Low-protein High-carb Diet Has The Same Benefits As Caloric Restriction

[Captain_Coconut]

I can attest that practicing low protein for first half of the day feels as good if not better than my old glory days of intermittent fasting (before the stress from that took its toll). I find if I avoid protein until lunch I feel best. I have been following this plan for about 6 months and think it has reversed the kidney pain I was having near the start of my ‘peating’ early on this year. I am not experiencing the same weight loss like I did from I.F. - but my energy in the morning is greatly improved when I avoid protein. High protein breakfasts knock me out, so much that all I feel like doing is sleeping immediately after. I am not exactly sure why I react this way, but I think the load a high protein diet puts on the kidneys must have something to do with it.

 

[Cirion]

I can attest that practicing low protein for first half of the day feels as good if not better than my old glory days of intermittent fasting (before the stress from that took its toll). I find if I avoid protein until lunch I feel best. I have been following this plan for about 6 months and think it has reversed the kidney pain I was having near the start of my ‘peating’ early on this year. I am not experiencing the same weight loss like I did from I.F. - but my energy in the morning is greatly improved when I avoid protein. High protein breakfasts knock me out, so much that all I feel like doing is sleeping immediately after. I am not exactly sure why I react this way, but I think the load a high protein diet puts on the kidneys must have something to do with it.

I tend to avoid protein in the morning also. I usually just do carbs and fats, sometimes some gelatin. I will put a small amount of milk in my coffee alongside maple syrup & coconut oil.

High protein breakfasts knock you out because most people already have low blood sugar waking up, and protein just brings it down further = torpor.

I disagree, I know people who have been quite fat and are feeling good and are maintaining 10% bodyfat for years. The thing they all have in common is that they found a way of eating in balance between freedom of eating & healthy eating according to their body. They basically eat in a way that promotes the most value per calorie in reducing overall stress. Diet seems to be less of a factor than many other things. The only thing with a reasonable impact that I notice and see with these people is macronutrient composition according to appetite. These people usually eat quite a low amount of micros and don’t seem to have a problem with it.

I think it’s complete nonsense to say you can’t maintain 10% bodyfat and feel good after being fat before. There is just unadressed stressors that haven’t been dealt with (lack of low intensity movement/lack of sunlight/high paced stress job/rushing a lot) that cause stress which causes your body’s homeostasis to want to maintain a higher bodyfat percentage.

Every single long term lean person I know that feels good practices moderation in everything and never overexerts themself. Trying too hard is often a big mistake. I notice when I do any form of weight lifting that my appetite increases much more than the amount of calories burned. So I limit myself to some gentle body weight exercises spread throughout the day now and noticed huge benefits in energy and being able to eat less and feel good.

Also gentle walking in high volume outdoors burns way more calories than that it increases my appetite by personally. Provided the pace is slow enough (going too fast or beyond fatigue seems to have the opposite effect).

Actually, I agree with just about everything you said. Stress is the problem, but eating less isn't going to help the problem, certainly, food alone won't fix all the problems. It's a holistic problem, as you stated - nutrition, sleep, sunlight, light/moderate movement etc. Although I didn't ever say it isn't possible to maintain a lean body weight and be healthy. It's just usually not doable after forced calorie restriction because then you usually have to count calories to maintain the weight or their endocrine system was healthy enough to pull off a calorie restriction without devastation to their health. My goal is to achieve lasting healthy weight loss without counting calories. The last and final time I counted calories I basically took a nuclear bomb to my health. Never again. My temperatures dropped to like 96 and I felt like death all the time. And ironically enough, when I resumed eating Peat style I gained all the weight back and 20 lbs on top of that. A nail in the coffin of trying to force calorie restriction. I could have avoided a lot of weight gain if I had just kept going with the process.

What I have noticed in my own experience is that if one slims down and gets their liver working well (and has been eating little PUFA for years so that tissue isn't PUFA saturated), it is very easy to stay slim on a very high carb diet only if fat is kept relatively low. However, for an already overweight person with a sluggish liver, it may not work as well. After I slimmed down and my liver health increased (I couldn't handle much caffeine, and now can have 400 mg caffeine in one sitting with no issues, so thats one good measurement of liver health according to much of the info shared here, especially by Haidut), I noticed that I never gained noticeable fat when I experimented with a surplus of calories. I got 'fuller' and gained some muscle, but it seemed I got warmer and metabolism increased to burn it off, as long as my fat was kept low (under 10-15%). So that could possibly be the other half of the puzzle.

People often say weight loss is as simple as calorie in vs calorie out because it's simple thermodynamics, but, if energy demands are increased via increased metabolism (and there is evidence and biochemistry which suggests sugar can increase the metabolic rate, in the right context), then the demand for more calories in increases, and this doesn't work against the laws of thermodynamics.

Unfortunately, slimming down at my point in health any many others is simply not doable without major stress hormones, and therefore not an option, health must be fixed at the current weight I am now. It's the great catch 22, because you're right, losing weight can help the liver, but when the liver is in trouble, you can't lose weight (easily) and so you're kinda stuck. I remember reading an epic rant from Haidut that he posted 2-3 yrs ago where he discusses this great dilemma. I believe (correct me if wrong) he finally broke this cycle with some high dose aspirin/caffeine/K2 some of which I'm trying now.

Environmental effects on the endocrine system are huge. I strongly believe that my health is taking a big hit because of lack of sunlight, lack of earthing (barefoot in grass), and too much exposure to EMF's (working all day long in an electronic filled environment) which is why I've been focusing heavily on reducing EMF's lately as well.

Trying to improve my health during the winter is a major chore as well, since there is almost no sunlight and it is too cold to reasonably ever go barefoot in the park or something. I was sleeping in until almost noon during thanksgiving break and would only have 4-5 hrs of sunlight, that doesn't help the endocrine system. Sigh.

Unfortunately, modern civilized life tends to promote getting fat and unhealthy. Almost every job is at least somewhat stressful, and there is generally not much you can do about it if you hope to make a living. Maybe getting a job that has you outdoors a lot could work in your favor though because then at least you get sunlight and whatnot. That and you are constantly blasted with EMF's (soon 5G, which is even worse), have foods that are so heavily modified they can barely be considered foods anymore, water that is contaminated with drugs, flourine, etc etc...

I think Haidut's friend who decided to live in a community in the mountains had the right idea.

 

[JustAGuy]

I can attest that practicing low protein for first half of the day feels as good if not better than my old glory days of intermittent fasting (before the stress from that took its toll). I find if I avoid protein until lunch I feel best. I have been following this plan for about 6 months and think it has reversed the kidney pain I was having near the start of my ‘peating’ early on this year. I am not experiencing the same weight loss like I did from I.F. - but my energy in the morning is greatly improved when I avoid protein. High protein breakfasts knock me out, so much that all I feel like doing is sleeping immediately after. I am not exactly sure why I react this way, but I think the load a high protein diet puts on the kidneys must have something to do with it.

It has the same effect on me. I think it has got to do with the nervous system actually, since the effect is 10x as severe if I am stressing the CNS by weightlifting compared to no weightlifting.

Also a way to reduce this effect is grazing in the morning. Try to eat the protein breakfast you normally eat that knocks you out, split it in 3 mini meals and eat it over 3-4 hours instead of in one meal. See if this changes anything.

 

[Hugh Johnson]

This is glucose over feeding though, different from sucrose overfeeding. I have tried sugar overfeeding twice now and went from about 8% body fat to 9-10% body fat in 3 weeks time both times. I was very strict with eating 0 fat, under 10g basically. It was really noticeable since I was very lean and could see fat starting to form in places where I had 0 pinch able fat before (e.g. lower back went from like 1mm pinchable skin to like 5mm pinchable).

I am slimming down again to 8% now slowly and might try the glucose over feeding in a few months while avoiding fructose mostly.

Yeah. I've been adding white sugar to OJ. I may have been above 500g fructose a day. I have high cholesterol but I'm feeling a bit too fat.

 

[JustAGuy]

Yeah. I've been adding white sugar to OJ. I may have been above 500g fructose a day. I have cholesterol but I'm feeling a bit too fat.

I think the least stressful way to lose a lot of weight very quickly is being sedentary outdoors in a sunny environment doing almost nothing and never exerting yourself/doing too much effort in anything while fasting completely or sipping on/grazing some fruit or juice very low calories throughout the day. I have tried this and felt actually less stressed and had great sleep than I did even when eating 4000 kcal and exercising like crazy in the gym.
Body temperature was high and sleep was good. Just had to do everything super slow paced as in not to exert too much energy in one burst, which would feel stressful. As long as I barely did anything it didn’t feel stressful at all.

 

[Cirion]

I think the least stressful way to lose a lot of weight very quickly is being sedentary outdoors in a sunny environment doing almost nothing and never exerting yourself/doing too much effort in anything while fasting completely or sipping on/grazing some fruit or juice very low calories throughout the day. I have tried this and felt actually less stressed and had great sleep than I did even when eating 4000 kcal and exercising like crazy in the gym.
Body temperature was high and sleep was good. Just had to do everything super slow paced as in not to exert too much energy in one burst, which would feel stressful. As long as I barely did anything it didn’t feel stressful at all.

I can't really get on board with the low calories bit, but you probably don't need nearly as many calories when you can get ample sunlight and nature, though, for sure. Other than that, totally agree. Exercising like crazy in the gym is extremely counterproductive. A hard workout can raise lactic acid in your body for days or even a week or more, which actually works against you for fat loss. Been there done that. I'm pretty sedentary now, with very LIGHT gym workouts now.

Sunlight and nature are two extremely under-rated things that at best get an afterthought in most fitness routines even though they are among the most important things IMO, since we are literally solar powered. Nature is also great because you can ground yourself, alleviating yourself of built up voltage due to EMF (many people hold up to hundreds of volts of charge and don't even realize it, due to exposure to man-made electrical fields from computers and other electronics).

This is why I often think the modern civilized life is not for me. I sit in a room full of artificial light and computers all day long. Two recipes for metabolic disaster.

 

[Sourdoughbanana]

I can attest that practicing low protein for first half of the day feels as good if not better than my old glory days of intermittent fasting (before the stress from that took its toll). I find if I avoid protein until lunch I feel best. I have been following this plan for about 6 months and think it has reversed the kidney pain I was having near the start of my ‘peating’ early on this year. I am not experiencing the same weight loss like I did from I.F. - but my energy in the morning is greatly improved when I avoid protein. High protein breakfasts knock me out, so much that all I feel like doing is sleeping immediately after. I am not exactly sure why I react this way, but I think the load a high protein diet puts on the kidneys must have something to do with it.

Indeed. All I have is fruits+OJ between 7am and 1pm and that does feel like a fast with vitamins and minerals. Probably because fruit is so readily digested, fructose prevents blood sugar swings, so the pancreas and intestines aren’t overloaded with work.

Calories have always been around bodyweight x15-16 and I got crazy weight swings being natural or not. It’s all hormones and their effect on mineral retention and anabolism. Micro nutrients come first, before calories, and way before macros. The bodybuilding “if it fits your macros” mantra is absolute nonsense to look good on social media, thankfully that seems to get dissed online.

 

[JustAGuy]

Indeed. All I have is fruits+OJ between 7am and 1pm and that does feel like a fast with vitamins and minerals. Probably because fruit is so readily digested, fructose prevents blood sugar swings, so the pancreas and intestines aren’t overloaded with work.

Calories have always been around bodyweight x15-16 and I got crazy weight swings being natural or not. It’s all hormones and their effect on mineral retention and anabolism. Micro nutrients come first, before calories, and way before macros. The bodybuilding “if it fits your macros” mantra is absolute nonsense to look good on social media, thankfully that seems to get dissed online.

Do you personally notice benefits from micronutrients?

I have tried both low & high micros and notice zero difference, I don’t know why, also I have many friends/people I know who barely get any micros in ever (eat 0 fruit/veggies, just refined grains, fats and muscle meat kinda) and seem to do very well being reasonably lean and very high energy.

For me by far the biggest factor is meal timing and macro timing and eating very slowly.

I can really destroy my energy levels for the day by stuffing myself on high protein after waking up in a rush and eating quickly.

Edit:
Just wanted to add some more. In my experience preventing endotoxins from meals at all costs is what benefits you greatly. This means very small meals and stopping way before you feel full. I actually find I can satisfy my appetite with a 300 kcal mini meal very often, even more so than a 800 kcal meal. In my experience if you start craving sugar after the meal then something went wrong and is causing you stress. Big meals cause me stress and cause me to want to eat more to combat this stress. Also you will be suprised how a little 250 kcal starch meal with a tad of protein can actually really suppress the appetite for a few hours when eaten slowly. It takes about 20-30 minutes for the hunger to go away after the meal so controlling yourself to not eat more is needed.

 

[aquaman]

So, no need for calorie counting or self-torture. Just drink orange juice liberally as your main source of calories

If this worked, then the majority of the forum would not have issues with packing on 20+ pounds of fat within a year of starting Peating!

 

[aquaman]

Amen!! I have said similar things. You only hear the really-lean-never-been-obese people spouting the calories in calories out crap.

No, the Herb Doctors (who have known Ray personally for around 15 years, and consulted directly with him for most of those, and have the benefit of having coached 100s of clients), say if you eat excessive calories, you get fat. Eg they recommend low fat dairy over full fat.

 

[aquaman]

This is why I reject all of the models and go my own way - high everything (high protein high carb high fat). It's basically what Nate Hatch recommends in his book, for the most part.

Whilst I like Nate's work, and have used some of his ideas off his website, he looks like he's 20-30 pounds over being considered lean. Guessing he's at least 20% body fat.

The "high everything" approach is what most newbies on this site try ("wow, i can chug orange juice and eat ice cream and have 6 coffees a day without having to calorie count!"): and it resoundingly leads to large fat gain over 1-2 years, and many (most?) never get that fat off.

 

[Cirion]

If this worked, then the majority of the forum would not have issues with packing on 20+ pounds of fat within a year of starting Peating!

Yes, most people gain fat starting off, because most people are in a state of high stress. High stress = gain body fat.

Whilst I like Nate's work, and have used some of his ideas off his website, he looks like he's 20-30 pounds over being considered lean. Guessing he's at least 20% body fat.

The "high everything" approach is what most newbies on this site try ("wow, i can chug orange juice and eat ice cream and have 6 coffees a day without having to calorie count!"): and it resoundingly leads to large fat gain over 1-2 years, and many (most?) never get that fat off.

I'd rather be 20% body fat and healthy and able to pack on more calories / feel better than 10% and feel bad all the time. I know how to get to 10% body fat using calorie deficit method. It isn't sustainable or healthy.

Looks literally don't matter at all anyway. For the guys in the room, I went from being a virgin at 8% body fat to n = 5 by gaining a ton of BF %, due to the improvements in my mental state that went with increased calories. Low BF% is completely vain and does little to actually do anything for you in life.

The mistakes that most newbies make is that food choices do still matter. You can't just drink OJ and milk all day, that's hardly what I do. In fact I don't drink a lot of OJ or milk these days, because getting micronutrients matter.

 

[aquaman]

Yes, most people gain fat starting off, because most people are in a state of high stress. High stress = gain body fat.

I would say it's because they liberally eat whatever they want (because people on the forum say it's ok), without tracking any calories or macros, and with zero consistency. So few people here know how many calories they eat, or in what ratios. But they have their 6 coffees a day, spiking cortisol and belly fat production.

 

[Ras]

So I limit myself to some gentle body weight exercises spread throughout the day now and noticed huge benefits in energy and being able to eat less and feel good.

Sounds like Greasing the Groove.

 

[Cirion]

I would say it's because they liberally eat whatever they want (because people on the forum say it's ok), without tracking any calories or macros, and with zero consistency. So few people here know how many calories they eat, or in what ratios. But they have their 6 coffees a day, spiking cortisol and belly fat production.

OK man. I am not going to bother arguing, since I doubt I would change your mind, but if you're truly interested, Nate discusses all the mechanisms in greater detail than I could in his book in regards to comments you have made.

I will say though that 6 coffees is definitely too much for most people. I seem to have problems after just a couple.

I'll just report back later once I'm healed and proven that I can beat the "CICO" system =)

 

[aquaman]

OK man. I am not going to bother arguing, since I doubt I would change your mind, but if you're truly interested, Nate discusses all the mechanisms in greater detail than I could in his book in regards to comments you have made.

I will say though that 6 coffees is definitely too much for most people. I seem to have problems after just a couple.

I'll just report back later once I'm healed and proven that I can beat the "CICO" system =)

I'm not suggesting that one cannot increase their metabolic rate, and therefore eat more, keep the same weight, and feel better.

But in your CICO analysis, if your BMR increase results in an increased calorie expenditure (eg NEAT, wanting to exercise more), then your calories out side of the formula will increase.

If you just blanket tell peope with BMRs of 1500 calories to start chowing 3000 calories, they will get fat.

 

[Cirion]

Trust me man, I used to believe and preach all the same things you do, for over 5 years, and all it did was make me unhealthy, depressed, and trying every calorie deficit diet method under the sun with no success (lost weight sure, but not gaining health, and every time I did it again, it made me worse off than the time prior). Not to mention it made me the most orthorexic person imaginable, which seems to be common amongst people who count calories at all. Orthorexia is a serious problem that many in the fitness community think is totally normal to count calories every day.

I know all the arguments that pro-CICO's use because... I used to make the same exact arguments. That is until I realized they were failing me.

I think the problem is that pro-CICO's tend to put way too much emphasis on being lean. The fat gain is simply not avoidable at first, and if you try to forcefully avoid it, you won't ever heal (good pulses and temps). Good pulses and temps are simply not achievable without sufficient food intake.

I personally believe the only way it may be possible to avoid much or even any fat gain while recovering is if you can somehow live in the perfect zero stress environment (tropical climate, beach, get to sleep in each and every day, ideally no job at all to worry about or at least a work at home situation or nothing more than a part-time job, low to zero EMF exposure on a daily basis, all organic foods, etc etc etc...)

 

[haidut]

If this worked, then the majority of the forum would not have issues with packing on 20+ pounds of fat within a year of starting Peating!

I think the issue is with reduced insulin sensitivity due to years of predominantly fatty acid oxidation, as well as high stress hormones and/or endotoxin. The people who got their cortisol/estrogen/prolactin and thyroid under control do not seem to gain weight from sugar. I also gained weight initially but eventually it melted away when I started being more mindful of things like starch and anything else that irritated the GI tract and reduced bowel transit.

 

[Cirion]

@haidut thanks for chiming in!

Yes, I 100% agree that it is the hormones that drive healthy, lasting weight loss. How can I beat my stress/endotoxin when I am indoors almost 24/7 (so I get blasted with flourescant lighting & EMF's all day), it's currently winter so almost no sunlight etc, and basically never able to get as much sleep as I'd like except on the weekends? I can manage decent temps and pulses through the day, but I can not for the life of me maintain a good temperature through out the night. Night time is the bane of my existence. I lose a lot of progress every night because I can not maintain 98.6F temp at night. I've made some progress but seem to have stalled at around 98F in the mornings. That last 0.5F or so seems hard to achieve. I even eat when I wake up in the middle of the night too. I actually did have one day I woke up at 98.8F but it was a fluke and I haven't been able to replicate it.

What starches did you try having. According to Nate Hatch, only a select few starches are useful, specifically heirloom/sprouted grains and some tubers like sweet potatoes. Most grains you buy in stores are not sprouted, and thus would cause problems. I have like half a dozen bowel movements a day so I don't think I have any problems there... Starches IMO can be useful to help provide enough glucose to the body. I think a 1:1 fructose:glucose ratio is ideal, based upon many sources and studying up on this subject I have done, but many fruits have more than 1:1 F:G ratio and in some cases as high as 2:1 such as in the case of apples. I know I feel "off" if my F:G ratio skews too far in favor of either fructose or glucose.

 

[haidut]

@haidut thanks for chiming in!

Yes, I 100% agree that it is the hormones that drive healthy, lasting weight loss. How can I beat my stress/endotoxin when I am indoors almost 24/7 (so I get blasted with flourescant lighting & EMF's all day), it's currently winter so almost no sunlight etc, and basically never able to get as much sleep as I'd like except on the weekends? I can manage decent temps and pulses through the day, but I can not for the life of me maintain a good temperature through out the night. Night time is the bane of my existence. I lose a lot of progress every night because I can not maintain 98.6F temp at night. I've made some progress but seem to have stalled at around 98F in the mornings. That last 0.5F or so seems hard to achieve. I even eat when I wake up in the middle of the night too. I actually did have one day I woke up at 98.8F but it was a fluke and I haven't been able to replicate it.

What starches did you try having. According to Nate Hatch, only a select few starches are useful, specifically heirloom/sprouted grains and some tubers like sweet potatoes. Most grains you buy in stores are not sprouted, and thus would cause problems. I have like half a dozen bowel movements a day so I don't think I have any problems there... Starches IMO can be useful to help provide enough glucose to the body. I think a 1:1 fructose:glucose ratio is ideal, based upon many sources and studying up on this subject I have done, but many fruits have more than 1:1 F:G ratio and in some cases as high as 2:1 such as in the case of apples. I know I feel "off" if my F:G ratio skews too far in favor of either fructose or glucose.

Yeah, if the environment cannot be changed much then, as Peat said, supplements would be the only recourse left. I used to take a lot of supplements on a daily basis but now I am down to using niacinamide, aspirin and MB several times a week and that's pretty much it. Cyproheptadine, pregnenolone/progesterone/DHEA/thyroid are all used sporadically, only as needed. But I actually took the risk and quit my job as hired labor, so my environment did change a bit for the better. If I had stayed in my old job I would have probably still used a lot of supplements on a daily basis.
As far as starches, I basically avoid almost all of them unless that is the only food available. If I do have to eat them I stick to potatoes/rice, but most of my sugar comes from sucrose from juices and Coke/Pepsi.