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

[Sourdoughbanana]

@JustAGuy i do notice better sleep from more zinc, sodium and potassium in check give me a much better look when it comes to water retention. I’m around 10% fat on DXA scans and any water retention is quickly noticed. On a high everything MINERALS it doesn’t matter. Maybe your friends who don’t care are younger than I am? I couldn’t give less of a damn when I was 25. Now I’m 30 and my face compared to 6 months ago is like I took a major face lift. That’s my experience with the high minerals (and vitamins) load. Aaaand low fat low protein.

I’ve observed the same thing when it comes to meal sizes and stick to 500ish KCal per meal. 6-7 meals a day like a good gym bro eh.

@Cirion looks DO matter I’m not sure what your bias is but looks absolutely matter. I went from n=10 skinny unhealthy low bf% such as what you describe to being unstoppable on the same low bf% and jacked. N=70+ I don’t even know. Current GF is fantastic, smart, smokeshow, probably the one. There’s no way going above 20% is better than keeping it in the low teens. So for as long as someone isn’t “fixed”, telling them to get fat and hope for the best and looks don’t matter is some kind of delusion.

 

[Cirion]

You probably have healthy hormonal levels then and that's what makes you attractive not the looks. Yes looks can help no doubt, but if that's all you got going for you, and you have no confidence (which comes from healthy hormonal levels) then it won't do anything. I maintained a lean body for around 4 years and no girls ever looked at me twice - because my hormone levels were trash and thus I had zero confidence / lots of depression etc and that's not attractive to anybody. Just ask any girl and they'll tell you they love confidence. Even grossly overweight (300 lb) men who are extremely confident have more success with women than someone with an 8 pack but severe depression due to chronic eating disorders. BTW you're also not that old. I doubt you would have had such an easy time at 40. In my 20's I could get away with all sorts of diets too, but once I hit 30, it was like hitting a brick wall.

Never said high body fat is better than lower body fat. What I did allude to is the fact that many people who are lower body fat are unhealthier than people who are higher body fat because the vast majority of people in fitness culture get lean via harsh, high stress methods (excessive exercise, chronic under-eating). Both of these methods drive stress up, which primes the body to gain fat quickly after stopping the diet. Neither did I say that people should get fat or stay fat. Being fat does imply something is wrong generally, but being lean does not always imply that something is right, because if it did I wouldn't have been simultaneously ripped but chronically depressed. A lot of times getting somewhat overweight is required because the body has been chronically stressed a long time. Unless you can change your environment to bring stress down, the only recourse you have is diet + supplementation. If then you refuse to eat more to bring down stress, the only recourse at that point is supplementation, and supplementation alone will NOT bring down stress, except perhaps good ol' vitamin S. Once stress is brought down finally, and thyroid is healed, then you can consider methods to GENTLY coax the body into weight loss. Only then can you achieve lasting sustainable weight loss. Only through putting the body in a low stress mode can weight loss be sustainable.

Getting to low body fat % *while being healthy* is a noble goal, one that I have nothing against. What I'm against is people trying to force weight loss in the vain hope that will make them healthy. It doesn't. Health first, weight second. Not weight first, health second.

Haidut said it best - Hormones are what drive everything, fat loss, muscle gain, confidence, success in career, dating, etc etc. You can not achieve optimal hormones while depriving yourself of calories.

 

[Sourdoughbanana]

I agree with most of the above. All I’m saying is 15% is a reasonable body fat to maintain. And going beyond that is more than likely to be detrimental because of the excess adipose tissue being vastly pro inflammatory and an endocrine disruptor. Depending on how much of it is visceral vs subcutaneous - that’s one of the only things that is genetic 100%. So yeah nothing we don’t know already.

Well if you’re opposing extremes then yeah added fluff is better than single digit bony & depressed. Abs on a skinny guy don’t count just like boobs on a fat girl

I definitely hit a diet brick wall last year. I’m glad I reacted pronto. Stuff was spiraling down quick.

The low body fat obsession is driven by men who aren’t natural. Easy to get down to a real single digit % when your body is full of Androgens 24/7.

 

[Cirion]

I actually would be OK with the stress method to obtain a lean body if it wasn't for one small (large) problem. It can take upwards of years to recover from that, depending on the severity and duration of stress and your current age. I mentioned a while back that Lyle Mcdonald claims it can only take 2 weeks to recover from a diet hormonally, which I think is how a lot of people have got misled because people love to quote guys like him over at www.bodybuilding.com If it only truly took 2 weeks, then that'd be awesome... sadly reality is a harsh mistress. Maybe my definition of "recovery" is different than most. I have a goal to eventually get my T levels very high (around 1000 ng/DL). That takes a long time of living a low stress, calorie rich / vitamin rich diet and takes years. You may be able to get back to 400-600 ng/DL in a few weeks, possibly even 2 weeks if you're young, but from 500-1000 takes a long time of deliberate work to get to.

Again, yeah, going over 15% is not great or ideal, but sometimes it can be necessary in the short term, I'm definitely over 15% now but I would not have been able to achieve the pulses and temps I have now without doing so. Except for my waking temps and pulses I'm doing pretty decently now, that's the last thing I have to conquer before I can finally probably start to lose weight in a health manner. I don't plan to be fat forever, if that wasn't clear before. I definitely plan to be lean again one day, but when my body is ready for it to happen, not forcing it this go around. If I can get my hormone levels at a very high level, it'll happen naturally.

 

[JustAGuy]

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

So what kind of body fat do you maintain on such a high sugar diet?
I have never seen anyone in my surrounding thrive on a diet with sugar as a main source of calories. For me it’s never satiating, I get hungry quickly again, also seem to wake up after sleeping 1-2 hours on high sugar whereas with starch I sleep through the night.

 

[EtienneAmelie]

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

Once again, I didn't gain any fat transitioning from a low-carb diet to a Peat lifestyle. My ever-protruding belly went into hiding and never reappeared. My weight stayed the same, even though body composition shifted.
My lifestyle wasn't particularly zero stress at that time (last year "elite university" student, looking for a job, continental climate with no beach in sight, erratic sleep patterns due to having met the love of my life and DJing as a hobby, wifi all over on campus), but changing the way I approached and ate food made it a lot less stressful.

 

[Cirion]

That's because most people have liver / thyroid / glucose metabolism problems.

Though for myself, I realized a lot of my waking up at night has a lot to do with high EMF in the sleeping environment. Once I turned off my router, I found going to sleep and staying asleep was easier. I won't lie, it's still not perfect, but it was a very noticeable change. I believe I haven't yet zeroed out my sleeping environment, and plan to find out tonight, because my new scanner arrived, I can finally check both the electrical fields and RF's in my bedroom.

Once again, I didn't gain any fat transitioning from a low-carb diet to a Peat lifestyle. My ever-protruding belly went into hiding and never reappeared. My weight stayed the same, even though body composition shifted.
My lifestyle wasn't particularly zero stress at that time (last year "elite university" student, looking for a job, continental climate with no beach in sight, erratic sleep patterns due to having met the love of my life and DJing as a hobby, wifi all over on campus), but changing the way I approached and ate food made it a lot less stressful.

This is an uncommon occurrence, it can happen but most of us are not lucky to be healthy enough to pull that off. I also assume you're less than 30 yrs old, talking about college and whatnot. I ate the standard American diet, as much food as I wanted, 100 hrs of schoolwork a week or more, lots of evil PUFA filled foods, lots of bromine filled sodas, 5 hrs of sleep a night, 600mg caffeine a day, literally zero supplementation so I had many vitamin deficiencies, super high stress, and still didn't gain weight until I was around 26 years old when my health started to finally go downhill. And even though I was lean, I was the furthest from "health" that you could possibly be. Severe depression daily, yet I was a "healthy" 160 lb at 6'0''.

I guess my only question is, would you consider your health now optimal? Did you track temps and pulses, do you have 98.6+ temps and 80+ pulses, especially upon waking up?

 

[Sourdoughbanana]

@EtienneAmelie yeah well a lot of things turn around really quick when you’re in your early 20s. You’ll realize that later on.

I actually would be OK with the stress method to obtain a lean body if it wasn't for one small (large) problem. It can take upwards of years to recover from that, depending on the severity and duration of stress and your current age. I mentioned a while back that Lyle Mcdonald claims it can only take 2 weeks to recover from a diet hormonally, which I think is how a lot of people have got misled because people love to quote guys like him over at www.bodybuilding.com If it only truly took 2 weeks, then that'd be awesome... sadly reality is a harsh mistress. Maybe my definition of "recovery" is different than most. I have a goal to eventually get my T levels very high (around 1000 ng/DL). That takes a long time of living a low stress, calorie rich / vitamin rich diet and takes years. You may be able to get back to 400-600 ng/DL in a few weeks, possibly even 2 weeks if you're young, but from 500-1000 takes a long time of deliberate work to get to.

Again, yeah, going over 15% is not great or ideal, but sometimes it can be necessary in the short term, I'm definitely over 15% now but I would not have been able to achieve the pulses and temps I have now without doing so. Except for my waking temps and pulses I'm doing pretty decently now, that's the last thing I have to conquer before I can finally probably start to lose weight in a health manner. I don't plan to be fat forever, if that wasn't clear before. I definitely plan to be lean again one day, but when my body is ready for it to happen, not forcing it this go around. If I can get my hormone levels at a very high level, it'll happen naturally.

I see what you mean now. Very interesting story. It would be awesome to actually get to that high T/teenagers levels

 

[Cirion]

I see what you mean now. Very interesting story. It would be awesome to actually get to that high T/teenagers levels

Yes I firmly believe it is possible. @haidut maintains a very high level of androgens, at one point he did an experiment where he got his T levels completely off the charts. I was just the other day reading about how this other guy (may post the link if I can locate it - he posts on these forums) brought his T levels from 100 - 1000 (a 10x increase) by eating a high fat high carb Peat inspired diet (I firmly believe both fats and carbs are necessary for optimal androgens, these low fat high carb or high fat low carb diets are both nonsense IMO). Interestingly, this guy is a fan of increasing, not decreasing Iron stores in many individuals, as an Iron deficiency is just as bad as too much of it, and many guys, he claims, inadvertently bring their iron stores too low by avoiding all iron containing foods. I believe Chris Masterjohn was the one that said the body is smart at regulating Iron. It's actually kind of hard to get too much, at least if you avoid iron fortified foods, because there are processes in the body that reduce how much iron is absorbed if you're too high and processes that increase how much is absorbed if you're too low. I plan to do an iron test sometime soon to see where I'm at Ferritin wise. One of the other things I remember this guy saying was that maintain a proper mineral balance is crucial to high T, and that you should never supplement zinc, copper, iron, any of that stuff unless you are 100% sure you have a deficiency in any of them.. I used to take high dose zinc, I've since stopped doing that. Supplementing other vitamins are okay and not as much of a problem, although those can certainly get you into trouble as well, which is why some people are advocates of essentially zero supplementation.

 

[Stramonium]

One shouldn't go overboard with carbohydrates if your metabolism is compromised or try to implement carbs with a high fat, high starch type of diet. It is important to take into account daily activities and eat accordingly. It will make you gain weight for sure. I tend to have more carbs in the morning and then have some protein during the day. I found other ways to keep me warm without the extra calories such salt, sun exposure, aspirin, etc

 

[charlie]

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

I don't that is fat, I think it is mostly water/edema.

 

[somuch4food]

I found other ways to keep me warm without the extra intake of calories such salt, sun exposure, aspirin,

What would they be?

 

[Stramonium]

What would they be?

Also I've been using low dose progest e + androsterone. It makes me really warm, it's been known to help the thyroid gland and use fat for energy

 

[Sourdoughbanana]

I firmly believe both fats and carbs are necessary for optimal androgens, these low fat high carb or high fat low carb diets are both nonsense IMO

Well that’s true for low carb diets making zero sense over the long term for thyroid, liver, cholesterol and arterial functions (especially in a world of scanners and MRIs) but low fat high carb is extremely standard. It fell out of fashion in the West but that’s how most of humankind eats and thrives.

Granted we have to consider how broken someone is but the end goal is what this thread is about which is low/reasonable fat low/reasonable protein and carbs UP.

 

[managing]

And the primary goal of everyone! Drives me insane, studying nutrition the only questions people ask me is "any weight loss tips"? I don't even know many overweight people. I know MANY unhealthy people.

I had a great question the other day - "Any tips on ageing better?"

Sure, "any weight loss tips?" is a terrible question. But you can still give them a great answer: "forget about weight and focus on your metabolism by . . . "

 

[managing]

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

Curious if you meant those last two things as separate items or two sides of the same coin (bolded)? I believe I have pretty good transit time (about 18-24 hours, 2-3 x/day), but still experience irritated GI sometimes, is why I ask.

 

[Waremu]

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

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

Even with sucrose (+ fructose), the fat gained from sucrose de novo lipogenesis isn't significant enough. Mice are actually more efficient than humans at converting carbohydrates into fat, even when they’re not overeating. This was one of the errors Dr. Lustig made in his anti-fructose arguments (that is, overlooking the conversion difference, etc.).
When mice are on a high-carbohydrate diet that doesn’t provide excess calories, it’s common to see DNL rates of 50 percent and up. In other words, they are efficient at converting carbohydrates into fat, even when they’re not overeating. However, with humans on an isocaloric diet (without excess calories), de novo lipogenesis falls into the range of 10 to 20 percent. The conversion of carbohydrate is less efficient in humans than it is in mice. So DNL in humans is negligible in response to fructose, and doesn’t comprise a significant source of dietary calories.

Furthermore,

In one paper, Dr. Luc Tappy and his colleagues labeled acetate, fructose and different metabolites with stable isotope tracers so they could see how fructose is metabolized in the human body. They found that 50 percent ends up as glucose, 25 percent goes to lactate and greater than 15 percent goes to glycogen. The remainder is oxidized directly (to CO2 through the TCA cycle) and a small portion – as low as 2-3% – is converted to fat via de novo lipogenesis.

Source:
Metabolic effects of fructose and the worldwide increase in obesity. - PubMed - NCBI

The Glucose and glycogen appears to be easily processed by the body, and 2-3% conversion to fat is not really significant with regards to total weight gain.

My own experience matches this as well. Starch seems to allow me to pack on weight faster, likely due to some other mechanism (perhaps endotoxin which then puts further stress on the liver). I tend to stay most slim when fat is low, protein moderate, and carbs mostly from fruit/sucrose/honey. I do sometimes have higher fat/refeed days, though, which isn't an issue when I am already slim enough.

 

[JustAGuy]

Even with sucrose (+ fructose), the fat gained from sucrose de novo lipogenesis isn't significant enough. Mice are actually more efficient than humans at converting carbohydrates into fat, even when they’re not overeating. This was one of the errors Dr. Lustig made in his anti-fructose arguments (that is, overlooking the conversion difference, etc.).
When mice are on a high-carbohydrate diet that doesn’t provide excess calories, it’s common to see DNL rates of 50 percent and up. In other words, they are efficient at converting carbohydrates into fat, even when they’re not overeating. However, with humans on an isocaloric diet (without excess calories), de novo lipogenesis falls into the range of 10 to 20 percent. The conversion of carbohydrate is less efficient in humans than it is in mice. So DNL in humans is negligible in response to fructose, and doesn’t comprise a significant source of dietary calories.

Furthermore,

In one paper, Dr. Luc Tappy and his colleagues labeled acetate, fructose and different metabolites with stable isotope tracers so they could see how fructose is metabolized in the human body. They found that 50 percent ends up as glucose, 25 percent goes to lactate and greater than 15 percent goes to glycogen. The remainder is oxidized directly (to CO2 through the TCA cycle) and a small portion – as low as 2-3% – is converted to fat via de novo lipogenesis.

Source:
Metabolic effects of fructose and the worldwide increase in obesity. - PubMed - NCBI

The Glucose and glycogen appears to be easily processed by the body, and 2-3% conversion to fat is not really significant with regards to total weight gain.

My own experience matches this as well. Starch seems to allow me to pack on weight faster, likely due to some other mechanism (perhaps endotoxin which then puts further stress on the liver). I tend to stay most slim when fat is low, protein moderate, and carbs mostly from fruit/sucrose/honey. I do sometimes have higher fat/refeed days, though, which isn't an issue when I am already slim enough.

That is just plain incorrect. As stated before, I tried eating 4500 kcal of ONLY ripe fruit/fruit juices and amino acids with ZERO fat intake and gained about 4 lbs of fat in 3 weeks. I went with places of 0 pinchable fat to places with pinchable fat, most noticeably the lower back and hamstrings.

It was NOT water retention since you cannot pinch water (it’s not firm). Also I did a water fast with very little liquid intake for 2 days to dehydrate myself to confirm this and the fat was there, I had zero water retention.

 

[Waremu]

That is just plain incorrect. As stated before, I tried eating 4500 kcal of ONLY ripe fruit/fruit juices and amino acids with ZERO fat intake and gained about 4 lbs of fat in 3 weeks. I went with places of 0 pinchable fat to places with pinchable fat, most noticeably the lower back and hamstrings.

It was NOT water retention since you cannot pinch water (it’s not firm). Also I did a water fast with very little liquid intake for 2 days to dehydrate myself to confirm this and the fat was there, I had zero water retention.

I am simply stating what the evidence I have found seems to suggest. And my experience agrees with it as well. My experience simply doesn't match up with yours.

The only thing I can think of that makes sense is that you were simply eating way above your caloric needs in order to gain that amount of pure fat in a few weeks. You probably have a sluggish liver as well.

 

[Sourdoughbanana]

That is just plain incorrect. As stated before, I tried eating 4500 kcal of ONLY ripe fruit/fruit juices and amino acids with ZERO fat intake and gained about 4 lbs of fat in 3 weeks. I went with places of 0 pinchable fat to places with pinchable fat, most noticeably the lower back and hamstrings.

It was NOT water retention since you cannot pinch water (it’s not firm). Also I did a water fast with very little liquid intake for 2 days to dehydrate myself to confirm this and the fat was there, I had zero water retention.

Your n=1 overfeeding experiment isn’t invalidating the scientific statements above... your tdee is probably around 3000 and you had an excess of 30,000kcal over 3 weeks.

Plus fruit juices are absolutely not physiological. Amino acids spike insulin. Good luck trying to overeat on real whole fruit and whole animal foods