On Fri, 31 Oct 1997, romper wrote:

> John, it might be too weird, but have you tried increasing carbs to lose
> the weight? How about a day or two of carb loading to stir things up,
> then back to usual eating? You wouldn't have to eat anything non-paleo.
> I have no idea if that suggestion is reasonable for you. I just wondered
> if you had considered it as a possibility.
>
> ,Micke

I think this is a good suggestion.  We have to remember that
large-scale weight loss is itself not a "paleo" thing.  That is,
it's not something that paleolithic people would have needed to
think about.  If anything, the conditions of prehistoric life
would have placed a higher value on storing fat than on shedding
large amounts of it.  The fact that the fat-storing enzyme
lipo-protein lipase leve skyrockets as we lose fat is just
biochemical evidence for this.

So, as unnatural as it might be to be obese in the first place,
it is equally unnatural to attempt to get the body to lose so
much fat.  This is not to say that weight loss requires
consumption of processed and refined foods; far from it.  It does
mean, however, that continued weight loss may require you to
outsmart your body.

For example, the ABCDE diet works in: an interval
of high-calorie eating followed by an interval of caloric
restriction.  The research indicates that people who follow this
plan will gain muscle and fat during the hich-cal anabolic phase,
and lose muscle and fat during the low-cal catabolic phase,
regardless of exercise patterns.  If the cycles are restricted to
no more than two weeks, the net result is that muscle gain
outstrips fat gain, resulting in a more favorable muscle/fat
ratio.  And it doesn't appear to matter about the macronutrient
ratios.

Now, this is a program that bodybuilders are getting into; I
don't know of anyone using it for weight loss purposes, but the
basic idea seems to be this:  If surplus calorie eating is
continued for more than a week, muscle growth ceases and from
that point it's just fat growth.  And if the caloric deficit is
maintained for more than a week, weight loss begins to turn
into muscle loss. Actually, it might be two weeks high and two
weeks low; I'd have to check on that.  The basic premise is
to use short cycles of feasting and fasting to promote fat loss.
This may itself be quite consistent with paleolithic living
conditions.

Todd Moody
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