We need to suggest more stupid-but-irresistable ideas to you. Good write up. Sounds like backtracking one or two experiments to confirm you can repro their results is the right next step. But doing something different is fine too cuz why not?
I might be a noob here, but isn't it weird to have 21lb swings between experiments? I know it went back down relatively quickly... but it's also strange (to me). What do you make of that?
Reason I ask -- I feel weird when I have half that between fasting and not-fasting (roughly 5kg swings refeeding after multi-day fasts)
I've never understood this bit either. I was absolutely stunned to gain 2.5kg in a day recently, I've never seen anything like that before, but for you 20lbs seems routine, and there must be something funny going on there. It can't be fat. That's something like 70,000kcal of fat.
The low-protein vast-appetite high-calorie no-weight-gain thing seems plausible if weird. If you're short of protein and all the available food is low protein, you might crave it even though you don't need the energy.
Protein deficiency is bad, but excess fat stores are also bad (slow, vulnerable and valuable...) so it wouldn't surprise me if there was some way of getting rid of the extra energy rather than storing it.
I hear mitochondria can 'uncouple' and just let their charge gradients leak across the inner membrane without making ATP. I've been wondering why they would be able do that, it seems destructive and wasteful at the same time.
Inducing a fever for immune purposes would be one reason, but needing to burn off excess calories to avoid getting fat would also be a good reason.
But surely you would notice being in such a state? You could easily get rid of all the extra heat, but I would have thought you'd be noticeably warm while doing it. Were you walking around in a T-shirt while other people were feeling cold or anything like that?
One reason I've heard is precisely to get in more protein. In case there's only very low protein food available in the environment (cream, fruit) eating to a "regular" TEE would leave the animal protein deficient by the time it was energy-satiated. The mitochondria can therefore "dump" energy so the animal is still hungry and actually "burns" more energy, to allow it to get to the required protein amounts even from the low-protein foods.
That's one theory, I suppose.
I have always run hotter since being a child, and would be less cold than other people in general. That said it's not different when I do ex150 vs. doing normal/swampy/obesogenic-for-me diets. If anything, overeating protein makes me run super hot (and gain fat rapidly).
I would love to know more detail on "more active than usual". lifting, walking, cycling, tourism, hiking? gardening??
The pathways activated by exercise (metabolism, endocrine, immune even) could plausibly be to blame for transient mega hunger!!
I feel like your analytical strength is food-> metabolism feedback loops. But metabolism is obviously part of many homeostatic loops. Immune system connection is my own fascination (why do we stop eating when sick) but exercise is another major one.
Haha, I helped friends with some outdoor projects. Lots of squatting, bunch of walking, lifting somewhat heavy to very heavy stuff together. Mostly in the cold.
On "exercise -> increased hunger" I always wonder.. you'd think that it would just increase it just enough to make up for whatever extra is needed. But then again my hunger system isn't exactly in great working shape. In the past, I've usually gained LOTS of weight when lifting.
So maybe this would just compensate perfectly for a healthy person, but in my case, somehow way overreacts?
Good point on the different loops. I'm more vaguely aware of the other ones, like you say, but not very confident. That's why I basically have to wave my hands in this report and go with "No idea" ;)
I think you mentioned having a cold in one of your last two experiments as well, is it possible there's some accumulation of depletion signalled by the repeated immune responses? Have you documented typical weight fluctuations while sick in the past? That could easily be the single variable throwing off results, even influencing protein cravings if your body wanted more of that to heal.
Women's body's enter a hormone-induced inflammatory state every month (which can activate immune responses) and we can attest it will often override any dietary conditions and cause stalling or gain for no apparent reason, or make us extra sensitive to certain foods and respond weird to them. This phase can also temporarily lower medication efficacy.
All this to say I agree that it's feasible your cold caused the unpredictable results.
I don't have super good records on weight vs. being sick, but the last few times it seemed to barely make a dent. Typically I will overeat a bit (of whatever I'm currently doing) on purpose and rest more, and so maybe my weight will temporarily go up 1-2lb. I think both this and last time it was barely 2lbs.
Interestingly, too, this time the cold was over in 1-2 days. I really only felt it for one evening, and had a light sniffle/cough the next day, then done. Last month it took a week or so. So my immune system seems to have been more effective this time. Of course this could just be because it was recently strengthened. But maybe it was because I was eating more and not losing weight this time? Who knows.
I definitely believe that hormone/inflammatory things can have a huge effect that throws other considerations out of whack, like you describe. That's partly why I cancelled the experiment.
>As I wrote in Please Eat Less Protein, actual experiments show that most active, young men are in nitrogen balance, aka getting enough protein, around 40g/day. Almost none of them are getting enough on 20g/day.
At least in the lifting world nitrogen balance is known to underestimate the needs in protein, and the new gold standard is "Indicator Amino Acid Oxidation (IAAO)". Ctrl+F for "nitrogen" in https://www.strongerbyscience.com/protein-science/. The article is mostly about protein intake to maximize muscle building/minimize muscle loss while losing weight which are not your goals afaict but I think the IAAO thing could be interesting in general. There is the issue that it seems to rely on only one amino acid, I feel like there could be cases where your rate of amino acid usage are different for different amino acid, and considering you have a suspicion about BCAAs/leucine precisely (or isoleucine, not sure), maybe this method doesn't measure what you want measured.
I wonder about the confounding effects of cooking the cream as described to form your sauce. Perhaps that browning is changing its chemical composition and macros, and surely it's adding umami. Maybe that's part of it? But still weird
Interesting results! I would have also guessed that just adding more fat to your meal would do nothing. But yeah, what you wrote is definitely the same feeling I (or my wife) have when I have protein hunger. Although it's much more subtle for me, but I also don't eat as low protein as you.
"But I suppose it’s interesting to find out I can actually eat near-infinite tallow simply by emulsifying it with cream."
This surprised me at first, but then realised: mayonnaise. Which is essentially flavored emulsified seed oil which would make most people gag without the emulsification. But most people love mayo and can easily eat it in large amounts. It's interesting how a purely physical processing change so much the palatability of fats.
Although I have similar experience with meat too: when eating cuts of meat I have hard time to overeat them. I just sort of get bored with eating during the meal if the cut is too large. But when eating ground meat I can much more easily not notice that it's starting to be too much. And when eating "finely ground meat", where the meat is more like in a paste form, like in hot dogs, then overeating is the norm and I have to pay really good attention to stop before that. And when talking about hot dog, I don't mean the usual store bought with sugar and/or ton of spices and additives. Where I live I have access to ones which contains only pork meat, fat and salt, nothing else. And I can easily overeat even those like there is no tomorrow.
Yea some of that "texture" or whatever it is, sure is interesting. Curiously I don't have the "boring from big cut of meat" effect you describe, I've probably eaten in excess of 6,000kcal in one long sitting at a Brazilian steakhouse several times.. only limit is the stomach pain.
Did that cut of meat have only salt or did it have any other spices and/or marinade and/or sauce with it? Because as soon as any of those present this "gets boring" effect vanishes for me and I can easily eat any amount until my stomach physically feels too full.
On the other hand I never have "long sitting" meals so maybe time is also a factor here.
I'm not sure what they add in the Brazilian steakhouse, but I get the same thing even when I cook meat myself. Salt/spices make it worse, but even without those, enough seared meat & I become ravenous.
We need to suggest more stupid-but-irresistable ideas to you. Good write up. Sounds like backtracking one or two experiments to confirm you can repro their results is the right next step. But doing something different is fine too cuz why not?
If you have any stupid but irresistable ideas, lmk!
I might be a noob here, but isn't it weird to have 21lb swings between experiments? I know it went back down relatively quickly... but it's also strange (to me). What do you make of that?
Reason I ask -- I feel weird when I have half that between fasting and not-fasting (roughly 5kg swings refeeding after multi-day fasts)
It might be weird, but it's not uncommon for me :) I've always had crazy water weight swings like that.
I've never understood this bit either. I was absolutely stunned to gain 2.5kg in a day recently, I've never seen anything like that before, but for you 20lbs seems routine, and there must be something funny going on there. It can't be fat. That's something like 70,000kcal of fat.
Yea, which is why I'm quite certain it isn't fat. These big swings far exceed the human capacity to use up or build up adipose tissue.
I've always had this btw, since being a teenager. My mom would buy clothes for me and 2 days later they wouldn't fit.
Hmmm, another fascinating mystery.... I guess it must be water, but why??
The low-protein vast-appetite high-calorie no-weight-gain thing seems plausible if weird. If you're short of protein and all the available food is low protein, you might crave it even though you don't need the energy.
Protein deficiency is bad, but excess fat stores are also bad (slow, vulnerable and valuable...) so it wouldn't surprise me if there was some way of getting rid of the extra energy rather than storing it.
I hear mitochondria can 'uncouple' and just let their charge gradients leak across the inner membrane without making ATP. I've been wondering why they would be able do that, it seems destructive and wasteful at the same time.
Inducing a fever for immune purposes would be one reason, but needing to burn off excess calories to avoid getting fat would also be a good reason.
But surely you would notice being in such a state? You could easily get rid of all the extra heat, but I would have thought you'd be noticeably warm while doing it. Were you walking around in a T-shirt while other people were feeling cold or anything like that?
One reason I've heard is precisely to get in more protein. In case there's only very low protein food available in the environment (cream, fruit) eating to a "regular" TEE would leave the animal protein deficient by the time it was energy-satiated. The mitochondria can therefore "dump" energy so the animal is still hungry and actually "burns" more energy, to allow it to get to the required protein amounts even from the low-protein foods.
That's one theory, I suppose.
I have always run hotter since being a child, and would be less cold than other people in general. That said it's not different when I do ex150 vs. doing normal/swampy/obesogenic-for-me diets. If anything, overeating protein makes me run super hot (and gain fat rapidly).
I would love to know more detail on "more active than usual". lifting, walking, cycling, tourism, hiking? gardening??
The pathways activated by exercise (metabolism, endocrine, immune even) could plausibly be to blame for transient mega hunger!!
I feel like your analytical strength is food-> metabolism feedback loops. But metabolism is obviously part of many homeostatic loops. Immune system connection is my own fascination (why do we stop eating when sick) but exercise is another major one.
Haha, I helped friends with some outdoor projects. Lots of squatting, bunch of walking, lifting somewhat heavy to very heavy stuff together. Mostly in the cold.
On "exercise -> increased hunger" I always wonder.. you'd think that it would just increase it just enough to make up for whatever extra is needed. But then again my hunger system isn't exactly in great working shape. In the past, I've usually gained LOTS of weight when lifting.
So maybe this would just compensate perfectly for a healthy person, but in my case, somehow way overreacts?
Good point on the different loops. I'm more vaguely aware of the other ones, like you say, but not very confident. That's why I basically have to wave my hands in this report and go with "No idea" ;)
I think you mentioned having a cold in one of your last two experiments as well, is it possible there's some accumulation of depletion signalled by the repeated immune responses? Have you documented typical weight fluctuations while sick in the past? That could easily be the single variable throwing off results, even influencing protein cravings if your body wanted more of that to heal.
Women's body's enter a hormone-induced inflammatory state every month (which can activate immune responses) and we can attest it will often override any dietary conditions and cause stalling or gain for no apparent reason, or make us extra sensitive to certain foods and respond weird to them. This phase can also temporarily lower medication efficacy.
All this to say I agree that it's feasible your cold caused the unpredictable results.
I don't have super good records on weight vs. being sick, but the last few times it seemed to barely make a dent. Typically I will overeat a bit (of whatever I'm currently doing) on purpose and rest more, and so maybe my weight will temporarily go up 1-2lb. I think both this and last time it was barely 2lbs.
Interestingly, too, this time the cold was over in 1-2 days. I really only felt it for one evening, and had a light sniffle/cough the next day, then done. Last month it took a week or so. So my immune system seems to have been more effective this time. Of course this could just be because it was recently strengthened. But maybe it was because I was eating more and not losing weight this time? Who knows.
I definitely believe that hormone/inflammatory things can have a huge effect that throws other considerations out of whack, like you describe. That's partly why I cancelled the experiment.
>As I wrote in Please Eat Less Protein, actual experiments show that most active, young men are in nitrogen balance, aka getting enough protein, around 40g/day. Almost none of them are getting enough on 20g/day.
At least in the lifting world nitrogen balance is known to underestimate the needs in protein, and the new gold standard is "Indicator Amino Acid Oxidation (IAAO)". Ctrl+F for "nitrogen" in https://www.strongerbyscience.com/protein-science/. The article is mostly about protein intake to maximize muscle building/minimize muscle loss while losing weight which are not your goals afaict but I think the IAAO thing could be interesting in general. There is the issue that it seems to rely on only one amino acid, I feel like there could be cases where your rate of amino acid usage are different for different amino acid, and considering you have a suspicion about BCAAs/leucine precisely (or isoleucine, not sure), maybe this method doesn't measure what you want measured.
Eh, I'd say that's their opinion. I still believe the nitrogen balance people, as it matches my experience very well.
Possible that nitrogen balance is not optimal for maximizing muscle growth, but most people aren't out there maximizing muscle growth.
I wonder about the confounding effects of cooking the cream as described to form your sauce. Perhaps that browning is changing its chemical composition and macros, and surely it's adding umami. Maybe that's part of it? But still weird
Is it adding umami? I thought it was sort of just collecting the meat sauce.
Dang it, looks like you're right lol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction
Interesting results! I would have also guessed that just adding more fat to your meal would do nothing. But yeah, what you wrote is definitely the same feeling I (or my wife) have when I have protein hunger. Although it's much more subtle for me, but I also don't eat as low protein as you.
"But I suppose it’s interesting to find out I can actually eat near-infinite tallow simply by emulsifying it with cream."
This surprised me at first, but then realised: mayonnaise. Which is essentially flavored emulsified seed oil which would make most people gag without the emulsification. But most people love mayo and can easily eat it in large amounts. It's interesting how a purely physical processing change so much the palatability of fats.
Although I have similar experience with meat too: when eating cuts of meat I have hard time to overeat them. I just sort of get bored with eating during the meal if the cut is too large. But when eating ground meat I can much more easily not notice that it's starting to be too much. And when eating "finely ground meat", where the meat is more like in a paste form, like in hot dogs, then overeating is the norm and I have to pay really good attention to stop before that. And when talking about hot dog, I don't mean the usual store bought with sugar and/or ton of spices and additives. Where I live I have access to ones which contains only pork meat, fat and salt, nothing else. And I can easily overeat even those like there is no tomorrow.
Yea some of that "texture" or whatever it is, sure is interesting. Curiously I don't have the "boring from big cut of meat" effect you describe, I've probably eaten in excess of 6,000kcal in one long sitting at a Brazilian steakhouse several times.. only limit is the stomach pain.
Did that cut of meat have only salt or did it have any other spices and/or marinade and/or sauce with it? Because as soon as any of those present this "gets boring" effect vanishes for me and I can easily eat any amount until my stomach physically feels too full.
On the other hand I never have "long sitting" meals so maybe time is also a factor here.
I'm not sure what they add in the Brazilian steakhouse, but I get the same thing even when I cook meat myself. Salt/spices make it worse, but even without those, enough seared meat & I become ravenous.