I have ~2 million thoughts about the many sub-points in this post, a lot of which are “yes!” or “gosh, we think about some things similarly”. I’ll pick two big ones.
The first is that filet mignon is NOT the most flavorful cut of steak. It’s the most flavorful cut of steak that has no marbling a/k/a fat. Objectively, the most flavorful cut is the ribeye, medium rare (fight me). Spend $80 on one at The Palm, and then you will have found the true ceiling on steak flavor.
The second is: I’ve done low-carb, and I’ve done “just count the calories,” and the latter is the easy winner, both from a $ angle and a “time you have to spend thinking about complying” angle (in my experience, with goals similar to yours except also adding muscle). The smart folks at Stronger By Science, an evidence-based strength and nutrition website that’s mentioned here somewhat frequently, recently published a calorie-tracking app called MacroFactor. It has replaced LoseIt as my weight maintenance app (and I had a 500-day streak on LoseIt). The math isn’t public-facing because it’s the thing of value that they are selling, but I’ve been using it for about a month with a “maintain” goal, and the rolling average of my weight has moved .2 pounds in either direction. As with any calorie-counting app, all you do is eat whatever you want and log it and stop eating when you hit the limit for the day. SBS are somewhat more oriented toward the strength training community, but you can basically tell the app, “Give me a low protein target.” Or you can ignore the macronutrient tracking entirely and just do calories.
I have ~2 million thoughts about the many sub-points in this post, a lot of which are “yes!” or “gosh, we think about some things similarly”. I’ll pick two big ones.
Cool! I’m interested in hearing the other thoughts too FWIW. Not to be pushy, just saying this in case you didn’t think they were important enough to say.
The first is that filet mignon is NOT the most flavorful cut of steak. It’s the most flavorful cut of steak that has no marbling a/k/a fat. Objectively, the most flavorful cut is the ribeye, medium rare (fight me). Spend $80 on one at The Palm, and then you will have found the true ceiling on steak flavor.
Ah, that does make sense. That thought actually started brewing in my mind last night as I rewatched that episode on steak with Heston Blumenthal, but you have helped me solidify it.
The second is: I’ve done low-carb, and I’ve done “just count the calories,” and the latter is the easy winner, both from a $ angle and a “time you have to spend thinking about complying” angle
Hm that is interesting. If the stuff I said about carbs and hunger is true, counting calories risks you being put in a situation where you had a bunch of carbs, the carbs are making you hungry, but you’ve also reached your calorie limit for the day and have to stop eating. It seems like that would happen quite often if you are only paying attention to calories and not paying attention to what you are eating.
Epistemic status: riffing based on personal experience/background knowledge/my best personal synthesis of the research I’ve read or heard about from sources I trust, which is definitely not all of the research out there; sources cited below are just for flavor and are not the basis of my claims.
On top of this, I tried Tim Ferris’ slow carb diet once, and it actually worked! I lost a little over five pounds in, maybe two weeks? I forget.
You only lost five pounds of tissue if you cut ~3500kcal*5 pounds out of your diet in two weeks, with a fudge factor for your genetic tendency toward compensatory changes in energy expenditure. Low carbohydrate diets tend to cause loss of fluid weight in the acute stages, before it returns to baseline. This was a known “problem” with Atkins 15 years ago when all the women I knew were trying it. Problem only insofar as you got discouraged when the scale went back up, if you weren’t expecting it.
I often eat more than twice as much food as my girlfriend
For a male and female of the same fitness level and the usual height disparity, I wouldn’t be surprised if the male’s maintenance kcals were 1.5x the female’s. This statement you made didn’t cause me to update very far in the direction of “wow, Adam has {some unusual dietary need}”.
This is very ballparky, it’s hard to describe since I don’t have actual data on calories or grams.
People are natively very bad at estimating calorie content. (Another reason a calorie-counting app is a big help.)
Another data point is that friends and family all notice and point out that I eat crazy amounts of food, and joke with me about it.
I’ve been this guy at the office (one office literally called me “the human garbage disposal”; in context, it’s not as mean as it sounds), with family, and with friends since I started competitive 5k training in my late 20s. When I started strength training in my early 30s, it got even more pronounced.
My plates are often 1⁄2 carb, 1⁄4 meat, 1⁄4 veggies.
The American dietitian professional association recommends 1⁄4 carb, 1⁄4 meat, 1⁄2 veggies. NB not sure how well-validated this is, and given who their clients are, it’s unusually focused on people with diabetes.
Personally, I find that it’s hard to feel full after eating eggs given the soft texture.
This is true even with 12-egg omelettes...ask me how I know
He identifies various ingredients that give you protein and have a low cost per calorie.
Structuring your diet around these things is a crappy life.
Milk and dairy in general Ferris says shouldn’t be a part of the slow carb diet.
People at the start of their muscle-building journey have been drinking 2L or more of milk every day, on top of their usual diet, since at least the 60s. It’s not great for a low-carb diet because it has some sugars in it.
I guess you could mix it with water too but that sounds gross.
Yes, you buy a shaker cup. It’s not great (it’s not great with milk, either). Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Double Chocolate is fine for this. But protein shakes are really about getting yourself over the protein line when normal eating just can’t get you there. It’s not cost-effective for calories in general.
(although I’m leaving the yolks out because of my cholesterol; I’ve heard that maybe they aren’t actually bad for your cholesterol, but it seems like a good idea to be safe and leave them out)
But those veggies a) aren’t very nutritious and b) aren’t very filling.
Two things are filling: calories and fiber.
I need to go no carb or close to no carb in order to lose some weight [...].
I am confident this claim is false. I will donate $50 to GiveWell if you use Macrofactor for two months, with a goal of slow weight loss (.25kg/week), make a conscious effort to track your food accurately and thoroughly (“I can’t cheat or it’s like cheating supposedlyfun”), don’t go over your daily kcal allowance, and you nevertheless don’t lose tissue roughly in the amount of the goal you put into the app.
“roughly” is doing a lot of work there, so I’ll let you decide if the time comes.
If you lose the weight but find that the deficit was too painful to maintain sustainably, I’ll donate $25.
I suspect that 2-3kg of weight loss will also yield lower blood numbers—it did for me—but I’m less confident due to less personal and friends’ experience and less familiarity with the science.
I am confident this claim is false. I will donate $50 to GiveWell if you use Macrofactor for two months, with a goal of slow weight loss (.25kg/week), make a conscious effort to track your food accurately and thoroughly (“I can’t cheat or it’s like cheating supposedlyfun”), don’t go over your daily kcal allowance, and you nevertheless don’t lose tissue roughly in the amount of the goal you put into the app.
Thank you, that is very nice of you! Maybe I’ll revisit calorie counting in the future, but I’d at least like to give slow carb a chance first. I really like having that one cheat day a week. I like that I can eat until satiety, whereas with calorie counting it doesn’t always work out that way, and I really don’t like stopping when I still feel hungry. I also don’t enjoy the process of keeping track of calories. Plus I still suspect that there are various benefits to low carb. So for all of those reasons it does seem like it’d be best to continue with slow carb.
Low carbohydrate diets tend to cause loss of fluid weight in the acute stages, before it returns to baseline.
Ah, that is a great point!
For a male and female of the same fitness level and the usual height disparity, I wouldn’t be surprised if the male’s maintenance kcals were 1.5x the female’s.
Interesting. I didn’t realize that, but in retrospect it does make sense.
People are natively very bad at estimating calorie content. (Another reason a calorie-counting app is a big help.)
Yeah that makes sense. I feel like there is some general principle here that I can’t think of. Another thing that comes to mind that fits this principle I’m envisioning is how people are bad at knowing how much time they spend on various things.
one office literally called me “the human garbage disposal”
Haha, I’ve been called that too. Independently by different social groups. Ie. my family and my girlfriend’s family, but my girlfriend’s family didn’t know my family calls me that. My mom would say that to my dad too. I get the sense it’s a common phrase. Like how in romantic relationships people often call each other “honey”.
This is true even with 12-egg omelettes...ask me how I know
Oh wow! I was thinking of just eating more eggs. More than six felt overboard to me. But yeah that’s interesting how even that many eggs doesn’t make you feel full. Seems like it is pointing at something important about how hunger works.
Structuring your diet around these things is a crappy life.
I actually don’t feel that way. I’ve been pretty happy with my meals since starting slow carb, enjoyment-wise. For me having to count calories and stop at a certain number even if I’m not full yet would be a crappy life.
The link between dietary cholesterol and serum cholesterol is definitely not settled, and dietary cholesterol is only one of many factors contributing to serum cholesterol, if it does at all. Eat egg yolks as much as you want at breakfast, is my conclusion.
Sigh. Yeah. I get that sense too a little bit. There are a few videos from that What I’ve Learned YouTube channel that said stuff about this, plus it linked to a talk by Peter Attia where he said some stuff about this too. Given that it’s not settled though, you don’t think it’d be safer to just leave the yolks out? If it was settled in the direction of yolks being ok that’d be one thing, but otherwise it feels risky to me.
Re eggs: I like eggs, and I don’t like no eggs, and I don’t like egg whites, and the hedonic disparity is worth what I perceive to be a very small risk increase. Especially because the risk level is easy to indirectly monitor, via blood work, but even more especially because my model of your body, based on how mine was at your age + what you said in your post and comments, is that getting your weight under control is likely to get your blood work under control, such that you can add as many egg yolks as you are likely to want without your numbers moving in a way that adds appreciably to your risk of dying of heart disease.
Re low carb, absolutely try what you are most inclined to try, because compliance is hard without motivation, and low carb will probably put you in a caloric deficit anyway.
I don’t, but when my blood numbers were high, my doctor prescribed (or whatever causes insurance to pay for it) more-frequent checks, like every month or so. ymmv depending on your insurance. You might be able to pay out of pocket if you call up LabCorp and work out a volume-discount deal.
I have this problem with white carbs and ended up cutting them out almost entirely. I do occasionally have a loaf of ciabatta or white tortillas, but I time those meals so I won’t be able to eat more later.
Hm that is interesting. If the stuff I said about carbs and hunger is true, counting calories risks you being put in a situation where you had a bunch of carbs, the carbs are making you hungry, but you’ve also reached your calorie limit for the day and have to stop eating. It seems like that would happen quite often if you are only paying attention to calories and not paying attention to what you are eating.
In my experience, this just isn’t a problem. I have only rarely experienced the [large carb bolus]->[untimely hunger cues] effect, and only with food that is so sugary that it makes me ill to eat, like a strawberry mochi that was 8cm across and 3cm thick. A Snickers bar (35g carb, 29g sugar) does not cause this effect—maybe the peanut fats blunt it?
The only times I might have to go to bed hungry are when I lifted heavy that morning and am experiencing excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. Sometimes, I take a Unisom so I sleep through it, and sometimes, I just keep eating. The net effect of these choices is weight maintenance.
I have ~2 million thoughts about the many sub-points in this post, a lot of which are “yes!” or “gosh, we think about some things similarly”. I’ll pick two big ones.
The first is that filet mignon is NOT the most flavorful cut of steak. It’s the most flavorful cut of steak that has no marbling a/k/a fat. Objectively, the most flavorful cut is the ribeye, medium rare (fight me). Spend $80 on one at The Palm, and then you will have found the true ceiling on steak flavor.
The second is: I’ve done low-carb, and I’ve done “just count the calories,” and the latter is the easy winner, both from a $ angle and a “time you have to spend thinking about complying” angle (in my experience, with goals similar to yours except also adding muscle). The smart folks at Stronger By Science, an evidence-based strength and nutrition website that’s mentioned here somewhat frequently, recently published a calorie-tracking app called MacroFactor. It has replaced LoseIt as my weight maintenance app (and I had a 500-day streak on LoseIt). The math isn’t public-facing because it’s the thing of value that they are selling, but I’ve been using it for about a month with a “maintain” goal, and the rolling average of my weight has moved .2 pounds in either direction. As with any calorie-counting app, all you do is eat whatever you want and log it and stop eating when you hit the limit for the day. SBS are somewhat more oriented toward the strength training community, but you can basically tell the app, “Give me a low protein target.” Or you can ignore the macronutrient tracking entirely and just do calories.
Cool! I’m interested in hearing the other thoughts too FWIW. Not to be pushy, just saying this in case you didn’t think they were important enough to say.
Ah, that does make sense. That thought actually started brewing in my mind last night as I rewatched that episode on steak with Heston Blumenthal, but you have helped me solidify it.
Hm that is interesting. If the stuff I said about carbs and hunger is true, counting calories risks you being put in a situation where you had a bunch of carbs, the carbs are making you hungry, but you’ve also reached your calorie limit for the day and have to stop eating. It seems like that would happen quite often if you are only paying attention to calories and not paying attention to what you are eating.
Epistemic status: riffing based on personal experience/background knowledge/my best personal synthesis of the research I’ve read or heard about from sources I trust, which is definitely not all of the research out there; sources cited below are just for flavor and are not the basis of my claims.
You only lost five pounds of tissue if you cut ~3500kcal*5 pounds out of your diet in two weeks, with a fudge factor for your genetic tendency toward compensatory changes in energy expenditure. Low carbohydrate diets tend to cause loss of fluid weight in the acute stages, before it returns to baseline. This was a known “problem” with Atkins 15 years ago when all the women I knew were trying it. Problem only insofar as you got discouraged when the scale went back up, if you weren’t expecting it.
For a male and female of the same fitness level and the usual height disparity, I wouldn’t be surprised if the male’s maintenance kcals were 1.5x the female’s. This statement you made didn’t cause me to update very far in the direction of “wow, Adam has {some unusual dietary need}”.
People are natively very bad at estimating calorie content. (Another reason a calorie-counting app is a big help.)
I’ve been this guy at the office (one office literally called me “the human garbage disposal”; in context, it’s not as mean as it sounds), with family, and with friends since I started competitive 5k training in my late 20s. When I started strength training in my early 30s, it got even more pronounced.
The American dietitian professional association recommends 1⁄4 carb, 1⁄4 meat, 1⁄2 veggies. NB not sure how well-validated this is, and given who their clients are, it’s unusually focused on people with diabetes.
This is true even with 12-egg omelettes...ask me how I know
Structuring your diet around these things is a crappy life.
People at the start of their muscle-building journey have been drinking 2L or more of milk every day, on top of their usual diet, since at least the 60s. It’s not great for a low-carb diet because it has some sugars in it.
Yes, you buy a shaker cup. It’s not great (it’s not great with milk, either). Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Double Chocolate is fine for this. But protein shakes are really about getting yourself over the protein line when normal eating just can’t get you there. It’s not cost-effective for calories in general.
The link between dietary cholesterol and serum cholesterol is definitely not settled, and dietary cholesterol is only one of many factors contributing to serum cholesterol, if it does at all. Eat egg yolks as much as you want at breakfast, is my conclusion.
Two things are filling: calories and fiber.
I am confident this claim is false. I will donate $50 to GiveWell if you use Macrofactor for two months, with a goal of slow weight loss (.25kg/week), make a conscious effort to track your food accurately and thoroughly (“I can’t cheat or it’s like cheating supposedlyfun”), don’t go over your daily kcal allowance, and you nevertheless don’t lose tissue roughly in the amount of the goal you put into the app.
“roughly” is doing a lot of work there, so I’ll let you decide if the time comes.
If you lose the weight but find that the deficit was too painful to maintain sustainably, I’ll donate $25.
I suspect that 2-3kg of weight loss will also yield lower blood numbers—it did for me—but I’m less confident due to less personal and friends’ experience and less familiarity with the science.
Thank you, that is very nice of you! Maybe I’ll revisit calorie counting in the future, but I’d at least like to give slow carb a chance first. I really like having that one cheat day a week. I like that I can eat until satiety, whereas with calorie counting it doesn’t always work out that way, and I really don’t like stopping when I still feel hungry. I also don’t enjoy the process of keeping track of calories. Plus I still suspect that there are various benefits to low carb. So for all of those reasons it does seem like it’d be best to continue with slow carb.
Ah, that is a great point!
Interesting. I didn’t realize that, but in retrospect it does make sense.
Yeah that makes sense. I feel like there is some general principle here that I can’t think of. Another thing that comes to mind that fits this principle I’m envisioning is how people are bad at knowing how much time they spend on various things.
Haha, I’ve been called that too. Independently by different social groups. Ie. my family and my girlfriend’s family, but my girlfriend’s family didn’t know my family calls me that. My mom would say that to my dad too. I get the sense it’s a common phrase. Like how in romantic relationships people often call each other “honey”.
Oh wow! I was thinking of just eating more eggs. More than six felt overboard to me. But yeah that’s interesting how even that many eggs doesn’t make you feel full. Seems like it is pointing at something important about how hunger works.
I actually don’t feel that way. I’ve been pretty happy with my meals since starting slow carb, enjoyment-wise. For me having to count calories and stop at a certain number even if I’m not full yet would be a crappy life.
Sigh. Yeah. I get that sense too a little bit. There are a few videos from that What I’ve Learned YouTube channel that said stuff about this, plus it linked to a talk by Peter Attia where he said some stuff about this too. Given that it’s not settled though, you don’t think it’d be safer to just leave the yolks out? If it was settled in the direction of yolks being ok that’d be one thing, but otherwise it feels risky to me.
Re eggs: I like eggs, and I don’t like no eggs, and I don’t like egg whites, and the hedonic disparity is worth what I perceive to be a very small risk increase. Especially because the risk level is easy to indirectly monitor, via blood work, but even more especially because my model of your body, based on how mine was at your age + what you said in your post and comments, is that getting your weight under control is likely to get your blood work under control, such that you can add as many egg yolks as you are likely to want without your numbers moving in a way that adds appreciably to your risk of dying of heart disease.
Re low carb, absolutely try what you are most inclined to try, because compliance is hard without motivation, and low carb will probably put you in a caloric deficit anyway.
Good luck! I’m excited for you.
Gotcha on the eggs. Incorporated into my model.
Do you know of any good ways to monitor blood stuff more frequently than waiting for your annual check up?
I don’t, but when my blood numbers were high, my doctor prescribed (or whatever causes insurance to pay for it) more-frequent checks, like every month or so. ymmv depending on your insurance. You might be able to pay out of pocket if you call up LabCorp and work out a volume-discount deal.
If only Theranos didn’t turn out to be a fraud. That’s a good tip though about the doctor prescribing it. I feel like that is plausible. Thanks.
I have this problem with white carbs and ended up cutting them out almost entirely. I do occasionally have a loaf of ciabatta or white tortillas, but I time those meals so I won’t be able to eat more later.
In my experience, this just isn’t a problem. I have only rarely experienced the [large carb bolus]->[untimely hunger cues] effect, and only with food that is so sugary that it makes me ill to eat, like a strawberry mochi that was 8cm across and 3cm thick. A Snickers bar (35g carb, 29g sugar) does not cause this effect—maybe the peanut fats blunt it?
The only times I might have to go to bed hungry are when I lifted heavy that morning and am experiencing excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. Sometimes, I take a Unisom so I sleep through it, and sometimes, I just keep eating. The net effect of these choices is weight maintenance.