The FastDay Forum

I bought some coconut oil in the US in March. So far I've only used it for stir fries. I love to sniff it though... Mmmmm

The research usually cited to push coconut oil is not very impressive if you actually read it. The very tiny improvement in weight loss occurs only when you use it to replace the same calories of another fat. But many dieters add it to their diets. Over on another diet board run by a company selling the stuff, people kept reporting that adding it stopped their weight loss.

It probably is healthier than the omega 6 vegetable oils, though so is butter.

My kids complained that if i fried in coconut oil the food tasted of coconut.

I would have to agree. I guess if you have other strong flavours it wont be so bad.

Still cant fathom idea of putting it into my coffee.

The research usually cited to push coconut oil is not very impressive if you actually read it. The very tiny improvement in weight loss occurs only when you use it to replace the same calories of another fat. But many dieters add it to their diets. Over on another diet board run by a company selling the stuff, people kept reporting that adding it stopped their weight loss.

It probably is healthier than the omega 6 vegetable oils, though so is butter.

If I eat coconut oil everyday, which I have done, I cannot have grains or potatoes. The combination of the two stop my weight loss. However coconut oil added into my daily food intake minus heavy carbs and I lose weight. It is a while since I used it that way. For sometime it was a budget blower and I had to lower the amount of coconut oil I was buying. I may use it again at some point for weight loss. I guess that depends on any plateau I may find myself on. It could be a kick starter for getting things moving again.

@HungerFitness, you got it right. It's not the smoking point that's higher because it seems to reach smoking point quite quickly. It is that the coconut oil is resistant to change in structure.

I hate the taste of coconut so I only use coconut oil on my hair and skin and it works wonder, tried to put some in my coffee once and it made me sick so....

About olive oil, I have 2 different ones, really high quality, completely natural and soooooooo good. One is especially for high temperatures (even if I never fry anything) and the other is extra virgin for raw use like salad or when I make it solidified to use it as you use butter. It's the only greasy thing I can eat how my body doesn't like butter or cream any more (they both make me sick)

I don't believe that coconut oil is a miraculous product, it's good for some things (I have very long curly dry hair and it works wonder for it and my skin is as soft as a baby skin) but I don't believe it can cure or help with some diseases, it's just wishful thinking. Just my opinion, of course

Funny, I can't stand the taste of olive oil, though I love butter. Someone just gave us a bottle of some very expensive olive oil, hand imported from Italy, and we can't find anything to use it for.

OTOH, cheese of all kinds, except goat, is my addiction, the smellier, the better. I envy all of you with access to good English Stilton. Though I have had to curb my love of cheese to get the weight to come off. The cheese fetish is one reason I could stick to a low carb diet for so long.

I continue to use coconut oil for cooking a stir fry, moisturising & occasionally oil pulling & did this today if I see any sign of staining on my teeth. My husbands scalp continues to be free of any keratosis with occasional night time applications
I was initially dubious but highly recommend it & adding it to coffee on a fast day stops you feeling hungry!

Thought I'd bump this thread as it has been a while since we have talked about swishing, hair conditioning and body moisturizing and other such stuff including the inconclusive weight loss claims. It is certainly a topic which provokes different reactions!
So to get us all animated again, I spotted this which I thought those who actually do take coconut and/or MCT oil might like and those who are not so sure may have a different point of view. http://naturalsociety.com/new-study-coc ... -patients/. What do we think?

The actual study cited here involved exposing cell cultures in a dish to the coconut oil. Its a far cry from eating the oil, as the eaten oil isn't likely to cross the blood brain barrier.

The actual study cited here involved exposing cell cultures in a dish to the coconut oil. Its a far cry from eating the oil, as the eaten oil isn't likely to cross the blood brain barrier.

I'm not a biochemist but can MCT's be broken down into ketones providing fuel to the brain that way? Or is that a myth too?

It's good to see this thread again.
I'm still a big advocate of all things coconut, having upped my coconut butter intake to three teaspoons a day and everything works better for it.
I continue to apply it to my hair and skin with excellent results.
I prefer to use organic extra virgin olive oil for food as I prefer the taste.

Nope, sorry but I've still got the huge jars I bought months ago and I can't see me ever use it, hate it which is strange as I love coconut, ah well!!!!

Ballerina x

A couple things. Any fats can be broken down into ketones, though it is worth noting that after three or so weeks on a very low carb diet you will be burning free fatty acids for fuel rather than ketones everywhere but in your brain and perhaps your heart. But here's the thing. You don't want to be breaking down the fats you EAT into ketones and/or fatty acids, because when you do that, they are burned instead of the body fat you are trying to shift. You do have to create a caloric deficit that gets your body burning that body fat. I spent a few years completely stalled in my weight loss on a ketogenic diet, spilling ketones like mad, until I learned that very unpleasant truth. Then I started tracking calories very closely eating at the level that burnt off those 3,500 calorie units and bingo, off came the weight.

But this is not what people want to hear, especially more vocal members of the online keto community which gets rabid on the subject. But no one can ever get the people who claim loudest online that there are benefits to ketogenic dieting to post their caloric intake along with their weight loss charts. The desire to believe in magic is very strong. Unfortunately, that magic works almost entirely for youngish men who weigh well over 250 lbs when they start their ketogenic diets. I have never yet heard from middle aged women of more moderate weights who could get that particular magic to work. That's because the only way we can lose is to cut calories down to a level that ketogenic or not is much less eating than most of us would consider normal.

So when you eat calorie dense fats even good fats like CO, when they provide enough excess calories to run your keto-adjusted body, they will stop weight loss just as any other excess calories would. The big problem with coconut oil for me is that it makes it very easy to eat a lot of excess calories very easily. (I'm not allowed to make the coconut/cocoa fudge I used to make for that reason.) I don't slurp down cups of vegetable oil, but CO tastes so good it's easy to get carried away.

I have also searched diligently for quality research that would support the claims that CO causes more weight loss than other fats and can't find anything that supports that idea. The studies in which it was helpful were ones where people cut other fats and replaced them with CO. And even then the difference between high fat diets and others of the SAME caloric value was so tiny as to possibly be a chance occurence, as these were very small studies where the statistics are iffy. (And trust me, the statistics in MOST medical and nutritional studies are extremely iffy, even with large samples. The people who run these studies do not really understand statistics. Neither do the peers who review them.

Thanks @peebles. In conducting my own one woman experiment of one month on a keto diet (finishes tomorrow), I think my report will say that the result is precisely the same as eating normal food when it comes to the weight loss stakes, but I will not know until I get on the scales tomorrow. I have monitored my intake as like you, I don't buy the 'eat whatever you want so long as you stay in ketosis'. It's all about the calorie in my book. Thanks for your thoughtful post.

Thank you Peebles for your very clear explanation. I have resorted to a teaspoonful of Coconut Oil during a fast day when feeling very rumbly & I always don't eat until supper time but hadn't realised the ketonic impact of this. I always thought that the Coconut Oil was so quickly digested that it somehow short cut the usual digestive route Oh well at least I included it as a calorific intake. I must rethink my fast days because I have settled into a rut with edging up calorie wise having more coffee & milk than I should during the day & probably negating the proper fast day benefits.