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That clever, wily, resistant belly fat — 15 Comments

  1. A very complicated subject and interesting study. I’ve mentioned before, I’ve become a fan of what is called, “intermittent fasting.” It basically means instead of eating three meals a day, eat two (and don’t choose the middle meal). It didn’t take me long to get used to it (a few days). The goal is to go at least 16 hours a day with no calories and it’s really not hard. If one skips breakfast, like I do, that still leaves 11am – 7pm to eat.

    Once I did get used to it I found I simply feel better. I don’t know if it does much regarding weight loss. I didn’t really drop weight when I switched to it, but I do think it helps me not gain weight. I don’t stick to a strict schedule regarding other fasting, but I usually end up not eating for over 24 hours a few times a year and have even gone 48 or more at times. It’s interesting stuff. There is a mental clarity that sometimes comes with it and I often have normal energy.

    I’ve experimented with a lot of things over the years. I enjoy experimenting with myself and testing theories using myself as a guinea pig. Right now the biggest, single thing I’ve found is sugar. I find if I avoid high glycemic foods I feel fuller, longer, and so end up naturally consuming fewer calories.

    I should add, I don’t believe we all have the same body types, or metabolisms or genetic predispositions to processing all foods the same way. And my own body has changed. I probably consume 1/3 of the daily calories I did in my ’30s, yet I weigh the same weight now as I did then.

  2. What Rufus Said.

    Magical Murine Mystery Hour courtesy of (I @#$%^ing Love) ‘Science’ ‘Journalism’.

    I take reporting of dietary research with a grain of salt. Too many confounding factors and too much processed food industry involvement. Not to mention production line publish or perish output of p-hacking postdocs in labs.

    Rat and Mice Chow is pretty unnatural stuff, so it’s not like lab rodents are eating anything like ancestral diets when they’re not being fasted.

    Then you get lines of these critters bred with various characteristics. More genetic bottleneck Founder Effects than Bialystock’s Best and Brightest 🙂

    The wonderful thing, though, as Rufus implies, is that we can do n=1 experiments on ourselves. That, combined with the ability to dig quite deeply into online research can be a winner.

    For examples of people doing amazing diet/nutrition work outside mainstream academia, I recommend Gabor Erdosi and Ivor Cummins. There are also many in academia who are not just mindless publishers: Benjamin Bikman being a good example.

    We’re all different and YMMV of course.

  3. My weight has never fluctuated more than 20lbs my whole adult life while my eating habits have changed overtime.

    Today seldom eat breakfast (drink lots of coffee) and have one large meal late afternoon. Drink lots of ice water daily. That’s it.

    We used to walk a lot. Not much anymore. I blame the golf cart!

  4. A little more than a year ago I started cutting back on my excessive coca cola drinking. I was easily drinking a 6 pack a day. With relapses, I have noticed that my sinus congestion gets worse with more sugar consumption, including sweets like cookies or coke. And the congestion shows up within a few minutes if I have been “good” and limited my sugar intake for a while before the relapse. Also, the diet stuff seems to be about as bad as the real stuff.

  5. Another bs study. The human body consumes (burns) 11 calories per pound of weight over an average of 28 days. This is why nutritionists fail weight loss. If you want to lose weight, eat less calories. Example: A 200lb person is consuming an average of 2200 calories each day. Change the formula to 10 cpp, and you are only consuming an average of 2000 calories. Want to lose more? Consume even less calories. Each pound of fat is equal to 3500 calories. Do the math. If you want a lean body, exercise more and target the areas you want to lean out. Exercise increases caloric burning. You don’t have to exercise to lose weight. Have you ever seen a fat person who is starving? No.

  6. I’ve also started experimenting with “supplements;” fish oil, NMN, vitamin D… It’s a bit tricky because I don’t want to confuse my experiments with too many variables and it takes time to notice effects, or non-effects. So far vitamin D has had the biggest, noticeable change. I have been taking a daily vitamin for years (in the morning) and I added an additional vitamin D pill several years ago, but, as I wrote, I don’t consume calories until noon, or so, and vitamin D is fat soluble so I decided to try taking a second tablet after dinner and noticed a difference. I felt better and got a bit leaner within a week, or so.

    A few doctors who study longevity are pushing NMN for cell repair, etc., and so I am trying it. I can’t say I noticed a big change, but I certainly haven’t noticed any negative effects either, and it can take up to 3 months to have an affect. Most folks have good results taking HGH, human growth hormone, but that seems like a slippery slope to me. I’m concerned there may be reasons are bodies produce less of certain chemicals as we age and adding them back in may increase the probability of developing cancers.

  7. Long time reader here, seldom comment. I just finally cut out breakfast about 5 years ago but stayed with my coffee with full fat milk (now oat milk) in the morning. I never liked breakfast and finally gave myself permission to skip it. Anyway I was never overweight but ended up going from 120 lbs to 107 lbs. I’m 5’5”. In my 60s. Numbers fine – take no meds. I guess I stumbled on a quasi-intermittent form of fasting but all I really did was pursue the eating pattern that felt best for me.

    We all just need to figure out what makes us feel best and know that it will probably change as we age.

    My husband must have 3 full meals plus snacks everyday and is slim and so far healthy.

  8. I also cut out breakfast 3-4 years ago, or rather eat breakfast at mid-day. Was never more than maybe 10% overweight (maybe 25 BMI), but was also borderline pre-diabetic. Combined with lots of exercise, I lost about 20 lbs and A1C dropped from 6.1 to 5.4. It was all pretty effortless. Everyone is different, but do what works rather than worry about mouse studies.

  9. Jimmy:

    The study spoke specifically of belly fat, not general weight in poundage. Intermittent fasting supposedly works for the latter.

    Doesn’t work in the least for me. In fact, though, I probably do one form of it naturally anyway (probably about 16 hours fasting – overnight – on a daily basis). Of course, I’m not enormously overweight, but I would like to lose a little weight.

  10. jeanne,

    I’ve been skipping breakfast for close to ten years but still haven’t told my mother! I’m pretty sure she’d have a heart attack if she heard I do that. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!”

  11. Speaking of belly fat; I saw a man yesterday with the largest belly to body ratio I have ever seen. He didn’t have fat anywhere else. Just all in his belly and in front of his body. If anyone needed proof that our bodies do and store things differently, that guy was it. His body appears to have some propensity to store every available calorie between his sternum and belt buckle. Not on his sides. Not in back. Not in his arms or shoulders. I’ve seen people with a similar shape who look like they have a bowling ball under their shirt (interesting that all these folks with bowling ball bellies seem to be thin everywhere else), but never anything like this guy. He almost surely has back issues because of the imbalance.

  12. Rufus T. Firefly:

    There are indeed people just as you describe. I agree that some may have back issues as well.

  13. I look for foods that make me feel full, but don’t have a lot of calories (and, hopefully, they are reasonably healthy). I definitely find getting more calories from fat than carbs keeps me feeling fuller, longer. Eggs almost always make me feel full for a long time. (They are also fairly low cal and incredibly inexpensive.) My guess is my body “feels” full because it has what it needs.

    I’d like to try the carnivore diet, but I don’t want to inconvenience my wife.

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