Carnivore Diet – Eat until satiety?, Weight Loss Plateau, Handwriting, HPA and Glycogen, Leptin
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News topic du jour:
Glucose or Insulin, Which Is the Culprit in Patients with COVID-19 and Diabetes?
"Several comorbidities have emerged as risk factors for severe COVID-19 development, including type 2 diabetes, increased body weight, hypertension, and dyslipidemia. These illnesses characterize the metabolic syndrome. Thereby, increased glucose concentrations may be responsible for the reported poor outcome. Indeed, in a large retrospective study from Wuhan, type 2 diabetes was associated with a higher death rate due to COVID-19, though the death rate was lower with better controlled blood glucose (Zhu et al., 2020). This would advocate for aggressive treatment with glucose-lowering drugs such as insulin. Contradicting this deduction, in a new correlative retrospective paper by Yu et al. (2020), the authors identified insulin treatment as a possible trigger of death rate in COVID-19 patients with diabetes (Yu et al., 2020). Thus, which is the culprit for the worth outcome in patients with COVID-19 and diabetes, hyperglycemia or insulin? Maybe both, and there are still other suspects in these multimorbid patients."
1. Carnivore Diet – Eat until satiety? [16:44] James says: After almost a year of strict elimination diets amongst other therapies, I’m trying a beef-only diet to get to the bottom of some chronic health issues. I’m 3 weeks in and all my symptoms are worse than before.
I’m eating to just above my *estimated* energy expenditure (by ~400kcal), but I’ve been advised (https://www.kevinstock.io/health/fat-loss-and-the-carnivore-diet/) to eat until satiety and that my appetite will eventually regulate. Until then – as someone who’s been doing keto for 2 years, suffering with autoimmune stuff, tracking my macros and workout out consistently (as opposed to being overweight & coming from SAD) – I can expect to gain some body fat.
I struggle with ever feeling satiated after a meal. I can eat over 2lbs of meat in a meal – or even until I’m physically sick – and still be hungry. I’d love to be able to eat intuitively and until satisfied, which is why I’d consider taking the advice, yet as someone who struggled with anorexia, know it will be incredibly difficult for me.
Q. Do you think this is the way to go, or would it be better to gradually increase calories, “reverse dieting” style? If the former, how do you imagine it's working? If the later, how do you know when to stop increasing calories and on average how long should it take?
I imagine the major benefits from carnivore diets come from elimination of sensitive foods & subsequent gut relief & healing. I’m sure this helps the satiety, but if eating until satiety is simply revving up the metabolism maybe it’d be better to do so with reverse dieting, to minimise the damage.
I’d just be afraid if I didn’t follow the advice and did it in a more measured way I’d still be continuously hungry after. I’d be willing to gain body fat temporarily if it helped resolve this.
Thanks for your help Robb & Nicki – loving the podcast :D
2. Weight Loss Plateau [26:29] Ashley says: Hi Robb and Nicki!
A huge thank you for all your research, knowledge and opinions (especially when salty :) that you share with the world. I am currently studying natural nutrition and every time I read something in my books that sounds outdated I literally go through all your episodes to hear if you have any insights, and almost always, you do!
My question today is about weight loss plateau on Keto. I am 35 years old, mom to 4 (ages 6,4,2 and 12 months). Since about the age of 7 I was a vegetarian because I didn't like the idea of eating animals and even vegan for a few of my early adult years. Wait, you'll start liking me in a minute :) My entire diet pretty much consisted of simple carbs and low fat dairy at times. (insert Woman hitting herself in the face emoji here)
During my first pregnancy, I began craving chicken which was so weird but I knew that cravings for "healthy" food meant I was probably missing nutrients and so for the baby, I stopped being a vegetarian. I gained 30 kg (66lbs) during that pregnancy and before losing all of it, became pregnancy again, and again gained far too much weight.
During my third pregnancy, I had gestational diabetes and decided to make all dietary changes necessary because I did not want to start with insulin. That's when I started to read about carbs and sugar etc. I made changes to my diet to reduce the simple carbs mostly and stopped eating things like bread, crackers, cookies. The Junk. During this pregnancy I didn't gain as much weight and it was much easier to get most of it off quickly but then, 8 months later I got pregnant again! My fourth pregnancy was amazing because I was following a low-carb healthy diet but I knew that after having the baby I would need to work hard to get back to the body composition that I wanted. That's when I learned about keto.
So 4 weeks after birth I began keto and couldn't believe how fast the weight and inches were coming off. The change in diet affected my life in every way possible that I decided to go back to school for nutrition too!
So exactly one year post-partum, I have lost 16kg (35lbs) this weight came off by 6 months after having the baby but since then hasn't budged. I am 5"4, 138lbs. And would like to lose those last annoying 5-8 lbs and I have completely plateau-ed.
I eat 2 meals a day, about 1200-1300 calories a day with pretty good keto macros of about 20% protein, 75% fat and 5% carbs. (I do eat ALOT of veggies). My protein comes mostly from Salmon (twice a week), beef (steak or hamburger) twice a week, eggs, nuts...
I do like to treat myself once or twice a week to some full fat whipped cream with some berries and usually finish off my meals with some 99% dark chocolate.
I have to admit I add 100% natural peanut butter to smoothies, 10% yogurts or just shamelessly put a tablespoon in my mouth when I feel like something sweet. I'm trying cut down because of the toxicity, omega-6 and carbs in peanut butter but I really really love it.. so that's hard :)
I don't get hungry much (only after fasting for more than 18 hours), feel great and haven't been sick once all year!
I lift weights twice a week, cardio once a week, yoga twice a week. My arms, legs and glutes are toned and I'm quite happy with how far I've come and what I really want to improve (hence the feeling of being stuck) is the belly area which is still bulging out and I feel like I have years of stored fat in there that's just not budging.
I check blood ketones every day and I'm usually between 1.1-1.8 so I know I'm definitely in ketosis.
Should I be reducing my calories to get past this plateau? I don't want to mess with my metabolism. Are the indulging snacks holding me back? (They are pretty much counted in the calories. Those are days where I can reach 1300, 1350. On days where I don’t snack I’ll usually be around 1200.)
Is this a plateau or should I just accept this new body composition as being post 4 pregnancies?
Sorry for the long long long question, but I wanted to give you as much background as possible.
Thank you so much for your time and sending both of you lots of love and appreciation from Israel!
xo Ashley
3. Handwriting [36:30] Tim says: Hey Robb,
Really enjoy the podcasts. I just started listening a few months ago and it's great for when I'm driving to work or really anywhere that'll take me at least 10 minutes to drive to. You have a good combination of "complicated science" explanations and dumbed down explanations so I can follow along with most of what you're talking about without needing to fully understand the more scientific stuff. And I feel like I'm always learning something that'll make me healthier or keep me healthy longer.
I've been doing Crossfit for a couple years now and I've noticed my handwriting "neatness" has gone to shit. It seems to take a lot more effort to write legibly than it used to take. I feel that there's some connection between all of the exercises/lifts that use my forearms (pull-ups, snatches, cleans, etc.) and my handwriting troubles. My girlfriend started going to the gym I go to about a year ago and I asked her about this handwriting issue recently and she said she noticed it with herself also. I was just wondering if this is common for people who do Crossfit-esque workouts and if there's some kind of stretch or exercise I could do to help with it.
Thanks, Tim
4. HPA and Glycogen [46:38] Mark says: My understanding of your work, high intensity exercise is heavily glycogen dependent and some level of carb fueling is required to refill glycogen storage or you risk adrenal fatigue. I periodically experiment with checking blood sugar levels and have noticed after a 10 min intense TM interval workout, my blood glucose can stay relatively stable (80's) or shoot up to a high level for me (110) which is typical of eating a higher carbohydrate meal. This seems to correlate with either low or moderate carb fueling the previous 2-3 days. Would very small changes in glucose levels before and after intense brief exercise indicate inadequate glycogen levels and thus a higher risk of adrenal fatigue? I have not found any studies on this related to non-diabetic subjects with good insulin response. I have been folowing your diet recommendations for several years and tend to be carb sensitive so stay in the 50-100g daily range. Wondering if I can use this change in glucose levels to help me gauge when more carbs are needed. As a side note, I have noticed the first couple of meals when I eat higher carb actually causes a drop in my blood sugar one hour post meal which makes me think it is replacing glycogen.
5. Leptin [54:10] Danielle says: Hi Robb!
I have been following you for many years, read your books and love learning from this Paleo/ Keto/ Carnovire community! I have a question for you regarding this VLC/ZLC lifestyle and leptin resistance. I have been an athlete my whole life, but I have also struggled with the last 10-15 lbs my whole life so when I had my DNA tested and learned that I have homozygous result for the LEPR gene, it really didnt surprise me much- explains a lot why its always been tough to shake these last few pounds no matter what I try! I am a 37 year old female, 5'3", 135lbs and last time I had a DEXA in August I was 30% BF. I went paleo about 7 years ago, keto about 2 and more recently, carnivore although the past month or so I have started to reintroduce some plant matter and other fat sources. I feel like i've tried every macro combo you can imagine and I have also tried every exercise method from HIIT to running to weights, yoga, you name it. Anyway, I am just curious what your advice is for someone like me? I used to fast everyday but I have read that ppl with Leptin resistance really shouldnt be engaging in fasts longer than 12-15 hours, eat smaller, slower meals and thats all good but what about carbs? Do I need some, none or more than keto standards? I would really love your advice on this, I dont see much from our integrative/ bio hacking community on this subject.
Thank you for all that you do!!
LEPTIN RECEPTOR (LEPR) DEFICIENCY
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