Recovery From Undereating - Youreatopia

[j.]

Being naturally thing is pretty and I think healthy. There seems to be a lot of rationalization here to try to console the fatties.

 

[tara]

Nothing wrong with being naturally thin. Thinness happens to be the current western fashion. But it doesn't contain any inherent human superiority, any more than being male, or white, or tall does. The problems include pressure to be unnaturally thin, and the disrespect aimed at everyone else. I like evidence, reason and respect for people; I don't like name-calling.

 

[SQu]

'Console the fatties'
Really respectful. Thanks j. What if your health problems were on display, and it was open season for judging you for them?

 

[Such_Saturation]

Tara correlation is ALL WE NEED. Obesity is not a "cause" but Ray Peat has kindly been warning us for the last three decades about how noxious fats disrupt pretty much every mechanism in our bodies, and when someone weighs four hundred pounds I think it's safe to assume that PUFA in fact HAS OVERRIDDEN that particular organism. Now if at the tidy ends of thy sacred "bell curve" there lies someone with six inches of pure saturated fat on his belly and better health than you can dream of, well I'd want to hear how they got there in the first place without some kind of poison or regular force feedings.

 

[CellularIconoclast]

I'd want to hear how they got there in the first place without some kind of poison or regular force feedings.

Ray Peat said "in this culture, what we desperately need is a recognition of the complexity of life." This is especially important in obesity, where it seems like a complicated problem we don't understand well, but people want to turn it into a very simple moral issue of "choosing to eat too much." This viewpoint requires ignoring important parts of the problem, such as the existence of people with the opposite problem.

It's abusive when people take a biological problem and try to turn it into a moral issue. This increases stress levels in the victim… making the problem itself worse in many cases. Especially if it causes them to attempt to starve themselves.

Viral infections, stressful events, high food reward diets, poor sleep, elevated triglycerides, and a bunch of other things seem able to "induce overfeeding behavior." It seems like there's a lot of possibilities. Perhaps in some people the health event causing weight gain could have been transient but the fat remain?

I think one interesting factor is how different hormones signal hypertrophy of different tissues. This might explain why low stress young men can often force-overfeed themselves and gain almost pure muscle without fat, and highly stressed people can gain fat and lose muscle at the same time.

 

[j.]

This is especially important in obesity, where it seems like a complicated problem we don't understand well, but people want to turn it into a very simple moral issue of "choosing to eat too much."

Not understood? I think slow metabolism, pufa, and endotoxin explain almost all of it, if not practically all.

Go to some countries where they use other oils and don't consume a lot of PUFA, you'll see a big difference. I don't get the reason to make things seem complicated, when the evidence indicates they're fairly simple.

 

[CellularIconoclast]

Go to some countries where they use other oils and don't consume a lot of PUFA, you'll see a big difference. I don't get the reason to make things seem complicated, when the evidence indicates they're fairly simple.

Those aren't the only differences between countries. Comparing diseases across populations is an important tool for generating hypotheses, but assuming the hypothesis is correct can be dangerous (china study? seven countries study?).

 

[Such_Saturation]

I'd want to hear how they got there in the first place without some kind of poison or regular force feedings.

Viral infections, stressful events, high food reward diets, poor sleep, elevated triglycerides, and a bunch of other things seem able to "induce overfeeding behavior." It seems like there's a lot of possibilities. Perhaps in some people the health event causing weight gain could have been transient but the fat remain?

Those fall under the "some kind of poison" category though.

And dieting is not the solution because you are involving yourself with those poisons even more closely, burning through them, in addition to taking away any good nourishment you might have been eating.

Suggesting that someone should diet is not inherently evil, it's just a very irrational way of saying "the Man is bringing you down this way. It is your responsibility to break out of it."

 

[tara]

They gained weight, but did they get to four hundred pounds? If they did it's because of the PREVIOUS habits.

400 pounds is pretty unusual - BMI 55sh, depending on height. Most people won't get there no matter what they eat. As far as natural set points go, it's out at the extreme end. You've got to have quite a bit working to be able to do that. Whether someone at 400 pounds is healthy or not (and I think both may be possible) doesn't necessarily say a lot about the much larger number of people wih BMI 30 - 40, or even 26, who are routinely assumed to be unhealthy just because of this.

I'm quite willing to believe previous habits can have an effect, and that some fat gain may be the result of ill health for some people.

Even if causation were established for at least some cases, the dangers of being undernourished may be worse - in the case of severe eating restriction, the risks are much higher than any risks associated, causally or not, with lots of fat.

 

[darkchocolate]

I think that most people do under-eat and complain of lack of energy and many other health issues that could be solved by eating more good food. However, I also think setting a specific amount of calories for people to eat is a little irresponsible when there is no mention of what foods to eat. Eating 2500 calories of processed food that is void of real nutrition will only make the problem worse as it will compound vitamin and mineral deficiencies, hormone and thyroid issues.

Also, what can we even say about set point when it's all relative to what types of food you are consuming? Starch and sugar are different. PUFA's, saturated fat from milk, butter, cheese, and coconut oil are all different. Even food allergies affect set point.

When anyone says females having a "low bodyfat" is unhealthy, it kind of frustrates me because body fat vs muscle mass is relative to training. I have trained consistently for years with heavy weights. And I mean heavy. My max deadlift was 275 pounds when I weighed around 110. At this point I can pretty much sit on my **** all day and still have a pretty low body fat even while eating a lot of calories. My point is, if you are consistent with heavy training (NOT overtraining) for 5-10 years, your body composition will reflect that. This is why I laugh when people follow all of these health gurus like Mark Sisson (who has been an athlete most of his life) because they are ripped so obviously it's a direct relation to the diet. But really, things aren't that simple. Consistency is the main contributor to success.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Precisely, certain calories could be counted as negative calories in your daily total for all intensive purposes. So, fat gain can be seen as a sign of starvation just like wasting.

 

[SAFarmer]

I think what people forget is that Keys was a VERY good scientist.
This starvation experiment was when he was younger and before his diet studies.
There are a lot of misconceptions about Keys.

For those interested in more history of Ancel Keys, a brilliant scientist and his real legacy, Evelyn of Carbsane has written an excellent post about the man here,

http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2014/06/ ... study.html

Read all the links, watch the video clips and also read the comments (also with good links)

 

[Hugh Johnson]

Those fall under the "some kind of poison" category though.

And dieting is not the solution because you are involving yourself with those poisons even more closely, burning through them, in addition to taking away any good nourishment you might have been eating.

Suggesting that someone should diet is not inherently evil, it's just a very irrational way of saying "the Man is bringing you down this way. It is your responsibility to break out of it."

You are making good arguments. However, I think that in the context of a standard American diet, or a similar one, dieting and calorie restriction is a good thing. Eating six pints of Ben&Jerry's every day will reduce the stress in the short term by keeping up glucose. In the long term eating like that will build enormous PUFA stores which will cause a permanent Randle cycle and high estrogen levels. If your response to stress is to then eat even more you'll end up fat enough that you'll have mushrooms growing in your folds.

Obviously people with healthy metabolism do not grow fat. Most people do not know how to remove the poisons from their diets so calorie restriction is a passable solution that lets them avoid the worst health issues and maintain physical and mental functionality.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Those fall under the "some kind of poison" category though.

And dieting is not the solution because you are involving yourself with those poisons even more closely, burning through them, in addition to taking away any good nourishment you might have been eating.

Suggesting that someone should diet is not inherently evil, it's just a very irrational way of saying "the Man is bringing you down this way. It is your responsibility to break out of it."

You are making good arguments. However, I think that in the context of a standard American diet, or a similar one, dieting and calorie restriction is a good thing. Eating six pints of Ben&Jerry's every day will reduce the stress in the short term by keeping up glucose. In the long term eating like that will build enormous PUFA stores which will cause a permanent Randle cycle and high estrogen levels. If your response to stress is to then eat even more you'll end up fat enough that you'll have mushrooms growing in your folds.

Obviously people with healthy metabolism do not grow fat. Most people do not know how to remove the poisons from their diets so calorie restriction is a passable solution that lets them avoid the worst health issues and maintain physical and mental functionality.

I agree, what we were discussing was a PUFA-grain-bean-free diet however.

 

[tara]

You are making good arguments. However, I think that in the context of a standard American diet, or a similar one, dieting and calorie restriction is a good thing. Eating six pints of Ben&Jerry's every day will reduce the stress in the short term by keeping up glucose. In the long term eating like that will build enormous PUFA stores which will cause a permanent Randle cycle and high estrogen levels.

As far as I know, the evidence points to each person having their own set point, that their body tries to defend. In general, people eating to appetite will gain weight till they reach that set point, and then stay there. There are probably a whole lot of mechanisms at play, and there are many hypothesis around, but it seems complex and the science is not conclusive yet. If there has been severe restriction, some people will overshoot temporarily, and then return to their set point. Whether that set point is in the arbitrary 'healthy', 'overweight' or 'obese' category doesn't say anything definite about how healthy they are. Trying to force the weight down below the body's natural set point by restrictive dieting tends to cause stress (possibly tipping the Randle 'Cycle' (seesaw) in an unhelpful direction itself) and lead to sacrificing other valuable structure (eg thymus, muscle, bone) and function (eg thyroid).

For some people some fat may be a result of past stresses including dietary or environmental poisons or too restrictive dieting, but is seldom (ever?) a result of overeating. In general, the research does not seem to support recommending restrictive dieting for weight-loss as best-practice. (See lot's of research gathered by Linda Bacon/HAES) It is also common for leaner people to eat more.
I do think it is a good idea to try to resolve other excessive/chronic/unnecessary stresses, as well as getting a nutritious diet.

If your response to stress is to then eat even more you'll end up fat enough that you'll have mushrooms growing in your folds.

This sounds like standard fat-phobia. (BTW, fungi can grow quite well on skinny people too.)

Obviously people with healthy metabolism do not grow fat. Most people do not know how to remove the poisons from their diets so calorie restriction is a passable solution that lets them avoid the worst health issues and maintain physical and mental functionality.

Do you mean 'people with healthy metabolism do not grow fatter than is healthy for them'?, ie fatter than their own healthy set point? That's the only way I can read this that would make it obviously true, though possibly tautological. If what you mean is that there is some arbitrary fixed fat quantity or ratio beyond which no metabolically healthy person would grow, then I'm not aware of strong evidence to support this. It may just seem obvious because it is a societally widespread prejudice. In some cases, extra fat may be protective (see reference to 'obesity paradox' above). It seems that some people are naturally thin, and some people are naturally rounder, and the latter are not necessarily less healthy than the former.

There is huge pressure, esp. on young women, to severely restrict diet. This is a killer. My guess is that eating ice cream to appetite is probably almost always preferable from a health point of view to severe restriction.

A more balanced, nutritious and non-toxic diet is to be much preferred. <- That's why I'm trying to figure out how to use Peat's ideas, and definitely favour minimising PUFAs and a few other poisons. But my suspicion is that even with most common diets, eating to appetite is likely to be less harmful to health than severe restrictive dieting for most people. We have mechanisms to adapt to higher calorie intake. (We also have mechanisms to adapt to inadequate calorie intake too - but they all have long-term costs.) Healthy peoples' appetite will limit how much of anything they will eat once they get their nutritional needs met.

Once somebody's metabolism is already badly damaged, they may need to be more careful about some kinds of food.

 

[Such_Saturation]

A calorie restricted SAD will make you live longer than a SAD though. You are eating less noxious aminoacids and you are activating certain protective mechanisms with the constant stress.

 

[tara]

A calorie restricted SAD will make you live longer than a SAD though. You are eating less noxious aminoacids and you are activating certain protective mechanisms with the constant stress.

Got any strong evidence for this?
I think a calorie-restricted SAD weight-loss dieting usually leads to [edit:] fat gain (~95%).

 

[Such_Saturation]

There is no strong evidence, it's either from monkeys or people who do their own thing keeping SAD as the control. The very concept of SAD implies overfeeding, probably only homeless people follow it in a restrictive variant.

 

[SAFarmer]

Tara, what is your ideas or thinking around the ketogenic diet or the LCHF diet where the appetite is naturally very suppressed ? The proponents of those diets say that it is the "natural way " of the body telling you how much calories you really need.

 

[tara]

Tara, what is your ideas or thinking around the ketogenic diet or the LCHF diet where the appetite is naturally very suppressed ? The proponents of those diets say that it is the "natural way " of the body telling you how much calories you really need.

I don't have personal experience of LCHF (at least not more than a few days), and i've only read a little of the theory written by its proponents, and I'm not a scientist. But this is my current take.
I see it as a variant on restrictive dieting that leaves out important sources of nutrients, and for most people is likely to do more harm than good.

• Peat's characterisation of oxidisation of sugar producing more ATP and more CO2 per oxygen seems to point to it being a good idea for most people to use carbohydrates as a major fuel.

• Long term LCHF seems to risk reduced metabolism, because running on fat is not as efficient (wrt oxygen and CO2 at least) as sugar-burning. I think even Atkins pointed out that reduced thyroid function was is an expected consequence of low carb high fat diets.

• I would expect the weight loss that many accomplish on such restrictive diets to have the consequences of catabolising other parts of the body too, not just the fat.

• I would expect some people to feel good in the short term by raising stress hormones. but eventually the effects of chronically elevated stress hormones would have some of the usual effects.

• It's hard to keep PUFA low if most calories come from fat.

• Some body functions/parts may need sugar specifically - eg the pancreas seems to need sugar (glucose?) to regenerate beta cells.

• There's a risk of insulin-resistance with LCHF, and it's not clear how reversible this would be for everyone.

• It's hard to get everything else you need without eating plants, too. E.g. how do you maintain good calcium and potassium and magnesium levels?[edit:] Not sure about this one, I guess you can get quite a lot of minerals from low carb plant sources including coffee, chocolate, leafy greens etc. as well as those from liver, shell fish, egg shells etc

• I would expect deficiency energy defiency problems if peoples appetites don't tell them to eat enough.

From various anecdotes I've read, the impression I get is that the results often seem great in the short term - relatively easy weight loss and good energy levels, but a lot of people report severe symptoms of reduced metabolism after a while. Several people on this forum sound like they regret using LCHF diets to try to solve health issues - after a while they ended up with worse health issues. Also anecdotally, people's appetite for protein and fats may be limited, but a lot of people experience cravings for carbs that they have to overcome to persist with the restriction.

This is not to say that there is no place for LCHF - there might be particular contexts where it can be helpful. I would expect these to be the exception rather than the rule, and that it would still have costs.