More thoughts…
The sheer wall of environmental & social stress facing many of us face - in cities and a frenetic industrial culture often disconnected from the natural world and its rhythms - seems to be mitigated to some degree by nutrient density in the right amount that allows for a healthy waistline and waist-to-height ratio. This is quite apart from physical weight - as apparently midlife and older folks do better stress-wise to maintain a non-obese but nonetheless substantial healthy mass weight (even when officially overweight, if biomarkers have improved and continue to do so). Apparently the body of even elders ca restores muscle mass and bone density through dietary formulation and/or strength training.
Our brains - as conductors of all this - thrive on MCTs, and I’ve advised myself to eat a tablespoon of coconut oil per day along with other fats in foods - and likewise use ghee for cooking when I can make it and have it on hand. But I’m less-casually slinging fat into smoothies or slathering my cooked meals in it, even when I have an OMAD day. As a 100% fat-adapted gal, am no longer having sides of sour cream or mayo for fun, etc. Finding the joy in slightly smaller portions (French style) is a new thing for me, that I feel happy to do, as culturally I can’t help but clean my plate. I avoid restaurants, but if in one, due to their typically huge servings, I will often reserve half my main dish to-go before I start - unless it’s a CELEBRATION in which case I feast LCHF with abandon. Key is to limit those celebrations to once a week or so - though the SAD tells us every day is a good day to supersize, lolol/sob.
Being that I’m particularly interested midlife female metabolic healing and recompostion, it’s apparent from many if not most midlife female LCHF/keto voices I’ve heard around here and elsewhere that 100% fat-adapted satiated not stagnated “undereating” calorically as a group norm may be a natural process due to slower metabolism and increased hormonal health - and a process that is helpful for continued fat recomp post-menopause. The many benefits for midlife females of naturally lowered but nutrient-dense energy intake and keeping protein on the low side with TMAD and/or fasting (as admin Brenda has done with remarkable evidence of no muscle loss) have yet to be thoroughly studied ofc. We’re not being told that if we’re sedentary, satiated well-formulated intake somewhere between 900-1200 is perfectly fine - but it really puts into play the ‘eat to satiety’ adage. I think the Westman/Phinney/Volek and Gittleman encouragement towards a base foundation that blesses leafy greens/salads/fruit is music to the ears of many a midlife woman who instinctively desires the antioxidants and alkalinization in the lowered metabolic state. And until controlled studies exist on this category of human, we are finding our own way, together.
In some other reading today I was reminded of the link between satiated undereating (via daily low protein and regular fasting) and longevity, as opposed to disease and earlier death associated with constant feasting/nutrient density for those midlife and older.
It’s pretty amazing how LCHF/keto satiation - for the fat-adapted and hormonally healed - lends itself to natural energy intake reduction, and being informed about it can make this path more fun and less worrisome. Seems to me that the older we are, the more frequently we can enjoy reduced energy intake and its recomp leveraging, in between times of feasting. As far as protein needs and levels go - for sedentary midlife folks who aren’t doing much weight-bearing physical work (going up and down a flight of stairs throughout the day is an excellent weight-bearing activity, it needn’t involve dumbells necessarily) it seems we are well equipped to reduce protein to minimal levels when not fasting. The less protein, the less acidic we are - which preserves bone density, especially in females.
