Introduction and Glad to be here!

[Dave_Fit]

Introduction. Not sure if this is the way to do this but here goes:

I'm new to the forum, but have been reading for over half a year. A little about me. I just turned 54, I am in good health relatively speaking (who is in good health in this world). I was turned onto the ideas of RP many months ago, because the diet I followed to lose 45 lbs in 6 months, was very Ray Peat in many ways. I didn't know it was at the time. (Basically no PUFA, increase SF, daily carrots) After I had lost about half of the 45 lbs I turned a friend on to the diet I was doing and he lost 55 lbs in 7 months. This just grew, and wound up helping a lot of people. My Mom who is Hypothyroid and has been on severely restricted calories for years wanted to try what I was doing. She has lost 24 lbs in the past 3 months and was able to substantially increase her calories. Like so many people on this forum I have always been interested in health and have tried numerous things over the years, Strict Keto, was even Vegan for a full year. These ways of eating just didn't live up to the promises and I always felt something was missing. It wasn't until someone pointed out that a lot of the diet I followed this past year reminded them of RP. So I looked him up, read almost all of his articles, and listened to somewhere near 100 interviews. It all makes sense now, the bioenergetic way of supporting your health. I had a lot right in what I was doing and some parts not so much. I have since switched the parts I felt were not right and I am still learning.

The cool part is as I have switched the non Peaty parts of what I was eating to more pro metabolic foods I have maintained my weight, currently 210 lbs, and this has been for the last 6 months. I'm 6' 4" and I lift weights 3x a week, I have done this for the past 36+ years. I eat 2 pastured eggs every day, I have a tiny amount of grass fed local beef liver daily M-F (by tiny I mean 1/2 an once), I eat gelatin regularly, drink a lot of OJ, drink a lot of raw milk with most of the cream poured off and some saved for coffee, I eat a few oysters as often as I can and recently found some canned in water! I have been eating a pint of Haagen Dazs before bed for the last 9 month. I eat a hand full of baby carrots every day. I also have switched almost all of my supplements to Idealabsdc (energin, tocovit, oxidal, mitolipin) @haidu and these have made a huge difference in my energy, workouts, and recovery. Georgi Dinkov Rocks!

Anyway nice to be here, and I look forward to getting to know you all, and continue learning more about the bioenergetic way of living.

~David

 

[Lilac]

Welcome, David! I am now suffering from weight-loss envy. I really have to get dedicated about the raw carrot. I will not be trying the pint of Haagen Dazs before bed.

 

[Dave_Fit]

Nice to meet you @Lilac

 

[Elie]

Thank you for sharing your experiences.
I would love to know details about your weight loss regimen. I can be wonderfully healthy and help others well, but weight loss has been a challenge.

 

[EasyPeaty]

Hello and we are fellow *new* members. I recently joined and have been reading this forum for the past year. Thank you for sharing about your metabolic journey.

 

[Dave_Fit]

@Elie Well, I stumbled onto a guy named Brad Marshall, he had something called the croissant diet. The idea came from Brads own struggle with weight loss and his background in biochemistry. He is also somewhat of a food historian. He observed that the French in the 60's ate a diet that contained carbs from white flour, sugar, saturated fat (SF), etc and were very lean. Without going into it all, the mechanism was increasing SF, while eliminating PUFA. Basically increasing the longer chain SF like 18 carbon stearic and 16 carbon palmitic acids, and keeping PUFA very low caused weight loss to occur.

After reading all of the science and papers Brad posted I decided to give it a try. I was 253 lbs, October of last year, I had a decent amount of muscle mass from lifting weights for 37+ years, but as i was turning 53 last October I was a little on the fluffy side, well maybe more than a little lol. I dove in at first making sure to eat more SF, butter, heavy cream, 80/20 ground beef etc. I wanted to make sure I was getting all my micro nutrients too so I used an app to track my food and nutrients. The app was called cronometer. at that time I had recently played around with my calories and tracked them and had a good idea that 3200 calories would maintain my weight. I tested this the first week and 3200 was the right number not to loose or gain. I decided a very mild 10% reduction in calories was the right idea. This was my idea, not what I gathered from Brad Marshalls writing. I began loosing weight pretty rapidly by eliminating all sources of PUFA and increasing my SF. Many years ago I was a personal trainer so some of these ideas influenced my decisions. I created a meal plan based on what I felt were the right calories for me. I settled on eating 2900 calories a day, but twice a week I would eat 3200 or a little more to prevent my metabolisms from crashing.

The first 6 weeks I lost 20 lbs, then over the next 5 months I lost another 25 lbs. At my lowest I got down to 206, which I felt was a little too thin. I slowly climbed back up to 210 and have maintained that for roughly the last 6 months. I am 6' 4" tall.

My meal plan for breakfast was a butter croissant with roast beef, and cheese for breakfast with a smoothie I made with 3 oz of OJ, 2 oz unsweetened cranberry juice, 1.5 oz baby spinach, and 1.5 tbsp of stearic acid powder. (this is not required for it to work, I have helped many people with this and their a lot who are not doing this smoothie) I also don't drink this anymore but it is what i did while I lost the weight. 3 times a week I had an egg at breakfast too.

For lunch I had 5.3 oz (1/3 lb) 80/20 ground beef, well salted, Mashed potatoes made with butter and cream cheese, plenty of salt. I also ate 3 baby carrots.

Dinner was typically 5-7 oz of some protein usually beef, lamb, occasionally chicken breast. I also had a around a cup of starch, rice, potato, noodles, usually with butter or heavy cream.

Before bed most nights I ate a pint of haagen dazs Ice cream. (usually chocolate)

I was eating roughly 165 grams of carbs, 165 grams protein, 165 grams fat, I kept my PUFA below 7 grams a day.

After I lost the first 20 lbs my buddy noticed and wanted to know what I was doing. He was 297 lbs, he got on the plan and dropped all the way down to 243 lbs in 7 months.

At some point a lot of people started asking what i was doing and so I started helping a few other people. Another friend lost 25, Several others lost 10-20 lbs. My Mom who is Hypothyroid wanted to try it, she has been on a starvation level of calories for years. She now eats more and has lost 24 lbs in the past 10-12 weeks. My wife who has a Youtube channel suggested I start one too so I did. You can find it by looking for Dave Fit. or croissant diet. I don't eat exactly this same way anymore, after people telling me many of the things i was doing reminded them of Ray Peat, I dug into all his published articles, and watched countless Youtube interviews with him. I also found Danny Roddy, and Georgi Dinkov. Based on what I learned I reduced my SF a great deal, and increased my consumption of OJ, milk, added oysters, a little liver, a couple pastured eggs every day, etc. I now eat roughly 400 grams of carbs, 165 grams of protein, and around 110 grams of fat a day. I am able to maintain my weight with this.

A lot of people say my metabolism wasn't broken and this is why it worked for me. While I agree on a certain level, It's hard to explain it working for my Hypothyroid mother, or my very heavy friend. I would not say they were pictures of health. I am not suggesting what i did is the right thing to do. It is something I tried and it worked for me, also as far as weight loss is concerned it has worked for many others too. I think that there is a lot of fatty acid oxidation that happens with this diet which RP wouldn't like. I agree with that thinking now, I just didn't know about it back then. However many of the parts are as I have discovered very much in line with Ray's ideas. Certainly eliminating PUFA, eating more SF, even the haagen dazs which I found helped me sleep really well and kept my cortisol low, as well as the daily carrots are in line with Ray's ideas. Now my diet has more of RP ideas incorporated and I am working toward keeping my nutrition very pro metabolic.

Hope this helps

~David

 

[Peatness]

 

[Dave_Fit]

Glad to be here @Pina

 

[Ignoramus]

I saw a video of yours; you look great man!

I was wondering what your reasoning is behind consuming fish oil?

 

[Dave_Fit]

I saw a video of yours; you look great man!

I was wondering what your reasoning is behind consuming fish oil?

Thank you! I don't consume it anymore. I didn't know it was bad when I started the diet, there was some rational that it helped. Since finding Ray and seeing how much everything makes sense I deleted it many months ago.

 

[Smell The Ashes]

Good to see you here Dave, I'm a fellow read of /r/saturatedfat and followed a lot of your content. I like the way you have brought a lot of the ideas into a digestible format for newbies to the Brad Marshall/Peaty way of thinking.

I'm curious when you say you've moved more away from the croissant diet ideas to a more bioenergetic approach, have you ditched the croissants sandwhiches? What other changes have you made? I seem to remember you didn't mention you drank milk in your videos is that something you've increased your intake of?

 

[Dave_Fit]

Good to see you here Dave, I'm a fellow read of /r/saturatedfat and followed a lot of your content. I like the way you have brought a lot of the ideas into a digestible format for newbies to the Brad Marshall/Peaty way of thinking.

I'm curious when you say you've moved more away from the croissant diet ideas to a more bioenergetic approach, have you ditched the croissants sandwhiches? What other changes have you made? I seem to remember you didn't mention you drank milk in your videos is that something you've increased your intake of?

Thank you! Well I used TCD to lose the weight. Once I got down to the weight I wanted, I kept researching about the dangers of PUFA’s etc. got tuned into Ray, and after assimilating a lot of info, I ditched fish oil many months ago, then I increased calcium via milk, I decreased SF from 50% of calories to about 28% and replaced those calories with carbs, milk, OJ, etc. I now consume about 400 grams carbs a day 300+ from simple sugars, lactose, fructose, sucrose. I don’t think I could have done this to start but who knows. I still don’t/won’t eat PUFA’s and my fat is still butter, cream, eggs, beef etc. if I wanted to help someone lose I’d still use TCD. Once they were in a better place I’d experiment with increasing simple sugars for some of the SF. Hope this makes sense. One was a weight loss diet, what I’m doing now is maintenance for life! Still learning and plan to share more soon.

 

[Elie]

@Elie Well, I stumbled onto a guy named Brad Marshall, he had something called the croissant diet. The idea came from Brads own struggle with weight loss and his background in biochemistry. He is also somewhat of a food historian. He observed that the French in the 60's ate a diet that contained carbs from white flour, sugar, saturated fat (SF), etc and were very lean. Without going into it all, the mechanism was increasing SF, while eliminating PUFA. Basically increasing the longer chain SF like 18 carbon stearic and 16 carbon palmitic acids, and keeping PUFA very low caused weight loss to occur.

After reading all of the science and papers Brad posted I decided to give it a try. I was 253 lbs, October of last year, I had a decent amount of muscle mass from lifting weights for 37+ years, but as i was turning 53 last October I was a little on the fluffy side, well maybe more than a little lol. I dove in at first making sure to eat more SF, butter, heavy cream, 80/20 ground beef etc. I wanted to make sure I was getting all my micro nutrients too so I used an app to track my food and nutrients. The app was called cronometer. at that time I had recently played around with my calories and tracked them and had a good idea that 3200 calories would maintain my weight. I tested this the first week and 3200 was the right number not to loose or gain. I decided a very mild 10% reduction in calories was the right idea. This was my idea, not what I gathered from Brad Marshalls writing. I began loosing weight pretty rapidly by eliminating all sources of PUFA and increasing my SF. Many years ago I was a personal trainer so some of these ideas influenced my decisions. I created a meal plan based on what I felt were the right calories for me. I settled on eating 2900 calories a day, but twice a week I would eat 3200 or a little more to prevent my metabolisms from crashing.

The first 6 weeks I lost 20 lbs, then over the next 5 months I lost another 25 lbs. At my lowest I got down to 206, which I felt was a little too thin. I slowly climbed back up to 210 and have maintained that for roughly the last 6 months. I am 6' 4" tall.

My meal plan for breakfast was a butter croissant with roast beef, and cheese for breakfast with a smoothie I made with 3 oz of OJ, 2 oz unsweetened cranberry juice, 1.5 oz baby spinach, and 1.5 tbsp of stearic acid powder. (this is not required for it to work, I have helped many people with this and their a lot who are not doing this smoothie) I also don't drink this anymore but it is what i did while I lost the weight. 3 times a week I had an egg at breakfast too.

For lunch I had 5.3 oz (1/3 lb) 80/20 ground beef, well salted, Mashed potatoes made with butter and cream cheese, plenty of salt. I also ate 3 baby carrots.

Dinner was typically 5-7 oz of some protein usually beef, lamb, occasionally chicken breast. I also had a around a cup of starch, rice, potato, noodles, usually with butter or heavy cream.

Before bed most nights I ate a pint of haagen dazs Ice cream. (usually chocolate)

I was eating roughly 165 grams of carbs, 165 grams protein, 165 grams fat, I kept my PUFA below 7 grams a day.

After I lost the first 20 lbs my buddy noticed and wanted to know what I was doing. He was 297 lbs, he got on the plan and dropped all the way down to 243 lbs in 7 months.

At some point a lot of people started asking what i was doing and so I started helping a few other people. Another friend lost 25, Several others lost 10-20 lbs. My Mom who is Hypothyroid wanted to try it, she has been on a starvation level of calories for years. She now eats more and has lost 24 lbs in the past 10-12 weeks. My wife who has a Youtube channel suggested I start one too so I did. You can find it by looking for Dave Fit. or croissant diet. I don't eat exactly this same way anymore, after people telling me many of the things i was doing reminded them of Ray Peat, I dug into all his published articles, and watched countless Youtube interviews with him. I also found Danny Roddy, and Georgi Dinkov. Based on what I learned I reduced my SF a great deal, and increased my consumption of OJ, milk, added oysters, a little liver, a couple pastured eggs every day, etc. I now eat roughly 400 grams of carbs, 165 grams of protein, and around 110 grams of fat a day. I am able to maintain my weight with this.

A lot of people say my metabolism wasn't broken and this is why it worked for me. While I agree on a certain level, It's hard to explain it working for my Hypothyroid mother, or my very heavy friend. I would not say they were pictures of health. I am not suggesting what i did is the right thing to do. It is something I tried and it worked for me, also as far as weight loss is concerned it has worked for many others too. I think that there is a lot of fatty acid oxidation that happens with this diet which RP wouldn't like. I agree with that thinking now, I just didn't know about it back then. However many of the parts are as I have discovered very much in line with Ray's ideas. Certainly eliminating PUFA, eating more SF, even the haagen dazs which I found helped me sleep really well and kept my cortisol low, as well as the daily carrots are in line with Ray's ideas. Now my diet has more of RP ideas incorporated and I am working toward keeping my nutrition very pro metabolic.

Hope this helps

~David

Hi Dave
Thank you for the detailed response.
Is there anything special about the carbohydrates and fat characters of croissant or is it more about an equitable distribution of macros (in grams) with slight calorie reduction? For me it would be 135g fat (minimal PUFA), 135 carbs, 135 protein.
Where can we find your content?

 

[Dave_Fit]

Hi Dave
Thank you for the detailed response.
Is there anything special about the carbohydrates and fat characters of croissant or is it more about an equitable distribution of macros (in grams) with slight calorie reduction? For me it would be 135g fat (minimal PUFA), 135 carbs, 135 protein.
Where can we find your content?

There is nothing special about croissants other than they are a good vehicle for carrying SF. The diet was modeled after the French, so it was just a cheeky nod to that. The prime tenants of the diet is to remove PUFA, and increase long chain SF. As far as ratio's go they were not suggested, those were my own. I just started with a base of around 0.8 grams of protein per lb of lean body weight. The mechanism as it is explained (and this surely isn't Peaty at all) is that longer chain SF like palmitic (16 carbon) and stearic (18 carbon) over run the electron transport chain of the mitochondria and cause reverse electron transport. You can find out more about that on Brad's website fireinabottle.net. Without getting into the science, what happens is you wind up burning a lot more fat, particularly around the middle. This was true for me and numerous people I helped. I was a size 36 waist for at least 20 years, occasionally dipping down to a 35/34 with various practices. On the croissant diet I dropped down to a size 32 which is a bit loose and have maintained that for 6 months after loosing all the weight I wanted to lose.

As for the calorie reduction this was my own idea as well. From prior experience in competing in bodybuilding many years ago (25y) and at a very amateur and local level. I just felt a mild calorie restriction was in order to kick start it and to prevent hormones crashing from excess stress . The first few weeks I actually exceeded my maintenance calories by quite a bit and still lost (obviously my metabolic rate increased or I would not have been able to lose). I have seen this with others too, but it is short lived in my experience. I think getting rid of the PUFA allowed my thyroid to work and likely mine and others go a little hyper once the PUFA was removed but this seems to be short lived. This is only a guess, or a way for me to wrap my head around what happened. It seems people I have helped have had more success than others I hear form online who have tried it, so likely there is something to the ratio's and mild calorie reduction. Also everyone is in their own unique metabolic state, which is likely why it may not have worked for some.

I noticed and many others too that the weight can come off quick at first, then you hit a stall, just stick with it and weight will start dropping again, albeit slower than in the beginning for most. When people hit a stall I have routinely suggested they eat a couple more tablespoons of butter for a few days on top of what they have been eating, in almost all cases this results in them starting to drop weight again. It is crazy and seems counterintuitive but that has been my experience.

I can be found on YouTube by searching for Dave Fit, or Croissant diet.

While I was doing the diet people were asking lots of questions which caused me to dig in and research to try and give them the best answers I could. At first I was definitely convinced that PUFA's made you fat. Later after watching Dr. Chris Knobe, and Tucker Carlson I began to think PUFA's were toxic. This lead me to Dr. Peat. since all of this diet is based around the mitochondria and how different substrates effect it. The more I read and watched the more the whole bioenergetic view made sense. Because I was drinking from a fire hose, listening to every Peat interview I could, reading all of his posts, and found Danny Roddy as well as @haidut Georgi Dinkov, my view on a lot of this has changed. Not that the diet doesn't work, it most certainly does for many, but that once I lost the weight I wanted to increase my carbs and lower my Fat intake. So for the past 6 months I have basically replaced a large portion of my fat intake with simple sugars. I was already a huge advocate of getting your micros from food (eggs, liver, oysters etc.), so this wasn't an issue. I will point out the croissant diet isn't fully Peaty imho but many parts of it are. Oddly I was already eating baby carrots daily before finding RP.

I see people saying that starch and fat make you fat. Here is the question I have with that, the statement singles out a carbohydrate type (starch) but leaves the fat type open. I would ask do you think poly, mono, or saturated make you fat? Then more specifically which SF if they believe that SF does too? I saw a mouse study where they fed obesogenic mice (they have to be, apparently it's really tough to make a regular mouse fat) different fat types, one group was fed 30% of their diet Polyunsaturated fat (soybean oil), one was fed 30% monounsaturated (olive oil), and one was fed 30% saturated (stearic acid). At the end of the study the soy fed mice looked like obese balloons, the olive oil mice were a little fatter than before they started, and the stearic acid fed mice were extremely lean. This was an isocaloric study where they all got the same diet and same calories with only the fat substrate changed. I read that whole study almost 8 months ago, looked at all the pictures, graphs, etc. I have yet to be able to locate the study again. I am actually planning to repeat the study just for my own edification just to see if I can duplicate the results.

Anyway I hope this helps.

~David

 

[Dave_Fit]

Good to see you here Dave, I'm a fellow read of /r/saturatedfat and followed a lot of your content. I like the way you have brought a lot of the ideas into a digestible format for newbies to the Brad Marshall/Peaty way of thinking.

I'm curious when you say you've moved more away from the croissant diet ideas to a more bioenergetic approach, have you ditched the croissants sandwhiches? What other changes have you made? I seem to remember you didn't mention you drank milk in your videos is that something you've increased your intake of?

I changed my diet to be more in line with the bioenergetic way of eating after TCD got me to where I wanted to be. I was eating an equal distribution of approximately 165 grams ea. of carbs, fats and protein while loosing. Yes I have ditched the croissants but only because I lost all the weight. If I wanted to lose I would go right back to it, with only a few minor tweaks. Now my carbs are around 400 grams, protein is still 165, and fat is around 100. While on TCD my calcium was coming from cheese and haagen dazs primarily. Now I drink around 28 ounces of raw milk a day, and around the same in OJ. I still have my 1/3 lb ground beef with 1/4 ounce of liver for lunch M-F but the beef is 93/7 instead of 80/20. I have baby carrots with lunch too. I usually have a serving of something I call Ray Peat Gelatin. I mix 1/2 cup of unflavored gelatin with 2 cans of sweetened condensed fat free milk and 50 ounces of OJ. This makes roughly 6 servings. Dinner is still 5-7 ounces of some protein with milk. I still have a pint of haagen Dazs almost every evening. Now I am eating between 3400-3500 calories daily, while I was loosing I averaged 2900 calories daily.

 

[David PS]

I changed my diet to be more in line with the bioenergetic way of eating after TCD got me to where I wanted to be. I was eating an equal distribution of approximately 165 grams ea. of carbs, fats and protein while loosing. Yes I have ditched the croissants but only because I lost all the weight. If I wanted to lose I would go right back to it, with only a few minor tweaks. Now my carbs are around 400 grams, protein is still 165, and fat is around 100. While on TCD my calcium was coming from cheese and haagen dazs primarily. Now I drink around 28 ounces of raw milk a day, and around the same in OJ. I still have my 1/3 lb ground beef with 1/4 ounce of liver for lunch M-F but the beef is 93/7 instead of 80/20. I have baby carrots with lunch too. I usually have a serving of something I call Ray Peat Gelatin. I mix 1/2 cup of unflavored gelatin with 2 cans of sweetened condensed fat free milk and 50 ounces of OJ. This makes roughly 6 servings. Dinner is still 5-7 ounces of some protein with milk. I still have a pint of haagen Dazs almost every evening. Now I am eating between 3400-3500 calories daily, while I was loosing I averaged 2900 calories daily.

Welcome and it is good to learn about your success. One possible tweak to consider (if you are not already doing it) is to eat organic carrots. Some of the baby cut carrots are organic but others are not. I prefer natural carrots. It does not bother me if my carrots are long and ugly.

​

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFp-7B0yhAc​

​

 

[Dave_Fit]

Welcome and it is good to learn about your success. One possible tweak to consider (if you are not already doing it) is to eat organic carrots. Some of the baby cut carrots are organic but others are not. I prefer natural carrots. It does not bother me if my carrots are long and ugly.

​

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFp-7B0yhAc​

​

Thank you and yes I do try to buy organic when they are available. Also I plan to grow our own in our garden this coming year, well they wont be baby lol.

 

[charlie]

@Dave_Fit

 

[Dave_Fit]

@Dave_Fit

Thank you @charlie it feels like home already!

 

[Dave_Fit]

Welcome and it is good to learn about your success. One possible tweak to consider (if you are not already doing it) is to eat organic carrots. Some of the baby cut carrots are organic but others are not. I prefer natural carrots. It does not bother me if my carrots are long and ugly.

​

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFp-7B0yhAc​

Just watched that video. Geeze it’s so depressing how contaminated our food supply is.​