On Mon, 5 Oct 1998, Gregg Carter wrote:

> If you're goal is to lose weight, you cannot eat as much
> as
> you want . . . you cannot gorge yourself on bacon, ribs, and gobs of fat.

Very true.  I have noticed that many people on various kinds of
low-carb diets, including Neanderthin, tend to make the faulty
inference from the fact that they are not (initially, anyway)
*counting* calories to the conclusion that calories don't count.

People who want to lose weight want to get rid of some stored
body fat.  It makes sense to think of this process in
evolutionary terms.  Why do we store body fat at all?  Clearly,
it is to offset future times of scarcity of food.  Why is stored
body fat an advantage in such conditions?  Because we can use it
as fuel instead of food, or in addition to limited supplies of
food.  Everybody knows this, but sometimes we seem to forget it.

Why should the body use up stored fat if there is no caloric
deficit (=scarcity)?  In evolutionary terms, this makes no sense;
it defeats the purpose of storing fat in the first place.  If you
use it up even when there are sufficient calories in the diet,
then it *won't* be available when you really do need it, a
pointless metabolic strategy.

Certainly there are unanswered questions about why some of us
store fat so much more readily and profusely than others.  The
immune system theory of Neanderthin may well be part of the
answer.  I rather suspect that it is, in fact.  But even though
that theory may explain some cases of obesity, it does not imply
that weight loss will happen without your body having a good
reason to use up its stored fat.  In other words, a paleodiet may
well help to prevent significant obesity, but that doesn't entail
that it will reverse it, irrespective of caloric intake.

The trick is to arrange just a modest caloric deficit, without
causing loss of muscle and metabolic slowdown, and to do so
without also causing an unacceptable hunger response.

> The downside to the caveman diet is
> that many people appear to have mood problems and/or cravings for
> carbohydrates.

This seems especially true in ketogenic implementations of the
diet.  At higher carb levels, approaching Zone levels for
example, it appears to be less of an issue.  Often these cravings
can be slaked by modest amounts of fruit.  But at these higher
carb levels saturated fat must be limited, not only because of
its caloric density but because of its demonstrated property of
causing insulin resistance.  Thus, on a diet that is only
moderately low in carbs one cannot afford to have as cavalier an
attitude about fats as on a ketogenic diet.

> Several people on this list report "cheating" by way of
> occasional carb fests (e.g., a big bag of tortilla chips).  A recent
> review of the scientific literature on mood-states and carbs (see
> http://www.arise.org/bentpa2.html) reveals that over long periods of time
> (e.g., not measured within hours of a meal, but rather in days or weeks),
> carb in-take and feeling good are positively related.

In conjunction with the fact that the body exits ketosis the
moment carbs become available, this suggests that we are
"programmed" to prefer carbs as fuel, but I believe there is
probably considerable variation among individuals in there
ability to tolerate (physiologically and psychologically)
extremely low-carb diets for extended periods of time.  My own
experience is that ketosis does get me down after a few weeks,
but the fatigue and mood changes are remedied by very modest carb
intake, on the order of 50-60g per day--roughly "phase II" of the
Eades Protein Power diet.  I have never had much of a sweet
tooth, but after several weeks at the 20g level, I begin to get
cravings for things such as ice cream, which I normally don't
desire.

Todd Moody
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