I mean, they serve this devitalized, sugar-laden, grain-based garbage to kids… why I oughtta!!! Some kids cereals have over 30% of their calories coming from sugar! White, crappy sugar! And grains?? Obviously grains are responsible for the obesity epidemic. As Dr. Mercola has been talking about for years, (and you know he’s a renegade insider that really knows what’s going on), grains spike insulin. I mean, INSULIN!!! Jesus tapdancin’ Christ!!! We know that insulin is the fat storage hormone, and the more carbs you eat, grains and sugar especially… well, Adios kids. R.I.P. Sorry we’ve been making you all obese and diabetic with these damn breakfast cereals. And to think, marketing to young children with prizes and toys and cartoon tigers and toucans and stuff?? Despicable!!!
In a rumored rat study, those that ate the box lived longer than those that ate the cereal! That just says it all right there!
One of the big objectives at this site is to help health fanatics who have found me in the’sauerkraut-scented bowels of the alternative internet health scene to?overcome their irrational?food fears and phobias. And to?help people stop embarrassing themselves in front of?friends and family?with’their psychotic health crusade du jour.
A couple of weeks ago, long-time 180 peep Collden, mentioned something about breakfast cereal?protecting against obesity and diabetes in both kids and adults?- at least in clinical study.?And not all these studies were funded by General Mills?or?were even American-sponsored. While’studies are just studies, each one in isolation being about as important to me as, in the words of R.J. Fletcher, a “festering bowl of dog snot,” there are an awful lot of them. And they all seem to show pretty much the same thing…
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16339127
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18198313
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14647087
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12897044
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16129079
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21868140
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19699835
This one is good from a Paleo standpoint, as fruits and vegetables lost to breakfast cereal and cereal bars in a head-to-head body composition and diet adherence/satisfaction comparison…
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18325135
My favorite is the one that showed that the more sugary and refined’the cereal, the leaner the kids…
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18093352
That’s particularly ironic, as when I googled “breakfast cereal and obesity” I ran into literally hundreds of scathing articles about how horrible and tragic and sinister these breakfast cereals are – and how they are causing obesity like it’s nobody’s business. The ones about sugar in particular were quite venomous. What’s interesting, is that most studies that isolate the effect of sugar, or grains, seem to find the same theme repeated again and again. The more you eat, the leaner you are. It reminds?me of the story Chris Masterjohn told us at dinner after the WAPF conference about how he kept running?into a problem when feeding his experimental rodents buttloads of fructose. They were just too damn lean! The more fructose he gave them the less body fat, visceral fat specifically, that these rat bastards had.
I also posed a question about breakfast cereal and obesity the other day on Facebook, to see what kind of response I got. And the response was big. Most people think breakfast cereal is like el diablo in a box. And while I once claimed that Tony the Tiger ate my appendix, I can no longer say that Tony was fully?responsible. I didn’t eat Frosted Flakes anyway, but “health food cereals.”? If I had been eating Frosted Flakes instead of Kellogg’s Raisin Bran, Total, and Cracklin’ Oat Bran who knows?? Maybe I would still be toting around that little slimy sucker in my lower right abdomen.
What was interesting is how many people that were super lean as kids stepped up to share their cereal experiences. While they, and I too would agree that breakfast cereal probably isn’t the best overall food from a nutrition and health standpoint (that’s not the argument I’m making here), there was certainly some defensive responses to the assertion that eating breakfast cereal would be inherently fattening. The infamous Chuck Johnson even shared a photo of himself at 6’0″, 121 pounds’tearing into?a fresh?box of Cocoa Puffs – a breakfast cereal-based diet was actually something Cocoa Chuck used to get lean when needed?(a box a day will make the obesity go away!).
Anyway, I’ve been eating breakfast cereal again regularly for about 6 months now – and none of that indigestible bran-laden crap either. The simple corn, oat, and rice-based cereals are where it’s at. I find it incredibly convenient in today’s modern world. This is even more important to me now asI sacrificed the niceness of my kitchen in order to afford living 200 feet from what is considered the best beach in the United States. I assure you my health will not suffer from making this choice! I also think there may be something inherently beneficial about eating rapidly-absorbed carbohydrates to break a fast, and doing so in the morning hours when sugar is so hard to hold onto (skipping breakfast always makes my feet colder and and refractometer reading much?lower than skipping?dinner, and many others report the same – although this is by no means universal).
We know there is a huge advantage to eating high-glycemic carbs in a glycogen-depleted?postworkout state. Nothing shuts down the fattening and muscle-wasting stress hormones faster. Even Loren Cordain recognizes the superiority of rapid-release postworkout?carbs. After a long?overnight fast the body is in a similar state, which is probably why eating breakfast has a negative association with obesity -?breakfast cereal in particular amongst?breakfast choices. I certainly have had improvements from eating a sugar and starch-heavy breakfast over the past 6 months. And, perhaps even more importantly, I like it. I grew?up in the cereal generation. It’s a nice thing to wake up to?from time to time. And dude, sometimes the prizes are like totally sick! Some even glow in the frickin’ dark! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!
So yeah, maybe you can relax and have a little breakfast cereal if that’s what you want. And maybe your kids will not suffer from instant death upon Cheerio impact if it makes your life a little less stressful to throw down a box and a carton on a day when you aren’t up for making something that is grassfed, raw, sprouted, fermented, and fried in ghee from Goji-fed Himalayan Yaks. It, at the very least, doesn’t seem to be something to feario.
Well, unless you don’t let it get a little soggy before eating. Then you might get some serious cereal lacerations on the roof of your mouth. Damn Kix. Gets me every time!
Frosted Mini Wheats FTW.
First! Yay! I don’t eat any because I have a hard time stopping-I really like 2nd and 3rd helpings. How do you stop?
Ooh! Just missed the #1 slot. Better luck next time!
Rats! So close! No really, how do you stop? And I never feel full. :0/
Chuck claims to have eaten 1,000 grams of carbs per day in the form of breakfast cereal and still leaned out. Eric Lepine commented on Facebook that he would sit down and eat an entire box of Cap’n Crunch and had 6% bodyfat at the time. None reported that it was very satiating! Nor did they exercise any restraint! So I dunno. I admit it’s not always the most satiating food. It’s no steamin’ pile of pancakes that’s for sure.
It actually was satiating for me. 500 carbs in a sitting leaves me pretty well happy about what I ate.
I was a fat kid when I lived on Bisquick pancakes with Ms. Buttersworth, triple decker PBJs, and Maruchan Ramen.
I got skinny (note not particularly lean like Eric) when I switched to low-fat milk (gallon-ish a day), lots of cereals, and other pretty much pure sugars (white, honey, syrups every time. I by no means was healthy, but not overweight as you can see in the photo.
But Chuck, did you eat this?
http://www.hulu.com/watch/10304/saturday-night-live-colon-blow
Deb, can’t watch it on mobile, but I think I remember the skit. I also remeber consuming some bran product that tasted like dog food mixed with dog shit. They were a 3/4″ rock hard dark brown noodle shape things. Pretty sure they were in the same family of cereals as Colon Blow.
Sounds like Fiber One! Even at age 9 I was so thinking I was going to be the healthiest kid ever due to an increased consumption of this apparently awesome fiber stuff that was being written about all over the box.
Yeah, I would think that the main reason people aren’t satiated is that they stop after only one box :)
If I keep the cereal boxes around me, I will just keep grabbing handfuls. No impetus for me to stop either.
Just read Eat for Heat. New to this approach, post-keto hypothyroidal. So I made granola with oats, walnuts, coconut flakes, maple syrup, coconut oil, salt, cinnamon and ginger, slow toasted. Then added dried figs and apples. Am thinking this will be good warming breakfast with some added protein? Or is the added fat an issue?
Great, now you’re a cereal killer!!
Had 3 bowels earlier today. Cheers to dat
Haha. Yeah, cereal really moves the bowels! 3 bowels is a lot!
uh-huh huh…he said “bowels”……
I have that book: http://www.amazon.com/Cereal-Killer-ebook/dp/B004C4455Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328298370&sr=8-1
I wasn’t very impressed by it.
Ok, now you’re just being mean! My pregnant self was drooling over a box of Capt’n Crunch just yesterday and I didn’t buy it. I usually have nice bacon or sausage and eggs or a smoothie in the mornings. And now you’re saying that the Capt’n WILL make it happen!!?!!!!!!!
Has to be the regular Cap’n Crunch though, in the red box. Crunchberries are gross, like Lucky Charms.
yes i agree crunchberries are gross but if you take em out the remaining crunch squares are doper.
than regular non crunchberry capn crunch,
and canadian fruity pebbles are epic fail giant rocks that taste like crunch berries mixed with kindergarten glue paste. not at all like the american type. if your reading this comment from canada your getting scammed.
Chief: School type paste is a great sub for boogers. Even babies know that. jeez. :-)
Froot Loops and Fruity Pebbles here in the Middle East taste like crud, too. Looking at the ingredients, the flavoring is stuff like “currant extract” and whatever. I bet it’s the same as Canada. A lot of the processed foodstuffs, medicine, and toiletries in this part of the world are made in the UK or contracted with British companies.
At least the Coca Cola here uses real sugar and not high fructose corn syrup.
If you got real sugar in your Coke, it’s worth it.
I’m currently reading Potatoes Not Prozac (weird title, but it’s about using food to rebalance neuro-chemistry for people who are sugar-carb-alcohol dependent). Anyway, she recommends eating protein with carbs at breakfast and other meals. It enhances the body’s ability to utilize the amino acids in protein…the protein helps to stabilized blood sugars and the carbs help make you *hApPy*. :)
Matt, I think you’d like some of the studies she references. Her term ‘sugar sensitive’ is based on studies with mice bred to be ‘alcohol preferring’…and they’re also carb/sweets preferring. A lot of what she recommends jives with RRARFing in many ways.
DesMaisons is okay. There’s a way better way to deal with these issues though. Increasing serotonin production is awful. It’s a good way to become fat and hypometabolic long-term. Serotonin is the hibernation chemical. She needs a refractometer.
Honey Smacks…best…cereal…ever…(and, I believe, the most sugar-laden). Go get’ em Digg’em.
Hey, I find Cracklin’ Oat Bran to be like totally delish. Haven’t eaten cereal for years but bought a box a few weeks ago for nostalgia’s sake.
I also have always found that cereal lets me down after about an hour or two. And I don’t feel that great after eating it either, more like my stomach is just bloated rather than full.
But all of this leaves the more important question: Then what IS causing the childhood obesity epidemic?!
The obesity of children is set into motion before the kid is even born. I point low metabolic rate/high stress hormones/insulin resistance in the parents at conception and during pregnancy as the predomint cause of childhood obesity epidemic. Saying that the cause of that is multifactorial is an understatement.
Don’t forget aspartame and MSG. All those chemicals. My siblings and I have always been thin. We simply are not prone to weight gain (except me a bit when I was recovering from starving, and even then it was very short-term and always within the normal weight range). I could be wrong, but I am convinced a huge part if it is how my mom ate and raised us. She was not at all restrictive but was anti-junk-food and anti-chemical. We ate plenty of sweets, but were not allowed artificial sodas and junk. Pretty much all whole, homemade foods and we ate 3 balanced meals a day and dessert every night after dinner. We definitely had a good amount of refined flour and sugar, and not saying it was healthy, but it was not fattening.
So, its not the rhinovirus going around??
So than what is it that caused their parent’s metabolic derangement?
Yes but (and you gonna have a lot of these coming LOL). Agree on the fast assimilation of the carbs from a metabolic point of view – instant cereals might therefore be good as providing energy.
What is annoying (but I suspect you do grasp the bigger picture and most of the time want catchy articles that start a good debate :-)) is that Matt you very often focus on the benefit of macro-nutrients and forget about the micro ones. Don’t we all agree that health is more than just an addition of macro nutrients, carbs/protein/fat? If RBTI has shown anything that is that minerals might be the most important factors in regaining and maintaining health for example.
So when looking at other aspect of cereals we have:
– rancid vegetable oils because they have been heated at ultra high temperature
-phytates still in the grains because no soaking or sprouting
-refined grains and white sugar displacing other nutrients.
What WAP saw is that vegetable oils, white flour and sugar were evil and sent some traditional people down the drain but I suspect not because they are inherently bad but because they DISPLACE other foods that are nutrients dense. That was his own world, displaced. It is not secret for example that consuming refined white bread for year leads to zinc deficiency if it’s not supplied by other means.
That what bothers me in some of your posts. For all the goodness you do to us all health freaks and geeks, reminding us that there is also a world we can live and eat in, you “seem” sometimes to conveniently forget that micro-nutrients tell another story and that the lack of trace minerals, vitamins or the rancid oils will have consequences on the long run.
Moreover pretty much all non organic cereals are GMO nowadays – not taking a chance personally – and the rat experiment is apparently true. Don’t want to seems like I’m name dropping but I had Sally Fallon Morell and her husband for dinner at home 2 years ago and she told me she knew from the experiment from the guy who did it – and his study, founded by cereals companies, was not allowed to be published afterward. Make of that what you want.
So: ice cream and cereals can be metabolism booster and don’t lead to obesity – OK, totally agree IMO. But saying that they have no danger – disagreed. There are other factors than leaness/bodymass. The simple fact they displace nutrient dance foods will have an impact on the long run.
As I have become grain intolerant years ago at this stage my post is just for the sake or arguing LOL
Keep the good work Matt
I don’t ever want to displace my nutrient dance foods!
LOL I jusy saw my typo, good one. Nutrient dance food make you dance all night long – and actually your displace quite a bit :-)
Micro nutrients are important and I don’t think Matt is discounting that. One thing that everyone seems to be forgetting is that most people eat cereal with milk. If you eat a box of cereal a day, your basically mainlining 1/2 gallon to a gallon of milk along with it, depending on how “milked” you like your cereal. Milk just so happens to be full of a ton of essential micro in an easily absorbed colloidal form.
http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/what_is_in_raw_milk.html
Also, if you shop with a discerning eye, you can find cereals without PUFAS, and the heavily processed cereals will be low in phytates as well because the bran has been removed. You are basically just eating heavily sugared milk. No different than chocolate milk. Which, to quoth random studies that I don’t have the relevant links to, is actually a potent recovery drink from physical stress. I guess what I’m trying to say is….holy crap, this stuff might actually be really good for you. And doesn’t michael phelps eat it? :)
Milk is definitely nutritious. Kids probably get better nutrition from a fortified cereal covered in milk than they would a pop tart and some blue sports drink. But what I think most people forget is that most breakfast cereal is close to being a non-fat food. Those who eat lots of cereal probably end up eating a higher ratio of carbs to fat and protein, especially like Chuck who was using skim milk on his Cocoa Puffs. High-carb diets are notorious for being associated with low BMI. See Asia and Africa. That and the fact that breakfast cereal provides a quick glycogen refuel to start the day are probably the reasons for its leaning effect.
Hey Matt! I have been reading your blogs for the last few days and I am obsessed and so very happy to have found them! I am recovering from over-exercise that lasted 4 years (I have now dropped the cardio and sometimes do weights but that has been about it for the last 4 months with a semi active job 5 days a week)
My question- I eat between 420-500 grams of carbs every day and even during my restriction (which was 1800-2500 cals with exercise, but now I eat 3200-3800 every day) I still ate 350 grams of carbs daily. Most of these carbs come from oatmeal, fruits, high fiber breads and CEREAL. You mention here that a high carb diet results often in low BMI (my BMI is 18.5-19) and I found this so interesting. I kind of wonder myself how I can eat so many carbs (when most people eat like 150-200) and still be lean?? BTW; I am 5’6 and 120-123 pounds.
Is it really okay that I eat this many carbs? My fat gram totals to about 60 per day right now and protein is quite a lot as well. I am a CARB QUEEN.
I guess it is just amazing to me that I can seem to eat 500 grams of carbs every day and stay lean for the most part and others have such a sensitivity to it? Is it the carbs that I eat that make the difference??(oatmeal, high fiber?)
THANK YOU!
If all nutrient needs are not met, the creature receiving the most calories will perish first. Robert McCarrison was able to hasten death in rats by adding butter. Those on just white rice lived much longer than those on white rice and butter. But you are forgetting that a meal of breakfast cereal and milk is quite nutritious. I eat mine with fruit. I probably get more nutrients from breakfast alone than many Americans get all day. More importantly, I’m always at least semi-aware of my body chemistry, which is a much bigger factor in nutrient absorption and utilization than the amount you take in. Still, there is no real hard proof that taking in more and more micronutrients equates to better health and a longer life. It seems like a good idea. And it makes sense. But it’s not definite. It’s something that the nutrition clergyman just take on faith.
I honestly think the rat-butter experiment is equal to the nonsense of drawing conclusion from the rabbit-fed-meat = cholesterol kills you. Rats don’t eat dairy fat in a natural state and they could have died from been unable to metabolize it correctly – who knows? But it’s quite a moronic experiment that says nothing about human physiology and nutrients IMO.Moreover it’s a bit tedious to always find a conclusive study to support a point of view because you’ll always find one. Better stick to systemic observation like Price did on a few generations.
Yes milk is nutritious and all that…But honestly do people who eat cheerios do so with raw milk from pasture fed cows? I doubt it! They do so with crappy supermarket milk from cows who have been injected GMO growth hormones and fed on soy. It would be a real stretch to pretend that the nutrients profile of such milk is equivalent to real milk.
Plus Matt was speaking of commercial cereals brand, not low PUFA healthy granola…
I totally buy this form of eating is a metabolic booster. I however doubt that while flour, while sugar and factory farmed pasteurized milk as the basis of a diet will lead to health in the long run if nutrient DENSE food are not supplied. Why not go directly for such food in the first place then?! Is it really THAT long to cook a porridge in the morning from pre-soaked oaths?! I don’t think so!
The thing is we can find people who heal on convenient food. We can find everything in this world. But the fact is diabetes type 2, obesity, strokes, heart attack and cancers were not hitting our grandparents generation at the same rate, or at all. Don’t give me this BS of life expectancy longer – it’s more or less 5 years more for the past century and kids die from cancer nowadays. Thinking that the way we processed food and eat has not to do with it is IMO a very short sighted view.
So open to new ideas, but not swapping my WAP diet for cheerios I’m telling you :-)
What I encourage people to do is get their bodies working correctly first – most importantly getting them into a healing, parasympathetic-dominant state. After that one might even be able to thrive on cooked porridge. For someone in a chronic stress state, porridge is rough. Crash-a-roni. And it fills you up after like 300 calories. A 1500 calorie breakfast of doughnuts, Frosted Flakes, pasteurized milk, and orange juice is far superior from a short-term metabolic perspective than a bland, gut-filling bowl of oat groats with a 70-calorie hard-boiled egg. That’s a prison ration, but people get filled up on it. Most think that is superior, but for someone with a body temperature well below optimal it definitely isn’t.
I would love for lots of people to be able to eat a super duper whole foods nutritious diet. But not everyone can. Many have to stop eating a diet like that… for health reasons, social reasons, and financial reasons. It’s not sustainable for many but the serious health fanatic. And I’ve seen few obtain “Primitive” Health following such a diet. There is, quite simply, a lot more to health. And healing a sick person is a lot trickier than keeping a Maori villager healthy.
So this kind of answers a question I had. I’ve been reading your e-books (and am completely confused, thank you very much!) and getting ready to start RRARFing, but whole grains fill me up SO FAST and often just sound unappealing for a long time afterward because I feel so full and heavy. Particularly this week, I’ve hardly eaten anything all week because I just don’t feel hungry, and the only things that sound palatable are refined grains (which I usually try to stay away from, so I don’t really have any in the house). So the idea of trying to RRARF with mostly whole grains (which seems to be what you advocate in your Diet Recovery book) just sounds really unattainable. Are you saying here, that maybe my body needs refined grains right now while I try to recover and build up my metabolism, and then I’ll be able to eat more whole grains? That’s what I’m getting out of this.
But I also have another question. In your 180 Degree Kitchen book, one of the “diets” you talk about to try and increase muscle mass is eating mostly carbs and very little fat and sugar. I don’t have any weight to lose (although I wouldn’t mind some more muscle), but my husband gained quite a bit of weight after a surgery a few years ago that he hasn’t been able to keep off since, and so he’s really needing to lose some weight. I thought (from reading the 180 Degree Kitchen book) that you said that eating too much sugar (even in the form of fruit) would inhibit weight loss, and breakfast cereals certainly contain lots of sugar, so I’m confused. (Can you tell I’m an over-thinker? This is why I need you.) I’m really TRYING not to over-think food, but it’s hard, as you can see. I’m just concerned because my husband would really like to lose weight (it’s starting to affect his self-esteem, and he’s usually not concerned about that sort of thing), so I don’t want to say “Here honey, you can now eat lots of breakfast cereal!” if it’s going to cause more weight gain. But breakfast cereal would certainly be a welcome relief, as he has to be to work at 5:30am, and his dear wife surely isn’t waking up that early in the morning to cook him a hot meal! Thanks for your help, Matt. I appreciate your posts that make recovering health fanatics like me laugh at myself. Especially your comment about the “sauerkraut-scented bowels of the alternative internet health scene.” That made me giggle.
From what I know, sugar, or more specifically fructose is much more likely to be stored in the muscle or burned off when in a fasted state. So breakfast, or fasting in some way (not really purposely recommended for low-matab folks I think) would be the best time to have any type of sweets. Also, from what I can gather, whole grains seem to be much more bothersome to peoples digestive systems, and I think they can be considered toxic although I’m no scientist by any means lol. I used to think whole grains was better though..So as far as processed foods and sugar goes, it’s all a bout context. It’s when you’re consuming them, how fast your metabolism is etc…Incorporating more processed starches should increase your appetite. Your husband might want a consultation with Matt or ChiefRok. I’m cheap…I always say just aget a consultation, haha, I’ve never done one myself nor do I even know how to go about doing it =P good luck, I’m tired…
I like your points, Laurent. Nutrient dense foods win for maintaining health. Unfortunately, as easy as it is to soak some oats the night before, I frequently just do not have the energy. That’s right, I don’t have the energy to measure out some oats and throw some water over them with a little vinegar or lemon juice. Then I am wandering around the kitchen like a zombie in the morning trying to find something “I can eat.” So maybe that is my clue that increased metabolism is a better goal for me right now than perfectionism. I don’t think I’ll stop attempting to eat a nutrient rich diet though, just not be so obsessive about it.
Thank you for sparring me the effort of thinking up that distinction myself:)
Dude, are you Cookoo for Cocoa Puffs? lol I guess now I can watch ‘The Road to Wellville’ and not self-righteously proclaim how wrong he was about cereal.
I’m a little leery about breakfast cereals made by big food companies due to iron and other potentially unneeded fortifications – also the possibility GMO which is weird and not something I trust or thing should be trusted. Got anything to allay my qualms?
I’m a little leery too. But I think it’s hard to expect to really live and eat in the modern world without a little collateral damage. Still, we are living long lives in a very exciting, advanced world. I’m not bitter or militant about some of our wackier ideas – like GMO. As humans, we can’t resist tinkering with the world around us. It’s just what we do.
Enjoyed the post, Matt. Think I even laughed out loud a few times, too. :) I have the same question as the above poster – if refined foods have not caused the health epidemic in this country, what has? Or is it just like someone else said, the displacement of nutrient-dense foods? Thanks, keep up the good work. :)
There’s obviously a tipping point when it comes to nutrient displacement. And there’s not one culprit. In general, stress is the cause of all disease. What we eat ties in to that very tightly, as nutrition is a powerful anti-stress weapon. I like to look beyond that more now though, and put the emphasis back on getting a person’s body running correctly. And I’ve found that a great deal of flexibility is needed. Because sometimes the processed foods are the best foods for returning to health, depending on a person’s situation.
Matt, this is unrelated to b-fast cereal (though I will say that I haven’t had Lucky Charms in YEARS and I miss ’em like crazy…), but have you read any of Jack Kruse’s blogs/articles? I came across his site (http://jackkruse.com/) today and was instantly curious what you’d think of his methods and assertions.
I just connected with Jack on Facebook. I’ve been to his site before and thought he sounded like an interesting guy on an interesting investigative path. But that’s pretty much where that path has ended. For now. I hope to look into ol’ Jack more in the future. I’m sure he’s onto something.
I gotta another confession to make.. ate cereal all my life, as an adult etc.. only stopped when raw vegan took the wheel and metabolically drove me into a shit storm of gluten and grain fear. Heck I was still eating oatmeal (soaked over night and then ‘gently’ heated, don’t kill them enzymes!) until the Raw Food Nazi came around and made me stop.
When I ate cereal, mostly, I was thin. All my life. And we added sugar to ours so the milk, yes, milk from the bovine types that roam in the fields, was like syrupy goodness when we were done. We were all very very thin all our kid lives. And I too shredded the roof of my mouth many many times. The Capt never disappointed in that regard.
So look elsewhere kid fat cops, look into crack like easily available monster foods like those at the school cafeteria and where the evil clown lurks. That’s my two cents.
It was nice to scarf carbs with ya Mattie and your pancakes are now the stuff of Young Legend.
xo
haggggalicious
Are you calling me the Raw Food Nazi? I hope so. That would be quite an honor.
Well no, but his name was similar to yours.. initials are MATT MONARCH> there, now when he google searches his name for the 1000th time today he will find this and get really confused.
:_)
I want a hippie name. Like Matt Hummingbird or something.
Matt Rainbow Coyote
Hi Matt,
I came to the same conclusion in my first month or two of RBTI’ing. At first I tried eating “healthy” stuff, like fruit and whole grain cereals, like oatmeal. But after doing some experimenting, I found the more processed and refined the breakfast, the better I felt. I had much more energy, my mood was better, and I was able to build up a healthy appetite for lunch. Glazed donuts seemed to be what worked best for me. :-)
Seriously? Glazed donuts? The man has been frying my brain all week. I’m like a little tea pot (yes, short and stout) ready to get all steamed up (pun intended, Matt) over the idea of eating glazed donuts! My brain says “eeek!” in a scary way. The kid in me says “yipeeeee!!” as if I’m about to get an all day pass with a go-go Gadget arm straight to the cookie jar. I suppose this is one of those individual things…if it works for you it may not work for me. I must say, it’s worth trying. Afterall, I haven’t had a donut in I don’t know how long. *snicker*
Dude, it’s just a doughnut.
Make sure to spell it “doughnut,” or the Brits will pull their hair out. Pippa would kill you if she saw that. Here, I’ll go edit if for you. Just to be safe.
Dunkin Donuts! Beeyatch! That’s right!
I love you Cathy. And I’m glad you played around with it. I was telling someone yesterday that keeping your metabolism high and stress hormones down (warm hands and feet) was definitely healthier and more important than any paltry conversation about the nutritional quality of the food being consumed. At least to a point. I know you’re not eating only doughnuts either. If you keep doing as well as you’re doing you should write a book called “Doughnuts for Diabetes.”
Sigh, I loved donuts so much that I put on 35 pounds in one month, so I am going to sit out this Matt-Munch-Fad.
Doughnuts seem to be the most fattening of all foods. Probably because of the PUFA/high glycemic carb, and sugar combo, and of course the palatability and calorie density. But a lot of it depends on the context in which they are eaten. Only overfeeding during a portion of the day instead of constant munching from dawn to midnight seems to help leptin regulate much better. I find that if I eat constantly and don’t maintain a fasting period of at least 12 hours, it starts to have the reverse effect – body temperature falls and appetite increases. Or if done while totally sedentary, as doing some hard physical activity also prevents this runaway hunger effect. This is the problem I had when I tried to do more of a Ray Peat type of eating – having juice and ice cream and stuff like that at frequent intervals, and late at night. But there is a lot to weight regulation. I know Corena for example ate as many Dunkin’ Doughnuts as she could for like 2 years and couldn’t manage to get above 98 pounds!
I’m still a much bigger fan of high-carb eating when intentionally eating beyond appetite. Foods like doughnuts, ice cream, brownies, burgers, pizza, barbecue, cookies, pastries, chips, french fries, etc. are almost always 50-60% fat by percentage of calories. For me personally, I suspect that the highest percent carb diet that I can eat without undereating is probably the best overall. This ends up being much closer to 60-70% carbohydrate. And this is probably the primary reason why breakfast cereal isn’t fattening in comparison to the above-mentioned foods.
“Dunkin’ Donuts” is a proper noun and is not spelled “Dunkin’ Doughnuts”
This is perfect. I can pig out for breakfast and lunch while my husband is at work, and then pretend to be virtuous with a nice healthy dinner. He doesn’t buy the “I’m gaining weight because I’m not eating or sleeping enough” line.
Out of chex, so I just grabbed the leftover white rice from the fridge and doused it with brown sugar, cinnamon, and raw milk while I read this. Yummm.
How long does it usually take to get metabolism up? I know this is a really old post to be asking questions on…
You should start feeling warmer and seeing some improvement body temperature pretty quickly. Contact me via the “Get Help” tab if you feel you’re not responding like you think you should. There are a lot of snags that people can catch themselves on.
U R blowin my mind. How about cigarettes?
eheheh!
Well, ciggies are great for maintaining a lower BMI as well. But probably not healthy. Maybe ciggies and breakfast cereal belong in the same class.
Ask Eric Callahan. That kids loves his smoke and coke diet. No lie. He’s thin as a rail too. And he wears plaid pants so I know he’s cool.
http://smokescreens.org/chapter1.htm
http://www.lcolby.com/b-chap8.htm
…we now know that cancerous organs turn black. A while ago channel 4 ran some programmes of autopsies done live by Dr Von Hagens, and one episode was on cancer. The woman having the autopsy done was ravaged with cancer, and it was apparent which organs were cancerous by their colour ? they were all black. Going back to the pictures of the two lungs, they are always of a smokers? lung afflicted with cancer, and a non-smokers? lung without cancer ? in other words, the two lungs are not comparable. If a smokers? lung was compared with a non-smokers? lung and neither had cancer, they would both look identical, and the same is true for a smoker and non-smokers? lung with cancer.
…Kephart claims to have done around 1560 autopsies, and he says it is normally impossible to tell whether the deceased was a smoker or not from autopsy. This was confirmed by Dr Jan Zeldenrust, a Dutch pathologist for the Government of Holland from 1951 – 1984. In a television interview in the 1980’s he stated that, translated from Dutch, “I could never see on a pair of lungs if they belonged to a smoker or non-smoker. I can see clearly the difference between sick and healthy lungs. The only black lungs I’ve seen are from peat-workers and coal miners, never from smokers”.
(not a smoker btw)
Awesome post!!! My super ripped and skinny roommate kills frosted flakes everyday with low-fat milk.
What type of cereal is your favorite?
Do you rotate the cereals everyday/week?
I like anything that doesn’t have a lot of bran or isn’t whole wheat. Grape Nuts and Raisin Bran pretty much rape my insides. So like, corn based cereals like corn flakes, kix, frosted flakes, Pops… Rice Krispies, Crispix, and other ricey cereals, and oat-based cereals like cheerios. I never eat the same cereal two days in a row. I just don’t like eating the same thing over and over again.
My wife just told me her 95 year old cajun Granpa Milton has eaten Corn Flakes for breakfast every day of his life, as well as a daily soda pop. He isn’t Jack Lalane or anything, but he is 95 and still drives. He also grew up on a farm and has had plenty of nutrient dense traditional food.
Thanks for sharing! I had frosted flakes this morning. I have been doing rarrfing seriously for 2 weeks now and have been pooping like a champion! 2 huge poops a day! I just pooped a 14 in. smooth cylinder, yay! Another one will come in 2 hours :) I had serious constipation issues before.
To the person who just cringed- hehe there is never “tmi”
I like to hear about others’ poo too!
Nice. So that’s why there was a star above your house and three wise men looking for you. Poop of prophecy.
You actually measured the thing? Marry me?
LOL!
I read a little while back of someone that regularly pooped eating whole grain cereal. Anyway I hadn’t done that in a long time so I tried it and the first time it worked. And I’m getting stools from 12-16 inches. But sometimes it doesn’t work and I know it shouldn’t take but 3-4 hrs at most. Usually I also have some fruit before or at the same time. Do you think it’s the fruit or lack of milk or am I eating too much or too little (I haven’t been able to tell exactly when I’m full for years)? I’m tired of being constipated.
Gave me a good laugh too.
I’ve changed my breakfast so many times over the past year, and have been coming to the conclusion that maybe I need to rotate it every few days–I love the autopilot convenience of same bfast every day, but seem to start feeling sick from it after a while.
Lately, my favorite breaky is like a bowl of cereal, but with a shredded carrot in place of the cereal, with a little protein powder and either herbal tea or nut milk, and some dried fruit over top and a little fresh fruit on the side. It just seems like the best breakfast ever (but I really love carrots)–hope I don’t burn out on it! Thoughts?
I’m going to guess…and I’m new to this, so bear with me…..that the carrots are not as dry and have a higher water content but not as high in water or sugar as apple. I read once that it takes ingesting like 200 carrots to get the same spike in sugar as eating a packet of sugar (er..or something similar in measurement). Out of curiosity, are you peeing more after you eat that breakfast? Or would the protein powder somehow soak it all up?
So you dont think your diet now of more overly processed foods is throwing your blood sugar out of whack and causing your symptoms when you go without breakfast? My SAD eating friends and family cant go without a meal due 2 this.
I was only eating once per day a few weeks ago. I can still go all afternoon, evening, and night with no food at all if needed. Nothing improves this more than processed food. Particularly pancakes and waffles with lots of syrup. But the morning hours is when I have a tendency to get cold feet. That is my only “symptom.”
Matt…I assume you are talking about 24 hour fasts? If so, are you talking about breaking the fast with processed foods?
I was just eating about a 3,000 calories meal buffet-style at lunch every day. That was an eating schedule I played around with for a short while. Convenient yes. I would love to only eat once a week, like a wolf or something. But far from convinced that it is healthier.
Interesting. Would love to see an updated post on your fasting experiences. I’ve been doing 17-18 hour daily fasts for ~4 month now where I skip breakfast…eat a medium-sized meal at noon and a very large dinner by ~6pm or so. Not sure if I have “seen” any results compared to my old three-meals-a-day. I am use to it now…but I occassionally wake up pretty hungry and would love to thrown down several bowls of Honey Smack and Eggo waffles drowning in syrup.
Sometimes once a day Buffet can work for me, but I think eating a huge breakfast AND lunch seems to work better. Either way it’s amazing how much I can and need to eat. I’m also new at this. It’s really fun to eat so many different foods! So far feeling great.
Matt, in your RBTI eBook you were recommending a carby breakfast like oatmeal. This more of the same idea?
I don’t know if the word “recommending” is appropriate. I was just sharing the program, and that was a big part of it. Prior to RBTI I was eating tons of carbohydrates during the first half of the day and really enjoying it. I believe that there are lots of systems that can work to improve health conditions – no two health conditions being identical as to their cause. But yeah, aggressive carb eating during the first half of the day seems to be great for me and my pre-noon sugar dip tendencies.
Mmmm, can you hear the snap-crackle-pop through teh internets now?
BHT…seriously…
BHT, yes. I’m trying to lighten up, but I won’t put that in my kids. Also a lot of sugar cereals have artificual colors, and Red 40 can pack a neurological wallop in some (my seven-year-old for one).
But I have very fod memories of starting my day with a bowl or three of Rice Krispies with milk and sugar. Mmmmmm.
Artificial. Fond. Stoopid iPad keyboard.
I thought even you said that processed food was bad, and the high fructose corn syrup in cereals was bad.
I have no damn clue what to eat. Everything that is good for me according to Person A is bad for me according to Person B. I’m fat and every time I eat something, or don’t eat something, I have no idea if I’m making my situation better or worse.
This is really trying to help people relax about what they eat. I apologize for my lack of certainty about what all the peoples of the earth should be eating, but that is unknowable. Those who pretend to know are usually the ones not educated enough to realize they don’t know everything.
I’m no paleo zealot that thinks having a bowl of frosties is going to kill you, but I think some caution should be taken before starting to eat it every day in an attempt to lower your BMI.
All these studies are observational, and rely on food diaries, which means they don’t really show anything of worth, other than more research could be warranted.
It could easily be that people that eat cereals for breakfast tend to have lower BMIs because they believe it is a healthy thing to do, and also do lots of other “healthy things”, equally, an over weight/ill individual may recall skipping breakfast/making “unhealthy” food choices more often.
I am just playing devils advocate here, however, and agree that trying to blame the obesity epidemic on any one food is ridiculous.
One excerpt I did find particularly interesting from the NHANES III study was this:
“Subjects who ate RTEC, Cooked cereal, or Quick Breads for breakfast had significantly lower BMI compared to Skippers and Meat and Egg eaters… Breakfast skippers and fruit/vegetable eaters had the lowest daily energy intake.”
So breakfast skippers all had higher BMIs and lower daily energy intake?
Yet the researchers made no comment on this!
Maybe they’re all ripped like Martin Berkhan, just forgot to right down the cheese cakes…
That is definitely congruent with my own experience and observation. The leanest and most muscular people I know eat a lot of food.
Jesus tap-dancing Christ:
http://www.bizarrebytes.com/west-virginias-dancing-outlaw-jesco-white/
So many recipes. So few squirrels :(
Ohh the Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia…
Well you better stock up before sugary cereals are $10 a box.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120201135312.htm
This is exactly why the govt needs to keep its nose out of our food supply. Even if they have the best intentions, they affect people’s choices, and if they get it wrong then we are all worse off.
I hate government intervention. When they created prohibition, they only created – and strengthened – organized crime. Whatever they touch gets worse. So if the Fed or State or The Man says sugar and sugary cereals are bad, I say they are not only good but healthy and you should eat them daily.
Glazed donuts and Frosties. You people are effin nuts if you think this is a good road to go down. Why can’t you just eat healthy carbs? This way we won’t have to hear about your health issues 20 yrs down the line. Honestly, all you need to give people is an excuse and they’ll take it. I’m well aware that Matt is not advocating health or anything like it with this article. Don’t give me the nostalgia card either. The only reason you like this crap is because you were fed it as a child and became addicted to it, due to being in the developmental stage of your life. Eat real food morons, not synthesized, artificial junk. In 20yrs you will be thankful
Hey, almighty knower of all things… Explain why Cathy the doughnut eater is seeing improvements in type 2 diabetes, has overcome a serious sleep disorder, and has seen a goiter go away switching to doughnuts and Sierra Mist at age 59. The truth is, you can’t. And the truth hurts. It is in disharmony with your beliefs. It doesn’t make sense. It’s experiences like Cathy’s that should make us all curious and humble, eager to learn more because it shows us just how mysterious and unpredictable human health really is…
“And the truth hurts. It is in disharmony with your beliefs. It doesn’t make sense. It’s experiences like Cathy’s that should make us all curious and humble, eager to learn more…”
like.
Sounds to me like someone needs a heaping bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Cinnamon toast crunch is/was my favorite!!!
Frankly the biggest problem I have with breakfast cereal is how nasty most of them taste. Always hated breakfast cereals, even as a kid. In most cases I’d probably just as soon eat the cardboard box as what’s inside it. At least as far as cold breakfast cereals go. Cold breakfast cereals are the pits. But I did always love fresh thick oatmeal with salt, butter, cream, brown sugar, and maybe some nuts, blueberries, peanut butter ….. . But cold cereal? Blech.
Ack! I was just here trying to find information about triglycerides (since I’ve just been told mine are high). There are various posts on lowering them because I’ll die if I don’t (okay, maybe it wasn’t that severe) and my takeaway was that I needed to avoid refined sugars. Which I do mostly. My doc wants me to do a modified fat diet or something like that, my eyes start to cross when I try to research this sort of thing (totally don’t get the LDL/HDL/glycemic index/triglycerides/cholesterol/etc/etc/etc words), and quite frankly, I went from doing okay to totally confused and even more doubtful that anyone knows what they are talking about. So other posts say stay away from refined sugars and this post says to just eat those refined sugars already!
Sugar turns into triglyceride more easily than other carbohydrates. But more importantly, the higher your metabolism and the more insulin sensitive you are, the more your body will use those as carbohdyrates – putting them into storage as glycogen, and the less likely it will be to store those as fat. The best time to eat sugars is when you haven’t eaten in a long time or you have just exercised. That further increases the chances that they will make it into glycogen storage and not become triglycerides in the blood. High glycemic carbs are usually low in sugar – stuff like potatoes. They are less likely to be converted to trigs as far as I understand. But the real key is to get metabolism up. This usually improves high blood triglyceride issues.
Ever take your morning body temprature readings? Raising metabolism changes trigs, ldl, and hdl.
Thanks – bringing it back to metabolism simplifies it. Now I just need to manage to get my metabolism up some more. My temps aren’t bad, but some room for improvement (I haven’t checked recently, but was reading around 97.5 in the mornings). If only I could manage to consistently get enough sleep I think my metabolism would be golden.
What’s the problem with getting enough sleep? Are you waking up in the middle of the night and having to urinate? Having trouble winding down? Or just have a bunch of ankle biters or something?
I’m so confused! If I eat sugary, cold cereal with milk in the morning, I would be hungry, shaky, wired & tired within 2 hours. How do I get to the point of being able to eat this kind of food again? I’m too scared to even try it :( The diet recovery plan seems to be going well for me so far, but too much sugar, pasta, etc. throws my body into hypoglycemic mess. I used to eat a diet higher in sugar in the morning- protein bars, muffins, etc. One day my body just started hating that and I’ve passed out from it more than I would like to admit. Any ideas?
It takes a while to get back on track. I know several people that have had blackouts from eating a lot of carbs without much protein or fat. Like sushi for example. Right now you’ve just got some reactive hypoglycemia going on. But that can be fixed. Most people end up relying on eating a protein and fat based diet to deal with these swings, but that ends up having an adverse affect on metabolism long-term, in my experience.
I would focus on eating more. Quantity is key when it comes to avoiding the crash. Eating 200-300 grams of carbohydrates in one sitting will help alleviate some of this crash tendency, but it’s easier said than done! It really helps expand glycogen storage and improve glucose metabolism though if you can do some carb workouts like this from time to time though. Keep easing into it. As your metabolism climbs you’ll notice a greater and greater ability to eat carbs without having a hypoglycemia reaction.
Thanks, Matt. I have been eating more- lots more than I have ever eaten in my life! I do notice that I am dealing much better with carbs, but not sugar as much. I can handle sugar at night, but not in the morning or afternoon. AND, I’ve gotten my body temps up one whole degree in two weeks from the low 96’s to the mid 97’s- WOOOOO!! It feels so good to not have ice cold hands and feet (and nose??) as much as I used to. You rock!
Wait til you hit 99 degrees! You’re on your way I’m sure of it!
Whoa, simmer down there big ‘un. It’s hurts my eyes to read Jesus name in vain.
This is so timely, like always. I am currently sitting on the cereal fence. I have gained about 6 lbs in the last few months and am getting scared. I have been eating WTCIWWIWI (whatever the crap I want when I want it) since Thanksgiving. My purty wife gave me about 5 lbs of chocolate for Christmas that I ate in record time. AND, I’ve started eating cereal recently. My two f?vs are CTC & CP (cinnamon toast crunch & cocoa pebbles). Reminds me of Contra for some reason (up up down down left right left right B A start). For some reason I have blamed the cereal for my weight gain. Looks like I just haven’t been eating enough. It’s game on now.
Sorry Johnny. I feel if Cartman can say it, I can too. It’s the Matt Stone in me.
Still doing your sprints? A lot of it could be just from winter. It’s normal to gain a little in the winter and lose a little in the summer even if diet and lifestyle is exactly the same.
No sprints since last spring. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised with my weight gain. In the last 2 years I have done a total of about 1 hour of exercise. I could probably lose the weight if I would do a couple sprints a week. There’s just one problem with that though, it’s about 100% harder than doing absolutely nothing.
Johnny perhaps you just need a new sensei. Your sweep kicks are so refined that you might not be burning off enough carbs. And also, eat more noodles.
I’ve been trying to hire Matt as my new one. I’m willing to pay him double what he makes now.
Oh man oh man… no you didn’t just post about breakfast cereals. I remember that talk from the Wise Traditions conference as well. I actually worked up my own blog post about it. You can find the original Wise Traditions article about it here:
http://www.westonaprice.org/modern-foods/dirty-secrets-of-the-food-processing-industry
The concern, specifically, is that the grains are extruded. You know… modern destructive forms of food processing vs. traditional gentle forms. There is no way to corroborate anything in that article so I decided to send an inquiry to General Mills (since they’re based in the Twin Cities). I remember seeing that exact same post by Collden while waiting for a response. I did one Google search and read one abstract, which corroborated what he said. But without a list of references, I didn’t feel like following up on it myself.
In a later blog post, I was stating in a comment how it’s most likely not the act of processing food itself that’s bad, but the method of processing, and Corena stepped in and said that foods are far more resilient than I imagine and the type of processing (traditional or modern) has much less to do with it.
Sometime after that, my response from General Mills arrived:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Mr. Fontine:
Thank you for your question regarding extruded grains.
You specifically asked whether there were any published studies that examine the health effects of extruded grains on humans or animals. We have not been able to locate any peer-reviewed, published literature on this subject.
Extensive published, peer reviewed data exist on the benefits of consuming cereal, such as lower BMI and increased nutrient intake. We invite you to review this information by visting: http://www.cerealbenefits.com/home.html. However, as you will see, extrusion has not been specifically examined.
We have not seen the study you cite and could not respond to it based on the information provided. For example, it is unclear whether the extruded grain was whole grain puffed wheat or fortified puffed wheat or neither.
Extensive research has been done on the health benefits of whole grain. The science shows that eating whole grains as part of a healthy diet may help protect heart health, manage weight and reduce cancer and diabetes risk. That is why every General Mills Big G cereal contains at least 9 grams of whole grain per serving, and more than 20 General Mills cereals deliver 16 grams or more. Big G cereals are America’s No. 1 source of whole grain at breakfast.
Again, thank you for your inquiry. We hope this information proves useful.
Sincerely,
Barbara Michaels, General Mills Consumer Services
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A few more of my own thoughts. Increased sugar intake may correlate with leanness, but that doesn’t mean you’re not developing fatty liver. Check out Chris Masterjohn’s article on Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver: http://www.westonaprice.org/health-issues/nonalcoholic-fatty-liver-disease. In the third sidebar, he talks about the high-fructose diet causing fatty liver even though it failed to induce obesity. Then again, I don’t think you can draw much from that. If all the studies are showing improved health measures in addition to improved BMI, then it would be less likely that breakfast cereals are causing fatty liver. From the article: “Fatty liver should therefore be suspected on the basis of obesity, diabetes and insulin resistance rather than elevated liver enzymes.”
My response from General Mills emphasizes whole grains, but I’m still not sure where I sit on this regarding Anthony Colpo seems to show refined grains like white rice seem to lead to better nutrient balance than whole grains like brown rice (http://anthonycolpo.com/?p=2418). Anthony Colpo seems a little full of himself.
As far as the fructose experiment Chris performed, he told me in email that he can’t discuss it publicly until the data is published, so we’re not supposed to be mentioning it either.
Funny you should mention Cracklin’ Oat Bran. That and Golden Grahams (which are now whole grain only) are the first two cereals I went for when deciding I would try out breakfast cerreals again. I have to admit, they rival far more labor intensive breakfasts in terms of palatability and are far more convenient. And “Cracklin’ Oat Bran” should just be shortened to “Crack”. But it’s got a much higher ratio of calories from fat compared to other cereals. There’s a lot of palm oil in it I think.
Fructose only seems to cause fatty liver when the body converts the fructose to fat, as in de novo lipogenesis. This you see with insulin resistance, whereas insulin sensitive people have much more capacity for glycogen storage and much higher rates of glucose oxidation – particularly in the postprandial period. But there must be a reason why the body would make this expensive conversion from carbs to fat. I suspect it has something to do with non-use of carbohydrate as a fuel source – or not stimulating the body to use it. The biggest burners of carbohydrate are high intensity exercise and thinking. Modern humans seem to do little of either. I’ve heard that watching television puts the human brain into a deep, low-alpha wave state and metabolic rate is reduced. And it’s the #1 lifestyle factor associated with obesity. There may be many reasons for why that is true though.
If you look at insulin resistance as a disease of impaired sugar storage and usage, it paints a very different picture. To maximize sugar storage and burning, you would probably want to go long periods without food, do high intensity exercise, and eat tons of calories with a strong carbohydrate emphasis. Empty tank, refill tank. Empty tank. Refill tank. I think Chief’s fasting may be helpful because it encourages the body to increase its glycogen storage capacity. This is fantastic for rapid postprandial glucose clearance, and allowing carbs to be sucked up as carbs instead of being converted into fat.
Yes I had similar thoughts about thinking. One of the aspects of being human is the evolutionary tradeoff that took energy and resources away from muscles and the digestive tract and sent them to the brain. I’ve wondered just how much energy the brain uses, but I know it’s a lot. I’m the type of person who has to be constantly mentally occupied. Don’t have that and get a little restless. TV or even a dull book makes me feel like I’m starting to atrophy.
I was wondering about this issue of not utilizing all the energy or utilizing it poorly. I think Chris and Stephen Guyenet have both written about energy overload. It’s something that’s confused me a bit because it’s an argument that leads very easily into “eating too much causes obesity.” But I think the overall picture is very different than that. For someone with a low metabolism eating more actually raises the capacity of the system. My brain’s a little fried right now, but I think I got the gist of it. It would make for a good blog post topic though.
Does reading online have the same effect as watching tv? How about playing a crossword?
No. Internet, crosswords, reading, video games – these all trigger more active use of the brain. TV puts the brain into sort of a catatonic, inactive state. Although I think sitting around a campfire could probably trigger a similar effect! We’re like moths around bright flashing lights. We gravitate towards it, even at our own peril.
Almost certainly they do not. It depends on how interactive it is. Reading is usually very interactive, with lots of thoughts and ideas being assimilated. There is time for reflection, analysis of the ideas read, and incorporation into a larger framework.
Television is about the worst medium for transmitting ideas. It is only capable of sending out sounds and images in rapid fire and lacks the subtelty of the written word. This is better for inducing an emotional reaction than fostering thought. An active mind literally has no chance to keep up with all the biases, misconceptions, etc. that are presented through television. It kind of forces you into a passive state. Nope, not at all the same as reading.
Thanks for your extruded grain research by the way. Very interesting.
AaronF,
Didn’t Chris’s nonalcoholic fatty liver disease article mention a choline deficiency as being a possible culprit? I just remember after reading it thinking how it was good that we are now told that cholesterol isn’t the “demon” we once thought it was and this has given my beloved egg the green light! I felt good knowing that my cravings for fruits and eggs were a good match nutritionally. Of course now I really don’t care and just eat the two because I love them! :-)
Blessings,
Jennifer
Yes Chris is big on choline. There is no animal model that exactly matches fatty liver in humans, but Chris breaks down the three main culprits as follows:
1. Nutritional deficiency – specifically choline and methionine, but also things like B6, B12, and folate.
2. Increased fat and fructose consumption requiring more work and more nutrients in the liver to be processed.
3. Polyunsaturated oils which help cause inflammation and aid in the transition to NASH.
Just ate Lucky Charms last night. My favorites as a kid were Golden Grahams and Crispix. I also like Raisin Bran! (Heck I even recently ate fruit-filled Mini Wheats, even though I assume they are hard to digest.) 2nd and 3rd servings have always been typical. :)
I imagine cereal can be abused, though, simply because it’s just such a quick way to kill hunger and get your sugars up. There’s really nothing else on Earth that has a total preparation time of like 20 seconds. It’s almost irresistible for people too lazy or preoccupied to want to make anything, or even stop to question what they really feel like.
I wonder if the vitamins and minerals are somewhat responsible for cereal’s satisfying kick? (Zinc?)
Matt,
Recently, someone here mentioned the research of Mike & Stuart McInnes – authors of “The Hibernation Diet” so I thought I’d look into it a bit.
According to their research, sleep is when all the good stuff – including weight loss happens.
They claim that fuelling the liver with honey (1:1 glucose/fructose) prior to going to sleep allows the body to enter recovery sleep whereas without adequate liver glycogen the body is forced into gluconeogenesis at the expense of recovery mode.
Apparently, this hormonal state of recovery sleep is exclusively dependant on fat for fuel.
So they’re basically saying that if you top up your liver before sleep then your body burns fat all night.
Any opinions on this?
Metabolism is maximal when glycogen levels are fully topped off. But glycogen replenishment is not something that you do right before bed with a spoonful of honey. I would rather see someone eating 500+ grams of carbs during the day at large feasts to achieve this effect. And doing some hard exercise from time to time to encourage the body to store more glycogen. Use it, or you will lose it.
Still, the belief that we burn fat during sleep is the same dumb thing said about burning fat at low heartrates. It’s a narrow viewpoint that looks at things too mechanically. In my view, burning fat makes your body want to store more fat. Burning sugar makes your body want to store more sugar. Great sugar storage is a hallmark of good health, athleticism, youth, and insulin sensitivity.
But sleep is very important for fat loss for other reasons. As is filling glycogen levels. Both reduce cortisol exposure.
*goes to look for donuts at Whole Foods* (hey, some things die hard!)
I go to Whole Foods for toothpaste! Once a year!
Ask and ye shall receive: this morning after my son’s basketball game there were donuts for a kid’s birthday on the team. That bite of glazed donut that my son let me have was HEAVEN! (I also had frosted mini-wheats for breakfast! Who have I become!)
Yo Matticus,
I’ve been do a sort of IF routine (fast about 16 hours, eat for 8 between 12pm and 8pm) but nothing too strict. I’ll always eat something to bring my sugars up if I start getting cold in the hands and feet and what not. I know I need it. That said, I’ve been eating almost entirely whole foods with the occasional sugary or ice creamy snack, but I’ve been really focusing on whole foods (a lot of whole carbs like whole wheat, corn, oats, brown rice, etc. and not as much fat at the moment) and eating beyond appetite to make sure I get enough calories. Do you think purposely eating an assload of whole foods to stay warm is a good idea (meaning could all the fiber or something be detrimental), or should I just add more processed foods to my diet?
In short, seeing that processed foods are more digestible and thus provide more available calories, do you think it would be feasible (and ok) to just eat more whole foods to ensure a higher calorie intake and thus a maintenance of a high metabolism? Or is it bad to eat such a huge amount of indigestible stuffs?
I think it’s probabably fine. Some need more processed foods because otherwise they don’t get enough calories in while fasting. But you know what to look for when it comes to metabolic downturn. I’m a big fan of whole foods in theory. In a practical sense they’re just not for everybody. I still eat a lot of indigestibles. Mostly fruit.
Eat what you crave. ETF and stop micro-analyzing. My crew of tall skinny peeps eat boatloads of boxed breakfast cereals daily. My triglycerides were high too and now I’m eating more processed foods that ever with astounding results. All bodily functions from deep sleep to regular bowel movements and everything in between are in shipshape condition, full steam ahead!
Maybe some of this also explains how the French stay skinny while eating all that white bread. I remember JT (wonder where he is these days) was a huge proponent of loading up on white rice as a starch and seemed to thrive on it.
Once I had a wild romantic night with a famous rich foreigner. Or at least I thought I did. This post is waaayyy better than that ever was. I have laughed so hard, but now I just want cereal. And you know what, Matt? When I lost 18 pounds about 5 years ago, I did it eating CEREAL! And I forgot all about it until this post! But hey, can anybody help me??? I want this cereal my Mom used to give me as a kid but I can’t think of the name of it, but I remember on TV the commercial said that “Mickey likes it, too”… but what was it? Is anybody here old enough to remember? It was really good!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYEXzx-TINc
That’s it! Thanks!
i’m still trying to wrap my head around all the information on this website…. basically it seems that all we have to do is eat a SAD and we will be healthy? i don’t get get it. why are there so many fat people in the USA if we eat just like the majority of people in this country?
Diet is only one factor in obesity. Meal schedule, meal frequency, sleep, stress, metabolic rate, exercise – you start changing these variables and how one responds to the modern food environment can flip from gaining fat to losing fat. Or, more importantly, flip from losing health to gaining health (which has little to do with bodyweight). What you eat doesn’t matter nearly as much as how your body works. And food can be used as a vessel to get your body functioning in totally different ways, if used correctly. One thing I have noticed is that the more you eat a health food diet, the more fattening a SAD diet becomes! Just like the more you exercise, the more fattening not exercising becomes!
If you fully wrap your head around health and diet, let me know and I’ll try to confuse you some more. I find that the more sure people are about things, typically the more wrong they are.
If people aren’t reading Matt’s comments in addition to his articles, they are missing out on some great stuff.
I wish there was a ‘Like’ or ‘Thank’ button so I could show some appreciation on multiple comments without having to write multiple replies.
I especially like this dropping-of-knowledge:
“If you fully wrap your head around health and diet, let me know and I’ll try to confuse you some more. I find that the more sure people are about things, typically the more wrong they are.”
Amen.
And the reverse is also a delightful observation: the more times a person has been wrong, the more likely they are to be right.
Because when you have that, you have a person who is 1) able to see their errors and 2) willing to admit they were errors and 3) still driven to get it right (even though it inevitably leads to more errors).
In a word: humility.
How many assholes do you know who are able and willing to see and admit that they were wrong? None. Because that’s what makes an asshole, an asshole ? blind faith in his own rightness.
So I guess my fanboy testimonial is:
Matt Stone: he’s most definitely not an asshole ;)
Hey, everybody’s got a heart and an asshole! That’s a classic Mattism for ya there.
Excellent asshole commentary Sirch!
Matt Stone wrote: “What you eat doesn’t matter nearly as much as how your body works. ”
EXCUSE ME??????? What a load of horse manure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Matt Stone wrote: “If you fully wrap your head around health and diet, let me know and I’ll try to confuse you some more. I find that the more sure people are about things, typically the more wrong they are.”
Yes, you seem to be doing a wonderful job of confusing people (no doubt deliberately). Keep up the good work!!!!
Let me say that again, “What you eat doesn’t matter nearly as much as how your body works.”
When you understand what I mean by this, you won’t be calling it horse manure.
Come on Panda, what’s a tiny little problem you’ve got going on? Give me a chance to show you what I mean.
This Panda guy must be workin for the Bilderberg Group, some kinda skull and bones that likes referencing the duke.
Ha ha ha,
I have the feeling I’m gonna have A LOT of FUN on this forum.
Matt Stone is making fools out of you people.
I can see him giggling after each of his posts thinking “My God, people are STOOOOPID and gullible. How STOOOOOPID can people possibly get?”
He says something batshit crazy like “it doesn’t matter what you eat” and it goes unchallenged by everyone? And you still give this guy any credibility? You really think it doesn’t matter what you eat?
If you’re that stupid, you don’t stand a chance. You’re a dead duck.
I don’t know why you brought up the Bilderbergers, but it just so happens that I do believe in conspiracy. And the fact is that the name “Stone” is a freemasonry thing.
There was a recent film called “Stone”. There’s Oliver Stone. Sharon Stone, The Rolling Stones. Look it up.
So it doesn’t surprise me much that someone named Matt ‘Stone’ is portraying himself as a health guru and advising people to eat corn flakes and saying things like ‘it doesn’t matter what you eat.’
This guy is the most OBVIOUS charlatan portraying himself as a health guru I’ve ever seen.
Not that I’m doing RBTI or anything but I’ve definitely been considerate of some of the ideas and I don’t know if you remember me commenting on this but I said something about how I was eating a bunch of cereal but discontinued because I thought maybe the milk was super diluting my “brix” if you would call it that lol. Perhaps you have a suggestive amount of milk to use. Once I read this I went out and got some captain crunch. I like that its just corn oat salt and coconut oil. (I know, its got yellow 5 and bht but hey, its still pretty boss) It’s almost like BUGLES but with oats. Ya peoples, if you didn’t know, the bewgs is made with coconut oil. I’ve been pouring the milk in and stopping juuust when the cereal begins to float. It’s crazy to me but when I was younger and was chubby I’d always wonder why the hell my cousin could eat whole boxes of cereal and was always the skinniest (also hyper and shit, diagnosed with adhd whatever that really means, i’d actually really like to see a post about that sometime if there isnt one) I know of a kid who eats “junk” all the time, does nothing but plays video games, has like a 28″ waist and is like 6’7”. I’m wondering how all the snacking, genetics, metabolism ties in with him being so tall, not muscular, and I’m wondering if eating too often has played a role in him not havin muscle like low growth hormone or somethin but then how is he so tall. Awh who the F*ck knows…. =D Great post buddy Joseph. (ya I just like sayin buddy joseph..)
Playing video games burns a lot of glucose from all that brain activity :)
Do you guys use commentful? I can’t even sign up at the moment for some reason..
It’s posts like this that continue to help me understand RRARFing a little better, despite having read Diet Recovery several times now. While I’ve been eating a big-ger lunch and lighter dinner, I don’t think I’m getting enough in for breakfast. I’ve also gravitated back to cereals in the last few months for the first time in years but have felt guilty, well maybe not guilty but uncomfortable, over even a small bowl…
Add me to the list of people who were healthy, lean, and happy growing up on cereal most days of my childhood…and now have PCOS and all the fun symptoms that accompany a low metabolism. Funny, I have blamed my mother and all the cereal and skim milk for creating my hormonal nightmare. I suppose I will be forwarding this on to her along with an apology note!
Hey Matt & Chief & some who have some viewpoints on this…
You heard of the study of people who were overfeeding with low/normal/high-protein?
Because you advocate a high carb and a low/pro/fat diet.
But is this really good? I mean maybe a little more protein, I am confused with this study.
It seems that you are losing lean mass with only high carb and gaining fat, I know the study is not low fat but read for yourself please.
From Anthony Colpos site I cite the study:
[quote]
on January 4, 2012, the Journal of the American Medical Association finally published the results of another high- versus low-protein overfeeding study, this one headed by prominent obesity researcher George Bray.
In this study, 25 healthy, weight-stable male and female volunteers, aged 18 to 35 years, with a body mass index between 19 and 30, were admitted to the inpatient metabolic unit at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana State University. All food was provided and participants resided in a metabolic unit for the duration of the study, with no prescribed or regular exercise program. Alcohol and caffeine were prohibited throughout the study and smokers were excluded. Meal times were supervised by the dietary staff to ensure all foods were eaten.
Yep, unlike the free-living slop that low-carb shills serve up as ?proof? of their untenable claims, this was a bonafide tightly controlled metabolic ward study.
After consuming a weight-stabilizing diet for 13 to 25 days, the participants were randomized to diets containing 5%, 15%, or 25% protein, which they were overfed during the last 8 weeks of their 10- to 12-week stay in the metabolic unit. The diets contained approximately 40% more calories than required for weight maintenance, which corresponded to an extra 884-1022 calories per day.
Here’s the actual breakdown of the diets consumed: The low protein diet had 6% of energy from protein, 52% from fat, and 42% from carbohydrates. The normal protein diet contained 15% protein, 44% fat, and 41% carbohydrate. The high protein diet had 26% protein, 33% fat, and 41% carbohydrate. There was a mean daily protein intake of 47 g (actual range 43-51 g) of protein in the low-protein diet group, 139 g (117-162 g) in the normal-protein diet group, and 228 g (188-268 g) in the high-protein diet group compared with 90 g (84-97 g) during the weight stabilization period.
Body composition was measured by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) biweekly, resting energy expenditure was measured weekly by ventilated hood, and total energy expenditure by doubly labeled water prior to the overeating and weight stabilization periods and at weeks 7 to 8.
The results?
Overeating produced significantly less weight gain in the low-protein diet group (3.16 kg) compared with the normal protein diet group (6.05 kg) or the high protein diet group (6.51 kg).
In the Miller and Mumford study, the data suggested lower lean tissue gains may have been responsible for the reduced weight gain on the low-protein diet. Thankfully, some 45 years later we have greatly improved technology for measuring body composition, and Bray’s team put it to good use. DEXA showed lean body mass decreased by a mean ?0.70 kg after the low protein diet, compared with mean gains of 2.87 kg and 3.18 kg after the normal and high-protein diets, respectively.
The overall increase in fat mass for all 3 groups was 3.51 kg from baseline and was not significantly different between the 3 groups (P=.89), although the low protein group added on average more than 200g of fat.
Resting energy expenditure, total energy expenditure, and body protein did not increase during overfeeding with the low protein diet. In contrast, resting energy expenditure increased significantly with the normal and high protein diets.
The researchers surmised that ‘the accretion of lean body mass in the normal and high protein groups was the principal contributor to the increase in resting energy expenditure.
[/quote]
So my question is, are you losing lean muscle mass if you are consuming to low protein?
When I read the study it seems like this?
So is it better if you want more muscle to eat more carbs AND protein ’cause you are gaining a lot in comparison with low and normal protein intake??
What do you think?
Sylwester
In that study, it looks like the amount of carbohydrate was the same in each diet. Of course if the carbs are the same and the fat to protein ratio is adjusted, the amount of fat or lean body mass that is added will correspond to that. Try replacing the protein in the low protein diet with carbs instead of fat and that would be a relevant study. Besides, I dont think the diet that Matt and Chief advocate is 5% protein, that is crazy low, that would be pretty tough to do.
Hey CM,
okay maybe Chief will get some more protein in *buffet-rage-mode* but if you are on the RBTi protocol I think it will fit somehow, ’cause breakfast is highcarb (fruit+cereals) maybe 10gram protein + big lunch let’s say 40gr obtained by meat and potatos +- optional 15gr obtained by cottage cheese and salad.
So we had 50gr total, 65gr if we have cottage cheese.
I eat quite a bit of protein certainly higher than 5 % by a long shot and like matt said you can find studies on all sorts of things but using the robotic like food choices in the real world has little merit. I do try to avoid sugar and fat at the exact same time because only very few of my experiments went well. I might try a donut binge after my next fat loss experiment. so far I only see fructose and fat not liking each other but other carbs and fats mixed are good to go if fructose is not present. You can Rock fructose and fat in a highly metabolic state as long as it is below a certain threshold, provided a certain amount of fasting is present beforehand.
typically without steroids body builders need a certain amount of fat to get results but as you get protein and carbs really high it is difficult to not have a decent amount of fat because it taste like cardboard. The best muscle building protocol is high everything diet mixed with kicking ass in the gym nothing compares hands down.
you will notice slightly faster fat loss results with a higher protein ration because of the thermal effect but its not big enough to be worth eating like a weirdo. Especially when you can eat like a badass and steady lose weight. Plus it won’t actually cure your “fatass syndrome” and forcing it by getting a slightly faster fat burn will only make your body fight back regardless what forcing method is chosen. The only meaningful weight loss that lasts will be “accidental” Playing with macro-nutrient ratios will serve no purpose and only steers you further from the “truth”.
any time you streamline macro nutrient ratios going low carb, low fat or low protein you will see differences in fat storage and usage but it does not mean it’s optimum nor is it practical for normal humans. in my opinion its a big waste of time trying to use measuring devices to define dietary ideals. taste the food instead. if the mashed potatoes suck add butter, if the lemonade taste to sweet add water or simply eat less of whatever is repulsively fatty tasting or sugary tasting or meaty tasting….
that’s one of the reasons why buffets are awesome, you use your eyes and tongue to decide things like this. when you go for the second plate and you are no longer craving alot of fat the chocolate cake ends up on the plate instead of the fried chicken.
only in a freakish ab-fetish world where you actually have to calculate a bunch of shit to tweak things in a quest for 11.5 grams more fat burning between week 67 and 68 of your “ultra fat burning ab-progression system” do you actually see results that matter playing with these types of ideas. Do you think people 500 years ago knew what a carb was? I’m sure they would taste a french fry and like it over a boiled potato. if you eat a stick of butter you will like the taste of lays baked chips or rice cakes after because your body does the ratio calculating on its own when you stop trying to figure out what the perfect ratio is by counting grains of rice to not accidentally go below 67.5 % carbs. Eat !
I would assume that the typical bodybuilder diet of high protein AND high carb for bulking up would be ideal. Combined with hard training. The nuances of dealing with real people with real histories and real live health situations and totally different metabolic states, ages, diet histories etc. makes a simple study like this pretty irrelevant in terms of real world application. But in theory, fat is the worst thing to overfeed on from any point of view. Especially during training, as it doesn’t offer much unless intake gets really low, like less than 15% or so I would guess. But without it overfeeding is next to impossible unless you have someone funneling it down your throat!
I just had a light soup with 4 packets of GELATIN added and spent the following hours feeling like I was on METH.
Was THIS close to having someone drive me to the hospital.
I have a feeling having a packet or 2 per day for the last few months has been doing me harm – this possible? I can’t find anything about gelatin having drug-like effects (erowid etc) but this was psychotic and unmistakeable. I gotta dare some of my more adventurous friends and see if it was just me or there’s something to it.
Weird. Was this pork-based gelatin?
been meaning to ask you if you came across any pork derivatives causing any refractometer changes. I dodge jello and stuff but i wonder if things like orange soda porkified additives do anything.
In RBTI that’s certainly the belief – that even small pork exposure can have an effect. It’s not really very sustainable or realistic to avoid all pork exposure though. Maybe something for a really sick person to do. Not necessary for normal people to do to have a good level of functionality.
Crumb,
Gelatin is very high in “free glutamic acid” Can cause the same reactions as
MSG.
MSG is “free glutamic acid” with a sodium molecule attached.
Gelatin causes me some serious trouble too. I can’t do bone broth either for this
reason. Many foods will naturally contain “free glutamic acid” as this occurs when
cooking protein.
Free glutamic acid is also produced in our bodies:
“Our bodies contain about 10 grams of free glutamate (glutamate that’s not bound to protein) at all times, and produce nearly 50 grams of free glutamate daily. In total, we store around 4 pounds of glutamate (both free and protein-bound) in our muscles and organs. ”
http://inkchromatography.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/the-msg-files-part-ii-natural-sources-of-glutamate-in-our-bodies-and-food/
The Obeaster Bunny is real guys! I’m super CEREAL!
-Al Gore
LoL, this was a great post. Not that I’m going to eat breakfast cereal any time soon, but I love how you’re kicking down sacred nutrition idols left and right. I like to avoid GMO corn and processed sugar, so I’ll personally skip the cereals.
BUT, I fully agree with sugars in the morning. Lately I start off with a cup of tea with honey & raw milk first thing in the morning. Then I segue into my big-ass breakfast: 3 scrambled eggs, white basmati rice & spinach, heavily salted. Plus a “green smoothie” (those raw vegans got it RIGHT with the smoothie, IMO…) with mango, pineapple, banana, spinach, some protein powder and a raw egg (farm fresh!). It’s raw, but NOT vegan, and is delicious.
Oh, and if I ever feel a “sugar crash” happening during the day (usually late afternoon), I keep some 4:1 organic sugar & sea salt handy. (4 parts evap. cane juice, 1 part himalayan salt). Just a few dabs of that under the tongue and the “crashy brain fog” goes away in about a minute. Good stuff.
Awesome. The salt at breakfast seems to be a big help too. Not just eating a big meal. And that salt/sugar mix sounds way simpler than what I’ve been suggesting that’s for sure! Wow. You schooled me with your genius brain power!
Appreciate you “getting it” too – as it pertains to the point of this post… kicking down sacred nutrition idols.
I use to be one of the bigger Paleo guys around. USE TO BE is key phrase. Matt, in honor of your post I had TWO large bowls of Honey Smacks with my dinner…then used the leftover brown, sugary milk to dunk a dozen Nutter Butters in. Life is good…and my body is on fire right now!
Oh but John! Don’t you know it’s better to sit around eating organic produce and lean meat and wanting to stab yourself in the face? You’ve just been brainwashed into suddenly forgetting that such foods are deadly. That’s all.
If Honey Smacks and Nutter Butters are brainwashing, I willingly sumbit. :) Keep up the good word Matt…seems like a buch of Sisson bloggers are crashing the site tonight.
Mark Sisson has a new post called “The ?Asian Paradox?: How Can Asians Eat So Much Rice and Not Gain Weight?” Apparently it’s because they’ve adapted to eating large amounts of glucose over 10,000 years, they move around a lot, and they eat a lot of vegetables, offal etc…I’m just sayin, that’s what the article says =P I almost convinced myself to get a coffee enema before…anyone done that? How yall feel about Gerson Therapy? haha. For real though…Sisson really does seem like such a smart guy, he was/is so damn convincing sometimes..
Bob,
I was going to post about that too. I am still on his mailing list from my Sisson days…what a joke. Classic example of Paleo thought…no one else can get away with eating evil rice without turning obese, but the Japanese have been genetically altered to handle it…HAHA. What a joke.
Ya, I still read his stuff from time to time. He does have some interesting things to say sometimes. I feel like this post in particular shows that he is somewhat open to idea that carbs exceeding his recommendations can work given the right circumstances. He even says himself that he used to be a carb guzzler back in his uhhh..what was it, marathon days or some kind of competitive stuff. He knows its possible to be lean and shit with carbohydrates no question. And keep in mind at the end of that Asian post he talks about the rise of the diabetes and obesity epidemics there and also says that there are a large number of the low BMI peeps that are actually just skinny fat people.
Is he still promoting low-carb? I recall he used to say (maybe still does??) that exceeding 150 g of carbs per day or something will lead to “insidious” fat gain. Surely this rice thing completely proves that wrong.
Sure, these Orientals may be moving around and eating nutritious organs and stuff, but this is all stuff he recommends we should do anyway. So is his low-carb advice aimed at people who follow his main advice about being engaging in low-level activity and eating nutrient-dense food (i.e. common sense stuff that every health professional/blogger/etc on the planet recommends)? Given that he now admits such people who eat tons of rice remain lean, how can he possibly maintain this low-carb position?
Or is his low-carb advice only aimed at completely sedentary folks who don’t eat nutritious food? In which case, is he saying these junk food guzzling slobs will avoid insidious fat gain if they stay below 150 g of carbs per day, regardless of what else they eat??
Read about the Maycoba Dean. There you will see some people very well-adapted to carb consumption, getting 70% of their calories from carbohdyrates. When they added more fat to their diets they became obese and diabetic. They are referred to now as the “Pima.”
In Asia obesity is on the rise. Is this because they are adding more carbs to their diet? Or some other factor – dietary, lifestyle, or otherwise?
Ha ha what a tool. Asians move around a lot? What? I can just imagine Sisson’s ‘imagination’ cooking up this theory. All those Asians working their Asian rice-paddocks, moving around all Asian-like eating Asian rice to their rice-adapted-heart’s content. I have a better theory – maybe Asians aren’t fat and can eat rice because they are kung-fu fighting all day and doing ninja stuff at night? Really burns through those carbs.
I have read this site for a couple of days now.
While some information is useful, my initial impression is that Matt Stone is a crackpot charlatan who is leading people on a complete and utter path to confusion with regards to health.
He seems to enjoy finding fault with every health guru out there while he himself protects himself from attacks by suggesting that human health is so complicated that it’s impossible to know anything with any degree of certainty. And therefore maybe processed food is no different than broccoli. Maybe anything goes. Just try your luck eating dog poop every day. Who knows? All health gurus who claim to know something are wrong.
How one can recommend processed breakfast cereal in any health-related discussion is absolutely beyond me.
One only has to look at the fact that virtually every disease has been on the rise since the advent of processed food in society. Similarly, look at the statistics for Asia. Their diets have been changing and incidents of diabetes have been on the rise. And cancer too, I think. Yeah, ok. Pollution and other factors. But don’t tell me it has nothing to do with their diets.
Recommending processed foods is total insanity.
You might still live to 100 eating Cocoa Puffs every morning, just like some smokers live to an old age.
But only if you’re really lucky and blessed by the Gods.
Most of you will drop dead following this crackpot’s advice.
And also, it’s not good that a few multi-national corporations have so much control over the food industry. And these products are shipped long distances. Not good for environment. We need to be buying fresh local produce.
Yes, Matt Stone is right that we can’t avoid ‘collateral damage’ when eating in modern society, but that doesn’t mean you should actively seek out GMO foods.
I mean, just use your intuition. You really think these strange nuggets that have been through God-knows-what can possibly not damage your health?
Matt Stone is either insane or a deliberate con-artist.
When I post the before and after blood results of some of my recent converts you will really think I am a deliberate con artist! Their changes are so dramatic and so quick (think 2 1/2 weeks between tests) that no one of sound mind would ever think that such results could be possible.
Matt, I wouldn’t even know how to interpret blood samples.
The fact is I can link 1000 scientific articles outlining the dangers of processed foods and associated health problems, including breakfast cereals.
Shall I?
So yes, the fact that you’re endorsing these poisons makes you a con artist.
I don’t know. Would you like to watch me help someone reverse type 2 diabetes eating processed foods? Oh wait, that’s irrelevant, “anecdotal” evidence. I know I know. Who cares what happens to real people in the real world? I mean, 1000 Scientific F’N Articles!!! See, I can type that too. Sounds pretty smart doesn’t it. I can also use big words, like “insidious.”
If I was on weed brownies this comment might really blow my mind, but instead its pretty funny. I understand your perspective and anything is possible, but we gotsta be humble. I wouldn’t think Matt would have us pour motor oil on the ground and keep our cars idling in the drive way when we don’t use them per say. I think the idea is, cereal is cereal, it doesn’t necessarily cause you to gain weight/fat or give you diseases, and if anything most cereals in and of themselves could have a leaning effect. All this stuff seriously is super freaking complicated, because you can find different populations doing different things will the same effects. A lot of people that actually attempt to become “healthy” always go overboard and deprive their bodies of much needed energy and nutrition, and cause their bodies more stress than they had before, and all the while we/they feel good at first and get pumped to do more because of the adrenaline responses and stuff. A lot of us need to relax about foods in general and have a freaking bowl of cereal if we want.
I do not understand how doughnuts (UK), sugary cereals, waffles, syrup, cake and sweets are even palatable. I find the taste and thought of said items repulsive. I used to eat them as a very young child <10 years, though for some reason the appeal dropped very quick. Maybe this is why I have always been lean and never had teeth problems going on 25 years strong?
For sure, I eat lots of palatable food that I like. If I went on the cereal diet it would do the opposite of what Matt says cos I would hate it. I agree with you though Matt, if a person is feeling like soggy poo on a lettuce and banana diet, you love cereal with the thought of it turning you on, then for sure go bloody bananas over it.
I could never get on board with the cereal thing though. The combination of refined grains, sugar, oil and random vitamins… nah not for me. I tend to be a brand snob too, if it has a brand and massive advertising budgets my opinion is, avoid.
Somebody said cereal is easy, yup. Lazy definitely. Ease of access and laziness with food has surely got to be one significant downfalls of modern food acquisitions.
Besides, fruit beats cereal no question, even faster than cereal too.
Yeah, eat enough of anything and it becomes unpalatable. Avoid it for long enough and it can taste pretty good. I like to see people go through the process of getting all excited, going overboard, and then finding out there’s really nothing special about all these cracklike foods. They’re really nothing special when you are well-fed. They are very exciting when your body thinks it needs to gain weight. Then you go nuts over them.
Dude…I totally ate too fast today, and got too thirsty right afterwards and drank too fast, and I gotta burp, but it’s hard without feeling like something else will come with it. I’m workin on it though LOL Right now, you couldn’t seduce me with milk from Kim Kardashian. Fuck food right now. hahaha but man I love C20 coconut water its so freaking god mode.
I find it interesting to hear people say that PUFA’s are the devil and that they should be kept to a minimum. I eat quite a lot of them because I have found that they make me feel pretty good.
Am I the only one who feels better with more PUFA’s??
By the way, I didn’t put on weight at all (I mean not at all) when i switched from low pufa to high pufa. As a kid and teenager, i would eat tons of mayannaise, margerine and stuff and i was very lean.
I am still concerned about cancer and PuFA’s but I think that it wouldn’t make sense that they would make me feel good now but give me cancer in 20 years….
What do you think?
Matt i’d like to read an article from you with your take on PUFA’s now.
I have not experienced good things from PUFA, but I have noticed good things from including plenty of olive oil as opposed to, say, only using butter or ghee. Personally, I am wary of using too much PUFA and I think the american diet is overloaded with them. But I don’t worry about eating natural stuff with PUFA like avocados and stuff.
Yeah… I agree with not worrying about unheated PUFA’s in natural stuff like avocados. They grow in a very hot climate that gets hotter than our own body temperature, so if your eating them fresh and unheated, say on a salad or in guacamole, I can’t imagine them becoming trans fats in our system. I just figure fresh is best!
Blessings,
Jennifer
PUFA’s don’t become trans fats when heated. I’ve heard a lot of people say that. I don’t know where that misconception came from. PUFA’s just degrade faster because they are less chemically stable.
Just found today:
Top Off Breakfast with — Chocolate Cake?
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
A full breakfast that includes a sweet dessert contributes to weight loss success, say TAU researchers
http://www.aftau.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=15967
Haven’t read anything on it yet but might be interesting, one of the researchers (looks new) blog:
http://niunadietamas.com/DanielaJakubowicz/?cat=1
Haha. That’s awesome. I love eating foods like that at breakfast. Don’t do well eating them all day though, that’s for sure. But breakfast is perfect for rich food. Not because my metabolism is “at its highest” like the study suggests, but because that’s when it is at its lowest and when I need to raise it up.
Interesting study! I wonder if that is one reason I have (finally!) been able to lose some weight since I started on “RBTI Lite” a few months ago. For my “carby” RBTI breakfast, I often top it off with a sweet treat. Like for breakfast today, I had a poached egg on cheese grits with OJ topped off with a piece of lemon cream cheese pound cake. Nice way to start the day!
I think it would be cool if your next article (or just an article in the near future) was an up-to-date nutrition summary article like you’ve written in the past. Those are great for people just now joining the site as well. You’ve had so many new insights lately what with RBTI and fantastic articles lately and I think condensing those into a new “this is what I’ve been thinking as of late” post would be awesome.
Dude I’m working on a book right now. You shall have videos from the Fit Expo instead. And like it!
Soundz nice brah.
Has anyone brought the calcium magnesium ratio into the debate? This is a major player in one’s health and tends to be very much overlooked.
A high cereal grain diet should raise one’s magnesium levels to be on par with calcium… idealy close to a 1:1 ratio like that of africans and asians. In general the typical western diet (high dairy) is way too calcified. The calcium magnesium ratio can get way out of whack, something in the region of 15:1 if one is a dairy freak, and I imagine cause crazy body problems. Know cells calcify when they die – thats directly opposite to “life giving”.
So thinking outside the box is this a possibility as to why boxed cereal may be of benifit … aside from “other”nutrition?
Frosted flakes and doughnuts 2 heal myself and then eat real food. That’s an interesting theory.kathy R u a real person??lol..So r u saying weston price was wrong when he stated that our modern diseases were caused by these processed foods? It instead was from an increased stress load huh? I’m curious Matt. So u went from eating the original HED diet of unprocessed foods. Foods that we evolved on, foods that have kept us healthy and alive as a species since the dawn of time and u still had ailments? So u decided 2 add back in frosted flakes and chocolate milk and now u feel healthier for it? Call me crazy but that just doesn’t add up man. How would humans still be here if they didn’t have pretzels and cocoa puffs back in the day 2 keep them trim and healthy?
Tim, you’re not crazy. It DOESN’T add up.
It only adds up if you consider that Matt is being paid by Kellog’s and General Mills to endorse their products and is a snake-oil salesman disguised as a health guru.
Cheerios ARE something to be fear-iod.
Matt,
Who paid you to write an article endorsing breakfast cereals (ie The Anti-Christ in a box)?
General Mills? Kellog’s?
You’ll need to do better than that if you expect to win the argument and make a valid point. If it’s anything Matt will do, it’s make you think against conventional ideas.
Even conventional ideas will tell you for the most part refined sugar and highly refined products are not healthy.
For “the most part” they aren’t. But for a starving person with a low metabolism, they can actually be used and outperform unrefined foods. A lot of it linked to their palatability, calorie-density, and digestibility – a perfect recipe for someone with impaired metabolism and digestion. I’m using dietary and lifestyle manipulation here to dramatically change how the body works. You can eat the healthiest, most nutrient-dense diet on earth and still have horrible health at 96 degrees. I would rather see someone get up to 98+ and THEN start to pay more attention to the nutritional quality of their diet, for health maintenance. I doubt I will convince you of the concept I’m getting at here, but I try. Here is what one of the people I work with directly told me yesterday. She is recovering from an eating disordered past, induced by health escapades of various sorts, and lo and behold the processed foods are what is finally able to help her get back to health – after having negligible improvements eating mostly whole foods…
This is definitely an interesting concept. Yes, I think there’s no question that eating a nutrient-dense diet is important and necessary in the long run. BUT, some nutrient-dense carbs can be really hard to digest if you are damaged. I am trying to recover from poor digestion, and this really has me thinking about metabolism now. Gonna start taking my temps. It makes sense to me because I tried low carb, felt good for awhile off grains in terms of digestion, but kept having cravings and eventually felt like shit when I restricted all sweeteners too. Then I found Paul Jaminet and tried adding his concept of “safe starches” and felt so much better. Cravings nonexistent. But then I decided to mess with a good thing when I found WAPF and try eating whole grains instead of white rice and tapioca flour, etc. that were working. I felt guilty just eating starch without any other nutrients. The whole grains do just not work well for me yet, even when sprouted or in sourdough…especially wheat. Hopefully in another year or so I can handle em but not now. Messes up my digestion. I can tell I need plenty of carbs, and potatoes work great…but I can only eat so many potatoes, and so much fruit! They are filling so I know I need some easy to absorb carbs. Totally gonna start making some gluten free white bread and NOT going to feel guilty about the fact that it’s not whole grain. Made some killer GF cinnamon rolls once with just plain white starches. Mmm. I eat plenty of other nutrient-dense foods. This is so interesting. So, even if we’re trying to eat more, and eat more carbs, we still shouldn’t be eating ones that upset our digestion, right? I assume that’s what you’re saying. I tried adding oatmeal back in a few times and it made me super bloated, even when soaked in yogurt for 2 days. Dont think I’ll be going the Cap’n Cruch route, but you’ve convinced me to go back on the safe starch train for awhile…and to up them! Thanks for all your work.
I don’t think sally fallon will be inviting u 2 talk at any more conventions dude lol R u just running out of shit 2 talk and write about? Gotta get more books out and make that cheddar cheese!! This was a great site about health man but its turning into a joke. No offense
I’m dining on Crunchy Nut Cornflakes at present, an incredible British classic (no idea if you have them in the US), but whilst chomping, I wonder if all these mentions of ‘Look at all the skinny kids’, ‘I was so slender eating processed foods growing up’ etc, are valid reasons to celebrate the aforementioned foodstuffs. I may be wrong, but I thought basal metabolic rate is high in children by virtue of the fact that growth requires rapid tissue synthesis etc, as well as tending towards a leaner body mass that can decrease with age.
I am hardly being original and this is congruent with the idea of raising metabolism as adults in a way that renders the kinds of foods we eat almost obsolete for weight management, health etc, but can we ever match what we had as kids? It was my analytical brain that kicked in when I was an adolescent that started to break it down. A burden it may be, but cereal is interesting (and all those other metabolism boosting foods), for stimulating children’s metabolisms as well as adults, but I don’t think eating metabolism-stimulating foods without poor health effects can account for some children just having a fast metabolism anyway.
What some of you do not seem to realize is that many of us are here BECAUSE we have spent a significant part of our lives eating “healthy” foods – unprocessed, unrefined whole grains, soaked, sprouted, etc. Or we have spent years trying low carb, and/or Paleo, and/or etc.. And for many, the end result of eating “healthy” has caused many health problems – hypothyroidism, slow metabolism, hair loss, skin problems, joint and muscle problems, the inability to get warm, weight gain and the inability to lose weight, hypoglycemia, hyperglycemia, irritable bowel syndrome, etc.!
Matt uses his own body as a guinea pig, for our behalf, to try out new approaches to eating and reports honestly on the results. So when he says he has found a way of eating that increases his energy, and enables him to lose weight while eating the foods our bodies naturally crave (pasta, bread, sweets, etc.), I pay attention! I didn’t expect to see any health benefits from following some of the guidelines in Matt’s RBTI e-books, but I figured since none of the “sensible” plans did anything for me, why not give this a try? And no one was more surprised than I was when I started losing weight, gaining tons of energy, my mood improved, and my lifelong sleep disorder was cured in 48 hours.
No one here needs to be educated about the so-called “evils” of processed foods. Do you think we just crawled out from under a rock somewhere? As a 59 year old woman, I grew up eating plenty of refined and processed foods and I was healthy, strong, and athletic. But the past 30 years of eating low carb, and slow carb, and unprocessed, unrefined whole grains resulted in obesity, diabetes, hypothyroidism, and impaired mobility. Time for me to go back to what works well for me – highly digestible, processed, refined foods.
Nobodys trying 2 educate u on anything Kathy. The fact of the matter is the average person doesnt know the basics of what healthy eating is. The very foods that u say are making you feel better make me sick. They gave me sub par health growing up and they bring back all of my old symptoms when I eat them 2day. They are also the reason why were 1 of the sickest countrys in the world. And as other nations are adapting are ways of quick and easy processed foods they’re disease rates start raising just like ours. But I guess its just the increased stress load huh? Get real! Ill take my own experience and the work of Weston Price (whom matt used 2 quote all the time) along with hundreds of thousands of years of human history before these modern foods even existed. So yes I have a problem when the average joe is being duped into thinking these foods are healthy. Your a rare breed Kathy. I guarantee you most people are not going 2 become healthier by adding frosted flakes and sierra mist 2 their daily regimen. The proof is in the pudding
Please Tim, spell Cathy’s name right, ffs.
Thanks for mentioning that, Robert. I guess “Tihm” is not very observant. :-)
So you are saying pudding would be better than Frosted Flakes and Sierra Mist? What kind of pudding? I hear Tapioca is great, but I never really liked the taste of it.
Never tried the pudding but tapioca flour makes awesome pizza crust and Brazilian cheese buns!!
Tim,
I don’t think Cathy is a rare breed. I think she like so many, (including myself)
are blessed to have Matt Stone’s ideas. I know there are many suffering that just haven’t
found Matt. Hopefully, this will change soon.
I too have spent years and, tons of money trying to recover my health. I had run out of
options. I had followed so many “healthy” diets, only to find my health getting worse.
I had been reduced to a useless, couch bound. depressed mess.
I turned 50 this past month. I am an RN. My passion is all things health.
Thanks to Matt, 50 is going to be a great year!
Cathy,
Maybe you were healthy eating processed foods when you were younger because our bodies can tolerate eating unhealthy foods for years before manifesting any illness. That doesn’t necessarily mean the diet wasn’t harmful. And even if you’re losing weight on a specific diet, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s healthy either.
I can’t comment on any particular diets you’ve been on. Maybe you believed you were eating a healthy diet, but maybe you were lacking some things in your diet, despite eating many healthy foods.
People on this forum seem to trust Matt, but some of the stuff he says like “it doesn’t matter what foods you eat” indicates to me that he’s a conman. I suspect that he’s being paid by cereal companies to write articles like this.
There is a clear correlation between the increase in consumption of processed foods and disease. The most recent proof is the recent rise in diseases like diabetes in Asia.
Here’s an article from mercola, who Matt Stone likes to bash. That site has a hell of a lot more integrity than this place.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/11/22/how-ultraprocessed-foods-are-killing-us.aspx
“the rapid rise in consumption of ultra-processed food and drink products, especially since the 1980s, is the main dietary cause of the concurrent rapid rise in obesity and related diseases throughout the world.'”
Don’t let Matt Stone fool you. He’s a swindler. Fear-io the Cheerios.
Ps. How do you know he uses his body as a guinea pig? Have you actually seen what he eats? Or do you just believe everything everybody tells you? And how do you know he’s healthy?
I didn’t say “it doesn’t matter what foods you eat.” What I’m saying is that you can eat the world’s healthiest diet, but with impaired digestion and metabolism your ill health will be perpetuated no matter how healthy the diet is. And in many cases, getting back to a healthy metabolic state is done most efficiently and quickly with refined, highly-palatable, calorie-dense, processed foods. All the negative information about processed foods keeps many people in fear of eating the exact foods they need to be eating to regain their health. I encourage open-mindedness and free experimentation. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that there are many unanticipated improvements that are in total disharmony with logic, scientific study (rarely relevant to an individual’s unique health situation), and anything else you could try to wrap your mind around.
Anyway, your comments are funny. Please don’t stop!
MATT STONE wrote: I didn’t say ?it doesn’t matter what foods you eat. What I’m saying is that you can eat the world’s healthiest diet, but with impaired digestion and metabolism your ill health will be perpetuated no matter how healthy the diet is.
What the hell are you babbling about, man? Why would someone on a healthy diet have impaired digestion and metabolism? No, ill health will NOT be perpetuated no matter how healthy the diet is. You keep making ridiculous claims and I’ll keep mocking you.
MATT STONE wrote: And in many cases, getting back to a healthy metabolic state is done most efficiently and quickly with refined, highly-palatable, calorie-dense, processed foods.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!! If YOU say so. You’re the guru and everyone here just believes every unsubstantiated outrageous moronic claim you make without questioning. Hey MATT, I would like to join your cult. I will follow you blindly. Yes, what we need is MORE processed foods because the cancer/diabetes/heart disease rates aren’t high enough.
MATT STONE: All the negative information about processed foods keeps many people in fear of eating the exact foods they need to be eating to regain their health. I encourage open-mindedness and free experimentation. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that there are many unanticipated improvements that are in total disharmony with logic, scientific study (rarely relevant to an individual’s unique health situation), and anything else you could try to wrap your mind around.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!! You’re hysterically funny. And if anyone is believing this horse poop, you are STOOOOOOOOPID.
Matt, seriously man. Let me save your soul. Free yourself from the bondages of the dark side.
Stop leading your followers astray into the Dark pits of Hell.
Come over to the Light.
Who are you to come on here and bash Matt Stone? I sense a holier than thou attitude. And what is defined as a ‘healthy’ diet is up for debate. Some people claim it is only if you eat a plant-based diet, some say its if your diet is only whole foods, some say its a certain ratio of fat to carbs to protein, some say its eating only fruit! What is your definition of a ‘healthy’ diet? And by the way Matt is not saying we should all eat crap food everyday. And I think you have some research to do on damaged metabolisms not adapting well to a ‘healthy’ diet. Just look at many people who go on plant-based diets who practically starve themselves to death because their body isn’t extracting any fuel from the food they are eating. Just because a food is labeled as ‘healthy’ doesn’t mean its automatically going to convert your body to functioning perfectly.
I have the right to express my opinion.
And my opinion is that Matt Stone is a con artist.
He’s incredibly confusing and misleading (DELIBERATELY). There is already way too much confusion in diet and health. I don’t know why anyone would listen to someone who makes some of the outrageous comments this guy is making. “It doesn’t matter what you eat”. In another post, he said something like “there’s no evidence that an increase in nutrients in diet leads to better health”. That is simply preposterous. Thousands of studies show that vitamins and minerals help prevent disease.
If you want to keep following this guy, go right ahead. But he will not lead you to health.
Some of the comments he makes are completely outrageous, downright false, and completely unscientific and total gibberish.
He is an evil black-hearted liar.
Jesus Christ, have an omelet in the morning. Is that so complicated?
Captain Crunch is the Anti-Christ.
And what’s this last comment? Matt Stone avoids nuts and seeds but eats doughnuts and cereals because of PUFAs? And you people are listening to this horse manure?
You know why you’re listening to it? Because you want to eat garbage because it tastes good and it doesn’t require any effort to prepare. So you like Matt Stone because he’s reassuring you that your junk food diet isn’t that bad.
Muahahahahhahahahahahaha
Good luck when you develop cancer because you’ve replaced nuts and seeds with doughnuts and Captain Crunch.
Hey Matt, come over to The Light any time now.
what’s up with you and poop bro
There is way too much certainty with nutrition and health. I’m just trying to help improve that dangerous state of affairs.
Just to give a little historical perspective here (because I am OLD), when I was growing up in the 50’s, EVERYONE ate plenty of processed, refined foods – bread, pasta, cakes, donuts, etc. No one was eating whole wheat bread or brown rice and you couldn’t have found it on a grocery shelf anywhere in the USA! And yet, obesity was extremely rare, and very few people were even overweight. At that time, baked goods were made with coconut oil or palm oil and they, along with sodas, were sweetened with real sugar. Later on, once these products were made with PUFAS and high fructose corn syrup, suddenly people started becoming fat.
I should be clear that I now avoid PUFAS and high fructose corn syrup whenever possible. I bake my own bread or buy it from bakeries or health food stores and make sure there is no PUFA type oils in them. Same for baked goods – I either make them myself or buy them from a bakery where I can ask about ingredients. I only buy cereals that do not contain PUFAS. As for sodas, I only drink Sierra Mist or Pepsi Throwback, as they are both sweetened with sugar. Any time in the past when I have consumed products made with high fructose corn syrup or PUFAS, I have gained weight rapidly. And now, if I eat products that do contain PUFAS, I quickly develop a lot of inflammation, edema, joint pain, skin rashes, constipation, etc.
I also avoid products made with bread flour, which has a higher gluten content. That is another factor – back in the 50’s, white refined flour had a much lower protein content. But even now, I find I can tolerate all purpose white flour, which has a lower protein content that bread flour. I do eat barley, but the most “quick cook” refined type I can get, and the same with grits, only quick grits. The toxins in grains are found in the germ and the bran so the less of that you can consume, the better! Indigestible fiber feeds the bad bacteria, raises serotonin, which raises cortisol and suppresses the thyroid and leads to a HOST of health problems!
Everyone should watch Stephan’s TED talk, link in the post below:
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2012/02/my-tedx-talk-american-diet-historical.html
Quick presentation on the changes to our diet. Cereals have been around before all the PUFA’s and fake flavours/sweeteners took off. I wouldn’t eat cereal everyday for every meal, but I do eat once in awhile and love it.
very interesting cathy! i don’t think i’ll be eating frosties and koko krunch anytime soon, but it’s a very good point that white flour and sugar don’t cause as much problems as the new-fangled hfcs and artificial chemicals.
matt, what is your stand on PUFAs now? It’s confusing me that you go out of the way to avoid nuts and seeds for their PUFA, but eat things like cereals and donuts and cheap buffets which definitely have way more PUFAs and probably other not-so-good stuff in them as compared to these whole nuts and seeds. I’m not saying I’m going to be eating bags of nuts paleo-style, but I’ve always enjoyed a little toasted sesame oil in stirfries, some walnuts in baking, or cashew/almond paste for curries etc.
Also, I know RBTI is ok to nuts if they’re being cooked, but everyone on 180 who’s been doing RBTI lite have said “I stick to the main stuff like no pork, no nuts and seeds, and eating a big lunch”. Whereas I would have thought the other total no-nos should be more “important”. I have this feeling everyone is choosing just what they want to believe and as much as 180ers tend to be more experimental and open to new ideas, I do think we are all still influenced by past/common beliefs. It’s hard to totally get around our fears, maybe that’s why there are people reacting so strongly and negatively to this post!
Sucrose consumption in particular is way down from what it used to be, despite these endless claims that we are all eating so much “sugar” that don’t describe exactly what kind it is.
Full fat dairy, and lots of it, also used to be the norm. There are cookbooks from the early twentieth century with recipes that called for an entire pound of butter.
Exactly, we eat less carbs and more fat then 100 years ago. So one thing that could be the culprit is the excessive PUFA’s. Go to the grocery store, and almost every processed food as some type of industrial seed/plant oil. Same with every fastfood chain and mainstream restaurant, you can’t escape them in normal life. Home cooked food most of the time is the way to go.
Ray Peat says that PUFA’s are responsible for diabetes and obesity in this country and I would say he is right, given the fact that we used to eat the processed foods (bread, donuts, cake, cookies, etc.) before it was made with PUFA’s and didn’t get fat and then once the PUFA’s were used to make the product, people started getting fat.
It is right there in plain sight, no studies to prove it. But I would agree, and since I remove processed PUFA’s, went low fat (focusing on saturated fats, cholesterol), and high carb, for the last two years, I am seeing steady improvements in my health. I owe this to finding Matt’s site two years, when I was wrecking myself on low-carb primal anti-candida BS.
Peat also has some interesting articles that reference things like radiation exposure (X-rays, atomic detonations), salt restriction (particular combined with diuretic use among pregnant women), low birth weight and the like as being cyclical and generational causes of health problems. He says that low birth weight in the US peaked around 1965, and about 30 years later the death rate from AIDS peaked. That death rate had been rising for years even after the useful anti-AIDS drugs became available.
And a similar effect may be going on with obesity and diabetes, because even today the top researchers in the field don’t have a clear idea of what is causing all this. There have been reports that obesity is starting to level off. We have any number of environmental toxins that just recently have been controlled, such as lead. Not to mention the huge amounts of plastics and petrochemicals, estrogen mimicing drugs and so on in our environment. Maybe the rise in Third World, Chinese, Indian et al. industrial pollution is fueling their own problems.
Combined with the degradation of our food supply these other factors probably have something to do with it, and the key to it all may be society-wide thyroid damage.
I’m personally very very sure of the above, but of course it is hard to link just one factor in a chain of causation.
Great comment. I have replaced all plastic with glass containers, and avoid plastics when possible, every little bit helps I am sure. Yes I do believe Peat has managed to discover the culprits as well.
Matt Stone wrote: I don’t know. Would you like to watch me help someone reverse type 2 diabetes eating processed foods? Oh wait, that’s irrelevant, ?anecdotal? evidence. I know I know. Who cares what happens to real people in the real world? I mean, 1000 Scientific F?N Articles!!! See, I can type that too. Sounds pretty smart doesn’t it. I can also use big words, like ?insidious.
Scientific articles ARE based on real life testing, Matt. And assuming they are ethical, they provide valid insights. Surely you know that, Matt. What preposterous claim would you like us to believe now? That we should dismiss ALL scientific studies?
That’s a pretty bold statement. You’re claiming that you can reverse Type 2 Diabetes with a diet of Captain Crunch for breakfast every day? Sorry, I don’t believe it. Type 2 diabetes didn’t exist until Captain Crunch and friends came along. But go ahead and try your experiment. Please make sure there is someone ethical that isn’t being paid by General Mills supervising it though. If this is really true, then you have a cure for Diabetes. Why hasn’t anybody heard about it? You don’t want to get rich sharing your amazing discovery? How modest of you.
And something else. It isn’t just a matter of physical health. There is evidence to suggest that processed foods dumb people down. I refer you to this article:
http://vigilantcitizen.com/vigilantreport/dumbing-down-society-part-i-foods-beverages-and-meds/
And that’s why you are so SMRT eh. I happen to know that without Matt’s help in the past few months, one of our young family members could have slipped past the point of no return with his health. When good things happen, I don’t have to call in to question the motives behind how we got there. Try some Buteyko and settle down man, your vibrations are not healthy. We’ve got some before and after pics to prove MS’s science.
Yay Buyteko!!!
Sorry, I don’t want to take medication and settle down. I am engaging in spirited healthy debate. If Matt Stone is your guru, then I can understand that you are offended. But I don’t really care.
Some of his suggestions may have helped some people. And if that’s the case then that’s wonderful.
But I believe that he is confusing people and that some of his recommendations are harming people.
Processed foods are one of the main CAUSES of diabetes, NOT a CURE for diabetes.
I am confusing people. You are missing the point. People should be confused about things that are unknown. It is dangerous when people are sure and clear about things that are unknown. There is no information that can be distributed that isn’t both helpful and harmful. I’m not doing this to help people. I do it because I would rather be doing it than anything else. It’s a fulfilling pastime, learning and communicating and stuff that is. The more I learn the more capable I am of helping other people climb out of tough situations with their health. I am finding processed foods to be much more efficient at returning people in really dire metabolic situations back to health.
I think this has been blown out of proportion. I think most people know that in the case of over-dieting or over-exercising, or when recovering from a stomach flu etc. eating processed foods and a lot of calories brings the metabolism back online quicker than a grassfed steak with broccoli. I would think that it’s just the anabolic effect of overeating and over eating steak with broccoli is difficult.
And I think many people also do understand that you cannot continue eating junk food after you have recovered, if you want to stay in good health.
But recommending eating processed foods all the time is not something I would think many people with common sense would agree with.
I’m glad somebody gets what I’m saying. Thank you Paleontologist. There is a huge difference between health recovery and health maintenance.
Buyteko is a breathing technique not a medication. Its AMAZING.
Panda,
Your diet must be working for you? All the “health food” agrees with your digestion?
You sleep well? You feel energized? Life is good?
I don’t see a debate here. I see someone that is looking for answers. I see someone
that has, like the majority here, educated themselves about nutrition. You know enough
to know “junk food” isn’t what one needs to build a healthy body. Trouble is………your
body if failing miserably on “health food.” What to do? You can do like me…..you can
continue to believe you are doing the right thing for your body. You can believe your body is detoxing, you need more probiotics, you need enzymes, you need more water, you should do an extended fast to get rid of toxins, you should do a live cleanse and, colon cleanse. You should spend enormous amounts of money on superior foods and, supplements. You should eat like the physically attractive health guru’s……………until you physically can’t go on.
Perhaps you too need to relax and, ETF? Fear of eating “junk food” is a real problem
I know. But, when the “health foods” leave you flat “literally” you will be thankful for
Matt Stone. :)
If you want to talk of foods dumbing people down. Let me tell you a brief history.
I became an RN. The AHA came every year to give us lectures on a heart healthy diet.
I took the diet serious, followed it to a T. Within 1 year my hair was falling out, I was extremely fatigued, sleeping 12-14 hours a night, waking exhausted. I never thought is was diet
related. I went to three Docs. I was dx with Lupus.
I began reading all things health. Everything I found pointed to eating lean proteins, green
veggies and, fruit for dessert. I continued on this path of eating until I found Dr. Perricone’s
diet “The Perricone Prescription” In the beginning of the diet I felt better. I had more energy, was warmer, and sleeping much better. After about three months I was weak all the time, I was having energy crashes throughout the day.(It felt like I had the flu)
I started to include carbs and, felt some better. Still unable to attain health I continued to
go to Dr.’s, Chiro’s, Naturopaths etc….. By this time I had developed multiple food intolerance’s and, IBS to go along with all my other lovely symptoms. (fatigued constantly,
constipated, cold, hair falling out, fingers and, feet turning blue.)
The next dx I received was gluten and, egg intolerant. I was put on Armour Thyroid too.
Cutting out the gluten, eggs and adding the Armour Thyroid seemed to help………..for about
6 weeks. Then I was back to square one.
I continued to search and, came across Dr. Fuhrman’s diet “Eat to Live” The first 4 weeks seemed like things were improving. I was certain this was my answer. However, all the
symptoms came flooding back, this time it was worse. My stomach hurt constantly, I was so weak and, depressed. The constipation was the worst I had had. The stools were not dry or
hard. Yet, my colon lacked any energy to expel stool. Reading Dr. Furhman’s information
I continued in this vein for eight months. Crazy I know. But, you know all the junk about
your body is detoxing, it just takes time for your colon to adjust to the increase in fiber etc…
I wanted to believe I was doing the best for my body.
Here is the kicker, my head started having symptoms. I had a heavy flat feeling in the top
of my head. I had trouble maintaining my balance. I would get dizzy, my ears were full
of pressure exactly like the feeling you get when taking off in an airplane. Trouble is, the pressure wouldn’t leave. I could pop my ears and, did all day long with no relief. It is here
that I became couch bound. My body was as weak as if I had had the stomach flu for days.
However, I was eating “healthy foods”
I went to the Dr., they didn’t check me for one thing. They handed me a script for antibiotics
and sent me home. Desperate, I took the antibiotics. NO HELP.
I found paleo. I jumped in with both feet. I was excited for about 2 months things looked better! I had energy! However, that was short lived too. I was cold, hair falling out, pressure
in my head, dizzy, weak and, couldn’t do anything but hang out on the couch,
Everyone would tell me how great I looked. Constantly the voices came……”But, you don’t
look sick.” I had visions of taking a gun to my head. The pressure was so intense, I couldn’t
understand how my head didn’t explode. I couldn’t remember anything. I couldn’t take
care of myself.
Thank the Lord I could manage some time daily to get on blogs and, read. During this time
I found Matt! He was talking about RBTI……. I jumped on the chance that perhaps this would be my answer. However, RBTI was not for me. I lost even more energy on the program.
Yet, I learned a great deal too! I learned about how to use a refractometer. That was
the beginning of better days.
I continued to read Matt’s blog. I jumped on Matt’s overfeeding ideas. Sorry Matt, can’t remember the acronym. This was back in the summer of 2011. I don’t remember the exact
date but, one could find my old comments. (if interested)
Using the refractometer I was able to see clearly what foods helped me to gain energy.
In the beginning, everything was a problem. I couldn’t tolerate any sugars. All “healthy”
foods left me flat. I started eating enormous amounts of white rice, white potatoes, and
butter. I gave up all veggies and, had very little fruit.
It has been months,…….there were plenty of low days in the beginning. I used the refractometer to gauge what foods were ultimately helping increase my energy.
Jump forward to today.
I can eat many foods now including sugar. :) I still eat plenty of rice and, potatoes. I will eat
homemade gluten free baked goods. I refrain from PUFA’s, and high fructose corn syrup.
I feel better than I have been in years. I went to the Dr. again this past month. She ran test and, stated “You do not have Lupus.” Wow!
I do have some autoimmune issues, but not lupus. :) While my diet is less than stellar. It
is bringing healing. I hope to gradually increase fruits and, veggies. I do include some
meat. I take some supplements. I drink very little water.
My life is good. My head does continue to have some trouble. My memory isn’t what it
was. At times I have cried about the loss. But, if I had been eating my pancakes and, syrup for breakfast………I don’t think this would have ever happened to me. =P Well……….I don’t
know. I strongly think AHA started the ball rolling. All the stupid PUFA’s, and gluten!
Seriously, I am so thankful for Matt. I hope you can relax and, love him too. :)
It’s comments like these that make doing this and pissing people off with my willingness to confront other people’s beliefs worthwhile. Yay refractometer!
Oops, that was a “liver cleanse”
Matt, do you know why my post printed out like that? All the weird one word lines?
It makes it hard to read. Sorry.
Well, here is another comment to make you feel good, Matt. (Unless by now, Satan has dragged you to Hell for talking about breakfast cereal!)
I have been on the road for the past month in search of a place where my husband and I can retire to. (Anywhere but Maine, where we now live!) I had lost about 8 pounds since I started doing my version of RBTI (RBTI “Lite” – no supplements or testing) prior to the trip. I brought my digital scale along on the trip but never took it out of the car. Being at the mercy of “road food” (Crackerbarrel, Sonic, Dairy Queen, Bob Evans, etc.), I figured there was no sense upsetting myself by watching the scale go up. I did my best to avoid PUFAS but since they are EVERYWHERE, I was eating some. I also became quite the “gourmet chef” in my motel room with my electric skillet and microwave. I did stick to the recommended meal times, drank the water and lemonade as desired, had my daily “dose” of Pepsi Throwback and Sierra Mist, avoided the “no no’s” as much as possible, and ate the recommended type foods at the recommended meals.
Yesterday I decided it was time to face the music and weighed myself. I ALWAYS gain weight when I am traveling, and after a month of traveling, I expected to be up at the very least by 5 to 7 pounds. Imagine my surprise when I saw that I had LOST 7 pounds during my month on the road! I weighed myself 3 times because I was sure there had to be some kind of malfunction.
So I have now lost 15 pounds in 3 months following RBTI! I am totally amazed. That is not an amazing rate of weight loss, but losing 15 pounds while eating lunches at Crackerbarrel like fried chicken livers, mac and cheese, carrots, and chocolate cake (made with Coca Cola – to die for!) topped with ice cream IS amazing! (Or freakin’ epic, as you would say!) :-)
I’m truly perplexed.
What healthy foods are causing your feet to turn blue exactly? Broccoli?
I had pasta the other day and then I had stomach cramps. Some bad foods do not show immediate negative symptoms. It’s only after consuming them for many years. Like Coca-cola.
But for some reason, this forum is like Bizarro world. People complain of IBS and blue feet with vegetables and rave about mac and cheese and coca-cola.
Ok, I surrender.
Or maybe not. He he he.
I’ll keep reading and keep making comments.
If you people can convince me that Matt Stone is the GOD OF NUTRITION, then I will bow and worship him.
I’m still not convinced. I think that maybe other diets people have tried weren’t good for them. Maybe some of Matt’s recommendations helped in the SHORT TERM to alleviate some of the symptoms, but it doesn’t necessarily mean his recommendations are good for sustaining long-term health.
Matt,
I’ve been following your blog for a while now and have finally decided to really start following some of your advice, so I feel I should comment.
First, a little background on where I’m coming from. A few years ago I lost a bunch of weight with a low fat diet, very low cal diet and stimulants (sudafed & tons of caffeine) and lots of cardio. I went from a chubby 160 lbs. on a 6 ft. frame to about 110 lbs. by the end of this pattern. I felt so great being “fit” that I just kept going with it until I was way too thin/malnourished. I began to suffer constipation all the time along and was chronically using laxatives which probably only made things worse. I was always very cold and had very little feeling in my hands and feet and was constantly tired. I was mentally pretty screwed up – brain fog, severe depression, mood swings, poor memory. I was obsessed about finding out what was “wrong” with me or what disease I had. Was it candida, lyme disease, fructose intolerance, celiac disease… I looked in to just about everything possibly related. Things only ever got worse.
In comes gluten avoidance, grain avoidance, sugar avoidance and finally paleo/primal. I stuck with this pretty well for maybe 6 months. It felt good, I completely stopped using stimulants except for maybe a cup or two of coffee a day. I was more mentally clear, had more energy, felt more even and calm. But, I still obsessed about food and whether what I ate adhered to the “primal laws” and eventually I felt slow and tired constantly.
At this point I tried the whole LFRV thing because it sounded like it would give me more energy and seemed promising. It never really work, made my gut problems worse and I couldn’t really stick with it. It was about this time that I started looking at your blog, but never stuck with that either because I was too distracted by other things going on in my life to focus on my diet completely. So I went back to eating very little and using lots of stimulants again (yeah really stupid), lost more weight (after having gained some on paleo), and felt shitty all around.
This is where I finally started gradually following your advice (RRARF) more and more starting a couple months ago. I just ate as much as I wanted of more or less what ever I wanted (still avoided PUFAs like the plague) eating pretty high carb, moderate protein and relatively low fat because this is what I desired. I started out with less refined stuff (potatoes, rice, oatmeal, bran cereal, lots of fruit) and I’ve recently been eating mostly refined stuff (bread, bagels, sugary cereal w/ skim milk, milkshakes) and have been taking lots of vitamin/mineral supplements.
The thing is I’ve been feeling great with all the refined stuff and supplements. I have plenty of physical and mental energy, warmer, brain fog is gone, I’m almost always in a good mood (still haven’t been sleeping great though). I feel the best I have in years, but I’ve started gaining weight. I know I need to still (I’m only about 130 lbs.) and I was ok with it at first, but I’ve had real issues with body image (which led to eating disorders) most of my life and I’m having trouble with the fat gain.
I really want to stick with it and can deal with gaining some fat, but I’m getting towards a point where I’m uncomfortable with my body again and don’t want that to be the ruin of all the positive changes I’ve had. Any advice on minimizing fat gain and increasing muscle? Anyways thanks for all that you’ve researched and writen, it’s opened my eyes to a lot and I feel so much better. And sorry for the long post.
I just listened to the podcast on The Livin’ Low Carb Show:
http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/1740/matt-stone-wants-turns-health-180-degrees-episode-346/
Matt, in that interview you specifically advise that people should be eating “high quality UNREFINED food”. Breakfast cereals are UNREFINED foods?
You’re contradicting YOURSELF, never mind scientific research and common sense.
You’ve changed your stance? You don’t think it’s so important to eat UNREFINED food anymore?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
It’s FUNNY seeing you trip all over yourself, Matt.
Matt,
In that podcast you ADMIT that what Gary Taubes said is true, that is that REFINED (ie PROCESSED) foods are connected to all major illnesses.
The only reason I can see that you’ve changed your song and dance is that General Mills is paying you to write this stuff in this blog.
Sad stuff to see people sell their souls.
Come to the Light, Matt. We have raw milk and gluten-free cookies.
Panda, I would say Matt knows more then he used to and therefore would probably take back some things that he has said. We all grow and sometimes will probably feel silly about things we were sure of. Listening to podcasts, I feel like the pressure of someone else’s beliefs tend to somewhat filter what you say to come to some kind of agreement because otherwise “health dudes” would just argue the whole time. I can honestly say that Matt’s recommendations have made my digestive system 5 times more resilient than it almost ever has been. Things that I never thought I’d be able to eat again I’m smashing. I’m not lactose intolerant anymore at this point. High gluten flour pizza doesn’t bother me. I’m not saying it’s necessarily healthy, and I don’t think anyone would, but I don’t stress about it if I have it and that’s much healthier. You had stomach cramps from pasta, I know ALL ABOUT digestive pain. Heck, my GI and health problems, and attempts to try to fix it has totally had a large impact on my life. My education growin up, missing a lot of school, feelin like crap, drinkin, lack of women the list goes on. I accelerated the shit out of my predisposition of hair loss in the family, lost muscle, maybe even stunted my growth somewhat. Maybe this is only temporary and I’ll start to have new problems down the line and once again become intolerant to grain proteins and lactose and have bouts of IBS all the time, but I doubt it. I’m not fully healed or anything and I’m sure I’m capable of having stomach problems still, but I’m doin pretty damn good. It makes a lot of sense that having a high metabolism just makes the body so much more resilient against the foods we eat. I hope you stick around and keep reading and maybe toy with the idea’s we’re all talking about and maybe have some breakthroughs yourself!
Panda, Matt isn’t telling anyone that processed cereals
are healthy. Nor, is he denying that whole foods are healthy.
What he is saying, If your motor is broken to the point where you can’t burn harder
to digest/assimilate “healthy foods”………then try some refined foods. Relax a little.
It will be ok to help you, in your broken state.
He is not saying it is the healthiest thing to eat, or that it is healthy at all. He did say
people that eat a lot of it, tend to be lean. We all know that being lean, doesn’t make
you healthy. I have always been thin. Many fat people could run rings around me.
Panda read the meat, of what Matt Stone is about. One or, two posts
will not get you understanding.
Hey Panda,
I’ve lost 77lbs (35kgs) over a year, and have now kept it off for 10 months by following a lot of Matt Stone’s advice. I am 30 and have so much more energy and feel great.
Still following along Matt, just had some yummy cereal for breakfast. Loving the freedom of eating what I feel like!
Betty, it’s hard to know what Matt is saying exactly because he does seem to contradict himself quite a bit. And then he makes statements like ‘confusion is good’ which makes it all the more confusing.
In this blog, you didn’t notice that he claimed that he has cured people of Type II Diabetes with processed foods? Well ok, he didn’t say with breakfast cereals, but he is definitely INSINUATING that breakfast cereals are healthy with that statement.
Why am I the only one who has noticed that Matt is making PREPOSTEROUS UNSUBSTANTIATED CLAIMS?
I mean seriously, if he keeps making claims like that, he could get himself sued one day. He’s misleading people. And sorry Bob Dean, I don’t buy your argument. I think if Matt goes on any reputable talk show and starts making claims that he’s making in this blog, he will quickly become the laughing stock of the nutrition world.
People’s abilities to digest things can change. Also, our digestion can adapt to different palatabilities of foods and adjust the transit time accordingly for proper absorption, and water content etc…Like, someone eatin a bunch of protein all the time would have a certain digestion goin on, then switch to eating only bananas all of the sudden. Most likely some interesting things will occur, but if you keep at it, you’ll get used to it. Hypothetically speaking of course, wouldn’t want you to start saying I’m recommending nothing but bananas now lol. There is a blog post actually on this site about raw vs cooked foods and how digestion has to adapt actually. Don’t remember what its called. Makes some good sense. I know you’ll love to find holes in that. Which is good. Sometimes people get sick and can’t really stomach much, perhaps they should never eat food again if they can’t digest it? lol. Pasta and pizza are easy to digest if you ask me, so…I would say if it plugged you up or somethin it’s just a matter of adapting and transit time. A lot of health people advocating eating more raw foods says to first steam your vegetables because if you jump into eating raw abruptly a lot of us would run into problems, but I’m sure we’d run into problems anyways =P Check your temperature, check your sugars and stuff with a refractometer, use a glucose meter and see how good your insulin sensitivity is, test everything that’s being talked about, it’s very fascinating Panda.
Betty wrote: What he is saying, If your motor is broken to the point where you can’t burn harder to digest/assimilate ?healthy foods???’then try some refined foods. Relax a little.
It will be ok to help you, in your broken state.
My state is not broken, thank you.
Ok, this is a comment that has popped up a few times in this thread. And it makes no sense to me at all. If you’re having difficulty digesting “healthy foods”, then maybe you shouldn’t be eating these foods. Maybe they’re not healthy for YOU. Many people avoid grains because they find them difficult to digest, even though they can be considered healthy and may be healthy for some people. If it doesn’t agree with your body, then maybe you shouldn’t be eating it EVER.
However, saying that you should eat Captain Crunch to give your digestion a break is utter nonsense. Although eating breakfast cereals may not manifest any digestive symptoms and appear easy to digest, they’re BAD for you. There are millions of studies that prove it. They are CHEAT meals that should be few and far between.
So the solution is not to replace grains that are difficult to digest with Captain Crunch to give your digestive system a rest. The solution is to find HEALTHY foods that agree with your digestion. I digest eggs and chicken and fish and meat and vegetables without any problem. And they are healthy foods. So, I don’t need breakfast cereals to give my digestion a rest.
I don’t digest pizza and pasta very well, so that’s my body telling me not to eat it. I still do occasionally because I love it, but I consider it a CHEAT meal.
And as far as cheat meals go, Captain Crunch is the lowest of the low. Go with pizza and fries and burgers (not McDonald’s. Make them yourself). It still has the semblance of real food.
Panda,
I am very open to hearing Matt’s findings. Why?
Because I have seen first hand the devastation that Diabetes brings to a persons life.
I have seen patients with flesh rotting off. I have seen amputations. I have seen the eyes
blinded. All this while trying to follow conventional wisdom.
Think about this, our bodies work on checks and, balances right? When something is low,,
it will trigger the body to make more right? So, then that something gets high….which triggers
the body to drop off production. (very simplistic explanation I know)
Let’s say your blood sugar runs chronically low. Your body will chronically be working to bring the sugar up. Eventually this system gets taxed, as it is chronic. In this situation the body
gets out of balance and, revs up the blood sugar keeping it chronically high. Now the person is dx with diabetes and, is told to cut out sugar. This will further aggravate the broken system. The body will continue to try and, make the sugar high.
Think what might happen if one with a high sugar started flooding the body with sugar?
At first yes….the sugar would sky rocket. But, if one consistently flooded the system….the
body gets the message “We have plenty of sugar” so now the body starts lowering the
blood sugar.
Ok I wrote this in very basic language. But, in theory (I think) this is what Matt has discovered.
If this proves out to work time and, again! Wow! This is exciting to me! It makes since!
Matt, if I have this wrong please correct me.
My trouble has always been (even though I didn’t know it) reactive hypoglycemia. Now if
you study that out, many physicians will say that it leads to diabetes. Why would that be?
The above scenario explains why that could be.
Since finding Matt, I rarely have a bout of hypoglycemia. If I do, I know how to pull it out
quickly. Too, if I do, I now know why too. It is because I have drank more fluids than my
body can handle.
We need people like Matt. People who are willing to think beyond a rat study and,
the standard medical care in this country.
What about injecting our bodies with attenuated viruses? Healthy…not healthy?
What about antibiotics? Healthy….not healthy?
What about mass production of beef, chicken etc…. Healthy….not healthy?
What about canned foods? Healthy….not healthy?
What about preservatives? Healthy…..not healthy?
While each of the above can be argued that they are unhealthy, each of the above
have brought health to the masses too.
The same can be said for nearly everything man has done to our environment.
So no…breakfast cereal isn’t considered healthy. But, it could be used to gain health
in some circumstances. Many are suffering and, can’t tolerate the foods you do.
ok, bob. thanks for comments. pasta and pizza are easy to digest? well, a lot of people are gluten intolerant to varying degrees.
edgar cayce (a psychic who did many readings on health and diet) advocated eating raw vegetables/salads for lunch and cooked vegetables for dinner. I noticed Mark Sisson gives the same advice.
Ya I know people are gluten intolerant, but besides those proteins and maybe the cheese the bread in and of itself is fast absorbing and doesn’t have to be broken down much. I used to be lactose and gluten intolerant but like I’ve been saying following recommendations I no longer get cramps, diarrhea, IBS in general from anything. chugging skim milk back in the day would destroy me, pizza would destroy me, not anymore, it’s a miracle. Not to say these foods are healthy necessarily, but they sure give me energy, and not stressing about them bothering me is a godsend and is gives me a healthier mindset.
Hey Bob, I am truly perplexed man. I mean, as far as I know, the only way to deal with gluten intolerance is to avoid the foods that cause it. And the foods that people are intolerant to are generally unhealthy anyway (especially white flour). But you’re saying The Great All-Knowing Matt Stone has given you recommendations that allow you to eat foods that previously you were intolerant to? So now you can eat pizza to your heart’s content?
This site is really strange. It’s like the Bizarro world of nutrition.
Ok, if you say so man. But let me point out that IBS, diarhea, cramps are the body’s way of warning you to limit those foods. I don’t know what tricks you’re using to get around it, but it will be detrimental in the long-term if you eat too much of those foods.
I know how you feel Panda it seems to go against logic and of course those foods aren’t “healthy” but they sure raise your metabolism. I am able to tolerate the foods much better because my body temperature is higher and my cell turn over in my gut for example is higher and it’s healing faster and therefore much stronger and resilient. Perhaps if I was always adequate metabolically I never would’ve had the problem nor would I have been fat like I was in the past =) But nonetheless, it boggles my mind too. But also, I believe auto immune response is lowered (if there is even one to begin with) with higher metabolism, that is what I’ve read and what people seem to be experiencing. Before this, like many others, I was very strict with what I ate, at times, and I had no dairy no grains, hardly anything processed, and I soon found out I simply cannot live that way. For one, I’m too big of a guy, right now I’m 220 at 6’6”. I just cant freaking live off of vegetables and meat dude, it messed me up lol. Sorry if you’re a female, I say dude a lot sometimes =P So, regardless of logic, I’m able to tolerate foods I never once have, I feel much better, radiating heat like a boss, havent gotten everything figured out yet but this direction seems much better than others I’ve been following lol.
Betty wrote: Because I have seen first hand the devastation that Diabetes brings to a persons life.
I have seen patients with flesh rotting off. I have seen amputations. I have seen the eyes
blinded. All this while trying to follow conventional wisdom.
Betty, to be honest, very few people I’ve met take their health seriously enough. I doubt there are many people that get Diabetes following ‘conventional wisdom’. For instance, I am guessing that about 7 out of 10 people drink soft drinks on a regular basis. I am just making that number up, but I look around me and that’s what my estimate is. And how many people eat salads for lunch? Not too many. How many people consume enough vegetables daily? \
The fact is that we lead busy lives and we like junk food and junk food is readily available everywhere and we succumb to it too often. And that’s why we’re getting diabetes.
If Matt has given you useful advice, that’s great. I don’t agree with some of the claims he has made in this blog.
I am very much interested in this, as a person with a chronically low body temp, and can’t wait to try out this theory! I’ve read in other articles of yours how dangerous fructose is and all that, but I’m willing to bet you’re basing it on something I heard this morning: that it’s best to have sugars in the morning if you’re going to have them at all, because that’s when the body utilizes them most effeciently. All I know is, it’s curious to me how I had like a hit of sugar this morning and my feet are like, WARM! I was pretty confused about that, because esp after a shower keeping myself warm is almost impossible.
Keeping in mind that when I eat too many grains I invariably gain body fat, do you suggest that I, with a low body temp, carbo-load in the am? What else can I do? Do you think it could be also a magnesium deficiency?
Panda, may I suggest wording your comments a little more eloquently? You come off as quite rude and disrespectful in some of them, which makes it sound more like you’re looking to troll than to engage in a civil debate. Name-calling and excessive typing in all capitals–the equivalent of shouting on the internet–do little to make others respect your opinions; often they cause one’s opinion to be rejected regardless of is actually said. Please and thank-you. (Note: this is not meant to insult you.)
Now that I have that off my chest: I’m a university student, and trust me–there is nothing better than digging into a large plate of banana-chocolate-chip pancakes with eggs, waffles with whipped cream and fruit, or spaghetti and meat sauce during or after a stressful period of assignments. Especially the latter two, since I don’t even have to bother making them if I don’t want to. Pizza gets added to my list of foods that I crave and eat, albeit less so than the aforementioned ones. I start making s’mores like there’s no tomorrow. But if I’m not too stressed out, guess what? I don’t crave those foods. What I do start craving is a large bowl of pinhead oatmeal with dried fruit for breakfast–something that I can hardly stomach when I’m under extreme stress.
So, my personal experience says that Matt’s on to something when he says that some people need the refined foods in order to get their system running well while people whose systems are already running fine can eat unrefined foods. Yeah, so it goes against mainstream health advice, but guess what? Just because something’s mainstream does not make it right–and, conversely, just because something’s alternative does not mean it’s right. We have to remember that mainstream health advice hasn’t remained constant over the years and that we thus must be as skeptical of it as of alternative health advice.
Er, I’ll go back to lurking now.
“I think it would be cool if your next article (or just an article in the near future) was an up-to-date nutrition summary article like you’ve written in the past. Those are great for people just now joining the site as well. You’ve had so many new insights lately what with RBTI and fantastic articles lately and I think condensing those into a new ‘this is what I’ve been thinking as of late? post would be awesome.”
I really like this idea…more than the expo photos. Whenever you get to it…. Thx.
Would someone please tell me what good a refractometer is? Do I really need one? I’ve seen them mentioned here in several articles. Are we looking for sugar levels in urine? Thanks.
They just test the concentration of the urine. I will be writing about this next.
Ah Matt- I wish I read your stuff more often because every time I do I CRACK UP! I love the way you write. I wonder if everyone laughs as hard as I do, or if it is because I love the way you make fun of the stupid things I say in my head about cereal? You bring me back to reality and that is a gift. Keep it up.
Hey Ashley, I will be more civilized if you learn to read more carefully.
Matt is not saying that people need refined foods to get their systems running well.
Well, maybe he did say that, but he also said that he used processed foods to cure someone of Type II Diabetes.
Ok, let’s see some proof there Matt. Or you’ve lost all credibility.
Hey panda, I can tell you what Matt is saying is very much true.
I have seen diabetes reverse. And I have advised people using alot of processed foods and they were an essential part of the success. Some people are too weak to eat “healthy” foods.
I even have a client who only hired me on a weigh loss consultation if I was able to put something together that allowed them to eat fast food only. And surprise they lost the weight and did not develop diabetes in the process. Actually improved their blood sugar situation. I knew it would work because I have done it myself.
People have black and white ideas about healthy eating. Problem is the body doesn’t operate in black and white conditions.
In the right context processed food rocks. I have had alot of ideas people call crazy long before I met Matt. I had a trainee that wanted to eat as clean as possible because of what he read on healthy body building diets but because he was so small and rail thin eating clean was too low in calories for him to achieve growth. I suggested he eat junk food and he quickly started seeing muscles pop. All of the broccoli, chicken breasts and calculated brown rice and protein shakes were not doing him any good.
Before jumping on matts case stick around a little bit and see where he is coming from. I don’t think anyone thinks he is a prophet and he certainly did not convince me of my thoughts on health I came to 180 as “crazy” as Matt. Some of my ideas will come off crazier than his to you. Regardless I think he is trying to help people and like myself dispenses alot of free advice that has helped thousands. So a con artist I think not.
Processed foods are supranatural. They allow us to do things that we can’t with the limitations of whole foods. They also can come at a penalty if not used in the right context. But it doesn’t take much to reap the benefits without running into the drawbacks. Just a little tailoring here and there. I’m sure, as I get more and more experience I will learn even more – and be like Chief, junk food Jedi.
I’m working with a woman right now. A week ago her postmeal glucose response was 359. 7 days later it is down to 180 mg/dl. Pretty good progress for 7 days. She is eating pancakes, corn, rice, beans, ice cream daily, etc. Her skin tone has improved, hair is shiny, body temperature rising, frequent urination is gone, and sleep quality dramatically improved. Not bad for 7 days. At a fasting level of 125 and postmeal 180, she is just barely considered diabetic at this point. Check back in a couple of weeks and I am willing to bet that her fasting levels will by in the double digits or close to it, with postmeal readings inching closer and closer to the double digits as well. When metabolism increases, glucose metabolism improves – no matter what one eats to increase metabolism. In fact, refined foods can do it better because they are more calorie dense and are digested more completely.
that’s incredible to hear way to go! I am wondering if you’re tellin her to do the whole rbti schedule deal. I have been trying to tell my mom to smash food she’s diabetic, bipolar etc… and weighs about 300 at 5’7”. She doesn’t have critical thinking…and still doesn’t think butter or coconut oil is better than PAM or vegetable oil…She seems to be sipping on something all of the time, sleeps too much, and I’m also scared of her glucose levels dropping too low if she does start doing what I tell her cuz she takes metformin and shit.
She came off her metformin right away. Said her hands and feet were really cold since she started taking it (not good) and all the initial progress she saw initially was undone and now fasting and postmeal levels were getting worse. So she switched to fukitol, 150mg daily. Had her stop drinking all day, and urinating all day (lifelong issue). I have her eating a big breakfast and big lunch as the emphasis, with enough food at dinner to sleep well. Breakfast gets more emphasis in RRARF than in RBTI. It has helped her completely reverse her typical diabetic eating patterns – nauseous all day and then dinner followed by post-dinner snack attack. She is now waking up at 6 energized and hungry. We both agreed this was a good sign.
Can’t thank you enough for responding. Thanks Mr. Food_Smash_Teacher
Wow, that’s great news, especially since I am diabetic type 2, also. Like Bob, I am wondering if she is doing RBTI, or RBTI Light, or some other approach. I am doing RBTI Lite, and my overall health and sleep is greatly improved, but I still have problems with extreme thirst and frequent urination, sometimes in the late afternoon, or sometimes after dinner. Some days are better than others and I can’t quite figure out what makes the difference. Any suggestions?
Will be writing about this more in the next post. Thinking saltier food might help you out some. She is doing pretty straightforward RRARF with ice cream thrown in there with it. Emphasis on avoiding overhydration (low brix) – she has lifelong history of frequent urination. Mostly starchy food otherwise, but we are playing around with adding an all-fruit smoothie in the morning before breakfast – sucking up some pure sugar coming out of the evening fast, and avoiding pork. We’ll see how it goes. Will keep you posted.
Hi Matt,
I think you are on to something with the suggestion to try eating saltier food to prevent the extreme thirst and frequent urge to urinate that often follows my lunch or dinner. I had lunch at Crackerbarrel today and they serve some of the saltiest food on the planet. I had a biscuit that was so salty, I nearly choked on the first bite! But sure enough, I did not have the “thirst from Hell” or the frequent and URGENT urge to urinate today.
Looks like yet another victory for processed food! (And Matt Stone!) Thank you!
CHIEFROK,
Ok, I’ll keep reading the blogs and maybe just not post any comments for a while.
Panda, please continue to comment – it draws out a lot of valuable information!
This site is pure gold. “Exit Through the Gift Shop” is jealous the combination of hoax and acolytes that Mr. Stone has produced. He roped everyone a ways back with his necessary indictment of zero-carb, and has used that reputation as a thoughtful contrarian to become PT Barnum. In this present incarnation, he includes a sprinkling of legitimate posts among absurd ones like this so as to throw everyone off the scent.
But even in doing that, he posts videos and pictures of himself looking absolutely awful—which just heightens the ruse and forces his minions to double-down (“his body is just fixing itself with puffed rice after years of being ravaged by consuming grass-fed veal liver!”). I only hit this site every couple months, and every time I do, I leave with a smile. I look forward to Casey Affleck shooting the documentary.
For anyone looking for some real science of the sort that Mr. Stone used to post about, check out Jack Kruse’s blog. You’ll be overtaken with nostalgia, and wish that Mr. Stone would teach Dr. Kruse how to write (or re-write his posts for him and post them on here).
It’s healthy to be skeptical, but it’s also something to realize that some of the most basic truths in life are so simple they almost look foolish. Humans are always trying to complicate things. On that premise I can consider what Matt’s saying could have truth to it and I’m willing to consider it. If it doesn’t work I can go back to the “he’s totally crazy” mindset.
I have been on a paleo-ish diet for several months and have as an adult always followed a healthy diet (although raised on SAD) but my problems with extremely low body temperature and blood pressure and borderline constipation have not been bettered in the least. If someone out there is saying, look, we need to think outside the box. Maybe your system is broken, and maybe what is sustainable long-term is not what is going to work for you now. Maybe “a spoonful of sugar to get the medicine down” is what will work temporarily. If it works, I’m all for it, whether or not it makes sense against the backdrop of what we already “know” about health. Here’s something we do know: you don’t feed a starving person regular food, you feed them very basic gruel at first. It’s the only thing their bodies can handle, so why would it be so far out of bounds to think that there are some of us here in the processed American world who might have trouble digesting “real food” in the same way? Haven’t we in a sense been starved of nutrients? Maybe we can’t process them in their whole form yet and need to work up to it.
I think it makes a lot of sense for someone with a low body temp to go for lots of carbs in the ams to get the fires burning. For me it’s worth testing out since I normally do proteins/fats each morning. Maybe for me protein and fat are not my best a.m. fuel. That doesn’t sound crazy to me at all.
Hey Kristina, I was curious what kind of paleo were u doing? low carb starch free, high carb?
Hi, more of a higher carb Paleo, including some starches and even (gasp) a few grains like white rice or oats, but just a couple times per week. I eschewed grains for the most part and for a short time followed the low carb but I couldn’t take it man!
^^^ Wow, didn’t mean to write a dissertation :)
I think there are a couple of things we can all agree on.
Matt Stone is a genius.
Matt Stone is devilishly handsome, even if a bit pudgy.
Whether processed foods cure IBS, Type II Diabetes, Lupus, Syphilis, and Leprosy is still open for debate.
Bob Dean, you said you overcame IBS by raising your metabolism? What kind of foods did you eat to do so? Did you manage to overcome the symptoms while still including gluten and dairy in your diet?
cheese-pizza, cheese, ice cream, sour cream, butter, ghee, kefir, coconut oil rice potatoes yams corn based snacks beef chicken donuts eggs [free range] cereals mostly corn or rice based all kinds of stuff, lots of it, when i do eat i dont mess around lol. not havin stress about what your having and really havin what you want has helped a lot maybe even could be ibs linked idk. course ibs can mean different things i guess.
I am reading this blog and all the comments and am so intrigued by what I read. I had weight loss surgery nearly 3 years ago and have fought anemia every since. I also have Hashimoto’s (diagnosed at age 16) and take 200 mcg synthroid. Even though I’ve lost a lot of weight, I still want to lose another 80 pounds. However, my body is screaming at me to eat. Currently, I am eating as much as I want (can) because I’m 31 weeks pregnant. I have only gained 4 pounds during this pregnancy and, to be honest, am fearful of the health of the baby. I have long studied the paleo diet and read many of the blogs. But I never, ever felt well on that type of diet. My IBS flares and get really grouchy. Before even reading about this cereal post, it is somewhat funny that I have been eating cereal a lot since getting pregnant. But with it comes guilt that maybe all the grains/gluten (some refined/some whole) will screw up both me and my child. I do have to say, my temps are over 98 during the day now though! For me, that is unheard of. I hate that I had weight loss surgery. I don’t feel like I can eat enough for a child, let alone an adult. I will keep reading and plugging away. :)
I am also worried about my daughter. She is a 3 year old with a propensity toward chubbiness. As an infant, she was REALLY chubby. Now she is in the highest percentile without being considered overweight/obese. I don’t know what to feed her. She doesn’t have a large appetite, and since reading this blog, I realize that’s probably not a good thing. She was on the GAPS diet for 9-10 months for chronic diarrhea, and thankfully, it’s gone. She did eat a lot of fruit while she was on it. But still. I’m really not sure how to proceed with this.
Thanks, Matt, for going against traditional wisdom — as it seems to have failed many of us.
Has anyone here actually lost weight doing this? It is just too scary to start at 75 pounds overweight! I have been told for years now that i dont digest anything – but I never ever even considered eathing this way. matter of fact – I would be one of those foolks that was FAT as a child and teen and I ate lots of cereal growing up – and refined grains. I lost quite a bit of weight by eating a “better” diet and running. Now after a few babies I find myself 75 pounds overweight and NOTHING I do is helping – raw vegan,paleo, grain free, exercise, personal trainers, etc.. I am just so afraid to actually start eating breakfast cereal and such at this point!
Go back and read the Holy Grail of Fat Loss series, or even contact Sasha Garcia-Degn on Facebook. She is one of several who have.
Thanks – I will look into those ..
I am confused ? this lady says in her article that she lost the weight eating whole unprocessed foods. As a matter of fact ? she specifically says she does not eat breakfast cereal.
Here is a direct quote from this article:
?Personally, I think it’s most beneficial to restrict yourself to whole, traditional foods. Absolutely no fast food and no processed foods. I even go so far as to not eat breakfast cereals, I don’t care how natural they claim to be, they’re still processed and in a cardboard box and most taste like the box.
And here was your response:
?Great answer ? and I knew you were going to say something about retraining your palate and being really committed to eating unprocessed foods. My research has led me increasingly in that direction. I’ve found that there is a huge difference between a mostly unprocessed food diet and a 100% unprocessed food diet. And it has everything to do with retraining the palate.
Ok ? so which is it? I know a number of people who eat breakfast cereal or some other processed food every morning, same processed stuff for lunch and dinner and they are not only overweight but also very unhealthy. It seems at some point that ?processed? food would start to super digest and they would start turning their health around?. If what you are saying is right their body would hit a break point and start actually getting better ? right? Please see that I am asking heartfelt questions ? I know I have been eating a very ?healthy? diet for many years now and am not getting better this way but I keep thinking it is because I am just not putting enough healthy stuff in ? I just cannot imagine replacing my good food with processed foods? I am afraid I really will do irreversible damage to my already damaged body and health..
I know I confuse people with my mixed messages. But different people have different paths to get their health back on track. I sometimes stress processed foods for those who cannot digest whole foods well, have a history of undereating, and have clear symptoms of low metabolism – meaning they are in need of calories above all else – which trumps all other nutrition and lifestyle concerns until that is corrected. Processed foods have higher palatability and digestibility, generally-speaking. There’s no question one can gain weight faster on processed foods vs. unprocessed foods, because of those factors.
Keep in mind I also like to “swing for the fences.” If someone can lose weight and improve their health NOT eating a health food diet, then that is more liberating and empowering. And there’s really no food to fear you might binge on and regain the weight. It’s the ultimate goal. I will continue to look for more realistic solutions to say, a serious weight problem. Because the reality is that few people will actually follow-through and do what Sasha has done to lose weight. And even if they did, there’s no guarantee they would lose weight. I know lots of health fanatical obese people.
Ha ? your obese health fanatic here ?
I have been eating whole foods almost exactly the way Sasha said for many years. We get as much food local as we can, raw milk (mostly for the kids as I don’t really like milk and don’t drink any), making our own bread from flour we grind, growing a lot of our own food (including meat), etc..
I just don’t know where to turn right now ? most people say I am the healthiest sick person they know. I am always tired, weak, foggy headed, etc.. but all that worsens when I do eat processed food. I have a pretty extreme reaction to soy which is in almost all processed food ? that is one of the main reasons we do everything at home and from scratch.
Thanks for answering my questions – I do understand what you are saying now at least but I still don’t think I could do the processed stuff if it makes me feel worse. I don’t seem to be getting better on the whole foods either – *sigh*
ll these breakfast cereal are dead calories have you ever seen weavill in kornflakes or wheatbix or in cookie or biscuits I don’t even see them in bread, but the when I leave uncooked oatmeal
uncovered in the pantry I can guarantee weavil will find it very quickly.So eat fresh live food not dead food.
Rex
@Panda: I’m glad that you’ve decided to stick around at least for a bit and refrain from commenting, but that attempted insult on my reading comprehension ability was completely unneccessary.
Anyway, Matt, I’ve been wondering: How much do you think the particular ingredients of a given breakfast cereal matter regarding whether it makes you fat or thin? Some commentors have mentioned that high fructose corn syrup is still used in making breakfast cereal, but here in Canada it’s sugar (white and/or brown and/or golden depending on the cereal, from what I’ve seen) that’s used, and I think some use honey as well. I do see that not all of the articles are on studies of American children, so I doubt the cereals the subjects ate were all made the same, but I still wonder. (Because I haven’t had time I’ve only read–well, skimmed–the available abstracts, so please say if this is covered in any of the articles.)
Hey Ashley, I apologize for my insulting comment.
Matt Stone wrote: “Processed foods have higher palatability and digestibility, generally-speaking.”
Yes, they are easy to digest. And that’s not a good thing.
http://www.everydayhealth.com/health-report/jillian-michaels-healthier-life/processed-foods-pitfalls.aspx
“When a whole grain is refined, most of its nutrients are sucked out in an effort to extend its shelf life. Both the bran and germ are removed, and therefore all the fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Because these stripped down, refined grains are devoid of fiber and other nutrients, they’re also easy to digest ? TOO EASY. They send your blood sugar and insulin skyrocketing, which can lead to all sorts of problems.”
It’s not a good thing to have easily digestible things? But how can you be so sure dude. Try to get your post meal glucose levels down like people have succeeded with here. It’s all in context Panda. Come on now…And as far as I have read, grains in and of themselves have a lot of defense mechanisms not to be eaten. It is only because of our processing of them that has made them edible. I’d say this more whole grains craze goin on is a bad thing.
Bob,
You’re mixing up 2 things here.
I posted that link because Matt uses the argument that processed foods are easy to digest to suggest that they are beneficial. And I’m suggesting that this is not a good argument because easy digestibility is not necessarily a good thing. In the case of refined foods it isn’t because of how they affect insulin levels.
What we want is something that is easy to digest AND does not wreak havoc on our insulin levels AND has a has a high nutrient density. Processed foods only satisfy one of the three criteria.
Now you’re bringing up whole grains and I’ve also recently been reading a lot negative things about whole grains and I’m contemplating cutting them out completely out of my diet. But that would mean my diet would essentially be Paleo.
So, whole grains may be difficult to digest and therefore may be not so good.
Processed foods may be easy to digest, but affect insulin levels AND have too much garbage in them AND are nutritionless, therefore not so good.
I really think Paleo might be the best diet out there as a starting point. And maybe we should be tweaking it according to what feels best. If you want more carbs, maybe sweet potatoes are the best option. Mark Sisson’s meal plan might be right on the mark, except I wouldn’t eat meat at both lunch and dinner. Maybe stick with more eggs.
I’m experimenting with my diet now. I’m doing a smoothie in the morning with raw eggs and raw goat milk and seeds (ground up in a coffee grinder) and olive oil (and any other good oil).
And lunch is an omelet with a huge salad. And dinner is some type of meat with cooked veggies. I’ll see how it works out.
I may completely cut out beans and whole grains as Mark Sisson suggests.
And my ex-girlfriend’s grandmother was a neurosurgeon and died in her 90s of natural causes, so never had any illness. She always used to say “Once a week you can eat shit.” So a dose of poison once or twice a week is fine for emotional fulfillment. It’s not easy to eat salads and broccoli every day.
I have to say a lot of what Matt is saying really makes sense. A lot of this comes in line with Ray Peat’s philosophy about how an oxidative metabolism is preferable in energizing the body’s cells and providing the mitochondria with enough CO2 to work at peak performance. Supposedly thyroid function can be optimal in this oxidative environment. This approach definitely seems to favor getting the thyroid up to full speed and increasing body temp in a very short time. -So I guess the best way to look at this is that Matt is using refined processed foods as a “nutritional supplement” to get the the body temp back up to normal in a very short time. I would have to say that Matt’s approach seems more realistic then Peats since he is using this approach short term(depends on the individual) to get metabolism restored first. With that said, I have been following a blog by a guy named Danny Roddy for a little while now. He is a die hard Peat fan and has been using a lot of Peat’s dietary methods to help guys/gals restore their libido and end premature hair loss in a short time. His approach is getting hormones under control by suppressing cortisol(anti-stress), serotonin, and others. I think Matt had mentioned these hormones in this post somewhere. By suppressing certain hormones and increasing favorable hormones you decrease stress, decrease inflammation, up body temp, and up thyroid function. Obviously there is more to mention but what I am trying to get at is that this approach to has been done with “refined white sugar!” White sugar(or refined, easily digested food) can put your metabolism in a favorable environment while keeping hormones in balance if done correctly with an appropriate dietary regimen. Check out this article on sugar: http://www.dannyroddy.com/main/2012/2/27/sugar-pure-white-awesome.html
I will be the first to say that I am not on deck when comes to the amount of fructose Peat recommends in the form of orange juice, but his work on sugar and metabolism is very interesting. Ray Peat has a lot of articles worth reading at: http://raypeat.com/articles/
Based on the above, it makes all the sense in the world that Matt’s approach “would most definitely work” to restore metabolism in the shortest time possible!!!!
Cereal anyone? I feel like cinnamon toast crunch! -Yummmm!!!
YOu just made me laugh so hard I almost peed myself. again. “So yeah, maybe you can relax and have a little breakfast cereal if that’s what you want. And maybe your kids will not suffer from instant death upon Cheerio impact if it makes your life a little less stressful to throw down a box and a carton on a day when you aren’t up for making something that is grassfed, raw, sprouted, fermented, and fried in ghee from Goji-fed Himalayan Yaks.”
Last week I had this weird craving for lucky charms. and you know what I did?? I went out and bought some and freaking at the shit out of them. I haven’t had cereal in probably 7 years. My husbands jaw hit the floor and he said “Can I have Golden Grahams?????” I ate it everyday for about a week and now Im over it. But its nice to know I can eat cereal from time to time again and not feel like I just snorted heroin off of a dead hooker.
Have you snorted the dust in the bottom of a cereal box off of a dead hooker? It packs an awesome buzz.
Also, I was raised by a health nut who never let me have sugar cereals or anything candy/junk food and it gave me an eating disorder. So I shall let my children have sugar cereals and candy in reasonable amounts so that they don’t have to go through what I went through. My husband grew up eating sugar cereal and bisquick pancakes and crap all the time and he is the healthiest person I know. amazing immune system, muscular, lean, takes no medications and has tons of energy and sleeps well. I know very few people like that.
Wow, so much info to “digest” forgive the pun. I purchased your ebook “diet recovery” yesterday and since reading your blog and book, have gone from thouroughally enlightened, to confused, back to enlightened. I am a obsessive dieter with a history of ED and going through a divorce in my early 30’s. I went from chubby teen w/ ED, to low carb lean (even wrote my own cookbook) to raw vegan to fruitarian 811 back to chubby early 30 something. =/ But i have faith that this might be the right place for me, at this time.
I normally have a fruit smoothie in the am, with a few greens added in which gives me tons of energy and no crash. This morning i experimented with jiffy pancakes and a bowl of Uncle Sam and major major crash. My first day of reading temps, btw. Looks like this: upon waking 96.1^. around 8am apx 97^. Im guessing this is pretty low?
Might I add, i gained almost 35-40lbs in 1 year! 1 year! with the bulk of it between thanksgiving and now, which is when my ED flaired up (bulimic ugh). If I only knew the “binges” did me more good in then out, i never would have had the “urge to purge” ok… sorry not funny. I know it is stress related, work, divorce, dating, gained weight, pressure to look good naked, etc!
But, i think I am on the right track here. I was dating a french guy for a little while, that is around the time i was terrified b/c i started gaining weight. He was skinny thing who ate and smoked and drank. Damn french! And now im dating a guy who eats crap and drink HFCS laden soda, and has the sickest body i have ever seen (mind you he is a athlete).
Also how bad is it that we avoid excercizing initally? My current bf wrote up a whole workout for me (core stuff like squats, crunches) to help get my stuff in shape even tho he likes me curves, thankfully.
Nice to meel yall. BTW – you need a forum dude! :p
Hey Julie. Thanks for the comment. You can do some exercise. You’ll still get many benefits, but your temperatures might run slightly lower because of it. This might not be a major catastrophe either. It might just be the normal response to frequent exercise.
My problem is that since stopping the ED cycle, i have been gaining rapidly. Do you have any experience treating/coaching anyone coming from a ED past? Care to take on your first if not? I must have done some major metabolic damages. My weight would normally max out at 150’s even when i would yo-yo up, and in a 3-4 month period i am official at 180lbs =/ …Just a year ago I was 140lbs. So, thats 40lb + in 1 year! Im only 31 years old, and this just blows my mind! I know we are not supposed to care about the scale, and I honestly dont but 99% of my clothes suddenly don’t fit me anymore. Care to take on a new coaching client for a discount? lol.. But I really hope this will help me in the long run. I am trying not to care so so much about the #’s, but im a #’s person. and u know, im single and trying to support myself so I can’t exactly afford a new wardrobe..and the new spare tire look around my previously “baggy” work pants is really uncomfortable. Anyways, on a good note, my temps are already up, after 2 days on HED. yay something positive! But I am still gaining weight. booo
Gaining weight after an eating disorder is a virtual guarantee, as is a rising weight set point. What you are doing now will set a ceiling in your weight set point. And then you will be feeling much better with a much healthier metabolism and slowly working your way back down in body fat levels. Just hurry up and get the scary weight gaining part over with, so you can complete that important first step of healing your metabolism and convincing your body that adding body fat is unwanted, undesirable, and unnecessary. I work with ED folks all the time. Would be happy to help you too in any way I can. The first step is eating as much hyperpalatable food as you physically can without gaining an ounce of fat and having body temps around 99.
Ok so how would you best recommend ie: what foods specifically from your experience w/ ED’s are best at helping to raise temps without adding to fat gain? I see so many different recommendations around here and am just worried that I am eating too much of “everything” right now, =/ I was pretty sold on 80/10/10 to be honest, and part of me is always itching to go back to that route but its just sooo hard to maintain socially.
I think the fat gain is where the therapeutic benefit lies. Honestly, the foods that help you gain fat the fastest will probably be what helps you heal the fastest. Eating 80-10-10 will make regular food very fattening, as 80-10-10 is a powerful metabolism destroyer.
Interesting advice. I will do what it takes to fatten up, lol and get my temps up as high as possible. I guess that all just seems scary to me, but its way better then the alternative of continuing the ED cycle and dieting cycle. So the key is to get temps up and in the long run, the metabolism rises, allowing my weight to drop off in time.. do I have this correct?
“One of the big objectives at this site is to help health fanatics who have found me in the sauerkraut-scented bowels of the alternative internet health scene to overcome their irrational food fears and phobias. And to help people stop embarrassing themselves in front of friends and family with their psychotic health crusade du jour.”
LOL!!!! This guy cracks me up.
Hey Matt,
I would really like to know how you advise gluten-intolerant folks to get metabolism up. I believe I triggered autoimmune response to gluten about 12 yrs ago with whole wheat and a whole grain, “healthy” diet. I have the gene, and the response to gluten, and have a lifelong dairy allergy. I just can’t do wheat, corn, soy or dairy without winding up sick (usually respiratory that lasts for >6wks). Oats are a bloatfest, but I miss them terribly. I’ve had some luck with salt and managing fluid intake – warmer now (been cold my whole life) and no more nighttime potty trips, but I just can’t tolerate most grains, and worry about relying on rice since hearing about how it is so full of arsenic. The doc keeps telling me my gluten numbers are too high – probably cross contamination, and cross reactivity from corn and dairy, which are really tough to avoid. Signed up to go get laser allergy treatment because I am so sick of the sensitivities. Get really tired of potatoes sometimes and resort to white rice. I am currently living on potatoes and peppermint patties. And juicing…carrot apple orange. Sick of eggs and just want some damn carbs!
I’m hoping to do a gluten post before the end of the year. That will answer some of these questions I hope.
Thanks! That would be so fantastic!!!!
Hey,
I really enjoy reading your health articles but I find some of the material particularily offensive. Not that I am going to declare jihad, lol, and I realize you are pushing the envelope and utilizing free speech and so on but keep in mind that using overtly offensive language and content is going to limit your audience. I’m just sayin’. Personally, I cringe at crude language and blasphemy and would recommend your site to others I know interested in improving their health, but for the objectionable material on some of your posts. Too bad, cause I have learned a lot and have implemented some of your suggestions with good results (cutting back on my excessive water habit, eating more grains and sugar, cutting out polyunsaturated fat).
Sierra
My gawd, at least ‘Panda’ finally shut his trap. :)
Hi, im back to be an opinionated douchebag and rain on your soggy breakfast parade
My reply got cut off again?luckily I copy pasted my response on word because it was a long one and I know I always have trouble posting on your blog ? So here it is –
?Interesting results matt but I’m not sure it really tells us anything about refined cereals/sugars and health.
The first study didn’t control for refined vs wholegrain cereals, it just lumped them in together. It also didn’t tell us anything about what the alternative breakfasts eaten were. What were people eating when they weren’t eating cereal eating? jam on toast? waffles and pancakes covered in maple syrup? Processed sausage and bacon? Pop tarts? I doubt any of them were eating a nutrient dense balanced breakfast including starch, unprocessed meat and vegetables. That criticism extends to any of the studies you listed that don’t describe the alternative diets.
The second study, in addition to not telling us anything about the alternative breakfasts also found that whole grain cereals were more protective than refined cereals. That seems to count against a key tenet of your diet, which is to eat more rapidly digesting, calorie dense foods.
The third study (again not telling us anything about the alternative breakfasts) found that the children eating more breakfast cereal and having a lower BMI also had a higher intake of micronutrients, so that’s score 1 for nutrient dense diets.
The fourth study did tell us the alternative diets. The meat eaters had the highest BMI but also the highest CALORIE intake, so no big surprise there. The healthy user bias comes to mind as well, heavy meat eaters in general are less health conscious and were probably eating highly processed breakfast meats.
In the fifth study girls eating more breakfast cereal had a higher intake of fiber, calcium, iron, folic acid, vitamin C, and zinc, so score two for nutrient dense diets and again it tells us nothing about the alternative breakfast foods.
The 6th study concluded that whole grains were healthier than refined grains.
The 7th study found that cereal eaters had more nutrients in their diet and a lower BMI, which again begs the question what rubbish constituted the altwrnative breakfasts that it was less nutrient dense than breakfast cereal.
The markers of ‘health’ in the next study comparing vegetable consumption to cereal consumption were all subjective and its not really surprising that eating cereal is more satisfying than eating bland vegetables with no added fat, salt, meat or flavor. Id be unhappy if I had to eat steamed spuds and broccoli for breakfast too. This is certainly not a comparison between the healthfulness of eating paleo vs eating cereal (or more importantly, eating real food vs eating refined/processed food).
The last study is a bit of an anomaly and is certainly not consistent with the majority of the evidence in the literature. The wording was also a bit ambiguous because they said that consumption of ?presweetened cereals were associated with lower BMI’s than non presweetened cereals in girls?. Did the girls eating the ?no presweetened cereals? sweeten it themselves by adding sugar to make it more palatable? It’s possible. I cant access the full text and there is no information about total calorie intake or what they ate for the rest of the day.
Overall i’d say these studies support without proving the following –
1:there is nothing inherently fattening about eating carbohydrates or cereals.
2: sugar is not fattening if not eaten in excess and if total calorie intake is normal.
3: carbohydrates are not insulinogenic.
4: BMI is associated with calorie intake, eating more calories associates with a higher BMI.
5: whole grains are healthier than refined grains.
6: eating a nutrient dense diet, higher in fibre and micronutrients might be protective of obesity and T2D.
7: higher fat intake may associate with higher BMI if it increases total calorie intake.
I realize the topic of this post was cereal consumption and obesity and it does provides weak support that cereals aren’t fattening. What it definitely does not do is prove that refined, processed sugary foods will lead to lower BMI’s and be more protective of metabolic diseases than eating a nutrient dense real food diet. If anything it provides more support for the exact opposite. We would really want to see a side by side comparison of processed/refined/sugary food diets vs whole food diets to infer anything from the results.