GillBates said:
Thanks for that pep-talk 🙂
Even with pep talks I tend to do it like a drill sargeant.
Thanks for reacting to my "The floggings will continue until
the morale improves" brute force approach in good humor.
Quoted message said:I'd rather be slow and steady then lose a lot of water weight
Bad news: Induction does include plenty of water weight. It does
include lost fat but there's no way to tell the relative amount.
Conclusion to draw is amount lost during Induction is very
encouraging but not useful in any way for later comparison.
Good news: There's only just so much water to lose. The body
stores carbs dissolved in water in 1) the liver and low carbing
empties this tank, 2) the muscles and change in exercise levels
effect this tank more than carb intake, and 3) other random
locations in the body enough to make water retention bounce
work like the tides up and down, so it's the trend that must
be tracked not the latest scale reading. Anyways, the good news
in that is once you're past Induction every new low you see is
a pound of fat that's been lost, not water.
Quoted message said:or build muscle instead than be one of those who lose fast,
and gain weight just as fast.
Low carbing does not trigger muscle loss. Part of this is it is
not a low protein plan. Protein Power is at least medium protein
and often high protein. SBD is high protein usually. Atkins
done carefully is medium protein. Another part of this that
doesn't have a known mechanism that I've found is ketosis
causes muscle to be retained better than competing fat loss
strategies. That's clear from the original "fat fast" experiment
that set Dr Atkins on the road to developing his diet. The
group that ate 1000 calories of 90% fat lost less lean mass than
the group that eat 1000 calories of 90% protein. It's known
experimental data that's been confirmed a few times, but I have
never found any explaining mechanism. Hard data trumps
explanations, though.
I do offer an evolutionary justification of why ketosis hoards
lean muscle mass:
Assume our ancestors were primarily hunters and fishers relative
to gatherers for long enough to evolve hunting features. Not
that any declined to eat plants just that calories from animal
foods were higher than fgrom plant foods for at least a couple of
miollion years. Assume that our ancestors spanned enough of the
globe that winter effects had evolutionary importance, and also
that some were in arid enough areas that droughts did as well.
Start a winter or a drought and the amount of plant food falls.
Thus the amount of calories from hunting and fishing goes to
the vast majority of caloric intake. Ketosis starts. At a time
when hunting and fishing is crucial to survival, muscle strength
is as well. Ketosis must not trigger the early canabalization
of muscle to survive a famine.
Conclusion that isn't certain: Ketosis itself is NOT a form of
starvation mode, at least not at first. Starvation modes
includes reduced metabolism but ketosis triggers increased
metabolism at least at first. Starvation modes trigger burning
lean to reduce future fuels needs while ketosis triggers
burning fat to increase current hunting abilities. Thus early
on ketosis is a switch from gatherer mode to hunter mode not a
switch to starvation mode.
Note well that this conclusion laughs in the face of doctors
that call ketosis a starvation reaction to insufficient
dietary carbs. Just like not being able to tell dietary
ketosis from ketoacidosis one of the easiest ways to tell a
doctor isn't qualifed to tell a banana from a turkey leg when
it comes to nutrition, calling ketosis a starvation reaction
is in the same category for me.
Within my conclusion are repeated mentions of "at least at
first" and "early on". It is a fact that plenty of people
stall if they stay at 20 grams per day and never lose an ounce
again until they increase their carbs (and they stay healthy
at the level so it's save, but safe doesn't mean effective for
loss). It is also a fact that the more excess fat a person
has to lose the less likely this stall is or the more it takes
to happen.
My secondary conclusion is that early ketosis is a switch from
gatherer mode to hunter mode, but later on it can indeed
include a switch to starvation mode.
If my pair of conclusions is correct, there should be a way
to keep one's carb intake low like 20 and avoid triggering
that starvation mode (seeking data). Also, any drive towards
cutting calories while low in carbs means the hunt has been
poor and it's time to switch to starvation mode (just watch
all of the at-low-as-possible-in-carbs folks who combine
low calorie and stall, plus the many regulars who urge
towards sensible calorie levels neither too high nor too
low).
I've traced the hormones T3 thyroxine and leptin as being
involved in this switch from hunter mode to famine mode,
but the data isn't completely convincing yet.
Does anyone have data on staying very low in carbs, but staying
very high in calories and continuing to lose? Sounds like a
paleolithic plan to me, giving your body a poor gathering
harvest but an excellent hunt harvest. Ray Audette author of
Paleothin mentions that he's eaten a pound of bacon every day
for years (I assume he drains off most of the fat but I have
no clue how much) so clearly he eats plenty of fat+protein
calories every day, and he's maintained a thin body for years.
Are there other similar data points?
