It amazes me that this article still pushes the agenda that "fat makes us fat." If there's one thing that hasn't proven out at all, it's that fat makes us fat!
Overeating makes us fat. Caloric surplus makes us fat. It's pretty trivial to consume a caloric surplus eating lots of fatty foods. In that sense: fat makes us fat and it's silly to try denying it. It doesn't mean a low-fat diet will make you lose weight, it just means that high-fat diets are going to make you fat.
Insulin does not regulate fat storage, leptin does. Obesity is a complex state and there are no simple answers. A diet that may be best for weight loss in one individual may not be the same diet that is best for another. This seems particularly likely if one of the two individuals is not obese.
The problem with "low-fat" processed food in particular is that the fat is often replaced with sugar to add taste, but sugars and other high-carb grains are more problematic than fat consumption.
They aren't more problematic. Aside from the relationship to cholesterol levels, they are the same problem.
The problems are:
1. High caloric density.
2. *Vanishing* caloric density-- foods that prevent satiation.
3. Addictive flavors and sensations that cause cravings.
Calorie surplus makes you gain weight, and unless you're building muscle it's going to be fat. All Ludwig's experiments suggest (as reported by Taubes, with lazy citation[1]) is that obese people who have just lost 10-15% of their weight tend to have a higher daily metabolism without conscious addition of physical exercise on a low-carb diet, compared to a low-fat diet or a low-GI diet. This in turn suggests it might be easier to maintain calorie balance on a low-carb diet than a low-fat diet (for formerly obese people who have just dieted to lose 10-15% of their body weight).
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I would also add that lifestyle changes are a factor as well as diet. Addictive foods are more dangerous to someone who has a snacking/forager mentality than someone who plans and eats fixed meals every day.
I'm not too impressed by Stephan Guyenet's article. He is wrong about one of his main points that fat is completely regulated by the brain and that insulin does not cause fat gain. You can Google for photographs of people who have done insulin injections in a single place over many years (rather than moving the injection point around) and see huge fat deposits at the injection site. That has got to be tissue regulation. Further, lipodystrophy is hard to explain by only invoking brain regulation.
We know that artificial insulin is a great way to gain weight. But is that only for diabetics? Hardly. It works just as well on athletes. Stop by your local gym and ask any of the chemically-assisted bodybuilders there for details. Insulin injections are a very common way to put on weight while bulking.
The idea that the body is "confused" by food density, which seems to underlie many of your ideas, is simply unsupported. The brain is very good at measuring calorie intake irrespective of density. I could point you to rat studies to confirm this, but I'd rather propose the following experiment that you can try in your own kitchen: Try making cream of cauliflower soup tonight, one with skim milk and the other with heavy cream. Measure how many spoonfuls of each that you can eat before getting full. Your brain does not get fooled by food density.
Try making cream of cauliflower soup tonight, one with skim milk and the other with heavy cream. Measure how many spoonfuls of each that you can eat before getting full.
The important question is not how many spoonfulls it's, how many calories?
1 cup of skim milk is 86 calories. 1 cup of heavy cream is 821 calories.
Let's imagine something a little more simple than cauliflower soup: strawberries and cream. 50 calories of strawberries + 1/2 cup of heavy cream would be 460 calories. An easy, common dessert. You could also eat those 50 calories of strawberries along with 5 cups of skim milk. Or maybe eat a whole pound of strawberries (150 calories) and only need 3.6 cups of skim milk. Or maybe 50 cals of strawberries, 100 calories of shortcake, and 3.6 cups of skim milk.
Which eater is more likely to overshoot their ideal caloric intake by a bit? Which eater is more likely to stop eating the moment they get full?
The brain isn't fooled, but it doesn't have to be. The person who gorged on the shortcake knows they overate, but they still took on more calories than they're going to burn. And of course-- if the brain can be fooled, being fooled by high-calorie foods is going to be worse than being fooled by low-calorie foods, on average. Which is more likely to result in a calorie surplus: Salt on your mashed potatoes or salt on your buttered, cheese-smothered mashed potatoes?
That is why I listed calorie-dense foods as #1. Without understanding caloric density, it's very hard for anyone to know (without outside guidance) when or how they are being fooled.
Are you really putting a full cup of cream into a serving of cauliflower soup?
For your strawberries and cream example, I'm known to have blueberries with cream from time to time. Which ends up typically being a half cup or so of blueberries, and a tablespoon or two of cream. Much more than that is far too much (and that's from someone who's got an appetite).
Your appetite sounds much smaller than mine. But the examples are mostly a waste of time. Either you accept my premise or not, which is:
You're more likely to get fat eating calorie-dense foods.
There are many mechanisms to regulate calorie intake. The fullness feeling is just one of them. If you are only relying the fullness mechanism to regulate calories and every meal is loaded with high-calorie foods like butter, olive oil, gravy, fatty meat, eggs and the like, odds are higher that you're going to be running a surplus more often than not. And thus: gaining weight.
Yes, not all weight gain is bad and there is more to body composition than weight. But weight was the topic under discussion for this thread.
I largely don't accept the premise in favor of: you're more likely to get fat eating foods that promote overeating,, and partitioning those calories into fat, while failing to burn off the excess calories.
That's a large part of the salt, sugar, fat trifecta. It stimulates overeating, it spikes insulin at the same time that you're dumping large quantities of fats directly (dietary fat) and indirectly (triglycerides from fructose) into the body, while depressing inclinations toward activity.a
As to my diet, intake typically ranges ~3500-4500 cal/day. I eat consciously and exercise portion control according to my goals.
I largely don't accept the premise in favor of: you're more likely to get fat eating foods that promote overeating
My argument is that the factors are not mutually exclusive.
Huh and yeah, 4000 calories per day would constitute an absolutely enormous intake, consistent with a professional athlete (marathon runner, NFL linebacker, etc).
I don't see how your example is related. Firstly, Stephan's description of the brain's role is that it regulates both appetite and metabolism. These mechanisms indirectly regulate fat storage.
Insulin of course would cause fat storage, but your example neither eliminates the other mechanisms, nor is a fault in the brain signalling system as it's an local injection. It's unrealistic to expect the system to have such a fine degree of control.
The role of insulin is to remove excess energy and funnel it into fat cells. That is of course why you see the weight gain. But that is only one part of the system.
As for your experiment, I can say it won't work on me - I typically eat until there is no food left, regardless of "fullness". In fact if I were at a buffet I would eat to actual physical fullness. Yet I do not have discomfort and I am still lean enough for me stomach muscles to show. I have stayed the same weight for the last 15 years. Thus, there has to be a regulation system, perhaps as proposed by Stephan.
He addresses it (barely), but not in regards to brain versus tissue regulation, which is the context where I brought it up.
What he says (the injection site issue is "argument #4" in his article):
"cases where insulin levels and/or insulin sensitivity are changing independently of one another, [...] through drugs. This is why they're irrelevant..."
The truth is, you guys are both right. The only people I know who think obesity is complex are the people who still believe in calories in = calories out. Calories DO matter, but only at a certain point. Fat only makes you fat if you are also consuming a huge amount of calories. But in that case, anything can make you fat, including carbs and protein.
If you stick to a paleo/primal diet, it's very hard to get fat because we feel satiated since leptin is being properly regulated. You can also lose weight with caloric restriction, but if your diet consists of pizza and other gluten-containing foods, you will constantly struggle with it due to the addictive nature of these foods. You'll probably be skinny fat (skinny everywhere yet have visceral around your waist). And you won't be precluded from getting diabetes or another disease of civilization.
Like anything, the devil is in the details and the truth is in the middle. But this stuff is not a mystery. Industrial food producers want health to be a mystery for us, so they can sell us their junk. It's actually very simple. Stick to foods that can be obtained by hunting or foraging, and don't eat anything that comes out of a package. My dad followed this advice for a year after getting heart surgery. He went from being pre-diabetic to having normal biomarkers. His doctors are amazed. I'm glad I didn't let him follow their advice of loading up on statins and drinking Ensure shakes.
Let me clear that up. The biochemistry of obesity is not trivial, but knowing what to eat to control your weight is not hard. It just takes some research and self experimentation. It's empowering when you figure out how certain foods affect you. I'm at a point where if I want a six pack again, I know exactly what to eat and for how long. I understand the makeup of most of the foods I eat and understand the consequences of eating them, how they will affect my blood sugar, which ones trigger my asthma and eczema, etc. When you throw out all the bullshit spewed out by mainstream health media, and take human anthropology into account, it is amazing how quickly you realize how much we've been duped into thinking it's all about calories.
If you're on a Standard American Diet and don't get fat (or skinny fat), you'll most likely get some other disease caused by inflammation, like cancer, Parkinson's, or Alzheimer's. There are always exceptions though, like genetic outliers, people who produce high amounts of salivary amylase, and high level athletes who burn through all that sugar.
Paleo isn't the only other option to the "Standard American Diet."
Sure it's one answer, but the Paleo fear of agriculture can get a bit extreme. People in the US have been living to healthy ages for a long time despite eating lots of wheat, corn, rice, potatoes, and dairy products.
If you discovered a new species of ape, and wanted to put it in a zoo, what would you feed it? Would you try random things, or would you try to emulate what it ate in the wild? This is what paleo is attempting to do for humans. Agriculture is just a drop in the bucket compared to how long we've been eating an ancestral diet. Modern paleo folk don't fear agriculture. They just want to get back to a system of small, local, organic, sustainable farms, and away from GMO crops and factory farming. More Joe Salatin's Polyface farms, less Monsanto/ADM.
Sure you can sustain yourself on grains, but why would you do that when you can thrive on paleo? Hunter-gatheres were stronger and 4 inches taller than the farmers that followed. Keep in mind that modern wheat is nothing like our grandparents' wheat. Modern wheat is a dwarf variety 42-chromosome plant that cannot grow without human intervention. Ancient emmer wheat had 28 chromosomes and much less gluten than modern wheat. Cultures that traditionally ate lots of carbs also lived near the equator in warm climates and were way more active than us in the Western world. Potatoes are fine. Just eat them with plenty of fat/butter to blunt the resulting blood sugar spike, but it's traditionally eaten that way anyway. Dairy is a gray area. If you're of Eastern European descent and still produce the lactase enzyme to handle dairy, then you're fine. There's no cut and dry rules saying what is paleo and what isn't since it's impossible to perfectly emulate our ancestral diet. Modern fruits have been bread to contain much more fructose for example. This is why I believe Steve Jobs' pancreas problems were due to his fruitarian diet, but I'm getting way off topic now.
Modern wheat is a dwarf variety
42-chromosome plant that cannot
grow without human intervention.
Relevance? Why does the chromosome count matter?
And why does size matter? Do you think it's good that modern corn is much larger than ancient corn? Then why would it matter that modern wheat is half the height of the wheat people were growing a century ago? (Though probably still larger than the first domesticated wheat.)
Hunter-gatheres were stronger and 4 inches
taller than the farmers that followed.
This is misleading. You mean the farmers that immediately followed, not modern day people. While early farmers were malnourished in many ways your typical American is not.
Ancient emmer wheat had 28 chromosomes and
much less gluten than modern wheat.
Rephrased as "modern wheat has much more protein" it has a more positive sound. The pair of words gluten/protein is like calories/energy where you can choose whichever has the connotations you like.
still produce the lactase enzyme to handle
dairy, then you're fine.
Isn't that just a fancy way of saying that lactose intolerant people should avoid dairy?
I believe Steve Jobs' pancreas problems
were due to his fruitarian diet
You have nowhere near enough information on his health to conclude this.
Fresh raw milk (plain milk or cultured products) will have the enzymes intact, so everyone sould be able to tolerate it. Pasteurizing milk destroys the enzymes, making it difficult to digest.
I'll read it, but I'm unfortunately suspicious now. When a response to a piece as thorough and logical as Guyenet's gets called a "smack down," it's almost always full of rhetorical blustering which is highly satisfying to people predisposed to side with the smacker. But anyone with genuine interest in seeing the discussion advance and see where Guyenet's argument breaks down is likely to be disappointed.
Beginning the article with a lengthy, seemingly unrelated narrative (shaggy dog story) is precisely the sort of rhetorical distraction that I am disappointed to see.
There are two things that come to mind when we ask if dietary fat causes obesity. First: fat and carbohydrates sum to literally all of food. The caloric value of protein is (essentially) negligible. What is certainly the case is that we can point to people who are fat (preferred term) on a low-fat diet. We can point to people who are fat on a fat-intermediate diet (rough balance of fat/carbs). Can we find many people who are fat on a low-carb diet?
I suggest that if we do, most such people will not be found eating fat in its natural form, but as rendered fat and pressed oil. It is almost certainly the case that the way in which fat is consumed affects satiety: the body cannot see a caloric benefit from fat until it is beta-oxidized in the liver, many hours after it is consumed. So in order to estimate how much you have eaten, the body assumes you have consumed fats in their natural form.
This is key to most low-carb diets: fat is usually consumed in its natural form, since nobody drinks oil (eww) and fatty snacks such as potato chips are banned. It is also an intrinsic feature of the "paleo" diets, which ban processed foods.
So, it might not be too much of a stretch to say that fat as a naturally occuring part of foods like almonds does not make us fat.
The second thing that comes to mind is the balance of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids in a healthy diet. When this is tilted excessively in favor of omega-6, the body produces an excess of certain endocannabinoids (arachidonic acid) which contribute to overeating:
I've been harping on "natural", and meat is natural, so what gives? Weirder yet, the correlation is with meat protein, not with fats. And we do know, though, that people on e.g. ketogenic diets lose weight while eating lots of meat: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/82/1/1.short
The simplest way to assign blame is to cry confounding: while meat itself is natural, it is rarely consumed in a natural-food context. Instead, since meat is culturally considered unhealthy, it is often eaten on white bread or in a pack of Lunchables. Support for the confounding hypothesis would be a low r-value in studies that link meat consumption to body fat (i.e. total variation in body fat is only weakly related to variation in meat consumption); falsification might be a very high r-value, or a very well-controlled study.
The big issue, addressed in part in the linked article, is that processed foods have been engineered to fool the body's natural hunger and satiety signaling. They've been relentlessly tested and optimized to maximize enjoyment and minimize fullness or desire to stop (this point on the curve being the so-called "bliss point" alluded to in the article).
It's possible, and perhaps likely, that the body treats processed fats very differently from natural fats. But the real crux of the issue is everything the fats come packaged in. In an almond, the fat comes packaged with a lot of fiber, a decent amount of protein, and a host of other nutrients. In a handful of Cheetos, the fat comes packaged with an array of chemicals designed to circumvent satiety signals, plus a lot of salt, sugar, and other goodies thrown in for good measure.
Dietitians like to draw comparisons between, say, the nutritional profile of a single serving of almonds vs. the nutritional profile of a single serving of Cheetos. But who eats just one serving of Cheetos? That's the real issue. It's pretty hard to eat natural foods to excess; it's exceedingly easy to eat artificial foods to excess.
In other words: it's not simply that artificial ingredients, in and of themselves, are bad. It's that artificial ingredients are intentionally combined in ways to increase caloric density and decrease the brain's recognition of said density.
the fat comes packaged with an array of chemicals designed to circumvent satiety signals, plus a lot of salt, sugar, and other goodies thrown in for good measure.
I think that, in many cases, no extra chemicals are even necessary. Salt, sugar, fat in the right ratios and right texture is all it takes. Moisture and fiber content may also make a difference.
The caloric value of protein is (essentially) negligible.
In what sense? Protein gets you about 4 cal/g like carbohydrates. I agree that the amount of protein we ingest is much smaller than the amount of carbs, but certainly not negligible.
Not the person making the claim, but it's more like 3g with TEF taken into effect, and combine that with the satiating effects of protein, it isn't very likely that people are going to eat 2000+ calories of protein. Even if you consume it in vast quantities like many bodybuilders, 300g of protein is only 1200 calories, ignoring TEF. Eat 1200 calories of protein and see how hungry you are for even more.
Not quite "negligible" but food for thought. (pun intended)
The main issue I have with the paleo example and banning of processed foods is that it neglects to explain people who can eat processed foods in moderate quantities without getting fat.
> Insulin does not regulate fat storage, leptin does. Obesity is a complex state and there are no simple answers. A diet that may be best for weight loss in one individual may not be the same diet that is best for another. This seems particularly likely if one of the two individuals is not obese.
You have this backwards. Insulin DOES help regulate fat storage (among other things). Leptin controls appetite and can act as an indication of overall adipose levels. It is conjectured that treating things like diabetes with both insulin and leptin together is better than insulin alone.
And I'll jump in on this calories vs everything else. If, as I've said many times before in other posts, all you care about is weight, only track calories (you'll most likely end up skinny-fat...but at a certain weight. Horray! You are now unhealthy at a lower weight. Congratulations!) If you care about losing fat, track macros and reduce carb intake to lose fat (along with weight lifting, HIIT and some carb-refeeds to manage hormone levels).
This is a rather complex topic, though I'm going to try and frame it a different way. What is the most effective way to put on lean, pure muscle mass? Weight lifting? A caloric surplus? High protein? Yeah, sure, all of that. Do you know what is even more effective? Steroids, specifically some combination of test, deca (or dbol), maybe some sustanon. What is the most effective way to lose body fat, particularly get to a ridiciously low level of body fat (think, getting on stage in a thong)? Caloric deficit? Low-carb? HIIT? hours of cardio? How about steroids again. Clen+Tren+Test. Sure, in both cases, caloric excess or deficit will help, but the stacks ALONE will work.
Why does that matter? Everyone always overlooks the hormones.
Why would it be any different if we don't talk about steroids? Hormones play a very important role in putting on muscle (think, stimulate the muscles by weight lifting, give them aminos (protein) to rebuild and spike insulin to make sure the muscles get the protein). And losing fat is no different (keeping fat high is vital to keeping testosterone high, protein to spare the muscles and lowerish carb to make the body look for an energy source (ie. fat) that you aren't providing. Throw in some weight training and HIIT to further deplete your glycogen stores. Viola, fat loss, muscle spared. Carb refeed once a week to reset your hormones (don't go into starvation mode) and you have a wash-rince-repeat cycle).
So, yes, calories matter, but only once you understand the broader picture. If you only talked calories, frankly, you can't be taken seriously.
Thinking about this stuff is a premature optimization. Portion control and being serious about exercise is easier to comply with than worrying about macros and dubious claims about leptin.
Most elite athletes eat garbage, yet are still fit because they exercise most of the day. Usain Bolt's "power food" is Chicken McNuggets. One can get very far without worrying much about meal composition. It becomes more relevant if you are an advanced bodybuilder or extreme endurance athlete.
1. Most people aren't Usain Bolt or some other high level athlete. 2. Most of them are on some sort of steroid, hormone or peptide and 3. What is "portion control" if nothing other than an unscientific way of saying "hit/eat your macros"?
I do have a saying, if your only go is "not be a fatass", then sure, there are many, many suboptimal ways to approach this problem. However, if you care about more than just not being a fatass, there is more to think about. Not much more, just a little bit. Overall, though, it is REALLY easy to get this right if you just can articulate your actual real goal.
I'm just saying it's not necessary to think about "macros" until you get to an advanced level. Even then, it might still not be necessary, unless you have specific goals like competitive body building or marathon running.
And I'll jump in on this calories vs everything else. If, as I've said many times before in other posts, all you care about is weight, only track calories (you'll most likely end up skinny-fat...but at a certain weight. Horray! You are now unhealthy at a lower weight. Congratulations!) If you care about losing fat, track macros and reduce carb intake to lose fat (along with weight lifting, HIIT and some carb-refeeds to manage hormone levels).
heh "most likely end up skinny-fat"
I have visceral fat, though I have never been outside my target BMI range. The only time in my adult life that I did not have visceral fat was when I was on a low FAT diet (doctor prescribed) and exercising every day. I do not have pre-diabetes. Other than the visceral fat I show no other signs of metabolic syndrome.
But I don't go around telling people they should be eating more carbs. I don't tell people that eating carbs will make you skinny-fat.
Overeating makes us fat. Caloric surplus makes us fat. It's pretty trivial to consume a caloric surplus eating lots of fatty foods. In that sense: fat makes us fat and it's silly to try denying it. It doesn't mean a low-fat diet will make you lose weight, it just means that high-fat diets are going to make you fat.
Excellent refutation of Taubes hypothesis:
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h...
Insulin does not regulate fat storage, leptin does. Obesity is a complex state and there are no simple answers. A diet that may be best for weight loss in one individual may not be the same diet that is best for another. This seems particularly likely if one of the two individuals is not obese.
The problem with "low-fat" processed food in particular is that the fat is often replaced with sugar to add taste, but sugars and other high-carb grains are more problematic than fat consumption.
They aren't more problematic. Aside from the relationship to cholesterol levels, they are the same problem.
The problems are:
Calorie surplus makes you gain weight, and unless you're building muscle it's going to be fat. All Ludwig's experiments suggest (as reported by Taubes, with lazy citation[1]) is that obese people who have just lost 10-15% of their weight tend to have a higher daily metabolism without conscious addition of physical exercise on a low-carb diet, compared to a low-fat diet or a low-GI diet. This in turn suggests it might be easier to maintain calorie balance on a low-carb diet than a low-fat diet (for formerly obese people who have just dieted to lose 10-15% of their body weight).postcript:
I would also add that lifestyle changes are a factor as well as diet. Addictive foods are more dangerous to someone who has a snacking/forager mentality than someone who plans and eats fixed meals every day.
[1] This appears to be the study referenced in the NY Times article: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1199154