Overview

Oct 14, 2023

It can be confusing to get an understanding of somebody’s paradigm/thought process from a series of seemingly disconnected blog posts. Here’s an attempt to organize my thoughts in a more systematic way.

Personal history & ex150 diet

Past diet failures

I’ve been trying to lose weight for nearly 20 years now, and I’ve tried pretty much everything under the sun.

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/19-fat-loss-experiments-ive-tried

Discovering the ex150 diet

Finally, in late 2022, I began experimenting with my diet more systematically. Within a few months, I ended up creating what I call the ex150 diet. Here’s my initial “manifesto” post describing my rapid fat loss on it:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/losing-43lbs-in-144-days-on-ex150-diet

Here is the detailed macro breakdown for ex150, because people kept asking:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/ex150-diet-macros-2294kcal-88-fat

I get interviewed by Slime Mold Time Mold:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/i-get-interviewed-by-slime-mold-time

My perspective on friendly blogger Critical MAS tackling serious weight loss:

https://www.exfatloss.com/p/response-how-critical-mas-would-tackle

Paradigm

I consider these the most important posts. In them I describe my mental model of obesity: causal structure (hint: it’s slightly complicated), mechanisms, how to think about it, how to even define successful “weight loss” or “fat loss.”

“Calories”

I think calories/CICO are not even wrong. Most people talking about calories are merely demonstrating they haven’t understood the question:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-two-caloric-deficits

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/cico-is-a-useless-tautology

Weight loss vs. fat loss

“Weight loss” vs. “fat loss” can be confusing. I have thoughts.

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/water-weight-temporary-fluctuations

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/plateaus-and-waterfalls

Diet success & failure

Why most diets fail, and what the definition of “success” even looks like:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/the-definition-of-diet-success

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/willpower-determinism-and-the-4-minute

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/your-diet-is-so-extreme

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/reversing-obesity-getting-shredded

Satiety

My thoughts about satiety, which, while important, is so complex it seems practically useless in the way most people use it:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/satiety-you-keep-using-that-word

How to experiment with diets

And thoughts on a strategy to advance your knowledge about diets over time:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/the-efficient-frontier-of-fat-loss

https://www.exfatloss.com/p/potato-riff-study-the-quicksort-of

Mechanics of obesity

Whatever the root cause of the obesity epidemic, it’s clearly at least slightly complicated:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/the-slightly-complicated-theory-of

Thinking in terms of carbs/fats/protein is probably hindering more than helping:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/rip-macros

I think the concept of Fuel Partitioning is fundamental to understanding obesity:

https://www.exfatloss.com/p/fuel-partitioning-causes-obesity

A few thoughts on non-metabolic diet strategies/tactics/hacks I use:

https://www.exfatloss.com/p/non-metabolic-diet-hacks

BCAAs/protein restriction

“Carnivores hate him!” I only found success with fat loss once I severely restricted The Magical Macro - protein. It’s probably mediated by BCAAs.

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/not-losing-fat-on-ketocarnivore-try

https://www.exfatloss.substack.com/p/show-me-the-bcaa-studies

Seed oils

I think excess seed oils/PUFAs (or more specifically, linoleic acid) in the modern diet are a primary, or even the primary, cause of obesity and other metabolic dysfunction and “diseases of civilization”:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/seed-oils-explain-the-8-mysteries

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/bro-do-you-even-re-saturate-omegaquant

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/omegaquant-endgame-test-results-after

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/the-mysterious-case-of-outlier-17

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/what-miracle-cures-should-we-expect

https://www.exfatloss.com/p/book-and-concept-review-omega-balance

https://www.exfatloss.com/p/pufa-the-preponderance-of-the-evidence

Self-experiments

In the “modern period” of taking experimentation more seriously and doing it more systematically, I’ve tried a variety of diets on myself.

Eating deli meats:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/ex150deli-mod-review-still-losing

Eating mostly chocolate truffle every day:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/ex150choctruffle-mod-review-confounders

My 5th run of OG ex150:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/brief-ex150-5-update-worked-as-expected

Eating a little more protein:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/ex225lean-mod-review-even-medium

A most confusing month:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/a-most-confusing-month-06lb-weight

Eating sardines instead of beef:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/ex150sardines-mod-review-non-24-stayed

My 6th run of OG ex150:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/ex150-6-review-down-6lbs-in-30-days

Grass-fed beef instead of grain-fed:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/ex150grassfed-review-disappointing

Cutting out nearly 1,500kcal/day I was getting from Starbucks lattes:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/ex150nostarbucks-review-down-13lbs

Adding 40g of collagen daily:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/ex150collagen-review-5lbs-hopefully

Very slightly increasing protein, but adding strength training:

https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/ex225-strength-training-review-disappointingconf

Doing a chocolate-truffle fat fast restricted to 2,000kcal/day to surprising success:

https://www.exfatloss.com/p/ex_choc_truffle_2000-review-lost

After messing up and gaining 15lbs in 1 day (mostly water weight), I do another 14 days of fat fast, this time without the caloric restriction:

https://www.exfatloss.com/p/ex_fatfast-review-massive-fuckarounditis

After messing around too much, I decided to just go back to the roots: ex150-7 and then ex150-8. Weight loss ensued as expected, despite the holiday season. I finally made it from obese to overweight!

https://www.exfatloss.com/p/ex150-7-review-down-4-6lbs-despite

https://www.exfatloss.com/p/e150-8-review-new-low-weight-left

After 2 months of strict ex150 OG I felt like experimenting again, and I tried a savory fat fast. It was disappointing, and I lost almost no weight.

https://www.exfatloss.com/p/ex_savoryfatfast-review-disappointing