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brazil84 comments on Ketogenic Soylent - Less Wrong Discussion
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Thanks for sharing. Anyway, here is my hypothesis which is the result of fairly intense thought and internet research over the past couple years.
Although we talk about peoples' metabolic rate as if it is a specific number, e.g. 1866 Kcal/day, the reality is that there is a range. If you eat towards the top of the range, you might gain a very small amount of weight but for the most part your body will adjust by running hotter. On the other hand, if you eat towards the bottom of the range, you will lose little or no weight but your body will adjust by running cooler. People sometimes refer to the cooler situation as "starvation mode," but I think this is an overstatement. "Starvation mode," i.e. eating at the bottom of your metabolic range is completely normal and probably healthier that eating at the top. Common sense says that revving your system hour after hour, day after day, puts more wear and tear on it.
Looking at your typical American in his late 20s or 30s who is slowly drifting up in terms of weight, one can infer that he must be eating at the top of his metabolic range -- otherwise he would not be gaining weight. The upshot is that he actually has a very fast metabolism at that time. Which goes against the conventional wisdom but when you think about it, it makes sense.
If such a person suddenly starts fasting, his metabolism will eventually adjust but the adjustment probably takes a few hours or days. In the meantime, this person will quickly burn through most of the readily available energy in his system and he will feel terrible pretty fast.
The other thing which is going on for a lot of people is mild addiction to certain foods. i.e. there are certain foods which produce a rush of good feeling (a bit like smoking a cigarette but less intense) followed later by withdrawal symptoms. Probably this is also part of the reason why it feels pretty terrible for some people to miss a meal or two.
Of course I don't know EY's individual situation that well, but I do think that it's completely normal for a lot of people to feel knocked out if they miss a couple meals. If you eat at the top of your metabolic range for years, the feeling of running hot seems normal and "starvation mode" seems pretty scary. But in my opinion, what's normal (in the sense of doing what your body is designed to do) is running cool. Starvation mode = normal mode.
Since your weight has been steady and/or drifting downwards, probably you are eating more towards the bottom of your metabolic range. Thus it's much easier for you to miss a meal than it otherwise would be.
Anyway, that's my hypothesis. I fully admit that I'm not an expert when it comes to diet, weight loss, etc. What I am saying is based purely on my own reasoning, research, and self-experimentation.
Your hypothesis is interesting, and to a certain extent my personal experience mimics it. When I'm eating to gain weight, I tend to be more active and fidgety, and I also tend to be warmer. When I'm eating to lose weight, I tend to be more sedentary and still, and I tend to be cooler. Yet more evidence for bulking in the winter and cutting in the summer. I think it's possible to alter your metabolism to use more calories and still maintain weight, if you do it in a controlled manner (and increase activity as well). It's certainly possible to alter your metabolism to use less-and-less calories via constant caloric restriction and excess low intensity steady state cardio.
"Starvation mode" is what happens when your body is breaking down organ tissue and muscle for energy. This doesn't happen until a long time without any food; how much depends on how much fat a person is carrying. Check this study out, an obese patient went over a year without food (they had supplements for essential nutrients) and was healthy at the end of it.
I think you are probably right, but what would you be trying to achieve in doing so?
Well it depends on how you define the phrase "starvation mode." I regularly hear people assert that their weight loss efforts (and other peoples') have stalled or plateaued because of "starvation mode." From the context, it seems that they are referring to the "running cool" which I have described and not something extreme like breaking down organ and muscle for energy.
The more food you eat, the more micronutrients you take in. If you have a higher metabolism, you'll get more micronutrients and still maintain weight. Plus, you get to eat more ice cream. If you previously damaged your metabolism (and I'd call a 1200cal maintenance 'damaged'), then raising your metabolism will be good for you.
I mean, if you're using it wrong, sure. "Starvation mode" is largely another bullshit meme propagated by the fitness/nutrition crowd, like 'toning' and 'heavy weights make you bulky'. Fact is, you'll downregulate your metabolism by eating less, so eventually, you have to eat even less to break the plateau. This isn't starvation mode.
This doesn't seem like the ideal way of optimizing your micronutrient consumption.
I'm not sure that makes much of a difference. To illustrate, consider a strapping young man who can eat a pint of ice cream a day and stay in energy balance. Compare him with a petite girl who can only eat half a pint a day of ice cream and stay in balance. Does the man derive significantly more pleasure in life from ice cream eating than the girl? I doubt it.
Well how would you define "damaged" and what does it mean?
No need for a semantic debate, what's commonly referred to as "starvation mode," which I have referred to as "running cool," is perfectly normal and healthy in my non-professional opinion.
Perhaps not. Supplementation seems like an easy solution, but it's been shown multiple times that you get more benefit from micronutrients from food vs micronutrients from supplementation.
If you don't care about more ice cream, then FINE. More for me.
Layne Norton has a few good videos on the subject. "Damage" refers to the metabolism being downregulated to the point that a person can eat very low calories, do tons of exercise, and still not lose weight/fat.
I know it's a pointless crusade, but I really dislike terms being misused. Starvation is a very real thing, and when the word is misused, it conflates "Starvation causing muscle/organ loss" with "Metabolism is downregulated," You absolutely need to avoid going into starvation, but downregulating metabolism is an inevitable effect of losing weight.
The more obvious solution is to tweak your consumption of foods which contain lots of micronutrients compared to their calorie content. i.e. eat your vegetables.
What I care about is eating satisfaction. It's not obvious to me that more ice cream necessarily means more eating satisfaction.
I would call that "running cool" and in my non-professional opinion, it's perfectly normal and healthy. And if such a person wants to lose further fat, they need only reduce their calorie intake further. By the way, I started listening to the video, and I simply don't believe that a person can do 2-3 hours a day of cardio, eat 800 to 1000 calories a day, and not lose weight. I think any person who makes such a claim is lying about his food intake.
Fine, but if you have a semantic nitpick I think it's good practice to label it as such. Here's what I said at the beginning:
Layne is a PhD in nutrition science, record holding powerlifter/bodybuilder, and renowned coach. So he has academic credentials, personal success, and has successfully helped others. There are very few people in nutrition that you can generally trust, and he's one of them. So when he says something, it's generally OK to accept it on face value.
Fair point. I'll do that from now on. "Starvation mode" is just one of those phrases that trigger an immediate "No, you're using that word wrong, stop it!!" reactions (and yes, I know about prescriptivism vs descriptivism, but I'm not a linguist, and I have an interest in phrasing having consistent meanings!)
It's a bit of a cliche, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. The claim that someone can do 2-3 hours of cardio a day; eat only 800 to 1000 calories, and not lose weight is extraordinary. To back up a claim like that, you would need to do a study where the subject was carefully monitored with doubly labeled water or confined to a live-in laboratory.
Did he personally monitor these people he is describing?
Most of the people that get to that level are bodybuilding competitors. If the population weren't specified, I'd agree with your suspicion, since it is pretty well demonstrated that most weight loss issues are related to inaccurate food reporting/consumption. However, folks that are serious about bodybuilding are pretty meticulous about following diet plans, and aren't strangers to hard work, denying physical urges, and doing really uncomfortable stuff for their sport. I'd agree that a typical obese person is almost certainly just underreporting their calorie intake.
There is no metabolic ward evidence for this, if that's the standard you're after. Layne hasn't had anyone do this sort of routine because he thinks its incredibly harmful for long term success in bodybuilding, so he hasn't personally seen this. However, he has coached those whose prior coaches did this, and he worked to repair the metabolism.
I don't think micronutrients fall under the "the more the better" category.
For all nutrients, micro and macro, there is an optimal range with a minimum and a maximum.
It depends on the nutrient in question. Vitamin D has significant benefits when you take 5,000IU, which is 8.3 times the US RDA for adults (600IU). Creatine has benefits with 5g of supplementation; to get that from food would require 2lbs of red meat every day.
If I were to wager, I'd say that most people are consuming too few micronutrients, and would benefit from supplementation. or eating higher quality real food. Very few people are maxing out their nutrition.
No, not really. Vitamin D in particular (like all fat-soluble vitamins) is not hard to overdose on.
I'd probably phrase it like this: almost every person will benefit from increased consumption of some set of micronutrients. But the issue is that this set is different for different people.
Take iron as an example. Some people need more iron in their diets. But some people need less. Can you recommend more iron to some person X not knowing anything about him or her? No, you can't.
Vitamin D is actually pretty difficult to overconsume (at least, accidentally -- if you wanted to suicide by Vitamin D, it'd be a long and annoying process). According to mayoclinic, you'd need to consume around 50,000IU daily for several months to start getting into Vitamin D toxicity.
I completely agree with the rest of your post.