1. You are eating too much if you aren't "losing weight" on carnivore.
You are either eating too much fat, gaining muscle or not eating enough.
I don't know what's going on when people describe their woes as "not losing weight" and/or "gaining weight". Weight is muscle, water and fat. I have no clue which ones of those you are losing, gaining or maintaining. You need to determine your body composition. The goal of metabolic health can only be achieved through the loss of body fat, not through body weight fluctuations. Muscle and water do not perpetuate diabetes, body fat does.
As far as "eating too much" is concerned, you again need to focus on dietary fat. You need to eat at a caloric surplus to build muscle and at a deficit to lose "weight", but you need to eat the correct macronutrient combination to lose body fat. Eating correctly is adequate protein, moderate fat and low carbohydrate. This is the composition that will best promote proper blood glucose regulation.
You need to be careful of the fat that is coming with your chosen cuts of meat. You might be eating meat that is too fatty for fat loss to occur. If that's not the case, then you are building muscle while losing fat. This usually presents itself as "not losing weight" or "gaining weight" since muscle is denser than fat. The only way to know that is to take waist measurements, in order to get an idea of what you are losing and gaining.
2. "Eating For Your Blood Type" is a good diet to follow.
Every day a hole is dug for a new sucker to fall into and if the old adage 'A sucker is born everyday' is true, then we can expect to be walking over a sucker the minute our foot hits the ground every morning. The new hole is 'The Blood Type Diet'. I'm going to give a very brief overview of what the 'Blood Type Diet' is for those lucky enough to not know yet.
This scam was created by naturopath (no surprise here) Peter J. D'Adamo who claims that the foods you eat "react chemically" with your blood type -- O, A, B, or AB. So, he designed a diet "based on your blood type" which would (could, should) help you "digest food more efficiently, lose weight, have more energy and even help prevent disease". Basically, the same promises every other charlatan makes. We have heard this all before.
D'Adamo also gives the same advice we hear ad nauseam, from every corner of the diet circus, on "organic", "free range", "fair trade", "grass fed", "humanely sourced", "cage free", "slave labor free", "local farmers", etc. Basically a boat load of highly expensive crap making you bound to fail before you even begin since your wallet will collapse much faster than your belly. I guarantee it. But, D'Adamo doesn't care because he's not really selling this crap to you, he's selling it to the ones who can afford him. Every scammer has a shtick. They either tell you that you can achieve health eating $1 hot dogs or you can only do it by eating $800 a pound mermaid steaks. It all depends on who they are trying to market to. They all have a core audience who supports their BS.
I don't recommend any gimmicks or fads. There are certain genetic variables in all of us but generally, unless you have alien DNA, you will benefit from an low carbohydrate, moderate fat and adequate protein diet for better metabolic health. This is because all humans, on earth, evolved under that macronutrient composition regardless of genetic differences.
You can certainly tweak the types of fat for your genetic makeup. You can also tweak the types of carbs. But all roads will lead back to the same basic principle of low carbohydrate, moderate fat and adequate protein for better metabolic health. That is all.
3. There are many different opinions on how much disparity there should be between postprandial and fasting blood glucose.
This is one of the most highly contested topics, when it comes to diabetes. You will get multiple different answers, depending on who you ask. In fact, many cannot even agree on what "normal blood glucose" is. Because of this, the current guide is pathology. This means that the blood glucose number with the least pathology is considered "normal". A lot of diabetics fall in that range. They simply have high blood glucose without any current pathology. This is why what's considered "normal blood glucose" keeps rising yearly, just like what's considered "normal cholesterol" keeps dropping.
So, since no one truly knows, let's guide ourselves by the most common consensus. The current consensus states that "normal blood glucose" is between 70 - 99 mg/dL, while fasting, and postprandial blood glucose, at the 2 hour mark, should be less than 140 mg/dL. This means that there should not be a persistent disparity in blood glucose, between fasting and postprandial numbers, of more than around 40 points. This is if you start with the highest fasting blood glucose number of 99 mg/dL.
What we know, for a fact, is that healthy individuals have a fasting blood glucose of around 84 mg/dL and a postprandial blood glucose, at the 2 hour mark, of guess what? Around 84 mg/dL. This means they have no persistent disparities in blood glucose at all. Their blood glucose returns to baseline before 2 hours and it doesn't go lower than 84 mg/dL after 2 hours.
But most importantly of all, their fasting blood glucose does not go much lower than 84 mg/dL at any time, not just around meals. People with metabolic syndrome have much lower dips in blood glucose, sometimes all the way to the 60's and even 50's mg/dL, particularly during the night time fast. This is why they wake up with raging Dawn Phenomenon.
This is very important to note because in the healthy, insulin does not continue clearing blood glucose while fasting. This means their insulin release was never above normal postprandial because their blood glucose never went above normal. This preserves normal blood glucose regulation and that is the key to remaining metabolically healthy.
4. There are so many different diets, that they can't all fail.
Here is the diet world in a nutshell:
- Caloric restriction/fasting – These diets restrict calories from all sources.
- Low carb/ketogenic/carnivore – These diets restrict or eliminate calories from carbohydrates exclusively.
- Low fat/"heart healthy" – These diets restrict calories from fat, particularly saturated fat.
- Protein sparing modified fasts – These diets restrict calories from both carbs and fat.
- Vegan/vegetarian/plant based – These diets restrict or eliminate calories from animal protein and fat exclusively.
All of these diets, just like the caloric restriction/fasting ones, can also restrict total calories, alongside the targeted ones. So, it doesn't matter what fancy name the diet mongers give their diet or how technical they are in describing it to you. It doesn't matter what they promise it can achieve or how different they claim it is from other "diets". That's all a sales pitch. Every diet's foundation is based on one or more of the above five principles. Period.
The naïve person believes that the calorie restriction, in all these diets, is what will induce weight loss and so it doesn't matter how the calories are restricted or from what source as long as they are restricted. This is why they believe that all diets work. In reality, all diets work because of one thing - their affect on insulin. They all lower insulin levels to some degree. This causes an immediate mostly water weight and some lean muscle mass loss.
Since poor insulin function deteriorates leptin expression over time, we can hope that by improving insulin function, leptin expression will be regained and fat will be lost. Well, that's not the case. Poor insulin function deteriorates leptin but regaining insulin function does not seem to affect leptin much, especially in the long term. This means that normalizing insulin works much better in reversing simple weight gain than obesity. It doesn't appear to make a dent on obesity, at least not significantly enough to no longer be obese. When it does, it's very rare and the long term prognosis is poor. This can absolutely be due to not ever being able to acquire true insulin function or blood glucose regulation simply begins to deteriorate over time. Who knows. We can only speculate.
All of these diets have one other thing in common - they promise weight loss but they can never promise fat loss because none of them do a thing to improve leptin expression. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. Zero. It's as if you did nothing at all. Protein sparing modified fasts are the only diets that have had better success in addressing leptin but again, the long term prognosis is poor. Low carb diets come in at a close second.
This means you have to be realistic when following any diet. Instead of focusing on only the "diet", you need to focus on blood glucose regulation because that's the culprit of metabolic disease. Hyperglycemia causes heart disease, kidney damage and neuropathy. Hypoglycemia causes diabetes. You need to follow a diet that prevents/minimizes blood glucose disparities so you can preserve its proper regulation through proper insulin function. Period.
Addressing your metabolic health, in this manner, will help you keep in mind the other things that affect blood glucose regulation besides diet, because there are many of those. This is why obesity/diabetes is a lifestyle "disease", not solely a dietary "disease". Diet is just one part of lifestyle.
5. Now that Jimmy Moore is "gone", can low carb be saved?
There are a lot of people who believe that Moore solely caused for low carb to be viewed as a joke but the reality is that low carb has been plagued with quackery since its inception. Because of the diet's profound affect on metabolism, it has been exploited by all kinds of charlatans, who sell it as a "miracle cure" for every ailment you can think of. Moore was not the first, nor will he be the last to do this. There are plenty of quacks left, who represent low carb, and more are on the way. Right now though, the ones who are desperately trying to feed off Moore's carcass are his disgruntled ex-followers and naysayers.
These people, who hated Moore from the beginning and low carb in general, are on a frenzy to grab Moore's soapbox to spew their own dietary nonsense and grievances. Most of these people are either trying to sell their own diet, and low carb is their competitor, or they are bitter that the diet didn't work for them and are now on a vendetta.
Don't be duped by either clan. They are both full of BS. Remember, you are not going to get thinner by swapping one charlatan for another.
6. MCT oil will help with abdominal obesity.
Medium chain triglycerides (MCT), like those found in saturated fats from both animals and certain plants, are beneficial in the sense that they are burned easily for fuel, not adding to your waist line. They are also easily metabolized by the liver and won't add to liver fat storage. They tend to lower LDL and increase HDL, in most people, while also improving cholesterol composition. This is unlike polyunsaturated fats, which appear to be stored more easily in the liver and subcutaneous, while also causing a pseudo drop in cholesterol without changing its composition or even making it worse. But MCTs are not a magical "cure" for anything.
Downing MCT oil is not going to help you. Proper leptin expression is the only thing that can help you. This is not acquired through the consumption of MCT oils.
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