Adam, what is your diet's total calories per day and what ratio of those calories come from fat? Thanks!
Kugs -
Total calories depends on the day, but usually ranges between 2,000-3,000 calories. I eat on the high end if it's been a strength training (i.e. heavy lifting) day.
Total % from fat varies, too, but I'd say it ranges between 40-55%
Thought I'd wade into the fray on the subject of diet and weight loss. I think I should be able piss off just about everybody!
A bit of background to start with. I am a vegetarian and have been for 45 years, I spent several years as a vegan about the time I was initially exposed to the China study proponents, forks over knives documentary etc. I had however become fat and unhealthy by eating too much sugar and grains and the processed food typical in the SAD or standard American Diet. This last year I finally got serious about my health, and modified my diet and exercise.
I successfully lost 50 lbs of Fat and gained 6 pounds of lean body mass. In a relatively short time frame ( 5 mos) In doing this I spent an inordinate amount of time researching diets, human metabolism, exercise etc.From low carb, to low fat, to Paleo, to ketogenic, cyclical ketogenic, to vegan, vegetarian, etc.
Here are my takeaways, Bear in mind. As Adam pointed out, I am not trying to change anyones belief system you are welcome to disagree with me.
First, multiple disparate approaches will work even if not necessarily working for the assumed underlying cause. This is why both heavy meat (paleo) and whole food (vegan) diets can have fat loss/ health benefits.
The standard trope its Calories in vs Calories out. or a "calorie is a calorie" is a false premise. While the overarching balance of calories ingested vs. burned needs to be in some deficit for weight loss. the type and quality of calories will have a significant effect on hormonal process involved in fat mobilization, efficiency of fat burning, and probably most significantly satiety and control of hunger. This is why it is easier to lose and maintain weight on low carb high fat diet than a low fat high carb diet. even though it is possible to lose fat on both given a caloric deficit.
The body of existing nutritional science is not currently very well developed. Most, (not all) studies that exist and are quoted endlessly to support opposing viewpoints are flawed, not well controlled, small samples etc.
This unfortunate circumstance coupled with the incredible complexity of humans including variables between, genetics, epigenetics, individual variations and adaptations hereditary influences etc etc. make it extremely difficult to offer singular prescriptive advise. Case in point what works for a moderately overweight individual will be different than the dynamics for a metabolically deranged severely obese individual or why people of Japanese ancestry process, white rice differently than Europeans
This is why it is important to treat your own fat loss regime as a controlled experiment and track, monitor and adjust as you proceed. It is extremely useful to start with an accurate body composition analysis. the gold standard is a Dexa scan but a water tank or less intrusively an "Inbody" bio impedance scale available at some health clubs and Dr's offices can give you similarly accurate level information.
Diets as Narratives.
Humans tend to process and transmit information as narratives. Narratives tend to take on religious dimensions and become infused with faith and even morality Veganisim and Paleo being prime examples. In my opinion they both contain elements of truth, but neither are complete or definitive.
I am a vegetarian, and believe in many of the associated moral principles as well as the practical environmental ones but despite that I have come to believe that animal protein is a superior form of protein. I agree that the primary issue we face as a species is population overshoot as a function of excessive (oil ) energy supply. I believe humans are naturally omnivorous. Yet I'm still a vegetarian.
That said, there are some universal principles that fall under the heading of common sense and are effective regardless of the 'Narrative' of diet you select.
Eat at a calorie deficit. Tracking caloric and macro nutrients using tool like my fitness pal which Adam mentioned is very useful. You don't need to do this for ever, a couple weeks to a month will calibrate your sense of proportion and knowledge of caloric content and density of foods you eat and allow you to do transition to a natural intuitive control.
As everybody notes. Eat whole foods, the further away from processing the better.
Eat a significantly lower ratio of carbs, to fat
Don't eat processed vegetable oils corn safflower soybean etc. Instead, Coconut oil, olive oil, avacado
Trans Fats are very bad
Saturated fat is not unhealthy despite that being an article of faith in our culture. The science behind that was wrong. Vegans pointing out that meat eaters have clogged arteries and vegans don't, confuses causality.
The primary issue behind heart disease, strokes and a host of other diseases such as Alzheimers, is inflammation, due to the repeated roller coaster of hormonal insult due to consumption of sugar and sugar like ( processed grain) foods.
Some thoughts on exercise for weight loss and health.
While cardio vascular or aerobic fitness is an important component of health. As it is practiced for weight loss it is often counter productive.
Intense cardio increases appetite and makes dietary control difficult.
Running. especially long distance running is counterintuitively unhealthy if you factor the aggregate effects of inflammation and joint damage over time. ( Btw I know this will piss off runners but look at the body composition of heavy duty long distance runners, like Rich Roll they are skinny but not in a good way.) If you have to run consider short burst high intensity interval hill sprints.
For fat loss, brisk walking or hiking up hill is much more conducive. Try to hit 45 minutes per session and 3- 4 days per week alternating with resistance training.
Resistance training is truly the fountain of youth. But here also moderation is the key. 3 days per week, 30 to 40 minutes is enough to preserve lean body mass while losing fat. Concentrate on proper form and slow movement. Both your muscles and your central nervous system needs adequate recovery between sessions
When you've hit your body fat goals, you can increase the volume of resistance training but maintain the adequate amount of rest. Go for continutiy and balance over the long term.
Intense often competitive regimes like crossfit can be counterproductive in the long run with potential for injury and over training. This is less obvious to younger people whose capacity for recovery from abuse is much higher.
That said the benefit of sustained resistance training as a component of lifestyle can not be overstated. to the extent that you find a social support network(like crossfit does that supports that objective it can be a net positive.
Finally, not mentioned here so far in the fat loss game is the concept of intermittent fasting which has a variety of modalities, but at it's simplest is the concept of not eating breakfast and extending the natural nighttime fast until sometime in the early afternoon or even evening. This has the effect of increasing the effective presence of human growth hormone for longer periods which is conducive to fat mobilization. It also helps with issue of satiety and psychological fulfillment by allowing one to consume the same amount of calories but in larger portions by concentrating them into fewer meals. Humans surprising adapt well, to this regime and people will often not experience hunger until the delayed meal time arrives. Note that woman do not adapt as well to this type of eating, although many are able to at least move breakfast until lunch time.
mememonkey
When you get to my age, you look around you for examples of people who are immortal so that you can follow their example. They are in thin supply.
The question then becomes, OK, I've made it this far, now what? If I am to be denied quantity then I must concentrate on quality. Work really lowers the quality of life. Therefore I eat cheap most of the time. But when I eat out I suck the marrow the bone.
The reason why diet wars rage, my profound ignorance informs me, is that assumptions are leapt to.
You are not what you think you are. That is your ego leading you astray. You are an ever changing walking swamp. Change your gut biome and voila, you are a completely different walking swamp.
This matches my experience. I finally started losing excess weight when I stopped trying to eat low-fat. Influenced by the Wheat Belly diet, I focused instead on eliminating wheat from my diet, and that was the first approach that ever worked for me.
I'm down over eighty pounds from what I weighed three years ago.
Strewth! 80 lbs! Congratulations Yoxa.
You are half the man you used to be.
"blues zones" ave been eating and living the same for centuries…Ain't changing mares diet. She's from Suffolk England.
Setting aside the many elements of diet and the lively debates (important) for a moment, I just want to point out that I recently posted photos of my relatively trim 62-year old frame because Adam posted his (much younger) fit frame, and now he's posted new photos, so now I need an excuse to post more of mine… (all in fun, forgive the light tone…)
On a serious note, it seems the "blue zone" active-elderly tend home gardens, so they're eating a lot of fresh vegetables and those veggies probably have a lot of micro-nutrients.
Another point: the protein content of many veggies is often overlooked.
forget the pics l want to see a cage match between you and Adam, For what it's worth I've got my money on you Charles due to the cunning that comes with age!
mememonkey
I agree! Can I bet against myself??
Adam
And the rest of you working with this topic. Really good and timely reminders.
I was on a Paleo diet for a while and have since switched based on further research into the subject and other insights as you’ve noted above. It would be great if Peak Prosperity would interview “experts” on other diets or approaches. Losing weight is one thing but being healthy is another.
I'm afraid my cunning boils down to knowing one's limits…
I would gladly engage in a "how fast can you eat an organic lamb burger topped with local cheese" contest with Adam… everyone wins!
Actually i did ask Adam to be my sparring partner for some slow-mo martial arts moves I've been working on. His fencing experience turned out to be more useful than I'd anticipated. This reinforced the core truth of martial arts and indeed life itself: There are no perfect attacks or defenses, everything has a trade-off, a risk and an opening for an opponent–just like any investment, career move, etc. Flexibility, adaptability and fast learning are what counts in the real-life cage match–us against the world.
Thank you for the discussion of diet, exercise, and health. I will reiterate here that, based on my own research and personal experience, the single most powerful change that most folks can make in their diet is the total elimination of wheat. Simply stated, in many of us wheat can set off a cascade of effects, starting in the gut, that can lead to many of the afflictions talked about herein of an inflammatory or inflammatory/autoimmune nature. The best route, as advocated by the author of the book, "WheatBelly", cardiologist William Davis, is to eliminate wheat and reduce all grains as much as possible.
For me, all joint problems (most significant knee related) have receded after three years gluten free. Not a twinge.
While some people can reach excellent health while moderating wheat intake, I could not. This is because, for many of us, wheat is also addictive in nature (I am not kidding);
I thought that I lacked willpower before going gluten free, but I was in fact subject to a craving set off in the opiate receptors of my brain. This is not true for everyone, but it sure was for me. The fact is, most doctors still believe that the only folks who need to avoid wheat are those who test positive for celiac. This is simply untrue and a great disservice to many.what reversal of facial inflammation looks like
By Dr. Davis |
January 3, 2016 Leave a CommentMichelle shared her photos of her 7-month Wheat Belly journey reflecting the loss of 52 pounds and oodles of inflammation.“I just want to say how thankful I am for Wheat Belly!
“I’ve struggled with my weight all my life. In June, I decided to give Wheat Belly a try, and I’ve never looked back. The first couple of weeks were hard, but now I find it so easy. The amazing thing to me is that my sweet cravings are gone.
“I’ve lost 52 pounds so far and plan to keep going. Thanks so much!”
Look at the change in Michelle’s face: thinner, yes, but look around the eyes and the size of the eyes themselves—less edema, larger eyes. These are the signature facial changes we see in people following the Wheat Belly lifestyle who reject the inflammation and water retention of wheat and grains.
This, of course, happens as a body-wide process. Besides the wonderful facial changes, Michelle has also likely experienced relief from edema in the ankles and calves, reversal of joint inflammation, reversal of brain inflammation (that leads over time to dementia), and reversal of gastrointestinal inflammation/irritation. And she’s no longer a victim of the cravings for sweets that we call a “wheat tooth” because it is caused by exposure to the opiates that develop with partial digestion of the gliadin protein of wheat and related (“prolamin”) proteins of other grains, now banished from her diet.
Many physicians advise high-dose Crestor, a statin drug, for inflammation’s contribution to cardiovascular risk, or non=steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for joint inflammation, or any number of other drugs, many quite toxic, all to “treat” the consequences of eating wheat and grains, the most inflammatory components of the modern diet. But YOU have the real solution to body inflammation right in your own hands.
Read through the personal experiences of people who have gone gluten and grain free here;
http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/blog/
Well done Adam.
Clearly food like every other religion is another fomenter of societal killers.
From my own personal experience (very much like Adams) I managed to add muscle while reducing fat percentage significantly just by eating the right foods and NEVER feeling hungry. When you experience such profound changes and results, you absolutely know you've found the right diet, at which point you can't help but be angry at the BS the world has been selling you while encouraging you to poison yourself for most of your life.
Sadly the "RIGHT diet" is going to piss off the vegans. sugar junkies and most of the commercial food industry. Worse the "RIGHT diet" probably isn't sustainable in a world of 9 billion people or even a third of that number.
For those that have first hand experience the simple facts become obvious: The human metabolism is ONLY designed to process fat and protein. The body simply does NOT regulate carbohydrates very well. That's because the humans we evolved from didn't need to; fruit and carbohydrates were seasonal and sporadic, It was the fish, meat and animal fats from hunting that kept our ancestors alive - insects as well in a pinch. When you understand biology and eat right the truth becomes blindingly obvious. Fruit trees evolved NOT to make us healthy but to make us HUNGRY. So we would eat more of their offerings and serendipitously spread their seeds in our feces far and wide - look it up that's how fruit trees work symbiotically with a lot of animal life.
So the revelation is: grains, potatoes fruit sugars, confuse the bodies ability to balance calories. In addition a lot of grains (and some vegetables) contain glutens, phytic acids and lectins that harm the gut, affect absorption or lead to auto-immune disease because of their inflammatory effects on the body's connective and other tissue. I know this to be true "hands on" so this is NOT another example of an applied belief system or conviction by denial.
It is only tradition or religion that tells us to eat grains like horses. Grains/agriculture made the first farmers rich and allowed large cities to survive (until the water ran out). But the end result of agriculture is subjugation, wealth disparity and mediocre health. All the things the human race has come to know and love today more than ever.
The irony is that as humans discover how to eat properly they will quickly find there isn't actually enough food for everyone. Fresh water is on the decline, pastures are polluted, food practices (like feeder lots) make food toxic, oceans are ruined, the fish are contaminated so our essential source of omega 3 (which has profoundly beneficial effects in a high fat/protein, zero carb diet) is becoming unsustainable. That latter fact alone spells doom for humanity.
Its all just more evidence demonstrating that the human species has lost its way, has been lost for a while… There is no hope except maybe for a few pockets of lucky communities. The cruel truth is that we can't all be lucky someone has to suffer - that means billions and its disgusting but then humans put themselves in this position because of under utilization of higher brain function.
Humans are just gorillas in the mist, animals first, sentients second.
JanCould not agree more
If you think about it, humans have been on this planet for some time. Their diet has changed dramatically especially in the last fifty years. Their ancestors are an interesting (and relevant) thing to look at. Many of them can recognize and eat HUNDREDS of edible plants. Above everything else, DIVERSITY, is the key to nutrition, health and survival. It not only makes common sense but is part of most natural structures…including economic ones. Notice that permaculture may be our only way out of this and that is simply mimicking the diversity and resilience of the natural systems.
There are plenty of studies out there that follow folks with above average longevity and low meat, diverse plant diets are indeed the overwhelming, recurring factor. I recommend an older documentary called "Food Matters" for starters. I think there is a BBC documentary out there called How to Live to 101
To the "meat murders the planet" meme, let me add:
"Annuals murder the planet, perennials and grazing animals save the planet". Vegans and other annualholics should consider themselves unindicted co-conspirators. OK, just kidding…
Mark Shepard promotes a model of permaculture that could replace current agrobiz , while rebuilding soil, sequestering carbon, managing water, and improving human health. Here he makes his pitch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb_t-sVVzF0
Why should Vegans should care about annuals vs perennials?
Shepard bangs on about the evils of annual plant agriculture. Briefly, annuals role in nature is rapid colonization of disturbed soil, so they grow fast and produce a lot of seed. Unlike perennials they ultimately damage the soil. An annual based culture eventually (he argues) destroys the soil. In our partnership with annuals, we've come to regard routinely damaging the soil (plowing) as normal and necessary.
Once our soil is gone, we have to move on, maybe invade Australia and drive Arthur off his land :). Or substitute expensive, petroleum based inputs to our own damaged soil.
The alternative is a mostly perennial based system, integrating insights of Yeoman for water, J.Russel Smith for tree crops, Savory for grazing, and Morrison for Permaculture integration. He argues this can outproduce the current system, acre for acre, input for input and is more resilient in every way as it just mimicks nature. Annuals are grown as the soil tolerates. Soil gets better and better, not worse and worse.
Of course, the worst is probably oil-based annual production shipped cross-country to feed-lots, to produce meat shipped back cross country to land, attractively shrink-wrapped in my grocery cart. Vegans and others are absolutely correct how awful this system is, but the same system to produce tofu is pretty bad too.
I'm basically a suburban professional who loves his shrink-wrapped meat, so…
You PP farmers out there, do these ideas pass the smell test? Inquiring minds want to know.
but, in a short answer, yes, it passes the smell test. there is alot of research that red meat has bad rap secondary to the CAFO model. The american bison did much to sequester th carbon being burnt by annual grains farmers to put weight on the CAFO product.