As you'll know if you've read THIS FREE EBOOK, I'm not exactly a fan of low-calorie eating. While I'm tempted just to say, "aw man, calorie restriction. That is so dumb, that is really dumb, fo real" - I figured it would be better to seriously address calorie restriction as I see it. Recently I wrote a summary of the importance of metabolism that should be appearing on another site soon. In that summary I addressed calorie restriction briefly, which I have included below.
The infatuation with calorie restriction is actually a fantastic example of some fragment of research taken out of context and the subtle nuances ignored - and more importantly, it's applicability in real people in the real world unacknowledged. Of course, when calories are restricted, everything is restricted - you can't say it's purely the restriction of calories as opposed to the restriction of methionine, or polyunsaturated fat, that yielded the prolongation of life.
But far more important than just some academic discussion about the subtleties, an animal in a laboratory is not a human being with free will and free access to unlimited amounts of calorie-dense food. A two-word summary of calorie restriction with real human beings living in today's society is "it backfires." Recommending calorie restriction for health and longevity would be like forbidding condom use and recommending abstinence for dealing with population control and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. In theory it would work with 100% effectiveness. Laboratory study would reveal time and time again that abstinence leads to a birth rate of 0. I think you see what I'm saying.
Anyway, these are the main points of contention with the silly idea of calorie restriction for health enhancement and longevity. #5 in particular is a unique point that is lost in translation between laboratory and real world...
An increasingly popular myth is the idea that it’s good to have a low metabolism – and that if we burn energy more slowly we will live longer. Much of this stems from laboratory research showing that severe calorie restriction (like eating half of what you normally eat) prolongs life in several species like fruit flies, rats, monkeys…
But, like most research, this prolongation of life is taken completely out of context and then turned around and applied to adult humans living and interacting in the real world. It ignores aspects of drastic and game-changing significance like…
1) The only people successful at permanently reducing calorie intake by at least half are those that develop an eating disorder (and dieting at a young age is the top “risk factor” for developing an eating disorder), the deadliest known psychological disease that affects 11 million Americans alone, mostly young women – and globally has killed more people than the Holocaust.
2) Humans are surrounded by endless abundance and temptation for food, and with real people in the real world, cutting calories by half leads to massive rebound hyperphagia (pigging out – as is seen in yo-yo dieting and every human calorie-restriction trial ever conducted).
3) Calorie restriction experiments are done with animals from birth. This is a hugely significant difference, and the bodies’ of the creatures can develop at a rate that makes the low calorie intake sufficient – but this calorie intake is insufficient and causes rapid degeneration when the calorie level is cut after adulthood has already been reached. Comparing calorie restriction from birth to calorie restriction begun in adulthood is a completely invalid comparison.
4) Calorie-restricted laboratory animals display many characteristics of neurosis, anxiety, and social/behavioral disorders (like those with eating disorders). Thinking that cutting calories will lead to a long and prosperous life in a human is total fantasy that ignores what science and real world observation has already shown us.
5) A laboratory is a sterile environment, and even if the calorie restricted animals lived longer and did have a verifiably slower metabolic rate (pound for pound I don’t think they do), it’s hard to compare this to the real world. The real world is filled with opportunistic organisms and other pathogens, and a high metabolism controls the strength of the immune system completely. A high body temperature – a result of a high metabolism, protects from invasion just like a fever wipes an infection out. More importantly, it is obvious when looking at the real world what happens when food becomes scarce – famines lead to widespread disease and infection at astronomically higher rates. Of course, the body of research connecting degenerative disease like many autoimmune diseases and cancers to various infections is growing rapidly.
“In some animal forms, at least, chronic undernutrition prolongs the natural life span.It has been suggested that the natural life span is fixed, not in time, but in terms of total metabolism or some function of the rate of living.But in man severe undernutrition makes him look, feel, and act prematurely old.There are also changes in basal metabolism and in sexual function which resemble those produced by age." -Ancel Keys
"Calorie restriction is friggin' retarded." -Matt Stone
“Those subjects who gained the most weight became concerned about their increasing sluggishness, general flabbiness, and the tendency of fat to accumulate in the abdomen and buttocks.” -The Biology of Human Starvation… Response to the miraculous healing that took place during re-feeding after 24 weeks of calorie-restriction completely ruined the physical, mental, and emotional health of 32 young men.
Some mentions of belly fat came up in the comments section of a recent post. First of all, as a primer, belly fat – or visceral fat, is considered to be the most harmful type of fat. This type of fat is strongly correlated with insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and the escalating problem of impaired glucose metabolism on the way to an increased risk of heart disease, many cancers, obesity, and type 2 diabetes.
So what is it? Where does it come from? What encourages belly fat storage? What discourages belly fat storage?
As always, my response to these questions takes in a broader view than what is typically circulated throughout the health and nutrition world.
Once again we travel back to one of the most thorough and insightful studies done on real, live, human beings. Yes, a favorite of mine, and one that holds particular significance in my heart due to my personal experiences with starvation – The Biology of Human Starvation.
In the study, 32 men about my age, with an average height and weight of 5’10 and only a buck-fiddy on the scale (like 70-75 kg), had their average calorie intake of 3,500 calories per day cut approximately in half for 24 weeks. During the 24 weeks, they lost tons of body fat and became skeletonized by the low calorie intake. They lost all their belly fat too!
Hooray! The cure for belly fat! Just eat half the normal amount of calories that you normally eat! Word to yo mama!
Unfortunately, what this ignores, and why studies done on the subject and many related subjects are always incomplete, are the after effects.
The men were of course ravenous post-diet, just like any study subject of any calorie restriction trial regardless of weight when entering into the trial. Don’t think for a second that the fact that these men were lean going into calorie restriction makes any real difference when comparing them to overweight subjects. It doesn’t, as any of the leading obesity researchers will tell you.
And, these ravenous men ate their faces off obsessively, and promptly regained all the weight they had lost plus an extra 40%.
The men were split into 4 groups of 8, and each of the groups received a different re-feeding calorie level during the first 12 weeks of re-feeding. Only one group was allowed to eat as much as they wanted.
As you can see in the snapshot I took of the graph representing the weight gain of each group (click to enlarge it), and how that weight was redistributed, there was a disproportionally large increase in abdominal circumference compared to how weight was regained in the arms, legs, chest, total body fat, and so forth.
The “eat ad libitum” group (T) regained more than 100% of their abdominal circumference while only 60% of their body weight losses were restored at week 12. This means belly fat came first, long before muscle mass was fully restored. Or in Ancel’s precise words…
“Anthropometric data support this conclusion and indicate that during rehabilitation the adipose tissue increased in size more rapidly than the muscles. In the highest caloric group the circumferences of the upper arm, calf, and thigh showed an average recovery of 45, 46, and 54 per cent of the starvation decrement, whereas the abdominal circumference exhibited a recovery of 101 per cent [at week 12 of refeeding].”
In every group, abdominal fat accumulation outpaced fat and muscle deposition elsewhere. And this was just the first 12 weeks. If you are familiar with the other snapshot I took of a graph in the book, you can see that body fat levels didn’t peak in these men until 33 weeks post diet, at which point they had 40% more body fat than they did prior to the low-calorie period. Of course, at this point they not only had more total body fat, but the bulk of that fat was centered around the abdomen.
In other words, eating less food than you want to eat, followed by eating the amount of food you want to eat (or even less as was the case in the three groups NOT allowed to eat to appetite for the first 12 weeks), yields a nice rise in belly fat in proportion to other gains.
Wow. Now we have a real problem. We have “PROVEN” that cutting calories causes a loss of belly fat, and at the same time have shown that calorie restriction’s after effects cause a huge rise in belly fat compared to starting levels.
So does calorie restriction decrease belly fat, or increase belly fat? The correct answer, unless you omit the actual human experience of ravenous and uncontrollable hunger post diet, is that it increases belly fat. That’s what actually happens in REALITY, aside from what can be ascertained by nerding around in journals looking for answers to simple questions that lie right beneath your fricking nose.
“Oh but Matt, in laboratories calorie restriction seems to improve health and longevity in rodents, monkeys, and fruit flies.”
Well NEAT-O! In humans that are not locked in cages but are surrounded by a vast ocean of the most calorie dense and rapidly-absorbed foods man has ever devised, calorie restriction leads to out-of-control hunger, cravings, and a huge increase in belly fat depending on how many rounds you repeat the cycle of trying to achieve calorie deficit through restricting your food intake.
In real life, this doesn’t just happen with calorie restriction. Try carb restriction, which is INCREDIBLE for lowering belly fat! However, when followed by eating a bunch of carbs, which most people crave too strongly NOT to eat, while others are eventually forced to eat because of a long list of minor health problems like indigestion, anxiety, insomnia, constipation, cessation of menstruation, and so on developed due to long-term carbohydrate restriction…
Belly fat returns, and belly fat levels increase above and beyond where they ever existed prior. Hey, let’s not pick on low-carb. I got myself an excellent belly by overexercising for 5 months (great for reducing belly fat!), followed by a 2-week lowfat vegan diet (dropped even more belly fat!) followed by eating to appetite and packing on the most impressive midsection intertube of good lovin’ I’ve ever had the pleasure of carrying around (aided by beer, refined sugar, fruit, restaurant-fried food, and refined grain… none of which are part of the rehabilitative strategy that I have devised in THIS FREE EBOOK).
So the question becomes – does eating to appetite of a mixed diet with low to moderate exercise levels and plenty of good quality sleep and relaxation cause an increase in belly fat? Or is the increase in belly fat merely a RESPONSE to the stress you have subjected yourself to prior to actually eating and living granny-style?
If you are intellectually crippled with an aversion to real world observation and experience, or like to analyze diet and health in little fragments instead of seeing the whole picture, then low-fat vegan diets, low-carb diets, exercising like a fiend, and calorie restriction are all fantastic ways to reduce belly fat. It’s just a matter of picking the right guru to lead you to salvation.
More to come in the next post about whether or not the body chooses to store belly fat to completely sabotage your health and make your significant other lose interest in your physical appearance, or if, perhaps, by some far-fetched chance, gaining belly fat is an emergency rescue procedure performed by the body to protect you from the repeated deprivations and stresses it’s exposed to.
Over the weekend I was asked a question about anorexia, and since my thoughts and feelings about the disease are so vast, I saved my reply to this anonymous poster for its very own blog post (note, that is NOT a photo of the person who wrote the following)…
“I have had anorexia for 6-7 years now and I need and want out. I have gone from ‘conventional’ treatment where people shove ice cream and subs in your face to LC because it helped me mentally calm down and distress, then to VLC and then ZC then back up the ladder to VLC and LC now. I eat a shitload of protein and fat and slowly and upping my carbs. My blood sugar is shot. My adrenals are shit. My cortisol is well, shit as well. I have some incredible hypoglycemia problems. Like another person who commented on your blog, ANY form of exercise sends my blood sugar through the roof. My waking blood sugar is over 100 and stays there until I eat and usually post meal is anywhere from 60-90. I played around with Martin’s intermittent fasting because, yeah I am a dumbass. I am starting your book now, thank you.
I guess my question is this… you have read Ancel Keys ENTIRE starvation study and experiment. Well, I am like the prime candidate for overcoming what those people went through and getting my body out of starvation. Any steps, help, ideas are more than welcome.”
To begin with, anorexia is a lot more complex than most people give it credit for. It’s also a lot more dangerous and debilitating than many give it credit for as well. In the words of Furious Pete, former anorexic that nearly died from it – “it’s a bitch of an illness.”
Most assume that anorexia is purely psychological, stemming from body image issues and a desire to appear like supermodels or something like that. While this mentality can certainly instigate undereating and lead to the powerful physical and psychological addiction that best describes anorexia, once the disease has set in, to say that it is purely psychological is a huge error.
I liken anorexia to addiction. From what I suspect, most cases of anorexia begin with a desire to lose weight. When someone loses weight as we have been discussing at length over the past month, this is accompanied by a large rise in catecholamines – the adrenal hormones that break down both fat and muscle tissue to be used as fuel. This breaking down of body tissues is referred to as “catabolism.” Catabolism… catecholamines. Coincidence?
Along with the rise in catecholamines comes a rise in neurotransmitters dopamine and beta-endorphin. These are energizing. Pain goes away. A state of subtle euphoria sets in, and we get a little “high” from it. We are talking about opiate substances here, and they are very addictive – as addictive if not more addictive than actual opiate drugs. Dopamine… dope. Coincidence?
Anything that causes a big rise in catecholamines typically triggers a rise in beta endorphin and dopamine. That’s why you hear so much “buzz” from those who practice intermittent fasting for example, on how good they feel, how much energy they have, how clear and focused their thinking is, etc. They are getting a natural high, just like vigorous exercisers get. Very low carbohydrate eating often has the same impact, and while an anorexic can self-medicate by keeping carbs low enough to trigger dopamine and beta endorphin release, it is counterproductive to recovery for reasons explained below.
The problem is when a person with susceptible physiology meets activities and substances that spike these neurotransmitters to great highs. This is what makes the difference between a person that gets addicted and one that does not. What is susceptible physiology? Susceptible physiology is someone who naturally produces LOW amounts of these neurotransmitters for whatever reason – typically poor nutritional history on behalf of themselves and their parents I suspect, as nutrition needs to be excellent in order to have sound production of these neurochemicals (naturally weak adrenals may in part be responsible as well – and there’s no doubt that adrenal stressors heighten a person’s susceptibility to addiction).
When levels are naturally low, substances or activities that spike these neurotransmitters are particularly alluring. That’s because a person that naturally has low levels of these neurotransmitters correspondingly has a lot of receptor sites wide open to capture this small amount of dopamine and beta endorphin. Anything that causes a surge of these chemicals causes quite a thrill ride.
At the same time, spiking these neurotransmitters results in what is called “downregulation” in which some of those wide open receptor sites close down. This is precisely what makes anything that spikes feel good brain chemicals habit forming and addictive. With a low production of dopamine and lots of wide open receptor sites, life feels good, balanced, stable, and normal. But with a low dopamine production and closed receptor sites life feels slow, sluggish, depressing, painful, and so on – the opposite of a dopamine high.
Once dopamine has been spiked enough, and enough receptor sites shut down – even if dopamine production is still the exact same as it was to begin with, the person feels nothing but withdrawals and has the experience of insufficient dopamine, beta endorphin, or whatever. They need increasingly larger spikes of these neurotransmitters just to feel normal, much less good, just like any true long-term drug addict or alcoholic.
This is exactly the pathology of anorexia. A susceptible person starves him or herself. When that happens, beta endorphin and dopamine levels rise – making the person feel VERY good at first. If a person manages to fight their hunger signals hard enough, and long enough with a large motivating factor such as body image issues to override natural physical feedback…
Then receptor sites start to shut down. Undereating, at this point, then becomes self-perpetuating and the normal hunger feedback loop is broken. Resuming eating once again induces instant withdrawals for which abstaining from eating is the medicine. Undereating, from a functional standpoint, becomes a drug to get a dopamine and beta endorphin feel-good fix. Without it, a person feels miserable physically, and depressed, lethargic, and dark psychologically. At this point, anorexia is not something that can be cured with a Club sandwich any more than a heroin addiction can be cured with a Club sandwich.
Before I go indefinitely on this addiction/anorexia tangent, let me get into specifics in terms of the questions that were asked in the email I received above…
Recovering from anorexia is like recovering from serious drug addiction and should not be underestimated. Any person suffering from anorexia, if he or she has any hopes of recovery, must first be able to grasp what addiction is, how it operates, and what MUST be done to recover.
From this vantage point, the psychological pre-requisite for recovery can hopefully be mustered. That psychological pre-requisite is one of understanding how the body and mind work, and grasping fully why eating makes you feel shitty and depressed with an uncontrollable urge to stop eating.
I imagine a typical anorexic seeking recovery is at odds with themselves, frustrated as to why they can’t just eat when they know they need to, and confused at all the terrible physical and emotional trauma they experience when eating. To get to the other side, it really takes full recognition of the problem, how to fix it, and a whole lotta self compassion. Otherwise you’ll just beat yourself up for not eating instead of realizing exactly why you don’t want to, taking it easy on yourself because of it, and taking the proper steps knowing fully that it is going to be a major hellish battle that every cell in your body will try to resist.
To recover, I believe that there is no way around achieving “upregulation” in which the receptor sites for beta endorphin and dopamine open back up again – allowing you to feel normal with your naturally low production of those neurotransmitters instead of experiencing too little and having an unquenchable thirst for anything and everything that spikes it.
A very low carbohydrate diet, in the short-term, could very well make for a substitute for anorexia, as could very strenuous exercise, as could various psyche meds and stimulants. However, that is ultimately trading one form of addiction for another, and is not genuine recovery. However, it can make for a great stepping stone.
But ultimately upregulation must occur. For this to happen, it is essential to focus on doing everything possible to keep beta endorphin and dopamine levels as low as possible. This, ladies and gents, is brutal for someone with downregulated receptor sites for these chemicals. The withdrawals can be major.
For someone seeking to keep these levels as low as possible, major tactics include:
1) Eating frequent, starch-based, whole food meals at above-maintenance calorie levels. The food should actually be somewhat bland, in whole food format, with some, but not too much added fat or protein (protein raises adrenal hormones and associated neurotransmitters, and really good food, especially sweets mixed with fat, triggers a big release of opiates that you are looking to avoid). A non-vegetarian macrobiotic-ish diet would actually be decent for recovery. This will also help in fixing reactive hypoglycemia, which I would guess nearly all anorexics suffer from to some degree (although it too will exacerbate hypoglycemic symptoms in the short-term). 2) Sleep a lot, including regular naps. 3) Perform various relaxation techniques, from gentle yoga and breathing exercises to meditation. 4) Avoid stress as much as possible. 5) Avoid strenuous exercise. 6) Avoid stimulants. 7) Avoid drugs – recreational and psychoactive. 8) Avoid sweets. 9) Avoid anything overly pleasurable. The more miserable you are, the faster you are upregulating.
This is obviously a lot to ask for, and would require tremendous support from family members, loved ones, and potentially demand professional assistance like that required for a drug addict attempting rehabilitation. Unfortunately, I’d venture to guess that most professional eating disorder rehab joints, just like most drug rehab joints, provide many forms of self-medication from candy to cigarettes that lessen withdrawals and limit true fundamental healing of the core problem.
Once you have upregulated, be very cautious about meal-skipping, drugs, stimulants, stress, and other adrenal stressors that can cause a relapse, as your sensitivity to such things is greatly heightened in an upregulated state.
Bulimia shares a similar pathology. Know how miserable you feel right before puking and how euphoric and instantly healed you feel immediately after vomiting? That’s some endorphins for you. Addictive as hell if you do it enough to start shutting down your receptor sites.
For more specific lifestyle and dietary recommendations geared for overcoming addiction and more by lowering adrenal hormone activity via overfeeding, over-relaxing, and oversleeping, READ THIS FREE eBOOK.
More on reactive hypoglycemia in a blog post this Thursday – something many chronic dieters, hypometabolics, and adrenal gland punishers experience given sufficient time.
