Here's an Experiment I'd Like to See

Ahh, well Jimmy Moore has posted his 90 day update on his nutritional ketosis experiment.  While he's refusing to divulge his menus until the 180 day experiment is complete (wanna bet he writes a book about the experience and stupid people will buy it?) he did finally post a typical meal complete with "recipe" and pictures. Why anyone is even interested in mimicking his foods is beyond me, but that's besides the point.

Here's a "meal", I've added Charles' calorie estimates from nutritiondata.com

direct image link
JIMMY MOORE’S KETO EGGS
4-5 pastured eggs (large eggs = 284-355 calories)
2-3 oz grass-fed butter and/or coconut oil (2-3 oz butter = 402-603 calories, 2-3 oz coconut oil = 482-723 calories) )
Sea salt,  Parsley (or your favorite spice)
2 oz full-fat cheese (optional) (2-3 oz cheddar cheese = 226-339 calories)
2 Tbs Trinity Hill Farms Sweet Chili Sauce
3 Tbs sour cream (3 tbs sour cream = 69 calories)
1 whole avocado (1 whole avocado = appx 322 calories)

This meal contains  roughly 1800 to 2500 calories, and using Jimmy's 85% fat estimate, contains roughly 170 to 235g fat -- in one meal.   Now rather than his blood ketones and sugars and whatnot ... I want to know what his plasma looks like 2 hrs after a meal!  And I have just the person to help:  Dr. Mike Eades!   I blogged a while back on one of Eades more ridiculous claims trashing other "stupid" doctors.  Short summary:  The subject of Eades' post was an ABC report where they had two people consume an enormous fatty carby meal and looked at their blood 2 hours after the pigout.  The plasma was cloudy.  Eades wrote:
There is a lot of fat swimming in the serum, that’s for sure. What the producers of this piece (and, sadly, the doctors commenting although they should know better) want you to take away from all this by the way they set it up is that all that saturated fat went directly into the blood. And how can you argue with them? It’s there for all to see.
Problem is, that’s what blood samples look like after almost any meal, especially one that contains carbohydrates. The fat you see isn’t the fat the two reporters ate; it is the fat the liver has made from the carbohydrate. It’s the same picture a tube of blood would show after either of the two doctors had eaten a high-carb, low-fat lunch.
I find it disturbing that a medical doctor can write such nonsense, but he did.  So I think this would be a learning experiment for both the Dr. and Jimmy.  Really, even before I heard what chylomicrons were, I knew that cloudy plasma is from fat in the blood.   It's even in one of their buddy Taubes' favorite book!  From Frayn's Metabolic Regulation


Figure 7.10   The milky appearance of blood plasma (right) after a fatty meal, compared with its clear appearance in the fasted state (left). The turbidity is caused by the presence of the large chylomicron particles.
So here's what I think would be both a worthwhile learning experience for Eades and Moore, but also worthwhile information to share with readers as to the impact of such a diet.  Have Dr. Eades draw the blood (or order it), centrifuge it and see how cloudy it is.  Then let it sit for a couple of hours and see if fat separates out.  Share THAT with your readers.

I'm sure many will rely on that study where Volek showed better postprandial trig clearance with VLC.  But the cloudy plasma above is probably following a "normal" fatty meal.  I've dealt with countless samples from clinical trials often collected following a meal, and I could always tell which ones had a big fatty meal.  Such samples were dreaded because the solvents used to extract the drug for analysis tended to extract fat as well which made for a dirty sample that could mess up not only the analysis but the equipment.  They were also pesky when it came to mixing them and the solvent and plasma layers not separating but forming an emulsion (think mayo).

It is unclear if turbid blood is dangerous per se, but just as folks consider glucose toxic because the body works very hard to clear it from circulation, one has to be blinded by agenda not to recognize the "work" done to transport and remove fatty acids from circulation.  Normal FFA's in circulation amount to around 0.5g.  Dietary fat is packaged in chylo as triglycerides.  These trigs must be hydrolyzed to fatty acids before they can be taken up by adipose or other tissues.  If you've got 100g of triglyceride in chylo floating around?  Lots of NEFA are bound to escape the trapping process (especially in the presence of low postprandial insulin) .  Nothing good comes of that, perhaps nothing happens at all.  But there's a better than good chance, bad things happen.   Recall from above, Eades doesn't dispute that all that fat swimming about is undesirable, he just pointed the finger of blame at the carbohydrates in the diet.

Show me the plasma!!




Comments

river rance said…
If Jimmy Moore lived in my state of Florida,for his own protection, he could be "Baker Acted"!
From e-how;
"Baker Acting someone is not an easy thing to do. If someone you love is out of control and you fear for their safety or the safety of others, you can have them involuntarily Baker Acted and observed for 72 hours. This term is only used in Florida; other states usually refer to it as an involuntary psychiatric hold."

. said…
With 4 eggs:
1603 calories
54g Pro
151g Fat
15g Cho, 9.2g fiber

With 5 eggs:
1672 calories
61g Pro
156g Fat
15g Cho, 9.2g fiber

Thomas said…
Anyone know how many meals he's eating in a single day? If it's more than one, JM's simply delusional if he's serious about fat loss (has this ever been pointed out before:)?)
Diana said…
I checked his site out, after not having been in that particular mental ward for at least a year, and saw his breakfast menu and frankly out and out gasped.

"Simply delusional" - about says it. Jimmy IS delusional.

This is the guy who told me to throw away my scale, when I was whining to him about how I couldn't lose weight eating as much as 20 carb grams a day.

Well, guess what. I bought a new scale, practiced ELMM and would you believe it, I lost weight!! Who'da thunk??
Unknown said…
melancholyaeon • 19 hours ago • parent
Hi Kelly,

"Does that mean you didn't get enough fat at either the buffet or the conference?"

Absolutely! As Dr. Volek explains, if you eat too much protein, your liver can turn that into glucose as if you'd eaten carbs. So if you can't get enough fat and aren't eating carbs, you're going to accidentally have to over-eat protein. So at the Chinese buffet there's too much protein, the wrong kind of fat (vegetable oils), and the sauces all have sugar/MSG/maltodextrin. It's low-quality food with a lot of hidden issues. At AHS, all the food looked really meat-heavy and light on fat - the Twitpix were pretty clear. This may work for the Crossfit set, but for someone like Jimmy, it doesn't work at all! Jimmy's poor liver turns that into glucose, so it's an issue for him.

Those of us who live in ketosis have learned to always carry olives, ghee or coconut butter with us everywhere we go to ensure we can get in the best level of fat for us no matter what.
0 •Reply•Share ›

LLVLCBlog MOD • 20 hours ago • parent
Not getting your point.
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Kelly Mahoney • 12 hours ago • parent
Point is I think it's possible that your weight loss stalled for past three weeks because you could have been overeating and not so much a change in macronutrient ratios. It's anybody's guess really as you are not counting your calories/macronutrients. It's a plausible explanation when you mention going to a buffet and a conference, two occasions where eating lots of food is encouraged.
I'm not getting your point mentioning the buffet and conference. If it's not the over consumption of calories that stalled your weight loss, then you are saying that it was the lack of high fat that stalled your weight loss? It sounds like you are saying that Paleo dieting will cause weight gain if you don't eat sticks of butter with all that meat? Gluconeogenesis makes protein makes carbs makes you fat, so eat fat, not protein, not carbs?
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LLVLCBlog MOD • 3 hours ago • parent −
Are we nitpicking at the details for some grand purpose here, Kelly? The fact is I've lost over 30 pounds, I'm still losing weight and there are a few points of stall here and there. Like I noted in my post, if we were all robots then we'd simply follow the owner's manual for making our bodies run optimally. Many different factors are involved here that could impact weight. And I can assure you I'm not "overeating" as you claim.

The mentioning of those two incidents is to give some context to the resulting numbers. Both presented challenges when I was outside of my normal eating and other lifestyle patterns and it was worth noting for the people who are following me in this experiment. Nobody is talking about "sticks of butter" with anything. Sounds like you're just more interested in being a rabble rouser here than to add anything productive or encouraging to the conversation. But I do appreciate your input!
. said…
Jimmy doesn't want his eating habits to be questioned; that's why he isn't releasing his menus. Doing that would open him up to even more criticism because they would betray his eating habits. And he is eating the equivalent of sticks of butter; it may not be sticks per se, but his total fat each day is sticks of butter.
Unknown said…
"I can assure you I'm not "overeating" as you claim."

If he's eating to satiety and it takes that breakfast to satisfy him he has problems.
Morris said…
Evelyn
Is there evidence that the turbid appearance of blood plasma is pathological rather than physiological? Your link from Frayn’s 3rd edition textbook includes Fig 7.11, which compares blood plasma TAG concentrations following a 33g and 80g meal in normal subjects. The graphs suggest very similar TAG concentrations at times 6 hours after the meal. 80 g of fat is a very generous amount of fat in one meal. Yes? Do you know the amount of fat ingested in the test tube picture of turbid plasma? How many hours after the meal? In normal subjects? One picture is worth a 1000 words, but which words? On the same page as the graph (p186, 3rd paragraph) Frayn says “ The route of absorption of dietary fats means that, alone among nutrients, it escapes the liver on its entry into circulation. In fact most of the triaglycerol is removed from the chylomicrons in tissues outside the liver , particularly adipose tissue, skeletal muscle, and heart.” Is this statement in conflict with your previous post about “fat burning”?
Unknown said…
http://www.jlr.org/content/41/12/1901.full

An olive oil-rich diet results in higher concentrations of LDL cholesterol and a higher number of LDL subfraction particles than rapeseed oil and sunflower oil diets

In conclusion, rapeseed oil and sunflower oil had more favorable effects on blood lipids and plasma apolipoproteins as well as on the number and lipid content of LDL subfractions compared with olive oil. Some of the differences may be attributed to differences in the squalene and phytosterol contents of the oils.—Pedersen, A., M. W. Baumstark, P. Marckmann, H. Gylling, and B. Sandström. An olive oil-rich diet results in higher concentrations of LDL cholesterol and a higher number of LDL subfraction particles than rapeseed oil and sunflower oil diets. J. Lipid Res. 2000. 41: 1901–1911.
Unknown said…
http://www.livescience.com/16764-python-hearts-treat-human-cardiac-disease.html

After a meal, python blood is so full of triglycerides, a form of cholesterol, that it appears milky, said study researcher Leslie Leinwand, a biologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. In humans, these fatty compounds would be deposited in heart muscle, but the snakes escape without damage.

"The python heart is able to burn these fats as fuel very, very efficiently, without any harm to it," Leinwand told LiveScience.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111027145900.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3383835/

Unknown said…
http://www.umm.edu/news/releases/milkshake_study.htm

The new study evaluated the implications of “desirable” fasting triglyceride in 50 healthy, non-obese men and women with normal cholesterol levels, whose average age was 35. After their fasting triglyceride was measured, each volunteer was given a milkshake, standardized at 70 grams of fat per square meter of body surface. Their triglycerides after the shake were measured at intervals of two, four, six, eight and ten hours.

For volunteers with a fasting triglyceride between 101 and 149, the triglyceride level at the peak, four hours after consuming the shake, averaged 200 mg/dL, putting them at dangerously high levels, despite the acceptable fasting levels. However, in volunteers with a fasting triglyceride of less than 100, the four-hour peak triglyceride after the milkshake was only 124 mg/dL on average.



Unknown said…
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/132/3/329.long

Physiological Effects of Medium-Chain Triglycerides: Potential Agents in the Prevention of Obesity
Anonymous said…
I followed the link and saw this is what Jimmy Moore wrote:
' I’ll continue to track my progress, journal exactly what I’m eating and chronicle it to reveal at the appropriate time. But right now is not that time.'

I can see what a 'menu' is, but I don't see that Jimmy eats all of that. It's a tantalizing experiment - I remember when Taubes made a comment that he's love to see a low-carb overeating experiment to show weight loss. My thought when I heard that was: so, go for it, yoga guy!

Show people that they can eat 7,000 calories every single day and not exercise and have the weight just melt away - now, this is a service to humanity, IMO. (If, instead, Jimmy eats 'to satiety,' he's basically saying that he eats until the thought of another bite of steak makes him nauseated and then he stops - not uncommon if all you are allowed to eat is fatty protein!)
Lerner said…
Holy cow... I'd tried to spark conversations like these months ago, even referring to the original milky plasma photo that had been on the internet for many years, which was of a dog and his chylos. Now that Taubes and his looney tunes are mostly on the scrapheap of history, things might proceed :)

Wrt pathological effect, I'd look into the Single Fatty Meal phenomenon, where excess postprandial fat can trigger a myocardial infarction - the cascade beginning beginning with Tissue Factor and Clotting Factor VII. MUFA, PUFA and SFA have differing effects, though as always the studies are inconsistent. Even if a person doesn't have atheroma which can be ruptured, the Single Fatty Meal phenomenon says to me that high PP fat is not considered as harmless by the body.

The phenomenon that the low-fatters always point to is Flow Mediated Dilation. E.g., tie off the brachial artery, release and measure how well and quickly normal flow is restored (which suffers after hi-fat meals). I've never quite been taken on why that is important. (I've also never gotten why some insist on the word 'dilatation' instead :)

I also recall a microscopy film pre-internet of red blood cells having a difficult time getting through capillaries after a hi-fat meal - though again I didn't see that as probably significant except as relates to PP lethargy.

Altogether, the limited evidence has convinced me that frequent small meals are probably safer. That'd be the opposite of IFing Paleo mega meals.

Lerner said…
This would be the avenue of investigation that led to the Homburg Cream and Sugar study:
http://www.theheart.org/article/1269389.do Aug 2011

"In those with normal glucose tolerance, the hazard ratio for the primary end point was 3.10 (p=0.04) for those in the highest tertile of fasting triglycerides (compared with lowest), and 4.45 (p=0.02) for those in the highest tertile of postprandial triglycerides."

Also with a video interview of the investigators.
Javeux said…
That meal looks disgusting. No lean person could physically finish it without a shade of green in their face. Maybe realising this would be a starting point for the delusional obese people buying into this cult-like craziness that gives L. Ron Hubbarb a run for his money in the loony stakes. I haven't read any of his blog, but if this is anything to go by, it's centred around enabling people with eating disorders. Even if following along offers some sense of comfort, it's seriously wrong to profit from such a thing.
Unknown said…
You have to take into account that Jimmy is Fat Adapted. Which means that he can eat much more fat than a normal person without gaining weight, and also that he enjoys xray vision.
bentleyj74 said…
If those meals and numbers leave you gasping in shock...just remember that those numbers are sufficiently REDUCED to allow him to LOSE weight at a quite rapid pace. I could speculate that when he is gaining he's hitting closer to 5,000 cals a day or more. If someone asked him why he thinks he's never hungry on his VLCHF diet he could only honestly concede that it's because he's eating roughly twice the recommended highest cal intakes for his height. If he isn't experiencing normalized hunger at normalized intakes his VLCHF diet isn't doing much at all but making him well lubricated.
Chris said…
I had a post last week of how I'd got ripped. But only when I started tracking calories. All my years of high fat paleo just made me fatter. I was stupid thinking unlimited gay was going to get me anywhere. Set your calories, get loads of protein and make the rest up with carbs and fat. Bodybuilders have known this for years. Jimmy is too invested in his low carb business to change. And there is no way he is paleo.
Christopher said…
What boggles my mind (among many things) is that I always thought low carb was supposed to be about sustainability and the long-term. That being so, WHO could actually eat this way for their entire life? Who would WANT to? Even Atkins advocated moving out of induction and progressing to more carbs. Jimmy's diet seems like permanent induction. He's probably happy because he's losing weight again, but I highly doubt he's happy living this way. Although I suppose the mind can rationalize anything.
Lesley Scott said…
" Really, even before I heard what chylomicrons were, I knew..." I had never heard of chylomicrons before seeking LC asylum - and your mention of them here prompted me go back & re-read your posts tagged "chylomicrons."

Which brings me to a question: in your post http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/06/chylomicron-specific-enhancement-of-asp.html there's a quote from a source that "Chylomicrons (CHYLO) are intestinally derived postprandial lipoprotein particles that carry dietary fat in the form of triacylglycerol." Since chylomicrons are "intestinally derived", that would mean gut flora & the state of your microbiome would play a huge role here, right? And I remember from Dr. BG (Grace?)'s AHS talk/video from last year (2011), she stressed how important it was to cultivate a jungle in your gut with a multivaried microbiome by eating a wide variety of real food. Especially soluble fiber, right? Which means greenery & apples & carrots & other "carby" veggies. So how would focusing on so much non-paleo fat impact gut flora & in turn chylomicrons - and, in turn, postprandial fatty acid clearance?
Sanjeev said…
I surely would love to do that ... once i drank the electric kool-aid I regularly had eggs and bacon for breakfast and 32oz of steak for lunch AND 32 for dinner. No fries, bread, potato, rice ... nuffin but the meat.

I LOVE that stuff.

I didn't go the Jimmy route of loading up on the butter & coconut oil but fatty meat I could eat all day, every day forever.
Sanjeev said…
the chylomicrons come after absorption & my undestanding is, they don't have much to do with gut germs. [0]

The gut cells absorb the fatty acids, and right at that point there should be a clean separation from gut flora. Chylomicrons are those fatty acids PLUS a protein-fat shell/envelope synthesized by gut cells, again, this synthesis and incorporation of absorbed nutrients comes after the gut germs are supposed to have ended their contributions.

My current understanding anyway.

[0] there is the little wrinkle of what germ metabolites are lipophilic/fat-soluble and thus could get carried into the body along with the triacylglycerol
Sanjeev said…
kinda 'splains why I had problems, don't it?

I work hard to be skeptical (by default I find myself very gullible), and today it SHOCKS me how long I fooled myself
Unknown said…
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2012/08/ahs-2012-the-safe-starches-panel/

My Position: About 30% Carbs is Best

I took an evolutionary perspective. Evolution selected for a carb intake around 30% to 35% of calories. At lower carb intakes, protein is converted to glucose by gluconeogenesis; at higher carb intakes, significant amounts of the excess carbohydrate are converted to fat (not in the liver, but in skeletal muscle and adipose tissue; this is why studies examining lipids exported from the liver show minimal glucose to fat conversion).

If it were equally healthy for the body to have some other glucose supply than the one provided by a carb intake of ~30% of calories, then evolution would not have selected for mechanisms to restore this favored glucose supply by gluconeogenesis or lipogenesis. The body would have accommodated other levels of glucose utilization without trying to alter its glucose supply.

Further, we know that when carb intake is below this natural level, gluconeogenesis does not fully make up the glucose deficit; and when carb intake is above this natural level, lipogenesis does not fully eliminate the glucose surplus. As a result:

On high-carb diets, cells/tissues utilize more glucose than in the evolutionarily favored state.
On low-carb diets, cells/tissues utilize less glucose than in the evolutionarily favored state.
My thesis is that there are undoubtedly negative effects from over- or under-utilization of glucose by tissues; else evolution wouldn’t be trying to mitigate the over- or under-supply by lipogenesis and gluconeogenesis. And we know at the extremes that negative effects do occur:

On very high-carb diets, eg macrobiotic diets, lipid deficiencies appear, reflected in reduced serum cholesterol, impaired immunity, and often mood disorders. We’ve blogged about the effects of lipid-deficient diets in infants.
On very low-carb diets, we often see deficient production of mucus and tears due to downregulation of mucin production.

http://drrosedale.com/blog/2012/08/18/a-conclusion-to-the-safe-starch-debate-by-answering-four-questions/

Ron Rosedale seems to have misunderstood my argument. In his “A Conclusion to the Safe Starch Debate,” Ron asserts that I am concerned only with blood glucose levels. No, not at all: I am concerned specifically NOT with blood glucose levels but with tissue glucose utilization.

Perhaps a metaphor may help. Imagine an oil well facility connected by pipeline to an oil-burning power-plant. Suppose that it is essential to always maintain a certain pressure of oil in the pipeline, or the pipeline will suffer damage. When the oil wells produce more oil – say, because a new well has become a gusher – the power-plant burns more oil in order to maintain the proper pipeline pressure. When the oil wells produce less oil – say, they’re down for maintenance – the power-plant uses less oil. Always the pipeline has the same amount of oil.

Even though the pipeline always has the same amount of oil and the same oil pressure, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t matter how much oil is entering the pipeline. The whole complex of wells-pipeline-powerplant may work best and be most robust to trouble if a normal amount of oil is being produced at the well end and a normal amount is being consumed at the powerplant end. Extreme levels of oil production may strain the powerplant’s ability to operate – insufficient oil may shut it down, and excess oil may burn it up or strain its facilities.

In the same way, eating too few or too many carbs will not affect the levels of glucose in the blood – these must be maintained above 60 mg/dl if glucose is to enter the brain which is essential for life even under ketosis – but may strain or stress our tissues which must downregulate or upregulate their utilization of glucose to match the flux of carbs into the body.

http://chriskresser.com/is-starch-a-beneficial-nutrient-or-a-toxin
Lesley Scott said…
@sanjeev inneresting. still, eating a heavy duty, high calorie meal like this swimming-in-fat "keto eggs" with sausage & avocado does makes me wonder about the impact of this type of eating on gut-flora and all that it entails.

Yes, the avocado contains some fiber - around 7g per average avocado & to its credit, a lot of it soluble - but if this meal is representative of a typical day and is the sole meal eaten - or if some variation of it is repeated twice - that means it's pretty much a fiber-free way of eating. And what does that do to the gut flora & how does it impact the ability of those biofilms on the lining of the intestine to create the various vitamins & necessary "stuff" a healthy body needs.

Also, I'm assuming real paleo people generally ate their fat attached to the meat it came with, which I remember reading - courtesy of one of the resident Asylum smartypants comments - that Boyd Eaton had estimated to be around 30g per day (basically an ounce of meat). Probably from something small & easy to catch, like a frog. The rest would obviously come from "roughage", which leads back to the health of the microbiome.

*sigh* this "keto eggs" bidnez...& worse, the comments the original JM post generated kept making me palm-smack my forehead to the point I had to stop reading it.
Christopher said…
"Are we nitpicking at the details for some grand purpose here, Kelly?" Yup...there's the real Jimmy. Surprised he allowed that exchange on his blog.
Chris said…
That of course should be unlimited FAT no unlimited gay. Typing on a phone is frustrating.
garymar said…
Chris, I see that your left hand shifted to the right as you typed "fat".

Of course, I have friends who would say, "You say 'unlimited gay' like it's a bad thing."
"add more fat" has always been the standard go-to advice in low-carb land. Seriously, that meal would be great for me to lose some pounds, as it would probably turn me off food for a week.
Unknown said…
http://suppversity.blogspot.com/2012/08/on-short-notice-oxytocin-to-boost.html

Fat satiety effects: DHA > Olive Oil (MUFA) > regular diet That would be the ranking according to the satiety effects of the different fatty acids, as elucidated in a recently published study in the British Journal of Nutrition (Harden. 2012). For their study, the researchers had recruited 18 healthy normal-weight men. In a single-blind, three-way crossover study design the subjects received a single 6ml dose of either DHA or oleic acid (olive oil is 60-80% oleic acid, alternatives would macadamia ~60% and high-oleic acid sunflower oil >82%) with lemon flavor. The day before, the subjects had consumed standardized diets. 20min after the ingestion of the emulsion, they had a standardized breakfast, went home and went about their regular daily business for the rest of the day.
The telephone interviews the researchers conducted on the next day showed that the ingestion of the DHA emulsion had exerted an, as the researchers argue cholecystokinin (CCK) dependent, decrease in energy intake of -20% and -29% for the breakfast and the total daily energy intake, respectively. That would make DHA a pretty effective tool to stick to my often-suggested -20% caloric deficit when you're dieting - at least for healthy individuals. Whether this will work for the obese, let alone morbidly obese with their deranged satiety signaling remains to be seen, though.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22313587

Galina L. said…
According to JM's wife he used to over-eat protein.
Galina L. said…
I hope in his complete description of the experiment JM will also tell in details what he was eating before and how he gained so much on a LC diet in order to his followers to be aware of how it could be done. As you know I eat close to ketosis or a ketogenic diet, but I am not able to consume in one sitting even close to the amount described as a sample breakfast.
Sue said…
This guy lost 100 pounds in 4 months on highish protein, mod carb and low fat:
http://www.edwinvelezsuccess.com/

Jimmy seemed to start off good at 20 pound loss first month, then 6 then 5 (8 if you include that he had a 3 pound gain).
Puddleg said…
I'm confused. If jimmy Moore is burning fat, why does he need to eat so much in one meal?
It's a free country, God knows. But if I can go carb free with about 60g fat per meal, a little cream in coffee now and then, and I don't have excess body fat to burn, doing it for those other reasons, then Jimmy is clearly deluded.
No metabolic advantage will take care of the excess, and he should really be getting most of the fat he needs endogenously (assuming he is he is still over-weight) if he's truly keto-adapted, like this guy:
http://www.meandmydiabetes.com/2012/08/11/western-states-100-low-carber-wins-ultramarathon-steve-phinney-and-jeff-volek-study/

I never expected I'd agree with you, Evelyn, but I think you've spotted a flaw in Jimmy's reasoning...
Looks like a lot of protein too. Protein at this level of intake is just dirty carbohydrate.
Gianni said…
Is this a joke?

I did lol: when in the hell did Mr. JM over-eat protein?
If not also theoretically, it's for sure pratically almost impossible to over-eat protein that much. Especially to the extent that would get you to be 300 lbs!!! (No, I'm not talking about a roided out BB that lifts freaky weights 4 hours a day)

2500 Kcal in one sitting (or 60 minutes) of:
1)Lean Protein (chicken breasts, lean fish etc.)
2)Bacon
3)Ice Cream
4) starches

"3" is easiest, "2" is still not hard, "4" is tough but doable, "1" is extremely hard if not harder

Ok, someone could say "one sitting" doesn't mean everything but in a day's time is the same thing, getting huge amounts of calories from protein is almost impossible and grueling anyways.

Not only JM doesn't (/wouldn't) touch a chicken breast with a stick, he puts TABLEspoons of butter (or coconoil) on stuff already fatty to begin with (eggs or worse). Gosh, he almost puts butter on butter.
Therefore managing to eat I don't know how many K calories a day (4000 or more?)

Makes no sense to me.

Just as seems weird to me that he has lost 30 pounds in 90 days on that kind of meals. I'd would have suggested the opposite route of what he was doing.
But whatever.
CarbSane said…
... but makes for funny typos :-)
CarbSane said…
It's quite sad really ... Jimmy lost control of the train when Westman advised he up the fat and watch the protein.
CarbSane said…
http://lowcarbmenu.blogspot.com/2010/08/august-24-2010-low-carb-menu.html

I had a hankering for some chicken wings again today and wanted to see how many it would take to feel satisfied. Yesterday I ate 10 of them and was still not adequately satiated when I was finished. Part of the problem with chicken is that although it's a great source of protein, it's woefully inadequate in fat. So you have to add more fat in the form of deep frying it for the chicken wings, dipping or cooking them in butter or coconut oil, and adding in Ranch dressing. But chicken wings are a delicious low-carb meal and I was happy to partake in them today. It took to wing #25 before I felt I had enough.

In comments I tried to get Jimmy to see that it was fat that wasn't satiating for him and chicken wings are not too low fat to begin with.

THANKS CarbSane! Actually I'm quite aware of the high protein-to-fat ratio of chicken wings which comes out to about 2-1. That's why I added in more fat in the form of Ranch dressing and some butter. I appreciate the tip on how to increase the fat even more.

I don't think he was yet being sarcastic with me at this time. I went on to show him he'd have to eat 20 drumsticks with the same 1/2c ranch to achieve the cals of 25 chicken wings with same, and 30 drumsticks if he skipped the ranch. Didn't get through.
CarbSane said…
Pretty sure Sanjeev is correct that gut flora have little to do with chylo formation, but they don't feed on fat so at some point I think the bacteria will die out. Part of his weight loss may not be Jimmy ;)
CarbSane said…
Jimmy just continues to demonstrate that his metabolism is doing just fine despite his best efforts to break it. Averaging just over a pound a week is where Jimmy gets bored.
CarbSane said…
No metabolic advantage will take care of the excess, and he should really be getting most of the fat he needs endogenously (assuming he is he is still over-weight) if he's truly keto-adapted,

Agree. When Westman tried to help him in 08 he had two messages for him: 1. Portion control and 2. Up fat %. Jimmy heard "add fat".
CarbSane said…
It's been a while since I read PHD, but it really sounds like Paul has been bitten by the paleo bug in retooling the book for the new publisher (Scribner). It's now for weight loss with a forward by Mark Sisson and being promoted as modified-paleo. Sigh. I don't see a mechanism for how evolution could have selected for carbs as a percent of calories -- DNL is triggered by absolute caloric excesses of carb, not percentage. In comments he says he provides evidence that DNL is substantial in muscle and fat. Don't know that this is necessarily a bad thing. There's some evidence that DNL in adipose leads to a beneficial fatty acid profile for NEFA, and if there's anything to this fat burning stuff, well, converting carb to fat should be a good thing, right?
CarbSane said…
I'm assuming real paleo people generally ate their fat attached to the meat it came with

Yep, the only thing paleo about that meal is the eggs.
bentleyj74 said…
Right, because in that scenario "up fat %" means "eat less protein" aka smaller portions of protein foods aka even less total food. Had the message actually gotten through you can only imagine it went over like a lead balloon.
. said…
He has to have some type of eating disorder. 2,465 calories in 25 wings = 62% fat and 38% protein alone, without adding any more fat. They provide 228g of protein. That is an insane level of protein to consume in one sitting, without gagging after half way through. If he added butter and ranch, we're talking close to, if not exceeding, 4,000 calories in a sitting.
Galina L. said…
It looks like some people(like JM) are able to eat huge volumes of food regardless of the macro-nutrient content, and it is a problem by itself.
Whatever he is eating now, it seems to be an improvement according to results. If his diet is more ketogenic now, then he eats less of other than fat components, which includes protein. I have an impression that he may snack less now.
bentleyj74 said…
I'd like to test that theory actually. You know, as if I had the right...lol. There's no doubt he eats huge volumes of food, would he still if the fat went bye bye? After all he broke his low fat weight loss with McDonald's not boiled potatos. What if the fat increases contributed to the increases in chicken? Would he still have wanted more and more and more without the ranch and sauces? The world may never know.
Galina L. said…
It looks like he has to stop overeating. If the amount of protein he planed to eat was reached, and he tries not to eat carbs, he had to stop eating or eat Ranch and hot pepper souses with a spoon or some veggies that contain mostly fiber and water. Somehow he eats more when the protein is unlimited. In the exchange with Evelyn he continued to eat chicken wings, not dipping celery into the Ranch, and not eating a whipped cream or butter with stevia. It was the protein he couldn't stop eating (from mine point of view) . I don't know why the un-dipped wings were not an option. It looks for me that Jimmy may be the sort of very picky guy about particular way of how his food was seasoned. He couldn't eat Ranch without wings, he couldn't eat wings without Ranch as well. Keto-sticks will prevent over-eating for him because it looks like JM has trouble receiving satiety signals upon eating even proteins with fat.
Sanjeev said…
> "I can assure you I'm not "overeating" as you claim."

I assure YOU that your assurances are worth less than nothing.
Brett said…
Evelyn - as a new (daily/addicted) reader of your blog, I was wondering if PHD was the most "similar" diet to what you recommend for health and longevity. I know that you're (obviously) much more lenient on carbs than most paleo gurus...so does the Jaminets' book seem to approximate your thoughts and recommendations? If not, what are your main points of contention? From what I can tell, you're likely less about sipping coconut oil with a straw, and more about getting enough protein in the diet...is that a fair observation?
CarbSane said…
Welcome Brett!

I think in terms of how I eat, PHD fits best. I do eat higher protein than they recommend, but not out of their guidelines, and I'll forever be grateful for finding a "LC" plan that not only allowed but advocated for starch consumption. I have more reservations these days about the justification for the high fat part of the diet. The more I read the more it just seems humans -- IF they ever evolved to eat high fat -- have not been adapted to a high fat diet in significant proportions for a very, VERY long time.

PHD is full of great info for those with health issues. Not so sure how the re-tooling for weight loss is going to shake out.

BTW, I'm not so interested in longevity per se, I'm interested in the longest functional life. So I'm hedging my bets eating enough protein to keep my lean mass and not just having a stash of fat to feed off of in my declining years.
Unknown said…
Galina L. • 8 hours ago
Jimmy, I think you should explain to the people who follow a LC diet
what you did wrong in order to regain the weight lost on Atkins, You
followers may face the same problem, and you will help to a lot of
people explaining how a LC diet could be done in a wrong way.

I am glad you found what works for you now. I have to admit, the amount of food on the picture seems excessive for me, but I am a 51 yo female, at least 100 lb lighter than you, with under-active thyroid. I eat a LC diet, two meals a day. My equivalent of your keto-eggs looks like a couple of soft-boiled eggs with couple spoons of butter + a coffee with some heavy cream, it keeps me not-hungry for at least 5 hours as well . I am comfortable with my weight now. In order to continue to loose weight on a LC I had to continue changing something in my diet, usually some thing worked stronger at the beginning, but the effect faded in time. Right now I also practice a portion control and IF together with LCarbing. As you know, LC food is very satiating, and a calories restriction is also beneficial for a health. The most comfortable way to restrict calories is eating ketogenic diet or close to it.
0 •Reply•Share ›

LLVLCBlog MOD • 7 hours ago • parent −
I am explaining the difference between what I was doing and what I'm doing now. It's subtle, but enough to produce the changes necessary to commence fat loss in me. And while you think my food intake is "excessive," the fact is it is working for me right now. I'm certainly not advocating for people to mimic what I'm doing exactly and never have. I'm simply sharing what I'm doing and you can make tweaks and adjustments that are necessary to make it work for you. I agree that when you eat a true ketogenic diet with plenty of fat while limiting your carbohydrate and even protein intake, your satiety level is through the roof. That's why I believe this is working so well for me.
Lesley Scott said…
"I think the bacteria will die out." I think so too. And it astonishes me that JM isn't more worried himself given the apparent role it seems to play in terms of inflammation & weight loss. Did you see this study that just came out in PLOS ONE where they studied gut flora in a community of Amish & found that although all the people they took samples from had one of three different communities of interacting bacteria, "differing levels of 26 less abundant bacterial species present in all individuals appeared to be linked to obesity and certain features of the metabolic syndrome." (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120815174902.htm)

Also, Chris Kresser had this to say about why he's so leery of VLC in this post http://chriskresser.com/myths-and-truths-about-fiber:

"One of the risks of long term very low-carbohydrate (VLC) diets, in my view, is the potentially harmful effect they can have on beneficial gut flora. VLC diets starve both bad and good gut bacteria, which means these diets can have therapeutic effects on gut infections in the short term, but may actually contribute to insufficiency of beneficial strains of gut bacteria over the long term. Providing adequate levels of carbohydrate and soluble fiber to feed friendly bacteria is important for optimizing digestive health and maintaining the integrity of the gut lining through the production of short-chain fatty acids."

Um, okay, I'll get off my gut flora kick (for now). :)
. said…
January 2004 410
January 2005 230 {high -180}
August 2006 240 [+10] {high -170}
May 2007 253 [+13] {high -157}
January 2008 230 {even}
2009 260 [+30] {high -150}
March 2010 289 [+29] {high -121}
January 2011 280 [-9] {high -130}
May 2012 306 [+26] {high -104}

To May Net Gain 104 pounds
Galina L. said…
Thank you, Charles, somehow I didn't get a notification that I got a reply from Jemmy. He didn't answer my question, though, about what was his mistake, but I hope he may address it in his next post about his diet.
Eric said…
So he has lost 30lb ( ok, 20 after "induction" water weight losses that he will regain ) mostly the fist 1.5 months and has now plateaued. Despite ketosis he still has horrible fasting glucose numbers ( when will he admit that he is diabetic? ). He is a train wreck and VLC "weight loss" doesn't seem to lead anyone to a healthy lifestyle in the long term.
Sanjeev said…
> DNL is triggered by absolute caloric excesses of carb, not percentage

I can't find it now but IIRC DNL also requires very low (less than 10% by calories) dietary fat

significant dietary fat reduces DNL regardless of the amount of carbohydrate. is down regulated regardless of carbohydrate.

I don't know if this contrubutes to the phenomenon of alcohol's liver toxicity being reduced by saturated fat intake; the dietary intake diverts alcohol (maybe fructose too) down less damaging pathways
Sanjeev said…
sorry ... Jimmy's reassurances, not Charles's ; )
Tonus said…
Heh... 'I appreciate your input, you nitpicking rabble-rouser, you!'
Tonus said…
"WHO could actually eat this way for their entire life?"
Oh man, I could eat a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage just about every morning for the rest of my life! Or maybe it just sounds really good because I don't have it that often...
Galina L. said…
I have been LCarbing for almost 5 years and enjoy my food a lot, and see no problem to continue eating such way till the rest of my life. I also can cook for me and my family the same food and eat what they eat with an exception or limitation of a starchy part, eating out is easy. If I tried to follow a food reward, it would be more complicated. The only inconvenience now is that my husband wants to eat more often than me. Most people in the USA eat for a breakfast such horrible thing as boxed cereals and no one minds, eggs seems to be a huge improvement. Often when people complain about the cost of food, they mention the expense of breakfast serials. Why people who live on really limited budgets waste their money on such food is hard to understand. Actually, eggs are better than other traditional breakfast foods .What else is better? Coffee with muffins, pancakes, toasts(looks like morning deserts)? Is an oatmeal the more exiting choice?
Galina L. said…
Did you actually toss away the old scale?
Jimmy is a very educational example that it is quite possible to gain weight on a LC diet.
Hiit Mama said…
Hmmmm, those keto eggs remind me of the double downing of the "backfire" effect.

“If you distrust the science that threatens your world view, then more scientific evidence will make you react with suspicion, causing you to double down on your beliefs,” Mr Cook said.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-08-science-threatens-person-world-view.html#jCp
bentleyj74 said…
"Somehow he eats more when the protein is unlimited."

I don't know if I can quite agree because the nature of his protein sources are highly palatable and calorie dense as well. That adds a significant confounder. If he were over eating blocks of unseasoned tofu or going to town on whey powder then it'd look different.

I agree about the cost of things like cereal. There is no question that the price per ounce is insane or that people will happily eat the same cereal every morning for 20 years without complaining about the lack of variety. For most people convenience foods really are about convenience probably. That kicks oatmeal out of the boat as well as eggs. All of these issues seem to be really just about managing an individual environment to suit the needs of the individual/family. If people can buy cereal and prefer to more power to them. I doubt very much that in the final analysis whether people ate raisin bran for breakfast or not will alter the course of their life. On the other hand, if it's a problem....it's a problem whether anyone else thinks it should be or not.
Debbie Young said…
Soon his fat intake will enable him to shoot Spidey Webs from his palms too :-)
Diana said…
Jimmy is awesome in my mind. He experiments all theories on himself to see if what he is told actually holds true. Right now he is testing the ketogenic approach. Before Jimmy followed a lower carb diet, not ketogenic. Jimmy usually eats 1-2 meals a day so this amount of food in one sitting is not that bad. Years of eating horrible junk food doesn't get fixed instantly just because you do a low carb diet for few years. It took 30 years to put on the weight. It is going to take a hell of a lot of time to lose the weight. Regardless of the weight, remember that Jimmy is healthy on the inside! His body isn't the ideal body fat for a man but he is HEALTHY! Lay off of him! Jimmy is one of the most honest and genuine people out there. He never criticizes others like you are doing to him.
Diana said…
This is going to get confusing, because now there are two Dianas contributing to Carbsane's comments.

What shall we do?

The Original Diana
. said…
Seriously?

Jimmy's problem is that in 8 years he still does not know how to eat. Instead he rides a roller coaster, up and down, and each time he goes up, he weighs more than before. When he focuses, he loses because he is eating less food than he does when he just eats. When he just eats, the pounds pile on because he has no idea how much he is eating and it adds up. Yes, he'll lose again, as he has always done. But yo-yo dieting is unhealthy and he will gain again, he always does because he does not learn!
Sanjeev said…
'> It took 30 years to put on the weight.

Where HAVE you been? He lost wheelbarrows worth several times

His current woes are strictly due to his rootin tootin BS-believin fat-eatin calorie-denyin (but calorie-'preciatin') good-ol' boy ways.
nuffin metabolic bout it
. said…
>nuffin metabolic bout it

Exactly!

And considering he loses a boatload every time he refocuses to try to lose the weight gained every time he eats ad libitum, he loses huge amounts the first two weeks; indicating he's got full glycogen stores and there is NOTHING wrong with his metabolism. He eats too much, period!

Diana said…
He knows how to eat - he knows how to eat to gain and lose 40-50 pounds every year.

Taking a break has enabled me to see clearly just how crazy most of the LC crowd is. And many of them, bad faith crazy (such as the Eades).
Anonymous said…
It always amazes me when people go on ANY diet, eat tons of food, gain weight and then blame the diet. Did it really take you YEARS to figure out you had to watch your calories?




Sanjeev said…
> Did it really take you YEARS to figure out you had to watch your calories

Some people never figure it out.

Even after 3 to 6 PhDs worth of work, and after several books writing about "bad science".

Maybe a book on irony should be next on the agenda, with the emphasis on how no one ELSE can really see it.
Seth said…
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andit kurniawan said…
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