Archives for April 2010

After the Jimmy Moore interview, I took comments to heart and wondered what I could do distinctively.

How about an ugly face? Distinctive enough? (That would be mine, not my guest’s.)

So I thought about it. One idea was short blurbs of a minute or two, kinda rage-ish, but I think I’m better off writing them on Twitter. I just could not get myself interested in audio only. Really, it’s too close to writing in my view — or, I’d just rather write. Video, on the other hand, is amazingly different from both.

But…videos are often too long. What I have, below, my first foray, is nearly 40 minutes and I had intended 15. FAIL. But, it’s with Mark Sisson, and wanting it to be more conversational than a formal interview, that’s what happened. I had a good time and I think Mark did too. You can see for yourself. Please do.

And, so, beyond what I hope is a lively conversation about paleo/primal qua business, what might be your input as to production, quality, format, etc? I really want to know. I have my own lessons learned and I was going to include those, but I want to see if you have the same criticisms I had, so I’m keeping my mouth shut.

And oh, I promised to let you know the software I’m using to do this, in case any of you fabulous bloggers out there wish to do likewise. Here it is. It’s basically a plugin for Skype. For $20, you can do what used to take a studio and hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment. THe world is a changin’.

Finally, don’t be afraid to tell me you hate it; really. I’m perhaps funny in that I like to read my writing, which drives me to make it good in my estimation, but I just don’t like hearing myself in audio, or seeing myself in video. That’s not a call to make me “feel” better. I don’t need that. If you think there’s something here, then let me know how to make it better. I may still hate it, but I think I can follow your collective bidding in thins one.

Just a final note: please don’t take the foregoing to in any way detract from the content of the interview. Please, please have that as your foremost topic of conversation. Any clues about how I might improve it ought to be secondary.

I’ll start with the surprise! Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of doing a 35 minute video interview & conversation with Mark Sisson. It’s all in split screen which has some drawbacks which I’ll write about when I publish it. So check back later for that. I’m mashing video now.

In the meantime, here’s some samples of my current meals. In this program I’m undergoing, nothing is fixed. Some days are lower in fat and higher in carbs and others, the reverse. Let’s jump right in. As always, click on the images for hi-res.

The scramble is just roast beef, onions & tomato scrambled up with some eggs.

Roast Beef Scramble

This was scallops, shrimp, calamari and cod all done up in a bottled cioppino sauce I found with exclusively real ingredients. Nothing unpronounceable.

Cioppino

A cinch to prepare. Left over roast beef with a sweet. Put the potato in the oven at 400 for an hour, and then prep your beef with a drizzle of stock in an aluminum foil wrap on a plate and put in the oven for the last 15 minutes. Talk about 1 minute prep time.

Roast Beef Sweet Potato

Grilled ahi tuna, and in the meantime, a chicken stock reduction with a little butter, a little slurried potato starch to thicken, and my favorite: tarragon.

Ahi Tuna Tarragon

This one was done sous vide, 122F for 45 minutes, then seared.

Ahi Tuna Sous Vide

My readers are really on the ball. Not a day goes by that I don’t receive an email it two — or more — with links to some article relevant to the topics we discuss around here. I thought I’d give you a sample. These are all things I got from readers and not on my own.

~ From Wilfredo: Weighing the Evidence on Exercise. A lot of interesting stuff in there. The bottom line seems to be that while exercise isn’t that helpful to lose weight (I say it is, if combined with a paleo / primal diet and sensible IF) it’s very helpful in keeping it off once lost, even if returning to bad eating habits. Most notably, even consistent walking and standing rather than sitting has profound effects. I’m standing at my desk right now.

~ And on the subject of standing rather than sitting all day, looks like the mainstream is catching onto something I was all over a year and a half go. From Benjamin in The New York Times: Can’t Stand to Sit Too Long? There’s a Desk for That. I now have minimalist barstools so that I can alternate. Oh, and the prices of those models shown in the NYT article are outrageous in my view (as much as nearly $3,000). My application at the foregoing link cost $200 for two people and is built like a brick shithouse.

~ Here’s a few from David Brown. Diets High in Omega-6 to Omega-3 Fats Linked to Obesity.

Adipose tissue is more than a dormant energy storage depot. Fat cells, known as adipocytes, release chemical mediators, which promote inflammation. This may be the key link between obesity and increased risk of inflammatory diseases. […]

Extrapolation of the present data to human populations showed a stark parallel to the increased dietary intake of omega-6 fats in most developed countries in the last 100 years. Due to the competitive relationship between omega-3 and omega-6 fats the inevitable increase of the omega-6 HUFA pool may irreversibly lead to both obesity and the inflammation resulting in increased mortality.

Also, see Dr. Stephan Guyenet’s take on this issue: Have Seed Oils Caused a Multi-Generational Obesity Epidemic?

What this all means to me is that eating out too often is a bad idea. I have fallen prey to that myself, most often breakfast. And while I always ask for my eggs to be cooked in butter, who really knows? I think eating out subjects you to a lot more omega 6 than if you eat at home and don’t use seed/ grain oils or products that contain them, such as bottled dressing and other bottled & canned products. Dr. Eades recently posted about this specific thing: Dining out and bad fats.

~ Moving from frankenfats to frankensweets, three readers (David, another David and Kevin) sent these pieced on added sugars.

Added sugars increase heart-disease risk

Higher Amounts of Added Sugars Increase Heart Disease Risk Factors

And here’s a couple of videos from MSNBC, and while a bit all over the map and you may have to tolerate the guy who "trusts his heart to Lipitor," it’s at least good to see some awareness and waking up to the reality that SUGAR MAKES YOU FUCKING FAT!!!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Now of course it would have been fun to actually have a reporter on scene who’s not your run of the mill useful idiot in order to pose a brain teaser for Dr. Miriam Voss, something like, "OK, Dr., during this interview you’ve said that’s it’s well established that dietary fat is associated with increased risk of heart disease, and now you’re telling us that added sugar — an enormous if not chief source of dietary carbohydrate for most Americans — is also associated with increased risk. Since that implies a low-fat diet combined with a greatly reduced carbohydrate diet, can you tell us what people are supposed to eat?"

~ And finally from William comes this pretty wide ranging article in The Atlantic by Marc Ambinder about his decision to undergo bariatric surgery, and much more: Beating Obesity. I find it interesting that in four pages he covers so much ground — most of which I find to be nauseating collectivism — about obesity yet identifies the basic problem right on page one.

The rise in obesity is associated with a rogue’s gallery of individual, social, and technological factors. The “Big Two,” as scientists call the leading factors, are reduced exercise and increased food consumption: Americans are ingesting more and more calories than they’re burning. But underlying that simple energy-in, energy-out equation is a complex, and so far inexorable, interplay between powerful physiological and societal forces.

Start with our bodies. Molded by evolution in the Pleistocene era, when grains and meat were not easily acquired, they are hardwired to store as much energy in reserve—fat—as possible. Some scientists think that the brain tries to regulate our caloric intake and metabolism to keep our weight within a range that is heavily influenced by our genes. This “set-point theory” argues that an obese person’s body will actually “defend” an excessive weight. An alternative hypothesis, “settling-point theory,” argues that body weight settles into a range determined not just by genes, but by their interaction with learned behaviors and environmental cues. […]

Obesity is also correlated with lack of sleep, with exposure to certain chemicals (like bisphenol A, used in making plastic bottles), even with the type of bacteria that is found in our intestines. And, of course, we adapt, not necessarily in the most healthful way: a high-fat, high-sugar diet can alter the composition of the bacterial flora to persuade our gut to signal the brain to eat even more.

When we subject our Pleistocene bodies to our modern era, in which corn is cheap and animals are killed by others and safely prepared, the effect on waistlines might seem predictable.

Of course, getting it right — implicit in all of the foregoing links submitted by astute readers — won’t make any big corporations big bucks, nor increase the figurative penis or boob size of your average commissar holding a public office. The only one to benefit is you, your friends & loved ones, and perhaps those specific individuals or groups you have stepped up for, like readers of a blog. And why should you really give a shit about anyone else anyway?

Update: Via Dr. Eades’ Tweets, this just out, in Scientific American: Carbs against Cardio: More Evidence that Refined Carbohydrates, not Fats, Threaten the Heart

How about Mark Sisson’s The Primal Blueprint showing up on a New Zealand morning news show featuring one of Mark’s big success stories? I checked Mark’s results pages to see if Michelle Matangi was already there and she’s on page one about halfway down with lots of photos. She’s has also shown up here a time or two in comments. Here’s the before & after they showed on the program.

Michelle Matangi, Before After

And now go take a look at the program. It’s a real hoot with an obviously overweight female host trying to hide her horror over Michelle’s advocacy of arterycloggingsaturatedfat and then the idea that she doesn’t need carbs and in particular, from hearthealthywholegrains.

In the end, to my eye, Michelle ends up looking like a competent success story who could help others, whereas the dumbshit conventional "wisdom" regurgitator comes off looking like the ignorant puppet she is.

In fact, Michelle can help others and has set out to do so via her own blog: Primal Journey. Go give her a visit and tell her how great she did in that interview.

First up, dinner the other night. Now some like to take the fixin’s and make up a lettuce wrap burger. I find Green leaf lettuce or iceberg to be the best for that, but I nearly never buy iceberg unless it’s for a little crunch in a salad with nutritious greens in it — but then why not just use radicchio? In this case, the store was out of green leaf, so romaine had to suffice. OK, I’ll stop stalling. This was for four of us Sunday evening. Of course, that burger is all mine. (Click images for the high-res versions).

Raw Materials

Others chose various means of salad or wrap and here’s what I chose to do.

Cheeseburger Salad

Requires a knife & fork. Or, maybe not.

This was lunch just now, one of my versions of a fish taco. As you can see, romaine was made for this. Make up tuna salad in your favorite way, garnish however you like, and it’s super simple, quick & tasty.

Fish Taco

I have a number of ways I like to do tuna salad but the common elements in all of them are: water packed white albacore, bacon (1/2 – 1 slice per 6oz can, and some of the fat, too), garlic powder, onion, salt & pepper.

Variations include a little yellow or dijon mustard, 1/4 tsp per can; a pinch of Indian Yellow curry powder per can; a sprinkle of paprika; chopped cornichon or dill pickles; and/or chopped celery. In this case I did the curry powder & paprika. Note that you should not be able to clearly taste the curry. It’s used for a subtile taste.

A first for this batch of tuna was that I finally succeeded in making my own mayo. It was whisking by hand that did the trick.

Anyone else have some great & secret tuna salad recipes?

Time for another installment of Real Results from readers. Austin is an international reader, from Singapore. That’s another very rewarding aspect of this blog that would not have been possible prior to the Internet. Here’s Austin’s report and photos

I’ve been a reader of Free the Animal for over 6 months now, and enjoy it tremendously. I’ll keep my story short. For the last 10 years, my weight has been hovering between 85 to 92kg, until concern over my long term health (my mother’s family has a history of diabetes and hypertension) finally led me to to do something about my weight and eating habits in June of 2009. I’m currently 34 years old by the way.

Austin Before

Google searches led me to Gary Taube’s Good Calories Bad Calories, and blogs like Mark Sisson’s Mark’s Daily Apple, and Free the Animal. I applied what I learned, and slowly but steadily dropped nearly 20kg. My current weight is 70kg, and I went from size 34 jeans to size 30 jeans. The best thing is, I never, ever, felt hungry or deprived. I eat mostly real food,in the form of meat, vegetables & eggs, do IF occasionally, but I do eat a moderate amount of white rice daily. What can I say, I’m Chinese! A blood test done in December 2009 revealed these figures:

TRIG: 39
HDL: 55
LDL: 94

Fasting blood glucose was also in the healthy range.

As you can imagine, I was a very happy man when I read the report. Thanks Richard, for providing lots of useful information and entertainment throughout this process. I have to say It’s a lot easier to identify with someone who is not a young stud and/or a former or current elite sportsman. I can’t even begin to describe how my quality of life has improved since I made the change. Higher energy levels and no more dozing off in the office after lunch are just some of the things that come to mind. I’m in this for the long haul, and plan to continue to make progress in both health and body composition. As far as I’m concerned, there is always plenty of room for improvement.

And now, here’s the amazing and impressive progress.

Austin After

A hearty congratulations to Austin for a job very well done. I’m am honored to have played a role. This is what it’s really all about folks, not the looming dietary purity raising its ugly head with increasing frequency in the paleosphere as Paleo becomes increasingly popular. 

Update: In comments, Austin posted a link to another before picture, from 2006. With that comparison, the body recomposition is even more dramatic. Here, I’ve cropped down the image:

Austin in 2006

I really don’t get it. Now, if for some reason you must stay low-carb; say, for weight loss, diabetes or other health or well being reasons, then fine. But if not, what’s the deal? Potatoes are Real Food. Sure, the various white varieties are a neolithic introduction, but c’mon, so is virtually every fruit and vegetable we consume. Most in no way, shape, form, fiber content, nutrient makeup, or sugar content resemble pre-domesticated versions. So why pick on the white potato?

I got a question in email this morning from reader Benjamin.

I’m traveling Europe for a couple months as a college graduation gift, and I’ve been doing a lot of walking, some bodyweight and sprint workouts at pubic parks, and my eating has definitely been sporadic, much like intermittent fasting.

My last meal was about 8pm last night, and today around 1pm I went to a "Whole Foods" type market in Amsterdam and ordered a whole rotisserie chicken for 13.50 euros. That’s like over $15 in the U.S.! Amsterdam is really expensive. Anyway, the chicken came with either french fries or potatoes. I can’t remember the last time I touched either, but since the place seemed to source only organic vegetables, and I’m hoping they only cook using real fats, I decided that I should eat the potatoes. I mean I need to eat something. Yes, I could have just ate the chicken and refrained from the potatoes, but I never "splurge" or "cheat." I noticed that I was pretty full after eating the potatoes and chicken, rather than just the chicken.

Why are potatoes not "paleo?" Is it because they have a higher glycemic index than other vegetables? Is there a difference between consuming potatoes, rice, quinoa, or do they have the same impact on our immune system? I’m pretty sure I’m right when I say potatoes don’t contain gluten.

Nope, no gluten. They’re a root vegetable that’s low in fructose, high in starch (the best way to get into the moderate carb range) and while having a high GI, have a very low glycemic load (see here). Sure, probably sweet potatoes and yams are better as more truly ancient and paleo, but I just can’t get worked up over it. I use both with reasonable regularity; that is, 2-3 times per week, on average.

I highly recommend taking a good read of Don Matesz’s 4-part series on Primal Potatoes (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4). While Don’s emphasis is on the sweet potato and good health, he’s certainly not condemning the white potato as far as I can tell.

Now, here’s three of my own recent meals (last two dinners & yesterday lunch) which, vary somewhat from normal fair because of my "getting ripped" routine. However, I cannot yet divulge any specifics about the program. But I can tell you it’s working — working fast and working big.

Pot Roast with Onions, Carrots & Baked Potato

Grilled Chicken Breast & Baked Potato Smothered in Sauce

Grilled "Taco" Burger & Mash with Beef Reduction

The "taco burger" is simply adding a whole lot of taco meat spice to your ground beef. So, given that potatoes and other starchy Real Foods are…uh…Real Foods, the thing to do, simply, is to incorporate them in your diet if you like them, and see how you do.

And I don’t see much of a concern about carbage. On average, I’m still under 100g per day. Just, but still under 100.

4/22/10: I have a follow-up to this posted here.

Fooled by randomness

Here is Part I to this series. Let me illustrate the subtitle. Timeframe, context and a lot of other factors go into getting some clue about what the future might hold, and predicting it is a low-probability endeavor; meaning, it’s a high-payoff play for those lucky enough to get it right or a huge loss for those who get it wrong.

So, you have: "Oh, Shit!" "Hallelujah!" and, "No, Oh Shit!." I could go on and on with this, and it all depends on scale…so not to belabor the point from an ex options-trader, let’s cut to the chase. Click to open the BIG version.

OK

That’s the S&P over the last year. So in the figures above, (1) covers June-July, 2009, (2) covers July-August, and (3) covers January-February, 2010.

I’m not going to get into the dynamics of why it’s not even close to linear, the shorter the timeframe you examine (these are all daily bars, called "candles" in trader speak). In my trading platform, I can get down to tics or candles by a few seconds interval, and it’s all over the map on a minute, hourly or daily basis. The level of potential foolishness is unmatched and it’s extremely attractive and addictive for risk takers. Suffice it to say that what you see above is the result of trading transactions between buyers and sellers, all of whom have no idea of what the future holds. in a sense, every last one of them is being fooled by randomness. There are exceptions, but those mainly involve traders holding stocks  or tangible assets who have a good idea of what they’re worth tangibly, taking advantage of fools undervaluing them or overvaluing them (you can play it either way). That’s the basic Warren Buffet, Value Investing, long term approach. I don’t think he ever shorts the market, but he looks for severely undervalued stocks in terms of assets, management and other crucial factors and when he finds them, he buys & holds. But there are others — Bears — who do just the opposite & sell short.

Before I move on to link this to health in the broadest sense — metabolism, digestion and body temperature in the narrow — let me just say that I’m very keen to this sort of dynamic. As a full-time trader for several years, I at times made lots, like 800%+ in six months, once. I’ve also have the educational privilege to have lost over $200K in the space of a couple of weeks. In short, I allowed myself to be fooled.

How did I do that? I’ll give you an analogy: I lost the forrest through the trees. Sure, I had some success with drilling down, i.e., looking at a single tree, discerning the forrest, and getting lucky. But it could not last. When I got into trouble, not only was I looking at a single tree, I was looking at the pattern of the bark on that tree, then the fibers, then any grubs & parasites. I’d have gone microscopic, but it was too late by then.

The point is that a whole lot of the "health" markers we hold dear, thanks to modern medical science, might be serving only to fool us. Just as bad, or worse, it makes us susceptible to opportunists — those who claim to have it all figured out. After all, they have nothing but a steep upward slope over some period of time (they won’t tell you about the intraday fluctuations, i.e., troubled emails from troubled adherents to The Strategy). I’ve seen it in trading, and I’ve see it here.

We now have folks getting their cholesterol measured regularly, they check their BP several times per day, weigh themselves every day or more, get D levels checked habitually…and then there’s the coronary calcium scores, the particle LipoProfiles, and on and on it goes. And, now, body temperature.

…And I’m fed up.

How is it we all seem to be attempting to falsify the "absurd" notion of eating only Real Food, paloesque? One guy calls it — paleo — a "restrictive diet," only a few breaths after admonishing you to stay away from fructose, omega-6 and other odds & ends. Like you need grains in your diet (you don’t, ever; it’s an inferior nutritional choice and that’s not even to get into the huge anti-nutrient load, ignored by the same guy).

Yes, I have been guilty of promoting some of this sensationalism myself by posting lipid profiles & such and posting about all of it. But you know what? The posts that really matter as to my path are: the food and the progress. The food is regular but fairly varied in composition and the progress discounts the randomness of the  +-4 pounds regularly gained & lost throughout this journey.

So the next and likely final post will be about what I think the real issue is in terms of metabolism and digestion. You can go ahead and pig out on High Everything and gain weight (body fat — it’s surely not lean, and that should be noted) in hopes it will "cure your metabolism," or, you can implement a few very effective strategies to ensure that you are getting every microgram of nutrition out of every gram that you eat, not gain any weight, and go forth.

I’ll finish with a laugh. You must know: I laugh at the idea of chasing body temp. It it truly absurd, and a crude, snake oil approach to health. See comments in the previous post for how 98.6 was arrived at. Fooled by randomness… Or, just the same: averages.

So then, what do I say about all those people who report to have bean raising their body temperatures? Well, other than a congratulations with a smirk, I’d say either 1) they were hypothyroid, probably pre-existing, so probably good, or, 2) they’re eating grains and other chronically inflammatory foods and body temperature is rising in response to systemic inflammation, just like it does in response to infection. It could be seen as a rather natural prophylactic measure.

Onward and more later.

The underlying theme of this post is inspired by the seminal insight of now EvFit enthusiast and friend of Art guy, Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Fooled by Randomness , a book that changed my life and set me on the path to better.