I enjoyed the hell out of J Stanton's presentation when i saw it the other day, but i may have been wowed more when i watched Chris Masterjohn this evening
Funny thing, though, i was most interested in an early point he made -- that salivary amylase activity is predictive of glucose tolerance, and that it varies significantly from one individual to the next. Unless i'm much mistaken, this is highly significant for choosing one's life-long dietary path. The only problem is how to know where you stand early enough.... I wonder if this is one of those tests you can just order up on the internet?
To me it also means that all the pro-carb blow-hards who claim everybody ought to be able to shovel down potatoes as fast as they do are DEMONSTRABLY wrong. Hee hee! :-D
The rest of Chris's talk was not only great material, it was very well presented. I had to back up and listen to a few points again, and i paused even more times to peruse his slides at my own pace, but he explained things so well i never actually got lost. Great job, Dr. M!
I'm so glad they "listened to me" [smirk] and provided a microphone for the questions at the end of the talks this time -- the AHS-11 q&a session drove me batty.
Showing posts with label J Stanton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label J Stanton. Show all posts
Monday, February 4, 2013
Thursday, July 5, 2012
this one's for you, kids!
Toward the beginning of this week, when my daughter and her family converged with my husband and me in SF, i heard the news that my granddaughter had recently had several cavities. She's five years old -- this needs to stop.
I still had a few sublingual K2 tablets from my last bottle, so decided to see if the kids would be willing participants in dosing them up. Their mother being amenable, we gave it a try, and to my surprise and delight they didn't find them "gross" ... or even "YUKKY!" (If there's going to be a perpetual struggle, it's sometimes a better idea to conduct a guerrilla-style nutritional war....)
Where they live, there's a significant drive involved in acquiring raw or pastured milk, and so i'm resigned to the fact that it's not gonna happen. My daughter is interested in providing superior nutrition to her family, but with their busy young lives, there are limits to how much pastured and organ-meat, obscure vegetables and alternative-carb sources are going to be utilized. Getting vitamin K2mk4 may just depend on using a supplement.
I find it's most effective to conduct my nutritional brainwashing in small steps; even here on vacation, i managed to get my daughter to watch "FatHead" via Netflix and my laptop -- and i was pleased that my SIL seemed interested, as well. :-) There's a virtue in having a talented presenter like Tom Naughton helping one conduct the education!
Next, i'll try to get her to read Chris Masterjohn's exposition of the vitamin K story -- that's the reason for today's post, to make this information easily available. After that ... hmmm, should it be Mary Enig on fats, or J Stanton on protein, or That Paleo Guy on D...? I'm so devious!!! (She already knows about Mark's Daily Apple as an all-purpose site -- love those definitive guides.)
So anyway, when i reorder K2mk4, i'll get one for myself and have one sent to the kids as well. The next thing i get my daughter to read or watch might depend on any challenges the children encounter. That's a very powerful incentive for her to make progress in her nutritional education.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
between the battles
I wanted to refresh my memory on something that J Stanton wrote quite a while ago, and of course ended up reading more than just that one article. I also reread "Why Are We Here..." and came up with another good answer to that question, in the light of other bloggers' recent columns: i often read Gnolls.org and Hyperlipid and some others because it's RESTFUL to do so. I sit back and read and learn with the confidence that these people have done their homework, and are intellectually honest enough to tell it like it is, rather than how they would like it to be. I don't have the feeling they're trying to sell me something at every turn.
As long as i stay out of the comment section (or just read them selectively), i never see BS that insults my intelligence. I never read anything that screams "rebut this."
When one eats in a way that flouts convention and its "wisdom," one gets very, very tired of explaining things to those who would like one to conform. Now, when i had a chance to explain paleo/ancestral food theory to my niece this last spring, it was far from tedious because she was actually interested. She may or may not do anything with the ideas i introduced, but that's her affair -- she's intelligent and fully capable of researching it on her own if she likes. But to others (especially older people, i note), who seem to be incapable of thinking that "authority" could possibly be wrong ... it's utterly pointless. They eat meals that are nothing but "sugar molecules holding hands" and "food-grade paint thinner" and refuse to think that their physical ills (and they have many) could have anything to do with their diets. It's the epitome of frustration to me.
I hate to see people killing themselves with diet, especially people i love. NOTICE: if i pester you about your food choices, it means i CARE. But don't imagine that i'm having fun doing it.
It offends me to hear bad advice given to people who need to be careful about what they eat -- it brings out the She Bear in my nature. So to remove the temptation to get out the repeating rifle and climb a tall tower, i don't EVER visit certain websites, especially the ones full of healthywholegrains and vitriol. I leave it to the Lords of Karma to give them their just desserts -- pun intended.
No -- at times like these i go to the sites where my sense of outrage is never aroused. Bastions of cool, gracious intellect. It's almost as though i'm sitting with them in a shady place with a great view, and there's a glass of wine at my elbow, and nobody says anything stupid. Ahhhhh.
As long as i stay out of the comment section (or just read them selectively), i never see BS that insults my intelligence. I never read anything that screams "rebut this."
When one eats in a way that flouts convention and its "wisdom," one gets very, very tired of explaining things to those who would like one to conform. Now, when i had a chance to explain paleo/ancestral food theory to my niece this last spring, it was far from tedious because she was actually interested. She may or may not do anything with the ideas i introduced, but that's her affair -- she's intelligent and fully capable of researching it on her own if she likes. But to others (especially older people, i note), who seem to be incapable of thinking that "authority" could possibly be wrong ... it's utterly pointless. They eat meals that are nothing but "sugar molecules holding hands" and "food-grade paint thinner" and refuse to think that their physical ills (and they have many) could have anything to do with their diets. It's the epitome of frustration to me.
I hate to see people killing themselves with diet, especially people i love. NOTICE: if i pester you about your food choices, it means i CARE. But don't imagine that i'm having fun doing it.
It offends me to hear bad advice given to people who need to be careful about what they eat -- it brings out the She Bear in my nature. So to remove the temptation to get out the repeating rifle and climb a tall tower, i don't EVER visit certain websites, especially the ones full of healthywholegrains and vitriol. I leave it to the Lords of Karma to give them their just desserts -- pun intended.
No -- at times like these i go to the sites where my sense of outrage is never aroused. Bastions of cool, gracious intellect. It's almost as though i'm sitting with them in a shady place with a great view, and there's a glass of wine at my elbow, and nobody says anything stupid. Ahhhhh.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
“More people are overweight than undernourished.”
I think that part of the reason for the "obesity epidemic" is that people are BOTH. Over the last 100 years (and especially the last 40), Americans have been told to eat the most remarkable collection of garbage imaginable; no wonder people don't have a normal appetite anymore.
At the end of the 19th century, it was fashionable to have a little "meat on your bones" and it was considered attractive. Not absolutely OBESE, like poor William Banting, but plumpness was definitely a good thing. It made one look healthy. In his early low-carbohydrate book, "Eat and Reduce," Dr. Victor Lindlahr recalled the showgirls of this era being downright ... big. He credits the First War and its aftermath for the social conditions which encouraged us all to shed our furbelows and want to slim down; things haven't significantly changed in that department.
Lindlahr's diet was different from Banting's in that it restricted calories, not just carbohydrate-rich foods. Still, those foods were REAL; nutrient-dense meats, eggs, lots of vegetables and moderate fruits, and he allowed saccharine in one's tea/coffee if desired. If he banned butter, at least he didn't encourage margarine.
The second war did more damage, in my opinion. In Europe there were real food shortages, and the switch from normal choices to make-do's that were actually available is thoroughly understandable. In America the situation was just plain flakey. I STILL don't understand the rationing situation; granted, the food-supply was screwed up by the "dustbowl" thing, but i find it hard to believe that it was THAT damaged. If there was enough food here before, why did it require that much MORE food just because our young men were eating it in a different venue and wearing a uniform?
Whatever the cause (profiteering comes to mind), people were encouraged to consume less meat, eggs, butter and so on, and more "fillers." There were even drives to collect used cooking fats for the war effort. All the "Allies" (as well as the Axis, i'm sure) became used to eating crap -- it may have been an unpleasant change, but it was considered patriotic in America and it was unavoidable in Britain.
At any rate, this seems to be when ordinary Americans started eating garbage on a large scale. Convenience foods began to be popular in the oh-so-modern 1920s, but the advent of television encouraged it beyond anything seen before. The work of the junk-food-manufacturers and their advertisers has only gotten more sophisticated and insidious since. People now believe snacking to be a normal and necessary activity ... with a drink constantly at one's elbow all day.
J Stanton has described and explained only too well how eating foods which provide incomplete nutrition promote obesity and weakness; additions from me are unnecessary. (If you somehow have missed it, go to gnolls.org and look at the left-hand column for links.) In a nutshell -- it IS VERY possible to be overweight and undernourished.
It's all about eating products instead of FOOD. No one food is making the whole world fat -- not even fructose -- but the tendency to eat products seems to lead in that direction.
At the end of the 19th century, it was fashionable to have a little "meat on your bones" and it was considered attractive. Not absolutely OBESE, like poor William Banting, but plumpness was definitely a good thing. It made one look healthy. In his early low-carbohydrate book, "Eat and Reduce," Dr. Victor Lindlahr recalled the showgirls of this era being downright ... big. He credits the First War and its aftermath for the social conditions which encouraged us all to shed our furbelows and want to slim down; things haven't significantly changed in that department.
Lindlahr's diet was different from Banting's in that it restricted calories, not just carbohydrate-rich foods. Still, those foods were REAL; nutrient-dense meats, eggs, lots of vegetables and moderate fruits, and he allowed saccharine in one's tea/coffee if desired. If he banned butter, at least he didn't encourage margarine.
The second war did more damage, in my opinion. In Europe there were real food shortages, and the switch from normal choices to make-do's that were actually available is thoroughly understandable. In America the situation was just plain flakey. I STILL don't understand the rationing situation; granted, the food-supply was screwed up by the "dustbowl" thing, but i find it hard to believe that it was THAT damaged. If there was enough food here before, why did it require that much MORE food just because our young men were eating it in a different venue and wearing a uniform?
Whatever the cause (profiteering comes to mind), people were encouraged to consume less meat, eggs, butter and so on, and more "fillers." There were even drives to collect used cooking fats for the war effort. All the "Allies" (as well as the Axis, i'm sure) became used to eating crap -- it may have been an unpleasant change, but it was considered patriotic in America and it was unavoidable in Britain.
At any rate, this seems to be when ordinary Americans started eating garbage on a large scale. Convenience foods began to be popular in the oh-so-modern 1920s, but the advent of television encouraged it beyond anything seen before. The work of the junk-food-manufacturers and their advertisers has only gotten more sophisticated and insidious since. People now believe snacking to be a normal and necessary activity ... with a drink constantly at one's elbow all day.
J Stanton has described and explained only too well how eating foods which provide incomplete nutrition promote obesity and weakness; additions from me are unnecessary. (If you somehow have missed it, go to gnolls.org and look at the left-hand column for links.) In a nutshell -- it IS VERY possible to be overweight and undernourished.
It's all about eating products instead of FOOD. No one food is making the whole world fat -- not even fructose -- but the tendency to eat products seems to lead in that direction.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
searching
As usual, J Stanton inspires....
He observes (among other things) that, though real "news" in the paleo blogosphere is rarer and rarer as time goes by, we still avidly pursue the trickles of information that emerge, searching for ... something. Of course we do. Seeking to improve our lives is a basic human drive.
Some lucky people really don't have much to gain by way of health, fitness and well-being, others desperately seek the youth they've lost, and way too many are looking for the properly-functioning body they never had. Therefore, separate camps have evolved, and thus support systems exist for all conceivable subgroups. This is highly appropriate -- but it's absolutely absurd that the camps should each consider itself THE One Holy Catholic Church of Radiant Health, and all others HERETICS.
They just need to be honest with themselves about what their specific goals are. A lot of them aren't, and in some cases apparently can't. Egos have taken over. The desire to help others has been subjugated to the desire to lead a cadre of idolaters in some cases; to build careers; to get approbation from the kewl kids in order to bolster fragile self-esteem. Even some whose scholarship can hardly be doubted damage their potential influence through their overweening arrogance. Sad ... and self-defeating.
All the groups have their places, because they're serving the needs of some very different people. The young and "unbroken" human body cannot be the experimental model for the ideal treatment of the older and "challenged" -- how could anyone expect it to be? Isn't it OBVIOUS that there are no easy universal SOLUTIONS? Some information is generally useful, and some completely individual, like what supplements will really benefit health. I'm constantly amazed when people who don't know anything about ME will make absolute pronouncements about what i should and should not take. How can some people be so presumptuous?
Disagreements are bound to happen, since one man's meat is another man's poison. I started this blog because i couldn't find one that chronicled the experiences of a woman with problems like enough to mine; if a community of us might FIND EACH OTHER, our individual experiences might compile themselves into a body of knowledge that would be more enlightening than what we'd discover on our own. What I'M searching for is applicable information. I don't pretend to have anything to TEACH anyone, but i may be a specimen that allows others to learn. The young and sound probably won't find much here; that's fine. Their indifference/disapprobation doesn't hurt my feelings a bit. I'm unlikely to learn anything from them, either, but they'll get my admiration if they earn it.
There are those who will sneer at all others whom they consider not "scientific" enough, but when their "science" doesn't take into account ALL variations of experience, they don't qualify, either. If they provide useful information to SOME seekers, well, more power to 'em. I just hope that the seekers whom they fail realize that there are a lot more ports in the storm.
He observes (among other things) that, though real "news" in the paleo blogosphere is rarer and rarer as time goes by, we still avidly pursue the trickles of information that emerge, searching for ... something. Of course we do. Seeking to improve our lives is a basic human drive.
Some lucky people really don't have much to gain by way of health, fitness and well-being, others desperately seek the youth they've lost, and way too many are looking for the properly-functioning body they never had. Therefore, separate camps have evolved, and thus support systems exist for all conceivable subgroups. This is highly appropriate -- but it's absolutely absurd that the camps should each consider itself THE One Holy Catholic Church of Radiant Health, and all others HERETICS.
They just need to be honest with themselves about what their specific goals are. A lot of them aren't, and in some cases apparently can't. Egos have taken over. The desire to help others has been subjugated to the desire to lead a cadre of idolaters in some cases; to build careers; to get approbation from the kewl kids in order to bolster fragile self-esteem. Even some whose scholarship can hardly be doubted damage their potential influence through their overweening arrogance. Sad ... and self-defeating.
All the groups have their places, because they're serving the needs of some very different people. The young and "unbroken" human body cannot be the experimental model for the ideal treatment of the older and "challenged" -- how could anyone expect it to be? Isn't it OBVIOUS that there are no easy universal SOLUTIONS? Some information is generally useful, and some completely individual, like what supplements will really benefit health. I'm constantly amazed when people who don't know anything about ME will make absolute pronouncements about what i should and should not take. How can some people be so presumptuous?
Disagreements are bound to happen, since one man's meat is another man's poison. I started this blog because i couldn't find one that chronicled the experiences of a woman with problems like enough to mine; if a community of us might FIND EACH OTHER, our individual experiences might compile themselves into a body of knowledge that would be more enlightening than what we'd discover on our own. What I'M searching for is applicable information. I don't pretend to have anything to TEACH anyone, but i may be a specimen that allows others to learn. The young and sound probably won't find much here; that's fine. Their indifference/disapprobation doesn't hurt my feelings a bit. I'm unlikely to learn anything from them, either, but they'll get my admiration if they earn it.
There are those who will sneer at all others whom they consider not "scientific" enough, but when their "science" doesn't take into account ALL variations of experience, they don't qualify, either. If they provide useful information to SOME seekers, well, more power to 'em. I just hope that the seekers whom they fail realize that there are a lot more ports in the storm.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
O-O-O-kay! (i.e., blinding light...)
Over a month ago, i expressed puzzlement about my once-injured right knee ("Ralph") and pain-reduction in it, at the same time i seemed to have stressed it some more. Sounds counter-intuitive, i know -- the inflammation was there, but somehow the knee felt stronger, "righter" -- then again, this body constantly does exactly opposite what the "experts" say it should.
Now i know why, thanks to the ever-educational J Stanton at gnolls.org! I won't even try to summarize the mechanism -- it should be read by anyone with interest in getting the best performance out of an aging body! The punchline is: exercise promotes healing.
As a matter of fact, Dr. Donaldson in "Strong Medicine" states, "I had learned the value of exercise in the hospital wards. ...Ninety days of exercise can work wonders." He prescribes specific exercises for various different ills (physical and mental), but doesn't discuss the rationale behind it much; in his day, the exact physiological mechanisms were probably unexplainable.
So even if i hadn't been convinced of the value of the Tabata sprints for metabolic health and flexibility, i now have an additional impetus -- it's the entry point for an UNvicious cycle.
It always seems to pay to revisit the archived posts of good bloggers! You find posts you somehow didn't see before, and you sometimes understand better what you've already read.
:-D
Now i know why, thanks to the ever-educational J Stanton at gnolls.org! I won't even try to summarize the mechanism -- it should be read by anyone with interest in getting the best performance out of an aging body! The punchline is: exercise promotes healing.
As a matter of fact, Dr. Donaldson in "Strong Medicine" states, "I had learned the value of exercise in the hospital wards. ...Ninety days of exercise can work wonders." He prescribes specific exercises for various different ills (physical and mental), but doesn't discuss the rationale behind it much; in his day, the exact physiological mechanisms were probably unexplainable.
So even if i hadn't been convinced of the value of the Tabata sprints for metabolic health and flexibility, i now have an additional impetus -- it's the entry point for an UNvicious cycle.
It always seems to pay to revisit the archived posts of good bloggers! You find posts you somehow didn't see before, and you sometimes understand better what you've already read.
:-D
Thursday, February 16, 2012
on willpower
For decades, we were all told that the only thing we had to do was to eat a small amount of non-fattening foods and exercise like maniacs, and we WOULD be thin. When we were younger and our metabolisms more robust, it seemed to be true. With a little determination we could drop a few pounds pretty quickly, though when we stopped paying strict attention to what we were doing, those pounds returned rather fast.
As i approached literal "middle age" (half of the "threescore years and ten"), and weight loss was becoming more difficult, the low-fat paradigm took over and i naturally jumped on the pasta-wagon. And remember the "Rotation Diet," ladies? :-) "Eat to Win," if you participated in any sports? (I was a fencer in those days.) One lenten season, i vowed to keep my daily fat intake within 10 grams, and i managed to lose one pound per week, eating all i cared to. ...Trouble was, i was always unsatisfied on the low-fat regimen no matter how much i ate, and when weight loss stalled, i had no incentive to continue, so i never reached my goal.
Atkins was a blessing, because i was even older and harder to reduce, and on it, hunger no longer was a problem. Yes, weight loss stalled eventually, but it's easier to be "good" when you're not obsessing over food every waking hour. I "fell off" when my husband's job had me spending a goodly amount of time in New Orleans, where the food is HEAVENLY, and staying out of the french bread, Handgrenades and Hurricanes is darned difficult. OMG, how i LOVE NOLA!
Sounds like i've been digressing from my proclaimed topic, but no -- i just have a habit (a bad one, my husband thinks) of having to indulge in a lengthy prologue before i can get to my point.
What with all my diet "failures" and a lot of other things in my life, at which i haven't been as successful as i should like, i took society's judgement of people like myself and came to believe i had poor willpower. When the going gets tough ... Tess moves on to something else. In many respects, it HAS been true, but i've reassessed the subject in the recent past -- more on that later.
In one of J Stanton's articles in his OUTSTANDING series on hunger, he discusses willpower and what happens when you exercise it to limit eating. Not only is it highly stressful, therefore making one secrete extra cortisol and thereby inhibiting fat-burning, it also puts a drain on our blood glucose levels, and until those are normalized, willpower is lessened because we have less fuel on board to sustain it. Yes, you got it -- exercising willpower makes you more hungry and lessens your ability to exercise it some more! In this sense, exercise makes you weaker, not stronger. Read the article linked above -- it's excellent! His conclusion is that a successful weight-loss program must minimize the requirement of willpower, and i couldn't agree more, but that's not where i'm going with this....
If you've ever been accused of being stubborn, chances are you have all the willpower you need -- if you really value the goal you've set. When a cookie derails a person's low-carb or paleo diet attempts, that person doesn't want to be thin and healthy as much as s/he wants pleasure in the short term. It's natural in human beings and i'm not in any position to cast stones -- i cave in far too often, myself. But i no longer brand myself with the "lacking in willpower" label. I know better.
I engage my stubbornness (aka, WILL) when i want to accomplish something difficult or unpleasant. I say, "this is MY goal; screw the forces which try to derail or distract me. Temptation can't get the better of ME!" Here is where exercising willpower does make you stronger: you use your stubbornness to want an outcome greatly enough so that you override petty temptations. When the month of "being perfect" taught me how good i can feel without dairy, sweeteners and alcohol in my diet, it fueled me to want to feel that good some more (as well as continue losing weight and gaining health). My stubbornness is a match for the difficulties of the path. Hell, my stubbornnes is a match for just about anything if i get it wrought up enough.
As i approached literal "middle age" (half of the "threescore years and ten"), and weight loss was becoming more difficult, the low-fat paradigm took over and i naturally jumped on the pasta-wagon. And remember the "Rotation Diet," ladies? :-) "Eat to Win," if you participated in any sports? (I was a fencer in those days.) One lenten season, i vowed to keep my daily fat intake within 10 grams, and i managed to lose one pound per week, eating all i cared to. ...Trouble was, i was always unsatisfied on the low-fat regimen no matter how much i ate, and when weight loss stalled, i had no incentive to continue, so i never reached my goal.
Atkins was a blessing, because i was even older and harder to reduce, and on it, hunger no longer was a problem. Yes, weight loss stalled eventually, but it's easier to be "good" when you're not obsessing over food every waking hour. I "fell off" when my husband's job had me spending a goodly amount of time in New Orleans, where the food is HEAVENLY, and staying out of the french bread, Handgrenades and Hurricanes is darned difficult. OMG, how i LOVE NOLA!
Sounds like i've been digressing from my proclaimed topic, but no -- i just have a habit (a bad one, my husband thinks) of having to indulge in a lengthy prologue before i can get to my point.
What with all my diet "failures" and a lot of other things in my life, at which i haven't been as successful as i should like, i took society's judgement of people like myself and came to believe i had poor willpower. When the going gets tough ... Tess moves on to something else. In many respects, it HAS been true, but i've reassessed the subject in the recent past -- more on that later.
In one of J Stanton's articles in his OUTSTANDING series on hunger, he discusses willpower and what happens when you exercise it to limit eating. Not only is it highly stressful, therefore making one secrete extra cortisol and thereby inhibiting fat-burning, it also puts a drain on our blood glucose levels, and until those are normalized, willpower is lessened because we have less fuel on board to sustain it. Yes, you got it -- exercising willpower makes you more hungry and lessens your ability to exercise it some more! In this sense, exercise makes you weaker, not stronger. Read the article linked above -- it's excellent! His conclusion is that a successful weight-loss program must minimize the requirement of willpower, and i couldn't agree more, but that's not where i'm going with this....
If you've ever been accused of being stubborn, chances are you have all the willpower you need -- if you really value the goal you've set. When a cookie derails a person's low-carb or paleo diet attempts, that person doesn't want to be thin and healthy as much as s/he wants pleasure in the short term. It's natural in human beings and i'm not in any position to cast stones -- i cave in far too often, myself. But i no longer brand myself with the "lacking in willpower" label. I know better.
I engage my stubbornness (aka, WILL) when i want to accomplish something difficult or unpleasant. I say, "this is MY goal; screw the forces which try to derail or distract me. Temptation can't get the better of ME!" Here is where exercising willpower does make you stronger: you use your stubbornness to want an outcome greatly enough so that you override petty temptations. When the month of "being perfect" taught me how good i can feel without dairy, sweeteners and alcohol in my diet, it fueled me to want to feel that good some more (as well as continue losing weight and gaining health). My stubbornness is a match for the difficulties of the path. Hell, my stubbornnes is a match for just about anything if i get it wrought up enough.
Friday, February 3, 2012
i, too, am a ghrelin junkie
Sitting here, reading my morning blog-fix, i've been luxuriating in an atmosphere of contentment, punctuated by the occasion growl of my empty belly. :-)
When i started reenacting, over 15 years ago, it came to my attention that i had been missing out on some creature comforts for most of my adult life. There is NOTHING more viscerally satisfactory than warming oneself beside a roaring fire when it's cold enough to snow. Nothing. If there's something that comes close, though, it's eating something exceptionally nutritious when you're very, very hungry.
Most people in the western world don't allow themselves to become very hungry. Either they've been brainwashed to think that eating frequent small meals is the optimal way to fuel oneself, or their high-carb WOE piques their appetites shockingly often. Maybe, even, social pressures encourage them to eat when they're not that hungry, so they never get an opportunity to REALLY work up an appetite. They don't know what they're missing.
I won't try to recap the benefits of allowing oneself to get significantly hungry -- J Stanton has done that already, and he's immensely readable. I'll just dangle this carrot in front of your salivating mouth.... I'll describe how good it feels when Meg and i have spent the day demonstrating to busloads of school-kids, what life was like for a Civil War laundress; the kids have gone and it's cooler and quieter; the stew we put to cook hours ago is full of tender chunks of beef and vegetables a-point (after hours of just grabbing a nibble -- think foraging...). We serve it up so hot you can't eat it at once, but you can't resist tasting, and burn your tongue, and slice some (nut-based) bread to go along with it, with gobs of lovely butter, and a glass of red wine. This is intentionally-delayed gratification at its best!
So, yes -- i'm ENJOYING being hungry, because the trade-off is so good. Good for the diet, too (check out this one, as well...)!
post-scriptum: Re-reading another Stanton gem found me this: “The synthesis rate of brain serotonin was about 30% lower in rats fed for two hours than in rats fasted for 24 hours.” ...Which, in context, implies that i get a bigger ADDITIONAL "high" out of eating when i delay it. We've all heard that "hunger is the best sauce" -- and now we see that it's been supported in the laboratory.
When i started reenacting, over 15 years ago, it came to my attention that i had been missing out on some creature comforts for most of my adult life. There is NOTHING more viscerally satisfactory than warming oneself beside a roaring fire when it's cold enough to snow. Nothing. If there's something that comes close, though, it's eating something exceptionally nutritious when you're very, very hungry.
Most people in the western world don't allow themselves to become very hungry. Either they've been brainwashed to think that eating frequent small meals is the optimal way to fuel oneself, or their high-carb WOE piques their appetites shockingly often. Maybe, even, social pressures encourage them to eat when they're not that hungry, so they never get an opportunity to REALLY work up an appetite. They don't know what they're missing.
I won't try to recap the benefits of allowing oneself to get significantly hungry -- J Stanton has done that already, and he's immensely readable. I'll just dangle this carrot in front of your salivating mouth.... I'll describe how good it feels when Meg and i have spent the day demonstrating to busloads of school-kids, what life was like for a Civil War laundress; the kids have gone and it's cooler and quieter; the stew we put to cook hours ago is full of tender chunks of beef and vegetables a-point (after hours of just grabbing a nibble -- think foraging...). We serve it up so hot you can't eat it at once, but you can't resist tasting, and burn your tongue, and slice some (nut-based) bread to go along with it, with gobs of lovely butter, and a glass of red wine. This is intentionally-delayed gratification at its best!
So, yes -- i'm ENJOYING being hungry, because the trade-off is so good. Good for the diet, too (check out this one, as well...)!
post-scriptum: Re-reading another Stanton gem found me this: “The synthesis rate of brain serotonin was about 30% lower in rats fed for two hours than in rats fasted for 24 hours.” ...Which, in context, implies that i get a bigger ADDITIONAL "high" out of eating when i delay it. We've all heard that "hunger is the best sauce" -- and now we see that it's been supported in the laboratory.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
two-week progress point and a digression
I had a good scale reading today -- that was certainly a mood-upper -- 7.5 pounds lost in two weeks. My measurements haven't improved much (only waist and hip are recorded in the PPC) -- in fact, the RATIO has gone the wrong way a little. Just shows, i lose fat off my backside faster than off my middle. A little disappointingly, my (subjective) overall health improvement score is a flatline; perhaps a 0-3 reporting range is too narrow for small-but-perceptible changes?
But my progress isn't what's gotten me excited this morning. I was just reading the blogs that have been updated since i stopped reading last night, and found something noteworthy from Dr. Sharma (linked on the right side of this page): a colleague of his, also lecturing at a special event, explained the weight-defending homeostatic system in a way that ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE.
The argument goes, of course, that in pre-industrial ages, fat storage was valuable for sustenance in times of famine. (It's also valuable in illness --perhaps you've noticed, when you're feverish, and you don't really feel like eating ordinary fare, you weigh less when you get better. Problem is these days, sickness is frequently a time when people eat anyway -- treats like ice-cream and snacks!) So the hedonic system encouraged our ancestors to pig out when they came across something like fruit, which would pack on the pounds in fall, so they could "eat" their own fat tissue all winter when food would be harder to come-by.
Dr. Colmers explains that the weight-defending homeostatic system has been at work all our lives, as we go from infant to child to adolescent to adult, making sure we don't slip backward into a pathological wasting-away of what we so arduously gained (think about primitive people, here -- gaining is hardly arduous in Western society). It's logical to me, NOW. Some people explain a HELL of a lot better than other people.
I never thought the idea of the body defending an ever-increasing fat mass to be particularly logical. Oh yes, i know about leptin-resistance: that contributes, without a doubt. Is it alone enough to tip the scale (pardon the pun) toward detrimental quantities of fat gain, or does mitochondrial inflexibility start now? (Does this work the same way with bodybuilders who add freakish quantities of muscle?) I'm going to have to review what i've read about these points....
Currently, the Drs. Jaminet are formulating an hypothesis on quality of lean tissue being the goal of the brain's drive to keep us big or make us bigger. I'm extremely eager to see what their ultimate argument will be.
So much information out there, and lots of mental collating to do. "We" know so much, and yet average people, even doctors, know so little. Wow....
But my progress isn't what's gotten me excited this morning. I was just reading the blogs that have been updated since i stopped reading last night, and found something noteworthy from Dr. Sharma (linked on the right side of this page): a colleague of his, also lecturing at a special event, explained the weight-defending homeostatic system in a way that ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE.
The argument goes, of course, that in pre-industrial ages, fat storage was valuable for sustenance in times of famine. (It's also valuable in illness --perhaps you've noticed, when you're feverish, and you don't really feel like eating ordinary fare, you weigh less when you get better. Problem is these days, sickness is frequently a time when people eat anyway -- treats like ice-cream and snacks!) So the hedonic system encouraged our ancestors to pig out when they came across something like fruit, which would pack on the pounds in fall, so they could "eat" their own fat tissue all winter when food would be harder to come-by.
Dr. Colmers explains that the weight-defending homeostatic system has been at work all our lives, as we go from infant to child to adolescent to adult, making sure we don't slip backward into a pathological wasting-away of what we so arduously gained (think about primitive people, here -- gaining is hardly arduous in Western society). It's logical to me, NOW. Some people explain a HELL of a lot better than other people.
I never thought the idea of the body defending an ever-increasing fat mass to be particularly logical. Oh yes, i know about leptin-resistance: that contributes, without a doubt. Is it alone enough to tip the scale (pardon the pun) toward detrimental quantities of fat gain, or does mitochondrial inflexibility start now? (Does this work the same way with bodybuilders who add freakish quantities of muscle?) I'm going to have to review what i've read about these points....
Currently, the Drs. Jaminet are formulating an hypothesis on quality of lean tissue being the goal of the brain's drive to keep us big or make us bigger. I'm extremely eager to see what their ultimate argument will be.
So much information out there, and lots of mental collating to do. "We" know so much, and yet average people, even doctors, know so little. Wow....
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
what's working
This day is the last of my second week on the PPC, and the diet is flowing in a comfortable groove. Hunger has not been any kind of problem, and urges to eat forbidden things have been completely manageable.
I wake up generally alert (not brain-foggy), i pee, weigh myself, and go make a cup of coffee. The progress has been steady, the only "complication" being the inflammation radiating from my right knee (the one i injured a half-dozen years ago) after the unusual stress i gave it last Wednesday. I may have to re-think that dance class....
On the other hand, THE KNEE PAINS ME LESS THAN IT USED TO. How THAT is happening is an intriguing puzzlement. Is it merely diet-related (cutting irritants that had been on my menu list before), or could the strengthening of the muscles surrounding it (the tabata sprints on the stationary bicycle) have something to do with stabilizing the joint? Can't tell you -- wish i could! My original instinct, to wait till weight loss stalled before adding in exercise, was probably the right decision, but it's too late now -- i'll have another chance to see what happens in Step 2, when i add back some of the foods i eliminated.
I already knew enough to eat most of my carbs for dinner rather than load up at breakfast -- the latter helped me gain a few pounds last summer. By the way: the very word "breakfast" is not used as it once was, and i feel a need to point out a few things! :-) Breaking one's fast doesn't mean eating within a short period of time after waking -- i think we have cereal commercials to blame for the confusion. Break-fasting, etymologically, is eating for the first time after a period of abstention, which for most people is after their night's sleep. Okay? Make sense? So the old saw "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" may be taken from the rubbish-heap and reanalyzed for importance -- for people who do LOOOOONG fasts, there's no doubt that the first meal they eat after it is crucial.
But i digress -- i'm a life-long linguaphile, and hate sloppy mis-use (don't get me started on "goes" and "says"...).
What works!? :-) A high-fat-and-protein breakfast, WHEN I'M PROPERLY HUNGRY, is what works for me. Having my husband around is a difficulty (sorry, baby) when it comes to this point, because he's primed for eating at "mealtimes" rather than "by his stomach" -- or perhaps he just gets hungry sooner than i do! It's easy to get out of the pattern of "eating to hunger," but it's important for MY body. Bacon and eggs (or something with a comparable nutritional profile) will stick to my ribs for HOURS. There have been days when all i wanted after it was a snack before bed.
You see, when your body is accustomed to functioning on fats and ketones, and if you have excess body fat, once your dietary energy has been burnt off your cells seamlessly move to burn stored energy instead. Hunger isn't about an empty stomach -- it's about fuel usage and accessibility. For a comprehensive look at why we get hungry, J Stanton's series of articles ought to receive a Pulitzer prize!
After breaking my fast, i wait until my meal has cleared my stomach, then go for the walk/tabata sprints, depending on which i did yesterday -- anything which challenges your muscles (sprints) shouldn't be done EVERY day; lack of rest (rest is when the tissues recuperate and get built up again, stronger than ever) is why all those fit 30-somethings keel over from heart attacks while out running, you know. Add to the mitochondria-enlivening and neurotransmitter-encouraging effects of exercise, the appetite suppression of it, and you've got something worth getting off your backside for. (Pardon the grammer here -- that sentence was aiming for impact.)
When eventually hungry again, i finally indulge in a dinner with judicious quantities of carbohydrates. This plan is what my body responds to -- yours may vary, but if you're doing it differently and it's not working for you for weight loss, reconsideration might be in order. There's a good rodent study supporting the efficacy of late-day carb intake, but rodent studies should ALWAYS be accepted with a grain of salt -- there are significant differences in their little metabolisms.
During the course of the day, i take various supplements. Some are taken with meals and some on an empty stomach; some are scrupulously taken separately and others together. A lot of minerals, particularly, seem to compete for receptors and absorption, so to me, HOW can a single multivitamin give an across-the-board good result? The things i take are influenced by my particular health challenges, so they're not to be recommended universally -- and it's taken YEARS of experimentation to reach the balance that seems correct. If your body is undamaged, you may not need supplements at all.
As i said in earlier posts, i'm sharing what works for this middle-aged body in hopes that some other woman may find it instructive. With all the contradictory advice out there, people often have no idea what might help them. The point here is, THIS IS NOT HYPOTHESIS, or even theory -- this IS WORKING RIGHT NOW on my perimenopausal, thyroid-challenged, clinically-overweight (bmi 28) body. This is the most effective regimen i've ever found.
I wake up generally alert (not brain-foggy), i pee, weigh myself, and go make a cup of coffee. The progress has been steady, the only "complication" being the inflammation radiating from my right knee (the one i injured a half-dozen years ago) after the unusual stress i gave it last Wednesday. I may have to re-think that dance class....
On the other hand, THE KNEE PAINS ME LESS THAN IT USED TO. How THAT is happening is an intriguing puzzlement. Is it merely diet-related (cutting irritants that had been on my menu list before), or could the strengthening of the muscles surrounding it (the tabata sprints on the stationary bicycle) have something to do with stabilizing the joint? Can't tell you -- wish i could! My original instinct, to wait till weight loss stalled before adding in exercise, was probably the right decision, but it's too late now -- i'll have another chance to see what happens in Step 2, when i add back some of the foods i eliminated.
I already knew enough to eat most of my carbs for dinner rather than load up at breakfast -- the latter helped me gain a few pounds last summer. By the way: the very word "breakfast" is not used as it once was, and i feel a need to point out a few things! :-) Breaking one's fast doesn't mean eating within a short period of time after waking -- i think we have cereal commercials to blame for the confusion. Break-fasting, etymologically, is eating for the first time after a period of abstention, which for most people is after their night's sleep. Okay? Make sense? So the old saw "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" may be taken from the rubbish-heap and reanalyzed for importance -- for people who do LOOOOONG fasts, there's no doubt that the first meal they eat after it is crucial.
But i digress -- i'm a life-long linguaphile, and hate sloppy mis-use (don't get me started on "goes" and "says"...).
What works!? :-) A high-fat-and-protein breakfast, WHEN I'M PROPERLY HUNGRY, is what works for me. Having my husband around is a difficulty (sorry, baby) when it comes to this point, because he's primed for eating at "mealtimes" rather than "by his stomach" -- or perhaps he just gets hungry sooner than i do! It's easy to get out of the pattern of "eating to hunger," but it's important for MY body. Bacon and eggs (or something with a comparable nutritional profile) will stick to my ribs for HOURS. There have been days when all i wanted after it was a snack before bed.
You see, when your body is accustomed to functioning on fats and ketones, and if you have excess body fat, once your dietary energy has been burnt off your cells seamlessly move to burn stored energy instead. Hunger isn't about an empty stomach -- it's about fuel usage and accessibility. For a comprehensive look at why we get hungry, J Stanton's series of articles ought to receive a Pulitzer prize!
After breaking my fast, i wait until my meal has cleared my stomach, then go for the walk/tabata sprints, depending on which i did yesterday -- anything which challenges your muscles (sprints) shouldn't be done EVERY day; lack of rest (rest is when the tissues recuperate and get built up again, stronger than ever) is why all those fit 30-somethings keel over from heart attacks while out running, you know. Add to the mitochondria-enlivening and neurotransmitter-encouraging effects of exercise, the appetite suppression of it, and you've got something worth getting off your backside for. (Pardon the grammer here -- that sentence was aiming for impact.)
When eventually hungry again, i finally indulge in a dinner with judicious quantities of carbohydrates. This plan is what my body responds to -- yours may vary, but if you're doing it differently and it's not working for you for weight loss, reconsideration might be in order. There's a good rodent study supporting the efficacy of late-day carb intake, but rodent studies should ALWAYS be accepted with a grain of salt -- there are significant differences in their little metabolisms.
During the course of the day, i take various supplements. Some are taken with meals and some on an empty stomach; some are scrupulously taken separately and others together. A lot of minerals, particularly, seem to compete for receptors and absorption, so to me, HOW can a single multivitamin give an across-the-board good result? The things i take are influenced by my particular health challenges, so they're not to be recommended universally -- and it's taken YEARS of experimentation to reach the balance that seems correct. If your body is undamaged, you may not need supplements at all.
As i said in earlier posts, i'm sharing what works for this middle-aged body in hopes that some other woman may find it instructive. With all the contradictory advice out there, people often have no idea what might help them. The point here is, THIS IS NOT HYPOTHESIS, or even theory -- this IS WORKING RIGHT NOW on my perimenopausal, thyroid-challenged, clinically-overweight (bmi 28) body. This is the most effective regimen i've ever found.
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