestor very likely followed game wherever it wandered to during it annual migrations. Imagine all the amazing things that humans do now. The great engineering works, the amazing feats. Well hundreds of years of accumulated knowledge allows us to do this but human ingenuity and resourcefulness is nothing new. Imagine what happens when all this resourcefulness and ingenuity is turned to accomplishing only one thing; gathering food. I am convinced they were extraordinary accomplished at this.

Saying that you simply can't overeat low carb food is nonsense IMHO. Less likely for most folks to be sure, but impossible? Not in my experience. And weight gain is neither an unavoidable consequence of overeating low carb or high fat/carb food.

The physiological fact is you can't accumulate fat without the presence of insulin. That's why people who have advanced cases of diabetes become emaciated. If you keep insulin very low, you cannot gain weight, even though you eat monstrous amount of calories.

And it's true some people do not put on weight, even eating high carb. But being overweight is only one of the symptoms of syndrome X. The fact that someone is not overweight doesn't mean that excess levels of insulin are not doing damage.

Anyway. I suggest you read Gary Taubes book, or at the very least least listen to the lecture because everything we are saying here has been covered. It addresses and challenges many of the assumptions you have presented here.

[rightnow]

But then many people make the astonishing leap that continuous high fat/carbs will only cause continuing weight gain if there is some underlying metabolic disorder.
I am more inclined to think that people make the smaller leap that people in general are not driven to chronic, continuous, ongoingly excessive high fat/carbs intake in the absence of a metabolic disorder. People may have phases in life, or binge on occasion, or pack in for the season, but that is obesity (and research indicates, usually self-correcting, though we don't know exactly how), not morbid obesity.

MO would require not only a constant major overeating but a constant growth in the quantity of that intake as well. People do this all the time -- but the indicators are that it's hormonally driven, not "gosh how I love ice cream" driven.

There are probably people who are hormonally doomed from the beginning, and get and remain fat on very little (and even decent) food. I wouldn't know about that. I may not eat a ton of food most the time but if I'm not lowcarb, I've eaten carbs, bread/tortilla/pasta/milk. The fact that I'm apparently very sensitive to gluten and potentially to caseine I'm sure hasn't helped. (Some researchers even suggest that allergens in the body can cause chronic weight gain and resistance to weight loss, even without the calorie/carb issue coming into the question.) But it is probably the case. I tend to think that this does not reflect a body merely "ideally utilizing the natural fat-storing genetic ability"; I tend to think if this is the case, there is something wrong with that person's body and/or their response to whatever food they are eating, that has not been diagnosed.

Morbid obesity is completely contrary to anything a person needs to survive, not just because the person gets more helpless, but because as was mentioned above, when seriously fat people/animals are forced into starvation mode, they don't just live off their fat, they cannibalize their own muscle and organs while the fat stays happily ensconced in the cells--they are not thin people when it's done, they are emaciated fat people. This point alone suggests to me at least that something like morbid obesity is probably NOT "merely the proper functioning of fat storage in people who eat too much," but some actual metabolic defect.

As I said before, the body stores fat constantly even in thin people so storing fat is not that big an issue. It's the body's refusal to let that fat out to be used as energy that is the reason morbid obesity seems to happen. If this does not occur, either something is over-increasing the insulin, or in some other fashion under-promoting or suppressing other biochemical that does the fat-to-energy transfer job.

[kneebrace]

I think it's very revealing that you're assuming that I"ve neither read Gary's book or not listen to the Berkeley address. I've done both, I just disagree with a few of his conclusions. And I certainly disagree with the idea expressed in this thread that a metabolic defect is necessary for massive weight gain. More to the point, I doubt whether he would agree with it either

What he is actually saying is that massive weight gain is very difficult on a low carb dietary approach. But I'm pretty sure he is also saying that it is really easy for some perfectly healthy (metabolic defect free) people to gain massive amounts of weight if they eat enough fatty/carby food. They probably will develop a metabolic defect if they go on eating a lot of fatty/carby food. Even people who never gain much bodyfat will do so if they eat this way. I'm personally a perfect example of this.

Now Angeline, Beth, Angeline RN, or anyone else who disagrees with me, just because I disagree with you doesn't make me either illinformed or anti low carb to any degree. The kind of descent into personal attack that Nancy's most recent post stoops to is both against this forum's clearly explained rules and rather detracts from the intellectual credibility of the person taking that tack. I'm sorry if it offends you that I try to point out the gaping holes in your logic. I hope and trust you'll do the same with me. I make no apology for often disagreeing with Nancy. I'm sure she's doing the best she can with the reading she does, as I do.

But please, keep it clean!

Stuart

[kneebrace]

As I said before, the body stores fat constantly even in thin people so storing fat is not that big an issue. It's the body's refusal to let that fat out to be used as energy that is the reason morbid obesity seems to happen. If this does not occur, either something is over-increasing the insulin, or in some other fashion under-promoting or suppressing other biochemical that does the fat-to-energy transfer job.

RN my only direct observational experience with mobidly obese people is my own Mother. I'm curious why you assume that an MO person necessarily is refusing to let fat out to be used as energy. You don't think it can just go on being replaced by a super efficient metabolism? I mean even people on a high carb diet are in ketosis when they first wake up.

Stuart

[rightnow]

Nothing is impossible. I think more research needs to be done before a lot of the theory and supposition can be called fact.

being replaced by a super efficient metabolism
I think that research has so far discovered what someone else referred to as a metabolic problem or defect, which can elevate the quantity of fat stuffed into the cells greatly, but I haven't seen any research discovering "super efficient metabolism" of the sort you describe. It may well exist. But so far when metabolism acts like that, it is usually trackable to an actual problem.

I think morbid obesity being considered a result of super efficient metabolism, is like considering liver cancer a result of super efficient cell growth. If I played semantics I could make the words work that way, but it's a silly way to look at it given the end-result being destructive and likely eventually deadly, and it overlooks the point that this 'super efficiency' is likely caused by something -- and that something, since it's resulting in a condition that is dangerous to survival, is probably best termed a defect.

[rightnow]

I forgot one other thing.

If someone DID have that much chronic insulin for that much constant storage, even if by some weird chance it was merely super efficient and no kind of disorder (let's just suspend disbelief and say it could be so), still, the insulin required for the constant major quantity storage would be suppressing the conversion of fat to energy by its presence.

In short, you are hypothesizing that perhaps massive fat is constantly stored, and yet massive fat is constantly used. It is technically not really possible for both of these to be present at the same time at "high levels" like we are talking about with that degree of obesity, because insulin is the dominant biochemical and will suppress the others needed for the reverse if it is present in large amounts or chronically. So it is sort of a catch 22. In fairly small amounts as 'normal healthy' bodies eating 'normal healthy' foods, insulin is moderate and then fades away and all the other biochemicals can do other things, including access those fat cells for ongoing energy. But in order to "re-store" morbid-obesity-levels of fat cells constantly, the insulin has got to be highly elevated and constant as well. Which would make the accessing of all that energy unlikely to impossible, as a result. Which goes back to the metabolic issue, really.

I think it is more likely that a person could go through some biochemical phase where they stored a ton of fat (for check one, of a billion combined reasons), and then that fat simply resisted conversion to energy, and the food the person ate from then on "maintained" their energy levels and nutrients etc. but if they were highly active, and if their metabolic problem created the fat problem but then reduced so it wasn't really a problem anymore (assuming this is possible; who knows?), it is theoretically possible (on paper) that they simply maintained the fat stores their whole life based on their eating, and/or based on a metabolism that reduced in some fashion to maintain that size based on their eating even if that eating was far less than would be expected for a body that size. This alternative would actually fit in fairly decently with the research so far it seems to me.

Best,
PJ

[Angeline]

What he is actually saying is that massive weight gain is very difficult on a low carb dietary approach. But I'm pretty sure he is also saying that it is really easy for some perfectly healthy (metabolic defect free) people to gain massive amounts of weight if they eat enough fatty/carby food. They probably will develop a metabolic defect if they go on eating a lot of fatty/carby food. Even people who never gain much bodyfat will do so if they eat this way. I'm personally a perfect example of this.
Stuart

Why do you always refer to it as fatty/carby food? Carby food will make you gain weight, not fat. Maybe fat in conjunction with carbs, but that's the effect of the carbs, not the fat.

I suppose this is a chicken or the egg type of argument. But I'll agree that people probably start out normal when they begin to eat massive amount of carbs. Studies on native populations show that symptoms of syndrome X become prevalent in a population that has adopted a western style high carb diet begins some 20-30 years after they adopt the new diet. One can safely presume these people start out with normal metabolism.

Although there are indications that mothers with insulin resistance will give birth to bigger babies who have a greater chance of developing syndrome x.

Maybe some people are more sensitive to the effect of too many carbs than others, and that could be genetic. Certainly, populations who until recently did not consume a lot of carbs seems heavily affected. Although that could also be due to the fact that displaced native populations are often poor, and poor people tend eat to the cheapest food, i.e carbs.

[kurt]

I'm ordering the book. Thanks for all the information on this... It really is helpful to me!! ;)

[kneebrace]

Why do you always refer to it as fatty/carby food? Carby food will make you gain weight, not fat. Maybe fat in conjunction with carbs, but that's the effect of the carbs, not the fat.



Actually Angeline, I think this is one of the most enduring myths of low carbing. Eating heroic quantities of even high GI foods like bread and potatoes as long as they are not accompanied by fat doesn't seem to result in bodyfat gain. It's only when fat is added as well that people gain bodyfat. I'm not even sure why this happens metabolically, but it is historical fact. I'm certainly not recommending it. Low fat eating is a health disaster. Not to mention the fact that in my personal experience as well as observing anyone attempting to restrict fat, it doesn't seem to matter how much 'healthy' carbohydrate you manage to stuff down your throat, in the absence of accompanying dietary fat, you are never satisfied and consume even more carbs than you thought possible. I remember trying to stick to the Pritikin diet, and feeling almost that it must be a vindication of the health of the ultra low fat approach that everyone I knew doing Pritikin (ultra low fat) lost ridiculous amounts of both bodyfat and muscle, while needing to eat bread, unbuttered (I shudder at the memory of how unappetizing low fat food is) or fruit almost continuously. After I'd been sticking to Pritikin for several months, Nathan Pritikin gave a lecture in Brisbane, and I remember thinking that he was probably the sickest looking human being I'd ever seen (he was dying of unpublicized leukemia at the time, it was disclosed after he committed suicide about a year later). Everyone else at the lecture looked emaciated and very unhealthy too, including me and all my friends. We all complained almost proudly that they couldn't stop eating bread,potatoes, rice or fruit, but never gained any bodyfat.

Perhaps someone else can enlighten us why excess carbs without accompanying fat doesn't seem to cause weight gain. I mean there's certainly an insulin deluge going on. In any case high fat/carbs or even only moderate fat/high carbs eaten beyond bodily energy requirements also produces that insulin deluge, and in this case bodyfat deposition seems to occur at a blinding pace.

And just like with the low fat/high carbs, you are constantly hungry, the insulin tsumami released to try to deal with all that blood sugar pretty well guarantees that. And now all that excess energy, both fat and carbohydrate, really is stored as bodyfat in all but the metabolically defected
individuals like me who don't seem to be able to gain bodyfat however much fat and carbohydrate we eat in combination.

But whether you gain rapidly or not eating high fat/carbs, you are definitely strapped securely into the degenerative disease rollercoaster. I still can't believe how lucky I am to have adopted a low carb dietary approach a metabolic nanosecond before my pancreas gave up completely.

So in answer to your question why I always say 'high fat/carbs, Angeline, I can only emphasize that high carbs without the fat don't in fact result in much weight gain. But eating low fat is a metabolic disaster, and as soon as you start eating a healthy amount of fat, if you go on eating high carbs as well, you get the metabolic disaster of high carbs, considerably amplified by the accompanying fat, and (usually) the bodyfat gain as well. Not to mention being hungry all the time, so you seem to be able to consume a breathtaking amount of food and never feel satisfied.

I can't help thinking that in the pre -neolithic, when food was only occasionally abundant. the carb fraction of that food abundance, whether it be berries or tubers, guaranteed that you were keen to really stuff your face and take (bodyfat gain) advantage of food abundance when it did occur. But modern humans who are cognizant of the bodyfat gain hormonal environment engendered by high fat/carbs, and also aware that high carbs without any fat, while unlilely to promote much bodyfat gain, are just not very healthy, can make an intellectual decision to just walk on by, and not fall 'victim' to the evolutionary bodyfat gain imperatives we are so metabolically endowed with.

Stuart

[ReginaW]

Ah, now we're getting somewhere Regina. I agree that the metabolic environment conducive to fat gain is necessary ie high carbs/fat. But then many people make the astonishing leap that continuous high fat/carbs will only cause continuing weight gain if there is some underlying metabolic disorder.

Well, IMO, there are two issues here - 1) true genetic "defect" and 2) inappropriate metabolic environment - one you're born with, one is induced by an inappropriate mix of energy to fuel the body and endocrine system. Neither necessarily dooms one to gain weight to the point of obesity or morbid obesity, but both make it much easier to do so.

But I think we should distinguish between morbid obesity and just obesity. I think it probably is 'more likely' that someone maintains morbid obesity if there is some underlying metabolic defect. But we should also recognize that someone may reach morbid obesity without any metabolic defect, and then develop it after some time spent being so, which will make it much harder to stop being obese if they ever start eating a more evolutionarily (and bodyfat loss hormonal environmentally) appropriate diet.

On this I don't agree - I think one is as likely to reach morbid obesity due to a true genetic defect as they are consuming a diet fueling a state of metabolic chaos with perfectly normal genetics that would otherwise indicate a normal body weight under different conditions of diet environment.

There are plenty of psychological states that tend to produce chronic over eating of the wrong food.

Well, that is what we're told....but is it true? While I hold it is possible that a small percentage of people do suffer with eating disorders - whether overeating or undereating - thus, may be psychological....I think the vast majority are not. But, I also think we've been told for so long that the majority of obese folks have psychological issues that we believe it. Do they? Probably given the current state of all-day-everyday assault on their senses and repeatedly being told there is something wrong with them and that's why they're obese - but to pin psycological on their weight gain, I don't necessarily agree with that....it can contribute along the way if one is repeatedly told that, but I don't think it is what gets the ball rolling to gain weight in the majority of people - does that make any sense?

Spend long enough doing that and anyone will trash their metabolism. And sometimes eating too much of the wrong macronutrient ratio (not crap mind you, just too much 'healthy' carby fatty food) will produce the metabolic disorder, even though obesity is not even involved.

See, I can't call such a state a "metabolic disorder" - and that's because the body and its metabolism are functioning exactly the way they are supposed to in such an environment - if you change the environment, many of the very derrangements we're calling "disorder" and "defect" reverse - so was the condition one of disorder/defect in the body or disorder/defect in the environment?

Edited to add: I think for what we're seeing in the population to be called "defect" or "metabolic disorder" we'd need to show that the current dietary guidelines are aligned with our genetics and metabolic requirements - that such a diet is truly ideal (high carb, lower fat) and that it isn't the dietary habits exerting a negative effect, but a defect.

I personally was showing all the classic signs of prediabetes when I discovered low carb, and I've never gained much bodyfat. So weight gain or lack of it and any underlying metabolic defect are often associated, but by no means integral factors to becoming obese, ie. not necessarily related, works both ways.

I think the evidence is quite compelling that one doesn't necessarily gain weight with a high carbohydrate diet, or even what's promoted as a "healthy" higher carbohydrate diet....yet, in time, despite no appreciable gain in weight, such a diet exacts similar outcomes with regards to metabolic effect - elevated triglycerides, depressed HDL, elevated blood sugars, accumulation of visceral fat (without higher BMI), and elevated insulin levels. The real difference between one who stores excess body fat on such a diet and one who doesn't comes down to level of insulin resistance in the fat cells....both are insulin resistant states - one is just more resistant to insulin at the fat cell than the other, with the latter able to pack excess energy away as fat that the former cannot.

Then there are the systemically super efficient food utilizers like my Mum, who never overate the wrong foods, and thus never stressed her metabolism into developing some defect, yet is reaching a ripe old age still morbidly obese.

I'm sorry to hear about your mom....one doesn't need to overeat the "wrong" foods to reach obesity - since I have no way of knowing what "never ate the wrong foods" means in any context, I won't comment on this further without clarification, OK?

It's just not as simple as obesity necessarily being 'caused' by some metabolic defect. I'm certainly not denying that it is a common underlying factor. But like almost anything else, there are many ways to reach the same destination, and arguing that you simply must have some metabolic 'defect' before you can become morbidly obese just isn't helpful to understanding the way the wrong hormonal (food intake mediated) environment is conducive to continuing weight gain.

Since I don't believe the vast majority of overweight/obesity is due to "defects" in the metabolism, I don't think we have a point to debate here!

I think Angeline mentioned that Gary Taubes speculates in GCBC that there 'must be' some (evolutionary) mechanism which in the wild prevents 'excessive' weight gain. I think that may be wishful thinking. There really wasn't any need (Until now, with human cleverness engineering constant food abundance). Food Abundance was only seasonal. Small wonder that we are expressly designed to be super efficient fat gainers when times are good, so that we are more likely to have sufficient to tide us over the scarce periods.

Now here, I can say that your point is debatable - while it's true that many lived in what would be seasonal locations for particular foods, others migrated to warmer climes when the season grew colder, and others lived in areas where it was temperate all year round....making your assertion that it was lack of food during certain periods each year that made us unable to grow too fat inaccurate.

We humans have been "clever" for quite some time and I think the real change in our cleverness isn't our ability to maintain a food supply during times when it's difficult or even impossible to farm - think pemmican, jerky and such in the past; I think it's our type of food available and consumed all year round now......where generations past concentrated on maintaining a supply of protein and fat, we now maintain grain-based, highly refined foods - to our detriment. And, not only that, but we specifically tell the population to limit meat, protein and fat and go feast on the very foods that derrange our metabolism over the long-term.

Someone like me, who doesn't gain weight very well with any quantity/macronutrient ratio of food, would die in the wild very quickly. Gaining bodyfat quickly when food is abundant is a very strong selective advantage.

On this I do agree somewhat, but would caution that it is impossible to know if your particular genetic makeup is aligned with your ancestors since epigenetic influences can indeed exert quickly within a person and through generations - basically, given your Mom's situation, it may well be that your in-utero environment and genetics are factoring into your metabolic situation - as much as previous dietary habits - no one can say for sure, but research is continuing to point to both exerting influence in children born where mom was/is insulin resistant and/or deficient in certain essential nutrients.

And as I mentioned in an earlier post, although restricting carbohydrate intake is the most powerful dietary approach we know to both minimize the hormonal factors conducive to bodyfat storage, and the appetite driven likelihood of not wanting to stop eating, this board alone is testament to the fact that it is not enough for most people, who also need a hefty dose of self discipline to not overeat (low carb food).

And I will say, even at the risk of major flaming, that it isn't simply reducing carbohydrate that matters - it often takes a lot more than just restricting carbohydrate....because we need more than just energy from what we consume - we need nutrients.....a point of contention I've had for years in all the various dietary recommendations, including low-carb! Until the powers that be, even within low-carb, acknowledge the very real effect of adequate nutrient intake - even carbohydrate restriction will not resolve the problem.

And that's because, IMO, it's not just about energy - but also about providing the essentials our bodies need to hum along efficiently. While low-carb may resolve the issue of insulin and dislypidemia in most, it will not exert maximal effect without being nutrient-dense to provide the building blocks and nutrients we require to optimize our metabolism and body systems.

Saying that you simply can't overeat low carb food is nonsense IMHO. Less likely for most folks to be sure, but impossible? Not in my experience. And weight gain is neither an unavoidable consequence of overeating low carb or high fat/carb food.

I think you might be surprised by various studies investigating nutrients and the effect on the ability to continue consuming calories - in animal models for instance, hitting protein requirements literally shuts down continued consumption despite a calorie deficit - and the converse is also found, limit protein and watch as an animal continues to consume to the point of near-death.

We do have limited data to suggest a similar effect in humans - try over-feeding a human meat with an 80-20 ratio of fat-to-protein - researchers have found it impossible to continue studies designed as such because hunger disappears and they cannot make the subjects continue to consume excess calories for a long enough period to compare what happens in such a dietary situation compared to a diet predominently made of carbohydrate (where researchers can make humans consume in excess of 10,000 calories for weeks on end without any problems).

We also have limited human data on protein intake and how limiting protein can exert an effect to make one consume excess calories and still lose weight despite the excess calories when protein is deficient.

What this speaks to, IMO, is that it's not just calories - there is a lot more going on, and that would be nutrients influencing the effect those calories, even when appropriate for our metabolism (IMO controlled-carb)......fail to get both right and you won't see the long-term optimization of metabolism.

[kneebrace]

I[QUOTE] forgot one other thing.

If someone DID have that much chronic insulin for that much constant storage, even if by some weird chance it was merely super efficient and no kind of disorder (let's just suspend disbelief and say it could be so), still, the insulin required for the constant major quantity storage would be suppressing the conversion of fat to energy by its presence.

PJ, if the morbidly obese person stopped eating greater than energy requirement amounts of fat/carbs, then they would be able to start accessing that store bodyfat for energy. Only if they suffered some metabolic defect that prevented lipolysis occuring when experiencing a calorific deficit, would the (long) process of bodyfat loss be prevented. I thought this was what you were suggesting?

In fact most morbidly obese people who stop creating a hormonal environment conducive to bodyfat gain with high fat/carbs, and adopt a calorie resticted (just enough to create the calorie deficit necessary for bodyfat loss, certainly not below the 1000 calorie minimum where thyroid/metabolic rate complications start to occur) low carb diet, they do indeed start to lose bodyfat at a very impressive rate. Some don't, particularly if they have done a lot of metabolic damage by spending so long eating high fat/carbs. Let's not quibble over percentages. Suffice to say that IMHO the ones whose fat cells hold on to their own grimly, even in this new (low carb) bodyfat burning conducive hormonal environment are a tiny minority, while you probably don't :)

In short, you are hypothesizing that perhaps massive fat is constantly stored, and yet massive fat is constantly used. It is technically not really possible for both of these to be present at the same time at "high levels" like we are talking about with that degree of obesity, because insulin is the dominant biochemical and will suppress the others needed for the reverse if it is present in large amounts or chronically. So it is sort of a catch 22. In fairly small amounts as 'normal healthy' bodies eating 'normal healthy' foods, insulin is moderate and then fades away and all the other biochemicals can do other things, including access those fat cells for ongoing energy. But in order to "re-store" morbid-obesity-levels of fat cells constantly, the insulin has got to be highly elevated and constant as well. Which would make the accessing of all that energy unlikely to impossible, as a result. Which goes back to the metabolic issue, really.

No, I'm not suggesting that at all. And I clearly understand your metabolic process descriptions too. What I am suggesting is that (most) morbidly obese people will be perfectly metabolically able to start accessing bodyfat for energy if they ever stop eating more than energy requirements in a hormonal environment conducive to bodyfat burning ie low carb/insulin. If they merely stop eating more than energy requirements, but stick with the old high fat/carb bodyfat gain hormonal environment, they'll just burn the fat/carbs they eat, and neither gain nor lose. None of this is either defected or abnormal. It's just the human body doing what it is designed to do, and what GCBC explains so brilliantly, which is store bodyfat when excess energy is consumed in a macronutrient ratio that is conducive to bodyfat gain ie high fat/carbs/insulin..... and also burn bodyfat when less than energy requirements are consumed and a hormonal environment conducive to doing that is created by eating low carb.


Btw. It's a really interesting topic PJ, and I'm so glad you are able to discuss it without resorting to petty character assassination barbs and/or downright lies :) .

Stuart

[ReginaW]

It's just the human body doing what it is designed to do, and what GCBC explains so brilliantly, which is store bodyfat when excess energy is consumed in a macronutrient ratio that is conducive to bodyfat gain ie high fat/carbs/insulin..... and also burn bodyfat when less than energy requirements are consumed and a hormonal environment conducive to doing that is created by eating low carb.

I think what you missed in Gary's presentation of the data is that body fat stores are possible in a calorie deficit if carbohydrate intake is excessive to create a metabolic state where both insulin and alpha glycerol phosphate are elevated to the point where tapping into fat stores is effectively shut-off due to their circulation in the body. Lower insulin and circulating alpha glycerol phosphate and you allow a means for the body to tap into fat stores for energy.

One of the most important points of Gary's pointing this out is the biological basis for potentially storing fat despite a calorie deficit or just at simple adequate calories that are not excessive. If the body believes it is starving - because it cannot tap into stored energy - it works to resolve that by triggering hunger to eat more to bring in more energy, while also reducing energy expenditure to survive the calorie deficit....combined that can lead to one consuming excess energy - reverse that state, where both insulin and circulating alpha glycerol phosphate is reduced and body fat is then more readily available for use as energy.

[Legeon]

After I'd been sticking to Pritikin for several months, Nathan Pritikin gave a lecture in Brisbane, and I remember thinking that he was probably the sickest looking human being I'd ever seen (he was dying of unpublicized leukemia at the time, it was disclosed after he committed suicide about a year later). Everyone else at the lecture looked emaciated and very unhealthy too, including me and all my friends. We all complained almost proudly that they couldn't stop eating bread,potatoes, rice or fruit, but never gained any bodyfat.

Perhaps someone else can enlighten us why excess carbs without accompanying fat doesn't seem to cause weight gain. I mean there's certainly an insulin deluge going on. In any case high fat/carbs or even only moderate fat/high carbs eaten beyond bodily energy requirements also produces that insulin deluge, and in this case bodyfat deposition seems to occur at a blinding pace.That's very interesting. It sounds like you and everyone else were wasting away for want of nourishment. Maybe any fats that could have potentially been laid down were immediately devoured somewhere along the line by a starving body? Does something happen to fat cells when very little fat is eaten that makes them unresponsive to insulin? Were you making enough hormones without fat and did that somehow mess things up? It really sounds like you hit the trigger that switches a person from healthy and young to old and running out of material your body can work with to stay alive.

[ReginaW]

What I am suggesting is that (most) morbidly obese people will be perfectly metabolically able to start accessing bodyfat for energy if they ever stop eating more than energy requirements in a hormonal environment conducive to bodyfat burning ie low carb/insulin.

I think study data clearly shows that restricting calories does indeed result in a reduction of weight and body fat - but does not necessarily result in long-term maintenance when one increases calories to levels that are supposed to be adequate to maintain weight and no longer a deficit.

The question then is why is it that we keep finding that weight can be lost in a calorie deficit, but cannot be maintained long-term unless same calorie deficit is continued long-term (forever starvation)?

Simply reducing calories is not resolving the underlying problem/cause of weight gain....it is temporarily starving the body and lowering the factors that influence energy use from stored fat.....but we're fooling only ourselves if we think that it's just calories for the long-term.

If you take a moment and step back from "calories in calories out" you can then begin to ask without energy considerations, what does a body need to function optimally? What is necessary to provide for necessary energy requirements (basal metabolism), repair, rebuilding and processes for production of hormones, enzymes, etc.? It's not calories per se, it's nutrients....essential nutrients each day.

Believe it or not, I would bet good money that a morbidly obese person could, in fact, consume a calorie level that matches their energy expenditure (calorie needs) each day and lose body fat and weight on the scale....despite consuming enough calories to maintain their weight.....if and only if carbohydrate is 40g or less each day, maybe even lower than that for carbohydrate for some and essential nutrients are adequate.

I think though, over time, if you locked said morbidly obese person in a metabolic ward to watch this, you'd find they'd not continue to eat an excess of calories - they'd refuse to, they simply could not continue to do it willingly, therefore would not continue to.

Personally, I don't think humans are unable to self-regulate intake - I think how we eat short-circuits this innate process.....other animals self-regulate, in fact, all mammals self-regulate.....why in the world would humans differ in this ability?

[ReginaW]

After I'd been sticking to Pritikin for several months, Nathan Pritikin gave a lecture in Brisbane, and I remember thinking that he was probably the sickest looking human being I'd ever seen (he was dying of unpublicized leukemia at the time, it was disclosed after he committed suicide about a year later). Everyone else at the lecture looked emaciated and very unhealthy too, including me and all my friends. We all complained almost proudly that they couldn't stop eating bread,potatoes, rice or fruit, but never gained any bodyfat.

Perhaps someone else can enlighten us why excess carbs without accompanying fat doesn't seem to cause weight gain. I mean there's certainly an insulin deluge going on. In any case high fat/carbs or even only moderate fat/high carbs eaten beyond bodily energy requirements also produces that insulin deluge, and in this case bodyfat deposition seems to occur at a blinding pace.

Starvation tends to have that effect.

[kneebrace]

[QUOTE=ReginaW]I think what you missed in Gary's presentation of the data is that body fat stores are possible in a calorie deficit if carbohydrate intake is excessive to create a metabolic state where both insulin and alpha glycerol phosphate are elevated to the point where tapping into fat stores is effectively shut-off due to their circulation in the body. Lower insulin and circulating alpha glycerol phosphate and you allow a means for the body to tap into fat stores for energy.

Regina, I suppose all you mean is that a calorie deficit will be different for an individual depending on whether or not carbs/insulin are low. What would be a deficit calorie intake under a low carb dietary approach wouldn't necessarily be a calorie deficit under a higher carb macronutrient ratio.

Alpha glycerol phosphate may well be only one a host of hormonal details which all follow from getting insulin low with low carbs. What would really throw a spanner in the works (of the concept that bodyfat gain/loss is primarily a macronutrient ratio mitigated hormonal environment thing) would be if there was any evidence that some other hormonal association with low insulin to some degree cancelled out low insulin's lipolysis conducive power. But that would be very poor design wouldn't it? I don't think nature makes those kind of mistakes.

Gary doesn't suggest that anywhere from memory.

The bottom line is that regardless of whether the hormonal environment is 'conducive' to lipolysis, it ain't gonna happen if theres plenty of metabolizable energy from dietary intake still swimming around in your blood, so creating a calorie deficit (however you define it) is a necessary prerequisite for bodyfat lipolysis. The Eades often mention the huge number of frustrated low carbing patients they've treated who were fastidiuously restricting carbs, but were still eating way too much fat, so although the hormonal stage had well and truly been set for bodyfat burning it didn't happen until they'd created a calorie deficit by reducing their fat intake.

Stuart

[herselfNYC]

I saw Dr Michael Eades mention recently that it's a mistake to eat vegetables or fruits without some added fat (ie, salad w/non-fat dressing) because in the absence of accompanying fat, we can't absorb the micronutrients in the fruits and vegetables. Which may help explain why all those Pritikin dieters were so sickly, as well as hungry all the time.

[kneebrace]

Starvation tends to have that effect.

So true :) . Which is why it's such a mistake to say that 'carbs' are fattening. Carbs with fat are potentially fattening, depending on how much of the combination you eat. And I think this point also highlights the point that weight gain (continuing or otherwise) is not necessarily a 'disease'/ 'defect' state. It's what nature has ably equipped most animals, not just humans, to do in times of plenty.
It's always fascinated me that one of the most oft quoted human analogies for being 'fat' is that 'somebody is as big a whale'. Whales spend 5 months of every year stuffing their faces and getting very, very fat and the next 7 living off it, and in the process getting very very thin. Lugging around all that fat for such a protracted fast is a bit of an engineering challenge for a terrestrial animal, but it puts our fear of fat, particularly the apparent need to define the ability to get very fat very fast as necessitating some kind of 'defect', in stark perspective.

Stuart

[ReginaW]

Regina, I suppose all you mean is that a calorie deficit will be different for an individual depending on whether or not carbs/insulin are low. What would be a deficit calorie intake under a low carb dietary approach wouldn't necessarily be a calorie deficit under a higher carb macronutrient ratio.

No, that isn't what I mean....so I'll clarify....we know that the body needs and expends energy based on various processes throughout the day and night - and just how much energy is required depends on many things, including current body weight, level of lean body mass versus body fat stores, activity level throughout the day and the body maintaining homeostasis for body temp, heartbeat, etc.

If you have a 300-pound person needing (easy number not necessarily true, but an example) 3000-calories a day to maintain their weight, and they do just that with 60% carbohydrate, 15% protein and 25% fat and you force them to reduce calories to 2,000-calories, maintaining the same macronutrient ratios, you've effectively reduced carbohydrate intake, from 450g a day to 300g a day - still high-carb, low-fat, which brings the question...that has not been answered - is it the calorie deficit exerting influence to cause loss of body fat, or the reduction in insulin and circulating alpha glycerol phosphate, or both?

Taking that a step further, what would happen if you presented the same 300-pound person with a protein adequate, high-fat diet with 3,000 calories in a day but only 20g of carbohydrate? Would they continue to eat 3,000-calories a day? Would they spontaneously reduce their intake despite being allowed to consume ad libitum for delicious foods sans the carbohydrate? Would they seemingly defy the laws of thermodynamics and actually shed body fat? We don't know because no such research has been done to investigate such an approach to understanding metabolism and weight gain/loss in such a context.

"Calorie deficit" may matter more than anything else, then again, establishing a favorable metabolic environment may be what matters more....just as it may indeed be that a calorie deficit within a context of optimal nutrients is the deciding factor at the end of the day.

[Angeline]

Low fat eating is a health disaster. Not to mention the fact that in my personal experience as well as observing anyone attempting to restrict fat, it doesn't seem to matter how much 'healthy' carbohydrate you manage to stuff down your throat, in the absence of accompanying dietary fat, you are never satisfied and consume even more carbs than you thought possible. ... Everyone else at the lecture looked emaciated and very unhealthy too, including me and all my friends. We all complained almost proudly that they couldn't stop eating bread,potatoes, rice or fruit, but never gained any bodyfat.

Actually that would seem to be in synch with the observations of native population who had to live on governement hand-outs in order to avoid starving. They mostly ate cheap carbs, such as flour and sugar. I think it's safe to assume they had no access to adequate amounts of fat or protein. What was observed, in that case, was emaciation and malnutrition in the children. but a high level of obesity in the women. We could surmise that the children, with normal metabolism showed a failure to thrive with such poor nutrition, but the women, over time, developped the metabolic disorder seen in animal models, where their body will not release fat, but instead keeps it locked away. Maybe this would have occured to you had you stayed on the Pritikin diet long enough.

[Nancy LC]

Well, one thing Pritikinites didn't eat was sugar. Maybe it does play a bigger role in all this than starches from grains, veggies and fruit. No one ever freakin' studies it so how can we know?

[glennette]

Nancy LC said "No one ever freakin' studies it so how can we know?"

Of course not! And they never will. They can't afford to. If they do that, where are they going to go for more funding ?
Not the sugar or grain industries. I doubt that the Pham industies would be interested in it either. And what would happen to the diet and exercise industies! A lot of people would have to go job hunting if they ever did a real study. So they will just keep happily doing their little studies designed to avoid the truth and promote whatever the money tells them to.
Rant over, sorry.

[herselfNYC]

You're right, glennette. When you follow the money, it's clear there's none in the low-carb lifestyle.

Just like there would be no money in a real 'cure' for diabetes (as opposed to life-long management with pharmaceuticals) ....

[kneebrace]

[QUOTE]If you have a 300-pound person needing (easy number not necessarily true, but an example) 3000-calories a day to maintain their weight, and they do just that with 60% carbohydrate, 15% protein and 25% fat and you force them to reduce calories to 2,000-calories, maintaining the same macronutrient ratios, you've effectively reduced carbohydrate intake, from 450g a day to 300g a day - still high-carb, low-fat, which brings the question...that has not been answered - is it the calorie deficit exerting influence to cause loss of body fat, or the reduction in insulin and circulating alpha glycerol phosphate, or both?


Regina, I think it's probably both and plenty of other stuff we don't even know about yet. The point is we know how to get insulin low, and AGP goes down when insulin goes down. It's important to recognize that a calorie deficit is essential for bodyfat stores to be accessed for energy it that calorie deficit will be slightly different numbers depending on macro ratio. And individual metabolisms will have different slight structural variations AOTBE anyway. Suffice to say that if a person finds that they aren't losing bodyfat even with very low carb macro ratio, then they won't have established a calorie deficit.


Taking that a step further, what would happen if you presented the same 300-pound person with a protein adequate, high-fat diet with 3,000 calories in a day but only 20g of carbohydrate? Would they continue to eat 3,000-calories a day? Would they spontaneously reduce their intake despite being allowed to consume ad libitum for delicious foods sans the carbohydrate? Would they seemingly defy the laws of thermodynamics and actually shed body fat? We don't know because no such research has been done to investigate such an approach to understanding metabolism and weight gain/loss in such a context.


We are so obsessed with 'studies'. I've less and less patience for studies, clinical or not. They seem to be able to prove whatever the designer of the study wants them to prove. What is most convincing is long term clinical experience observed by medical practitioners who aren't so hidebound by the prevailing paradigm that their objectivity is fatally flawed. This is the 'money trail' that the 'powers that be' simply can't influence. People will take their bodies to the people who actually get it right, over and over again, decades before the status quo is forced to swallow their pride and grudgingly finance 'studies' that are by that stage largely superfluous anyway, are usually too short and restrictive that they don't anything definite. Medicos like Lutz and Eades, Atkins et al have already more than 'proved':

(a) it is impossible to arrive at actual macro ratios and calorie intakes for bodyfat loss that apply to every individual. A one size fits all approach doesn't work. But the principle of fat storage and mobilization being hormonally mediated, mainly by insulin, and insulin levels being mainly affected by carb ratio, is sound.

(b) setting up a the appropriate hormonal environment for burning body fat is insufficient for it to happen. A calorie deficit is also required. But it is important to realize that although a calorie surplus will prevent bodyfat loss, it may not produce further bodyfat gain.


`"Calorie deficit" may matter more than anything else, then again, establishing a favorable metabolic environment may be what matters more....just as it may indeed be that a calorie deficit within a context of optimal nutrients is the deciding factor at the end of the day.

I do think it's a spurious exercise to try to define either one as being the most important. Both are integral parts of the metabolic scenery. Particularly because the hormonal environment will actually affect what constitutes a calorie deficit for any individual at any particular time, and vice versa. In other words there is a lot of feedback circuitry.

Stuart

[Wifezilla]

Some people lose fine without restricting calories. Others have to count calories as well as carbs.

Everyone is different.

I am beginning to believe I am part Zucker rat...as I think I have the ability to eat rocks and turn them in to glucose :p

[ValerieL]

I am beginning to believe I am part Zucker rat...as I think I have the ability to eat rocks and turn them in to glucose :p

I'm sure you said that in jest, but I think that's a fascinating part of all of this. We are all different. And some of us are part Zucker rat and some of us aren't. Obviously when we look at the fact that in North America about 1/3 the population is obese, 1/3 the population is overweight and 1/3 the population is normal weight, all presumably having approximately the same diet, it's apparent that some people have systems that are far more or less capable of dealing with carbs than others.

[kneebrace]

Some people lose fine without restricting calories. Others have to count calories as well as carbs.

Everyone is different.

I am beginning to believe I am part Zucker rat...as I think I have the ability to eat rocks and turn them in to glucose :p

:lol: :lol: :lol: That's true, but it somewhat avoids the point by (I think) implying that people who 'lose fine w/o restricting calories' can lose bodyfat without establishing a calorific deficit. Ie. every human has to consume less than they are burning to lose bodyfat. Even the 'lucky' few (like me) who can apparently futile cycle (mitochondrial protein uncoupling) an extraordinary amount of calories still won't lose bodyfat unless a calorific deficit is established, it's just that the futile cycling factor is an integral part of that energy consumption/energy expenditure equation. It's only when the laws of thermodynamics are applied simplistically and inaccurately that they appear to be violated. Anyone telling you that a low carb dietary approach violates the laws of thermodynamics needs to brush up on how those inviolable laws work, even in the human body.

Go easy on the rocks!

Stuart

[kneebrace]

I'm sure you said that in jest, but I think that's a fascinating part of all of this. We are all different. And some of us are part Zucker rat and some of us aren't. Obviously when we look at the fact that in North America about 1/3 the population is obese, 1/3 the population is overweight and 1/3 the population is normal weight, all presumably having approximately the same diet, it's apparent that some people have systems that are far more or less capable of dealing with carbs than others.

Or just store fat far less efficiently than the others. It's worth keeping in mind that many of the ones we think are 'dealing with carbs well' are actually on a weight gain free rollercoaster ride to diabetes (and/or other degenerative disease). Maybe it's the 'cringe' factor of putting on weight. Because it seems to be found universally unattractive (in this day and age anyway). So people
are really inclined to almost want to see 'obese' weight gain as necessarily involving a metabolic defect. When IMHO it's usually an indication of metabolic health. As GCBC points out, just eating foods/amounts of those foods that we are expressly designed to gain bodyfat fast on, ie high fat/carbs.

In some ways I think we should see bodyfat gain as an almost heaven sent signal that we are eating too much of the wrong foods. And we'd better stop, or we really will damage our metabolisms, and then it will be even more difficult to lose the fat. Think of the 'ballooning' ex- athletes PJ mentioned. Once they stopped eating so much (and the clever ones so much high fat/carb food) they started burning the fat as the human body is designed to do once you set up the right hormonal environment and restrict calories enough (don't forget that restricting calories too much will prevent bodyfat burning as well - sometimes the 'window' between getting calorie consumption low enough that a calorie deficit is established and so low that metabolic rate/thyroid problems start happening, is not that big). But if they stay obese for long enough, and go on eating the food volume/type that got them obese in the first place, ie high fat/carbs and plenty of it, metabolic defects will really start happening. "Naturally thin people usually don't get any warning that they're eating too much of the wrong foods until the Hb1aC test comes back with the shocking news that they're diabetic. "But I'm so healthy' Yeah right. I was a gnats metabolic whisker away from being in that position myself.

But in my experience, and certainly reading the clinical experience of intellectually switched on low carb doctors, even long term clinically obese people lose bodyfat at a tidy rate once they ditch the carbs and start restricting calories (ie. portion control).

Some individuals are obviously more metabolically damage resistant than others of course. Eat enough high fat/carb food for long enough, and even the toughest pancreases and inflammation control mechanisms will start throwing a spoke, whether or not you gain much bodyfat in the process. But gaining a lot of bodyfat probably does exacerbate the damage done.

Stuart

[ValerieL]

I guess I don't find your distinction between a metabolic defect and propensity to store fat to be that important a point, Stuart. Whether I call it a defect or whatever doesn't change the point. Some people store body fat more easily than others. Call that a defect or a condition or an adaptive or evolutionary response or whatever, the reality is the same. We gain weight when we don't want to.

To me, storing fat too efficiently *is* being less capable of dealing with carbs. Getting diabetes or metabolic syndrome is also being less capable of dealing with carbs, but it all boils down to the same thing - in varying degrees and in varying ways the introduction of refined carbohydrates and sugar into our diet has been bad for the general health of the planet.

[kneebrace]

[QUOTE]I guess I don't find your distinction between a metabolic defect and propensity to store fat to be that important a point, Stuart. Whether I call it a defect or whatever doesn't change the point. Some people store body fat more easily than others. Call that a defect or a condition or an adaptive or evolutionary response or whatever, the reality is the same. We gain weight when we don't want to.

Nor do I emotionally, but I think in terms of recognizing that weight gain is what we are expressly designed to do if we eat enough high fat/carb food, people start to see that creating a 'bodyfat maintenance/loss' hormonal environment is something they can do right now. It is a very empowering realization that simply by refusing to put fatty/carby food in your mouth you will both be much more likely to not gain bodyfat and hopefully lose, and just as importantly be less likely to want to put too much of it there next time (the LC appetite control thing) It's like any drug abuse, the sooner you start just saying no, the less likely you are to go on being an addict. And with a bit of imagination and forethought low carb food is hardly unappetizing. Of course, carbs can be just so damn delicious. Valerie, so is crack, I hear.

Or someone could go on inaccurately blaming their 'defected' metabolism for 'gaining weight when they don't want to'.

In terms of how it empowers people to take back the control of their health/ bodycomp from the dietary dictocrats who have been misleading us for so long I think it probably is an earth shatteringly important point.

And I'm wondering also if in some way, choosing not to view the distinction between seeing the ability to gain weight fast on fatty carby food as either a 'defect' or 'express design feature' as eath shatteringly important, is that you are clinging to the notion that the people (like me) who can 'deal with carbs' aren't doing themselves untold (and unseen ) long term damage from eating an evolutionarily inappropriate diet. I don't think someone like me who doesn't gain bodyfat with fatty/carby food is really 'dealing with carbs better' at all. Not getting fat? That's only the stuff you see. Be thankful that you are one of the lucky ones whose weight gain 'canary in the coalmine is actually working.





To me, storing fat too efficiently *is* being less capable of dealing with carbs. Getting diabetes or metabolic syndrome is also being less capable of dealing with carbs, but it all boils down to the same thing - in varying degrees and in varying ways the introduction of refined carbohydrates and sugar into our diet has been bad for the general health of the planet.

Absolutely. But I wouldn't even stop at refined carbs and sugar. The ancient Egyptians had a 'wonderfully' complex carb diet, and their health and longevity was abyssmal. It's simple, if you are human, you weren't designed to eat much carbohydrate, unprocessed or not. Just because you don't gain bodyfat very efficiently doesn't change that.

Stuart

[ValerieL]

You might have some points in a different arena, Stuart, but here, especially in this thread, if not this entire forum, you are preaching to the choir, I think. We do understand that carbs (other than possibly non-starchy vegetables) aren't necessary for health.

And I'm wondering also if in some way, choosing not to view the distinction between seeing the ability to gain weight fast on fatty carby food as either a 'defect' or 'express design feature' as eath shatteringly important, is that you are clinging to the notion that the people (like me) who can 'deal with carbs' aren't doing themselves untold (and unseen ) long term damage from eating an evolutionarily inappropriate diet. I don't think someone like me who doesn't gain bodyfat with fatty/carby food is really 'dealing with carbs better' at all. Not getting fat? That's only the stuff you see. Be thankful that you are one of the lucky ones whose weight gain 'canary in the coalmine is actually working.

Those might be your assumptions, but they would be wrong. I don't assume that those who don't gain weight but are eating a high fat & high carbohydrate diet are any healthier than the average person. I'm not sure that I agree that they are necessarily less healthy though. You make it sound like it's an either/or proposition. Either we can eat carbs or not. I'm not sure I buy that. If it were that simple, why wouldn't we *all* get fat? Or get diabetes? Or if we all would eventually if we kept up our poor diets, why at different stages of life, why not all at the same stage of life? . People are different - they react differently to medications, alcohol, stress, exercise, everything. Why not food and carbs?

[kneebrace]

Those might be your assumptions, but they would be wrong. I don't assume that those who don't gain weight but are eating a high fat & high carbohydrate diet are any healthier than the average person. I'm not sure that I agree that they are necessarily less healthy though. You make it sound like it's an either/or proposition. Either we can eat carbs or not. I'm not sure I buy that. If it were that simple, why wouldn't we *all* get fat? Or get diabetes? Or if we all would eventually if we kept up our poor diets, why at different stages of life, why not all at the same stage of life? . People are different - they react differently to medications, alcohol, stress, exercise, everything. Why not food and carbs?

But Valerie you are assuming that somebody who can eat more fatty carby food without gaining weight as quickly is 'dealing with carbs' better, aren't you. At least I think that's what you said. I didn't even suggest that one was 'healthier' than the other. I would have thought in terms of selective evolutionary pressure, the people who could store the most energy when calorie intake was surplus to energy requirements would definitely be the better at dealing with carbs. It's only in the modern (1st) World of abundant fatty carby food, that being able to 'deal better with carbs' suddenly becomes less desirable. Unfortunately no species gets to conciously choose it's design, metabolic or otherwise. Who we are is shaped entirely by evolutionary pressure and chance. That's why it's such a curiously wonderful process, but also occasionally very inconvenient, for instance when humans start meddling with natural cyclical food availability.

When that happens we have to unravel the complexities of fat storage, finally come to terms with it being hormonally as well as calorie intake mediated rather than just calorie intake mediated, and if you are a 'state of the art' dealer with carbs, accept and act on never being able to eat much carbohydrate, and often restrict calories as well, without complaining that you are defective. By all means envy the people who don't seem to 'deal with carb's very well and not gain much bodyfat when they eat a lot of carby/fatty food if you must. But seriously, low carb food can be endlessly varied and delicious. Carbs just aren't that special.

Very, very inconvenient to be sure, but calling your true to design metabolism 'defective' in any shape or form, is a bit like a Japanese woman saying she was 'defective' because her skin darkened at the merest hint of ultraviolet, because the fashion eqiuvalent of constantly available fatty/carby food was to prize fair skin. You can only stretch the meaning of the word defect so far before it becomes totally inappropriate, wouldn't you say?

Stuart

[PlaneCrazy]

Taking that a step further, what would happen if you presented the same 300-pound person with a protein adequate, high-fat diet with 3,000 calories in a day but only 20g of carbohydrate? Would they continue to eat 3,000-calories a day? Would they spontaneously reduce their intake despite being allowed to consume ad libitum for delicious foods sans the carbohydrate? Would they seemingly defy the laws of thermodynamics and actually shed body fat? We don't know because no such research has been done to investigate such an approach to understanding metabolism and weight gain/loss in such a context. We may not 'know' this from a formal study, but from reading this board for years, and from my own personal experience, I can say anecdotally the answer is a conditional "Yes, that person will spontaneously reduce their intake and lose weight." I say "conditionally" because the same evidence points to some generalities that can still differ from person to person. And I would love the studies to prove what experience has already taught me and many others.

My experience is that I must keep my carb level low, 20g or less, and eat a higher fat diet in order to lose weight. If I keep the carbs low and eat less fat (e.g. leaner meat) I feel sick. If I keep the fat high, and protein adequate I will lose weight and feel great.

Now, I personally find it impossible to truly over-eat with this kind of macro-nutrient ratio. Some people may be different and have to actively watch what they eat, or can over-ride their bodies signals and over-eat for various other reasons, but not some of us. I am that person (though not 300 when I started, I was close enough) who can eat ad libitum, as long as I keep the nutrient ratios in balance, and still lose weight. And without formal record keeping of exactly what I eat, I have noticed that I do tend to spontaneously eat less total food, but much more nutrient-dense food.

For me, I even have some direct comparisons of three types of eating: high-carb lower-fat, lower-carb medium-fat, low-carb high-fat. Once I turned 28 and started a new phase of life with higher stress, my former high-carb lower-fat diet as a grad student no longer worked and I began to gain weight fairly rapidly. This continued to 250 pounds. At that point I discovered low-carb and with a high-fat low-carb diet I lost 60 pounds without restricting how much I ate. After I reached goal, I began eating a lower-carb (relative to the standard American diet) diet with pasta only five times in two years, dessert maybe once or twice a week, no potatoes, little rice, and bread only in sandwiches. I was not moderating fat intake but then not actively boosting it either. I gained almost all the weight back before stopping.

I then came back to low-carb eating, this time restricting the types of calories more severely than before. Now I'm eating fewer carbs and upping the fat levels and I'm losing even better than I did the last time. Again not restricting the amounts I eat. I'm finding with this combination I do not feel like eating lots and lots, and unless I force myself, I won't eat a great deal if the food is of the right ratios. I'm also losing visceral fat faster then the last time (at least measured by my waist size) and doing better physically.

What's fascinating, and what I think is really at the heart of this very interesting discussion, is that while this strategy works for me, not everyone seems to work the same way. I agree that weight gain is only one indication of something wrong in the body. Taubes alludes to this with comments about skinny people with diabetes, etc... It's not the obesity that causes the diabetes, it's the metabolic imbalance that causes diabetes and obesity and heart disease, etc...

This imbalance is not necessarily a "disorder" but is instead a reaction to the over stimulation of insulin and can take different forms in different people. Some will get fat from it, some will "handle carbs better" i.e. not get fat, but will be damaging themselves internally in other ways that manifest themselves later in life as Alzheimer's, cancer, or any number of the other "diseases of (Western) civilization" cataloged in GCBC. Regardless of how it manifests itself, this imbalance is there and eating a low-carb diet will restore the balance.

To me, and this is purely my speculation, those who eat a low-carb diet and still don't lose weight are still much, much better off than if they had kept the weight while eating a high-carb diet. The weight itself is not the problem, it's the underlying, carb-induced imbalance in insulin production that causes the problems. Reduce this imbalance and most of the risk factors from obesity greatly reduce if not disappear. Keep this imbalance, and no matter how thin you are, the risk factors are still there.

That's the lesson I take away from GCBC and other studies and reports I've seen.

Plane

[kneebrace]

Plane, I think the issue here is not whether a low carb dietary approach sets up the most bodyfat burning hormonal (and the least fat storage)environment. I think all the members of this forum accept that. The question is whether rapid weight gain if you don't eat low carb means that you are metabolically defective. I do think it's a bit of a stretch of the idea of defective to include as designed weight gain simply because it's inconvenient, or unwanted.

In fact I'd hazard a guess that most weight loss battler members of this forum, are here precisely because their bodies did what they were designed to do when faced with a fatty carby dietary intake and packed on the pounds, and the 'recommended' low fat approach to losing bodyfat has proved to be an abyssmal failure, because as GCBC explains so well, that kind of dietary approach cannot possibly create a hormonal environment conducive to bodyfat loss in the human body.

Stuart

[deb34]

It's important to recognize that a calorie deficit is essential for bodyfat stores to be accessed for energy it that calorie deficit will be slightly different numbers depending on macro ratio.

not true in my case the last few months, i've been eating at least hundreds(200-500) 'calories' extra per day in the form of fat that i never ate before. I'm at least eating equal and usually more total calories per day than when i was eating high carb, and i've lost 20 lbs almost effortlessly in 2.5 months.

Metabolically, I don't appear to need a calorie deficit as much as i needed an insulin shortfall. My body hasn't gotten the much touted "calorie in=calorie out" message. I guess my metabolism is not as highly educated as some.

I'll just go along with what my body wants and not worry about whether i'm intellectual enough to understand all the reasons why it shouldn't work according to the "experts". I guess the "experts" don't speak the same language as my body.

[kneebrace]

not true in my case the last few months, i've been eating at least hundreds(200-500) 'calories' extra per day in the form of fat that i never ate before. I'm at least eating equal and usually more total calories per day than when i was eating high carb, and i've lost 20 lbs almost effortlessly in 2.5 months.

Deb, why do you think a calorie deficit on high carb is going to be even comparable to a calorie deficit on low carb?. They are completely different animals. It does seem almost counter intuitive to be able to eat considerably more calories on low carb and be metabolically in even more of a calorie deficit than if you were consuming far fewer calories on low fat/high carb. That's both the beauty and importance of the hormonal environment. Simplistic calorie number comparisons between different macro ratios become completely meaningless.

Metabolically, I don't appear to need a calorie deficit as much as i needed an insulin shortfall. My body hasn't gotten the much touted "calorie in=calorie out" message. I guess my metabolism is not as highly educated as some.

I'll just go along with what my body wants and not worry about whether i'm intellectual enough to understand all the reasons why it shouldn't work according to the "experts". I guess the "experts" don't speak the same language as my body.

Actually, you needed both. And they're highly interrelated as well. So trying to see them as independent will just give you a headache, and perpetually thwart your understanding of how your metabolism works.

Believe me, if you are losing body fat, you are in calorie deficit. And your body can't avoid getting the calorie in/calorie out message, but your notion of what that equation actually consists of just sounds a bit less complex than what your body is actually doing. Your metabolism will actually be as highly educated as any. But you (or I, or even the most qualified metabolic researcher on the planet, are probably light years away from understanding all the variables. Don't undersell your metabolism Deb. Millions of years of evolution has ensured that it is a very complex machine indeed.

But even now it is fairly well understood that a calorie deficit will happen at a much higher calorie intake with a low carb dietary approach than high carb. Just how much higher will depend on all sorts of variables particular to the person concerned.

I suppose I can understand a lot of low carbers almost being afraid of the notion of the necessity of a calorie deficit for bodyfat loss. But that's because their idea of what a calorie deficit actually is is almost breathtakingly simplistic.

Stuart

[ReginaW]

Regina, I suppose all you mean is that a calorie deficit will be different for an individual depending on whether or not carbs/insulin are low. What would be a deficit calorie intake under a low carb dietary approach wouldn't necessarily be a calorie deficit under a higher carb macronutrient ratio.


Stuart, delta-E is delta-E is delta-E.....it is the energy required to maintain weight. High-carb, low-carb doesn't matter....now where things can (and have been seen) change is when you change the macronutrient ratios - theromgenesis of food, increased energy expenditure in homeostasis, etc. may burn more calories per day when carbohydrate is decreased in the diet.....yet, at the end of the day, I haven't read any study where delta-E has significantly increased from baseline. One can become more efficient at burning calories when the macronutrient ratio is favorable, but the macronutrient ratio doesn't increase delta-E.

[ReginaW]

Regina, I think it's probably both and plenty of other stuff we don't even know about yet. The point is we know how to get insulin low, and AGP goes down when insulin goes down. It's important to recognize that a calorie deficit is essential for bodyfat stores to be accessed for energy it that calorie deficit will be slightly different numbers depending on macro ratio. And individual metabolisms will have different slight structural variations AOTBE anyway. Suffice to say that if a person finds that they aren't losing bodyfat even with very low carb macro ratio, then they won't have established a calorie deficit.

No, a calorie deficit is not required for body fat stores to be utilized as energy - in fact it happens all day, everyday, even on a total crap diet....to a lesser degree than when carbohydrate is restricted. And as I said previously delta-E is what it is at baseline --- it doesn't go up when you modify the diet to restrict carbohydrate, so it's also not true that the calorie deficit is going to be different on high-carb versus low-carb --- what is different is whether the carbohydrate included is reduced enough to increase efficiency to tap into body fat stores or not.

[ReginaW]

I guess I don't find your distinction between a metabolic defect and propensity to store fat to be that important a point, Stuart. Whether I call it a defect or whatever doesn't change the point. Some people store body fat more easily than others. Call that a defect or a condition or an adaptive or evolutionary response or whatever, the reality is the same. We gain weight when we don't want to.

To me, storing fat too efficiently *is* being less capable of dealing with carbs. Getting diabetes or metabolic syndrome is also being less capable of dealing with carbs, but it all boils down to the same thing - in varying degrees and in varying ways the introduction of refined carbohydrates and sugar into our diet has been bad for the general health of the planet.

Val, I agree with you that at the end of the day it doesn't much matter - the reason I make the distinction is because of the continued "blame game" going on that tells those who gain weight it's all their fault, just eat less and move more and it'll go away.

[ReginaW]

do if we eat enough high fat/carb food

I noticed you've included both fat and carb in the equation....a number of times....I'm just going to add here that it is carbohydrate, not fat, in the diet that skews the metabolic processes.......one can reach the same destination of metabolic chaos with a lot of fat or virtually no fat if carbohydrate is maintained in excess in the diet.

[ReginaW]

We may not 'know' this from a formal study, but from reading this board for years, and from my own personal experience, I can say anecdotally the answer is a conditional "Yes, that person will spontaneously reduce their intake and lose weight." I say "conditionally" because the same evidence points to some generalities that can still differ from person to person. And I would love the studies to prove what experience has already taught me and many others.

My experience is that I must keep my carb level low, 20g or less, and eat a higher fat diet in order to lose weight. If I keep the carbs low and eat less fat (e.g. leaner meat) I feel sick. If I keep the fat high, and protein adequate I will lose weight and feel great.

Now, I personally find it impossible to truly over-eat with this kind of macro-nutrient ratio. Some people may be different and have to actively watch what they eat, or can over-ride their bodies signals and over-eat for various other reasons, but not some of us. I am that person (though not 300 when I started, I was close enough) who can eat ad libitum, as long as I keep the nutrient ratios in balance, and still lose weight. And without formal record keeping of exactly what I eat, I have noticed that I do tend to spontaneously eat less total food, but much more nutrient-dense food.

For me, I even have some direct comparisons of three types of eating: high-carb lower-fat, lower-carb medium-fat, low-carb high-fat. Once I turned 28 and started a new phase of life with higher stress, my former high-carb lower-fat diet as a grad student no longer worked and I began to gain weight fairly rapidly. This continued to 250 pounds. At that point I discovered low-carb and with a high-fat low-carb diet I lost 60 pounds without restricting how much I ate. After I reached goal, I began eating a lower-carb (relative to the standard American diet) diet with pasta only five times in two years, dessert maybe once or twice a week, no potatoes, little rice, and bread only in sandwiches. I was not moderating fat intake but then not actively boosting it either. I gained almost all the weight back before stopping.

I then came back to low-carb eating, this time restricting the types of calories more severely than before. Now I'm eating fewer carbs and upping the fat levels and I'm losing even better than I did the last time. Again not restricting the amounts I eat. I'm finding with this combination I do not feel like eating lots and lots, and unless I force myself, I won't eat a great deal if the food is of the right ratios. I'm also losing visceral fat faster then the last time (at least measured by my waist size) and doing better physically.

What's fascinating, and what I think is really at the heart of this very interesting discussion, is that while this strategy works for me, not everyone seems to work the same way. I agree that weight gain is only one indication of something wrong in the body. Taubes alludes to this with comments about skinny people with diabetes, etc... It's not the obesity that causes the diabetes, it's the metabolic imbalance that causes diabetes and obesity and heart disease, etc...

This imbalance is not necessarily a "disorder" but is instead a reaction to the over stimulation of insulin and can take different forms in different people. Some will get fat from it, some will "handle carbs better" i.e. not get fat, but will be damaging themselves internally in other ways that manifest themselves later in life as Alzheimer's, cancer, or any number of the other "diseases of (Western) civilization" cataloged in GCBC. Regardless of how it manifests itself, this imbalance is there and eating a low-carb diet will restore the balance.

To me, and this is purely my speculation, those who eat a low-carb diet and still don't lose weight are still much, much better off than if they had kept the weight while eating a high-carb diet. The weight itself is not the problem, it's the underlying, carb-induced imbalance in insulin production that causes the problems. Reduce this imbalance and most of the risk factors from obesity greatly reduce if not disappear. Keep this imbalance, and no matter how thin you are, the risk factors are still there.

That's the lesson I take away from GCBC and other studies and reports I've seen.

Plane

I agree.....and want to see the study so that those who don't believe it can see it with their own eyes in a controlled setting and no longer claim it's anecdotal!

[ReginaW]

Deb, why do you think a calorie deficit on high carb is going to be even comparable to a calorie deficit on low carb?. They are completely different animals. It does seem almost counter intuitive to be able to eat considerably more calories on low carb and be metabolically in even more of a calorie deficit than if you were consuming far fewer calories on low fat/high carb. That's both the beauty and importance of the hormonal environment. Simplistic calorie number comparisons between different macro ratios become completely meaningless.


I'm not Deb, but the calorie deficit is the calorie deficit --- the difference between a calorie deficit in a high-carb diet versus one in a low-carb diet isn't the energy, it's the carbohydrate --- when it's reduced it sets the stage to be able to more efficiently tap into body fat stores and utilize some of that energy concurrently with dietary energy....but the two energy deficits are just that, calorie deficits - one being better metabolically than the other because of the effect on metabolism.

[kneebrace]

Stuart, delta-E is delta-E is delta-E.....it is the energy required to maintain weight. High-carb, low-carb doesn't matter....now where things can (and have been seen) change is when you change the macronutrient ratios - theromgenesis of food, increased energy expenditure in homeostasis, etc. may burn more calories per day when carbohydrate is decreased in the diet.....yet, at the end of the day, I haven't read any study where delta-E has significantly increased from baseline. One can become more efficient at burning calories when the macronutrient ratio is favorable, but the macronutrient ratio doesn't increase delta-E.

Regina, you are saying that a 'calorie' of energy as defined externally to an individual body as the same as what happens to that calorie of energy in that body. I doubt whether they are ever the same let alone sometimes. You don't seem to be considering the role of mechanisms like futile cycles in making a mockery of almost everything we know about energy use in the human body. But futile cycles are probably only one of a host of mechanisms which truly make a mockery of simplistic tallies like delta E. We are only in the absolute infancy of even knowing how to calculate delta E numerically. It's kind of useful as a vague intellectual notion, but as yet, that's about all.

Be careful of 'studies' Regina. Most of the ones humans have done so far are pretty open to just about whatever intellectual bias researchers (both the people conducting them, and those who pick over their 'findings' afterwards ) bring to them.

Stuart

[ReginaW]

Regina, you are saying that a 'calorie' of energy as defined externally to an individual body as the same as what happens to that calorie of energy in that body. I doubt whether they are ever the same let alone sometimes. You don't seem to be considering the role of mechanisms like futile cycles in making a mockery of almost everything we know about energy use in the human body. But futile cycles are probably only one of a host of mechanisms which truly make a mockery of simplistic tallies like delta E. We are only in the absolute infancy of even knowing how to calculate delta E numerically. It's kind of useful as a vague intellectual notion, but as yet, that's about all.

Be careful of 'studies' Regina. Most of the ones humans have done so far are pretty open to just about whatever intellectual bias researchers (both the people conducting them, and those who pick over their 'findings' afterwards ) bring to them.

Stuart

Stuart, my assertion is that delta-E is delta-E.....we can and do measure energy expenditure IN the body, and often do this as a baseline measure before commencing a trial to investigate dietary modification. Correct?

Now what you're saying is that once a calorie from food enters the body, it may or may not provide the calories as measured in a bomb calorimeter. On this I agree.

Where we seem to be missing each other's message is utilization - and believe it or not, I agree with you that how a calorie from food is utilized in the body is different if macronutrient ratios change.......what doesn't change is delta-E unless A) weight is reduced or B) energy is increased or decreased (simplistically).......a futile cycle isn't increasing delta-E, it's wasting energy....an increase in body temperature (often felt by those on low-carb with adequate calories) is wasting energy......thermogenesis of protein when increased is wasting energy......wasting energy isn't changing delta-E, it's wasting energy, thus providing a greater deficit in calories one would need to consume to hit delta-E and halt weight loss.

[kneebrace]

I'm not Deb, but the calorie deficit is the calorie deficit --- the difference between a calorie deficit in a high-carb diet versus one in a low-carb diet isn't the energy, it's the carbohydrate --- when it's reduced it sets the stage to be able to more efficiently tap into body fat stores and utilize some of that energy concurrently with dietary energy....but the two energy deficits are just that, calorie deficits - one being better metabolically than the other because of the effect on metabolism.

Not Deb, well, you would make a great primary school maths teacher anyway.
'The two deficits are just that, calorie deficits...' So you can see that two different deficits can still be a deficit?. Regina, people do so want to try to iintellectually walk before they can crawl. As yet we don't really understand how to calculate what numerical calorie intake constitutes a deficit. How could we, we're still not even sure of the hormonal interactions involved.

Actually I think that probably what will happen is that we will realize that trying to quantify a deficit for a particular individual/time frame/emotional state... and on and on there simply are going to be an infinite number of variables - is really a bit like trying to create accurate economic models. But what we can say unequivocally right now is that if a person is losing bodyfat, they're in calorie deficit, and low carb eating is going to be the easiest way to set up a calorie deficit AOTBE. Perhaps we should just accept that as yet, that's about the best we can do.

Stuart

[kneebrace]

Regina, Delta E changes from second to second. Setting up a baseline is meaningless, because it is only relevant for the second it is calculated. The second after that, all bets are off. The playing field is never level. Metabolic researchers might want/hope/pray that they can make it so. But delta E can't be quantified because we are as yet only in the infancy of being able to clearly define it, in more accurate terms than as a vague intellectual notion.

And we don't even yet know how to accurately measure energy wastage, Geez Regina, we're still not even sure of the different mechanisms the human body can use to waste or utilize energy. Metabolic ward studies might be the best tool we have so far, but it's still using a club to dissect an eyeball.

Stuart.

[ValerieL]

Val, I agree with you that at the end of the day it doesn't much matter - the reason I make the distinction is because of the continued "blame game" going on that tells those who gain weight it's all their fault, just eat less and move more and it'll go away.

I agree with that statement as well. I was thinking, but didn't express, that in my comment that "in this arena" the distinction wasn't an issue for me.

I do completely agree that outside the already converted, the issue of how we present the concepts are crucial. I think we see that in science today. It seems to be a recurring theme that studies and findings that suggest that weight loss maybe much more difficult than "eat less, exercise more" are swept minimized or the conclusions twisted to continue to blame the obese and reaffirm the "eat less, exercise more" message.

I'll add a comment that I was amazed at the vitriol and rejection aimed at Gina Kolata's book Rethinking Thin even on this forum. Her basic message was that eat less, exercise more doesn't work and encouraged us to accept the poor results of traditional diet & exercise and stop blaming the obese for not being strong enough to lose weight. I thought that basic message was important. I think it was the fact that she didn't figure out that there was hope for the obese in the alternative of the carbohydrate hypothesis that makes everyone here dismiss her. I agree she missed it, and it would have been a far more powerful book if she had got it. Instead of the dismal future for obesity she ended her book with, she could have looked forward to a world where we accept the carbohydrate hypotheses, it's proven, and the world changes it's dietary pattern accordingly.

My own personal theory is that *most* people fail at a low-carb diet because of the environment. There are too many obstacles to it. Family, friends, the media, the medical establishment, all tell you it's not right. It's hard to keep the faith in the face of all of that. It really is. And even if you can believe it's the right way to eat, it's even harder to practise it in the face of the way the rest of society eats. If the world believed and accepted that the carbs are the problem, and that became the new, accepted "healthy way of eating", I think there would be a profound decrease in obesity rates pretty quickly because low carb is not inherently difficult to do.

[ReginaW]

My own personal theory is that *most* people fail at a low-carb diet because of the environment. There are too many obstacles to it. Family, friends, the media, the medical establishment, all tell you it's not right. It's hard to keep the faith in the face of all of that. It really is. And even if you can believe it's the right way to eat, it's even harder to practise it in the face of the way the rest of society eats. If the world believed and accepted that the carbs are the problem, and that became the new, accepted "healthy way of eating", I think there would be a profound decrease in obesity rates pretty quickly because low carb is not inherently difficult to do.

Totally agree. Sadly, I don't think we'll see, in our lifetime, carbohydrate restriction as standard of care. <sigh>

[ReginaW]

Regina, Delta E changes from second to second. Setting up a baseline is meaningless, because it is only relevant for the second it is calculated. The second after that, all bets are off. The playing field is never level. Metabolic researchers might want/hope/pray that they can make it so. But delta E can't be quantified because we are as yet only in the infancy of being able to clearly define it, in more accurate terms than as a vague intellectual notion.

And we don't even yet know how to accurately measure energy wastage, Geez Regina, we're still not even sure of the different mechanisms the human body can use to waste or utilize energy. Metabolic ward studies might be the best tool we have so far, but it's still using a club to dissect an eyeball.

Stuart.

Stuart, true delta-E is ever changing by the minute, but over time - a day, a week, a month - we can measure it to a certain degree as a baseline starting point to establish the energy required to maintain weight.

Is it perfect? No, and I didn't say it was. But it is what we have at this point in time and while an "estimate" of energy required to maintain, it's accurate enough to determine what would be a calorie deficit.

My point was and remains, that delta-E (simplistically) does not increase because one modifies their diet to restrict carbohydrate. With that you could argue because of increased wasted energy, through futile cycling etc., that delta-E has increased -- and in a sense you would be correct because the level of caloric intake would need to increase to overcome the wasted energy and maintain weight, but it wouldn't be because delta-E increased, but because wasted energy would need to be replaced to reach delta-E. So, I could argue that delta-E hasn't changed and the difference is that more energy is being wasted, thus establishing and maintaining a calorie deficit more easily.

But ya know what? Who cares? I'm not going to continue to split-hairs with you about this, OK?

[deb34]

deleted message

[PlaneCrazy]

This has been a fascinating discussion and if I'm reading it correctly, I believe y'all are much closer than you are differing, and as Regina said, you're mainly just splitting hairs.

So much of the science has still yet to be understood. Until we have the money for the large, controlled studies, or until we have the instrumentation to understand the multitude of complex processes from the inside, we'll still be guessing exactly how much of this works. I think we've got a pretty good idea of the gross processes, and a great deal of anecdotal and circumstancial evidence (the whole Diseases of Civilization chapter), but the science will be necessary in order to institute the radical change necessary to bring society along with us. My own personal theory is that *most* people fail at a low-carb diet because of the environment. I totally agree, and this will not change until we can change the narrative. My great hope now, is that some of the edges of the current narrative are beginning to fray with lots of conflicting advice and confusion over what's good and what's bad. I lieu of actual, good science, the other way to institute change is to change the narrative ahead of the science.

It was done once before, with low-fat. The story changed based on hunches without any hard science. It can be changed again. I would much prefer to change the perception of a good diet based on good science, and I definitely don't want to be like the low-fat crowd of the 60's and 70's. At the same time, even to introduce some doubt around the current dietary dogma would be a good thing.

Plane

[kneebrace]

Yeah, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. I got interested in this thread because someone suggested that GCBC was implying that somebody who gained lots of bodyfat was likely to have some kind of metabolic 'defect'. I think this is dead wrong. What I think GCBC explains really clearly is that if you eat high fat/ carbs (and too much of it for your energy expenditure- including whatever 'energy wasting mechanisms human metabolism is capable of) the human body is expressly designed to gain a lot of bodyfat. And I think it's unlikely that nature designed bodyfat gain control mechanisms, because carbohydrate was never very plentiful, even seasonally, so it was never an issue.

It's the people who don't gain a lot of bodyfat with that kind of dietary approach who really have the metabolic 'defect', as inconvenient a truth that is to the people who so desperately want to be able to lose bodyfat and eat fatty carby food as well - as the post neolithic world (and particularly the 21st century advanced World makes it so easy and 'desirable' to do - the 'environment' factor Valerie mentioned). In spite of the clear emerging evidence that human health inevitably l suffers from continuing to eat that kind of food, whether or not we get fat in the process. The people who work true to design and get fat and go on eating fatty/carby food long enough to actually develop metabolic problems, will probably find it much more difficult to lose the excess bodyfat even if and when they do ditch the carbs. But this forum is testament to the fact that low carb will still be the easiest and most effective way to lose bodyfat, even for the carb/fat damaged morbidly obese people, because only by eating low carb will a fat burning hormonal environment be established. And the many people who don't trash their metabolisms in the process of eating high fat/carbs (some people just resist the damaging effects for longer) still seem able to lose bodyfat by just eating less of the food that they gained weight so efficiently eating to excess - like the ex- athletes PJ mentioned. But they're still the long term losers, because even though they might be able to shed the pounds if the calories are kept low enough, a high carb diet is not what humans were designed to eat.

And I agree, splitting hairs over whether delta whatever is even a clearly definable, much less a quantifiable energy measure is a bit beside the point :). We do need accurate energy measures if 'studies' are ever going to sway the establishment one way or another. But concepts like Delta E are uselful as yet more as vague intellectual notions, rather than the rigorously and exactly quantifiable measure metabolic researchers so need it to be. I have no doubt that one day it will be just that.


Stuart

[ValerieL]

Okay, so, to change the topic a bit. Can we do an exercise in practical application of some of these ideas?

Assumption #1 - that as long as we keep the carbs in check (to whatever degree our individual metabolisms dictate), we won't gain weight. I think most of us agree, for the most part, on that.

Assumption #2 - to lose weight, we need to change our bodies from fat accumulation to fat release. We generally do that by lowering carbs.

Dilemma - there always seems to be those that, usually after substantial weight loss, hit a point where they stop losing. Assuming their carbs are still low, they haven't added back too many, what happened? Popular wisdom on this site (and others) is that you've hit an equillibrium where your body's caloric needs are equal to your caloric intake. Does this still make sense under Taubes' paradigm that it's fat accumulation/storage system that is the issue, not the calories in/calories out. If our bodies reach equillibrium at a point where we are fatter than we like, is a further cut in carbohydrate needed to start the fat release again? Or do we switch to counting calories? And if so, why do we think it will work now when it didn't work before?

My own personal experience is that I've hit this equillibrium. Any attempt I make to lose further at this point reminds me of my pre-LC experience where I lose weight, then regain it. Always just back to this equillibrium, not more.

I'm curious what you guys think about this.

[ReginaW]

Last night while having dinner, DH and I were discussing the concepts of study design to effectively compare low-carb to low-fat - and we pretty much came to the conclusion that one reason why the various trials comparing the two keep reaching the conclusion they're similar at the end of a year is because BOTH are effectively reducing carbohydrate along with calories. So we kicked around some ideas and realized a well-designed study to actually compare the two diets needs to be done differently than is currently the standard protocol.

How do you compare two diets, isocaloric in design, to compare the difference between carbohydrate levels?

Here is what we decided might be a good way to set one up:

Place subjects in a metabolic ward for two weeks to establish baseline energy requirements and allow ad libitum consumption of a wide variety of foods to determine daily calorie intake.

Pretending for a moment that the average intake is 2500-calories with 50% carbohydrate, 15% protein and 35% fat, the subjects are hypothetically consuming 312.5g of carbohydrate, 94g of protein and 97g of fat each day.

In order to investigate the difference between the diets for carbohydrate intake, the subjects need to maintain their carbohydrate intake for the low-fat diet - continue consuming 300-320g each day! This means that the manipulation of macronutrient intake needs to reduce fat and only fat in those being followed with a low-fat diet.....so if you're going to reduce calories to, oh, 2000-calories per day, the macronutrient ratios and absolutes change to 60% carbohydrate (300g), 19% protein (95g) and 21% fat (47g).

Keeping protein comparable and reducing carbohydrate means that, again, fat is what is altered in the low-carb arm of such a study.....20g each day means carbohydrate provides just 4% of energy, 95g of protein provides 19% of energy and the remaining 77% of energy is fat, or 171g each day.

You keep the subjects in a metabolic ward, maintain similar energy expenditure between the groups and watch and see what happens over 2-months with carbohydrate reduced versus carbohydrate maintained with just 500-calories removed from the habitual diet each day.

I'm not aware of any study designed like this - I think it would help to better understand how calories and carbohydrate effect weight loss and might be better able to begin to uncover if there truly is a metabolic advantage, because in this type of study, the subjects would be consuming the same carbohydrate level as the pre-diet intake in the low-fat arm and that would eliminate the confounding variable of what influence the reduction of carbohydrate exerted in previous studies where carbohydrate is reduced as calories are reduced in the usual protocols designing trials.

What do you think?

[ValerieL]

It certainly sounds worth doing as an experiment to help validate or disprove the carbohydrate hypothesis. I love the insight that usually carbohydrates are dropped in both diet groups and that this point could confound the data.

I'm not sure how it addresses your original problem of both diets tend to get to the same point after a year. Weren't those non-metabolic ward studies for the most part? Isn't that kind of like comparing apples to oranges? If you got promising results from your first study, wouldn't you need to then do a second, year long study, not in a metabolic ward, teaching dieters either low-carb or your low-fat, but as high as ever before carb diet and then measure them for the year to address your original issue?

[rightnow]

Lowcarb is just magic. ;)

Controlling calories through conscious deprivation within diet is the overwhelming no-brainer of our culture and that doesn't really work, as the % of diet success shows. So even if the technical detail might "end up amounting to that in a rather complex way we can't really even measure let alone prove at the moment," the reality is that going around saying it sounds exactly like what our culture spouts with the same words, but a different understanding of "why" those words mean something and "how" that is to come about. Given language exists for shared cultural understanding, maybe it'd help to find new language for expressing that. You can't really use those words without a mountain of semantic baggage falling into the discussion that torques understanding.

If you eat 1500 calories lowfat, starve yet lose muscle and not fat, vs. eating 1500 calories highfat, feel great keep muscle and lose fat, then to the semantics of communication, "caloric deficit" was not the issue to the individual's understanding, the composition of the dietary intake was.

In that case, "eat less carbs, more protein and especially more fat" is what is "working" on the descriptive level. The micro-detail of why that might be working, based on a zillion complex and not so complex body processes, is a bit of a different subject of course.

I do think that reducing insulin, which causes less repression of the USAGE of energy from the fat cells (hence the body may be "burning more calories" merely because finally it CAN -- for all I know, there is nothing that happens to 'make' it burn more calories, but rather, that something CEASES to happen which is 'reducing/prohibiting' its burning more calories), is probably the key component. This may result in 'caloric deficit' at the end of equation. But since culturally the "implied meaning" of "caloric deficit" is based on standard charts for BMI and 'caloric requirements' and "eating less than that," using that terminology (even if technically correct) could be a little confusing.

[ReginaW]

It certainly sounds worth doing as an experiment to help validate or disprove the carbohydrate hypothesis. I love the insight that usually carbohydrates are dropped in both diet groups and that this point could confound the data.

I'm not sure how it addresses your original problem of both diets tend to get to the same point after a year. Weren't those non-metabolic ward studies for the most part? Isn't that kind of like comparing apples to oranges? If you got promising results from your first study, wouldn't you need to then do a second, year long study, not in a me