Lower-carbohydrate diets and energy expenditure

a conundrum?

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Around 20 years ago some bloggers estimated a metabolic advantage of ketogenic diets around the magnitude of 200 kcals or so.

Feasible? Perhaps. Gluconeogenesis is costly, energy wasted as heat via UCPs, etc., etc. If you added up all those processes, 200 kcals? Perhaps.

However, you could just as easily imagine they add up to about 1 grain of sand on the beach.

Then some scientists took to the chalkboard…

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Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? TrueDark is offering 10% off HERE and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. Use discount code LAGAKOS for a deal on CarbonShades. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

Naked Nutrition makes some great products, including Naked Grass Fed Protein. Also, free shipping 🙂

20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE

Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else

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Melanocortin 4 Receptor

BREAKING: new MC4R agonist extremely effective in rare genetic obesity disorders. Probably others, too.

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Setmelanotide… (Clement et al., 2020)

Patients with hypoactive polymorphisms in the leptin receptor or POMC, fairly good results: many achieved 10% weight loss by year 1 and this was associated with significant declines in hunger scores.

remember Contrave?

These things are all tied together: leptin -> POMC -> aMSH -> MC4R -> reduction in appetite, increased energy expenditure. And I suspect improved signaling will be effective for many people with obesity… not that all types of obesity share a single cause, but this pathway seems to regulate a lot in this lane. In other words, it could be a common underlying pathway in many types of obesity.

For the rest of this article and more (or for the comparison chart at the very least), head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month for access to this and all previous articles. 16% off for annual subscriptions! It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂

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Affiliate links: Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? TrueDark is offering 10% off HERE and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. Use discount code LAGAKOS for a deal on CarbonShades. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

Naked Nutrition makes some great products, including Naked Grass Fed Protein. Also, free shipping 

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, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else

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These pork rinds are the bomb. Seriously! And if you like spicy

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the happy fun low carb ice cream roundup

and comparison chart!

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disclaimer: trigger warning?

Many new players in the game and most companies do things a little differently (to stand out, one-up the competition, manage costs, ice cream flavor/texture, etc., etc.): more or less protein; sweeteners, fibre, etc.

Not to go all YOLO #IIFYketo on you, but many of the macro breakdowns can be compatible with you. Just don’t be a full-pinter (more on this below).

The most popular is Halo Top, so that’s the arbitrary comparator.

N.B. a serving size is 1/4 pint…….. I know, I know, I’m no fun; but… don’t be a full-pinter 🙂

for the obvious reasons, but also because some of these have fibres or sweeteners or other ingredients that may disagree with you

Lastly, for the sake of ease, I tried to compare just the vanilla’s.

For the rest of this article and more (or for the comparison chart at the very least), head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month for access to this and all previous articles. 16% off for annual subscriptions! It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂

For personalized health consulting services: drlagakos@gmail.com.

Affiliate links: Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? TrueDark is offering 10% off HERE and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. Use discount code LAGAKOS for a deal on CarbonShades. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

Naked Nutrition makes some great products, including Naked Grass Fed Protein. Also, free shipping 

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, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else

Start your OWN Patreon campaign!

These pork rinds are the bomb. Seriously! And if you like spicy

Get some dark chocolate, too 

calories proper

air pollution, no bueno

I was pleasantly surprised to learn so many people on social media were mindful of air quality, eg, in their homes, bedrooms, etc.

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^if you live there, definitely read this

Air pollution: Cigarette Smoking Jr, but without the buzz.

I’ve just about always kept a HEPA air purifier in my bedroom because that’s the room I spend the most amount of time and do a lot of breathing. If that’s clean air… kinda like an oil change, right?

Depending on the size of your room, they are more or less expensive (eg, $120 for a unit that clears 100-175 ft2 vs. $430 for a unit that clears 280 ft2). And if you’re an actual smoker or live with one, there are special filters for that, too.

Many studies of a variety of designs suggest this to be prudent, at least.

Meta-analysis with bold conclusions: Effect of environmental air pollution on type 2 diabetes (Meo et al., 2015)

Results: Air pollution is a leading cause of insulin resistance and incidence of type 2 diabetes mellitus. The association between air pollution and diabetes is stronger for traffic associated pollutants, gaseous, nitrogen dioxide, tobacco smoke and particulate matter.

Conclusions: Exposure to air pollutants is significantly associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus. It is suggested that, environmental protection officials must take high priority steps to minimize the air pollution, hence to decrease the incidence of type 2 diabetes mellitus.

scary, but correlation =/= causation yeah yeah yeah I know…

More mechanistic study in mice: Short term exposure to air pollution induces hypothalamic inflammation, leptin & insulin resistance, increased food intake, decreased energy expenditure, and obesity (Campolim et al., 2020).

There are more human studies and strategies to reverse the damage, but for that, head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month for access to this and all previous articles. 16% off for annual subscriptions! It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂

For personalized health consulting services: drlagakos@gmail.com.

Affiliate links: Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? TrueDark is offering 10% off HERE and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. Use discount code LAGAKOS for a deal on CarbonShades. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

Naked Nutrition makes some great products, including Naked Grass Fed Protein. Also, free shipping 

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, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else

Start your OWN Patreon campaign!

These pork rinds are the bomb. Seriously! And if you like spicy

Get some dark chocolate, too 

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magnesium (Mg) salts

There are a lot of ’em!

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The preferred form was historically Mg oxide because it had the highest Mg content but that was basically the worst form lol 🙂

citrate, chloride, lactate, aspartate > oxide (Firoz and Graber, 2001)

least bioavailable, may help indigestion, but also here’s your laxative….

And the two power players: Mg bisglycinate chelate and Mg threonate.

Magnesium deficiency: What you need to know to avoid disease

Deficiency actually isn’t uncommon because most people’s diet sucks (proton pump inhibitors, alcoholism, etc.). RDA is 400 mg but since hopefully you’re getting some Mg from your diet, I wouldn’t take 400 mg. And definitely not all at once.

Now on to the two biggies…

For the rest of this article and more, head over to Patreon
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Affiliate links: Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? TrueDark is offering 10% off HERE and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. Use discount code LAGAKOS for a deal on CarbonShades. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

Naked Nutrition makes some great products, including Naked Grass Fed Protein. Also, free shipping 

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, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else

Start your OWN Patreon campaign!

These pork rinds are the bomb. Seriously! And if you like spicy

Get some dark chocolate, too 

calories proper

#eTRF is a circadian phenomenon, not a keto/carb thing

This is why I lean toward that interpretation. It hasn’t been directly tested but there are a few lines of evidence which support it.

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Unsolicited shade (jk): intermittent fasting doesn’t “work” in the absence of weight loss. But they’ve been doing the studies wrong since forever. Skipping breakfast was the problem.

#eTRF, on the other hand, has shown metabolic benefits independent of weight loss. It’s a circadian phenomenon. It may also help you lose weight:

The best part: #eTRF has extremely high adherence, especially for a “diet” intervention. Participants were able to fully adapt to earlier or lighter dinners in less than 2 weeks…

What is the mechanism, you ask?

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Affiliate links: Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? TrueDark is offering 10% off HERE and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. Use discount code LAGAKOS for a deal on CarbonShades. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

Naked Nutrition makes some great products, including Naked Grass Fed Protein. Also, free shipping 

These pork rinds are the bomb. Seriously! And if you like spicy

Get some dark chocolate, too 

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hypothalamic leptin and insulin signaling

-regulation of body fat-

In healthy individuals, hypothalamic leptin and insulin signaling results in reduced appetite, increase satiety, and remove some of the brakes on energy expenditure.

It happens in the fed state and is shut down by fasting and stress.

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The problems come when these pathways exhibit inappropriate silencing, whether that’s due to some sort of resistance, failure of ligand to reach receptor, etc….

For the rest of this article and more, head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month for access to this and all previous articles. 16% off for annual subscriptions! It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 

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Affiliate links: Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? TrueDark is offering 10% off HERE and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. Use discount code LAGAKOS for a deal on CarbonShades. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

Naked Nutrition makes some great products, including Naked Grass Fed Protein. Also, free shipping 

These pork rinds are the bomb. Seriously! And if you like spicy

Get some dark chocolate, too 

calories proper

ketogenic and ultra-processed, convenient not WFPB

All of a sudden I see a flurry of new low carb protein bars. A couple new players to discuss.

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disclaimer (trigger warning?): stop here if you think low carb protein bars are garbage. I don’t think that, and think they can be helpful as a good source of protein and fibre (most of them).

disclaimer #2: when judging flavor & texture, one rule: you have to play fair. These aren’t gourmet fine dining. Like, if you had to give a perfect 10/10 to a protein bar and judge the rest relevant to that one. Because if you compared them all to Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups or whatever, they’d all be 1/10.

convenient, not gourmet delicacies

less funny meme:

more funny meme:

Not all of them are new. For the sake of comparison, Quest — it’s basically where the bar is set imo, especially now since they switched to a better prebiotic fibre (soluble corn fibre) and considerably improved the flavor & texture). FitCrunch is closer to a meal replacement than a protein snack.

There are a few more nuances and details discussed about the true newcomers….

For the rest of this article and more, or just to see the awesome chart of calories/macros/etc, head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month for access to this and all previous articles. 16% off for annual subscriptions! It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 

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Affiliate links: Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? TrueDark is offering 10% off HERE and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. Use discount code LAGAKOS for a deal on CarbonShades. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

Naked Nutrition makes some great products, including Naked Grass Fed Protein. Also, free shipping 

These pork rinds are the bomb. Seriously! And if you like spicy

Get some dark chocolate, too 

calories proper

exercise and weight loss

Ok ok, it can work.

disclaimer: I’m 100% pro-a-lot-of-exercise. Resistance, speedwork, & endurance. Walking. Play a sport. 100%. I don’t care what our Paleo-ancestors did, it’s good for modern humans today.

bonus if it’s outside under the morning sun after a protein-rich brekkie 🙂

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Very nuanced, however. Types of exercise, modality, intensity, many factors involved. And on of the most important: food intake.

Was food intake controlled? How? A few hundred calories burned during exercise can easily be compensated with a few more bites of food, slightly improved food absorption, reduced energy expenditure at other times of day, etc. And I bet in a free-living population, those things happen to varying degrees.

Exercise can cause weight loss and it might not have to do with the calories burned while you’re actually exercising. Higher intensity work that supports lean mass could give you a little TEE boost or as you get stronger, moving becomes easier so you climb stairs faster or don’t mind getting up and down from the couch numerous times for whatever reason. I bet these things happen, too.

Here is my favorite study where exercise alone didn’t cause weight loss.

Most important critical detail: they were given no diet advice. Period. Not told to eat to satiety, not told to continue with their regular diet, not ad lib. Nothing. No diet advice. Nada.

That makes a difference.


For the rest of this article and more, head over to Patreon
! Five bucks a month for access to this and all previous articles. 16% off for annual subscriptions! It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 

For personalized health consulting services: drlagakos@gmail.com.

Affiliate links: Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? TrueDark is offering 10% off HERE and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. Use discount code LAGAKOS for a deal on CarbonShades. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

Naked Nutrition makes some great products, including Naked Grass Fed Protein. Also, free shipping 

These pork rinds are the bomb. Seriously! And if you like spicy

Get some dark chocolate, too 

calories proper

keto for the young and old (2 studies)

or another lesson on how energy balance nearly always has the final say on metabolic outcomes

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I liked these studies, not because they were perfectly designed (they weren’t) or well-controlled (they weren’t) but because of the data presentation.

disclaimer: at this point, I’m less interested in the one-diet-to-rule-them-all, and more interested into presenting a variety of options, to accommodate more lifestyles, etc., and examples of what to expect according to specific study results. Ymmv (I know I know)

Two studies: one in ages 9-17 with obesity and NAFLD and the other in ages 60-75 with obesity. Both were 8 weeks, low(ish) carb vs. low(ish) fat, controlled(ish) for protein, and well-intentioned.

Mostly whole foods, no ultra-processed foods.

spoiler alert: as alluded to above, the results largely followed energy balance with modest influence of macro’s…

For the rest of this article and more, head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month for access to this and all previous articles. 16% off for annual subscriptions! It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 

For personalized health consulting services: drlagakos@gmail.com.

Affiliate links: Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? TrueDark is offering 10% off HERE and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. Use discount code LAGAKOS for a deal on CarbonShades. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

Naked Nutrition makes some great products, including Naked Grass Fed Protein. Also, free shipping 

These pork rinds are the bomb. Seriously! And if you like spicy

Get some dark chocolate, too 

calories proper