Why ‘Low-Carb For Everyone’ Advocate Kevin Geary Got Himself Banned
A few days ago I posted about hungry kids on a paleo diet. At the time of this Saturday posting, the comment thread stands at 211 comments. There were 212 a few minutes ago before I deleted one and hit the ban button.
From the time the post went up, many people with actual experience with kids advised one, the other or both of a couple of things: plenty of, or more fat, and more carbohydrate in the form of starch—such as sweet potatoes. Enter Kevin Geary, who started off well enough with questions or objections; but soon enough, evolved into basically claiming that everyone who replied to him was exercising “flawed logic” …and oh, yea, they were misrepresenting him.
Of the 211 comments, somewhere between 35-40 of them are from him alone, a rather high percentage. At any rate, I don’t recall ever doing a post before about banning someone from comments and moreover, I rarely ban anyone except for spam or obvious trolling. I don’t like to moderate and I don’t like to ban, but in this case I think it’s rather instructive and mostly so, because I’m so damn tired of a few things:
- The notion that “paleo” is a particular diet with predictable ratios of macronutrients that apply to one & all in all times and places. That’s the “Cordain paleo Diet,” not the Paleo Diet, which is very wide open, with vast possibilities in terms of food sources and how they work out in ratios by environment and season (equator to arctic, sea level to 16,000 feet…summer, spring, fall, winter…and everything in-between).
- That because humans have an evolutionary adaptation that protects them from brain glucose starvation in times of famine, winter—or otherwise restricted or zero access to carbohydrate—that it’s somehow optimal to exercise that emergency safety line as SOP all the time, for everyone. Or, that because we have this adaptation it implies the necessity of at least a low level of carbohydrate intake, or even very low.
It’s all unmitigated bullshit; the Paleosphere becoming replete with testimonial after testimonial and anecdote after anecdote of people with relatively healthy metabolisms getting only so far with low carb, finding that that they get leaner and stronger when they add in a few potatoes a day, or even more.
There’s one more thing, too. Based on the assumption that low-carb is “optimal” for most-to-all, it’s that most-to-all just ought to stop their sinful ways so that the Gates of Heaven will be open to them, with no other factors pertaining or in evidence—such as culture, expense, enjoyment, satiation, et cetera, et cetera. This is illustrated by a comment I put up this morning.
“And what do they need carbohydrates for exactly?
“No one has answered this question yet.”
Who’s “they?”
The reason “no one has answered this question yet” is because everyone is smart enough to see it as loaded and impossible to answer, in the same vein as asking, “why do ‘they’ need more than 7-10% of protein?” or, “why do ‘they’ need more than 20% fat?” or any number of other variables.
You can’t look at carbohydrate / starch in a vacuum. There are three variables and above all, everyone requires sufficient energy. And there are vast differences in the way individuals respond to varying combinations of these three variables, rendering blanket assertions for everyone a fool’s errand.
If you decrease carbs, you have to up fat, protein, or both. You don’t change a single variable, but two or more, and even more when you consider micronutrients (sweet potatoes, for example, are reasonably nutritious and even have quality protein). So good luck on that one diet, one list of foods, one macronutrient profile for one & all.
The other reason I wanted to put this all in a post of its own is to highlight a great comment that takes Kevin to task for his behavior in the thread. Incidentally, throughout, he has complained that other commenters have not answered his questions, misrepresented him, and on and on. This comment went up yesterday afternoon and went unanswered.
jocelyn357 // Feb 24, 2012 at 16:26
Kevin,
No one here has accused you of saying VLC is the “only” way. You’ve made it clear from your posts that you believe a low carbohydrate diet is “suitable”, “enough”, and will “get the job done”, for the “majority” of people. These are your words, not mine. You also emphasized that some do well on what most would agree is a very low carb diet.
In contrast, you’ve been antagonistic when anyone suggests that these children may benefit from added carbohydrates in the form of starch. You say that paleo may not be low-carb by definition, but “for most, it should be”. When someone says “Paleo is NOT low carb”, they don’t mean that it can’t be low carb, but should not be defined as exclusively low carb. For some it will consist of very few carbohydrates, for others the carbohydrate content may be much higher – many will fall somewhere on the spectrum between the two. You claim a paleo style, carbohydrate rich diet is “not a good description of how the body is designed to function”. I would like to see your sources for this statement please. I am very well read on this subject, and one thing is certain: people much more well educated than either you or I in biology or physiology do not agree on an ideal macronutrient ratio in the human diet. On the other hand, there is good evidence that humans with wide varieties in macro contents have lived very healthy lives for thousands of years. More recently, the research of Dr. Weston Price has shown that traditional societies with quite significant portions of diet as carbohydrate have shown to be examples of excellent health.
You don’t want to be tied to numbers, but you did in fact give numbers. You said 50-70 is “enough” for “most people”, but later qualified that by saying you “never claimed it was optimal”. Huh? Are you saying the children in question may, in fact, have a higher carbohydrate requirement for “optimal” health? Or will you back track on this too?
You say, “If people who are lean consume carbohydrates, it doesn’t mean that carbohydrates make you lean.” Can we agree that if people who are lean consume carbohydrate, it didn’t make them fat? We know that overweight certainly isn’t the only marker of poor health, but it is an important and pervasive one, no? We are in a time in history when obesity and its related diseases are so prevalent (particularly in children, which is what this post is about). If we can look to other societies who remain nearly exempt from these illnesses and have a history of excellent health in contrast to our own, and they can consume an abundance of carbohydrate, why would we conclude that carbs past a very “limited point” are detrimental? The point is, research has shown primitive and traditional societies with a wide range of macronutrient profiles who’ve exhibited fantastic health. Many people find they thrive on very few carbohydrates, and many are finding they experience a decline in health if the lack of carbs persists much beyond reaching an optimal weight. If they add in starchy carbohydrates, and their health returns as a result, why should they not conclude they function more optimally with higher carb content? Is it really that hard to comprehend?
I’m also interested in the following statement: “The body is able to create all of the glucose it needs for day to day operation from fat”. Do you think the body is very efficient at making glucose from fatty acids or are you confusing this with gluconeogenesis or ketosis?
I am not a regular poster here and have no reason to “bandwagon” with other commenters as you have suggested, but I could hardly help myself because your string of posts lacks coherent thought and is very disjointed. That coupled with your know-it-all attitude and conviction that you’ve stumbled upon a better understanding for “how the body is designed to function”, and supposedly suitable (yet admittedly very vague and not necessarily optimal) macronutrient profile for “most” people without a single reference for your claims is really underwhelming.
Stick to photography and kids karate, and keep eating your low carb diet if you find it keeps you healthy. You should refrain from spreading your gospel throughout the web where someone just embarking on a health journey might be confused with this nonsense.
Amen.
Alright. Time for a bit of self experimentation. Today is Saturday, 2/25 and as providence would have it, I’m recording another podacst with the great low-carb diet advocate Jimmy Moore next Friday, 3/2 (rather than the usual months, it will air a few days later, like the 5th or 6th, I believe). Jimmy believes in the health and benefits of low-carb, but so far as I can tell, unlike many others, never prescribes it for everyone and is always open to the possibility that an individual might do better otherwise.
So as soon as I publish this I’m heading off to the market to get myself a load of white sweet potatoes and regular white potatoes, and for the next week and perhaps beyond, will make them a staple of my diet. So, for example, breakfast might be a sweet with a little butter and a couple of fried eggs. Lunch, one or two potatoes with some meat, maybe some fruit. Dinner, likewise. And rather than track any numbers I’ll eat to satiation and hunger, just that it’ll always include a potato, with lesser portions of fat & meat.
So next Friday I’ll get to report to Jimmy how it’s going in terms of energy levels, sleep, feelings of well being, satiety, weight and body composition. Anyone else up for the challenge?
Update: Well, I guess the hundreds of comments in the MDA forum threads Kevin Geary created once he got banned here (they are no more friendly towards him than here, and it’s basically the same shit from him) wasn’t enough. Got this email last night:
From: Kevin Geary <kgeary83@gmail.com>
Subject: coward
Date: February 27, 2012 8:44:30 PM PST
To: Richard NikoleyYou’re a coward and a punk. You ban people, take them out of context (in the title of your post even), and then write about them publicly so they can’t respond. That’s cowardly. You’re like a 3 year old child
Grow up.
And he’s right. I am a coward for being able to put up with only about 40 comments of 200, the last 35 of which echoed the same thing, so I punkishly banned him.
I admit it. He totally exhausted my capacity for tolerance and open debate.
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Great post Richard! I just recently wrote a similar one myself! (see link below.)
I’ve been upping the carb intake and honestly, I feel a lot better – less anxious, sleeping better, more mental clarity (as a grad student, that’s an important one!).
Maybe my body fat percentage won’t win me any prizes, but fortunately that’s not something I’m worried about. 🙂
Thanks so much for bringing this issue to attention. It’s way too easy to fall into the low-carb trap, even if unintentional. And it seems like there are a fair number of people who become LESS healthy on low carb than before, myself included. I think carbohydrate consumption is definitely a huge issue that needs to be tackled in the Paleo community. Sometimes I think the pro-LC people drown out other opinions a bit too much.
-Laura from “Ancestralize Me”
I’ve been trying something similar for the past month… with no adverse effects.
I read that earlier, Colin. I guess someone pointed it out somewhere but I don’t recall.
At any rate, one thing I do have Paleo to thank for is that ocassional forays into having a burger with bun, a nice sandwich or crusty bread at a nice restaurant with real butter is that it’s nothing like chronic daily consumption over decades.
Since going Primal over a year ago with my husband, we’ve never counted carbs or calories. We don’t own a scale either. We just go by sense and results. At first we cut out potatoes and rice. We were already low carbish from being Atkins fans for many years. But we felt sluggish on days we have a strenuous workout (in our case – hours of extreme ping pong play). So I added more yogurt smoothies, which we had always been fond of.
But our weight was stalled at the stubborn middle aged middles, and I was frustrated by that. Thought it was menopause. So I decided to cut way down on the dairy, and voila! The weight fell off quickly.
We still had the energy issue, so we decided to add rice and potatoes in small amounts. It fixed the sports energy issue and hasn’t affected the weight at all. (A little coffee the day of strenuous activity also helped me.)
Regarding the banning – discussing is one thing, but haranging is another. I skipped through all those verbose posts.
I’m having a sweet potatoe a la mantequilla just to cheer for this post!
Ok, so they tested all manner of carb ratios for glygocen restoration, but they didn’t test any zero carb ratios to see how that would work? Did I miss something?
I’d love to know the effect of just fat or fat and protein on the glycogen window.
The above studies are aimed at, what I would call, professional athletes. It defines a “short workout” as anything less than “6 hours”. Then goes on to make recommendations, in terms of carb consumption immediately after the workout, for maximizing the restoration of glycogen stores in short and long recovery periods.
I am interested in knowing the rate of glycogen restoration when zero carbs are consumed in a more typical person with a typical lifestyle in addition to a professional athlete. However, I am not surprised that this article does not address the issue since they are studying athletes. And by most standards an athlete is abnormally physically active and for this reason may not be the best to study when concerned with longevity and well-being(which is the main concern of this blog).
I’d like to point out that the major bodybuilding competitions today feature FREAKS like Jay Cutler and not people concerned with their long term physical health.
Richard,
Are you at all concerned that at over 200g of carbs spread throughout the day your body will stop making ketones?
Relating to children: Is it a good idea for kids to be kicked out of ketosis? Or the opposite?
Forgot to ask,
What happens to our bodies when faced with an ice age? Assuming very little farming possible if any. I imagine this would be a time where it is most difficult to acquire carbs but when our bodies might need to be the most physically fit to hunt?
Yes , Conrad, the Ice Age is the whole basic point. So, follow the implications. Does it mean we ought to behave as though we are living in one?
Complete broscience here – but I’d say you can calculate *relatively* well how many carbs are best to replenish glycogen quickly without having them cause havoc in an otherwise VLC environment.
But yeah, for an average schmoe who works out a couple times a week, I’d like to know the effectiveness of protein/fat. AFAIK protein is about 50-60 effective in being able to be converted to glucose, but it’s a much more roundabout process than carbs, so it wouldn’t be replenished as quickly (ideally within the 20-30 min glycogen window). However dietary protein is far more ideal as a source rather than lean bodymass.
Either way, I’d love to read some studies on this.
Conrad.
To your questions, it’s my understanding that our bodies always make ketones, because they are always turning over fat. It’s a range, and ketosis is a definition of ketone level, not a thin blue line of no ketones vs ketones.
Other than that, don’t really know. That’s why I try things out for myself, so that I can know, which is the Gold Standard because that’s all anyone can know and everyone who suggests otherwise is just another fucking liar. Nothing new. Dime a dozen.
Ketosis just means *excess* ketones, having them present in breath/urine is just an indicator that your body is now protecting glucose reserves only for high-energy/emergency needs and is burning fat instead.
lol … brother, am i glad i missed that argument — people who love to dominate others’ blogs make me want to throttle something! thank you for doing all your readers a favor, Richard!
I must say I agree with Kevin to a great extent. I don’t think we need carbohydrates in any form. I decided to try a different breakfast from my usual bacon and eggs this morning in the form of hot cereal made from flax seed, unsweetened coconut, walnuts, and coconut milk. Even with the addition of some ghee and coconut oil, I have found myself feeling jumpy and shaky like I do from blood sugar/insulin swings. I have to believe that even though it was very low-carb, my “cereal” had too much carbohydrate for me. I suspect I’d have the same effect from a sweet potato. So, for many of us, the lower our carb intake, the better.
As for children, have you read Dr. Jay Wortman’s blog about his “Low-carb baby?” They are raising their daughter on a VLC diet and she is thriving.
Wish I’d known what I know now when my kids were born – I would have saved them years of ADHD, depression, insomnia, morbid obesity, and bulemia. And thank God we discovered low-carb and my kids and I are now happy and healthy and “cured” of the above the issues along with a myriad of other health problems that I had before cutting carbs to around 20 gr./day.
“I don’t think we need carbohydrates in any form.”
Who’s “we?”
Nice of you to take so much stock in your own experience, yet totally discount the experience of the billions of relatively healthy people who include significant carbohydrate in their diet, especially Asians, some groups of which are the longest living on Earth.
Ever been to Okinawa? I have, about a half dozen times. Healthy, active, lean, vibrant and rugged people. They eat rice, almost pure glucose.
Who is “we”? Lazy fucks like you whose only exercise is posting stupid comments on blog posts? The vast majority of people who do anything remotely resembling real exercise need carbs to function optimally.
Ketotic people can’t work out? Do you mean like Dr. Attia?
After being adopted to exercising in ketosis, I found out that my endurance dramatically increased. I would never thought it may happen with me at 51 years old.
Yes, if you’re doing exercise where you’re moving very, very slowly for a long time, ketosis can actually be beneficial. However, I have no idea why anyone would want to do that.
How about you take this post as an example of how NOT to act like Kevin Geary, because you are. Just because you can’t do it yourself doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t.
Oh fer fuck’s sake. Antecedents, do you know what they are? Because I can’t do what? Work out without carbs? Yes, yes I can. However, I do not perform OPTIMALLY without some amount of carbs. Nobody has OPTIMAL strength on VLC. Because I can’t do endurance exercise? Yes, yes I can. But it’s boring as shit and doesn’t do anything for health.
I did intervals rollerskating and because it was a cardio exercise I monitored pulse more than speed. It was amazing to feel I was not particularly tired after 2 hours of a high cardio. In order to get a good speed you have to be adopted to an exercise in ketosis and in a fasted state. When you are adopted, you blood sugar stays on the same level, so there is no “bonking”.
Just for the records, Peggy Holloway is not a lazy ass, she is a long-distance bicyclist, and it doesn’t mean she is pedaling a beach cruiser at leisure speed.
It’s almost like people don’t know what endurance exercise means. Do you think she’s doing anaerobic endurance exercise? Is that what you think you were doing? If you’re doing it for two hours, it’s low intensity. It has to be.
Sure, I would not be able to do high-cardio for two hours straight. I said I was doing intervals. More details – 85% – 90% from max short 6 -8 intervals with short rest in-between, then one long interval 20 min or so then repeat.
As far as I familiar with bicyclists routine, when they ride in pack and change places, one in the front really works at the max of his effort, then another is taking the front place.
I actually disagree in general about such statement that there is no reason to do something slowly for a long time. It is a good thing to be able to walk for hours without getting tired, even country skiing being done in the forest covered with snow for 2 – 3 hours could feat the description of not particularly exhausting but not very slow exercise, many experience a running high while jogging lightly. I think non-sedentary activity has its own important value different than the value of an endurance exercise.
You have to train to be able to walk for hours? Wow. That is sad.
No, I didn’t have to train myself to walk, of course, I actually never said I had to go through a special training to do so. I think there are reasons to do slow sedentary activity for personal enjoyment. Many people are either in training or resting (like my husband), they avoid “meaningless” physical activity. I also noticed(during my visit to my native country) that many people I knew since being young lost the ability to walk comfortably for many hours, it saddened and surprised me.
What on earth are you babbling about? If you have somewhere to go, it makes sense to walk. But that is not “exercise” and has nothing to do with anything else being discussed. But LOL, you think you can do HIIT for two hours, so I don’t think you have a clue about anything.
Sarah:
Your antagonism with virtually every comment is getting a bit annoying, y’know?
Sarah you just might be one the most unfriendly, and least tolerant people I’ve read online in a while. Aren’t we all here to learn from each other? Geez.
You keep misrepresenting what I said, so in such case I think it is better to stop conversation.
Galina – I have a learned appreciation for doing something “slowly for a long time” as well. I don’t think it replaces other forms of exercise, but my great aunt and great uncle have been taking daily, brisk walks my whole life and they also eat as close to paleo as possible (with the exception of modest amounts of Cuban bread, as we are Cuban). They are in their middle eighties and their health is quite good and they remain active. This is out of context of Ketosis, because their intake of fresh fruit is quite high, but hey, they were born on an island! Who can blame them?! 😉 My grandparents on the American side of my family were VERY sedentary and diet was poor. They died in their early 70’s. I think there is much benefit to be had from a good bit of “low and slow”.
In the context of the ketosis I wanted to say that all my physical activities – cardio and long slow ones got less tiring after adaptation to ketosis, especially to the exercising in a fasted state. Adaptation took months, at the beginning cardio-activities got worse, I got migraines couple time after cardio intervals back then.
I also don’t think that walking belong to the category of exercise, but to a very important category of non-sedentary activities.
Sedentary behavior it unhealthy even if person do relatively short cardio session most days of the week. After moving to Florida , I came to a realization how much I under appreciated a possibility to walk a lot during day or on evenings. During many months it is too hot here, we mostly drive, and I try to find more possibilities to move more besides going to my sport club for exercising.
Did you see the word “optimally”? Do you understand what it means?
Sarah, the tack you’ve taken isn’t really justified in light of the recent literature on fasted training and carb-restricted training. You concede it’s beneficial for long slow distance, but advantages have been demonstrated in other contexts (including HIIT). Jamie of thatpaleoguy.com covers this topic thoroughly and regularly. See: all of these posts.
Everyone seems to benefit from ketosis, total carb restriction, or fasted training sometimes. The only real questions are how much and how often. For most people, it’s probably required to train “optimally”.
I’m not sure you having “no idea why anyone would want to do [long slow distance]” should compel us to acquiesce to your personal definition of “real exercise”. The Crossfit connection to paleo fosters this kind of thinking, but I’d argue that it represents a profound inconsistency between paleo input (food) and paleo output (activity). Suffice it to say, others have myriad reasons for doing long slow distance. Our many ancestors who undertook massive migrations in short amounts of time apparently did okay, and shaped what our genotype ‘views’ as optimal in the process. I’d rather not get into Born to Run, but… there is also Born to Run.
Optimal humanity requires nature and variety. Optimal exercise as a phenotypic band-aid for modern boxed humans can only ever be a shadowed abstraction of optimal life.
I don’t know what fasted training has to do with the statement that people don’t need carbs. Are you getting that Peggy was saying that people don’t need carbs at all, ever? I often do fasted training, but I don’t restrict carbs, so even when I’m fasted, I usually still have sufficient muscle glycogen. Also, I don’t benefit from total carb restriction or ketosis, ever. Believe me, I spent years trying to get some benefit from them.
Real exercise is at least sometimes anaerobic. Doing only endurance exercise is an idiotic waste of time.
Between the delightful mix of unsupported proclamations, judgmental declarations, and anecdotes of uncommon potential for bias and confounds, I’m somehow lacking the motivation to engage further. I realize that puts me at risk of being labeled a lazy fuck stupid idiotic time waster incapable of understanding the impenetrable depths of this conversation’s grammaticality, but I’ll endure… however long and slowly.
“Optimal humanity requires nature and variety. Optimal exercise as a phenotypic band-aid for modern boxed humans can only ever be a shadowed abstraction of optimal life.”
Brilliant
Are you serious? This is not one bit complicated. Lazy fuck Peggy thinks nobody needs carbs at all ever for any reason. I think that if you want to do any type of real exercise and be as good at it possible (i.e. you want to get faster or stronger) you need carbs. I am not making any proclamations about amounts or frequency, beyond saying that it’s a non-zero amount. (Note that I said that I) don’t benefit from carb restriction, not that nobody ever does.)
If you think 50 grams of carbs/day is optimal, you disagree with Peggy. If you think a TKD or CKD is optimal, you also disagree with Peggy. If you think any amount of carbs at some time is better than zero carbs all the time, you disagree with her idiotic statement.
Again, “fasted training” has nothing to do with any of that, and I still don’t understand why you brought it up. It is possible to fast for 24 hours and still be eating carbs (obviously not during those particular 24 hours.) That is not an “unsupported proclamation” nor is it an “anecdote of uncommon potential for bias and confounds.” It is a simple fact.
And if you think doing nothing but endurance exercise is sensible, congratulations, you’re either exercise bulimic (BTDT) or some blowhard who likes to brag about his mileage. You’re not interested in either health or enjoyment.
Exactly! Above 85% intensity, muscles get 100% of their energy from carbohydrates (glycogen, or blood glucose in emergencies). See http://nigeepoo.blogspot.com/2011/02/its-all-in-days-work-as-measured-in.html
” Even with the addition of some ghee and coconut oil, I have found myself feeling jumpy and shaky like I do from blood sugar/insulin swings.”
Another delicate flower formed by the consumption of a diet that makes you insulin resistant. Your kids are going to get old enough to go to school and then they are going to be exposed to carbs…and because VLC doesn’t cultivate resilience, the results might not be pretty.
Delicate flower is absolutely correct. And Peggy Holloway already knows this!!!
I feel sorry for her kids due to the crazy very low carb experimentation. I have seen the above commenter, Peggy, comment elsewhere. Read here about the poor health Peggy’s own sister is in after “12 years on a very low carbohydrate diet.”
http://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb-explained#comment-4797
Peggy Holloway Says:
December 2, 2011 at 3:48
“couldn’t seem to understand that my sister had been strict low-carbing for many years and still was having fasting blood sugars over 200 on occasion.”
“Still, in spite of a very strict Atkins-style diet that has even eliminated nuts and cheese, her fasting blood sugar is regularly around 140.”
So it fails her sister but it’s OK to experiment with on her kids? Eek!
Gluconeaogenesis and sundry pathways really work. Don’t doubt it. It’s pure survival, and 140 is better than 6 feet under. One could speculate as to why it’s so crude in terms of normal regulation, but we’re talking survival.
Some people view bare survival adaptations as optimal, I guess.
Highish fasting BG is hugely common among LC dieters, including myself and my dad.
Ah, Melissa’s here, so it’s extra snark, hold the science.
I do better on VLC myself but I have had metabolic syndrome and my metabolism is damaged. Those who have damaged adrenals have a harder time using fat for energy. If we had all started from a clean slate, I bet most everyone could handle any macronutrient ratio but many of us have been damaged in one way or another. So, just as I wouldn’t want people telling me that lots of starch is best for me, I wouldn’t tell anyone that VLC is best for them.
thank you, Craig!!!
why do some people seem to think that everyone has to eat and exercise exactly like them, or they’re either a lazy fuck or a menace to society? bodies are different, and the longer a “past” it has, the less likely it is to perform right, so “optimal” is going to be a very individual thing.
Great post, Richard. Thanks for featuring my comment. I wasn’t sure anyone would read it. LOL It’s the kind of dogma that Kevin promotes that makes me crazy, but more importantly is really unhelpful.
@Jocelyn- I second that great comment u made on the other thread. U nailed that 1. I figured he wouldn’t respond back to that lol
Jocelyn – your comment was awesome – really well said. And – an excellent post Richard.
I too have been getting really frustrated with the paleo = very low carb dogma.
I spun out a quick post a couple of weeks ago too, as I get frustrated with the number of times I’ve had to tell paleo people to eat more carbs. http://paleozonenutrition.com/2012/02/02/okay-paleo-people-carbs-do-not-kill/
Saying that – I posted the story a couple of days ago about a woman with type 1 diabetes who was able to achieve normal blood sugars and lose excess fat on a very low carb paleo diet.
Context matters!
I heard this in another context (pertaining to software development organizations being complex adaptive systems), but I think it applies very well to your body and how it reacts to different foods:
“We can’t control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them!”
– Donella Meadows, Thinking in Systems
http://www.noop.nl/2011/06/dance-with-the-system.html
I was VLC for an entire year, with great result aside from pretty intense emotional ups and downs. After a while I broke Paleo dogma and added starches to my diet, which resulted in immediate mental and emotional benefit. Other Paleo friends did the same, and achieved the same effect.
It has been 8 months now and I have experienced little to no anxiety and what I feel is a constant state of mental relaxation. I have not lost any of my leanness either.
The lesson is obvious: I was glucose deprived due to bad beliefs about carbs.
Richard,
I know you said you did not want to track any numbers, but I am really curious what all those potatoes will do to your blood glucose numbers. Whether you think post-prandial spikes are detrimental or not is beside the point. Potatoes of all sorts spike my blood sugar. It would be nice to see what eating lots of potatoes does to someone who’s metabolism isn’t broken. (Besides the guy who ate only potatoes for a month). Thanks for your consideration.
I might, but I really, really hate pricking my finger. 🙂 Plus, I think all my testy strips are way out of date, though I have no idea if that matters in terms of accuracy.
I was having the same thoughts. I love me some ‘taters, but damn they spike my blood sugars. I’m way better off leaving them alone.
Carbohydrate is supposed to spike your blood sugar. A heavy protein meal will do the same thng. The issue is, how high and for how long. A spike to 140 is perfectly normal physiologically.
Mine goes much higher than that. I really think you should test one hour and two hours after eating ‘taters for a couple of days and look at the results. I bet you would be surprised.
I should probably clarify. I’m not entirely sure of this—so anyone else feel free to chime in—but I believe that what’s considered physiologically “normal” in a glucose screening with a 50g cocktail is less than 180 at 1 hour, less than 155 at 2 hours and less than 140 at 3 hours.
I think a lot of people unecessarily freak themselves out with obsessively checking BG after meals. I’d say that if you have an abnormally high A1C then start worrying about it but if your A1C and fasting BG are normal than why worry about what your BG spike to in the hour or two after a meal?
I would describe myself as pretty hardcore Paleo although I prefer the word Primal. After about 2-3 weeks of strict 50 g or less of carbs my energy will be lacking, slight sleep distrubances and a few bit$&y moments. I like and feel I need my potatoes both sweet and white along with some fruit–bananas included, especially with intense weightlifting and sprinting. Keeps me at my best along with happiest/healthiest and currently at 15.2% bf–not bad for a 52 year old woman.
I am just the opposite, after the first week or two of adaptation I find my energy to be very stable, and I can sustain a 60-90 minute heavy lifting routine and have made nice strength gains doing so. I also find once adapted that I will fall asleep quicker and sleep soundly, usually waking well before the alarm clock goes off. Further my ability to concentrate on tedious minutia is far greater then with higher carb intake and oddly, my skin clears up, no longer making me feel like a damn teenager! lol
I get it, different strokes for different folks, but there is some serious backlash going on here against the idea of very carb restricted dieters. Me personally, I don’t give a shit what any of you choose to do, its your life, your business.
I do have to laugh at how Diet/Nutrition can now be added to religion and politics as persona non grata in conversations we hope will remain civil!
My body — being unique — reacts to all input (including food) differently than the next body. In other words, my experience is not your experience; otherwise, I would be you. I kind of like it that way.
Meanwhile, after I’ve been totally low-carb for a week (except that we had mashed sweet potatoes one night with butter), it will be Monday morning, and I will be ready for a mocha coolatta. I’m looking forward to this test, because for once, I’m not craving it, but I do want to know if I will get the jitters or shakes.
Be careful with drawing conclusions from this kind of experiment. Caffeine has been shown to induce quasi-hypoglycemia even when blood sugar is within “normal” ranges.
“…individuals who ingest moderate amounts of caffeine may develop hypoglycemic symptoms if plasma glucose levels fall into the low-normal range, as might occur in the late postprandial period after ingestion of a large carbohydrate load.” – Annals of Internal Medicine
In other words, caffeine + carbs tends to mess with our brain and nervous system in a very different way than caffeine or carbs.
1 problem I have generally with caffein studies is that they never separate variables coorectly. Caffein containing beverages are mostly ever consumed associated with sugar (sweetened coffee & tea, coke, Red Bull). Can these effects be applied to people like me, who never drink sugar in coffee, rarely drink coke?
I have changed my mind. I will to my “test” with less variables (caffeine plus sugar? what was I thinking?), and at a later date. I don’t know yet if it will be two weeks or a month, since I don’t have any particular cravings any more.
Well said.
On another site, some vegetarian was giving me shit because I claimed I don’t do well on a vegetarian diet. He’s in his late 20s, a vegetarian since his mid-teens, athletic and totally ripped, therefore I’m wrong and simply didn’t make the effort to make the vegetarian diet work. Riiiiiight… as if my life is defined by his N=1.
I am certain that one of the absolute winning benefits of eating paleo is that you are more in tune with your body. That is a tough statement, since you “are” your body, yet so many of us are so far away from it that we might as well not be joined.
Once you start to eat paleo, you start to realise that snacking is unnecessary, that desserts are unnecessary and beyond that don’t bother with snacking and find dessert just too sweet. You’d rather just something creamy with some nice berries alongside – natural eating.
With that done, once you click with your own body it will tell you what it needs; what you need …
Today, it’s meat and greens. Tomorrow, fish and lots of chips! Fries, to you folks with the wonky language over that side of the pond 🙂 The next day, it might be really fatty meat, just really fatty meat, and the day after that, lean meat and some root veggies.
Listen to your body … that can only come from resetting, eating naturally for a period and allowing yourself to become in tune with your body and its needs. For those of us who cook for others, it is important to listen to the other people, too!
This is where Cordain’s “Diet” is paramount – for people who need a strict regimen to perform that initial reset.
Beyond that, paleo is a template. Chris Kressler has spoken about that time and time again, and also says that when working with people who have metabolic issues, a “strict paleo” diet is his prescription for working out what is actually wrong with them. That “strict paleo” diet is the yardstick, the anchor point which pins us all to the mast however far we’ve got from it into the template and the beautiful world beyond the proverbial savannah, into environments which necessitate changing that strict set into a workable intake of food which satisfies our needs.
Useful debate, Niko. Succinctly put.
I’m up for it Richard.
I’ll continue to eat more carbohydrates per day than Kevin eats in a month, and enjoy my slow painful death.
LOL Grok.
Potatoes have not given me any problems at all. For the past year I’ve eaten them almost daily, about 4-6 for all meals. I usually have a protein like ground beef or chicken thighs, and I put liberal amounts of cheese and full fat sour cream. I eat until satieted but dont’ stuff myself.
I haven’t gained weight or noticeable fat at all. About a 20 lb range over 10 years, some due to weightlifting.
I am thinking that the genetics of our ancestors may tell us how well we can deal with carbs.
I am Asian born in Canada. My parents and grandparents ate rice daily. Growing up I had rice, noodles, dumplings. As long as I am active then I don’t seem to have a problem.
Look at your folks, if they are healthy and how many carbs they’ve eaten. You can’t fight your history.
I tried to go really low carb, strict Paleo and found I just couldn’t last long. I bought into the dogma of Atkins but realized it wasn’t the full truth.
In the defense of Atkins, he didn’t advice VLC for everyone (only during the Induction phase), but to find your own amount of carbs that doesn’t cause a weight gain.
Exactly, induction wasn’t the end all of the Atkins diet. The purpose IMO was the immediate weight(water mostly) loss was encouraging to your typical dieter who seeks neer constant positive re-enforcement from the scale while also speeding up the adaptation of the body to a fat burning metabolism.
Right on Richard. Glad there won’t be anymore of his shinanigans. Looking forward 2 the pordcast and the results of your tater experiement
I’m figuring I’ll probably include some white rice, with nori, just for some variety.
Did you hear about that guy who only ate potatoes for 60 days?
Seems like he did ok:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1334351/Potato-diet-Chris-Voigt-loses-1-5-stone-eating-just-potatoes-2-MONTHS.html
Yep, saw it. In fact, Jimmy Moore interviewed him.
Just so we’re clear, I don’t think potatoes as a primary singlular source is optimal. But is is workable, causing perhaps some pluses, some minuses? That’s what I aim to find out.
In the end I suspect that one good way to go about things is cycling,.
Cycling foods? Or bicycling?
cycling macro ratios.
I had the previous post open in a tab, but got distracted.
Generally, I think “low-carb” is too imprecise to hang discussions on. Relative to the USDA grain and sugar pyramid, I think most people are probably better off “low-carb”. Using “VLC” seems to have a more useful and clear meaning, but I wouldn’t recommend low-carb in the VLC sense across the same sens as relative low carb. People tend to bring their own meanings of “low-carb” to discussions. I try to use it differently when talking to people in the SAD paradigm than my use among paleo adherents, but it still seems problematic.
On the broader level: In the last several months, it has felt to me like the paleo barometer has flipped from the Inuit paradigm to the Kitavan paradigm. As outliers, both seem similarly problematic. We know that adaptations to things like lactose are highly geographically correlated. As an island population (or populations), Melanesians are more likely to have undergone strong selection pressures (with respect to diet) than continental populations… generally. There is no good reason to use Kitavans as the gold standard paleo ideal than there is any other population. I would go further and say there are good reasons not to invoke the Kitavans’s diet in such a way. It’s not an accident that many of Darwin’s insights came from comparing differences from one island population to the next. It’s also not an accident that island populations tend not to be “hunter-gatherers” in the immediate return sense. Tight geographical constraints significantly influence physical and cultural evolution.
I agree with all of that, Andrew. The Kitavans and similar populations and Inuit serve only to illustrate potential extremes. It’s valuable in that context but likely not optimally applicable to any individual.
Excellent post
^ this
(and if you look at Kevin’s posts in that frame, they will make much more sense)
If you think what Andrew wrote was in ANY way what Kevin was “arguing,” then you are truly in need of remedial English reading comprehension efforts.
I bought and liked Paul Jaminet’s book but I can’t help think that the current starch-mania is driven more by faddishness and the political microclimate in this little backwater.
I’m not a scientist myself, so I find myself handicapping who both seems to really understand the biochemistry and is also honest — ie, isn’t trying to be hip, build blog traffic or a career, help a pal or avenge a slight. (And I rule out anyone who is gratuitously bitchy or seems to be on a jihad against a single person.)
I also rule out the “synthesizers”, because I don’t see what they give me over the AP’s health feed. This does rule out a lot of cool people — Sisson, Naughton, Nikoley, ad infinitum — who might be great writers & popularizers, but don’t add any actual data, nor, I suspect, actually truly understand the biochemistry. (And as I think Richard has noted, the map is not the terrain!)
It becomes a short list. For me, both Drs. Feinman are on it, as is Peter/Hyperlipid, and a few others. My “go to” guy remains Mike Eades, purely because on a gut level, he strikes me as a fundamentally honest man. I’ve watched him change his mind and say so when the research warranted it (but never to chase any given month’s paleo rabbit.)
I’m still waiting to be convinced he’s wrong here:
http://proteinpower.com/drmike/low-carb-diets/are-we-meat-eaters-or-vegetarians-part-iii/
Of course, we are meat eaters, but in context of vast variations of both what’s available as well as variations in drive and desire…trade offs. In other words, go out hunting or pick fruit, dig up tubers, etc?
I think you may be short sighted to dismiss synthesizers out of hand. I’m proudly one and yes, I’d like to build the blog bigger too–why else do this, to read what I write? Here’s the thing, I can’t fake data. Not even a little bit. I can cherry pick, of course, but that applies to the data gatherers as well in how they select test subjects, what variables they focus on, on and on. To me, being a synthesizer involves sourcing from large numbers of data, studies, articles, opinions and whatever in order to create a map that looks logically consistent and I very much appreciate your reference as to the map not being the terrain. Absolutely correct. I have only my integrity, put myself out there daily and always and fully expect to be taken to task if I fuck up. It’s not like I’m cloistered in some University, food or drug company, remain anonymous and don’t answer emails.
Everyone is still on their own, no matter what and anyone telling you otherwise is either dishonest or mistaken or worse.
Incidentally, Mike is not only a friend of mine but part II (kleiber’s law and ETH) of that series is probably the most linked-to post among my posts on this blog.
Hi, Richard,
I should’ve been more clear. I definitely don’t dismiss the “synthesizers” in the sense of not reading and enjoying them; I just don’t rely on them to try to figure out what I should eat now.
I also should have mentioned Chris Masterjohn and Denise Minger as two people I read particularly carefully. (Although Minger is not a biochemist, her apparent virtuosity with statistics helps me figure out which scientists know what they’re talking about.)
“I just don’t rely on them to try to figure out what I should eat now.”
Fair enough, with the proviso that no one does, really.
The farthest I’ll go is that everyone ought to eat real food. Beyond that it’s difficult enough to determine what’s best for you, much less prescribing to everyone you don’t know, based on your favorite data set and conclusions.
In the olden days, people ate real food based on what was available. Out bounty now is a blessing and curse in one, because–especially in urban areas–can literally eat like any population every ate. Opportunity, but complex too.
I pigged out when I lived in France, eating pounds of cheese per week, with the bread. I stayed lean. Moved back in 1992 and put on 20 pounds rather rapidly. Go figure. I attribute it to the food culture and that quality food and preparation was always preferable to junk. Fortunately, I got invited to dinner a lot and ate petit dejuner and lunch on the ship everyday in port,
“I pigged out when I lived in France, eating pounds of cheese per week, with the bread. I stayed lean. Moved back in 1992 and put on 20 pounds rather rapidly. Go figure. I attribute it to the food culture and that quality food and preparation was always preferable to junk.”
A friend I worked with moved to Texas from Mexico. He played for the Mexico City professional soccer team. He was very lean and low body fat percentage. Once he got to the States, he noticed he started bulking up. He attributed that to the quality of food here vs. there. We discussed this quite a bit for months. We both determined it was most likely added hormones. That discussion was what pushed me to look much more closely at WHERE my food came from. What I learned made me ill.
Since ramping up my exercise, I’ve found that I do well daily with bananas and more fruit than I used to eat. I’m not hating that. I’ve also added sweet potatoes back as well as copious amounts of veggies. Much more than when I originally went Primal and then Paleo. I am actually feeling even better with the added carbs and starches. My CrossFit coach views my daily food log and hasn’t told me ONCE to cut back anywhere, because he knows it works for me.
A very important thing about Dr. Eades – he actually treated many people for a weight loss, and must see a lot of personal variation.
The more I move about, the more carbohydrate* I can eat. Simples.
Moving about doesn’t make people fat. If it does, they’re doing something wrong and they should find out what’s wrong and fix it rather than stop moving about.
I’m relieved that there are people out there who are far more irritating than me.
*Sweet potatoes, fruit, Burgen bread.
I’m up for the challange, you inspired me to start eating potatoes, Richard. I have eaten very low-carb the last year but I’m going too start to eat some “safe starches” like potatoes and rice. Even if you eat 4-5 potatoes a day I guess it’s still low carb. Low-carb doesn’t mean you have to be extreme low-carb and be terrified of things like potatoes and bananas.
I’m gonna paper napkin design it to about 150-250g range, so I’d call that moderate carb. I want to keep the fat moderate as well and the protein relatively low, 15% ish.
I eat potatoes in the winter to fatten up and stay warm with ease. But I quickly lose the 15lbs when I stop eating them when summer comes.
It’s funny how he kept talking himself in circles but really kept showing me what I already know: nobody has a firm grasp of what they mean when they say “low carb.” Everyone assumes Atkins but I generally like what Dr. Jeff Volek, a low carb researcher, comes up with:
“In describing diets in narrative, I’d use as a starting point the NHANES data showing that carbohydrate consumption before the obesity epidemic was 43% of total energy… My suggestion is that any diet nominally less than that, say [less than] 35-40%, be considered a “low-carbohydrate diet,” although the caloric level if substantially different from 2000 kcal would have to be indicated.”
The reality is that we’re trying to become what John Berardi describes as follows: “we’re trying to teach the body to become a carb storage machine (thus, giving most of them after the workout so they are preferentially stored in the liver and muscle vs burned as fuel) and a fat burning machine (thus, keeping carbs lower the rest of the day, taking fish oils, etc).” This way you have enough carbs to allow for good workouts, minimizing the use of protein to make carbs to optimally burn fat, but not so much that insulin is compromising lipolysis or preferentially oxidizing glycogen over fatty acids. Of course we’re doing both to some degree all of the time but we’re trying to swing the pendulum in that direction.
Lower carbohydrates I can get behind but not “low” as a blanket statement under all circumstances. An endurance athlete is going to need a hell of a lot more in the way of carbohydrates than a person whose day goes like this: drive to work -> sit in cube -> drive home -> go to sleep.
Anyone who says they they have a 100% clear answer doesn’t know how much they don’t know…it all depends. Context matters.
Awesome post, chock full of common sense. To me it is as simple as if you can kill it with a stick, pick it from a plant or dig it from the ground then it is good to go to eat it. I can’t imagine walking past a tuber since it was a carb. Makes no Frikin sense to me. Just eat real food!
Thanks for keeping it real.
Skyler, LOL
Jeff
Seems like you saw it before the correction, ha!
Until age 14, the vast majority of my food intake was from potatoes . I was a skinny runt, then I immigrated to the U.S.A. where I started eating the SAD, lots of sweets and grains. At age 21 I weighed in the mid 120’s, by age 70 I was at about 208, that’s an increase of about 16 lbs. per year. I’m now back down to about 170 due to eating paleo/primal about 75-80% at age 74. Also got off of statin, hypertension and acid reflux meds. By the way the 20-25% non paper is mostly from potatoes and light beer (of course being German, I do like an occasional good beer). Oh yeah, my health is improved, still put in a lot hours working, and I walk when I golf, unlike friends and bro. I golf with always insist on taking a cart.
Had an interesting email exchange with Jimmy….seems his Christianity keeps him from believing in evolution. Therefore he doesn’t believe in “Paleo” man. He had another christian nut case on and the theme was there is no Paleo diet because evolution is a “theory” Those really were his words.
Jimmy will have anyone on who has somethng to say lots of people want to hear. He’s pretty pragmatic about these things and while I don’t know exactly what he’s up to precisely right now, he did clearly announce after AHS which he attended that he was low carb paleo, ie, cutting out LC junk food.
I have never thought Jimmy needed to conform to my values to be a value n his ouw right.
My biggest problem with adding potatoes (theoretically, because I have to be in ketosis, or at least near it, for health reasons) is that it means you have to limit either fat or protein, it even looks like that some people will have to start counting calories. The big appeal of LC eating – it is hard to over-eat. I hope, Richard, you will not have any problems. Good luck!
Galina, it’s hard to over-eat veggies. Even sweet potatoes baked in their jackets. They contain a lot of fibre.
Nigel, many people me included have no problem with eating big volumes of food, especially if it is how they eat all the time. I used to experience an equivalent of the “China’s Buffet Effect” described by Dr.Bernstein on regular basis before I started eating LC food. I have been eating home-cooked meals with big amount of fiber all my life . So, small portions of satiating food being eaten infrequently is one of benefits of LC diet for me. I am not saying it is the way to go for everyone, but it is annoying to watch how big crowd of people stopped eating carbs themselves and denied their children a fruit just because somebody said so, then got angry, declared LC to be a dogma, and all in rush started to eat potatoes, sorry guys, it looks like a pattern of a flock of sheep. What about personal experimentation? We all not the same , if Richard can eat something, it means almost nothing for you.
Is English your first language?
No
I’ve been eating a lot of carbs lately in the form of maki sushi rolls and been feeling really good with them. I’ve attributed this to some extra clean carbs in the form of white rice and also to the healthy trace minerals in the nori, especially iodine.
If you want a quick and dirty source of carbs + some healthy seaweed, you might try a maki “burrito”. I just make some rice, and maybe slice up some carrots, bell pepper and fake crab (cause I’m a cheap bastard), roll it up and let it sit for a minute or two to soften the nori, then eat it with a bit of soy sauce and wasabi. I like it so that my nose hairs are burned away, saves me having to clip them. Real maki can be made with a bit more effort, of course, I even add a bit of white sugar to the rice along with the vinegar but that tiny bit of cheating is made up for by the healthy nature of the seaweed IMO. I also hold some mythical belief that wasabi has some magical health properties, but this is really just a masochistic excuse.
Damnit, this comment was supposed to go by itself down below, but while we are on the subject, why the fuck does it matter if Galina is a native English speaker, Sarah? You are just curious or you are being an obnoxious krava?
best wasabi comment ever
Maybe I’m lucky in that my mum wasn’t (and now I’m not) a “great” cook.
The food I cook is very simple and usually consists of a small piece of frozen meat, a bit of seasoning and a pile of frozen stir-fry veggies on top. I then microwave the lot. I don’t use fancy sauces as those increase the reward, leading to over-eating.
I microwave sweet potatoes in their jackets and dunk slices in various dips to lubricate their passage down my throat.
If you can over-eat veggies cooked my way, then low-carbing is definitely for you.
I can over-eat simple food, especially potatoes in any form, except cold from the fridge. I often boil my meat, especially chicken and tong, sometimes liver. I was raised on boiled and steamed food because in Russia it was the standard diet for a child with allergies. I love to eat.
Lol. Great post. I definitely appreciate the disambiguation between “diet” and “understanding.” It’s very tiring explaining the diet to my friends — especially the ones who think they already know what it is.
So looks like Kevin headed over to the MDA forum to annoy those people too.
Looks like Jakey has his MO down pretty well:
“kevin, i’ve read your posts here and elsewhere. you’re like a guy who read taubes, was blown away, and keeps banging his head against a wall on these forums asking people to challenge The Gary’s Good Word. when anyone provides anything useful, you find a way to shoot it down, or ask for science. the science is out there, not hidden. you can find it and compare it to what gary’s written.”
Richard, your view on what is paleo and carb variability is so sensible (I just can’t say “common sense”, as there’s nothing common about it!) that it’s a relief to read your blog.
Now I have a pressing question and I’m wondering if your ‘synthesis’ of the literature might give you some idea about this : what is a sensible caloric daily requirement for a 40-ish, moderately active woman?
Any calculators I’ve used, any books I’ve read, any popular macro or micronutrient recommendations seem to be based on what to me is a frustratingly high 1800C or so. If I eat that much I put on a pound a week immediately. I’m very healthy in every way (weight, activity, immunity, blood work, blood pressure etc, eg. my pride and joy : resting bpm 54) and I do resistance exercise slow/heavy 2-3times a week and low-level long-time sports/play regularly. Yet I average a carefully measured 1300-1500C a day, depending on play that day or not, and it’s mostly meat and veggies, no grains. So it amazes me to no end to not only hear calorie recommendations for weight loss (a fairly bankrupt idea anyway) that are higher than what I can manage sustainably, but also grams of Carbs or other macronutrient recommendations that are based on an ‘average’ caloric intake of 2000-2200C. Given 2/3 of the population is overweight or obese and most are also sedentary (office or service workers), where in the world does that number come from, do you know?
BTW, I don’t mind pricking my fingers (fascinated scientist schtick, I guess….) and while potatoes will raise my glucose very soon after the meal (eg. within 15′), they don’t raise it as high as bread and it drops again comparatively quickly. A cup of Hash-browns for breakfast, or a potato for dinner a couple of times a week: no weight or energy/health effects whatsoever. n=1 contribution to your potato experiment, from this healthy, insulin-sensitive female, for what its worth 🙂
I’ll be very interested to see what your and your readers’ potato experiments show 🙂
I think it totally depends on the person. I am fairly active (workout 4x a week–mainly lifting weights and short sprints), 52 yo, weigh 118 at 5’3″ and 15.4% body fat at current. About 3-4 lbs less in the summer. I eat around 2200-2500 cals a day and macros vary but are in the range of 20-30% protein, 15-25 ish carbs and 50-60% fat, more carbs in the summer. One of my coaches is 38, workouts about 4-5x a week plus running is 5’5″, 150 and about 24% bf. If she eats more than about 1500 cals a day she gains. She is also primal/paleo. We did the identical training program getting ready for my once in a lifetime endurance event (the Tough Mudder) last fall. She gained muscle, strength and endurance and her weight stayed the same keeping her nutrition the same. I lost muscle, strength but gained some endurance, had to dramatically increase calories and still lost weight. Her constitution is heartier. To a degree, genetics imho.
Paula, Thanks for the clear example. I’m thinking my constitution must have once been a survival advantage in the wild, so it’s my pet peeve that it’s rather a handicap in these times!
I cannot answer any of your questions, but your comment about counting calories got my attention. For the short time that I have been getting into the Paleo way, I find joy in Not counting calories (mostly because I never was “into” that method). In this Paleo journey, I have already learned to judge the right amount of food to put into my stomach, as I used to get occasional acid reflux from eating too much at one time.
Mary, that seems to be a fairly common advantage of ‘Paleo’, but also I think with any “low carb” lifestyle (dare I say, ‘right carb’ for each activity level/lifestyle/geographical background?). I too don’t normally monitor my intake, but I did for a month in order to set a baseline when I started adjusting my nutrition and I occasionally spot-check for a week at a time if I change anything in lifestyle (eg.vacation, exercise level, sleep etc). I’ve never had acid reflux, but that sounds like a very handy gauge!
That’s what I do. I usually log for about 3-4 weeks after winter is over and then spot check once or twice throughout the rest of the year for about a week.
Paula, great minds… 😉
So did the same training get both you and your coach through Tough Mudder, despite the different physiological effects?
I’m more than up for the challenge, because I’ve never been much of a meat eater my whole life. I’ve been at my leanest when I was eating the most carbs (and, to be candid, a LOT of sugar)… but I was also doing a ton of physical activity.
I would be curious to know if you’ve been tracking calories lately, and if you’re able to track your caloric intake when you switch to more carbs.
I know more than a handful of Paleo people who, when you check their dietary changes, had cut their caloric intake by 20-30%. Hard to tell if the absence of grains in increase in meat/fat was a factor for their weight loss, or if the lower calories was. Admittedly, the higher fat/protein was satiating for them, allowing them to handle the caloric reduction. And, sadly, I don’t find fat/protein satiating so I never got that effect.
In a related note, has anyone ever brought up Clarence Bass… 76, I believe, and he’s been under 7% bodyfat for over 40 years.. with a high carb, low fat, medium protein (and TONS of grains/dairy) diet. If nothing else, he highlights the “maybe not one size fits all” idea.
I personally know several people who react on eating carbs with an increased desire to move more and feel more worm, I think it is a strong indication that a carb-sentered diet is right for them. I am more alert and active on small high-fat LC meals.
Why does everyone feel you need to reduce fat with carbs? I thought all traditional cultures basically ate carbs swimming in fat so as to reduce the glycemic load and promote satiety. Has our body not evolved the ability to partition energy sources?
I can’t stand carbs without fat–BLAND. My potatoes, both sweet and white are usually swimming with yummy raw butter. And a healthy sprinkling of sea salt.
Sea salt? What salt isn’t sea salt?
“Satiety” reminds me of something that I knew in my childhood — back before “low-fat” became a “thing”. I remember the concept that a food or meal would “stick to my ribs” (i.e., feel full or stay in my stomach) longer because of the butter or fat in it.
For many carbs+fat combination is very fattening.
Me, too (I now know), but apparently some have a different experience under various circumstances. I think that leans towards one of the themes of this thread: that each person learn know his/her your own body reacts to different inputs (and combinations thereof) is key.
typo above: “know” ==> “how”
Contex, again, how much fat, how often?
Yea, likely you can get away with far more fat on steak & salad, but is it really the fat, or the totall calories when you add the starch?
See, this is why when adding starch which is macro dense, I naturally lowered my meat & fat portions,
I’m annoying smart in that regard.
Sorry, but I don’t agree FWIW. Kevin had good points, the starch defence team (except for Paul Jaminet if one bothers to look at his site and only then) team has really really weak justification. It was either personal anecdote, begging the question (especially your last response to him about “Tim, there aren’t virtually any pros that eat a paleo diet. Now why do you think that is?” was ironic, because it was the argument starch argument of Tim reversed to paleo, only as an illustration of its flaw).
I can see how his questioning might have been irritating, but if you reread carefully and in time order, you can see that he was right all along, the “starch defence team” has piss weak arguments, several logical flaws in their rhetoric (p.ex. begging the question as you noticed) and a bias that make them blind.
The thing they all missed and you especially was that his critique was on the form of your arguments not on the content.
It’s sad that you censored him, because I enjoyed the exchange. It’s your blog so you do whatever you like, but if you want to be more like banana echo chamber continue on that path.
“It’s sad that you censored him, because I enjoyed the exchange. It’s your blog so you do whatever you like, but if you want to be more like banana echo chamber continue on that path.”
It’s hyperbole like this that makes me question your honesty and judgement and accordingly, very easy to dismiss your opinion. I’m not the only one who judged Kevin’s comments after the first few as incoherent, evasive, antagonistic for no good reason, backpedaling, etc.
And he wasn’t “censored.” His roughly 40 comments out of 200 or so (1 in 5), remain. I simply showed him the door.
I think jocelyn357 has an excellent handle on his contribution to the thread and actually put for the effort to read carefully as is evident by all the quotes she used. I’ll go with her assessment, thank you very much.
“the “starch defence team” has piss weak arguments, several logical flaws in their rhetoric”
This signals to me that you comprehend neither my post nor the comment thread very well. There is no defense of starch anywhere. There is merely the testimonial of some that it has improved their state of affairs for both hungry kids and/or themselves, with some even saying that it works great for their kids but not for them.
Kevin, on the other hand, defended LC (50-70g of carbs) for one and all, all time and place and when challenged, began backpedaling, causing people of putting words in his mouth, flawed logic, etc.
Essentially, he got banned because his post rate was 20% of all comments on a large thread and he hadn’t said a single thing new since about his 5th comment.
So not to belabor this too much, gallier2, nor to make light of your many great contributions to comments over the years, but here’s an example of why I have to take your assessment here with kind of a “grain of salt.”
https://freetheanimal.com/2011/12/whole30-paleo-how-i-failed-but-succeeded.html#comment-95110
gallier2 // Dec 9, 2011 at 05:19:
“Excision doesn’t mean what you think it means. In the way you used it, it would mean that you would stop not going to restaurants.
“But as a French, the word ticked me especially off, because its main meaning in French is female genital mutilation (a meaning that it can also have in English but much less frequently).”
I replied:
Richard Nikoley // Dec 9, 2011 at 07:52:
“gallier:
“Well, it’s another damn-you-auto-correct moment. I had to go searching ’cause I had no idea what you were talking about.
“The word was supposed to have been ‘excursions,’ not excisions.”
So without extending the most basic benefit of the doubt, you essentially dub me someone that makes light of or fun of female genital mutilation. That you are well aware I have some familiarity with the French language makes it all the more egregious. There was no “are you sure that’s what you meant to write?”
Nor did you post any sort of “my bad” conciliation when pointed out that it was an innocent typo.
So I’m still going with jocelyn’s assessment.
” the “starch defence team” has piss weak arguments, several logical flaws in their rhetoric (p.ex. begging the question as you noticed) and a bias that make them blind.”
Completely.
I have followed your comments for months, gallier2 — thank you for them.
And that would all be cool and shit if there was any such thing here. Actually, I haven’t read a single post or comment that I’m aware of on the whole safe starches debate. Had already verified for myself that I could have some potato and white rice with no I’ll effects or weight gain. Other individuals have done likewise. And now I’m going to take it to the next level and go some time at 40-50% carb from starch to see how it goes.
You all suffer from the same myopic paradigm: that there is anything close to a prescription for all…well, except for don’t ingest outright poison. I’ll buy that one.
In terms of grain and sugar based processed foods, even then it’s difficult to tell for any given individual. Huge difference between having a bit of crusty baguette with your meals and chewing down on huge bagels, sandwiches, burgers and pizza just about every day.
Hmm. So now wheat bread’s okay, if in moderation, or perhaps if French.
I’m not sure that even Mssr. Gallier would concur.
The progressive revisionism is pretty funny. Yams are anointed. Then rice. Then potatoes. Then baguettes. (But American wheat products are verboten.)
Baguettes with your meals, but not bagels? How is that anything but stupid?
Anyway, I seem to be in the minority in thinking that the entire paleo “movement” has jumped the shark in chasing Guyenet’s tangent.
But at least you all agree. That’s gotta feel good. 🙂
“So now wheat bread’s okay, if in moderation, or perhaps if French.”
Only as a rare indulgence for me, like a nice restaurant. I’m simply making the point that “the dose makes the poison.” Can’t recall whether the comment was in this thread or another, but when I lived & worked in France for 2 years, ’90-’92, I was a Navy exchange officer embarked on two of their ships at different times. They eat very, very well and I partook. At sea, all meals of course. In port, I’d eat some baguette, butter and tea or cafe au lait in the morning, enormous lunch and would often hit a local hole in wall restaurant in my neighborhood in the evening. I remained lean, nice & lean, even though I ate pounds of cheese per week and a decent amount of bread. Moved back to USA in ’92 and put on 20 pounds in a matter of months.
The explanation? No idea, other than that there’s a difference in food culture in that the French—at least in 1990—always preferred home cooking or cooking with care to any sort of processed, boxed, bagged, canned, fast food.
“The progressive revisionism is pretty funny.”
Call it what you like, but from where I sit it looks to me like you’re the one with a certainty and made up mind. That’s gotta feel good.
@gallier2- I’m guessing your a starch free low carber that believes the optimal human diet is meat, veggies, and some fruit? Pretty much what kevin was prescribing. What were these great points that kevin was making in defence of a diet like that? Cause your opinion certainly is the minority. Besides not answering most of anyones questions when he was asked something and claiming everyone was putting words in his mouth, he really wasn’t saying shit. He claimed that bodybuilders eating carbohydrate had nothing to do with building muscle, I responded with why literally no pros eat a starch free diet (which of course he never answered) if starch really has nothing to do with gaining mass. The fact that most don’t eat paleo has nothing to do with it. Carbs are just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to building muscle. Pros would most likely have even better results if they stuck with paleo starches as their carbs. They eat sub-optimal sources of starch and yet still gain more muscle than someone who was on a starchless low carb diet. Which is basically what they do when they are cutting, they eat pretty much a paleo low carb diet like the 1 kevin believes in. If that diet is optimal for gaining muscle and starch really has zero to do with it, than the question still stands. Why are no pros (who’s job it is 2 build the maximun amount of muscle possible) eat that way while they are on there bulking phase as well as their cutting phase? I could really care less what they eat. But when u make statement like he did (when literally no 1 in that profession eats that way) it was another perfect example of him talking out of his ass.. As far as the so called starch defence team lol I could of copy and pasted a bunch of shit from pauls blog about glucose deficiency (I probly should have) but he could have done the same thing from the Dr Eades blog or any other low carb advocate. There’s science backing up every diet out there man. From low carb to high carb, why do you think everyones so fuckin confused. So I could really care less about the science end even though it is interesting. Personal real world experience is top dog, period.
Tim you have to understand. Amazingly, few people seem to really understand your point about _professionals_.
Amazing to me, but I guess I learn something new every day.
Lol same here man. I thought maybe I wasn’t being clear enough..Like they say the proofs in the pudding. I know I put on more muscle adding in some starch 2 my meat heavy diet. If a protein and fat only diet (since non starch veggies are virtually free of glucose) was the magic formula for building muscle you’d think there would be atleast 1 or 2 dudes in the Mr universe competitions taking advantage of that secret.
Has anyone else found the switchover from KerryGold sticks of (salted) butter to the “now softer” tub butter to really detriment the taste? I used to LOVE LOVE LOVE the Kerrygold (sticks) I got from Costco (alas, they only carry it around St. Pat’s Day {eye roll}). My local Publix carried the (salted) sticks — at a much higher price, but it was KerryGold, so worth it — but then KerryGold began (I guess) pushing the tubs: “spreadable right out of the fridge!” and Publix carries the unsalted sticks, but only tubs of salted. I gotta say: YUCK!! The taste is very very different, I don’t like unsalted, and St Pat’s Day is still a ways away!
I raised a little hell with KerryGold (in email) about ‘adulterating’ the tub stuff and ruining the taste — which they say they have not. Okay, so they’ve just whipped it up (or what?) so I’m buying expensive air?! (Oh yay {eye roll}, but if the taste were the same/acceptable, I wouldn’t complain, and would just pay extra for air!)
I’ve even given up on KerryGold and gone back to Costco’s “organic” (which doesn’t seem to be pasture butter… {sigh}) until Costco gets the stick KerryGold back – thankfully, I have a chest freezer, and butter freezes just fine!) I thought maybe it was MY taste buds (n=1?) — but the Costco butter tastes just fine, just like decent butter… The KerryGold tub stuff?! YUCK!! {sigh}
Before we went Paleo, we used to only eat sprouted breads. We have three Publix stores locally, and two of them stopped carrying sprouted breads and – of all things – coconut oil. We talked to the store managers and they eventually came around and started to carry these items again. I think you should talk to the Publix managers about what their customers (you) want.
See
It’s softer than normal because it has a higher percentage of omega-3 fat (which has a much lower melting point than saturated fats so it acts as “antifreeze”) than normal. This is due to the grass that the cows are eating.
Nigel, it says nothing about a higher percentage of omega 3s. What is your source for this?
My brain. The only way to make sat fats softer at a given temperature is to add mufas and/or pufas to it. Other companies use veg oils to do this.
I don’t believe that eating more grass increases mufas. It must therefore be more omega-3 and/or more CLA. I forgot about the CLA.
I think you are right. I usually get a beef fat (from grass-fed animals) from our local natural food store, and it looks unusually soft and yellow compare to the ones from grain-fed cows.
The yellowness is due to beta-carotene (from all that lovely grass they ate).
Yellowness in grass-fed beef fat is NOT from beta carotene, but from retinol. Digestive and enzymatic processes in animals produce retinol from beta carotene. Both are considered by nutritionists to be “vitamin A”, however, only retinol is “immediately” useful for bodily function.
That being said, grass-fed beef fat is a great source for most fat-soluble nutrients.
Is it not a shame that the wonderful fat was suppose to be thrown away because in even natural food store customers prefer lean meat? I got it because I complained that their ground beef was too lean.
Check Whole Foods Market if it is in your area, they carry a very reasonably priced lightly salted pastured butter.
Excellent post, Richard. I missed the discussion on the first one about kids, but I can say this: my kids do well for longer periods between meals when I give them some starch or (gasp!) sourdough bread with their meals. I was VLC paleo for a time but was going nuts on that regimen, so I added potatoes and some rice back into the diet, and revived my skills with sourdough and learned to sprout flours for bread.
We eat 90% real, homecooked food and all of us feel better for it. In the early stages of my current pregnancy, when morning sickness abated, I would be ravenously hungry but meat and veggies weren’t cutting it. Sweet potatoes, white potatoes, rice with stir fries – all of those did the trick and kept me feeling full and satiated. That got me thinking that perhaps I have a different adaptation to a high level of starch in my diet than some others might. I’ve never had my genes mapped and I’m not even sure what markers to look for that would indicate adaptation to starchier foods or grains, but I know I do not have digestive problems with these foods and as long I do all of the QC on the ingredients, I can keep excess sugar, artificial flavors, rancid oils, and other unknowns out of our diet.
It’s doing us a world of good all around, and to be honest it is making food prep for my kids easier. They are not the pickiest eaters, but they don’t want to snack on bacon and turkey chunks all day either. Carrots and veggies with cottage cheese (we do dairy, and I make my own cheeses out of raw milk) or apples and almond butter are paleo/primal but definitely not low carb, fill them up, keep them moving and growing, and in good moods. I notice my hunger is controlled better and my weight is not increasing too much with this pregnancy.
I suppose I’ve more or less abandoned pure paleo in favor of a WAP approach, which is better than going full McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts all day.
I can appreciate that you called the “Cordain Paleo Diet” absolute bullshit, Richard. While you are at it, why not include your friend, “Sisson Primal Blueprint”, and his description of insidious weight gain when consuming over 150 grams of daily carbs?
On the other end of the spectrum, T. Colin Campbell maybe fudged some data (I don’t know what “corrected” coefficients are), but I dig his promotion of whole plant foods (although I don’t exclude animal food). My approach is eat more gathered foods and less hunted foods.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Kelly.
I am not dissing low or moderate carb. I’m simly pointing out that people might actually enjoy higher levels of carbohydrate in real foods and they have no little to no adverse effects or God forbid, actually feel and perform better then why not?
I have no need to slam either Cordain or Mark. I was simly pointing out that Cordain’s vision is not definitive for paleo.
And yes, I even told Campbbell personally on the Amazon debate from hell that we have in common real, unprocessed foods.
“Amazon debate from hell” – what did I miss? I heard the Steve Prussack debate with DurianRider. Where’s the link to this other debate?
It went on for several years, though I only participated for a few months near the end—well, until it dies out again. I believe Campbell started it. It’s Amazon forums, “What are your problems on a low carb diet” or something like that.
Amazon has forums?
Man, I learn something new every day. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about internet things, but I somehow missed this.
I’m reminded of something I read by Chris Masterjohn… It’s true that there is no such thing as an “essential” carbohydrate, but there is no such this as an “essential” monounsaturated or saturated fatty acid either. Does that mean that we should be getting the bulk of our calories from soybean oil? I think it’s pretty clear that a diet that gets a fair amount of calories from saturated and monounsaturated fat is going to be healthier.
I also think of Kurt Harris’s Neolithic Agents of disease. They are wheat, fructose, and excess linoleic acid. Low carb diets are always going to reduce the first two, and before the fifties, linoleic acid wasn’t going to be much of an issue, since vegetable oils just weren’t that common. Maybe carbs aren’t the issue per se, but instead the foods where people get the bulk of their carbs from. William Banting is a perfect example. Yes, his was a low carb diet, but it was also a pretty paleo diet as well. Keep in mind that all his meat was probably wild or pasture raised, all his vegetables were most likely organic, and the little bit of grain he did get from his few daily rusks had not been hybridized in anyway, almost certainly lower in gluten and such. He didn’t have any artificial sweetners, either. True, he didn’t eat potatoes, but he didn’t eat salmon or pork either. It’s possible he could have added all three to his diet, and done just as well, if not better.
Started eating potatoes today, still alive.
So before Richard told you to do so you thought you will be poisoned with potatoes? I bet you are a perfect employee- always follow directions.
Stopped eating potatoes (and wheat) 85 pounds ago. Still alive, and feeling like I’m in my 30s (actual age = 70). Haven’t missed them at all. I just don’t want to tamper with my fat-burning furnace. It’s working like magic.
Nota bene: an avocado (with a little olive oil, vinegar and lemon juice) makes a great substitute for a potato.
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3 1/2 years ago I as carrying around an extra 50 pounds of fat, could barely walk a half mile, the usual woes of a middle aged guy in poor health … gave Atkins a try, worked good, studied the problem with grains, worked better, which of course led me to Paleo … over two years of sustained effort I got to where I was pretty healthy for someone my age. I will be forever grateful for this miraculous change in my life.
But “pretty healthy for someone my age” isn’t much of a goal, I’m a male primate and hardwired to be physically competitive with other males of my species … if I am healthy, if my testosterone levels are where they should be, I am biologically incapable of NOT wanting to be the Alpha Male in the room.
So it’s pretty natural to want to go from “pretty healthy for someone my age” to “hell on wheels” … and low carb CANNOT get me there, I banged my head against that brick wall over and over again and it does not work, I experimented with it for months and months, made no progress for almost a year, gave it everything I had, it DOES NOT WORK, low carb can only take you so far … it will not turn you into a ball of fire, it will not make you hell on wheels.
What “we need” is totally irrelevant because if you are a male primate, and you are functioning as you should, you are driven not by what you “need” but rather by what you “want,” and what you want is to be the Alpha Male in the room,.
utter tripe rob, crack open the anthropology books. You are a human not a chimp, gorilla or wolf
“low carb can only take you so far … it will not turn you into a ball of fire, it will not make you hell on wheels.
Correction: It did for me.
Excellent points, Richard. As you already know , Urgelt told me a long time back that true Paleolithic Diets encompassed an extremely massive variety, and no one single nutrient ratio can define it. 🙂
And I know you yourself have been saying this for a pretty long time now. It’s true. I am happy Stephan Guyenet points this out often as well.
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I generally do not post, but I read this blog regularly. Just to add my experience with starches:
I lost 32 lbs on Paleo 1.0 ( Cordain ). Then for some N=1 fun, I went on the Paul Jaminet Perfect Health Diet where I eat white rice and yams to the tune of 400 – 600 calories a day and I did not gain any weight back at all.
My triglycerides went up a little from 56 t0 71, but are still well within a good range.
Our meals at home are also more enjoyable now.
Howard:
Timely comment. I was just out in the backyard musing to myself about all of this. A day and a half in, including a BIG load of shredded hash browns this morning (bigger than ever in the last few years), 2 eggs, 3 1oz slices of Canadian Bacon and a small bowl of mixed fruit and I feel pretty damn good. I sense a decent uptick in motivation, outlook, well being. Could be placebo or any number of other things including a desire to have a bit more variety _regularly_. I’ve been eating potatoes and white rice for a while, but that might amount to 1-2 potatoes a week and 1-2 cups of cooked rice. To imagine I might be able to do that daily is really a bit of a relief, including the cooking load itself. Flexibility. Time will tell if that aspect leads to the trade off of no longer having much yearning or craving for junk like a fast food burger or pizza.
I think for many if not most healthy people a wide variety of foods eaten in moderation should not be harmful, consider that smoking and drinking is not harmful to everyone. The problem is “the moderation”, people are adopted to live in different environments except the one with the chronic abandons of food 24/7 and we mostly just eat too much food. The limitations people inflict on themselves are often beneficial because such practices as fasting, limiting food choices resemble some natural shortages of our human past and limit the total amount of consumed food. I think, when we have to limit the food, it is more practical to cut on starch and sugar(pure energy), not protein and fats, and of course, it is not the only way. I think you already healed your body to a great degree by following “paleo” way of eating, probably even turning your diet even more toward more sweets and grains will not be harmful right away. I relaxed my diet a lot when I traveled to Russia, however I tried to fast around indulgences. During two months I was fine most of the time, then slowly started to regain weight, had migrains and had to go back to my limitations. I used to be super-hungry after eating carbs, not any more now, but still I feel better eating VLC.
Way to go Rich, now that he was banned from FTA he’s decided to move over to the MDA forums and continue to spew more of his nonsense. He’s made three or four threads, one of which has 10 or 11 pages of people telling him why he’s not getting the picture and Kevin continuing to dodge facts and questions while constantly changing his argument. I tried to hang in there but eventually just gave up, there’s no way my voice will reach someone who has their head so firmly lodged up their own ass. Anyway. love the blog, keep up the good work buddy.
All meaningless to a diabetic, its low carbs or high meds. I know you are banning the messenger and not the message but years ago nobody could say differently as low casrb was not only the rule but the only way. Yeck even Jimmy Moore claims to be paleo, a diet he snickered at years ago. (Jimmy reflects the opinion of his quest 99 percent of the time- check the tapes). Paleo and LC keeps me alive and I make shore when I do eat a plateful of carbs, it is with a strentgh training session. Last summer I gained way too much weight when money was tight and I was eating a lot of veggies from my community garden. And doubled up on some metformin.
I just gotta say it…fuck Taubes on his calories don’t count shit. A few years ago I bought into that horseshit. Ate a ton of fat (steak, shrimp with butter, avacados) but didn’t become a “fat burning machine.” Well, maybe I did, but I was simply burning SOME of what I ate. I gained nine pounds in 6 weeks. Lost a ton of strength, and could barely make it through one goddamned game of raquetball without wanting to pass out.
Adding back in potatoes, rice, and occasionally some pita bread (OH GOD NO!!!!!!) and suddenly my strength came back. My game improved. Did the portion control thing with natural foods and my weight started coming down…with CARBS!
The LC paleo crowd is a fucking joke. Sure, if you’re 65 and play golf every once and while you can probably keep carbs in the 40-50 range per day and not miss a lick. I keep mine like that on days I sit at a desk and don’t workout. But I average around 200+ on workout days as I am active most of the time. All of my health markers are superb.
I’ve been reading your blog for a while, and actually read that whole ridiculous Kevin string. My goodness, was he unpleasant. I heartily support your decision to remove him.
I went low-carb a few months ago and have enjoyed fantastic results from it. I know that my genetic heritage is such that my ancestors didn’t have access to certain foods. A meal that involves most gluten-free starches (I’ve got Celiac), even a small amount, will shoot my blood sugar up into the 200s. So, for MY health and MY weight loss, I keep low-carb because it’s working for ME. I can eat a small amount of brown rice, and sweet potato WITH the skin (but not without or up goes the sugar).
I think going Paleo/Primal/whatever is making sure that you are eating foods that are as natural as possible, and eating them as whole as possible. Other than that, there’s really no “rules” to it and attempting to enforce some set of regulations is just plain silly. It’s obnoxious dogmatism that has no place in an open forum.
omg Kevin is cracking me up!! read some of his posts on the other forum and it’s the same babbling nonsense. Notice how he never has giving specifics of how Paleo worked for him?
I asked him point blank how long he had been doing LC paleo, how much bodyfat % or lbs he’s lost and he never answered. I may have to go bug him over there!
Please do, I’ll likely be banned because I finally lost my patience and brutally trashed him, so another person with common sense to take my place would be awesome.
Haha I was just reading all that shit 2. Hella funny. That dude alex (I think his name is) tore him a new asshole. He was saying how kevin plays with himself to his Gary Taubes poster lol priceless!!
@Ajr- that was u?
Yep, I really lost my patience after he asked for studies then ignored them when I posted them. The whole thread is a giant clusterfuck and most people have just given up.
I’ll have to check that out. I’m assuming you mean the two threads on Sisson’s forum.
Kevin – or anyone really, you mention that you will be eating more white sweet potatoes. Is there a reason why you single out the white variety? How do they differ from the orange kind?
I hear the orange variety has more fructose than the white flesh variety. So if u have a prob with fruit there’s a chance those might be problematic
For me, I prefer the white sweet potatoes by far. Don’t like the texture of what people refer to as yams, which are not yams.
I know a lot of people boil their sweet potato – I don’t like it cooked this way either.
I shred the raw sweet potato (the orange variety) and fry it in fat (lamb or beef gives a good flavour; ghee works as well). During cooking I will add my favourite spices such as cumin, coriander and turmeric. Salt and pepper to taste.
Throw on bacon and egg and you have a great, simple to make meal!
BTW Richard, I just realised I called you Kevin in my previous comment. My apologies.
I’ve been eating purple ones recently. There are both the very sweet Okinawa ones with light beige skin, and other dark purple, less sweet with dark (maroon?) skin. Occasionally I’ll shred into eggs, but usually I roast, along with red/white/purple potatoes, wild potatoes (camotes-I don’t know what these are, other than prbably Filipino in origin, but language barriers at farmers market are such that I don’t ask) and other random roots that I can find, plus a bit of ham sometimes. Except NOT sunchokes, they made me cramp like undercooked eggplant, not fun. Beware these fuckers, unless you can digest inulin, which apparently I cannot.
I’m glad I haven’t run into Kevin, no patience for people like that. Anyway, glad you opened your mind a little, always nice to see people get past dogma. I came over from Colpo’s blog. I’m not a low-carber, doubt I’m paleo as I dislike red meat thus eat little of it, I’m just an ex-fatty who no longer eats so much, especially of the overprocessed crap.
I have to agree with you on the whole “paelo is not just a set stict diet” It can be very varied and from very strict to quite relaxed
I don’t like to get hung up on ratio’s, but at a certain level carbs & fat are bad combination.
What % of calories do you expect will be coming from carbs during your experiment?
I’m aiming for 40-50% from starchy carbs.
That sounds like a problem. As mentioned earlier in the thread, you might consider checking your gluco levels.
You asked if a1c’s are fine, why worry about spiking bg? a1c’s are backwards looking. This change to your diet won’t be reflected in your a1c for some time, but may show up in bg spikes, which might not be good for your heart.
Can you think of any hunter/gatherer groups that eat both fat & carbs?
I look forward to reading about the results of your experiment.
“That sounds like a problem. As mentioned earlier in the thread, you might consider checking your gluco levels.”
I intend to do that. However, my test strips are way out of date and I don’t intend to pop 100 bucks for new ones. Also, my battery is dead so I have to get a new one. I’m going to wait a few days in order to allow my body an adjustment period rather than potentially freaking myself out. Based on the way I feel, however, I doubt there will be an issue. In fact, I suspect my fasting BG will be lower. It has always been on the high side while on LC.
This discussion about carbs seems to be limited to the starchy kind. Why not eat a bunch of fruity carbs full of vitamins and minerals? Surely you aren’t going to get fat eating say 100-200 grams fruity carbs daily, like a few bananas, some citrus, apples and some berries every day, given that you restrict other calories?
I’m including some fruit but for now want to somewhat control variables and see what predominately starch does. And so far, so good. I had the equivalent of two enormous potatoes yesterday and had not the slightest bit of a BG crash. In fact, I was super alert all day and stayed up til 1 am watching Kimmel Live. I’m surprised because from time to time a massive protein & fat meal will put me to sleep. I expected to gain a little water weight because of glycogen and that has not materialized either. In fact, near as I can tell I’ve lost a smidge of weight. Feel alert, very full and satisfied after a meal and it’s now been about 13 hours since I ate last night (huge mashed potatoes with a bit of butter & sour cream, small bit of sliced turkey and a chicken stock reduction gravy) and I’m not hungry. Probably white rice and a couple of fried eggs later.
Perhaps best of all though is a real uptick in mental clarity, outlook, motivation to do things like go the gym later.
I felt like crap getting my carbs from fruit. Some people seem 2 swear by fruit while others have problems with fructose and do better with starch. I knew just meat n non starchy veggies weren’t the answer and I needed a dense carb source. Sweet potatoes were Just what the doctor ordered. Fruit still gives me probs 2 this day
One in every four American is pre-diabetic or diabetic, those number are just expected to get bigger. Paleo without the research and science behind low carb will become just another fad diet. The Paleo movement has benefit greatly from the large amount of people that have made the progression from low carb to Paleo low carb. If Paleo is to become just a collection of gurus with their own book of what Paleo is, with little or no relevance for helping the growing number of those in society damaged by the SAD diet of carbohydrates, its relevance with be greatly diminish. It will also be pretty hard to convince the typical American that Paleo is a healthier alternative when now imitating agricultural societies like is now somehow ideal.
“damaged by the SAD diet of carbohydrates”
It’s not a SAD diet of carbohydrates. It’s a SAD diet of flour and sugar based processed foods.
But yea, I know that for some the process of expanding knowledge and experience is tantamount to the sky falling while wringing hands.
Oh noos! People are eating potatoes!
Eating healthy and natural foods wont become a fad. The paleo diet as a marketed diet and brand may become a fad, but nobody with an ounce of common sense is going to view eating real foods we’ve consumed for millions of years as a fad. Also, it’s poor to assume that it’s only the carbs in SAD that lead to health issues as numerous studies and evidence show that it’s the isolated fructose, isolated plant fats, chemicals, additives, and the numerous other garbage found in modern processed foods that is making industrialized countries so unhealthy. People are sitting on their asses and consuming a surplus of garbage and that’s why we’re getting so unhealthy. You can’t just point your finger at carbs or insulin without looking at the picture as a whole. Neither carbs nor insulin exist in a vacuum, and while it’s true that heavily processed carbs play a role in things like diabetes and obesity there are other factors within both the food and the specific lifestyle that need to be taken into consideration.
If all carbs were the singular factor behind these diseases they wouldn’t be a relatively new phenomenon because we’ve been consuming various amounts of carbs for our entire evolutionary history as a species. There are numerous examples of indigenous people that eat moderate to high amounts of carbs from natural sources and don’t show to tendency for obesity,heart disease, and diabetes that industrialized cultures show. Now, when these indigenous people became more modernized and started consuming more conventional processed foods they started seeing a steady rise in the instances of these diseases.
If someone has a damaged metabolism then eating a low carb diet based on natural foods can absolutely benefit them as science has shown. Now, it’s incorrect to then jump to the conclusion that just because someone who has damaged themselves eating processed foods can benefit from low carb that it’s the optimal diet and should be applied to the majority or entirety of humanity or even go so far as to say that all carbs are bad for all people. These people have metabolisms that aren’t functioning how they are naturally intended to, and things like insulin resistance aren’t the only factor. I’ve yet to see any convincing or well researched evidence that natural carb sources are bad for people with a properly functioning metabolism, and I doubt I ever will because our evolutionary history and common sense indicates that such notions are simply false.
So, sounds like Matt Stone won the carb war. Hi Matt
How so? He is prescribing levels of carbs for people and that’s not what’s going on here. Obviously, there are lots of people doing just fine on LC or even VLC. Unlike Stone, I’m not about to diagnose then with hypothyroidism and a low body temperature over the Internet based on a profile pic.
So for shits & giggles I entered yesterday’s ad libitum consumption into FitDay just to see how it would come out. I didn’t weigh or measure anything so am pretty much guestimating quantities:
Breakfast
2 cups hash browns
2 fried eggs
3 slices canadian bacon
1 cup of fruit (melons & berries)
Lunch
2 beers 🙂
Dinner
1 large potato mashed w 1 tbs butter and 1 tbsp sour cream
3 oz turkey breast
1 cup of chicken stock reduced to sauce w a dash of white wine and pat of butter
Protein: 72.5g, 294cal, 13%
Fat: 94.6g, 845cal, 39%
Carb: 213.1g, 850cal, 39%
Alcohol: 28.1g, 195cal, 9%
For the rest of the week I will be abstaining from alcohol.
For breakfast just now, I had about 2 cups white rice, 2 fried eggs on top, and 2 tbs butter. Comes out to about 10 / 37 / 53 P / F / C
I feel very good, quite upbeat and positive about how this will work out.
I eat like that on a daily basis (minus the booze) and I haven’t seen any negative results from it. The fat gets burned, the muscle gets packed on, and I feel great all day. My meals today have been:
Break fast:
1 big ass slab of prime rib
1 baked potato with a nice glob of butter
Lunch:
2 bananas
Big salad w/ grilled chicken, fresh greens, red onions, sliced jalapeno, shredded raw cheddar cheese, and a dressing made of EV olive oil, garlic, and a little balsamic vinegar
Dinner will probably be some white rice and veggies with a burger patty made of grass fed beef organs and muscle topped with a butter garlic sauce. Some people would call this crazy, I mean just look at all those evil carbohydrates I’m consuming!
[…] Posts RSS ← Why ‘Low-Carb For Everyone’ Advocate Kevin Geary Got Himself Banned […]
Over on the MDA forums Kevin is now referring to carbs as “poison”…..Jesus Christ some of the low carb zealots are as bad as vegans.
[…] . […]
Umm… banning someone is not so much cowardly, as being the blog OWNER and dealing an annoyance effectively. Way to go. Love the way the true colors and name-calling come out in private.
Anyway, someone who posts 30-40 comments on a post needs to find a hobby, so you’re doing them a favor.
I do better on a low-carb diet, but don’t totally restrict them. Sorry, there are too many tasty foods that happen to have carbs. Plus I can tell when I’ve gone too far by how my energy levels fare a few hours after meals, and adjust accordingly. I aim for even energy.
[…] my self experiment with adding back about 4 times the carbohydrate I was previously eating here. Two days later, I gave an update and macronutrient breakdown here, demonstrating that I'd gone […]
I just put nuked sweet potatoes (w/ butter)back in my diet and noticed increased energy doing dead lifts and other weight lifting. I also added D-Ribose as advised by the Doctors Eades in the book The 6 Week Cure for the Middle-Aged Middle to prevent soreness although it does not stop all soreness -_-
[…] announced his increased carbohydrate experiment here were he descibes buying in supplies of regular and […]
I don’t know why most people can’t figure out that only a certain segment of the population benefits from a vlckd (very-low-carb ketogenic diet).
I’m one of them – but then again I’m quite diabetic with most of my pancreatic beta-cell function gone. I simply don’t produce enough insulin to handle much in the way of carbohydrate.
Here’s the thing people – A very-low-carb ketogenic diet is GREAT for starting your weight-loss journey IF you’re seriously obese AND you have metabolic syndrome or diabetes AND you are inactive.
If you are active, you can eat more carbohydrate and maintain both a steady weight-loss and glycemic control. (And by “active” I don’t mean walking for 20 minutes, I mean seriously engaging in some high-intensity exercise.)
If you’re obese but do NOT have metabolic syndrome or diabetes, you may benefit from dietary ketosis IF other methods of weight loss aren’t working AND you tolerate the very-low-carb lifestyle well. But unfortunately some people don’t.
The kicker is once you’ve started to lose excess weight, get insulin-resistance and glycemic levels under control, you can start to add healthy non-starchy carbohydrate back into your diet. Heck, some people can add starchy carbohydrate if they choose – Not me.
There is simply no way that a VLCKD is necessary for most people for their entire lives. For me, because I don’t want to supplement insulin, yes. For others in my condition, sure. But if you exercise, eat naturally as all science and anthropological/archaeological evidence shows we were intended to – guess what? You lose fat, have great glycemic control, your skin improves, all currently known “markers” of heart-health improve …
The important thing is finding the macronutrient balance that works for you, as an individual.
… and you enjoy life a heckuva lot more.
I use VLC diet for different things , it benefited more for my health than for a weight loss (I lost only 32 lb but luckily it was enough). It improved greatly most of my health conditions, I don’t struggle with an excessive hunger any longer. For some people, even for active ones, carb limitation is extremely important.
[…] my self experiment with adding back about 4 times the carbohydrate I was previously eating here. Two days later, I gave an update and macronutrient breakdown here, demonstrating that I’d […]