Ketosis with low BF%

by | Jan 11, 2013 | How Your Body Works, Low carb diet, Metabolism | 0 comments

Here you will find my comment regarding a post at Jimmy Moore’s about body fat

 

SeriousTyro said:

Excerpt from Lyle McDonald’s “The Ultimate Diet 2.0”:
One problem may be that lean individuals can’t make enough ketones to exert a protein sparing effect; this is a consequence of the difficulties in mobilizing fatty acids in the first place. Even during total starvation, when you’d expect ketosis to have the greatest impact, ketones aren’t protein sparing in lean individuals (<15% bodyfat or so). Perhaps this is the shining moment for MCTs (Medium-Chain Triglycerides), by producing ketones in larger amounts, we can exert a protein sparing effect beyond simply providing quick fat energy. Assuming protein intake is sufficient in the first place, I still tend to doubt ketosis has any huge advantages in this regards. If it does, it simply hasn’t shown up in real world experience.

When you have less fat to begin with, it becomes more difficult to mobilize the body fat because the body needs it as a survival mechanism. In turn, the body resorts to using protein in order to produce the glucose needed. Ketosis is more of a “side-effect” of fat loss for lean individuals due to the high rate of glycosis due to low insulin levels on a low-carb diet.

Quote from Arti
Quote:MCTs are mentioned because they break down faster than Long-Chain Triglycerides (commonly found in meat), and can be mobilized into energy much faster. The former can be found commonly as Coconut/Palm Kernel oil, and butter has a small amount of it as well.

A small amount of glucose provides a small sparring effect (as well as limiting ketosis), as well as increasing protein intake. The former is more efficient. That’s why “no carb” is relatively worse than “low carb”.

My take from this is:
So less body fat -> less oxidation of fat -> less ketones -> less fuel for body -> body gets fuel from protein -> if not enough protein then get from muscles?

To counteract this, consume fast burning fats, i.e, MCTs such as Coconut Oil?

What are your thoughts on this?

 

My response:

What are my thoughts on this? Well, I’m tempted to say, eat more cheese. I’m now running around with a 32-inch waist. A 50-inch waist wouldn’t let me do that. I much prefer to keep the 32-inch waist so I guess in many ways, I’m like nzmegs other half. Although I have to be honest, I haven’t got a clue what my body fat is. All I know is, it looks okay in the mirror. 

And nzmegs , you are exactly right! Your other half’s body will encourage him to eat more fat and protein. That’s exactly what mine does. If I’m working out in the yard, then I’m more likely to have a chunk of cheese with my cup of tea. Yes, they do go together, actually. Compared to when I’m sat in front of the computer, where a break might be accompanied with a slice of meat or two. And don’t forget, the body is clever and as a general rule, it won’t start breaking down muscles that are used on a regular basis, which leads me to the conclusion that we all know. A low carb diet is the only diet that works with the body and when we listen, our bodies will provide exactly what the body needs at exactly the right time.

Hope that helps,

Mark

 

The Metabolism Myth

by | May 28, 2012 | How Your Body Works, Metabolism | 0 comments

You eat less than your skinny friend but still put on weight – can that be true?

It is true that our metabolism – the rate at which we process the food we eat – varies from person to person.
What is not clear is why two people can appear to eat virtually the same amount of food, which causes one to be thin and the other to pile on the pounds.

We uncover some home truths…

Many of us have friends who seemingly can eat anything they want and never put on weight. Whereas there are some of us who can just look at a slice of cake and we can feel our waistline getting bigger by the second. Whilst metabolism may have some effect, the answer is not as simple as we may think.

In this test, two friends – Cindy and Michelle – were the volunteers. They both have very different shaped bodies. Cindy was very slim while Michelle was nearly 15kg over her desired weight.

They both thought that the amount that you ate was really down to your metabolic rate.

Over the course of ten days, both Cindy and Michelle were watched closely and also asked to record how much food they ate in their food diaries.

However, it wasn’t left entirely to chance, or the honesty of the two ladies! At the beginning of the test they were each given half a litre of doubly labelled water. This is water in which both the hydrogen and the oxygen have been partly replaced with an uncommon isotope of these elements, in this case a non-radioactive form of deuterium and oxygen 18. (See Side Bar)

By doing this, it was possible to see exactly how many calories each of the girls were consuming, as well as the energy they were using just by moving around, by examining a urine sample each day.

It won’t be too much of a surprise that by the end of the week, the urine samples didn’t match the food diaries! The urine samples showed that although they did much the same amount of activity, Cindy actually ate 50% less each day than Michelle did.

Here is a simple but stark fact, and it may fly in the face of a lot of things that you understand, the fact is that the larger you are, the higher amount of energy your body will use, even at rest.

This means that your metabolic rate is higher as well. If you think about it, this is obvious, because even though you are at complete rest, larger people need more energy to pump the blood around the body and keep moving. You could use the analogy of a big car, having a big engine, so it uses more fuel to move itself around. In the same way, a bigger person uses more energy to move themselves around.
So the next time you’re tempted to blame your metabolism for your weight, remember, here’s the simple stark truth.

Some people eat less.

The other thing that should be pointed out is that whilst our two friends thought they both ate about the same, remember, Cindy ate 50% less than Michelle, and no-one was more surprised about that than her!

Now it is possible to make your metabolism work faster. One of the simplest ways of doing that is by exercising to the point where you start to be out of breath.

Once your body gets the message that it needs to ‘up’ the energy level – it will continue to do so even when the exercise has stopped.

That means you’ll be using up more calories even when you’re sleeping. Please see the articles on exercise in the previous two issues for more about that.

This takes us onto our next subject, watching what you eat.

Small Changes in Your Diet can Make a Huge Difference

by | May 27, 2012 | Cravings, Fat Loss, Food Choices, How Your Body Works, Metabolism, Sensible Eating, Snacks | 0 comments

Each day we make as many as 200 food choices.

These are influenced by many things, even the folk we’re eating with.Even though each of those choices may only represent a small contribution to our final health – they all add up to making an
immense difference.

You’ll probably notice that many of our reader’s questions are about small things. They are about the details in diet. Sometimes people ask me “surely, if I just take care of the big things then I don’t really need to worry about the small things?”

But when you analyse anything, the big things are made up of lots of small things. If you take care of the detail in your diet, then each of those things that you take care of will add up and make the big things far more effective. Here are a couple of those small things that you might like to consider:

Firstly, when you go to the supermarket or your local shop to stock up, look down the ingredients list to make sure you avoid eating foods that have got artificial sweeteners, MSG and a whole range of additives and colorants. These are the things that many manufacturers have to put into their food in order to put back the flavour and vitamin content that their processing has processed out.
Try as much as you can to use organically sourced and grown produce. By sticking to
organic (from a reputable producer), you know that you are not going to be eating and digesting pesticides, phosphates, all kinds of hormones and all the other things that commercial food producers use in order to overcome the problems that their fast-food production line cause.

It’s making those healthy choices, the small ones, that all add up to a much healthier lifestyle.

And it’s not just what you eat!

A small choice you can make every day is just to take the elevator to get up two floors, or take the stairs. Taking two flights of stairs briskly will do far more for your heart than taking the elevator, that’s for sure.

Doing that five or six times a day, is just like jogging to the top of a ten-storey building!

It’s those type of small changes that I’m talking about, those small changes can make a really big difference.

The reason for making those choices is clear.

In Europe, the U.S.. Australia and in fact most of what would be considered the western world, its poor lifestyle choices that (e.g. what we choose to eat, to exercise, etc) account for the leading causes of death. Things like cancer, heart disease, diabetes and the rest.

In fact, the WHO (World Health Organization), in it’s recent World Cancer Report, have said that the rates of cancer would increase by 50 percent over the next 15 years. Statistics like that are cause for concern.

However, all is not doom and gloom as WHO also intimates that at least a third of the cases could be prevented by folk making better lifestyle choices.

Some folk think that in order to make these changes they have to make a lot of sacrifices. But in reality, this is just not so.

If you think about it, it won’t cost you much at all to take the stairs (often times it’s quicker than taking the lift). In fact just 20 or so miniutes of
exercise a day can make the difference .

And to eat organic may cost you a few more
dollars a month, but these are all a small price to pay in exchange for a long, healthy, active and
sickness free life.

How The Body Gets Energy – And Why Knowing can Help You Lose Weight

by | May 25, 2012 | How Your Body Works, Metabolism, Sensible Eating | 0 comments

If your body is getting it’s energy from the food you eat – well thats OK. But if it is burning the excess fat for energy – well that’s even better especially if you want to lose weight.

Here a quick resume about the two most misunderstood hormones that every dieter should know about.
Glucose is a simple sugar that provides energy to all of the cells in your body. Your cells then take in glucose from your blood and break it down for energy.

For instance, brain cells and red blood cells rely solely on glucose for fuel. The glucose in your blood comes from the food you eat.

When you eat, food gets metabolised via your intestines and is distributed through the bloodstream to the cells in your body.  In all conditions your body tries to keep the supply of glucose constant, maintaining as consistent as possible glucose concentration in the blood.  If it did not do this (as in diabetes for example) your cells would have too much glucose right after a meal (particularly a high carb one) and starve in between meals and during sleep.

When you have an excess of glucose, your body stores this in your liver and muscles by making glycogen,  long chains of glucose. Conversely, when glucose is in short supply, your body mobilizes glucose from stored glycogen and/or stimulates you to eat food.

To maintain this constant blood-glucose level, your body uses two hormones, insulin and glucagon, that are produced in your pancreas and have opposite actions.
Your pancreas is formed from clusters (Islets) of alpha and beta endocrine cells. The beta cells secret insulin and the alpha cells secret glucagons. Both these secretions are protein hormones made up of amino acids.

What insulin does

Insulin is used by almost all of your body’s cells, but it’s most active in the liver, fat and muscle cells. Insulin has the following effect:-

  • Inhibits the liver and kidney cells from making glucose from intermediate compounds of metabolic pathways (gluconeogenesis)
  • Causes the liver and muscle cells to store glucose in glycogen
  • Stimulates fat cells to form fats from fatty acids and glycerol
  • Causes the liver and muscle cells to make proteins from amino acids
  • Insulin production is the signal for the body to store energy (as fat).  It does so by reducing the concentrations of glucose, fatty acids and amino acids in the bloodstream.

What Glucagon does

  • Now when you don’t eat or eat low carb, your pancreas releases glucagons instead which causes your body to produce glucose.. Glucagon acts on the same cells as insulin, but has the opposite effects:
  • Stimulates the liver and muscles to break down stored glycogen (glycogenolysis) and release the glucose
  • Stimulates gluconeogenesis in the liver and kidneys

The action of glucagon is opposite to insulin in that glucagon mobilizes glucose stored inside your body and increases the level of glucose in your blood, thus stopping your blood glucose levels from falling dangerously low.

How insulin and glucagons work as a tag team

Under normal circumstances, the levels of insulin and glucagon are effectively counter balanced. When you eat, your body metabolises the food quite rapidly and registers the presence of glucose, fatty acids and amino acids absorbed from the food. This causes the pancreatic beta cells to release insulin into your blood and inhibit the pancreatic alpha cells from secreting glucagon.

As the levels of insulin in your blood begin to rise they act on the liver, fat and muscle cells in particular causing them to absorb the incoming molecules of glucose, fatty acids and amino acids. The insulin acts to prevent the concentration of glucose, fatty and amino acids from increasing too greatly in the bloodstream.

In this way, your body maintains a steady blood-glucose concentration. This action occurs when you eat a properly balanced diet as opposed to the high carb diet of today. Unfortunately, where the diet is high in carbs (or there is just too much food) it has to go somewhere and inevitably, that somewhere is as fat, just where you don’t want it.

Between meals, or when you are sleeping, your body senses that it is effectively starving. However your cells still need a supply of glucose to keep going. So while in this condition, the slight drops in blood-sugar level stimulate glucagon secretion from the alpha cells in the pancreas and in turn inhibit the release of insulin. Glucagon levels in the blood rise and start acting on liver, muscle and kidney cells to mobilize glucose from glycogen or to make glucose that’s released into your blood. Such action prevents the blood-glucose levels from falling too much.

This change occurs many times throughout the day with the secretion of either insulin or glucagons helping to keep your blood-glucose level relatively constant, typically in the range of 90 mg per 100 ml of blood.

However, seeing as the secretion of the pancreas lag behind the blood glucose levels, the action of eating large quantities of high carb food will drastically disturb this. Simply put, when the blood glucose level is overly high more quantities of insulin will be produced than are needed as the glucose will have been dealt with. So more glucose will have been absorbed than was nessesary. This will cause a dip in the blood glucose level causing us to feel a lack of energy and trigger a production of glucagon.

Sunday Lunch Syndrome

This is something I call the “after Sunday lunch syndrome” as it is most often seen after a big meal. You will most likely have noticed that 30 – 60 minutes after eating far too much (as in a typical Sunday lunch) and then not moving a great deal either, you tend to feel really sleepy and quite soon many will also start to get the munchies and go looking for that last roast potato or piece of pie. In fact the body is wanting anything that will get the blood sugar up again – and so the cycle continues…