All-Potato Fat Busting Science page 4

[otzi]

I like what you guys are saying, I was hoping some of you would chime in.

This potato fat buster came about as a way to simplify gut flora for people with IBD, GERD, etc..., but turned out to be a fast fat burner.

The simple starch in potatoes is converted to glucose quickly in the small intestine and transited through the bowels quickly. Eating protein causes the secretion of CCK which slows intestinal contractions, this allows the slowly digested protein to stay in the small intestine longer giving more time for amino acid absorption.

While an all-potato diet would be horrible for someone trying to build muscle, even in the short term, someone trying to lose fat as their main concern will see fast and lasting fat-loss from it.

Most find potatoes extremely satiating and it's hard to overeat on them. I, and others, have found it easy to eat at a 50% calorie deficit for 2 weeks, and not lose the desire to keep eating potatoes...try that with skinless chicken breasts or bananas as some have mentioned!

There are certainly other foods with this same effect, potatoes are easy to prepare a lot of ways and are cheap and accessible. A fat-fast has the same effect, but it's easy to overeat on and you can lose the taste for it quickly--but it is effective for much the same reasons.

Another thing I like about an all-potato, short-term diet, is the fact there is no fructose or sucrose involved. The liver is soley engaged in glycogen storage and release and not digesting protein and fructose. The intestine is cleared quickly and digestive bacteria are signalling at optimum level.

As to glycogen replenishment/water weight gain, nobody who's done this has experienced a huge jump in weight like one sees when doing a typical carb refeed. Most see weight loss from day 1.

This trick works, on seemingly 90% of those that try, for a weight loss of .5 to 1lbs a day or 5lbs in a week--10lbs in 14 days. I have never seen a targeted fat-shredding diet work so effectively for the dreaded 'last 10' as this.

If your goal is fat loss, take a break from lifting and try it out.

[Neckhammer]

Just a few oobservations :

1) If you are hyperinsulinemic, do not do this. You must have a metabolism that is fundamentally healthy. If you are well on your way to metabolic syndrome, the all potato diet is a sure means to make a bad situation worse.

2) How can anyone characterize an all ( fill in the blank here ) diet as being natural? Unless you are a Koala bear, express your omnivorous nature. Why is it that anyone advocating an all bacon diet is clearly unhinged, whereas those espousing the benefits of stricltly spuds are held up to be the vanguard of science?

3) Did anyone else apart from Peter note that Chris Voight aborted his diet due to accelerating weight loss as the diet progressed? Why would this be? Could it be due to increasing proteolysis needed to furnish the body with amino acids not being sourced by the diet? While potatoes might contain "high quality" protein, what they don't contain is an awful lot of it, topping out at roughly about 2% protein by weight for a baked potato. A general rule of thumb says that in order to maintain proteinaceous tissues you need about 1g of protein per lb of lean body mass. Accordingly, a 200 lb. man at 20% body fat then requires 160g of protein, or about 16.6 lbs. worth of baked potatoes a day. Stop for a second and reread that last sentence and then wonder how much weight could one lose by starving themselves of protein? I bet a lot, irrespective of insulin sensitivity.

4) Peter is speculating about a possible metabolic mechanism that might explain how an all potato diet ( ie very high carb ) could work to bring about weight loss. Speculation based on an n=1 , self reported experiment with no peer review whatsoever, performed by someone with a vested interest in the results. This is the first sentence of his post: "A bit speculative here, read with caution!" Just because you like carbohydrates and or potatoes, please try not to exaggerate what is actually being said here.

-PK

Made many of the same observations myself in the original thread....all ignored (hey I post a lot for shits and giggles so could be diluted)....after that I decided to stop raining on the potato parade. Still not buying it though.

[Neckhammer]

This potato fat buster came about as a way to simplify gut flora for people with IBD, GERD, etc..., but turned out to be a fast fat burner.

Dude stop this...you sound like your selling me a lemon out of your grandmas garage....stick to the facts.

[ChocoTaco369]

I think you meant to say "Protein Sparing Modified Fast", but otherwise, I agree with you. On another note, roughly half of the protein you ingest gets converted to glucose via gluconeogenesis. So, high protein gets you both high amino acids and glucose. The reverse is definitely not true when it comes to eating high carb.

-PK

Yes, I meant sparing. I have never heard that half of your protein gets converted into glucose. From what I've read, if you continue to lift, protein won't convert into glucose until you've reached roughly 2g/lb of lean body mass. A 170 lb man at 15% body fat should be able to consume roughly 289g of protein on a PSMF before it gets converted into glucose. Lyle McDonald seems to agree with that in Rapid Fat Loss, where he encourages the diet of a PSMF to involve 2g/lb lean body mass of protein with virtually no fat or carbs, with only "calorie free vegetables" allowed as bulk (lettuce, cucumber, celery, etc).

[Neckhammer]

To me it seems any CRASH DIET should take protein into account...

I said it before...protein and resistance training to preserve lean mass.....http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17299116

[zoebird]

Your potato Fridays constitute a carb refeed which will increase muscle and liver glycogen. For every gram of glycogen you store about three additional grams of water to maintain cellular osmotic pressure. A muscle full of water and glycogen is a fuller, larger, muscle, which will also stretch your skin, assuming you don't have a whole raft of subcutaneous adipose tissue hiding your muscles, making you look "leaner." This is standard fitness model fare leading up to a photo shoot ... dehydrate for 48 hours, then carb load to swell your muscles. As an aide to dehydration, drink plenty of alcohol. Unspoken laws of fitness modelling.

With respect to being able to fast longer ... well ... the initial phase of a fast, at least the first 24 hours, constitute your metabolism drawing down glycogen stores. So, it stands to reason that the more glycogen you start with, the longer you can fast.

-PK

Cool.

Thing is, my measurements (waist, thigh, hips) are smaller than say, the mid-week measure. (it also fluctuates by about an inch between the post menstrual vs post ovulation phases -- bigger in the second phase).

We are doing a 16/8 IF protocol daily, and on weekends, we noted that it shifts from 16/8 to 18/6 or ever 20/4. On Friday, we eat potatoes; on Saturday we have bacon or venison sausages (i usually have the latter) with our normal breakfast (so it's a "bigger breakfast"); and then on sunday the same.

So, it's a carb day on Friday, then protein/fat on Sat/Sun, and then by monday, everything is back to the normal, rather spartan diet (veggies and meats/eggs with 1 piece of fruit; leaner meats, but other fats in olive oil, butter, and avocado).

We are also relatively lean overall. Before my binge (stress -- just eating more primal foods than my normal caloric intake), i was about 18/19%; we estimate that DH is around 9/10% or so (still. he didn't have a food binge! lol).

We started IF about two weeks ago now. I was already naturally doing it, really -- eating after 10 am and before 7 (longer window, but longer than normal fast for those who "eat breakfast first thing" or within the first hour of waking up -- which I have never been able to do without getting sick) -- but we pushed it to 11-7 to meet our schedule a bit better, and we'll likely shift it to 10-6 in the next few weeks (schedule changes).

The discomforts were two-fold: 1. a bit of hunger around 10:30ish with some crankiness around that; and 2. having to eat a lot more at the meals (or you end up grazing the whole 6 hours as well, which I found equally uncomfortable).

But, the benefits were nearly immediate. I'd been about 10-14 days on my normal caloric intakes, and continued that but within the IF window. Within the week, I'd lost most of the 1-1.5 inches that I'd wanted on the waist, hip, arms, and thighs, with an obvious change in leanness.

For the first time, not only can I see the line going "up-down" on the abs, but I also was able to see the left-right "hashing" on those abs at the end of the week.

It's the end of the second week, and the discomforts of big meals are still there (with the same caloric intakes as normal for me), but I'm also heading into the latter part of my cycle, so I don't expect to "loose" anything as i tend to hold a little more water during this phase. It's not much, though -- at most i gain about .5-1 inch on the waist/hips, and the rest stays the same.

though this cycle, i'm experimenting with keeping caloric intake the same rather than going up the 100-200 calories a day. So, i've been carefully watching my intake. I just wnat to see how it affects things.

Since going primal, unless i'm well off primal (grains across a week or more post ovulation), I don't have any PMS symptoms. If I am well on primal -- whether it's the pre-ovulation caloric amount or post-ovulation caloric amount -- I don't have any PMS symptoms except that I jump up to 26.5-27 inches on the waist. :P But it's not a "bloating water weight" feel.

I mostly have several goals: 1. staying healthy; 2. reaching fitness goals; and 3. making my life easier as much as possible. We discovered that IF has liberated a lot of time for DH and myself, which is great, and it isn't inhibiting 1 and 2 -- and might be helping -- so. . .yeah.

DH carb refeeds (or has a sweet potato) after his two heavy lifting workouts, so he carb refeeds 3x week (those two days plus Friday). He exercises fasted for his sprint day and one LHT. Just based on timing.

I do yoga fasted every day.

[emmie]

I would like to emphasize this:

"If you are hyperinsulinemic, do not do this. You must have a metabolism that is fundamentally healthy. If you are well on your way to metabolic syndrome, the all potato diet is a sure means to make a bad situation worse."

I am hyperinsulinemic, and a 'potato diet' (while appealing) would be a disaster for someone like me.

If I find myself up a few pounds, I find that the PSMF works best for me to shed those pounds quickly. I love my protein.

And all that nonsense about protein converting to glucose is misguided. In the absence of carbs, the body NEEDS that glucose, so the conversion is totally normal and not a problem--the glucose is burned off as energy, NOT stored as fat--unless the person is eating at a level of caloric excess. At if the person is eating too much, then ANY excess gets stored as body fat.

[NDF]

I don't understand the logic behind this potato business. Yes, it's a crash diet, but if you're going to crash diet, why not just do a protein starved modified fast? You will generate less insulin, protein is 3-5 times more thermogenic than carbohydrate and it will protect against muscle loss. On an equal calorie deficit, extremely lean protein (skinless chicken breast, egg whites, 0-1% cottage cheese) should blow carbohydrate out of the water AND preserve more muscle. So why not eat just chicken breast, cottage cheese and egg whites instead?

This is the "safest" way to crash diet and spare muscle mass.

This potato only crash diet is a sure fire way to lose muscle mass.

[otzi]

We are doing a 16/8 IF protocol daily, and on weekends, we noted that it shifts from 16/8 to 18/6 or ever 20/4. On Friday, we eat potatoes; on Saturday we have bacon or venison sausages (i usually have the latter) with our normal breakfast (so it's a "bigger breakfast"); and then on sunday the same.

So, it's a carb day on Friday, then protein/fat on Sat/Sun, and then by monday, everything is back to the normal, rather spartan diet (veggies and meats/eggs with 1 piece of fruit; leaner meats, but other fats in olive oil, butter, and avocado).

We started IF about two weeks ago now. I was already naturally doing it, really -- eating after 10 am and before 7 (longer window, but longer than normal fast for those who "eat breakfast first thing" or within the first hour of waking up -- which I have never been able to do without getting sick) -- but we pushed it to 11-7 to meet our schedule a bit better, and we'll likely shift it to 10-6 in the next few weeks (schedule changes).
I do yoga fasted every day.

Zoebird - I think you and your husband are very lucky to have each other. Your eating and workout program should be a model for everyone that is trying to get healthy. Looks like you've got this all figured out and aren't afraid to try new things! Way to go.

[otzi]

This is the "safest" way to crash diet and spare muscle mass.

This potato only crash diet is a sure fire way to lose muscle mass.

I agree if you are in the middle of a muscle building phase and are concerned with hanging onto muscle you've spent months gaining, I think where an 'all-potato' crash diet makes money is for people who are trying very hard to manipulate their diet but still can't lose.

A protein sparing modified fast will also work, so will a calorie restricted ketogenic diet, the potato thing is just another way to go about it.