One day I hope to! Being able to do without it would be a massive victory. But I'm going to let my own thyroid force me off the drugs as it responds.
If I'm too hot, I lower the dose, if I'm too cold (and usually that means showing other symptoms too) I put it up. The thing I'm controlling is waking temperature. The necessary dose is what I'm measuring.
If I just stopped taking the stuff I'd expect a crash. You're right that my own thyroid would probably raise production to compensate, but I think I still need a bit of over-stimulation to function.
As you know, I don't believe in a "set point." I simply haven't seen any evidence for it.
Your experience (and mine, and that of many people) seems much more compatible with an equilibrium, and slowly declining PUFA of mitochondria.
Say your mitochondria are messed up if enough PUFAs are in their cell walls. You can't turn over 100% of them at the same time. As you start avoiding PUFAs, for the next years, you're rebuilding some new cells and mitochondria every day.
So if mitochondria built with PUFAs ruin your metabolism (by leaking fuel, or not producing enough ROS, or whatever the mechanism is) you'd expect a long, slow, arduous process that would look like a set point slowly slid down and down and down.
There is likely also a short-term effect from PUFA and at least some of its oxidation products producing hyperphagia via endocannabinoids. So just cutting out PUFA likely leads to a short-term stopping of chemically driven overeating, but that doesn't mean your "set point" (in which I don't believe) will go down - that might take years as your cells turn over.
Well in general I think that all the generations of people who maintained a BMI of 20ish without ever paying "calories in calories" out a moment's thought is considerable evidence in that direction.
If there's no homeostatic control you'd expect weights to be all over the place as food supply varied.
For sure weight comes down in famines, that's what the stored fat is for! But in times of plenty, it shouldn't just increase without limit. That would be a fatal design flaw in almost any animal.
In modern times, that mechanism seems to be broken in favour of either ridiculously high set points, or even perpetual hunger regardless of fat stores. But that's the problem we're trying to solve.
I've no idea how this homeostat is supposed to work! But one way it could work would be to measure the amount of energy produced from stores when the signal goes out to draw energy from stores.
If that's too low, then increase stores by getting hungry.
So if either PUFAs or some combination of BCAA and PUFAs damage that feedback mechanism, it looks like stores are too low and you get inappropriate hunger.
But if it measures an energy flux then it's not a "body fat set point," is it. It's simply a sensor reacting to a substrate flux.
This can be explained simply by "PUFA -> lack of ROS -> lack of satiety -> appetite" and there is no control required in the explanation at all. Simple, linear reaction.
I think we're arguing about nothing here. Whatever it is and however it works its job is to keep your body fat around 10%, it used to work fine, and it's somehow broken in modern people.
An equilibrium might just be happenstance - there's place where somebody set the temperature to 75°F in Los Angeles and some mechanism is working to maintain it against outside forces, it's just a "coincidence" from being near the Pacific, shielded by a mountain range, being at a certain latitude for sun..
The whole point of the "set point theory of obesity" seems to be that it's extremely difficult to change the set point (otherwise, it'd be great! Just set it for "abs" and done!). But that doesn't square with so many anecdotes of people like me, who did "one weird thing" or two and suddenly their set point seems to have dropped by 100lbs.
I get the impression that most of the obesity people, including researchers, who use the word "set point" don't know what it actually means, and that there are many other explanations for "I tried to starve myself and the weight came back."
So they are using the term 'set points' wrong. But I believe they are referring to basically the same thing.
"I lowered my set point 10 pounds" means 'I achieved a new equilibrium in which my weight dropped 10 pounds'
I agree that there isn't a inherent weight that the body defends. The body doesn't have a target value for weight. I agree it just responds to variables.
But if you eliminate PUFAs from your diet and then no matter how much you eat you cannot get fatter. Then empirically it feels like a setpoint even when technically that's not true.
The issue with getting this wrong is that you would fix a thermostat very different from just a new, lower equilibrium created by an open window.
If you know there is a set point, you'd first try to check what it is. Did somebody mess with the thermostat? Is the cable from the thermostat to the heater broken?
But if you don't think there is (or know there isn't) a set point, you wouldn't look there.
All this talk of "set points" people have implies that somewhere, there's a thing and someone/something's pushing a button and then the body just does the right thing to get there.
I don't think that's the issue at all.
Pretty much by definition, any system with a set point can also have the same issues that the simpler, non-set point system can have.
E.g. you can have a fully functioning set point and heater and cable, but still have the window open. "Closing the window" == "avoiding PUFAs" would still fix it.
The difference is there is a whole class of problems that set points can have that the other ones can't, and unless you happen to fully debug the system or stumble upon the right problem right away, you're wasting your time debugging a system that isn't really there, chasing noise.
Which is part of the reason that mainstream nutrition science has wasted the last... 30 years or so on magical brain woooo when it comes to obesity, and has nothing to show for it.
You might be able to remove your thyroid dose completely.
Remember your body isn’t producing enough since you’re taking the thyroid.
One day I hope to! Being able to do without it would be a massive victory. But I'm going to let my own thyroid force me off the drugs as it responds.
If I'm too hot, I lower the dose, if I'm too cold (and usually that means showing other symptoms too) I put it up. The thing I'm controlling is waking temperature. The necessary dose is what I'm measuring.
If I just stopped taking the stuff I'd expect a crash. You're right that my own thyroid would probably raise production to compensate, but I think I still need a bit of over-stimulation to function.
As you know, I don't believe in a "set point." I simply haven't seen any evidence for it.
Your experience (and mine, and that of many people) seems much more compatible with an equilibrium, and slowly declining PUFA of mitochondria.
Say your mitochondria are messed up if enough PUFAs are in their cell walls. You can't turn over 100% of them at the same time. As you start avoiding PUFAs, for the next years, you're rebuilding some new cells and mitochondria every day.
So if mitochondria built with PUFAs ruin your metabolism (by leaking fuel, or not producing enough ROS, or whatever the mechanism is) you'd expect a long, slow, arduous process that would look like a set point slowly slid down and down and down.
There is likely also a short-term effect from PUFA and at least some of its oxidation products producing hyperphagia via endocannabinoids. So just cutting out PUFA likely leads to a short-term stopping of chemically driven overeating, but that doesn't mean your "set point" (in which I don't believe) will go down - that might take years as your cells turn over.
> I simply haven't seen any evidence for it.
Well in general I think that all the generations of people who maintained a BMI of 20ish without ever paying "calories in calories" out a moment's thought is considerable evidence in that direction.
If there's no homeostatic control you'd expect weights to be all over the place as food supply varied.
For sure weight comes down in famines, that's what the stored fat is for! But in times of plenty, it shouldn't just increase without limit. That would be a fatal design flaw in almost any animal.
In modern times, that mechanism seems to be broken in favour of either ridiculously high set points, or even perpetual hunger regardless of fat stores. But that's the problem we're trying to solve.
I don't think that's evidence for a "set point" or "lipostat" at all. Those would imply there's some representation of body fat or weight in the body.
Plenty of other hypotheses explain this phenomenon: equilibria, for example.
Set points are a very specific thing in control theory and they seem almost entirely incompatible with what we see in obesity.
E.g. how does cutting out BCAAs reset my set point by 100lbs? And eating BCAAs sets it back up 100lbs? Or PUFAs.
I've no idea how this homeostat is supposed to work! But one way it could work would be to measure the amount of energy produced from stores when the signal goes out to draw energy from stores.
If that's too low, then increase stores by getting hungry.
So if either PUFAs or some combination of BCAA and PUFAs damage that feedback mechanism, it looks like stores are too low and you get inappropriate hunger.
But if it measures an energy flux then it's not a "body fat set point," is it. It's simply a sensor reacting to a substrate flux.
This can be explained simply by "PUFA -> lack of ROS -> lack of satiety -> appetite" and there is no control required in the explanation at all. Simple, linear reaction.
I think we're arguing about nothing here. Whatever it is and however it works its job is to keep your body fat around 10%, it used to work fine, and it's somehow broken in modern people.
I think it does matter. You fix a broken thermostat differently than you "fix" an open window in the winter.
What's the difference between set points and equilibra?
Set points are a very specific thing in control theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_theory
It's what e.g. your thermostat uses.
An equilibrium might just be happenstance - there's place where somebody set the temperature to 75°F in Los Angeles and some mechanism is working to maintain it against outside forces, it's just a "coincidence" from being near the Pacific, shielded by a mountain range, being at a certain latitude for sun..
The whole point of the "set point theory of obesity" seems to be that it's extremely difficult to change the set point (otherwise, it'd be great! Just set it for "abs" and done!). But that doesn't square with so many anecdotes of people like me, who did "one weird thing" or two and suddenly their set point seems to have dropped by 100lbs.
I get the impression that most of the obesity people, including researchers, who use the word "set point" don't know what it actually means, and that there are many other explanations for "I tried to starve myself and the weight came back."
Gotcha. Sorry for the long delay in response.
So they are using the term 'set points' wrong. But I believe they are referring to basically the same thing.
"I lowered my set point 10 pounds" means 'I achieved a new equilibrium in which my weight dropped 10 pounds'
I agree that there isn't a inherent weight that the body defends. The body doesn't have a target value for weight. I agree it just responds to variables.
But if you eliminate PUFAs from your diet and then no matter how much you eat you cannot get fatter. Then empirically it feels like a setpoint even when technically that's not true.
The issue with getting this wrong is that you would fix a thermostat very different from just a new, lower equilibrium created by an open window.
If you know there is a set point, you'd first try to check what it is. Did somebody mess with the thermostat? Is the cable from the thermostat to the heater broken?
But if you don't think there is (or know there isn't) a set point, you wouldn't look there.
All this talk of "set points" people have implies that somewhere, there's a thing and someone/something's pushing a button and then the body just does the right thing to get there.
I don't think that's the issue at all.
Pretty much by definition, any system with a set point can also have the same issues that the simpler, non-set point system can have.
E.g. you can have a fully functioning set point and heater and cable, but still have the window open. "Closing the window" == "avoiding PUFAs" would still fix it.
The difference is there is a whole class of problems that set points can have that the other ones can't, and unless you happen to fully debug the system or stumble upon the right problem right away, you're wasting your time debugging a system that isn't really there, chasing noise.
Which is part of the reason that mainstream nutrition science has wasted the last... 30 years or so on magical brain woooo when it comes to obesity, and has nothing to show for it.