Post: #51

(01-13-2016 05:46 PM)Uncircumcised Coke Can Wrote:  But the fact is - calories in/calories out is responsible for 99% of the changes in body composition. Macro manipulation is almost inconsequential. It's basically a fitness gimmick sold to Asperger people who enjoy counting things.

In addition to your normal diet, try adding 1000 calories (around 9 tbsp) of coconut oil each day and see what happens then. Farmers tried this with their cows to fatten them up...they actually lost weight.

Post: #52

(01-13-2016 07:56 PM)CocoBoy Wrote:  

(01-13-2016 05:46 PM)Uncircumcised Coke Can Wrote:  But the fact is - calories in/calories out is responsible for 99% of the changes in body composition. Macro manipulation is almost inconsequential. It's basically a fitness gimmick sold to Asperger people who enjoy counting things.

In addition to your normal diet, try adding 1000 calories (around 9 tbsp) of coconut oil each day and see what happens then. Farmers tried this with their cows to fatten them up...they actually lost weight.

I tried to find the source for that...Do you have a clinical study to link to?

Seems like another one of those urban myths floating the internet.

1000 calories of anything on top of a maintenance diet will make you gain weight. I can't imagine why somebody would embarrass themselves arguing the contrary.

Post: #53

(01-13-2016 05:46 PM)Uncircumcised Coke Can Wrote:  ^The TEF should be factored in when calculating your caloric maintenance. I'll agree with you that most nutritionists are too retarded to do that.

But the fact is - calories in/calories out is responsible for 99% of the changes in body composition. Macro manipulation is almost inconsequential. It's basically a fitness gimmick sold to Asperger people who enjoy counting things.

Quote:Fat and protein satiate, yes.
However the absence of muscle glycogen removes the barrier to fat loss.

The body can and does burn fat with full glycogen stores. While resting - and doing low-intensity exercise - adipose tissue is the body's primary fuel source.

Quote:Lots of dietary experiments exist correlating with this. For instance, GLL ate a diet of fried cheese for a week, something in excess of 5k calories per day. After a week he still managed to lose a pound.

When going on a keto diet like that, most people will lose weight due to glycogen depletion and water loss. Doesn't make it any more effective for fat loss.

I guess he's banned.

I'll have to find that post by the GLL anyway, it was gold.

Post: #54

(01-12-2016 11:00 PM)Joga Bonito Wrote:  There's some interesting case studies regarding weight loss and the effect of certain foods on achieving that goal. Below is an article that details a professor that ate a calorie restricted, but all-junk food diet and actually shed pounds since he was eating well below is maintenance calories. The TLDR summary of the article is that in the scenario of purely losing weight(not necessarily optimal hormonal function), that nothing else matters other than being in a caloric deficit.

Yeah, he lost weight. The relevant question is, how much of it was fat? Burning up a pound of muscle for every pound of fat is absolutely not a good tradeoff. I wouldn't call it a diet, I'd call it murder.

I can lose 27 lbs in two months too if I just ate a loaf of bread and maybe five apples every day.

If you're dieting with the goal to get leaner and spare muscle mass then doing a straight up caloric deficit without any attention paid to macros is a no go. You just undid all your work.

I was going to respond to Coke Can but it looks like he got banned.

Anywho, here is the study I found.

Too much sugar turns off gene that controls sex steroids.

He was right about the study I linked earlier, it was about glucose. I'm still right, though. Eating too much sugar kills your testosterone. If you eat a lot of junk food it'll create a nice feedback loop where your testosterone progressively gets lower over time and you get fatter and less muscular with the same caloric intake. Lifting weights counteracts this somewhat, but why make it harder on yourself? Stop eating hohos and guzzling liters of soda. The average American eats like 3 lbs of sugar a week and everyone wonders why we have an obesity problem.

About phytoestrogens, there may not be many clinical studies on it. I don't keep a notebook on this shit so I'll have to go look for the studies I did find. Phytoestrogens are at best neutral and at worst harmful in large amounts. It's like anything else. You can smoke cigarettes for forty nine years and only just get cancer the fiftieth.

People were saying the exact same shit when it was discovered that bottled water (which many drink in large amounts) was loaded with BPA's, which in high amounts screws with your hormones. I'd rather avoid phytoestrogens than gamble with my sexual health five, ten, twenty years down the road when there's a public service announcement that says your risk of testicular cancer and impotence goes up tenfold if you eat so and so many grams of soy each week. I'm enormously skeptical of FDA approval when it comes to anything, really.

If all that means is I avoid soy products, flaxseed products, roasted salted peanuts, and Brazil nuts then so be it. The majority of what I eat is meat and potatoes, so I couldn't give a fuck less about the foods to avoid. Since I like to drink, I make it a point to drink the "healthiest' option, which happens to be liquor or white wine. This also isn't hard.

As far as getting fatter in a caloric deficit, yes you can. I didn't say anything about storing fat in a caloric deficit. If you lose lean body mass and your fat stays the same, you are fatter. Storing fat in a caloric deficit is something I'd ask on the lyle mcdonald forums. It's probably possible with large amounts of fructose, as it has to go through the liver first and has a much higher tendency to be stored as fat.

General commentary on the thread
Calories in versus calories out works great for the most part. Saying that macros don't matter is disingenuous at best. You can eat a 1500 calories worth a Skittles every day, you will lose weight but you will lose a lot more muscle than if you were to up your protein to at least 1 g/lb and not eat garbage.

Keto diets don't mess with your testosterone and you can definitely burn fat with them. I don't agree that they have the monopoly on fat loss but they're still a great way to go. So is the traditional bodybuilding approach where you have a 500 calorie deficit each day and you do a bit of cardio. For the most part, any time you go in a caloric deficit your testosterone will go down.

I really want to see that study where coconut oil apparently can't make you fat.

Post: #55

(01-12-2016 12:05 PM)Khan Wrote:  What works for you wont necessarily work for others. I've been on Paleo for a year and it didn't do much good for me. During the first several months I lost a couple of pounds, but then I plateaued. This led me to a point where after a year I felt like shit eating all that fat and protein with very little carbs. Then I discovered weightlifting and balanced nutrition and I feel much better now.

The more I learn about nutrition the more I see Paleo as a fad, a classic example of the Appeal to nature fallacy. If cutting out everything 'unnatural' and consuming only 'natural' is great for everyone, then being a homeless drug addict must be great - cocaine is perfectly natural, while urban housing is unnatural and man made.

Paleo has developed a fad-like following. A couple pounds lost and then a hard plateau sounds to me that you either went into starvation mode or you were eating too many pseudo paleo foods like potatoes and rice. What did your diet look like? Did you count calories to make sure you weren't undereating? The fact that you felt like shit leads me to believe that you were undereating for a length of time, causing your body to hold onto every pound it had, screwing your hormonal balance in the process.

The reason why paleo tends to work is because it's very, very hard to overeat meat and vegetables. Some folks think that 6 eggs is a very large meal, when in fact it is not, it's only 420 calories. Same with bacon. An average slice of bacon is like 50 calories. A 10 ounce ribeye steak is only 550 calories, some guys would have to eat three or four of them a day, plus salads and a sweet potato here and there to get their daily calories. One of those grocery store bag salads of spinach and other mixed vegetables is about as close to zero calorie as you can get.

A pound of sweet potatoes might be 400 calories, yet a pound of fries doubles that easily.

Then again, some people simply do better on carbs. You might be one of them. I agree with Anabasis to Desta, diet is very personal and there is no one size fits all approach.

Post: #56

(01-13-2016 12:18 PM)CocoBoy Wrote:  Yeah you probably have a point, that a high protein and fat diet makes you full more easily and that's because it's fucking full of nutrients, something which carbs cannot claim to be. Isn't that a good thing though? Rather than constantly spiking your blood sugar, crashing and then craving your carb fix all day.

Depends on which carbs. Stuff like oatmeal, potatoes, whole wheat, fruit, vegetables is very nutritious. French fries or chocolate - not so much.

I also read that the effects of elevated blood sugar are overstated, as digesting protein also causes a spike in blood sugar levels. Metabolic processes are not instantaneous, they occur on a daily/weekly time span and they should be viewed as such.

Hannibal Wrote:Paleo has developed a fad-like following.

I agree, that's one of the reasons I gave up on it.

Hannibal Wrote:A couple pounds lost and then a hard plateau sounds to me that you either went into starvation mode or you were eating too many pseudo paleo foods like potatoes and rice. What did your diet look like? Did you count calories to make sure you weren't undereating? The fact that you felt like shit leads me to believe that you were undereating for a length of time, causing your body to hold onto every pound it had, screwing your hormonal balance in the process.

I didn't count calories. During that whole time I would stop eating just slightly before I felt full. That way I was making sure I avoid starvation as well as overeating. My metabolism probably adapted to eating low-carb so I was unconsciously back to neutral on calories after a while. And after a year, I was craving to eat potatoes or a healthy sandwich.

Hannibal Wrote:Then again, some people simply do better on carbs. You might be one of them. I agree with Anabasis to Desta, diet is very personal and there is no one size fits all approach.

I agree. Nutrition is very much influenced by your genetics. For example, Native Americans can't stand alcohol, while Inuits would probably starve to death on a low-fat diet. My ancestry is largely Dinaric (that's a mountainous region of Croatia) - I love potatoes and meat, and dairy products are an absolute cornerstone of my diet.

Post: #57

Here is a study from November 2015, where they studied 800 people and found what is intuitively obvious, the same food reacts differently with an individual's body chemistry.

http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(15)01481-6

That's intuitive, but it makes prescriptive advice harder to follow blindly.

That means that individuals need to be more rigorous in following plans, but adjusting them when goals are not being met.

Something most people already know, but rarely act on.

WIA

Post: #58

(01-14-2016 07:44 AM)Khan Wrote:  Depends on which carbs. Stuff like oatmeal, potatoes, whole wheat, fruit, vegetables is very nutritious. French fries or chocolate - not so much.

I also read that the effects of elevated blood sugar are overstated, as digesting protein also causes a spike in blood sugar levels. Metabolic processes are not instantaneous, they occur on a daily/weekly time span and they should be viewed as such.

You're right, protein will turn to glucose if eaten in excess which is why you shouldn't overeat it, just get an adequate amount for your size. Fat on the other hand will never do that, so I try to keep my macros high fat with enough protein to build muscle and a smaller amount of carbs (mostly from fruits and vegetables).

Paleo isn't a fad though, it's not even a diet, it's just a way of eating. A lot of people like myself don't do it to lose weight, they just do it because they experienced health benefits from it.

It's also true that people have different bodies which respond well to different foods which makes it difficult to prescribe a one size fits all approach. Many different cultures have been found living with amazing health and no "western" diseases that eat radically different diets, but their bodies adapted well to them. For example eskimos eat blubber and fish, it's a very high fat diet and they are very healthy but then you have the Kitvans who get most of their calories from carbs in the form of starchy tubers and they are also free of western disease.

One thing they do have in common though is that their eating styles are both free of the unnatural things we have introduced into our diets in recent years. Our bodies take time to adapt and I would suggest that we have not had enough time to get used to our modern way of eating and we are suffering from it.

The reason the paleo diet works is because both the Eskimos and the Kitivans are eating that style, just with radically different macros but that's obviously not a problem. For that reason the paleo diet is here to stay because it's the only one that makes any logical sense. There is obviously something seriously wrong with our modern eating habits, and the paleo way of living just encourages us to go back to eating natural foods. There is no calorie counting, no weirdness, just cutting out the crap and introducing natural and nutritious foods. How can that possibly be a fad?

I'm actually surprised there isn't more paleo proponents on here, as it tends to be pretty popular in location independent types.

Post: #59

Had a feeling Coke Can was a troll. He did have a few good points though.

(01-13-2016 05:46 PM)Uncircumcised Coke Can Wrote:  When going on a keto diet like that, most people will lose weight due to glycogen depletion and water loss. Doesn't make it any more effective for fat loss.

The initial week or so of a Keto diet will be water loss, but as your body adapts to the new lower carb diet and becomes Keto adapted for fuel that will change and be fat loss.

(01-12-2016 10:42 PM)Uncircumcised Coke Can Wrote:  Young men placed on a low-carb diet have 36% less free testosterone than their high-carb counterparts.

Interesting study. I've also heard of stories that some professional athletes had decreased Testosterone levels on a VLCKD, but don't think that happens to everyone.

In the cases where this does happen, I think there can be an increased sensitivity for athletes who have a higher carb diet and have a greater number of glucose receptors. So when they dramatically switch to a Keto diet and their glucose levels go through the floor, so does their Testosterone. Eventually as they become Keto adapted they will go back to normal. Keto diet researchers like Dominic D'Agostino claim it can take up to a year for some of those types to become Keto adapted. There is still a lot to be discovered in these areas though.

Speaking of Dominic D'Agostino, he's also a former bodybuilder and avid Keto practitioner himself.

Dominic D'Agostino Breaking the World Record for most weight squated in 24 hours.

Interview with Tim Ferriss talking about how he deadlifted 500 pounds for 10 reps after a seven-day fast.

In the same breath, there are several VLCKD and Keto diet studies that show there can be muscle mass gained on these diets, as well as no loss in strength and performance compared to the traditional western high carb diets.

The effects of ketogenic dieting on skeletal muscle and fat mass

Quote:Lean body mass increased to a greater extent in the VLCKD (4.3 ± 1.7 kgs ) as compared to the traditional group (2.2 kg ± 1.7). Ultrasound determined muscle mass increased to a greater extent in the VLCKD group (0.4 ± 0.25 cm) as compared to the traditional western group (0.19 ± 0.26 cm). Finally fat mass decreased to a greater extent in the VLCKD group (-2.2 kg ± 1.2 kg) as compared to the (- 1.5 ± 1.6 kg).

Effects of a ketogenic diet on strength and power

Quote:Both the LCKD and western group experienced an increase in bench press 1RM strength, squat 1RM strength, and wingate peak power. In the literature there is a lack of studies testing a LCKD diet on strength and power performance. For purely aerobic performance, there is no difference between high carbohydrate and high fat as long as a 3-4 week period for adaptation to a high fat diet is permitted . However, one study attempted to simulate a race-like environment, which incorporated anaerobic sprints during the aerobic event. This study found that no differences were present during the aerobic portion, but the time to travel 4km in the sprint was significantly greater in the ketogenic group. In our study we were able to demonstrate that a LCKD can produce similar strength and power gains to a western diet.

At the end of the day everyone needs to experiment and see what works for them. Some say you need at least 4-6 weeks to see the benefits of a new diet, some say 2-3 months. You can take two people with the exact same attributes, give them the same diet and fitness routine, but at the end of the experiment see their bodies become altered in completely different ways. I've retrofitted a keto/paleo diet that incorporates more protein and fibrous carbs and that works best for me. Self experimentation is the only way.

Post: #60

Personally I like a Paleo diet with carbs after a big weights workout and/or an occasional big carb-up day.

Coconut and coconut oil is great for energy when you're low-carb or transitioning to paleo, all those good MCFAs get easily used for energy.