I’ve got a podcast interview coming up in less than an hour, so time is short tonight, but I wanted to share this:
A personal trainer is making himself obese – on purpose. (And to think most obese people sort of stumble into it … sheesh.) As an online article explains:
Since May, Drew Manning has gained about 70 pounds on purpose. And he’s not done yet.
Drew is a personal trainer and has always been the “fit guy.” He’s now on a journey he calls Fit 2 Fat 2 Fit where he spends six months (he has about 4 weeks left) eating unhealthy food and not exercising, then he will take six more months to get fit again. Why? To experience for himself what it’s like to be overweight, how tough it is to lose weight, and ultimately show others how to get fit.
I admire Mr. Manning for making the effort to understand what his clients go through, but I’m not sure making himself fat for six months will do the trick. He may, unlike many of his clients, still lose weight easily once the experiment is over. It’ll be interesting to see if there are any follow-up stories once he starts trying to shed the pounds. Maybe Jimmy Moore can get him to talk about it on a future podcast.
The most interesting part to me, of course, is how Mr. Manning is making himself fat. Here’s what he had to say:
To some extent, all of these foods that I’m eating (sugary cereals, granola bars, juices, white breads, white pastas, sodas, crackers, chips, frozen dinners, mac n cheese, etc.) taste delicious. But then I feel like crap later on and I get hungry again and crave those same foods.
What, no bacon? No sausage? No cream? Replace the sodas with 1% chocolate milk, and the diet that put 70 pounds on this guy could pass for the lunch menu at your local public school.
I wonder if Michelle Obama and the other obesity experts are following this story …
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Don’t worry, they’ll blame the weight gain on the lack of fibers in the bread and pasta! 😉
i did a similar thing for different reasons: i trained for strongman.
losing the weight again was a much longer process especially as i ended my training with an injury and was unable to train again for some time.
This guy will start his weight loss campaign with his knowledge of fitness / diet that worked for him in the very first place. That is nothing like what his clients / most of us have gone through. And when the weight slips off him effortlessly (i’m guessing there, but looking at his jacked fig1 i suspect so) that will give more powa to the ‘sloth / gluttony’ brigade.
Unfortunately this just smells like a self-promo stunt. On the positive side Tom, you are correct in that his ‘fat’ diet may raise a few eyebrows!
I suspect he’ll lose weight more easily than people who’ve been fat for years, but it’ll still be interesting.
Indeed. It is interesting that the diet does not involve drinking liters of olive oil or eating pounds of lard. That, surely, would be the simplest and quickest way to fatten up… according to convention, nowadays.
I wonder, though. Since it is in our genes to gain and lose weight with the seasons (so-called metabolic flexibility), what would be reasonable, healthy parameters? He clearly overdid it. Also, what would be the best gain/loss window?
Anyway, his is just a gimmick. Under the fat, he still has the muscles and the strength. He didn’t waste away and his condition will never be that of truly obese people. And he knows HOW to work out, something that is not at all trivial.
It’s a worthwhile experiment, but I don’t think it will exactly give him the metabolism of someone who struggles to lose weight for years.
Just secured an interview with him. We’ll see how he takes off that carb belly. 😉
You da man, Jimmy! Looking forward to that one.
I wish he had decided to gain the weight using whole grain cereals and whole wheat pastas, etc. I think the message would have come across more clearly that carbohydrates, even those considered “healthy whole grains” are the problem.
From that food list, he is clearly eating moderate fat and very high carb but I will guess that the media will still say he gained the weight with a “fatty” diet.
Just the same, I hope he gets lots of attention and that he keeps talking about what he ate to gain: carbohydrates.
Yeah, going for whole-wheat starches would have been illuminating.
Milk is mandated to be skim? Sheesh, just serve cups of water for crying out loud.
No, no, no … water doesn’t have all that sugar that’s allowed in the skim chocolate milk.
If I recall, Robert DeNiro went to France to put on weight to play Jake LaMotta in “Raging Bull” by eating nothing but pastries and other carb rich foods. Maybe he should have just asked DeNiro?
But then DeNiro would have responded, “Are you talkin’ to me? ‘Cuz there’s no one else here. You talkin’ to me?”
Slightly off-topic, but I just watched a documentary called “Heckler”, and in the special features, Jamie Kennedy pointed out that the comedian who opened his shows was on Atkins, and said something like “F*** Atkins. You haven’t lost weight in 10 years. Stop it.” And the guy kinda just took it, seemingly not knowing about the health benefits that he was probably experiencing, even though he hadn’t lost much weight yet. Its sad that most people still think that weight loss creates health, not the other way around.
*What, no bacon? No sausage? No cream?*
I love the blog and agree with most of it.
There is only one problem: I still can’t understand why you and other low carbers think fat doesn’t make you fat.
Looks obvious to me that eating enough protein is the easiest way to keep oneself lean.
There migth be quite a difference of personal sensitivity towards one or another.
But as standard, beginning with healthy people, both the other 2 macronutrients do. I wouldn’t even think it should be necessary to try to persuade about it. Pointing out the diet of figure skaters (or others similar, for need of leanness) through decades, or who knows what.
It’s not that one should necessarily strictly eat what MelissaMc. called “the Faileo Diet” (love it), but especially if you want to be “abs lean” one must keep also an eye to the fat (at least for 85% of those older than 17-22).
I agree on the pasta and pizza (sob) but it’s not like most guys that look like Mr. Manning usually eat “proportionally” big quantities of bacon or sausage either. C’mon.
For me, once the ratio of protein is high enough I don’t worry that much between the others for fear of fattening: I don’t know between fat and glucose witch makes (not “deranged”) people fatter. Might even be fat. Might be a wash. Dunno. Ok, fructose on the other side…
It’s a bit crazy for me that the debate is still on weight loss. I thought that was done: begin to bring protein ratio up, then experiment on yourself.
I’d suppose the only debate last would be on health or even things like performance or mood (if you don’t put them in “health).
I personally eat VLC (or at least if I don’t keep myself under 80gr. on a sedentary day i feel guilty), LC, mostly for health reasons.
Said one cannot eat 90% protein (and I doubt anything above a much lower % would be healthy either), we have to choose.
So, if I had to bet today on who is the villan (or more of a villan) between the 2, for health, I’d pick Carbs ( but, again, as we know, Fructose “uber alles” ;D , glucose to a lesser extent). For all the reasons also discussed on the low-carb community and the Paleo one too etc.
But personally, at the end of the day, I still think one of the stongest points remains the old and plain simple “tooth decay”.
Wow, interesting. However, I think most people know that junk makes you fat… that’s why people stick with whole grain. Someone needs to get fat on whole grain bread/pasta, oatmeal, low-fat milk, brown rice, etc. Then I think people will start to come around.
It would have been interesting if he’d gone that route.
Wow, I bet this guy is having a tough time of it. 6 months of eating that way? Ugh. I eat what I like while on vacation and after a week I feel like CRAP. While it is hard to start the low carb again because of the cravings after too long I feel so terrible that I have to start it or my hands and knees start to hurt, my stomach gets so bloated that my clothes don’t fit, etc, etc. I bet this guy can’t wait until the next four weeks are done.
I think the hardest part of starting the low carb way of life is that when you are that big, you often truly don’t realize how awful you feel. It is not until you’ve been at it for a months that you feel a huge difference and then are shocked at it. Many people simply never make it to that month mark to be able to feel the remarkable difference.
Kind of like not knowing what normal feels like until you finally stop hitting yourself in the head with a hammer.
I was sent to a school district to work with the lunch department for a few days and I was told all about their new guidlines on what they could stock in their vending machines.
No soda or candy, and only the small bags of potato chips and dorito’s, no large bags allowed. They had Pop-tarts everywhere, along with things like snack cakes, pastries and cheese crackers.
In the drink machines they had water (not bad) and sugar water . . I mean Vitamin Water, Gatorade and fruit juices. I pointed out to a few of them that Pop-tarts and pastries are just as bad as candy bars and most of the drinks were just as bad as soda. To their credit most of them agreed but couldn’t do anything about it, simply because their federal lunch grants required them to follow federal lunch guidlines.
So not only is the federal government trying to force bad eating habits on our kids, but they are making us pay for it as well. I want to know who they hired to find out what’s good and what’s bad, I mean come on, Pop-tarts as a replacement for candy bars? I don’t want my kids eating either one other than as an occasional treat.
They’re from the government, and they’re here to help.
I would love to see something like this again, only with the trainer eating whole grains, potatoes, etc.. Then again, if he said anything of the sort, I really doubt this article would have been posted by Yahoo!, or even better still, they might have completely omitted/modified his quote.
Oh well, maybe one of these days…
That would make it doubly interesting.
With all those complex carbohydrates and lack of fat in his diet, he should be losing massive weight according to the USDA and Don Metesz. Maybe those pictures are reversed and the first one is from his low-fat diet. Come on – the government wouldn’t mislead us.
He could have simply eaten the new Momma Obama’s Pizza found at (http://roarofwolverine.com“) and gotten there while being 100% MyPlate compliant.
A facebook friend posted a cute picture of a plate of bacon with the caption “You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy bacon.” I started to comment “Amen to that!” when I decided to read the thread of comments. First comment “Looks like a heart attack to me.” The poster replied “I had my fiber cereal bar for breakfast, but a girl can dream.” The poster is an extremely overweight woman who looks diabetic (don’t know for sure, but highly likely). So I added to my comment without getting preachy that it is not bacon or fat that cause heart disease, but carbs, and suggested “so go for bacon.” My retired physician friend and I are seeing more and more opportunities to get the word out. I just posted a link to this story on my Facebook page. Thanks, Tom.
Keep spreading the word.
I think it’s at least a nice idea for this guy to want to put himself through the frustration of being overweight. I do wonder what will happen to him. I mean, if his body never really had to deal with that kind of insulin roller-coaster, it could end badly for him. I hope he doesn’t give himself diabetes.
i did a similar thing for different reasons: i trained for strongman.
losing the weight again was a much longer process especially as i ended my training with an injury and was unable to train again for some time.
The cynic in me smells a rat.
One that’s going to sell something…
I guess we’ll find out.
Nah. If he conducted his experiment and gained the large amount of weight using whole grains and low-fat then the criticism would go back to, “Well, he obviously ingested too many calories.” So his entire experiment would have to change. Right now it looks like he is doing a completely unrestricted SAD. In order for the doubters to take seriously the malevolence of the recommended government diet, he’d have to gain weight by eating low-fat, whole grains, and limiting his calories. Oh, and keeping a food log.
Milk is mandated to be skim? Sheesh, just serve cups of water for crying out loud.
No, no, no … water doesn’t have all that sugar that’s allowed in the skim chocolate milk.
If I recall, Robert DeNiro went to France to put on weight to play Jake LaMotta in “Raging Bull” by eating nothing but pastries and other carb rich foods. Maybe he should have just asked DeNiro?
But then DeNiro would have responded, “Are you talkin’ to me? ‘Cuz there’s no one else here. You talkin’ to me?”
Little does he know, once (new) fat cells are created, they never go away. They can expand and contract in size dramatically, but once they’re there, they’re there forever. And, as such, will always have some mass to them. Once he does slim back down and tone back up, he’ll have little ripples of fat (most pronounced as “belly pudge” and “love handles”) that will be with him for the rest of his life – no matter what. He will never again look exactly as he did six months ago.
That’s one of those questions for which I can’t seem to find a definitive answer. I’ve read that we pretty much stop making new fat cells once we reach adulthood, so gaining and losing weight after that point is a matter of expanding and contracting existing fat cells. If that’s true, then someone who was lean into adulthood and then gets fat become thin again by returning fat cells to their natural size, whereas someone who got fat as a child or teen would have to become thin by reducing a greater number of fat cells to below their natural size. If anyone has good research on the issue, I’d like to see it.
Slightly off-topic, but I just watched a documentary called “Heckler”, and in the special features, Jamie Kennedy pointed out that the comedian who opened his shows was on Atkins, and said something like “F*** Atkins. You haven’t lost weight in 10 years. Stop it.” And the guy kinda just took it, seemingly not knowing about the health benefits that he was probably experiencing, even though he hadn’t lost much weight yet. Its sad that most people still think that weight loss creates health, not the other way around.
I doubt that it is a rat. That’s a source of protein.
I think it would be more interesting to see how quickly he could lose the weight again eating whole grains vs. no grains and limited unprocessed carbs. That would truly paint a picture for tha majority of his clients who are insulin resistant and can’t process grais without them turning into fat. Of course I’m betting he’s not insulin resistant now and I’m also betting he won’t be at the end of 6 months, either, so it’s kind of a moot point. I am very glad he didn’t blame all of his current weight gain on saturated fat, though. That makes me very happy 🙂
We’ll take little victories where we find them.
@ Italian follower
Issue with the fat is very simple – we don’t think the fat makes us fat because the majority of people on that blog (me included) lost weight and kept it of by eating high-fat-moderate-protein-low-carb diet. There are multiple evidence that high-protein-low-fat diet makes people sick. It is in the notes of Villjamur Stefansson who experienced so-called “rabbit starvation” while living with Inuits. At the period they didn’t have an assess to fat meat, lean rabbits were eaten, each person got quite ill in a couple days, and fat was the cure. Besides, protein excess turns to glucose in the body and makes weight loss more challenging. In addition to that, fat just an appetite killer.
Wow, interesting. However, I think most people know that junk makes you fat… that’s why people stick with whole grain. Someone needs to get fat on whole grain bread/pasta, oatmeal, low-fat milk, brown rice, etc. Then I think people will start to come around.
It would have been interesting if he’d gone that route.
I was sent to a school district to work with the lunch department for a few days and I was told all about their new guidlines on what they could stock in their vending machines.
No soda or candy, and only the small bags of potato chips and dorito’s, no large bags allowed. They had Pop-tarts everywhere, along with things like snack cakes, pastries and cheese crackers.
In the drink machines they had water (not bad) and sugar water . . I mean Vitamin Water, Gatorade and fruit juices. I pointed out to a few of them that Pop-tarts and pastries are just as bad as candy bars and most of the drinks were just as bad as soda. To their credit most of them agreed but couldn’t do anything about it, simply because their federal lunch grants required them to follow federal lunch guidlines.
So not only is the federal government trying to force bad eating habits on our kids, but they are making us pay for it as well. I want to know who they hired to find out what’s good and what’s bad, I mean come on, Pop-tarts as a replacement for candy bars? I don’t want my kids eating either one other than as an occasional treat.
They’re from the government, and they’re here to help.
I would love to see something like this again, only with the trainer eating whole grains, potatoes, etc.. Then again, if he said anything of the sort, I really doubt this article would have been posted by Yahoo!, or even better still, they might have completely omitted/modified his quote.
Oh well, maybe one of these days…
That would make it doubly interesting.
With all those complex carbohydrates and lack of fat in his diet, he should be losing massive weight according to the USDA and Don Metesz. Maybe those pictures are reversed and the first one is from his low-fat diet. Come on – the government wouldn’t mislead us.
He could have simply eaten the new Momma Obama’s Pizza found at (http://roarofwolverine.com“) and gotten there while being 100% MyPlate compliant.
The cynic in me smells a rat.
One that’s going to sell something…
I guess we’ll find out.
Nah. If he conducted his experiment and gained the large amount of weight using whole grains and low-fat then the criticism would go back to, “Well, he obviously ingested too many calories.” So his entire experiment would have to change. Right now it looks like he is doing a completely unrestricted SAD. In order for the doubters to take seriously the malevolence of the recommended government diet, he’d have to gain weight by eating low-fat, whole grains, and limiting his calories. Oh, and keeping a food log.
Little does he know, once (new) fat cells are created, they never go away. They can expand and contract in size dramatically, but once they’re there, they’re there forever. And, as such, will always have some mass to them. Once he does slim back down and tone back up, he’ll have little ripples of fat (most pronounced as “belly pudge” and “love handles”) that will be with him for the rest of his life – no matter what. He will never again look exactly as he did six months ago.
That’s one of those questions for which I can’t seem to find a definitive answer. I’ve read that we pretty much stop making new fat cells once we reach adulthood, so gaining and losing weight after that point is a matter of expanding and contracting existing fat cells. If that’s true, then someone who was lean into adulthood and then gets fat become thin again by returning fat cells to their natural size, whereas someone who got fat as a child or teen would have to become thin by reducing a greater number of fat cells to below their natural size. If anyone has good research on the issue, I’d like to see it.
I doubt that it is a rat. That’s a source of protein.
I think it would be more interesting to see how quickly he could lose the weight again eating whole grains vs. no grains and limited unprocessed carbs. That would truly paint a picture for tha majority of his clients who are insulin resistant and can’t process grais without them turning into fat. Of course I’m betting he’s not insulin resistant now and I’m also betting he won’t be at the end of 6 months, either, so it’s kind of a moot point. I am very glad he didn’t blame all of his current weight gain on saturated fat, though. That makes me very happy 🙂
We’ll take little victories where we find them.
Tom,
Here are two studies that show that fat cells can be “deleted” in a process called apoptosis.
1) Gullicksen P, Della-Fera M, Baile C (2003) Leptin-induced adipose apoptosis: Implications for body
weight regulation. Apoptosis 8: 327–335.
2) Prins JB, Niesler CU, Winterford CM, Bright NA, Siddle K, O’Rahilly S, Walker NI & Cameron DP 1997 Tumor necrosis factor-alpha induces apoptosis of human adipose cells. Diabetes 46 1939–1944
I got this information here: http://workout911.com/?p=2154
Be forewarned though, this trainer recommends a high protein diet with whole grains. However, he is HEAVILY into research and seems to know his stuff regarding much of it. As much as he does work out he may need the extra carbs. I have asked him about the paleo diet and his response was that when one works out carbs are needed for recovery. I was in no position to argue with him, so I left it alone.
Anyway, I thought you might want to look at the research.
Thanks for the info.
@ Italian follower
Issue with the fat is very simple – we don’t think the fat makes us fat because the majority of people on that blog (me included) lost weight and kept it of by eating high-fat-moderate-protein-low-carb diet. There are multiple evidence that high-protein-low-fat diet makes people sick. It is in the notes of Villjamur Stefansson who experienced so-called “rabbit starvation” while living with Inuits. At the period they didn’t have an assess to fat meat, lean rabbits were eaten, each person got quite ill in a couple days, and fat was the cure. Besides, protein excess turns to glucose in the body and makes weight loss more challenging. In addition to that, fat just an appetite killer.
Tom,
Here are two studies that show that fat cells can be “deleted” in a process called apoptosis.
1) Gullicksen P, Della-Fera M, Baile C (2003) Leptin-induced adipose apoptosis: Implications for body
weight regulation. Apoptosis 8: 327–335.
2) Prins JB, Niesler CU, Winterford CM, Bright NA, Siddle K, O’Rahilly S, Walker NI & Cameron DP 1997 Tumor necrosis factor-alpha induces apoptosis of human adipose cells. Diabetes 46 1939–1944
I got this information here: http://workout911.com/?p=2154
Be forewarned though, this trainer recommends a high protein diet with whole grains. However, he is HEAVILY into research and seems to know his stuff regarding much of it. As much as he does work out he may need the extra carbs. I have asked him about the paleo diet and his response was that when one works out carbs are needed for recovery. I was in no position to argue with him, so I left it alone.
Anyway, I thought you might want to look at the research.
Thanks for the info.
From the shape of his belly we can see that he’s accumulating a lot of visceral fat and (comparably) low amounts of subcutaneous fat. This indicates that he’s not building new fat cells and will indeed return to his former shape relatively easily.
Perhaps he hasn’t seen the “easy” way to gain weight? http://i.imgur.com/zmpBN.jpg
Ha! I’m guessing there’s not a big market for weight-gain products anymore.
From the shape of his belly we can see that he’s accumulating a lot of visceral fat and (comparably) low amounts of subcutaneous fat. This indicates that he’s not building new fat cells and will indeed return to his former shape relatively easily.
Perhaps he hasn’t seen the “easy” way to gain weight? http://i.imgur.com/zmpBN.jpg
Ha! I’m guessing there’s not a big market for weight-gain products anymore.
While that may be true for people who train a lot, I keep seeing people who never exercise making the same claim to justify the way that they eat.
If you aren’t running a marathon tomorrow, what exactly do you think you’re carbo-loading for?
@Drew, that is great point. If you pick up any health/fitness magazine (thinking men here) all of the diets and advice are targeted for guys who’s job it is to use their body be in good shape. Where mine is to use my brain sitting behind a computer 8 hours a day and try to fit “being in shape” into my limited remaining free time.
If you are not training like an athlete, you shouldn’t need to eat/drink like one…
While that may be true for people who train a lot, I keep seeing people who never exercise making the same claim to justify the way that they eat.
If you aren’t running a marathon tomorrow, what exactly do you think you’re carbo-loading for?
@Drew, that is great point. If you pick up any health/fitness magazine (thinking men here) all of the diets and advice are targeted for guys who’s job it is to use their body be in good shape. Where mine is to use my brain sitting behind a computer 8 hours a day and try to fit “being in shape” into my limited remaining free time.
If you are not training like an athlete, you shouldn’t need to eat/drink like one…
I live an unhealthy lifestyle and about every other year I find myself 30 pounds overweight. When my clothes stop fitting I go vegan for about two months and the 30 pounds are gone. Then it takes another 2 years of fast food and junk for it to come back. I’ve been through this cycle 4 or 5 times. I’ve often wondered if, instead of eating vegan for 2 out of every 24 months, if I did it like 2 out of every 24 days if the weight would never come back. That would be an interesting study, but eating vegan sucks. I’d rather do it for a few months every other year than a few days every month. If this guy has got so fat so fast, he is not just eating unhealthy, he has to be shoving food into his gut extremely fast.
Have you ever tried going paleo to lose weight instead?
This is my first comment on this blog.
“When I picked my girls up from school that day: blue teeth. I guess the lunch lady was right. We home school now, including lunch.”
Yes, you are the Cottage Child who comments on Alte’s blog since you extol homeschool. I didn’t get banned; I just didn’t feel like reading an anti-feminist blog. I didn’t expect you to post here.
—-
As a germane post relating to the theme of this blog, I would only promote calorie restriction as an optimal diet. Personally, I find lifestyle this somewhat austere and abstemious since I am unable to eat as much as I want. I am incessantly inundated with a delge of processed, palatable food when I leave my home; my primal urges tell me to indulge by eating or purchasing it, but my conscious rational mind, which possesses a respectiful amount of knowledge on metabolic pathways, tells me to relent.
(I am the type of person who could envision metabolic pathways; I envision a blood glucose spike being preceded by a release of incretins by my small intestines before the glucose enters my serum, and then the beta cells produce the insulin; insulin hits the insulin receptor, autophosylation of the receptor, and subsequent tyrosine phosphorylation of the insulin response substrates; activation of inositol-3-phosphate kinase… blah, blah… AKT/PKB activation, blah, blah … leading to: upregulation of SREB1, a promotor, an inducer, for the transcription of de novo lipogenesis enzymes; translocation of GLUT4; protein phosphatase 1 dephosphorylating glycogen synthase, activating it ; downregulated expression of PEPCK and G6Pase, gluconeogenesis enzymes ; inhibited hepatic beta-oxidation due to the presence of the metabolite malonyl-CoA during de novo lipogenesis. Yes, I understand everything I just said!)
Furthermore, I don’t believe in the existence of libertarian free will, and I, especially when I am in “depressive” periods of cyclothymia (mild bipolar disorder), sometimes cannot resist consuming calorically dense processed food such as potato chips and ice cream, thus I rarely purchase such items to avoid situations of inevitable temptation where I would lack inhibitory willpower. Ironically, since I have to prepare most of the meals I eat as I rarely consume processed food, on average, I usually undereat during periods of depression since I might not possess the initiate to go into the kitchen. I am rarely hungry (as in feeling starved) even though I consume 1,200 calories per day, but I still would not hesitate to consume palatable, processed food if I can evade the metabolic consequences.
If one doubts the effects of calorie restriction, there is an article in PNAS (Long-term calorie restriction is highly effective in reducing the risk for atherosclerosis in humans) arguing that calorie restriction reduces cardiovascular risk factors. Table 3 of that papershows a drastic reduction, even superseding the DASH diet on blood pressure. Before calorie restriction, 12 subjects had a systolic BP of 132 mm/hg SD+/-15; within a year of CR, it dropped to 112 +/-12, and then decline to 97 +/-7. To me, it was impressive that these people were NOT genetically gifted who exhibited an abnormally large response to intervention or started at an advantageous position (132 SBP is defined as prehypertension), and adds a universal, egalitarian allure to calorie restriction since most people can reap the blood pressure benefit. The decreasing standard deviation in blood pressure is also quite impressive; although this means that among the CR cohort there was a decrease in environmental variance that affects blood pressure such as daily salt intake, it also seems likely that CR reduces the impact of genetic variance in blood pressure regulation genes on blood pressure phenotype, presumably by protecting individuals with a highly sensitive genotype from environmental stressors such as high sodium intake/low potassium intake that would raise blood pressure in them. A similar interpretation on the triglyceride and LDL-C profile of long-term CR practitioners can be made, too. HDL-C also increased bu ~50%, but the variance among CR practitioners remained large, suggesting that some of them had substantially elevated HDL, while others did not have prodigious increases.
One proposed mechanism for the blood pressure effect of calorie restriction is the upregulation of eNOS (endothelial nitric oxide synthase). Of course, it must be noted that the people on CR do not eat processed foods, and consume vegetables, nuts, fruit in a large proportion, relative to caloric intake to the general population, thus the blood pressure reduction was not entirely due to caloric restriction alone. The abnegation of processed food means less sodium consumed (~75% of daily sodium intake in the average American is from processed foods!), more potassium (although I am still unable to reach 4,700 mg a day) and magnesium ingested, and less fructose consumed which has a small, but statistically significant, effect on BP. High consumption of fructose produces uric acid, as the liver is the only organ that can metabolize an influx of fructose, resulting in the 1-phosphorylation of fructose by phosphofructokinase, which depletes hepatic, intracellular ATP. ATP then is regenerated by the purine nucleotide cycle, which first deanimates AMP to inosine 5′-monophosphate, however, some of the AMP isn’t regenerated (by adenylsuccinate synthase and the subsequent lyase that yields a fumaric acid that can enter the citric acid cycle), as the 1′-glycosidic bond is cleaved, liberating the purine, and xanthine oxidase, a notable enzyme which is inhibited by allopurine and febuxostat (uloric), then converts the purine (hypoxanthine) to xanthine and uric acid. This increased uric acid concentration inhibits nitric oxide synthase.
I still believe that saturated fat, in general (for example stearic acid, C-18, isn’t that bad), is “bad” (i.e. not as salubrious as mono or polyunsaturated fats), but not as bad refined carbohydrates and fructose. I agree with the paleos and Gary Taubes that whole grains are not part of a necessary diet, since one can find similar vitamins and nutrients in other vegetables. Also, I don’t try to force myself to eat 2-3 servings of fruit per day. Fruit is overrated nutritionally; it is mostly sucrose that is not heavily concentrated (in contrast to confectioneries) and possesses some fiber to slow its absorption. I mainly use them for culinary purposes to enhance taste.
That’s quite a long comment, so I’ll respond to one point: the benefits demonstrated in calorie-restriction studies have also been demonstrated in carbohydrate-restriction studies. When we restrict calories, we automatically restrict our cells’ exposure to excess glucose. Carb restriction does the same thing without kicking in a starvation response.
This is my first comment on this blog.
“When I picked my girls up from school that day: blue teeth. I guess the lunch lady was right. We home school now, including lunch.”
Yes, you are the Cottage Child who comments on Alte’s blog since you extol homeschool. I didn’t get banned; I just didn’t feel like reading an anti-feminist blog. I didn’t expect you to post here.
—-
As a germane post relating to the theme of this blog, I would only promote calorie restriction as an optimal diet. Personally, I find lifestyle this somewhat austere and abstemious since I am unable to eat as much as I want. I am incessantly inundated with a delge of processed, palatable food when I leave my home; my primal urges tell me to indulge by eating or purchasing it, but my conscious rational mind, which possesses a respectiful amount of knowledge on metabolic pathways, tells me to relent.
(I am the type of person who could envision metabolic pathways; I envision a blood glucose spike being preceded by a release of incretins by my small intestines before the glucose enters my serum, and then the beta cells produce the insulin; insulin hits the insulin receptor, autophosylation of the receptor, and subsequent tyrosine phosphorylation of the insulin response substrates; activation of inositol-3-phosphate kinase… blah, blah… AKT/PKB activation, blah, blah … leading to: upregulation of SREB1, a promotor, an inducer, for the transcription of de novo lipogenesis enzymes; translocation of GLUT4; protein phosphatase 1 dephosphorylating glycogen synthase, activating it ; downregulated expression of PEPCK and G6Pase, gluconeogenesis enzymes ; inhibited hepatic beta-oxidation due to the presence of the metabolite malonyl-CoA during de novo lipogenesis. Yes, I understand everything I just said!)
Furthermore, I don’t believe in the existence of libertarian free will, and I, especially when I am in “depressive” periods of cyclothymia (mild bipolar disorder), sometimes cannot resist consuming calorically dense processed food such as potato chips and ice cream, thus I rarely purchase such items to avoid situations of inevitable temptation where I would lack inhibitory willpower. Ironically, since I have to prepare most of the meals I eat as I rarely consume processed food, on average, I usually undereat during periods of depression since I might not possess the initiate to go into the kitchen. I am rarely hungry (as in feeling starved) even though I consume 1,200 calories per day, but I still would not hesitate to consume palatable, processed food if I can evade the metabolic consequences.
If one doubts the effects of calorie restriction, there is an article in PNAS (Long-term calorie restriction is highly effective in reducing the risk for atherosclerosis in humans) arguing that calorie restriction reduces cardiovascular risk factors. Table 3 of that papershows a drastic reduction, even superseding the DASH diet on blood pressure. Before calorie restriction, 12 subjects had a systolic BP of 132 mm/hg SD+/-15; within a year of CR, it dropped to 112 +/-12, and then decline to 97 +/-7. To me, it was impressive that these people were NOT genetically gifted who exhibited an abnormally large response to intervention or started at an advantageous position (132 SBP is defined as prehypertension), and adds a universal, egalitarian allure to calorie restriction since most people can reap the blood pressure benefit. The decreasing standard deviation in blood pressure is also quite impressive; although this means that among the CR cohort there was a decrease in environmental variance that affects blood pressure such as daily salt intake, it also seems likely that CR reduces the impact of genetic variance in blood pressure regulation genes on blood pressure phenotype, presumably by protecting individuals with a highly sensitive genotype from environmental stressors such as high sodium intake/low potassium intake that would raise blood pressure in them. A similar interpretation on the triglyceride and LDL-C profile of long-term CR practitioners can be made, too. HDL-C also increased bu ~50%, but the variance among CR practitioners remained large, suggesting that some of them had substantially elevated HDL, while others did not have prodigious increases.
One proposed mechanism for the blood pressure effect of calorie restriction is the upregulation of eNOS (endothelial nitric oxide synthase). Of course, it must be noted that the people on CR do not eat processed foods, and consume vegetables, nuts, fruit in a large proportion, relative to caloric intake to the general population, thus the blood pressure reduction was not entirely due to caloric restriction alone. The abnegation of processed food means less sodium consumed (~75% of daily sodium intake in the average American is from processed foods!), more potassium (although I am still unable to reach 4,700 mg a day) and magnesium ingested, and less fructose consumed which has a small, but statistically significant, effect on BP. High consumption of fructose produces uric acid, as the liver is the only organ that can metabolize an influx of fructose, resulting in the 1-phosphorylation of fructose by phosphofructokinase, which depletes hepatic, intracellular ATP. ATP then is regenerated by the purine nucleotide cycle, which first deanimates AMP to inosine 5′-monophosphate, however, some of the AMP isn’t regenerated (by adenylsuccinate synthase and the subsequent lyase that yields a fumaric acid that can enter the citric acid cycle), as the 1′-glycosidic bond is cleaved, liberating the purine, and xanthine oxidase, a notable enzyme which is inhibited by allopurine and febuxostat (uloric), then converts the purine (hypoxanthine) to xanthine and uric acid. This increased uric acid concentration inhibits nitric oxide synthase.
I still believe that saturated fat, in general (for example stearic acid, C-18, isn’t that bad), is “bad” (i.e. not as salubrious as mono or polyunsaturated fats), but not as bad refined carbohydrates and fructose. I agree with the paleos and Gary Taubes that whole grains are not part of a necessary diet, since one can find similar vitamins and nutrients in other vegetables. Also, I don’t try to force myself to eat 2-3 servings of fruit per day. Fruit is overrated nutritionally; it is mostly sucrose that is not heavily concentrated (in contrast to confectioneries) and possesses some fiber to slow its absorption. I mainly use them for culinary purposes to enhance taste.
That’s quite a long comment, so I’ll respond to one point: the benefits demonstrated in calorie-restriction studies have also been demonstrated in carbohydrate-restriction studies. When we restrict calories, we automatically restrict our cells’ exposure to excess glucose. Carb restriction does the same thing without kicking in a starvation response.