Once upon a time I ate mostly fruit, did a bunch of those ?cleanse? things where I mostly ate nothing but raw fruits and vegetables for five or so days, and otherwise rarely ate meat. I had a little fish or cheese here and there and that was about it. It was during this time that I underwent the most dramatic health improvements I’ve ever undergone ? much of which I attributed to an extended siesta from my 15-year long obsession with exercise and living in the tropics soaking up sun and breathing clean air.
The health improvements were a disappearance of seasonal allergies that never returned, and a dramatic decrease in back pain that had plagued me since high school, going to several doctors only to be handed pain pills and no real solution, or getting a chiropractic adjustment that gave me about two days worth of relief at $70 a ?pop.
But the diet component quickly turned on me. Unbeknownst to me because I really didn’t pay attention to stuff like that back then (what I’d give to return to that!), I lost quite a bit of lean muscle mass. With this came some pronounced blood sugar dysregulation, and wild emotional swings from eating a fruit-heavy diet in this starved, low metabolic state. Plus I added in a bunch of nuts of course. Gotta get those healthy fats that I had been reading so much about at the time!
You can read about how undereating and consuming excessive nuts and seeds can impair glucose metabolism?in how to RAISE YOUR METABOLISM.
But the diet and lifestyle did work some magic. This I can’t deny. My father came to visit me for example and was really shocked at how much my appearance had changed. My skin was perfectly clear. My eyes were shiny. I had no body odor. Bowels were perfect and lost their ?don’t go in there for at least a half hour? quality. My hair looked like something out of a shampoo commercial.
But I soon ditched the diet after being exposed to a lot of the Weston A. Pricey materials and officially beginning my ?health exploration. I gravitated naturally to something that medicated my poor glucose metabolism ? a low to moderate carb diet. Although I stank to high heaven, and lost a little bit of that ?glow,? I gained muscle mass, got lean, had an incredibly stable mood for the first time in years, lost all my sugar cravings, and thought I had stumbled upon the great secret to all things health ? filing my prior experiences into the dustbin.
But when that honeymoon was over as many of my health problems came back with a vengeance with some new bonuses tacked on, I was left scrambling trying to figure out where exactly to go next. At first I discovered that carbs were the medicine I needed after the low-carb stint. Within days of eating more carbohydrates some of my problems were improved or had vanished altogether. With increasing my calorie intake my glucose metabolism became outstanding as my metabolism came up.
My dietary freedoms increased. I could even eat sugary things and not have pimples, crazy mood swings, and wheezing attacks like I had had anytime I ate something like that on a low-carb diet. Some real healing seemed to have occurred, and my digestion. Wow. Up there with Kobayashi. My mood ? as solid as it had ever been.
But still, one thing I lacked was great energy. That and I was still plagued with inflammation despite following a low omega 6 diet for a year solid. I had pain in the joints, my back pain was always up there, and I just didn’t feel as spunky and energetic as I really knew I should.
Anyway, this really came to a head after doing a few months of Scott Abel’s MET training. Yeah, it worked like a charm, but I developed lots of physical pain and would often feel ill and wiped out after a workout. I had a lot of hangover-type mornings and scratchy throats. My nostrils seemed pretty plugged at night. You know, little things like that. From the beginning of the training I tried hard to really carb up, but eating a high carbohydrate diet by most people’s standards didn’t save me.
So I tried a week with upping the protein and bringing the carbs back to a more moderate level, thinking that maybe I wasn’t recovering well due to insufficient protein intake. After all, I was consuming far less than most bodybuilders. Maybe they really knew something that I was missing out on.
Instantly my body odor turned horrendous, I felt extremely aggravated, I lost my appetite, my sleep went to all hell, I became wheezy and hypersensitive, and I experienced all of the negatives I felt on a low-carbohydrate diet. And, by the end of a week, I sustained a back injury doing an exercise that hadn’t bothered me for the several months I had been doing it.
It was this experience combined with digging deeper and deeper into the work of Ray Peat, reading Kilmer McCully’s Homocysteine Revolution, and several other factors that triggered a little light bulb in my head. That light bulb was that there was something about meat in particular, especially the chicken and lean turkey breast I had dove into during my brief high-protein incident, that was causing an inflammatory hyper-adrenal reaction akin to breaking down my own muscle tissue under stress (when I get really nervous or sick I experience many of the same symptoms, including phenomenal body odor).
So that is a little back story for you. Too much probably. Here’s where I’m headed with this?
Certain amino acids such as methionine, cysteine, and tryptophan have an inherent tendency to induce inflammation and are anti-thyroid. Generally speaking these amino acids are much more prevalent in animal-source protein. In the past I did not know the specifics. I just thought an excess of all protein was anti-thyroid as this theme was repeated in many things I’ve read over the years. Here’s from Broda Barnes, probably the keenest observer of how the metabolism was impacted by dietary changes of any medical doctor?
??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.
??when the diet was changed so that it was low in fat but high in protein and with enough carbohydrate to prevent diarrhea, symptoms of hypothyroidism appeared. Cholesterol level in the blood became elevated and in order to keep it within normal range, four additional grains of thyroid daily were needed. Apparently, a diet high in protein requires additional thyroid for its metabolism.
Not that I put too much stock in anything written by Bernarr MacFadden (he did have VERY extensive experience with using food and lifestyle modification to rehabilitate people from various health disorders), but clearly you can see this theme repeated in Vitality Supreme?
?It is thought by some authorities that the thyroid gland has to do with the control of the excretion of the waste products from nitrogenous foods, for it has been found that a meat diet or a high-proteid diet is extremely harmful in disorders of this organ. It has been found that dogs fed on meat after the thyroid gland has been removed invariably die in a few days, but that they can be kept alive for a long time if fed on a diet very low in proteids.
Protein has really been championed by the diet industry. A book I read earlier this year by Stuart McRobert and Bradley Cailor catalogs some of the secrets of people who have lost weight and kept it off for more than a couple of years. The theme, other than exercising twice daily, was eating 30 to 60% of dietary calories as protein. Wow, sounds fabulous. I think there are ways to improve upon this formula! Protein is hailed mostly on the following grounds?
-The more protein one eats, the lower the appetite (hypothyroidism?)
-On a very low calorie diet, if you eat lots of protein you will lose less muscle mass (lower metabolic rate?)
-A lot of the calories consumed from protein are wasted during digestion, yielding less usable calories (also assisting you in slowing down metabolic rate).
Well, that all sounds real. And it all sounds fun. But it doesn’t sound real fun.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, these amino acids congregate in animal-source protein. But what’s fascinating about all this is that muscle meat and organ meats are where these amino acids congregate. But muscle and organs only supply half of the protein in an animal. The other half is bound up in cartilage, connective tissues, skin, tendons, bone ? that kinda stuff. And this type of protein contains no methionine, cysteine, or tryptophan at all. Cooked down to a gelatinous state this stuff is called, well, gelatin. What did ya think?
I envision that Ray Peat actually has a swimming pool in his back yard full of gelatin. In the winter it freezes solid and only melts down to a liquid, swimmable state on a warm Oregon day, which pleases Ray because it’s all Mr. Wizard. Reading his works and looking at his artwork (shown left)?you can tell he’s a pretty kinky bastard too. I have no doubt that a lot of Jello was harmed when he was a professor specializing in female hormones and painting nude women. Gelatin-rich marshmallows? You know it took six people to hold him back during the filming of the Stay Puft marshmallow man scene in Ghostbusters. I need glycine-rich gelatin in me! Ray shouted from under the dogpile of peace officers restraining him.
Sorry, my meds are wearing off.
But I certainly thought it interesting when traveling in Hanoi in North Vietnam, and I made jokes about it for years?
That at every restaurant and in every bowl was a bunch of broth with a duck or chicken’s foot sticking out of it. ?Don’t they eat the breast, or wings, or legs? I don’t remember seeing any. I mean, why just the frickin? chickin? feet??
This is a theme in many cultures. The broth and bone and cartilage and all that ?junk? is adored. And it certainly brings me full circle back to my culinary career working at the high echelons of French cuisine, boiling cauldrons full of veal bones and knuckles to make sure that each portion of tender muscle meat could be accompanied by a gelatin-rich sauce.
And so the theory goes, that by gravitating more and more to the tender cuts of meat, turning our noses up at skin, no longer cooking meat on the bone or stewing bony gristle like oxtail (even though it’s flavor is beyond spectacular ? especially when done in the style shown below), we create a huge imbalance between the excitatory and inflammatory amino acids in muscle meat and the inhibitory amino acids concentrated in gelatin, like glycine and proline.
While dairy proteins or beef and such are considered to be more ?balanced,? the greater solution to this problem probably lies beyond just gravitating towards those types of protein sources. We?re just getting into this. Stay tuned for more background info, including the coming nerdfest on Kilmer McCully, methionine, the methylation cycle, and homocysteinuria (all things I know everyone was just dying to read about!!!).
What I’m really saying is, me and Ray are gonna go for a swim in his back yard, and the water’s fine. Come on in! Clothing optional! We’ll roast marshmallows after! Charles de Mar is coming and he’s gonna snort Jello! It’s gonna be insane!
Listen to an interview with Ray and Josh and Jeanne Rubin live today at 2pm Pacific Standard Time HERE
It definitely sounds like it's going to get interesting… meanwhile I'm afraid to eat anything lol
As long as I'm not on the milk diet, I seem to do okay!
lol
It feels like we're on the fuckin' autobahn right now. I've got the sun roof open and my new hair is slapping everyone in the face.
This new information is really welcome because I'm basically on the exact same page. The focus on glycogen has done absolute wonders for me, virtually getting rid of fatigue overnight. I decided a few months ago that gelatin would become a daily food and that the only big muscles I want are my own. I feel very, very well.
Your tireless research is really paying off now and not just for yourself.
The sun is shining.
"The focus on glycogen has done absolute wonders for me, virtually getting rid of fatigue overnight."
Totally.
Really think this makes sense. While I probably won't be making gelatin anytime soon, I have started to stray away from the thinking of getting some "lean meat" in everyday. Recently I just started eating it when I feel like it, actually I'm trying to do that with all my food. It's nice to not be locked into a box with what I "should" eat. So far, so good. Last night I had more energy than I have had in awhile. Thanks Matt, you're thinking really helps.
subscribing
This is probably going to sound like putting out a fire with a super soaker:
But would it be of any benefit to take glycine on it's own when simply eating muscle meat to balance out the cysteine, methionine, and tryptophan?
Glycine is very cheap so it would be economical if it worked.
Obviously it's not as ideal as consuming less muscle meat and more gelatin but could it work?
Wonder if this is supplorexic- ordered some gelatin last night. While experiencing insomnia at 3am. Wonder if it will help.
Also- it's dang cheaper than protein powder and probably of a more helpful composition.
Glad to hear my tendency to eat meat so rarely through most of my life was never worth ignoring. Once again, trust that bodily wisdom, even if you don't understand it, and even if it seems counter to what you think you know.
What you are pointing to seems to be emerging in the diet field: eat the whole damn animal. I know my grandparents and great-grandparents used to eat every little bit but now, it seems we simply eat the "tasty" bits and give the rest to the dog.
Gorgeous post. Long live veal stock, demi-glace, panna cotta, saucy braised oxtails, and pho (my personal favorite.)
Deliciousness.
Thanks for all your research, Matt, this is great. This and recent posts really resonate. Thanks for the link to East-West Healing, too. Looking forward to digging into their site.
In the braised oxtail, I'm not clear on how you are eating it. So, you take out all the oxtail bones, pull the meat off…then what? You don't put the meat back in the soup pot? How are you using all the liquid and vegetables you cooked it in?
Fascinating stuff! Methionine got my attention a while back when I was looking into calorie restriction for longevity, and came across reports that methionine (through general protein-) restriction, not calorie restriction, might be the key to putting off aging. Perhaps similar results could be had by balancing it with gelatin?
I actually found your blog looking for resources on weight loss for women with PCOS. I'm overwhelmed by all this information, and a lot of it makes so much sense! I have been looking for a holistic view on weight loss… After reading Geneen Roth and Martha Beck I realized that guilt and deprivation is the wrong way to go! But it's a lot to take in, I'm not sure where to start. I have ordered "the Schwarzbein Principle" and I'm considering cutting out "white foods" and omega 6.
If you were a young woman with PCOS, wanting to lose weight but mainly get healthy, where would you start? I think 180degree is ineresting but I'm worried about putting on more weight, I'm already F A T!
/Emilie
I love the amount of posting lately matt, keep pounding that fruit (bad images of a bodybuilder and grapefruit). Clearly your motivation is sky high too, and I have been doing the fruit in the morning thing like 2 bananas apple orange and then again 2 hours later, but I seem to slow down at lunch. Not as bad the more i continue so maybe its just a temporary feeling.
When I was on a very strict diet several years ago, I ate fruit in the morning only. The person who created the diet was very influenced by Ray Peat, but the problem with the fruit in the morning was you couldn't eat till you were full- only 2, maybe 3 pieces, and no bananas :( Talk about starv-o-la!
Speaking of Ray Peat, his website frustrates me! I'm an intelligent person, but wading through all the more technical stuff just to get the meat of the matter is stressfull! Just sum it up please! I'm multitasking while reading it, literally carrying the computer around the house while I work.
I realised today, with all this talk of gelatin, and with actual animal sources being so hard to find or hugely expensive, at least in the uk, that it's called hydrolyzed collagen in our health food shops.
I always wondered why hydrolyzed collagen was everywhere and gelatin no-where, except in small sachets in supermarkets for baking.
Turns out Great Lakes 'gelatin' is hydrolyzed collagen, not gelatin per se. A different process is used than with cooking gelatin apparently, making it more available to the body.
At least, in the uk, that is. Word!
@Anneatheart
>but the problem with the fruit in the morning was you couldn't eat till you were full- only 2, maybe 3 pieces, and no bananas<
You can. I have 3 kg of mandarins or 10 bananas for breakfast alone. The person who created that diet doesn't know shit how the human body works.
funny because for me fruit in the morning has never worked. It doesn't seem to replace glycogen fast enough.
I have also heard that in the morning the body is alkaline, so acidic foods are better in the morning. But I have also heard that acid/alkaline balance is hyped.
The thing is though that I have higher metabolism than most people. Not because my thyroid is so great but because I am so active. I walk 8-10 miles most days, in addition to my body weight and sprint workouts. So in the morning for me a heap of blueberries won't have the same effect as blueberry pancakes with maple syrup and butter.
Fruit is not calorically dense enough and very high in pectins which make it not as good as other foods for athletes.
But if you sit in front of a computer all day that may be a different story.
@Gabriel
>funny because for me fruit in the morning has never worked. It doesn't seem to replace glycogen fast enough.<
This is because part of your diet is cooked causing toxic crap in your blood that prevents fruit from doing its job. To experience the full power of fruit you need to be on a 100% rawfood diet so that when you eat it the fuel gets instantly into your muscles, cells, liver whatnot. Also a heaps of berries is way too low and not calorie dense for kickass performance. Try 10 bananas when on a raw animal & fruit diet then go exercise. Don't forget to report back all the personal records you demolished.
the tougher a meat the more collagen is in it right? so eating tougher cuts and putting them in a soup to make it digestible is good too right?
the good news is that beef shanks are the cheapest cut i can get, they're tough, and have a big bone with marrow in it
Gabriel –
Have you ensured adequate potassium in your diet? It is essential for efficient glycogen synthesis.
I used to eat fruit and remain lethargic. Since looking at the mineral issue I eat a little fruit or sugar and I am energised.
Also, just to put it out there, there are about 5 glycogen storage diseases that I was unaware of until recently.
Apex said –
"This is because part of your diet is cooked causing toxic crap in your blood that prevents fruit from doing its job. To experience the full power of fruit you need to be on a 100% rawfood diet"
I disagree.
ray peat really is one hell of a smart guy but he seems to be pretty bad at making his knowledge understandable to normal people.
interviews with him always make me very confused^^.
JC
@Apex
Everyone I know on a 100% raw diet is mentally unstable and physically most look like they are starving. I'll go ahead and stick with the diet that works for all the athletes I admire and cultures that are healthy: cooked starch as the backbone, supplemental fruits, vegetables and cooked animal products.
@Rocket
Maybe I could have more potassium. I drink as much coconut water as I can but it is expensive so I don't buy it all the time. I eat some banana but not alot.
I'm off to the store now. Cheap bodega with inexpensive produce. Grapefruits are my plan.
@Gabriel
If you really want loads of potassium, eat potatoes.
Oh, I eat potatoes. Forgot that they were such a good source.
KitchenRecovery-
I pick the meat and put it back in the pot with all the fat and sinews and mmmmm, love it.
JC-
That's where I try to step in. My greatest love is translating great ideas into entertaining and graspable information. It's a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it.
Apex-
Your comments are hilarious. Agree that the recommendation shouldn't be to eat fruit in the morning (blueberries? come on man), but eat as much calorie dense tropical fruit as possible in the morning. This has the dual purpose of providing buttloads of carbohydrate for topping off glycogen stores but once you've consumed something like 10 bananas you've got roughly 20 grams of protein in you by that point, and that's enough to last on it for hours without having a severe crash and burn and ravenous hunger an hour later.
Rocket-
Yes, I just found out about these numerous glycogen storage diseases myself. Interestingly, they can't consume any sugar as in fructose, but have to eat starches only to keep blood sugar levels stable. Very similar to Hereditary fructose intolerance.
Glycine supplementation –
I dunno.
A few years ago, I wrote the following in Wise Traditions, which was based on a lecture I had given at the conference that year:
=========
http://www.westonaprice.org/childrens-health/1380-vitamins-for-fetal-development-conception-to-birth.html#bio
Glycine is depleted in the detoxification of excess methionine, another amino acid. Eggs and meat are the main sources of methionine?it not only constitutes a greater percentage of their total protein but these foods are also higher in total protein than plant foods (see Figure 9).56 It is important, therefore, for the expectant mother to liberally match her eggs and muscle meats with glycine-rich skin and bones and folate-rich liver, legumes and greens.
FIGURE 8. PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL PROTEIN AS GLYCINE
Glycine is found primarily in skin and bones.
* Chicken Breast 5%
* Chicken Skin 16%
* Chicken Stock 31% (estimate)
FIGURE 9. PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL PROTEIN AS METHIONINE
Animal products have a higher percentage of their total protein as methionine than plant products. Although not shown in the chart, they also contain much more protein per unit of weight or volume. The main sources of methionine in the diet, then, are eggs and muscle meats.
Plant Foods
Almonds 0.8%
Lentils 0.8%
Tofu 1.3%
Walnuts 1.9%
Animal Foods
Bacon 2.3%
Ground Beef 2.5%
Chicken 2.8%
Eggs 3.0%
==========
Seems consistent with what you are saying here. This also seems consistent with some of the questions of "why are my LDL levels so high on this diet" popping up in comments on my current series.
Chris
Thanks Chris. Really appreciate that.
I'll be talking about homocysteine next but then jumping into the grand conclusion of what makes the most sense to me from a generalized overall perspective.
By the way Chris, anytime you have a post that's relevant to any discussion here, please leave a direct link to that post for us to find easily.
As for high LDL levels, reduction in metabolic rate seems to be a fantastic way to to get there.
This is really interesting.
I'm on the GAPS diet, and find when I do a ton of bone broth I feel great. A lot of fruit isn't highly encouraged, but it's always made me feel pretty good.
Besides broth, what are the best sources of glycine? What cuts of the animal? I can't quite figure it out.
Here's my post on the central role of LDL receptor activity in governing the risk of heart disease risk. I'll venture into thyroid next post, but I introduce it here:
Genes, LDL-Cholesterol Levels, and the Central Role of LDL Receptor Activity in Heart Disease
http://blog.cholesterol-and-health.com/2011/03/genes-ldl-cholesterol-levels-and.html
And here's a response to this post of yours I just left:
Anyone Doing Paleo Without Liver, Bones, Skin, and Greens?
http://blog.cholesterol-and-health.com/2011/03/anyone-doing-paleo-without-liver-bones.html
Chris
So do you think there needs to be an emphasis on limiting muscle meats, or just being sure that you're getting both? As in "the whole animal".
BTW, I'm fine with fruit,, but starch lays me flat.
Well not all starch, I do starchy veggies fine, but not potatoes, beans, grains.
@Matt
"(blueberries? come on man)"
I take it that was directed at me.
You should stop giving people diet advice and stick to sharing your personal experiences. When you give diet advice to people and change your song constantly it makes you look foolish.
From now on I'd appreciate it if you would direct comments about me to me. I enjoy your blog but you have your faults.
I love this and I love marshmallows too :) However, I do not want to look like that stay puft dude so it's really fruity over here lately.
Apex=Durian Rider, just a guess.
Love
hagatha
My 2 cents:
Matt, sometimes it seems like you bash Weston Price, but what you're saying in this post actually goes straight back to Weston Price. Eat more organ meats and less muscle meats. Eat the skin. Make gelatin- and mineral-rich broths of chicken, beef and fish bones. These are basic WAPF recommendations.
Sally Fallon herself wrote "I can't emphasize enough that our diet is not a high protein diet–it is a moderate protein diet and can even be a low protein diet. The important thing is to get the fats/fat-soluble activators and all the nutrients the body needs. Too much protein depletes vitamin A and I think this is the reason that people trying our way of eating (but just making it a "little better" by eating more protein and less fat) get in trouble."
She also wrote "Another false idea they get is that the diet is necessarily low-carb. I know, I know that many of us (me included) restrict carbs to avoid weight gain, but quite a number of the groups Price studies had lots of carbs in the diet–it's just that they were prepared differently that what we do today."
Gabriel said:
[Matt] should stop giving people diet advice and stick to sharing your personal experiences.
What on God's green Earth makes you think you have the right to come into Matt's blog and tell him what to do?
How about this- Matt runs his blog however he pleases, and if you don't like it you sod off?
Gabriel said:
When you give diet advice to people and change your song constantly it makes you look foolish.
When Matt learns new information he revises his opinions. What do you do?
Gabriel said:
From now on I'd appreciate it if you would direct comments about me to me. I enjoy your blog but you have your faults.
From now on I'd appreciate it if you review your comments for bombastic pomposity and socially clueless arrogance. If you can't filter those yourself, ask a friend to do it for you. And simply not post anything that the average person would find incredibly offensive. This is forum that challenges ideas, but we're polite to each other (when the other guy hasn't done anything to deserve otherwise).
I always have liked ray peat's nudy lady paintings!
troy
Jason said…
Matt, sometimes it seems like you bash Weston Price, but what you're saying in this post actually goes straight back to Weston Price.
Matt doesn't bash Weston Price. He bashes the current WAPF society for their obsession with phytic acid.
—–
Hey Matt, I'll repost a question here I asked in a prior thread. It's relevant in this thread anyway.
Have you seen any evidence that powdered gelatin (like you can buy online in large plastic jugs) is less effective or harmful than traditionally formed stocks? The powder is just a 100x more convenient, and you can add it to anything (broth has a flavor and a lot of liquid you can't escape). Thanks.
as far as i know gelatin is made differently nowadays, it used to be made from the whole carcass but now its just from the skin. there are other beneficial things from bones/cartilage than just gelatin, but i would think the glycline etc is the best part. regularly using a little powdered gelatin with meals and making broth whenever you can probably works out best. if you notice a real improvement from it then use as much as you like
@Apex_Predator:
Is that you. Mango?
Meant to write:
@Apex_Predator:
Is that you, Mango?
grass fed momma said…
Apex=Durian Rider, just a guess.
Ah, of course!
@Brock, thanks for taking on Gabriel and saving me the effort.
@Matt, if you used white wine instead of the beer, how much wine would you have added? Do you think the beer is better than the wine? And you said you pick the meat off and add it to pasta but then said add it back into the pan. Wouldn't the veggie be a bit tired after 5 hours? (I'm really clueless when it comes to cooking.)
It's also interesting that I've cooked chicken a few times the past two weeks, and it seems to tasteless to me. I'm just sick of chicken.
Hey, I had bacon, hash browns and eggs this morning within half an hour of waking. Threw out half because eating this early made me nauseous, but my feet are TOASTY!!!! I think the carbs from the potatoes are doing the trick.
Sort of OT, but Matt, what is your take on that study Jannis wrote about recently that compared diets high in sucrose, starch or fat? I thought the elevation of catecholamines on the high-sucrose diet (and it wasn't even that high, just 23% of total energy) was really striking and it seems to lend more support to Schwarzbeins stance that high sucrose intake is not good for long-term metabolic health. Though another really odd thing was that the free fatty acids were reduced on the sucrose diet (odd since adrenaline typically acts to release fatty acids).
I've been doing this morning mega fruit carb loading for a week now, and I'm skeptical of it doing any particular good. I had amazing energy the first day, but since then have been feeling more like usual, except producing a lot of excess heat all throughout the day, and towards the afternoon somtimes get some blood sugar instability and some minor gastrointestinal issues and headaches. Gained quite a bit of weight and edema as well, but no fatigue issues to speak of.
After about how long would you say you started to feel better and better doing these natural sugar binges (assuming you're still seeing positive developments)?
Information is information. I'll take it.
I do remember being sad when I gleaned that long ago Matt evolved away from WAP principles because it was just before then that I had became convinced that WAP was enlightened. Matt Stone, being smarter than me and light years ahead of any research I'd ever do, took a little of the wind out of my sails. So now that it does seem we've come full circle with you, Matt, I'm grateful that your pursuit is relentless. We're examining the big picture as your disciples and where you go, we go. As skeptical and sophisticated as we all feel, we trust that you will learn and correct and disclose, what you observe.
I can dig it. I just want to know what is right and it takes these kinds of trails to come to it.
This is quite a ride. But unlike blind, fruitless following, we are actually getting smarter by the minute!
The amino acids in gelatin are non-essential because the body can produce them. What's your evidence that gelatin is necessary for good health, aside from the argument based on the likelihood that our ancestors got more of it. From what I can tell, bone broths are considered healthy on account of their mineral content, not specifically their gelatin content. There's some evidence that gelatin may aid digestion and joint health, but mostly this area is unexplored… Not that I'm not interested in informed speculation… But, I don't think there's enough here upon which to base a dietary theory…
The only beefcake I want to hear about is CHIEF!
Where is that dude? Would love his take on protein etc.
Mattie, I like your beefiness just fine too.
xoxo
Hagiulera
Matt.
Can't.
Keep.
Up.
You write faster than I can read, LOL! ;-)
To the folks that aren't doing well on fruit in the AM, what kind of fruit are you eating? Are you eating more tropical fruit or more local fruit (if you don't live in the tropics!). Just curious.
Daniel,
You will find more information about gelatin here: http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/gelatin.shtml
Collden,
That's a well know effect of sucrose. It reduces the bad fatty acids, the Non Esterfied Fatty Acids (NEFA)
As I said, the rise in adrenalin might just be a temporal adaptation process to compensate for low thyroid or soemthing else
Peaty's interview is up on Holistic health on itunes. He is really on top of the hormone stuff and I actually was a bit less confused this time.
He's a one off, I tell ya.
xo
haggie
And the last remaining macronutrient goes down in a blaze of glory… Veggies are still good for me, right!
Thanks Matt, I never thought that my high (muscle meat) protein diet could be the cause of my sluggish thyroid.
I'm off to make start the broth I've been putting off. Then, to the cheese aisle!
The fruits I have that are leaving me feeling spaced out are usually 3 of the following: pineapple, apple, grapes, mango, apple, orange. And about an hour and a half later, I'll eat something more substantial, e.g. eggs, pototo, spinach.
Meighen
Meighen, maybe Matt can take a look at that and see if they follow what he would recommend. I bet if I ate a big bowl of grapes and pineapple, I would slip into a coma, LOL!
I wonder if pouring a little molasses on the fruit would help because of the high mineral content?
Apex Predator said…
I have 3 kg of mandarins or 10 bananas for breakfast alone.
By the way, does anyone else find it hilarious that someone who calls himself "Apex Predator" eats like a fruit bat?
Have you seen chimpanzees hunt though Brock? It's like taking candy from a baby.
On Weston A. Price-
I wouldn't necessarily say I'm coming full circle and saying we should all add a bunch of "bone broth" and organs to a meat heavy diet. This helps. Making stews with bony, sinewy cuts like oxtail and shanks or eating ribs or throwing a whole chicken into a pot is probably better than steaks and chicken boobs. Overall reducing total meat intake probably helps a lot more.
More importantly, few are going to actually make stock. Even Sean Croxton and Antonio Valladares, two young health professionals just got around to making it for the first time. How could anyone expect "normal" people to get into doing it? Most don't even have a big enough pot to make it a worthwhile venture. There's no way you would catch Ray Peat making stock when there's so many more interesting things to be doing. I am more intrigued by the realistic from a health standpoint in terms of overall total impact it could have on the general public.
Kate-
I think the only problem with GAPS, and it is a very major one because I see people failing miserable on that long-term, is lots of meat and very little carbohdyrate. You can eat as much fruit as you want. It is more likely to give you grief than it will help you if you are using nut flours and eating excessive amounts of fat and meat. If someone held me at gunpoint and told me I couldn't eat starch to heal my digestive tract, I would probably get 70% of my calories from fruit.
Gabriel-
Easy cowboy easy!!! I was just throwing out some teasing over the blueberries. I don't eat many blueberries for the same reason I don't eat heads of lettuce. They fill up your stomach long before they fill up your tank.
So can i just buy anything that says gelatin, or shoud i go for something specific??
update from hag house:
breakfast was chai tea with whipping cream, two bananas, a walk with the dog and a handful of jumbo shrimp.
I LOVE IT!
and Matty Cakes, don't be hatin' on bone broth, it is so freaking easy, just follow my lead.. and you can leave it overnight, not 2 days like my crazy ass.
http://www.grassfedmomma.blogspot.com
(shameless plug)
:)
Fruit strugglers-
The worst fruits to eat in morning sugar buzz fashion are generally those that you don't peel. Apples, berries, pears, grapes, strawberries. They have very little to offer, hurt your stomach way more, and have less preferable sugars – or at least seem to because I cannot achieve very good blood sugar stability on those vs. the tropical fruits. Calorie density of course is another issue, maybe the main issue.
Oranges, orange juice, papaya, mango, and bananas are what I'm talkin' about. I also think there's no shame in juicing for those looking to get their LaLanne on. Fresh-squeezed pineapple juice poured over a little banana and mango fruit salad would be pretty wicked.
Too much trouble for me though. I've been eating several bananas while sipping store-bought orange juice in the morning. I'll get bored after a few. But usually get a second wind a half hour later and eat several more.
I've also just put a bunch of bananas in a bowl and poured OJ on them. It's a decent quick fruit salad that makes it more enjoyable.
I'll also mention that you get much more mileage and blood sugar stability out of chewing at least half of your morning calories as opposed to blending it all in a blender.
But this practice may be too much for some people to handle, causing lightheadedness like Meighan mentioned, severe hunger, headaches, and wanting to lay down and take a nap. I think these are transient negatives, and these feelings could probably be used to diagnose a person's health much like a glucose tolerance test can.
Collden-
I've given up on fruit too easily in the past due to these type of effects.
Jannis's post –
Like many studies, there are countless ways it can be interpreted. The majority of people would see the increase in growth hormone and immediately wet their undies. Everybody loves GH, and the positives attributed to it like reduction of blood fat, muscle growth, improvements in skin elasticity, and loss of body fat are what everyone considers the fountain of youth.
I would venture to say that Brock's dramatic change in body composition is almost 100% attributable to the rise in GH from doing high-intensity exercise. You'd have trouble convincing him that these changes are "bad."
An increase in adrenaline or not, it's not the be-all end-all. The sucrose was anabolic, so clearly the adrenaline wasn't the dominant factor in the outcome. And I'm not really that concerned about rises in adrenaline if there is a drop in cortisol which is much more significant and important. An increase in GH and drop in cortisol would basically yield phenomenal body recomposition results.
And energy levels and athletic performance would be much higher, which is exactly what most would find when they personally compared a high-fruit diet to a high-starch or high-fat diet.
Personally, I suspect that if anyone did get negative results it would be because their glucose metabolism sucked due to other factors in their diet, lifestyle, etc. that no study could ever really control for. That's why studies are just studies. All that really counts is what happens to real people in the real world and trying to figure out why.
Speaking of real world, and I direct this to Jannis who had some hypoglycemic reactions to consuming a small amount of sugar and decided to start consuming even less…
I too lean towards hypoglycemia, anger, irritability, rabid hunger, etc. if I consume a small amount of sugar with a lot of meat and fat, especially when combined all at once as in halfasses or having a couple bananas with a glass of milk.
If I want blood sugar stability, I eat more bananas with less protein and fat.
Consider:
1) Eating whole food sources of sugar instead of Coke – this has at least some protein, nutrients that are important and are essential, and digests and absorbs steadily.
2) Consume a lot more instead of a lot less. That's the strange irony of sugar. If you have problems with it, the solution is to eat none of it, or a lot more of it. And when comparing digestion, exercise performance and recovery, energy levels, sleep, etc. on a high-sugar vs. no-sugar diet, high-sugar wins.
what's the reason for recommending no snacking? this is tricky with family meal times and children.
@Gabriel: I'm on an all raw diet. Do I look like I'm starving?
http://www.facebook.com/stas86
Matt,
I wasn't exactely eating a small amount. I think more than 150g or 200g a day is a fairly big amount of sugar. But I can now eat as much sugar as I want. I discovered that my hypoglycemic episodes were acutally caused by bad breathing/ hyperventilation.
I can certainly confirm your experience with high sugar and sleep. The last few days my sleep was absolutely awesome. That supports the theory of the adrenalin beeing an short term effect.
What are you referring to when you talk about the increase in growth hormone? The study I cited didn't measure GH levels.
About bananas, I wouldn't eat too many of them, because they contain a lot of serotonin and cause problems, especially if one already has high serotonin levels.
I swear I thought I remember something on that post about GH. I guess I just inferred that from the increase in lactic acid, which increases growth hormone and could have been one of the reasons for the body composition differences.
Jane-
It's fine to snack. Just make sure you snack until you are feeling pretty full. Nothing too light and try to avoid constant grazing. I think it's best to give the digestive machinery at least some break other than while sleeping.
Joanne Unleashed-
I like cooking the hell out of vegetables. My next food video will feature me doing just that.
You can separate the meat and add it to the pasta like I did on that particular occasion, but overall just dumping it back in the pot and reducing it down to a sauce-like consistency is where it's at. Stewin it and stewin it and stewin it well.
White wine? Ew. I think that's probably way too acidic for this. A typical braise is done with red wine, which is preferable from a taste perspective. I would use at least a pint in a batch that size, maybe a splash more.
Stas –
Nice! Those legs are insane!
Matt,
I actually don't eat any nuts, they don't agree with me.
Do you actually know of people who are failing long-term on a GAPS diet? Though it's not really meant to be long-term, just a few years usually.
Isn't there starch in peas and squash, etc.
It's just the grains and beans I can't do.
GAPS isn't meant to be a low carb diet. though a lot of people take it in that direction.
All I know is that I didn't get well no matter what I tried (including HED) until I went on GAPS and then I made a dramatic recovery.
So what exactly are you eating now? Mostly fruit? Mostly starch? Very little meat? What about dairy?
I'm a little confused about what exactly you're doing thats making you feel so good…
Are there any articles on Josh and Jeannes website that you'd reccommend?
Thanks!
Thanks!
Kate-
Almost everyone I know fails miserably on GAPS, much of it related to the fact that the diet typically pushes body temperature very low. Sure, it can medicate a problem, but I don't think it's the amazing solution it is hyped up to be. I would estimate that your typical GAPPER will eat maybe 10-20% of calories as carbohydrate. Pounds of squash and beans still don't have that much carbohydrate.
I have known many to recover their digestive health quickly on a high-fruit diet, including myself. Eating lots of fruit was the only thing after 7 years of bean abstinence that enabled me to return to eating them without severe gastrointestinal distress – but I still prefer not to eat too many of them.
I meant pounds of squash and "peas" not beans.
The next thing to figure out is…
If one is coming to RRARF from, let's say, a typical SAD and not v. much exercise, should they do the low-sugar/high starch to get started? And wait for an x-amount of time before shifting into the exercise & high sugar phase?
Do you think the high starch phase is helpful for the body to re-calibrate towards having a constant supply of glucose before tossing in the "wild card" of fructose?
This is interesting, because I'm starting to notice that people have huge health recovery on GAPS, but after a time on it tend to have issues still with adrenals, thyroid, weight, etc. AND they get more sensitive to foods instead of less, which doesn't make sense to me since the idea of the diet is to heal your digestive abilities.
Just to be clear – do you know a lot of GAPs people?
When you were eating a high fruit diet, were you eating grains too?
I do know that when I was eating high fruit over the summer I felt really good.
All this learning is making me crazy, I wish I could just find a simple answer and stick with it!
Hypothetically if you were to tell me how to heal my digestive track, exactly what would you tell me to do?
Matt,
lactic acid is produced when carbs are metabolized without oxygen. Ongoing glycolysis is a bad sign and often a symptom of metabolic disorders. The high adrenaline and the lactic acid in the sucrose group were what suprised me the most. Especially if you consider that carbohydrate oxidation was much higher in the sucrose group as compared to the starch group.
Veiled Glory-
Not ready to do any official revisions yet. Revisions get done after new information gets sorted out. I think as long as any person on a SAD diet is eating lots of unrefined foods beyond appetite without major restriction they are going to see health benefits.
Kate-
Sure I know lots of GAPPERS. Of course, it's the ones that failed that show up here telling me about their experiences, which are right in line with what you are reporting.
See the Broda Barnes qoute in the post. Those symptoms they are experiencing are from prolonged high-protein/high-fat/low-carbohdyrate intake for the most part. The diet medicates glucose and digestive problems but causes a general worsening of other hypothyroid-related symptoms. Short-term gain, long-term pain.
I was not eating any other carbohydrates other than fruit and juices when I healed my digestion on multiple occasions.
Hypothetically I would tell you to eat the "high fruit over the summer I felt really good" diet without the grains and legumes.
Eat broth and some meats and fat with it when you feel like you need something a little more substantial, which may be once a day, once every 3 days, 3 times a day. I don't know. Feel it out for yourself.
If there is any true magic in GAPS it's avoiding the starches and grains for an extended period of time. You don't need to be low-carb/high-meat to achieve that. This post indicates that I think it would be a lot smarter to be low-meat and derive most of your calories from carbohydrate if you want to feel your best and not run into a dead end.
I think you're right – that the magic would be in avoiding the starches and grains. That is key for me. Plus anything fake like white sugar and artificial flavorings.
I've never really agreed with the camp that believes in limiting carbs severely, it just doesn't make sense to me.
What do you think about lots of veggie soups made with bone broths? I love these.
Where are standing on dairy and coconut?
meant to say "where are YOU standing on dairy and coconut"
Were you eating dairy when you were on your fruit diet?
Isn't methionine needed for the production of glutathione peroxidase, an anti-inflammatory? I thought cysteine was anti-inflammatory as well.
Jannis-
Agree that "ongoing" being the operative word as it pertains to lactic acid, that this was not very comforting.
I will also say that if you asked some of the high sugar advocates like Doug Graham and Fred Patenaude how they would feel if they were getting 28% calories as fat and 13% as protein like the high sucorse group they would say, "horrible" – much of that related to blood sugar swings that they don't get on a higher sugar diet. Unfortunately these wankers are on vegan diets or otherwise they might actually get some good long-term results with their general approach.
When I originally put together RRARF I did it based on what the researchers in the study we're talking about stated in regards to eating to appetite of unrefined starchy diets…
"These findings are therefore in accordance with previous studies of similar or longer duration in normal-weight and overweight subjects showing a spontaneous reduction in EI (energy intake) and a weight loss on an ad libitum starch-rich, fiber-rich diet."
But the subjects lost muscle mass, reported being dissatisfied with the diet, and had lower energy expenditure – meaning they were more lethargic.
The high sugar eaters ate more, moved more, gained muscle, and lost fat and enjoyed their diet the most (hell, they were eating pizza and drinking Coke with it).
But of course there are still a million variables remaining to speculate about.
What if the high sugar diet was also high in nutrients instead of 23% white powder? What if the high-sugar diet was very high in fiber from fruit and not very low in fiber? How does vitamin C factor in?
It was also fascinating that the high-sugar people thought their diet was high in fat even though it wasn't. My appetite for meat and fat decreases in proportion to the amount of sugar I eat. It suddenly starts to look heavy and unappetizing.
I don't know. It's all very interesting.
But like I said the original reason for RRARF's stach emphasis was the idea that sugar tricks you into eating more. Well, it does trick you into eating more when you eat to appetite, which results in greater muscle mass and less body fat and a hell of a lot more energy and feeling of satisfaction with your diet!
One can clearly see where that divide was created.
But again, the differences between white powder and whole fruit or juice in its long-term or even short-term effect (who knows, maybe the stress and lactic acid reaction was due to ingestion of sugar not bound to nutrients – such as minerals that the body would have needed to trigger a stress response to pull calcium and phoshporous from bone to keep blood sugar levels of these minerals constant).
Taylor-
More on methionine in the next post. I'll probably have that up tomorrow unless this conversation continues to be this interesting. Feel free to pass along some links to challenge these ideas more specifically if you know of any.
Kate-
I did these fruit things in a "cleanse" type format, eating nothing but fruit, juice, and a little raw vegetable matter.
Only now am I pursuing a high-fruit diet in a more sustainable, non muscle-wasting type format.
Dairy doesn't do anything positive for me that I notice. I have been eating some fresh coconut which is great, but I wouldn't think someone in digestive rehab would do well with it – and would be better off with a little butter or coconut oil instead of milk and cheese and whole coconut.
Those soups sound fantastic. Cook the hell out of them. That's kind of what I'm getting into as well, adding gelatin packets to see how that goes. I had some bloat initially but I'm not sure if this was the gelatin or some un-rinsed canned beans in there. I'll find out again tonight or tomorrow when I have this again next without the beans.
Matt, maybe problems with chicken were caused by throwing away skin. Don't waste food. Boil the chicken legs with bones or a whole chicken and eat the broth and meat. Forget the anti-PUFA propaganda from Peat and his dogmatic follwers. All the studies he cites show is that the rancid, refined, modified, re-used, and over-heated oils are bad. I am through with his dogma.
I don't fear PUFAs from whole food sources (preferably as fresh as possible). I added brazil nuts and almonds for now. The only problem I've noticed at first was that my eyes were a bit dry/sensitive, but that has improved and I've seen a few other benefits – more stable energy, more vivid dreams, faster healing, not feeling spacey/drunk (as someone else commented on 180 recently in regard to Matt's fruit only meal dogma).
Forget about diets. Low-PUFAs may have short-term benefits, but long term problems like not dreaming & slow healing. Ray peat is not the Messiah. You should balance Peat's dogma with Brian Peskin, who has a lot of research and testimonials – unlike Peat. If you read forums in which Ray Peat is discussed, like Native-Nutrition, BeyondPrice, and so forth, many have problems with his unnatural diet. Why eat fruits by themselves? What good could it do? It's lite fruitarianism, which ruined many people's health in the long-term. Why expect any good to come of it short-term? Someone has recently said here that they felt spacey or drunk after eating fruit by itself. I encourage that person to think for themselves, not treat Matt like a diet guru by asking if it's temporary or they should stop doing it. Stop making Matt a guru, people. Use your brains.
Matt,
I don't think that the levels of adrenaline or lactic acid would have been different if they had eaten fruit instead of refined sugar. This effect is caused by the sucrose itself, not by the lack of minerals or vitamins. Of course fruits are much better, but some things have to do with the macronutrient itself.
I think that sugar has many advantages as compared to starch. Knowing that starch decreases EI and EE, I never quite understood, why you as somebody who knows about the advantages of a fast metabolism would recommend a high starch diet.
I don't think that fiber has any advantages, and some kind of fiber can actually be dangerous, like those of beans or legumes, because it feeds endotoxin. I think that most tropical fruits contain relatively low fiber.
I will watch the effects of starch and sugar very closely during the next weeks. Since I fixed my breathing problem I react very differently to a lot of foods. It's like I suddenly have a new body.
Ian,
PUFA poison the thyroid system and are toxid, period! There is absolutely no doubt about that!
Ian-
Good to see you in full form. I will be reading Peskin later this year. I haven't seen the miracles promised by virgin EFA's or low total PUFA.
I also don't think that my guru-itis is anywhere near what it used to be. I describe what I'm doing and how it impacts me. For others, it may be a helpful solution, which is why I throw it out there. I also like seeing how other people respond to better understand the human body.
Jannis –
One could have said that about fructose and uric acid, but they would have been wrong. Fructose in fruit lowers it. Fructose in refined sugar raises it. Same substance, opposite reaction. I think the biggest mistake ever made in nutrition was underappreciation of the differences between refined and unrefined foods.
Likewise a very high fiber, high resistant starch diet could have had very different effects in the starch group.
Fiber and resistant starch may feed endotoxin, although that is a much greater concern in hypothyroidism, so in the context of raising metabolism with overfeeding who knows how much of a concern this really is. It's unknowable.
However, with the endotoxin-feeding fermenation comes the production of the shortest-chain fats on earth with the most metabolically-positive effect.
Butyrate is like the opposite of PUFA, facilitating the transport of T3 into the mitochondrion.
Likewise, mice given more butyrate see a decrease in appetite and a rise in metabolism simultaneously, which always seemed to me to be quite attractive to a world population suffering from a high ratio of appetite to metabolism vs. the other way around.
That's probably why, when looking at all studies cumulatively, fiber stands out as the single-most protective substance known. It's because of the metabolic effects that stem from SCFA production in the gut. Short chain fat is coconut oil on steroids basically.
Matt,
I have never experienced any advantag from eating fiber. Can you cite some of the studies which show the benefits of it?
Matt,what body temp do you think is optimal?In your e-book you say 97.8 as kind of a threshold (where's that number coming from?).Bieler says the adrenal type is "scarcely ever under 98.8".What should someone be reasonably shooting for with rrarf?What is your body temp right now/how high have you been able to consistently go?
Apex_Predator:
Read this about a tribe that ate a lot of bananas and the problems it caused. I know, they were eating a little cooked food probably, so it won't penetrate your "intellectual force-field." But how about this. Most fresh fruit in stores ins not picked ripe. Maybe fruit juices or other things would be better. They are in my experience. I don't eat much fresh fruit. I eat sun-dried fruit or 100% juices more. Bananas suck. I don't eat them much, if at all. Many people have problem with fruit, even bananas, which are the lowest in plans toxins.
http://autoimmunethyroid.wordpress.com/2006/09/24/gone-bananas/
Most people don't want to eat *10* bananas for a meal or in a day. To propose such a diet is the mark of a guru detached from reality. Many don't like bananas, don't react to them well, and can't afford to eat them in such amounts. And if other fruits are used, it would be hard to get to 3,000+ Calories. Not to mention that such a diet may speed up metabolism to 5,000 Calories so you are still undereating, so your metabolism is weakened over time.
You know thinking about the whole sugar thing,I was recently eating large amounts of soda (root beer) and genereally lazing around,however I would suddenly get large bursts of energy where I just felt compelled to get up and run around or dance or even yell at things,just because I felt so energetic.I also had my body temperature go up to 97.9 during this debacle (for the first time ever,which was EXTREMELY annoying after dropping 100 dollar bills at whole foods and still feeling like a walrus energy wise).All I was eating with the soda was the cheapest hotdogs and buns I could find at king soopers,because I felt like it (with HFCS ketchup to boot).My blood glucose wasn't terrible during this time either.And one day,I went out to shovel snow,which would usually be a fatigue ridden chore for me,but rather was actually so fun that I felt compelled to make the shoveling take longer,so that I could keep flinging the snow into my annoying neighbors yard.
97.8 comes from Broda Barnes.
I've never maintained much above 98 first thing in the morning. I haven't checked in a while actually.
Jannis-
The most compelling data was compiled by Denis Burkitt and Hugh Trowell. They tried to isolate the variables as much as possible, but could arrive at no other conclusion than the fiber intake (usually 70-150 grams per day in rural Africa) was the primary substance responsible for the complete lack of dental caries, diabetes, heart disease, appendicitis, constipation, and numerous cancers.
They basically did a Weston A. Price kind of deal but compiled hard data on specific diseases instead of just looking at teeth.
It's this that led to the mainstream infatuation with fiber, but there have been other confirmations of this, as high-fiber diets have repeatedly shown better glucose control, weight loss, lower triglycerides, blood pressure, etc.
Many studies by James Anderson on the high-carbohydrate, high-fiber diet (HCF) are interesting. Google Anderson and HCF or something like that and you'll probably find some interesting stuff.
I'm more impressed with those implementing this in real life, like Joel Furhman. Joel is actually pretty decent in that he's not a strict vegan and allows quite a bit of fish and things like that in the diet, as there is no reason whatsoever to forbid animal product consumption to get results with eliminating type 2 and many of the other health problems he deals with successfully.
But he's definitely a 70+ grams of fiber kinda guy. In my experience fibrous foods that have been uncooked have the most beneficial effect, like fruits. But Fuhrman is a "beans and greens" kinda fella that hates calories, which is where a guy like me gets obliterated.
If he were not against the consumption of calorie-dense foods he wouldn't be so far off.
So basically I am pretty pissed off with this whole nutrition deal,since after all this time,eating a bunch of the junkiest food made me feel better than I had in a very long time (eating all organic,steaks,raw milk,potatoes,etc).I also had my libido come back with a vengeance too.I'm still scratching my head,but it's back to the drawing board.On another note,i've been eating alot of pasta lately with very small amounts of meat along with raw milk and some bbq slow cooked beef (more HFCS) and i'm feeling pretty damned good.Nutrition certainly is a big puzzle,but now that i'm paying attention to these things some patterns are definently emerging
King Soooper –
I've had to face that reality many times.
Most recently it was having to face the reality that I felt best eating 2-3 homemade cookies every hour or so all day long. I did get a few pimples from eating a whole package of Chips Ahoy recently though. Maybe it was the hydrogenated soybean oil in there. Or maybe it was my beliefs about hydrogenated soy oil on there, and what happened to me physiologically after I ate them after reading the ingredient list. This seems more likely. I had no such negative reaction to eating a dozen Oreos in February.
I like mental-sturbating about health and nutrition. But at the same time most people that I've crossed paths with on the internet need to take more fukitol.
I'm glad you reacted to the medication positively. I wonder what the contraindications are?
How much of it do you think can be attributed to the sudden excesses of calories?
For example, when I ate 18 pints of ice cream in 4 days a few weeks ago I felt absolutely insane (in a good way, like the pool party with Ray) and should have taken my body temp. because I gaurantee it was up in the upper 98's – to be expected with that kind of calorie load.
I thought it was the sugar. But eating lots of sugar from fruit and consuming fewer calories I'm not quite at the same level of vitality.
What about your root brewski and bun fun? Could you honestly say you were NOT consuming more calories?
I guess I shouldn't say I'm not at the same level of vitality. Actually, my workouts after ice cream were horrible. I wouldn't call fat a performance enhancer by any stretch like the almighy fruit is.
Matt Stone:
"More importantly, few are going to actually make stock."
Well, most people are not going to eat 10 bananas for breakfast, or a dozen mandarin oranges. Such facts have not yet stopped Apex Predator from giving silly adVICE. I do not think Apex's idea would be bad, IF you lived outside, hiked and swam barefoot and nude all day, and all while living in the tropics like Ken from AV-Skeptics. I'm dubious that such a diet can be sustained while working at a sedentary job, being indoors 16+ hours/day, etc.
"There's no way you would catch Ray Peat making stock when there's so many more interesting things to be doing."
When I talked to Ray Peat in 2009, he said he ate ox tail soup and/or lamb shank stew fairly often. Also mentioned stuff like jellybeans or something, which he used a Spanish word for (not gaminolas).
"I am more intrigued by the realistic from a health standpoint in terms of overall total impact it could have on the general public."
And avoiding PUFAs (even fresh and natural foods) is realistic? How?
I just checked my evening temp, 96.5F, down by more than 2 degrees since last I checked, which was several months after I began with moderate carb intermittent fasting again and had lost most of my post-RRARF weight gain.
This is doubly strange because since the addition of 1500 calories fruit/molasses every morning I've been feeling like a furnace all day long. Long ago while I was on the RRARF I did make a mental note that sometimes feeling warm wasn't necessarily the same thing as being warm in the metabolic sense, and that having a high metabolism might actually make you feel more (pleasantly) cooler since the body more efficiently dissipates excess heat.
So what is going on here, sucrose overfeeding made my temp drop because cortisol is taking a rest, or what? Did anyone else experience temperature drops initially when sugar binging?
I have to agree with Ian. Think about it, with Matt’s recent flip-flop from hate (due to his bad experiences with fruit and believing it and sugar/fructose is bad for you) to now nothing but love for them (loading up on fruit and singing sugar’s praises), what’s to say the stance against all PUFA around here shouldn’t be re-considered? And why should you believe in what Matt is saying today? Which is contrary to what he said (and believed) yesterday. Nothing against Matt. I’m just saying, and I know Matt will agree (that's why I have such respect for him), that we should all experiment and decide what's right for ourselves, rather than eating or avoiding something that someone else says to. And I just don’t understand the point of all these extremes ? high this, low that, fruit loading, all fruit, all raw, sugar is better than starch, blah blah blah. I don't believe our bodies like low or high ANYTHING. Our bodies like balance – and in constant pursuit of balance – homeostasis.
My motto is not just ?eat the food? it’s EAT THE WHOLE FOOD ? all of them. Focus on nourishing your body (with a well balanced diet of all natural foods, in their whole natural form ? the way nature intended) and your body will take care of the rest. If nature made it, eat it. If man made it, well take your chances ? but don’t blame it on natural unrefined sugar, starch, fat, carbs, protein, veggies, grains, or any other naturally occurring food ? when you see signs of trouble and health issues.
This is what I do… I put everything together in a pot: meat (with its fat, bones, skin, organs, and all), legumes (beans/peas/lentils), veggies (like brussels sprouts or corn), starch (white & sweet taters or rice), sea salt, and water, to slow cook and eat throughout the day – like a soup or sometimes over rice. I save the leftovers for another day or to take for lunch, etc. There are great "rice/food cooker & steamers" that will cook all that on the bottom and steam other veggies or something in an included steam basket on top – you'll love it – the cooker and the food – absolutely delicious! Plus convenient one-pot cooking and nutritionally well balanced. I eat fruit for desert or whenever I feel like it, which is lots.
But that's just me.
Jannis,
Naturally occurring PUFA, are a totally different animal from man-made PUFA ? and there’s no doubt about that.
Matt
are u thinking about changing rrarf guidelines or for now is safer to stick to those??
good post justme;=)
@Ian: I'm assuming that your experience with Aajonus and his diet wasn't pleasant, correct? You probably ate too much butter, green juices and not enough meat. As a former elite ice hockey player, powerlifter, personal trainer and medical student, I have very good results with raw animal foods. I'm about 5 ft. 11 inches tall and weigh muscular 195 lbs. I eat raw animal foods even though I'm full time in college. My diet varies but usually I eat this everyday:
1 or 2 lbs. WC-Raw Fish
2 lbs. Raw Chicken breasts or Lamb Chops
12 oysters or clams
12 raw eggs or some raw cheese
1 lb. raw beef/lamb liver
Plantain or squash
Papaya/Pineapple or other tropical fruit
Coconut w/o the meat-I chew and spit out the pulp cause its too heavy to digest ;-]
5 bell-peppers and some mushrooms, carrots
a bit of parsley juice
Hi Matt,
May I first commend you on an excellent, informative, thought provoking, eye opening blog. As someone who has followed nutrition for years, you continue to shed light on new ideas and experiences that I have never encountered. Thank you!
I can totally relate to the story you describe in this post. Maybe each the experiences you describe (i.e. thriving on high raw for a short time and then seeing problems, thriving on low carb for a short time and seeing problems, thriving when adding carbs for a short time and then seeing problems) had their purpose at that time in your life.
What is certain is that different people, respond optimally to completely different diets. People can even respond optimally to completely different protocols at different times in their own lives. There is surely not one ideal diet – maybe not even the high fruit, high gelatin, low muscle meat etc.diet you are currently thriving on!
This leads me believe, theoretically at least, in some form of 'metabolic typing', not necessarily in its current state, but a approach to nutrition that takes into account each individuals needs and prescribes a particular diet that is ideal at that moment in time. During Gianni's Great Health Debate, at least 7 of the 14 Speakers (Mercola, Cousens, Gates Wolfe, Gates, JE Williams, Croxton, Bowden) addressed the fundamental importance of some form of 'metabolic typing' approach to nutrition.
I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on this. Actually i would love to pick your brains for hours on end and have so many questions to ask you but since I am a 2 post newbie i'll be impressed if you even respond to this post. Fingers crossed!!! Love, Katty ps. Do you ever do skype consultations?
Matt, I am not blindly following Peskin. I found his work at least 3-4 years ago and had it in the back of my mind even while experimenting with Peat's low-pufa ideas. I wouldn't suggest using vegetable oils period, except cold pressed macadamia, virgin or naturally refined coconut and small amounts of stone-pressed olive oil and red pam oil maybe. Ino flax oil or refrigerated oils. Read Peskin, but don't follow his overpriced advice. I would sub whole food or raw animal foods for the expensive oils he recommends, most of which are probably heated above 122F despite cold pressed claims. My blood pessure was 121/82 despite having just eaten. My fasting blood sugar from 6 months ago was 92 & hba1c was 5.5, despite a high sugar diet from stuff like orange juice, milk, ice cream, chocolate, and butter cookies. It's probably better now, because I feel much better than I did 6 months ago.
@ Justme
I'm with you on that. One thing i am a little dubious of is the pursuit of what Michael Pollan describes as 'nutritionism'. According to Pollan a nutritionist belief is that 'the key to understanding food is the nutrient. Put another way: Foods are essentially the sum of their nutrient parts. From this basic premise flow several others.' i.e. PUFAS – BAD. Muscle Meat contain Methionine – BAD. Fruit Fructose – GOOD etc. Interestingly, Pollan predicted the backlash against PUFAS in his book years ago.
What is clear to anyone with a keen eye on the latest developments in nutrition science is that nutrients and supplements that were once considered the panacea for all of mankinds ills i.e. fish oil, later get discovered to be problematic and even touted as unhealthy. Matt's honest and open discussion of his experiences perhaps highlight the pitfalls of following various nutritional approaches based on the nutrition science behind them. I believe that nutrition science in its current form barely scratches the surface of the intricate ways in which food effects our physiology. Having said this, i absolutely love Matts work and always look forward to reading his latest discoveries!!
Talking about Peskin, here is a really interesting and highly enjoyable presentation given by him, talking about PUFAS. He's got a really fun presenting style, very easy to listen to:
http://www.youtube.com/user/jkfitpro?feature=mhum#p/f/54/LxGj5Fd53n4
Stas, I was eating plenty of raw meat and eggs and milk and cheese on the Primal diet. No source for raw butter and most of the cheese was salted, tho, and juiced plenty of carrots and beets because of exercise. I also ate a lot of honey and fruit, but still lost muscle and strength, had frequent nausea or vertigo and dizziness (while lying down!). Not sure what factor or combination o factors was most to blame, but I think the diet as outlined by AV has gotten worse with the anti-starch dogma of his second book (based on stupid studies of AGEs in purified form and mega-doses). As many pointed out, lots of traditional healing systems disagree on raw food dogma and even say the diets can cause harm. What humans ate 10,000 years ago is hardly relevant when you consider epigenetics and high speed evolution theories. People didn't even eat fish in large quantities until 20-40k years ago, as studies cited by Colpo and Cordain show. If you are trying to justify your diet with evolution, why at seafood tht was not the basis of primiive diets in the period priort to 20-40k years ago? 10k years is just an arbitrary cut-off, so paleotards can exclude grains while pushing overpriced fsh and the rape of the ocean by greedy fisheries.
I don't know how much of it was calories,but as someone who has eaten plenty of starch and also plenty of soda,I can say without a doubt that I will have more energy and athletic ability drinking a soda than eating a potato.I don't know about the long term effects of that,but it certainly did shock me to feel high energy with a pump in my muscles,coming from feeling like taking a long nap every 5 minutes.Which is how starch likes to make me feel.So then I decided to take it even further and low and behold,my body temp also was raised,and my blood glucose was 74-75.It's the kind of energy I used to have,before I discovered health and nutrition.At the same time,theres people eating soda all over the place that are certainly in no kind of state of health that I want (it's called America).
Katty, people were atacking PUFA oils long before Pollan's book. And as with fructose, the effects of fresh pufas from nuts, seeds, seafood, grains, and beans aren't the same as industrial refined, solvent extracted, bleached, deodorized, processed, over heated, reused and modified oils.
Matt, it's not enough not to act like a guru. People will treat you like a guru. Oh Matt, I ate this food by itself and it made me feel drunk. Maybe it's the food, maybe eating something else with it would help, mayb it's detox or not, maybe it's healing or not. Nobody knows but God. What anyone says is just a guess, at best. Be your own guru and under mine everyone's dogma at once.
Forget about diets. Eat the food. And like justme said, don't blame nutriets for the results in people or studies using man-made food. But temper that with King Sooper's comments, and similar remarks by Matt (eating fast food and recovering from the problems caused by WAPF dogma.
Katty-
I don't formally do "consultations." When I have the time I always try to answer as many questions as possible and occasionally do talk to people over Skype.
Eventually what I'd like to provide for people is a guide of sorts for figuring out what they need from their nutrition, or how to use food medically, lifestyle, who to contact for hormone supplementation and other therapies, and so on.
This does call for different eats at different times.
Metabolic typing is a noble idea, but I generally read the results backwards. I think it's the people with crappy glucose metabolism that end up on the low-carb diets and people with good glucose metabolism that end up on the higher carb diets. That's not how I deal with it at all, and the benefits of low-carb eating is usually a honeymoon that lasts from a few months to a few years before it reaches its expiration.
Justme-
I appreciate your comment. I wish it were that simple and easy. If just eating whole, nutritious foods were enough for everything to sort itself out and everyone to achieve homeostasis I would have only had to do one blog post.
But I've written nearly 5,000 pages between blog posts, books, comments, and emails – all of them championing the virtues of whole foods eating, and while nearly everyone sees improvements – everyone still has room to improve more and desires to do so if it's possible.
That's where the complexity explodes by an order of magnitude unmeasurable.
Sure, I like fruit now. I'm just trying to figure out how one can integrate fruit back into their diets without dealing with a lot of problems with it. So that they can "just eat whole foods" in balance. I've seen the wreckage that eating a lot of poorly-tolerated fruit can do – much more so in others than myself. My ex-gf for example ate smoothies with fruit and milk for a week and had some of the worst acne I'd ever seen that took her months to shake. The other problems were a little too personal to mention :)
Speaking of complexity, she could eat Twizzlers all day long and not have that reaction.
If you think just eating whole foods sorts out everyone's health problems, go to a nutrition conference (paraphrasing Paul Chek).
I'm sorry I just can't pick a simple theory (cholesterol is in arteries of people with heart attacks, don't eat cholesterol!) and stick with it.
It is a conversation with flip flops galore and wild tangents into previously unexplored territory. And it's like that because it has to be. It's not about going out and finding all the right answers and then churning them out. No one knows the right answers.
Most people pick what makes sense to them the most and ignore all the contradictions. I don't do that. Side effects include annoying side tangents, circular arguments, and excessive chafing from tireless masturdebating.
The more I read and learn about nutrition, the more it reminds me of quantum physics. It all just keeps getting more confusing.
The real irony of it all is that quantum physics basically says it doesn't matter one bit what we eat, including nothing at all as some have done.
Mind = blown.
King Sooper-
I'm pissed at you for not picking that screen name. It's awesome.
I suspect that it is part of sugar's temptation. Maybe sugar is the ultimate food. It's the ultimate chimpanzee food.
The only catch is the refining, and it's not something that catches up to you for years. Maybe decades.
But a potato contains like, 100 calories. 200-300 with butter. I can eat 1,000 calories of ice cream to get the same level of satiation.
And yes, the next day my muscles will feel like Arnold's if I go and work out. During my ice cream slaughter I went to work out and had such ridiculous muscle pumps that I could hardly move my arms after 3 sets, and my arms stayed VERY pumped for 3-4 hours. It was like full body Viagra.
But after switching to fruit which dramatically decreases appetite on a calorie for calorie basis compared to ice cream or cookies, I haven't gotten the same effect to the same degree. It's more minor, but still present. And energy is really solid and I feel warm. Haven't taken my temp., which I feel is more revealilng just like Collden mentioned (it's hard to pinpoint why you noticed this effect).
Anyway, think about swapping OJ for soda and see if you get the same effect but with infinitely more nutrition.
Quantam Physics-
Yes, as with anything, with each new insight comes a magnification of complexity. That is the rule with all sciences. That's probably why scientists all become wacky over time – seeking simple solutions in the infinitely complex.
Matt, I agree with you that fructose should not be generalized to fruit, however, the study below found that apples raise uric acid. Do you have a reference for the statement that fruit lowers uric acid?
Thanks,
Chris
====
Free Radic Biol Med. 2004 Jul 15;37(2):251-8.
The increase in human plasma antioxidant capacity after apple consumption is due to the metabolic effect of fructose on urate, not apple-derived antioxidant flavonoids.
Lotito SB, Frei B.
Linus Pauling Institute, Oregon State University, Corvallis 97331, USA.
Abstract
Regular fruit consumption lowers the risk of cardiovascular diseases and certain cancers, which has been attributed in part to fruit-derived antioxidant flavonoids. However, flavonoids are poorly absorbed by humans, and the increase in plasma antioxidant capacity observed after consumption of flavonoid-rich foods often greatly exceeds the increase in plasma flavonoids. In the present study, six healthy subjects consumed five Red Delicious apples (1037 +/- 38 g), plain bagels (263.1 +/- 0.9 g) and water matching the carbohydrate content and mass of the apples, and fructose (63.9 +/- 2.9 g) in water matching the fructose content and mass of the apples. The antioxidant capacity of plasma was measured before and up to 6 h after food consumption as ferric reducing antioxidant potential (FRAP), without or with ascorbate oxidase treatment (FRAPAO) to estimate the contribution of ascorbate. Baseline plasma FRAP and FRAPAO were 445 +/- 35 and 363 +/- 35 microM trolox equivalents, respectively. Apple consumption caused an acute, transient increase in both plasma FRAP and FRAPAO, with increases after 1 h of 54.6 +/- 8.7 and 61.3 = 17.2 microM trolox equivalents, respectively. This increase in plasma antioxidant capacity was paralleled by a large increase in plasma urate, a metabolic antioxidant, from 271 +/- 39 microM at baseline to 367 +/- 43 microM after 1 h. In contrast, FRAP and FRAPAO time-dependently decreased after bagel consumption, together with urate. Consumption of fructose mimicked the effects of apples with respect to increased FRAP, FRAPAO, and urate, but not ascorbate. Taken together, our data show that the increase in plasma antioxidant capacity in humans after apple consumption is due mainly to the well-known metabolic effect of fructose on urate, not apple-derived antioxidant flavonoids.
wow, matt havent gotten to read your blog in a hot minute… but i must say i feel pretty damn good after skimming the last few posts and just having finished a big ass bowl of oxtail soup i added gelatin too and a plate of smashed tater cakes in ghee
finally doing what i feel makes me feel best and thats where it led me. i still have tons of questions but i am now questioning fruit so like the potatoes ill try it
ive always adored organs and bone meat and finally came to terms with the horrible feeling muscle meat leaves me with
i also am questioning natural PUFAS lately as they sure seem to keep my face clear
Matt:
"Easy cowboy easy!!! I was just throwing out some teasing over the blueberries. I don't eat many blueberries for the same reason I don't eat heads of lettuce. They fill up your stomach long before they fill up your tank."
Well, then why not focus on denser carbs like 100% fruit juice? Grape juice is probably way cheaper than fresh fruit 0 even bananas – pound for pound. I have perfectly stable mood and energy after grape juice.
"The worst fruits to eat in morning sugar buzz fashion are generally those that you don't peel. Apples, berries, pears, grapes, strawberries. They have very little to offer, hurt your stomach way more, and have less preferable sugars – or at least seem to because I cannot achieve very good blood sugar stability on those vs. the tropical fruits. Calorie density of course is another issue, maybe the main issue."
Grape juice works better than most juices or fresh fruits, IMO. Peat's orange juice is not as good at giving calm stable energy. More digestive issues, too. Maybe it is because grape is more concentrated with like 40g of sugars per cup. A lot more than even Coke. I've also observed something else, Matt. On at least two occasions, when I had nausea, I ate a heaping tablespoon of sugar and the nausea went away almost instantly. Maybe apples and other fruits would work, but I am not sure. I don't recall anything else working as quickly as s spoon full of sugar. I just tried it as an experiment and it has worked at least 2-3 times now.
Matt:
Thank you for your response! My current understanding of Metabolic Typing as outlined by Wolcott is that it is a very new and inexact 'science', i haven't seen any convincing research papers at all, that back up many of the claims made in his book. However, biochemical individuality and the vast disparity in individual requirements is a subject that i hear some of the top names talk about more and more in recent times.
Is the primary issue really good/bad glucose metabolism that can be fixed by boosting overall metabolism? Lets take two extreme examples: Harley Durianrider and Marc Sisson. If you listen to each of them speak you would be convinced that the other one was a complete physical wreck suffering from endless health issues. Yet they and their followers claim to be in the best condition of their lives and have the blood tests to prove it! Either they are deliberating lying, they have too much invested in their identity and lifestyle to tell themselves the truth, or maybe, just maybe what they are doing really works for them. I happen to believe, maybe naively, the latter.
Also a lot of people who comment here are people who have not thrived on previous protocols. You are going to hear a lot more from these people than from say, people who have succeeded for decades on a vegan or paleo style diet. It doesn't mean these people don't exist. I don't know any long term paleo's but i do know a 20 year raw vegan. They hardly eat anything which goes against the HED principles, but appear and claim to be in rude health!! Its too confusing.
One more thing Matt if i still have your attention. What would you say to people who claim that research conclusively proves that the less food people eat the longer they live?
Many Thanks,
Katty
Kate: "..I'm starting to notice that people have huge health recovery on GAPS, but after a time on it tend to have issues still with adrenals, thyroid, weight, etc. AND they get more sensitive to foods instead of less, which doesn't make sense to me since the idea of the diet is to heal your digestive abilities."
It makes sense to me, because I am convinced that avoiding food makes you more sensitive. Look at all of the extreme diets like fruitarians and raw paleo/primal, where people say if they even SMELL bread, they get sick. I call that diet-induced weakness and sensitivity caused by living in a bubble. I would rather find a way to eat normal food, but tweak it to stay lean and healthy, feel good, have good markers, slow aging, etc. People like Matt Stone and Tim Ferriss and Martin Berkhan are examples to me, not Aajonus or Wai or other food avodiers. DeVany and Sisson are not too bad, Sisson at least favors an 80/20 type rule where you can eat "bad" food a few meals a week. two R's and two S's.
Matty Stoney,
Just throwing this out there. If you don't like it, throw it right back.
Do you suppose your symptoms upon eating lots of meat could be attributed simply to indigestion/malabsorption? This is the track that I've been following more than anything else, and it has made the most sense in my health recovery. Just wondering what your take on that perspective is regarding your personal health experience.
@ Ian
Thats an interesting theory but how does it explain that the foods that most people tend to be intolerant to are a) more 'novel' foods (i.e. gluten, dairy, soy etc.) and b) that the majority of people in the westernized world actually eat loads of gluten and dairy and these are the very same people who have the majority of the intolerances. This is often what sets them off in the path of paleo or vegan.
I have heard on more than one occasion that the cause of food intolerance is the excessive consumption of certain foods i.e cereal with milk for breakfast , cheese sandwich for lunch, cheesey pasta for dinner etc.
Maybe the problem is that most people have compromised their digestion through stress, toxins, processed foods and THEN continue to eat tons of gluten and dairy which inevitably 'passes through' their leaky damaged gut. They go on to blame the foods instead of their damaged GI tract.
I believe some people absolutely need to avoid these foods for at least a temporary amount of time whilst their gut heals. Whether or not they always need to be reintroduced is anyone's guess.
re: pufas. Many nations eat a lot of PUFAs. Middle Eastern cooking includes lots of seeds – in oils or pastes (such as tahini). Avocadoes are consumed widely in Latin America where I think they also eat a lot of pork – and beans of course which Peat seems to think are a bad idea (although I can't imagine they have PUFAs in them). Are these nations suffering high death/poor health rates? I don't know. I did hear something recently on the news about a large study which showed hispanic immigrants had greater longevity than other Americans, suggesting their health is no worse, if not better, for their diet.
I would like to believe Peat as his work is fascinating but .. . there are still a lot of unanswered questions.
Chris, who cares about markers? Do you have studies where they induce GOUT by feeding people a GALLON of 100% apple juice a day (no refined sugars)? The probable result of an apple diet like that would be that you would urinate or defecate away any excess fructose. Not so with a refined sugar diet, perhaps. Apple may raise uric acid by itself, but also lower other bad things and/or raise "good" things, while refined sugar did the opposite.
Measuring one variable is a fraud, like saying people with high chol. will drop dead from heart attacks. Looking at one variables makes it easy to generate false ideas, like limiting fructose, PUFAs, protein, or calories will extend life and prevent disease. The problem is in most studies they are using toxic rat chow made of fractionated food like substances. Studies only show what they show. If they fed a rat casein, corn oil, sugar, and corn starch with a bunch of vitamin and mineral supplements, then gee, it may be a good idea not to eat PUFA oils, isolated protein, or refined carbs with artificial nutrients. A diet with more nutrients or simply less processed foods might have an entirely different effect. Maybe apple wouldn't have that effect if you ate eggs or milk or something with them. All we know is what the study shows, very little.
Maybe Quantum Physics is right. By studying nutrition, it changes and we're no longer living in Weston's world. We're in Buster Martin's or "Gal" Sone's world.
Ian, I think if you reread my comment you will see that I did not draw any dietary conclusions from the increase in uric acid whatsoever. My interest here is a biochemical one.
Chris
Katty:
"I have heard on more than one occasion that the cause of food intolerance is the excessive consumption of certain foods i.e cereal with milk for breakfast , cheese sandwich for lunch, cheesey pasta for dinner etc."
Well, who is weaker? The Raw Paleo people who gets sick if they SMELL bread baking or walk through bread aisle in a grocery? The person who gets sick from eating wheat at all 3 meals (plus snacks) every day? I think people also get into trouble because they are not eating things like butter, eggs, and so forth at the same time as wheat. Peter from HyperLipid discussed his previous "healthy" diet of whole wheat with peanut butter and bananas. He did not mention it, but probably stuff like margarine, egg whites (or no eggs), lean meat, and other "heart healthy" staples. No Vitamin A, D, K, etc. Would he have seen gluten sensitivity if he was eating bread with butter, eggs, cheese, whole milk, liver, etc? We have to look at what people are not eating, as well as what they are eating or we can't learn anything. I would like to see how many people with gluten sensitivity were eating saturated fats freely, avoiding processed or heated PUFA oils, limiting refined sugars, or at least eating plenty of fat-soluble vitamins, minerals, and so forth. Based on what I have read, very few did that.
dinosaur, I think tahini is a much better food than heated sesame or sunflower oil. Jif Natural Peanut Butter is probably a lot healthier than refined or heated peanut oil.
The dogma against soybeans may not hold up, either. I have never felt good from stuff like tofu and the fermented soy like tempeh are just vile, IMO. But a couple times I've had canned soybeans, I felt great. Very energetic and incredibly high sex drive. Maybe a toxic reaction, maybe the canning breaks them down and makes them more digestible. I don't know. I'm not telling anyone to eat canned soybeans and I don't eat them, but I'd rather eat those in large amounts than soybean oil, or corn oil in small amounts. LOL.
I would venture to say that Brock's dramatic change in body composition is almost 100% attributable to the rise in GH from doing high-intensity exercise.
Absolutely. I've been RRARF/180 for nearly two years without any significant change in body composition. Other stuff improved, but the body composition changes only followed upon the introduction of the high-intensity exercise regimen.
Just so we're all on the same page, that's no dig on RRARF. Before RRARF I simply didn't have the energy to exercise. I had a body temp of 96.5 and when I exercised two years ago nothing happened. Nothing. I was in famine mode and my body wasn't going to let go of nothin' (or build even 1 oz. of muscle). Now I can pop up from a dead sleep at 4 AM and bust out a 98.9 on my Vicks. (I did that this morning).
?@Gabriel: I'm on an all raw diet. Do I look like I'm starving?
http://www.facebook.com/stas86 ?
Yes. Eat a sammich. Or better yet, some BBQ. Don't let your time in North Carolina go to waste.
?Brian Peskin…
Seemed like a weirdo last time I read up on him (over a year ago). Too focused on his self-named PEOs. I naturally distrust anyone who focuses on one thing as THE master problem/solution. I haven't read all his stuff by any means though.
?Raw foodism ? paleo ? AV ? primal …
Forget the whole ?10,000 year? Neolithic. Mankind has used fire to cook food during the Paleolithic too ? for at least 500,000 years. I think evolution has taken that into account by now. Cook the food!
?Don't make Matt your guru ? think for yourselves ??
Ian, under what presumption of omniscience are you operating that allows you to assume that we AREN'T thinking for ourselves and critically reviewing Matt's statements? Maybe some of us have been here for a couple years or more and already know where we stand vis a vis Matt's point of view and don't need to rehash every point of disagreement in every comment thread, eh? That doesn't mean we don't have 'em, just that you aren't privy to them.
—-
Matty,
Here's a brain teaser for you if you have the time. How does your new look at protein, and inflammatory amino acid restriction specifically, (re-)inform your reading of the China Study?
Hey Mattie
Great stuff, more for me to think about, I have been considering changing to biff from my all chicken all day long diet.
on a side note, I do not want to be the bitch here but I gotta ask, you love writting, I love reading, but could please consider changing the theme of your blog? the white/red on black just kills my eyes, I see stripes 5 mins after I am done reading your pieces lol
Hey justme,
And in my experience, "Just eat unprocessed food" didn't work. I'm glad Matt has continued his search. It would not have occurred to me (to pick a recent example) that some amino acids are better than others, so "eating unprocessed foods" would have left me wanting.
It really is NOT "just that simple."
"Our bodies like balance – and in constant pursuit of balance – homeostasis."
Hi Justme,
for what its worth, I agree the body intelligently orchestrates stasis 'perfectly' within its abilities.
But, we constantly interfere – needlessly in many cases – in a quest for some conceptual Shanri-la state of perfect health, beyond any sickness or symptom.
…and interfere, often, to the detriment of the organism.
My comments keep disappearing – and no I don't think Matt's doing it :)
Anyway, even though my comments to which Brock was referring to have vanished, I wanted to respond.
I had no intention of starting a "masturdebate" here.
Brock,
I appreciate your loyalty to Matt. And as I said, I appreciate his research too and that he shares it with all of us. I have learned a lot from him and all of you as well, as I said before. So there's no need to defend him, to me, anyway, I think highly of him too and know that his intentions are good.
Brock, you said…
"And in my experience, "Just eat unprocessed food" didn't work. I'm glad Matt has continued his search. It would not have occurred to me (to pick a recent example) that some amino acids are better than others, so "eating unprocessed foods" would have left me wanting.
It really is NOT "just that simple."
With all due respect, that was the point I was trying to make (in my post that vanished). How do you know it didn't work? How long did you stick with it before you tried something else? I think I recall you mentioning doing RRARF for 2 years?? Maybe that wasn't long enough for YOUR body to re-gain total homeostasis. How many years did it take to get your body out of whack? Just things to consider.
Again, not trying to start a "masturdebate" (I love that word, btw, Matt :). I'm just sharing my experience and what I've gleaned from it. Just as you and others have. We all have something of value to offer. Thanks for sharing yours :)
JR,
Totally agree! :)
——
I will try to re-post the one that disappeared. It was in response to Matt's response to my other post lol! And I wanted to make it clear that I meant no disrespect towards him – quite the contrary.
Ray Peat's essays discuss, rather than prescribe. The guru accusations are funny: I've rarely encountered someone so reticent to direct as Ray Peat.
His articles have a structure very different from the essays we learn to write in school. He discusses, rather than proves. Many of his sentences would be used as 'thesis statements' by anyone else.
I think he usually leaves the references to stand on their own, rather than cite them constantly within the article, so as to sort of say to the reader, 'These are the sources that got me thinking about what I just wrote about.' Such a model is anti-authoritarian: Unlike most everyone else, Peat does not use references in order to transfer authority.
As for Matt Stone changing his mind, how could you possible trust someone unwilling (or unable) to change his mind? I think it's great to be so open.
Brock: "Forget the whole ?10,000 year? Neolithic. Mankind has used fire to cook food during the Paleolithic too ? for at least 500,000 years. I think evolution has taken that into account by now. Cook the food!"
Paleo is just an excuse for dogma, not a reason. They pick and choose the cut-off to justify eating fish or cooking or having food imported from where ever. Loren Cordain and Anthony Colpo have cited data that people did not start fishing until 20-40k years ago. Any seafood they ate prior to that was a negligible part of the diet. They were eating brain and marrow more. Brains from ruminants are not like fish in fat composition. More of some things & less of others (more DHA, less EPA I think). Not many popular authors are going to push such a diet. You have to read hardcore paleo forums to see people eating brains, eyes, tongues, kidneys, sweetbreads, and marrow on a daily or weekly basis. And who says that such foods are a necessity just because people once ate them? Reference to what people once ate is not a reason.
"Ian, under what presumption of omniscience are you operating that allows you to assume that we AREN'T thinking for ourselves and critically reviewing Matt's statements?"
My comments were directed to a few people. If the shoe don't fit, you don't have to wear it. What kind of presumptuous omniscience makes you think I was referring to more than two or three people?
"Maybe some of us have been here for a couple years or more and already know where we stand vis a vis Matt's point of view and don't need to rehash every point of disagreement in every comment thread, eh? That doesn't mean we don't have 'em, just that you aren't privy to them."
I've been reading this blog on and off since 2008. My comment was to specific people with guru-itis (to use Matt's term) – the belief that Matt has all the answers and knows what's going on with *their body* and can evaluate their health and give advice based on a short blog exchange. That is a dangerous and presumptuous path, IMO. Nobody is in a position to be anyone's guru but their own. If you put someone on a pedestal, they will kick you in the teeth. Nobody living in the modern world and raised on modern food has perfect health. Most have not solved their own rubik's cube of health, let alone the world's.
Anneatheart said…
"Speaking of Ray Peat, his website frustrates me! I'm an intelligent person, but wading through all the more technical stuff just to get the meat of the matter is stressfull! Just sum it up please!"
I somewhat agree. I think his page is mostly for himself, so he gets his own thoughts clear and referenced. I wish he'd make a simple frontpage that strings together some wham-bam facts that people would be stunned by. After all this reading, I still don't have a clear conception of: What are the differences of hormones between men and women? (I think he's said at one point that estrogen levels are the same in women and in men.) What is the chain of command for the hormones, and how do they interact? (Maybe he expects me to actually learn for myself??? lol) What should be done, exactly, to treat a woman in menopause?
But he is 75, afterall, and judging by how he sounded in the interview Matt linked to, we should be thankful for what he does.
Scartaris said…
"But would it be of any benefit to take glycine on it's own when simply eating muscle meat to balance out the cysteine, methionine, and tryptophan?"
Ray Peat says:
"Although pure glycine has its place as a useful and remarkably safe drug, it shouldn't be thought of as a food, because manufactured products are always likely to contain peculiar contaminants."
Matt Stone said…
"As for high LDL levels, reduction in metabolic rate seems to be a fantastic way to to get there."
For whatever it's worth, Peat doesn't think LDL levels are something to be concerned about, or even accurate. As I said in a previous comment, not only are there different sized LDL particles, which mean different things, but also he says LDL is good because it is the body's source of progesterone and DHEA. Sorry to repeat if you did see that comment.
aterlycan:
Have you tried clicking the A next to the words "Color Scheme" by the title of the post?
Ian,
on PUFA. There is a very good article about PUFA on wholehealthsource. The polyunsaturated fats suppress the thyroid, no matter where they come from. Whole foods containing PUFA are indeed very different from refined oils. For example, the Inuit eat a diet very high in PUFA. Yet their metabolic rate has been found to be much higher than the American's. But that is not because the PUFA in the fresh fish are different from those in seed oils. Their chemical structure and properties are still the same, so their impact will be the same. It's because the Inuit eat the whole fish, including the thyroid. The thyroid dilutes PUFA from the blood stream and prevents a lot of the damage that is done by them. If the Inuit ate the fat or the meat only, they would age very rapidly (what they do anyway)
If you drink a glas of poison and one of the antidote, you won't become very sick for the time beeing. That doesn't mean that you won't become sick in the long run.
About Peat and his writting style. Andrew said it, Peat doesn't tell people what to do like others do. He discusses and offers people his research so that they can figure out for themselves.
I think the reason that a lot of people don't like his articles is that they have to use their own brain to profit from it.
You don't just read his articles and than suddenly know everything about nutrition and what you have to eat. Nutrition is probably as complex as astrophysics, so their can be no summary on the main page, which explains everything.
is it possible to restore low iron levels while keeping protein on the lower side, given that it is said to be better absorbed from red meat?
Jane –
The iron in molasses is well absorbed. Especially in the presence of vitamin c.
How equipped are our bodies to adapt and adjust on a dime to nutritional changes? Matt, you said from week to week you sense yourself improving or degrading on different consumption. Is it that simple, that each change is received right away by our bodies without any need for recovery time or time to adjust? Or, the more healthy your adrenals, the better able we are to sort out new feeding methods?
Is then, there no scientific credence to herx reaction, healing crisis and "die-off"? To me it seemed it was just an excuse by each guru for why people didn't seem to take to their plans – until there was such coincidence to my body's responses to detox that I had to consider it a jolt to my system to nourish it so differently. Detoxing sure wouldn't seem, logically, to be a pleasant experience for our bodies, especially if removing years worth of built up toxins.
On that note, if putting pasteurized, antibiotic, hormone ridden milk on your cereal and eating cheese from the like is so obviously different than raw milk and raw milk cheese, why wouldn't eating 10 organic bananas as compared to 10 pesticide laced bananas every day, be different?
Using teflon to cook your bacon as compared to a cast iron skillet? Don't all these sources of heavy metals and chemicals factor in as to how our bodies respond to different nutritional consumption?
"More importantly, few are going to actually make stock. Even Sean Croxton and Antonio Valladares, two young health professionals just got around to making it for the first time. How could anyone expect "normal" people to get into doing it? "
Just because that's an overwhelming thought, doesn't mean it may not be the best change one can possibly make for their health. Any lifestyle change is difficult to get into, but can become a common practice if it's learned and valued. I'm really curious – with no agenda. I personally would like not to be protected from "difficult prospects" if indeed its something I ought to be doing.
A huge stock pot may be just what every household should have in their house along with a toaster! :)
Anyone that thinks that diet is the absolute end-all, be-all for super-human health and vitality, keep in mind that when the Europeans and Africans came to the Americas, the native diet did not protect the indigenous peoples. In some areas, the die off was up to 90% of the population. Just don't expect miracles from diet alone. It can be miraculous overcoming the ills of a SAD diet by eating better, but a good diet can only do so much. jmho.
I just read some most amazing news on yahoo. The title claims that they have found the magic bullet for losing weight. In the article, they say that if you drink half a litre of water before your breakfast, you can boost your metabolism that way and burn 25 (!) calories. They claim that by drinking water you can burn an extra 100 calories per day. I mean 100 calories. 100.
Ian said…
My comments were directed to a few people.
You should probably address those people by name then. When you address the mob, the mob responds.
Ian said…
Nobody is in a position to be anyone's guru but their own.
Really? You clean you own teeth, fix your own car, draft your own will and built your own house did you? You don't go to a Doctor when you're sick because you already know what's wrong with you? You've never called tech support because you know Windows DLL errors like I know the AD&D 2nd Ed. Dungeon Master's Guide? You've never leaned on your fence and said to your neighbor "Alan, them's some mighty fine azalias you've got there; what sort of fertilizer you usin'? Mine ain't flourishin' like I'd prefer."
Some people are subject matter experts. Maybe they've got a fancy lambskin credential, or maybe they just get results you can see for yourself. Either way, it's useful to get their opinion on matters. Not necessarily as the end-all and be-all, but as part of your well-rounded quest to seek answers.
And even if someone does just Matt at his word, who are you say they're wrong to do so? Maybe they don't have access to better experts, or they lack the knowledge/skill/time to figure this all out for themselves and just figure they can trust him. I know I don't second-guess my Doctor when he prescribes me this or that; he went to Med School and Residency and I did not. I would only seek second-opinions on really big things (and luckily have never had to).
Get it out of your head that you're the hero that has to come in a save folks. You're not Conan and we're not magic-addled Thulsa Doom groupies waiting to step off a ledge at the least come-hither gesture from our green-eyed leader. We're all well-informed, free-willed adults here just having a conversation.
Ian said…
If you put someone on a pedestal, they will kick you in the teeth.
Only hot chicks and narcissists, dude. Most people are alright. Work your trust issues out elsewhere.
—
P.S. To everyone who's having issues with losing comments, I wouldn't be surprised. Blogger is in the middle of a huge platform upgrade over the next couple weeks and you should expect things to be unstable. Do what I do. Draft your comment in Notepad and them copy/paste into the comment field. That way if it *poofs* you don't have to write it again.
The other day I was really hungry but didn't feel like fixing anything major as I was busy cooking already, so I was like, duh, I just cut up a pineapple. I loaded up on that and a banana and it was like getting a dose of caffeine without the side effects :)
I make stock every week, and I'm just a housewife with four little girls. It's not that hard to throw a chicken, or some bones in a pot of water or a crockpot and let it simmer for a day or so. I don't always add veggies or aromatics either. The stuff comes in real handy for all sorts of meals. I mean I guess if I were going to work outside the home everyday, it might be harder, like doing it on the weekend. But I buy the whole chickens anyways, because to feed our family, I need to S-T-R-E-T-C-H things out.
When I did the stock the other day, as it was finishing up I watched Matt's video about the meat from bones/connective tissue, and I ran and picked off ALL the meat still stuck to the carcass that I was planning to throw away :)
Oh, and thanks Matt for being my interpreter of Ray Peat's thoughts, it has to be a dirty job.
Jessica
Jessica
Broth is essential to good cooking, so you are to be commended on your broth skills!
Do NOT Fear The Broth Everyone!
It is super easy, even Matt can do it. If he dares…double.. no triple dog dare ya Mattie Cakes.
xo
deb
Masterjohn-
I don't have any studies for you. I remember hearing that from anti-fructose warrior himself Richard J. Johnson in an interview with Mercola. He talked specifically about a diet as a whole that was set up to test equal amounts of fructose from refined sources pitted against fructose from natural sources.
He claims they had opposite effects on uric acid levels. Of course, if you are familiar with Johnson's work you'll know that his entire platform for vilifying fructose is based on its tendency to elevate uric acid.
ditto to JustMe, keeping on being Matt Stone, flip flopper to the nutritional nerdage.
xo
See it just happened again! As you can see by grass fed momma's response to me – my comment was there for a min or two, but then vanished. Here it is again…
Brock said…
"To everyone who's having issues with losing comments, I wouldn't be surprised. Blogger is in the middle of a huge platform upgrade over the next couple weeks and you should expect things to be unstable. Do what I do. Draft your comment in Notepad and them copy/paste into the comment field. That way if it *poofs* you don't have to write it again."
Funny thing is, that's exactly what I've been doing. But they still literally disappear AFTER they are posted – and they even show in the comments section before disappearing. Seems they only stick if someone else happens to post a comment right after. But it seems that until and unless that happens, if I close the window or reload it BEFORE another comment is posted, my last posted comment will vanish. Has anyone else had same experience?
Anyway, I give up trying to re-post that one that has vanished all 3 times I've posted it.
Matt,
In case my previous comments (unintentionally) came across as otherwise, I want to say that I have nothing but respect for you – and the way you put yourself out there like you do. And that you are, in fact, willing to "flip-flop" your positions. We agree that most (to their own detriment) just stick to their ideal theories no matter the contraries.
My comments were not meant as a jab at you – far from it. They were simply to point out to all (in general) that it's good to challenge ideals & theories – see even Matt does – which leads to new discoveries and theories – which should then also be challenged.
And I wish I had even half the research AND writing skills you have! Keep doing what you love – and we will all benefit :)
I truly thank you for that!
And I'm sure that's not just me :)
Anyone have anything to say about dried fruit?
Also, what's up with the ratio of starch to sugar thing? Is this because of the PUFAs in starch sources like whole grains or because of something else?
I feel really good right now after having bananas, orange juice, and dried dates.
I like potatoes but I feel so much 'heavier' after eating them. It feels more like a drain than an energy boost.
Can anyone help me out with this? Any insights or personal experiences? Reading about it on here at first I thought it had to do with metabolism (my body temperature hovers around the 96 range, and a number of weeks ago I checked my temperature every day for four or five days and got in the high 95 range every time) — is it just that sugar is easier to digest than starch or something along those lines?
In other words: as far as sugar vs. starch goes, and eating high-carb making you feel like garbage if you've got shot adrenals and a low metabolism…what's the difference?
Yay, it stuck this time! Musta been Jib's comment that stuck it for me – thanks Jib! :)
Maybe it's a good thing that my comments keep disappearing. I spend WAAAAY too much time here, when I 'should' be doing other things ;) And now that I have to keep re-posting my comments, I'm spending even more time here lol!
I am curious, though, if others are having same problems – or is it 'just me' doing something wrong? What the heck am I doing wrong??!
Let's see if this one sticks :)
Jannis: Stephan has numerous posts on PUFAs. I haven't seen one which said natural PUFAs are the same as processed oils. PUFAs are a poison at a certain dose and in a certain context, like everything.
Maybe eating thyroid helped Eskimo keep their metabolism high OR over eating in general OR a high iodine intake OR balanced protein intake. Maybe all of the above and several other things. How do you know that eating thyroid was key?
Hey, it's Michael (the quantum physics post above). I've been thinking about this for a while, so here's my Occam's Razor take on all of this:
I posit that because quantum physics has shown that our thoughts and beliefs change our very structure on a cellular level, that what we're seeing in the effectiveness of various extreme diets is nothing more than an exaggerated placebo effect.
The placebo effect is widely accepted and proven in the medical community, showing the ability to both heal or cause harm depending on the belief. Miraculous healings have occurred due to nothing more than placebo.
Also, consider that people with allergies will no longer have allergic reactions when in a state of hypnosis. This shows that the allergy is really a conscious belief system, or placebo effect, created by our waking thoughts as the subconscious nor the physical body plays much, if any part in it.
Could we be seeing a type of placebo effect among those people who seem to defy logic on extreme diets that other countless people fail on? My guess is that this is more probable than any other option.
We all know that human beings vary very little from one race or nationality to the other. The DNA is the same, only our genes vary very slightly. With that said, it only makes sense that we should all thrive on one optimal diet with nothing more than a sliding scale of difference depending on the person's general condition and well-being. IE degree of health towards the middle of the scale.
Animal species evolving and living in different parts of the world all still eat basically the same diet, why should we think we're any different?
I also believe this is why people are so caught up in nutrition (it's become like politics or religion), because everyone knows deep down that we're looking for the same thing – one optimal diet, and will fight to defend what they believe to be IT.
And in the end, what appears to be the optimal diet for many people is the one they believe in 100% and devote themselves to. Belief is the simplest explanation I can see.
Thoughts?
-Michael
Michael: so Matt's muscles are the result of the placebo effect? hmmmm
Jib: I feel sort of that way after a big old yam with butter.. sort of weighted down. Eating sweet fruits sort of give me a good energy burst, no heavy feeling.
Justme: so odd how your comments go away, but they seem to be here now. I like your 'nose to tail" crockpot idea too :) One size does not fit all, we all know that what happens for Matt may not happen for each of us. I do know that after coming off raw veganism I had a hard time with some foods.. and now I don't. Takes time.. and I am older so I feel it takes me much more time than it does Young Matt.
xo
haggis
I was a bodybuilder for several years, and I know that muscle size is due to genetic disposition and caloric excess. Coupled with proper training defines the end result or body composition.
I'm not saying I have the answer, just putting this theory out there because it's simple, and as far as I can tell, it works.
Michael: I've had the same thought as you, but then what about people who have 100% faith that a diet is the optimal one (e.g. overzealous raw vegans), but find that their health is in decline, despite their strong belief to the contrary?…..
Ok Michael, I agree with some of that. The fact remains IMO I think Matt's point is that, with the genetics he has always had, after these changes he is now able to build muscle/leaness that he never has before.
Not sure how that is placebo esque.
Regarding the supposition put forth that protein intake causes hypothyroidism as a mechanism for reducing appetite-
Check out this article on peptide YY. http://scienceandreason.blogspot.com/2007/10/peptide-yy-and-appetite.html
It seems much more plausible to me that protein consumption causes the body to upregulate the release of a hormone which controls appetite, than to suggest that the consumption of a critical macronutrient (protein) inadvertently causes hypothyroidism.
Daisy, I've thought about that, too, and my thoughts are 3-pronged:
1) The placebo effect is based entirely off belief, so perhaps they didn't truly believe it. Maybe they had doubts in the back of their mind from the start, or were always questioning it. Also, placebo effect just like hypnosis doesn't work with everyone.
2) Many people that blindly follow the less-than-optimal SAD recommendations for instance live a long, healthy life free of major health problems. Sure, may get sick as well but many don't. Perhaps that belief system comes in again, or something else like state of mind.
3) Maybe people just need more "fukitol" in their diets, and the state of mind of a person has just as much or more to do with health than anything else. This point could tie right back to quantum physics and the placebo effect as we're constantly altering our cells with every thought we have.
Take smokers for instance, and how many exceptions there are that live into old age very healthy. What was the factor that allowed them to escape the odds? Optimal diet? Belief that they wouldn't be affected by smoking? Happy, stress-free lifestyle?
This is just an observation, but I've noticed that many highly successful people throughout history (in many different fields) seem to live quite a long time compared to the average. Was this because of their driving purpose in life? Similar to the retirement stories we keep hearing of people dropping dead shortly after retiring, or dying shortly after losing their spouse?
It seems to me that much more than nutrition is at play here.
grass fed momma, I never said Matt's experiences were placebo. Just that perhaps many of the cases of success on extreme diets are.
Matt's present condition IMO is due to a period of healing, and simple caloric excess combined with decent training.
I've trained with several of the Internet's top personal trainers and have trained many people myself. With the proper training, nutrition and lifestyle approach we've all been able to put a lot of mass onto the worst genetic bunch you can imagine. Literal wet rags of men ;-)
I don't believe Matt's ever really focused on that aspect of nutrition and training, as I'm sure he would have come to different conclusions if so. Abel's training for instance is very sub-optimal from what I would put Matt or any other genetically-limited person on.
P.S. I never implied that Matt's current dietary approach was "extreme" either. In fact I think he's getting closer to what's optimal for most people, given the sliding scale approach.
Tooo much to catch up on…
Matt, I agree with what you said about the Metabolic Typing: it strikes me the same way that it can seem to make more sense read backwards. I feel like that ties in with Michael's points too.
Michael–love your application of Occam's razor here! I think the 'law of attraction' comes in somewhat too: there can be an element of creating one's reality with one's thoughts.
I've observed over and over people becoming more sensitive to things that they avoid (otoh I avoid tons of things myself–funny complex beings we be).
And there were other things too, but I'm jumping in late here, so I'll see where it goes.
Thanks, Ela.
I think there's good reason why many of the most intelligent people on earth believe quantum physics can and eventually will answer all of life's questions.
Good science is good science and I don't think we can afford to keep ignoring this aspect of it.
Hi Michael,
have you read Gershom Zajicek? He writes extensively of placebo, and coupled together with the use of shamanism as a healing method. Also role of belief in establishing 'reality'. Here is a starting point:
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/indexFrame.html
There is a whole lot of stuff on this site.
Kind wishes, J
Hey Matt,
Thanks, I'll look for that study. I suspect the two studies can be reconciled by some protective nutrient (vitamin C?) that is in many fruits but not apples (plus the fact that virtually no one sits down to just eat five apples).
Chris
J.R., I haven't heard of Gershom Zajicek but this looks interesting. Thanks for the heads-up!
Just for the record, Arnold has in fact been said to be an advocate of ice cream.
But he certainly didn't have a clue at all. I'm off to eat my brown rice, chicken breast and a tsp of flax oil now.
pffff ice cream……
JC
I miss Chief
With the recent discussion about sugar, is it safe to say that the consensus here now is that its preferable over starch? Or did "I" get lost in translation ha!
DISCLAIMER: When I say sugar here I'm referring to natural sugars like in fruit.
It was recommended to do high starch to low fat ratio to minimize fat gain while RRARFing. Does that still stand? Would sugar be a better option than starch in that context? For example lots of fruit instead of lots of potatoes. Does fat need to be kept low with sugar/fruit as well (like with starch) for this purpose?
And what about eating sugar and starch together? Like putting raw honey on oatmeal or sweet potatoes.
@Deb
I miss Chief too! Would love to get his take on the latest developments. Has anyone heard from him lately? Matt, have you heard from him? Hope he is OK.
"Try 10 bananas when on a raw animal & fruit diet then go exercise. Don't forget to report back all the personal records you demolished."
Apex is my new God.
@ Michael
"Could we be seeing a type of placebo effect among those people who seem to defy logic on extreme diets that other countless people fail on?"
Durianrider and his fanclub 30 bananas a day would be the perfect example. They really believe that their diet is optimal and that science allows no doubt about it. They prohibit any kind of deviation from the ruling doctrine. They have made a simple explanation for any kind of problem: The person didn't eat or drink or work out enough, or ate too much fat.
DR's girlfriend even said it explicitly in this forum: You cannot want to "try" this diet. You have to be 100% convinced that it is the perfect diet.
Maybe that's the only way a shoddy diet like theirs can work…
Thanks Rocket. I have some black strap molasses that I have started to take.
Jane
aterylcan:
"please consider changing the theme of your blog? the white/red on black just kills my eyes, I see stripes 5 mins after I am done reading your pieces lol"
I used to have that problem, too, but I think it's from nutrition problems as I don't have it now. Also, you can change the color theme at the top right beside the article's title. It changes back if you reload, which is annoying.
@Brock
Re: blogger's hiccups
I haven't been able to access the comments from my iphone for a week (kept getting a message about enabling cookies) till today. I thought it was an issue with the jailbreak and never considered their site being Daniel'd up.
Your positive changes in body comp interest me vewy much. I have been on RRARF since last July. Weight is extremely stable no matter what I eat. Havent done ANY exercise to speak of in over a year. I want to lose some fat and it would be great if I could accomplish this just adding in exercise. Whisper something good in my ear.
Brock:
[address people by name or mob responds]
I didn't want to call anyone out, just make a general statement.
[dentist, mechanic, lawyer, doctor are compared to gurus]
Bad analogies. By guru, I mean someone like Dr. Oz, Dean Ornish, Joel Fuhrman, who acts like they have a one-size-fits-all cure for all problems in the world. And they flip-flop as much as Matt and never manage to really connect the dots like say reading Uffe Ravnskov's books and the like. I don't go to doctors if I'm sick, unless I was running a fever over 104. Headache, sore throat, cold, flu, cough, big deal. I'm not going to the doctor or taking medicine.
[tech support, neighbor's fertilizer]
Users provide better support than large companies which take longer to respond, and gives you a run-around. I could ask a neighbor or friend what product they use, but that doesn't mean I buy it or keep buying it. The doctors say take a statin for life, your cholesterol is a bit high. They should read a few books against their ailing theory.
[wrong to follow Matt blindly?]
Well, he has a disclaimer on every page not to do so and to seek medical advice first. We all know what the doctor will say, 9 times out of 10. Aajonus has the same type of disclaimer. We know what a doctor would say 999 times out of 1,000 in that case. It's a circular argument. Matt has been burned by enough gurus to not want to become one. Ultimately, our only authority is ourselves.
"We're all well-informed, free-willed adults here just having a conversation."
Matt was well-informed years ago and is now doing things different. How do you determine that everyone reading is free and well-informed? How informed are we on the potential risks of molasses? You mocked Ray Peat's opinion on it, as if sugar and molasses were the same. Sugar has virtually no vitamins and minerals. The vitamins and minerals may be harmed by extreme heat and be allergenic as he Ray contends. Who knows.
Johnny Lawrence said…
I have been on RRARF since last July. Weight is extremely stable no matter what I eat. Havent done ANY exercise to speak of in over a year. I want to lose some fat and it would be great if I could accomplish this just adding in exercise. Whisper something good in my ear.
I had the same ?no changes to body comp? reaction you did to diet alone. I improved body temps, digestion and energy levels but lost no weight and gained no muscle.
That changed with exercise as described in this post by Matt at his 180 Metabolism blog. Since I was all prepped from all the RRARF'n it took almost no time at all to start seeing real changes.
I use the eliptical machine at the YMCA now. That's the best. Rowing machine is also good.
Ian said…
Matt was well-informed years ago and is now doing things different.
I have only seen ?more informed? in Matt all the time. I'm sorry if his ideas now no longer match perfectly with yours and he's therefor an ignorant boob. Oh, wait, he's not. He just disagrees with you.
Remind me ? why the hell are you still here?
Attention all Chief Lovers:
He let me know that he will be back soon, has been very busy.
Mattie:
Is it kosher to eat some raw cheese in the am, along with the fruity goodness?
xo
deb
@Brock
Awesome. I really think similar things will happen to me. I think my body is ready. It's just my lazy a** keeping me from doing it. I have a huge hill behind my house I'm thinking about running up and down until tired, about once maybe twice.
With a name like Brock it seems like you would be doing some sort of exercise that involves beating someone up and/or breaking things. It almost makes cringe just saying your name outloud.
Michael: "Miraculous healings have occurred due to nothing more than placebo."
Not placebo, but belief. People can get the same results by believing in God or the body's innate healing ability which can not be explained by nutritionism or rigid dietary dogma, IMO.
"Also, consider that people with allergies will no longer have allergic reactions when in a state of hypnosis."
Read The Holographic Universe. It's not all perfect, but the first 3-5 chapters are good. It talks about the fact that people with multiple personalities have different health in each personality – one can have 20/20 vision and the other needs glasses, one has allergies while the other doesn't, one has phobias and the other doesn't. They each have their own memories, beliefs, and so forth. It also talks of how people with MPD heal much faster, like from burns. Possibly when one personality is dormant, it can perform functions that otherwise occur only in sleep, so they can heal 3 times faster (like they are asleep 24 hours a day). It would be nice to have MPD, if the personalities were good.
Masterjoh: some apples are very high in Vitamin C, according to recent studies. The amount can vary widely.
Brock, when did I disagree with Matt? He is doing what I talked about 2 years ago, cutting the starch and switching to sugars. He dismissed Ray Peat's ideas and mocked them, like saying everyone but Ray thinkselevated trigs from sugars is bad. I don't jump on bandwagons or try every diet / superfood of the week. I tried eating more starch from Matt's influence, but I found like others it's not satisfying and slows down my digestion.
I'm not eating fruits by themselves, either, because I see no reason to do so. Many are reporting stuff like energy crashing late in the day, feeling drunk, mornin temperatures going down, etc.. My energy is rock solid and mono-meals of fruit don't appeal to me any more than eating heaps of starch. Other than that, we pretty much agree.
You have a real habit of putting words in people's mouth and bullying. Remind me again, why you're stll here? Are you volunteering as Matt's personal bodyguard and apologist? He can defend himself fine. Please call me Bruce. Thanks
Johnny Lawrence said…
I have a huge hill behind my house I'm thinking about running up and down until tired, about once maybe twice.
That's a good plan when you haven't exercised in a long time. Build gradually.
I didn't go straight into Elliptical machine sprints at the YMCA. I started with a whole month of doing halfhearted kettlebell swings in my living room, maybe once a week on the days I was bored and had nothing better to do. Then my body was saying I could use a little more challenge?, so I started doing sprints out in my apartment's parking lot. The ?preparation? of putting on shoes and going downstairs was about as much as my then-levels of motivation were up to.
It was only after another month of sprints (and a pulled hamstring) that my body was really craving the challenge, and I had worked the ?motivation muscles? enough, to get up the gumption to go to the YMCA in the morning. I had to work up to it.
With a name like Brock it seems like you would be doing some sort of exercise that involves beating someone up and/or breaking things.
Oh, that's coming.
Step 1 is to build a bit of muscle and get lean with these PACE sprints.
Step 2 is to get productively strong.
Step 3 is there's a KFM dojo near my apartment.
If there's a Step 4 I'm not sure what it is yet, but I am sure it's not for the faint of heart.
Forget About Diets said…
words words words
Did you change your screen name? How are the rest of us supposed to keep track of that sort of thing? Surely I haven't spoken to anyone going by ?Bruce? recently.
I got the impression you disagreed with him. Isn't that what you're critiquing him about? I don't even remember now and I'm certainly not going to pore through hundreds of comments to figure it out. State it plainly if you've got a beef.
Forget About Diets said…
Are you volunteering as Matt's personal bodyguard and apologist? He can defend himself fine.
You're damn right he can. We got into it because you started throwing out phrases like ?Stop making Matt a guru, people. Use your brains. That wasn't an attack on Matt, it was an attack on the rest of us. So if you don't like getting slapped around, don't start fights.
I'm not a bully. Bullies pick on the weak for the fun of it. I kick people in the nuts when they insult me. There's a difference.
Has anyone doing eliptical sprints had any sacroiliac joint pain/stiffness (basically behind your pelvis, between lower back and ass)? I've had that for about three days now and I'm wondering if it hasn't been caused by going at it too hard too soon on the eliptical, rather than by the fruit loading. It's weird because I haven't experienced any pain there while actually doing the sprints, but had my first onset about 2 days after one session and then some aggravation a day after the next session.
Or has anyone else who is just doing fruit loading experienced any mysterious pain in the back or elsewhere?
Colld?n said…
Has anyone doing eliptical sprints had any sacroiliac joint pain/stiffness (basically behind your pelvis, between lower back and ass)?
No pain, but it has triggered muscle growth and adaptation that have improved my posture. This caused a feeling of stretching and stiffness in the area you described as my hips rotated forward, my back arches a little more at the small and my shoulders came back and out.
Years ago I had a problem with this same thing, only more severe. A personal trainer recommended some exercises which stretched out the hip flexors and lower back. The stretches helped, but the stretching process was nearly painful. Maybe that's what you're feeling?
Brock:
I prefer the name "Bruce K" which I was using until May 2009. Most people kept calling me Bruce even after I said that wasn't my real name. After a while they started calling me Ian, but I'm used to Bruce and prefer that. thanks.
"I got the impression you disagreed with him. … State it plainly if you've got a beef."
I have no problem with Matt changing or "flip-flopping" or doing a 180, as some say. That's admirable to be open-minded and ready to change. It surprised me to see the direction Matt went in the last few years. After my manic posts – while sleeping every other day – I thought he would write off the HED forever. I went back and forth, not knowing what to eat any more, pessimistic and depressed. It took me a year to quit mind drugs. Only then did my health improve. But it took months to repair the damage.
Saying "people" doesn't mean everybody. It means the people who think Matt is a magician who can diagnose them based on a few comments or give advice on things that are not absolute. Matt never acted like a guru, because he always tried to see different angles and not get caught in one limited viewpoint.
"I'm not a bully. Bullies pick on the weak for the fun of it. I kick people in the nuts when they insult me. There's a difference."
Tell it to Gabriel. The guy has quirks, like everybody. If you said to his face what you said here, maybe he would kick you in the nuts. Everyone has their own communication style. Some people do not process things like you.
Brock said
Maybe that's what you're feeling?
Don't know, it basically feels the same as when you get a stiff neck after laying with your head to one side for too long. Stiffness and some aches in the pelvis radiating down to the knee when you try to move in some directions, but no real sharp pain.
Anyway, think I'm gonna switch to the stationary bike while this heals up, the good thing about going to a gym is you have like 5 different ways of doing the sprints within yards of each other.
Hans: "if you drink half a litre of water before your breakfast, you can boost your metabolism that way and burn 25 (!) calories. They claim that by drinking water you can burn an extra 100 calories per day. I mean 100 calories. 100."
Hey, that's 10 pounds of fat lost every year, since metabolic rate and appetite are fixed and we measure calorie intake and burning with 100-Calorie precision, minimum. Be sure to drink ice water for the maximum calorie burn.
Hans:
Great point about the 30 bananas a day crowd!
Bruce:
Yup, placebo = belief, and belief = placebo as I was saying. Definitely agree with that.
The Holographic Universe is a very interesting book indeed. I read books on quantum physics and the like at least as much as ones on health and nutrition. Endlessly fascinating!
Michael:
"placebo = belief, and belief = placebo"
Why use scientific jargon when it's not necessary? Belief is a shorter, simpler word. I like George Orwell's 5 Rules of Writing and similar advice. Placebo has less effect than confident belief, too. Slightly different meanings.
http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/george-orwells-5-rules-for-effective-writing/
Mercury:
The reason I worded it the way I did is because a lot of people would associate "belief" with new age mumbo jumbo, but among the health and nutrition community we all know what placebo effect is. It just felt more suitable in context.
Any color font on black background…seriously, burning holes in my retinas. PLEASE just use black on white, off-white or grey backgrounds…give our eyes a break!
@Anon: All it takes is one click. You can change the colour scheme at the top of each post.
"I envision that Ray Peat actually has a swimming pool in his back yard full of gelatin. In the winter it freezes solid and only melts down to a liquid, swimmable state on a warm Oregon day, which pleases Ray because it’s all Mr. Wizard. Reading his works and looking at his artwork (shown left) you can tell he’s a pretty kinky bastard too. I have no doubt that a lot of Jello was harmed when he was a professor specializing in female hormones and painting nude women. Gelatin-rich marshmallows? You know it took six people to hold him back during the filming of the Stay Puft marshmallow man scene in Ghostbusters. I need glycine-rich gelatin in me! Ray shouted from under the dogpile of peace officers restraining him.
Without a doubt this is the best paragraph you've ever written. You've combined extreme health nerdery with Ghostbusters.
I'm gonna do that slow clapping that Admiral Adama reserves for when Starbuck blows up the whole cylon fleet or something.
I agree with Jenny, that is about the best paragraph ever.
Nobel Peace Prize in your future Son.
xo
deb
I have to agree with Anon above about the font colors. For a health blog it's kinda funny that it uses such an unhealthy default color combo for the eyes.
Also, Matt – I've done business since 2001 online and studied and written lots of copy. Your readership will naturally go way up using colors and fonts that are easier and more readable. The font's good in this case, but the black background is seriously bad mojo.
For what it's worth…
^ Meant to say "easier on the eyes".
Hey Matt, do you think fresh squeezed OJ is important or will the concentrate do OK? What about pasteurizing the juice? I do occasionally use my juicer, but frankly I think it's a pain in the butt. And the fresh-squeezed pasteurized juice costs is a couple of bucks per serving. Drinking the amount Peat suggests would cost a fortune.
WOW, I just found the "color scheme" button at the top of the post (also, thanks madMUHHH for pointing that out…I had already found it but others might not :).
Now that I've read this I have to ask…are you saying that we should eat less meat and more bone broth? I don't see that exact directive.
Also, while on the topic of Peatery, I've been on this total Indian food kick, reading cookbooks and talking with my babysitter who is from India and cooks traditional, probably 50% of the time. I was under the impression that traditional cooking fat in India was ghee. It turns out that anything from vegetable shortening to lard is called ghee. Ghee was only used in one province, and then mostly as a flavoring, not as the main cooking fat. I've been seeing grassfed Ghee as the new black on every WAPF-related website lately. One thing my sitter told me is that when they could afford butter ghee, they would just eat it straight, like a vitamin supplement. Since most Indian food is high in fat, (I've finally found a way to use up that coconut oil) and in many parts of India this is the dreaded PUFA type fat, what gives? Why weren't Indians still doing better than Americans in terms of modern disease and mortality? I think it might be the spices. Everything is cooked with lots of whole spices. If you look at which spices are the most powerful anti-oxidants: ginger, garlic, tumeric, hot chilies, cilantro…it's the foundation of Indian cooking. Also, onions. Man I've gone through three times as many as normal in the last few weeks, and I was cutting back from what the recipes called for just because I kept running out. Very anti-bacterial….
Maybe onions and spices are off-setting the PUFA disaster. Although, I don't know how Peat explains how hundreds of millions of people eat a lot of lentils every single day and have no ill effects…
search for "india obesity diabetes epidemic" seems like a disaster to me. i don't know much sugar they eat but certainly a lot of pufas.
btw am i the only one who finds saying poofaz funny
Yeah, the obesity/diabete ratess are really recent. My point was the PUFAs are not. Sugar pretty much originated in India. The British imported to the "West Indies" where it could be cultivated with slave labor and then sold at a viable price. Refined sugar was still a luxury good, even in India, until the 19th century. Unrefined sugar like Jaggery was used in cooking and to sweeten tea. Fresh fruit was always a staple even for the poorest people.
we use jaggery to make good chai tea.. and raw whole milk, YUMMY;)
Word, Deb. Woooord. I'm starting to hate white sugar in my tea, which I used to be totally addicted to.
Mole asses rocks, using it about three times a day. Hoping it makes my hair fabuolus like Fabio :)
nice to see you here Jenny to the N.
xo
hagorama
can anyone answer my "less meat and more bone broth" question? also, what is jaggery?
anonymous-
the idea is that the broth contains gelatin so you get more of your protein from that and less from muscle meat. jaggery is palm sugar. more nutritious than cane sugar, especially for potassium
jenny-
you mention vegetable shortening and lard. shortening could be from coconut and lard is as good as what the pigs eat. if they are not fed pufas then its generally fine. i remember seeing some tv programme in india, in a little village, the people ate the typical rice/pork/vegetables/spices etc but they used mustard oil. the women at least were quite fat. plus most indians arent sitting on their asses all day in front of a computer
Seed oils were really wide-spread and common before the modern era when first vegetable shortening (which yes sometimes could be coconut based) and then processed liquid oils took over. The old school seed oils are really pretty fragile and need to be used quickly.
Just wanted to add my results to the PACE sprinters above. I've been stuck with my baby weight for a year and a half! It's not budging at all! I did RRARF (gained some weight and lost it, putting me right back where I was). Finally, earlier this month I started treadmill sprints and lost 4 lbs. In the first week and a half. I don't have a scale but I'm excited to see what improvements have happened since then. I am still eating to appetite (starches, fruits, all of the above) and my temps are still around 97.5-98!
Anyone care to respond to my "less meat and more bone broth" question? Also, what is jaggery?
Oh, Terpol, thanks! I didn't see your reply and posted my question again, sorry.
I still have to ask though…does this mean we eat less meat and more bone broth? No meat at all? Very little meat? Should I have bone broth at every meal? Should bone broth BE the meal? You can see I'm confused. :-)
I'm considering making a huge vat of it and portioning it into bowls for the week so I can have some every day…is that about right?
Honestly, I get tired of eating so much meat and this sounds like a great and better method for nurishment, but I want to make sure I won't be missing anything important. Thanks!
Is Indian food really that high in fat? I mean restaurant food, yes, but I think they eat more like a ton of rice (or whatever starch) and some curry on top most of the time.
anonymous-
i think if you have been eating a lot of meat (or fish, a fillet is pretty much the same amino acid profile as a steak) you could cut down to a few times a week or a little throughout the day, going for something gelatinous like a shank, and use powdered gelatin/broth (fish broth is great too if you get something with a big head, much quicker than meat)/cheese/potatoes (if you eat a lot, 1kg is 20g protein) and whatever else.
i have very little desire for meat/fish now. most of the time i eat fruit and potatoes, at different times, with a little creamed coconut and cheese/powdered gelatin and some meat whenever i feel like it. i'm doing almost no exercise, maintaining muscle and getting pretty lean now. and of course huge binge fairly often, ice cream preferably haha
this is what i've settled on. i think it is very important to eat what you feel like. want meat?, fat?, sugar?, eat it. when you are open to everything you can find out what your body wants. for me this is fairly low fat most of the time, a fat binge whenever i feel like it. it all depends really.
(was Anon asking the "less meat more bone broth?" question-now Dane)
@ terpol-thanks SO much for your response posted yesterday, 3/23/11 (I wish I could figure out how to reply directly to your comment).
I agree with you that we should eat what our bodies want, but in my case I have a lot of fat to lose and not having much luck, in spite of eating about 85% Paleo and working out. :-(
My age (nearly 53) gender (female) and lifestyle (work and school, so sitting most of my days) play a part, as well as stress from that lifestyle which opens wide the cortisol gates, but still, I feel I should be able to lose yet I don't. One caveat, I haven't gained weight for a year, so that is a huge improvement for me and proof that I've changed something in my matabolism.
I'm going to try bone broth instead of so much meat and see if that shakes anything loose.
i made some comments in the last few posts about losing fat, no one replies though, i wonder if they believe me haha:( they are basically about eating loads of carbs, little protein and as little fat as comfortable, most of the time (key). i don't know how much carbs you eat but i would try upping them and lowering fat. i tried lowering fat too fast and i because really anxious etc so go slowly. rice/potatoes in broth is nice too
"Is Indian food really that high in fat? I mean restaurant food, yes, but I think they eat more like a ton of rice (or whatever starch) and some curry on top most of the time."
Yes. Many of the dishes are cooked with a large amount of fat–5-7 tablespoons of oil per dish. Compare that to Italian food, which is more typically 2-3 tablespoons of oil. That is BEFORE any added fat from meat. Also there are many rice pilaf dishes which add broth and more fat to the rice as well.
I'm using a cookbook that's based on traditional home cooking adapted for modern american cooks. Also, I just went to a dinner party last night at someones home that was all traditional indian vegetarian cuisine. All were cooked with a lot of fat. Yes, rice is an important component, but protein tends to be low and fat high.
@ Terpol re your March 24 comment: thanks for the reply…how is your plan different from the "low-fat" program that has been foisted on the ever-more-overweight world for more than a quarter century? We know that high-carb/low-fat does not work…for long-term fat loss or for health. I can say that the few times in my life I tried that, i.e. Weight Watchers, I lost weight, but absolutley could not sustain that eating plan for more than a few mnths. I became weak and my cravings were through the roof.
Hey terpol, I would like to know what brand of gelatin you use and how you use it. I tried the Great Lakes beef gelatin, but I didn't like it very much. They have a collegen hydrolysate that is supposed to be easier to mix into drinks and food. Yeah, I know I should probably just suck it up and make a broth.
ane-
if you read my other posts i explain it. it is a temporary diet to lose fat. i have lost nearly 35lbs (down to around 10% bf now). i am now back to eating plenty of carbs and fat, although still fairly high carb as thats how i like it. you want to be able to eat carbs and fat together without blood sugar problems or gaining weight or anything like that before trying it. i doubt you would respond well to it otherwise. you want to be in a well nourished stable state.
you do it for a few days, up to a week when you are used to it, then eat loads of everything for 1 or 2 days, then back to low fat. the first time i tried this i used only potatoes as my carb, now i use fruit in the morning and potatoes the rest of the day which works better. very low fat is easier when you eat some sugar. i can comfortably go very low fat but it would probably work well with 15-20% fat, preferably coconut.
it is not a rigid plan. if you crave something you eat as much as you want of it, enjoy it, then back to low fat. it should not feel difficult. boring at first yes but you get used to it. and of course its only temporary.
its just my experience that the less fat i eat the more fat i lose. i'm a 22yo male with virtually none of the problems many others have here so it won't necessarily work perfectly for you.
however i do think its the best way to lose fat and also is a good long term diet (plenty of healthy people eating mostly rice or fufu and whatever else). what is low fat?, 20%, 30%?, doesn't take long to get used to and function well on that. besides you get much more vitamins/minerals eating lots of potatoes/fruit than fat. butter is nice and all but theres not much else in it.
Ivan-
i use Now brand gelatin from iherb. seems to be good. i just mix it in a little hot water or add it to sauces or broth (i make fish broth, much quicker plus i cant get anything else).
Thanks for the gelatin info, terpol.
I also wanted to know what types of fruit are you incorporating in the monrnings and what quantity of fruit keeps you full? I've been thinking about doing mostly bananas and oranges, but I'd like to know what else can work.
i'm in ireland and the only decent fruit i get is spanish oranges when in season (which is now luckily). if not then orange juice. the amount is interesting. for example right now i'm eating very low fat, 2-3 oranges, sugary coffee and an egg or some cheese is breakfast. something like that a while later, then starch and i seem to like fruit at night too.
now this is technically very little calories. however 1 day of eating more fat and my appetite goes way up, to normal. it is like a switch. i eat very little fat and my body starts to burn fat for energy, i eat plenty of fat and it stops as its getting fat from diet.
ray peat recommendations
"Fruit and fruit juices ? If you're able to do it, try to consume fresh fruits and fruit juices every day. Orange juice is great because of it’s potassium and magnesium content. Tropical fruits and juices are excellent too. If you don’t have a juicer at home, you can buy pasteurized juices with no additives that say ?not from concentrate? on the label. Juices that are from concentrate are made up of mostly added water that is flouridated. Fruits in general are fine (tropical are best), but grapefruit is full of phytoestrogens, so avoid it, and berries are full of small seeds you can't avoid, so it's better to skip them. He recommends avoiding bananas and other starchy-poorly-ripened-industrialized fruits, which includes most apples and pears (when these are ripe, peeled and cooked they are much more nutritious, and safer). Organic dried fruits are fine as long as they are not treated with sulfur dioxide; canned fruits are okay, especially if they are in glass. "
"he doesn't eat fruits with seeds that can't be avoided (berries,
figs, etc) because while the antioxidants are good, the benefits are
less than the toxins in the seeds. Other fruits like peaches, plums,
apples, etc should only be eaten if organic and tree-ripened;
otherwise they have very powerful toxins (if unripe or shelf-ripened)
that can cause gut damage. Melons, cherries, and citrus are the best
fruits."
Hi Matt, so I've read you had some problems while doing Scott Abel's routines. I don't think he's good at teaching non competition lifters, IMO.
I watched his video and just felt his routine was way too complicated. While it probably does work it's somewhat hard to comprehend. I really don't think he hits on the fundamentals, which are very important for making serious natural gains. I'd have to memorize switching all this stuff up while following Scott's workout. I found this guy Lee Hayward easier to follow, I'm studying him and you guys may want to too. You can build massive strength and an impressive physique naturally. Lots of usable strength. I also had a hard time following Arnold Schwarzenneger's information, I have his "Bible". Lee's approach is fun. As far as strength training it's actually very important, and Scott has recommended on his facebook page for people to do 5 rep max sets to build strength, which is important to bodybuilding or just strength building.
You sounded like you got tired and weak through Scott Abel's routines. It's probably because you weren't taking in enough carbohydrates. For such an intense workout like that you need atleast 200g of carbohydrate for your size, maybe as much as 300g. The quickest way to do this is to carbload with 300g of maltodextrin 2 hours before workout. A high rate of it digests to glycogen, as good as whole food starch sources. Tastes good too, you can have it for post workout too. No insulin crashes.
Unless you cut down to 5% bodyfat you won't look ripped, so you'd probably prefer to look built but not hardcore. It's fun doing routines and getting excellent results from them.
I'm checking out all of Lee Hayward's blogs and videos to learn everything I can. I'd definately pay big bucks for this guy's personal training and material if I had the dough. He's a bodybuilder and a powerlifter. He's got very impressive physique shots.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD4M4o5JFUw&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KoGvyAElp4&feature=player_embedded
http://leehayward.com/blog/
I found the Hip Extensions to be very beneficial in this video, another guy I'll study:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh-g4Z1auOI&feature=player_embedded
My workout is progressing good, I'm only going 2 sets an exercise. The first set being a 1 rep max and the second set being a 12 rep max. I may reduce the first set to being a 5 rep max, supposedly it's easier on my joints but my joints aren't hurting from the 1 rep maxes yet. Lower body is getting way stronger, upper body is slowly progressing.
Matt,
"It was like full body Viagra."
You'd better wear a 6' high you-know-what, a la The Naked Gun. Be safe.
A.
interesting how some people seem to do well on different diets – I never felt well on a high protein diet either. I had chronic allergies and chest pains. Now that I'm a vegetarian and have cut most cow's milk out of my diet I feel great. My anxiety levels have even dropped, I can't explain this. I really think dairy is the worst thing for people with allergies. But I must admit, I have never tried eating entrails, brains or pig's feet. Best of luck to finding something that works.