Wheat Belly

Posted October 4th, 2011 – 119 Comments

Ah yes – as the low-carb world gets semi-erect (that’s all they can muster) over Dr. William Davis’s release of his book – Wheat Belly, it’s time to take a step back and calm down over this whole wheat and gluten thing. Before we begin, let’s please all try to keep this in perspective. 180DegreeHealth offers many things for many people. And I can’t help but take perhaps the greatest satisfaction in helping young guys who remind me a lot of myself, to keep from making the same dumb mistakes I made – or at least help them recover from the world of dietary extremism that they were drifting towards prior to finding 180D. I’ve already done two posts on Martin, aka The Belgian Jackhammer. The first was about the start of his recovery… Read more »

Intelligence Intact

Posted October 1st, 2011 – 29 Comments

I had to dig into an old eZine I had written two years ago this morning, fetching a recipe that will be part of the RBTI Intro Package due for release next weekend. And while I was digging, I took a moment to read one of the articles I had written on the importance of critical thinking – and of constantly seeking out opposing viewpoints to your sacred conclusions instead of banding together with like-thinkers and drifting away to crazy town. Anyway, it made me smile in a nostalgic kind of way, especially in light of the strange new world of the surprisingly-effective RBTI that I have openly immersed myself in over the past three months. Guess I was born to be a guinea pig, cuz I really love this… Read more »

The Holy Grail of Weight Loss III

Posted September 28th, 2011 – 34 Comments

…CONTINUED FROM THE LAST POST ME: This ties in to one of my strongest philosophies on money – it’s better to make a little bit of money doing what you love than making a ton of money doing what you hate. The same could be said of living a “healthy lifestyle.” A pound lost doing something enjoyable is worth more than 10 pounds lost doing something excruciatingly difficult – like starving yourself or doing unwanted exercise. The word ‘sustainable’ is sheer poetry – up there with ‘unprocessed.’ And this concept is really important when you consider the fact that you have been losing weight consistently for almost 2 years steady. Who could do unwanted exercise and deprive themselves of food for 2 years? Not me. And as you know, the… Read more »

The Holy Grail of Weight Loss II

Posted September 27th, 2011 – 13 Comments

Interview continued from yesterday’s post… ME: Beautiful… And I’m glad that whatever you managed to squeeze out of my materials worked out for you. As you know, not everyone loses weight when they go all 180D. In fact, many gain weight – at least for the first few months as their metabolism comes up towards normal. What did you do that you suspect is different from others who haven’t had such results? If you could give them advice, or share how you did things specifically, what would you say? In other words what I’m asking is, what makes you so damn special!!?? SASHA: 180DegreeHealth often hurts my head (in a good way of course!) but I understood enough that I knew I was finding answers to my questions. There are reasons… Read more »

The Holy Grail of Weight Loss

Posted September 26th, 2011 – 41 Comments

“I must agree that eating like a fiend cuts out all cravings -and- I’ve lost 100 pounds over the last year eating like a fiend. The weight is coming off naturally and I’m never deprived and I don’t waste hours at a gym. People think I’m lying to them when I tell them how I lost the weight. :)” -Sasha This week 100% organic Sasha is on the menu. Pure, unadulterated, unprocessed Sasha. Since the beginning I’ve known that dieting in the traditional sense is a counterproductive measure. Even if you do manage to starve yourself thin, your body and mind do not work properly. Libido gets wrecked. Hair falls out. Neurosis sets in. All the parallels to starvation and eating disorders are laced in there, even if you are… Read more »

Regulate Blood Sugar

Posted September 22nd, 2011 – 65 Comments

$refractometer_water$

Apologies for the use of the word “blood” in the title, as it is one of my pet peeves that in RBTI the refractometer is thought of as a tool that monitors blood sugar, which it doesn’t. But it does show an incredible connection to available sugar – or what you might call sugar levels in the brain and muscle and available to the cells. Because of that, the refractometer continues to impress me, as it’s about the most simple, inexpensive, and easy-to-use health tool on the planet (up there with the thermometer). And it demystifies “hypoglycemia,” a condition that the mainstream medical establishment more or less doesn’t recognize, nor should they, as hypoglycemia means low, sugar, blood. Having low levels of sugar in the blood is an extreme rarity in today’s day and… Read more »

Mango Sherbet

Posted September 20th, 2011 – 40 Comments

I’ve been kind of sick of eating commercial ice cream and packaged cookies with my lunch lately. Eating tons of that crap just doesn’t feel right. Intuitively I think to myself that, sure I might be able to get away with it – especially taking buttloads of minerals and putting blackstrap molasses in all my food, but ideal? One of the main objectives of RBTI is to maximize the amount of vitamins and minerals that you absorb. One way of looking at it is that you can get away with eating fewer nutrients because your body is absorbing them so much more effectively. That’s cool and all. But knowing that I’m absorbing my food better just inspires me to want to eat better food! So I’ve been doing some typical health nerd… Read more »

Ulcerative Colitis Diet

Posted September 15th, 2011 – 124 Comments

This is a funny video with Challen Waychoff. One of the attendees mentions something about the RBTI beliefs surrounding how cancer develops, and he stiffens up so as not to reveal anything too libelous on camera. But he goes on to tell an anecdote of a man basically on his deathbed due to a severe case of ulcerative colitis – an inflammatory and “incurable” bowel disease. Something was obviously quite off in his “chemistry,” but it was something that Challen was able to guide the man to sorting out and fix in short order, like he so often does. I did not ask him specifically the details of the case, and what was causing the problem, but obviously following one of the simple rules of the RBTI in particular was enough to sort it out (as he… Read more »

Inherited Health Problems

Posted September 14th, 2011 – 37 Comments

From the beginning I have been interested in the role that our inheritance plays in our health tendencies. It is obvious that inheritance plays a massive role – and this has been repeatedly validated by scientific study. It is also obvious that eating the same foods and being exposed to the same general environment, beliefs, and lifestyle create consistent health tendencies as well. This always leads to the infamous nature vs. nurture debate. How much is physically inherited and how much is attributable to growing up in the same environment and living a similar lifestyle with similar dietary patterns and similar forms of intellectual stimulation? It is unknowable and highly individual of course. But I have found it interesting that in RBTI, those who have eaten similar diets for many years -… Read more »

RBTI and Junk Food

Posted September 8th, 2011 – 136 Comments

Before getting started, I must publicly declare a winner for the two combined road trips. Winner of what? Awesomeness of course. While one guy opened the door adorned in a faded Ghostbusters t-shirt – and believe me, I was impressed and thought this was unlikely to be topped – and another fed me cheesecake, housed me and Pip for an evening, and let me have a couple games of ping pong, there is no question whatsoever that the Croatian giant that I met in Chicago won handily over all the others if awesomeness is the object of the game. I walked in the door and he had an 80’s movie cued up on the television. Before saying anything he pushed PLAY. It was an obscure 80’s film that I didn’t… Read more »

RBTI vs. DHEA

Posted September 1st, 2011 – 279 Comments

Tomorrow I leaveth the WHIZard and the wonderful paradise city of Wheeling. At least for a few months. I have spent a total of four weeks here and about six weeks on Waychoff’s basic program at this point – with decent but not perfect adherence due to some chaotic road trips. My body chemistry has moved much closer to Reams’s theoretical ideal. And I can honestly say I’ve noticed improvement in all the areas I was having troubles with upon arrival – from improvements in foot pain, chest pain, and back pain to a huge decrease in pet allergies and asthma. My teeth feel noticeably stronger – kind of like what I felt on my extended milk fast over a year ago (which made the other problems listed exponentially worse… Read more »

RBTI, Sleep, and Vegetarianism

Posted August 29th, 2011 – 95 Comments

In the months leading up to my pilgrimage to Wheeling, West Virginia (where I saw a grown man wearing a hospital gown as a shirt on Saturday - it was tucked into his pants but his fat, hairy, bare back was showing… the thing was faded and frayed as well, as if he had been wearing it as a shirt for years), I was eating a progressively vegetarian diet. I noticed the more meat I displaced out of my diet, the better I felt in many categories – such as lower levels of inflammation, less tooth pain, no body odor, gums stopped bleeding, better breathing… But I knew it was a dead end and I also knew things weren’t right. I broke out with two major rashes on my backside in a period of only… Read more »

High-Brix Gardening and Farming

Posted August 25th, 2011 – 111 Comments

On my crazy road trip, I took the time to swing by the Platte family farm in Rochester, New York. The Platte family has had a history of many debilitating health problems, but used RBTI, as well as clearing their homes of black mold, to get dramatic improvements – especially since they made the recent switch to working with Challen Waychoff. Their RBTI experiences have been so inspiring that they decided to take the plunge and buy a tract of land to start some “Reams-based agronomy” for themselves and their local community. Reams believed that the Brix reading was the best indicator of the nutritional quality of a food. The Brix reading shows the total amount of dissolved solids – such as sugar, in a drop of liquid squeezed from the… Read more »

Cancer and pH, Sugar, and Vitamin C

Posted August 23rd, 2011 – 142 Comments

Okey dokey, so maybe I haven’t quite had the opportunity to post videos like I had planned. The trip has been a mega whirlwind, and totally fun. The best part was giving Rob A. the schooling of a lifetime in ping pong. Yeah, I totally brutalized the poor kid. I went totally Forest Gump on him. Only the exact opposite. Yes, sadly, I learned a very hard lesson. Never take on someone in ping pong that is living in a desolate lodge in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do other than play ping pong in the basement. I’m looking foward to my meeting with another 180 follower later this morning. He has requested that I hang upside down from his little batman device and “do some Mercola tapping”… Read more »

RBTI – Eating a Big Lunch

Posted August 19th, 2011 – 179 Comments

One of the simplest aspects of the RBTI – and one of the most powerful, is eating a big lunch – the meal of the day when you eat the most fat, the only meal that you eat meat (not including eggs and dairy), and the last time during the day that you eat sweets or desserts. Seems that people are daunted by this whole RBTI thing, but, as Challen says matter of factly – “the more rules that you follow the healthier you will become.” Well, I’m finding that just following this ONE rule - eating big every day and finishing up the meal no later than 2pm, is helping a lot of people. It’s very simple. No meats or sweets after 2pm. Dinners are very light – typically small salads, steamed vegetables, cottage cheese, soups,… Read more »

RBTI Introduction Video – Challen Waychoff

Posted August 17th, 2011 – 80 Comments

Pip and I will be leaving Wheeling on Friday to tour around New York and New Jersey (starting Friday in Rochester). Pippa will bring a test kit with her and is willing to swing by and test anyone in the area that is interested, as well as go over all the intricate details of Challen’s program for a reasonable fee. I’ll be there to make fart noises in several creative ways, do impressions, say GARRRR every time she looks at the refractometer, and otherwise annoy her. I’ll write more about this tomorrow. If you are an individual or alternative health practitioner of some kind in the area and know that you are definitely interested you can start the process of lining up an appointment by sending her an email at… Read more »

Pee Freelea and Couchrider

Posted August 16th, 2011 – 52 Comments

Please bear with my sick sense of humor, but Pip and I did a short spoof of the 80-10-10 raw vegans Durianrider and Freelea of 30bananasaday.com. What’s wild is that the information in this video is pretty accurate. That is Pip’s actual age, she has lost a lot of weight since starting to work with Challen 6 months ago, she does no structured exercise and hasn’t for a decade. I asked her yesterday how many days out of 7 in a week she ate ice cream as she was achieving the body she currently has (which is much leaner than she was when we were living in Hawaii together and she was eating semi-raw Paleo). Her answer… 7. I too am getting lean quickly on Challen’s program, with no exercise… Read more »

Taubes Schools Guyenet!

Posted August 15th, 2011 – 37 Comments

People practically beg me to write up some thoughts specifically about Gary Taubes. I have done so in the past, but not necessarily in thorough detail. When I did write about Taubes, I often championed him for pointing out that obesity is not a simple matter of calorie consumption, calories burned via exercise, willpower, discipline, and so forth. Gary Taubes, as well as several others, have shown the world very clearly that the status quo on what causes obesity and how to lose weight is really dumb, and a near-hilarious oversimplification. Where Taubes went astray is when he offered up a counter-explanation. He had us all at “it’s not all about calories” and totally lost us when he wrote “it’s all about carbohydrates.” The latter is an even dumber, even… Read more »

How to Run an RBTI Test

Posted August 11th, 2011 – 31 Comments

Well hey, I’m a newbie at this – but a lot of people wanted to kind of know how the testing is done. The testing is pretty easy. What’s hard is getting a proper interpretation, especially with the urea numbers – which, on my own, I never would have figured to be a 7/10 as shown in the video. But for those wondering how the hell to do the test, this is a good place to get familiar. One thing the video failed to show was the proper sound to make when looking through the refractometer. Looking at your urine through a refractometer makes you a “Pee Pee Pirate” by default. Thus, you should make a sound like, “Garrr” or “Arrrggghh” when looking through it. Lord knows I always do. How to RAISE YOUR… Read more »

Hank Garner Podcast

Posted August 10th, 2011 – 37 Comments

Hank Garner, a man who quickly lost 100 pounds on a carbohydrate-restrcted diet, recently interviewed me on his site. It debuted yesterday. You can listen to it on My Low Carb Journey The interview focuses in many ways on weight loss of course, but Hank mentions some interesting things about drinking water that is in line with recent conversations. Enjoy….