Kwasniewski Informational Thread - READ THIS FIRST

Dr. Kwasniewski's Optimal Diet

Dr. Kwasniewski's Optimal Diet -- What are you eating?

I don't think any of us owns this book; I don't. Reading through the threads above (is there one more somewhere, Nancy?), I have a few questions that have not been answered, and I was hoping that someone who knew more about the Optimal Diet could fill us in on details.

1. Does Dr. Kwasniewski assert that excess dietary protein is turned into fat?

1a. If so, what is the metabolic process responsible for turning dietary protein into fat?

2. The Optimal Diet is high in carbohydrate (compared to most other low-carb diets) and high in fat. Why is excess carbohydrate not turned into fat and why is excess fat not turned into fat?

3. Is the premise of the Optimal Diet that it that no excess macronutrients are consumed?

4. How did the doctor arrive at these numbers? I've seen quotes I don't trust saying that he tested the numbers on himself and his family.

5. Has the doctor considered that fat loss by folks on his diet is attributable to the (probable) reduction in dietary carbohydrate?

Like I said, I don't own the books(s), and I suppose all my questions would be answered if I did, but hopefully I can flush out an expert or two here to give us more substance to consider.

Well, I can now say from experience that high-fat diets are a disaster for me but they seem to work for quite a few people. I wanted to give it an honest try with logging everything I ate because I keep getting badgered by people to go "high-fat" and I keep telling them, "It doesn't work for me" and they don't believe me, and I always doubted myself too because I was haphazard on the implementation. But this time around, I carefully logged and planned and weighed every bite. The only place I failed in following the Optimal guidelines was in carbs. I kept them low, just out of habit. But I can't believe 20 carbs was the difference between success or failure.

I started gaining immediately. I've got new stomach fat I had gotten rid of long ago. It does seem to be working out for some people. Some have had stalls of months or years that they've broken. So my take-away is, it works for some people, just like Atkins works great for some people. But one-size doesn't fit all.

But to be fair, it might be dairy fat is just a disaster for me. But I think it'd be pretty tough to do this without dairy products. I'm going to try it as soon as I can wrap my head around what to eat.

I haven't read his book but quite a few low carb doctors say excess protein can turn to glucose (via gluconeogenesis, I suppose) which in turn raises blood sugar and can be stored as fat. Dr. Bernstein advises that in his book on low carb to diabetics that have problems.

I know that many of you believe that low carb automatically cures any and all high blood sugar issues but in reality, it doesn't for everyone. I can get very high blood sugar readings eating nothing but protein. In fact, eating a lot of protein at one meal seems to give me really high readings the next morning.

I think it might be possible to keep my protein intake down by just consuming a ton of veggies cooked with lots of fat and perhaps also lots of coconut fat products and really fatty nuts like macadamias.

It is worth a try!

Another thing that happened to me is my appetite was incredible. Maybe the dairy products, or maybe the lower protein. I know when I eat lots of protein my appetite is pretty small and my calories can drop quite low. But whoa, I was consuming over 2000 calories a day and still hungry. I notice the people who seem to be losing weight weren't having the hunger issues I had.


Except fat, at some point in your progress you can pretty much have all the fat you want, but protein and carbs are limited.

The other questions I can't answer.

Now I'm kicking myself for buying all this damn cheese!

Pate, duck confit (I'm posting a recipe for capmikee later), salami, chorizo, bologna, magret (fatted duck breast), avocado, dark chocolate, salmon mousse, tuna salad, pork confit (maybe I'll post that one too), rillettes, foie gras, filet Americain (a Belgian dish of raw ground beef mixed with mayonnaise served with a raw egg yolk on top), raw fatty tuna or salmon belly, caviar and ikura ... more traditional foods.

For Easter I made a leg of lamb (already fatty) that was larded with rosemary needles, slivers of garlic, and big chunks of pancetta (raw fatty cured pork belly [what bacon is before smoking]). The leg was also rubbed with rosemary, salt and pepper and then basted with lemon and copious amounts of olive oil -- about 2/3 cup in all. To my amazement there was hardly any fat in the roasting pan afterward. All but a couple tablespoons absorbed into the meat. This is a traditional Sicilian preparation. In other words, what the Mediterranean diet really is. The recipe was from Joyce Goldstein's Slow and Savory.

Allison, you can have only 60g of protein a day. Even though those things have lots of fat, they also have lots of protein. I mean, 1 egg is 10% of the allotted protein I was shooting for. 3 oz of pork is about half my daily protein. So while those are great foods, you couldn't eat but maybe one or two small servings a day because they're just too high in protein.

I'm glad you asked this. I've been trying to figure it out too. Someone in the thread keeps claiming to have done "deep research" but I only see anecdotal claims. There seems to be a lot of faith in one person's one-month experience.

I'd like for there to be something more effective than what I'm doing. I want to believe it. My weight loss has slowed to a snail's pace. Maybe Nancy's next experiment will turn up something great.

Anyone see http://www.ptbo.igs.net/~stanb/Opti...lLineTheory.htm , especially the diagram at the bottom of the page?

That's some serious napkin art there.

Thanks for starting this thread, Caveman. I'm curious to hear more perspectives.

I've had a couple experiences where I thought I'd probably eaten enough protein, but I ate pure fat because I was still hungry. It turned out not to be satisfying - for me it takes a pretty high protein intake (probably over 100g) for a day's meal to be "enough." I just looked up the Brewer diet, which recommends 80-120 grams of protein. 60 grams is a really low amount!

My suspicion is that the Optimal Diet is supposed to consist of mostly organ meats. I've noticed that liver, for example, is inordinately satisfying for the amount of food it is.

I hope we can find someone who's actually read the book!

I also have trouble believing their sample menus actually are as low protein as they're telling people to go.

Ok, somewhat more paleo adaptation: Avocados, egg yolks, coconut milk made into smoothies. I'd have to add fruit to make it drinkable. Maybe frozen strawberries and some lemon.

Bacon with avocado and mayo.

I think I'd probably end up eating masses of avocados and eggs.

And veggies with fat.

The only reliable internet information I've found is, yes, all in a language I don't understand, and we can only throw Google Translator so far before we start seeing words like "polipeptydowego" at crucial points.

(Looks like he wrote a letter to Brzezinski, too. All in Polish, hrm.)

Years ago, there were posters here who had obviously read the book and were following JK's diet - but apparently are no longer active here.

I wonder if anyone on the Australia forum still is on it? The Australian website is no longer online.

Here's an interesting thread about HIGH fat metabolism:


the low-carb high-lipid foodstyle
Paleolithic & Neanderthin Forum

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...ght=kwasniewski

Nancy, doesn't the Optimal Diet restrict fructose? I think coconut milk has quite a bit of fructose. Maybe strawberries too.

The sample menus included jelly. I can't imagine jelly has less fructose than a few frozen strawberries. Coconut milk has very little sugar of any sort (6.4g per cup) and the USDA doesn't identify what kind it is.

Interesting thread. Glad you asked about this caveman.

I have a hard time believing that one can go so far 'over' on protein so as to stall one's weight loss. I 'get' that fat is important, and that we don't want to veer off into a low-fat, low-carb plan (ie. rabbit starvation) - but still, trying to lower one's protein intake in favour of much higher fat levels seems like a stall-inducing scenario.

Having read the Drs. Eades' PPLP book - I have the sense that protein is pretty important, and that we should be aiming for a certain minimum intake.

Is the 'Optimal Diet' somewhat like Dr. Atkins' "Fat Fast" ? Sorry, I haven't been reading up on the Optimal Diet too much, since going super high fat is totally unappealing to me.

I once asked awhile back about the 'going over' on protein thing, and someone from the exercise forums answered that it would take an insane amount of calories and protein to have that protein convert to glucose. That, in short - I'd have to eat like 300+ grams of protein in conjunction with super high calories for the protein to be 'converted'.

That said - there is the blood sugar/diabetic thing - and I'm curious about something else in there. People with blood sugar issues who notice higher blood sugar readings from eating a lot of protein - what I'm wondering is if it's possible that the carbs in such a plan have gone too low, creating a low-blood sugar situation, and then the body compensates for it by spiking up the blood sugar? Is this a possibility? Like I said, I'm no expert on diabetes either, so don't know if this is a consideration.

And if so - does this mean that zero and ultra-low-carb plans aren't ideal for people dealing with blood sugar problems?

A quick search at google on "fructose coconut" immediately brings up, "...the major sugar content in coconut water is fructose..." and in the wikipedia entry for Fructose Malabsorption, COCONUT is HIGH in FRUCTOSE:

http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cach...e=UTF-8&strip=1

It seems to be working for some people. Quite a few lucky folks who say multi-month stalls are starting to lose again.

Our bodies convert protein to glucose all the time, we're probably especially good at it because we don't eat carbs so that necessary 130g of glucose has to come from protein. And how is it that me, with a daily carb intake of well less than 20g a day, can have a fasting blood glucose of well over 100. 120 on days after a big protein meal.

No, I definitely think there's something to the "too much protein" for some of us.


This contradicts what you said the bodybuilders told you, that the body is really lousy at converting protein to glucose. That blood sugar has to come from somewhere.

I've heard various things thrown out about protein getting converted to glucose. Some people say 50% of protein does. Or can... that's where it gets confusing. It can, but does it if it doesn't need it? According to my blood sugar readings, yes, it does. You certainly do have insulin released when you eat protein and it tends to be a long, low release, whereas with carbs its a shorter, higher release. I'm not sure which one has a bigger AUC.

I don't know what parts of Dr. K's diet are important... the macros or the foods. I was going by macros and when I complained that it wasn't working, I was told by one person it's because I was eating the wrong foods. But, when I analyze what this person is eating they're not eating the correct ratios, probably eating more protein than they think they are. Either that or they're eating microscopic amounts at each meal... which would still mess up the macros.

So there's a lot that doesn't make sense to me but what does sound probable is that too much protein might be an issue for me anyway. I had a really gorgeous blood sugar reading this morning: 82. It's worth giving a try, since nothing else seems to work.

If it's that excess protein is the problem then there's nothing magical about Dr. K's foods and one could just work out the macro-nutrients however it suits them.