I think reducing excess sugar consumption is necessary but not sufficient to get lean for some obese individuals like myself.
When I started keto 7 years ago I lost 100lbs. Then I gained it all back - staying pretty strict keto the entire time. I haven't had what you'd call "processed food" or "sugary food" in nearly a decade if you exclude a small % of keto-style things like dark chocolate (85%).
Now back down 45-50lbs (depends on how you count) and hopefully going to continue. But this time I cut out protein, too. It could be that both carbs and protein raise insulin enough to cause obesity in some people. Or maybe seed oils in even the tiniest doses. Those are my two main hypotheses: https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/hypotheses
I'd argue "less activity than what's consumed" is not causal but an accounting of what's already happened. Just like "more money in your bank account" is a mere measurement, whereas "getting paid for your job" is what was causal.
I gave up on fasting for weight loss as well. It's just another form of caloric restriction and that just doesn't work for me. My body is just too efficient: it immediately turns down the metabolic rate to adjust.
I've done 5 days fast, 2 days feeding for a month straight and didn't lose any weight that I didn't immediately regain upon the 2 feeding days.
Very cool! I'm currently wearing a CGM. I already love these and find them super non-invasive (Freestyle Libre 3). It's a penny that sits on your arm and every 14 days you change it for 1 minute.
But this would probably be even cooler.
Do you think there would be other locations that lend themselves to this, besides ear canal? People already use their ears for headphones a lot, so it might be difficult to use for some.
Yea for sure. I think another major benefit would be that it wouldn't just be available for T1Ds or curious/severe T2Ds or nerds like me. Getting an Rx and paying $200/mo is a huge opt-in hurdle.
If this was on by default in every Apple watch we'd have 20 million fewer T2Ds the next week.
The problem is that the FDA is basically forbidding anything that could even remotely be "accidentally abused" by T1Ds. To even a consumer-focused fitness CGM/watch function would have to comply by the most stringent FDA regulations like medical devices marketed specifically to T1Ds, unless you somehow modify it in a way that would prevent T1Ds from "accidentally using it." I've heard you'd need to e.g. delay the feedback by 24h, which makes it pointless.
But yea, it seems our digestive systems can adapt to it pretty well, given that we've been doing this since long before doctors were around. I suppose the acid kills all the bacteria in the rotten meat unless you're super weak immune wise.
Current CGMs (Continuous Glucose Monitors) are amazingly non-invasive and easy to use. I'm wearing one right now and I can't feel it.
I'm using the Freestyle Libre 3. It's the size of a penny on my upper arm. I don't have to replace it for 14 days, so I'm only really aware of it 2x per month.
It transmits the signal to my phone via bluetooth. So essentially it's like your phone reads your blood glucose live but every 14 days you need to wipe your upper arm with an alcohol wipe and stick a new one in. The process is completely painless and takes 1 minute or so once you've done it a few times.
Any doctor can prescribe you a CGM and they're like $70-100 per 14 day period, depending on brand/location/insurance. If you're diabetic your insurance will likely pay for it.
Should you be on the fence I absolutely recommend you just get one. Pay it out of pocket just to learn how you respond to the things you eat and drink.
The book The Fat of the Land by Vilhjalmur Stefansson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilhjalmur_Stefansson) describes how the Eskimos he lived with ate rotten fish all the time. It was a delicacy for them.
Kind of like we eat "rotten/spoiled" blue cheese and dry-aged beef.
Those studies have been debunked. Current state of science is that there is no indication that reduction of red meat consumption would bring any health benefits.
I think quite the opposite - a beef-only diet, very high in fat, is probably the evolutionary diet we're most adapted too. After all we only started cultivating grains about 10,000 years ago. It was large, fatty megafauna for hundreds of thousands of years before that.
I think animal foods are very healthy and the CO2 emissions/environmental effects of cattle are usually overblown.
One "study" I saw claimed cattle used 1000000x more water than grains. But they counted the rainfall on the entire grazing area as consumed by the cattle, which is obviously nonsense. It goes back into the cycle. (As does the water the cattle consume, of course.)
I think reducing excess sugar consumption is necessary but not sufficient to get lean for some obese individuals like myself.
When I started keto 7 years ago I lost 100lbs. Then I gained it all back - staying pretty strict keto the entire time. I haven't had what you'd call "processed food" or "sugary food" in nearly a decade if you exclude a small % of keto-style things like dark chocolate (85%).
Now back down 45-50lbs (depends on how you count) and hopefully going to continue. But this time I cut out protein, too. It could be that both carbs and protein raise insulin enough to cause obesity in some people. Or maybe seed oils in even the tiniest doses. Those are my two main hypotheses: https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/hypotheses