For those of you who don’t have multiple hours set aside to read through the vast collection of over 300 interesting comments that followed the last 180 Bloggie post, I thought I’d bring you up to speed.
For quite some time I have been pondering the multiple expressions of a suboptimal metabolism to the point where I have begun believing that it is the most common root source of the greatest epidemic ? the one that rules over all the others like that ring movie with the fat Goonie in it.
The metabolism, a concerted effort on behalf of the endocrine glands, the liver, and more truly controls the function of every single cell. It controls the speed at which food travels from one hole to the other. It controls what time you wake up in the morning. It controls your energy levels. It controls your sex drive and function. It governs all because you really are a product of your metabolism, which is best described as a biochemical network that transforms food, air, water, and events into the experience we know as life.
For many with health problems ranging from fatigue to allergies to susceptibility to infection to heart disease to diabetes to hypoglycemia to digestive problems of all kinds to mental illness ? enhancing the metabolism has profound repercussions. This was my lesson learned when following the dogma of Endocrinologist Diana Schwarzbein several years ago, which is basically to ‘sleep well, don’t exercise too hard, and eat all of the primary food groups: fat, carbohydrates, and protein ? together. More importantly, Schwarzbein emphasizes eating at least 3 meals a day, with minimal simple sugars, eating until fullness, erring on the side of eating too much not too little, and even goes so far as to say ?food is your friend, so gag it down.
She claims, by following this advice, you can undergo ?metabolic healing,? which can eradicate asthma, end IBS and some other bowel issues, clear up allergies, increase energy, overcome addictions, build muscle without spending hours at the gym, burn fat, beat depression, and on and on and on. Personally, I noticed dramatic improvements in every single category of health one can peer into by following her program with religious fervor. I treated skipping a meal or eating anything without all of the primary macronutrient components in substantial amounts as potentially life-threatening.
Well, to make a long story short, there’s a reason why I responded so well. My metabolism improved, started running on all cylinders, and I became a well-oiled piece of human machinery in ways I hadn’t even conceptualized of. Truly.
So the big trick, the big secret if you will, is to get your metabolism to a state of maximal harmony and efficiency. I’ve experienced this to be true. The only questions remaining are does this work for everyone? Are there multiple ways of arriving at this same destination? Are some routes more efficient than others? And the big question of course is why. Why does the body work great when the metabolism is great, and suck wind when it isn’t?
Bruce K., moderator of the highly active ?AV Skeptics? at Yahoo Groups, originally a very solid critic of the idea of eating ?high-everything,? as he calls it, has had a tremendous breakthrough over the past 3 weeks. He’s dropped 10 pounds, his digestion has improved from multiple angles of examination, his spirits are lifted, and he claims that his health has been taken to unimagined new levels.
Sounds good huh? How?d he do it? By following some of the exact 180-degree ideas, such as eating starch at every sitting with lots of saturated fats and protein. He has increased his calorie intake and his carbohydrate intake all in one shot over the past 3 weeks. He has even dropped the ?health food? mindset during this time and has had some major binges on fast food tacos, burritos, burgers, and more. He even busted out some Haagen-Daz ice cream for a weekend metabolism booster that so many professional bodybuilders swear by for maximal muscle growth and simultaneous leanness.
It has been the antithesis of some of the hardcore health escapades that he’s followed in the past ? from raw to fiberless, from high-fat to low-fat. Vegetarian for a while? I bet he was. Not many make it this far down the rabbit hole without making a pita stop there.
Anyway, Bruce has taken the metabolic enhancement idea of Schwarzbein and myself and added some surprising amendments such as intermittent junk food binges and had phenomenal results. All of his health tangents and phobias are rapidly being obliterated as he realized that a person with a perfect metabolism is beyond resilient. His intolerance of fiber and starches is gone. His digestion is the best it has been in years. He can eat carbs all day long and lose weight. He is a free man. More importantly, he feels frickin’ awesome, which is important – better and better as each day passes.
Many will say that he has a healthy metabolism, and that’s why he can get away with it, but they are missing the point. He has fixed himself to be a person with a healthy metabolism. Sure some might be too screwed up to improve their health in such a way. Some might gain excess fat for weeks or even months before having some of these experiences. But the metabolism is highly mutable. That’s why I gave up on the study of Ayurveda rather quickly, which centers around three predominant metabolic types ? I was all three types at some point in my life depending on what my diet and lifestyle was at the time. Now I’m a fusion of all three in a harmonious synergy, and so is Bruce. This is a doable, achievable thing with commitment to feeding yourself really well and going up in calories and sleep and down in exercise, stress, stimulants, and refined sugar (until you heal, then you will be practically home free).
Without going into endless detail on this, I want to throw down famous doctor Henry Bieler’s description of a person with a strong metabolism, which he calls the ?Adrenal type. This is only one type of metabolic type that he lays out, but it just so happens to describe, seamlessly, the members of the 14 groups of isolated primitive peoples that Weston A. Price found to have perfect health.
In addition to wide dental arches with room for all the teeth and low-propensity to develop dental caries, Bieler notes (and those who followed the full barrage of comments from the last post will be laughing at the exactitude of Bruce’s remarks in comparison, down all the way to the metabolically-robust’s ability to better handle toxic additives and residues in fast food):
?The physical energy of the adrenal type is seemingly inexhaustible, as is the nervous response of the sympathetic system, a result of perfect oxidation of phosphorous in the nerve tissue. Oxidation of carbon in the muscular system gives the adrenal type his great warmth. Thus, the temperature of his body is scarcely ever below 98.8, with hands and feet always pleasantly warm. As digestion and detoxication of food poisons depend greatly upon oxidation in the liver and intestines, it follows that the typical adrenal type, with his perfect oxidation, has thorough digestion. In fact, he may and often does boast that he can eat any and all kinds of food without discomfort. The exogenous uric acid products as well as the indoxyl compounds are completely detoxicated in the liver, do not accumulate in the blood, nor are they found in the urine.
?The skeletal muscles are well developed and have splendid tone. Fatigue is practically unknown to the adrenal type. His muscular endurance is spectacular. And the perfect tone of the involuntary muscles is evidenced by complete and rapid peristalsis, resulting in several bowel evacuations daily. He can dine on the most impossible food combinations imaginable with no evil results??
?The quality of the blood is characteristic. A slight to marked polycythemia (more red cells than usual) occurs; leucopenia, or abnormal white cell count on the low side, is never noted. The blood, which is of a rich, red color, clots quickly. Fatal hemorrhage seldom occurs. The immunity against bacterial invasion is spectacular. The typical adrenal type hardly ever becomes infected, even with venereal diseases??
?A member of the adrenal-type group has a phlegmatic disposition ? easygoing, jolly, slow to anger, never bothered with insomnia, fear or ?cold feet. He will often go out of his way to avoid a quarrel. Customarily, he has a wide circle of friends because he is warm-hearted and surrounded by an ?aura? of kindly sympathy.
?He never worries?His digestion is good and he is seldom constipated. It is possible for him to stand more treatments, operations and even more lung hemorrhages than any other type of patient. He is the patient most often discharged as arrested or cured. All the treatment necessary for his recovery is supplied by bed rest and fresh air.
In a nutshell ? enhance your metabolism and life is good. The rest is just details. Food quality (Grass fed lamb and biodynamic homemade bread vs. Quarter Pounder with Cheese for example), is so secondary to the pursuit of getting legitimate, measurable results that such squabbles reside solely in the ?extra credit? section of nutritional minutiae. Even sugar can probably be eaten safely if it is consumed once weekly ? and is no way a habitual daily item. I remain hesitant of course, but Bruce, as well as Tim Ferriss and others that I have a lot of respect for, say it’s better than a zero-sugar-diet-all-the-time diet for metabolic stimulation. It might just be. The jury’s still out on that one.
One thing is for sure. The Hamburglar looks quite trim on his burger diet, which leaves nothing for Grimace to eat but the Coke and fries ? which is why he suffers from such drastic levels of abdominal adiposity and is covered with a purplish, velvety exterior layer (he’s got mad acanthosis nigricans).
One major contention however, is the lyrics of one of my favorite musical geniuses of all-time, Wesley Willis, and Bruce’s contention that fast food might not make you fat. It arouses great suspicion, as Willis was, after all, a 400+pound schizophrenic (meaning also, that he must not have known jack about weight loss). Check the lyrics HERE. (This song was featured in SuperSize Me).
Wow, Bieler hit the nail on the head with that one. It’s so funny how anyone could change their classification..and I thought about the type of body you have, like mesomorph versus ectomorph…or being born that way, but, someone could easily become any of them (through eating the right thing), like with this metabolic typing. Like a raw vegan like Graham is basically an ‘ectomorph’, because of how hard he has to work in order to have muscle. If you can go one way, why not the other.
And then there’s saying if our ancestors were a certain thing (like if you’re part such and such) then you should eat a certain way. But we’re all one species, and we all have an adjustable metabolism (for the most part; you know if it’s not demolished completely) – I mean, we can all interbreed, why would diet be that different. Even if some dudes had more starch digestive enzymes in their mouth, how is it known the guys with less couldn’t increase the amount they produce if they just started eating the same things as the abundant amylase producers? I just think it’s so much simpler then people pound it out to be (you need this vitamin from this source, and this from here, and here and here). Especially in terms of accepting that you’re born a certain way and therefore helpless in changing that – like, oh, say, an obesity gene, or bad acne.
Man, does this deserve more publicity.
Please view my profile to read more about the High-Everything Diet, the diet to END all diets. Death To Diets. Eat Everything and Let Yourself Heal.
Diets Don’t Work. Calories Don’t Count. Carbs Don’t Count. The healthy person can lose weight by eating high-everything. The unhealthy person can rapidly become more healthy, with a faster metabolism, better digestion, and ability to remain lean even by eating fast food every day and junk food once or twice a week (Haagen Dazs ice crema, pancakes with butter and maple syrup, chocolate, macaroons, cheesecake, and tiramisu.
The 10 Golden Rules of the High-Everything Diet.
Otherwise known as: The Diet To End All Diets.
1. Eat all the fat you want, especially saturated fats like coconut oil, butter, cream, whole milk, half-and-half, cheese, beef, and lamb. The other good fats are macadamia oil, cocoa butter (not chocolate), with olive oil perhaps in small amounts. PUFAs are best avoided, like mayonnaise, salad dressing, chicken fat, turkey fat, and other things. Pork fat can be used sparingly.
2. Eat high starch (50-150g per meal) – bagels, white pasta or brown, white bread or whole wheat, white rice or brown, corn, white flour, potatoes, beans, lentils, whatever. Do not have any fear of eating starches. They will help you heal. Do not believe anyone who tells you that starches are fattening. It is only true for unhealthy people. There is nothing fattening about starches for a healthy person and starches will help you to get healthy faster than anything (with fat).
3. Eat all the protein you want, animal or vegetable. Do NOT eat a vegan diet and preferably not a vegetarian diet either.
4. Eat natural sugars cautiously, like fruit, fruit juice, maple syrup, honey (preferably “unheated” honey), etc.
5. Eliminate refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and other refined sweeteners from your daily diet. It’s OK to have small amounts, like in bread and so forth, but don’t eat anything high in refined sugar (like more than 10% of its calories or with sugar in the first few ingredients).
6. Eat unlimited calories. Eat when hungry. Preferably eat before you get hungry, in anticipation of hunger.
7. Once or twice a week, you can have desserts and junk foods – preferably high in saturated fat and low in PUFAs, like cheese cake, tiramisu, Haagen Dazs ice cream, chocolate, coconut macaroons, or pancakes with tons of butter and maple syrup. Higher fat is better, so look for ice cream with cream as the first ingredient preferably.
8. Eliminate all coffee, tea, chocolate, and stimulants from your regular daily diet. You can have these once or twice a week, but not regularly. Also, don’t eat ANY artificial sweeteners or diet sodas. All they do is make you hungry and fat, messing up your body’s ability to respond to foods naturally. And don’t eat toxic protein powders, protein shakes, or bars.
9. Don’t be afraid if you gain weight. You have to get healthy to lose weight, not the other way around. The healthy person will lose weight on the high-everything diet, if they have weight to lose. The unhealthy person will gain weight if they need to gain weight. This is not anything to worry about. You are healing.
10. Challenge yourself to eat more fiber and starches, by eating things like bean burritos, multi-grain chips (ex: Sun Chips), rice chips, and so on. These will help strengthen and repair your digestion. Start with small amounts and work up.
Everything most people think they know about diet is 100% wrong.
Fast food is healthy – burgers, pizza, tacos, burritos, pasta, hot dogs, etc. Junk food and sugar are healthy – as long as you don’t eat them all the time. Fast food can heal you to a degree unattainable by the highest quality foods.
Diets Don’t Work. Calories Don’t Count. Carbs Don’t Count. Fats Don’t Count.
Death To Diets. Eat Everything and Let Yourself Heal.
Eating is Exercise for Digestion and Metabolism. Eating high-starch (50-150g per meal), unlimited fat, moderate protein, and low sugar will build up health, metabolism, and digestion. Periodic sugar binges, like pancakes with butter and maple syrup, or lots of ice cream or cheesecake, are interval training for digestion and metabolism. This theory is utterly ground-breaking and paradigm-shifting. All other diets fall apart, like low-fat, low-carb, paleo, food combining, raw food, etc. A healthy person could mix 10 different foods together, all cooked and/or processed, and have perfect digestion, elimination, and energy, no food cravings or obsessions, etc.
Fast food is healthy – burgers, pizza, tacos, burritos, pasta, hot dogs, etc. Junk food and sugar are healthy – as long as you don’t eat them all the time. Fast food can heal you to a degree unattainable by the highest quality foods.
Diets Don’t Work. Calories Don’t Count.
The High-Everything Diet
Eat Everything and Let Yourself Heal.
The digestive/metabolic exercise idea is actually pretty interesting.
Just think of fasting or even my 30 day meat diet. On either type of regimen, you feel clean, inflammation down, light, etc.
When you return to normal eating it hits you like a ton of bricks. It feels like lifting weights after 3 months of bed rest. It feels satisfying, but you tire quickly, are exhausted the rest of the day, and get really sore.
That’s the Catch-22 of doing any diet that gives you great relief of symptoms – from juice fasting, to liquid diets, to zero carb diets, to fiberless diets, to food-combining diets, and on and on and on.
That’s it. I’m starting my interval training as a competitive eater.
Awesome post!!
i was so an adrenal type from the time i was born till i was 21, and now i am finally on my way back. Diets were the worst thing to ever happen to the human race, but they make money for lots of companies thats forsure.
When i first got into diets i just wanted to have fun, and experience different ways of eating. On that journey, from reading soooo many books, like you matt… i started avoiding this, and that, and what ever was supposed to cause cancer, or disease. I became obsessed with everything about diet and food. Every new book i read i would switch to whatever the author or diet guru would say. I have worked in health food stores and vitamin shops for 5 years. I even worked on the raw goat dairy farm mentioned in the Makers Diet book by jordan rubin… thats how obsessed i became… moving to austin, tx to work on the farm that new how to make probiogurt… its soo easy to make at home. One thing i am glad about is that i always knew animal fat weren’t to fear. I never did go vegan, or even vegetarian. I was always anti john robbins and soy industry. The first stuff i ever really read that made life easy and changed my life when i was 18 was Dr. Wongs free articles at totalityofbeing.com …this guy is soo funny and simple…. this was the first place i read an article he wrote called Soy:the poison seed, and articles about over exercising. I just did things like zero carbing, low carbing, low calorie,… that always ended with alittle weight gain. Lucky to say i haven’t ruined my metabolism like some have from low fat, vegan, or chronic cardio regimes. My metabolism revved right back up when i ditched low carb and started following scharwzbein, and your blog. Combining Saturated fat with lots of starch i thought, two of both of the so called evils to low carbers or low fat gurus or vegans…. lets do it!! i have had all the same experiences bruce has had… with my missions to fast food joints periodically. This morning will mark the first day i have had real pancakes in along time… and i did soak my spelt flour in buttermilk overnight, and i am going to pile them i hight with butter and syrup. I still care.
I am glad i went through all that reading, and studying, and its not over by all means… but i learned alot about food and culture. I can make the best decisions with the food put in front of me. I can make better choices if i have the options. I know details of the whole goat milking business, or yogurt, and cheese making. Am i going to obsess about what cheese is on my burger at in n out… hell no… i am going to enjoy it and incinerate it and go surf. I will still take care with all my own home cooking like i always have.. i just love cooking and good food. i will always choose raw milk when i can, but if i can only get organic pasteurized thats fine…. i like both, raw milk just still has better flavor. I still want my own farm when i am older… but i am going to feed my kids everything when they are growing up just like me. Milk cream, pancakes, eggs, juice, bacon, steak, potatoes, fruits, and they will be healthy, and won’t develop complexes or phobias. Last year i made myself think i was gluten intolerant…. hahha…. what a joke…. i have been eating lots of gluten for a month… i have only lost weight, no acne, and my energy has been off the hook!!! I am the same happy go lucky guy i use to be… and everyone notices the change. I have to say this again.. Death To ALL DIETS.
Thanks Schwarzbein, Matt, and Bruce… you guys rule.
time to go eat those pancakes!!!
troy
And to respond to your “how little protein could one eat?” question Bruce,
I’d say as little as 40 grams a day for guys our size, or about 1/2 our bodyweight in kilos in dietary grams of protein. That’s about 5% of calories give or take. Most of this could come from grains, nuts, and starches, but a little dairy, seafood, or meat protein should be included – just a trace if one was looking for the minimum.
Competitive eating has really been grabbing my attention lately.
AND that metabolic exercising..
Troy,
Perfectly said. We bounce from one side to the other, over and over again, until we get it. We make mistakes, but is that something to regret? Hellz no! We’re here to have a learning experience and those who follow their passions on a whim learn some hard lessons, but hard or easy, at least the lessons are learned. We can “pursue” happiness all we want, but only learning and growth is tangible, cumulative, and never fleeting. In other words, happiness is a short-lived emotion. Growth and knowledge is real.
Now go eat some gluten.
“And in a year or two, it will be impossible to sel a book pushing low-fat, low-carb, or low-calories.”
You might have to snag Oprah on this WOE to get that to happen.:D
Totally Chloe.
How does a 98-pound woman that ate 48 dozen oysters in 10 minutes not capture one’s attention? Or 66 hardboiled eggs in 6 minutes and 40 seconds?
Or 11 pounds of cheesecake in 9 minutes!
..or 80 chicken nuggets in 5..
like, wow, I think I have a new idol
“I’d say as little as 40 grams a day for guys our size, or about 1/2 our bodyweight in kilos in dietary grams of protein. That’s about 5% of calories give or take. Most of this could come from grains, nuts, and starches, but a little dairy, seafood, or meat protein should be included – just a trace if one was looking for the minimum.”
Yeah, I agree. I don’t have any craving for meat, eggs, cheese, or even milk. I could eat a bagel with butter, a quart of orange juice, and have perfect energy and digestion. Maybe occasionally drink one gallon of milk in a day just to keep my digestion in practice. I am going to start eating like 40g of protein a day, mostly vegetable protein, with lots of butter, half-and-half, coconut oil, and other saturated fats. I will probably lose at an even faster rate. I’ve lost 10 pounds in 3 weeks now by eating lots of bagels with butter, half-and-half, a quart of orange juice a day (not from concentrate), whatever I want. My energy is dead calm, no cravings or thoughts about foods, no hunger. I could just eat whatever is around and be healthy.
I would like somebody to get in touch with the following people – Michael Eades, Jan Kwasniewski, Gary Taubes, Anthony Colpo, Barry Groves, Atkins Nutritionals, Peter on the HyperLipid blog, etc.
Tell them I’d like to know why I’ve lost 10 pounds in 3 weeks by eating high-fat, high-white-flour, moderate-protein, high unrefined sugar, high calories, and even occasional Haagen Dazs ice cream, cheese cake, and tiramisu. I’d like them to get back to me about why my digestion and my elimination are 100 times better than it was a month ago, why my sleep is better, why my energy and mood are better, and keep getting healthier every day. Please have them respond here or on their blog or on my forum. I’m eagerly waiting. Tx.
Oh, and please get in touch with Charles Washington, Aajonus Vonderplanitz, Dr. Joseph Mercola, Sally Fallon, Mary Enig, Geoffrey Purcell, and so on. I’d like to get their input. Anybody who says that people should restrict calories, fat, carbs, starches, sugars, fiber, grains, gluten, lactose, casein, dairy, or any other food. Please get their responses.
I have Bruce’s rules pinned to my fridge…i love the enthusiasm :)
Here’s a question though – why are there ANY overweight competitive eaters if the high-everything works? Is it just simply because the overweight ones consume loads of fructose, sugar, drugs and stimulants regularly as opposed to sporadically?
If it is, I wonder how competitive eaters figured that out.
“Here’s a question though – why are there ANY overweight competitive eaters if the high-everything works? Is it just simply because the overweight ones consume loads of fructose, sugar, drugs and stimulants regularly as opposed to sporadically?”
They eat high-sugar and vegetable oil all the time. Probably alcohol and other crap too. Eat like Sonya Thomas and you’ll get the body of a ballerina effortlessly. And if you’re a guy you’ll be ripped and buff.
ah, got it. thanks
“Now go eat some gluten.”
Yes, and mix it with some milk, cheese, butter, nuts, corn, eggs, soybeans, and refined sugar just to make sure you get the best results. Death to Diets.
But wait a few months before you try that experiment – just to be safe. Please.
BTW, Matt, to answer you’re question, I have never eaten vegan for more than one or two days/meals here and there. So I’m lucky in that respect, at least.
Another rule would be to drink as much water as you like, preferably clean, but not necessarily. Try to get some sun at least daily. Go for a walk. Get outdoors and enjoy life.
And for advanced people, those who LOSE weight by eating high-everything, I would suggest you to eat fried fast foods and different junk foods every week to raise your level of health even further. But to heal, it is probably best not to eat any fried foods or doughnuts or things like that, unless made with coconut oil, beef tallow, or other saturated fats.
Here is a really simple summary of the whole concept behind this diet.
Eat everything all the time and you will be able to eat everything all the time – with perfect digestion, energy, healing, eventual weight loss and healthy weight maintenance without effort, better mood, better sleep, better sex, better quality skin, etc. It’s a very zen concept. Eat everything all the time and you will be able to eat everything all the time.
“One thing is for sure. The Hamburglar looks quite trim on his burger diet, which leaves nothing for Grimace to eat but the Coke and fries ? which is why he suffers from such drastic levels of abdominal adiposity and is covered with a purplish, velvety exterior layer (he’s got mad acanthosis nigricans).”
Hahahaha! That’s hilarious!
Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, I’m lovin’ it!
I have another question –
What about the people who have good metabolisms their whole life – and then suddenly in their mid-30’s or so they start ballooning, even without changing their eating habits?
Do metabolisms have “expiration dates?”
“It’s a very zen concept. Eat everything all the time and you will be able to eat everything all the time.”
Which is ironic, because the “Crazy Legs Conti” movie about competitive eating is subtitled “Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating.” LOL. Can you beat that? I could have healed myself to an ever greater level than I am at now if I had realized the secret when I saw that movie several years ago. Competitive eaters found the ultimate secret to good health and it has taken humanity years to realize it.
Hey Harper I bet it’s because they’ve got bad eating habits (I mean like, not eating enough, skipping meals, sugar all the time, drinking alcohol all the time) or start dieting or something. I think if you have a good metabolism to start with, it will eventually put out in the 30s if it keeps taking hits and eventually can’t function anymore.
I think the analogy between eating and exercise is a good one, but I think it suggests more caution than encouragement about the role of deliberately stressing your body with ?junk food? as a means to strengthen the body. Consider what we know about exercise.
It is true that the stress of exercise will often cause the body to make adaptations that will improve the performance of the stressed body part. On the other hand, the stress of exercise can cause injury to the exact body parts or functions that you are trying to heal or improve. For some people the stress of a bench press will cause their shoulders to grow stronger to adapt to that stress. Others will simply ruin their shoulders by tearing muscles or ligaments. This is particularly true if you have some previous injury. Lets say you have inflamed knees from arthritis or degeneration. Doing squats might strengthen the musculature that supports the knee and make the knee healthier. Or they might just injure the knee, keep it inflamed and prevent it from healing. Or consider the more dramatic case of having torn several ligaments in your knee. This problem can’t be fixed with exercise at all. In the absence of surgical reconstruction, its best to avoid stress on the knee FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.
In the context of food, there are many potential analogies here. Certain people have ?injuries? to the internal organs of their body just as they have injuries to their joints. They are much harder to see and measure but they are just as real. Some people have a pancreas that won’t produce insulin. Others have damage to the thyroid, adrenal glands, digestive organs and/or immune systems. Some of these ?injuries? can be healed with rest and support and some will NEVER be healed. If the organs can’t heal, then you need to find some outside support for the function of that organ (such as hormone replacement theory, a key step of Schwarzbein’s program) or you need to live in a way that puts as little stress on that organ as possible. ?Going right at the problem? is often not the best way to heal a serious injury.
good point chloe!
“It is true that the stress of exercise will often cause the body to make adaptations that will improve the performance of the stressed body part. On the other hand, the stress of exercise can cause injury to the exact body parts or functions that you are trying to heal or improve.”
Which is why we suggest the safest stuff like high-cream ice cream, cheese cake, tiramisu, pancakes with butter and maple yrup, chocolate, coconut macaroons, etc. Not eating doughnts, french fries, and potato chips until you are 100% healed, if you want to experiment.
“For some people the stress of a bench press will cause their shoulders to grow stronger to adapt to that stress. Others will simply ruin their shoulders by tearing muscles or ligaments.”
Because they are eating a defective diet like low-fat, low-carb, low-starch, low calories, vegan, raw food, paleo, food combining, gluten-free casein-free and lactose-free, etc. Theere’s no way that this would happen to someone who simply ate everything all the time.
This is exciting, and seems mostly true.But why starches and not (natural) sugars from fruit, honey, milk etc. Ray Peat thinks sugars are preferable to starches, especially for the thyroid. We’re following him on the high SFA low PUFA qualification, why not on this? He says he used to eat a quart of ice-cream a day, and limits starches – kind of the reverse of this idea. (I was always struck by the large quantities of food Peat recommended and consumed. He clearly also agrees that calories are meaningless. It’s all about metabolism.) Perhaps if your metabolism is healed, every meal starches are fine, but what if it isn’t?
Jacob, when you reach the level of health that I have, I think you could eat fruits and fruit juice and raw “unheated” honey, maple syrup, and other natural sugars all you want – preferably along with starches and protein and saturated fats. But first you need to heal and that means you ought to eat 50-150g of starch per meal and AT LEAST 3 meals a day, if not more. So, eat at least one bagel (preferably unbleached flour, unenriched, with no oils added and no HFCS) per meal. Or two whole potatoes. Or 1/3 cup of rice (dry) or two pieces of bread or something like that. The more starch, the better. And lots of fat. Don’t worry as much about protein. Maybe 10-30g per meal. Most of your calories should be saturated fat, starches, etc. Eat vegetables if you want, like carrots and onions and so on, but first eat 50-150g of starch. Then everything else is “extra credit’ to put it in Matt’s words. Once you have healed there are no rules. I can eat a quart of orange juice a day, a quart of half-and-half, 4 tablespoons of raw “unheated” honey (like Really Raw Honey) and lots of starch and fat and still be losing weight. I’m still at exactly the same weight – 10 pounds less than about 3 weeks ago. That must be a record. The high-everything diet will get you to your perfect weight faster than ANY other diet and I dare anybody to take the 6 month challenge and prove me wrong. Otherwise, the naysayers need to shut up and go back to their lives of misery, deprivation, fear, and pathetic avoidance of facing their challenges.
This diet will totally eliminate all of your obsessions with food, hunger, etc. I’ve got a piece of pizza sitting right now in front of me, along with half of another piece and a third of a glass of orange juice and I have no interest in eating them. My energy is totally calm, stable, and unbelievably high. I haven’t yawned once in like the last week that I can recall. How many low-carbers can say the same thing? Prrobably none, based on my experience with eating low-carb. They are all pathetic and pathological people living in fear and refusing to face all their problems and overcome them. Meanhwhile, Matt and Troy and myself are at a level of health that these people can never imagine. Me and Troy can eat any combination of foods (even like 10 different foods) – all cooked – and get perfect digestion, no bloating, no gas, no brain fog, no cravings, etc.
Death To Diets. Eat Everything and Heal. You can enjoy the health behnefits I’ve described, the sooner you start eating all the starch and fat you want, along with some protein (let’s say 10-60g per meal, whatever you want). Trust me, you will quickly find that you can thrive by eating any mix of foods, even bread and butter or something like that.
I’m also curious about Ray Peat’s reasoning on starches effecting the thyroid – but he does encourage potatoes, so maybe he’s referring to grains or something. What’s the deal with fruit versus starch?
I’m just sticking with starch for now, but I’m curious about that debate.
“I’m also curious about Ray Peat’s reasoning on starches effecting the thyroid – but he does encourage potatoes, so maybe he’s referring to grains or something. What’s the deal with fruit versus starch?”
Be careful, Chloe. Thinking like that is dangerous. The healthy body can eat any food or any combination of foods with no allergies, indigestion, gas, bloating, etc. High-everything is the true healing diet, far more aggressive than Dr. Diana Schwarzbein or anybody else. This diet will heal you 10 times faster than Diana Schwarzbein, IMHO. Think about that and how much time you will have to enjoy the perfect health Troy and Matt and I have right now. Would you rather have 90 yrs of perfect health or like 85? Don’t be afraid. You will know within a week that all your fears were misplaced when you see how good you feel. It’s like nirvana the way I feel right now. I can’t begin to describe the peace, calm, contemtment, optimism, patience, and so forth that I feel right now. There’s no way you can feel this good on any other diet. My metabolism is through the roof now. I’m hot all the time. My weight is falling at record speed. My digestion’s so good I can eat basically anything in any combination with no complaints from my stomach, perfect elimination, perfect energy, perfect mood, no yawning, no brain fog, no worries at all.
This diet provides the ultimate freedom, the most aggressive healing, the fastest path to complete and perfect health that has ever been discovered. And things for me just keep getting better. There’s now no limit to what I can achieve.I can eat anywhere and remain healthy, have great digestion, perfect energy, perfect mood, and perfect elimination. Nothing matters any more. There are no rules.
I was just thinking long term; I was curious as to why he believed that. Don’t worry; there’s no doubt in that comment, just curiousity.
Here’s an updated version of the High-Everything Diet’s 10 Golden Rules, to give more specifics for newbies who are just now showing up. The rules are the same, I’ve just given some examples of serving sizes and suggested guidelines for starch and protein intake. Fat intake is unlimited, but it would be best to choose more saturated fats and keep PUFAs low.
The 10 Golden Rules of the High-Everything Diet.
Otherwise known as: The Diet To End All Diets.
1. Eat all the fat you want, especially saturated fats like coconut oil, butter, cream, whole milk, half-and-half, cheese, beef, and lamb. The other good fats are macadamia oil, cocoa butter (not chocolate), with olive oil perhaps in small amounts. PUFAs are best avoided, like mayonnaise, salad dressing, chicken fat, turkey fat, and other things. Pork fat can be used sparingly.
2. Eat high starch (50-150g per meal) – bagels, white pasta or brown, white bread or whole wheat, white rice or brown, corn, white flour, potatoes, beans, lentils, whatever. Do not have any fear of eating starches. They will help you heal. Do not believe anyone who tells you that starches are fattening. It is only true for unhealthy people. There is nothing fattening about starches for a healthy person and starches will help you to get healthy faster than anything (with fat). Eat at LEAST one bagel per meal, two potatoes, 1/3 cup rice (dry), or 2 pieces of bread so that you have 50g of starch per meal, minimum. And the more saturated fat you have with that starch, the faster you will heal.
3. Eat all the protein you want, animal or vegetable. Do NOT eat a vegan diet and preferably not vegetarian either. Aim for like 10-60g protein per meal.
4. Eat natural sugars cautiously, like fruit, fruit juice, maple syrup, honey (preferably “unheated” honey), etc.
5. Eliminate refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and other refined sweeteners from your daily diet. It’s OK to have small amounts, like in bread and so forth, but don’t eat anything high in refined sugar (like more than 10% of its calories or with sugar in the first few ingredients).
6. Eat unlimited calories. Eat when hungry. Preferably eat before you get hungry, in anticipation of hunger. Eat at least 3 meals a day.
7. Once or twice a week, you can have desserts and junk foods – preferably high in saturated fat and low in PUFAs, like cheese cake, tiramisu, Haagen Dazs ice cream, chocolate, coconut macaroons, or pancakes with tons of butter and maple syrup. Higher fat is better, so look for ice cream with cream as the first ingredient preferably.
8. Eliminate all coffee, tea, chocolate, and stimulants from your regular daily diet. You can have these once or twice a week, but not regularly. Also, don’t eat ANY artificial sweeteners or diet sodas. All they do is make you hungry and fat, messing up your body’s ability to respond to foods naturally. And don’t eat toxic protein powders, protein shakes, or bars.
9. Don’t be afraid if you gain weight. You have to get healthy to lose weight, not the other way around. The healthy person will lose weight on the high-everything diet, if they have weight to lose. The unhealthy person will gain weight, if they need to gain weight. This is not anything to worry about. You are healing.
10. Challenge yourself to eat more fiber and starches, by eating things like bean burritos, multi-grain chips (ex: Sun Chips), rice chips, and so on. These will help strengthen and repair your digestion. Start with small amounts and work up.
Everything most people *think* they know about diet and health is 100% wrong.
Fast food is healthy – burgers, pizza, tacos, burritos, pasta, hot dogs, etc.
Junk food and sugar are healthy – as long as you don’t eat them all the time.
Fast food can heal you to a degree unattainable by the highest quality foods.
Diets Don’t Work. Calories Don’t Count. Carbs Don’t Count. Fats Don’t Count.
Death To Diets. Eat Everything and Let Yourself Heal.
Also, keep in mind that these rules are only for healing. When a person attains health to where they can lose weight on high-everything. then the rules are not as absolute. For example, a person with
“health” (by the standard above) may be able to drink coffee every day, even as much as two or three double espressos with every meal, along with milk and cream and sugar, while continuing to lose weight and have no change in their digestion or energy or mood. Most don’t have this level of health. Likewise for healthy people they could probably live on like 1/2 a gram of protein per kg of weight, with most of that coming from grains and beans and potatoes and stuff like that. A healthy person could eat a bagel with butter and feel awesome with no other food. They could probably mix and match starches and sugars and even eat all fruit or fruit juice with butter and honey and stuff like that. There are no rules once for people who are healthy – meaning they can lose weight on high everything with no exercise and eating at least 150-450g of starch a day, with lots of fat and protein, too.
Likewise, a person who has attained this extreme level of health could probably eat junk food every day for weeks or months before they started to feel the effects, with their digestion or weight or mood or energy level. But when you attain such a level of health, those foods probably will not have any appeal to you and you could easily just eat them occasionally and not have any harmful effects. But this is a long way off for most people. Such total healing may take weeks, months, or years.
I just wanted to inform everyone that the AV-Skeptics group is now the
High-Everything-Diet Group.
The past is wiped dclean. This is not an April Fool’s Joke. I am dead serious. I have eaten bagels, butter, cheese, milk, half-and-half, orange juice, unheated honey, potatoes, grains, beans, fast food, ice cream, and everything else I want and I’m still 10 pounds below what I weighed 3 weeks ago. My digestion is 100-fold better than it was a month ago and my energy, mood, patience, optimism, and calm are unbelievable. I now have a total freedom to eat anywhere at anytime and remain in good health, which nobody else has (except children maybe).
Please join us in discussing the High-Everything Diet. There will be NO discussion of low-fat, low-carb, vegan, raw, fruitarian, instincto, low-calorie, paleo, zero-carb, etc. Anybody who does not want to discuss High-Everything must now leave and never come back. Posting ANY off-topic messages will result in immediate banning forever. Go to other forums and enjoy your deprivation, fear, misery, insecurity, etc. We are going to overcome all of our health problems and heal to an unimaginable level. Join us, because this is going to be the ONLY diet anyone eats in about a year or so.
High-Everything-Diet ? Diets Don’t Work. Calories Don’t Count
Great post Matt. I like the enthusiasm Bruce. It seems to me this is the Kitavan/Toukeluan diet on steroids, i.e. with the intermittent junk binge. They eat high starch, lots of saturated fat. They have seasonal sugar binges (yes even in tropical lands fruit blooming and consumption is seasonal). Fiber doesn’t bother them. Calories don’t seem to be a factor. They don’t get fat. They apparently don’t need a lot of protein. So from that standpoint I don’t think its a new paradigm.
The junk binge however is something they do not participate in.
“It seems to me this is the Kitavan/Toukeluan diet on steroids, i.e. with the intermittent junk binge. They eat high starch, lots of saturated fat.”
Good analogy…the Kitavans always seemed to be the exception before the high everything diet; everyone here was focusing more on meat/sat fat consumption rather than starch/sat fat consumption
Yeah, you don’t need much protein at all. I’d say 10-60g per meal and as you grow healthier that can be mostly vegetable protein. I’m fine eating a bagel with butter. Perfect digestion, energy, calm, etc. So, this addresses the fact that an excess of protein is unnecessary and it may slow down your metabolism. You can probably get to the point where you’re eating like 1/2 gram of protein per kg (say 40g per day for most men and 30g for women). You just wouldn’t need any more.
Yeah I thought protein was what filled me up but starch and fat really take the filling to the extreme, without even needing that much protein.
Michael: “The junk binge however is something they do not participate in.”
It’s not a junk food binge. It’s interval training exercise for your digestion and metabolism. Keep that in mind. Probagbly the best diet for weight loss would be to just eat lots of bagels, butter, and some milk or cream or half-and-half. The lack of excess protein would probably speed up your metabolism to an insane degree. What do you think, Matt?
Also, Michael, please note that I’m not saying you need to eat high-starch diets forever. I think you could eventually go to a level where you could eat fruit and occasional milk or something like that – there really are no rules. We’re walking on new ground here. I can go from starch to orange juice to milk and feel exactly the same. I can drink a double espresso with milk and cream and sugar and feel exactly the same. I’ve attained a level of diet flexibility that is unheard of, and all of this has happened in the last 3 weeks. I started around the beginning of this month. The benefits I’ve had are simply mind-blowing, shattering all diet dogma that I previously held. I’ve gone through a complete paradigm shift.
How do you know when you no longer need to eat high starch?
Bruce, Do you have any thoughts on decaf coffee or herbal teas? They’re not stimulants, so…
“How do you know when you no longer need to eat high starch?”
When you feel the same eating stuff like fruit and milk and ice cream and things like that, maybe you could try reducing the starches. I wouldn’t eat things like honey or maple syrup by themselves, cuz they lack protein. Fruit would be better like orange juice or grapefruit juice to test yourself. If you have calm, stable energy by drinking like a quart of them.
I feel it would be best to stay away from coffee or tea of any kind, except once or twice a week, until you have healed some. When you’re healed, meaning you can drink coffee with no reaction (along with cream and milk and sugar), maybe it would be OK to drink coffee. Maybe it would be OK for people eating high-everything to drink it all they want. I don’t know. I have never used coffee before, but now I tolerate it fine, even drinking 2-3 double espressos, with milk and cream and sugar, by itself.
To put it another way, I think you should get to a point where you can “take or leave” the coffee and tea, i.e. you are completely neutral. You don’t feel any different with or without it. If you are in a position of feeling like you NEED these things, then I would avoid them at least for a month or two. The goal is to be flexible. I could drink coffee every day and think nothing of it or I could stop drinking it forever and not care. A person at that level can drink coffee.
Here’s part of the new introduction from the High-Everything-Diet Group. Matt, I hope you are going to join. I could sign you up if you don’t have a Yahoo Groups account yet. I asked Ray Peat to join us too, because I think this would be right up his alley. BRuce
“Eating is Exercise for Digestion and Metabolism. This is why many of the top competitive eaters (like Soyna Thomas, Takeru Kobayashi, and Juliet Lee) are thin. Dieting, as in eliminating food groups, weakens the digestion and metabolism and health.”
High-Everything-Diet ? Diets Don't Work & Calories Don't Count.
I have followed something similar to what Bruce is advocating for some time, only stretched over longer periods of time and no allowance for poor quality foods.
About 1/3 or the year I eat a high starch kitavan style diet (a portion of this time I am actually vegan but with loads of saturated fat from coconut), another third of the year I eat relatively moderate to low carb (mostly milk and meat) and the rest of the year I pretty much eat anything I want. That might mean all meat or it might mean lots of pancakes and butter with honey. In other words its not really planned, just what I feel like eating at the moment. I also fast intermittently.
There is no food group that I omit for health reasons. My energy is high and my digestion fine. I drink alcohol and like using roasted cocoa powder/nibs. I also enjoy smoking cigars from time to time.
Alright Bruce, no intermittent junk binges just digestive and metabolic exercise :-)
Michael,
Are you taking a seasonal approach? I read a book called the 3-season diet. It’s mostly meat and root vegetables in the winter, fish and leafy veggies in the spring, and grains, veggies and fruit in the summer. Interesting but not enough meat for me (although in Michigan our winters are 6 months long).
Lisa
Wow…I don’t check the blog for a couple of days and everything has turned upside down!
Not that I’m upset, this high starch, high fat, moderate protein, no refined sugar sounds pretty awesome….but not gonna lie, I’m terrified!
Since Christmas I have been following a schwarzbein/ matt stone diet. High fat, moderate protein, lower carb (100 g) with very careful meal combining. I started underweight (125 lbs) from a draining starvation diet. Following TSP, I have gained 15 pounds ( due to healing) and I feel healthier than ever! I would, vainly, like to be 5lbs lighter. I am 5’9 140lbs.
So matt, I know your hesitant about Bruce’s diet, as am I. Will upping my starch help me shed the extra 5 lbs if I keep my protein and sugar (none) the same? Bruce sounds convincing, but I trust you!
Elly
Hey Elly, I’m in the same situation;
you can have another person to be in the boat with because I also gained a lot after being underweight; now I’m just waiting it out to see when I’ll start loosing all the extra stuff; definitely feels like forever – but I feel the same way – muuuch betterr!
"I have followed something similar to what Bruce is advocating for some time, only stretched over longer periods of time and no allowance for poor quality foods."
There are no low-quality foods, only low quality digestions and metabolisms. If a high-everything diet increases digestion and metabolism and health even with "low quality foods" like pasteurized milk and bagels and pasteurized orange juice and stuff like that, then it proves that the "food quality" idea (which you've touted in the past) is not that important. It's "extra credit", as Matt said. A healthy person could eat pizza and (pasteurized) milk every meal with perfect digestion & elimination. And the fact that my health has gotten better and better by eating a high-everything diet shows that there is no reason to give any thought to quality except with regards to your own ability of digestion and elimination and spirits and energy and so forth. More important than food quality is having a mix of fat and carbs and not worrying as much about protein (you simply won't crave it when you are eating properly, allowing you to eat much cheaper and still be healthier than you've ever been). The truth is we don't need that many nutrients to thrive and most people are not deficient in any nutrients. They are deficient in stable energy to use those nutrients, provided by unlimited fat and carbs (starches and eventually unrefined sugars can be used freely as the person heals)..
Chloe, do you know how much protein you are eating? The emphasis on protein by body-builders and low-carb dieters is a total disaster. The emphasis should be upon fat and carbs, which spare protein and improve digestion and metabolism & health. Eating tons of meat or eggs of fish does nothing to make you healthier and that is the biggest dirty secret of the stupid low-carb gurus. None of them look very muscular or healthy. They are pudgy and over-weight. The Kitavans are leaner than Eades / Atkins ever thought about being and you can be just as lean by eating high-fat and high-carb. since it would just speed up your metabolism. I think that body-builders have a low metabolism, contrary to Matt's beliefs. They exercise constantly, which lowers metabolism. They eat high protein which lowers metabolism. They eat low-fat OR low-carb, which lowers metabolism. What makes them muscular is that they eat a lot and exercise a lot and probably use illegal drugs as well. They have a high metabolism only because they have more muscle than normal people. Pound for pound they have a slow metabolism IMO, like the sumo wrestlers. I mean, Sonya Thomas could eat more than any of them and stay ballerina-thin even with less muscle mass and no exercise. So I think it's clear they have a low metabolism. Body-builders are a paradox. By eating all the time and exercising a lot, they have more muscle and burn more calories, but pound for pound Takeru Kobayashi or someone like that burns more.
I’ve been lowering it; I’m going to shoot for like 6 or 7 ounces a day; that’s like, 36..40 or so grams; I can try going lower though; it seems you guys seem to be getting by on 40; guess I’ll just have to increase carbs to make it a bigger meal?
30 grams is about 4-5 ounces a day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdkyLrDpaUg
Bruce K:
I would take the other side of your $1000-bet. I don’t think your revelations will change the world of dieting(, even if they should).
Matt:
You once said fat is metabolic booster #1. Do you still think that to be true or would you say carbs are better? Or do you need say 40g carbs per meal to get the best out of the fat (metabolicwise)?
LOL i like this “eat everything” diet because i ate this way my whole life and do not have any health problems…
"The emphasis should be upon fat and carbs, which spare protein and improve digestion and metabolism & health. Eating tons of meat or eggs of fish does nothing to make you healthier and that is the biggest dirty secret of the stupid low-carb gurus."
I can't believe it took me so long to figure that out. we all knew that fat and carbs are the fuel, protein is the builder; yet for some reason there was still major focus on protein. This really explains my weight plateau, once I start adding more fuel than building material I hope I can start losing again! My metabolism was at a place where I started losing immediately when I started Schwarzbein; so I hope the effects are just as drastic with high starch.
eesakas,
Increase your starch, but don’t forget to add the saturated fat with it, it really WORKS!!!
I was really scared too… i was a carbaphobe, and also had gluten phobia that i created in my own mind. I am only getting leaner, but at the same weight of 159lbs and height at 5’9. In earlier posts like i said, since starting this a month ago like bruce i went from 165 to where i am!!
Yesterday i got up in the morning and made traditional pancakes, flour, eggs, cream, butter, cooked then slathered them with more butter, and grade b maple syrup. Two hours later i ate a breakfast burrito. Three hours later i ate a monster roast beef and cheese sandwich made with foccacia bread. Then i went on this killer hike to a waterfall, and jumped off cliffs and swam all afternoon, followed by laying on the rocks in the desert sun. Then i drank 16oz of 100% apple cider juice. Then we went into town and i had a super big beef, bean, cheese, rice, burrito. I had regular bowel movements all day, and then this morning… and i feel even tighter and skinnier today!!
I had half n half with some rice puffs and coconut flakes this morning… i used to be so afraid of cereals… i am probably going to keep my meals light today… i don’t even want to think about food. i have all the energy i want now!!
well.. the surf is good this morning so i gotta go, i hope everyone is doing well!!
troy
Thanks chloe and troy! This is starting to sound less scary…
But my big question is, what about insulin? I thought things like white flour and pasta raise insulin, the fat building hormone…
Insulin does more then store fat; I think it has the choice to either store calories or use them (like, building muscle for example; or bones, or cell membranes).
Does anyone know what dictates how insulin is used? More specifically…how to get it to not store fat and to be used by the body instead?
Only a few days to go until April Fool’s Day!
Matt,
Nice blog post, but what you wrote about Ayurveda is a misconception. Everyone is born with a unique mix of all 3 metabolic types(doshas). The balance of these can change depending on diet and lifestyle. You always were a fusion of all 3, the problem was that they were not working in a harmonious synergy, now they are. This is the whole point of Ayurveda, and seems to be in line with your experience.
Josh
Don’t worry about insulin, With all the added saturated fat eaten with whatever starch you choose will help keep insulin steady, if you just ate the pasta alone or bread alone all the time then you would be just spiking your insulin and not giving your body the fat it needs.
The ingenius idea behind the Saturated fat and starch combo is you get really good fuel/energy, and its steady all day long, the fat helps slow down the digestion of the starch, and you get feel good hormones released all day…equaling, less stress, more energy, and a feeling of satisfaction… in all aspects of life!!!!
So eat that pasta, and mix it with alot of cream sauce and butter…. eat your sourdough bread piled high with butter, and eat till your full. Then repeat when hungry again.
I just went and surfed some big waves… and the current was strong, and it was a fight to get out there sometimes, but i had more than enough energy. I will say it a again… if i was low carbing, i wouldn’t have even been able to get out i don’t think, and i would have been exhausted.
Todays lunch looks to be, sourdough rye piled high with butter, and some milk and cream to wash it back with!!!
troy
Everyone, what do you think about this article? It’s saying that higher saturated fat intake is related to diabetes and over-secretion of insulin. They don’t back it up with any studies or anything, I’m wondering how they came to this conclusion.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12867692/
Sounds like some low fat propoganda. I dismiss anything from msnbc.
Sounds plausible. But what about this:
"Rasmussen & colleagues observed no increased insulin response with the addition of 40g or 80g olive oil, but saw a significant increase with 50g & 100g butter."
http://alanaragon.com/elements-challenging-the-validity-of-the-glycemic-index.html
“Increase your starch, but don’t forget to add the saturated fat with it, it really WORKS!!!”
Most people have never really done that. They either ate low-fat or low-carb, but not starch and fat with some protein. Or they avoided saturated fat and used some garbage like margarine. Then they blamed fat or carbs for the problem. Diet gurus have messed up everyone’s eating so they think they need pounds of meat a day, or tasteless low-fat food. There is no rule that you can’t be healthy on high-starch and high-fat with some occasional simple sugars (preferably unrefined). Health is being able to thrive on many foods and combinations. You’re never going to get that by cutting out macronutrients and food groups, i.e. by “dieting.” Dieting just weaken digesiton, slows metabolism, causes food allergies and intolerances, and so forth. “Eating well” is the only way to get healthy, not dieting. Having occasional treats or eating restaurant food should be pleasurable and healthy, but the gurus have made it unhealthy by instilling fear in people. What you do occasionally doesn’t destroy health. It is what you do habitually.
“Foods that should have a low GI due to their high fat content do not always have a low GI. Examples are fries, cookies, croissants, and doughnuts. Incidentally, these foods also have a high insulin index, presumably because their fat is mostly saturated.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12867692/
This passage shows MSNBC’s bias. How are doughnuts and cookies and fries high in saturated fat? More like PUFAs and trans fats. Even the croissants were probably not made with butter. Like Scott, I have no respect for the media. They generally lie and distort things.
you’re right, thanks. I feel alot better
“I don’t think your revelations will change the world of dieting(, even if they should).”
They’re not my revelations, but Matt and Schwarzbein and others. My revelation is that you will improve your digestion and metabolism by challenging it with things like fiber and carbs, like exercise. The diet gurus think that everything is just insulin or calories or carbs or fat, but how many of them look healthy? To me, an inidividual with good health should be able to eat whole grains, fiber, and so on without distress. Cutting out foods isn’t hte solution. Eating properly is. And as Schwarzbein says, eating well is high-everything, not cutting out foods or limiting macro-nutrients, but eating in the right balance. Many people could improve their health by eating starches, but they’ve bought the diet guru’s lies that carbs are fattehning – based on a bunch of people eating doughnuts, fried food, cookies, and sodas every day.
This is what annoys me. Like Bruce said, Carbs are now automatically doughnuts, fried food, cookies and soda. People ate good carbs and Sat. fat for thousands of years without any problems. I am reading Guns,Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. He goes into deatail about when grain and farming were introduced into early human populations.
Did you know that the majority of lambs are electrocuted during slaughter? They are electrocuted with more than 200 Volts to knock them unconscious before they have their necks slit open.
Most beef on the other hand is just killed by a strong physical shot to the head.
Does anyone know if electrifying affects the quality of the meat.. does it damage enzymes, vitamins, mineral?
Anonymous, I think you’re strongly missing the point.
I know it is off topic.. But can someone please answer me?
A
If we were exclusive plant eaters we would still be chimps.
Matt and Bruce, can you make heads or tails of this study?
http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/104/6/741.pdf
Thanks
Before I get to the main point of this post, I would like to add the caveat that at one time I had a lot of admiration for Charles Washington, and moreover I was almost convinced for a while that a zero-carb, high fat diet may indeed be the optimal human diet. This is no longer the case: I think Charles Washington is a dogmatic low-fat convert (I think it was Bruce who pointed out once that Charles has the fervor of a true convert) who refuses to listen to any other evidence other than what he belives supports his "all muscle meat plus fat" diet- the same goes for his "merry band" of followers; 'tis sad indeed to see how close-minded they are. As a demonstration of what I am talking about read this thread that mentions
the Kitavans
http://forum.zeroinginonhealth.com/showthread.php'tid=736&page=6&highlight=kitavan.
This discussion goes on for another couple a pages, and frankly many of the comments are asinine.
Futhermore, as far as diet goes- well, I can't beleive that at one point I almost fell for the line that it is the optimal human diet. By what standard? one might ask, and indeed no answer is forthcoming. Many of the alleged heath benefits that Charles and his minions observe have been achieved by people who reduced their intake of vegetable oils and refined sugars. Just ask any of the "zerocarbage" bunch about the Kitivan's, for example, and see them try to rationalize it away as shown above; it's amusing and terribly tragic at the same time. In short, given the weight of evidence it would be irrational and evasive on my part to believe that zero-carb, or even low-carb, is an "optimal" way of eating.
That said, here is a discussion on the zero-carb forum about Matt's post, where not one commenter cared to address the substantial parts of Matt's post-
http://forum.zeroinginonhealth.com/showthread.php'tid=1652&page=1.
Talk about a bunch of blind sheep missing the point! I guess they are safe from their blind shepard, Charles, though, because he mostly eats beef, not lamb. Ha!
That said, I must confess that I have my doubts about the "High Everything" diet but I am definitely going to give it a try and see how it goes. From a metabolic point of view it does make sense, and I can remember in my early 20's that I followed this kind of diet by default (not design) and stayed slim and in good health. It wasn't until I started pigging out almost daily on fries, chips, candy and pop in my mid-twenies that my weight became an issue. In short, I have first hand anecdotal evidence from my early 20's that it does work as long as you don't eat lots of vegetable oils and refined sugars. (I lost most of my excess "baggage" on a zero-carb diet, I am just looking for healthy, wholesome way to keep it off and I don't think zero-carb fits the bill.)
P.S. Sorry for the rambling post, sometimes I do that, especially when annoyed by dogmatic dieters such as zero-carbers.
Pooti,
I hate to play mr. obvious, but we ain’t rats–not by a long shot.
“Michael,
Are you taking a seasonal approach? I read a book called the 3-season diet. It’s mostly meat and root vegetables in the winter, fish and leafy veggies in the spring, and grains, veggies and fruit in the summer. Interesting but not enough meat for me (although in Michigan our winters are 6 months long.”
Not really. My eating habits are largely based on the calendar of the spiritual tradition I am a part of, although I guess it looks somewhat seasonal and I like to eat foods that are in season. What you describe in particular above I would never want to do. I like meat too much and really don’t care a whole lot for veggies unless they are in a salad loaded with cheese, avocado, and macadamia oil :-)
Bruce said, “I bet anyone $1,000 that you will hear about this diet on every talk show, day time or night time, within one year. I have found the greatest secret to diets ever – none of them work.”
Bet.
Others have already touted “the greatest secret to diets ever – none of them work” and still their message is not very familiar.
http://www.amazon.com/Diets-Dont-Work-Naturally-Diet-Free/dp/0942540166
Ideas die hard. There will be some people who will find your message attractive, but most people will still be listening to the mainstream message a year from now.
I don’t get it. Doesn’t the typical bagel have high fructose corn syrup or PUFAs. And the McDonalds bun has the same stuff. And are the burgers eaten with ketchup or just plain.
I like the idea, but it’s not really high everything if it doesn’t include everything. There are still restrictions. You still have to read labels.
“I don’t get it. Doesn’t the typical bagel have high fructose corn syrup or PUFAs. And the McDonalds bun has the same stuff. And are the burgers eaten with ketchup or just plain.”
It would be better to avoid things like ketchup and mayonnaise, IMO, but it is possible to find bread without PUFAs or HFCS or hydrogenated oils. A high ratio of starch to sugar is best. Fixing your own food, like rice or potatoes, is the safest option. Don’t eat the same food everyday either. I usually eat in local restaurants, not chains. I try to find food with little or no sugar, PUFAs, or other garbage. By starting the day with plenty of starch and saturated fat, and some protein, I’m satisfied longer like Troy. Breakfast should probably be the biggest meal of the day.
I do find that works the best too bruce… eating the biggest meal of the day for breakfast, then i usually taper off throughout the rest of the day, I don’t even feel like eating past about 5pm. I sleep alot better. You could also do like Martin B. from leangains, and place your biggest meal after a workout or a day out hiking. This way of eating really makes anything possible, i can plan my days around special occasions, or eating out with friends, and i can deal with holidays easy now!! If you have the time, prepare your own meals at home, where you know all the ingredients. Bruce also said if you like fruits and juices, natural sugars, you could do that the majority of the time, followed by eating starch intermentantly. I personally feel best eating starch and fat most of the time, i have never been a real sugar addict, except the occasional ice cream, cheesecake, fresh juice or 100% juice, so thats what i eat on my high calorie days. It would be best to choose local restraunts that use mostly natural ingredients, but if thats not an option, oh well, make the best with what you got. There are sooo many ways you can do this, and its just using your instincts what feels right to you… if you like 5 small meals a day, go for it, maybe you like three solid meals aday, or you could eat your biggest meal in the morning, or eat your biggest meal at night, maybe you could do all of them depending on what your schedule looks like for the week ahead.
The reason i fell off my low carb diets most of the time was due to the lack of variety, low energy, cravings, and so forth. This way of eating has opened up all the doors. I hardly ever eat the same thing in a row anymore, which i would do on a diet, because it was easier just to keep eating the same things over and over again, it was safer, i knew the macro nutrient profile…. but now thats all out the window, and also counting calories. I go out for burgers sometimes, or pizza, or just stay at home and make mashed potatoes, rice, or pasta, whatever i want. Just keep your saturated fat in take high, which is really easy… i could never get tired of all the different kinds of saturated fat… butter, cheese cream, milk, coconut oil, milk, cream, tallow, steak, and anything cooked with these.
Yesterday, one of my co-workers said i was just way to happy lately… i told him thats because i can eat a burrito if i want, bread and butter, steak and mashed potatoes, two in n out burgers, pancakes, or whatever i want and my metabolism keep cranking and i keep getting leaner effortlessly… just by eating most of the time. Another co worker said i wasn’t all stuck up anymore, hahaha… i use to turn down friends at work who would ask me to come out and eat, not anymore!!! My sex drive is restored to its original status… its off the charts…. and i guess that means my hormones must really be back in sync.
Just remember the golden rules… stay away from PUFA’s, Refined sugars, fad diets, diet gurus, and the rest should fall into place.
I hope everyone is doing well!
troy
The basic premise behind a diet that is both high in starch and fat is really very simple. Protein is building material. Fat and carbohydrates are fuel. The more carbs you eat, the more efficiently you burn the fat as fuel. This is the reason to avoid ketosis like the plague.
Yes Bruce. I think the lower the diet is in protein by percentage, the more metabolically-stimulating it will be to a point. At some point, too little protein (a true lack), can also slow down the metabolism.
What is a double-edged sword is that the higher the diet is in energy (fat and carbs), the more material there is to build fat. In the short term, many will gain fat before they heal their metabolism. So again, the focus should be on long-term health.
It’s no different really from going out and exercising for the first time in a while and getting relaly sore. It’s not a sign that exercise is bad for you, but that you are out of shape. Better to keep at it until you can exercise without getting sore than avoid exercise to keep from getting sore. The same applies to this high-fat, higher-starch concept.
Eesakas,
You might gain a little when adding more starch, but it is temporary. Adding more starch will certainly help your long-term goals, including raise your metabolism high enough to be able to get really lean intermittently if you need to.
As far as insulin goes, carbohydrates make it temporarily rise. This is normal and healthy and nothing to get upset about. Insulin resistance is a totally different animal that causes chronic high levels, health problems, weight gain, increased hunger, etc. Carbohydrates and acute rises in insulin do not cause that. Insulin going up and down is as normal as your chest rising and falling when you breath, or your heart pumping blood in and out.
Although it’s not certain what causes insulin resistance, much evidence points to a low metabolism, which can be caused by any number of things (caffeine, refined sugar, heredity, nutrient deficiency, protein excess or deficiency, chemicals, etc.)
Thus, revving up the metabolism can overcome insulin resistance. The best weapons? Calories from saturated fats and carbohydrates. Starch is only a better option becuase those with a low metabolism tend to have hypoglycemic reactions from simple sugars, huge increases in appetite, and no corresponding increase in metabolic rate.
Pooti,
To answer your question – no. I can’t really make sense out of it. Plus, I don’t see any sign of relevance. I certainly wouldn’t eat 34% of calories as crystalline fructose though.
Matt, I think we’ve got a winner here. I have some people on my group who are now going to try the high-everything diet. A woman on thyroid medications who used to get severe hypoglycemia has now said her blood sugar never goes too low, and she feels much better, and her digestion has improved. I had a slight hiccup yesterday. I gained a few pounds from the day before, because I made the mistake of eating some White Castle burgers with friends. Also, I yawned a few times and felt slightly depressed. When I ate some rice and vegetables and meat, I felt much better. Now my weight has gone down almost to where it was a few days ago.
If you eat fast food, I would say it is best to avoid the ketchup. Throw out 1/2 the bread and combine two cheeseburgers into one. That’s what I did when I ate at Wendy’s and McDonald’s several weeks ago, when I was just getting started on the HE diet. I would throw out the top bun with the ketchup (HFCS) and combine the two bottom buns with just the bread and cheese to make a single burger. So, I”d order like 4-6 burgers and combine them to make 3-4 burgers. That’s better than eating the toxic ketchup, IMO. Of course, there are still traces of it on the cheese, but you can wipe that off with a napkin of something.
I think this diet is going to blow away Schwarzbein, because like Chloe has said it’s just far more aggressive. She says her temperature is now over 98 everyday. She’s gone from hypothyroid to normal in just a few days of high-everything. Now we are really rolling. This is going to change everything. Trust me.
“So, I”d order like 4-6 burgers and combine them to make 3-4 burgers.”
That should be 2-3 burgers. Bad math…
I notice my temperature’s always above 98.5 or there if I eat until I’m really full; and if there’s saturated fat and carbs involved; at least it’s being consistent like that the past few days – whenever I’m full on fat n carbs, it’s pretty much never let me down. If I don’t eat enough though it can easily get low. Just in case anyone wanted to try out that theory.
"Thus, revving up the metabolism can overcome insulin resistance. The best weapons? Calories from saturated fats and carbohydrates. Starch is only a better option becuase those with a low metabolism tend to have hypoglycemic reactions from simple sugars, huge increases in appetite, and no corresponding increase in metabolic rate."
Once you heal, I think you could mix and match starches and unrefined sugars (ex: orange or grapefruit juice). Ray Peat is fond of sugars, like fruit and honey and so forth – even small amounts of refined sugar might be OK if you are eating well most of the time. Once you heal, there's more flexibility. I had double espresso on Saturday with milk & cream & sugar. I felt the same as I had before. There was no stimulant effect or blood sugar spike or blood sugar crash. So the next day, I tried having 3 of the double espressos & milk and cream & sugar, and I had stable calm energy with no spikes or crashes. I have healed my metabolism to an extreme. Now I'm not afraid of anything. I could eat anywhere and make smart choices with whatever was around and even have some occasional ice cream or coffee with milk and cream and sugar. Nothing scares me.
UPDATE: I’ve been eating high-starch, high-fat, moderate protein for the past three days and feel like my IBS symptoms are getting to be less and less. I also starting taking artichoke leaf, which may be responsible for the improvements as well.
In the mornings, I’ve been measuring my basal body temperature (armpit) and it’s been steadily rising from 97.6 on the first day to 97.8 today. Ideal body temperature is between 97.8 and 98.2, right? So this is a really good sign! I’m hoping that I’ll get even closer to 98.2 (maybe even 98.6) degrees in the days to come.
My mood and energy is stable, too. I played ultimate frisbee yesterday and felt great …
“I had a slight hiccup yesterday. I gained a few pounds from the day before, because I made the mistake of eating some White Castle burgers with friends. Also, I yawned a few times and felt slightly depressed. When I ate some rice and vegetables and meat, I felt much better.”
Do you think that the excess wheat is affecting you, Bruce? I’m not brave enough enough yet to toy with gluten. Last time I had bread didn’t turn out well.
“If you eat fast food, I would say it is best to avoid the ketchup. Throw out 1/2 the bread and combine two cheeseburgers into one.”
So, you’re basically saying to minimize fructose and wheat? In other words: sugar and white flour? I can understand why, as these two foods seem to have detrimental metabolic effects.
I would definitely be careful with wheat until you’re healed. If you have to eat fast food, combine two burgers into one, throw out half the bread (the top piece with the ketchup and HFCS). I had pretty good elimination yesterday morning after eating White Castles the night before. I will eventually get to the point where I can eat six pieces of gluten bread in a meal with no digestive problems, but I’m not quite there yet. I have improved by 100-fold from a month ago, though. Like I said, when I first started eating food like cheeseburgers once a week, I had a lot of messy stools. But they got better and better and so did my overall energy, digestion, body temperature, etc. I have turned my health around 180 degrees like Matt said. You should definitely be careful with gluten and combine several burgers (like 2-3) into one, throwing out the top bun with the ketchup and so forth and wiping any remaining ketchup away with a napkin. Gluten and HFCS are not anything to play around with, until you have really healed fully. And even then, they should be used sparingly and combined with lots of fat and protein.
The one thing I noticed eating this way is that I can drink milk again. Not sure why I ever stopped drinking it,must have been my low fat phase.
“Protein is building material. Fat and carbohydrates are fuel. The more carbs you eat, the more efficiently you burn the fat as fuel. This is the reason to avoid ketosis like the plague.”
Does anyone know of any studies that prove this in some way? I’m trying to debate this with some other people but I’m coming up short on scientific evidence (which is usually faulty anyway)as opposed to these lovely anecdotes, which their stupid asses choose to deny.
“What is a double-edged sword is that the higher the diet is in energy (fat and carbs), the more material there is to build fat. In the short term, many will gain fat before they heal their metabolism. So again, the focus should be on long-term health.”
I wouldn’t call it a double-edged sword, because the advantage is that you heal a lot faster too. Yes, you might gain lots of weight very quickly, but you would be stabilized quickly and then start losing quickly. This is Schwarzbein on steroids or the Kitava/Tokelau/PukaPuka Diet with some major enhancements. I think this is going to blow people away when they see how fast it improves their digestion, food tolerance, body temp, metabolism, etc. They will get to a point where they can eat 10 different foods at once with perfect digestion, energy, and mood. And that is the ultimate healing.
Hey Harper, the people you’re discussing with; what do they say that you can’t respond to to make them convinced?
"So, you're basically saying to minimize fructose and wheat? In other words: sugar and white flour? I can understand why, as these two foods seem to have detrimental metabolic effects."
I think the HFCS is more the problem, as I'm able to eat Taco Bell bean burritos without any problems. Fast food has more HFCS than Mexican food usually. The good fast food places, like Steak & Shake, or In-N-Out are probably much better, too.
Here’s what they’re saying, Chloe: (Brace yourself for some stupid shit, everyone)
“And only carbs can be consumed in huge quantities. You only overeat fat in the context of a carby meal. You can induce insulin resistance and obesity with a high-fat low-carb diet, but that’s just it: you have to induce it; it almost never occurs naturally.
All the best research on low-carb diets done in the twentieth century came to one communal conclusion: low-carb low-calorie diets satisfy the appetite, and low-fat low-calorie diets do not.”
“It’s just that, high-fiber diets don’t necessarily imply low-fat diets. Let’s assume that high-fiber does indeed improve insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome: you don’t have to have a low-fat diet to eat a lot of fiber.
Low-carb diets have also shown to improve insulin sensitivity and fasting insulin. Maybe, then, the best diet for insulin sensitivity is a low-digestible carb, yet high-fiber, diet.”
“I put it to you guys that anyone who eats real food, not junk, and takes into account their personal allergies/sensitivities will have great leaps in their health. Add in a dash of common sense (don’t slather your potato in olive oil or use 2 huge chunks of butter with your rice). Then there is no need for the low carb and high carb debates. Is there really the necessity to base diets on macronutrients, when micronutrients are clearly more important to consider?”
“And if we are really seeking nutrients with less consideration of macronutrients, we probably are doing ourselves a favor if we add less butter/olive oil to our carbs in favor of adding them to salads or greens, so as to maximize nutrient absorption. So we are using oil both as a nutrient absorption enhancer and as a taste enhancer, not solely as the latter.”
I checked and none of the food that I eat at Taco Bell has HFCS at all – the beans, tortillas, red sauce, cheese, and onions. There is some partially hydrogenated oil, but probably not a great deal. And I feel much better with Taco Bell bean burritos than McDonald’s or Wendy’s cheeseburgers with the ketchup (HFCS). I think the main problem is HFCS. Do your research and so not eat ANYTHING that contains HFCS for optimal results. It’s better to eat like 5-7g of sugar in a meal than 2g of HFCS.
"And only carbs can be consumed in huge quantities. You only overeat fat in the context of a carby meal. You can induce insulin resistance and obesity with a high-fat low-carb diet, but that's just it: you have to induce it; it almost never occurs naturally."
Nobody has "induced insulin resistance" by feeding starches / unrefined natural sugars. They used refined sugar and esp high fructose corn syrup or crystalline fructose to cause those results.
"All the best research on low-carb diets done in the twentieth century came to one communal conclusion: low-carb low-calorie diets satisfy the appetite, and low-fat low-calorie diets do not."
This is simply off-topic, because we're not saying eat a low-fat or low-calorie diet. We're saying to eat HIGH starches, HIGH fat, HIGH calories, and LOW sugars preferably with no HFCS at all. A small amount of refined sucrose maybe safe as in bread and tortillas, but for optimal results don't eat anything with HFCS in it, like ketchup and many breads at the stores. Avoid HFCS like the plague, and preferably avoid refined sugar too, but small amounts in bread are probably OK, as long as you eat high starch and high fat and moderate protein, and plenty of calories. All the comments are clueless and irrelevant to what we're discussing here, which is NOT low-fat or calories.
"Add in a dash of common sense (don't slather your potato in olive oil or use 2 huge chunks of butter with your rice). Then there is no need for the low carb and high carb debates. Is there really the necessity to base diets on macronutrients, when micronutrients are clearly more important to consider?"
This is another clueless comment. You're not going to improve unless you eat high starch AND high-fat (preferably coconut, butter, whole milk, cream, half-&-half, beef fat, lamb fat, moderate amounts of pork or lard, macadamia oil, olive oil, and so forth). Calories don't count when the metabolism is healthy. You could eat 50% fat, 10% protein, and 40% carbs, and rapidly improve your health to where you could maintain a healthy weight without effort. Most people would rather just go with stupid fad diets that promise fast results and most often ruin digestion & metabolism & health, causing allergies & food intolerances, for example. I'm now able to eat any combination of foods and have perfect digestion, as long as I do not eat high-fructose corn syrup (which is uniquely damaging, IMO).
Bruce, I know! Those were all quotes from the dumbasses that I’m arguing with in another health forum. I fully advocate the high-everything and I’m trying to prove them wrong, I’m not trying to be off topic.
No, I mean their comments are off-topic, not yours. You should just tell them the diet is high-starch, high-fat, moderate protein, high-calories, and low sugars – preferably NO high fructose corn syrup.
For best results, AVOID all foods which contain high fructose corn syrup in the ingredients – ketchup, and bread usually contain it, esp at places like Wendy's & McDonald's. Taco Bell has a lot of food without HFCS, but some of their items to contain it, so check their website and research every food and its ingredients. But the bean burritos on their $1 menu are safe – no HFCS and very small levels of sugar (refined sucrose). I feel much better with that then foods that contain HFCS, like the ketchup at McDonald's or Wendy's. Like Matt, I think that refined crystalline fructose (as found in HFCS) is uniquely toxic and damaging. That was probably the main reason for the rapid deterioration of Morgan Spurlock's health – he drank massive amounts of soft drinks and ketchup and bread which contained HFCS. I could eat McDonald's every day and lose weight by removing the top bun and ketchup, combining two burgers into one (with no ketchup), and avoiding the sodas and french fries and milk shakes and desserts totally. Morgan SPurlock is a fricking idiot and so is his vegan girl-friend who has convinced him that fast food is bad because of the meat and cheese and bread. The biggest problem is the ketchup, the soft drinks, french fries, milk-shakes, and desserts.
Ask them why the people in the world today who are living off a majority of carbs or saturated fats are slim. Do a reverse and make them explain to you why they’re right, rather then them just plainly thinking that it’s obvious fats are bad, like they seem to be doing. Ask them, “do you know what saturated fat is?” Such as the bond it makes. Ask them why exactly it causes any disease, especially since the people eating it in large amounts, such as France, have 2nd lowest CHD in the world, which supposedly is something it’s ‘linked’ to. There are plenty of other examples, too, not just France. Like the Masai; heavy milk and blood drinkers.
And then, once you’re like, super woman, ask them when you’re going to kiel over from so much fat poisoning you. :)
Also, ask them how any of their fat-soluble vitamins get absorbed without any fat at all. And ask them why, if they eat carbs over fat anyway, their body would try to convert any carbs into cholesterol or saturated fat. Then go on to explain that breast milk is extremely high in cholesterol and Arachidonic Acid; both found in meat, dairy, and eggs (animal products), naturally.
That’s just the jist of it. But it’d be interesting to see what they said in response.
I have the perfect diet out of all of you!
I eat 100% raw. Raw animal foods (2/3 fatty muscle meat and 1/3 organs) from grassfed certified organic animals – bison, beef, lamb, goat – and truly wild animals from unpolluted environments. Everything I eat is fresh and unfrozen. I drink grassfed organic animal blood occasionally. Raw certified organic goat milk once per week. Non-sweet, highglucose/low fructose fruit: wild berries or such. Organic coconut oil obsessionally. Fish I almost never eat and when I do it’s wild caught from clean waters. Raw organic grassfed goat butter occasionally.
I WIN!
thanks, chloe! Don’t worry, I won the debate!! :)
“Ask them why the people in the world today who are living off a majority of carbs or saturated fats are slim.”
Yes! They were talking about how the Kitavans ate a diet exclusively of carbs. I pointed out to them that the large amounts of coconut meat they ate has 24g of saturated fat per cup, and once they realized that the Kitavans had been eating high-fat high-carb all along, they figured out that I was onto something. Victory! Thanks peeps.
Anonymous: “I WIN!”
No, you lose. Because you can’t eat with freedom anywhere at any time, and remain healthy, with perfect digestion, energy, mood, and so forth. My metabolism is now so fast that I can drink orange juice or grapefruit juice and have perfect energy and digestion. Try doing that. Also make sure they are pasteurized NFC. And drink some pasteurized milk and see if you get perfect digestion every time, like I do.
WHY Would I eat or drink anything with toxins or anything heated above 100 degrees?? It’s just plain stupid.
BRUCE try drinking 3 quarts of fluoridated water straight from the tap every day.. See how strong that makes you..
My health keeps getting better and better by eating cooked foods, high-starch, high fat, moderate protein, no “high fructose corn syrup”, and very little PUFA oils or partially hydrogenated oils. When do you think my health is going to get worse? I agree that fluoridated water is probably best avoided, along with chlorinated H2O. But that doesn’t prove that raw foods are the best or that cooked food is harmful.
Anonymous, if eating that cleanly is what makes you happy then go for it, but that’s not what this discussion is about…
Thanks Matt!
Wow, things are started to click for me here, I think I may have to up the starch!
Harper and Chloe, I love hearing your stories…I think we are all relatively the same age and weight (and female)! Thanks for the motivation!
Oh and Troy, will you marry me?? (J/K!) Thanks for the advice as well!
Scott: “The one thing I noticed eating this way is that I can drink milk again. Not sure why I ever stopped drinking it,must have been my low fat phase.”
Dieting, as in cutting out food groups or macro-nutrients, weakens metabolism and digestion and health. Eating ie Exercise for Digestion and Metabolism. You can eat in a way to build up your health (high starch, high saturated fat, high MUFA, low PUFA, moderate protein, and low sugars). Stay away from HFCS as much as possible. If you must eat fast food, remove the top bun with the ketchup and combine 2 burgers into one. Ask them not to put ketchup on the food if possible. Double the meat and cheese by combining burgers or asking them to combine them for you. High fructose corn syrup is the devil, along with high PUFA oils and other garbage.
Thanks Eesakas! I’m glad there’s a small female following on here!
“I WIN! “
What is winning, anyway? Anyone can win if their definition of winning is different from someone else’s. Obviously if these were people trying to eat all raw, then yes, you would have won; unfortunately that’s not the goal, so it’s great you’ve won in your own mind; but no one here probably sees you as the winner of anything except incompetence.
“Harper and Chloe, I love hearing your stories…I think we are all relatively the same age and weight (and female)! Thanks for the motivation!”
:)
Thanks Bruce
I am doing great on HE! Next week I will be eating all my lunches at a place called Earth Fare. They claim that none of the food they sell has HFCS, Trans fat or Hormones.
The Link
http://www.earthfare.com/
I am going to try this. I don’t see a lot of females posting great results with these types of “diets” so I hope it works. I love your blog by the way, Matt.
A-Raw-Nymous,
We’re shooting for perfect health, not the perfect diet. We’re just talking strategy for overturning an imbalance, and Taco Bell may have some advantages that your diet does not have.
Number of groups Weston A. Price found eating 100% raw diets – 0
Number of groups Weston A. Price found eating part raw, part cooked diets – 14
We have a winner: 14-0
Eating all raw is not mandatory for good health. It’s only logical to assume it’s suboptimal if primitive humans didn’t eat that way. They relied purely on instinct, which is rarely wrong.
Harper,
Glad they came around. That fat and protein are used more efficiently for fuel than protein is very basic science. Oxidized fatty acids and glucose are our basic bodily fuels. Protein can only become fuel if converted to glucose, and that is a very inefficient process – perhaps one reason why a low-carb diet that is high in protein causes drastic weight loss and hypothyroidism – it functions like calorie restriction.
Hunger and calories don’t fundamentally have anything to do with the overall problem. You can be hungry all the time and eat constantly and be thin or fat and vice versa. Researchers don’t find any correlation between calories ingested or hunger levels and obesity because there is none.
The long-term manifestations of high-proten, low carb is an ever-lowering metabolism and the negative consequences of that, including but not limited to fat storage, muscle loss, sleep problems, infertility, constipation, indigestion, cramping, hair loss, and other famous low-carb problems.
The problem is not carbs or even insulin, but a low metabolism. I think the low metabolism causes the insulin resistance – either directly or indirectly. Even Atkins admitted on page 313 of Dr. Atkins new diet Revolution that low-carbing tends to “slow down the thyroid.”
Low thyroid equals high cholesterol, heart disease, weak immunity, high blood fats, body fat, and more. Simply having a low metabolism stunts muscle development and promotes fat storage. It’s quite simple. If metabolism is low there is shortage, and in a shortage situation the body favors fat storage over muscle development because muscle requires more metabolic fuel – which is in short supply.
That is the future result of eating a low carb diet. A puffy, fluffy body with health problems like Eades, Atkins, and other devotees. Charles Washington looks more and more like a concentration camp victim every day with those dark, dark, deathly circles under his eyes. Pain sitting on chairs? Dear God, someone make him stop. Actually don’t, painful lessons are always the best kind. I wouldn’t trade mind for the world. Mmmm, soy formula.
How is a person with celiac disease or other intolerances or allergies supposed to go about the High Everything Diet? I mean if someone has a severe allergic reaction just by eating a small portion of peanuts, dairy, gluten, etc. how are they supposed to introduce this back into there diet?
“How is a person with celiac disease or other intolerances or allergies supposed to go about the High Everything Diet? I mean if someone has a severe allergic reaction just by eating a small portion of peanuts, dairy, gluten, etc. how are they supposed to introduce this back into there diet?”
These problems are caused by malnutrition IMO – i.e. dieting. Peter on HyperLipid’s a great example. He blames gluten for all his problems, but look what he was actually eating when the problems developed – a diet low in fat soluble vitamins. He describes one of his “healthy” snacks as whole wheat bread, peanut butter, and a banana. It is obvious to see how that diet is not consistent with the dieting described here, the High-Everything-Diet (HED). I think a healthy person could eat all of the gluten they want and overcome such digestive problems. But if they restrict macronutrients or cut out food groups, they will never GET healthy. So what Matt and I are thinking about is how a person can improve their digestion and ability to tolerate different foods. A high-everything diet seems like a good way to do that. Low-carb and low-fat and raw and vegan and similar diets are the best way to ruin your digestion.
“I can vaguely remember being hungry, way back before LC eating. The sort of day when you would get home at 5.30 and you HAD to have to have two doorsteps of wholemeal bread, spread with peanut butter (to avoid the saturated fats) and filled with a sliced banana, because there was NO WAY you could wait the hour it was going to take you to get supper ready.” (Peter’s health food diet is a very good way to cause celiac, IMO. The high-everything diet WON’T cause celiac because you are eating the animal fats and proteins WITH the gluten, unlike a “dieter” who is cutting out animal fats and eating a defective diey like Peter). Basically, the fear of gluten is simply another pathological phobia.
Diabetes and Hunger
eesakas,
we can get married at the heart attack grill when we all meet there to order everything off the menu! ha!
troy
I like peters hyperlipid blog , but he doesn’t look the healthiest, and there is no variety in his diet at all… he looks pretty bored… but i don’t know him personally, so i shouldn’t make judgement.
I have followed Art De vAny for along time now, and it bothers me when he gives no good explanation for cutting out dairy. He claims not to shun saturated fats but he does. When someone mentions Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, and the high starch consumption alot of the tribes had, he won’t respond. I think anyone would lose weight on his program from just his advice on intermintent training…. but it seems like your running on too much adrenal on his diet, and pretty soon, i don’t think you would have the energy to do that on his program… unless you drank coffee before your workout… but that doesn’t work anymore, i have been there and done that.
Its true… if your healthy you should be able to eat any food combination. I am really going to have the true test when i visit all my friends up in portland in a couple weeks… alcohol, coffee, and anything else is back in for a few days!!
all hail the high everything way of life! I am still in euphoria from eating this way!
I hope everyone had a great day!
troy
Matt said
“The problem is not carbs or even insulin, but a low metabolism. I think the low metabolism causes the insulin resistance – either directly or indirectly. Even Atkins admitted on page 313 of Dr. Atkins new diet Revolution that low-carbing tends to “slow down the thyroid.”
Low thyroid equals high cholesterol, heart disease, weak immunity, high blood fats, body fat, and more. Simply having a low metabolism stunts muscle development and promotes fat storage. It’s quite simple. If metabolism is low there is shortage, and in a shortage situation the body favors fat storage over muscle development because muscle requires more metabolic fuel – which is in short supply.
That is the future result of eating a low carb diet. A puffy, fluffy body with health problems like Eades, Atkins, and other devotees. Charles Washington looks more and more like a concentration camp victim every day with those dark, dark, deathly circles under his eyes. Pain sitting on chairs? Dear God, someone make him stop. Actually don’t, painful lessons are always the best kind. I wouldn’t trade mind for the world. Mmmm, soy formula”
Thanks for esplaining the metabolism in laymans terms. The moment I finshed Hypothyroidism The Unsuspecting Illness I startd to realize that the “Insulin controls everything” story was bullshit. That is why Taubes never mentions Broda O. Barnes work in GCBC.Broda treated what, 1500+ patients over 30+ years for low thyroid.
As for CW, the man has hung his hat on Taubes book which has holes big enough in it to drive a truck through. GT writes for the New York Times which is the equivalent of the National Enquirer IMO.
Art DeVany is a lot more open minded than most diet gurus. I think he does eat some cheese and he has sweet potatoes and stuff like that, I think. So his diet is not as restrictive as low-carb, but he does shun saturated fat to some extent. He’s big on variety and eating different foods. But he emphasizes the “paleo” foods more than the neolithic and he definitely avoids grains and beans and milk. His diet is very high in PUFAs, IMO, like nuts, fish, avocados, and olive oil. I’ve also heard that Art drinks a lot of coffee, probably because his energy is reduced after years of eating paleo.
I can take or leave coffee. I would not drink it by itself, though. Make sure it has lots of milk and cream and sugar or honey. Forget the stupid people who say that coffee is not healthy if you add in milk. I say it’s not healthy by itself. ONLY drink coffee with milk and cream or half-and-half plus a few sugar cubes or a few teaspoons of honey (pref unheated honey). Death To Diets.
“As for CW, the man has hung his hat on Taubes book which has holes big enough in it to drive a truck through. GT writes for the New York Times which is the equivalent of the National Enquirer IMO.”
Another thing I noticed about Taubes was that he only mentioned Weston Price back in the Acknowledgements of his book on a single page between the Bibliography and the Index. I’d say that is a pretty good way to hide some “inconvenient” truths. Taubes has no credibility at all. He is an idiot like Eades, Atkins, Colpo, and the others pushing low-carb low-calorie or other restrictive diets. Calories don’t count. Metabolism is what makes you fat or thin, muscular or puny, etc.
Eat lots of saturated fat and starch and you will have a fast metabolism, a thin muscular body (like Matt), etc. Taubes looks pudgy in some pictures I’ve seen, giving lectures at universities and so forth. Low-carb ruins metabolism unless you eat like the Eskimo. You know how they ate? They swallowed meat without chewing, much of it raw. They stuffed themselves, they ate high calories. The Eskimos were not anorexics like Charles and his pitiful band of followers. They were big eaters. Plus, they ate lots of things that Charles doesn’t each, which might have prevented their metabolisms from slowing down. They were said to be slightly hyperthyroid by some observers.
Taubes did a good job of trying to solve the big problems. His mistake is that he came to the conclusion that there is an epidemic of carbohydrate intolerance caused by refined carbohydrates, and therefore WE SHOULD AVOID CARBOHYDRATES. We only differ in saying that we should fix that problem, not avoid it, ahem…pass the carbs.
Weston A. Price’s research was influential upon Taubes because it showed that fat could not be the culprit of modern disease epidemics, which is a damn good lesson.
Erin, here is a quote from Mary Shomon’s The Thyroid Diet (dumb book overall, don’t read it), suggesting that food allergy and gluten sensitivity is caused by a low metabolism…
“Thyroid disease seems to make people more likely to have food allergies and sensitivities (e.g., wheat, milk, cheese, eggs, soy, and citrus allergies). As a thyroid patient, you are also at greater risk of candidiasis ? yeast overgrowth ? and the sensitivity or allergy to yeast can become an impediment to effective weight loss. All of these allergies and sensitivities can cause inflammation and disrupted digestion and ultimately leaky gut/dysbiosis, which can further interfere with weight-loss efforts.
I for one know that when I do some fasting/cleansing, which slows down the metabolism considerably, when I go back to dairy it makes me itchy, snotty, and wheezy. Normally it doesn’t do this at all – it only happens when my metabolism is sub-normal.
Perhaps if you were to follow the guidance of boosting the metabolism (eat a high-fat, high-starch, high-calorie, low-sugar diet), you could overcome the intolerances. Avoid the allergenic foods at first, eating lots of rice, potatoes, or whatever you can tolerate. Once health is restored, food allergies, and all allergies for that matter, should wane considerably.
Matt Stone: "…there is an epidemic of carbohydrate intolerance caused by refined carbohydrates, and therefore WE SHOULD AVOID CARBOHYDRATES."
There is an epidemic of carb intolerance caused by refined SUGARS, esp fructose & high fructose corn syrup. I think that's significantly worse than refined sucrose based on experience. Eating too much of the fast food ketchup (or even the bread which contains HFCS) makes me feel sick, depressed, etc. If I eat fast food which doesn't contain HFCS, like bean burritos or soft tacos or cheese roll-ups at Taco Bell, I don't have any problems. I don't think wheat is really the problem – it's all the HFCS, and people eating low-fat, avoiding saturated fat, eating processed fats like margarine, etc. If you avoid HFCS like the plague, eat lots of butter and coconut oil and red meat fat, gluten intolerance would vanish, along with the lactose intolerance, etc. HIgh fructose corn syrup is uniquely damaging, IMO. It is far worse than normal sugar. I'd say at least 20 times worse. I can tolerate bread much better if it doesn't contain high fructose corn syrup, like the white flour tortillas at Taco Bell. Only five foods at Taco Bell contain high fructose corn syrup – the Caramel Apple Empanada, (plain) salsa, citrus salsa, pepper jack sauce, and pizza sauce. If I avoid those things, I have great digestion, energy, and mood. HFCS is 20x worse than refined sucrose (cane or beet sugar), IMO. That is why Morgan Spurlock's health went to hell so fast – all the damn HFCS in the bread, ketchup, soft drinks, milkshakes, and crappy desserts. If he had eaten an organic diet high in starch and fat but with no HFCS and low in refined sucrose, his health probably would have improved.
Taubes also states that the only mineral or vitamin that is in question from consuming meat only is Vitamin C. What about Iodine, it is an esential mineral.
This could explain why no carbers have a sluggish thyroid.
“Because iodine is not concentrated in muscle tissue, meat is generally not the primary source of dietary iodine for a population. One study found 2 mcg/kg of iodine in meat products, while another study found 260 mcg/kg. Once again, this disparity is due to the iodine content of the animals’ diet.”
http://www.coconutstudio.com/Iodine.htm
What about calcium or magnesium? There’s not much of either in muscle meats, like Charles is eating. All of these limiting diets mess up your digestion and health, causing food allergies and intolerances. Look at how Charles says he can’t eat an egg or he gains weight, he can’t eat any cheese or he gains weight, etc. So he is now anti-eggs and anti-dairy (including butter, which is different than cheese). He’s messed up his metabolism so bad, he had to start eating his meats more rare. He’s on a downward spiral to the land of metabolic ruin, like Dr. Dean Ornish and Robert Atkins and Michael Eades and the other self-deluded diet gurus.
Just wanted to chime and and say that my experience has been very similar to Matt, Troy, and Bruce. The best thing I have done to improve my health and performance over the past year has been to add in more starch on a regular basis. I have experimented with all the different diets and they are all pretty bad and did nothing besides teach me a lesson on what not to do.
I was very low carb for a long time, even going zero carb for several months as well. If someone wants to lose a lot of muscle mass, decrease libido, and burn out their adrenals this would be the perfect way of eating.
“Look at how Charles says he can’t eat an egg or he gains weight, he can’t eat any cheese or he gains weight, etc. So he is now anti-eggs and anti-dairy (including butter, which is different than cheese).”
He recently told a No Carb women that her Triglycerides were high because she ate eggs and cheese on occasion while on his no carb diet.
It won’t be long before he has them all drink Koolaid at a No Carb meetup.
Hello all,
Longtime reader, first time commenter… I’ve been following this discussion, which has by chance coincided with my experimention with a higher starch diet. I’m starting to see what I’d have predicted at the outset, some very subtle backpeddling and refinement of this so-called non-restrictive diet.
Such tweaks are of course to be expected, but less so when such dramatic claims are made so early and so often. Bruce, you’ve thankfully backed away from your messianic stance of a week ago, when you were claiming to have acheived a level of health unparalleled in human history. Perhaps you’re unlikely to find many people enjoying radiant health who follow blogs such as this (else why would we all be so faithfully reading along, eager to try whatever is claimed to be of benefit?), but keep in mind, however, that there are still a lot of healthy people in this world, enough that your claims at the very least strain credibility. My mother, for example, probably doesn’t know what a PUFA or HFCS is, and certainly could never tell you how much of either she consumes in a typical day’s eating, but at 60+ years old is healthier than most 40-year-olds. She eats whatever she wants, in whatever quantity satiety dictates, without any apparent symptom or sensitivity.
Now, what I’ve been waiting to see, some cracks are starting to appear… This is no longer a high everything diet, since protein is now best restricted, and since HFCS is 20x more damaging than sucrose, and it is preferable to consume 5-7g of refined sugar over 2g HFCS. I won’t even ask whence you derive these so-called “figures”, since I know with every certainty that they are perfectly arbitrary.
You’ve yet to renege on your claims of perfect health, and I don’t suspect that you ever will, even though you are reporting signs of sensitivity to bread in the amount found in a few (very small) fast food hamburgers, which caused weight gain, and HFCS in what are probably small amounts.
Here’s where I have my biggest problem with your claims, and why I’m calling you out for one of the more egregious symptoms of gurudom: if a person cannot tolerate what you can, that person is a priori not healthy. If you can’t tolerate a particular food, then that food is a priori not healthy. Having thus systematized your thinking about health, you are completely infallible. You’ve got all the answers, and everyone else is an idiot. An axiomatic diet… how very convenient! This by itself, ignoring the fact that you rewrite the gospels on a near daily basis, should have everyone questioning your integrity.
Instead, you’ve got a following of people who are beginning to show almost cultish devotion to you and your ideas, which is at once uniquely astonishing and not really that surprising. When are you going to wise up and start trying to make a living off of these people?
For all the people who are starchaphobic because they are so scared of getting fat. Bodybuilders have been eating very similar to the what Matt and Bruce are promoting for a long time and have been able to get very muscular and lean eating this way. It can boost metabolism, increase muscle mass and decrease body fat.
Matt and Bruce, you need to check out the work of bodybuilding guru Scott Abel. He has been using a diet very similar to yours for a long time. Eat clean and balanced amounts of all 3 macronutrients during the week with really HUGE re-feeds for up to 36 hours during the weekend to boost the metabolism. Matt, you should see if you could interview him and put it on your blog.
My prediction is that you will find that in order to maximize the benefit of the caloric boosts during the weekend, you will probably need to keep things tight during the week, maybe even maintaining a caloric deficit. This will provide a bigger stimulus to the system and lead to a greater response. I also think you will find that as one becomes leaner and increases their insulin sensitivity they will be able to benefit more from the binges.
Anon said
“My mother, for example, probably doesn’t know what a PUFA or HFCS is, and certainly could never tell you how much of either she consumes in a typical day’s eating, but at 60+ years old is healthier than most 40-year-olds. She eats whatever she wants, in whatever quantity satiety dictates, without any apparent symptom or sensitivity.”
She could drop dead tomorrow of a heart attack, then who would you use as an example?
A cult. Ok. That’s quite demeaning.
Blind followers are a little different then people engaging in conversation and trying to understand the logic behind something/anything. I’m sure anyone this suggestion of eating habits hasn’t brought full results to yet is still skeptical, unlike most ‘cults’ where it’s hard to accept if the thing that you have a strong belief in is failing.
Unless you’d like to cut in at anytime and actually discuss the topic at hand.
Besides, you have no idea what people are agreeing with and not agreeing with. Basically, most people are agreeing with the underlying question, which is, how to speed up metabolism. There’s good evidence that high starch and saturated fat will help there, and people are simply trying it for themselves. Experimentation and cult-behavior are two different things. A born-again christian versus an agnostic.
Well said, Chloe
I agree about the backpedaling part, but everyone here expected that I think, to some degree, as Bruce got a better feel for what works on his new diet. No need to condemn him.
Anonymous Coward: “This is no longer a high everything diet, since protein is now best restricted, and since HFCS is 20x more damaging than sucrose, and it is preferable to consume 5-7g of refined sugar over 2g HFCS. I won’t even ask whence you derive these so-called “figures”, since I know with every certainty that they are perfectly arbitrary.”
They’re not arbitrary. I know what’s in the food and what causes a reaction and waht doesn’t. There’s no need to eat an excess of protein, but you can eat more than enough, there’s no restriction but that you have to eat lots of starch and fat and not lots of lean protein. There is very little chance that someone will over-eat protein voluntarily, since it is known to be toxic in excess and most cultures balance the protein with a lot of fat and/or starch and simple sugars.
“You’ve yet to renege on your claims of perfect health, and I don’t suspect that you ever will, even though you are reporting signs of sensitivity to bread in the amount found in a few (very small) fast food hamburgers, which caused weight gain, and HFCS in what are probably small amounts.”
It’s not small amounts. There’s like 4g of HFCS in a McDonald’s bun and another 3g in the ketchup. That adds up to lots very fast. I have no reaction to breads that don’t have HFCS like the sourdough spelt bread I’ve been using for about a year and the Taco Bell tortillas, which have a tiny amount of sugar.
“Here’s where I have my biggest problem with your claims, and why I’m calling you out for one of the more egregious symptoms of gurudom: if a person cannot tolerate what you can, that person is a priori not healthy. If you can’t tolerate a particular food, then that food is a priori not healthy.”
I have given proof that I can tolerate the food when it doesn’t have HFCS. And my tolerance decreases by eating a high amount of something that does contain. If you want to argue that HFCS is good, based on your mother’s apparent health, well, I’m sorry, but that’s not enough to convince most people who see it as a far more dangerous “food” than sugar.
“Having thus systematized your thinking about health, you are completely infallible. You’ve got all the answers, and everyone else is an idiot.”
No, I don’t think anyone has all of the answers, including Matt. I think people might do better eating unrefined sugars than starches. There’s no one size fits all diet. But the basic idea of eating more fats and carbs makes sense. Some will do better with starches. others do better with unrefined sugars like fruit and honey and so forth. I’m going to do it both ways and see what works best – having starches intermittently or sugars intermittently or a mix of both. I have read some things arguing that you should have a mix of starches and sugars, like 80% starch and 20% sugars. The muscles need the starches and the liver needs the sugars to function at the highest level. Maybe part of my problems were from following Matt’s dogma against sugars, instead of simply eating both freely or in a certain balance based on experience and results. I can tolerate natural sugars much better than Matt as revealed by the fact that he seems to eat hardly any sugars.
“This by itself, ignoring the fact that you rewrite the gospels on a near daily basis, should have everyone questioning your integrity.”
Everyone has to learn by trial and error what works for them. I never said there were any absolute rules. It depends how healthy you are. I’ve said that someone who’s healthier doesn’t have to worry as much about the rules. They could eat an abundance of simple sugars and feel just as good as they do eating all starches, if not better, because their metabolism is strong and healthy. Everyone has to experiment and refine the diet, and as I’ve said in the past, it takes a blind follower to make someone a guru. If you blindly follow Matt, then he’s a guru to you. That doesn’t mean hea’s trying to be one. It means you’ve made him one. I think I would do better with more sugars and less starches, because of where my metabolism is at. I’m having trouble now eating enough starches, because they get repulsive very quickly, even things like unbleached unenriched bagels. I think I have improved my insulin sensitivity to the point where it’s a liability. Maybe sugars would help me more now, because they are easier to consume.
The basic idea has always been to stop the stupid diets. Low-fat, low-carb, or whatever. They’re all bad. There is no dogma and I’ve repeatedly said I think different things would work depending on ho healthy you are. If you don’t have insulin resistance or other problems, I think you could do fine with more sugars and less starches. But you have to find what works and refine things.
I too have been following the messages on the last blog post and this one, and Bruce is slowly tweaking this diet to fit exactly what works for him. Example: Bruce got a little depressed after eating hamburger buns, now suddenly PUFA’s/HFCS have to be restricted in the diet… because HE felt bad eating them.
Bruce’s High Everything Diet is a set of dietary rules which work for HIM, based on his “experiments” with different foods. Ironically, his self-experimentation is flawed since he hasn’t isolated variables. Why does he suddenly get depressed when eating Burgers? He blames the ketchup/buns/HFCS/PUFAs because he has read bad stuff about these. It could some other preservative? Or the combination?
You need to ISOLATE variables Bruce.
Consume PURE PUFAs. Drink 1/4 cup of corn oil to see if it makes you depressed. Eat ketchup out of the bottle on an empty stomach, see if it makes your heath decrease. Take notes. Repeat. When you have done these things a few months with isolated variables, then you can make conclusions for what works for yourself, your own body. But don’t go preaching to everyone that gluten is perfectly safe because YOU can eat it or that nobody has true allergies.
And realize that some people don’t handle toxins/preservatives/additives in food as well as you.
From what we all of have been discussing, all of us seem to have a very good understanding of nutrition. It seems like alot of us have tried it all, and we are all in the same place right now. I don’t think any of us are gong to throw all our lessons or knowledge of nutrition and food out the window. We all know High fructose corn syrup, Veggie oils hydrogenated or not, Refined sugar, and additives and chemicals are best avoided when possible. Are we going to die of cancer, or a heart attack if we are occasionally exposed to these things…. Hell NO!!! And true, this discussion has been about boosting metabolism, and being able to thrive on any food combination… making the body use food for fuel and discard what it doesn’t need. Like i said i am not going to go out and eat fast food all time, i like to cook at home… i still like to know where my food comes from, but i am not going to stress out about going out with friends or family like i use to. I am not going to drop everything i am doing on one side of town, so i can try to make it home to make my own meal, when i can go out to a cafe, or fastfood place, and avoid things like soda, fried foods, etc.etc…. and feel satisfied, guilt free, and go on with what i was doing.
Bruce is just emphasizing high starch and high fat at first to heal, then you should be able to combine everything, and eat fast food periodically without worrying, having perfect digestion, health, skin, and a less stressful, phobia filled life.
I am not worried about protein when i make my meals or when i go out…. i just try to build my meals with a base of saturated fat, starch, then protein. And when you go out to eat these days… there are alot of healthier fast food options than there use to be… alot of places and even Mcdonalds uses 100% beef for there burgers now, Places like chipotle(owned by Mcdonalds) uses alot of natural indgrediants, In n out burger uses fresh 100% beef, real american cheese, and they make there buns with a real sponge starter and there are no perservatives or additives, these sort of places are cropping up everywhere. Alot of the old taquerias down here in san diego still use real lard.
A CULT…ha! Thats Great!!! If only we all lived near the Hear attack grill, so we could meet up and have discussions on how to take over the world, with bruces high everything diet.
have a nice day!
troy
“Example: Bruce got a little depressed after eating hamburger buns, now suddenly PUFA’s/HFCS have to be restricted in the diet… because HE felt bad eating them.”
I’m not the only person who feels bad by eating those poisons. My diet was always low in PUFAs, so your claims are stupid. I’ve avoided HFCS for years. This is not anything new. I just wasn’t thinking how quickly things add up and got carelesss. It’s better to fix your own food and use stuff without additives, like Troy said. Nobody’s saying you should eat fast food often. But you can avoid the worst foods and have a lot less trouble.
“You need to ISOLATE variables Bruce.”
Why? Because you say so? I’ve tried many different things. I used organic ketchup without HFCS, and it’s not as bad as the other stuff, but I still wouldn’t eat it on a regular basis.
“Consume PURE PUFAs. Drink 1/4 cup of corn oil to see if it makes you depressed.”
Why would I want to do that? You go eat it and prove to us that they’re healthy, along with the high fructose corn syrup in the ketchup and the bread. You can’t be serious. I only eat food that tastes good to me, not rancid disgusting oils, known to degrade health.
“But don’t go preaching to everyone that gluten is perfectly safe because YOU can eat it or that nobody has true allergies.”
See, this is a double standard. You ask me to isolate variables, but the people who say gluten is bad, you don’t ask to isolate variables. Like Peter eating his crappy diet of bread and peanut butter and bananas. He never isolated the fact that he was not eating saturated fat in combination with the bread. But he went ahead and blamed gluten for the problem anyway. I’ve isolated my variables much better than he has, because I compared fast food with and without HFCS and the results were far better without it. You may be right that it’s not the HFCS. It could be the corn oil they fry the food in. Either way, the results speak for themselves. You have to experiment and see what works for yourself, but I will generally stay away from places unless their food is free of HFCS and PUFAs.
Scott: “He recently told a No Carb women that her Triglycerides were high because she ate eggs and cheese on occasion while on his no carb diet.”
What is the mechanism for eggs or cheese raising triglycerides? The 0.5g of carbs or so that they contain? Maybe they were high, because her body was breaking down its own muscle for fuel. Hopefully, soon she will realize all the health benefits Charles has, like being scared to sit in hard chairs, unable to eat any meal with more than one ingredient without gaining weight, being cold most of the year, and having dark circles under her eyes.
“It won’t be long before he has them all drink Koolaid at a No Carb meetup.”
No, he will have them eating rotten meat and feces, like Aajonus. The zero-carber equivalent of Kool-aid.
Hi.
Can someone tell me:
1) Does cooking fruit somehow reduce fructose or the effects of fructose? I read that a former low carb body builder started eating carbs by introducing cooked fruit, because he had “problems” with the fructose”. How exactly does one benefit from cooking fruits? Does fructose become less of an issue? Cravings are less?
2) What’s a good source HIGH glucose / LOW fructose foods, other than grains? I am particularly thinking about something that can be eaten raw. I know bananas are low in fructose.. Are they better for speeding up metabolism then, and do they not cause insane cravings like other fruits/fruit juices?
Has anyone tried combining raw meat with a little grain at meal: did the digestion go OK or does the meat have to be cooked to work with raw meat?
3) Are grains the only food which can be used to speed up metabolism and keep from developing hypothyroid (on a low carb diet)? Is it OK to have grains just once every day or every second day to avoid hypothyroid, or do grains have to incorporated into each and every meal? How many carbs are a bare minimum to keep in the daily diet to keep from hypothyroid, considering the diet is very high in animal fat?
Do you think eating a 90%fat or more zero carb diet be successful? I know Charles is not successful on zero carb (black circles under eyes) but he also eats medium cooked Wallmart meats which have added preservatives (one of these preservatives is ascorbic acid/vitamin C, which might be the reason he has not experienced scurvy yet). Charles eats these preservative filled cooked muscle meats every single day.. dayin/dayout.. and only muscle meats.
Maybe organs are important when choosing zero carb or close to this?
Maybe some raw food is important?
4) Can a paleo diet (some cooked/some raw) which excludes all grains and potatoes and maybe includes a little dairy, be successful as health giving, Without slowing down thyroid? Can such a diet even be low fiber/low fructose? (considering carbs have to come from fruits/veggies which are high both in fructose and fiber)
Matt are you able to tolerate eating fruit/fruit juices now, or do you completely avoid these? From what do you get your daily carbs (and how many carbs do you get if may ask?). Just grains (to avoid fructose)?
Correction
2) at the end of question 2 I meant does the meat have to be cooked to go together with grains?
“1) Does cooking fruit somehow reduce fructose or the effects of fructose? I read that a former low carb body builder started eating carbs by introducing cooked fruit, because he had “problems” with the fructose”. How exactly does one benefit from cooking fruits? Does fructose become less of an issue? Cravings are less?”
I think Anthony Colpo was speculating of fructose being the problem, but I do not see how cooking would change that. What it might do is soften the fiber or break it down some, so maybe it is easier for him to digest. I don’t know. He has also begun eating white rice and potatoes as well as cooked veggies and fruits. Maybe cooking makes digestion easier some how. Walter Voegtlin said that fruits should be cooked in The Stone Age Diet. It may help some people. Ray Peat also believes fruits should be cooked, if they weren’t picked ripe, due to toxins.
“2) What’s a good source HIGH glucose / LOW fructose foods, other than grains?”
Cranberries are high in glucose, around 82%. I don’t know of anything higher. If you don’t want grains, potatoes are high in starch, with small amounts of sugars. White rice and potatoes are probably the safest option for healing.
“Do you think eating a 90% fat or more zero carb diet be successful?”
Last I heard, Charles was getting strips of fat and eating it with his meat. He’s also eating fatty meat. He probably does too much exercise and doesn’t eat enough food to keep his metabolism going. He is eventually going to crash hard.
“I know Charles is not successful on zero carb (black circles under eyes) but he also eats medium cooked Wallmart meats which have added preservatives (one of these preservatives is ascorbic acid/vitamin C, which might be the reason he has not experienced scurvy yet). Charles eats these preservative filled cooked muscle meats every single day.. dayin/dayout.. and only muscle meats. “
But if you notice when Matt was FUMPing he also got some of the same symptoms of higher adrenal output (dark circles, etc.). And I’m pretty sure with the example of the Inuit, that scurvy is not specifically a Vitamin C deficiency.
“If you don’t want grains, potatoes are high in starch, with small amounts of sugars. White rice and potatoes are probably the safest option for healing.”
But what do you eat these together with, for best healing? Cooked meat? I don’t think cooked starch digests well with raw meat. For myself, I don’t even think cooked meat+rice would be digested well, since the rice interferes with (dilutes) HCl in the stomach.
I have tried potatoes and rice with pasteurized cream and it worked OK I think… Felt hungry soon again so I think it sped up my metabolism/thyroid.
Does anyone else find that pasteurized cream and butter taste a lot better than their raw counterparts?
It’s like raw butter/cream taste a bit like old cheese..
“Does anyone else find that pasteurized cream and butter taste a lot better than their raw counterparts?
It’s like raw butter/cream taste a bit like old cheese.. “
what the fuuuck; I love me some raw cream..it’s like..the grill to my rap artist
Anonymous, was the raw stuff you tried past it’s due date? It also could just be a bad batch, i’ve had that happen once.
I think the taste of raw is way superior to pasteurized!
It was not due date.. And I have tried several different sources. Raw cream/butter have a too strong taste of cow toxins.
pasteurization maybe destroys some of the cow hormones which have no place in the human body? Like protein denaturation: heating changes the shapes of proteins – and proteins which need a very specific structure/form to have an effect, loose this effect after they are heated/denatured (like enzymes). Maybe hormones loose their signaling effect after they are heated?
I might be wrong, maybe heating/pasteurization does not destroy the effects of hormones (the same way as with enzymes). Does anyone know about this? If you take pure testosterone and boil it, will it still have an effect if ingested/injected?
i agree, raw milk and cream taste way better than pasteurized. I think the pasteurized organic european style butter tastes good, the culturing of it makes it taste way better than the non cultured vareitys.
Drinking straight up Ultra pasteurized milk i haven’t done in along time…. I remember drinking the Myenburg goat milk like three years ago… it was aweful, and i can see why people have fear of goats milk, that milk is complete crap, raw grass fed goat milk is awesome!!!
troy
Dr. Wong has a good article on his website, http://www.totalityofbeing.com, its about the affects of cooking on milk and meat.
Thats the thing i have never understood about pasteurization, you can cook meat and denature the protiens and the body with utilized it fine…. do the same to milk and raw foodists think its worthless. I think you should be able to drink both and be fine. Yes, some of the vitamins are degraded with pasteurization, and the protiens are denatured, but nothing happens to the fats. I still prefer the flavor of organic grassfed raw milk though.
troy
troy
I have read the argument that pasteurization only partially denatures the proteins because of the short time and low temperature involved. It is claimed that fully cooking the milk, i.e. bringing it to a boil will fully denature them and cause them to be absorbed better. Some support to this idea is given by the study completed a year or two back in Europe where they found that children fed either raw or boiled milk had significantly lower levels of asthma than those fed regular pasteurized milk.
Sen
If you are concerned with the best way to consume milk, I would look to India and Ayurveda because they are the are the ones with most experience with it. According to ayurveda, the best way to drink the milk is to boil it and drink it while it is still hot if you want to improve the digestibility. Raw is OK too if you can get it fresh and warm straight from the cow, but shouldn’t be drunk cold. They think the worst thing to do is to drink it cold, especially if it is pasteurized.
Hi Bruce,
Do you have any links to where Anthony Colpo says he eats white rice and potatoes? I ordered his Fat Loss Bible and he says to avoid all grains because of phytic acid. He says to eat meats, vegetables, and nuts with only a little fruit.
Thanks
Steph
When i use to work on the white egret raw goat dairy farm, that supplied jordan rubin with his pro-biogurt…. we would bring the raw milk to a boil, then cool it and add the culture, then ferment it for 30 hours… alot of people with digestive problems, IBS, Crohns, only got stronger from it…. so i don’t know where the raw foodists are coming from that boiling milk makes it worthless. Thats what alot of old homemade baby formulas called for… fresh milk, boiled, cooled to breast milk tempature, and given to the baby. I do great with any milk that isn’t complete crap, and is just milk, no additives, or synthetic vitamins added….and even those don’t cause digestive problems… but they might if i drank them all the time.
troy
stephanie,
i have read that some phytic acid in your diet is good, its supposed bind with iron, and help transport it out. If your a animal eat that is a good thing, because we tend to have higher levels of iron, and i don’t think that is good. I have begun recently giving blood for that matter, i want to see what effect it has on my health.
troy
“Do you have any links to where Anthony Colpo says he eats white rice and potatoes? I ordered his Fat Loss Bible and he says to avoid all grains because of phytic acid. He says to eat meats, vegetables, and nuts with only a little fruit. “
Potatoes aren’t grains and most of the phytic acid in white rice is removed
Also, if nuts aren’t hulled or soaked they too contain phytic acids.
Stephanie: “Do you have any links to where Anthony Colpo says he eats white rice and potatoes? I ordered his Fat Loss Bible and he says to avoid all grains because of phytic acid. He says to eat meats, vegetables, and nuts with only a little fruit.”
He said this just last month on his Low Carb Muscle Forum, that he has abandoned the low-carb diet and he’s eating starch with every meal, cooked fruit, etc. Here are some excerpts from his posts. You’ll have to join to read the rest of it, as he’s made the group private so that only members can read it now. He said that by lowering his iron levels he was able to tolerate more carbs without the problems he used to have (like brain fog), but it could just be the addition of starch to his diet that gave the benefits…
Anthony Colpo: “The choice of carbs is also important. Along with the usual greens and orange vegetables, I include higher carb foods like sweet potatoes, potato, casava (when I can get it), white rice, mango, banana, pomegranate, etc, etc.
“I avoid grains like the plague, with the exception of white rice and the occasional serving of buckwheat or millet (buckwheat is technically not a grain but a fruit anyway…). As far as I’m concerned, cereal fiber has no place inside the human digestive tract, unless one believes eating lectins, vitamin-blocking glycosides, excessive phytate, and enzyme inhibitors is a good thing. And I always lightly cook fruit before eating it, with the exception of pomegranate… the fructose from raw fruit doesn’t make me feel so flash.”
LowCarbMuscle Forum – Re: has anybody gotten back into low-carb after upping carbs?
JT: “Matt and Bruce, you need to check out the work of bodybuilding guru Scott Abel. He has been using a diet very similar to yours for a long time. Eat clean and balanced amounts of all 3 macronutrients during the week with really HUGE re-feeds for up to 36 hours during the weekend to boost the metabolism. Matt, you should see if you could interview him and put it on your blog.”
Scott Abel sounds as if he has a lot on the ball, unlike most body-builders who suggest eliminate fat and/or carbs. But we’re more interested in health than to simply lose weight. That will come when you’re healthy from properly nourishing yourself. Starving the body in any way makes it harder to get healthy, whether by calories or saturated fats or carbs. I’m sure he’s right that as the insulin sensitivity improves you will get more benefits from weekly high-calorie days. But deficits are a bad idea, IMO. First get healthy and then worry about taking leanness and muscularity to the extreme that Scott Abel is promoting. I suspect his ideas would work very well for that purpose, based on your description, but you have to achieve a certain base-line of health before doing that.
Bruce,
I think you are right about first getting healthy before starting to do more extreme things. But, I wonder if providing such a huge swing in calories from low during the week to high during the weekend could speed up the metabolism even more quickly. Kind of like interval training for eating. And, if you and Matt are right that having a a high metabolism is the key to health, then this could be a way to speed up the process, or at least help you break through a plateau when you start to stagnate.
Also, I am not talking about extreme deprivation during the week, maybe a 200 pound male would consume around 2400 calories a day during the week, and then quadruple that during the weekend.
I was listening to an interview with Scott Abel where he said that a typical meal he would consume during his calorie days would be 2 loafs of bread, 2 salads, 2 baked potatoes, and a 30 ounce steak. Or maybe 2 large pizzas, and this is just one meal!
I definitely agree that high-calorie days once or twice a week could help you break through plateaus. My weight has gone down every week by eating stuff like pizza and rich ice cream, pan-cakes with butter and maple syrup, and cheesecake on week-ends. Also, it would probably be best to choose the most natural foods you can – avoiding things like HFCS, PUFA oils, fried foods, and trans fatty acids like the plague. To start with, the sugar should be unrefined like fruit juice, unheated honey, or maple syrup. As you get more healthy, have occasional ice cream and desserts. The higher the fat content, the better, so cream should be the first ingredient in ice cream and cheesecake and tiramisu would be preferable types of desserts, or cream pies, and things like that. Not doughnuts or fried food, soft drinks, and other garbage.
BTW, JT, “interval training” is the exact metaphor I have been using to describe my theory. Most people can’t eat starches in the quantities Scott Abel calls for, IMO. It would be hard for me to eat more than 3-4 pieces of pizza in a meal now, as my body gets satisfied much quicker. So, you would have to work up to things. It would be easier to use natural sugars to add in calories on high-calorie days – things like fruit juice, unheated honey, maple syrup, etc. Is Scott Abel anti-sugars? Based on the meals you described, he is eating all starch and no sugars. I feel that most people would have troulbe in eating that much starch, because starch will get more satisfying. You will need to describe his diet in more detail for people to really understand it. Thanks.
JT: “I was listening to an interview with Scott Abel where he said that a typical meal he would consume during his calorie days would be 2 loafs of bread, 2 salads, 2 baked potatoes, and a 30 ounce steak. Or maybe 2 large pizzas, and this is just one meal!”
Do you have a link for this interview or is it only available to his members? I’m glad you mentioned a body-builder eating high-everything and doing great. Most of them are eating low-fat and/or low-carb, basically starving themselves.
Here’s the new description for the HED group. I’ve changed things considerably based on feedback from my moderators. I think that this is much stronger. Bruce
Eating is Exercise for Digestion and Metabolism. This is why many top competitive eaters (like Sonya Thomas, Takeru Kobayashi, and Juliet Lee) are thin. Dieting, as in eliminating foods or restricting macro-nutrients, most often weakens our digestion and metabolism and health.
Eating starches, animal fat, and protein without calorie restriction will build up health, digestion, and metabolism. Sporadic sugar intake, like fruit or juice or honey, is like Interval Training for digestion and metabolism. Even occasional pancakes with butter and maple syrup, or rich ice cream, or cheesecake, can help increase metabolism and prevent the Plateau Effect associated with diets that limit things. Eating well can improve the digestion, metablism, and health. Diets that restrict animal fats and natural carbohydrates are a disaster and over time quite unsustainable. What we should be limiting are refined sugars and processed vegetable oils.
Eating saturated and mono-unsaturated fats with generous amounts of high starch food is perfectly healthy – even occasional burgers, pizzas, tacos, burritos, pasta, hot dogs, etc. Junk food and sugar can be healthy – as long as you don’t eat them often. Comfort foods can be more healing than “high quality” foods. Sugar, HFCS, PUFA oils, and trans fats are the true dietary villains in fast food.
By eating natural fat and starch with protein, you will eventually attain a healthy body. Dieting deprives you of health. The ultimate secret of diets is that none of them work. Eating Everything is the ONLY way of eating that really works. Every diet guru is dead. May they all be forgotten.
Diets Don’t Work. Calories Don’t Count.
The High-Everything Diet
Death To Diets. Eat Everything and Heal.
Bruce, Yes I know it seems like an almost impossible amount of calories and you might need to work up to it, but I think the whole point of what he is doing is to get the metabolism going so high that you will actually want to eat that much just to be satisfied. Look at how Michael Phelps eats.
No, I don’t think he is anti sugars. I don’t think he is dogmatic about any macronutrient. To him a carb is a carb pretty much and you should consume what you feel best on. I know he doesn’t like a lot of supplements and powders.
Everyone has a dietary “sweet spot” that is a little different. Some might do better on a little more protein, others starch or sugar, others fat. Then you might change. You need to pay attention to the feedback your body gives you. You need to experiment and see how you feel best.
No, I don’t have a link to this interview and I can’t remember where it was. If I can find it, I will post it.
Maybe you or Matt could interview him for this blog. He is into health as well as bodybuilding. He seems like he is pretty cool and he knows a lot from working with thousands of people.
Yeah, I agree that different things work for everybody. Some will do better eating starches, others sugars. Some more fats, others less. Some more protein, others less. Some more animal protein, others a lot of rice, beans, and potatoes. There really are no absolute rules. Just find what works and stop dieting (restricting macro-nutrients or eliminating foods). I don’t think dieting works at all. Scott Abel sounds great. Is this his blog?
Scott Abel Blogs
I assume that this is his main website, but there’s not a lot of information on his diet that I can see. He looks very impressive for someone eating opposite to the usual body-builder dogma (most of them eat low-fat and/or low-carb, high protein, lots of supplements).
Abel Bodies Fitness Over 40
In general, cooking food improves its digestibility, including denaturing proteins by subjecting them to heat. In general, the easier something is to chew, the easier it is for your body to break it down and digest it.
The one caveat is milk because of the large quantity of lactose it contains, making it a very unique substance. Many people produce plenty of lactase and can actually digest cooked milk even better than raw.
However, with any kind of lactose deficiency, cooked milk is very toxic. Undigestible sugars in general are very toxic. Drinking cold milk is tougher too, as the enzyme activity is greatly reduced. The higher the temperature, the greater the enzyme activity. Therefore, warm, raw milk is the best for digestion in those who don’t produce lactase within. Others would fare best on cooked milk. The ultimate is fermented milks, because that rids it of lactose almost completely, making it totally inconsequential whether it has been heated or not.
People can be healthy on many different diets, from paleo to low-carb to vegetarian. We’re merely talking about a strategy to raise the metabolism back to normal, as I believe the greatest epidemic on earth to be a suboptimal metabolism. The big question remains: does insulin resistance lead to a slow metabolism or does a slow metabolism lead to insulin resistance? There is good evidence on both sides of the fence, but one thing is for sure – carbohydrates, in and of themselves, despite raising insulin temporarily – have nothing to do with the causation of insulin resistance.
Personally, my carbs still are mostly starch-based, although I’m getting more lax. I have gone months at a time without any sweet-tasting foods, which I found very healing. I do believe that fruit, milk, and honey would be superior carbs assuming one can down them without a hypoglycemic reaction. I have been having more of them lately to test my own personal tolerance. I’ve improved, but I’ve got a ways to go yet.
Over the past 2 years I’ve eaten about 90-180g carbs as starch every day, evenly spread out through 3 daily meals. Perhaps going higher would have yielded better overall results. That’s what we’re considering here at the moment.
And a word on raw cream and butter flavor: It varies widely. They can be funky for sure, and the flavors are undeniably stronger. Keep shopping around a bit, but don’t expect a creamy bland butter like store-bought pasteurized.
I hope Matt’s willing to interview Scott Abel, and that Scott agrees, because the way you describe him he sounds like he’s a really cool guy and he would fit right in with Matt’s open-minded attitude, IMO. I am glad to know that there are some body builders with open minds who don’t accept the usual low-fat and/or low-carb, high protein, low calories, supplements, etc. Scott Abel sounds like someone I want to read and hear more from. He sees that a one-size-fits-all diet doesn’t work.
You can also get lactose-free milk cheap at most stores (compared to raw milk, at least). I don’t notice any difference in how I feel with lactose-free milk, pasteurized homogenized, pasteurized non homogenized, and vat-pasteurized non-homogenized (Farmers All Natural Creamery). It also may be possible to increase lactose tolerance by periodic consumption of ice cream, non-fat dry milk, or evaporated milk. I’ve seen some studies talking about that, but I can’t locate them right now. There is a lot of stuff saying that heat denatured lactose is often easier to digest, like non-fat dry milk with butter, etc. Whole milk is also somewhat problematic. Several of the doctors using raw milk to cure folks of diseases used SKIM milk or SEPARATOR milk, like Dr. Charles Sanford Porter and Bernarr MacFadden. They said that the skim milk was often better and usu. at least as good as whole milk. So you don’t need to worry as long as you eat butter separately, I wouldn’t drink the skim milk without adding butter in at other meals, definitely.
Bruce, yes that is his website. You can register for free for his abel files and then you will have access to more of his information. Yes, I too would like it if Matt would interview him. From Matt’s most recent blog post, it seems like he has recognized the healthiest type of person as the “adrenal type” who is resilient with a strong metabolism. Scott seems to have found a way to help people get there, and it is very similar to what you and Matt support.
“Personally, my carbs still are mostly starch-based, although I’m getting more lax. I have gone months at a time without any sweet-tasting foods, which I found very healing. I do believe that fruit, milk, and honey would be superior carbs assuming one can down them without a hypoglycemic reaction. I have been having more of them lately to test my own personal tolerance. I’ve improved, but I’ve got a ways to go yet.”
You will eventually heal. One thing I’d suggest you do is to eat like a cup of white sugar (dry) maybe once a week and no other food with it, except maybe one cup of milk or something. I did things like that and I think it built up my sugar tolerance to an insane level, so I’m now able to drink a quart of orange juice with no hypoglycemia, even if no other foods are present. Ray Peat likes milk and orange juice, like 2 quarts a day combined (or more). I think he can handle it, because he has increased his metabolism by taking Armour thyroid and progesterone and eating a low-PUFA diet and a high-calorie diet. He also eats a lot of ice cream (like a quart a day in one of his articles). I don’t think you have to worry as much about fruit juice (esp citrus) if you have a blazing fast metabolism. Even rich ice cream would be OK occasionally, if you ate other foods to make up for its deficiencies. You’ll eventually get to where you feel better with sugars if your metabolism speeds up IMO. I think my whole problem was that I wasn’t eating enough before.I need to go at it aggressively like a quart of milk for a meal, a quart of orange juice for a meal, a pizza for a meal, etc.
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/coconut-oil.shtml
JT, one thing I'm still not clear about with Scott Abel is whether he believes in the idea that calories make you fat or is it all metabolism? In other words, could he stop exercising and remain muscular & lean without gaining fat by continuing to eat high everything? I believe you could, because metaboolism determines whether we gain fat or muscle in response to calorie surplus, and whether we lose fat or muscle in response to a calorie deficit. So, he might lose muscle if he stopped exercise, but he would still be lean and healthy eating high-everything. His would lose fat more than muscle. Do you think he would agree with that?
Bruce said "one thing I'm still not clear about with Scott Abel is whether he believes in the idea that calories make you fat or is it all metabolism? In other words, could he stop exercising and remain muscular & lean without gaining fat by continuing to eat high everything? I believe you could, because metaboolism determines whether we gain fat or muscle in response to calorie surplus, and whether we lose fat or muscle in response to a calorie deficit. So, he might lose muscle if he stopped exercise, but he would still be lean and healthy eating high-everything. His would lose fat more than muscle. Do you think he would agree with that?"
I don't know if he would agree with that or not, but I am pretty sure he would not say you could be totally sedentary and eat 10000 calories of high everything a day and be ripped and lean. If you were going to eat high everything and not exercise then you would have to be more careful with the total amount of calories you could consume without getting fat. But, I haven't exercised at all for the past year due to work and travel and I am pretty lean with OK musculature(6ft 180lb) and I eat high everything and don't pay any attention to calories.
I don't think we should view these things (calories, exercise, and metabolism) as being independent from each other. The body is a dynamic system and all of these things work together. The more you exercise, the more calories and carbs you can consume, and the more calories you consume, the faster your metabolism will go.
In order to have a healthy metabolism you have to be insulin sensitive, and a major way to improve your insulin sensitivity is through proper exercise.
Leanness and activity level correspond with insulin sensitivity. The more active ad lean you are the more likely you are to be insulin sensitive, which would make you much more likely to benefit from these binges. If you are sedentary and fat you are probably not insulin sensitive and you would probably not benefit from having super high calorie days, binging on large amounts of carbohydrate and fat. IMO it would be counterproductive if you did it on a regular basis, but may help if it is done infrequently when metabolism really starts to slow. You should heal your metabolism first with a protocol similar to what you, Matt, and Schwarzbein promote, then increase your activity level (as long as you have healthy adrenals), then start upping binge activity.
Matt says he eats about 3,000 Calories a day and he’s lean and pretty muscular. I agree that 10,000 Calories would probably be too much, but I think your appetite would naturally adjust if you didn’t work out as much, to like 3,000-3,500 or less. So you would lose some muscle, but remain proportionally lean at a lower mass.
“I don’t know if he would agree with that or not, but I am pretty sure he would not say you could be totally sedentary and eat 10000 calories of high everything a day and be ripped and lean. If you were going to eat high everything and not exercise then you would have to be more careful with the total amount of calories you could consume without getting fat. But, I haven’t exercised at all for the past year due to work and travel and I am pretty lean with OK musculature(6ft 180lb) and I eat high everything and don’t pay any attention to calories.”
My weight is now down 11 pounds from the beginning of this month by eating a high everything diet. I have deliberately cut my exercise to simple walking and active sitting several hours a day at work. And maybe occasional weight training, jumps, stairs, or interval aerobics. So I think it’s definitely possible to eat the high everything with NO thought whatsoever to calories, and still be lean like Matt. I am well on the way now.
“I don’t think we should view these things (calories, exercise, and metabolism) as being independent from each other. The body is a dynamic system and all of these things work together. The more you exercise, the more calories and carbs you can consume, and the more calories you consume, the faster your metabolism will go.”
This is a good point, but I believe you could increase your metabolism to where you were burning 5,000 Calories a day – while being mostly sedentary. Maybe you could go even higher. I don’t know what Ray Peat eats, but it sounds like he is eating a lot of calories and he is lean in his pictures. He’s up in his mid-80s and looks a lot better than Mary Enig / Sally Fallon and most of the other WAPF “health food” crowd. He said he ate all kinds of stuff, like two quarts or more a day of milk and orange juice, a quart of ice cream, meat, eggs, shellfish and lean fish, rice, potatoes, corn treated with lime (like tortillas), sugar, etc.
Here is a quick story for the people, especially females who are still so scared of carbs and starch because they think it will make them fat.
Both my last girlfriend and my current girlfriend are both very athletic and lean with very good musculature, having the type of body most girls want. They both always consume large amounts of starch and avoided most sugar except for a couple pieces of fruit a day, moderate amounts of fat and protein. The previous one was even a vegetarian, so the only protein she got was what came from the vegetables and the occasional dairy.
As I mentioned before I have gone from being on extremely low carb and paleo diets to now eating high amounts of starch. I would always lecture them about the benefits of avoiding starch, even though one of them was finishing her PHD, specializing in biochemistry and nutrition, and you could easily see what they were doing was obviously working for them. I remember how I would be freezing cold in bed and their body temperature would always be really high like a furnace, which is a strong clue that their metabolism is in high gear.
One thing I have found is that sugars, especially from fruit actually drop my body temperature and starches don’t.
“One thing I have found is that sugars, especially from fruit actually drop my body temperature and starches don’t.”
Are you eating fat and protein freely? I react the same to natural sugars as I do with starches. Perhaps even better. Just this morning for breakfast I ate 2 eggs, 2 pieces of bacon, a bagel, and like a cup and a half of grapefruit juice. And now I am down another pound from my previous low. Oh, I also drank a glass of milk and a glass of half-and-half. I have perfect digestion, no bloating, no gas, nothing. Calm stable energy. I eat high-fat, high-starch, high-sugar (from mostly natural foods with some junk 1-2 days a week). I think all diets are BS: low-fat, low-carb, low-calorie, etc. A healthy person can eat high-everything, and lose weight, like Schwarzbein said. I’ve just taken her saying to a logical conclusion that you should eat that way all the time (HED) to heal as quick as possible and maintain a healthy weight.
Death to Diets. Eat Everything.
“Are you eating fat and protein freely? I react the same to natural sugars as I do with starches. Perhaps even better. Just this morning for breakfast I ate 2 eggs, 2 pieces of bacon, a bagel, and like a cup and a half of grapefruit juice. And now I am down another pound from my previous low. Oh, I also drank a glass of milk and a glass of half-and-half. I have perfect digestion, no bloating, no gas, nothing. Calm stable energy. I eat high-fat, high-starch, high-sugar (from mostly natural foods with some junk 1-2 days a week). I think all diets are BS: low-fat, low-carb, low-calorie, etc. A healthy person can eat high-everything, and lose weight, like Schwarzbein said. I’ve just taken her saying to a logical conclusion that you should eat that way all the time (HED) to heal as quick as possible and maintain a healthy weight.”
Yes, I eat fat and protein freely. I actually react a lot better to processed sugars than I do to natural sugars from fruit. If I eat HFCS or sucrose from having a few sips of soda with my meal or some ketchup on my burger or a desert it doesn’t effect me at all as long as it is mixed in with the protein, starch, and fat. If I drink a bunch of fruit juice by itself my body temperature will drop. I think this happens because I am still healing my adrenals after all those years of low carb. The fruit sugars can have a relaxant effect on the adrenal glands causing them to produce less, this could be a good thing for someone high cortisol levels, but if they are already low it can be a problem if they go lower.
Bruce K said “Matt says he eats about 3,000 Calories a day and he’s lean and pretty muscular. I agree that 10,000 Calories would probably be too much, but I think your appetite would naturally adjust if you didn’t work out as much, to like 3,000-3,500 or less. So you would lose some muscle, but remain proportionally lean at a lower mass.”
Yeah, my experience is almost exactly the same as Matt’s. Our age, body composition, and dietary habits are pretty much identical.
My appetite does naturally adjust to my activity level. I don’t have to exercise and I can always eat as much as I want and not have to worry about getting fat. I eat a lot of starch, fat, and protein, but not a lot of junk, and only moderate amounts of alchohol and sugar. Most of my calories come from rice and ghee because that is what I feel best on, and then moderate amounts of meat and some veggies for flavor. But I am not that strict, I travel a lot for work and have to eat at restaurants a lot and I can pretty much eat as much as I want, drink as much beer as I want, and still never get fat.
JT: “Yes, I eat fat and protein freely. I actually react a lot better to processed sugars than I do to natural sugars from fruit. If I eat HFCS or sucrose from having a few sips of soda with my meal or some ketchup on my burger or a desert it doesn’t effect me at all as long as it is mixed in with the protein, starch, and fat. If I drink a bunch of fruit juice by itself my body temperature will drop. I think this happens because I am still healing my adrenals after all those years of low carb. The fruit sugars can have a relaxant effect on the adrenal glands causing them to produce less, this could be a good thing for someone high cortisol levels, but if they are already low it can be a problem if they go lower.”
Thankfully, I got off of the low-carb merry-go-round years ago, like Matt. I had been eating about 80-120g of carbs, mostly sugars (like fruit juice, honey, and milk). I think I just wasn’t eating enough, thanks to low-carb conditioning to be afraid of carbs. I probably would have been where I’m at years ago if I’d simply eaten the milk and orange juice and unheated honey in larger quantities (like a quart of milk or a quart of NFC orange juice or grapefruit juice, 3 or 4 of unheated honey per meal, etc. I just wasn’t eating enough, thanks to my fear of carbs and calories.
Try having the fruit juice once a week, like a quart at a time, and see if you can heal your adrenal problem. Lukcily, I’m very flexible and I can eat natural sugars or refined sugars. I think HFCS is worse than sucrose, but maybe I also was reacting to PUFA oils in the foods. Those are definitely bad news, probably worse than refined sugars. A person who is healthy can tolerate refined sugars, if they are eating good food to balance it. Naturally a diet of refined sugars, white flour, and vegetable oils ONLY is disastrous for anyone’s health.
Matt, I came up with a great title for the High-Everything-Diet book.
HEALTHY PEOPLE DON’T DIET: How To Repair Your Metabolism So You Can Eat Anyything and Remain Effortlessly Lean.
I think that would jump off the shelves.
Bruce, That is a actually a very good title for a book. I would add to it though.
Healthy People Don’t Diet: How TO Repair Your Metabolism So you Can Eat Anything and Remain Effortlessly Lean Without being a Food Obsessive.
The food obsessiveness IMO is the worst part of all the diets. It really prevents people from enjoying life, especially if it prevents you from socializing with others.
If you look at most food obsessives and diet extremists, they are very similar to religious extremists. They are constantly preaching to others about the evils of their sinful dietary practices. They feel extreme guilt when they cheat on their diet, then they feel shame when their devout belief and practice of their dietary system does not result in the superhuman powers they thought would occur.
Another thing the food obssessive diet extremists have in common with religious extremists is that they both, almost always, base their beliefs on an “expert” or guru who is an authority on the subject. Rarely ever do these types of people come to their beliefs because of their own experience.
Great, JT. That’s a good addition to the title. I thought of it as a good play on the book “French Women Don’t Get Fat” or something like that. Matt, you’re free to use the title if you publish first. It’s up for grabs – first come, first served. Whoever can make the best book defending the high-everything diet and get it to a major publisher first.
Healthy People Don’t Diet: How To Repair Your Metabolism So You Can Eat Anything and Remain Effortlessly Lean Without Becoming a NEUROTIC Food Obsessive.
The addition of Neurotic, which Matt has used, really helps it IMO. Who is going to be the first to publish the book? You or Me, Matt? The Race Is On!
Yes, fuck Low Carb god thanks i dropped this bullshit! Nice work, Bruce. I developed intolerances on Low Carb to so many foods which i hope go now away on my higher carb, high fat and moderate protein diet…
Start slowly, Anonymous. The safest food for starches starches are probably things like corn tortillas (treated with lime), white potatoes, and organic white sushi rice (short grain). Maybe pearl tapioca, cornstarch (as a sauce), or things like that. As your metabolism starts to heal, in several months, try things like good breads (sourdough or sprouted bread) and gradually work up from there. Stay away from fiber unless you can eat it without bloating, gas, diarrhea, etc.
Indeed. Fuck low carb.
Here are the greatest words ever spoken.
“You have to get healthy to lose weight – not the other way around.” (Dr. Diana Schwarzbein
“If eating well (high everything), makes you gain weight, then you have a damaged metabolism.” (Dr. Diana Schwarzbein)
Charles Washington needs to have the 2nd quote tattooed on his forehead (backwards) so he sees it every day for the rest of his life. He has a damaged metabolism. That’s why eating everything makes him gain weight. Not because it’s unhealthy to eat everything. On the contrary, eating everything is the only healthy way of eating.
Healthy People Don’t Diet.
A question to a follower of this regimen if you do not mind….. how are your teeth doing by eating everything? On VLC, I’ve had no tooth problems and no amount of plaque is ever on my teeth. I guess the biggest fear I have of starting to eat carbs is going back to my old tooth problems.
Matt,
you think raw milk is important because of the lactase producing bacteria in it?
What about pasteurized cream is that OK (since it contains less lactose than milk)? Pasteurized butter?
Could you please explain what undigestible sugars do that is so bad? Are fructose and lactose undigestible sugars for you?
Actually, cream still has a considerable amount of lactose in it if you drink it like milk – a cup of cream is about 7 grams of carbs, and a cup of milk is around 11 and 12 grams of carbs; hence – why lactose intolerant people can’t eat ice cream
“lactose intolerant people can’t eat ice cream.”
This should be changed to “people with a bad metabolism can’t eat milk or cream.” There is no such thing as genetic lactose intolerance, except insofar as defective diet (low-in-something) is genetic.
COMPETETIVE EATERS DON’T EAT HE (HIGH EVERYTHING) AND THEY DO EXERCISE… A LOT:
Bruce you give examples of competitive eaters for being healthy and being able to eat anything. You think they are healthy because of their over eating? You are dead wrong. They are healthy DESPITE IT, because they exercise a great deal.
Do you really think they eat like at competitions year round? NO! They generally eat very clean and exercise all the time:
Sonya Thomas:
“To stay in shape, Sonya has one big meal a day, with lots of green vegetables and fresh fruit, and always avoids junk food. She exercises by walking on an inclined treadmill for two hours, five times per week”
Takeru Kobayash’s (from his Myspace): “I am also a very finely tuned athlete and i work out daily.”
So there you have it.. They stay in shape DESPITE of their crazy binges on toxic foods.. not because of it.
OH and Bruce, eating High Calories (High Everything) might speed up your metabolism. But it also speeds up aging and increases your risk for some very serious problems, long-term.
Tumors can thrive in that type of environment.
"COMPETETIVE EATERS DON'T EAT HE (HIGH EVERYTHING) AND THEY DO EXERCISE… A LOT:"
Takeru Kobayashi might exercise to gain muscle, but he doesn't have to exercise to stay lean. He was always lean and so is Sonya Thomas. She does eat HE all of the time. I've seen YouTube videos about her and she goes to new restaurants all the time and eats huge meals. She's as thin as Audrey Hepburn or a professional ballerina by eating high-everything.
"Bruce you give examples of competitive eaters for being healthy and being able to eat anything. You think they are healthy because of their over eating? You are dead wrong. They are healthy DESPITE IT, because they exercise a great deal."
How do you know they're healthy despite it and not because of it? Not all of the competitive eaters exercise and if they do it's to gain muscle not to lose fat. Takeru Kobayaswhi has gained a MASSIVE incredible amount of muscle to where he looks far more virile than most scrawny Japanese men look. He could be an action movie star, he's so buff and ripped.
Plus, you can't explain how I've lost 11 pounds in 26 days by eating the HED I've created (with a little help from Matt & Schwarzbein and Tim Ferriss and others). Why aren't I gaining weight? I would need a 1400 Calorie daily deficit to be able to lose 11 pounds in 26 days. Where did that deficit come from while eating 3,000 or more calories? Answer me that. Otherwise, I'll just ignore you like all the other clueless naysayers. The truth is that we have found a secret here and it's going to change the world. Diets Do Not Work. Eating Everything Works.
"To stay in shape, Sonya has one big meal a day, with lots of green vegetables and fresh fruit, and always avoids junk food. She exercises by walking on an inclined treadmill for two hours, five times per week"
But she eats lots of fat and protein as well as carbs. She doesn't eat low-fat or low-carb or low-calories. She eats a different meal every day and it's huge. Watch some of her YouTube videos. She's easily ingesting 3,000 Calories per day if not more. She exercises to stay fit, not to lose ewight.
"OH and Bruce, eating High Calories (High Everything) might speed up your metabolism. But it also speeds up aging and increases your risk for some very serious problems, long-term."
Then how come the tumors I used to have in my ear lobes are now gone? When the metabolism is fast, cancer can't survive for long – the body wipes it out. Diets cause cancer, esp low-fat, vegan, and so forth. And the SAD diet maybe. But that is not what we're discussing. We're all eating clean most of the time and having weekly cheat days (high-calorie) perhaps to keep the metabolism strong. This is totally different than SAD, which is all junk food, all the time.
Anonymous –
There are tons of overweight people that also exercise ridiculously and eat very little, but still they lose no weight. If that is true, then the reverse can be also…there are tons of thin people who do not exercise and eat as much as they feel like; but they gain no weight.
We don’t know if Sonya and Takeru would actually gain weight if they stopped exercising. Chances are that they wouldn’t because of their metabolism, but they’re still under the illusion that they need to exercise to stay thin. Maybe they know that they don’t need to, Takeru actually only exercises to make his stomach stronger:
“Tsunami trains by extending his stomach while working out, and eating huge meals, some in excess of 20 pounds.”
http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/truelife/episode/episode.jhtml?episodeId=98391
I also don’t see how they can eat as much as you think they do – they probably eat far more most of the time in preparation for their contests.
“Tumors can thrive in that type of environment.”
What the hell?
Basically, I was saying people who can’t digest lactose (for some reason – whether that be caused by metabolism) also can’t eat ice cream, hence, there is lactose in ice cream.
Not all competitive eaters exercise intensely. Walking two hours isn’t very intense exercise. Juliet Lee says she swims, that’s low-resistance. Also, Kobayashi will randomly be really muscular and randomly less muscular; I’ve seen him all sizes, but never fat. He’s either thin or buff, and he’s usually eating a ton of low-calorie food, but a lot of it, as to expand his stomach (training). So some low-calorie food turns into high calorie after consuming so much. He wants to aim for stretching his stomach, though.
Having a normal metabolism, I think, won’t increase any problems long term.
What environment are you referring to, exactly? Because tumors seem to pop up whenever they please in a variety of hosts. Slow metabolisms and all.
Ray Peat explained “calorie restriction” may increase life because there are less unsaturated fats in the major organ lipids (heart, liver, etc.), and more youthful saturated fats (less oxidation, less fatty acids). Which this can easily be achieved by eating saturated fats over easily-oxidized or damaged fats.
“The idea of extending life span by slowing metabolism and growth was a logical implication of the “rate of living” theory of aging, and it’s an idea that is still popular. Many people have supposed that eating less would slow metabolism. Caloric restriction does extend the life span of many species, but it generally preserves the high metabolic rate of youth, so that at a given age the calorie-restricted animal has a higher rate of oxygen consumption per gram of body weight than the unrestricted eaters.
Roy Walford, a gerontologist who wrote about extending the human life span to 120 years by caloric restriction, spent 30 years limiting his diet to about 1600 calories, with little animal protein, almost no saturated fat–fish once or twice per week, poultry or beef about once, and a fat free milkshake for breakfast–and after about 15 years, began developing a degenerative brain disease, ALS, one of the nerve diseases involving lipid peroxidation and excitotoxicity. When he died from the disease, he had lived a year longer than the normal life expectancy.”
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/unsaturatedfats.shtml
and
“The carcinogenic properties of the polyunsaturated fats have been known for more than 50 years, as has the principle of extending the life span by restricted feeding. More recently several studies have demonstrated that the long lived species contain fewer highly unsaturated fats than the short lived species. Restriction of calories prevents the lipids in the brain, heart, and liver from becoming more unsaturated with aging. (Lee, et al., 1999; Laganiere, et al., 1993; Tacconi, et al., 1991; R. Patzelt-Wenczler, 1981.)”
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/vitamin-e.shtml
Here is a newer picture of Owsley “The Bear” Stanley…
http://images.tribe.net/tribe/upload/photo/e16/fb0/e16fb0b7-aaa9-4d8a-9150-df4ce7bcb7dd
He’s with his son Starfinder and it was taken in 2005 so he is 70 years old in this picture. IMO he doesn’t look all that good. My grandfather is 83 and he looks about the same as him while basically eating as he calls it, ‘whatever the fuck he wants.’
Ray Peat is in his mid-to-late-80s and I think he looks much healthier than Bear. He eats very similar to high-everything, based on what I’ve read, and he also has been eating low-PUFA for a long time. He looks about 20-30 years younger than his age. Bear chose the wrong path. Charles Washington will join him in eternal pain and misery from metabolic ruin.
he probably hasn’t had heart disease or cancer either and blamed it on his ‘low carb childhood.’
Nope, I haven’t heard anything about Ray Peat getting cancer or a heart attack on his diet – unlike Owsley “Bear” Stanley, even though he eats several quarts a day of milk and orange juice, a quart of ice cream, lots of potatoes, corn tortillas treated with lime, potatoes, meat, eggs, shellfish, lean fish, bone broths, liver, etc. Ray Peat’s high-everything diet has beaten the hell out of Bear’s “zeo-carb” diet. I’ve never heard Ray complain that he can’t sit in hard chairs, either, as Charles Washington is now complaining over on his blog.
Check out this post by Charles, all who would follow his way of eating.
Charles Washington: “Anyway, those of you wanting low bodyfat should really be careful for what you wish for. I haven’t had mind mesured, but I have very little. I’m a paralegal and I have to sit in courtrooms for days at a time. If you’ve ever been in a good federal courtroom, you know the chairs are wooden. There is no padding. My butt bones hurt so bad after sitting there all day. When I was fat, I did not have this problem!”
Charles Washington – RE: Gaining while ZC
“A question to a follower of this regimen if you do not mind….. how are your teeth doing by eating everything? On VLC, I’ve had no tooth problems and no amount of plaque is ever on my teeth. I guess the biggest fear I have of starting to eat carbs is going back to my old tooth problems.”
My teeth look clean. They’re now covered with a layer of fat. I never brushed my teeth, except with water occasionally. I had had no cavities for the first 18 yrs of my life – eating very similar to Ray Peat (lots of milk and orange juice with beef, potatoes, white rice, butter, low fat chicken, peas, carrots, beets, liver or fish a few times a month, occasional ice cream, occasional chocolate… The cavities are related to slow metabolism, as Matt has pointed out. Eating junk all the time causes cavities, not unrefined carbs with saturated fats.
For dinner, I had salmon with celery and pimentos, milk, flour, and butter. Every thing was mixed together and put in two corn tortillas treated with lime and one pita made with white flour (no added oil or sugars in the pita). I added natural salsa (Melissa’s) to the pitta sandwich, and ate the tortillas with just the meat and other ingredients. Total carbs were at least 53g. And I drank a glass of NFC grapefruit juice with the tortillas and the pita bread. Perfect energy, no brain fog or indigestion at all.
Charles Washington: “I haven’t had mind mesured, but I have very little.”
Re: Gaining while ZC
I just realized that Charles Washington made a little freudian slip. He has not had his MIND measured, but he has very little. LOL. Anyone who can put up with the symptoms he puts up with (like black circles under his eyes, pain sitting in hard chairs, feeling cold, having temper tantrums, and so forth) deserves all the pain they get. Like Matt said, a painful lesson is always the best kind.
“For dinner, I had salmon with celery and pimentos, milk, flour, and butter. Every thing was mixed together and put in two corn tortillas treated with lime and one pita made with white flour (no added oil or sugars in the pita). I added natural salsa (Melissa’s) to the pitta sandwich, and ate the tortillas with just the meat and other ingredients. Total carbs were at least 53g. And I drank a glass of NFC grapefruit juice with the tortillas and the pita bread. Perfect energy, no brain fog or indigestion at all.”
Oh, I forgot, there were also some eggs mixed in with the milk and flour and the butter. So, I should be in allergy hell right now: milk, corn, eggs, wheat, sea foood, and citrus all in one meal. Could any of the “food elimination diet” fans tell me why I have perfect digesiton and no symptoms of allergies at all? I would really like to know. I mean, if I had an allergic reaction I should have gained a lot of weight and had bad digestion and so forth, but just the opposite occurred for me. I’d really like Stephan or Peter from HyperLipid to explain why I can eat all the things they say not to eat, even in combination, and continue losing lots of weight, having great digestion, and feeling better than ever.
The answer is simple, so I won’t wait for Peter and Stephan to provide it, which they probably won’t. I’m healthy and healthy people can eat anything with no allergies, food intolerances, etc. A healthy person could eat nuts with corn, white flour, eggs, milk, shellfish, and citrus and tomatoes and a bunch of other things, and have perfect digestion, and perfect energy, and perfect mood. There would be no such thing as food elimination diets if people were healthy, but thanks to dieting they’re not. Eat everything and you will be able to eat what I eat – anything and any combination of things, with perfectly flawless digestion and no weight gain. Eliminate foods or restrict macro-nutrients and you will have the pitiful health enjoyed by people like Emma on Plant Poisons and Peter on the HyperLipid blog. I prefer to have health like the people Weston Price studied, not degenerated modern people with pitifully weak digestion and all kinds of food sensitivities.
“Start slowly, Anonymous. The safest food for starches starches are probably things like corn tortillas (treated with lime), white potatoes, and organic white sushi rice (short grain). Maybe pearl tapioca, cornstarch (as a sauce), or things like that. As your metabolism starts to heal, in several months, try things like good breads (sourdough or sprouted bread) and gradually work up from there. Stay away from fiber unless you can eat it without bloating, gas, diarrhea, etc.”
Hey Bruce,
i have not much problems with fiber, even 80% chocolate gives me no digestive issues, fiber from cooked carrots makes my stools even better! I still avoid grains because i have trouble to digest them this has always been also. So my depression went away after upping my carb intake, more energy..
I have always known that a healthy human can digest nearly everything lol, yesterday i had potaoes, eggs, 1 cup of milk, carrots with ground beef and butter, then again potatoes with butter. No digestive issues, no bloating…
Here’s a good article about the Heart Attack Grill. This place is going to be the official headquarters of the High Everything Diet Club, where we hold our annual meetings in a year or two. Just check out some of the YouTube videos of this place, too. They’re hilarious.
Entrepreneur Magazine – Heart Attack Grill – Cashing In On Controversy
Heart Attack Grill – Photos and Videos
I’m definitely coming to the heart attack grill with you boys, they need more female customers
pipxx
@Bruce: I heal faster with more simple sugars like bananas, carrots and cream. At the moment my starch digestion is very bad so i have to stick with simple sugars combined with fat.
Picked up this book at 1/2 Price for 6$. The French Don’t Diet Plan by Dr. Will Clover. “How to eat rich foods for effortless weight loss and never diet again.”
I am only a 120 pages in, but what he is getting at is very similar to what Matt and Bruce have been talking about. The French eat whole unprocessed foods, no chemicals, plenty of saturated fat. They do not shy away from starch.They eat real food. They are leaner and have less heart disease. My only beef with Dr.Clower’s book so far is that he says the French eat little beef. He recommends eating it once a week. Heck I eat it once or more a day.
What’s his reason for eating little beef?
Here’s an interesting juxtaposition: There’s a book called “Japanese Women don’t get Old or Fat” out too. I’ve read that one, but not the French version.
The only similarity seems to be that both cultures eat whole, unprocessed food. Other than that though, the Japanese (women) are eating extremely low-fat (I remember it saying alot of stuff about fish, rice, vegetables and fruit,) and it’s high in carbs obviously. The rest of the book goes on about ways to eliminate calories, like eating with chopsticks to make your food harder to eat, or only viewing food from a survival standpoint.
Clearly the result of that diet is that most Asian men look way too thin and soft, and their women are TINY. I think the book places alot of importance on being extremely thin as opposed to eating well and losing weight through actually CONSUMING calories
Peter from the HyperLipid blog is seriously messed up. His only friend is his cat. He is one of those types of people who have no life besides analyzing food, and feeling really clever about how much he knows.
No normal adult male (only a person who is mentally and socially retarded) takes a picture of themselves with their cat and uses it as their photo.
He wants to show his cat to the world: it’s the only thing bringing him joy in his miserable life.
Peter is pathetic in my opinion. He doesn’t qualify for being a human.
Good thing natural selection will take care of his pathetic genes (which woman would choose such a loser as a husband?) so that in future generations we will hopefully not have any human begins who resemble Peter.
Barry Groves doesn’t look the best for his age at 72 either….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01012/barry-groves_1012486c.jpg
What’s his reason for eating little beef?
Chloe
I havent got that far yet, I will let you knwow.
You guys can write that book. I was thinking of coming up with a flamboyant Conan the Barbarian-like character called THE DIET SLAYER. I could have a decapitated person with a Jenny Craig t-shirt on the cover and a bloody sword on the cover. Now that would be an attention getter.
Anonymous F low carb:
It’s interesting that Schwarzbein evolved to become preoccupied with food allergies. No way that’s a coincidence.
My gf, who is almost Charles Washington carb-phobic has developed deadly food allergies to shellfish and developed an autoimmune disease since losing a bunch of weight on VLC. Also not a coincidence.
Michael,
My teeth have been much better. I didn’t have much plaque on very low carb, but I had mad tooth pain – and that was on zero sugar with about 40-60grams of carbs per day! Back to brushing once every 1-2 days with no tooth pain whatsoever, even drinking a little juice and eating a few pieces of fruit per week.
JT,
Your response to fruit and natural sugars was very much in line with mine. Things have gotten better now though. But you’re right, refined sugars can be less hypoglycemia-inducing than natural sugars for sure.
Undigested sugars:
Many people suffer from fructose malabsorption, and to a lesser degree, lactose malabsorption. When looking at Pottenger’s cats, it seems clear that the undigested sugars (from pasteurized milk) brought about their demise, but that is debatable. I tend to equate malabsorbed sugars with their constellation of health problems – allergies, crooked teeth, asthma, osteo, behavioral problems, etc.
Harper,
If your main concern is staying thin, then a low fat, high carb diet will work. And I don’t think it is unhealthy for most people as long as you do it right. I have lived in other countries where I was pretty much forced to eat that way and I got really thin and lean without trying. In Brazil most of my calories came from beans and rice, Italy was mostly pasta and some fruit, Korea was mostly rice and vegetables. In all of these places I did eat small amounts of meat, but not much and not with every meal. I always ate a lot and I looked and felt good eating this way. You can also read my previous post about my past girlfriends who maintain excellent health and body composition with high starch diets.
Wow, how mature. Just want to let everyone know, there’s a link on my name, that links to my profile, and this person is just typing in my name (with no link to any profile) and pretending to be me for some reason that I don’t know.
Matt,
Why do you think that Schwarzbein evolved to become concerned with food allergies? I personally think that it is a good idea to avoid foods one has an allergic reaction to while you are in the metabolic healing phase. Then when you are healed you could go about challenging yourself to get over the allergies.
The only thing I am really allergic to is eggs, especially the whites. I think I always knew that I didn’t react well to eggs, but I forced myself to eat them anyways because I thought they were “healthy”. I know a naturopathic doc and she did a full blood test on me for food allergies and it showed my allergy to eggs. Since I cut them out I have felt a lot better.
People need to get over this idea of “healthy” foods. Everyone is different and everyone has different foods that are healthy for them. Pay attention to your body and see what is right for you as an individual instead of listening to gurus who tell you what is healthy. I wonder how many people out there spend all of their time force feeding themselves “healthy” foods that are making them sick, when they would actually be a lot healthier eating “unhealthy” foods.
It must a Charles Washington follower who is threatened by your posts.
Thanks JT – staying thin isn’t my occupation, but due to past issues, I’m weight-phobic. It sucks that I’m that transparent that everyone can tell! Your post about your girlfriends was indeed very encouraging, I hope I can gain more muscle definition too because at the moment I’m just very soft and thin.
I’ve been eating hi-carb hi-fat mod-protein for about 4 days now, and I never feel like taking naps anymore like I did after high protein meals. That, for me, is definitely an improvement!
Matt, I’m sorry about your girlfriend and I hope she’s doing okay.
Chloe, I’m sorry about your impersonator!
Matt,
I used to be able to eat a lot of fruits and natural sugars with no problems. I even went a few weeks eating nothing but fruits and fruit juices and felt great the whole time, even though I lost a lot of muscle mass.
Ever since being low/no carb for so long I don’t react the same and i think that is because I burned out my adrenals during this time. I think that fruit sugars have a relaxant effect on the adrenal glands, but this is not good if you are already not producing enough cortisol. You should do a test for your adrenals and see if that your problem.
Lactose-intolerance may be one of the very few disorders that are legit. Many people, just like all animals, do not produce lactase into adulthood. I’m doubtful that simply bringing the metabolism back to a healthy level would magically cure it.
Anonymous on Peter… Hilarious.
Anonymous on tumors…
You have no clue what you are talking about. Once again, Broda Barnes, by raising the metabolic rate to normal, had zero patients develop lung cancer for example, whether they smoked or not.
The metabolism typically gets lower as old age sets in, which is why degenerative disease sets in during old age in exponentially higher numbers. Much of cancer has to do with a high blood sugar (from low metabolism) and resistance to other hormones as well, such as estrogen and testosterone. This elevates levels of those hormones and is why elevated sex hormones are synonymous with cancer, just as low sex hormones as well.
Although the Japanese may live longer, and this might have something to do with their low-calorie eating, their stereotypical bodies are a classical representation of a less than perfect metabolism. They are famous for their tiny primary and secondary sex organs, small musculature and stature. A very well-fed person with a high metabolism hits maximal reproductive and physical capacity.
Eating a lot may not magically make a person live longer, but rather, the quality of life is better and the number of ailments is close to nil from birth to death. Plus, once you heal the metabolism by following a regimen that achieves that, you can always go to a more moderate and sustainable plan. Metabolic healing is just temporary. Then you can “eat normally” and have better health for life.
Matt, the blog is getting spammed with forgeries (sporgeries). If there’s not a link to the user’s profile in the e-mail notification, don’t believe that it’s a message from who it says it’s from. They have spoofed Chloe, Harper, and me now.
Also, they are spoofing JT. I think you need to disable comments from anonymous users before things get out of hand. So don’t believe any messages from Chloe or JT or Harper or me unless there’s a link to our profile at the beginning of the message body. The back-lash from all of the pathetic low-carb zealots has begun.
“Lactose-intolerance may be one of the very few disorders that are legit. Many people, just like all animals, do not produce lactase into adulthood. I’m doubtful that simply bringing the metabolism back to a healthy level would magically cure it.”
But it may NOT be legit. I mean, can you cite any compelling evidence that a slow metabolism has nothing to do with it? Or that you can’t be “inoculated” to it? In the things I’ve read abou it, they say a person with “lactose intolerance” can typically drink a cup of milk at a time with no reaction. So, it seems to me you could at least increase tolerance, maybe not get to the point where you can drink a quart or a gallon of milk in a sitting but at least get to where you can drink cups of milk here nad there.
Wrong again, Mr. Anonymous Coward, who’s impersonating usrs because they are too pathetic to say anything with their own name on it. I feel great and digestion’s fine. I’m sleeping less, my stomach has gotten flatter, I’m losing weight and it isn’t coming back. In short, I’m rapidly proving all the diet phobias – carbs and fat and starches and natural sugars – to be completely unfounded. We welcome you, whenever you see that diets are dead. A healthy person doesn’t need to diet. And diets do nothing to make you health. All diets are like the equivalent of burying your head in the sand. Eating Everything isn’t really a diet. Like Matt said, it is a non-diet or an anti-diet, because it’s so flexible and versatile. Everyone finds their own sweet spot, like JT has said. But the basic diet should be like 20-70% fat, 20-70% carbs, 5-25% protein. Not too low in fat or carbs and you can vary the ratios on a daily basis as you get healthyier without any problems. My own ratios vary widely every day.
No. No. Go back to your pathetic little cult, Charles. We don't want you here. I have not eaten low-carb in years. I ate semi low carb (80-120g), but that is now over. I'm going to eat double or triple that amount of carbs from now on and get healthier and leaner. Have fun with your miserable existence of pathetic fear and obsessive-compulsive disorders. Healthy People Don't Diet. They eat everything & stay effortlessly lean. To hell with all the low-carb diets and their dumb gurus.
Now the cowards have spoofed eesakas and you, Matt. Once again, don’t believe ANY messages unless they have a link to each user’s profile at the beginning. There’s too many pathetic low-carb losers with a lot of time on their hand who are feeling insecure about their lack of health, bad digestion, black circles under the eyes, feeling pain from sitting in hard chairs, gaining weight from any meal with several ingredients, etc. The low-carb losers do not have any integrity at all.
Good he’s not spoofing me, sincerly adwred.
I’m very jealous of this blog and the comment sections. My followers are all obsessive nutjobs with serious psychological disorders and body image issues. We’ve gotten to the point where we think that any amount of carbohydrate in the diet will cause serious degenerative disease, ESPECIALLY the .6g in egg yolks. I’m very angry with the High Everything crew here because it is converting some of my most dedicated followers that I’ve spent a considerable amount of time weakening so they cling to me in a pathetic way. Please stop what you are doing now…..if people learn the truth about diet then my zero-carb forum and store will be put out of business just like the Active No-carber forum.
Regards,
Charles
Matt:
Please don’t disable anonymous comments. I think this blog has received a lot of useful discussion coming from anonymous posters who don’t have the time (or don’t want to) sign up for bloggerspot.
Plus allowing people to post anonymously generates more traffic to your blog/website, which in turn makes it rank higher.
Just delete the ones who pretend to be someone else. Maybe there is a function to stop anonymous posters from selecting names that are already registered? Or maybe just take the ability to select ANY name away, so an anonymous poster can ONLY post as “Anonymous”..
And MATT, Can you really develop an autoimmune disease from low/zero carb? What auto immune disease did your girl friend get from low carb? Is it permanent or is it reversible?
Good luck to you! Great site!
“Barry Groves doesn’t look the best for his age at 72 either….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01012/barry-groves_1012486c.jpg“
He looks like a regular 72 year old… Bald and wrinkly.
Is Ray Peat really in his 80’s? Can someone post a larger picture of him than the one he has on his website? Judging from the small picture on his website though, he looks to be in great shape for a 80 year old. Not very wrinkly, and looks like a good amount of hair left on his head.
“Can someone post a larger picture of him than the one he has on his website?”
This is the clearest photo I’ve seen of Ray and probably the most recent one. He looks good for a mid-to-late-80s man, I think. Far better than Owsley Stanley or Barry Groves or Michael Eades will look when they are in their 80s. Better than Atkins looked at the time of his death.
Ray Peat
He looks a bit thin… But all men I have seen who have survived past their 70s look very thin.. I wonder why
Wow, those other “anon” people are extremely annoying. I have done HED for about 3 days now, am trying the erm “interval” day today. I feel great and my muscles are like randomly inflating. I am going to buy some potatoes and rice, bc I have been having to eat bread and stuff. It seems like I have done OK on that, though. My digestion is getting better, I don’t have to rely on coffee to go anymore. It still needs work, though.
Probably eating around 2,500 cal. I am a female, 5’9″ and 132 pounds. Was 128 before overexercising.
No exercise on this diet yet, but I haven’t gained or lost anything.
Previously, I was low-carb and waaay overexercising (45 min HARD a day, plus extra hour or so of cardio or weight lifting). It just made me get fat and sluggish. I actually gained in body fat percentage, lol. And weight.
I actually loose weight too quickly if I add too many carbs to my diet.. Therefore I need to go low carb to keep some weight on me.
– David
SO is pasteurized cream OK or NOT?
I want to know if I can eat some organic ice cream with just pasteurized cream, sugar, vanilla and eggs as ingredients.
I don’t want to develop “behavioral” problems as Matt says result from consuming pasteurized dairy products.
It’s just so tough… To follow all recommendations at the same time:
Keep it low PUFA. Keep it low fiber. Eat a great deal raw. Keep SFA high. Don’t eat pasteurized dairy. Stay away from Fruit which has fructose, which is malabsorbed. Keep starch high to increase metabolic rate. Don’t eat raw vegetables because of toxins….
What’s there left to eat? Meat/fat and white rice?
No! It’s not that tough!
Low PUFA is easy, just cut out vegetable oils. The only reason you’d want to eat low fiber is if you have serious digestive problems, so don’t worry about that. As for pasteurized dairy, both Troy and Bruce and mostly everyone else eat it (I’m the only one that has a stupid intolerance!)
The only real thing to limit is, yeah, fruit. But you can still have it! I don’t remember anyone saying that raw vegetables have toxins; maybe some of them do have pesticides but it’s trace so don’t worry about it.
:)
Anonymous: "Keep it low PUFA. Keep it low fiber. Eat a great deal raw. Keep SFA high. Don't eat pasteurized dairy. Stay away from Fruit which has fructose, which is malabsorbed. Keep starch high to increase metabolic rate. Don't eat raw vegetables because of toxins…."
If you can tolerate fiber, there's not a good reason to avoid it. When you have a good metabolism, you will have smaller & more frequent eliminations. The point is to eat what you can tolerate with fewest problems. If that is raw milk or lactose free milk, then use it. If you tolerate white rice better than brown, or prefer its taste, then don't worry about brown rice. You can make up for the deficiency of white rice with other foods. The same for raw vegetables. They can be hard to digest or have anti-nutrititive effects. If you can tolerate fruit or honey with no hypoglycemia or cravings, then maybe you can increase the sugars from natural foods. But eat natural fats and proteins with the carbs generally, unless there's no other food available. Starches might speed up metabolism more for some people with damaged adrenals, etc. You have to get rid of the diet mind-set of cutting calories, carbs, fat, etc. Most peopole don't eat enough and that's why they are fat, not because they over-eat. They do not eat enough for their metabolism and various organs to function. As a result, they develop all kinds of diseases, from digestive problems to food intolerances, to cancer and other things.
Matt, you are dead wrong on this one buddy:
“Milk is a very nutritious food, but many people have a very poor tolerance for it, particularly those who don’t produce much lactase ? the digestive enzyme that digests milk sugar, or lactose. Even more importantly, milk sold at the grocery store, because it has been pasteurized (heat-treated), the naturally-occuring temperature-sensitive lactase enzymes are destroyed. This renders store-bought milk even more intolerable.”
There is NO LACTASE ENZYME present in RAW MILK. I repeat: THERE IS NO LACTASE ENZYME PRESENT IN RAW MILK. If there were, there’d be absolutely no lactose in ANY milk. Let me explain: If you took pure lactose and added lactase enzyme to it, the enzyme would completely break down the lactose in a matter of seconds. Enzymes facilitate reactions VERY quickly. SO if there is lactase enzyme in the milk as it comes out of the tit the cow, it should have already broken lactose down completely in the milk to the two other sugars, and pasteurization would only destroy the lactase enzyme, but would not reverse the reaction that has already happened.
What you are saying, that raw milk contains “lactase enzyme” is really health food junk science, much worse than government food pyramid recommendations. Show me the proof. You sound almost like a raw vegan on this point. “enzymes make everything easier to digest”.
What on the other hand MIGHT make digestion easier with raw milk is the fact that there are bacteria present, which are “added” to your digestive tract when you drink raw milk. So you might (or bacteria in your colon might slowly) develop abilities to produce the lactase enzyme. Once you are at this stage, you should be able to drink pasteurized milk as well. “You need to drink raw milk in order t drink pasteurized milk” – Mark McAffee, the owner of Organic Pastures said this. This is especially the case if you have been on antibiotics, then you need to drink raw milk again to provide the beneficial lactose digesting bacteria to the colon (and probably also activate your body’s own response to lactose, which could probably be done with pasteurized milk as well, as Bruce says).
Try drinking raw milk 3 days of the week, then switch to pasteurized milk the next 3 days. I think you could keep rotating like this and not have any problems (unless you believe in Raw Food dogma that anything heated about 95 degrees is toxic)
Maybe you could do the same thing by not washing your hands obsessively, esp with anti-bacterial soaps, eating more yogurt and things like that, etc. I haven’t had raw milk in years. I eat some raw cheese occasionally, some yogurt occasionally, and usually wash my hands with water (no anti-bacterial soaps. I would never take anti-biotics, except in a life and death emergency. I also don’t drink water that has been fluoridated or chlorinated if I can easily avoid doing so.
JT:
“I used to be able to eat a lot of fruits and natural sugars with no problems. I even went a few weeks eating nothing but fruits and fruit juices and felt great the whole time, even though I lost a lot of muscle mass.
Ever since being low/no carb for so long I don’t react the same and i think that is because I burned out my adrenals during this time. I think that fruit sugars have a relaxant effect on the adrenal glands, but this is not good if you are already not producing enough cortisol. You should do a test for your adrenals and see if that your problem.”
Low carb does not damage adrenals. Any proof?
And from where does your idea come that fruit relaxes the adrenals? Something you just made up from your personal experience?
And you think that going low carb makes you not produce enough cortisol? It’s usually the other way around as I recall… And you DON’T want your adrenals to produce too much cortisol: cortisol is a catabolic substance.
Bruce
I never touch the water that comes out of the tap, it’s pure poison. I can’t believe the government is still adding fluoride (waste product of the aluminium industry) to the water supply… I guess they have found the ultimate way to hide the fluoride: In human tissue.
Even the water I use for cooking/tea/coffee/EVERYTHING is mineral water from Europe. Fluoride is not removed completely by reverse osmosis, and distilled water is very unnatural and robs the body of minerals.
Fluoride is the greatest crime committed on man kind. And I’m NOT exaggerating. It’s banned in most countries in Europe because it is viewed as a toxins (many countries have max allowable levels for fluoride LOWER than what the US is adding to the water supply).
Fluoride is produced as a waste product by the aluminum industry. It was usually disposed of by simply throwing it out in the environment. Unfortunately animals and wild stock on the country side got sick and died because of this, so a solution had to be found. The perfect one was found indeed, a scientist hired by the aluminum industry convinced the dental association later convincing the FDA that fluoride is safe (and even beneficial) at 1 PPM. This is the perfect crime: now the aluminum industry (and nuclear arms industry) can dispose of fluoride, without it accumulating in the environment: it now accumulates in the human body, because humans in the US are forced to consume this toxic substance, through water, vegetables, meat, milk, any food grown/produced in the US contains raised fluoride levels. But there is no sign of overall pollution in one area, and the Anti Pollution/Pro Nature organizations of the world cannot take action or raise publicity about the amounts of toxic fluoride created by these metal industries. Maybe one day DuPont (founder of Teflon, who have had a factory shut down due to pollution of nearby water sources), will come up with the same great idea to prove that the toxic by products created by the manufacturing of Teflon are beneficial to tooth health. This way they too can hide the pollution… Inside human tissue.
Fluoride has been proven to lower IQ and increase the risk of specific cancers, such as bone cancer. Fluoride accumulates in the brain and spinal cord of all mammals and affects neuro cognitive abilities.
Water fluoridation has many times caused direct deaths, because of failure in the fluoridation machines (see Wikipedia article for water fluoridation in the US).
Fluoride has NO benefits for teeth as some argue, not even topically/systemically (even if added directly to teeth). Fluoride damages bacteria the same way it damages the human body, by inhibiting key enzymes and killing both good and bad bacteria… It’s a poison, and it’s just as effective as adding low levels of mercury to your water and toothpaste.
Is the government trying to lower the IQ of the people? Is it trying to lower population levels?
Please do your own research on fluoride by visiting http://www.fluoridealert.org and looking through the evidence and the referfences. Google “water fluoridaton” yourself and see how the only “pro-water-fluoridation” website are those regurgitating the same false information, referencing the same old and flawed studies. See how these pro fluoridation websites are written as if they were for small children – shortly explaining how healthy fluoride is, without going in-depth about it, or even stating the fact that Hitler used fluoride on the Jews to keep them weak, confused, sick and unable to rebel, or that fluoride is a known toxin in the chemistry world.
We must unite and stop this fluoridation. It is beyond my understanding why Anyone would vote for water fluoridation in their community – it goes to show what a lowered IQ people have, to believe something without questioning it. This is probably due to all the fluoride drinking.
Any scientists in here?
YOUR SIGNATURE MATTER, Please help STOP water fluoridation:
http://www.fluoridealert.org/
HFCS Contains Mercury. Google it. The production of corn into HFCS involves mercury agent.
Maybe that’s why it is so damaging… I don’t think it’s the fructose that is to blame.. More the refined nature of the product
What is Ray Peat’s view on pasteurized vs. raw dairy?
“Fluoride is the greatest crime committed on man kind.”
No, dieting is. Cutting out food groups, limiting macro-nutrients, and cutting of calories are simply metabolic suicide. I think all diet gurus should be in prison for crimes against humanity, foisting an obsessive and fearful way of eating on a lot of unlucky victims.
Matt,
You really need to disable the anonymous comments, it only takes a few seconds to sign in. It is making it impossible to keep track of who is saying what. It is ruining your blog!
Anonymous,
“Low carb does not damage adrenals. Any proof?”
Depends on what you mean by “proof”, I don’t know if I have absolute certainty of anything. I have many years of experience with very low carb/no carb diets. Whenever I would let my carbs get too low for too long I would suffer from all the classic symptoms of high cortisol. Now I have very low cortisol, too low. I have done a lot of testing (blood, saliva, urine) multiple times showing extremely low cortisol levels. I have been consulting with some very knowledgeable doctors who specialize in this and have treated thousands of people, that they have seen this quite frequently. Schwarzbein talks about adrenal fatigue a lot in her books, and I think the info is good.
“And from where does your idea come that fruit relaxes the adrenals? Something you just made up from your personal experience?”
Yes, my own experience has brought me to wonder if this is the case. I have heard some naturopath docs say that you should have fruit to relax your adrenals and stimulate the thyroid, not sure, but Ray Peat may believe this. I think it is very important to base your beliefs as much as possible on your own experience, especially when dealing with your diet and health because people can react to things so differently. Different people can react to things in different ways, I even know some people that get tired when they drink coffee.
“And you think that going low carb makes you not produce enough cortisol? It’s usually the other way around as I recall… And you DON’T want your adrenals to produce too much cortisol: cortisol is a catabolic substance.”
Maybe I wasn’t clear enough in my previous posts. Low carb will make you produce more cortisol, and I think I did it for too long which resulted in my adrenal glands becoming severely fatigued. Yes, you are right, cortisol is very catabolic, and that is why I lost A LOT of muscle mass from being too low on carbs for too long. But, as bad as high cortisol is, low cortisol is a lot worse, you will die without it. Like pretty much everything in life you have to find the right balance.
Matt Stone: “The more carbs you eat, the more efficiently you burn the fat as fuel.”
Really? I was under the impression that you burn fat more efficiently when carbohydrates are restricted, because the body is forced to use fat as its primary fuel source.
"Really? I was under the impression that you burn fat more efficiently when carbohydrates are restricted, because the body is forced to use fat as its primary fuel source."
That will work for awhile until your metabolism & thyroid function come to a screeching halt.
Marc: “Really? I was under the impression that you burn fat more efficiently when carbohydrates are restricted, because the body is forced to use fat as its primary fuel source.”
Who has shown that you can’t burn fat on high-carb diets? That seems to me like a simple low-carb myth. I could name a lot of people eating high-carb diets with a leaner body than Michael Eades or Robert Atkins ever thought about having. So, is there any proof that low-carb diets make you leaner than high-carb diets or is it just an article of blind faith? How does low-carb dogma explain why I lose weight eating 3,000+ calories and 250g of carbs or more? I would have to be under-eating by 1480 Calories to lose as fast as I’ve beenn doing. That would mean my resting metabolism is 4480 Calories.
Another low-carb theory is that you can not lose weight without depleting muscle and/or liver glycogen. I doubt if anyone has proven this. It’s just another silly idea started by people Atkins and Eades, to demonize the carbs. I don’t think you can blame carbs or calories for obesity. It’s more likely an interaction, like an excess of refined sugar and rancid oils. I do know that eating starches and clean sugars (like fruit juice and honey) does not stop me from losing weight, combined with lots of starch, fat, protein, etc.
So far, nobody has come up with a valid theory about how I lost 11 pounds in 26 days while eating high-everything (high fat, high starch, high unrefined sugars, high calories, nad adequate protein). I just shot down a half dozen ideas about what causes obesity: starches, fructose, fat, calories, starches + fructose, fat + carbs…) The only explanation that I can see is that my metabolism increased to where I’m burning 4,480 Calories per day with light exercise, so that I lost 1480 Calories of fat a day. And I don’t seem to have lost any muscle.
Hi,
just my 2 cents: I have been on a low carb, high fat diet for about 2 years now and did only experience positive results. My digestion improved by 100%, i was underweight and gained a lot of weight, more energy, acne disappeared, better hair texture, better sleep, better mood, my food intolerances went away. So don’t blame low carb, in my opinion there’s nothing wrong about it.
wow!!
I go surfing for a couple days and everyone starts impersonating eachother! ha!
i hope everyone is doing well!
troy
fred, I didn’t write that; some asshole is impersonating some names; if there’s a link on the name, then I really said it.
http://forum.zeroinginonhealth.com/showthread.php'tid=626&page=3
post#22
Bruce
It seems your comments have been copied to another forum.
Sorry about the annoying (but slightly hilarious) comments. Hopefully they will go away and I can continue to allow anonymous posts.
Interesting about the raw milk post. Perhaps that is the truth – the bacteria, and not the lactase, is the key. However, bacteria counts are much higher in pasteurized milk from what I understand. The raw dairy farmer that I get milk from just had his tested at a level of 80 (maximum allowable count – 10,000). Bacteria is on everything. It’s hard to believe that practically sterile raw milk provides so much bacteria that it allows magical healing, especially considering that most bacteria is completely eliminated by stomach acid.
There is nothing wrong with low-carb diets. There is however, an epidemic of suboptimal metabolisms, and low-carb diets can make that root problem worse. In other words, it is an inappropriate healing strategy for many people. That’s all.
I did think that force-feeding the body fat and little else would improve fatty aid oxidation at one point. However, I would like to amend that. The thyroid controls how well you burn fatty acids for fuel, and little else. What increases metabolic rate, increases fatty acid oxidation. Going too low in carbohydrates can stall that process.
I believe that it’s true that low-carb diets can exacerbate high cortisol output. Hypercortisolemia is yet another arm of a suboptimal metabolism – adrenal burnout another notch below that. Again, this makes going too low in carbs for an extended period of time problematic for those who enter into a low-carb diet with those health problems. For those with a perfect metabolism, low-carb is fine.
And to reiterate once more, going high in calories and high in everything is a temporary strategy for reversing a sluggish metabolism. Once you get there, you have many more liberties with your diet. It is a short-term problem solver. There is no inherent need to force feed yourself every day or eat a high-calorie diet.
Matt and Bruce,
I think I may have a good theory on why some people do better with sugars, and others with starch.
As I have states previously, due to my experience, I have a belief that natural sugars from fruits can relax the adrenals. For additional support of my position I would like to give you a quote from an article on Hypothyroidism by Lita Lee PHD, who is Ray Peat’s Protege. “Fruits and fruit juices: Fruits and fruit juices help modulate blood sugar and calm down the adrenal glands. If you add about 1/4 tsp of sea salt to your fruit juice, this will raise your blood sugar to normal and calm you down. Also, fruit juice can stimulate increased production of T3 (active thyroid) from T4 (inactive).”
I agree with Peat and Lee that there is probably an epidemic of hypothyroidism out there. But, I also agree with Schwarzbein that there are many cases of adrenal fatigue out there as well. The problem is that most people can’t tell the difference because the symptoms can be so similar.
If you already have low cortisol levels because your adrenal glands are burned out it could be bad to relax them even more. Your blood sugar will not be stable if cortisol is too low. Your body temperature can drop. You will feel weak.
Maybe the reason people like Matt, myself, and so many others seem to have difficulties with natural sugars from fruit is because we are already adrenal fatigued. Relaxing them even more makes things worse.
I wonder if this might explain why some people do better on mostly natural sugars as their carb source and other on starches. People who have a low metabolism due to sluggish thyroids may do better on sugars, and people who have a low metabolism due to adrenal insufficiency may to better with starches. Someone with a great metabolism would probably do great on either.
Ray peat focuses on thyroid and promotes fruit sugars. Schwarzbein focuses on the adrenals and promotes starches.
Again, this is a perfect example of why people need to experiment and test things for themselves to see what works. I have tried many different ways of eating and paid close attention to how my body reacts. I also have had many external medical tests done as well so that I would have extra verification of what was going on.
“If you already have low cortisol levels because your adrenal glands are burned out it could be bad to relax them even more. Your blood sugar will not be stable if cortisol is too low. Your body temperature can drop. You will feel weak.”
I feel the same with sugars or starches, as long as I eat enough. I have to go at it aggressively, however. Like, at least 2 cups of orange or grapefruit juice, or 3-4 tbsp of unheated honey, with natural fat and protein. At least 50g of carbs a meal, not just drinking like a glass of juice or 1-2 tbsp of honey.
“Maybe the reason people like Matt, myself, and so many others seem to have difficulties with natural sugars from fruit is because we are already adrenal fatigued. Relaxing them even more makes things worse.”
But maybe you could strengthen your body with weekly fruit juice binges, or honey binges. Also it seems to be more complex than just the sugars, because you noted that refined sugars don’t cause the same effect, right? So maybe you’re sensitive to salicylates or something. This is not genetic, IMO. It’s metabolic or hormonal and you could over-come it. Salicylates have no effect on me any more. I used to get hypo-glycemia from eating the extra virgin coconut oil, but I was eating low carbs (relative to the HED).
“It’s hard to believe that practically sterile raw milk provides so much bacteria that it allows magical healing, especially considering that most bacteria is completely eliminated by stomach acid.”
But you could also say that the enzymes are eliminated by stomach acid. Only an individual like AV who claims not to be making stomach acid would benefit from raw food enzymes, or someone eating an extremely alkaline diet perhaps. There is also acid in the intestine; a person can survive without a stomach.
“For those with a perfect metabolism, low-carb is fine.”
That’s a good way of putting it, and by extension, it’s not best for most people today who have severely degenerated and weakened digestion, metabolism, etc. The proper healing diet would at least have weekly carb binges, preferably unrefined natural carbs on the whole.
“For those with a perfect metabolism, low-carb is fine.”
Plus, a person with a perfect metabolism would have no reason to eat low-carb, as they could just as easily eat the Kitava Diet or high-carb or HED. And there is a risk of slowing metabolism if you’re not eating high-fat, high-calorie, low-carb, and low-to-moderate protein. THe typical low-carb diet could easily ruin a strong and healthy metabolism, as you note even Atkins said his diet could cause thyroid trouble. That should be a red flag, that he would even give that warning, despite telling people to eat lots of fat.
Bruce,
I agree with you that it is not genetic. I have gone for weeks only consuming fruit and fruit juice in the past, and felt great. It wasn’t until after low carbing for so long and fatiguing my adrenal that I had issues with the fruit sugars. So yes, I agree that it is probably metabolic and hormonal. I have done binges with large amounts of juice in the past year because I was knew I needed to up my carbs, but still wanted to avoid starch. I think as soon as I heal my metabolsm and adrenals by eating high everything in a manner like Schwarzbein I will be fine with fruit.
This is from Charles’ Zero Carb forum:
—————–
christiana Wrote: “Metabolism so alludes me. Does exercise increase our metabolism’s speed? Can our metabolisms be sped up? I’m so confused. How can I get a faster metabolism? Will ZC do it?”
Charles Wrote: “No, it doesn’t. What increases metabolism is by getting rid of that which slows metabolism. High insulin will slow metabolism by trapping fatty acids in your fat tissue for longer periods of time than natural. When you lower insulin over time, then more fatty acids are available to your body and this is the “speed-up” that so many are looking for. ZC is very good at lowering insulin levels and thus speeding metabolism.”
———————–
Is there any truth behind this? Can zero carb really speed up metabolism?
And can a low carb diet be efficient at keeping metabolism stable if it is ULTRA HIGH in FAT?
JT: “I agree with you that it is not genetic. I have gone for weeks only consuming fruit and fruit juice in the past, and felt great. It wasn’t until after low carbing for so long and fatiguing my adrenal that I had issues with the fruit sugars. So yes, I agree that it is probably metabolic and hormonal. I have done binges with large amounts of juice in the past year because I knew I needed to up my carbs, but still wanted to avoid starch. I think as soon as I heal my metabolsm and adrenals by eating high everything in a manner like Schwarzbein I will be fine with fruit.”
It’s good that you realize this, because some people claim they’re just naturally intolerant to things like fruit (because of salicylates or other reasons). I feel they are missing the big picture – their metabolism is damaged. Maybe it was even damaged before they were born by mothers eating some ridiculous fad diet, but the fact remains that it is NOT natural, the healthy person can eat any natural carb, fat, and protein with perfect digesiton, calm stable energy, no food allergies or intolerances, etc. Unhealthy people were damaged, maybe pre-natally before birth, but still they are damaged. I think that the groups Weston Price studied would’ve thrived even if they switched places and ate a totally different diet. That’s the legacy of robust health, that you aren’t tied to one diet. You can eat everything as long as most of your food is natural.
“Is there any truth behind this? Can zero carb really speed up metabolism?”
Anything can speed up your metabolism – even eating large amounts of starches or sugars. The problem is that you have to eat more when your metabolism speeds up, and you need a basic amount of vitamins and minerals, etc. If you don’t eat lots of food, your calories will probably go too low, esp if you exercise a lot like Charles. He is starving himself himself, like some deluded anorexic. He’s scared to death of gaining a few pounds just by eating meat and eggs or meat and cheese. He’s become a total neurotic.
“And can a low carb diet be efficient at keeping metabolism stable if it is ULTRA HIGH in FAT?”
If they stuff themselves (swallowing the food without chewing much), maybe they’d stay healthy for a long time. But eating like Bear and Charles with mostly muscle meats is a bad idea, IMO. You need other things like liver, brain, heart, marrow, tongue, kidney, sweetbreads, etc.
“Is there any truth behind this? Can zero carb really speed up metabolism?
And can a low carb diet be efficient at keeping metabolism stable if it is ULTRA HIGH in FAT?”
Why don’t you try it and let us know how you do?
I think you can raise our metabolism with low carb as long as you can force yourself to eat enough. Appetite supression of low carb was strong for me. If you are only eating the muscle meats (which is what most people do), you definitely need to find a way to balance out the amino acids. Like Ray Peat, I would recommend a gelatin protein supplement to go along with the muscle meats.
“If they stuff themselves (swallowing the food without chewing much), maybe they’d stay healthy for a long time. But eating like Bear and Charles with mostly muscle meats is a bad idea, IMO. You need other things like liver, brain, heart, marrow, tongue, kidney, sweetbreads, etc.”
You should also eat cheese, milk, cream, butter, eggs, half-and-half, etc. Eating meat-and-water, as Charles calls it, is totally stupid and unnatural. Bear drank milk in the past. He probably would look much healthier if he had continued with milk. I would suggest a carnivorous diet including a variety of foods as being a vastly superior diet to zero-carb. Drink milk (lactose-free or raw if necessary), cream, half-and-half, etc. Eat meat and eggs, cheese, butter, etc. Don’t cut out any foods from the animal kingdom. That would probably blow ZC away.
Is everyone suddenly forgetting about FUMP?
I’m pretty sure Matt ate a lot there..still gave him signs of higher then normal adrenal output.
MATT you should remove the statement that raw milk contains lactase enzyme from your website:
http://180degreehealth.com/index.php?180=not-milk
Consider another fact, if lactase is present in raw milk, then why do all humans produce lactase in their digestive systems when they are being breastfed? Wouldn’t this be a waste if the raw milk already contained the necessary enzymes to break down its own sugar completely (which would be completed as soon as it came out of the breast, as I have said in my previous post)
The case is a little different with raw meat, though. All flesh actually contain enzymes that will break down the flesh itself (auto digestive enzymes).
These enzymes are encapsulated in small structures (organelles) inside cells called lysosomes. The enzymes inside lysosomes are not working when a human/animal is alive (and the cells are working properly), since they do not have the necessary conditions (the optimal condition for these enzymes to work is a pH of 4 or lower, acidic).
When a human/mammal is alive, the pH is not acidic inside cells. But when death occurs, something happens that changes the conditions completely: breathing/respiration stops and buildup of CO2 occurs (O2 lowers). More CO2 means ACIDIC conditions (ask any chemist). This causes the perfect environment for these “auto digesting” enzymes and so they break out of the lysosome structure and start facilitating auto digestive reactions, effectively breaking down the flesh (this is what happens when flesh from something that is dead starts to rot with time. It will become liquid at a point. Please note that while bacteria are also part of the process of breaking down meat, the flesh will auto digest itself even in a sterile environment, because of the enzymes it contains in its own cells).
Eating raw meat means the meat reaches the stomach, where there are very acidic conditions, with all its own enzymes intact. This speeds up the entire process (the enzymes inside lysosomes now have perfect conditions in an instant, and they can break free of the lysosome structures and help with digestion).
The enzymes inside the meat, of course, only “surive” for 30 minutes until they reach further in the stomach and in the small intestines where they are broken down as any protein and absorbed. But UNTIL then, they help pre-digestion of food in the stomach.
This is why there are big differences in terms of digestion of raw vs. cooked meat, but the differences are smaller (or almost non-existent) when it comes to other foods such as vegetables/fruit. Why is that? Because fruit/vegetables are not proteins, and only proteins are broken down mainly in the stomach (fats and carbohydrates are mainly broken down/digested in the intestines). Since the enzymes of fruit/vegetables don’t work optimum at the acidic conditions of the stomach, these enzymes WILL NOT help with digestion, at all. Most scientists also agree that only animal cells contain lysosomes (structures in cells with auto digesting enzymes) but there are debates going on about this.
You can test to see how the enzymes in meat digests the meat itself. Put something very acidic on the meat, such as lemon juice or cider/vinegar. Use as much as possible, cover the meat in the acidic solution. If your meat is fresh and untreated (unirradiated, or somehow has its enzymes destroyed) you should see the meat change texture, because you have given the optimal conditions for the enzymes within the meat itself to start digesting.
As I said, protein digestion happens (mostly) in the stomach: proteins are broken down in the stomach and then absorbed in the small intestine. Eating raw meat which still has the enzymes present is very easy for digestion, but still takes energy because the proteins have to be unfolded from a completely original form.
If you cook meat, you unfold the proteins on some levels (a protein is folded in several layers, up to 4). When you cook meat and it changes color (protein denaturation), this means the protein is broken down at 1 layer. This also makes it a bit easier on absorption and requires less energy for digestion, because while the auto digesting enzymes are now gone (denatured) and have no function, the meat is also predigested, as Matt noted, and the stomach acid/enzymes do not have to break down the proteins at all levels from their original form.
The worst thing you can do is to eat raw meat WHICH HAS NO enzymes (because it has been treated with something). Here the body will have to do all the work itself: it both has to break down the proteins from their completely undenatured/original form, and it also has to supply a lot more HCl and enzymes, since there are no enzymes in the meat to help with the digestion.
The best thing you could do to ease up digestion is to eat rotten meat (that is already in liquid form) since then you have 2 factors helping you out: proteins are now broken down almost completely, and, you still have the enzymes present, along with some bacteria which will strengthen the immune and digestive system (but that’s a whole other story)…
If you choose to cook your meat, the best way is boiling, since this way the heat goes through to the middle much quicker, and denatures all the protein in the meat more fully (making digestion easier). While it does destroy the enzymes in the meat, which does make it harder on digestion, it makes up for that by “pre-digesting” the protein as noted.
Boiling/steaming are the best options of cooking because least amount of toxins (HCAs, AGEs) are created by these methods.
HOWEVER raw meat (with all enzymes present, meaning fresh, unfrozen, not covered in chemicals) compared to cooked meat, is still much easier on over all digestion, especially on the digestion in the stomach, since the stomach has to produce very little HCl to activate the auto digesting enzymes in the meat itself.
So there is a 180 for you all (including you Matt).
It couldn’t matter less if fruit or vegetable are raw. It doesn’t help with the digestion at all, and in the case of many vegetables/fruits, cooking helps with digestion/absorption: it seperates the fiber from the sugar/starch, it hydrates the soluble fiber (so the fiber doesn’t absorb as much water in the stomach and expands) and it destroys vegetable anti-nutrients and toxins. What should be eaten raw (even slightly rotten) is meat.
“HOWEVER raw meat (with all enzymes present, meaning fresh, unfrozen, not covered in chemicals) compared to cooked meat, is still much easier on over all digestion, especially on the digestion in the stomach, since the stomach has to produce very little HCl to activate the auto digesting enzymes in the meat itself.”
This is Bullshit,People have been cooking meat on open flame and eating it for 10000 + years, without digestion problems.If you can’t digest cooked meat than you probably have some kind of eating disorder,IMO.
I think you should say, what can be eaten raw (or rotten – or do you mean for a better word, aged?) is meat, without disturbance of possible anti-nutrients like in vegetables. But is everyone reading the same entry? The whole point of having a healthy metabolism is to be able to eat something as simple as cooked meat and be able to digest it easily. Doesn’t matter if raw meat is easier to digest or not, the fact is, you can still digest cooked meat, so there’s nothing really dictating that everyone should be eating it raw – especially if you have a healthy metabolism (like the major topic of this entry). Just like Bruce ate all that fiber (among other things), and was an example that metabolism can ultimately govern digestion, as well as a lot of various things going on in the body.
SCOTT09:
Wow.. someone is angry today Scott..
ReRead what I said
I said it was easier on digestion, not that it is necessary for good health at all.
Have you tried raw meat Scott09 at all? Most people do find it’s easier on digestion BUT there are some who prefer cooked. I think it has to do with differences in stomach acid production/enzymes in different people.
Good luck and take care
chlOe:
I was just making a point about raw vs. cooked food and Matt’s notion that there is a huge difference between raw and pasteurized dairy, which I don’t think there is. I think the differences is bigger with raw vs. cooked meat, but even then raw is not necessary for good health.
I know it’s a little off topic from the High Everything discussion
SCOTT09:
Wow.. someone is angry today Scott..
LOL
No anger, I have tried raw meat, if I had no access to fire I would eat it raw.
SCOTT09: Read the below quote again. He said that it’s easier to digest, not that it is necessary. People who have had stomach surgery, Such as AV for an instance, benefit enormously from raw meat.
“….is still much easier on over all digestion, especially on the digestion in the stomach, since the stomach has to produce very little HCl to activate the auto digesting enzymes in the meat itself.”
Oh and Scott. It’s idiotic to say that just because some people are doing something different than you it’s an eating disorder. Makes you seem like a narrow minded redneck (you probably wear a cowboy hat too).
Keeping a blog of your daily food intake also seems like a very serious eating disorder IMO
Matt
I love these anonymous comments.
Keep them coming.LOL
Anonymous
I understand your points; and I agree that they’re good ones
But would you agree that someone’s stomach acid content could be increased (or rather, lowered) to the point where the fact if the meat is raw or not really matters? Or if you boil it or simply cook it rare with any other cooking method? Or maybe just governing the metabolism.. in order to generally digest better.
I think the point of cooked milk being different from meat is that lactose is involved, and the subject of lactose intolerance can get complicated. And if raw milk is more easily digested in this case, I figure it would be a wiser choice. Especially if it really is more easily digested (with the bacteria that possibly aid in making the lactase inside you).
But, I think we should all question why the milk was pasteurized in the first place.. cause it was dirty? Why bother drinking dirty milk from a sick cow, just boiling it will not get rid of the problems it may otherwise cause in people sensitive to milk. It’s not fresh at all. The Indian culture probably boils the milk, right from the cow, and then drinks it. Modern day milk can be heated over and over again, can sit there for days and days until it’s finally sent out to bottle. Milk is totally more complicated then meat; I wouldn’t say it’s safe to say it’s more important if meat is raw over milk just yet. If you can produce lactase easily, then yes, perhaps fresh, boiled, hot milk doesn’t really make a difference, just like fresh cooked meat doesn’t. But if you really have difficulty digesting milk, it is probably more complicated then if meat wasn’t your forte of digestion (which could be fixed more easily then if you had little lactase production, most likely – raw or not).
“People have been cooking meat on open flame and eating it for 10,000 + years, without digestion problems.If you can’t digest cooked meat than you probably have some kind of eating disorder, IMO.”
At least 40-60k years and maybe 125-500k years for controlled fire and cooking.
http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/hb/hb-interview2c.shtml
http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/hb/hb-interview2g.shtml
Chloe; “Why bother drinking dirty milk from a sick cow, just boiling it will not get rid of the problems it may otherwise cause in people sensitive to milk.”
I remember reading on the realmilk.com site that the distribution of dirty milk was a money issue back in Louis Pasteur’s time…the cows were given very poor living conditions in industrialized areas; and instead of exerting more energy and money on keeping them healthy it was easier to pasteurize the milk so that it was still consume-able and they wouldn’t need to throw it away. Dirty skim milk was also given to the lower class; the milkfat would be turned into creams and butters and bought by wealthier people.
“Have you tried raw meat Scott09 at all? Most people do find it’s easier on digestion BUT there are some who prefer cooked. I think it has to do with differences in stomach acid production/enzymes in different people.”
I don’t have any difficulty digesting it cooked, nor cooked eggs and dairy. Maybe some or most of those people would have better digestion if they ate more starch (AV has turned against starch in his 2nd book, after saying it’s healthy for some people in his first book). Reality shows that everyone is different and there are no one-size-fits all diets, like eating low-carb, low-fat, all-raw, etc. Healthy people can eat anything and everything, they can eat high-fat, high-starch, high (unrefined) sugar, high protein, and so forth, and have good digestion and great health. AV is a one in a billion case IF he is telling the truth about all of his health problems. He is hardly an example you can use for extrapolating to others.
How many people have Type I diabetes, no stomach acid, dyslexia, blood cancer and bone cancer and plasma cancer (multiple myeloma) and stomach cancer, psoriasis, ulcers, bursitis, angina, osteoporosis, arthritis, and peritonitis? And how many believe that AV really had all of those diseases? Anyone can SAY they had all of those diseases and were cured, but those stories are a dime a dozen. You can find raw vegans who were “cured” of a similar laundry list of diseases. That does not prove that raw vegan is an optimal diet. It only proves that it may be healthier than whatever they were eating before. I think AV described his previous diet as doughnuts, soft drinks, cigarettes, and hard alcohol – hardly a natural diet by any means.
Yeah dude; even Price talked about that with the indigenous Swede culture – how the more modernized Swedes who were drinking milk were getting milk from mostly shut in cows (i forgot if he mentioned if it was heated or not) who were mostly on concrete, not really fed grass. Either they weren’t drinking enough to benefit for it to protect them, or it was just bad in general to do not much good as the grass-fed year round might for the ones buying it. I realize there are a lot of variables; but I think we all agree raw milk from grass fed cows is more nutritious in general then any cow on antibiotics and steroids, living on concrete and hay.
Bruce
Exactly,
Cooked, raw whatever. If health is good, you adapt to the situation. I ate most of my meals at junk food places last week. Next week is going to be something else. Heck I might even eat sushi for the first time. It’s NBFD.
@Scott09: You did not understand what Bruce said. You are surely the last person who i would call healthy! Before you can eat the HED diet you have to heal not otherwise…
@ anonymous
How would you know?
Maybe you should read some more, you have to eat HE to heal.
Anonymous: “It couldn’t matter less if fruit or vegetable are raw. It doesn’t help with the digestion at all, and in the case of many vegetables/fruits, cooking helps with digestion/absorption: it seperates the fiber from the sugar/starch, it hydrates the soluble fiber (so the fiber doesn’t absorb as much water in the stomach and expands) and it destroys vegetable anti-nutrients and toxins. What should be eaten raw (even slightly rotten) is meat.”
My digestion worsened on the Primal Diet eating sour raw milk, slightly high raw meat, and so forth. I had stomach cramps and occasional loose stools. My stomach is now flat and calm and my digestion is far better than it was on the so-called Primal Diet by eating a “High Everything Diet.” How do you explain that?
Anonymous: “Before you can eat the HED diet you have to heal not otherwise…”
No, like Scott said, you eat HE to HEAL. The healthy person should lose weight if overweight, gain weight underweight, and gain weight if they need to do so to fix the metabolism. I think weight gain will be minimized by having high-calorie days periodically, like the weekends or every 3-4 days (two days per week). If you eat starches and fat until you are repulsed, then you have eaten enough to allow your body to heal. If you deny the body ample energy (by dieting or restricting macros or cutting out foods), you won’t heal as fast. The more quickly you speed up your metabolism, the less likely you will be to gain weight and the faster you should heal. Dieting does nothing but starve us and delay proper healing.
chloe said,
What’s his reason for eating little beef?
chloe
I finished The French Don’t Diet Plan. He never really explains why they don’t eat a lot of beef. Could be The Mad Cow Scare.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/1372195/French-mad-cow-scandal-greater-than-first-thought.html
psh, mad cow, you can’t even get that by eating meat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blRCh-EDuDs
LOL, i agree.
But I also remember a lot of people were scared shitless during this scare.
Matt and others:
I got some dextrose (glucose only sugar) after reading about it on Peter’s blog, and reading your post about the problems with fructose. Do you think this would have any advantages/disadvantages over other types of sugar? Since its pure glucose, its similar to starch…but since its a product made from corn, it also definitely qualifies as “refined”.
I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism in June 2001. Have always been skinny even though I stuffed myself like a horse. I actually would loose weight when I ate too much, too many carbohydrates.
I found out about low carb and rejected the treatment my doctor offered which was to drink radioactive material.
Ever since changing my diet my symptoms of anxiety, stress, racing thoughts, constant nausea, heart palpitations, hyperactivity have gone completely away. I can now stand the heat, my mind can be focused, I can work out 3 times per week without it causing over exercise.
What I have read here is very in tune with my own experience. Fruit sugars really speed up metabolism. If I have 2 cups of orange juice I get some of the old symptoms back, my thoughts race, I get stressed, I feel like I need to run around or do something. Fruits affect me the worst much worse than starches, but even if I have too much starches I feel the effects of hyperthyroid again.
I loose weight very fast when I eat too many carbohydrates. Like if I eat some fruit every single day or if I eat much basmati rice I will look very scrawny in a week or two. I usually keep protein high and fat high, some days every week I even eat no carbohydrates at all, I eat 30% protein and 70% fat, sometimes less fat. This gives me very stable energy. If I have the option between fasting for one full day not eating anything, and eating carbohydrates only for one day, I can tell you that if I eat only carbohydrates for one day I loose more weight then if I would have eaten nothing for that day. I know it sounds weight but that’s really the way it works for me.
I am glad to see that I am not the only one who believes that carbohydrates speed up metabolism and protein slows it down. Cool website and blog!
What puzzles me is that the majority of people doing low carbo diets came to the diet being overweight, which I think proves they need to speed up their metabolism and not slow it down more than it already is!
@Anonymous: Interesting, could explain why i only can gain weight on low carb. Carbs really speed up my metabolism but there has to be something wrong with us, don’t you think?
There is quite some evidence that lowering caloric intake lowers metabolic rate. So I thought I give the high caloric intake a shot to raise my metabolic rate. I upped my caloric intake 3 months ago by about 40%. I used to eat about 50g carbs/day. I upped that amount to 70-100g. Most added calories were fat. Last week I upped carbs to 100-200g (mostly starch, but also some orange juice and honey). I hoped to raise my body temperature (basal temperature 96 degrees), nothing has happened temperaturewise so far.
My weight has increased continually and took another leap after increasing carbs last week. I used to weigh about 187 pounds. After starting low carb (about 3 years ago) it dropped slightly into the 180-184 pound-range. Now my weight has gone up to almost 200 pounds. I have never weighed that much before. That weight gain is all fat as far as I can judge. So calories do count (at least for me). I am not sure I want to continue that experiment. Maybe I cut down on daily calories and just do some force feed-days. Any thoughts?
By the way, I don’t think Scott Abel’s Cycle diet is really a high caloric HED:
“First, you need to get your body fat levels below 7 percent for the maximum benefit of the protocol. The cool thing is once you get down to this level you can maintain this body fat level year round.
Second you need to get training a minimum of 5 days per week. In other words you need to be an intermediate or advanced trainee capable of handling significant volume and intensity in your training.
Third you need to keep your calorie intake about 500-1000 calories below expenditure daily.”
http://www.davedraper.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php'tid/15794/
Yeah but Sven, calories “count” for you because your body temperature is so low (indicating something is slow, whether that be thyroid or metabolism or both).
Could be you have to gain weight before you loose any. Do you eat everything balanced in a meal? Like carbs fat and protein.. I would say just give it a chance; you’re temperature might take a while to get higher.
Sven,
That article you posted is NOT Scott Abel’s diet.You need to read his website and forum if you want to understand it.
As I posted earlier, you need to be fairly lean and active to be able to benefit from the huge caloric spikes on the cycle diet. On the days you are not refeeding, you need to keep things pretty strict. This primes your body to be in a “Supercompensation” mode and pushes your metabolism through the roof.
Until you get to that point, you need to eat a diet like Schwarzbein probably, high in all the macronutrients, and get active and healthy first.
Sven, some people should eat more sugars and others more starches. Some need more of a mix between them. See what works. I think Matt is right that starches should be used in the beginning. Eat them until you’re disgusted by them and then see if your temperature and metabolism goes up. Saying “carbs make me fat” is a cop-out, because there are obviously many healthy people who lost weight by eating lots of carbs (Matt eats high-fat and high-carbs by the standards of someone like Eades – yet he’s leaner than Eades ever imagined being). As for Scott Abel’s advice, he’s talking to serious body-builders after a massive physique. His plan is adjustable to fit anyone’s goals. I don’t agree you should restrict calories. I think eating periodic high-calorie days will increase metabolism so calories don’t matter. The weekly cheat days have reduced my weight since I’ve been checking it. That’s what happens when you have a healthy body and metabolism. If you want quick fixes that eventually make you fat and unhealthy as Atkins / Eades / Kweasniewski and others promote, then by all means follow their neurotic and unsustainable diets. Enjoy that life of deprivation and fanaticism and obsession which they promote.
HED’s really an exaggeration. Since it’s high in everything it’s high in nothing. It’s just a balanced diet – with plenty of fat and starch and protein and maybe natural sugars if you can tolerate them without having low energy, hypoglycemia, weakness, cravings, and other problems. HED isn’t really a diet. Like Matt said it’s the anti-diet or the non-diet. The healthy person doesn’t diet. They eat a variety of naturla foods and occasional splurges, pref on foods that are mostly natural, like ice cream rather than pie or doughnuts or cookies or cake. Sugar, PUFAs, and trans fat (hydrogenated oils) don’t belong in that list, except maybe for very rare cheats (like a few times a year). I’d stay away from processed oils (PUFAs and trans fats made by man). They degrade health more than sugar probably, esp when mixed with sugar and flour. The best choice is natural food.
Anon: “Fruit sugars really speed up metabolism. If I have 2 cups of orange juice I get some of the old symptoms back, my thoughts race, I get stressed, I feel like I need to run around or do something. Fruits affect me the worst much worse than starches, but even if I have too much starches I feel the effects of hyperthyroid again.”
This is not true in my experience. Fruit and juice and honey give me calm, stable energy. No heart palpitations, anxiety, stress, or hyper-activity. It seems like you have problems similar to Matt and AV (Aajonus). This is not normal. You have been damaged in some way, IMO. You might be able to normalize your metabolism, so you don’t have to diet any more.
“…I can tell you that if I eat only carbohydrates for one day I loose more weight then if I would have eaten nothing for that day. I know it sounds weight but that’s really the way it works for me.”
But what if you eat the carbs with a lot of fat and some protein? Have you tried that, otherwise known as eating balanced meals and not dieting? Maybe that would give you a steady energy and eventually repair your metabolism so you don’t have these severe reactions. Maybe you should experiment with having a mix of protein, fat, and carbs. Different ratios work in different people, but dieting is just a bad idea. It’s like cutting off your leg because you have a splinter in your toe. Dieting just worsens problems.
Hey I get eczema if I eat wheat products..
How can I get healthy so I can tolerate wheat? Any advice?
Weekly wheat binges maybe?
or maybe eat wheat with every meal so my body gets used to it??
Or should I just abstain from it?
Start with things like rice and potatoes if you can’t tolerate other starches. It could be something else causing the bad reaction, like PUFA oils, HFCS, or sugar in the bread. Or ketchup and mayonnaise which contain those things.
I use organic white sushi rice (Lundberg Family Farms), white potatoes, and other things. I eat wheat occasionally with no problems, as long as I avoid things with HFCS (ex: ketchup) and PUFAs (ex: mayo). You might be able to heal and build up a tolerance by avoiding wheat for a while. And don’t eat wheat without fat soluble vitamins, like butter, cheese, fish, egg yolks, liver, foie gras, or other foods. Most of the problems with wheat are due to low-fat or vegan diets, IMO. Those do a number on your digestion.
Chloe:
I eat balanced meals with 30-50g carbs, lots of fat and a moderate amount of protein. I’d like to give it a chance but my weight keeps climbing and climbing. I thought it would plateau and then probably level off. I also expected some kind of improvement of my low body temperature. My body just keeps packing extra calories into my fat cells.
Bruce K: I don’t think carbs are fattening. Would I have upped my fat intake without upping carbs I would have gained also. I am not sure what is more important to speed up metabolism: high calories or balanced meals?
The healthy person doesn’t diet but the healthy person doesn’t force feed himself either.
Or would it be better to do some time high carb (low fat)? Matt once thought that fat is a metabolic booster but my metabolism isn’t boosted at all by a lot of fat (butterfat mostly).
haven’t you only increased them for a week? how will you plateau in a week?
I tried a very low carb diet before, I often visited Charles Washingtons forum.. The meat diet only lasted 5 days though..
The reason: I felt very tired and got constipated. It was also very hard to do in social eatings, you feel like a moron in restaurants or eating with other people.
I Did lose some weight those 5 days, and guess what? It all came back + some more weight.
Also when I quit after 5 days and ate some bread, I got diarrhea and really painful cramps in my intestines..
So far for the Low carb diet.
And my experience with raw vegan diets also isn’t very good.. my muscles wasted away, constantly tired and i looked fat although i was skinny because i had such a low muscle mass..
Low carb diets blow, and so do low fat diets. You are right on this blog. High everything is the way to go. I’m going to become healthy now and eat unlimited starch and fat and just stay away from really bad stuf like vegetable oils and sugar
Before I ate “healthy” I was very lean with good muscle tone and ate whatever I wanted with zero weight gain. The moment I tried to eat low carb or low fat was the moment I got fatter every week. To hell with diets! Bruce is right, diet guru’s should be put in prison for deceiving people!
Bruce I don’t think you really understood my point. I usually do eat protein fat and little carbs. Its when the carbs replace too much of the protein and fat that I start to loose weight.
It might be good for someone who is overweight to increase carbo and starches in their diet , but people like me who are hyperthyroid or can’t gain any weight need to be higher in fat and protein. I have experimented with this numerous times and every time I eat too many carbohydrates and decrease my fat and protein I start LOSING weight , not gaining as someone who is HYPOthyroid probably does.
Sven: “The healthy person doesn’t diet but the healthy person doesn’t force feed himself either.”
Bruce: “HED’s really an exaggeration. Since it’s high in everything it’s high in nothing. It’s just a balanced diet…”
I feel like those are both really essential ideas to pay attention to; there are alot of people who are getting confused and thinking that they should stuff themselves with food.
That’s what I did an I vomited.
Chloe: “haven’t you only increased them for a week? how will you plateau in a week?”
In January I increased my carbs to about 30 per meal. Last week I increased carbs to roughly 50g per meal. I gained weight from the start and reached a new “high” last weekend.
Sven and Harper,
You both have made some good points.
Sven said,”The healthy person doesn’t diet but the healthy person doesn’t force feed himself either”
Harper said,”I feel like those are both really essential ideas to pay attention to; there are alot of people who are getting confused and thinking that they should stuff themselves with food.”
Even the bodybuilders doing the cycle diet with HUGE refeeds eating extremely massive amounts of food don’t force themselves to eat that much. Their body craves that much because their metabolism is so high.
But, there may be some people who have damaged their metabolisms so severely that they don’t have an appropriate hunger response. These people may need to push themselves to eat more until the metabolism heals and their body wants to eat that much. Former anorexic and extreme chronic dieters may be in this group.
Too many people are following Bruce’s advice and failing. Bruce, realize you have numerous parasites in your intestines from your years of Primal Diet and rotten/High meat, which are eating away at 50% of the calories you ingest. :)
Or just realize that you healed your metabolism to a point where you can do these things (after 10 years of doing a cycle through excellent diets: Primal Diet, Paleo Diet, Raw Paleo, Zero Fiber, Low PUFA, Zero Carbs, Low Carb). After 10 years on really good diets, especially following Ray Peat’s advice on heathy eating, you have now healed your intestines, metabolism, pancreas and liver to optimum. You can do whatever you want. BUT REMEMBER: 90% of all cells in the human body are regenerated in one year. That means that 90% of all the cells in your body today are built on what you have eaten the last year. And what were you eating 1/2 a year ago? What were you eating 1 year ago, in March 2008? That’s right: you were focusing on healthy, organic foods, zero fiber, low PUFAs and NO starches. Natural orange juices, mostly paleo foods, with some organic white sushi rice (in order to have the least PUFAs) or white potatoes WITHOUT the skin.
If you will stay with this diet for 1 year I think you’ll see the problems start: Your pancreas will enlarge, your liver will start to get exhausted dealing with additives/fast food, your thyroid will slow down the production of thyroid hormone (also the toxins you are eating will at some point interfere with its function), you will begin to retain water (due to the NaCl with really high Na ratio in fast foods), and your insulin response will get weaker and weaker. Then you’ll have to use a brilliant diet for a couple of years again, and then you can torture your body again and say “wow I have a flat stomach while eating junk food”.. Tss.. Of course you have.. But eat this way for 1 year and we shall see. And don’t try to “balance/restrict it” (as you seem to be doing more and more) – that would mean your High Everything diet is becoming more and more restrictive, And you are becoming more and more a guru.
My personal experience
I HAVE TRIED this HED (High Everything Diet) long before Bruce came up with it. I have always eaten only burgers at fast food restaurants with no coke, no fries, no ketchup. I even was fooled into believing that eating 5 times per day or more of so called balanced meals (white rice, protein and fat at each meal) would make me gain some muscle and speed up my metabolism, as I was also working out with weight lifting. Every morning I ate my oatmeal with plenty of whole milk and cream and raw honey, thought the fiber would “train” my intestines to become faster, to digest faster, to push things out faster…
It had the exact opposite effect. I slowly developed IBS.. Lost desire to eat… Fatigued every day… Horrible symptoms and a bloated fat belly which is a sign of insulin trouble.
Good luck to anyone wanting to try this. But I along w/others who didn’t have a great metabolism through their whole life, or who have not come to the “dieting” scene without any health issues, did not do so good.
Bruce I also wanna say
I think most people are missing the good ol’ Bruce.. The Bruce who’d analyze every diet and figure out a way it COULD work, analyze a diet and say what’s good about it and what bad about it. Looking at statistics, experiments and analyzing their data, putting it all into real life context. Looking at pictures of diet gurus and judging their health and diet based on their looks (I miss that). That Bruce wasn’t preoccupied by a diet at all. His Yahoo Group wasn’t devoted to any diet (as it is now with the HED). The old Bruce didn’t follow any diet himself but accepted people on his group who did, and discussed with them about health in general, trying to isolate factors related to health and arrange them in order of importance (such as AVOID PUFAs, too much fiber, etc.).
That group was really a Master Mind Group Bruce. A place where the best of the best, who had read it all and tried it all came to talk. You had people from all over the world join your group and offer input and discussion.
AV Skeptics was ranked among the first on Google in searches for “Aajonus Vonderplanitz”. You could have made our Yahoo Group redirect to a new website http://www.avskeptics.com/diet-skeptics.com (or something) and you could have added Google AdSense in there and earn some money on all those visitors!
It just looks like you have lowered all your health standards and are telling people to do the same.
Who else misses AV skeptics and the style of the old Bruce who was dominating the whole health/diet scene?
I started gaining weight since then, too. I don’t know if I’m plateauing right now or not, but I think I might be. At least it’s a slow gain, not really what would happen in a weeks time if you were to binge on doughnuts or candy or something. Were you at a normal weight before or did you have trouble putting on muscle or were you underweight at all or anything?
Because if you start to see improvements at all it could be the weight is just temporary.
The only thing I’m still in a rut about is digestion. But other things got better, like my skin for example, though still working on that, and my mood, and my hair most recently, and my nails.
I just think gaining weight isn’t always the best thing to base how good a diet is. It could be necessary. Maybe you need less protein, or more carbs if you eat more protein or something. My temperature didn’t increase until I started eating more starches, but, I have no idea why your’s wouldn’t, but then again, you haven’t exactly shared your entire diet, just the jist of it, so it’s hard to say. I just think you should continue to be consistent and stick with it for a while, maybe just adjust nutrient ratios a little bit, like less protein or something to see what happens.
And Anonymous, what exactly do you do eat right now?
Hi chlOe thank you for your response.
I am not going to continue with “HE” because I haven’t started on it! HE is exactly what I did in the past so I know it doesn’t work. I ate what Bruce is describing, high carb and high fat and moderate protein. I varied my meals very much and made sure to never eat processed foods (I always ate home made whole foods). My diet wasn’t extremely low in PUFA, but it wasn’t high in PUFA either and I had a lot of saturated fats and starches in it as Bruce describes is needed for healing.
I’ve been there, done that. This diet does not work for me. The problems I got were not only embarrassing weight gain and and extremely bloated belly. Those were the minor problems. I actually developed IBS which I think was because of the horrible mixes (eating fat, protein, carbohydrate 5 times per day) and too much fiber.
Right now I am eating only 2 meals per day with very little snacking in-between. I follow Bruce’s old advice of Zero Fiber. Zero Fiber has helped tremendously in healing my digestion, bloating, and stomach pains. I have witnessed IBS going away slowly. I still use some starches but I mostly just eat 1 food group at the time. If I eat a steak that’s it – I don’t add anything to that meal.
What has helped me is food combining (or rather not combining foods) and zero fiber. I am Not going back to the idea of “balanced meals” fitness style 6 meals per day with starch, protein and fat. It doesn’t speed up your metabolism but clogs you up. And I’m not buying the “eating fiber trains your digestive system” theory. Fiber ruins the digestive system in my experience.
That’s just my 2 cents. I’ve always had a weaker digestion. Someone with an excellent digestion might do great on Bruce’s HE diet but in my experience eating lots of foods (or eating too often), no matter if it is low pufa/low protein/zero fiber, has never healed my digestive system, it has only made it much worse. Binges leave me feeling horribly also. What heals the digestive system is a break from constant digestion/eating. The most beneficial thing for me is doing some Intermittently Fasting (as Bruce USED TO recommend) once in a while (I don’t eat anything for a whole day, maybe 2-3 times per month). When I come back to eating after some IF it feels like my metabolism and digestion have healed and are ready to take on their jobs at full capacity again.
Oh I was talking to Sven on the continuing part.
Food combining may help you with digestion..but how do you know it will really benefit you otherwise?
I’m confused about digestion right now myself, but getting the metabolism up to par so it can deal with food without you having to combine it seems logical. That metabolism has the ability to control what goes on with your gut. I don’t think anyone should have to be stuck with food combining forever, especially if it’s true that you can control digestion otherwise.
Schwarzbein’s theory is that you can easily put hormones in balance by eating foods together in the same meal, and when hormones are balanced metabolism should work. She did cure her IBS by eating that way, with foods in the same meal..just not fast food, natural foods.
Anonymous ?
I agree that low-fiber is the way to go. I keep it to a minimum by eating small amounts of vegetables that have 1g of fiber or less per serving: potato without the skin, zucchini without the skin, and yellow bell pepper. I make sure to cook it thoroughly and that way I have no problems. Fiber DOES ruin the digestive system after awhile, Konstantin Monastyrsky from Fiber Menace has already proved that.
Everyone is taking Bruce’s diet way to literally. This is a very individualized thing; some people naturally do better on 2 meals a day, and some do better by grazing all day long. Don’t force feed yourself, then feel crappy and blame it on the macronutrient ratios and then food combining. Schwarzbein has already disposed of the myth that meals with protein, carbs and fat ?clogs you up. Not food combining is just another type of diet, and dieting is what makes people unhealthy in the first place.
Also, I’d like to add that I did used to eat 2 meals a day, spaced far apart and it was always fruit – and that did nothing much for my digestion. I think it’s much more then just food combining that’s involved here.
Anonymous said: ?That means that 90% of all the cells in your body today are built on what you have eaten the last year. And what were you eating 1/2 a year ago??
This makes no sense. If that were true, then no one would gain or lose weight until a year later. Scabs and cuts wouldn’t heal until a year later. Nails wouldn’t grow until a year later, etc etc.
JT said: ?These people may need to push themselves to eat more until the metabolism heals and their body wants to eat that much. Former anorexic and extreme chronic dieters may be in this group.
Yeah that’s me right there?after my anorexia though I had severe rebound hyperphagia, and gained 40 pounds in 3 months. I’m lucky that my body still had that instinct to want to eat?
FOR ANYONE WHO HAS DIGESTIVE PROBLEMS, I have two suggestions: the first is to take digestive enzymes with your food (like HCL,) and the second is to assume a squatting position when you eliminate stools. I’m dead serious. Here are some links:
http://www.toilet-related-ailments.com/squatting.html
http://naturesplatform.com/health_benefits.html
Harper, have you ever tried apple cider vinegar? I don’t know if it’s as good as HCL..but I’ve been attempting to use that. But I also haven’t been eating meat for like weeks and I STILL suck at digesting things.
hey chloe, yes I did try Bragg’s ACV for awhile, but the taste was terrible! It was like taking a shot of jagermeister! It’s much easier for me to swallow a tablet before each meal.
Sorry to get graphic, but I used to have alot of undigested food in my stool and since taking the HCL, that problem went away, thankfully :)
Supposedly, taking HCL re-trains your stomach to make natural amounts again:
“After having used the Betaine HCL for eleven weeks, at a dosage of two capsules per meal, without any discomfort, Joan now notices that she feels a burning sensation when taking the two capsules. She therefore reduces her dosage to one capsule at mealtime. After several more weeks, even one capsule per meal produces burning and Joan discontinues altogether. This is a sign that the stomach has been re-trained to produce adequate concentrations of hydrochloric acid without the further need for supplementation.”
http://www.modernherbalist.com/betaine.html
“Fiber DOES ruin the digestive system after awhile, Konstantin Monastyrsky from Fiber Menace has already proved that.”
No. He proved that modern people with an extremely bad digestion and dysbiosis and sluggish bowels are harmed by fiber, but healthy primitive groups were fine eating tons of fiber, as Matt argues in some of his other posts. Fiber isn’t the problem. Slow metabolism and dysbiosis and severe gut inflammation and so forth is. Fiber’s no problem for the Kitavans and it wasn’t any problem for the people Burkitt studied and so on. Modern people have degenerated so much that it may be a problem for them, of course. But there may be solutions for the problem.
Harper, that sounds like a really good tool I could use right now..hmm.. you should talk to me about it more on instant messenger, there’s already almost like, 400 comments hahah wow
Bruce: “No. He proved that modern people with an extremely bad digestion and dysbiosis and sluggish bowels are harmed by fiber.”
You’re right, i should’ve clarified that. I definitely fall into the bad digestion category, so do a few others here
Yes chloe! I have work tonight so I won’t be online, but i will be on wednesday!
I’m still apprehensive to eat things like white rice which is a devitalized food because I hear that devitalized foods combined with healthy fats can actually do damage. So I think I’ll continue to steer clear of refined and devitalized foods and stick with starches like potatoes and corn. One thing is for sure is that my digestion is doing much better on this diet than on a low-carb diet.
“I’m still apprehensive to eat things like white rice which is a devitalized food because I hear that devitalized foods combined with healthy fats can actually do damage.”
That is when you combine white rice with butter and nothing else. I don’t know if the same thing would occur if you ate it with meat or eggs or cheese or milk, and other animal foods. Butter and grains is a deficient diet, even if the grains are unrefined. So, the problem may just be a result of not having animal protein, not so much combining the fat with the white rice. What do you think, Matt? It seems more complex than saying white rice and butter is bad. McCarrison only showed it was bad when those were the only food in the meal, I think. He didn’t show that a meal of beef with white rice and butter would be unhealthy, AFAIK.
thats what i take from McCarrisons book also, it was when the meal was composed of degraded butter and rice, nothing else. I think you should always have a good source of protein and B vitamins with every meal. Again, it goes with high everything.
If i eat a piece of white sourdough bread and butter, i always wash it back with some milk, or Half n Half, and to get some b vitamins in the mix, i mix some raw egg yolks in the milk. If i ate something like bruces whole grain spelt sourdough bread i wouldn’t worry as much about adding in the egg yolks to the milk.
I wouldn’t stuff myself till i puked, whoever that was! Just don’t undereat.
I think the ladies on this commentary are very smart, i think you guys are right in taking it slow.
It was hard for me to let go and make changes, i had been scared so badly by the low carb dogma. I have still been eating well balanced meals, and i am still loving the saturated fat and starch combo. I am still in euphoria, and my stress level has zeroed out, life is really good!
I see some people are still having trouble leaving there diets in the dust. I am so glad i don’t live my life in turmoil anymore… i could never go back to obsessing about diet the way i use too… life has really opened up since.
troy
funny sidenote,
i have been reading Art De Vany’s private blog the past few days… everyone is losing hair on his diet. He has a whole post dedicated to it. It brought a bunch of people out to talk about it in the comments!
Too much stress, too many hormones going wacko, and sooo it goes. I am so glad i got of the low carb train. I can’t believe i followed Art for so long….
troy
Art DeVany has not aged well, IMO. He is wrinkled and has bags under his eyes. He drinks a lot of coffee or so I’ve heard. He used to look real good like 10+ years ago, when he was 60. He eats lean meats, lots of nuts, oily fish, olive oil, etc. He’s often referred to his diet as Paleo Med. He fears saturated fat, even though many readers have told him that they are thriving with lots of sat fats. He won’t look at the science objectively, showing that PUFAs are detrimental and needed in only minute amounts (if at all). You are more likely to eat too much PUFAs thanks to fried foods and junk food.
How Essential Are the Essential Fatty Acids?
I have been on HED for the past few weeks now and have added potatoes and yams back into my diet after too long low carb.
I tried to add in some sugars too but ended up being a emotional train wreck.
So far other than a big spot that came up on my chin and a very snotty nose, not much difference yet.
Can’t do the grains either they hurt my tummy and make me have allergy sneezes.
pipxx
Chloe:
” Were you at a normal weight before or did you have trouble putting on muscle or were you underweight at all or anything?
And Anonymous, what exactly do you do eat right now?”
I have been normal weight my whole life. My weight has always been pretty stable. Even while eating a “standard diet” (=HED?) with quite some Coke, etc. . I have never had a muscular body but my body composition improved somewhat while low carbing (about 50g carbs a day, up to 100g sometimes). I started with low carb because I thought it was the right thing to do, not because of any health problems. Nevertheless some minor issues cleared up like bloating (gas) and occasional bleeding gums.
After reading “The riddle of illness” I measured my basal temperature (for the first time). It was (and is) pretty low. I have no idea what my basal temperature used to be. Maybe it has always been low. When it’s cold I sometimes have cold hands/feet. I can’t remember I had colds hands some years ago but I am not really sure. But those are the only symptoms of a sluggish metabolism/thyroid I am aware of. My digestions has improved while low carbing. I used to have loose stools quite regular. That has improved but I still need tissue most of the time. So, my digestion is not perfect.
My diet consists of meat (mostly beef or lamb), eggs, potatoes/white rice, butter, cream. I do eat organ meats (liver, kidneys, sweetbreads, tongue) an a regular basis. I usally eat some vegetables (mainly root vegetables but also green beans, spinach, etc.) as garnish. Once or twice a weeks I eat seafood (fish, shrimp, shellfish, etc.). Occasionally I eat some fruit. A couple of weeks ago I started drinking (fresh) orange juice 3-4 times a week. I keep my meals quite simple: one protein source, potatoes (or rice), some vegetables and a lot of butter as added fat. I used to eat two meals a day because I have stable energy for the whole day after breakfast. In January I reintroduced lunch to speed up my metabolism. That hasn’t happened so far and because I don’t see any improvement I am not sure there will be any at all.
You said your temperature went up after adding carbs. How many carbs do eat now (and before)?
“After reading “The riddle of illness” I measured my basal temperature (for the first time). It was (and is) pretty low. I have no idea what my basal temperature used to be. Maybe it has always been low. When it’s cold I sometimes have cold hands/feet. I can’t remember I had colds hands some years ago but I am not really sure. But those are the only symptoms of a sluggish metabolism/thyroid I am aware of.”
Sven
Have you had your blood work done, full thyroid panel?
I just started eating like 30-50g per meal. Usually at least 30. Then again I’m not exactly a large guy either, so, who knows if you need to go higher or not. It could just be the ratio to protein is off; like, too much of it?
Bruce, you said that you got full very quickly if you eat starch. Someone else said that he gets full fast if he eats protein.
Myself, I get repulsed very quickly if I eat to much fat like cheese or eggs with my meal.
For example: If I have a meal of eggs and rice, sometimes I just can’t eat anymore eggs but I can eat plenty of more rice.
People seem to respond differently to macronutrients (protein, fat, carbs)
Scott09:
“Have you had your blood work done, full thyroid panel?”
Not yet, I wanted to try getting things in line with diet first. Moreover I read that lab tests aren’t that good in detecting thyroid problems. A lot of false negative tests apperantly.
Chloe:
“It could just be the ratio to protein is off; like, too much of it?”
I don’t eat that much protein. I’d guess 70 – 150g a day. Probably about 100g on average.
Sven, I think the minimum that Schwarzbein recommends is like 1-1.25 grams for every kilogram of body weight. So for around 180 pounds, if that’s what you liked being at, that’d be around 82 kg.
Do you think low-carbing and maybe eating too much protein has effected your adrenals at all? Just going by what Schwarzbein says here.. you could try to lower it to around 80-90g (like 12-13 oz.) of protein a day. Maybe 150g is too high of protein, if you ever go up that much, it could still have an effect. But she thinks that carbohydrates are especially important for people who may have damaged adrenals. So, just throwing that out there. It could be what has effected your temperature so much, or possibly lowered your thyroid (despite blood tests). You could try just eating starches, and no sugars, too?
“Not yet, I wanted to try getting things in line with diet first. Moreover I read that lab tests aren’t that good in detecting thyroid problems. A lot of false negative tests apperantly.”
I don’t blame you, much better to adress with diet first.IMO depending on a persons age, it might be hard to get that genie back in the bottle with just diet alone.
Sven:”Not yet, I wanted to try getting things in line with diet first. Moreover I read that lab tests aren’t that good in detecting thyroid problems. A lot of false negative tests apperantly.”
Yeah, I asked my naturopath about this when I was tested for thyroid problems: the reason that doctors declare so many tests negative is because they have a VERY broad view of what a “normal” result is. They don’t make fine distinctions.
I was tested for TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) on my bloodwork panel a few months ago and my result was 3.300. This is “normal” in my doctor’s eyes and they told me I had no thyroid imbalance, but my Naturopath doctor claims that it’s actually too high for me and that my TSH should be at 2.000 or slightly below.
@Harper: You look stoned on the picture, perhaps because of your thyroid problems…
For clarification, Bruce and I basically have a vision. The vision is to heal problems, not acknowledge that “fiber gives me trouble” while avoiding it for life. Overcoming food intolerances is obviously a greater destination than avoidance for life if such a thing is possible.
I am very aware that people are screwed up in dozens of ways and have the full spectrum of intolerances and idiosyncrasies. No one should expect to suddenly switch to a truly HED and expect to magically undergo healing within days. It rarely works that way.
And my specific recommendation to force-feed onself in the beginning is, again, a very temporary step. Force-feeding, which should result in weight gain (both fat and muscle), should last for no longer than a month or two, perhaps less. It is a jumpstart.
I am still hesitant about consuming any refined carbohydrates more than once or twice per week. They have a tremendous “guilt by association” relationship to health problems in the first place. It’s hard to endorse them as the cure when they are the leading suspect in the causation of most problems in the first place. White rice is the least offensive, refined sugar is the most offensive. White flour falls somewhere in the middle because of its rancidity. That’s how it certainly appears.
I also think the number of people who can do the once-weekly sugar binges without immediate negative repurcussions is quite small. That may be a destination, but it’s not the starting point. A HE zero-sugar diet that stresses eating 3 hearty meals per day at even intervals is still my dogma for metabolic healing.
Sven,
After eating a lot more calories and a lot more carbs, you will find that if you return to more modest food intake you will lose weight very easily, most of it as fat, with better digestion. That’s the opposite of going low-cal and losing weight. Dieters find it very easy, upon eating normal amounts of food, to gain weight – more fat than muscle. Eating high-calorie is not meant to be continued forever. It’s a temporary strategy, no more no less.
Whoever said that “people are trying Bruce’s HED and failing” is missing the point. It’s been what, 2 weeks? If we had all stopped eating and drank only lemonade we could look around and say, “we’re succeeding.” You must have long-term visions and patience to come up with long-term conclusions, and what feels bad can be healing – what feels good can be harmful – just like drugs.
As for digestion, arguing between “rest cures digestion” and “exercise (eating) cures digestion” once again fails to understand how our bodies work. It’s like an argument between exercise vs. sleep, or rain vs. sunshine. There is a need for both. Eat too much for a month and fasting is an amazing healer. Fast for a month, and eating is a great healer. We have a need for both, and go through cycles. Both cleansing and rebuilding are essential components of the overall health experience.
Ha, if I had a doctor, and he/she told me that I was “normal” I would panic! Being normal in this country is a death sentence!
good point
:)
"Too many people are following Bruce's advice and failing."
How do you know that? Because they have not gotten instant weight loss and good health? Probably they are just unwilling to let themselves heal and would rather go with diet gurus promising quick fixes that often make things worse.
"Bruce, realize you have numerous parasites in your intestines from your years of Primal Diet and rotten/High meat, which are eating away at 50% of the calories you ingest."
Then how come they weren't eating away 50% of the calories before? This is an ad-hoc theory which obviously fails to explain my results.
"Or just realize that you healed your metabolism to a point where you can do these things (after 10 years of doing a cycle through excellent diets: Primal Diet, Paleo Diet, Raw Paleo, Zero Fiber, Low PUFA, Zero Carbs, Low Carb)."
Where is your evidence? I disagree that the Primal Diet, Paleo Diet, RawPaleo, Zero Carb, and Low Carb are healthy. In most cases, they degrade health. There is some merit to limiting PUFAs and for limiting fiber to heal. Some may never be able to tolerate much fiber, but the fact remains that healthy people can & do tolerate natural fiber. No tthe type of fiber added to processed and refined breakfast cerals like Fiber One and All Bran, but natural fiber.
"You can do whatever you want. BUT REMEMBER: 90% of all cells in the human body are regenerated in one year."
Some cells are generated much faster, I think, like the intestines and stomach. So those should be suffering if my diet is bad. Instead they are digesting food better than ever.
"you will begin to retain water (due to the NaCl with really high Na ratio in fast foods),"
Salt has very little to do with high BP or water retention. Eating refined sugar raises blood sugar more than eating big amounts of salt at every meal. You ought to know this. Also, I am not eating the fast food every day, let alone every meal. However, it's clear that you will have less blood pressure problems with low-sugar fast food than eating things like doughnuts, cookies, cakes and pies all the time, loaded with refined sugar, white flour, and vegetable oils.
"I HAVE TRIED this HED (High Everything Diet) long before Bruce came up with it. I have always eaten only burgers at fast food restaurants with no coke, no fries, no ketchup."
What about diet sodas and other garbage? I bet you drank some of those.
"I even was fooled into believing that eating 5 times per day or more of so called balanced meals (white rice, protein and fat at each meal) would make me gain some muscle and speed up my metabolism, as I was also working out with weight lifting."
Naybe you were eating too many meals a day, eating junk food in between meals, not eating enough variety, etc. To say that eating high everything caused the problem is speculation.
"Every morning I ate my oatmeal with plenty of whole milk and cream and raw honey, thought the fiber would "train" my intestines to become faster, to digest faster, to push things out faster…"
Oatmeal might be rancid. It wouldn't be my first choice, because it's also high in PUFAs relative to potatoes and white rice and other things. And just because you didn't adapt to fiber doesn't mean you couldn't have later. Maybe you were just trying to do too much too fast. I never said you should start eating lots of fiber immediately. Why would you eat oatmeal while eating white rice? That doesn't make sense and makes your story look unbelievable. Why avoid fiber from one food while eating it freely in some other food? Maybe the problem was that you were not consistent and patient and you just mixed a lot of ideas together, without approaching it rationally.
“Salt has very little to do with high BP or water retention. Eating refined sugar raises blood sugar more than eating big amounts of salt at every meal.”
That should be “refined sugar raises the blood pressure more than huge amounts of salt.” Salt restriction can only lower a person’s blood pressure by a few points, and eating huge amounts of salt can only raise it by a few points. It’s so absurd to argue that salt is unhealthy, when it is more likely the other things that the salt goes along with (like refined sugar and vegetable oils) that are doing major damage and causing health problems.
Matt: “I am still hesitant about consuming any refined carbohydrates more than once or twice per week. They have a tremendous “guilt by association” relationship to health problems in the first place. It’s hard to endorse them as the cure when they are the leading suspect in the causation of most problems in the first place.”
But refined sugar’s usually eaten in the context of white flour and vegetable oil (PUFAs and/or hydrogenated oils). Also, something that’s toxic in large amounts may be a TONIC in smaller, less frequent amounts. Lifting heavy weights every day is probably unhealthy. Interval training every day is highly stressful. Distance running every day is damaging. But when you let the body rest and heal, exercise can be very healthy. Much depends on the context, how healthy the person is, what they are doing, and so on.
Charlie Washington: “I actually started my zerocarbage website so I could hit on post-menopausal white woman.”
LOL. You shouldn’t have deleted that one Matt. Granted, it was probably fake, but people who know Charles would know it is fake because he doesn’t sign as Charlie. Being seriousness, I think Charles has a massive ego started the forum to stroke his ego. Charles is a “narcissist of the highest order,” as many people have said about him. Many people who have read his forum think he’s a narcissist. Just read his debate with me, where he said that I am “jealous” of him and I “want to be” him, and without him I have “nothing to write about.” LOL. He is a narcissist of the highest order, delusions of grandeur and all of that good stuff. He needs to be undergoing psycho-analysis.
http://todayiatea.blogspot.com/2009/01/fump-day-3-jan-4-2009.html
I read his exchange with you on AV Skeptics. Very entertaining.LOL
Harper,
If my TSH was that high I would definitely seek more tests, and a doctor who actually understands them. Ask your doctor about getting your T4, T3 and thyroid antibodies done. I would also get a 24 hr corisol done because so many people with thyroid problems also have adrenal problems. The problem with “normal” when it comes to lab readings is that sick people are included in the sample group they use to determine normal. What you want is optimal, and in my experience very few conventional doctors understand this. The best doctors I have found that actually understand this are the ones that specialize in “anti-aging” medicine. They have been the only ones I have found that want to optimize, thyroid, adrenals, hormones and thus the metabolism.
Pipparoni,
Do all sugars effect you the same? Is it even worse with fruit sugars?
I am becoming more and more convinced that people with adrenal insufficiency issues have a harder time with natural sugars. After chronic low carb dieting you could have adrenal burn out. I have confirmed this in my own case. It would be interesting if you and Matt got cortisol testing done to confirm it. You can get a 24 hour saliva test very easily and quickly.
Have you tried organic sushi rice? It is the easiest for a lot of people who have grain issues. Like schwarzbein, I would advise avoiding gluten for a few months until you heal your metabolism.
Thank you JT, that sounds like good advice.
Troy said “I see some people are still having trouble leaving there diets in the dust. I am so glad i don’t live my life in turmoil anymore… i could never go back to obsessing about diet the way i use too… life has really opened up since.”
Great point Troy. My story is very similar to yours. This in my opinion is the most beneficial part of giving up the diet mentality. There is definitely an inverse relationship between people who obsess over eating healthy, and actually being healthy. Worrying about your food all the time will probably damage you a lot more that eating something that has carbs or isn’t organic. And, you can actually enjoy your life when you dont obsess over it.
Bruce K said “That is when you combine white rice with butter and nothing else. I don’t know if the same thing would occur if you ate it with meat or eggs or cheese or milk, and other animal foods. Butter and grains is a deficient diet, even if the grains are unrefined. So, the problem may just be a result of not having animal protein, not so much combining the fat with the white rice. What do you think, Matt? It seems more complex than saying white rice and butter is bad. McCarrison only showed it was bad when those were the only food in the meal, I think. He didn’t show that a meal of beef with white rice and butter would be unhealthy, AFAIK.”
In Ayurveda, one of the most nourishing foods for someone who is in a weakened state is kicharee. A lot of Ayurvedic doctors will prescribe a diet of kicharee exclusively. It is white rice, ghee, and split mung beans. The addition of the mung as a protein source seems to offset any nutritional deficiencies that may result from the rice and butter. After years of low carb I went on a diet of only this for 3 weeks and felt a lot better after.
Troy,
Can you post more detail about what is going on with the people on Art Devany’s blog and hair loss. What is Art’s response?
JT: "In Ayurveda, one of the most nourishing foods for someone who is in a weakened state is kicharee. A lot of Ayurvedic doctors will prescribe a diet of kicharee exclusively. It is white rice, ghee, and split mung beans. The addition of the mung as a protein source seems to offset any nutritional deficiencies that may result from the rice and butter. After years of low carb I went on a diet of only this for 3 weeks and felt a lot better after."
Interesting. Maybe the problem is simply lack of quality protein, B vitamins, and other things. Eating white rice & butter with meat or eggs or dairy or beans will probably prevent the problems McCarrison noted with the exclusive "white rice and butter" diet. But it might be better for healing to eat beef or cheese or eggs or fish instead of the beans.
"Interesting. Maybe the problem is simply lack of quality protein, B vitamins, and other things. Eating white rice & butter with meat or eggs or dairy or beans will probably prevent the problems McCarrison noted with the exclusive "white rice and butter" diet. But it might be better for healing to eat beef or cheese or eggs or fish instead of the beans. "
I agree, because if you think about the apes, like gorillas and chimpanzees; even the tiniest amount of excluded protein effects them greatly; such as the gorilla's case, they can become infertile without any source of B vitamin/protein (bugs). So I think in a human being's case, the same guidelines could hold true.
Maybe the problem is simply lack of quality protein, B vitamins, and other things. Eating white rice & butter with meat or eggs or dairy or beans will probably prevent the problems McCarrison noted with the exclusive "white rice and butter" diet.
I think thats what McCarrison was aiming for at the end of his book, is for a person to eat a well balanced meal, without alot of autoclaved food. He talks about feeding the people he healed, fresh milk, with a egg yolk in it, fresh whole meal bread, fresh butter, and as much as one wants…. no veggies oils, no sugar, and no refined carbs. like bruce says, once your healed and feeling good, i think refined carbs or sugar shouldn't hurt the healthy person… but i think the healthy person would strive to eat well all the time.
troy
Jt,
Well one person brought up in the comments section about losing his hair, and its thinning out. Other people began to mention the same thing.
Arts response was the usual, more anitoxidants, more omega fish oils, more plant food. People are running on too much adrenaline with his diet, and trying to eat like him is raising there cortisol levels also. I think people take it to far with the fruits on his diet also. What a mess his plan is. He encourages to much coffee consumption, he drinks like 3 or more cups a day sometimes. I like his ideas on intermentant training, and low aerobic training… but i got burnt out easy on his diet. He is retired and rich… i think one could handle his diet more easily with that kind of lifestyle. Like that dumbass who wrote the master cleanse… he lives on an island and is stress free… the master cleanse is a disaster for any normal person, living in the real world.
More people have been commenting on Arts response, to the hair loss, but as usual he doesn’t leave any comments back. People just keep kissing his ass, and keep swallowing ass loads of omega fish oils, stuffing themselves with plants, olive oil, and fruits. He commented about his wife eating some bread occasionaly, and getting mild indigestion and bloating… i commented back that she probably needed to just add a thick layer of some nice butter.
People are starving themselves of saturated fats and starches on his diet. I feel sorry for them, but at least they eliminated the sodas, and other crap… just like anyother diet.
troy
JT
“Do all sugars effect you the same? Is it even worse with fruit sugars?”
Fruit sugars certainly seem to be one of the worst.
Even eating 1 potato with each meal seem to bring on some anxiety at the moment so I’m abit at a loss for what to do. I certainly have symptoms of either low thyroid or adrenals, ie, cry easily, cold feet, mood swings, inability to deal with stress. Which got better going low carbs but then got worse again after awhile.
pipxx
can you refer me onto a good testing place?
Harper,
“Anonymous said: ?That means that 90% of all the cells in your body today are built on what you have eaten the last year. And what were you eating 1/2 a year ago??
Harper: “This makes no sense. If that were true, then no one would gain or lose weight until a year later. Scabs and cuts wouldn’t heal until a year later. Nails wouldn’t grow until a year later, etc etc.””
90% of ALL the cells. It is the average stated here.
Nails/hair/the liver are 100% replaced in less time, but bone is replaced only after a decade or more. If you take the average of all cells, 90% of the cells in the body have regenerated at least 1 cycle of cells in one year. That means they are built from new material and the old ones have died off. Does it make sense now?
Example: You have a completely new liver every few weeks. In surgery doctors can cut and discard most of the liver and it will grow back in a few weeks. It is one of the fastest organs to regenerate. The stomach is also fast but takes longer before all the cells are “new” (but remember cells will always follow genetic code, no matter if they are made by new materials or not. So a genetic birth defect will not be “healed”, the cells it is built up of will just be new, and might function better. It is this way possible to reduce the symptoms of genetic diseases but rarely to eliminate them.)
Some cells don’t regenerate at all. Deep scars are an example. Brain cells and part of the eyes another (although AV says brain cells can be regenerated). The human body does not have written in the genetic code (DNA) that it should regrow most of it’s limbs/organs and that’s why losing any part of a finger/foot/arm is permanet. But the remaining part (such as half of the leg) will still be made of new cells with every few years, as the cells still divide in it and are replaced.
Pip,
The symptoms you described could be caused by adrenal, thyroid, or hormonal issues. It could be one of, none of, or all three of these, so you should get them all checked. The sex hormones are made by the adrenal glands, so these could be low as well as cortisol if they aren’t functioning properly. Low libido, depression, apathy, emotional instability could all be symptoms of low sex hormones and adrenal burn out.
You will probably have to get a doctor to help you get all of these tests done, and then you will have to find one that is open to and understanding of these issues. The first thing I did was get a 24 hr saliva cortisol test from Diagnos-Tech Labs. I know schwarzbein uses Great Smokies Labs. There are probably some tests you can order online without a doc.
I know most people on here are anti medicine and drugs (including me), but sometimes you need to explore all the options, especially people who get to the point where they can hardly function. It can be a really eye opening experience when you feel like crap for a long time, and then you find out that all you need is a few grams of hyrdrocortisone, thyroid, or bioidentical hormone to change the way you feel 180 degrees. This happened with me, and quite a few other people I know of. Maybe you wouldn’t need it forever, but depending on how severe your situation is, it could be another tool in the recovery process while you get your diet and lifestyle straightened out.
If you have adrenal insuffenciency low carb can make you feel temporarily better because your adrenal glands would be forced to produce more cortisol to raise your blood sugar. Eventually they could burn out if you push them too hard for too long. This happened to me. Then you start eating carbs again and your cortisol levels drop even lower than before. You will probably need to try smaller portions of carbs through the day and work your way up.
JT
Just took my temp it was 98.4 and it’s 1pm. That’s good and I will take it again in the morning and see what my basal temp is.
I did check my resting pulse and that was low around 64, that’s not so good
sex hormones nope don’t have a problem with those tend to have a pretty high sex drive
Although not much action happening in that department.
Yes maybe I’ll lower the carbs a bit as I went from one potato a day to 3 so I’ll lower it a bit and see what happens.
It wouldn’t supprise me if my adrenals are not out of whack as I have had alot of stress and addictions through out my life although I given all of those up now other than my slight internet addiction.
I never drink alcohol and most of my food is clean and I cook at home and use plenty of sat fats.
I recently suffere froma bout of insomnia due to breakdown of a relationship but that seems to be righting itself now although i generally have to go pee in the night.
I’ve never really felt right since I had a nervous breakdown 12 years back probably brought on by intense stress and my lifestyle at the time. I then had panic attacks for 2 years until i got into the whole raw foods thing, so basically for 10 years now i have been on one extreme diet or another.
It’s good to be finding some middle ground
Thanks for your thoughts and support
pipx
Chloe:
“Sven, I think the minimum that Schwarzbein recommends is like 1-1.25 grams for every kilogram of body weight.”
That’s what I usually eat. I don’t think I ate too much protein. My diet is based heavily on fat, not so much on protein.
I will give added carbs a try. I will focus mostly on starches from potatoes and rice.
again i really just love this eating style. I just finnished my second day of eating and man does that feel good. I only had a litle problem today after my second meal wich was 2 eggs,MUCH butter and MUCH RICE. also washed down with 2 glasses of half and half cream and skimmed milk we didnt have full fat milk so that wasnt an option. I felt a litle head achhe, not much but just like a slight one is this just healing syndrom? my last meal i baked myself some lovely buns from wheat,butter,2tbspoons organic syrup. I ate them with ALOT of butter and cheese. Some time after the meal i felt a litle low energy and tired, can this be the syrup or the wheat? or that i have som lack of sleep ? :p and also like 1 hour after the bun meal my stomach felt like STUFFED and almost bloated, even tho when i look at it i doesnt seem that way, maybe its just the feeling. Can this be caused by the wheat or syrup? or that i just eat like a crazy ass?
Also im so glad i found you guys before the low carb shit took away my life.
Also one thing ive noticed. Its like my body is saying “Fuck his cracking the code, stubburn fat and fat cells, pack your bags were out of here.” Im not overweight at all but i have some fat to loose and i can see around my arms that my veins are starting to show clearer. Im really looking forward trying new stuff, binging on all sort of stuff. Also i have some problems, i have asthma and allergy against dust,some foods(wich we all know is crap) should i be consern about something? or is there something i can do to heal faster and get rid of that stupid asthma?
Mr. Secret. It’s normal to feel a little more tired after eating more carbs than you are used to. This will go away as long as you aren’t repeatedly stuffing yourself.
Continue on a diet that is very low in sugars and you will most likely notice a slight reduction in allergies and asthma. For the most part, whipping your adrenal glands has negative repurcussions, and as a pro soccer player this will always put some strain on you if you’ve already developed some issues there.
As for recipes, I just came out with a downloadable eBook at the end of February. There are countless tips and recipes for combining starch and fat. A link to it (180 Kitchen) is now permanently posted on the right side of the blog under “links.”
As for berries, I don’t personally eat them except on occasion. They are not a regular part of my everyday diet (a question you asked on another post)
I truly do not understand how anyone can suggest that restricting PUFA is important and then turn around and advocate eating fast food every day. Fast food and processed foods are high in PUFA. What do you think they’re cooking that stuff in?
Also, there are many other reasons not to eat fast food. Commercially raised beef is loaded with antibiotics and hormones, and places an enormous strain on the environment. It is estimated that each calorie of processed food requires an input of 10 calories of energy to produce. Cheap fossil fuels have made this possible but as energy becomes more expensive this imbalance will no longer be viable. Eating fresh, locally produced food supports local farmers, communities and economies.
Our choices about food and health are not made in isolation. They have consequences that go beyond ratios of carbs, fat and protein.
Nobody said to “eat fast food every day.” The point was that if you avoided certain aspects of it (like the french fries and sodas and ketchup and mayo and desserts) that it could be much healthier than lots of other options. A healthy person would eliminate antibiotics and other toxins in the food. A person who diets wouldn’t do so. They would absorb them and suffer an immense amount of damage, in addition to the damage that the dieting was causing. Like Matt said, eating local foods is an “extra credit” project. You can increase your health by eating fast fopod to a level far beyond what most people doing WAPF, low-carb, paleo, raw animal foods, and other diets are doing.
“You can increase your health by eating fast fopod to a level far beyond what most people doing WAPF, low-carb, paleo, raw animal foods, and other diets are doing. “
Bruce,
Other than your own experience, where is your proof for this comment – anecdotal or otherwise?
I can tell you without a doubt that your claim is not consistent with my own experience.
“Other than your own experience, where is your proof for this comment – anecdotal or otherwise?”
Troy’s experience, Matt’s experience, a number of other people on my group. Your experience has nothing to do with HED. I guarantee you were restricting saturated fat or starch or eating too much refined sugar and rancid vegetable oils. Morgan Spurlock is the typical argument against fast food and he’s full of fallacies. Oh yeah, the fat in the burger and cheese is bad, but the HFCS in the soda and the milk shake is fine, because it’s free of fat, and the rancid oil in the fries and mayonnaise is fine because it’s also low in saturated fat. Yep, that’s a totally air-tight argument indicting fast foods for causing his problems. More likely he poisoned his liver with all the PUFA oil and refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup. The animal fats were just guilty by association. And so it goes… Where are the compelling arguments that things like cheeseburgers without the ketchup and mayo and soda and fries and shakes are capable of damaging health?
I think the whole “fast food is healing” is indirect, in that, it’s not that fast food itself heals anything – but the body’s ‘work out’ to get rid of the toxins in the fast food. If that’s true, that is; not saying it is because personally I haven’t experienced that or have any evidence myself. It’s just interesting to hear other people’s stories with that, such as Matt’s allergy problems or Bruce’s weight loss and over all improvement at the time.
But it’s also the fact that it’s high in calories, soft, palatable, easy to eat a large amount quickly, etc. Eating plenty of food allows you to get rid of toxins. Dieting makes you more vulnerable to any toxins you eat, as well as what’s in the air, water, etc. Eating like Mercola is more likely to ruin your health than the bacon double cheeseburgers (without mayo or sodas or fries or ketchup or shakes). And if the fries were not cooked in junk oils, they would probably be safe, too.
How can you guarantee anything, Bruce? We’re talking about the anecdotal experiences of individuals. Hardly controlled scientific data here.
I wasn’t restricting starch or saturated fat. Nor was I eating too much sugar or HFCS or vegetable oil. In fact, I was very close to HED for a few years before moving closer to a WAPF-style diet.
A long time ago, before I knew much about nutrition, I was working with a holistic MD. He had a patient with a severe chronic illness. The doc kept putting this patient on an increasingly strict diet. The patient kept getting worse. At some point he was only eating quinoa, broccoli and fish – or something like that. Finally he stopped coming in for treatment.
About six months later he showed up again, looking very healthy. The doc was surprised and asked him what he had been doing. Had he been following a special diet? The patient said, “Yes. I followed the beer and pizza diet.”
He then explained to the bewildered doctor that at some point he realized he was going to die if he kept eliminating foods. He decided that if he was going to die, he might as well eat what he wanted to for a while. So he made sure to have beer and pizza with his friends at least three nights a week, and to eat whatever he wanted the other times.
So, was it the beer and pizza itself that improved his health? Perhaps. Certainly he needed to be eating more calories than he was – no doubt about that. But what’s also true is that when he was on the restricted diet he never felt satisfied or nourished by what he ate. He wasn’t eating the foods he enjoyed. He also felt isolated from his friends, because he couldn’t eat with them anymore.
It is well-documented that depression and social isolation can have dramatic effects on one’s health. Likewise, enjoying what one eats can have a powerfully positive effect (via the HPA axis and other neurochemical mechanisms).
The effects of the food we eat involves a lot more than its biochemical make-up. Our relationship to food, how we feel about what we eat, where and whom we eat it with, and what our state of mind is when we’re eating also play an important role.
Scientific data isn’t the end all, be all, and I’m well aware of the reasons why the HED isn’t likely to be studied extensively. However, it’s very difficult for me to accept that the HED is effective and safe without seeing more than anecdotal information.
but what does ‘close’ to HED mean exactly?
Close but no cigar, probably.
The main point I’m trying to make is that so far all I’ve seen in support of the HED is anecdotal associations and a kind of personal advocacy that borders on religious in its tone.
I would be more than happy to review any data that supports the claims being made about this diet (such as “Eating plenty of food allows you to get rid of toxins”, for example) in populations larger than a few people contributing to an Internet forum or blog.
As I pointed out in my last comment, the placebo effect cannot be underestimated. It’s responsible for between 30-50% of any effect that occurs in a given studied intervention. For someone who has spent years on incredibly restrictive diets, the feelings of pleasure and relief of stress that would come from eating a greater variety of foods – especially favorite foods from childhood, perhaps, that had been assiduously avoided for years – could be very powerful and could potentially explain the metabolic changes that person experiences.
Understand that I’m not ruling out the possibility that the HED does exactly what you all claim it does. I just haven’t yet seen enough evidence to convince me.
Chris,
I don’t see the religion in this. As it may come off as dogmatic – that goes for anything or anyone claiming to know everything – if you actually get interested and look into the studies or real world visions, really, much of this is very scientific but also very close to real world examples and common sense, and the major concept is totally nail-on-head hitting.
I think it’s silly to call something religious and not provide any thought against the information backing it up such as the evidence of the many people who have studied thyroid and the endocrine system, people dealing with those problems, and/or tribes of the world. I think Matt does a very good job piecing different things from many different people’s ideas together.
I would suggest if you want to do any convincing as to why any of these ‘founders’ knowledge is at all skewed, you should either elaborate more on what your close-call with this diet was, what your diet is, or any other information you’re trying to prove or claim could be wrong. After all, you are the only one who can get interested in or read more about information. Not reading about the facts or information behind this could be why you don’t personally see enough evidence. I could be totally off base about that, but, I’m saying – don’t say you aren’t convinced if you’ve simply just read some “rules” and seen other people agree with it. Perhaps they may very well know more than you think.
And come on, It is not even close to saying “well, we were made to be fruitarians, with our fruit picking hands, so eat fruit ya bastard” – you know?
If you happen to not be convinced and have read a lot about this, than explain why. It might make people agree with you or disagree with you (for a point you may be trying to put across)
If you’re simply talking about the fast food, well, don’t you think you may be missing the point a little? That isn’t exactly the focus of the diet, even though it says that boldly in the title, ahaa – the focus is more on the macronutrients and the overall increase in calories. At least that’s what I think. To say someone would do bad on eating starches, saturated fats and moderate protein, well, tell that to my improvements. I personally do not believe it’s at all contributed to mentality or the placebo effect. If a diet is bad, it’s bad, man. Beer and pizza may just have been good in that case you brought up – not just for mental health. I’m not disagreeing mentality is not important, it totally is; but, I do think food can vastly effect your mental attitude and mood, itself. Case in point – wanting to kill people on a zero carb diet. You can be perfectly happy restricting something and still fail.
I’ve seen some hyperbolic statements and a general fervor in some posts that strikes me as dogmatic or religious.
Nevertheless, as I said before I am open to reviewing the data that support the HED. I’m not going to seek it out myself, because I’m not drawn to this approach. I was asked to comment on it by Bruce, because we’ve had dialogues in the past. I’m happy to do that but so far I haven’t been able to easily locate it.
I never said that someone would do bad on eating starches, saturated fats and moderate protein. In fact, that’s basically how I eat. The question is what is the quality of those starches, saturated fats and proteins, and how and in what form they are consumed. That is where I am not convinced that eating junk food and fast food is equivalent to eating the same number of calories from whole-food sources of starch, saturated fat and protein. So far I haven’t seen any argument, anecdotal or otherwise, that supports this notion.
I don’t disagree with the fundamental premise as you explained it. I just disagree with how that seems to be applied in some cases.
Chris:
“The main point I’m trying to make is that so far all I’ve seen in support of the HED is anecdotal associations and a kind of personal advocacy that borders on religious in its tone.”
.
“I’ve seen some hyperbolic statements and a general fervor in some posts that strikes me as dogmatic or religious.”
It’s ironic. Your statements above could be applied more to low-carb diets, since they preach the religion of that insulin makes you fat, carbs cause insulin and leptin resistance, carbs cause obesity, etc. How is that more than a religoin? Read the materaial available on Matt’s blog and my group. You can find studies and experiences to back them up. You can not find any-thing to back up the dogma spouted by people like Eades and Atkins that protein is great to eat in massive amounts (over 20%), that carbs are the cause of every disease known to man, or that a “high-everything diet” excluding refined sugars and processed vegetable oils would be unhealthy.
I agree, Bruce. I’m not backing Eades or the low-carb folks on their tone either. I’d just love to see some data to support the arguments here. If anyone can point me to it I’d appreciate it.
Chris,
Thanks so much for coming over and challenging us.
There is a religious fervor going on over here a little bit, but it comes with initial excitement of feeling like we’re on to something bigger than we expected.
Bruce was originally motivated to pound some fast food after a few comments I made regarding food quality coming 2nd to avoiding refined sugars.
I too have spent the last decade feeling like food quality comes first. Grass fed beef is healthy, but grain fed is unnatural – so it therefore isn’t healthy. There is beauty to that logic and the ethos that stands behind it is a movement in and of itself.
But experience has shown me otherwise. Going too low in carbohydrates for too long (50-100g per day on average) – even while eating only farm-fresh, local foods from artisanal small farmers could not compete with fast food when what I needed was carbohydrate energy – from any source. My health eventually degraded (after initial good results) eating grassfed raw dairy, grassfed meats, pastured pork and chicken, a few organ meats, and small portions of whole, soaked grains and root vegetables. I had no refined sugar or starch in my diet. It was as clean as I could get it.
But even my teeth freakin’ ached, I had bad body odor, my perfect skin was starting to backpedal, my unbelievable and endless positive mood began to corrode, and my digestion became poor – causing me to fall into the Monastyrsky/Vonderplanitz trap and even start denouncing drinking water with meals – as if that is the water’s fault and not my own.
And there was no placebo going on. In fact, I thought the opposite. I thought my diet was perfect and that having to eat fast food while hanging out with some family members was going to kill me. Yet, within days health problems that had lingered for almost a solid year vanished.
Of course fast foods aren’t the healthiest foods in the world. No one is arguing that. But there are advantages in fast food that one can utilize – they are soft, easy to chew and digest, calorie dense, low-residue, and a perfect balance of fat, protein, and carbohydrates – which is one of the factors making them desirable, as every human optimal human fuel is the perfect trinity of those 3 fuel types.
Therefore, if you’re in need of revving up the metabolism with high-calorie density without overburdening digestion, fast foods are the ticket. You don’t have to eat them every day – going full Don Gorske on that ass (although Gorske is clearly more of a man than Spurlock), but you also don’t have to masticate some leathery piece of dirty-jockstrap-flavored grassfed beef, riding atop your steed of localvore majesty to be a vibrant, healthy, functioning human being. In fact, depending on your current health status, a diet consisting of such fare could be your undoing, like it was for Ben – a former Vonderplanitz/WAPF devotee that occasionally posts here and nearly drove himself into extinction from his “I’ll eat anything to be healthy” diet consisting of raw milk, raw grassfed beef, and sauerkraut.
Some people crave that I back up every word I say with some kind of double-blind placebo-controlled study. Dude, anyone can come up with a theory these days and find 1200 rat studies to irrefutably “prove” his or her thesis. It’s easy. There’s an endless smorgasbord of nutritional and scientific studies in which to choose from, ‘cherry-pick’ as Eades might say, and regurgitate into an eloquent new dogma.
I’d like to think we’re more advanced than that round these here parts, relying on the old standby’s: history, logic, observation, personal experience, and true fundamental science when applicable (such as basic physiology, biochemistry, or endocrinology).
That’s just how we roll. If you want to see some more confusing studies to convulute your mind and further bury your critical thinking skills as so many researchers have succumbed to, then God help you. Never let data lead you to believe illogical impossibilities – or else you will forever remain a human pinball jumping from one half truth to the next in search of solid proof.
Having said that, we have written some crazy hypothetical things that are probably not true, such as toxins in foods magically innoculating us or helping us build up a tolerance to chemicals. That’s probably untrue, but the likelihood of a healthy body with fully-charged cellular energy as a result of a well-oiled metabolism being able to deal with toxins more effectively – and pass through encounters with them unscathed, is a much more real possibility.
But it’s just a possibility. We’ll be more careful not to undermine what’s going on here by making outlandish claims, but theories, hypotheses, and speculation will still abound that stem from a solid base of knowledge, research, and understanding. We’ve gotten along with that style of inquiry just fine thus far. Other types of analysis certainly don’t appear to be superior (diplomatic way of saying everyone else is mildly retarded). I don’t need a study to tell me that. That’s pure anecdotal observation.
well said!
Matt,
Thanks for your thorough and rather entertaining reply! I appreciate you taking the time to explain where you’re coming from here.
A few comments…
***I too have spent the last decade feeling like food quality comes first. Grass fed beef is healthy, but grain fed is unnatural – so it therefore isn’t healthy. There is beauty to that logic and the ethos that stands behind it is a movement in and of itself.
But experience has shown me otherwise. Going too low in carbohydrates for too long (50-100g per day on average) – even while eating only farm-fresh, local foods from artisanal small farmers could not compete with fast food when what I needed was carbohydrate energy – from any source. My health eventually degraded (after initial good results) eating grassfed raw dairy, grassfed meats, pastured pork and chicken, a few organ meats, and small portions of whole, soaked grains and root vegetables. I had no refined sugar or starch in my diet. It was as clean as I could get it.****
Umm, you lost me here. What does good quality, grass-fed beef vs. factory-farmed, grain-fed beef have to do with the ratio between carbs and protein? You seem to have been on a low-carb, low-calorie version of the WAPF (or something similar), but that is not what they advocate for everyone.
**Therefore, if you’re in need of revving up the metabolism with high-calorie density without overburdening digestion, fast foods are the ticket.**
Man, you must have a completely different digestive system than me. If I wanted to overburden my digestion, the #1 thing I would do is eat a bunch of fast food. Works every time.
Need energy fast? How about a big glass of kefir? Or a couple of slices of homemade bread (made with organic flour) with big gobs of butter or cheese? Or a bowl of yogurt with fruit, with maybe some soaked nuts on top? A smoothie with fruit, yogurt, raw milk, raw egg yolks (pasture-raised, of course), and coconut oil? These are all “high-everything” foods, but still very high quality.
Let’s continue using WAPF as an example, since you and others have mentioned it. It need not be a low-carb, low calorie approach to food (and that’s what it is; it isn’t a “diet”, per se). It’s certainly not for me. I don’t restrict my carb intake in the slightest. And neither you nor Bruce has convinced me that fast food or junk food is required or desirable in order to eat a “high everything” diet.
But that doesn’t matter, of course. You certainly don’t need to convince me. I’m very comfortable with my approach to food and I feel great eating what I eat. Clearly you do too and at the end of the day that’s what matters. Theories, shmeories!
I can’t argue with your experience. Nor do I have any wish to. What I can do is point out where extrapolating your experiences to a wider population may be a bit premature. I’ve also tried to point out a few places where the claims I’ve seen made don’t have any scientific basis. Thanks for conceding that point in your response. It shows me that you are thinking clearly and rationally about this.
I know as well as anyone that most studies are of poor quality and they are almost always used to advance someone’s agenda. That’s what my entire blog is about! On the other hand, I don’t think it’s safe to say we can’t learn anything from scientific research and inquiry. There are well-established criteria for evaluating the quality of a study, and there are good studies out there.
I also understand the unlikeliness of anyone doing an observational or clinical study on the HED, because it’s so far from what any diet guru is recommending. Nevertheless, without a traditional population to observe that followed this diet for a long time (like Weston A. Price did), and without a modern cohort of people who have followed HED, and without even a small group of people that have followed HED and been compared to another diet (SAD, low-carb, whatever), it’s very difficult to say anything at all about it other than it seems to work for some people that have tried it.
And again, if you’re one of those people it has worked for, who cares if it can be “substantiated” in studies or trials anyhow?
***I’d like to think we’re more advanced than that round these here parts, relying on the old standby’s: history, logic, observation, personal experience, and true fundamental science when applicable (such as basic physiology, biochemistry, or endocrinology). ***
I’d like to learn more about the justification for HED according to these criteria. History? Are you aware of a population somewhere that has followed HED according to the rules laid out by Bruce? Observation? Are you talking about self-observation? I can accept that on an individual basis, but it’s not enough to extrapolate out unless you’re talking about groups or populations. Logic? I still don’t understand the logic of the HED. Some of the “logical” arguments I’ve seen, such as “Eating plenty of food allows you to get rid of toxins”, actually seem to defy logic. Personal experience? Sure, I can go with that.
Fundamental science? That’s what I’d like to see more of. What is the physiological, biochemical and endocrinological basis for the HED? I’m quite interested in knowing, truthfully. My curiosity is aroused.
The major biochemical/endocrinological basis for following a high-calorie regimen for an extended period of time is based on force-feeding’s ability to lower insulin and leptin resistance, as well as serum cortisol levels. It also raises the metabolism and serotonin levels.
This is a mirrored opposite of calorie restriction, known to increase insulin and leptin resistance (which is why you gain fat easily and are hungry as hell after prolonged calorie restriction). Calorie restriction also lowers the metabolism (inducing coldness, tiredness, fatigue, constipation, dry skin, lowered immune system, ability to gain weight on a progressively smaller amount of calories, and more) and lowers serotonin (causing everything from depression to psychosis to insomnia).
Eating a surplus of calories literally has the exact opposite metabolic response. The metabolism increases. It becomes increasingly more difficult to gain fat the longer you try it. Hunger decreases. Mood is greatly enhanced and so is sleep due to increased serotonin. Energy increases, transit time decreases (faster), body temperature rises – which improves the immune system just like a fever does, and on and on and on. Works wonders for sex drive as well, as a surplus of food has always created increased reproduction in all species – and never obesity. To quote T.L. Cleave…
?A glance at any wild creature in its natural environment shows that no matter how plentiful its food supply, it never eats too much of it. Even a poulterer’s shop reveals that no wild rabbit ever ate too much grass, no wood-pigeon ever ate too much wheat, and no herring ever ate too much plankton. No wild creature, in fact, is ever overweight. The forces of evolution have ensured that in nature organisms react to an abundant food supply never by developing a disease, such as obesity, but by raising the rate at which they propagate themselves.
Likewise, in history those eating a diet high in all macronutrient categories were simply healthy, robust, strong, and resilient to infectious and chronic disease – just as W.A.P. discovered. Those specifically eating high carb and high saturated fat, which so many apparently have a phobia about doing, are the Polynesians (poi, fish, and coconut), the Swiss (rye, cheese, and cream), the Masai (high-fat milk and meat).
The main theme is that they weren’t eating anything inherently harmful – like rancid veggie oil or, to a greater degree of guilt by association – refined sugar. But another theme amongst all of Price’s superhuman specimens across the globe was abundance. They had plenty of food.
You can still be pretty healthy on a low-calorie diet devoid of junk, like the Okinawans. But you won’t be 6’6″ tall and able to kill a lion with a spear or have the striking physique of a polynesian, nor will you be able to run around in icy cold temperatures without getting cold or infectious disease like the isolated Swiss.
The HED probably won’t work for everyone. Here it is more of an aspiration than anything – to be able to eat abundant amounts of satisfying and nourishing foods without having to run to low-fat or low-carb to get results. To heal food intolerances and bodily inadequecies instead of cater to them.
But we live in a world where the most disastrous and harmful studies ever performed on human subjects could well have been the calorie-restriction diets such as Ancel Keys famed study – and that’s what the average Joe thinks he needs to do (restrict calories and exercise a lot to create a calorie deficit) to be healthy, happy, and stave off obesity and degenerative disease.
Collectively we are paying a steep price for that mistake of biblical proportions.
I believe, as Broda Barnes did and modern day followers of his (Stephen Langer and Mark Starr), that the pandemic ailment that humanity faces is a low metabolism – or better put, a poorly-functioning metabolism that runs at a lower level of efficiency.
A person can improve upon that problem with high, medium, or low-quality foods. I feel confident, and have stated before, that a person can lose weight and lower virtually every known risk factor for degenerative disease without eating a bite of food outside of McDonald’s.
It would be better if they ate more wholesome and natural foods, but that takes more dedication and money than most people really have to give. Instead, I’ve chosen to get beyond my own beliefs in real food consumption and production and deliver something more accessible. Besides, it is the poorest and least educated who are suffering the most, and they ain’t gonna be buyin’ any grassfed meat, raw milk, wild seafood, or any approximation to it – even if they were to find such foods palatable (which most hooked on junk food wouldn’t).
So it’s really a prioritization:
1) Obey your appetite and desire for physical activity
2) Create a calorie surplus for a while to heal
3) Don’t eat refined sugar or consume caffeine or drugs for an extended period of time to heal
4) Don’t exclude or limit food categories such as fats, proteins, or carbohydrates
5) Get plenty of sleep
If that’s the top 5, getting enough vitamin D by eating liver/chugging cod liver oil or making sure your beef is grassfed would ring in at about #354 and #466. They are extra credit, and it is unfortunate that so many have been deterred from living a healthy life because they were more preoccupied about what the cows and chickens ate than what THEY ate.
Matt: “I believe, as Broda Barnes did and modern day followers of his (Stephen Langer and Mark Starr), that the pandemic ailment that humanity faces is a low metabolism – or better put, a poorly-functioning metabolism that runs at a lower level of efficiency.”
Or you could say that a low metabolism is more efficient and a high metabolism is less efficient,so the fast metabolism can be picky about what it absorbs (fat, carbs, calories, protein, toxins, and so forth), whereas the fast metabolism can simply get rid of what it doesn’t need, and thus they achieve a more harmonious balance. If that were true, then we can also concluce that calories are far more important than nutrients for health and robustness, if certain miminal needs are met (which are not large).
Matt,
I really appreciate you taking the time to explain where you’re coming from.
We’re really not that far apart, actually.
I can’t quite get on board the fast food bandwagon, though. Some of my reasons for that are social, political and environmental – all of which are, I believe, directly related to health. But I understand that this is not the forum for that discussion.
I’m a big believer in what works. I’ve learned over time that this is not the same thing for everyone.
“you bet your arse there’s a ton of sugar in prepared sushi rice. They typically mix equal parts white sugar and rice wine vinegar to make what is typically referred to as “sushi-su.” Then they pour it over the steamed sushi rice and fan it until it’s room temperature. Expect a full sushi meal to contain at least 1/8th of a cup of white sugar or more.”
So get sashimi and order rice separately or maybe beer or some kind of juice. The only time I went to a sushi restaurant, I had sashimi and fresh fruit juice. (it was when I was on the Primal Diet, so it was the most acceptable option.)
I've read through the many of the posts but haven't found this addressed. excuse me if it has. How do we know that the ingestion of an abundance of foods is the way to true health. Could there be some negative impact due to all those foods even if they were all clean. From what I presume, there wasn't a society that just constantly gorged itself on clean foods. There alwways seemed to be a deficit of available food that over the long run resulted in caloric restriction (at least relative to modern society). I think Daniel Quinn mentions something like this
Danh,
Humans with the most abundant food supply had the best health. That's true of humans and any other animal species that a person wants to investigate in the real world.
As we are discussing here, the path to good health isn't measured by the number of calories you ingest. Instead, we explore the potential that overfeeding has on improving basic health. It is a short-term strategy designed to improve glucose metabolism, supply an overabundance of nutrient material, improve "the quality of the blood" as milk diet practitioners liked to say, raise the body temperature (in turn strengthening the immune system and ridding the body of chronic infections and the inflammation that those infections cause), build digestive strength, and so on.
After going through this process, appetite usually comes down, as the body is finally satisfied – plus insulin and leptin levels fall (assuming you aren't overfeeding on vegetable oil and fructose). Then you just eat normal, but are healthy.
That's the idea at least.
Very insightful & well put across info. I didn't even read the whole thing but the way you defined metabolism turned me into one of your fans instantly