Category Archives: diet

What or When to Eat

Posted on March 11, 2017 | 13 comments

Artificial light at night, crappy sleep, and skipping breakfast are major contributors to poor circadian rhythms.  Some bro’s insist WHAT you eat is infinitely more important than WHEN you eat.  I beg to differ, at least in part – nix the refined & processed foods and it doesn’t really matter if you prefer low fat or low carb (P<0.05).  Evidence: Hunger-free diet(s).

 

Exhibit A.  On the other hand, feed two people identical diets but induce circadian disruption in one and whammo – big difference in outcome.

 

 

Significantly less fat loss and more muscle loss in the circadian disrupted group.

Interindividual variability? Yes.  Statistical significance? YES.

 

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, diet, Dopamine, Energy balance, fertility, insulin, Ketosis, Leptin, melatonin, sleep, Sun, vasopressin, Vitamin D

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

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A timeline of ketoadaptation

Posted on February 26, 2017 | 5 comments

This is how ketoadaptation works (when it works), chronologically, on physical performance (I think):

 

 

Dark grey line: the gradual increase in performance for someone training on a regular diet.

Red line: performance declines on keto initially, but is back to baseline (light blue line) by week 3.

Light grey line: as long as ketoadaptation doesn’t impair performance, similar gradual increase in performance for someone training on a regular diet.  Parallel to the dark grey line.  May even catch up to the dark grey line.  I don’t know, but probably not as per FASTER – long-term LC athletes were not superior to their LF counterparts.

 

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

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Protein, ketosis, and lean mass

Posted on February 7, 2017 | 24 comments

Most people make a big deal about protein.  I do, too.  Low carb diets aren’t muscle-sparing.  Again.

 

 

Comparison of a Low-Fat Diet to a Low-Carbohydrate Diet on Weight Loss, Body Composition, and Risk Factors for Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease in Free-Living, Overweight Men and Women (Meckling et al., 2004)

Part 1.  Hunger Free Diet(s)

Focus on what they’re eliminating:

LC diet: “limit intake of breads, pastas, rice, and desserts, eliminating intake of deep-fried foods, dried fruit, candy, sweetened soft drinks, and sugar, and increased consumption of vegetables, lean meats, eggs, and nuts”

LF diet: “eliminate high-fat dairy products and substitute with no-fat or LF alternatives, to increase intake of fruits, vegetables, whole-grain breads, and pastas and to eliminate fried foods, cream sauces, and high-fat/sugar cakes, pastries, chocolate, and candy. They were also asked to reduce use of oil products in cooking. As with LC subjects, LF subjects were encouraged to consume lean meats as alternatives to high-fat meat products.”

 

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

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Ketones, NLRP3, and IL-1 beta

Posted on February 1, 2017 | 14 comments

Interleukin-1 beta: produced by activated M1 macrophages, classical fever-inducing cytokine, mediates cellular inflammation, and induces COX-2 (target of NSAIDs).  Also involved in autoimmunity.  You don’t want none of it but you certainly don’t want a lot of it.

The ketone metabolite beta-hydroxybutyrate blocks NLRP3 inflammasone-mediated inflammatory disease (Youm et al., 2015)

This is a very specific effect: 1) many structurally similar compounds don’t block NLRP3; and 2) beta-hydroxybutyrate doesn’t block activation of other inflammasomes.

 




 

“In vivo, BHB or a ketogenic diet attenuates caspase-1 activation and IL-1b secretion in mouse models of NLRP3-mediated diseases such as Muckle-Wells syndrome, familial cold autoinflammatory syndrome and urate crystal-induced peritonitis. Our findings suggest that the anti-inflammatory effects of caloric restriction or ketogenic diets may be linked to BHB-mediated inhibition of the NLRP3 inflammasome.”

 

 

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Posted in circadian, diet, Dopamine, insulin, Ketosis

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Turmeric and DHA

Posted on January 20, 2017 | 21 comments

Turmeric is about 5% curcumins by weight, or it takes about 20 grams of turmeric to get 1 gram of curcumins.

But you can’t go eating it by the spoonful because: 1) that’s nasty; 2) it’s messy and stains everything yellow; and 3) it’s not bioavailable, like, at all.

2g curcumin vs. 2g curcumin + 20mg piperine:

Fortunately, bioavailability is drastically increased by black pepper &/or dietary fat.  For this reason, most curcumin supps contain either piperine or some sort of lipids.  I’m not a big fan of piperine because it seems to non-selectively increase the absorption of tons of things – and there are some things we don’t absorb for a reason: they’re toxic… so I’d rather just use a little pepper and take it with some seafood.

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, fat

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

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HANGRY! (part deux)

Posted on December 26, 2016 | Leave a comment

Effects of diet composition on postprandial energy availability during weight loss maintenance (Walsh et al., 2013)

Now, we’re getting somewhere!

3 diets (carbs 10%, 40% or 60%; protein was higher in the lowest carb group). Four weeks. CROSSOVER.

Then a test meal which approximated the diet assignment. Total “energy availability” in the blood was approximated by measuring the calories in blood glucose, free fatty acids, and ketones.

 

energy availability and metabolic rate

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, Energy balance, fat, insulin, Ketosis, Leptin, Protein

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These dudes ate a ton of sat fats and nothing bad happened

Posted on December 20, 2016 | 16 comments

Study: 12 weeks, obese men, very high fat low carb (VHFLC) vs. low fat high carb (LFHC) (Veum et al., 2016) #FATFUNC

 

Pictorially:

 

 




 

It wasn’t explicitly AD LIB, but pretty close.  I say this because that is the magnitude of appetite decline we might expect when people go on The Hunger Free Diet(s), eg,

 

^^^ GOOD IDEA

 

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

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VEG*N

Posted on November 25, 2016 | 27 comments

I’m not vegan but the “Anti-Vegan Because B12” argument is lame.  B12 insufficiency is largely due to malabsorption, not steak deficiency.

Also, oysters SMOKE meat for B12. Seriously, over a full day’s supply in one medium-sized oyster. Can meat do that?

Many people take supps, but somehow anti-vegans think B12 invalidates veganism.  It doesn’t.  Also, 1) tons of B12 in oysters; 2) nori B12 works in humans and rats; and 3) mushrooms still haven’t been ruled out as a legit source.  Whether you consider these foods vegan or not is a different story.  Many non-vegans are B12-deficient, too -> all the steak in the world won’t help if you can’t absorb it.

I’m not undermining the severity of B12 deficiency, just noting some basic facts.

My bias: things like T2DM, obesity, and even some cancers and mood disorders are due primarily to circadian arrhythmia, sleep, & LIGHT… and secondarily to diet.

When it comes to diet, mostly plants plus some animal is optimal for humans in our modern #context, regardless of which Ice-Age Paleo-Fairy Tale™ you subscribe to.  Things like sleep, LIGHT, and activity, among others, seem way more important than debating historical [theoretical] dietary minutiae.

Lastly, this particular debate isn’t “vegan vs. keto.”  THEY’RE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE.  “Eco-Atkins” is a thing.  Animals provide a convenient source of LC protein, but it can be done without them.

 

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, fat, fermentation, fiber, Grains, insulin, Ketosis, microbiome, microbiota, Protein

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