I'm not sure I'm following you.... Jimmy Moore made it clear in podcasts that reducing protein was an essential part of his success with ketosis. Elgrayso is still eating 120-140 g protein per day and seems unable to go lower without a lot of hunger. I don't see where JM has led him astray. Also, Elgrayso is already thin: 5'11" and 156 lbs. Why SHOULD he expect to lose another 6 pounds without some serious rebellion from his body?

I think you and I must have different expectations for Jimmy Moore's book. To me, he's "some guy on the internet" who interviews a lot of experts, many of whom disagree in part with each other. He has tried nutritional ketosis and it worked for him. His book tells what he did. It also tells what he had to change to make it work. I find that valuable. I have no illusion that I can replicate what he did and have the same results. I also don't see him presenting himself as the ultimate authority. He brings in plenty of back-up opinions for the book. I think that's a good thing.

Jimmy Moore does mention blood glucose as a proxy for ketones in that as his blood glucose went down his ketones went up. He also says that it took a while for his blood glucose to go down - his ketones responded more quickly.

A symptom of fat loss can be a symptom of weightloss. On a day-by-day basis? Not necessarily. I'm talking the weightloss here. Starve totally. As long as you're alive, over days and weeks, you must be losing fat. Day to day, weight can go up or down. That old body water thing.

Anyways, what's Jimmy say?

http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/...y-331-360/18365




Okay, he advocates strips as a useful tool for making sure you're in ketosis. I can't really fault that. I don't think it's necessary to track as often as Jimmy did... unless maybe you need that extra something to keep you honest. When people were being taken in by the low-carb claims of Dreamfield Pasta... or various low carb products that contain sugar alcohols (which didn't fool Dr. Bernstein for one second--for a type I diabetic, the fact that sugar alcohols count towards your carb count is obvious with just a blood glucose monitor). A ketone monitor would have seen right through those shams.




It's certainly worth giving it a try isn't quite the same as, go in to nutritional ketosis, and you're guaranteed weight loss.



This statement does bother me a little. If you're over six feet, male, eating 80 grams of protein a day, 85 percent fat, little in the way of carbs--you don't really need a ketone meter to know you're burning fat. Just continuing breathing is good enough evidence that you're burning fat. You can be burning 70 percent or more fat without even being in ketosis.

My personal theory with Jimmy is that he has a problem with carbohydrate addiction. Not everybody who's fat has that, and not everybody to his degree. He reports drinking a dozen full sugar colas, whole boxes of L'il Debbie cakes, bags of Twizzlers (licorice), etc., in the past. And being rolled up on the couch with withdrawal when he first went on Atkins. If we believe him--this isn't typical. When he used to have his daily menu blog, I remember posts where he'd take low-carb bars, add whipped cream with sweeteners, then pour daVinci syrup over the mess... Stephan Guyunet would say, ooh, reward value, palatability. I say, symptom of sugar cravings... and some actual sugars coming in, in the form of the bits of bulking sugar and the powdered sweetener, and larger amounts of carbohydrate in the form of sugar alcohols. For me, syrup poured over cake or cookie-like substances hasn't seemed like a good idea since I was a kid... Elevated ketones seems like a plausible strategy for fighting sugar addiction specifically.

I guess studies with ketone esters will be useful to show whether ketones specifically might explain the results of a person like Jimmy.

And double for me with what Liz said about Elgrayso... nobody said nutritional ketosis was a wasting disease. Getting past a certain level of leanness is always going to be hard.

I've been eating more ketogenically most of this calendar year. Haven't lost weight... actually gone up a little. To 160, low was 154. I haven't been perfect with the diet though. This is the longest I've stayed this low since starting a low carb diet, usually I'll creep up to 170+ when eating to appetite.

I'm thinking I might try to get back down to 150 in the fall, when people are much less likely to offer me rum.

1) Elgrayso bought the magic gizmo
2) He's measured his ketones
3) He's frustrated because he think that if he gets them above 0.8 he'll lose fat weight as there is a supposed correlation between ketones and fat weight loss and he can't get them above 0.8.
4) People's advice is that he should reduce protein as if there is a second correlation between glucose and ketones
5) Dr. Ede's experience directly contradicts those two correlations

One thing that Jimmy Moore touches on only tangentially in the book, but that Dr Fung really drives home is the fact that it is really insulin we are concerned with, not glucose. Protein strongly affects insulin levels without causing an appreciable rise in blood glucose. High insulin levels are also what retards fat burning, and can be a cause for water retention (= no loss on the scale even when burning fat).

I don't know how much protein JM consumed before he started his ketosis experiment, but in my book, Elgrayso eats an extreme amount (120-140 grams per day). Perhaps less than before but still way above what his body needs to maintain lean tissue. He may be particularly insulin resistant due to long term overconsumption of protein, but would not know unless he's had fasting levels checked. And why would he? He's thin.

Jimmy Moore on the other hand, as Teaser points out, is a carb addict, not so much a protein addict. His indiscretions are going to show up on his glucose monitor and he presumably he will work to correct them. For him, lowering glucose lowers insulin, raises ketones. For Elgrayso, it may not be such a direct line.

Back to the true subject at hand, I returned to semi-fasting yesterday. It still does not come naturally to me, but I managed to skip breakfast and feel fine all day, and keep calories relatively low (1200). I went to the gym without breakfast, knowing I prefer taking my class without breakfast in my stomach. Except we had a substitute teacher who taught in a much more aerobic way - I was a little uneasy at first about having enough energy to get through the class, but after 10 or so minutes felt fine.

I finished Keto-Clarity last night and rather like the idea of stepping down to one meal a day. I really wonder if I would be able to do it every day - or would even want to. I have noticed I've been a little cranky on the days I fast and quite ravenous at times. I'm so happy for those of you who fast so easily - and maybe a little envious - it remains to be seen if it is a real solution for me.

Thinking out loud, I wonder if eating at ketosis levels or IF is really what helped JM lose the weight....perhaps ketosis helped him be able to tolerate IF, but it was really the fasting and the resulting reduction in insulin resistance that helped him lose the weight.

Did everyone see Dr Fung's last post? The guy sure knows how to write a cliff-hanger. I'm staying tuned once again....

He said in the meeting he started n=1 at 120g protein, and then would drop intake by 10g or so until the ketone level was where he wanted it, which was 80g for JM. If you want to zero in on your protein requirements, you need a blood ketone meter. I wonder about the same, impact of ketosis or IF? Especially since I saw a good ketone reading with higher carbs. Off to read another cliff-hanger!

Now I'm still hung up about how they figured out to check a Gila monster's salvia, and how do you gather that?

I don't find it easy. I get hungry and cranky, and worse. I start clenching my jaw involuntarily and get anxiety-type tension chest pains on the longer fasts. And can't sleep. The same way I feel on very low carb, which is why I don't do that on a regular basis. But I think the every other day or less shorter fasts may be doable long term. I've been staying within the 8-10 hour feeding window too and that is a real discipline sometimes as other members of my household are eating much more often.

The coconut oil, cream, tea (which I actually never drank before) and broth are very helpful, although I've been disappointed in both of the broths I've made. One probably didn't have enough bones as it didn't gel much, and the other I boiled the hell out of it and there's just something weird about it.

Incidentally, can't remember where I read it now, but for those like me who haven't found the healthier type of bones, I read that it's the fat that retains the remnants of hormones, antibiotics, etc. so to skim it off. Makes sense, so that's what I'm doing now.



I'm getting impatient with his slow pace of discussion. It's as if he has else to do besides update his blog!

You know, I'm glad to hear that you to are struggling (misery loves company?). Jimmy Moore talks about forgetting to eat. I am fairly constantly aware of my hunger while fasting, and for that he recommends eating. But, wait! I'm trying to fast.

For now, I'm doing what you do: reducing the eating window. Yesterday I ate lunch at 12:30 and dinner at 6. That was not too bad, and I kept busy with the gym and errands until lunch time. I will see if I can gradually postpone lunch till 1, 1:30 etc and perhaps eventually eliminate it. I'm going to take it slowly, though, and only if it seems "natural". I don't ever see me fasting every day though, I like the every other day idea (I do like to eat!).

I'm kind of relieved by the slow pace of Dr Fung. When I was binge-watching his videos and binge-reading his posts to catch up, I was a little overwhelmed. Now I have time to leisurely read, think, re-read. I feel better prepared for the "next episode".

I last bought pastured marrow bones, slow cooked 30 hours, and not a speck of gelatin. Kinda slimy marrow bits which I assumed was the healthy part, so ate those, but didn't like it. That box of organic chicken broth in pantry is looking mighty good today

I still haven't done the broth. I can't bring myself to do it. I'm not one who enjoys eating animals and taking parts of their carcass to create more food for me is off-putting. I know I'm weird. It's just how I am. Consuming moderate protein makes me very happy.

As for fasting and needing to eat, we all have to find "that" level. Fasting isn't the focus in JM's book but comes as an added bonus later. Am I the only one to read that ketones will show a lower reading, especially if one exercises, because they are being burned and their absence won't always indicate accurately the state of ketosis?

Since starting this, I have found it harder to make myself eat than not eat. I sure didn't start out that way. The first two fasts were miserable beyond words. But then I entered the kingdom of no appetite. It's what keeps me on the straight and narrow as far as food choices go. I'm in my happy place and don't want to mess with it.

Huh!?! on the bone broth. My first broth, using my tried and true Mediterranean Chicken Salad from the Silver Palate Cookbook, was great. Of course I wasn't trying to make broth, I was simply poaching chicken breasts to use in chicken salad. However, the resulting broth, cooked down for 3-4 hours till it was thick and gelatin-y, was great. I added a touch of vinegar after the meat had been removed from the bones, but other than that, easy peasy, no extra effort. Now does it have all the vitamins and minerals of Dr Fung's? I don't know. Did it fill my tummy and relieve my anxiety those first few days of fasting? Yes. Maybe it's just Placebo Broth, but it works for me.

You lookin' at me, Willis?

Sorry, but I don't do well with using bones and the like for broth. I'd rather do without. I don't buy bone-in meats usually either. It's bad enough that I have to eat it. I don't want to be cracking bones or ingesting slime and gels. I know, I know, I know. It's weird to some. I get it. I admit it. I don't even call it bone broth. It used to be referred to as just broth but now all the cave people took to making it more primitive. It's their prerogative. I'd rather just avoid it. And I don't give a flip about the supposed health benefits. It disgusts me.

Sorry, I was not commenting on anyone's broth making or broth eating abilities. I find it weird that people followed his instructions to the nth degree and came up with non-gelatinous broth. Actually, I did the same thing the second time I made broth, using his recipe (though I did NOT cook 20+ hours) - it did not gel and I thought I'd done something wrong (I'm usually quick to blame myself). And yet, when I just poached a couple of chicken breasts I ended up with great looking broth. What I'm really trying to say is: Maybe something is wrong with his recipe?

Yeah, he sure does! I think I said in my journal something like reading his blogs is like reading a thriller novel, and I want to get to the last chapter!

In fact maybe I'm glad I didn't discover him until this thread. I went back and read his blog starting from his first posts - and there were LOTS of cliff-hangers there too. Just that, since I was getting here later on, I also got to read the chapters that had his answers. Now I'm back in cliff-hanger mode.

Interesting reading about Byetta in his latest post. My understanding (from something I read) is that Byetta only works for about 1/3 of the patients who take it, and for them it works spectacularly well. But for 2/3 of the people who try it it does nothing.

A friend of mine gave it a try - she was a perfect Byetta patient. She totally lost all her food cravings - said she could walk past a dessert buffet and have no interest in it, thinking "wow, this must be how normal people feel about food", lost 20 pounds quickly, great improvements in her BG numbers. She urged me to beg my doctor for it - so I decided to try. But I guess (as usual!) I was one of the 2/3 for whom it did nothing - no loss of appetite, no weight loss, no BG improvements ...So if Byetta mimics the effects of GLP-1 and causes a slowing of gastric emptying I wonder what that says about the physiology of the 2/3 of the population for whom it does nothing?

Hi Debbie! Where the heck are you today?
Maybe your "gut microbiome" is very special?

I was using the same balanced Bites broth recipe I always use…think marrow bones are not good bones for extracting gelatin, just..marrow and that is gross.

Blue, speaking of the "odd bits" of animals, you will be happy to know I found a dehydrator today at the thrift store, and haven't a clue what to do with it. I had the vague idea of making my own kale chips and beef jerky. anybody, what do I do now? Other than shut-down and unplug the computer…line of thunder and lightening only minutes away…gotta go.