Free the Animal

Links and Quick Hits

~ Yet another hearthealthywholegrains vegetarian athlete disaster at Mark's daily Apple. Ultimately, it's a success story, but that's only because she stopped listening to all those trying to "help" her (like her doctors), did her own research, learned, applied, and transformed.

~ Keith Norris of Theory to Practice has created a fabulous resource in the form of a growing collection of very brief but butt-kicking exercise demonstrations on YouTube, now standing at 14 videos. I don't know that a lot of this would be appropriate for someone just starting out with resistance training (unless you do so under proper instruction), and frankly, I never thought this sort of thing would be of interest to me. But we change as we progress, and now things like free squats, deadlifts...and most recently, power cleans and barbell snatches are my favorites. The reason is because I spent a couple of years doing the standard isolation type stuff and have gained tremendous strength. It was time to move forward, so these compound (multiple joint) exercises are just the ticket. What makes it more interesting, particularly for something like a free squat, for example, is that form and technique are so important. I would say that virtually all your initial progress will be owed to getting your form right, and not so much increases in strength.

~ Big Surprise Here (not!). Something any primal or paleo practitioner can tell you: carbs don't don't help, and Red Bull doesn't give you wings.

~ Ornish Smornish. Yet another person finds out the hard way: the Dean Ornish Chubby Face Diet is an utter disaster, and it creates victims of what cardiologist William Davis calls "Post-Traumatic Grain Disorder." "I tried his plan on and off, but as so many people note, an almost-vegan diet is really tough. It was for me, and I could never do it for any length of time. But given that the “evidence” said that I should, I kept trying, and kept beating up on myself when I failed. And I kept gaining weight. I got to almost 200 pounds by the time I was 40 and have a strong suspicion that that’s what caused my blood sugar to go awry, but my doctor at the time never checked my blood sugar, and as a relatively young and healthy man, I never went in very often." Punchline: blood sugars ended up at 500 mg/dl. Yea, yea: "but if he had only followed the diet." Listen up, and listen good: unnatural diets designed for pea-brains and not humans are not supposed to be followed by humans with any ease. Dean Ornish is playing the oldest con-scam in the book: making you feel guilty for your own nature. Fuck Ornish.

~ Tom Naughton -- who's as good of a comedian as he is a filmmaker -- has a good and funny go at those PETA morons; or, "PETArds." And I mean it: every single one of 'em; wall to wall and top to bottom. That is, they're voluminous in their idiocy. "I realize the PETA folks like to blur the distinctions between various life-forms, but flies aren’t animals.  They’re insects.  They don’t plan for their futures, they don’t fall in love, and they don’t miss their cousin Boo-Boo if he has an unfortunate encounter with a presidential hand.  A fly is probably about as intelligent as a medium-sized potato - and therefore only slightly more intelligent than a medium-sized PETA volunteer."

~ And last but certainly not least, friend and fellow paleo-ish traveller, Diana Hsieh, is now Dr. Dianna Hsieh, having successfully defended her 300-page-plus doctoral dissertation on the problem of moral luck. It's a good thing to add just one more sane person to the disaster that has been modern philosophy these last hundreds of years. Now there's two docs in the household: MD Paul, and PhD Diana. Oh, yea, and Diana has other successes to be proud of as well: her transformation.

Links and Quick Hits

~ Photos of School lunches from around the world. Actually, many of them don't look nearly as bad as I would have thought and by and large, the Japanese, Koreans and Chinese appear at a glance to have the best lunches, with perhaps a slight edge to the Chinese. (Thanks to reader DR Zinn for sending that)

~ Reader Jon Winchester says says that with regard to Trotter Gear: "there are endless paleo uses for [it] and it's an amazing thing to keep a few quarts in the freezer."

~ Vitamin D deficiency is associated with accelerated atherosclerosis in those with type 1 diabetes. "Dr. Naik presented study results indicating that although vitamin D (25-OHD) deficiency is not increased among type 1 diabetes patients, a deficiency in this patient population is associated with the initiation and acceleration of coronary artery calcification."

~ Another happy "customer." From the comment, "...I just couldn't seem to make the vegan, raw diet stick. I obsessed about food and gorged on fats at night. Only recently have I learned about the paleo diet, and convinced of its merits, gave it a try. I started eating meat and eggs and bacon. I can't believe how LIBERATING this diet is. I don't obsess over food anymore."

~ Part 2 of Stephan's review of the Lyon Diet-Heart Study is up. "After five years on their respective diets, 3.4% of the control group and 1.3% of the intervention group had died, a 70% reduction in deaths. Cardiovascular deaths were reduced by 76%." You'll have to head over there to find out how.

~ Frequent commenter Don Matesz has posted problem number 8 in his Top Ten Problems With Applying The Paleolithic Diet Principles. He's doing them in countdown fashion, and in case you missed 10 and 9, they're right here and here.

Links and Quick Hits

~ A good and brief interview of Good Calories, Bad Calories author, Gary Taubes in Testosterone Muscle. "The argument I'm making is that [obesity is] a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not of sloth and gluttony. Overeating is the side effect of the disorder, not the cause. What you want to know is, what regulates fat accumulation?"

~ The Vitamin D Council has released their June Newsletter, replete with information about vitamin D deficiency in pregnant women, the risks of such deficiencies, as well as potential problems with gestational deficiency. "Dr. Dijkstra and colleagues studied 70 pregnant women in the Netherlands, none had levels above 40 ng/mL and 50% had levels below 10 ng/mL. Again, prenatal vitamins appeared to have little effect on 25(OH)D levels, as you might expect since prenatal vitamins only contain 400 IU of Vitamin D."

~ Good advice from Mark Sisson on evaluating your blood pressure. This is especially true if you've been prescribed medication based on only a few readings. And, while you're at it, you might want to check out Mark's Definitive Guide to Fish Oils.

~ Looks like Stephan is beginning another series. Here's his first go at the Lyon Diet-Heart Study. He prefaces this with a look at MRFIT: "After 6 years, 46% of the intervention group had quit smoking, compared to 29% in the control group. The intervention group reduced their cholesterol intake by 40% and their saturated fat intake by more than one-fourth, and increased their consumption of polyunsaturated fat (omega-6) by one third relative to the control group. The results? After seven years, total mortality was 41.2 per 1,000 in the intervention group and 40.4 in the control group, a difference that was not even close to statistically significant. There were also no significant differences in heart attack rate or heart attack death rate."

~ Low-carb wins again. Effects of a popular exercise and weight loss program on weight loss, body composition, energy expenditure and health in obese women; Nutrition & Metabolism, 2009.

~ A Primal Donut, anyone?

Link Dump

Here's something new I'l be doing. Throughout the course of any given day, I see lots of stuff I'd like to call attention to, and some, I do -- via Facebook, Twitter, and my shared Google items. However, making them available via blog posts is problematic because I end up with dozens of links, have to choose between them and procrastinate, and then end up doing something else.

What I'll do is simply keep a compose window open and toss them in when they come up. When I get six or more, I'll publish and begin a new one. I'll sometimes offer brief commentary.

~ Is the gluten in wheat like morphine? Dr. Davis thinks so.

~ Hey, the mainstream gets it right on vitamin D. Advising 2,000 to 3,000 IU per day is a pretty big step for keepers of the conventional wisdom for the unconfused consumption of the masses.

~ Can intermittent fasting (IF) regenerate brain matter and stimulate production of neurons from stem cells? Reboot your brain.

~ "...much of the evolutionary process in cancer could be arrested at the outset by maintaining vitamin D adequacy. According to Garland, other scientists have found that the cells adhere to one another in tissue with adequate vitamin D, acting as mature epithelial cells. Without enough vitamin D, they may lose this stickiness along with their identity as differentiated cells, and revert to a stem cell-like state."

~ So, were the "experts" and "authorities" fucking idiots all along, or not? I vote yes. Why? Principles, man. The notion that animal fat would be bad for an omnivorous human being -- given our evolutionary history and the anthropological record -- should have called for an enormously high bar to be set for impugning its marvelous healthfulness (not to mention the franken-poisons that replaced it). It wasn't. Unbridled reductionism won out, the the detriment and victimization of the Bohemian masses of sheeple. In Slate; Lard: After decades of trying, its moment is finally here.

~ Oh, well, three of six links on vitamin D. I suppose that serves to underscore its importance. Here's a report of a study suggesting that high levels of vitamin D might help keep the brain healthy as people age. "The study authors found that high circulating vitamin D levels were associated with high scores on memory and information-processing tests, while low vitamin D levels were associated with poor scores. The findings appear online in advance of publication in the print issue of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry."

Lottsa Links

How about a few links as I mull over my next post, which will be a sort of overview of my personal progress and some things I've learned recently and modified.

- How about a cure for gray hair, maybe even baldness via stem cell stimulation? Dr. Mercola explains: "So the idea is that by stimulating the stem cells with special polypeptide signals you may be able to reverse this process and keep both your hair color, and your hair. I’m actually beta testing one of these polypeptide signal topical therapies right now, and my hair is slowly starting to come back in...and most of the gray is disappearing."

- Dr. Mercola, again, this time on cancer. "And though this article doesn’t mention it, well in excess of half of the cancers worldwide would simply disappear if vitamin D levels were optimized." And what are optimal levels? Well, opinions vary, but my own research leads me to believe that you want 60-80 ng/mL of 25-hydroxyvitamin D.

- And now more on vitamin D, this time presented by Michael Holick, PhD, MD, Professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics and director of the General Clinical Research Center at Boston University Medical Center.

- Amazing upper body strength. Attention: the background music isn't work safe and may be offensive to some. So, you may want to keep the volume low or off. (I forgot who sent me that or where I saw it, so thanks).

- Lard, one of the kings of wonderful fat, is making a comeback. I picked this up from Diana's place, yesterday.

- Finally, reader "Tin Tin Wonder Dog" emailed in to report on a UK family who gets to live at everyone else's expense because they're "too fat to work." Punchline: it's not enough to "live." Yes indeed, bring on that nationalized health care here in America. I for one just can't wait to start paying for all the health problems caused by Big-Agra, its chief sales representative -- the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- and all its other sales account managers (ADA, AHA, and research whores).

Lottsa Links

While I work on a couple of more substantive posts, let's give you some links to check out at your leisure. Thanks to all the readers (several, in many cases) who sent many of these along.

- Start 'em early. Let's get kids scared to death about their cholesterol levels.

- I think Monica does a good job dispelling notions that veganism is more friendly to the environment than carnivory. Can you handle the truth? Also, congrats out to Monica who continues her fat loss progress (towards a goal of better fitting into her wedding dress this summer).

- Not for the faint of heart, but Robert McLeod has some interesting thoughts on Acylation-Stimulating Protein (ASP): A potential explanation for metabolic advantage of low-carbohydrate diets? That was as a result of this long comment thread at Keith Norris' Theory to Practice.

- Wow; very impressive 12-week weight loss, blood pressure drop, and blood lipid improvement on what they're calling a "Spanish Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet." Looks reasonably Paleo-esque, to me. I think it emphasizes a great bottom line, whether you're low-carb, Paleo, Mediterranean, or whatever: eat Real Food and only real food.

-About five people, at least, have emailed along this link to an interview with Dr. Stephan Ilardi: Is the "Stone Age" Lifestyle the Answer to Eliminating Depression? Due to the number of recommendations I got, I'm forwarding it along, not having yet listened to it myself (but I will).

- Does the "calorie is a calorie" mantra, that likes to rest on the 1st Law of Thermodynamics actually violate the 2nd Law?

- Literally everything you will ever need or want to know about salt & pepper at Mark's Daily Apple.

- And, finally, the best for last: three great posts from Stephan at Whole Health Source.

Margarine and Phytosterolemia

Are the MK-4 and MK-7 Forms of Vitamin K2 Equivalent?

Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture

Lotsa More Links

- The Romans knew how to fatten up their Gladiators in order to protect them from minor injury by means of subcutaneous fat. "Gladiators, it seems, were fat. Consuming a lot of simple carbohydrates, such as barley, and legumes, like beans, was designed for survival in the arena. Packing in the carbs also packed on the pounds. 'Gladiators needed subcutaneous fat,' Grossschmidt explains. 'A fat cushion protects you from cut wounds and shields nerves and blood vessels in a fight.'"

- Probably the best review of Good Calories, Bad Calories I've yet read is to be found at Robert McLeod's blog. See how a physicist evaluates Taubes, and, see how he handily ridicules the nutrition "experts" who thinks that our body's homeostasis has anything to do with the Fist Law of Thermodynamics.

- Dr. Michael Eades is pretty optimistic about how absurd, fraudulent diet studies such as the one I reviewed the other day are the signal of "the last gasp of the dark ages of nutrition," a fraudulent dark ages perpetuated by the fraud Ancel Keys and frauds like 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.

- Nanofoods. As Monica exclaimed when she emailed that: "moronic."

- Rattlesnake; it's what's for breakfast. Pretty primal if you ask me, hold the biscuits and gravy. I've filed this one under 'rednecks: if they didn't exist, we'd have to invent them.'

- Idiocy I. Translation: Atkins wins yet again; so danger, stay away. "Most humans for the past several millennia have eaten a diet largely comprising grains, seeds and vegetables (that is, carbohydrates) with a little meat." Oh, wow, several millennia? Only several? Hey, I'll spot you 10 millennia if you give me the previous 2,500 (millennia). Christopher Wanjek: you're a fuckin' moron.

- Idiocy II. Well, actually, I don't think John McDougall, MD is an idiot or a moron. I think he's a bald faced liar with an agenda. "The proper diet for human beings is based on starches. The more rice, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and beans you eat, the trimmer and healthier you will be – and with those same food choices you will help save the Planet Earth too." Drop dead, fucker. The sooner, the better.

- Late entry (after publication): Well, how about some sanity to tie up the idiocy and insanity of those last two? "A Calorie is not a Calorie, and Other Dietary Heresy," a great post by Keith Norris, superstar.

More later: I just looked at my RSS. I now stand at 230 unread posts from many great health and fitness bloggers. The way I do it: I have my daily folder with a handful of my favorites and most relevant to what I do -- not to mean they are inferior -- and I try not to get behind more than about a dozen. Then, there's everyone else in various folders by general category. I hate missing out on good stuff (tons of it) and not being able to blog it individually or include it in a roundup, but I guess that's a good thing: it's a sign of the explosion of this kind of rational evolutionary thinking. Also, my cherished readers are are so diligent at sending me good stuff, and, frankly, they must take priority. Thanks one and all. It's just been weighing on me. I'd love to highlight every single great post out there, but it's just impossible. One must ultimately face the reality of things.

Bunches of Links

Man, I am so backlogged with stuff that I've just got to give you a link dump at this point. I could literally blog for the next three months, twice per day, with what I've got already, and probably much longer. Keep it coming, folks. I'm now getting several emails per day with links to really great stuff. If you don't always get a reply or see me highlight what you send, please don't take it as anything other than I have to sometimes make choices.

- Diana blogs about "Food Neurosis" this morning and how so many parents are going about it all the wrong way with their kids. In the comments, I remark how it reminded me of the hyper-sanitized environments many parents are creating for their kids to the huge detriment of their developing immune systems. Here's a fascinating recent NYT article on lots of resent research demonstrating the importance of letting your kids eat dirt. You Cage the Animal to your and your childrens' own detriment.

- Researchers find that a low-carb diet is the way to deal with a fatty liver (but then fail to really connect all the dots). I note that the emphasis is always on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, when there's no clinical difference between a fatty liver caused by excess carbohydrate or alcohol (or both). Severe carbohydrate restriction (and, I would add: intermittent fasting) is the way to go for both, whether or not the alcoholic stops or learns to moderate their drinking. Of course, such suggestions don't go over well in Puritanical, repent & pay America.

- An 80% calories from fat diet cures a little girl completely of the symptoms of Myoclomic Astatic epilepsy, a rare, drug-resistant form of epilepsy that triggers scores of blackouts and seizures every day.

- Martin Berkhan of Leangains continues to deliver amazing results for his clients with an emphasis on intermittent fasting, along with carbohydrate restriction most of the time. Check out the amazing results photos he has posted.

- Do these mysterious stones mark the site of the Garden of Eden? An astoundingly fascinating look at Gobekli Tepe. "Carbon-dating shows that the complex is at least 12,000 years old, maybe even 13,000 years old. That means it was built around 10,000BC. ...By comparison, Stonehenge was built in 3,000 BC and the pyramids of Giza in 2,500 BC. ...Gobekli is thus the oldest such site in the world, by a mind-numbing margin. It is so old that it predates settled human life. It is pre-pottery, pre-writing, pre-everything. Gobekli hails from a part of human history that is unimaginably distant, right back in our hunter-gatherer past."

- Newsweek's Sharon Begley explains Why Doctors Hate Science. "A Pap test screens for cervical cancer. No cervix, no cancer. Yet a 2004 study found that some 10 million women lacking a cervix were still getting Pap tests."

- The American Academy of Family Physicians comes down with a case of honesty and discusses the Atkins' Diet in rational, objective terms.

- Protein power is demonstrated in a study by Donald Layman, a University of Illinois professor emeritus of nutrition. The research was published in the March Journal of Nutrition. Even though both diets were high in carbohydrate, one was at 15% protein and the other at 30%. "Although the amount of weight lost in both groups was similar, at 4 months participants in the protein group had lost 22 percent more body fat than members of the food-pyramid group. At 12 months, the moderate-protein dieters had lost 38 percent more body fat." And, who better than the author of Protein Power himself, Dr. Michael Eades to explain the whole thing for you in a must read post on body recomposition.

I hope you enjoyed those. It represents the best I've seen over the last few days.

Saturday Link Roundup

So much stuff and so little time to comment extensively on everything I'd like to. So, rather than let stuff stack up for the "someday" when I can get to it, I think I'll clean out the queue once per week and just give you the links, along with a quick comment. If I've got a lot, I'll probably split them between Saturday and Sunday entries.

- A friend emails to alert me to PumpOne Workout Software for your iPod or iPhone. Haven't tried it, yet, but looks pretty cool. Also, this friend contacted me a couple of months ago with interest in the Paleo approach and is now happy to report a weight loss of 8-10 pounds; this, after years of trying without success.

- Diana Hsieh shows how to go about cleaning out your pantry to get Paleo compliant.

- In an essential weekend special, Mark Sisson reports on new research that suggests low-carbohydrate diets and go a long way towards rectifying fatty liver. Though the focus is on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), I suspect that a Paleo diet would be ideal for a recovering alcoholic with a fatty liver, not only because the diet will stimulate the metabolization of those liver fats (that can eventually lead to cirrhosis), but also because of the high nutrition.

- I mentioned using kettlebells in yesterday's post. Here's Chris at Zen to Fitness offering up a good intro featuring Craig Ballantine.

- Here's another from Mark Sisson that's been sitting in wait forever. Grain Pain. Many people wonder what in the world could be the problem with grains. Want to find out? Go off them completely for a few months and then dig back in. If like me and a lot of others, you will then understand completely. Here's a way to think of it: Ever been in a paint shop and gotten knocked over by the noxious fumes? Well, even though nowadays various filtration methods are used, it didn't used to be that way and you'd soon adapt to them. In order to really feel the toxins again, it would be necessary to stay clear for a period of time, such that your sensitivity returns to normal. If you still have frequent "intestinal issues" after being on Paleo-like for months, check the amount of grain and dairy products you're still allowing in your diet. By being "mostly Paleo," chances are you're regaining sensitivities long dormant (kinds like insulin resistance) and grains and dairy now effect you as they should have been doing all along.

- I've posted before about the role of sugar and growth of cancer cells, intuitively leading to speculation that a sugar free, low-carb, ketogenic diet may be effective at stopping or dramatically slowing tumor growth. Now here's Chris Highcock with even more news on the subject.

- Like Keith Norris, I too got wind of this NYT article via Art. The Evolutionary Search for Our Perfect Past. A good read. As well, Keith's post is worth the read owing primarily to his too-gentle takedown of a nitwit blog post I'm not even going to link because they don't deserve it. The Ignorant posing as sophisticate. While Keith's treatment is certainly sufficient, I'd add just a couple of things. First, we all know about Rapid Evolution. Second, it's wholly non sequitur from the standpoint of any individual. Unsurprisingly from the tag-lined descriptions of the nitwit blog, everything is treated from a collectivist standpoint.

Something to Keep You Busy - Lotsa Links

While working on a promised summary page to lay out the basics of my approach to food and fitness, I've been lax in making regular postings. But, there's still lots of great stuff out there. Here's some of it to keep you busy.

• Doc Eades and Jimmy Moore both take on the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Board which, no doubt, will again tell you that you need to "eat more whole grains, less fat, and get more exercise." It's the approach that has led America to unprecedented levels of obesity and diabetes over these last decades, but at least Big Agra is going to be pleased.

• Scott the Modern Forager does a post on Vitamin D, and a three-part series on A, D, E and K: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

• Jimmy Moore gives short reviews of 14 diet and health books.

• Cardiologist William Davis gives the scoop on LDL and HDL, and then talks about Crestor, the JUPITER study, and c-reactive protein (CRP) -- and then how to reduce it.

• Mike OD gives you the scoop on personal trainers.

• Dr. John Briffa gives you the ins & outs of the omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid ratio and how getting it from the 20-30:1 in the average western diet to the 1-3:1 ratio of the ancestral diet just might yield a whole bunch of benefits including inducing a 28% increase in fat burning while in a fasted state.

• Zen to Fitness runs down Laird Hamilton's Top 10 Nutrition Tips.

Wish I had time for more, but that should do for now. 

A Weekend Roundup

Time for a weekend roundup to give some interesting things to look at and ponder as I work through a couple of substantive posts to get up in the next day or so (along with some long overdue responses to reader questions, food picks, and progress; nope, I didn't forget any of you).

• Greg Davis at Modern Forager does a book review of Fat: An Appreciation of A Misunderstood Ingredient, along with an interview with Jennifer McLagan. Readers may recall that I recently also highlighted this wonderful book.

• Wow! Free the Animal came in fifth in referrers to Mark Sisson's very excellent and popular Mark's Daily Apple for the whole month of October. I'm glad my readers are getting over there from here. Truth is, Mark has so much great content that I'm actually remiss in not highlighting even more of it. We really appreciate the recognition.

• Diana Hsieh Gets Off That Treadmill and Kicks Her Own Ass. I'll also draw your attention to the first comment (mine) that adds a tidbit or two.

• Dr. Michael Eades with a whopper of a post on the changing perceptions of obesity. Says the doc, "When I was a kid almost all kids were thin and so were most adults. Overweight people stood out. Now it’s the lean and healthy people who stand out." Word.

• Dr. William Davis of The Heart Scan Blog demystifies cholesterol measurements in two posts: Does High Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease; and, HDL: "H" is for "Happy"

• Methuselah takes on Emotional Eating and the Modern Diet. Which came first?

• Mike OD at The IF Life writes about the increasing suspicion that Alzheimer's is related to high consumption of sugar, processed foods, and vegetable oils like corn oil and other crappy fats. Prevent Alzheimer's with Your Diet. I wrote about the possible link between refined sugar consumption and Alzheimer's last April.

So, what's up next? I'm not sure which, but I've got one on "mental health," which is appropriate with the looming election. Also: more on fats, with particular emphasis on omega-6 to omega-3 ratios and what it means. Finally, I'm also taking another stab at explaining Gary Taube's alternative hypothesis to the standard tautology: calories in equals calories out, which explains nothing, as you'll see. I called my previous best effort at this explanation 180 Degree Errors, but I think I can do better, having recently read his full workup in GCBC.

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.

A Bit of a Roundup in Fitness

The diet experiment went OK last week, though if anyone has been checking my FitDay data, I haven't updated since Thursday (but I will). Add to that, we had a going-away party Friday night, another one at friends' on Saturday night, and then there was the Father's day festivities at mom's yesterday. Mom does low carb, and after the previous two nights of overindulgence I was off the alcohol, so it was about one for three.

And now both Bea and I -- with her off school for the summer -- are back on Lyle's program. I really hate it. It's just too low in fat. But I'll stick with it until we head down to SoCal on the 2nd of July. Then I plan to resume a bit lower fat version of Paleo / EvFit. Principally, I'll forego nuts and cheese until I get the last couple dozen pounds of fat off. Maintenance will be a cinch. Hey, I already love eating this way and even when pounds were coming off excruciatingly slow, I never gained anything more than the typical fluctuations of a pound or two, which is probably digestive and water retention.

By the way, I had the idea of going to a low fat regime temporarily by reading these two entries from Dr. Michael Eades, author of Protein Power (with a new book off to the publisher). If you're doing low carb and have had issues with losing weight (fat), then those two blog entries and the comments are essential reading. I have steadily lost fat the whole year + I've been doing this, but at times it has slowed to as little as a pound to two per month. Cutting out alcohol (at least during the weekdays), as well as nuts and cheese really did the trick and a couple of weeks ago I dropped four pounds in three days (prior to beginning Lyle's program).

In other news, Stephan has interesting updates on the Masai. The first deals with the binary nature of the stats on atherosclerosis, and the second, how their low cholesterol on a very high-saturated fat diet went way up when the saturated fat was cut out. Also, this comment of Stephan's on the first of the cited links is a must.

Next up, my friend Justin Owings has a couple of interesting ones. The Stochasticity of Life bears serious reflection, with a quote from someone I link to a lot. As someone who places a lot of weight on the notion that ideas shape the future and serve to explain the past, this is a good reminder that ideas and principles, while crucially important, aren't everything. There is still a randomness. Here's why: there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of people living this very minute even more evil than Hitler in terms of the ideas they hold. Consider that. And, you will never eliminate them. You must understand that a great deal of what happens is not caused by bad and/or evil ideas -- they have always persisted and always will -- but by random and stochastic events and cycles that simply happen and that nobody can ever predict, much less have any idea of just what combination will set off a chain reaction of evil that results in the murder of tens of millions.

Justin again, this time on the topic of Hormesis. Here's his entry, which you'll note references me. In an email exchange we determined that the idea I'd actually passed on to him was one of using the clod dip if one is availalbe at your gym. That was on Stephan's Hormesis post, and my comment about getting into 40 degree water after the workout, sauna, steam room and hot tub.

Art is making progress on his redesign, and it looks good. "Super Mike" has turned 55 years old and is looking better and leaner than ever. Now, I can imagine that the untrained eye doesn't think he looks as good as he does, but that's an illusion created by the camera, owing to his twisting sideways at the waist and getting a 2D instead of 3D image of it. Trust me.

On the mental health front, Karen has fired HP and Microsoft. And hired Apple. My first email out of the day this morning was a note of congratulations.