The real diet of William Banting that "cured" his obesity

I just bit the big financial bullet and, upon discovering that it is available in Kindle form, purchased William Banting's Letter on Corpulence on Amazon.com (it's only $2.99, or you can read it online at Eades' site which I found later, it's also available in full text here - ht C.Grashow).  I do not think there's a low carb diet book and/or author that hasn't at least referred to Banting's weight loss as the quintessential example of low carb in all it's glorious action.

"I am now nearly 66 years of age, about 5 feet 5 inches in stature, and, in August last (1862), weighed 202 lbs., which I think it right to name, because the article in the Cornhill Magazine presumes that a certain stature and age should bear ordinarily a certain weight, and I am quite of that opinion. I now weigh 167 lbs., showing a diminution of something like 1 lb. per week since August, and having now very nearly attained the happy medium, I have perfect confidence that a few more weeks will fully accomplish the object.

Few men have led a more active life - bodily or mentally - from a constitutional anxiety for regularity, precision, and order, during fifty years' business career, from which I have now retired, so that my corpulence and subsequent obesity was not through neglect of necessary bodily activity, nor from excessive eating, drinking, or self-indulgence of any kind, except that I partook of the simple aliments of bread, milk, butter, beer, sugar, and potatoes more freely than my aged nature required, and hence, as I believe, the generation of the parasite, detrimental to comfort if not really to health."

And so: 

The items from which I was advised to abstain as much as possible were: Bread, butter, milk, sugar, beer, and potatoes, which had been the main (and, I thought, innocent) elements of my existence, or at all events they had for many years been adopted freely.  {KL#108-110}

Read more »

Heat, Entropy & Thermogenesis

A summary post of ideas here, that I've likely stated elsewhere on the blog but wanted to gather in one place.  

Last week on Facebook, to the detriment of his credentials and credibility, Jason Boehm posted and deleted a post about calories and the Second Law of Thermo.  I queried what it had to do with the original point which was more of a 500 cals spinach vs. 500 cals Coke type nonsense, so he did address that in a second FB post that stands (minus lots of relevant input from people he deleted, labeled hateful and pretty much had a kitten over ... nobody called him a moron BTW, that's a clever tactic of those that can't hold up their end of an intellectual debate on the science ... can't leave the self-incriminating evidence).   But I digress.

Read more »

Calories, Starvation, and Bygone Gurus

As I am spending more time working on my upcoming book, Calorie Clarity: Entropic Thoughts on a Hot Topic,  I have had a bit less time for blogging of late.  I don't know what it is about this calorie debate, but just when you think the latest scheme to convince you that calories don't count has been beaten back, another huckster comes flying down the poop slide regurgitating the crap they swallowed on the way down.  Apologies to those who have eaten recently.  I use the term huckster because my name was used in vain in an exchange with one of the best hucksters in the low carb sphere, Dr. Mike Eades.

Who?  If you're asking that question, congratulations, you've either forgotten everything you've ever read on his blog or never read it at all.  Either of which would be a good thing.   Eades imagines himself a scientist in a doctor's coat and apparently still tweets his pearls of critical thinking wisdom.  Yeah, I'm being snarky because, well, it's a goose gander thing ... or is there a black swan needing some love somewhere?    Now a little while ago now, Tim Noakes gave leave of his own critical thinking skills and jumped on the LC "science" wagon.  A couple of days ago, Noakes tweeted a link to a 2007 post by Dr. Eades hailing it as an example of "supreme logic" in the (for some reason ongoing) debate over calories.

Read more »

Fast or Feltham ...

The title of this post is a play on "feast or famine".   One of the things about blogging, for me anyway, is that over time you accumulate a draft bin full of posts that never get published.  Some of these are on studies I never got the chance to fully flesh out, others are on the "goings on" during a particular time that never seemed appropriate to hit Publish on by the time they were ready.  They are the closest thing I have to a diary and it can often be interesting to read back through the draft bin.  

It is hard to believe that I've been blogging over three years now, and involved in this community for more than another year longer than that.  Barely a blink of an eye compared to some but my how times have changed.  This time four years ago Mark Sisson published Primal Blueprint and Jimmy Moore weighed around 245 lbs after getting down to the mid 230's earlier in the year.  Nobody would have known about or considered eating nothing but eggs for weeks on end ... they would have to wait almost a year and 35 more pounds for that stunt.  This was the hay day of CarbSmart and other companies selling all manner of LC fair from Dreamfields to Julian Bakery to Chocoperfection and more!  

Read more »

The Myth of Starving Cells II and NEFA Levels Again.

UPDATE (and a tiny bump for feed subscribers):  I noticed a bit of traffic to a prior related post, so I'm just linking to that one here as well:  Insulin Doing Its Thang! And Still No Starving Cells.  It discusses another study by Keith Frayn that shows increased NEFA uptake into the muscle cells of men with hyperinsulinemia.  It may be worth a read for newer readers along with The Myth of Starving Cells.

---

Original Content:

A little sidetrack here, but I came across an article the other day. I just had to blog on it before I forgot!  

A little background as well -- A couple of years ago I wrote:  The Myth of Starving Cells.  As the story goes, as related by science journalist Gary Taubes, to Low Carb Diet Doctor Mike Eades, to Fat Head Naughton, insulin traps our fat in our fat cells, causing "internal starvation" as the rest of our cells go without, triggering hunger and overeating.   We overeat because we are getting fat, or some nonsense like that.   In the post, I discussed studies demonstrating the opposite is true.  In obesity, there is failure to properly suppress NEFA release from fat cells, NEFA are elevated in the fasted state, and irrespective of absolute concentration, NEFA delivery to cells is higher.  The last point leading to accumulation of fat within ectopic cells, such as muscle cells (called intramyocellular triglyceride or lipid, IMTG, IMCT or IMCL).  The cells have plenty of fat fuel to burn ... indeed this is a problem!

So I was looking for a  link to that Ebbeling et.al. study the other day -- this one: Effects of Dietary Composition on Energy Expenditure During Weight-Loss Maintenance.  In the study, a group of obese people were put on a relatively high protein (25%), relatively low fat (30%) and moderate carb (45%) diet and lost between 10 and 15% of their initial body weight.  After which they were weight stabilized and then fed one of three maintenance diets for 4 weeks in randomized cross-over fashion.  These diets were P/F/C:  low fat = 20/20/60 , low GI = 20/40/40, and low carb = 30/60/10.  

Read more »

The New Paleo Diet Study: Just the Fats Ma'am

A Palaeolithic-type diet causes strong tissue-specific effects on ectopic fat deposition in obese postmenopausal women

I don't know that this study is worth three posts -- grin -- but I decided to break it up anyway.  I blogged on the diet itself here, and the weight loss here.  This post will address the impact on ectopic fat.  So first, I want to mention the "misleading title" peeves.  Ectopic fat is defined in the abstract:

Ectopic fat accumulation in liver and skeletal muscle may be an essential link between abdominal obesity, insulin resistance and increased risk of cardiovascular disease after menopause.

Here's the relevant synopsis of the results:

Liver triglyceride levels decreased by 49% whereas IMCL [intramyocellular lipid] levels in skeletal muscle were not significantly altered.

Which apparently garnered the conclusion:

A modified Palaeolithic-type diet has strong and tissue-specific effects on ectopic lipid deposition in postmenopausal women.

Read more »

Ass hat LC Doctors

I'm hoping to get to my analysis/comments of the hyperinsulinemia paper in Cell , that's causing all the buzz on the internet lately, published up by tomorrow.  Such posts require more attention to detail and seriousness than posts such as this one.  But it's a nice little break from my real life grind at the moment to bring you a little commentary such as this post.

The LC position on insulin is getting to be downright ridiculous.  But the title of the paper, "Hyperinsulinemia Drives Diet-Induced Obesity Independently of Brain Insulin Production" can be quickly read as "Insulin causes obesity", which led two LC docs to jump right in.  First, Eades tweeted:

 DecMichael Eades, M.D. ‏@DrEades

Hilarious. Researchers @ UBC stumble onto the fact that insulin stores fat. As if they're the 1st to notice this. http://bit.ly/121FvTM 

Read more »

Mashed Sous Veades Low Carb Logic

Well, the pudgy mirdled one, diet book author and former diet doctor Mike Eades has taken a break from changing the world** with his Sous Vide* to compose his ninth blog post of the year!  Last we heard from him here at The Asylum, he and his wife had resolved to -- yet again! -- diet in 2012.  You'll see why all of those links are relevant as we get into discussing his latest:  Are carbohydrates fattening?

His post refers to the 6 year follow-up (4 years after the initial 2 year study) from the famous diet comparison study from Shai et.al.  I discussed this study back in my more gregarious days (grin) in Gary Taube$, Shai-ster?   This study was done in a workplace setting in Israel, where through the cafeteria, they were able to assist participants in complying with the diet by offering choices labeled as appropriate for their assigned diet plan.  

In this 2-year trial, we randomly assigned 322 moderately obese subjects (mean age, 52 years; mean body-mass index..., 31; male sex, 86%) to one of three diets: low-fat, restricted-calorie; Mediterranean, restricted-calorie; or low-carbohydrate, non–restricted-calorie.

Lest there be any confusion as to how the diets were prescribed, here is that section from the original paper:

Read more »

Here's an Experiment I'd Like to See

Ahh, well Jimmy Moore has posted his 90 day update on his nutritional ketosis experiment.  While he's refusing to divulge his menus until the 180 day experiment is complete (wanna bet he writes a book about the experience and stupid people will buy it?) he did finally post a typical meal complete with "recipe" and pictures. Why anyone is even interested in mimicking his foods is beyond me, but that's besides the point.

Here's a "meal", I've added Charles' calorie estimates from nutritiondata.com

direct image link

Read more »

More Random Thoughts: Obesity, Weight loss, Exercise & Moving like a Thin Person

I get the feeling from the comments on my last Random Thoughts post and the NEAT post that folks think I'm pretty down on HIT resistance training or HIIT "cardio".  Not true.  But it would be fair to say I am pretty down on the "culture" surrounding these minimalist-time protocols.  I know, I know, telling people that they'll have to walk for an hour a day every day to stave off weight gain is so old school conventional wisdom and downright unsexy.  OTOH, it's highly appealing to us to get all the benefits of any thing doing it slightly differently in less time!  So it's not the merits of the methods themselves that I have an issue with, it's the whole "be super fit and buff in 10 minutes a week!" ... implied:  and you can sit on your butt the rest of the time.  There's a distinct tone of discouraging good old fashioned "cardio" that frequently skirts close to putting down those who engage in it as stupid drones and needlessly stressing folks concerning overtraining.  So complete with calorie denial for how what you're eating impacts weight, you're also required to deny that a sedentary lifestyle has anything to do with it, complete with promises that you really only need like 6 seconds a day of exercise to accomplish the body of Mark Sisson.  It's the ONLY that is something the obese want to hear but will likely fail them in the end.  As I've said before, it's possible to reduce one's obesity and maintain it with a sedentary lifestyle, but the deck is stacked massively against you.

One can't help but write a post like this without mentioning the physiques of many of those putting forth the theories.  Is there a single post-obese person out there with a blog or website or FB page or whatever who just maintains a lean mean fighting machine physique through diet and less than 15 minutes deliberate exercise per week?  With all the talk of slow lifting to failure, I couldn't help being reminded of Fred Hahn, and with being reminded of Hahn comes flashbacks from the abomination that was The 6 Week Cure for the Middle Aged Middle by the Drs. Eades.  I mean think about this folks.  These two co-authored a book with Fred Hahn in 2003 called The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution.  On page 76 of my Sony e-book version of 6WC the Eades' write:

Read more »

Why We Get Fat ... Lessons from a Cafeteria Rat

{Original publish date:  2/25/11}

Cafeteria Diet Is a Robust Model of Human Metabolic Syndrome With Liver and Adipose Inflammation: Comparison to High-Fat Diet

(Hat tip to Beth for bringing this to my attention)

This study used male Wistar rats

{eek ... I'm having flashbacks to a former career!}

This rat is not a genetic mutant predisposed towards obesity, but is often used in diet induced obesity (DIO) studies, as they will fatten considerably on a high fat diet.

Read more »

Superhuman Efforts for Weight Loss/Maintenance

Well, Gary's publicity stunt has created quite a bit of internet buzz over Tara Parker-Pope's Fat Trap article.  I've read a veritable cornucopia of reactions to the piece, including some of the over 1000 comments on her Well blog.  Some of the responses made me wonder if others had even read the same article I did.  

You may be interested to learn that the Eades are on a diet again!  For some reason they're not going on their own 6WC diet, but they overdid it a bit on the holidays.  I think I might have some things to say about some other parts of the post another day.  But in a cheerleading post on resolving to diet, Eades had this to say:

I want to forewarn you, though, that you’ve got to get your head right if you seriously plan to succeed. Don’t be a Tara Parker-Pope.

Read more »

More on Magic Metabolisms ~ Super What?

As predicted, when I posted my challenge a few days ago, the anecdotal magic metabolism or two came out to play.   There is certainly a cadre out there who believes:

VLC → lower insulin → faster fat burning metabolism

Some version of this is the purported Metabolic Advantage championed most prominently by Dr. Mike Eades.  The nutshell version of this is that when you are low carb, excess fat consumed will be "blown off" through futile cycling and uncoupling.  Despite admitting to eating a "starvation calorie level" diet himself, Eades perpetuates this myth of low carb magic.  

What sparked this post, was a very well referenced post by Ambimorph over on PaleoHacks:  Is lowered T3 resulting from a low carb diet problematic?  She, along with another respondent on the thread, provides a long list of studies that show VLC lowers T3.   Dr. Ron Rosedale (of Science Krispie Leptinade fame here at the Asylum)  weighed in.  He believes that this lowered T3 is a longevity-promoting benefit of VLC diets.  Make no mistake, Rosedale advocates what Atkins referred to as a "biologically zero" carb diet - non-dairy protein and leafy greens.  Lower T3 dials down your metabolic rate.  This is seen as a good thing as stated by Andre Chimene in his answer:  "having a fast metabolism is like idling your car at high RPMs... for your life."  Additional comments bring up a good point:  "You don't want your car idling roughly or stalling either."   So this claim is:

VLC → lower insulin → slower efficient metabolism

Read more »

Intracellular Fatty Acid Metabolism ~ Background Discussion

Before some of the recent commotion around here, a blog post entitled Let's Play Concentration caught the eye of Paul Jaminet over at Perfect Health.  His commentary then inspired me to write Glucose and NEFA: From Dysfunctional Metabolism to Toxicity.  

In the comments section Paul and I got into a discussion about free fatty acid (NEFA) clearance from circulation.  It seems that this is a subject of a lot of uncertainty.  Indeed when I first started looking into this stuff, way back when, I kept coming across statements like that insulin was required for fatty acids to be taken up by fat cells (three guesses where that traced to and the first two don't count ...).  My inner geek was prompted to look back into this.   This topic is of interest to me as my regular readers are well aware of my near-obsession with NEFA.  {grin}

Read more »

Grey & Kipnis ~ Hyperinsulinemia and Diet Paper

It appears that the website that formerly hosted the full text PDF of the Grey & Kipnis study I cite quite frequently here has been taken down.  I'm sad to see this.

I've linked to that hosted copy so many times it would be impossible to go back and change them all at this point.  Instead I'm posting this up if anyone ever needs to find the reference in an older post, and I'll use my new Google docs host link in all future posts.  

Here it is:

Effect of Diet Composition on the Hyperinsulinemia of Obesity

Carbs or Cals for Weight Loss? Another Shai'ster shoots himself in the foot

Presentations from the Ancestral Health Symposium are up.  I'm a bit bugged by the fact that they focus on the speaker and don't show the slides.  It makes it hard to follow.  But beggars can't be choosers.  There are also slides up elsewhere, but not for all the presentations, and as of this posting there are none for the subject of this blog.

So who am I calling a Shai'ster this time?  Dr. Mike Eades, that's who.  Yeah yeah, it's not nice to call names but loosen up a bit if your loin cloth or edible pemmican panties just crawled up your butt ... it's a play on words folks!  

Eades AHS presentation was entitled  "Nouvelle Paleo: Caving in to Carbs?", and at the 20:45 mark, he begins to "discuss a couple of studies" that are going to explain why he's playing hide-the-middle-aged-belly behind the podium.  I'm thinking many of  my readers are as distracted as I am by this.  I know I just can't help myself from wondering if he's got a mirddle on under there, because he sure hasn't been following his artificial sweetener laced dairy protein so-not-Paleo cure of late.  But I digress ...

Read more »

Asylum A'surfin Musings ... What are you hiding Mike?

I was discussing the Eades' Sous Vide Supreme the other day, and I went looking for a link.  I found this commercial on YouTube:

Read more »

Is LC Morphing to HAES? Part VIII: Can you be? Are You?

HAES = Health At Every Size

It is the brainchild of Dr. Linda Bacon.

Let’s face facts. We’ve lost the war on obesity. Fighting fat hasn’t made the fat go away. And being thinner, even if we knew how to successfully accomplish it, will not necessarily make us healthier or happier. The war on obesity has taken its toll. Extensive “collateral damage” has resulted: Food and body preoccupation, self-hatred, eating disorders, discrimination, poor health... Few of us are at peace with our bodies, whether because we’re fat or because we fear becoming fat.

Health at Every Size is the new peace movement.Very simply, it acknowledges that good health can best be realized independent from considerations of size. It supports people—of all sizes—in addressing health directly by adopting healthy behaviors.

Read more »

Dr. Eades on Starvation Diets

When the recent news broke that a Crash Diet (600 cal/day) cured diabetes, discussed HERE,  HERE,  HERE, there was the inevitable invoking of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment in the low carb circles.   A while back, I addressed the MSE in a post entitled Starvation Diets shortly after I had blogged on a study in which one part involved putting three obese women on a 1500 cal/day liquid reducing diet.

The point of that last blog post was that  in the 1970's, the average intake of American women was 1550 cals.   Now folks, keep in mind that averages mean that some women ate less and some ate more.   Dr. Michael Dansinger -- he of the famous diet comparison study and consultant on The Biggest Loser -- told Jimmy during his interview with him that they generally cut the contestants' intake in half on that show.  I don't have time to go back and listen, and the exact numbers aren't really all that important, but the women generally start out eating around 3000 cal/day, so their reducing diet is 1500 cal/day.  Lots of low carbers sneer at TBL as, of course, being the wrong way to lose weight, they could just go low carb and achieve the same results by eating more.  

Read more »

Is LC Healthy? Part I: What's with the Cramps?

At the risk of needing a hankie for my moist and dreamy eyes, I can't help but notice that so many seem so almost brainwashed to equate VLC with healthy, they don't listen to their bodies.  The two most recent blog posts by Dr. Eades, here and here, are illustrative for examining the validity of the "healthy low carb lifestyle" mantra.  

Let me say off the bat here that I do not consider the "induction flu" or a couple of days of feeling like crap whilst getting keto-adapted to be dangerous or unhealthy.  I've never experienced this myself.  But I have experienced one of the other side effects of low carbing -- that being severe cramps, usually in the middle of the night -- and I must say they were excruciating and worse by a mile than my worst menstrual cramps.  In his second post, Eades relates what I would consider rather scary episodes of cramping:

Read more »