Category Archives: Protein

How to define a “healthy” diet. Period.

Posted on March 13, 2013 | 7 comments

Whether you’re strictly adhering to a diet or just doing your own thing, if year after year your GP is prescribing more and more medications to stave off morbidity and keep you intact, then the diet you’re following is most likely Fail.  The same is true if your body weight is creeping upward or your quality of life is creeping downward.lunchables

The glaring Fail of all 3 diets in the recent Mediterranean Diet Study for the medications criteria threw up a huge red flag.  As a brief refresher, at baseline and 5 years later, prescription medication usage was as follows:

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, fat, insulin, Ketosis, mortality, Protein, Sugar, TPMC

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Mediterranean Diet Fail – Nutrition Disinformation, Part I.

Posted on February 27, 2013 | 5 comments

Do not get your hopes up, do not pass GO!  do not collect $200.  The Mediterranean Diet.  Fail.

Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease with a Mediterranean Diet (Estruch et al., 2013)

This is one of the biggest diet studies we’ve seen in a while, and no doubt it was a very good one.  It very effectively put the Mediterranean Diet to the test.

I felt compelled to write about this study out of fear for the nutrition disinformation that it would likely inspire.  The Mediterranean Diet is associated with all good things, happiness, red wine and olive oil; whereas the Atkins Diet is associated with artery clogging bacon-wrapped hot dogs and a fat guy who died of a heart attack.  Nutrition disinformation.

If you ran a diet study with 3 intervention groups for 5 years, and by the end of the study everybody (in all 3 groups) was on more prescription medications, would you conclude any of the diets were “healthy?”  If so, then we should work on your definition of “healthy.”

Study details: big study, lasted roughly 5 years, and the diet intervention was pristine.  Mediterranean diet plus extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) vs. Mediterranean diet plus nuts vs. low fat control.  They even used biomarkers to confirm olive oil and nut intake (hydroxytyrosol and linoleate, respectively).  Compliance was good.

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, fat, Fish, gluten, Grains, insulin, mortality, Protein, Sugar, TPMC

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40 years ago a group of researchers turned ketosis into poetry.

Posted on January 13, 2013 | 11 comments

But first, a brief primer.  In red.

“The glucose muscle-sparing effect of fat-derived fuels” 

or, the Randle Cycle 2.0.  it’s like a course in life enhancement.

Part I.  Intermediary metabolism

The glucose-fatty acid cycle
The Randle Cycle, as originally proposed, states that fatty acid oxidation inhibits glucose oxidation.  This is good because during starvation, every tissue than can survive on fatty acids instead of glucose should do so, sparing as much precious glucose as possible for the brain.

The glucose-sparing effect of fat-derived fuels
A critical vital horcrux to this is in the oh-so-humbly-disguised phrase “fat-derived fuels.”  The fat-derived fuels are ketones, and they are rescuing the brain from starvation (ie, neuroglycopenia); they do so by supplementing glucose as a fuel source.  Ketones are good at this; many tissues are happy to oxidize ketones when they are available.

The glucose muscle-sparing effect of fat-derived fuels
Ketones are derived from fat.  During prolonged starvation, glucose comes from skeletal muscle amino acids (eg, alanine).  Ketones spare glucose.  Thus, ketones spare muscle.  QED.

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

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Biohacking holiday weight gain

Posted on December 23, 2012 | 11 comments

What should you eat before the big feast?  (hint: eggs.)  And don’t try to compensate in advance by eating less, this will only make you hungrier.  Furthermore, foods in your regular diet are probably healthier than holiday fare, so you definitely don’t want to eat fewer healthy foods to make room for empty calories.

Tip 1. 

Variation in the effects of three different breakfast meals on subjective satiety and subsequent intake of energy at lunch and evening meal (Fallaize et al., 2012)

Participants were served only one of these for breakfast:

And given unlimited amounts of these for lunch and dinner:

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, Exercise, fat, insulin, Protein, Sugar

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Metabolic rate per se

Posted on October 17, 2012 | 1 comment

I’m switching to a new email sign-up service and have no idea how to transfer my current list of subscribers.  If you’d like to continue receiving updates, please sign-up again on the right.

Admittedly, the effect of diet on metabolic rate is small (i.e. statistically non-significant in most cases), but its incredible consistency across space and time suggest it could be true.  And given the difficulty of maintaining a reduced body weight after dieting, it might even be important.  The following studies are examples of widely differing subject populations in various metabolic conditions; yet the effects of diet on metabolic rate exhibit a phenomenal degree of similarity.

disclaimer: I don’t know what’s more important – metabolic rate per se, the diet behind it, or the resulting hormonal adaptations.  All of the diets that are associated with a higher metabolic rate are also predicted to result in lower insulin levels and higher fat oxidation.  Thus, we are left with a triumvirate of diet, hormonal milieu, and energy expenditure… all of which are important for body composition and quality of life.

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

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[ketogenic] elite artistic gymnasts

Posted on October 12, 2012 | 6 comments

Before you say anything, “elite artistic gymnasts” could probably beat you in a race running backwards.  (with you running forwards.)  They are elite athletes.  And given a sufficient keto-adaptation period, they perform better sans carbs.

Ketogenic diet does not affect strength performance in elite artistic gymnasts  (Paoli et al., 2012)

This study looked at body composition and various performance measures before and after 30 days of a very low carbohydrate ketogenic diet (“VLCKD,” < 25 grams of carbohydrate per day) or a normal diet (“WD,” > 250 grams of carbs per day).  25 grams of carbs is very very low, less than Atkins and Kwasniewski.  On the other hand, 41% protein is pretty high.

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, Exercise, insulin, Ketosis, Protein, TPMC

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The Laws of Energy Balance FTW!

Posted on October 9, 2012 | 3 comments

Weight loss maintenance is not determined by calorie intake… or physical activity… but by The Laws of Energy Balance FTW!!!

Odd, the sensation I felt when reading this news release (gloating?).  As reported at a meeting of the Obesity Society, results from the Utah Obesity Study of gastric bypass patients 2 and 6 years after surgery.  By the 2 year mark, they lost over 100 pounds, or 36% of their starting weight (went from 296 to 189 pounds).  Energy expenditure declined from 2201 to 1736 kcal/day.  Food intake went from 2085 to 1638 kcal/day.  (Hint: it’s no coincidence that energy expenditure and food intake declined to the exact same degree.)  Physical activity and fitness levels increased.

By the 6 year mark, they still weighed 29% less than their starting weight.  N.B. that’s an amazing level of success, it’s virtually unheard of in diet intervention studies.  +1 for gastric bypass; -1 for nutrition.

Here’s what piqued my interest: during the gradual increase from 189 pounds to 210 pounds, which occurred between years 2 and 6 post-surgery, the most significant factor associated with weight regain was not calorie intake or physical activity… it was metabolic rate.  This represents another fail for “eat less move more,” and a win for the Laws of Energy Balance.

So what’s this got to do with The poor, misunderstood calorie?

what we know about metabolic rate:

1)      It’s invisible.

2)      Fructose vs. The Laws of Energy Balance (circa December, 2011): sugar-sweetened beverages can cause fat gain, not by providing excess calories, but by reducing metabolic rate.

3)      Holiday feasts, the freshman 15, and damage control (circa January 2012): overeating a high protein diet causes less fat gain than overeating anything else because it increases metabolic rate.

4)      Missing: 300 kilocalories (circa July 2012):  after losing weight, subjects assigned to the low carb diet maintained a higher metabolic rate than those on an isocaloric low fat diet.

“Eat less move more” is not the answer.  But eating less sugar, more protein, and fewer carbs might be.  Nutrition matters.

calories proper

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, empty calories, Energy balance, gastric bypass, Protein, Sugar, TPMC

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Protein bar takedown, part III (or V)

Posted on October 6, 2012 | 4 comments

No more pretense or cute backstory; I just like reviewing ingredient profiles of protein bars.  It’s a hobby of mine:
Candy in disguise, Op. 73 (circa April 2012)
Decepticon Promicor (soluble corn fiber), Op. 81 (June 2012)
Candy in disguise II, Op. 87 (July 2012)
Protein bar round-up, take II (September 2012)

See?

This is a review of Netrition’s “highest rated” bars.  Important notes about this category: these are not necessarily “new” protein bars, or even the bars everyone buy (“best sellers”).  They are the bars everyone who votes like the most.  They’re not the healthiest either… but some come close.   Continue reading →

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, fiber, gluten, Protein, Sugar, Uncategorized

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Missing: 300 kcal… AGAIN!

Posted on October 3, 2012 | 6 comments

Or, the curious perils of crappy sleep, part II: calorie-thieving gnomes.

In part I of the Crappy Sleep series, we discussed, among other things, the malevolent metabolic effects of the most utterly abnormal sleep structure (28-hour days, 6.5 hours of sleep per night [~5.6 hours / 24 hours], and dim lighting during the days).  In this study, the sleep was disrupted to a physiologically relevant degree for two weeks: 8.5 vs. 5.5 hours per night; in a cross-over study.

In part I of Missing calories, we discussed the effects of 3 different diets on metabolic rate after weight loss.  In this study, energy balance was assessed during 2 different sleep regimens in dieters in a CROSS-OVER STUDY.  If you haven’t guessed it, I believe a well-designed and executed cross-over study is superior, necessary, and essential for most metabolism-related studies.

Insufficient sleep undermines dietary efforts to reduce adiposity   (Nedeltcheva et al., 2010)

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Energy balance, Protein, TPMC

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Why diets fail, Op. 106

Posted on September 21, 2012 | 1 comment

Correction: diets don’t fail, dieters do.  And don’t take that the wrong way; adhering to a restrictive diet is one of the most difficult tasks for ANYone; thus, the obesity epidemic.  Some recent insights into diet-induced weight loss success, or lack thereof, have shed a new light on why some dieters adhere and others don’t.

In Insulin resistance, I discussed how insulin sensitivity may influence how well someone responds to a diet.  In brief, insulin resistant obese people do much better on low carb than low fat in a closely controlled clinical setting.  If you’re one of the lucky few insulin sensitive obese people, then simply reducing calories works.  Unfortunately, however, most obese are insulin resistant.

When it comes to devising a weight loss strategy, I’m willing to cut every corner and use every trick in the book to achieve success.  Data in this new analysis came from Chris Gardner’s notorious A to Z study, where patients were given diet books and told to have at it.  It was the weakest intervention in the history of diet studies, but it is exactly what everyone who wants to lose weight does.  And just like in Gardner’s study, most people fail.

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, Energy balance, insulin, Protein, Sugar, TPMC

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