On spontaneous CR and protein

[mccoy]

This is anecdotal. My own experience in the latest 2 years and 4 months. I hit a maximum in bodyweight fall 2021, 73 kg, BMI about 25.6, muscular with a little more bodyfat than usual. I was a little more muscular than in my avatar picture.

It was the time when my fasting glucose often hit 105 mg/dL, and I used to complain on this board and started a low carb regime.

After these 2+ years of more moderate exercise, not regular sleep, moderate and continuos daily activity, low carb turned into higher carbs the latest months, I lost 10 kg, presently hitting a minimum of 63 kg in bodyweight, BMI 22. In the meanwhile I also stopped taking creatine. Fasting glucose now is usually 95 mg/dL.

The main factor of the weightloss was most probably what I call spontaneous CR, that is I went naturally into a lower caloric regime, which has been in the region of 1800 kCals daily. Spontaneous because that what my body required apparently, I suffered no hunger but if I tried to eat more, I would feel stuffed and uneasy. A natural neurological way the body wanted to trigger catabolism and take the bodyweight down, for reasons unknown to me. I also ceased to track food with cronometer, because that's a measurement which influences the outcome, no doubt about it, at least in my case.

Muscle mass of course suffered, even at a protein intake of 136% the RDA.

Considerations on protein and lean mass: perhaps those advocating high protein to spare muscle mass in not young individuals are right. I kept exercising although more moderately, but the Mechanic signal was not enough, at least with an evidently insufficient energy intake. I'm also convinced that even by eating 200% protein RDA, a lesser energy intake would have caused weightloss regardless.

Present strategy: I'm going to try and recoup the lean bodyweight, hitting a target of 70 kg, or at least 67.5 without creatine. It won't be easy, it will involve eating proteins before vegetables and daily tracking food and weight. It would be far easier with unlimited amount of sugars, the glucose signal is sometimes more powerful than the leucine signal in activating mTOR and increasing muscle mass, as I've noticed myself in the past, probably because glucose and insulin/IGF-1 go hand in hand.

 

 

Edited March 30 by mccoy

[mccoy]

There might be a reason beyond my inability to gain weight. Today I tried and sync the cronometer diary with the activity recorded by my Fitbit tracker. It turns out that I walk a lot and that constitutes a big slice of outgoing energy. I'll dive into it further, but considering that I always walk more than 10K steps and sometimes double it, plus all the other exercise and gardening activities, I might presently be in a chronic energy deficit.

It will be pretty hard to me to be able to eat 4000 Kcals a day though.

This is yesterday's energy summary, which included over 20K steps and the energy probably derived from the increased heartbeat from some exercise and other activities.

 

[manuel5]

Este tema es muy interesante McCoy, yo también he tenido experiencias similares. Por curiosidad, mencionas que eras bajo en carbohidratos y ligeramente alto en proteínas, ¿incluiste proteína animal o fue exclusivamente vegetal? Digo esto porque quizás la menor digestibilidad de las proteínas vegetales podría haber influido en la pérdida de masa magra 🙂

[Saul]

Hi McCoy!

Sounds like a ketotic diet.  They do make it easy to lose weight; but Luigi, in his original posts, discouraged them.  (Evidence is that the lipid levels tend to be bad.)

Byt maybe it work well for you.

  --  Saul

 

[mccoy]

On 4/14/2024 at 12:54 PM, manuel5 said:

Este tema es muy interesante McCoy, yo también he tenido experiencias similares. Por curiosidad, mencionas que eras bajo en carbohidratos y ligeramente alto en proteínas, ¿incluiste proteína animal o fue exclusivamente vegetal? Digo esto porque quizás la menor digestibilidad de las proteínas vegetales podría haber influido en la pérdida de masa magra 🙂

Manuel, no, I've always included animal protein in the form of dairy, which is, in moderate amounts, highly digestible and well tolerated by my system.

[mccoy]

On 4/15/2024 at 12:01 AM, Saul said:

Hi McCoy!

Sounds like a ketotic diet.  They do make it easy to lose weight; but Luigi, in his original posts, discouraged them.  (Evidence is that the lipid levels tend to be bad.)

Byt maybe it work well for you.

  --  Saul

 

Saul, it was not ketotic strictly speaking, but evidently the energy substrate was too low, I was really drifting into a CR phenotype with very little adiposity and decreasing muscle mass. I also found on repeated occasions that if I lower the glucose signal I'll go into a catabolic state unless I'm able to keep the energy substrate very high by eating plenty of fats (and enough protein).