I wish we had a magic control center in our brain that would modify our satiety and hunger to keep us at an ideal weight. Anything that disrupted that control would be the thing to avoid.
But about ten years ago it mysteriously went wrong. Over the last year it seems to be fixing itself, but I don't know why. That's what this post is about.
From your wish, I am guessing that you are either an American, or a fairly young European?
Something is poisoning us. Polyunsaturated fats are still my best guess.
Maybe? But I think by the time your brain has degenerated to the point where the hypothalamus is buggered you're going to have gone completely insane and you're probably in a wheelchair if not dead.
My money's on whatever mechanism senses your current fat levels getting confused by strange fats.
just search hypothalamus inflammation. This is low level "micro-inflammation" that disregulates it. New studies are indicating that its causative of metabolic disorders.
I think I might have to put the word "monotonically" in there somewhere to make it properly refuted, but that's definitely the model I was using:
PUFA depletes, set point comes down, appetite tracks that, and as long as you don't get new PUFAs from anywhere you just go slowly back to normal. The more PUFA you burn off, the better things get.
So I was thinking, too much PUFA, weight keeps rising for six months while PUFA depletes to the level where everything balances, then PUFA keeps decreasing and weight starts to decline. Should look a bit like a parabola, I guess.
With the word monotonic in there, it is refuted, because I managed to gain a staggering amount of weight while not eating PUFAs.
That means that, although my PUFA levels didn't change or even went down, my appetite suddenly got confused. Something other than the PUFA level must have influenced it.
I probably had less PUFA at the end of my Mom Test than at the start, because new ones can't be made and I wasn't eating any.
But something else must be going on with the appetite dysregulation, other than just stored PUFAs deranging the sensor.
I mean, perhaps everything would have *eventually* gone right if I'd just moved home, but I might have been 300kg before it did!
I'll go and fiddle the word 'monotonic' in there somewhere. Thanks for catching that.
Remember that we've got to explain how it's possible to give up PUFAs and nevertheless have your 'weight set point' stay stable or even go up, as has happened to both of us.
And we already knew that something like that had to be true, because otherwise it would be blindingly obvious and it all would have got figured out years ago.
The common belief seems to be that there's a threshold. There might be a linear-ish gradient around the threshold to a degree, but if you're sufficiently above the threshold, it doesn't matter.
It seems commonly assumed that 2% kcals from LA is safe, and 8% is messed up. Let's assume the theshold is at 3%, and there's a 1% linear gradient around it. So from 2-4% you see it linearly getting worse. Anything above that doesn't make a difference. Anything below it doesn't make a difference either.
Also these are stored in your adipose tissue, so it's not a function of your current/recent intake, but a function of your current/recent intake mixed (in some confusing way we barely understand) with the FFAs from your adipose tissue.
And then we have the issue of cell walls already built with PUFAs: if a cell lasts 6 months, was built 5 months ago with PUFAs in its walls, and you stopped doing any PUFAs 4 months ago, it'll still continue being "damaged" and only its replacement will be "repaired."
But of course its replacement will be built with fatty acids from your blood stream mix, not solely what you put in your mouth. So if you still have a bunch of PUFAs in your blood stream (my RBC phospholipids were still 29% omega-6), even the new cells are likely to contain a high amount of PUFAs in their walls when rebuilt.
So it's kind of a triple-whammy.
That said, it could, of course, still be wrong. We don't know exactly what the threshold is or how to even measure it as OmegaQuant is only a proxy, adding another layer of confusion.
But say both of us avoid PUFAs for 7 years entirely, we use protein restriction to get super lean and have abs, and our OmegaQuant shows some absurdly low number for PUFAs. And then after 7 years of this we STILL can't eat swampy, high-protein meals without gaining weight rapidly - then the theory is definitely wrong.
You seem pretty confident that you haven’t consumed any seed oils. Is it not possible that you’ve accidentally consumed some or just more than you thought without realising? I know exfatloss mentioned a test you can get that measures the levels of PUFAs in your body. Maybe that might be a good option to provide more evidence for your theory?
I'm pretty confident that I haven't consumed significant seed oils voluntarily over the last year because I don't often eat anything I haven't read the ingredients and nutritional information on any more.
Mum probably gave me a bit by accident, but she was trying not to. Maybe a bit of margarine sneaked into some of my sister's pastry or something.
But I don't believe that tiny amounts of seed oils are going to make any difference either way, so I'm just ignoring the possibility.
I could do an OmegaQuant test, but they're expensive and I don't know how to interpret the data. How much linoleic acid *should* a red blood cell contain? How much does that change if you've got stored PUFA? What's the normal level of stored PUFA for a healthy human?
I would like to see a fat biopsy, if I knew how to get one! I could compare that to the records that the ancients have left us.
I wish we had a magic control center in our brain that would modify our satiety and hunger to keep us at an ideal weight. Anything that disrupted that control would be the thing to avoid.
We do:
https://theheartattackdiet.substack.com/p/yes-you-have-a-homeostat
Mine used to work fine:
https://theheartattackdiet.substack.com/p/what-its-like-to-have-a-homeostat
But about ten years ago it mysteriously went wrong. Over the last year it seems to be fixing itself, but I don't know why. That's what this post is about.
From your wish, I am guessing that you are either an American, or a fairly young European?
Something is poisoning us. Polyunsaturated fats are still my best guess.
hypothalamus, disregulated by inflammation. Inflammation likely from microbiome species reacting to specific foods. Unique per individual in general.
Maybe? But I think by the time your brain has degenerated to the point where the hypothalamus is buggered you're going to have gone completely insane and you're probably in a wheelchair if not dead.
My money's on whatever mechanism senses your current fat levels getting confused by strange fats.
just search hypothalamus inflammation. This is low level "micro-inflammation" that disregulates it. New studies are indicating that its causative of metabolic disorders.
(2) If you cut out the PUFAs, you will slowly burn them off, and everything will just get better as they go.
This is not refuted at all. The common durations are given as 4-7 years, depending on severity. You've only been doing it for a few months.
You are right.
I think I might have to put the word "monotonically" in there somewhere to make it properly refuted, but that's definitely the model I was using:
PUFA depletes, set point comes down, appetite tracks that, and as long as you don't get new PUFAs from anywhere you just go slowly back to normal. The more PUFA you burn off, the better things get.
So I was thinking, too much PUFA, weight keeps rising for six months while PUFA depletes to the level where everything balances, then PUFA keeps decreasing and weight starts to decline. Should look a bit like a parabola, I guess.
With the word monotonic in there, it is refuted, because I managed to gain a staggering amount of weight while not eating PUFAs.
That means that, although my PUFA levels didn't change or even went down, my appetite suddenly got confused. Something other than the PUFA level must have influenced it.
I probably had less PUFA at the end of my Mom Test than at the start, because new ones can't be made and I wasn't eating any.
But something else must be going on with the appetite dysregulation, other than just stored PUFAs deranging the sensor.
I mean, perhaps everything would have *eventually* gone right if I'd just moved home, but I might have been 300kg before it did!
I'll go and fiddle the word 'monotonic' in there somewhere. Thanks for catching that.
Remember that we've got to explain how it's possible to give up PUFAs and nevertheless have your 'weight set point' stay stable or even go up, as has happened to both of us.
And we already knew that something like that had to be true, because otherwise it would be blindingly obvious and it all would have got figured out years ago.
The common belief seems to be that there's a threshold. There might be a linear-ish gradient around the threshold to a degree, but if you're sufficiently above the threshold, it doesn't matter.
It seems commonly assumed that 2% kcals from LA is safe, and 8% is messed up. Let's assume the theshold is at 3%, and there's a 1% linear gradient around it. So from 2-4% you see it linearly getting worse. Anything above that doesn't make a difference. Anything below it doesn't make a difference either.
Also these are stored in your adipose tissue, so it's not a function of your current/recent intake, but a function of your current/recent intake mixed (in some confusing way we barely understand) with the FFAs from your adipose tissue.
And then we have the issue of cell walls already built with PUFAs: if a cell lasts 6 months, was built 5 months ago with PUFAs in its walls, and you stopped doing any PUFAs 4 months ago, it'll still continue being "damaged" and only its replacement will be "repaired."
But of course its replacement will be built with fatty acids from your blood stream mix, not solely what you put in your mouth. So if you still have a bunch of PUFAs in your blood stream (my RBC phospholipids were still 29% omega-6), even the new cells are likely to contain a high amount of PUFAs in their walls when rebuilt.
So it's kind of a triple-whammy.
That said, it could, of course, still be wrong. We don't know exactly what the threshold is or how to even measure it as OmegaQuant is only a proxy, adding another layer of confusion.
But say both of us avoid PUFAs for 7 years entirely, we use protein restriction to get super lean and have abs, and our OmegaQuant shows some absurdly low number for PUFAs. And then after 7 years of this we STILL can't eat swampy, high-protein meals without gaining weight rapidly - then the theory is definitely wrong.
You seem pretty confident that you haven’t consumed any seed oils. Is it not possible that you’ve accidentally consumed some or just more than you thought without realising? I know exfatloss mentioned a test you can get that measures the levels of PUFAs in your body. Maybe that might be a good option to provide more evidence for your theory?
I'm pretty confident that I haven't consumed significant seed oils voluntarily over the last year because I don't often eat anything I haven't read the ingredients and nutritional information on any more.
Mum probably gave me a bit by accident, but she was trying not to. Maybe a bit of margarine sneaked into some of my sister's pastry or something.
But I don't believe that tiny amounts of seed oils are going to make any difference either way, so I'm just ignoring the possibility.
I could do an OmegaQuant test, but they're expensive and I don't know how to interpret the data. How much linoleic acid *should* a red blood cell contain? How much does that change if you've got stored PUFA? What's the normal level of stored PUFA for a healthy human?
I would like to see a fat biopsy, if I knew how to get one! I could compare that to the records that the ancients have left us.