Personal food consumption challenges and PCF ratios

[Guest guest]

All

I wrote an entry in my blog regarding challenges with cookie consumption and

analyzed the percentages of proteins to carbohydrates to fats in my diet. It

appears my diet is very high in fats and maybe I need to tweat it, doing things

such as not eating peanut butter. I would welcome your suggestions. Here is my

blog entry:

http://cronyogitect.blogspot.com/2007/11/bad-eating-habits-and-pcf-ratios.html

Here is an excerpt, but I'll spare you my confession about cookie-consumption.

" That makes me evaluate my own diet. I've tweaked it over three years depending

on what I was learning from the discussion. The software I use to track my

nutrition, C-O-M tells me that my PCF ratio when I consume my regular diet is

20-40-40. That makes it appear that my diet is high in fats. I don't even seem

to be near most of the people in the group. But I don't believe what the

software tells me on one point. At least half of the contribution to fat amount

in my diet is from nuts. I consume daily two Brazil nuts, and 30 grams of a

combination of walnuts, almonds or filberts. Nuts are so dense that most of

their calories are not bio-available to the body. You end up excreting most of

the calories. I suspect that most of the oils in them are also not bio-available

to the body for the same reason. My other source of fat recently is from

consuming 2 to 3 tablespoons of peanut butter, which I consume with 6 baby

carrots as an afternoon snack. Recently I added kefir to my primarily raw vegan

vegetarian diet, so that has increase the calcium and protein in my diet.

Now that I think of it, I may need to revisit the percentage of nutrients in my

diet and adjust them if my diet is unbalanced in PCF ratios. I also don't know

what is optimal for ashtanga yoga practitioners. Our yoga is very vigorous so

you could compare us to professional athletes. <snip> I wonder if my diet was

lower in fats whether I would crave cookies less. "

Thanks!

Arturo

[Guest guest]

Hi Arturo:

I believe it has been previously noted here that, for almonds at

least, people seem to be able to eat quite a lot of them without

putting on weight rapidly, which might be expected given their large

calorie content according to the USDA database.

I have anecdotally noticed this myself for almonds, but not for other

nuts. Failure to absorb all the calories seems to be the only

logical explanation.

(In contrast, I have also noticed that if I eat a lot of oats I put

on weight at an extraordinarily rapid pace.)

If anyone knows of studies that confirm this suspected characteristic

of almonds it would be interesting to see them.

Rodney.

>

> All

>

> I wrote an entry in my blog regarding challenges with cookie

consumption and analyzed the percentages of proteins to carbohydrates

to fats in my diet. It appears my diet is very high in fats and maybe

I need to tweat it, doing things such as not eating peanut butter. I

would welcome your suggestions. Here is my blog entry:

>

> http://cronyogitect.blogspot.com/2007/11/bad-eating-habits-and-pcf-

ratios.html

>

> Here is an excerpt, but I'll spare you my confession about cookie-

consumption.

>

> " That makes me evaluate my own diet. I've tweaked it over three

years depending on what I was learning from the discussion. The

software I use to track my nutrition, C-O-M tells me that my PCF

ratio when I consume my regular diet is 20-40-40. That makes it

appear that my diet is high in fats. I don't even seem to be near

most of the people in the group. But I don't believe what the

software tells me on one point. At least half of the contribution to

fat amount in my diet is from nuts. I consume daily two Brazil nuts,

and 30 grams of a combination of walnuts, almonds or filberts. Nuts

are so dense that most of their calories are not bio-available to the

body. You end up excreting most of the calories. I suspect that most

of the oils in them are also not bio-available to the body for the

same reason. My other source of fat recently is from consuming 2 to 3

tablespoons of peanut butter, which I consume with 6 baby carrots as

an afternoon snack. Recently I added kefir to my primarily raw vegan

vegetarian diet, so that has increase the calcium and protein in my

diet.

>

> Now that I think of it, I may need to revisit the percentage of

nutrients in my diet and adjust them if my diet is unbalanced in PCF

ratios. I also don't know what is optimal for ashtanga yoga

practitioners. Our yoga is very vigorous so you could compare us to

professional athletes. <snip> I wonder if my diet was lower in fats

whether I would crave cookies less. "

>

> Thanks!

> Arturo

>

[Guest guest]

> If anyone knows of studies that confirm this

> suspected characteristic

> of almonds it would be interesting to see them.

This link will take you to a review study in the AJCN

that looked at this issue. And, references a few other

studies on the issue of nuts, fats, and weight

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/81/1/7?maxtoshow= & HITS=10 & hits=10 & RESULTFOR\

MAT= & fulltext=nuts+weight & searchid=1 & FIRSTINDEX=0 & sortspec=relevance & resourcetyp\

e=HWCIT

Regard

Jeff

[Guest guest]

You made the statement,

" Nuts are so dense that most of their calories are not bio-available

to the body. You end up excreting most of the calories. I suspect that

most of the oils in them are also not bio-available to the body for

the same reason. "

Can you provide any references for the nonabsorption of oils from nuts

or other whole foods? Some foods may offer thermogenic effects, but

increased calorie burning is far afield from nonabsorption -- and

particularly with respect to the benefits of CR. The paper provided

by Novick does not appear to make any assertion about the specific

mechanism by which nuts may help modulate bodyweight, nor does the

paper take a strong stance that there is even enough evidence that

nuts should be considered a food that may help one to reduce bodyweight.

Excretion of oils/fats is an interesting concept, but to my knowledge

the only such nonabsorbable edible fats are those created in the

laboratory by such companies as P & G (and FDA approved) for use in

their low-calorie snack foods.

Thanks,

-Dave

>

> All

>

> I wrote an entry in my blog regarding challenges with cookie

consumption and analyzed the percentages of proteins to carbohydrates

to fats in my diet. It appears my diet is very high in fats and maybe

I need to tweat it, doing things such as not eating peanut butter. I

would welcome your suggestions. Here is my blog entry:

>

>

http://cronyogitect.blogspot.com/2007/11/bad-eating-habits-and-pcf-ratios.html

>

> Here is an excerpt, but I'll spare you my confession about

cookie-consumption.

>

> " That makes me evaluate my own diet. I've tweaked it over three

years depending on what I was learning from the discussion. The

software I use to track my nutrition, C-O-M tells me that my PCF ratio

when I consume my regular diet is 20-40-40. That makes it appear that

my diet is high in fats. I don't even seem to be near most of the

people in the group. But I don't believe what the software tells me on

one point. At least half of the contribution to fat amount in my diet

is from nuts. I consume daily two Brazil nuts, and 30 grams of a

combination of walnuts, almonds or filberts. Nuts are so dense that

most of their calories are not bio-available to the body. You end up

excreting most of the calories. I suspect that most of the oils in

them are also not bio-available to the body for the same reason. My

other source of fat recently is from consuming 2 to 3 tablespoons of

peanut butter, which I consume with 6 baby carrots as an afternoon

snack. Recently I added kefir to my primarily raw vegan vegetarian

diet, so that has increase the calcium and protein in my diet.

>

> Now that I think of it, I may need to revisit the percentage of

nutrients in my diet and adjust them if my diet is unbalanced in PCF

ratios. I also don't know what is optimal for ashtanga yoga

practitioners. Our yoga is very vigorous so you could compare us to

professional athletes. <snip> I wonder if my diet was lower in fats

whether I would crave cookies less. "

>

> Thanks!

> Arturo

>

[Guest guest]

Re: Personal food consumption challenges and PCF ratios

Posted by: " orb85750 " orb85750@... orb85750

Mon Nov 19, 2007 2:09 pm (PST)

You made the statement,

" Nuts are so dense that most of their calories are not bio-available

to the body. You end up excreting most of the calories. I suspect that

most of the oils in them are also not bio-available to the body for

the same reason. "

Can you provide any references for the nonabsorption of oils from nuts

or other whole foods? Some foods may offer thermogenic effects, but

increased calorie burning is far afield from nonabsorption -- and

particularly with respect to the benefits of CR. The paper provided

by Novick does not appear to make any assertion about the specific

mechanism by which nuts may help modulate bodyweight, nor does the

paper take a strong stance that there is even enough evidence that

nuts should be considered a food that may help one to reduce bodyweight.

Excretion of oils/fats is an interesting concept, but to my knowledge

the only such nonabsorbable edible fats are those created in the

laboratory by such companies as P & G (and FDA approved) for use in

their low-calorie snack foods.

Thanks,

-Dave

--------------------

Hi Dave

My statement was a guess that is appears to be unproven. Musing about the PCF

ratios (20 40 40) made look closely at the sources of fat in my diet in C-O-M

and I found out that its from consumption daily of about 35g of nuts, 2

tablespoons of peanut butter, tahini in the vegetarian pates I have for lunch,

and 50g of homemade flaxseed crackers. Since people share what their balances of

nutrition is, I noticed that I was deviating from the norm, so I wanted to

redirect myself. I plan to increase my low glycemic carbohydrate consumption,

limit peanut butter to 1 tablespoon per day (or eliminate it from my diet), and

limit the amount of grams of flaxseed crackers to 15g per day. I also plan to

avoid getting fats from consuming baked goods. That should be standard policy

for a calorie restricter, but it is a challenge, and admitting to having a

problem is a way to cajole myself into behaving correctly.

If calorie restricted folks vary from 10 80 10, to 20 50 30 in their ratios, I

will at least be closer to what most people are doing than I am currently.

Someone pointed to me that a ratio of 20 40 40 is recommended for people with

type 2 diabetes. Here is a link to such a recommendation

http://www.calolive.org/nutritionists/findings/findings_2004q1.html

I don't have diabetes.

Cheers,

Arturo