The Zero Carb Daily

The Cult of Atkins

2006-11-15T21:42:00.000-08:00

The Cult of Atkins responds to a UC Berkeley student named Alex Mojaher.

Get a grip people! Seriously.

I also like the not-so-subtle jabs at Berkeley. Frankly, the whole east bay is really funky. As a peninsula person I may have a slight bias, but really, that "something in the air" must be all that reefer we smoke out here man, you know, it being the number one cash crop in California and all (how else can you explain Arnold Schwarzenegger?)

He's probably doing it for college credit. Sure, he's not fully informed on the details, but really, who the fuck cares? Is writing a hit piece on this guy really necessary? This endless desire and need to "set the record straight" is a great example of the diet obsessive.

Been there, done that.

VICTORY IS OURS!!

2006-11-08T10:38:00.000-08:00

Chimpy McFlightsuit must be bummin'! So long Rummy, you did a heck of a job.

The Florida Police Chief

2006-11-02T20:30:00.000-08:00

HAha, I knew this was going to be commented on. Setting aside the "straight talk", "personal responsibility" and "the truth hurts" bullshit, look at what this jackhole did. Whether that some (but obviously not all) of the officers were overweight doesn't negate common courtesy and understanding that you don't bring this up in front of the group for everyone to be privy too.

That's just plain ol' common sense and compassion. Nothing wrong with encouraging people to lose weight it's just that it's not right to single them out amongst the entire department, it was a poor exercise of judgement and his ass was fired, rightfully. Perhaps it makes some people feel good about themselves when they, or see others, impose shame and blame on some folks (of course, they justify it to themselves that they're doing it "for their own good") but I don't find it amusing.

Do These People Have No Shame?

2006-10-31T14:27:00.000-08:00

Apparently not...

"I'm sick and tired of a bunch of despicable Republicans who will not debate real policy, who won't take responsibility for their own mistakes, standing up and trying to make other people the butt of those mistakes," (Kerry) said. "It disgusts me that a bunch of these Republican hacks who've never worn the uniform of our country are willing to lie about those who did."

Give em' hill John, better late than never I suppose...

Meanwhile,103 Of Our Children Died In Iraq This Month When will this madness end?

Update:

Kos just posted about this:

Man, there are times when this stuff is more ridiculous than anything a fiction writer or satirist could ever dream up.

So John Kerry mangles a sentence in a public appearance, and the right-wing smear machine and its traditional media enablers are apoplectic. I mean, John Kerry is a, um, junior senator not running for reelection! And he's, um, a war hero who hates the troops! And um, we hate him because he's John Kerry!

Trust me, I haven't been the first to pile on Kerry when warranted, and I won't be the last, but what a load of bullshit this is. And showing that he has learned from his Swiftboating days, Kerry hit back hard:

"If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they're crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I'm sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.

I'm not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq . It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.

The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor.

Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they're afraid to debate real men. And this time it won't work because we're going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq ."

Kerry has nothing to apologize for. The people who have turned their backs on the troops do. And even though this ridiculousness will lead the evening news, fact is, we should embrace the opportunity to remind Americans how Republicans rally to the "troops" defense only when it suits their own cynical political ends.

Like John McCain, who said indignantly today:

"I go out to Walter Reed quite often and see these brave young soldiers who have served and sacrificed so much. Many of them have lost limbs, as you know. And it's a very sad thing to see. But at the same time it's very uplifting.

Sure. Uplifting. Except he said this at a campaign appearance with Pete Roskam, who is running against Democrat Tammy Duckworth -- an Iraq war vet who lost both her legs in combat.

I don't think he intended to be ironic.

Kerry responded perfectly. Perhaps not in a way that the DC wise men would approve, those Gang of 500 fools who have enabled this administration's disasters at home and abroad.

Perhaps not in a way that will appease the 101st Fighting Keyboardists and their acolytes who would rather talk tough than actually show genuine courage by enlisting in the armed forces.

And sure, not in a way that will appease Republicans hoping to find anything to desperately detract from their crappy policies, crappy candidates, and lie- and hate-filled campaigns.

Yeah, those people won't be happy with Kerry's response.

But in this case, Kerry responded the right way. Not by bowing to the full blast of the right wing noise machine, but by standing up to it on behalf of our troops, our nation, and the truth.

Less Than 2 Weeks Left: Support Your Local Democrats

2006-10-27T16:49:00.000-07:00

You know what? I'm not looking to become Mr. Low Carb and I want to expand more on what interests me as a person rather than staying focused on zero carb.

That being said, I think it's very important to exercise your right to vote here in the USA. With an unaccountable president and GOP congress it's imperative that balance be restored this election. Too much is at stake with the Republican bozos running the show.

Good news continues to pour out of Dailykos, but I'm not counting any chickens before hatching, especially with the well documented efforts of Republicans to undermine the electoral process.

Anyway, stop by Dailykos and check out what's going on.

The Obesity Epidemic: Why The "Personal Responsibilty" Mantra Doesn't Cut It

2006-10-27T09:17:00.000-07:00

The Obesity Epidemic: Why the "personal responsibilty" mantra doesn't cut it

I wanted to expand on a previous post in regards to the "personal responsibilty" mantra and that position taken by some people.

The personal responsibility mantra that is popular among culturally conservative mindsets. This idea stems from what are regarded as the social or cultural conservatives that advocates a mind-set that focuses blame on the individual rather than focusing on the broader public, social and economic issues. This is the popular mantra for issues like discrimination, social programs and public assistance, the economic disparity between the social elites and the middle and working classes, even successful programs like Social Security and Medicare. We all should be "personally responsible" for what we do. All you need to do is channel the spirt of "rugged individualism" and you're on the path to success!

It's also a handy dandy Social Darwinist justification for racism as well as economic exploitation. Racism, economic exploitation is about oppression and conquest, ripping people off, taken advantage of others because of economic and social status. If average blacks and Hispanics earned only about half as much as whites; if more than a third of all blacks and a quarter of all Hispanics lived below the poverty line; if the economic gap between whites and non-whites was growing, that just proved that there was a racial component in the social-Darwinian selection process, showing that minorities "deserved" their poverty and lower social status because they were "less fit.". This justification works as well for poor white folks.

Why is it important to invert this cause and effect, that poverty and racism is a result of the individual instead of the real cause of poverty and racism, the fairness of the distribution of profit across society and the access and allocation of all resources is never addressed. The reason should be obvious. There's a handful of social elites who reap handsomely from this arrangement, much to the distress of billions of people across the world. It's much better to create a mentality in which each person behaves individually. The powerful will win. The poor will get smashed. There won't be any solidarity, collective action, mutual support
or information sharing or any of these things that might lead to justice.

This has been one of the key mantras among conservatives for decades as a justification to dismantle the social systems that came out of the depression and civil and political rights struggles during the 20th century. The problem is that with the ascendency of the conservative movement that generally started with Ronald Reagan it's a philosophy and mindset that has been deeply ingrained into our culture in America. The idea of "rugged individualism" is a very deep cultural model and myth. Problem with that is conservatives tend to see this as the answer to many problems that may or may not be individually related, but are really social problems.

Proclaiming that obesity is a "personal responsibility" issue is one of those moments. For the scientific and physiologically challenged, nobody wakes up and decides that they want to be moribidly obese. Morbid obesity is a metabolic disease. It's like having any other metabolic disorder. Would the "personal responsibilty" proponents tell Type 1 diabetics that they're that way because of their lack of "personal responsibility"? They would look like total idiots. Of course, to the person espousing the personal responsibility mantra they think they're being tough and giving you the truth. You know, that whole "though love" thing. In the end, it's their own ignorance that is exposed.

No doubt that the ability to change this rests with the individual. The consumption of carby food is like alcoholism-the impetus for change must come from within. It can't be enforced on people.

Wise Witch Gets In On The Action

2006-10-27T08:58:00.000-07:00

In response the growing number of carnivores set up their own forum, the Active No-Carber's forum, where they reprinted The Bear's posts.

Rob is one of the big voices in the world of No-Carb. He's a frequent poster on Jimmy's blog. Jimmy is unimpressed by the idea of No-Carb. Rob and Jimmy are always disagreeing with each other.

other.

Jimmy's failed interview with The Bear is the funniest thing I've read all month...

...I think Jimmy was a bit miffed. The Active No-Carbers were of the opinion that Jimmy caught The Bear on a good day. The thread spawned a discussion about obsession and everyone got a bit self-conscious about their attitude towards diet.

The reality is that I pretty much already have the exclusive interview with the Zero Carb Path. I started to put it together in that fashion, once Bear started posting at the ALC I stopped working on it. Between that and the Bear thread at the ANC you have a pretty good idea of. That was a beautiful moment of self-consciousness though at the ANC. It really does beg the question, how much is too much?

Rob took The Bear's words to heart and decided to drop out of No-Carb blogging.

I'm still here. It's very addictive.

Come on, Rob! Don't you have a mind of your own? Your blog has been an inspiration to a lot of people. I didn't agree with half the things you said (especially omega 3s), but I think you're an important voice in the world of low carb. It's about time someone started bashing holes in the all-powerful dictatorship of vegetable eating.

I appreciate that, and you're right. @#$%ing veggie eaters! God they suck-even the low carb ones. I think all the natural plant toxins build up in their brains and stupid switch gets turned on. That such crappy tasting food with little nutritional value can be as highly regarded and sancrosanct, even among low-carbers, just shows how messed up we are as an entire culture.

When it comes down to it, I do like messing with the mainstream low-carbers heads. They're so self-assured that mainstream acceptance is right around the corner, except it's people like me who give them a bad name. Face it. You're on a very unpopular diet that very few will adhere to over the course of several years. Carb consumption runs so deep in our culture that it's futile believe that a revolution is on the horizon. Of course, if you're planning on making money off of the low-carb craze then you probably want to have that mindset.

Personally, you will never see adds or other banners on my site. You'll never see me endorse any low-carb products, I will not write a book on my weight loss, I will never try and hawk my emails on lulu for $2 a download to read the Zero Carb Path.

Oh, and One More Thing...

2006-10-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

Before I leave for awhile I just wanted to point out a couple things.

The truth about the zero carb is out there. It's either at Bear's thread, or the no-carber forum, my blogs, it's out there for you to find. Nobody can be converted to this way, it can't be prosyletized.

While it's nice to get emails and messages about being an inpiration for those seeking to be on this path, that's nice but in the end I can't change you, you have to change yourself. If you think anything I've pointed to or written has inspired you, well, that change comes from within, I have nothing to do with that.

I used to think that it was important to "blog" as a way of being accountable, but I now see that that was incorrect. Blogging as a way of being "accountable" is really just being a food obsessive. Why waste the time? In the end, no amount of blogging will keep you on the path unless you want to stay on it for yourself. In the end, it's only important that I know and understand the truth, what others want to do with it is up to them.

The information is out there, now it's up to you to either dismiss it or incorporate it into you're life. If you're morbidly obese and have problems losing weight or staying on a "low-carb" diet I highly recommending you read all this stuff with an open mind and don't listen to the various rounds of naysayers and contrarians (even in the low-carb community) who will constantly attack and critique your food choices.

You're My Obession

2006-10-24T09:35:00.000-07:00

Classic!

Bear's right about one thing though. We are obessed over what we eat. I've been doing this for 8 months, blogging for 3 months, and I've run out of shit to say. I used to think that by blogging I was being "accountable" to myself and others, but I now realize that is total bullshit. Everything that could be possibly said is at the Bear thread, the zero carb path and perhaps here too. I'll check in periodically, mostly regarding my progress.

So with that said, I bid you goodnight.

Researchers Find Food-free Route To Obesity

2006-10-22T09:22:00.000-07:00

Oh man, I blogged too soon (or would that be premature eblogulation?). I came across this interesting post from Carol Bardelli at her Kudos For Low Carb about researchers coming across a food-free route to obesity.

Source: University Of British Columbia
Date: October 20, 2006

Researchers Find Food-free Route To Obesity
Can people get fat -- and risk debilitating diabetes -- without overeating?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The answer may be yes, according to Timothy Kieffer, a University of British Columbia researcher, who has found that imbalance in the action of a hormone called leptin produces obesity and major disturbance in blood sugar levels, even when food intake is at normal levels.

The findings were published this month in Cell Metabolism.

"Obesity is a complex condition -- not simply a matter of food intake. We now have some new directions for understanding the connection between obesity, hormones, and diabetes," says Kieffer, a diabetes researcher and associate professor in the departments of cellular and physiological sciences and surgery. "By targeting defects in the connection, we may discover new therapies to inhibit obesity and its frequent complication, Type 2 diabetes."

The hormone leptin is produced by fat and helps regulate insulin secreted by pancreatic beta cells. Kieffer and colleagues found that weakening leptin signaling to beta cells caused them to malfunction, leading to obesity and disrupted blood sugar levels, even in the absence of overeating.

"We think a defect in the communication between leptin and beta cells can cause over-production of insulin, leading to excessive accumulation of fat in the body," he says. "This process appears to contribute to obesity -- quite independent of eating -- while also harming control of blood sugar levels. Hormones alone aren't the sole cause of obesity but they might be a factor that links obesity to diabetes."

Diet and exercise will always play an important role in preventing obesity and the risk of diabetes, he adds.

"Dr. Kieffer's work is helpful because it expands what we know about an important hormone involved in the development of obesity," says Dr. Diane Finegood, Scientific Director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes. "Obese people have a four- to five-fold increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. This work helps improve our understanding of why the two conditions are linked. The more we understand the complex relationships between conditions and their underlying mechanisms, the better our chances of developing safe and effective therapies."

About 80 per cent of patients with Type 2 diabetes (formerly known as adult onset diabetes) are obese.

This pretty much confirms what I always suspected, and that obesity isn't the result of individual lifestyle choices but is a metabolic disease. I hate to be blunt, but Jimmy Moore's views on obesity are misguided IMO. Morbidly obese people do not get that way by simply being lazy and over eating.
While I agree that being lazy and eating bad food will make you fat, I've gone times in my life where I've been fairly physically active, ate low or restricted calorie diets and still couldn't lose any weight (see my previous post). It just seemed that everything I tried never worked. Now, Jimmy Moore may believe he may have some special insight, but on the BMI scale I was just as morbidly obese as he was, but pretty much since the age of 12. I was a fat kid before that, but once I hit puberty I really started packing on the pounds. If you've seen pics of me when I was young, even as young as 4, you can see I'm much fatter than other kids. In fact, my first nickname at school when I was 5 was "Spanky", a monicker placed on my by the popular and friendly janitor at my elementary school (apparently I reminded him of Spanky from the old Our Gang reels).

Ironically, I was born 2 weeks late and underweight (5lbs 6 ounces) and they had to place me in an incubator for a few days so I could finish cooking around the edges. I often wonder if because of this my body was always in "store fat as soon as possible" mode. Who knows.

Of course, the high starch foods I ate didn't help matters, but it just seemed that no matter what I tried never worked. Even Jimmy Moore says he lost a lot of weight on a weight watchers diet. Not even that worked for me. Reduced calories and excersize didn't work either. I figured I was destined to live the life of morbidly obese person until the day I died...that is, until I read The Bear's essay. Sadly, I can't believe it took until 1997 that no one pointed out a low-carb diet to me. Even my wife, upon relaying to her what I read on Bear's site, said "oh yeah, that's like Atkins". I was like, "who?". Thankfully we have the internet now, otherwise I pretty much would have lived the rest of my life in the dark.

Now, with very little to no glucose in my diet I'm finally seeing results, and that's without portion control and heavy exersize, which leads me to conclude again, that morbid obesity is a metabolic disease and not because I simply sat around on my fat ass eating McDonalds and Jack In The Box 5 days a week.

If you are morbidly obese you may want to consider a zero carb path. Even minimal amounts of glucose in a diet for a morbidly obese person is poison. In the end, if you are extremely obese and are stalling on "low-carb" or have failed several times trying mainstream low carb diets, you may want to consider checking out this very simple and straight forward path.

What's Up?

2006-10-22T07:53:00.000-07:00

Not much going on really. Just living life and eating what I eat. This is one of the drawbacks of a zero carb diet really...just not a whole lot to discuss. That is one of the beauties of this diet too. The goal is to have an eating "plan" that is so simple and easy that you can memorize the rules. The result is that you only have to enjoy your meal. When it comes right down to it there's only two rules: Eat only from the animal kingdom and avoid alcohol. Nothing to count, no meals to plan, just eat and live. Sounds good to me. I'm just not anal enough to do all the counting and being tied to meal cards.

When we did Weight Watchers my wife created these "Deal A Meal" cards (she claims she was doing that LONG before Richard Simmons started hawking them on infomercials years ago). Man that was a hellish diet. It was the only time I remember eating LOTS of veggies, even snacking on carrot sticks dipped in low fat dressing. After about 7 weeks on the diet I couldn't take it and vividly remembering going to my parents house in a total freak out, eating a half a pound of salami because it was the only meat available. That was the end of that diet. My wife was working even harder than I was on it and in the end she only last 5-10 pounds. It was the only time I had a gym membership and we were religious about excersizing and working out too. Pretty hard to stay motivated when you're working your ass off but eating so many carbs, even a reduced calorie diet, was offsetting the physical activity. That happened to me in college too, when I didn't have a car and I had to bike everywhere in Sacramento (easy to do in Sac-it's a pretty flat area). I was working out in the apartment complex weight room, biking everywhere, I was eating lighter but in the end I was just a worked out fat person.

Plus it's baseball playoffs time, so I've been distracted lately. It was nice to see the Tigers get their ass kicked last night. My boss is a Tigers fan so it was especially heartwarming knowing that Verlander, their precious rookie, got lit up like a Christmas tree. It's not that I'm upset that the Tigers took out the A's, it's just that my boss is major asshole and I hope the Cards can bury them in four straight. Yeah, it's not always the best attitude, but sometimes in sports it's just as satisfactory watching teams you hate lose as much as watching your teams win.

Also, Albert Pujols is one of the most complete players I've ever seen in my lifetime and truly deserves a championship. I thought he got royally shafted out of at least 2 MVP awards by Barry Bonds and his roids..er, I mean "flax seed oil" bullshit. Perhaps Pujols will get what Bonds will only dream of, a World Series ring and the feeling of winning a championship. Next to Bonds, the next biggest tragedy in baseball is that Jim Rice will probably never see the hall of fame. While Jim Rice's era of domination was relatively short comparitevly, he too was one of the most complete players I've ever seen.

Plus, we're well into the fall, and for whatever reason, the worst shit always seems to happen to me after summer. Maybe it's the change of season and the change in daylight, but I sometimes find the fall to be somewhat depressing. Oh well, caca pasa.

But for now, I leave you with this incredible kick-ass version of Joe Walsh's Turn To Stone done by the Eagles in 1976, and also from the same show, Randy Meisner doing his tune Take It To The Limit

OK, Who Says I Don't Like Omega-3s

2006-10-18T22:50:00.000-07:00

When he was young and not find him doing well in school,
His mind would turn unto the waters.
Always the focus of adolescent ridicule,
He has no time for farmers daughters.
Alienated from the clique society,
A lonely boy finds peace in fishing.
His mother says john this is not the way lifes supposed to be.
Dont you see the life that you are missing?
And he says...
When I grow up I want to be,
One of the harvesters of the sea.
I think before my days are done,
I want to be a fisherman.

Now years gone by we find man that rules the sea.
He sets out on a dark may morning .
To bring his catch back to this small community.
He doesnt see the danger dawning.
Four hours up, oh the ocean swelled and swelled,
The fog rolled in it started raining.
The starboard bow. oh my God were going down!
The do not hear his frantic mayday.
And he says
When I grow up I want to be,
One of the harvesters of the sea.
I think before my days are done,
I want to be a fisherman.
Ill live and die a fisherman.
Calling john the fisherman

HAha, Primus, great band from the Bay Area. I happened to have caught them several times at Nightbreak and the Omni before they put out there first release. Since my grandfather was a commercial fisherman I always had a great love for this song.

Helping the Environment

2006-10-18T11:49:00.000-07:00

I just spent ten days in Los Angeles. If you ever have a chance to do that...pass. L.A. changes people, that's why I don't like it, you know what I mean? I've got a buddy of mine from Houston, a comedian, moved to L.A. six months ago--six months in L.A., I don't know him. Six months in L.A., now he's a vegetarian, a humanitarian, an enviromentalist...fine, you know? If you're here tonight and you're a vegetarian, shut up. You're not going to recruit me; I didn't climb to the top of the fuckin' food chain to eat carrots! What are you, nuts? It's not even that good for you. You ever see a healthy-looking vegetarian? They look like shit, they're all gaunt and yellow, you know? It's because their bodies have become intolerant of other things, you know what I mean? I'll give you an example: my buddy and I were on the way to the Melrose Improv to do a set, and he says this, and I quote, "I feel nauseous, and I have a headache. I think that vegetable soup I had for lunch must have had beef broth in it." I didn't know what to say. Your system's kickin' back...broth? You're a manly man, aren't you? Why are you a vegetarian, I asked him, and it wasn't even because meat's bad for you. He said that raising cattle was "bad for the planet with cow flatulents in the ozone, and the clearing of land for the raising of cattle...what are you doing to help the environment?" I'm eating the cattle.

Ron White, comedian.

A Few Days of R & R

2006-10-18T11:07:00.000-07:00

Ok, back after the final weekend of Faire and a couple sick days to recuperate from a nasty cold I had. I had a fairly stressful week with home issues, a high pressure deadline for the monthly close, among other things. As a result I went into "shutdown" mode.

More to come soon.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

2006-10-13T15:43:00.000-07:00

A couple things to groove on while I'm gone for the weekend:

Hey man, like FAR OUT!!

The Grateful Dead with Neil Young doing Forever Young from the Bill Graham memorial.

Sounchecking "Sittin' On Top of the World" from what looks like 1987 or so. Love that blazer Jerry!

Hold On....

2006-10-13T08:07:00.000-07:00

Hold on! I speak accounting-esse

Since we emerged from bankruptcy in early January, Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. (ANI) has successfully improved its financial position and operational results and has become a much stronger company.

Translation: We liquidated inventory, sold off some assets and fired a whole bunch of people.

We quickly realized that our nutrition bars and shakes are relevant to the broad group of healthy, active men and women who are looking for a nutrition advantage. We know that people are more educated than ever about nutrition, and they demand that products be truly good for them (and good-tasting!).

We convinced the investors, the bank, the new board of directors and major shareholders that the brand name was still good.

:P

Wrap It Up

2006-10-12T23:58:00.000-07:00

Over at the Active No-Carbers Fourm Max Thunder posed the question,

"I wonder when they'll finally come up with a complete nutritional analysis (minerals, vitamins, some peptides (carnosine etc) ) of grain vs grass-fed, it must not be that hard to do..."

I understand that you may not be able to find everything on Google, but I've never seen anything about protein. What's the difference between the protein content and quality. I've never seen anything on it. My hunch is that there is absolutely ZERO difference in the protein content. Think about it. You're a grass fed beef producer and you're trying to sell your product -especially to your target audience-the health food nut types- your going to find every possible advantage to paying 3-5x more for the meat. Yes, it costs more to produce grass fed beef because it takes longer to fatten them up, but this is marketing and sales. A selling point can't be "It Costs More to Make!". I'm pretty positive they analyzed the living hell out of grass fed beef. Bottom line: Less saturated fat, yadda yadda yadda.

That's not to say I'm anti-grass fed beef. I've always noted it's a matter of preference. I'm just saying that it's ok to eat grain fed beef. If you can afford grass fed and you like it, by all means eat it. If you're on a budget, or if you prefer the taste of grain finished beef, by all means eat it. Don't get hung up on the hysteria and hype.

I eat chicken, fish and pork. I also love goat (very sweet and tasty-get some now, trust me), buffalo, not to keen on lamb and rabbit and kind of amibivilent about venison and duck (although I'll give you duck fat is delicious). I also eat eggs and cheese.

When it comes down to it, the important thing to remember is just eat lots of beef, grass fed-grain fed, doesn't matter. Often I'm amazed at the dismal quantities of beef found in most low-carbers diet menus. Even the ALC poll they did found nobody increasing their beef, bacon and butter intake when going low carb, which I found very surprising. It's understandable because most people buy into the calories count myth so it's even frowned upon among low-carbers who are dieting after all. Too bad really. I think beef is superiour so it should be your biggest source of red meat. I most likely receive a higher level of vitamins, minerals and quality protein than many low-carb dieters I suppose

That's not to say that you must ONLY eat beef, but I think it's important for it to be your main meat of choice most of the time. It's the meat that closest resembles our own mucscle, it has a really nice fat to protein ratio for the more fattier cuts, and you can eat less of it quantity wise than other meat choices like poultry and fish. I've eaten beef everyday days on end since February and I find I can't go more than 3 days without eating beef at least once a day.

Sad to say though, I think few would find this appealing though, but I was raised on lots of beef so I have a natural love of meat to begin with. I think it comes down to a couple key points that make this diet work for you:

1) You mom must never have made you eat your veggies
2) Raised eating lots of meat, any variety or cut.

I think if you don't have both of these situations then you're probably screwed for the most part, but not impossible. It's going to take some serious conscious will power to get around that but once again I believe it's still possible. You have a better chance if you have no. 2 but not no. 1, but no. 1 and no no. 2, then you're on the verge of being screwed, but better than not having both.

Science-Based Care of Feedlot-Finished Cattle

2006-10-12T12:03:00.000-07:00

U.S. grain-fed beef has earned a worldwide reputation for its quality, consistency and taste. This is due in large part to careful monitoring during the entire lifespan of cattle; including the finishing or feedlot stage. Production practices on feedlots are misunderstood, but there’s no mystery about it – what happens on a feedlot is firmly grounded in science. These science-based feedlot practices ensure the health and well-being of cattle and the highest quality beef for consumers.

One of the biggest misconceptions we hear is consumers referring to feedlots as “factory farms.” That’s simply not the case as 800,000 family farms and ranches across this country care for each animal. Feedlots provide a safe and productive environment for America’s beef producers to care for their cattle during the relatively short part of their lives (90 to 120 days) that they typically spend there. It is this type of farming that makes the great tasting, nutritious beef available for all consumers.

For many feedlot operators, raising cattle is a family tradition passed down through generations. Most U.S. cattle feeding operations today are small, with fewer than 1,000 head of cattle, but there are also feedlots capable of feeding and caring for thousands of animals at a time. Cattle care and welfare are top priorities throughout the beef production process and are carefully considered in the design and operation of feedlots. Cattle are given ample room to eat, drink and to move around and socialize with the other cattle. Several times each day, cattle on feedlots are monitored for illness and any sick animals are removed to hospital pens for treatment, allowing for individual care and attention.

All beef is grass-fed, as cattle spend the majority of the lives grazing on pasture. Once they transition to the next phase, cattle in feedlots are fed a scientifically formulated ration of corn, forages, vitamins and mineral supplements that averages 70 percent to 90 percent grain. The abundance of feed corn grown in this country contributes to the economic viability of producing grain-fed cattle. These current production practices provide Americans access to the great taste and nutritional benefits of beef. While grass-fed and other types of beef are great beef varieties, they would not allow someone living on a middle or lower income access to the nutritious beef they love.

Just as humans become ill for a variety of reasons including environment, stress, germs from other humans and diet, cattle are susceptible to various conditions as well. We turn to doctors for medicine when we are sick and as a veterinarian, I diagnose and treat a range of conditions in all types of cattle. Factors such as feeding practices, season of the year, weather and geographic location can contribute to conditions such as respiratory disease, lameness or liver abscesses. Liver abscesses can occur in all classes and ages of cattle: grass-finished, grain-fed, young, old, steers, heifers, mature beef cows and dairy cows.

Veterinarians and feedlot operators employ antibiotics to treat several health conditions and strictly follow national guidelines for Judicious Use of Antimicrobials, which are based on recommendations established by the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Association of Bovine Practitioners, the Academy of Veterinary Consultants and other scientific groups. Compounds called ionophores prevent the growth of harmful micro-organisms in the rumen and promote the growth of bacteria that aid in digestion. Ionophores are given to cattle in both pasture and feedlot settings. These compounds help cattle absorb important nutrients as well as reduce their risk for gastro-intestinal and other diseases. Ionophores are not used in human medicine and resistance to ionophores has never been a problem.

Much has been written about the negative impact that animal therapy has on human health. In fact, authors of a peer-reviewed article in the January 2004 issue of the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy examined more than 250 studies and available data and concluded there is no scientific evidence to suggest that the use of antibiotics in food animals negatively impacts human health. Included in the paper was a list of several risk assessments that have been done on specific antibiotic use in animals, consistently showing very low levels of theoretical risk. Many scientific experts agree that the main cause of microbial drug resistance is the misuse or over-use of antibiotics in treating human patients. Most resistant bugs are encountered in the human hospital setting. In fact, there is no scientific evidence that human disease due to bacterial drug resistance is caused by the cattle industry.

I am often called upon as a veterinarian to advise about the safe, effective administration of growth promotants, which are another important tool involved in producing a nutritious beef supply for consumers. For more than 50 years, growth promotants have helped cattle producers safely meet the increasing consumer demand for lean beef without any negative affect on human health. Growth promotants are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) after a thorough review of data from rigorous scientific studies. The use of hormones in cattle production has been declared safe by scientific organizations world wide including the Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization, the European Commission Agriculture Division and the Codex Committee on Veterinary Residues.

A growth promotant is typically a small pellet that is implanted under the skin on the back of the animal’s ear. The pellet releases tiny amounts of hormone and safely dissolves as the treatment is completed. The difference in the amount of estrogen found in beef from cattle raised with or without growth promotants is miniscule: a three-ounce serving of beef from a steer raised with growth promotants contains 1.9 nanograms; a three-ounce serving of beef from a steer raised with no growth promotants contains 1.3 nanograms. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires a “withdrawal” period between the time an animal is treated and when it can go to a meat packing plant. The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service regularly tests for and has never found residues in meat that would indicate misuse of growth promoting products.

As part of a network of veterinarians, my role is to ensure that feedlot practices lead to healthy animals and safe food. We base our work on the extensive and growing body of research conducted on these issues, as well as a less scientific question: will this produce a product we’d be proud to serve to our own families?

John Maas, a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine with specialties in internal medicine and nutrition, is an Extension Veterinarian at the University of California, Davis and a cow/calf producer in northern California.

FACT SHEET: Feedlot Finishing Cattle

2006-10-11T16:21:00.000-07:00

Background

Family farmers and ranchers have finished cattle in confined settings for more than a hundred years. They found that cattle fed rations of grain and crop surpluses produced better tasting beef.

Cattle feeding became more prevalent after World War I and through the Great Depression, but wasn’t fully developed on a commercial scale until after World War II, when grain was plentiful, the economy was robust and consumers demanded tender, good tasting beef that was available year-round. Beef producers found that by finishing cattle uniformly, with plentiful feed grains, it was possible to reduce costs and provide a high quality product consumers valued.

By far, most U.S. cattle feeding operations today are small, with fewer than 1,000 head. However, the 5 percent of operations with more than 1,000 head finish more than 80 percent of fed cattle.

U.S. grain-fed beef has earned a worldwide reputation for its quality, consistency and taste. It has tenderness and a rich flavor that taste tests show are important to consumers. In fact, consumers will go out of their way to select beef cuts with these grain-fed characteristics.

The Cattle Feeding Process

Cattle are raised on range or pasture land for most of their lives (usually 12-18 months), then transported to a feedlot for finishing. These cattle usually spend about three to six months in a feedlot, during which time they gain between 2.5 and 4 pounds per day. The cattle are fed a scientifically formulated ration that averages 70 percent to 90 percent grain. On this special diet, cattle will gain about 1 pound for every 6 pounds of feed they consume.

In the feedlot, cattle live in pens that house between 100 and 125 other animals and allow about 125 to 250 square feet per animal. Each animal has about 1 foot of space at the feed bunk during feeding, which normally takes place twice a day. Cattle always have access to water in the feedlot.

The abundance of feed corn in this country contributes to the economic viability of producing grain-fed cattle. In fact, it will often cost more to raise cattle on pasture because it takes longer for the animal to reach market weight. That is why grass-finished beef can be more expensive than grain-fed product.

Many cattle in feedlots are given growth promoting products that contain hormones, like estrogen, which is naturally occurring and found in both plants and animals. In fact, these hormones are produced by the human body in amounts hundreds of thousands of times greater than that used for growth promotion in cattle. A non-pregnant woman, for example, produces about 480,000 nanograms of estrogen daily; while a 3-ounce serving of beef from an implanted steer contains just 1.9 nanograms (a nanogram is a billionth of a gram).

Stringent government feed rules assure that no ruminant by-products are fed to cattle. This, along with careful processing methods, assures that bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or “mad cow” disease) is not a human health issue.

Feedlots and the Environment

Feedlot owners must be very attentive to the environment. Odor, water quality, air quality and land utilization are all factors for feedlots operators to consider and manage. For instance, if the feedlots become too dry, operators may use a sprinkler system to help keep the dust down.

Windbreaks at the edge of a feedlot – fast growing trees or other types of vegetation – help keep dust and odors contained. Manure is removed from pens and used on crop land as natural fertilizer. In Colorado alone, this type of natural fertilizer is worth about $34.2 million a year.

Cattle produce an insignificant amount of a greenhouse gas called methane. About 70 percent of methane emissions actually come from human-related activities such as burning petroleum, coal mining and oil and natural gas exploration and extraction. Oceans, wetlands, forests and rice paddies are also sources of methane in the environment.

Animal Welfare

The feedlot setting keeps cattle safe, separated from predators and able to congregate with other animals in inclement weather. Death loss in feedlots is generally less than 1.5 percent, partially because cattle are monitored regularly for illness. Sick animals are removed from their pens for treatment, allowing for individual care and attention.

Cattle producers recognize the importance of animal health and well-being, both from a moral and economic standpoint. They know that well-nourished and content cattle gain weight more rapidly and efficiently. They gladly accept the responsibility of being stewards of the land and protectors of the animals in their care.

Brought to you by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association on behalf of The Beef Checkoff.

WEEEEE!!! Look At All the Veggies I Eat!!!!

2006-10-11T16:04:00.000-07:00

Glad to see acculturation and social myths regarding the sacrosanct quality of vegetables is still alive and well.

While I'm getting used to being criticized among low-carbers for my diet there's a general feeling that we're ruining it for all the mainstream lowcarbers. Anyone who followed The Bear thread at the ALC knows the amount of shit he got for advocating an all meat diet.

The pattern goes like this, mainstream low-carb gets a "bad rap" for being all about "meat, eggs and cheese", this terrifies mainstream low-carbers and non-low carbers alike and provides ammuinition to detractors proving how "unhealthy" and "bad" a low-carb diet is. The usual retort is posting that silly ALC poll about how people doubled their veggie intake once going on low carb.

But that's not the only issue.

Few of the 3,000 respondents reported that they had drastically increased consumption of such high-fat foods as beef, bacon, or butter, popularly portrayed as features of low-carbohydrate diets. This was especially true of the half of the respondents who had lost 30 lbs or more and kept the weight off for more than one year. A doubling of consumption of chicken, however, a lower-fat food, was reported by 34% of the dieters.

This just shows that the "saturated fat is bad" meme is alive and well, even among low-carbers. It also demonstrates a major misunderstanding that "calories count". As long as there's ZERO glucose in the diet there's never an opportunity for fat storage. Funny that the mainstream media, in an attempt to defame low-carb diets, actually hit the nail on the head when it comes to the real human diet while mainstream low-carbers are besides themselves trying to show how many veggies they eat.

Gotta love the irony.

Photo Update

2006-10-10T08:54:00.000-07:00

Ok, it's time for another update. Previously I put my pics up through September, so here's an update for October. While the scale hasn't moved much this week I defintely lost inches as the 42s are now very comfortable (pictured below) and I'm wearing my old XL t shirts instead of the humongo 3x. I also have been using some free weights and doing some light excercise so I can feel the muscle growth in my arms.

Now I can buy OFF THE RACK! WOO fucking HOO! Goodwill here I come! ;)

E. coli Spinach Outbreak On Center Of Meat Industry's Plate

2006-10-09T15:07:00.000-07:00

THE VOCAL POINT: E. coli Spinach Outbreak On Center Of Meat Industry's Plate

You knew this was coming.

Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has so far been unable to pinpoint the source of the E. coli O157:H7 in fresh bagged spinach, more than 180 people in 26 states have been infected, and one person has died during the last two weeks.

Worse, CDC reported that more than half of the people infected ended up in the hospital — nearly double the typical rate in O157:H7 incidents. About 15 percent of those patients developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, again a rate that is "higher than normal."

It's enough to qualify the outbreak as a major food-safety failure.

On the part of the meat industry, to listen to some of the harsher media critics.

In other words, the spinach isn't responsible for the outbreak; cattle producers and meatpackers are.

That's because E. coli O157:H7 is associated with cattle manure, and that's enough evidence to convict producers and packers.

[By the way, anyone know the origins of how the (relatively) innocuous coliform bacteria mutated into such a virulent pathogen? In 1980, Alison O'Brien, a microbiologist at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., reasoned that since the toxin produced by pathogenic strains of shigella bacteria mimicked the "new" O157:H7 strain, it was likely that E. coli had somehow incorporated shigella's ability to produce such a toxin.]

What's troubling is that according many media critics, organic growers should be held blameless. For example: In a New York Times story last week, Nina Planck, a food activist and writer, wrote the following screed:

"There is also no evidence so far that Natural Selection Foods, the huge shipper implicated in the outbreak that packages salad greens under more than two dozen brands, failed to use proper handling methods.

"Indeed, this epidemic has little to do with the folks who grow and package your greens. The detective trail ultimately leads back to a seemingly unrelated food industry: beef and dairy cattle."

Planck resurrected the notion that O157:H7 thrives in a "new" biological niche: the acidic stomachs of beef and dairy cattle fed a grain-based diet, what Planck indelicately labeled "the typical ration on most industrial farms."

She then repeated the so-called conventional wisdom that contaminated manure from grain-fed cattle contaminates groundwater, and that's what contaminated the spinach.

Maintaining the myth

Planck referenced a 2003 study in The Journal of Dairy Science suggesting that when cows were switched from a grain diet to hay for only five days, O157 declined 1,000-fold.

This parallels a widely reported 1998 study at Cornell University claiming that switching Holstein cows to an all-hay diet caused the number of acid-resistant E. coli cells in the animals' digestive tracts to decline by nearly 100,000 fold in only five days.

All hail the food-safety savior: Hay.

"In a week, we could choke O157 from its favorite home," Planck wrote. "Even if beef cattle were switched to a forage diet just seven days before slaughter, it would greatly reduce cross-contamination by manure of hamburger in meat-packing plants. Such a measure might have prevented the E. coli O157:H7 outbreak that plagued the Jack in the Box fast food chain in 1993."

And you thought we were past such simplistic exaggerations.

At the time the Cornell study was published, better brains than mine dissected the research from a number of angles, basically concluding that the media's interpretation that grain is the cause of the E. coli O157:H7 problem was impractical, incomplete and inaccurate.

For one, the Cornell researchers were studying "generic" E. coli, not the pathogenic O15:H7 strain. More importantly, a University of Idaho research team just months later experimentally dosed Holstein steers with E. coli O157:H7 and found that the animals harbored the pathogen longer while being fed a hay diet than a grain-based diet similar to feedlot finishing rations. That Idaho study also showed no difference between grain or hay in acid resistance of E. coli O157:H7 found in cattle feces.

At the same time, a group of Washington State University scientists charged that the Cornell study had "gaping holes" in its design and data, and that it should have been subjected to more stringent peer review before it was made public.

Other scientists' research results were contrary to the Cornell conclusion, the WSU team noted, pointing to studies showing no difference in E. coli populations between grass-fed and feedlot cattle. They also expressed concern that a rapid switch in diets could cause metabolic distress, increasing the chance that E. coli O157:H7 would be shed in feces and end up on the hide of the animal at the packing plant.

You find that kind of nuance in most discussions about the relationship of cattle diets — even among scientists.

About three years ago, I happened to be chatting with the veterinary office attached to Australia's U.S. consulate. Since there had never been an E. coli O157:H7 in that country, many critics claim that the grass-based diet of cattle Down Under is proof that grain feeding is the smoking gun.

"We never had an [E. coli O157:H7] outbreak in our country," he said.

"Have you surveyed cattle populations to see if the pathogen is present?" I asked.

He answered, "We don't need to, mate."

Nor do those who already "know" the answer to the food-safety challenge of E. coli O15:H7 need to reason any further. The conclusions drawn by Planck and others who leap to the simplistic conclusion that feeding grain to cattle "created" O157:H7, and that a magical switch from grain to forage — as if that were even possible — would solve the problem are way off the mark.

But like it or not, the meat industry is implicated in the fallout from this current outbreak. As Planck phrased it, "California's spinach industry is now the financial victim of an outbreak it probably did not cause. So give the spinach growers a break, and direct your attention to the people in our agricultural community who just might be able to solve this deadly problem: beef and dairy farmers."

According to her, E. coli doesn't grow on spinach.

Unfortunately for the industry, solutions to the scientific and PR challenges surrounding E. coli O157:H7 aren't exactly growing on trees, either.

Source: Dan Murphy on Friday, September 29, 2006, Meatingplace.com

Dan Murphy is a freelance writer and former editor of MMT magazine based in the Pacific Northwest . His column, THE VOCAL POINT, appears in this space each Friday.

E. Coli O157:H7 Not Limited to Grain-Fed Cattle, Kansas State Expert Says

2006-10-09T14:59:00.000-07:00

Tue Sep 26, 4:57 PM ET

To: State and City Desk, Medical and Health Reporters

Contact: Dr. David Renter of Kansas State University, 785-532-4801, or drenter@vet.k-state.edu

MANHATTAN, Kan., Sept. 26 /U.S. Newswire/ -- E. coli O157:H7, which has been linked to the current spinach outbreak, is not just found in cattle fed on a diet of strictly grains, according to a veterinarian at Kansas State University.

"Cattle fed on grass, hay and other fibrous forage can have E. coli O157:H7 in their feces as can other animals including deer, sheep, goats, bison, opossum, raccoons, birds and many others," said Dr. David Renter, assistant professor of veterinary epidemiology.

"While many media outlets have recently stated E. coli O157:H7 can be avoided by feeding cattle grass only, this is not the case," Renter said.

"Cattle diet can affect levels of E. coli O157:H7, but this is a complex issue that has been and continues to be studied."

To suggest switching cattle from grain to forage based on a small piece of the scientific evidence is inappropriate and irresponsible, Renter said.

"Several pieces of evidence suggest that such a change would not eliminate and may even increase E. coli O157:H7 in cattle," he added.

"Simplistically attacking one facet of livestock production may be politically expedient, but instead provides a false sense of security and ignores the biological realities of E. coli O157:H7," Renter said. "The current spinach outbreak may be traced back to cattle manure, but there are many other potential sources."

Bear's Words of Wisdom

2006-10-09T13:33:00.000-07:00

Bear's Words of Wisdom-From Bear's Active Low-Carber Forum Thread

All essential vitamins and nutrients are found in lean meat and animal fat, including Vit E. and omega 3. Vegetables do not have vitamins to any significant extent, and some vitamins cannot be soured from any vegetable, like A. Soy is toxic- and a very poor food for humans/children, perhaps dietary deficiency led to the the sweet tooth. Just steaks alone are sufficient for health and longevity, provided there is enough fat on them. You do not need variety in animals nor any organ meats unless you like them. I would suggest going easy on liver, it is starchy can fatten you and poison you with Vit A if you eat too much or too often. Brains are good, as is kidney. but both taste sweet to me...

No, I don't think that any combination or lack of combination of meat is any less or more nourishing than another. To state this another way, you can eat nothing but prime fatty sirloin steaks, three or more times a day for at least ten or more years and have no problems whatsoever. I personally have not done this for longer than about 5 or 6 months, but it was just wonderful- every meal as delicious as the last, until finally the big stash (cryovac'd), bought at a ridiculously low price finally ran out. Variety treats the mind, not the body. It is not necessary in carnivory because any and all forms of meat constitute complete foods in and of itself.

Meat, that is, fat and lean muscle tissue- IS a complete food.

I think where you ran off the track was by transferring your social training to eat a lot of variety because of the low and incomplete food value found in the major portion of the mixed diet- vegetation. If you run the vegetation through an animal intermediary, this problem disappears.

...I know already you just HATE the truth, but the simple fact is that there are no deficiencies of any essential nutrients, or indeed of any non-essential ones, in an all-meat diet, no matter how long it is continued- period. All the so called 'science' in the known universe will not change that fact one iota, nor is there any imperative to 'prove' why it is so- (nor why it 'should not' be so)...

...Dr Macarness, in his (for me) seminal book Eat Fat and Grow Slim put forth the suggestion that those of us who are 'genetically obese' (my term) actually suffer from an inability to process certain intermediates/byproducts of the conversion of glucose to fat, (krebs cycle). He focused on pyruvic acid, which he said built up and inhibited fat burning. The person then falls asleep or otherwise has very low energy after a meal until the glucose clears. I had this problem- after a meal I always wanted to nap. I don't know if he was right or not about what the mechanism was, but treating it like a 'black box' and dealing only with input and output, it describes exactly what happens to me if I consume carbs.

My credentials? You're kidding of course. Credentials for what, issued by whom? My 'credentials' are 47 years of living a zero carb lifestyle and 47 years of having many friends attack and disparage my lifestyle as 'unhealthy', all the while managing to die form things which have either not bothered me or that I have overcome.

I doubt there IS a living 47 yr veteran of veganism. Or even a 27 year one.

Organ meats cooked or raw are unnecessary, although there is the case for OCCASIONAL intake of liver, raw or slightly cooked. Totally raw muscle tissue is likewise unnecessary so long as MOST of the mass is 'rare' (i.e., raw)- for excellent nutrition. Grass fed or grain fed beef, nutritionally there is no difference, only one of quality and flavour. Just like freezing lowers not nutrition, but quality and flavour.

What the animal eats is not going to matter so far as nutritive value is concerned, so long as the animal was healthy. A plant may indeed be dependent on its nutrition, but the animals we use for food have the ability to manufacture in their bodies or with the aid of commensal organisms living in their intestines, many if not all of the nutritive substances they require which may fall missing in their diet. Food animals are herbivores, they live on feed which has the lowest level and format of organic-nutrient value on the planet- they are highly evolved, complex organisms which are specialised in converting low value feed into high value meat. Any proposal that the nutrient quality of meat is different due to what the animal is fed is only propaganda serving a special interest, like the organic farming mob. There is no nutritional difference between 'organic' meat and any other kind- except of course, the cost per unit to the buyer.

It really doesn't matter which red meat you eat, all are much the same other than texture and flavour. Likewise with fowl. It may matter with fish, they vary in a lot of ways, some are downright deadly poisonous. The flesh of a healthy animal is a complete food, it is not what they eat, only that they eat enough of whatever it is to thrive and be healthy. Variety in food is a human social-concept. A herbivorous animal will eat whatever plant of the specific group they are evolved to eat that is available unless or until that plant's natural protective toxins cause distress.

Sheep bison and cattle are grass eaters. Deer and goats however are browsers, and will eat almost any plant except grass. The problem with grain as food for the grass-feeding ruminants, is that the natural bacteria in each of the various 'stomachs' are not very good at digesting it. Feedlot cattle are fed a bacterial mix which replaces the normal flora with ones which can digest grain. I do not think this is a particularly good idea, but it in no way damages or lessens the nutritional value of the resulting meat.

I have been on this diet for close to 8 months now. According to the naysayers and contrians I should have been dead from scurvy 3 months ago. I have no signs or symptoms of scurvy. I have no other signs of deficiencies. Please naysayers, tell me when you expect me to collapse and die. I'd like to mark it on my calander. ;)

John Lennon b: October 9th 1940

2006-10-09T08:25:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday John!

Grass-Fed Beef—Green or Green Wash?

2006-10-08T19:55:00.000-07:00

Do I detect a smug alert?

First, there is no difference nutritionally between grass fed and grain fed beef. The only difference between the two are in preference and taste. Basically, it comes down to a slight difference in the omega polyunsaturated fat ratio, some betacarotine and less saturated fat (a negative IMO). That's it. To put that in perspective, out of a 1 pound say 1400 calorie steak, the difference in the omega ratio of approximately 63 calories (5% of the total caloric value) puts my health in the balance? That is total nonsense.

Second, I think people wrongfully come to the conclusion that this means or is proof that grain fed beef is "unhealthy". That is also nonsense and perhaps the result of some mental gymnastics by the Omegaites to reassure themselves that all that money spent on grass fed beef is worth it, I don't know. Either way, grain fed beef is nutritionally sound and perfectly healthy and acceptable. There is no need to supplement. If you eat grain fed beef, relax, you're not going to have any deficiencies. It is a perfectly acceptable food choice.

I think the Omegaites are conflating the real issue. Regarless of ratio percentages, it's just plain ol' common sense to avoid eating polyunsaturated fats. Perhaps in a traditional low carb diet this might make sense, but then again you shouldn't be eating carbs like nuts and salad dressings to begin with. Dressings and low carb products tend to be loaded in soybean oils.

And if you think that you're ecologically above the rest by eating grass fed beef, consider this position from www.pupliclandsranching.org. I don't agree with their premise, but they bring up some interesting points on the grass fed beef zealots:

Grass-Fed Beef—Green or Green Wash?

Recently there has been a spate of articles celebrating the supposed ecological virtues of free-ranging, “grass-fed” beef as opposed to grain-fed cattle. Consumers are being told that grass-fed beef is ecologically and ethically superior to livestock fattened in feedlots. Who is to say whether beef cattle that are castrated, branded with a hot iron, and forced to search for scraps of grass under a blazing sun or survive the wind and snow of a winter blizzard are “happier” than cows standing shoulder to shoulder at a feeding trough? We will allow others to debate the ethics of beef production. However, there is no denying that grass-fed beef has numerous unavoidable ecological impacts, rendering suspect the claim that grass-fed beef is somehow a desirable alternative to other production methods.

Most of the public mistakenly believes that grass-fed cattle are fed their whole lives by grazing rolling hills of grassy pastureland. In fact, grass-fed cattle typically rely on hay and other feed in winter and other times of the year, and especially during periods of drought. Hay production usually requires the conversion of entire valleys into fields of exotic grasses with an equal and simultaneous loss of native vegetation. In Montana, for example, hay fields make up more than 5.5 million acres or 6 percent of the state, a sizeable commitment to supplemental forage production.

Hay fields must be irrigated, which is typically done by dewatering streams or through ground water pumping. Both reduce the flow of surface water, negatively affecting aquatic ecosystems. Sometimes entire streams and rivers are completely dewatered, leaving fish and other aquatic species high and dry. Often small fish will attempt to escape dwindling streams in (or are otherwise “sucked” into) irrigation canals where they are trapped and die, frequently killing most of the annual recruitment into the population.

Whether on private or public lands, grass-fed livestock cause widespread damage to western ecosystems:

•Grass-fed cattle pollute our streams and foul springs through trampling and deposition of their feces and urine. Livestock production is the number one source of non-point water pollution in the West.
•Grass-fed cattle trample riparian vegetation and break down streambanks, often altering or destroying a stream’s hydrological system. Livestock are the number one cause of riparian damage in the West, and these riparian areas are home to 70-80 percent of all western wildlife.
•Grass-fed cattle trample and compact soils, reducing water infiltration and hastening overflow from precipitation that contributes to flooding and soil erosion.
•Grass-fed cattle are a primary vector for the spread of exotic weeds by transporting weed seeds on their coats and in their feces. Also, by consuming more desirable “ice cream” plants, livestock alter vegetative communities and give a competitive edge to invasive weed species.
•Grass-fed cattle consume forage that would otherwise feed other native herbivores, from grasshoppers to sage grouse to pronghorn and elk. The removal of grasses by livestock also leaves many small mammals and birds more vulnerable to predators by reducing hiding cover.
•Grass-fed cattle are vulnerable to predators, and livestock are the primary (if not the only) reason for predator control in the West. Thousands of wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, coyotes, mountain lions and other wildlife are destroyed each year to protect livestock on public and private lands—at taxpayer expense!
•Grass-fed cattle transmit disease to wildlife, including buffalo, elk and deer.
•Grass-fed cattle interrupt ecological processes like wildfire.

Anyone who suggests grass-fed beef is superior to grain-fed beef is only considering a fraction of the real costs of beef production. Whether grain-fed or grass-fed, beef production is an ecological disaster for the American West.

Finally, most "grass-fed" cattle are "finished" at feedlots on "grain" (mainly corn and chemical supplements), as most consumers do not actually favor the flavor of grass-fed beef.

GRAIN-FED BEEF CUTS PREVAIL IN NATIONAL TASTE TEST

2006-10-07T19:24:00.000-07:00

LUBBOCK – Asked how American beef eaters prefer their sizzling slabs, almost 85 percent favored high-quality beef cuts produced from cattle fed on grain, according to a national taste tests report done by scientists at Texas Tech University.

The report, released last week, reflects a consumer preference toward higher fat content cuts, which were considered more tender, juicy and flavorful when compared with grass-fed cattle.

“Using this new information, beef producers can go back to the genetic drawing board to fine tune their products to more closely meet these specific consumer desires,” said Markus Miller, a meat science biologist at Texas Tech.

More than 1,400 volunteers participated in taste panels at sites in Lubbock, Phoenix, Ariz., and the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. area. At each location, they were given small samples of freshly grilled or cooked roasts and steaks and asked to rank the tenderness, juiciness and flavor of the cuts.

Evaluations included ribeye, round, sirloin and tenderloin cuts of beef, both as roasts and steaks.

“Technically, we were looking for what’s called the palatability target,” Miller said. “We found that consumers could sort out subtle differences among cuts, and based on those evaluations, they preferred grain-fed beef.”

Grass-fed beef has a taste and flavor similar to wild game such as venison, while grain-fed beef, with its higher white fat or marbling, has a more intense flavor, he said.

To get an accurate taste profile of U.S. beef consumers, the Texas Tech researchers teamed with the independent meat industry group Meat and Livestock Australia. The Australian group, led by noted cattle producer Rod Polkinghornes, assisted selecting and shipping the study’s Australian grass-fed cuts.

Asked the value in knowing that Americans prefer their high-quality cuts of beef grain-fed, Miller explained that specific taste preferences could one day be tailored to allow beef producers to essentially custom-build cattle from the start that better match consumer tastes.

It also opens the door for making beef cuts much more tiered in terms of quality, he said. Just as there are high-end levels of wine now, there could be extremely high quality beef cuts available in stores.

“Really, in the past, no one knew the consumer preference they needed to target,” Miller said.

“This study moves us from a subjective type of opinion to real data based on real people.” Miller said a more detailed analysis of the study in the coming months will focus on demographics, such as matching income, gender, education and regional variation levels to beef preferences.

“There are value differences,” he said. “Some people will pay almost anything for a steak as long as the eating experience is very good. Then there are some consumers who will only pay the minimum amount, regardless of the eating experience. They just want it cheap.

”The beef most Americans consume comes from cows that mature in a feedlot, eating corn and other grains, until slaughter – a cycle of between 14 and 16 months. By contrast, the average life span of a grass-fed cow is between 20 and 26 months. Pricewise, grass-fed beef – particularly if it’s organic – tends to be more expensive than conventional.

Kotsay and The Big Hurt

2006-10-04T13:30:00.000-07:00

Ok, not diet related but...

One more baby!

Kotsay comes through in the clutch on a BIG mental error by Tori Hunter

Coming on the heels of The Big Hurt

Ok, diet related...

I'm just able to squeeze into the Oakland A's jersey that I bought back in 1984. Even then I was huge and couldn't wear it, but now I'm on the verge of wearing the colors proudly! And just in time too.

The Weight

2006-10-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I did the usual tuesday weigh in thingy today. I really hate weighing in once a week, but Jimmy Moore's 30-in-30 challange has put me in the spirit. Very weird. Sunday night I was 256 but this morning I was 259. I probably was a little dehydrated from camping this weekend, plus I ate a shitload of meat last night because I was so busy I didn't eat since Sunday night.

Regardless, I'm back in the 42's that I used to wear back in 1998 (thank god Dockers never go out of style!). I was also able to wear my cool Phil Lesh, Jerry Garcia and Grateful Dead XL tshirts that I haven't been able to wear in years.

The interesting this is that it seems I'm really burning though the fat the last 2 months. So far it seems that the closer I get to goal weight, the faster I'm burning it, despite the so called conventional wisdom of the naysayers and contrarians who maintain the opposite, that you burn it slower the closer you get to goal. Let me let you in on a little secret..that happens because of the CARBS! Even as few as 20-30g/day will stall and stymie the fat burning process. If anything, the last couple months I've been even more diligent about watching my cheese intake and other residual carbs.

Onward to 145!

You Say You Want a Revolution, Well, Ya Know...

2006-10-02T17:19:00.000-07:00

A couple of points of interest today regarding the "low-carb explosion to come".

First I noticed last night Dr. Michael Eades made a post about “The columnist who mistook his myth for a fact”. John Tierney, columnist at the New York Times, is apparently worried that a ban on trans fats would lead to more saturated fat consumption. Dr. Eades ends this post with this blurb:

My concern comes from the realization that if a regular columnist for the New York Times uncritically accepts the notion that saturated fats are bad (instead of the unproven hypothesis that it is) and states it as fact, what hope is there that the great unwashed masses will ever see the light?
I basically agreed, but to me, there is little hope that the masses will see the light. It’s the technique of the Big Lie. People will believe a big lie over a small lie, and if repeated often enough, will soon believe that the Big Lie is true. Such is the case of saturated fat. It’s so ingrained into the pyche of the culture that I doubt any amount of smoking gun will convince people otherwise.

Jimmy Moore then had a good interview with the Eades’ today. I like the Eades. When I was doing a low-carb diet in 1998 I particularly liked Protein Power. Compared to the Atkins book at the time it was extremely informative with lots of good science (I’m amazed at the accolades that Atkins receives considering his post 1972 books are rather lame). The interview title, “”Eades: Huge Comeback For Low-Carb In 2007” exudes with optimism that is characteristic of Jimmy Moore.

Problem is, I just don’t buy it. On a purely socioeconomic level, grain producers are making billion dollar annual profits on corn, soybeans and grains . I hardly doubt a book by Gary Taubes is going to convince the corporate brass and it’s investors and shareholders to say, “my bad, we need to reallocate our resources into meat production”. Ain’t going to happen. And with the top agricultural business (mostly big sugar, corn and grain producers) throwing money into politics I highly doubt that anything substantial will happen.

As The Bear succinctly noted on his thread:

In case anyone has not followed the current scandal over wheat and Iraq, cereals are very lucrative, especially for the US and Europe, both subsidise wheat so heavily that is very profitable indeed. Primary producers of meat have very heavy costs in labour, veterinarian services, land use and degradation, costs of transport- live animals have a high specific value per unit weight, thus investment is high, and they require special higher cost transport. Grain is a stable, bulk commodity like sand or gravel. etc, value is low and thus the amount of investment per unit weigh tied up is low. Not only that, but the cost of holding cattle for 90 days in feedlots, accompanied by the need to alter their lumen bacteria and the costs of the grain (not a natural food for ruminants) almost doubles the cost/per pound over grass fattening.

It will be very difficult to change the culture that emphasis the individual over the collective and the technique of the Big Lie, especially when literally billions of dollars in profit are at stake. Sorry to be so pessimistic, but that’s how I see it.

Sorry Folks, Back Again

2006-10-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to take the weekend off from the Faire but I ended up going anyway. More to come later today.

From The Comments

2006-09-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

LcforEvah nails it:

This WOE isn't "perfectly acceptable" that phrase is a such a equivocation! It's THE ONLY TRUE WAY for human carnivores to eat.

Everything else is a survival mechanism of last resort.

You need to go back and read all of the Bear's alc thread that's been saved on the activenocarber forum. Firstly, we're descended from insectivores not true vegetarians, so we've always needed animal protein. Modern gorillas get their insects included inside the prodigious amount of vegetation they have to eat all day, every day, so they're not true vegetarians as is often presented.

Secondly, radio isotope studies of the bones of our direct ancestors have shown that they took in no vegetable material--they have the exact same isotope signature as that of lions--an obligate carnivore. So the detail of which animals our ancestors ate is not important to know for the zero carb premise--the fact that they ate nothing else is.

Thirdly, I suspect that you are too distrusting of the need for adding fat to your diet. I think your fat intake is not high enough, and therefore you have to tinker around with calorie counting. Were your fat intake high enough, you would rarely overeat, since fat is the primary nutrient for satiety. You would stop eating way before the calorie count would matter.Just try high fat/moderate protein/zero carb for a few days and see what happens for you.Eating a few pats of butter will not hurt you, believe me!

There you go. For the naysayers out there, just give it a try, although I know very very few people will be able to, perhaps being carnivorous for a few days at the most. People are extremely emotionally tied to their carbage. Unfortunately, the dietary restriction (if you could call it that if you LOVE beef) has tremendous benefits over the mainstream LC diet. The bottom line is that if you don't love beef, or are willing to learn to accept it as your prime source of food and nutrition, this will be an extremely difficult path to follow, yet the rules can be written in their entirety on a post-it note.

If you do decide to take me up on my "challenge", The Active No-Carber Forum, of which I am one of the Admins (insert tooting-own-horn sound here), is a great place for support and information exchange.

Carbohydrates, you've been put on notice!

Dick's Picks Vol.11-9/27/72 From The Stanley Theater

2006-09-27T15:03:00.000-07:00

On a different note, today is the 34th anniversary of one of the sweetest 1972 Grateful Dead shows and is higly recommended. Recorded by Owsley "Bear" Stanley after his return to the Dead's crew, he notes "This was made from one of my sonic journal tapes, pretty much the standard for that period." And what a period it was. The last half of 1972 was a great era, as they rotated Dark Star and The Other One nearly every other night.

Here's Blair Jackson's review from his website:

This full-concert CD from the beloved Stanley Theater is further proof that 1972 was one of the best years ever for the Dead. With Keith Godchaux fully comfortable in the keyboard chair and Billy K. playing "like a young God," as Phil put it, this edition of the band swings confidently. This is three discs with virtually no down spots at all. Opening with "Morning Dew" is the first tip-off that there was magic in the air this night. All the songs are performed with power and verve. The first set offers the relatively rare fast electric version of "Friend of the Devil," a magnficently exploratory "Bird Song," a solid "China Cat > Rider" and 15 minutes of growling, propulsive jams through "Playing in the Band." The still-new (and peppy) "He's Gone" provides a mellow entry into a second set dominated by a long, typically dissonant (for '72) "Dark Star," which then skitters beautifully into "Cumberland Blues." "Attics of My Life" is a great late-set choice, delivered with considerable emotion, and from there it's a mini-set of rockers, including a fine "Uncle John's Band." There are shows with more continuous threads running through them (like the second set the following night at the Stanley), but this one definitely has the goods in spades, and shows the Dead at a peak.

Songs: Disc One — Morning Dew; Beat It on Down the Line; Friend of the Devil; Black Throated Wind; Tennessee Jed; Mexicali Blues; Bird Song; Big River; Brokedown Palace; El Paso

Disc Two — China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider; Playing in the Band; He's Gone; Me & My Uncle; Deal; Greatest Story Ever Told; Ramble On Rose

Disc Three — Dark Star > Cumberland Blues; Attics of My Life; Promised Land; Uncle John's Band; Casey Jones; Around and Around

I Am NOT The Diet Police And Other Assorted Myths

2006-09-27T10:39:00.000-07:00

My, what a day! Apparently there was a little action yesterday regarding my Omega Challenge post and a comment I had once made on Jimmy Moore's blog.

First, that anybody should give the Dr. Furhman types any kind of concern is laughable. As The Bear succinctly noted to me one time, "There is only one true, inevitable, and defining characteristic which is connected with vegetarians, and that is: They ALL are compulsive liars." Why give these idiots even the time of day? Being ragged on by vegetarians is a badge of honor IMO.

Second, I think we have several myths working in tangent at this point. That you can eat carbs and still lose weight is irrelevant. I don't dispute that, but carbs in general are just not healthy things to eat, ever, for any reason. Jimmy falls into the "good carb/bad carb" myth, as do virtually all mainstream low-carbers so it's not particularly aimed at him. In line with this myth, on a purely biochemical level, is glucose is glucose, whether it's from sugar are veggies, the body doesn't make that distinction since it breaks all carbs down to glucose. High glycemic/Low glycemic, it's all irrelevant to the fact that there is no avoiding the glucose and the insulin it provokes. I was even told that this is also the position of the thincs.org folks too.

I believe it's a result of veggies being sacrosanct in our culture, and the belief by many mainstream low carb proponents that they won't be taken "seriously" if they don't pay homage to vegetables. This was Atkins' biggest mistake and why The Bear accurately pins him as a "diet wuss".

I'm not why Jimmy seems to take my comparison as an affront of some sorts, and while I don't dispute that you can still lose weight eating carbs, I think in the long run it will come back to bite you. I certainly commend Jimmy for restarting his challenge and reducing his carbs which I believe is the true key to his recent success. If people want to try this omega thing, that is up to them. I'm not the diet police, but I'm going to call bullshit when I see it.

What I believe happens is that at first the body doesn't have the onslaught of insulin so it loses weight at a reasonable pace. At some point, those daily 20g-100g/carbs starts to add up and the body becomes more efficient at storing that extra glucose and in turn this creates inefficient fat metabolism. This is also the reason, based on personal experience, that people gain more weight than when they started when going off a low-carb diet after doing it for a long period of time. Thus, the idea that it's "harder" to lose weight the closer you get to goal is a myth.

The way I'm eating will work for everyone, period. There is no "that might work for you but...". That is properly termed denial.

The Omega "Challenge"

2006-09-26T12:29:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been getting a lot of request to try the omega challenge because of my opinions on grass fed vs grain fed beef and general aversion to supplementation in general. Instead of wasting valueable time and money on something that doesn't work I thought I'd just compare myself to the omega group, Jimmy Moore in particular.

Since switching to his omega tweak, he's lost a total of 15 pounds, which is very excellent and I certainly don't knock him for that. I still contend that during the 6 1/2 pound week some of that was due to water loss and lower than induction carb counts after hovering around 30-40g a day based on what I can gather from his postings.

In that same span of time I've lost 10 pounds (since his challenge began I kept pace, perhaps even having greater losses since his carb counts were still quite high the first 2-4 weeks). That's 10 pounds of pure fat, on top of that, I have no daily or weekly excercize schedule, routine or workouts. I also take no supplementation of any kind, buy cheap store bought grain-fed beef from my local supermarkets and eat plain ol' store eggs.

Despite all these supposed disadvantages, I'm roughly keeping pace with Jimmy Moore, maybe he has a 3-5 pound advantage over me, but he easily probably spends 10x more money on his food and supplements than I do. I'm an extremely cheap bastard (just ask my wife!). If I pay more than $2.50/lb for meat I feel ripped off, unless it's something like a rib eye. Jimmy Moore's supplements list alone is probably what I spend on meat. In the end, I believe he is wasting his money on the excessive supplementation.

Carole Bardelli at Kudos for Low-Carb had a nice little post the other day about one of Jimmy Moore's supplements, Chromium Picolinate:

Be forewarned:

Research shows that excess chromium due to supplements has damaged cell chromosomes in those who over supplemented. The blueprints for a cell's function and reproduction were irrevocably damaged. Similarly, cancer generally starts with a change to the genetic material in a cell causing it to grow and reproduce without restraint.

Chromium Picolinate has not been shown to cause weight loss and its ability to improve insulin effectiveness is being questioned.

Scientific references in articles have SUGGESTED supplementing with Chromium Picolinate MAY enhance insulin utilization. This has not been proven as a consistent outcome in current research.

Since people have started supplementing with chromium picolinate there have been several cases of toxicity which resulted in chronic renal failure and accumulation of chromium in tissues. (1200 mcg taken daily over several months is considered a toxic level. One 24 year old suffered renal failure after 2 days on 1200 mcg. She took it as a weight loss aid and thought 'more is better'.)

I don't believe Jimmy Moore is taking too much chromium picolinate, but I believe it's doing nothing for him, along with the flax seed and fish oil, other than wasting his money. It would be interesting to see what his carb counts were for this week. My guess is that with a 4lb loss he ate less carbs than the proceeding week.

In essence, as always, it's always about the carbs. There's no magical supplemental formula for increased weight loss (outside of maybe speed, but that's another issue) and expensive grass fed beef does nothing for weight loss as well.

Because of this I will never give the "Omega Challenge" a try. Sorry. If you're stalled or not losing, perhaps even gaining, I would suggest avoiding magic Omega ratios and needless supplements and take a good, hard, honest look at your carb counts.

Back Again..Sort Of

2006-09-26T09:43:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm getting behind again. The end of the months are always the toughest in my line of work (accounting! ugh!). Since I really have nothing to add diet wise right now, I thought I'd comment on my latest adventure in Ren Faires.

Spent a wonderful weekend at the Casa De Fruta Renaissance Faire outside of Gilroy, week 3 of 6. While a wonderful time was had by all, I'm pretty fucking sick of the costume and period Nazis. The people that run this faire are total control freaks with MASSIVE egos to boot. There are some nice people but on the whole most of them are asshats it seems. Not only that, but they totally nickel and dime their volunteer participants to death. $20 gate pass, $10 camping, $10 RV pass to park the van. If they could find a way to charge you a $10 oxygen fee to breath the air on their grounds I bet they would. Needless to say, it seemed that turnout was pretty lame this weekend.

Our in to the faire is the guild called Danse Macbre, which is literally a "dance of the dead". It's the ultimate slacker, burn out hippie guild where you basically wear black or make a bone suit, wear a mask and either bang a drum or for the musically inclined, play a recorder or other type of instrument. The two people who run it are Donnie and Susan and they are two of the nicest people you will ever meet at a faire.

I was quite surprised when another old-timer who goes way back to the Patterson Blackpoint Faire in Novato told us that Bill Watters is running the best Faires around (causing an eye roll from a nearby "Friends of Faire" participant. Without going into the long and short of Ren politics, we mostly have been volunteering for the Bill Watters events, who basically is a competitor to the people who run the Casa faire.

The nice thing about Bill's events is that he truly gets that it's about the "magic", getting all these people together to put on a fun show and have the vendors sell some stuff. That's all anybody wants anyway. This is what the Patterson people don't get. They want to stroke their own inflated egos about how cool and "period" they are, but the customers really could care less. I think it's funner to add a fantasy element to it anyway, the fairies, the ogres, etc. Turnout this weekend seemed pretty abysmal, and frankly, I hope they fuck it up because I think Bill Waters would LOVE to get his hands on this Faire (and honestly, he would probably really do that Faire justice IMO). Eventually I would love to work security for North Winds Events Services, the security arm of the Bill Watters events. I'm not quite there weight wise but pretty close.

What I love about the Faires is the obvious similarities to old Grateful Dead shows. Instead of the focus being the Dead, it's about the Faire, but it's essentially the same vibe. And being able to camp for days like at Valhalla in Lake Tahoe, for free I may add, is an added plus.

Check out all the fun we're having by visiting my lovely wench's site on our faire activities

Oh, And One More Thing...

2006-09-22T12:37:00.000-07:00

...I hit 265 this morning on the scale. That amounts to a roughly 80lb loss since February 23rd. Not too shabby. That's a 20 pound loss since July 21st, and that's fat loss, no water loss there. This is also the results based almost solely on a change of diet. While I have been more active on the weekends and with the Ren Faires I haven't really started any kind of serious excercise program. That is a serious weakness on my part.

Could I have burned off more weight excersizing? Absolutely. I have some other health issues that play into that, but I will start doing something here soon and it will definitely be a committment I intend to make in the coming new year.

The important part though is that you don't have to burn calories to still sustain great weight loss numbers on zero carb, especially if you happen to be really morbidly obese where physical movement is an issue, or perhaps if you have a handicap that prevents phsical activity.

Mother Nature and an Update

2006-09-22T11:51:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

Sorry I haven't been keeping as I should lately. I'm doing the Northern California Renaissance Faire in Casa De Frutas just outside of Gilroy. It's week #3 out of 6 so I've been preoccupied with getting things together for the coming weekends. It's great fun and it's great excercise too!

I'd like to bring your attention to the Mother Nature blog. This gal has been doing low carb but recently switched to the carnivorous path. Apparently she says I was the one who inspired her to make the switch. Very very cool, and I wish her the very very best. She's got an excellent grasp on acculturation and seems to know her stuff. Check it out.

Check back on Sunday night for another installment of the Zero Carb Daily.

Fats & Degeneration

2006-09-20T20:40:00.000-07:00

Carolyn on the Active No-Carbers Forum came up with this great article from Ray Peat entitled Fats and Degeneration It's extremely well researched with an extensive references section, complete with the study abstract it appears. A very worthy read about the dangers of polyunsaturated fatty acids and questions the "essential" in "essential fatty acids". Peat ends up dropping more bombs than Phil Lesh during a smoking version of The Other One.

Instead of improving health, this is what researchers were finding out about these "essential" fatty acids:

...a few experimenters were finding that animals which were fed a diet lacking the “essential” fatty acids had some remarkable properties: They consumed oxygen and calories at a very high rate, their mitochondria were unusually tough and stable, their tissues could be transplanted into other animals without provoking immunological rejection, and they were very hard to kill by trauma and a wide variety of toxins that easily provoke lethal shock in animals on the usual diet. As the Germans had seen in 1927, they had a low susceptibility to cancer, and new studies were showing that they weren’t susceptible to various fibrotic conditions, including alcoholic liver cirrhosis.

...But then, without acknowledging that there had been a problem with the doctrine of essentiality, fat researchers just started changing the subject, shifting the public discourse to safer, more profitable topics. The fats that had been called essential, but that had so many toxic effects, were no longer emphasized, and the failed idea of “essentiality” was shifted to different categories of polyunsaturated fats.

The addition of the long chain highly unsaturated fats to baby food formulas was recently approved, on the basis of their supposed “essentiality for brain development.” One of the newer arguments for the essentiality of the PUFA is that “they are needed for making cell membranes.” But human cells can grow and divide in artificial culture solutions which contain none of the polyunsaturated fats, and no one has claimed that they are growing “without membranes.”

The long chain fats found in fish and some algae don’t interfere with animal enzymes as strongly as the seed oils do, and so by comparison, they aren’t so harmful. They are also so unstable that relatively little of them is stored in the tissues. (And when they are used as food additives, it’s necessary to use antioxidants to keep them from becoming smelly and acutely toxic.)

Yikes. That doesn't seem like much of an endorsement for fish oil capsules. And then he adds this little nugget:

When meat is grilled at a high temperature, the normally spaced double bonds in PUFA migrate towards each other, becoming more stable, so that linoleic acid is turned into “conjugated linoleic acid.” This analog of the “essential” linoleic acid competes against the linoleic acid in tissues, and protects against cancer, atherosclerosis, inflammation and other effects of the normal PUFA. Presumably, anything which interferes with the essential fatty acids is protective, when the organism contains dangerous amounts of PUFA. Even the trans-isomers of the unsaturated fatty acids (found in butterfat, and convertible into conjugated linoleic acid) can be protective against cancer.

Heh. Whatever "essential" fatty acids I'm eating, even those in the "nasty" grain fed beef, are optimized by my preferred method of cooking meat...searing at high temperatures. Well, at least those on the outside.

Then Mr. Peat drops another bomb:

Although publicity has emphasized the antiinflammatory effects of fish oil, experiments show that it is extremely effective in producing alcohol-related liver cirrhosis. Breakdown products of polyunsaturated fats (isoprostanes and 4-HNE) are found in the blood of people with alcoholic liver disease (Aleynik, et al., 1998). In the absence of polyunsaturated fats, alcohol doesn’t produce cirrhosis. Saturated fats allow the fibrosis to regress:

“A diet enriched in saturated fatty acids effectively reverses alcohol-induced necrosis, inflammation, and fibrosis despite continued alcohol consumption. The therapeutic effects of saturated fatty acids may be explained, at least in part, by reduced endotoxemia and lipid peroxidation....” (Nanji, et al., 1995, 2001)

Yet another ringing un-endorsement for fish oil caps. But Ray's not finished yet, as he finishes up with another stinging warning about the wonders of fish oil:

About ten years ago I met a young man with a degenerative brain disease, and was interested in the fact that he (working on a fishing boat) had been eating almost a pound of salmon per day for several years. There is now enough information regarding the neurotoxic effects of fish oil to justify avoidance of the fatty fish.

Some of the current advertising is promoting fish oil to prevent cancer, so it’s important to remember that there are many studies showing that it increases cancer.

The developmental and physiological significance of the type of fatty acid in the diet has been established for a long time, but cultural stereotypes and commercial interests are threatened by it, so it can’t be discussed publicly.

If you're taking fish oil now as a dietary supplement Mr. Peat gives you something to seriously think about.

The Omega Myth

2006-09-18T06:03:00.000-07:00

So I've been looking into this whole omega ratio thing and so far I've come to the conclusion that it's a total myth, right along up there is "high cholesteral". One thing that I found interesting on my brief search to find information on this omega fat thing was that just about every website I found was pushing either fish oils, health food type diets or products, grass-fed beef, etc.

The first thing that tipped me off to this obvious myth and scam was this comment at Peak Performance Online, a UK health site:

The best dietary sources of EFAs are nuts, seeds, fatty fish and unrefined whole grains. However, a glance at the table overleaf shows that, while the omega-6 fatty acid is quite abundant, omega-3 is more difficult to obtain. Unless your diet contains significant amounts of seeds and whole grains, it’s likely you’ll be falling short of your optimum omega-3 intake.

That's when I knew this whole total omega fat ratio thing was total bullshit. Funny how the whole omega thing nicely ties into the whole grains, nut and seed oils, polyunsaturated fats, mumbo jumbo, and apparently now some low carb proponents are jumping onto the bandwagon of yet some more poor mainstream dietary advice by low-carbizing it.

At that point I stopped trying to look at omega 3's and 6's and wanted to find info on these research studies that supposedly show you the fantastic benefits of omega fat ratios, figuring it was probably typical that I'd find the same time of "studies" that "prove" heart disease is linked to high cholestoral. That lead me to the discussion at at The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics. It's from Jan/Feb 2003, (mostly about omega-3 and oxidized cholesterol).

Towards the end I came across this excellent quote from Malcolm Kendrick that neatly summarized my suspicions on the omega ratio fat hoopla:

I'm sorry, but I find all of this discussion around 3 and 6 tends to exist in a kind of self-referential bubble. My own belief is that it doesn't matter at all. The only reason, as I understand it, why anyone got interested in Omega 3 is because it was the only ad-hoc hypothesis the lipid hypothesis fanatics could find to explain away the low rate of CHD in Innuit Indians. (I could, of course, be mistaken on this).

In short, where is the biological pathway that links Omega 3s and 6s, and their ratios, to CHD.

A further search on Malcolm Kendrick led me to this great essay at "Spiked Essays" from November 2005:

In fact, no clinical trial on reducing saturated fat intake has ever shown a reduction in heart disease. Some have shown the exact opposite: 'As multiple interventions against risk factors for coronary heart disease in middle aged men at only moderate risk seem to have failed to reduce both morbidity and mortality such interventions become increasingly difficult to justify. This runs counter to the recommendations of many national and international advisory bodies which must now take the recent findings from Finland into consideration. Not to do so may be ethically unacceptable.' Professor Michael Oliver, British Medical Journal 1991

This quote followed a disturbing trial involving Finnish businessmen. In a 10-year follow-up to the original five-year trial, it was found that those men who continued to follow a low saturated fat diet were twice as likely to die of heart disease as those who didn't.

It is not as if this was one negative to set against a whole series of positive trials. In 1998, the Danish doctor Uffe Ravnskov looked at a broader selection of trials: 'The crucial test is the controlled, randomised trial. Eight such trials using diet as the only treatment has been performed but neither the number of fatal or non-fatal heart attacks was reduced.' As Ravnskov makes clear, no trial has ever demonstrated benefits from reducing dietary saturated fat. At this point most people might think it was time to pull the plug.

Far from it. In 1988, the surgeon general's office in the USA decided to silence the nay sayers by putting together the definitive report proving a causal link. Eleven years later the project was abandoned. In a circulated letter, it was stated that the office 'did not anticipate fully the magnitude of the additional external expertise and staff resources that would be needed'.

Bill Harlan, a member of the oversight committee and associate director of the Office of Disease Prevention at the US National Institute of Health, says: 'the report was initiated with a preconceived opinion of the conclusions, but the science behind those opinions was not holding up. Clearly the thoughts of yesterday were not going to serve us very well.'

The sound of a sinking cathedral fills the air with a great sucking slurpy noise. But still nobody let go. Instead, more buttresses were desperately thrown at a rapidly disappearing pile of rocks.

Variations on a theme emerged. It is not saturated fat per se that causes heart disease. It's the ratio of polyunsaturated to saturated fat that is critical. Or is it the consumption of monounsaturated fats, or a lack of omega-3 fatty acids, or an excess of omega-6? Take your pick. These, and a host of other add-on hypotheses, have their proponents.

As of today nobody can - or will - tell you which type of fat, in what proportions, added to what type of anti-oxidant, vegetable, monounsaturated fat or omega-3 is the true culprit. Hugely complicated explanations are formulated, but they all fall apart under scrutiny.

This may all seem incredible, such has been the level of anti-fat propaganda, but it is true. With the exception of the Ancel Keys' flawed Seven Countries Study (he pre-selected the seven countries for his study in order to prove his hypothesis), there is not one scrap of direct evidence.

All I can say is avoid the myth folks. If you think you can increase carbs and lose weight by taking fish oil pills and working on some mathematical ratio between Omega 3's and 6's, I think you will be greatly disappointed.

Glucose is Poison: The Moment I "Got It"

2006-09-15T13:25:00.000-07:00

Here was an interesting post from Jimmy Moore regarding a moment when one of his readers "got it" about a low-carb diet. I guess you can say that I finally "got it" back in February where out of pure frustration I returned to the Bear emails to figure out what I didn't get the first time.

Because of my lifelong problems with weight and morbid obesity I have a special insight that few others have. When it came right down to it, I came to the following logical conclusions about "low-carb" diets.

There is absolutley no reason to eat carbohydrates. There may be small amounts in creams and cheeses but you could live quite fine eating nothing but meat and survive. Carb consumption is totally unnecessary for the body. This is a very important point, because you have to ask yourself "why"? That the body requires zero carbs proves to me that the real human diet is a totally carnivorous one. That the body can eat carbs is purely a survival feature for times when game was scarce. It's for emergency only.

All glucose is poison, not just sugar. Sure, you can say GI this and GI that, but the reality is is that glucose is glucose. No matter how you slice and dice it the body still has to deal with the glucose and it will screw up your fat burning metabolism and it will wreck havoc on your system. Fast, slow, it doesn't matter. Eventually your body is going to have to metabolize the glucose. There's no way of getting around that. The whole conversation around high vs low GI carbs is like a conversation about whether it's better to smoke a pack of ciggies over the course of 6 hours or 12 hours. In the end, you're still smoking a pack of cigarettes.

The benefits of a glucose poison free diet is obvious. There's nothing impeding the way of fat burning as the insulin factor is kept squarly in check. A nice result of this, steady blood sugar levels, decreases your need for constant intake of food to a minimum. Hunger is just not an issue on a glucose free diet, thus cravings are rarely an issue. Without the cravings you have much better willpower IMO. The hardest part at first dealing with my own acculturation issues but it all comes down to making conscious food choices in the present, at all times, and avoiding peer pressue and social norms to eat veggetation. I know some HATE the acculturation idea but understanding why I chose what I chose to eat and why others chose to eat what they eat is important for making the right decisions now.

This is why I think it's important NOT to seek out debate in real life because it's just that much more added pressure that you really don't need, especially from people who aren't obese or overweight. I know there are types who want to save the world and tell everyone how they're doing, as I was exactly one of those types in 1998, but now I just do my own thing quietly, without fanfare or proclaimations.

Why Meat Prevents Scurvy

2006-09-12T21:59:00.000-07:00

Here's a nice little piece from Plant Poisons and Rotten Stuff about the connection between meat and scurvy. I can't believe I missed this earlier.

This is a very interesting site. I am allergic to peanuts, soy and wheat, and although I haven't been tested for the following, I also can not eat peas, split pea soup, most legumes in general, cabbage and rashishes. I don't eat any veggies primarily because they taste like absolute crap. I was resigned for years that there was no way I would be able to lose weight and have a healthy lifestyle because I could never get past how awful veggies and fruit taste to me.

Boy am I glad I emailed the Bear back in 1997. I didn't believe his essay for at least 4 months. Then I told my wife about it and she said, "oh yeah, like Atkins" and the rest is history.

Ok, Here It Goes

2006-09-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

OK, here it goes. I'm going public with some progress pics. I don't have any pics of me earlier than this. When you're 345 pounds you don't find yourself in front of a camera too often.

3/16/06

5/4/06

6/11/06

7/7/06

8/10/06

9/11/06

Two Birds, One Stone

2006-09-11T05:59:00.000-07:00

Ok, thought I'd answer IB's comments and make a post for the day.

as always Rob, show me the evidence!

Everything I post here and at the Active No-Carber Forum is my evidence.

Where is the evidence that zero carb is demonstrably better than, say, 30 - 50 carbs per day?

Weight loss stalls at that level of carbs. That many low carb dieters often have frustrating stalls for long periods of time demonstrates to me that even minimal carbs can affect weight loss. I also think that as someone who always had a hard time remaining on plan that with zero carb I have had no "cheats", stalls or cravings proves to me that it is demonstrably more effective.

Where is the evidence that dietary fat does not convert to body fat?

Crack open any human physiology text book. Without provocation of excess insulin the body can not store dietary fat. Refer to the Bellevue expirement, and my previous posts here and here.

If you are at an ideal bf% and eating zero carb, where does that 11 - 15% (if you're male) body fat come from, then?

It's self regulated by the body. You need some body fat.

People dont refuse to believe you because of "acculturation." They refuse to believe you because they have no reason to believe you. And they happen to like the taste of brocolli and spinach and squash, etc. and dont mind the added nutrients either.

People will "learn" to like anything. Just because they happen to "like" it doesn't mean they should be eating it. My concern isn't that people "believe" me, and frankly, I don't really expect them to. I know that what I'm doing is so against the grain even in the low-carb mainstream culture. And I've been on both sides of the fence. When I lost 120lbs on a general Protein Power type diet in 1998 I was Mr. Livinlavidalowcarb too. I was going to tell everyone around me how I did it, and how I ate twice as many veggies now, and how I'm making "smart" meat choices with lots of chicken and fish, supplements, the whole nine yards. In 1998 there were very few products on the shelves, if any, and the ones online were expensive, and because of that it was my best "low-carb" loss, but eventually the intake of veggies and tortillas, not enough fat and my own personal acculturation proved to great to maintain.

Show me thousands of zero carbers who are all at their ideal bf% and then you can make the claims you make . Till then, well then, what a day for a day dream....

I will grant you that, only time will tell. I'm down 75 pounds as of Saturday, weighing in at 270. As I was noting yesterday at the Active No-Carber Forum and I'll be honest, outside of being more active around the house and doing more stuff on the weekends like working the Faires, I haven't followed any routine excercise plan. I do want to change that as I lose more weight, but the point is that I've lost 75 lbs purely based on a change of diet, an added bonus for people who are particularly obese. Jimmy must have to work his ass off, for which I commend him greatly, just to maintain losses with what he has been eating. The new diet he's been doing is very low in carbs so he's got that working for him, for now.

In the 6 short months I've been following this diety strictly I've seen dozens of people say there were going to do it and last weeks, sometimes days. I could probably count the people I've posted on one hand who have being doing what I've been doing since February. That's not a put down, and quite frankly I'm amazed that I've been able to remain focused myself, and I honestly account for that because I have virtually zero carb intake. If I can do it anybody can.

It's simple and extremely effective, yet extremely difficult.

The Omega Theory and an All Meat Diet: Once Again, The Real Human Diet is a Totally Carnivorous One

2006-09-09T18:24:00.000-07:00

With all of this talk about the "secret" to Jimmy Moore's recent weight loss, it once again just demonstrates that the real human diet is a totally carnivorous one.

One the whole, I eat about 7 eggs and 1.5 pounds of meat per day, fried in lard although I have to find me some beef tallow, and use 3/4 of stick of butter in a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes I go a whole 24-36 hours without eating if I happen to be busy enough. In general, that is my basic diet 80+% of the time. I eat no vegetable, eat no fake-o starches, drink no shakes, eat no nuts or fruits, and I absolutely use no polyunsatured fat, outside of what's naturally found in the meat and eggs. I use no supplements because I think they're an absolute waste of money and time.

Even if you accept this Omega 3/Omega 6 nonsense, the ratio's found naturaly, albeit in a very small percentage compared to total fat and caloric intake, are within the supposed healthy ratio's that's being espoused. That I consume so little omega's doesn't make the ratio business a factor, and on top of that it's within the supposed safe zone of the ratio's to begin just demonstrates, once again, that the real human diet is a totally carnivorous one. Whatever residual build up would be (we're talking about micro grams here) would have to take more years than I'll ever be alive before it, and IF, it becomes an issue, which I completely doubt.

I'll certainly give a hand to the general low-carb counts of Jimmy's diet plan, that is the real "secret" to his current success, not the supplements and omega ratio theories. If he replaced the salad and nuts with another 8oz of steak and dropped the tortilla, he basically is doing what I'm doing. That is literally the difference between a 15-20g low carb diet and a true zero carb diet. This is why people always lose the fastest and best during induction when carbs are at their lowest. Maybe not on the BS 2002 Atkins plan, but all the previous ones, yes. That few people can eat even 15-20g in the long term just shown the addictive power of carbs in general and the power of acculturation in deeply rooted and learned social behaviour. That "induction" is a major subject among Atkinistas goes without saying. There are endless discussions of what to do about "induction flu" and how people can't wait to get out of induction, and induction this and induction that.

Look, you're changing the source in the way you're body burns fat for energy. There's going to be some discomfort for a while until you get used to it. Deal with it and don't let the mental chatter get you carried away. The lack of having any carbs at all in the diet significantly cut down on cravings but I had cravings early on. When it comes on you just have to thank your mind for sharing that and then continue on with what you're doing.

Because of your learned behaviour and beliefs about carbs the mind will come up with all kinds of "reasons" and explainations on why you need to eat carbs. This behaviour is so ingrained that many low-carb diets these days are very high in carbs relative to the early Atkins version. Sometimes the mind will reason itself to the point where it's convinced something fatal might happen eating this way. Relax. This is a common feeling when you're first doing a zero carb diet too. It's just your minds survival mechanism popping up even if you're really not in a survival situation. The body can do it's job just fine on fat and protein. The mind is the one that "needs" the carbs.

That is really the key to all self-will successes, transcending the self-setting and self-learned limitations of your mind to get what you want.

Ultimately, the problem that I have is that by endorsing a needlessly expensive diet you eventually do more harm than good. If someone out there is eating 50g of carbs per day and they're stalling, it's because of the carbs. I don't care how many theories one wants to create or think of, the only thing that puts on the weight is excessive carbs. No carbs, no insulin, no weight gain. You could do what Jimmy's doing at a fraction of the price if you ace the supplements and get regular ol' grain fed beef that you find on sale at any buther shop in America.

Don't forget, it's always about the carbs....always.

Gone Are The Days

2006-09-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

I think that in the modern low carb era, the further we get from Atkin's original 1972 book the more bastardized the low-carb popular culture has become and the diet is practically made unrecognizable. There's already enough myths, lies and misconceptions regarding "low-carb" diets why add fuel to the fire?

In all the focus on "low-carb" the culture has forgotten what the diet really is all about, and that's a high fat diet. By the time we get to people like Barry Sears it's pretty much a jump the shark moment. By trying to expand the basic premise of low-carb diets to include higher and higher carb and veggie intake to attract more veggie eating readers and dieters they've lost the basic understanding of what they're trying to accomplish. Vegetarian Atkins plans? C'mon. Is that really necessary? Find me a picture of a piece of meat on the Atkins site. C'mon, I dare ya!

At that level, those low-carbers who espouse that particular philosphy are really buying into several low-fat myths like saturated fat, and fat in general, needs to be limited, moderate cholesteral levels should be a concern, calories count and there are really "good" carbs and "bad" cards, when there really is only one thing, glucose. As a result some of the most craziest claims are made in the face against basic human biochemistry and physiology. There's always somebody's version of the "stall buster" or some strange cider vinegar, soybean oil concoction that always sounds absolutely disgusting that's going to aid in whatever is ailing you, or they have a supplements list that's as long as Elvis Presley's 1976 prescriptions list. What these people need to do is look at their honest carb counts, but instead they focus on calorie consumption and other such nonesense.

After trying this several times and going up and down the scale on this diet I've come to the honest and logical conclusion that there really should be zero carbs ingested, and I'm not talking an ablosulte number but a general idea that you should only eat from the animal kingdom. Carbs and vegetable oils and fats are unnecessary and toxic and should be completely avoided.

The Omega Debate

2006-09-05T14:59:00.000-07:00

First, I would like to note that I agree with the bottom line premise, that is, to avoid polyunsaturated fats, entirely IMO.

Regina Wilshire responds in the previous posts comments:

Not so fast - you're forgetting Jimmy was well into a low-carb diet for four weeks, eating about the same level of calories and carbohydrates...and lost a respectable six pounds in four weeks.

I don't think his carb count was under 20, at least that's the impression I was getting. Had he restricted his carb to less than that he wouldn't have gained the 3 week into it. Without menus and counts it's hard to say difinitely if it was purely the omega 3/6 ratio, a claim I'm fairly skeptical of. Sorry, but I highly doubt a ratio of what should be a small minor part of total fat intake is the bottom line on how much weight that can be loss. I just don't buy it, and this "experiment" is too flaky to be considered accurate.

Let me put it this way, if I eat 2 pounds of sirloin a day, you're telling me how much weight I lose hangs in the balance of the ratio between omega 3's and 6's? Maybe what you propose has some merit in a high carb SAD but I think it's a meaningless proposal for those on a vlc or zero carb diet. So out of that 2lb 1850 calorie steak, 4.5g of it is polyunsaturated fat. That's 40 calories in an 1850 calorie steak. Does it really matter what the "significant" increase in omega 3's when that portion of fat only consitutes 3% of total fat in the beef? Sorry, but on it's face that grass fed is superior to grain fed beef because of this is ridiculous.

Would it be better if all ranchers fed their cattle grass? Yeah, in a perfect world that would be great, but that doesn't diminish or alter the nutritional value of the meat. As far whether there's some sort of disease that's being passed on by grain fed vs. grass fed I don't buy that at all.

Why waste your money on grass fed beef when you can buy more for your money by getting grain fed beef? I think it's wrong to insinuate to your readers that you're not doing yourself good by buying grain fed beef, or that grass fed beef is nutritionally better when there is very very little difference. If you can't afford grass fed beef I wouldn't sweat it that you can only afford grain fed beef. Besides, the grain fed beef has more saturated fat, which is the good kind anyway.

I'm sorry, but the "research" can be extremely flawed when it comes to "supplements". Once again, why waste your money on something that ultimately has a dubious claim.

Jimmy Moore Did What?

2006-09-05T09:55:00.000-07:00

Ok. After much secrecy the secret has come out of the bag for Jimmy Moore's latest weight loss posting on his 30 in 30 challenge. While I congratulate Jimmy on his latest weight loss I have to question whatever method they're claiming on using, and quite frankly I think it veers into the realm of old wives tales and misplaced attributions and correlations.

First Regina Wilshire from the Weight of the Evidence blog lays out the scene:

After reviewing his menus, his weight loss also didn't conform to the "calorie theory" of weight loss. To lose 6.5-pounds, Jimmy would need to be in a calorie deficit of 3250-calories a day less than his active metabolic rate. His menu confirms he was consuming an average of 2300-2400-calories each day, a calorie deficit of, at most, 750-calories a day less than his active metabolic rate. According to the calorie theory, Jimmy should have lost just 1.5-pounds last week with his calorie deficit - instead he lost 6.5-pounds.

My own menus confirm I've been consuming between 1800-2200-calories a day. With an estimated active metabolic rate of 2800-calories per day, my weight loss also does not conform to the calorie theory. Over the last month, based on a calorie deficit of, at most, 1000-calories each day, my weight loss should be 8.5-pounds for the month...if I was consistently eating just 1800-calories a day. Instead, I've lost 17-pounds - twice as much as predicted by the calorie theory and my calorie intake has fluctuated between 1800 and 2200 calories a day.

No new news here really. Dr. Richard Marcarness made this clear in Eat Fat Grow Slim, and was also proven by the Bellevue Experiment done by Viljalmur Stefansson in the 1920's. Like I've stated many times, dietary fat will not make you fat.

Ok, so what do they attribute the success to?

First, you radically implement a limitation/elimination of two things - vegetable oils and sources of high omega-6 fatty acids (conventionally produced beef and dairy products).

Second, you also specifically increase omega-3 fatty acids from foods rich with omega-3 fatty acids (eggs, pastured meats, dairy from pastured animals, fatty fish, some nuts/seeds) and specifically include fish oils.

Third, you include supplements specifically shown to enhance fatty acid and glucose metabolism - Acetyl L-Carnitine and GFT Chromium Picolinate - and use the already recommended multi-vitamin without iron as a safety net along with other supplements you feel you want to include (while, of course being aware of potentially exceeding upper tolerable limits).

Fourth, your fat/oil sources are limited to nut/seed/fruit oils that are cold-pressed - like walnut, avocado, sesame, extra-virgin olive, etc. - and natural sources like butter, coconut oil and tallow.

Lastly, you stick with the basic rules with the above modifications - include non-starchy vegetables, low GI/GL fruits, nuts, seeds, meats, poultry, fish, game as you would normally (depending on what level of carbohydrate you're consuming) and let your metabolism do the rest as you eat to satiety and go about your normal routine.

I agree with the vegetable oils. Polyunsatured fat is the worst kind for the body to use. Someone on a zero carb diet would only be exposed to whatever polys are found naturally, and there probably aren't many.

Then they try to hype the omega 3/omega 6 ratios, which I think is total hogwash. There is little difference nutritionally between grain and grass fed beef. While fatty acid profiles may be different I hardly think it's a factor in weight loss. I don't eat grass fed beef and I've lost over 70 pounds in 6 months. I highly doubt anybody would have problems losing weight on a zero-carb, all grain fed beef diet. Once again I think they're making a false correalation if they believe that weight loss can be spurred by eating only the more expense grass fed beef or that there's some magic omege 3/6 ratio that's going to suddenly make the body burn more fat.

Acetyl L-Carnitine and GFT Chromium Picolinate? C'mon. An appetite suppresent and a supplement. Don't waste you're money. I would avoid most nut, seed and veggie oils. There's some benefits to have some mono oils but I think they hardly contribute to weight gain and stalls. What the authors suggest, and it would be pricey, I think fails to adress the real cause of Jimmy's weight loss.

Let's go to the numbers. First, I'm suspicious that there's no menus posted, either before or after their little experiment. His menu was supposedly around 2350 calories per day, with the following fat/protein/carb ration: 69/28/3. Very respectable number I may add. At 2350 calories that comes out to roughly 70 calories from carbs, or roughly 15.55g of carbs per day. There's the answer right there! It's what I've been trying to point out all along, cut the carbs, cut the weight. Period! No skeevy omega fatty acid profile theory needed.

It's like the mind will be willing to create the most incredible claims and reasons (and excuses) when it counters something that contradicts the dark deep recesses of the mind where your early food learning rests. In this case it's a convoluted theory about fatty acid profiles and the revelation that vegetable oils are bad for you (like we didn't know that already!). At 15g/day he's under basic Atkins induction, assuming his caloric numbers and macronutrient profile numbers are right. By just giving me those ratio's I would have guessed he would lose between 5-10lbs that week. It's hard to know with out specific menus and carb counts but think Jimmy still probably ingests enough carbs that when he restricted his diet to 15g per day that further water loss continued.

My advice would be to drop the carb oils, even the soybean oil (YUCK! 2 teaspoons a day!), drop all the veggies and carbs and he'll reach his goal a lot quicker than 30 weeks.

When you're on a limited budget there is no need to buy expenses grass fed beef if you don't have to. That grain fed beef is unhealthier than grass fed beef is hoopla, most likely started by grass fed ranchers hoping to expand upon their niche market, as a way to get a food in a niche market. Most people who tend to buy grass fed before are health food conscious anyway so they probably LOVE that the fat content isn't happening in grass fed beef as it does grain fed beef, but I don't see any real tangible benefits by making that kind of financial committment to beef, especially if you eat a lot of it. I think it also has the added benefit of Regina and Jimmy to look super health conscious by suggesting such a committment to a pricy way of eating, and for no reason I may add. In fact, low-carbers buying into certain low-fat myths is nothing new, and apparently it will continue.

In a perfect world, would we all be eating grass fed beef? Probably. But there's no reason to waste money than you don't have to, or feel that somehow what you're doing, even if going zero carb, is not as healthy as buying strictly grass fed beef.

Comment Moderation-DOH!

2006-09-03T22:49:00.000-07:00

Dammit! I didn't realize I had the comment moderation on. Damn Blogger! Sorry about that folks. Looks like I have some catching up to do, and if you left a comment, I really appreciate it!

Rob's Meat Guide

2006-09-03T14:36:00.000-07:00

The one thing that must be certain in a zero or low-carb diet is the love of meat, especially beef. If you don't like, or learn to like, beef then you will constantly struggle with the diet IMO. That doesn't mean you can't eat other types of meat, but if you can't deal with beef on a steady basis. The need for variety as you concentrate solely on beef will not be an issue. If you play your meat money right you can get great bargains on a limited budget, and eggs, well, they're really cheap so you don't have to set much aside for that.

Here are a few of my favorite cuts, none of which should not be too surprising. The excellent part of learning to like raw and bleu cooked meat is that every cut comes into play for the most part since raw meat is tender.

Sirlon
I got a good deal the other day on sirloin. It came out to less than $2/lb. It was 4 nice hunks, about 2"-2.5" thick, the perfect thickness that I like. You can sear the outside but the inside is still cool and raw. I only buy it on sale but when I do I like to buy as much as I can.

Boneless short ribs
Here's a cut you wouldn't think of being good fried, mostly you think of slow cooking and braising. It's really a nice cut to fry up because raw it's still tender, and it has really nice fat content and has a particularly nice flavor. I can find it on close out and sale for around $3.25/lb, sometimes less.

Rib-Eye
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....rib eye..........nuff said. Another one to look out for if it's on sale. Not my everyday steak but a nice treat after pay days.

Prime Rib
This is the fricking holy grail of beef. The best cut in my opinion and perfect for the special occasions like christmas and new year's.

Tri-Tip
Ah, the old tried and true tri-tip. Can't go wrong here. I like to buy nice untrimmed hunks and then cut steaks off of it. I've seen untrimmed roasts for $1.99/lb on sale, but mostly in the $2-2.50/lb range.

Top and Bottom round
Another cut that you don't usually think of, but sometimes I get big hunks of it and then cut off steaks. I can make them nice and think and I'll add extra lard or beef fat since it can be a fairly lean piece of meat. Eye of round is a very good piece of meat as well. I don't know what it is about london broils but I've totally lost my taste for them. It could just be the quality of the meat from my local stores but I just haven't had a good london broil in months. I've gotten bottom round for as little as $1.50/lb in big hunks. I like it as an economical everyday meat when supplemented with lots of fat.

Cross Rib & Under Blade steaks
More of the not usuals, but sometimes I get really good deals on them and once again, eating it raw offsets a lot of the problems you normally think of when choosing cuts like this. The chewy gristle parts actually are good source of protein, or at least that my understanding of it. I often can find these for $1.50/lb, sometimes less if it's a really big sale. Makes a nice choice for the everyday kind of meat. Under blade in particular has nice fat content, albeit a gristley one.

Skirt and Flank steak
This seems to be a little pricier than round but it's got a great flavor and nice fat content.

New Yorks, Porterhouse, Tenderloin, T-Bone's etc
Ok. I like New Yorks, I've eaten a lot of new yorks, but I think you get more bang for your buck with sirloin or maybe rib eye that's on sale. Just my personal preferance. Same thing with tenderloin. I love to find end cuts of tenderloin on sale. Sometimes I get them from our local meat places at half the price of the top end stuff, but on the whole I'd rather get 4 pounds of boness short ribs than 1 pound of tenderloin.

It's primarily an economic reality but you can still get great cuts of meat for a bargain if you eat it right. Every steak doesn't have to be a porterhouse or rib eye.

Why People Are Fat: Glucose & Acculturation

2006-09-01T11:33:00.000-07:00

Lately there's been a spat of posts about why people are fat. Carol Bardelli has a great roundup from yesterday on the various topics.

Reading through the blog-o-sphere gets me thinking. Then I get that awful urge to throw in my two cents. Uh Oh.

Recent blog entries included Kevin Dill asking ÂWHY DO WE GET FAT??Â

The Last Atkins Dieter stated ÂPeople know what the right foods to eat are, and when they're ready, they'll make the right choices.Â

Diet Blog commented on a UK Times piece Â ÂBesides, there is the embarrassing fact that those who eat and drink junk do so for cheap comfort and because they are either too poor or too ignorant (or both) to prepare healthy food.Â

Diet Blog said, ÂTo say that fat folks are too stupid is one heck of a judgment call.Â

And Jimmy Moore asked, ÂWhy Do People Have An 'I Don't Care' Attitude About Their Need For Weight Loss?Â

I even responded to Jimmy Moore in his comments section:

Jimmy, I get where you're coming from, but we're dealing with acculturation issues that have been ingrained since birth. We learn to eat from our mothers, just as we learn language, dressing, and all other socialization skills. Because of this, what we learned to eat is buried deep in the back of our consciousness.

You noted yesterday that the ability to maintain any diet was 2-3% and this is because of acculturation. It's extremely difficult to overcome what our mothers taught us to eat. Failure of acculturation then is a very serious and difficult issue for humanity at large.

While I get your enthusiasm and concern, ranting at fat people about their failure to change their attitude is like ranting at a person from another country (or from another region of the US for that matter) to change their accent. They can, but it takes a seriously conscious effort to pull off.

It takes serious willpower, focus and discipline for anyone to overcome their early diet acculturation and live a healthy and thin life. This is why very few people will follow a zero carb path, let alone a regular restricted carb diet. I accept that and I have noproselytizeprosyletize the diet.

It's like the veggie thing. There is absolutely no reason to eat vegetables. None. Nada. Any reason you give is a result of your acculturation, mostly that it's what your moms taught you to eat, or society at large dictates that vegetable are healthy and wholesome.

Newbirth, a frequent poster on various blogs and message boards made a summation:

Most people regain the weight because they don't want to change. Simple as that. Sugar tastes good.

People get fat for one reason and one reason only. They eat carbs. There may be lots of reasons why people eat but in the end it's carbs that make people fat. I don't think it's simply a matter of people not wanting to change. With a diet failure rate between 95-97% there has to be mexplanationxplaination than that. People deal with change all the time, new careers, new schools, new spouses with 0% divorce rates. There's something deeper operating here that leads people to be such failures on long term dietary changes, myself included.

Except for handful of times in my life, I've been 300+ pounds since the age of 13. I wouldn't say I was in denial or stupid. I may not have been aware of my options, but that's primarily because society as a whole considers carbs to be good food. Once I did find the diet I didn't understand the concept of acculturation and could never understand why I couldn't remain on the diet, even with help and support from the Bear. You would think that by being a major Dead Head and Phil Lesh freak to boot, that that alone would keep me on the straight and narrow path, but in the end it wasn't. In fact, a week or two before I contacted Bear and started the diet in February and really struggled with that question and examined everything I was doing in 1998 compared to now. When I reread his emails from 1998 (in which he didn't use the term acculturation) it started making sense and then when the subject turned to acculturation it all made perfect sense.

The same pattern emerges from several posters and bloggers. They tend to lay blame and responsibility on the individual as opposed to the society. In other words, they see it has a problem with individuals versus a problem with society and culture as a whole. They may be aware of big agribusiness and the pharmaceutical industry and a medical establishment with their collective heads up their collective asses, but very few people seem willing to look inward at their own acculturation.

In a world where concepts such as "social Darwinism" still garner credibility, and society in general that focuses on the invididual rather than society as a whole, this is to be expected. While it is ulitimately up to individuals, it would take a concerted societal effort to correct the disaster of a high carb diet and all the health problems with it.

This is why acculturation is a very serious, albeit complex, issue. You would literally have to change our culture and society to have a serious impact on societal health as a whole. I think it would be easier to switch to non-fossil fuel sources globally than for world culture to accept that carbs are poison. That's why, in the end, the proselytizers will be frustrated over time. You're on a diet that is extremely unpopular with mainstream society. No amount of PR work is going to change that. You just have to accept it and continue on your business. That's not to say you shouldn't tell people about the diet, but it's like the old saying, "The lips of wisdom are closed except to the ears of understanding". People who are ready for the message will get it. All others will attack and undermine you if given the chance.

For futher info, The Bear made several excellent points on this topic on his thread:

'Acculturation' = Acquiring culture. What you are taught as a baby/child about living as a human being in society, starting at birth and virtually complete by age 8. A kind of social toolkit. Without this we would be just another animal. Our culture is what defines humanity. It is very difficult for any person to change any part of this early training which was burned in heavily. If some of the things we need to know to be human is not learned during the several short, skill-specific 'windows' which open and close as a child ages, in time, that particular skill may never be learned (the rare so-called feral children, which were lost and raised by animals, exhibited varying amounts of disability, some could not learn to talk, some not able to walk upright). Culture includes such things as how to walk, what to eat, how to dress, language, manners and much more.

I must warn all of you that it is very unlikely that very many will be able to eat as I do over the long term, or in fact, to follow any diet for long which is much different from the one you were trained to as a baby/child. This is because diet is learned much the same way language, dress and behaviour is, and is buried deep and inaccessible, a part of your acculturation/socialisation. The very thing which makes us human is that deep and almost instinctive behavior behaviour.

It requires a powerful will and a determination to change, in order to succeed in adopting the 'extreme' diet which this website is based on. Even those who are morbidly obese, as powerful a motivation as any I can imagine will have 'cravings' for what I call 'non-food' (all vegetation and carbs) which will eventually prove irresistible. A few may manage to stay on the diet for years, but unless you are prepared to stick with it for maybe ten or more years, you will drift back into eating what I consider poison. For some reason my mum was not interested in forcing me to eat the veggies I hated so, and i was able to eat only what I liked- mostly meat, especially hamburger and the fat those at our table would cut from their steaks. Still I had massive struggles abandoning the 'civilised diet'.

I have been long puzzled about how easy it was for me, and how nearly impossible for virtually everyone else to adopt the all meat diet. After 47 years of this, and I am not bragging when I say that I am a bit above the average intelligence, I have finally come to the conclusions I have made about human acculturation.

Everyone who is truly interested in this lifestyle will have an uphill battle against their acculturation. This is compounded by all your friends and family who will go to any end to try to get you to eat as they think you should. This is social again. Never underestimate the incredible power of the human societal culture and everyone's early training, it is what makes us human, and different from all other animals. The only thing more difficult to alter than you early acculturation is your skin colour... Hang in there. If I could do it, anyone can.

Land of Confusion

2006-08-30T18:45:00.000-07:00

Man, I love this video. Great cover song too.

The Atkins Website: You've Got to be Kidding Me

2006-08-28T12:05:00.000-07:00

What in the heck is this all about? I don't know if it's a new site or if this is what they've been doing for awhile, but check out the front page flash thing. Let me know when you see a piece of meat there, ok? Pictures of grains, straberries and chocolate? This has to be the biggest farces I've ever seen. Now, check out the Atkins Nutritional Approach page and look at that picture. Bread, apples, bananas, onions, lettuce, cabbage, asparagus, milk, eggs, oh, there's some cheese, and if you look closely you can just see the top of a steak peaking out from the lower right hand area. Apparently Atkins made a detour down to south beach. His original 1972 version, comparatively, is almost militant compared to the sorry mess that Atkins is now.

Here's a perfect example of the whoredom in action. According to Livin' La Vida Low-Carb,

Now, in conjunction with a man named RIchard J. Rothstein, Dr. Vernon stands ready to answer any question related to diet, nutrition and health that you may have as it relates to livin' la vida low-carb at a brand spankin' new blog aptly titled "Ask Dr. Vernon."

Now here comes the mainstream low-fat/calories count hysteria...

Rothstein warned people to be ready to accept the truth even if it is not what they wanted to hear. This is especially true for anyone who thinks the Atkins diet is nothing more than eating all the meat, eggs, and cheese that you want. UGH!

"The Atkins Diet is not about cheeseburgers, bacon and big juicy steaks: that is one of the outrageous myths fostered by certain segments of the commercial food industry and the medical and nutrition communities that felt threatened economically and professionally by Dr. Atkins' belief in whole foods and his contempt for most processed and refined foods," he explained. "Additionally, contrary to the many myths about Atkins, many of his successful patients were practicing vegetarians so this is a site for all people who eat."

I love it! Catering to vegetarians! I think this may be the all time low point of the Atkins diet. There was another vegetarian Atkins person on an internet message board, so I'm not sure when Atkins started trying to appeal to vegetarians but that was truly the point where the Atkins diet jumped the shark. It's all downhill from here baby.

I'll give them this though, they're right about Atkins not being about cheeseburgers, bacon and big juicy steaks. It's become a sordid version of a low calorie monstrosity like South Beach. They're hoping that if somehow if they can conform to enough mainstream low-fat/low cal position on carbs, especially the so called "good" carbs that that will garner them enough support so they get the official seal of approval by the mainstream. If that happens they figure a significant pay day will be in the making, and they are connect. Unfortunately, to move in that direction they sold out and comprised every working principal of a ketogenic diet.

The other problem is that it implicitly implies that saturated fat is bad for you, or if not bad for you it should only be a fraction of your total fat intake not your primary source. It isn't a coincidence that those three items are loaded with good ol' saturated fat the kind that our bodies love. Once again we have Atkins openly siding with the "saturated fat is bad/high cholesterol" crowd that is the hardcore center of mainstream diet mythology. Eventually they'll endorse a diet that's even more liberal in carbs, people will continue having problem losing weight on the diet. If Atkins had stuck to his 1972 guns the low-carb community would have been in much better shapes, but that meant it would have been shunned completely by the mainstream. Much easier to go with the path of least resistance and sell more books and product.

Back from the Faire!

2006-08-28T11:26:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

I've been away because I was at the Golden Gate Faire in San Francisco for the weekend. It was a glorious time had by all and met a whole bunch of cool and wonderful people. It's so great to be able to do this kind of thing now that I can move around, but it won't be too soon before I see another strip of @#$%&* burlap that needs to be folded up!

And what a surprise it was to come home Sunday night at the end of the weekend to see 275 on the scale making it around 70 pounds lost so far.

Fiber is NOT healthy

2006-08-25T13:26:00.000-07:00

Recently on popular low-carb blog Livin' La Vida Low-Carb Jimmy Moore was responding to an article by Jacqueline Eberstein, RN who was some sort of medical assistant to Dr. Robert Atkins. She reiterates the low-fat/high carb myth that fiber is good for you. Nothing can be further from the truth! As I stated in the comments section of this particular post:

Fiber doesn't do anything but scar the inside of your gut. All fiber does is produce copious amounts of mucus which then interferes with nutrient absorbtion. Over the course of a lifetime it creates such scaring that nutrient absorbtion is seriously compromised causing malnutrition, like in the elderly.

Then imsovain at the Active No-Carber forum posted this article, Scientists learn more about how roughage keeps you “regular”, from the Medical College of Georgia. Check this out:

If you ever wondered just how a high-fiber diet helps keep you, well, “regular,” scientists may have the answer.

Their results suggest that as these bulky foods make their way down the gastrointestinal tract, they run into cells, tearing them and freeing lubricating mucus within.

These scientists then state that somehow this constant tearing and rupturing is a "good thing", although they don't make it clear on why.

More mucus is good, says Dr. Paul L. McNeil, cell biologist at the Medical College of Georgia and corresponding author on the study published online Aug. 21 and scheduled for the September print issue of PloS Biology. “When you eat high-fiber foods, they bang up against the cells lining the gastrointestinal tract, rupturing their outer covering. What we are saying is this banging and tearing increases the level of lubricating mucus. It’s a good thing.”

The fact that consuming roughage increases mucus production was known, and years ago, Dr. McNeil discovered frequent cell injury and repair occur when we eat.

The new research ties the two together.

“”It’s a bit of a paradox, but what we are saying is an injury at the cell level can promote health of the GI tract as a whole,” says Dr. McNeil. Even though epithelial cells usually live less than a week, they are regularly bombarded, in most of us at least three times a day as food passes by. “These cells are a biological boundary that separates the inside world, if you will, from this nasty outside world. On the cellular scale, roughage, such as grains and fibers that can’t be completely digested, are a mechanical challenge for these cells,” says Dr. McNeil.

I just don't see how this makes sense. Over the long term this kind of scaring and rebuilding has to be bad on the gut. In fact, even they don't know, or don't want to know:

The scientists aren’t certain how many times cells can take a hit, but they suspect turnover is so high because of the constant injury. Potentially caustic substances, such as alcohol and aspirin, can produce so much damage that natural recovery mechanisms can’t keep up. But they doubt a roughage overdose is possible.

Eventually your gut no longer has ability to repair these cells. When that happens you will no longer be able to properly absorb nutrients, as I stated. Why take that risk? The same people telling you to eat fiber are the same ones pushing the low-fat diets, as well as misinformed low-carbers who are trying to push acceptance of low carb diets in the mainstream.

Skeptics & Contrarians

2006-08-24T08:58:00.000-07:00

Skeptics and Contrarians:

Skeptics and contrarians: Please pay close attention- I said in the beginning that most readers will never accept and adopt a diet by simply using their mind and intelligence. It will seem for years to be somehow 'not right'. This is because your dietary habits and preferences have been socially 'prewired' in your mind, deep down, in childhood, along with all the things we must learn about our culture and the right way to live as a human being in our society. Socialisation overwrites and suppresses instinct at the instinctual level. It is hard to alter, trust me. I am offering living proof that the payoff from a successful attempt to alter it is worth the effort it takes.

If you prove to be a unique person with a high degree of self-control and a strong drive to alter the shape of your body and the state of your health, I can show the path. Neither I nor anyone else can keep you on it, that is something you and only you can do.

In many cases the ultimate diet format I talk about will not be necessary to achieve an acceptable change, but there are vast side-benefits along my path which remain hidden for a very long time before becoming apparent.

I noticed many years ago that I did not seem to be aging much, and that my body, as I got older began to look a lot different from everyone else my age that I met, no matter whether they were into fitness or just had a good body size and shape naturally. In all cases I began to pull away, and it slowly dawned on me that virtually all the 'standard changes of age' I had accepted as a natural and normal product of simply getting older were not showing up.

So I felt I had a kind of 'obligation' to let other people know about it, hence the essay on my site, and now- my participation in this thread. My approach is to treat the body as a 'black box'. It is an empirical, not cognitive process: If you input this, you can show the output is that, if you change the input, the output changes also. On this basis, you do not have to find out and define what is inside the 'black box' of your body to be able to discover and follow good nutritional practice any more than you need to know how an internal combustion engine works to drive as well as a race car champion.

Positive Acculturation

2006-08-23T21:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, I guess I can't be too hard.

I guess I'm just luckier than most when it comes to sticking to an all-meat diet. It's not that same ol' "if it works for you, great, but everyone's different". There's noone out there reading this who can't do what I'm doing.

Why I think I'm successful thus far is because of what I call positive acculturation. My father was a truck driver for a meat company in San Francisco. All through my childhood we had tons of hamburgers, hot dogs, steaks, roasts every Sunday, Italian sausage every Friday. My parents also tended to like their meat rare so the roasts and the steaks were always pink (not raw like the way I eat it now, but very rare even by normal standards).

My mom also never forced me to eat any veggies. Never liked a single damn one of them too, except for maybe broccoli, but it had to be smothered either in butter or a cheese sauce. I don't think I volitionally ate a salad until I was 21 years old. No joking. I remember once having to eat a salad at a neighbors house when I was about 10 and I vividly remember just having to gag this stuff down because I had to clean my plate. I don't think I ate dinner over there after that.

My downfall has always been sweets and starches, as it probably is for many others too. Pasta's, candy, cakes, etc. This is why I hate the low-carb products. It's like being a severe alcoholic and then wanting to drink alcohol free beer. It's like...why? You have a serious problem with this particular substance, why voluntarily intake a fake product that's supposed to be like the substance you have the problem with. It doesn't make sense, and I've been down this road before.

At first you're measuring your portions or only having one. Then you're still "hungry" and you have a second one. Next thing you know you're having "just a taste" of the real thing, you know, a fry here, a bite of a donut or cake there. Next thing you know you're probably ingesting 100+g of carbs or more per day and the weight starts creeping back up. Worst case scenario: You decide to take a weekend off here and there and then one day you never go back and you're in the throngs of your addiction.

And the thing is, if you really want a special treat, you can actually MAKE this stuff yourself. Why pay $2.50 for some weird semi-stale chocolate bar thing with who knows what sugar alcohols and other additives like fiber to make this stuff edible? All you need is unsweetened cocoa, heavy creams, table creams, butter and a little splenda and you can make some interesting treats, even ice cream.

Atkins and the Good Carb myth

2006-08-23T12:54:00.000-07:00

I'm sure this has been debated to death, but I just noticed that Atkins didn't get into promoting net carb counts and sugar alcohols until the 2002 re-write. Funny that that would be in the newly edited version, right about the time the Atkins products machine went into high gear. This is another example of how the low carb authors tailor their diet plans not because they're particularly healthy updates but an attempt to widen his potential book purchasing public to the veggie eaters out there. As the Bear noted, Atkins is a diet wuss. His 1972 version, which I have a copy of, is extremely close to zero carb for the most part. It allows for a salad and some veggies, but only as an option, not as a mandate to choke down 30g of carbs from broccoli.

The 2nd fallacy of the low-carb diets like Atkins is the newfound emphasis on good and "wholesome" carbs. When somebody starts going on about good, healthy and wholesome carbs rest assured that they're full of crap. There are no good carbs. It's all glucose people. I don't care if it's a sugar cookie or a broccoli floret, it's all glucose and should be avoided. As Bear noted to me in 1998 (known as the Good Carb Myth):

Certainly there must be some "good" carbs. Isn't salad nutricious? You can eat a lot of it to fill you up.

Green leafy vegetables have little or no nutritive value, and are eaten as "eye food". In fact some, like celery and lettuce have less caloric value than it takes to process them through your system, like sand. Some, like spinach, contain a toxic blood poison, oxalic acid. This dangerous chemical is so high in rhubarb that the green leaves are capable of causing death. Why eat this rubbish?

I agree that there is only maybe 20 percent of the weight of "leafy greens" which is carbs, but why eat something so toxic and rough? Would you intentionally put a pinch of sand in the crankcase of your car? Older people suffer from malnutrition in spite of "excellent diets" due to the scar tissue in their intestines from a lifetime of exposure to roughage in their food. In the short term it causes the intestines to coat themselves with mucus, which also interferes with absorption of nutrients.

All plants have toxins, chemical defenses against herbivores are much older than the mechanical ones like the spines of cacti. People have struggled for hundreds of years to breed out most of these defenses, which is why you cannot grow them without pesticides.

If you doubt me, eat a cupful of wild lettuce (a very common weed), and see how long you can remain awake. It contains a glucoside, letucin, called "lettuce opium", which was bred out of the cultivated plant.

Why indeed eat this rubbish! The problem is that the low-carb book peddlers often have bought into the veggies are healthy myth, so they advocate them purely out of their own acculturation and to sell books. Unforunately, I think advocating any kind of glucose consumption, especially for morbidly obese people who want to try a low-carb diet, is wrong and misguided. I easily attribute my previously failed attempts at low carb specifically on slight but sustained glucose consumption, aided by the fako-o low carb products. Low carb products should be avoided at all costs. Not only is it full of chemical garbage but it reinforces your minds cravings on the original foods that they're supposed to be replacing. I just don't buy into the "net carbs" and sugar alcohol mumbo jumbo. I think it's just to give excuse to give yourself to eat the crap you shouldn't be eating to begin with.

That's the biggest bit of advice I can give to people on stalls and who just can't seem to lose that last 50 pounds. Drop the glucose, drop the low-carb products. When people are stalled or gaining weight the first thing I ask is what's the carb count. The problem is that Atkins has been revised to much that it's really not much of a really strict low-carb diet. Eventually people stall, stop losing weight, their acculturation kicks in so they can't shake off the glucose jones and they lose interest in the diet. Don 't underestimate the power of acculturation. It's getting a little easier for me now to make choices but at first I would always catch myself mentally conversing that I should stop at Jack In the Box for lunch.

Let's face it, Atkins has sold millions of books over the years and it's very difficult to find someone who has been doing Atkins for more than 10 years. You can probably count them on both hands, and for those who do make it long term their still packing some fat and are constantly stuggling with their weight. George Stella being a good example. Yeah, he's down from 4XX pounds but the guy isn't at his true weight and recently commented not long ago how he has to put in extra time exercizing and at the gym to keep the weight in check. Little do they realize that it's all that glucose they keep eating, yet they have to work their asses off at a gym to offset the gains in their weight.

Totally unnecessary, but hey, they love their "fresh" and "wholesome" carbs! Blech!

6 Months as of Today

2006-08-22T11:56:00.000-07:00

Ok carbohydrates. You've been put on notice!

Today marks the 6 month anniversary of my newfound path. I started my 5th attempt at low-carb on February 22nd 2006. My first day was non-eventful. I skipped breakfast as I usually do, then we had a department lunch at Chili's over by where I work.

I had a cheeseburger and asked for a salad with bleu cheese dressing instead of fries. That would be the last time I ate any vegitation in the last 6 months.

A couple weeks before that I went to my doctor and was shocked when the scale hit 345 pounds. I remember weighing 327 as a sophmore in high school but that was the highest I've ever weighed. My size 50 pants weren't really fitting anymore, and the only 50's I could wear at that point were the ones with the stretch band. My only choice facing me was to get 52" pants, if I could find them, and ones that didn't cost an arm and a leg.

Also that same day I emailed the only person that I knew had the truth, the one person who had the answer and that was Bear. I delved into the emails after work that night and for the first time it all made sense. The low-carb community was also lucky to have Bear come out of hibernation and attempt to respond to other dieters about his incredible 47 years of success on an all-meat diet.

Now, 6 months down the line, I still have the same old clothes problem, only this time it's the other way. I do have some old clothes from 1999, but I'll need clothes again soon enough so I'm going with what I have. My purpose here is to lose the weight, in front of everyone online, to show that you CAN reach your true goal weight if you restrict your carbs enough. I think the biggest obstacle in a more traditional restricted carb diet is that even modest levels of carbs work against you. If I can show that your true weight awaits you, maybe others will see that those 30, 40 or 50g net carb counts are not doing them any good.

UPDATE:
DOH!

I guess I should I have noted that I'm down to 277lbs.

Agribusiness: Carb Peddlers Abound in Congress

2006-08-20T16:20:00.000-07:00

Here's a perfect example of the uphill battle the low-carbers have in gaining mainstream acceptance for their diets.

According the the Center for Responsive Politics, these are the largest political contributors for the entire agribusiness sector for the current election cycle of 2006 (They also have data on the industry going back to 2000). There are many other contributors within the sector of agribusiness, but these are the largest. The total contributions for this cycle alone is just shy of $26 Million.

What's immediately striking, after ignoring such things as tobacco, wood, paper, cotton, meat and poultry producers since agribusiness describes a diverse range of companies, are the number of sugar/high carb producers in the top 20:

Number 1 is the Altria Group at $824,155 for the current cycle. The Altria Group includes Phill Morris as well as Kraft Foods, Inc. which makes Post cereals, Nabisco, Oreos and a whole host of carb laden goodies (or would that be baddies).

Number 2 is American Crystal Sugar at $707,117, a cooperative of sugar producers in America including United Sugars Corporation, Sidney Sugars, Inc., ProGold (corn milling) & Crystech, L.L.C.

Number 7 is Dean Foods, Inc. at $381,047, a maker of diary and soy milk products.

Number 9 is Connell Corp at $321,000, although diversified it was solely a rice and sugar producer.

Number 13 is Flo-Sun, Inc. at $271,037. is a major raw sugar producer. Here's an interesting article, also from the Center for Responsive Politics, about the owners of Flo-Sun called the Politics of Sugar. Here's another article from CNN in 1998 on Flo-Sun and the sugar industry.

Number 14 is Amercian Sugar Cane League at $262,000 a group representing the sugar growers of Lousiana.

Even if you exclude the Altria Group that means 6 out of 20, or 30%, of the largest contributors in the agribusiness sector are specifically high carb peddlers.

The Active No-Carber Forum

2006-08-19T19:52:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

If you're looking to do some extracurricular chatting about low and zero carb diets you should check out the Active No-Carber Forums. Started by Meg and followed by a group of refugees from the Bear thread at the ALC it's a nice friendly atmosphere if you like that kind of thing. We're a pretty loose bunch but if you're into that kind of thing I welcome you to stop by and check it out.

A Humble Thanks

2006-08-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

I just want to thank you folks for taking the time to read my stuff. I've never been much of a writer and never considered it a strong point, but I like writing about zero carb. It keeps me focused and motivated in my endeavor.

In the past I've been very relaxed on my carb counts and would cheat like crazy even though my carbs were low enough to keep me losing weight. I consistently ate 50-100g per day. In the end that much glucose just pushed me over the edge and the cravings would hit and I'd find myself at Jack In The Box.

This time I went back to the Bear emails since 1998 was the biggest success I ever had and this time I GOT IT. It just clicked. Since dropping all carbs I find it much easier to stay on the diet. Now I accept that ALL glucose, in any shape or form, is nothing but poison to me. That may seem extreme, but most people don't understand what it's like to be morbidly obese all their life. My relationship with carbs may be more extreme than most people as I have zero tolerance when it comes to glucose, but even if you can handle carbs it's just not good stuff to eat.

Really, if you're 20, 30, 40, even 50 it's not hard to drop the veggies, fruits like blueberries, and low carb products. Instead of eating that stuff substitute it with beef. It's not that hard but you have to really like beef, eggs and cheese, and lots of fat. Knowing the importance of eating enough fat is very overlooked in the low-carb community. It's like in the mainstream's version of low-carb they have bought into the whole cut calorie, eat lots of "wholesome" and "healthy" veggies. They don't realize their hindering their diets by not eating enough fat. By shunning beef and particularly nice and fatty pieces of beef they miss out an important part of puzzle and that is adequate fat intake. Is that justification for a little "variety"? I don't think so. Stefansson is correct that the more you eat a whole food exclusively the more you like it. I doubted it at first and was skeptical but after about a month or so it became true.

I've lived and seen what the effects of a constant carb intake do. Now I just have to hope the damage that's been done to my body isn't that bad, but I definitely done some damage unfortunately. You can't be 300+ pounds 2/3rds of their life and not expect some repercussion. I don't want to lose it over the course of weeks and weeks, I want this crap off of me now and as soon as possible. I just don't understand why people would want to self-sabotage themselves and lose it "slowly" as if somehow that's more healthy. WTF? The good part is that is exactly what happens, naturally, when you drastically minimize the insulin factor.

The “Donut” Theory of Carbohydrates

2006-08-18T14:36:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this isn't a major theory or anything, more like one of my ramblings.

The "Donut" Theory carbohydrates is just an amusing way of stating that the ability of humans to eat carbohydrates is a survival mechanism and not a license to eat carbs willy nilly. Think of carbs as that funny spare tire you have in the back of your car. It's smaller and funkier than your other tires, but when you have a flat and need to get from point A to point B, it'll work. It's not very safe to drive long distances on a donut, and you can't drive over a certain mile per hour, but the purpose is to get you to your next point until you get put a regular tire on your car.

Now, you wouldn't willfully put the donut on your car. That would be ridiculous. You would compromise safety and efficiency if you did. Yet, that is what millions of people do every day. Some people are driving on 4 donuts all the time, like the idiot vegetarians, and even low-carbers for the most part put the donut on for a short time, but everyday. There is absolutely no reason to each carbs, unless you were in the wild and it was a choice of eating something or starving. Fortunately, this is far and few between the case these days.

Vindicated!

2006-08-16T22:07:00.000-07:00

From Jimmy Moore's Livin' La Vida Low-Carb:

Dr. Petsko is quick to point out that the original diet of our earliest ancestors was virtually zero carbs (hey, he's talking your language now, Rob!) when humans got their carb intake through the process known as gluconeogenesis.

"Carbohydrates probably didn't come into the human diet until the baking of bread and theeating of vegetables and so forth," Dr. Petsko stated

Heh.

Millions and millions of years of human evolution.

What more proof do you need that an all-meat diet is the way to go? Even if you can eat carbs and stay thin, or can "maintain" at 30-100g of carbs, the body just isn't set up to deal with insulin at even the most moderate of levels. That some people can withstand the insulin better than other doesn't mean that this is license to eat carbs. I suppose 50g is better than 400g, but really, if you can get by on 40g you're not far from eating the way the human body was developed to begin with.

Fat is your friend. Don't be shy about eating that nice fatty steak with butter on top night after night after night. I can't even tell you that you'll get used to it because because you don't get "used to" beef, you crave it immensely. The bottom line though, the caveat emptor if you will, is that you have to love meat, especially beef. Generally I find I have to eat 2 pounds of chicken to feel as satisfied as eating 1 pound of beef.

Stefansson noted that the longer you ate a whole food exclusively, the more you like it, and it's true. In the last (almost) 6 months I've eating beef probably 80+% of the time and I never tire of it. In fact I start to get edgy if I haven't had a nice piece of raw beef steak after 72 hours or so. Tonight I picked up a nice untrimmed tri-tip roast with a thick fat pad and just cut a couple thick pieces from the end for dinner. It was like eating beef for the first time all over again.

The Perfect Storm: A Socioeconomic Perspective

2006-08-16T10:18:00.000-07:00

I don't see much chance of a much hoped for low carb revolution and mainstream acceptance that some are hoping for. We are now into our second generation of the low-fat scheme that's been nothing but a disaster, on top of the highly processed/fast food/corporate agricultural explosion that's been going on since the 1950's.

The problems with the low carb revolution theory is that I think we're dealing with major socioeconomic factors that are so deeply ingrained in our culture, both societal and business, that it will be extremely difficult to affect any major change in the mainstream view and acceptance of low carb diets in general.

Plant and vegetables have a much greater profit margin than livestock farming. With the advancements of food sciences and farming equipment you can produce lots and lots of grains, cereals and veggies with little overhead. Corporate agriculture has a very powerful lobby in congress and is highly subsidized. On the flip side there's the powerful pharmaceutical industry that also has a tremendous influence on government policy. Together with science and medicine, both private and public alike, they reinforce the low-fat SAD diet, largely with proper personnel indoctrinated with the proper mindsets. Business funds bad science and the government to reinforce the message on health and nutrition, the government and health institutions give those foods recommendations as being appropriate and healthy.

You just have to accept that the diet your on, even a moderately low-carb one, is deeply unpopular among the establishment. Advocate a Zero Carb diet and your practically persona non-grata! That somehow if there's a new pr slogan or some marketing plan to make low-carb popular isn't going to happen. The mainstream has already undermined low-carb with the South Beach Diet, although it's not much of a low-carb plan. The SAD is too ingrained in our culture for it too change dramatically in the near future. There's just no way of rationally communicating with the socioeconomic forces and infrastructure in play. The establishment will not listen.

In the end, all you can say is, "So long, and thanks for all the fish"

Calories Don't Count: The Bellevue Experiment

2006-08-14T20:47:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting post from Imsovain at the Active No-Carber message board. It's a post from the old Paleolithic diet list about Vilhjalmur Stefansson 's cholesterol. Back in 1928/1929 Vilhjalmur Stefansson and his adventure companion Karsten Andersen went on a controlled experiment at Bellevue Hospital in New York. Boy would I love to get a hold of "Fat of the Land". Along with the cholesterol numbers there's this interesting bit of info:

Range of daily intakes over the one year period:

2000-3000 cal/d
100-140 g protein/d
200-300 g fat/d
7-12 g carbohydrate/d (glycogen from the meat)

"In this experiment, it was found that boiled meat was preferred to fried.
Broiled steaks and chops were used, - V.S. choosing lamb frequently while
K.A. ate beef almost exclusively."

"Both subjects received considerable quantities of bone marrow at various
times..."

"The men led somewhat sedentary lives" (during the experiment)

V.S. K.A.

initial wt: 72.2 kg initial wt: 59.4 kg kg
after 1 year: 69.4 kg after 1 year: 58.0 kg

Now, 72.2 kg and 69.4kg comes out to 159 and 153 pounds respectively. Steffanson notes in his Harper's Monthly Magazine article that he came into the experiment about 10 pounds overweight and lost it all. That means at 153, and we're talking about a 48 year old man here, he needs approximately 1850 calories to maintain body weight. Karsten is even more glaring. Karsten was 128 pounds, thin, and only needed 1550 calories per day, and he too managed to lose a little and maintain body weight.

Now, let's assume they averaged 2500 calories a day, where did all these extra calories go on an all meat diet? According to the calories count crowd these guy would have been packing on the weight. Stefansson was eating an extra 700 calories over body weight every day. Karsten's was even higher. Oh, I'm sure they'll have some excuse or reason, but their own answers would undermine their own logic to begin with, and that a calorie is a calorie and eating too much fat is just as bad as eating too many carbs.

Once again, dietary fat will not make you fat. Calories do not matter on an all meat diet and your fat intake must be high. Stefansson early on received too much lean meat and was starting to feel sick. Once they upped the fat content he felt better and improved. The ratio of their diet for the Bellvue Experiment was 80% fat/20% protein.

When people like Jonny Bowden tell you, "Calories are not the whole story, true. But they do count. And if you eat 10,000 calories a day of high-fat, high-protein food, you will gain weight and anyone who says differently is selling you the Brooklyn Bridge." you can rest assured that HE is the one that's trying to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge my friends, and at $50 a pop too...KA-Ching!! What a joker! Well..I guess it's just like they say, there's one born every minute, and apparently willing to pay $49.99 for a 4-CD set. No wonder this guy is looking for a new PR and marketing slogan and to shy away from the "low-carb" monicker...it's probably hurting or restricting his sales or potential market. These guys come across as being on your side and doing good things, but in the end they do more harm than good by continuing to perpetrate lies like calories count, the same lie that drives the whole low-fat hysteria.

The closest that any of these guys got to the truth was Atkins in 1972, and even that version is largely discarded and discredited even among the low carb community.

More Meat (and Egg) Porn

2006-08-11T20:57:00.000-07:00

Dinner was absolutely delicious....as it is every night. Since I hadn't eaten since the night before I cut me a nice big thick piece of bottom round, with 4 eggs cooked in about a 1/4 stick of unsalted butter. It was just slightly cool in the center.

What more do you need? Supplements, IMO, are a rip off. If you're taking them it's because what you think you're eating isn't giving you what you need. That's probably true for some of the menus I've seen posted, both low-carb and regular dieters. A nice hunk of raw beef and eggs give you everything you need. It's my multivitamin.

DSO is Coming To Town

2006-08-11T16:53:00.000-07:00

You better not pout
You better not cry
You better not shout
I'm telling you why
DSO is coming to town

October 5-7, 2006 at the Fillmore! This is quite possibly the greatest cover band ever. Check these guys (and gal) out when they come through your neck of the woods. Take a listen to this version of the Jerry Garcia Band's version of Sisters & Brothers.

My Meal "Plan"

2006-08-10T07:20:00.000-07:00

Here is generally what I eat on any given day.

Breakfast: Beef and/or 4 eggs, maybe some cheese
Lunch: Beef and/or 4 eggs, maybe some cheese
Dinner: Beef and/or 4 eggs, maybe some cheese

I find that two meals a day is suffient to keep my satisfied, and if I eat breakfast I'll tend to skip lunch and vice versa. I guess I eat about 1-2 pounds of meat a day and roughly 8 eggs and 8oz of various cheeses. When I feel like having a dessert on the rare occasion I'll make my favorite chocolate table cream mousse.

I don't weight or measure anything, and I don't force myself to eat. The notion that some people have to eat 5-6 times a day is a mistake, and frankly I find it a little weird and consider it an eating disorder. It's an unnatural obsession with food. Think about it. You have a whole schedule dedicated to eating at particular times and I see no benefit in doing such a thing. Once you get adapted to a zero carb diet you may find yourself eating once a day. I find that I can go as long as 30 hours without eating before I get anykind of hunger pangs. There simply is no reason for a constant intake of food.

There is absolutely no need for variety. That was a concern at first but then you just get into a groove and it becomes second nature. I think at the 6 month mark here I actually enjoy beef more now than I did at the beginning.

The other thing I recommend is switching to unsalted butter. At first switching to unsalted butter and not putting salt on my steak was a little shocking. You really get used to that intense flavor, but once the salt jones leaves you really come to appreciate the real flavor of food. Unsalted butter is fresher and creamier than salted butter with a much much better texture. I've also come to really appreciate the sweet taste of fresh raw beef too. With food this good, why cover it up with salt? Occasionaly I may use other seasonings or garlic but to honest, I just like it pan fried, raw in the middle.

It's also important to eat beef raw or as rare as possible. I pan fry mine in a ridged cast iron skillet that gives me those cool grill lines on the steak. Turning it 90 degrees on a side gives it that nice checkerboard patter that you see on steaks at a steak house. The protein in the meat is best raw and you should never get the inside of your steak highter than 104 degrees, the temperature where the nutrient and proteins start becoming compromissed.

Here I am, 6 months down the road, started at 345 and now I'm down to 279.8 as of this morning. I no longer obsess on food, what I want to eat, what I'll have for dinner, etc.

Oh Meat Sweet Meat

2006-08-08T21:24:00.000-07:00

Ahhhhh...after living 4 days on chicken and pork, I finally had a nice bleu steak and eggs for dinner tonight. After four days I get REAL twitchy if I don't get my beef. Don't get me wrong, I liked the chicken and pork (my wife can do things with spices and flavor that I just don't do for myself), it was very tasty, albeit well cooked, but it was way better than giving myself and excuse to not eat from the animal kingdom. To be honest, cravings for carbs at this point really is minimal. So far I just haven't cheated at all. Occasionally I'll get a minor pang, like when I was working the beverage tent at the Ren Faire selling drinks and ice cream sandwiches, but then I just remind myself that it's crap and it goes away.

I'm someone who always had a good excuse for a planned cheat, telling myself I'll get back on tomorrow, and sometimes I did. Next thing you know I'd myself driving home from Jack In The Box with 6 tacos, 2 jr bacon cheeseburgers, maybe with an order of onion rings thrown in. What's even worse is that an hour or two later I would raid the fridge again! Fricking insane! I see know that I'm powerless to the evil carb, like an alcoholic's relationship to booze really. Sadly, there's millions of people out there just like me, unable to understand how bad their addiction is and the damage carbs do to their particular metabolisms. This is exactly what carbs are though. Poison that kills you in the relative long term, like booze.

This is why there is no "good carb". That Atkins changed his plan after the first edition was an attempt to sell more and books by creating more mainstream acceptance by increasing and outright advocate moderate carb and veggie consumption. This division and controversy was very apparent at the Bear thread. Many low-carbers were outright hostile to proclamations that all carbs were nasty and unnecessary. In the end, Atkins sold out to dietary expediency rather than stand by his principles in the first edition of his book.

Insulin and Fat Storage

2006-08-07T19:15:00.000-07:00

Dietary fat does not make you fat. Never thought a simple statement would provoke such controversy. The notion that calories count and that idea that there's an acceptable carb level arise because of a basic misunderstanding of how the body uses food for energy and future energy.

Basically it comes down to insulin. When you eat glucose (carbs) insulin is excreted by the pancreas in response. Now, insulin does many things, but primarily it deals with excess glucose, first using what's needed for immediate energy, then it goes to the liver, then it's stored into adipose tissue. Not only is it the storage mechanism for adipose tissue, but it also blocks fatty acids from being used, in other words, it tells your body to stop burning fat and go into "store fat from carbs" mode.

In other words, eating zero (or very low) carbs stimulates the fat burning process because there's no excessive insulin being produced telling your body to stop burning reserves in the fat stores (adipose tissue). This is what I keep trying to tell people on "maintenance" who are eating 50g-100g of carbs a day. Even at that level you're still provoking the insulin response. This is just my hunch, but this is what I think happens. The idea that there's some "critical carb level" is crapola. Is eating 100g of carbs per day better than 400g? Absolutely. Is 100g of carbs a day a healthy level? I don't think so.

Maintaining a relatively low level of carbs over the course of time leads to increased weight gain. What I think happens is that constant, even if small, provocation of insulin increases over time as more and more amounts are needed to metabolize and deal with the 50g of carbs. That's why people have to go into "induction" mode every once in a while because they're still eating too many carbs. In the end it's just self-sabatoge, and not only that, but the constant excretion of insulin in the body is just not health in general.

Now, there is no other mechanism that gets fat from diet into adipose tissue. Some dietary fat, very very little, can be stored by a "concentration-dependent manner by a transmembrane transport protein", but that is not the kind of body fat we're talking about. This is why the "calories count" camp is wrong wrong wrong. They can do the calorie math until the kobes come home but it still doesn't change the fact that insulin is THE storage mechanism of fat in adipose tissue.

Richard Mackarness in Eat Fat, Grow Slim (1958) notes in his chapter "Objections to High-Fat Diets"

The effectiveness of high-fat, low-carbohydrate diets in obesity will continue to be surprising so long as people continue to regard body fat as an inert slab of suet stored round the hips and in the other fat depots.

The fatty tissues of the body are not inert at all. Together they make up a highly active organ (the "fat organ") with definite functions comparable to those of the liver.

This "fat organ " is concerned especially with the energy needs of the body.

It shrinks under conditions of low food intake and increases when intake is high.

From this most people assume that the fat organ is simply a passive calorie store.

But this assumption is wrong. The fat organ is not passive. It has a rich blood supply and is in a constant state of activity entering into minute-to-minute metabolic changes throughout the body.

This activity can be increased or decreased by many factors, particularly by the kind of food we eat. Carbohydrate (starch and sugar) is the forerunner of excess fat in the fat organ.

On a diet devoid of carbohydrate, there is little stimulus to the "fat organ" to make extra fat. It is doubtful, in fact, whether fat in the diet can add to the weight of the "fat organ," except during recovery from starvation.

On the contrary it seems that a high fat intake depresses the manufacture of fat in the body, while increasing itutilizationon as fuel.

In other words (and this is the key to Banting and all slimming) the fatty tissues can only become overweight through making fat from carbohydrate.

These statements are based on experimental work begun by Hausberger and Milstein in the Departments of Anatomy and Biochemistry at the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia.

They reported their findings in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, in 1955, as follows:

"Fasting or feeding a high-fat diet abolished lipogenesis (fat formation) in adipose tissue and reduced glucose oxidation markedly lipogenesis increased to the highest levels on a high-carbohydrate, fat-free diet."

They found also that in the experimental animals (rats) with which they were working, fat formation took place mainly in the adipose tissues. Massoro in Boston and Mayer and Silides at Harvard have confirmed these findings, working with tissue slices. More recent work on human subjects seems to show that these observations are also true for man.

Utilisation of radio-glucose (glucose "tagged" with radioactivity so that its metabolism can be followed) by adipose tissue has been investigated under various nutritional conditions. Fasting or feeding a high-fat diet has been found to diminish the formation of fat from carbohydrate.

Stop eating carbohydrate and eat fat instead and you will not only stop getting fat, but will get thinner.

I wonder if the follow ups were ever done? My guess is that it's hard to find honest research on high fat diets after the low-cal, low-fat craze started in the 70's or so.

Bottom line? Dietary fat doesn't make you fat, but it's the insulin secreted from glucose intake. No carbs, no insulin, no extra body fat.

Back From The Faire!

2006-08-07T17:05:00.000-07:00

Hey there guys and gals,

I'm back from the Willits Renaissance Faire that happened this weekend. One of the best things about hitting the zero carb path is that me and my wife could finally start to participate in the Renaissance Faire scene. We like to do volunteer work for Rusty Sword Productions, helping out here and there, and in my case, cleaning trash and doing odd tasks. Great way to have fun and get some good ol' excersize. There is no way that either of us could have done this a year ago. Here's a plug for my wife, this is her little Ren Faire page: Lusty Wenches and the Lairds who Worship Them, showing just how much fun we really have!

For those in the bay area, come on out to the Golden Gate Renaissance Festival in Golden Gate Park August 26-27, 2006. C'mon and join the fun and get your medieval on :)

The "30 in 30" Challenge and the Misconception of Fat Metabolism

2006-08-02T20:39:00.000-07:00

This was partially a comment I left at Jimmy Moore's Livinlavidalocarb blog but I felt it had to be stressed here as well:

If Jimmy drops his carbs to virtually zero and stops eating all the low carb products he would reach his goal weight in 30 weeks let alone just 30 pounds. I blogged about this a little while back. Dietary fat will not make you fat. I certainly support Jimmy in his endeavor but to be honest I think he's too attached to the low carb products. People can say sugar alcohols don't count and that fiber can be deducted and net carb this and net carbs that, but I think in the end they're only fooling themselves by doing adjusted carb counts. Also, the notion that it has to occur over a long period time is just a mental justification/acculturation to keep the carb count high at 50g a day. Even if you frame it in Atkins, why not just cut the carbs down to induction level and just lose the 30 pounds and be done with it, and maintain your weight on induction level?

That's not a slam or anything, but sometimes there's no other way to say the truth. He's certainly not alone either, as lots of people can't shake the carb addiction. All I know is that I've been veggie/starch/sugar/fruit free for 5 1/2 months with no cheats or fake-o products, eating only from the animal kingdom and I'm someone who;s NEVER been strict on a low carb diet even though I still lost weight. Beyond just weight loss I feel that there's too much at stake to have continued exposing my system to the constant onslaught of insulin, and toxins like soybean and wheat.

That aside, there is a simple way for Jimmy to get to his true goal weight within a year. You see, there is no mechanism in the body to take dietary fat and put it into adipose tissue. Calories, as Invisible Blogger insists otherwise, are NOT a factor until you've reached your true natural goal weight. That calories count is a common misunderstanding on how fat metabolism works, which is the basis of the "low fat" diet.

Don't believe me? I went on a weight watchers "deal a meal" plan for 2 months in 1995 and was really strict in my choices. I forced down lots of veggies, kept my fat low and over the course of two GRUELLING months I lost like 10 pounds, and that was also with working out and excersizing. My wife joined me and she lost even less weight. She was a vegetarian before that and she actually GAINED weight. I've heard other accounts of obese people going vegetarian and actually gaining weight.

Obese people like myself and Jimmy are extremely sensitive to carbs. I can gain a pound just by looking at a donut. The same thing that's happening to Jimmy is probably the same thing that happened to me on a calorie restricted low fat diet. I was probably excersizing and working out just enough to burn whatever weight I was gaining on a high (good) carb diet. If it wasn't for his exercise Jimmy would probably be closer to 270-280 right now instead of 240. He's most likely burning just enough calories to maintain, and apparently even gain, weight. This is why the low-fat diet is such a failure to most people who aren't trying to lose 10 vanity pounds. Even with calorie restriction the body is still storing excess glucose into adipose tissue because of insulin and how fat metabolism really works.

Drop the carbs and the weight comes off effortlessly and rapidly. I've been on a low-carb diet and when I'm my strictest, like this time, I dropped 30 pounds in the first month and a half alone. I'm now down 60 pounds after 5 1/2 months. Why? Because dietary fat can not be converted and stored to fat in adipose tissue. Eating lots of dietary fat in the absence of carbs by people with extra body fat will actually stimulate the fat burning process. It will raise your metabolism causing you to burn fat even faster. Carbs also interfere with muscle growth while fat stimulates muscle growth (check out Vince Gironda). Throwing carbs into your diet and provoking insulin responses throws a monkey wrench in this process.

It's best to avoid carbs not just for weight reasons but also for health reasons.There is no reason to eat carbohydrates. Even low to modest levels of carbs and the insulin it provokes hinders the fat burning process, causes the arteries to scar and works against building muscles. Carbs are to be avoided at all costs.

UPDATE: Top 5 Reasons Not to Eat Carbohydrates

2006-08-01T19:08:00.000-07:00

4. Toxins

Reader lcforevah passed on this interesting webpage about plant toxicity, from www.deliciousorganics.com (oh man, sometimes irony can be brutal!). Excellent list of many types of plants and their particular toxins. Vegetation that's noted:

Potatoes
Tomatoes
Peppers
Eggplant
Cherries
Apples
Peaches
Pears
Rhubarb
Corn
Broccoli
Lentils
Grapefruits
Peanuts
Celery
Spinach
Beets
Lettuce
Turnip Greens
Mustard Greens
Green Beans
Radishes
Collards
Chard
Pumpkin
Almonds
Cashews
Soybeans
Ginger
Cabbages
Mangos
Parsley
Parsnips
Lettuce
Oats
Berries
Strawberries
Cranberries

WTF?!?! Please tell me how this garbage is supposed to be good for you again? Phytonutrients! Anti-Oxidents! Pure crappola!

Happy Birthday Jerry!

2006-08-01T07:46:00.000-07:00

We miss ya. Even though I was too young to experience peak era Grateful Dead I was still fortunate to see the last 5 years of the band. There were some strong points during that time; 1991, late 1992 and 1993 all had some excellent shows. The times I really miss the most are the Jerry Garcia Band shows at the Warfield. The JGB required a certain taste, it was no Grateful Dead, but the mellow vibes and the mellow crowds, not to mention seeing Jerry is a smallish room, made all the difference.

I salute one of the greatest (and most underated) guitarists and songwriters in rock and roll.

Top 5 Reasons To Stop Eating All Carbohydrates

2006-07-30T07:24:00.000-07:00

Top 5 Reasons To Stop Eating All Carbohydrates

1. No essential nutrients.

There is nothing, absolutely NOTHING that you need from veggies and fruit that you can't get from meat and eggs. Don't tell me, "what about the antioxidants!". The reason you take all these antioxidants is because of your body oxidizing polyunsaturated fats from vegetable and plant sources. When they're oxidized, because of their shape and the way they bond to other atoms, they give off more these "free radicals". Stick to saturated fats, which the body burns cleanly, then you'll be OK.

2. Insulin

Adiposity 101:

INSULIN has been called "the fattening hormone". Insulin promotes differentiation of white fat cells, fat deposition, lipoprotein lipase (LPL), inhibits growth hormone release, and inhibits the fat releasing action of catecholamines. Insulin inhibits the hormone-sensitive lipase that releases stored fat from adipose tissue. In normal individuals, insulin primarily increases glucose uptake by muscle tissue and lowers glucose production by the liver. In Syndrome X, the liver and muscles are resistant to insulin, forcing the production of more insulin to control blood glucose.

3. Optimization of Fat Burning is compromised

See above.

4. Toxins

Fruits and vegetables are loaded with toxins and anti-nutrients, natural defense against predators. Plus they taste like garbage! How can you people eat this stuff?

5. Fiber

I've blogged about this before, and it's a chapter in the zero carb path.

Now, given all that, why would you want to expose yourself to carbs, even for the smallest of amounts? Variety? Acculturation? Self-sabatoge?

I didn't believe this when I first went low-carb in 1998. I mentally justified myself eating carbs for just those reasons as listed above. But as someone who has been morbidly obese for 2/3d's of their life I guess you can say I have a particular problem with carbs. I have never known a moment of normality in my entire life concerning weight. I'm 5'7" and I've been between 320 and 345 since the age of 13.

Zero carb eating is the only way I've seen that controls my carb addiction and eating problems. I never have a problem with "variety". The more I eat beef the more I love it. You'll probably say that can't be true, but it is. I also get very few, if any, cravings for sweets or starches. There were times when I was doing regular low carb (the kind of lots of "fresh" and "wholesome" veggies and the usual "low-carb" processed products) that I would still get cravings, and I mean INTENSE cravings. I kid you not. I would literally be pacing the kitchen floor mentally justifing myself for the next glucose fix. Even as little as 20g of carbs per day would set these cravings off. The more liberal with the carbs the worse the cravings would hit. I was consistently trapped in this paradox of mainstream low-carb dieting.

If you're obese and it's been a life long problem you really may want to consider a zero carb path. There is a certain caveat however. You must either love or get to learn to love lots and lots of meat. That really is the bottom line. Once you get into the cycle of beef and eggs and creams/cheeses the mental "chatter" about variety and cravings gets more diminished over time, at least that's the way I would describe it.

The Best of the Bear-Dietary Fat

2006-07-30T06:03:00.000-07:00

I went through Bear's "Words of Wisdom" thread at the active NO-carber and pulled a few more thoughts on dietary fat.

Lipolysis is stimulated by dietary fat when, and only when- you are carrying more body fat than your body 'wants' or needs, a level I have called your 'fatostat'. Your metabolism prefers to use dietary-sourced fat, remember bodyfat comes from glucose conversion only so your body will conserve it if it can, and will replace it if it goes 'too low'- this is the one stimulus for glucose-from-protein- i.e., recovery from severely low levels of body fat from fasting or starvation, on an all meat regime with adequate fat and protein intake, but no carbs.

Thus, a person whose bodyfat level is above their 'fat-o-stat' set-point will lose/burn body fat no matter how many calories they eat- i.e., it is not necessary to restrict your food, eat as much as feels good.

And what happens to dietary fat that can't be used?

The body has a limit to the amount of fat you can eat and digest at one sitting, determined by the bile, and once you have eaten that amount, you will stop, but can still eat the lean. Forcing things will work like drinking like castor or mineral oil- it is purging. Dietary fat either is not absorbed due top exceeding the supply of emulsifying bile, causing loose stools, or if absorbed- will circulate until used.

Storing dietary fat would mean that you could NOT eat lots of fat without gaining weight. This misunderstanding of the true nature of fat-metabolism is the prime SOURCE of the notorious 'low fat' diet, the most fattening dietary regime ever proposed. This is not the case, fortunately.

Dietary Fat DOES NOT Make You Fat

2006-07-26T14:40:00.000-07:00

Oh folks, here's one that you need to pay attention to because the debate over counting vs not counting calories is never ending.

DIETARY FAT WILL NOT MAKE YOU FAT. Let me repeat that, DIETARY FAT WILL NOT MAKE YOU FAT. There is no mechanism to move dietary fat into adipose tissue. As The Bear noted on his thread:

Fat in the diet does NOT enter the adipose tissue- a very tiny amount of osmotic exchange in short chain fatty acids MAY occur, however studies with radioactively tagged dietary fat and glucose show NO radio-tagged fat winds up in the tissues from fat and ALL the radiotagged glucose is found in fat in the adipose tissues. I might remind all readers that bogus claims and false data is VERY common in the scientific literature. We do not question that fatty acids enter somatic muscle cells only that it is not stored in adipose cells

For those who maintain that you need to restrict calories on a low-carb diet are flat out wrong. This is not one of those "if it works for you, fine" moments. You do not need to restrict calories at all as long as there are no carbs in your diet. It's that simple really. The only time you need to restrict calories is when you've hit your true weight, ususally it's 11%-15% for men and 18%-23% for women. If you don't accept that dietary fat doesn't make you fat then you've bought the low-fat bull hook, line and sinker and you must truly not believe in how low-carb and ketogenic diets work.

What I believe happens is that people go on "maintenance" (usually above their true normal BMI weight) eating 30g-100g of carbs per day. The joke on them is that eating that many carbs a day stalls their weight loss prematurly so they are left to reducing calories needlessly or just learn to live being slightly overweight. If they reduce carbs to zero they will hit lose naturally to their normal weight. The other joke is that their still invoking the insulin response. Insulin exposure over the course of time is very unhealty, so while they're able to lose and maintain weight loss they're still putting themselved in jeopardy.

As Bear noted again in his thread:

Insulin is THE major cause of arterial sclerosis- by its ability to stimulate muscle-cell proliferation. This effect is especially bad for smooth muscle like is found in the intestines and arteries. The proliferative cells become scar tissue and that is what causes a loss of flexibility, and blockage of the lumen.

In a study titled 'Atherosclerosis: An insulin-dependent disease?' some interesting facts about the somatic effects of insulin were exposed. Surgically produced 'diabetic' dogs with no ability to produce insulin do not have any problem so long as no carbs are ingested. The study was done on such dogs, wherein they were catheterised in both femoral arteries and a solution of saline was applied by drip to both. A measured amount of insulin to balance their dietary carb intake was added to the saline only in one artery. After only six months the dogs were sacrificed and the arteries excised and studied. There was considerable pre-sclerotic growth found in the one supplied with the insulin solution, and none in the control artery. Hard to deny. The damage to skin collagen by glucose/insulin (stretch marks and wrinkles) is well known. Cataracts and joint damage are likewise long recognised as induced by insulin. The professional diabetes (medical) groups always refer to such damage as being caused by diabetes, which is not true. As noted, diabetes in NOT a disease. Remove dietary carbs and it literally disappears. This historic truth has been suppressed by the drug and medical professions

Here is what that study's abstract had to say:

Evidence is reviewed that dietary habits in industrially developed countries, especially an increased frequency of ingestion of foods of high energy density, may contribute to excessive hepatic cholesterol synthesis and to a preponderance of lipogenic versus lipolytic effects on the arterial intima, thereby favoring the formation and progression of atheroma. These effects are mediated by the rise and fall of circulating insulin levels. The evidence is suggestive of the possibility that frequent and prolonged exposure of the arterial wall to high circulating levels of insulin may favor the development of atherosclerotic lesions. Research on diet-atherosclerosis relationships should take into account not only overall diet composition but individual meal composition and size and their effects on serum insulin levels, as well as meal spacing and the relative durations of absorptive and postabsorptive periods during the 24-hour daily cycle.

Why constantly provoke insulin when zero carb will do just fine? You're only fooling yourself if you think a carb level of 20-100g per day is healthy. It's not. Sure, you'll probably say to me, "well Rob, that may work for you but not for me, everybody's differnt."

"You're in denial" is my response.

The zero carb/all meat diet will work for everybody, unless you have some serious medical condition or something. Other than that, you, me, whoever, wants to do zero carb it will work. That is an undiputable fact about zero carb, and it's purely based on human physiology. The only reason that zero carb won't work is because of mental reasons like acculturation.

My body is too sensitive to glucose. Even on a calorie restriced low-fat diet I gain weight or lose nothing. Let me clarify one thing so you can see where I'm going with this. It's true that individuals bodies deal with glucose in different way. My body is extremely proficient in turning glucose to stored fat. That's true of all obese people. That some people can lose weight on 30g, 40, 50g or 100g diet is a subjective reality. Person A doing South Beach may lose weight while Person B, who may be more glucose intollerant, will not lose weight on South Beach and may have to try another diet. You may also have Person C who can eat sugar non-stop and never gain a pound.

When one restricts carbs to virtually zero it's an objective reality that you will lose weight because everybody's body works on the same physiology. In other words, our bodies work the same even though individually may work at a different rate. For example, everyone has 2 lungs and 4 ventricles and we all breath oxygen. Some people don't breath carbon dioxide or have 3 lungs. It's the same with how our bodies use food and convert it to energy.

Brent Mydland 10/21/52 - 7/26/90

2006-07-26T09:56:00.000-07:00

Ok, getting off topic again but today marks the 16th anniversary of the passing of Brent Mydland, the 4th Grateful Dead keyboardist and the 3rd to meet an untimely passing. While never overcoming the "new guy" monicker in the band after 11 years, he probably was the most complete keyboardist the Dead had. I never got to see him live since I didn't see the band until February 1991 but was very familiar with him having listed to the Dead since the age of 12 in 1981. In fact, I tried to convince my parents to see them at some point in 1982 but my parents wouldn't let me go.

The early Brent period, especially the first couple tours after the dismissal of Keith and Donna are very strong. The Dead were still using the Keith and Donna arrangements and Brent's keyboard choices provided the most color since 1974 when Keith was using the piano and the rhodes. In some way the Grateful Dead never really recovered from the loss of Brent, and with the downward spiril of Jerry it only seemed like a matter of time.

10/3/87 is considered a great Brent show, and certainly his last year with the Dead was some of his best work ever (and one of the strongest years for the Dead too). I wish I would have went to see shows sooner so I could have caught Brent live in action.

Meat Porn

2006-07-25T19:53:00.000-07:00

Here was tonight's steak, a luscious rib eye, cooked to perfection, seared quickly on the outside to sterilize the surface while leaving the middle section warm and raw. I bet it's making your mouth water! A perfect 102 degrees to boot! The nutrients in meat are optimal up to 104 degrees F. After that they start to get compromised.

Now that I've gotten to really love raw and bleu meat I can't eat it any other way. The first few times I was really nervous, but you just have to get used to it I suppose. The first time I ever ate a purely raw inside/seared outside steak I was so nervous, I couldn't look at the meat, but then I peaked, lol, freaked out and threw it back in the pan for like 20 seconds before I just told myself to deal with it. The texture is very similiar to pasta actually. It's slightly rubbery, but breaks up easily in the mouth and practically starts dissolving on your tongue and no nasty, stringy strands of meat getting caught in your teeth to. Any cut of beef is an option now because raw meat is so tender. Boneless short ribs are a perfect example of how good a meat can be raw.

Here's a previous dinner from the past. I think this was a cross rib steak, which is not to bad really.

Low Carb Dave and the BMI

2006-07-24T20:16:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Moore has a terrific feature on Low-Carb Dave, one of the nicest folk in the online low carb community that I've met. I've always got a special spot for Dave because for the longest time I thought he was this nice old man on the ALC Forum. Turns out that was Atkins in his signature! I guess I didn't recognize the good doctor without his coat on :)

Congrats Dave! One year is no easy feat.

Then Jimmy noted this:

Before low-carb, our friend Dave was a ticking time bomb on his way to an early
grave -- 473 pounds, an off-the-charts BMI of 60(!), insulin resistant, always
hungry, severe sleep apnea, edema in his legs, and even asthma. To say his
health was declining last year is an understatement. I can certainly relate as a
former 410-pound man with a BMI of 52, borderline diabetic, always hungry, on
medications for breathing, cholesterol and high blood pressure, and living a
miserable life. Being morbidly obese really sucks, doesn't it Dave?!

So I went to the wiki to see how the BMI is derived and when I did it, at my fattest in February 2006 at 345 I was at 52.75! Holy crap! It sure the hell felt like a 52.75. I felt terrible all the time. Just tying my shoes and taking off my socks were a pain in the ass. I took a sleep apnea test that came out "inconclusive". Apparently something was restricting my breathing but they said it wasn't classic apnea or something. High blood pressure, my cholestorol was ok oddly enough, my blood work was terrible, my blood glucose was ok but I figure it's only a matter of time before that started going up too.

Right now I'm at 43.58, just on the verge of NOT being morbidly obese and just being regular plain old obese (or as I like to think of it, I kinda look like I may have been somebody who once was thin but just let myself go :) ) What I thought was interesting was that at my lowest weight, 195 in 1998, I was still just under 30, still considered overweight even though to me I seemed skinny (er). According to the chart I should be around 140-145.

"Low-Carb" Myths

2006-07-22T22:31:00.001-07:00

Steve at the Against the Grain blog made a post about this article by Laura Dolson.

1. Low Carb=No CarbThis misconception is the idea that a low carb diet
must be really really low in carbohydrates. You will read that low carb diets
attempt to eliminate carbohydrates, for example.

Fact: Not one low carb diet author advocates this.

Uh-oh. Somebody needs to turn her on to the Zero Carb Path. I'm not sure Stefansson counts but he lived quite well on a zero carb diet too.

But this one is my favorite:

2. Low Carb Diets Discourage Eating Vegetables and Fruits. Because
vegetables and fruits are mainly carbohydrate, people believe that they are not
allowed on low carb diets.

Fact: The opposite is true non-starchy vegetables are usually at the
bottom of the low carb pyramids meaning they are the staff of life of the
diet (replacing grains in that role) and people who follow a low carb way of
eating almost always eat more vegetables than the general population. For the
most part, vegetables and fruits ARE the carbs eaten when following a low carb
way of eating.

3. Low Carb Diets Have Inadequate Fiber. The reasoning goes that since
fiber IS carbohydrate, a low carb diet MUST be low in fiber.

Not for me! Every veggie I have ever tried without butter and cheese sauces sucked. How people can eat this stuff is beyond me, but it's the holiest of holies when it comes to food. Guess what folks? You don't have to eat them and there are no benefits to eating them. The phytonutrient/phytochemicals thing is boguscourseOf coures substituting veggies in an otherwise poor diet is going to be beneficial, but I don't think you can claim that they reduce cancer. I just think we're heading into the realm of Kevin Trudeau.

As for fiber we already know about the "Fiber is healthy myth". You can also refer to my previous Vegetation is Toxic post.

Over at the Active Low-Carber Forum many meat only or nearly meat only people used to catch a lot of crap from people worried about myths like the one above. A typical response from an actual ALC poster is below:

For many years people dissed the low carb lifestyle by saying it was a mainly
meat diet. Low carbers spent a lot of time defending their WOE by saying it was
definitely NOT just a meat or meat and cheese or meat and egg WOE. Now there
seems to be a great interest in a "meat only" or more accurately "animal product
only" WOE. Nothing wrong with that, but I can understand why some people after
having to defend low carbing see the "animal only" WOE as undermining what they
had been saying to friends, family, the press, etc.

The thing I don't understand is the idea that were "undermining" all this hard work? Undermining what? If you're eating a particular way and you're friends and family can't accept what you're doing, that's their hang up-but if they love you or are good friends, they'll come to accept what you're doing in time. I would think that the progress you make would compensate for whatever concerns they might have.

The press? Who cares? Are you trying to sell a book or push a website/TV show? Sure, people with a monetary stake would love to see more mainstream acceptance just because it would make them more money but that has nothing to do with the diet itself. Does it really matter who is the low carb market leaders?

People just have to get over the fact that the diet they're on is socially unacceptable for the most part and even offensive to many people in the general public. That's just the way it goes.

Get To Know Your Meat

2006-07-22T22:01:00.000-07:00

Get to know your meats :)

Since I eat beef as my choice of meat 90% of the time I tried various types for a little variety. Since I eat so much beef I can't eat ribeye's and porterhouses everyday. Some of my favorites are boneless short ribs. They're nice and fatty and have a real nice flavor raw. Blade steaks are nice and fatty and tasty, and they have some gristley parts which have lots of good protein, but you have to chew on it for awhile. Lots of times I'll be hunks of bottom round roasts and just slice steaks right off of that. I also find that if I hit the store first thing in the morning I can get good deals on close out meats.

I've Reached a New Low

2006-07-21T15:22:00.000-07:00

Tipped the scale at 285 today. That's a total of 60 pounds since 2/23/06. And I can really feel a whoosh coming on right now. I'm just able to button the pants of the 42" Dockers I bought back in 1998. I noticed I had an old paycheck in the pocket too. The last time I put those pants on was in September 1999.

This day in Dead history

2006-07-21T11:46:00.000-07:00

On this date the Grateful Dead played the Hollywood Bowl in 1974. Rob Bertrando recorded the show and is one of the better audience tapes of the period. Of course, when you've got the Wall of Sound in front of you it's easier to make great tapes. Some of the best Grateful Dead audience recordings are from 1974.

This is not one to be taken lightly.

Set One
Promised Land
Tennessee Jed
Me And My Uncle
Sugaree
Jack Straw
Mississippi Half Step Uptown Toodeloo >
It Must Have Been The Roses
El Paso
Scarlet Begonias
Around And Around

Set Two-A
Phil and Ned (Seastones)

Set Two-B
China Cat Sunflower >
Know You Rider
Big River
Row Jimmy
Playin' In The Band >
Wharf Rat >
Truckin' >
Nobody's Jam >
Playin' In The Band
Ship Of Fools
Sugar Magnolia

Encore
U.S. Blues

Focus and Discipline

2006-07-20T10:20:00.000-07:00

I believe that the majority of the battle to lose weight is primarily mental more than physical.

How many times have we heard about people trying to re-start their diets after falling off the wagon? I know I tried to redo the diet several times after 1998. Even in 1998 I wasn't very focused and disciplined, eating candy, sneaking junk food here and there. Despite all that I still managed to lose weight, probably eating roughly 30-40g of carbs per day. That I could lose weight eating that many carbs shows to me how extremely sensitive I am to glucose. This time it just all seemed to click, and with Bear showing up at the ALC, it gave me more info on the real human diet (which is a totally carnivorous one BTW).

This time I have not cheated once. Sure, I may have eaten more cream and soft cheeses than I should have on occasion, but I can honestly say that I probably never ate more than 10-15g of carbs on anyday, and that's mostly from eggs and cheese. No cheats, no low-carb products, no veggies, no fake-o starches, sugar alcohols or any of that crap. This is the once exception to my "mental" theory of zero carb. Since restricting all carbs I have very few, if any, cravings. None, zip, nada. I can remember eating a bowl of low-carb ice cream and physically feeling the intense cravings that the sugar alcohols would bring on. Even broccoli with cheese would leave me with that nagging carb jones. It didn't take long to go from low-carb ice cream to real ice cream to 8 tacos and 2 burgers at the local Jack In The Box.

Without the cravings the mental part just seems to fall in line. Some of the mental barriers include:

-Needing to eat 3 meals a day plus snacks. Now I can tell when I'm hungry and when I'm just eating to eat. Sometimes I eat only once a day.

-Needing variety! None is needed, and I rarely get frustrated eating a diet that's around 90% beef and eggs.

-Focus and discipline (will power). Without the physical cravings it's easier to remain committed and in control.

I was recently told that I was in danger of thinking too much about what I eat. That may be true. This time though I really wanted to put myself on the line, since it's so easy to lose interest and track. Jimmy Moore touched on this subject today. This is the beauty of the internet. In real life I'm far less inclined to get into it with people I know and work with as far as telling them the nitty gritty details on how I'm losing weight. Ignorance and the mainstream low-fat dogma complicates the issue and sometimes I think it's best to avoid confrontation. Just do what you do and if people want to accept what I'm doing, it's up to them.

As Bear succintly explained:

You are fighting a cultural battle, and your actions are very threatening on an
unconscious level to many of your associates. Hang in there, after a while your
friends will accept your diet, but it will take a while, and even when they do,
they will say things like: "Everyone is different, maybe this works for you,
but..." This attitude is properly termed "denial", and you will see a lot of it
around you, especially as your body slowly starts to look multi-years younger
than your contemporaries.

In the end I think I'm just really luckier than most. Unlike many others out there I do have some positive acculturation in my favor. I was raised eating lots of meat. Lot and lots of red rare meat too. My father was a driver for Golden State Meat Company in San Francisco for 35 years. We got boxes and boxes of fresh hamburger, hot dogs, steaks, you name it. We had meat 7 days a week, Italian sausages on Fridays, rare roasts every Sunday, it was great. Luckily my mom never made me eat my veggies, so I never ate them, outside of a little broccoli here and there. I didn't volitionally eat a salad until I was 21. I'm not kidding. Starches, cereals, milk and fast food have always been my downfall.

This time I think things are changing for the permanent.

Vegetation is Toxic

2006-07-19T20:36:00.000-07:00

Nothing would twirl more panties at the ALC than the proclaimation that veggies are toxic. Veggies are sancrosanct, and very few people really have the cajones to flat out admit that they suck.

First, plants are loaded with toxins as natural defenses. That many of these toxins had to be bred out to make it edible food seems to be lost on the pro-veggie crowd. Here's an interesting article that Carolyn brought up on the Active No-Carber Forum on why kids don't eat their greens. According to emmadavies.net:

A supertaster can taste two chemicals, phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) and 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP). About 25% of people taste these chemicals as a very bitter taste. Another 50% can taste them mildly, and the last 25% can't taste them at all. Supertasters can taste a bitter substance in the following foods.

Green tea and to a lesser extent black tea
Black Coffee
Grapefruit
Undercooked or raw cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts
Peppers and chilli peppers
Some salad greens (especially rocket)
Spinach
Strong cheeses
Dark chocolate
Dry wines and beer
Tonic water
Olives
Soy products

Outside of black coffee (which I'll drink if I have to) and just barely broccoli, everything on this list I hate. This might explain why every veggie I have ever tasted tastes like real nasty stuff. If the veggie wasn't doused in butter, dressing or cheese sauces I couldn't eat it. I'm allergic to soy, so that's an obvioius one. I've also allergic to wheat and, especially, peanuts. Which brings me to another blog that is being run by the same person I believe. It's called "Plant Poisons and Rotten Stuff". Very interesting information on general vegetation intollerance.

Now, before you write me off as a some crank, break out the 1972 Atkins book. As Terra posted also at the ALC, here's several choice Atkins quotes from the book:

"We're the victim of carbohydrate poisoning" pg 5

"Many of today's diseases have one predisposing factor in common: Carbohydrate Intolerance. Over the years a large number of doctors and researchers have observed that the overweight person, the diabetic, the hypoglycemic... the heart attack prone all have one thing in common: something is very wrong with the way their bodies handle sugar and other carbohydrates." pg 4

"So this is an anticarbohydrate diet" pg 7

"...Duncan's Diseases of Metabolism, the testbook that is virtually a bible for doctors in the field, writes: "... no carbohydrate is required in the diet.... it has been shown experimentally that human beings can survive in good heath for months on a diet of meat and fats." pg 6

"You see, by cutting your carbohydrates down to zero, you have summoned a powerful genie to your aid- a substance put out by the pituitary gland called the Fat Metaboling Hormone (FMH)... " pg 15

"... once you understand what carbohydrates do to you, they become in your own mind, the enemy. You not only don't want them, you feel downright hostility for them." pg 46

"The Diet Revoution No-Nos (this is by no means a complete list)
[a list of vegetation] For you they're poison-- dont forget it! pg 140

Clearly he was on the right path but ended up being a "diet wuss" by adding more and more carbs and veggies to the plan to garner a wider audience. Too bad. The point is though that carbs ARE your enemy, in any shape, way or form, because in the end it's all glucose and that glucose has to be metabolized with insulin. It's best to avoid this garbage all together, because you see, vegetation IS toxic.

The Kool Aid Man?

2006-07-19T11:02:00.000-07:00

Ay caramba! Or would that be a D'oh!

Fellow low carber Jimmy Moore gives me a mention on new blogs on the scene, mine being one of them. I like Jimmy and admire his attitude. I wish him lots of success on "livin' la vida low-carb".

But the Kool Aid man? As I explained in the comments:

I AM NOT the kool-aid man :)

That's a joke from the Active Low-Carber Forum where a member was booted for saying that the very heavy-handed moderators at ALC we're drinking the Bear Kool Aid. That's why the Active NO-carber forum was created by exiles from the Bear thread. So the Team icon at the no-carber forum is the Kool Aid man.

Either way, thanks for the referance.

Low Carb Roundtable Discussion

2006-07-17T07:42:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting post from Tidal Pool over at the VERY excellent Active NO-Carber Forum (The Active No-Carber Forum was spun off by a group of exiles from the Bear thread at the Active Low-Carber Forum). Nice two part discussion of various ketogenic/low-carb diets pertaining to athletes and training at Testesterone Nation. I really liked what Dan John had to say starting out:

Personally, I like to start with a simple proposition to most athletes: zero carbs. If we have to make body comp changes quickly, well, there are no carbs allowed. We know that there are also no "essential" carbs, so the first hurdle we have to deal with when it comes to the athlete is this: fat phobia.

When athletes hear "low-carb" or "zero-carb," they immediately try to figure in "no fat" too. Madness, I tell you. If you read Clarence Bass's original Ripped, he went no carb and no fat. That isn't the idea. One egg white a day and a twice-baked piece of chicken is not my idea of an athletic diet.

The first thing I encourage my athletes to do in the zero-carb approach is to think "feast." Eggs, cream in the coffee, and meat for breakfast followed up with a snack of ribs...Meat, fish, fowl, and eggs, that's the ticket. My athletes are amazed on day three when they get a good night's sleep, their joints are feeling good, and they notice an "ease of passage" in their daily movement.

I don't quite get why he then advocates eating veggies and fruit and the sipping of the olive oil thing after saying there's really no "essential carbs", but that's just me. Nonetheless I thought he makes some great observations.

No matter where you are on the pendulum of low-carb you'll find this an interesting read

Blueberries? Fruit is not your friend

2006-07-16T12:05:00.000-07:00

On Saturday Jimmy Moore at Livin'la Vida Low Carb made a post about Blueberries. I saw this penchant on the Low Carbers Forum as well as an acceptable fruit to eat. Apparently it's even Atkins approved, although that section seems to be missing from my 1972 copy of Atkins. I really like his blog but I think fruit should be one of the last things you should eat on low-carb.

Fruit is the worst and most fattening of carbs to eat. I'll refer you to the Wiki:

Fructose depends on glucose to carry it into the blood stream via GLUT-5 and then GLUT-2 [1]. Absorption of fructose without glucose present is very poor,
and excess fructose is carried into the lower intestine where it provides nutrients for the existing flora, which produce gas. It may also cause water retention in the intestine. These effects may lead to bloating, excessive flatulence, loose stools, and even diarrhea depending on the amounts eaten and other factors.

Fructose has been hypothesized to cause obesity [2], elevated LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, leading to metabolic syndrome. Unlike animal experiments, some human experiments have failed to show a correlation between fructose consumption and obesity. Short term tests, lack of dietary control, and lack of a non-fructose consuming control group are all confounding factors in human experiments. However, there are now a number of reports showing correlation of fructose consumption to obesity, especially central obesity which is generally regarded as the most dangerous type. (Wylie-Rosett, 2004)(Havel, 2005)(Bray, 2004) (Dennison, 1997)

Fructose also chelates minerals in the blood. This effect is especially important with micronutrients such as copper, chromium and zinc. Since these solutes are
normally present in small quantities, chelation of small numbers of ions may
lead to deficiency diseases, immune system impairment and even insulin
resistance, a component of type II diabetes (Higdon).

Fructose is a reducing sugar, as are all monosaccharides. The spontaneous addition of single sugar molecules to proteins, known as glycation, is a significant cause of
damage in diabetics. Fructose appears to be as dangerous as glucose in this
regard and so does not seem to be the answer for diabetes (McPherson et al,
1988) This may be an important contribution to senescence and many age-related
chronic diseases (Levi & Werman 1998).

Yikes! That doesn't sound "heart healthy" to me. I would not advise anyone with serious weight to lose to eat fruit of any kind. Fructose, even in small doses will screw with your fat metabolism. Fructose is an isomer of glucose and is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream. Yeah yeah yeah, the "literature" says the opposite, but these are the same groups that are convinced "fat makes you fat" as well. The idea that there's certain "phytochemicals" is suspect, as well as the need for "anti-oxidents". You wouldn't need "anti-oxidants" if you you're not eating polyunsaturated fats like those found in fruits and vegetables. In fact, vegetables and fruits are loaded with toxins and anti-nutrients, natural defense against preditors. Many low-carbers also accept and know that the "Fiber is healthy" thing is just a myth and provides no benefits outside of scarring the gut. That's not even considering the chance that eating fruit will induce further carb cravings since fructose can be even sweeter than sugar.

You can say that the quantity in blueberries eaten is low, but fruit has been notorious for causing stalls, why risk all that for a little variety? There are much better "treats" than relying on fruit.

I have a better treat that works as a special treat desert, and though it's carby to a certain degree, it's kosher for the most part.

All you need is a hunk of unsweetened bakers chocolate, a can of table cream which I either find in the canned milk area or the mexican foods area, and butter. Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl, stir them up with a little splenda or whatever articifial sweetner you prefer, add the table cream and beat until it's nice and creamy and fluffy. You can either put it in the fridge and it's like a thick chocolate mousse, or put it in the freezer where I think it has the consistency of a Carnation chocolate malt that you get at the ballpark.

Of course, you don't have to eat it all at one serving but it works when you want to splurge a little.

Meat and you

2006-07-15T21:08:00.000-07:00

The Father of Low-Carb Diets

2006-07-15T08:18:00.000-07:00

For all you Atkins-Fanatics out there, no, it isn't the good Dr. Bob.

I came across this article about the father of low-carb diets, William Banting. Banting, like so many of us today, was getting fat before his eyes. He tried several things not that were not much different than what current doctors and dieticians advise ironically. None of it worked for poor Mr. Banting.

That is, until he met one Dr. Harvey. Dr. Harvey had just been in Paris where he heard Dr. Claude Bernard who had a theory about a "-like substance that it made from elements of the blood passing through it". Intrigued by Dr. Bernard and Banting's corpulance, Harvey put Banting on a diet. Harvey advised Banting to avoid the following foods: bread, butter, milk, sugar, beer and potatoes. Banting then was put on the following diet:

up to six ounces of bacon, beef, mutton, venison, kidneys, fish or any form of poultry or game; the 'fruit of any pudding' – he was denied the pastry
any vegetable except potato; and at dinner, two or three glasses of good claret, sherry or Madeira. Banting could drink tea without milk or sugar. Champagne, port and beer were forbidden and he could eat only one ounce of toast

Well, it worked. Banting noted at the time:

“I can conscientiously assert I never lived so well as under the new plan of dietary, which I should have formerly thought a dangerous, extravagant trespass upon health.”

He says that this present dietary table is far superior to what he was eating before:
“more luxurious and liberal, independent of its blessed effect, but when it is proved to be more healthful, the comparisons are simply ridiculous.”

“I am very much better both bodily and mentally and pleased to believe that I hold the reins of health and comfort in my own hands.”

Unfortunately, there were just as many health nazis and naysayers back in 1863 as there are in 2006.

When Banting's booklet, in which he described the diet and its amazing results was published, it was so contrary to the established doctrine that it set up a howl of protest among members of the medical profession. The 'Banting Diet' became the centre of a bitter controversy and Banting's papers and book were ridiculed and distorted. No one could deny that the diet worked, but as a layman had published it, and medical men were anxious that their position in society should not be undermined, they felt bound to attack it. Banting's paper was criticized solely on the grounds that it was 'unscientific'.

How little things change in 143 years. Check out the Father of the Low-Carbohydrate diet!

Fat for life

2006-07-14T22:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I better not be.

Frankly I've been fat since day one...ok, maybe not since I was born sickly and underweight (5 lbs 6oz)-I kid you not. Considering my shaky pre-natal history I'm lucky to be here at all. It's no wonder my body is so extremely sensitive to carbs. Outside of a brief period in 1998 when I first went on a psuedo-Atkins low carb diet and lost 100 pounds, I've known nothing but fatness for my whole life.

Back in February I went to the doctors and I weighted close to 350 pounds. I couldn't believe it, but then I could when I realized I was packing myself into size 50 pants. A couple weeks longer and I would have had to try and find 52" pants. After years of fits and starts trying to redo low-carb I was frustrated on why I couldn't stick with the low-carb diet. I believe that subconsciously I knew the answer that I didn't want to accept was screaming out in the back of my mind. It was then that tried to figure out what worked in 1998 that wasn't working since.

First, I delved back into the Kybalion, which is a great text on the basic principles of hermetic philosophy mental transmutation. Second, I got back in touch with Bear and re-read all of his old emails. The second day into the diet it all became perfectly clear. Even though the Bear was a source of inspiration back in 1998 I didn't follow his advice. Sure, I lost weight down the Atkins thing, but in the end I couldn't stay on that type of low-carb diet so I was suspicious about redoing yet another 20-40g low-carb diet. That was February 23rd. Since then I have not eaten any vegetable, starches or sugars. Not long after that Bear started his infamous thread at the ALC, which further helped bring into focus the zero carb path and I've been running with it ever since.

I'm currently around 287-288 after weighing in at 345 back in February 14th.

Welcome!

2006-07-12T12:51:00.000-07:00

Well, I've finally done what I've been resisting, and that's come up with a daily blog with a zero carb perspective, of course. Sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.