Tag Archives: calories proper

Start your OWN Patreon campaign!

Save

10 Comments

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

Tagged body composition, calories proper, carbs, diet, energy balance, fat, protein

Endurance Performance Doesn’t Decline on a Low Carb Diet

Posted on July 29, 2017 | 2 comments

The new study by Zinn and colleagues doesn’t debunk ketoadaptation. And the authors agree!

In brief, it was 5 ~50-year old recreational endurance athletes. They’ve been training a lot for a very long time. In other words, one way to view this study is the opposite of n00b gainz. Experienced exercisers don’t typically make gains in 10 weeks without drastically changing their training program or increasing protein intake – neither of which occurred in this study.

For the rest of this article, and all past & future articles, head on over to Patreon! Five bucks a month gets you all access. It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂

Affiliate links: It’s 2018, join Binance and get some damn cryptoassets or download Honeyminer and get some Bitcoins for free!

Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? Carbonshade and TrueDark are offering 15% off with the coupon code LAGAKOS and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

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.

Join Earn.com with this link and get paid to answer questions online.

Long-term fat adaptation.

Ketoadaptation

More on physical performance and ketoadaptation

A timeline of ketoadaptation.

Save

2 Comments

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

Tagged Atkins, body composition, calories proper, carbs, diet, exercise, fat, insulin, ketogenic, ketones, ketosis, nutrition, protein

Allu-lujah: the new Quest Hero bars

Posted on July 23, 2017 | 7 comments

On that sweetener in the new Quest Hero bars: allulose (formerly known as D-Psicose).

1. I’m sure they were quick to adopt the alternate nomenclature because it’s hard not so say Piss-cose lol

2. Nutrition-wise, Hero bars are basically Quest Lite. A bit less fibre. But I really think they’re getting much better at texture.

3. On to allulose. It’s not really like sugar – even though the FDA says it must be labeled as such – because it carries virtually no calories and actually blunts the blood glucose spike from a meal.

Exhibit A. n=20 healthy peole: 7.5 g D-psicose alone, 75 g maltodextrin alone, 75 g maltodextrin + 2.5, 5, or 7.5 g D-psicose (Iida et al., 2008)

amazeballs

Exhibit B. n=26, zero or 5g psicose with a standardized meal (Hayashi et al., 2010). Note: there are ~12 grams of allulose in a Hero bar.

It works better in diabetics.

They did a 12-week study where psicose was dosed 3 times a day, 5 grams each time, and showed it was perfectly healthy. Some markers even improved.

Exhibit C. Psicose metabolism (Iida et al., 2010)

In doses ranging from 5 to 30 grams, up to 70% is excreted intact and the rest does not go to farts.

It’s virtually calorie-free:

and is barely fermentable (compared to FOS):

compare to other low carb protein bars here, get the new Quest bars here, or just buy some straight allulose and experiment with it!

Mechanisms? 1) it’s not sugar, but it still enhances glucose disposal; and 2) some animal studies show it enhances liver glucose uptake. Idk.

If you like what I do and want to support it, head over to Patreon! Three bucks a month for access to all articles and there are many other options. Don’t hesitate, there are only a limited number of spaces left at the $3 level. It’s ad-free and you can cancel at any time 🙂

Discounts: still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? Carbonshade and Spectra479 are offering 15% off with the coupon code LAGAKOS. And for some delish broths/stocks, Kettle & Fire is 20% off HERE.

Save

7 Comments

Posted in Advanced nutrition, diabetes, diet, Energy balance, fermentation, fiber, insulin, Protein

Tagged calories proper, carbs, diet, energy balance, insulin, protein, sugar

FOOD PROFILE

Posted on July 13, 2017 | 9 comments

Hey Fam, announcement: I’m moving to Patreon soon — will still post about 4-5 articles per month with at least 1 open to the public. The rest will be for Patrons. I’m still trying to figure it out and I’m open to suggestions!

I loved this – when describing the two study diets, which differed markedly in carb content (10% vs. 53%), the authors said they were similar in energy, protein, and “FOOD PROFILE,” meaning low-processed, lower-glycemic foods.

Non-industrial foods.

Hunger-free Diet(s).

BOOM!

Visceral adiposity and metabolic syndrome after very high-fat and low-fat isocaloric diets: a randomized controlled trial (Veum et al., 2016)

What happens when you give up industrial foods and start following a Hunger-free Diet (regardless of carbz)?

EVERYBODY LOSES WEIGHT

And le saturated fat? Industrial foods are the problem, not saturated fat. One group went from 48 to 31 grams per day (LFHC), the other group went from 42 to 81 (VLCHF): all metabolic parameters improved in both groups.

Even their livers shrank:

My only qualm: everyone lost a bit of muscle. NOT SURPRISING when you cut calories & protein and don’t exercise. Protein dropped by about ~25 grams in both groups. When you cut calories, you need to up protein or start lifting heavy shit otherwise you’ll lose muscle. The ketonez won’t help.

Save

9 Comments

Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, fat, insulin, liver, muscle, Protein, strength

Tagged body composition, calories proper, carbs, empty calories, energy balance, fat, ketones, nutrition, protein

The alkaline diet is bullshit. Proof: vinegar is the bomb

Posted on July 7, 2017 | 4 comments

1. Whether it’s Balsamic, sherry, red wine, apple cider, or even plain distilled white, vinegar is a great condiment (P<0.05). Try cutting your favorite with a more concentrated one for more fun (be careful, it can burn you; I’d start with 1:20 or 5%).

2. It reduces the glucose and insulin response to a meal.

World’s coolest fatty acid?

[Patreon link] (open access)

Exhibit A: 20 g apple cider vinegar, 40 g water, and 1 tsp saccharine two minutes prior to “a white bagel, butter, and orange juice (87 g total carbohydrates)” (Johnston et al., 2004)

4 Comments

Posted in Advanced nutrition, diabetes, diet, fermentation, insulin, microbiome, microbiota, TPMC

Tagged calories proper, carbs, diet, energy balance, insulin, nutrition

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.

Start your OWN Patreon campaign!

Affiliate links: It’s 2018, join Binance and get some damn cryptoassets or download Honeyminer and get some Bitcoins for free!

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

Join Earn.com with this link and get paid to answer questions online.

Save

4 Comments

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

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

That’s SOME olive oil!

Posted on June 25, 2017 | Leave a comment

Extra-virgin olive oil ameliorates cognition and neuropathology of the 3xTg mice: role of autophagy (Lauretti et al., 2017)

I think the whole point of this study was to show-off their swanky EVOO.

“The EVOO was from the olive growing area of Apulia region (Torremaggiore, Foggia, Italy). Olive fruits from the cultivar “Peranzana” were processed immediately after harvesting and EVOO obtained by crushing the olives under mechanical cold pressure to preserve all the nutritional components, and meet the stringent criteria of the premium quality level (free acid content < 0.3 g%, peroxide value < 7 mEq/Kg, K232 < 1.85).”

Which may or may not be from this company.

Peranzana: it’s a single varietal olive oil, meaning it’s made from only one type of olive – similar to buying varietal wines, eg, malbec – it specifies the grape, but not the location, producer, wine’s name, etc., etc. You can actually get a Peranzana EVOO or olives online.

Hormesis of the AGEs

Posted on June 19, 2017 | 1 comment

Some semi-random thoughts (ie, I might’ve had too much coffee haha)

-I’ve never really been a fan of the concept of “hormesis,” because you can basically say it of just about anything. Kinda like “vestigial,” because, like, you technically don’t need your legs…

-We’ve seen actual human trials on AGEs, I even wrote a relatively mature blog post about ’em (this isn’t gonna be like that). Tl;dr: they really do some bad things in experimental settings. No, not bad like playing in traffic; bad like inflammation, oxidative stress, etc.

-Some say the ability to cook was a major evolutionary factor. Improved digestibility, nutrient bioavailability, energy extraction, reduced toxins, etc. I don’t know, maybe it was just seafood/DHA. Whatevs, I don’t really buy this line of reasoning anyway. Maybe AGEs are not hormetic and are outright harmful; but cooking was better for our species because we died from other things long before the AGEs got us… or maybe this is a good reason to eat more baked mushrooms (as per Roncero-Ramos et al., 2016) haha.

-I follow the BTD (Blow Torch Diet™)* so seared meat and to a lesser extent plants can’t be unhealthy, right?

*seriously, I use this and these all the time.

1 Comment

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

Tagged calories proper, diet, insulin, muscle, nutrition, protein

Mushrooms are awesome AND GOOD CALORIES

Posted on June 12, 2017 | 1 comment

I have a somewhat specific definition of “Good Calories.” Foods that, when added to your diet, cause a spontaneous reduction in intake of something else. Like nuts.

The opposite of soda.

And more recently, mushrooms!

Side note: ‘Mushrooms Every Day’ is part of my long-term anti-cancer strategy.

1 Comment

Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Energy balance

Tagged body composition, calories proper, diet, energy balance, nutrition, prebiotics

High protein magic

Posted on June 6, 2017 | 22 comments

Remission of pre-diabetes to normal glucose tolerance in obese adults with high protein versus high carbohydrate diet: randomized control trial (Stentz et al., 2016)

n=12/group

Duration = 6 months

Diet: all food provided. Mucho gusto!

Critique #1: if my calculations are correct, we’re comparing low protein (0.675 g/kg) to adequate (1.35 g/kg) (not “high”).

The diets were decent:

Results:

Author’s conclusion was that this was due to high protein alone, but I’d say it was at least partially due to weight loss. BOTH groups lost weight and improved insulin sensitivity. Statistically significant in both groups.

Glucose (A) and insulin (B) in response to a 75g OGTT (red is high protein, blue high carb):

I still say weight loss was the primary driver, but must concede, however, that protein did have a little magical effect: high carb group actually lost slightly more weight, but insulin sensitivity improved more in the high protein group. The high protein magic: reduced insulin secretion yet still greater reduction in glycemia.

Well, maybe not magic…

Despite having more insulin, high carbers lost slightly more fat mass but way more muscle. THAT’s high protein magic lol

However, the meal tolerance tests show a slightly different trend:

We expect glucose and insulin excursions to be greater in HC (blue), because they had a high carb meal whereas the HP group had a high protein meal. From this perspective, if we graphed the results as “change from time zero,” I think the reduction in glycemia from baseline to 6 months would be similar in both groups suggesting weight loss as bigger factor. We’d still give some props to high protein because it lowered glucose just as much despite having less insulin. High protein magic.

Note to self: gotta stop saying this was “high protein.” 1.35 g/kg is not “high,” seriously. But still, High protein magic haha

Oh and one other thing, high protein usually induces greater weight loss:

Randomized trial on protein vs carbohydrate in ad libitum fat reduced diet for the treatment of obesity (Skov et al., 1999)

High protein vs high carbohydrate hypoenergetic diet for the treatment of obese hyperinsulinemic subjects (Baba et al., 1999) (not ad lib)

Comparison of high-fat and high-proein diets with a high-carbohydrate diet in insulin-resistant obese women (McAuley et al., 2005)

The effect of a low-fat, high-protein or high-carbohydrate ad libitum diiet on weight loss maintenance and metabolic risk factors (Claessens et al., 2009)