1. Some people will eat themselves to death and don't even notice it until it's too late.
What people don't notice is how their metabolism works and what it will eventually do. People are under the impression that they can gain weight and then drop it, and everything will be back to normal, but it doesn't work that way. Their misconception comes from statements such as "they eat themselves to death". If I ate myself to death, then I can starve myself to life again.
Hunter/gatherers do not "eat themselves to death" and not one of them is under portion control or calorie restriction in order to prevent this mysterious death from occurring. They eat indiscriminately and don't pretty much care what it is. All hunter/gatherers are on "see food" diets.
People are unaware that their metabolism can be set to eventually cause the pathologies they are trying to avoid. This is not triggered by how much they eat, but by what they eat along with other lifestyle factors. Obesity is not explained to them in a way that will allow them to implement proper treatments.
2. My triglycerides (trigs) are still high, even on a low carb diet. I am also still overweight. I have been told a normal weight and exercise will resolve this issue.
Unfortunately, no.
Trigs are a measure of fat circulating in the blood. In the short term, trigs can go up after eating a high fat meal and then go back down. In the long-term, chronic high trigs are usually the result of de novo lipogenesis. The liver is converting glucose into fat, which then circulates in the blood until it is stored. High trigs are usually the result of a high carbohydrate diet, whether you are overweight/obese or lean, but they can also be caused by alcohol or certain genetic profiles.
Trigs are not a marker of obesity. They are usually a marker of metabolic syndrome, but this marker is not always linear. For example, some people will meet all of the criteria for metabolic syndrome, yet have low trigs, even while being overweight/obese. Other people who are lean, will have high trigs with no other marker of metabolic syndrome. Some people always have high trigs, regardless of their metabolic state due to genetics. But aside from these exceptions, high trigs are mostly the result of high carb and/or alcohol intake.
So how is it possible to have high trigs on low carb? Do you have to drop your carbs to zero? No. If low carb did not drop your trigs, then we can safely assume that it's not the carbs in your diet that are causing the high trigs. It's the carbs in your body.
"Carb" is used as another word for glucose on this blog, as we are not concerned with fiber. If your body is converting its lean muscle mass and everything you eat into glucose, it is going through the same process as if you were intaking glucose through the mouth. You are technically on a high carb diet. It's just that it has bypassed your digestion. Hence, why high trigs are indicative of metabolic syndrome.
Remember, metabolic syndrome/diabetes are adaptive conditions that try to keep blood sugar high. If the sugar is not coming from the outside, then it can only be coming from the inside. Of course, you might not see the same level of trigs as you saw when you were actually eating high carb, but it will still be very hard to bring them down to normal on low carb while still having metabolic issues.
As far as exercise is concerned, you can assume that the trigs will be burned if you increase your exercise routine but that doesn't pan out. Exercise causes stress. Stress causes more glucose production. There is a big possibility your body will simply compensate whatever trigs you burn during exercise by making more of them.
Exercise is really good at burning glucose in the short term. That is why you might see a drop in blood glucose after exercise, but I highly doubt trigs will move a point. Instead, they will most likely go up. Fat is burned best from storage, in the long term, and while sitting down. Leptin is the primary hormone for this.
So, your trigs will not go down when you reach "normal weight". Nor will they go down if you try to exercise them away. What will make them go down is when you reverse your metabolic syndrome. Being low carb is a good step in that direction.
3. De novo lipogenesis is the result of excess carbohydrate calories, which force the body to convert.
No. De novo lipogenesis is a complex and highly regulated metabolic pathway for the creation of triglycerides and other lipids from dietary starch, sugar and protein. In other words, this is how the body converts glucose into fat for storage. This stored fat is the body's fuel tank.
The body developed this system because it does not have much need for glucose fuel, but it does need fuel from fat as that's its primary source of energy. For this reason, it is very convenient to take glucose, which is not primarily used, unless you have to run from a lion, and convert it to fat, which is primarily used for everything else. We have a large capacity for fat storage and not so much for glucose storage, just for this reason. The body will always store glucose this way, whether the calories from it are high or low. This is because, unless you are an athlete with intense physical activity requirements, you will not burn enough glucose, consistently, to have much control over this conversion.
But is there a way to control this somehow and minimize it? Yes. It's called low carb but aside from doing that, the body balances this process out itself by burning the fat that it is storing from glucose. That's why it's adding this fat to its fuel tank. For constant usage. The problem is that people with metabolic syndrome/diabetes do not burn enough stored fat, yet this conversion continues, and more fat is stored. Add to that the circulating glucose they produce on their own, which is also converted to fat for storage, and you can see how obesity is sarcopenic. It is eating muscle and converting it to fat. The person is becoming more fat than muscle with time, worsening their metabolic syndrome/diabetes.
So, on this blog, we don't try to "control" or "balance" things that the body already has mechanisms for handling itself. We give information on how to provide the body the right conditions so it can do this properly on its own. It doesn't need more help from you other than that. Humans are really bad at being their own autonomic nervous system (ANS). That's why we were born with an ANS so we wouldn't have to think about it. If the majority of people can't even control their households or balance their own check books, they certainly won't be able to control and balance their own de novo lipogenesis. That's insane. This mechanism is supposed to work properly by itself.
4. Overweight/obese people continue being duped into following failing protocols.
The answer to this is rooted in two realities:
- There is no cure for overweight/obesity.
- There are no long-term effective treatments for overweight/obesity.
These two realities help us come to the understanding that overweight/obesity is a very complicated condition that has no easy answers. People do not like complicated things that are difficult to understand. Especially when they have no answers to boot.
Overweight/obesity is one of those things that, when looked at by the layman, appears to have an easy fix. Lose weight. After all, leanness is the kryptonite of overweight/obesity, so therefore that's the cure. The problem is that no one can access that cure. There are no effective means of getting to leanness for the long term. One the body is unable to regulate its blood glucose, it seems to continue on that trajectory, even if it stops for a while.
People are always able to "lose some weight" but can never get to lean. Even in the rare instance when they do get to lean, they can't seem to stay lean. The body is actively fighting to not be lean, and it doesn't do this by simply "increasing appetite". It does this through a very complex series of metabolic processes whose sole purpose is to help build and preserve body fat. This process is relentless. It is sort of like the Terminator. It can't be reasoned or negotiated with. It absolutely will not stop, until you remain or get fatter.
We have discussed before how there is something unique in not living a hunter/gatherer lifestyle that sets this process into motion. This doesn't mean it happens to everyone. It just happens to the vast majority of us. They can write encyclopedias on theories about why this is, so we won't get into that here.
So, why do overweight/obese people continue to be duped by the diet industry even though what I wrote above is known knowledge? Well, what I wrote above is something that people do not want to hear. Many overweight/obese people want to hang on to the notion that there is some magical "thing" out there, that they can either do or take, which will make their condition go away. They hang on desperately to that hope and that's why they are so easily duped. They are waiting for, and all too willing to listen to, any person who comes around and co-signs that hope for them. After all, overweight/obesity doesn't just affect the person's aesthetics, it causes serious health conditions over time.
Two things work against the overweight/obese:
- Snake oil salesmen - This is the obesity resistant, lean trainer or coach, who promises the overweight/obese that they can look like them if they only "follow their program". Of course, they hide or don't even know the realities of "their program", but they don't care. They just want to make a sale.
- Failed programs are all that's available - Unfortunately the only programs out there, easily available to the overweight/obese, and usually pushed by the snake oil salesmen, are calorically restricted programs. This is because they are accepted by the medical establishment, making them appear legit, and they are very easy to follow. You don't need to know a thing except how to count calories. Basic math. They also have an immediate effect, boosting the person's morale and sense that they are headed in the right direction. The only problem is that the light at the end of the tunnel is a train. But let's be realistic here, these programs can certainly prevent the amount of weight gain that would otherwise occur if nothing was followed at all. At least, the people who follow these programs are "watching their weight" because their reality is that they are one cookie away from diabetes. Doing something is better than nothing and that's why doctors, all over the nation, recommend "eating less". It can at least delay the inevitable and anyone can do it without understanding a thing about obesity or metabolic processes.
This is why, like I have said before, this blog is not for people who are looking to "lose weight". That would be unethical as I just said there is no known cure for overweight/obesity so why would I offer one on here? I don't offer anything on here except the truth and like the saying goes, most can't handle the truth. This is a blog for people who want to know why they are overweight/obese and what treatments are better targeted to deal with their condition. Not what treatments will work, but what treatments are more likely to work.
If you know the mechanisms behind overweight/obesity, you will be more likely to succeed in its treatment. This is why overweight/obesity has been successfully treated and reversed in a research setting. Particularly leptin research. It has not been successfully treated or reversed at the salad bar or the gym.
5. I started on an intermittent fasting protocol, and it's been an utter failure. When I was eating every four – six hours, my blood glucose was stable, and I was lean. Now I am gaining weight and my HbA1C has risen. My diet has stayed the same. I just started fasting for about 18 hours a day.
Stop fasting. I want people to understand that there is no one protocol that will get everyone to lean. As metabolic states change, protocols must as well.
Fasting is not a cure for obesity and so it has never been used as such. We know this because even before the first calorimeter, people knew that if they ate more or less, their weight was affected. From this, they found out, rather quickly, that these effects on weight did not resolve weight issues. So, fasting was mostly left to the realm of the religious and alternative health practitioners.
What intermittent fasting does do, for the overweight/obese, is cause a beneficial shift in the way their metabolism operates. This can help with treatments. So, when we recommend intermittent fasting, we are generally under the assumption that the person is both:
- Overweight/obese by more than 50 pounds.
- Suffering from some stage of metabolic syndrome.
These are the people that would most benefit from a fasting regimen because of the positive hormonal shift that intermittent fasting causes on a metabolic profile that is under active obesity mode. Read the last part of that sentence again. The operative statement is "a metabolic profile that is under active obesity mode". So, it's the initial state that metabolism is under which causes for this change to be beneficial. It is not beneficial to every metabolic state. Only if it's in active obesity mode.
People who:
- Are already lean, whether because they have always been lean, or they became lean and/or
- Do not have metabolic syndrome
Will not really gain anything from fasting longer than a normal overnight fast, if their diet is on point, and they have been obtaining or maintaining results so far. Other people like Type I diabetics, people with autoimmune conditions and/or thyroid disease, children and pregnant/nursing women are not recommended to fast at all regardless of obesity/diabetes state.
If you were already lean or had gotten to lean and your metabolic health was stable, there would have been no reason for you to have incorporated an 18 hour a day fast. All you did was cause your leptin expression to decrease, as your metabolism went into "starvation mode", and that's why you began gaining weight.
Lean people do not "eat less". Lean people just eat and allow their bodies to handle their fuel for them. Anyone who has had active obesity in the past are particularly sensitive to any starvation information and their bodies will use that information to go towards active obesity again.
Just because a protocol got you to lean, does not mean it will keep you lean. Your diet quality and exercise regimen can be sustained for life, since that's what got you results, but your fasting will have to change. This includes meal frequency and timing. If you never had to fast to reach your goals, you do not need to start to do so now.
6. I am confused about protein. Do we calculate protein grams by our current body weight or our desired body weight?
It depends on the protocol. Some macronutrient centered protocols call for a specific amount of protein grams per pound of your desired body weight and others use kilograms per pound of your current body weight.
Most all calorie centered protocols will not call for any specific grams of protein but rather a specific weight of meat in grams, which they simply refer to as "protein". That is incorrect terminology and causes confusion. Meat is not just protein. Protein is a macronutrient contained in meat.
When a macronutrient centered protocol refers to "protein", they are speaking of the actual macro-nutrient protein only and not meat in general. This means you have to calculate how much protein is in your chosen meat as this differs by cut and type of meat.
Most of the recommended protocols, on this blog, use grams of protein per pound of desired body weight. These grams may vary from 1 gram of protein to 1.5 grams. So, you have to keep all of this mind when you calculate your protein macros. The good thing is that you only have to do this calculation once. Once you get the hang of it and repeat meals, you are good to go.
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