High Fat
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The issue I continue to have is crampy- twitchy muscles. I have supplemented MgO, fairly regularly, but 75 days in still have issues as the day goes on.
Advice?
I've read that MgO is the least absorbed. I use a "super magnesium" from GNC that is magnesium citrate, lactate and aspartate.0 -
Journey_258_thru wrote: »@nill4me what is WOE? I'm 5 days into keto, so the acronyms are quite newish....
It's 'Way Of Eating'. You'll occasionally see WOL for 'Way Of Life' as well. Continue to ask - there are quite a few acronyms, so you may come across more you can't figure out.
@Wabmester (mostly, but everyone in general). So, there has been some discussion on lowering fat intake because, once fat adapted, your body will take fat from adipose to burn. But, what about the daily food calculator at Flexible Ketogenic flexibleketogenic.com/?m=0 If your fat is low, that will tell you that you are under ketogenic levels of eating. As an example, a ratio of C20, F40, P120 (total 920 calories) gives a reading of 0.97. Ratios with a reading below 1.0 are deemed outside of ketosis. So does that mean you could drop your fat intake to around that level (well, a little higher), remain in ketosis *and* have your body take adipose to burn? I would be expecting the result of those macros to equal hunger, but it could be an interesting experiment to try that
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Journey_258_thru wrote: »I believe that "fat-adapted" means that your body has produced the enzymes required to consistently burn fat as fuel...to include having that switch factor that dragon referenced...the ability to switch between burning dietary fat or ones own body fat as fuel - as required. As such, I also think that...as we've all touched on, if you burn more than you take in...from a calorie perspective, your body will (in this state) burn its own fat stores. So, yes, in order to promote burning your own fat stores, it only makes sense, if you need to reduce calories, and you are following a LCHF WOE, that you would lower your fat intake, as your carbs will already be low, and protein you will want to keep as your constant.
Let me know when you figure out that whole mitochondrial biogenesis thing.
@nill4me what is WOE? I'm 5 days into keto, so the acronyms are quite newish....
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10081444/glossary-of-terms-abbreviations-and-acronymsLet 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.
Yes, "fat adaptation" or metabolic flexibility is the state humans should be in (and, you're right, it includes being able to burn fat into the higher heart rates), but I don't think it's the state that most people in First World countries and the Western/SAD diet actually are in. If they were, we wouldn't be constantly hearing how people can't go more than 2 or 3 hours without eating and dealing with hypoglycemia, metabolic disorders, etc., which are indicative of elevated dependence on sugar and impaired ability to oxidize fat. After all, if you don't use it, you lose it, and when you're overflowing your body with sugars and starches, especially refined ones, even if you're eating fat, you're not actually burning the fat, because you're perpetually dealing with sugar.
It's not necessarily just about it at higher exertions. When you have your metabolic flexibility, you can eat something that's really sugary or starchy, and once that's burned off, go right back to the fat-burning state you in before, and maybe not eat again for another 5 or 6 hours. When you lose your metabolic flexibility, you're hungry again 2 or 3 hours later, because you've burned through all the starch and sugar.
Now, the ability to burn fat never completely goes away, but the worse the metabolic condition, the less of it they have. This, I think, is one of the big reasons there's this divide between those who can lose all their weight just by counting and reducing calories, and those who have to eliminate the sugars and starches (and maybe even go as far as eliminating nearly all sources of carbohydrates). The ones that just needed to watch their intake still had most, if not all, of their metabolic flexibility intact, while those of us with things like hyperinsulinemia, hypoglycemia, Diabetes, PCOS, etc., have impaired systems that we need to repair and rebuild.
Mark Sisson goes into more detail on this (complete with a bunch of cool studies/papers on the matter):
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-fat-adapted
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-fat-adapted-part-2-qa0 -
I'll take a look at Sisson's site, but on first glance, it looks like he's mixing the meaning of "fat adapted" to the one I use (higher exertion) with the insulin sensitizing effect.
The metabolic disorder that I dealt with (and a lot of us do) is insulin resistance, which doesn't require ketosis to fix. The problem seems to be caused by the combination of excess carbs and chronic excess calories, and can be reversed by simply reducing the excess of both. Perhaps a subject for another thread.
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Reading Taubes, Phinney and Volek as well as the experiential evidence on this forum did it for me. Add a heaping helping of desperation and it was a no-brainer for me to try LCHF. I lost weight the first month (March) but not really since then.0
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GrannyMayOz wrote: »@Wabmester (mostly, but everyone in general). So, there has been some discussion on lowering fat intake because, once fat adapted, your body will take fat from adipose to burn. But, what about the daily food calculator at Flexible Ketogenic flexibleketogenic.com/?m=0 If your fat is low, that will tell you that you are under ketogenic levels of eating. As an example, a ratio of C20, F40, P120 (total 920 calories) gives a reading of 0.97. Ratios with a reading below 1.0 are deemed outside of ketosis. So does that mean you could drop your fat intake to around that level (well, a little higher), remain in ketosis *and* have your body take adipose to burn? I would be expecting the result of those macros to equal hunger, but it could be an interesting experiment to try that
This is the big question to me. Clearly, I believe the high-fat aspect of LCHF is about ketone generation. My assumption is that while you're still insulin resistant, it may be difficult to "unlock" adipose fat, so eating high fat gives you an instant source for ketones once your carb level is low enough to force the need.
Once you start making ketones from dietary fat, that allows insulin levels to drop, and that opens the door to adipose access. It also makes you less hungry (maybe by increasing leptin sensitivity, but there seem to be other mechanisms involved too).
So you need that initial dietary fat to get the ball rolling, but why would you need to keep up the same levels once your adipose fat is available and insulin is lower? It is possible that your hunger signals will still come from how much food is processed by your gut, and that may require a continued higher calorie level to quench, but that's one of the reasons I asked the question.
Do you guys need to continue to eat high fat to keep your hunger in check, or do you maintain the same macros and calorie levels because you want to stay compliant with the "program?"
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Let me know when you figure out that whole mitochondrial biogenesis thing.
PQQ or Pyrroloquinoline Quinone is one of several supplements that claims to promote mitochondrial biogenesis that you may have read about.
Niagen is a synthetic vitamin B3 that is getting a lot of attention today when it comes to mitochondrial count.
I started to take both about the same time so I do not know if they played a role in my improvement since I take others as well and have been pure LCHF for 8 months now.
Most likely it is due to recovery of general health due to LCHF way of eating.
I too find all of the anti aging research interesting and expect it will be years before we see and real research proving or disproving related products.
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I'll take a look at Sisson's site, but on first glance, it looks like he's mixing the meaning of "fat adapted" to the one I use (higher exertion) with the insulin sensitizing effect.
The metabolic disorder that I dealt with (and a lot of us do) is insulin resistance, which doesn't require ketosis to fix. The problem seems to be caused by the combination of excess carbs and chronic excess calories, and can be reversed by simply reducing the excess of both. Perhaps a subject for another thread.
He addresses that, too:A quick note about ketosis:
Fat-adaption does not necessarily mean ketosis. Ketosis is ketosis. Fat-adaption describes the ability to burn both fat directly via beta-oxidation and glucose via glycolysis, while ketosis describes the use of fat-derived ketone bodies by tissues (like parts of the brain) that normally use glucose. A ketogenic diet “tells” your body that no or very little glucose is available in the environment. The result? “Impaired” glucose tolerance and “physiological” insulin resistance, which sound like negatives but are actually necessary to spare what little glucose exists for use in the brain. On the other hand, a well-constructed, lower-carb (but not full-blown ketogenic) Primal way of eating that leads to weight loss generally improves insulin sensitivity.
In short, the "high fat" part about LCHF isn't necessarily about ketosis. Ketosis is about ketosis. You can be LCHF without seeking out ketosis. Yes, your body will create ketones when running primarily off fat, it's not a hard on/off switch, but that happens in the absence of sufficient dietary carbohydrates to run either solely on them or on them and GNG to fuel the body on higher levels of glucose (ie - the aforementioned ~120g upper glucose usage of the brain), then the body is going to compensate by making up the difference between what's available and what's needed by making ketones.
I mentioned this in another thread in another forum, and I think it's an apt analogy:
Keto is LCHF, but LCHF isn't necessarily keto. Keto is a square, LCHF is a rectangle. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.0 -
So you need that initial dietary fat to get the ball rolling, but why would you need to keep up the same levels once your adipose fat is available and insulin is lower? It is possible that your hunger signals will still come from how much food is processed by your gut, and that may require a continued higher calorie level to quench, but that's one of the reasons I asked the question.
Regardless of macronutrient ratios, the body still needs sufficient dietary fuel to keep from "thinking" that you're in the middle of a famine. It's been shown (Dr. Jason Fung talks about this in his talks) that prolonged calorie restriction lowers metabolic rate, and this reduction takes quite some time to reverse. So, again, if you treat them as their primary purpose, then protein is not a fuel source (you can think of it like the oil in a car -- it's required to run, but isn't burned as fuel). If you're restricting carbohydrates, then that leaves fat as your fuel source. Those of us who are LCHF, but not specifically seeking ketosis, may also eat some more protein as a result of getting more fat (ie - I normally eat about 100-120g of protein, but on my higher calorie days, it's not uncommon to get more like 140g of protein), but protein is not the primary goal when increasing caloric intake.
Dr. Fung also talks about the metabolic differences between caloric restriction and fasting, and a fast-feast cycle doesn't seem to have the same metabolic effects (probably because the "restriction" comes from the fasting times, and then you eat a sufficient amount during the "feasting" times, but he goes into more details on this). This, of course, suggests that there's more to metabolism and metabolic issues than just insulin, leptin, and ghrelin.Do you guys need to continue to eat high fat to keep your hunger in check, or do you maintain the same macros and calorie levels because you want to stay compliant with the "program?"
Kinda, sorta, not really. It's habit for me, now, so it's not really about staying "compliant" (except for keeping carbs down). My hunger is largely already "in check." These days, even in my higher calorie days, I don't go beyond about 2500 calories, and I still have more days where I'm more like 1500 calories, which results in a weekly caloric deficit of right about 3500 calories (1lb/week).
Besides, a skin-on chicken thigh tastes far better than a skinless chicken breast. 0 -
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.0 -
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. 0
