Tuesday, December 31, 2013

rant alert

If I read another overstated caution to hypothyroids about low-carb diets by half-educated quacks I think i'll ... WRITE YET ANOTHER RANT.  ;-)

There's a new pseudo-reason for people with poor thyroid function to eschew VLC -- I guess the nonsense about LC "causing hypothyroidism" has been efficiently branded as bullshit, and the wannabe-gurus are grasping at new straws!  This time we hear that VLC is bad for us because [gasp] "insulin is required for proper thyroid-hormone conversion."

REALITY CHECK:  if you eat adequate protein and are not T1-diabetic, there's plenty of insulin available for any reasonable process.  BULLSHIT CALLED.  AGAIN.

And even more BS (if one needs more evidence of inadequate competence in some circles) -- promoting foods such as sweet potatoes and yucca to a hypothyroid is just plain ignorant.  They're GOITROGENS, you moron.

Not everybody NEEDS a VLC diet, but some of us feel much better on one, largely because our bodies react badly to higher blood-sugar, and to those mild toxins which other people praise as "antioxidants."  Hormesis is only a good thing if you don't cross that poison-dose threshold, and for some of us that threshold is very low.

The symptoms of hypothyroidism can be induced by any significant insult to the bodysurgery, infection, malnutrition, severe physical or emotional stress, "poisoning" by histaminergic foods and environmental factors, chronic lack of sleep, deleterious gut-bugs, and excessive exercise and low-calorie dieting among others.  For self-anointed "experts" to proclaim a low-carb diet to be "stressful" is ... oh, i'm inclined to call it FUCKING STUPID ... but some people are offended by that kind of vehemence.  It's not stressful to the body in and of itself, or a lot of hunter-gatherers wouldn't have been marvelously strong and healthy eating that way.

VLC eating is only "stressful" to people who jump into it without learning how to do it right, to those who have severely messed-up metabolisms, and to the suckers who have been sold the idea they can eat whatever they want and still lose weight and thrive on ANY kinds of food, so long as they take their multivitamin every day and limit calories.  I.E., it's stressful psychologically if you think you're entitled to eat like an obesity-resistant young jock, and feel deprived.  It's stressful if you've lost your metabolic flexibility and haven't taken the time to adapt to burning fat as a primary fuel.  It's stressful if you eat nothing but muscle-meat every single day for extended periods.  It's stressful if it's only a junk-food diet in low-carb clothes. 

LIES like "the body requires carbohydrates" bring out the berserker in me.  There is NOTHING we require that is in carbohydrate foods but can't be found in more absorbable and complete form in animal products.  Anyone who says otherwise either has an agenda or ... is gullible enough to think that what is taught by BigPharm/BigAg-financed institutions is actually true.

18 comments:

  1. "oh, i'm inclined to call it FUCKING STUPID ... but some people are offended by that kind of vehemence"

    Go for it Tess you know it makes sense why fight it

    Kind regards

    Eddie

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    1. you're encouraging my dark side, Eddie? ;-) brave man!

      hope you and Jan have a wonderful new year!

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    2. I learned a long time ago, encouraging a woman's dark side, was always a winner.

      Happy New Year to you and yours.

      Eddie

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  2. Kudos, Tess! Haha, I think came across the article about VLC diets being bad for hypothyroid's a few days ago, and I was like "Errrrr, what?" Thanks for clearing things up!
    :)

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    1. that rumor has been around for YEARS, but when i read a new incarnation of it, i have to rant all over again! :-) happy new year, A-oh!

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  3. Hugs, Tess! I'm with you all the way.

    My mother was thin, ate carbs all day and died of rampant dementia.

    It's not so much about how carbage affects your weight but about how much it gradually destroys your body and mind.

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    1. hugs back, Horfilmania! :-) ...I think the most insidious thing about carbs is, you don't see the worst part of the damage very soon! a small amount of excess fat makes it seem pretty harmless, but what's happening INSIDE the body is appalling.

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  4. I sort-of gave up on most people who don't ask "why?".How to deal with individuals who think that not eating bread would ruin them? Why do you have an under-active thyroid? Why do you have other symptoms of an ill health? Among the people I interact with I have several yoga enthusiasts who are the worst. They always manage to generate some philosophical (usually wrong) ideas why something is wrong and try to address that. Like eating animals affects karma, and edema is caused by an excessive water. I recently had to sent couple harsh e-mails to my yoga teacher who was trying to treat her allergic face edema by eating because according to some Hinduism quackery apples remove excessive water. I usually do not do such things, but I was afraid for her life.Fortunately, she was not offended, and her condition improved(on its own), not got worse. In others areas of life she acts as an intelligent and reasonable person. BTW, sometimes I hear regrets that in Western World yoga turned into an exercise routine despite being originated as a spiritual practice in India. From my perspective such change was an improvement - practicing yoga improves body, but embracing whole teaching may negatively impact mind.

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    1. the problem with most religions is that they get misinterpreted and changed for the worse when ignorant people latch onto them. :-( what starts as special teaching for the seeker frequently gets into the general population, and since they don't have the understanding for the deeper truth, they "translate" to what they CAN handle ... and you end up with megachurches and "christians" who are more interested in Leviticus than the gospels!

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    2. I think US has enough of different religions, and embracing the religious component too much of a nice exercise routine would be uncomfortable for those who care mostly about exercise.
      Any philosophy or religion gets interpreted and misinterpreted all the time, it is life. Which interpretation is the misinterpretation is often hard to tell, unlike what concerns health. I am annoying when facts of health are approached with "believes" mentality when thinking is often skipped.

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  5. My personal theory about the low carb/hypothryroidism connection is that people who are experiencing this are eating too few calories. The thyroid will naturally down regulate in an effort to maintain homeostasis. It happened to me, my TSH went high, but when I looked at my caloric intake it had gotten very low because of the appetite suppression that comes with low carb. When I upped my calories, TSH came back into normal range--no big surprise. And I never once experienced hypothyroid symptoms with all of that.

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    1. exactly! the invention of calorie restriction is one of the worst things to happen to our health, in my opinion!

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  6. Sure, when somebody is in a weight-loss state on any diet , TSN will be up. LCarbing is efficient in a weight-loss and appetite suppression, so lets blame LCarbing for the thyroid slow-down.
    I know the physical sensation when I am in a weight-loss state - I feel cold and sluggish, especially on evening, next day clothes are more loose.

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    1. yes, Wooo taught us years ago that ANYTHING effective enough to make us lose weight lowers thyroid function -- and since LC is best for weight loss, it lowers thyroid most. :-P in other words the diet that lowers thyroid output most IS the best diet....

      of course, according to Rosedale (who is too wingnutty for my taste) low--normal thyroid function is best for longevity.

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  7. Sorry, it is off the topic, but recently Emily Deans said that -
    "People want sensibility, convenience, beauty, and fresh air. A glorious man in Antarctica who can fly with his red cape in the light of our young sun. Coconut milk. Roast beast. Fermentation. They want a grumpy, two-dimensional villain, like Zod, or Carbsane, or the Medical Establishment, or the flu vaccine."
    Does it mean that Emily considers nowadays Evelyn one of commonly known villains? Or my reading comprehension is off?

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    1. not just a villain, but a two-dimensional one! :-D

      I don't read Carbsane posts -- has she been particularly obnoxious lately?

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    2. No, it looks like she became more quiet after that story with Carol's blog, re-posting often very old posts, writing mostly about her views on nutrition, attacking some paleo figures, especially Rob Wolf, no mentioning of Jimmy Moor as far as I noticed with a quick check. It is nice Charles Grashow has a place to go instead of annoying people all over the web. I am surprised if Emily turned against Evelyn , she used to comment on her blog sometimes , or Emily most probably used another meaning like there were some people who believed Carbsane was a two-dementional villain.

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    3. I check Nigel's blog http://nigeepoo.blogspot.com/ often in order to see what is in his blog-roll, and found that Evelyn just released an e-book about a danger of food restrictions - so she was quite for a reason. Since I grew-up on a restrictive diet due to allergies, and I feel it did me nothing but good, such theme is not what I can relate to.

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