I spent 71 years eating bog standard SAD. I refer to it as the ‘Standard Approved Diet’ since it was based primarily on the fraudulent ‘research’ of Ancel Keys on dietary fat and his demonization of saturated animal fats (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11). Note: the preceding series of articles by Dr. Tim Noakes about insulin resistance and just how a bogus dietary theory became the accepted norm is an education on diet and nutrition you will appreciate beyond anything you imagine. I highly recommend you read them all. And if it’s a choice between Noakes and me, you’ll be better served by Noakes.
My personal experience included 30 years brewing my own beer (braggot actually) and drinking half a liter daily. During those decades I remained fit, healthy, normal weight and body comp, for which I thank my ancestors daily [1, 2]. They gifted me with a flexible metabolism, uncoupled protein and mitochondria very like these, as described here and BAT thermogenesis. During that period of my life I was not particularly sensitive to cold weather and even spent the better part of a decade living on the marge of Lake Laberge in the Yukon. Unlike the fictional Sam McGee, however, I was not ‘always cold’. In fact, I thrived in the cold weather! Nor did I fall victim to CVD, diabetes or obesity, nor anything else associated with metabolism and/or eating lots of carbs.
As a youth and young man I was a middle distance runner. I’ve remained physically active the rest of my life, although not at the level of competitive athletics. Into my 8th decade I remain an avid cyclist and even designed and built my own recumbent bicycle. I also still walk lots. During the decade of my 60s I gained about 35-40 pounds of excess visceral fat. I attribute this primarily to a slowing metabolism due to age and incipient insulin resistance due to eating/drinking SAD for 7 decades finally catching up with me.
During those decades eating SAD, I experienced 'normal' hunger. That is: I ate to satiation and 3-4 hours later ate again to satiation and 3-4 hours later... etc. In other words, I ate a lot and I ate frequently throughout the day. I was an all-day grazer! Again, I thank my ancestors for gifting me with a genetic predisposition to absorb that and remain relatively fit and healthy.
I need to input a little family background here. Around the age of 30 my dad developed hyperthyroidism. No matter what or how much he ate he lost weight over the course of a couple of years to the point of fatal emaciation. To protect their investment in a very good and experienced pilot the Air Force treated my dad’s hyperthyroidism with the standard ‘treatment’ of the day (early 1950s): they nuked his thyroid. It worked! From that day onwards no matter what or how little he ate my dad gained weight. Destroying his thyroid saved his life, but at the cost of obesity, CVD and diabetes for the rest of it.
I bring up my dad’s experience to explain my guess: the thyroid functions as a master rheostat over metabolic activity. I suspect that there is a range of normal function from ‘slow’ to ‘fast’ that determines whether one’s metabolism is primarily oriented to store energy (the ‘slow’ end of the range) or use energy (the ‘fast’ end of the range). Or somewhere in between.
Looking at my own life over those 7 decades pre-Keto I conclude that my thyroid function was within the upper end of the normal range. Whatever and however much I ate, my metabolism preferred to burn it rather than store it, both in the form of usable energy and body heat. Then during the decade of my 60s my thyroid function decreased, my metabolism slowed, WAT replaced BAT and I began to store more energy. Still burning most but storing more than when younger resulting in a slow and gradual gain in overall weight. Also, years eating a high-carb diet leads inevitably towards some degree of insulin resistance, which in my specific case and practical terms meant my cells were more reluctant to part with their stored energy surplus.
NOTE:
It’s important to know, however, that in pre/diabetics, on the other hand, insulin resistance also leads to a gradual increase in blood glucose levels and increasing insulin secretion to force glucose into cells and get it out of the blood. 1234
In fact, studies show that insulin resistance is an indicator of pre-diabetes and can be measured many years in advance of the onset of clinical diabetes. 5
As evidenced by studies with repeat measures of glucose levels, insulin sensitivity and insulin secretion, the development of diabetes from NGT is a continuous process. Recently we described trajectories of fasting and postload glucose in addition to trajectories of HOMA insulin sensitivity and insulin secretion (β-cell function) preceding the development of type 2 diabetes in the British Whitehall II study (figure 2). In people who developed diabetes, increased glucose values were observed already at the beginning of the follow-up, 13 years before diagnosis, although glucose values seemed to be tightly regulated within the normal range until 2–6 years before diagnosis when an abrupt increase was found. This pattern of glycaemic changes was confirmed by others.
In 2005, at the instigation and support of his second wife, who had other ideas about what and how much to eat, my dad cut down on the carbs in his diet. Nothing close to Keto levels, but significantly lower than he had been eating. Nothing much else changed. He still ate about the same total amount of food/energy, yes somewhat less overall, but mostly less came from carbs and proportionally more from fat and protein.
Guess what? For the first time in 50 years my dad actually lost weight! And it stayed off for the next 2 years until his death. Yes, he had tried CICO ‘diets’ many times before reducing overall calories but still eating the same relative proportion of carbs and the results were always exactly the same: he lost a little weight for a month or two then steadily regained it. This time, instead of simply cutting down overall calories but still eating the same proportion of carbs, he instead reduced the proportion of carbs while still eating approximately the same total overall calories. It worked!
My Keto Start
I started keto with a 4-day water fast. On day-2 I experienced very severe hunger virtually all day. I describe this as ‘Carb Hunger’, that cookie monster screaming ‘Feed me, feed me’ and making my stomach feel like an open pit mine and overall making me fear death was only minutes away unless I ate something NOW. This was a common and unpleasant experience during my decades eating SAD and I kept it at bay by grazing all day.
On day-3 I had a totally new experience (at the age of 71 no less!). The Carb Hunger had passed! I had expected that it would just keep getting worse and worse until I could not take it and just give in. But it was gone. Sure, I was still ‘hungry’ but in a very different way, which I now describe as ‘Keto Hunger’. It’s like the company accountant announcing at the monthly board meeting that outgo exceeded income last month and the difference was made up from the current account.
This new ‘hunger’ experience brought no distress, no discomfort, no sense of urgency. To meet the shortfall we dipped into current stores to make up the difference. No big deal, nothing to worry about. Now, when I talk about my hunger, I’m talking about Keto Hunger. I have not experienced Carb Hunger since day-2 of my 4-day initiation water fast. Even Keto Hunger has become a ‘non-thing’ that I hardly ever notice and even when I do it passes within a few minutes.
I now view Keto Hunger as just another feature of ketosis, in fact a confirmation of it. Every once in a while Keto Hunger reminds me that my metabolism is shifting to stored fat primarily for current energy needs. Message sent and received. Carry on. Seamless integration from ingested energy to stored energy. This is not even ‘hunger’ in the sense of prompting me to eat, so I don’t even consider it ‘hunger’ as most folks understand the word. So really, I have not experienced hunger at all since day-2 (Jan03/2017).
In context, this is understandable. My current (as May12/2024) overall weight is 140 pounds and body fat 13.6% (using the Navy Calculator), varying only slightly day to day based on what I’ve consumed over the course of the preceding couple of days or so. That’s 19 pounds of fat and 121 pounds of lean mass. These numbers have not changed by more than +/- a couple pounds and +/- a couple % since the summer of 2017 when I began maintenance. They are pretty much the same as when I was 18 years old - and I am very happy about that! Thus, I have slightly more than 66,500 calories of stored energy. So even though I am overall quite lean, the current account has plenty to fall back on as needed.
My Weight Loss
Silly me! I neglected to weigh myself just prior to starting my keto journey. I simply forgot that I have a bathroom scale since it was tucked under a cabinet out of sight. I seldom ever weighed myself previously because my overall weight changed little over time. During the decade of my 60s I added about 35-40 pounds of visceral fat. But even that took 10 years to accumulate to the point of being noticeable and uncomfortable.
However, by the age of 71 it was noticeable and was uncomfortable - at least to me. My best guesstimate is my initial weight was 175-180 pounds. I felt heavy and clunky and I wanted that feeling gone. My motivation was reinforced by an upcoming appointment in mid-March with a surgeon to fix an abdominal hernia. I had read that the less abdominal fat the surgeon had to deal with the better the potential outcome would be.
I don’t recall now whether I had been reading about keto, recalling a previous endeavour I had made a few years previously or simply reflecting on my dad’s experience during the last couple years of his life. Whatever, I decided to go on a 4-day water fast and then start eating a ketogenic diet to lose the excess fat.
Of course, just like pretty much everyone else on the planet, I immediately thought I had to move more and eat less. This represents so-called CICO dieting, that is calories in and calories out are the only things that matter. What specifically you eat doesn’t matter much, only how much of it you eat. Sure, advocates say some foods are more nutritious than others and you should eat those in preference. But really, the only thing that matters in the end is how much you eat and how much energy you expend. If you eat less you lose if you eat more you gain. Simple.
In my case, the move more part was redundant. I was then and remain quite active walking and cycling. Of the eat less, I decided to eat to a 300 kcal per day deficit. To decide what that was I just guessed that my daily energy requirement was about 1800 kcals. This despite my level of activity being much more than the ‘average’ for men my age. Thus, at the end of my 4-day water fast I jumped into keto eating: 1500 kcals per day. I thought this was conservative. I later discovered not so much.
I started losing fat weight almost immediately, within a couple of days. I weighed myself once per week on Sunday mornings after a morning pee and dump and before my keto coffee breakfast. I bought an Omron Fat Loss Monitor and also used both the Navy and Levl online calculators to determine fat mass. I currently continue to use this online calculator occasionally.
By mid-March, just prior to my hernia operation, I had lost about 25 pounds and my abdomen was noticeably flatter and firmer. So I had succeeded in making myself a better subject for a successful hernia repair job. And it went well.
By the end of March I had lost another 2-3 pounds and I thought it would be a good time to stop. My initial goal was to get down to about 160 pounds where I thought I would feel comfortable. But I hit 160 and did not feel comfortable so kept going. By the end of March I was close to 150 and decided to stop there.
So I upped my daily caloric intake to 1800 calories. This slowed the fat loss but did not stop it. So a couple weeks later I increased my daily caloric intake by another 100 calories. Again, although the loss slowed it did not stop. Well, I continued this process for almost 3 months, into June and 2500 kcals per day. Finally, the loss stopped. So I had, in fact, started with a 1000 kcal per day deficit! And I had maintained that deficit for 3 months before slowly decreasing it over the next 3 months.
Which is significant!
Unlike losing weight by so-called ‘CICO dieting’, that is by just restricting overall caloric intake but continuing to eat approximately the same proportion of carbs, fats and protein, my metabolism had not slowed. Losing weight while simply eating less but continuing to eat approximately the same proportion of carbs, fats and protein - or even worse by reducing fat and making up the difference proportionally with more carbs - results in slowing your basal metabolism. Why so? For one reason because you’re hungry most of the time so your brain gets the message “There’s scarcity” and in turn sends the message “Slow down to conserve“.
Sure, if you continue to eat a caloric deficit the fat comes off - gradually and with difficulty. You’re always hungry and feeling deprived - maybe tired, weak and irritable as well. And if that’s not enough, the greater the daily caloric deficit and the longer it is maintained by reducing fat and replacing it with carbs, the more your metabolism slows. In other words, your metabolism adapts to lower energy input by lowering energy need rather than changing the energy source. You can not eat to a caloric deficit forever, and once you start to return to a condition of energy balance, your slowed metabolism starts storing the energy again as fat.
The mechanism is simply that eating carbs elevates blood glucose. Elevated blood glucose in turn elevates insulin, whose function is to get glucose back down to normal again any way it can as fast as it can. Insulin will drive as much glucose as possible into cells as fuel and whatever is leftover into adipose cells to store as new fat. And because there’s plenty of fuel in the blood, insulin hinders the release of currently stored fat fuel. So while you’re trying to lose fat your metabolism is slowing down and trying to conserve your stored fat. The Biggist Loser followup study demonstrated this fact of life beyond question.
On the other hand, after my initial 3 months of caloric restriction, as I increased my daily caloric intake over the course of the following months by eating more fat, I continued to lose fat. Had my basal metabolism slowed or my insulin not remained at baseline, this would not have occurred. Instead, I would have started adding weight/fat - just like your standard CICO dieter. Losing weight on a ketogenic diet maintains base metabolic rate and may even increase it. In addition, by keeping insulin at baseline a ketogenic diet increases both the number and activity of mitochondria overall and particularly in adipose cells. See this. As well, you feel more satiated and less hungry. The dietary concern becomes eating enough! As I already mentioned, ‘keto hunger’ is very different from ‘carb hunger’.
Maintenance
Since the summer of 2017 I have been in what is called ‘maintenance’, or fat adapted. That is, eating to remain in ketosis and maintain an overall energy balance by utilizing fats as my primary energy source. My overall weight has not changed by more than +/- a pound or two and my body fat composition +/- a couple %. I am very happy to report that my overall weight and body comp are almost identical to what they were when I was 18 years old! I’ll take that, thank you. And, again, thank you, ancestors!
Exception. In the summer of 2018 I took a full-time job at Walmart to supplement my income from pension and old age benefits. Within a week I started to lose weight! This was fat, of course, as my metabolism dipped into ‘current stock’ to make up an energy shortfall. In fact, my overall weight dropped by 4-5 pounds! So I modified my daily macros to increase my total daily energy input to 2700 kcals while maintaining the same proportions of carbs, fat and protein. Within a month I was back to my current weight and body comp again.
I have experimented with slightly different macro proportions, although, I have not varied these by more than small increments. My current daily fat and protein macros (as of and since January 2024) are 227.45gr fat / 2047 kcal and 126.9gr protein / 507.6 kcal. The ratios are: 1.79 fat/protein grams and 4.03 fat/protein kcals. My carb macro is 12gr max per day / 48 kcal. I generally eat around 10gr of carbs per day and frequently sub-10gr and occasionally sub-5gr. These are totals, not net. My macros calculate to 2600 total kcals per day and I have determined that as long as I eat within a ‘caloric window’ of about 2300 - 2700 kcals per day consistently, my weight and body comp do not change. If I eat consistently at the lower end of the range for a month or so I will lose weight and BF, if at the upper end for a month or so, gain.
My macros are not arbitrary - nor absolute. They’re based on eating an amount of protein equal to slightly more than 1.9 grams of protein per kg of total body weight. Based on my investigation, I’ve determined that this amount of protein is within the upper limit of healthy daily protein intake. As an older male I decided to eat within the upper end of the healthy range to prevent loss of lean mass. I’m already thin and don’t want to get thinner! I base fat intake and total daily caloric intake on an amount that meets my daily energy requirements. Since my overall body weight and composition have not changed since the summer of 2017 (with the exceptions noted above) and I remain healthy, fit and energetic, I think I have been successful.
PS: Lots of folks apparently do keto successfully without measuring macros or counting calories. They eat when hungry and stop when not. Being in consistent ketosis helps this procedure. As I mentioned above, however, my experience of Keto Hunger is not conducive to telling me when to eat and when not to eat. Fed and unfed states feel pretty much the same for me.
I have other signals, such as feeling weak and/or tired when I need to eat, but I prefer not to wait until they appear. So, that’s one reason I measure macros and overall calories. I created a spreadsheet to do most of the calculations for me, so it’s not an onerous task. Also, I do this to record what and how much I eat over time. I have several years of daily spreadsheets. And… I’m not afraid of numbers.
PPS: Finally. I think eating carbohydrates serves no useful purpose. Gluconeogenesis produces all the glucose we need for those cells that lack mitochondria. So we don’t need to eat it. Some perfectly good and nutritious foods contain incidental carbs and we should be aware of them and eat accordingly. My daily goal is sub-12 grams total carbs from incidental sources. I frequently eat sub-10 grams and often sub-5 grams. Gaming the system to eat as many carbs as you can get away with is a fool’s folly.
Ethanol Experiment
Swedish diabetes researcher and medical specialist Dr. Fredrik Nyström is the head of internal medicine at Linköping University. Nyström notes that alcohol is actually the fourth macronutrient (also here) after protein, fats and carbohydrates, and that in many nutrition studies its intake is often overlooked. In Mediterranean countries like Greece and Italy, alcohol makes up about 10% of caloric intake and may partially contribute to the touted benefits of the Mediterranean diet. [ 1 ][ 2 ][ 3 ]
Let me state upfront that I’ve never been a ‘teetotaler’. For most of my adult life I’ve consumed a variety of alcoholic beverages. In moderation - I’ve never been interested in getting ‘high’ nor ‘inebriated’. I drink what I find tasty and satisfying, not to experience what I consider detrimental side effects. For most of my life, my beverage of first choice was beer (or my own braggot!) primarily because of the variety of flavours available. Dry wine was my second choice. While at Lake Laberge, in addition to braggot, I made a white wine from green rhubarb each summer. This was one of the best wines I have ever imbibed over the course of my life! On the other hand, I hardly ever consumed so-called ‘hard liquor’ simply because I found all variations distasteful, although I drank various sweet ‘liqueurs’ occasionally. After I began keto, I gave up all alcoholic beverages: beer/ales, wine and liqueurs because of their carb content; hard liquors because I read lots of negative comments in relation to keto and had never been particularly interested in them anyway. See this, for example.
Many articles about ethanol and keto state emphatically and erroneously that ethanol STOPS and/or inhibits ketosis. For example: “When in ketosis, alcohol halts the metabolism of fat to metabolize alcohol.” This is at best misunderstanding and at worst absolute nonsense. If I encounter this statement or something similar in an article lacking meaningful discussion about the metabolic details, I immediately toss it since the author doesn’t know what he/she is talking about or is purposely trying to mislead. Ethanol metabolizes to beta hydroxybutyrate. In fact, that’s why there’s such a thing as ‘alcoholic ketoacidosis’!
Two things happen when ethanol hits the liver. First, gluconeogenesis stops temporarily (see this) which is why excessive ethanol consumption in conjunction with reduced food consumption can result in hypogycemia for folks eating the standard carb-centric diet. For them, while ethanol is being metabolized incoming glucose gets shunted into adipose cells for storage as fat rather than utilized as fuel. Second, the liver metabolizes the incoming ethanol into ketones in preference to other fat sources (see this). Neither of these creates a problem unless the amount of incoming ethanol is relatively high. In fact, for those on a ketogenic diet the transient interruption of raw ingredients from fat to ethanol causes zero interruption in ketosis - the liver still produces ketones, whatever the immediate source. It’s only the presence of excessive ethanol that gives the pretext that ethanol inhibits ‘fat’ metabolism.
I’m talking relatively ‘low’ consumption of ethanol. By itself, ethanal provides zero nutrients other than energy: 7 kcals per gram. 50ml (1 ounce) of 40% is 15 grams of ethanol, or 105 kcals.
When the COVID scare commenced in the spring of 2021, I discovered that quinine supposedly had both preventative and curative properties (here, here, and here for examples). The best source of quinine I discovered was Cinchona succirubra powdered bark at Only Bitters in Australia. So I decided to try it.
There are basically two ways to extract the quinine from C. succirubra: water and ethanol. I first tried the water method and the results were disappointing, to say the best. Using ethanol instead of water extracts an amount of quinine 2 orders of magnitude greater than water! That was a no brainer to me. I soon discovered Wray & Nephew White Overproof Rum (63%) and that became my extraction method of choice.
After doing the calculations - using minimum quantity and assuming maximum extraction - a measured quantity of C. succirubra bitters added to a bottle of W&N rum results in a max safe concentration of quinine. I began to imbibe 20 ml of the solution each morning as a prophylactic. It seems to have worked successfully. I work full-time at Walmart and am exposed to multitudes of sick people daily, both other staff and customers. I have been mildly sick a few time since, typical of my past experience, but nothing terrible and nothing even close to life threatening. Thus, if in fact ‘COVID’ was/is a real thing rather than simply misidentified common influenza/cold viruses, then consuming quinine seems to have helped prevent and/or ameliorate infection.
Unsurprisingly, the C. succirubra solution in W&N rum tastes horrible! The 63% rum adds it’s own wretched flavour to the already disgustingly bitter cinchona bark - at a far higher concentration than used for making typical alcoholic bitters for sipping. So I quickly ‘researched’ stuff to add to make it more palatable. These additives include lime juice and carbonated water (Hal’s New York Seltzer) - a sort of C. succirubra/rum and tonic. I eventually evolved to adding gin - Tanqueray Rangpur Lime or Flor de Sevilla - as well; and also Crown Royal Vanilla for a non-citrus variation. I also use Fresca as an alternative to Hal’s carbonated water.
When I feel relatively ‘normal’ my current daily morning dose consists of 20ml of C. succirubra/W&N rum solution, 30ml of Tanqueray gin or Crown Royal topped up to 150ml with Fresca or Hal’s seltzer. When I feel like I’m under viral attack I up the dose to 40ml of C. succirubra/W&N rum and 50ml of gin. I’ve recently (since Jan/24) replaced the Tanqueray gin with Sawmill CreekSauvignon Blanc. Since the wine is 12% vs 40% for the gin, I’ve also begun topping up with straight wine to 150ml.
After three years of consistent, although light, ethanol consumption (also quinine dosing), I have experienced no detrimental side effects. I remain consistently in ketosis. My weight and body comp have remained the same. Since ethanol contains 7 kcals per gram, I take those additional calories into account in my daily total consumption. I account for them as ersatz ‘fat’ calories, so the ethanol adds calories but not weight to my daily calculations. Although the fat/protein grams ratio remains the same, the fat/protein calories ratio gets skewed upwards on meals with ethanol.
References
If you read no other, read this referenced paper, which includes a discussion of the adaptation of hominoid primates to the climate changes in central Africa that began during the mid-late Miocene:
Ancestral reconstructions of ADH4 demonstrate that the ancestor of humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas possessed a novel enzyme with dramatically increased activity toward ethanol, and we suspect that this novel metabolic capacity was adaptive to this hominin ancestor. This transition implies that the genomes of modern human, chimpanzee, and gorilla began adapting at least 10 million y ago to dietary ethanol present in fermenting fruit—a source of ethanol that is remarkably similar in concentration and form (i.e., with food) to the moderate ethanol consumption now recognized to be healthy for many humans (69). This conclusion contrasts with the relatively short amount of time (∼9,000 y) (5) since fermentative technology enabled humans to consume beverages (devoid of food bulk) with higher ethanol content than fruit fermenting in the wild. Vestiges of this history may persist in the extant descendants of the HCG ancestor. This history has implications, not only for understanding the forces that shaped hominin terrestrial adaptations, but also for understanding the medical complexities of human interactions with ethanol today.
Agriculture is the basis of our modern world. Even though it has been our way of life for a mere 10,000 years — a short time from the perspective of evolution — it is easy to think of a grain-based diet as normal and natural. In contrast, a diet very low in carbohydrate appears strange and unnatural. However, it is likely that before the advent of agriculture, it was common for humans to eat little carbohydrate and be in ketosis for extended periods — at the very least through the winter, during ice ages, or when living near the Poles.
Because of the rarity of low carbohydrate diets in modern times, there has been ongoing concern about their safety. Over the last few decades, various claims about specific dangers have received much attention from the media. Of those that have been experimentally tested, none have turned out to be true. The others have not been adequately studied, and have only weak support.Source
Of course, we cannot go back to our hunter gatherer lifestyle, but we can integrate into our modern lives the natural wisdom of how humans evolved to eat.
One way to look at our predicament is through the lens of the zookeeper paradox. A zookeeper’s job is to ask if their animals are well adapted to the food and environment that is artificially provided for them.
We humans are animals. Our modern lifestyles and diets are artificial compared to the world we evolved in for hundreds of thousands of years. You could say we are our own zookeepers.
When we look at the historical evidence alongside contemporary medical data, it becomes glaringly apparent that we are doing a terrible job of caring for ourselves as a species.
By traveling back in time through our dietary evolution, we can learn to better care for ourselves, beginning with the food we eat: Animal meat, especially fat, is the cornerstone of a diet we humans are evolved to thrive on.Source
Doctors are scared of ketosis,'' says Richard Veech, an N.I.H. researcher who studied medicine at Harvard and then got his doctorate at Oxford University with the Nobel Laureate Hans Krebs. ''They're always worried about diabetic ketoacidosis. But ketosis is a normal physiologic state. I would argue it is the normal state of man. It's not normal to have McDonald's and a delicatessen around every corner. It's normal to starve.''
Simply put, ketosis is evolution's answer to the thrifty gene. We may have evolved to efficiently store fat for times of famine, says Veech, but we also evolved ketosis to efficiently live off that fat when necessary. Source
The biggest misconception about the ketogenic diet is that it was developed during the 1920s to treat epilepsy. In fact, the therapeutic ketogenic diet was developed to try to duplicate the long-known - since ancient times - effect of fasting on reducing epileptic seizures. It was also noted by some early researchers - Stefansson, Donaldson, Pennington, Thorpe, e.g. - that a very low-carbohydrate diet also led to weight-loss in obese patients without inducing hunger. Unfortunately, most medical professionals still have the erroneous conception that ‘ketogenic’ means only the therapeutic ketogenic diet developed to treat epilepsy with very high fat and very low protein macros. In actual fact, the ‘nutritional ketogenic diet’ developed since the 1960s, beginning with Robert Atkins and subsequently many others, mimics the diet of our Paleolithic ancestors. Human beings, starting with our earliest hominin ancestors 4+ million years ago, ate a ketogenic diet simply because eating sufficient carbs and/or fructose to inhibit ketosis consistently was not possible. Our ancestors were consistently in ketosis and only infrequently not. Most people think that all the grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables we have available today have always existed. They have not. In fact, although there is evidence that humans consumed wild grains/seeds as long as 100,000 years ago, their cultivation and becoming a major part of the human diet began less than 10,000 years ago and legumes even more recently. Whereas, most of the fruits and vegetables on today’s supermarket shelves did not exist even 250 years ago! See this and this.
The second biggest misconception is that carbohydrates/glucose are our natural food. For 4+ million years our hominin ancestors’ natural food was primarily animal fat and protein with only occasional and seasonal fruits, seeds and nuts in small amounts that were nutritionally insignificant. Human metabolism evolved to utilize fat as it’s primary fuel source - not carbohydrates. In fact, we evolved a mechanism to synthesize all the glucose required by our bodies precisely because we had no reliable dietary source! Thus, fat and protein are our ‘natural’, ‘normal’ and healthy diet, not carbohydrates. See this and this.
The third misconception is that fat is unhealthy and carbohydrates healthy so eating a diet in which fat comprises the primary source of dietary energy must be unhealthy. This specific fallacy was promulgated by Ancel Keys’ 1953 Six Countries Study. See here. The Six Countries Study actually involved 22 countries, but Keys ignored the 16 countries that did not support his contention that saturated fat consumption correlated with heart disease. If instead of cherry-picking six countries you look at all 22, there is no correlation between saturated fat consumption and heart disease. Instead, what you see is a correlation between carbohydrate/glucose consumption and heart disease. See this.
The fourth misconception is that keto is complicated and difficult. Well, keto is neither complicated nor difficult at all, it’s easy peasy. Just stop eating carbs/fructose. What is difficult for some people is to overcome their addiction to carbohydrate/glucose loaded foods, simply because keto is not sweet. To overcome their craving for sweet is difficult for some. See this and this and this.
Outright Myths
Ketosis is a deadly, dangerous metabolic state. No it’s not. It’s perfectly natural and healthful. See this.
Eating a diet high in fat, especially saturated fat and fat from animals leads to heart disease. No it does not. See this.
Keto diets are bad for the kidneys. Again, no. See this.
Keto diets cause bone loss / osteoporosis. No. See this.
Keto diets are not suitable for athletes. Yes, they are. See this.
Keto diets cause thyroid problems. See this and this and this.
Carbohydrate restriction is the proverbial ‘silver bullet’ for managing insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and type-2 diabetes.
A well-formulated low carbohydrate diet improves blood glucose and lipids while reducing inflammation, all without drugs.
Carbohydrate restriction induces the process of keto-adaptation, refining the body’s metabolism to allow the mobilization and clearance of excess body fat.
Dietary saturated fat is not a demon when you are keto-adapted.
Dietary sugars and starches are not necessary to feed your brain or fuel exercise.
Long-term success involves much more than simply cutting out dietary carbs.
There is an ‘art’ to electrolyte and mineral management that is key to avoiding side effects and ensuring success.
Trading up from sugars and starches to a cornucopia of nutrient-rich, satisfying, and healthy natural foods is empowering.
In fact, a well-formulated ketogenic diet can reverse much of the physical damage caused by decades of eating a carb-centric diet. Ketosis is not magic and won’t cure every ailment, but will even ameliorate those it can’t cure. The worse the damage the longer it takes, of course. But a couple of years eating keto can make you feel like a new person! Keto is the best thing you can do for your long-term health and well-being. In my opinion. :)
My first dry fast was 36 hours and my second 24 hours. There were significant differences between the two experiences.
I have been doing essentially 12 x 12 hour intermittent fasting for several years simply by timing my last meal of each day to end 12 hours before the start of the next day’s first meal. I don’t succeed every day, but generally I manage it 3-4 days each week. I have not restricted water intake during this and usually drink some water after my last meal of the day and prior to bed.
However, I discovered that restricting water/fluid intake during the fast supposedly has very beneficial effects.
Dry fasting on the keto diet is easier because you’ll experience less hunger, less thirst, less discomfort, and your body can produce more metabolic water from fat.
One study compared the effects of eating a meal high in fat, protein, or carbs before a traditional 12-hour dry fast.
People who ate fat before fasting had the lowest amount of discomfort compared to people relying on carbs or protein, and they also experienced less hunger and thirst compared to the high-protein group.
People relying on the high-protein diet had the most discomfort and side effects (11 vs. 3 just after fatty meals).
Eating fat before the fast also provided these perks:
Post-fasting systolic and diastolic blood pressures decreased significantly.
Post-fasting glucose also decreased.
Fasting while on the ketogenic [diet] can also improve brain function and energy, because the blood-brain barrier becomes more permeable to ketones during any type of fast.
Here’s how a combining the keto diet with a dry fast can protect your brain:
The fast makes your brain more receptive to ketones through a permeable blood-brain barrier.
Having fewer liquids in your system means more fat burning to create metabolic water.
More fat burning means more ketones in your bloodstream.
Having more ketones in your system means more energy available for your brain.
A third advantage of dry fasting on the ketogenic diet is that fat can help suppress your perceived need for water.
This even happens to people who aren’t fasting. The more someone eats fat, the less they tend to drink water, according to research. On the other hand, foods like fiber, caffeine, and alcohol trigger a higher water consumption.
My first dry fast was 36 hours in duration. I had been suffering persistent diarrhea for a couple of weeks and decided to try to ‘dry out’ my intestines by not eating for a day. Diarrhea, of course, is mostly water so in addition to not eating I decided not to drink anything as well. I had never heard of ‘dry fasting’ yet.
The immediate result was not an end to my diarrhea as I had hoped, but instead a 5 pound reduction in overall weight - within 36 hours, no less! The weight loss lasted for a week following, so it was not due simply to temporary intestinal ‘water loss’. My watery dumps continued during the 36 hour fast, but since I was not drinking any liquids, so-called ‘metabolic water’ was the primary component of those dumps after the first few of them. And since the metabolic water was the result of fat metabolism, I had in fact reduced my fat stores by a few pounds during the dry fast. This got my attention! And I discovered dry fasting.
I did a second dry fast of 24 hours, again to deal with diarrhea. For this fast, however, I consumed a full day’s nutrient/caloric intake prior to commencing the fast. I lost zero weight doing so. I suspect that I had simply consumed sufficient nutrients/calories prior to the fast to cover my metabolic requirements during the fast. Plus, my diarrhea was not as persistent.
I did a second 24 hour dry fast a week later. I did not first consume a full day’s total of nutrients and calories. This time I lost about 4 pounds overall weight within 24 hours. I regained about 3 pounds of this weight within the next full day of eating/drinking. So metabolic water generated from fat metabolism had resulted in at least some the weight loss, but this time it was mostly just consumed water.
At this point in my life, my concern is not overall weight loss. I maintained 145 pounds overall weight for the first 7 years of my ketogenic life. It felt good and was easy to maintain. In fact, 145 pounds seemed to be the default weight my metabolism ‘sets’ at. Yet, by dry fasting I lowered my overall weight to 140 pounds and that felt even better! Also, dry fasting supposedly results in a number of health benefits that I’d like to accrue (read the above link) that ‘wet’ fasting does not. And I think frequent 12-hour overnight dry fasts and a periodic 24-hour dry fast will accomplish those benefits without introducing unnecessary weight loss in the process.
In the fall of 2023 I incorporated dry fasting into my overall regime. I modified my previoius 12/12 fasts of several days per week to eliminate all liquids between meals. Since those initial dry fasts, I’ve also stablelized my overall weight at 140 pounds and overall body fat to ~13% +/- in response to my ethanol experiment. After getting accustomed to the lower weight I feel very good with it.
Keto vs Paleo
One might think that the ‘Paleo’ community would embrace keto. I suspect many individuals do so, but unfortunately the community as a whole seems not to. Many in the Paleo community eat sugary fruits and starchy vegetables, while avoiding full-fat dairy [see this]. They apparently do so on the pretext that our Pleistocene and Pliocene ancestors ate this stuff.
We, meaning us hominins, diverged from our closest primate relatives, the chimpanzees, between 9.3 million and 6.5 million years ago, near the end of the Miocene epoch (23 to 5.3 million years ago). One of the most significant characteristics of this divergence was that our specific ancestors took a huge hit in the ability to digest cellulose. Specifically, the hindgut fermentation of all other primates nearly disappeared in our ancestors sometime around 6+ million years ago and likely earlier. Recent studies of the evolution of the Human Trophic Level suggest that we retain less than 10% and likely only 4% of hindgut fermentation ability to ferment cellulose (Hervik & Svihus, 2019; Høverstad, 1986; Topping & Clifton, 2001). Ben-Dor, Sirtoli and Barkai, The evolution of the human trophic level during the Pleistocene, 2021, lists an enormous bibliography of related studies.
This is important because it means that our hominin ancestors could no longer eat much of the food our immediate primate/hominid relatives could simply because they could no longer digest it nor derive energy from it. Thus, during at least the last million years of the Miocene (and very probably a couple of million years or more) and the entire subsequent Pliocene (5.3 to 2.5 million years ago) and Pleistocene (2.5 million to 1.17 million years ago), what would evolve into the human species experienced significant evolution away from it’s primate past in terms of diet. That is away from being frugivore and vegetative omnivore. Other primates have much longer colons - evolved to host the bacteria necessary to ferment vegatative matter, including cellulose - than humans. On the other hand, humans have much longer small intestines - evolved to use enzymes to extract nutrients directly from fat and meat.
During the Pliocene and subsequent Pleistocene our hominin ancestors gradually migrated from the forests of central Africa to the growing savanna around it. Animal fats and proteins became a steadily growing proportion of the human diet because (1) the available ground-growing plants were composed mostly of indigestible cellulose, and (2) an increasing plethora of plant-eating animals were converting much of that indigestible cellulose into very digestible meat and fat.
We modern humans seem to think that all the fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes that are currently available have always been so and always been just as digestible as they are now. They have not. In fact, most of the fruits and vegetables on today’s supermarket shelves did not exist 250 years ago, let alone during the Pleistocene in central Africa! The so-called ‘agricultural revolution’ began only 10-8 K years ago - a period less than 1/10 of 1% of our hominin evolution.
Yes, indeed, our human ancestors apparently ate plant materials during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs. But the dietary benefits of doing so were very minor. Whatever digestible carbohydrate they contained was dilute and insignificant. The cellulose content was so high and the digestible carbohydrate content so low that these so-called ‘food stuffs’ were hardly worth the effort to gather them. In addition, all were available only in relatively short seasonal episodes, including seeds, nuts and tubers with but few exceptions. So although it’s true technically that our ancestors can be described as hunter/gatherers, the gatherer part was actually inconsequential. In reality, they were hunter/scavengers primarily and foremost.
Consequently, our ancestors for at least the past 4+ million years have lived primarily, if not exclusively, in the metabolic state of ketosis as a result of eating mostly meat and fat. So imitating the diet of our ancestors should result in ketosis. If not, then it’s not really ‘paleo’ in my opinion.
J. Stanton the author of the Gnoll Credo, and one of the significant Paleo proponents and sources, discusses in great detail just how the change in diet from plant-based to meat/fat-based enabled our ancestors to grow bigger brains which in turn made us human. Before us, evolutionary success meant bigger, stronger, faster and more reproductive. That changed with humans to include smarter, which included learning and teaching our offspring to learn from the experiences of their parents. Other primates don’t/can’t do so. We did not become human - and thereby differentiate ourselves from all other primates - eating vegetative and mostly cellulose non/semi-nutrients. Although, even Stanton seems to fall for the ‘seeds, nuts and tubers’ nonsense - BUT, see his definition of what he calls ‘Functional Paleo’ here. I can agree with most of that - and his additional comments, cautions, limitations and conclusions here. Still, even Stanton differentiates between paleo and keto and seems to conclude that the ‘paleo diet’ of our ancestors contained sufficient carbs - from ancestral, primitive and wild varieties of roots, fruits and vegetables - to keep them out of ketosis most of the time. I think that’s nonsense.
Chimpanzees consume about one McDonalds hamburger worth of meat each day during the dry season—mostly from colobus monkeys, which they hunt with great excitement and relish.
Kleiber’s Law states that all animals of similar body mass have similar metabolic rates, and that this rate scales at only the 3/4 power of size. Therefore, in order for our brains to grow and use more energy, something else had to shrink and use less energy.
It takes a much larger gut, and much more energy, to digest plant matter than it does to digest meat and fat. This is why herbivores have large, complicated guts with extra chambers (e.g. the rumen and abomasum), and carnivores have smaller, shorter, less complicated guts.
The caloric and nutritional density of meat allowed our mostly-frugivorous guts to shrink so that our brains could expand—and our larger brains allowed us to become better at hunting, scavenging, and making tools to help us hunt and scavenge. This positive feedback loop allowed our brains to grow from perhaps 400cc (“Lucy”, Australopithecus afarensis) to over 1500cc (late Pleistocene hunters).
In support of this theory, the brains of modern humans, eating a grain-based agricultural diet, have shrunk by 10% or more as compared to late Pleistocene hunters and fishers.
On a sugar-based metabolism, you swing between too little blood sugar and too much, and you have to constantly adjust it “manually” by eating.
It is not uncommon for ketogenic adults to comfortably eat one meal a day.
Endurance athletes on ketogenic diets don’t “hit the wall”. They have the ability to tap into fat stores for fuel; a supply that could last even a lean person for weeks.
On a fat/ketone-based metabolism, demand on sugar from the blood is gentle, and your liver refills it smoothly on demand as it is used, keeping it remarkably steady.
This system is efficient and effective.
By contrast, on a carbohydrate-based diet, the storage capacity of the liver overflows. The excess sugar can be stored as fat, but that fat is not used efficiently as fuel…
Considering how well the liver manages energy when you don’t eat carbohydrates, and the disruption caused to this system by eating them, I would suggest:
The conditions under which the liver delivers optimal fuel on demand may be the conditions under which it evolved.
The truth is that agriculture is a relentless assault against the planet, and more of the same won’t save us. In service to annual grains, humans have devastated prairies and forests, driven countless species extinct, altered the climate, and destroyed the topsoil—the basis of life itself. Keith argues that if we are to save this planet, our food must be an act of profound and abiding repair: it must come from inside living communities, not be imposed across them.
Important: This paper includes a detailed discussion of just how our homonoid ancestors may have evolved from tree-dwelling frugivores to ground-dwelling omnivores due to evolutionary adaptations in response to the changing climate in central Africa that began during the mid-late Miocene.
The climatic changes continued into the Pliocene and Pleistocene ultimately resulting in central Africa becoming dominated by dry savannah plains to which our ancestors gravitated. And as noted by J. Stanton led eventually to meat and fat dominated eating subsequent to omnivory.
Correspondance Re Paleo
Sep 2023
Maybe you’ve already investigated it or maybe even partially applied it to your diets already, but if not you might be interested in ‘paleo’. The basic idea is that we should continue to eat as best we can what our Paleolithic ancestors ate for 3-4 million years over which time human metabolism evolved to metabolize those specific foods. And avoid eating the stuff which our Neolithic farmer ancestors have cultivated (and now even manufacture) for the past less than 10,000 years - a time span that represents less than 1/10 of 1% of human evolution.
I have a nit-pick that paleo excludes dairy on the premise it was developed during the Neolithic, that is post-agriculture. There is good evidence that herding animals (goats), and likely consuming their milk and making cheese, goes farther back than the conventional/currently accepted 10K years ago in various regions (see this and this). Overall, I agree with the basic premise of paleo that we ought to eat what we evolved to eat over millions of years. On the other hand, I think high fat dairy, especially from goats, but also cows, is a nearly perfect food, just as I suspect our late paleolithic ancestors discovered and exploited. Yes, lots of folks have intolerance to either lactose and/or casein - an indication of their recent introduction to the human diet - or simply simple enzyme deficiencies. But both lactose and casein are nearly or totally absent from high fat dairy. For example butter: zero lactose and zero protein. 36% whipping cream contains very low lactose and protein. You can even very easily make at home what’s called ‘creme fraiche’ which is zero lactose and very low protein. And if like the vast majority you have no problem with lactose and/or casein I see no reason to exclude dairy from your diet. Plus, the fact is fewer folks have issues with goat dairy than cow dairy which seems to me to indicate our ancestors have been consuming goat dairy a fairly long time, as per the articles I linked above.
My primary disagreement with paleo - the ‘system’ - however, is that they buy into the idea that our Paleolithic ancestors were ‘hunters’ and ‘gatherers’, hunting the megafauna of Central Africa and gathering/eating whatever veggies, fruits and nuts were growing there. There’s lots of evidence for hunting/scavenging/eating meat and fat, but little evidence for eating plants in more than inconsequential amounts. In fact, the whole ‘hunter/gather’ idea results entirely from observations of current, ie ‘modern’ hunter/gatherers like the Hadza. But the stuff the Hadza, and other modern hunter/gatherers, are gathering now is not the stuff that grew in the central African savanna even 12,000 years ago, let alone over the past 3-4 million years! We often forget that most of the fruit and vegetables on our current market shelves did not exist 250 years ago, let alone during the Pleistocene. And those that did exist consisted primarily of cellulose with very low and dilute digestible carbohydrate content. And tubers require cooking to extract more than a useless pittance of nutrients and there’s little to no evidence of human cooking prior to about 750K years ago. Thus, in my opinion, prior to the development of agriculture plant-sourced ‘foods’ were little more than ‘desperation rations’ consumed only out of… desperation.
Our hominin ancestors diverged from our closest primate relatives - chimpanzees and bonobos - more than 6 million years ago during the Miocene. The most important characteristic of that divergence - in my opinion - was the nearly total loss of ‘hindgut fermentation’ which enables all other primates to digest cellulose.
For example, a gorilla extracts some 60% of its energy from fiber (Popovich et al., 1997). The fruits that chimps consume are also very fibrous (R. W. Wrangham et al., 1998). The human colon is 77% smaller, and the small intestine is 64% longer than in chimpanzees, relative to chimpanzee body size (Aiello & Wheeler, 1995; Calculated from Milton, 1987, table 3.2). Because of the smaller colon, humans can only meet less than 10% of total caloric needs by fermenting fiber, with the most rigorous measures suggesting less than 4% (Hervik & Svihus, 2019; Høverstad, 1986; Topping & Clifton, 2001). A 77% reduction in human colon size points to a marked decline in the ability to extract the full energetic potential from many plant foods.
The little digestible carbohydrate content of Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene ‘fruits’, ‘vegetables’, ‘roots/tubers’ and ‘nuts/seeds’ was diluted by being embedded in surrounding cellulose, making it largely unavailable and nutritionally nearly useless. Thus, over the course of several million years our Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene ancestors instead steadily ate more of the animals that ate the plants. Those animals converted both carbohydrate and cellulose into very digestible meat and fat. And our ancestors learned to eat those animals in preference to and instead of the indigestible vegetative matter those animals ate. The hominin metabolism evolved to utilize meat and fat and extract their nutrients very efficiently at the same time eliminating the need to consume carbs.
I suspect that our diminutive australopithecene ancestors of the Pliocene and their even more diminutive predecessors began this dietary adventure by simply following the big cats (at a safe distance) and eating whatever they left behind. This included using rocks to fracture skulls to get the brain and large bones to get the marrow, neither of which even the biggest of the big cats could accomplish. So I would describe our Paleolithic ancestors as ‘hunter/scavengers’.
Further, since our ancestors ate primarily animal meat and fat, they lived in the metabolic state of ketosis. So my contention is that we and our ancestors evolved for at least 4 million years to live and thrive in ketosis. Our ancestors derived only very minor and inconsequential nutrients from carbohydrates. In fact, human gluconeogenesis evolved far beyond that of any other primate to meet fully our limited need for glucose. Our ancestors ate very little plant materials (the ‘roots, tubers and nuts’ meme is nonsense) which is why obesity, diabetes and heart disease have become so prevalent after changing from a fat-centric diet (4+ million years) to a carb-centric diet (<10,000 years). The glucose/insulin management system that evolved for more than 4 million years to manage endogenous glucose produced by gluconeogenesis has simply been totally overwhelmed by consuming exogenous glucose from carbs. This mortal mistake has been compounded by the recent replacement of saturated fats by seed-oil PUFAs based on the fraudulent work of Ancel Keys and others since. In fact, the worst combination of ‘foods’ you can consume are high carbs and PUFAs - the so-called ‘heart healthy’ modern diet. Which is made even worse by eliminating healthy saturated fats and replacing them completely with carbs and PUFAs.
Thus, in my opinion, ‘paleo’ should be the same as ‘keto’. If not, then it’s not really ‘paleo’. There is no reason to eat glucose (carbs). Our Paleolithic ancestors did not and neither should we.
From Discussions on a Ketogenic Forum
Note: The following is a compendium of several related both public and private exchanges over the course of several weeks, initiated by this posting, then this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and a few more followup posts and finally this. Plus subsequent editing. For anyone who does not already know, ‘CICO’ is an acronym for ‘calories in calories out’. Advocates, like my correspondant, contend that calories consumed (‘in’) and calories expended (‘out’) sufficiently explain overall weight/fat gain or loss over time and that the activity of various metabolic hormones plays little or no significant role.
I should have been more explicit from the outset. When I refer to ‘CICO’ I refer to the specific dietary theory and system of weight/fat management contra the ‘Hormone Theory of Obesity’. I have already acknowledged that a caloric deficit is necessary to burn onboard stored energy, yet you keep flogging that dead horse. I’m not arguing contra thermodynamics. (On the other hand watch this.)
You persistently conflate the term ‘CICO’ to connote thermodynamic energy balance. Every argument you’ve made boils down to: “Yes, but calories in calories out. . .” I think this renders the term ‘CICO’ meaningless. ‘CICO’ either means something specific or it means nothing at all. In common and general parlance the term ‘CICO’ refers to a specific dietary system. It’s not a generic synonym for thermodynamic equilibrium. To discuss ‘CICO’ the dietary system I think it useless to focus on thermodynamic energy balance. The issue that matters is whether or not the dietary system actually accomplishes the long term goal of attaining and maintaining healthy metabolic function. I find the evidence overwhelming that ‘CICO’ the dietary system does not.
The millions of people world-wide who have a relatively healthy metabolism, relatively normal weight and fat/lean body proportions are NOT examples of successful ‘CICO’ the dietary system, as you claim consistently. They are NOT eating ‘CICO’ diets. Indeed, their metabolism maintains relative thermodynamic energy balance. But because what they eat gives their metabolism the energy and nutrients in the variety and the approximate amounts they require to maintain health and homeostasis. ‘CICO’ the dietary system - obsessed with how much they eat - has nothing to do with it.
There are other factors most probably genetic, as well. For decades I essentially ate whenever I was hungry and stopped when I was full. For most of those decades that simply entailed eating several times per day, not at set ‘meal times’. It very definitely did not entail the slightest thought about what nor how much of it I ate. I suffered no ill effects doing so until the decade of my 60s when I started to add visceral fat. I was in overall energy balance for those decades because I had a healthy metabolism that maintained homeostasis and prompted me to eat when I needed more fuel and/or nutrients and stop when I did not. I was not eating ‘CICO’ the dietary system, about which I knew absolutely nothing - I was eating when my body told me to eat and stopping when it told me to stop. And because my metabolism was relatively healthy, I remained in overall good health during those decades. As long as my metabolism got the nutrients and energy it needed to maintain homeostasis the what I ate controlled the how much I ate. Not vice versa.
‘CICO’ the dietary system puts the cart before the horse. Only when homeostasis is upset by what you eat that how much of it you eat becomes an issue. In healthy homeostasis your metabolism determines what and how much of it to eat. Hundreds of people on this forum report that they don’t count calories - they eat when they’re hungry and stop when they’re not, just as I did for decades. Yet - in ketosis - their overall weight and body composition do not change. Their metabolism tells them when nutrients and energy ‘In’ are needed and when not. In my case, for example, weight and body comp have changed by less than +/- a pound and % for 5+ years eating Keto. Those numbers are nearly exactly what they were when I was 18! [see note below] And I’m of an age when steady increase in stored fat and decrease in RMR is the norm for folks eating non-Keto.
Changing what all these folks ate pre-Keto from carb centric to fat and protein centric enabled their metabolism to regain health and normal function. That in turn restored homeostasis. They are examples that what you eat is more important than how much of it you eat. When what you eat is the right stuff, your metabolism tells you very clearly how much to eat. When it’s the wrong stuff, you initiate the cascade of process disruption that results in metabolic dysfunction that in turn results in energy imbalance. ‘CICO’ the dietary system focuses on only one of the consequences of metabolic dysfunction - energy imbalance - not on the causes. Hence, it fails long term - it’s the tail trying to wag the dog. Even if calories in calories out resolves the energy imbalance, metabolic dysfunction continues as long as you continue to eat the wrong stuff. You only resolve metabolic dysfunction by changing what you eat - how much will take care of itself as metabolic dysfunction lessens. I was fortunate to be gifted by my ancestors with the genetic disposition/capability to absorb an unhealthy carb centric diet with no noticeable ill effects until my 60s. And then they came on only slowly. I thank my ancestors daily for it.
The Hormone Theory of Obesity does not deny thermodynamics. It claims that other stuff happens between energy ‘In’ and ‘Out’ that manages where and how the energy gets used or stored and other nutrients utilized - and that these processes are controlled by hormonal responses primarily to what you eat and in what proportions you eat it. ‘CICO’ the dietary theory and system claims that what you eat does not matter, that only how much of it you eat - the sum of calories in and calories out - fully explains body weight and fat/lean mass composition.
The First Law of Thermodynamics says 1000 kcals of clover honey, butter, Angus beef or Coca Cola are 100% equivalent. They will all raise 1 liter of water 1 degree celsius. ‘CICO’ the dietary theory and system claims they affect metabolism exactly the same: the simple sum of energy in and energy out produces fat storage or loss. Yes, of course, there’s the admission by ‘CICO’ advocates that foods contain different nutrients in different amounts and that some specific foods are more nutritious than others and you ought to eat more of those. Nonetheless, all that is ancillary. Calories in calories out trumps everything. As I already noted, every argument you’ve made boils down to: “Yes, but calories in calories out. . .” That’s the basic and erroneous argument of ‘CICO’ advocates. The correct response is: “So what?” The metabolic response to food intake results from what the food content is not simply from what the caloric content happens to be. We don’t eat ‘calories’; we eat food, which can not be described in a simple thermodynamic energy equation. It’s what our bodies do with the food we eat that matters most. For example, if you ate nothing but Krispy Kreme donuts - with calories out always greater than calories in - you would gain weight, even while starving yourself of essential nutrients. You would eventually die of malnutrition not energy imbalance.
I want to thank you for initiating this discussion since it prompted me to do quite a lot of additional investigation to clarify my thinking on the overall matter. I am more convinced than ever that what you eat matters more than how much of it you eat. Although, as noted, how much you eat counts for something. Just not as much as you think when what you eat is the right stuff and not the wrong stuff.
PS: I should add that using ATP/ADP instead of ‘calories in calories out’ would add an order of magnitude more precision to calculations of metabolic thermodynamic energy balance. But unfortunately, it would also add an order of magnitude complexity so it’s not going to happen.
My dad, as I have mentioned elsewhere, developed hyperthyroidism around the age of 30. He literally could not consume enough energy to feed his metabolism and it began to cannibalize his own body. His ‘Out’ was totally ‘out of control’ no matter how much ‘In’ he ate. I’ve seen photos of my dad with his eyeballs bulging out his face because he had already lost so much lean mass he looked more like a skeleton with skin than a person. Nuking his thyroid was a last resort to save his life. Obesity and related illness for the rest of his life was the price he paid to save it.
On the other hand, I have enjoyed relatively normal thyroid function my entire life; although I suspect that within the normal range of function, I spent most of my life in the upper end. From the age of 25 I ate pretty typical SAD; and pre-SAD prior. For most of my SAD life I ate heavily plant-based, although never vegetarian, and consumed so-called ‘heart healthy’ seed oils and margarine. For 30 years I home-brewed my own beer and drank about 1/2 liter daily. I never suffered any noticeable metabolic issues and remained in good health overall. I was a middle distance competitive runner during high school and university and I remained physically active my entire life, although not at athletic level. I do continue to cycle aggressively.
I started to gain weight slowly during the decade of my 60s. I attribute it to a gradually slowing metabolism due to age and reduced thyroid function; and, likely slowly increasing insulin resistance that finally caught up with me after decades of carb-centric eating as my metabolism slowed. I was also, fortunately, not as hungry so ate less even as I continued my fairly active lifestyle and I think that prevented me accumulating even more weight/fat.
So to my point. I think the thyroid gland is the primary metabolic control valve. All other factors being equal - that is, nothing else is ‘broke’ - normal thyroid function controls the metabolism to maintain energy and nutrient homeostasis. I think there is a ‘normal range’ of thyroid function. Folks who live in the lower half of the range tend to store more readily. Their metabolism prefers to conserve energy. Those who live in the upper half of the range tend to use more readily. Their metabolism prefers to expend energy.
This control system has evolved over millions of years to maintain homeostasis. Too fat, too lean, too sedentary, too active - were not survival enhancing in the long term. As long as energy and nutrient input provide the necessary ingredients, the control system works - that is, you eat what you need to eat and stop when you don’t. Unless something breaks.
What breaks first most commonly is the glucose/insulin management part of the system. We and our immediate hominin predecessors evolved consuming very little or no glucose simply because edible carbs were few and nutrient dilute. We are the only primate class that lacks the hind gut digestion to derive nutrients from cellulose. So we evolved an optimized internal mechanism to create the little necessary glucose for the various cells that lack mitochondria. The management of glucose/insulin evolved to handle relatively small amounts of endogenous glucose to direct it to the cells that need it for energy or to store any leftover as fat. This process works fine - until it’s totally overwhelmed by dumping loads of exogenous glucose onto it. Then it breaks.
The advent of the current Holocene interglacial presented a potential ‘extinction level event’ for humans. Our species and our direct predecessors evolved eating megafauna for the better part of 4 million years. Our metabolism evolved to process exogenous fat and meat proteins obtained eating them. The climate change that initiated the Holocene, and probably too efficient hunting, led to the extinction of most of the megafauna. And did so very quickly. So. . .
For about 10K years humans have conducted a survival experiment. Could breeding out cellulose and breeding in less complex carbohydrates in assorted plants replace the energy and nutrients lost with the demise of the megafauna? Like many experiments that showed promise in the short term, we’re beginning to see the consequences long term and they don’t look good. Especially when you process this stuff to the degree it’s being processed nowadays. In fact, one could argue convincingly that since 1950 the massive and growing consumption of simple/processed carbs and seed oils has led directly to a world-wide epidemic of metabolic dysfunction, disease and mortality.
To wit:
13% of adults worldwide are obese (BMI >30.0), 39% of adults worldwide are overweight (BMI 25-30), 8% of worldwide deaths in 2017 (4.7 million) were attributed to obesity. Source
As of 2021, approximately 537 million adults ( 10.5% of 20-79 age group) suffer diabetes. The total number of people with diabetes is projected to rise to 643 million by 2030 and 783 million by 2045 (1 in 8 adults). Source
1.5 million deaths worldwide are directly attributed to diabetes each year. Source
Deaths from cardiovascular disease (CVD) jumped globally from 12.1 million in 1990 to 20.5 million in 2021, according to a new report from the World Heart Federation (WHF). CVD was the leading cause of death worldwide in 2021… Source
Human metabolism is amazing! When one is in ketosis, the metabolism becomes a fat-burning machine. What really surprised me, though, was that I continued to lose weight.
The 'secret' is very simple.
Did you ever notice there are 'essential' fatty acids and 'essential' amino acids, but no essential carbs? Human beings evolved over hundreds of thousands of years when the primary foods were fat and protein. Carbs, with a few notable exceptions, were 99% indigestible cellulose. Thus, for most of human evolution our ancestors happily metabolized fat for fuel.
Only the lucky few lived in habitats where fruit, nuts and/or berries might be in season for a few weeks each year or some plant with digestible starch might grow. Or someone discovered a honey tree. Otherwise, it was feast and famine. Life and food to excess when the hunt was successful; death when it failed.
So really, ketosis is the 'natural' state and glucosis the unnatural. The basic problem is that in the unnatural state of glucosis, fats are not metabolized. When one's caloric intake is pretty much 100% carbs, all consumed fat gets stored. In all the wrong places because the right places are already filled.
Why do virtually all so-called 'low fat' and calorie restricted weight loss diets eventually fail? Think about it for a minute. If one is in the metabolic state of glucosis, ALL fat, no matter how little the total, gets stored somewhere. And all carbs not immediately burned for energy also get stored - as FAT! The ONLY way to burn fat is to get into ketosis consistently.
I guess if you're into 'paleo' you know all that.
Aug 2017
I had always thought that alcohol, because it's a simple carb, affected glucose and insulin in the blood. But that's not so.
Alcohol passes from the stomach directly to the blood stream and does not get converted to glucose. Instead, the body metabolizes it as alcohol, not sugar. Alcohol is far easier for the body to use as fuel. So much so, that if there is any alcohol in the blood, your metabolism instantly stops metabolizing everything else to metabolize the alcohol. Only when the alcohol is completely gone, does the metabolism start looking for glucose or triglycerides and ketones for fuel.
What that means is alcohol is OK on a keto regimen generally. On a carb rich diet on the other hand it forces the metobolism to store carbs as fat.
Sept 2017
Thanks! I did understand some of the videos, better acoustics and no background noise. I also watched a couple other of Mark Springer's videos discussing keto. As he points out, people have different definitions of 'ketogenic', some of which are not. So, I'm going to refer to 'fat based (high fat low carb)' and 'carb based (high carb low fat)' nutrition instead. Some personal observations.
In one of Mark's videos about keto, he stated that there is no evidence that eating a fat based diet is any more effective at burning fat than a carb based diet high in protein. Sorry, that's wrong. There is lots of evidence. It may be true that some people (primarily men with a lot testosterone) can bulk up muscle mass by eating a carb based high protein diet. Those guys are pumping iron several hours each day. My guess: they're burning all the glucose/glycogen and then some ketones. Little or no glucose or protein is being converted to stored fat. Other top athletes are in the same category. So, yes, over time they will reduce their fat stores and bulk up muscle mass. The other 99.9% of us can not and are never going to do that. So it's interesting but irrelevant to the rest of us.
In addition, if you are not in ketosis and consume more protein than your body requires for maintenance/repair and building muscle mass based on level of resistance training, the metabolism will either burn it for fuel or convert it to glucose and then store it as fat. So if you eat carb based with high protein, unless you're pumping iron, you get a double whammy: all the fat you eat goes directly to storage and much of the protein ends up there as well. Sure, restricting overall caloric input will force you to burn stored fat, but it will also force your metabolism to slow to adapt to the lower energy input.
Your mileage may vary, of course. But I present myself as an example of a normal, older male not pumping iron 4-5 hours per day and with somewhat reduced testosterone. I lost 30+ pounds in about 2 1/2 months eating a fat based diet. I seldom felt hungry and never felt like I was denying myself anything. In fact, I found it rather exciting to experiment with new foods and combinations.
8 1/2 months later, this morning I weigh 146. I burned stored fat. It would not have happened had I continued to eat a carb based diet, either high or low protein. It isn't magic or mysterious, it's chemistry. If you eat carbs your system will metabolize glucose and won't touch stored fat. If you reduce calories on a carb based diet, your base metabolism will simply lower your caloric requirements as I noted above, making it even harder to lose weight. And you'll feel hungry most the time. AND, when you quit the ‘diet’ and start to eat normally again your slowed metabolism will start to restore all the fat you lost.
Simple chemical fact: you must be in ketosis to burn fat and NOT slow your metabolism. It doesn't happen otherwise. When you’re not in ketosis and reduce caloric intake sufficiently to burn stored fat, your metabolism gets the message - food is scarce, slow down.
I also think it's either gross misunderstanding or misleading to suggest that average Joe/Jill can continue to eat 300 to 500 grams or more of carbs every day and remain fit and healthy. The current trifecta of metabolic related epidemics of obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardio vascular, primarily arterial plaque, puts the lie to that claim.
At 2800 calories per day, my weight has been stable for 3+ months between 146-149. That's 2350 fat, 400 protein and 50 carb calories. This would not happen were I eating carb based with high or low protein. I would gain back all the weight I shed. I know that because I was eating carb based prior to going fat based.
The metabolism has no 'preferred' energy source. It simply follows the chemical path of least resistance. The metabolic pathways, in order of increasing complexity and decreasing chemical simplicity are: ethanol, glucose, glycogen, ketone, triglyceride. Your system will metabolize from simple to complex. As the simple sources get used up, the next more complex source gets used.
The additional problem with carbs is that glucose screws up fat metabolism.
1. Humans have been eating primarily ketogenic for 99.9% of our evolution. With a couple of notable exceptions, our ancestors only ate carbohydrate rich food opportunistically when it was in season and/or available.
2. Basing a maintenance diet on massive quantities of carbohydrates is an experiment undertaken during less than 0.1% of the most recent period of human evolution.
3. We are currently experiencing a world-wide trifecta of glucose and insulin driven metabolic diseases: obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardio vascular disease, primarily arterial plaque. It's not only we in the western world, but everywhere that people have access to abundant food, primarily cheap carbs. It’s turning into a world-wide disaster.
4. It appears that #3 is the statistically significant outcome of #2.
Sept 2018
Since my new job began I've been confronted with a bit of a challenge I thought may be of interest to you. I recall that when we first discussed carb, protein, fat based diets you mentioned that you used bone broth as a protein source.
The significant nutritional fact: bone broth = gelatin = collagen. You may already know this.
I use whey powder, whipping cream, butter and coconut oil in my morning keto coffee. This requires a blender to get everything mixed smoothly. The end result is a great quart of coffee, with 2gr of carbs mostly from the coffee but a little from the whey as well, and perfect fat/protein ratios of 2.60::1 grams and 5.84::1 calories. It weighs in at 338 calories total with slightly more than half coming from the coconut oil, which supposedly gets me into keto for the day if not already there. But because it requires a blender, this is strictly a home-prep deal.
Sometimes, though, I have to be at work before 7am, like tomorrow morning. Unless I want to get up at 4:30 or 5:00, which I really do not want to do, then my above keto coffee is not on the morning menu. Instead, I'll grab a coffee at 7/11 on my walk to the bus stop. I'll add 3 or 4 18% creams to get some fat.
While this provides me with my morning coffee, it's definitely NOT keto, not even close. It furnishes half the fat of whipping cream, whatever protein is in the coffee (a little less than 2gr per 16 oz), plus carbs from both the coffee and the cream. So I've been working on a plan to enable me to make any coffee from anywhere into keto coffee just by adding the appropriate mix of fat and protein to get my correct ratios.
Using whey or casein powder will not work. Both are too difficult to mix without a blender. In addition, casein curdles in hot coffee and I don't want cottage cheese in my coffee! Yes, I tried it ONCE.
I explored liquid protein supplements in the hope that I could find something I could add to the coffee just like cream. I discovered there are quite a few out there and virtually all of them are made from collagen. They are also very expensive and only available online which adds to their cost. So I'm not seeing them as a viable option. Yet.
Now I happen to know that collagen is the same stuff as gelatin. The differences between them are due entirely to the amount of processing they're subjected to. Gelatin is essentially bone broth processed into powder. It will gel when added to hot liquid and allowed to cool. Collagen is gelatin further processed into a much smaller protein molecule which does not gel and digests much faster than either bone broth or gelatin. Collagen is much more expensive than gelatin.
Today I bought a commercial collagen powder from my neighbourhood nutritional supplement store.
I've finally discovered a liquid protein supplement made in Canada and available at a local store, Bulk Barn. That is Coffee Booster. It's a little cheaper than the powdered collagen powder I purchase at a local body shop and much more expensive than generic gelatine powder. BUT it mixes just as readily as whipping cream into hot coffee.
Jan 2023 - Keto Coffee (long overdue) Update
After my above September 2018 keto coffee post, I figured out how to make my morning keto coffee without using a blender. This negated my need to purchase coffee on my way to the bus stop on early work start days and use Coffee Booster for protein and 18% coffee creams.
I found that mixing the fat and dry ingredients very thoroughly into a consistent creamy slush then mixes very readily into the hot coffee, which I add a cup at a time, mixing vigorously. The result is not the same coffee ‘milkshake’ I get using a blender, but it’s smooth, creamy and gets a layer of foam on top. And a lot less clean up!
12 May 2024 - More to follow as it occurs. This is a work in progress.
Why I don’t enable comments.
My goal here is simply to present my experiences and my understanding and interpretation of those experiences in the context of human evolution as currently interpreted and understood in scientific literature, not to discuss, persuade or argue. If you find what I have to share informative and helpful, great. Implement. There are many online resources to help you do so and I’ve provided links to many of them. If you do not, disregard and move along.
Disclaimer
Your life and health are your responsibility. Your decisions based on information or advice anyone gives you—myself included—are your responsibility.
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My Ketogenic Experiences
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Prologue
I spent 71 years eating bog standard SAD. I refer to it as the ‘Standard Approved Diet’ since it was based primarily on the fraudulent ‘research’ of Ancel Keys on dietary fat and his demonization of saturated animal fats (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11). Note: the preceding series of articles by Dr. Tim Noakes about insulin resistance and just how a bogus dietary theory became the accepted norm is an education on diet and nutrition you will appreciate beyond anything you imagine. I highly recommend you read them all. And if it’s a choice between Noakes and me, you’ll be better served by Noakes.
My personal experience included 30 years brewing my own beer (braggot actually) and drinking half a liter daily. During those decades I remained fit, healthy, normal weight and body comp, for which I thank my ancestors daily [1, 2]. They gifted me with a flexible metabolism, uncoupled protein and mitochondria very like these, as described here and BAT thermogenesis. During that period of my life I was not particularly sensitive to cold weather and even spent the better part of a decade living on the marge of Lake Laberge in the Yukon. Unlike the fictional Sam McGee, however, I was not ‘always cold’. In fact, I thrived in the cold weather! Nor did I fall victim to CVD, diabetes or obesity, nor anything else associated with metabolism and/or eating lots of carbs.
As a youth and young man I was a middle distance runner. I’ve remained physically active the rest of my life, although not at the level of competitive athletics. Into my 8th decade I remain an avid cyclist and even designed and built my own recumbent bicycle. I also still walk lots. During the decade of my 60s I gained about 35-40 pounds of excess visceral fat. I attribute this primarily to a slowing metabolism due to age and incipient insulin resistance due to eating/drinking SAD for 7 decades finally catching up with me.
During those decades eating SAD, I experienced 'normal' hunger. That is: I ate to satiation and 3-4 hours later ate again to satiation and 3-4 hours later... etc. In other words, I ate a lot and I ate frequently throughout the day. I was an all-day grazer! Again, I thank my ancestors for gifting me with a genetic predisposition to absorb that and remain relatively fit and healthy.
I need to input a little family background here. Around the age of 30 my dad developed hyperthyroidism. No matter what or how much he ate he lost weight over the course of a couple of years to the point of fatal emaciation. To protect their investment in a very good and experienced pilot the Air Force treated my dad’s hyperthyroidism with the standard ‘treatment’ of the day (early 1950s): they nuked his thyroid. It worked! From that day onwards no matter what or how little he ate my dad gained weight. Destroying his thyroid saved his life, but at the cost of obesity, CVD and diabetes for the rest of it.
I bring up my dad’s experience to explain my guess: the thyroid functions as a master rheostat over metabolic activity. I suspect that there is a range of normal function from ‘slow’ to ‘fast’ that determines whether one’s metabolism is primarily oriented to store energy (the ‘slow’ end of the range) or use energy (the ‘fast’ end of the range). Or somewhere in between.
I’m being somewhat facetious here. There is no scientific doubt that the thyroid is the master metabolic control. For example: the "thyroid regulates your metabolism"; it “releases hormones that control metabolism"; the thyroid… "regulates metabolic processes"; and hormones..."play an important role in regulation… metabolism"...
Looking at my own life over those 7 decades pre-Keto I conclude that my thyroid function was within the upper end of the normal range. Whatever and however much I ate, my metabolism preferred to burn it rather than store it, both in the form of usable energy and body heat. Then during the decade of my 60s my thyroid function decreased, my metabolism slowed, WAT replaced BAT and I began to store more energy. Still burning most but storing more than when younger resulting in a slow and gradual gain in overall weight. Also, years eating a high-carb diet leads inevitably towards some degree of insulin resistance, which in my specific case and practical terms meant my cells were more reluctant to part with their stored energy surplus.
NOTE:
It’s important to know, however, that in pre/diabetics, on the other hand, insulin resistance also leads to a gradual increase in blood glucose levels and increasing insulin secretion to force glucose into cells and get it out of the blood. 1 2 3 4
In fact, studies show that insulin resistance is an indicator of pre-diabetes and can be measured many years in advance of the onset of clinical diabetes. 5
In 2005, at the instigation and support of his second wife, who had other ideas about what and how much to eat, my dad cut down on the carbs in his diet. Nothing close to Keto levels, but significantly lower than he had been eating. Nothing much else changed. He still ate about the same total amount of food/energy, yes somewhat less overall, but mostly less came from carbs and proportionally more from fat and protein.
Guess what? For the first time in 50 years my dad actually lost weight! And it stayed off for the next 2 years until his death. Yes, he had tried CICO ‘diets’ many times before reducing overall calories but still eating the same relative proportion of carbs and the results were always exactly the same: he lost a little weight for a month or two then steadily regained it. This time, instead of simply cutting down overall calories but still eating the same proportion of carbs, he instead reduced the proportion of carbs while still eating approximately the same total overall calories. It worked!
My Keto Start
I started keto with a 4-day water fast. On day-2 I experienced very severe hunger virtually all day. I describe this as ‘Carb Hunger’, that cookie monster screaming ‘Feed me, feed me’ and making my stomach feel like an open pit mine and overall making me fear death was only minutes away unless I ate something NOW. This was a common and unpleasant experience during my decades eating SAD and I kept it at bay by grazing all day.
On day-3 I had a totally new experience (at the age of 71 no less!). The Carb Hunger had passed! I had expected that it would just keep getting worse and worse until I could not take it and just give in. But it was gone. Sure, I was still ‘hungry’ but in a very different way, which I now describe as ‘Keto Hunger’. It’s like the company accountant announcing at the monthly board meeting that outgo exceeded income last month and the difference was made up from the current account.
This new ‘hunger’ experience brought no distress, no discomfort, no sense of urgency. To meet the shortfall we dipped into current stores to make up the difference. No big deal, nothing to worry about. Now, when I talk about my hunger, I’m talking about Keto Hunger. I have not experienced Carb Hunger since day-2 of my 4-day initiation water fast. Even Keto Hunger has become a ‘non-thing’ that I hardly ever notice and even when I do it passes within a few minutes.
I now view Keto Hunger as just another feature of ketosis, in fact a confirmation of it. Every once in a while Keto Hunger reminds me that my metabolism is shifting to stored fat primarily for current energy needs. Message sent and received. Carry on. Seamless integration from ingested energy to stored energy. This is not even ‘hunger’ in the sense of prompting me to eat, so I don’t even consider it ‘hunger’ as most folks understand the word. So really, I have not experienced hunger at all since day-2 (Jan03/2017).
In context, this is understandable. My current (as May12/2024) overall weight is 140 pounds and body fat 13.6% (using the Navy Calculator), varying only slightly day to day based on what I’ve consumed over the course of the preceding couple of days or so. That’s 19 pounds of fat and 121 pounds of lean mass. These numbers have not changed by more than +/- a couple pounds and +/- a couple % since the summer of 2017 when I began maintenance. They are pretty much the same as when I was 18 years old - and I am very happy about that! Thus, I have slightly more than 66,500 calories of stored energy. So even though I am overall quite lean, the current account has plenty to fall back on as needed.
My Weight Loss
Silly me! I neglected to weigh myself just prior to starting my keto journey. I simply forgot that I have a bathroom scale since it was tucked under a cabinet out of sight. I seldom ever weighed myself previously because my overall weight changed little over time. During the decade of my 60s I added about 35-40 pounds of visceral fat. But even that took 10 years to accumulate to the point of being noticeable and uncomfortable.
However, by the age of 71 it was noticeable and was uncomfortable - at least to me. My best guesstimate is my initial weight was 175-180 pounds. I felt heavy and clunky and I wanted that feeling gone. My motivation was reinforced by an upcoming appointment in mid-March with a surgeon to fix an abdominal hernia. I had read that the less abdominal fat the surgeon had to deal with the better the potential outcome would be.
I don’t recall now whether I had been reading about keto, recalling a previous endeavour I had made a few years previously or simply reflecting on my dad’s experience during the last couple years of his life. Whatever, I decided to go on a 4-day water fast and then start eating a ketogenic diet to lose the excess fat.
Of course, just like pretty much everyone else on the planet, I immediately thought I had to move more and eat less. This represents so-called CICO dieting, that is calories in and calories out are the only things that matter. What specifically you eat doesn’t matter much, only how much of it you eat. Sure, advocates say some foods are more nutritious than others and you should eat those in preference. But really, the only thing that matters in the end is how much you eat and how much energy you expend. If you eat less you lose if you eat more you gain. Simple.
In my case, the move more part was redundant. I was then and remain quite active walking and cycling. Of the eat less, I decided to eat to a 300 kcal per day deficit. To decide what that was I just guessed that my daily energy requirement was about 1800 kcals. This despite my level of activity being much more than the ‘average’ for men my age. Thus, at the end of my 4-day water fast I jumped into keto eating: 1500 kcals per day. I thought this was conservative. I later discovered not so much.
I started losing fat weight almost immediately, within a couple of days. I weighed myself once per week on Sunday mornings after a morning pee and dump and before my keto coffee breakfast. I bought an Omron Fat Loss Monitor and also used both the Navy and Levl online calculators to determine fat mass. I currently continue to use this online calculator occasionally.
By mid-March, just prior to my hernia operation, I had lost about 25 pounds and my abdomen was noticeably flatter and firmer. So I had succeeded in making myself a better subject for a successful hernia repair job. And it went well.
By the end of March I had lost another 2-3 pounds and I thought it would be a good time to stop. My initial goal was to get down to about 160 pounds where I thought I would feel comfortable. But I hit 160 and did not feel comfortable so kept going. By the end of March I was close to 150 and decided to stop there.
So I upped my daily caloric intake to 1800 calories. This slowed the fat loss but did not stop it. So a couple weeks later I increased my daily caloric intake by another 100 calories. Again, although the loss slowed it did not stop. Well, I continued this process for almost 3 months, into June and 2500 kcals per day. Finally, the loss stopped. So I had, in fact, started with a 1000 kcal per day deficit! And I had maintained that deficit for 3 months before slowly decreasing it over the next 3 months.
Which is significant!
Unlike losing weight by so-called ‘CICO dieting’, that is by just restricting overall caloric intake but continuing to eat approximately the same proportion of carbs, fats and protein, my metabolism had not slowed. Losing weight while simply eating less but continuing to eat approximately the same proportion of carbs, fats and protein - or even worse by reducing fat and making up the difference proportionally with more carbs - results in slowing your basal metabolism. Why so? For one reason because you’re hungry most of the time so your brain gets the message “There’s scarcity” and in turn sends the message “Slow down to conserve“.
Sure, if you continue to eat a caloric deficit the fat comes off - gradually and with difficulty. You’re always hungry and feeling deprived - maybe tired, weak and irritable as well. And if that’s not enough, the greater the daily caloric deficit and the longer it is maintained by reducing fat and replacing it with carbs, the more your metabolism slows. In other words, your metabolism adapts to lower energy input by lowering energy need rather than changing the energy source. You can not eat to a caloric deficit forever, and once you start to return to a condition of energy balance, your slowed metabolism starts storing the energy again as fat.
The mechanism is simply that eating carbs elevates blood glucose. Elevated blood glucose in turn elevates insulin, whose function is to get glucose back down to normal again any way it can as fast as it can. Insulin will drive as much glucose as possible into cells as fuel and whatever is leftover into adipose cells to store as new fat. And because there’s plenty of fuel in the blood, insulin hinders the release of currently stored fat fuel. So while you’re trying to lose fat your metabolism is slowing down and trying to conserve your stored fat. The Biggist Loser followup study demonstrated this fact of life beyond question.
On the other hand, after my initial 3 months of caloric restriction, as I increased my daily caloric intake over the course of the following months by eating more fat, I continued to lose fat. Had my basal metabolism slowed or my insulin not remained at baseline, this would not have occurred. Instead, I would have started adding weight/fat - just like your standard CICO dieter. Losing weight on a ketogenic diet maintains base metabolic rate and may even increase it. In addition, by keeping insulin at baseline a ketogenic diet increases both the number and activity of mitochondria overall and particularly in adipose cells. See this. As well, you feel more satiated and less hungry. The dietary concern becomes eating enough! As I already mentioned, ‘keto hunger’ is very different from ‘carb hunger’.
Maintenance
Since the summer of 2017 I have been in what is called ‘maintenance’, or fat adapted. That is, eating to remain in ketosis and maintain an overall energy balance by utilizing fats as my primary energy source. My overall weight has not changed by more than +/- a pound or two and my body fat composition +/- a couple %. I am very happy to report that my overall weight and body comp are almost identical to what they were when I was 18 years old! I’ll take that, thank you. And, again, thank you, ancestors!
Exception. In the summer of 2018 I took a full-time job at Walmart to supplement my income from pension and old age benefits. Within a week I started to lose weight! This was fat, of course, as my metabolism dipped into ‘current stock’ to make up an energy shortfall. In fact, my overall weight dropped by 4-5 pounds! So I modified my daily macros to increase my total daily energy input to 2700 kcals while maintaining the same proportions of carbs, fat and protein. Within a month I was back to my current weight and body comp again.
I have experimented with slightly different macro proportions, although, I have not varied these by more than small increments. My current daily fat and protein macros (as of and since January 2024) are 227.45gr fat / 2047 kcal and 126.9gr protein / 507.6 kcal. The ratios are: 1.79 fat/protein grams and 4.03 fat/protein kcals. My carb macro is 12gr max per day / 48 kcal. I generally eat around 10gr of carbs per day and frequently sub-10gr and occasionally sub-5gr. These are totals, not net. My macros calculate to 2600 total kcals per day and I have determined that as long as I eat within a ‘caloric window’ of about 2300 - 2700 kcals per day consistently, my weight and body comp do not change. If I eat consistently at the lower end of the range for a month or so I will lose weight and BF, if at the upper end for a month or so, gain.
My macros are not arbitrary - nor absolute. They’re based on eating an amount of protein equal to slightly more than 1.9 grams of protein per kg of total body weight. Based on my investigation, I’ve determined that this amount of protein is within the upper limit of healthy daily protein intake. As an older male I decided to eat within the upper end of the healthy range to prevent loss of lean mass. I’m already thin and don’t want to get thinner! I base fat intake and total daily caloric intake on an amount that meets my daily energy requirements. Since my overall body weight and composition have not changed since the summer of 2017 (with the exceptions noted above) and I remain healthy, fit and energetic, I think I have been successful.
PS: Lots of folks apparently do keto successfully without measuring macros or counting calories. They eat when hungry and stop when not. Being in consistent ketosis helps this procedure. As I mentioned above, however, my experience of Keto Hunger is not conducive to telling me when to eat and when not to eat. Fed and unfed states feel pretty much the same for me.
I have other signals, such as feeling weak and/or tired when I need to eat, but I prefer not to wait until they appear. So, that’s one reason I measure macros and overall calories. I created a spreadsheet to do most of the calculations for me, so it’s not an onerous task. Also, I do this to record what and how much I eat over time. I have several years of daily spreadsheets. And… I’m not afraid of numbers.
PPS: Finally. I think eating carbohydrates serves no useful purpose. Gluconeogenesis produces all the glucose we need for those cells that lack mitochondria. So we don’t need to eat it. Some perfectly good and nutritious foods contain incidental carbs and we should be aware of them and eat accordingly. My daily goal is sub-12 grams total carbs from incidental sources. I frequently eat sub-10 grams and often sub-5 grams. Gaming the system to eat as many carbs as you can get away with is a fool’s folly.
Ethanol Experiment
Let me state upfront that I’ve never been a ‘teetotaler’. For most of my adult life I’ve consumed a variety of alcoholic beverages. In moderation - I’ve never been interested in getting ‘high’ nor ‘inebriated’. I drink what I find tasty and satisfying, not to experience what I consider detrimental side effects. For most of my life, my beverage of first choice was beer (or my own braggot!) primarily because of the variety of flavours available. Dry wine was my second choice. While at Lake Laberge, in addition to braggot, I made a white wine from green rhubarb each summer. This was one of the best wines I have ever imbibed over the course of my life! On the other hand, I hardly ever consumed so-called ‘hard liquor’ simply because I found all variations distasteful, although I drank various sweet ‘liqueurs’ occasionally. After I began keto, I gave up all alcoholic beverages: beer/ales, wine and liqueurs because of their carb content; hard liquors because I read lots of negative comments in relation to keto and had never been particularly interested in them anyway. See this, for example.
Many articles about ethanol and keto state emphatically and erroneously that ethanol STOPS and/or inhibits ketosis. For example: “When in ketosis, alcohol halts the metabolism of fat to metabolize alcohol.” This is at best misunderstanding and at worst absolute nonsense. If I encounter this statement or something similar in an article lacking meaningful discussion about the metabolic details, I immediately toss it since the author doesn’t know what he/she is talking about or is purposely trying to mislead. Ethanol metabolizes to beta hydroxybutyrate. In fact, that’s why there’s such a thing as ‘alcoholic ketoacidosis’!
Two things happen when ethanol hits the liver. First, gluconeogenesis stops temporarily (see this) which is why excessive ethanol consumption in conjunction with reduced food consumption can result in hypogycemia for folks eating the standard carb-centric diet. For them, while ethanol is being metabolized incoming glucose gets shunted into adipose cells for storage as fat rather than utilized as fuel. Second, the liver metabolizes the incoming ethanol into ketones in preference to other fat sources (see this). Neither of these creates a problem unless the amount of incoming ethanol is relatively high. In fact, for those on a ketogenic diet the transient interruption of raw ingredients from fat to ethanol causes zero interruption in ketosis - the liver still produces ketones, whatever the immediate source. It’s only the presence of excessive ethanol that gives the pretext that ethanol inhibits ‘fat’ metabolism.
I’m talking relatively ‘low’ consumption of ethanol. By itself, ethanal provides zero nutrients other than energy: 7 kcals per gram. 50ml (1 ounce) of 40% is 15 grams of ethanol, or 105 kcals.
When the COVID scare commenced in the spring of 2021, I discovered that quinine supposedly had both preventative and curative properties (here, here, and here for examples). The best source of quinine I discovered was Cinchona succirubra powdered bark at Only Bitters in Australia. So I decided to try it.
There are basically two ways to extract the quinine from C. succirubra: water and ethanol. I first tried the water method and the results were disappointing, to say the best. Using ethanol instead of water extracts an amount of quinine 2 orders of magnitude greater than water! That was a no brainer to me. I soon discovered Wray & Nephew White Overproof Rum (63%) and that became my extraction method of choice.
After doing the calculations - using minimum quantity and assuming maximum extraction - a measured quantity of C. succirubra bitters added to a bottle of W&N rum results in a max safe concentration of quinine. I began to imbibe 20 ml of the solution each morning as a prophylactic. It seems to have worked successfully. I work full-time at Walmart and am exposed to multitudes of sick people daily, both other staff and customers. I have been mildly sick a few time since, typical of my past experience, but nothing terrible and nothing even close to life threatening. Thus, if in fact ‘COVID’ was/is a real thing rather than simply misidentified common influenza/cold viruses, then consuming quinine seems to have helped prevent and/or ameliorate infection.
Unsurprisingly, the C. succirubra solution in W&N rum tastes horrible! The 63% rum adds it’s own wretched flavour to the already disgustingly bitter cinchona bark - at a far higher concentration than used for making typical alcoholic bitters for sipping. So I quickly ‘researched’ stuff to add to make it more palatable. These additives include lime juice and carbonated water (Hal’s New York Seltzer) - a sort of C. succirubra/rum and tonic. I eventually evolved to adding gin - Tanqueray Rangpur Lime or Flor de Sevilla - as well; and also Crown Royal Vanilla for a non-citrus variation. I also use Fresca as an alternative to Hal’s carbonated water.
When I feel relatively ‘normal’ my current daily morning dose consists of 20ml of C. succirubra/W&N rum solution, 30ml of Tanqueray gin or Crown Royal topped up to 150ml with Fresca or Hal’s seltzer. When I feel like I’m under viral attack I up the dose to 40ml of C. succirubra/W&N rum and 50ml of gin. I’ve recently (since Jan/24) replaced the Tanqueray gin with Sawmill Creek Sauvignon Blanc. Since the wine is 12% vs 40% for the gin, I’ve also begun topping up with straight wine to 150ml.
After three years of consistent, although light, ethanol consumption (also quinine dosing), I have experienced no detrimental side effects. I remain consistently in ketosis. My weight and body comp have remained the same. Since ethanol contains 7 kcals per gram, I take those additional calories into account in my daily total consumption. I account for them as ersatz ‘fat’ calories, so the ethanol adds calories but not weight to my daily calculations. Although the fat/protein grams ratio remains the same, the fat/protein calories ratio gets skewed upwards on meals with ethanol.
References
If you read no other, read this referenced paper, which includes a discussion of the adaptation of hominoid primates to the climate changes in central Africa that began during the mid-late Miocene:
Hominids Adapted to Metabolize Ethanol Long Before Human-Directed Fermentation
Alcohol and Ketosis
Genetic Evidence of Widespread Variation in Ethanol Metabolism Among Mammals…
Beneficial Effect of Low Ethanol Intake on the Cardiovascular System…
Best Alcoholic Beverages on a Keto Diet
A ketogenic diet alters mTOR activity… with chronic alcohol consumption in mice
7 things you need to know about alcohol and a low-carb or keto diet
Advanced Mediterranean Diet
Surprising Ways Alcohol May Be Good for You
Biphasic effects of chronic ethanol exposure…
Acute ethanol intake induces superoxide anion generation…
Inspiration
L. Amber O’Hearn
Dr. Richard Veech
Dr. Ben Bikman
Prof. Tim Noakes
Vilhjalmur Stefansson
Amy Berger
Nina Teicholz
Misconceptions
The biggest misconception about the ketogenic diet is that it was developed during the 1920s to treat epilepsy. In fact, the therapeutic ketogenic diet was developed to try to duplicate the long-known - since ancient times - effect of fasting on reducing epileptic seizures. It was also noted by some early researchers - Stefansson, Donaldson, Pennington, Thorpe, e.g. - that a very low-carbohydrate diet also led to weight-loss in obese patients without inducing hunger. Unfortunately, most medical professionals still have the erroneous conception that ‘ketogenic’ means only the therapeutic ketogenic diet developed to treat epilepsy with very high fat and very low protein macros. In actual fact, the ‘nutritional ketogenic diet’ developed since the 1960s, beginning with Robert Atkins and subsequently many others, mimics the diet of our Paleolithic ancestors. Human beings, starting with our earliest hominin ancestors 4+ million years ago, ate a ketogenic diet simply because eating sufficient carbs and/or fructose to inhibit ketosis consistently was not possible. Our ancestors were consistently in ketosis and only infrequently not. Most people think that all the grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables we have available today have always existed. They have not. In fact, although there is evidence that humans consumed wild grains/seeds as long as 100,000 years ago, their cultivation and becoming a major part of the human diet began less than 10,000 years ago and legumes even more recently. Whereas, most of the fruits and vegetables on today’s supermarket shelves did not exist even 250 years ago! See this and this.
The second biggest misconception is that carbohydrates/glucose are our natural food. For 4+ million years our hominin ancestors’ natural food was primarily animal fat and protein with only occasional and seasonal fruits, seeds and nuts in small amounts that were nutritionally insignificant. Human metabolism evolved to utilize fat as it’s primary fuel source - not carbohydrates. In fact, we evolved a mechanism to synthesize all the glucose required by our bodies precisely because we had no reliable dietary source! Thus, fat and protein are our ‘natural’, ‘normal’ and healthy diet, not carbohydrates. See this and this.
The third misconception is that fat is unhealthy and carbohydrates healthy so eating a diet in which fat comprises the primary source of dietary energy must be unhealthy. This specific fallacy was promulgated by Ancel Keys’ 1953 Six Countries Study. See here. The Six Countries Study actually involved 22 countries, but Keys ignored the 16 countries that did not support his contention that saturated fat consumption correlated with heart disease. If instead of cherry-picking six countries you look at all 22, there is no correlation between saturated fat consumption and heart disease. Instead, what you see is a correlation between carbohydrate/glucose consumption and heart disease. See this.
The fourth misconception is that keto is complicated and difficult. Well, keto is neither complicated nor difficult at all, it’s easy peasy. Just stop eating carbs/fructose. What is difficult for some people is to overcome their addiction to carbohydrate/glucose loaded foods, simply because keto is not sweet. To overcome their craving for sweet is difficult for some. See this and this and this.
Outright Myths
Ketosis is a deadly, dangerous metabolic state. No it’s not. It’s perfectly natural and healthful. See this.
Eating a diet high in fat, especially saturated fat and fat from animals leads to heart disease. No it does not. See this.
Keto diets are bad for the kidneys. Again, no. See this.
Keto diets cause bone loss / osteoporosis. No. See this.
Keto diets are not suitable for athletes. Yes, they are. See this.
Keto diets cause thyroid problems. See this and this and this.
And see this and this and this and this.
Keto Facts
Carbohydrate restriction is the proverbial ‘silver bullet’ for managing insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and type-2 diabetes.
A well-formulated low carbohydrate diet improves blood glucose and lipids while reducing inflammation, all without drugs.
Carbohydrate restriction induces the process of keto-adaptation, refining the body’s metabolism to allow the mobilization and clearance of excess body fat.
Dietary saturated fat is not a demon when you are keto-adapted.
Dietary sugars and starches are not necessary to feed your brain or fuel exercise.
Long-term success involves much more than simply cutting out dietary carbs.
There is an ‘art’ to electrolyte and mineral management that is key to avoiding side effects and ensuring success.
Trading up from sugars and starches to a cornucopia of nutrient-rich, satisfying, and healthy natural foods is empowering.
Source
In fact, a well-formulated ketogenic diet can reverse much of the physical damage caused by decades of eating a carb-centric diet. Ketosis is not magic and won’t cure every ailment, but will even ameliorate those it can’t cure. The worse the damage the longer it takes, of course. But a couple of years eating keto can make you feel like a new person! Keto is the best thing you can do for your long-term health and well-being. In my opinion. :)
Resources
… Misunderstood "Villains" of Human Metabolism
The Evolution of the Human Trophic Level During the Pleistocene
The Ketogenic Diet as the Default Human Diet: an Energy Perspective
Are humans carnivores? With Lots of Links
Fat, not meat, led to bigger brains
Evolutionary Perspectives on Fat Ingestion and Metabolism in Humans
Origins of the Human Predatory Pattern
Modern hunter gatherer diets
Essential nutrients in fat
Vilhjalmur Stefansson Adventures in Diet
Richard Feinman: The World Turned Upside Down - Review and Comments
Caribou saturated fat and dietary health
Franklin Schwatka Expedition
Cardiorespiratory fitness in Luo, Kamba, and Maasai of rural Kenya
Low atherosclerosis in the Maasai
The Ten Defining Characteristics of a Well-Formulated Ketogenic Diet
Fuel Metabolism in Starvation
The Ketogenic Diet as a Treatment for Metabolic Syndrome
Similarities Between Germ-Free Mice and Ketogenic Humans
How Much Protein Is Enough?
Tucker Goodrich’s Blog
Art and Science of Low Carb
Hyperlipid
Keto Nutrition
Nutritional Ketosis Alters Fuel Preference and Thereby Endurance Performance in Athletes
Oxford Academic Animal Frontiers
Ketone bodies: from enemy to friend and guardian angel
What if it's All Been a Big Fat Lie
Series of Articles Written by Amy Berger for Biotics Research
Keto Diet Myths Part 1
Keto Diet Myths Part 2
Top 5 Keto Diet Mistakes
Medication Awareness With Very Low Carb Diets
Can Fiber Worsen Constipation
Insulin Resistance Parkinsons Disease
Carbohydrate Restriction & Gerd
Rethinking Red Meat's Seat at the Table
A1C Shortcomings
Insulin Resistance Erectile Dysfunction
Understanding and Using the CAC scan
Thyroid Testing is Often Not Enough
Is There a Link Between Thyroid & Depression
Amy Berger’s Website
Thyroid Pt 1
Thyroid Pt 2
Thyroid Pt 3
Prof Tim Noakes on the Diet Heart and Lipid Hypothesis of Ancel Keys
Part 1: It’s the Insulin Resistance, Stupid
Part 2: Gerald Reaven Sets Out To Discover What Insulin Resistance Syndrome (IRS) Is
Part3: It’s the Insulin Resistance, Stupid
Part 4: Dr. Gerald Reaven Begins a Potentially Career-ending Journey
Part 5: President Eisenhower Prescribed Experimental, Untested Low-fat, Low-cholesterol Diet
Part 6: It’s the Insulin Resistance, Stupid
Part 7: Keys Argues Dietary Fat Consumption Causes Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) Epidemic in U.S.
Part 8: The Seven Countries Study (SCS)
Part 9: The Framingham Heart Study Inconveniently Fails To Support Keyss’ Hypotheses
Part 10: Keys’ Road of Discovery, from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Oxford to Pioppi
Part 11: It’s the Insulin Resistance, Stupid
Additional Articles by Prof Noakes on Ancel Keys and the Diet Heart and Lipid Hypothesis
Ancel Keys’ Cholesterol Con. Part 1. How an insecure and unproven hypothesis became a global unchallenged dogma
Ancel Keys’ Cholesterol Con Part 2
Ancel Keys’ Cholesterol Con. Part 3
Ancel Keys’ Cholesterol Con. Part 4
Ancel Keys’ Cholesterol Con, Part 5
Ancel Keys’ Cholesterol Con. Part 6. 1960-1967
Ancel Keys’ Cholesterol Con. Part 7. 1968-1970
Ancel Keys’ Cholesterol Con. Part 8: 1970-1974
Ancel Keys’ Cholesterol Con. Part 9 – 1976-1977
Ancel Keys’ Cholesterol Con. Part 10 – 1978-1979
Ancel Keys’ Cholesterol Con. Part 11. 1979-1984
Ancel Keys Cholesterol Con. Part 12. 1984-1993
Ancel Keys Cholesterol Con. Part 13. 1993-2005.
Ancel Keys Cholesterol Con. Part 14. 1994-2017
Interesting Reads
Calories In and Calories Out Are Not What You Think
An Explanation of the Carbohydrate-Insulin Model of Weight Control
Competing Paradigms of Obesity Pathogenesis: EBM vs CIM
Let’s Focus More on What We eat, Not How Much
Keto-Adapted But No (Low) Ketones
Language Barriers: Preferred Fuel
The Role of β-Hydroxybutyrate in Altering Adipose Mitochondrial Bioenergetics & here
Metabolic Regulation of Gene Expression by Histone Lysine b-Hydroxybutyrylation & here & here
Increase Your Brown Fat (BAT) to Maintain a Healthy Body Weight
High-Carbohydrate Diet Lowers the Rate of Adipose Tissue Mitochondrial Respiration
You Are Not What You Eat
A Calorie Is Not a Calorie - a Discussion of Thermodynamics
A Calorie Is Still a Calorie - Why Keto Does Not Work
There Is No Such Thing As A “Calorie” To Your Body
How a Fatally, Tragically Flawed Paradigm Has Derailed the Science of Obesity
Ketogenic Diets and Physical Performance
The Dublin Declaration of Scientists on the Societal Role of Livestock
Oxford Academic Animal Frontiers Volume 13, Issue 2, April 2023
Refined Carbs Might Be Making You Dumb
A Root Cause of Mental Illness
The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
Imagining Head-Smashed-In
J. Stanton’s Review of Imagining Head-Smashed-In
Human Adaptations to Diet, Subsistence and Ecoregion Due to Subtle Shifts in Allele Frequency
Metabolic Characteristics of Keto-Adapted Ultra-Endurance Runners
Fasting, Paleo, Keto & how our Evolution as Hunter-Gatherers Should Inform our Dietary Habits
Endurance Running and Persistence Hunting
A Review of Jack Brink’s “Imagining Head-Smashed-In” and George Frison’s “Survival By Hunting”
Interesting Videos
L. Amber O'Hearn - 'The Lipivore: What is Fat for?'
L. Amber O’Hearn - Ketosis Without Starvation: the Human Advantage
L. Amber O’Hearn - Optimal Weaning - Full Transcript, Q&A and Refs - Related
Dr. Ben Bikman - Ketones: the Metabolic Advantage
Dr. Ben Bikman - Insulin vs. Ketones - The Battle for Brown Fat
Dr. Ben Bikman - Insulin Mitochondria White and Brown Fat and How to Stay Healthy
Dr. Ben Bikman - Insulin vs. Glucagon: The relevance of dietary protein
Dr. Michael Eades - Paleopathology and the Origins of the Low-carb Diet
Dr. Michael Eades - A New Hypothesis of Obesity
Nina Teicholz - Vegetable Oils: The Unknown Story
Dr. Chris Knobbe - Diseases of Civilization: Are Seed Oil Excesses the Unifying Mechanism?
Dr. Anthony Chaffee - Plants are trying to kill you!
Barry Groves - Homo Carnivorus What We Are Designed to Eat
Ron Rosedale MD - The Deeper Roots of Health and Diet as Told by Our Ancestor's Ancestors
Taking It To The Next Step?
I stumbled onto dry fasting quite by accident.
My first dry fast was 36 hours and my second 24 hours. There were significant differences between the two experiences.
I have been doing essentially 12 x 12 hour intermittent fasting for several years simply by timing my last meal of each day to end 12 hours before the start of the next day’s first meal. I don’t succeed every day, but generally I manage it 3-4 days each week. I have not restricted water intake during this and usually drink some water after my last meal of the day and prior to bed.
However, I discovered that restricting water/fluid intake during the fast supposedly has very beneficial effects.
Dry Fasting: The Truth About This New Health Industry Trend
Dry Fasting In The Ketogenic Diet
My first dry fast was 36 hours in duration. I had been suffering persistent diarrhea for a couple of weeks and decided to try to ‘dry out’ my intestines by not eating for a day. Diarrhea, of course, is mostly water so in addition to not eating I decided not to drink anything as well. I had never heard of ‘dry fasting’ yet.
The immediate result was not an end to my diarrhea as I had hoped, but instead a 5 pound reduction in overall weight - within 36 hours, no less! The weight loss lasted for a week following, so it was not due simply to temporary intestinal ‘water loss’. My watery dumps continued during the 36 hour fast, but since I was not drinking any liquids, so-called ‘metabolic water’ was the primary component of those dumps after the first few of them. And since the metabolic water was the result of fat metabolism, I had in fact reduced my fat stores by a few pounds during the dry fast. This got my attention! And I discovered dry fasting.
I did a second dry fast of 24 hours, again to deal with diarrhea. For this fast, however, I consumed a full day’s nutrient/caloric intake prior to commencing the fast. I lost zero weight doing so. I suspect that I had simply consumed sufficient nutrients/calories prior to the fast to cover my metabolic requirements during the fast. Plus, my diarrhea was not as persistent.
I did a second 24 hour dry fast a week later. I did not first consume a full day’s total of nutrients and calories. This time I lost about 4 pounds overall weight within 24 hours. I regained about 3 pounds of this weight within the next full day of eating/drinking. So metabolic water generated from fat metabolism had resulted in at least some the weight loss, but this time it was mostly just consumed water.
At this point in my life, my concern is not overall weight loss. I maintained 145 pounds overall weight for the first 7 years of my ketogenic life. It felt good and was easy to maintain. In fact, 145 pounds seemed to be the default weight my metabolism ‘sets’ at. Yet, by dry fasting I lowered my overall weight to 140 pounds and that felt even better! Also, dry fasting supposedly results in a number of health benefits that I’d like to accrue (read the above link) that ‘wet’ fasting does not. And I think frequent 12-hour overnight dry fasts and a periodic 24-hour dry fast will accomplish those benefits without introducing unnecessary weight loss in the process.
In the fall of 2023 I incorporated dry fasting into my overall regime. I modified my previoius 12/12 fasts of several days per week to eliminate all liquids between meals. Since those initial dry fasts, I’ve also stablelized my overall weight at 140 pounds and overall body fat to ~13% +/- in response to my ethanol experiment. After getting accustomed to the lower weight I feel very good with it.
Keto vs Paleo
One might think that the ‘Paleo’ community would embrace keto. I suspect many individuals do so, but unfortunately the community as a whole seems not to. Many in the Paleo community eat sugary fruits and starchy vegetables, while avoiding full-fat dairy [see this]. They apparently do so on the pretext that our Pleistocene and Pliocene ancestors ate this stuff.
We, meaning us hominins, diverged from our closest primate relatives, the chimpanzees, between 9.3 million and 6.5 million years ago, near the end of the Miocene epoch (23 to 5.3 million years ago). One of the most significant characteristics of this divergence was that our specific ancestors took a huge hit in the ability to digest cellulose. Specifically, the hindgut fermentation of all other primates nearly disappeared in our ancestors sometime around 6+ million years ago and likely earlier. Recent studies of the evolution of the Human Trophic Level suggest that we retain less than 10% and likely only 4% of hindgut fermentation ability to ferment cellulose (Hervik & Svihus, 2019; Høverstad, 1986; Topping & Clifton, 2001). Ben-Dor, Sirtoli and Barkai, The evolution of the human trophic level during the Pleistocene, 2021, lists an enormous bibliography of related studies.
This is important because it means that our hominin ancestors could no longer eat much of the food our immediate primate/hominid relatives could simply because they could no longer digest it nor derive energy from it. Thus, during at least the last million years of the Miocene (and very probably a couple of million years or more) and the entire subsequent Pliocene (5.3 to 2.5 million years ago) and Pleistocene (2.5 million to 1.17 million years ago), what would evolve into the human species experienced significant evolution away from it’s primate past in terms of diet. That is away from being frugivore and vegetative omnivore. Other primates have much longer colons - evolved to host the bacteria necessary to ferment vegatative matter, including cellulose - than humans. On the other hand, humans have much longer small intestines - evolved to use enzymes to extract nutrients directly from fat and meat.
During the Pliocene and subsequent Pleistocene our hominin ancestors gradually migrated from the forests of central Africa to the growing savanna around it. Animal fats and proteins became a steadily growing proportion of the human diet because (1) the available ground-growing plants were composed mostly of indigestible cellulose, and (2) an increasing plethora of plant-eating animals were converting much of that indigestible cellulose into very digestible meat and fat.
We modern humans seem to think that all the fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes that are currently available have always been so and always been just as digestible as they are now. They have not. In fact, most of the fruits and vegetables on today’s supermarket shelves did not exist 250 years ago, let alone during the Pleistocene in central Africa! The so-called ‘agricultural revolution’ began only 10-8 K years ago - a period less than 1/10 of 1% of our hominin evolution.
Yes, indeed, our human ancestors apparently ate plant materials during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs. But the dietary benefits of doing so were very minor. Whatever digestible carbohydrate they contained was dilute and insignificant. The cellulose content was so high and the digestible carbohydrate content so low that these so-called ‘food stuffs’ were hardly worth the effort to gather them. In addition, all were available only in relatively short seasonal episodes, including seeds, nuts and tubers with but few exceptions. So although it’s true technically that our ancestors can be described as hunter/gatherers, the gatherer part was actually inconsequential. In reality, they were hunter/scavengers primarily and foremost.
Consequently, our ancestors for at least the past 4+ million years have lived primarily, if not exclusively, in the metabolic state of ketosis as a result of eating mostly meat and fat. So imitating the diet of our ancestors should result in ketosis. If not, then it’s not really ‘paleo’ in my opinion.
J. Stanton the author of the Gnoll Credo, and one of the significant Paleo proponents and sources, discusses in great detail just how the change in diet from plant-based to meat/fat-based enabled our ancestors to grow bigger brains which in turn made us human. Before us, evolutionary success meant bigger, stronger, faster and more reproductive. That changed with humans to include smarter, which included learning and teaching our offspring to learn from the experiences of their parents. Other primates don’t/can’t do so. We did not become human - and thereby differentiate ourselves from all other primates - eating vegetative and mostly cellulose non/semi-nutrients. Although, even Stanton seems to fall for the ‘seeds, nuts and tubers’ nonsense - BUT, see his definition of what he calls ‘Functional Paleo’ here. I can agree with most of that - and his additional comments, cautions, limitations and conclusions here. Still, even Stanton differentiates between paleo and keto and seems to conclude that the ‘paleo diet’ of our ancestors contained sufficient carbs - from ancestral, primitive and wild varieties of roots, fruits and vegetables - to keep them out of ketosis most of the time. I think that’s nonsense.
Otherwise, it seems obvious to me that our diminutive australopithecene ancestors started out following the big cat carnivores and scavenging whatever they left behind. And being smarter meant they kept a safe distance! From Big Brains Require An Explanation, Part I:
Chimpanzees consume about one McDonalds hamburger worth of meat each day during the dry season—mostly from colobus monkeys, which they hunt with great excitement and relish.
Kleiber’s Law states that all animals of similar body mass have similar metabolic rates, and that this rate scales at only the 3/4 power of size. Therefore, in order for our brains to grow and use more energy, something else had to shrink and use less energy.
It takes a much larger gut, and much more energy, to digest plant matter than it does to digest meat and fat. This is why herbivores have large, complicated guts with extra chambers (e.g. the rumen and abomasum), and carnivores have smaller, shorter, less complicated guts.
The caloric and nutritional density of meat allowed our mostly-frugivorous guts to shrink so that our brains could expand—and our larger brains allowed us to become better at hunting, scavenging, and making tools to help us hunt and scavenge. This positive feedback loop allowed our brains to grow from perhaps 400cc (“Lucy”, Australopithecus afarensis) to over 1500cc (late Pleistocene hunters).
In support of this theory, the brains of modern humans, eating a grain-based agricultural diet, have shrunk by 10% or more as compared to late Pleistocene hunters and fishers.
Note 1:
William Kiltz: Are Humans Carnivores?
Liam McAuliffe: The Keto Diet and Human Evolution
Rainer J. Klement: Was there a need for high carbohydrate content in Neanderthal diets?
Note 2:
L. Amber O’Hearn: The ketogenic diet as the default human diet: an energy perspective
On a sugar-based metabolism, you swing between too little blood sugar and too much, and you have to constantly adjust it “manually” by eating.
It is not uncommon for ketogenic adults to comfortably eat one meal a day.
Endurance athletes on ketogenic diets don’t “hit the wall”. They have the ability to tap into fat stores for fuel; a supply that could last even a lean person for weeks.
On a fat/ketone-based metabolism, demand on sugar from the blood is gentle, and your liver refills it smoothly on demand as it is used, keeping it remarkably steady.
This system is efficient and effective.
By contrast, on a carbohydrate-based diet, the storage capacity of the liver overflows. The excess sugar can be stored as fat, but that fat is not used efficiently as fuel…
Considering how well the liver manages energy when you don’t eat carbohydrates, and the disruption caused to this system by eating them, I would suggest:
The conditions under which the liver delivers optimal fuel on demand may be the conditions under which it evolved.
Note 3:
L. Amber O’Hearn: Meat is best for growing brains
L. Amber O’Hearn: What about the sugars in breast milk?
L. Amber O’Hearn: Optimal Weaning from an Evolutionary Perspective
L. Amber O’Hearn: Ketogenic diets, caloric restriction, and hormones
Note 4:
L. Amber O’Hearn: The Facultative Carnivore
Note 5:
J. Stanton: Big Brains Require An Explanation, Part I
J. Stanton: Big Brains Require An Explanation, Part II
J. Stanton: Big Brains Require An Explanation, Part III
J. Stanton: Big Brains Require An Explanation, Part IV
J. Stanton: Big Brains Require An Explanation, Part V
J. Stanton: Big Brains Require An Explanation, Part VI
J. Stanton: Big Brains Require An Explanation, Part VII
Note 6:
Lierre Keith The Vegetarian Myth
The truth is that agriculture is a relentless assault against the planet, and more of the same won’t save us. In service to annual grains, humans have devastated prairies and forests, driven countless species extinct, altered the climate, and destroyed the topsoil—the basis of life itself. Keith argues that if we are to save this planet, our food must be an act of profound and abiding repair: it must come from inside living communities, not be imposed across them.
CHAPTER 1: Why This Book?
Note 7:
Hominids Adapted to Metabolize Ethanol Long Before Human-Directed Fermentation
Important: This paper includes a detailed discussion of just how our homonoid ancestors may have evolved from tree-dwelling frugivores to ground-dwelling omnivores due to evolutionary adaptations in response to the changing climate in central Africa that began during the mid-late Miocene.
The climatic changes continued into the Pliocene and Pleistocene ultimately resulting in central Africa becoming dominated by dry savannah plains to which our ancestors gravitated. And as noted by J. Stanton led eventually to meat and fat dominated eating subsequent to omnivory.
Correspondance Re Paleo
Sep 2023
Maybe you’ve already investigated it or maybe even partially applied it to your diets already, but if not you might be interested in ‘paleo’. The basic idea is that we should continue to eat as best we can what our Paleolithic ancestors ate for 3-4 million years over which time human metabolism evolved to metabolize those specific foods. And avoid eating the stuff which our Neolithic farmer ancestors have cultivated (and now even manufacture) for the past less than 10,000 years - a time span that represents less than 1/10 of 1% of human evolution.
I have a nit-pick that paleo excludes dairy on the premise it was developed during the Neolithic, that is post-agriculture. There is good evidence that herding animals (goats), and likely consuming their milk and making cheese, goes farther back than the conventional/currently accepted 10K years ago in various regions (see this and this). Overall, I agree with the basic premise of paleo that we ought to eat what we evolved to eat over millions of years. On the other hand, I think high fat dairy, especially from goats, but also cows, is a nearly perfect food, just as I suspect our late paleolithic ancestors discovered and exploited. Yes, lots of folks have intolerance to either lactose and/or casein - an indication of their recent introduction to the human diet - or simply simple enzyme deficiencies. But both lactose and casein are nearly or totally absent from high fat dairy. For example butter: zero lactose and zero protein. 36% whipping cream contains very low lactose and protein. You can even very easily make at home what’s called ‘creme fraiche’ which is zero lactose and very low protein. And if like the vast majority you have no problem with lactose and/or casein I see no reason to exclude dairy from your diet. Plus, the fact is fewer folks have issues with goat dairy than cow dairy which seems to me to indicate our ancestors have been consuming goat dairy a fairly long time, as per the articles I linked above.
My primary disagreement with paleo - the ‘system’ - however, is that they buy into the idea that our Paleolithic ancestors were ‘hunters’ and ‘gatherers’, hunting the megafauna of Central Africa and gathering/eating whatever veggies, fruits and nuts were growing there. There’s lots of evidence for hunting/scavenging/eating meat and fat, but little evidence for eating plants in more than inconsequential amounts. In fact, the whole ‘hunter/gather’ idea results entirely from observations of current, ie ‘modern’ hunter/gatherers like the Hadza. But the stuff the Hadza, and other modern hunter/gatherers, are gathering now is not the stuff that grew in the central African savanna even 12,000 years ago, let alone over the past 3-4 million years! We often forget that most of the fruit and vegetables on our current market shelves did not exist 250 years ago, let alone during the Pleistocene. And those that did exist consisted primarily of cellulose with very low and dilute digestible carbohydrate content. And tubers require cooking to extract more than a useless pittance of nutrients and there’s little to no evidence of human cooking prior to about 750K years ago. Thus, in my opinion, prior to the development of agriculture plant-sourced ‘foods’ were little more than ‘desperation rations’ consumed only out of… desperation.
Our hominin ancestors diverged from our closest primate relatives - chimpanzees and bonobos - more than 6 million years ago during the Miocene. The most important characteristic of that divergence - in my opinion - was the nearly total loss of ‘hindgut fermentation’ which enables all other primates to digest cellulose.
For example, a gorilla extracts some 60% of its energy from fiber (Popovich et al., 1997). The fruits that chimps consume are also very fibrous (R. W. Wrangham et al., 1998). The human colon is 77% smaller, and the small intestine is 64% longer than in chimpanzees, relative to chimpanzee body size (Aiello & Wheeler, 1995; Calculated from Milton, 1987, table 3.2). Because of the smaller colon, humans can only meet less than 10% of total caloric needs by fermenting fiber, with the most rigorous measures suggesting less than 4% (Hervik & Svihus, 2019; Høverstad, 1986; Topping & Clifton, 2001). A 77% reduction in human colon size points to a marked decline in the ability to extract the full energetic potential from many plant foods.
Source
The little digestible carbohydrate content of Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene ‘fruits’, ‘vegetables’, ‘roots/tubers’ and ‘nuts/seeds’ was diluted by being embedded in surrounding cellulose, making it largely unavailable and nutritionally nearly useless. Thus, over the course of several million years our Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene ancestors instead steadily ate more of the animals that ate the plants. Those animals converted both carbohydrate and cellulose into very digestible meat and fat. And our ancestors learned to eat those animals in preference to and instead of the indigestible vegetative matter those animals ate. The hominin metabolism evolved to utilize meat and fat and extract their nutrients very efficiently at the same time eliminating the need to consume carbs.
I suspect that our diminutive australopithecene ancestors of the Pliocene and their even more diminutive predecessors began this dietary adventure by simply following the big cats (at a safe distance) and eating whatever they left behind. This included using rocks to fracture skulls to get the brain and large bones to get the marrow, neither of which even the biggest of the big cats could accomplish. So I would describe our Paleolithic ancestors as ‘hunter/scavengers’.
Further, since our ancestors ate primarily animal meat and fat, they lived in the metabolic state of ketosis. So my contention is that we and our ancestors evolved for at least 4 million years to live and thrive in ketosis. Our ancestors derived only very minor and inconsequential nutrients from carbohydrates. In fact, human gluconeogenesis evolved far beyond that of any other primate to meet fully our limited need for glucose. Our ancestors ate very little plant materials (the ‘roots, tubers and nuts’ meme is nonsense) which is why obesity, diabetes and heart disease have become so prevalent after changing from a fat-centric diet (4+ million years) to a carb-centric diet (<10,000 years). The glucose/insulin management system that evolved for more than 4 million years to manage endogenous glucose produced by gluconeogenesis has simply been totally overwhelmed by consuming exogenous glucose from carbs. This mortal mistake has been compounded by the recent replacement of saturated fats by seed-oil PUFAs based on the fraudulent work of Ancel Keys and others since. In fact, the worst combination of ‘foods’ you can consume are high carbs and PUFAs - the so-called ‘heart healthy’ modern diet. Which is made even worse by eliminating healthy saturated fats and replacing them completely with carbs and PUFAs.
Thus, in my opinion, ‘paleo’ should be the same as ‘keto’. If not, then it’s not really ‘paleo’. There is no reason to eat glucose (carbs). Our Paleolithic ancestors did not and neither should we.
From Discussions on a Ketogenic Forum
Note: The following is a compendium of several related both public and private exchanges over the course of several weeks, initiated by this posting, then this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and a few more followup posts and finally this. Plus subsequent editing. For anyone who does not already know, ‘CICO’ is an acronym for ‘calories in calories out’. Advocates, like my correspondant, contend that calories consumed (‘in’) and calories expended (‘out’) sufficiently explain overall weight/fat gain or loss over time and that the activity of various metabolic hormones plays little or no significant role.
I should have been more explicit from the outset. When I refer to ‘CICO’ I refer to the specific dietary theory and system of weight/fat management contra the ‘Hormone Theory of Obesity’. I have already acknowledged that a caloric deficit is necessary to burn onboard stored energy, yet you keep flogging that dead horse. I’m not arguing contra thermodynamics. (On the other hand watch this.)
You persistently conflate the term ‘CICO’ to connote thermodynamic energy balance. Every argument you’ve made boils down to: “Yes, but calories in calories out. . .” I think this renders the term ‘CICO’ meaningless. ‘CICO’ either means something specific or it means nothing at all. In common and general parlance the term ‘CICO’ refers to a specific dietary system. It’s not a generic synonym for thermodynamic equilibrium. To discuss ‘CICO’ the dietary system I think it useless to focus on thermodynamic energy balance. The issue that matters is whether or not the dietary system actually accomplishes the long term goal of attaining and maintaining healthy metabolic function. I find the evidence overwhelming that ‘CICO’ the dietary system does not.
The millions of people world-wide who have a relatively healthy metabolism, relatively normal weight and fat/lean body proportions are NOT examples of successful ‘CICO’ the dietary system, as you claim consistently. They are NOT eating ‘CICO’ diets. Indeed, their metabolism maintains relative thermodynamic energy balance. But because what they eat gives their metabolism the energy and nutrients in the variety and the approximate amounts they require to maintain health and homeostasis. ‘CICO’ the dietary system - obsessed with how much they eat - has nothing to do with it.
There are other factors most probably genetic, as well. For decades I essentially ate whenever I was hungry and stopped when I was full. For most of those decades that simply entailed eating several times per day, not at set ‘meal times’. It very definitely did not entail the slightest thought about what nor how much of it I ate. I suffered no ill effects doing so until the decade of my 60s when I started to add visceral fat. I was in overall energy balance for those decades because I had a healthy metabolism that maintained homeostasis and prompted me to eat when I needed more fuel and/or nutrients and stop when I did not. I was not eating ‘CICO’ the dietary system, about which I knew absolutely nothing - I was eating when my body told me to eat and stopping when it told me to stop. And because my metabolism was relatively healthy, I remained in overall good health during those decades. As long as my metabolism got the nutrients and energy it needed to maintain homeostasis the what I ate controlled the how much I ate. Not vice versa.
‘CICO’ the dietary system puts the cart before the horse. Only when homeostasis is upset by what you eat that how much of it you eat becomes an issue. In healthy homeostasis your metabolism determines what and how much of it to eat. Hundreds of people on this forum report that they don’t count calories - they eat when they’re hungry and stop when they’re not, just as I did for decades. Yet - in ketosis - their overall weight and body composition do not change. Their metabolism tells them when nutrients and energy ‘In’ are needed and when not. In my case, for example, weight and body comp have changed by less than +/- a pound and % for 5+ years eating Keto. Those numbers are nearly exactly what they were when I was 18! [see note below] And I’m of an age when steady increase in stored fat and decrease in RMR is the norm for folks eating non-Keto.
Changing what all these folks ate pre-Keto from carb centric to fat and protein centric enabled their metabolism to regain health and normal function. That in turn restored homeostasis. They are examples that what you eat is more important than how much of it you eat. When what you eat is the right stuff, your metabolism tells you very clearly how much to eat. When it’s the wrong stuff, you initiate the cascade of process disruption that results in metabolic dysfunction that in turn results in energy imbalance. ‘CICO’ the dietary system focuses on only one of the consequences of metabolic dysfunction - energy imbalance - not on the causes. Hence, it fails long term - it’s the tail trying to wag the dog. Even if calories in calories out resolves the energy imbalance, metabolic dysfunction continues as long as you continue to eat the wrong stuff. You only resolve metabolic dysfunction by changing what you eat - how much will take care of itself as metabolic dysfunction lessens. I was fortunate to be gifted by my ancestors with the genetic disposition/capability to absorb an unhealthy carb centric diet with no noticeable ill effects until my 60s. And then they came on only slowly. I thank my ancestors daily for it.
The Hormone Theory of Obesity does not deny thermodynamics. It claims that other stuff happens between energy ‘In’ and ‘Out’ that manages where and how the energy gets used or stored and other nutrients utilized - and that these processes are controlled by hormonal responses primarily to what you eat and in what proportions you eat it. ‘CICO’ the dietary theory and system claims that what you eat does not matter, that only how much of it you eat - the sum of calories in and calories out - fully explains body weight and fat/lean mass composition.
The First Law of Thermodynamics says 1000 kcals of clover honey, butter, Angus beef or Coca Cola are 100% equivalent. They will all raise 1 liter of water 1 degree celsius. ‘CICO’ the dietary theory and system claims they affect metabolism exactly the same: the simple sum of energy in and energy out produces fat storage or loss. Yes, of course, there’s the admission by ‘CICO’ advocates that foods contain different nutrients in different amounts and that some specific foods are more nutritious than others and you ought to eat more of those. Nonetheless, all that is ancillary. Calories in calories out trumps everything. As I already noted, every argument you’ve made boils down to: “Yes, but calories in calories out. . .” That’s the basic and erroneous argument of ‘CICO’ advocates. The correct response is: “So what?” The metabolic response to food intake results from what the food content is not simply from what the caloric content happens to be. We don’t eat ‘calories’; we eat food, which can not be described in a simple thermodynamic energy equation. It’s what our bodies do with the food we eat that matters most. For example, if you ate nothing but Krispy Kreme donuts - with calories out always greater than calories in - you would gain weight, even while starving yourself of essential nutrients. You would eventually die of malnutrition not energy imbalance.
I want to thank you for initiating this discussion since it prompted me to do quite a lot of additional investigation to clarify my thinking on the overall matter. I am more convinced than ever that what you eat matters more than how much of it you eat. Although, as noted, how much you eat counts for something. Just not as much as you think when what you eat is the right stuff and not the wrong stuff.
PS: I should add that using ATP/ADP instead of ‘calories in calories out’ would add an order of magnitude more precision to calculations of metabolic thermodynamic energy balance. But unfortunately, it would also add an order of magnitude complexity so it’s not going to happen.
Note 1:
J. Stanton: There Is No Such Thing As A “Calorie” To Your Body
J. Stanton: There Is No Such Thing As A “Calorie” To Your Body, Part II
J. Stanton: There Is No Such Thing As A “Calorie” To Your Body, Part III
J. Stanton: There Is No Such Thing As A “Calorie” To Your Body, Part IV
J. Stanton: There Is No Such Thing As A “Calorie” To Your Body, Part V
J. Stanton: There Is No Such Thing As A “Calorie” To Your Body, Part VI
J. Stanton: There Is No Such Thing As A “Calorie” To Your Body, Part VII
J. Stanton: There Is No Such Thing As A “Calorie” To Your Body, Part VIII
Note 2:
My dad, as I have mentioned elsewhere, developed hyperthyroidism around the age of 30. He literally could not consume enough energy to feed his metabolism and it began to cannibalize his own body. His ‘Out’ was totally ‘out of control’ no matter how much ‘In’ he ate. I’ve seen photos of my dad with his eyeballs bulging out his face because he had already lost so much lean mass he looked more like a skeleton with skin than a person. Nuking his thyroid was a last resort to save his life. Obesity and related illness for the rest of his life was the price he paid to save it.
On the other hand, I have enjoyed relatively normal thyroid function my entire life; although I suspect that within the normal range of function, I spent most of my life in the upper end. From the age of 25 I ate pretty typical SAD; and pre-SAD prior. For most of my SAD life I ate heavily plant-based, although never vegetarian, and consumed so-called ‘heart healthy’ seed oils and margarine. For 30 years I home-brewed my own beer and drank about 1/2 liter daily. I never suffered any noticeable metabolic issues and remained in good health overall. I was a middle distance competitive runner during high school and university and I remained physically active my entire life, although not at athletic level. I do continue to cycle aggressively.
I started to gain weight slowly during the decade of my 60s. I attribute it to a gradually slowing metabolism due to age and reduced thyroid function; and, likely slowly increasing insulin resistance that finally caught up with me after decades of carb-centric eating as my metabolism slowed. I was also, fortunately, not as hungry so ate less even as I continued my fairly active lifestyle and I think that prevented me accumulating even more weight/fat.
So to my point. I think the thyroid gland is the primary metabolic control valve. All other factors being equal - that is, nothing else is ‘broke’ - normal thyroid function controls the metabolism to maintain energy and nutrient homeostasis. I think there is a ‘normal range’ of thyroid function. Folks who live in the lower half of the range tend to store more readily. Their metabolism prefers to conserve energy. Those who live in the upper half of the range tend to use more readily. Their metabolism prefers to expend energy.
This control system has evolved over millions of years to maintain homeostasis. Too fat, too lean, too sedentary, too active - were not survival enhancing in the long term. As long as energy and nutrient input provide the necessary ingredients, the control system works - that is, you eat what you need to eat and stop when you don’t. Unless something breaks.
What breaks first most commonly is the glucose/insulin management part of the system. We and our immediate hominin predecessors evolved consuming very little or no glucose simply because edible carbs were few and nutrient dilute. We are the only primate class that lacks the hind gut digestion to derive nutrients from cellulose. So we evolved an optimized internal mechanism to create the little necessary glucose for the various cells that lack mitochondria. The management of glucose/insulin evolved to handle relatively small amounts of endogenous glucose to direct it to the cells that need it for energy or to store any leftover as fat. This process works fine - until it’s totally overwhelmed by dumping loads of exogenous glucose onto it. Then it breaks.
The advent of the current Holocene interglacial presented a potential ‘extinction level event’ for humans. Our species and our direct predecessors evolved eating megafauna for the better part of 4 million years. Our metabolism evolved to process exogenous fat and meat proteins obtained eating them. The climate change that initiated the Holocene, and probably too efficient hunting, led to the extinction of most of the megafauna. And did so very quickly. So. . .
For about 10K years humans have conducted a survival experiment. Could breeding out cellulose and breeding in less complex carbohydrates in assorted plants replace the energy and nutrients lost with the demise of the megafauna? Like many experiments that showed promise in the short term, we’re beginning to see the consequences long term and they don’t look good. Especially when you process this stuff to the degree it’s being processed nowadays. In fact, one could argue convincingly that since 1950 the massive and growing consumption of simple/processed carbs and seed oils has led directly to a world-wide epidemic of metabolic dysfunction, disease and mortality.
To wit:
13% of adults worldwide are obese (BMI >30.0), 39% of adults worldwide are overweight (BMI 25-30), 8% of worldwide deaths in 2017 (4.7 million) were attributed to obesity. Source
As of 2021, approximately 537 million adults ( 10.5% of 20-79 age group) suffer diabetes. The total number of people with diabetes is projected to rise to 643 million by 2030 and 783 million by 2045 (1 in 8 adults). Source
1.5 million deaths worldwide are directly attributed to diabetes each year. Source
Deaths from cardiovascular disease (CVD) jumped globally from 12.1 million in 1990 to 20.5 million in 2021, according to a new report from the World Heart Federation (WHF). CVD was the leading cause of death worldwide in 2021… Source
Note 3:
Detailed and complex/complicated explanation of dietary fats and the role of Linoleic Acid in obesity: Hyperlipid-1, Hyperlipid-2, Hyperlipid-3, Pub-Med. And saturated fats, with lots of links to studies and commentary. Detailed discussion of coconut and palm oils.
References:
Is a Calorie Always a Calorie - Michael Eades
Nutrient Intake of Subjects on Low Carbohydrate Diet - American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Effects of Dietary Composition on Energy Expenditure During Weight-Loss Maintenance - JAMA
Energy Expenditure and Body Composition Changes… - American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
The Energy Balance Model of Obesity: Beyond Calories In, Calories Out - AJCN
The Carbohydrate-Insulin Model… - AJCN
Competing Paradigms of Obesity Pathogenesis… - European Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Treatment of Obesity: Developments of the Past 150 Years - Pennington, AJD
When Somebody Loses Weight, Where Does the Fat Go? Meerman & Brown, BMJ
Caloric Intake in Relation to Body-Weight Changes in the Obese. Kekwick & Pawan, Lancet
Serious Analytical Inconsistencies… - Arencibia-Albite F., Heliyon
The Energy Balance Theory: an Unsatisfactory Model… - Arencibia-Albite & Manninen, Medrxiv
Chronic Positive Mass Balance is the Actual Etiology of Obesity: A Living Review - Manninen
PUFA Induced Reductive Stress as a Unifying Mechanism in Obesity - Mashall
Pontzer’s Burn and Metabolic Rate Mechanisms - Marshall
Correspondance
Jun 2017
Human metabolism is amazing! When one is in ketosis, the metabolism becomes a fat-burning machine. What really surprised me, though, was that I continued to lose weight.
The 'secret' is very simple.
Did you ever notice there are 'essential' fatty acids and 'essential' amino acids, but no essential carbs? Human beings evolved over hundreds of thousands of years when the primary foods were fat and protein. Carbs, with a few notable exceptions, were 99% indigestible cellulose. Thus, for most of human evolution our ancestors happily metabolized fat for fuel.
Only the lucky few lived in habitats where fruit, nuts and/or berries might be in season for a few weeks each year or some plant with digestible starch might grow. Or someone discovered a honey tree. Otherwise, it was feast and famine. Life and food to excess when the hunt was successful; death when it failed.
So really, ketosis is the 'natural' state and glucosis the unnatural. The basic problem is that in the unnatural state of glucosis, fats are not metabolized. When one's caloric intake is pretty much 100% carbs, all consumed fat gets stored. In all the wrong places because the right places are already filled.
Why do virtually all so-called 'low fat' and calorie restricted weight loss diets eventually fail? Think about it for a minute. If one is in the metabolic state of glucosis, ALL fat, no matter how little the total, gets stored somewhere. And all carbs not immediately burned for energy also get stored - as FAT! The ONLY way to burn fat is to get into ketosis consistently.
I guess if you're into 'paleo' you know all that.
Aug 2017
I had always thought that alcohol, because it's a simple carb, affected glucose and insulin in the blood. But that's not so.
Alcohol passes from the stomach directly to the blood stream and does not get converted to glucose. Instead, the body metabolizes it as alcohol, not sugar. Alcohol is far easier for the body to use as fuel. So much so, that if there is any alcohol in the blood, your metabolism instantly stops metabolizing everything else to metabolize the alcohol. Only when the alcohol is completely gone, does the metabolism start looking for glucose or triglycerides and ketones for fuel.
What that means is alcohol is OK on a keto regimen generally. On a carb rich diet on the other hand it forces the metobolism to store carbs as fat.
Sept 2017
Thanks! I did understand some of the videos, better acoustics and no background noise. I also watched a couple other of Mark Springer's videos discussing keto. As he points out, people have different definitions of 'ketogenic', some of which are not. So, I'm going to refer to 'fat based (high fat low carb)' and 'carb based (high carb low fat)' nutrition instead. Some personal observations.
In one of Mark's videos about keto, he stated that there is no evidence that eating a fat based diet is any more effective at burning fat than a carb based diet high in protein. Sorry, that's wrong. There is lots of evidence. It may be true that some people (primarily men with a lot testosterone) can bulk up muscle mass by eating a carb based high protein diet. Those guys are pumping iron several hours each day. My guess: they're burning all the glucose/glycogen and then some ketones. Little or no glucose or protein is being converted to stored fat. Other top athletes are in the same category. So, yes, over time they will reduce their fat stores and bulk up muscle mass. The other 99.9% of us can not and are never going to do that. So it's interesting but irrelevant to the rest of us.
In addition, if you are not in ketosis and consume more protein than your body requires for maintenance/repair and building muscle mass based on level of resistance training, the metabolism will either burn it for fuel or convert it to glucose and then store it as fat. So if you eat carb based with high protein, unless you're pumping iron, you get a double whammy: all the fat you eat goes directly to storage and much of the protein ends up there as well. Sure, restricting overall caloric input will force you to burn stored fat, but it will also force your metabolism to slow to adapt to the lower energy input.
Your mileage may vary, of course. But I present myself as an example of a normal, older male not pumping iron 4-5 hours per day and with somewhat reduced testosterone. I lost 30+ pounds in about 2 1/2 months eating a fat based diet. I seldom felt hungry and never felt like I was denying myself anything. In fact, I found it rather exciting to experiment with new foods and combinations.
8 1/2 months later, this morning I weigh 146. I burned stored fat. It would not have happened had I continued to eat a carb based diet, either high or low protein. It isn't magic or mysterious, it's chemistry. If you eat carbs your system will metabolize glucose and won't touch stored fat. If you reduce calories on a carb based diet, your base metabolism will simply lower your caloric requirements as I noted above, making it even harder to lose weight. And you'll feel hungry most the time. AND, when you quit the ‘diet’ and start to eat normally again your slowed metabolism will start to restore all the fat you lost.
Simple chemical fact: you must be in ketosis to burn fat and NOT slow your metabolism. It doesn't happen otherwise. When you’re not in ketosis and reduce caloric intake sufficiently to burn stored fat, your metabolism gets the message - food is scarce, slow down.
I also think it's either gross misunderstanding or misleading to suggest that average Joe/Jill can continue to eat 300 to 500 grams or more of carbs every day and remain fit and healthy. The current trifecta of metabolic related epidemics of obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardio vascular, primarily arterial plaque, puts the lie to that claim.
At 2800 calories per day, my weight has been stable for 3+ months between 146-149. That's 2350 fat, 400 protein and 50 carb calories. This would not happen were I eating carb based with high or low protein. I would gain back all the weight I shed. I know that because I was eating carb based prior to going fat based.
The metabolism has no 'preferred' energy source. It simply follows the chemical path of least resistance. The metabolic pathways, in order of increasing complexity and decreasing chemical simplicity are: ethanol, glucose, glycogen, ketone, triglyceride. Your system will metabolize from simple to complex. As the simple sources get used up, the next more complex source gets used.
The additional problem with carbs is that glucose screws up fat metabolism.
1. Humans have been eating primarily ketogenic for 99.9% of our evolution. With a couple of notable exceptions, our ancestors only ate carbohydrate rich food opportunistically when it was in season and/or available.
2. Basing a maintenance diet on massive quantities of carbohydrates is an experiment undertaken during less than 0.1% of the most recent period of human evolution.
3. We are currently experiencing a world-wide trifecta of glucose and insulin driven metabolic diseases: obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardio vascular disease, primarily arterial plaque. It's not only we in the western world, but everywhere that people have access to abundant food, primarily cheap carbs. It’s turning into a world-wide disaster.
4. It appears that #3 is the statistically significant outcome of #2.
Sept 2018
Since my new job began I've been confronted with a bit of a challenge I thought may be of interest to you. I recall that when we first discussed carb, protein, fat based diets you mentioned that you used bone broth as a protein source.
The significant nutritional fact: bone broth = gelatin = collagen. You may already know this.
I use whey powder, whipping cream, butter and coconut oil in my morning keto coffee. This requires a blender to get everything mixed smoothly. The end result is a great quart of coffee, with 2gr of carbs mostly from the coffee but a little from the whey as well, and perfect fat/protein ratios of 2.60::1 grams and 5.84::1 calories. It weighs in at 338 calories total with slightly more than half coming from the coconut oil, which supposedly gets me into keto for the day if not already there. But because it requires a blender, this is strictly a home-prep deal.
Sometimes, though, I have to be at work before 7am, like tomorrow morning. Unless I want to get up at 4:30 or 5:00, which I really do not want to do, then my above keto coffee is not on the morning menu. Instead, I'll grab a coffee at 7/11 on my walk to the bus stop. I'll add 3 or 4 18% creams to get some fat.
While this provides me with my morning coffee, it's definitely NOT keto, not even close. It furnishes half the fat of whipping cream, whatever protein is in the coffee (a little less than 2gr per 16 oz), plus carbs from both the coffee and the cream. So I've been working on a plan to enable me to make any coffee from anywhere into keto coffee just by adding the appropriate mix of fat and protein to get my correct ratios.
Using whey or casein powder will not work. Both are too difficult to mix without a blender. In addition, casein curdles in hot coffee and I don't want cottage cheese in my coffee! Yes, I tried it ONCE.
I explored liquid protein supplements in the hope that I could find something I could add to the coffee just like cream. I discovered there are quite a few out there and virtually all of them are made from collagen. They are also very expensive and only available online which adds to their cost. So I'm not seeing them as a viable option. Yet.
Now I happen to know that collagen is the same stuff as gelatin. The differences between them are due entirely to the amount of processing they're subjected to. Gelatin is essentially bone broth processed into powder. It will gel when added to hot liquid and allowed to cool. Collagen is gelatin further processed into a much smaller protein molecule which does not gel and digests much faster than either bone broth or gelatin. Collagen is much more expensive than gelatin.
Today I bought a commercial collagen powder from my neighbourhood nutritional supplement store.
I've finally discovered a liquid protein supplement made in Canada and available at a local store, Bulk Barn. That is Coffee Booster. It's a little cheaper than the powdered collagen powder I purchase at a local body shop and much more expensive than generic gelatine powder. BUT it mixes just as readily as whipping cream into hot coffee.
Jan 2023 - Keto Coffee (long overdue) Update
After my above September 2018 keto coffee post, I figured out how to make my morning keto coffee without using a blender. This negated my need to purchase coffee on my way to the bus stop on early work start days and use Coffee Booster for protein and 18% coffee creams.
Now I prepare my Keto Coffee (AKA ‘Breakfast with Bubba’) each morning by first mixing the dry protein ingredients in my 1 liter Bubba coffee mug. These are Purely Inspired Collagen and AllMax ISO Natural Whey, both non-flavoured. I also add 5 grams of my current salt mix which is 1:1 Redmond Realsalt and French’s NoSalt.
I then add the fat ingredients in a mixing cup. These are Nanak Desi Ghee, Walmart Salted Butter (or Lactancia Salted Butter), Only Goodness coconut oil and Nutiva MCT oil. I heat these in the microwave before adding Dairyland 33% whipping cream. I also add 2 grams of Whole Earth & Sea Deep Ocean Minerals. I mix these very thoroughly before adding to the dry mix in my Bubba.
I found that mixing the fat and dry ingredients very thoroughly into a consistent creamy slush then mixes very readily into the hot coffee, which I add a cup at a time, mixing vigorously. The result is not the same coffee ‘milkshake’ I get using a blender, but it’s smooth, creamy and gets a layer of foam on top. And a lot less clean up!
Sep 2023
I’ve recently (re)discovered Cafe du Monde.
12 May 2024 - More to follow as it occurs. This is a work in progress.
Why I don’t enable comments.
My goal here is simply to present my experiences and my understanding and interpretation of those experiences in the context of human evolution as currently interpreted and understood in scientific literature, not to discuss, persuade or argue. If you find what I have to share informative and helpful, great. Implement. There are many online resources to help you do so and I’ve provided links to many of them. If you do not, disregard and move along.
Disclaimer
Your life and health are your responsibility. Your decisions based on information or advice anyone gives you—myself included—are your responsibility.