Most of my test predictions and verifications have centered around cholesterol and glucose. In that regard I’ve been able to help five individuals drop their cholesterol by 40 - 80 mg/dL over 2 - 3 month periods and three individuals drop fasting glucose by 10 - 30 mg/dL.
I have provided some loss guidance on weight loss with success, but outside of one individual I never followed up with 1 yr - 5 yr results.
My research has led me to side with the theories that: 1) obesity is largely a condition of malnutrition; 2) obesity is a permanent biological chemical condition if the weight is maintained for long periods of time.
To touch on these briefly… Regarding #2 the science is mainly around Dr Rudy Leibel’s research on leptin regulation and metadata analysis studies on long term weight loss. Regarding #1, it’s from the whole of studies looking at nutrition and weight relationships (i.e. nutritional variety, nutrient uptake, etc.).
So my diet advice, in general, is don’t under eat, eat nutrient rich foods, vegetables aren’t anything special, avoid high temperature cooked fats and refined sugars. I think a big problem is people focusing on non-starchy vegetables which tend to have very high volumes and are harder to eat in sufficient quantities to correct nutritional deficiencies. Beef liver, for example, is arguably the most nutritious food and blows spinach away even gram for gram in nutritional content.
I believe sufficient scientific studies exist to debunk the caloric theory. Just to mention one… The NIH funded a team to research the equations behind the obesity epidemic… Their only conclusion was weight gain is non-linear to caloric intake. The relationship curves down with higher intake. Tons of other studies on the matter supporting it too, including the few select studies on weight gain such as the Vermont prison experiment, Washington University’s research, and one more published study I forget the name of the researcher…
So on that note, my other big piece of advice is don’t hyper focus on the calorie - just worry about nutrition. The few individuals I did provide specific diet recommendations all increased caloric intake and lost weight.
I’m curious as to your focus on cholesterol, especially as all researchers, scientists and doctors up to date with current data agree that the liver will adjust and keep levels steady with whatever genetic predisposed range you’re set for, and that statin drugs’ positive effects are more from anti-inflammatory benefits that anything really tied to cholesterol levels.
You are correct, most researchers are in consensus that the body has a designated cholesterol range and diet only tends to impact cholesterol about 15 to 25%. I do agree that these numbers play out really well for normal individuals eating fairly consistent diet month-to-month. I disagree with them on the matter of how much diet can influence cholesterol.
Before I get into my experiments, most people dismiss my results as being a hyper responder. However, I believe sufficient evidence from my blood work show I am not actually hyper responder and the changes and cholesterol are from drastic change in diet. Additionally, there are a few examples of experiments such as the engine 2 diet that exhibit how quickly cholesterol can change from drastic diet changes.
During my experiments my total cholesterol range from 99 mg/dL to 346 mg/dL. The latter measurement was after eating three dozen eggs a day for four weeks.
The ultimate question I had from these results, is how someone eating “normally” can have their cholesterol levels climb up into the 400 and 500 when it took me eating massive amounts of saturated fat and cholesterol. My conclusion is that similarly to a type one and type two diabetes, there is a diet induced type two condition for cholesterol. We know that cholesterol is removed from the bloodstream and there is a genetic condition - familial hypercholesterolemia.
I did numerous experiments on how serum and cholesterol levels respond to diet. Specifically looking at behaviors from inducing spike conditions. I found that eating high volumes of saturated fat and cholesterol for a single day did not elevate cholesterol levels; however, eating high volumes of saturated fat and cholesterol for a continued four day period did. Similarly to insulin spikes, I believe cholesterol is greatly impacted by frequency and duration of saturated fat and cholesterol from dietary intake.
Lowering cholesterol is straightforward for most individuals . Simply don’t eat saturated fat or dietary cholesterol. For individuals with type two cholesterol issues, the issue is more complex. Cholesterol numbers are much slower to go down, and there may be other nutritional and health factors inhibiting the bodies ability to remove.
P. S. Here is the video of the food I ate in an attempt to spike my cholesterol in a single day. My baseline cholesterol prior to eating this meal was 142 mg/dL.
P. P. S. here’s a link to a folder with all of my blood work. The date of the attempt to Spike cholesterol the single day as noted in the video is February 13, 2013. You can find the blood draws or after in the folder named by date .
Because I’m supposed to learn what happens to cholesterol without actually measuring it?
Edit: There are zero studies done on cholesterol responses from short-term diet. Normal daily fluctuations in cholesterol levels can range up to 20%. I was able to stabilize my cholesterol within 3%, so I have a capability to actually measure short term response.
So what I’m hearing is… you have essentially no practical evidence that your methods can provide repeatable results. A literal handful of people with improved bloodwork and “a few” who experienced weight loss. Montezuma’s Revenge achieves weight loss too, but I asked about fat loss.
And yet you were comfortable filling 400+ pages across 3 different ebooks with info telling people how to successfully diet. Hooray for not letting minor things like ethics or ability stand in your way of making a buck. Good on ya.
Proving that a broken clock is right twice a day, this is something that I believe is legitimately gaining traction. Counting calories isn’t “necessary” for improved health or body comp when the diet is stacked with nutrient-dense foods. It may go by the term “instinctive eating” or something similar, but “just eat good foods and adjust as needed according to results” is a pretty solid template, especially for the average person.
In a vacuum where people eat only raw eggs/meat, which doesn’t exist except on your Youtube page…
My guess is you didn’t properly design your experiment to control for error or baseline properly, but that’s above my pay grade. It’s also just an N=1, so it’s not exactly compelling.
Yes this is a n = 1 experiment. I’d argue that the baseline cholesterol levels were properly measured and accounted for error. Most studies I’ve seen on cholesterol measurement put biological variance at 10% and laboratory error at 10%. Having six confirm stabilize cholesterol levels within 3% over the course of two years on the same exact diet is substantial in my opinion.
Depends on a few things, like how dialed in the person is (how good they are at gauging their instinct) and how strictly they kept to actual nutrient-dense foods without cheating. Someone could just as easily tend towards something like G-Flux, a version of “eat more, exercise more”, while eating instinctively and still end up with improved body comp. Though technically, that is still a calorie deficit, it’s not synonymous with “reducing calories”. TC also wrote about a way to approach it here.
Kinda the way Wendler has talked about the “eat 1.5 pounds of beef and a dozen eggs a day” goal, focusing on nutrient-dense food without specifically counting calories could be used for adding size.
FWIW, in my own n=1 experiment, I didn’t count calories or macros at all during my T-ransformation and dropped almost 20 pounds, the majority of which was fat. (Fair argument could be made that progress would’ve been better had I counted, but that’s a can of worms best opened elsewhere). BRB, going to write an ebook about my adventure. “Count Less, Lose More.”
I totally get instinctive vs counting aspect (that is how I did my t-ransformation too). I’m more or less just wondering if switching from less nutrient dense food, that theoretically doesn’t satiate as well, to more nutrient-dense foods doesn’t, generally, almost automatically put you in a deficit.
It would just surprise me if there wasn’t a calorie reduction when switching between the two simply because a lot of nutrient-dense foods are generally fewer calories than what you’d get at Chic-fil-a.
The verification of results as repeatable are not from the results of the individuals I helped but from my personal experiments. I’ve got dozens of blood draws over three years with recorded diets.
I believe it provides possibility when not only my blood work shows the same verified responses, but other individuals experience the same responses as well. I’m not trying to say this is on the level of a published scientifically peer-reviewed studies, just that it’s plausible.
If for instance, the individuals I try to help had opposite responses I could pretty easily say that my personal experience were personal responses. Regarding cholesterol, for example, I was 5 for 5. It wasn’t a question if something was hit or miss. All people shared the same response. Granted the small sample size is not encompassing of the entire population or potential responses, but again it’s a good indicator that the methods applies to a larger group of people.
Additionally, every theory and recommendation I provide has additional published research behind it. No I’m not the expert, but if I can pull five studies from the experts and confirm results that match expectations from a given set of conditions I have to say it’s plausible.
In the end, why not help people? When you can guide someone to change their diet who is prediabetic to reduce their fasting glucose and A-1 C levels to be in normal range, is that good?
There are several individuals that I’ve come across to eat surprisingly little or how big they are. People were over 200 pounds eating less than 1200 cal a day.
There is a lot of correlation between poverty and obesity. Most people attribute the cause of obesity to high calorie foods that are cheap. The part many ignore, is the relationship between high calorie and low nutritional value. Is also reasonable to suggest that the excess storage of fat is related to the correlation with low nutrition food regardless of calorie count.
The most recent individual that asked me for advice was a 60-year-old female who ate about 1200 cal a day and weighed 220 lbs. At a glance that doesn’t make sense. Most people would dismiss the accuracy of the daily caloric count, but what is the count is accurate?
She actually came to me to reduce cholesterol and glucose levels, but I advised a 1500 cal diet that was fruit based and resulted in a 1.5 pound weight loss per week.
As a note, this is a prediabetic who ate over 3 pounds of fruit a day and reduced her fasting glucose from 120 mg/dL to 92. Increase calories lose weight. Increase carbohydrate intake, reduce fasting glucose levels. Sounds crazy right?
