Planning........does this seem right?

(Mike W.) #41

I just reread your post. You said you ate 500 grams of protein of chicken and then 300 grams of protein from a soup? 800 grams of protein in one day? That’s 3200 calories of just protein…

#42

Yes!

And I gained 1.5kg - just now, after a week of sticking to the macros, I’m back to 66.6kg.

I’m telling myself it was a learning curve and not indulgence, or a waste of money, or a delay in the process …

(Chris W) #43

In the body you get lower blood glucose, lower insulin, and those two are gigantic after a few days. Your inflammation will change, your liver will take over fueling the system instead of outside carbs being unregulated to major degrees. As your hormones change your metabolic processes will turn to being catabolic(tearing down) instead of anabolic(building). Your blood pressure should drop, your kidneys will start to dump water, your mitochondria inside most of your cells start to accept fat if they are not gummed up by years of carb ingestion or they start to repair to become so. Macrophages start to be able actually repair and work leading to less problems through out the body.

You mobilize fat via lipoloisis, your liver starts to break down fat for energy(ketosis mostly), fat starts to leave your muscles, organs, visceral fat, adipose tissue fat and you use fat you ingest directly. Ketones are used by your brain and other cells as forms of energy, and you get therapeutic results from that, some people get mental clarity, or extra energy. Your energy levels become stable and you do some things for longer and longer times every day(but some things do suffer). Your cholesterol and trigs both change, this one can be in the worse direction for a while but keep in mind that is the process of mobilizing fat, pretty much everyone’s numbers become “better” although that is a different topic. After a few weeks at least to a few months your cells mitochondria save a few organ exceptions directly take in the fat that is mobilized which makes the process more efficient. Autopahgy has more of chance to clean house, proteins get replaced and cells get repaired, growth hormones start to go up, and if you fast later on after fat adaption some these things seem to accelerate.

KCKO

#44

Thank you Chris.

Then I think my question is, “What changes are happening to the mitochondria?”

How does their physiology change? I read ketosis is a natural state of feeding the body - but why does it take so long for them to switch? Are the mitochondria dragged into submission? It seems more than a quiet tweak here and there?

#45

Ahhh …

Are you saying lipolysis eventually takes place in the mitochondria of (almost) every cell rather than lipolysis happening in the liver?

So this would be fat metabolism where it will be used and not happening centrally?

(Doug) #46

Pat, Chris W gave a great reply, above - I learn stuff everyday on this forum. I like to understand the basic nuts-and-bolts, too, the mechanics of how this stuff all works; it’s just fascinating. One really cool thing about mitochondria and ketogenic eating/fat adaptation is that the number of mitochondria increase. I think of that rudimentary characterization of mitochondria being “the powerhouse of the cell,” and it’s pretty profound.

Back in 1990, Robert. K. Conlee and some others studied rats that for 3+ weeks were fed a diet of 78% fat, 1% carbohydrates, compared to rats who ate a high-carbohydrate diet. The rats which were fat-adapted were able to swim longer than the high-carb rats. The muscle cells had more mitochondria in them in the fat-adapted group. “Glycogen repletion and exercise endurance in rats adapted to a high fat diet” - I cannot find the full text without paying money, though. :neutral_face:

The same thing happens when people train for long-duration exercise, cross-country skiing, marathon running, etc. Increased mitochondria mean that the person can produce more energy and perform at a higher rate, a big part of what “training” is. We have to add more oxygen to fat molecules to burn them, versus carbohydrate molecules, so - all other things being equal - there’s a built-in advantage to burning carbs in that we can get more energy for the same amount of oxygen, and oxygen availablility is obviously a limiting factor as it relates to relatively high-intensity exercise. But if we can increase the number of cellular mitochondria, we can get around the differences in the chemical equations.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #47

There are several metabolic pathways by which your mitochondria can creat adenosine triphosphate (ATP) for metabolism in the Krebs cycler (the source of the body’s energy). They involve varying levels of acetyl COA, oxaloacetate, and a couple of other chemicals. When you stop eating carbohydrate, the level of glucose in your bloodstream drops, which causes the levels of some of these chemicals to go down and the levels of others to go up. This is the signal for the mitochondria to metabolise fatty acids and ketone bodies.

But the changeover to fat metabolism seems to be more difficult than the change to metabolizing glucose (too high a level of glucose in the blood is, after all, a serious emergency), so the greatest degree of metabolic flexibility appears to result in a body that primarily metabolizes fats and ketone bodies, and that has to deal with glucose only on occasion. In fact, the skeletal muscles, once fat-adapted, tend to prefer to metabolize fatty acids, freeing the ketone bodies and the glucose produced from gluconeogenesis for use by those cells that can use them.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #48

You might find the following lecture to be of interest:

(Chris W) #49

So lipolysis is actually the release of free fatty acid fat(and glycerol) from the tissue which carry it, mostly fat cells into your system. That is done by a hormones called lipasse(s) more or less at the fat cells. That is not to be confused with ketogenisis which is the process in the liver that coverts the FFA’s into acettyl-coa and ketones. The liver will also convert the glycerol into glucose at steady and regulated level if you are nearing the floor of your blood glucose(gluconeogenisis). The burning of fat is very even and well regulated process when you subtract ingestion of food. Ketogenisis is normally happening at the same time as the mitochondria are taking in FFA after you have fat adapted, really it happens nearly right of way to a very limited extent but most of the cells mitochondria are not functioning correctly and have to repaired so that is why there is a delay in fat adaption for almost everyone. Ketogensis will continue while you are burning fat a cellualr level, the brain and a few other organs cannot accept fat as an energy source directly so they still rely on the liver for glucose and ketones. Certain types of fat ingested also need to be processed by the liver, be it to become fat or turned into energy, they still need to go through the liver first. These are mainly your butters and oils like coconut oil(MCT).

So its going from storage(fat cells) to mobilization(lipolysis) to breaking down(liver or cells mitochondria ) to energy forms (ketones, glucose, acetyl-coa which all end up as ATP) to burning ATP.

Also your cells experience a hysteresis if they are running on glucose, there is not a gradual change over to fat, you have to get your blood glucose and insulin pretty low in order to get the cells to switch over. But going to burning glucose takes much less to trip back over the other way, so to a certain extent you could consider your cells holding out for glucose once signaled to do so by insulin and other hormones. This is a reason that many T2D and IR folks take longer to get fat adaption than the average somewhat normal person(I think most all of us are screwed in some way shape or form).

Hope this helps keep asking the questions, sooner or later I will hit my knowledge wall, you have been bouncing along the edge of it.

KCKO

(Alec) #50

Chris
That is a fantastic explanation, and what I have been trying to find. The key here is we burn fat, and understanding the details of how this works is very very interesting, especially the switches from carb to fat burning in the short and long term.

I am going to have to read this once a day for a week to take all that in.

My philosophical question I thought as I read that was: who invented that? :joy:

(Chris W) #51

I will be honest it may be a overly simple explanation and maybe not weighted correctly. I am watching that video right now and I never knew how important oxaloacatate really was, I always try and learn something every week.

(Alec) #52

Anyone who can even pronounce oxaloacetate is way ahead of me, and commands my respect! :joy:

Seriously, we all stand on other people’s shoulders in the knowledge game. Finding an explanation just above your current level is the only way to learn. If I asked a biochemist to explain this to me, I would be lost within 10 seconds.

One of the things I am slightly spotting in the recent dudes podcasts is the science is getting a little out of hand. I have sometimes been sitting there willing Carl to step in and do his usual great job of dumbing it down a little for your average punter (like me!).

(Chris W) #53

When I decided to research the way of eating I had started several weeks before I was in a panic as I had so much that had happened in a short time frame I really had no idea were to start. So I started with the basics but I took that with a grain of salt knowing there are never any misunderstandings on the internet. After listening to the dudes I knew they had a few things wrong now and again. I listened to the podcasts in order from the start a few a week. They seemed to correct themselves as they realized they were not correct, Richard has prime understanding of all this I think though that the series of events is so complicated it is very hard to pick a place to start, and once more it changes with different hormone levels.

I then once I came here decided in investigate what ever scared people figure that was most often misunderstood or misrepresented. Things like GNG in particular I have spent a lot of time trying to understand, and I have learned that very few people really do have a grip on it. After that I started to look into ways to make my fat burning experience better like brown fat conversion, BMR increases, and fasting. It seems to me that all though there are few people who understand one particular area nobody really understands the whole picture, because its so easy to get lost in your area of interest. I am a maintenance guy so I need to fix things and understand exactly how they work, so for me reading things like studies is often maddening because they ignore the obvious to test a theory based on what the result should be.
But I keep on trying.

#54

Thank you all. That needs some digesting! As Alex said it needs reading every day.

But from a cursory read do I understand when eating LCHF:

  1. the number of mitochondria in cells increase with the stimulus of exercise?
  2. as well as with the slow stimulous of adapation to a fat burning organism?
  3. and therefore upping exercise a bit is important to aid the process?

If this is so this is a different understanding for me. I thought, with the CICO model, exercise was to burn calories to aid a negative calorie balance. And yes, I understood fitness came into it, but trying to ensure more calories out was the real purpose of exercise in CICO.

Thank you again.

(Chris W) #55

I only have a few minutes but short answers are

  1. No, you have them in I think every cell(there might be a few exceptions but majority yes). How are they functioning is more the proper way to think of it.
  2. Yes I think you are asking does it take a while, fat adaption is not a true process per say its more of a status, its a light that gets brighter slowly.
  3. Yes, at least I think so. But it is not needed per say.

I think most people here will tell you that ketogenics in particular weight loss is won or lost in the kitchen. It is in my opinion that you managing your energy intake and expenditure to loose weight, exercise is minimal in this effort. You burn far more energy standing there everyday than adding exercise to the mix. Training a body properly will add to that overall expenditure by creating lean mass, but the exercise itself will IMHO not mean much to fat loss.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #56

The other way to look at this is that the cells are so ready to burn glucose because any amount of glucose in the bloodstream above a certain level is an emergency that must be dealt with as the first priority.

#57

This is yesterday’s food shopping and my meal preparation today. I have done my first review of my macros.

Yesterday I took a bus ride to Penge - it sounds posh, it’s not, but it there is a butcher of local renown. I went to this shop and bought a ribeye steak. I ate it for supper with a Stilton cream sauce. The sauce was the best bit, the steak was a bit woolly - I don’t think I’ll buy another from them. I also bought some bones. The butcher said,
“Of course there’s no price list for bones. Do you think we’re a pet shop?”
They cost £2.

Then I went to Sainsbury’s and stocked up on bargains which were mainly reduced by about 40%. I bought: 3 x ribeye steaks, 4 x lamb leg steaks, 6 x belly pork slices, 10 x lamb kidneys, 1 x organic chicken (60% off, and it wasn’t’ off!), 2 x lamb hearts, 1 x 500g lamb mince, a few little end bits of ox tail, some mushrooms and celery. And I bought some lamb’s liver - at full price!!

Yesterday I poached the chicken. Half of the meat and skin went into the freezer and half is in the fridge. The chicken carcass went into the stock pot with the butcher’s bones, some Parma ham rinds that I’d saved over the last week, the little ox tail bones, some parsley stalks that have been sitting in the freezer waiting for an occasion like this, a head of garlic and a few veg. The stock pot cooked slowly in the oven for about 18 hours and the liquid is now in the fridge waiting to be separated into fat and broth. The bones are in the Hotbin composting nicely at 70C.

I plan to have bone broth, mushroom and chicken soup tonight.

I made five Sherherd’s Pies with the lamb mince, some celery and tomatoes, and they are topped with a mash of celeriac and cauliflower stalks. I’ll freeze them all.

I made ten portions of Lamb’s Liver Pate. I’m used to making Chicken Liver Pate and this is probably nicer, a bit more savoury. I hope it will freeze as well as Chicken Liver Pate and as there’s a lot of butter and cream in the mixture I think it will.

I made a pizza with a cauliflower (another bargain, this time from the Co-op), cheese and egg base from a recipe on the Diet Doctor website. The mixture seemed a bit sloppy so I added some ground almonds. It was OK. I’m eating it now as I write this. Pizza has never seemed worth the work and fiddle. I think the flavour of the individual components far outdoes their combination in a pizza. Additionally, the smell of a wheat base is more than half the allure. This lchf version is no better, and so I don’t think I’ll bother again. But there are two bags of raw, grated cauli in the freezer.

Today I’ve reviewed my macros using the calculator and have reduced the fat component by 17%. My weight has remained at about 67kg since my protein binge but I’m hoping my body is beginning to get the hang of fueling me with fat. I can go for up to twelve hours without thinking of food. On Tuesday I was late and so ran, using Scout’s Pace but running quite quickly for 10 minutes, to the station and wasn’t a bit bothered when I got there. I’m taking these as signs I’m on my way to some sort of ketosis.

Hey ho.

And thank you to everyone who has helped me understand the biological processes (above) underpinning this.

x x x x x

(Chris W) #58

No I am pretty sure you are there, it may not be strong but if you are not eating carbs for the most party you will be there within a day or two. Protein can derail that sometimes but not if you are pretty good about your macro bounds at first. When you say you reduced your fat component to 17% what exactly do you mean? If you are only taking in 17% fat in comparison to protein and carbs that will not work for a number of reasons long term.

#59

I’ve written total nonsense - I will edit that!

I should have written “I’ve chosen to reduce my fat by 17%” and not to -17%.

I’m using http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com/ as suggested/recommended on this forum. After a month I have decided to go for this deficit.

However well my poor old body is trying to adapt, I am doing what I can to sabotage the process. That boring pizza I wrote about - I couldn’t bare having it for three more meals so I ate them all last night. If I was hungry I do have unsweetened fat bombs in the freezer, there is ketoade and salt …

Gosh how I cringe as I write this. I do have a dust bin! And it isn’t my tum … but attempts at humour will not undo the stupidity.

Aaaadddhhh

(Ron) #60

You might consider not doing a deficit until after adaption as the body is making major changes and needs all the fuel to convert easier. Deficit could hinder the process and delay adaption. Many new members make this mistake and end up telling their story on these forums in an effort to save others from the same fate. Just a respectful suggestion.:smile: