Things are starting to go really well. My skin is phenomenally clear and moist. The fluttering heartbeat that often accompanies a big shift like this is gone. In fact, my resting pulse was back to normal ? low enough to set off the ?minimum? alarm on a heart rate monitor. I have little body odor, no morning breath, my hair has softened, my eyes are clearing, my tongue has fantastic color (although I’m noticing a very small V appearing in the back of the tongue ? Acupuncturists feel free to drop some knowledge in the comments section).
Interestingly, I’m not showing any overt signs of ketosis, the metabolic state that Dr. Fatkins and other low-carbers refer to as being some kind of holy grail (a line of logic that doesn’t jive with the mainstream very well, especially considering that ketosis is the state your body enters into WHEN YOU ARE STARVING!)
But I’m not one to feel great and say, ?Ho brah, this meat diet is da kine! I think I finally found my perfect diet,? or what have you. Lots of things that make us feel really good come at a cost.
Here’s a potential scenario?
The stress of going too low in carbohydrates induces a stress response. My adrenal glands activate and my system is flooded with adrenaline, cortisol, beta endorphin, and norepinephrine. The result would be reduced allergies from the epinephrine, a great buzz from endorphins, good mental focus, clarity, and a good mood, and a reduction of physical pain from cortisol’s anti-inflammatory effects. Anyone who has ever done a ?cleanse? or fast has probably felt some of these same physiological effects.
But these changes, because of the counter-regulatory systems of the body, would come at a price. For one, receptor sites for all those feel-good biochemicals would shut down (called downregulation). That way you feel normal, instead of high, with elevated amounts of those chemicals. This is a strategy the body employs to maintain normalcy of its other systems. This opens up the door for addiction. If you go back to ?normal,? eating a diet with carbohydrates, these feel-good chemicals get lowered, and since you have less receptor sites, having even normal levels of those chemicals feels crappy because you don’t have your old level of receptor sites to get those chemicals into the system where they can function. Anybody get that? The only way to spike those chemicals back high enough, to where your limited number of receptor sites can take in enough juice, is to go back to a diet or activity that spikes those biochemicals.
More on up and downregulation, addiction, and how that plays a role in the feel-good effects of taking up a new and very different (extreme) diet tomorrow.
Today’s menu. Still eating like a horse? well, make that a tiger:
Breakfast: 2 slices uber-fatty totally uncured pastured bacon with all grease, 10 ounces calamari steak, 5 oz. shrimp head/crab tomalley broth, 1T butter
Lunch: 2 ounces raw milk cheddar, 8 soft-boiled eggs
Snack: 5 ounces Brie
Dinner: 8 ounces fatty ribeye
Dr. Lutz, “Life without Bread”, a LC doctor for 40 years in Austria, never recommends going below 72 grams of carbohydrates/day due to the risk of thrombosis (stress) due to potential blood clotting with a rapid changeover to a low carb diet. Fatkins was accused of causing heart attacks with his low carb diet which is why he was invited to a U.S. Senate hearing per the “Life without Bread” book.
I don’t believe the low-carb diet really solves anything. It’s just sweeping dirt under the carpet. The underlying problem still remains. You will still be insulin resistance if you eat zero-carb. And the claim that carbs are fattening is utter nonsense. Lots of lean cultures eat high carb diets. I lost weight on the Primal Diet, drinking 2-4 quarts of raw milk a day, 8 tablespoons of unheated honey, 4 raw eggs, a pound of raw ground beef or ground lamb, raw pork ribs, coconut oil, avocados, etc. Previously my weight was stalled at 185# on a very-low-carb diet, akin to Atkins Induction (20g of carbs). I ate a huge amount of carbs from honey and milk, at least 200-300g a day. Plus large amounts of protein and fat.
I asked Charles how I could lose weight by eating less fiber and more carbs and he said it was due to eating less carbs overall. Obviously, he can’t do math. I was eating ~20g of carbs per day on VLC cooked diet. My weight stalled. I added 200-300g of carbs from raw milk and raw unheated honey, and lost 15 pounds in a few months. It proves that carbs aren’t fattening, per se. Junk food is.
I feel that people like Aajonus and Ray Peat are addressing ideas that have the potential to regenerate the body and/or reverse disease. The low-carb diet just covers problems like insulin resistance and hyper-insulinism. I’m looking for a diet that will regenerate and heal your body, so you can improve health and not just maintain mediocre health, which is what I think Charles is doing and other brutally low-carb regimes.
Carbs don’t cause diabetes and the other diseases. Old time doctors used unheated honey and raw milk to cure diabetes, not just cover up the symptoms by taking all the carbs out of a person’s diet. So, we know it’s not the carbs. Maybe it’s that milk and honey are animal foods or foods predigested by animals and plant derived foods are more problematic.