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I know I'm not coming from the same place "only" fluctuating maybe 40lbs max, and if had morbid obesity, I wouldn't be so picky, but I would have more requirements:

-Ability to concentrate/focus

-Energy throughout the day

- Sleeping well

-Skin stays same or gets better

These are not related to calorie deficits, for me anyway. Directly related to the food types.. When I did a very clean keto with high fat (low pufa), mod protein and very low carb, I had to take a nap every afternoon and I never nap. I ate plenty of calories, had no cravings (the only part I liked about it). And I had fitful sleep. That blend of macros was just awful for me and I should have stopped it sooner because it took me a year to recover my metabolism, my skin took years to get back to what it was, it became dull with fine lines and it was always so good before that, fortunately it's good again.

Getting more ideal, I would also add that you can go back to a moderate diet and not rebound. Like you, I have tried almost all the options, and when I try something, I follow it exactly, do not cheat, at all. Even a tiny bit. But I always rebound gain even on just normal intake. Keto again being the worst, I gained weight on "norma lowl" range calories that I never gain on. Took a year for that to stop.

Then unicorn, a truly successful diet would "fix" the reason I gain weight and make me "constitutionally thin" a phrase I found in research that says it nicely I think.

I also follow Fire in a bottle which is where I came across you, and I've just started his Pre-emergence diet. It's one I've never tried low BCAA. I am eating rice and cassava but no wheat. Some lentils. And yummy cream. I just tried your instant decaf powder in it, nice twist! I use allulose for a little bit of sweetener. Have you made panna cotta? it falls in line with low BCAA even though gelatin is all protein, it's very low in BCAA content. And it gives it a great alternative texture. So far so good (day 5). Very easy, good energy, I can do this all day! I will have pizza one day a week even though cheese has higher bcaa, but generally "cheat" days have worked very well for me. I prefer margherita pizza anyway, so I'll probably get about 4-5g bcaa in that which will be my highest intake all week.

I find your dedication to your experiments very impressive! If "people" only knew how much willpower many overweight people have, they would be shocked. Truly, they have far more than my constitutionally friends have, to eat things they hate, go hungry, try and try. It is not about willpower.

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Hey, thanks for the comment!

I like "constitutionally thing" haha, good phrase indeed.

I'd agree that the points you list are important. I've never found a diet that made me lose weight but didn't fulfill these criteria, so maybe that's why I hadn't even considered them. But most diets that rely on eating less end up with a big crash, with the starvation symptoms including pretty much everything you list, so I feel your pain.

Interesting that high fat/moderate protein keto sucked for you. It's super great for me and I feel better on it than on anything else I've tried so far. Really goes to show how there are huge individual differences. Maybe I'm just wired to be a fat burner, or for all that dairy fat, who knows.

I haven't made panna cotta, but I have made gelatin cream, which is basically cream with pudding texture instead of whipped. It tasted ok, but I haven't kept it up because I tried it during an experiment that was confounded as is, so I wasn't sure if the gelatin was adding to the issues at the time.

I should test it again at one point though, because of the whole BCAA/muscle meat vs. gelatin thing. That's pretty recent on my radar, so I haven't really experimented much, but it does make intuitive sense and fits in with Brad's whole theory. I think he's really coming into his own now with the expansion of the torpor/emergence theory from just PUFAs to also BCAAs and other things.

Please keep me updated!

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I'm curious about how you think about sneaky caloric deficiancies and the CICO thing. I think the notion of sustainability is completely correct (intuitively), but I also get the sense that you also believe you need to be (are?) in some kind of deficit when actually losing weight, no?

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I believe there are 2 types of balance where you can be in deficit: external (you vs. the world) and internal (energy your body needs vs. energy your body has access to, e.g. from food or body fat).

I wrote about it here: https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-two-caloric-deficits

In short, to lose weight, you want to be in an external deficit but internal surplus or balance. Otherwise, your body will start conserving energy and turn down the furnace.

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