Do Carbohydrates Turn Into Fat?

[yoshiesque]

Yah that'll do it!

Do you happen to know how many calories you were getting?

A week isn't a long time. Maybe the weight you gained was water + glycogen? Sort of like a carb load.

Thats hard to say. I dont count calories but I have done this for so long that I have intuition now on how much portions I need.

I am certain its fat, because it doesnt go away, and i have tried it for more than a week before. Its a consistent pattern.

After reading Nathans post and some others around here, I have come to conclusion that its just a matter of insulin resistance and glucose oxidation issues. So reversing that is key. And if you cant tolerate too much sugar in the mean time, switch to fruits and OJ. I will be adding white sugars and coke once my weight is under control. Also i think coconut oil (1-3 teaspoons) a day seem to help with weight loss. I avoid fat apart from 2 eggs in the morning, coconut oil in carrot salad, and some butter at night that goes well with my casein and honey mix. I drink low fat milk and plenty of salt.

 

[Giraffe]

It appears this is basically a myth, the process of dietary carbs -> fat in adipose tissue is extremely inefficient to the point of being insignificant.

The Carb-Sane Asylum: De Novo Lipogenesis Again (and Science and Science Reporting)

From the blog post:

Does this [DNL] occur? Yes. Is it significant? Only if you consider a couple grams fat synthesis per day significant at the metabolic cost "wasting" one gram carb for every four grams converted to fat ... and only if you consider a few grams of fat significant in the context of consuming 100, 200 or more grams of fat that is already fat.

So they say to get 36 kcal from fat you waste 4 kcal from carbs? That doesn't sound terribly inefficient to me.

.....

The argumentation in the blog article is based on this study. Though the study says in the title "overfeeding with sucrose or glucose", 40% of the energy actually came from fat. The participants in the control group where given enough calories to meet their demands. The intervention group got 50% extra calories.

The following is a little oversimplified:

There is what is called "the hierarchy for substrate oxidation": the stuff that is the most difficult to store, is burned first. So in the control diet all of the carbs were either burned or used to replenish glycogen stores in liver and muscles, and the fats were burned, too. In the intervention group, the fat got stored, and some of the carbs were converted to fat to get stored.

There was so much fat in the diet, that only a few grams of carbohydrats needed to get converted. That's the only reason why the total amount appears "not significant".

So eating in excess of your needs causes weight gain. That was the point of that blog-post.

Glycogen storage capacity and de novo lipogenesis during massive carbohydrate overfeeding in man. - PubMed - NCBI

When the glycogen stores are saturated, massive intakes of carbohydrate are disposed of by high carbohydrate-oxidation rates and substantial de novo lipid synthesis (150 g lipid/d using approximately 475 g CHO/d) without postabsorptive hyperglycemia.

 

[ecstatichamster]

I'm doing starch because I think too much fructose sugar was converting into fat for me. i'm keeping fat as close to zero as possible. A few eggs a day is most of the fat I'm getting, with a tiny bit of butter and coconut oil. I'm feeling good on this diet. Not losing weight but losing waistline. I shall persist.

But I am now a believer, I think cutting back sugar in general, and fructose in particular, made me stop holding onto fat.

The explanation is that I was converting some of that sugar into fat through DNL after all. I think maybe having a fatty liver causes that conversion to up regulate?

This is review, not a study:

Hyperinsulinemia promotes the transcriptional upregulation of genes that promote de novo lipogenesis in the liver. Increased hepatic lipid accumulation is not offset by fatty acid oxidation or by increased secretion rates of triglyceride-rich lipoproteins.

 

[tara]

I believe Haidut drinks real sugar Pepsi so no fructose there.

?

Real sugar Pepsi still has 50% fructose of its sugar, No?

Yip.
That'd be about 10% sucrose, ie about 5% fructose, right? ~50g fructose/l?

Most people do not consume that amount of sugar in one meal, let alone in ten minutes.

Most people don't, and I agree with you that Strongbad and others have been advised not to do extreme things that aren't working for them.

Except for hardcore Peaters and fruitians. With all the recommendations in this forum to drink lots of OJ & milk, eat lots of ice cream while avoiding starch (due to endotoxin), it's easy to hit over 100% of sugar within 10 minutes. Since starch is out of question, sucrose / fructore is the primary source of carbs.

I remember when I was 100% Peating and following the recommendations here 2 years ago, 100g of sugar per meal was minimum.

Notwithstanding that this is not my interpretation of 'hardcore' or '100% Peating', and I wouldn't be doing it myself or recommending it, there certainly are a lot of recommendations for it here, and quite a few people trying to do it.
At 100-150g/day protein, 6 meals a day, with no starch, very low fat, and no calorie restriction for weight-control etc, that could easily be 100g or more of sugar in some of those meals. More if one tried to run on fewer meals, or work exceptionally hard, etc.

and substantial de novo lipid synthesis (150 g lipid/d using approximately 475 g CHO/d)

Yeah, that looks significant to me too.
150g/day > over 50kg/year.

 

[tara]

I'm doing starch because I think too much fructose sugar was converting into fat for me. i'm keeping fat as close to zero as possible. A few eggs a day is most of the fat I'm getting, with a tiny bit of butter and coconut oil. I'm feeling good on this diet. Not losing weight but losing waistline. I shall persist.

I've not made this change for the purpose of weight/fat loss, but I can report that eating more starch and less sugar has been at least consistent with it (if not causal - who knows, with all the other factors). I was guided by a combination of tastes, energy stability, and starting to feel sick from large mounts of sugar.

 

[Westside PUFAs]

On days I take a break from my standard low-fat diet to have high calorie "cheat" meals (with the extra calories generally from fat), I notice rapid heart rate, feelings of dissociation, and low-ish blood sugar. It's particularly bad early in the day, which seems like a clue.

I've found that for me fasting for as long as I can pre-junk food/high fat and post helps to reduce the negative effects. If I know it's gonna be a junk food day or high fat/high flour day, I just have one cup of water upon waking. The sociology of eating junk usually doesn't start until around noon so I've already been fasting since my last meal the previous night. Then after the meal, having the determination to not eat anything else until the next day helps to reduce the negative effects, not completely, bet definitely helps. There's always a price to pay for indulging on junk. As far as non-junk but high fat days or "clean" fats, I think the fasting principle is the same as the junk days. Fast before and after either way. I find a little water to help.

.

 

[Dan W]

Thanks as usual, WP. So far it's helped to delay the fat intake until midday, so somewhat similar to what you're doing. Still confused on why early-day fat seems to cause me problems, but at least I have a good enough solution for the moment.

Does your fast -> cheat meal -> fast pattern make your cheat days hypocaloric, similar to what tyw mentions doing? I'm doing hypercaloric days with a vague idea of sending my body the message "it's safe to maintain muscle and metabolism." But I can't back that up with anything other than having read this "calorie shifting" study abstract.

 

[Amazoniac]

But I can't back that up with anything

You don't need to back it up, you're Dan Wich. Your impressions are like revelations of the truth.

 

[Westside PUFAs]

Still confused on why early-day fat seems to cause me problems, but at least I have a good enough solution for the moment.

Maybe it has something to do with the timing of hormones from your circadian rhythm. It's probably not likely to change unless you adapted to HFLC over time somehow because you usually eat HCLF so it will probably always have that effect. But maybe not. It could be a nutrient deficiency but saying that the founder and CEO of Toxinless.com has a nutrient deficiency is like saying Ray Peat is hypothyroid. It's just a crazy thing to say.

Does your fast -> cheat meal -> fast pattern make your cheat days hypocaloric, similar to what tyw mentions doing?

It depends on how much I indulge. I would hope so but I'm sure there are times when the calories are very high. But most of the time yes it's on the low side. Just a quick hit of the super crack dopamine foods and then I try to forget about it. But I will be reminded of it from the constipation that ensues which in turn causes other things like messing up my sleep because I'll be woken up with my colon in pain and/or something having to come out right away. It's usually never worth it and every time I beg for mercy I always say that I'll never do it again but of course that Friday or Saturday night comes around and that social event comes around and there I am ingesting it again. Sticking to a "clean" diet is very socially isolating. The only way to make it not socially isolating is to become an early bird every single day of the week and befriend people who are into "clean" eating so that you get together and make "clean" foods together and everyones colon is happy.

As far as non-junk but high fat home "clean" eating, I don't think the effects are even close to the junk but I will still feel very sluggish and "fatted out" and clogged and sludged up if it's too much fat for too long. My body is used to that sugar and protein coming down the pipe so I'm sure it's like WTF when it's too much SFA coming down too often.

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[Dan W]

Amazoniac, you're confusing me with pboy again. It's my fault though, I never should've bought this hyper-realistic pboy mask.

And WP, I've had the same type of experiences. Do you know of any particular nutrients to keep an eye on for fat-handling issues? I should plaster Toxinless with disclaimers that I only have enough intelligence to enjoy making comparative lists, not enough to actually understand this crazy world of health.

I've also wondered if there's some circadian variation in gut function, reaction to endotoxin, etc.

 

[Westside PUFAs]

Do you know of any particular nutrients to keep an eye on for fat-handling issues?

I feel like Mg helps with it.

I've also wondered if there's some circadian variation in gut function, reaction to endotoxin, etc.

Intersting.

.

 

[Gadsie]

Threshold for making fat from carbs I guess... also I think for a given body size, there's a certain amount of sugar that can enter the cells in a given time, no matter how "insulin sensitive" you are. So basically you will always be above "fasting blood sugar" except maybe at night, so almost 100% of the fat you eat, even if it's just a few grams, it will be stored and not burned. That's just my take on it, but indeed I felt like there was constantly sugar entering my blood. Any breaks in eating would mean not reaching my target calories.

Bumping an old thread here, but I have been thinking about this. According to every study and opinion I've ever read (I know @tyw and @Westside PUFAs have said this as well, I can't find it anymore), you're always burning at least a little bit of fat, even if your diet is very high carb low fat. This would mean that if you eat extremely low fat, those few grams should be burned as well, even if you constantly have above fasting blood sugar. Would love for somebody to fill me in on this.

 

[tca300]

Human fatty acid synthesis is stimulated by a eucaloric low fat, high carbohydrate diet.
Are carbs stored as fat?

 

[Wagner83]

Human fatty acid synthesis is stimulated by a eucaloric low fat, high carbohydrate diet.

"By day 10, VLDL triglyceride was markedly enriched in palmitate and deficient in linoleate in all subjects on the low fat diet. Newly synthesized fatty acids accounted for 44 +/- 10% of the VLDL triglyceride. Mass isotopomer distribution analysis of palmitate labeled with intravenously infused 13C-acetate confirmed that increased palmitate synthesis was the likely cause for the accumulation of triglyceride palmitate and "dilution" of linoleate."

From the other link: "so the excess carbs were used for regular metabolism plus the extra 35%. Glycogen storage was maxed out – much of the 10 pounds they gained was water that accompanied said glycogen (not fat from DNL)." I have a a tendency to put on water weight even on pretty low fat, it could be many different things but curious about this quote.

 

[tca300]

"By day 10, VLDL triglyceride was markedly enriched in palmitate and deficient in linoleate in all subjects on the low fat diet. Newly synthesized fatty acids accounted for 44 +/- 10% of the VLDL triglyceride. Mass isotopomer distribution analysis of palmitate labeled with intravenously infused 13C-acetate confirmed that increased palmitate synthesis was the likely cause for the accumulation of triglyceride palmitate and "dilution" of linoleate."

From the other link: "so the excess carbs were used for regular metabolism plus the extra 35%. Glycogen storage was maxed out – much of the 10 pounds they gained was water that accompanied said glycogen (not fat from DNL)." I have a a tendency to put on water weight even on pretty low fat, it could be many different things but curious about this quote.

After spending a year at about 8% kcals coming from fat, I dropped it even lower a few weeks ago ( about ~ 2 -3% ). Every now and then I would take a day and up fat intake to about 15 -17% and noticed visable water retention between skin and muscle, but lost a pound or two according to the scale ( less water in muscles I think ) Maybe after the body predominately adapts to a particular energy substance, adding a good amount of another messes with quality energy production.

Things were weird for about a month when I originally dropped fat intake to under 10%, but then became better than ever afterwards.

 

[Gadsie]

After spending a year at about 8% kcals coming from fat, I dropped it even lower a few weeks ago ( about ~ 2 -3% ). Every now and then I would take a day and up fat intake to about 15 -17% and noticed visable water retention between skin and muscle, but lost a pound or two according to the scale ( less water in muscles I think ) Maybe after the body predominately adapts to a particular energy substance, adding a good amount of another messes with quality energy production.

Things were weird for about a month when I originally dropped fat intake to under 10%, but then became better than ever afterwards.

I wonder if you could become super shredded (lean) overnight by suddenly going low carb high fat (and low calorie) for a day, because you would suddenly lose all that water weight. Given that you're already pretty lean of course. Thanks for the studies btw, will check them out.

 

[James IV]

Eating sufficient fat in your diet will give you a smoother appearance, because you will store more fat subcutaneously. This is a good thing, if you like looking younger.

 

[James IV]

Eating sufficient fat in your diet will give you a smoother appearance, because you will store more fat subcutaneously. This is a good thing, if you prefer looking younger, as opposed to maximal leaness/dryness.

 

[tca300]

Eating sufficient fat in your diet will give you a smoother appearance, because you will store more fat subcutaneously. This is a good thing, if you like looking younger.

Yup old fat people have less wrinkles.

 

[tca300]

> Do you think a low fat diet is bad for skin health and might contribute to its premature aging and wrinkling? Or is sugar and protein sufficient for skin health? Thank you!

" We can make fat from protein and carbohydrate; proteins, vitamins, and minerals are the main things for skin health. " Ray Peat


> If I may ask a quick question please. About how many grams of fat per day do you think is nessesary for vitamins A,D,E, and K absorption? Thank you very much!

" Those oily vitamins can be absorbed through the skin, tongue and mouth membranes, etc., besides the intestinal absorption, so it isn’t an all or nothing thing. " Ray Peat