Six common beliefs addressed, Part 168

1. I never feel satiated with fat but the tiniest bit of protein makes me fill up immediately.

Fat is not a satiating macronutrient for the obese any more than carbs are. That's why we see all these obese "keto" followers drinking bacon fat right off the pan. This is because the leptin of the obese does not respond to dietary fat intake. They are momentarily satiated, but only after eating astronomical amounts of fat, and then they are hungry again a few hours later, just like with carbs.

Protein is different. Protein is the true satiating macronutrient that works better than fat. It is not foolproof but it does work better.

2. Weight training tightens loose skin.

Weight training may tighten your loose skin but this all depends on genetics and age. Some people just have looser skin than others and age has a big impact on that. The younger you are, the tighter your skin will be.

3. You can use actual weight or goal weight to calculate your required protein amount.

It depends on the formula you are using. Some use actual weight and others use desired (goal) weight. I have a tutorial for proper macro calculation here.

4. Cream cheese is acceptable on low carb.

Yes, it is.

5. I feel terrible on carnivore. I am tired, weak and I feel slumped like I'm having "sugar crashes" as if I was on high carb again.

In order to know what's happening with your blood glucose, you would need to actually check it and not just assume that these symptoms are caused by it. Since it's making you feel terrible then I suggest you drop carnivore.

If you are following the diet correctly, as recommended here, you should have no reason to feel any of these side effects, unless you are either not eating enough protein or you are having an issue metabolizing protein or your electrolytes are off.

Switch to a low carb diet instead.

6. Exercise is not needed to lose weight.

Nothing is needed to lose weight except for caloric restriction but we don't deal with "weight loss" on this blog. You can address weight loss with Weight Watchers. We deal with overweight/obesity and metabolic dysfunction. Overweight should really be changed to "overfat" as what you should be trying to lose is body fat, not body weight.

In order to treat overfat/obesity and metabolic dysfunction, you need to exercise. This is because weight loss is temporary but the treatment for obesity must be long term and it has to target multiple hormones. Hormones that you need to target, with your long term treatment, like leptin/adiponectin, respond profoundly to exercise. This is why exercise has been shown to produce the most important benefit when it comes to metabolic health - long term weight management. Diet alone does not do that.

I understand that the "keto" advocates don't want to nor care if you exercise since they aren't in the exercise business, they are in the diet business, but on this blog we approach these problems with whole lifestyle interventions as I run no business.