Yay Brenda!!!
Also to those asking, I just found a local athletic physical therapy place near me that does DEXA scans!
Ate unlimited fat, reduced protein, lost bodyfat, gained lean mass
gatita
#24
I just found a company called BodySpec that brings a van around to different locations and charges $45 for DEXA body composition scan.
skinnyjeans13
(Deb)
#26
And whenever you lose fat, it automatically increases your LBM, doesn’t it?? Or am I misunderstanding it?
Madeleine
#27
If your bf % decreases then that automatically increases your percentage of lean mass but I don’t see why it would have any affect on your actual lean body mass. Brenda’s giving her lean mass in pounds.
Madeleine
#29
Maybe I’m misunderstanding your question, but I think it’s just a question of math: when you lose body fat your percentages shift. Fewer fat pounds = lower body fat % and the lean mass you do have is now a higher percent of your total mass because you have fewer overall pounds. The lean mass (in pounds) could be the same before and after, but it’s a higher percentage of your total than it was before.
lfod14
#30
Really not a fair comparison we have 15x the population. A lot harder to give mostly “free” healthcare in the US. Maybe if were lucky Trump will find his sack and actually allow the Insurance Co’s to sell over state lines like he promised and then we can sit back and watch them slit each others throats and we can watch with our wallets! Probably won’t happen but we can dream.
Brenda
(8 year Ketogenic Veteran)
#31
I GAINED four POUNDS of lean mass.
I GAINED four pounds of MUSCLE.
It has ZERO to do with percentages.
skinnyjeans13
(Deb)
#32
@Brenda To what do you attribute the muscle gain from? Fat doesn’t build muscle. So do you weight train? I don’t particularly want large muscles but being an older woman, I’d like to be more firm. Besides cardio, I lift moderately.
skinnyjeans13
(Deb)
#33
Never mind…I went back and read your post. 730 lbs. free press? Wow! I guess I’d gain muscle too!
Congrats on the fat loss. 1 % is 1%.
Rogue
(James Helm)
#34
I find it interesting that so many body keep talking about taking in 1g of protein per pound of lean body mass. When I read research it keeps stating to take in 0.77-1.25 g of protein per kilogram of lean body mass. I wonder if this is to keep everything in the size matrix or not, but it seems so many mistaken pounds and kilograms in these statements. I also find it curious that Dr. Phinneys 0.55g of protein per pound of lean body mass works out almost exactly to 1g of protein per kilogram of lean body mass.
I believe he is trying to help those that use pounds as a dominant source of measure not have this issue any longer. Once we begin using a single standard with these statements there will be less confusion and more success.
Jason_v
#38
Congrats to you, thanks for doing this and i’d like to share that I’ve had the same experience. DEXA scans at 12 week intervals over 2 years that demonstrate consistent fat loss and muscle gain while eating minimal adequate protein, minimal carbs as possible and not tracking fat at all.
I have an extensive background is physiology and cellular biology and work in fields unrelated to nutrition. even with all my education i still ended up with metabolic system because of terrible nutrition advice. I finally resolved it via the ketogenic diet in 2015 and have been immersed in it since then. I view things through an evolutionary biology perspective, through known physiologic and cellular respiration (energy production) mechanisms, and through clinical results not so much through double blind nutritional studies.
Someone said “fat doesn’t build muscle”. what does that even mean? saying that means to me, that person has a very basic understanding of how the body works.
It is likely that someone who would say something like that has a story going on in their head that they eat protein, and it magically gets deposited as muscle. so if you dissected a muscle you’d find the beef part, the chicken part etc.
fat? well that goes into your fat cells right? what else could it do?
the reality is not that simple. all food is broken down to its smallest constituents. what happens to those constituents depends on what the overall context and picture of what is going on in the body.
the bodies first goal is to stay alive. all your cells must be producing atp to use as energy all the time, 24-7 no matter what. there is never a second when virtually all the cells in your body are not doing this.
the substrates for atp production are delivered via the blood stream. fuel is dumped into and removed from the blood stream.
if your body needs fuel, it will use any of the constituents possible to make it. if nothing but amino acids (peptides) from protein is available, it will make glucose out of it first, then use it to repair and build muscle if the body requires it. if the dietary protein intake very low, you may use your own tissue for this purpose, depending on how much fat you have on your body and or how fat adapted you are.
if protein and carbs are present, it will all be put in the blood stream but the glucose will be used (and get there) first, and the protein will be directed for repair and growth and then used for energy because it cannot be stored or otherwise partitioned.
if there is great excess of protein (an excess will arise from either large dietary amounts or an relative lack of need for growth and repair), and glucose being dumped int the blood stream from the carbs, it (the glucose) )will be directed to storage via de novo lipogenesis because the use of protein for energy will be up regulated because of its mere presence (since it can’t be stored and growth and repair is satisfied).
if there is an excess of all 3 macronutrients (fat, glucose, protein) the scenario will be similar to above but with more dietary fat storage
KETOSIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
without carbs present at all in any significant amount the body (liver) is constantly breaking down fat or protein (from the blood stream still, the blood stream serves all tissue, theres no shortcuts) to create the level of blood sugar that always has to be present in order to keep you alive. the bonus of this act is the production of ketones.
now ketones are in the blood stream and act like glucose essentially. what will the body due with protein and fat? it depends on the context of what is going on.
once you are fat adapted the hormonal situation allows for cheap metabolic fuel to be available. your body fat is easily released into the blood stream to provide the biggest metabolic advantage: fuel that is available without using resources to first process (digest) it. Because it is the least complicated option for energy (atp) production there is a constant trickle of your own body fat into the bloodstream. this is regardless of how much fat you eat (mct fats make this slightly less accurate but lets ignore that for simplicity sake). this is a component of “fat flux”.
in this state any protein you eat will be directly available for growth and repair the use of it for energy is very down regulated. this is the likely mechanism for why the ketogenic diet appears (from a narrowed scientific study point of view) to be “protein sparring”. there has been a physiological explanation for this phenomenon for years, but its not “proven” in a scientific sense even though it is perfectly and eloquently deduced from hard core, known physiology. You maximize the conversion of protein to your own muscle tissue by high intensity training that essentially makes the body NEED to use the protein to build muscle.
This is how fat builds muscle. It allows you to direct protein away from use as energy or disposal in urine.
This how how very active people like ketogainers invariable do ok with inordinate amounts of protein. for them the GAIN part is driving their behaviour and recommendations.
The truth is you can get stronger without building much additional muscle tissue. you can definitely get more fit. in reality you are likely to build and improve the strength of your musculature in areas that have need it for years due to inactivity or the inability to be active due to size/injury etc. You will likely see a decrease in muscle fibre size/density in areas where stress is reducing because of your weightloss (hips, thighs usually). Unless, of course you keep the stress on those areas high via exercise.
You have a genetic potential that is relatively easy to achieve, but often monumentally difficult to get past. If your mindset is for maximum muscle growth you will have to design your entire lifestyle around it.
The last puzzle piece is what happens to 'excess dietary fat?". Referring back to established and known physiology, the components for fat processing(digestion) are more complex and involve a whole system for emulsifying it, transporting etc compared to glucose and protein. There are many physiologic mechanisms that if working properly steer against over consumption of dietary fat.
You feel full sooner, it increases satiety the fastest for a reason: to not overwhelm the bodies processing system. It is the most desired fuel by the body, but the body does not inherently want to overfeed itself because that puts it into a compromised position.
If overwhelmed it will cause digestive discomfort, and likely bowel issues. this is the second mechanism. your eating behaviour is likely to be adjusted related to discomfort.
Note that this depends on the system working properly and not being confounded by obesity, genetic disorders, toxins and the disregulation etc that comes with exposure to a lifetime of the SAD, or emotional eating disorders. If these are present you may not be able to rely on your bodies signalling to guide your eating.
sorry for the word barf
keehan
(A ham loving ham! - VA6KD)
#39
I’m going to print that and pin it to my mirror to read everyday.
Bring it on! I LOVE this keto talk.
richard
(Richard Morris)
#40
Well said … that is pretty much spot on.
I would add however that some of the people who do OK with inordinate amounts of protein, and by that I mean over 3.3g/kg LBM, probably won’t do well for long.
There is a limit of how much Ammonia a human can convert into Urea and expel from the body, above which ammonia accumulation and inevitable intoxication occurs.
Some people like Megan Hefford are deficient in 1 of 6 enzymes necessary to turn ammonia into urea. Most people with this are identified soon after birth, she must have had a mild case so on normal amounts of protein she was fine, but when she went on a PSMF to cut for a body building competition she unfortunately died from ammonia intoxication.
Normal people also have a limit of how much Urea they can make to deal with the waste products from eating a lot of protein.
The point where Urea synthesis is saturated is 0.53g/kg BW(3/4) of Nitrogen or roughly 3.32 g/kg LBM of total Protein. Above that and they will likely accumulate ammonia because they can’t get rid of it quickly enough.
If you see apparent experts in optimizing nutrition on social media suggest 3.5g-4.4g/kg LBM as an optimal rate of protein intake - ask them for the Science to support that claim. And if they give you a study into Arkensas university students that tested Muscle Protein synthesis rates after just one day on high protein - ask them for studies showing people don’t die after several months at that rate.
When you see studies that say that “A High Protein Diet Has No Harmful Effects”…
… check the “Acknowledgements” and “Conflicts of interest” as they show that this study was funded by a Whey manufacturer and they tested people at 3.3 g/kg LBM … just under the limit where ammonia intoxication occurs. They clearly knew the limit, and in my opinion their choice of Headline is criminal.
BTW if you see a meme floating about the internet asserting that too much protein is not even a thing
You might want to consider how much weight you give to that source, because too much protein is definitely a thing.