Archives for March 2012

Waiting for the winds of change
To sweep the clouds away
Waiting for the rainbow’s end
To cast its gold your way
Countless ways
You pass the days

Waiting for someone to call
And turn your world around
Looking for an answer to
The question you have found
Looking for
An open door

You don’t get something for nothing
You don’t get freedom for free
You won’t get wise
With the sleep still in your eyes
No matter what your dreams might be

What you own is your own kingdom
What you do is your own glory
What you love is your own power
What you live is your own story
In your head is the answer
Let it guide you along
Let your heart be the anchor
And the beat of your own song

I’m a bit late for this, but it’s still running. I don’t know for how long, so do it now. Takes but a few minutes.

The 2012 paleo Community Survey is Active

To see an example of the data produced, check out the results from last year (PDF), in which over 6,000 folks participated.

by Russ Crandall

As the Paleo FX Ancestral Momentum – Theory to Practice Symposium (so glad they didn’t go with the long version of the event’s name) wound down last week, it felt like the Paleo blogging world and its faithful audience (hereafter “Paleosphere”) had worked itself up into a frenzy. Over what, I’m not quite sure. It may have just been the gathering of like-minded individuals with strong online presences. What left a lasting impression was the tone of the Paleosphere during the event, and it just so happened that the timely coalescence of paleo personalities and its ensuing social media onslaught brought everything to a head for me.

You see, I’ve been following a paleo way of eating for about 18 months now, and it’s had a profound impact on the way I view the world, how I feel, and (obviously) how I eat. I replaced most grains, dairy, legumes, refined sugars, and seed-derived oils with whole foods and many of my autoimmune symptoms went into remission. I can honestly say with conviction that I “eat paleo“”. However, I do not identify myself as “being paleo“”. I think there’s a distinction that needs to be made before we move on.

To me, “”being paleo” means that you are self-identifying with a group. It’s like calling yourself a musician or a video gamer (as opposed to simply writing music or playing video games). The problem with identification is that disidentification – the mentality of “us vs. them”, and a focus on what you are NOT – often emerges. Consider the in-group-out-group bias. This phenomenon can lead to aggression and prejudice, and some suggest that it leads to a lack of productivity, as identifiers take action while disidentifiers tend to just make a lot of talk. (And who is the “them” in this case? Just about everyone else – those pesky grain-eaters that make up the rest of the population, and those cursed Vegans that try and muck everything up!).

While the Paleosphere (thankfully) doesn’t focus too much on the “them” aspect of the diet, there’s definitely an overbearing “us” momentum that isn’t entirely healthy, either. I often see the Paleosphere as being on this slippery slope towards extremism.

As an ever-increasingly-large group of people that eat a similar diet and in many cases hold similar values, I think it’s important we don’t lose sight of the fact that extremists and ideologists often alienate themselves from the rest of society. How are we supposed to make an impact on the nutrition world if we work the Paleosphere up into a frenzied cult status? John George and Laird Wilcox, scholars of fringe movements, have identified the following characteristics of political extremists and ideological contrarians:

1. Absolute certainty they have the truth.

2. [The belief that] America is controlled to a greater or lesser extent by a conspiratorial group. In fact, they believe this evil group is very powerful and controls most nations.

3. Open hatred of opponents. Because these opponents (actually “enemies” in the extremists’ eyes) are seen as a part of or sympathizers with “The Conspiracy,” they deserve hatred and contempt.

4. Little faith in the democratic process. Mainly because most believe “The Conspiracy” has great influence in the U.S. government, and therefore extremists usually spurn compromise.

5. Willingness to deny basic civil liberties to certain fellow citizens, because enemies deserve no liberties.

6. Consistent indulgence in irresponsible accusations and character assassination.

Does that sound alarmingly familiar to you? Admittedly, the above characteristics have a major political slant, and the fact that big corporations have major influence on what ends up on our dinner plates may not lead to some of those characteristics (like the willingness to deny basic civil liberties part).

I can’t deny that a relatively extreme diet (side note: it’s sad that the Paleo diet is considered “extreme” in this age of processed/fast foods) will attract people that gravitate towards fringe thinking – as sociologist Daniel Bell put it, for those on the fringe, “the way you hold beliefs is more important than what you hold. If somebody’s been a rigid Communist, he becomes a rigid anti-Communist – the rigidity being constant.” How many ex-Vegans are in the Paleosphere? Lots. (As some would argue: not enough.) An extreme lifestyle will attract extremists, which simply isn’t preventable. My point is this: just because there are crazies in the Paleosphere, we don’t have to listen to them, and we need to keep ourselves in check to make sure we don’t become them. An easy way to prevent this is to continually challenge ourselves to question our dietary standards, and to avoid dogmatism.

So where do we start? How can we make sure that we promote this diet in the most open, pragmatic, unobtrusive, and inclusive way? Here are some quick suggestions:

1. Don’t tell people that you “are paleo“”. Hell, don’t even tell them that you eat “paleo“”, because the use of labels is in itself exclusionary. Just tell them what you eat, and maybe what you don’t eat. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that. Look at the Weston A. Price dietary guidelines. It’s very similar to the modern interpretation of the paleo diet, and they don’t tell you what to avoid, even once. Focus on the whole foods, not on yet-to-be-completely-proven-as-evil grains, legumes, etc.

2. Don’t use flawed ideas or gray areas to promote the diet, because it calls the Paleosphere’s credibility into question. Don’t worship bacon, which is likely not good for you, even if it is (was) somewhat fashionable to “baconize” stuff. It’s a useful ingredient in cooking, but it’s not our flagship food. Don’t celebrate “paleo versions” of sweets like Paleo brownies because that’s not helping people overcome their underlying food issues and if anything it’s guiding them towards failure. The last thing we should do is to set people on shaky foundations. Personally, I’m all about Dr. Kurt Harris’ incremental process, because it encourages folks to improve their health even when they’re not ready to dive into a full-blown paleo eating orgy.

3. Avoid dogmatic thinking. Are potatoes evil? What about white rice? What about dairy? Aren’t we supposed to be eating low carb? Remember that human variance, health history, and gut flora are major factors in food tolerance, and macronutrient ratios are highly individualized. This diet is ever-changing (and it should be as scientific study helps enlighten our views on nutrition every day); be open to suggestion.

4. Try not to alienate others by flaunting an overbearing self-identification of “being paleo.” You’re not a caveman, and you’re certainly not living like one, so why label yourself as one? If anything, I suggest embracing what we do have in common with our ancestors – the fact that we’re all on this planet. Go take a walk/hike. Watch a sunset. Spend a few days camping. That’s certainly closer to being a caveman than eating a pound of lean red meat straight out of a slow cooker after a hard day at the office and then blogging about it.

5. Bear in mind that everyone has their own burden. I’m pretty sure that most people simply cannot afford to eat fresh organic vegetables and grass-fed meats all the time. My family can’t afford it, despite the fact that a huge chunk of our income goes towards our groceries – nearly twice as much as before we switched our diet. Additionally, many people don’t have the resources to find out whether or not they have access to affordable grass-fed meats anyway – online resources are often outdated, and I’ll wager that many excellent farmers are out working and not updating their farm’s webpage and social networking fan pages. Many don’t have access to local, affordable health food markets. This is no reason to make people feel bad for having to make sacrifices to make ends meat meet; instead celebrate the steps that people are willing to take for their health that are within their means.

6. Avoid the fringe, and consider the power of prudence. What is the point of wearing t-shirts that say “Meat is awesome” or “Vegans suck”? Before shouting from the rooftops about how stuff like cold thermogenesis and eating butter straight out of the container is awesome, take a step back and think about how crazy that sounds to the average person. I’m not saying that any of those extreme elements are bad, but they might not be helping the paleo movement along when that’s the stuff we get identified with. When it comes down to it, who better to police the Paleosphere than ourselves?

Lastly, please don’t take this as an insult to anyone that’s exhibited these behaviors. Dramatically improving your health through simple changes in diet is awesome, and exciting. I don’t fault you for telling people that “you’re paleo“”. My only purpose in writing this article is to help consider the fact that we need to do what we can to impact those that aren’t lucky enough to know much about sensible eating yet. As much as it may be fun to be part of a cool, elite club of paleo dieters that share cool pictures and sayings amongst themselves, isn’t our energy better spent on refining the diet itself through scientific study and attracting people that haven’t been exposed to the diet yet?

This article was recently featured on the Highbrow Paleo blog. Russ Crandall also blogs at The Domestic Man where he posts many wonderful recipes with lots of high quality photos. Read about his amazing story here.

Update 3/12/14: This is a section reposted from a recent post.

The Ancestral Table: Traditional Recipes for a paleo Lifestyle. Did Russ Crandall come out of nowhere? I’d never heard of him [guess I was wrong about that! -Ed]. He has a blog, The Domestic Man. When he emailed me and asked I take a look, there was a singular message he wanted to get across to me and it’s why I saved his book for last.

So, this is not going to be a one paragraph entry. To my knowledge, this is the very fist cookbook making any reference to paleo, that doesn’t genuflect, kowtow, and get on its knees to pay homage to the ignorance of low-carb paleo, as though there’s nothing else. Beginning in Chapter 4, Starches, here are the recipes over the next 30 pages.

• Basic Steamed Rice
• Steamed Basmati Rice
• Sticky Rice
• Dirty Rice
• Mexican Rice
• Fried Rice
• Congee
• Garlic Mashed Potatoes
• Colcannon
• Gnocchi
• Sweet Potato Poi
• Parsnip Puree
• Tostones
• Pão de Queijo
• Pizza

Accordingly, from here out, last mention I ever give to a Paleoish cookbook that doesn’t have recipes for common starches.

By the way? Fittingly, the forward to the cookbook is by Paul Jaminet, PhD; or, by one ground breaker, for another. Paul, of course, is the safe starch pioneer in our Ancestral/Paleo circles, making it harder by the day for strict low carb enthusiasts to breathe. He blogs at Perfect Health Diet, and he and Shou-Ching, PhD as well, are co-authors of Perfect Health Diet: Regain Health and Lose Weight by Eating the Way You Were Meant to Eat.

Go early or go home. paleo is divorcing strict low carb and its waffling, feeling the pressure, now. Mark my words.

“We have no demands to present to you, no terms to bargain about, no compromise to reach. You have nothing to offer us. We do not need you.” — John Galt (Atlas Srugged, by Ayn Rand)

My last post being 10 days ago, this has got to be the longest stretch of “time off” since my first few years of blogging. I don’t think I’ve gone more than a few days without a post since going paleo-ish.

So what’s up? Well, a few things, roughly outlined as follows:

1. I’m going through major changes in my professional life. After 20 years as an entrepreneur, building a successful company, etc., I decided some months ago to do something else…and because I care about our clients, was unwilling to attempt to “sell” them. So, we stopped taking new clients last October and I’m shutting things down deliberately via client attrition. As far as what’s next, I’m pursuing management / systems / change consulting gigs at the moment. Here’s my Linkedin profile for anyone interested in networking in that regard (still a work in progress).
2. My far more flexible style of eating—moderate carb, fat, protein…basically—combined with simplicity, and perhaps aspects of #1, seems to have had a number of behavioral effects in me. I’m simply not as interested in “slaying the dragons” as I used to be, or in maintaining my exclusive role as “Angry Dick” in the Paleosphere…and I’m happy to relinquish that role to others—but they better do it right, or I’ll have to come back.
3. I have increasing misgivings about the whole direction of the Paleosphere.

In terms of #3, where do I begin? First of all, I have to first point the finger at myself for encouraging things to go where I now feel uncomfortable with the whole deal. While I lashed out at dietitian morons, slammed know-nothing celebrities, bashed grant whores and made fun of various fringe and extreme groups like vegans, I never did it, in my mind, to move people in the direction of being a fringe, extremist, exclusive, whack job paleo cult—but simply to provide some laughs, entertainment…some form of identity and yea, even a bit of a sense of superiority.

But it seems to me that the whole thing has really gone tribal, with virtually all the trappings of tribalism, including which faction of the meta-tribe one belongs to, identified by which t-shirt and style of Vibrams they wear. As an aside, I designed an FTA t-shirt early on, and when I got mine, found myself unable to wear it in public. So I took it off the blog after a short while. I’m just not a team spirit kinda guy.

Anyway, I’ll have more to say on this later, of course, and I’m working on getting a guest post in here that speaks to these issues—but at this point don’t know if that will work out. [Update: we’re all set and the post will be up tomorrow.]

What I want to do going forward is to take a sensible, thoughtful, skeptical, and flexible approach to this whole thing. I’m not prepared to “slam paleo” or excise it from my writing vocabulary; but instead, continue to seek out synthesis among various approaches to a decent diet and exercise regimen. For instance, I’m not sure when it was that Anthony Colpo updated his The Fat Loss Bible, but I do believe it must have been pretty recently, because Chapters 11 and 12 read like one of the best short introductions to paleo eating I’ve ever seen. Combined with his “calories count” and quantitative approach to fat loss and lean sparing, that book is a real gem in my view. Most particularly, his emphasis on nutrient density are very much in line with my own, when I posted my nutritional density challenges for liver vs. fruit and liver or salmon vs. bread.

He’s not the only one, but those I find myself most in line with while not feeling a need to agree with everything, don’t really wear a paleo badge, nor extend the secret handshake. Paul Jaminet. Martin Berkhan. Stephan Guyenet. kurt harris. Melissa McEwan. Chris Masterjohn. Even Lyle McDonald. While none of these guys call themselves paleo, they all care about good nutrition, quality food, and a fat loss approach that doesn’t amount to the equivalent of: eat as much fat as you can and magic will happen…with the caveat that there’s no such thing as too much bacon; and oh, by the way, have you tried the “paleo” brownies, pancakes & cookies?

And here’s another thing. They all maintain modest looking blogs that are content rich and low on flashy design. I dunno, but some of the efforts at style over substance and monetization out there just leave me with a bad taste in my mouth.

But maybe it’s just me. And what say you?

Here’s just a few things I’ve put together over the last week or so. I’m trying to keep things simple, basic, and quick. For example, to make mashed taters, I toss the whole potato in the microwave for 5-7 minutes, the skin easily slides right off, a bit of butter, heavy cream or sour cream, sal pepper and you’ve got mashed potatoes.

Let it cool a bit, add in an egg, mix it up and you can do some potato pancakes. With bacon. With tomato. With egg. Like this.

All the images can be clicked for the hi-res versions.

Gratuitous Bacon Shot

To the potato and egg mixture I dust it with just a bit of coconut flour which makes for easy to do patties. Alternatively, just drop it in like pancake batter and let it spread out. I cooked the pancakes in the bacon fat.

Potato Pancakes

Then it was a big slice of beefsteak tomato, some mayo, the bacon, all topped with an egg.

Over Easy Version for Beatrice

Sunny Up Version for Me

There below is an example of a baked potato mashed up. Works great, and it’s fast. No more peeling, boiling, draining. The flank steak is from Marin Sun Farms and I just pan fried it in cast iron. As it was resting, I deglazed the pan with red wine, let it reduce, couple of pats of butter, some beef stock, let reduce and then a couple dashes of balsamic vinegar at the end. Fabulous and you have dinner in about 10 minutes, tops.

Flank Steak & Taters

I had three pounds of pastured pork, also from Marin Sun Farms, and so yesterday I tossed them all in a big pot with 3 quarts of stock, half beef, half chicken. Then I braised it slowly for a couple of hours or so and once fork tender, added a large chopped onion, three chopped carrots and 2 large potatoes. Takes about a half an hour for the potatoes and carrots to soften up. What’s below is the entirety of what was left after five us us dug in last night. This was my breakfast.

Pork Stew & Eggs

Be careful out there.

In the week since I last tossed something up relevant to the recent LC and Food Reward goings on, I was highly motivated to retreat to my cave and comfort zone, potato in belly. I had this post in mind almost immediately thereafter, but just couldn’t sit down to write it.

Now I am.

The title is my response to the very strident low carbers who, it seems, don’t recall that some initially going low carb had an adjustment period where they feel “off” in various ways. Lethargy, tiredness, sleep disturbance, increased urination and constipation seem to round out the majority of the complaints.

Low carbers, being ever vigilant, are quick to admonish these various folk that they just need to give it some time to adjust (valid admonishment, I think)…and they’ve named this adjustment period “The low-carb Flu.””

So when I began looking around at the various threads on Mark Sisson’s Forums (I think there were about 4 going at one time, initially kicked off in response to my posts) and the comments on Jimmy Moore’s two posts about my podcast—on the blog and on the podcast site—I noticed something peculiar. While LC folks acknowledge an adjustment period going LC and consider it perfectly normal and expected, they don’t seem to acknowledge an expected adjustment period for someone going in reverse, adding enough “clean” or “safe starch” carbohydrate to take a more moderate approach. That is, there were comments and remarks about how someone ate a potato and felt tired and lethargic afterward. Full Stop…It. Doesn’t. Work. For. Me.

So, I’ve dubbed this little adjustment period “The Moderate Carb Flu.” There you go. In my case, I had nothing of the sort, nor did my wife. I’ll get to how it’s going for me and her, toward the end of the post.

Another issue is Blood Glucose Spikes and the consequent Insulin Spikes. Since insulin is a growth factor for things like lean tissue, I would imagine that acute spikes are not only an OK thing, but a good thing—so long as BG and insulin don’t remain chronically elevated.

Googling around, I find all sorts of information as to what constitutes “normal” physiological spikes in BG. The stuff on your run of the mill medical sites is surprisingly high in the context of a glucose tolerance test, where they give you a pure glucose cocktail and test you at intervals. It’s something like 180 or less at an hour, 155 or less at two, and then 120 by 3. Jenny at Blood Sugar 101 has a different take, but things are still spiking. Click this, and then click the “What is Normal Blood Sugar” image. She wants you 120 or less, 1-2 hours after a meal.

And then there’s Dr. Bernstein, as expressed in comments on this blog, yesterday. Here’s an excerpt of the whole, quoted from his forum.

I advocate normal blood sugars around the clock. If you are not loading yourself with rapid-acting carbohydrate, as most of the population is doing nowadays, and if you are taking the right medications, you shouldn’t go up at all after a meal. When a patient faxes or emails their blood sugar sheet to me, I look at what happens to their blood sugar overnight; and I look at what happens after each meal. How do I see what happens after each meal? I look at the blood sugar immediately before the meal, and the blood sugar two hours later, and the blood sugar before the next meal. I want all the blood sugars to be the same. We adjust the insulin so they are all the same. If you think about our ancestors who had no access to rapid-acting carbohydrates, and who had very little carbohydrate food to begin with and probably relatively little, anyway, they probably had the same blood sugar before and after their meals, and never had any blood sugar rises. That’s what I advocate for us. I advocate it for myself, and for my patients. I don’t think there is such a thing as a normal spike. Studies that were done a number of years ago in Aborigine populations showed that, indeed, there were no blood sugar spikes. These people were eating insects, turtles, snails, and there’s no way they could get a blood sugar spike.”

Granted, he may be talking in the context of diabetics on meds, but the comment itself is clearly of wider context. The commenter also claimed—but did not quote—that Dr. Su of “Carbohydrates Can Kill” advocates similarly.

I have a great deal of respect for Bernstein, his history, his work with diabetics and so on. Su, I don’t know anything about beyond his podcast or two with jimmy moore. But I must say that the idea that blood glucose ought never roam around, stimulating other various hormones to do various things in order to keep a whole complex system like the human body in balance is rather more wrong than a very wrong thing. Accordingly, it’s not worth my time to refute. Go ahead if you like, in comments.

I consider the notion that humans and their primate ancestors didn’t eat carbohydrate to any important extent to have been falsified millions of years ago, before there was any such thing as the notion of falsification. In short, I’m stating affirmatively that some level of glucose and insulin spiking following a meal is not only perfectly normal, but healthy and beneficial, just like it’s beneficial to get your heart beating very fast, now and then. The whole thing, in regard to dietary carbohydrate—pretending as though we never ate it much— strikes me as rather like the Soviets painting non-people out of the picture once they had been disappeared.

Finally, where it’s not obvious hyperbole, can we dispense with hyperbolic nonsense like “Carbohydrates Can Kill?” Hey, Water Can Kill!!! …And not just from drowning.

Moving along, there’s also the metabolic ward study debate concerning the issue of whether calories are the principle factor in body weight loss or if it’s a “metabolic advantage” that goes to low carb. Having read Chapter 1 of Anthony Colpo’s The Fat Loss Bible, then having a bit of a debate in comments typified by this comment excerpt from FrankG, I spent some time this weekend digging into it.

I don’t know anyone who lives in a metabolic ward Richard… do you?

The only way to make calories in vs. calories out a practical proposition for control of excess fat mass is: to measure everythingin and out including breathing/respiration… otherwise you are not dealing with a closed system… and the First Law of Thermodynamics applies to a closed system — hence the need to lock test subjects in a metabolic ward/chamber.

He later references Occam’s Razor, one of my favorite rules of thumb to apply. I’ll get to that later.

I went over both Dr. Michael Eades’ posts contra Anthony Colpo, and Colpo’s posts contra Eades this weekend. Plus, I’ve read the relevant chapter in TFLB.

Here’s Eades’ two principle posts:

• AC anti-metabolic advantage dismemberment
• AC Fat Loss Bible critique part II

And Colpo’s:

• The Great Eades Smackdown, 2010! Part 1
• The Great Eades Smackdown, 2010! Part 2

OK, before we move on, dismiss the mutual vitriol out-of-hand, because you’ll get nowhere if you let that get to you. The fact is, there likely exists no better debate over the issue of metabolic advantage for low carb anywhere. Next, dispense with the notion that you, as a bystander, can’t like both of these men and their work.

See, I fell into this trap myself. I know Mike Eades. We’ve emailed back & forth for a long while. I’ve eaten Sous-Vide with him at his invitation, sipped coffee with him & Mary Dan in a hotel lobby in Santa Barbara, and had drinks with him and Gary Taubes at AHS. I genuinely like Mike and Mary Dan (understatement, and Beatrice thinks Mary Dan is the Cat’s Meow), and I think they’re a tremendous value to the health and weight loss movements. Some of Mike’s stuff on debunking the saturated fat and cholesterol myths, and why we’re meat eaters and not vegetarians is some of the best stuff out there.

…And so I figured Anthony must be wrong. But now I don’t. While I haven’t met Anthony, we’ve had a cordial email exchange over the last couple of weeks and I’ve read for myself (twice) the Chapter 1 of his book that’s in dispute.

And after reading it twice and reading Mike’s and Anthony’s blog posts again (I had read them before), and now having the benefit of my own hindsight through self experimentation (and not just this experiment, but why I lost fat in the first place), I have to conclude that Anthony is right on this issue, and Mike is wrong. There, I said it. I can’t in good conscience call it any way other than how I see it, having carefully spent many hours (again) going over everything.

So if you’re interested, go over it all. But put yourself in the role of a competent professional judge who dismisses all the vitriol and emotion, because that’s what a competent professional judge does; it’s his raison d’être. Then draw your conclusions from the weight of the evidence alone.

FrankF’s comment, cited above, is pretty easy for me to set aside. Most of these metabolic ward studies were crossover anyway (all participants do both diets) and everyone was being measured the same, in varying degrees of detail. There’s nothing to see there, on that score.

A number of things nailed it for me, but here’s the two principle reasons:

1. Cheating. the issue most raised by low-carb advocates of a metabolic advantage for same. The thing is, it’s very well established that LC is more satiating than HC, and that’s why in free living studies, LC almost always does better. The LC folks spontaneously lower calories because they feel more satiated. So, if you’re going to claim there was cheating going on in these metabolic ward studies, and if you’re right, then who was far more likely to cheat? Are you really prepared to claim that the reason that 26 out of 28 metabolic ward studies (all of them…in English and 3 weeks or more) cited by Colpo, showing the same weight loss no matter the diet, it was because the LC people were cheating, the HC people weren’t, and it washed out the metabolic advantage? C’mon, man!
2. Occam’s Razor. The thing is, the metabolic ward studies are conclusive and all in line with one-another, save for two that have serious problems Colpo cites, such as a 40% dropout rate in one, and the fact that a statistically significant difference in weight loss in that study didn’t show up until after all the dropouts, and the last five days of the study. There’s a solid 26 of 28 metabolic ward studies that show no significant difference in weight loss among LC and HC diets. Should I repeat that? Some do demonstrate that whatever your macro diet, get plenty of protein, because whether low or high carb, keeping the protein up means that even though the weight loss is the same, the higher protein favors more fat loss and less lean loss. But C’mon. Are you willing to go on the line and say that all of these studies are so cleverly flawed that they showed, not a metabolic advantage for a high carb diet, but no advantage at all? Sometimes, things are just as simple as they seem.

It’s been just over two weeks since I began this experiment with a moderate carb approach, mostly from potatoes and some white rice. It’s pretty much as I reported before, and in the podcast with Jimmy Moore.

Pluses

• No weight gain at all, 2-3 pounds lost. Beatrice has dropped five pounds and loves the new regime.
• Improved body composition, whether to fat redistribution or upper body glycogen replenishment, not sure yet
• Very surprisingly, no heartburn, except with a bit too much alcohol (as before). I was really worried about this because I’m a lifelong heartburn guy and everyone knows how an LC diet tends to fix that. I have to conclude it’s not starch, but grain based processed foods.
• Amazing satiation for long periods, which I attribute to my longtime intermittent fasting which has my mind working as it should with regard to hunger. Essentially, no difference, which I consider a win since I’m supposed to get a sugar crash, be ravenous, and pig out.
• Awesome sleep, usually all through the night or just one head call. I’m sleeping about an hour less on average per night. Bea was having a lot of trouble with sleep for a long time and is now having a good sleep most nights, in spite of the dogs bugging the shit out of her, spoiled brats they are.
• Very most of all, a renewed sense of purpose and well being. I recognize this could be bright eyedness owing to new things, but it’s not like this is my first experiment on myself, either. The simple fact is, I was drawn to this because in spite of many difficulties in business I was finding it difficult to get motivated in the manner that built my business in the first place. Now I’m making firm decisions and executing as I used to, once again. I hesitate to say that VLC made me depressed. I will say that sometimes, I marveled at who I seemed to be, in my own mind.

Minuses

• There’s only one, and that’s that I seem to be less antagonistic and hot headed. People say—even in comments—that I’m nice. Yuk. That sucks.

Oops, I got my studies all confused, there. I also don’t seem to have a category named, simply, Stupid Shit. I’ll have to think about that.

I have to begin by apologizing to whomever came up with this idea first, because it wasn’t me. I think I saw it on someone’s blog yesterday and then the news articles began pouring in via email and comments on existing posts. Whomever that was, if you see this, please drop a comment or email me and I’ll include your link [right here].

• Red meat is blamed for one in 10 early deaths
• Study: Too much red meat may shorten lifespan
• Red Meat Can Be Unhealthy, Study Suggests

Alright, cook it to medium or better, so it’s not red anymore…I guess?

I didn’t take much time to drill down, but I assume the sensation is all sensationally based on this sensational study, published yesterday in the Archives of Internal Medicine: Red Meat Consumption and Mortality.

So I had a bunch of links to read and apparently, as the title of the post suggests, got them all confused. See, there was another study that came out a couple of months ago that prompted some other news articles.

• Owning car, TV linked to heart attacks: study
• Heart Attack Risk Linked To Car Ownership And Owning A TV

There’s an interesting juxtaposition at work in the news articles reporting on both of these studies vis-a-vis heart attack risk and early mortality. Let’s take a look at how the latter study was reported. From the first link:

Car owners with a television are 27 percent more likely to suffer heart attacks than people who have neither, according to a global study on physical exercise and heart disease published Wednesday.

More broadly, the study — covering more than 29,000 people in 52 countries — showed that working up a light sweat may be the best preventative medicine against heart failure.

Until now, surprisingly little research has focused on how physical exertion at work and play influences the incidence of heart attacks, and even less has directly compared this data across nations at all income levels.

“This study shows that mild to moderate physical activity at work, and any level of activity during leisure time, reduces the risk of heart attacks,” said lead researcher Claes Held, a professor at Uppsala University in Sweden.

It also “extends previous findings of the protective effect of leisure-time physical activity … to low- and middle-income countries.”

And, from the second:

According to a study published in the European Heart Journal, owning a car and a television is associated with an increased risk of heart attacks, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, while physical activity during leisure time or work considerably reduces the risk of heart attacks in developed and developing nations.

Did you see that? The journalists (and probably the study authors) immediately, without flinching, put the data into proper context: having a car & TV means you’re less likely to get moderate, normal amounts of quotidian, mundane activity like walking or taking an evening stroll, and that’s the most likely cause of the problems—not that driving a car gives you heart disease.

You won’t find any such context in the former set of articles; such as, distinctions between processed meats and the processed foods they’re wrapped in, the other included ingredients, etc. In fact, the photos are not of Hot Pockets and frozen pizza and pot pies, but of whole, fresh and cooked meats.

…Nor did anyone suggest that the ability to purchase nice fresh meat might be a decent marker for more sedentary, generally glutinous behavior, such as owning a car and a TV could be a marker for.

Sorry, this was all just too stupid, predictable, and commonplace to spend much time on constructing a decent rant. Feel free to let lose in comments though.

I went through about a half-dozen potential post titles and that one remained A in the A/B self-mental test, throughout. So there. And yes, I do have a next post in the series we’ve been commenting about (Whooooooa! 655 and still trickling), but I require more deliberation before I put it out there. So I’m taking a break of sorts.

As someone who writes probably more than a writer who makes a real living at it, I’ve had a number of fiction books in the back of my head for years, now. One of them, in general, is contact with an alien civilization who visits us…and rather than try to take us over, destroy us, eat us, or whatever…what if they were smarter, more enlightened, more peaceful…more anarchist, than us? In fact, so much more enlightened, that our behavior—to them—is tantamount to what we observe in the wild, when we watch The Animal Channel, Discovery, Science, etc?

This, in essence, is why I don’t think we would ever be contacted by anyone with the means to do so. Why in the hell would they bother? Do you have envy of walking into the jungle, trying to strike up a conversation with chimps? And even supposing you could, what would you have to gain vs. what it would cost you…and I dunno, but I’m assuming that intergalactic travel, if even possible, is damn bloody expensive in terms of time and expense: i.e., conscious lives.

So let’s suspend disbelief and imagine what it might be like if a civilization so advanced as to be able to do so, really did contact us. I’ve watched and laughed about 3 times; but then, I have a geek streak in me, and I have more time on my hands than most, I suppose. But I think it might make you think.

Did it make you think a bit, raise questions? Did it queue the ironic in you?

…So that’s the more or less practical. In other words, the alien is appealing to an enlightened sense of ethics and morality, and finds it perplexing that the practicalities don’t really follow from stated premises. This is at base a lesson in proclaiming allegiance to values you think are cool & all, when convenient, but aren’t really to be followed when you get a reward when you don’t, or it costs you more to do so than not. That’s probably human nature, which is why we really have only societal evolution to count on. Hopefully, refraining from killing, stealing and enslaving in the context of human conscious intelligence turns out to be the best selection strategy in the long run, but we’ll have to see.

The alien is a practical guy. But, he’s dealing with primitives, and zeros in on contradictions that go wholly unanswered or resolved. So, to solve that little dilemma, here is exactly and precisely what the alien is talking about from his enlightened, universal-rational perspective.

So the comment threads are open, as always, and I welcome all challengers—unmoderated—as always.

Some criticize Jimmy for his seemingly endless advocacy of a low-carb diet in spite of perceived and cited evidence and experience (In the opinion and judgment of some). All the while, I’m in the midst of blogging about LC criticism and speculation. And yet, I have no need of attacking Jimmy or LC folks at all.

What gives?

I get it. He, in that capacity of his podcast, is an advocate. But—and I listen to most of his shows (I do skip over a few) even if it takes me months—he is fearless when it comes to contradictory views, opinions, perspectives.

What more can you ask for?

Would you prefer a guy who only has on guests that tout his own prescriptions and proscriptions? Say, as they change? So, Jimmy is livinlavidalowcarb one month, livinlavidarawfuit the next, and so on?

It is what it is.

Jimmy gets lots of people to listen to his shows (100-150K downloads per episode), and if you do the easy math, it means that if you get to be on the show he’s worked tirelessly to build, you get to have a lot of people listen to you. Who loses? Who gains? Who cares about the general welfare of people who are so far off the mark that a reasonable portion means substituting low fat milk for whole in their their 3rd Starbucks sugar coffee of the day?

It’s not only an easy equation, but an easy tradeoff, to me. Some might criticize me for my lack of principles, so perceived. But then again, I don’t vote: because I’d never do that to you (I’m a non voter on principle). And while I have differences with Jimmy…and if he asked me, would admonish him to do some different things—including mind oriented things…. I could never, ever deny the huge value he has been to the paleo community. I have benefited from both the low carb and paleo communities and I’m adverse to purposely tossing the butter and jelly side of my toast face down on the dirty carpet, since chances are, that’ll happen easy enough anyway.

It’s a simple realization. Just like a nasty divorce makes me instinctively flinch—wondering how in the world people who’ve shared the deepest intimacy possible can instantly turn and act as though that same person is the most vile on Earth—I cannot support a blanket dismissal, trouncing, disrespecting of those I may have discovered disagreements and differences with.

In the end, I can’t predict divorce or reconciliation vis-a-vis low carb and paleo. But I hope I came off reasonable.

Now, go listen to my 40ish minutes on the line with Jimmy.