Metabolic Adaptation

Jensing

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It seems like my body adapts quickly to the amount of calories I eat, and I have a very strong "set point". I'm 6'5 and about 220 lbs. In February I started cutting and got down to about 214 lbs after 2 full months of eating clean food, adequate protein, and averaging around 1900 calories a day. I would "cheat" with a burger and fries or something like that once a week. Since this whole pandemic has happened I've gone back up to 218 lbs over the last 7 weeks and that's with a worse exercise routine and not worrying about my diet at all. I'm eating probably closer to 3000 calories a day with the extra coming from burgers, chips, ice cream, just cheat foods. So my question is how do I reduce the speed of the metabolic adaptation during a cut. I know that my metabolism will slow, but it seems like it happens in a matter of a couple weeks.
 

SweetLou321

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The simple answer is. You really can't. Id suggest you first start by reading this:

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/metabolic-adaptation/

It is worth noting that even maintenance calories are not a set number and more of range. Lets use an example to explain this. Lets say a persons current maintenance on average is about 2,500 cals per day. Their range actually be between 2,300-2,700. This is because of factors such a NEAT (none exercise thermogenesis), which is the major one at this point. If you eat more or less one day you may spontaneously move or less as a result to maintain a balanced caloric output to intake ratio. This is more genetic then anything so you can't change it really but you can accept it and not get frustrated. Some people have much more adaptive mechanisms such as spontaneous movement to overfeeding and they will have a much wider maintenance range as a result. In some metabolic ward research they have seen some peoples metabolic rate adjust to turn a 1,000 cal overfeeding into maintenance due to things such as increases in NEAT.

Now due to this variance in metabolic response to over and underfeeding we can see that some will need to really drop cals to lose weight and really increase cals to gain weight. If you are one of these people then weight loss can be challenging due to lack of cals but maintaining weight loss is easier and massing can be fun due to the food amounts required. A blessing and a curse.

Lets use our example again, say that person was maintaining their weight on 2,700 cals per day on average (the top end of their range) and they decide to cut 500 cals a day as is typically suggested to lose about 1lbs per week on average. Well their metabolism may adjust over a few weeks and now their maintenance is only 2,300 and they are only in a 100 cals per day deficit. Now weight loss is stalled, these people should not get frustrated, they just need to monitor their response to caloric intakes and accept what changes need to be made to achieve their goals.

Now that we understand the concept of the variability of one's metabolic rate, lets discuss another big factor of metabolic adaptation, that is how efficiently our mitochondria will derive ATP from food. As we diet, our body will become more efficient of generating ATP from food and less calories will be loosely generated into heat (thermogenesis). This is the way for the body to resist weight loss, evolutionarily this is advantageous but not for us in our first worlds. Many report feeling colder as they diet and hotter as they mass, this is why. So as we diet, our body will get better at converting cals into ATP and not heat, this also happens to how many cals we burn from exercise. A session that burns 500 cals at the beginning of a diet may only burn 300 cals at the end due to this adaptation (these numbers are examples). This is also thought to be the reason we seem to have a slower metabolism as we age. Our body tries to become more efficient to reduce oxidative stress thus less spontaneous movement and less cals burned through movement.

There is some limited research that:
1) Diet breaks or refeeds may help prevent decreases in spontaneous movement and metabolic efficiency. Examples that research supports are 2 weeks dieting and 2 weeks maintenance and at least 2-3 days of refeeding in a row (the research used a 11:3 ratio in days).

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2017/09/cyclic-dieting-22-onoff-drops-123-vs.html

https://www.ergo-log.com/strict-weight-loss-diet-works-better-if-you-bend-the-rules-occasionally.html

2) Nicotine, Caffeine/Ephedrine, and EGCG may help with prevent metabolic efficiency, in that order in terms of potency:

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2017/03/role-of-muscle-and-cns-in-diet-induced.html

3) 7-keto-DHEA has some short term research indicating it may help prevent metabolic efficiency as well:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17418559

4) Increasing leptin sensitivity if needed. You can read about leptin in the article I linked first. CRP can bind to leptin and prevent it from entering the brain, so if your CRP-HS levels are high then bringing them down can help.

5) Try to plan more walking and other super low grade activity as your spontaneous movement declines:

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2014/11/high-energy-flux-new-determinant-of.html

6) Make sure your are in a good state metabolically before starting to lose weight. This means either be massing or at the top end of your maintenance range before starting to ensure that both spontaneous movement is at its highest and metabolic efficiency is at its lowest, leptin is at its highest, active thyroid hormones are at their highest, ect. Relative energy deficiency (REDS) is a real thing for both men and women:

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/the-risks-of-relative-energy-deficiency-in-sports/

Edit Note: There is one more aspect I did not address and it is worth stating. It is below:

7) Ensure your training load from all sources such as resistance exercise and aerobic is manageable. It one were to push past their systemic maximum recoverable volume of total exercise capacity then they can enter a state of overreaching and with time overtraining. It is not advised that one try to excessively exercise their way into a deficit. It is advised one stay relatively active as pointed out in point 5 as to allow them to eat more food while dieting which imparts some benefits on hormones that regulate muscle maintenance and satiety. The problem with doing to much exercise that we are unable to recover from is that this can lead to a decrease in total T3, free T3, and an increase in reverse T3 (rT3). T3 is our most active thyroid hormone and its isomer rT3 has not biological activity other then binding to the T3 receptors in place of T3 to slow down our metabolism. This is a way the body can try to prevent catabolism. This lower T3 activity and higher rT3 can lead to hypothyroidism at the tissue level. Also high rT3 and low T3 activity is associated with poor muscle function and strength output. T3 is also a key hormone for building muscle tissue and maintaining it when in an optimal range. T3s main metabolite is the active T2 that also drives our metabolism and can serve to convert back into T3. Use resistance training to help maintain and build muscle while dieting, not to burn calories. Use aerobic training to improve health and to allow yourself to eat some more food for the benefits already discussed, not to drive a bigger deficit. Aerobic training to drive a bigger deficit may have to be used if nearing the end of contest prep, which does not apply to most of us just trying to get leaner and look good. Overreaching and overtraining can lead to decreased leptin levels regarding of fat cell changes, constantly high cortisol levels or very low cortisol levels, and chronically elevated cytokine levels or Nf-kB expression and all of this inhibits the conversion of T4 to T3 and pushes it toward rT3. Korean ginseng may help with this thyroid hormone profile due to its adaptogenic effects. While not studied as directly as Korean ginseng, ashwagondha may also be of benefit to offset the cortisol drive suppression of T4 to T3 conversion:

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2013/06/overtraining-undereating-self-inflicted.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12734791

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16175490

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16175498

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12215961

https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/497141

https://custommedicine.com.au/health-articles/reverse-t3-dominance/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28829155

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02973143

8) Do not excessively cut cals back as this can lead to similar thyroid profile as outlined in point 7. Training, if not overreaching or overtraining, on top of a low energy influx via diet can cause the body to also decrease T3 activity and increase rT3 to put the brakes on catabolism. A deficit of 400-500 cals per day on average may be best overall when it comes to maintaining thyroid function while exercising:

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2014/10/thyroid-issues-low-energy-intake.html

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2012/02/biggest-winners-lose-their-weight.html
 
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HIT4ME

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The simple answer is. You really can't. Id suggest you first start by reading this:

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/metabolic-adaptation/

It is worth noting that even maintenance calories are not a set number and more of range. Lets use an example to explain this. Lets say a persons current maintenance on average is about 2,500 cals per day. Their range actually be between 2,300-2,700. This is because of factors such a NEAT (none exercise thermogenesis), which is the major one at this point. If you eat more or less one day you may spontaneously move or less as a result to maintain a balanced caloric output to intake ratio. This is more genetic then anything so you can't change it really but you can accept it and not get frustrated. Some people have much more adaptive mechanisms such as spontaneous movement to overfeeding and they will have a much wider maintenance range as a result. In some metabolic ward research they have seen some peoples metabolic rate adjust to turn a 1,000 cal overfeeding into maintenance due to things such as increases in NEAT.

Now due to this variance in metabolic response to over and underfeeding we can see that some will need to really drop cals to lose weight and really increase cals to gain weight. If you are one of these people then weight loss can be challenging due to lack of cals but maintaining weight loss is easier and massing can be fun due to the food amounts required. A blessing and a curse.

Lets use our example again, say that person was maintaining their weight on 2,700 cals per day on average (the top end of their range) and they decide to cut 500 cals a day as is typically suggested to lose about 1lbs per week on average. Well their metabolism may adjust over a few weeks and now their maintenance is only 2,300 and they are only in a 100 cals per day deficit. Now weight loss is stalled, these people should not get frustrated, they just need to monitor their response to caloric intakes and accept what changes need to be made to achieve their goals.

Now that we understand the concept of the variability of one's metabolic rate, lets discuss another big factor of metabolic adaptation, that is how efficiently our mitochondria will derive ATP from food. As we diet, our body will become more efficient of generating ATP from food and less calories will be loosely generated into heat (thermogenesis). This is the way for the body to resist weight loss, evolutionarily this is advantageous but not for us in our first worlds. Many report feeling colder as they diet and hotter as they mass, this is why. So as we diet, our body will get better at converting cals into ATP and not heat, this also happens to how many cals we burn from exercise. A session that burns 500 cals at the beginning of a diet may only burn 300 cals at the end due to this adaptation (these numbers are examples). This is also thought to be the reason we seem to have a slower metabolism as we age. Our body tries to become more efficient to reduce oxidative stress thus less spontaneous movement and less cals burned through movement.

There is some limited research that:
1) Diet breaks or refeeds may help prevent decreases in spontaneous movement and metabolic efficiency. Examples that research supports are 2 weeks dieting and 2 weeks maintenance and at least 2-3 days of refeeding in a row (the research used a 11:3 ratio in days).

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2017/09/cyclic-dieting-22-onoff-drops-123-vs.html

https://www.ergo-log.com/strict-weight-loss-diet-works-better-if-you-bend-the-rules-occasionally.html

2) Nicotine, Caffeine/Ephedrine, and EGCG may help with prevent metabolic efficiency, in that order in terms of potency:

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2017/03/role-of-muscle-and-cns-in-diet-induced.html

3) 7-keto-DHEA has some short term research indicating it may help prevent metabolic efficiency as well:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17418559

4) Increasing leptin sensitivity if needed. You can read about leptin in the article I linked first. CRP can bind to leptin and prevent it from entering the brain, so if your CRP-HS levels are high then bringing them down can help.

5) Try to plan more walking and other super low grade activity as your spontaneous movement declines:

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2014/11/high-energy-flux-new-determinant-of.html

6) Make sure your are in a good state metabolically before starting to lose weight. This means either be massing or at the top end of your maintenance range before starting to ensure that both spontaneous movement is at its highest and metabolic efficiency is at its lowest, leptin is at its highest, thyroid hormones at their highest, ect. Relative energy deficiency (REDS) is a real thing for both men and women:

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/the-risks-of-relative-energy-deficiency-in-sports/
This is a great post. Nice job.
 

Resolve10

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If you find it seems to slow quickly then I'd recommend trying something to keep your non-exercise activity up. I set a step count and try to hit that. It isn't perfect, but it can help offset the losses. Either adding a small amount each week per day as weight goes down or something similar.

In general Lou's post above is way above and beyond covering anything you would need to know, so that should have you covered.
 
JKVol

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The simple answer is. You really can't. Id suggest you first start by reading this:

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/metabolic-adaptation/

It is worth noting that even maintenance calories are not a set number and more of range. Lets use an example to explain this. Lets say a persons current maintenance on average is about 2,500 cals per day. Their range actually be between 2,300-2,700. This is because of factors such a NEAT (none exercise thermogenesis), which is the major one at this point. If you eat more or less one day you may spontaneously move or less as a result to maintain a balanced caloric output to intake ratio. This is more genetic then anything so you can't change it really but you can accept it and not get frustrated. Some people have much more adaptive mechanisms such as spontaneous movement to overfeeding and they will have a much wider maintenance range as a result. In some metabolic ward research they have seen some peoples metabolic rate adjust to turn a 1,000 cal overfeeding into maintenance due to things such as increases in NEAT.

Now due to this variance in metabolic response to over and underfeeding we can see that some will need to really drop cals to lose weight and really increase cals to gain weight. If you are one of these people then weight loss can be challenging due to lack of cals but maintaining weight loss is easier and massing can be fun due to the food amounts required. A blessing and a curse.

Lets use our example again, say that person was maintaining their weight on 2,700 cals per day on average (the top end of their range) and they decide to cut 500 cals a day as is typically suggested to lose about 1lbs per week on average. Well their metabolism may adjust over a few weeks and now their maintenance is only 2,300 and they are only in a 100 cals per day deficit. Now weight loss is stalled, these people should not get frustrated, they just need to monitor their response to caloric intakes and accept what changes need to be made to achieve their goals.

Now that we understand the concept of the variability of one's metabolic rate, lets discuss another big factor of metabolic adaptation, that is how efficiently our mitochondria will derive ATP from food. As we diet, our body will become more efficient of generating ATP from food and less calories will be loosely generated into heat (thermogenesis). This is the way for the body to resist weight loss, evolutionarily this is advantageous but not for us in our first worlds. Many report feeling colder as they diet and hotter as they mass, this is why. So as we diet, our body will get better at converting cals into ATP and not heat, this also happens to how many cals we burn from exercise. A session that burns 500 cals at the beginning of a diet may only burn 300 cals at the end due to this adaptation (these numbers are examples). This is also thought to be the reason we seem to have a slower metabolism as we age. Our body tries to become more efficient to reduce oxidative stress thus less spontaneous movement and less cals burned through movement.

There is some limited research that:
1) Diet breaks or refeeds may help prevent decreases in spontaneous movement and metabolic efficiency. Examples that research supports are 2 weeks dieting and 2 weeks maintenance and at least 2-3 days of refeeding in a row (the research used a 11:3 ratio in days).

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2017/09/cyclic-dieting-22-onoff-drops-123-vs.html

https://www.ergo-log.com/strict-weight-loss-diet-works-better-if-you-bend-the-rules-occasionally.html

2) Nicotine, Caffeine/Ephedrine, and EGCG may help with prevent metabolic efficiency, in that order in terms of potency:

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2017/03/role-of-muscle-and-cns-in-diet-induced.html

3) 7-keto-DHEA has some short term research indicating it may help prevent metabolic efficiency as well:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17418559

4) Increasing leptin sensitivity if needed. You can read about leptin in the article I linked first. CRP can bind to leptin and prevent it from entering the brain, so if your CRP-HS levels are high then bringing them down can help.

5) Try to plan more walking and other super low grade activity as your spontaneous movement declines:

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2014/11/high-energy-flux-new-determinant-of.html

6) Make sure your are in a good state metabolically before starting to lose weight. This means either be massing or at the top end of your maintenance range before starting to ensure that both spontaneous movement is at its highest and metabolic efficiency is at its lowest, leptin is at its highest, thyroid hormones at their highest, ect. Relative energy deficiency (REDS) is a real thing for both men and women:

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/the-risks-of-relative-energy-deficiency-in-sports/
This is incredible work. Thank you
 

Jensing

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The simple answer is. You really can't. Id suggest you first start by reading this:

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/metabolic-adaptation/

It is worth noting that even maintenance calories are not a set number and more of range. Lets use an example to explain this. Lets say a persons current maintenance on average is about 2,500 cals per day. Their range actually be between 2,300-2,700. This is because of factors such a NEAT (none exercise thermogenesis), which is the major one at this point. If you eat more or less one day you may spontaneously move or less as a result to maintain a balanced caloric output to intake ratio. This is more genetic then anything so you can't change it really but you can accept it and not get frustrated. Some people have much more adaptive mechanisms such as spontaneous movement to overfeeding and they will have a much wider maintenance range as a result. In some metabolic ward research they have seen some peoples metabolic rate adjust to turn a 1,000 cal overfeeding into maintenance due to things such as increases in NEAT.

Now due to this variance in metabolic response to over and underfeeding we can see that some will need to really drop cals to lose weight and really increase cals to gain weight. If you are one of these people then weight loss can be challenging due to lack of cals but maintaining weight loss is easier and massing can be fun due to the food amounts required. A blessing and a curse.

Lets use our example again, say that person was maintaining their weight on 2,700 cals per day on average (the top end of their range) and they decide to cut 500 cals a day as is typically suggested to lose about 1lbs per week on average. Well their metabolism may adjust over a few weeks and now their maintenance is only 2,300 and they are only in a 100 cals per day deficit. Now weight loss is stalled, these people should not get frustrated, they just need to monitor their response to caloric intakes and accept what changes need to be made to achieve their goals.

Now that we understand the concept of the variability of one's metabolic rate, lets discuss another big factor of metabolic adaptation, that is how efficiently our mitochondria will derive ATP from food. As we diet, our body will become more efficient of generating ATP from food and less calories will be loosely generated into heat (thermogenesis). This is the way for the body to resist weight loss, evolutionarily this is advantageous but not for us in our first worlds. Many report feeling colder as they diet and hotter as they mass, this is why. So as we diet, our body will get better at converting cals into ATP and not heat, this also happens to how many cals we burn from exercise. A session that burns 500 cals at the beginning of a diet may only burn 300 cals at the end due to this adaptation (these numbers are examples). This is also thought to be the reason we seem to have a slower metabolism as we age. Our body tries to become more efficient to reduce oxidative stress thus less spontaneous movement and less cals burned through movement.

There is some limited research that:
1) Diet breaks or refeeds may help prevent decreases in spontaneous movement and metabolic efficiency. Examples that research supports are 2 weeks dieting and 2 weeks maintenance and at least 2-3 days of refeeding in a row (the research used a 11:3 ratio in days).

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2017/09/cyclic-dieting-22-onoff-drops-123-vs.html

https://www.ergo-log.com/strict-weight-loss-diet-works-better-if-you-bend-the-rules-occasionally.html

2) Nicotine, Caffeine/Ephedrine, and EGCG may help with prevent metabolic efficiency, in that order in terms of potency:

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2017/03/role-of-muscle-and-cns-in-diet-induced.html

3) 7-keto-DHEA has some short term research indicating it may help prevent metabolic efficiency as well:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17418559

4) Increasing leptin sensitivity if needed. You can read about leptin in the article I linked first. CRP can bind to leptin and prevent it from entering the brain, so if your CRP-HS levels are high then bringing them down can help.

5) Try to plan more walking and other super low grade activity as your spontaneous movement declines:

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2014/11/high-energy-flux-new-determinant-of.html

6) Make sure your are in a good state metabolically before starting to lose weight. This means either be massing or at the top end of your maintenance range before starting to ensure that both spontaneous movement is at its highest and metabolic efficiency is at its lowest, leptin is at its highest, thyroid hormones at their highest, ect. Relative energy deficiency (REDS) is a real thing for both men and women:

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/the-risks-of-relative-energy-deficiency-in-sports/
Thank you so much for this reply. This is very detailed, and great information. I appreciate it.
 
HIT4ME

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One thing I really think is misconstrued in all of this is that our metabolism doesn't really "adjust" or "slow down". Work is work and it takes a specific amount of energy to do a specific amount of work. Our body obviously never adapts a state of being wasteful with energy - if it did, we wouldn't get fat to begin with. This is pretty obvious because you don't hear many people complaining about, "I don't know, I'm eating 500 calories over my maintenance but I just can't seem to get any fatter."

But on the flip side, as soon as weight doesn't come off, we just love to say, "My body is revolting against me! It has adjusted its metabolism!"

I think you would be hard pressed to find any real science saying that we can impact our metabolism like this in any real, meaningful way.

BUT, our caloric burn can be reduced - we tend to reduce our efforts, when energy sources are limited. We may not walk quite as much, or fidget, or do whatever you want to categorize as NEAT.

Surprisingly, most of the reduced weight loss you see in dieting can be deduced mathematically by considering your body has switched from burning carbohydrate to burning fat for fuel. In other words, if I need 1800 calories a day in energy - I need to burn almost a pound of carbohydrate. But if I don't have carbs, and I start burning fat - well, I only need less than half a pound. The longer I diet, the more I swap over to burning fat as fuel, and the slower the weight comes off under the same caloric burn rates.

To extrapolate this, if you start off a diet in a 7,000 calorie deficit and 1/4 of the calories are from carbs, the breakdown would be:

1,820 calories from 455 grams of carbs (1 pound)

5,180 calories from 576 grams of fat (1.26 pounds).

The total weight loss would be 2.26 pounds in this scenario.

But if, over time, your carb sources deplete and your body becomes better at burning fat, that same 7,000 calorie deficit may look like this if, instead of 25% carbs you are suddenly only using 5% carbs for fuel:

350 calories from 88 grams of carbs (0.19 pounds)

6650 calories from 738 grams of fat (1.62 pounds)

Total weight loss of 1.81 pounds.

This is a 20% reduction in the "weight" loss without any change in caloric output. Of course these numbers are just pulled out of my azz for illustration purposes, but this situation is very conceivable especially with the prevalence of low-carb diets - and this 20% reduction is more than most studies will find as total "adaptation" and even that is pretty questionable.

In other words, does your metabolism adapt - yes. Does your caloric expenditure change? I'm not sure that it does like most people think it does. It is mostly reduction in effort/work output because of lower energy, and burning fat instead of carbohydrate. Maybe an extremely small amount is due to a shut down of non-necessary processes, but I doubt that really even happens until you get pretty lean.

Having said that, I'm not really sure it changes much, it may all be a moot point.
 

SweetLou321

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One thing I really think is misconstrued in all of this is that our metabolism doesn't really "adjust" or "slow down". Work is work and it takes a specific amount of energy to do a specific amount of work. Our body obviously never adapts a state of being wasteful with energy - if it did, we wouldn't get fat to begin with. This is pretty obvious because you don't hear many people complaining about, "I don't know, I'm eating 500 calories over my maintenance but I just can't seem to get any fatter."

But on the flip side, as soon as weight doesn't come off, we just love to say, "My body is revolting against me! It has adjusted its metabolism!"

I think you would be hard pressed to find any real science saying that we can impact our metabolism like this in any real, meaningful way.

BUT, our caloric burn can be reduced - we tend to reduce our efforts, when energy sources are limited. We may not walk quite as much, or fidget, or do whatever you want to categorize as NEAT.

Surprisingly, most of the reduced weight loss you see in dieting can be deduced mathematically by considering your body has switched from burning carbohydrate to burning fat for fuel. In other words, if I need 1800 calories a day in energy - I need to burn almost a pound of carbohydrate. But if I don't have carbs, and I start burning fat - well, I only need less than half a pound. The longer I diet, the more I swap over to burning fat as fuel, and the slower the weight comes off under the same caloric burn rates.

To extrapolate this, if you start off a diet in a 7,000 calorie deficit and 1/4 of the calories are from carbs, the breakdown would be:

1,820 calories from 455 grams of carbs (1 pound)

5,180 calories from 576 grams of fat (1.26 pounds).

The total weight loss would be 2.26 pounds in this scenario.

But if, over time, your carb sources deplete and your body becomes better at burning fat, that same 7,000 calorie deficit may look like this if, instead of 25% carbs you are suddenly only using 5% carbs for fuel:

350 calories from 88 grams of carbs (0.19 pounds)

6650 calories from 738 grams of fat (1.62 pounds)

Total weight loss of 1.81 pounds.

This is a 20% reduction in the "weight" loss without any change in caloric output. Of course these numbers are just pulled out of my azz for illustration purposes, but this situation is very conceivable especially with the prevalence of low-carb diets - and this 20% reduction is more than most studies will find as total "adaptation" and even that is pretty questionable.

In other words, does your metabolism adapt - yes. Does your caloric expenditure change? I'm not sure that it does like most people think it does. It is mostly reduction in effort/work output because of lower energy, and burning fat instead of carbohydrate. Maybe an extremely small amount is due to a shut down of non-necessary processes, but I doubt that really even happens until you get pretty lean.

Having said that, I'm not really sure it changes much, it may all be a moot point.
I am not sure about your carb vs fat burning math as studies using the same deficit but being high or low carb tend to show the same net weight loss. I have not deep dived into this topic so it may be there but in ratios that over 8-12 weeks, the length of a typical study, the difference is not statistically significant.

I do agree though that if someone is on a none extreme diet and none extreme exercise program, not dieting for an excessively long time, or trying to get and stay excessively lean for themselves then there will not be any huge effects most need to worry about regarding their BMR or even usually RMR. Now with weight loss you do have a loss of tissue which can drive down both BMR and RMR to some degree, maybe a few hundred cals in most cases, but this at the end of a diet and not right away. I would speculate the individual variances in spontaneous NEAT probably covers most of the metabolic changes in a standard situation.
 
HIT4ME

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I am not sure about your carb vs fat burning math as studies using the same deficit but being high or low carb tend to show the same net weight loss. I have not deep dived into this topic so it may be there but in ratios that over 8-12 weeks, the length of a typical study, the difference is not statistically significant.

I do agree though that if someone is on a none extreme diet and none extreme exercise program, not dieting for an excessively long time, or trying to get and stay excessively lean for themselves then there will not be any huge effects most need to worry about regarding their BMR or even usually RMR. Now with weight loss you do have a loss of tissue which can drive down both BMR and RMR to some degree, maybe a few hundred cals in most cases, but this at the end of a diet and not right away. I would speculate the individual variances in spontaneous NEAT probably covers most of the metabolic changes in a standard situation.
I agree - the drop in mass reduces the work load you are doing under the same activity levels. Walking 1 mile at 200 pounds burns more calories than walking 1 mile at 180 pounds. And as you state, this weight loss and reductions in NEAT are where I suspect the major caloric differences come into play. There is some interesting research out there that shows how people tend to have their activity controlled in interesting ways. We can understand that if we are starving, we will laze around on the couch more than normal, but there's also a few studies that showed that when someone walks on a treadmill in the morning, they will reduce their NEAT later in the day and compensate for the additional calories burned - suggesting an activity "set point" in our brains.

As far as the math - I would expect it is very difficult to really prove through a study. As you state, over 8-12 weeks a carb and fat burning study will probably play out pretty darned close.

In people who are obese, a high-carb or high-fat diet will probably have a less substantial effect.

To explain this as simply (oversimplified) as I can understand it, think of these scenarios - someone who is starving will have very few (no) carb sources - so their body will upregulate enzymes that switch off carb burning and upregulate fat burning for fuel. This makes sense as you have limited carbs and stored fat and it is time to start burning that fat.

What isn't so obvious is, people who have excess bodyfat have this same issue going on. They have fatty acids floating around all the time, so they will constantly be trying to burn these off - and to do this you have to swap the machinery over to burn fat instead of carbs. In other words, the cellular machinery the body starts using to combat its own obesity is a similar switch to starvation or a caloric deficit.

The problem with this is, a lot of these overweight people are still eating carbs (and fats) - and burning these carbs is impaired because you are in a state where you're trying to constantly get rid of this fat. So you have to get this stuff out of the blood stream and you can't burn it, so you start storing it ALL as fat (which means you are now converting some amount of 4 calorie/gram carbohydrate into 9 calorie/gram fat). And you can pretty much follow this through and realize how increased fat leads to diabetes more reliably than increased glucose even though blood sugar is the major issue in the disease.

But basically, what it means is that people who are obese have already started burning fat at a higher rate than people who are overweight, and overweight people are burning fat at a higher rate than someone who is in shape - so dieting for these people will result in a lesser apparent metabolic slowdown - based on the math above - than someone who is leaner. In other words, burning fat will lead to a slower loss of mass, and people who are already burning fat as their primary fuel source will have already be losing at that slower rate.

There is also a lot of inconsistency around how we view calories in/calories out. A pound of fat has almost 4,100 calories when we eat it, but is generally accepted to have 3,500 calories when burned because a pound of stored fat on the human body isn't 100% fat. But you have to wonder how the laws of thermodynamics apply in all of this, since matter and energy cannot be created, nor destroyed.

Admittedly, a lot of this is all my own interpretation and theory (based on some deep dives into different research subjects) - but I believe these mathematical issues and inconsistencies are a big part of why people perceive slowed weight loss during the process of dieting - it removes a lot of the magical, physics defying theories behind the way we generally perceive metabolic adjustments and "starvation mode".
 

SweetLou321

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I agree - the drop in mass reduces the work load you are doing under the same activity levels. Walking 1 mile at 200 pounds burns more calories than walking 1 mile at 180 pounds. And as you state, this weight loss and reductions in NEAT are where I suspect the major caloric differences come into play. There is some interesting research out there that shows how people tend to have their activity controlled in interesting ways. We can understand that if we are starving, we will laze around on the couch more than normal, but there's also a few studies that showed that when someone walks on a treadmill in the morning, they will reduce their NEAT later in the day and compensate for the additional calories burned - suggesting an activity "set point" in our brains.

As far as the math - I would expect it is very difficult to really prove through a study. As you state, over 8-12 weeks a carb and fat burning study will probably play out pretty darned close.

In people who are obese, a high-carb or high-fat diet will probably have a less substantial effect.

To explain this as simply (oversimplified) as I can understand it, think of these scenarios - someone who is starving will have very few (no) carb sources - so their body will upregulate enzymes that switch off carb burning and upregulate fat burning for fuel. This makes sense as you have limited carbs and stored fat and it is time to start burning that fat.

What isn't so obvious is, people who have excess bodyfat have this same issue going on. They have fatty acids floating around all the time, so they will constantly be trying to burn these off - and to do this you have to swap the machinery over to burn fat instead of carbs. In other words, the cellular machinery the body starts using to combat its own obesity is a similar switch to starvation or a caloric deficit.

The problem with this is, a lot of these overweight people are still eating carbs (and fats) - and burning these carbs is impaired because you are in a state where you're trying to constantly get rid of this fat. So you have to get this stuff out of the blood stream and you can't burn it, so you start storing it ALL as fat (which means you are now converting some amount of 4 calorie/gram carbohydrate into 9 calorie/gram fat). And you can pretty much follow this through and realize how increased fat leads to diabetes more reliably than increased glucose even though blood sugar is the major issue in the disease.

But basically, what it means is that people who are obese have already started burning fat at a higher rate than people who are overweight, and overweight people are burning fat at a higher rate than someone who is in shape - so dieting for these people will result in a lesser apparent metabolic slowdown - based on the math above - than someone who is leaner. In other words, burning fat will lead to a slower loss of mass, and people who are already burning fat as their primary fuel source will have already be losing at that slower rate.

There is also a lot of inconsistency around how we view calories in/calories out. A pound of fat has almost 4,100 calories when we eat it, but is generally accepted to have 3,500 calories when burned because a pound of stored fat on the human body isn't 100% fat. But you have to wonder how the laws of thermodynamics apply in all of this, since matter and energy cannot be created, nor destroyed.

Admittedly, a lot of this is all my own interpretation and theory (based on some deep dives into different research subjects) - but I believe these mathematical issues and inconsistencies are a big part of why people perceive slowed weight loss during the process of dieting - it removes a lot of the magical, physics defying theories behind the way we generally perceive metabolic adjustments and "starvation mode".
Thanks for diving deeper into this. Its very complex overall. I again probably haven't done the deep dive into this that you have. There are some aspects I do not really agree with from a physiology stand point but I agree that calories in vs calories out is complex, but I believe the concept is still true. Most of enzyme and cellular related stuff when it comes to carb burning vs fat burning likely has a very minimal impact on one's results over a cutting phase of 8-16 weeks, I agree with you here, as these are not static phases and more so just differing levels of activity at differing time points. Since most of us are not obese and highly insulin resistant I just don't see the benefit going down this path as these metabolic abnormalities do alter physiology as some of your information clearly points out. If you want to have a further discussion about this I will happily do it, I always enjoy learning and discussing complex topics, I just don't know how much it would help this thread lol.

A side note, the concepts you discuss seem to be the most interesting to me when it comes to cheat meals/refeeds on a cut/maintenance anyways. In acute over feeding studies based on a carb or fat based overfeeding, they have shown that it can take some time for the body to upregulate the enzymatic processes related to converting carbs into fats for storage. Thus in an very acute setting it can take up 2-3 days of constant overfeeding high amounts of carbs to result in substantial fat storage so while your glycogen levels will likely tap out and you will hold some water, the net fat gain is less when the same amount of cals are consumed in fats as they do not require much in the way of conversion to be stored. So I like these concepts when it comes acute overfeeding as it points to carbs being the better choice as you are less likely to net the same fat gains from equal amounts of consumed cals. This will not apply to someone who eats a lot of carbs daily, such as during massing over course as these enzymatic processes are already upregulated. I went on this point as it does related to your discussion and gives some potential guidance on how to structure planned cheat meals/refeeds as most are likely to benefit from carbs over fats in this case.
 
rodefeeh

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The simple answer is. You really can't. Id suggest you first start by reading this:

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/metabolic-adaptation/

It is worth noting that even maintenance calories are not a set number and more of range. Lets use an example to explain this. Lets say a persons current maintenance on average is about 2,500 cals per day. Their range actually be between 2,300-2,700. This is because of factors such a NEAT (none exercise thermogenesis), which is the major one at this point. If you eat more or less one day you may spontaneously move or less as a result to maintain a balanced caloric output to intake ratio. This is more genetic then anything so you can't change it really but you can accept it and not get frustrated. Some people have much more adaptive mechanisms such as spontaneous movement to overfeeding and they will have a much wider maintenance range as a result. In some metabolic ward research they have seen some peoples metabolic rate adjust to turn a 1,000 cal overfeeding into maintenance due to things such as increases in NEAT.

Now due to this variance in metabolic response to over and underfeeding we can see that some will need to really drop cals to lose weight and really increase cals to gain weight. If you are one of these people then weight loss can be challenging due to lack of cals but maintaining weight loss is easier and massing can be fun due to the food amounts required. A blessing and a curse.

Lets use our example again, say that person was maintaining their weight on 2,700 cals per day on average (the top end of their range) and they decide to cut 500 cals a day as is typically suggested to lose about 1lbs per week on average. Well their metabolism may adjust over a few weeks and now their maintenance is only 2,300 and they are only in a 100 cals per day deficit. Now weight loss is stalled, these people should not get frustrated, they just need to monitor their response to caloric intakes and accept what changes need to be made to achieve their goals.

Now that we understand the concept of the variability of one's metabolic rate, lets discuss another big factor of metabolic adaptation, that is how efficiently our mitochondria will derive ATP from food. As we diet, our body will become more efficient of generating ATP from food and less calories will be loosely generated into heat (thermogenesis). This is the way for the body to resist weight loss, evolutionarily this is advantageous but not for us in our first worlds. Many report feeling colder as they diet and hotter as they mass, this is why. So as we diet, our body will get better at converting cals into ATP and not heat, this also happens to how many cals we burn from exercise. A session that burns 500 cals at the beginning of a diet may only burn 300 cals at the end due to this adaptation (these numbers are examples). This is also thought to be the reason we seem to have a slower metabolism as we age. Our body tries to become more efficient to reduce oxidative stress thus less spontaneous movement and less cals burned through movement.

There is some limited research that:
1) Diet breaks or refeeds may help prevent decreases in spontaneous movement and metabolic efficiency. Examples that research supports are 2 weeks dieting and 2 weeks maintenance and at least 2-3 days of refeeding in a row (the research used a 11:3 ratio in days).

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2017/09/cyclic-dieting-22-onoff-drops-123-vs.html

https://www.ergo-log.com/strict-weight-loss-diet-works-better-if-you-bend-the-rules-occasionally.html

2) Nicotine, Caffeine/Ephedrine, and EGCG may help with prevent metabolic efficiency, in that order in terms of potency:

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2017/03/role-of-muscle-and-cns-in-diet-induced.html

3) 7-keto-DHEA has some short term research indicating it may help prevent metabolic efficiency as well:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17418559

4) Increasing leptin sensitivity if needed. You can read about leptin in the article I linked first. CRP can bind to leptin and prevent it from entering the brain, so if your CRP-HS levels are high then bringing them down can help.

5) Try to plan more walking and other super low grade activity as your spontaneous movement declines:

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2014/11/high-energy-flux-new-determinant-of.html

6) Make sure your are in a good state metabolically before starting to lose weight. This means either be massing or at the top end of your maintenance range before starting to ensure that both spontaneous movement is at its highest and metabolic efficiency is at its lowest, leptin is at its highest, active thyroid hormones are at their highest, ect. Relative energy deficiency (REDS) is a real thing for both men and women:

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/the-risks-of-relative-energy-deficiency-in-sports/

Edit Note: There is one more aspect I did not address and it is worth stating. It is below:

7) Ensure your training load from all sources such as resistance exercise and aerobic is manageable. It one were to push past their systemic maximum recoverable volume of total exercise capacity then they can enter a state of overreaching and with time overtraining. It is not advised that one try to excessively exercise their way into a deficit. It is advised one stay relatively active as pointed out in point 5 as to allow them to eat more food while dieting which imparts some benefits on hormones that regulate muscle maintenance and satiety. The problem with doing to much exercise that we are unable to recover from is that this can lead to a decrease in total T3, free T3, and an increase in reverse T3 (rT3). T3 is our most active thyroid hormone and its isomer rT3 has not biological activity other then binding to the T3 receptors in place of T3 to slow down our metabolism. This is a way the body can try to prevent catabolism. This lower T3 activity and higher rT3 can lead to hypothyroidism at the tissue level. Also high rT3 and low T3 activity is associated with poor muscle function and strength output. T3 is also a key hormone for building muscle tissue and maintaining it when in an optimal range. T3s main metabolite is the active T2 that also drives our metabolism and can serve to convert back into T3. Use resistance training to help maintain and build muscle while dieting, not to burn calories. Use aerobic training to improve health and to allow yourself to eat some more food for the benefits already discussed, not to drive a bigger deficit. Aerobic training to drive a bigger deficit may have to be used if nearing the end of contest prep, which does not apply to most of us just trying to get leaner and look good. Overreaching and overtraining can lead to decreased leptin levels regarding of fat cell changes, constantly high cortisol levels or very low cortisol levels, and chronically elevated cytokine levels or Nf-kB expression and all of this inhibits the conversion of T4 to T3 and pushes it toward rT3. Korean ginseng may help with this thyroid hormone profile due to its adaptogenic effects. While not studied as directly as Korean ginseng, ashwagondha may also be of benefit to offset the cortisol drive suppression of T4 to T3 conversion:

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2013/06/overtraining-undereating-self-inflicted.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12734791

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16175490

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16175498

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12215961

https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/497141

https://custommedicine.com.au/health-articles/reverse-t3-dominance/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28829155

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02973143

8) Do not excessively cut cals back as this can lead to similar thyroid profile as outlined in point 7. Training, if not overreaching or overtraining, on top of a low energy influx via diet can cause the body to also decrease T3 activity and increase rT3 to put the brakes on catabolism. A deficit of 400-500 cals per day on average may be best overall when it comes to maintaining thyroid function while exercising:

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2014/10/thyroid-issues-low-energy-intake.html

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2012/02/biggest-winners-lose-their-weight.html
 
HIT4ME

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Actually, I will follow up further on the obesity issue - if someone is truly obese, they will not burn carbs very efficiently at all. If you put them on a high carb diet, chances are pretty good that they will see quickly elevated blood sugar, with no way to burn the carbs immediately for energy (since the machinery is all switched over to burning lipids for energy instead of carbs for energy) and so they will just convert those carbs over to fat in order to get them out of the blood stream and they will be stored to burn later. This, of course, would explain why carbs make these people gain weight through the reversed math. You're eating a 4 gram carbohydrate and
Thanks for diving deeper into this. Its very complex overall. I again probably haven't done the deep dive into this that you have. There are some aspects I do not really agree with from a physiology stand point but I agree that calories in vs calories out is complex, but I believe the concept is still true. Most of enzyme and cellular related stuff when it comes to carb burning vs fat burning likely has a very minimal impact on one's results over a cutting phase of 8-16 weeks, I agree with you here, as these are not static phases and more so just differing levels of activity at differing time points. Since most of us are not obese and highly insulin resistant I just don't see the benefit going down this path as these metabolic abnormalities do alter physiology as some of your information clearly points out. If you want to have a further discussion about this I will happily do it, I always enjoy learning and discussing complex topics, I just don't know how much it would help this thread lol.

A side note, the concepts you discuss seem to be the most interesting to me when it comes to cheat meals/refeeds on a cut/maintenance anyways. In acute over feeding studies based on a carb or fat based overfeeding, they have shown that it can take some time for the body to upregulate the enzymatic processes related to converting carbs into fats for storage. Thus in an very acute setting it can take up 2-3 days of constant overfeeding high amounts of carbs to result in substantial fat storage so while your glycogen levels will likely tap out and you will hold some water, the net fat gain is less when the same amount of cals are consumed in fats as they do not require much in the way of conversion to be stored. So I like these concepts when it comes acute overfeeding as it points to carbs being the better choice as you are less likely to net the same fat gains from equal amounts of consumed cals. This will not apply to someone who eats a lot of carbs daily, such as during massing over course as these enzymatic processes are already upregulated. I went on this point as it does related to your discussion and gives some potential guidance on how to structure planned cheat meals/refeeds as most are likely to benefit from carbs over fats in this case.
So, yeah, I was hesitant to get into this because your initial response was more than suitable for answering this thread and this is more for just going down the rabbit hole...

As far as the enzyme stuff - what I am actually saying is that the caloric adjustment that is actually needed during a diet is minimal, or almost non-existent. The actual perception of reduced weight loss can easily be explained by the enzymatic changes (Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Kinase) that switches on fat burning for substrate vs. carb burning. Ultimately, you aren't slowing your metabolism, you are just getting the same calories from less mass - which is more efficient. And this makes a lot more sense then believing your body can slow down it's caloric burn and achieve the same work output. If it could do this, it would always operate at that level - and store the excess calories for the future.

And this ability to switch between fat/carb as a fuel source is really the basic component of metabolic flexibility and this is one of the biggest determining factors in "metabolic syndrome" and of course metabolic syndrome leads to things like diabetes - and following the logic you can see why and how it really isn't "sugar" that causes diabetes - but caloric overload. As a side tangent, one of my other pet peeves is how often people claim high fat, low carb diets are good for improving insulin sensitivity, and while there are some components of this that are true, there is no more reliable way to induce diabetes than with a high fat diet. Just ask any researcher who is trying to make a mouse diabetic. 99% of the time it involves high fat or high fat and high carbs - almost never just high carbs.

So you are right, in a healthy individual, you will be in a constant flux where your body's demands dictate whether you are burning 80% carbs and 20% fats or 80% fats and 20% carbs or some other mix of those two to meet your energy needs. But, as you become overweight, you start shifting toward more and more fat burning - you have to, because you always have fat to burn. So you elevate your PDK levels, fat burning ramps up, carb burning ramps down. And this constant elevation in PDK really hinders your ability to switch back to carb burning fully.

And then you go on a diet and calories drop and fat burning ramps up more - which ramps up PDK more and makes carb burning even harder. And then my math comes into play - a pound of carbohydrate will provide almost 1820 calories, but you only need 0.45 pounds of fat to provide this same energy. So if you think of it in that extreme, instead of losing a pound in an 1820 calorie deficit, you only lose less than a half pound. Think about how often we say that weight loss happens half as fast as we expect? Now, this is vastly oversimplified (because I don't have the mental capacity to quite pull it altogether anyway). It leaves out factors like, human bodyfat usually is estimated to have 3500 calories/pound and not 4,200 calories because it's not pure substrate.

But more to your path of thinking - you're right. Think about the supposed benefits of refeeds, including the more recent data that suggests a single refeed will not have the intended effect we need, it may take a few days. Why? Because it isn't "ramping up the metabolism" that we are trying to achieve. We are trying to achieve a reduction in PDK and switch carb burning back "On" - and this switch back to burning carbohydrates would start us getting more of those 1820 calories from carbs, which are have a lower density. In other words, it is making us a little less efficient at burning mass.

And the mass gain is less than you'd imagine in that case because you top out your glucose stores, and whatever is left over can't be burned, so it gets stored as fat. Energy cannot be created, nor destroyed - so your 4 calories/gram carb cannot become a 9 calorie/gram fat on its own - it takes other resources and this probably means you body has to metabolize 454 grams of carbs into something like 202 grams of usable fat and get rid of the rest of the unusable material. This would be a direct calorie-calorie conversion and I do suspect it is a little more efficient then this, maybe you get 300 grams of fat, I don't know. But at the end of the day, you think you're going to gain 3 pounds and you only gain 1.5-2 pounds.

No need at all to increase metabolic rate or slow it down. It's just the conversion of mass that changes and this explains the slow down of weight loss as well as the slow down of weight gain as we eat more (along with increased bodymass/work, and NEAT and some minor input from up regulation of unconscious processes.)

This entire thing hit me one day while working out, and it seemed so obvious I don't know why I've never heard it anywhere before. I had been studying the Kreb's Cycle and some of the enzymes involved, particularly PDK - and I've found it hard to believe that evolution would lead to an adjustable metabolism for some time - and then it just came to me. SO maybe I'm really crazy.
 
jswain34

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And this ability to switch between fat/carb as a fuel source is really the basic component of metabolic flexibility and this is one of the biggest determining factors in "metabolic syndrome" and of course metabolic syndrome leads to things like diabetes - and following the logic you can see why and how it really isn't "sugar" that causes diabetes - but caloric overload. As a side tangent, one of my other pet peeves is how often people claim high fat, low carb diets are good for improving insulin sensitivity, and while there are some components of this that are true, there is no more reliable way to induce diabetes than with a high fat diet. Just ask any researcher who is trying to make a mouse diabetic. 99% of the time it involves high fat or high fat and high carbs - almost never just high carbs..
I just want to say that just because micr get diabetes off fats doesn’t mean that directly applies to humans whatsoever. At one point when I was doing a bunch of research on fasting I read that (this is probably way oversimplified) for mice fats = carbs which is why they use high fat diets to experiment on rats metabolic health.

To say that “there is no more reliable way to induce diabetes than with a high fat diet” is just flat out incorrect, when speaking about humans, imo.

I guarantee if you had 2 diets, 1 that was high in fat and low in carbs and 1 that was low fat and high in high GI carbs the one that would lead to insulin resistance quicker due to larger spikes in insulin over the long term would be the high carb one, not the high fat one. In HUMANS. Now this isnt me demonizing carbs because a true human diet is 99% of the time way more complex than this and carbs are often combined with fat or fiber which lower the rate of absorption and resulting spike in insulin, as you know. And obviously total calories plays an overwhelmingly huge role in this convo too.
 
HIT4ME

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I just want to say that just because micr get diabetes off fats doesn’t mean that directly applies to humans whatsoever. At one point when I was doing a bunch of research on fasting I read that (this is probably way oversimplified) for mice fats = carbs which is why they use high fat diets to experiment on rats metabolic health.

To say that “there is no more reliable way to induce diabetes than with a high fat diet” is just flat out incorrect, when speaking about humans, imo.

I guarantee if you had 2 diets, 1 that was high in fat and low in carbs and 1 that was low fat and high in high GI carbs the one that would lead to insulin resistance quicker due to larger spikes in insulin over the long term would be the high carb one, not the high fat one. In HUMANS. Now this isnt me demonizing carbs because a true human diet is 99% of the time way more complex than this and carbs are often combined with fat or fiber which lower the rate of absorption and resulting spike in insulin, as you know. And obviously total calories plays an overwhelmingly huge role in this convo too.
Valid point that the fact it works so well in rats alone isn't proof it works in humans. Unfortunately, I was just using it as an example because we rarely intend to induce diabetes in humans.

Even more unfortunately, human data supports this theory also.

As well as the logic above.

Not saying you can't induce it with carbs only, just that it is hard. In the end caloric load is a big factor, and a high fat low calorie diet is fine.

I am also not saying eating sugar as your carb source is fine either. I am just saying fats, for numerous reasons, make it much easier and if any scientist were to set out with the goal of actually inducing diabetes, they wouldn't be starting with carbs.
 
HIT4ME

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Also, insulin spikes are not even the beginning of the story. You can have a high insulin load without a spike and a low load with a huge spike.
 
jswain34

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Id love to see the articles you have that say a high fat low carb eucaloric diet induces diabetes.
 
HIT4ME

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Not saying you can't induce it with carbs only, just that it is hard. In the end caloric load is a big factor, and a high fat low calorie diet is fine.
Id love to see the articles you have that say a high fat low carb eucaloric diet induces diabetes.
Who said eucaloric? I quoted myself above and bolded what I actually said, just to be clear.

A high carb, eucaloric diet is unlikely to induce diabetes as well.

Caloric load is a big factor, but a high caloric load with lots of fat is the most reliable way of inducing diabetes that we have any proof of.

Still, I have not researched this much in the last year or so, I will be happy to dig up some studies over the next few days as I have time, not to show a eucaloric diet will do it - but that fats play the bigger role in the development of diabetes given a hypercaloric diet.
 
jswain34

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Who said eucaloric? I quoted myself above and bolded what I actually said, just to be clear.

A high carb, eucaloric diet is unlikely to induce diabetes as well.

Caloric load is a big factor, but a high caloric load with lots of fat is the most reliable way of inducing diabetes that we have any proof of.

Still, I have not researched this much in the last year or so, I will be happy to dig up some studies over the next few days as I have time, not to show a eucaloric diet will do it - but that fats play the bigger role in the development of diabetes given a hypercaloric diet.
And obviously total calories plays an overwhelmingly huge role in this convo too.
^from my original post. Just to show that im in agreement with the fact that calories are the biggest piece to this pie.

I honestly dont think you can prove that or find studies to support the statement that “a high caloric load with lots of fat is the most reliable way of inducing diabetes”. And by that i mean evidence that is truly able to distinguish between fat vs carbs in a hypercoloric setting being the main contributor to the development of DMII.

But id love to be shown differently.
 

Iwilleattuna

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Op , you went from 1900 calories of clean food to 3000 calories and eating burgers, fried and ice cream. That could definitely add weight over a couple of weeks. Don't forget, though, clean food has less preservatives, sodium, etc, so you could be holding a lot of water , as well. Solution? Lower calories again , emphasize protein, limit carbs and do cardio.
 
LeanEngineer

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Lower calories again , emphasize protein, limit carbs and do cardio.
Agreed. This right here will go a long way in shaping the physique and on the right path for getting lean!
 
HIT4ME

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Op , you went from 1900 calories of clean food to 3000 calories and eating burgers, fried and ice cream. That could definitely add weight over a couple of weeks. Don't forget, though, clean food has less preservatives, sodium, etc, so you could be holding a lot of water , as well. Solution? Lower calories again , emphasize protein, limit carbs and do cardio.
I think you misunderstand his question. Or I do. I interpreted this to be more around how, now that he is eating light crop he only gained 4 pounds, but dieting at 1900 calories he lost only 6 pounds and he is interpreting this to mean that his metabolism is normally higher and when he diets it drops quickly.

I normally push back pretty hard against the idea of metabolism "dropping" but SweetLou had such a sweet post I was going to leave it. Your response however made me re-read the original post and has brought me back from my tangent.

@Jensing - You stated that you started dieting in February and lost 6 pounds eating 1900 calories/day plus a burger and fries once per week. You don't specifically say how long this took but you did say that over the last 7 weeks you've gained back 4 pounds.

This implies, since February 1 was 13 weeks before your post date, that you dieted for 6 weeks at 1900 calories + 1 burger/fry meals and you lost 6 pounds - or 1 pound per week.

Using just the standard math, that means you had a 3,500 calorie/week deficit. 1900 X 7 = 13,300 calories. Add in 1,000 calories for your burger/fries - and you're at 14,300 calories/week that you actually ate. Add in the pound of fat loss (3500 calories) and you're at 17,800 calories/week as your total. Divide by 7 = 2,542 calories/day as your TDEE.

This is pretty typical of someone who is 6'5'' and 220 and relatively low activity (most of us). An online calculator pegs this at around 2400 calories for sedentary and 2800 calories for someone who works out 3-4 times/week and is fairly active.

So this does not indicate that you had any metabolic slowdown at all. That's just how weight loss is - slow. And those numbers are pretty conservative - assuming you were super strict and stuck to 1900 calories/day and had low-fat burger with reasonable toppings on a typical 160 calorie bun with a small portion of fries.

Now, we can check this the other way - you gained 4 pounds in 7 weeks at 3,000 calories/day.

This means you gained 0.57 pounds/week. 0.57 pounds is equal to 2000 calories above your expenditure per week, or 285 calories/day extra.

3,000 - 285 = 2,715.

This implies you're burning 170 calories/day more than when you were dieting. It also assumes you were strict about your calorie counts not only while dieting, but while not dieting. I don't really believe this 170 calorie reduction is accurate, since we're relying on everything working out perfectly to calculate the difference, and there's a lot of room for error - it is most likely a 0 calorie change or pretty close to it - but I'd say 170 probably represents a pretty good "worst case scenario".

You can fix this 100% by walking an extra 2 miles/day at a casual pace - or reduce calories by 170 when dieting - or do nothing, since you were already losing a pound/week and just give it time.

Dieting takes time.
 

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I think you misunderstand his question. Or I do. I interpreted this to be more around how, now that he is eating light crop he only gained 4 pounds, but dieting at 1900 calories he lost only 6 pounds and he is interpreting this to mean that his metabolism is normally higher and when he diets it drops quickly.

I normally push back pretty hard against the idea of metabolism "dropping" but SweetLou had such a sweet post I was going to leave it. Your response however made me re-read the original post and has brought me back from my tangent.

@Jensing - You stated that you started dieting in February and lost 6 pounds eating 1900 calories/day plus a burger and fries once per week. You don't specifically say how long this took but you did say that over the last 7 weeks you've gained back 4 pounds.

This implies, since February 1 was 13 weeks before your post date, that you dieted for 6 weeks at 1900 calories + 1 burger/fry meals and you lost 6 pounds - or 1 pound per week.

Using just the standard math, that means you had a 3,500 calorie/week deficit. 1900 X 7 = 13,300 calories. Add in 1,000 calories for your burger/fries - and you're at 14,300 calories/week that you actually ate. Add in the pound of fat loss (3500 calories) and you're at 17,800 calories/week as your total. Divide by 7 = 2,542 calories/day as your TDEE.

This is pretty typical of someone who is 6'5'' and 220 and relatively low activity (most of us). An online calculator pegs this at around 2400 calories for sedentary and 2800 calories for someone who works out 3-4 times/week and is fairly active.

So this does not indicate that you had any metabolic slowdown at all. That's just how weight loss is - slow. And those numbers are pretty conservative - assuming you were super strict and stuck to 1900 calories/day and had low-fat burger with reasonable toppings on a typical 160 calorie bun with a small portion of fries.

Now, we can check this the other way - you gained 4 pounds in 7 weeks at 3,000 calories/day.

This means you gained 0.57 pounds/week. 0.57 pounds is equal to 2000 calories above your expenditure per week, or 285 calories/day extra.

3,000 - 285 = 2,715.

This implies you're burning 170 calories/day more than when you were dieting. It also assumes you were strict about your calorie counts not only while dieting, but while not dieting. I don't really believe this 170 calorie reduction is accurate, since we're relying on everything working out perfectly to calculate the difference, and there's a lot of room for error - it is most likely a 0 calorie change or pretty close to it - but I'd say 170 probably represents a pretty good "worst case scenario".

You can fix this 100% by walking an extra 2 miles/day at a casual pace - or reduce calories by 170 when dieting - or do nothing, since you were already losing a pound/week and just give it time.

Dieting takes time.
Yes, I totally understand why I've gained weight during this. A combo of slightly less effective exercise/lifting and more garbage food. It just seemed as though the wild swings in calorie count in either direction would've yielded more weight loss or weight gain. But your math makes sense too. Thanks for laying that out.
 

SweetLou321

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Actually, I will follow up further on the obesity issue - if someone is truly obese, they will not burn carbs very efficiently at all. If you put them on a high carb diet, chances are pretty good that they will see quickly elevated blood sugar, with no way to burn the carbs immediately for energy (since the machinery is all switched over to burning lipids for energy instead of carbs for energy) and so they will just convert those carbs over to fat in order to get them out of the blood stream and they will be stored to burn later. This, of course, would explain why carbs make these people gain weight through the reversed math. You're eating a 4 gram carbohydrate and
Like most things, I am sure the truth lies somewhere between our stances on this topic. My post was only directed at the ability of the metabolism to demonstrate flexibility when it comes to hypo/eu/hyper caloric states and some of the biggest players in that scheme of events. We are now deep in some other factors of calories in versus calories out. I just want to state for everyone following that my original reply was not meant to be an all encompassing guide to weight loss and only discusses one aspect.

Did you read the first link I tagged in that post by chance from strongerbyscience? It was written by a Ph.D. in this particular field and reflects more so the consensus on the topic of metabolic adaptations. I don't think many researchers discuss what you are talking about as it is not the current consensus, this is not to say that you are flat our wrong or stances wont change in the future.

To your first point. Obesity does not mean one has insulin resistance. There are those with obesity that on all standard metrics of glucose metabolism and triglyceride metabolism are seemingly healthy. I will avoid talking in black in white and add context to my statements. If one eats a high carb diet consistently then the enzymatic processes related to carbohydrate metabolism and the ability of the body to convert carbs into triglycerides for storage goes up (if needed). If one eats a high fat diet consistently then the enzymatic processes related to lipid metabolism and the ability of the body to use fats for energy, storage, ect goes up. If one eats a diet high in both and it is an excessive hypercaloric diet then both of these processes can occur simultaneously. The research I quoted on overfeeding only has a short window of a few days before the overfeeding leads to expected fat gain from overfeeding primarily carbs or fats. So I don't believe the math associated with these processes matters much in humans past the initial stages of upregulation as once the system has primed a process to occur, it will be less calorically intensive and seems to equate in the real world. This type of research has lead to the consensus of the metabolite processing differences when it comes to weight gain or loss coming from either doesn't matter in the long-term or real world.

If one is insulin resistant then carbohydrates are more likely to be stored as adipose since the ability to deposit them in cells to get them out of the blood stream can be impaired. Typically insulin resistance starts in the muscle and liver cells first and adipose cells last. This potentially characterizes some of the changes seen with insulin resistant obesity. I think the reason you are stating that in the model of insulin resistant obesity that fats are the main fuel source is that lipids do not require something like insulin to enter cells to generate energy and thus we do not have a the same sensitivity barrier with regards to use with fat in this model. I would still argue that this is not a black and white model, just that in a sedentary person in this model likely uses more lipids at rest to fuel energetic processes over carbs. Overabundance is the main factor leading to metabolic disturbances, I agree with you. I would say that fats are an easy way to achieve overabundance and some can directly lead to insulin resistance independent of carbohydrate consumption. The types of fats used in animal models are typically mostly these specific ones as well. I would doubt that most type II diabetes is caused by carbs or fats, and is likely both. However, ketogenic/VLC diets in those with insulin resistance while not losing weight has been shown to improve markers of insulin sensitivity in the short-term. Long-term, maybe the body adjusts and things return to what they were with more carbs, hard to say.

The math side of things, I will be honest I am not well read enough to confirm if your are right or wrong when it comes to specific numbers. I am sure due to complexity of calories in vs calories out that the concept your math represents has some truth to it.

I will take a strong opposing stance to your concept of this math explaining why one would gain less than expected or lose weight slower than expected. There is WAY more to this then this small piece. My initial response was not subtle as there is plenty of research to support it.

Some Calories In Factors:
Liquid vs Solid Calories
Protein Content
Carb Content
Fat Content
Ketosis
Fiber Content
Type of Carbs in foods, like digestion resistant starch
Digestive Status (your body can slow down digestion to become more efficient at extracting calories)

Some Calories Out Factors:
Enzymatic Efficiency when it comes to processing protein, carbs, and fats
Spontaneous Movement
Mitochondrial Thermogenesis
CNS and noradrenaline dependent caloric expenditure
Hormonal Profile (sex steroid, thyroid, gut hormones, adipose hormones as examples)
The ability of the body to prevent excessive caloric expenditure from activity if needed as in REDS.
Getting more efficient from a cardiovascular perspective
Exercise
Talking
Posture
Standing
Thinking

There is no way your math can explain all of these factors and they are all very real. All of these are parts of our ability to adapt and survive famine from an evolution standpoint. Historically there are periods where we had famine and abundance of food and during famine had to expend large amounts of energy to get food that was not very calorically dense. If our body did not have the ability to alter our metabolic state then we would have not lived very long once food ran out. Since being obese is not healthy in most cases, of course we have mechanisms to compensate to some degree for overfeeding to maintain a weight set point.

Also the benefits of refeed and more so hormonal in nature to prevent reductions in spontaneous movement and the body to think it needs to become more efficient at generating and extracting energy from food, this is covered in depth in the first article of my initial post. I suggest a carb based refeed to minimize fat gain as it takes a few days before fat gain from a carb based feed will match that of a fat based refeed, not to mention carbs can help replenish glycogen levels to turn down processes related to "fatigue".
 
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HIT4ME

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Like most things, I am sure the truth lies somewhere between our stances on this topic. My post was only directed at the ability of the metabolism to demonstrate flexibility when it comes to hypo/eu/hyper caloric states and some of the biggest players in that scheme of events. We are now deep in some other factors of calories in versus calories out. I just want to state for everyone following that my original reply was not meant to be an all encompassing guide to weight loss and only discusses one aspect.

Did you read the first link I tagged in that post by chance from strongerbyscience? It was written by a Ph.D. in this particular field and reflects more so the consensus on the topic of metabolic adaptations. I don't think many researchers discuss what you are talking about as it is not the current consensus, this is not to say that you are flat our wrong or stances wont change in the future.

To your first point. Obesity does not mean one has insulin resistance. There are those with obesity that on all standard metrics of glucose metabolism and triglyceride metabolism are seemingly healthy. I will avoid talking in black in white and add context to my statements. If one eats a high carb diet consistently then the enzymatic processes related to carbohydrate metabolism and the ability of the body to convert carbs into triglycerides for storage goes up (if needed). If one eats a high fat diet consistently then the enzymatic processes related to lipid metabolism and the ability of the body to use fats for energy, storage, ect goes up. If one eats a diet high in both and it is an excessive hypercaloric diet then both of these processes can occur simultaneously. The research I quoted on overfeeding only has a short window of a few days before the overfeeding leads to expected fat gain from overfeeding primarily carbs or fats. So I don't believe the math associated with these processes matters much in humans past the initial stages of upregulation as once the system has primed a process to occur, it will be less calorically intensive and seems to equate in the real world. This type of research has lead to the consensus of the metabolite processing differences when it comes to weight gain or loss coming from either doesn't matter in the long-term or real world.

If one is insulin resistant then carbohydrates are more likely to be stored as adipose since the ability to deposit them in cells to get them out of the blood stream can be impaired. Typically insulin resistance starts in the muscle and liver cells first and adipose cells last. This potentially characterizes some of the changes seen with insulin resistant obesity. I think the reason you are stating that in the model of insulin resistant obesity that fats are the main fuel source is that lipids do not require something like insulin to enter cells to generate energy and thus we do not have a the same sensitivity barrier with regards to use with fat in this model. I would still argue that this is not a black and white model, just that in a sedentary person in this model likely uses more lipids at rest to fuel energetic processes over carbs. Overabundance is the main factor leading to metabolic disturbances, I agree with you. I would say that fats are an easy way to achieve overabundance and some can directly lead to insulin resistance independent of carbohydrate consumption. The types of fats used in animal models are typically mostly these specific ones as well. I would doubt that most type II diabetes is caused by carbs or fats, and is likely both. However, ketogenic/VLC diets in those with insulin resistance while not losing weight has been shown to improve markers of insulin sensitivity in the short-term. Long-term, maybe the body adjusts and things return to what they were with more carbs, hard to say.

The math side of things, I will be honest I am not well read enough to confirm if your are right or wrong when it comes to specific numbers. I am sure due to complexity of calories in vs calories out that the concept your math represents has some truth to it.

I will take a strong opposing stance to your concept of this math explaining why one would gain less than expected or lose weight slower than expected. There is WAY more to this then this small piece. My initial response was not subtle as there is plenty of research to support it.

Some Calories In Factors:
Liquid vs Solid Calories
Protein Content
Carb Content
Fat Content
Ketosis
Fiber Content
Type of Carbs in foods, like digestion resistant starch
Digestive Status (your body can slow down digestion to become more efficient at extracting calories)

Some Calories Out Factors:
Enzymatic Efficiency when it comes to processing protein, carbs, and fats
Spontaneous Movement
Mitochondrial Thermogenesis
CNS and noradrenaline dependent caloric expenditure
Hormonal Profile (sex steroid, thyroid, gut hormones, adipose hormones as examples)
The ability of the body to prevent excessive caloric expenditure from activity if needed as in REDS.
Getting more efficient from a cardiovascular perspective
Exercise
Talking
Posture
Standing
Thinking

There is no way your math can explain all of these factors and they are all very real. All of these are parts of our ability to adapt and survive famine from an evolution standpoint. Historically there are periods where we had famine and abundance of food and during famine had to expend large amounts of energy to get food that was not very calorically dense. If our body did not have the ability to alter our metabolic state then we would have not lived very long once food ran out. Since being obese is not healthy in most cases, of course we have mechanisms to compensate to some degree for overfeeding to maintain a weight set point.

Also the benefits of refeed and more so hormonal in nature to prevent reductions in spontaneous movement and the body to think it needs to become more efficient at generating and extracting energy from food, this is covered in depth in the first article of my initial post. I suggest a carb based refeed to minimize fat gain as it takes a few days before fat gain from a carb based feed will match that of a fat based refeed, not to mention carbs can help replenish glycogen levels to turn down processes related to "fatigue".
This is a good post too - I'm not necessarily disagreeing with most of it, just introducing another factor that may actually explain more than all of those other factors combined, more elegantly and simplistically.

I will take out a section to start (bolded to show the quote):

"Historically there are periods where we had famine and abundance of food and during famine had to expend large amounts of energy to get food that was not very calorically dense. If our body did not have the ability to alter our metabolic state then we would have not lived very long once food ran out."

This is one way of looking at it, but there is another way to look at it. An adjustable metabolism is nothing short of wasteful and is entirely counter productive toward survival. If you can survive on 2,000 calories, what benefit is there EVER going to be in burning 2,500 calories to do the same amount of work? An organism that decides it will burn 2,500 calories when it could burn 2,000 is destined for an early demise during times of famine. Of course, if you continue to burn 2,000 calories and store the additional 500 - well, that's going to be a huge advantage and it doesn't take much to see that, yes we do get fat.

So, if I can do something with 2,000 calories and doing it with 2,500 calories wold be wasteful - then we can agree the body should, logically, burn 2,000 calories. But, during times of famine, how do I do that same work with 1,900 calories? I can't. It would defy physics - unless of course I was just wasting 100 calories this entire time, in which case - back to step 1 - why was I ever burning 2,000 calories to begin with?

In other words, this idea of an adjustable metabolism is highly questionable. It would make survival less likely, not more likely.

Going back up, I'm not relying on insulin resistance to cause diabetes. We agree that caloric overload is the key culprit here, which is a good start.

What you have to consider is that we create ATP for energy through the Kreb's cycle (sorry, I'm old I guess and still call it the Kreb's Cycle). If we need 1,000 calories worth of ATP we have to run a substrate through this cycle - carbs and/or lipids. inputs. Yes, it will always be a mix and is unlikely to ever be 100% carbs or 100% fats - but the key is, if you're burning 1000 calories worth of ATP you have to get that from 1,000 calories worth of carbs, fats, or a mixture. If you supply 2,000 calories worth of substrate, you can't burn it - you only are burning 1,000 calories. So you will store it.

So, imagine a cell - you stuff it full of energy, and it's burning away - but you keep stuffing it full as fast as it can burn. Now take a more systemic point of view. Let's assume you have enough energy to fulfill the need for energy, fill the cell, and have more left over - what happens then? It's floating around in the blood stream - where things like glucose and lipids can do a lot of damage if they float around for long periods of time, so you store as much as you can as fast as you can.

You keep doing this over time, and now you're overweight. So, you've got a ready supply of fat at all times that your body is trying to deal with. You have 30 pounds of fat to burn - so you haven't eaten in 3 hours and what do you do? Well, we are continuously trying to burn that fat. It's always there. It's plentiful. It's TOO abundant. So you start changing over the machinery to burn more fat (which means you are burning fewer carbs). This is KNOWN to happen in obese people - obese people have elevated levels of PDK.
 
HIT4ME

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---->Breif tangent for further explaination: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4083023/

From this article:

"
Metabolic inflexibility, defined as insufficient glucose utilization followed by increased lipolysis in the peripheral tissues, is a manifestation in patients with insulin resistance, obesity, and type 2 diabetes. A previous study has shown that PDK4 expression increases in the skeletal muscle of rats receiving a continuous infusion of intralipids (a fat emulsion), indicating a disruption in the suppression of PDK4 by insulin. These results also show a direct relationship between free fatty acid levels and PDK4 expression in the muscle [16]. Pdk4 levels are also elevated in fasting and diabetic individuals [9,22,23]. In contrast, high-fat fed, insulin-resistant mice lacking PDK4 exhibit lower blood glucose levels and better glucose tolerance than wild-type mice [24]. In mice that are null for the hepatic insulin receptor substrates 1 and 2, which is a novel model for type 2 diabetes, additional knockout of the PDK4 gene improved glycemic control and glucose tolerance [25].

In contrast, growth hormone (GH), whose function is opposite to that of insulin, stimulates PDK4 expression in the liver of wild-type mice during fasting by activating the janus kinase/signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT5) pathway and increasing gluconeogenesis. Metformin inhibits GH-induced PDK4 expression via the AMP-activated protein kinase/small heterodimer partner-dependent pathway that inhibits the combination of STAT5 to the PDK4 promoter [26]. Additionally, overproduction of GH can increase the blood glucose level in patients with acromegaly. PDK2/PDK4 double-knockout mice are unable to tolerate long-term fasting (48 hours), succumbing to hypoglycemia, ketoacidosis, and hypothermia. These findings indicate that partial activation of the PDC, which inhibits PDK activity, may alleviate some symptoms of type 2 diabetes; however, complete activation of the PDC by inhibition of phosphorylation may be harmful and even fatal due to hypoglycemia and hypothermia [27,28]."


Anyway, you have increased PDK levels because fat is readily available - so now you eat. Only, you're burning fat and your cells can take a little glucose, but only what it can store because it isn't burning it very much because it is trying to use up all this fat and PDK is high so fat is easy to burn and carbs, not so much. So the cells suck up a small amount of glucose and then are full - and they stay full because it isn't burning. So the rest of the glucose from the meal-- there is no use for it. Convert it to fat and get it out of the blood stream because AGE's and such will become an issue of time.

And then you repeat this. And then your fat cells are full, so you have to make more - but you gotta get this sugar out of your blood - so you keep releasing insulin. So you make more fat cells, and you keep over eating and this cycle keeps on going and going and requires more and more insulin - and THEN you get insulin resistance.

And this cycle can start in any situation where there is caloric overload - but would be much more reliably introduced if you just start by eating fats...since the lack of carbohydrate will allow PDK to elevate more rapidly and ramp up fat burning more quickly.

Insulin issues are just secondary to this function. It's more basic than that, intertwined with the basic biology of how we actually produce energy to begin with. Insulin spikes also aren't necessarily the issue - it's the total insulin load over time that becomes the issue. If a cell can accept carbohydrate, an insulin spike will work and blood sugar will fall. But if it can't take carbohydrate or fats, an insulin spike will do very little, which will lead to more insulin having to be released, etc. And with fat - you may have a lower peak, but you will have insulin in your system for a longer period of time. And if fat is always floating around, is your body constantly trying to release insulin to store it? Sure it won't spike like eating a candy bar - but if it's slightly elevated for 8 hours vs. being elevated 50 points higher for 30 minutes - which situation is really better?

This is all very theoretical at this point, I get that. But it's a more simple way to understand how a lot more fits together. Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Kinase is being studied as a diabetic treatment, and I think it plays a role in obesity directly - my math above lays out the basics of how it can explain diet induced "metabolic slowdown" without actually needing ANY slow down in metabolism - just an increased efficiency in the conversion of mass to energy.

Or I could be a crazed lunatic :)

But thanks for the debating and giving me a chance to discuss this....it is appreciated.

@JSWain, I haven't forgotten you either - just been super busy.

I'm thinking I may do some research on all of this and open up a thread so I don't derail this further - but it may take me some time to get to it.

Also - I haven't read ALL of the stuff you posted. I love the stronger by science site. Everything you posted that I did read was great, I suspect it all it. Sometimes I guess I can agree, while still having thoughts that go a little further and question a little more?
 

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---->Breif tangent for further explaination: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4083023/

Also - I haven't read ALL of the stuff you posted. I love the stronger by science site. Everything you posted that I did read was great, I suspect it all it. Sometimes I guess I can agree, while still having thoughts that go a little further and question a little more?
Thanks for sharing. You are on to something here and as I suspected it is just another piece of this puzzle. You math is a simple explanation to metabolic variability. I wish I could join you and believe this was the biggest factor but for now, we will have to agree to disagree. We disagree on the example of famine historically, and that is ok. Good discussion overall and I appreciate your time.
 
HIT4ME

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I thought of adding this as well - lots of crazy people on the internet claim apple cider vinegar causes weight loss. I'm not a big ACV guy, I think a lot of the claims are unreal, but...

One of the classic inhibitors of PDK (i.e. - substance that activated the PDC and upregulates the burning of glucose over fat) is Dichloroacetate. You can look at this as chlorinated acetic acid. Acetic Acid = Vinegar. It could be an actual mechanism through which people are perceiving effects on blood sugar levels, etc.

I am also aware of some other substances that have been shown to inhibit PDK, which I don't want to reveal at the moment, which are used on this board that people swear enhances performance.
 
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I agree - the drop in mass reduces the work load you are doing under the same activity levels. Walking 1 mile at 200 pounds burns more calories than walking 1 mile at 180 pounds. And as you state, this weight loss and reductions in NEAT are where I suspect the major caloric differences come into play.
I can't believe how stupid simple and profound this one comment is in regards to the question of metabolic conditioning. In all my years of training and nutritional studies/efforts I never thought to verbalize it like that. It's actually a pretty profound thought.

Just punching my own stats into a calculator maintenance if I weighed 240lbs might be 2900+ calories whereas at 180lbs it's more like 2500.

I just thought you had a really great point here and it's good food for thought. The reverse then of course would also be true and would support some level of clean bulking theoretically as you continue to build mass that requires caloric support.
 
HIT4ME

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I can't believe how stupid simple and profound this one comment is in regards to the question of metabolic conditioning. In all my years of training and nutritional studies/efforts I never thought to verbalize it like that. It's actually a pretty profound thought.

Just punching my own stats into a calculator maintenance if I weighed 240lbs might be 2900+ calories whereas at 180lbs it's more like 2500.

I just thought you had a really great point here and it's good food for thought. The reverse then of course would also be true and would support some level of clean bulking theoretically as you continue to build mass that requires caloric support.
Haha, thanks man - it's not really my ideas. I've seen a lot of people on here and various articles discussing this concept in various ways, but I do think that a lot of times it does get made more complicated than it needs to be and I am happy with myself if I was able to put it in terms that are more simple than usual.
 

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