Carbs making you fat is a myth unless you eat tremendous amounts.
You need minimum 150g of carbs for significant T4 to T3 conversion to occur, if there is no carb your body will reduce its metabolism thinking you don't have anything to eat.
I think the carbohydrate idea is not everything but not totally flawed. For some people, I do think carbs make them fat. In terms of T3, I have read that since T3 transforts glucose into cells, and on keto you are not eating many carbs, you need less because you need to transport less glucose into cells so the reduction makes sense. I really don't know though. If it's really about the carbs then I'll have to increase them.
I think it may be a sleep problem. I used a sleep app and it seems I'm moving around a lot. It suggested I got 53% deep sleep. Surely it should be more.
Carbs making you fat is a myth unless you eat tremendous amounts.
You need minimum 150g of carbs for significant T4 to T3 conversion to occur, if there is no carb your body will reduce its metabolism thinking you don't have anything to eat.
I think the carbohydrate idea is not everything but not totally flawed. For some people, I do think carbs make them fat. In terms of T3, I have read that since T3 transforts glucose into cells, and on keto you are not eating many carbs, you need less because you need to transport less glucose into cells so the reduction makes sense. I really don't know though. If it's really about the carbs then I'll have to increase them.
I think it may be a sleep problem. I used a sleep app and it seems I'm moving around a lot. It suggested I got 53% deep sleep. Surely it should be more.
Another suggestion : eat like a king for breakfast and eat like a pauper for dinner, this is because cortisol levels are at their highest in the morning and at their lowest in the night therefore you need to eat carbs in order to blunt cortisol response and decrease gluconeogenesis and catabolism. Also this is when you're the most active.
You should consume nearly half your calories for breakfast, best would be with lots of carbs, carbs boost T3 production tremendously.
I too was scared of carbs thinking they would make me fat and all, what was making me fat wasn't the carbs it was refined sugars, processed foods, hydrogenated oils and all of that.
Lack of iodine is also a factor in that.
More interesting is the thermogenic effect of nutrients :
- Proteins 25%
- Carbs 7%
- Fat 2-3%
which means that 25% of the calories of your protein intake is needed to process what you ate in proteins.
But also add up the fact that carbs boost your T3 and many studies are here to confirm that :
http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/7096916http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/3396499Search "triiodothyronine carbohydrates" and many studies will pop up.
What is true to say is : high carb diets lead to decreased longevity while high fat diets increase longevity and slows down tumor growth. Higher heart rate, increased blood pressure play a role in that but that damage you can counter with supplements and low omega6/3 ratio.
Some people seem to naturally thrive on high fat diets (maybe do they have a genetic predisposition, good microbiome?) while other will gain a lot of weight and feel unhappy with that.
Last but not least : never undereat! A man like you needs 2500 calories at least per day, what matters most is not your caloric intake but your net caloric intake (after taking into account calories spent during the day including sleeping).
Don't go under -500 net calories as this might be counterproductive.
So to sum it up :
- Eat lots of carbs (healthy carbs : very few from unhealthy carbs such as refined sugars and processed foods, moderate amount from fruits and grains and high amounts from vegetables which contains carbs harder to break down)
A good amount to start with is 200g of carbs then you can go up.
- Eat a lot of protein : considering your build I suggest 175-200g of proteins, take a protein shake if you don't get enough from food (be careful with shakes, for whey protein take filtered whey with low levels of lactose and +80% of protein, avoid soy protein and choose shakes with as few carbs and fat as possible, I recommend Myprotein blends personally)
- Keep a low amount of fats but reasonable try to keep it under 25% of your calories, 15-20% at best, avoid most vegetable oils (olive oil is fine in small amounts though), don't cook food with butter but add it on the food once it's cooked when it's hot.
- Avoid goitrogens which depresses thyroid function (examples are soy, cassava, broccoli and vegetables from the brassica family, flax seed, strawberries, almonds overall when bitter, pears, etc...), you don't need to religiously avoid all of them, almonds in small amounts, strawberries and pears in small amounts are OK however don't even touch soy, flax seed or broccoli with a barge pole.
- Eat a lot in the morning (almost half of your calories), moderately at lunch and like a pauper at dinner
- Don't undereat and keep your net calories between -300 and -500 (for that you have to calculate a 24h energy expenditure (TDEE) that includes sleeping, exercising, resting, etc...)
- Eat a lot of seaweed or take SSKI solution or kelp capsules to maximize your thyroid function
- Keep a low omega6/3 ratio therefore avoid nuts, processed goods, hydrogenated oils, etc... and everything high in PUFAs, take fish oil caps (if you have cash for it take high quality lovaza/omacor which is the most purified and highest quality fish oil supplement you can ever find)
- A last thing that I regularly do is to take cold showers in order to boost your circulation, force your body to speed up its metabolism to heat up the machine back to 37°C (98.6°F), best time to do it is before sleeping, it's very good to counter stress, burn BAT (brown adipose tissue), boost thyroid function and metabolism. It's normal to have shakes in your stomach while cold showering, it's your muscles contracting to create more heat.
You can also do a finnish bath therapy, which is hot shower to begin with (or sauna if you have one) and then cool it off with a cold shower, it heals your skin, strenghtens your body and mind, cold water is bitchy in the beginning but 1 min after your body starts adapting.
Edited by renfr, 07 September 2013 - 11:30 AM.