What Does the Old Theory Get Wrong?
Look Into the Dark
So I've told y’all the story of my life, as well as I can through the lens of fallible memory.
I've done some other stuff from time to time, but the chips are the important thing.
American readers, your periodic reminder that 'chips' are deep fried thick bar-shaped slices of potato, possibly dating back to Elizabethan times, but at any rate a common cheap staple of English and French life since the mid-19th century, which was probably the last time in history that anyone in England was hungry.
Originally fried in beef dripping/tallow, but increasingly in these sinful latter days commercially fried in varnish derived from low quality industrially extracted seed oils.
What you'd call french fries, although every french fry I've ever seen looks a bit thin to me. Ours have a lot more potato for the same fat-infused surface area. We make french fries too, but we call them fries, or skinny fries, and think of them as American.
I don't really like french fries. Too thin, too greasy, too dry, not terribly tasty.
Chips and Overwhelming Fatigue. They're what I hope to be remembered for.
And I've told y’all in great detail about my adventures over the last year.
And I've told you what my old theory was, or at least roughly what it has been, through the lens of hindsight.
A lot of stuff makes actually makes sense in the light of that theory, but what doesn't fit?
Just brainstorming questions here:
From the last year:
Why didn't I lose weight for the first six months of 2023?
Why did ex150ish suddenly seem to switch me into fat-burning mode, even though I only did it for a couple of weeks (twice)?
Why did that fat-burning mode seem to last a full three months, until it either petered out on its own or I sodded it up trying heart-attack-keto?
Why did heart-attack-keto seem to switch me back into fat gaining mode? Did it even, or did I just regain the water weight and then go weight-stable?
Why did my Mom Test put me unambiguously into catastrophic weight gain mode. ( A kilo a week!! also really hungry and obviously ballooning )
Why did my previous visit home result only in moderate weight gain that might in fact just have been on-trend?
Why did my thyroid dose and weight graphs go in opposite directions during the Mom Test?
From the story of my life:
Why didn't I lose weight during the pandemic?
Why was I pretty much fine up until I hit forty?
From observation of others:
Why is my father seemingly fine on his thirty year high-PUFA diet?
Why does u/exfatloss never get satiety except on ex150-type food?
Why doesn't u/exfatloss have my experience of tired-all-the-time if his problems come from PUFA poisoning?
Why does my friend Kate never get satiated by food? Any food!?
How can she possibly have kept her weight down to normal if she's always hungry?
If she has PUFA poisoning, why isn't she tired?
From r/saturatedfat:
Why is it that so many people who Forswear the Polyunsaturated Evil report that they feel much better?
Why do people who report previous rapid weight gain also sometimes report it stopping?
Why do they usually say that they can now diet the weight off and it stays off?
Why is it that almost no-one reports actual weight loss as a result?
Why do many people (like me) report that their previous weight gain carries on unaffected?
Why does ex150 seem to cause weight loss for most people when just no-PUFAs doesn't?
Why does the potato hack seem to work for weight loss?
Why does the new craze of BCAA restriction seem to work for weight loss?
Why has ex150 stopped working for u/exfatloss, its inventor, despite initial spectacular success?
From the medical literature which I do not trust as far as I can throw it, but nevertheless have to explain:
Why does my thyroid cure not so obviously fix Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and all the other crap that it is a standard treatment?
Why, if PUFAs bad and no-PUFAs good, doesn't that signal shine out like a blinding unmistakeable light from all the studies that have ever been done on diet?
From the collective wisdom of the folk:
Why didn't the first people to start eating seed oils notice that it was making them tired and ill and cold?
How did treating thyroid symptoms with thyroid drugs, which was once the standard, go out of fashion in favour of only treating high TSH?
Why does the standard evidence-based medical advice prohibit trying thyroid for fatigue disorders?
From those who read all this rubbish:
What do you have for me, that is not consistent with my old theory as set out in the previous posts? Anecdotes are fine. I love anecdotes. The plural of anecdotes is data, if you are careful.
For one, I think what you call "chips" we'd probably call "steak fries." French fries indeed seem to be skinnier and fried crispy as a result thereof. I've never been much of a fries guys, I think I might've had <10 servings in my life. At least I can't remember ever eating any except 1 time in my childhood, and once last year when I did the potato trial. I'm sure there was a serving here or there that I just forgot.
I think there's a bunch of PUFA/BCAA interaction. There have been a ton of mouse studies in recent years (one came out literally last week!) that I've been reading/writing up on, will post this weekend.
The mouse studies don't explicitly say "PUFA bad" of course. But they feed a "high-fat, obesogenic diet" which inevitably consists of lard, corn oil, soybean oil, palm oil... compared to a low-fat diet that contains some soybean oil (for essential fatty acids) but is vastly lower in overall fat, and thus, PUFA. Rest usually starch.
In the high-fat (PUFA) context, BCAA restriction prevents obesity and diabetes. In the low-fat starch diet, it makes no (or little) difference. That's actually not quite true - even the "control chow" mice seem to get slightly fatter, and have slightly suboptimal glucose tolerance tests. Maybe because their diet is still moderately high in PUFAs? Sometimes, we see that the BCAA restricted mice do even better than the control mice.
What exactly is the interaction? No clue. Could it be that I'm full of it, and it's not PUFA, just "high-fat?" Ok, but then how did I lose the weight eating 88% kcals from fat?
I really want the researchers to put a bunch of mice on a macro-matched diet of tallow or butter instead of lard/soybean oil. I've been bugging them about it on Twitter lol.