As you may have noticed from some previous comments I’ve made in the past 24hrs (thank you for your responses, btw, I can’t tell you how encouraging seeing you respond so diligently to so many comments, mine and others, is) I’ve just discovered your blog and doing my best to hold off on asking you so many questions before I’ve had a chance to go through all your posts, but my searches for posts on metabolism and adaptive thermogenesis did not seemingly come up with the factors followup, so I was curious if you had had a chance to write them up yet (or if it is in your new book)?

I’m just 3 weeks in and pretty much eating just grass fed beef or wild fish so far. I have so many food allergies and a suspected candida issue that I haven’t wanted to take any chances with eating a food that may unknowingly prevent me from losing (though would be interested in hearing if you think I’m being silly and believing unproven information).

Given that you say the calories one’s body could intake and still lose weight never recovers because of adaptive thermogenesis if calories are too low at some point that the body slows down its metabolism, I have a question to hopefully make sure that I’m not permanently screwing up my metabolism… I’ve been eating anywhere from between 1000 to 1300 calories a day (usually probably 1200), judging by the tables FitDay has provided me, and at least 50% fat, depending on whether I’ve eaten more fish than beef that day, it may even be as high as 60%. From what I’ve read so far that doesn’t seem to be a problem, but what does concern me is that I feel “hungry” all the time. My stomach always feels empty, almost to the point of growling, even if I just ate a 5 oz hamburger patty 10 minutes before. Now, normally I assume the answer would be that I need to eat more (or more fat), because you’re supposed to feel satiated on this diet… however, I find that although I experience the sensation of hunger in my stomach, I lack motivation and appetite to eat, to the point where I will sit for hours feeling the hunger feeling because I just don’t really feel like eating again (which, is a huge change from when I consumed carbs, because if my stomach felt then how it feels now, I’d be eating anything I could get my hands on until it went away). If I eat that 5 oz hamburger, I get full to the point of feeling horribly full like I’d be sick if I ate any more of it, yet then literally 10 minutes later my stomach feels completely empty. So, which do you recommend I believe? My stomach or my appetite, the former which tells me that I need to eat a hamburger every 10 minutes or my appetite, which is fine with just 3 meals a day with several ounces of meat each meal? Is my stomach still adjusting from not having starch fill it up all the time, or is it really my body telling me that I’m starving myself? I remember feeling this sensation when I began my first few attempts low carbing years ago, but also remember it going away after a few days when the carb cravings subsided, and I’m wondering what has changed this time. I just don’t want to do anything to myself that will forever ruin my ability to have success losing weight, not to mention making myself unhealthy as well (though so far I feel fine… I’m not feeling the “I feel great all of a sudden and everything is so much better!!!” that others seem to, but I certainly don’t feel worse other than the hunger pains). Thank you very much in advance for a response and your time; it’s so much appreciated.
Kimberly

I would believe your appetite. Maybe you need to get something that takes a little work to eat – beef jerky springs to mind – and chew on it when your stomach feels hungry.

I still get newsletters from AC, and he updated his ‘MAD’ pdf a couple of days ago. I wouldn’t even read it if I were you. My eyes glazed over after about the sixth personal insult in the first two paragraphs. Apparently your post here is another ‘libellous attack’, and anyone of right mind can see it clearly isn’t.

I don’t believe AC is mentally balanced. People in the past have commented on ‘roid rage, but I don’t think that’s the problem here. I have a bipolar relative, and his behaviour reminds me very much of hers. He has the classic signs of grandiosity and irritable mania. Seems to me he always had signs of it but it’s been getting worse over the years along with his online behaviour, which is typical of disease progression. He’s of the right age for it. I really hope someone helps him before he does something harmful. It’s obvious the guy is boiling over with rage and not in his right mind, goodness knows what he’s like to live with.

Ketogenic diets are thought to help not just epilepsy, but bipolar disorder too. This was true of my relative, though as the disease has progressed she now needs medication. I myself probably have cyclothymia, but I’m able to control my mood very well with diet.

The symptoms AC used to describe as having that were helped by going low-carb sound a lot like the depressive aspect of bipolar – from what I remember, tiredness, depression, hypoglycemia, sleep problems, etc. It’s not uncommon for people who are bipolar/cyclothymic to believe very strongly in low carb diets because of how much they have been helped by them. But I really think he needs to start taking some valproate now to calm him down.

All in my humble opinion of course.

I think that you may have hit on the correct diagnosis. But, we can’t really diagnose anyone with bi-polar disorder via their rantings on the internet. Another possibility is one of the many personality disorders in the most recent DSM.

My point is that that the calorie theory is based on the overly simplistic concept that because you can get a caloric value for the 3 macro nutrients and that you can demonstrate through metabolic ward studies done at starvation levels that it does not matter which macro nutrient you restrict the same weight loss results that you can treat protein, fat and carbohydrate as if they are all just calories to the body. This ignores the fact that a certain amount of protein and fat is relegated by the body to roles other than sources of energy. For this reason calories in do not necessarily equal calories out.

In the same manner the calorie theory proponents in using a car or engine as an model to illustrate calories in must equal calories out focuses only on the gasoline consumed to cover a specific distance. In order to run, even crude internal combustion engines require some form of lubrication in addition to gasoline. If I apply the same argument as the calorie theorists I can maintain that crank case oil has a caloric value which must be considered in the calories in side of the equation. Since the crankcase oil is partially consumed in the combustion process but is never completely consumed but replaced after a time I can then argue that in an internal combustion engine calories in do not equal calories out.

If anyone is having a hard time getting my point then it makes my point about the calorie theory. It is absurd and pointless because it ignores the related processes.

Many of the overfeeding studies were done on normal-weight subjects. The diets were high-everything, and the subjects didn’t gain the weight that the increased caloric intake would have predicted. So these diets definitely provided a metabolic advantage.

If you eat enough of anything you will use some of the calories for the body’s energy needs, you will store some as fat, and you will burn some off. That which you burn off is the metabolic advantage. People who have insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia will store more and burn off less since they have a lot of insulin and insulin is the fat storage hormone. Thin, young, insulin-sensitive people will store less and burn off more. Decreasing carbs and increasing fat will reduce insulin, increase insulin sensitivity and make people store less and burn more.

If one wants to use a car or even a gas engine as an analogy to support the calorie theory then they must also take in to account the fact that gasoline is not the only source of calories that must be supplied to an engine. If one starts with crude oil as the raw material, gasoline as a source of calories is one of the products produced. But in order for the engine to run, lubricating oil, which is also a source of calories, must be put in the crankcase. While many calories from gasoline are consumed during the running of an engine insignificant amounts of calories derived from the crankcase oil are consumed. And unless the engine is inefficient only very small amounts of crankcase oil are used in relation to the amount of gasoline.

As one poster commented the problem is that simplistic concepts like “calories in must equal calories out” and “eating fat will make you fat” appeal to those who like to rely on their perceptual skills which are often notoriously unreliable when based on superficial observations of which the calorie theory is a prime example.

I’m not sure I get your point here, but I’ll post it for all to see. Maybe it will be more obvious to others.

His book on cholesterol alone is reason enough for him to get more respect than these websites bestow.

I think AC’s behavior is beyond ‘irascible.’ And I’m not the only one who feels that way. Take a cruise through some of the comments on other posts, and you will see that his fellow Aussies who have dealt with him more than I have feel much the same way as I do.

I think his book is okay at best. Certainly not brilliant enough to overlook his despicable behavior. A much better bookthan AC’s is Malcolm Kendrick’s of the same title.

I have been thinking about this post of yours, and there’s one aspect I can’t quite understand yet. Wondered if you could clarify for me please.

Why would our bodies have evolved to waste excess calories when we get “lucky” enough to hit upon a jackpot of food? On the evolutionary planes of Africa, shouldn’t the rewards of a big pay-day, so to speak, be conserved maximally in case of famine? I understand how adaptive thermogenesis is an evolutionary beneficial process when it comes to low-calories (times of famine, for example), but not when it comes to high calories.

Thanks for your input!

Michael

It’s a difficult explanation, but here is a paper that lays it our pretty well. I hope it’s not too technical.

MRE

1) I mean, I have proven the metabolic advantage exists. Regular people like me prove it every day. I have my RMR logs; my RMR is about 1000 cal. I keep rigid food diaries. My food diaries average out to 1650 cals over a year. There is no way I am burning 650+ cals in activity. Clearly a great deal of this food isn’t being used for energy.
When I eat carbs, and keep my calories similar, I gain weight.
Where is the controversy?

2) What about studies like this:
The effect of a high-carbohydrate meal on postprandial thermogenesis and sympathetic nervous system activity in boys with a recent onset of obesity
The study demonstrates that boys with a recent onset of obesity have a higher TEF and sympathetic nervous system activity after eating a high fat diet (70% fat, 20% carb 10% pro) than when eating a high carb diet (70% carb, 20% fat, 10% pro).
There are no differences in meals for thin boys.

The high fat meal brings recently fat boys to the same metabolic activity as a thin boy.

This demonstrates what I’ve always thought of it – it is not that low carb provides a metabolic “advantage”, it is more that there is a metabolic DISadvantage of carb sensitivity! Whether or not someone gets a metabolic “advantage” is directly proportionate to how carb sensitive they are. Boys who become obese are a good indicator of harboring carbohydrate sensitivity… and these boys show a restoration of normal metabolism when eating lots of fat, just as expected (whereas high carb suppresses their metabolisms).

If you only used thin boys, it would appear there is no metabolic difference between a calorie of carb and a calorie of fat, since the thin boys seem to metabolize it the same (there is no difference between the meals in heart rate or TEF).

To find the metabolic “advantage” you need to use people who truly have metabolic abnormalities – fat people, especially people who are gaining weight steadily and slowly. If you use healthy normal weight people you’re going to see a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. OF course you will… otherwise, they wouldn’t be thin, would they?

You wrote:

I do like the way you handled it. AC foams and spews and basically reveals what nutcase he really is, issuing challenges and ultimatums and declaring himself victorious in this “debate”, etc. etc. You calmly ignore him, for the most part, and after the sea’s have calmed, offer up a clear way to interpret the same data in another light.

AC can claim you never met his lopsided challenge. blah blah blah, but anyone with a shred of objectivity can see that these metabolic ward studies are not conclusive proof of much of anything.

If they were truly well done metabolic ward studies using the number of calories the free-living studies use (somewhere between 1200-2000 kcal/d), and they showed no difference in weight loss as a function of macronutrient composition, then it would get my attention. Especially if there weren’t the others out there (also metabolic ward studies) showing the existence of a metabolic advantage.

now where’s that bottle of jameson’s…

Several hundred thousand words later more like…

MRE