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Off-Topic Jason Fung Did Nothing Wrong

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As to what calories in calories out does or does not demand...
While calories in calories out doesn't I'm and of itself declare, therefore counting calories is how one should proceed... I had about 100% hit rate of asking for diet advice and getting told things like eat less move more , or cut your plate in half. Or some such thing. It was every where. I got it from my family , my PT NCO , my friends who were obviously getting results in the gym , and everything I was seeing in the media, as I was searching for a better way forward.
For sure, bad advice is the most common advice. Everyone eats and everyone has an opinion on it for what works. I've seen some otherwise smart people give very dumb advice. You can always tell when someone's fat loss experience is losing 10lbs once for a competition and otherwise have stayed the same weight their entire adult lives by their advice.
As to those who are married to the carb insulin model...
I'll go ahead and claim that I'm not exactly married to the carb insulin model per se. For example, the carb insulin model is actually currently under threat of replacement by the seed oils narrative
It was an attractive model for sure. I went really far into it a decade ago when it was first getting huge. My wife is actually a case study in one of the best selling keto cookbooks on amazon. (predictably, results were not permanent... which in hindsight, depending on a diet plan that requires 3 hours of cooking every day isn't sustainable for someone running a business).
As far as the seed oils thing goes... I went down that rabbit hole a couple years ago, swapped all cooking oils with animal fats and made sure to stay away from PUFAs. End result was blood lipids going the wrong way and no change to fat loss. Followed by a deep dive into if seed oils really are bad. Found quite a few studies showing they are at worst neutral compared to animal fats, and may be beneficial.

But focusing on elimination of seed oils that would fix some unknown issues caused by inflammation took my eye off the ball and weight started creeping back up again. Plus it is just stupidly expensive and didn't do anything good for me health-wise.
As to complications from fasting...
I believe that all models have some applicable domain, and there are likely cases that live outside of that domain. I see that fasting is most applicable as a healthful practice when the most adipose is available to fuel daily activity. I personally know cross fitters , females , who ended up having trouble with their monthly cycles, and added carbs back in and felt much better after. I don't think fasting or low carb or carnivore or, you name it , are all things to all people. But when I know that it is a model that works, and what it works for... I may be inclined to defend it's virtue.
I've got nothing against fasting, low carb, carnivore, whatever (ok, maybe carnivore just because the health implications against it are decently strong, but it is a grudge at this point since there aren't any quality studies done on carnivore yet.). They are all tools that can help people reduce calories. They don't work for all people. I put on 20lbs doing keto really easy.

I just have an issue when people try to explain diets as having some magical properties that clearly don't exist. And there are so many charlatans promoting whatever new diet is out there. Like that Carnivore MD guy, he carefully explains all these mechanistic functions of why it is healthy and the "one true diet", but there are plenty of RCTs in humans showing that many of those mechanisms don't produce the result he claims. Or worse Liver King. He promotes Carnivore and primal living as the secret to his physique. Of course it comes out that his PED budget is over 11k a month and he also eats sugar and sweet potatoes because carbs are important when running crazy steroid cycles for muscle growth.

But end of the day, if what works for you works, then it doesn't matter what the reasons are behind it. Who knows, next year someone could come out with a study that discovers some unknown mechanism that completely changes our understanding of why things work.
 
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Don’t worry about seed oil or narratives or CIM, etc. Stick with what works for you. It’s easy to let the shiny objects distract you; do what works for you.

As far as female crossfitters and their cycles, what does that have to do with your dilemma? You gotta ignore the things that are obviously irrelevant.
Sorry, maybe I didn't close the loop on that story,

I meant that my friends, who were cross-fitters, took up this dietary approach because it was partially modeled on my success.
After I lost about 50 lbs and almost a foot off my waistline so fast, they were impressed.
And, they asked me about what I did. I ended up telling them about my experience and extolling the virtues of my approach.
And, insofar as I was not married to the idea of the dietary approach itself, I was just as happy to encourage them to abandon it when they thought they were experiencing a complication.

EDIT: apologies for the typos. it made this reply very unclear.
 
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Congratulations Adachi. But I didn't understand the principles you followed to make it work. It must be because of my bad English.
What exactly did you do and what regimen did you follow?
To try and keep things simple...

For a few years, at first it was to forgo bread and rice and potatoes, and soda or sweets.

Then for a few years it was leafy green veggies and meat.

Then, for a few years I experimented with adding carbs back in, in various amounts and sources.

Now it's ground beef, cheese, pork rinds, and yogurt.
And an occasional fast of various lengths.
 
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When I was a kid, we thought Tang and margarine were good for you and bacon was bad. Good to know what we don't know. My instinct tells me that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie just can't possibly be correct - must a piece of the puzzle but not the whole thing. I'm also convinced that being thin enough to have six-pack abs, for me at least, isn't healthy.

I think the book, "Warrior Diet," was a wonderful read, inspiring, and no one has mentioned it in this thread.

Being hungry by choice is very much a First World problem. Remember that a lot of the world goes to bed hungry every night and eating more than you need will feel hugely self-indulgent. Food choices - that's a wonderful thing to have, a real gift, a blessing.

Just my opinion and your mileage may vary.

-S-
 
As a sports and exercise nutritionist I see every day people confused about nutrition because of an overabundance of conflicting information. Fasting for example can be a great tool but that doesn't necessarily make it "the answer"
When we review the dietary strategies that work for prolonged weight management (not just weight loss) we find there are some key habits in place that create a general framework.

Things like eating at regular times, preparing most of your own food, making sure you exercise regularly, eating higher protein, these habits create an overall framework that is more effective for most people than following a Diet or rigid set of rules.
 
Now I'm famished:


8 oz of tri tip, cup of brown rice, and spinach heading to my belly.

Walnuts and red wine already there.
 
They are working on hunger suppression blockers.
Semaglutide is available, and works really well along with having a long history of use. AFAIK, it is the only obesity drug that comes close to the effectiveness of surgery.

It is super promising stuff.
 
I can see why Pavel doesn’t touch nutrition except for the occasional, “eat a steak,” and “chicken is a weak bird.”

Here’s what I can contribute to this thread. As best as you are able, eat as close to the earth as you can. Eat what you want as long as it wasn’t grown in a lab, modified, sprayed, spliced, or grown in a man-made chemical soup. Drink water (almost) all of the time. Try to keep a food log and track how different things make you feel. Don’t trust what anyone says about anything, find out for yourself and see who is full of it and who isn’t, and even then it just might be something works for you and not others because you came from a different part of the world with a different history, culture, and genetic makeup and that matters. Also, don’t give unsolicited advice and try to refrain from giving advice at all. And try meth. But mostly, empathy (not pity, weakness, or sadness) for another’s struggle will help the most.

The army isn’t going to serve you anything that will help you lose weight. You can’t tell me they feed the troops high quality food.

And lastly, just like strength training, the greatest factors are consistency and mentality. I say mentality as in belief or beliefs. You’ll never be thin if you truly, deeply identify as fat and struggling to lose weight. Lasting change happens from the inside-out.

And that’s enough unqualified advice giving for one day’s work.
 
Semaglutide is available, and works really well along with having a long history of use. AFAIK, it is the only obesity drug that comes close to the effectiveness of surgery.

It is super promising stuff.

I'm a big advocate of eating more + training more to get leaner.

Ramp up the metabolism.

I've made my best body comp progress when I ramp up my maintenance calories to the 3500+ calories due to higher activity level / training volume.

Then when I want to lean out more, I can cut back to 'only' 2500 calories a day and just drop my training intensity and volume a bit and still feel like I'm eating a normal amount of food.
 
For some people - like me - Jason Fung's two-compartment model is much more useful than the completely useless (20 years tried never worked) calories in calories out model and Dr. Fung's assertion that The Hormonal Model drives the human body's fuel management, is eminently helpful compared to calories in calories out.

mere caloric restriction was and is wrong for me.

Calories in Calories out
Eat less Move more
Energy balance so-called

wasn't specific enough for me to be useful and backfired every time I tried.
the hormonal model of human biological energy management is sound.

to state and use a calorie is a calorie and have success is in my eyes getting the answer right by accident.
it is a PHYSICS model applied to a BIOLOGICAL system. which apparently works in some cases. it regularly failed me.
I was as they say a chonky boy. heck I've always been a bigger or fatter kid, at various times, and in a state of dysregulation went from fat at around 225 to fatter at around 265 in a notably short amount of time. this was years ago now. and the army almost booted me for it. a retention NCO one day - casually slipped in that whenever he needs to lose a few pounds he does Protein power? I said, protein what? he just said that I should check out the book. that was all. thus began my journey toward where I am now, as a carnivore. more or less. I'm still a big guy, with a belly. but I'm just working on getting stronger. this was the period of time I was running daily and worked up to traversing over ten miles a day from city to city , town to town, across the freeways and back. and I was so so frustrated.


the trajectory of jumping up towards 275 lbs of more and more fat in a very short amount of time was one that I was merely confused by at the time.

I'll put it this way:
people have different talents.
some people can throw a 100 mph baseball.
others can run 100 meters in 4 seconds.
I could be - the fattest man alive. if it were my life's aspiration I might be able to weigh 700 or 1000 lbs.
If insulin had its way I would have just kept right on past 300 lbs. I was in the midst of it. I couldn't stop it. it was just happening.
My brother used to make fun of my weight gain - call me names - and tell me just don't eat. you're so fat you could live forever(which is ironic; looking back).

It wasn't until ...
Until I met Drs. Eades in Protein Power.​
Until I met Dr. Atkins.​
Until I met Dr. Attia, Dr. Fung, Dr. Naiman, Dr. Saladino, Dr. Barry, Dr. D'Angostino, Dr. Baker, etc.​
... that I finally had something I could use to control my fat gain.​

in the end - in my view of bouncing back from the brink, of just gaining more and more fat around my waistline - while I was running for miles daily before I injured my ankle preparing for a PT test (second one - last chance) to prove to the army that I could stay in - when I bounced back I realized how unhelpful the usual advice was. the water cooler stuff. the stuff in Men's health, men's fitness. the supplements, smoothies, shakes, bars, and everything else a desperate neophyte like myself - after all that desperation it was a doctor who shared the views of Dr. Fung that could help me. Drs. Eades, who wrote protein power.

I spent basically a decade suffering the uselessness and ultimately the threat to my military career that was - calories in calories out.
The advice that never helped. that couldn't help. because ultimately hunger rules all. there is no solution other than satiety, ultimately if you are hungry enough you will eat.

and let me tell you about big fat people. the ones that weigh 500-600 lbs. I was almost going to be one of them, once. I might have joined them if not for that sergeant who mentioned the book protein power. they are as hungry as can be as the adipose signaled by insulin drains the serum of every last drop of fuel that might have been in there before the brain even has a shot. I was so hungry - all the time. it was basically torture and eating was a respite. and that's valuable.

in the end - eating is a slave to hunger and satiety.
hunger mitigation is the only real way forward.

Dr. Fung addresses hunger mitigation.

Fasting stands heads and shoulders above all others as the single most potent strategy I could use and do use aggressively to purposefully manage my food intake. Full stop.

Calories in Calories out sabotaged me. it was less than useless. it was harmful. the lie that the composition of the source of the calories didn't matter was a harmful lie. and just like I've got a bit of a chip on my shoulder about pop fitness and how it got me moving but never really got me anywhere, so too, do I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about the metabolically privileged telling me about how I should "just lower your calories mannn... it's easy" - and my waistline kept growing and growing. as my military career became more and more at risk.

now all these years later, I'm retiring from the military after 20 years on my own terms, all thanks to the work of doctors just like Doctor Jason Fung, who looked deeper and something more relevant to those who were not so gifted. some guy like me whose stomach grows even by glancing at a bagel. Doctor Fung described the 2 compartment model of fuel management. Doctor Fung asserted the Master Diet of Fasting and unleashing ketosis in full.

thank goodness now that I eat only meat I can be so satiated that I can pass up a donut, or chocolate. but I remember that time when I was not so equipped and I was clearly paying the piper for listening to silly statements like a calorie is a calorie.
I don’t only eat meat, but some days I do. I also eat fruit sometimes similar to Dr saladino. But I can eat one big ribeye and some eggs and be totally satiated for the whole day.
 
For sure, bad advice is the most common advice. Everyone eats and everyone has an opinion on it for what works. I've seen some otherwise smart people give very dumb advice. You can always tell when someone's fat loss experience is losing 10lbs once for a competition and otherwise have stayed the same weight their entire adult lives by their advice.

It was an attractive model for sure. I went really far into it a decade ago when it was first getting huge. My wife is actually a case study in one of the best selling keto cookbooks on amazon. (predictably, results were not permanent... which in hindsight, depending on a diet plan that requires 3 hours of cooking every day isn't sustainable for someone running a business).
As far as the seed oils thing goes... I went down that rabbit hole a couple years ago, swapped all cooking oils with animal fats and made sure to stay away from PUFAs. End result was blood lipids going the wrong way and no change to fat loss. Followed by a deep dive into if seed oils really are bad. Found quite a few studies showing they are at worst neutral compared to animal fats, and may be beneficial.

But focusing on elimination of seed oils that would fix some unknown issues caused by inflammation took my eye off the ball and weight started creeping back up again. Plus it is just stupidly expensive and didn't do anything good for me health-wise.

I've got nothing against fasting, low carb, carnivore, whatever (ok, maybe carnivore just because the health implications against it are decently strong, but it is a grudge at this point since there aren't any quality studies done on carnivore yet.). They are all tools that can help people reduce calories. They don't work for all people. I put on 20lbs doing keto really easy.

I just have an issue when people try to explain diets as having some magical properties that clearly don't exist. And there are so many charlatans promoting whatever new diet is out there. Like that Carnivore MD guy, he carefully explains all these mechanistic functions of why it is healthy and the "one true diet", but there are plenty of RCTs in humans showing that many of those mechanisms don't produce the result he claims. Or worse Liver King. He promotes Carnivore and primal living as the secret to his physique. Of course it comes out that his PED budget is over 11k a month and he also eats sugar and sweet potatoes because carbs are important when running crazy steroid cycles for muscle growth.

But end of the day, if what works for you works, then it doesn't matter what the reasons are behind it. Who knows, next year someone could come out with a study that discovers some unknown mechanism that completely changes our understanding of why things work.
Blood lipids aren’t a indicator of bad health.

Seed oils are trash and there is no study I would trust that proves otherwise.



Doctors have been brainwashed to believe high cholesterol is bad when the Framingham study actually proved that those with the highest cholesterol lived the longest
 
I'm a big advocate of eating more + training more to get leaner.

Ramp up the metabolism.

I've made my best body comp progress when I ramp up my maintenance calories to the 3500+ calories due to higher activity level / training volume.

Then when I want to lean out more, I can cut back to 'only' 2500 calories a day and just drop my training intensity and volume a bit and still feel like I'm eating a normal amount of food.
yeah, it is more for obesity with other risk factors type treatment.

Eg obese with high blood pressure.
 
We need to get away from diets and get to WHAT IS SUSTAINABLE.

Fasting works, 24-40 hours, but it's hard to do weekly. The mind needs to be broken like a horse, especially if you're not busy.

A lot of people who need to lose weight yet struggle with diets;
1. Have portion control issues.
2. Eat too fast, which, does not send the satiate signal in your brain
3. INSIST on drinking alcohol on weekends and gain the weight back.
4. Cheat meals become cheat days, become cheat weekends.

I swear to God, the best day to start a diet or clean eating is on a Friday. Those who start on a Monday, will reward themselves on a Friday and the cycle continues. By starting on a Friday, you have proprer motivation, through the weekend.

That being said, the easiest way to lose weight.
Workout fasted in the AM followed by a 45-60 minute walk.
Breakfast 30 g of protein with blueberries/apple/banana in milk.
Lunch 3 egg omelet with broccoli, peppers, onions, spinach, one slice of ham and cheese
Mid afternoon snack. 2 tbs of Metameucil in water with 2 tbs of Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 tbs of Lemon Juice
Dinner, Fistful of protein/Fistful of Potato/Rice/Quinoa/ and all the vegetables that will fit.
Drink 3 quarts/litres of water/Sleep 8 hours. Rinse and repeat

For the record, food was bad in the 1970's too. Swanson Frozen Dinners? Or a nutritious breakfast for kids: Cereal/Milk/Juice and Toast. How was that for an insulin spike? Adults were slimmer because.....THEY SMOKED. Nicotine is an appetite suppressant.
 
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