Thanks for the link, Patrick. I read the comments and, to be honest, I still think he has been somewhat dishonest in recommending 40-60g of carbs in his books and then saying on a forum that you can go much lower but that Joe and Jane Public would be horrified by the idea.

However, I do know that somewhere in one of his books, he does quote something scientific to back these numbers up. I'll find it one fine day and post it somewhere!

amanda

So maybe he just didn't want to offend the people on the ZC forum

Patrick

As I recall, Pennington hypothesized that the actual metabolic defect was a problem metabolizing pyruvate. I had his articles but those and hundreds of others were destroyed in an office flood. I know that Melvin Anchell based his "Steak Lovers' Diet" on the diet that Pennington used with DuPont executives in the 1950s, right down to the detail of only allowing single portions of ten specific carbohydrate foods. I followed the Anchell diet once and found it more effective than anything else I ever did. Inexplicably so. But as so often happens, I got bored with it and....oh well.

Ubizmo

That's right, it seams he was wrong on this. But that doesn't change the fact that the hypothesis, written in the first post, is still valid to date. Whatever is the cause for an individual, the cause is not overeating.

Patrick

That is EXACTLY what I think!

I have a difficult time wrapping my brain around why any but 'rare' obesity would be caused by some kind of genetic defect.

It seems to me the body has evolved and adapted long enough to be pretty stable. In fact if aliens had a german-like word for humans it would probably be some translation of UglyBagsOfMostlyWaterWithRidiculousAdaptibilityAndTooManyFingers or something.

Now I would be willing to consider that some chemical we have inundated our society with is causing a specific problem and the literal 'adaptation' of the body itself to this problem IS leading to the 'obesity/disease' problem in turn. But I don't know about the idea that we have some in-built defect. However our bodies generally work is probably how they are supposed to work. Maybe we need to quit poisoning ourselves. There's a thought.

If only rare people got fat, or only people with a trackable defect, that would be one thing. But the staggering and rapid rise in obesity and related disease suggests at least on the surface that it isn't the body that is flawed but something environmental.


Regarding carbs: I love meat/eggs and for taste alone could happily live very close to zero carb except I like spices, garlic, mushrooms and onions, and occasionally a little hard cheese. Don't feel good on VLCKD anymore though. Dang it.

But if I eat enough carbs even to try and get to 30 let alone my preferred 60-80, it generally triggers me 'noshing' for days and offplan by the end of the week. This has annihilated me being on any eating plan whatsoever. I am essentially carb cycling... by accident. Lose some... gain some... for 2.5 years now and I weigh about what I did 2.5 years ago so maybe it's a net break-even but I'll admit that back then I was hoping things would work out a little more optimistically. :-)

I agree with Judy that for practical like we-don't-live-in-cave-reasons if nothing else, an eating plan that contains some sane amount of food variety including some low-glycemic carbs is important. I also agree that when you adapt to VLC it's hard to get your head around OH MY GOD THAT LITTLE APPLE HAS 19 CARBS and so on. But figuring out what kind of carbs a person CAN eat may be difficult (for me at least, it turns out), or perhaps Judy's right and any change just needs to be done VERY slowly.

PJ

Shameless bump. Info too good to miss.

Patrick

EDIT: Didn't see your post in time PJ, so this is an unneeded bump.

The metabolic defect does not have to be genetic. We are not necessarily born with it. It could be induced latter on by our environment, food, etc...

What I like about the hypothesis, is that it really stands the weight of time. Whether it is caused by fructose, PUFA, caffeine, etc... or something else we will discover in the future.

Patrick

Oh I see. I thought the use of the term 'defect' was implying that we were just born messed up and hence got fat -- I didn't know it could also apply to affects based on environment toxins. My mistake.

A little bump on this one. I like this hypothesis. Anyone cares to help me invalidate it? As far as I know it is still valid.

Patrick

Why is it that people in the same family can eat the same amount of food and get the same amount of exercise yet one of them will get fat while the others maintain a stable weight? Wouldn't the one that gets fat have some kind of metabolic defect?

I think people are different, but I also doubt people in a family very often really eat the same amount of food and get the same amount of exercise, or indeed even eat all the same food.

How does this theory explain the high blood levels of free fatty acids observed in obese subjects?

Really? Because growing up, that was pretty much the case with most of my siblings and myself. We didn't snack, we ate 3 meals a day together, we played together, played sports together, etc. And yet out of 4 of us, my sister got fat as a child. She didn't eat anything we weren't eating. She participated in all the same sports, etc with the rest of us but she still got fat. /shrug It's still a little baffling to us.

That's exactly what happened in my family. Only I was the one that got fat.