Low-Fat Diet, Hypocaloric Diet, Weight Loss, Metabolism

[Zachs]

Unless you're a Polynesian or Kitavan, or even South American, there's no reason to eat starches. Maybe if you're Asian you can get away with rice.

Weird that I'm northern European but somehow starches work for me!

Lol.

 

[Koveras]

Lol yea.

@Zachs
You won't necessarily dissipate protein and carbohydrates as heat; they're more thermogenic than fats, especially protein, but the amount of calories you eat is dependent on leptin signalling, and thyroid activity may or may not be sufficient to stimulate cellular respiration for the amount of calories consumed. It depends on the individual.

What Dave said.

Calories count.... Factors may push the number up or down but if you overeat you will gain weight. Even on a fat free diet, which is difficult to achieve, overeating carbs for your BMR and activity level will be stored as a glycogen to a point, and then de novo lipogenesis will occur. Especially as you continue into excess day after day.

It should be noted that in William Brown's 6 month experiment on a virtually fat free diet, where he noticed multiple improvements in his health, he was consuming 2500 calories a day. During this time his body weight decreased from 152 pounds to 138 pounds over 3 months, where it maintained until the end of the diet. It can certainly be said 2500 is more than typical maintenance calories for a 138 pound man (again depending on activity), but no one should suggest that he could have eaten unlimited calories on a fat free diet and avoided any weight gain.

 

[Brian]

Well using milk and carrot salad will help with all the cleaning out.

Strange that RP has never talked about milk needing enough stomach acid and protein enzymes to digest it.

I agree with that. I've recently found carrot salad to work better than ever by swallowing bigger slices without chewing it as much.

I could be wrong about my views on stomach acid and milk. Like I said I think the bigger root issue is probably previously built up endotoxin/infections. And I agree that raw milk and carrot salad could be all you need to clear it out, but something stronger may be necessary.

 

[Matt1951]

What Dave said.

Calories count.... Factors may push the number up or down but if you overeat you will gain weight. Even on a fat free diet, which is difficult to achieve, overeating carbs for your BMR and activity level will be stored as a glycogen to a point, and then de novo lipogenesis will occur. Especially as you continue into excess day after day.

I tend to agree with Zachs, although fat restriction may work for some people, but not others. No doubt increased carbs would move one in the direction of increased metabolism. As people overeat, or undereat, their metabolism is constantly changing. This author thinks it is largely genetics that determines whether a person loses fat or muscle during dieting: Is weight all in our genes?

"Prof Olds says firstly, underfeeding reduces basal metabolic rate, a kind of emergency response, while overfeeding increases it.
“But the amount of change depends on our genes,” he says.
“Secondly, metabolic rate increases after a meal, and following exercise, but these too vary from person to person.
“Thirdly, nutrient partitioning – the mix of fat and lean mass gained or lost – will vary, and so will fat patterning, which is where we put on or lose fat.
“Finally, the amount people increase or decrease their non-exercise energy expenditure, for example, by fidgeting, will vary from person to person.”

Some people I have met can eat a LOT of calories without gaining weight. I know one man who ate 10000 calories a day in high school, and he was always hungry and skinny. As an adult at work, he ate almost nonstop throughout the day. Some people will have a metabolism that increases to accommodate high calorie intake, other people won't.

 

[tara]

It can certainly be said 2500 is more than typical maintenance calories for a 138 pound man (again depending on activity)

I don't know how tall William Brown was, but normal calories for an adult male are around 3000. William Brown was a farm worker - I'd expect he had a fairly physical workload. I'd see his 25000 that as probably a low calorie diet. That he lost weight confirms it.

"Prof Olds says firstly, underfeeding reduces basal metabolic rate, a kind of emergency response, while overfeeding increases it.
“But the amount of change depends on our genes,” he says.
“Secondly, metabolic rate increases after a meal, and following exercise, but these too vary from person to person.
“Thirdly, nutrient partitioning – the mix of fat and lean mass gained or lost – will vary, and so will fat patterning, which is where we put on or lose fat.
“Finally, the amount people increase or decrease their non-exercise energy expenditure, for example, by fidgeting, will vary from person to person.”

With the probably addition of influence from epigenetics, food choice, lifestyle etc to the genetic component, this makes sense to me.

 

[tara]

I could be wrong about my views on stomach acid and milk.

I might be wrong too, but I suspect there is something in this - stomach acid and protein digestion enzymes.
As far as I know, I handled milk fine up till late teens.
Since then, not so good. For me, I'm pretty sure it is at least partly the proteins, not just the lactose, because I have trouble with so many different forms. My current hypothesis is that I din't reliably digest it well, and maybe there is some of that under-digested protein getting into my system through a less-than-effective gut barrier. I have not had access to good raw milk, but I've tried many other forms, combinations with other foods, gradual introduction. I've had periods of eating carrot salad nearly every day. I seem to sometimes get away with some milk, but then it's easy to overdo it and get overwhelmed.

 

[Koveras]

I don't know how tall William Brown was, but normal calories for an adult male are around 3000. William Brown was a farm worker - I'd expect he had a fairly physical workload. I'd see his 2500 that as probably a low calorie diet. That he lost weight confirms it.

Was William Brown not a biochemist, working mostly in the laboratory?

 

[tara]

Was William Brown not a biochemist, working mostly in the laboratory?

Hmm, now I can't remember where I got that I idea from - just searched a couple of Peat's articles - 'a man in Burr's lab'. Maybe you are right.

 

[superhuman]

Calories count.... Factors may push the number up or down but if you overeat you will gain weight. Even on a fat free diet, which is difficult to achieve, overeating carbs for your BMR and activity level will be stored as a glycogen to a point, and then de novo lipogenesis will occur. Especially as you continue into excess day after day.

I agree but i have talked with a very good RP practioner and he said that DNL did not started to rise after a while. I asked RP about it but he did not answer it completely, he just said that excess calories from sugar also turned to fat so yeah it happends.

Its just how effective the conversion is im not really sure about. I have read the study on the DNL but that was just almost like a refeed style. I havent seen it done for a long time on very very low fat diets. I know some of the old studies that Denise Minger pointed out on a couple of practioners that used low fat to cure all these kind of cancer, diabetes etc. They made sure it was under 10% coming from fat calories. They also used alot of sugar and calories where in the 2500-3k range for old and sedentary people and they lost weight/fat.

They also mention in "the starch solution" book by McDougall which is also a low fat guy that they did studies where they just added a good amount of pure sugar daily i cant remember how much and they gained very very very little fat based on a decent amount of time.

I have also talked with alot of people that have eaten very low fat for a long time and they also noticed that their BMR increased alot in terms of how many kcals they could eat and maintained weight and also loose fat. Like for some it was really really much, like 1 up to 2k when they where active, in difference.

There is also the "benefit" that excess sugar gets turned into the most usable and friendly saturated fat which is omega 9 or something, so worst case scenario you get the best fat stored possible so it will be easier to loose and not cause harm when it does.

Im gonna run low fat now, with just skim milk, sugar,fruit etc but im a bit to lazy to count everything. I can cound daily kcals, but weight, bodyfat, daily activity etc etc its just to much of a hazzle.

So yeah if you make sure you have the nutrients and everything covered it would be cool to see in actuality how much of the excess got turned to fat and how much gets turned to heat, raising NEAT etc etc etc.
Maybe b1,niacinamide,aspirin,caffeine all those things also play a part in terms of the DNL getting raised or not?

 

[Zachs]

AJCN | Mobile

I encourage anyone who doesn't believe in the metabolic raising effects of a fat free diet to try it for a few months. Raise you calories to something well over your bmr, I suspect fat gain will not happen. It didn't for me and a few others I know and have read about.

 

[Koveras]

AJCN | Mobile

I encourage anyone who doesn't believe in the metabolic raising effects of a fat free diet to try it for a few months. Raise you calories to something well over your bmr, I suspect fat gain will not happen. It didn't for me and a few others I know and have read about.

From that study:

"The few exceptions to the rule that de novo lipogenesis is quantitatively minor have been when carbohydrate energy intake massively exceeds TEE, eg, the Guru Walla overfeeding tradition in Cameroon, wherein adolescent boys ingest > 29.3 MJ (7000 kcal) carbohydrate/d and gain 12 kg body fat over 10 wk while eating only 4 kg fat (5). Thus, de novo lipogenesis does become a quantitatively major pathway when carbohydrate energy intake exceeds TEE, but this circumstance is unusual in daily life."

 

[Zachs]

Eating only 4kg fat?

 

[superhuman]

Koveras: that means they ate 57 grams of fat a day, that is not super low fat :p

 

[Koveras]

Eating only 4kg fat?

57 grams per day. Would indicate 100% storage of any fat consumed and DNL of 2kg of fat over that time period.

 

[tara]

Eating only 4kg fat?

I figure this is of the order of <60g/day - ~500/7000 cals < 10% fat, right?

 

[superhuman]

Koveras: true, but that is also a decent amount of fat that can play a role in terms of insulin and all that. God forbidd it beeing alot of PUFA :p wich it probably was

 

[tara]

gain 12 kg body fat over 10 wk while eating only 4 kg fat

Would indicate 100% storage of any fat consumed and DNL of 2kg of fat over that time period.

Max 4kg from fat consumption + min 8kg from carb consumption?

 

[Zachs]

Koveras: that means they ate 57 grams of fat a day, that is not super low fat :p

Haha, exactly. I guess their p

57 grams per day. Would indicate 100% storage of any fat consumed and DNL of 2kg of fat over that time period.

Exactly. I said fat free. 57g of fat a day doesn't even qualify as low fat in my eyes.

Their point being that the rest of fat gain was from de novo lipogenesis. What I am saying is that you will NOT gain fat on a fat free diet even if calories from carbs are well over TEE. Adolescent boys being fed 7k calories a day is an extreme but even then, I wonder if they would have gained any fat if they had not been fed 56g fat a day.

Fat completely messes with the process for a few reasons. One it does not allow the body to rid pufa, or any fat for that matter since all fat ingested will obviously be stored. Two it negates the insulin sensitivity you get from a fat free diet. And three, although it may raise metabolism, the biggest boost of metabolism you will get is from ridding tissues of pufa, which brings us back to issue 1.

 

[Koveras]

Glycogen storage capacity and de novo lipogenesis during massive carbohydrate overfeeding in man. - PubMed - NCBI

"The metabolic balance method was performed on three men to investigate the fate of large excesses of carbohydrate. Glycogen stores, which were first depleted by diet (3 d, 8.35 +/- 0.27 MJ [1994 +/- 65 kcal] decreasing to 5.70 +/- 1.03 MJ [1361 +/- 247 kcal], 15% protein, 75% fat, 10% carbohydrate) and exercise, were repleted during 7 d carbohydrate overfeeding (11% protein, 3% fat, and 86% carbohydrate) providing 15.25 +/- 1.10 MJ (3642 +/- 263 kcal) on the first day, increasing progressively to 20.64 +/- 1.30 MJ (4930 +/- 311 kcal) on the last day of overfeeding. Glycogen depletion was again accomplished with 2 d of carbohydrate restriction (2.52 MJ/d [602 kcal/d], 85% protein, and 15% fat). Glycogen storage capacity in man is approximately 15 g/kg body weight and can accommodate a gain of approximately 500 g before net lipid synthesis contributes to increasing body fat mass. When the glycogen stores are saturated, massive intakes of carbohydrate are disposed of by high carbohydrate-oxidation rates and substantial de novo lipid synthesis (150 g lipid/d using approximately 475 g CHO/d) without postabsorptive hyperglycemia."

 

[Zachs]

Again, does not disprove what I am suggesting.

Koveras, have you tried it?