
Fat: The New Health Paradigm [pdf] - vanderfluge
https://plus.credit-suisse.com/researchplus/ravDocView?docid=4CbnSI
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wdewind
Some caveats:

-Many people do not tolerate high fat diets well. For them such diets are not an option.

-A low carb high fat diet is pretty suboptimal for athletes. Many proponents of low carb diets attempt to mitigate this by having athletes eat carbs only around training sessions. The problem with this is it greatly ignores the science showing carbohydrates' usefulness in the recovery process, specifically in building and maintaining muscle mass. It's important to move out of a mindset of "good vs bad" food and into one of goal oriented eating. If you are an athlete and you are eating very low carbs, you should probably reevaluate. If you are not an athlete and are eating significant amounts of carbs, you should probably reevaluate. Putting jet fuel into a car is not a good idea, but the inverse is true as well.

-There is not science showing high fat diets perform any differently than high carb diets when calories are equalized for the purpose of weight loss. High fat is a compliance hack, allowing some people to more comfortably consume fewer calories than they do on a high carb diet. Many people talk about insulin spikes etc., when talking about high carb. That's kind a red herring: insulin spikes happen with significant amounts of protein as well, and they really aren't a bad thing.

-Cutting out carbs usually leads to an initial 5lbs-ish drop in water weight, which makes people look less bloated pretty quickly, provided they were coming from a poor diet in the first place.

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beachstartup
_> Many people talk about insulin spikes etc., when talking about high carb.
That's kind a red herring: insulin spikes happen with significant amounts of
protein as well, and they really aren't a bad thing._

high fat != high protein

fat is not the same as protein. you can eat fat without eating protein.

it may sound obvious, but i don't know how you read an entire article about
fat, write 3 paragraphs about fat, and then conclude with a fact about
protein. wtf???

~~~
wdewind
You're right but the point about protein wasn't specifically about protein, it
was about insulin and how focusing on insulin levels (with the exception of
diabetics) is not really a useful thing to do when talking about weight loss
and nutritional health. If your pancreas is functioning properly then insulin
spikes are not something you need to be worrying about, and often they are
used as the reason that high fat diets are better.

My main point is that carbs and fat behave very similarly as _energy sources,_
and that to focus on removing carbs because you can blunt your insulin spikes
is idiotic. If removing carbs helps you cut calories consistently by all means
go ahead. But if you think it's some magic bullet you're misreading the
science.

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MCRed
I've been on a high fat, low/no carb diet for 5 months and lost an average of
12.5 pounds a month on it. My exercise regime has not really taken hold as
well as getting on the diet.

Besides the weight loss (and I still have a ways to go) I've experienced:

\-- A lot less desire to eat. Sometimes I just eat one meal a day because I'm
no longer hungry all the time.

\-- More energy. Part of this is having the muscles developed for a heavier
body but carrying around a smaller one... but since I sometimes eat a few
carbs or have an off meal for whatever reason, I can tie those carb meals to
lower energy levels more directly.

\-- Better mood. My outlook and mood is much better... my self esteem hasn't
changed (I've always been happy with how I looked and liked myself, so I'm not
loosing weight because I feel bad.) .... but I'm much more in control of my
mental state, if that makes sense, and I'm more motivated and focused.

I don't know about fat, but I will say this-- for the past week I've been
eating hamburgers (no bun) so just meat cheese, tomatoes and lettuce with the
occasional grilled onions etc. And I feel great.

downsides: Early on I was not getting enough salt! Also I have started using
lite salt to get my potassium up and eating a spinach dish (with cream cheese,
it tastes great) to get magnesium up. And I'm taking supplements... but I
don't seem to need them. When I go a week without them I'm still fine.

However, I am doing 4 diets: \-- Intermittant fasting, 18-23 hours between
meals \-- Portion control (easy when you aren't hungry) \-- Lower calories (a
consequence of portion control and lower appetite.) \-- LCHF -- I believe in
ketosis, it works for me.

These work in combo, and the days where I am better at IF I lose more weight
than the days where I spread my meals out... and I've never limited myself on
how much or how often I can eat (EG: I have a small portion of protein and
fat, but I can do it again if I'm still hungry after finishing it.)

Easiest, most fun, and by far the most successful diet I've experienced.

~~~
a3n
> I've been on a high fat, low/no carb diet for 5 months

"No" carb? I'm sceptical. I'm diabetic, and my doctor suggests a _minimum_
amount of carbs for me, as well as a max. You need carbs for energy.

Remember that fruits and vegetables are carbs.

Perhaps you mean "no bread," or "no processed grains?"

~~~
pakitan
> You need carbs for energy

No, you don't. Of course, no carbs at all is impossible as even meat contains
trace amounts but keeping it under 30gr (which is what's generally accepted
for keeping a nutritional ketosis state) is perfectly sustainable.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-
carbohydrate_diet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-carbohydrate_diet)

~~~
a3n
[http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/](http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/)

"Foods high in carbohydrates are an important part of a healthy diet.
Carbohydrates provide the body with glucose, which is converted to energy used
to support bodily functions and physical activity."

We can quibble about what mix you need of carbs, but if you aren't getting
your carbs from something that's obviously from a plant, you may not be
getting enough and you should probably pay attention to however you do get
them. The less processed your carbs the better; the carbs you get from a cow
are very highly processed.

You need glucose. _No_ carbs is probably not what your body evolved to live
in.

~~~
pakitan
Are you seriously trying to use a blog post with zero referenced studies to
back up your opinion? Was I supposed to be impressed by the harvard.edu
domain? Did you even glance over the wiki page I posted above?

Low/zero carb diets are unlikely to be the holy grail for everyone but if you
want to argue, at least spend some time reading up on the actual science
involved, rather than blog posts by unknown authors.

~~~
a3n
You originally said "low/ _no_ " carbs. I was taking issue with _no_. I won't
bother you again.

~~~
pakitan
No, it was MCRed who originally said low/no carbs. I was pretty clear that you
get some carbs with your food no matter how hard your try to avoid it. What I
said is that it's generally accepted that you need less than 30g carbs/day to
be in nutritional ketosis state and it's perfectly sustainable.

And while I find close-to-zero (if you want to be 100% technically correct)
carbs diets too restrictive for my own taste, people are not exactly dropping
dead from them either:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-
carbohydrate_diet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-carbohydrate_diet)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/zerocarb/](https://www.reddit.com/r/zerocarb/)

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drakonka
I've been on a low carb - keto diet for over a year. I didn't do it to lose
weight, since I'm already underweight if you care about BMI. I did it for
general health reasons. It's been pretty great. I feel that I can eat as much
as I want and not lose or gain weight. I don't think I am actually eating any
more calories - I just feel fuller faster. Within the first month or so I got
a lot more muscle definition despite not going to the gym (I did start
frequenting the gym later, though). A lot of it had to do with not having much
fat in the first place, but it was still a nice benefit.

I think the biggest thing I noticed is my knees stopped hurting. I have bad
knees and it got to the point where I couldn't walk down stairs or bend down
to tie my shoes without knee pain. In winter I'd wake up at night with my
knees throbbing until I "cracked" them. After a couple of weeks in keto I
could bend down and do anything else without pain. After I started going to
the gym I was careful with squats for this reason, but soon realized that I
can squat heavy and not worry (I'm still cautious, though). The times I've
fallen off the wagon the knee pain came back. Now, this is likely just some
placebo effect and I know of no science backing this up, but if it works I'm
happy .

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DarrenMills
For those looking for more, here's a quantified (including bloodwork) look by
a biohacker who's been on a high-fat low-carb diet for 1.5 years:
[http://www.quantifiedbob.com/2014/09/bulletproof-diet-
interm...](http://www.quantifiedbob.com/2014/09/bulletproof-diet-intermittent-
fasting-1-5-year-results/)

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leppr
TL;DR: invest in fatty foods.

~~~
LarryMade2
More like: naturally fatty foods - good, trans-fatty foods bad.

~~~
jwdunne
To be specific, there's a range. Medium chain triglycerides are the best and
can aid with weightless. Coconut oil and, low and behold, butter has good
amounts of this. You can also buy it in pure form from amazon. Transfats: you
might aswell just eat high carb if you're consuming these.

Interesting, MCTs are saturated fats.

Also, beware of cooking with oils that have a low smoke point - smoking oil
means free radicals, which are no good.

