I told the story of Sandra in Obesity as a Global Succinate Dehydrogenase Activity Deficit. I asked her to be a guinea pig and she was happy to share data. This is her story of her n=1 trial using Succin-ade for a month. The “supplements” she mentions and vitamin D3 and K2 plus the polyphenols resveratrol and myricetin. If I could start the trial over again, I would have had her take a-lipoic acid (“alpha lipoic”) instead of resveratrol and myricetin. She did fine anyway!
She used a scoop of the Succin-ade two to three times a day with meals. That’s about 10-15g of actual succin-ate – 40-60 calories (assuming 4cal/g), which is in the range of the 1.5-2% that caused weight loss in mice. 2% of a 2400 calorie diet is 48 calories. Another way of looking at it is that 15g of supplementary succinate would be the equivalent of swapping out around 36g of oleic acid (MUFA) with 36g of stearic acid (saturated fat), from an FADH2:NADH ratio perspective. One gran of succinate would replace 2.4g of FADH2 input from oleic acid.
I’ve put Sandra’s raw data at the end. As you can see, she had a significant rise in body temperature alongside the weight loss. She was doing thermogenesis! This is her story in her words.
Hi. I am Sandra, a 48 year-old educator from Ithaca. I lost 10 pounds and 3 inches off my waist in a month of using Succin-ade.
After more than a year on Zoom and majorly reinventing how I do my job while remote working and being stuck inside, my physical activity diminished and my wine consumption increased… did I mention that I am an educator? Needless to say, I gained the “Covid 19.”
In the past, I have done the Paleo 30-Day Challenge and that had great results, but I was cooking ALL OF THE TIME and could not sustain that plan. How I eat now is fairly decent normally – mostly protein, veggies, and cheese… and wine. The hardest part of sticking with anything is my chaotic schedule – no one day is ever the same. Easy foods have become my life.
The easy part of using the Succin-ade, vitamins, and supplements was the morning. A scoop with some water that washed down the pills. Eat breakfast and had my coffee. Breakfast is usually a gluten free bagel with cream cheese and lox. Sometimes its an omelet with ground beef, veggies and cheese.
Lunch is usually some sort of meat and veggie combo – anything starchy makes me sleepy. Sometimes I will have rice noodles, they’re not so bad. If I am working from home, I will tend to have a larger lunch at a later time and will take the Succin-ade and supplements before I eat. Dinner always ends up being cheese and crackers and wine on those nights!
When working at school, I bring in a keto frozen meal for ease. I don’t bring the Succin-ade set up to work – it’s bad enough trying to remember to put on my mask every time I have to step out of my office.
Due to my insane schedule, a lot of my dinners have been pizza which I make from frozen gluten free crusts and any combo of cheese, meats, and veggies. Easy and satisfying… especially late at night. My other go-to easy meals are Annie’s gluten free Mac and Cheese with extra cheese (and sometimes made a little healthier with spinach or broccoli). And recently I have been getting a rotisserie chicken and a bunch of cooked seasoned veggies from the prepared food section of the grocery store. Easy plates to throw together and nuke. I’ll do the Succin-ade and supplements along with my wine as I’m making dinner.
I can cook for real, I swear. I just don’t want to clean up after.
During this time I have also been unable to exercise due to an injury – so it was doubly impressive to see the weight loss in a month when I haven’t broken a sweat.
I’m going to keep it going and hope to see results as I am healing and can start being active again.
| Day | Weight Change | Waist Change | Body Temp | |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 97.1 | |
| 1 | -5 | 0 | 97.1 | |
| 2 | -5 | 0 | 97.1 | |
| 3 | -6 | 0 | 96.9 | |
| 4 | -8 | -0.5 | 96.9 | |
| 5 | -6 | 0 | 97.1 | Added Vit D & K2 |
| 6 | -6 | -0.5 | 97.1 | |
| 7 | -9 | -1 | 97.1 | |
| 8 | -9 | -0.5 | 97.1 | |
| 9 | -8 | 0 | 97.6 | |
| 10 | -10 | -0.5 | 97.9 | |
| 11 | -10 | -1 | 99.1 | |
| 12 | -8 | 0 | 97.9 | |
| 13 | -6 | 0 | 97.9 | Added Resveratorl + Myricetin |
| 14 | -8 | -0.5 | 98.1 | |
| 15 | -8 | -1 | 97.9 | |
| 16 | -8 | -1 | 98.1 | |
| 17 | -10 | -1.5 | 98.1 | |
| 18 | -11 | -2 | 98.4 | Took a break |
| 19 | -11 | -2 | 98.6 | Took a break |
| 20 | -15 | -2 | 98.6 | Restarted Succin-ade |
| 21 | -13 | -3 | 99.1 | |
| 22 | -13 | -3 | 99.1 | |
| 23 | -13 | -2 | 99.1 | |
| 24 | -12 | -3 | 99.6 | |
| 25 | -12 | -3 | 99.6 | |
| 26 | -13 | -4 | 98.6 | |
| 27 | -13 | -4 | 99.1 | |
| 28 | -12 | -4 | 98.4 | |
| 29 | -12 | -4 | 99.1 |
Thank you for your n=1!! As an avid reader of Brad’s blog (though not particularly science minded), I really like seeing how his theories actually pan out in real life situations. So glad you had positive results and I hope you update again.
Have ordered the succinade – will try to replicate as closely to Sandra’s experiement and post results on reddit – I have roughly the same profile as her (from what she has made public).
Thank you for sharing. I’m wondering how much of this could be attributed to laxative effects of succin-ade and how much to the actual ROS production. Laxative effects can cause some “weight loss” – lost content of the intestines and dehydration. It will also cause lost inches around the waist. Furthermore faster moving intestines will make you feel warmer and could make you feel both more tired or more energetic. I think it’s unlikely that these factors together would account for 12 lb weight loss but I would like to see the results after 3 months trial.
Everybody seems to be having success with this diet but me. 1 year in and my weight hasn’t budged. In fact at one point this summer I GAINED 4 lbs.
I hear your pain and I for one, would be really interested to now why that is.
I wonder why things don’t budge despite such changes to one’s diet.
How nauseated did she get while drinking 6gms?
my weight hasn’t budged either, but it hasn’t gone UP, which is surprising what with eating buttered croissants!
I think it might have to do with stress, as cortisol also makes for loads of belly fat, and even though my weight hasn’t moved on the scale, my belly looks a lot bigger!
Sterculia oil didn’t work. Stearic Acid didn’t work (It left greasy film around my pots and utensils). Cocoa butter didn’t work. Paul Saladino’s Suet Pills didn’t work. I’m stuck at 195. Body comp hasn’t changed.
Not everyone. I suspect it depends on the level of up-regulation of your lipogenic genes, how much stored PUFA and MUFA you have, which variations of the AMPK gene you have, etc. I personally am not “fixed” yet, which I define as the ability to maintain a lean wait eating ad lib while avoiding unsaturated fats.
I do not understand how people are losing 30-40 lbs. rapidly over the course of several months, or others are losing 10 lbs. in a month or two. I am not obese but I have belly fat that will not budge. It’s only 20 lbs. that I want to lose and it will not go away. I have not touched a vegetable oil since I was in my 20s.
I have a bottle of olive oil that I never cook with but would make salad dressing with that has been sitting in my cabinet, untouched, in over a year. Any frying or stir frying that I’ve done over the years has been with a non-stick, olive oil based spray.
If I have a taste for egg salad or tuna salad, I use an avocado mayo because the butter mayo recipe and any mayo/salad dressing recipe that uses yogurt or sour cream does not taste right. In either instance, that’s been less than half dozen times this year.
I have not had real bacon in over a year. I’m not a big pork eater to begin with. When I do have a taste for it, it’s usually in the form of lunch meat or a very low fat ham steak. Same with chicken, the leanest I can get, then add back in a saturated fat like butter or sour cream.
I’m baffled.
Have you tried lower fat? I have found higher protein, lower fat works. That’s what I was on pre-croissant diet (where I gained about 25 pounds, very quickly).
It’s what I’m on now, and I’m getting close to where I was pre-croissant diet. I can refit into my 36 waist pants, but can’t yet get back into my 34 inch pants. But I also lose weight pretty slowly.
Just to further comment. I started applying the diet a year ago. I was 195 lbs. when I got started. This morning I weighed myself and I am 201 lbs.
These temp measurements are basal (like first thing out of bed)?
She told me: my routine is I wake up, pee, then measure my weight, waist and temperature.
shouldn’t it have been pee, then wake up, then measure temperature?
Only if you want to launder your sheets every morning!