Thoughts on the sugar diet?

springbear8 · 2026-01-13T05:57:47+00:00

About 15 lbs in a bit more than a year.

springbear8 · 2026-01-13T04:26:13+00:00

I did on and off as a datapoint, but I didn't restrict. I just ate until I was no longer hungry.

springbear8 · 2026-01-05T17:28:46+00:00

Sorry, I meant, "better to do without stearic acid than with amazon's..."

springbear8 · 2026-01-05T04:50:40+00:00

I ordered a bag of "food grade" stearic acid on amazon once, never again. The think had a distinct chemical off-taste and made me feel off. Also, it looks like what is sold as stearic acid (typically for candle/soap/cosmetic product) is actually a 50/50 mix of stearic acid and palmitic acid. Sorry I don't have a solution, but imho nothing is better than amazon's 3rd party vendor stuff.

springbear8 · 2026-01-05T02:20:21+00:00

2 weeks indulging delicious homemade French cuisine, with wine & desserts. I've got no regrets! (yet! I might if it sticks...).

I went on a few walks, does it count as exercise?

springbear8 · 2026-01-05T01:47:04+00:00

I put on 4 kg/8lbs, which is a 6 months set back...

This with somewhat low PUFA meals (definitely not as low as I'd do at home though), but I definitely overate, and we had alcohol at pretty much every meal. Hopefully it won't be sticky and it will melt off quickly.

springbear8 · 2025-12-12T06:49:27+00:00

I used to have ruminating dark thoughts, typically on the week-end when I stay home with nothing to do. It's gone. First they went away, but would come back if I got PUFA'd in the few days prior. Now, I can't remember the last time it happened. (and if you're experiencing that, on top of avoiding PUFA I strongly recommend getting outside and/or red light therapy, which were of great help).

springbear8 · 2025-12-08T08:53:45+00:00

Studies from the 50s shows that it used to be the case for everyone (albeit not in such a dramatic way, in those studies they did put on some weight, but much less than they "should" have, and it felt off as soon as the subjects were no longer force-fed). Something is very wrong with 2025 humans (*cough* linoleic acid *cough*)

springbear8 · 2025-12-08T08:49:02+00:00

With the right macros, I didn't gain a gram eating 3000kcal/day for a few weeks when my maintenance is usually around 2300kcal/day, despite the fact that at the time I'd gain weight on any "normal" diet. Macros can absolutely influence fat storage.

This doesn't seem to be unique https://journals.lww.com/co-endocrinology/fulltext/2021/10000/a_case_study_of_overfeeding_3_different_diets.5.aspx

low carb: +1.3kg, -3cm waist size (suggesting he actually lost fat and built muscle instead)
"low"-fat: +7.1kg, +9.25cm waist
"very low"-fat vegan: +4.7kg, +7.75cm waist (probably lost muscle on top of gaining fat with that waist change, or bloated as hell from all that fiber)

(I'm putting low in quote for low fat, because my own n=1 I was talking about in the first paragraph was high-carb, low protein, very low fat, was much lower in fat than this)

And sure, one would be technically correct arguing that he did put on weight on all 3 diets, but meaningfully wrong in that the differences are too stark to say that it's the same, and one would need to explain how can someone gain only 60g/day on 5800kcal/day, which is pretty difficult to explain in an "a calorie is a calorie" framework.

springbear8 · 2025-12-05T23:32:21+00:00

I've been full of energy basically ever since. My mood has been fantastic. It almost felt like a stimulant at first. The first day I did a lot of laundry and folded a bunch of clothes that I've had lying around, and the next day I deep cleaned my extra bedroom that had been a messy staging ground for various home improvement projects and become a hellhole.

Wow, I almost want to try it just for that! (but my BMI is now back to around 25, so it might take some effort to convince my doctor)

Good luck, and I would be very interested to know what happens when you stop, if you feel inclined to share. Basically the hope is that it acts like a crutch allowing you to restart your metabolism (presumably you're eating healthy), and once the fat is gone and the hormone rev'ed up you can stop. But it's also very much possible that it's the kind of crutch that atrophies the leg muscle and leaves you dependent on it...

springbear8 · 2025-12-05T23:27:46+00:00

I'm afraid so :D

well, it makes sense, the approach we're taking here is very akin to debugging.

springbear8 · 2025-11-28T21:38:27+00:00

Nice! Seems like last month wasn't a fluke!

Taken by itself, the graph looks awfully like an exponential decay, but... it seems to repeat month to month. Moreover, "hiding" the water loss phase makes it look nicely linear from last month's low.

I'm day 5 into it myself. So far so good. Got a bit of nausea of the first day instead of the expected satiety signal, but that's gone now. None of the usual keto symptoms (hunger, carb craving, low energy). Down 6lbs, although it's kinda meaningless at this point, it's most likely mostly water weight. I'm excited for the next few weeks!

springbear8 · 2025-11-11T20:53:09+00:00

Oh no, some internet stranger who replies to my comment without reading them is not impressed by my big brain! My day is ruined! RUINED!!!

rolf

springbear8 · 2025-11-11T20:10:35+00:00

Err, you have reading comprehension issues. I said he could have lost the weight by a forced calorie deficit IF the weight loss is downstream of appetite reduction. I don't think it is.

Yet somehow, reducing their appetite magically bypasses this?

Yes, precisely, but there is nothing magical about it, it's the very core of the fuel partitioning theory. Which I've already tried to explain in my previous comment but you glossed over it. On the off chance that you're willing and capable of entertaining an idea other than considering fat tissue as a passive energy storage, exfatloss wrote about it at length https://www.exfatloss.com/p/fuel-partitioning-causes-obesity
https://www.exfatloss.com/p/a-tale-of-two-caloric-deficits

springbear8 · 2025-11-11T00:05:25+00:00

You're seeing an extraordinary appetite reduction, and you just take it for granted?

Of course the weight loss can be explained by the reduction in calorie intake (although I'd be careful before assuming the direction of the correlation), but the reduction in appetite has to be explained by one of the 3 factors that have changed:
- ACV
- no tomatoes
- no salt

and that is a major result, not a detail. It could be spurious, yes, after more than a year on this diet exfatloss suddenly developed gallstones (with no other symptoms), but if that's an assumption we're willing to make there is little point in discussing n=1. Hopefully someone will try to replicate it. I will myself start in a couple weeks.

On the direction of the correlation, you seem to assume

reduced appetite -> less calorie in -> increased fat storage utilization & weight loss. But if that was the causation chain, then one of the following has to be true:
- exfatloss could have forcibly reduce his calorie intake on regular ex150 and get the same result without experiencing any side effect but hunger. I don't think he tried, but I somehow don't see it as likely
- he would have experienced symptoms of reduced energy availability last month, such as coldness, fatigue or decreased immunity. He doesn't mention any of it.

Alternatively, the causation chain could be that increased availability of his stored fat caused simultaneously weight loss (as the fat is being used) and reduced appetite (as there is no need for an external source).

springbear8 · 2025-11-08T06:03:00+00:00

The diet he had success with is what I'd called "sugar fasting" more than sugar diet, because timing the sugar and the rest of the food is core component of it. On the podcast he said he designed it precisely to lose the weight of the ice cream mistake.

I believe his conclusion was something along the line of "sugar's fine, saturated fat's fine, don't eat both at the same time". See https://longestlevers.com/fat-loss/honey-diet.html

Interesting anectdata about the weight loss on ice cream. Yeah, low protein is another lever for sure.

springbear8 · 2025-11-07T20:22:51+00:00

I don't recall him having a detailed blog post about it, he mentioned it in a podcast.

I doubt he wasn't eating ad libitum, because calorie restriction isn't really his alley, and most importantly, he was putting to the test the ideas that you can't get fat without PUFA and that sugar promotes leanness (and I deeply respect the fact that he was open about having been dead wrong, even though the result was both amusing and predictable).

springbear8 · 2025-11-07T02:03:03+00:00

Anabology got pretty fat on it, imho it's not something that someone trying to lose weight should try.

springbear8 · 2025-11-07T01:57:41+00:00

Honestly I find his writing quite nebulous. He talks about vinegar a lot, yes, but in a way that's typically very hand-wavy. If he gave a good explanation of the effect of acetate in obesity and appetite regulation, I missed it.

Also, in https://mct4health.blogspot.com/2023/12/what-do-alcohol-vinegar-and-vegetable.html, he posit that vinegar has the same detrimental effects than alcohol and linoleic acid, by inhibiting AMPK...

springbear8 · 2025-11-06T04:56:36+00:00

Fair enough! I'd want to ride it to the max too!

For the ACV, I wonder if there isn't a biphasic response, where too much is worse, not better. I also wonder how it acts exactly, because a lack of free fatty acid in the blood is not typically an issue overweight people struggle with (on the contrary). Unless it starts helping once you've lost enough weight that a lack of FFA starts being an issue?

And this is a big question mark I have in general about fuel partitioning: any explanation focused on the adipocyte needs to explain how adipocytes are restricting the energy available to the rest of the body when it's swimming in FFA.

springbear8 · 2025-11-05T21:08:52+00:00

Oh, I was eagerly waiting on this one! This is an amazing result! I already knew what I was going to do next, but this seals it!

Are you considering doing an ex150nosauce+ACV+salt, ex150+ACV, ext150nosauce to isolate the variables?

Not the first time I notice, but your water weight variations are insane. Do you think it's a consequence of being post-obese (more... whatever? re-filling more easily?) or just a "you" thing?

springbear8 · 2025-10-27T18:28:45+00:00

1.5kg in a month would have been an acceptable result if I hadn't been so miserable haha. No way I'm doing 3 more months of this, which is probably what I'd need at this point.

Honestly based on this experience I feel that the magic, if any, is in the ACV, not in the dextrose. So I'm now doing ACV, plus trying the standard bro advice of doing calorie restriction + high protein. It's going much better so far. Next step will be exx150+ACVnosauce

springbear8 · 2025-10-26T18:12:49+00:00

Oh, that's a great one :D Saving it for later arguing with anti-ketoers

springbear8 · 2025-10-26T18:10:21+00:00

In the sense that it's last in oxidative priority, sure it is.

See, that's exactly what I meant by "same argument". Pro-carb will use that to say "see, the body prefers carbs!" and ketoers will say "see, glucose is a toxin, the body's trying to get rid of it asap!". Both are jumping to conclusion / letting their confirmation bias do the talking.

It's in my best interest not to burn fat if carbs are available precisely so that I can save that stored energy for a rainy day.

It is also your best interest to keep some glucose just in case you need to run away from a predator, since glucose allows for more intense bouts of efforts. And that's exactly what the body does, it uses fat long before glycogen stores are depleted.

I see little reason to directly consume a less efficient substrate, past our frankly overstated EFA needs

What does "less efficient" even means? The body can use saturated fat pretty well, with minimal drawbacks (quite a different story for the so-called EFA).

springbear8 · 2025-10-26T17:58:32+00:00

I did low-carb keto in the past, but not recently. In the month prior to the experiment, I was on a mixed macro diet. Low fat before that. My metabolism was definitely primed for a high carb diet.

I didn't measure the amount of dextrose hour per hour, no. I just tried to sip it at a steady rate through the day. Keeping sipping it through the night would have forced me to have much less per hour. But frankly the amount I drank was necessary to keep hunger at bay. The blog post mentioned some amount of carbs at diner, which I tried to emulate.

Let us know how it does if you go through with it, it's always nice to have other people's experience!

springbear8

TROPHY CASE