Help with changing the body's set point (T2 diabetic)

[PaulL]

LOL! One is a capital omega, the other is lower case. If you want to get really freaky, the Greek alphabet also has three sigmas, a capital, and two lower-case, one for the beginnings and middles of words, the other for the ends. How’s your sigma tolerance these days?

[PaulL]

That’s obsessive. The omega-6 content in grass fed beef is around 5 percent, so that should be a good target.

Possible confusion here, which I should have worked harder to avoid. I was saying 1% of fat intake, not 1% of total calories. My guess is that when you say the ω-6 content of beef is 5%, that’s 5% of calories, not 5% of weight. If I’m right, that means that keeping total ω-6 consumption to around 1% of total fat content (and I believe the presenter I got this from was speaking in terms of weight, not calorie content) should not be too difficult. The lecture I got all this from was part of an all-day conference with several speakers, so it may take me a while to re-watch the video and find the references. In any case, the précis of the executive summary of the synopsis of my point is simply to keep your intake of ω-6 fatty acids as low as possible.

Cooking with butter and/or other animal fats, which are something like 51% monounsaturated fats and 48% saturated fats, should keep polyunsaturated fat consumption low enough to avoid any ill effects, no matter how much comes along with the meat.

[Fruno]

That’s obsessive. The omega-6 content in grass fed beef is around 5 percent, so that should be a good target.

Possible confusion here, which I should have worked harder to avoid. I was saying 1% of fat intake, not 1% of total calories. My guess is that when you say the ω-6 content of beef is 5%, that’s 5% of calories, not 5% of weight.

Nope: 5% of total fatty acids
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2846864/

I have to disagree with this. The problem is that it is people who are not being scientific - they are not keeping track of the “calories out.” They are failing to take that part into consideration or don’t know what it is for them.

Well, it’s complicated. The first law of thermodynamics holds, that is, if you want to lose weight then you need to have a negative energy balance. But consider this: If you ask “why is this restaurant full”, would you consider an answer “because more customers came in than left” correct? Mathematically, yes. But it doesn’t answer the question.

The big thing is that output depends on input. If you eat more, you’ll burn more. If you eat less, you’ll burn less. People will actually gain weight if they eat less calories on a high-carb diet, there are plenty of studies to this effect. Cut calories by 20%, people lose weight for 3 month and then start gaining it back. After a year they’re back at baseline. CICO is bs. Look for Gary Taubes talks on youtube for thorough coverage on this.

The body behaves very different on a high-carb diet than on a low-carb diet. If insulin is high, the body will do everything to protect its fat reserves, lower expenditure if necessary. OTOH if insulin is low, the body will use its fat reserves freely.

[PaulL]

Nope: 5% of total fatty acids

Gotcha!

The first law of thermodynamics holds, that is, if you want to lose weight then you need to have a negative energy balance.

And while this is true, Gary Taubes points out that the arrow of causality can run in both directions. The hormonal hypothesis of weight maintenance is that the hormonal effects of the foods we eat determine whatever energy balance we may experience. In other words, we put on fat because we are in fat-storing mode and must therefore eat more than we expend, in order to have fat mass to add. We lose fat because we are in fat-loss mode, and must therefore eat less, so that some of our stored fat can be metabolised.

My favourite example is children in the middle of their pubertal growth spurt. We all know that they put on weight because their hormones are telling them to, not because they are eating their parents out of house and home. The huge food intake is an effect of the growth spurt, the growth is not the effect of the increased food intake. Only an idiot would maintain otherwise.

Why we don’t apply the same logic to adults who put on fat, I don’t understand. Like a bear preparing for hibernation, we signal our bodies to store fat by eating lots of carbohydrate. When we stop eating carbohydrate, our insulin drops again, and those stored fatty acids are free to leave the adipose tissue to be metabolised.

[OldDoug]

The first law of thermodynamics holds, that is, if you want to lose weight then you need to have a negative energy balance.

Good, thank you - well said. The alternative to acknowledging this reality is to engage in ‘magical thinking.’

But consider this: If you ask “why is this restaurant full”, would you consider an answer “because more customers came in than left” correct? Mathematically, yes. But it doesn’t answer the question.

Well, there could be an enormous multitude of answers. If we are talking about the quantity of customers inside, then I would say it depends on enough more going in than leaving, or just having enough in there, period, i.e. being at capacity - which was given as a premise. So…

The big thing is that output depends on input. If you eat more, you’ll burn more. If you eat less, you’ll burn less. People will actually gain weight if they eat less calories on a high-carb diet, there are plenty of studies to this effect. Cut calories by 20%, people lose weight for 3 month and then start gaining it back. After a year they’re back at baseline. CICO is bs.

That’s an illogical conclusion, because CICO is right there all along, operating away. Yes - eating more may mean some increased burning, but the math is still going to work out, and one’s weight will reflect that. Person by person, this may mean gaining weight, because often the increase in metabolism will not fully offset the increased intake. It’s rarely if ever going to be an exactly linear, equal thing.

I agree with you 100% about the hormonal effects and the difference that high-carb and low-carb can make. Yet it seems this argument never ends, and all the while the critics of CICO are choosing to ignore the “calories out” part.

Simply “eating less” is not guaranteed to be a successful way for people to lose weight (especially, as you note, over the long term) - here too I agree 100%. But there we’re only looking at the “in” part. Meanwhile, CICO is saying that by definition you will lose weight if you keep the “out” bigger than the “in.”

[amwassil]

We’re having a discussion in another topic, which is likely relevant to what’s being discussed in this topic.

https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/gaining-fat-in-a-healthy-way/102326

@Tim_Cee wants to store more fat but remain in ketosis doing so. Thus, ‘carbing up’ is not an option. No one denies the laws of thermodynamics, which incidentally apply to closed systems which humans are not. Nonetheless, humans evolved eating to excess when food was available to store enough of it as fat for the days, weeks or even potentially months to the next meal. I don’t know the exact relationship between energy balance and hormonal response, but it makes sense to me that in ketosis you could use weight/fat loss/gain as a rough approximation of both.

[Fruno]

That’s an illogical conclusion, because CICO is right there all along, operating away. Yes - eating more may mean some increased burning, but the math is still going to work out, and one’s weight will reflect that. Person by person, this may mean gaining weight, because often the increase in metabolism will not fully offset the increased intake. It’s rarely if ever going to be an exactly linear, equal thing.

Sorry, but that’s not true. At least without adding restrictions. It may be true short term, but not long term. Most people look only short term, they eat less and are happy if the scales show they lost 4 pounds in a month. But they all start regaining weight. The body reduces base metabolic rate to compensate, in fact it overcompensates in the long term.

There are plenty of studies where people ate less and didn’t lose weight at the end of the study, if they checked for a year or more. Look at this study: https://drc.bmj.com/content/8/1/e001012 One group was on a starvation diet (800 calories) for 3 months, and then 600 calories below their baseline for 9 more months. The other group was 600 calories below baseline for a whole year. And they all gained weight in the last half year of the study, significantly, eating 600 calories less than they ate before. IIRC the “starvation” group gained 10 pounds on average. So high carb messes CICO up, the body overcompensates by lowering the baseline metabolism. If they had continued the study for another year, there is little doubt that they would have reached their previous weight or more.

You may be right in a low carb/ketogenic setting. But in my personal experience, weight gain is very moderate even if I eat a LOT. There was this case of a n=1 experiment where one guy switched to keto and ate twice the calories that he usually did, something like 5500 calories a day. After 4 weeks or so he had gained very little weight (3 pounds IIRC, all numbers from memory and might be slightly off) but lost waistline circumference, so the weight gain could have been due to muscle growth. The usual CICO arithmetic predicted that he would gain 18 pounds. Which happened almost perfectly when he repeated the experiment with a high carb diet.

[PaulL]

You may be right in a low carb/ketogenic setting. But in my personal experience, weight gain is very moderate even if I eat a LOT. There was this case of a n=1 experiment where one guy switched to keto and ate twice the calories that he usually did, something like 5500 calories a day. After 4 weeks or so he had gained very little weight (3 pounds IIRC, all numbers from memory and might be slightly off) but lost waistline circumference, so the weight gain could have been due to muscle growth.

I believe you are referring to the British nutrition activist, Sam Feltham, executive director of the Public Health Collaboration. He was already eating a ketogenic diet when he did his experiments (both high caloric intake, one ketogenic, the other high in carbohydrate), the results of which people can read at http://live.smashthefat.com/why-i-didnt-get-fat/. There are also videos of Mr. Feltham on YouTube in which he presents his results.

Gary Taubes describes an experiment reported in the literature, in which the participants were allowed to eat a low-carbohydrate diet ad libitum. One man ended up eating 3000 calories and still lost weight at the same rate as the others. Even at that rate of intake, his body was still operating at a deficit. The other end of the spectrum is an executive at Dupont in the 1960’s, written up in a case report, who lost a considerable amount of weight on a low-carbohydrate diet, but who would start to regain weight if he ate so much as a single extra apple.

[Fangs]

I take it from older ----original post-----I want to lose more weight to get to about 165-170lbs. I’m 5’7" (170cm) and currently weight 180lbs and I still have belly fat & loose skin around it. (I’m on day 6 of a fast currently).

Body setpoints are real. We change thru age, lifestyle, environment and body functions. from Dr K Stock: (Eating a carnivore diet that is consistent with what we are designed to eat, results in a normalization of body fat levels. And for most people, single digit body fat is
not natural. The body feels a lot “safer” when it has a bit more energy reserves than that. However, most people have body fat levels that are FAR above their natural setpoint. And the further someone is above this natural set-point the more dramatic their results tend to be. That said, the longer someone is way above their “natural bodyfat setpoint” the more likely that “setpoint” moved up as well. ------ food for thought here.

we wreck ourselves internally and naturally thru our lives. Simple as that.

if you think your natural body is now your aged 30-40-50 body after eating crap most of our lives from birth and think that ‘a numbers’ game is all there is to it, then we got it wrong. It is 100% about healing internally and rebalance. To what level we take it thru what eating plan is our personal choice obviously and what our 'last 10 lbs. and ‘that to go now’ is a very personal and I say mental thought to the person.

the last 10. that last jiggle. those years on us. mental and personal and 'do we see it and know WHEN the heck to go back to sanity in this unsane world of ‘perfect’…

and we fast, not eat, starve, eat more fat, eat more, workout more and go insane to lose the 'last 10 and jiggle of this or that, then to plastic surgery to lose the crows feet or whatever…I gotta say at some point these posts of the 'last 10 to be fed as ‘required and obtainable’ in some food of they are ‘doing it wrong’ is just…well wrong LOL

You won’t gain back youth period…unless what you started from day 1 in youth was your goal. What we did in between is a set point in stone for our bodies.

I know many might think this post is off in a way but come on here…10 from goal, who wouldn’t kill to be just that and who is ‘not happy’ with just that and our ages and our environmental and life drama levels and more come into play here obvy.

at some point the ‘dieting game’ should not be played on forums to allow the crazy to go down ya know to that ‘infinite’ one kcal, or that one ‘gram’ or that ‘one food’ or that ‘one anything’ as it does. It should not at some point be taken to this level of crazy. Allow it to go down, whatever? ugh

[OldDoug]

No one denies the laws of thermodynamics, which incidentally apply to closed systems which humans are not.

Yeah - they apply to closed systems, but that does not mean they don’t also apply to other things, the human organism being one. We’re not magically creating or destroying energy, and we use energy to defy entropy - thermodynamics is 100% happy with us.

Sorry, but that’s not true.

Oh yeah, it is true. CICO says:

1.) If ‘in’ is more than ‘out,’ you’re going to gain weight.
2.) If they’re the same, you’re going to say the same.
3.) If ‘in’ is less than ‘out,’ then you’re going to lose weight.

I think most of the disagreements about CICO is due to people choosing to disregard the “out” part. Otherwise, CICO and thermodynamics are “happy” and satisfied and applicable to all we do.

At least without adding restrictions. It may be true short term, but not long term. Most people look only short term, they eat less and are happy if the scales show they lost 4 pounds in a month. But they all start regaining weight. The body reduces base metabolic rate to compensate, in fact it overcompensates in the long term.

You had said, “If you eat more, you’ll burn more.” My point is that it’s not going to be a straightforward, linear thing. Yes, one’s metabolism will probably speed up. But things like this are usually somewhat “fuzzy” for people - it’s not that if we eat 500 more calories per day, we’ll burn 500 more. What’s normal is that we’ll burn some portion of the 500, but not the whole thing. And the same on the downside - while over time one’s metabolism can indeed slow down in response to eating less, it’s usually not a “one for one” decrease.

I do agree about metabolic changes and how brutally counterproductive they can be for weight loss. Dr. Fung talks about the “CRaP” approach - “Calorie Restriction as Primary,” and no argument from me - it works very poorly for people, due to human nature and the tendency for the metabolism to slow.

There are plenty of studies where people ate less and didn’t lose weight at the end of the study, if they checked for a year or more. Look at this study: https://drc.bmj.com/content/8/1/e001012 One group was on a starvation diet (800 calories) for 3 months, and then 600 calories below their baseline for 9 more months. The other group was 600 calories below baseline for a whole year. And they all gained weight in the last half year of the study, significantly, eating 600 calories less than they ate before. IIRC the “starvation” group gained 10 pounds on average. So high carb messes CICO up, the body overcompensates by lowering the baseline metabolism. If they had continued the study for another year, there is little doubt that they would have reached their previous weight or more.

Sure - this stuff is well known on this forum and I don’t see anybody disagreeing with it. The studied ‘Biggest Loser’ contestants had an average metabolic decline of 789 calories per day; disastrous for losing weight. But this does not mess CICO up - CICO is saying that if the “out” goes below the “in,” then you’re going to gain weight, and that’s exactly what happened.

You may be right in a low carb/ketogenic setting. But in my personal experience, weight gain is very moderate even if I eat a LOT. There was this case of a n=1 experiment where one guy switched to keto and ate twice the calories that he usually did, something like 5500 calories a day. After 4 weeks or so he had gained very little weight (3 pounds IIRC, all numbers from memory and might be slightly off) but lost waistline circumference, so the weight gain could have been due to muscle growth. The usual CICO arithmetic predicted that he would gain 18 pounds. Which happened almost perfectly when he repeated the experiment with a high carb diet.

I’d say the norm is for weight gain to be some fraction of the increased intake, regardless of what it is. Sure, there are some relatively few accounts of eating a LOT per day on keto and not gaining weight or not gaining much, but there are more accounts of gaining weight on keto, including quite a few posters on this very forum.

I think you are mischaracterizing the “usual CICO arithmetic” - we’ve already talked about some metabolic increase due to eating more. If the “out” is going up, then that makes a difference, and it has to be taken into account. Over the decades I had an enormous number of weeks when, just looking at the “in” side, I should have gained 5 lbs. or more, but all that time I only averaged a gain of 5 lbs. per year.

[SporkyDonkey]

As a mathematician and a Greek-American, I can assure you it’s >99.99966%.

[amwassil]

No one denies the laws of thermodynamics, which incidentally apply to closed systems which humans are not.

Yeah - they apply to closed systems, but that does not mean they don’t also apply to other things, the human organism being one. We’re not magically creating or destroying energy, and we use energy to defy entropy - thermodynamics is 100% happy with us.

Of course, the laws of thermodynamics apply. But in open systems the energy inputs and outputs can not be precisely determined. So you settle for approximations and hope for the best. With human metabolism, you have hormones and enzymes acting differently on different nutrient inputs, both in conjunction and opposition, plus varying inefficiencies of conversion and use of incoming energy. That’s why we have the notorious ‘n=1’ around here. What works for me doesn’t necessarily work for anyone else.

So, I agree generally if you expend more energy than you consume you’re going to utilize onboard fat to make up the difference. But how much and how fast and how long it can be maintained without additional confounding influences can only be determined by trial and error.

[atomicspacebunny]

open systems

Interesting ‘open system variables‘ in contrast to a ‘closed system of variables.’

Static and dynamic variables?

A closed system variability would be like rolling dice.

Use one dice you can guess more accurately what will be rolled!

Use 5 dice you increase the variability and still guess the outcome, but less accurately what will be rolled but it’s much more difficult to make those type of calculations to predict the answer such as possibilities like in encryption.

Fascinating stuff!

Static Closed Systems can still be or seem dynamic to human logic even though they are closed systems when it comes to predictability?

The more times you roll the dice within the closed system of variables; the easier it becomes to predict the outcome because it is a closed system…lol

Now That’s Scary Stuff?

Casino peeps and Gamblers know this!

If your losing all the time then there is an error in your logic which can be physical not just logical?

Note: This type of actuarial analysis cannot be applied to human beings because they are too dynamic and do not live or exist in closed systems.

[OldDoug]

But in open systems the energy inputs and outputs can not be precisely determined. So you settle for approximations and hope for the best.

Yeah - as a practical matter there’s usually a lot of guesswork and trial-and-error. Some weigh their food and keep considerably accurate track of their intake; I’d just always say that the “out” part of CICO needs attention paid to it as well.

I’d like to see people studied - have them inside a big calorimeter and see what happens as far as adding fat while in ketosis, fasting, prolonged exercise, etc. That way we do know the inputs and outputs.

[SporkyDonkey]

Dice rolls are independent trials. No amount of previous rolls can ever predict the next roll. For your analogy to work, you would need to use something like blackjack, where the composition of the remaining cards in the deck can be tracked as the game is played.

[atomicspacebunny]

No amount of previous rolls can ever predict the next roll.

Hmmm? The dice roll or numbers on the dice does not predict the outcome…lol

With dice there are only 6 possibilities for each die so it is a closed system.

Roll a perfectly round ball off the top of the highest mountain top and you have unlimited possibilities but it is still a closed system and can be guessed accurately.

Loaded or weighted cheat dice is a nice example when guessing becomes more accurate, slice six in half and you have 3 possibilities…lol

References:

[1] “…If an experiment is a binomial experiment, then the random variable X = the number of successes is called a binomial random variable. …” “…A fair six-sided die is rolled ten times, and the number of 6’s is recorded. Is this a binomial experiment? Yes! There are fixed number of trials (ten rolls), each roll is independent of the others, there are only two outcomes (either it’s a 6 or it isn’t), and the probability of rolling a 6 is constant. …” …More

[SporkyDonkey]

Dependent vs. independent is a separate issue from fairness.

Even loaded dice are independent trials. You may skew the probabilities with loaded dice or cheat dice to make a certain outcome more likely, but past rolls still do not affect future rolls. Just because you rolled a one four times in a row, doesn’t have an effect on wether it will happen again. Thinking it does is known as “the gamblers fallacy.”

[atomicspacebunny]

Just because you rolled a one four times in a row, doesn’t have an effect on wether it will happen again.

But the problem or situation still remains constant because it is a closed system of variability that does not allow anything to escape from it (entropy) which means limited possible random outcomes, it can still be guessed, it is just up to the guesser to figure it out[1]?

Unlimited possible random outcomes then your dealing with an open system of variability?

Footnote:

[1] “…In probability and statistics, a random variable, random quantity, aleatory variable, or stochastic variable is described informally as a variable whose values depend on outcomes of a random phenomenon.[1] The formal mathematical treatment of random variables is a topic in probability theory. In that context, a random variable is understood as a measurable function defined on a probability space that maps from the sample space to the real numbers.[2] …More

[atomicspacebunny]

The other end of the spectrum is an executive at Dupont in the 1960’s, written up in a case report, who lost a considerable amount of weight on a low-carbohydrate diet, but who would start to regain weight if he ate so much as a single extra apple.

Interesting thing about the Apple is that the gut microbiome will absorb a little of glucose with the fructose before releasing it into the blood stream but the liver can only store so much fructose (…then stores it around the liver and pancreas etc. as visceral fat?) at one time as glycogen because it is very limited unlike glucose which poses no barriers to the liver storage as glycogen?

Muscles have a hard time using fructose and converting it to glycogen, but with much difficulty for example one large apple contains 23 grams of natural sugar, 13 grams of that are fructose.

Here is a biological pathway (sorbitol-aldose reductase) in which the brain itself (polyol pathway) converts glucose to fructose?

Why would the brain do that?

Does exogenous or endogenous production of fructose or glucose really matter or is it insulin’s ability or in-ability to clear both in diabetic pathogenesis?

I’m really starting to like insulin!

Footnotes:

[1]“…Directly, the fructose component in sugar causes dysregulation of lipid and carbohydrate metabolism. Indirectly, sugar promotes positive energy balance, thus body weight and fat gain, which also cause dysregulation of lipid and carbohydrate metabolism. …” …More

[2] “…Our liver is the major site of fructose metabolism. In the liver, fructose can be converted to glucose derivatives and stored as liver glycogen. The liver can only use and store so much fructose as glycogen at one time. …” …More

[3] “…Lipid metabolism entails the oxidation of fatty acids to either generate energy or synthesize new lipids from smaller constituent molecules. Lipid metabolism is associated with carbohydrate metabolism, as products of glucose (such as acetyl CoA) can be converted into lipids. …” …More

[4] “…Researchers at Yale University have discovered that the brain is capable of making fructose – a simple sugar, usually found in fruit, vegetables and honey. Not all sugars are equal. Glucose is a simple sugar that provides energy for the cells in your body. Fructose has a less important physiological role and has been repeatedly linked to the development of obesity and type 2 diabetes. When there is excess glucose the processes that break it down can become saturated, so the body converts glucose into fructose instead, using a process known as the “polyol pathway”, a chemical reaction involved in diabetic complications. The researchers at Yale reported in the journal, JCI Insight, that the brain uses the polyol pathway to produce fructose in the brain. …” …More

[5] “…Therefore, there is a need for further characterization of the pathogenesis of CIN in order to establish a more efficient available treatment that can accelerate kidney recovery post-injury. High glucose levels (diabetes), hypertonic contrast agents and a hypoxic environment are common risk factors that significantly contribute to CIN The polyol pathway is a metabolic route constituted by two enzymes, aldose reductase and sorbitol dehydrogenase. Aldose reductase converts glucose to sorbitol while sorbitol dehydrogenase metabolizes sorbitol to fructose. Of interest, as well as for CIN, hyperglycemia, hypertonicity and hypoxia are the main stimulants of aldose reductase expression and the activation of the polyol pathway. …” …More

image link

[6] “…More frequently, fasting or postprandial glucose concentrations are increased after high fructose consumption in clinical trials [12] and animal experiments [13]. The elevated glucose output may cause an increase of insulin demand and trigger insulin over-release. …” …More

[SporkyDonkey]

it can still be guessed, it is just up to the guesser to figure it out[1]?

Ah, I think I see what you’re trying to say.

Still, it can only be guessed with a certain probability. In the heads or tails example, no matter what you guess, your guesses will get closer and closer to 50% correct with each guess.

Unlimited possible random outcomes then your dealing with an open system of variability?

Funfact. If you randomly select elements from an infinite set, you will never select the same element more than once. You can only predict that the outcome will be one of the infinite possibilities that haven’t been picked yet.