On Tue, 6 Apr 1999, Ilya wrote:

> Somebody probably has pointed this out already, but just in case no one did:
>
> what's important is FAT loss, not weight loss. I have known people (including
> myself) that have gone through periods of apparently stable weight when clothes
> sizes went down noticeably.  This would indicate that such a person lost fat
> but gained lean tissue.  High protein diets are anabolic and might induce one
> to put on extra muscle.  The bottom point - forget the scales and watch a
> meaningful measure of your fitness (body fat %, clothes fit, etc.)

In my own case it was definitely *fat* gain, right around the
belt buckle.

> Ahh, this might explain some things. People who can eat seemingly insane
> amounts of calories and not gain weight (I am usually one of them) do so only
> when eating virtually no carbs, high fat, and appropriate protein. When I go
> up to 4000 or 5000 calories/day it's in the extra fat. My fat calories are
> much higher than my protein calories.  You are eating enough carbs and protein
> to stay out of ketosis and your calories from things that can convert to glucose
> are higher than calories from fat. Try lowering your carbs (I usually keep to
> 15-20gm/day, and that is counting all carbs, even what you get in nearly carb
> free foods such as eggs).

The diet that Barry described is not the one that he gained
weight on -- that was the all-meat diet.  Rather, he was
describing the one that he has managed to lose weight on: high
protein, low-carb, moderate fat.

To make an all-meat diet a high-fat diet, it is generally
necessary to find additional sources of fat, beyond what is
naturally in the meat.  Fatty ground beef is okay, I think,
because it has extra fat added in.  HGs would use the extra fat
from bone marrow, etc.

> It's not really high fat - it's low carbs and appropriate protein.  The rest
> comes from fat, which usually means high fat.

Usually?  If the carbs are as low as you recommend, and the
protein is appropriate, then the bulk of calories must come from
fat.

> The weight loss, however, is
> not caused by loading up on fat - it's restiction of carbs, and to some
> extent protein (since protein converts to glucose at a fairly high rate,
> about 68%, according to Lyle on the low carb list).

58%.  But you're correct that trying to get a lot of calories
from protein will push a person out of ketosis.

Todd Moody
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