That 5000 Calorie Jokesperiment

Note:  I started this article with the intent of it being a single stand-alone before Smash the Fat's Sam Feltham had done his final summary of his overeating stunt.  Since then, however, he has written said summary and I've written two posts discussing this disconnect between the you-can-eat-all-the-calories claims and the current uber-restrictive low carb plans many long time low carbers are actually following themselves.  See:  Fast or Feltham and Fast or Feltham II

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Apologies in Advance:  I wrote this with updates/edits over several days and with "new information" coming in the interim.  It could probably use a good bit of editing and crunching down, but as this is just a blog, I'm going to publish it up w/o wasting time on that.  Please forgive the length, repetitiveness, etc.  Thanks!

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Must See "TV" for those suffering from CDS

BUMP!  Original posting:  1/24/11

CDS = Calorie Denial Syndrome

BBC Story about Low Carb Dieting - Part 1
BBC Story about Low Carb Dieting - Part 2
BBC Story about Low Carb Dieting - Part 3
BBC Story about Low Carb Dieting - Part 4
BBC Story about Low Carb Dieting - Part 5

(HatTip to Wolfstriked for linking to this in comments.)

Just a few thoughts on this aside from the content so that my opinions will not cloud your listening of the presentation:

I found it interesting that they showed both Westman and Foster exercising (running and playing basketball) in their intros in the piece.  Indeed they are interviewed in their gym clothes!  Then there's Dr. Mary Vernon horseback riding.  Did we need so many closeup chewing scenes?  And, lastly, was the full rear (albeit blurred) Sipowitz moment in the shower, actually that rather lengthy soaping/showering scene, really necessary as a backdrop to the discussion of ketosis?

Fast or Feltham II

Busy weekend here!  I'm working on a couple of posts, one of which is a closer look at the 5000 calorie/day stunt by Sam Feltham as that provides a context in which to discuss some common CICO strawmen.  But a comment came across the feed reader yesterday that caught my eye with a few more thoughts in the vein of my first Fast or Feltham post. 

I'm not going to say much more about Feltham here except to say that his experiment was basically "nuts".  The majority of his calories (53%) were from walnuts, pecans and almonds, to the tune of a pound a day, containing more than the entire claimed caloric surplus, and almost the full claimed surplus in nut fat calories.  This was a stunt that demonstrated nothing other than that Feltham likely doesn't digest nuts well, and is using this to promote a rip-off of Jonathan Bailor's clogged sink scam.  But stunts like this bring the calorie deniers out of the woodwork as various folks will be like "did you see this?" and link to various other overeating stunts of years gone by.  LCHF is being sold, still, as a diet where calories don't matter, "overeating" is inane, and you can eat thousands of calories more and not gain weight.  

Fast or Feltham ...

The title of this post is a play on "feast or famine".   One of the things about blogging, for me anyway, is that over time you accumulate a draft bin full of posts that never get published.  Some of these are on studies I never got the chance to fully flesh out, others are on the "goings on" during a particular time that never seemed appropriate to hit Publish on by the time they were ready.  They are the closest thing I have to a diary and it can often be interesting to read back through the draft bin.  

It is hard to believe that I've been blogging over three years now, and involved in this community for more than another year longer than that.  Barely a blink of an eye compared to some but my how times have changed.  This time four years ago Mark Sisson published Primal Blueprint and Jimmy Moore weighed around 245 lbs after getting down to the mid 230's earlier in the year.  Nobody would have known about or considered eating nothing but eggs for weeks on end ... they would have to wait almost a year and 35 more pounds for that stunt.  This was the hay day of CarbSmart and other companies selling all manner of LC fair from Dreamfields to Julian Bakery to Chocoperfection and more!  

11 Unexpected Health Hazards Of The Atkins Diet Besides Weight Gain

1. Carbohydrate Cravings and Hunger

By restricting carbohydrates you will discover your previously unknown addiction to carbohydrates and start craving them. The longer you do Atkins the fewer carbohydrates you will eventually be able to eat. Eventually even protein will lose it's physiologically satiating properties and trigger hunger and cravings because a skinless chicken breast might as well be at Little Debbie cake. 

2. Spontaneous Snacking

Initially you will lose your hunger, but over time you will need to eat every few hours, perhaps even more often.  No way will intentional fasting be an option, intermittent or otherwise.

3. Brain Fog

Forget carb comas!  You'll get that brain fog hitting you really hard even after eating a pretty decent low-carb meal.

The Heritage of Corpulence

OBESITY is a disorder which, like venereal disease, is blamed upon the patient. The finding that treatment doesn’t work is ascribed to lack of fortitude. Corpulence in America is regarded along with narcotic addiction as something wicked, and I shall not be surprised if soon we have a prohibition against it in the name of national security. The condition is referred to in disparaging terms, including the most impolite references to the appetite. Appetite is held to be the cause, but I say it is hunger. I wish to propose that obesity is an inherited disorder and due to a genetically determined defect in an enzyme; in other words, that people who are fat are born fat, and nothing much can be done about it. I would like further to propose that the more serious of the consequences of being fat are not due to the corpulence but to the inherited defects; if this be so and we like food, we might as well eat up and be happy.

Astwood, 1962  

Adding:  A free double Cherry Pickin' Martini for anyone who can get me the full text of this.  Carbsane at gmail dot com.  Thanks in advance!

The Myth of Starving Cells II and NEFA Levels Again.

UPDATE (and a tiny bump for feed subscribers):  I noticed a bit of traffic to a prior related post, so I'm just linking to that one here as well:  Insulin Doing Its Thang! And Still No Starving Cells.  It discusses another study by Keith Frayn that shows increased NEFA uptake into the muscle cells of men with hyperinsulinemia.  It may be worth a read for newer readers along with The Myth of Starving Cells.

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Original Content:

A little sidetrack here, but I came across an article the other day. I just had to blog on it before I forgot!  

A little background as well -- A couple of years ago I wrote:  The Myth of Starving Cells.  As the story goes, as related by science journalist Gary Taubes, to Low Carb Diet Doctor Mike Eades, to Fat Head Naughton, insulin traps our fat in our fat cells, causing "internal starvation" as the rest of our cells go without, triggering hunger and overeating.   We overeat because we are getting fat, or some nonsense like that.   In the post, I discussed studies demonstrating the opposite is true.  In obesity, there is failure to properly suppress NEFA release from fat cells, NEFA are elevated in the fasted state, and irrespective of absolute concentration, NEFA delivery to cells is higher.  The last point leading to accumulation of fat within ectopic cells, such as muscle cells (called intramyocellular triglyceride or lipid, IMTG, IMCT or IMCL).  The cells have plenty of fat fuel to burn ... indeed this is a problem!

So I was looking for a  link to that Ebbeling et.al. study the other day -- this one: Effects of Dietary Composition on Energy Expenditure During Weight-Loss Maintenance.  In the study, a group of obese people were put on a relatively high protein (25%), relatively low fat (30%) and moderate carb (45%) diet and lost between 10 and 15% of their initial body weight.  After which they were weight stabilized and then fed one of three maintenance diets for 4 weeks in randomized cross-over fashion.  These diets were P/F/C:  low fat = 20/20/60 , low GI = 20/40/40, and low carb = 30/60/10.  

Why Fructose is NOT Like Alcohol

Where did this come from?

Beginning with his viral YouTube video (I won't link to it, every additional view is one view too many!), and continuing on, Dr. Robert Lustig has been making the claim that fructose is metabolized like alcohol by the liver.  You cannot make your misinformation more clear than to title a section in your book as Lustig did in Fat Chance --  Fructose versus Ethanol:  Pick Your Poison.

Before Lustig, I don't think I'd ever heard anyone equate sugar to alcohol on a metabolic level.  A few may have made an addiction analogy, but it was Lustig who "taught" us the "science" that the liver processes sugar just like alcohol.

It is shocking to me that his video was produced and distributed by an institution of higher learning as a "Mini Medical School for the Public" presentation.  This implies to me that the content has been somewhat vetted.  Apparently it has not been, and also, nobody within that establishment has ever seen fit to correct the record?  Again, apparently not, as there is that Skinny on Obesity series out there repeating many of the previous errors.

Announcement: Alan Aragon's Research Review Article

I'm proud to announce that I was asked to contribute an article to the April/May 2013 edition of Alan Aragon's Research Review.   

Type 2 Diabetes:  Insulin Resistance or Insulin Deficiency?

Yes, it's for subscribers only, so if you're not one already, there's no time like the present to sign up!  Alan Aragon's Research Review

{BTW, between working on the rather lengthy article and a print interview and suffering some devastating word processor crashes, I've been a bit more sparse than usual answering comments, etc.  Please don't take it personally if I didn't respond, I'm going to try to go back through the past week when I get a chance and check if I missed anything.}

GCBC Reference Check ~ Part VIII of ? ~ The Paleo Diet

Preface:  When I first read GCBC some time in 2009, I skimmed over the parts that were irrelevant to my issues with the book, which were on the basis of Taubes' misrepresentations of metabolism and obesity, etc.  In the intervening years I've gone back and read large chunks of it in more detail, but if I ever read the parts about the Paleolithic, I didn't take much note at the time because the names were not familiar to me.  

I've always found it odd how Taubes was described as paleo in some circles, his book is even cited on an infographic listing 10 years of paleo literature!  Aside from calling out refined carbs and sugar quite a bit, Taubes doesn't really make much of a deal about quality of foods, especially fats.  (Shhhhhh, don't tell the paleo peeps, but peanut oil is listed as an "especially healthy" oil in WWGF - Kindle Locations 3423-3424)