The pendulum is swinging back - low fat diets are back in business

Hans

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A recent 2021 study:

"There is a consensus among all clinical specialties that the fat content of the average diet should be lowered to decrease the risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Low-fat diets are food where 30% or less of the calories come from fat. Multiple correlational studies have related a country’s cardiovascular mortality to the food consumption of its population." (R)
 

LucyL

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The best thing about the high fat diet fad was the promotion of saturated fats. All I want is to be able to afford coconut oil by the gallon.
 

Vileplume

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Any ideas how to begin a low fat diet, if someone has trouble with starches and too much liquid? The only thing left is to eat a ton of fruit, but then that’s high fiber. Where to turn, where to turn...
 
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Hans

Hans

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The best thing about the high fat diet fad was the promotion of saturated fats. All I want is to be able to afford coconut oil by the gallon.
Agreed.
Any ideas how to begin a low fat diet, if someone has trouble with starches and too much liquid? The only thing left is to eat a ton of fruit, but then that’s high fiber. Where to turn, where to turn...
Dried fruit, cheese, meat, yogurt, honey, bone broth, milk pancakes, etc., are good options.
 

youngsinatra

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I am always amazed that these studies think fat intake below 30% is "low fat".
I think the true benefits of low-fat eating are more around the 10-20% area. And when I am moving closer to the 20%, I'll use niacinamide with meals.
 

David90

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Milk powder. Danny has a great recipe on his Insta.
Thanks for the Info. I will look it up....

A recent 2021 study:

"There is a consensus among all clinical specialties that the fat content of the average diet should be lowered to decrease the risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Low-fat diets are food where 30% or less of the calories come from fat. Multiple correlational studies have related a country’s cardiovascular mortality to the food consumption of its population." (R)
I'm personally at 33% Fats for a while now. Carbs are mostly at 300g now. Trying to go down to the 25-30% Fats. But it isn't easy.
Also you losing a Lot of Calories, that's for sure. Not good if someone is Bulking.....:D

I also eat my Most Fatty Meals in the Morning (because of Manual Labour Job) and Evening (Before Sleep). Helps so much, because you will hold out longer without Food for Several Hours.
 
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Hans

Hans

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Thanks for the Info. I will look it up....


I'm personally at 33% Fats for a while now. Carbs are mostly at 300g now. Trying to go down to the 25-30% Fats. But it isn't easy.
Also you losing a Lot of Calories, that's for sure. Not good if someone is Bulking.....:D

I also eat my Most Fatty Meals in the Morning (because of Manual Labour Job) and Evening (Before Sleep). Helps so much, because you will hold out longer without Food for Several Hours.
Yeah for sure. Food with fat does taste better. But combining sweet with fat is the best. Smoothies with fruit are divine and can quickly boost your calories high enough if you're bulking, even if it's low fat.
 

David90

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Yeah for sure. Food with fat does taste better. But combining sweet with fat is the best. Smoothies with fruit are divine and can quickly boost your calories high enough if you're bulking, even if it's low fat.
Yeah you're Right. I have done smoothies in the Past with around 200-300g of Fruit and Water.
Problem was, i was getting cold all the Time and therefore i dumped it. Maybe i bring it carefully back somehow. But now is not the Time for that.
 

Dave Clark

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Milk powder. Danny has a great recipe on his Insta.
Hans, what is your take on coconut flour? Peat seems to think it can be a source of mycotoxins, but then, what can't? Also, what form of fiber is in coconut flour, soluble or insoluble? It would seem to be a good way to lower the starch levels in recipes, and if the fiber was insoluble, why not use it? I am sure if a reliable source was found, a product with no mold or mycotoxins could be had..
 
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Hans

Hans

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Hans, what is your take on coconut flour? Peat seems to think it can be a source of mycotoxins, but then, what can't? Also, what form of fiber is in coconut flour, soluble or insoluble? It would seem to be a good way to lower the starch levels in recipes, and if the fiber was insoluble, why not use it? I am sure if a reliable source was found, a product with no mold or mycotoxins could be had..
Yeah I like coconut flour. Peat doesn't like the flesh as it might cause an allergic reaction for some people. It irritates my wife's throat but I'm fine on it.
 

PaRa

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For sure 30% fat isn’t low fat
One thing is that fat isn’t really nutrient rich, except egg yolk, some nuts, seeds and avocado
Look the micros for skimmed and whole milk, whole is way higher in calories for not much more micros
Coconut fat is good but go for whole flesh instead of the oil
I see fat more like a building blocks/energy source (some of interest like preformed cholesterol, mct , stearic acid,...) than the « nutrient rich fat » like carnivore or keto zealots are saying
Yeah you’d better be filling up on tallow and butter than whatever fruit/root/tuber/properly prepared and tolerated grains etc

By reducing fat (mainly added) you just naturally have more whole foods hence more nutrients for less calories
It goes the same way when reducing sugar (mainly added)
 

Cara

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Any ideas how to begin a low fat diet, if someone has trouble with starches and too much liquid? The only thing left is to eat a ton of fruit, but then that’s high fiber. Where to turn, where to turn...
Oh my gosh. I struggle with the same! Starches (even beets) made my eczema worse. I usually incorporate lots of collagen powder, beef liver tablets, tuna w/ raw carrot salad, I’ve been eating mostly fruit along w/ bee pollen and I feel amazing. I’ll have beef/white cod/bone broth for dinner w/ cooked apples or pears in small amounts of ghee or coconut oil. Have you found a good balance?
 

Vileplume

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Oh my gosh. I struggle with the same! Starches (even beets) made my eczema worse. I usually incorporate lots of collagen powder, beef liver tablets, tuna w/ raw carrot salad, I’ve been eating mostly fruit along w/ bee pollen and I feel amazing. I’ll have beef/white cod/bone broth for dinner w/ cooked apples or pears in small amounts of ghee or coconut oil. Have you found a good balance?
Nice, those sound like some great ideas! I’ve never thought of using tuna with the carrot salad—with some oil in there too I might just have to try that.

For fruit, my stomach pretty much only digests grapes, OJ, and melon well. And ripe melon has been nearly impossible to find this winter, so recently it’s been grapes and OJ. But my heart rate got very high recently, due to stress hormones, and for some reason it seems the grapes might be contributing to that. Not sure why, so I’m still experimenting to see. I’ve been eating a lot more raisins recently, gelatin, plenty of cheese, and a low dose thyroid supplement has helped me pee less frequently from the liquids I consume.
 

Jib

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I've been doing much lower fat. Lots of potatoes, brown and white rice, oatmeal, fresh fruit, and maple syrup. Protein is mostly lean: tuna, chicken, turkey, shrimp, whey isolate, collagen.

Kefir made with 1% milk is virtually the only dairy I have. Zero cheese. Sparse amounts of cream in my coffee in the morning (with whey isolate + collagen). Have completely dropped eggs for now.

Losing weight and feeling better. High fat pretty much always left me feeling sluggish and heavy. I've dealing with a pronounced cortisol belly (40" measured around navel) which is slowly reducing with severely lowered fat intake. Workouts on the gym rings are already substantially easier. Can almost hold a full front lever, and am repping out Bulgarian dips in sets of 8, and doing them slowly. Simply from dropping around 8 pounds. I struggled to hold a tuck lever before and would have been lucky to rep out 3 Bulgarian dips on a good day. I may have gotten a little stronger from working out more but losing weight (around 8 pounds) over the past couple months has seemed to make a very significant difference in performance.

Most of my fat was coming from cooking with coconut oil, eating cheese, eggs, and chocolate bars. Dropping all of those and simply boosting my intake of carbs has been making a pretty dramatic difference.
 

Korven

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I've been doing much lower fat. Lots of potatoes, brown and white rice, oatmeal, fresh fruit, and maple syrup. Protein is mostly lean: tuna, chicken, turkey, shrimp, whey isolate, collagen.

Kefir made with 1% milk is virtually the only dairy I have. Zero cheese. Sparse amounts of cream in my coffee in the morning (with whey isolate + collagen). Have completely dropped eggs for now.

Losing weight and feeling better. High fat pretty much always left me feeling sluggish and heavy. I've dealing with a pronounced cortisol belly (40" measured around navel) which is slowly reducing with severely lowered fat intake. Workouts on the gym rings are already substantially easier. Can almost hold a full front lever, and am repping out Bulgarian dips in sets of 8, and doing them slowly. Simply from dropping around 8 pounds. I struggled to hold a tuck lever before and would have been lucky to rep out 3 Bulgarian dips on a good day. I may have gotten a little stronger from working out more but losing weight (around 8 pounds) over the past couple months has seemed to make a very significant difference in performance.

Most of my fat was coming from cooking with coconut oil, eating cheese, eggs, and chocolate bars. Dropping all of those and simply boosting my intake of carbs has been making a pretty dramatic difference.

Thanks for sharing, very interesting. Do you feel like the starchier foods work better on a low fat approach? I did kind of okay on a vegan diet, being fueled primarily by carbohydrates: potatoes, rice, oatmeal, fruits. Great pumps in the gym and good gains. The thing that really messed me up was the lack of animal protein/nutrients (building blocks) and eating ridiculous amounts of fiber.

Your post resonates with me as I'm getting quite sick of eating 100+ g of milk fat every day. Also sick of eating red meat. I've eaten so much fatty red meat that I'm at a point where even thinking about red meat makes me sort of nauseous. My ferritin is also high and my testosterone is low. I think my body really needs some good clean carbohydrates and energy.

(For me) a starch-free diet seems to be a kind of band-aid solution to severe gut dysbiosis. I do better not eating starch but I don't know if I'm thriving to be honest.
 

Jib

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Thanks for sharing, very interesting. Do you feel like the starchier foods work better on a low fat approach? I did kind of okay on a vegan diet, being fueled primarily by carbohydrates: potatoes, rice, oatmeal, fruits. Great pumps in the gym and good gains. The thing that really messed me up was the lack of animal protein/nutrients (building blocks) and eating ridiculous amounts of fiber.

Your post resonates with me as I'm getting quite sick of eating 100+ g of milk fat every day. Also sick of eating red meat. I've eaten so much fatty red meat that I'm at a point where even thinking about red meat makes me sort of nauseous. My ferritin is also high and my testosterone is low. I think my body really needs some good clean carbohydrates and energy.

(For me) a starch-free diet seems to be a kind of band-aid solution to severe gut dysbiosis. I do better not eating starch but I don't know if I'm thriving to be honest.

The starches absolutely work better for me on a low fat approach. High fat and high starch seem to be an awful combination for me. Energy crashes, massively sluggish feeling. Like body shutting down, and not in a relaxing way.

I do think it takes some time to adjust. Gas and bloating were out of control but are getting better over time as I get used to higher fiber. I've been doing a mix of white and brown rice for this reason. 2/3 cup brown rice, 1/3 cup white rice for example. Straight brown rice in large quantities can be a bit overwhelming for me, gas and bloating wise. But it's possible I'll adjust to that as well in larger amounts.

I don't know what my ferritin is, but my hemoglobin was 18.5 the last two times I donated blood. There was a time I was eating 1lb of grass fed beef every single day. I hit a wall with that as well. The idea of beef kinda makes me feel sick. Lean protein I can deal with.

1% milk (for making kefir) has been my main fat source. How much I drink of that varies day to day, but lately, probably a quart a day at the most.

I like tuna a lot for some quick protein. Mixing it with salt and mustard really gives it a nice flavor.

Just had some cod and rice + vegetables (asparagus and some bell peppers), and am still hungry. Gonna make a quick bowl of oatmeal (1/2 cup oats) with a banana and some raisins. Will probably have a couple or a few apples as well. Maple syrup is also amazing, and while that might scare some people, I take shots of that fairly liberally, as I desire. Great source of sugar with not only antioxidants but plenty of manganese and other minerals. I use maple syrup in my coffee these days and heavily prefer it to plain sugar.

Having some simple foods on hand is key. Baked potato with salt, or mashed. I literally just mash them with water and salt and they come out fine. My taste buds have adjusted pretty dramatically to appreciate plainer foods. The food choice is really the key here. If 95% of what you have available to eat is zero fat, it just works itself out naturally. Hungry? Oatmeal with some fruit. Shot of maple syrup. Fresh fruit. Plain baked potato with some salt or some fat-free sauce, like mustard or BBQ sauce.

I've even been having beans on occasion. I'd like to incorporate more of them over time if I can. I have a very small amount these days, maybe a few tablespoons in a day, so hardly any. But I'm completely open to beans whereas I had written them off before.

Tuna mashed with mustard on the side. If you have a food processor, by the way, 1 pickle and a few celery stalks chopped up make an awesome addition for a fat free tuna salad. Add some mustard to your tuna and mash it all up with the chopped pickle/celery and it's really good.

The lean protein helps so much with satiety. Protein shakes are very good too, at least for me. Kefir with fresh fruit/maple syrup/whatever you want to sweeten, and some collagen and whey protein isolate. I am not drinking those shakes that often anymore, just out of preference, but they're awesome in a pinch for a satisfying meal replacement.

I'm already down roughly 10lbs. I'm 5'11" and was at 200lbs, am steady around 190lbs now after maybe a month and a half of eating this way. I feel better, have more stable energy, and don't feel so exhausted after eating like I used to (because of how much fat I was eating). Seriously. A snack for me might have been a couple chocolate bars, or half a block of cheese. Now my idea of a quick snack is a bowl of oatmeal, cooked with water, seasoned with salt, with a sliced banana and some raisins. Or a plain baked potato with nothing but salt on it.

And of course, fresh fruit. Oranges. Kiwi. Apples. Grapes. Blueberries. Any of it. Very satisfying. Very good. I've been having much less fruit juice these days, but now that I'm on much lower fat, I might try adding that back in. Eating high fat, fruit juice seemed to make me gain weight like crazy.
 

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