The picture says it all. We are going to talk about chains, not of steel, but of the basic energy units that keeps your body going and make you fat. I hope it is a new beginning, a bridge to a new way of thinking. Once you understand how the body processes food, it’ll take away mystery and magic.
The reality is actually far more simple than all of the crazy schemes you’ve followed in the past; the beauty is every one of them can be easily explained – with no contradictions.
The beginning of the story actually starts at the end. It is an interesting circle. You are here primarily because you have fat to lose. That fat is stored, in the form of Triacylglycerols (fancy term don’t worry about it) in the adipose cells. These “fat cells” are a place so this high-energy can be stored for “later use.” As we learned last week, our problem is that later never comes before we return to the gas station. You know the rest of the story.
Other animals, and even plants, store slightly different forms of energy for the exact same reason; it’s stored for later use. This is energy to sustain life when fuel (food/light) is not around to keep the animal/plant functioning. We’ll learn of some other special types of storage in addition to fats, glycogen and starch, and how it fits into the puzzle. When we are done, you will see ALL food with a new view – from ingestion to use or from ingestion to storage. I want you to FORGET about the association of carbohydrates, protein and fat with particular foods (e.g potatoes = carbs) – most (real) food has all three sources of macronutrients.
The Evolutionary Shuffle
So here is the picture that should be etched in your head: Stumble around, find food, eat as much as you can, starve for a while living off of reserves, and find food again. That is how it worked for nearly 7 million years. Even in the last 10,000 years, when Humans became far more useful with respect to their hunting and gathering, we still mostly starved. If we go back to the first recorded agriculture (5000-6000 years ago) we are still talking a mere blip on the evolutionary scale. Genetically speaking, we are still programmed to stumble, eat, starve and eat again.
Genetically speaking, we haven’t changed that much in the last 5000-6000 years. To put that into evolutionary perspective if all hominid development of 7 million years was represented by a mile, our dominion over agriculture was the last 4 feet – barely a step. You are genetically programmed to store energy for times of famine. So are your skinny friends.
The problem? Famine never comes.
So when we eat animal or plant fat, we take that stored energy and either convert it to useful energy or extract the energy from it and store it ourselves. The same goes for carbohydrates. We use the energy directly or just convert the excess to fat for later. Proteins, we’ll see, are just a little different. We can break them down and use the nutrients (amino acids) to build other proteins (e.g. insulin, enzymes, antibodies, or hair) or we can burn them and use the energy or store it in fat for later use.
In case you didn’t notice, I didn’t say MUSCLE in that list, because we’re over focused on the muscle/protein connection – both on intake and body nutrient use. It keeps you from really digesting these concepts. Put it away for now.
Each of these macromolecules: Carbohydrates, Proteins and Fats contain smaller “packages” of energy, but are stored like the links on the chain. As we dive into the each of the individual chains, you will see the similarities, and differences, but right now the BIGGEST obstacle to understanding this is to stop associating proteins, carbohydrates, and fats with specific foods. These are not food group labels like meat, dairy, or vegetables. These are basic collections of molecules of similar chemistry and function and the vast majority of unrefined food has all three.
To define a particular food by what macronutrient it has “most of” or to reject it because it’s a macronutrient that you believe you should consume less/more of is THE problem. It starts a chain of events and you end up inextricably linked to the latest fad diet. They make money; you stay fat. These macronutrient-based diet schemes all invoke an enormous amount of generality and in doing so, well, the results speak for themselves the world is getting fatter despite record spending on diet/fitness.
We have excess energy not bad genes. Can anyone argue with this logic? can you possibly get fat if you don’t eat?
Think Different
This photo takes you to the 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech - please take 14 minutes to watch it.
So, in memory of Steve Jobs, I want you to THINK DIFFERENT beginning today. Steve taught us in his amazing 2005 Stanford commencement speech, “Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.” You CAN understand this in a way that you will no longer be trapped by dogma. I’ll take the time to explain the difference between protein and meat or potatoes and carbohydrate, if you’ll keep an open attitude.
Why am I splitting hairs on this? Because you can’t recognize or even taste a protein and yet, you’re probably convinced you need more. It’s not limited to protein, Harvard professors (1), even an outrageous story on NPR YESTERDAY, can’t seem to differentiate between a potato and a french fry and therefore group them together with the resulting blame for childhood obesity going to the poor potato. A food that has been around in some form for millions of years is now THE problem de jour. It doesn’t stop there as the USDA is probably the worst place for information.
When you get to the end of the news report note that the kid get’s it right: who wants to eat a dry potato just for the fun of it? The answer: your starving ancestors did. They were hungry and you’re fat. But until you get past that it has nothing to do with carbs, glycemic index or fat, you’ll stay stuck in the yo-yo cycle. That continues to fuel another jiggleflex sale, a deal a plate, or a bypass surgery. Everybody wins, right?
I will stop ranting now.
Today, make a step in the right direction. Forget food for a moment. We are going to dive into the three macronutrients. We are going to understand the difference between starch and cellulose – why cows can eat grass and termites can eat wood. Does your current idea of food explain where the cows get protein or how termites digest and get energy from undigestable fiber Probably not, but once you truly understand carbohydrates, proteins and fats, you can rebuild from the ground up and construct a different, a RADICALLY DIFFERENT, basis for what and why you put stuff in your mouth.
I’ll even leave room for creme brûlée.
After we are finished, what I hope you’ll never do again is to try to pick your food groups based on macronutrients: carbohydrates, proteins or fats. I hope you realize that rice, for example, has enough available protein (and a full complement of amino acids) to sustain you (2). I want you to understand why birds and wild cats aren’t fat and how an elephant can grow so much muscle mass without a single protein shake.
You see, we once understood how to survive and, ironically, didn’t even think about it. We stumbled through the world and ate what we could find. Today, with all of our macronutrient diet schemes, eat for blood type, 21 days to fight belly fat, or super secret supplement goop, we’ve lost the way. It’s unbeliveable that we have never know MORE about food and yet it’s never been more difficult to understand what to do.
Steve Jobs took everything we knew about computers, music, and computer programs and turned it into an incredible assembly of tools that…just worked. I am suggesting that we do the same with nutrition. I say for the group following this blog – stop debating and let’s just break this down and see what makes sense.
I’m willing to go against the mass market. I believe people are intelligent enough to figure this out. I know that I was wrong for most of my adult life – even with advanced education and a deep interest/motivation to understand it (I was FAT). The difference, perhaps, is that when I found the contradictions – michael phelps eats 12,000 cal/day and termites eat wood – I took the time to reflect on the world and set aside my bias.
But like ts eliot observed: I’ve arrived where I started, and know the place for the very first time. I think you will too.
We’ll start with carbohydrates on the next post. See you there!
1) Changes in Diet and Lifestyle and Long-Term Weight Gain in Women and Men, Mozaffarian D et al. N Engl J Med 2011;364:2392-2404.
2) Nitrogen retention of young men fed rice with or without supplementary chicken, Lee CJ, et al., Am J Clin Nutr. 1971 Mar;24(3):318-23.
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Ok, you have my attention.
I promise I am not intentionally building this. I want to make sure EVERYONE gets it.
for those that want to dig in before our next post, download that paper and see if it challenges what you currently believe about macronutrient needs (like protein). I don’t want to debate it in the comments, but I too am excited by what I have seen.
I think you will be too…
Ray
Great post Ray. I really look forward to next one. I’m totally onboard for the ride!
keep me honest! nothing up my sleeve. No hidden agendas. I’m putting it ALL on the line!
Ray
I am absolutely willing to set aside my assumptions, as they have not got me anything but extra poundage! Sounds to me like you’re basically going to end up saying that we just eat too damn much since our bodies are never starving in our modern world.
I am simply sick of being fat and desperately want to figure out how to conquer this. Although not a scientist by trade, I am like you and like to think of myself as thinking person, so I can’t wait to read the next installment.
great…well, I don’t have to tell you you eat too damn much, because you know that. It seems obvious one way is to limit what you eat and another way is to pick food that you can eat as much as you want. Before we get into food, I just want everyone to understand what “it” is and the sooner we get out of the carb, protein, fat paradigm, I believe the easier it will be to recognize how to shift habits in a healthful direction.
Hang in there. I promise you can make this work.
Ray
pick food that you can eat as much as you want
I know you may kick my ass for this. This is the approach I have taken, but the problem is that the foods I pick included a lot of sweets containing sugar alcohols. I have developed a tolerance and can eat basically all the cookies and ice cream I want with only mild discomfort and little to no weight gain. Even on the days I do eat regular junk food I still lose or maintain. Although I am not consistent, I try and combine this with HIIT, push ups, and watching Eagles games while sitting in the 70C pool.
This works well for my weight management and general level of happiness but I imagine it may cause some health problems later.
Rice is high in leucine, valine, and isoleucine right? put enough in there and the body should be able to make the rest as long as the diets varied enough… or am I missing something
Table 2 of the paper I cited above has a amino acid breakdown of these two particular diets – one with rice and the other with rice + chicken. I am trying to cite only things that are in open literature, but it’s not always possible.
This happens to be a good paper and I will explain much more about it in the next two posts. Again, it is important that you not retreat to whatever “diet scheme” you currently favor. We want to get down in the weeds and look around for nuggets of gold. Don’t get too hung up on this amino acid or that – again, that drives sales, not health. If you have sufficient ingestion of essential amino acids (the ones your body doesn’t produce) then the body takes care of the rest.
more on this when we get to protein digestion.
Thanks!
Ray
Rice alone is a bad idea. You need to add something else to it. An associate of mine from India came to Japan and ate nothing but a small bowl (maybe half a cup) for lunch and dinner. He was trying to save money to send to his family back in India. But after 3 months of nothing but rice, he found himself in the hospital malnourished. Sadly for him, he ended up spending a large amount of his savings to get better.
Lore,
Go back and read the article. Everyone is so completely set in ways, stories, and bias, that they can’t seem to read things for what they are. This paper merely asks a simple question:
can someone maintain a positive (excess) nitrogen (protein) balance on rice? The answer is – yes.
a second, but significant point, is whether or not starches, such as potatoes or rice, contain a full compliment of amino acids (micronutrients or fuel)? The answer is also yes.
We don’t have to jump to specific diets or micronutrients, because we are discussing MACRONUTRIENTS. I am going to force this issue (because it’s my blog – lol) but it completely makes the point of how completely sold we are all… Macronutrients are not micronutrients. It turns out that protein, more accurately amino acids, are both a fuel AND a micronutrient. As well, Rice, and many other starches, have sufficient protein (both quantity AND mix of essential amino acids) to completely meet Human nutrition requirements. I am not going to suggest a diet here, but I DO want people to be armed with facts when they make an INFORMED decision about what they eat.
There are healthful ways to lose weight and unhealthful ways. Both are short term, better than being obese. In terms of weight loss, we need to maintain a negative energy balance of food to lose weight. That can be done by increased exercise or decreased intake. As you see on my TEDMED talk, I propose people do and maximize both.
Rice has sustained billions of people. Your friend, we don’t know the details, is really insignificant to the bigger argument. Dr Walter Kempner at Duke University worked on this extensively in the 40s through early 90s treating hypertension and diabetes in 18,000 patients. He did add micronutrients, but the huge criticism was always about “protein.” The studies (there were many in the late 40s, all showed that nitrogen balance was right at slightly positive/negative pivot. Remember, these were EXTREMELY restrictive calorically as weight was usually being attacked at the same time. Many point and say ah-ha! see, not enough protein; we need a HUGE excess to build muscle.
On a whole his approach was very balanced. IF you add more rice in the form of calories, you get more protein with it. Of course you must exercise off the excess, but I think that is the point. It was reading some of these old articles and even some of the new ones to start pushing around my bias to understand exactly what we need. I am not recommending this, but I do think than anyone that wants to understand macronutrients MUST dump the diagnosis bias of protein = meat or carb = high glycemic, etc… these are all generalized labels and I think the obesity problem says we obviously don’t get it.
My journey began with macronutrients and then started looking around for other information on micro nutrients. The latter isn’t easy, because it is dominated by supplement sales. Hang with me. Don’t rush to polarizing judgements. Let’s just look at what macronutrients are and what it means to have an surplus/excess of energy. Along the way we will add in micronutrients.
Thanks!!!
Ray
here are a few other references to begin looking at this, but let’s not derail the discussions just yet.
(1) DIETARY TREATMENT OF HYPERTENSION. CLINICAL AND METABOLIC STUDIES OF PATIENTS ON THE RICE-FRUIT DIET, Vincent P. Dole, et al, J Clin Invest. 1950 September; 29(9): 1189–1206.
(2) NITROGEN BALANCE ON RICE DIET, Ernst Peschel and Ruth Lohmann Peschel, J Clin Invest. 1950 April; 29(4): 455–459.
Ray,
Regarding the two studies you reference to using rice for a diet, both studies use a very small handful of people. The first study in 1949 followed 52 individuals. As mentioned in the study, none of it was carried out in a metabolic ward. This means there would be several factors not accounted for. Individuals could very well have enjoyed other foods/drinks in addition to what was served at the hospital.
The second study, which was a logical next step of the first, followed only 6 people.
Although the 2nd study closely followed the patients, I would prefer more study with a much larger group. Six people hardly represents the human population as a whole.
This is often invoked in medical experiments and I attribute it to drug companies that get efficacy measured often in single digit improvements. One typically associates large datasets with better overall statistics. Inthink that with diet it’s a double-edge sword. Large datasets are very difficult to control/monitor consumption – an this is most frequently the most important variable in the study.
We simply don’t have any biological evidence that macronutrients are that variable in humans. Wet we have is that consistent over eating of calorically dense, nutrient poor food causes chronic illness. Those chronically I’ll do have a different reaction various foods.
I think for a very simple concept of understanding in this case postitive nitrogen balance, these are all fantastic studies. It just flies in the face of our construct of what protein is and how much we need.
I’m not anti-protein, but I am pro-knowledge and I hear way too many people interject marketing hype as factual. We’ll see similar issues with ALL macronutrients.
Ray
Regarding my Indian associate, I didn’t mean to demonize rice. Personally, I love rice and eat a lot of it. I suspect the problem for my associate was a matter of caloric intake. He was visibly skinny to begin with… and eating nothing but a cup of rice each day plus the exercise required to travel to work, he was seriously starving himself. I would guess that he ate a little more than 300 Kcal/day!
I agree that one can survive on rice alone in sufficient quantities. However, I’m sure that everyone would prefer to add something to it… even if it’s just some grass to season it.
However, this would not help the maintenance of the body… This is where the micronutrients are recommended. I would have, at minimum, added some multivitamins to my associate’s diet.
I have an odd feeling your science is going to back up alot of my personal assumptions across the past couple months of my journey. I am sensing that LESS is MORE.
Just came here to complain that I hardly ever visit this blog–even though I get all the blog updates sent by email. Each time I click on them it asks me to sign in. It’s a shame becuase this info is really good and cutting edge. But the web master of this site really needs to understand web usuability and accessbility a bit more. People aren’t going to login to read the latest blog entry each time. I can’t be bothered as I have other sites to catch up on. That’s just how it is for most web surfers unfortunately.
Bottom line: Having a blog login is VERY bad.
Hey Mike
No webmaster just me. Complaint noted. I’ve sent in several requests, complaints and pleads to wishlist member. It seems as if you should hit the “remember me” and it should never ask again. It irritates me too.
If Everyone wants to tweet @wishlistproduct With please help @raycronise fix the membership login of wishlist, maybe somebody there will help. Basically I get a “not our problem” response.
If you are a wishlist pro (or pretend to be one on TV) and want to help, I’d appreciate any help.
I want to reserve blogs for registered members. Really, wordpress needs to integrate membership in the core (hey matt, hint hint).
Sorry mike. Just make your login/user name dumb easy to remember.
Thanks everyone.
Ray.
Thanks Ray. I appreciate you understanding. A lot of blog owners might’ve taken that personall, but you didn’t… which shows your professionalism, and also your willingness to listen. I like that. It doesn’t remember me for some reason on your website. I do click “remember me.” It remembered me just now coming back here… but that’s maybe because it’s the same day and also I didn’t close my browser since I posted that I don’t think. But it will forget again before long.
No problem. Not personal. Remember me doesn’t work all the time for me either. I’ve asked several times and can’t get a straight answer. I’m not sure if it is the membership software or wordpress. One other user emailed me and suggested it was a cookie issue.
Either way, I’ll keep working on it.
Ray
This paper is making my eyes glaze over. Would you mind spelling it out?
No worries!!! I will get to it. Just put a link there for the impatient, ambitious type. Will cover at length in the next few posts.
Ray
The study is a bit week (in statistical power) but interesting nonetheless, Thanks. I look forward to your future insights.
Just curious what you find weak about this study. Data spread? Sample size? It seems fairly straight forward and the DOE seems to cover the basis. Because it was a crossover, the subjects become their own controls and compliance (the typical weak point) was controlled by food prep/serve.
Ray
Probably part of this problem is also that a lot of our food is processed and treated with various additives that naturally won’t be in the food and that somehow fool our system’s eating regulation (I mean stuff like MSG, artificial sweeteners, artificial colours, extra vitamins and so on). If you cook your food from the raw stuff, that won’t be in there and I don’t think it is needed. It is just for the food industry to make us eat more and for them to make more money…
Actually I try to avoid all of this stuff wherever I can (basically also because my system doesn’t tolerate it so I rather eat nothing than getting the runs). So far it hasn’t done me any bad doing so, and I didn’t gain weight.
I don’t agree with the entire additive tangent and think this is precisely why most people don’t end up with confusion. Additives are an issue, but the most SIGNIFICANT issue is what they are “added to.” I think this is analogous to someone obese saying “I don’t get enough exercise since I hurt my knee.” Exercise for cardiovascular fitness is important, but it is minor in weight loss compared to what/how much one eats.
I have written on sales and marketing in the past on disruptive marketing, even taught it. I’m don’t want to digress into “corporate greed” an other such emotional arguments. What we should focus on is an underlying theme: Labeling ANYTHING is a way to create differentiation and focus this attention so that you can deflect other products and create a following that rallies your message.
Take for example caffeine – When I was younger, there was a huge push for caffeine free beverages (never mind the sugar, etc…) it was EVIL caffeine. Coffee and soda were among the first. A BRILLIANT marketing campaign was 7-up – never had it, never will. They made an entire marketing campaign out of NOTHING. They captured the essence of a movement and did well with it.
Right now, I believe that people are mostly mislead by food labels. I think it’s pretty safe to bet that if it is on a label it’s probably a lie or irrelevant. Low Sodium, Fat Free, Gluten Free, Sugar Free, GMO, Organic (have I offended everyone yet?) …pick your favorite cause. These are distractions. They probably have SOME importance, but not when you are pouring tons of processed sugar and oil (this means OLIVE oil too) down your mouth. Organic and GMO are ways to label whole foods, because what else can you say about a carrot? In beef, it’s now grass fed. Chicken was “white meat,” as if that makes any difference. But take note that people feel GOOD when they say, ” I gave up red meat,” when in reality if you decide to eat any meat at all, it’s all ok in moderation.
Let’s not turn this into a discussion now, but what this series is about is FOOD. Food is what comes out of the ground (plants) or feeds off of things that come out of the ground (animals). I think it is meaningless the get down to all of the emotional advertising issues (i.e. stuff on labels or advertisements/causes) if you don’t understand the basics. We don’t need to deal with supplements right now, even though they could be helpful in many cases.
Hemlock tea? Fugu(Blowfish) Stew, Poison Ivy Skin Cream, Oleander Salad, and Creme le Mistletoe…all will 100% organically and naturally kill you or make you extremely ill. Most are fat free, gluten free and not GMO. What marketer’s learned long ago is the average person accepts the premise natural = good and manmade = questionable. I’m a scientist and don’t begin with that premise. I think we have the ability to understand and some of the dissed (unnatural) technology could be very key in our future health and preventative care.
If you will back up and look at the PRIMARY FOOD ingested and what it is affecting, all of this advertising misdirection falls away. I am not suggestion we shouldn’t be at all concerned with GMO and other things, but getting the 98% of it right is more important. There is so much we DO know about food that is completely swept under the “organic” rug.
I submit that people fundamentally don’t understand proteins, carbs and fat and the thermodynamic implications of excess consumption. We vilify foods and food groups, or shroud them with so much excess labeling that the main nutrition points are missed. This is especially true of physicians and nutritionists. They have the formal training to think and question, but fall right in line with the mass marketing. That’s too bad and the results are obvious.
Let’s put all this aside for the moment. We’ll return to it later. But I think additives etc, are important, but primarily an advertising distraction .
Ray
I think that on the bottom line we are in agreement. I share your frustration and despair when people think that “natural” means good, and “artificial” means evil. However, I just want to make a small observation: your passion is showing through a bit too much. It’s difficult to not get into unwanted/irrelevant arguments when you use language that can possibly be construed as “grass finished beef is a scam.” I’m sure you know as well as I how much better grass fed meat is than grain fed meat, how much better the ratio of n3:n6 is and how much lower the overall polyunsaturated fatty acid content is. I’m sure you also know how excessively high n6:n3 ratio is currently thought to be the primary driver of systemic inflamation leading to many diseases of modern man. And yet, you said a couple of things that could be interpreted by someone as meaning “there is no merit behind grass-finished beef; it’s a marketing ploy.” I think we both know this isn’t really true. However, I do whole-heartedly agree that the long term health benefits of things like grass fed meat are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions to establish weight loss.
We will see. What I can tell you for certain is there is no technical disagreement on the three macronutrients and how they are digested.
As soon as we get through those, we’ll come back to micronutrients. Don’t want to debate it yet as there are too many following that just don’t understand protein, carbohydrate and fat as it relates ton Krebs cycle and electron transport chain. My thesis is based on indisputable thermodynamics. It’s not discussed widely and therefore the “assumptions” result in what appears to be “calorie not a calorie”
Once we agree on energy, we’ll come back to protein as a micronutrient and discuss grass fed cows.
Thermogenex – let’s deal with the energy balance first. If you will suspend your assumptions, there’s a chance that you might come away with a new perspective.
Ray
I saw a video(1) of Dr. Robert Baron, UCSF Professor of Medicine, recently. He cites how studies have shown the minimum caloric intake per day should be at least 800 Kcal. This is considered to be VLCD. In the same lecture, he mentions how the body seems to adjust to any new diet within 6 months. It didn’t matter what (fad) diet one chose to use. This suggests to me that I have to “change it up” twice a year to keep the momentum going.
Another important point that Dr. Baron makes is that once you have lost the weight and start the maintenance phase, you must re-assess how much your body needs to maintain its daily function. So, once you get the weight off, you don’t need to eat as much as before you started the weight loss. This seems obvious, but I’ve seen so many that celebrate their weight loss at the buffet restaurant!
I’m also guilty of thinking that I could resume my 2500 Kcal/day intake that I was used to when I lost 40Kg. After I gained 5Kg back, I forced myself to lower my intake to about 1800 Kcal/day. Now that I’ve allowed my skin to “snap back,” I’m looking to lose another 20-25Kg. I’m now forcing myself to about 1000 Kcal/day 6 days a week. I allow myself 1 day where I enjoy an extra snack where the total intake for my “bonus” day should not exceed 1600 Kcal.
As Dr. Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatric, explains (2) the first law of thermodynamics with respect to human diets: Calories-Out + Weight-Gain will equate with Calories-In. In other words, what your body doesn’t use or dispose, it stores. So, (over) simply stated, eat too much and watch your waist-line expand. However, it’s also important to understand that a calorie does not simply equal a calorie when respecting how the body processes it. Alcohol, for example, gets processed almost immediately into fat. Only a small portion is metabolized (in the brain). Once it’s in the fat stores, the body won’t process it until you’re “starving” for energy.
Dr. Baron also makes an interesting observation regarding the “normal BMI” for humans based on a “cultural bias.”(3) The normal BMI range seems to increase respectively for Asians, Caucasians, and Africans. (4) Another study supports this observation as found in Singapore. (5) Although, this study only tests the error in how BMI predicts the BF%. It does show how the normal BMI would be lower for Asians when compared to Caucasians.
Another point that Dr. Baron makes in his lecture was that it’s more important to be “Fit” than to be “normal weight.” He basically shows how even if you are “overweight” your morbidity risk decreases if you are fit. He defines being fit as: walking for an hour at a pace of 17 minutes per mile, talk while you’re walking, wake up the next day and do the same without major stress on the body. So, you can be “fat, but fit” and have a decreased morbidity risk when compared to “skinny, but sedentary.” So, simply stated: primarily be fit and worry about your weight secondary.
1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk4UKD00aOo
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14ZIKOQkTiM (short condensed version)
3) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12164465
4) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15040999
5) http://www.halls.md/bmi/singapore.htm
Thanks Lore
We have discussed bob lustig before and I think he makes some good points. We will get to this along the way. I want to go back to even a more basic issue and that is food. If we can shelve this discussion for now, I want to be certain that everyone understands the three macronutrients: carbohydrate, protein, and fat. I have left off alcohol, but will pick it back up when we discuss processed fuels (sugars & oils).
My first introduction to the lustig-way of thinking predates his most recent videos. I was given a VHS tape in the late 80s called The Sugar Trap. I just searched and found it here on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OcH9K_RvYk
We’ll come back to this – I promise, but let’s keep on task with macronutrients for now and I promise if you let your pet villain go (I have them too!) it will help focus on the basics.
Thanks!!!!
Ray
Additionally, those whom become fit, but are still “fat” usually become less fat over the coarse of time if they maintain their daily regimen of exercise and discipline…
I would imagine that discipline is the most difficult aspect of any weight-loss adventure. It certainly is for me. It’s not the lack of exercise or proper dieting that keeps the weight on. It’s my need of constant motivation and discipline that will determine the success of loosing sufficient weight.
My first 40Kg loss was accomplished by the constant reminder I had of a girlfriend that left me because I was still too fat (among other factors). The motivation must be strong enough, or the endeavor will fail.
I also think there are some other mechanisms that produce setpoints in the body. I’ll share more of that once we get past macro nutrients. I agree that changing things up had benefit. Also I’m in Tim’s camp that BMI is a meaningless number.
Ray
BMI… I like this definition: Big Meaningless Indicator… 😉
At the time when the Quetelet Index was introduced, back in the 19th century, it was meant to be used as a simple means of classifying sedentary individuals with an average body composition. Unfortunately, it’s used today in a variety of ways that do not accurately paint the correct picture of your life. For example, insurance companies try to use this measure as a means of determining your premiums. This does you no justice since BMI does not take muscle mass into account. Nor does it consider the water-weight one carries.
Additionally, as I provided references above, it does not accurately apply across all regions. The so-called normal BMI for Asians is not the same for Africans. Nor is it a single number, but rather a range.
Anyone whom has tracked their weight over a long period of time (>6 months) will know that your weight oscillates week to week and month to month (assuming you record your weight daily). I’ve seen this in my own weight. My current weight range is 109Kg to 113kg. This by the formula’s definition of BMI, it indicates that my BMI is 33.3 ~ 34.5. By American standards, I’m obese. Considering that I once weighed 158kg with a BMI of 48.2, I’d say that I’m doing damn good. However, according to my doc, she says my actual BF% is about 29.7%. So, there is a definite degree of error. I don’t mean to say that Body Fat percentage is the same as BMI. But I’ve seen many confuse the two.
Wikipedia does a good job of acknowledging the shortcomings of BMI. It’s worth reading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#Limitations_and_shortcomings
In short, I agree that BMI is useless as a measure of one’s health.
LOL!
hey, have you listened to this BMI Story on National Public Radio. It is really good!
A Dutchman, a German and a Belgian were asked to come up with a health metric…
Ray
Hey Ray,
Can you post the joke? My casual search for the three Europeans inventing the “health metric” came up empty…
I was just making that up. It was meant to make fun of the Beligian that came up with BMI in the first place.
Lol
Ray
BMI is very accurate.
If you are Big in the Middle, then it Indicates that you are fat.
Use not recommended for pregnant moms.
Perfect!!!! Hey, I’m just as guilty as many on this. I still habitually resort to it.
Thanks!
Ray
Hi Ray, honestly, I am doing quite a bit of swimming and I am not ‘overloading,’ on protein to be honest, I am a veggie and whilst i do eat quite a few veggie sausages, i am eating quite a few carbs, more than normal and not especially ‘pigging out,’ whilst not avoiding anything either! And guess what Ray, I am ensuring I have ice cubes in water several times a day and often putting my colpac thing on my shoulders, I now just need to sort out my portable ice box to keep this going.. and guess what?!! i’ll lost quite a few inches around my stomach and hips where I have been carrying quite a bit of fat! I do not feel it is any coincidence; which i am sure you do not. What i am excited about is the potential, to help women, who I know and understand more than men, in the nicest possible way, them to lose their weight especialyl from their stomach and hips where hormonal balances ie manifest often! I would love to when you are ready put ur work into everyday language, into some form be it videos, or a playful ebook etc and JV with you Ray, and it is such a wonderful thing; very much needed! i have even more energy than normal, am sleeping more, am recovering from my training quicker and i have less muscle ache too! I do have much more energy at present due to the moon cycles, & other planetary activity, (lol!) still the ice factor is absolutely making a difference! Apologies not yet taken exact measurement, could do unsure where to start, as I find often scientific approaches bring on multiple blonde moments!! Thanks again for your incredible, ground-breaking work! Many thanks, Carrie :0
Fantastic Carrie!!!
keep records. We need data! From a weight loss perspective, I don’t think you really can overload on protein. It is easy to run a caloric deficit on high-protein diets. What I want to do here is bring everyone back to the basics to learn just what these macronutrients are and how they all relate to the overall energy/heat (not temperature) balance.
I am about to start some swimming trials after 3 months of delays. FINALLY put the last coat of stain on my deck and time to get going – no more procrastination.
Ray
To phrase your insight a little more concisely: We, like all other predators, are genetically programmed to be able to eat well past the hour-to-hour (or day-to-day) energy demands of our bodies. We get fat because we have way too much opportunity to eat and no particular mechanism to tune our eating to exactly match our energy needs. We don’t have such a fine-turning mechanism because it simply doesn’t make sense for any predator to have it. So simple, yet so brilliant. I’m impressed while at the same time being sorely disappointed that I didn’t see the problem in such simple terms myself.
It makes sense too. If you look to nature, all predators are programmed this way because, unlike herbivores, predators need to hunt and hunting has a much lower success rate than bending over to chomp on grass.
I eagerly await your posts on energy intake and processing, as well as your ideas on setpoint mechanisms. However, I must confess that after seeing how you interpreted that rice study, I have some apprehension. That rice study has two HUGE confounding factors:
1- The subjects gained weight. I would expect that ANY caloric surplus of ANY kind based on ANY food would result in positive nitrogen balance or at least nitrogen retention. I would bet you $500 that if you repeated the same study with any food and got the subjects to gain weight, the results would be the same (except they might be slightly better on a high protein diet).
2- It’s a short-term study. There is interplay between the intake and loss of vitamin/mineral levels; for instance taking too much zinc will deplete you of copper. If your diet is skewed towards the excessive intake of certain vitamins and minerals, this is likely to result in adverse effects on health and bodycomp in the long run. But such effects cannot be demonstrable by short term research.
And what of all the papers and case studies that establish increased muscular adaptation and performance improvements in scenarios of protein intake up to 0.8g/kg body weight? My main bone to pick against drawing conclusions based purely on scientific research is that for every little crappy short term study you may look at, there are a million confounds and a thousand other short term studies contradicting it in some way or another (directly or indirectly). Research is valuable in discarding some ideas and helping us generate new hypotheses, but I don’t see it being very valuable in proving much of anything.
LOL – you can’t wait. Otherwise you wouldn’t be sticking your two cents in now! LOL…
I don’t completely agree with you and can offer another explanation that is also very sound. I am not basing my assumptions on a crappy study. I have about 10 years of active research in biophysics – specifically in protein crystal growth. Having done site-directed mutagensis synthesis of proteins, I see them very differently than you. I don’t see proteins as a “food group.” They are a macromolecule consisting of amino acids. Those are all very precisely known as is the overall conformational structure of many proteins. The vast majority are NOT meat. So food is really irrelevant. There are many many studies on nitrogen balance. I included just TWO that were in open literature (everyone could read).
What I will say is not disputed in the circles of biophysicists and researchers of the energy transport mechanisms. They just don’t hang out in gyms or write diet books for the most part. Understand that most physicians NEVER have a class on the things we are discussing past intro bio.
I can tell you my 16 year old daughter just had at test on this and it was all as we will learn.
It’s only when we start talking “food” that the divergence happens. Don’t blame it on labs, or disagree with studies – in science, we go on data. By design it is not dogma and so we only learn things when we are WRONG. I love being wrong. Embracing it is the most efficient way to learn. I am confident that what I will lay out will make sense.
Hang in there victor. Don’t try to guess where I am going. breath. Let’s get the basics covered.
Ray
A lot of things also depend on lifestyle circumstances… There’s been research done to show that even 2.2g of protein per kg of bodyweight is the bare minimum to preserve nitrogen balance in the face of even moderate weight training regimes. Not everyone is a couch potatoe. Finally, I’ve yet to see evidence that nitrogen balance is an adequate proxy for bodycomp… The relationship doesn’t seem to be bijective. Negative nitrogen balance is a strong hint towards worsening bodycomp, but positive nitrogen balance does not imply an improvement in body comp.
Again, you are throwing out generalities and then making sweeping statements. Let’s hold off. REALLY try to focus on what protein, carbohydrate and fat is as it applies to ENERGY balance and metabolism. This IS going to get challenging, so if you throw too much food in, it will be impossible for anyone to understand. I threw something out there that is really not disputed by any one that studies nutrition at an academic basis. The problem is that is competes with people’s bias of what a “protein” is and how much we need.
As expected, a number of you are rejecting it, because it does not fit your current world view. That is called diagnosis bias – we keep the data that supports our view and we reject the data that disputes it.
Nitrogen balance is trivial to measure in the lab and so fundamentally academic that most of the studies are a half century old. I turns out that it does not fit current beliefs and generalities about protein requirements and does in fact challenge some assumptions – especially in the body building community.
After all, protein supplements (micronutrient not macronutrient) are big business. Are we surprised?
stay with me.
Ray
C’mon Ray hurry up mate
Mike from Sydney
Ahhhh. Sorry Mike
I wish this were a full time effort. Perhaps later today…
Ray