- This topic has 10 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 2 hours, 54 minutes ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Prior to discovering Ray Peat, I did quite a bit of Intermittent Fasting. When I first discovered it, it seemed like a dream or a miracle. I seemed to gain a newfound control over food, weight started dropping fairly rapidly and consistently for months, and I could still eat in hearty amounts during eating windows, and even managed to eat some tasty “forbidden” foods at times.
Things were great! Until they weren’t. The weight loss slowed, and while I was better, I was still a ways from an ideal weight. I ramped up the fasting, which was probably the worst possible idea in retrospect. It didn’t exactly pack on muscle, either. Plus, I started getting ridiculously cold hands and feet, likely exasperating already existing hypothyroid conditions. So, gave it up. But, never quite forgot about that initial magical period.
Funny thing, Ray Peat himself has said some positive things about fasting. He stated that a 24 fast could be mostly beneficial, IF the person was healthy, and IF glycogen stores were full (two big ifs). I remember he suggested that a low calorie day of say, 600 calories, all from sugar/carbs, might give a lot of similar benefits, while avoiding some of the bigger issues of upregulating FAO/ketosis and such.
Well, it seems the Hallowed Halls Of BroScience have found this aspect of Peat’s work, and are running with it. I just started hearing a few former low carbers touting “The Sugar Diet” and “Sugar Fasting” as a way to drop weight fast and quick. I’m always interested in these turns, even if they are overhyping it. The interesting thing about the concept of “Sugar Fasting” is that they suggest you can eat as much sugar as you want during the “fast.” This got me thinking…. why not give a few “Intermittent Sugar Fasts” a try? Nothing really off about that, Peat stated a few times that the body doesn’t need every vitamin/mineral/amino acid every day, and if you did “Sugar IF” for 10-12 waking hours (plus the hours you slept), followed by normal dinner, this would be pretty close to the 19 hour IF window that was popular back in my IF/Paleo days.
I can see some benefits to this as opposed to regular IF. First, it would probably lower FFA during the “fast” as opposed to raising it, and this should lead to better insulin sensitivity, and less stress. Since glucoronidation relies on a decent supply of glucose, this should allow this process to continue, or speed up, helping the liver to get rid of FFAs, oxylipins, estrogen, and such during the sugar fast, which may slow down a bit from normal fasting. It should also minimize gluconeogenesis, preserving muscle better than normal fasting, and ensuring that any “caloric deficit” comes from fat stores, and not muscle tissue.
Plus, it might just be fun to pound juice and candy and soda for half a day, right?
Here’s a woman who experimented with this idea in a reasonable way for 2 weeks, and had some impressive results. She says she heard about it from Mark Bell (who has been one of the big promoters of it), but also mentions the video that Mike Fave put out-
The sugar diet is an interesting idea but I wonder if it does not swing the pendulum too far in the opposite direction of Keto and Carnivore ideas?
Jay Feldman went into some details on how the sugar diet works and whether FGF 21’s role is in terms of weight loss.
It could be that a sugar fast might be better than a pure intermittent fasting regimen in terms of cleaning up some gut issues. But with the caveat being the health levels of the person being the main factor.JRK- Absolute legitimate concerns, which I did hint at in my original post. However, I do think this idea opens the door to some more experimentation, and could be experimented with in ways that even Peat himself would think reasonable. Trying out a “sugar fasting” day isn’t too extreme, as this is in line with the idea of “carbo loading” that body builders do, and somewhat similar to an idea Peat even mentioned, in using some sugar/sugary foods instead of straight fasting over a period of 24 hours or less.
The testimonial video of Indigo Nili I posted also seems pretty reasonable, as she tried the concept out for about 2 weeks, was averaging over 2000 calories a day, and noted some very cool improvements (like more energy, better skin, and weight loss).
Back on the old RPF, there are people who experimented with very low fat and high sugar diets for extended periods of time. TheBigPeatoski, for example, mentioned using two six week stints of very low fat, reasonable protein, and high sugar to lose a bunch of weight, and improve metabolism.
Also, there were sugar extremists out there even when Keto and Carnivore were all the rage. Durian Rider, for example, but you could probably name other “fruitarian” influencers. Compared to that, the Sugar Diet (as promoted by Mark Bell and Cole Robinson) is more reasonable, as they are regularly including meat based protein.
Having said all that, I am going to do some experimenting with “Intermittent Sugar Fasting,” using similar windows that I did back when I did IF. I’ll make sure any evening meal has something like 15-20 grams of fat, maybe from Coconut Oil (I am also experimenting with a very high CO intake, while trying to minimize all other fats). If it goes well with occasional uses, I might do a two week experiment similar to what Indigo tried.
One thing I’ve heard Jay suggest is that a weight loss diet should be more sustainable. But there is an inherent problem with this, as weight loss, at ANY rate, is simply not sustainable in the long term. At some point, you will either plateau at some weight, or die.
But this isn’t really a “problem.” Wearing a cast, for example, isn’t “sustainable,” and if you do so for years, the affected limb would atrophy, and maybe fall off or need to be amputated. But this doesn’t mean that casts aren’t useful. When people use a cast, they use it for a short period, like 6-12 weeks, and discard it after healing. It’s not needed for the rest of life, or even an extended period of time like years, But that doesn’t mean it isn’t useful.
Why can’t a portion of weight loss be fast and unsustainable, while only being used for a short duration? Hours, days, or weeks?
Truthfully, we do unbalanced or unsustainable things every day. If you are driving west on I-10, for example, that is “unsustainable,” as eventually, you would drive straight into the Pacific Ocean. But guess what? No cars actually do that, and the number of cars that have driven west on I-10 and ended up in the Pacific Ocean eventually is very low, like less than 0.001%, and was likely completely unrelated to the freeway driving.
How come there isn’t the same idea in weight loss? Really, there are two main, overarching goals for anyone who wants to lose weight and be weight stable at a lower weight-
1. Shed the excess pounds (specifically fat and certain water weight)
2. Fix a broken metabolism so that the new weight is easily maintained.
Most weight loss solutions focus on goal 1 and get some short term success, but ignore goal 2 (or are very ineffective at achieving it), so they fail long term. But there is no reason that you can’t use a tool that’s very effective at the first goal, and then eventually switch to something else later. Like using a cast to heal before embarking on a physical training program.
I think this idea of the Sugar Diet/Sugar Fasting can be similar to using a cast. It may help people lose a fair amount of weight quickly. It might help to lower FFAs in the blood, get cells back to using more glucose for fuel, and get glycogen stores full. It might help to get body temperature up in some people.
Right now, I am only experimenting with the short term sugar fast idea a couple times a week (like maybe a 16-19 hour sugar window, similar to the old IF structure). I am NOT planning on doing it for years or decades, especially with low protein. I don’t even think the low protein idea is necessary, based on the William Brown experiment. I don’t even think most days have to be super low fat, either, especially if you are using a lot of coconut oil.
But I do like this as a tool that can be experimented with. I might even try longer “sugar windows” as certain points, just to see what happens, and if they are useful.
I can concur with what you have said here <span class=”atwho-inserted” contenteditable=”false” data-atwho-at-query=”@Z”>@Zack-Vegas</span>. From what I have seen on this in comparison to other diet strategies this approach addresses two problems that other diets seem to run into. The first being the idea of caloric restriction which will reduce weight in the short term but as Haidut has used as a prime example the long term results the participants in the show The Biggest Loser, the decline in metabolic rate and the adjustment that the body makes to its calorie upper limits before converting the extra energy into storage in the form of fat.
Second would be the energy source in the form of carbohydrates. The amount of substrate in the of glucose on board should help keep cortisol levels lower levels which should in theory prevent the catabolism of muscle into glucose and ammonia at a minimum. In the short term this should be effective but protein and fat needs would have to assessed on a case by case basis.
I think that fruit and fruit juices would be a good starting point assuming of course there are no underlying gut issues such as SIBO.
In cases where low to no sugar diets are in place currently other strategies may need to be employed such as sipping on dextrose water which is pure glucose if one were coming from a diet like carnivore to train the body to start accepting sugar as an energy source.JRK- Just thinking about “The Biggest Loser” contestants…. I wonder if they might have had better outcomes if they had some sort of “Post Weight Loss Therapy,” like how bodybuilders do PCT. They probably needed some metabolic therapy previous to the show, as well. If they had gotten some things to correct metabolism (like maybe supplemental thyroid, testosterone, and something to limit stress hormones like cortisol, and such), they might not have had serious regain, and may have continued to get into better shape after the show. I think it does show that extreme weight loss methods can make broken metabolisms worse, if especially since nothing was probably done to address either before or after.
That’s one thing that was cool to hear from Cole Robinson of The Snake Diet mention…. he said the reason he finds this diet so effective is that people aren’t battling hunger, they have energy, and their body temperature goes up. He even mentioned you’re going back to your “child like self.” It’s from minutes 17-22 in the interview he did with Mark Bell (be warned, Cole does curse quite a bit in the interview). It’s cool that people are experimenting with a lot of Ray Peat’s ideas, even if they didn’t hear the idea from Peat.
The diet that Indigo Nili did was pretty close to “The Emergence Diet” that Brad Marshall was talking about, only she used lots of sugar in place of Brad’s idea to mainly use starch. I like that this is spurring on some “Peaty” type of approaches that we can potentially use ourselves, or inspire us to some use the framework with some tweaks.
You have some good points <span class=”atwho-inserted” contenteditable=”false” data-atwho-at-query=”@Zack”>@Zack-Vegas</span> once again.
I think that going back to the very start of the show if perhaps hair and nail analysis were done first to get a broader long term view of what is happening metabolically, as well as in terms of hormonal levels and heavy metals it might be a better place to look at each individuals needs.
One thing that does stick out in terms of obesity and weight gain is cortisol levels. Diabetes, atherosclerosis, cancer, all have this one thread in common in that they all seem to be accompanied with high cortisol levels, as well as serotonin, and estrogen, these lead to lower energy levels which are also symptoms that accompany these conditions.If you look at glucocorticoids from there discovery and subsequent rapid use in the general public in the mid fifties, it is not long after in the sixties that many of these same side effects were being observed by physicians in their patients. This did actually lead to a reduction in the usage and decrease in the dosage sizes at that time. So the toxicity of high dose and chronic and subsequent systemic exposure is not new and well documented. But somewhere along the line in around the eighties it seems that dosage sizes increased.
So I think that things that oppose cortisol as well as pro metabolic substances such as B1,2,3, and six would be things to help restore the resting metabolic rate. Then accompanying it with pro metabolic raising activities such as weight training, then short burst energy exercise ie sprinting and concentric exercise to slowly rebuild the CO2 levels within the body might be a better strategy, than the eat less and move more strategy that is held within the zeitgeist currently.
This of course goes without saying would require a comprehensive look at the subject’s dietary habits. But again it goes without saying it requires an individual case by case assessment.
I am going to try this out. For someone with cancer, this high carb, low fat Intermittent Fast seems like a good idea… for a couple weeks at a time anyway.
That said, I have some potential tweaks I’d like your opinion on.1. After your IF period is over, would whole milk be the best food source to break your fast? It’s the best source of calcium and it has C15:0 fat as well.
2. I’lm assuming there won’t be much sodium in the fruit sources so I’ll need to supplement with sea salt. I don’t suppose that has any negative effect on the fast and only adds beneficial minerals.
3. During the fruit fasting times, is coffee (with sugar only) problematic? Would the caffeine add too much stress or would the added sugar compensate?
lastly, where does exercise fit in? Should low intensity exercise or strength training be avoiding while doing the sugar fast? Or would exercising after the protein/fat meal be ok?
1. Milk should be fine to break the “fast,” but back in my IF days, I was never concerned with what food was best to break the fast, because it was so short. It was basically a later breakfast for me, which is a compound word of break and fast, so even the overnight fast while sleeping has been recognized traditionally. Also, the “sugar fast” isn’t a real fast, as you are consuming calorie containing foods in significant quantities. People would often use fruit to break a longer fast (that lasted days), but you can eat fruit during a “sugar fast.”
2. Additional salt is fine.
3. I don’t see any problem with using coffee and sugar. I use it, and Indigo Nili did as well. I think possible stress reactions caffeine gives you is from not having enough carbs or glycogen with any consumed coffee or caffeine.
Exercise could be done whenever. The biggest issue with any sort of exercise is usually if there is enough carbohydrate/sugar to fuel the workout. That shouldn’t be an issue during a sugar fast, or during regular eating periods. People use sugary drinks as workout beverages all the time, Gatorade built a whole company/brand on consuming sugar and salt during and after exercise. The Wall Street Journal even had an article back in 2014 talking about high level professional athletes who used soda during their training and games-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Author
