Can we please stop repeating the “You have to eat at a deficit to lose weight on KETO” lie?

(bulkbiker) #41

And of course what all the CICO-paths fail to see is that once the theory has been disproven in things like the Feltham and Wittrock experiments it is wrong … period.
Like the famed black swan…

(Karen) #42

Your Dad’s a wise man. I don’t digest my food very well. I get a feeling of pain in my stomach. Usually it’s because I don’t have enough acid. It feels like the pain is hunger, but if I take a pill with hydrochloric acid in it, the feeling will go away. I need to remember that the pain is not true hunger. I just don’t feel full. I think I need the stretch.

This on calorie restriction vs fasting
https://idmprogram.com/difference-calorie-restriction-fasting-fasting-27/

(Marianne) #43

Used to watch that show religiously. Those poor people were sold a bill of goods, to their total detriment - exercise more, eat less. I hope it wasn’t permanent. I’d like to know if any of them adopted keto to repair the metabolic damage caused. I hope so.

(Kay) #44

Feltham! Thank you I was trying to remember his name, that was the 5000 calories experiment?

(bulkbiker) #45

Thats the one Although @Rclause mentioned him before I did…

(Scott) #46

I think I may have to replay that one again, totally fascinating!

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #47

Why would you eat 50 chicken thighs in the first place? Wouldn’t you stop being hungry before you even reached 10? So why the resistance to the idea of eating to satiety? Surely the human body is capable of recognizing when it’s been given enough food—a researcher who did an overfeeding study fifty years ago reported that one of his subjects broke down in tears at the thought of having to eat even one more pork chop.

I doubt anyone could eat 200 pounds of cauliflower a day, either. From experience, I know that carbohydrate is so unsatisfying that I will eat till my belly is ready to burst and still be hungry. I also know that just two pounds of cauliflower contains more than enough net carbohydrate to raise my insulin and make me put on fat.

There seems to be a real Puritan streak in nutrition research that doesn’t want people to enjoy their food and be healthy at the same time.

Perhaps we should just stop thinking in terms of calories and joules altogether, where food is concerned, and just eat to satisfy our hunger.

I lost sixty pounds eating a satisfying amount of food and not exercising at all. Of course, I had to slash my carb intake to practically nothing in order to do it, but I don’t miss the carbs. I do still have cravings, but that’s different from hunger—I don’t actually find carbohydrate very satisfying when I do indulge. Fortunately cauliflower isn’t tasty enough to make me want as much as a pound a day—though I would enjoy attempting to eat a pound of cheese sauce to go with it. And bacon . . . !

(Liz) #48

Agreed! Proof from another ‘older, post menopausal’ gal here…been a yo yo dieter most of my life, all the usual cico restrictions. At the age of 56 I came back to keto after badly falling off the wagon, less than 6 months back in I am already 52lbs lighter.
The hardest thing for me was following the above advice BUT…IT WORKS…a few days ago I was disheartened by a six week stall, reassessed and realised that I simply had fallen back into subconscious calorie counting and restriction.
Yesterday the scales went down after just two days of 18/6 tmad and eating more.
Thanks David, I will re watch all of the above to get it embedded in this ol’ brain. You are right. learn to trust the process, it heals as it goes in so many ways :handshake::grinning:

(Scott) #49

when people insist that you must count calories to insure a deficit to lose weight I think back to a podcast where the guest said the following. Have you ever seen a pack of lions on a hillside checking their app or logging calories to see if they were eating the proper amount of calories?

(April Harkness) #50

I especially find calories don’t really matter on carnivore keto. Holy CRAP. I have a hard time NOT dropping weight. I still believe there must be a point where I would put on excess weight on carnivore keto…I have yet to reach that point and probably won’t. Maybe it’s if I eat a whole cow? But I doubt I will ever get to that point bc…who does that!?? The satiety signal just kicks in quick for me on carnivore!! Cals did count while eating a carb centric diet. The satiety signal NEVER, NEVER turned on when I ate carbs , even “healty carbs”. Before keto, I had to eat under 1600 just to maintain. And I better count cals on a carb diet because if I ate to satiety that way, I’d eat close to 3000-4000 cals. How do I know? Because I used to do it FREQUENTLY. I only started tracking my cals on carnivore keto, because I was still dropping weight when I was trying to stabilize . I thought maybe I was undereating. Turns out… I was averaging 1900-2200 on carnivore with a few 2300 cal days thrown in. Now I am starting to not drop and just cruise. no gain, no loss. Exactly where I want to be! But at this level of cal consumption on carbs? I’d be in the high 130’s again. (for me as a short woman, anything over 135 just doesn’t look good on me and my bodyfat at that weight is usually 29-30%. I know this because I used to be an avid tracker and measurer. ) And at the weight and bodyfat I am now? Before keto , the last time I was this weight was about 2012. I had to eat…no joke…under 1300 cals to be here when I was eating “heart healthy” oatmeal with 1 scoop of protein powder, an apple for a snack, a scoop of brown rice, broccoli and lean chicken for lunch.etc. . IT sucked. But at the same weight and even LESS bodyfat on carnivore keto??? I get to eat SO MUCH More on carnivore keto and I don’t even have BLOAT. Please pass the steak. :slight_smile: I even made a video on my youtube about this.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #51

I don’t think there is an accurate measure other than the amounts in grams of the individual macro nutrients. The fact is there isn’t a way to calculate your daily food needs. There’s a huge difference between daily as to your fuel needs. The key is what those foods are, not how they would burn in an oven. We are not ovens, we are a complex biological lifeform and our needs fluxuate all the time. That’s why calculating your needs is inferior to letting your body decide what you need, not how much you want to eat or how much a calculator tells you is allowable. Part of the goal of eating keto is getting off carbs which mess up those signals. Sugar and carbohydrates don’t have a satiety mechanism in the body. Protein is the macro with the strongest satiety signal followed by fat. When you eat enough protein Peptide YY production in the small intestine triggers a signal to your brain that says “we have eaten enough food”. I guess I have become able to judge that amount at this point when I plan a meal, I know that a 2 lb porterhouse steak is more than I can put away. Eating two chicken thighs instead of three is something I have learned from experience. I know that I can eat three but I also know that it will be more than is comfortable or needed if other food is involved, I would be overindulging pushing that last one just because my brain and my mouth are saying yum. I don’t know how to explain the difference any better. I get normal appetite impulses eating keto and it has helped me be able to judge how much is enough and not have any overeating tendencies anymore. I don’t feel I am restricting anything, just eating like a normal person and knowing when I have eaten enough. I feed my cat meat. I can put more than he can eat in a bowl. He eats and when he’s had enough he walks away. Some days he eats a lot, other times he eats less and walks off leaving half the chicken there. He doesn’t try to eat as much as he can get away with because the chicken tastes good, he senses when enough is enough. Those same signals are working in my body now. I know some people have difficulty getting those signals. Part of that is making keto cheesecakes and snacky treats on keto. Lots of people have trouble controlling themselves eating lots of fake sweet stuff because they indulge too much when they have them or even try to make complete meals of them instead of eating meat. Then they wonder why they aren’t satisfied and end up eating more carbs than they should or if they stay at a limit feel unsatisfied with that amount. There are people here that eat a pint of keto ice cream instead of real food for a meal and they wonder why they still have binge tendencies. It’s about what we choose to eat and not trying to hack keto by making fake concoctions to imitate carb foods that stimulate your brain into overeating hyperpalitable foods that imitate junk foods we used to eat. I won’t over eat on broccoli and meat but I could probably put away half a keto cheesecake because it tastes good and might not trigger satiety like a steak does without sweetness confusing the issues. I don’t miss the sweets at all, and don’t feel like I “need” to fit that stuff in to make keto sustainable. I won’t indulge for the sake of pleasure anymore. Food as treats is a psychological eating disorder and the second step where you up your game getting over a carb addiction. It’s the mental clean up that follows the physical addiction to sugar and it’s when we take our keto changes to the next level. I will make a birthday cake or some cookies for a holiday, they have zero part in my daily eating. Maybe that’s the difference between getting by counting meticulously and trying to fit stuff in rather than eating real food. :cowboy_hat_face:

(Failed) #52

So much this!

(bulkbiker) #53

This 1,000,000 times… hallelujah!

(Full Metal KETO AF) #54

Amber O’hearn and Jimmy Moore both got pretty trim on carnivore but seem to have gained weight again on it. I wonder how this works. Is it from pushing it too far on the amount of food instead of listening to signals?

(April Harkness) #55

I am pretty sure I could gain weight on carnivore…but on a much higher cal count. ANd I reach satiety very quick and it even depends on the kind of meat. 4 oz of liver…and I AM DONE. I just can’t even eat 8 oz. But I can eat two 8 oz burgers. Perhaps 3? Nope. Chicken? I once got a whole rotisserie chicken hoping it would be an awesome omad. And…yeah… ate a bit over a quarter…and no more. Couldn’t even eat the whole half. Maybe if I forced myself to eat that whole chicken , forced myself to eat my 1lb of liver, made myself eat that third burger, then perhaps I’d gain weight. But the signal just kicks in so much faster that cals don’t count for me if I LISTEN to that satiety signal. But to a point I am damn sure it would if i didn’t. Just on carnivore, as I stated before…whatever that calorie range is much higher for me than even on standard keto and extremely higher than pre keto. Good thing about reaching satiety… I have lots of leftovers. Liver for me, (I loooooove Liver)is a definite calorie controlled food for me because the satiety kicks in SOOO Quick. I notice that my 1700-1900 days are usually my liver days. (yup I sometimes eat way less on liver days, not on purpose. it just fills me up) My chicken days are my 1900-2100 days and my burger days are my 2100-2300 days.

(Dirty Lazy Keto'er, Sucralose freak ;)) #56

April, yes, I think if you ate a whole cow “in one sitting” you would probably gain about 1500 lbs :slight_smile: lol

With some of my Sous Vide’d beef recently, I enjoyed it so much, I think I could have eaten the whole cow, but fortunately, I was able to stop myself, at no more than half a cow :smiley:

(Dirty Lazy Keto'er, Sucralose freak ;)) #57

David, this was a very interesting rant. I have to admit, that even while doing great on Keto, I have kind of perpetuated this (don’t want to call it a myth, becase I’m not 100% sure it is) about cals in vs. cals out.

Because here’s the thing (just from my personal experience, of course) I’m eating as much as I want, at breakfast, and then somewhat restricting myself between breakfast and dinner, and then again, as much for dinner as I want, and then completely abstaining from eating again until breakfast.

Now, the thing is, I LOVE to eat. Been a food hog all my life. And now, we have all kinds of good, keto food around, which I really do not think I could eat all I want, without gaining back some weight…

So I dunno… Maybe it’s just in the definitions ? Would you say that because I’m eating all I want in two meals a day, that I’m not restricting my intake ? I kind of feel like, because I’m not snacking between breakfast and dinner, and not eating at all between dinner and breakfast, that “I am restricting my calorie intake”… Hmmmm.

(Joey) #58

@David_Stilley David, as usual you have made a meaningful contribution with your original post. I’ll certainly check out all the video links (tho’ I believe I’ve seen some).

Based on my n=1 experience, here’s a wrinkle to this topic, at least based on my 8+ weeks of keto (as compared to my pre-keto days):

Over the past 10 years, I’d evolved into a natural IF pattern eater (roughly 18/6 hr) all the while as a HIGH CARB/LOW FAT eater (i.e., “healthy” ADA guidelines). Despite being a generally fit, reasonably lean (by US standards) 60+ yr old, I’d been slowly gaining weight and a little girth. Not much: 5’9" at just over 160 lbs and around 36" measured at the navel, but somewhat more than when I was in my 50s. Not a big concern, just an observation that I chalked up to getting older and assuming my metabolism was slowing down. (BTW, I had no biomarker issues, and never on any Rx either.)

To be clear, my motivation for going keto was to feel better, not to lose weight.

Now, after just 8+ weeks of keeping carbs <20g, in addition to feeling fantastic (like I’m 30 yrs younger), I dropped 15 lbs and 4" in waistline… (now weigh about 146 with a 32" waistline) even while maintaining the same fasting/eating window pattern of roughly 18/6 hr.

On its surface, this would suggest that HOLDING eating window constant (with what many would characterize as an intermittent daily fasting pattern), simply changing from high carb to low carb is the only variable of significance. And the effect this has on hormones (insulin) would explain everything.

One complication in drawing this conclusion is that, because alcohol has a stronger effect than it did pre-keto, I now typically enjoy a single glass of red wine with dinner, whereas pre-keto I typically had 2 or even 3. Also, although I didn’t carefully measure macros before keto, I doubt I had been eating the typical 1300-1400 kcal daily that I now find satisfying on high fat keto. Was most likely a lot more, as eating open bags of chips was hard to stop once I started.

I am now eating to “satiety” at 1300-1400 kcal/day, but your point is that it doesn’t really matter much if I would eat more fat? I.e., my body would just burn it anyhow? I appreciate there’s likely some limit to this flexibility, but it is tempting for me to try that. I find that my (high fat) food is SO delicious, that I wouldn’t mind eating a bit more … it’s just that I feel so stuffed that I stop. Not sure what that suggests about my ability to discern “satiety” … but it’s an open question in my mind, and your OP has gotten me thinking about it more carefully going forward.

Thanks again for your insightful “rant” above.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #59

An interesting point that I picked up from Robert Lustig is how one person will eat a burger and fries with say coffee and another eats the same combo with a giant cup of soda. They both get the same satiety signals except the soda guy has consumed a few hundred calories more, the soda didn’t satisfy hunger at an earlier point because carbs don’t have a satiety mechanism in our bodies. I think this carries over to artificially sweetened food when we switch to eating keto. It might fit your macros but the satiety signal is small compared to the hyper palatability of those foods, stimulating the pleasure center in the brain more than any satiety signals you get. This drives overeating of keto foods. I don’t have this issue at all eating eggs and meat and low carb vegetables. But I am backing down on vegetables more and more as I go because I don’t think they are necessary anymore like I used to. They are my “indulgence” at this point.

:cowboy_hat_face:

#60

Wow! I just watched all the videos. Thank you for completely re-educating me and changing my perspective altogether regarding calories. I’m a Keto newbie and have learned so much about the body already just in one week!