For protein, have you considered essential amino acids (EAAs)? I use plain EAAs, which taste vinegary. This is off-putting for many, but I'm fine with it. I also mix EAAs with cream, which hides the vinegary flavor. And I mix EAAs with pomegranate powder (I seem to be one of the fortunate ~10% of US residents who have a gut microbiome that can produce urolithin A from this and other food sources).
At some point I will write an article about my experience with EAAs. Briefly: various aspects of fitness seem to survive much longer without training, and greatly reduced (or even eliminated) delayed onset muscle soreness.
For more added recent confusion ( that's actually expected as a combination of genetic and epigenetic minimally understood variables !) here is a very good cross-sectional modeling rigurous study that was unable to make one decent inference in a fairly homogeneous population (Finland) while looking at 153 clinical and cardiometabolic traits .
The whole ( huge !) datasets used in the this robust study is even available ( you just need to apply and be vetted by their committee).
It's a good idea to look at their well organized bibliography to get even more detailed confusing information, if you wish so.
Me, I just got some local washed rind cheese and accepted that it's dopamine generating addiction , along the vast available variety at the neighbouring Atwater Market cheese mongers.
There are some mizpels ( I do that enthusiastically a lot) . like rabbit hole ( not hile) , etc.
As a disclosure I send from a, debatably, pocketable device and have fat fingers and bad eyesight. Sometimes I transcribe from my lab lithographic notes, with minimal prior understanding of how language is actually used.
French translation will follow. ( Québec law 21 disclaimer)
That's some intense metabolic yo-yo you're looking... I am impressed with the dedication. Not sure about the extremely low sample size and cross section diversity of the cohort.
As are the consequences or lack thereof of that . It may or may not.
Empirically, maybe not because you're evidently very self aware and tuned to your body and moods. ( I am personally working on only that part for some time).
I can suggest a probable ( not necessarily true) hypothesis on satiety of whipped cream vs liquid and gelified ( jelloed ?!) varieties.
The inclusion of thousands of air bubbles insures mechanical distention, so gastric baroreceptors are stimulated earlier.
Also, fat being a taste and a satiety component of food, is having a better exposure to the fat receptors ( starting from mouth and going down) by just touching a bigger area due to increased volume.
Cheapest tasty collagen - tendon and cartilage ( big cartilaginous articulations - bone soup ). Parsnip and onion have basically no calories for some great taste and micronutrients. You'll have to get very tedious calculations to figure out collagen ammount.
As a note - the proteolysis pathway ( mediated by mostly various proteases) but also some (varying degrees) of molecular absorption mechanism of the resultant is slightly different from lean muscle mass and collagen .
Because different protein and peptide chains are broken down by specific enzymes ( proteases).
The signal peptide ( N or C terminal ) is one of the many variables- that are present in your comparison of different ( qualitative) proteins.
Look at signal peptides .
On top of that , there are some proteins that need to be "activated " when the results of the initial breakdown needs to be " reassembled " ( mostly simple aminoacids and simple peptides).
That happens at ribosome level ( mostly in Golgi apparatus) where the ARN " blueprint is used to " translate " ( that's the protein translation phase ) in order to create a functional form of protein required for your specific needs of the moment.
There are sooo many confounding variables, that's borderline impossible to list in a book. And that's the small fraction of what we know with some decent ( but not definitive) probability.
For the ones ( most ) needed activation, there a pre-protein stage, that has ( usually) an uncleaved "signal protein " ( N or C terminal) .
That needs yet another extra step to remove that terminal " residue" ( necessary to be recognized and "protect" the pro-protein ) in order to become an active, "mature " protein.
And that's just a very small part of why it's very hard to quantify the energy required for the various breakdowns of nutrients ( in your quest) and rebuilding required protein or fat that also depends on your body cell " memory" of what is you in a certain environment, genetics, season, emotional state, season, activity, ambient conditions, etc ( interminable and many variables that we are even blindsided)
If you want to get a vague idea , here are 6 keywords ( I can give you 200 , but these , if you follow the rabbit hile, will give you a glimpse)
Wow, if I'm honest most of that went way over my head ;) Would you agree that "protein is really complicated and we basically don't understand it?" That's sort of the impression I get when I look into it.
Unfortunately, this mechanistic complexity and confusion makes it impossible for me to make a good decision based on.
One heuristic would be what you describe, basically "grandma boiled the bones and drank the soup, maybe I should boil the bones and drink the soup." The paleo principle, if you will.
Another would be to try random stuff and see if you can find a trend/effect. The issue is, of course, that n=1 experiments are noisy and confounded enough as they are. E.g. this collagen experiment, which basically told me almost nothing. Except maybe that adding 40g of collagen doesn't outright ruin everything, at most I gained a little bit of fat on top of the water.
I've also heard from someone else who is also into "whole" collagen like tendons that she doesn't have any issues with loads of tendons and that sort of thing, but collagen powder actually gives her issues. So maybe the "whole food matrix vs. isolated, processed element thereof" issue is at play too.. because it wasn't confusing enough as it is.
I will say, taking protein powder felt... stupid. I don't know. I just felt stupid adding a powder to my coffee. Felt like I was depriving myself of a real food that I could've eaten instead.
As to your theory about the air bubbles and satiety, that sounds pretty reasonable. I don't know the exact mechanism, but quite clearly something is at play here. The difference is really quite stark, and all that changes is the texture.
"would you agree that protein is really complicated and we basically don't understand it?" . Yes, I fully agree and it's an understatement.
Your very correct observation of powdered "proteins" vs " grandma soup " paleo or haute cuisine is the tendency to oversimplify ( to keep some sanity ) and hype ( that's one of the main drivers from academic research, "nutriceuticals industry " that picked on a correlation and make hilarious ( if would not be actually deleterious or sometimes ( best case) of no real effect- eating collagen doesn't guarantee and it's not even an implication of the protein assembled.
A bovine has no issue getting some awesome collagen ( pot roast drooling) from a fairly narrow vegetarian diet.
There's completely different enzymatic and cleavage and peptide proteins from the available aminoacids.
Some dont even need exogenous vitamins ( most boreal marine mammals). Or dogs( they make their own Vitamin C - of scurvy's hominid notoriety)
The gastric distention ( measured by mechanoreceptors at the end of nervous sensors )
I did ( also stupidly) drink chocolate whey protein. Was because I liked the taste . Gained weight and modified my gut microbiota ( would have probably been able to offset my then carbon print if used an ambulant biogas capture and micro power plant !? ).
Yea I've also found that flavored protein powders are very, very bad for me. I was always suspicious of the sweeteners, even stevia and monk fruit. And now I'm suspicious of the powder itself on top of that.
This is the phase of the trial I've most been looking forward to observing. There are some variables I'd love to see measured, for instance your PUFA % bf.
Given your love of tinkering and enthusiasm for the unorthodox, you might be able to rebalance the love/hate for resistance training by taking up the use of massive resistance bands instead of weights. Might also help prevent injury, but mostly the benefit is that it provides an entirely different experience of resistance training, one unmoored from previous burn-out (if that's been your problem). Also easier to use outdoors for minmaxing sunlight.
Edit; forgot to list the other metrics I'm especially curious about on the higher protein: blood glucose/insulin, changes in testosterone (confounded by adding exercise), and changes in inflammatory markers (not sure if your tests have previously included c-reactive protein and whatever the other ones are).
Spoiler alert: that's exactly what I'm doing ;) Figured nobody will give me any points for jacking up my knees just so I can say I threw some iron around.
I do have CRP in all my blood tests, so if anything changes, it should show up.
On T specifically, I do seem to have tons of total T floating around, but it's not doing much w/o a stimulus is my understanding. Apparently you need to actually work out, and then the T receptor sites on the muscle will open up (?) and maybe all that T will go in and make the muscle big or something.
So maybe my total T will go down, but I'll actually get some muscle? But pure speculation ;)
Something like the x3 bar setup is easy to DIY. I like doing zercher squats with a wide version of the base.
Also if you're really looking for a good time, try connecting multiple bands of the same size together in series with giant carabiners, so that you're standing 2, 3, or 4x further from the anchor. Increases the size of the 'sweet spot' in the stretch.
I just bought the x3 bar. It's not actually that much compared to a gym membership or squat rack, especially if you use it longer term. Plus he's always got discount codes.
Again, I'm not surprised you already have it. Though for squats and good-mornings I find a nicely sanded and much longer 2x12 with blocks screwed the corners works better (more resistance, wider base for the triangle).
I just got started with his 12 week program this week, and it's kicking my butt even with the lightest band so far, lol. Although I think a lot of that is getting comfortable with the feel and "logistics" of the setup.
Half of the exercises seem bodybuilder/aesthetic: calf raises, bicep curl, tricep press, even row. I don't even care for chest/bench, tbh.
If you were to simulate a traditional starter PL program like Starting Strength or 5x5, you could just do deads, squat, overhead press, and chest press.
Not sure if that would negatively impact something something hormonal... *shrug* so for now I'm just doing the 12 week program and see how that goes.
When I was a kid - 50 years ago - my Mum would make a mixed cream and jelly (UK) pudding. U just have to figure out how to make it? Maybe make the jello and as it cools, but before it sets too much, whip up that bastard with cream!
Hi, I just came across your blog and I think what you're doing is really cool, but i have a sort of vague doubt about the approach which I'm curious about your thoughts on. Specifically, I'm curious: why does your research not seem to be very concerned with exercise?
I ask because over the years I've been building up my own theories about weight loss, and I think exercise has to be a major variable. Your studies seem to gloss over it and not vary it to any particular degree (apologies if I missed some times where you do - there's a lot of posts to go back through to be caught up on everything!)
Obviously considering exercise just as a numerical calorie loss is an unhelpful and overly simplistic model. But I have long suspected that weight loss seems to be correlated with the *kinds* of exercise one does and 'what *kind* of fit' they are. In particular my suspicion is that the result of exercise on weight heavily depends on how intense it is and how much time the body has to restructure internally around that exercise. That is, becoming, say, very strong at cardio causes microbiome changes that affect weight retention separate from the calorie losses.
Curious if you have considered anything like this, or discovered reasons to think it doesn't hold up, or just aren't interested in the fitness variables for some reason.
In short, I've tried various exercise types for weight loss over the decades, and none have had any effect. Many had negative side-effects (e.g. joint pain) without providing any benefit.
I've tried:
- Distance running
- Swimming
- CrossFit
- Lifting weights (Starting Strength)
- Kettlebell training
- Boxing
- Kickboxing
Out of these, martial arts and CrossFit were fun, but while I built some muscle, I didn't lose any significant weight. The weights (incl. kettlebells) and running gave me joint pain so I had to quit.
Interesting. i'm curious, were those mostly before or after your big weight loss down from 290 lbs? if so, also curious if you're opposed to experimenting with those variables again at your newer lower weight (since there would be presumably be less joint pain now?). Obviously it's not my place to mess with your experiments, as you've got plenty going on already -- but since you are so dedicated to experimenting I'm really curious what would happen. In particular I wonder if getting "very fit" in some way would trigger noticeable microbiome changes, e.g. change what foods you crave or find to be satiating.
Anecdotally, this is the first year in my life that I ran enough to start enjoying it, and I noticed something really strange: that for the first time in my life I began to have a sort of twitchy "compulsion" to run sometimes, like I want to vibrate out of my seat and get moving sometimes. Unfortunately I've gone and lost this feeling again, hoping to get it back though --- because once you get it, it felt amazing. And in the process I was thinner than I'd been and found myself craving different kinds of foods (much more carbs for instance). So I am wondering if this is a general phenomenon: that there is a level of baseline fitness which switches your body over into a different metabolic state that wants different foods, and which has a lot of inertia -- enough to explain, for instance, why once-athletic people tend to stay slim or athletic, or why people who used to weightlift retain a lot of muscle ever after stopping, and tend gain muscle back really quickly if they start lifting again. (all of those are anecdotal observations in friends, no idea if they track in general).
Also, while I'm here, I'll just mention one more super kooky theory that I have. Do you tend to keep your AC where you work / live / sleep on very cold? My kooky theory is that human metabolism has a "winter mode", which craves fats and likes to put on weight and be sedentary, and a "summer mode" which craves carbs and likes to move and do stuff, and a weird explanation of some instances of obesity and depression might be that people get permanently stuck in winter mode because they don't spend enough time *hot*, which is what's supposed to trigger the switch to summer mode. I'll stress that this is a very kooky theory, but I thought I would mention it in case it's interesting.
These were all over the last 2 decades, really. I started experimenting with diet and exercise in my late teens and I'm nearly 40 now.
As you suspect, the joint pain is much better now that I've lost 50lbs. I think that if you're near 300lbs, any form of exercise is bad for your joints - probably even walking.
I have started strength training this week, as I mention in the article. So far feeling pretty good, except very sore haha. So not against experimenting with exercise, it's just that I don't think it's very useful for reversing obesity, and most exercise might be net-negative (due to joint health) for people who are very obese, like I was.
I've thought about the temperature/AC thing, too. Then again I started losing weight last September (end of summer but still pretty warm), lost all throughout the winter, and then mostly stopped losing as spring came around. So maybe there's an influence, but it's not super obvious.
Liftin'! Yee ha!... sorry. What I meant to say was, congratulations, and, if you wanted to talk about lifting e.g. strongerbyscience, Bryan Haycock's hypertrophy-specific... I'd be interested.
When I was younger I was all about "pfff machines are for old people, I want to lift iron!" but, honestly, even then I was mostly limited by knee and elbow pain in squat & bench press. Then, last time I tried in my early 30s, I totally wrecked my elbow benching for only 3 months. Not even that heavy, slow progression (Starting Strength starting over with an empty bar). Plateaued quickly due to my knees never feeling up to to task. Also gained 20lbs lol, and not muscle ;)
So this time I'm taking the joint-friendly approach.
Good for you. I *like* health club training, honest... but if I take that approach, I work out in January like everybody else. With a power rack in my living room, though... if I go a few days without lifting it starts making disparaging remarks about my character, competence, appearance, ancestry et cetera. Joint pain is a really good reason to take it easy; during lockdown I did chinups until my elbows hurt, setting 21st century PRs along the way. Then I dipped until my shoulders hurt, setting 21 century PRs along the way. Then I squatted until I got my first-ever groin pull, ow. Then I deadlifted until I injured my back... smarter than me is a low bar, I very strongly suggest that you clear it.
Oh boy that sounds terrible :D I know some people with ambition. I could never do it.
Agreed that at home is a huge factor for me. I'm a creature of convenience; I don't believe in habits. Heck of a lot easier to establish a "habit" if you can do it in your living room vs. driving across town and packing a gym bag.
So for this attempt, I chose heavy resistance band training from home. No need to even have a rack :)
For protein, have you considered essential amino acids (EAAs)? I use plain EAAs, which taste vinegary. This is off-putting for many, but I'm fine with it. I also mix EAAs with cream, which hides the vinegary flavor. And I mix EAAs with pomegranate powder (I seem to be one of the fortunate ~10% of US residents who have a gut microbiome that can produce urolithin A from this and other food sources).
At some point I will write an article about my experience with EAAs. Briefly: various aspects of fitness seem to survive much longer without training, and greatly reduced (or even eliminated) delayed onset muscle soreness.
I honestly just got into grasping the differences between various amino acids. And I can't say I understand much yet.
E.g. some people say "doesn't matter, protein is protein." Some people say leucine (?) is very anabolic.
Some studies say isoleucine/valine are obesogenic or otherwise metabolically unhelpful.
Some people swear you gotta supplement only or mostly the EAAs. Others say there's an "optimal ratio" of AAs, I think MAP is one such product/idea.
I'm mostly confused :)
https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/108/8/2099/6993416
For more added recent confusion ( that's actually expected as a combination of genetic and epigenetic minimally understood variables !) here is a very good cross-sectional modeling rigurous study that was unable to make one decent inference in a fairly homogeneous population (Finland) while looking at 153 clinical and cardiometabolic traits .
The whole ( huge !) datasets used in the this robust study is even available ( you just need to apply and be vetted by their committee).
It's a good idea to look at their well organized bibliography to get even more detailed confusing information, if you wish so.
Me, I just got some local washed rind cheese and accepted that it's dopamine generating addiction , along the vast available variety at the neighbouring Atwater Market cheese mongers.
There are some mizpels ( I do that enthusiastically a lot) . like rabbit hole ( not hile) , etc.
As a disclosure I send from a, debatably, pocketable device and have fat fingers and bad eyesight. Sometimes I transcribe from my lab lithographic notes, with minimal prior understanding of how language is actually used.
French translation will follow. ( Québec law 21 disclaimer)
French Canada is Best Canada :) It's the only Canada in the world.
That's some intense metabolic yo-yo you're looking... I am impressed with the dedication. Not sure about the extremely low sample size and cross section diversity of the cohort.
As are the consequences or lack thereof of that . It may or may not.
Empirically, maybe not because you're evidently very self aware and tuned to your body and moods. ( I am personally working on only that part for some time).
I can suggest a probable ( not necessarily true) hypothesis on satiety of whipped cream vs liquid and gelified ( jelloed ?!) varieties.
The inclusion of thousands of air bubbles insures mechanical distention, so gastric baroreceptors are stimulated earlier.
Also, fat being a taste and a satiety component of food, is having a better exposure to the fat receptors ( starting from mouth and going down) by just touching a bigger area due to increased volume.
Cheapest tasty collagen - tendon and cartilage ( big cartilaginous articulations - bone soup ). Parsnip and onion have basically no calories for some great taste and micronutrients. You'll have to get very tedious calculations to figure out collagen ammount.
As a note - the proteolysis pathway ( mediated by mostly various proteases) but also some (varying degrees) of molecular absorption mechanism of the resultant is slightly different from lean muscle mass and collagen .
Because different protein and peptide chains are broken down by specific enzymes ( proteases).
The signal peptide ( N or C terminal ) is one of the many variables- that are present in your comparison of different ( qualitative) proteins.
Look at signal peptides .
On top of that , there are some proteins that need to be "activated " when the results of the initial breakdown needs to be " reassembled " ( mostly simple aminoacids and simple peptides).
That happens at ribosome level ( mostly in Golgi apparatus) where the ARN " blueprint is used to " translate " ( that's the protein translation phase ) in order to create a functional form of protein required for your specific needs of the moment.
There are sooo many confounding variables, that's borderline impossible to list in a book. And that's the small fraction of what we know with some decent ( but not definitive) probability.
For the ones ( most ) needed activation, there a pre-protein stage, that has ( usually) an uncleaved "signal protein " ( N or C terminal) .
That needs yet another extra step to remove that terminal " residue" ( necessary to be recognized and "protect" the pro-protein ) in order to become an active, "mature " protein.
And that's just a very small part of why it's very hard to quantify the energy required for the various breakdowns of nutrients ( in your quest) and rebuilding required protein or fat that also depends on your body cell " memory" of what is you in a certain environment, genetics, season, emotional state, season, activity, ambient conditions, etc ( interminable and many variables that we are even blindsided)
If you want to get a vague idea , here are 6 keywords ( I can give you 200 , but these , if you follow the rabbit hile, will give you a glimpse)
Lipogenesis
Lipolysis
Proteolyses
Translation (as the process of protein synthesis)
Signal peptide
Protein targeting (sorting)
Protein folding (Anfinsen's dogma while at it)
Wow, if I'm honest most of that went way over my head ;) Would you agree that "protein is really complicated and we basically don't understand it?" That's sort of the impression I get when I look into it.
Unfortunately, this mechanistic complexity and confusion makes it impossible for me to make a good decision based on.
One heuristic would be what you describe, basically "grandma boiled the bones and drank the soup, maybe I should boil the bones and drink the soup." The paleo principle, if you will.
Another would be to try random stuff and see if you can find a trend/effect. The issue is, of course, that n=1 experiments are noisy and confounded enough as they are. E.g. this collagen experiment, which basically told me almost nothing. Except maybe that adding 40g of collagen doesn't outright ruin everything, at most I gained a little bit of fat on top of the water.
I've also heard from someone else who is also into "whole" collagen like tendons that she doesn't have any issues with loads of tendons and that sort of thing, but collagen powder actually gives her issues. So maybe the "whole food matrix vs. isolated, processed element thereof" issue is at play too.. because it wasn't confusing enough as it is.
I will say, taking protein powder felt... stupid. I don't know. I just felt stupid adding a powder to my coffee. Felt like I was depriving myself of a real food that I could've eaten instead.
As to your theory about the air bubbles and satiety, that sounds pretty reasonable. I don't know the exact mechanism, but quite clearly something is at play here. The difference is really quite stark, and all that changes is the texture.
"would you agree that protein is really complicated and we basically don't understand it?" . Yes, I fully agree and it's an understatement.
Your very correct observation of powdered "proteins" vs " grandma soup " paleo or haute cuisine is the tendency to oversimplify ( to keep some sanity ) and hype ( that's one of the main drivers from academic research, "nutriceuticals industry " that picked on a correlation and make hilarious ( if would not be actually deleterious or sometimes ( best case) of no real effect- eating collagen doesn't guarantee and it's not even an implication of the protein assembled.
A bovine has no issue getting some awesome collagen ( pot roast drooling) from a fairly narrow vegetarian diet.
There's completely different enzymatic and cleavage and peptide proteins from the available aminoacids.
Some dont even need exogenous vitamins ( most boreal marine mammals). Or dogs( they make their own Vitamin C - of scurvy's hominid notoriety)
The gastric distention ( measured by mechanoreceptors at the end of nervous sensors )
https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.cell.2016.05.011
I did ( also stupidly) drink chocolate whey protein. Was because I liked the taste . Gained weight and modified my gut microbiota ( would have probably been able to offset my then carbon print if used an ambulant biogas capture and micro power plant !? ).
Was tasty though...
Yea I've also found that flavored protein powders are very, very bad for me. I was always suspicious of the sweeteners, even stevia and monk fruit. And now I'm suspicious of the powder itself on top of that.
This is the phase of the trial I've most been looking forward to observing. There are some variables I'd love to see measured, for instance your PUFA % bf.
Given your love of tinkering and enthusiasm for the unorthodox, you might be able to rebalance the love/hate for resistance training by taking up the use of massive resistance bands instead of weights. Might also help prevent injury, but mostly the benefit is that it provides an entirely different experience of resistance training, one unmoored from previous burn-out (if that's been your problem). Also easier to use outdoors for minmaxing sunlight.
Edit; forgot to list the other metrics I'm especially curious about on the higher protein: blood glucose/insulin, changes in testosterone (confounded by adding exercise), and changes in inflammatory markers (not sure if your tests have previously included c-reactive protein and whatever the other ones are).
> the use of massive resistance bands
Spoiler alert: that's exactly what I'm doing ;) Figured nobody will give me any points for jacking up my knees just so I can say I threw some iron around.
I do have CRP in all my blood tests, so if anything changes, it should show up.
On T specifically, I do seem to have tons of total T floating around, but it's not doing much w/o a stimulus is my understanding. Apparently you need to actually work out, and then the T receptor sites on the muscle will open up (?) and maybe all that T will go in and make the muscle big or something.
So maybe my total T will go down, but I'll actually get some muscle? But pure speculation ;)
Something like the x3 bar setup is easy to DIY. I like doing zercher squats with a wide version of the base.
Also if you're really looking for a good time, try connecting multiple bands of the same size together in series with giant carabiners, so that you're standing 2, 3, or 4x further from the anchor. Increases the size of the 'sweet spot' in the stretch.
I just bought the x3 bar. It's not actually that much compared to a gym membership or squat rack, especially if you use it longer term. Plus he's always got discount codes.
Again, I'm not surprised you already have it. Though for squats and good-mornings I find a nicely sanded and much longer 2x12 with blocks screwed the corners works better (more resistance, wider base for the triangle).
I just got started with his 12 week program this week, and it's kicking my butt even with the lightest band so far, lol. Although I think a lot of that is getting comfortable with the feel and "logistics" of the setup.
Half of the exercises seem bodybuilder/aesthetic: calf raises, bicep curl, tricep press, even row. I don't even care for chest/bench, tbh.
If you were to simulate a traditional starter PL program like Starting Strength or 5x5, you could just do deads, squat, overhead press, and chest press.
Not sure if that would negatively impact something something hormonal... *shrug* so for now I'm just doing the 12 week program and see how that goes.
When I was a kid - 50 years ago - my Mum would make a mixed cream and jelly (UK) pudding. U just have to figure out how to make it? Maybe make the jello and as it cools, but before it sets too much, whip up that bastard with cream!
Hi, I just came across your blog and I think what you're doing is really cool, but i have a sort of vague doubt about the approach which I'm curious about your thoughts on. Specifically, I'm curious: why does your research not seem to be very concerned with exercise?
I ask because over the years I've been building up my own theories about weight loss, and I think exercise has to be a major variable. Your studies seem to gloss over it and not vary it to any particular degree (apologies if I missed some times where you do - there's a lot of posts to go back through to be caught up on everything!)
Obviously considering exercise just as a numerical calorie loss is an unhelpful and overly simplistic model. But I have long suspected that weight loss seems to be correlated with the *kinds* of exercise one does and 'what *kind* of fit' they are. In particular my suspicion is that the result of exercise on weight heavily depends on how intense it is and how much time the body has to restructure internally around that exercise. That is, becoming, say, very strong at cardio causes microbiome changes that affect weight retention separate from the calorie losses.
Curious if you have considered anything like this, or discovered reasons to think it doesn't hold up, or just aren't interested in the fitness variables for some reason.
In short, I've tried various exercise types for weight loss over the decades, and none have had any effect. Many had negative side-effects (e.g. joint pain) without providing any benefit.
I've tried:
- Distance running
- Swimming
- CrossFit
- Lifting weights (Starting Strength)
- Kettlebell training
- Boxing
- Kickboxing
Out of these, martial arts and CrossFit were fun, but while I built some muscle, I didn't lose any significant weight. The weights (incl. kettlebells) and running gave me joint pain so I had to quit.
Interesting. i'm curious, were those mostly before or after your big weight loss down from 290 lbs? if so, also curious if you're opposed to experimenting with those variables again at your newer lower weight (since there would be presumably be less joint pain now?). Obviously it's not my place to mess with your experiments, as you've got plenty going on already -- but since you are so dedicated to experimenting I'm really curious what would happen. In particular I wonder if getting "very fit" in some way would trigger noticeable microbiome changes, e.g. change what foods you crave or find to be satiating.
Anecdotally, this is the first year in my life that I ran enough to start enjoying it, and I noticed something really strange: that for the first time in my life I began to have a sort of twitchy "compulsion" to run sometimes, like I want to vibrate out of my seat and get moving sometimes. Unfortunately I've gone and lost this feeling again, hoping to get it back though --- because once you get it, it felt amazing. And in the process I was thinner than I'd been and found myself craving different kinds of foods (much more carbs for instance). So I am wondering if this is a general phenomenon: that there is a level of baseline fitness which switches your body over into a different metabolic state that wants different foods, and which has a lot of inertia -- enough to explain, for instance, why once-athletic people tend to stay slim or athletic, or why people who used to weightlift retain a lot of muscle ever after stopping, and tend gain muscle back really quickly if they start lifting again. (all of those are anecdotal observations in friends, no idea if they track in general).
Also, while I'm here, I'll just mention one more super kooky theory that I have. Do you tend to keep your AC where you work / live / sleep on very cold? My kooky theory is that human metabolism has a "winter mode", which craves fats and likes to put on weight and be sedentary, and a "summer mode" which craves carbs and likes to move and do stuff, and a weird explanation of some instances of obesity and depression might be that people get permanently stuck in winter mode because they don't spend enough time *hot*, which is what's supposed to trigger the switch to summer mode. I'll stress that this is a very kooky theory, but I thought I would mention it in case it's interesting.
These were all over the last 2 decades, really. I started experimenting with diet and exercise in my late teens and I'm nearly 40 now.
As you suspect, the joint pain is much better now that I've lost 50lbs. I think that if you're near 300lbs, any form of exercise is bad for your joints - probably even walking.
I have started strength training this week, as I mention in the article. So far feeling pretty good, except very sore haha. So not against experimenting with exercise, it's just that I don't think it's very useful for reversing obesity, and most exercise might be net-negative (due to joint health) for people who are very obese, like I was.
I've thought about the temperature/AC thing, too. Then again I started losing weight last September (end of summer but still pretty warm), lost all throughout the winter, and then mostly stopped losing as spring came around. So maybe there's an influence, but it's not super obvious.
Liftin'! Yee ha!... sorry. What I meant to say was, congratulations, and, if you wanted to talk about lifting e.g. strongerbyscience, Bryan Haycock's hypertrophy-specific... I'd be interested.
I did skim/read Body by Science, is that related?
Yeah. Different approach, totally reasonable; take it easy the first couple of workouts, though.
When I was younger I was all about "pfff machines are for old people, I want to lift iron!" but, honestly, even then I was mostly limited by knee and elbow pain in squat & bench press. Then, last time I tried in my early 30s, I totally wrecked my elbow benching for only 3 months. Not even that heavy, slow progression (Starting Strength starting over with an empty bar). Plateaued quickly due to my knees never feeling up to to task. Also gained 20lbs lol, and not muscle ;)
So this time I'm taking the joint-friendly approach.
Good for you. I *like* health club training, honest... but if I take that approach, I work out in January like everybody else. With a power rack in my living room, though... if I go a few days without lifting it starts making disparaging remarks about my character, competence, appearance, ancestry et cetera. Joint pain is a really good reason to take it easy; during lockdown I did chinups until my elbows hurt, setting 21st century PRs along the way. Then I dipped until my shoulders hurt, setting 21 century PRs along the way. Then I squatted until I got my first-ever groin pull, ow. Then I deadlifted until I injured my back... smarter than me is a low bar, I very strongly suggest that you clear it.
Oh boy that sounds terrible :D I know some people with ambition. I could never do it.
Agreed that at home is a huge factor for me. I'm a creature of convenience; I don't believe in habits. Heck of a lot easier to establish a "habit" if you can do it in your living room vs. driving across town and packing a gym bag.
So for this attempt, I chose heavy resistance band training from home. No need to even have a rack :)