Taxing thoughts: How smart do you have to be to gain no weight from sugar?

[faust jaeger]

I recall from the Peat email response book I printed out as well as some historical observances of the eating habits of Swendenborg and Blake that sugar was essential to their daily lives and they needed it to not faint it seems. Peat has even openly admitted to eating 5k calories in sandwiches a day for an extended period and gained no weight in his younger days which is amazing to me. Swedenborg would eat presumably hundreds of strawberries with sugar throughout his day. Peat has been openly indifferent to IQ testing but just a ballpark estimate between the three men I mentioned probably have an average IQ of 150 or so. Definitely generational minds both spiritually and materially.

You can also see how large their heads are, here is

Swedenborgs. My main concern here is that I have noticed that a lot of people on here have complained of weight gain and that is something I am all too familiar with and never want to return to. Now I believe that there are several extraordinarily smart people on here but a lot of our brains dont warrant the sugar that Peat suggests in some cases but our bodies bear the brunt of the negative affects. If anyone on here is eating > 3500 cals a day and staying thin let me know some of your practices.

 

[Apple]

I recall from the Peat email response book I printed out as well as some historical observances of the eating habits of Swendenborg and Blake that sugar was essential to their daily lives and they needed it to not faint it seems. Peat has even openly admitted to eating 5k calories in sandwiches a day for an extended period and gained no weight in his younger days which is amazing to me. Swedenborg would eat presumably hundreds of strawberries with sugar throughout his day. Peat has been openly indifferent to IQ testing but just a ballpark estimate between the three men I mentioned probably have an average IQ of 150 or so. Definitely generational minds both spiritually and materially.

You can also see how large their heads are, here is View attachment 53185 Swedenborgs. My main concern here is that I have noticed that a lot of people on here have complained of weight gain and that is something I am all too familiar with and never want to return to. Now I believe that there are several extraordinarily smart people on here but a lot of our brains dont warrant the sugar that Peat suggests in some cases but our bodies bear the brunt of the negative affects. If anyone on here is eating > 3500 cals a day and staying thin let me know some of your practices.

Are you talking about white sugar? or any carb can be called sugar otherwise.
(White) Sugar makes me thinner for instance, the more I eat it. But there is a limit on how much sugar your system can digest/absorb. In some experiments it is 1.5 apple a day, which probably equals 5-6 tspns of sugar, beyond that it just feeds bacteria and converts into alcohol .
Coffee may help and push more sugar into your system.

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

I recall from the Peat email response book I printed out as well as some historical observances of the eating habits of Swendenborg and Blake that sugar was essential to their daily lives and they needed it to not faint it seems. Peat has even openly admitted to eating 5k calories in sandwiches a day for an extended period and gained no weight in his younger days which is amazing to me. Swedenborg would eat presumably hundreds of strawberries with sugar throughout his day. Peat has been openly indifferent to IQ testing but just a ballpark estimate between the three men I mentioned probably have an average IQ of 150 or so. Definitely generational minds both spiritually and materially.

You can also see how large their heads are, here is View attachment 53185 Swedenborgs. My main concern here is that I have noticed that a lot of people on here have complained of weight gain and that is something I am all too familiar with and never want to return to. Now I believe that there are several extraordinarily smart people on here but a lot of our brains dont warrant the sugar that Peat suggests in some cases but our bodies bear the brunt of the negative affects. If anyone on here is eating > 3500 cals a day and staying thin let me know some of your practices.

I was always underweight, until my late twenties, but not in my adolescent years. In my twenties, I ate seconds and thirds of my meals, especially things like mashed potatoes and gravy, pasta casseroles and lots of cereal and milk. I would a half a box of Cheerios for dinner at night. I always had the double cheese burgers back then too. After I had my first child at 28 I still stayed slim, but more normally so, not underweight anymore. After my second son is when I started drinking coffee, and I had it with the sweet flavored creamers and white chocolate macadamia cookies or biscotti, and not only did I take off my pregnancy weight with that second child, but even more, and started becoming too thin again. It was only when I cut out the sweet creamer and cookies that I gained weight. I started writing restaurant review later on, which meant eating at restaurants a lot, and eating more than I normally would, and then I had started having weight troubles, not obese or anything, but I was in a size 8 instead of my size six, or less when I was underweight, at one point a size zero. Though I stopped the restaurant visits the weight never came off unless I tried, with various diets. Only in the last year has it come off naturally and in the last six months I am trying to put weight on because it drops off so easily. I can tell you that the more I am outside the more I can eat and still lose weight. Nowadays I am eating my third meal by noon. I am eat a lot of honey, fruit and sugar and maple syrup too. I went to a Thai restaurant after my archery lesson and ordered 3 meals for myself! I intended to just taste them all and take home the leftovers, but I finished two of them! I am ravenous nowadays. I am sure if I was stuck indoors and sitting all day that all this food that I eat would not be fueling me, but would instead be turning into fat, but I keep moving, and I don’t watch television. Come to think of it, it was not too long after I quit watching television in the evenings that 10 pounds dropped off in about 6 weeks. So to your point I am using my brain more which could be part of it.

“While jogging became popular for preventing heart disease, we were frequently told by experts how many miles a person has to run to burn off a pound of fat. However, in Russia, physiologists always remember to include the brain in their calculations, and it turns out that a walk through interesting and pleasant surroundings consumes more energy than does harder but more boring exercise. An active brain consumes a tremendous amount of fuel.” Ray Peat

 

[faust jaeger]

I was always underweight, until my late twenties, but not in my adolescent years. In my twenties, I ate seconds and thirds of my meals, especially things like mashed potatoes and gravy, pasta casseroles and lots of cereal and milk. I would a half a box of Cheerios for dinner at night. I always had the double cheese burgers back then too. After I had my first child at 28 I still stayed slim, but more normally so, not underweight anymore. After my second son is when I started drinking coffee, and I had it with the sweet flavored creamers and white chocolate macadamia cookies or biscotti, and not only did I take off my pregnancy weight with that second child, but even more, and started becoming too thin again. It was only when I cut out the sweet creamer and cookies that I gained weight. I started writing restaurant review later on, which meant eating at restaurants a lot, and eating more than I normally would, and then I had started having weight troubles, not obese or anything, but I was in a size 8 instead of my size six, or less when I was underweight, at one point a size zero. Though I stopped the restaurant visits the weight never came off unless I tried, with various diets. Only in the last year has it come off naturally and in the last six months I am trying to put weight on because it drops off so easily. I can tell you that the more I am outside the more I can eat and still lose weight. Nowadays I am eating my third meal by noon. I am eat a lot of honey, fruit and sugar and maple syrup too. I went to a Thai restaurant after my archery lesson and ordered 3 meals for myself! I intended to just taste them all and take home the leftovers, but I finished two of them! I am ravenous nowadays. I am sure if I was stuck indoors and sitting all day that all this food that I eat would not be fueling me, but would instead be turning into fat, but I keep moving, and I don’t watch television. Come to think of it, it was not too long after I quit watching television in the evenings that 10 pounds dropped off in about 6 weeks. So to your point I am using my brain more which could be part of it.

“While jogging became popular for preventing heart disease, we were frequently told by experts how many miles a person has to run to burn off a pound of fat. However, in Russia, physiologists always remember to include the brain in their calculations, and it turns out that a walk through interesting and pleasant surroundings consumes more energy than does harder but more boring exercise. An active brain consumes a tremendous amount of fuel.” Ray Peat

I am in the opposite position. Check out my first post "how to peat my way out of this" for reference. Even going over 1500 cals a day for me will trigger 3-4 lbs gained in a couple days easily. Regardless of stimulation both mental and physical. I have been trying to lower my cortisol and serotonin levels to fix it though.

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

I am in the opposite position. Check out my first post "how to peat my way out of this" for reference. Even going over 1500 cals a day for me will trigger 3-4 lbs gained in a couple days easily. Regardless of stimulation both mental and physical. I have been trying to lower my cortisol and serotonin levels to fix it though.

That is how I was from about my forties to about a year ago, about 20 years of it.

 

[cremes]

The OP implies one must have a large brain to utilize all of the sugar that Peat recommended.

I'm one of those who gained weight when I started Peating. I was 195 3 months ago and am now ~215. I have plateaued at this weight. After reading a lot more Peat and paying attention to a lot more Haidut, I think it's highly likely that I have "cortisol belly." In the past decade I would frequently fast (both water and dry) and had no trouble managing my weight. The last decade saw my natural weight (~175) creep up to 190. It now seems obvious that I stressed and stressed and stressed my body until I had broken my metabolism.

As I write this, I am sipping on a Mexican Coke. This morning I had a single drop of Tyromix which I repeat after lunch and dinner too. My temperatures have improved from ~97F to 97.7F with some spikes to 98.2F. My daily carrot keeps me regular, LOL. My twice daily gram of nigella sativa (black cumin seeds) has probably had the most impressive effect on me by changing my cold hands to warm within a week of starting it. That's a keeper (who knew?).

In a recent video from Brad Marshal he displayed a research paper that showed a mouse experiment. In it there were 4 sets of mice. The control group was on a chow mix known to keep mice lean. The other groups were started on that but after a few weeks moved to a chow mix known to fatten mice. A few weeks later, one of the groups was switched back to the chow known for lean mice, _but those mice stayed obese_. This lends credence to the cortisol theory.

A fourth group of fat mice were made lean again by switching their fat source to C12 saturated fat which apparently displaced the MUFA and PUFA in their bodies. Presumably it helped lower their cortisol too but that wasn't part of the paper.

The lesson here is that once your metabolism is broken and you are obese, merely switching to a healthy diet for lean people might not budge your weight. Or, it may take years for the changes to show any systemic improvement. We may need intervention whether it's progesterone or DHEA or aspirin+caffeine or whatever. I'm older now and somehow more patient so I am working on fixing myself. I'm going to try a little CortiNon and a little Mitolipin and a little aspirin+caffeine and a little hydrogenated coconut oil and see where it takes me.

So to answer OP's question "how smart do we need to be" then my answer is smart enough to recognize your own situation and methodically work to correct it. A large noggin is nice but unnecessary.