Matt Stone On Peat

Asimov

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Stone was quite a bit fatter, paler, balder, and just generally sicker looking in 2012 than 2011. So apparently, if Peat led him astray, he was incapable of halting or fixing his health problems within a year.

And for him to say Peat is "all theory and no practicality" well....he's right. The guy's a biologist who flatly refused to write specified dietary guidelines. He has no interest in playing diet guru ala Matt Stone. He's too busy reading research and actually learning something. Stone could only aspire...
 

gretchen

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Asimov said:
Stone was quite a bit fatter, paler, balder, and just generally sicker looking in 2012 than 2011. So apparently, if Peat led him astray, he was incapable of halting or fixing his health problems within a year.

And for him to say Peat is "all theory and no practicality" well....he's right. The guy's a biologist who flatly refused to write specified dietary guidelines. He has no interest in playing diet guru ala Matt Stone. He's too busy reading research and actually learning something. Stone could only aspire...

In some pictures he looks fat and bald, in others he looks hardy and hale. So much for the 3,000 calories.
 

montmorency

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key said:
Asimov said:
ttramone said:
Asimov said:
You have to think, as many different foods as Peat has discussed in his articles and interviews, I'm sure it's still on scratching the surface of his own personal knowledge and diet.

I've heard Ray talk about 90% of the food you can find in a grocery store.

I have done research on what foods are the most nutritious/cheapest and OJ is basically the most nutritious, easy to get, cheapest, easy to eat fruit/carb currently available at grocery stores. And milk is basically the most nutritious, easy to get, cheapest, easy to eat protein currently available. :2cents


Closely followed by cheese, I would have thought.
 

montmorency

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Interesting to hear about Stone's experiences on a "Peat Diet".

I also put on weight (but I was using full-cream milk, which I know Ray does not advocate, at least when drinking milk in quantity - I dislike messed-around food, and to me, skimming milk is messing around with it - we can't avoid pasteurisation, at least not easily, but I can avoid skimmed or semi-skimmed milk. So I have to compromise and drink less of it, I guess).


It brings me back, though, to the idea that perhaps we have to "eat right for our type". Ray seems to be able to eat tons of sugar and sugary fruit, and he seems pretty lean.


But it seems we can't all get away with it. Me and Matt Stone, apparently.



On salt: when I first read and listened to Ray, I started taking in salt at every opportunity, e.g. adding it to water and drinking it.

All went well until one day I overdid it and threw up. Salt water is quite a good emetic!

So I eased back on that one...
 

4peatssake

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montmorency said:
But it seems we can't all get away with it. Me and Matt Stone, apparently.
I don't think Matt Stone has Ray Peat's metabolism. ;)
He promotes eating starches and eating starch promotes weight gain.
I also don't think it's due to blood type.
It's about energy production.

Here are some of Ray Peat's views on weight loss. Bold and underline are mine.

Ray Peat said:
My recommendation is to eat to increase the metabolic rate (usually temperature and heart rate), rather than any particular foods. Usually the increased metabolic rate, with adequate protein, causes some muscle increase, and when that happens the basic calorie requirement will increase. The increase of muscle mass should continue for several weeks, and during that time the weight might increase a little, but usually the loss of water and fat will compensate for the greater muscle mass. I have heard from several people that they think I recommend drinking whole milk, which I don't, because the amount of fat in whole milk is very likely to be fattening when a person is using it to get the needed protein and calcium. When a person wants to lose excess fat, limiting the diet to low fat milk, eggs, orange juice, and a daily carrot or two, will provide the essential nutrients without excess calories.

Per calorie, sugar is less fattening than starch, partly because it stimulates less insulin, and, when it's used with a good diet, because it increases the activity of thyroid hormone. There are several convenient indicators of the metabolic rate--the daily temperature cycle and pulse rate (the temperature should rise after breakfast), the amount of water lost by evaporation, and the speed of relaxation of muscles (Achilles reflex relaxation).

When the polyunsaturated fats in the diet are reduced, the amount of them stored in the tissues decreases for about four years, making it progressively easier to keep the metabolic rate up, and stress hormones down.

The ratio of calcium to phosphate is very important; that's why milk and cheese are so valuable for weight loss, or for preventing weight gain. For people who aren't very active, low fat milk and cheese are better, because the extra fat calories aren't needed.

There are different kinds of weight gain. When a person's metabolic rate increases, and stress hormones decrease, for example when adding two quarts of milk to the daily diet, their muscle mass is likely to increase, even while their fat is decreasing. Since muscle burns fat faster than fat does, caloric requirements will gradually increase.

People on a standard diet will typically burn 200 or 300 more calories per day when that amount of sugar is added to their diet; but if extra fat is added, too, some of the extra calories are likely to be deposited as fat. It's important to watch the signs of changing heat production as the diet changes.

Yes, I know people who have lost weight just by eating a raw carrot every day, reducing endotoxin stress. The liver treats PUFA as it treats toxins, but when their concentration is too high, they poison the detoxifying system. Oleic acid, which we can make ourselves from carbohydrates, greatly activates the detox enzyme system.

Yes, that's why a resistant (antiseptic) fiber such as bamboo shoots or raw carrot helps with weight loss, it reduces endotoxin and the stress hormones, and lets the liver metabolize more effectively.

It's the stored PUFA, released by stress or hunger, that slow metabolism. Niacinamide helps to lower free fatty acids, and good nutrition will allow the liver to slowly detoxify the PUFA, if it isn't being flooded with large amounts of them. A small amount of coconut oil with each meal will increase the ability to oxidize fat, by momentarily stopping the antithyroid effect of the PUFA. Aspirin is another thing that reduces the stress-related increase of free fatty acids, stimulating metabolism. Taking a thyroid supplement is reasonable until the ratio of saturated fats to PUFA is about 2 to 1.

Yes, it's best to lose it slowly. When I tried adding about a tablespoon of coconut oil once a day I lost about two pounds a week, for several weeks, without eating less.

Some muscle-building resistance exercise might help to increase the anabolic ratio, reducing the belly fat.

Yes, most of the research shows that it increases the metabolic rate, tending to prevent obesity.

Source
 

JohnA

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Anyone else read Matt Stone's latest blog post? The Metabolic Zone - 180 Degree Health

He admits that during 2012, he intentionally put on a ton of weight to show that you could effortlessly lose weight following his diet. When he was unable to lose the weight, he eventually got discouraged and became less active online.

He's now started to lose weight again and claims he has found the "Metabolic Zone". I think it's mostly because he's getting lots of sun and living a low stress lifestyle in Latin America.

For those of us who can't afford to spend a year living in Mexico, my takeaway is that it is very hard to intentionally and consistently lose lots of fat on a high metabolic, high-calorie diet. Carrying around extra fat just causes lots of hormonal and set point issues that are really hard to understand and address. Thus, when you're facing the trade-off between improving your metabolic functioning quickly while putting on extra fat vs. improving metabolism more slowly while staying leaner, you should err on the side of staying leaner.

If you come from a background of undereating, it makes sense to bump calories up to 4,000 - 5,000 and see how it improves your metabolism. But a lot of people unfortunately ignore rapid weight gain assuming that that the weight will just fall off once their metabolisms are finally "fixed."
 

Waynish

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A lot of assumptions going on... Again thinking that excess calories are the reason why his fatty tissue grew. What if it was all of those grains he was eating via the pancakes? I don't gain fat on things like that, but they make me feel way worse than meat/veggies/fruit/etc...
 

scarlettsmum

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Anyone else read Matt Stone's latest blog post? The Metabolic Zone - 180 Degree Health

He admits that during 2012, he intentionally put on a ton of weight to show that you could effortlessly lose weight following his diet. When he was unable to lose the weight, he eventually got discouraged and became less active online.

He's now started to lose weight again and claims he has found the "Metabolic Zone". I think it's mostly because he's getting lots of sun and living a low stress lifestyle in Latin America.

For those of us who can't afford to spend a year living in Mexico, my takeaway is that it is very hard to intentionally and consistently lose lots of fat on a high metabolic, high-calorie diet. Carrying around extra fat just causes lots of hormonal and set point issues that are really hard to understand and address. Thus, when you're facing the trade-off between improving your metabolic functioning quickly while putting on extra fat vs. improving metabolism more slowly while staying leaner, you should err on the side of staying leaner.

If you come from a background of undereating, it makes sense to bump calories up to 4,000 - 5,000 and see how it improves your metabolism. But a lot of people unfortunately ignore rapid weight gain assuming that that the weight will just fall off once their metabolisms are finally "fixed."
Couldn't agree more! I still don't believe he lost weight because he reached some sort of magic metabolic zone. He is making conclusions from his one experience, mmmmm. I will be waiting for the next blog where he admits to putting it all back on again and it will be explained as going back to the real world with lack of sleep and stress. Gosh, I wish it was so simple! Sorry, I am moaning, I know...
 

Matt1951

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He seems like a nice, well intentioned man, but Matt Stone is clueless. He should try Peating again, but more carefully this time, and stay there. Give up the grains and pancakes. He should listen to some of the people responding to his article, such as audacity 17. All his various diets, and now he is struggling to stay at 250 lbs. His quote " My objective is literally to eat the shittiest diet I can and still get results. " Why does anyone pay any attention to him?
 

Herbie

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The guy that got me onto Ray Peat said he started experimenting with it added in the sugar and put on fat around his naval so he cut it out and went back to a paleo diet, low carb.

Same thing happened to me but I am not blaming it on Ray or sugar..

My understanding is that if your eating a low carb low calorie diet and live a fast paced city lifestyle with all kinds of psychological stress then you'll have high cortisol and when cortisol is high the fat appears on around the naval but if your eating in the fashion I described it will mask your true state because your in starvation and you will be lean. I was low carb, low calorie for a few years then I listened to the east west healing podcasts with Ray and immediately started eating like a king and my true metabolism was slow and I put on fat and muscle and I'm fine with it because I understand if you suddenly go from starvation to abundance it will take time to adjust and find the right balance. I put fat on my naval and I'm self aware enough to know that my lifestyle has been stressful and therefore my cortisol levels have been elevated and the way I look know is a true reflection of my lifestyle.

If I eat like a ketogenic diet my adrenaline goes right up and I can run around like crazy as if I'm dying tomorrow sleeping 4-6 hours and and be really lean but some people enjoy this, it works for there demanding fast pace lifestyle which is very common in todays society.

When I eat Ray style with the balance of everything Im calm and relaxed and sleep 8-9 hours and a bit more fat on me, want to take my time with everything, Im not in a hurry, feel like ill live for 100 years.

Its easy to want to deny the true state and think that if I am sub 10% body fat from excessive exercise and long term calorie deficit then I have superior health and are more attractive but this is not true.

If your eating abundance of food and have fast metabolism and are 10%-12% body fat well that is a different story.
 
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zztr

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your eating a low carb low calorie diet and live a fast paced city lifestyle with all kinds of psychological stress

The stressful city lifestyle you speak of is almost always pretty close to sedentary, maybe punctuated with some "stressful" gym work outs. People struggle with under-eating to stay lean and then getting fat when they eat enough mostly because of sedentarism. We're built to walk much more than most people do, and burn quite a few calories doing various physical chores over the day.

Sedentarism fits with all the obesity data, unlike the PUFA or HFCS bogeymen. I don't buy these claims that it's super complicated or hormonal or overly nutritional. Vehicle miles driven is one of the best predictors of being overweight. TV watching is a powerful predictor. People who walk or cycle for daily transport are lean. It's not about "stressful exercise," it's about not being a couch potato. You simply must structure your life so that you have to do a lot of walking every day.

Separately, I have to kind of counter-signal on the whole "stressful modern city lifestyle" concept. I'm pretty sure *way* higher stress levels were the norm for almost all of human history including the modern era. "Angst" may be higher now, but 99.99% of your family tree probably endured way higher "stress" and they weren't fat.
 
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Herbie

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I just came back from 3 months in Oslo Norway to Australia and the food is almost the same except the food stores in Norway are smaller and sell smaller portions and food is more expensive. Many are lean in Norway and sedentary in Oslo.

Australia has 70% of men obese now and the food stores are large with larger servings.

Fast food drive in very popular in Australia and convenient for people with fast pace stressful lifestyle. I didnt see this in Norway

Also Norway middle class gets paid well and very good working conditions and housing is high quality for good price.

Australia has poorer working conditions, high work load, lesser wages and expensive housing.
Those were the main differences I could notice between the two cultures.

Ive worked with obese mechanics and skinny, They are on their feet all day in very physical job.
 

JohnA

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The stressful city lifestyle you speak of is almost always pretty close to sedentary, maybe punctuated with some "stressful" gym work outs. People struggle with under-eating to stay lean and then getting fat when they eat enough mostly because of sedentarism. We're built to walk much more than most people do, and burn quite a few calories doing various physical chores over the day.

Sedentarism fits with all the obesity data, unlike the PUFA or HFCS bogeymen. I don't buy these claims that it's super complicated or hormonal or overly nutritional. Vehicle miles driven is one of the best predictors of being overweight. TV watching is a powerful predictor. People who walk or cycle for daily transport are lean. It's not about "stressful exercise," it's about not being a couch potato. You simply must structure your life so that you have to do a lot of walking every day.

Separately, I have to kind of counter-signal on the whole "stressful modern city lifestyle" concept. I'm pretty sure *way* higher stress levels were the norm for almost all of human history including the modern era. "Angst" may be higher now, but 99.99% of your family tree probably endured way higher "stress" and they weren't fat.

My sister commutes into New York City and walks 13-15,000 steps a day. Yet she's still 30 pounds overweight. I spent all of November, December, and January not exercising and eating lots of cheeseburgers and ice cream. My weight stayed around 185 pounds at 12.5% body fat.

If you're lean to begin with, activities like walking will keep you lean. Once your hormones and set point are screwed up by being fat, however, walking won't necessarily help you lose weight.

There are so many stories in the Matt Stone comments (and on this forum) of people who put on 20+ pounds of undesired weight while trying to reboot their metabolisms. Yet very few people in the Ray Peat universe have figured out a replicable way to lose significant fat without heavy dieting or exercise (Matt Stone is bragging about going from 260 to 240!).

Given how hard it is to lose weight, IMHO people should really start paying attention when they gain their first 5-10 pounds of undesired weight and adjust their strategy, rather than continuing with the program even as their weight balloons up. Seems obvious, but the comments on Matt's site prove many people don't realize how sticky their new weight gain will be until it's too late.
 

Parsifal

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Stone said that PUFA don't matter much until you get old and mocks Peat. This guy is an oak.
 
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My sister commutes into New York City and walks 13-15,000 steps a day. Yet she's still 30 pounds overweight.

Her body fat level depends on what she eats day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year. Hypothyroidism will only allow a certain amount of fat storage but again, it depends on whats being swallowed every day.

.
 

tyw

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There are so many stories in the Matt Stone comments (and on this forum) of people who put on 20+ pounds of undesired weight while trying to reboot their metabolisms. Yet very few people in the Ray Peat universe have figured out a replicable way to lose significant fat without heavy dieting or exercise (Matt Stone is bragging about going from 260 to 240!).

Given how hard it is to lose weight, IMHO people should really start paying attention when they gain their first 5-10 pounds of undesired weight and adjust their strategy, rather than continuing with the program even as their weight balloons up. Seems obvious, but the comments on Matt's site prove many people don't realize how sticky their new weight gain will be until it's too late.

In case people are wondering why it is the case that getting too fat makes losing that fat harder, it is due to fat cell hyperplasia. This is where:

- existing fat cells take on more fatty acids as one is in sustained energetic surplus
- when existing fat cells cannot take on more fatty acids, but energy surplus is still present, the body needs a new place to store the surplus fatty acids
- the body creates new fat cells to store said fatty acids

Because fat cells are significant sources of signalling molecules, having more of them pumping out more signal leads to significant effects when overall fat loss occurs.

In general, all of these signalling pathways are sensitive to fat cell volume, and not number. For example, Leptin secretion from fat cells is mainly correlated to their volume -- Leptin secretion from adipose tissue in women. Relationship to plasma levels and gene expression.

What then happens during a caloric deficit intended for overall fat loss, is a generally uniform decrease in fat cell volume, without a change in fat cell number.

SIDENOTE: ignore what is termed "stubborn fat" in this case, since we are referring to a state of being overweight, whereby there is a lot of fat cells which are responsive to lipolysis.​

In general, it is not possible to decrease fat cell number significantly. Which is to say, once you gain extra fat cells, they tend to stick with you for life. And yes, I am aware of cold exposure, and various experimental nonsense regarding stuff like Irisin, etc .... it still remains that losing fat cells to a significant degree is not possible today outside of liposuction (which has a whole host of other problems, especially when further caloric surplus is maintained, but it is beyond the scope of this post).

Therefore, what you get when trying to lose fat after having been overweight for a long time, is lots of smaller fat cells, all having their starvation state alarms set off, despite having a lot of overall fat in your body. ie: 20 fat cells at "starvation volume" may have the same total amount of fat as 10 fat cells at twice the volume, but the 20 "starved" cells will signal that starvation.

That is where we see issues like Leptin tanking very quickly when an obese person tries to lose fat. Normal leptin levels are needed to signal that "we are not starving". Low leptin is going to be a signal to the brain to upregulate pathways that increase the likelihood of hunger and overeating.

Also, having many fat cells also means that they can fill up more easily during caloric surplus. ie: it is literally easier for a post-obese-now-dieted-down person with many small fat cells to gain fat, than it is a never-obese person with a lower number of normal size fat cells.


In this light, it is wise to not overfeed oneself when chasing good health ;). It is especially unwise IMO for that overfeeding to be the Sugar + SFA combination (which I've explained in prior posts).

.....
 

scarlettsmum

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In case people are wondering why it is the case that getting too fat makes losing that fat harder, it is due to fat cell hyperplasia. This is where:

- existing fat cells take on more fatty acids as one is in sustained energetic surplus
- when existing fat cells cannot take on more fatty acids, but energy surplus is still present, the body needs a new place to store the surplus fatty acids
- the body creates new fat cells to store said fatty acids

Because fat cells are significant sources of signalling molecules, having more of them pumping out more signal leads to significant effects when overall fat loss occurs.

In general, all of these signalling pathways are sensitive to fat cell volume, and not number. For example, Leptin secretion from fat cells is mainly correlated to their volume -- Leptin secretion from adipose tissue in women. Relationship to plasma levels and gene expression.

What then happens during a caloric deficit intended for overall fat loss, is a generally uniform decrease in fat cell volume, without a change in fat cell number.

SIDENOTE: ignore what is termed "stubborn fat" in this case, since we are referring to a state of being overweight, whereby there is a lot of fat cells which are responsive to lipolysis.​

In general, it is not possible to decrease fat cell number significantly. Which is to say, once you gain extra fat cells, they tend to stick with you for life. And yes, I am aware of cold exposure, and various experimental nonsense regarding stuff like Irisin, etc .... it still remains that losing fat cells to a significant degree is not possible today outside of liposuction (which has a whole host of other problems, especially when further caloric surplus is maintained, but it is beyond the scope of this post).

Therefore, what you get when trying to lose fat after having been overweight for a long time, is lots of smaller fat cells, all having their starvation state alarms set off, despite having a lot of overall fat in your body. ie: 20 fat cells at "starvation volume" may have the same total amount of fat as 10 fat cells at twice the volume, but the 20 "starved" cells will signal that starvation.

That is where we see issues like Leptin tanking very quickly when an obese person tries to lose fat. Normal leptin levels are needed to signal that "we are not starving". Low leptin is going to be a signal to the brain to upregulate pathways that increase the likelihood of hunger and overeating.

Also, having many fat cells also means that they can fill up more easily during caloric surplus. ie: it is literally easier for a post-obese-now-dieted-down person with many small fat cells to gain fat, than it is a never-obese person with a lower number of normal size fat cells.


In this light, it is wise to not overfeed oneself when chasing good health ;). It is especially unwise IMO for that overfeeding to be the Sugar + SFA combination (which I've explained in prior posts).

.....
Scary. Excellent explanation btw.
 

Parsifal

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In case people are wondering why it is the case that getting too fat makes losing that fat harder, it is due to fat cell hyperplasia. This is where:

- existing fat cells take on more fatty acids as one is in sustained energetic surplus
- when existing fat cells cannot take on more fatty acids, but energy surplus is still present, the body needs a new place to store the surplus fatty acids
- the body creates new fat cells to store said fatty acids

Because fat cells are significant sources of signalling molecules, having more of them pumping out more signal leads to significant effects when overall fat loss occurs.

In general, all of these signalling pathways are sensitive to fat cell volume, and not number. For example, Leptin secretion from fat cells is mainly correlated to their volume -- Leptin secretion from adipose tissue in women. Relationship to plasma levels and gene expression.

What then happens during a caloric deficit intended for overall fat loss, is a generally uniform decrease in fat cell volume, without a change in fat cell number.

SIDENOTE: ignore what is termed "stubborn fat" in this case, since we are referring to a state of being overweight, whereby there is a lot of fat cells which are responsive to lipolysis.​

In general, it is not possible to decrease fat cell number significantly. Which is to say, once you gain extra fat cells, they tend to stick with you for life. And yes, I am aware of cold exposure, and various experimental nonsense regarding stuff like Irisin, etc .... it still remains that losing fat cells to a significant degree is not possible today outside of liposuction (which has a whole host of other problems, especially when further caloric surplus is maintained, but it is beyond the scope of this post).

Therefore, what you get when trying to lose fat after having been overweight for a long time, is lots of smaller fat cells, all having their starvation state alarms set off, despite having a lot of overall fat in your body. ie: 20 fat cells at "starvation volume" may have the same total amount of fat as 10 fat cells at twice the volume, but the 20 "starved" cells will signal that starvation.

That is where we see issues like Leptin tanking very quickly when an obese person tries to lose fat. Normal leptin levels are needed to signal that "we are not starving". Low leptin is going to be a signal to the brain to upregulate pathways that increase the likelihood of hunger and overeating.

Also, having many fat cells also means that they can fill up more easily during caloric surplus. ie: it is literally easier for a post-obese-now-dieted-down person with many small fat cells to gain fat, than it is a never-obese person with a lower number of normal size fat cells.


In this light, it is wise to not overfeed oneself when chasing good health ;). It is especially unwise IMO for that overfeeding to be the Sugar + SFA combination (which I've explained in prior posts).

.....
That's interesting. How do you explain these kind of extreme transformations?

So basically once a person has been fat or almost obese they will still secrete a lot of leptin/cortisol/estrogen/inflammation from their fat cells even if they appear slimmer?
What about liposucion, what would be the bad effects? Woudn't it be therapeutic?
 

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