Old Forum Why eat fat?

[The Scientist]

Matt,

My thoughts come out in discrete packets, so I'll number them off:

1. The benefits of being fat-adapted are not necessarily just an ability to better use fat. People that eat lots of glucose can still use body fat, it is just in a edition to their glucose intake. Being "fat-adapted" really means that you can get by without dietary glucose or stored glycogen. This is the big advantage for anyone with endurance goals.

2. You said:

"Then normally it is recommended to eat high fat – odd as you want to use your own fat reserves, so why would the body do that when it has all it needs in the blood from digestion.  You’d think you’d want to eat less fat so you are forced to use your own body fat."

This could be said for eating wither fat or carbohydrate. Ingesting wither one will inhibit lipolysis from adipose tissue.

3. This means that the benefits of eating a high fat diet are not about fat burning directly, but indirectly. When you ask most people how to lose weight, they say "easy – eat less calories than you burn". This can conceivably be done by eating carbohydrate, fat or protein in any combination, as long as the total caloric intake is less than expenditure. The problem is that during prolonged caloric deficit, your RMR (BMR) slows and you become hungry, thwarting your plans. So the benefit of a high fat diet really seems to be that it allows you to eat in a caloric deficit without becoming as hungry and metabolically depressed as you would eating an equivalent number of calories from glucose. The unfortunate thing is that nobody knows exactly how this happens physiologically, but it is clear that it does happen somehow.

 

 

[Steve Freides]

This

So the benefit of a high fat diet really seems to be that it allows you to eat in a caloric deficit without becoming as hungry and metabolically depressed as you would eating an equivalent number of calories from glucose. The unfortunate thing is that nobody knows exactly how this happens physiologically, but it is clear that it does happen somehow.

is my understanding as well. It is "empirical knowledge" and it agrees with my experience. I refer anyone to the last quotation on this page

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/18705.Pavel_Tsatsouline

which says, "Understanding is a delaying tactic."

Matt, I apologize again. For whatever reason, I am impatient with trying to understand this one - that's my problem. I recall the period in my life when I realized that eating like a distance runner was making me fat, and cutting out the huge quantities of pasta for dinner every night and starting to consider meat and vegetables as my main food sources. That was about 15 years ago and I haven't looked back. I now make it a point to eat as much high-quality fat as I reasonably can - heavy cream, butter, coconut oil, triple cream cheeses when I feel like spending the money for them, and I have never felt healthier.

-S-

 

[Matt]

Firstly thanks Steve - I liked that quote from Pavel when I read it when originally posted.  I understand where you're coming from and appreciate still that you bother to comment.  I think you understand me but to be clear - this is a more academic question rather than a "should I eat high fat".  I am like you and we'd probably eat quite similarly.

Maybe if I posed my situation as question to you - from your experience, if you are unusually hungry despite eating how you do (not sure the cause for the hunger either) : would you eat an extra apple as a snack, or splurge on a triple cream cheese?

As I was wondering something similar recently which started my theoretical questioning which became this topic...

 

[Matt]

Thanks Scientist - your points 2 and 3 zero in on some interesting things.

Together they are saying the same things as to why I am asking the question.  Like the example I asked Steve about above:  I've been hungry lately despite eating high fat (so your point 3 seemed to not be "working" so to speak).  I can't really say why the extra hunger either.

So I was wondering what to snack on.  I think I just went for some extra nuts pre-dinner and then a glass of milk before bed.  Anyway - that got me thinking about your point 2.   Either choice I made seemed to contradict my simplistic understanding of a high fat diet.  So the questioning - eat fat yet I shouldn't "have to" or eat carbs - won't help and the idea is not to.

I realise that despite it being easy to eat high fat, if I had to be deliberate in my eating (like when hungry, or fatigued, or hypothetically planning a long-distance kayak to California, or explaining things to others) Í would be just experimenting.  And while I'm with Steve/Pavel in regards to understanding, I still like to ask and try.

 

[Steve Freides]

Matt, I don't eat a lot of fruit.  I like bananas but only have a half most of the time, even that's once or twice a week at most.    Even though I'm already 60, I'm hoping to be a lot older one of these years, and maintaining muscle is important to me.   I don't have any need for endurance training, and I'd go for a triple cream cheese every time.  My idea of endurance is doing 6 reps.

My usual day is vitamins, coffee, water, and some of my homemade nut butter for breakfast, a Dale's Raw Food bar for lunch, and a dinner that's mostly a protein source (meat, fish) and vegetables with perhap a small serving of rice or a roll.  Basically breakfast and lunch are vegan and high protein, high fat, and low carb, and dinner is meat but otherwise the same nutritional profile.

I've been a follower of the Warrior Diet approach to eating for year, which is what I describe above, and initially I tried following Ori's recommendation for things like fresh juice during the day - just doesn't work for me.

-S-

 

 

[Matt]

6 reps. Lucky you said 6 and not 5...

I like Ori and have one of his books (muscle gene). I’m the same – need more than a coffee or juice in the AM.

I have a triple cream omelette for breakfast and a small bowl of steelcut oats with a handful of nuts. Just because I like it.

I grew up being a fruit monster – amazing how the body can adapt really.

One thing I find with high fat – the oxidisation effect (my words) – seems like a much cleaner fuel to burn.

Cheers.

 

[Steve W.]

By the way, the passage about understanding being a delaying tactic, which Pavel presents as the words of an unnamed novelist, is from Sphere by Michael Crichton.