Tag Archives: calories

The current state of affairs in nutri-Twitter

Posted on November 6, 2018 | Leave a comment

Rant.

1) It’s almost as if you’re either:

a red meat-eating 110% keto-advocate

you think red meat and a ketogenic diet is harmful.

If you don’t say the diet is magical, the zealots will try to trick you into, or outright accuse you of saying it’s harmful.

Further,

Cutting carbs helps some people lose weight. Cutting fat helps some people lose weight.

don’t @ me

— Bill Lagakos (@CaloriesProper) November 5, 2018

2. And the protein/kidney debate re-surfaced again recently. To be clear: no studies have shown direct harmful effects of protein on kidney function. The studies cited by KDOQI are observational and on end-stage renal disease. Not mild kidney disease or slightly impaired renal function. If I had ESRD, I’d rather play it safe and not enroll in one of Jose Antonio’s high protein diet studies (~4.4 g/kg lol).

I’m pro-LC and HP but not anti-LF. Humans have thrived on a wide variety of diets over time regardless of macronutrient composition. Food quality seems more important in this context.

3. If ketones are muscle-sparing, then…

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Watch the Clock, Not the Scale

Posted on June 8, 2018 | 1 comment

I’ve been known to say intermittent fasting is #weaksauce because most of the human studies show little or no effect and people frequently report being hungry (yes, even if LCHF). Human studies, not “n=1’s.”

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Well, now we know why. Time-restricted feeding (TRF) only really works when the feeding window is early (eTRF), as demonstrated by the recent Sutton study which showed, miraculously, great benefits achieved sans weight loss. Calories were strictly controlled in that study to prevent weight loss. AND when the participants were on eTRF, they actually reported less hunger in the evening.

We know from the studies by Jacobs and Hirsh that under ad lib AND isocaloric conditions, people lose more weight eating all their food for breakfast than those eating all their food for dinner.

That’s cuz metabolism is gimped at night. Lower metabolic rate and greater propensity to store fat.

Melatonin sensitizes the system, preparing it to optimally partition nutrients in the morning.

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, Dopamine, Energy balance, Ketosis, melatonin, muscle, sex, sleep, vasopressin

Tagged calories, circadian rhythm, ketogenic, ketones, ketosis, melatonin, nutrition, protein

Metabolism of starvation/fasting =/= low carb diet

Posted on March 9, 2018 | Leave a comment

The Biology of Starvation (intro)

The Biology of Starvation: Renal Gluconeogenesis

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One of the major [obvious] differences in metabolism between fasting and low carb dieting is nitrogen metabolism… because you’re eating protein on a low carb diet, not so much while fasting. During fasting/starvation your body tries to downregulate the urea cycle because you can’t really afford to be ‘wasting’ amino acids/protein. I bet you never thought about the muscle-sparing effect of fat-derived fuels like that!

“Glucose production in starvation” is important because you need to make all of it and reduce the use of it.

For the rest of this article and more, head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month for full access and there are many other options.

It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂

Also, I’m open to suggestions, so please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or contact me directly at drlagakos@gmail.com.

Affiliate links: still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? Carbonshade and TrueDark are offering 15% off with the coupon codeLAGAKOS and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE.
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20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE.

If you want the benefits of ‘shrooms but don’t like eating them, RealMushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else.

calories proper

Low carb diet. NAFLD.

Posted on February 18, 2018 | Leave a comment

An integrated understanding of the rapid metabolic benefits of a carbohydrate-restricted diet on hepatic steatosis in humans (Mardinoglu et al., 2018)

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Critique and analysis.

They did two very small (n=10 & n=7) 2-week long studies of low carb, high protein. Carb/fat/protein was 4/72/24 compared to 20/42/18 at baseline. There was no control group, so the results were compared to baseline.

Lots of pro’s and con’s on this one… but for that, head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month for full access and there are many other options. It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂

calories proper

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Exercise & protein, man. Exercise & protein.

Posted on July 1, 2017 | 4 comments

-Basically, any beginner can make decent gains upon starting a new exercise regimen… it’s actually hard not to. Noob gainz.

-What’s easier than doubling exercise volume? PROTEIN.

Patreon link https://www.patreon.com/posts/exercise-protein-12248945

Protein Supplementation to Augment the Effects of High Intensity Resistance Training in Untrained Middle-Aged Males: The Randomized Controlled PUSH Trial (Wittke et al., 2017)

Four groups: 1) high intensity training (HIT); HIT + high protein diet (HIT+P) (1.6 g/kg/d); HIT + high volume (HVHIT); and control. Baseline protein intake was ~1.2 g/kg, so it was about a ~33% increase.

Duration: 22 weeks, which is long enough to actually make some measurable noob gainz.

Results:

Exercise alone (HIT) wasn’t particularly effective but doubling the volume worked. What’s easier than doubling the volume? PROTEIN. Protein is better than doubling the volume for n00b gainz in LBM.

More gainz in leg & arm muscle mass and strength. Doubling the volume was slightly better for fat loss. CICO? Energy intake declined slightly in HIT but remained stable in HIT+P & HVHIT.

My take? Protein is way easier than double-volume high intensity training.

Protein & exercise, man. Protein & exercise.

calories proper

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Exercise, muscle, Protein, strength

Tagged body composition, calories, calories proper, energy balance, energy expenditure, exercise, fat, muscle, protein

Eating in the absence of hunger

Posted on March 4, 2017 | 20 comments

Good idea? Bad idea? … a bit of a rant

Some gurus swear by the “only eat when hungry” mantra. I’m neutral on the issue. In my opinion, it can work for people who are good planners because if you wait until you’re hungry and haven’t planned or prepared a meal yet, then it might be a while until you finally get to eat. Maybe you’re an hour from home: unlucky => by the time you start cooking, you’re famished and end up overeating. So you try to repent by skipping breakfast the following morning but fall into the same trap. Of course, however, it’s not gonna be like this for everyone.

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20 Comments

Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, insulin, Ketosis, muscle, Protein, strength, TPMC

Tagged calories, calories proper, carbs, circadian rhythm, diet, energy expenditure, insulin, ketogenic, ketones, ketosis, melatonin, protein

LCHF negates performance benefit of training. O_o

Posted on January 8, 2017 | 16 comments

It takes about 3 weeks to become fully ketoadapted and you don’t really get more ketoadapted thereafter, at least as per max fat oxidation rates (which seems a pretty good surrogate, imo).

Important point: “Athletes who drop carbs cold turkey suddenly suck.” And performance usually recovers by around week 3. This has been confirmed in nearly every proper study on the subject, in a variety of contexts.

Which brings me to the latest alleged slam on keto & physical performance:

Low carbohydrate, high fat diet impairs exercise economy and negates the performance benefit of intensified training in elite race walkers (Burke et al., 2016)

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16 Comments

Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, Energy balance, Exercise, fat, insulin, Ketosis, muscle, Protein, strength, TPMC

Tagged Atkins, calories, calories proper, carbs, diet, energy balance, energy expenditure, exercise, fat, insulin, ketogenic, ketosis, nutrition

The poor, misunderstood autophagy

Posted on November 19, 2016 | 16 comments

Autophagy isn’t a big deal in the way some Internet Bro’s think it is. Yes, Dr Ohsumi received a Nobel Prize for cracking deeply into this nut, but that in no way means “intermittent fasting is awesome because autophagy.” Autophagy isn’t awesome like that.

Alternate title: The dark side of autophagy.

For example: Autophagy contributes to muscle wasting in cancer cachexia (Penna et al., 2013)

Cachexia (muscle wasting) is one of the leading contributors to poor quality of life in cancer patients. Thanks, autophagy.

“Autophagy is the major process for degradation of cellular constituents, its rate being enhanced under stress conditions leading to organelle damage…”

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16 Comments

Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Exercise, insulin, Ketosis, muscle, Protein, TPMC

Tagged calories, calories proper, carbs, diet, energy balance, exercise, fat, nutrition

Non sequiter dietary fats

Posted on November 1, 2016 | 18 comments

Tl;dr: SFA and DHA

Essential fatty acids? Well, there’s really only one, DHA, and we really only need a gram or two. In other words, our entire requirement for dietary fat can be met by about 2% of total calories (plus a few extra grams to accommodate fat-soluble vitamins) (plus DHA is never the sole fat in a food, so you’d be getting a few more grams of other fats, too). But still, a very low fat diet! But impractical and probably not very palatable or healthy.

On average, dietary fat comprises about a third of calories, roughly equally divided between SFA, MUFA, and PUFA (slightly less PUFA).

Major sources of SFA are pizza and desserts – no wonder SFA gets a bad rap!

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18 Comments

Posted in Advanced nutrition, coconut, diet, Dietary fat, fat, Fish, TPMC, Trans fat

Tagged Atkins, calories, calories proper, carbs, diet, energy balance, fat, nutrition, obesity, Paleo, trans fat

Autophagy

Posted on October 26, 2016 | 51 comments

Caloric restriction (CR) activates autophagy. Intermittent fasting (IF) is basically kind-of-like the opposite of CR. I’m not knocking IF. The animal studies of autophagy, based on “chronic nutrition depletion,” more accurately reflect CR which results in decreased body weight or metabolic rate. IF generally includes refeeds, resulting in weight maintenance. Also, in the few human studies on it, weight loss (CR) but not fasting (IF) has been shown to induce autophagy.

If you’re actually losing weight over the long-term with an IF protocol, and thus are CR by definition, then I suspect you may be autophaging, too (yeah yeah, I know, that’s not really how autophagy works, but you get the picture).

Disclaimer: I’m relatively autophagy-agnostic; not really confident racing to maximize it is a great thing based on Human Studies.

Book: Autophagy in Health and Disease

Exhibit A: autophagy in skeletal muscle

Tl;dr: “a little exercise is a better than a lot of fasting”

A1) Physical exercise increases autophagic signaling through ULK1 in human skeletal muscle (Moller et al., 2015)

The protocol: participants either fasted for 36 hours or received a glucose infusion before and during exercise (cycling at 50% max for an hour).

“In the present study, we demonstrate that short-term aerobic exercise activates autophagic signaling through ULK1 in human skeletal muscle, independently of nutrient background.”

They really should’ve stressed that the deck was stacked to show fasting activated autophagy… 36 hours of fasting is pretty long but it had no effect.

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51 Comments

Posted in Advanced nutrition, circadian, endurance, Exercise, insulin, liver, muscle

Tagged calories, calories proper, diet, energy balance, energy expenditure, exercise, insulin, nutrition

Tag Archives: calories

The current state of affairs in nutri-Twitter

Watch the Clock, Not the Scale

Metabolism of starvation/fasting =/= low carb diet

Low carb diet. NAFLD.

Exercise & protein, man. Exercise & protein.

Eating in the absence of hunger

LCHF negates performance benefit of training. O_o

The poor, misunderstood autophagy

Non sequiter dietary fats

Autophagy

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