I was about to decide that I was wrong about everything, before I typed up the results and saw the graph.
But I have no idea what that could be. I'm eating pretty clean all the time. It would mean that nothing in processed food is the cause of obesity, or at least that stopping eating it doesn't help. I'd find either of those things really surprising.
I've never been particularly convinced that PUFAs are the cause of obesity, but it's got to be something modern. It could be something to do with plastics, everything I eat is wrapped in plastic.
I'd also be surprised if the damage is permanent and can't be fixed. There are too many anecdotes about people living abroad and getting better.
Also, if it's plastics or something else about the modern environment, rather than 'something in processed food', or if the damage is not fixable, why on earth has my equilibrium weight fallen at all, which it clearly has, rather than rising like it was doing for a long time before I started this?
I think I've reasoned myself into some sort of paradox here. In a sense I'd be quite excited if that's true, but I also want to fix the problem!
At any rate, I want to get the PUFAs out of my body fat whether or not they're anything to do with obesity, but it also seem more important here to wait and see what happens and confirm that what I'm doing makes sense and has the predicted effects.
Yes, noise makes it difficult to see what's going on. But there doesn't seem much point in deciding what I'm going to do for the next thirty days particularly. I'm going to do it until I'm reasonably sure what's going on.
This one seems important! Because the last time I 'took my hands off the controls' I hovered around 97kg, and the last time I came back from Mum's after a big yo-yo I started about 96kg and dropped.
If I'm right about the general picture, things should be noticeably better now. From looking at the graph last time I'd guess that I'd be weight stable somewhere below 95kg. At the moment it's not obvious that that's the case.
Once I'm sure that is or isn't true, then I'll probably try more ex150ish things. But at the moment I'm more interested in whether the whole framework makes sense.
I'm already quite surprised that I managed to eat myself so enormously fat over Christmas, it was the heaviest I've ever been. I figured I'd top out lower than I did. But that might just be because I stayed longer than usual and was deliberately eating whenever I could. It looks like if I'd stayed longer I could have put on even more weight, which is already surprising.
But the 'free-living' equilibrium has to have come down, or I'm wrong about something very fundamental.
Recently my weight seems locked at some point below 96kg in the same way it was once locked at 85kg. ex150 will cause loss, visiting Mum will cause gain, and I've no idea why either of those things are true, but left to its own devices it think it will eventually return to <96kg and then just hover around there.
I think that's a definite improvement from 3 years ago, when it was 99kg and rising, and last summer it seemed locked around 97kg, and that's got to be something to do with cutting out processed food, surely?
So that set point has to be coming down around 1kg/year or something, and whatever the thing is, that should continue. If it continues linearly then it should take about eleven years to get back to 85kg.
But if it's PUFAs specifically, then yo-yoing should speed that up, I think. And possibly dramatically.
Now I come to think about it, Coconut and Bees actually seem to have fixed themselves completely, and both of them were in a much worse state than me.
- eating "whatever you want (incl. seed oils)" seems to keep you at the upper limit of a certain range, AND it slowly increases that upper limit over time.
- eating ex150 or similar will quickly you move to the bottom of that range, but that might not yet be normal/optimal weight. It might slowly decrease the lower limit (or the entire range?) over time, we don't really have enough people or even long enough data for us 2 to say.
- eating swampy/high protein BUT low-PUFA will move you up & even put you at the top of that range, but presumably not make the range go up over time.
- Full-spectrum swamping (Peating) presumably lowers your range over time slowly, but keeps you at the top of it the entire time. Hence "Peating made me fat, but it's still good for you."
Would you say your experiences fit my mental model here?
Yes, that sounds about right to me. Except that I don't see the difference between "eating swampy/high protein BUT low-PUFA" and "Full-spectrum swamping (Peating))" Was Peat anti-protein? He was certainly anti-PUFA.
If I were to talk in terms of ranges, then, assuming you're always eating ad-lib, I'd say:
There's a range of possible weights you can be, and where you are in that range can depend on what you eat.
I'd guess that in normal healthy people that range is low and quite tight. Probably a couple of BMI points and entirely contained within the traditional 19-25 range.
I'd guess that large quantities of PUFAs move the range up, and maybe even expand it.
And I'd guess no PUFAs moves the range down, and maybe contracts it.
And I keep thinking that protein is involved somehow, in the sense that if you eat high-protein you'll be high in your range.
And I think some people might get a 'paradoxical reaction' to PUFAs, where their range actually goes down.
And I think it's probably PUFAs, but it might actually be some other novel chemical found in processed food.
My mental model for this is something like a thermostat where PUFAs are interfering with the signal for the temperature sensor.
You see how I got to the 30 day experiments?
I was about to decide that I was wrong about everything, before I typed up the results and saw the graph.
But I have no idea what that could be. I'm eating pretty clean all the time. It would mean that nothing in processed food is the cause of obesity, or at least that stopping eating it doesn't help. I'd find either of those things really surprising.
I've never been particularly convinced that PUFAs are the cause of obesity, but it's got to be something modern. It could be something to do with plastics, everything I eat is wrapped in plastic.
I'd also be surprised if the damage is permanent and can't be fixed. There are too many anecdotes about people living abroad and getting better.
Also, if it's plastics or something else about the modern environment, rather than 'something in processed food', or if the damage is not fixable, why on earth has my equilibrium weight fallen at all, which it clearly has, rather than rising like it was doing for a long time before I started this?
I think I've reasoned myself into some sort of paradox here. In a sense I'd be quite excited if that's true, but I also want to fix the problem!
At any rate, I want to get the PUFAs out of my body fat whether or not they're anything to do with obesity, but it also seem more important here to wait and see what happens and confirm that what I'm doing makes sense and has the predicted effects.
Yes, noise makes it difficult to see what's going on. But there doesn't seem much point in deciding what I'm going to do for the next thirty days particularly. I'm going to do it until I'm reasonably sure what's going on.
This one seems important! Because the last time I 'took my hands off the controls' I hovered around 97kg, and the last time I came back from Mum's after a big yo-yo I started about 96kg and dropped.
If I'm right about the general picture, things should be noticeably better now. From looking at the graph last time I'd guess that I'd be weight stable somewhere below 95kg. At the moment it's not obvious that that's the case.
Once I'm sure that is or isn't true, then I'll probably try more ex150ish things. But at the moment I'm more interested in whether the whole framework makes sense.
I'm already quite surprised that I managed to eat myself so enormously fat over Christmas, it was the heaviest I've ever been. I figured I'd top out lower than I did. But that might just be because I stayed longer than usual and was deliberately eating whenever I could. It looks like if I'd stayed longer I could have put on even more weight, which is already surprising.
But the 'free-living' equilibrium has to have come down, or I'm wrong about something very fundamental.
If you can eat yourself fat by overfeeding at mum's house but then it all melts off automatically, that's still a pretty good deal.
Yes and that does seem to be the case.
Recently my weight seems locked at some point below 96kg in the same way it was once locked at 85kg. ex150 will cause loss, visiting Mum will cause gain, and I've no idea why either of those things are true, but left to its own devices it think it will eventually return to <96kg and then just hover around there.
I think that's a definite improvement from 3 years ago, when it was 99kg and rising, and last summer it seemed locked around 97kg, and that's got to be something to do with cutting out processed food, surely?
So that set point has to be coming down around 1kg/year or something, and whatever the thing is, that should continue. If it continues linearly then it should take about eleven years to get back to 85kg.
But if it's PUFAs specifically, then yo-yoing should speed that up, I think. And possibly dramatically.
Now I come to think about it, Coconut and Bees actually seem to have fixed themselves completely, and both of them were in a much worse state than me.
From a black box perspective:
- eating "whatever you want (incl. seed oils)" seems to keep you at the upper limit of a certain range, AND it slowly increases that upper limit over time.
- eating ex150 or similar will quickly you move to the bottom of that range, but that might not yet be normal/optimal weight. It might slowly decrease the lower limit (or the entire range?) over time, we don't really have enough people or even long enough data for us 2 to say.
- eating swampy/high protein BUT low-PUFA will move you up & even put you at the top of that range, but presumably not make the range go up over time.
- Full-spectrum swamping (Peating) presumably lowers your range over time slowly, but keeps you at the top of it the entire time. Hence "Peating made me fat, but it's still good for you."
Would you say your experiences fit my mental model here?
Yes, that sounds about right to me. Except that I don't see the difference between "eating swampy/high protein BUT low-PUFA" and "Full-spectrum swamping (Peating))" Was Peat anti-protein? He was certainly anti-PUFA.
If I were to talk in terms of ranges, then, assuming you're always eating ad-lib, I'd say:
There's a range of possible weights you can be, and where you are in that range can depend on what you eat.
I'd guess that in normal healthy people that range is low and quite tight. Probably a couple of BMI points and entirely contained within the traditional 19-25 range.
I'd guess that large quantities of PUFAs move the range up, and maybe even expand it.
And I'd guess no PUFAs moves the range down, and maybe contracts it.
And I keep thinking that protein is involved somehow, in the sense that if you eat high-protein you'll be high in your range.
And I think some people might get a 'paradoxical reaction' to PUFAs, where their range actually goes down.
And I think it's probably PUFAs, but it might actually be some other novel chemical found in processed food.
My mental model for this is something like a thermostat where PUFAs are interfering with the signal for the temperature sensor.
Oh sorry, I filled out the 2x2 matrix wrong lol - the last point is indeed repeated. I think I'm missing the "ex150 but with soybean oil" quadrant :)
Pretty much agreed on all points.