I'd be interested in seeing a low protein swampy diet attempt after you're done with your next round of ex150. It'd be interesting to see if there would be an even worse gain than the mixed sugar/starch or if you'd be fine.
It's the salt. It's addictive and will trigger overeating in the majority of people. It changes the microbiome in your gut as it is a 'preservative' afterall. Everyone likes it and it has been added in larger and larger amounts to more and more foodstuf in the last 100 years (Salt is practically free for large food companies). The problem is the science : short term studies (days/weeks) will indicate that quitting salt is bad (correct, that's like quitting narcotics: it messes up your system). Longer term studies on quitting salt are more nuanced and positive. PS. There is even salt in most soda's, going zero salt in today's environment is difficult.
Interesting cause my ex150 diet is very low in sodium. I stopped adding salt to my food in 2022 IIRC. On ex150, the cream obv doesn't have any, so the only salt would be what's naturally in 150g beef and the 80g of sauce I use.
Try sweating to get rid of the salt that has accumulated in your body over the years (mostly the skin). Sauna's are great but exercise comes with additional benefits.
Nope, you salt stores are overfull. The (majority of) human bodies are great at storing and even recycling salt. This used to be a good thing and fine if you are young, but in modern society, at our age, it is a liability. Try zero salt as an experiment (not 'just' avoiding adding salt). You will hate it the first 2 weeks: cramps, dizziness, anxiety, cravings , ... but after the 2 weeks you'll start the notice the upsides: better calorie control, lower blood pressure, weight loss, better sleep, more relax , ...
I suspect that to deplete fat of linoleic, you're going to have to get very lean. We see in pigs that they sequester it in their fat, so I would guess the body is trying to avoid harm.
As you use up your fat stores, that LA is going to get more concentrated as your body prioritises using safer fats.
So I would guess that your body would fight you extra hard on using that last bit of toxic fat.
But then after that, adding safe fats back in will dilute the LA in your adipose, maybe to a metabolically-good level.
Maybe cycling your bodyfat% while avoiding LA will eventually get you there
No, even that first part never worked for me. Even with extended fasting I barely lose any fat. Moving more tends to make me gain weight, possibly via increased appetite.
Not being able to shift fat with fasting or exercise. You'd have to rely on gradually replacing the pufa in your stores rather than dumping it quickly.
Tangentially, I've been thinking that maybe middle aged tyre syndrome comes from the gradual accumulation of pufa, which makes it very hard to shift once you're there
> As you use up your fat stores, that LA is going to get more concentrated as your body prioritises using safer fats.
my mental model (though not really backed by anything) is that there's a ~constant rate at which the body uses linoleic acid, and it's not possible to generate through DNL, so it builds up or depeletes based on whether dietary LA is higher or lower than the rate of usage
this model suggests that consuming very low levels of LA would cause it to deplete well -- and the LA-obesity hypothesis suggests that leanness would follow
but it sounds like you believe something different? can you say more?
I read and participate in so many channels (reddit, substack, X) that I can't remember where I saw what I'm about to mention. The idea is that FGF21 spikes when protein is very low. And apparently it spikes up with either, or both, of the other macros. That is, you can have high FGF21 with high carb / low protein, high fat / low protein, OR high carb + high fat / low protein.
So for a future experiment, why not try ex150 but make the 150 into 150g of carbs (fruit, rice, or honey) and forego the protein altogether. You'll still get a little protein from the heavy cream plus a little from the fruit or rice. Completely eliminate the 150g of beef (or bison) and drive your protein as low as it can go from the other whole foods you are consuming.
They say sugar + fat will make you fat faster than anything else, but what if it's the protein that does it?
I did once try something somewhat similar; instead of beef I'd just do cream + dark chocolate. That was about 1/2 the protein and it quickly became unsustainable.
I am literally you when it comes to tomato sauce. I love that stuff soooooo muuuuchhhh, but it does make me eat way more, whatever it is. Plain carbs or plain protein or a mix. It takes any food from idk a 7-8/10 to like 12/10, lol.
Yea, might be best not to mix it with ad-lib foods. E.g. on ex150 I use a certain amount of tomato sauce for my lunch, but I don't mix it with the ad lib cream lol. I've tried other dairy foods (like sour cream) mixed with tomato based sauces/salsa and it gives me massive hyperphagia. Haven't tried heavy cream because heavy cream + tomato sounds... I don't know, not that great.
For weight loss to happen without experiencing discomfort, it is important to become insulin sensitive. That requires reducing arachidonic acid and linoleic acid intake to levels that do not exceed physiological requrements by a significant margin. Try these web searches:
adipose tissue arachdonic acid insulin resistance
adipose tissue arachdonic acid metabolic syndrome
adipose tissue arachdonic acid NAFLD
adipose tissue arachdonic acid prostate cancer
Since all lean meat contains arachidonic acid, you mght want to shift caloric meat and animal fat intake downward while increasing root vegetable intake. Are you familiar with the spudfit approach? https://spudfit.com/
Note that both fasting and exercise preferentially burn up unsaturated fatty acids. "The increased proportional intake of dietary fat, decrease in feeding frequency and increased physical activity in free-ranging compared to captive cheetahs are all predicted to result in enhanced mitochondrial FA oxidation through the lowering of circulating glucose concentrations and insulin:glucagon ratios. During fasting/refeeding cycles and increased levels of exercise, tissue PUFA concentrations have been shown to deplete rapidly in both humans and rats. These studies show that most PUFAs, including α-linolenic acid (ALA) and linoleic acid (LA), are preferentially oxidized in periods of exercise or fasting. During refeeding, SFAs and monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), such as palmitic acid and oleic acid, are also more rapidly replaced than any of the PUFAs. Similarly, the concentrations of most plasma PUFAs and MUFAs have been shown to be significantly lower in rats fed a high fat ketogenic diet than in controls. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0167608#sec009
I am already only consuming 150g meat a day. Usually very fatty meat (not during this month's experiment, but usually I eat 80/20 ground chuck).
What's spudfit, potato diet? I tried that and couldn't even do it.
I was on a ketogenic diet for 9 years and I still got very high linoleic acid :( Maybe better than it would've been but not enough to protect me fully.
Fasting is indeed interesting for that reason, I recently did 2 water fasts of 5 days each, and have been experimenting with dry fasts (2 days only).
My best guess on sugar is that fructose is particularly helpful when your liver glycogen needs replenishment (after sleep or exercise but before you eat other glucose sources), and when your circadian cycle favors fructose metabolism (in the morning for people not on weird schedules), up until liver glycogen is filled up. After that it’s surplus that needs special handling.
I'm wondering if the signal comes when the glycogen is replenished or when more fructose is coming in, the hypothesis being that full glycogen + more coming in signals abundance of energy and sends the "find protein" signal.
I had a liter of Pu-Erh tea today with 100g of fructose and some L-Carnitine Tartrate in addition to around 200g of regular sugar, I had an extreme level of satiety from the tea to the point that I wanted to pour out the rest, have been having manic energy all day to the point that I spent 2 hours walking and 1:30 on a stationary bike, my high protein medium fat no carb dinner leaving me satiated as well (normally I go to bed hungry-ish on this way of eating).
I'll have to try this again with only fructose (no sugar) tomorrow.
Thanks as always for sharing your experiments. Reading the comments and after running a little experiment on my own (upped carbs via plain potatoes), it looks like there is not a one-size-fits-all, and also that a calorie is not "a calorie". That one has been debunked beyond any shade of doubt.
So I reduced my low-fat, protein heavy diet and subbed with potatoes baked in the air fryer without any added oils. Satiety is not as good as with protein, gotta say. The taste was great, I played with a variety of potatoes. I gained 10lbs over 30 days for the first time in 12 years! Curious, I kept going for another 2 weeks and a bit and I just stayed more or less there fat-wise and weight-wise. A new set point, I figured, where I gained mostly fat, not a ton of muscle. I kept the same workouts (5x per week, 4 strength training workouts and 1 cardio day). Using my trusted caliper my fat % went from 12% to 18%.
Mercifully I stayed within my clothing size, it would have been one costly experiment otherwise! What this experiment did is debunk my own theory: that highly processed foods cause our metabolism to missfire. By my rough account I was eating close to the same amount of calories, but my weight did not stay the same. Without any highly processed foods, in theory I should not have gained 10lbs and significant body fat!
I am back to a higher protein diet (macros are 50% carbs no starches (cabbage, celery, tomatoes, daikon radish), 35% protein, 15% fat mostly from lean fish like Haddock, Pollock, Tuna, Basa) and no more potatoes for me. A little over 1.5 weeks back on the old routine, weight has started to come down the same way it always does with me: very slowly, 0.2 lbs per week at the very best. I am curious to see in 6-8 months where my set-point will be, back to BP (Before Potato) or somewhere in the middle. But boy oh boy starches are my nemesis when it comes to fat storage.
But why. Why each of us respond to different diets in such a distinct way? Is it our starting weight? Is it the thermal effect of food? Genetics? What gives! Still not sold about PUFAs, but I can't say much because of my oil-free diet...
Very interesting! Like you point out it's very curious that this can happen on whole-food, not "processed" diets. People always like to say "No you just lost the weight cause you stopped eating processed food!" and I laugh. I gained 100lbs on a whole-food diet of home cooked meals. Same here, unless white rice is too processed for you heh (in which case, nobody could ever follow your strict standards lol).
It might, or might not. OQC is a snapshot of your blood + average of last 3-4 months via red blood cell phospholipids (RBC PLs).
If I liberated LA from adipose, I'd expect that to stick around in the RBC PLs for 3-4 months, but be removed from future adipose flux. So it goes down and up at the same time, and then goes down long-term. In my mental model, that is :)
Yea, I was 290lbs when I started "zero carb" (as it was called at one point haha) and 90 days later it was still fluctuating 288-293lbs, depending on the day.
I did have trouble the entire time and it would not get better. Very bad digestion. I tried eating mostly steak + butter, but more than 1 steak gave me diarrhea. I ended up eating eggs more often than not too.
I was trying to eat ad-lib, but the digestion made it difficult.
Of course I couldn't stick to a 1,800kcal/day diet, even on a 2,000kcal diet I'm in such a severe deficit that starvation symptoms set in quickly.
Of course diets that lead me to intuitively eat 5,000kcal expose a bad diet. That's why I do the experiments, so I find those where my appetite works correctly.
I have lost 75lbs eating ad-lib. Any diet that is not ad-lib isn't solving the problem, it's just temporarily masquerading it.
I have only successfully lost weight by restricting protein heavily, and there's plenty of science behind it too. You can reverse obesity in rodents by restricting their BCAAs, for example, and in me :)
I simply do not believe consciously restricting calories is a useful tool for fixing metabolic dysfunction. It's like putting weight loss on a credit card. You're gonna pay it back one way or another.
I'd be interested in seeing a low protein swampy diet attempt after you're done with your next round of ex150. It'd be interesting to see if there would be an even worse gain than the mixed sugar/starch or if you'd be fine.
Yea true, I haven't really tried low-protein swamp much. I'll put it on my list!
It's the salt. It's addictive and will trigger overeating in the majority of people. It changes the microbiome in your gut as it is a 'preservative' afterall. Everyone likes it and it has been added in larger and larger amounts to more and more foodstuf in the last 100 years (Salt is practically free for large food companies). The problem is the science : short term studies (days/weeks) will indicate that quitting salt is bad (correct, that's like quitting narcotics: it messes up your system). Longer term studies on quitting salt are more nuanced and positive. PS. There is even salt in most soda's, going zero salt in today's environment is difficult.
Interesting cause my ex150 diet is very low in sodium. I stopped adding salt to my food in 2022 IIRC. On ex150, the cream obv doesn't have any, so the only salt would be what's naturally in 150g beef and the 80g of sauce I use.
Try sweating to get rid of the salt that has accumulated in your body over the years (mostly the skin). Sauna's are great but exercise comes with additional benefits.
I actually looked it up, I gave up added salt in 2021. You'd think after that much time, my salt levels would already be relatively low.
Nope, you salt stores are overfull. The (majority of) human bodies are great at storing and even recycling salt. This used to be a good thing and fine if you are young, but in modern society, at our age, it is a liability. Try zero salt as an experiment (not 'just' avoiding adding salt). You will hate it the first 2 weeks: cramps, dizziness, anxiety, cravings , ... but after the 2 weeks you'll start the notice the upsides: better calorie control, lower blood pressure, weight loss, better sleep, more relax , ...
I suspect that to deplete fat of linoleic, you're going to have to get very lean. We see in pigs that they sequester it in their fat, so I would guess the body is trying to avoid harm.
As you use up your fat stores, that LA is going to get more concentrated as your body prioritises using safer fats.
So I would guess that your body would fight you extra hard on using that last bit of toxic fat.
But then after that, adding safe fats back in will dilute the LA in your adipose, maybe to a metabolically-good level.
Maybe cycling your bodyfat% while avoiding LA will eventually get you there
Well I'm trying to get very lean, it's just not as easy as it sounds ;)
If you found a way of getting very lean, please let me know.
You know how to get lean(er); eat less, move more. The problem is just staying lean.
If your aim is just to deplete LA, then it doesn't matter if you gain back bodyfat as saturated fat.
An intentional yo-yo diet
No, even that first part never worked for me. Even with extended fasting I barely lose any fat. Moving more tends to make me gain weight, possibly via increased appetite.
Well someone in that position might be stuffed lol
What position?
Not being able to shift fat with fasting or exercise. You'd have to rely on gradually replacing the pufa in your stores rather than dumping it quickly.
Tangentially, I've been thinking that maybe middle aged tyre syndrome comes from the gradual accumulation of pufa, which makes it very hard to shift once you're there
can you expand on this?
> As you use up your fat stores, that LA is going to get more concentrated as your body prioritises using safer fats.
my mental model (though not really backed by anything) is that there's a ~constant rate at which the body uses linoleic acid, and it's not possible to generate through DNL, so it builds up or depeletes based on whether dietary LA is higher or lower than the rate of usage
this model suggests that consuming very low levels of LA would cause it to deplete well -- and the LA-obesity hypothesis suggests that leanness would follow
but it sounds like you believe something different? can you say more?
I read and participate in so many channels (reddit, substack, X) that I can't remember where I saw what I'm about to mention. The idea is that FGF21 spikes when protein is very low. And apparently it spikes up with either, or both, of the other macros. That is, you can have high FGF21 with high carb / low protein, high fat / low protein, OR high carb + high fat / low protein.
So for a future experiment, why not try ex150 but make the 150 into 150g of carbs (fruit, rice, or honey) and forego the protein altogether. You'll still get a little protein from the heavy cream plus a little from the fruit or rice. Completely eliminate the 150g of beef (or bison) and drive your protein as low as it can go from the other whole foods you are consuming.
They say sugar + fat will make you fat faster than anything else, but what if it's the protein that does it?
I did once try something somewhat similar; instead of beef I'd just do cream + dark chocolate. That was about 1/2 the protein and it quickly became unsustainable.
But I haven't tried it with sugar.
So perhaps an experiment with caramel, sugar and butter together?
I better not mention carolies
I mean you can, they just don't explain anything :)
I am literally you when it comes to tomato sauce. I love that stuff soooooo muuuuchhhh, but it does make me eat way more, whatever it is. Plain carbs or plain protein or a mix. It takes any food from idk a 7-8/10 to like 12/10, lol.
Yea, might be best not to mix it with ad-lib foods. E.g. on ex150 I use a certain amount of tomato sauce for my lunch, but I don't mix it with the ad lib cream lol. I've tried other dairy foods (like sour cream) mixed with tomato based sauces/salsa and it gives me massive hyperphagia. Haven't tried heavy cream because heavy cream + tomato sounds... I don't know, not that great.
For weight loss to happen without experiencing discomfort, it is important to become insulin sensitive. That requires reducing arachidonic acid and linoleic acid intake to levels that do not exceed physiological requrements by a significant margin. Try these web searches:
adipose tissue arachdonic acid insulin resistance
adipose tissue arachdonic acid metabolic syndrome
adipose tissue arachdonic acid NAFLD
adipose tissue arachdonic acid prostate cancer
Since all lean meat contains arachidonic acid, you mght want to shift caloric meat and animal fat intake downward while increasing root vegetable intake. Are you familiar with the spudfit approach? https://spudfit.com/
Note that both fasting and exercise preferentially burn up unsaturated fatty acids. "The increased proportional intake of dietary fat, decrease in feeding frequency and increased physical activity in free-ranging compared to captive cheetahs are all predicted to result in enhanced mitochondrial FA oxidation through the lowering of circulating glucose concentrations and insulin:glucagon ratios. During fasting/refeeding cycles and increased levels of exercise, tissue PUFA concentrations have been shown to deplete rapidly in both humans and rats. These studies show that most PUFAs, including α-linolenic acid (ALA) and linoleic acid (LA), are preferentially oxidized in periods of exercise or fasting. During refeeding, SFAs and monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), such as palmitic acid and oleic acid, are also more rapidly replaced than any of the PUFAs. Similarly, the concentrations of most plasma PUFAs and MUFAs have been shown to be significantly lower in rats fed a high fat ketogenic diet than in controls. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0167608#sec009
I am already only consuming 150g meat a day. Usually very fatty meat (not during this month's experiment, but usually I eat 80/20 ground chuck).
What's spudfit, potato diet? I tried that and couldn't even do it.
I was on a ketogenic diet for 9 years and I still got very high linoleic acid :( Maybe better than it would've been but not enough to protect me fully.
Fasting is indeed interesting for that reason, I recently did 2 water fasts of 5 days each, and have been experimenting with dry fasts (2 days only).
My best guess on sugar is that fructose is particularly helpful when your liver glycogen needs replenishment (after sleep or exercise but before you eat other glucose sources), and when your circadian cycle favors fructose metabolism (in the morning for people not on weird schedules), up until liver glycogen is filled up. After that it’s surplus that needs special handling.
I'm wondering if the signal comes when the glycogen is replenished or when more fructose is coming in, the hypothesis being that full glycogen + more coming in signals abundance of energy and sends the "find protein" signal.
I had a liter of Pu-Erh tea today with 100g of fructose and some L-Carnitine Tartrate in addition to around 200g of regular sugar, I had an extreme level of satiety from the tea to the point that I wanted to pour out the rest, have been having manic energy all day to the point that I spent 2 hours walking and 1:30 on a stationary bike, my high protein medium fat no carb dinner leaving me satiated as well (normally I go to bed hungry-ish on this way of eating).
I'll have to try this again with only fructose (no sugar) tomorrow.
https://chatgpt.com/share/68017408-ddb0-8013-a268-3c12e328dd49
out of curiosity, which model did you use for this?
(also, enjoyed your recent piece about fertility. didn't realize you crossposted to substack)
4o. I don’t reliably crosspost to Substack, fyi. Glad you enjoyed the recent piece.
Thanks as always for sharing your experiments. Reading the comments and after running a little experiment on my own (upped carbs via plain potatoes), it looks like there is not a one-size-fits-all, and also that a calorie is not "a calorie". That one has been debunked beyond any shade of doubt.
So I reduced my low-fat, protein heavy diet and subbed with potatoes baked in the air fryer without any added oils. Satiety is not as good as with protein, gotta say. The taste was great, I played with a variety of potatoes. I gained 10lbs over 30 days for the first time in 12 years! Curious, I kept going for another 2 weeks and a bit and I just stayed more or less there fat-wise and weight-wise. A new set point, I figured, where I gained mostly fat, not a ton of muscle. I kept the same workouts (5x per week, 4 strength training workouts and 1 cardio day). Using my trusted caliper my fat % went from 12% to 18%.
Mercifully I stayed within my clothing size, it would have been one costly experiment otherwise! What this experiment did is debunk my own theory: that highly processed foods cause our metabolism to missfire. By my rough account I was eating close to the same amount of calories, but my weight did not stay the same. Without any highly processed foods, in theory I should not have gained 10lbs and significant body fat!
I am back to a higher protein diet (macros are 50% carbs no starches (cabbage, celery, tomatoes, daikon radish), 35% protein, 15% fat mostly from lean fish like Haddock, Pollock, Tuna, Basa) and no more potatoes for me. A little over 1.5 weeks back on the old routine, weight has started to come down the same way it always does with me: very slowly, 0.2 lbs per week at the very best. I am curious to see in 6-8 months where my set-point will be, back to BP (Before Potato) or somewhere in the middle. But boy oh boy starches are my nemesis when it comes to fat storage.
But why. Why each of us respond to different diets in such a distinct way? Is it our starting weight? Is it the thermal effect of food? Genetics? What gives! Still not sold about PUFAs, but I can't say much because of my oil-free diet...
Cheers!
Very interesting! Like you point out it's very curious that this can happen on whole-food, not "processed" diets. People always like to say "No you just lost the weight cause you stopped eating processed food!" and I laugh. I gained 100lbs on a whole-food diet of home cooked meals. Same here, unless white rice is too processed for you heh (in which case, nobody could ever follow your strict standards lol).
> Liberated adipose LA?
Shouldn't the elevated LA show up in your OmegaQuant tests during the diet if this was the case though?
It might, or might not. OQC is a snapshot of your blood + average of last 3-4 months via red blood cell phospholipids (RBC PLs).
If I liberated LA from adipose, I'd expect that to stick around in the RBC PLs for 3-4 months, but be removed from future adipose flux. So it goes down and up at the same time, and then goes down long-term. In my mental model, that is :)
I guess we'll see once the test comes in.
Ok but it's not like I haven't tried all that. And it didn't work.
I lost 0lbs in 90 days of carnivore, and I hated it the whole time.
Yea, I was 290lbs when I started "zero carb" (as it was called at one point haha) and 90 days later it was still fluctuating 288-293lbs, depending on the day.
I did have trouble the entire time and it would not get better. Very bad digestion. I tried eating mostly steak + butter, but more than 1 steak gave me diarrhea. I ended up eating eggs more often than not too.
I was trying to eat ad-lib, but the digestion made it difficult.
Of course I couldn't stick to a 1,800kcal/day diet, even on a 2,000kcal diet I'm in such a severe deficit that starvation symptoms set in quickly.
Of course diets that lead me to intuitively eat 5,000kcal expose a bad diet. That's why I do the experiments, so I find those where my appetite works correctly.
I have lost 75lbs eating ad-lib. Any diet that is not ad-lib isn't solving the problem, it's just temporarily masquerading it.
I have only successfully lost weight by restricting protein heavily, and there's plenty of science behind it too. You can reverse obesity in rodents by restricting their BCAAs, for example, and in me :)
I simply do not believe consciously restricting calories is a useful tool for fixing metabolic dysfunction. It's like putting weight loss on a credit card. You're gonna pay it back one way or another.