I'm not too impressed by Stephan Guyenet's article. He is wrong about one of his main points that fat is completely regulated by the brain and that insulin does not cause fat gain. You can Google for photographs of people who have done insulin injections in a single place over many years (rather than moving the injection point around) and see huge fat deposits at the injection site. That has got to be tissue regulation. Further, lipodystrophy is hard to explain by only invoking brain regulation.
We know that artificial insulin is a great way to gain weight. But is that only for diabetics? Hardly. It works just as well on athletes. Stop by your local gym and ask any of the chemically-assisted bodybuilders there for details. Insulin injections are a very common way to put on weight while bulking.
The idea that the body is "confused" by food density, which seems to underlie many of your ideas, is simply unsupported. The brain is very good at measuring calorie intake irrespective of density. I could point you to rat studies to confirm this, but I'd rather propose the following experiment that you can try in your own kitchen: Try making cream of cauliflower soup tonight, one with skim milk and the other with heavy cream. Measure how many spoonfuls of each that you can eat before getting full. Your brain does not get fooled by food density.
Try making cream of cauliflower soup tonight, one with skim milk and the other with heavy cream. Measure how many spoonfuls of each that you can eat before getting full.
The important question is not how many spoonfulls it's, how many calories?
1 cup of skim milk is 86 calories. 1 cup of heavy cream is 821 calories.
Let's imagine something a little more simple than cauliflower soup: strawberries and cream. 50 calories of strawberries + 1/2 cup of heavy cream would be 460 calories. An easy, common dessert. You could also eat those 50 calories of strawberries along with 5 cups of skim milk. Or maybe eat a whole pound of strawberries (150 calories) and only need 3.6 cups of skim milk. Or maybe 50 cals of strawberries, 100 calories of shortcake, and 3.6 cups of skim milk.
Which eater is more likely to overshoot their ideal caloric intake by a bit? Which eater is more likely to stop eating the moment they get full?
The brain isn't fooled, but it doesn't have to be. The person who gorged on the shortcake knows they overate, but they still took on more calories than they're going to burn. And of course-- if the brain can be fooled, being fooled by high-calorie foods is going to be worse than being fooled by low-calorie foods, on average. Which is more likely to result in a calorie surplus: Salt on your mashed potatoes or salt on your buttered, cheese-smothered mashed potatoes?
That is why I listed calorie-dense foods as #1. Without understanding caloric density, it's very hard for anyone to know (without outside guidance) when or how they are being fooled.
Are you really putting a full cup of cream into a serving of cauliflower soup?
For your strawberries and cream example, I'm known to have blueberries with cream from time to time. Which ends up typically being a half cup or so of blueberries, and a tablespoon or two of cream. Much more than that is far too much (and that's from someone who's got an appetite).
Your appetite sounds much smaller than mine. But the examples are mostly a waste of time. Either you accept my premise or not, which is:
You're more likely to get fat eating calorie-dense foods.
There are many mechanisms to regulate calorie intake. The fullness feeling is just one of them. If you are only relying the fullness mechanism to regulate calories and every meal is loaded with high-calorie foods like butter, olive oil, gravy, fatty meat, eggs and the like, odds are higher that you're going to be running a surplus more often than not. And thus: gaining weight.
Yes, not all weight gain is bad and there is more to body composition than weight. But weight was the topic under discussion for this thread.
I largely don't accept the premise in favor of: you're more likely to get fat eating foods that promote overeating,, and partitioning those calories into fat, while failing to burn off the excess calories.
That's a large part of the salt, sugar, fat trifecta. It stimulates overeating, it spikes insulin at the same time that you're dumping large quantities of fats directly (dietary fat) and indirectly (triglycerides from fructose) into the body, while depressing inclinations toward activity.a
As to my diet, intake typically ranges ~3500-4500 cal/day. I eat consciously and exercise portion control according to my goals.
I largely don't accept the premise in favor of: you're more likely to get fat eating foods that promote overeating
My argument is that the factors are not mutually exclusive.
Huh and yeah, 4000 calories per day would constitute an absolutely enormous intake, consistent with a professional athlete (marathon runner, NFL linebacker, etc).
I don't see how your example is related. Firstly, Stephan's description of the brain's role is that it regulates both appetite and metabolism. These mechanisms indirectly regulate fat storage.
Insulin of course would cause fat storage, but your example neither eliminates the other mechanisms, nor is a fault in the brain signalling system as it's an local injection. It's unrealistic to expect the system to have such a fine degree of control.
The role of insulin is to remove excess energy and funnel it into fat cells. That is of course why you see the weight gain. But that is only one part of the system.
As for your experiment, I can say it won't work on me - I typically eat until there is no food left, regardless of "fullness". In fact if I were at a buffet I would eat to actual physical fullness. Yet I do not have discomfort and I am still lean enough for me stomach muscles to show. I have stayed the same weight for the last 15 years. Thus, there has to be a regulation system, perhaps as proposed by Stephan.
He addresses it (barely), but not in regards to brain versus tissue regulation, which is the context where I brought it up.
What he says (the injection site issue is "argument #4" in his article):
"cases where insulin levels and/or insulin sensitivity are changing independently of one another, [...] through drugs. This is why they're irrelevant..."
We know that artificial insulin is a great way to gain weight. But is that only for diabetics? Hardly. It works just as well on athletes. Stop by your local gym and ask any of the chemically-assisted bodybuilders there for details. Insulin injections are a very common way to put on weight while bulking.
The idea that the body is "confused" by food density, which seems to underlie many of your ideas, is simply unsupported. The brain is very good at measuring calorie intake irrespective of density. I could point you to rat studies to confirm this, but I'd rather propose the following experiment that you can try in your own kitchen: Try making cream of cauliflower soup tonight, one with skim milk and the other with heavy cream. Measure how many spoonfuls of each that you can eat before getting full. Your brain does not get fooled by food density.