The Obesity Code

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(Robert) #1

I am in the process of listening to The Obesity Code, https://www.audible.com/pd/Health-Fitness/The-Obesity-Code-Audiobook/B01MYMRVSQ, and a lot of what is in the book reinforces what the podcast says to do. One place where it differs is in the carb restrictions, basically stay away from basically all sweeteners not all carbs as the keto suggests.

The book also explains why eating more, less times a day is better than grazing. The difference is in spiking insulin doesn’t build resistance but keeping insulin levels high thru out the day does build resistance and in building resistance you increase insulin levels which increases your body’s weight set point.

There is a lot more in the book and I am only half way thru and I am hoping that the second half of the book will reinforce what you guys preach.

Great podcast! Keep up the great work.

#2

I read this book also, and am very happy that my DH read it and is now doing keto and IF.

(Kristen Ann) #3

I’m only 2/3rds of the way through the Obesity Code.

I’m wondering why there aren’t insulin counters out there like there are calorie counter apps. For instance you could enter 1 cup of broccoli and track the change in insulin caused by the food rather than the calories. I know people have different baseline insulin levels, so it would have to estimate the change in insulin relative to a person’s baseline. I realize that there are other factors that could affect the change in insulin response to a food; however, there’s a lot of error in calorie counting too…

I’m not sure if this is a good idea but if it is then someone should do this :slight_smile:

(Windmill Tilter) #4

You’re right about that. Insulin is the important thing, but it can’t be measured at home, and barely 100 foods have been tested for actual insulin response. It’s often quite different than glucose response.

Google insulin index and compare it to glycemic index. Some foods like beans that are high on the glycemic index are similar to meat on the insulin index, and some “keto friendly” foods like tuna low on the glycemic index but dramatically higher than beans on the insulin index.

Glucose meters are cheap and readily available though, so this is what people track. It doesn’t really correspond to insulin levels, it’s better than nothing.

At the end of the day, all you can really do is eat fatty foods, avoid refined carbs, eat in a small window, and be patient while your insulin gets sorted.

(Kristen Ann) #5

Yes you’re right. As someone who tracks a lot, I’m wonder wtf everyone is tracking calories for lol. It would be more appropriate to measure the change in insulin from eating foods of various serving sizes. Not all veggies are created equal in terms of insulin response, same for dairy and presumably proteins. The glycemic index is crap, and blood glucose tells us nothing about insulin response to proteins or artificial sweeteners. I realize tracking predicted insulin responses may be a pretty much impossible task… but maybe someone once thought that about tracking nutritional profiles and calories of foods. #Cronometer2.0 anyone?

(Windmill Tilter) #6

Yup. It’s heresy to say it, but it would be possible to eat a 200g carb/day diet that lowered insulin more effectively than a <20g carb/day diet depending on what was in them. Ketosis is not a prerequisite for lowering insulin sufficiently to reverse type2 diabetes.

That said, a ketogenic diet is pretty idiot proof, and gets the job done. Low protein, high fat, and low carb is pretty optimal for reversing metabolic syndrome based on what I’ve read.

(Bob M) #7

There are insulin meters that are being tested now. I’ve seen results on Twitter. Apparently, insulin is much more volatile than say blood glucose. This makes sense, as my blood glucose won’t move if I eat high protein, low fat, low or no carbs, but I’m sure my insulin is moving.

It’ll be another nice point to look at. I assume it’ll be like the “glycemic index”, which is crap because different people have vastly different results to the same food, and even the same people have different results for the same food at different times. And of course, eating order will affect things (eat meat/protein or veggies before carbs is different than carbs first).

But insulin only tells (less than) half the story. To get a more complete picture, we’d need glucagon (basically, the “mirror image” hormone to insulin; insulin causes lowering of blood glucose, while glucagon causes raising of blood glucose).

Still, if it’s cheap enough, I’d get an insulin meter.

(Windmill Tilter) #8

That’s pretty exciting! I would absolutely buy one.

I’ve always found it funny that after reading about metabolic syndrome, we learn the single most important thing is insulin levels. Therefore we track… blood glucose. :yum:

For long term fat loss and overall metabolic health, we learn the single most critical thing is carefully tracking resting metabolic rate (RMR) over time during fat loss, therefore we track…nothing. :thinking:

The barrier to tracking both these things is cost. An entry level indirect calorimeter for RMR is $3k, and I’m guessing new insulin meters will be $1,000 when they first come out (just a guess). It’s a lot of cash out of pocket. Getting it tested a la cart is $100 per reading.

I wish there was a company that leased the equipment. I’d happily pay $200/month for a couple months to get all you can eat RMR and Insulin tests. I’m a bit odd though, I’m not sure anybody else would.

(Jane Srygley) #9

Also, insulin is released for reasons other than food! Insulin is very tricky…

(Bob M) #10

I think Gabor Erdosi (@gerdosi on Twitter) has one. I think it does more than insulin, though.

I’ve seen others who are testing, too.

Unfortunately, with Twitter, I find it hard to find things and if you don’t send it to yourself via other means (email or whatever), it easily gets lost. So, I’m not sure if the tests all use the same or different meters.

(Windmill Tilter) #11

I couldn’t find any off the shelf devices. I guess that’s not shocking since device manufacturers don’t have much to gain from diabetes improvement much less reversal. It certainly looks feasible though.

Here is an interesting paper from 2014 showing how it’s done: