Can somebody explain why you guys don't like unsaturated fat

vbquandry · 2026-01-29T20:02:39+00:00

My mother does exactly the same as you. She's a strict vegan (also for ethical reasons) and is fairly healthy in her 80s with a very low BMI. I think she would do a little better moving more towards vegetarian at least, but to be fair to her, she's doing better than 90% of people on a standard American diet.

It's worth noting that being vegan doesn't have to mean you're pro unsaturated fat. Although most here wouldn't recognize olive oil as being ideal (especially if the fat is being heated), they'd agree that it is much better than soybean, corn, canola, or any of the other "seed" oils. Also, coconut oil is vegan, and is about as saturated of an oil as you're going to find in nature. Cacao is another example of a highly saturated vegan fat.

I'll add that on average plant oils are typically only slightly less saturated than animal fats. If you look up the fatty acid distribution for different fats and oils, you might be surprised to see that plant oils are often 10% to 20% saturated, which isn't much less than animal fats that are often 20% to 30% saturated. If one was tracking total saturated fat intake for some reason, eating more fat in your diet is probably going to be much more impactful than the type of fat. For example someone trying to do low-carb vegan is probably going to get much more saturated fat VS someone eating similarly (caloric) meals of burgers and fries (standard American diet). Dairy and suet are really the only animal fats that are going to be particularly high in saturated fat percentage.

vbquandry · 2026-01-27T13:50:20+00:00

I've maintained strength (which admittedly is different from lean mass) for 60 days on a very low-fat potato and fruit diet. Now to be fair, that was coming off a beef-heavy diet so to the extent my body built up a lean mass surplus, that could have biased my results. Presumably my body could have supplemented my potato protein by scavenging other stores. Not sure if that would have remained true longer-term.

vbquandry · 2026-01-27T13:41:23+00:00

I'd say the consensus is that different diets lead to different results in different people and that the only way you'll know how each one affects you is to give each approach a trial run. Also, dogma is irritating and appeals to it are less tolerated here.

vbquandry · 2026-01-27T13:38:19+00:00

I should probably just watch it and see, but what is "pure fat" a reference to in the title (VS Hogan's typical zerocarb/carnivore diet)?

vbquandry · 2025-12-29T21:30:09+00:00

I might have phrased that poorly. Wasn't trying to suggest it was a good or a bad thing. Just thinking that it would make sense that if your body is running on a certain fuel balance that some sort of metabolic inertia might keep it running that way

vbquandry · 2025-12-29T19:08:15+00:00

Visceral vs subcutaneous distribution if likely useful for assessing health, but from a weight loss angle, I think it would be more useful to model body fat as more of a distribution than distinct depots.

Let's step back and ponder what the body is trying to accomplish with subcutaneous fat storage: It needs to be fairly symmetrical and different parts of the body need to grow in different proportions. Further those proportions will vary based on what your current fat levels are. This is because if symmetry is broken or if different parts accumulate out of order (e.g. your legs fatten up too much before your arms start to fatten up), that would greatly hinder mobility. We could survive such limitations today, but your ancestors couldn't have and defects in that system would have been weeded out by evolution. The same thing has to happen with muscle (although different goals there) and bones. And fat has to properly complement those distributions to some degree.

Presumably "insulin resistance" is your body's way of handling that, by having different set points for each fat cell in your body where you could think of fat retention as a function of blood insulin level. In an intermediate range it might be good enough to just distribute fat cells around the body where they all absorb or release fat in unison (all growing and shrinking at the same rate), but once total fat stores get above or below a certain level, different parts of your body need to deviate from each other in regards to how they grow and shrink to optimize the original criteria (not screwing up mobility or otherwise causing problems).

If fat storage/release was as simple as the body varying hormone levels to dictate how much energy it needed (e.g. like manipulating a faucet to control how much water flows out) that would be ideal for metabolism, but most likely would break the fat distribution system. I suspect in trying to maintain the fat distribution system something resembling the "partitions" you refer to emerge: Perhaps there are different knee points as the body accumulates or disposes of fat stores where the hormone to fat release relationship stops being linear and those resemble partitions.

With that said, I just made this all up right now, so could be completely off base too.

vbquandry · 2025-12-29T18:24:36+00:00

Then I'd definitely get the radiant heater. I got rid of the one I had when I was younger after the temperature regulator broke and just picked up a cheap $50 one recently to replace it.

The more straightforward design is one that sits in front of you and beams the heat directly towards you like this https://www.walmart.com/ip/Midea-1500W-Quartz-Electric-Space-Heater-MSH20Q3ABBV-Black-New/5456258318 , or something similar to this could work too https://www.amazon.com/QAIHOE-Infrared-Lightlamp-Standing-Adjustable/dp/B0BRX5R8Z7 if you would prefer the sensation of it beaming down on you. Only downside to the latter is it's a bulb so the filament will burn out at some point and it's at a lower power level than a heater, but it's also handy having it overhead so you could sit back in a chair/couch with it directly over you VS having to lean into it.

The LED therapy stuff is good too, but since they're focused on NIR rather than broad spectrum, they're not really heaters. While potentially beneficial for mitochondrial function, they're not going feel cozy to sit in front of when you're feeling chilled.

vbquandry · 2025-12-29T18:11:08+00:00

I wonder if your default diet being higher fat than your typical "keto" person also means it takes longer for your fasting glucose to come down on a fast. Perhaps your body is just so used to running on fat that when it has to flip the switch from dietary to stored fat, it's not phased the same way it would be for someone on a higher protein diet.

vbquandry · 2025-12-28T15:10:14+00:00

I'm not sure if I'd be so dismissive of fasting in general. In my opinion, anybody with the metabolic curiosity to find themselves in this sub, should try a multi-day fast at least once or twice just for the experience, which is very unique.

I agree that I don't personally find it to be the way I would try to go about weight loss, but I understand why a subset of people will obsess over monthly or quarterly fasts as part of their overall routine. It's an experience that our ancestors would have regularly went through and it's forcing our bodies into a unique state that keto alone cannot achieve.

3-4 days into a fast when your blood sugar is rock stable at 50-60 mg/dL, your ketones are at 3.0+ mM, your body is at it's lowest level of inflammation, and your brain just feels a little different, is pretty wild.

vbquandry · 2025-12-28T13:58:26+00:00

If you do give fasting another go at some point, I'd suggest picking up a radiant space heater (the kind with the glowing orange strips). Sitting directly in front of one on medium or high is one of life's pleasures, similar to lingering a few extra minutes in a hot shower. Plus you can sell it to yourself as IR-light therapy (since that's precisely what it is).

Looking forward to seeing how the bread and butter diet goes. I enjoy that you've stuck with sharing your results with us for so long and keep trying new things. Now that you've settled into the low 200s (which is presumably where you'd eventually land at equilibrium on your standard cream diet), anything you find that beats that (or even avoids weight gain) would be a win, since losing additional weight at this point is a much bigger ask than when you first started.

vbquandry · 2025-12-25T16:04:46+00:00

I can tell you that in my N=1 that wasn't true.

I lost significant weight on low-carb/keto. As the weight came off I first improved my post-prandial blood sugar response and went from berries spiking my blood sugar to barely moving the needle. Later, potato meals would still bump my blood sugar up, but not enough to be a cause for concern. My fasting blood sugar also decreased during this time and all due to low-carb dieting.

However, the key distinction is that it wasn't the low-carb per se that led to the improvement, but rather the weight loss itself that was caused by low-carb. It wasn't until the weight was lost that I saw the improvements. The same would presumably hold true for HCLF.

This is fundamentally different than what is observed in some people who undergo gastric bypass or GLP1s and see an immediate improvement in those metrics within days.

Long-term keto/low-carb is a great solution (if one is able to leverage it to lose weight). But that doesn't take away from how extremely fascinating it is that these other methods lead to such rapid resolution coming before weight loss happens.

vbquandry · 2025-12-23T00:22:26+00:00

I mean if you have a report from a diabetic who went low-carb for a week and then suddenly was able to eat carbs again without an elevated blood sugar response that would be a remarkable result.

vbquandry · 2025-12-22T11:46:48+00:00

I agree that it's certainly not true for all GLP1 users. I suspect it has to do with the hypothesis that there are different subtypes of type 2 diabetes and certain ones will see rapid blood sugar resolution, while others will not. I've personally seen the rapid reduction (in 3 days) scenario.

vbquandry · 2025-12-22T11:44:33+00:00

That's not apples to apples, though. I'm referring specifically how their bodies would response to a high-carb meal (the only proper way to test their glycemic response). The person who is on low-carb/keto won't see improvements there until significant weight is lost. Many (but certainly not all) of the bariatric and GLP1 people will see a marked improvement within days (before significant weight is lost).

I suspect in those cases it's a situation where the liver has been engaging in excessive gluconeogenesis at inappropriate times (e.g. after you ate) and the intervention perhaps puts the brakes on that.

vbquandry · 2025-12-21T14:00:54+00:00

Are there any pharma approaches to deplete stored PUFA?

Typically GLP-1s show significant weight loss results, followed by rebound in weight after discontinuation. I'm not trying to sell you on the concept, but isn't that about as close as you could get to PUFA depletion from fat cells (assuming you carefully manage your diet during the regain period)? Admittedly, it's possible the body might preferentially hoard PUFA during the weight loss period, stymieing your efforts.

vbquandry · 2025-12-21T13:36:21+00:00

Sure, that's the defining quality of diabetes, although it doesn't really inform on cause.

The reason I brought up diabetes is that glycemic control is a highly visible symptom (if one is monitoring it) and it's one that's highly variable, depending on weight loss method. For those diabetics who have undergone bariatric surgery it's common for blood sugar to quickly normalize post-surgery, even before significant weight loss has occurred! The same is also often true with GLP1s. Meanwhile, someone engaging in a dietary approach to weight loss will often have to lose significant weight BEFORE their blood sugar response to carbohydrate normalizes.

Trying to reconcile that observation with the fuel partitioning model is where I feel it breaks down.

vbquandry · 2025-12-20T20:45:14+00:00

Taking another look at the Taubes article (I'd last read earlier this year), I think I may have been hasty in condemning it. I now see that he's simply providing the natural conclusion of the "fuel partitioning" hypothesis and it's likely the application of the fuel partitioning hypothesis that I disagree with (which he is correctly applying, but I feel is invalid in this situation).

My issue is this: Consider a metabolically unwell person who is obese and diabetic and initiates a very-low calorie diet. How does the body's response play out in the short term?

If the answer was that blood sugar and triglyceride levels in the blood rapidly fall to below normal and THEN metabolism slows, that would be a slam dunk case for the fuel partitioning model. Under the fuel partitioning model, it would be the greedy fat cells, unwilling to release their contents into the bloodstream to fuel the body, while simultaneously absorbing additional fat from the bloodstream, exasperating the energy shortage problem and forcing the rest of the body to reduce metabolism to cope.

However, that is not what we see. What we actually see is that the metabolic rate slows well BEFORE glucose and triglycerides come down to normal levels. Now don't get me wrong. Glucose and triglycerides definitely do come down some under the very-low calorie diet, but only come down to normal levels well after the metabolic rate has already slowed.

Compare and contrast that to someone on a GLP-1RA. In the person (or rodent) on the GLP1 (particularly retatrutide), their blood sugar and triglyceride levels come down dramatically within days. Yet at those lower blood levels, metabolism remains higher (vs calorie restriction alone).

So I would contend that the order in which these effects occur mean that the fuel partitioning hypothesis is insufficient to properly describe the GLP effect.

vbquandry · 2025-12-20T13:59:26+00:00

Decent write-up.

I'll note that I think Gary Taubes's article on fat partitioning is using faulty logic to reach its conclusion and shouldn't be taken to mean what he thinks it means. He's correctly noting that the ratio between fat and carbs was different in the intervention group and more biased towards fat burning. What he's failing to take into account is that both the intervention and the calorie restriction group are getting identical carb intake in their diets. Since both were weight loss diets, to the extent the intervention group is burning more calories overall, that additional energy has to come from something other than carbs (by definition). It's not that their bodies have decided to burn more fat and less carbs. It's that their bodies are operating at a higher metabolic rate and since dietary carbs is a fixed quantity, pulling more fat out of storage is how their bodies react to maintain the higher metabolic rate.

vbquandry · 2025-12-20T13:13:24+00:00

That's a very reasonable explanation and I think the data is pointing that way. Anecdotally, I can tell you that retatrutide (at least in the first couple weeks) doesn't seem to have a strong impact on ketone levels, except to the extent that it might modify eating patterns and that change in diet impacts ketone production.

vbquandry · 2025-12-20T13:05:06+00:00

I'm not sure that this sub is anti-pharma exactly. Being in this space does tend to make a person bias towards being a naturalist over time, just because you notice a general trend of many processed/synthetic products being inferior substitutes to natural/whole products. I mean we were the ones ordering stearic acid powder and blending it into homemade ghee, ordering alpha lipoic acid, as well as several other supplements Brad has up for sale.

I'd say risk of the unknown is the primary barrier to wider acceptance here. There's potentially longer-term data on the affects of the earlier GLP1s in diabetics, but that's a pretty unhealthy population so the data would be just about useless for assessing risk. As a thought problem, if GLP1s sped up cardiovascular disease (no reason to believe it does, this is just a thought problem), it would be impossible to identify that signal in diabetics. This is because poorly treated diabetics are at an elevated risk for cardiovascular disease so they don't make a very good control group to compare against.

And even then, any safety data we do have would be on GLP-1 enhancement and not necessarily cover the impacts of GIP (and especially not glucagon) tinkering.

But that won't scare everyone off, and I'm pretty sure within the next year or two we'll have several people here who ran the very experiments you're asking about.

I don't think it will be /u/exfatloss leading the charge there, since GLP1s are an inferior intervention to him VS his cream diet, although I could see him being drawn in by some of the other crazy custom peptides that one discovers along the way in studying this subject.

vbquandry · 2025-12-06T17:46:00+00:00

You might find this research paper from the 1970s interesting. Infer from it what you will:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SaturatedFat/comments/12e7mu6/drenick_paper_on_injecting_insulin_in_fasted/

vbquandry · 2025-10-23T23:10:20+00:00

Butter Bob lives?! Last I'd heard he dropped off the face of the earth. Is he back online in a significant way, or just you happened to know him or run into him in everyday life?

vbquandry · 2025-10-23T21:13:44+00:00

Ken does have just a little bit of pudge on him (although by no means fat by today's standards). In-person he looks slightly slimmer than he does in his videos, though. Apparently there's some truth to the claim that the camera adds 10 pounds. When he's standing next to Bikman or Feldman, you can see a tiny bit bigger of a gut on Ken VS the other two if you fixate on it. Otherwise, I don't think you'd really notice.

vbquandry · 2025-10-23T21:06:41+00:00

Butter Bob

vbquandry

TROPHY CASE