Reading his ebook now.

I think one of the pitfalls of his stuff is that he is on one hand intelligent enough to seem older than he is, while being young and smart-ass'd enough to seem younger, which has an odd effect in some respects (what is genuinely funny from a smart aleck young man sounds asinine or ridiculous from someone older, so you actually have to read it with his 'young enthusiasm' held in your attention up-front).

His life would be so much easier if he would quit publicly insulting leading well qualified medical doctors people love (particularly Low-Carb gurus) -- but probably he just wants to make sure that even if his metabolism works great, he will still have some social challenge in his life. ;-)


One sentence struck me as food for thought:

This got me thinking.

Let's say a person (not to name any names just because that person sounds amazingly like ME of course) gets to a certain level of fat storage.

On another thread in the research/media forum I think it is, some of us were recently talking about how it's a fast slope from 'getting fatter' to suddenly getting REALLY fatter as if there's some critical mass point of system failure or whatever. (We were having this conversation in part with Carne, and I really thought we were winning that debate, until she had to go post this stunningly gorgeous avatar, and we lost the entire event by then drooling- or envious- proxy. Fine then, dammit. Be that way.)

* Let us say that "under-calorie-ing" is a problem for sheer energy reasons if there's more body to energize.

* And let's say that under-nutrient-ing is a problem for nutrient reasons that are greater if there's more body to feed.

But the problem is that by then not only is the body storing nearly everything down to carrot stick calories in fat cells -- leaving the person with approximately enough energy to stagger in to pee in the morning and not a helluva lot else, since so much of their food is redirected into fat instead of energy (and since they now weigh twice as much which is Extra Hard, Ask Me How I Know) -- but in order to eat ENOUGH calories (let alone nutrients in those calories) to actually feed that body, it's actually not possible. Why?

Because once someone is 200# overweight (or even less), if you were to eat sufficient calories (or 'close') to maintain that weight, the amount you'd have to ingest would be so large that there's simply no way that even a marathoner could burn all that off fast enough. Even if you were eating those calories/nutrients in nothing but fish and vegetables and washing it down with herbal tea, no sugar or carbs or anything, having enough nutrients and everything, even if metabolism worked perfectly, still nearly all of that would have to store as fat simply because it would be WAY too much intake at once.

Of course since the metabolism is as active as a tree sloth by that point, it probably stores a great deal more of that than it would otherwise.

But, it is not altogether reasonable to eat that many calories most of the time anyway. So even if a person is 'overeating' by ordinary (200# less bodyweight) standards, they are still *chronically undereating* by their body standards, talking about calories (energy) here.

But it's not just undereating calories, because the natural inclination when one lacks energy in a big way is to aim for "energy food" -- carbs/sugars are pure energy. Perhaps there are people who, when they have no energy, crave carrots and chicken, but I'm here to tell you I crave pasta/breads, chocolate/sweets, and big sweet fizzy caffeinated drinks. In fact I can tell I am low on oxygen (from sleep apnea -- I can't wear the damn machine -- it feels like scuba gear and sounds like Darth Vader, I can't sleep!) because I specifically start *craving intense sugar* -- literally if I find myself thinking about candy like starburst and skittles I know it's time to stop right then and do some yoga deep breathing exercises, it is THAT predictable.

What that means is that the vitamins, minerals, AMINO ACIDS especially, etc. that the body now needs *even more of* due to its size, one is actually getting *far less of* due to the size-driving-gnoshing-driving-carbs aiming people for foods that are not nutritionally useful. So it's not merely that the need outstripped the supply, it's that the supply naturally reduced at the same time.

Worse, most of the food then has significant ANTI-nutrients of various kinds that attack liver, kidney, thyroid, digestion, etc. (e.g. fructose, grain and dairy proteins), which only create a whole 'nuther circle/cycle in the situation.

So most of the time someone super fat is undereating calories-for-body, undereating nutrients-for-body, overeating poison-for-everything, and yet overeating calories-for-usage on top of that. Constantly getting worse even if they are "not overeating" even compared to the person who weighs half what they do sitting next to them.

And then once in awhile, following the body-is-starving-for-nutrients cycle, the body completely freaks out and wants to go eat, say, most of a pizza and ben&jerry's, because on some level the body thinks if you eat ENOUGH, it may give you at least a couple milligrams more of a couple nutrients the body's totally deprived of. I imagine in some evolutionary sense that was midnight-noshing on every grub, root, nut, berry, insect, and small animal foolish enough to cross someone's path. Anyway that amounts to some kind of binge or at least "serious eating-fest" which, being insanely high in calories, also stores at the speed of light.

So whether a person is eating enough for their body and storing it instantly because their body can't possibly burn that off (even with normal metabolism let alone theirs); or whether they are over-eating in compensation for the body's sense of starvation, and storing it instantly for the same reason times ten; or whether the person is UNDEReating for their actual size because they are 'matching food' with the thin people around them to intentionally 'not overeat'; no matter WHAT they do, it is going to store food as fat, not give it as energy, and worsen the metabolic problem in about six different ways.

That's a metabolic blind alley is what this leads me to think.

That once someone reaches *a certain point* of obesity, there is not a way to lose more than a certain % or poundage of it without (intentionally) doing your metabolism *even more harm*.

Because you can't just eat enough calories and nutrients to repair your metabolism when your size is large enough that doing so would require so much food you'd die of 800# obesity-induced enlarged heart failure before your metabolism was cured and you'd create even much worse problems as a result of that eating that might not be curable or stoppable -- because fat cells have their own effect on the body, not just as inert stored things, and the greater the quantity, the greater the problems.

You can use carbohydrate restriction. Or caloric restriction. You can lose some weight. But if the feeding-theory is correct, then while this does take weight off you (yay), it also further-taxes thyroid, adrenals, digestion, overall metabolic rate, and more.

You know, maybe this is why it is so difficult for most 'supersized' people (150++# overweight) to ever get anywhere near a normal weight, especially women. They can 'diet' down 100-180# depending on the person and timeframe, but if that isn't enough to make them close-to-normal, getting beyond that's another story -- because at that point, on top of EVERYTHING ELSE, the body has then lost so much body weight that it's slamming the brakes on further loss even MORE as a survival instinct.

This is a depressing thought, but I'm trying to just be objective about it and not base theory or consideration on what I emotionally would like to be the case (since "magic pills" and "fairies" failed to manifest to solve it long ago ;-)).

It does make me think though that Matt's theory, even if TOTALLY VALID, may not be particularly practical beyond a certain "range" of extra body weight. What might be the answer for someone 170# might be doom for someone 400# simply because "scaling up" when it comes to calories and insulin in particular doesn't necessarily work.

My eating two big steaks instead of one for dinner, to up my aminos and calories so I'm not as deficient, is not likely to do much besides giving me more calories and protein/aminos than my body can even use at that time and it might well either store the rest as fat or in the case of aminos just waste them (burn them off). If I only ate meat, according to Matt that would have its own problems, but everything that isn't meat/eggs would only make the root problem much worse for insulin reasons, and insulin resistance is already a huge part of the problem. And while the theory that one just needs to "eat-till-nutritionally-satiated" is a good theory I think I agree with, people over a given size or with an advanced degree of IR, could very well end up diabetic, trashing their pancreas for LIFE and be on to losing limbs, by the time their metabolism even began to 'heal' enough to matter at which point it can't heal at all because you BROKE the pancreas altogether. You see the problem here.

I'm looking for a logical 'solution' for someone in that situation (say, 250# overweight, having lost 100-150# already). I just don't see one.

I'm suddenly reminded of that scene in THE ABYSS where Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio looks at Ed Harris, who is waiting for her brilliant mind to figure out how to get both of them through freezing water to safety with only one wetsuit as the water raises around them, and she says, "I drown." LOL! That was her brilliant plan. That she had to totally drown and he had to bring her back once he got inside, IF he could.

Maybe that's not-quite-I-hope what it amounts to for metabolism. Maybe even if lowcarbing or lowcaloring or both DO essentially further-wreck your thyroid, adrenals, digestion, and your overall metabolism, maybe using one of those methods to try and lose enough body weight -- even lean body weight -- to get down to a bodyweight that will ALLOW a person to "eat nutritionally complete for their size" to rehydrate-cellular-nutrition -- is what is necessary.

Just thinking on paper.

As a last note it brings me back to where I was a couple months ago when I started collecting supplements though. That I think a sort of mass supplementation for 3 months may be helpful. I can't possibly eat enough food, especially the nutrient value in today's foods, to deal with that issue but maybe supplementing *everything*, while eating a lot of animal protein and coconut oil, will help.

PJ

I don't remember if you read this thread: http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=394928 about adiponectin ? But as you will see in it, there is a point where the hormonal negative feedback loops are overridden by too much adiposity. I think it was 20% overweight or something like that. It is possible that one has to do whatever it takes to get under this 20% before the body can heal itself properly.

I think it was this post: http://forum.lowcarber.org/showpost...46&postcount=30

Actually, I'm scheduled for an abdominoplasty in January 2010 and I kind of hope that after it (after removing a whole bunch of adipose tissue and skin) it will be even easier for me to keep my weight or even lose some more. Because, it will bring me under this 20%. It may be wishful thinking, but I really hope that is how it will play out. If it does, then this would give credence to your theory and the stuff about adiponectin.

Of course, I'm not going through this surgery for this reason, I'm doing it because I've lost enough weight that I have too much skin dangling. But I'm still hoping.

Patrick

Another shameless self-plug: http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=394699



Patrick

Hey PJ once I surveyed all the NDs in my area asking for weight loss for a supersizer. ALL of them pointed to this one lady who's had the same treatment protocol since the 70s. She puts people on 500 cal from food and adds supplements with amino acids. Sorta like what you were thinking? I wasn't interested in such an approach at the time so I don't know any more.

Good lord no I wasn't thinking of reducing calories -- merely not eating "however many calories an alleged BMR based on 400# comes out to" -- but I was thinking of major 'supplementation' across the board though -- from aminos to every kind of vitamin, mineral, herb, etc. etc. you can imagine.

My theory is that if the body doesn't need something and it gets some, it can excrete it, with some rare instances where you can overdose if you get excited (like with Vitamin A or Potaassium for example) but I look out for those I know about.

I'm intending to start the mega-supplementing this Monday. I just got my enterolab.com kit in the mail today and it has to mail Mon-Wed, so since I don't want feces sitting in my freezer for the next five days (yuck!) I'm going to wait to sample until then and wait to do the supplement regime until I've done that so as not to throw anything off. This weekend I'm going to finish my list of everything involved. My theory is that this will either help some or hurt some but probably will not have 'no effect' just due to the rather extreme nature of it. By Monday I am shifting my diet to a new approach I recently came up with for the sake of my daughter's eating actually: some steel-cut oats in the morning along with a few slices of thick slab bacon; a chuck burger patty with half a sliced apple or pear for lunch; and chicken breast chunks stir-fried in coconut-oil with a few veggies (peppers, onions, carrots, zukes/squash, broccoli -- all these for her obviously, aside from the first two I'm not into veggies) for dinner. I haven't figured out portions for numbers or what the variants can be yet; I'm trying to up carbs for her sake without upping calories so much (also for her sake) which is a real pain since most non-grain carbs no matter how great they seem, are actually yucky without fat slathered on them.

PJ

From his latest post.

http://180degreehealth.blogspot.com...806659590012335

Just goes to show.

Patrick

Patrick, have you stopped gaining now? Can you give us a typical day's menu?

Yes I have stopped gaining. I went up to 263 and I am now down to 257.

I will try to note what I eat tomorrow, but I don't think it will be useful info. Since I don't have any special food intolerance that I know of. I only avoid what is known to be bad for everybody.

Patrick

The other side of the coin is that a high carb diet stops having its obesogenic effect at some point as you reach a plateau of adiposity. But seriously, there is no basis for the plateau effect. There is, however, basis for homeostasis.

The context seems clear to me. I mean, it looks like the advice is the context.

Fruits contain zero fat. As far as I know, fat is the only thing that will fix the liver pronto. So much for the claim that fruits come with their own antidotes. Why eat the antidote and the poison anyway? Why not just skip the poison, skip the antidote and be done with it?

So, high everything to fix the problems of high carbohydrate? That won't work. Merely adding carbohydrate to a traditional diet will cause the diseases of civilization. Excuse me, the symptoms of carbohydrate poisoning. Fructose is inflammatory. So is glucose. So is insulin. Chronic ingestion? How about 86 grams per day of carbohydrate, is that chronic? That's the threshold for the diseases of civilization to appear. 70lbs per year for 20 years. And he says to eat as much carbohydrate as we can? I don't take his advice seriously at all.

I agree. I'm just saying it may not be necessary to cut all forms of carbs to prevent the metabolic syndrome. I also believe that if someone wants to truly have the benefits of low-carb for life, they will have to do what it takes to properly acclimate themselves to zero carb. It's not easy to truly switch your metabolism to meat only. But normally, after 6 months with only meat and water, people should have succeeded in switching. Not many people would be willing to do this for the rest of their lives in our current society.

So yes, true honest to god zero carb is healthy if you can sustain it. BUT where I disagree with you, is that this is not the only way of being healthy. It cannot be all types of carbs that is a problem. In Nutrition and Physical Degeneration (Weston A. Price), we have observations of very healthy people with 70% of their energy coming from carbs. We can't ignore this.

Patrick

Wow, awesome post PJ. Certainly gave me lots of "food for thought" as it were, and I think you hit on some incredible points. I mean I'm another one who started out with over 200# to lose to even *approach* normal. I know I've read here about people saying they are eating 2000-3000 calories a day and still losing, and their current weight is only 160 or some such - less than my own "goal". And it does make me wonder, if that is truly the case for some, how many calories I would actually have to eat to be totally satisfied on a cellular level? 5000? 10000? Could I even *afford* to eat that many? Could I even actually do it on a regular basis? I've had my calories get up to the 4000 range, but generally I feel pretty stuffed if I make it to 3000, and most days am not nearly there, generally running in the 1800-2500 range. Yet it seems that is probably pretty low for someone who is almost 300 pounds. So what to do? I'm not losing weight regardless at this point - basically hovering at about 293 no matter what I try. My own list of supplements continues to grow and grow and grow. I've had to get those giant pill organizers from the drug store to keep track of what I take.

And if I *could* eat enough to reach the levels Matt talks about how much would I weigh before I reached homeostatis? 350? 400? 450? I mean "high everything" (though clearly including bad grains and fructose) is how I got to almost 400 pounds anyway... And how badly would my body be destroyed from out of control blood sugar? As you put so eloquently, some things just don't "scale up". If you made a bumblebee as big as a horse it would no longer be able to fly. I'm totally in agreement that my metabolism is tanked and needs to heal - but I'm also not convinced that the methods that work for a very young man who has never had serious weight issues would also work for a middle-aged woman who has been seriously overweight since Matt Stone was in diapers.

I mean maybe his advice will work for the woman who writes to him who is 5'5" and weights 125 lbs, but *really* wants to lose 5 more and keep it off (and how in God's creation can I possibly even *relate* to a person like that?)

Yet I know Matt is also a fan of Broda Barnes, and I did find interesting this comment in his last blog post:

Very interesting comment from him given his "high everything" philosophy. But at least it does give the impression that he is willing to flexible and consider various options. But, like you, I'm not convinced that his recommended method of healing the metabolism would work for someone like me. But then again I don't know what will.

Matt's advice is to stuff yourself with enough calories by doing whatever it takes. I myself do not support this idea. Yes eat plenty, but avoid what I listed.

Patrick