Now I’m no Tim Ferriss, but I’ve had some pretty good real life experiences on altering my body composition. After a trek in the Himalayas I was scrawny and emaciated. One time, for a couple of weeks, I had a body like Bruce Lee while on the Wind River Diet. And as a kid, I was straight up chubby, but it was all good. The Fat Boys were in their prime, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to rap about being imprisoned for breaking into fast food restaurants, binge eating, and falling “asleep with my face in my plate, and the next thing ya know, I wuz headed upstate.” I will say, in my defense, that I was probably one of the best Caucasian beat-boxing 4th graders in the nation. When… Read more »
Posts Tagged: Metabolism
Fruc Fructose
Fructose is a kind of sugar. There are many kinds of sugars: sucrose, lactose, galactose, maltose, dextrose, raffinose, glucose, and bunches more. Fructose is just one type. Fructose is famous for being the type of sugar found in fruit. Because of this association with fruit, considered to be a very nutritious and overall healthy food to be included in the daily diet of every man, woman, and child, fructose has been given unfair judgment. We might want to take a moment to investigate fructose a little further though, because there’s a legitimate possibility that it is the biggest single contributor to chronic disease. For realsies. As those who have done their homework have discovered, there is a striking correlation between the availability of refined sugar and the widespread onset of… Read more »
Hungry, Hungry Hippos
The question I promised to answer in last week’s self-starvation experiment saga was “why are we so hungry if we’re eating more than ever before?” This is one of the biggest questions of the 21st century, and the correct answer may hold the key to unlocking the entire degenerative process that began at the dawn of carbohydrate refining. Most people agree that the cause of the Diabesity epidemic (a great term that I stumbled across, as the two, type II Diabetes and obesity, often go hand in hand) is eating too much and exercising too little. But as anyone who has read more than a few paragraphs of this blog knows, my opinions differ. I certainly see this ballooning phenomenon having far more complexity. It is clear that Americans, as… Read more »
The Wind River Diet
By Matt Stone “The constant desire to go deeper into the Wilderness is shared by almost any backpacker. There is a relentless urge to travel further into the heart of pristine nature – to become more united with the vastness of it.” “It’s been over two years since I walked out of Wyoming’s Wind River Range, exhausted, depleted, and confused. The Winds, a set of three immense Wilderness areas tied together by a pristine Indian Reservation, comprise one of the most sought after backpacking destinations in the country. My mission was to be lost among this inspiring landscape for as long as possible. Alone, unsupported, without resupply, I stumbled out on the forty-fourth day.” “Strained, lonely, starving, traumatized at times, I experienced the most exquisite earthly connections imaginable in those… Read more »
Devitalized Food
Modern, mainstream nutritional dogma tells us that eating a lot of fats, a lot of calories, and not exercising are the primary causes of the degenerative process leading to heart disease, Diabetes, obesity, and perhaps Cancer. People unaligned with mainstream thought on the subject of human health say that those claims are full-blown BS. Gary Taubes, who researched the subject for half a decade before writing his human health opus, Good Calories, Bad Calories, has pretty much established that it is in fact, BS. Still, on his side of the fence, carbohydrates are the root of all evil – the cause of the entire degenerative process ranging from your good ole’ heart attack to Alzheimer’s. Yet, carbohydrates, fats, proteins, whatever – have been staples of various human diets throughout history… Read more »
Robert McCarrison: Straight Nutrition Gangsta
The integrity and insight of the old nutrition classics never ceases to amaze me when I manage to track them down. The work of Weston A. Price is groundbreaking. Francis Pottenger, Jr. had some legendary insights into human health and nutrition. Stefansson looked into human health from a much wiser and broader perspective than the authors on the shelves at your local, intellectually-crippling Barnes and Noble. However, after everything I’ve come across, I must say that Major-General Sir Robert McCarrison, C.I.E., M.A., M.D., D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.C.P., B.AO., born March 15th in 1878, is probably the greatest contributor to the understanding of human health that I have seen or can even imagine. The bulk of McCarrison’s studies were done on animals, the idea being to figure out exactly what was going… Read more »
Stability Foods
In the most recent posts, we discussed elevated insulin levels and the therapeutic benefit of following a specific diet to bring insulin levels under control. Bringing the insulin levels back to normal, but not going too far by eliminating carbohydrates, can allow metabolic healing over time. Degenerative diseases, obesity, and chronic departure from homeostasis are really just metabolic disorders at the core. So taking the time to get back to balance, although it is a challenge, is rewarding – not just because you might live a few extra years or something like that, but because you can feel and perform better now. Right now. Every day. Foods that are the most stabilizing, that keep blood sugar levels from fluctuating, which allow insulin levels to fall and recalibrate at a level… Read more »
