Six common beliefs addressed, Part 193

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.

Six common beliefs addressed, Part 160 - Online Quackery Edition

1. I recently came across a post Jimmy Moore wrote and I was hoping you would be willing to comment on it. I know you have said before that you avoid commenting on people specifically but there were a lot of things he pointed out that cause confusion for people who are seeking help. I myself have a multitude of questions about what he wrote but if I try to ask him, he will either give me wrong information or most likely block me. He doesn't like a challenge or any "dissent". Can you please review his statements?

I get a lot of questions about Moore. I understand why. He makes a great case study on obesity but people cannot leave this man alone. This is why I never reply to anyone who brings him up. I don't follow him, or anyone else in the low carb sphere, so I have no clue what they are up to. I just know Moore is a disturbed individual who unfortunately rejected any help he was offered, but badgering him is useless. He is as immune to badgering as he is to body fat loss.

I have a backlog of questions from readers so I usually do not address requests for me to review other people's posts but I have made exceptions in the past. I have decided to make another one here because Moore's post pertains to obesity and I can understand why it would cause confusion or leave unanswered questions for many.

Let's tackle each foolery by paragraph and hopefully, by the end of this, I would have addressed your concerns. More importantly, I will have prevented you, and others, from falling into the same hole Moore is in. I have attached a photo of the post in question, so you can all read it for yourselves. You can click on it to enlarge.

I can tell you, from the get go, this writing is full of nonsense. This man has no idea what obesity is or what he is even talking about. He uses catch phrases and code words to create a salad that looks filling but we know it has no meat. This is typical of the diet industry in general, so it's not unique to him. We see this everywhere.

In the first paragraph, Moore goes into his usual diatribe about how "calories as a means of managing your weight and health was one of the biggest mistakes that was ever made in nutritional health". Well, that's debatable. The premise was that if you are not obese, you can prevent obesity by simply restricting your overall calories. This might not be the best obesity prevention method there is but it's practical and people are more likely to try it as it is not too restrictive. The mistake was made when total calories were misapplied to the already obese. At that point, total calories are pretty much useless since obesity is not just a condition of "carrying extra weight". Unfortunately, a lot of people in the nutritional health sphere are just like Moore, ignorant of what obesity is and so they have no viable treatments to give.

Moore continues with his gripe against calories in the second paragraph claiming that restricting calories causes "hunger, mood changes, hair loss, down regulation of your thyroid, and a lack of energy, among many other things". This is all very vague and not necessarily true. Vague because these are symptoms of starvation, but he never mentions that. You cannot use caloric restriction to induce more starvation in the overweight/obese as they already are under starvation, so many of these people already have these symptoms without any caloric restriction in place.

Also, the reason none of this is necessarily true, is because most people do not experience these symptoms on caloric restriction at all. After all, a lot of people use caloric restriction successfully, from body builders to athletes, and they don't go into starvation. The main problem with calories and the overweight/obese is not the symptoms he mentioned but that these people simply do not lose enough weight to no longer be overweight/obese and so they give up. The lemon is not worth the squeeze, so to speak. This is not surprising as caloric restriction does not address blood glucose dysregulation, which is the root of the problem.

In the same paragraph, Moore makes the claim that with caloric restriction "you will lose weight for a short period of time but it will very likely come at the expense of muscle if you're not eating enough amino acids in those limited calories". That's incorrect. Most of the weight lost in caloric restriction is water. Aside from that, every method of weight loss puts muscle at risk but what risks muscle the most is simply being obese. You preserve muscle, not only through the consumption of adequate protein, but through proper exercise.

The reason you only lose weight for a "short period of time" is because the body compensates its calories-out by its calories-in. This is normal as calories-in are ultimately the determiner of what can come out. But the obese have an abnormal issue which always effect calories-out - an exaggerated under expression of leptin. The actual initial weight loss is what causes a doubling down of this effect. Calories have very little to do with this as it occurs with any weight loss method. This chronic under expression of leptin is what causes the eventual weight regain. This is why weight loss is not the cure for obesity.

Things are certainly not looking good in the third paragraph either. The statement to "instead put your focus on real, whole foods and get the best quality you can afford" is absolutely meaningless mumbo-jumbo. "Real, whole foods" are also not the cure for obesity. Instead, the right macronutrient composition is only palliative for the treatment of obesity because it helps reduce blood glucose dysregulation. Blood glucose dysregulation is what gets the obesity ball rolling and preserves its momentum. You can continue having blood glucose dysregulation eating "real, whole foods".

Moore then makes several statements based on incorrect assumptions. He believes in the simplistic view that "over processed junk food products" which are "devoid of nutrients" cause you to "overeat". Strange statement to be made by someone who doesn't believe in calories. Either way, he is living proof that is not true, unless he admits he has been eating junk food, which according to him, he has not. Instead, this man has been on the "primarily animal", "whole foods" diet he recommends for years and is still morbidly obese. But of course, my readers are smart and know that obesity is not the result of "junk food" as I have made this clear many times before. It's the result of poor blood glucose regulation.

Moore then seals the deal by claiming that "the body is not stupid". I have no idea why he said that but it is stupid. The body is extraordinarily stupid. That's why it gets sick, gets old and eventually dies. In fact, the body is so stupid that its own brain, which is a part of it, knows what it's doing wrong and it still does it anyway.

In the fourth paragraph, Moore goes on to give us a bit of good news by claiming that "these kind of foods are the ones that are naturally self-limiting when you have had enough". Really? So why can't he get enough? I remember his plates and they were far from "self-limiting". He himself is the N=1 research material that disproves everything he is saying but, incredibly, he is not self aware of this. Conveniently so.

Moore again makes the incorrect assumption that "sugars, grains and seed oils" cause some type of "cravings" or "hunger". I don't know where he gets this from but disordered eating habits are not coming from what you eat, they come from you. Sugar would be the only item on this list that can potentially be used to make this argument because of the way it disrupts dopamine. Of course, it doesn't cause general food cravings, it just makes you to crave more sugar.

In the final paragraph, Moore claims that "plenty of research has shown calories take care of themselves when you feed your body properly". No. Research shows that when your metabolism is healthy, it balances its own energy without your interference. It takes much more than just "eating properly" to have a healthy metabolism. Also, "eating properly" is subjective.

Then Moore states "listen to your body and give it what it wants". Again, he is the poster child that this doesn't work. He has been giving his body whatever it wants and the outcome has been disastrous. In fact, the disaster initially occurred because he gave his body everything it wanted.

If you have metabolic syndrome, you cannot listen to anything your body says because it's giving out the wrong signals. You have to take control instead and ignore your body as it will tell you it's hungry, even if you have had three meals a day. It will tell you it's not hungry, even if you haven't eaten in two days. It will tell you that a bottle of almond butter is a great meal, when it isn't. It will make you averse to meat, which is the main food you should be eating. It will even tell you that it's too tired to get up from the chair, even though you have been sitting for four days straight. The body, because it's stupid as stated above, tells you a lot of stupid things so you would be stupid to listen to it.

The time the body needs to be listened to is when there is pain or some other sort of abnormal/unusual symptom indicative of illness. There is also another very important time you need to listen to your body - when what your doing is not working. Moore needs to heed his own advice.

As you can see, Moore is completely ignorant of obesity, its causes and its treatments. I don't know if the ignorance is on purpose or not. It's very hard to believe that if he has been so called "researching" this subject matter for many years, he wouldn't have come to an understanding of obesity by now. Unless of course the only thing he has been researching is quackery and it appears that's the case. After all, quackery makes money and understanding the truth is not very self serving. When you aren't a real researcher, scientist or doctor, the only thing that's left is quackery as you will not have a voice in any academic circles.

If I wanted to make money out of this, I would have to turn to quackery as well because I do not have the credentials to speak at the next obesity research conference. It doesn't matter what my understanding of obesity is. I'm not a professional so I cannot monetize what I know, no matter how many people read my blog. But in the wonderful world of quackery, I can quickly become a "Low Carb Expert" which is basically a BS title, and create my own BS conference where I can talk all matter of BS without being challenged. That pretty much sums up the low carb community and people like Moore. This is why they have even made their own online "schools" so you can print out fake credentials, right from your computer. In fact, Moore created something like that once. Well, he had someone else do it for him, as is typical of him. He usually has someone else do the heavy lifting and he just slaps his name on it.

For the readers out there who have made it this far into this post, obesity is very complex and few truly understand it. But at its core, it can be explained in one sentence - chronic/exaggerated under expression of leptin caused by blood glucose dysregulation which abnormalizes insulin expression. That sentence does not tell the whole story of how this occurs and it is missing a lot of nuance but at its root, that's what obesity is.

So if these quacks are going to speak about "hormones" and "genetics" then they have to actually explain what hormones (leptin/insulin) and what genetics (fat cells). Unfortunately the majority of these people cannot because they view everything through the prism of either simple low carb and the failed carb/insulin hypothesis theory or the failed caloric theory. In other words - quackery.