What happens to excess dietary fat?

(Alec) #21

This was the Fung explanation, and in the book he describes a number of processes that the body undertakes to use this extra fuel when it is available. Worth getting and reading if you can.

(Troy Anthony) #22

It makes total sense to me, although the book I’m sure would be helpful to deep dive. More calories, faster metabolism, more energy, then get out there and put that energy to use! In a decently healthy person, that makes perfect sense. Again, this does work with carbs as well. I’ve done it for years. The huge difference being that eventually the damage will be done with carbs and the signaling most of us are born with that allows this to happen will get thrown out of whack.

(Rob) #23

Again, I don’t have an answer, just that the evidence doesn’t support your thoughts on an ONLY BMR based solution. The experimenters all kept exercise the same, energy was not raised. Sam Feltham’s experiences are also to be compared with doing the same kcal levels and time but carb based as well as the fat based. That went really badly - same metabolism, different inputs, radically different results.
Remember your personal experience is the only thing relevant to your progress BUT it is almost entirely irrelevant to developing metabolic theories (in the absence of well structured experimentation). Also note, Ginger’s 5 day 3000Kcal pure fat experiment (with significant weight loss) is also hard to explain on a pure BMR raising basis and was certainly not happening on a healthy metabolism.
Again, no definitive answers but the evidence seems too complicated to be explained by simple answers ONLY.

Oh, and CICO is BS, not because the body isn’t a metabolic engine that takes energy in and converts it for use, but because it is NOT USEFULLY CALCULABLE because both the inputs and outputs are either too hard to measure accurately (e.g. real caloric intake vs. food logging app is often quite wrong) or unpredictable or context driven e.g. BMR rising or falling on greater or lesser input.

(Alec) #24

These are the relevant words in Fung’s book. Not sure it totally answers all the questions, but interesting list…

•heat production, •new protein production, •new bone production, •new muscle production, •cognition (brain), •increased heart rate, •increased stroke volume (heart), •exercise/ physical exertion, •detoxification (liver), •detoxification (kidney), •digestion (pancreas and bowels), •breathing (lungs), •excretion (intestines and colon) and •fat production.

(Troy Anthony) #25

We absolutely agree on that point! Simple explanations don’t work as there is so much variability at work. My own personal experience vs Sam or whoever is only anecdotal evidence. There is a reason why anecdotal evidence isn’t taken serious in rigorous scientific study. There is also a reason why diet and the human body is so ridiculously difficult to do a serious scientific study on. You can’t test out genetics, lifestyle, every calorie a person eats, where the food was sourced, etc etc over the long term and come to absolutes. It’s still worth sharing our stories and POVs, but everything working for everyone works for no one. Taking our health into our own hands, learning, experimenting, getting to know our own bodies, it’s all we really have.

(Troy Anthony) #26

Absolutely. He still suggests however that this is only taking place in a metabolically healthy person, which was my original point. In the sense that someone insulin/leptin resistant will not have the signaling to speed up metabolism, but will continue to store the energy

(TJ Borden) #27

That’s the spirit. Now @uniprod and @Capnbob, it’s time for the CAGE MATCH

(Rob) #28

That is where we really disagree… a properly designed n=1 is VASTLY more useful in determining mechanisms etc. than poorly recorded personal “experience”. Some of the best research in history has been based on strong “anecdotal” or even accidental experiments that throw up something truly fascinating and then are built up to prove or explain it later. Keto doesn’t have much in the way of your standard of science to back it up (just starting with Virta/Fung etc.) and alternative WoEs have much more… yet they are still usually wrong (usually confounded and biased in the set up) and we are right (by our personal anecdote x1000000). Fung posits some mechanisms for boosting BMR or TDEE but he hasn’t done any research himself or measured much of anything in this area - because he doesn’t really care… just that it works.

Of course we agree on this but that has little to do with working out HOW things work, just WHETHER they do or not.

(Jay AM) #29

There’s another piece to note too and that is, if insulin is kept low then fat can be mobilized for use. Fat has near infinite storage capacity and ketones can be used in many different ways. But, importantly, the body has a better tolerance for ketone levels than glucose levels. So, more BHB (kind of like a fat storage battery waiting for conversion) can be in the blood stream or temporary storage waiting for use. BHB becomes AcAc which spontaneously turns into acetone which we exhale. We also excrete excess ketones in waste. One of these days, I might do a full fat “fast” day and see if my ketonix registers higher acetone levels as a result. I also eventually plan to try the 4,000 cal 21 day experiment as part of a YouTube channel. Though, that much food will not be as easy to get at my job so I’ll have to plan for it.

(Troy Anthony) #30

All that really happened there was that you claimed that Sam’s experiment was scientifically rigorous. Other then that, we pretty much agree. I can point you to plenty of the same anecdotal, yes like Sam, experiments involving vegan athletes training on multiple diets, that are pro vegan and come to findings in their favor. None of it says much, especially when both sources are clearly biased to begin with. Again our own personal bias comes into play when viewing these things. I try my best not to be bias, as I’m sure you do, which is where objective science is so powerful. It just so happens that objective science is hard to come by in the health arena. I mostly try to listen to scientific researchers on the subjects, who aren’t affiliated with any interests, have personal self promoting blogs, write books, made a career off of their claims, but come on, how insanely difficult is that. Sams study won’t make it into a scientific journal anytime soon. With that, this seems to have gone back to where we started haha. I thought I offered an explanation of why that would work for Sam but not somebody with metabolic issues, which was my whole point. Actually it’s Fung’s point, not mine. I’m sure are plenty of people who do have metabolic issues and can eat 5,000 calories of fat and lose weight, it would still just go back to the fact that we are all different and health is dynamic.

(TJ Borden) #32

https://goo.gl/images/N1B6g1

Dang, that didn’t work like I hoped

(Troy Anthony) #33

Haha no way man, rob is my boy! He keeps me thinking. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know :poop:.

(Rob) #34

Yes. I think you confuse rigor with statistical significance. It was pretty rigorous as an n=1. It (and other similar experiments) tells me there is something there worth explaining, while you keep trying to tell me that it means nothing beyond the n=1 and we should ignore it from a wider perspective. It’s pointless to bring up fictional vegan experiments as some sort of proof that this one is invalid - it’s just a strawman argument and invalidates nothing. There may well be vegan n=1 experiments that demonstrate all kinds of things that are true, I wouldn’t dismiss it because it was vegan per se. What I would typically contend is that vegan is rarely the BEST way to achieve things or invoke a particular metabolic process. Anyway, I see Sam, Jason, Ginger and others all with different metabolic states but with similar results from fat overfeeding and see something interesting. The BMR/TDEE explanation is to me obviously inadequate since even Fung points at studies where it goes up but only 10%. Thus I am thinking of other reasons for a phenomenon I find interesting even though it is obvious that it would not apply to everyone.

Again, hardly anything we do here is from a scientific journal… a worthless standard.

Another baseless strawman… proving nothing. I’m not sure why you are so desperate to prove there is nothing here. All it does is give people an additional option (raise fat above TDEE) they can use to see if it works with their metabolism.

(Troy Anthony) #35

I don’t claim there is nothing interesting there, just that it doesn’t prove anything. Interesting sure, and I could cite explanations for it. Doesn’t mean those explanations are fact, but they are made by authorities in this particularly field. You seem to think you get a pass when making a point that it can’t be proven or doesn’t need to be, but when I make a point you seem to hold me to a higher standard of proof. Intellectual dishonesty? You are clearly a fan of logic, philosophy, debate (given you are dropping terms like strawman on me), and I would take it objective evidence. Strawman arguments are looked at by philosophy and debate like anecdotal evidence is looked at by scientific research. But since there are a lot of potential tangents going here, I’ll just say for me to make a strawman argument, it would need to be trying to avoid addressing your argument. Your argument is that sam’s experiment is interesting and that “something” is going on there. Either that or didn’t really make an argument. I made an argument and if anything you have been strawmaning me. Still love ya though

(Rob) #36

I don’t seek to “prove” anything, just that there is something going on worthy of considering in individuals’ decision making but you constantly seem to find the need to disprove it to the world. The burden is obviously higher on you. You obsess about Feltham’s experiment when I have said there are several that suggest there is something there. You claim to have explained things and I said they were inadequate an unsubstantiated explanations for me. You strawman with fictional comparisons, unrealistic standards, etc. to discredit a simple n=1 experiment then accuse me of the same just because I can’t give a definitive mechanism for the actually observed events - not AT ALL the same thing. Just agree to disagree and stop flogging a dead horse.
I definitely agree to disagree on this.

(Troy Anthony) #37

I don’t even have an opinion on this, I’m just exploring it. The only answer I found was from Dr Fung so I presented it. I’m not a research scientist, I’m not invested in any outcome. To keep it simple, after I gave the perspective of Dr. Fung, you could just refer me to a different expert with a different theory. I have never been the one running down your posts with confrontation. I certainly don’t mind it, but you got to bring something. We had this same talk last time, I went and researched, and came back with an explanation backed by Fung. I already said I don’t know :poop:, I don’t claim to know, but Fung says he knows and that’s what I was sharing, not my personal opinion. Why would anyone care about my beliefs or opinions, it’s not a movie review, it’s science.

(Rob) #38

I don’t disagree with Fung… I never did. Raising BMR is an observed thing. I just said it doesn’t sufficiently account for these outlier cases so I said there is probably something else going on in addition to BMR raising. Fung’s quoted studies showed some rise, just not that much to address these kinds of cases. It’s a bit like dark matter before they could prove it was there. Observations of the universe didn’t work without it, but they couldn’t prove what it was for decades. All I am saying is that I think there is more to the body’s reaction to dietary fat than just “Fung’s theory” explains. Of course it’s not his theory, Fung is just interpreting other people’s non-keto overfeeding studies not anything original or Keto-driven which leaves lots of room for other things to be happening as well.

I am just fascinated by these n=1 things that seem to be credibly pushing the boundaries of our knowledge… as most things in keto have done before they became understood and accepted. That is my standard for “interesting”… it doesn’t have to be yours. I don’t need to bring anything more because I’m not trying convince you. Others will decide for themselves too… no harm, no foul.

(Troy Anthony) #39

Dr Fung was explaining it in terms of keto, but my interpretation was that he was talking about metabolic unhealthy folks just getting started. My understanding is focus #1 is heal meatabolism, which would be done by insulin restriction. He suggests restriction through fasting being important during this time. Then perhaps it would work to binge fat for weight loss, I don’t know. Your message is well said and well taken however. I agree the human body is incredibly naunced and I also wouldn’t just accept an experts view as dogma. I hope this area gets explored further.