Weight Gain

Potatoes vs Cheese again

Weight gain.

Is it from carbs?

Is it from fat?

Is it from protein?

Is it from water?

Actually the answer is all of the above. No matter what we put into our body, for at least a short period of time, we will gain weight.

If we drink a pound of water, we will weigh a pound more, until our kidneys work and empty it out. Water weight comes and goes just as quickly, as long as your kidneys work.

If we eat carbs to excess, we will store the excess carbs as fat, with a little help from insulin.

If we eat protein, we will store the protein in our lean body mass, that being our bones, muscles and organs. We don’t really want to burn protein for energy. Think about it. Do you want your body burning up your muscles for energy or prefer to keep your muscles intact to do the heavy lifting they always do?

If we eat excess fat, we will store the excess fat in our fat cells. The rest of the fat we use for energy as well as part of many different cellular systems and building blocks or organs.

So that’s a quick run down of water, carbs, proteins and fat. As long as we are not in chronic excess, we stay in a healthy balance. But we can alter how much we gain or lose by the quantity or components of our food.

So let’s switch up for a moment and discuss a previous post here on Common Sense Health and Wellness where I stated I was cutting back on cheese and substituting cold previously cooked potatoes. Let’s also think about them while figuring out how much water, carb, fat and protein is in each of these foods, AND, whether that has anything to do with weight gain or loss.

So I greatly reduced cheese, and instead added about the same amount in weight of potatoes.

What would that do to my weight?

So I did some research and found this.

A 3.5 ounce serving of cheddar cheese is composed of 37% water, 33% fat, 23% protein, 3.5% carbohydrates, and 3.5% minerals and other compounds.

A 3.5 ounce serving of potatoes is composed of 78 percent water, 18 percent starch, 2.2 percent protein, 1 percent sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate, and 0.1 percent vegetable oil (lipid).

Whether I eat 3.5 ounces of potatoes or cheese I will have gained 3.5 ounces of weight temporarily, until my body decides what to do with the food components.

Generally, protein is retained for structure, form and function.

Fat is retained as well either for structure or stored as fat until needed for structure or energy at a later time.

Carbohydrates are either burned for energy and thus removed from the body, or stored for future use.

Water is all removed. When water is removed, its weight is also removed.

Now for example sake let’s just say that all protein and fat are retained by the body, all carb is burned and thus removed by the body, and all water is removed by the body.

Now let’s see what that means for weight gain with eating 3.5 ounces of cheese.

56% of the 3.5 ounces of cheese is protein and fat. Doing the math, 3.5 x .56 ‎ = 1.96 ounces of weight added.

Now let’s do the potatoes. 96% of the potato is composed of water and starch (carbohydrate). Only 2% is protein. So unless I overeat potatoes which would cause me to store the excess carbs as fat, and I am NOT overeating the potatoes, I will only store the protein. Doing the math 3.5 x .02 ‎ = 0.07 ounces of weight added, which is negligible.

The difference between cheese and potatoes is 1.96 - 0.07 ‎ = 1.89 ounces. If I ate potatoes instead of cheese every day for a month, with all else being equal, let’s do the math again

30 days in a month.

1.89 x 30 ‎ = 56.7 ounces.

16 ounces in a pound

More math.

56.7 / 16 ‎ = 3.5 lbs a month.

Now, I must have been eating more than 3.5 ounces of cheese a day when fully Carnivore. But now I am not eating cheese but am eating a small amount of potatoes. This is most likely why I lost about 4 lbs in just 10 days when I made this switch.

Caveats here:

For this to work, meaning swapping in carbs like potatoes and stopping cheese, you must first already be insulin sensitive, meaning low levels of insulin in your body. This is because the more insulin circulating, the more carbs you will end up storing as fat, as opposed to just burning it and clearing it out of your body. So if you are not yet insulin sensitive, be careful as this may not work for you until you become insulin sensitive.

Hopefully this helps you understand a bit better how I was able to add in carbs (potatoes) and lose weight.

A simple method could also be to just not overeat but eat protein fat based foods with higher water content and lower fat content.

Below are some other foods with examples, but this time you do the math.

Beef

• Water: 61%

• Protein: 26.1 grams

• Carbs: 0 grams

• Sugar: 0 grams

• Fiber: 0 grams

• Fat: 11.8 grams

Fish

Fish is 65-80% water

So perhaps eating the fish with the lower fat content, but probably slightly higher protein content might also help with weight loss.

I did not discuss other hormonal causes of weight gain, such as thyroid issues, adrenal issues and hormone imbalances in Estrogen and Testosterone. That would be more like a book as opposed to a Common Sense Health and Wellness post.

Luckily, the IMW Advanced Wellness Testing (AWT) provides great insight into whether you are Insulin Sensitive or Insulin Resistant. The AWT also gets a good look at your thyroid function.

As always, questions and comments welcome.