While consuming lots of raw milk, and no cooked foods whatsoever, it figures that ol? Aajonus Vonderplanitz would have come up in the comments section. And he did. Big time.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Aajonus, consider yourself lucky. Aajonus is one hell of a weird dude, and some of the most outlandish and perverse things I’ve encountered people doing were done per the advice of this first degree diet Guru. Everything from eating rotten meat and feces to drinking your own urine or using semen as a topical cream. Thanks Aajonus. Sorry no ?facials? or ?fecials? for me bro. (BTW, Aajonus claims to have once consumed nothing but his own urine for 41 straight days – and complained of having bad breath during it – ya think?).
Still, he manages to shock and intrigue many that come across his work. It is fascinating no doubt, and he is amongst the strongest proponents on earth for quality, nutritious, unadulterated foods in the battle of health vs. disease. For that, you gotta love Aajonus.
On the topic of raw milk, he practically overturned legislation against the sale of raw milk in California single-handedly, spearheading some bill that he crafted himself to protect the legal sale of one of his most cherished foods ? raw dairy products. In fact, odds are I wouldn’t be drinking Mr. Mark McAfee’s milk right now if it weren’t for the passionate work of AV.
Some of the roots of 180 sprouted from AV as well, as the moderator of the formerly-active Yahoo! Group ?AV-Skeptics? took a liking to 180degreehealth, challenged me for months, and played an integral part in the development of what the current 180 cult members know as the ?High Everything Diet.
Interestingly, in all of the research I’ve come across, and all of the wild ideas out there, Aajonus is the only other health advocate on the face of the planet that recommends whole foods overfeeding to improve health. On page 38 of The Recipe for Living Without Disease, he lays out the ?Recipe for Removing Deep-Tissue Toxicity,? which is overfeeding.
He states:
?Our idea about thin should be refashioned until we become healthy? I recommend that men gain 15-30 pounds and women 12-15 pounds above what should be their normal weight (not according to thin-fashion). The excess weight should be achieved within two months. It should be maintained for another 2 months? Men and women, get a temporary belly; it is healthier on and off!
By that last statement, he means to take the weight off later. In other words, his advice is to gain weight overfeeding on a raw HED, maintain it for at least two months, and then lose it. As much as I hate to associate myself with Aajonus, which would brand me as a kook and give me a scarlet letter for the rest of my career as a health researcher, I must admit?
That advice sounds awfully familiar, and I can’t deny that all of my health problems either vanished or improved tremendously upon doing precisely that without the ?raw? caveat (total weight gain from 11/1-12/31 ? 16.5 pounds, with the help of some restaurant food, PUFA, and refined sugar that I otherwise do NOT advise eating regularly while actively overfeeding).
Anyway, here I am doing my first all-raw diet for this length of time. Today is day 20. Two years ago I set a goal to try an all-raw diet for 30 days, and I’m doing it.
Is it magical? Is my next recommendation going to be to eat doo-doo to replenish the microbial environment of our digestive tracts? I don’t think so! Screw that crackhead! The number of negative long-term health stories that I hear from former followers of AV far outweigh the number of happily-ever-afters. In fact, some of the most tragic dietary prisons I’ve seen people live in (barely live), were constructed around ideas gleaned from Aajonus’s ?Primal Diet.
I do hear that it is a fantastic diet for those looking to increase the strength of their body odor, alienate their friends and family members, become isolated from society, develop paranoia about absolutely everything, cultivate strong chemical and fragrance sensitivities, and otherwise miss out on life.
Like any health author, AV has had some good insights. His experience with dietary manipulation is great and anyone who writes him off completely without perusing his work for valuable lessons is missing out. I’ve explored his work with the same open mind that I explore all ideas on the topic of nutrition and health. But dude, come on.
That dude looks like the evil version of Mark Sisson! And also calls his diet the "primal diet"? It's a conspiracy!!!
Okay, he doesn't look that much like Sisson, but he does look kinda evil…
You look homosexual.
What’s your point?
I agree MadMuhh, dude just looks scary. Both he and Sisson look like they might just unhinge their jaw and swallow a small live animal at any moment.
He actully looks pretty good in this video (at about the 2 min mark)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abg8l2Zs7d8
I’ve did the AV diet for awhile. Quit drinking beer and watched two warts I had for years vanish. Skin was amazing too. Definitely has some far out concepts but at the core there is something to it. Haven’t drank alcohol in 9 or 10 years now. I have to credit the Primal diet.
That’s a very bad picture of him.
Look at those earlobes! Clearly an adrenal body type!
"I do hear that it is a fantastic diet for those looking to increase the strength of their body odor, alienate their friends and family members, become isolated from society, develop paranoia about absolutely everything, cultivate strong chemical and fragrance sensitivities, and otherwise miss out on life."
LOL. And who wouldn't want all of the above? ;P
None of that is remotely true, normoid.
I miss Bruce K…
I can't see that Aajonis looks evil, really. He does look really intense and masculine in the above photo, however. Sometimes really masculine faces are viewed as harsh and cold; for instance many studies have shown that women and children view male faces that have moderately femine characteristics as being "kinder" and "safer" than men with more masculine faces/characteristics. This despite the fact that there is really no emperical correlation to suppport such a view.
Oops, I meant "feminine."
Oh, I see Ian?bruce was posting under the "Milk Does a Body Food" post. Cool! Didn't know that, I've been away from the computer for a while, so I am behind on the comments.
"Currently, Aajonus' most recent campaign to lift restrictions on the amount of coliform bacteria in raw milk has been vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger."
It seems his most recent efforts have been terminated.
Schwarzenegger is a shabbos goyim, globohomo, maid impregnating retard.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Thanks for the video Swede. After reviewing the two sides of that debate I can tell you that the doctors side of that argument is dumber than Aajonus's claim that he had 300 heart attacks by the age of 22. I think all the people on that show are idiots.
I have gotten ill from consuming raw milk as I discussed in an earlier post, but I've also eaten 2 whole chickens raw, raw pork, raw beef hundreds of times over the last 13 years, etc. and did not get any kind of gastrointestinal illness once from any of those – even supermarket varieties.
Matt,
Curious about the raw chickens and pork. Did you marinate them in lemon juice or something acidic? Just straight up? Why'd you do it? I'm open to it, and willing to give it a go, but definitely got a nasty bug from eating undercooked chicken once, an experience that's tainted my appreciation of poultry in general.
he looks like gibson in braveheart…. FREEEEDOM!!!!!
I have eaten raw egg yolks every day in the last 6 years, from different locations, including both small farms with free-range hens and supermarkets, and never had a problem. I eat my meats rare and have eaten them raw many times. I ate also aged meats a couple of times this year.
Aajonus is right about Pasteur’s germ thoery of disease. It’s a complete scam. The book ?Bechamp or Pasteur?? by Ethel Douglas Hume is a good place to begin.
But the fact that you will not die by ingesting raw animal foods doesn’t mean that eating raw meat is healthier than cooked meat. There’s no evidence to back up the claim that cooked foods contain toxins that ruin the body.
Max
LOL – Really?
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/cooked-meats
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/acrylamide-in-food
After, perhaps, Alkalize or Die, We Want To Live is one of the worst pieces of sh*t on diet or nutrition I have ever read.
"Aajonus is the only other health advocate on the face of the planet that recommends whole foods overfeeding to improve health." <-What about Schwarzbein, Matt?
Schwarzbein doesn't advocate overfeeding necessarily… more like eating to appetite.
@leisuresuitlurie…Dan? Is that you, LOL!
Rob-
Straight up. That was a few years ago when I was investigating sir Vonderplanitz. The raw chicken was pastured, uber-organic, which probably made a difference.
Thanks Katerina. Schwarzbein makes no mention of overfeeding, and her ratios indicate a low to moderate calorie intake if anything.
Will-
That's totally Dan!
Dan-
Excellent input. All things considered, you may be right, although I've read some major mastur-pieces over the years.
Max-
Both Bechamp and Claude Bernard produced superior work than Pasteur. Pasteur was just louder than they were, which we know is the secret to having your legacy live on.
Actually, one book I'm eager to read is the work Weston Price did prior to his round-the-world voyage, in which he showed Bechamp's polymorphism of bacteria to a degree of irrefutability. Hope to write about what I learned of this soon from reading George Meinig's Root Canal Cover-up – a fascinating piece of work for sure.
Here's a huge benefit raw fish, raw milk, raw eggs, and raw meat have over cooked:
production of glutathione. Exercise also increases glutathione production by 20%
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/04/10/can-you-use-food-to-increase-glutathione-instead-of-supplements.aspx
Raw foods contain probiotics and enzymes that also aid in other health benefits with the gut flora. I've heard nutreints such as co-q10, alpha lipoic acid, and amino acids are denatured thus don't give as many health benefits when heated.
The amino acid cysteine is denatured and loses the ability to boost glutathione production. When foods are cooked they lose their glutathione boosting properties.
You and Vonderplanitz aren't the only ones that recommend whole food overfeeds – my naturopath is right there with you guys. When I told her about what I was doing, she was thrilled. Apparently she overfed pre- and post-natal for her last pregnancy. The baby is incredibly healthy, of course.
On another note.. I feel REALLY strong. This is pretty cool, actually. I feel like I'm starting to get a hang of these new muscles! For example- I actually broke out into some push-ups today! I think I did ten real ones! (Big stuff for a former skinny-fat 107 lbs weakling.)
Anyhoo. Good stuff, Matt. I'm excited about the new e-book. I need more knowledge to sate my 180 appetite. Baha.
:D
Now i know what "AV" in the AV sceptics stands for :) my take is a mixture of raw and cooked is best. I like variety :)
I am on day 12 of my milk diet. Have to say I really have had no felt negative effects at all. My morning temperatures are, however, a little lower than normal but as matt mentioned his temps later in the day i started doing this and by mid morning my temps are 98.5-99F.. so that's interesting. I still am enjoying sipping my jersey milk though have had some cravings more solid food. Haven't weighed in a while but stomach seems much flatter (could be due to lack of solid food i suppose). I am hoping this will help with a allergies.
Two questions for the Bechamp fans:
1. Why do vaccines work?
2. Why do we catch diseases from our neigbors, co-workers and kids?
1. They don’t
2. You catch them because your terrain is compromised. If you immune system was healthy and strong, you wouldn’t.
BTW: The polio vaccine was released once polio had already been erradicated, giving people the impression that it had worked. If you work in a nursery setting, you will see that the kids who have been vaccinated are always getting sick, whereas the few who have had the good fortune to have parents who are switched on, are always healthy.
Is that why unhealthy people are taking this corona worse then others and was the Gentleman in the video correct when he said this is injected can’t get a animal disease and aids invented in 1960s UCLA ?
1. They don’t. Pure poison. Why would you inject something into the bloodstream that is NOT supposed to be there? Sounds like you’re ASKING for health issues.
2. We don’t. We might detox at the same time (being “sick”), but there are no communicable diseases. There is only ONE disease, toxicity.
Research Herbert Shelton, Robert O. Young, Jeff Green
Natural Hygiene, http://drrobertyoung.com http://virusesarenotcontagious.com
Cusick how is your fatloss going?
@Cusick:
The way I see it is that we don't get ill because of germs but rather we catch infections, because we are ill/weak. Germs itself do not cause disease. This has been proven often enough. Germs only cause disease in an unhealthy organism. No matter how hard we try, we will always be exposed to microorganisms. So combating those should bot be our #1 priority.
Also it does not seem to be so easy as to target a specific bacterium etc. I haven't read too much of it, but pleomorphism seems like it actually could be a real concept to me.
As for vaccines, I don't believe that vaccines are a net positive in many cases.
I actually once read some very fascinating stuff on the pasteur vs bechamp thing, never finished it though:
Link
First, you can't "denature" an amino-acid only proteins made up of them.
Second, most of the claims for needing to supplement with extra certain peptides and polypeptides is unfounded and unnecessary. As well as it needing to be raw.
As long as you are eating enough varied complete protein and you do not have a major disease, your body has no problem creating what it needs from essential and non-essential amino acids that you ingest.
So I think I get the germ theory thing, but here is my question: why did smallpox and measles and whatever other European diseases kill so many Native Americans? Presumably they were healthy and had optimal diets without anything refined, right?
"I can't see that Aajonis looks evil, really. He does look really intense and masculine in the above photo, however. Sometimes really masculine faces are viewed as harsh and cold; for instance many studies have shown that women and children view male faces that have moderately femine characteristics as being "kinder" and "safer" than men with more masculine faces/characteristics."
OMGZ he's so masculine, I'm threatened. No, it's more like his scary eyes. Sisson has kind of scary eyes too and weirdly pointy jaw that looks reptilian, not masculine. Just sayin.
Troy, yeah Braveheart is a great comparison and the beginning of the Gibson goes batshit arc. Maybe he just needs to drink his own urine for a month.
The raw and the cooked. (An excellent album by the way) Do we even need to have this debate. I think there are enough raw foodist refugees here to refute, the "raw food is healing miracle" garbage. I enjoy sushi and steak tartare as much as the next person, though. I eat raw egg youlks a couple times a week (and let my kid have them too). I'm really picky about where my eggs and poultry come from though.
We must all be accustomed to the recessive gene look to not see him as, at least, somewhat handsome;
Neanderthal low brow gives him that intense look but i don't see much in the way of frown lines.
Those ear lobes have strong genetic implications, indicating a strong constitution.
Big (high) cranium, indicating a large brain.
Strong chin!! no need to cover w a beard to fool the 'ladies'…lets face it, a weak chin can ruin an otherwise good lookin' guy! But then, it gives us a good way to recycle paper bags!
I think that most would consider him handsome. And this is not saying anything about his off-the-wall ideas!!
I'm just sayin'….
I don't know.. he kind of looks like the old man version of Fabio (minus the long, flowing mane). And ladies love Fabio, right? He doesn't look THAT weird.
Aajonus does claim to be a former soap opera actor. Handsome S.O.B.
As for the germ theory, it's not a simple matter of germs at war against us. What Price showed in his laboratory research for example was that when the chemistry of the body changed, the bacteria in the mouth morphed from being benign to pathological.
This pathological bacteria was then very toxic to the organism, and was very toxic when he implanted infected teeth into animal subjects, which killed them of the same conditions (heart, kidney, lung, etc.) that the person with the infected tooth was suffering from.
Bechamp's theory was similar. He showed that bacteria became diseased. Once bacteria became diseased, it could then do damage, and also be spread. Whether a person gets sick or not from exposure to such bacteria has a lot to do with antibody production too, which native americans had none of against new disease exposure.
It's not that Pasteur's theory is bogus, it's just that it's not the whole story, and there are other aspects of it that are not explored because, like most health theories, it is tragically oversimplified.
But Golden Papaya's point still stands: pre-contact Native Americans had an ideal diet, optimal health and shouldn't have had blood chemistry changes that made them vulnerable to European diseases. Europeans who were the product of the survivors of multiple mass plagues gave these super germs to the Indians and they died in so quickly and in such huge numbers that the Europeans used it as evidence that God wanted them to take over North America.
Right, because that's only one factor. Antibody production is another, and exposure to new germs is different than exposure to germs that you already have a bunch of antibodies for.
But there's no question that I suffer from far fewer incidences of becoming ill from bacterial and viral infection since I stopped eating a typical western diet a decade ago and began eating mostly real foods, sleeping well, etc.
I haven't had the flu or anything like that in 10 years. No strep throat like I used to get every year, sinus infections, colds, and so on.
But germs are still real, and you can certainly still get sick no matter how healthy you are. No one is invincible. Getting campylobacter from drinking raw milk comes to mind…
But I think the greatest improvements in immunity from an overall perspective tend to come from improvements in overall health – not from better handwashing or sterilizing all your food.
My own, much shorter experience has been exactly that. I still get sick, but not as frequently and I missed the H1-N1 that everyone had at work.
I think if you wanna a paranoid survivalist about it (and really, how appropriate for a post about Vanderplatz), the best precaution to survive a pandemic is to 1) eat well and 2) stay the hell away from other people.
And in all fairness, the 4 times I've gotten ill in the last decade – vomiting, diarrhea, etc. were…
Episodes 1 and 2 –
Mostly raw vegetarian diet while overexercising – occurred within a few months of each other (I rembember specifically vomitting quinoa sprouts and lots of raw carrot chunks)
Episodes 3 and 4 –
Both happened during my long low-carb phase – once at the WAPF annual conference after overexercising and undersleeping for 6 months on low-carb, the other a few months after zero carb while continuing to eat 50-75 grams of carbs per day.
OK, back to the raw milk thing.
Is there a way to "make" raw milk from the crap in the store?
What I'm trying to say is, could you add some acidophilus some colostrum and enzymes and get something that is somewhat "raw milk-like"?
I found goats milk at my local grocery store but it is ultra-pasteurized so I'm thinking that any advantage of drinking goats milk would be washed away by the ultra-pasteurization.
Any thoughts of creating some franken-raw-milk?
"What I'm trying to say is, could you add some acidophilus some colostrum and enzymes and get something that is somewhat "raw milk-like"?"
An interesting idea. Maybe you could use some probiotic capsules or something.
Will,
LOL- franken-raw-milk! I do know that according to sally fallon in Nourishing Traditions, she recommends that if you have to use storebought milk, buy organic if possible and culture it with kefir grains for 12 hrs to restore enzyme content. Except, if it's ultra-pasteurized, it's quite dead, the kefir grains may not be able to do anything with it. Sorry…
Can someone help me? I've been doing my best to do the HED and taking my temps. However, life gets busy, and I've slacked off eating enough and thus my appetite has gone down. Do I still stuff my face or do I go by my hunger?
Also, I've been taking my basal temperature several times a week, it's low, below 97, but I feel hot. I sweat all day, but my temps are still on the lower end of the scale, sometimes just a bit over 95. What does that mean?
I have gained weight,probably 10lbs or so, but I don't appear to have gained, I don't think…
Just wondering how to proceed.
The Golden Papapaya's question on germs was answered by Matt but here is a little more…
Germs CAN cause disease, they are just one of several causes. The book "1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus" by Charles C. Mann has a whole chapter on the problem of vulnerability to germs the body has no aquired defense against. Mann argues bases on the archeological evidence that the New World was densely populated in 1491 but around 90 percent of the population, a fifth of world's population, died in under 300 years. The book has some interesting info on the whole carnivorous man thing and some now lost domesticated crops.
Morgan
Will, I was going to say the same thing as – turn it into kefir.
Anneatheart-
In the free eBook which is due out within a week, I talk about really dedicating yourself to it for about 30 days, after which time it becomes too consuming to continue anyway. I think if you've done it for a while and noticed some good signs (like feeling warm), it's probably best to continue just by eating cleanly – with real foods, to appetite but not necessarily forcing it.
At least, that's kind of how I'm going to steer people in the new eBook.
You can restore some life to pasteurized milk by making yogurt or kefir, but I don't think you could ever make it just like raw again. Pasteurization destroys more than just probiotics, and homogenization may damage the fats. It'd certainly be an improvement, but not the same thing.
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/how-to-burn-toxins-out-of-your-body-as-you-eat-breakfast/blog-311639/
Certain foods, such as raw milk products, raw eggs, and meat contain high concentrations of the precursor amino acids that your body uses to make glutathione. The highest levels of these precursor amino acids actually occur in fresh, uncooked meats and raw milk, but is almost entirely absent in pasteurized dairy products. Fresh fruits and vegetables provide excellent glutathione, but once cooked, values become negligible. Spinach, potatoes, asparagus, avocado, squash, okra, cauliflower, broccoli, walnuts, garlic, and tomatoes are the highest plant sources of these important amino acid precursors.
Anneatheart, google hypothyroidism + sweating.
I have experience with AV's primal diet and I can tell you that I gained nothing positive from it at all. I even did his whole oil change thing where you put on a lot of fat really quickly by consuming lots of raw butter eggs and honey. I looked and felt like crap. I don't think you can be mentally/ socially healthy on his diet and it seems like many of the followers develop problems in this way.
I have never found any benefits from raw foods at all really and I think the importance is just hyped food fadism. The best results I have gotten with foods has been eating mostly well cooked meals Ayurvedic style. The TCM and Ayurvedic doctors have been using food as medicine for thousands of years and they all promote cooked foods most of the time as being important and they even think raw foods can be harmful to people in a weakened state.
Jedi- I just updated my Chicken Soup for the Liver blog on my weight loss. Check it out.
Matt,
I wonder if you got sick at the same WAPF annual conference that I did. It would have been the 2007 one in the D.C. area. I went for a half day and just happened to eat the lunch that got over 100 people sick. They thought it was Norovirus. Such irony. I was a sleep deprived relatively new mommy at the time and I was definitely getting sick a lot more often than I am now that I'm getting some decent sleep again.
The next time I got horribly ill was last summer after starting a brutal regimen of Bikram (hot) yoga at least 4 times a week after not exercising much for nearly three years. I ate a Filet of Fish at McDonald's and BOOM!…11 days of unstoppable diarrhea. I managed to avoid a Cipro Rx but I was so close to taking it.
I think the germ and terrain theory's are both valid. I think in order for our bodies to be susceptible to the germs, the terrain has to be compromised enough. I can't believe the folks that totally dismiss the germ theory b/c I've seen people get the exact same cold, exact same symptoms, one after the other over and over.
I also believe that antibodies are only part of the story of immunity, which is why I think that if vaccines work at all, their effectiveness is limited. There has never been any "proof" that vaccines work. The proof that everyone sites is circumstantial only.
My friend's mom is a highly reputable infectious disease doc who works with HIV patients in Cameroon for 2 months out of every year. I asked her point blank if she thought decline in diseases in poorer nations had more to do with vaccines or improvements in nutrition/sanitation. She answered the latter with no hesitation.
Thanks for the milk tips. Not to sound stupid, but I had to look up kefir because I didn't know exactly what it was. I was thinking drinkable yogurt and I guess that was kinda close. SOunds like kefir my be be a tad more involved that dropping in some acidophilus, LOL!
It's a shame that ultra-pasteurizing kills the milk so much because I have goat's milk available at my local grocery chain. It's expensive too…something like $4 a quart. Same thing with all the organic milk…it's all ultra-pasteurized.
Matt, have you tried having organic pastures milk shipped to you? It's 5 dollars for a half gallon that way and costs $20 for shipping. You can probably get a 2 weeks supply and save a lot of money. The milk is probably fresher too as it had not been sitting on a store shelf.
JT-
I'm in full agreement with you on that one. Oh wait, this just in…
"Hell freezes over."
Hee hee.
Yes, the town I live in probably has the highest number of Primal dieters per capita than anyplace on earth. He comes here several times per year, but I've never made it to one of his little circle jerks. The anxiety that they have over their diets and extremism with it all is nucking futs. But hey, they do look good…
http://www.uwec.edu/cj/projects/Greenhouse/articles/kitchen-raw.htm
Caroline Hesse-
That's the one. Good times. Thanks for summarizing that both sides of that argument are valid. Ain't that true of all arguments?
Will-
When I've made kefir I used Donna Gates Body Ecology kefir starter. It's not cheap, but is about as easy as pouring acidophilus powder into the milk. Much easier than using kefir grains.
Dan-
I got a case discount on my last big batch of milk while in California. Friday I'll be picking up milk from Kinikin corner dairy in Colorado for $10 a gallon (actually, Scott wants to give it away, but he's not going to get away with that).
I had never heard of Aajonus before I started reading this blog, having slipped into the diet world from the other end (that is, fitness/body building forums). What is the origin of that name anyway? Dutch? Marsian?
Anyway, an update on me. I quit the milk diet last friday after 42 days. Since then I've been trying out intermittent fasting again, though for the first couple of days it was more like semi-fasting since I consumed maybe 1-2 pints of milk during the day and then had solid meals between 5-9pm, now it's complete fasting until 5pm though.
My experience so far hasn't been quite as smooth as I remember it used to be. Even though I have no outright hunger pangs, the empty feeling in the stomach is more intense than I remember and I sometimes experience some mild hypoglycemia shakiness (which never used to happen when I did IF before). This is usually worst in the morning however, towards the final hours of the fast in the early afternoon I start to feel much better – more energetic and no hunger.
A big reason is probably that I'm not drinking coffee during the fast as I did before, but I guess it could also be that the transition to fasting is more of a shock after 7 months of 4500 calorie overfeeding. Last time I did IF the transition didn't involve and change in amount of food, whereas now I've dropped from 4500 to probably around 2000-2500.
However, when I do start to eat at 5pm, I find myself filling up very fast and my appetite is rock bottom – the food only tastes good for the first 1000 calories or so and it's a struggle to get down even 2000. So maybe there is something to that theory that fasting facilitates leptin transport into the brain or something (heard it in Stephans recent interview).
I haven't weighed myself or measured basal temps yet, but clothes are getting looser and it definitely feels like I'm losing, and fast too. I feel cooler too, which is to be expected with a halved calorie intake since simply digesting food produces a lot of heat in of itself. But it's actually a welcome change since I had been feeling intolerably hot lately, with the summer approaching and all (towards the end of the milk diet I was showering twice daily and still felt constantly soaked in sticky sweat).
I'll see if I can measure my basal temp tomorrow, but I've been thinking that maybe a better gauge of whether you're about to enter famine mode is appetite? I know in my case that that was the strongest symptom of having restricted calories too long or just poor nutrition in general – ravenous appetite, everything you could put into your mouth tasted like heaven and whenever the food was unlimited I couldn't get enough of it, stuff like sugar and nuts were basically drugs, the term "food porn" actually meant something. Contrast with now when I still have basically no interest in food.
Good feedback Collden. I think the milk diet, with its constant feedings every half hour probably make the switch to IF a little difficult at first.
Just make sure you don't do IF every single day. I would mix it up with a huge re-feed at least once per week.
I do believe that decreasing meal frequency can have very positive impacts on the appetite/metabolism ratio. Ideally, the optimal state of health probably has a low ratio of appetite to metabolism – or in other words, more metabolic energy from fewer calories.
Anyway, we'll be eager to see your results. I too will be getting back into shape for hiking season and leaning out upon completion of the milk diet, so body composition enhancement and no-rebound/metabolically friendly fat loss will be a primary focus in the months ahead.
I think the whole raw food thing is ridiculous. I was into it last year and felt more energetic, but I was starving. I was vegan though, no raw meat or dairy.And these raw foodies eat a shitload of PUFAs in nuts. The whole philosophy of "living vs. dead" food is flawed.
I also noticed Victoria Boutenko (the queen of raw green smoothies), also happens to be very overweight because she "spends so much time doing research on nutrition and hates exercise".
The raw food folks are just obnoxious and flaky. Just research Gabriel Cousens or Matt Monarch. The movement is so full or gurus it's sickening.
I was working on an organic farm a couple of weeks back and the expereince was very interesting.
There was a family of vegetarians with appaling teeth and all pretty slim. there was a young male fruitvore who was pale, skinny and almost no muscle mass, I had embarrasingly superior strength and muscles compared to him :) there was a family of raw foodists who were very skinny but good teeth and skin (they ate meat and the 15 year old son made raw goats cheese from his little herd). and they was a retired woman of 72, an omnivore, (though she doesn't eat much meat), she was, I felt, in the best health of them all, though partly I think it was to do with her optimism and attitude to life…. they did have a lot of nutriitonla knowledge, which i didn't expect, and eg the vegetarians sprouted everything including chick peas and lentils and made and sold bread made from the freshly ground own grain os eg spelt and kamut…. sadly apart from olive oil and some eggs, they had almost no other fat at all in their diet.
Matt, should i worry that my morning temperatures are it with down a bit with the milk diet, despite my afternoon ones being pretty high? I feel great on it otherwise.
Caroline
The problem w the 'same symptoms/same cold' is that the 'common cold' can be caused by a bazillion different bacteria/mold. That is the reason that when one moves to a different area of the country/world, the sx of illness can be non stop since the body does not yet recognise the pathogens.
And the immune system can be disturbed by disease; diabetes being a perfect example. This also applies to many who eat SAD since many tend to have elevated BG throughout the day.
And of course, some are will be stronger than others for whatever reason.
Anyone looking for raw milk should do a daily search on Craigslist 'farm and garden'.
It is illegal here but my supplier advertised 'for pets only'.
She only advertises once a month so I needed to be searching on a regular basis.
I see someone further south is advertising and it would be worth the drive once/weekly.
One could also run an add searching for raw milk..for the pets, of course.
This doesn't necessarily pertain to this article, but reading about AV's calorie restriction got me thinking. Matt, I was wondering if you could write an article about competitive eaters. More specifically, the Kobayashi's, Joey Chestnut's, that 90lb woman, who are very lean and skinny, yet they consistently eat a massive quantity of food. I would be very curious to see your take/research on how their metabolism's handle all this food, what foods they avoid (PUFAs, fructose, omega 6), etc. I believe this would greatly validate your HED diet vs a conventional calorie restricted diet and is a very interesting topic. Thank u.
Thanks Matt, I will definitely be doing a refeed once a week. I felt mostly great during the fast today, so I reckon my body might be habituating.
You know, I was browsing the french wikipedia article on breakfast, far more detailed than the english article, and it had some interesting stuff with regards to historical meal frequency. Apparently, in ancient Greece, it was common for the wealthy and intellectuals to only have one meal per day in the evening. Same thing among the elite in Rome, where a proper meal for lunch was only permitted for children and the elderly, and for the rest "lunch" often consisted of nothing but a glass of water.
The feeling I get is that the "three squares a day" thing has in most cultures in history mostly been reserved for growing children and hard-working peasants and craftsmen (which I guess would've been like 95% of the population throughout most of history), due to their great energy requirements, while the rich and those who only had light work would usually, if not outright fast, then at least eat lightly throughout the day and feast in the evening.
Didn't know that before I stumbled upon it, but seems as if there's at least some historical precedent for habitual fasting as a way of life.
@Collden, are you more or less doing a Warrior diet 4 hour feeding window each day?
@Ryan, I have in the past researched competitive eaters a little and I know that Kobayashi does a lot of weight training and Joey Chestnut counts calories and exercises. Sonya Thomas typically eats just one large meal every day and exercises on a treadmill 2 hours a day.
Overfeeding can have very positive muscle building and metabolic effects when combined with the right types of exercise
Yup, that's basically it.
@Collden…when I was doing IF, the point where I was getting full on 1500 calories a day and then started getting cold all the time and gaining fat was when my thyroid and adrenals tanked. Also lots of stresses at that point as well, little sleep, over-exercising, mental stress, etc. Just my experience with it.
I had read that Kobayashi didn't always lift weights. He took up lifting, muscled up pretty good, then stopped because his muscular abdominals prevented his stomach from expanding as much during eating competitions.
Will, yeah I know there are pitfalls with IF. But, I don't think it's likely to be harmful to a healthy metabolism unless you're stressing your body too much in other ways at the same time, like you said, you had lots of other problems at the time. I think my main problem while IF'ing before was a low calorie intake while already being very lean, and I did that by consciously restricting calories. I hope and think it will work out differently if you actually eat to appetite during the feeding window and get enough sleep.
I'm looking forward to the leaning out bit of the program. Gaining weight when it's hot outside sucks. Big time.
My temps were low the last two days. I've been taking in less milk the last five days. I cut back for a couple reasons. I was camping and camping with big heavy glass bottles of milk is really hard. Also, with the heat and humidity my feet were so swollen. I think the sodium in milk has made me retain water like nobody's business. I'm back on milk today as the temps have gone down outside. Hope the opposite will happen in my body.
"The feeling I get is that the "three squares a day" thing has in most cultures in history mostly been reserved for growing children and hard-working peasants and craftsmen (which I guess would've been like 95% of the population throughout most of history), due to their great energy requirements, while the rich and those who only had light work would usually, if not outright fast, then at least eat lightly throughout the day and feast in the evening."
This isn't necessarily so. Breakfast was always part of the daily routine of the gentry in England since the middle ages. Lunch wasn't added until Victorian times, but bear in mind people usually ate their breakfast late and ate big, mixed meals of hardy foods (often leftovers from the evening before). "Tea" accompanied by sweets, cream and maybe a little bit of potted meat, came in the early 19th century. Gradually it replaced the early dinner that the working class had. I'm sure you're aware that people in the old country still refer to dinner as their "tea." The gentry ate dinner later and followed it with a light meal around 9 or 10 (or sometimes much later than that, depending on the social activities, balls could go all night and people would be eating all night) that was called supper.
The rich ate really, really epic dinners with multiple courses and many, many dishes, almost all meat-based, but they always ate more than once a day. They were overfeeding champs. Obesity, gout, tooth decay were all present, but not to our levels of problems. They were champion over-feeders and of course, since white flour wasn't even invented and sugar a taxed luxery, the quality was definitely there.
Peasants in England were limited by the quantity and quality of food. They usually ate breakfast. During harvest or other times of extraordinary effort they ate big lunches. Meat and fat were reserved for the men who were doing the heaviest labor. Women mostly lived on bread and a little bit of bacon now and again, and dairy if they lived in the country. They also ate an early dinner, as soon as they were home from working.
Trying to find some historical basis for your IF, sounds kind of dodgy to me, Collden. You are probably more hungry now more often because your metabolism is on fire. Why not go back to "normal" life? Eat three times a day or whatever, skip the occasional meal that you don't want and concentrate on eating foods that are lighter (less fat and starch).
Speaking for myself the summer heat blunts my appetite significantly. This usually causes me to lose a few pounds of fat in the summer.
Anyone else?
Nathan, totally agree ;) also i am naturally more active
Where have you heard or read about the bad effects on peoples health from following the primal diet? But I do agree that following anything too rigidly is bad, especially for your mental/emotional health.
While I don’t follow his diet religiously, I started implementing some of his advice and I like it. Raw meat and dairy definitely feels easier to digest and way more energizing and nourishing than cooked/pasteurised. I don’t really miss vegetables. I do drink some water, though less, and use salt sometimes. Vegetable juices are nice, they do feel more hydrating and refreshing than water, but the process of jucing is a pain in the ***.
What does slightly annoy me about him is that he doesn’t cite any sources or empirical data for his claims other than his own experiences or observations, for the most part.
Jenny, I'm just saying it's not historically unprecedented. But upon reflection you're right, I was being too sweeping there, I didn't mean to imply that some kind of IF scheme was the norm. The article mentions for instance that lunch was more firmly entrenched as a proper meal in England and Switzerland.
Anyway, like I've said before, doing IF right now is mostly for convenience, I don't want to think about preparing breakfast and lunch every morning when I already have to get up early for a full time job. I'll try and see later this summer if I can go back to a "normal" three squares per day thing without having it turn into the HED again.
I think that IFing when you have a healthy metabolism can be one of the most powerful ways to change body composition. Another hormone that does not get mentioned much around here is growth hormone. Fasting is the easiest way to promote growth hormone release. If your metabolism is healthy, it is relatively easy to go for long periods without food. I wonder if that is why many HGs had nice physiques, they might have eaten a lot of calories, but maybe only in a small window each day, such as 4- 8 hours where they devoured fresh meat and other foods.
Growth hormone promotes fat burning and sustains lean tissue. It is considered a fountain of youth drug because people who take it develop better body composition and clearer skin. Athletes take it to speed up healing time for injuries. I think that the paleos who promote IF do it wrong because they do not eat enough otherwise. It's fine to IF, just make sure that you still eat plenty of calories.
Martin at LeanGains seems to have figured this out. He was able to gain significant muscle and stay very lean without any drugs by doing all his eating in an 8 hour period combined with weight training. That is an impressive feat to say the least.
Scott
Collden, I see what you're saying. I think that even though most of us don't do heavy labor doing the day, we do have busy, stressful lives. Since I started thinking of saturated fat as my anti-stress super weapon, I can't imagine giving it up and going about my daily routine on an empty stomach or a small snack of fruit and veggies. I'd be willing to try it though and see if I could tolerate it. Once again, I'll let you be my guinea pig.
I think the milk diet has been nice because I don't have to worry about meal prep anymore. And I really don't miss having solid food to chew, that much.
My instinct is definitely to eat less in the summer. Yes, I usually am more lean in the summer. However, I've also dieted for the past 8 summers, so it doesn't really count does it? I'm looking forward to getting to a place where I can stay within five pounds all year long and be happy with how I look and feel. It seems so simple, but I'm just not even close to there yet.
Where can we read more about overfeeding and the positive effects that it can have?
I spent several years doing IF, first the warrior diet and then on a low carb plan. I never noticed any benefits at all other than convenience. Physically there were no improvements and physiqe got worse. There is a reason almost everyone with a great physique eats more frequent meals. I have also seen documentaries where HG tribes ate breakfast, so it has been around a while.
I think if you are going to intermittently fast you should not restrict carbs and you should consume 2-3 meals in the window period of 6-10 hours
@JT, maybe your physique worsened due to the low carb.
I think that very low carbing and fasting leads to muscle wasting due to the body becoming more efficient turning muscle into energy via gluconeogenesis, especially if you aren't eating a ridiculous amount of food.
My best success with meal frequency thus far has been 3 meals a day, around 6 hours between each meal.
paleo and low carb did me a world of good!
i went through all the vegetarian phases ending w raw vegan then added meat.
that made a huge difference in my health all around but i still was ingesting way too much fibrous produce and almond.
so i gradually moved to low carb and have been pretty happy….except that i am aging and feeling it which was not in my plan.
i think paleo can be healthy (see Melissa at Hunt.Gather.Love) although mostly it's obsessive.
same w low carb. and have you ever seen more hypocondriacs? it's much worse than vegetarian w all the cleanses and colonics.
IF'ing seems just another way to diet whether anyone wants to admit it or not.
i don't believe HG's consciously chose not to eat and i'm sure they grazed whenever the opportunity presented.
on early hikes, i don't paas up those salmon berries.
children often forage in the berry patches/garden if they live in areas where that's possible.
I did the Warrior Diet for a few years and actually liked the freedom it gave me.
However, a lot of the time I was doing some low carb bullshit and not getting adequate calories.
The times it worked best were the nights i ate HED style, and got in about 3000+ calories on a regular basis. This is very hard to do in a 4 hour window.
I also had some great workouts on this diet but it took some time to adapt.
Also, with all that food in your stomach its hard to sleep, and waking up at 10 or 11am wasn't uncommon. My first time talking with Matt, he said switch the main meal to lunchtime. When I did this I found eating lightly the rest of the day was easy and I was sleeping a whole lot better and waking around 8am. (something as an entrepreneur is blasphemy)
So my recommendation for IFing, is to…
1. Make sure you're still getting adequate calories, or else you will reverse all that you worked for building your metabolism.
2. Play around with your main meal times. Don't get stuck on dinner time.
3. Be flexible, if your body tells you it wants an extra meal, do it. Don't get caught up in the dogma we as health fanatics so easily do to ourselves.
4. Make sure you get all your calories!! Just thought I'd repeat this. But it is important. I went for at least 100 grams protein, 135 grams fat and 300 grams of carbs. See how hard that would be to cram into a 4 hour window, and that is still only about 2800 calories.
I guess my point is IFing with all its possible health benefits doesn't negate your bodies everyday need for macro and micro nutrients.
sorry for the long post hope that helps.
Jenny said,
"OMGZ he's so masculine, I'm threatened. No, it's more like his scary eyes. Sisson has kind of scary eyes too and weirdly pointy jaw that looks reptilian, not masculine. Just sayin."
Jenny, I meant no offense; my apologies if it seemed otherwise. Moreover, the comment I left about "women/children" was not directed at you or anybody in particular, it was merely a way to illustrate the fact that there are general and emperically observable trends in how people respond to facial characteristics –without any emperical backing for such perceptions and responses.
In addition, it must be observed that although on average people will agree about what makes a face masculine (or feminine), there will be disagreement among people about individual faces. For instance, as a tangentially related example, observe that I call his eyes "intense" while you call them "scary." Such is the nature of discussions about things that have no real physical measurement and instead rely on individual perception.
I will agree that the guy might be a little bit crazy though, based on discussions here and elsewhere.
On AV though. I went to see him while I was in Australia last year. A few Primal Dieters showed up too. One was at the Raw Games in Hawaii that some raw vegans put on every year (they hate the fact that Aajonus comes)
Here is a link to a picture from those games in a race he was in. See if you can pick out who the raw vegans are and who the meat eater is…
http://flexrx.nourished.com.au/2008/12/16/13/
and check out the raw vegan racer in the back. I think he decided to fuel up mid race and eat some grass.
Can anyone think of a good caption for the spectator in red?
Anyway. The funny thing about going to this primal diet get-together was that they stressed to not have any perfume or cologne on, and said we may not be let in if we had an "offensive" smell. Yet these guys fuckin stunk, I mean that 3 feet stank. It would do them some good to start getting used to some cologne again.
Needless to say, I liked everyone there including Aajonus, even if I did pay $100 for my girlfriend to give him a massage because he was in such pain (due to "severe" detox from consuming too much olive oil in Thailand) that he couldn't continue the talk. But, that my friends is another story.
The funny thing about IF is that it is not all that radical. Not too long ago the health guys were telling people not to eat anything after dinner. Do the math and it's not that much different than IF. LeanGains uses a 10 hr window for women I believe, so starting at 7AM, that takes you to 5PM. 8 hour feed window for men takes you to 3PM for the same start time…a bit early but not all that much earlier than a regular dinner.
Some of the smaller feeding windows could easily have you skip breakfast, eat lunch and dinner and you are good to go.
Matt, I just saw your tweet "Cut back on cholesterol and saturated fat and watch your cholesterol rise 40%!"
I used to ask people "what comes to mind when you think of a food that is highest in cholesterol?" and almost invariably steak would be mentioned. Then I would say to them "cows are vegetarians. Where does all that cholesterol come from? It is made in the liver." And I would also tell them that you could eat zero cholesterol and still have high cholesterol.
Dermatend-
Thanks for telling that story. This post was, in part, for you my good man. Your report that Primal dieters smell funky was the 3rd report I've heard, so I know it's not some coincidence at this point.
On IF-
Berkhan's 8 hour feeding window is still pretty large and not too extreme. But he has other keys to his success, like having really high carb days and huge refeed meals where he attacks entire cheesecakes in one sitting. That's how you use IF to get lean without jacking yourself up.
But even just decreasing meal frequency is huge. The leanest I've ever been by far was with 3 meals spaced almost exactly 6 hours apart, just as Riles suggests. If I had just cycled carbs and done refeeds I would have avoided the perils, which were, without question, a result of being too low in carbs – especially while exercising a ton.
I think fasting could be a great tool, it just has to be used wisely. Same for low-carb – which also has to be used wisely (i.e.-not continued without carb refeeds for more than a few days at a time).
Sorry to geek out on all of this fitness queer stuff, but it is interesting, and ultimately people will want to know how they can get lean without screwing themselves like they may have in the past. I kind of feel manorexic thinking of food that way, but I'm about to enter into a pretty heavy exercise phase with hiking season and want to really nail it this round. I'll be posting about it a lot I'm sure.
Jedi-
My morning temps are finally coming up along with the evening temps. Day 23 today. Feeling better today too, but can't wait to be done with this and outside playing. Having a hell of a time getting 6 quarts in a day.
I'm getting sick of the milk too. It's the summer, it just doesn't make you think, "mmmm milk." It makes me think of swimming in cold lakes, bug bites and beer.
I'll probably get through this gorgeous memorial day week-end by hiding out in the basement, working on the computer and watching movies–generally pretending it's February.
Going by my personal experiences with Leangains IF I must say the it has done me a world of good. Im getting leaner and stronger each day and I dont feel my metabolism slowing down which was a problem Ive had in the past.
Dont know how to explain it but Berkhan has really nailed down the research behind it on the blog.
Check out The Leangains Guide where its pretty well laid out.
I think one of the keys to success is actually following his guidelines to the letter with sufficient carbs every so often to prevent metabolic slowdown and encourage muscle growth and fat loss.
Matt I am loving the new e-book. Even though I have Metabolism already it is a great read.
Also I am wondering about fructose intake, as I have been starting my days with some raw milk and an orange or apple and it makes my temps plummet, icy cold hands and feel like crap until I get some solid food down. I cannot figure out why this is happening? Adrenal healing or are my adrenals just unable to cope?
Because of an intestinal tract infection I have fasted about 36 hours. My basal temperature dropped from one day to the other by 0,7 degrees F. Has anyone checked his temperature after fasting for at least 16 to 24 hours?
this could be because of the infection not the fasting though? Yes I have done many 24hr fasts in the past with no drop in temperature
Hi all – its me Sugar Addict!
If you want to know a bit more about some food history and laugh your ass off at the same time, check out THE SUPERSIZERS GO on you tube, its a British TV Series. The Dr's all sprout main stream health advice, but the presenters get medically tested and then live a week together in historical costume and eat the foods of various decades/centuries. I strongly recommend it!! Very bloody funny, and informative ( you get a bit of history thrown in too)! Its odd as well how little they get ill on old diets! If you fancy it, and you feel like a food related giggle check it out! :)
Damnit Sugar Addict, they stole my idea. Hoping to start an "Adventures in Diet" show someday.
Chris-
That's what fructose does to a lot of people, and solid food certainly digests better and prevents that crash and burn feeling.
Anonymous on Berkhan-
I agree wholeheartedly. He is on the forefront of getting lean without metabolic ruin – or so it appears. Whether or not everyone can get away with that kind of adrenal workout is another question, but I'm very open to it. It's those that get obsessive about losing weight with IF, try to sprint for the finish line, while simultaneously believing that carbs are pure satan and that big, hearty meals will slow their weight loss that get themselves into trouble long-term.
That's why his program must be followed very closely – or a person has to at least be mindful of big glycogen reloads, big calorie refeeds, and appropriate timing on workouts.
Matt,
will already registered members get your book sent per mail or do I have to input my mail adress once again?
You should be receiving it. Just sent out e-mail notifications, but there were about 100 delivery failures so I'm expecting to have to send out some individual e-mails as well. Will do a post on this over the weekend.
I have quite a bit of experience fasting both intermittently and long term. The longest I have gone on on water only is a week, and i have gone several weeks on just juice and felt really great. Lost a tone of muscle on both of these types of fasts.
On intermittent fasting I first did the warrior diet back around 10 years ago and I at plenty of calories and carbs, but physiques never got any better, just got worse. It was convenient as a college student though. I then did IF as on on low very low carbs and lost a ton of muscle.
I don't see how people can have an 8-10 hour window and still call this IF! That is not fasting at all, it is just having a late breakfast.
Like I have said before, the best results in my experience came from eating 5 times a day, but 3 is probably just as good.
Matt I started skimming the ebook, and I like it. Thank you.
Matt how are you going to define success during your "pretty heavy exercise phase?" Are you going to be doing something specific or just, hike when you want, how much you want?
JT what is meant by "best results?"
Back to AV;
Matt have you actually followed his recommendations? (I'm not talking about consuming your excrements).
I do not have the book but it sounds like a pretty wide RFD and you are already consuming raw milk/cream.
So w the addition of eggs, meat, veg, you're good to go, right?
Oh, and honey…..I feel the opportunity for some really good eggnog (which i make pretty much daily, anyway).
I remember that you consumed some raw meat on FUMP.
I am not sure I could eat much raw but I make a tasty jerky.
Am I missing something?
Oh, and a TV spot on extreme diets is a great idea. You'd be the Andrew Zimmer!! The food network would probably snap you right up!
Holy shit dude. You know, when most people try to make a Clint Eastwood reference they don't go with Every Which Way but Loose. Classy. A true Triple Lindy performance of pop 80's knowledge.
Nathan,
By best results I mean developed the best body composition and had the best energy. But, mostly I am talking about body comp.
Jem,
You should definitely make AV's eggnog if you are looking to put on fat very fast. It works extremely well for this purpose, I know because I have tried his diets and recipes. Within a few weeks of taking his eggnog people were asking what had happened to me. I recommend this for all the HEDers who are trying to gain fat quickly.
I also remember my girlfriend getting sick and vomiting for hours when I gave it to her once.
Matt mentions drinking one's own urine in the blog post. In fact, this has a long tradition and has been scientifically investigated as a weight loss method… collect the middle third of the first urine you pass first thing in the morning, and gargle it. This will be very effective for weight loss, because everything you put in your mouth for the rest of the day will taste like piss. :)
Seriously, I have read that there is some benefit to this, it supposedly acts like a homebrew homeopathic medicine, triggering chemical sensors in the back of the throat that give the brain feedback on your hormone levels or something. Actually DRINKING it doesn't help, you need to GARGLE it. And after that, gargle with Listerine. Twice.
Its Me….Sugar Addict!
Good call re TV Matt, mind you its in the UK so I guess you could still steal your idea back for the USA!!! It also shows how wasted most of our ancestors truly were in the absence of clean drinkable water! TV diet shows are always popular…. just don't shout at fat people tho… I friggin hate that! (Am sure you wouldn't anyway!) :)
@ Will – If your not able to get good quality milk, and don't want to make kefir, you can use organic heavy cream and dilute it. Make sure it isn't ultra pasteurized. Fresh made coconut milk is also very good.
Matt,
I just read most of your e-book. Very good work! I need to stop being lazy and start taking my temp every morning. I've been trying to convert my recipes into more 180 degree friendly foods. Macadamia nuts taste great in pesto (as well as mac oil instead of olive oil). Also, I'm hoping to convince my husband to do HED with me sometime this summer (he's very skinny and has trouble gaining weight).
Anywho, thanks for the free e-book =)
@Chris: Have you tried having fruit with a solid meal? When I have orange juice on its own I tend to crash after, but if I have juice or whole fruits as part of a meal, it seems fine.
My feeling is that these crashes are more from eating fruit sugar on its own, rather than something inherently bad about it. People don't really eat starch by itself, but I would imagine it can cause the same thing.
I realize fructose is metabolized differently than glucose but I have trouble seeing fruit as equivalent to refined sugar. I found that Ray Peat's views on sugar are interesting but as much as I would like to believe him I do not find his arguments in favor of sucrose to be convincing.
And Matt, when you say that there is consistent relationship between fruit juices and obesity, do these studies indicate what kind of juice they are referring to?
I would think that sweetened, unsweetened from concentrate, not from concentrate, and freshly squeezed yourself, are all of very different quality and can't be lumped together.
BrianH,
You really believe that fruit juice could be a cause of obesity? I guess that is why there are so many fat fruitarians. I would be really surprised if juice from concentrate and fresh squeezed would make much of a difference either.
JT,
Dr. Robert Lustig works with obese and diabetic kids, and he credits the juice they drink as a big part of the problem. Getting rid of the juice (and other sources of liquid sugar) usually corrects the problem.
JT, I am skeptical as to whether natural fruit juice is a cause of obesity, which is why I asked Matt about his statement.
Juice from concentrate does lose some nutrients, I don't know if this is significant or not but it is more of a processed product and tastes like shit. I can't really drink it after having freshly squeezed juices.
From wikipedia:
"Freshly squeezed juice and filtered orange juice is pasteurized and is evaporated under vacuum and heat to remove most of the water before it is frozen. The concentrated juice, about 65?Bx, is then stored at about +10?F (-12?C). At this point essences and oils, recovered during the vacuum concentration process, are added back to restore the flavor. To make cans of frozen concentrate for sale, filtered water is added back to bring the Brix level down to 42?Bx, about three times the concentration of fresh juice."
@ Brian: Thanks, I have tried eating fruit with a solid meal and it does not have this effect at all. Neither does it have this effect when I have had a few meals and just grab something like an apple as a snack in the afternoon, in fact this will give me a boost of warmth…..
When I wake up though and feel like something refreshing rather than starchy I will often grab a glass of milk and an Orange or some grapes and this is when the problem occurs (ice cold hands, foggy head, irritable). One thing is for sure it did not have the same effect a while back before Paleo F-ed me up……
Cusick,
Can you present some data that supports Lustig's claims obout the children loosing weight because they stop drinking juice?
I think he claims a lot of things to support his work.
In his video he admitted that there was no correlation between obesity and the consumption of orange juice while there was one between obesity and refined sugar.
Cusick,
I really don't believe it has anything to do with the fruit juice. If they lose weight it is because he has cut out a big source of liquid calories, and when you cut calories you lose weight. You should check out Alan Aragon's blog post on fructose alarmism. Lustig joins in on the debate there as well.
I think it is pretty irrational for people to think that if they just switch to glucose instead of sucrose or fructose they will start losing bodyfat. It wont make a difference unless your calories drop. Bodybuilders use glucose drinks all the time to bulk up. Too many people on here believe that all they have to do is cut out fructose and that will solve everything.
BrianH,
Fresh raw juices may have other health benefits, but it wont make a difference when it comes to body composition.
Chris,
You probably have weak adrenal function especially in the mornings. You should get tested. Try consuming it in the evening and it might be better and even help sleep as it relaxes the adrenals.
Hey, everyone!
I've been lurking here for a bit, but haven't joined in the conversation because I've been trying to read back through the posts to get myself up to speed before posting and looking like an idiot!ha Have to say that the discussion here is WONDERFUL and I am really enjoying it.
You have all been chatting about receiving the new ebook and although I signed up for it, I didn't get it:( Assuming that I am one of the "failed" ones that Matt mentioned. Of course, I signed up with my gmail account and happen to think that gmail is the devil. Perhaps gmail ate it.
Anyway, not sure why I suddenly decided to blather away, except that because of a thyroid/adrenal crash and burn that I am still recovering from, I feel at home here. You folks really speak my language! I've been all over the board with diet fixes. They've mostly left me feeling worse. It is refreshing to have found a place where the posters are thinking about thyroid and adrenals when they talk about diet, and not just more of the "eat more fresh, raw vegetables" dogma that is suddenly becoming mainstream.
So, that is my really, really long way of saying "thanks" to all of you for throwing your ideas and experiences into the pool of knowledge! This place is really encouraging me in my journey!!
Cusick-
Speaking of triple lindy's, Zabka was totally in that shit too. He was a wuss though, even though he looked pretty badass in his caveman Halloween costume (Paleo party?).
Nathan-
I've lost weight and gotten lean several times in my life. Each time maintaining it became very difficult except on low-carb with moderate to low-moderate exercise (which created health problems). So success would be to:
1) Get lean
2) Not see a drop in body temperature
3) Not develop health problems
Most people who have done #1 have seen #2 and #3
It will be somewhat structured out of curiosity's sake even though that's not my style or something I really promote.
JT-
Fruitarians are starving themselves, and most fruitarians are into endurance exercise. Lack of protein is too catabolic to gain weight in my experience. However, former fruitarians often gain tons of weight on HED. I do think a fructose/glucose blend is probably the best blend for athletic performance and glycogen refueling.
You are still missing the point about calories, and so are Aragon and others. They are thinking about conscious control of dietary intake and calories burned through exercise. I'm talking about unconcsious regulation, and if swapping glucose for fructose and sucrose makes a person:
1) Burn more calories at rest (higher body temp)
2) Become satified on fewer calories
Then clearly there is a difference. Studies cited by Richard Johnson show an automatic 25% reduction in calorie intake when fructose is removed from the diet with a spontaneous rise in metabolism – in human subjects. If you want to burn more calories and eat less, it helps to eat in a way that makes your body do that automatically. Otherwise, you'll have to be a calorie-counter like a fitness freak, and will probably tank your metabolism trying to fight against your own natural appetite urges. That's what I'm getting at. Work with the body. Not against it.
Don't get me wrong. If I were a competitive endurance athlete I'd eat tons of bananas and chug fruit juice. Even doing the type of workouts you are doing, sucrose is probably a great pre-workout energy booster.
@ JT: That makes sense as I sometimes have some fruit in the evening as it is what I crave a few hours after dinner, it relaxes me and helps me sleep. It seems pretty obvious I have weak adrenals but you are right I should get them tested anyway. Now I just want them to strengthen up, as I get the same reaction from coffee or even any bouts of stress which did not used to happen at all……
Are you referring to salivary cortisol test?
Doctors don't care about adrenals. I went this week and among other issues that he didn't take seriously, when I mentioned adrenals he just wanted to look if there was any hair on my armpits, apparently this means my adrenals are fine. He found it amusing that 3 people this week had asked him about adrenal health.
Brain H-
That is exactly why I'm so glad I have a naturopath.
Hrm. This Bechamp thing sure sounds interesting. However … If you don't want your doctor to wash his hands or use gloves and sterilized tools, you're out of your mind. Semmelweiss had a lower death rate. You can't explain this with the general health of the women who were under his care.
Keeping your head open is a two-edged sword, it helps to get new stuff in, but if you're not careful, you brain might drop out.
Oh well, I think I'll still read this Bechamp guy. I'm too curious.
@Katerina: That's true, there are other options available. I've gone to two naturopathic doctors in the past, maybe it's a good time to go back now.
I think the point being made here is that both theories have validity. I found McCarrison's experiements to be most telling, in which he exposed undernourished animals to infectious organisms and exposed well-nourished animals to the same organisms. All of the deficient animals died. Only 1 of the well-nourished animals died – the rest never even showed symptoms of the disease (out of 25 animals). Thus he concluded that nutrition was just as important as sterilization in the prevention of infectious disease. I couldn't agree more.
Hey Matt, I agree. Good health protects you against disease (well, duh, actually, isn't that part of the definition…) That one well-nourished animal still died from exposure. Sure, some exposure gives your immune system some training, but actually advocating high exposure to disease still seems counterproductive to me as a long-term health strategy. I still believe that high hygiene is one of the reasons we have a higher life expectancy these days.
@Felix: I agree, but I think we have to clearly define "high hygiene" here. There is no doubt to me that too much hygiene is nothing but a net negative leading to an increased risk for allergies and infections. Everything in moderation…even dirt.
Matt, i noticed earlier you said A.V. claimed he had 300 heart attacks.
We went to his workshop in Gold Coast hinterland, in Australia. He mentioned that as a child/teenager, he experienced what he now considers, mini heart attacks. I will have to listen to the recordings again, but by mentioning the mini attacks, he was leading up to another point.(I will post it later)
We found that the Autism that he had as a child, seems to be still with him to a degree. My observation is that he tells it as it is, without conditions due to the autistic trait. A quality that can be misinterpreted, and resulting in him being misunderstood. Nobody's perfect, but i think A.V.'s program is so challenging that the majority will easily find fault with it,thus giving them the 'get out clause' to dismiss it.
I'm amazed how people will allow a doctor to slice them up, hit them with chemo., radium until their hair falls out and they waste away.(and maybe die) Spend thousands on treatments, super foods, etc..
Then A.V. comes along and basically says, 'if you eat all your foods raw,Stink a little, throw up a bit,reduce your social circle a little, then there's a good chance you will improve your health dramatically, and save you from becoming completely isolated from society. (That is,lying in a box 6 foot down)
Most people would refuse to do that, but go for ?he medical madness.(who's crazy??)
Okay, so some foods have to be predigested, broken down a little, and some in a controlled, rotted state. On that note, yoghurt is sort of rotten milk, some cheeses are extra mature. (on the nose) Saurkraut is rotted cabbage.
It's a challenge, but like you indicated Matt, there is a lot in his works that folk can still relate to. Read his book and also,either dump the germ theory. Or rethink it, like I see on earlier posts.
I'll talk more on our experiences a little later.(myself, and 2 other friends)
I like your blog, and there's some genuine thought provoking chat on here. I'll leave you with an Einstein quote – Contempt before complete investigation, enslaves the mind(soul) to ignorance.
Claude Bernard is another one to check on, re. germ theory/terrain His quote – "What we already Know is a great hindrance into discovering the unknown."
Cheers.
Cheleay, are you on AV's diet? I like your quotes.
I did try his diet, and I can't remember what exactly happenned, but it didn't work for me. I am currently doing all raw food, but only raw kefir with some raw fruit. Meat, raw or cooked, doesn't work for me. I can't handle the purines. I don't know if there are more people like that out there that have tried his diet and had problems with it.
I'd like to hear your experiences with his diet.
Cheleay,
I was just thinking, by the time someone comes down with cancer, if they haven't been doing alternative medicine or trying to find a good diet, it's very difficult to convince them to deal with their cancer in a natural way. The side effects of chemo and radiation are much worse than the side effects of AV's diet, so it's more than just not enjoying some of the side effects of his diet.
But most people do still trust regular MD's and drugs more than they trust alternative healers and natural foods or herbs. Also, when you have cancer, if you were going to chose an alternative method of dealing with it, you would also want to know that there have been quite a few that did it before you and found that it works. For example, Gerson Therapy has a quite a list of people who have recovered from cancer.
I was also just thinking that most likely all of us are guilty to some extent of coming to a conclusion before completely investigating something, wouldn't you agree?
I guess reading AV's books, practically memorizing them – trying several of his diet ideas the best I could, writing weekly recipes for one of his food clubs for over a year, and being close friends with several of his most loyal followers means that I have not investigated AV.
Whoa, Matt! That was just a general sharing of a quote from a great man of our times. Though I'm sure you would see it a lot, where folk are guilty of this. (myself included) I thought you gave AV. his due from your prospective, and your are noted.A comment like,"300 heart attack", instead of 300 mini heart attacks, can put a very different emphasis on it, though Saying you ate two whole raw chickens, could mean you swallowed them whole! But of course you obviously ate them bit by bit.Or we can go with 'Jenny the nipper's' view on it.(unhinge the jaw) :-) Some folk can take things very literally. Anyway I value swapping comments, as it can open up my view on a subject when I see person's angle on it.Our minds are like parachutes. They work better when they are open. :-)
I have dropped in on your blog, not fully understanding what you guys are working with. So bear with me. I also write comments in an inclusive sense, knowing that others are reading and commenting.
Anyway, hope to converse more soon.
I'm about to talk to Betsy
Cheers.
Hi Betsy
Yes I am on AV's diet. Not 100% though. My other friend has been 100% for about 4 years. She only had a face to face consult with AV. last year. She was able to refine it a lot compared to just going by the book, and a phone consult.She is generally very happy with it. Barring of course the occasional detox sessions that she understands are part of the deal.
From what I know now, ideally it is best to have a full consult, before a 100% commitment. This of course depends on the persons situation, and knowledge.
I have only had the mini consult, but it helped a little.I eat mostly raw and organic, but limit myself to eggs and fish on the 'meat' side of it. The consult said mainly white meat anyway,due to my digestion, etc., . The hot baths seem to be an important part of the program. We have just recently been hit with Fluoridation here in Rockhampton,Australia, so I am reluctant to bathe in that crap. Jeff Slay said sea salt helps to clump the fluoride particles, so they don't absorb into the skin.( comments anyone?)
So I doing quite well on the diet in it's limited form. The kefir I swapped for clabbered milk. Much less fuss, and you get more of a range of good bacteria.
Your right on the 'coming to a conclusion' bit. It's a human trait. Through self observation, I'm getting better at not 'jumping' too soon. We can but relate to something through what is stored in our subconscious. Plus the ego usually responds by trying to defend it's existence. :-)
An account of how you followed AV,'s diet would be good to hear.
Cheers.
I did AV's diet several years ago, so I don't remember all the details about how I felt. I do remember what I ate, though. I ate red meat, fish, eggs, raw milk, raw cream, honey, lemon juice, and the fresh raw juices. I did not like raw butter! I wasn't sure if I should try the fish because of having had fairly severe mercury issues, and sure enough I was much better without it. I wish I could remember exactly why I quit. I should have kept a journal through all my diets, but don't like to. Now I know that I don't do well with all those vegetable juices, and I also don't do well with meat. I cut out meat last year around this time, but thought that maybe if I try it raw the purines wouldn't bother me, but they did.
Is your digestion improving on AV's diet? I never could make myself eat raw chicken.
That's such a shame that they are fluoridating your water. Ted from Earth Clinic says that sodium thiosulfate takes care of fluoride in water well enough to make it safe for mixing with fulvic acid and drinking. It's rather cheap; he says you can get it from camera shops. I'd have to hear the chemistry behind it, myself, though before trusting it. What are the hot baths for? I don't remember reading anything about that.
Do you eat any cooked foods? What is it that's in your diet that isn't in his diet? Raw meat and cooked foods don't mix well for me.
I guess I should not have taken the "contempt" word out of the literal translation of your quote, because that's a very specific word which means much more than just jumping to a conclusion. It's as if you make a judgement call and won't even look at or listen to what someone else is talking about. I do see that an awful lot, and sometimes I even wonder if there's a lot of soft tissue calcification in brains going on out there.
Do you mind if I ask you, what are the typical detox problems that are common when doing AV's diet? I ask because I am wondering if they could merely be periodic buildup of uric acid. After reading Haig's books on uric acid, it's difficult to not look at things from that angle. I can't tell you how many times I slapped myself on the forehead while reading his book, Uric Acid as a factor in the Causation of disease. Mainly because I had suffered from migraines so long and had never heard that.
Take care,
Betsy
Hi Betsy(and hi Matt. Hope you don't mind us chatting on your blog)
From reading your reply Betsy, I assume you did not have a consult with AV. He would have addressed a lot of your issues for you regarding what to eat.
Butter is one of the basics, so I'm surprised there. It's a diet that doesn't really address whether you like a food or not. I wasn't that keen on the raw eggs, but worked through that, and now I don't mind them. Of course I had to get the 'mind' out of the way.
The mercury in the fish had me concerned, but he addressed that in a news letter about 2 years ago. Of course the juices are part of heavy metal detoxing. You had a prob. there as well. You maybe had too much at a time. I did. Now I have 8oz. total, including about 40% purreed peeled cucumber. A big difference!
The meat prob. may be to do with digestion. Lots of milk and eggs is usually good there. Were you told to eat, drink everything slowly?
Lots of folk have probs. with raw chicken. My friend loves it! esp. the breast.
The baths are mentioned in the book a couple of times. There is more emphasis on baths lately, to help move the toxins more efficiently.
I rarely eat cooked food now. The eating can be nice, but the after effects aren't. I think the body sets up for a certain way of eating. In this case and in my opinion, the bacterial activity increases dramatically, and the little buggers don't like all that dead food being dumped on them. :-)
But really, the body does fully reprogram itself, but it takes time and a bit of discomfort for that to happen.
It is a real challenge, so I understand when some folk stop.
Detoxing and the uric acid may be best answered by Scott Wheeler. You will catch him on – http://flexrx.nourished.com.au/2008/08/06/the-primal-diet/#comment-833
Keeping in touch with likeminded folk, and regular newsletters from whoever you are following is important, I feel.
Anyway, will leave you with that Talk more soon
Cheers.
Hey Betsy,
Would you mind sending me the low purines list that you have built your diet around?
This is how I started the diet last summer after coming down with severe leg cramps and joint pains.
Milk, cheese, potatoes, sourdough white bread, yeast free crackers, butter, salt, small servings of cherries, tomatoes, and olive oil.
Believe me when I say that it was totally done in faith out of desperation, because I hadn't made a practice out of eating white flour or even potatoes for years. This was an almost totally white diet, and I was pretty sure that I would come down with some serious deficiencies. The list of acceptable foods is much longer, but most caused digestive pain. But it was very strange in that besides gaining unwanted weight around my middle, I looked better, saw new hair growth, and started to feel better little by little. Until the fall, when I started to notice that I was feeling hypothyroid again. I suppose it was from shorter days, less light, and colder weather. Then I started experimenting with other diets, once low carb, once more a meat and potatoes diet, and the third time, raw Wai, if you've ever heard of that. I don't know where to go from here. I feel as though I need to get back on the experimenting trail because my kidneys are obviously not working right. The puffiness around my eyes is a sign that something is wrong. I'm not sure if the return of some symptoms last fall and then different problems this spring could merely be chalked up to the seasonal issues that come up when getting out uric acid or not. And maybe I should just settle back in to lower doses of dairy products and some other fruit or vegetables to make sure I'm getting enough calories.
Cheleay,
No, I didn't do a consult with AV. With respect to not likely raw butter, it wasn't a matter of the mind, it was the tastebuds. I still don't like it, but I like raw milk and cream, so I eat that instead. I don't know if he could have helped me or not. His diet is definitely outside of the box, but he still is in his own box. Are you sold on his diet being the only correct and healing diet? I was on a macrobiotic diet for many years, and went through a lot of pain which was always labeled as either doing it the wrong way or detoxing. Well, maybe I just wasn't supposed to be living on brown rice and beans.
When you say that AV settled the matter of mercury in fish, are you referring to him saying that the mercury in raw fish is actually beneficial to removing mercury from the body? I read that in "We Want to Live", and hoped it was true, but every time I eat raw fish for more than a week or two I get sick. Did he have some other insight about it besides that?
Did you have some health issues that lead you to AV's diet? Are you seeing improvement? What types of detoxes do you go through? It's good to find out as much about a diet as you can from people who are actually doing it.
I looked at the person's website but couldn't find anything about uric acid and detoxing. I'll check again, though.
Take care,
Betsy
It's very unrealistic to say you'd be given a scarlet letter for associating with Aajonus' work. He has a PHD in nutrition. One thing I can say that I like about him versus others is he doesn't go back and forth on nutrition principals. Though he could probably change his macronutrient ratio recommendations for people that do high intensity physically activity. Both him and Mark Sisson's advice is based on short duration exercises.
Yeah, it's awesome that Aajonus believes the same thing on Wednesday that he did on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday!
I mean, who the hell wants information from someone who is going to keep trying to master and fine-tune their theories and beliefs?
Everyone goes through a process to determine what they believe is correct. For Aajonus, that meant many things, including selling supplements, being a raw vegan, and drinking his own urine for 41 days.
A PHD in nutrition doesn't mean shit either. He was given that degree by a university in Jamaica or something – and attended ZERO classes. He was more or less awarded with that honor for his own pioneering work.
If David Koresh had a PHD in nutrition, I would also be fearful of associating with his work.
Matt, I seem to have come into your comment a bit unwise to the foundation of your comments.
I know many folk who use the urine therapy, but i doubt if that limits them to that modality.
Being a raw vegan for a time surely doesn't see you as 'deserter of the faith' if you cease that modality.(or maybe it does?)
I find it interesting that you have it all 'down pat' and will never have to change, or improve on what you know now. Congratulations! I for one have not achieved that as yet.
A PHD in oil well drilling doesn't seem to mean shit either.(see Gulf of Mexico)
Seems you have a few 'issues' with Aajonas and his work. Sometimes another will act like a mirror for us, and reflect what is happening within us. This can be valuable to us if we catch on to it. (reign in the ego first)
At this time I am taking it slowly on his diet suggestions. Going well so far. Some things I haven't tried, mainly because of my own fears, which indicates to me that I'm not ready for those yet. Or maybe I don't need them.
Anyway, that's my bit today.
Cheers for now.
THANK YOU JEDI
saw the av skeptic and didn't make the connection
HEY matt i think you need a newbie section for the 180 lingo
Raw meat is working pretty well for me!
(responding to madMUHHH) Actually, I think he looks a lot more like Mel Gibson than Mark Sisson!
DML, Ian's back (alias Bruce K). I thank you for defending me on PaNu blog in the 180+180=360 story. Dr. Eades distorted things. He said I sent a comment to his blog, saying that my health was ruined by "HED" (eating starch, saturated fat, and unrefined sugar freely – limiting PUFAs and refined sugars and trans fat, having a couple of cheat days with ice cream or chocolate or the like). He says that he rejected my comment to avoid my embarrassment. Why then does he mention it on the PaNu blog months later? And why is he lying about what I said?
What I said in my comment to Eades as I recall was that I apologized for hijacking his forum and I said that I no longer eat the HED as I had described it to him. The whole point of the HED (summarized in #7 guideline) was to go beyond dogma and rules, including any that you see in the HED. Hence, it's not a fixed diet, but an anti-diet which evolves (as Matt has described and discussed here frequently).
High Everything Diet Guidelines
I was depressed for over a year. I blame it on the psychiatric drugs, because the depression began after taking them and didn't go away for months after I weaned off of them, which caused severe withdrawal and more problems. Since September, my health has increased vastly. I can not credit any diet with this, as my diet is more free and relaxed. I eat as many foods as I can, with no dogma. I don't fear any natural food: unbroken whole grains, fresh ground whole grains, beans, seeds, nuts, fish, etc. I do avoid heated industrial oils and high-PUFA oils in general, but I don't worry that there are traces in things like a hamburger or burrito (which I have maybe once or twice a week). When I'm buying food, I would avoid any bread except unbleached unenriched flour, no added oils, and no HFCS.
Reply to Golden Papaya.
You asked: ?why did smallpox and measles and whatever other diseases kill so many Native Americans? Presumably they were healthy and had optimal diets without anything refined, right??
After Saharasia(.org) droughts worldwide, too many people got addicted to the even more deforestating agriculture and its full-lectins destructive grains.
Especially in the middle of the LittleIceAge (1300-1900), the FAMINE and EXHAUSTION epidemics killed a lot…
AUTARKY afforestation and suprvised goats are the best TESTED solution!
Aajonus Vonderpanitz saved my life. I was able to heal my leaky gut by combining a few of his recommendations. He was a brave and brilliant man! RIP
I have been a primal dieter of A.V.’s philosophy for years. Without it I would be a sick or dead fellow. I may smell like old coconut cream, meat or cheese, but I’ll take that over being a cancer-ridden, chemical-fresh smelling pill popper, which is the future of most humans, esp. those hardier than I. When any sickness pops up, I am able to somehow adjust and overcome or use it to become stronger. The primal diet of A.V. is the best gift I’ve ever come across in my life. I’ll keep it.
I’ve read a lot of “Shill Articles” in my day, but this has to be the lamest and dumbest to date