Weight Loss: Starch And Trytophan Are What Are Stopping You

[Alpha]

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.

See, that's generally my problem, you break macronutrients into foods. Do you mean glucose:fructose ratio? Which fatty acids are we referring to? Are all SFA the same? Maybe it's the opiates in starches raising prolactin, maybe it's not glucose, maybe it's endotoxin from starch, maybe it's cellulose, maybe it's gluten, maybe it's protein allergy.

Why Fernstorm ratio, could you just take BCAAs to counterbalance? Maybe it's the opiates in dairy and cheese, or the IGF-1, or the homogenised fat capsules carrying inflammatory proteins, does Cyproheptadine help weight loss?

Why is calories largely irrelevant. The intestines will absorb most of the nutrients you give it, there is a large correlation between calories consumed and energy load. It's either stored as fat, or released as heat, water, and Carbon Dioxide, which is a rate-limiting step in metabolism.

I understand it's easier in practice to categorize foods as "starches" or "high in tryptophan" to gather and measure data. But there isn't really a hypothesis being tested here, if that's the point of the thread.

 

[Cirion]

See, that's generally my problem, you break macronutrients into foods. Do you mean glucose:fructose ratio? Which fatty acids are we referring to? Are all SFA the same? Maybe it's the opiates in starches raising prolactin, maybe it's not glucose, maybe it's endotoxin from starch, maybe it's cellulose, maybe it's gluten, maybe it's protein allergy.

Why Fernstorm ratio, could you just take BCAAs to counterbalance? Maybe it's the opiates in dairy and cheese, or the IGF-1, or the homogenised fat capsules carrying inflammatory proteins, does Cyproheptadine help weight loss?

Why is calories largely irrelevant. The intestines will absorb most of the nutrients you give it, there is a large correlation between calories consumed and energy load. It's either stored as fat, or released as heat, water, and Carbon Dioxide, which is a rate-limiting step in metabolism.

I understand it's easier in practice to categorize foods as "starches" or "high in tryptophan" to gather and measure data. But there isn't really a hypothesis being tested here, if that's the point of the thread.

You're not entirely wrong, but again, I'm seeing that things like SFA:PUFA is a pretty good proxy for food. Is it a complete replacement? No, it's not, but it's good enough to find trends at least. You can get as detailed as you want. Like in the engineering world, we have varying levels of fidelty. Before you make an aircraft, for example, you need a very, very rough idea what you are trying to do. How many people to transport? Max speed? Max range? Once you answer these questions you then make a VERY VERY low fidelity model that is literally "back of the envelope calculations". Then you graduate to some more empirical models in spreadsheets. Then you graduate to a little computational fluid dynamics. Then you graduate to a wind tunnel test. Then you graduate to a flight test. So on and so forth. My point is, there is useful information even on the low fidelity models (Spreadsheets). Is it completely accurate? No. But usually you can "screen out" and make rough estimates with this, before getting into the nitty gritty super detailed models and tests. Following that train of thought, yes, once you want higher fidelity/accuracy, you'd want to graduate on tracking things like all the micronutrients, and specific foods. And I probably will eventually. But for now, I'm looking for the rough sensitivies and trends - answering the question, what matters the most?

You absolutely could take BCAA's to help counter-act the fernstrom ratio, and its in fact a strategy that Haidut recommends in an older thread. You are asking some useful questions, that's true. I am not throwing all that out, I will likely get to that depth eventually.

Because there are so many comments on the calories, I'll probably go ahead and throw up my current calories plot next week just so you can see what I mean. It's largely irrelevant *as a stand-alone parameter* at least because there's just too much scatter. Now, it probably has more relevance once you start "Fixing" various other parameters to a constant value (Starch/sugar, Fernstrom, and others), but on its own? Not as much. What this is saying is that how calories affect weight loss or gain is STRONGLY dependent upon all the other variables I've mentioned repeatedly, which is why I prefer to look at those instead of calories directly.

My hypothesis so far is that SFA/PUFA, starch:sugar ratios, Fernstrom ratio are some of the top factors in stress/weight gain, and the goal of this data collection is to determine just precisely which parameters are indeed the most important, and also to determine (FOR ME) what #'s I should roughly shoot for, of the parameters which turn out to be most important.

 

[DaveFoster]

@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.

How much T3 and T4 were you using and for how long?

 

[LuMonty]

How much T3 and T4 were you using and for how long?

I'm using about 42 mcg T4 and 21 mcg T3 a day, split over the course of the day with small meals. It's only been 3 days and I'm incredibly surprised by the changes, which I assume aren't typical. Without any changes to diet I became "regular," started dreaming again, bloat is down almost completely, gyno is better (slight reduction, closer to normal shape), eyesight has improved, old wounds have healed slightly, and blood is a rich red instead of a light color. Pulse is back up to a consistent 60 bpm resting (would drop to 45ish before) and tolerance to heat and cold is much better.

Straight T3 wasn't feasible. Even after getting the dosing spaced out enough and low enough, I could never make it through the night.

For important context, for anyone reading this, my situation is due to severe long-term damage. Nearly life-long inflammation from severe food allergies, sleep apnea going without diagnosis, thyroid issues are consistent on my mom's side, and 8 months ago I quit a 3 year job as a retail cart pusher. I wouldn't expect such drastic improvement with any modality; there's no way of knowing what's needed to see a given amount or kind of improvement without testing and hindsight. I fully expected to go 2-4 weeks before seeing any major changes.

 

[DaveFoster]

I'm using about 42 mcg T4 and 21 mcg T3 a day, split over the course of the day with small meals. It's only been 3 days and I'm incredibly surprised by the changes, which I assume aren't typical. Without any changes to diet I became "regular," started dreaming again, bloat is down almost completely, gyno is better (slight reduction, closer to normal shape), eyesight has improved, old wounds have healed slightly, and blood is a rich red instead of a light color. Pulse is back up to a consistent 60 bpm resting (would drop to 45ish before) and tolerance to heat and cold is much better.

Straight T3 wasn't feasible. Even after getting the dosing spaced out enough and low enough, I could never make it through the night.

For important context, for anyone reading this, my situation is due to severe long-term damage. Nearly life-long inflammation from severe food allergies, sleep apnea going without diagnosis, thyroid issues are consistent on my mom's side, and 8 months ago I quit a 3 year job as a retail cart pusher. I wouldn't expect such drastic improvement with any modality; there's no way of knowing what's needed to see a given amount or kind of improvement without testing and hindsight. I fully expected to go 2-4 weeks before seeing any major changes.

That's excellent. That's a pretty aggressive T3 to T4 ratio. Have you ever tried more T4?

 

[LuMonty]

That's excellent. That's a pretty aggressive T3 to T4 ratio. Have you ever tried more T4?

This is my first time using any T4, so no. It's Tyromix which I see you used in your protocol, so increasing the T4 would increase the T3. Since it hasn't been long, my aim is to give it time and see where vitals are at, which would be the 30th this month. Then assess and go 2 more weeks.

 

[DaveFoster]

This is my first time using any T4, so no. It's Tyromix which I see you used in your protocol, so increasing the T4 would increase the T3. Since it hasn't been long, my aim is to give it time and see where vitals are at, which would be the 30th this month. Then assess and go 2 more weeks.

Alright, thank you and good luck. Personally, I regularly test thyroid hormone levels regardless of the body temperature and pulse readings.

 

[LuMonty]

Alright, thank you and good luck. Personally, I regularly test thyroid hormone levels regardless of the body temperature and pulse readings.

Thanks much! I plan on testing when possible. Have had health insurance coming out of my wife's paycheck since December and still no insurance information despite calling every week.

 

[RWilly]

@Amarsh213 What microbial cultures do you use to make your cottage cheese?

Also, goat milk is much higher in copper than regular milk. Additional, a high meat diet (which is high in iron and zinc) can easily put copper out of balance.

Perhaps weight management has to do with getting copper back in to balance to fight off inflammation (which I think is due to a microbial infections). Copper is antimicrobial.

 

[RWilly]

@Cirion

@CLASH has made some interesting observations. Not all fats are equal. Not even all SFA's are equal. It seems dairy fat is fattenning, and that even coconut oil isn't terrific in large doses. CLASH recommends exclusively Beef tallow and cocoa butter for fats w/ maybe a small amount of coconut oil and swears by it. Now this isn't something I have tried yet, so I can't testify to it, but he can talk further to it if he is so inclined. I briefly tried a mostly CO / hydrogenated coconut oil diet and it wasn't very helpful and what's more, HCO in particular caused lots of bowel distress for me (pain). And others, like @Captain_Coconut tried a heavy CO diet and it didn't work well for him either. Also there is probably a cut-off point of efficacy. You'll note I don't consume more than 30-40 gram of SFA ever. CLASH eats 200 gram a day, but I don't think that many grams would work with how high carb I eat (BUT I could be proven wrong, without data, I don't know.)

I think this may be true as well. I think cream is an issue, but maybe butter is not due to the butyric acid. I think cocoa butter may be different due to the high level of copper and fiber.

 

[Cirion]

I think one of the main things about cocoa butter is its high stearic acid content. I know @Hans has spoken favorably towards cocao butter in the past.

So on that note, Stearic acid intake would be another interesting parameter to track...

 

[RWilly]

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.

Many people do a gallbladder flush with olive oil and lemon. I have been wondering if the 'stones' they excrete, may actually be biofilm (as the stone substance that is excreted does not match the makeup of gallstones.) Pylori has been know to move into the gallbladder.

 

[RWilly]

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'm reading! :) I agree with what you are experiencing. I too am in a similar situation, and have been meticulously writing down diet and taking regular blood tests and temps to see results. I'm certain that it has nothing to do with calories. I've spent years eating between 1000 to 1300 calories per day and putting on weight. I've also been on a low carb diet for a long time and also put on weight. I'm finding that meat and saturated fats are issues for me. I'm on the fence about cocoa butter and regular butter due to the other nutritional components in those foods. Still testing.

Someone here recently posted a starvation experiment that took place during WW2 with volunteers. Before the study, these volunteers were on 12 weeks of a weight maintenance diet that included a certain about of activity. I believe the average was around 3700 calories. Then, they went into a semi-starvation diet for 24 weeks, which still was on average 1570 calories per day. Wow! Think of how many people are on a semi starvation diet. I know I was.

One of the things that they noticed was that most of the volunteers had terrible edema during semi-starvation, and that it went away with extra protein.

And even when diet came back to normal, the edema was replaced with fat. And, volunteers could not even get back to their normal weight at 4,000 calories per day.

Here's the video:

 

[RWilly]

@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.

I'm with Cirion on this. I think people are playing with fire when it comes to supplement use ... unless the supplement is a dehydrated food or herb. No nutrient in my opinion should be taken in isolation. That's just asking for trouble down the line. One has to work with nature.

 

[Cirion]

I'm reading! :) I agree with what you are experiencing. I too am in a similar situation, and have been meticulously writing down diet and taking regular blood tests and temps to see results. I'm certain that it has nothing to do with calories. I've spent years eating between 1000 to 1300 calories per day and putting on weight. I've also been on a low carb diet for a long time and also put on weight. I'm finding that meat and saturated fats are issues for me. I'm on the fence about cocoa butter and regular butter due to the other nutritional components in those foods. Still testing.

Someone here recently posted a starvation experiment that took place during WW2 with volunteers. Before the study, these volunteers were on 12 weeks of a weight maintenance diet that included a certain about of activity. I believe the average was around 3700 calories. Then, they went into a semi-starvation diet for 24 weeks, which still was on average 1570 calories per day. Wow! Think of how many people are on a semi starvation diet. I know I was.

One of the things that they noticed was that most of the volunteers had terrible edema during semi-starvation, and that it went away with extra protein.

And even when diet came back to normal, the edema was replaced with fat. And, volunteers could not even get back to their normal weight at 4,000 calories per day.

Here's the video:

Oh no worries, when I said I was gonna stop posting it was mostly in response to unhelpful responses. I'm absolutely going to continue showing some trends as I find them. If anyone has their own data t hat shows different trends though, I'm certainly interested to see them.

Nice, do you have any trends or plots you can share that you have discovered as well from your experiences? I have done the same. I used to eat low calorie. I tried things like low carb also. I remember when I got to 3% bodyfat on 1500 calorie a day and intense exercise. I basically did a starvation study on myself one time. I was probably in Kwashiokor (sp?) at that point--- burning protein from organs, and probably the only reason I didn't kill myself is because I ate 300g protein a day.

 

[RWilly]

Oh no worries, when I said I was gonna stop posting it was mostly in response to unhelpful responses. I'm absolutely going to continue showing some trends as I find them. If anyone has their own data t hat shows different trends though, I'm certainly interested to see them.

Nice, do you have any trends or plots you can share that you have discovered as well from your experiences? I have done the same. I used to eat low calorie. I tried things like low carb also. I remember when I got to 3% bodyfat on 1500 calorie a day and intense exercise. I basically did a starvation study on myself one time. I was probably in Kwashiokor (sp?) at that point--- burning protein from organs, and probably the only reason I didn't kill myself is because I ate 300g protein a day.

I'm still working on the solution, but I do think the cause is bacteria and iron from meats and fortified foods. (You've probably seen my blog post on that here: Is Diabetes an Infection? A New Perspective on the Cause of Weight Gain and Type 2 Diabetes )

I've done a lot of experimenting over the last year, and one my greatest "ah-has" came when I actually induced diabetes in myself for 10 days. (According to fasting insulin levels and fasting blood sugar that stayed in the 130s for 10 days). This was through the use of diatomaceous earth. It had nothing to do with calories, macros, etc. I contacted various experts to see what might have been the mechanism of action. I thought perhaps it was the breaking up of biofilms, thus increasing endotoxemia, but I also wondered if it may have to do with mineral balance.

No one was able to answer that for me. I however found an old study where silica causes copper dumping. Alcohol does too. High iron (from fortified foods and meat) cause microbial growth and puts copper out of balance. Copper normalizes iron levels. Additionally, zinc competes with copper (and wins) when it comes to absorption, which is another reason why meat may be problematic. Perhaps this is why I gained weight on a ketogenic diet.

I think you mentioned that OJ and dairy caused you to increase your weight. High vitamin C lowers copper levels as well.

I've done some testing, and copper significantly lowered my triglycerides.

I sort of think that it all has to do with minerals and increasing body voltage.

I'm doing more testing with mineralized water.

 

[tankasnowgod]

I'm reading! :) I agree with what you are experiencing. I too am in a similar situation, and have been meticulously writing down diet and taking regular blood tests and temps to see results. I'm certain that it has nothing to do with calories. I've spent years eating between 1000 to 1300 calories per day and putting on weight. I've also been on a low carb diet for a long time and also put on weight. I'm finding that meat and saturated fats are issues for me. I'm on the fence about cocoa butter and regular butter due to the other nutritional components in those foods. Still testing.

Someone here recently posted a starvation experiment that took place during WW2 with volunteers. Before the study, these volunteers were on 12 weeks of a weight maintenance diet that included a certain about of activity. I believe the average was around 3700 calories. Then, they went into a semi-starvation diet for 24 weeks, which still was on average 1570 calories per day. Wow! Think of how many people are on a semi starvation diet. I know I was.

One of the things that they noticed was that most of the volunteers had terrible edema during semi-starvation, and that it went away with extra protein.

Well, which is it? If calories have "absolutely nothing" to do with weight loss, then why did the volunteers in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment not maintain their weight on a 2000 calorie a day deficit? Multiplying that by twelve weeks and dividing by 3,500 cals, you would expect a very rough estimate of 48 pounds of weight loss from muscle and fat. It was likely less than this, as over time, metabolism would down regulate. But they certainly lost closer to this rough estimate than zero pounds.

In the experiment, these were also normal weight men, and they were forced to exercise on a treadmill a certain number of hours each week.

This seems to get back to Peat's idea that people are much more likely to embrace a simple, straighforward lie rather than a complex truth. The two straightforward lies seem to be that calories are the ONLY thing that matter in weight loss, or that calories don't matter AT ALL. It's incredibly clear that calories absolutely are a factor in weight loss. Meanwhile, it seems like people never even bother to estimate their daily metabolic rate, or measure it with something like a fitbit. That's why people often dramatically slash their intake without any sort of plan, and run into problems. 1000 calories for years on end sounds like a terrible idea, and apparently, it was in your case.

 

[redsun]

I'm still working on the solution, but I do think the cause is bacteria and iron from meats and fortified foods. (You've probably seen my blog post on that here: Is Diabetes an Infection? A New Perspective on the Cause of Weight Gain and Type 2 Diabetes )

I've done a lot of experimenting over the last year, and one my greatest "ah-has" came when I actually induced diabetes in myself for 10 days. (According to fasting insulin levels and fasting blood sugar that stayed in the 130s for 10 days). This was through the use of diatomaceous earth. It had nothing to do with calories, macros, etc. I contacted various experts to see what might have been the mechanism of action. I thought perhaps it was the breaking up of biofilms, thus increasing endotoxemia, but I also wondered if it may have to do with mineral balance.

No one was able to answer that for me. I however found an old study where silica causes copper dumping. Alcohol does too. High iron (from fortified foods and meat) cause microbial growth and puts copper out of balance. Copper normalizes iron levels. Additionally, zinc competes with copper (and wins) when it comes to absorption, which is another reason why meat may be problematic. Perhaps this is why I gained weight on a ketogenic diet.

I think you mentioned that OJ and dairy caused you to increase your weight. High vitamin C lowers copper levels as well.

I've done some testing, and copper significantly lowered my triglycerides.

I sort of think that it all has to do with minerals and increasing body voltage.

I'm doing more testing with mineralized water.

Have you ever eaten only red meat for a short period of time e.g. meat only carnivore diet? Ive never had such a good feeling flat stomach(zero bloat) in my life and supposedly all that iron should be causing bacterial overgrowth and bloating. Yes bacteria need iron to grow but for some reason the iron from red meat doesnt seem to cause the bad effects on the gut that iron is supposed to do. Iron fortified foods do seem to increase bloating and bacterial overgrowth in my experience, but never meat.

As for the ketogenic diet, it is a bad diet because it restricts protein thats why you got worse on it. Keto is trash and bad for your health, carnivore diet however many people are doing well with because they arent restricting protein. And carnivore also allows milk and honey to provide carbs and reduce gluceoneogenesis of protein. Without extra protein to substitute glucose you run into problems.

 

[tankasnowgod]

Have you ever eaten only red meat for a short period of time e.g. meat only carnivore diet? Ive never had such a good feeling flat stomach(zero bloat) in my life and supposedly all that iron should be causing bacterial overgrowth and bloating. Yes bacteria need iron to grow but for some reason the iron from red meat doesnt seem to cause the bad effects on the gut that iron is supposed to do. Iron fortified foods do seem to increase bloating and bacterial overgrowth in my experience, but never meat.

This isn't surprising. Red Meat contains heme-iron, iron encased in protective proteins, like ferritin, transferring, and lactoferrin. Iron naturally occurring in plants will also have some natural protection against bacteria. Fortified foods just contain the raw metal.

 

[Cirion]

@RWilly Interesting that meat causes you issues. Are you certain it is not tryptophan? And which meats? Red meat seems to be the only thing I can tolerate, because it is virtually the only low tryptophan meat (and protein source for that matter) aside from gelatin. It's true minerals tend to compete with each other, but for the most part the body has a pretty good way of normalizing minerals - except when you megadose (aka supplement in pill form) them.

@tankasnowgod I am not interested in another fruitless argument, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt this time that you want to discuss reasonably this time. Again calories may be a factor but it's very low. Let me try explaining in different terms. If you eat a horrible diet (high pufa, tryptophan, "junk" foods) your probability of gaining weight and getting metabolic disorders is very high, even at "Reasonable" caloric intakes like let's say 3k range, and especially as you start pushing 4k. If you eat a perfect diet, your probability of gaining weight is basically nil, even if you don't count calories and eat upwards of 4k+. Watching pufa, tryptophan, processed foods, all that, lets you eat more and not only be healthier, but more energetic because you can eat more calories (energy) and not get fat, and because your threshold of getting fat as a function of calories is so large, that it is very very hard (or even impossible short of force feeding) to get overtweight, and thus, the calories are no longer important, because if you can eat to satiety and also feel good, with zero deprivation, that's the ideal place to be. The man Ray Peat says this too - Both pufa and starch, he says tend to be more fattenning relative to SFA and sugar, respectively, for example, on a per calorie basis. Therefore, "a calorie is not a calorie" in this sense. I don't understand why you seem so interested in calories, when I know you have read the same ray peat articles I have. You can just eat whatever you want and slash calories and have to count the rest of your life and also deprive yourself, or eat the right foods and not have to deprive yourself at all. So why do we see so many people eating ad libitum and getting fat on these forums? Because people are eating fattening foods like PUFA, dairy, too much tryptophan, not enough carbs, sneaking in junk foods, etc. Sure, in the strictest sense, "they ate too many calories" but more accurately "they ate too many incorrect foods". It's better to put it in terms of "eating poor foods in excess" rather than "eating food in excess". Can you get fat with the "perfect" diet? Possibly, but it'd likely involve eating supra-physical amounts of food and feeding yourself to the point of discomfort, which no normal person would do. So, with that we should be telling people not to cut calories, but to cut anti-metabolic foods from their diets. This is just as effective (if not more so) than keeping a sub-optimal diet but cutting calories.

So I say again - The threshold at which a certain caloric intake makes you fat is EXTREMELY, EXTREMELY volatile. You could gain weight on high pufa high tryptophan on 2000 calories, and lose weight on low pufa low tryptophan no junk food diet on 4000 calories. Sure that doesn't violate "CICO" in the strictest sense, but how useful is tracking calories if its that volatile? This is the point I'm trying to make. One person would say oh I need to cut calories on <2000, another will say my maintenance calories is 4000. Which is correct? Both. And neither. Therefore it's (almost) a useless metric. Certainly, it shouldn't be the #1 metric we care about. It's no longer the #1 metric I care about for this reason. "Just Cut calories" is the most horrible advice ever. Maybe once you have a perfect diet, but I am convinced that once diet is cleaned up, the weight takes care of itself without getting OCD on calorie counting. People that champion If It Fits your Macros (IIFYM) don't care about food intake at all, many of them even promote eating junk foods, since IIFYM, doesn't matter right? Just track calories. Nah. I used to do that years ago, done doing that. I care about what foods I put in my stomach now. And which ones provide me the MOST benefit.

ALL THAT SAID. There is a plot you can generate that could be semi-interesting, I suppose. And that is - Caloric threshold to get fat as a function of specific diet plan followed. And this would show that the worst diet imaginable would make you fat let's say at 1000-2000 calories and the best wouldn't crossover till maybe let's say 4000-5000 (or even more, just making up numbers). Clearly, it's 100x easier to get fat if it only takes 1000 calories as compared to 5000 though.

The thing is that I now believe hormones are the #1 driver for weight gain or loss above EVERYTHING ELSE - yes even the factors I am mentioning like SFA/PUFA, tryptophan, and calories also. In fact, it was this realization that led me to Ray Peat. It's virtually impossible to get fat if your androgens are high and estrogens are low. Diet manipulation is just one way to manipulate the hormones in your favor. Lyle mcdonald briefly touches on hormones in his CICO article, true, but he doesn't give it the respect it deserves when it's literally THE factor in weight gain or loss.

Measuring "metabolic rate" and "CICO" is only good for telling you at what point you gain or lose weight with your current specific diet. And tells you nothing about how to make your diet better so you can maximize the metabolic rate. Joe smoe can use his cute little fitbit and find he gains weight on 3200 calories. But all that tells him is he gains on 3200 calories with his current diet, lifestyle, and environment and usually all 3 are in our power to improve in our favor, or at least 1-2 of the three.