High Fat
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I may regret asking this, but tell me your thoughts about eating high fat. What do you feel the HF aspect of LCHF does? Is it possible to eat too much fat? Is there good fat and bad fat?
I know some of you were trained on the old fat-is-evil mindset and then you changed your mind. What convinced you to change your mind? Was it something you read, data and/or logic, how you felt, or the results you observed in terms of weight loss or other health markers?
For me, the HF aspect is literal - Fat is my fuel. End of. Yes, it is literally possible to eat too much fat, because you can eat too much of anything. Even too much water can kill you. But in a realistic sense, unless you are stuck in disordered thinking or broken metabolisms (which are UTTERLY POSSIBLE and real things!!!!), no, hunger will dictate your consumption. We can all gorge until we feel sick, no matter what we eat, but if we eat to satiety, this levels out in most people.
For me good fats are ALL THE FATS - well, except the two bad fats - trans fats (man made) and chemically processed stuff (man screwed up made)... So no, for me, and for my health, there are no bad fats. There are always exceptions to that rule - intolerances, allergies, etc., but those are the exceptions, not the rules.
I'd always been told fat was bad, and I half-@$$ believed it, but I was told again and again that I didn't eat like a fat person. (gorging on fast food or something I guess), but still I couldn't make progress. It took the shock of realizing how much impact CARBS made on my to job right up on the FAT bandwagon. I did research - a ton of it. Everything finally was making sense.
I could not fathom how I could eat low-fat cookies, low-fat cheese, and all this other stuff that tasted like crap and still made me feel bad and having cravings. My grandparents were European, and my mother move to the States when she was 5. Watching them eat, I could not figure out how eating whole foods, even the fattiest ones, was worse for me than eating a chemically processed man-created cookie or cheese with the fat removed and sugar and salt added to make it taste decent. If we had to change foods that much, didn't it mean that we were better off before? Weren't added salt and sugar supposed to be the PROBLEMS?!?! So much confusion... And my weight continued to creep up (HW was 319 on a 5'4" frame at 33 or so. When I was 19, I weighed 140 pounds by comparison.)
For the better part of the past decade I heard from my PCP, "you need to lose weight, and you need to cut carbs." Cut carbs?!?! That was blasphemy to me!! My cravings dictated certain consumption, plus if I dropped things like bread and potatoes and heaven forbid, my bananas, what the he!! would I eat? So I hit that mental wall of, "Oh he!! no! Can't do that, no way, ain't possible, etc."
Then, I restarted here on MFP in February of 2014. After not long, I met the wonderful ladies @Dragonwolf and @Alliwan, along with many others, who were finding success in addressing metabolic issues, PCOS (which I'd finally formally gotten confirmed as having been diagnosed years back, but no one bothered to tell ME!), and all manner of bodily problems. These ladies literally changed my life, by their examples.
Then, I had a new endocrinologist. We tried metformin due to the appearance of what I later learned was postprandial somulance caused by insulin resistance (essentially passing out, briefly or extended times each and every time I ate ANYTHING)... I was literally on the verge of being fired because I couldn't control this issue. I was desperate.
In Feb 14, I did a challenge at work, using CICO and made a little progress on the scale, but not much in terms of size or anything. And at the end of the challenge, I hit a brick wall, where I'd learned that I was gearing everything around the scale and weigh-ins and such - in so much as not even working out the day before for fear of DOMS and water retention. Being on this challenge was actually damaging my health progress. I had a small mental breakdown, and spent the next six months loosely attempting maintenance while I figured my head out. That was June/July of 2014.
In October, a follow up visit to my endo, discussing my MFP usage (which he fully endorsed, verifying the calorie goal set, etc., and he have me some suggested macros to work up to), and requested I start a LCHF way of eating. This was to help with the PCOS, IR (and med side effects), thyroid support, and all my other plethora of med issues. I still hemmed and hawed and doubted. By December/early January, I'd gone from 247 or so back up to 262. And, I found some chocolates on sale. In one day (a Monday), I ate an entire 3rd of the 17 oz box, by myself, in one sitting.
Suddenly, the idea of LCHF didn't seem so crazy. Tuesday, I tried to limit my intake, and dealt with insane cravings all day. Wednesday, I woke up, thought, WTH, gorged the rest of the box since I knew I was going to try to do without, and Thursday, I jumped in to LCHF, whole hog. I think at that point, I was starting at 50 grams of carbs a day. I may have attempted 1 day at 100 grams somewhere, but I still had cravings. My natural balance rounded out between 35-50 grams of carbs a day. That was 1/15/15. By 2/18, I realized I was closer to ketogenic levels, and so again, I decided WTH, and dropped again.
Despite that crazy indulgences immediately before starting, I didn't suffer much of the "flu" adapting, in huge part that I embraced the FAT...all of it...
And recent blood screens and lab results just reinforce my progress. Literally every thing improved in some way. My endocrinologist started calling me a success story and all but danced out of my room in happiness at the huge leaps of progress I'd made in 3 short months.
But all in all, I had to get my head on straight before I was even open to the possibility of ANY of this..0 -
As I mentioned before KOM, I'm really impressed by your improved lab results. For some people, I think it's valid to worry about the impact of high fat on LDL, but not in your case. BTW, did you ever get a particle count or size/density info on the LDL?
I also used to eat low fat, and both my LDL and total cholesterol were low. I got a pass with flying colors for years until I finally found a doc who looked at my HDL and triglycerides and told me I was doing it all wrong.
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Let me know when you figure out that whole mitochondrial biogenesis thing.
To me, that's the interesting answer for the meaning of "fat adapted." When your heart rate is below 130 or so, your muscles already burn fat. Anybody who considers themselves "sedentary" is already fat adapted!
The "switch" you guys are talking about is the change in fuel partitioning at higher exertion levels. Instead of burning sugar anaerobically, your muscles start burning fat (and ketones) at heart rates > 130. That apparently requires new mitochondria equipped with new enzymes, and that's what I'd like to experience. In theory, that requires more than just LCHF. It needs to be coupled with high-intensity exercise.
Ah, THIS is what my doctor was talking about! Now I understand why my strength training is being aleternated every exercise with HI aerobics. Thank you0 -
As I mentioned before KOM, I'm really impressed by your improved lab results. For some people, I think it's valid to worry about the impact of high fat on LDL, but not in your case. BTW, did you ever get a particle count or size/density info on the LDL?
I also used to eat low fat, and both my LDL and total cholesterol were low. I got a pass with flying colors for years until I finally found a doc who looked at my HDL and triglycerides and told me I was doing it all wrong.
Thank you, @wabmester... I was happy with my results, especially knowing I'd earned them!!
As for worrying about the LDL - mine did jump badly, hence the reasons for the extra tests... I think calculated was 161 or so...but the size, quantity, and all that affect that number. But...
Apparently, the correct test did not get ordered the first time around, so I'm waiting on the new test. I've been told it was 1-2 weeks for results, which Friday makes 2 weeks, so I'm not expecting it any time soon. Another friend in my main feed had similar results - spectacular HDL and trigs (hers were even way better than mine), and her LDL was high...so she jumped in and did a ton of research.
There was something about the ratio between triglycerides and HDL being more indicative of risk and the size/quantity of LDL and heart risk stuff... trigs/hdl < 2 is awesome, <4 is normal, etc. I don't remember where the risk threshold is...but mine was like 2.1 or something, so I'm really not sweating this result much. I just want to have it to back me up "just in case."
Here were the links she referenced in her post... It was awesome...
Some of the sources I found useful
Risk Assessment Tool for Estimating your 10-year risk of having a heart attack
The impact of low serum triglyceride on LDL-cholesterol estimation
LDL calculator for Friedewald and Iranian formulas
The straight dope on cholesterol - Part 5: Does the size of an LDL particle matter
Her post: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/dopeysmelly/view/cholesterol-and-what-i-ve-found-7444660 -
Of those links, the last one is probably best. Attia will help you understand the mechanism of plaque formation and why high LDL *particle count* is a Bad Thing, especially over the long term. The rest of the "risk assessment" stuff is largely based on correlation rather than mechanism. Correlation is useful if the mechanism in unknown, but pretty useless if it is known.0
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I agree with the quoted Sisson text there, but calling it "fat adaptation" seems odd to me. He's describing our normal physiological state.
And I'm sorry, but I didn't get your rectangle analogy. All LCHF is ketogenic, assuming "L" is low enough, but you can also be ketogenic with zero fat, so keto is not necessarily LCHF.
But that's exactly what it is -- adapted to the ability to burn fat (I personally find "metabolic flexibility" to be more accurate, but "fat adaptation" is a bit easier to convey to the layperson without having to define it over and over, since the name is self-explanatory). Yes, it's the state we're supposed to be in (and in that sense, the "normal" state), but the problem is that we're fast approaching a time when most people aren't in that state. Hell, conventional "wisdom" still insists that sugar is our body's preferred fuel. When the dysfunctional state is the current "normal" (as in, the one most people are in), then the other state requires a name. What's often referred to as "low carb" or even "low GI" (and "Paleo" for that matter) used to be just "eating," too, but since the new norm is 50%+ from carbs -- a large portion of which coming from refined grains -- the old norm needs a name in order to distinguish it from the new norm.
The state of ketosis only requires a carbohydrate intake and production from GNG low enough to prompt the body to get fuel from fat (which can be done without any food at all, actually, though that's obviously not recommended). However, the Ketogenic diet (aka - "Keto") is medically defined as a diet of very low carbohydrates and high fat content (the lowest I've seen is around 60% fat). There are several variations, largely due to adjustments made from nearly a century of using it in medical establishments (the most widely used one in the medical circles is now what's referred to a the Modified Atkin's Protocol, but there are a few others, as well). So yes, Keto is LCHF.
And no, not all LCHF diets are ketogenic in the same sense that Keto is. As you stated, carbohydrates still need to be low enough to prompt ketosis. You can be low carb without being considered to be in ketosis (ie - ketone production is under 0.5mmol/dL). The level of LCHF is still sufficient to garner metabolic flexibility in many people, which is why it often has similar benefits in that department to Keto, even without being in ketosis. The Primal Blueprint is a good example of a non-keto LCHF dietary framework (Sisson actually frowns upon prolonged ketosis and advocates that one only strive for it for short periods of time unless medically necessary -- it's okay, and even natural, to go in and out of it for any number of reasons, but one shouldn't strive to maintain it for extended periods of time).0 -
Hmm, maybe I should use "ketotic" instead of "ketogenic," assuming the latter refers to the medical diet.
There's one other form we haven't talked about -- exogenous ketones. Forget the diet, you can already buy edible products that will give you instant ketones! Supposedly the salt form taste better than the esters.
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