Weight Gain on a Ray Peat Inspired Diet
A common phenomenon that many people experience when starting a Ray Peat-inspired diet is weight gain. From the outside, this may seem like an obvious consequence of eating a diet that encourages things like sugar, ice cream, and coconut oil. This is nonsense, but there are real reasons why many people find it difficult to maintain their weight on a Peat-inspired diet. The good news is that this weight gain is completely optional and results from a misunderstanding of Ray’s thoughts. There are a few key points that we also need to understand: previous dietary experiences, slowed metabolism, and the metabolic boost that a Peat-inspired diet provides. In this article, I will go through these points and provide suggestions for avoiding and losing weight on a Peat-inspired diet.
Did Ray care about calories?
The idea that calories are meaningless is not attributable to Ray directly but to some of the popularisers of his ideas, many of whom essentially plagiarised Ray, copying part of his ideas and selling them under their name. They branded their diets as “pro-metabolic”, “metabolism-boosting”, or some other variation on the theme of increasing metabolism. They promised that if you were to eat in a way that increases metabolism, all caloric worries could be thrown out the window and one could eat as much as he wanted. In contrast to these marketing promises, Ray thought that calories mattered. While one of the main goals of Ray’s advice was indeed to increase metabolism, at no point did he even hint that this meant that one could eat whatever he wanted without weight gain. There are direct quotes of Ray stating that for sedentary people, low-fat milk is better due to reduced calories, as well as advising a reduced-calorie diet that was micronutrient-adequate for those who wanted to lose weight.
These quotes leave no doubt that Ray thought that calories were an essential factor in weight loss. Consider the possibility that if someone tells you otherwise, they may have something to sell you.
If calories matter what did Ray mean about increasing metabolism?
For Ray metabolism was not just the amount of calories burnt. It is about the flow of energy as electrons through the cell and how this flow builds and maintains structure, which in turn allows more energy to flow. An unimpeded electron flow is more important than the absolute amount of electrons. One of the goals of a Peat-inspired diet is to increase metabolism by optimizing the amount of active thyroid hormone, T3, and decreasing hormones that lower metabolism. But again, this does not mean that metabolism can be “revved up” indefinitely. As metabolism increases, metabolic efficiency also increases for example by reducing the production of lactic acid which is a very inefficient way of getting energy.
Previous dietary experiences
If you come to a Ray Peat-inspired diet from a standard American diet or a low-carb diet, there will be consequences that we have to deal with. Both diets are high in PUFAs, and these fatty acids will have accumulated in the tissues potentially for many years. A high-fat low-carb diet lowers insulin sensitivity by shifting the body to a fat-burning state. Despite what it may sound like, a fat-burning state is the opposite of what is needed for weight loss. Fat burning activates an effect called the Randle “cycle” where the burning of fatty acids reduces the use of glucose for energy. The use of glucose as a main energy source is emphasized by Ray many times. It leads to an increased CO2 production and increases the NAD+ to NADH ratio, both of which increase cellular metabolism.
The body cannot rid itself of stored PUFA in a short amount of time, and the burning of fatty acids as a main energy source is a stressor that can potentially perpetuate itself in time unless appropriate interventions take place. If a person is in such a state and attempts to eat a Peat-inspired diet without any kind of caloric control weight gain is extremely likely. I know that this is not what many people like to hear, but I think it is important to get the truth out. Fixing metabolism comes first. And the main two ways of fixing metabolism in this case are to slowly get rid of stored PUFA and get the body back into a glucose-burning state. The best way to do this is, of course, by applying the main dietary recommendations of Ray while taking into account that it will take time to increase and fix metabolism. Until this is done, calories will matter very much, and the more damaged the metabolism is, the more they will matter if one wishes to avoid weight gain.
Satiety signaling
A key mechanism for achieving and maintaining an appropriate weight is satiety signaling. This occurs mainly in an area of the brain called the hypothalamus. In rats, if you destroy a certain part of the hypothalamus the rat will starve to death even if it has food right in front of it - it just is not hungry. If you destroy another part the rat will gorge on food until it is physically impossible for it to eat more. This is how important the brain is in regulating weight. Simply increasing metabolism is not the whole picture. Ray knew this, since many times he emphasized that the brain is a factor in any disease.
The bad news is that PUFA, and especially some of the metabolites of a particular fatty acid called arachidonic acid, severely disrupt satiety signaling in the brain. The good news is that once you have depleted your PUFA stores not only will your metabolism increase but you will feel more satiated with the same amount of food. A one-two punch for weight control.
When will calories start to matter less?
Three fundamental conditions need to happen in your body that will allow you to stop worrying about calories:
- Depletion of stored PUFA
- Glucose-oxidizing and insulin-sensitive metabolism
- Adequate thyroid output and conversion
Depleting PUFA
This is relatively simple to do. Cut out all major sources of PUFA from your diet and start including sources of saturated fatty acids (SFA). The SFAs have a dilutional effect, decreasing the harmful effect of the stored PUFA. A particular food to use is coconut oil. In Ray’s experience, it has a unique way of stopping the harmful effects of PUFA while at the same time increasing the effect of thyroid hormone.
Correcting metabolism
This matters more if you come from a low-carb background. As stated before, a fat-burning metabolism is a stressor for the organism that can become self-perpetuating, resulting in decreased insulin sensitivity and carbohydrate intolerance. At this point in your health journey, you probably know that the way to deal with carbohydrate intolerance is not to restrict them, but to restore your body’s ability to handle them.
You will have to start increasing the amount of carbohydrates in your diet. This will shift the Randle “cycle” in your favor. If you still find that carbohydrates have a particular fattening effect on you, a trial of niacinamide (a form of B3) and aspirin may be beneficial in lowering the amount of free fatty acids (FFA) in the blood. When these fatty acids are lower the tissues start to become responsive to the glucose and insulin in the blood. For some time, you may have to go low fat so that your body gets the physiological and biochemical signals necessary to shift back to a glucose-based metabolism.
Healthy thyroid
If you have a below-average thyroid output, or the released T4 is not being converted to T3 in your liver your metabolism will suffer and you will probably gain weight even if you restrict and rigorously track your calories. Healing the thyroid is one of the main goals of many of Ray’s recommendations, but some of them can be summarised here:
-Eat frequently to keep blood sugar up and avoid hypoglycemias: -Balance your proteins: Muscle meat contains Tryptophan, Methionine, and Cysteine. These amino acids have an anti-thyroid effect unless they are balanced by glycine. You can find glycine in non-muscle meats or as a supplement (even though Ray distrusted artificial and purified supplements). -Eat nutrient-dense foods: Having certain supplemental foods like liver and oysters once a week will provide you plenty of with vitamin A, zinc, copper, and selenium. -Control estrogen: for example with progesterone. In women, higher doses can be used, but men need to be careful as higher doses of progesterone can have anti-androgenic effects. Certain androgens like DHT have direct anti-estrogenic effects. Other compounds that inhibit aromatase include aspirin and Vitamin K
Losing weight on a Peat-inspired diet
Unless you are confident that you satisfy the three requirements stated above, you will need to count calories. This means figuring out your metabolic rate based on online calculators or averaging your total caloric consumption over a few days assuming your weight stays stable. Then it’s a question of making sure you eat frequently to avoid bouts of hypoglycemia, eating enough protein to avoid muscle loss, and dealing with the physiologic stress of being in a caloric deficit. Yes, a deficit is stressful on the body. But so is excess body fat. Body fat is an estrogenic tissue that is also correlated with serum FFA. The more adipose tissue the higher the levels of FFA and consequently the lower the insulin sensitivity of the body. So it’s a catch-22. Being overweight is a stressor, but so is losing weight. The way out of this dilemma is slow, deliberate, and sustainable fat loss while providing ample support to the body. It is also important to note that hunger will happen during the calorie deficit. This is normal. A body that does not feel hunger while eating less than what it needs to sustain its current weight would slowly decay into nothingness. A diet is implemented correctly when the hunger is no more than mild discomfort, like being in a room with an AC that is set a few degrees more than what you would like.
In a future article, I will outline in detail how I approach fat loss in a Peaty way and give practical suggestions. For now, I want to repeat the main point of this article: For Ray calories mattered. A pro-metabolic diet does not mean eating an unlimited amount of food and not gaining weight. If you come from a PUFA-heavy or low-carb diet your chances of gaining weight if you don’t watch calories increase until you have reversed the negative consequences of the previous diet. Being able to forget about calories is a consequence, not a cause, of a Peat-inspired, pro-metabolic diet. To be able to forget about calories you need to be PUFA-depleted, have a sugar-oxidising metabolism, and have a healthy thyroid.