Weight Loss: Starch And Trytophan Are What Are Stopping You

[tankasnowgod]

Trust me bro you aren't telling me anything I don't already know. You have to remember that I used to champion CICO for over 5 years when I thought I knew everything and was a bodybuilding/powerlifting "Expert" for almost half a decade. I still don't know everything (In fact I am well aware that there is lots I DON'T know now) but what I DO know is that CICO just doesn't cut it at all, not when there are dozens of confounding factors that just counting calories will make you miss (Like my example I talk about further below where I gained 2 lb on 3000 calories but lost 0.6 lb on 4200 calories). NOW, since I am an engineer and it would be intellectually dishonest for me NOT to mention that the energy does indeed have to go somewhere, I'll note that the VERY basic premise of CICO has some merit. However, it's simply not reliable for any sort of tool for effective and healthy weight loss because the calories that result in weight gain or loss are EXTREMELY volatile (3000 calories can make you lose 2 lb and 3000 calories can make you gain 2 lb, if that's not volatile I dunno what is) and not stable and extremely dependent on so many other factors, and following a path such as this inevitable makes someone end up restricting themselves and ruining their metabolism.

At this point, I seriously have to wonder how good an engineer you can possibly be. You dismiss the idea of calories in, calories out, and say it can't be possible, talking about this caloric intake, and that caloric intake, and blah blah blah. But have you ever taken a second to measure or estimate calories OUT? You know, the other half of the equation? You should really just shorten CICO to CI, because that is the only part that you have ever focused on.

In fact, I'm gonna say it, just because I kind of enjoy the controversy this entails LOL - you can eat virtually infinite calories and not get fat. If you follow all the rules - high sfa/pufa, low low fernstrom ratio, high sugar to starch ratio.

Virtually infinite? Cool. I want you to post the study where a 200 pound human ate 100,000 calories a day (far lower than infinity) every day for 4 months straight, and didn't gain any fat. By your statement, you are clearly saying calories have NO role, whatsoever.

Also, since you said you "very likely" read the Lyle McDonald article, I'd like you to refute even a single point in it.

 

[Captain_Coconut]

I don’t think waking up at 98.6 is indicative of good health or restorative sleep. This would be indicative of being hyperthyroid or having a sympathetic nervous system that is on all the time, a great way to age fast. I do think protein and fat heavy diets place a burden on the liver and gallbladder and kidneys, and over time fatty liver / chronic low grade inflammation / endotoxemia / bacterial translocation / gallstones / poor assimilation of nutrients / autoimmune issues all develop. I suspect gallstones are biofilm driven and therefore stem from bacterial translocation and therefore are dietary fat driven (primarily saturated fat, sorry guys but that is what the literature supports). Bile is what flushes out toxins from our system, sluggish bile equals toxic overload, literally things which need to be excreted are not because there is a lack of the bile to bind them. One may be able to get by without these issues if they are exclusively low carb, but this creates other problems for metabolism and eventual adrenal fatigue, unless you are lucky enough to have a very undemanding life. After chasing around all the variables endlessly trying to find out why I was always bloating after every meal, I have concretely determined that it was too much dietary fat, and a sluggish biliary system, low bile creates terrible bloat, going very low fat has fixed this and now that it has been several months I can eat high fat on occasion and not have any bloating. Similarly to the low carb vs low fat debate for staying trim, there is a debate over sugar or cholesterol being at the root of gallstones, and fat vs fructose being at the root of liver problems. For myself I can eat high sugar with zero consequences, where as high fat would cause terrible bloat just a few months ago. My opinion is fat is more damaging than sugar. Fat and sugar combined even more damaging. Once the damage has been done, fat will perpetuate the damage where as switching to a very low fat diet will slowly cause healing. We are all in different metabolic states, the extent that any of this has any noticeable effect on a person depends largely on how damaged they are. I posit that once the damage has been done: a high carb diet brings about faster and better healing than a low carb diet does. If you are really broken, going heavy butter and coconut crazy can leave you in worse shape than before you started, that was the case for me. I figured only PUFA could do harm and all other fat I could eat as much as I wanted. I was eating cups of ice cream every day thinking I was healing my metabolism. It really set me back. I’ve been through all the various diets at this point and low fat truly is the only one where I got better so fast that I could stop taking any supplements for weeks without feeling poorly, a diet where those crutches are no longer essential.

 

[tankasnowgod]

See this is just where we disagree on calories. You can burn body fat without being in a "Deficit". Your body is perfectly capable of dialing up metabolism such that excess energy is burned.

Nope, you literally can't. Apparently, you have no clue that "metabolism" (usually expressed as RMR or Resting Metabolic Rate) is on the CALORIES OUT side of the equation.

You claim to be an engineer, but you can't understand a simple algebraic formula. That is-

Energy In (corrected for digestion) = (BMR/RMR + TEF + TEA + SPA/NEAT) + Change in Body Stores

 

[Cirion]

At this point, I seriously have to wonder how good an engineer you can possibly be. You dismiss the idea of calories in, calories out, and say it can't be possible, talking about this caloric intake, and that caloric intake, and blah blah blah. But have you ever taken a second to measure or estimate calories OUT? You know, the other half of the equation? You should really just shorten CICO to CI, because that is the only part that you have ever focused on.



Virtually infinite? Cool. I want you to post the study where a 200 pound human ate 100,000 calories a day (far lower than infinity) every day for 4 months straight, and didn't gain any fat. By your statement, you are clearly saying calories have NO role, whatsoever.

Also, since you said you "very likely" read the Lyle McDonald article, I'd like you to refute even a single point in it.

I am probably going to stop posting soon, simply because it is clear no one is even reading my posts, and I'm seeing recurring messages and questions and points I've already answered and all I am getting now are snarky comments and ridiculous examples and anecdotes that have no basis in reality.

I'll put it simply in clear terms -- In a calorie "Surplus", you don't automatically store surplus as fat as CICO model advocates usually suggest. Calories in excess of bodily needs absolutely can be "purged" without being stored. However, this only happens if you're low stress. Most people are high stress so they get stored instead. The "Naturally Lean" types are the only ones that can purge excess calories and not get fat. Ok, so that's the "CO" part as you said I had ignored. The "CO" part is that it is purged from the body in the form of heat. Happy now? lol. I swear, this community seems so uptight sometimes.

Not even gonna comment on the 100,000 calories comment because that's clear troll-bait.

Calories have a very very rough correlation, but they're not useful to use as a tool alone. They just aren't. My data I've collected show this. Again, I go back to my example of either gaining or losing 2 lb (water weight) with the EXACT same caloric intake (3000).

When I say "Virtually infinite" I mean never saying no to any craving no matter how slight. Kelj put it best - if you are even thinking about food, you need to eat. Most people wait until their stomach growls or they feel uncomfortable to eat, but by then, your stress hormones have already elevated.

 

[tankasnowgod]

I am probably going to stop posting soon, simply because it is clear no one is even reading my posts, and I'm seeing recurring messages and questions and points I've already answered and all I am getting now are snarky comments and ridiculous examples and anecdotes that have no basis in reality.

I'll put it simply in clear terms -- In a calorie "Surplus", you don't automatically store surplus as fat as CICO model advocates usually suggest. Calories in excess of bodily needs absolutely can be "purged" without being stored. However, this only happens if you're low stress. Most people are high stress so they get stored instead. The "Naturally Lean" types are the only ones that can purge excess calories and not get fat.

Not even gonna comment on the 100,000 calories comment because that's clear troll-bait.

First, your words were "virtually infinite." How is that not accurate under the quote you yourself said? Forget that level, post any study with ANY humans eating 6,000 calories a day and not gaining any fat (just be sure to include their activity level). You made it very clear that you think calories are NEVER an issue in weight gain. Even to the point when you force yourself to eat in excess of hunger.

Second, I think you really need to clarify. Is it the CICO model you have an issue with, or CICO advocates? I think I made the point that many people who bang on about CICO don't understand the full equation. But that doesn't invalidate the equation itself. How does someone misrepresenting the formula invalidate the formula? Also, explain how "purged" is not on the Calories Out side?

 

[Cirion]

First, your words were "virtually infinite." How is that not accurate under the quote you yourself said? Forget that level, post any study with ANY humans eating 6,000 calories a day and not gaining any fat (just be sure to include their activity level). You made it very clear that you think calories are NEVER an issue in weight gain. Even to the point when you force yourself to eat in excess of hunger.

Second, I think you really need to clarify. Is it the CICO model you have an issue with, or CICO advocates? I think I made the point that many people who bang on about CICO don't understand the full equation. But that doesn't invalidate the equation itself. How does someone misrepresenting the formula invalidate the formula? Also, explain how "purged" is not on the Calories Out side?

I feel like both of us like to argue for the sake of arguing. Because we literally had this exact same argument a month or two LOL. Yeah, my main beef is with most people who tout CICO and they make it out to be something its not or misrepresent it. I admit, I can get pretty into a good debate lol.

Calories mean something in the grand scheme of things, but is too volatile to make much out of it, from what I have seen putting it on a plot. That's all I'm trying to say. I'm still plotting it, I'm not throwing it out, because any information is useful information, even if its not as useful as say tryptophan. After all, if calories was the only thing that matters, why even bother worrying about macronutrients, micronutrients, specific foods, pufa's or whatever? I guess that's the point I'm trying to make. What I'm trying to do here is show hwo you can manipulate SFA,PUFA intake... proteins, tryptophan, whatever, to maximize your chances of health gains. I know you're smart enough to know that it's more than just calories, so I shouldn't be needing to even tell you all this and I guess I'll chalk up this whole argument to simple miscommunication.

 

[DaveFoster]

Scientifically speaking, if someone would be 100lbs overweight, the sheer amount of body fat and therefore aromatase converting androgens would nullify any potential increase in androgens induced by proper diet. All the bad hormonal effects caused by high body fat nullify anything good you could do diet wise in an attempt to trim your weight down.

Yes, but people with greater mass, both lean body mass and adipose tissue, burn more calories. This is because the person now has to haul extra weight through space against gravity, but the fat and muscle tissue also demands energy to keep at a homeostatic temperature, else you'd get necrosis (tissue death.)

@Cirion Why don't you look into 2,4-dinitrophenol (DNP) to make your case? It has the ability to raise the basal metabolic rate (BMR) substantially, say around 20%, which translates into an extra 500 calories daily or so. Higher dosages can raise the BMR more, say between 30% and 50%, but these larger amounts can kill you through hyperthermia. At the most, you'll see a 50% increase in the BMR, so that's 4,000 kilocalories bumped up to 6,000 kilocalories. Its effects are well-documented in the literature.

 

[LuMonty]

@Cirion I may have read and forgotten, but why are you dead set on using only food? What's wrong with Diamox or generic to shed extra water (so you can gauge changes better) or T4/T3 long-term, as the accounts I read seem to need at least 4 weeks to see great change? I have to sleep now so I look forward to seeing your response tomorrow.

 

[Cirion]

Yes, but people with greater mass, both lean body mass or adipose, burn more calories. This is because the person now has to move and thus haul extra weight through space against gravity, but the fat and muscle tissue also demands energy to keep at a homeostatic temperature, else you'd get necrosis (tissue death.)

@Cirion Why don't you look into 2,4-dinitrophenol (DNP) to make your case? It has the ability to raise the basal metabolic rate (BMR) substantially, say around 20%, which translates into an extra 500 calories daily or so. Higher dosages can raise the BMR more, say between 30% and 50%, but these larger amounts can kill you through hyperthermia. At the most, you'll see a 50% increase, so that's 4,000 kilocalories bumped up to 6,000 kilocalories. Its effects are well-documented in the literature.

Interesting idea, but supplements add confounding factors to the mix, when there's already a lot of variables to consider. Also dying doesn't sound too pleasant LOL for now I prefer to live :P I'm trying to see what all I can figure out via dietary manipulation only (no supplements). Currently I take no supplements either, except caffeine in the form of coffee and mexican colas. Which, good call -- I should probably consider caffeine a variable in the stress/weight management equation.

 

[Cirion]

@Cirion I may have read and forgotten, but why are you dead set on using only food? What's wrong with Diamox or generic to shed extra water (so you can gauge changes better) or T4/T3 long-term, as the accounts I read seem to need at least 4 weeks to see great change? I have to sleep now so I look forward to seeing your response tomorrow.

Time for bed for me too LOL last post for me for tonight. Well, supplements never seemed to do me much good long term. Though I am sure that some supplements absolutely can be useful in the right context - But I'm no longer interested in playing whack a mole with experiments and prefer data to back up why I'm doing something, so in the spirit of that, if I ever get on the supplement train again I will likely want to make sure the usage is backed by positive blood test results before and after.

This is in fact how Haidut supplements from what I've seen. He is probably one of the smartest supplementer on these forums, as that's the correct and proper way to take supplements. Blood panel before and after. Any other method is pure speculation and guesswork. Haidut also recognizes that data is king. I see a lot of doubting about the data method to health, but to that I reply - the more complex something is (the human body) the MORE important decisions based upon data is, not LESS. Why? Because you absolutely can NOT "guess" and "fudge" your way around complex systems. In the engineering world, yes you have models and some of you might be surprised to learn that even physics can be unpredictable even though we all know F=ma and all that. So even with our well known models, we STILL have to do at least a few tests just to be 110% sure that data agrees with models, and sometimes we see there are differences. Data is truth though. Guesswork and speculation is just that, guesswork and speculation, and not to be trusted or at the very least cautiously trusted and backed up by testing/data.

 

[DaveFoster]

Interesting idea, but supplements add confounding factors to the mix, when there's already a lot of variables to consider. Also dying doesn't sound too pleasant LOL for now I prefer to live :P I'm trying to see what all I can figure out via dietary manipulation only (no supplements). Currently I take no supplements either, except caffeine in the form of coffee and mexican colas. Which, good call -- I should probably consider caffeine a variable in the stress/weight management equation.

Yeah, caffeine's a hugely important variable, as it stimulates the metabolism and encourages efficient oxidation of glucose to some extent, but more importantly it suppresses the appetite. Anyway, I'm saying that, if you can quantify, or rather identify an existing quantification of, the relationship between the BMR and some other variable, then you can extrapolate this out and show the degree to which the presence of that variable will influence the BMR.

 

[Alpha]

Trust me bro you aren't telling me anything I don't already know. You have to remember that I used to champion CICO for over 5 years when I thought I knew everything and was a bodybuilding/powerlifting "Expert" for almost half a decade. I still don't know everything (In fact I am well aware that there is lots I DON'T know now) but what I DO know is that CICO just doesn't cut it at all, not when there are dozens of confounding factors that just counting calories will make you miss (Like my example I talk about further below where I gained 2 lb on 3000 calories but lost 0.6 lb on 4200 calories). NOW, since I am an engineer and it would be intellectually dishonest for me NOT to mention that the energy does indeed have to go somewhere, I'll note that the VERY basic premise of CICO has some merit. However, it's simply not reliable for any sort of tool for effective and healthy weight loss because the calories that result in weight gain or loss are EXTREMELY volatile (3000 calories can make you lose 2 lb and 3000 calories can make you gain 2 lb, if that's not volatile I dunno what is) and not stable and extremely dependent on so many other factors, and following a path such as this inevitable makes someone end up restricting themselves and ruining their metabolism.

Water: swelling, tension, pain, fatigue, aging

Like I said, Ray Peat and myself champion the idea that water swelling often (Admittedly, not always) means increase of stress (Except perhaps in scenarios where you are glycogen depleted, and suddenly become glycogen replete). So yes, you can use water weight gain or loss as a rough estimate of stress loss or gain in the whole body IMO. Also, stress tends to result in FAT gain, and so you can use water weight gain as a middle-man/correlating parameter because increasing estrogen and water weight usually also results in fat gain.

In my data, I am already seeing there are many days I lost weight on +4000 calories, so I already know for a fact I can do it. It's not that high in calories. @MatheusPN said he has lost weight on 8,000 calories a day (Not sure if he is sedentary or not tho)

Also, now that I know it is Fernstrom ratio that drives weight gain or loss, and not so much Protein per-se, and today I've realized I'm ravenously hungry (A good sign IMO) following all the rules I now know to follow, I'm actually going to increase my protein intake and see what happens- but in such a fashion that Fernstrom ratio remains low (Beef, Gelatin mostly). No cheese, no milk, no whey, etcetera. Previously, every time I increased protein intake, I ended up with a high fernstrom ratio too and I believe that was my downfall, not the increased protein intake. But, I'll be tracking data, and we shall see. Beef is possibly the perfect protein, even more than gelatin. Not only does beef have a very low fernstrom ratio, but on top of that, beef fat, according to CLASH, is the best fat you can eat for metabolism and fat loss next to cocoa butter.

I likely read that Lyle Mcdonald post before anyone else here has (I'm not new to this health thing... Been doing it for a decade now) and well aware of what he has to say. But Lyle and others miss the finer details, which I'm in the process of ironing out now. I am happy he did mention hormones though, but he doesn't go into the detail that Ray Peat and others do and mention things like SFA/PUFA ratios, sugar/starches, and so on.

You'll note I have opted not to show a plot of calories vs. weight gain because it's not actually that interesting and the data is all over the map (Days where I lost 2 lbs on 3000 calories and days I gained 2 lbs on 3000 calories for instance). Yes it does crossover at about 4000-4200 calories, but it has like 100 variables, and most of the cases of >4000 calories also have high fernstrom ratio, high pufa, and so I don't think it is the calories causing the weight gain. BTW I had one day I lost 0.6 lb on 4200 calories, so contrast that with the 2 lb gain on 3000 calories. The 3000 calorie day was high tryptophan, high pufa, and the 4200 calorie day was lwo tryptophan low pufa.

In fact, I'm gonna say it, just because I kind of enjoy the controversy this entails LOL - you can eat virtually infinite calories and not get fat. If you follow all the rules - high sfa/pufa, low low fernstrom ratio, high sugar to starch ratio. I am extremely aware this is an extremely bold claim and one I intend to prove or at least attempt to prove. But no major discoveries were made by people not willing to push the limits

An old forum member visionofstrength kind of came to similar conclusions I'm coming to as well. His goal was also eat to make metabolism insanely fast, and eat MORE to lose weight not less. The simple fact is this: If you don't always wake up with 98.6F temp and ideally 85 pulse, with zero grogginess, and perfect mood, energy, motivation, libido, outlook on life - then your metabolism is at least partially broken. Period. And a large reason it is broken, is probably chronic insufficient energy intake due to chronic obsession with "CICO". Ray Peat said it best - we should be like the kid who is excited to wake up for Christmas - and every day should have this excitement to it. If not, something is wrong. This is the goal we should all strive for at the end of the day... no? Once I achieve this goal, I will rest easy. I'll probably still research things, but I'll be busy enjoying life at that point finally.

By that logic, taking BCAAs will stop weight gain no matter the calories.

 

[Cirion]

By that logic, taking BCAAs will stop weight gain no matter the calories.

No, it won't, because the fernstrom ratio is just one of many parameters. But bcaa's absolutely can assist weight loss in a holistic program that does everything else right. But yes bcaa can be powerfully effective, Haidut has talked about this many times.

I may be able to post some interesting plots with calories later once I have more data.

One plot that might be of interest is "If you do everything right" - AKA, perfect fernstrom ratio, perfect SFA/PUFA ratio, glycine intake, sugar vs starch intake, calcium intake... Filter all your data to account for those factors... THEN plot how weight changes vs. calories. THIS might actually be an interesting plot. Plotting calories alone is useless data, but if you filter down to a relevant lifestyle, then it *can* become more meaningful.

The more interesting results become apparent when you look at more than 1-2 dimensions. I actually haven't really done a whole lot of multi (5-10+) dimensional analyses since grad school, so I'll certainly have to brush up my skills, but that is where the fun stuff starts to reveal itself. You can start to make very relevant and useful sensitivity studies, such as a "Tornado Plot". A tornado plot basically tells you, what parameters give me 80% of the results with 20% of the effort (so what 20% of dietary parameters can I change to give me 80% of the results I want -- ie, weight loss/metabolism increase) Then you can not worry too much about the other 80% parameters since they have little impact anyway, but focus on perfecting the 20% that do. But to get to that point, I must continue my "Design of Experiments" (DoE) until I have enough data such as in the case of a Latin Hypercube DoE (Full Factorial would require decades of data, so I won't be doing that lol).

 

[LuMonty]

@Cirion
I've backed off of supplements in general for the same reason. In my case, I have to go by measurements I can take because of an insurance problem; cheap testing that can be repeated won't be available for an unknown amount of time. Have you considered getting your thyroid or liver tested so you can see if that's a variable or not? Even if you don't supplement, I'd think that having a baseline starting would be good to have alongside your data collection. I love collecting data as well; my viewpoint is that having the most fundamental data will allow you to see how your other sets go together.

 

[Cirion]

@Cirion
I've backed off of supplements in general for the same reason. In my case, I have to go by measurements I can take because of an insurance problem; cheap testing that can be repeated won't be available for an unknown amount of time. Have you considered getting your thyroid or liver tested so you can see if that's a variable or not? Even if you don't supplement, I'd think that having a baseline starting would be good to have alongside your data collection. I love collecting data as well; my viewpoint is that having the most fundamental data will allow you to see how your other sets go together.

Thyroid and liver is absolutely a variable. Yeah ideally I would be able to test both on a regular basis, but I'm not made of money either haha. Am building up my HSA account and I can only put in $3000 a yr into it, and I need like $200k in retirement so it will take time, even if I don't ever draw from it. Later when I have more liquid assets, it's something I am going to consider tracking more heavily and frequently. If other people, especially healthy people, were to make the same plots I'm making, they might see a completely different trend. So at most my plots are likely going to only show the exact same (or similar) trends if you're unhealthy and overweight like me (One example of a plot looking radically different might be the fernstrom plot. If you're healthy you will convert more tryptophan to niacin. I think too high F ratio is not good for anyone, but the slope of the line would likely decrease a bit.) Even the SFA/PUFA plot might look different when you're healthy. Some more healthy people on these forums have still noted that they don't do well on PUFA, or too much tryptophan though, its just that the effects are less noticeable in that case.

So, it will certainly be interesting to see how things shift once I do start to move things in the right direction and get healthier. Then I can have a collection of data from not only when I was sick, but also healthy, and see how they differ. I realized I was missing a couple other pieces of data, and will be adding in MUFA, Glucose (straight glucose, not starch, and not from sugar)... also might be interesting to add in "Exercise Minutes" in there, though dunno how to distinguish from weightlifting/cardio... Maybe two parameters, Exercise (cardio) and Exercise (Wtlifting), also Sunlight (minutes)... Water intake... Sodium... literally anything i can think of... I am a data hoarder LOL... also Caffeine at the advice of DaveFoster. Knowledge is power... Oh hrs slept is probably another goodie

 

[Ron J]

@Cirion
To know for sure what made me gain weight, I'd have to change my diet later on, but I suspect it was the empty calories from added table sugar, instead of skim milk, or perhaps the combination(including the empty calories) of too many stimulants, despite Vit-B supplements. Just a heads up because you mentioned that you plan to use maltodextrin. All that's left is to wait and see if you drop weight on the low fat diet.
Here's something that you should consider: if Kelj is correct, then you can expect fat loss after 8 months(on average) of eating whatever amount keeps you satiated; those are 8 months of possible weight gain, yet you seem to be displeased with your current weight. Unless you lose weight on your current protocol, wouldn't it be better to first reduce body fat via calorie restriction? Then you can try what Klej mentioned.
You said you had negative side effects from lower calories, and that's exactly how I felt at first when losing body fat. I felt high serotonin/endotoxin/estrogen effects while losing body fat. I had do breathe through my mouth on my bed, and was puffy with a stuffy nose(but able to breathe through my nose) while standing.

 

[LuMonty]

@Cirion
I can understand that. After reading your log, I was reminded of the email depository thread. I can't remember who posted it, but Peat responded that without getting TSH down with thyroid medicine, food-based progress would be impossible. Long story short, I took as many observable markers as possible (my biggest was a lack of wound healing, followed by very low pulse without stress) and finally tried t4/t3. No amount of carbs, aspirin, or any of the usual suspects has helped me function as much as t4/t3 and that's just in a few days. Now I can feel the hunger signals again, which I can see you've had trouble with, and I'm picking up steam in terms of being up and alert through the day. Like you, my goal is to get off of CPAP; I know too much stress can make a night using it very difficult, and it can create vicious cycles.

@Ron J I'd guess it was the table sugar was a major factor as well. I returned to my normal couch potato week in about a month when I switched to using maple syrup for extra carbs. I wasn't going to stick with it due to cost but it's made a huge difference.

I also had similar symptoms when losing body fat, and can recall drinking tons of OJ and using up to 1g of aspirin a day to clear out enough to sleep (I have a nasal mask CPAP, the only design that would fit my face). Stress reactions are no joke.

 

[Cirion]

@Cirion
To know for sure what made me gain weight, I'd have to change my diet later on, but I suspect it was the empty calories from added table sugar, instead of skim milk, or perhaps the combination(including the empty calories) of too many stimulants, despite Vit-B supplements. Just a heads up because you mentioned that you plan to use maltodextrin. All that's left is to wait and see if you drop weight on the low fat diet.
Here's something that you should consider: if Kelj is correct, then you can expect fat loss after 8 months(on average) of eating whatever amount keeps you satiated; those are 8 months of possible weight gain, yet you seem to be displeased with your current weight. Unless you lose weight on your current protocol, wouldn't it be better to first reduce body fat via calorie restriction? Then you can try what Klej mentioned.
You said you had negative side effects from lower calories, and that's exactly how I felt at first when losing body fat. I felt high serotonin/endotoxin/estrogen effects while losing body fat. I had do breathe through my mouth on my bed, and was puffy with a stuffy nose(but able to breathe through my nose) while standing.

Kelj makes many good points I agree with, but I don't agree with her entirely on everything. I don't think you have to get 50-100 lbs overweight to recover. I DO think you will gain some weight in recovery, though. She ate lots of "Junk" foods during recovery that I think if she opted towards healthy foods from the start, a lot of the gain could be avoided. The main thing that "Junk" / fast foods provides is easy calories, and calories are absolutely necessary for recovery, I do agree on that front.

But you are right -- types of food absolutely do matter, and if I really wanted to take data collection to the next step, I'd start considering actual foods also. In general, things like SFA/PUFA right, calcium intake, tryptophan, are a good proxy for actual foods though, good enough for me at this point. Most junk foods are PUFA and tryptophan laden, so almost by definition if SFA/PUFA ratio is high and tryptophan is low, then you're doing good. This may not account for "empty" calories like table sugar and whatnot, that's true, and that doesn't even bother me too badly. This is why you plot data and look at it. If a point seems to be an outlier or out of place, you can then examine it manually in more detail if necessary. Example: The case where I ate a 3:1 sugar to starch ratio and yet gained a lot of water weight. Upon further inspection, I found out it wasn't a random occurrence, but rather because I ate too much tryptophan that day. I no longer believe water weight fluctuations are random whatsoever. It can be quantified and examined and measured and predicted, at least to a degree.

I will never restrict calories again. Like I said, caloric restriction is a stressor, which ultimate actually causes water weight gain and even fat gain, because it dials down your metabolism down so far that you still gain weight on it. Nope, hard pass. This is where I do agree with Kelj 100%.

 

[Alpha]

No, it won't, because the fernstrom ratio is just one of many parameters. But bcaa's absolutely can assist weight loss in a holistic program that does everything else right. But yes bcaa can be powerfully effective, Haidut has talked about this many times.

I may be able to post some interesting plots with calories later once I have more data.

One plot that might be of interest is "If you do everything right" - AKA, perfect fernstrom ratio, perfect SFA/PUFA ratio, glycine intake, sugar vs starch intake, calcium intake... Filter all your data to account for those factors... THEN plot how weight changes vs. calories. THIS might actually be an interesting plot. Plotting calories alone is useless data, but if you filter down to a relevant lifestyle, then it *can* become more meaningful.

The more interesting results become apparent when you look at more than 1-2 dimensions. I actually haven't really done a whole lot of multi (5-10+) dimensional analyses since grad school, so I'll certainly have to brush up my skills, but that is where the fun stuff starts to reveal itself. You can start to make very relevant and useful sensitivity studies, such as a "Tornado Plot". A tornado plot basically tells you, what parameters give me 80% of the results with 20% of the effort (so what 20% of dietary parameters can I change to give me 80% of the results I want -- ie, weight loss/metabolism increase) Then you can not worry too much about the other 80% parameters since they have little impact anyway, but focus on perfecting the 20% that do. But to get to that point, I must continue my "Design of Experiments" (DoE) until I have enough data such as in the case of a Latin Hypercube DoE (Full Factorial would require decades of data, so I won't be doing that lol).

There's a lot of inter variability between individuals, and different diets will have different effects on health and weight management.

Let's not fall in the pit that is nutrition in something complicated as fat gain and loss. Do what works for you, and it will only work for you. You could cite studies like consuming straight carbs leads to oxidation of all excess calories, but not in C+F diets, or starch are bad for fat loss because starch is inflammatory, starch particles block micro-circulation, and starch is pure glucose which elicits a powerful insulin response.

Fact of the matter is, nothing will work for everyone. And these threads are practically useless for others.

 

[Cirion]

There's a lot of inter variability between individuals, and different diets will have different effects on health and weight management.

Let's not fall in the pit that is nutrition in something complicated as fat gain and loss. Do what works for you, and it will only work for you. You could cite studies like consuming straight carbs leads to oxidation of all excess calories, but not in C+F diets, or starch are bad for fat loss because starch is inflammatory, starch particles block micro-circulation, and starch is pure glucose which elicits a powerful insulin response.

Fact of the matter is, nothing will work for everyone. And these threads are practically useless for others.

I both agree with this and also disagree. It is true that everyone is in a different state of health, absolutely, and some parameters need to be tweaked appropriately. But I feel convinced that we CAN provide a general roadmap that is virtually universal, which are things that ray peat has said and what I am finding to be true. The "Tornado Plot" of the 80% more important variables, I believe, will be pretty much the same whether you're healthy or unhealthy and are likely to include things such as SFA/PUFA, Fernstrom, Sugar/Starch ratio, and maybe a few others. Now, where I do agree, is that where you fall on the line so to speak on optimal, on all those parameters, is subject to change on a case by case basis. But absolutely, I do think you can figure out sensitivities as a function of these parameters, and discover a trend that in general, a certain set of parameters absolutely are the heavy hitters no matter who you are. For example: I can say for me that a 2:1 sugar to starch ratio so far appears to be optimal, but maybe for someone else its 1:1, and someone else its 4:1. However, that doesn't change the fact that sugar:starch ratio (may) be one of the more important parameters to tweak for health, even if you fall on a completely different point on the spectrum. Does that make sense?

But for me to go tell all people: 2:1 ratio is optimal no matter who you are, would be incorrect. On that I agree. In fact, there will (probably) be variance in this optimal number, even for me! Once I am healthier. Perhaps the ratio will increase. Perhaps it will decrease. I strongly suspect it will increase but we shall see.