DrJ
Member
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2015
- Messages
- 730
About 5 months ago, I moved from the Bay area to a town in Arizona of relatively higher altitude to escape the nanny state, enjoy a lower cost of living with correspondingly more disposable income, have more space to pursue my passions (building stuff), and get more sunshine - which I've found to be a major factor on my mood. The relocation did not go smoothly and I ended up living out of a hotel room for about a month with no kitchen, and despite eating lots of cheese and milk when I could, I mostly had to eat convenience food, and I gained a lot of weight. I'm not sure I "had to" really, but the stress of the move and new job wrecked my mental state for a while and I lost my discipline for a bit. I went from a pretty lean 167lb that could wear 31" waist pants with plenty of room to spare, to 192lb that could barely squeeze into 32" waist pants. I'm 5'10", so not crazy overweight, but not where I wanted to be. I somehow gained 25lb very quickly 
I got moved into a place, and got back to my regular diet. I felt much better, but my weight would not reduce. An interesting thing that I've noticed and that tells me I'm on a good track diet-wise is that, even at heavier weights, when on a Peat-ish diet I get nice "side dimples" on my stomach that have an attractive look even at a few extra pounds, where as when I'm not - even when I'm (much) lower weight - the stomach doesn't have these dimples and looks bloated. It was one of the first things I noticed on a peat-y diet that made me think all the anti-inflammation talk had some truth to it. I regained this state, but was still heavier than I wanted to be.
So after many months of being on the heavier side, I decided I wanted to get back down to my old weight. The only problem is how does one lose fat safely? If you preferentially burn saturated fats and thus accumulate PUFA, and calorie deficit leads to a high level of circulating free-fatty acids (FFAs) which suppress thyroid, is generally stressful to the body, and Ray says is estrogenic, how do you do it? I don't know, but am happy to hear from those more informed than myself. Having previously done 2 years of intermittent fasting which absolutely wrecked my metabolism and led to some serious health problems despite making me very lean, I did not want to repeat that strategy.
A clear answer is to lose the fat slowly. I'm fine with that as I'm not in a rush. However, I would really like to understand more deeply how the fat-loss process works. That lipolysis is stressful I understand, but is all fat loss through lipolysis? For example, as far as my reading informs, fat is only stored in the presence of cortisol and/or insulin. If one can avoid high cortisol and high insulin, then what does the body do with fat? Must it not have some way to get rid of it? Do you just increase the amount of FFAs if you don't have high cortisol and insulin? I don't know and can't find answers. I doubt you do because low cortisol and low insulin should be a healthy state, so I would not expect high FFAs, but perhaps I'm wrong.
What I could find is that at least some fat is actually excreted through the lungs. Also, fat must also be excreted through the intestine since it stimulates bile flow. Why does it go one way or another? Again I don't know, but I take it that dietary fat goes through the intestine, while endogenously-produced or stored fat is a wild card to me. Is it lungs, intestine, both?
In any case, Ray's writing on coconut oil made me think it could be a possibility for weight loss, so I decided to try it seriously. I found a coconut milk with no gums (like guar gum). It is 2g carbohydrate, and 14g fat of which 12g is saturated per serving. One can is 5 servings, so 60g saturated fat of which I assume to be the same profile as coconut oil - high in medium-chain-length triglycerides. I began replacing my evening meal with 1 can coconut milk (so 60g saturated fat from coconut milk), 8oz orange juice, 30g casein protein (to provide protein I would otherwise miss from this meal), 2.5g glycine, and 0.1g taurine in a shake. By my reckoning, this is an iso-caloric replacement to my normal daily calorie intake. The glycine and taurine I was previously taking in the evening but combined for convenience. I otherwise take 16oz whole milk and 12oz orange juice for breakfast. I snack on gelatin-based fruit snacks throughout the day as I'm hungry, but end up consuming about the same amount of boxes per week. For lunch, I take a soup I make from broth, cream, well boiled potatoes, and some sausage or sometimes leaner meats, as well as some cheese. Those things have not changed. On the weekends, I eat 2 eggs per day, lots of milk and orange juice, one can of smoked oysters and 2oz liver over the weekend, and then a BCAA (15g) shake per day, and one cheat meal socially.
In now 3 weeks of doing this, I have lost 7 lbs - down to 185lb. I can easily fluctuate in weight by 1.5 lb in a day, but the reading I have been relying on is taken every morning so should be consistent over the longer time scale. I can almost fit into my 31" waist pants.
My understanding is that 2lb+ weight loss per week (expected 8lb+/month) is fairly dramatic. Especially considering I am not eating less calories. In a previous post in another thread, I think I reasoned wrong about calorie deficit. I may be at a calorie deficit if the saturated fat in coconut milk is significantly raising my metabolism.
Am I losing it safely? How would one know? What I can say is that my mood is much different than when I lost weight through intermittent fasting. After my evening high-saturated fat (coconut milk) meal I feel really amazing. I have been working on building a very sophisticated website most evenings, and the problems feel entertainingly challenging, not defeatingly challenging, and I have been making good progress. I can mentally organize the challenges and then come up with a plan to address them without difficulty, and really without consciously thinking about it. My body temp gets very high and I feel hot for about 3 hours. I become very socially outgoing and engage in and drive social interactions, which has not typically been my demeanor. Overall, I feel relaxed and calm, but ready - if that makes sense. I assume that if I was being dominated by the symptoms of FFAs in the blood, I would not feel this way. I expect I would feel stressed. Hopefully I am not wrong there.
So, I think it's working. Sorry for the long post, but hopefully it catches up to where I am now. Thanks to @managing for the suggestion. I will continue to update on my (presumptive) weight loss progress up to my target weight. I just found another brand of no-gum coconut milk that is $0.30 cheaper per can, so will be trying it this week. Hopefully there will be no difference.
I got moved into a place, and got back to my regular diet. I felt much better, but my weight would not reduce. An interesting thing that I've noticed and that tells me I'm on a good track diet-wise is that, even at heavier weights, when on a Peat-ish diet I get nice "side dimples" on my stomach that have an attractive look even at a few extra pounds, where as when I'm not - even when I'm (much) lower weight - the stomach doesn't have these dimples and looks bloated. It was one of the first things I noticed on a peat-y diet that made me think all the anti-inflammation talk had some truth to it. I regained this state, but was still heavier than I wanted to be.
So after many months of being on the heavier side, I decided I wanted to get back down to my old weight. The only problem is how does one lose fat safely? If you preferentially burn saturated fats and thus accumulate PUFA, and calorie deficit leads to a high level of circulating free-fatty acids (FFAs) which suppress thyroid, is generally stressful to the body, and Ray says is estrogenic, how do you do it? I don't know, but am happy to hear from those more informed than myself. Having previously done 2 years of intermittent fasting which absolutely wrecked my metabolism and led to some serious health problems despite making me very lean, I did not want to repeat that strategy.
A clear answer is to lose the fat slowly. I'm fine with that as I'm not in a rush. However, I would really like to understand more deeply how the fat-loss process works. That lipolysis is stressful I understand, but is all fat loss through lipolysis? For example, as far as my reading informs, fat is only stored in the presence of cortisol and/or insulin. If one can avoid high cortisol and high insulin, then what does the body do with fat? Must it not have some way to get rid of it? Do you just increase the amount of FFAs if you don't have high cortisol and insulin? I don't know and can't find answers. I doubt you do because low cortisol and low insulin should be a healthy state, so I would not expect high FFAs, but perhaps I'm wrong.
What I could find is that at least some fat is actually excreted through the lungs. Also, fat must also be excreted through the intestine since it stimulates bile flow. Why does it go one way or another? Again I don't know, but I take it that dietary fat goes through the intestine, while endogenously-produced or stored fat is a wild card to me. Is it lungs, intestine, both?
In any case, Ray's writing on coconut oil made me think it could be a possibility for weight loss, so I decided to try it seriously. I found a coconut milk with no gums (like guar gum). It is 2g carbohydrate, and 14g fat of which 12g is saturated per serving. One can is 5 servings, so 60g saturated fat of which I assume to be the same profile as coconut oil - high in medium-chain-length triglycerides. I began replacing my evening meal with 1 can coconut milk (so 60g saturated fat from coconut milk), 8oz orange juice, 30g casein protein (to provide protein I would otherwise miss from this meal), 2.5g glycine, and 0.1g taurine in a shake. By my reckoning, this is an iso-caloric replacement to my normal daily calorie intake. The glycine and taurine I was previously taking in the evening but combined for convenience. I otherwise take 16oz whole milk and 12oz orange juice for breakfast. I snack on gelatin-based fruit snacks throughout the day as I'm hungry, but end up consuming about the same amount of boxes per week. For lunch, I take a soup I make from broth, cream, well boiled potatoes, and some sausage or sometimes leaner meats, as well as some cheese. Those things have not changed. On the weekends, I eat 2 eggs per day, lots of milk and orange juice, one can of smoked oysters and 2oz liver over the weekend, and then a BCAA (15g) shake per day, and one cheat meal socially.
In now 3 weeks of doing this, I have lost 7 lbs - down to 185lb. I can easily fluctuate in weight by 1.5 lb in a day, but the reading I have been relying on is taken every morning so should be consistent over the longer time scale. I can almost fit into my 31" waist pants.
My understanding is that 2lb+ weight loss per week (expected 8lb+/month) is fairly dramatic. Especially considering I am not eating less calories. In a previous post in another thread, I think I reasoned wrong about calorie deficit. I may be at a calorie deficit if the saturated fat in coconut milk is significantly raising my metabolism.
Am I losing it safely? How would one know? What I can say is that my mood is much different than when I lost weight through intermittent fasting. After my evening high-saturated fat (coconut milk) meal I feel really amazing. I have been working on building a very sophisticated website most evenings, and the problems feel entertainingly challenging, not defeatingly challenging, and I have been making good progress. I can mentally organize the challenges and then come up with a plan to address them without difficulty, and really without consciously thinking about it. My body temp gets very high and I feel hot for about 3 hours. I become very socially outgoing and engage in and drive social interactions, which has not typically been my demeanor. Overall, I feel relaxed and calm, but ready - if that makes sense. I assume that if I was being dominated by the symptoms of FFAs in the blood, I would not feel this way. I expect I would feel stressed. Hopefully I am not wrong there.
So, I think it's working. Sorry for the long post, but hopefully it catches up to where I am now. Thanks to @managing for the suggestion. I will continue to update on my (presumptive) weight loss progress up to my target weight. I just found another brand of no-gum coconut milk that is $0.30 cheaper per can, so will be trying it this week. Hopefully there will be no difference.
