Category Archives: Weight Loss - Page 2

Food for a Fast

Posted by on March 8, 2012 112 comments

Alfredo asked us to offer ideas for how to fast during Lent:

What to eat during fasting (other than cranberries & coconut oil) is on my mind. Looking for some variation in the fasting menu.

It’s a great question. We did have a post on one possible fasting food – Neo-Agutak: “Eskimo Ice Cream” – but never discussed alternatives or the reasons for eating particular foods during a fast.

Fasts don’t have to be food-free

Some people think a fast should involve no food at all. On the Neo-Agutak post, Don Matesz commented:

I would not say that I was fasting if I consumed more than 625 calories during any period of that “fast.”

But that’s not the position of the Catholic Church. During Lent, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are fast days. The US bishops allow one full meal and up to two snacks:

The law of fasting requires a Catholic from the 18th Birthday (Canon 97) to the 59th Birthday (i.e. the beginning of the 60th year, a year which will be completed on the 60th birthday) to reduce the amount of food eaten from normal. The Church defines this as one meal a day, and two smaller meals which if added together would not exceed the main meal in quantity. Such fasting is obligatory on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The fast is broken by eating between meals and by drinks which could be considered food (milk shakes, but not milk).

Children, the elderly, and those whose health might be threatened are exempt from the requirement to fast.

So let’s consider a fast to be any period of reduced calorie consumption – not zero food.

Basic fasting: Electrolyte and fluid replacement

It is certainly a mistake to consume nothing at all during a fast.

People deprived of fluids and electrolytes die quickly. In a famous case cited in Wikipedia (“Starvation”), Drusus Caesar, son of Agrippina the Elder, was starved to death in 33 AD by the emperor Tiberius, and managed to stay alive for nine days only by chewing the stuffing of his bed. When Saint Maximilian Kolbe and nine others were starved in Auschwitz, seven of the ten died within two weeks.

When fluids are provided, however, survival can be much longer. Even in his 60s, Gandhi was able to go without food for 21 days. In the Irish hunger strikes of 1980-1981, no one who fasted less than 46 days died, and about half those who fasted between 46 and 73 days died.

So fluids and electrolytes extend the duration of a fast by about a factor of four. Since we want our fasts to be safe and health-improving, we should certainly take:

  • Water.
  • Sodium and chlorine. During a fast protein is converted to glucose and ketones, releasing nitrogen waste in the form of urea. Sodium and chloride are excreted along with the urea. Salt loss can be fairly rapid during a fast, equivalent to as much as a teaspoon of salt a day. A large amount of water is lost along with it.
  • Potassium. Potassium is the intracellular electrolyte, sodium the extracellular, and osmotic pressure must be balanced. So potassium will be lost along with water and sodium, and should be replenished with it.
  • Calcium and magnesium. These also serve electrolytic functions and it is desirable to maintain their concentrations.
  • Acids. These are beneficial for the digestive tract and metabolism, and also for solubilization of minerals. Citrate, for instance, helps prevent kidney and gallstones.

Vegetables are the best source of potassium; bone broth is a source of calcium and magnesium. The best acids are citrus juices, such as lemon juice, and vinegars, such as rice vinegar. Sea salt, or salty flavorings such as soy sauce or fish sauce, can provide sodium chloride. So the most basic food to take during a fast is a soup made of vegetables in bone broth, with salt and an acid added.

Here are some pictures. First, make up a bone broth by cooking bones in acidified water:

It’s best to use a ceramic or enameled pot to prevent leaching of metals from the pot.

When you’re ready to eat, put some scallions or celery and cilantro or basil in a bowl, and add hot broth:

Add salt, pepper, acid, and spices to taste.

Spinach and tomatoes are great vegetables for these broths, because they are rich in potassium. Here is a tomato soup:

Here’s a slightly fancier example. I think this had tomatoes, onions, peppers, carrots, and kohlrabi:

Served with parsley and scallions, rice vinegar, and sea salt:

Adding some food

So far we haven’t provided any calories to speak of. The next step in reducing the stress of the fast is to add some nutrition to the soup.

The stress of a fast is largely due to the absence of dietary carb and protein. The body has limited carb storage – glycogen is depleted early in a fast – and is loath to cannibalize lean tissue for protein. On the other hand, the body has abundant fat reserves. So

Two strategies may make sense in different circumstances:

  • A protein-sparing modified fast. Protein, which is convertible to glucose, is eaten to relieve the carb+protein deficit.
  • A ketogenic fast. Short-chain and medium-chain fatty acids, such as are found in coconut oil, are eaten to generate ketones. Ketones can partially substitute for glucose utilization.

What these have in common is that they reduce the carb+protein.

Probably 90% of people who fast should favor the protein-sparing approach. Those on ketogenic diets for neurological disorders should probably favor the ketogenic fasting approach.

An example of a food suitable for a ketogenic fast would be Neo-Agutak: “Eskimo Ice Cream” (Dec 5, 2010).

A suitable food on a protein-sparing modified fast would supply most calories as protein; carb and fat calories would be from nutrient-dense sources. Egg yolks, which are rich in phospholipids like choline, and potatoes are good examples of nutrient-dense fat and carb sources.

The easy way to implement this healthy fast: just add eggs, potatoes, and maybe some fish or shellfish (which tend to be protein-rich, and comply with the Catholic guidelines for Friday abstinence) to any of the soups shown above. Heat the soup in the microwave and there you have it: a healthy fast-day meal!

Conclusion

Those on weight loss diets will notice that by adding protein, carbs, and a few nourishing fats to our fast-day soup, we’re getting very close to our recommended diet for calorie-restricted weight loss diets: see Perfect Health Diet: Weight Loss Version (Feb 1, 2011).

There’s a good reason for that: both posts work from the same design principles. Both aim at the greatest possible nourishment on the fewest calories.

Would you like to lose weight? Consider making these nourishing soups a staple of your diet.

Even if you’re not fasting or trying to lose weight, consider making these soups a regular part of your daily meals. It’s very easy to make a broth on the weekend and warm it up and pour it over diced vegetables at mealtime. You might find them a very satisfying addition to your diet.

Jay Wright’s Weight Loss Journey

Posted by on December 1, 2011 133 comments

Jay Wright, who comments as “Jaybird,” has had a remarkably successful weight loss story. He adopted our diet in March at a weight of 250 pounds, and reached his normal weight of 170 pounds at Halloween, seven and a half months later.

I met Jay at Wise Traditions in November and can attest that he is now a handsome, slender man.

Jay’s weight loss was remarkably consistent at about 2.5 pounds per week. He agreed to describe his weight loss journey in a guest post; my questions are in italic, Jay wrote everything else. Welcome, Jay! – Paul

I would like to thank Dr. Paul Jaminet and Dr. Shou-Ching Jaminet for writing a great diet book and website!  You have been instrumental in helping me achieve the long elusive goal of great health and weight. For me, this truly is the Perfect Health Diet!

Before PHD

Paul: Jay, what do you think caused your overweight condition in the first place?

1. Ignorance and confusion. I believe I would have eaten the PHD way and remained at a healthy weight if I was taught to eat this way from the beginning. Instead, the government promotes the anti-saturated fat, pro-seed “vegetable” oil, and whole grains food pyramid. The belief formed from trusting the experts is a lot to overcome. I remember a decade ago during the Atkins’ hype that I thought that he must be crazy to recommend such a dangerous diet that would go against the “entire” medical establishment.  Then, even after I stopped believing the Lipid Hypothesis, I was still confused by all of the rest of the diet claims out there. While I was uncertain, I thought I might as well enjoy a “normal” diet until I can figure it all out.

2. Eating Habits. Besides the high carbs, food toxins, and malnourishment of the food pyramid diet, a few other factors may have affected my eating habits. I was a normal weight child growing up and I could eat anything and everything in sight and not get even pudgy in the slightest. When all foods have the same effect – none – you don’t worry about whether the food is healthy. Also, I spent my childhood playing one sport after another which might have actually worsened my eating habits. At least here with Texas football, we were constantly encouraged to stuff ourselves and put on more weight.  When sports ended for me after college, normal amounts of food looked like a starvation diet on a plate!

3. Carelessness toward health.  Was I careless because I was told “healthy” meant a yucky salad and “unhealthy” meant a yummy steak?  A young boy always chooses the steak especially when I was constantly hungry from 3 hour practices!  This all started to change after my dad was diagnosed with heart disease and started eating a “healthy” low-fat diet. However, the real wake-up call came when my mother was diagnosed and eventually died of breast cancer! To fight the cancer, she put up a courageous fight by being the most dedicated eater of an “alkalizing” vegetarian diet ever! Yet, even though I began to care more about health, I continued to allow myself to eat anything while I learned more and took breaks from trying different diets.

4. Lack of exercise because of a bad back.  I have had a herniated disc in my lower back for about 10 years now. When I changed careers and became even more sedentary, my back problem only worsened from bad posture while sitting. I should have at least continued to walk short amounts, but at the end of the day, I didn’t even feel like tolerating even a little pain after dealing with it so much during the day. The recliner offered relief.

5. Convenience.  As a single guy, I relied on eating out for convenience over the years and pre-made frozen dinners when I ate at home mostly. Starting a diet always meant making big changes to my routine and giving up a lot of time to cook.

6. Diets were Too Low in Food Reward.  Looking back, all the diets I tried were much lower in food reward than the “regular” American diet with lots of sweets that kept calling to me! All of the previous diets required a Herculean will power just to fight the temptations. It was mental torture being on a diet!

Paul: Jay, what were your experiences on the various diets you tried – and what caused you to give them up?

Here is my weight history:

After college sports, I struggled with my weight. I was a yo-yo dieter – I could lose weight but it always ended up even higher. I tried meal shake replacements, frozen dinners to limit calories, no meat/meat, no dairy/dairy, acid/alkaline, exercise/no exercise while dieting, no cash or credit cards in my wallet going to work so I wouldn’t stop at a fast food, punishment where I had to eat a raw tomato if I cheat (I hate raw tomatoes), and many other vegetarian leaning and mental tricks.  A pattern emerged with these diets.  I would starve with low energy for about a week or two until my will power ran out. Then, I would go eat something “bad.”  If I continued to repeat the pattern and managed to be “successful,” I stayed hungry even once I reached my goal weight.  I tried to transition to a “regular” amount of food to stop starving and just maintain but to no avail.  My weight went right back up even higher than before even without cheating on the diets.

Paleo was finally the exception to the starving rule, but only at first.  I felt great on a very low carb paleo for a couple of months.  I ate a pound of meat a day and mostly vegetables with a little fruit and nuts and a lot of coconut oil. The extra fat and meat seemed to enable me to lose weight and not be hungry. I lost nearly 40 lbs and halfway to my goal.  However, I started to not feel so well and hunger was returning, too. I had headaches and energy fluctuated throughout the day. I never liked the taste of vegetables and I began dreading the need to eat more vegetables than I had ever cared to eat in my life. Also, the sugar cravings never stopped just like on the vegetarian diets. Eventually, will power ran out eventually on paleo just like on the other diets.

Here’s what I looked like at 250 pounds. I’m the one on the left in the gray shirt; the one on the right is my brother Craig Wright:

I knew I had better find an answer when my family and friends would laugh each time I declared, “Diet starts tomorrow!”

Paul: Jay, it’s very interesting that on pre-Paleo diets you were always hungry, and when you ate to satisfy your hunger, your weight returned to as high or higher than when you began. That’s consistent with the set-point theory of obesity: your set-point hadn’t changed, and so when you reduced weight below the set-point, you got hungry; when you ate to satisfy your appetite, you were obese. The Paleo experience could also be said to be consistent with the set-point theory: it reduced the set-point so you lost 40 pounds without hunger, but weight was still above normal and hunger returned as your weight got below the new set-point.

An interesting data point, which I see as a challenge for the setpoint theory because it suggests an alternative view, is that on VLC Paleo your hunger returned at the same time you began to feel unwell. This suggests that hunger and setpoint are really an index of health, and when the body is not being properly maintained the brain manufactures hunger. When nutrients are abundant and the body has all it needs to establish good health, the setpoint is reduced to normal weight, hunger disappears, and weight loss resumes.

Perfect Health Diet

Paul: Jay, what was your experience on PHD? I’m especially interested in whether you experienced plateaus where weight loss stalled, and whether you experienced hunger as on other diets.

I recorded my weight every day from April 15 through November, and enough days in March and early April to give a clear picture. Here is what happened:

As you can see, there was no stall in weight loss until I hit my target weight of 170 pounds.

Here’s my after photo, again with my brother Craig. This time Craig is on the left in black, I’m on the right in green:

Interestingly Craig has eaten pretty much the same foods as I have throughout life, and always maintained a normal weight. On my recommendation he adopted PHD soon after I did, and he also experienced health improvements – psoriasis, which he’s had for 20 years and used to leave red scales over much of his body, is nearly gone.

Hunger

I followed the PHD weight loss protocols and felt virtually no hunger throughout the 7 months. Intermittent fasting with one meal a day worked best for my schedule; I coconut oil fasted earlier in the day and 1 day per week.  After the first month, I coconut oil fasted for an entire week since I figured I should clean out my system. Then I dropped the calories to only 1200 to get some faster results early on to help my back. I thought I would readjust the calories up or the eating schedule according to my hunger, but I did not experience any hunger and had great energy so I left the plan alone. What little hunger I did experience was very mild and just meant it was time to drink another bottle of water or swig a tablespoon of coconut oil before the evening dinner. Interestingly, I ate some birthday cakes toward the end and experienced stronger and more uncomfortable hunger the following days than the previous months. The lack of hunger was definitely a key to my weight loss success.

Food Reward

For me, PHD is a high food reward diet. It tastes great every meal! Even in the beginning of the diet, I enjoyed the PHD meal just as much mentally as thinking about eating my old food. Later, my taste buds changed and PHD became clearly the more rewarding food. However, at least part of the PHD was bland. The coconut oil provided calories with no taste and helped keep my calories low. Yet, I really believe I would not have lasted on the diet if the food was bland. Having a neutral taste reminds me of the very low carb paleo diet that didn’t allow the safe starches and even small amounts of dairy. The white rice and white potatoes enabled me to eat vegetables regularly by buffering the taste until my taste buds adjusted and I began to like them. Avoiding milk but having small amounts of other dairy also went a long way in the enjoyment of the food and menu options. The safe starches, dairy, and a little bit of fruit also seem to be responsible for satisfying my sweet tooth cravings. I’m not sure if the high food reward PHD would have controlled my calorie intake since I counted calories. Nonetheless, compared to the other past diets I dreaded to eat, I prefer the high food reward of PHD. I use to say, “Why does all of the food that’s good for you taste so bad and all of the food that’s bad for you taste so good?” I don’t say that anymore with PHD.

Plateau

My belief is that total calories do matter. I’ve always been able to lose the fat and get back to my original weight provided that I lower my calories enough to accomplish it. However, my will power usually ran out before I accomplished it many times. The constant hunger and low energy with lower calories exhausted my desire to lose the weight on previous diets. In contrast, I experienced the opposite on PHD. While the PHD food and supplements provided satiety and energy, I controlled my calories by exercising, counting calories, eating only a single meal, and having oil fast days. Even after only a month, I experienced such a surge in energy even on lower calories that I increased my exercise to 2 hours of walking. Having established such a low calorie amount in the beginning with a challenging exercise and eating plan, I simply had to maintain the routine until the goal was reached.

I believe the key was PHD enabled me to maintain low enough calories to not experience a plateau as on other diets.

Set Point

My experience might show some truth to the concept of a set point. For instance, prior to starting PHD my weight stayed consistently within a 5 lb range for about 2 years. During this period I was eating whatever I wanted. My experience on PHD could be construed as the resetting of my set point to my normal weight – 170 lb. I was never hungry on PHD as long as my weight was above 175 lb. I started feeling more hunger once I got close to my normal weight in the 170s.  Unlike previous diets, I was able to eliminate the hunger by eating a little bit more — just upping my calories slightly.

Although other diets could get me to this weight point before, I had to stay in a perpetual starving mode to remain at this level. Unlike on PHD, on other diets adding enough calories to stop hunger always led to a rebound of weight that leveled out at a higher level than before I started.

When I started PHD my intended target weight was 175 pounds. With PHD, I actually continued to lose a little more than the 175 down to 170 without planning on it. Then, my weight slightly increased with obvious cheats like some birthday cake. While eating the normal amount the following days without the cheats, the weight returned to previous levels without an effort to compensate. After the weight loss, my weight has become more stable. The last month I have had several repeating days on the weight scale with the same exact weight number to the tenth of a point. This occurred even though I ate more on a few of the previous days. My weight history shows a stair stepping up higher with each diet attempt until PHD stabilized my weight back to its original healthy level.

Closing Thought

During the middle of my weight loss, I was at a restaurant eating a salad with balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing, 8 oz steak, and a baked potato with butter and sour cream and some water with lemon, but without a dinner roll.  I paused and proclaimed, “I can’t believe I’m eating this and still losing weight! This is the BEST DIET EVER!”

Perfect Health Diet: Weight Loss Version

Posted by on February 1, 2011 396 comments

We started 2011 with a discussion of Experiences, Good and Bad, On the Diet; which led us into the issue of weight loss, especially for peri-menopausal and older women.

This is an especially poignant issue for erp, who is 76 years old and would like to lose weight for her upcoming knee replacement surgery, but cannot walk.

This is the toughest possible scenario for weight loss:

  • Whether for genetic (X vs Y chromosome) or hormonal reasons, women are more prone to putting on weight than men. (Men are more prone to diabetes.)
  • Hormonal changes after menopause seem to make it tougher for women to lose weight.
  • A petite woman doesn’t need as many calories as a larger person … but her micronutrient needs, and thus her appetite, may still be high.
  • Aging brings more efficient energy utilization and reduced energy expenditure. Thus, the elderly have a smaller energy “sink” in which to dispose of excess fat. A teenager can eat like a horse and stay thin; not so an older person.
  • An injury that prevents walking makes it even harder to burn off fat. Walking is a tremendous aid to fat loss.

Designing a weight loss diet for someone like erp really forces a hard look at how to optimize a weight loss diet. Get it even a little bit wrong, and the diet either won’t work for weight loss, or will be malnourishing.

The Three Keys for Weight Loss

The three keys for an effective and healthy weight loss diet, as I see it, are:

  1. Elimination of food toxins. Food toxins are the primary cause of obesity and you can’t expect to cure a condition by causing it!
  2. Perfect nourishment. The diet should be as nourishing as possible. The dieter should be in the “plateau range” of every nutrient – vitamins, minerals, organic molecules, carbs, protein, and fats.
  3. Calorie restriction. You have to be in energy deficit to lose weight.

The main food toxins to avoid are fructose, polyunsaturated fat, and wheat (see Why We Get Fat: Food Toxins). In my advice to erp, I suggested replacing some of her fruit with “safe starches” like potatoes, and replacing her PUFA-containing nuts with low-PUFA macadamia nuts or other foods.

But the harder part is achieving a calorie restricted diet when so few calories are being expended, and yet avoiding malnutrition. How may that be done?

Eat Protein and Carbs; Reduce Fat

This may surprise many readers, since we’re fat-friendly, but there should be no reduction in carb or protein consumption on weight loss diets. Calorie restriction should come out of fat.

The Perfect Health Diet “plateau range” for carbs and protein is 600 to 1200 calories. Eating less than 600 combined carb+protein calories per day raises the specter of either protein deficiency (leading to hunger) or glucose deficiency (leading to zero-carb dangers).

So if a typical daily intake is 400 carb calories and 300 protein calories, there’s really not much room to cut protein or carbs.

Remember that the body doesn’t have a significant store of carbs; the body’s total glycogen supply amounts to about a day’s needs. Nor does it have a store of protein, apart from skeletal muscle; and you don’t want to lose your muscle.

But it does have a large store of fat – those adipose cells that you want to shrink.

So to conserve muscle and reduce fat tissue, you have to eat your normal allotment of protein and carbs while restricting fat intake. As long as there is no serious dysfunction of adipose cells, they will release fat as needed to meet the body’s fat needs. And that’s what you want – fat being moved out of adipose cells to be burned.

So your calorie-restricted weight loss diet will be just as nourishing as your regular diet. Only the source of the nourishing fats – adipose cells instead of food – will be different.

Eat Nourishing Fats

But not all fat can be removed from the diet. The reason is that not all nutrients found in fat-containing foods are stored in adipose cells.

You see, fats are stored in adipose cells as triglycerides. But we need to get other lipid molecules, not just fatty acids, from food. The really crucial molecules are the phospholipids, especially phosphatidylcholine.

Choline, inositol, and a few others are organic molecules are bonded to fats in cellular membranes. We need to obtain these from our foods in order to be well nourished.

Diets low in choline strongly promote obesity. Therefore, anyone seeking to lose weight should be sure to eat a choline-rich diet.

The easiest way to do that is to eat 3 eggs a day and a ¼ pound beef liver once a week.

Another type of lipid that may be missing from adipose cells are omega-3 fats. Balancing the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio is helpful against obesity, and most people are omega-3 deficient. So eating up to 1 pound of salmon or sardines per week may assist weight loss.

Beef and lamb – meats that are low in omega-6 fats – would be good choices for any additional meat.

Be Super-Nourished

The body’s appetite regulation mechanisms are highly attuned to your micronutrient needs. Micronutrient deficiencies will tend to induce a strong appetite for food, as your body tries to get you to obtain more nutrition. This could be a major reason why “empty calories” such as cotton candy are fattening.

Our book has some examples of “micronutritious foods”: variety meats, bone soups, seaweed, shellfish, eggs, and vegetables.

Nutritious, low-calorie foods like bone soups can be very helpful for weight loss. Soups can also be a good way for someone who doesn’t like vegetables to obtain them.

In addition, I would recommend that every person on a weight-loss diet take our full supplement regimen: a daily multivitamin, D, K2, C, magnesium, copper, chromium, iodine, and selenium. Also, I would suggest taking our optional B vitamins: thiamin, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, biotin, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, and choline (note the exclusion of niacin and folic acid).

Keeping Calories Down

What is the minimum calorie intake that meets all these nutrient considerations?  Eggs, salmon, and beef have more fat than protein, so if you’re aiming for 400 carb calories and 300 protein calories, you’ll probably eat at least 500 fat calories per day. So it would seem to be impossible to go below about 1200 calories per day while still being well nourished.

The place to cut calories, then, is the extra fats. Perfect Health Diet favorites like butter, coconut oil, and cream are, sadly, top candidates for reduction.

Of course, the more active you are, the more you can include those fats.

For less active people, the Weight Loss Version of the Perfect Health Diet becomes similar to a lot of popular diets. Many diets recommend a roughly even calorie distribution, with 30-40% of carbs, protein, and fats. This is what a calorie-restricted version of the Perfect Health Diet should look like too.

So, the perfect day in a weight loss diet: soup, potatoes or other safe starch, salmon, eggs, vegetables. Not too much fat in the sauces!

A good meal might look like this:


Mash the sweet potato with eggs instead of butter, and this would fit our weight loss recipe.

Conclusion

It’s a little humbling that I’ve started 2011 with 5 posts on the subject of healthy weight loss, but have only scratched the surface of this complex topic.

For instance: In the book we used the rubric “metabolic damage” to describe the biological dysfunction associated with obesity. But we never really chased the complex biology of exactly that damage consists of – and how it can best be healed.

Today, I’ve presented what I believe is the best strategy for healthy weight loss. But other techniques – such as ketogenic dieting, intermittent fasting, exercise, and more – can contribute to healing the metabolic damage of obesity. As 2011 goes on, I’ll return to this topic.

I am intensely interested in the experiences of anyone trying to lose weight using our diet, and I hope that together, we can understand the disease of obesity better, and figure out good ways to achieve both healthy weight loss and a permanent recovery from metabolic damage of all kinds. So please, if you are trying to lose weight, keep me posted on your experiences, whatever they may be!

Related Posts

From 2011:

From 2010:

Low-Protein Leanness, Melanesians, and Hara Hachi Bu

Posted by on January 27, 2011 71 comments

Gunther gatherer raised an interesting issue in a comment to Tuesday’s post.  Protein may be satiating in the short run; but what about the long run?

[H]igh protein keeps you full at first. But no one really knows for how long. Eventually it stops working and you find you’re eating a lot ON TOP of all the high protein you were already eating. All of us here tried Atkins long ago and fell off the bandwagon more than enough times to know it gets boring, stops working against hunger and doesn’t keep the fat off forever.

I agree. This is why we recommend a version of the normal Perfect Health Diet, which is normal — not high — in protein, for weight loss. Our diet isn’t the quickest way to lose weight, but we think it is likely to work best in the long run.

The Long-Term Effects of High-Protein Diets

I argued in Tuesday’s post that the satiating effects of protein had to be temporary, and that in the long run higher protein might cause, not reduced appetite, but only a slight change toward a leaner body composition.

A more interesting question is:  could high-protein diets be positively harmful?

Maybe!  Studies in both animals and humans indicate that eating high protein during childhood creates a predisposition for obesity in later life.

For instance, rats raised on a high-protein diet in childhood are more likely to become obese when given calorie-rich (sugar and fat) diets in adulthood. [1] The researchers conclude:

Our research demonstrating a significant susceptibility to an obese phenotype in rats weaned onto a high-protein diet and then challenged in adulthood with a high-fat high-sucrose diet suggests that lasting changes result from altering the composition of the first solid food that is consumed throughout growth into early adulthood. While all rats in this study consumed the same high energy diet during the last 6 weeks of the intervention, distinct metabolic profiles remained evident from exposure to the different diets during growth. This would suggest that these changes, either long-lasting or perhaps permanent, ultimately influenced the adiposity response of these rats to a high energy challenge in adulthood. Overall, it appears that a long-term diet high in protein, when mismatched with a high energy challenge, has negative effects on body mass and hormones and genes involved in glucose and lipid metabolism. [1]

The same phenomenon occurs in humans. In the book we mentioned a study showing that slightly higher protein level in infant formula – 9% protein vs 7% normally – caused children to become overweight two years later. [2]

So parents, let your kids follow their taste buds to high-carb, high-fat diets!

Might adult high protein diets promote later-life obesity too? I’m not aware of evidence, but I don’t think the possibility can be ruled out. I will look for evidence when I do research for two future blog series: one on protein intake, aging, and longevity; the other on connections between obesity and the human aging program.

Can You Be Lean on a Low-Protein Diet?

Tuesday’s post cited research indicating that we have a set point for protein intake: humans are genetically programmed to seek around 360 protein calories per day, and appetite becomes satiated once that is achieved.

But if protein intake determines appetite, then it seems those eating a low-protein diet face a Hobson’s choice:

  • If total calories are not increased, then the low protein dieter can expect to have a chronically unsatisfied appetite.
  • If total calories are increased, so that appetite is satisfied, then the low protein dieter can expect a higher equilibrium weight and a slightly less lean body.

Is it possible, then, to restrict protein, eat mostly carbs and fat which we know are the ingredients of appetizing desserts – and still achieve a lean healthy body, and feel comfortable? 

Yes, I believe so.

Melanesians Do It

Gunther pointed out that Melanesians are lean and long-lived on low protein diets:

I think it would be a bit fairer to include some consideration and explanation of Melanesians and their extremely low protein diet (anywhere from 10% to only 3% protein daily). Their extremely high level fitness and body composition flies in the face of all of these high protein studies.

It’s true: Kitavans, Tokelauans, and other Melanesians eat high-carb and low-protein, yet they’re noted for “extreme leanness.” [3] Why?

Well, first of all, the Melanesian islander diet is a variant of the Perfect Health Diet:  it is entirely free of food toxins. As I argued last week, eliminating toxins is the key to healthy weight regulation. But there are other factors.

Coconut Oil

The most abundant fatty acid in the diets of Kitavans and Tokelauans is lauric acid, the 12-carbon fatty acid which is the predominant fatty acid in coconut oil. [4, 5] These shorter-chain fatty acids are ketogenic and have significant effects on the body: for instance, they raise HDL levels. They also make people lean.

In one study, 8 weeks taking 1 tbsp per day coconut oil caused a significant decrease in body weight, waist size, and blood triglycerides. [6] In another, obese women who received 2 tbsp (30 ml) coconut oil per day slimmed their waist and increased HDL without an increase in LDL, while a comparison group receiving soybean oil did not slim their waist and had lower HDL with higher LDL and total cholesterol. [7]

Resistant Starch

Another feature of the Melanesian diet is that the biggest share of calories came from “safe starches” like yams, sweet potatoes, and sago.

These foods have a lot of fiber in the form of “resistant starch.” Digestion of resistant starch by colonic bacteria produces a lot of butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid that strongly promotes leanness.

For example, butyrate improves insulin sensitivity and prevents rats from becoming obese. [8]

Hara Hachi Bu

But the most reliable strategy seems to have been worked out by Asian and Pacific cultures long ago, many thousands of years ago.

The key is that if the diet is well nourishing, then appetite will be mild and easy to consciously control. What will be experienced is not hunger, which indicates malnourishment, but a mild desire for food that can easily be ignored.

There is an ancient Chinese saying:

“Eat until you are eight-tenths full, walk 100 steps after meals, live 99 years.”

In Japanese the saying is Hara Hachi Bu, eat until eight-tenths full. Hara Hachi Bu is common practice in Okinawa, where it helped produce the world’s most long-lived population.

As we note in the book, the traditional Okinawan diet is extremely close to the Perfect Health Diet: the Okinawan diet was rich in safe starches and animal fats, and near the low end of our recommended protein range: Okinawans ate about 300 g (2/3 pound) meat and fish per day.

The key here is that on a low-protein diet, eating until eight-tenths full is not a calorie-restricted diet. It is a calorie-sufficient diet that isn’t quite satiating because it is low in protein.

Intermittent fasting is a helpful part of Hara Hachi Bu. Eating only within a relatively short window each day makes it easy to keep calories down.

My Experience

I have been practicing protein restriction for several years, eating coconut oil and safe starches for several years, and practicing daily intermittent fasting for over six months. I drink tea or lemon-flavored water through the morning, and on most days eat only between 2 pm and 8 pm. If I snack during the fast it is usually either a piece of dark chocolate or some coconut oil.

I sometimes go many days eating relatively little, then eat a lot for a few days. Physical activity – sports, intense exercise, running – increases my appetite noticeably. Regardless, I never feel hungry. It is easy to complete the daily fast: some tea, sometimes with coconut oil or dark chocolate, is enough. I now do total fasting on religious fast days – for instance, I now do a 64-hour fast from Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday morning. Generally, as soon as I focus my attention on work I forget that I wanted food.

(This is a very good sign for my health, by the way. During my long chronic illness I couldn’t tolerate fasting at all.)

I haven’t noticed difficulty adding muscle when I work out. I believe I would add muscle more easily on a higher-protein diet, but as it is I add muscle more easily than I used to on the standard American diet. I’m content with my body composition.

Conclusion

I am convinced that by eating coconut oil, getting carbs from safe starches, and practicing intermittent fasting and Hara Hachi Bu, most people can become well-muscled and lean on a low-protein diet without any sense of hardship.

Since a carb-fat mix is the classic recipe for dessert, this makes for an extremely tasty diet.

If you want the surest way to lose weight over the next few days, eat a high-protein diet. But if you want a long-term diet that maximizes longevity by restricting protein, consider eating a tablespoon or two of coconut oil per day, fasting for 16 hours a day, and finishing your meal eight-tenths full.  

If you walk a hundred steps after dinner, you just might become a healthy centenarian!

References

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[7] Assunção ML et al. Effects of dietary coconut oil on the biochemical and anthropometric profiles of women presenting abdominal obesity.  Lipids. 2009 Jul;44(7):593-601. http://pmid.us/19437058.

[8] Gao Z et al. Butyrate improves insulin sensitivity and increases energy expenditure in mice. Diabetes. 2009 Jul;58(7):1509-17. http://pmid.us/19366864.