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Just been binge-reading your posts and I'm gonna try ex150! I'm no stranger to self-experimentation, having given up sugar 11 years ago (no looking back) and tried various permutations of low carb, keto and carnivore ever since, all of which I've found decent at maintaining a healthy weight. I fell off the wagon on holiday last year and never quite managed to lose the weight I gained in those few glorious weeks. "I'm eating cream to make my tummy smaller" sounds like something Ralph Wiggum would say, but I don't understand quantum physics either and can still accept its validity. Here goes!

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Good luck :) Lmk how it goes and feel free to ask if you have any questions. Here or via email (hello@exfatloss.com)

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Oct 1Edited

This diet reminds me of the time my wife was on EN (Enteral nutrition) for 4 months (tube feeding direct into the stomach). She lost weight very rapidly and was never hungry during that time but she gained the lost weight quickly all back when the tube was removed. The EN fat macro is mostly PUFA but rapid weight loss is still very common. There is even a KEN version (Ketogenic Enteral nutrition e.g: see https://nutricia.ca/ketocal-41-lq-unflavoured ) as an epilepsy treatment and also used for rapid weight loss. Again : the fat macro is mostly PUFA. So, I'm wondering, is it the blandness or predictability and continues supply of fat or is it the way fat is sensed in the esophagus or is it really the saturated fats/absence of PUFA in cream ?

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Interesting, this reminds me of an old study from the 60s or 70s that was mentioned in The Hungry Brain by Stephan Guyenet. They gave obese people this "drink machine" that they could suck EN type nutrient sludge out of, and it was essentially the same thing - high PUFA sludge. Pretty tasteless. The obese people RAPIDLY lost weight.

It's a really good question as to why this leads to rapid weight loss. But I would also suspect the rapid bounce back, like your wife experienced, if it was really high PUFA.

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Oct 3Edited

There is (was) a whole underground industry around KE (EN) tube feeding for rapid weight loss for getting 'in shape' for a mariage, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KE_diet. This industry has now mostly vanished in favor of GLP-1 agonists. This Wiki article tries to suggest that it is the limited calories that is the cause of the weight loss, but this is not true. When my wife had 4 months of tube feeding, I asked the dokters if she was getting enough calories, they confirmed that this was a maintenance dose and that weight loss was nevertheless a 'known side effect'. My wife never had any hunger nor cravings during these 4 months and lost a LOT of weight.

I'm not convinced about the PUFA being responsible for the rapid weight gain afterwards. If you go off your saturated fat diet, you tend to see the same.

I was very frustrated with Stephan Guyenet's book when it came out, he described the problem in great detail and very convincing but never formulated any practical solutions. In fact he himself mostly let it go and is concentrating now on GLP1's (as do most obesity reseachers). I have nothing against GLP1s agonists but I'm afraid for when the GLP1 resistance kicks in...

So, is it really the PUFA that prevents you from loosing weight if we could even use it for rapid weight loss ? Is it then not something else ?

Maybe it is the partial or complete absence of taste (and variation). Specifically salt and sweet. If it is not mixed into food then it is not so bad, but once mixed, cravings develop. That is maybe why the potato diet works just as good as your cream diet: it is equally bland and repetitieve. And its majority of calories are not mixed with salt or sweet.

I think that my ancestors probably ate boring and bland diets most of the time, intermitted with a feast sometimes. 100 years ago salt was expensive and seldom used by the common people. 95% of people lived on and from the land, but the stories that have been written down about abundance are from the rich people in cities. There is a good chance we are not a descendants from these rich people.

Today, salt and sweet flavouring is basically free and every piece of food is a mix ('processed' if you will), even home cooking.

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Wow that's nuts (KE diet) I had never heard of this. It is bizarre to just gloss over some of the caloric inconsistencies there - e.g. if it was possible to subsist on 800kcal if you only did low-carb and ate throughout the day, and that led to easy fat loss while you did it, wouldn't more people do it? I don't think I know anyone who could do this for even a week or 2. That's almost fasting level caloric restriction.

And your wife losing weight on "maintenance" is another interesting side of the coin.

I honestly don't know if it's the PUFA, I just don't have a better idea. What about this sort of diet leads to the weight loss in the first place?! I once had to abandon a 2,000kcal/day diet after 20 days or so due to starvation symptoms... 800 would seem impossible. It was also extremely low-carb.

I do think GLP-1 is like a cheat code for obesity researchers; they don't have to admit that they don't understand jack shit and have failed for their entire careers and that of their mentors. Now they can pretend like everything will be alright if you just chemically starve the carolies off. I think this is most likely going to go very, very wrong.

Peter from Hyperlipid talks about sort of a U-shaped curve with PUFAs. Where say 2% is fine, 8% is bad, but 30% is "good" in the weight loss sense again. I'm not too sure but I think he doesn't think it's actually good, you might lose weight but it'll be very unhealthy in the long run. But I might be wrong about his opinion, his opinions tend to be very complex.

But of course, it could be something else. But what?

I kinda have a hard time buying the absence of taste/variation thing. I don't add salt to my food. It just doesn't really feel like a hedonic thing to me, it feels like a biochemical thing.

I think it could help in the sense that you won't overindulge hedonically if the food is a mono food or bland/unvaried enough. But I doubt this is the original reason for the obesity epidemic? Did we start salting & sweetening our food much more? I think food used to actually be way more delicious/indulgent 50 years ago, when not everybody was trying to diet all the time. People would've laughed at you for eating a salad.

I'll agree on the boring/bland to a degree; depending on which ancestors you mean. Long enough back, yea, most people pre industrialization or even globalization wouldn't have had a super varied diet. Maybe with the seasons, but not at the tip of their fingers like we do, and not throughout their lives. No Vietnamese-Mexican fusion in the stone age :)

But again, can this explain our grandparents and grand-grand-parents being much thinner than us?

Also, I gained a ton of weight eating a pretty repetitive keto diet before I switched to cream. I was basically cooking the same thing every day, or every other day. Not trying out new things all the time. I did carnivore 90 days w/o any salt, and I lost no weight at all.

So while I think that repetitive diets can help if you're metabolically broken, just cause you don't hedonic yourself into overeating when you should feel biochem satiety but it's not working, I don't think it's the root cause of the obesity epidemic.

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Well, please explain how its possible for me to have high ketone levels (as meassured by blood) on a 0 fiber 100% beef diet?

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I've actually tested this since, and changed my mind: https://www.exfatloss.com/p/ex150sardines-mod-review-non-24-stayed

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Trader Joe's and Sprouts have HC with just two ingredients.

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What's the second ingredient? The HWC I get has gellan gum, I think there's also xantham gum and carrageenan. That level of "pure" seems pretty normal.

This week I splurged on some Whole Foods $10 cream with only cream as the only ingredient. It separates and you have to shake it. It tastes quite good in coffee, but I don't like it as much when whipped. It's almost too sweet.

I'd definitely stay away if it has a ton more ingredients than "cream" or "milk" and a stabilizer. I've had some people send me ingredients where it's basically skim milk powder and canola oil. Typically this is from other countries though, where dairy foods aren't a big tradition.

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Does it matter if the heavy cream has thickeners like gellan gum or carageenan? Almost impossible to find cream without them (in the US).

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The one I get has gellan gum. Agreed it's hard to find any withouth stabilizers. I've heard people say bad things about carageenan, but not as much about gellan gum, so I don't worry.

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Awesome-- thank you!

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Yo dude! This is great. You are an amazing scientist. You have helped me learn new things. I appreciate your time. I want to try the ex150 soon. Im working my way into it. Anyhow I’m here reading your stuff. Godspeed you glorious bastardo. :-)

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Thanks!

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What do you think about replacing the heavy cream with coconut butter? It's a lot easier to eat in my opinion.

I can't find it in your calculator so we have to improvise a bit. The basic macros on the brand I have are: 65g of fat, 7.3g of sugar, 16g of fiber and 6.9g of protein. Recipes for coconut butter online make it from desiccated coconut, which does have an entry here: https://foods.exfatloss.com/food/170170 . The macros line up with the butter that I've got.

Comparing the protein content to tenderloin steak (https://foods.exfatloss.com/food/170237), it does not seem much worse in terms of BCAA and isoleucine. Only 1.1% PUFA fat, which is why I chose it - it seems even better than heavy cream.

Of course one would have to supplement with some other protein just to make sure all the amino acids are covered. I'm also ignoring the carbs and fiber hoping it does not matter too much.

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I tried it once, but I couldn't get the coconut cream to whip. Most of the recipes online seem to use starches or other emulsifiers to thicken it. I also didn't like the taste nearly as much as heavy cream, so I just gave up lol.

If you try it and it works for you, please let me know! I'm sure it'd be a great option for many.

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I just eat the coconut butter straight out of the jar, it's sweet and tasty. I'm not sure if I'll be able to eat 200g of it per day and thus not sure if I'll be limiting protein / my other dirty keto dishes, but I will report back regardless.

So far, having eaten it once yesterday, it made me so full that I was disgusted thinking about eating any other food, including my favorite kebab and the keto chocolates I have in my apartment, which I could usually always have more of. This continued to the next morning (right now). But it also might have made me nauseous and fatigued. We'll see if that happens again.

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> So far, having eaten it once yesterday, it made me so full that I was disgusted thinking about eating any other food

This sounds like my cream cement truck satiety :)

I didn't really like the coconut cream, it was kind of.. bitter and weird. But if you like it, hey, go for it ;)

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Your experiments are interesting. I just want to report that I lost 35 lbs in six months, went from 195 to 160. I'm 5'11.

I simply counted calories with the MyNetDiary app. It's a terrific and simple way to diet. You can eat anything you want, just stop when you've reached your daily quota, which for me is about 1,900 calories. I especially like that I can drink 3 oz. of sherry every day :o)

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The 'Lents (Soylent, Huel, Mana) that have the fat macro prioritzed are Super Fuel (Customizable, Can easily get to ~55%), Huel RTD (42%, Spendy), & yFood (Upper 40s, just got subsidized by Nestle, only powder that takes water with a good ratio).

I noticed you tried lents & commented that it may have worked had you supplemented them with something really fatty like cream, these are the way when it comes to not having to do extra work.

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Yea, I've done several of the keto 'lents. Absolutely didn't work for me. I got ravenous as hell, I think it's the protein + flavor insulin response. I could literally down a 1,000kcal keto 'lent and be hungrier than before.

One of them (the plant based one?) also gave me massive diarrhea lol. Maybe pea protein or something odd like that.

I basically think the 'lents don't solve the problem I have, whatever that problem is.

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BasicallyFood Balance¹, formerly Super Fuel, made by u/axcho² on reddit has, essentially, very compatible, though not 1-1, end-beliefs about what’s good for the body with you (He recommends using heavy cream for his flagship product!­³) Huel’s founder is a high-protein macro guy, I’m closer to the high swings on carbs or fat with moderate protein & have landed on BasicallyFood. I also combine it with my daily tea (you could use coffee to ??? effect) to lower the amount of liquid I’m consuming & don’t use it for the entirety of my calories. It’s ~50%. Your dissuasion is understandable, though I think BasicallyFood Balance, provided the eater tweaks the macros to their liking is the golden egg of the ‘Lents having tried Huel, Soylent, Mana, Milk Fuel (also u/axcho’s product), & Jimmy Joy. I’m still interested in yFood which was bought by Nestlé & has a good fat ratio but uses milk & real sugar, but it’s mostly curiosity. Plus, it’s a “Just add water!” product, which is a strong positive for my lifestyle. Also, there’s no pea protein.

¹ https://basicallyfood.com/products/balance

² https://www.reddit.com/user/axcho

³ I use olive oil personally, but I’m also trying to gain weight. Approaching 23.2 BMI based on some loose information from Andrej Karpathy about 23.2 being the most robust weight according to some actuary tables†.

http://karpathy.github.io/2020/06/11/biohacking-lite/#:~:text=it%20is%20interesting.-,In%20particular,-%2C%20in%20June%202019

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Yea I've tried almost all the keto lents out there. Didn't like any of them. Either got mad diarrhea (maybe allergy to some sort of protein in there?) or got super ravenous (Keto Fuel? With whey).

They didn't give me the satiety that pure cream gives me, which was part of why I began suspecting protein as the villain (or intermediate).

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Low protein can work for awhile, especially if obese, but may not be sustainable long-term. Consider just adding a little protein powder to your coffees for a high protein, low-calorie boost if you reach that point.

Losing weight too fast with low protein intake is associated with heart issues though, so be careful. Good luck!

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Thanks!

Yea, ex150 is definitely an "intervention diet" in that sense. I suspect that once I hit normal weight, I'll have to up the protein intake. I'm also planning on working out at one point, maybe at 200-220lbs or so. That will require more protein, too.

Interestingly, even going to 65g of protein per day seemed to stall my fat loss completely and even led to some gains, see my recent ex225lean trial.

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Bing tells me this:

The metabolism of excess protein is a complex process that involves several steps. According to one source¹, proteins are not stored for later use, so excess proteins must be converted into glucose or triglycerides, and used to supply energy or build energy reserves. Another source² states that excess protein consumed is usually stored as fat, while the surplus of amino acids is excreted. This can lead to weight gain over time, especially if you consume too many calories while trying to increase your protein intake. A third source¹ explains that amino acid decomposition results in hydrocarbons and nitrogenous waste. The latter is converted into urea in the liver and excreted by the kidneys. This process requires water and can cause dehydration if not enough fluid is consumed.

Source: Conversation with Bing, 4/16/2023(1) 24.4 Protein Metabolism – Anatomy & Physiology. https://open.oregonstate.education/aandp/chapter/24-4-protein-metabolism/ Accessed 4/16/2023.

(2) What Happens If You Eat Too Much Protein? - Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/too-much-protein Accessed 4/16/2023.

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Interesting. Yea, it's complex for sure. I'm pretty sure all those 3 things are possible, the question is just when does which one happen, and to what degree?

For example, tons of people seem to be able to eat near infinite protein with no negative effects.

I suspect that I have to limit my protein much more.

The dehydration thing is interesting: when I eat a lot of protein, I become very thirsty and gain a lot of water weight. So could mean that all the extra protein/urea/kidney stuff is massively increasing my need for water?

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I'm intrigued, what's your professional background? I love your approach... (mathematician, computer science.. here)

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Programmer of course ;)

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Very interesting ideas, thank you! Your description of deficits seems quite plausible! After reading everything on your substack I started on ex150 with promising results so far (-2.7kg/-6lbs in 4 days). Probably mostly water, still feels good. I hope it's sustainable (the diet, not the loss rate).

I couldn´t find Heavy Cream in Germany, the most fatty cream here is 33% fat. I hope that works.

I have a bit of a problem with the cream: after having twice 200g first day and 200g second day (could have more but was too lazy) I felt physically sick after 300g on the third day. Felt like an upset stomach, I went to sleep feeling quite unwell. On the fourth day I did not want to finish even 200g out of worry that my stomach wouldn't like it (and he didn't... I felt quite unwell). No kind of food sounds appetizing right now, though I suspect the meal later (ground beef/veg/sauce/butter) will taste good. Blood pressure also dropped some in that last days. I hope that works out.

Do you thing I risk being in deficiency if I reduce the cream intake?

On a related note: What software do you use for your diagrams? They look quite clear. I am looking for some kind of program that I can throw all my data in (blood pressure, weight, steps, sleep etc. with data points that are not necessarily taken at the same time or frequency) including time markers (like change in medication or other experiments) and be able to create exploratory graphs and analyses like yours over various variables.

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Hey,

Very cool! Hope it continues to go well and you get used to the stomach issues, haha.

- 33% is what our heavy cream usually has. I think it's just a naming thing because we also have "half & half" here which is half cream, half milk. Many people colloquially refer to "coffee with cream" but mean half & half or even milk, so heavy cream is just used to distinguish it.

- Definitely don't make yourself sick. Upping your fat intake drastically can take some getting used to, so take it easy. I think the gall bladder has to excrete more gall to dissolve all the fat and it could take a few days or even a week or two. Many people have similar issues when they start keto or carnivore.

- "No kind of food sounds appetizing right now" sounds about right, or do you mean because your stomach hurts? :(

- I think you'll be fine if you take it slow with the cream. Maybe you'll be a bit hungrier for a few days. You could also try spacing it out through the day more. E.g. drink 50g every few hours to give your digestive system some time.

- I wrote my own software for the diagrams (and my data tracking). It's kind of a mess and confusing to use, so unfortunately I don't have a great answer for you there except "make your own" ;) If you're adept at spreadsheets I'd build something that way, or if you can write software you could make your own. I don't know of any great off the shelf solutions. The visualization library I'm using is a very popular one called VegaLite.

So take it easy ramping up the cream, even if it takes 1-2 weeks. Don't want you to feel sick haha. And please keep us updated!

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Hi, thanks for you reply and tips!

Update: Day 6, lost 4kg total, rate still too fast (not complaining). Stomach issues/feeling unwell has gone away. Pondering the idea that there might be faster mixers than my vintage model from the 70s that taxes three minutes to whip cream. Eyeing a Bosch with "FineCreamer" yay.

"No kind of food is appetizing": it's hard to explain. I feel peckish/hungry/something, then imagine different foods (like pizza, chips, chocolate, cake, icecream, sandwich,... ) but don't really want any of that. That's unusual. (Made myself some cream and the feeling went away.) I really have no language (or sense) of "not hungry", I used to eat as long as there is something in front of me. If I'n not eaither ravenous or completely stuffed i'm in a "well I could eat something" feeling.

Apropos the software: I expected something like that. I just find it strange that after all these years the Quantified Self community seems not to have come up with something to track and visualize your data. Maybe I just didn't find it. I don't like the idea of writing something myself that should already exist because lots of people probably have the exact same ideas/needs/requirements. And I would very much like some kind of standard file format (that is still useful in ten years) to put data (measurements, events) in. How do you organize your files?

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> faster mixers than my vintage model

Try a cream whipping siphon! These are produced by ISI, Hendi, and others, they whip your cream instantly via a nitrogen cartridge.

Representative example:

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Whipped-Cream-Profisahnespender-0-5-L/dp/B00IIT2A94/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2Y2BKLQPLTWU&keywords=hendi+0%2C5+l&qid=1682006783&s=kitchen&sprefix=hendi+0.5l%2Ckitchen%2C84&sr=1-3

And definitely keep us updated with progress/results, this is super interesting!

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Thank you for reminding me of the existance of this luxurious product which I completely dismissed at first due to not living a sufficient posh lifestyle. Turns out they are not that expensive (single use metal cardridges feel wasteful though). My kitchen now features Whipped Cream On Tap.

Which is great, because I do not like whipped cream very much anymore (never expected that to happen) so I didn't whip up any in the last days. Fresh from the spout it's fine though, because small amounts are possible and take literally zero effort now.

Otherwise, I'm mostly on track. Noticed a few days ago I was craving salt, so I am adding that liberally now. Weight shot up, hopefully water because of the salt, seems to be going down again.

Turns out warm salted butter tastes great, so I easily replaced the whipped cream calories with butter calories. And by easily I mean exceedingly. I now try not to go over 3000kcal daily although I could drink the stuff. Let's see how that goes, the energy has to go somewhere, or not?

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Haha, hot salty butter diet coming up next, then? ;)

I agree that the salt probably just increased your water retention a bit. Should be a plateau effect and you should lose again thereafter.

I do switch between just plain heavy cream and heavy cream with instant coffee powder, so maybe, just on a psychological/monotony level, having 2 options is better.

Btw I recommend NO SWEETENERS, even non-caloric "natural" ones. I just quit a trial because monk fruit in my heavy cream made me bloated and gain weight.

So it's a whole cartridge just for 1 portion of cream? Wow. Still ordered one though ;)

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It's one cartridge (8g N₂O costing ~50ct) per 500ml cream, which is the maximum amout you can put in. So it's less then 10% of the cream cost.

Once the cream is pressurised you can remove the empty cardridge, but obviously not open the bottle for refills before it's empty without loosing pressure. So you commit 500ml cream at a time (obvs not a problem with your regime) of which you can spray out how much whenever you want. It should stay fresh in the fridge for several days.

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Huh wow :D That's pretty advanced. How often do you have to change the cartridge?

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Thanks for the update! If you hit a reasonable milestone where you think it makes sense (e.g. 14 or 30 days?) would you be up to sharing your numbers and experience? Would love to see if it works for somebody else :)

Your mixer might be fine. I have some cheapo Chinese knockoff immersion blender from Amazon and it also takes about 1-2 minutes. I've never timed it, I just stand there holding it, thinking of something else lol.

The feeling you describe is exactly what I believe satiety should feel like. It's just that people like us never knew the feeling ;)

Last night I made some heavy cream and easily finished it. So I thought: I should make some more. And I made a whole new serving and put it in the fridge and promptly forgot about it.

Later I took it out, took it to my computer and it sat next to me for 30 minutes before I realized I wasn't going to be able to eat it. So I put it back in the fridge, where it is now.

That's a crazy story for anyone who's never, ever walked past food without thinking "I could eat that right now" ;)

On the software I have come to nearly the opposite conclusion. I think it's so varied and needs are so different. That's why there hasn't emerged one system. I myself have different systems. E.g. I have one for daily values (weight, waist circumference, wake up time) and one for my CGM (hundreds of data points per day).

As format I use JSON internally and the CGM data comes in CSV, I think those will be around a while. I have 1 big JSON file containing ALL my daily values ever (about 10 years now) and one for all my CGM. The latter obviously fills up faster, but I only started it around 4-5 months ago when I got the CGM.

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Update day 7: Provisionally keeping the mixer :-)

I just looked through my daily weighings (started the habit when I tried Atkins 20 years ago): there are several episodes where I forced myself to loose weigth. They all end after four to six weeks. Maybe I'm in the pattern again. Your post about Diet Success suggests maybe not though.

So conclusions after 14 or 30 days would probably be too optimistic. Still I'd love to keep you posted and share my (interim) results!

Thanks for your thoughts on the software front. Can you share a bit about the CGM? Esp. logistics as a (non-diabetic) private/self payer: how to get one, costs, how you found out about possible future models with sensor fors ketones. Providers are keeping quiet with that information online, possibly because their (paying) customers are health insurance companies and not end users.

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Interesting about your 4-6 week pattern. That's definitely something to watch out for. I suppose you can evaluate once at 30 days ("did it work/how much/how'd I feel") and if it was good you can continue, possibly after a few days of refeed, and do another 30 days. If 2x 30 days is still good then it's not "the pattern."

If you do refeed I recommend not going crazy and still mostly sticking to whole foods. I've made myself pretty sick by binging (probably a psychological thing) between experiments and ended up feeling terrible :)

On the CGM: I'm planning on posting a pretty extensive post about my CGM experience this weekend, so you're in luck!

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On the sustainability factor. I took the liberty to 'run' your numbers ( male, 38, 245) and the CDC has a range of 87-307g protein/day and the ADA came in at 89 to 111g/day. I realize that there can be some grace given if obese- probably a fair amount of structure is being eliminated and can be recycled for protein use? But I'd still worry that you will hit a wall where the steak YouTubes start flooding in. I guess you can always up the protein a bit at that point and see what happens.

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Yea, "isn't that a bit low on protein?" is a question I get a lot :)

I'm not super dogmatic about it - I don't even know if low-protein is an important factor in the diet. I even plan on adding more protein to rule out that hypothesis at one point. I'll definitely rethink if I get massive cravings or any signs of deficits.

> I guess you can always up the protein a bit at that point and see what happens.

That's exactly my plan.

Btw 307g protein is bananas high :D That's over 4lbs of beef. Are they recommending a carnivore diet? Must be for bodybuilders who walk around at 245lbs with six pack abs lol.

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I have been following your experiments and lurking around both here and on r/saturated fat. The protein thing has had me wondering for a while, and I came across this. I thought you might be interested.

https://news.wisc.edu/uncovering-how-low-protein-diets-might-reprogram-metabolism/

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Wow, very cool! Thanks!

I had heard form the weightlifting bros a few years ago that BCAAs are supposed to be an even better trigger for (muscle) growth than just regular protein. Maybe, in absence of training stimulus, that just leads to fat gain?

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Ok, this is hilarious. So I'm reading this guy's paper (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413121001662) and..

his diets are called e.g. "ExLow Leu" (Leu for Leucine.) Guess I'm not the only one who liked that naming scheme ;)

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Very interesting story, will certainly follow your updates. I've discovered keto and carnivore a year ago, thought it was the end of all my issues, I leaned out a lot (close to six-pack) but I simply couldn't sustain it for more than a month or two. I either become lethargic and/or grumpy or I 'fall off the wagon' and binge on for example chocolate or french fries. At least for now I'm staying away from alcohol and processed foods as much as possible, which helps to prevent gaining much if any weight. However I find it hard to keep things stable let alone lean out more again. Lots of butter seems to help (also inspired by Hyperlipid/FireInABottle), not too much protein, but also a bit (50ish daily grams) of carbs from plain starches or not too calorie dense fruit (berries and such). I notice it does increase my hunger a bit, but on the other hand decreases the risk of binging.

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Interesting. I keep thinking that if someone has a binge problem, the diet isn't "working" in some sense. It can't be something you force yourself to do.

So sounds like you've found a very good solution for yourself. Did you end up getting that six-pack on your current diet? Or is it something you're still chasing?

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I'm one or two kg of fat away from that point, so I'm close but just not there yet. It's feels like I'm trying to moor a boat, but right when I get close enough to the pier it drifts away again. So what I'm trying to do in intervals of several weeks is to tune the diet in a way that I get closer without rebounding more than before. So a bit like you described with your overall diet switches, but rather by improving the existing approach. Dropped alcohol after New Years Eve, been adding copious amounts of butter since end of Jan, added minor carbs early Feb and now I'm adding specifically stearic acid through butteroil as described by FireInABottle.

I'm also not exercising a lot (once a week, the weather being too chilly now) and I do know that when I add this into the mix, leaning out will be a lot easier. But I also feel the diet itself (with just minor exercise) should be enough so in this way and thus I try to make most out of this fairly restful period before spring kicks off.

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Nice. Yea I suspect that getting to six pack abs is different from "just" going from 300->250lbs or so. At that point the metabolism is in a totally different state, you can actually get into massive energy deficits and lose lean body mass.. still being obese, I don't worry about those things much because the "rebound" won't be as bad.

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*cough* Fgf21 *cough*

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGF21

This thing? Never heard of it. Could you elaborate what you mean?

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Thanks so much for the post. I was fascinated and read it 3 times. A couple of questions/comments:

How are you measuring ketosis? What instrumentation are you using?

The requirement you mention about carnivores needing fiber is interesting. I’ve done carnivore for many years. I haven’t encountered tried this. It’s worth experimenting.

As for the diet name, it’s interesting you want to name it ex150. I’ve been on/off carnivore 8 years and I would argue this is common knowledge you can find on the reddit subs for carnivore. Protein spikes insulin, carbs spike insulin, that leads to loading you diet with a ton of fat. Jason Fung has written extensively about this in his books (although does not suggest such an extreme diet but instead fasting). Peomedicina touts a similar diet 2:1 fat:protein ratio but their diet doesn’t suggest fiber and I did find it very hard to stick too only with animal meats (although it was amazingly effective and I felt great on it - except when eating 🙃).

Last point, I find the weight loss you had outside of the country fascinating. What country? I have long been suspicious that we feed animals terribly (soy) and then we eat that meat and feel terrible. I know we often say “ruminants are safe” in the US. I can’t help but want to poke at that often-touted claim more. It would be interesting for you to move back to the country in question and see if something similar happens.

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Hey! Thanks :)

1) I'm currently using a blood ketone meter. Read my update above about the fiber/keto thing, I might've been wrong about that and will have to test it better.

2) I'm not 100% it is the protein that's doing it, so I wanted to keep the name of the diet descriptive of simply what it's doing, not what I think its effects are. Initially I called it "low-protein" but what if it turns out to be something else?

Like you, I also had a very hard time with carnivore. I can do keto forever and don't feel limited in food choices at all. But when you go to pure meat, boy oh boy does it get boring. Yes, steak got absolutely boring after less than a week. Ground beef is practically unpalatable without anything to soak up the fat. I ended up mostly making meatballs (easier to prep than burger patties) but they weren't great, either.

3) It was various countries in Asia. They don't seem to eat a lot of beef there to begin with, and I could definitely imagine that what they feed the animals is very different. That said, their portion sizes were also much smaller, and as I just started out with keto there, I began experimenting with heavy cream and fat bombs and all that stuff. So it fits various hypotheses, even if their beef isn't all that better there. But could be, which would be the "contamination" hypothesis.

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