Re: [fast5] Breaking the plateau

Monday, October 31, 2011

Re: [fast5] Breaking the plateau

A couple of thoughts:

I agree about good fats. But the thing that strikes me about your food choices is the protein choices. Fish and eggs are amazing fat suppressants.

Also, a number of people, especially in the US, lose weight when they go low-carb. But the leanest people, around the world, are the ones who are eating a diet consisting of mainly rice or millet or sorghum or tapioca. All high-glycemic starches! My own theory is that "carbs" are a kind of red herring ... the starch is only an issue if your body already has problems with insulin resistance. In China, males matched for exercise level, were skinnier in China even though they ate more calories than their American counterparts.

Now, one of the things that sets of insulin resistance is high levels of iron in the diet. In the US, most starchy foods have added iron in them. Most of the diets used by body builders, to build muscle and lose fat, seem to be low in processed starches (hence way lower in iron) and stress "white meat" and eggs ... i.e. the low-heme iron foods. Also they take stuff like whey powder, which is an iron blocker. The Sumo diet though, which is designed to put on fat, stresses high-heme foods (beef and pork), traditionally cooked in an iron pot no less!

Wheat is another thing that seems to muck up the ol' appestat, although it works quite differently. If you look at the weight loss diets though, again you'll see way less wheat recommended ... except in the Sumo diet, which stresses wheat noodles.

I say this because it's another thing to toss into the experimentation pile. The diet that is working for you has some interesting features in it, and it's good to figure out what those are, to keep the weight from coming back. Iron blockers might be a big key in diet. Beer and soda pop both increase iron absorption; so does fruit and Vit C. But tea blocks iron. So does calcium, and chili peppers.

So the features I see that might be helping in the food list you posted:

- Good protein (eggs and fish: awesome for satiety)

- Low-iron foods (especially "enriched" starches)

- Iron blockers (tea and spices: esp. with meals that have meat)

- Good fats

- Plenty of veggie fiber (helps stabilize gut function, helps with hunger).

Another thing I might add is some vinegar ... you probably have some on your salad, but vinegar is known to have anti-fat and insulin-regulating properties, though no one seems to know what exactly makes it work.

On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 9:01 AM, RickS <no3rdseat@gmail.com> wrote:

I've been at just around 170lbs for the last year or so and Fast-five definitely lets me maintain well. But I've been twiddling my thumbs, hoping that the last 5-10 pounds would come off. I've been eating very low carb, loading up on meats and eggs, organs, green vegetables, all that sort of thing. But my body just likes 170. I was reading something by Dr Ron Rosedale about manipulating the endocrine system to reduce your hunger by concentrating on eating "good fats" like the ones in avacados, fatty fish, omega-3 eggs, tree nuts, olive oil, etc, and eating only the protein absolutely necessary- usually between 50-85 grams per day. So I've been doing Rosedale's diet along with Fast-5. I basically eat no more than 15-20 grams of protein per hour of my window, unlimited "good fat", and the few carbs are made up of only low carb high fiber vegetables like leafy greens, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and the like. I like him because he stresses that carbs are not essential nutrients and the only thing good about vegetables is that they're not actually BAD for you. ;)

Since I started tempering the amount of protein eaten at a sitting and increased the amount of omega-3, ALA, MUFA, PUFA, etc, my abs have become noticeably more defined and it feels like I'm finally breaking through that plateau!!

So how this breaks down for me is the following:

5:00pm
Big salad with two hard boiled eggs, handful of walnuts, some salsa and a big scoop of guacamole on top. I used to have wine or beer with my meal but since I've been eating like this, I hardly drink anymore!! So usually water or black tea with dinner.

6:00pm
A handful of almonds and a few blackberries or blueberries.

7:00pm
A handful of macadamia nuts. Hot tea.

8:00pm
A can of mustard or olive oil sardines. Water.

9:00
Maybe a hard boiled egg or two and a sheet of nori. More tea or water.

10:00
Not hungry at all. If I feel the need to snack I'll grab a little bag of Trader Joe's wasabi or Thai almonds.

This isn't hard and fast and generally shifts around every night, but it gives you a general idea of what I'm doing that seems to be working for me. Oddly, I would have eaten half of the Halloween candy that my wife buys for Halloween by now. Haven't touched it. Haven't even thought about it!

Cheers!
-Rick

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