Free the Animal

The Latest Nonsense

By now, many have heard of the latest "study." Oh, sure. It's already in the news.

We randomly assigned 811 overweight adults to one of four diets; the targeted percentages of energy derived from fat, protein, and carbohydrates in the four diets were 20, 15, and 65%; 20, 25, and 55%; 40, 15, and 45%; and 40, 25, and 35%. The diets consisted of similar foods and met guidelines for cardiovascular health. [emphasis added]

That emphasis hides a lot of sin, I'll bet. Well, no need to guess, as they provide a reference for such guidelines:

...consume a diet rich in vegetables and fruits; choose whole-grain, high-fiber foods; consume fish, especially oily fish, at least twice a week; limit intake of saturated fat to <7% of energy, trans fat to <1% of energy, and cholesterol to <300 mg/day by choosing lean meats and vegetable alternatives, fat-free (skim) or low-fat (1% fat) dairy products...

No wonder "high fat" is only 40%, and I'll bet they had a tough time getting even to that level. If I recall correctly, the average American diet is already about 30% from fat, so what are they showing? They certainly aren't emulating the Tokelauans at 50% saturated fat, or anything. Massai, Inuit? Forgetaboutit.

Well, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, because it's just ridiculous (with a shout out to: Frank M. Sacks, M.D., George A. Bray, M.D., Vincent J. Carey, Ph.D., Steven R. Smith, M.D., Donna H. Ryan, M.D., Stephen D. Anton, Ph.D., Katherine McManus, M.S., R.D., Catherine M. Champagne, Ph.D., Louise M. Bishop, M.S., R.D., Nancy Laranjo, B.A., Meryl S. Leboff, M.D., Jennifer C. Rood, Ph.D., Lilian de Jonge, Ph.D., Frank L. Greenway, M.D., Catherine M. Loria, Ph.D., Eva Obarzanek, Ph.D., and Donald A. Williamson, Ph.D. -- hey, guys & gals; enjoy).

Simply A few points:

1. There's no such thing as a "low fat diet." They're all high fat diets if fat loss is the goal.
2. The lowest carbohydrate intake of all the diets was a whopping (yea, I can do the media hype, too) 35%. Presuming an average 2,500 kcal intake per day, that's about 220 grams of carbs -- not "low carb" by any means. So, this is merely a comparison between various moderate to high carb approaches -- approaches that leave insulin high and fat mobilization low.
3. The highest fat intake is only 40%. A true high fat diet is 60%+ of energy from fat. You can't go above about 35% from protein, and that's pushing it (25% is more realistic). Simple: protein remains about the same, and the tradeoff is between carbs and fat. This study was heavily weighted in favor of carbs, particularly when one considers that carbs hammer insulin and fat has little to no effect. High insulin = no fat mobilization.

In conclusion, they proved that all diets with excess carbohydrate are crap and deliver virtually no results for most people. Hopefully, Dr. Eades will take this up. Stephan, at Whole Health Source, hadn't seen it until I emailed him. He laughed, of course, and might take it up.

I'll stay tuned.

News Flash: Above 40% Dietary Calories From Fat Virtually Eliminates Heart Disease

The data is in:

Now quick, quick, and go see the shocking rest.

(Note: Ancel Keys was an utter fraud.)

And later: I hope everyone gets the tongue-in-cheek about this post...

Another "Nutritionist / Trainer" Moron: Bob Harper of The Biggest Loser

You know, I'm going to name names every damn time I see it. With Google's help, we can do a lot of teeth kicking of supposed "experts."

In this case, I'm spared the task of the know-nothing, dumbshit takedown, because Dr. Eades has already done a superb job.

What are the many reasons that “you can’t cut an entire food group out of your diet?” First, carbohydrates aren’t a food group; they’re a macronutrient. And why can’t you cut them out of your diet? Are there carbohydrate deficiency diseases, Mr. Harper, that you know about that the rest of the nutritional world doesn’t? I’ll clue you in: there aren’t. But there are both fat and protein deficiency diseases written about in every internal medicine textbook.

What about fat? You recommend cutting that. Why aren’t those people who are totally deprived of fat not going to “rebel and fall off the wagon in a big way?” Or is that different than cutting carbs? [...]

And how about your idiotic statement that people who do choose to exercise need carbohydrates? Another whopper. Most studies show that after a period of adaptation, people who exercise while following a low-carb diet have better endurance than those following high-carb diets. Have you seen all those studies, Mr. Harper? I guess not or you wouldn’t have made such an idiotic statement.

Much more over at Dr. Eades' site.

But for now, hey, Harper, here's a suggestion: how about I put you in touch with my personal trainer who'll tell you about how 90% of my very high-intensity workouts are not only on a very low carb diet, but when I'm fasted from 18-36 hours.

Maybe you'll learn something, cure your stupid textbook regurgitative ignorance, and stop being such a Big[gest] effin' Loser.

Correction: It was pointed out to me that I had the first name wrong (It's Bob Harper, not Don Harper). Thanks to Aaron for pointing that out to me.

A Tale of Two Mayo Clinic Dietician Morons

You've really got to love the Internet.

Another thing I love is watching establishment, authoritarian "experts" -- who fake a livelihood and self-esteem regurgitating the party line -- get it right in the teeth.

That's what happened to these two dumbshits, Jennifer Nelson, M.S., R.D. and Katherine Zeratsky, R.D. in this post ("For those with diabetes — there's more to it than carbs"). I'm not even going to quote any of it because it's just so dumb. 1+1=3 dumb; that's how dumb.

But luckily, as of right now, 31 out of 33 commenters -- most of whom are T2 diabetics or successfully treat T2 diabetics -- have given the two morons a rash of real nice kicks in the teeth. Here was one of my favorite comments, by Debbie (of the two comments that were not kicks in the teeth, one was a question and another was a comment by the author of the post):

This is the sort of article which helps reinforce the truth of the comment my son frequently makes: "If you want to understand human nutrition *never* ask a dietician or a nutritionist, ask a biochemist". I'm a T2 diabetic and thank God I'm pretty internet-savvy. Thus I know full well that a diet that is 45% carbs is a true "killer" diet for diabetics. Any diabetic who researches the issue knows that a real low carb diet is the best hope for longevity. I try to keep carbs at about 5% of my total caloric intake, sometimes up to 10% but *never* higher than that! Higher would send my blood sugars spiraling out of control. But my numbers are all good. I eat plenty of saturated fats too, since I feel quite sure it is not a demon. Not that I eat fat indiscriminately. I avoid trans fats, and polyunsaturated vegetable fats. But I eat my share of dairy fat, animal fat, coconut oil, and monos like olive oil. My typical diet is 70% fat, 5% carb, 25% protein. It's easy to maintain, makes me feel incredible. So far I've lost 70 pounds, and all my numbers are much better. But I pity the poor diabetic who does not have access to the internet. They are the ones likely to lose their limbs, their eyesight, etc. I used to respect the Mayo Clinic as a dispenser of medical information, but after reading this I realize I can't trust a word written here either!

It gets better. A few days later (Feb 3), they published a follow-up moronic post that essentially said the same stupid things. So far, about 12 of 14 comments are good teeth kicks, while a couple of diabetics are recommending going on a pea brain-diet (vegetarian). I particularly liked this comment by Mary Kolk, who literally saved her husband's life from the dietitians and medical doctors doing their level best to kill him -- and those dietitians and medical doctors very nearly succeeded in killing him, by Mary's account.

You have got to be kidding me! You need to read Dr. Richard Bernstein's book, "Diabetes Solutions Third Edition" It is amazing how the medical community refuses to acknowledge tremendus benefits of eating a low carbohydrate diet. My husband is a type 2 diabetic for over 25 years. He had severe neuropathy in both feet and could not walk over 75 to 100 feet at any one time. He was eventually put on insulin after the doctor felt there was nothing more he could do for him. Beginning at 5 units a night, a year later he was on 43 units a night. His weight ballooned to 280 pounds. He was depressed and I told my kids that in 6 months I would be pushing dad around in a wheelchair. About 7 years ago I read Dr. Bernstein's book. I read that book and realized it was all about my husband. Six years ago, my husband accepted responsibility for the diabetes, went on a program of low carb and exercise this was the result: he lost 80 pounds in 9 months, his HA1c fell to 6.5 from 11, he goes to the gym 3 times a week and walks 2 miles each time. He came off of insulin about 3 months after beginning this program and his doctor takes him OFF of meds each time he sees him. He has not had insulin in 6 years! He feels wonderful, he looks wonderful and he is wonderful. He was literally dying in front of my eyes - seeing his doctor faithfully and following what his doctors told him to do. And he was dying slowly. He is now fully alive and well. His HDL is great.

(HT: Doc Eades)

Fat Head The Movie

It's finally done and on sale.

There's also a website with various short clips from the film and I encourage you to watch them. They're funny. Especially the ones that show Morgan Spurlock to be the Moore-esque big fat liar that he is. This one is my favorite:

And, finally, doc Eades did an interview with the film's producer, Tom Naughton.

Oprah's Recipe For Failure -- And My Solution For Success

Well, she's done it again. If she even succeeds in getting the 40 or so pounds off she gained since her last failed "success," how long until we see another week-long series instructing hundreds of thousands of women on the path to weight loss and fitness failure, peppered with appearances by others who have failed?

My gosh, already. When is she going to fire that Bob Greene?

Alright, let's dig in a bit. First, watch the 5-minute video about how she's changing everything for this year, "Oprah's New Year, New Plan." I watch that, and I can find only about one thing right in the whole deal: time for herself on her own schedule. Duh!

The rest of it is a huge recipe for failure, misery, and probably both. Why is it ultimately destined for failure, for both her and anyone else? It's not sustainable. Hunger will always win in the end, and in the simplest terms possible: she and Greene have done everything possible to stimulate even more hunger and haven't done the things necessary to take hunger almost completely out of the equation. Most human beings would go stark raving mad on this regime -- from the awful diet to the boring, grueling workout schedule and routine grind.

Oprah: Sorry to say, but your new plan is dumb. What's more, You are sending thousands of women (and men) who look up to you as an authority down the same dismal road of repentance for past sins through boring, dry, unexciting food and daily assembly-line workout toil that will do little but make everyone even more bored, hungry, and quite possibly suicidal.

In short, this is a guaranteed failure zone for all but very few who are into punishing themselves endlessly. So here's the short list of everything that's wrong, along with what you need to do to get it right:

The Meal Plans

The meal plans are just awful. Filled with low-and-non-fat everything, completely lacking in variety, and just plain boring. If you click though the days of the week, it's endless egg whites, chicken breasts, salmon. Over and over. You should eat in a sustainable manner. About the only positive is that the food is mostly real food. 

The amount of protein looks close, more is better, and you need way more fat. Greene will tell you otherwise, but in my opinion he's making his living towing the party line; you know, the one where 65% of the American population is now fat or obese, and it's their fault, not that of the "authorities" and their puppet "experts" like Greene who continue to herald the low-fat catechism (since it's been so damn successful over the last 20 years & all).

And this 5-meal per day deal is total crap. How many omnivores in nature eat five times per day, regularly, like clockwork? You know what that's a recipe for? Obsession. Everything becomes about food and that next meal. You never give your system a break from the onslaught, insulin remains always elevated, the wham-bam that's going to keep you hungry and irritable.

The Exercise Plans

What you have here is a lot of low-impact, low-resistance, high-rep, boring stuff that's going to get you nowhere -- except that you plan to do it 6 days per week and give yourself a whole day off! Yippee!

We've got 30 minutes per day of low impact "cardio," and something you call "resistance training," but with weights so small that it pails in comparison to the "resistance training" you get daily anyway moving your own body around. And, you're going to do a body part per day? Yea, that's functional. Way to stimulate GH production there, Oprah. Looks like you're into light weight with lots of repetitions. It's wrong; it will get you nowhere.

In the end, just as with your diet, you are doing everything possible to stimulate more hunger, and sooner or later, you'll give into it. In total, if you're doing your "resistance training" for 30 minutes in addition to your cardio, then that's six hours spent per week getting, really, no more benefit that you could get just walking a hour per day outside, in nature.

A Better Plan -- The Anti-Greene Plan

I suppose I shouldn't pick on Bob so much. After all, who am I? Well, who I am is someone who has the luxury of being brutally honest. The root problem is that the whole weight loss industry is run like a religion. And, like a religion, operates by making you feel guilty for your own nature; and when you feel guilty, you are susceptible to all manner of suggestion (like purchasing ineffective products and services and punishing yourself with boring diets and hunger-inducing workouts).

You need to drop the guilt, first and foremost. You've been lied to. You've been told to eat in a manner and exercise in a manner that sets up hormonal cascades guaranteed to leave you forever ravenous. You can't even believe you've gained this weight, and why? Because you can look back and recall that you were hungry all the time. Weren't you?

Well, I'll leave original sin to the religious, but you are simply not responsible for feeling hungry, and you can hardly be expected, long term, to ignore and deny those feelings. Hunger always wins.

What you need is a proper diet that satisfies you, and you need an activity and exercise regimen that promotes the release of growth hormone. How to do?

1. Try to eat as much as a gram of protein per day per pound of body weight, so about 200 grams. That's a lot and 150 would probably be fine on the low end. Eat a variety of meats, fatty cuts too. Be intermittent, as though the food is seasonal, just like hunting. Protein is king for satiety. Eat as much protein as you want, as often as you want.
2. Eat more fat. In fact, 50% to 65% of your energy should be coming from fat, natural fat: lard, butter, tallow, schmalz, ghee, coconut oil, olive oil. Stay away from all others to reduce pro-inflammatory omega 6 fats, and take about 5 grams of fish oil per day in order to further get your omega 6 and 3 ratio to a natural, near 1:1 as possible (the average diet is 15:1 and higher of n-6 to n-3). Eat as much of these fats as you want, as often as you want.
3. Natural carbohydrate only: veggies, fruits, nuts. As much as you want of veggies (except potato), try to stick with berries for fruit as much as possible, and modestly. Keep it intermittent. No processed food at all. No neolithic foods like grains, corn, legumes, dairy. Cutting them out will reduce or eliminate many inflammatory markers.
4. Get lots of sleep. Sleep promotes GH release.
5. Eat 2-3 times per day on days you eat, or, eat once some days, three times others, two times still others, and nothing now and then. This models nature and begins turning on dormant genes that want to you be lean and young.
6. Begin rehabilitating your broken hunger mechanism with two fasts per week of 24-30 hours each: water, or unsweetened coffee or tea only. Once you get used to this (3-4 fasts), then arrange it so you're doing your workout at at least 22 hours into the fast. Do animals hunt on full bellies? Don't eat until at least an hour after completing a workout. Fasting also promotes GH release. So does high-intensity activity. Working out fasted tips the balance in your favor.
7. Don't use any artificial sweeteners or eat anything with artificial sweeteners. Abstaining from them for a time will reset your taste to a natural one. Before refined sugar and selective breeding of very sweet fruits, sweetness was not something we got in nature that much. Constantly subjecting your body to it has adverse effects and can actually cause an insulin response even if there's no calories to digest.
8. Drop the cardio completely (walk outside if you like, as much as you want) and then do full-body resistance workouts twice per week, 30 minutes each, and you go all in every time. Intensity is the key. For an hour per week 2 X 30, you can get intense. Six hours, you're not going to be intense and it's not going to do you any good at all -- it will probably hurt, i.e., chronic cardio.
9. This will take a while to figure out, but you want to select a weight for each exercise that you could maybe do 12-15 reps, then do three sets of 8-10 reps (or whatever you can get on the 3rd). Don't rest in-between sets very much. Do 2-3 exercises at once so you can move from set to set to set.
10. Do full body every time, and focus on legs, chest, back, and shoulders. Forget arms and abs. These others, especially legs, are the bigger muscles that will stimulate GH release when loaded significantly. Do legs a lot. Lot's of squats, presses, lunges. Keep it all very intense.

And there you have it: ten simple, fun, natural, sustainable-for-life steps that will work for good, guaranteed. I have my own results to prove it (including excellent blood work -- case you're wondering about all the fat), heart scan shows little risk for heart disease for a 47 year old, and many others have attained lasting success through these methods.

Bones & Fat

Back a month or so ago I posted about Jennifer McLagan's book Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient.

I've been going through it and, well, it's just fabulous. It's really reminiscent of a sort of "tragedy" where it's the virtuous and the good who are vilified which, is bad enough in itself. But to add insult, this all comes at the injustice of elevating the completely fraudulent to undeserved lofty heights.

Now think about that. Here we have wonderful, nutritious foods with literally millions of years of evolutionary credentials, not to mention the visceral pleasure almost anyone in their right mind gets from eating them when handled and prepared properly. ...And they get tossed aside by self-important minions -- those arrogant and obstinate, but ultimately woefully ignorant.

And they have blood on their hands, as far as I'm concerned; and I'm never going to let anyone forget it. They have, through their arrogant ignorance and disregard for human evolution and its unassailable logic, condemned millions upon millions to moribund lives of physical unattractiveness, gross obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and the list goes on. And as we have seen the statistics get worse, year after year in the very face of their changing advice, do we ever get humility, or is it just more authoritarian arrogance? "You eat too much. You don't exercise enough. You haven't been listening to us and you're not properly following our diktats."

And the bulk of nutritionists are just as bad, or worse. Most of them are just shills, hawking the latest BS "advice" to eat more whole grains and less fat -- especially animal fats. Can you guess why? Not to step on any sensitivities out there, but it rather reminds me of the Christian foundational doctrine of Original Sin, the whole point of which is to pit man against his very nature so that he always -- systemically -- falls short of the mark. And guess who's coming to the "rescue?" See, failure is baked right into the cake. Virtually No one succeeds under the current dietary guidelines short of becoming the nutritional equivalent of a monk or a nun who practices his or her flagellation three times daily, to correspond to three squares.

They have relentlessly pursued an agenda -- at the urging of huge producers of grain and vegetable oils, who unsurprisingly fund many of the "studies" -- to vilify Real Food and supplant it with Frankenfood. And though grains have been around for 10,000 years, vegetable oils -- of the sort that require solvents to extract -- have only been around for maybe 100 years or so. Then, add to that the astronomical increase in the use of refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup and the plethora of derivative crap in every conceivably packaged combination now being consumed by the American public, and increasingly the rest of the world.

And while obesity and diabetes skyrocket -- now even in children -- in the very face of the advice from these self-serving "authorities," many of whom get their paychecks out of your taxes, you are still being told to cut the fat.

Fat is king, folks. In terms of evolutionary logic, it has to be. Pound for pound, fat has more than twice the energy of either protein or carbohydrate, and thus, must have had to be treasured above all by our primitive ancestors. Next were the organs, and only then, the muscle meat. And, paradoxically, eating a high fat diet will tend to lean you out, and eating a high carbohydrate diet will tend to fatten you up. But what we see in the modern processed-food world is high carbs in the form of processed grains and processed sugars, often also fairly high in fat from heavily processed vegetable oils. And this is at the cost of protein, critical in the restoration and repair of lean tissue. The result? Everyone's getting fatter and fatter. The only good news there is that adding the weight increases lean mass too (so you can carry it), and generally keeps the bones strong. For some of the skinny people it's actually worse. Often, they have been losing lean mass while filling in the void with fat tissue. They are "skinny fat." Above all else, animal fat is what has made me so successful in losing fat and improving my blood work -- my wife's too.

Well, this is going on and my original intent before I got going on the rant was to alert you to the fact that Jennifer McLagan, author of both wonderful books you see above, has a food blog. It's not "Paleo," but it ain't really far off. And anyway, if I'm going to cheat now and then, I can't think of a better way to do it. Here's a suggestion if you've got an hour to kill. Check the right sidebar of her blog for the archives, and beginning with August when she began, click on each month in succession, which will scroll up all her posts for that month. Can't say I read each one, but I skimmed them all in the very least, and there's a lot of great stuff and a lot of great photos. Be sure to read her interesting bio. I liked this bit at the end:

Now based in Toronto. Jennifer survives life in the frozen north by escaping with her husband, as often as possible, to Paris. On either side of the Atlantic, she maintains a friendly relationship with her butchers, who put aside their best bones and fat for her.

Quit dying on crap, people. Live. Eat in luxury. Dump the notion that the eating of animals is the original sin of nutrition, which only serves to make you feel guilty and defeated each time you give in and so enjoy that grilled ribeye smothered in rich, sweet, garlicky butter. If you didn't feel guilty for so enjoying what's so natural, you could quickly replace all the crap with actual good food. Once you go through the withdrawals (and you will), you can emerge into a world where food is fun and makes you feel genuinely good. It'll make you look a lot better, too.

Is The Tide Turning?

I like to think that other than accounting for long tails (lottery-style luck) that, for most, where you get in life is somewhat related to (less than 'directly proportional to' or 'a function of') how well you see coming trends and modify your life in ways that capture the tide. This could be as basic as an employee of a buggy-whip manufacturer finding a job with a steering wheel manufacturer (when he'd have been in high demand, i.e., early) to a master-level electrical engineer inventing the next [..?]. The point is twofold; first, that lots of people see changes coming enough that they make a wide range of changes in their lives with a consequent variety (meaning: distribution) of upheaval; and second that, a very few pin the tail on the donkey, and change our lives forever.

This is the rational 100% of the Animal at work and, it's what differentiates us from the others (in some function; there are other differentiations). This is why we must -- now more than ever -- respect our Animal evolution. The Age of Obesity isn't a fad -- not as I see it -- but a direct consequence of our ability to increasingly control our environment, the aspect of which I'll focus on is the food we eat and, when and how much of it we eat.

As for me? Well, you see the direction of this blog, so you know where my bet is placed.

If it were just two things, I'd have blogged them each. But since I have three things for you, I'll do it in one post, and you can chase down a few of the particulars. First up was an entry by Doc Eades the other day, linking to this video. Well, I don't know if I share Doc Eades' utter enthusiasm, but, then again, I'm not running the stubborn-arrogant-ignorance gauntlet 24/7, established exclusively by those fallaciously entrusted to know better.

Medscape is a subscription service available only to physicians and is as mainstream as it gets. The lead article in this weeks issue is not really an article, but a video lecture. One Dr. Sandra Fryhofer lectures the mainstream docs subscribing to Medscape on what the above study shows. She points out the weaknesses of the low-fat diet and is positively enthusiastic about the low-carb diet.

Next up concerns someone highly regarded in this generally described "leanness community:" Craig Ballantine. I got his book, and it's good stuff. One of the things my trainer told me at the outset was that I'd eventually get used to anything, but to achieve better results I should change up my workouts. That's what we do. That's what Turbulence Training is essentially about. Don't do the same thing all the time. Change it up a lot, big, and do it fairly often.

By virtue of buying his book, I have the pleasure -- I assure you -- of receiving his almost daily emails to "upgrade" to this and that (at additional cost). That's fine, and I can quit receiving those emails whenever I want, but, this one caught my eye.

But first, you see, I had read the book and, though the exercise material was right on, the diet and nutrition advice sucked. There was not enough emphasis on skipping processed food, along with too much emphasis on small, numerous meals, and never -- NEVER -- skipping breakfast. Total BS; but, I approach this mainly from diet and, he, from exercise. I saw the thing in context. So to the email...

Then I read the book. The research he covers showed me just how brainwashed I had become by the supplement company ads (even though I was smart enough to not buy their supplements, I was still convinced that all fat loss dieting had to be borderline obsessive-compulsive).

Brad's ESE is one of the best nutrition books I've ever read, and I went through it in just one evening, because not only was I fascinated by the science, but also by the dieting myths Brad destroyed.

In fact, Brad created this "anti-diet" program for people that are sick and tired of trying to measure out and eat 6 small meals per day. If you are frustrated and overwhelmed by trying to follow that "bodybuilder nutrition lifestyle", then Eat-Stop-Eat is for you.

I mentioned Brad's ESE back at the end of last year, after I'd done a couple of fasts on my own; and Brad's book reinforced everything I had learned, while giving me a few new ideas to test on myself. Now, Craig is obviously reselling Brad's book and, so, is obviously (should be) getting something for that. My judgement is that Craig has being straight up. He probably has hundreds of "gurus" hitting him up for the sort of partnership he's developed with Brad. He has to make his choices, like anyone else, and judging from his book and background, I'm betting he's best served by going with what he's personally verified to work and have some value.

I think his endorsement is yet another affirmation that ancient fasting is, once again, cutting edge. I told you so.

Finally, Matt at RashyNullPlanet emailed about fat. Not just any fat. Jennifer McLagan's fat. It was linked in lifehacker, who linked to the book, and to the article in Salon. The book cover itself is, I think, astoundingly beautiful. It's a perfect melding of the technology that makes this possible and the Animal we can individually set free.

I have the book in my hands. Of what could I tell you, first hand? Oh, lots, but I'd have my particulars. The very first sentence of the intro, perhaps? "I love fat."

There's this:

From the beginning of human history until the middle of the last century the word fat had positive connotations.

That's why both "modern Ignorance" and "primitive wisdom" play a role as categorizations in this post.

But I think what I like most is the dedication page: "For all the Jack Sprats out there----you're wrong!"

Jack Sprat could eat no fat

His wife could eat no lean.

And so between the two of them,

They licked the platter clean!

Here's another article in Canadian news I came across while bouncing about for this post.

Diet Wars

Since blowing my top the other day, I've waited until a few of the excellent reviewers out there had a shot at the recent diet study. I'll point you to three excellent, substantive, thorough reviews. Otherwise, you'd have only fat-faced liars like Tara Parker-Pope of the NYT.

First up: Stephan at Whole Health Source, who notes that the diet, indeed as I suspected and speculated, wasn't particularly low in carbs. Also:

And finally, it caused the biggest improvement in the triglyceride:HDL ratio. This ratio is the best blood lipid predictor of heart disease risk I’m aware of in modern Western populations. The lower, the better. They didn't calculate it in the study so I had to do it myself.

Click over to see the chart he created; and:

Other interesting findings: despite the calorie restriction, diabetic participants on the AHA group actually saw a significant increase in fasting blood glucose.

I've speculated before that wheat and sugar may cause hyperphagy, or excessive eating. We can see from these results that reducing carbohydrate (and probably wheat) reduces overall caloric intake quite significantly. This squares with the findings of the recent Chinese study that showed an increase in calorie intake and weight, correlating with the replacement of rice with wheat as the primary carbohydrate. It also squares with diet trends in the US, where wheat consumption has risen alongside calorie intake and weight.

If he's right about the hyperphagy, and I suspect he is, that's the resolution to the calories in/out vs. "good calories bad calories" debate: i.e., it's both.

Next up, Regina Wilshire at Weight of the Evidence. She also notes the absolutely devastating result that the diet diabetics are being put on actually raised fasting glucose levels. Here's how she puts it:

This is critically important to note - the low-fat group experienced a rise in fasting blood glucose over the course of the two years; this despite a greater calorie deficit than the other two diets, and a greater increase in physical activity! Yet, this type of diet is exactly how the ADA recommends people at risk for or diagnosed with diabetes eat, while expecting ever increasing doses of medication to cover their progressive decline in glycemic control.

She extracted a very nice graph comparing the lipid panels of the three diets. Click over to take a look.

Then the good Doctor, Michael Eades of Protein Power takes a stab. Of course, he notes that it's not even a low-carb diet, but one of moderate intake. Low carb is <60 grams per day. He speculates as to why they still came out on top.

Despite the instruction to increase carbs to 120 grams per day, I believe these subjects had a long-term benefit from the two months of rigid low-carb dieting (20 grams per day) with which they started the study. Why do I believe that? There is a terrific study in Nutrition & Metabolism showing that subjects with diabetes who underwent a strictly supervised low-carb diet for six months, and who lost weight, improved blood sugar control and lipid parameters, were still showing the positive effects of this intervention 44 months later. These impressive findings seem to indicate that there is some sort of rejuvenation that takes place in people after they have spent a period of time on an honest-to-God low-carb diet that carries over for several years. Maybe this is the phenomenon we’re seeing in the subjects in this NEJM study. The two months of rigid low-carb carries over for the rest of the study despite the subjects cranking their carbs up to non-low-carb levels.

He ridicules that lying fuckwad Dean Ornish in the comments and links to a past blog post of his that exposes just what a liar Dean Ornish is.

I Know

From my brother this morning in email, what a shocker! And, i'll bet it wasn't even a real low-carb diet (<60 grams/day). I've seen stuff well in excess of 100 or even 150 grams being called "low carb." For many, real effectiveness is under 30, or even 20 grams per day. There's more of the asinine and bias, too.

The low-carb diet set limits for carbohydrates, but none for calories or fat. It urged dieters to choose vegetarian sources of fat and protein.

"So not a lot of butter and eggs and cream," said Madelyn Fernstrom, a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center weight management expert who reviewed the study but was not involved in it.

Dumb-ass fucks. Jesus. And even still...

Average weight loss for those in the low-carb group was 10.3 pounds after two years. Those in the Mediterranean diet lost 10 pounds, and those on the low-fat regimen dropped 6.5.

More surprising were the measures of cholesterol. Critics have long acknowledged that an Atkins-style diet could help people lose weight but feared that over the long term, it may drive up cholesterol because it allows more fat.

But the low-carb approach seemed to trigger the most improvement in several cholesterol measures, including the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL, the "good" cholesterol. For example, someone with total cholesterol of 200 and an HDL of 50 would have a ratio of 4 to 1. The optimum ratio is 3.5 to 1, according to the American Heart Association.

Now, observe. And do follow the links to the sorts of things I eat all the time. You know what my midnight snack was, last night? Eight strips of thick bacon, dripping in the fat it was cooked in (I never drain the fat, or put my bacon on a paper towel -- right from fry pan to plate, dripping). I guarantee I have a better lipid panel than 99.999999999999% of any low-fatters, vegetarians, or vegans. Hey, Dean Ornish, you self-serving pudge face: how about compare my lipids to any of your unfortunate patients. Huh? C'mon. 3.5 to 1 Total to HDL and lower as ideal? How about 2 to 1? My HDL is higher than my LDL (.98 to 1 LDL/HDL). And I eat bacon, at least 6-10 eggs per day (jumbos), cooked in butter or ghee; ribeye steaks, cheese, and all manner of fatty animal products cooked in animal fats. This is what happens when you're not a biased whore for grant money (and, really, criminally negligent, in my opinion).

You know what? Gloves are officially off. Let the others be "objective." I'm going to be calling these people lots of names. I'm going to do that a lot. It'll be fun. You'll see.

The far more polite Regina Wilshire has links to a bunch or articles about this study.