This load of nonsense did make me LOL!

I heard that if you don't eat 12 servings of hearthealthywholegrains every day your genitals will fall off!

Know what brings leptin down? Successful weight loss. Know what brings it back up? Storing fat. You can bring leptin up with carbs. You could do the same thing by overeating (maybe it would have to be a force feeding experiment) an Atkins type diet.

Left out of this is that most overweight people probably have high leptin to start with.

https://www.physiology.org/na101/ho...d10221001x.jpeg

I was going to post this image directly, but it comes in enormous. Plasma leptin in obese women at 22 hours is 90 percent of what it is at 14 hours. In lean women, it looks like around 42 percent. Adipose tissue leptin production also decreases more in lean than in obese women. Absolute leptin production is also higher in the obese women at all time points. If you are obese or overweight, and eating carbs to keep your leptin up, you or your advisors are simply working from the wrong data. Even in lean people, I think carbs for leptin is a bit delusional, unless it's a lean person who's underweight. I'm not saying there aren't people who can get leaner on a carby diet, I'm saying I doubt it's because it fixes the leptin.

https://www.physiology.org/doi/10.1...2000.278.2.E280

Underweight, on a weight loss diet whether low carb or not? Leptin likely ties into fertility, loss of libido etc. Overweight with PCOS? This probably helps to explain the opposite, normalization of leptin with weight loss, increased leptin sensitivity, better overall hormone profile.

The key word here: "nutritionist"

Got really shot down in the comments section so far.

Sure it can. But no mention, since she's opposed the diet, that this is only temporary and things will soon return to normal or often even better.

Yes brains are, unless we're on a low carb or ketogenic diet, at which point when fully adapted, no, we aren't reliant on so much glucose anymore. I make plenty sufficient of my own glucose through the natural process of gluconeogenisis to make serotonin or anything else my body needs, thank-you. Therefore my need for dietary carbohydrates is zero. Preaching to the choir here, I realize. And I do believe being on a low carb/ketogenic diet did have some sort of effect on my hormones because I sailed through menopause like a breeze compared to the hormonal horror stories I've heard, and my brain works the best it ever has happily not being heavily reliant on glucose anymore. Hopefully word will gradually get around to more people about the benefits.

Thanks, Demi. I needed some humor today.

Have to agree with that. I was sooooo much sexier ten stones heavier than I am now. . .

Several years ago, I had a friend who went low-carb and was losing weight and was complaining to me about how much she had to give up in terms of food. We were in the pool working out together, and I said to her, "So. You want me to feel sorry for you?"She thought about it, and then allowed that, yes, she did, she wanted me to feel sorry for her.
"Then stay fat," I replied, and she splashed water in my face. But she also got mad and got serious about losing weight, and she did. She ended up meeting her future husband and marrying him.

I pictured people reading those twisted conclusions and thinking, can't do anything about this because if I lose weight and get healthy and strong (whoops, wait, never mind, they're skipping that part) . . . because if I give up my chicken nuggets and pie and ice cream I'll lose my magic libido. Fine, I would say to them. If you believe that, stay fat.

I overheard a conversation between a couple of women discussing men, and one said, "The problem is that when I find a man that's my age that I consider attractive, he's attracted to women half my age." She could probably drop about 50-60 pounds and not miss them a bit, have more energy, more enthusiasm for life, and feel better about the way she looks, but that wasn't part of the conversation. We don't confront people in conversations like that, just say what a pity it is.

There's a piece of the equation that we're skipping over here, and that's that our own perception of our attractiveness has an impact on how interested we are in potential partners, and how interesting we might be to them. When I don't like the way I look, I just want to be invisible; I'm beaten before I even go into the ring.

I would like to start a reality tv show for incels, along the line of biggest losers (too bad they're already using the perfect name for the program I envision).

The weekly episodes would have participants (not contestants, because they could all be winners) who live together in a nice place, and they have coaches and counselors who tell them they have to pick up their dirty socks, teach them shopping and food-prep skills, table manners, how to have a conversation with people, how to be considerate, charming, kind, who would insist that they floss and bathe and replace their shoes, lose extra weight, work out, dress appropriately, stop feeling like victims, and all the other micro- and macro-skills that are practiced by people who want to get out into the world and attract potential partners.

They could also have a camp for women who sit around saying things like, "All the good ones are taken," while stuffing themselves with pizza rolls, and shine a light into the denial and lack of effort being put forth. Each week they could have a mixer where the groups meet and mingle, and then meet later to analyze the interactions and teach them how to improve their ability to connect with others until everyone's found someone to love and they can all go off and live happily ever after.

I'd watch that show.

This may seem like I'm talking about something different here, but I think not. I see a cultural blind spot somewhere between the fat-shaming and the self-denial, and that blind spot allows us to overlook asking ourselves what kind of signals we're giving out. If I am carrying significant amounts of extra weight and don't put out the energy to dress and groom myself to look my best, it's asking a lot for someone to look past that at my inner beauty. If I don't care, why should anyone else?

Feeling good about how we look, and being in the presence of an attractive partner who also likes how we look, would be a fine start to solving libido problems. Or so it seems to me.

I know that there are exceptions, and I'm not talking about people with medical issues or the incredibly stubborn metabolisms that keep them heavy. They have my complete sympathy. But this kind of so-called research seems like a pied piper's mad march to misery, a bandwagon that gives people yet more reasons to not try to be the best that they can be.

A ketogenic diet increases testosterone in resistance training men: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28399015

A ketogenic diet does not deplete glycogen, which means there's adequate glucose supply (contrary to what the article implies about that): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26892521

A ketogenic diet does not affect strength performance in elite artistic gymnasts: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22835211

From the references in this page: http://www.hormones.gr/8702/article/article.html

OK, that's it for that, but there's lots more I didn't even click on. Ima say the article is a big fat lie. Let's see, men will want to increase their testosterone, ya? I mean, who wouldn't. Women will want to keep their strength up, while they cut a lbs or two total weight and a bit of fat, and build a bit of lean mass, ya? I mean, who wouldn't.

There's uber-short-term stuff (3 days and crap like that) that says keto is bad, and rat stuff too. Ima ignore all of that.

So what's the deal with libido? Lemme see. If testosterone goes up, and if strength stays where it's at, and if total weight goes down, and if fat mass goes down, and if lean mass goes up, and if there's adequate glucose supply, how does all that correlate with lower libido, hm?

Sorry but for SOME people, eating fewer carbs really does lower their libido (for example, my hubby just found this out while doing the Carnivore diet with me which is basically zero carb). I think it isn't necessarily the low carbs but the fact that he's less hungry due to the ketosis and isn't getting as much energy overall and his body thinks he's starving. Reproduction is not a body priority when it thinks times are bad and food is scarce.

Normally, ketosis and eating plenty of fat and enough protein should not leave someone hungry or their body thinking its starving. Zero carb is not the same thing as fasting. You can eat to satiety from the options available which are still quite wide and there is some indication that ketosis curbs cravings for carbs. So you shouldn't be hungry. However, it is not necessary to be zero carb to get the benefits of low carb.

I've read on some zero carb/carnivore websites that this is apparently not that uncommon a response, that those individuals who experience this may perhaps have to make themselves consciously eat more meat/fat. I'm currently experimenting with this WOE and have had a very different but also common response, that of feeling the need at first for more not less food with appetite gradually adjusting over time.

Conscientiously eating more fat rather than more meat seems to do me pretty good.