The Twinkie Diet Worked : LC Research/Media Forum : Active Low-Carber Forums

#61 ^

Tue, Nov-09-10, 21:16

M Levac

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Valtor

It's easy to intake much more energy than what you need by eating Twinkies. Because it just taste so good to most humans.

If we want to take notes in order to reproduce an experiment or make comparisons, we need a unit of measurement. Calorie is used as such.

Ah, the hedonist argument. That doesn't stick: Taste is affected (actually regulated) by hunger. Indeed, when we're full, food loses its flavor. If something makes it taste better, then I posit that it does so by making us more hungry first. It could do this by making cells insulin resistant. Remember James argued that insulin is an appetite suppressant. Increasing insulin resistance is the same as reducing insulin: Less insulin enters the cells. Consequently, the effect on hunger is the same as well: An increase in insulin resistance will produce the same effect as a decrease in insulin: Greater hunger. So if you see somebody eat a boatload of Twinkies, it's not because it tastes so good to humans, instead it's because it makes him that much more hungry.

If we want our experiment to produce accurate and repeatable results, we should use units of measurement we can trust in all circumstances. The calorie is not such a measure as this experiment clearly shows.

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#62 ^

Tue, Nov-09-10, 21:35

Valtor

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Plan: VLC 4 days a week
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BF:
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Quote:

Originally Posted by M Levac

Ah, the hedonist argument. That doesn't stick: Taste is affected (actually regulated) by hunger. Indeed, when we're full, food loses its flavor.

It doesn't work like that for me. I must be different than you. BBQ chips continues to taste good to me even when I'm feeling very full.

Quote:

Originally Posted by M Levac

If something makes it taste better, then I posit that it does so by making us more hungry first. It could do this by making cells insulin resistant...

Or simply, the whole experience is very stimulating and pleasurable. Plus, eating too much of any food contributes to insulin resistance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by M Levac

If we want our experiment to produce accurate and repeatable results, we should use units of measurement we can trust in all circumstances. The calorie is not such a measure as this experiment clearly shows.

This "experiment" is actually just an anecdote. What unit of measurement do you propose we use then?

#63 ^

Tue, Nov-09-10, 21:43

Valtor

Senior Member

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Plan: VLC 4 days a week
Stats: 337/258/200 Male 6' 1"

BF:
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Quote:

Originally Posted by M Levac

Sorry buddy, your math is wrong. One pound is 454 grams, one gram of fat contains 9 kcals, which comes out to 4096 kcals, not 3500 kcals.

According to your math, a 1576 kcals deficit will produce a 27 lbs weight loss. There's just one problem: He did not eat 1576 kcals less than before, he only ate 800 kcals less than before. 2600 kcals before, 1800 kcals during.

How does the hypothesis explain that a 800 kcals caloric deficit at the onset will ultimately produce a weight loss equivalent to a 1576 kcals caloric deficit? The simple answer is that it can't.

He ate 2600 kcals before the experiment. He ate 1800 kcals during the experiment. This is a difference of 800 kcals. His weight was stable before the experiment. This means Eout was the same as Ein: 2600 kcals. Rather, this means we can rely on a Eout figure of 2600 kcals to predict future weight loss. This means the predicted weight loss will be 70 * 800 kcals, or 13.5 lbs. Yet he lost an actual 27 lbs. The prediction is off the mark by 100%. How can the hypothesis be so far off the mark?

Ancel Keys showed us that a semi-starvation diet causes lethargy, i.e. a reduction of Eout. Haub's experiment says Eout will increase. So not only is the hypothesis wrong with the numbers, but it's wrong with direction too.

The guy's experiment cannot be explained by calories alone. But the carbohydrate hypothesis can explain it completely. Remember, a fundamental principle of this hypothesis is that as insulin drops, fat is released from fat tissue faster than normal, or rather the balance between fat accumulation and fat release will shift toward more fat released to ultimately produce weight loss. Accordingly, if his previous diet drove his insulin higher than his experiment diet, then it's easy to see how an apparent caloric deficit caused a greater weight loss than what the calorie hypothesis alone predicted. How else would he start with a Eout of 2600 kcals, cut out 800 kcals from Ein for 10 weeks, and end up with a Eout of 3376 kcals, unless fat tissue was regulated not by calories but by hormones like insulin?

Nothing of precision can come out of what this guy did. It wasn't properly controlled. Making a precise argumentation from it cannot result in anything other than a straw man.

Regarding 3500 kcals per pound. This actually includes the weight of what is needed to store this energy in fat cells. There is more than just fatty acids in this pound of weight.

#64 ^

Tue, Nov-09-10, 22:29

rightnow

Every moment is NOW.

Posts: 23,064

Plan: LC (ketogenic)
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Location: Ozarks USA

If I'm full of something it doesn't really taste good to me anymore, or rather -- it's more like scratching an itch. At first you're dying to do it, sometimes even to the point of real pain, but when it is fully relieved, one has no desire to do it anymore, and even feels directly averse to it. Foods that are wonderfully sweet when I'm hungry are kind of sickeningly sweet when I'm full. Food that is wonderfully filling when I'm hungry is terribly heavy when I'm full.

I wonder if people are different this way, rather like how they are so different in taste.

PJ

#65 ^

Wed, Nov-10-10, 00:45

Nancy LC

Experimenter

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Stephen Guynet has a posting out on this:
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.c...r-fat-loss.html

#66 ^

Wed, Nov-10-10, 06:25

M Levac

Senior Member

Posts: 6,498

Plan: VLC, mostly meat
Stats: 202/200/165 Male 5' 7"

BF:
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Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Quote:

Originally Posted by Valtor

Why don't you try to explain the evidence instead of throwing doubt around where there is none? The guy's reputation is not in doubt.

No, both total mass and specific fat mass are measured in his experiment. Check the article for yourself. Three is no excuse to use corrected fat mass value when we have exact measurement of fat mass. Even by taking specific fat mass into account, there is no accounting for the extra fat loss.

How does the hypothesis explain the unexpected surplus weight loss? It doesn't.

There is no straw man. Ein - Eout = change in mass. That's the hypothesis, these are the facts. The facts just don't support the hypothesis. Therefore the hypothesis must be wrong.

The hypothesis is not "Ein - Eout = change in fat mass, unless the evidence doesn't support the hypothesis, in which case the evidence is wrong".

#67 ^

Wed, Nov-10-10, 06:37

M Levac

Senior Member

Posts: 6,498

Plan: VLC, mostly meat
Stats: 202/200/165 Male 5' 7"

BF:
Progress: 5%

Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Quote:

Originally Posted by Valtor

It doesn't work like that for me. I must be different than you. BBQ chips continues to taste good to me even when I'm feeling very full.

Or simply, the whole experience is very stimulating and pleasurable. Plus, eating too much of any food contributes to insulin resistance.

This "experiment" is actually just an anecdote. What unit of measurement do you propose we use then?

We are both human and chips will cause hyperphagia in both if us. Food however, is a different story. Since you weigh more than I, you must eat more more than I.

You have no evidence that too much food contributes to insulin resistance. At best, it has no effect on insulin resistance. At worse, it's insulin resistance that has an effect on how much food we eat, and obesity, and lethargy, etc.

A scientific experiment is merely a collection of anecdotes. Ergo, his anecdote has equal scientific value as any other experiment. Use the mole. It's much more appropriate when dealing with weight change, it's also much more accurate since it does not measure by indirect deduction (you know, burn the stuff and measure the heat output instead of the stuff itself), but by direct mass count.

#68 ^

Wed, Nov-10-10, 07:08

M Levac

Senior Member

Posts: 6,498

Plan: VLC, mostly meat
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Quote:

Originally Posted by Nancy LC

Stephen Guynet has a posting out on this:
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.c...r-fat-loss.html

Quote:

Let's start with a few things most people can agree on. If you don't eat any food at all, you will lose fat mass. If you voluntarily force-feed yourself with a large excess of food, you will gain fat mass, whether the excess comes from carbohydrate or fat (2). So calories obviously have something to do with fat mass.

The calorie is a measure of heat. We don't eat heat nor do we store heat, we eat food and store the usable fuel contained within this food in the form of fat and glycogen, and protein if you believe lean tissue is a form of storage, after extracting it through digestion. So calories obviously have nothing to do with fat mass. He was just being sarcastic there. So why does Stephan say something like this: "So if genetic mutants can become massively obese, I guess that argues against the idea that voluntary food intake and energy expenditure are the only determinants of fat mass." Thereby implying that overeating will cause obesity in certain circumstances. Like I asked Krieger, how can overeating be an effect in one instance of obesity but then suddenly become a cause in another instance of obesity?

When we inject insulin, fat tissue grows bigger in response. It doesn't matter if we eat more to compensate or not, we grow fatter before compensatory overeating ever takes place. Insulin contains exactly zero calories yet it makes us fatter when we inject more. Why do we blame caloric content of food for our current obesity when it's clear that non-caloric substances can make us fatter in the absence of overeating? The more appropriate answer is that there is something contained in what we eat that acts pretty much like every other non-caloric substance that makes us fatter. So obviously, in this context, eating too much of this will make us fatter still. Accordingly, there's no reason to blame calories for obesity for any instance of obesity.

#69 ^

Wed, Nov-10-10, 08:03

Valtor

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Martin, we really are not understanding each other and we've already done this at length in another thread. You are free to believe whatever you want. So I'll leave it at that.

#70 ^

Wed, Nov-10-10, 08:19

Valtor

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Plan: VLC 4 days a week
Stats: 337/258/200 Male 6' 1"

BF:
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Quote:

Originally Posted by rightnow

When I weighted 337, I could go to a Chinese buffet and eat until no more food would fit into me. Even then, the food was still tasting as good and I could eat an entire bag of chips an hour later.

#71 ^

Wed, Nov-10-10, 08:35

M Levac

Senior Member

Posts: 6,498

Plan: VLC, mostly meat
Stats: 202/200/165 Male 5' 7"

BF:
Progress: 5%

Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Quote:

Originally Posted by Valtor

Martin, we really are not understanding each other and we've already done this at length in another thread. You are free to believe whatever you want. So I'll leave it at that.

No, I understand you. I just happen to disagree. If you equate misunderstanding with disagreement, then I guess you are free to believe whatever you want indeed. So I'll leave it at that.

#72 ^

Wed, Nov-10-10, 08:56

M Levac

Senior Member

Posts: 6,498

Plan: VLC, mostly meat
Stats: 202/200/165 Male 5' 7"

BF:
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Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Quote:

Originally Posted by Valtor

When I weighted 337, I could go to a Chinese buffet and eat until no more food would fit into me. Even then, the food was still tasting as good and I could eat an entire bag of chips an hour later.

That's my point. If all that food had the capacity to make you feel satiated, then you would have become so. You weren't, therefore what you ate prohibited you from ever becoming satiated. Consequently, what you ate still tasted just as good even if though no more food could fit in your stomach immediately. But make some space by waiting it out, and you could still eat more without ever being satiated.

Hunger is a negative feedback system. When you're full, the signal is strong. When you're empty, the signal stops. You could not stop eating therefore the satiety signal, whether strong or not, just didn't register in the part of the brain that controls eating behavior. Accordingly, food continued to taste just as good in an effort to make this satiety signal register eventually. But then again, if the disruption of the satiety signal was due to something you ate, then eating more of it will merely worsen the problem.

Bodybuilders inject equipoise to make themselves more hungry, to make themselves eat more with the belief that it's the overeating that will cause them to gain weight during a bulking phase. The more EQ they inject, the more hungry they become, the more they eat to compensate. The point is that if they are more hungry, the food will taste better until they reach satiety, if ever. Amylophagia is a condition that compels people to eat starch. Have you ever tasted starch? It's hardly tasteful yet here we are compulsively eating it with nigh an end in sight. How else would we eat such a tasteless substance unless it acted on the hunger system? The hedonist argument is merely a demonstration of gross misunderstanding of physiology.

Last edited by M Levac : Wed, Nov-10-10 at 09:05.

#73 ^

Wed, Nov-10-10, 10:02

teaser

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If we were looking for a first cause... if just excess calories were the first cause of obesity you'd expect just removing the excess calories would increase the weight loss. If this is hard to do, if hunger just increases, energy goes down, etc., this suggests that the first cause has not been addressed. The hedonic response to food, the drive to eat, doesn't prove the idea that excess consumption of food causes obesity, because it is itself a direct cause of eating. The problem with calories in/calories out is that it suggests a strategy--just ignore hunger-- that is futile in the long run.

One thing I'd throw in, the sample day menu looks like he ate many small "meals," which might have had an effect on insulin output, paired with the fact that protein plus carb gives a greater insulin excursion than protein or carbs. There are studies where smaller meals seemed to make it easier to lose weight, others where it did not, and the fact that meal size isn't the only factor when it comes to the amount of insulin (and the overall hormonal response to food) might make the difference.

#74 ^

Wed, Nov-10-10, 10:41

kindke

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Ignoring pubmed stuff for the moment, all the real life experiences and anecdotal stories on the net ive seen point to the strange fact that the rules for body fat gain and body fat loss are not simply opposites of each other.

I have to say even on strict ketogenic diets, you have to cut calories to lose body fat.

#75 ^

Wed, Nov-10-10, 11:36

Valtor

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Quote:

Originally Posted by teaser

I agree that it's only a strategy. I think that there is a lot of first causes to the obesity epidemic. I do not subscribe to the idea of a single first cause.