By Matt Stone
Hey it’s ladies night here at the D. Here are some things I’ve been reading lately or that I feel pretty confident is good – written by women or about women…
The first is Taking Up Space: A Guide to Escaping the Diet Maze
Also, as I mentioned in Men: Don’t Let Your Woman Eat Salad, my two most recent and up-to-date books are available until April 23rd in Village Green Network’s Spring eBook Bundle HERE. 30 books for $39. ?Although I haven’t read the other books in the bundle, there are a couple of people in there who are very much in line with the general objectives here – that is, to raise metabolic rate and to be healthy eating in a relaxed, casual manner without extreme restrictions. There are brand new books by two of my favorites in there… One is Real Food for Real Life: How to Eat Healthy Without Going?Completely Crazy by?Emily Benfit (from www.butterbeliever.com). The other is The Nourished Metabolism: The Balanced Guide to How Diet, Exercise, and?Stress Impact Your Metabolic Health by Elizabeth Walling (from www.livingthenourishedlife.com), who has been commenting on my blog since 2008. They just came out and I haven’t had time to read either, but knowing the two of them and seeing the titles I know they will be great.
In other women’s health news, this article?called?why women should not?run?went bonkers all over the internet this past week. I thought it was quite lacking and sensationalist without distinguishing enough between the harmful effects of dieting and the harmful effects of running. Running is probably unhealthy for many individuals in a compromised state, but overall, in a healthy person that is carbed up, caloried up,?and resting well, and doing some complementary resistance training, it’s probably a?great and healthful thing in the right dose.
If you want something infinitely more insightful on the subject, read Suppversity’s Female Athlete Triad.
And of course, on the’topic of women,I don’t want you to miss yesterday’s post on The Best Natural Birth Control Method.
First!
I’m glad there’s more and more literature about being healthy, rather than losing weight… I’m a high school teacher, and I can’t tell you how often I hear girls talk about their size, eating habits, and losing weight. My new reply to them is “Just love yourself… and EAT THE FOOD.”
AMBER ROCKS!
That is all. I take up exactly a Hag Space. Look it up.
xo
hag
Something nice about being first. Thanks again for your recent post on natural birth control.
Hope everyone had a good weekend! Thanks Matt!
I thought I was first…sorry.
Loser. Haha.
I gotta read that book for the simple reason that diet tips
from men goes terribly wrong with me. If i go low fat very high carbs its a major fuck,
i win weight and i lose desire to live. I tried the Potatoes thing, seriously and absolutely no fucking joke i fainted. On the first evening. I don’t faint if i fast which i did all my life, never been a breakfast girl, even when a child. Felt like shit and then i fainted. Just to show the degree of my
conviction that the shit should work for me i did it again and i almost fainted again , except that i had chocolate handy so i i kind of eat it with wrapper and all. For you knowledge i dislike chocolate as bare bar.. it gotta be caked or puncaked or something to be wanted.
Yet it helped. I am seriously persuaded that losing weight is a totally different
matter for my sisters and me,
what works for you guys do not seem to exalt the fat out of our asses..
Which generally is a very bad news considering that the one selling the most successful
weight loss stuff are the guys..
Please don’t exalt any fat from your ass. Other than that do whatever you find effective while monitoring metabolism and other telltale feedback. Amber’s book will be a great fit for you on many fronts, including discussion on gluteal fat.
I think I must not know what “exalt” means. I thought it was to elevate, praise, promote, etc. I have absolutely no idea how one would praise the fat out of one’s ass. If you figure it out, let me know! That could be fun!! :) ha ha ha ha
Exalting the fat of your ass has been a major preoccupation of women for ages Matt,
it just can’t be stopped. I still haven’t found what do it for me though. Diet doesn’t.
Eating’ left..
Now getting more fat onto the ass is becoming a preoccupation. If you wait long enough, your ass will be en vogue. Just hang in there! Be patient!
It already has stopped. http://beautyhigh.com/latest-craze-big-butts/
When I need to feel better about my ass I like to watch the baby’s got back video at YouTube. It makes me laugh too. Oh. My. Gawd. Becky. Look at her butt. It is sooo big. She looks like one of those rap guys girlfriends.
Hey Matt, Have you read Health At Every Size by Linda Bacon Phd?
Fo’ sho’- it’s been quoted multiple times on the site, such as here:
http://180degreehealth.com/2013/01/how-dieting-causes-metabolic-syndrome
I have recently started to follow some of the advice here, actually in attempts to decrease my swollen tongue. I am on 3 grains of armour. I am having difficulty staying asleep at night. Last night I was up for 4 hours after sleeping for 3. My AM temps are 98.3 or higher in the ear. I think that if I was sleeping better, I would be feeling better. Although, without the preservatives and food dyes, etc, my mind is clearer and I have less ADD symptoms. How can I get myself sleeping? Should I eat more at night (I am eating the soup and bread at dinner) with regular meals at breakfast and lunch. Thanks in advance.
And thanks for putting the research into real food and hormones. I have been looking for something like this that makes sense for years!
Are you hot or cold when you go to bed? Do you have to urinate multiple times when you wake up in the middle of the night?
somewhat hot. Yes I do wake a couple times to urinate. When I was on synthroid, I had a saliva cortisol test done and all day I was normal but the nighttime/late evening was a little high.
Well if you are not excessively hot you might try a more calorie dense dinner and even a small evening snack. If that seems to worsen things you might go the complete opposite direction, having a very light dinner and going to bed feeling like your stomach is fairly empty but not to the point of hunger yet.
I just happened to stumble upon Amber’s book yesterday, bought it, read it, and loved it. I really appreciate her balanced perspective. I agree that “sane” is the perfect word to describe her approach. I felt like it is very much in line with the thinking here and found the book to be motivating and comforting. I see that she deals with quite a bit of negativity over there sometimes–we women know how to take each other down, sheesh! I appreciate that she can see it for what it is–oftentimes very sick people in the grips of some form of ED. It’s impressive that she can maintain her compassion! Hers is definitely a voice worth supporting:)
OMG, I’m so stoked. I just got my PMD, a microdermabrasion gadget, to help sand down the acne scars I got from my 15 year eating disorder.
I’m at the highest weight I’ve been since I first started dieting (105), and hear about it daily. It’s SOCIETY Matt. It’s PEOPLE. THEY are to blame. I don’t care what you, Amber or anyone else says. I SUFFER from the bullying. 105 is 10 lbs too heavy for my frame. I’m not perfect at this weight, and people do notice. Never mind that I am wearing the same jeans 15 lbs later (I also wore the size 24, after doing the 4-10 day butter fasts, interval training, blah blah blah), and no matter what anyone says, a size 25 is not a size 2 for the vast majority of the public. People assume I COULD be skinnier IF I WANTED TO, and they are WRONG. I’m not going to hold my breath for anyone to understand because no one ever will. They will never realize what I’ve been through or the damage it has caused.
Yes, SOCIETY and PEOPLE are idiots. That’s why I write, in desperate hopes that it will dramatically increase the number of people worth conversing with, haha.
Hi everyone, I need some help. It’s completely off topic. So I had the onset of acid reflux because of an anxiety come-back and it’s burning my vocal chords (were already inflamed – loss of voice was I think the reason for anxiety, and trying to stay home alone to heal it). Would it be because I’ve started drinking tons of water after the doc’s orders? While I get the anxiety under control, is there anything I could do that would help keep the acid down so it won’t harm my vocal chords any further? It’s very hard to get by without your voice. And let alone to do the things I love :/
Now on the topic of the Page, haha, I myself LOVE Amber. She is so wise and a reassuring presence for all the people who are coming off the dieting bandwagon. Her group Eating the Food is brilliant, and she’s constantly there chiming in, and maintaining the sanity. I too am a lot heavier than what I was before getting sick with an ED, and even my family don’t realize that it’s because of the damage it caused my body (and my brain). I didn’t decide to weigh 40 lbs more because I felt it, but because I had, at the time, no choice. Now I’m healthy and functional, and thank god I have tons of friends who never treated me differently as I gained weight. There was even this one lovely guy who liked me at 130 lbs and treated me no differently at 175 lbs.
Water can definitely trigger heartburn. I wrote about that in one of the earliest posts on the site. Although, the heartburn was only triggered by drinking water when my metabolism was suppressed from dietary restriction or excess exercise – something I discovered when that problem disappeared for me when I stopped doing both in tandem.
Makes sense. Can you suppress your metabolism in a week of anxiety and not eating much because of it? The extra water was probably not helping on top of stress.
Men don’t let your women grow up to eat salads!
Don’t let em eat celery and lettuce and such,
Let em eat taters and pie and pork butts!
I love it!!
Is it my computer or the Amazon link is no longer working?
Anyway, I posted on an old thread, but haven’t gotten a response. I’m new to this website. Been dieting my entire life, mostly low-carb/paleo or just plain old calorie counting. I realized I can only lose weight if I cut my calories below 1100 (meticulously counting and weighing everything too, and filling up on mostly fruits and vegetables). This seemed pretty messed up to me, considering I could easily eat that amount in one late night meal in college when I was 100 pounds. Anyway, my biggest concern is how much weight I’ll have to gain in order to “fix” my crap metabolism. With the summer coming up, I’m kinda freaking out about gaining more weight. I’m 130 pounds, and feel much better when I’m 120. If I gained 10 pounds, I’d look pretty disgusting and have to buy new clothes. Can someone tell me how to not gain weight and still work this program? I’m fine with maintaining for the time being, but mentally I don’t think I can handle the weight gain.
Also, it’s kind of hard piecing all the pieces together of this way of eating. Is there one book that I should read over another (Diet Recovery 2, or Eat for Heat)? Also, how do you feel about intermitten fasting plus eating more salt/sugar and less liquids?
Don’t intermittent fast! It doesn’t work well for us ladies. I did it before, lost 10 lbs, stopped losing and gained those ten lbs back in a WEEK (my grandpa did also pass away that week so that didn’t help). I starved and then turned into a hoover in my eating window lol. See Amber Roger’s latest post. http://gokaleo.com/2013/04/22/hcg-intermittent-fasting-and-ketosis-the-unholy-trinity-of-metabolic-downregulation/
I wish I could say there was a way, but the consensus here seems to be that there is not. Maybe by following the GoKaleo methods or something. I think Matt also has tips for minimizing weight gain but I can’t remember them (eating mostly carbs, maybe, and keeping fat low). I think eating more unprocessed foods would also minimize, but it could potentially minimize healing. I wonder if accupuncture could help, but that is complete conjecture on my part. Unfortunately, it’s tough to heal without weight gain, because your body is in starvation mode.
One thing to think about, though, is what will happen if you don’t heal now. Will you be resigned to eating 800 calories a day to avoid weight gain? 500 eventually?
I’m afraid to say Tina, that if you have even considered going to 1100 to lose weight, never mind done it for long periods, it is almost impossible that you will not put on a significant amount of weight during the healing process. You might put on 10, 30, 50lbs. BUT- a lot of this will be water weight, and it will be TEMPORARY. I don’t say this to scare you- but it is only by accepting the need to overshoot where you think you should be that you will be able to follow through- otherwise you might just stop at the first sign of 5lbs. If you have gotten to the great place of realising something needs to be done, better to help your body asap, to reduce continuing damage, than just stick it out and risk spending the rest of your life starving yourself yet unable to eat almost anything without gaining weight as Amy says. Just think, dieting has caused these problems, and it is only by anti-dieting that you can get out of them- it will be a hysteresis loop in terms of weight, but your body wil finally have the resources to get out of its rut and be where it should be weight-wise, which is likely somewhere you will like!
Thanks for the responses. Why are people overweight then if overeating to “fix” one’s metabolism will ultimately help the person lose weight? Are overweight/obese people purposely stuffing themselves, or do we assume they’ve had a past of dieting and starving themselves as well?
Why do “naturally thin” people seem to eat tiny portions (or at least the ones I know) – friends that have never had a weight problem? They seem to just know when to stop eating, and eat whatever they want – like the French or Japanese?
Like I said, this is all new to me. I’m worried this will also prove as a diet that will fail me, except this time I gained 20 pounds in the process and had to buy a whole new fat wardrobe in the process.
Other than during each of my 3 pregnancies and early childhoold (when i was fat), I’ve always watched what I ate and restricted calories. I’m afraid it’ll take me years to fix the damage. I understand the alternative is to be stuck eating 1000 calories a day just to maintain. Mentally, I’m not sure what I’m ready to do.
Try out Ambers book. I think a lot of obesity is from continual eating of poor quality foods (screwing up metabolic functions and causing nutritional deficiencies) and lack of movement (once again, metabolic disfunction) and then there are PUFA’s and excessive omega 6’s and STRESS, lack of sleep etc. those all do a number on us. I don’t know that you’ll find very many active people that eat real food and as much as they want that are fat.
I have always stayed at a low weight (like 110) without any real effort and now in the past two months I have gained 10 lbs and I feel like I am gaining more too. What can I do? I am really tempted to start restricting things like dessert, etc and watching what I eat. Would that be such a bad thing?
Sarah, start thinking about what’s changed. Are you putting on weight from Rrarfing? Or is it stress? Hormones?
If it’s from Rrarfing, why are you rrarfing if you’ve always maintained your weight effortlessly? Do you have health issues?
If it’s due to stress, sleep deprivation, etc., then you should correct those things rather than restricting dessert.
Well out of really nowhere I started having panic attacks 3 months ago. I am not anymore, but I still have horrible anxiety- like a knife twisting into my chest which makes it hurt to breathe. i wake up in the middle of the night with adrenaline and what kind of feels like palpations. I am just really confused with it all. I’ve been doing lots to figure out my anxiety. I think I’ve always had it but suppressed it maybe? I don’t know why it is all the sudden horrible and almost unbearable sometimes. My hands and feet have been warm but i don’t rrarf and I don’t restrict any food. I’ve had pretty bad fatigue and really haven’t had the energy to work out (I went through 6 months of chronic UTIs that I’ve been helping with acupuncture). I just barley have been feeling more energetic the past couple weeks but still have bad anxiety and am gaining weight. Is all this just my body recovering from being sick for 6-7 months with UTIs? Sorry if this isn’t very legible :) I feel like I’ve been going through the hardest 3 months of my life and can’t figure out how to get back to health.
Yeah, I don’t think it sounds like you need Rrarf, to be honest. If you’ve never restricted food, your body is likely not starving. May I ask if you treated your UTIs with antibiotics? Doctors love giving out cipro for UTIs for some reason, which can cause serious longterm anxiety and other emotional and cognitive issues in some people. It’s a well-known side effect, and there can be a delay in symptom onset, too. It can be a few months after you take it. UTIs themselves can do a number on anxiety issues, too. I’ve also had some UTI issues, and one of my first symptoms is anxiety.
Antibiotics can also cause weight gain unfortunately. I think it’s likely that your weight gain is due to stress, potentially some adrenal fatigue, the stress of the UTIs on your body, and antibiotics.
My advice would be to hang out for a bit and NOT restrict in any way. At the same time, don’t rrarf. Just eat normally and try to take as much care of yourself as you can. Is the accupuncture helping with all of this? If not, homeopathy is also a wonderful treatment for damage caused by medications, as well as for anxiety, IF you can find a good classical homeopath near you. Are you in the NY area?
And just to be clear, it’s generally Cipro and other Fluoroquinolone antibiotics that cause anxiety, etc. Other antibiotics are much less likely to cause these issues.
Yeah I did take cipro! I took 6 rounds of antibiotics (ahhh I know not good). That would actually make a lot of sense. I live in utah. Can these side effects be healed? Does it just take time? I would love any suggestions. If that’s the root of all these problems then maybe I can finally get on the right track to fixing them
Hi Sarah, I took several rounds of Cipro in 2009 for kidney and sinus infections. I ended up on medication for severe depression, anxiety (with a shrink)…….plus I had body aches, fatigue, thinning skin, hair loss and popping joints.
Google the words Cipro damage. Sometimes it’s temporary, sometimes long term or permanent.
Fortunately I’m 90% recovered now. My joints still pop and crack though.
I forgot to add that the last dose of antibiotics I took was in December.
Yeah, sounds like it is very most likely the cipro then! That is a dangerous medicine, I wish doctors would use more caution in prescribing it.
Homeopathy has the ability to heal damage from medicine, it is wonderful for that. People have used it to heal from vaccine damage, among other things, so I bet it has an answer for cipro damage. I only know good homeopaths in NYC, so I am not sure what to recommend for Utah. You might look up Joette Calabrese, who writes for the WAPF, and I know does skype appointments. I have no personal experience with her, but I believe she knows her stuff. Homeopathy is tough in that you really need to work with a good classical homeopath, and there are a lot of quacks out there that you want to avoid. You could try to find a local homeopath but just be very careful (and make sure it’s a classical homeopath with many years of training and good credentials). If you’d like, I can see if my homeopath knows anyone in Utah she would recommend.
I am not aware of any other ways to heal from Cipro side effects. I think there are online communities for people suffering the effects that maybe could offer some suggestions, but from what I understand, conventional medicine doesn’t offer any help. Possibly accupuncture/chinese medicine has a solution, I’m not sure. I read somewhere, I think, that magnesium can help detox from cipro but I don’t really have anything to back that up.
I’m sorry you’re going through all of this.
Also, it may be that if you do nothing at all, the effects will lessen over time. Just wanted to mention that. The forums may be helpful in answering that question.
Amy, thank you so much. I don’t know why the antibiotics causing this didn’t cross my mind before. I think I’ll call Joette if she is someone good. Thanks so much for taking time to answer my questions. you might have saved me from my anxiety :)
I hope so! Let us know how it goes!
It sounds like you have an infection. Have you tried billberry for your UTI? Its the English blueberry. I used it to great effect over 15 years ago now. It cleared up my interstitial cystitis in about 12 weeks. My doctors told me I would suffer with IC forever and that they were very sorry about it. I was sick for 7 years. My Aunty suggested the billberry and I thought ‘bogus!!’ but I tried it to get her to shut up. That was the first day I had any reduction in pain. By day three the pain was gone, but when I stopped taking it the pain would return. I took 3, 3x/day for 12 weeks. Then, I was able to reduce it to 3 once a day. Over time I was able to reduce it to none. I am actually cured. The advantages to the billberry are that there are no known side effects. Its not like taking an antibiotic where it tears you up. It supports the tiny capilaries (spl?). I had a bit of bleeding in the lining of my bladder.
Btw, these kinds of infections are associated with blood sugar issues.
I buy the bilberry on vitacost cause its cheaper, I always buy the standardized.
Just wanted to say I have had a lot of anti-biotics in my life and also suffer from anxiety, at times. IT is often connected to my gut flora believe it or not. Recently I was waking a lot in the night with massive adrenaline anxiety going on. So once again I started concentrating on my gut flora by taking pro-biotics (get a good brand with as many strains of bacteria as possible) on an empty stomach, usually first thing in morning, last thing at night. Took about three days. Whenever I do something to upset gut flora I get anxiety. I would aslo recommend GABA, an amino acid. Have you read The Mood Cure by Julia Ross?? I know Matt doesn’t recommend it but her amino acid protocol is amazing for mood issues. All the best. I think anti biotics screw your health badly.
I am also getting cellulite on my arms and stomach which I’ve never had before! I am pretty stressed about it and don’t feel good with the extra weight. I felt better when I was exercising every day and not eating so much ice cream and stuff!
Matt- thank you so so so much for your webstie and your insight and standing up and writing about what works and what is REAL! Finally, you, goKaleo and youreatopia are all RIGHT ON about everything. You have helped me turn my life around.
I have 4 years of restrictive eating/orthorexic/ REDS habits and obsessive/compulsive exercise addiction (where I would feel the need to do cardio and burn calories every day, never giving myself rest) Never. I became always sick, I couldnt sleep at night, I couldnt sleep ever, but I was ALWAYS tired, always fatigued, my body always hurt, I NEVER had energy, I had no interest in anything, I had no body fat, I was ALWAYS cold and freezing, my hands and feet were and still are cold. I still suffer from most of these signs btw. I lost about 20 pounds by eating 1500 calories a day then “maintained” a bmi of 18.1 by eating 2000 C. a day and exercising every day with cardio.
I found youreatopia 6 months ago– and started eating 3000-4000 a day. But, I never quit the exercise. Despite eating this much, I saw no improvements at all.
I just purchased your diet recovery book today and I have just had an epiphany and I actually gave up cardio for good 4 weeks ago and am finally starting to actually feel somewhat better after the last 3 weeks of feeling like I was run over by a truck and dragged around. I still feel extremely exhausted (despite doing nothing besides standing and walking around at work), but I finally today have felt some energy come back! I am only hoping things get better! But, today after reading your book I just let free! I ate so freely, and happily and will have eaten well over 3000 today! I always eat around 400 G carbs a day and you say thats best for those who ahve struggled with eating disorders and over exercise correct?? but you said if we go way over so like 500-600 grams of carbs thats okay too right And I also love salt! Another good thing I took from the reading?!
The thing that interested me the most was about the water and drinking too much water! I had every one of those symptoms of too much fluid…but that could also be because I had every single sign of a slow metabolism….what are your thoughts?
Thanks!!!!!
Yeah, I generally recommend that people emphasize carbs. I even have some people who, after experimenting and playing around with things, prefer getting up to 80% of their calorie intake from carbs – even more true for those who are exercising a lot. So there’s no real upper limit unless the diet becomes too bland and unenjoyable because their isn’t enough fat there to foster adequate calorie consumption.
Thank you Matt. If I exercised every day (cardio) for the past 4 years (give or take) and just recently gave that up, but still have a job working on my feet 4-5 hours most days…would that put me in the range of someone who is still exercising a lot? Or just being active on the days where I walk around a lot?
*I had exercise addiction for 4 years, and that led into orthorexia and anorexia athletica** So I have just recently stopped doing all cardio trying to get my health back on track…
But I will continue to eat 70-80% thank you.
Thanks i will share this with my gym members. All are ladies.