Nearly everyone who has toyed around with the ideas floating around this blog has experienced the power of the calorie. Sure, 4 out of 5 of us have added somewhere between a little and a lot of unwanted body fat doing so, but at the same time have arrived at a place where we could eat pretty much anything, in whatever quantity we desired, without seeing any subsequent gains in body fat. Along with it came huge improvements in digestive abilities, mood enhancement, sleep improvement, increases in sex drive, and any number of different improvements to be expected with a rise in mitochondrial activity from surplus calories.The current question is ? can we get the benefits of overfeeding without the drawback of increased body fat accumulation? In other words, can overfeeding be used for health improvement AND big improvements in body composition simultaneously?
Enter Maximum Nutrient Partitioning ? a concept developed by a well-researched guy who calls himself the ?Vegan Master. While I have no love for a strict vegan diet, and strongly believe that it is a dead-end path to imbalance and deficiency based on many testimonials and run-ins with long-term vegans that I’ve had, this should not discredit the ‘system? that this gentle man has developed.
I was first turned onto this blog nearly a year ago by 180 commenter and host of what is becoming an excellent body recomposition blog ? Riles of: http://www.thelifeofriles.blogspot.com/
Note: Riles is huge as you can see! Ha ha. That’s not actually Riles, but is one hell of an awesome photo. God Bless the internet!?
Like most things, what I read of the Vegan Master, and the ideas behind his Maximum Nutrient Partitioning plan planted quite a seed, and just as Riles mentioned in the comments section of a recent post, he gained 9 pounds of muscle and lost 2 pounds of fat in just 4 weeks following MNP pretty strictly.
No, you postmenopausal ladies probably shouldn’t expect an identical response, but the same rules do apply, and you may just find that you do get a little muscle growth with simultaneous fat loss on a program that follows the general recommendations of MNP.
The basic premise of MNP is to make sure that the protein you eat is shuttled into muscle cells while simultaneously preventing fat from being shuttled into fat cells. In other words, gain the largest amount of muscle without gaining any fat ? and potentially even losing a little.
In order to gain muscle, a calorie surplus is the ultimate tool. MNP, just like the HED, is a form of overfeeding. However, instead of being high in fat compared to a typical diet and moderate in carbohydrates, it is very high in carbohydrates and very low in fat. Just like I mention in the this ebook, if you had to choose between getting in extra calories as fat, or extra calories as starch, I generally lean towards the starch. Starch is both the ultimate metabolic enhancement fuel due to its impact on leptin and leptin sensitivity and the ultimate muscle-building tool as it is the taxi driver that drives protein into muscle cells ? a.k.a. protein deposition.
So rule #1 of MNP is to maximize the amount of carbohydrate in relation to fat as possible ? striving for roughly an 8:1 ratio of carbohydrate to fat. As this ratio rises, the ratio of dietary protein deposited into muscle cells also rises.
Rule #2 is to eat an excess amount of calories. We all know about that one. Once again, the more calories you eat, the more protein you deposit into muscle cells. Just a few hundred calories above maintenance levels is enough to do the trick. There is no question that eating is by far the most anabolic (muscle building) thing a person can do. A typical mixed overfeeding regimen that results in 20 pound weight gain will yield a 5 pound increase in lean body mass (25% lean gains on average). The trick is tweaking the diet composition and exercise habits to yield 100% lean gains, which is what MNP aims to do.
Rule #3 is to maximize the ratio of starch to sugars (sucrose and fructose) in the diet. This basically just serves to increase the total carbohydrate to fat ratio of the diet, as sugars metabolized as fructose are converted to fat in the liver at a much higher rate than starches and other sugars that are metabolized as glucose.
Rule #4 is to do a couple of solid full-body workouts each week to further encourage muscle growth and development. Although I have had poor luck with high-intensity workouts in the past, much of this failure could have been due to the low intake of carbohydrates in my diet ? producing too much cortisol and preventing muscle from being re-built. A workout where you try to push your limitations and force an ?adaptive response? however, is probably ideal for most people with decent hormonal health and a diet better suited for high-intensity efforts.
And that’s it. Pretty simple, but in many ways sound ? and in even more ways bland :)
Does it work? My initial experiences (decreased waist size with no change in scale weight) with similar ideas suggest that it could be very successful, and that the ?HED? does have the potential to be refined in such a way as to help people improve their lean body mass to body fat ratios in the pursuit of better physiques ? if they so choose.
Anyway, here’s the link to MNP for more reading, and a great clickable references section behind the theories.
For those who would rather shoot themselves in the head than eat a low-fat diet, you’ll be relieved to see I have posted a new recipe and video for my beloved homemade sausage HERE.
A note on high-carb/low-fat failures:
We all know that most high-carb/low-fat pursuits were miserable failures. I believe that those failures can all be attributed to:
1) Being too low in calories ? trying to eat less and exercise more on a low-fat diet is a great way to dissolve lean body mass, obliterate the metabolism, trigger hypoglycemia, and spark out-of-control hunger, addictive eating behavior, and rebound fat storage. Even if you weren’t trying to eat less, you probably were as removing the fat from your food is a huge deterrent to calorie consumption.
Oh man, this is so interesting.
Pair this with a book I read recently (The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution, by Fred Hahn) and one could get seriously fit, seriously fast! Hahn strongly advocates bringing each muscle group to complete failure in the shortest time possible, all in no longer than 30 minutes per week. I tell ya, I've tried just a few slow burn excercises and noticed improvements the next day.
Very exciting! I'm going to try to get my husband to try out this advice, as he wants to lose some fat. But I know that what he really needs is to gain muscle, too.
Matt aren't we approaching a kind of typical bodybuilding type of approach (without of course the need to eat 7 times a day;)) ?
Head is spinning with the percentages, etc. Unpack further? What would this look like? I am such a "Meal Plan Menu" geek.
Too bad Slow Burn is paired with low-carb! I would get ill every time I tried Slow Burn on a low-carb diet.
Veiled Glory-
There's more of that at the MNP website, but keep in mind he is a bean-loving vegan. Substitute fish, shrimp, chicken, and pork tenderloin anywhere it says "beans" or "legumes" :)
I'm sure it works with beans too, but, as they say in Hawaii, no can brah. If no can, no can.
Jedi-
Yes – only protein in this scenario is more minimized, while starch is glorified, which is probably healthier and certainly cheaper.
I really find this interesting. It'd be awsome to be able to overeat in a way that is actually hard to put on fat and yields maximum muscle gains. You leave a month on vacation and come back as if you had been on steroids :-D !!
I think I'll experiment with it for a while to see how it goes (but much more animal protein with it). If I can manage to stay low fat for so long.
But then, Esselstyn seems to say that the craving for fat goes away in about 4 weeks.
It also seems very clear from the works of Esseltyn or Ornish that a lower fat intake is far better for cardiovascular health. I used to buy the low carb mantra that fat does not do any damage but I really changed my mind when actually investigating the subject. Sure, many primitive tribes do not get heart disease for various possible reasons but it does not mean that they are free of atherosclerosis. Low fat agrarian groups seem to both have no heart disease and have zero atherosclerosis. Which one is best? No atherosclerosis or hoping that you will be immune to heart attacks??? I think I'd rather know that my arteries are clear.
I don't know exactly why high fat diets clog arteries but they seem to do so pretty consistantly. Even in primitive people
Martin.
It's too bad he went on a two-year year hiatus from what appears to be the fact that he couldn't stick to his own nutritional guidelines.
I guess it's difficult to stick to a low fat low protein low animal products diet when they are available. No primitive people would ever do that.
Martin.
OK Matt, 2 questions…
Skim milk…good or bad? It would be low in fat and have a quality protein source.
Secondly, you had mentioned consuming fruit but to keep it away from starches (causes zits, etc.). What about fruit and protein? You may have talked about it in the comments of your last post (I will re-check) but what's the rule of thumb there. I believe it has been mentioned that Ray Peat likes the fruit/meat combo.
Thanks!
Matt,
Do you think the problem with low-carb is the appetite suppression, leading to the same metabolic lowering effect as any low-calorie diet, or is there more to it? In other words, if someone on a low-carb diet made sure to overfeed, could he raise his metabolism, or do you think starches specifically are necessary for that?
Not eating enough carbs seems to be a big stress on the body and increasing calories may not improve it. The body rejects excess of fat anyway. I couldn't overeat on zero carb without being very sick. And the fat did not seem to be absorbed well anyway if I overdid it.
Martin.
Interesting ideas. My "metabolic type" is a carb type, but I have been eating a super healthy but pretty high fat diet, getting my fats mostly from (ultra fresh, organic) eggs and (organic) avocados. I keep fruit (fructose) intake very low and only eat "slow carbs" (I pretty much only eat Quinoa and Quinoa/Corn pasta for starches.)
The value I have found in having the added fats is that I can do "carb cut-offs" which eliminate all carbs in the last 6 hours or so before going to bed. The theory being that there won't be excess carbs to be stored as fat and that the body will switch to burning fat for fuel in the temporarily carb depleted state.
That diet has given me great gains in the gym & muscle size, but I notice some "waistline creep" starting to happen, so I have been cutting down on the fats and just accepting the reduced calories for now.
Anyhow, no question…Just wanted to say thanks for the thought provoking blog. I will tinker with my diet spreadsheet and come up with a workable plan for a high starch / slow carb meal plan. I'm gonna miss those avocados!
So what about fat soluble vitamins (A and K mostly I guess), do you believe their importance for long-term health is overstated?
Keeping us on our toes as always, Matt. I'm kind of working my way across the diet board at the moment. I started at low-carb/high-fat last year and after hitting high-carb/high-fat this spring I'm finally easing into high-carb/low-fat. It takes a lot for me to revamp my diet so I've just been taking it slow.
I will say I've noticed improvements in exercise performance as well since upping carbs. The last time I tried lifting heavy was during my low-carb phase and I didn't show much improvement in strength even over the course of a month. Now I can see strength gains within a couple workouts.
If you haven't seen it you shouls check out Matt Metzgar's post on the All Potato Diet at his blog (there's also a part 2):
http://www.mattmetzgar.com/matt_metzgar/2010/06/the-allpotato-diet.html
First comment on the blog, long time follower. I work out regulary now, 2 or 3x a week, usually a full body routine. I pretty much have ate whatever and not gained a ton of fat or muscle. Slight body composition change to more muscle. But I am willing to try this out for a bit and test it. I love experimenting. So, the question is. What the hell do I eat?
Obviously, eat a crap load of starches (potatoes prob being the best), limit fat! This is hard I think, how do I make my tatters good? And lastly have enough protein which will mostly be taken care of by eating a lot, but nothing crazy. So, does that mean I can't eat eggs since they have fat? Or do I have to go egg white only ( :/ ) ? I don't eat a lot of meat or poultry, but I do eat fish, so does that mean no more Salmon since it's a fatty fish? Any suggestions would be great.
Thank.
BTW, 180 is the isssshh!!
Will, about fruit and protein. I got my negative reactions eating fruit with yogurt, fwiw. I stopped and acne cleared up. I'll try fruit alone soon.
What Jedi said. Isn't this approaching a typical bodybuilding diet? I mean, no offense, but I do think those guys have spent a lot of time on the problem and found the best solutions out there. They have figured out how to put on muscle and drop fat, but they don't seem to have found the Magic Bullet that allows them to do that without a bulk/cut cycle, which involves putting on fat with the muscle and then PSMFing or whatever-ing their way to fat loss. Maybe Martin B has found a way minimize the fat gain, but other than that,it doesn;t seem likely that there's a body recomp Magic Bullet that no one has stumbled upon yet.
I don't mean to be such a naysayer, because I believe in Matt's ability to iterate his way to something that really works, and I support his endeavors!
One possibility for lowering the fat you eat with potatoes is to make them with warm milk. I cooked 3 lbs of potatoes for dinner last night. I heated up a cup of whole milk in a pan, added garlic powder, salt and pepper and mashed that into the potatoes after they were boiled. They were creamy and delicious and needed no butter and no gravy. A cup of whole milk is 8 grams of fat versus the 22 grams of fat I'd used in two tablespoons of butter that I'd use in to make mashed potatoes. Warm buttermilk might allow you to go even lower in fat.
I think skim milk is a lousy protein source because it's almost always adulterated with added milk powder to give it body. Also the taste is pretty blah. Two percent is a nice compromise, in that it cuts the fat almost in half but usually has no additives.
One thing that mainstream bodybuilders are missing is vitamin A (see Chris Masterjohn's article). Vitamin A raises testosterone levels. But because mainstream bodybuilders are deficient, they must resort to steroids to produce that equivalent effect.
I don't think bodybuilders are deficient in testosterone-enhancing nutrients such as zinc, selenium, l-carnitine, and taurine. They eat plenty of muscle meat, and muscle meat is rich in these nutrients.
One thing that causes fat gain is excessive estrogen levels. It's partly caused by their steroid usage, and excessive steroid usage will increase estrogen levels via aromatazation. Another thing is excessive PUFA consumption?a thing that all mainstream people do. But bodybuilders eat more PUFAs because of bulking. Excessive tryptophan intake from muscle meat is another factor (see Ray Peat).
Bodybuilders are usually deficient in vitamin A, because they avoid foods high in vitamin A like liver, dairy fat, and egg yolks. A deficiency of vitamin A will decrease the utilization of vitamin D. And low vitamin D levels are found to cause insulin resistance and also leptin resistance. So that may be another factor of why it's hard for so many bodybuilders to lose fat.
As a post meonpausal lady, I like to say Hot Lady btw, I thank you for the shout out Matt!
I have been toying with the HED, loving eating less Omega 6 stuff (who knew my nuts were all wrong? Loving the macs, not the price, but the taste etc) and eating more carbs on my weight lifting pump-you-up days.. so far, feeling great, losing some of the belly.. hubby likes it so all systems are go.
Gotta have that good fat to burn baby burn and build killer biceps. Now if only I could get that ripped six pack look without 44 days of hiking and starvation.. h mmmmm.
love deb
Here's a little nugget from this website:
http://www.faqs.org/nutrition/Ome-Pop/Pacific-Islander-Americans-Diet-of.html
"…the traditional Hawaiian diet is 75 to 80 percent starch, 7 to 12 percent fat, and 12 to 15 percent protein."
Sure sounds like MNP to me.
John
Organism you don't know what you are talking about. Bodybuilders know better than anyone how to gain lean muscle and lose fat and have been at the cutting edge of diet for 50 years
Hey Matt,
Interesting thoughts, and worth a try for me. ESpecially like the idea of just leaning out at your current weight, rather than adding and subtracting weigth later.
Also curious about Vitamin A and and the potentially anabolic effects of liver. If I wanted to incorporate that, do you suggest adding it in post workout meals, or does it not matter so much? Or do you rule against it on the basis of its fat content?
Thanks man
One other question- any sense of the long-term effects of this? Does this build dependence on the eating plan? Or is the muscle gain permanent even after you go back to mixed meals/eating plan of choice?
Riles seemed to have permanent gains, but he's still on a particular eating plan, and I'd rather not be boxed in.
Thanks for pointing that out, Mack. I shouldn't have to use the term "bodybuilder" to generalize all bodybuilders, both natural and steroid users.
Hi! I'm new around here – been reading for a week or so now, and trying out HED and RRARF.
This MNF covers the diet part, but what about RRARF? Aren't those of us in recovery mode supposed to be resting? Would MNF still work in the same way without the exercise?
And it's really hard to start eating low-fat after 7 years of WAPF. LOL
As a long time reader, I'm getting frustrated. People are pitching out the whole milk, avocados and egg yolks now? Will we be trimming the fat off our steak? Seriously, I kind of thought this site was the answer to dietary extremism, but now I don't know what is going on! Does better body composition at any cost = better health? I've seen some pretty lean looking mofos die from of all kinds of stuff. But mostly, I don't even want to eat one potato without butter!
Someone here mentioned that the guy behind MNP took a two year hiatus because he could not stick to his own nutritional guidelines. I doubt it.
I posted elsewhere on this blog that I briefly communicated with him two summers ago and he was about to get heavily involved in his field of study. Some major research project or the such and he was going to have to walk away from the blog. You can believe me or not, do not care.
Listen, I do not have half the knowledge in nutritional matters that Matt does, (or Riles or JT for that matter), I am here to learn. And I think this MNP can work. Reason, simple. Short term (and I believe you have to cycle this way of eating as you may experience cravings), one can drive your insulin levels quite high and create a major short term anabolic effect. Riles clearly did. Please google the name Kelly Blaggett. He has experience with trainees of his who can, short term, add 2 pounds a week of solid skeletal muscle tissue to their frames. It can be done and this veganmaster is doing it his way. I would not myself go vegan, but am sold on trying this. I will continue to overfeed, monitor my body temps and see what happens. I plan to start July 1 and give it a whole month.
@Anonymous: Will we be trimming the fat off our steaks?
We won't be eating steaks.
Unless your body fat percentage is below 8% you can put on decent muscle with a higher fat diet. However, you need to have 60-80% of your calories as carbohydrates pre workout. It's best to have starches as a greater percentage of it will convert to glycogen compared to simple carbohydrates due to it's slower conversion rate. You want to have this starch source at least 4 hours before workout so the glycogen will be ready and loaded for use during the workout. Post workout you may want to keep your carb intake at least 40% for the rest of that day. Guys below 8% bodyfat don't produce enough leptin so they need a high carb diet all throughout the day to boost their leptin levels. On days you don't work out you can likely go 20% or below in carbohydrates IMO unless of course your body fat is below 8%. I personally don't believe a high carb diet boosts testosterone unless you're using it during an intense exercise. Otherwise a high calorie diet in general would seem to boost testosterone due to all the growth in lean body mass.
Aaron said: Do you think the problem with low-carb is the appetite suppression, leading to the same metabolic lowering effect as any low-calorie diet, or is there more to it? In other words, if someone on a low-carb diet made sure to overfeed, could he raise his metabolism, or do you think starches specifically are necessary for that?
I've wondered the same thing. Dr. Atkins was obviously aware that a low body temperature wasn't a good thing on his diet or any other. Did his patients eventually raise their temperatures after getting on "phase 4", did he shove desiccated thyroid down their throats, or did he just ignore it? Teach me Sinsei, teach me.
Anyone seen this, sorry I don't know how to make it a link, but it's a recent study on the effect of dietary starches. What are starches high in amylose?
http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/126/9/2120.pdf
You can get the fat soluble vitamins A, D, K2, and B vitamins while consuming low fat. 1 oz of liver a day will supply you with plenty of A, K2, and B vitamins with only 1g of fat in it. Fermented codliver oil will give you the much needed vitamin D at only 1-3g of fat. 15 oz of Bone broth a day will supply with with plenty of minerals and it's mostly just the amino acid arginine and glycine with some bone and cartilage nutrients. You only need between 50-100g of protein which will make up 5-10% of your total caloric intake. You can have your fat intake at 10-30% based on this high carb diet. That would be between 30g-135g of fat a day depending on caloric intake. If you're going 80% carb, 5-10% protein your fat intake would be about 30g-68g a day.
Kelly Baggett seems to think that 10-17% body-fat for most males and 12-20% for most females is the most anabolic range for optimal muscle growth in natural people. I tend to agree with this. Green Monster have you ever looked at his NO-Bull system>
Someone was also asking about a post-workout meal. This is really not that important as long as your meals as spaced through out the day.
There is no reason at all ones muscles should atrophy unless the stop all exercise as well as eat in a caloric deficit for too long a time.
Bodybuilders do have somethings right, but they also eat too much protein, too many EFA's (pufas), as well as focus more on calories than nutrient rich foods. If you want to look at the most healthy as well as best cosmetically built, look at bodybuilders from the 50's through mid 70's. These men at real food and knew the correct way to lift weights.
If you find a diet that is low in fat unpalatable, DONT EAT THAT WAY. The key is finding what works for you and your goals.
Most starches that are commonly eaten are mostly amylopectin with a smaller percent coming from amylose.
@Riles
First off, thanks for the correct spelling of Kelly Baggett's name. Not sure where the l came from!
To answer your question, I do have his NO-bull book/system, but have never implemented it. I get what he is saying, I agree with much of it, but just cannot buy into his idea of such a high protein intake. You are right about bodybuilders eating way too much protein and for that matter cramming anything and everything into their mouths. Baggett does talk about the same things Matt does here, that as one eats more one's metabolism does rise and leads to improved body composition.
You are also correct about the great physiques of the past. Far more likely to be natural and built with healthy eating habits. You know, if you think about it, look at prisoners. You think they are eating real high protein?? Not likely. Starch is a huge component of their diets, as it is relatively cheap of course. They work out like crazy though and look at the results. Many look like the classic bodybuilders of the 50's and 60's,
Good point about the prisoners, just look at that cafeteria style food lots of cheap starches to serve as filler. Also proves the point that high volume is not only for those on steroids. I know a person that got massive in prison doing isometrics and bodyweight exercises all day everyday.
Many people dont realize that steroids do enhance recovery and protein synthesis, but they DO NOT change our basic physiology. What works for them works for a natural with a slight modification. Most of the guys from the late 50's through the 60's did use steroids but they were absolutely tiny amounts. 5-10mg of Dianabol or 200 mgs of Deca or Primo. Their muscle came from hard work and dedication.
Developing the slow twitch muscle fibers is great for endurance. It's also good for adapting joints, bones, and ligaments to various stress. Most fitness trainers today are mostly slow twitch muscle fiber development including Jillian Michaels. Fast Twitch muscle fiber development isn't popular with most modern fitness from what I have seen. There's a resurgence of this fast twitch development in the new High Intensity Interval Training Programs being introduced such as P90X. It's been popular with Bodybuilding, sprinting, gymnastics, and powerlifting for a long time now. 100+ years. Some Break Dancers also appear to have this fast twitch muscle fiber development too. What Matt is talking about sounds like HIIT.
@the new and improved "Will", my brother from another mother, LOL! You're going to need a differentiator to tell us apart, my friend. You could be the New and Improved Will, while I am just old and decrepit. ;-)
Riles,
Would I want to consume a high calorie diet that is 65-80% whole food starches (such as potatoes) in order to get the most anabolic and anti-catabolic benefits for accumulation of lean body mass while staying the same weight, for bodybuilding growth of lean body mass weight gain, and for maintaining? Would I need to do this everday, even on days I'm not exercising for best results?
I read one of your blogs that said a higher carb intake may boost insulin and testosterone while lowering lypolysis, cortisol, and the accumulation of body fat.
http://thelifeofriles.blogspot.com/2010/04/overfeeding-increased-testosterone-and.html#comments
Yeah, what's up with giving us bigger, stronger convicts? I say we give them more MTV and sugar, and less starch and time with the weights!
Riles, I'm sure you've told us before, but when you're eating your 5lbs of daily taters, what kind do you prefer?
How bout willrob? you can stay will, i'll be willrob. dont wanna take your claim with that great name.
http://freetheanimal.com/2010/03/poor-poor-matt-stone.html
Wow Matt,
I've heard of you debating with other people with nutrition but I didn't know it gets ugly like this guy's entry.
I feel Mark Sisson's low carb approach is reasonable as long as the person doesn't spend too much time doing exercise. Though with all the pitfalls people go through I'd say you can sometimes only avoid them with analyzing all the variables. I'm sure like from everyone else Mark has people that followed him that failed health wise while following him. He does appear to have a low bodyfat, good temperment, and while consuming low carb. Though from the sounds of it he doesn't keep his heart rate up for that long during exercise or hike for hours. He does variable intensity with mostly lower intensity work for shorter durations.
I do find myself having much better physical endurance, greater strength, and mental endurance when I eat high everything in my non diet than when I was leaner.
IMO, Mark Sisson looks very scrawny. I'd like more bulk than that. Looks flat. Maybe that's just his genetics. There are things to learn from him for sure.
Lorelei,
I know your probably kidding, but it has been said that inmates that are allowed to exercise and use free weights are much less likely to be violent while in prison. Plus, I don't think we should treat them like caged animals.
I normally eat just regular Russet Potatoes. I prefer them because I think the skin is easiest to peel after cooking and I like their dryer texture. If I where in your local though, I would be eating taro roots and cassava just as much.
For clarification, this is a short-term thing. This is not meant to last for life or anything like that.
For true overfeeding on starches, most will have to rely on refined rice products like he suggests. Doing it for a 4-week period is no big deal. Won't kill anybody.
You butter and fat steak lovers bear with me. There is more to be explored in health, nutrition, diet, fitness, etc. than what is and is not healthy. Clearly, body composition is important to a lot of people, it is a vast and interesting subject, and many important lessons on metabolism are locked up inside bodybuilder nutrition.
This isn't typical bodybuilder nutrition either. It's got less fat, more starch, and way less protein. And it's a very targeted form of overfeeding that is trying to go above and beyond the traditional bulk/cut cycle.
On low-carb overfeeding, I don't think it will work. I ate tons of calories on a low-carb diet and ran into nothing but trouble. Temps were fine, but I was not. Low-carb, it if it to be used, should be very short-term.
Vitamin A-
Lack of vitamin A is almost unheard of.
Collden-
Way overstated.
Skim Milk-
Gross. My thoughts lean towards Jenny's. Plus, I'm kinda pissed at milk right now after the milk diet.
@Willrob, that is awesome! Thanks for doing that. If we had conversed before it would look like one of us were talking to ourselves, LOL! I looked at your original post and I was thinking "I didn't write that!" Congratulations on having such a fine and distinguished name.
Re: Skim milk
In addition to my 2nd place All-Valley trophy I have a cream separator. If you live in the boonies like me it's almost impossible to find good heavy cream. I can get raw milk occasionaly and pasteurized anytime. Now, with a little elbow grease I can have cream and butter too. Johnny need a cow.
The skim milk that's left from separating raw milk is way different than store bought. It's definately not as appetizing as raw milk but nutritionally speaking I think it would be ok.
Cool, a cream separator! That is hard core. Yeah, I guess unadulterated raw skim milk would probably be a really good protein source. Regular store-bought skim milk is a lot like the whey protein that body builders are so crazy about–not real food with net negatives involved.
Matt, I feel the same way about dairy now. My digestion for other foods is improving since I cut it out. Two days in a row I ate butter because of concern about vit a + d, and today I woke up with puffiness under my eyes and a drugged feeling. I have a sister who has been macrobiotic for years, so hasn't had dairy for years, and she doesn't seem to have any vit d,a, or k deficiency symptoms. (I was macrobiotic for a long time, too, and it didn't work at all for me.)
With respect to lectins, inflammation, and leptins resistance:
When I eat wheat I don't have much appetite control. I even start to crave cake and cookies. When I cut out wheat I immediately start to eat corn, and the appetite control gets even worse. The wheat definitely causes inflammation in my brain, because I can't type or write without making a lot of mistakes. Dairy just zones me out taking away all motivation. Are these types of problems caused by lectins or opioid peptides/I'm not sure? It's an area I should spend more time looking into.
It's always good to remember, too, that estrogens have a lot to do with inflammation.
With respect to milk, does anyone know where lactose fits into the sugar picture?
I think that leaning out around the waist is a sign of a good diet, although of course it's not the only thing to look for. The milk with small amounts of fruit diet has left me with a lot of belly fat.
I don't see why a diet of high carb, low protein, and low fat couldn't be done long term, as long as the food choices of each macronutrient were correct. For example, I wouldn't do it in a vegan way or use polyunsaturated fats. And maybe starch instead of fruit for carbs is more sustainable, I don't know.
I have a book that I got years ago (the copyright inside the front cover says 1994-1995) called "Get Lean" by Keith Klein and Lee Labrada. Their diet is high carb, mod protein and low fat. I skimmed through it real quick and although I didn't see any macro nutrient ratios, I did some calcs from a sample day of 2000 cals and it was just under 60% carbs, around 30% protein, and just under 10% fat. It's interesting to note that they talk about how eating too few calories and training too much will slow your metabolism. They also said not to diet down (the book was directed towards getting bodybuilders contest-ready) more than once or twice a year.
Also from "Get Lean", no simple sugars, including fruit, and absolutely no dairy products of any kind.
Matt, so are you keeping track of stats? Blood pressure, fasting glucose, body temp, etc? Or are you just willy-nilly on this one. Purely appearance?
"I think that leaning out around the waist is a sign of a good diet." Betsy I would have to disagree. Emotionally sure (well not long term), but from a health perspective not necessarily.
High carb has made it so that it is difficult to fatigue myself while lifting. On low carb, 15-20 min and I was dead on the floor with my head spinning, and holding back from puking. Oh but that was the growth hormone "surge".
High carb has made it so that it is difficult to fatigue myself while lifting. On low carb, 15-20 min and I was dead on the floor with my head spinning, and holding back from puking. Oh but that was the growth hormone "surge".
I know it. I could not figure out why the crap I was always so tired. I would do shorter, high intense workouts purely for strenth and after about 2 sets I'd be breathing hard and drained. I would eat more and more thinking I just needed more calories. I read where Jeff Volek said to have a higher sodium diet when doing low carb so I started drinking glasses full of bullion. It's funny how I finally just accepted that it was normal to feel that way. I can't wait till my temps get up so I can train on a high carb diet.
Another interesting post!
First of all, I still think that RRARF is the better way to go for most. The overfeeding aspect is still there with MNP, but RRARF is about caloric and nutritional superabundance. The needs for fat soluble vitamins may be lower than the WAPF makes it seem, but I still think that moderate amounts of good fats can be very healing on their own way. You certainly won't get that with MNP.
But then again, MNP surely isn't meant to be a replacement for RRARF. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I see that, MNP could be a strategy to change body composition in a favourable way while still reaping the benefits of overfeeding: restoring leptin sensitivity and raising mitochondiral activity,all that stuff which seems to have some unique healing potential all by itself.
And as a matter of fact, this post comes in very handy right now. Summer vacation just started and I have almost six weeks of no school ahead of me. My diet has already gotten higher carb and lower fat as of lately anyway and it really seems to have a positive effect on body composition. So, I guess, I'm gonna throw myself into it for at least a month and see how it goes. However, I'm gonna modify the concept a little bit. First of all, I'm not gonna go too low-fat, simply because I see no reason to do so. My main fat source is coconut which is directly metabolized to a greater degree than other fat sources so I suppose I can "get away" with slightly more fat. Apart from that I think that the results I will achieve will be decent enough, even if I don't completely deprive my taste buds. Improving body composition is a nice thing, but I'm not a professional bodybuilder and I'm not striving for perfection.
Also, I will continue to replace some of my meals with a liter of raw milk. From what I can tell those milk meals also seem to change body composition in a favourable way and milk is a highly anabolic substance, so I guess this is quite a good way to get in more nutrition/fat without ruining the concept.
Caged animals, no. People who have caused damage, often physical, to others, yes. I'm not talking about little Johnny who got mixed up in the wrong crowd and stole some car stereos. Considering the incredibly high rate of recidivism in criminals jailed for *violent* behaviour, I do think it's foolish to encourage a *violent* person to become bigger and stronger. Whether or not it keeps them less violent IN prison is not so much a concern to me as what will happen upon release. For right or for wrong, prison is not exactly rehabilitative, generally speaking. More training with job skills would be a better use of resources than time to lift weights. Either way, I'm far more concerned about the rights and well-being of the folks who are making the choice to follow the rules of society. Rant finished.
Hmm, I was trying to think of something light and fluffy to say to defuse such a serious side conversation, but it's not coming to me. Anyhow, now y'all know I have strong opinions about more than diet. I used to be all sweet and fluffy until I realized that some of my friends didn't know MY feelings about things and presumed (quite wrongly) that I agreed with them. So now I opine freely!
Taro = Poi – I hide it in a lot of things, like oatmeal this morning (talk about making people big and strong)! Tastes nasty on it's own, but is relatively flavorless and thus hide-able. The big starch here, besides ever-present rice and the obligatory side of macaroni salad (which does duty as salad), is Okinawan or purple sweet potatoes. In fact, I suspect Hawaiians hate orange vegetables. Sweet potatoes are purple, yams are white, pumpkin is blue, and carrots are yellow.
"When I eat wheat I don't have much appetite control. I even start to crave cake and cookies."
Hi Betsy,
I have long puzzled over this. Certain carbohydrates once I start to eat, it opens the floodgates to a feeding frenzy. Its instantaneous. It is not an insulin rollercoaster, hitting in down the track a little, but straight away.
Is it the sweet taste?
Is it brain chemistry on certain substances?
Is it microbial response in mouth?
Dunno, but am open to theories and observations
J.O.R.
I ditto comments about compelled binging after eating certain carbs. It is definitely chemical. But there is a psychological component as well for me too. Like falling down the rabbit hole.
Actually, dont think it is just 'sweet taste' per se. Many foods (not just carbohydrates) taste sweet, including chicken, and beef. Then theres carbohydrates like quinoa which are more bitter than sweet.
Certainly some sort of chemistry taking place, but the mechanics of it are hard to pin down.
Does it reflect microbial flora?
Is it an opiate response?
Is it evolutionary response: ie, get it while theres some around?
J.O.R.
Lorelei,
I respect your opinion about the prisoners and tend to agree with you. That is funny about the orange. Do you ever try other starchy things on the island like breadfruit or green bananas and prepare them like potatoes? What about actually taro roots that arent fermented into poi?
I don't know how many calories to try to eat/day. You know how when you use the idea of 1gr of protein/kg of body weight and then you figure out how many carbs and fats to add, well what do you use to determine how much of each you should eat with the MNP plan?
I just figured out how many calories I've eaten today, and it's 6:36PM and I've only eaten 1158! For dinner I had 1/2cup dry volume of white rice, 76 gr of carbs, and it was only 456 calories! I must have been starving myself for years! I also had 9 oz of potatoes for breakfast! It was hard to get it all down. I can't wait to see what happens to my weight after doing this for awhile.
@JOR and Fatbeats,
For me it seems to be a chemical thing, just as if I'm addicted to it, but the first bite is optional. The more I eat, the stronger the pull gets. I go to Wholefoods all the time and don't think twice about the slices of cake that they sell. But when I have wheat in my diet, I can't stay away from it. I sometimes give in and buy a piece, and eat it right there. Usually I have to admit to myself that it doesn't even taste good. Strange!
For the Wheat "bingers"
Do you get cravings for just more of the same wheat product or for different ones. I find it hard to believe that someone eating a non restricted diet would binge on toast or on saltine crackers…
Betsy,
I agree, its chemical.
Just like drinking alcohol, chemistry.
Only this instance its, eat, eat, eat. More, more, more of this substance.
Chemistry dictates response.
But, the mechanics of why is fascinating.
J.O.R.
@RIles: I have found in the past the wheat/sugar cravings went together. I wouldn't really crave bread or crackers on their own, but I'd always be eating sandwiches, wraps, pizza, etc. I'd want bread at every meal or it didn't seem complete. And often I would feel lethargic after so it would lead to sugar cravings to get more energy.
I think these are symptoms of an underlying issue. Now that I consume enough calories I am able to eat bread or sugar without craving or bingeing.
This post was spot on for me. I'm kind of struggling a bit now cause I've gained 10 pounds. I don't fit into my skinny jeans anymore….lol….I don't look very good, super bloated and it's only been three weeks of HED/RRARF, so I haven't yet felt many of the improvements. I've got worse migraines, allergies, spots, exhaustion, thrush etc. BUT most importantly my digestion is better than it's been in 20 years! I have no more cravings for sweets anymore, and my postprandial blood glucose levels are now two digits, instead of three!
So, those are huge and real improvements. Still, it feels emotionally difficult to have to go back to the pregnancy clothing I wore for the first two years of my low carb disaster-adventure….But I hope it will be less than two years this time around, before I can go back to wearing T-shirts and skinny jeans again….lol. I keep reminding myself that it's a 25% muscle mass increase….
I'm never going back to low carb, and I'm never going back to being vegan for sure…..
Good idea btw to add milk to the potatoes instead of butter. I'll try that.
There is nothing new under the sun, what is the traditional bodybuilder's diet from decades ago? Rice, broccoli, lean protein – egg whites, chicken breast. All sportsmen I know eat high carb, high protein, low fat.
Even if Key's original research was flawed, there has to be some kernel of truth to the fat is bad idea. As Matt has said just look at the WAPF people.
Even little Johnny learns how to shank and kill to likely fit in with the gang affiliation he has to join to survive in prison. In jail I was bunked with a man who hacked up his wife and he was one of the most docile people in their. The other guy didn't need to lift weights at all but he somehow got ahold of steroids and bulked up quickly with only basic exercises like pushups. He was actually really nice but I'm sure his bad side is very dangerous. It was the smaller guys doing all the fighting. If they don't have weights they'll rely on knives and steroids. They can still do one handed/one fingered pushups and stuff. Just let them kill eachother. Our communities save money that way. Save up and move into a better neighborhood if you want to be safe. Even small guys can use guns on you so weights doesn't necessarily make a person more dangerous.
(((Caged animals, no. People who have caused damage, often physical, to others, yes. I'm not talking about little Johnny who got mixed up in the wrong crowd and stole some car stereos. Considering the incredibly high rate of recidivism in criminals jailed for *violent* behaviour, I do think it's foolish to encourage a *violent* person to become bigger and stronger. Whether or not it keeps them less violent IN prison is not so much a concern to me as what will happen upon release. For right or for wrong, prison is not exactly rehabilitative, generally speaking. More training with job skills would be a better use of resources than time to lift weights. Either way, I'm far more concerned about the rights and well-being of the folks who are making the choice to follow the rules of society. Rant finished.)))
If women would just raise their kids right or trash would stop reproducing we wouldn't have these types of problems with prisons. Even in jail they learn identity theft. They're too busy relearning basic math to learn job skills. Even if they did a lot of job training most of them would get tired of making only minimum wage and get back into their crime lifestyle. Just a lot of wasted tax dollars in my opinion.
You might want to think twice the next time you go out because a lot of these people in costumer service making minimum wage are ex convicts. They might snap and hurt you for something you didn't even realize you did. You can't tell that they were previously ex convicts, they hide it well. Their mind is all crazy, they might not be big and muscley but they have that testosterone boost that gives them super strength. Especially if you're a women an ex convict women can go nuts on you. She might stab you with her pocket knife.
Funny thing is things can get really ugly. I was probably half as strong as the 'roider but gang bangers avoided confrontation even if they thought I was in the wrong because I have retarded strength. I could likely break something on accident. That's without me conditioning myself or lifting weights. It's so easy to get into a bad situation though. Eventually if misunderstandings had grown I'm sure I'd get jumped unless I had my own people. Don't really know, nothing would likely happen at all. I'm sure if I somehow got stuck their I might get sucked into the whole energy, can't say. Actually things were rather maintained and peaceful. It was just jail though. Prison would be far worse. People that go to those places deserve their sentence. It's just an ugly truth of life. I had actually gained 30 pounds from all the high carb meals within a half a month while in there. We had soy, oatmeal, milk, cornbread, cake, three times a day. The meals were between 2500 to 5000 calories a day. That and all the low intensity activity such as cleaning, cooking, cable television, work duty, card games it was easy to gain weight and bulk up. We didn't have weights but we could do pushups, pullups, and stuff like that.
Goodness Daniel, you're making me even more paranoid than I am! Good to know I'm not the only one with strong opinions :). Fortunately, 'round here, there's mostly just Blalas (large Hawaiian males) mekin' beef (fighting) wit each odda over one stupid kine ting coz dey drunk. Not really violent in the sense I'm thinking of. The Big Island of Hawaii doesn't draw the scary folk like it does the hippie-dippies. We're like a country town. You've got your drunks and your small-time crimes, nothing serious.
I hear what you're saying about little guys though. My hubby is "little" and wiry, not bulky at all, but was an Olympic level wrestler in his heydey and could take down just about anybody. And bench press more than double his body weight. And he had the testosterone surges to go with it. Luckily he outgrew it all long before I met him. He ate a super high carb, low everything else diet when he was training.
Riles, just plain taro can be used much like potatoes, slightly more work though. I do that sometimes, but the sad thing is, organic potatoes are much cheaper than taro from the farmers. Don't ask me why. I did breadfruit once but it was a sticky mess. Maybe I didn't do it right. It's not common to find at the markets either. Jakfruit is an interesting relative of breadfruit, it's sweeter. Haven't seen cassava. Plantain/cooking bananas tend to run more yellow I find. I really like to take riper bananas and fry in coconut oil as dessert, along with shredded coconut and mac nuts and cinnamon. Ono! (Delicious). I've discovered I like rutabagas and parsnips, which are regulars at the market, but not really Hawaiian! Really, rice is where it's at, though. JT would be happy here. EVERYTHING gets served over rice, with a side of rice, and an extra helping of rice. And macaroni salad for your vegetables! And I know carbs don't have to make you fat, but Hawaiians are some BIG people… Although, I've been obsessed with looking at old photos/lithographs from when missionaries first arrived, and while they were BIG, they weren't fat by any means, except possibly the royal women. Their diet was high starch, low fat.
Sugar cravings – today "our" Thai restaurant was unexpectedly closed, and it was in between lunch and dinner hour, so we didn't have many eating establishment choices. Went to a cheap diner and got loco mocos (you don't even WANT to know what they are… ok, rice, covered with a hamburger patty, covered with an egg, covered with gravy, and if you're really lucky, topped with Spam). Now, a loco moco is good when made with quality ingredients, but this was some nasty stuff. Headache within minutes. Definitely MSG and who knows what else. I rarely crave sugar, but within 15 minutes I was dying for something sweet. It passed after about an hour, but still… Can't blame it on wheat, but something in there was a trigger.
Lorelei, That banana dessert sound pretty delicious. I think you are right about rice, it is the "universal" starch. I used to make a meal similar to loco moco but without gravy, it is one of my favorites. Maybe some pipikaula instead would have blunted those sugar cravings haha.
Samoans and Hawaiians and alot of the Pacific island peoples had some pretty impressive physiques before the diseases of civilization took hold. I tend to think it came from their high carb diets. Although, on another note, most of those cultures also have been known to practice Cannibalism too haha
I seriously doubt that weight lifting is the determining factor as to whether a prisoner will become violent or not.
I have met lots of people who have gone to prison, most of them you would never suspect of having committed serious crimes. It is important to understand that there is always a reason for somebody's actions, people are not just "bad seeds". Who here has never broken a law and gotten away with it? I met somebody with a double life sentence who killed somebody on a crystal meth binge, he was actually allowed out and lived at a halfway house because he cleaned himself up and changed his life. If you met him you would never think he was capable of doing something like that. People who are in a drug psychosis are not thinking rationally when they act. They should still be held responsible but ultimately you are not making a rational calculated decision once you are awake for 3 days on a speed binge.
I think just about every single person can be found guilty of a crime at some point in their life whether it be assault, drug use, drunk driving, etc. It just takes one wrong move while drunk to end up with years in jail so don't think all prisoners are necessarily different from you are I.
LOL! Lorelei a few week ago I was eating the shit out of loco moco. Yes even with Span. Reminded me of good old biscuits and sausage gravy Hawaiian style.
Riles I agree with you that the people of the Pacific Islands exploitation of carbs specifically starch, was a contributing factor in their impressive physiques.
Hey Matt,
So I'm on day three and I pretty much have no motivation to keep going on Lyle's PSMF. I do IF anyways but I feel very hungry now and I'm tired of having no energy. I really don't mind the diet, my performance on strength lifts is great but anything outside of low rep, heavy weights is out of the question. My mood during the day is certainly more surely, probably due to the hunger. I want to be lean but I don't know if the radical approach is for me, even if it's just for 11 days.
Going forward, Riles/JT/etc. please feel free to chip in because right now I'm spinning in circle, I'm thinking of keeping high protein (200-250g), ratcheting up carbs (mostly starches, 200-250g), and keeping fat low (~50g). This will likely put me back at maintenance calorie level so maybe I'd have to cut down the carbs to lean out, not sure. Any guidance/thoughts would be very much appreciated. Right now I wish I could be one of those people that doesn't think too much.
My main questions lies around carb intake. I want to keep protein high as I feel that my strength does a lot better with more protein but if I'm only doing strength work on a day, should I keep carbs low (<100g) or should I just always keep them around 250g as when I do non-strength work (spints/MMA) I will use much more than say 250g of glycogen? Just thinking out loud here. Thanks
Mark, First I believe the PSMF is best for extremely obese people and those athletes who are already very lean and looking to looses specific stubburn fat.
If I were you; depending on how much you weigh in lbs, eat that many grams in protein, no more. I would suggest splitting this amount into 3 meals spaced 5-6 hours apart, from the end of one to the beginning of the next, during the day. Next consume 2-4 grams of carbs for every gram of protein you eat. My dietary fat falls around 20g a day. After you do this for a week or two you can then adjust your carbs.
You will also not have glycogen stores if you are not eating above maintenance.
Ha ha Mark!
PSMF sounds good in theory, and is alluring (I'll just sneak in a little head start!), but in reality you feel like curling up in a little ball and sleeping all day. It's not for the faint of heart. For those with a lot of fat to lose, however, my understanding is that enough fat is released from cells to actually feel pretty good and energized. Someone with 10-20 pounds to lose – not so much.
Overall, the most sound advice for you would probably be to eat a starch and protein-based diet to appetite and not beyond, focus on the quality of your workouts, and do a cheat meal or cheat day after every 2 pounds or so that you lose.
Speaking of Lyle McDonald, let's consider that McDonald is more or less the authority on ketogenic dieting, and has written perhaps the ultimate Bible of low-carb and low-carb physiology. What does he say about working out on low-carb?
"I'll tell you right now that doing pump training (hypertrophy basically) on low-carbs is one of the most miserable activities you will ever do."
Classic. Sound familiar Nathan?
When I tried to lift weights on low-carb I would get shaky, lightheaded, and just feel so weak that I couldn't continue – and certainly couldn't perform at a high enough intensity level to get substantial gains.
What a waste of time. My oh my to have those hours back feeling like a beast on a high-starch diet while actually making progress!
Lisa E.-
Exactly! I mean, what if you could avoid the weight gain and sluggishness but still get the big drop in postprandial glucose, fierce digestion, etc.
Cutting fat back by half and doubling starch – maybe even incorporating some fruit for those that seem to handle fruit well, could be all it takes to make the whole rehabilitative process more efficient.
Hawaii Girl-
If you ever become a prison warden, you will accomplish your goals most efficiently with the Ancel Keys special 1,700 calorie diet. Prisoners will be lethargic, have no sex drive, lose muscle mass, and be as docile as little kittens. Of course, those with connections will be getting special rations from corrupt prison gaurds and having their way with the less fortunate.
Hey Riles,
Thanks for the quick response. I weighed in at 207.8 the other day and I'm not sure what my level of body fat is. I'm guessing around 15% because I can see the top of my upper abs but they are not defined (I have more than just "stubborn fat").
So following your outline I would eat 200g of protein, 400g to 800g of carbs, and 20g of fat. The 20g of fat seems very low, I don't know how I would get 200g of protein without more fat than that. My next thought is should I be worrying about topping off glycogen stores at that rate? Is this a popular method? Thanks
Hey, everyone! Would like to present you with my info and see if you have any input. Several years ago I had an adrenal meltdown. No one I knew was talking about it, so I went out searching for info on my own. Between a supplement I bought from my chiropractor, a few changes in diet, exercise and purposeful resting, I managed to get better. Not perfect, but better. Well, over the past several weeks I have been crashing again. Want to know my symptoms? Take a look at any low thyroid/adrenal disaster list and I have the majority of them. I can’t figure out why now. Anyway, I found Matt’s info and thought ? my temps must be in the basement! I bought a Vick’s armpit thermometer and took my temp before getting out of bed this morning. I nearly fainted. It said 99.2! What? So, here I am with a goiter and experiencing all the adrenal burnout stuff I experienced back in ?05, but my temp is that high? Could it be because I have been making a concerted effort to include a lot more raw milk in my diet? Would that possibly up my temp that much? Do you think that my adrenal burnout symptoms could be the ?return to old symptoms? that Dr. Porter talks about in his milk diet book? I tend to think that ?healing reaction? talk is something the gurus say to keep you on their plan even after it obviously isn’t working for you, but I am really confused by this. Sorry my post is so long?heaven knows it could have been longer! lol Any input is appreciated.
Hey Riles, good point on the maintenance. That brings up another question of what is my maintenance? I lift for about 30 minutes 2-3 days a week doing Wendler 5/3/1. On top of that I play softball (lots of outfield sprinting) and do an MMA class 2-3 days a week. For that level of activity, I've heard everything from 12 times bodyweight to 15 times bodyweight. Any ideas?
Matt – good point on the level of fatness. For me to get pretty ripped, I'd probably have to lose about 20 pounds, just like you were saying. I'm down for eating meat and starch. Given this, would I just not add fat to anything and use lean sources of protein? Should I just not worry about counting grams of protein/calories right now? Thanks for your (and Riles) help, I really appreciate it because I research so much that I get lost all the time.
Hey Riles, do you have a reference for "You will also not have glycogen stores if you are not eating above maintenance." I'm just a little confused because from my understanding when glycogen stores are depleted the carbs ingested will be transformed into glucose to refill glycogen stores and basically lock them into the muscle in which they will stay until used by the muscle a future date. So technically a person could still eat well below his maintenance levels and have full muscle glycogen levels.
In fact, I can't remember which Mcdonald book but in one of them Lyle had a study that showed that even after 3 days of non exercise muscle glycogen was still at normal levels even without the ingestion of carbs so basically a person could still go into ketosis with muscle glycogen at top levels.
Mitzi-
Definitely detox! Lol!
Yeah, that's very peculiar indeed. Any chance you may have a little bit of an infection or something?
Anyway, sorry I don't have much input to give. Let us know how things develop in the next few weeks.
Mark-
Just remember that 20 pounds of fat is a hell of a lot of calories. 70,000 calories or so. If you were able to create a 500-calorie per day deficit it would take nearly 5 months to lose that. I know that sounds daunting and demoralizing, but that's just how it goes. If you lose weight much faster than that without being at starvation calorie levels you are likely losing lean tissue and the water wrapped up in lean tissue.
You're right that 20 grams of fat is very low at that protein level. I also tend to think, with your goals of getting lean but not increasing your lean mass, that you don't need that much protein.
Ultimately, there are a jillion strategies to try. Choosing and sticking with it is what is hard, but that choice ultimately comes down to you – and what sounds realistic to you.
?
?
Mark, I made a mistake, I looked back and my fat intake is around 40-45g.
I have heard that 12x bodyweight is good for around maintenance cals but of course that is variable. If you are active like you say you are, I definitely wouldn't go below that. It is better to start high and work down than to start to low and effect your metabolism.
For proteins, that is easy, chicken breast, most fish, lean cuts of pork(tenderloin), lean cuts of beef(round & sirloin are generally very lean primals), egg whites.
I think it is easiest to pick a portion of protein you are going to eat and then eat starch till you are full and satisfied. Plus, this way seems most natural as well because that is what starches do, they help stretch out a meal.
Hi mitzi, you can't go by one day's temperature. You need multiple days to see what is going on. Chronically low temps point to a thyroid problem. Inconsistent temps point to adrenals. You may take your temps for 5 days and have readings that swing from 99.2 down to the 96's. You could also be experiencing some type of infection causing a bit of a fever as well. It's hard to say at this point. I took my temps for about 2 months and they were all over the place. Also, I don't know where you live, but Ray Peat says that the BBT (Basal Body Temperature test) is invalid when it is hot and humid outside.
Ray Peat…
In Eugene during a hot and humid summer, I saw several obviously hypothyroid people whose temperature seemed perfectly normal, euthyroid by Barnes' standards. But I noticed that their pulse rates were, in several cases, very low. It takes very little metabolic energy to keep the body at 98.6 degrees when the air temperature is in the nineties. In cooler weather, I began asking people whether they used electric blankets, and ignored their temperature measurements if they did.
The combination of pulse rate and temperature is much better than either one alone. I happened to see two people whose resting pulse rates were chronically extremely high, despite their hypothyroid symptoms. When they took a thyroid supplement, their pulse rates came down to normal. (Healthy and intelligent groups of people have been found to have an average resting pulse rate of 85/minute, while less healthy groups average close to 70/minute.)
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/hypothyroidism.shtml
Thanks for the quick reply, Matt. I hadn't thought about the infection thing! I've been battling a dental abscess since forever (it's deep in the bone- easy to forget) and it slips my mind. It seems like I've been making progress with it since increasing my milk intake, so that could explain it. Gives me something to think about while I'm detoxing, anyway! ha ha
Rosenfelt,
I will look for the source. Muscle glycogen is not used for blood glucose therefor fasting will not deplete your muscles. Training is the only way to deplete muscles. What I was trying to say is that, if you are depleted, and not consuming above maintenance cals you may store small amounts of glycogen in muscle but the majority of it will go to liver glycogen or be used to keep your body processes functioning.
Scot Abel has said that it takes any where from 24 hours to 1 week to fill glycogen stores.
Wow! Thanks, Will! I live in AZ and it is a jillion degrees right now. I was definitely planning to continue taking my temp to see the average, but am encouraged by your post – for sure! I will start to keep track of my heart rate/BP, too. I have a wrist cuff to make that easy enough to do. Very informative. Thanks, again!
Hi Matt
I read your blog regularly and love it – it makes my day when I open google reader & see a new 180deg entry!
After reading MNP & lifeofrilesblog I decided to do a bit of research on potatoes – just came up with this:
http://www.mattmetzgar.com/matt_metzgar/2010/06/the-allpotato-diet.html
http://www.mattmetzgar.com/matt_metzgar/2010/06/the-allpotato-diet-ii.html
An interesting read. Since I'm Irish and love my spuds I'm thinking of going on a majority-spud-diet.
I do a bit of weight/strength training so I will add a bit of lean meat/fish to ensure my protein intake is adequate.
I'm thinking of 2.4kg potatoes a day (2400 kcal – approx 525g carbs, 75g protein). I will also try to get a minimum of 25g quality protein meat/fish.
Assuming 2500 kcal maintains my weight I will gradually try to increase the kcals & see what happens!
I've been lowish carb (<75g) for a while but am fed up with that WOE and recent reading has convinced me to try this.
I'm not overweight (80kg, 5'10") and dont have any real heath problems but would like to improve my body composition a bit.
I'll keep you informed!!
Cheers
David
Thanks Brother David, and welcome. Don't be no tater hater!
In spite of the (positive) fact that there is almost no fructose involved, without a lot of workout it sounds like (1) loads of glucose that will be turned into body fat, (2) high insulin and IGF levels, (3) a weakened immune system, (4) high ROS(5) high AGE (6) high small dense LDL (7) high blood pressure (8) a ride to insulin resistance and diseases of civilization.
But interesting to give it a thought.
Disagree wholeheartedly Hans –
There is no mechanism to turn this glucose into body fat given such ratios.
This only raises postprandial insulin, but a high-carb diet radically lowers fasting insulin levels – as well as blood glucose levels, a.k.a. AGES.
Put any hypertensive on a high-starch, low-fat diet like this one and voila – blood pressure falls dramatically.
Similar diets also have strong associations with cultures free of insulin resistance and western disease stemming from chronic high insulin levels. The increase in fat intake among Pima Indians – and switch from unrefined to refined carbohydrates, and dramatic decrease in overall carbohydrate intake caused the emergence of their diseases of civilization.
And small, dense LDL is just a little snippet that low-carbers use to try to justify having astronomically high cholesterol levels. The MNP diet or some similar variant would be likely to drop cholesterol levels to 100-150, where heart disease is almost completely unheard of regardless of HDL/LDL and Pattern a and b lipoprotein ratios – not to mention such a diet has been proven for several decades to reverse atherosclerosis quite quickly.
Thanks for the comment though. I was in the mood for a good laugh.
Riles,
Ya I understand what you're saying, I just always thought (and think I also read) that muscle glycogen basically takes number 1 priority on incoming carbs/glucose and it isn't until those are filled that the liver starts filling up. In fact, I think that's the whole point of the Targeted Ketogenic Cycle and even Lyle's Ultimate diet 2.0.
Matt,
You're right on the fact that the process of de novo lipogenesis isn't very efficient nor does it occur regularly but according to Lyle even if you eat mostly carbs as long as you eat above maintenance of calories you will gain weight. True that the carbs won't be necessarily converted to fat but your body will be busy burning them for energy and therefore you will store the little amount of fat that you do eat and/or won't burn your own bodyfat. I think that's basically his explanation according to a few of his articles
so basically, as much as it hurts me to say this (lol) JT was right, and it's mostly if not all about calories
I didn't say you would lose fat overfeeding on starch, but that you might gain a much better ratio of lean mass to body fat on such a diet.
It is all about the calories in a sense, but there is more complexity there – for one, reducing calorie intake, while lowering your weight, also induces changes that ensure that the weight is regained.
There is also a great deal of unconscious factors going on when it comes to weight regulation. For example, a person's appetite may not be satisfied unless they get 3,100 calories in per day on average, but their body may only burn 3,050 calories per day on average. This 50 calorie offset is more than enough to make a person obese over a decade or two.
Likewise, this can be reversed, making someone lose weight without any conscious effort to eat more or exercise less on their part.
Where trouble arises is when people spend too much time trying to consciously regulate their calorie intake and calorie burn – and fight against their physiology to do so. This is how people slowly ratchet up their weight set point and yo-yo.
Hey Matt, just re-reading your post. Maybe I should give the MNP a go?
About 200 calories above my maintenance puts me at 3,000 calories a day and using the 75% cho, 10% fat, and 15% protein puts me at ~560g of carbs, mostly rice and taters, ~33 g of fat, tag along from protein mostly, and ~112 grams of protein. This would match my thinking of how typical hunter-gatherers ate (regular access to taters but not an abundant supply of meat, think persistent hunting type). Sounds like fun, maybe I'll miss fat, who knows. I want to lean out but I'd be ok with being just a little leaner with more muscle. Think this sounds like a more reasonable approach compared to PSMF?
I was under the impression that because carbs are processed in the liver, they were stored there first. Excess was then passed on to the body for storage and energy usage. I maybe wrong though.
Of course calories matter whether you gain weight or not. But, what is weight (muscle, organ, bone, glycogen, fat). It is what you eat that determines what you are gaining.
Mark-
What happened to your intention to do IF?
I would think IF used to lose body fat combined with a couple days per week of MNP and you'd be onto some more Martin Berkhan themed body recomp. – that is fat loss and lean gains simultaneously without having to be one or the other exclusively – which is probably much safer metabolically as well.
I still do IF everyday, just because it's easier. I was thinking of doing MNP everyday, is that not the right way to do it?
Also, the more I think about it the more I think that this way of eating isn't really extreme at all as it's how the Kitavin's eat.
You're not likely, with the hunger-suppression of IF and your high activity levels, to be able to consume an actual excess of calories above maintenance a la MNP.
But I'm sure you'd still get in enough calories to be well-protected from doing harm and begin leaning out quite nicely.
The Kitavans are just one tiny example. This type of diet was seen all across the Pacific ocean, Africa, Asia, South America, Central America, and beyond.
In general, the more equatorial, the higher the diet in starch and lower in fat.
Madmuh! yeah, I'm keeping my milk meal as well. I don't know if it's all in my head or what, but I do feel like I've built a ton of muscle on the milk. As I've said before, I've gained weight on the scale but my BF has remained consistent so I must be gaining lean mass. I feel taller as well, which is just bizarre, I think my posture has improved or something. It's difficult to explain but there is an inner strength as well that wasn't there before. Moments of anxiety and self-doubt are further and fewer between. I think my recessive Swedish Viking Goddess genes have been woken up. I'm ready to bring all Vallhalla down on the haterz. I'm rollin down the street eating lefse and rommegrat, with my mind on my taterz and my taterz on my mind.
Speaking of which, welcome David. On my travels in Ireland I was over-whelmed by the number of tall, naturally muscular dudes running around in the West country eating potatoes all day. These hotties never touched a weight but they loved their potatoes and their butter. Anecdotal, I know, but worth remembering. How did those House of Pain dudes get so ripped? It sure wasn't drinking 40s of Mickies. It wasn't the jumpin' around. It was the PO-TAAY-TOES, yo. Word to yo' hobbit.
Just had 750g potatoes (mashed with just enough milk) and a poached wild alaskan salmon fillet – my first high carb meal in approx 10 months – still alive!!
If anyone from the UK hasn't seen the Tribal Wives series on BBC2 its available on iPlayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ssrjt
Six British women swap their everyday lives for life as 'Tribal Wives' in some of the most remote communities on earth (Turkey, Gabon, Mexico, Kitava, Thailand & Ethiopia).
They were involved in preparing the food and what became obvious was that the diets of all the tribes were carb based (mainly tubers) with meat being a luxury (goats sacrificed etc).
Well worth a watch.
Matt, do you really think the increase in fats in itself made the Pima fat? Maybe an increase in PUFA specifically, or if the increase in fat made them consume too many calories to maintain their body weight. But the ratio of fat/carb independent of these other factors? I don't think that is a problem.
If WAPF'ers are fat they are eating too much. Look at their caloric intake:
http://westonaprice.org/abcs-of-nutrition/178-food-journals-of-wapf-board.html
Little old Mary Enig eats over 4000 calories some days! She also seems to like cookies and pastries. Some of the other ones eat even more. I don't know about their activity levels but I doubt Ms. Enig is an olympic athlete.
Just saying…nothing wrong with the fat.
@Riles: Are you sure you aren't mixing up fructose/sucrose with carbs in general? I thought only that gets processed in the liver, could be wrong though.
Well whatever, I remember from back in the days when I used to listen to the paleolithic solution podcast that that guy would always recommend to have some sweet potatoes as post-workout carb instead of fruit as starch would be better suited to replenish muscle glycogen than fruit which would preferably restore liver glycogen levels.
So what kind of starches are good to eat besides potatoes. Oats, white rice? I'm sure pasta is no go.
Whole wheat pasta is ok, I think. It mostly takes pretty awful, though. I still eat pasta once a week though. Bread from fresh ground wheat is wonderful. During the winter I ate a lot of spoon bread and polenta made from ground corn. I'm in a corn on the cob phase right now.
I'm pretty sure all carbohydrates pass through the portal vein and are processed in the liver. It is a myth that fructose can only be stored in the liver and not muscle glycogen.
It's not so much that fructose can't, it's more so that it doesn't get the chance to. Three factors really contribute to this:
(1) enzymes involved in fructose metabolism, fructokinase and triokinase, are highly expressed in the liver, while they are not in other sites.
(2) the liver is exposed to higher levels of ingested fructose than other tissues
(3) There is a high "first pass metabolism" effect, which causes extraction of fructose by the liver, which thus means there is less available for other tissues (ie, muscle).
It appears that glycogen is most potently composed when both glucose and fructose are present: http://www.jbc.org/content/261/34/15960.abstract
Phosphofructokinase signals that all the body's glycogen levels are full
Hey Riles. So have you seen good body comp. and strength results with eating bodyweight protein, double bodyweight carbs, and 40-45g of fat per day? I want to commit to doing this but so many nutrition theories are flying around in my head right now. Thanks
Absolutely,
I am at the leanest I have ever been eating the way I described. I was previously very low carb/zero carb and began to degenerate.
I suggest keeping the fats very low if you are coming off a low carb diet. This will allow the best insulin sensitivity to begin with. After a week or 2 you can bump them up to about 40 g. This really helped me coming off low carb.
You may feel hungrier then usual at first but eventually as your insulin sensitivity improves you will feel fine.
Thanks Riles. So just to make sure I got this right, at a bodyweight of 200 (I weigh 208 but I'll use 200 to keep it simple) I should eat:
Protein: 200g – lean beef and poultry, fish, whey, eggs, low-fat/fat-free dairy (cottage cheese, milk, cheese, yogurt)
Carbs: 400g – white rice, white potatoes, yams/sweet potatoes, green vegetables, fruit, tag-along carbs from dairy protein
Fats: 45g – mostly tag-along fats from protein, minimal use of butter and olive oil if under 45g
Just focus on hitting the gram numbers, let calories fall where they will. Look good?
That looks good to me, try to keep the same level of macros for several weeks so that your body becomes accustomed to what and how you are eating. I have found that eating consistently (about the same macro levels and at the same times everyday) really allows the body to get in a groove. If after a month you are loosing too fast or maintaining, then you would adjust.
That's definitely doable, thanks Riles. When I do the math, it's funny because the macros come out to being very close to the Tom Venuto's base recommendation in his Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle eBook. Also if I run my stats through the Katch-Mcardle formula and use a 1.55 activity factor (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week), this approach comes out to be a 12% deficit from my TDEE. A nice and moderate approach. Thanks Riles.
Ok, I hate to go back to this, but I'm sorry Brian H, who the heck are your friends and family that you think every single person has done something in their life that deserves jail time? Most people in my friends and family circle DON'T break the law, even, as you so blithely put it, drunk driving. If you don't know anybody who is consistently law-abiding, then you need to meet different people. NOBODY in my family has ever gotten drunk, never mind driven drunk (and oui, je suis Quebecoise, c'est pas tout le monde qui fait ca). It takes just one wrong move while drunk? Why would you assume in the first place that even being drunk, never mind driving while intoxicated, is a choice everybody makes in their life? Or that everybody has either taken drugs or stolen or sped or beat somebody up or… I just don't get that logic. (Ok, I'll admit it now, my family is really, really boring! My mother is the kind who will taste the grapes in the store to see if they're good and then insist on paying for the two she ate).
IT IS A **CHOICE** to break the law, and not everybody makes that choice, even at "some point in their life". YES, people in prison ARE different than many of us, because they MADE THE CHOICE to do something they knew was wrong – and let's not forget this part – hurt somebody else. Don't give me any excuses about it was one wrong move and wah, wah, wah, they couldn't help it because they had a bad family. Even with a gun to your head, you still have a choice in everything you do. Otherwise you would never have people emerging from the ghetto to lead a good and decent life.
Well, I take it back, I do break one law – I buy dangerous, filthy raw milk. But I know I break that law and am willing to face the consequences and fight it as a matter of civil disobedience, because I believe this particular law is wrong.
Besides which, the "you do bad things too" argument is a major logical fallacy in an argument. Whether I break the law or not does not excuse somebody else's behaviour. Me breaking a law does not make your crystal meth friend's victim any less dead. And I'm sure it's a comfort to his victim's family that he doesn't seem capable of doing anything like that. After all, it's not his fault he killed somebody, he was on a speed binge. Oh wait, he CHOSE to be on a speed binge in the first place.
And where are you getting the impression that anybody said prisoners lifting weights become more violent? If anything, only the opposite has been said – that it makes them less violent while in prison. The question was whether we wanted somebody already violent to be stronger?
Sorry folks. Nothing upsets me more than pretending we don't all have personal responsibility for our actions, or a choice in what we do, and that everybody does it, so it must be ok. You can ban me if it's just too much moralizing.
Go back to the regularly scheduled analysis of fats and carbs and getting ripped!
And on a totally different topic – Elizabeth, have you kept your temperature gains from the milk diet? Are you still a hot chick? And I mean that in the least sensual way possible, being a girl and all :).
@ Lorelei: I don't check my temps half as much as I used to, but they seem to be holding pretty strong when I do check. Still not seeing anything under 98.1 since my milk adventure (underarm in the morning w/ a vicks). On the second half of my cycle it's pretty easy to top 99.0 still.
So, yeah, I'm totally still a hot chick. :p
Daniel said
"It was just jail though. Prison would be far worse. People that go to those places deserve their sentence. It's just an ugly truth of life."
Lorelei said,
"YES, people in prison ARE different than many of us, because they MADE THE CHOICE to do something they knew was wrong – and let's not forget this part – hurt somebody else."
Let's not forget that there are, and have been, innocent people in prison.
Also, there are lots of people in prison who have not harmed a soul, but the worthless government has decided that what they did is a crime and must be punished (rehabilitated?). For instance, what about all the people in prison for using drugs: Who have they harmed, other than themselves perhaps?
I don't mean to stir the pot, but the reality is that the US has one of the highest rates of incarceration per capita in the world! And depending on who you listen to, the percentage in prison who are drug offenders, that is, they are there for NO OTHER REASON, ranges from 35% to around 55%. That is ridiculous! I don't care if they've broken the law, they have done violence against nobody, and should NOT be in prison.
So not everybody in prison "deserves to be there" and not everybody in prison has "harmed somebody."
Generally speaking, there's not a whole lot of innocent people in prison. Of course there are a few, but we're not running rampant with harmless people thrown into jail. We're not in, say, Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, or North Korea here – where you would already be incarcerated for even saying such a thing. The US is not perfect – and I seriously have issues with people going to jail for milk – but overall I would rather be tried for a crime in the US than any other country in the world. Or in a US prison than anywhere else! And likely, somebody incarcerated for a crime they didn't commit is not a goody two-shoes overall. People being set up is a great story line, and I agree it does happen on occasion, but it's not so much reality.
Out of the people I know who abuse drugs, even legal ones like alcohol, I wouldn't call them harmless by any stretch. Maybe they're not all committing illegal crimes, but these are (again generally speaking) the same people I know who think nothing of defaulting on loans, forgetting their parental responsibilities, "sharing" other people's possessions a little too freely, things like that. You're probably right that somebody who uses marijuana occasionally shouldn't be in jail, but if they do it enough to be landed in jail, they do hurt others. And without the drugs, they would still probably be hurting others.
I have no idea, but 35% of people being in jail for nothing other than drug abuse seems awful high to me. Where are you getting those numbers from? A quick google search shows that most of the people reporting these figures have a definite pro-drug use bias in their reporting. Or are your typical "oh the US (where I can write this stuff without fear of reprisal) is so horrible and the rest of the world is so free and wonderful" bloggers. On top of which, I see these numbers thrown out without any actual source. And they seem to be including all "drug offenses" in those numbers, not just drug use.
I know a total of ONE person who went to jail for repeated drunk driving (certainly not harmless), and nobody for only drug use (so far). How many people really go to jail for only drug possession, without some kind of ancillary crime? Most other people I've known about who went to jail were for more serious crimes. Every person I know who has gone to jail has indeed harmed another soul. Of course, that's my experience and doesn't prove anything.
Lorelei, I do not mean to offend you. My point was that I believe most people have broken a law at some point in their lives, as minor as it may be. If you and your family have never done so, then that is great. Half of my family has had an issue with drugs, myself included. I suggest that you be open to the possibility that not everybody has such a picture perfect home life, which may affect them in negative ways.
I have gone to a juvenile detention center to speak to them about drug abuse, and these people are still babies that are making terrible decisions. It's easy to judge somebody when you do not know anything about them. I never said that they are not responsible, but that there is always a reason for their behavior. Speak to some people who are "criminals" and tell me if you think there is something inherently bad about them. It is comforting to think of other people as "bad" and us as different from them.
Again, I'm not saying people are not responsible, but that everything has a cause.
Lorelei,
Beyond laws against murder and theft (which governments get away with every day and to a much greater degree than anyone locked up in their prisons, by the way) and rape and related acts of aggression and coercion, there is very little overlap between what is actually legal or illegal and what is actually moral or immoral. There are plenty of things which may be considered immoral (e.g. self-centeredness, adultery, lies that do not involve exchange of property, etc.) which I sure as hell hope you do not wish to see made illegal. Likewise, there are plenty of things which are illegal, yet perfectly moral (e.g. selling raw milk to willing customers, working without obtaining "permission" from the government, home schooling your children in California, etc.). Still other illegal acts, while not necessarily moral by everyone's definition (e.g. non-violent drug use), should rightfully be legal, unless you're of the opinion that it's warranted to violently interfere in the lives of people who have done no violence to anyone else, using force to seize their assets and shove them into prison simply for the "crime" of offending mainstream taste.
Though you do acknowledge the possibility of a disconnect with the raw milk example, the rest of your analysis seems to betray a frightening conflation of legality with morality. Just because something is illegal, that does not mean it should be illegal, and compliance with the law is no certain measure of morality (and also has little to do with being a good person). In fact, I would go so far as to say it is a mark of profound immorality to look on approvingly as the government uses force to lock up "criminals" who themselves have used no force against anyone else. Percentages aside, there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of people in jail who fit this description. Which is the worse crime?
Perhaps I just have a "pro-drug use bias," though. While I have never once used an illegal drug of any kind, have at most 10 drinks per year, avoid legal drugs like sugar, caffeine, and pharmaceuticals, and, for what it's worth, return money whenever a cashier gives me too much change, I know plenty of friendly, intelligent, peaceful people who have used all kinds of illegal drugs and done no one any harm.
Riles,
With the starch content of potatoes and rice, will my liver and muscle glycogen be refilled proportionately? If I were to consume 2000g of carbohydrate from starches in one sitting would my glycogen stores be filled?
I had been following the high everything non-diet, and then decided to gain another 50 pounds so I went on to the Barf non diet. After an excessive amount of acidic carbs and stomach issues/ vomiting I decided to go back to the high everything non diet. Now I'm going to try this Rrarf diet. hmmm..I'm gonna get muscular for sure.
People that use drugs are likely to be a part of some gang activities and take part in other crimes such as homocide, felony, and abuse sometimes with weapons. I think that in Sacramento County we have something like 6000 registered gang members. Not sure if that is the right term. People that grow up breaking into cars are likely doing other things too or will eventually get into other types of crime. Like I said, a lot of people in jail learn identity theft because they wouldn't have a choice of getting a job when they get out. A lot of them aren't very educated. Usually the more intelligent ones still came from a low class or lower middle class family. Their were nice guys with kids in the jail I went to but likely did something illegal. Their were guys with homicides and people that were busted while in the possession of guns. People that did lots of drugs likely have some major brain problems and will just go crazy. Maybe the system doesn't know they're on these drugs and so when they get out they might snap in a work environment and stab a costumer out of paranoia or something. A lot of the time they have other workers that cared about them/helped them get a job their and are willing to take the risk this person might hurt someone else. I'm aware that a lot of these people are repeat offenders and cause problems. The responsible general manager happened to grow up in a troubled life and tends to hire crime personalities even though he's out of the crime lifestyle raising a family. I worked at a place like Chuck E. Cheese and a drug dealing manager carries around a pocket knife.
(((Lorelei aka Hawaiigirl said…
Ok, I hate to go back to this, but I'm sorry Brian H, who the heck are your friends and family that you think every single person has done something in their life that deserves jail time?)))
You tards should be sent to prison for screwing up Matt's blog.
Can we talk about starch and fructose again?
ex. thoughts on potatoes vs rice? Potatoes win on a nutrient standpoint but rice wins on an anti-nutrient/iron standpoint. Basically it's a win-win so I'll eat both. word to your mothers
You tards should be sent to prison for screwing up Matt's blog.
Can we talk about starch and fructose again?
Yeah, what was this post about anyway? MNP, PSMF, HED, RRARF, FMCR (family members committing crimes),or GBRISC(gang bangers registering in Sacramento County)?
Question: I had to take the dog to pee pee and couldn't go back to sleep. Tummy started growling so I downed a potato w/ butter and some milk. That cool on RRARF? Hungry? Eat. Right? Thanks.
I'm sorry that some people will be pissed of by this, but I had wanted to contribute to the prison issue all the time, just didn't find the chance yet, so I'm still gonna do it anyways. So if you don't wanna read about it, feel free to skip this comment:
First of all I have to say, that I pretty much agree with you Brian H. Good points and very similar to my perspective as well.
@Lorelei:
"YES, people in prison ARE different than many of us, because they MADE THE CHOICE to do something they knew was wrong … Even with a gun to your head, you still have a choice in everything you do. Otherwise you would never have people emerging from the ghetto to lead a good and decent life."
I disagree wholeheartedly. I'm sorry but it just isn't that easy. In fact, I would argue that most people who committed a crime, did NOT chose to do so. Why not? Because everyone of us, criminal or not, barely ever choses what he does. The vast majority our actions are controlled subconsciously, we often just don't notice, because our conscious minds rationalizes these actions after they have been done. I am not making this up, this is a fact (If you want, I will see if I can google something up about it). Do you honestly want to tell me that you never did anything which seemed totally irrational after you thought about it a bit?
Does that mean that all criminals are innocent and shouldn't be punished? No way! But I honestly don't like the whole black and white colouring. Criminals are bad persons, "normal" people are good persons. It really isn't that simple. I am sure that there are a lot of people in prison, maybe even the majority, who are very likable persons, with friends and family who they care about and love and never would do any harm to them.
So locking people away might be a good temporary solution, even though I refuse to believe that most prisoners are inherently bad people. But at the same time we should not regard them as people of second class. They did commit a crime, whether they did it consciously or not. But locking people away won't prevent anything, instead we have to ask ourselves, why do crimes happen?
I think the single biggest factor that leads to criminal behaviour is environment. Why do you think the way you do? Why would you never commit a crime, instead of buying raw milk. Is it because you chose to do so or is it because you obviously were raised in a peaceful, friendly and fair environment (your mother paying for grapes she tasted seems to indicate that) and probably got some decent education? Could you honestly tell me that you wouldn't have developed into a completely different person if you grew up in an area of poverty, of injustice, where the government won't or can't do anything to help you, were people are commiting crimes and hurting each other? Yes, sure there are people who managhe to emerge from the ghetto, but I would argue that those are the exception. Do you think that everyone who tried to get out of that environment actually did so? And if he didn't, wouldn't that only leave the impression to him/her that the world is even more unfair than he thought it was?
…
….
Drugs might be another reason for crimes, but 1)there would be less crimes of drugs like marihuana were legal (and I doubt that the consumption would rise significanlty, not everyone in the Netherlands is smoking weed on a regularly basis and in great amounts, far from it) 2)Just as I think that people don't necessarily chose to commit crimes, I think most people chose even less to do drugs. The way I see things, people are more suspectible to do drugs, if they are missing something. If they can't get an emotional high (and chemically speaking, emotional highs are not too different from drug induced highs), don't have good relationsships, don't know what to do with their lives or have a poor nutritional status (yes I do think that this also plays a role) – and again those are all factors which can be traced back to the environment – they probably are much more likely to do drugs.
So what am I trying to achive with all this? Well, I simply like writing and thinking about such stuff, but I also do not think that – as I already said – it is as simple as to say "well, people who are in prison, deserve to be there". It's just way more compley than that. There are people who are in prison and are innocent, there are people who are in prison for things I wouldn't consider a crime, there are people doing things out there, which I would consider a crime, but do not get punished. And even apart from that, the human organism is very complex and human society is even more complex. There are so many factors at play that influence people that motivate people to do something, even if they do not actual notice us, the subconscious mind and our hormones (someone also talked about testosterone surges leading to crime. Is it necessarily a good idea to punish people for hormone surges?) play a big role in our behaviour. There are crimes happening in the society we live in, but how much is it the fault of a single person and how much is it the fault of the society in general that these crimes happen?
To wrap up this already very long comment, one more thing:
If exercise makes prisoners more peaceful this is nothing but a great thing. Combined with good nutition those people actually be more balanced and commit less crimes. But regardless of that, it is possible to hurt people very badly, whether you are muscular or not, so I would say there are not many negatives of letting prisoners exercise and guaranteeing adequate nutrition for them.
God dammit, I really could spent my time with more useful things than spamming a nutrition blog with a discussion about criminal behaviours and its reasons. Well, it was kinda fun though.
– madMUHHH out
what would you reccommend for someone with wacky blood sugar… im currently a VLC/PANU follower and i experience some big drops in blood sugar post eating and am very hypoglycemic through the day… everything points against carbs but my blood sugar only sees the 90's in the morning. when i raise carbs my blood sugar spikes like a bat outta hell so im scared to read a NPD like this one. but i am willing to take advice and seeking guidance
any hypoglycemia help?
Anonymous, I have had the same problem as you on VLC/PANU – following Kurt's hardcore recommendations. On VLC diet your blood sugar is controlled primarily by stress hormones – namely adrenaline and cortisol – and in my case the readings were seemingly random – sometimes hypo, sometimes hyper, but never quite normal. These hormones were not meant to control your blood sugar all the time and therefore they are doing pretty bad job (not to mention that you are exposing yourself to state of chronic stress).
High carb diet fixed that. Yes, on high carb diets you will get spikes in blood sugar shortly after the meal, but that's normal and there is nothing wrong about that. Important is that other than that you will have normal level of sugar in your blood, stable mood, better performance etc.
Anonymous,
My 1hr postprandial BG was over 120 at the start of adding back in unrefined carbs, it wasn't skyrocketing, but high. This was after 3 months on LC and 9 months on VLC (basically the PANU life)
After 3 months over feeding with unrefined starchy carbs it was 110 postprandial.
Now at 9 months of heavy overfeeding on unrefined starchy carbs, ex. 2+lbs of potatoes per meal, my 1hr postprandial is down to 97.
It takes time and you might respond better then me. Jay has some good points as well.
high carb/low fat did not work for me at all.
i was weight training for a couple years and had a wonderful trainer (yolanda hughes) for a time, who kept telling me that i needed to consume some real protein.
i was not able to do that and stayed skinny/fat and weak.
i was eating whole foods and have been since the '70's so no sugar, etc.
i will observe those of you who will actually try this from the sidelines.
Matt-
Nothing against high starch, low-ish fat diet(I would say the Kitavans are not so much low fat at 21% of the diet but, rather, low protein). However, don't forget that the high cholesterol you say lowcarbers have is not proven–and has never been proven–to be problematic. Remember the Massai–no heart disease, no cancer, hardy, endurant, and good mood. Artherosclerosis or not, they had no heart disease. The primitive eskimo as well.
Both extremes of diet have been proven to be suitable to human adaptation; the common factor of health seems to be the complete absence of refined carbohydrates and processed oils.
Also, it is misleading to speak of the Kitavans as if they ate a shit load of carbs everyday. They only average around 2200 calories a day and are on average MUCH more active than a typical American.
(typical massai eats more around 3500cal/day)
Anonymous on low-carb/high-cholesterol-
Agreed it hasn't been proven, but is worth questioning. But even the Masai had serum cholesterol at 125 mg/dl.
Jem-
Noted. Sure you weren't too low in calories or doing a lot of cardio? Both can make you skinny fat, and I too was skinny fat on a high-carb diet (although it wasn't anywhere near 20% fat or below).
Kirk and Johnny-
Unbelievably hilarious. Looks like I've got more acronyms to utilize. The word "tard" is also an all-time favorite. Underutilized for sure.
VLC/Panu soon to be 180 convert-
Consider that low-carb/high-fat makes your glucose metabolism god-awful. You don't have to live imprisoned by a self-diagnosis of "hypoglycemic," but can fix that. That's real healing, and that's what I've been trying to offer since the beginning. I can't even believe how much my glucose tolerance has improved over the last year, and the feedback of the guys above is pretty much standard. I don't know where your blood glucose spikes now when you eat carbs, but it can come down and come down much farther than you can imagine – well within the double digits post carb fest (lower than many low-carbers fasting glucose levels).
Best of luck, and keep commenting with your questions and concerns. Brace yourself for a rough first few weeks, but there is light at the end of that tunnel.
Low-carb medicates hypoglycemia, but exacerbates the core problem. Even Broda Barnes who wrote a book about hypoglycemia understood this perfectly…
??it has been clearly established that a high protein diet lowers the metabolic rate, [therefore] symptoms of hypothyroidism will be aggravated? Hypoglycemia may be controlled on the high protein diet, but the other symptoms of thyroid deficiency which usually accompany hypoglycemia are aggravated.
I prefer potatoes, but my money is on rice. 15 gazillion Asian people can't be wrong!
I promise I won't say anything more about anything besides food after this post, no matter how much I want to – but if you're tired of the prison stuff, skip the rest of this post.
Man, I knew it would come back to "you had such a perfect life, you just can't understand". Fine, I lied, I skip the first 15 years of my life when talking about my family. I prefer to pretend they don't exist, but my bio family was far from idyllic. Nutshell: my father murdered my mother when I was a toddler, but walked because it couldn't be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. (I fear there are more loose criminals than innocent prisoners, thanks to the western justice system). We spent my whole life moving from city to province to country to evade prosecution for all kinds of things like mail fraud and tax evasion and theft and… We were poorer than dirt. My father chose his girlfriends by the amount of cash they had, and I had lots of "mommies" run away when they discovered his true nature. My stepmother came on the scene when I was nine. I'm not sure why she stuck around. She was a major drunk and beat the snot out of me for everything. Sometimes my father got in on the act. I was lucky to never get any lasting injuries (unless you count complete adrenal failure), and the Quebec CPS felt it was better to keep me with my family until I ran away at 15 and refused to return (I don't know if they still have the policy of no separation unless life-threatening). Since then I've lived with my goody-two shoes REAL family, my father's brother, and never looked back. I don't complain, it's not important anymore, lots of kids have it worse. I couldn't control my childhood, but I have complete control of my life now.
My BFF's mother was a heroin addict, and all that went with it, and her mother was not violent… just harmful.
My husband's family is a load of addicts, most alcoholics, but other stuff too. They can't keep their lives in order. I prefer to avoid them too, they only want to bring us down. But he manages to go without being addicted to anything worse than mountain dew.
And yet, here we all are living respectable, law-abiding lives. My point is it's all about free will and self-control, and anything else is just an excuse. Maybe we're really that much stronger than most people, but I don't think so. I'm sorry but there's no way all our actions are subconsciously dictated, that's just another excuse for refusing to take control of yourself. We have brains and the power to overcome any feeling or craving. Every person reading this blog seems to be capable of making choices, despite what the rest of the world is doing, at least with regards to food!
Drugs – I never said I thought drug users should be in jail, only that I don't believe there are hundreds of thousands of people in jail for nothing more than smoking a joint. If you can prove me wrong with actual numbers, then I'll happily change my opinion. The collorary to that is, unless there really are that many people in jail for only smoking a joint, then these are not harmless people. I do agree that drug use alone shouldn't be an imprison-able offense.
Being nice or personable doesn't make you a good person. My father was "nice", that's how he kept getting girlfriends. My inlaws are personable. Serial killers' neighbours always go on about how "nice" they were.
But of course, not everybody in prison is a bad person. I would never think that. A lot of people just made a mistake… and I completely agree the prison system needs an overall. Still, you can't blame society, drugs, or your bad upbringing for what, in the end, was still your choice.
Lorelei,
(Warning to everyone: More about the prison issue.)
I think we actually agree more than disagree, although there a some major points of contention. I think Mike Jones did a very good job addressing some of the concerns I have.
However, people seem to be getting tired of the issue, so even though there is a lot more I could say, the following is the last I will write on this blog concerning the issue, although I might leave a link to a blog post I am preparing to I can better articulate my problem with the justice system and the war on drugs.
Lorelie, you say you doubt there are "hundreds of thousands of people in jail for nothing more than smoking a joint." Well, although there are not hundred of thousands in jail for "joint-smoking" there are hundreds of thousands in jail for "just" drugs charges. It seems to range from 20 to 25% (yes my original percentages were a little high). Here are some sources: "Incarcerated America" Human Rights Watch (April 2003); http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t600012004.pdf; http://www.corr.state.mn.us/publications/documents/drugbackgrounder.pdf; http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/63). Note that all these sources are getting their numbers from either from the state justice departments or the BJS.
That's all for now, although like I say, I might leave a link to a blog post I am preparing so I can better articulate what I want to say without cluttering up Matt's blog (sorry Matt), and so that those who want to continue this discussion can do so on a site prepared for that purpose.
I say potatoes win because rice takes more preparation in terms of removing anti nutrients. With potatoes you just need to remove the skin. Apparently it only becomes a problem when you have potato skins in high quantities. That and potatoes are a great source of potassium. They're much cheaper than rice too.
THANKS FOR THE HYPOGLYCEMIA HELP…GONNA BE READING UP AND TRYING TO GRASP THIS STUFF….
meat fat and protein are the bulk of my life at the moment so changing that means relearning to cook and eat altogether
THANKS FOR THE HYPOGLYCEMIA HELP…GONNA BE READING UP AND TRYING TO GRASP THIS STUFF….
meat fat and protein are the bulk of my life at the moment so changing that means relearning to cook and eat altogether
I vote for white rice because when I was in prison they made me peel potatoes by the kilo and I don't feel like ever peeling another one, although I did get really good with a knife.
Also, rice is more versatile. You can even make a dessert out of it.
Not to mention that you can store rice for a longer period of time.
Actual MNP questions: Is the 8-1 starch/fat ratio in grams, so like 800g of carbs to 100g of fat? Also, full body workout – if I don't own weights, can I just run around really fast while hoisting my cast iron pans:)? Or what would somebody who follows this recommend to do? Is it better to eat a few large meals or frequently?
And a comment – boy, you have to eat a LOT of starch to get the same caloric intake. I was wondering why I was getting hungry so easily. I'm obviously not eating nearly enough at a time.
Thanks Riles – because I HATE low-fat food.
Too bad in prison they didn't have you precut the skins, boil the potatoes for 15 minutes, and then drop them in ice so the skin easily peels off.
Do tell, Daniel, where did you learn that trick? Let me guess, Martha Stuart? What a good idea.
I love how prisoners get very lean by just eating cheap food. Shows just how cheap healthy eating is. And they don't use steroids.
They eat bread diluted with PUFA oils. They eat fatty meat tainted with pesticides. They drink fluoridated, aluminum-contaminated water. They use aluminum-tainted baking powder, and aluminum-tainted table salt. They don't have a shower filter. They eat meals cooked in aluminum cookware. And stress levels are pretty high there.
The Average Joe isn't as healthy as any prisoner. Seems like just spending some time in the yard will make you healthy because of the vitamin D.
I honestly don't like the whole black and white colouring. Criminals are bad persons, "normal" people are good persons. It really isn't that simple. I am sure that there are a lot of people in prison, maybe even the majority, who are very likable persons, with friends and family who they care about and love and never would do any harm to them.
This was my FAVORITE comment! People, in general, are very selfish, egoistical, and arrogant. For example, it's hard for people to admit that they're wrong if they're wrong. They just rationalize their false idea away. People punish others who they judge negatively, and feel no guilt after doing so. People, in general, are very judgmental and only care about their family and friends. Most people are polite to others only because of peer pressure and/or social anxiety, not genuine kindness.
In my opinion, prisoners are smart. They have their own mind. They know that the laws are so vague so people constantly interpret the laws however they want.
In my opinion, laws are just words that people use to hide their own responsibility when they enforce their own interpretation of the law. For example, they say "it's the law to do this" rather than "I will punish you if you don't do this." Laws are just euphemisms and rationalizations that people use to escape their responsibility for their actions.
Prisoners are innocent! This because we don't have a "justice" system. We never will, as what "justice" means is THEIR interpretation of "justice" imposed on us.
Every time a person gets accused of doing something, I feel angry at society for being so judgmental and accusative. Every time the news says a person is accused of a crime, society IMMEDIATELY wants to KILL the accused people when there's actually NO PROOF that they have done anything wrong. This ticks me off every time I see this, so I don't watch the news or read the news at all.
I actually got it from Riles blog.
What made you think I got it from Martha Stuart Betsy? I'm hardly a cook btw. All I really know how to do it prepare potatoes, frozen stuff, tacos, and breakfast foods. Though Riles said he's a good cook. I think I' might have also happened upon it during a yahoo news video.
Sounds like we need to have a word with Riles about his Martha Stewart fetish.
Overall, I vote potatoes, but damn, rice is a hell of alot easier to eat a bunch of – and you can make noodles out of it. If I were to really try to bulk up on this diet I would eat lots of white rice, whole wheat bread, and potatoes.
Hawaii Girl-
That's 8:1 ratio calorie-wise, meaning more like 800 grams of carbs for every 45 grams of fat. You'd almost have to rely on white rice to get there.
Yes, I think a lot of the bad rap that low-fat diets have gotten have come from people not eating enough calories (I was hungry all the time!). Yeah, you can't expect to feel full consuming a bowl of Special K with skim milk, 2 slices of dry toast, and a glass of orange juice for breakfast (565 calories).
But my appetite is actually much less on potatoes or whole wheat pasta or rice without much added fat than it was eating 8 eggs with 1/3 stick of butter and a tortilla for breakfast in my lowest carb days.
As for full-body exercises, you definitely don't need a gym and would probably do better without one. Doing mixed body part exercise like squat bicep curls, walking lunge shoulder presses, raised leg pushups, squat jumps, and pilates movements is more than enough for a full body workout.
Daniel, I guessed that you got it from Martha Stuart because the few times I've seen her do cooking demonstrations on TV, she always does everything to perfection, even very often using the word perfect. When she makes hard boiled eggs, when they're done she immediately puts them in a pan of cold water with ice cubes. I think potatoes taste better when they're cooked in the skin, and that is a good idea for making them very easy to peel.
If one is allowed to change one's mind here, though, I am going to change my vote to potatoes. I had a miserable headache for the past 24 hours and so I'm going to have to go back to my very low uric acid free diet mainly based on potatoes and cheese, and I'm going to eat butter with them, so I won't be able to do the low fat/high carb diet. I just have to worry about staying out of pain for now. But I'll be watching to see how it goes for the others that are doing it.
Hey Matt,
Re: Madmuhh's post from up above- what about coconut oil? Word is it is preferentially burned as energy rather than stored as fat. Could using primarily/exclusively this fat be a viable tweak to MNP for those wanted to pursue it without eating a boatload of no-fat starch?
Also- what's up with white rice? Seems like lots of folks are on board with it around here, including you. But in your Metabolism eBook, you advise against it both as a refined carbohydrate, and because Asian populations relying on it are declining in health quickly, and you don't recommend we follow their dietary patterns. Also, as Stephen Guyenet points out, it's not clear that a white rice heavy diet really has been so central to the majority of Asians anyway until the last century or so. All of this leaves me confused- should we avoid it due to its nutrient paucity and refined nature, or load up on it because it's low fat, low PUFA, and starchy and thus metabolically stimulating?
I certainly want to make body rceomposition gains, but I'm having a hard time with the notion that fat is, once again, not so good for you. Sure, it's saturated rather than liquid vegetable oils that you're behind, but man oh man, I'm having a hard time keeping up. Your recommendations seem to be coming more in line with the mainstream 'wisdumb' that you aim to turn on its head 180 degrees. A few tweaks maybe- don't cut calories, use saturated fats rather than MUFAs or PUFAs, avoid refined sugars scrupulously, get sun without suncreen, etc. But low fat, high complex carbs, high fiber, don't put too much emphasis on food quality (organic veggies, pastured animals, etc.), fermented foods, traditional food preparation methods or local foods and the connection to place that foods have always until recently meant for humans. It's hard to for me to get behind, man.
No doubt, I respect you- you're a bright guy, and obviously well researched. But to hear again that fats, as in your comment in 'Improving Insulin Sensitivity,' might not be appropriate for modern humans. That's a tough sell. Sure, some WAPFers can swing the pendulum the other way consuming a stick of butter a day, and that may not be viable or sustainable over the long haul, but fats taste good, and even if the importance of Vitamins A, D, K2 and E are overstated, it seems likely to me that they have a role to play in establishing and maintaining health. And though some cultures got by with not much fat, I have a hard time believing that that sort of macronutrient restriction will prove more satisfying or health promoting than restricting carbs.
I look forward to your thoughts man. Cheers.
I just went over the last 800 comments. and I have two things to say.
1. Prison does not sound like a good time.
3. It's Martha STEWART. Tards!
oh and yes, high carb does have it's good points.
sorry to be late to the peanut gallery,
deb
Lorelei, I can understand your opinion based on your past experiences, that's an unfortunate situation to have been in. I am coming from a different perspective based on my own experiences, so I suppose we do not need to convince one another of anything.
Debbie-
You are friggin' unbelievable.
"I certainly want to make body rceomposition gains, but I'm having a hard time with the notion that fat is, once again, not so good for you.
…
I have a hard time believing that that sort of macronutrient restriction will prove more satisfying or health promoting than restricting carbs."
Well, I'm not Matt, even though the first four letters of my name are also Matt… but I still wanted to jump in and "defend" Matt a bit, even though I'm sure he could do that way better than me.
First of all, I mostly agree with you. Fat certainly is nothing bad and I still think that fat soluble vitamins play an important role in maintaining and regaining health. I will come back to the aspect of fat later, but before that I'm gonna talk about something else.
When I first read the most recent posts, I basically thought "Dude! WTF is this all about, I'm not sure I like this". But if you think about it, what Matt really is doing, is adressing many people's request posted in the comments. A lot of people (me included to some degree) were not happy with the fat gain that RRARF caused and wondered whether there wouldn't be a metabolically safe way to get rid of that or at least prevent that. This seems to be Matt's main research focus right now and he already has presented some intiguing answers.
From a metabolic standpoint is is obviously more beneficial to consume loads of carbs that loads of fat. And MNP seems to be a pretty easy way to change body composition while still raising the metabolism or at least maintaning the current metabolic rate.
Does that mean it's the most healthy diet ever? Certainly not. Does that mean this is a good long-term strategy? Maybe not, but it certainly is possible to be healthy on a very high-carb diet, so the dangers are limited. But in the end, most people will be on MNP for a few months max. Just like RRARF is a temporary strategy MNP could be seen in the same way.
However, I still think that a diet higher in fat than MNP or 80-10-10 for example is generally healthier. Sure, there were people who did very well on a very low amounts of fat, but does that mean they couldn't have done even better with more fat/animal products? After all, it seems to me that many cultures went to great length to obtain animal products and fats, because they knew those foods greatly contributed to their health. However, this still does not mean, that a low fat diet all by itself is harmful or significantly lacking in anything, however it prbably isn't ideal either (depending on your goals).
Thanks Matt
I think…
From my most personal experience, the fat+carb combo was horrific on my waistline, and I have never had a potbelly before. Like my waist went from 27 to 34. Within 3 weeks. UGH! And my digestion went south, I suspect mostly because I'm spending the whole day trying to keep my tummy sucked in. So while I dislike the idea of low fat, high carb, being the antithesis to how I was eating for a long time before HED, I thank Matt for this recent line of research! I decided to try lowering fat. It's been… a week, and I can't really say I'm low-fat, just lower. As in, my pot o'taters last night had 2TBS coconut oil and milk instead of a stick of butter and cream and cheese (the second mirepoix?). I've been eating popcorn with only the coconut oil for popping and w/out the stick of butter. A snack is more potatoes, instead of cheese and nuts. You get the idea. My weight gain MAY have slowed, but more imp, half the time my temp has been low 80's instead of low 70's, and that's unusual. Like Bleeder, my periods were getting waaaay worse, plus breast pain out of this world. I hope it'll be better, but can't say yet. But, as Matt says, those of us with good metabolisms can probably eat any combo they want and stay thin! My daughter and I were expanding on HED, my boys were just doing better and better…
@HawaiiGirl,
There HAS to be a difference between boys and girls right? in you and your daughter's case, you are still in the prime hormone years, where as in mine, I am post meno.. I like to call it Hot Lady Land. Not to be confused with Lunch Lady Land (sloppy joe, slop sloppy joes!) Sorry, had an Adam Sandler moment there….
When I was high carb, low fat when raw vegan all was groovy.. sort of, till I added animal source fats then WAIST expansion. like none of my shorts fit unless they are super low rise, get my drift?
Ladies need a different mix I think.. all carbs moderate, fats moderate, hate to say it, protein moderate.. so basically we are at what our grandmas always said.. everything in moderation.
It's good to be a girl, even if the boys are more buff.
xo deb
PS todays temp 98.1 , getting steamy!
Oops meant temps in 98s instead of 97s. I wondered if it was a girl/boy thing, but there's lots of boys on this site getting big bellies too. My dd is reaaaallly high stress gotta be perfect kinda girl, so I suspect she simply has more adrenal issues than the boys, who are somewhat more laid back
Sorry Rob, almost missed your comment there.
My reason for turning on fats a bit here is that most traditional human diets (I'd guess 90%) would fall into the low-fat category. Not only that, but it seems, with only a few exceptions, that the closer one gets to the equator the lower in fat the diet becomes. When examining true human design and origins, it becomes increasingly obvious that what constitutes our beliefs about a "paleo" diet are based on what humans were forced to eat at higher latitudes.
Yes, other primates could live well on a "paleo" diet, but that doesn't make it superrior to their typical carbohydrate-heavy fare.
Unlike some health writers and researchers, I am not afraid to undermine the credibility of my pre-set beliefs (180 degree health) and come out with more current updates on my beliefs – even if they make a fool out of my original fervor about high-fat diets/low-carb/animal-based diets, etc. that I, like many others, came to worship during my first year of eating that way (honeymoon period).
Fat soluble vitamins are great. But the body gets plenty of fat soluble vitamins from the conversion of carotenes and vitamin K in plant foods, and few of the foods recommended by the WAPF and others contain appreciable amounts of fat soluble vitamin D (insignificant amounts found in egg yolks, cheese, butter, milk, liver, lard, poultry fat, and so on).
I have tried eating the highest quality food – making my life revolve around farmer's markets, driving out of my way to obtain pastured meats and raw dairy, and spending a fortune in the process. Doing so had the largest negative effect on my health (and personal life) of anything I've done thus far in my health explorations.
I don't let my beliefs in the ethos of such a movement get in my way of reporting on what I believe to be more useful, more helpful, and more central to obtaining health. I too have strong moral obligations about shipping food thousands of miles, eating locally, supporting small farmers and sound agricultural and environmental practices, and more – just as you do. But unlike others, I do not let those beliefs pollute my conclusions about health, diet, etc.
I am sworn to that, and will remain so.
But a high-fat/low-carb/very high-quality diet has been a nightmare for me when looking at the experience on the whole. The worst of it is the severe chest pains that slowly started creeping up by the end of my first low-carb year. When I first began looking into lower fat diets I saw a huge improvement in these – and then I did the milk diet. By the end of those 27 days I was a smelly, snotty, sneezy mess – and my chest pains were as bad as they've ever been. It felt like there was an anvil on my chest all day long.
I am not going to ignore this because the Masai, peoples who suffer from tremendous atheroscrlerosis on a high-fat diet, did not have any heart attacks.
Instead, I'd much rather lean towards what I do believe – and that is that the carbohydrate is the ultimate source of dietary energy (from a health, well-being, and longevity standpoint), and that a diet revolving around unrefined carbohydrates (brown rice, not white ideally – but don't think it's worth panicking about unless you eat a high-fat diet) when forced to compare it with a high-fat/moderate to low-carb diet, is vastly superior – and much safer bet, for the majority of people.
For clarification – I was answering your question about white vs. brown up above. I don't mean to suggest our diets should revolve mostly around brown rice.
If I'm lifting weights will I get more muscle anabolism if I constantly keep my muscle and liver glycogen stores full? That means I would fill it up and then eat more calories to always keep it full. I'm 270 pounds so that would mean my muscle and liver glycogen would could store 1800grams of carbohydrates.
Very interesting Matt, but for you what would you consider a sensible amount of fat per meal when eating a high unprocessed carbohydrate diet?
Chris-
I have spent the last several years averaging probably around 70 grams of fat per meal. 30 grams would have been more sensible.
Right now I feel much better keeping fat very low (averaging maybe 15 grams per meal), which is probably helping me to overcome an imbalance from so much unsensible eating.
I don't see myself continuing at such low fat intakes forever, and I still have ribs, sausages, butter, fried potatoes, etc. on occasion, but I've definitely cut way, way back since finishing the milk diet around June 1st.
I wonder how healthy the kitavans would be if they ate zero fat. If they cut out the fish eyeballs and organs and coconut.
My guess is, they would be about as healthy as the average American vegan, including that endurance runner on youtube (who seems to me to be doing serious harm to his endocrine system).
The Kitavans are 20% fat yes? I wouldn't go much below that personally. I think Price prooved that all healthy diets contain some animal fats and saturated fats.
But it does seem like the closer to the equator, the less fat is necessary. Perhaps more vitamin D exposure means better and mroe efficient uptake of cellulose binded vitmains and minerals. D has been cited to improve digestion.
I have been thinking about 'garum' laltely. Garum is fish paste. Supposedly the Roman armies were fuelled with bread and garum. I'm sure fish paste is loaded with certain nutrients.
similarly, I read somewhere that many inland Southeast Asians survive part of the year on solely white rice and fish or shrimp paste.
from an energetic standpoint, unhulled grains are horrible. From a nutrient standpoint, refined grains (and unfermented whole grains) are horrible. So the addition of a nutrient dense 'condiment' like fish paste to white rice would make a pretty complete meal. Add a small piece of fruit and I could see how one coujld live well and lean on such a diet.
Hey Matt,
Fair enough- I appreciate the thoughtful response. And I do really appreciate your rigor, and the nuance you bring to your evolving recommendations. It's not insignificant, and in fact, could make all the difference that most low-fat diet failures were coupled with refined carbs, lots of fructose and inadequate calories. I can appreciate how teasing out the varibles is important, and I admire your willingness to do that.
It seems likely to me, as you've suggested befpre, that nutritional healing is largely about correcting imbalances. It seems that the high fat low carb diet generated plenty of imbalances for you, and a low fat diet might rebalance them. I think it's not insignificant that low carb did wonders for you at first, though- it may have been correcting imbalances too. And so it seems plausible to me that the current low-fat rebalancing diet may not be the final word, but a valuable corrective phase for you (and others) right now. Which is not to say its not valuable, but just that may not universally applicable. You've said you don't really believe in 'what works for you' as a method of peering into nutrition, but maybe the balancing imbalances deal is what's going on, and that's what people are talking about. They come to foods with their own inherited strengths and susceptibilities, and their own history of eating, and that contributes to whether they thrive or not on a particular eating plan, and also prescribes the best corrective.
I appreciate your commitment to what works nutritionally, and I'm sorry you had such a disastrous time of locavore/farmer's market life previously. Maybe that's one place we part ways, though- I don't think stressing out over local foods only is valuable (because stress in general undermines our health), but seeking those relationships out, and supporting ethical and regenerative practices is for me part of the healing power of foods. Having those connections is a great step for many folks who live lives of great dis-connection, and health and nourishment comes on many levels. Simultaneously feeding ourselves individually as well as socially and ecologically makes sense, and I place great value in it. Also, eating locally and seasonally might be one way to naturally rebalance imbalances that arise from different eating plans. Sometimes high fruit, low fat, other times, lots of starch, others, plenty of protein and fat.
Hey Matt,
Fair enough- I appreciate the thoughtful response. And I do really appreciate your rigor, and the nuance you bring to your evolving recommendations. It's not insignificant, and in fact, could make all the difference that most low-fat diet failures were coupled with refined carbs, lots of fructose and inadequate calories. I can appreciate how teasing out the varibles is important, and I admire your willingness to do that.
It seems likely to me, as you've suggested befpre, that nutritional healing is largely about correcting imbalances. It seems that the high fat low carb diet generated plenty of imbalances for you, and a low fat diet might rebalance them. I think it's not insignificant that low carb did wonders for you at first, though- it may have been correcting imbalances too. And so it seems plausible to me that the current low-fat rebalancing diet may not be the final word, but a valuable corrective phase for you (and others) right now. Which is not to say its not valuable, but just that may not universally applicable. You've said you don't really believe in 'what works for you' as a method of peering into nutrition, but maybe the balancing imbalances deal is what's going on, and that's what people are talking about. They come to foods with their own inherited strengths and susceptibilities, and their own history of eating, and that contributes to whether they thrive or not on a particular eating plan, and also prescribes the best corrective.
I appreciate your commitment to what works nutritionally, and I'm sorry you had such a disastrous time of locavore/farmer's market life previously. Maybe that's one place we part ways, though- I don't think stressing out over local foods only is valuable (because stress in general undermines our health), but seeking those relationships out, and supporting ethical and regenerative practices is for me part of the healing power of foods. Having those connections is a great step for many folks who live lives of great dis-connection, and health and nourishment comes on many levels. Simultaneously feeding ourselves individually as well as socially and ecologically makes sense, and I place great value in it. Also, eating locally and seasonally might be one way to naturally rebalance imbalances that arise from different eating plans. Sometimes high fruit, low fat, other times, lots of starch, others, plenty of protein and fat.
As for appropriate diets for the equatorially evolved human animal, I'm not sure that's an appropriate comparison for the primary fact that most of us do not live equatorial lives anymore. Most of us live in seasonal environments, with varying levels of sunlight, temperature and food availability, and those are likely to impact what foods work for us today. I'm not convinced that we haven't evolved adequately enough to only do best in equatorial environments. And following the seasons, listening to those rhythms, is something that healthy people everywhere did before the modern era, and something we don't do now by and large. We're also vastly unhealthy, and I think they're related. And according to a book review exerpt from Stephen Guyenet: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/03/paleopathology-at-origins-of.html, during the Mesolithic, the consumptions of starch rose from upper Paleolithic eras. That is, while humans have been eating starchy tubers for 2 million years, it had to have been less than 80 or 90% if it had room to rise, and yet still remain nutritionally adequate to prevent disease. So while i'm not saying Nora Gedgaudes is right, and prehistoric people ate mostly leafy greens and fats, I also don't think humans were necessarily eating starch so predominately as you suggest. Not saying we ate none, but we may not have been eating Kitavan style either. And even in tropical environments, seasonality emerges- wet seasons, dry seasons, etc.
Also- wondering how this iteration of low fat for you differs from FUDA. In your Metabolism eBook (which I've been re-reading recently), you say you ate 3000 calories and still lost lots of lean tissue. I know you were on a low-fat vegan regime, and 3000 calories definitely doesn't seem hypocaloric. What to make then of the idea that calories are lean sparing than protein, even on a low fat, low-ish protein diet?
Thanks again Matt. I sure do value your willingness to confuse and annoy your readers with your open-mindedness.
Matt said, "I have spent the last several years averaging probably around 70 grams of fat per meal. 30 grams would have been more sensible."
Oh, 30 grams is about 3 Tbs. of butter. I thought by suggesting low fat that you were talking about like a sliver of butter or some such. I don't know grams well, and don't count calories. LOL. So, really, your idea of low fat is more in line with where I've been all along. Maybe that's why I'm not gaining like some others doing HED here. I've been doing it for almost 3 weeks and haven't gained. I would like to lose a few pounds, though, but my primary goal is to have good health again!
Well some people take Wrangham's hypothesis very seriously, the idea that we evolved with the help of tuberous starchy roots.
And someone pointed out that chimps eat unripened, starchy fruits. I would be interested to know more about exactly what fruits chimps eat.
That said, I am amazed at how much more endurance I have and how much more powerfully I lift weights with a high amount of starch in my diet.
Hard to admit it but I think I really damaged myself by trying to lower my carbs so much. And my health began to wane most dracstically when I began tinkering with my diet.
Now off to eat a croissant. Vive le revolucion de 180 degres!
I notice that also when I eat high carb, I will get more pronounced protein cravings. I can go all day with some starchy meals, then crave a steak in the evening. Whereas before I never really craved protein. I just forced myself to eat it.
Those interested in the paleontology of human's eating starches might want to read this interesting little piece Meet your inner mole rat
So does that mean we are we able to consume raw tubers? I wonder if you can juice them with the high end juicers.
Why are all my comments removed?
Sorry, my name is Soahc. Why are all my comments removed from this thread?
Repost under my new account (this was deleted earlier for some reason, maybe because I didnt have a google account):
I wonder how healthy the kitavans would be if they ate zero fat. If they cut out the fish eyeballs and organs and coconut.
My guess is, they would be about as healthy as the average American vegan, including that endurance runner on youtube (who seems to me to be doing serious harm to his endocrine system).
The Kitavans are 20% fat yes? I wouldn't go much below that personally. I think Price prooved that all healthy diets contain some animal fats and saturated fats.
But it does seem like the closer to the equator, the less fat is necessary. Perhaps more vitamin D exposure means better and mroe efficient uptake of cellulose binded vitmains and minerals. D has been cited to improve digestion.
I have been thinking about 'garum' laltely. Garum is fish paste. Supposedly the Roman armies were fuelled with bread and garum. I'm sure fish paste is loaded with certain nutrients.
similarly, I read somewhere that many inland Southeast Asians survive part of the year on solely white rice and fish or shrimp paste.
from an energetic standpoint, unhulled grains are horrible. From a nutrient standpoint, refined grains (and unfermented whole grains) are horrible. So the addition of a nutrient dense 'condiment' like fish paste to white rice would make a pretty complete meal. Add a small piece of fruit and I could see how one coujld live well and lean on such a diet.
Sorry Soahc-
I don't remove any comments except for spam and double comments, which have been annoyingly frequent lately. Must have been some kind of glitch. I did see your comment, and I would agree with that wholeheartedly.
Rob-
I think the biggest benefit of low-carb was eating 3 times per day and avoiding all refined sugar, grain, and vegetable oil. There was no reason it had to be low in carbs, but I will say that being low in carbs did seem to help me kick the sugar habit in the short-term.
Kudos to your localvore/sustainable farming ways – but I have a little unresolved disillusionment over it as you can tell. I think there's a happy middle ground for the average Joe.
On losing lean mass on FUDA –
Yeah, vegan is overkill, and the timing was poor. I was just coming off of a summer of overexercising and needed some re-feeding at that point, not heads of lettuce. Furhman's approach is particularly tricky because he recommends eating nutrient dense (and therefore not calorie dense) foods. I would have been better off pounding more starch and fruit and eating a little meat with it instead of trying to eat gob after gob of spinach and Romaine lettuce.
The Kitavan 20% fat diet is probably great, satisfying, and very sustainable. Many human diets have been far lower though – as low as 5% among the rural Zulu tribe as described by T.L. Cleave. They had the same health status as the Kitavans in terms of protection from nearly all forms of Western disease.
On Paleo-
What creatures evolved to eat is usually a very poor diet for their species overall – and limited by the environment. Nearly all creatures can be made to be longer lived with higher reproductive rates and better overall health in a controlled setting. The incorporation of more cooked food – starch especially, was the greatest advance in human nutrition in history. There's a reason why Roman armies kicked so much ass, and it wasn't because the soldiers in that army ate more fat, meat, low-sugar fruits, and non-starchy vegetables.
no worries Matt.
Hmnnn…interesting. I would like to learn more about the Zulu. What other peoples were that low in fat? It still seems like the majority were at least at Kitavan levels.
I am personally an Aquatic Ape Hypothesis proponent. But I also believe Wrangham's hypothesis. I think it was both starchy tubers and aquatic foods especially bivalve shellfish and other small fish that contributed to our development. The combo of dense energy from starch, proteins and fats as well as other nutrients like zinc all gave us an evolutionary edge.
Still i can see hopw the Zulu's could thrive. 5% is 500 calories per 10,000. Just enough to top up on certain nutrients that are perhaps more bioavalable form animal foods. However I think that part of what helped us move beyond chimphood was that we ate more protein and fats than chimps.
"However I think that part of what helped us move beyond chimphood was that we ate more protein and fats than chimps. "
I agree. The most tremendous change we went through during our evolution was the massive increase of the size of our brains. And brains are one fatty, cholesterol filled organ as far as I know. Science is still baffled about the exact reason why our brains grew so much, but I think it's fairly safe to say that cooking and animal products (animal brains for example) played a great role.
Also I think the WAPF is right to say that growing children need much more fat and perhaps protein aswell than an adult. Our brains have reached their full size by the time we are six, so there is a lot going on there.
However this certainly doesn't mean that such great proportions of fat/protein a necessary throughout the whole life.
Well put Madmuhh and Gabriel-
However, as dramatic as an increase in brain size is in terms of our evolution, we also had a strength to bodyweight ratio change of minus 80% :)
Gabriel,
I've also been a fan of the aquatic ape theory, though I keep hearing that it's not really tenable. For some reason, the counter-arguments never get a firm grasp of my memory. Hah- maybe I just wanna believe. Also, haven't but browsed at it, but Hunt Gather Love offers a link to a paper here: http://huntgatherlove.com/content/missing-aquatic-aspect-paleo-diets entitled 'The Original Econiche of the Genus Homo: Open Plain or Waterside? by Marc Verhaegen ' One of the arguments I hear is that, in addition to humans being relatively hairless, having volitional mouth-breathing, having more subcutaneous fat than other primates, and generally being drawn to water-sides, we also don't hold on to iodine, even though it's essential, and do hold on to iron, even though accumulation is toxic. Terrestrial animals tend to do the opposite, suggesting that we evolved in a more marine-based ecosystem. I can't find the reference, but that's what I remember reading. Interesting stuff.
And Matt- funny you should mention the benefits of avoiding grain. That's how I got cooked up in the whole low carb scene, because I didn't hear from a lot of non low carb folks about the dangers of grains, and so just went that way. Just like with saturated fat and cholesterol, probably. Curious what you think were the benefits of avoiding grain were? Was it just the refined grain, or grain in general? I know you don't advocate avoidance, and in fact are a big fan of at least rice and some of the hippie grains liek quinoa and amaranth. But messing with a plant's progeny is serious stuff, and there are some nasty consequences that plants put up to discourage that sort of thing. Granted, some of them have been bred out, minimized, and certain preparation techniques reduce them down further. But it's always made sense to me that at least there are soem good reasons to be cautious of them, and prioritize roots over them as a starch source.
And madMUHH- thanks for your comment up above, and I think you're right that Matt was largely responding to people's wanting to enhance their metabolism without I apologize for trying to crucify you there for responding to popular demand.
One more thing- give the buoyancy of water- maybe the decreased strength to weight ratio makes sense? You don't need to fight against gravity quite so much to generate the same movement in water. Seems plausible.
The above should read:
And madMUHH- thanks for your comment up above, and I think you're right that Matt was largely responding to people's wanting to enhance their metabolism without gaining so much fat. And so Matt- I apologize for trying to crucify you there for responding to popular demand (including my own).
Thanks Rob. Great thoughts on our aquatic roots. I had never heard of the iron/iodine retention connection.
Grains did afford humans many benefits, and the ability to thrive in environments that would have otherwise limited our population. That's not to say that there weren't some negatives.
The Paleo argument really needs to be refined more to what we are designed for, not what we evolved to eat as we spread from "home" to higher latitudes where carbohydrate-dense plant foods become increasingly scarce.
Hairless bodies hints at more reason to believe that we were coastline apes – as temperature generally remains more constant the closer you are to water. Humans have about the least flexibiity in terms of the temperatures we can withstand unclothed of any species on earth.
Matt
You have mentioned a couple times that the "Roman armies kicked so much ass, and it wasn't because the soldiers in that army ate more fat, meat, low-sugar fruits, and non-starchy vegetables."
This really may have something to do with the grain issue.
I think the best evidence is that the Roman army ate a lot of grain, particularly wheat. An estimate of the typical Legionary diet on the British frontier has been done. It is based on documents inventory lists found in a what was once a trash heap at the fort of Vindolandia south of Hadrians wall. It included TWO TO THREE POUNDS of whole grain a day. Each squad had some kind of hand grinder. On the march they ground the whole wheat, made up unleavened dough cake and cooked them on the glowing ashes of a fire–an ash cake.
The Vikings seem to have thought these "wheat cakes" were food of heaven for they describe heaven as place where they have wine and wheat cakes. If all you had to eat was fermented fish and rye cakes you would have gone a viking too. A cold rye ash cake would be about as edible as hocky-puck.
Okay, the Vikiings are 400 years after Vinlandia, but there seems to have been some continuity in diet from the fall of Rome to the viking age. The Irish word for the Britons was Cruithne. which some linguists believe meant "people of the wheat." This is parallel to the situation with Navajo's and Hopi. THe Navajo's raided the Hopi "corn eaters".
These two words at least hint at how late these two grains have become part of some peoples diets — around 2,000 years or less. So there may be a good number of people in northern europe who may not tolerate wheat.
Any way here is the assumption of the Roman soldiers diet along Hadrian's wall in Britain.
"Calculations show that each soldiers basic peace time diet would be a grain ration of about 1-1?kg per day (2-3lb) added to which would be Oil or Lard, Bacon or some other meat, Vinum (Vintage wine) or Acetum (Sour wine), Salt, Cheese, Vegetables etc. Contrary to popular opinion the meat part of the ration seems to have been regular and may have been substantial. Naturally no-one knows what the ration was but the most usually found remains are Beef, Sheep, Venison & Pig with Wild Boar, Goat & Hare. Elk, Bear, Wild Ox & Horse are also recorded at some sites. Of course having all that spare cash burning a hole in his scrotum (purse) a legionary could buy himself some additional food at the local vicus or canabae."
Ref http://www.romanarmy.net/food.htm
See also "Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier: Vindolandia and its people" by Alan K. Bowman
Awesome comment. It's funny how Paleo's associate grain introduction with the fall of mankind. Yes, many men fell at the hand of grain, but not because they ate it – because their opponents did.
1 kg of grain is about 800 grams of carbs. Combine that with meat and some good hand to hand combat training and you are a damn animal.
Grain was also amazing for its transportability and resistance to spoilage.
All growing up I was told I was allergic to wheat.
And I think gluten can be a problem when it is quick rise, improperly leavened.
But I eat good sourgdough all the time now and feel fine. I feel great actually. I was an absolute beast in the weight room yesterday and walked 10 miles on top of that (nice sunny Seattle day).
Its the same with tortillas for me. Nowadays not many Mexicans prepare their masa dough by letting the lime do its work overnight. A traditional tortilla I can digest with ease. These store bought ones are just harsh for me.
Rob-
The AAH debate is heated and both sides make good arguments. I tend to favor the AAH because I just love water and swimming and it fits for me intuitively. I believe that humans left the coast (Eden) and ate from the fruit of the tree of knowlege (hunting, weapons, technology [necessary to live in Northern climes]), etc.
Also the anti-AAH side has failed to provide a viable alternative. The Savannah hypothesis is just not making sense.
Good comments about buoyancy and hairlesness.
Speaking about sourdough. Does anyone know a recipe for an easy, high quality sourdough bread? I've been wanting to try some sourdough for ages, but have been confused about how to best prepare it to achieve optimal digestion/nutrient absorbtion. Oh, and it would be nice if it would be without weat. I don't think it's the allmighty evil, but other grains just seem to be better from an (anti)nutrient perspective.
Gabriel,
Do you ever do open water swimming? I live in Seattle, too, and am trying to find a good beach for lap swimming–preferably one with some kind of rope boundary far enough out from shore which I can swim along without fear of smacking into other swimmers while also not worrying about boats or big waves.
madMuhhh,
My girlfriend makes a good sourdough bread from fresh rye flour, onions, and caraway following a recipe from Sandor Katz's "Wild Fermentation" book.
To get her sourdough starter going, she used homemade kefir as described here on Dom's kefir site: http://users.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefir_cheese.html#kefir-straightjacket-pizza
If you have access to kefir grains and fresh rye flour, I think this is a great way to go.
Hello Mike-
I like to swim in Lake Washington mostly around Seattle. Lake Union is too polluted IMO and Green Lake is no good much anymore as I am paranoid of excess algae.
But what I really enjoy is swimming in rivers. I like the power of water. Ocean waves and river currents. So I am not much of a lap swimmer but more of a body surfer.
Gabriel
Yeah, I have some kefir grains taking a break in my fridge right now, so that's no problem.
I even looked at that page already, but was a bit confused by it. So if you make a sourdough starter, do you keep some of it or put all of it in the dough and make a new starter each time you make bread (probably not). Sorry, but I'm completely clueless about this.
Also I wondered whether it would be ideal to let kefir grains do the work, instead of the bacteria that "usually" do the fermenting. Perhaps the latter bacteria are more efficient, as Kefir grains mainly thrive on milk sugar afaik.
Thanks, Gabriel. Incidentally, one of the butchers from Bill the Butcher just told me yesterday that he likes swimming at Matthews Beach, so I'm going to check it out. I've swum in Lake Washington, Lake Union, and Green Lake, and do like Green Lake, but you are probably right about Lake Union.
madMuhhh,
You could do it either way, but I think it makes more sense to save some of your starter in the fridge and just feed it some new flour every few days to keep it going.
My girlfriend tried to get a sourdough starter going the traditional way, with water and flour and I think juice from grapes exposed to the open air for a few days, but nothing positive happened.
With kefir (and I should clarify: just the byproduct of fermentation, not the grains themselves) added to flour, the flour was obviously fermenting from the start. So kefir bacteria and yeasts are quite adaptable, definitely work for this purpose, and give the resulting bread a nice complex flavor. Whether they neutralize all the anti-nutrients in grain as well as traditional sourdough starters, I don't know, but they are clearly able to ferment grains (just like whey from yogurt or kefir can ferment vegetables), and I tend to equate fermentation with anti-nutrient reduction, so I trust that all is well.
Hey madMUHH,
Here's the page that got me going down the whole nutrient-dense, traditional foods path: http://www.ranprieur.com/misc/sourdough.html He used to have an awesome line in there to the effect of: Of all the means of leavening bread- soda, commercial yeast, and sourdough- sourdough is the method most compatible with health, flavor and autonomy.' Looks like he's since revised it.
As Mike said, you typically keep a bit of starter from batch to batch, but you could start a new one each time, even with catching fresh sourdough from freshly ground grain. That's what folks call 'desem bread,' I believe, from 'the seed.' Meaning, all that you need to bake the bread comes from the grain itself. Neat idea- I love that soursough really wants to happen- just expose flour to water and air, and soon enough, you got it.
Good luck with it!
Thanks Mike and thanks Rob, that link is great! I guess I'm gonna start experimenting with some kefir sourdough and as soon as I got some experience try to do it without and see whether it makes any difference to me. Thanks again, you two.
madmuhh, when I was making sourdough bread, I asked someone in the Wholefoods bakery department if they would sell me some starter, and they gave me a 16ounce container of it for free.
Mike- I guess Greenlake is ok now. I dont live here anymore and last time I was up there was algae but I hear they cleaned it up. I was there yesterday and it was packed with people and there were some distance swimmers there too swimming across and back.
I've been eating some "sourdough" from a local bakery but it isn't sour at all. Is it not actually sourdough or is it lower quality or what?
Kirk,
Up until the turn of the 20th century or thereabouts, all bread was what we migth now call 'sourdough,' or natural levain. What people called sourdough back them was the cultures that were left to ferment longer and/or were cultivated for their distinctly sour taste. Perhaps that's what's up with your local bread there- they use a natural levain, rather than commercial yeast, even though the culture is nto particularly sour. Or, it could be lousy, or it could use some sourdough and mostly isolated yeast, which I've seen before. Ask em about it.
I tend to agree that high fat diets are not the way to go based on my own experience.
For the last few years I ate a diet that averaged an amount of carbs equal to 1.5 cups of oats, 1.5 cups breakfast cereal (Don't eat that anymore), half a pack of whole grain pasta, and 1 cup of cooked borwn rice. I'd eat almonds, a few servings of fruit, an avocado every now and then, a source of fish protein, and a source of animal protein, as well. My weight never fluctuated (I wasn't getting enough veggies, though).
I cut out grains a couple months ago, increased fats drastically, and ate more protein. I started eating a lot more veggies. I'd average 60%/25%/15% F/P/C and 2300 calories.
I was fine for the first month. Not a problem at all. Then my GI tract started getting upset. Everything I eat now causes me GI discomfort ranging form nausea, to stomach pain, to pressure on my upper abdomen (like someone is pushing down on it with a fist).
I get major GI upset from eating avocados and nuts now, and I think fruits are starting to bother me, too.
I am currently trying to remedy my GI disturbance. Do you have any suggestions, Matt? I am a fairly lean person and tall (about 10% BF).
I still worry about all the low carber/no grains claims, though: High carbs and insulin/glucose response, blood glucose spiking, inflammation form starchy foods, etc.
Kyle-
This sounds like metabolism slowing down a bit to me, and a little bit of gastroparesis, which is a very common dead end that people run into on low-carb diets.
The irony is that a high carb intake only causes a surge in insulin right after meals, after which point it falls much lower than what you typically see on low-carb diets. People increase carbs and lower their insulin levels and blood glucose levels all the time on whole-food high/carb – low/fat diets.
This, in turn, lowers inflammation as well – regardless of lectins, solanines, or whatever else you might be concerned about with starchy foods.
I think you'll be much better off with a high-starch diet, and you'll find your tolerance for fruit improving as well, just as I have.
Hey Matt,
Good comment to Kyle. I have been doing Zone with half the carb blocks cut out and subbed with fat blocks, a la Robb Wolf. I'm looking to lean out and while the Zone itself will provide some caloric restriction (I have been coming in around 2,200 calories for 18 blocks), the carb restriction is supposed to help with fat loss. Do you agree with this? If not, what would you do differently? Thanks!
There's no doubt whatsoever that low-carb can help with fat loss. The problem is that people don't follow low-carb intelligently, or that people with shot adrenals try to low-carb and basically commit metabolic suicide.
You seem like a young and pretty healthy dude. That's not to say you should be reckless, but cutting carbs will work wonders for fat loss.
Just remember to cycle both carbs and calories. You don't want to be low carb for more than 1 week at a time, and a single very high-carbohydrate meal can defend the drop in T3 and rise in cortisol that low-carb diets induce long-term.
Once you've achieved your goals with leanness, DON'T continue to eat low-carb. Cutting carbs is a short-term and very targeted strategy that must be used intelligently and cautiously, which it rarely is.
I agree. Last night I had about 145g of carbs (sweet potato, blueberries, and coconut water) in one meal last night after about 20 minutes of Crossfit. The previous days I had done just meat and non-starchy veggies and was feeling the repercussions (my mind would fog over at work and I'd be useless, I work as a market analyst and I think having some carbs helps me stay focused). Today I have had fruit at each meal and it is much better. I'm planning on doing meat, veggies, and fruit most of the time and then throw in a high starchy meal 2-3 times a week. In block terms, half carbs on most days and regular carbs on other days (after intense Crossfit sessions).
That sounds sensible to me.
Although my 98.0 body temperature and rate of fat loss (about 2 pounds per week without counting calories) eating 500-600 grams of carbohydrate (80% from starch), while keeping fat and protein pretty low and doing 2 hard workouts per week makes what you're doing sound pretty damn tough!!!
Well,
From what I can tell, my stomach issues have reduced dramatically.
I had a vacation from the 15th to the 18th, so you can bet I went off of low-carb with a bang. Some of the highights were two stacked burritos (at one sitting), pancakes and french toast, sandwitches, corn on the cob, and mounds of rum and cokes. Even though I was experiencing problems the day before (14th), my entire weekend went great.
My last two days have been around F:60, C:450, P:100 (I don't eat any flour products, cereals, sodas, fruit juices, or processed food at home). It has been a long while since I could stomach a full calorie day with my stomach issues. I didn't have any appetite while they were present and would often only eat 2 times a day, probably only getting 1500 calories at most.
I guess my body really didn't like the low-carb. I'm glad it let me know fairly quickly.
Kyle
Yeah Kyle. I know. And you're not the only one. That's why I'm so dedicated to bashing low-carb/Paleo. That diet is only suitable for someone who doesn't produce insulin.
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