ex115salmon review: Don't eat fish

Gained 1lb, DEXA happy, sunburn

FISH IS LITERALLY TRYING TO KILL YOU

fish, literally trying to kill you

tl;dr:

• 30 day salmon experiment went very mixed at best.

• DEXA said lowest body fat ever (31.0%)

• Lean mass at 146lbs just like the very first DEXA I ever got

• Visceral fat down

• Everything else is downside

• Gained 1lb over the 30 days

• Had several “weird, that doesn’t feel quite good” moments throughout

• Fish is smelly and kinda disgusting

• Got severe sunburn from a few hours of mild sun exposure 2 days after ending the experiment - hadn’t gotten any sunburn all last year!

Why ex115salmon?

I recently read & reviewed the book Omega Balance. It makes the point that avoiding linoleic acid (omega-6 PUFA) is important, but eating lots of omega-3 PUFA (EPA/DHA) is just as important, and that it’s really the balance of these in the cell membranes that makes all the difference.

The biggest source of omega-3 fatty acids is fatty fish like salmon. Since farmed salmon is much higher in overall fat, and salmon just put on the soybean crap they’re fed in salmon farms as body fat, their omega balance is actually pretty bad.

So I obviously decided to only eat wild-caught Alaskan salmon. Almost all of the salmon was sockeye, except for 2 pieces of keta or coho salmon (I forget).

My main source was the Whole Foods 365 wild-caught Alaskan frozen sockeye salmon. A few times I got similar wild-caught Alaskan sockeye from different stores but I’d say about 20-25 out of the 30 days I ate that one.

115g

I wanted to protein-match my usual 150g of 80/20 ground beef. I almost didn’t, and nearly went for ex150salmon. I’m glad I didn’t do that, because then I would’ve blamed the extra protein for this experiment not working out so great. This way, with the protein-matched amount, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the protein.

By the way, salmon is extremely lean. They might be fatty for fish, but I think it’s fair to call them the “chicken of the sea.”

The protein/fat ratio of wild-caught sockeye is higher than that of 95/5 ground beef. My daily lunch meal was so lacking in fat that I found myself intuitively adding tons more cream throughout the day, just to make up for it.

Weight

It looked great in the beginning. After gaining about 6lbs during my 2 day protein refeed, the weight came off quickly and I was back <219lbs only 3 days into the experiment. Soon after, I hit a new record low of 217.3lbs. One evening halfway through, I even saw 216.9lbs flash on the scale!

And then, for some reason, almost exactly at the halfway point, my weight began rising slowly but steadily. At first I thought it was just a temporary thing, maybe from exercising or some other random factor. But it kept going up and up, albeit slowly. I ended the 30 days about 1lb higher than I started.

DEXA is happy?

I got a DEXA scan near the end of the experiment, and I walked into it downtrodden and feeling like it would show I gained fat.

But it showed my lowest body fat percentage ever, down by 0.9% from last month.

So… yay?

Specifically, it claimed I’d lost 1.7lbs of fat and gained 2.8lbs of lean mass in the last month. This brought my lean mass exactly to the 146lbs that I had on my very first DEXA scan.

Now I don’t think that salmon is super anabolic and I magically gained 2.8lbs of muscle in a real sense. I did continue working out with my x3 during this month, and the training went pretty well. More on that later.

I’d seen both fat and lean mass go up before, just in different ratios, which can change your body fat percentage. E.g. when you retain more water, but your lean mass retains more than your fat mass or vice versa.

But fat down, lean up - that made me pretty happy.

Still, very mysterious that I’d gained weight overall.

Visceral fat dramatically down

Visceral fat is the fat around your inner organs. Some people say it’s way worse than “normal” subcutaneous body fat, because it can inhibit and even damage your organs over time. For example, Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which can damage the liver. It’s associated with diabesityheimer.

My visceral fat had been the lowest ever last month, but not by much, and it had always sort of fluctuated, so I didn’t pay much attention.

This time, it had dropped again by quite a bit to 2lbs. This meant it was 50% down (!) from my original DEXA, when it was 3lbs. At one point I was actually above 3.5lbs.

I suppose a 1lb or 50% reduction in visceral fat in 2 months is quite encouraging. Not sure if I should attribute this to the salmon, since the trend began the month before, on boring old ex150-9.

In any case, I’m not super focused on visceral fat. It’s a nice-to-have.

Confounders

As always, there are TONS of confounding factors. Maybe more than normal.

• Daylight Savings Time

• Melatonin

• Exercise

• Linoleic acid from previous weight loss

Daylight Savings Time

DST is my nemesis. It’s messed me up every year since I can remember, often for 1-2 months. Last year was particularly bad, and I attributed my 6 month weight loss plateau in the summer to it.

In retrospect I don’t think that’s enough to explain it, but it probably didn’t help to be sleep deprived all the time.

The ex115salmon experiment began 10 days after the DST switch. The weird thing would’ve been that I continued to lose for about 2-3 weeks after that, when it was most severe, and THEN stalled. Not impossible, but..

Melatonin

This year was maybe the least I’ve ever been impacted by DST, at least as long as I can remember. When I was completely messed up the first week, barely able to function at work, a friend recommended I take 500mcg of melatonin.

I’d previously experimented with melatonin, but the tablets I’d gotten were 3mg, which is way too much. Even cutting them into thirds knocked me out.

The 500mcg are a more physiologically normal level. I took them around 10-11pm, and I’d reliably become sleepy 2h later.

This seems to have helped “pull” my circadian rhythm forward, and after about 7-10 days of taking the melatonin, I naturally/intuitively stopped - I just felt like I didn’t need it any more, I was getting sleepy on my own.

Ever since, maybe my sleep hasn’t been 100%, but definitely in the “pretty good” range above 85%.

That means that I actually didn’t suffer real bad from DST for even 2 weeks this year, compared to the 1-2 months last year.

On the other hand, maybe the melatonin had an effect on fat loss? Then again I kept losing weight during the time I took it, and a few days after that.

Exercise

I had a weird thing happen during my x3 strength training the day just before the weight gain began: I got massive bruises on my left biceps and forearm.

Having just reached a new record for front squats, this was the first time I used the black band, which is the most difficult band in the basic x3 package. In the front squat, you carry the barbell on your shoulders, guided by your hands with your elbows sticking forward.

That means the barbell presses down on your hands, compressing your forearms and biceps together.

The black band is a monster. The first time I tried deadlifting with it, I couldn’t complete a single rep. I have deadlifted 250lbs for reps before, and I think I hit 300lbs at least once. Those aren’t big numbers, but just to give you an idea of how heavy a band the black band is.

So when I finished my front squats, I noticed that my left arm was completely bruised up. Apparently, the black band had compressed my arms together so much that it caused bruising that lasted for several days. Not sure why it only happened in my left arm, since I’m right handed. Maybe because it is weaker? Or maybe my grip was not as stable there?

Exercise can increase water retention, and so can inflammation and probably bruising. For a few days after this exercise session, I assumed this was temporary and would go back down.

But it kept going up for the next 2 weeks, if slowly. Hm.

Linoleic acid from previous weight loss

As mentioned last time, my most recent OmegaQuant test actually showed the highest linoleic acid I’ve ever had.

This is “not good” in the sense that high linoleic acid in your cell membranes is bad. It could be good in the sense that this is linoleic acid liberated from the body fat I lost. I had lost 4lbs between the last 2 OmegaQuant tests, in a relatively short time frame, and 7lbs again since last November.

In fact, the only time my LA has ever gone DOWN between OmegaQuants was when I stalled in weight for 3 months straight last summer.

It could be that there’s some sort of self-limiting body fat dynamic at work, which would explain why people yo-yo so much when dieting.

1. You lose adipose tissue by some means

2. Linoleic acid from that adipose tissue enters your bloodstream

3. It’s incorporated into your cell membranes

4. For the next few months, those cells don’t work as well, possibly causing weight regain

5. You have to “battle” the broken cells until they get rebuilt again with healthy fatty acids a few months later

Maybe you have to burn some fat, including some LA, and then sit around on a plateau, waiting for the LA to go back down again as new cells are being turned over?

If so, I suppose I’m in for a rough summer once more - after all, I tested at over 20% LA, the highest ever, last month.

By the way, I’ve already mailed in another OmegaQuant from after ex115salmon. I’m quite sure my omega-3 will be much higher than before, but will my LA have gone up, down, or stayed the same? DEXA claims I lost about 2lbs, so maybe it’ll be even higher. Or maybe the omega-3 PUFAs helped battle the LA and it went down?

Random observations

Salmon tastes pretty good

When I ate sardines for 14 days previously, I fucking hated them. I’ve never been a big fish eater. Salmon is pretty much the only fish I’ve ever voluntarily ordered. I don’t even really like fried fish. It just tastes like nothing - if you’re lucky.

So I was pleasantly surprised that the sockeye salmon tasted pretty good. I wouldn’t say it’s as good as (fatty) ground beef, but then again, salmon is the chicken of the sea - about the same as 96/4 ground beef, which I would describe as near-flavorless.

I never got entirely tired of the salmon, even on day 30 I enjoyed the meal. But I did kind of miss the ground beef, and I was glad to have it back after the experiment was over.

Oh, about the meal: I just replaced the beef with salmon. The cooking process was way more involved, since you can’t burn the shit out of salmon like I do with my beef.

Instead, I heated butter in a pan, seared the salmon 4 minutes on medium high, then flipped and did the other side. Then took the salmon out, seared up my vegetables in the butter, added sauce, and added the salmon back in to mix it all together.

It made sort of a gumbo/stew type of situation, which was pretty nice.

Even my standard sauces of alfredo/tomato went well with it.

If I give my beef ex150 meal a 10/10 in terms of flavor, the salmon one would probably be an 8.5 or 9.

Pain to cook/throw out

Cutting and portioning salmon is a pain in the butt. It doesn’t come in neat packages like ground beef, and you can’t dry fish in the fridge for 3 days like I do with my beef. Even when freshly thawed, the salmon stunk like hell. I started taking the trash out every day because it got so disgusting so quickly near the trash can.

People tell me that “fish that smells isn’t good fish.”

Ok, then good fish doesn’t exist, I guess. If Whole Foods wild-caught, frozen isn’t good enough, then I guess fish is out entirely. I’m not starting my own fish pond.

Training went very well

My lifts went very well over this period. I suppose the 2 day super duper high protein refeed helped, or maybe the salmon contributed as well? I don’t really see how, since I’ve never heard anyone ascribe amazing strength or muscle benefits to salmon. It was even protein matched.

Nonetheless, whatever the reason, I broke quite a few PRs in various x3 lifts during this experiment, especially in the middle.

Here are my current stats on the lifts:

Biceps curl: 30 (white)
Bent row: 25 (light gray)
Chest press: 15 (black)
Calf raise: 27 (black)
Deadlift: 24 (dark gray)
Front squat: 15 (black, but tbh less than perfect ROM)
Overhead press: 23 (white)
Triceps press: 29 (dark gray)

No “miscellaneous benefits” from the salmon

The Omega Balance book mentions a lot of “random” benefits that some people allegedly experience when fixing their Omega Balance. Stuff like feeling calmer, sleeping better, having better concentration, stuff like that. Let’s call it “mental benefits.”

I was kind of excited if some of these would happen to me. After all, going on keto had given me much more mental clarity and relaxation, plus it fixed my Non-24. Maybe I’d get other random, cool benefits from eating salmon?

Unfortunately, there were no benefits. If you read my Twitter feed from this experiment, I’m the same combative asshole I’ve always been.

Could be that I already had all the benefits from ketosis, or from avoiding linoleic acid for a year and a half. Or maybe the DHA doesn’t actually do any of the miracles ascribed to it.

The Refeed

After the 30 days of salmon, I was super happy to go back to beef. Originally, I’d planned to do only a 1 day refeed on a Friday. But then Circumstances happened, and I traveled the whole weekend. I decided to extend the refeed to 3 days, but I didn’t overdo it in terms of protein this time. I made myself so sick last time that I just scaled it way down.

Friday I ate a ribeye steak with roquefort cream sauce (melted a whole bunch of roquefort into cream). Plus more cheese, although it wasn’t more than half a pound in total.

I also bought a dark chocolate bar (92% if I remember) - and couldn’t finish it. I actually ended up throwing the bar away, having finished maybe 1/3 of it. I think I simply can’t take dark chocolate any more. This started happening during my chocolate truffle fat fast.

I’m not sure if I just ruined dark chocolate for myself in some “flavor” or “taste” psychological sense, too much of a good thing. I’ve eaten ground 80/20 beef for the last 1.5 years and haven’t gotten sick of it yet.

Or maybe, as I got leaner and my metabolism got fixed more and more, the extremely saturated fats in the dark chocolate are becoming too much in some cellular sense? I’ve heard that “normal people” don’t eat a whole bar of 95% chocolate in one sitting. So maybe I’m “healing.”

It got so extreme that after forcing down 2 pieces of chocolate, I couldn’t finish my coffee (!) with copious cream (!!!).

Imagine that. Me, putting down a cup of iced, cold brew coffee with lots of cream in it.

I’m not sure this has happened… ever?

For days 2 & 3 of the refeed, the travel days, I kept it pretty simple. I had smoked brisket (no sauce, no sides) for lunch, 2 McDonald’s beef patties for dinner, and on one day I had a small pack of beef jerky from a Love’s truck stop and some hard boiled eggs. The ingredients were actually pretty decent, not like some of those other mainstream jerkies. It said 20g of protein for the whole pack.

Compared to the over 200g of protein per day I ate during the last refeed, this one was relatively mild.

The Sunburn (dum dum dum)

So I was kind of down after I gained 1lb, then kinda happy when the DEXA came in, then kind of down again when the weight didn’t seem to come off.

And on the third day of the refeed, I spent a few hours outside on a partly cloudy day. As I wrote about before, I was almost entirely immune to sunburn last summer. I could spend hours shirtless and not even get pink by the evening.

Imagine my surprise when my face and neck started hurting on the drive home. And then hurting more. And then I looked in the rear view mirror and the shape of my sunglasses was etched into my face. Same for the neck line of my shirt.

Had 30 days of eating 115g salmon turned me from a figurative into a literal redneck? My neck is still painful to the touch and red-hot inflamed a day later. Even just seconds in direct sunlight make it flare up in pain. It’s not blistering, but just two or three levels below.

Omega-3 is allegedly protective against sunburn, but I wonder if those studies are just looking at people eating a PUFA-laden Standard American Diet. Maybe omega-3 is protective when it replaces omega-6, but not when added to a low-PUFA diet?

Or maybe, double bonds gonna double bond? DHA has 6 double bonds, whereas linoleic acid only has 2. That makes DHA drastically more prone to oxidation. People argue that the oxidation products aren’t as toxic, but maybe they’re just not as well studied.

Or maybe it wasn’t the salmon at all? My RBC linoleic acid on the OmegaQuant had skyrocketed to over 20% before the salmon experiment started. Maybe my skin cells had turned over in the same time, and incorporated all that linoleic acid into their phospholipids? They take 10-30 days to get replaced, as explained in this post.

In which case, losing body fat would have caused my suddenly becoming vulnerable to sunburn again.

I will say, not sure if this is for or against this hypothesis: I did notice a few things during the salmon month, starting around the middle. Small things that I thought I was making up.

For example, I’d gotten into the habit of taking very hot baths. What used to be painfully hot water was now just very, very hot water - the pain had disappeared, just like the sunburn.

Yet a few times during the salmon experiment, upon taking my usual bath, I found myself surprisingly red and inflamed looking after. It’s just the lighting, I thought. Maybe you turned it up too hot.

I also got a few cramps the last weeks. Nothing major, just very tiny spasm type things. Again, easy to “over notice” and over interpret if you’re looking for stuff.

But it was weird because cramps had entirely disappeared for me, to the point that I didn’t remember them. I used to have cramps quite frequently. But 6 months into ex150, they were completely gone, and I don’t think I'd had a single one the entire year before the salmon experiment, including when exercising with the x3.

The sudden reoccurence of cramps, even mild ones, was weird. In retrospect, maybe these were little signs?

Fatty Fish is a psyop

There’s a debate in the PUFA camp over omega-3 and fatty fish. Some say it’s good, cause o3 balances o6. Some say it’s bad, because double bonds gonna double bond and omega-3s have even more of them than omega-6s.

I started out slightly in the latter (anti-fish) camp, mostly because I’ve never liked fish. The Omega Balance book pulled me slightly over to the pro-fish side.

This experiment has put me quite a bit back over into the anti-fish/anti-omega-3 side. Honestly, neither side has good studies, and the anecdotes are much worse and incongruent than even saturated fat, cutting out PUFAs, or high/low protein.

But imagine this: there’s an intervention you could do. All you have to do is eat a food regularly that tastes worse, is more expensive, is a pain to portion/cut, smells disgusting, make you take the trash out every day, you don’t lose weight on it, you don’t get the alleged mental benefits, and maybe it gives you cramps and sunburn.

Maybe I can’t prove that salmon did cramps & sunburn, but it certainly didn’t seem to have any of the magical effects either.

Heck, omega-3 is supposed to PROTECT you from sunburn!

People on Twitter immediately began the process of coping.

Nobody is saying to eat fatty fish 7x per week! The recommendation is 2x per week!

Ok, but is 2x per week healthy and 7x per week is obviously toxic? That seems like a very important detail, which somebody should’ve mentioned.

The Japanese people eat fish, and they’re very healthy!

Turns out there is data on this: the Japanese eat around 63g/day/capita of fish. I ate 115g, almost exactly double that. And I’m sure the Japanese don’t exclusively eat fatty fish like salmon, but also leaner fish and seafood. Meaning the average Japanese almost certainly gets at most 50% of the omega-3 I was eating, and probably significantly less than that. If I were a betting man, I’d wager that the 63g of fish are on average 1/4 as fatty as salmon, since most fish are essentially fat free. 100g of tuna contain less than half a gram of total fat and about 0.1g omega-3 PUFA. That’s about 1/10th of sockeye.

In other words, the Japanese might on average get between 1/4th and 1/10th of the omega-3 I was consuming.

And if it’s toxic at 1g per day, why eat it at all?

What’s next? ex150-10

I previously made a rule for myself: after every failed experiment, I have to do at least 1 run of OG ex150. Since I consider this experiment mostly failed, I’ve started doing the 10th run of ex150. Honestly, just getting a round number is sweet too.

Getting back to beef is just great, and I recently rendered a new batch of grass-fed suet I’ve acquired, that I’m using to cook the beef (I was using only butter for the salmon).