Most weight loss advice points toward a shortage off the typical 2000 calories a day diet, plus some exercise to burn more and add muscle. Muscle growth and ongoing body maintenance requires that you eat protein in the 50-60 grams a day range, at minimum. It's very hard to limit calories to 1200-1500 a day and still get 50-60 grams of protein while not limiting carbs and fat. The math catches up with you rather quickly. So the attempt to limit calories has the effect of also limiting carbs and fat just to make the math work. Whether insulin plays a role is something that might be a minor issue and any effect it has could get lost in the larger role that calories-in and calories-out will play.

Why wouldn't one want to limit carbs? Eating a very low carb diet (sub 50g) with a high fat diet encourages the body to metabolize body fat for energy, rather than getting cravings for chocolate cake the body is singing with energy.
Ratios of fats / protein / carbs on this diet are approx 55% / 35% / -10%
This is not a calorie deficit diet.
For those who would miss pizza-type crap seek ye out the Cyclic Ketogenic Diet, this involves a 're-feed' every 6th day for 24hrs (only) where the ratios are swapped, insulin spikes are the liver refills with glycogen .
Read, my babies, read. muhahaha etc

Ironclad wrote:For those who would miss pizza-type crap seek ye out the Cyclic Ketogenic Diet, this involves a 're-feed' every 6th day for 24hrs (only) where the ratios are swapped, insulin spikes are the liver refills with glycogen .
Read, my babies, read. muhahaha etc

Well, Iron clad, I did - I found that it was a reference to a dietary regime for cildren with treatment resistant epilepsy, and where the efficacy was not obvious in adults. I also found that the diet (for chilren) was not without side effects, even though they were managable - managable as in, kidney stones, osteoporosis, etc.

What I did not find was the relevance to managing weight reduction. Or am I merely dense?

Calories in/calories out is certainly true in extreme circumstances - there were no fat prisoners in Auschwitz. But in the normal, everyday world it's more complex than that. If you're eating a balanced diet with the right mix of veggies, starches and proteins then reducing calories either alone or in conjunction with exercise will reduce body fat. You may actually gain eight as muscle mass increases, but I know in my case at least that isn't an issue. I could weigh 20 pounds more and be quite happy if I lost this gut. I think too many people fall into the "2000 or less" trap. They obsessively count calories, eating less at a meal in order to have ice cream, or nibbling celery sticks in order to have a bottle of wine. That doesn't work. You have to maintain a healthy balance. that being true, counting calories can be helpful.

The biggest problem most people seem to have is the quality of their diet. Too many refined starches, fats and sugars, not enough fresh foods.

amused wrote:?.. Whether insulin plays a role is something that might be a minor issue and any effect it has could get lost in the larger role that calories-in and calories-out will play.

That is really the question posed by the OP. Is it minor or not? Does this reasoning apply to everyone the same or not?

laklak wrote:They obsessively count calories, eating less at a meal in order to have ice cream, or nibbling celery sticks in order to have a bottle of wine.

Wouldn't say I was obsessive, I don't deny myself anything except refinde carbohydrates (and potatoes), and have severly reduced fat intake. Wine, yes please, I do like my few glasses of wine, say on a Thursday night ... and have lost more than 16 kg since October.

I am queesy about a ketogenic diet - comes from having to deal with diabetic patients in a ketosis, and they were not feeling well.

NilsGLindgren wrote:

Ironclad wrote:For those who would miss pizza-type crap seek ye out the Cyclic Ketogenic Diet, this involves a 're-feed' every 6th day for 24hrs (only) where the ratios are swapped, insulin spikes are the liver refills with glycogen .
Read, my babies, read. muhahaha etc

Well, Iron clad, I did - I found that it was a reference to a dietary regime for cildren with treatment resistant epilepsy, and where the efficacy was not obvious in adults. I also found that the diet (for chilren) was not without side effects, even though they were managable - managable as in, kidney stones, osteoporosis, etc.

What I did not find was the relevance to managing weight reduction. Or am I merely dense?

LMAO ok ok it was just a wiki link, I thought it a starting point.
Shoot me a email addy via PM and I'll send you a couple of ebooks, one of which is reference & cite heavy, the other more practical, layman & dietary. Sent a couple already.

Very interesting topic.

I found a few lectures online by Taubes in which he gives an overview on the reasoning behind his position. The second talk is a bit more technical, but it also seemed to speed through some of the general points that were mentioned in the first lecture.

Just A Theory wrote:

Sorry, in the abstract you linked there is no support for your dismissal of the role of dietary sugar in insulin resistance. (And, it's a study on diabetics -not healthy people).

How so?

From the article:

Furthermore, we have now increasing evidence that the adipose tissue not only produces free fatty acids that contribute to insulin resistance, but also acts as a relevant endocrine organ producing mediators (adipokines) that can modulate insulin signalling

Emphasis mine.

Most studies on insulin resistance (the mechanism referred to indirectly by Taubes) are carried out in diabetic or pre-diabetic patients. This is because insulin resistance is one of the major risk factors for that disease.

Exactly. Which is why citing studies on sugar intake and insulin resistance in diabeticsis irrelevant. That's what I was trying to point out. Citing studies on insulin resistance in diabetics is akin to citing papers on arteriolar resistance in hypertensive patients. We know that each type of resistance will have been increased before diabetes or hypertension develop. To understand, say, the pathogenesis of arteriolar resistance (specifically its dependence on dietary salt), we need to cite studies on arteriolar resistance in non-hypertensive people. Same for insulin resistance and dietary sugar: how do these variables behave in non-diabetics? The study you bring is in diabetics.

Elena wrote:..
Exactly. Which is why citing studies on sugar intake and insulin resistance in diabeticsis irrelevant. That's what I was trying to point out. Citing studies on insulin resistance in diabetics is akin to citing papers on arteriolar resistance in hypertensive patients. We know that each type of resistance will have been increased before diabetes or hypertension develop. To understand, say, the pathogenesis of arteriolar resistance (specifically its dependence on dietary salt), we need to cite studies on arteriolar resistance in non-hypertensive people. Same for insulin resistance and dietary sugar: how do these variables behave in non-diabetics? The study you bring is in diabetics.

I agree with this. The more reading and scanning abstracts I do, the more convinced I am that medical science is not looking at the right things, but doing a great deal of studies on things that don't help us with the big picture.

At this point, I can't take any of these experts and their one-size-fits-all advice seriously. If they can not account for how much insulin resistance people have and study/conclude/advise accordingly, regardless of which came first (genetics/diet/weight/combination), they are simply not doing their jobs correctly.

This "calories are the only factor" thing is only good at the 30,000 foot level. I want to get down to the level where the people are. That is what Dr Weil was talking about on the link on page 2.

I read about this book on Science Based Medicine a while back while searching for something else. I really have nothing to add since I have no real knowledge on the subject...but I will post a link if anyone is interested.

Why We Get Fat


Back to popcorn for me....

GT2211 wrote:I read about this book on Science Based Medicine a while back while searching for something else. I really have nothing to add since I have no real knowledge on the subject...but I will post a link if anyone is interested.

Why We Get Fat

Back to popcorn for me....

More bullshit from people who should know better.

I think Taubes, the author of the book we are discussing above, and the one that review wishes to discredit, is losing people as well because he is not making it clear enough who he is talking about-the people who don't do well on carb-rich diets. Plus I think he should stick to checking science's work and giving it a grade, and not try to replace it. Any of us that did that would be getting in over our heads, Taubes included.

He says it right away in his appearance on the Dr Oz show. He is writing to people that don't do well on carbs (insulin resistant, or potentially insulin resistant) I read the book too and my first criticism of his writing was that this was not clear enough. A casual scan of the debate he is stirring up leads you to think that he is talking about everyone.

I'm pretty sure he is in this group himself, and did well on Atkins. Then he spent 10 years researching why it worked, where diet advice came from, what medical people believe and why. He (actually he and the research team he hired) found a lot of things wrong.

Of course the so-called "science based" folks are going to be pissed off. He just checked their work and gave it a bad grade!

Let's face it, if advice that came from experts was good, everyone would be thin, happy, and not buying diet books. That is not the case at all. (Of course you also have people that will over-eat no matter how good the advice is, which is a whole different problem. I don't think every single person that is struggling is in this group, as some will claim.)

I think the critics do have some things to point out, because he is going a bit far. What started out as a research project to understand what the medical community is fucking up, also has statements by Taubes on what he eats himself. Then people go after that to try and discredit him and cover their asses. Dr Oz is doing this very thing on his show, making fun of how Taubes eats, and finding everything he can wrong with it assuming that everyone else would do it too.

Taubes also doesn't give a shit about exercise because it didn't work for him. His work explains why. That doesn't mean that no one should do it, but this draws fire as well. It does seem to be true that exercise, as a weight management strategy (not talking about athletes who do it for their own fitness) has limited usefulness. I don't think he is accounting for people who are able to build up muscle mass and boost their metabolism as a result, so they read his stuff and don't like it either.

Once the exercise part of the debate kicks in, I have noticed that experts have a hard time shooting down his claim that it is just not that useful as a weight management strategy, so they change the subject to the other benefits, which are not really the point, in this case.

I don't care if all the people who think they were right all along call Taubes an asshole and find things wrong with his work. I think he already made them look like assholes anyway. In the end the public just needs better, more accurate information. To re-iterate the post above, the information the public gets is bullshit unless it starts to take into account how resistant or sensitive people are to insulin. Without each person knowing this at the beginning, all diet advice is just a guess.

I wrote the world's shortest diet book:-

"Eat less, exercise more"

wtargentina wrote:I wrote the world's shortest diet book:-

"Eat less, exercise more"

Yeah, but you forgot to credit George Carlin!

I'm sitting at about 10% bodyfat just now. Which is pretty low for a dude. I will say from personal experience that it takes a hell of a lot of willpower to maintain the keto diet, even if you include refeed days. Unless you're really putting a ton of effort into cooking a variety of protein/fat only meals, 6 of them a day, you will get incredibly bored VERY fast. For me this leads to me eventually getting lazy and resorting to carrying a massive bag of peanuts everywhere I go, eating lots of straight egg whites with cheese on top and tuna out of the can. Over time I tend to eat less than I should be eating on the diets due to the boredom factor. I also tend to get headaches/nausea while exercising.

I really don't think it's a particular healthy diet but as far as I can tell it's far and away the most efficient fat burning tool. I don't even do cardio when I'm on it, just weight training. You can even buy urinalysis sticks to see if you're producing ketotes, but that's a little hardcore for my needs.

Another problem I found was after stopping the diet I did a lot of junkfood binging. Re-igniting my love of foods that are insanely shitty for me and prepackaged. :

The biggest problem, as I see it, is the lack of motivation for cooking healthy meals. I cannot wait until we have pill form meals with perfected macronutrient levels. Food is a pain in the ass.

Hmmmf. Well. I feel really, really, really suspicious towards that ketone inducing diet. Discussed it with Mrs Crawling who is a pediatrician working with obese children - she confirmed that she was really, really, really suspicious towards said diet. Me, I've lost close to 20 kgs by eating less (following more or less Weight Watchers online) and exercising a lot. Tonight, I had woked chinese morning glory and okra, wonton dumplings filled with soy marinated tofu w lemon grass, spring onions, red pepper, and garlic, also my own new recipe which is a small spring roll stuffed with carrots, leek, and this mushroom Italians call porcini, Frenc cêp, and what anglophones call it I know not but it is very savoury and gives lots of taste to the spring roll - and a small sallad with field lettuce and sea weed, dressed with a hint of sesame. I'm into my second glass of wine, already had a small bottle of Oude Gueuze Vielle, and I haven't even been close to my bonus points, let alone those I have gained by physical exercise (and I do not get a head ache doing neither weights, nor spin cycling).
Are you certain you have latched onto the right kind of diet? As I said, I lost c. 20 kgs, I feel swell, my only problem is I have to have my nice linen jacket re-done to my current size by a tailor and it will cost me EU 60.

I'm honestly not sure at this point. Some praise it, others say it's a dangerous diet. All I'm saying is I found it to be the most efficient cutting tool. It didn't take long for me to get shredded. I'm now finished with the diet and am just taking everything in moderation currently. I find that six reasonably health meals a day is manageable for me and allows me to stay in very good shape. The idea of going back to keto is very unappealing. It's a torturous week until your refeed day (or the two weeks, if you're having a biweekly refeed).

But it also sounds like what you're doing is working very well for you, props for the meal as well - it sounds delicious! I'm a very lazy chef.

If you have to cook or prepare 6 meals a fay, you are not lazy, what?
The meal I describe took me about 90 minutes to prepare and 15 to eat so ... but I love cooking, I love experimenting with Asian food stuff, and I have a place in my heart for vegetarianism, so, it is a labor of love. Also, I will reo the spring rolls tomorrow and serve my wie as she returns from a voyage with some work mates she is currently on.

Oh here's an example of a few of my "meals", hehe.

- Huge thing of cottage cheese with chopped up fruit
- Tuna Sandwich x2
- Shake with protein powder/oats/fruit
- Eggs on bread
- Enormous amounts of skim milk

The only meal of the day that I ever really put any sort of effort into is dinner. And sometimes I skip it for another shake. That's what I meant by lazy.