Foods and Fat Deposition
 

I've done a lot of experimenting with different foods and diets over the past few years... high olive oil, high saturated animal fat (dairy), high nuts, high fruit (low fat)...high grains (moderate fat), high coconut oil, coconut cream. It's probably not healthy to do so much experimentation but it beats the alternative of eating the wrong diet for a lifetime.

Being a tall and fairly thin guy, it's easy for me to see how different foods affect my body.

My observations have been as follows:

Coconut oil definitely has very little contribution to body fat, rather it is quickly burned and actually seems to decrease visceral adiposity. But coconut cream (contains fructose and glucose) seems to contribute to visceral fat.

High dairy fat (I mix raw cream into my raw milk) definitely increases subcutaneous fat. This is seen as increased hip fat and facial fat and all over subcutaneous fat. There is not much contribution to visceral fat.

Grains and fruits contribute mostly to visceral fat.

Almond butter, walnuts, and olive oil seem to increase both visceral fat and subcutaneous fat.

I haven't done a lot of high meat, but excess protein seems to go more to visceral fat. I'm still planning to experiment with organ meats, maybe some fatty ones like kidney.

Considering that visceral fat (the fat below the abdomen and surrounding the organs) is associated with lots of bad things (inflammation, heart disease, insulin resistance, etc)... and subcutaneous fat I suspect may be beneficial as long as fitness is high, I now try to eat less of the foods that contribute to visceral fat, and more of the foods that don't.

Just did a quick google check, and it seems truncal subcutaneous fat may be bad for asians if adipocytes are large/dysfunctional.

Well, I'm mostly northern european, my mom is mostly Irish, and my dad was adopted but appears to be european possibly Mediterranean. I look much more like my mom.

It's interesting that coconut oil reduces body fat and is used mostly in warm tropical climates where excess body fat would not be needed. The fact that coconut cream increased my visceral fat may simply be because I'm sensitive to fructose. I think fructose may be less lipogenic for people from tropical climates where fruits are abundant.
Saturated animal fat (from dairy) increases my subcutaneous fat, which may have helped prevent hypothermia in a cool northern climate.

I suspect I have some adaptation to dairy but I seem to do better if the milk fat content is increased by adding cream to the milk.

Well now I'm rambling... has any one else experimented and found that different foods deposit fat differently on your body?

How can you tell whether something increases or decreases visceral adiposity? I thought you'd need xrays for that.

I can tell by how big my belly gets. I'm thin so I can quickly tell when a diet is increasing my abdominal fat.

This is interesting, I am also very thin and so I can tell when i gain any weight and where it goes.

I would agree on most points. I think olive oil contributes to both visceral and subcutaneus and for me personally is a big weight gainer. I haven't really eaten enough excess of alot of things to be able to tell in detail but most of what you say makes sense.

I agree about coconut oil and would also perhaps extend some of that (but not anywhere near as much) to saturated animal fats. I tend to eat alot of animal fat, not nessesarily dairy but things like skin, high fat meats, eggs and lots of yokes, bone marrow excetra and find these also keep me very lean. I am also highly athletic and so I would assume this is because my overall carb level is low enough that I burn fat for fuel efficiently and these types of saturated fats provide the most abundant easily used source of energy

The closest I can say about any of this is that this time around eating this way, I've way upped my meat fat and meat in my diet and lowered my dairy (Nancy has had something to do with that, you may be happy to know) and veggies. While the rate of weight loss is about the same as last time, my waist is definitely getting smaller faster. It took me a few more months to get to the same pants size I am now, and I'm on a hole in my belt that I've never used, so that indicates I may be even smaller than I was after nine months eating well last time.

All this seems to be saying I may be losing visceral fat faster than last time, so there may be something to which types of fat respond to which types of diets, or not. It's just an observation.

Plane
Whose fat deposition is fairly wide-spread, but like most men, the stomach is the major location of deposit.

Thanks for posting your experiment results :D

My belly gets big when I eat thing that irritate it, like dairy, nuts, grains. It seems like it is a swelling of the intestines. But that is generally lower belly area like at the belly button or below.

If you don't eat carbs, none of those things will add body fat anywhere.

Yeah, when first started changing my diet, it was high fruit, and I thought maybe the big belly I was growing was from swollen intestines or something. I had adopted high fruit almost over night but it took a couple months before the added belly mass really became apparent, and I didn't have any problems like gas or irritation. Also the belly seemed to respond to exercise, going down if I did long periods of aerobic exercise.

I haven't done zero carb for enough time to observe this but somehow I don't believe it.

Why would the body just waste all that energy? Sure there might be more thermogenesis and maybe even more lipid excretion in the stool on zero carb, but I don't think it's impossible to gain fat on zero carb.

Were the Inuit skinny as twigs or did they have some added fat to keep them warm in the cold climate?

And don't forget some dietary protein is converted to glucose, and even protein alone will elicit an insulin response.

Maybe not impossible, but very difficult. I am doing an experiment of my own right now. For 30 days I am going to eat as close to zero carb as I can and overeat enough so that I should gain at least 15 pounds of fat.

Yesterday was actually day 7. I just weighed myself this morning and I weighed exactly the same as last saturday morning. A friend from another forum just finished the same experiment. After 30 days of overeating by about 1200 calories per day, she gained nothing.

There is more to it than the insulin factor. Fat is stored in the body as triglycerides. The glycerol molecule that forms the backbone of the triglyceride molecule comes from glycerol phosphate, which is a product of glucose metabollism. So yes, even on zero carb, the body will burn a small amount of glucose. But apparently not enough to make much difference. Gary Taubes covers this in Good Calories, Bad Calories. I believe it is on pages 388-389.

Here's one of my favorites, page 388-389:


Quote:
A single molecule plays the pivitol role in the system. It goes by a number of names, the simplist being glycerol phosphate. This glycerol phosphate molecule is produced from glucose when it is used for fuel in the fat cells and the liver, and it too, can be burned as fuel in the cells. But glycerol phosphate is also an essential component of the process that binds three fatty acids into a trygliceride. It provides the glycerol molecule that links the fatty acids together. In other words, a product of carbohydrate metabolism-i.e., burning glucose for fuel-is an essential component in the regulation of fat metabolism: storing fat in the fat tissue. In fact, the rate at which fatty acids are assembled into triglycerides, and so the rate at which fat accumulates in the fat tissue, depend primarily on the availability of glycerol phosphate. The more glucose that is transported into the fat cells and used to generate energy, the more glycerol phosphate will be produced. And the more glycerol phosphate produced, the more fatty acids will be assembled into triglycerides. Thus, anything that works to transport more glucose into the fat cells-insulin, for example, or rising blood sugar-will lead to the conversion of more fatty acids into triglycerides, and the storage of more calories as fat.

Well glycerol also comes from dietary fats themselves, which are already in the form of triglycerides before being digested. But maybe the excess carb intake will increase available glycerol phosphate in adipose cells to increase fat storage. If I sound like I know what I'm talking about I really don't :)




That's very interesting. If no weight gain occurs, then the next question is what happens to all those calories. A primal diet guru named Aajonus Vonderplanitz thinks lots of raw fats are needed for detoxification... to replace all the lipotoxin laden and cooked/oxidized fats in the body with clean fats. Could be that a zero carb diet allows more excretion of lipotoxins like dioxins and old oxidized fats.

From my own experience, I agree with this.

Nancy, I think you are talking about a change in your belly 'size' in immediate response to eating personally 'irritant' foods, while Jono is referring to changes that maintain over a longer term than hours/days. You also feel some kind of distress from these foods anyway don't you? Jono, do you feel distress from your belly 'fat' changing? Apart from not looking as good naked of course.

I've personally found that any unsaturated fat tends to cause more bodyfat gain. I must say I haven't even tried to distinguish between subcutaneous fat and visceral fat. And the higher the MCT content the less fat gain. So non MCT saturated fat promoted more bodyfat gain, but only marginally so. I'm reading a lot more stuff about the inflammatory/lipid peroxide factor from unsaturated fat so I'm trying to minimize my PUFA intake. Pity, I used to enjoy nuts. But I do feel so much healthier (fewer old performance injury aches and pains :) ) for not eating them. I'm even off the MUFa's as well as the poly's at the moment. If it's unsaturated, I avoid it.

Stuart