Biohacking Lite (2020)

I am now reading _Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution_, Cat Bohannon's fascinating book on the female body from an evolutionary perspective. Only the first few chapters blew my mind a couple of times. Here is something she writes about liposuction:

> It seems that women who have liposuction on their hips and thighs do grow back some of their fat, but they grow it back in different places. [...] As it turns out, women’s fat isn’t the same as men’s. Each fat deposit on our body is a little bit different, but women’s hip, buttock, and upper thigh fat, or “gluteofemoral” fat, is chock-full of unusual lipids: long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, or LC-PUFAs. (Think omega-3. Think fish oil.) Our livers are bad at making these kinds of fats from scratch, so we need to get most of them from our diet. And bodies that can become pregnant need them so they can make baby brains and retinas.

> Most of the time, female gluteofemoral fat resists being metabolized. As many women know, these areas are the first places we gain weight and the last places we lose it. But in the last trimester of pregnancy—when the fetus ramps up its brain development and its own fat stores—the mother’s body starts retrieving and dumping these special lipids by the boatload into the baby’s body. This specialized hoovering of the mother’s gluteofemoral fat stores continues throughout the first year of breast-feeding—the most important time, as it happens, for infant brain and eye development. Some evolutionary biologists now believe that women evolved to have fatty hips precisely because they’re specialized to provide the building blocks for human babies’ big brains. Since we can’t get enough of those LC-PUFAs from our daily diet, women start storing them from childhood forward. Other primates don't seem to have this pattern.

> Meanwhile, we found out just a few years ago--again someone finally asked the question--that a human girl's fat may be one of the best predictors for when she'll get her first period. [...] That is how important this fat is for reproduction. Our ovaries won't even kick in until we've stored up enough of this fat to form a decent baseline.

Cryolipolysis (commonly referred to as “fat freezing” where the area is cooled down to the temp that kills fat cells but not surrounding cells) has the same effect.

Interesting (to me at least): the process was borne from the inventor theorizing that their child’s dimples were caused by the child keeping popsicles in their mouths.

Evolution indeed gave us fat storage which is one of those traits becoming unnecessary in the post industrial world of abundance. The problem is our body is more adapted to the too little rather than to the too much. E.g: fasting comes with a flurry of benefits (autophagy, mitophagy, ketones, microbiome reset, inflammation control....) in the absence of which our overall metabolism slowly poisons itself - you know the story, obesity, diabetes and so on.

BTW keto (fast mimicking) diet was invited in the 20s in the Mayo clinic to cure epileptic children. I encourage people to have a look at the fascinating "Brain Energy" book from Chris Palmer (or watch him on youtube) to see what's underneath it and how metabolism and brain efficiency are linked

I think it's probably based off the empirical observation that in studies of free-living individuals, moderate increases in exercise output simply don't result in weight loss.

The thinking is that our bodies are very good at recognizing a calorie deficit and respond very effectively by increasing spontaneous intake to balance the calorie budget. It often only takes very small increases in intake -- so low they can easily go unnoticed (or that people deny they could have happened, again why metabolic ward studies are so vital) -- to obliterate the calorie expenditure of moderate exercise.

yeah, it's a bit strange. generally, most papers say exercise isn't a huge contributor but at least in my case it makes all the difference. theoretically muscle mass burns few additional calories (see https://www.strongerbyscience.com/calories-muscle-burn/) and you have to a lot of cardio to significantly push the envelope.

as soon as i start weight training 3 times a week or endurance training 5 times a week (i'm bad at combining the two) i have to up my intake significantly just to keep my weight at the same level and gaining often means eating more than i'm comfortable with (considering my dietary preferences).

Avoiding sugar and fat is evidence-based, but wayyy too broadly applied. Depends on the person, the condition, and the rest of the diet. Some people who shouldn't be eating broccoli are... some people who should be eating fats are avoiding them... some people who should be eating sucrose are avoiding it because they think it's the same as taking in glucose and fructose independently. Lots of people replaced butter with margarine, which was worse.

Another comment claims: "I recall andrej walking around the office at this time (tesla), bad-mouthing all the sugar products that came into his view, claiming they are weaponized; and very pleased if he saw any nuts." [1]

This advice would actually kill me fairly quickly if I didn't know any better.

The internet is full of prescriptions without qualifiers, and desperate people, (feeling very ill without answers from their doctors, or no access), willing to believe whatever opinions they find because it fits their current perspective without deviating too much. It might be better to just give people the tools they need to understand what's happening [2], and let them listen to their own symptoms to make changes, if they're willing and capable...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38110001

[2] https://www.roche.com/about/philanthropy/science-education/b...

Yup. Negotiating any writings on nutrition is like walking through an endless minefield of hearsay and bullshit. Otherwise a pretty good article though I thought.

I’ve known a few people like that. They think they figured out the proper way to live, and they love to judge everyone else’s bad choices. It gets old real fast.

I should say that I did weigh myself every day. No need to analyse, but you do need feedback in order to know if what you're doing is working.

you can't bother to read it but you can bother us with your opinion in the discussion of the article? That's a big self-esteem you have here.

There has to be something like Dunning–Kruger effect but for situation where you try to improve something, learn a convoluted (and rarely scientifically confirmed) solution, apply it for like a month only to then crash back to the start and realise there is no workaround to eating less calories for example

Instead of accepting that big, sustainable changes are not achieved through shortcuts, my brain needed some convoluted or painful solutions (like extended water fasting) which also makes you think like you "cracked the code" and you are better than your mum who told you to just not eat sugar

If you need a sweet treat, some fruit is fine. If you're just starting to work on your diet and health, and you're trading fruit for chips or cake or any other "hyper-palatable" foods, great! Fresh fruit is undeniably a better choice.

But, fruit juice is approximately as good for you as any soda, and as you try to optimize your diet more and more, you'll want more fibrous fruits, less sugary fruits, and eventually a little bit less fruit overall.

But by then you'll already be pretty familiar with your goals and diet and how various foods fit in to them.

Depends what fruit and depends in what amount.

You can safely eat 200 grams of tomatoes as the sugar and calorie amount is pretty low but it will make you feel satiated.

Meanwhile 100 grams of banana will have 5 times the sugar and calories of tomatoes (for 100g) but still is pretty fine if you restrict yourself at that 1 small banana.

200 grams of an apple is also pretty safe and is a nice snack.

The point about artificial selection is not far off, there was some news about a zoo having to switch to other food because today's fruits were starting to rot the animals' teeth [0].

But in moderation and ideally sourced locally it's probably fine.

[0] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6223529/Melbourne-Z...

> Is avoiding fruits a good recommendation?

Completely avoiding - no. Reducing fruit consumption to some sensible level - definitely. Hence "to a lesser extent".

I’d say in general no. Show me any unhealthy person that is that way from eating lots of fruits. When you dig deeper, it’s always the Little Debbie snacks they have in the cabinet and the fast food.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6315720/

Avoiding fruits only comes after cutting out all processed sugar, or added sugar on the label. Then you should cut out all processed grains. Flour is basically powdered carbohydrate, which spikes your insulin in a manner not much different from table sugar. Then you can look at sugar. I would still include berries, they're low cal and the antioxidant content is insane.

Basically, you need to earn your carbs. Sugar is fine if you burn it off, that's why athletes drink Gatorade mid workout. If you eat an apple before a walk/jog/swim/etc, there's no issue. If you eat a pile of bananas while doing nothing, that glycogen has to go somewhere.

Probably not, unless your diet is already very good. Fruit is high in fibre and micronutrients relative to the average diet, is reasonably satiating, and is difficult to eat too much of without shoving into a blender or juicing.

If you're a biohacker, fruit's your biggest remaining problem, you've replaced the micronutrients with other sources, and you don't need fast burn energy, sure.

I don’t know but I want this answered.

Sugarphobia is probably a fad too, along with seedoilphobia etc. Just eat balanced.

No, it's a nonsense recommendation.

Yes.

There is almost nothing in fruit worth taking. Especially not a tremendous amount of sugar. One apple can have amounts of sugar similar to Coca-Cola. Furthermore, a lot of it is fructose, which is basically a poison to the body. The sole purpose of human adaptations to fruit seems to be fattening, which makes evolutionary sense for survival in the time of scarcity, but not when you have food in abundance all the time. Note that it's also true that todays fruit is 'weaponized' by long-lasting preference to sugary variants so it contains much more sugar then in historic times and a lot less of other things like vitamins and minerals.

One other important reason is that such amount of sugar will block vitamin C as they are absorbed via the same mechanism (GLUT2). Blocking vitamin C absorption leads to all sorts of bad things, slowly, like lower immunity, higher cholesterol, fragile blood vessels.

The third important aspect is cancer feeding (which mostly relies on sugar, so even though the body makes it, you certainly do not have to ignite it) and effects on insulin which dysfunction is tied to both cancer and diabetes.

You should replace them with vegetables.

As a personal anecdote, my family and I almost never eat fruit (in last 20 years or so) - at most a couple of times per year. We all seem very healthy.

What was your daily diet? Can you provide some details?

Agree, it's a bit odd that he did not focus on this, since he is obviously aware of it. It's the reason calories in/out is totally insufficient as a guide - what you eat affects hormones, which will hugely affect what you want to eat, and how it is metabolized.

The advice about avoiding sugar is also clearly rooted in this effect, but without the explanation it it comes across as just another "mom said".

Damn this seemed to mean 24 days without drinking water....

Did you just yolo it or had a doctor supervising?

For satiety you need fiber and protein. All energy above your caloric needs turn into fat, regardless of what food source it comes from.

Beans, lentils and whole grains have plenty of both protein and fiber. Meat and fish has plenty of protein. Fruits and other veggies have plenty of fiber.

Personally I track my food to stay at a reasonable amount of calorie, ensure I have enough protein an fiber (I aim at 1.6g per kg of mass and above 50g per day respectively) and try to reach recommendations for vitamins and minerals, pick a guide for those, they're all more or less the same, most tracker apps use the US FDA one.

It's really important to ramp up the amount of fiber, sudden increase will lead to bad news.

Everything that can be used for energy will be stored as fat once you eat enough of it.

What doesn’t just gets excreted.

With that in mind, potatoes have a pretty high satiety index and I think they fit your criteria.

The thing I find odd about many of these biohacking/longevity experts is that they don’t seem to look at real people that live a long time in Spain, Italy, Japan, etc. and instead just default to an over-optimized “scientific” diet that insists that over-analyzing everything is equivalent to being effective. If there isn’t a name for this fallacy, there ought to be one: analysis and results are not always correlated.

Edit: reading the linked post again, I realized what it is: an obsession with data and a total disregard for cultural practices. French people, for example, eat all kinds of things considered forbidden, and yet obesity isn’t much of an issue there compared to other Western nations. One reason why is the strong cultural rule against snacking.

My brain shutdowns when I read “processed food”.

That is a made up term that means nothing and everything. Washing vegetables is a process. “Cooking” is a process. Cutting is a process. Chilling is a process.

What the heck do they mean by “processed food”?

I agree this sucks and I personally struggle to follow anything this strict because I love cooking AND I love eating (the perfect storm for obesity, sadly). However I found a good middle ground is to focus on "Avoid processed food" and sticking to whole foods. Try buy things that don't have bar codes, or stick to the outside of the supermarket (where they tend to put the fresh produce), or whatever.

Well, rice is also among the most environmentally damaging plants you can eat, so I suppose there's multiple arguments to be made in favor of avoiding it.

Cutting drinkable calories and all added sugars is the 20% of effort that gives you 80% of the effect here. As far as going to 100% goes, cutting carbohydrates altogether has also become enough of a trend ("no-carb") that you can find lots of information on how to do it, if you feel like you need to do it. However, those diets usually require you to eat a lot of meat, which is unhealthy for a host of other reasons, and if you're stringent about it, they would also require you to cut beneficial foods like nuts, which is likewise bad.

I think it's a very natural American reaction. Of course if your food supply is full of preservatives and fillers, you'll find it difficult to eat food that doesn't make you fat or feel like shit.

I've been living in the EU (Netherlands) for a few years now, and I've lost weight naturally through walking more, better food, and less access to fast food. My wife and I love cooking, and love eating too. It's legitimately hard to find quality produce in the US, and it's often substantially more expensive than produce in the EU.

I actually dread going back to the US to visit family or when I have to travel for work because the food really irritates my stomach...

I find rice to be a curious thing to put on the list. I understand that it is a carb, but it’s also a question of moderation, and portion size. Prior to the introduction of western franchises like McDonald’s, the Japanese diet led to some of the longest lifespan’s in the world. A small quantity of carbs like rice seems like a non-issue to me. It’s when you sit down to a massive plate of fried rice that you’re asking for trouble.

Not contradicting, but your brain is reprogrammable. If you cut things a bit, you won't feel the need to be satisfied. The amount of sugar we eat in modern societies is mostly useless. Now I was "lucky", I fell ill, so I just couldn't eat sugar, now I don't eat pastry, or carbs (maybe 3 times a month at worst). Veggies, tea, meat, fish, nuts, yogurt, can give you a lot.

For what it's worth, my personal experience has been that I crave less of the hyper-palatable foods when I'm regularly lifting or getting some other form of moderate to intense exercise. My appetite starts to swing back towards simple meals with meat and grains and vegetables, and plain water is refreshing again.

When I'm not getting enough exercise, I start to crave sugars and yummies more.

I've gotten almost no exercise for the last couple of months due to an injury and some other circumstances and Halloween could not have come at a worse time.

It is surprisingly easy from a "feeling" perspective. Once you stop eating those, your body will become more addicted to other food. However, a single drop of sugar during your diet will make you starve for more sugar (That is what most people experience during their day and why they think avoiding soda is impossible)

I struggle with my weight, but it made a big difference to cut out "direct" sugar. It was hard for a month or two but after that, I don't really have a strong desire for sugar anymore, and a lot of more "normal" food tastes sweeter to me now.

I'm skeptical of carnivore diets. I have tried similar diets, such as a meat-heavy keto diet, and while I agree you see a lot of weight loss quickly (mostly water weight though) I noticed a decrease in energy. For example my longer (1hr+) runs saw my mile times get 1-2 minutes longer without carbs. I looked into it and noticed the people I personally think are the fittest, that is ironman triathletes, all tend to follow the Mediterranean diet. I've come to the conclusion that's the best for me, because I've seen my energy levels increase on that diet, and from studies on life longevity etc believe it is THE best diet without starting to min-max specific things that might help individuals.

The actual temperature delta is more like 0.3°C for two people born a century apart: https://elifesciences.org/articles/49555

I could never make 10k steps routinely until I started jogging. Download the Couch to 5k (c25k) or couch to 10k/half-marathon/marathon and follow the fairly gentle introduction to running. You will hit 5k steps from the easiest runs and get to one hour walk/runs which can be 8k+ steps after a couple weeks. It's so so much easier than trying to just walk and honestly becomes fun after a couple weeks of sucking

My problem is moderation - I can't have a few squares of chocolate or 80g of yogurt, because the good stuff is so good...

I noticed that on HN lately calories-deficit driven weight loss is considered controversial. I wonder what do you think about creationism VS evolution, folks.