Yay vinegar, I've always loved vinegar. Chips(steak fries) with salt and vinegar is starting to look like ancient wisdom.
Acetic acid is the shortest possible saturated fat and can be fed straight into the Krebs cycle without needing beta-oxidation. I wonder what that's doing for you?
When you burn fat you take in oxygen and make quite a lot of carbon dioxide and water, which you then breathe out/piss out. So not needing to drink much water is probably a good sign.
Apparently camels don't actually store water in their humps, they store fat, which they can use to *make* water.
Also, you can use all of the logic in this post to argue that PUFAs are beneficial (or, at least, not harmful) to health because loading up on them doesn't cause immediate deleterious effects (beyond the maxxed-out current level of damage).
Some other reactions: (for some reason this post elicited a lot of reactions from me...)
> But I also did the exact same diet almost the entire year of 2024, and yet I was seemingly plateaued, bouncing around the 220lbs mark.
The Law of Diminishing Returns is brutal!
> There’s just a way that fat-gaining diets make me feel.
I remember you and Mac (a.k.a. "Metabolic Repair") having a similar conversation about how fat-losing diets both have you constantly urinating. I've certainly experienced it, too.
> It would be silly for me to expect a diet to work for me just because it worked for somebody else, especially if that somebody else was never very obese and just went from normal/slightly overweight to shredded.
Indeed, this is the key challenge with "health policy." Clearly, most people are metabolically messed up. But how do we fix them if they are each messed up in unique ways? There ought to be a more efficient way to get them oriented than having every person do a wide array of N=1 experiments. Hopefully companies like Patchwork will figure out systematic ways to solve this problem.
> Reversing (morbid) obesity & getting shredded are very different metabolic states and require radically different solutions.
This is so true: the diet that "worked" for me dropped my BMI from 24 to 21. That "diet" was basically "do what Mark Sisson and Brad Kearns say in their book *Two Meals a Day*." It was basically "eat different, move more."
> Metabolically messed up from a lifetime of whatever causes obesity (PUFA, western diets, cafeterias, ..)
The "cafeterias" was a nice touch 😄
> I’m open to the idea that, after a lifetime of obesity, there just isn’t a way for me to get down to 188lbs, or whatever BMI-normal is for me.
This was crushing for me to read. Godspeed, brother. There are a lot of people rooting for you!
1. Yea, my framework of experimentation (30 day trials) for sure is way too short for something long-acting like PUFA or the vitamin A diet. I've talked to several vA people, and all of them basically agree that doing 30 days of low-vA won't do or prove anything. So I'd have to commit for say 6 months to even make a dent. Similar for any reasonable PUFA trial, if not years.
2. I hope that it's not super unique. As in, we won't need to run 7 billion (or is it 8 now?) series of experiments, but maybe 30. I suspect there are 2-3 diets out there that will fix 85% of people. Then it probably starts turning into a long tail, and the final quy is super unique in every way. But I bet if we run people through the "Low PUFA, pick low-fat or low-carb, if it doesn't work try the other, if that doesn't work restrict protein" gauntlet we'll get 85% of people out of obesityland.
3. Cafeteria diet was always my favorite "scientists aren't serious people" thing. Even the Western Diet thing isn't accurate any more, as the Eastern World has largely adopted Western junk food and is having all of the same health problems now. India and China both have the same or higher diabetes rates as the U.S. now, I think.
4. Thanks. I'm still cautiously optimistic, but life doesn't have to be fair haha.
1. I don't think it's "the easy route." My weight loss was already more successful, faster, with no side effects than the best studied GLP-1s. They also just don't work at all, period, in quite a few people.
2. That's not particularly interesting. I want to solve the mystery of obesity. It's clearly not a lack of GLP-1 that our ancestors were injecting biweekly.
I wonder if the new glp1s will be better. I am taking retatrutide which has a lower appetite suppression and my running times have improved a lot. Something about glucagon increasing your energy levels.
My issue is, nobody seems to actually understand how these work. The side effects of the first 2 generations are terrifying, and the drug makers seem to refuse to do good studies on the weight loss aspect, lean mass loss, etc.
There clearly is an insane amount of lean mass loss in many of the people, and they look like skeletons, very unhealthy. I'd much rather look the way I do now (healthy, if a bit stocky) than that, even if there wasn't reports of various cancers, stomach issues, pancreas issues.. truly horrifying side effects.
In addition, it just misses the point entirely. Are we just going to pretend there is no mysterious obesity epidemic and pour GLP1 drugs into the tap water?! Wtf.
This is such a level of willful ignorance as a society I'm just not willing to put up with it lol.
I think they are worth a good hard look, which it looks like you've done. Most of the side effects are actually the effects of a) obesity, b) diabetes, or c) starving yourself. I.e. not caused by the drug but instead caused by what it treats or people abusing it.
I am just busy but the last two posts have so much I would like to unpack! Best probably in a DM, but for now some quick feedback:
1. Everyone in North America and Europe can make fun of NOVA and the difficulty of defining food types, but it looks increasingly plausible that eating mostly highly processed food, defined as commercially prepared and packaged edible (food-like) stuff containing ingredients and chemicals not found in home kitchens, are messing up with the brain / satiety mechanism, short-circuiting healthy metabolic processes and affecting our gut health.
2. BMI is a poor proxy for anything. If GLP-1 receptors work for 75% of those who take them, BMI works for maybe 70% or less of the population as an indicator of obesity. Maybe Ex-Fat you have arrived at your ideal weight. Body recomp is a different matter, mostly to do with training than eating. I like your taxonomy of diets, and once you found the food(s) that makes you feel full and not generate weight gain, you are done.
3. As a public health intervention, anything that works for 70% or so of patients taking a drug is worth trying. GLP-1 medications may be key to stem the increase in obesity.
4. Trying to find the single issue creating the obesity epidemic (it's see oils! It's fat! It's vitamin A!) is unhelpful. It is multi-factorial and we may never quite fully understand it.
Thank you as always for your thoughtful, well researched, and generous in sharing knowledge posts. Take care.
Yay vinegar, I've always loved vinegar. Chips(steak fries) with salt and vinegar is starting to look like ancient wisdom.
Acetic acid is the shortest possible saturated fat and can be fed straight into the Krebs cycle without needing beta-oxidation. I wonder what that's doing for you?
It sure feels like an energy boost.
Also it almost seems like people knew what they were doing before we re-invented everything to Make It Better (tm)
When you burn fat you take in oxygen and make quite a lot of carbon dioxide and water, which you then breathe out/piss out. So not needing to drink much water is probably a good sign.
Apparently camels don't actually store water in their humps, they store fat, which they can use to *make* water.
Also, you can use all of the logic in this post to argue that PUFAs are beneficial (or, at least, not harmful) to health because loading up on them doesn't cause immediate deleterious effects (beyond the maxxed-out current level of damage).
Some other reactions: (for some reason this post elicited a lot of reactions from me...)
> But I also did the exact same diet almost the entire year of 2024, and yet I was seemingly plateaued, bouncing around the 220lbs mark.
The Law of Diminishing Returns is brutal!
> There’s just a way that fat-gaining diets make me feel.
I remember you and Mac (a.k.a. "Metabolic Repair") having a similar conversation about how fat-losing diets both have you constantly urinating. I've certainly experienced it, too.
> It would be silly for me to expect a diet to work for me just because it worked for somebody else, especially if that somebody else was never very obese and just went from normal/slightly overweight to shredded.
Indeed, this is the key challenge with "health policy." Clearly, most people are metabolically messed up. But how do we fix them if they are each messed up in unique ways? There ought to be a more efficient way to get them oriented than having every person do a wide array of N=1 experiments. Hopefully companies like Patchwork will figure out systematic ways to solve this problem.
> Reversing (morbid) obesity & getting shredded are very different metabolic states and require radically different solutions.
This is so true: the diet that "worked" for me dropped my BMI from 24 to 21. That "diet" was basically "do what Mark Sisson and Brad Kearns say in their book *Two Meals a Day*." It was basically "eat different, move more."
> Metabolically messed up from a lifetime of whatever causes obesity (PUFA, western diets, cafeterias, ..)
The "cafeterias" was a nice touch 😄
> I’m open to the idea that, after a lifetime of obesity, there just isn’t a way for me to get down to 188lbs, or whatever BMI-normal is for me.
This was crushing for me to read. Godspeed, brother. There are a lot of people rooting for you!
1. Yea, my framework of experimentation (30 day trials) for sure is way too short for something long-acting like PUFA or the vitamin A diet. I've talked to several vA people, and all of them basically agree that doing 30 days of low-vA won't do or prove anything. So I'd have to commit for say 6 months to even make a dent. Similar for any reasonable PUFA trial, if not years.
2. I hope that it's not super unique. As in, we won't need to run 7 billion (or is it 8 now?) series of experiments, but maybe 30. I suspect there are 2-3 diets out there that will fix 85% of people. Then it probably starts turning into a long tail, and the final quy is super unique in every way. But I bet if we run people through the "Low PUFA, pick low-fat or low-carb, if it doesn't work try the other, if that doesn't work restrict protein" gauntlet we'll get 85% of people out of obesityland.
3. Cafeteria diet was always my favorite "scientists aren't serious people" thing. Even the Western Diet thing isn't accurate any more, as the Eastern World has largely adopted Western junk food and is having all of the same health problems now. India and China both have the same or higher diabetes rates as the U.S. now, I think.
4. Thanks. I'm still cautiously optimistic, but life doesn't have to be fair haha.
Agreed on the "85-15 rule" for experimentation. You might be "the final guy," though! (But I hope not.)
Have you considered taking the easy road and getting a GLP1?
Apologies if you have already discussed this, I haven't been following closely recently.
1. I don't think it's "the easy route." My weight loss was already more successful, faster, with no side effects than the best studied GLP-1s. They also just don't work at all, period, in quite a few people.
2. That's not particularly interesting. I want to solve the mystery of obesity. It's clearly not a lack of GLP-1 that our ancestors were injecting biweekly.
I wrote about my thoughts here: https://www.exfatloss.com/p/the-totally-speculative-reason-i
Thanks for the reply.
I wonder if the new glp1s will be better. I am taking retatrutide which has a lower appetite suppression and my running times have improved a lot. Something about glucagon increasing your energy levels.
Then again at some point performance enhancing drugs have always been around
My issue is, nobody seems to actually understand how these work. The side effects of the first 2 generations are terrifying, and the drug makers seem to refuse to do good studies on the weight loss aspect, lean mass loss, etc.
There clearly is an insane amount of lean mass loss in many of the people, and they look like skeletons, very unhealthy. I'd much rather look the way I do now (healthy, if a bit stocky) than that, even if there wasn't reports of various cancers, stomach issues, pancreas issues.. truly horrifying side effects.
In addition, it just misses the point entirely. Are we just going to pretend there is no mysterious obesity epidemic and pour GLP1 drugs into the tap water?! Wtf.
This is such a level of willful ignorance as a society I'm just not willing to put up with it lol.
I think they are worth a good hard look, which it looks like you've done. Most of the side effects are actually the effects of a) obesity, b) diabetes, or c) starving yourself. I.e. not caused by the drug but instead caused by what it treats or people abusing it.
I am just busy but the last two posts have so much I would like to unpack! Best probably in a DM, but for now some quick feedback:
1. Everyone in North America and Europe can make fun of NOVA and the difficulty of defining food types, but it looks increasingly plausible that eating mostly highly processed food, defined as commercially prepared and packaged edible (food-like) stuff containing ingredients and chemicals not found in home kitchens, are messing up with the brain / satiety mechanism, short-circuiting healthy metabolic processes and affecting our gut health.
2. BMI is a poor proxy for anything. If GLP-1 receptors work for 75% of those who take them, BMI works for maybe 70% or less of the population as an indicator of obesity. Maybe Ex-Fat you have arrived at your ideal weight. Body recomp is a different matter, mostly to do with training than eating. I like your taxonomy of diets, and once you found the food(s) that makes you feel full and not generate weight gain, you are done.
3. As a public health intervention, anything that works for 70% or so of patients taking a drug is worth trying. GLP-1 medications may be key to stem the increase in obesity.
4. Trying to find the single issue creating the obesity epidemic (it's see oils! It's fat! It's vitamin A!) is unhelpful. It is multi-factorial and we may never quite fully understand it.
Thank you as always for your thoughtful, well researched, and generous in sharing knowledge posts. Take care.