Baron's Journey to Single-Digit Bodyfat

Dude, honestly, the way you work out you do not need a calorie deficit so much as you need to change the quality of your calories. Now - don't let me lose you, stay with me, but I suggest you look at meat only - stay with me now. You just might find this interesting.

Of course, do you own due diligence, but in doing so beware of propaganda from vegan youtube doctors.

Here is why I suggest meat only:

I'm type 2 diabetic. I get 90% of my calories from fatty meet. Yes, occasionally I "cheat" a bit, e.g. five guys fries (I still eat the burger no bun).

The best thing that happened to me was when I was diagnosed, my doctor and my endocrininologist were both of the mind that sugars and starches were the problem, not animal fats. They also believe that most illnesses: diabetes, heart disease, rheumatoid arthitus, etc are cause by hyperinulinemia or the over production of insulin. Many of us are walking around with normal blood sugars but we are hyperinsulinemic. We do not get the high blood sugars until our cells have been so beat up by too much circulating insulin, they resist insulin's attempt to get the sugar into the cells.

Now, you probably do not have that problem because of your workouts and your athleticism. But you might (I'll post a video at the end that and try to book mark the relevant spot for you, though the whole video is worth while, imo).

Here is my blood glucose - I just took it a few minutes ago and took the pic to show you (sorry it is sideways - I flipped it, saved it, and it still uploads like that:



That is a completely normal, completely healthy blood glucose level two hours after a lunch of a large chicken leg quarter roasted with butter and bacon fat and a bit of green beans and rabbit food, er ... salad leaves I eat to make my wife happy. Before I changed my diet, I ate what most would have considered a fairly healthy diet - lots of fresh veg, brown rice, sweet potatoes, etc. Lots of lean fish and chicken breast. But somehow I still got fat and diabetic. My blood glucose readings where in the 200 mg/dl to 300 mg/dl range.

Here is my ketone reading from the same time showing 2.1 MM:



Nutritional ketosis is .5 to 3.0 MM (that is where your body is efficiently burning fat as its predominant fuel source).

There is a several week period of adaptation where you may not feel the same level of energy you do now.

But cut out the sugars and starches - no rice, potatoes, flours, etc. for one month. Eat mostly fatty meat. I have lost over 50 pounds, and I did not exercise at all except for I am a walking golfer. But I was a walking golfer when I was a fat f*ck too. And I never once counted calories. However, beware of all the keto crazies out there (I started eating this way before keto had become any kind of buzz word). The keto lunatics will have you drinking butter and eating coconut oil like its pudding.

Again, don't do it on my say so. Do your own due diligence. Look up Dr. Jeff Volek and Stephen Phinney. They have done extensive research on low and zero carb diets for high performance athletes. But please research this with real scientists and not the lunatics who are just jumping on a band wagon.

There is a reason Vince Geronda did steak and eggs only when cutting for a competition.

Here is that video cued up to a brief discussion of some world class athletes who were found to be extremely insulin resistant. They had very little subcutaneous fat (like you) but that had an abundance of visceral fat (which may very well be your problem).

 

I don't think that's going to end well for you.

 

I'm my own n=1, but the information is out there for you if you are interested. As for myself, triglycerides from 600 to 52, HDL from 43 to 89, LDL steady (147 vs 161), HbA1C down from 8.9 to 4.7 ... I was a heart attack waiting to happen. I had non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and impaired kidney function. Funny thing is that except for carrying around what I thought was 20 pounds too much (turns out it was closer to 50), I felt fine. Liver and kidney functions now well in the normal range.

I do not do any of the bizarre "keto" things one reads of like putting globs of butter and coconut fat in coffee and eating artificially sweetened fatty keto snacks. I eat real food, mostly meat, not too much - my caloric intake is less than it was because fat and protein are for more satiating and there is much evidence by real biochemists that indicates that nutrition fro meat is far more bioavailable than nutrients from plants.

Again, the information is out there for anyone who wants to explore it and weigh it for himself. But I would not go back to the standard American diet again for anything.

 

You wrote that you get 90% of your calories from fatty meat. That doesn't leave a lot of room for much else.

What relatively little meat I eat these days is definitely of the lean variety. At 60, I take no meds, have normal blood glucose levels, and am considered to be at very low risk for developing cardiovascular disease. So I guess I'll stick with what works for me.

 

As you should. I'm not trying to change minds so much as open them. FWIW, normal blood sugars absent a concomitant fasting insulin reading and HOMA-IR test is not sufficient to give an all clear to insulin resistance syndrome. The best test to determine risk of heart attack is a coronary calcium score.

Forty+ years of government sponsored propaganda asserting the diet-heart hypothesis vilifying dietary fat and cholesterol will not be quickly undone. It has become as sacrosanct as religion for much of the world.

Again, I'm no doctor and no biochem PhD. The information is out there in pubmed and elsewhere for anyone interested.

 

He is very smart and to be honest, most of this stuff is still over my head. But I read and watch enough of it that some is starting to sink in lol.

My bet would be that you have a fair amount of insulin resistance. Again, you can be highly insulin resistant even with normal blood sugars. You can have an unhealthy amount of visceral fat even being otherwise lean and athletic such as you are.

There is a test called the HOMA-IR test that you may be interested in that will let you know how insulin resistant or insulin sensitive you are. Also, if you haven't had your liver enzymes tested, that too can yield important information. You wouldn't be the first super fit dude to find out that you had non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. The good news is all of these problems can be quickly controlled or even cured through a no sugar/no starch diet. And for some, it does not have to a permanent removal of rice and potatoes. I let things go until I was full blown type 2 diabetic. I will likely have to avoid all grains and root vegetables if I do not want blood sugar spikes in excess of 200 mg/dl. But that is a small price to pay to avoid a life of insulin shots and medications.

Again, @Baron you want to avoid all the "keto nuts" who are trying to monetize blogs and youtube channels etc. They'll have you eating sticks of butter and fearing protein. Stick to the information available from Ph.D.'s and clinical MD's actually treating people using this dietary approach.

 

Admittedly, I'm not deep-diving into this stuff. But I'm leaner and in better shape than anyone I know who's anywhere near my age. I avoid added sugars and empty carbs, but I don't specifically seek to avoid carbs in the aggregate. I'm not convinced that a meat-heavy diet is best for longevity, and I suppose that may well be the inertia thing you were referring to that takes time to get undone. However, I don't want any single category of food, especially meat, to represent the significant majority of my daily caloric intake. That just doesn't sit well with me.

 

Great! Now look at it from the perspective of someone for whom all sugars and starches are toxic due to the bodies inability to use insulin properly to process carbohydrate. If you were such a person, you'd have no problem with anything I am saying. If I could still eat rice and beans and potatoes without it damaging my kidneys, liver, heart, and eyes, I would.

You would not run chemo drugs through your body intravenously either. But get diagnosed with cancer and your tune might change quickly. Same with insulin resistance, diabetes, heart disease, lNAFLD, kidney disease, etc. If you had any of those, and you were told you could live a normal life expectancy without medications by simply eating meat and non-starchy green veg, would that not sit well with you then?

Perspective, dude, perspective.

 

Except that you're perhaps prematurely assuming that Baron has the same condition because you suggested earlier that he follow your lead. It may work for you, and that is good. But it is rather off the beaten path to suggest it to others at the drop of the hat. Just my opinion.