Peat Eating And Weight Gain

[gretchen]

How can I come to terms with this? I need to go back to what I was doing over the summer, eating a reasonable amount every day, but I'm just so afraid of the weight gain.

 

[charlie]

Gretchen, I have yet to hear of anyone getting morbidly obese on Peat. I just dont think its going to happen.

 

[narouz]

How can I come to terms with this? I need to go back to what I was doing over the summer, eating a reasonable amount every day, but I'm just so afraid of the weight gain.

I understand gretchen.
I'm afraid there is not a wonderful, easy answer for the short term.

I too don't like looking flabby.
But...for me, and for others--it would seem to be a predictable pattern--
gaining weight on a Peat diet does seem kinduv inevitable.
At least in the short term.

In the long term I think the weight thing will likely improve--
I'll lose some weight, I mean.
My experience over this last--I dunno...say 6 months of optimal Peat dieting--
has been that I gained about 20 pounds pretty quickly, stabilized (didn't gain more),
and now, within the past month or so, have seem some gradual weight loss
of about 5 pounds.
So I'm about 15 pounds heavier than I'd like to be.

In terms of size (vs. weight),
I went from size 34 pants to about size 37.
This probably sounds worse than it is.
I don't really look all that bad--
I meant the weight is fairly well distributed--
I look pretty healthy and my general shape isn't too bad:
just more blobby than I like.

The "promise" is that the gain is temporary,
and that after one gets one's metabolic mojo cookin'
that weight will come back down.
I'm tending to buy into that.
At first I was very impatient and bummed, but...
afterall, weight and body image shouldn't really be as important as I had been habituated to according them.
Health, mood, libido, intellect, longevity...
All those things are more important, to me.

But I would like my body to look like I want it to, too.
I'm hopeful, optimistic that it will, gradually.
Although I have been speculating that maybe the Peatian Body
will never look as "ripped" and low-body-fat as the Paleo or Low Carb Body.
Maybe not. Just my speculation here lately.

I've been thinking that I am pretty programmed by our culture
to see a slim, chiseled body style as ideal.
And that that is all it is: programming.
Well...a lot of it is just programming.
I think I'm starting to change my aesthetics some in that regard.
Instead of fixating on the super-hard, muscular, 6-pack ab ideal,
I think I'm loosening up on that some
and could be fine with just a semi-svelte, well-proportioned look....

 

[charlie]

Yep, agree with everything narouz just said.

 

[narouz]

Charlie--
Off thread but...have you noticed that when you look down at the bottom of the page,
there's just a bazillion "pins," instead of the usual list of related topics
(I think that's what's usually there).
I'm not all worked up over it or anything...
just wondered if you noticed.

 

[charlie]

It looks normal to me, I see the "similiar topics".

Can someone else take a look and let me know if you see what narouz is seeing?

 

[Birdie]

mine's normal too...

 

[narouz]

Hunh.
When I scroll down to the bottom of the page
where it says: "Similar Topics,"
all I have is rows and rows of "pin" icons. :?

Guess it's something with my crazy computer.

 

[charlie]

Thanks birdie.

narouz, maybe try a different browser and see what happens.

 

[j.]

I lost 20 pounds Peating. But I came from an awful, high PUFA diet. Not by design, but because it was convenient. And I didn't gain first. I started losing it immediately.

 

[narouz]

Now mine's normal too.

 

[narouz]

On the other hand, I just got three separate emails
reporting my own post. :?

 

[Birdie]

How can I come to terms with this? I need to go back to what I was doing over the summer, eating a reasonable amount every day, but I'm just so afraid of the weight gain.

I got worried about this too. What it came down to, for me, was that I was listening to the wrong people. I kept hearing ice cream, marshmallows, gummy bears. Yum, yum, yum... I kept reading recipes. More yum.

I suddenly said, "Why am I doing this?" It wasn't key to Ray Peat's writing at all. Does he talk about gummy bears. No. Does he say to make marshmallows? Not that I've seen. I'm only giving these as examples.
(And, I am back to eating too much ice cream and candy at the moment.)
Anyway, if you don't like to gain more weight, and I did not, I'd say to look more to what Ray says, not other people who are following him.

He mentions low fat milk, coffee, fruit, oj, an egg, a little meat, a little liver at times, some oysters, low fat cheese, etc.... Never does he advise scarfing down an 8 oz steak with mashed potatoes heaped on, plus ice cream for dessert.

I stopped the huge nightly Haagen-Dazs. I stopped buying gummy bears. I tried to eat what Ray actually recommends.

My weight loss has been slow. I've lost 2 lbs a month with a total of 17 pounds. I had gained the 7 before reading Peat. I cannot say that I gained 10 by following Peat. I gained 10 while thinking I was following Peat.

Maybe none of this applies to you at all!! Just my experience. :)

I see that while I was writing this manuscript, there were about 5 more posts, so sorry if I'm off the trend.

 

[Birdie]

On the other hand, I just got three separate emails
reporting my own post. :?

pretty funny!

 

[narouz]

Never does he advise scarfing down an 8 oz steak with mashed potatoes heaped on, plus ice cream for dessert..

Ha.
You talkin' to me!

I agree with you Birdie,
but it is understandable and predictable
that people would interpret Peat like that
(or many other distorted ways).

It happens, I think, partly because people latch onto some specific thing Peat says
without the context of his many general statements.

For instance:
someone listens to the Peat interview where one of the callers asks him to tell what he had to eat that day.
Peat says a rib steak, a coke, milk, oj, coffee, and some other stuff.
So...that listener says to himself: Alright! A Peat diet is a Steak-A-Night Diet!

Or:
a listener hears Peat extolling potatoes.
YeeHaa! Now a Peat diet becomes the Baked Potato and Steak Diet.

Or:
a listener sees that Peat says white rice is okay.
Now you've got the Peat as Every Meal Rice-Centered Macrobiotic-Style Diet.

Those people do find something specific that Peat did say,
but they don't have or don't want the general context Peat provides.
Well...he does provide that general context,
but it is sortuv scattered hither and yon across a sea of different interviews and articles and personal consults,
not easily or quickly accessed and distilled.

I was having this discussion with Ray-Z a few days ago.
(Ray-Z! Where are you?)
Ray-Z was saying that the general in Peat is not that important,
because Peat is more easily understood through his specific comments.

I think it is the lack of general Peat context,
and the latching onto of stray Peat specifics,
which gives rise to all manner of distorted "Peat" diets.

There is a pervasive if tacit view amongst many Peatians
that it should be taboo to generalize about Peat's dietary ideas.
They believe that such generalizing reduces and trivializes Peat.
Or they believe that anyone who generalizes about Peat
is attempting to set himself up as that most reviled of all forms of life: an Authoritarian!
Many find it wonderfully satisfying to intone, "There is no Peat diet!"

It is not surprising, really, that there are many weird constructions of a Peat diet.

 

[Birdie]

I just wrote this somewhere else but nobody might see it. So, I've lost my taste for milky coffee. I do still love lattes but cannot drink those every day.
Has anybody else had this happen?
Maybe I should try Clint's using strawberry syrup. He cooks the strawberries, strains out the seeds, and uses it in his milk.
Or at least he did that last February I think it was. Maybe he has changed.
I bought the frozen strawberries a few weeks ago.
Time to work on the milk drinking here.

 

[Birdie]

I think that it is confusing coming into the Peat fashion of eating.
Some people come here via a practitioner who has a grasp.
Some come with a big scientific background and can navigate for themselves.

But, as you say, narouz, it's easy to hear something Peat directs to somebody else, or to hear him say what his last meal was, and then transpose that to being general advice.

It doesn't really make sense to me that because Peat has not made up a general plan, that means he is against one.
I could be wrong, but I would think that some practitioners might have a general plan that they might adjust to different patients.

Peat does say many things that are the same for everyone.
And there are some things he doesn't recommend to anyone.

I hear carrot salad a lot for example. And the instructions for making it. And several variations.
And he un-advises grains and seeds. I don't think he ever recommends them. He doesn't demand people quit them. He shows them why they aren't safe foods.

I think that this confusion for beginners is partly to blame for the weight gain we hear about. I know it did cause me to gain weight and I am even one with a scientific background.

 

[Ray-Z]

Ray-Z! Where are you?

[Cue montage of Ray-Z engaging in various "Peaty" activities, including: eating coconut oil directly from the jar; doing tai ji quan with a cup of coffee in one hand; rolling around in baking soda until completely covered with it and then diving into a huge vat of orange juice; ordering Mexi-coke and pork rinds at a glittering, upscale restaurant while his friends look on in horror; inhaling lines of sugar and instant coffee; cavorting inside a giant plastic bag of CO2 with two of the lovely female models depicted in Ray Peat's paintings; and rubbing progest-e on the models' backs as they lounge on beach chairs under the warm, red glow of huge LED panels.

In all scenes of the montage, Ray-Z is wearing bright orange, UV-blocking sunglasses.]

Oh, terribly sorry, Narouz. I was, ah, busy.

 

[charlie]

For Peat's sake!

 

[narouz]

Ray-Z! Where are you?

[Cue montage of Ray-Z engaging in various "Peaty" activities, including: eating coconut oil directly from the jar; doing tai ji quan with a cup of coffee in one hand; rolling around in baking soda until completely covered with it and then diving into a huge vat of orange juice; ordering Mexi-coke and pork rinds at a glittering, upscale restaurant while his friends look on in horror; inhaling lines of sugar and instant coffee; cavorting inside a giant plastic bag of CO2 with two of the lovely female models depicted in Ray Peat's paintings; and rubbing progest-e on the models' backs as they lounge on beach chairs under the warm, red glow of huge LED panels.

In all scenes of the montage, Ray-Z is wearing bright orange, UV-blocking sunglasses.]

Oh, terribly sorry, Narouz. I was, ah, busy.

Ha.
Yeah, I've imagined a scenario where Peat arranges to meet somebody at a Mexican restaurant.
He says, "You'll know me. I'll be the one in orange. ALL orange."