I am confident this claim is false. I will donate $50 to GiveWell if you use Macrofactor for two months, with a goal of slow weight loss (.25kg/week), make a conscious effort to track your food accurately and thoroughly (“I can’t cheat or it’s like cheating supposedlyfun”), don’t go over your daily kcal allowance, and you nevertheless don’t lose tissue roughly in the amount of the goal you put into the app.
Thank you, that is very nice of you! Maybe I’ll revisit calorie counting in the future, but I’d at least like to give slow carb a chance first. I really like having that one cheat day a week. I like that I can eat until satiety, whereas with calorie counting it doesn’t always work out that way, and I really don’t like stopping when I still feel hungry. I also don’t enjoy the process of keeping track of calories. Plus I still suspect that there are various benefits to low carb. So for all of those reasons it does seem like it’d be best to continue with slow carb.
Low carbohydrate diets tend to cause loss of fluid weight in the acute stages, before it returns to baseline.
Ah, that is a great point!
For a male and female of the same fitness level and the usual height disparity, I wouldn’t be surprised if the male’s maintenance kcals were 1.5x the female’s.
Interesting. I didn’t realize that, but in retrospect it does make sense.
People are natively very bad at estimating calorie content. (Another reason a calorie-counting app is a big help.)
Yeah that makes sense. I feel like there is some general principle here that I can’t think of. Another thing that comes to mind that fits this principle I’m envisioning is how people are bad at knowing how much time they spend on various things.
one office literally called me “the human garbage disposal”
Haha, I’ve been called that too. Independently by different social groups. Ie. my family and my girlfriend’s family, but my girlfriend’s family didn’t know my family calls me that. My mom would say that to my dad too. I get the sense it’s a common phrase. Like how in romantic relationships people often call each other “honey”.
This is true even with 12-egg omelettes...ask me how I know
Oh wow! I was thinking of just eating more eggs. More than six felt overboard to me. But yeah that’s interesting how even that many eggs doesn’t make you feel full. Seems like it is pointing at something important about how hunger works.
Structuring your diet around these things is a crappy life.
I actually don’t feel that way. I’ve been pretty happy with my meals since starting slow carb, enjoyment-wise. For me having to count calories and stop at a certain number even if I’m not full yet would be a crappy life.
The link between dietary cholesterol and serum cholesterol is definitely not settled, and dietary cholesterol is only one of many factors contributing to serum cholesterol, if it does at all. Eat egg yolks as much as you want at breakfast, is my conclusion.
Sigh. Yeah. I get that sense too a little bit. There are a few videos from that What I’ve Learned YouTube channel that said stuff about this, plus it linked to a talk by Peter Attia where he said some stuff about this too. Given that it’s not settled though, you don’t think it’d be safer to just leave the yolks out? If it was settled in the direction of yolks being ok that’d be one thing, but otherwise it feels risky to me.
Re eggs: I like eggs, and I don’t like no eggs, and I don’t like egg whites, and the hedonic disparity is worth what I perceive to be a very small risk increase. Especially because the risk level is easy to indirectly monitor, via blood work, but even more especially because my model of your body, based on how mine was at your age + what you said in your post and comments, is that getting your weight under control is likely to get your blood work under control, such that you can add as many egg yolks as you are likely to want without your numbers moving in a way that adds appreciably to your risk of dying of heart disease.
Re low carb, absolutely try what you are most inclined to try, because compliance is hard without motivation, and low carb will probably put you in a caloric deficit anyway.
I don’t, but when my blood numbers were high, my doctor prescribed (or whatever causes insurance to pay for it) more-frequent checks, like every month or so. ymmv depending on your insurance. You might be able to pay out of pocket if you call up LabCorp and work out a volume-discount deal.
Thank you, that is very nice of you! Maybe I’ll revisit calorie counting in the future, but I’d at least like to give slow carb a chance first. I really like having that one cheat day a week. I like that I can eat until satiety, whereas with calorie counting it doesn’t always work out that way, and I really don’t like stopping when I still feel hungry. I also don’t enjoy the process of keeping track of calories. Plus I still suspect that there are various benefits to low carb. So for all of those reasons it does seem like it’d be best to continue with slow carb.
Ah, that is a great point!
Interesting. I didn’t realize that, but in retrospect it does make sense.
Yeah that makes sense. I feel like there is some general principle here that I can’t think of. Another thing that comes to mind that fits this principle I’m envisioning is how people are bad at knowing how much time they spend on various things.
Haha, I’ve been called that too. Independently by different social groups. Ie. my family and my girlfriend’s family, but my girlfriend’s family didn’t know my family calls me that. My mom would say that to my dad too. I get the sense it’s a common phrase. Like how in romantic relationships people often call each other “honey”.
Oh wow! I was thinking of just eating more eggs. More than six felt overboard to me. But yeah that’s interesting how even that many eggs doesn’t make you feel full. Seems like it is pointing at something important about how hunger works.
I actually don’t feel that way. I’ve been pretty happy with my meals since starting slow carb, enjoyment-wise. For me having to count calories and stop at a certain number even if I’m not full yet would be a crappy life.
Sigh. Yeah. I get that sense too a little bit. There are a few videos from that What I’ve Learned YouTube channel that said stuff about this, plus it linked to a talk by Peter Attia where he said some stuff about this too. Given that it’s not settled though, you don’t think it’d be safer to just leave the yolks out? If it was settled in the direction of yolks being ok that’d be one thing, but otherwise it feels risky to me.
Re eggs: I like eggs, and I don’t like no eggs, and I don’t like egg whites, and the hedonic disparity is worth what I perceive to be a very small risk increase. Especially because the risk level is easy to indirectly monitor, via blood work, but even more especially because my model of your body, based on how mine was at your age + what you said in your post and comments, is that getting your weight under control is likely to get your blood work under control, such that you can add as many egg yolks as you are likely to want without your numbers moving in a way that adds appreciably to your risk of dying of heart disease.
Re low carb, absolutely try what you are most inclined to try, because compliance is hard without motivation, and low carb will probably put you in a caloric deficit anyway.
Good luck! I’m excited for you.
Gotcha on the eggs. Incorporated into my model.
Do you know of any good ways to monitor blood stuff more frequently than waiting for your annual check up?
I don’t, but when my blood numbers were high, my doctor prescribed (or whatever causes insurance to pay for it) more-frequent checks, like every month or so. ymmv depending on your insurance. You might be able to pay out of pocket if you call up LabCorp and work out a volume-discount deal.
If only Theranos didn’t turn out to be a fraud. That’s a good tip though about the doctor prescribing it. I feel like that is plausible. Thanks.