the thyroid scenario...

...Seems to be extraordinarily oversimplified a lot of the time.  One has this image of the gland manufacturing and sending out hormone like a factory responding to orders (TSH) from the head office (pituitary).  Given enough raw materials going in (tyrosine and iodine), you expect your workforce (thyroid gland) to put together and ship whatever the orders called for, and it's up to the customers (body-wide tissues) to take the material (mostly T4, some T3) and further turn them into the finished products they require.  If you have a less-efficient workforce, you may not get as much product from a day's work as you should.  Then if a shipment of raw material doesn't arrive on time, they may work their butts off but will be unable to do the job; and if a shipment of fluoride, bromine or chlorine is mistakenly sent, it can tie up the iodine "loading-dock" while the truck-driver and foreman argue about the debacle....

Actually, this turned out to be a better analogy than i thought it would.  ;-)

It's when the gland's products go out into the world to achieve their life's-work that things get REALLY complicated.  That's what i have only STARTED to explore in my reading these days.  The sheer number of different interactions is mind-numbing.  The first thing that caught my attention:  carbohydrate metabolism.

THYROID HORMONE HELPS INSULIN FERRY GLUCOSE INTO CELLS FOR ENERGY-PRODUCTION.  It promotes more GLUT4 (as well as LDL) receptors.  If there is less glucose in the system to be disposed-of, less thyroid is needed to do the job -- THAT is why you get lower free T3 on a low-carb diet.  You just don't have the requirement; it's not pathological, it's physiological.

We should never forget for a moment that the longer our blood-glucose is high, the more DAMAGE it's inflicting on our organs, nerves and vessels.  Insulin and thyroid are working their asses off to use it up or store it away FAST.  Raising temperature and giving muscles a reason to do their thing are the first choice, but insulin WILL store it as fat if it has to.

When normal quantities of the thyroid hormones are called away from their usual duties to assist insulin in its endless toil, you end up with hypOthyroid symptoms.  A strong healthy thyroid will do its best to make the amount you need, but it can overproduce, too, and hypERthyroidism isn't a good thing, either.  Most people don't supplement tyrosine -- they make it from phenylalanine in the diet with the help of enzymes ... and remember how i said people produce fewer enzymes as they get older?  Add to this iodine-deficient diets* and you have the perfect recipe for a metabolic MESS.

Some time ago, Chris Kresser wrote a good article on the connection between thyroid function and blood-sugar, and more recently, Sam Knox wrote a better one.  Unless you really WANT to think that carbs in your diet are a good thing for your thyroid, i don't know how you can avoid coming to the same conclusion i did -- that MY thyroid is MUCH healthier and happier on LCHF.

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* most people think that they'll get plenty of iodine from salty foods, not knowing that commercial foods are usually made with NONiodized salt.

PROTEIN!

When it comes to figuring out our optimal macronutrient intake, we get reports of a wide range of ideals.  Most agree, limiting protein becomes important when the low-hanging-fruit of the controlled-carb diet has been harvested.  Once you've cut all the carbohydrate-rich foods you're willing to forgo, reducing the amount of protein-foods adds that extra fillip necessary to get the fat burning again.  More fat is added to the diet, and the scale starts measuring downward anew.

This seems to be pretty universally applicable in the LC community.  The truism that low-carbing allows ad-libitum meat-eating is, like most of its logical kin, only true up to a point.  Ideally, eating the appropriate meats will fill you up long before fat-burning is threatened, but in practice (especially as one approaches one's goal) it seems to be easy for some people to take in too much.

There seems to be one great big exception, though -- the closer to zero-carb you go, the more protein you NEED.  Even though it's been documented that the body CAN make glucose out of fat, it appears to be easier for it to do so with protein.

Also, there are many beneficial effects of insulin that are stimulated in the ZC enthusiast by protein metabolism.  Insulin is far from being "the enemy" to people who have trained their bodies to burn fat and ketones as the primary fuels!  Going ultra-low-carb induces physiological insulin-resistance in muscle cells, particularly.  To drive amino acids into cells for muscle-building (important in us old broads), we do need a bit of an insulin spike from time to time.

And it seems to work spontaneously.  My husband, neighbors and local acquaintances see me too often to notice those body changes which happen over time, but when i was with some friends in the spring who hadn't seen me since last autumn, i was made aware of something:  after a round of hugs, somebody said, "You're turning into quite a hardbody, aren't you?"  I was surprised -- i have been very remiss when it comes to intentionally seeking a gain in strength.  My goal is ENERGY ("vitality") gain as well as fat loss.  It got me thinking....

Just as "the paleo diet becomes the fail-eo diet if you don't add enough fat," a ZC diet is not going to be healthy without sufficient protein.  And ironically, it may be all about the insulin.

when is a fast not a fast?

Hint -- this is like when Peter asked "when is a high-fat diet not a high-fat diet."

When Dr. Atkins prescribed a "fat fast" for people who are extremely resistant to losing weight, it was incredibly low in calories, and he only recommended doing it for a few days at a time.  It had enough fat to suppress the appetite, and it forced the burning of body-fat for fuel, because it certainly didn't supply enough protein to convert to a LOT of glucose.  I feel sorry for those on it who didn't have the metabolic flexibility or gut-bugs to get ENERGY from fat, and yet had to go about their daily business....

I assumed that the fat-fast was all about getting into ketosis ... until recently.  There are a few blogs where isolated posts give hints on why eating like this may promote weight loss by other pathways, too. 

In one of Peter's posts, he speaks of intestinal biota which prompt the brain to eat "fiber" and store fat, or to release stored fat for energy (so the host can go out hunting) ... and fat ingestion signals the latter.  The use of fatty foods during an intermittent fast (like drinking coffee with cream) is suggested by the Drs. Jaminet as "not counting" as food....

Here, too, is an explanation for the benefit of oil-swilling in the Shangri-La regimen!

Now we have this discovery that eating fat-with-no-carb spurs glp-1 production, which in turn turns off appetite and turns on spontaneous movement.  I find this very exciting.  In the average human, excessive energy "wasting" -- i.e., going to the gym -- is discouraged by our very beings (see Naturally Engineered); as a result, forcing yourself to exercise when you don't want to is more stressful and less effective.  But by this pathway, the urge to move is instinctive rather than a choice.  One gets the benefits of movement on the tissues and the mood-enhancing aspect of exercise in the brain -- all with no hunger or nasty cascades of BG and insulin.

So, yeah -- i now see the fat-fast as being a LOT more powerful than i believed possible, just reading Atkins.  ...I'll be sure to eat MORE CALORIES of it than he recommended, though!

hunger in this microcosm

OOOOkay:  getting rid of leftovers has already taught me something.  If my diet doesn't have enough protein in it, fat only satisfies me to a point.

Low-carb creamed eggs on paleo biscuits ("Paleo Comfort Foods" recipe) for dinner last night.  Ditto, without the biscuit, for breakfast.  Two hours later, i was hungry.  Each serving had about 2.5 eggs in it, less than 16 grams of protein.  There was ample fat in the meal, PLUS what my own poundage has to contribute.

As a child, i always craved protein.  MEAT.  We were a poorish family, and though we generally had animal protein as a centerpiece for dinner, there was not always a lot of it.  On the occasions when we indulged ourselves at restaurants, i usually opted for beef.  The body is wise when not addicted to carbs.

At the time of life when i started having to work at maintaining an appropriate weight, the low-fat paradigm had taken hold.  I knew i could have all the food i wanted, including things like baked chicken breast and low-fat fish.  Nevertheless, i always felt hungry ... even when my belly was quite full.  In those days, i probably weighed 15 pounds less than i do now, and was less metabolically-challenged.  But i had a hard time accessing my own fat stores, because i was trying to satisfy appetite with pasta and rice and home-made bread (any of you aging ex-athletes remember "Eat to Win"?) -- lipolysis just ain't gonna happen with all THAT insulin floating around.

Inspired by "Strong Medicine" and the ladies on PaleoHacks who report good results on a zero-carb diet, i learned that eating nothing but fatty meat is not going to set me up for ill health.  I tried it, like it, and thrive on it.  But the central message is:  both "fatty" and "meat" have to be ample.  Not enough meat, and my body rebels with hunger.  Not enough fat, ditto.  I don't get carb cravings, though sometimes i want "dessert" after a meal; coffee alone can satisfy this, but if my meal was smallish for some reason, a quarter-cup of cream is the perfect finish.

"The REST of the story"?  :-)  I just polished off the creamed eggs (no biscuit), and now am FULL as well as satisfied.  Happy ending.

welcome to my world -- i mean "bloglist"

Thanks to Kateryna, i've decided to add another writer to my bloglist.  I've only just begun to read his articles, but my first impression of Peter Attia is very good indeed.

His blog is called "the war on insulin," which to my mind is slightly different from a "war on carbohydrates."  Interestingly enough, Dr. Donaldson stated in his 1960s memoir that a number of doctors, even then, believed "insulin itself may promote hardening of the arteries"....  I've only felt passing interest in the subject of insulin, because i have no inkling that i have a problem with it, outside of its combination with carbs inducing weight gain in this aging body.

I know that insulin performs a variety of very important tasks throughout the human body.  I'm also aware that my "sufficient" intake of protein induces a release of it.  What i'm fuzzy about is, how and why it "escorts" other hormones in various cells, especially in the brain.

It's time for me to learn this stuff, and i think Dr. Attia's site is a good place to start.  Thanks, Kateryna!