Roy

@exfatloss While you remain so stable at this weight, it might be interesting to try a bunch of different things for a few days, like glycine, omega-3 (salmon/sardines), Pu Ehr Tea, Quercetine, as it may quickly show if any of these could help break through the plateau / reduce appetite.

@roythetwit I wonder if it wasn't about the sodium/ACV much, that might've only helped me get to the LA settling point faster. Might just have to wait for the LA to wash out over a few more years.

After linearly going back down to my old all time low (207lbs), my weight has been flat for 2 weeks. Extra protein didn't help, and neither did a social cheat meal of rice, lentils & meat. 2x ACV hasn't helped so far. 207 seems to be my new settling point. @roythetwit

I guess the cream consumption going up to compensate also makes it less likely that it is just some water weight flux these last few days hiding the fat loss. As if your body is reducing lipolysis and increasing appetite at this level of fat mass. I wonder if a 2nd dose of the ACV capsules around dinnertime would do something to lower the plateau?

Unsalted ground beef, just did my regular meal 2x in one day. Lunch and dinner. I had been wondering if I'm just on the border of PLH cause I noticed my cream consumption going up + plateau. But it wasn't like PLH; my appetite just went back up after I started losing weight. Pretty reliably drinking ~2 pints a day now, which makes sense with my TEE. Maybe it's a bit under, but not much. Before that, it was about 1 a day.

Got down to previous all time low rapidly and linearly. Then 5 day plateau. I think I've just hit whatever settling point again; probably have to wait longer to deplete my adipose linoleic acid. Interestingly this limit used to be 217lbs, now 10lbs lower. Progress.

I think the final weight after the experiment is higher if you gain 6 lbs of fat during the refeed, than if you gain 0 lbs of fat during the refeed that preceded the experiment, so unlike the refeed water weight it can significantly affect the final result. If the boredom factor is not too strong, it seems like it would be easy for you to try a short refeed that just tops up protein and (liver) glycogen, like just eating your rice and beans (and beef) stew for 1 day. Aiming for limited weight gain, almost no fat gain. And then 14 days of the diet, without salty cheat meals. It would be stronger evidence that you've actually hit a plateau. You could still decide to do longer duration HCLPLF after that if you are more excited about trying that.

For me, I have a pretty much 100% chance of succeeding if it's the last day of a refeed and the next day is the start of a new diet. But chance of stopping halfway through a bar of chocolate during a refeed day? Close to 0%. So yes, "some chocolate" is "some chocolate bars." But somehow the effect doesn't last through a night's sleep (sometimes not even a full day) and the next day I can just restart ex150 with no issues. You think my 30 day experiment would be any different if I ate a bar of chocolate in the weekend before it started? I don't get that. I do suspect more fat gain and that that is why it took longer. We don't really know which part is water gain vs. fat gain, but if it comes off in 5 days, it's probably mostly water. The bend of the hockey stick has usually been my differentiator. Btw, I suspect salt is a MASSIVE factor. Homemade bread without salt is actively unpalatable. Even with butter and cheese, I sort of have to choke it down. Near zero "dopamine hit." On the other hand, beef jerky is just plain crack. I also crave diet soda more than I crave sparkling water, even though in direct comparison, a good sparkling water "tastes" "just as good" as a diet soda. But there's just not that "hit."

After hitting a new all-time low at ~207lbs, I've just been bouncing around within a 2-3lbs range. Seems that I've hit a new plateau after breaking through my old one (217lbs). Probably just need to deplete linoleic acid and my ATLs will slowly drop over the next few years.

The chance of me eating chocolate and then planning to stop eating chocolate the next day has a 1 in 100 chance of succeeding on the first try. That you've done it a couple dozen times in a row just reads like science fiction, it doesn't make me question my beliefs 😅 When you say you ate "some chocolate", my mind interprets that as "some chocolate bars", as I can eat either 0 chocolate for a year, or eat complete bars in a single sitting. This is just basic Quantum Chocomechanics. When your diet experiment fails I will immediately default to blaming the chocolate. When your diet experiment succeeds, I will claim it would have had even better results if you had skipped the chocolate. I guess mixed sugar and fat meals during the refeed could result in significant fat gain. We don't know how much of the weight gain is water weight. Maybe the reason the refeed weight took longer to come off this time, was because it included more fat weight?

The question is, why? What about these is messing up my metabolism/satiety? If you think that I eat chocolate because I am trying to not lose weight, I don't know what to tell you and why I do the strict experiments for 30 days at a time, 3 years in a row now😅 And yea, the possibility of yo-yo being beneficial certainly doesn't hurt. But it's more of a "nice to have side effect" than a big reason.

When I read your notes on the refeeds, eating chocolate and cheese, cramming in too much food to the point of feeling sick, to me it doesn't come across as someone trying to reach new lows. If you hadn't mentioned that was your goal I would have assumed you were trying a yo-yo strategy to deplete your adipose tissue linoleic acid. That's heavily biased by my own struggles with chocolate and cheese, like a Post Traumatic-Snack Disorder? 🤔

Right @ double portion. But also, last month, I ate salted brisket with 2 big slices of home made bread (salted) with salted butter, cooked by the same friend, and it did not result in any stalling. Not sure @ weight gain. Maybe I'm trying to cram in more stuff with the shorter time window? I do suspect that it's approaching the plateau cause it was quite similar, but I'm still running another month just to verify. This was my best effort.

I remember that a double portion of unsalted ground beef and veggies seemed to work well as a "cheat" meal for protein hunger without stalling weight loss for days, unlike the salted beef steak/brisket/franks/jerky meals. Why did the refeed weight gain go from ~9 lbs in the first runs, to ~16 lbs in the last runs? Are you adding in more salt, like from the bread or cheese, or the lentils in this next run? Could the high dose caffeine mistake have had an effect on sodium concentration or lipolysis, maybe some temporary desensitisation effect so that the normal dose no longer stimulates lipolysis as much? It is never the same, is it similar enough to expect it to have shown similar results? I don't think we know, but it doesn't seem like this was your best effort attempt with all the best practices, more of a "It seemed there was room for tolerance", like how that Virta study showed a reversal of the trajectory once they went from strict to personalisation based on tolerance and preferences. I'm not saying you should avoid those social occasions with non-adherence, just not assume that the strict version wouldn't have worked either.

Probably. But I had a similar cheat day last time, same friend's house, (salty) brisket + 2 slices of home made sourdough bread, and it didn't seem to block my weight loss the same way. This is EXTREME low salt/protein context, to the point that any regular physician would put you into the ER. It's just not 0% either, but very close. And the same thing worked the last few times I did it. I'm going to do another month to confirm, but I think it's way more likely that this is the end (for now).

From your previous experiments it seems that what makes you an "outlier" is your extreme sensitivity to protein and sodium intake. Maybe when you combine increased sodium and protein intake with impaired BCAA catabolism you get a prolonged effect? Prolonged elevated insulin and vasopressin, prolonged salt and water retention and reduced lipolysis? Maybe the carb content of the refeed assists in a way out of that state? I think you're jumping the gun with the plateau-at-this-point reasoning as you haven't yet shown that it occurs in a low salt/protein context. Like a low salt rice and beans 1-day refeed (no cheese or chocolate) followed by another 14 days of the diet without hitting a new low.

It would've just been on those 2 occasions though. One was a regular cooked (i.e. with butter/salt) steak. The other was 2 slices of ham for Easter. I don't know if that would've been enough salt intake to stall for the entire 2 weeks. I think Occam's Razor says that this doesn't get me below a certain point, but that point seems to be dropping slowly over time. About 10lbs down (previous plateau was 217lbs) over the last 2 years, pretty exactly.

@exfatloss Maybe due to increased salt intake again? Too little to notice it from the taste, but enough to stall the weight loss.

@roythetwit There was cheating a week ago, but it wasn't a huge amount. But the 2 spikes/going back down you see are probably from the cheating. Yea my cream intake especially the last week felt higher, I'd often drink an extra cup of cream at night.

@exfatloss His protocol was for leptin resistance instead of low leptin, and includes a keto version of paleo and cold exposure: "acute cold causes rapid leptin sensitivity".

Anyone know how long it should take for leptin to normalize after extended carolie restriction? Days, weeks, months, years? Any tips on how to fix low leptin if "just eat more" doesn't work? IIRC Jack Kruse had a "leptin reset" protocol but it was just paleo or something.

@fire_bottle Have you been testing your AcAc/BHB while on ex150 style keto? Any interesting results you can share?

This seems as good a place as any to plug Usredoxlabs.com

It seems diet was not controlled in some of these physical exercise studies, so how could they even tell? Also have my doubts that the cited papers here actually claim what the authors say they do regarding "linoleic acid is preferentially retained in adipose tissue", compared to which fatty acids?🤔

@roythetwit @sudas1891 @KetoCarnivore @TuckerGoodrich @Leo_Abstract @MeTheAngryCat @603_4me @siobhan_huggins @fire_bottle Huh I remember someone talking about how excess exercise could lead to more oxidation of volatile PUFAs. Not sure if it was @TuckerGoodrich or @trikomes 🤔

@TuckerGoodrich @Leo_Abstract @exfatloss @MeTheAngryCat @siobhan_huggins How about you state your hypothesis before we find out?

Have you tried "exercise"? ..uh, or not: "a 4-month marathon-training programme resulted in significant increases in the linoleic acid (18:2w6) content of subcutaneous adipose tissue in healthy men [26]. In the present study we find that 6 months of exercise on prescription resulted in a greater increase in the total w6-polyunsaturated fatty acid content of adipose tissue compared to the control group, and that linoleic acid largely accounted for this change. Since linoleic acid is preferentially retained in adipose tissue of both rats and rabbits when fatty acid mobilisation from adipose tissue is stimulated [27,28], an increase in physical activity might be expected to have similar effects." pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC34…

@sudas1891 @KetoCarnivore @TuckerGoodrich @Leo_Abstract @MeTheAngryCat @603_4me @siobhan_huggins @fire_bottle Well, you DO want it gone though. Similar to fucking in order to make new virgins, is there a better way?

Maybe liver glycogen reliably drops in the first day on keto but muscle glycogen does not and might depend more on activity? I guess muscle glycogen would hold the majority of that gained water weight, and when more sedentary drop a lot slower, like taking more than a week? The current rate of weight loss over the last 3 days seems higher than during days 9-12 in the previous one, so maybe you are still losing some water weight. Did you eat a lot of fat as well in the refeed, like a lot of cheese or chocolate? I'd be surprised if you gained so much fat on rice and beans in such a short time.

@roythetwit My main confusion: it seems the rapid water weight loss was way shorter and only took off a few pounds, and since then it's been more slow & linear. So did I actually gain 7lbs of fat despite only refeeding for half as long?

@roythetwit I think that was you with the 14 day intervals? I had initially planned to run this experiment for 14 days, 1 day mild refeed, another 14 days. But I'm not even down to the previous low yet on day 12. Last time, I beat it by day 9. So I'll just do 30 instead since a refeed would just muddy up the results. Am pretty close though, within <2lbs of ATL.

@exfatloss Yeah that 2.5 days refeed with ~15 lbs weight gain would be too much for a shorter cycle I think. But this trajectory doesn't look like its gonna plateau at this level, so that is still looking good for a 30 day cycle🤞

@roythetwit I did 2.5 days of refeed. Hit 208.8 (0.1lb from ATL) this morning.

That rapid drop following the double portion of unsalted ground beef and veggies on day 23 looks promising for the shorter cycling. Maybe by "cheating" without the salt, you avoid things grinding to a halt? Though Denise Minger mentioned that Kempner didn't even allow veggies on the rice diet due to the salt content 😅

ex150nosauce+ACV-4 review: Lost 8lbs, New All Time Low - nosauce+ACV keeps working, reached a new all-time low (by 1lb) after losing 8lbs over the month - or is it just my adipose linoleic acid slowly depleting? - this experiment can't inform, but should know in 1 month - as I'm doing nearly this exact same experiment again - only difference: 2 bouts of 14 days each instead of one 30-day one, with 1-day refeed in between Read here: exfatloss.com/p/ex150nosauce…

Do you think that these benefits of BCAA restriction in preventing these age-related diseases are context dependent and only apply in the context of impaired BCAA catabolism in white adipose tissue, especially in visceral adipose tissue? I wonder if impaired BCAA catabolism in VAT is related to the increased ratio of TAGs containing PUFA, such as 16:0/16:0/20:4 (Arachidonic Acid), seen in the WAT of obese as reported by the @FedorovaLab in the AdipoAtlas study. Due to high intake of Linoleic Acid. So maybe young and lean gym bro's might not see these negative effects from high BCAA intake, unlike overweight (or older) individuals?

Please enjoy the latest publication from our lab "Restriction of Individual Branched-Chain Amino Acids has Distinct Effects on the Development and Progression of Alzheimer's Disease in 3xTg Mice"