Oh good grief - Bullet proof coffee

(Bob M) #21

I’ve listened to multiple podcasts about fasting. I can say the the opinions are all over the map. Some say if you have any calories whatsoever, such as from black coffee, you are out of autophagy. Others say things like exercise cause autophagy, even if you’re eating.

To me, what makes the most sense is a scale of autophagy. Is it possibly better to not drink coffee and only have water? Maybe. Does it really matter much? Probably not. For me, fasting is so difficult that if it takes coffee and tea (no cream or other additives) to get through 3.5-4.5 days of fasting, I’m OK with there being slightly less autophagy.

I also think that when I fast with coffee/tea for 36 hours then exercise, there has to be autophagy going on.

Further, I think that autophagy itself is a poorly defined term (kinda like “insulin resistance”). Something is getting “recycled” or removed, but what is it? If it’s fat cells, connective tissue you no longer need, or anything where removal causes refreshing with new cells, that’s good. If it’s important cells, such as muscle/heart/lung, that’s bad. Dr. Phinney is anti-long-term fasting because he interprets scan results meaning that muscle is being removed. To him, that’s bad. I interpret them differently, as it’s unknown as to what’s being removed, and I’m more hopeful it’s something “bad”.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #22

I tend to believe Fung’s side of the autophagy argument with Phinney. I don’t believe our bodies are stupid enough to attack vital tissues after a few days of fasting. It makes no sense from an evolutionary point of view. I don’t think we would have survived as a species if we were that fragile. After a few days approaching a famine if we were weakened so badly it would have taken a big toll on early man who depended on the hunt to survive.

(BuckRimfire) #23

One could attack Fung’s argument as being a “naturalistic fallacy,” but it is incredibly attractive. Does Phinney claim there is any evidence for his concern? I can’t remember what he said about that.

Knowing that Peter Attia used to do a 7-day fast once per quarter, and has lately switched to a 3-day fast once per month (heard that yesterday on a recent episode of his podcast), and that he is (or at least claims to be) hugely motivated to compile all the available data, I’m inclined to believe that there are not a lot of studies showing that fasting is harmful!

My spousal critter and I were doing one or two 36-hour fasts per week last fall and winter for a while, then kinda fell off the wagon. Getting back into it the last couple of weeks. Started another last night, which I might try to extend to 45 hours. The 18 to 24 hour phase is always the worst for temptation to eat, then in the morning at around 34 hours I feel like I have no real hunger at all, so I’m curious to see how that plays out for the rest of day 2 until dinnertime.

Having plain black tea right now. I ate a shocking amount of pork shoulder and some chopped cabbage with marinara last night, so no need for fat in my tea at this point. There’s probably still lipid coming out of my gut. I may go for a 35 minute run this afternoon and try my Keto Mojo before and after. I’ll probably succumb to the temptation to put 200 calories of coconut oil and HWC in my tea tomorrow morning.

(Doug) #24

:slightly_smiling_face: Indeed it does - in skeletal muscles. To my knowledge, we don’t know the relative rates of autophagy between exercise-induced and that obtained by nutrient deprivation. Once again we’re up against a woeful lack of studies on human subjects. But I think this is yet another thing that solidly argues for exercising.

In general, “less” is better than “more” as far as foods, with respect to autophagy. Yet coffee is a special case - there is evidence that it stimulates/induces/causes autophagy.

Makes coffee sound pretty good, eh? :smile:

This was with mice, but mice are mammals like we are - we develop in the same way, have similar organ systems, and mice genes almost always share the functions of human genes. We’ve been studying mice for 100+ years and have thousands of mice strains tailor-made for specific study purposes.

Phinney overestimated the amount of protein consumed/nitrogen excreted during longer fasts. He looked at the first day or two and projected into the future from there, but we know that in fact nitrogen excretion falls off a cliff after the first couple days - this goes back to 1983 and George Cahill - normal protein breakdown is about 75 grams per day, and that it falls to 15 - 20 grams per day during starvation.

With leaner people, during fasting a greater proportion of non-fat tissue is consumed, versus fat, than is the case in people who are obese/have a lot of fat to lose. Phinney tended to look at leaner and more athletic people than Fung, so their subject bases were not identical - that is part of the reason for their different views. Beyond that, Phinney made some simple errors.

#25

The reality is we ALWAYS secrete insulin when we eat. The question is how much, and are we creating a spike. I think it was Dr Bernstein that pointed out that if you ate a handful of rocks… you’d secrete insulin. The problem with Dr Berry’s rationale isn’t only that we always secrete insulin when we eat, it’s that the MAJORITY of our keto foods cause near no insulin response. So by that logic is Keto a never ending fast? NOPE!

This is the problem with people constantly changing the definition of words to mean what they want it to, People, Doctors, it doesn’t matter. The real meaning is lost to the point where everything said equals the original term. A fast LITERALLY means not to eat. I’m not throwing that at you specifically, I’m talking in general. I remember when “Assault” meant somebody beat the crap out of you. Now it means they hurt your feelings. Now people are “traumatized” because they saw something on TV they didn’t agree with. It never ends. Ultimately, as I said before if it works for you then :+1: but I think as a community we need to have some consistency in the terms we use, and have them as accurate as possible. We just screw up the people that are trying to learn if we don’t. Most people who have been keto for years both here and other places would probably agree the amount of people completely confused has increased huge the last couple years, I don’t think it’s because of more people eating this way, I think it’s simply more and more opinions that conflict with each other.

#26

@lfod14
Well, your logic about keto possibly being called a general fast is wrong because we also have foods with keto that do elicit an insulin response. Hell - even diet coke elicits an insulin response in me.
I agree with you that there are a lot of opinions out there. But I don’t agree with you that your opinion has to be the way everybody has to go.
So that’s a dilemma. People have to decide for themselves what works for them, and what kind of understanding they uitmately come to for their own metabolism and WOE. For some Dr Berry is clear and concise. and for others there is a need to tweak certain comments and modify their meaning to be less general. Some like to keep it more simple and some need precision and steadfast rules to live by. And last but not least some try to cut edges until they are forced to see the light and what does not work. Its not that the information isnt out there. Its because they not only want to do it their way, but they want to see perhaps how far they can bend the rules and still have success. And it is just like out in the real world- where it is just as hard to convince people that keto is a healthy way to live.
I for one envy those who can do dirty keto and still lose weight. But I have to leave it to them, tip my hat in admiration, if they are so lucky- and end up being more strict with myself. For me- a fast with fats which create LESS insulin response would already be a big step in the right direction. I can’t even manage that, except in the form of 18/6. But multiple days? I cant even fathom it. And if I managed to do it with a bit of fat to tide me over, I would already consider that an accomplishment.

#27

I never said that at all! All I said is that at some point terms need to have a generally accepted meaning. As I’ve said a couple times now I’m very much for people finding what works best for THEM! I’m very anti THIS WAY OR NO WAY! My WOE these days is very different than a standard keto, but I give advise on the standard way because that’s what people come to a keto forum for advise on. That’s all.

I eat way more protein than most would recommend, I eat more carbs in moderation than many would, but I wouldn’t tell somebody to do what I do and let them think that’s the way you do keto either, that’s all I’m saying which is why I made a point to make that distinction on the BPC’s. Telling somebody that a “fast” can include hundreds of calories from fat (our energy source) would in many ways conflict with what a fast actually is. For those of us doing this for a while we know exactly what you’re doing, but for those new to this and reading that, that’s very confusing.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #28

As I keep pointing out, Phinney and Fung actually agree quite a bit more than they appear to. Phinney is primarily concerned with fasts longer than about four days, and even Fung advises against fasting longer than that, especially without medical supervision. Re-feeding after long deprivation can be tricky, and re-feeding syndrome has been known to be fatal.

And as far as Angus Barbieri is concerned, he was originally not supposed to have fasted for nearly so long. His doctors monitored him closely for the entire period and handled his re-feeding extremely carefully. They only let him continue for as long as they did because he promised faithfully to abandon the fast at the first sign of trouble.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #29

Dr. Phinney has stated that his concerns arise from data gathered from the work of George Cahill, reported extensively in his study, Starvation in Man, and from Keys’s Minnesota Starvation Study. The data from these studies have not yet been refuted. The clinical experience of re-feeding concentration camp survivors liberated at the end of World War II is also relevant here. Many of them died suddenly of a potassium imbalance (which can be treated successfully, if the doctor knows what he or she is doing.)

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #30

It is, however, a fasting-mimicking way of eating, primarily by inducing ketosis, as fasting also does.

The point of a ketogenic diet is to keep our serum insulin at a chronically low, healthy level. Without any insulin at all, the human being dies, so a certain amount of insulin is necessary and healthful. When we eat a truly healthy diet, insulin rises after meals, so that energy is stored in the fat cells, and then falls between meals (especially during the overnight fast), so that energy can leave the fat cells to nourish the body. The problem comes with the chronically elevated levels that result from eating the the typical high-carbohydrate diet the U.S. government has been recommending since the 1980’s.

The effect of carbohydrate (i.e., glucose) on insulin secretion is quite large. The effect of protein (i.e., amino acids) is about half that, but the effect depends on the amount of carbohydrate in the diet, since under low-carb conditions, increased protein intake is accompanied by the secretion of glucagon as well as insulin, so that the ratio of insulin to glucagon remains low (this is what determines whether we are metabolising fatty acids or ketones). The effect of fat intake on insulin secretion is extremely small in comparison, and it does not stimulate insulin secretion above the level necessary for human life.