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Robert

The Calorie Issue

You guys following the Eades/Colpo drama?  I really don't know what to think.  I am now experimenting with lowering my calories by having two meals a day that are low fat, such as ground chicken and boiled eggs.  I have dropped some weight from that and from cutting out as much sodium as I can (canned food mainly).  So far so good.  I've heard from two sources that this will break a stall, and that you can go back to eating more after the weight is lost.  Surely I don't have much more to lose; my goal is a flat stomach.  Right now I still have a bit of obliques and some fat on the front, very stubborn.
Dean

Re: The Calorie Issue

Robert wrote:
You guys following the Eades/Colpo drama?

I think it's safe to say we threw our share of gasoline on that fire! LOL

After all, the name of the Metabolic Ward forum didn't come from nowhere! Grin

AC's still wandering the catacombs below that place as we speak! Bonkers
Dean

Seriously, this subject has been debated a lot on the Bus.

Check out this thread for the latest.

http://magicbus.myfreeforum.org/about1328.html

Sunny
jeff

I can only relate my own experience.

I lost weight very easily while eating 2200-2500 calories per day on a VLC diet.  And I was not a terribly overweight at the time.  I know from past experience that on a high carb, low fat diet, I would not have lost fat at that calorie level.

Did I creat a calorie deficit?  I suppose by definition I must have.  But I have to think there is more to it than just calories in-calories out.  You have to set up the proper hormonal environment.
Dean

Setting up the proper hormonal environment will help one burn more calories. So, it's still calories in/calories out.

I'm so amazed at how people are so freaked out by the concept of calories. I think it's basically that they don't have a clue what calories are. They think calories are like grams of macronutrients or something, which they clearly are NOT.

Calories are a unit of measurement of heat.

I also think people don't understand that calories OUT is constantly changing, so that while calories IN may always be the same, calories OUT is never the same.

It's like if someone drove their car 100 mph down a highway, and another person walked 3 mph down the same highway, then the driver of the car said "wow, I got down that 2-mile stretch of road SO much quicker than the dude who was walking. I know I was using a car and hauling ass, but, there just HAS to be something else going on that explains why I got down that stretch SO much sooner than him." Confused

HELLO?! LOL

There's NOTHING else "going on". There's NOTHING "magical" happening. It's calories in/calories out. But, what type of metabolism are you using? A car going 100 mph, or a dude walking 3 mph?

In the end, it's food gets stored or it gets burned for fuel. Carbs can be burned up very easily, and, even if they are stored as fat, that fat is constantly being burned for fuel. It has to be, or you'd be dead real quick. Now, if you graze all day, and you keep your insulin levels up, and you keep adding carbs for more and more fat storage, you'll store more than you can burn, and you'll get fat.

The one big advantage of NOT eating carbs, is you won't gain. Futile cycles will burn the excess intake. It's been discussed numerous times on the Bus. But, people can lose weight very quickly on a high carb diet, and yes, with the same calories as on a high fat diet. The danger of that WOE is the toxic effects it has at the cellular level. Free radicals, etc. Much better to use fat for fuel.

Let's not mix up the two concepts. There's weight loss and then there's healthy metabolism. Two different things all together. Avoiding carbs is not just about losing weight. That's why CKD is so dangerous, even if it does help you lose weight. Besides for blood cells, burning glucose is very bad for you. It's not natural, and it's not healthy. That's the real metabolic advantage of using fat for fuel, and it has nothing to do with weight loss.
Robert

After work the other night I weighed myself on an electronic scale at the pharmacy in a big grocery store.  My weight was 150.5 lbs., one half pound over what I should weigh for my height.  The scale also said that....IIRC......that I would have to eat no more than 1450 calories but only for a day or two to lose that half pound.  The reality is all I would have to do is take off my steel-toe shoes and I would be under my ideal weight.
jeff

Robert wrote:
After work the other night I weighed myself on an electronic scale at the pharmacy in a big grocery store.  My weight was 150.5 lbs., one half pound over what I should weigh for my height.  The scale also said that....IIRC......that I would have to eat no more than 1450 calories but only for a day or two to lose that half pound.  The reality is all I would have to do is take off my steel-toe shoes and I would be under my ideal weight.

Well there you go!   LOL  Problem solved.
jeff

Here's a recent relevant exerpt from Mike Eades blog.
Quote:
Quote:
Since I started the previous post on this subject with a letter, I’ll do the same for part 2. God knows we have enough like these to fill a book. In fact, this one was in a book. We published the portion below in The Protein Power LifePlan.

A lady from New England wrote to us complaining that she had diligently followed our low-carb diet to the letter yet, had lost only four pounds over the first few weeks of the program. She included her food diary to show that she was indeed doing a low-carb diet. Here it is:

BREAKFAST: a four-egg omelet with cream cheese, five or six pieces of bacon or sausage, and coffee.

MID-MORNING SNACK: 4 ounces of nuts and 2 to 4 ounces of cheese.

LUNCH: a large bowl of tune or ham or chicken salad make with real mayonnaise, a bag of pork rinds, and a diet drink.

MID-AFTERNOON SNACK: nuts and cheese again.

DINNER: a 16 ounce piece of prime rib, a green vegetable, and a small salad.

DESSERT: sugar-free gelatin and whipped cream and coffee.

When we received this letter MD and I wanted to shake this woman and say: Does it not surprise you that you’re not gaining weight on your diet? I’m sure the only reason she lost the 4 pounds was that she dumped a bunch of excess fluid as a result of her insulin falling. If you run the calculations you will find that this woman was eating somewhere around 5,000 calories per day. She was definitely not creating a deficit. And she wasn’t losing…but she wasn’t gaining either.

The difficult part of any diet - including a low-carb diet - is the bucking up and staying with it during the weight loss phase. It’s pretty easy for most people right at the start because the weight comes off quickly at first, and most people feel so much better just getting off the carbs. As the early days turn into weeks and (in some cases) months, the diet becomes monotonous for many. Weight loss slows down, the great feelings of renewed health and more energy are still there, but have become the norm instead of something new and exciting, and the urge to expand the palate becomes intense.

First, it’s a little nibbling here and there of the forbidden foods, leading a carb creep. And, as I pointed out in the earlier post, many start snacking on calorically dense, low-carb foods, with cheese and nuts being the greatest offenders. Ultimately the weight loss goes from a crawl to stopping altogether. Frustration sets in, and many people bolt from the program saying: Hey, if this isn’t working for me, why am I torturing myself with it? From this mindset it’s a short hop to being face down in the donuts.

I can tell you from both personal experience and the experiences of thousands of patients that this middle time of low-carb dieting (the time between the heady early days and maintenance) can be a drag. And can be fraught with weight-gain peril if you get sloppy with your carb and/or calorie counting. But if you hang in there, you will be rewarded with great dividends.

Once you’ve reached maintenance you can pretty much eat all you want without gaining as long as you watch your carb intake. Like the lady who wrote the letter above, you can feast on all kinds of cheese, nuts, meats, etc. while remaining at your new lowered weight. The calories that come from these sources will sabotage your weight loss if you eat too many of them, but won’t make you gain weight as long as you keep your insulin low.

As you may recall from the earlier post, a lowered insulin levels opens the door to the fat cells, allowing fat to come out to be burned. If your dietary intake meets all your body’s energy needs, however, your body will simply use these dietary calories and leave the calories in your fat cells alone. And you won’t lose. But lowered insulin levels pretty much prevents fat from going into the fat cells, so even if your caloric intake goes up - as long as your insulin stays low - you won’t store more fat in the fat cells. And your weight will stay the same.

How can this be?

The phenomenon is pretty vividly demonstrated in people with type I diabetes, the type of diabetes in which no (or very little) insulin is produced. Most of the time these people get their diagnosis of diabetes when they come to the doctor because they are losing weight like crazy while eating everything in sight. It’s not all that unusual for a person with new onset type I diabetes (who isn’t aware of having the disorder) to lose 40 pounds in a month. These people have no insulin and a lot of glucagon. Without the insulin they can’t store fat, so they dump fat from their fat cells. Much of this fat is converted to ketones since there is no insulin to shut off the process. The glucagon makes them convert muscle protein to sugar even though their blood sugar levels are already sky high. The end result is that these people have elevated levels of sugar in their blood and elevated levels of ketones. They dump both sugar and ketones in their urine, but not enough to account for the amount of weight they lose. The combination of calories lost to ketones and urine can add up to a few pounds per month, but not 40. Other factors are at work. The body has the ability to waste calories, but doesn’t usually do so unless it has to. In the case of type I diabetes it has to. And people with uncontrolled type I diabetes eat and eat and eat and lose and lose and lose.

The same phenomenon holds true in low-carb dieting. Insulin is low and glucagon is high, making it difficult to gain weight. That’s not to say it can’t be done, but it is difficult. Which means that once you lose your weight and get to maintenance, if you keeps your carbs (and thus your insulin) low you can pretty much go back to snacking on cheese, nuts and other high-fat, high-caloric density foods without the fear of gaining. You won’t lose, but you don’t want to lose on maintenance. You simply want to maintain.

You will ditch these extra calories by a number of means. Your caloric-wasting systems will be going full blast. You will be futile cycling, increasing the mitochondrial proton leak, increasing the number of uncoupling proteins, and spending extra energy converting protein to glucose. You will also increase your NEAT. What’s NEAT? It’s Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. Your total energy expenditure is composed of four things: resting metabolic rate, the thermogenic effect from food (the energy required to metabolize what you eat), thermogenesis from exercise and activity, and NEAT. NEAT is from all the little things you do without conscious effort - fidgeting, moving more, moving more briskly, stretching, standing more, etc. These are activities that you don’t really think about but that you perform to dissipate extra energy. It’s why you feel more like exercising after you get going on a low-carb diet; it’s why you perceive your energy levels to be higher. And it’s why you’re less hungry. Your body has access to its stored fat and is using it and even wasting it. As Key’s showed in his semi-starvation studies, subjects on low-fat, reduced-calorie diets pretty much got rid of most of their NEAT in an effort to conserve energy. The opposite happens on a higher-calorie low-carb diet.

Blowing off this excess energy is what allows you (and the woman who wrote the letter at the start of this post) to eat a lot yet still maintain. But it comes at a price. There is a caveat.

If you crank up your intake of fat calories and at the same time increase your carb intake you are going to gain like crazy. Why? Because you will increase your insulin levels and drive this fat into the fat cells. And it will happen quickly.

Most people reading this will probably say, that would never happen to me. But it can and does. Especially when people start guestimating how many carbs they’re eating. A couple of years ago I posted about a survey done at the peak of the low-carb diet mania showing that people who thought they were on low-carb diets really weren’t. They were cutting the carbs, but not enough to bring about insulin lowering to the point required to enjoy the benefits of low-carb dieting. Men who claimed to be on low-carb diets were consuming on average about 145 grams (3/4 cup sugar equivalent) of carbs per day while women were eating on average 109 grams of carb per day. For most people this is way too much.

So, if you keep carbs low and keep calories in check you will lose weight. If you keep carbs low and don’t worry about the calories you will maintain. A commenter on the earlier post put it brilliantly and succinctly:

Eat low carb = you CAN’T GAIN fat.

Eat low carb ≠ you WILL LOSE fat. [unless, of course, you create a caloric deficit]

I noticed that in a number of comments about this post people had come to the same conclusion empirically. They wrote that whenever they jacked up their consumption of cheese, nuts and other calorically-dense low-carb foods their weight loss stalled. But as long as they kept the carbs low, they didn’t gain. As always, I welcome comments on this issue. I’m keen to hear the experiences of all.  



http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...alories-part-2/
Heather L

Jeff-  That post from Dr. Eades sums it up well.  Great points.
Dean

Thanks for posting this, jeff. Yah, you certainly know first hand how this works. I too had the same experience during Feb 1 - May 15th of this year. I was very close to zero carb, but, I had my calories WAY up with all the cheese and such in the first couple months. I stalled, but never gained a thing. During the latter part of that period, I began to restrict more calorically dense fatty food, like cheese, and I started slowly losing.  I'm totally convinced what is going on. Calories OUT on VLC is futile cycles and increased metabolism, and, as Eades says, on VLC, with low insulin and high glucagon, fat will leave the fat cells, and not enter it. The extra fat will get burned up in the mitochondria, through futile cycles.

So, it's very simple. If you wanna be healthy, eat a VLC/ZC carnivorous diet.

If you wanna maintain on this WOE, don't sweat what you eat.

If you wanna lose body fat on this WOE, WATCH YOUR CALORIES and create a deficit! Maybe cut fat back to 60%, or do lots of IF and smaller portions, and EXERCISE! Especially HIIT and resistance training!

Yes, it's really that simple. Cool Why complicate it?

Oh, and if you wanna go round and round with carb denial and all sorts of hormonal, thyroid, sexist nonsense and the like, well, there is a forum I would highly recommend you check out! Wink

Sorry, but, I just HAD to get that one in. LOL

Otherwise... stay on the Bus, and figure it out. We are carnivores, so let's get real and figure out what we can handle besides the animal food which is SO ESSENTIAL to our health.

It really is that simple, guys. Yup

Sunny
Robert

That was a good article from Dr Eades; I've been waiting for it.
Lynn

Dean wrote:
Oh, and if you wanna go round and round with carb denial and all sorts of hormonal, thyroid, sexist nonsense and the like, well, there is a forum I would highly recommend you check out! Wink


Which forum is this? I have been stalled forever and I find I eat more calories on VLC than I do on LC. Yet I am less hungry and prone to cravings on VLC so I don't know what to think. On VLC I often eat around 3000 calories a day; the meals I eat are big but they last me for hours and hours. On LC it's more like 2500, but I have to eat more often and feel cravings.

If I go to ZC can I ever add back in a small amount of veggies and nuts or does going ZC mean you lose your ability to handle these things again? Because if I know I only have to eat meat only for a temporary time I can do that, but the thought of NEVER being able to eat veggies or dark chocolate or dairy again is depressing.

Thank you. I am so glad I am not being judged here.
y0u

Lynn, have you tried calorie restriction?  High fat/moderate protein/calorie restriction broke my stall.  I eat around 1500-1600 calories a day. I am quite satisfied and never hungry.

btw..this thread is over 6 months old, not that it really matters.
Lynn

Yeah I did. I lost no weight when restricting calories. I never seem to lose no matter what so just praying for the strength to be patient over the next few months until my thyroid levels are back up.
Dean

Lynn,

Hormones are gonna control all of this. What are you doing for your thyroid now? Some believe that eating a ZCarnivore type diet, where animal fat is high, may help heal your metabolism. I know it helps mine. You can still eat veggies, since those don't have many carbs, although, the fiber is why I avoid them.

You will figure this out. We are here to support you and give you encouragement, and to learn from you as well. Nobody is going to judge you on the Bus.

Please keep us informed about what's going on with your situation. Start a journal if you want. Your perspective on this is highly appreciated.

Take care.

Sunny
Lynn

I started armour thyroid. However my body is very sensitive so I can only add in a 1/4 grain every two weeks. 3-5 grains is the optimum dose so to get it up to that dosage means a good six months. I tried adding the armour more quickly twice already and my body did not like it. Apparently some of us hypothyroid folks have to do it the very slow and steady way. I am one of those lucky ones....

I am currently eating VLC but during TOM got sucked into eating a LC bar. I know that crap is bad for me but I did it so no weight loss since. I just gotta climb back abroad the bus as am feeling very depressed.

Just read Matt Stone's 30 day ZC experiment and I am worrying now. However all the studies done which said that VLC is bad for hypothyroid patients were on diets of less than 1200 calories so to me that means the data is confounded as to whether it was the carbs that lowered thyroid levels or the very low calories. There is even one lady on another board who was able to ditch her thyroid meds by going VLC.

I just don't wanna make my metabolism any worse than it already is y'know? Losing weight on LC was so easy the first time around. If only I had never got off the bus..................
Dean

Lynn,

It may be possible that the animal fat is curative, so, perhaps getting plenty of that (and, thus plenty of calories) would help you out. It's all worth experimenting with, I suppose.

Hang in there.
Lynn

Dean - you are so kind and helpful. Thanks!

I am curious about what people say about adding more animal fat. I eat fatty cuts of meat such as chicken thighs and wings, lamb chops and ribeyes. I cook in butter. Do I need to go get some other fat from a butcher or something?
y0u

Lynn, I get free beef fat from my butcher and render it to make tallow.  I also eat a lot of beef bone marrow which is full of good fats.  This is somewhat new to me, so I only have very recent experience, but it seems to be working and gives me tons of energy.
Lynn

How do you render it? When you say beef fat do you mean strips of fat or like a tub of lard?

Where do you get beef bone marrow?
Dean

Lynn wrote:
How do you render it?

http://magicbus.myfreeforum.org/about122.html
y0u

I get beef marrow bones at my regular grocery store, or you can ask your butcher for them.  They are usually leg bones cut into 2-4 inch sections.

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