Gary Taubes' Newest Book

[RonBoyd]

As haha points out, activity is certainly a factor, as is calories in.

Let me try one more time:

Fat Mice And The Laws of Thermodynamics

The researchers were at a bit of a loss to explain why the calorie-restricted mice grew fatter, but I’m pretty sure we can rule out gluttony and sloth. They suggested perhaps the mice were reacting to the stress of a limited food intake.

“Reacting,” of course, means something hormonal was going on. (It wasn’t thyroid hormone. The researchers checked.) Perhaps the calorie-restricted mice produced more cortisol. Perhaps evolution geared the mice to respond to the threat of starvation by accumulating more fat, even if it means sacrificing lean tissue.

The point is, they didn’t get fatter by eating too much, and they didn’t get fatter because they decided to expend less energy. They began to expend less energy (in spite of being just as active) because they were being hormonally driven to accumulate more fat, even on less food.

As always, the Comments are as important as the Article.

 

[TromboneAl]

T-Al, didn't you say once that Mrs. T-Al's results with lo-carb weren't the same as yours? I wonder if the regimen is more effective for men.

Yes. She dropped a lot of weight in the first few days, but the loss has been very slow since then, with a lot of variability. For me, it was very regular, with less variability.

Whether its a gender thing or just the fact that everyone is different, I don't know.

 

[haha]

A woman named Janet Ruhl runs a diabetes/low carb website- she states that she "rarely eats more than 100 gm of carb per day". This is low by comparison to US averages, but not particularly hardcore. She controls her DM well on this and as I remember some insulin. Her last A1C was 5.7.

She says that she has a hard time staying thin on this regime. It seems to me that miiddle aged women tend to have more trouble with any weight loss attempts than men do, but my perception may only be this because women are more likely to talk about their difficulties, and also will try weight loss for appearance while after a certain age it seems that men often need a doctor ordering them to lose weight before they will give it much of an attempt.

Ha

 

[harley]

It seems to me that miiddle aged women tend to have more trouble with any weight loss attempts than men do, but my perception may only be this because women are more likely to talk about their difficulties, and also will try weight loss for appearance while after a certain age it seems that men often need a doctor ordering them to lose weight before they will give it much of an attempt.

Ha

Or more likely telling them they will die if they don't lose weight. Even then it's 50/50 whether they'll listen.

 

[Rustic23]

I have not read all the post, but here is something I have been wondering about. Does not human waste, i.e. poop, contain calories? If so, and I suspect it does, then how is this figured into calories in calories out?

Most diet books tell you 3,200 calories equal a pound. Eat 3,200 calories than you burn, and you will gain a pound. Well if part of that 3,200 is discarded in waste, does this hold true?

 

[haha]

I have not read all the post, but here is something I have been wondering about. Does not human waste, i.e. poop, contain calories? If so, and I suspect it does, then how is this figured into calories in calories out?

Most diet books tell you 3,200 calories equal a pound. Eat 3,200 calories than you burn, and you will gain a pound. Well if part of that 3,200 is discarded in waste, does this hold true?

Only before your morning routine. Always weigh post-pooping.

Ha

 

[RonBoyd]

I have not read all the post, but here is something I have been wondering about. Does not human waste, i.e. poop, contain calories? If so, and I suspect it does, then how is this figured into calories in calories out?

Yes, that is true. And that is exactly why the "Law of Thermodynamics" argument doesn't hold up. The "Law" applies only to a "closed system" and living creatures are anything but -- stuff goes in and stuff goes out independent (well, mostly) of what happens inside.

 

[Martha]

I started an experiment of one a few days ago and am eating as close to zero carbs as possible. I've never been much of a meat eater and my spouse is vegetarian so it is odd to eat this way. I felt ill for a couple of days. Today I dropped the effort, other than ditching the sweets, to see if the sick feeling is coming from eating too much meat. I may try again but skip the fattier meat.

 

[Martha]

I have not read all the post, but here is something I have been wondering about. Does not human waste, i.e. poop, contain calories? If so, and I suspect it does, then how is this figured into calories in calories out?

Most diet books tell you 3,200 calories equal a pound. Eat 3,200 calories than you burn, and you will gain a pound. Well if part of that 3,200 is discarded in waste, does this hold true?

It was absolutely fascinating to Google "how many calories in poop."

Anyway, this thread on the bike forums has long detailed posts from RichinPeoria who seems to know what he is talking about: How many calories do we poop? [Archive] - Bike Forums

 

[travelover]

It was absolutely fascinating to Google "how many calories in poop."

Anyway, this thread on the bike forums has long detailed posts from RichinPeoria who seems to know what he is talking about: How many calories do we poop? [Archive] - Bike Forums

Great link. My favorite part:

An interesting example is cut lawn grass! If thoroughly washed, it is safe to eat. But human digestion virtually cannot digest any part of it, so the entire amount passes through the gastro-intestinal canal and gets excreted, while giving essentially ZERO Calories of food value to the body! (With salad dressing, it tastes similar to salad greens!) I tried that once to see if such an idea might represent a diet possibility for obese people who insist on eating massive amounts of food. It wasn't bad!

 

[RonBoyd]

I felt ill for a couple of days. Today I dropped the effort, other than ditching the sweets, to see if the sick feeling is coming from eating too much meat. I may try again but skip the fattier meat.

What you've experienced is, apparently, quite common. The book, The New Atkins for a New You, explains it this way (Page 96):

Everyone is different, and it can take some time to fully switch your metabolism over to burning primarily fat. A low-carb diet is naturally dieretic, which flushes sodium and water form your body. Fatigue, lightheadedness upon standing up or exposure to heat (in a hot shower, ...), weakness, constipation. chronic headaches, and leg cramps are all signs you might not be getting enough sodium. Like fat, salt has been unjustly demonized. ...

The symptoms described above are not the result of the diet -- too little carbohydrate, too much protein, or whatever. the real problem is the lack of just a daily pinch of sodium. ...

Potassium deficiency is something else I have heard about that causes problems. This can be helped by eating Avocados -- the only no-carb fruit. Oh, eat more eggs... lots and lots. They are high in pottasium. Blue Cheese, also.

Actually, a search of the LowCarbFriends Forum might provide better [-]solutions[/-] advice.

 

[HFWR]

Recent article from PaNu blogger Dr. Kurt Harris...

PaNu - P

I've also expressed my skepticism that we could be evolved to be dependent on any particular plant or plant compound, inasmuch as the requirement for animal products at some level is an absolute, but probably not for plants, and in any case there is no one type of plant that has been consistently available across the variety of biomes occupied by humans.

At the same time, in posts like this, I have rejected the absurd idea that humans are not designed to eat any carbohydrate or plants. Note that this was written in August of 2009, so my agnosticism on macronutrient ratios and my emphasis on avoiding the putative NAD (neolithic agents of disease) has been a matter of record from the beginning.

 

[haha]

Extreme Low Carb To Address Metabolic Malfunctions

I have noticed that the internet fosters kind of a geekism. Some reasoanbly good idea will be floated, and soon 500 bloggers will be elaborating and complicating it with all kinds of unsupported extensions and modifications etc. I got a call from an old friend last night who told me she had gone over to low carb, after having been at one time a vegan. She is cute as can be, but always toward the dumpling side, in spite of liposuction x2 and a tummy tuck to clean up the post lipo bagginess. So she cares what she looks like, in clothes and out of them.

She said she was again losing weight, but she had read that she needed to include "resistant starches" in her diet, whatever vaporware these are supposed to be. Reminds of car forums peopled with young men who are not aquainted with wrenches, but "know" a whole lot about details of motor oils. Pure blogger and forum fantasy. Anyway, I asked how her weight was doing and she avoided answering, saying only that she "felt better".

But here is my focus in this post- extreme low carb to address metabolic issues. Above, Ron Boyd mentioned the New Atkins For A New You, by Dr Eric Westman et al. He is a legit metabolic Dr who runs the Duke University Lifestyle Medical Clinic. He quotes from a doc up north in Canada who cares for Amerindians and who is himself at least some part Amerindian. This guy figured out he was not doing too well, and took some blood samples and diagnosed himself as frankly diabetic. He fiddled around a while and eventually put himself on the 20gm/day Atkins Induction, as modified in Dr Westman's book. He did not become non-diabetic- a cookie will still send his BS over the roof, but on this very strict carb restriction I beleive he said he runs an A1C of 5.7- could be better, but still unlikely to land him in much trouble.

I have been knocking around this so called borderline area for a while, so in hopes I could make a big difference I decided to switch from my long standing low carb (likely 60 gm/day) to as close to 20 gm/day as I can get.


Today was craving a bit of Braeburn apple. I used to grow apples, and it would be nothing for me to eat 4 or 5 a day, and maybe a few pears and plums too.

So I cut a small wedge of apple and put it on my Swiss food scale. 20gm. I went to the USDA food database and saw that 100 gm of raw apple with skin gives 11.81 net carbs, so my 20 gms gave me roughly 2.4 net carbs.

That is about 1/8 of the 20 gm daily limit suggested by Dr. Eric Westman, director of the Duke Lifestyle Medical Clinic for those who hope to turn back established metabolic disturbances.

So while a low carb diet will not have a person getting hungry, it may have him/her craving a bit of fruit. I am committed though, as I see guys my age getting their butts kicked by Type 2 DM. So called "good control" is often not very good for the patient, as two guys I know who have never had an A1C over 7.0 have numb feet. One day I was downtown with one of them, and his shoelaces came untied. If I hadn’t bent down and tied them, he would have been out of luck. I am too polite to ask if it is affecting their potency, and they would be unlikely to mention it if it were, but that is another possible gotcha.

Those carbs are hiding everywhere!

Ha

 

[Bimmerbill]

I've always had great luck on the low/no carb diet. My total cholesteral fell, the good going up and the bad going down. Once I got into ketosis the weight would come off fast.

I need to do a month of it to drop this winter fat...

 

[Khan]

I've always had great luck on the low/no carb diet. My total cholesteral fell, the good going up and the bad going down. Once I got into ketosis the weight would come off fast.

I need to do a month of it to drop this winter fat...

When I am in a situation where carbs are freely available I can put on 5 pounds in a week or less.

 

[TromboneAl]

Now I think of apples as bags of sugar with some water, vitamins and a little fiber thrown in. One apple has the same amount of sugar (19 g) as almost five teaspoons of sugar.

Does anyone know how today's modern farmed apple compares with the wild variety that one might find 30,000 years ago?

 

[haha]

Now I think of apples as bags of sugar with some water, vitamins and a little fiber thrown in. One apple has the same amount of sugar (19 g) as almost five teaspoons of sugar.

Does anyone know how today's modern farmed apple compares with the wild variety that one might find 30,000 years ago?

No clue, but likely closer to today's crab apples or rose hips than to a modern Fuji or whatever. Every few years the plant breeders come up with new, sweeter apples.

One thing sure, if a person could go long world diabetes incidence, he should get rich. Fruit breeders trying to pack more and more sugar into fruits, food processors vying to get more fructose in, and more fiber out of whatever they make, and the ADA, AHA and the medical/nutritional establishment diverting our attention away from where the real problem lies should make a doubling of the DM rate every 15 years a slam dunk.

Maybe the way to play this is to go long life insurers?

Ha

 

[mh]

Now I think of apples as bags of sugar with some water, vitamins and a little fiber thrown in. One apple has the same amount of sugar (19 g) as almost five teaspoons of sugar.

Does anyone know how today's modern farmed apple compares with the wild variety that one might find 30,000 years ago?

The book "The botany of desire" discusses at great length man's effect
on the evolution of the apple. An interesting read.

 

[TromboneAl]

Diabetes Rate Versus Time

From:

Diabetes US Rate of Diabetes Doubled in Past 10 Years High Incidence in South

It doesn't make sense that "authorities" don't get the connection with carbs, in the case of diabetes especially.

 

[Martha]

I've lost 14 pounds since January. I tried the low carb but as I mentioned, it made me feel ill. However, I do think that it did help me kickstart my weight loss. I have eaten a small amount of bread three times in that 3 months. I will have a small amount of pasta once a week, low carb if available. I occasionally will have beans in soup. I do not have any blood sugar issues so I decided that I do not have to be religious about low carb.

So, I do eat fruit. If blueberries are reasonably priced I will eat a pint a day. I love blueberries. Otherwise, I'll have either a cup of sliced strawberries or one apple or one banana. The blueberries or strawberries I will have with half and half. The apple or banana with 100 calories of walnuts. I count the calories for everything with a target of about a 1000 a day but ranging from 900 to 1200.

No matter what research says about exercise and weight loss, I find it helpful because it keeps me busy. Unlike sitting on my ass in front of this computer.

I am also working towards rewards. Once I lose 20 pounds I am buying a better bicycle. Maybe even a tadpole or delta. I have tried to look in my "heart of hearts" to see what motivates me, even if it is something not exactly noble. So, my sister losing lots of weight motivates me. I can't have her weighing less than me! I just packed up a bunch of clothes that no longer fit me to mail to her. I wonder if she is similarly motivated.

 

[haha]

Martha, that is a fairly low carb diet. Taubes addresses the sometimes big differences between the needs of a dieter with and without metabolic carbohydrate issues.

I believe I read that the typical US diet is about 300 gm carb, even on a heavy blueberry day yours sounds <100 gm.

And exercise- most of us do it, and enjoy exercise if only to look better and be better able to deal with the physical side of life. I do think that for metabolic issues, and also for weight, the diet side is more powerful but both are important.

Ha

 

[Martha]

For sure it is lower carb than my prior diet.

 

[ERD50]

Diabetes Rate Versus Time


It doesn't make sense that "authorities" don't get the connection with carbs, in the case of diabetes especially.

Are you sure they don't 'get it'? The ADA has plenty about reducing your carb intake:
Carbohydrates - American Diabetes Association

Nowadays, we hear about carbohydrate all the time.

Foods that contain carbohydrate raise blood glucose. By keeping track of how many carbohydrates you eat and setting a limit for your maximum amount to eat, you can help to keep your blood glucose levels in your target range.

Sugar and Desserts - American Diabetes Association

And possibly that graph correlates with obesity, rather than carbs specifically (though there is certainly a correlation between eating a lot of high-calorie carbs and obesity).

-ERD50

 

[Bestwifeever]

Even the new Weight Watchers program calculates more "points pluses" for high carb items than for others with the same number of calories.

But darn those newfangled HoneyCrisp apples from Minnesota taste good!

 

[haha]

Even the new Weight Watchers program calculates more "points pluses" for high carb items than for others with the same number of calories.

But darn those newfangled HoneyCrisp apples from Minnesota taste good!

That's the one I was trying to think of. I avert my eyes in the market when I pass that table.

Ha