Eddie Torres weight-gain

[Sabrosura]

Anyway, it's all about the calories. (not - having "good metabolism", whatever that means).

That's not the whole story though. Insulin sensitivity/resistance also matters. This is why the calories in/calories out theory is pretty heavily contested among some doctors, who argue that it's the hormonal response to foods (insulin) that causes weight gain and people respond quite differently to the same foods foods in that regard, especially if someone has insulin resistance. This is why intermittent fasting seems to help a lot, it restores insulin sensitivity. (Same with regard to foods that spike insulin -- for example if eating 1000 kcal of fish vs. 1000 kcal of sugar, the effect on body weight would indeed be similar in someone with healthy insulin sensitivity, but not if that person has insulin resistance, which means they will store more fat from the same amount of calories from sugar/refined carbs vs. low-carb foods.)

Dr. Jason Fung has studied the benefits of fasting for weight loss in-depth and has written a bunch of books on this, and has a lot of info on his website. Turns out that calorie restriction slows down the metabolism, while fasting actually increases it.

Also, fasting has been shown in studies to improve health and longevity, and what's more surprising, to do so independently of food type:

"The researchers had expected that mice eating the whole foods-based diet would have a survival advantage. But this is not what they observed. Diet composition did not affect health and lifespans. However, the periods of fasting did. Compared with mice in the non-fasting groups, mice in the fasting groups (one meal a day) lived about 11% longer, even though their total food intake and body weights were similar."

The other thing is that calorie restriction is not sustainable for most people in the long-term (which is why most CR diets fail), where intermittent fasting (IF) is.

Also, many people (myself included) feel a lot more energetic when doing IF/time-restricted eating.

 

[1derpalm]

What tends to happen with raw/vegan diets is that the person feels great in the beginning because they cut out a lot of junk/processed food, but after a period (which can be months to years), problems related to micronutrient deficiencies usually appear. I have been researching nutrition & health for many years and looked into the raw/vegan long-term effects, and what tends to happen is that after the initial "high", eventually they realize they feel better on a diet that includes animal foods. Of course, this is not highly publicized because the vegan community looks down on and ostracizes the ex-vegans that have the courage to admit they feel better when they start eating animal foods again.

Also, more recently a lot of people are healing from all kinds of chronic diseases (especially autoimmune) with a carnivore diet -- eating nothing but beef and water in the most strict version. The hypothesis is that some people are more sensitive to plants' defensive toxins (which most plants contain, to defend from predators), so avoiding plant foods helps them heal (meat contains no such toxins since animals' defense is running away/fighting). Cooking deactivates some of these toxins, so for people who are sensitive to them, raw plant foods have the worst effect. More on plant toxins and their potential negative effect on our health here if anyone is curious.

If we look at human evolutionary biology, it's very clear that we need animal foods to thrive. Humans evolved the big brain we have in part because of animal foods, and also cooking, which allowed our body to use less energy for digestion and more for brain development. So, a raw vegan diet sounds great in theory (especially when compared to the Standard American Diet/SAD) but is actually quite far from the human species' natural diet.

Just as an example, this paper by a nutritionist argues that plant-based diets "risk worsening brain health nutrient deficiency", such as choline deficiency (choline is essential for brain health, and even more so for pregnant women, and animal foods, especially eggs and liver, are the richest sources of choline).

The book "Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human", by Harvard primatologist Richard Wrangham, is great on this topic.
Summary: "Humans (species in the genus Homo) are the only animals that cook their food, and Wrangham argues Homo erectus emerged about two million years ago as a result of this unique trait. Cooking had profound evolutionary effect because it increased food efficiency, which allowed human ancestors to spend less time foraging, chewing, and digesting. H. erectus developed a smaller, more efficient digestive tract, which freed up energy to enable larger brain growth. Wrangham also argues that cooking and control of fire generally affected species development by providing warmth and helping to fend off predators, which helped human ancestors adapt to a ground-based lifestyle. Wrangham points out that humans are highly evolved for eating cooked food and cannot maintain reproductive fitness with raw food." (PS From this perspective, Buddhist monks of course aren't worried about reproductive fitness )

You can do ok on a vegan diet *if* you really track your micronutrients and plan your foods very carefully, but it will never be as health promoting as a diet that includes (minimally processed) meat/fish/eggs/other nutritious animal foods (and ideally also liver or other organs). Also in the case of women, it can be really easy to get iron deficiency anemia on a vegan diet. Iron deficiency is a huge public health problem in third world countries (especially in women and children), where people tend to eat mostly plant-based diets (since meat is expensive). Studies have shown that when they add meat to these children's diet, their physical and mental development greatly improves. Of course, this is not talked about in the "meat is bad" circles.

PS I have a Master's in Nutritional Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health, which is strongly in the "meat is bad" camp, and I have been a member of several carnivore diet groups for a year now, and been learning a lot about the benefits they are seeing -- so I have seen both sides of the meat debate in detail

Definitely if I go for a few weeks without animal in my diet, i start to feel weak. All meat is no good for me.
Speaking of brain... I dont know why, bug to me there is a correlation between vegan and believing in things like Reiki (spelling) and other things on the fringe. I dont know why.

 

[Sabrosura]

Definitely if I go for a few weeks without animal in my diet, i start to feel weak. All meat is no good for me.
Speaking of brain... I dont know why, bug to me there is a correlation between vegan and believing in things like Reiki (spelling) and other things on the fringe. I dont know why.

Yeah there is a bit of an ongoing joke in the carnivore community that some vegans are actually mentally ill due to the brain nutrient deficiencies, and that this is perhaps part of the reason why we see a lot of the "crazy vegan" types among them.

As a side note, I am part of both vegan and carnivore discussion groups and I have to say I have noticed the carnivores are a lot more logical and even-headed in their discussions and arguments compared to the vegans This is of course purely personal observation

There is this recent systematic review which concluded that based on 13 studies, with 17 809 individuals in total, vegans/vegetarians have an increased risk of depression and anxiety, i.e. worse mental health, and this systematic review which compared meat-consumers and meat-abstainers in 18 studies representing 160,257 participants and found that: "The majority of studies, and especially the higher quality studies, showed that those who avoided meat consumption had significantly higher rates or risk of depression, anxiety, and/or self-harm behaviors. Our study does not support meat avoidance as a strategy to benefit psychological health."

 

[Chris_Yannick]

As a side note, I am part of both vegan and carnivore discussion groups and I have to say I have noticed the carnivores are a lot more logical and even-headed in their discussions and arguments compared to the vegans This is of course purely personal observation

Is there even extreme carnivorism? I know extreme Vegans like to push their ideals on others and use the 'you are killing animals' argument against you.

I wonder what extreme Carnivore logic would sound like? Something like 'Not only is it your right to consume every last animal you come across, it's your sworn duty to save the planet from these monsters which threaten to eat all of our life-giving flora.

 

[Sabrosura]

Is there even extreme carnivorism? I know extreme Vegans like to push their ideals on others and use the 'you are killing animals' argument against you.

I wonder what extreme Carnivore logic would sound like? Something like 'Not only is it your right to consume every last animal you come across, it's your sworn duty to save the planet from these monsters which threaten to eat all of our life-giving flora.

No, there isn't really an equivalent of the 'crazy vegans' among the carnivores; the most extreme carnivores (those who eat only beef) say they do so because it benefits their health/healed them from chronic disease, and that they feel the best on this diet. So unlike many vegans' ethics-based arguments, carnivores' arguments are based purely on health reasons, haven't come across any that eat carnivore because they "hate animals" or anything like that

Quite the opposite, most carnivores care about the animals and are big supporters of ethical farming practices, and against "industrial farming", and are very grateful to the animals' sacrifice (and also to the farmers) that allows them to feed their body and be in good health. I have seen nothing but respect for the animals in the carnivore discussions.

Also, the carnivore community is trying to spread the message that regenerative farming can actually help put carbon back into the soil, i.e. have negative carbon footprint.

There are also some ex-vegans among the carnivores btw

 

[TikiTaka]

I don't have evidence but I like to think that things that a food habit has existed longer tends to be safer than new ones. This could mean means less fast sugars, less processed foods, more organic, and variation (neither vegan nor carnivore, and don't need meat every day, but can definitely eat a lot of meat on some days). Didn't know the carnivore diet was a thing until just a week ago.

 

[Offbeat]

Yeah there is a bit of an ongoing joke in the carnivore community that some vegans are actually mentally ill due to the brain nutrient deficiencies, and that this is perhaps part of the reason why we see a lot of the "crazy vegan" types among them.

As a side note, I am part of both vegan and carnivore discussion groups and I have to say I have noticed the carnivores are a lot more logical and even-headed in their discussions and arguments compared to the vegans This is of course purely personal observation

There is this recent systematic review which concluded that based on 13 studies, with 17 809 individuals in total, vegans/vegetarians have an increased risk of depression and anxiety, i.e. worse mental health, and this systematic review which compared meat-consumers and meat-abstainers in 18 studies representing 160,257 participants and found that: "The majority of studies, and especially the higher quality studies, showed that those who avoided meat consumption had significantly higher rates or risk of depression, anxiety, and/or self-harm behaviors. Our study does not support meat avoidance as a strategy to benefit psychological health."

Coincidently I have been having this vegan vs carnivore discussion in with some friends last few days.

My belief is that natural evolution/selection is also at work when it comes to diets. If something has worked for centuries, it must be because it was beneficial in some sense. People have been herbivore and carnivore for centuries. Both categories seem to have thrived and survived.

Vegan is a strange thing and more of a modern hipster thing. It is rather recent and we don’t know how it will evolve over the long run. Also people who are vegan are very very small in number compared to over all humanity. Contrast that with vegetarianism has been around for very long time. Though over all less in number that meat-eating, it has not shown any greater negative effect in families who have been vegetarian for centuries.

Most monks and their ilk I know and the people on sparse non-meat die definitely eat dairy. Actually it is considered good and essential part of a good diet.

If someone eats meat once in three months are they vegetarian or non-veg? If it is once a month or once a week? Historically we have never eaten meat in the copious amount as we are doing currently. So we still don’t know what are ill effects of eating excessive meat. Or we do, through a few studies but are those conclusive.

At the end of the day it is whether you are doing in excess whatever you are eating. If you get right nutrients through your diet, that is what matters. Ofcourse excess eating Just started not good and that has been known to us human for a very long time.

We are in a new age of industrial food, excessive eating, more meat consumption per capita than anytime in human history, average life-spans have almost doubled compared to 150 or 200 years back.

All this time we used to be only able to eat what was local and in the season. In the Agrarian economy and also for the most part of Industrial Age, people had to physically work hard whole day whether in the fields or on factory floor. Lack of mechanical transportation meant longer time spent walking. The life-spans were shorter.

Food habits have changed too fast for us to know long term effects of new or different diets.

Fasting of any kind is beneficial. Most of the cultures have subscribed to some kind of fasting historically. It is not new. We just happen to rediscover its benefits and due to the nature of social media and trend gets amplified rather quickly.

I have seen no proof on what advantage veganism has other than it is simply a choice some people make.

 

[SalsaGipsy]

My impression is that the majority of people who are vegan do it for a variety of ethical reasons rather than health reasons - killing animals, meat and dairy production footprint, endangered animals preservation, etc. It often goes together with not using leather and other animal products, for example. But of course there are those who claim health benefits too. I just doubt that they are the main group, at least judging by my personal experiences.

 

[Sabrosura]

My impression is that the majority of people who are vegan do it for a variety of ethical reasons rather than health reasons - killing animals, meat and dairy production footprint, endangered animals preservation, etc. It often goes together with not using leather and other animal products, for example. But of course there are those who claim health benefits too. I just doubt that they are the main group, at least judging by my personal experiences.

Yep, but my point was they're sacrificing their health (and their children's) while telling everyone veganism is healthy. If someone wants to sacrifice their health for animals that's their choice, but many people go into veganism thinking it's healthy. Vegans essentially think they can save the animals by going against human biology. But no amount of love for the animals can change the fact that human health tends to deteriorate on a long-term vegan diet.

Life on earth is not always pretty or gentle, and wishful thinking can't change that. Just like other animals have to kill to survive, so do we, and our body will also feed other organisms when we die. It's the cycle of life. Life can't exist without death, vegans don't want to accept that, and their body pays the price.

Not to mention the vegan-overlooked fact that industrial crops cause even more animal death than eating beef, as well as environment destruction for monocrops. (Lots of small animals are killed in industrial crop cultivation) So a meat eater who eats the equivalent of a cow a year is actually causing less death than a vegan, ironically.

The other thing vegans ignore is that regenerative farming is one of the few things that can restore healthy soil. There are some good ted talks on this.

 

[TikiTaka]

My impression is that the majority of people who are vegan do it for a variety of ethical reasons rather than health reasons - killing animals, meat and dairy production footprint, endangered animals preservation, etc. It often goes together with not using leather and other animal products, for example. But of course there are those who claim health benefits too. I just doubt that they are the main group, at least judging by my personal experiences.

Well depends but i think the paleo diet for example is more related to perceived benefits

 

[Sabrosura]

Well depends but i think the paleo diet for example is more related to perceived benefits

Paleo is a meat heavy diet, definitely not vegan.

 

[TikiTaka]

Paleo is a meat heavy diet, definitely not vegan.

True, my bad, probably confusing it with some other label. Some people i know go to the gym quite a lot and claim benefits from their vegan diet.

 

[SalsaGipsy]

Yep, but my point was they're sacrificing their health (and their children's) while telling everyone veganism is healthy. If someone wants to sacrifice their health for animals that's their choice, but many people go into veganism thinking it's healthy. Vegans essentially think they can save the animals by going against human biology. But no amount of love for the animals can change the fact that human health tends to deteriorate on a long-term vegan diet.

Life on earth is not always pretty or gentle, and wishful thinking can't change that. Just like other animals have to kill to survive, so do we, and our body will also feed other organisms when we die. It's the cycle of life. Life can't exist without death, vegans don't want to accept that, and their body pays the price.

Not to mention the vegan-overlooked fact that industrial crops cause even more animal death than eating beef, as well as environment destruction for monocrops. (Lots of small animals are killed in industrial crop cultivation) So a meat eater who eats the equivalent of a cow a year is actually causing less death than a vegan, ironically.

The other thing vegans ignore is that regenerative farming is one of the few things that can restore healthy soil. There are some good ted talks on this.

I agree with much of this. Personally I consider veganism extreme but, as with everything else, it depends on how you do it, how varied your diet it, how healthy the rest of your daily routine is and so on. And I respect the choice of those who are concerned with animal cruelty issues and overfishing for example. I know people for whom the thought that they are eating an animal that has been killed for it is just too repulsive. I cannot blame them for that. At the same time I appreciate it if they don't preach to me about what I should be doing.

 

[SalsaGipsy]

And just as I was thinking about it, I saw this article today. I cannot say I necessarily agree with all of it but it just demonstrate how difficult it is to be certain of anything, including studies:

Are there health benefits to going vegan?

More and more people are eating vegan meals – and part of the reason is it’s seen as healthier. Is it really better for you?

www.bbc.com

 

[Sabrosura]

And just as I was thinking about it, I saw this article today. I cannot say I necessarily agree with all of it but it just demonstrate how difficult it is to be certain of anything, including studies:

Are there health benefits to going vegan?

More and more people are eating vegan meals – and part of the reason is it’s seen as healthier. Is it really better for you?

www.bbc.com

From the article: "One common motivation for shunning steak and stilton and going vegan is the promised health benefits."

This is what the issue is -- we hear about the vegan diet (imagined) health benefits a lot, but not about the essential nutrients that are lost on a vegan diet because they are mostly found in animal foods (not just B12, which is the only nutrient widely acknowledged in the vegan community to be at risk of deficiency, and many vegans supplement it).

There's basically been a demonization of meat in the media and also at health policy level e.g. WHO (which is ironic because humans have been eating meat for hundreds of thousands of years, unlike "beyond meat" fake meats or even many of the fruits and vegetables we eat today, many of which were human-created by significantly altering the plants very recently in human history -- the plants our ancestors ate were very different) for the last few decades, which started with the whole "fat is bad" policy in the 70s (which has finally been debunked) -- all this has turned veganism into a "pure" health-promoting, environment-saving diet, and eating meat into "killing animals, and yourself, and the environment".

Would just be nice if both sides of both of these ways of eating were presented more accurately and objectively so people can make informed decisions. I think it's safe to say that even among those who turn to a vegan diet for ethical purposes, many would not do it (or at least not feed it to their children) if they were aware of the essential nutrient deficiencies it can cause (which is of course totally understandable and logical -- animals are important, but so is human health).

Key point being, one can still fight for animal rights and for treating animals with respect, while eating the species-appropriate animal foods that humans have eaten for hundreds of thousands of years.

 

[Sabrosura]

And just as I was thinking about it, I saw this article today. I cannot say I necessarily agree with all of it but it just demonstrate how difficult it is to be certain of anything, including studies:

Are there health benefits to going vegan?

More and more people are eating vegan meals – and part of the reason is it’s seen as healthier. Is it really better for you?

www.bbc.com

The studies mentioned in the article indeed show how tricky nutritional epidemiology studies are; the problem all these studies have is that they cannot account for an important confounder: that those who eat vegan/vegetarian diets for health purposes (and that's a significant %) do so precisely because they are health-minded and they have been told vegan diets are healthier. Thus they also take care with the rest of their diet and lifestyle, do not eat junk foods, etc. Whereas those who eat meat (the demonized food, as described above) usually don't care much about their health -- therefore also eat lots of truly unhealthy junk foods. They don't just eat a hamburger patty -- they eat it with an ultra-processed bread bun, fries, and a sugar-loaded milkshake. And stemming from this are a lot of other differences between the lifestyles & lifestyle health impact of the 2 groups that no matter how much these studies try to adjust for confounders, they cannot really adjust for.

Therefore the best study to elucidate this issue would have to compare vegans (especially those who are vegan for health purposes) with those who eat a diet heavy in animal foods for health purposes (carnivores/paleo dieters/keto dieters), who thus also take the same care with their overall diet and lifestyle that health-minded vegans do. As far as I know such a study has not been done.

 

[Sabrosura]

And just as I was thinking about it, I saw this article today. I cannot say I necessarily agree with all of it but it just demonstrate how difficult it is to be certain of anything, including studies:

Are there health benefits to going vegan?

More and more people are eating vegan meals – and part of the reason is it’s seen as healthier. Is it really better for you?

www.bbc.com

I'd also love to see a reference for the claim a "senior researcher" in the article, Marco Springmann, makes about iron: "Over time, the body can adapt to how much iron there is in our diet, and if you have a lower iron intake it can make more efficient use of that iron."

This kind of wishy-washy (and just patently wrong) statement from a "senior researcher" really makes me "shake my head" and suspect a strong bias among some of these scientist vegan-promoters -- if what he says were true, then we wouldn't see the huge iron deficiency problem we see in women and children in poor countries where people eat mostly plant-based diets: according to UNICEF, "50% of pregnant women and 40 to 50% of children under five in developing countries are iron deficient." Would love to hear the scientist in the article comment on that -- I guess their body just hasn't "adapted" enough to the low iron in their diet.

And it's not just developing countries: "In Europe, iron deficiency is considered to be one of the main nutritional deficiency disorders affecting large fractions of the population, particularly such physiological groups as children, menstruating women and pregnant women."

PS I did a quick search and turns out Marco Springmann, the researcher cited above, is indeed an activist vegan. Why are opinions from clearly biased people cited as objective in such articles. It's a clear example of why media reports on nutrition issues are unfortunately very unreliable and misleading.

PPS I am going to post the low-iron-adaptation statement Mr. Springmann makes in this article in the iron-deficiency discussion group I am part of, curious what they'll say

 

[SalsaGipsy]

As I already wrote, I don't necessarily agree with everything in the article but I do agree on one thing - there is a lot we don't know and the studies are limited on insight and very difficult to interpret. So, my take on it is to not go into extremes if you care about your health. And also that labels are less important than what you do with them. I know somebody who was vegetarian and ate a lot of fries and pancakes. I'm sure there are many vegans who are very careful about what they eat and are much healthier than him. As there are omnivores and flexitarians who are healthy and those who are not making good choices and take the consequences.

 

[Sabrosura]

So, my take on it is to not go into extremes if you care about your health. And also that labels are less important than what you do with them.

Fully agree with that, humans evolved as meat-eating, plant-eating omnivores and extreme diets are usually problematic. Nevertheless, some extremes are worse than others, and veganism appears to be one such extreme.

The problem I was highlighting is precisely that people fall for labels (and one of the biggest is the vegan diet=healthy label), and end up making decisions based on biased information presented by biased 'scientists' (and also plenty of biased non-scientists) like the one in the article above.

That said, there is very good science-based, objective nutrition advice out there if one looks for it. And it usually is: eat a combination of minimally processed animal and plant foods, while avoiding (or heavily cooking) plants high in certain toxins or anti-nutrients that are likely to harm us.

But that kind of science-based, objective advice won't come from the media or from extreme diet activists (personally I stopped reading media articles on nutrition long ago, as they are always either misinterpreting study results through attention-grabbing headlines or presenting quotes from biased people) -- it comes from scientists who have scoured the research and who also study human evolutionary biology and understand its connection to health. Two of my favorite science-based books on nutrition written by very knowledgeable scientists who have done the above are "Perfect Health Diet" and "Deep Nutrition".

 

[1derpalm]

From the article: "One common motivation for shunning steak and stilton and going vegan is the promised health benefits."

This is what the issue is -- we hear about the vegan diet (imagined) health benefits a lot, but not about the essential nutrients that are lost on a vegan diet because they are mostly found in animal foods (not just B12, which is the only nutrient widely acknowledged in the vegan community to be at risk of deficiency, and many vegans supplement it).

There's basically been a demonization of meat in the media and also at health policy level e.g. WHO (which is ironic because humans have been eating meat for hundreds of thousands of years, unlike "beyond meat" fake meats or even many of the fruits and vegetables we eat today, many of which were human-created by significantly altering the plants very recently in human history -- the plants our ancestors ate were very different) for the last few decades, which started with the whole "fat is bad" policy in the 70s (which has finally been debunked) -- all this has turned veganism into a "pure" health-promoting, environment-saving diet, and eating meat into "killing animals, and yourself, and the environment".

Would just be nice if both sides of both of these ways of eating were presented more accurately and objectively so people can make informed decisions. I think it's safe to say that even among those who turn to a vegan diet for ethical purposes, many would not do it (or at least not feed it to their children) if they were aware of the essential nutrient deficiencies it can cause (which is of course totally understandable and logical -- animals are important, but so is human health).

Key point being, one can still fight for animal rights and for treating animals with respect, while eating the species-appropriate animal foods that humans have eaten for hundreds of thousands of years.

Testify. As a kitchen lifer I'm glad others can see two sides of a coin.