Tag: protein

Cutting Carbs, Cutting Protein

When I started this, I was 10 lbs. from my ideal weight at 140, having lost 40 lbs. over 3 years with 20:4 intermittent fasting. Now I’m only 3 lbs. away. A 2-day per week Keto approach broke through that plateau at 150 — and at the time it was starting to climb. When I get to 140, I may cut back to only having 1 Keto day per week — that should be able to keep my weight vert steady.

Mind you, I don’t really think the Keto diet per se is a very healthy one with all that fat and such low fiber, and it doesn’t come close to the nutrition one gets from a GBOMBS diet (that’s very obvious when you compare the two in cronometer — a typical Keto day to a typical GBOMBS day), but I do appreciate what it can do with such a low level of carbohydrates relative to ketosis.

Similarly, I’ve been thinking one might get a benefit from drastically reducing protein if one is about to do a longer fast for the sake of autophagy. Similar logic. I’m very interested in all the health benefits for someone my age of autophagy, particularly potentially with fighting cancer. I’ve been planning to do a 5-day mimicking fast starting as per the guidelines in Longo’s book The Longevity Diet — for the sake of autophagy. The 2 days before that begins, I will be cutting protein down to an absolute minimum.

Bread Frustration

Lysine

I’ve discovered the protein issue with a vegan diet is more nuanced than is commonly realized. Yes, a well rounded vegan diet will give you plenty of overall protein. But if you use cronometer every day and see how such a well rounded vegan diet breaks down relative to each of the essential amino acids (essential in that you have to get them from food, the body doesn’t make them), then you will see that one is often chronically short of lysine and somewhat short of leucine despite the well rounded plant-based diet. So a more sophisticated question for the vegan diet, isn’t where do you get your protein, but how do you get the RDAs for those two specific essential amino acids? Lysine in particular is a serious problem for vegans imo.

I’ve been on a straight, plant-based vegan diet (Joel Fuhrman’s GBOMBS) for the last few years, but this experience with conometer has made me modify it to include a small amount of turkey to address the lysine/leutine issues.  Interestingly enough, even with the addition of a small amount of turkey, my lysine and leucine numbers still come in somewhat below their RDAs, which makes me think the change was even more justified.  Now I call myself an “almost vegan,” due to this modification to my diet.

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