ex150nosauce+ACV-4 review: Lost 8lbs, New All Time Low

It keeps working

In short, running another month of ex150 without sauce and continuing to supplement Apple Cider Vinegar got me pretty linear fat loss, and I reached a new all-time low weight of 208.7lbs, breaking through my old ATL of 209.8lbs. I stayed under the old low for the remainder of the experiment every day, for 5 days.

Right to the Point

I’ve written about the specifics of cutting out sauce & supplementing ACV before, and this month was just a repeat trial of ex150nosauce+ACV 1, 2, and 3.

Let’s look at the weight graph:

A familiar pattern, previous iterations went much the same:

• Rapid loss of the previous refeed’s water weight for about 5 days

• Transition into slower, but very steady & linear fat loss

• A series of nearly-plateaus (slower weight loss) and whooshes (faster weight loss)

• As I neared my previous all-time low weight, the linear weight loss just continued and stayed below it for the entire rest of the trial

I recently wondered if the nosauce+ACV variant of my ex150 heavy cream diet is actually doing something, or if I’m just “passing the time” until my adipose tissue is depleted of enough linoleic acid to lower my body fat settling point.

This month’s results can’t inform on that yet, as I’m only about a pound lower than my previous all-time low. But I’ll just do the almost exact trial again.

That means I should go back to nearly my new ATL of ~208-209lbs within hopefully 5 days, possibly less this time as I did a much shorter refeed this time.

Then we’ll see: will I spend the entire month circling the 208-209lbs, or will steady, linear weight loss continue? If the latter, and I lose another 8lbs or so, that would make quite a dent in my previous all-time low and almost certainly point to the “nosauce+ACV actually does something” hypothesis.

Hopefully we’ll have an answer in 4 weeks.

Continuing to Skirt the Protein Line

Protein restriction has been part of my diet paradigm for a long time. I’ve eaten ~40-45g/day of protein for the last 3 years, with minor interruptions. I’m 6’1 with about 150lbs of lean mass, and not particularly active. It’s totally fine and I haven’t lost any lean mass or seen any other side effects.

And that makes sense, given that nitrogen excretion studies show similar numbers: in groups of young, active men, almost everyone lost some lean mass on 20g/day, but almost nobody did on 40g/day. Almost everyone will get “enough protein” at 40g/day.

My daily 150g (raw) portion of ground 80/20 beef only has about 25g of protein. The remaining 15-20g I was getting, nearly half of my daily protein intake, was coming from cream.

The conundrum with the nosauce+ACV version of ex150 is that it drastically reduces my appetite for heavy cream (“energy/carolies”) and therefore gets me below the 40g threshold quite regularly.

And, unlike on my regular ex150 diet, that leads to occasional bouts of “protein leverage hunger” (PLH). This has happened once or twice every single time I’ve done this particular experiment.

I could increase my meat intake to make up for it. Instead, I previously decided I would just bump against the PLH threshold, recognize it, and eat a little extra protein that day.

That’s exactly what happened this time, around day 22. It was pretty mild at the time, but I’d had a cheat day earlier on day 10, which maybe helped delay the issue.

Anyway, I decided to nip it in the bud on the following day, day 23, by doubling my meat ration just for that day. This made the PLH disappear, and I had no issues for the remaining 7 days.

This will influence my strategy going forward, so I’m bringing it up. More on it later.

Notes

As always, copious notes:

Day 4

Lol first entry, it’s really just “my normal diet” now

Water weight loss has been crazy as normal. Always fun if you’re over a pound lighter in the evening than that same morning.

Was 220 evening of day 4 today, which is within 3lbs of last month’s lowest weight.

Given how excessive this refeed was and that it was 4 days long, actually surprised how fast it all came back off. Maybe cause the last 2 days were pretty low protein, mostly starch? Only really ate high protein the first 2 days.

Day 7

First day w/o drastic (water) weight loss. Sort of incredible that from a 4.5 day refeed with a total of 17lbs weight gain, only about 1lb was fat?! Everything already came off in the first 5 days.

Day 9

Lower than last month’s lowest point

Day 10

Cheated, instead of ex150 dinner had a bit of brisket, 2 slices of sourdough bread w/ butter, and 1 homemade cinnamon roll

Sourdough bread is somehow super dense & filling

Day 11

Down half a pound despite cheating last night

Day 13

Ate modest amount of brisket (150-200g?) instead of beef for dinner

Day 14

Huhhhh weird lack of satiety today

Hm went away a bit later, maybe nothing

Day 15

Had 32oz HWC latte, not really cheat but exception

Day 16

Had extra amounts of cream just to make sure I’m not undereating

Day 17

Weight down despite eating lots of extra cream yesterday heh

Day 18

Added a friend’s home made beef boullion to my meal, a bit salty

Day 21

Had 2 bites of beef fat cut off from friend’s steak

Drank extra cream intuitively [note: beginning of PLH?]

Day 22

Had a small bout of hunger today which has been a sign of protein deficiency (?) in the past, but went away. Maybe will hit harder tonight/tomorrow

After work, at the store, felt drawn to beef jerky but didn’t buy any

Def seem to notice meat more than I normally do

Somehow expecting protein hunger to strike any second lol, but dinner was fine

Haha 1h later, very hungry w/ rumbling stomach

Probably the protein thing

Day 23

No weird hunger today, but ate 2x the beef and 3x the vegetables just to nip it in the bud [note: this worked]

Day 25

Starbucks HWC latte

Wow, weighed 209.5 in the evening, which is almost a pound lower than this morning - and below my ATL!

Must be in turbo fat burning mode

Day 29

Cheated with restaurant steak & vegetables for dinner

Decided to just end experiment 1 day early, ate some cheese & a bar of chocolate

More of the Same. Almost exactly the Same.

As mentioned above, I’ll just run this again, nearly exactly.

One difference I’ll incorporate, as suggested by a reader: I will separate this month into 2 bouts of 14 days each, separated by a single 1-day refeed.

This reader analyzed the weight graphs I’ve posted the last few months, and concludes that I lose weight more quickly at the beginning of an experiment (even after water weight loss) than toward the end, and thinks that I should run shorter experiments more frequently.

I don’t necessarily believe that the data is clean enough to conclude this. But since I’ve been cheating/”combating my PLH by premature refeeding” anyway, I might as well do this instead.

Having cheated around day 10, and eaten a double portion of meat on day 23, one might as well conclude that I really did 3 separate trials punctuated by slightly higher protein.

Might as well try to structure the trial like that?

The only potential downside: if it took more than 14 days to get into fat burning mode on this diet, and fat burning only kicked in toward the end of a month. But that doesn’t seem to be happening: I was well below the previous month’s lowest weight by day 14, and I actually dropped relatively quickly after my doubled protein portion that I ate on day 23.

Famous last words, but I can’t imagine that splitting it up into 2 experiments of 14 days each, separated by a single refeed day, would change it for the worse.

I’ll let you know in 14 days.