Kurt Harris was right, too

A discussion i had this morning with Sidereal inspired me to dig out an old Masterjohn post, which led me to a study about the effect of dietary polyunsaturates on thyroid function (PubMed, BTW, is closed down right now thanks to the Republican Party), which inspired me to re-read Archivore's "no such thing as a macronutrient -- fats" post.

Ya know, just reading this article gives me a good opinion of Harris' insight.  It's only when i read his comments on other blogs that he irritates the hell out of me.

Speaking of the components of our diets in terms of macronutrients IS bullshit.  To put corn oil and red palm oil in the same category is just plain ignorant.  To equate tryptophan, tyrosine, taurine and glycine, ditto.  And to compare whole-wheat flour and swiss chard (silver-beet to my international friends) is madness.

***

The evidence, then, that i hoped to show Sidereal is eluding me right now; i can only pass on the bare "fact" and save the discussion for a later day.  :-(  A rodent study looked specifically at how different dietary fats affected thyroid use in tissues.  The "receptivity" of the cells was best in the presence of saturated fats, lower with monounsaturates, and SIGNIFICANTLY poorer when those hearthealthypolyunsaturates were fed.  

It hardly matters how much T3 is in your blood, if it can't get into the tissues to work!  

And again -- your starting point determines how much improvement you'll see when you make a dietary change.  I suspect this is why some people feel they get a metabolic boost from coconut oil while i never observed it particularly.  If you go from a high-omega6 "SAD" or Atkins diet straight to CO, yes -- i imagine you'll get a huge boost.  I came to LCHF via Atkins, but have never been a fan of vegetable oils.  I started using butter, olive oil and bacon drippings when i abandoned low-fat, and so the metabolic advantage i experienced with the lowered sugar and starch, and the raised saturated and monounsaturated fats came all at once.

I feel that my thyroid production, conversion and usage are optimal when i'm getting LOTS of grassfed beef and lamb fat.  I feel GOOD when i fast (ie, my body is burning my own stored saturated fat), but the reduced food intake causes my body to downshift my thyroid.  

I think this is where a lot of people get confused!  A LCHF diet reduces the appetite, because one gains access to one's own fat for fuel, BUT the body senses a reduction in intake whether it be via leptin, FIAF or something else, i don't know.  The "food scarcity" signal lowers thyroid production.

It is NOT that "low-carb reduces thyroid function" -- I CAN'T SAY THIS ENOUGH!!!  It's that an "underfed" body lowers thyroid production.  A carb-fed body requires more thyroid hormone to burn that potentially-harmful fuel flooding the bloodstream, so a euthyroid individual ramps up production.  An individual with a "weak" thyroid may not be able to meet the challenge.  THIS is why a low-carb-high-SATURATED-fat diet is so important to my well-being.

a digression

Some people fret that, on a long-term low-carb diet, they seem to run a slightly higher blood sugar than they did, when they first started.  I just had a little idea that might explain what they see....

You know how PHYSIOLOGICAL insulin resistance is different from its PATHOLOGICAL alter-ego, i hope;  Petro has talked about this phenomenon at length.  The first is the normal body's reaction to starvation, designed to save glucose for the cells that really need it, and the second is the panic-stricken cell's way to avoid a perceived toxic situation.

I suspect that a slightly-raised blood sugar as seen in LC eating may be analogous.

Reading along at ketotic.org, i found a string of interesting articles about "excess" protein being converted to glucose via gluconeogenesis (GNG).  The short version is, doesn't seem to happen in the absence of GNG triggers like raised glucagon -- it's not a supply-motivated operation, but demand-inspired.

It occurred to me to wonder, if GNG is demand-motivated, does this not explain why we sometimes see a higher morning BG?  For SOME REASON, our bodies are asking for a little bit more glucose, and our livers are obligingly -- and appropriately -- responding?

It's not like our blood-sugar is steadily rising.  If that were the case, we could truly be described as "pre-diabetic" but although a little raised, the FBG is not actually GOING UP.

The Mayo Clinic's website tells me, "Illness or stress can trigger high blood sugars because hormones produced to combat illness or stress can also cause your blood sugar to rise."  It took me all of thirty seconds to find this information.  The site also volunteered that a change in physical activity can also result in varying glucose levels, as can certain medications.

So the next time you see a slightly higher than "normal" BG but it doesn't get worse, it just jumps around a few points, do NOT start thinking OMG I'M GIVING MYSELF DIABETES WITH MY HIGH-FAT DIET -- no.  Ain't happening.

it WAS "the other thing" ... i think

HEADBANGONDESK

How could i have been so stupid?  I think i CAN guess what it was that set off my allergy/histamine system so badly!  It could easily have been the same thing that made my dog so sick.

Not that i know EXACTLY what it was, but it was definitely bacterial because it responded to antibiotics.  It was something that he picked up on the farm, and which i suspected might have been associated with the water-well, because that had just been repaired when we arrived in VA.  All the way home, Spenser chewed on himself, and it took me a long time to get his coat back in order (using his brush), because he was too stressed to bathe.  I continue to brush of course, and have to remove hair from it every time.  That brush must be teeming with "buggies."

Also "of course" i wash my hands after brushing him, but not just after casually touching the brush.

There are many kinds of infective agents and they can do all kinds of different things to us -- not all of which are logical and intuitive.  If i may use our dear Sidereal as an example, some of the fatigue she has suffered may have originated in a years-ago infection....

One hint that i was already a little fragile while on vacation lies in the fact that the chigger bites i suffered made huge bumps instead of the tiny ones i usually get.  My fault -- i SHOULD have hunted down a can of repellant before J and i walked the length of our son's property, and me having put on shorts that morning!  I'm lucky i didn't pick up ticks, too.

If i were not on a very-low-sugar diet, might i have gotten as sick as Spense was?  (It's not like he actually eats sugar, and he is on a grain-free diet, but the sweet-potato filler in his kibble is bound to give him blood-sugar spikes larger than my usual.)  He never was able to tell me exactly where it "hurt" but he obviously felt like shit and needed extra rest ... just like i did.  His poor little eyes got all inflamed and goopy, and his white fur is still stained from it to the point he still looks a little like the walking dead with their dark circles....

So my malaise may have been the direct descendant of his, and i didn't need antibiotics because my natural biota were able to deal with the problem.  I just had to be extra-careful of my diet and environmental contacts, as he was when he refused to eat and spent most of his time in a quiet corner.  He feels much better now, you can tell because he now enjoys a healthy appetite and a propensity to growl at J about toy-possession.

omega-6 fats are responsible for "thyroid resistance"

When i first heard of "thyroid resistance" (as compared with that of insulin or leptin, for instance), i thought it might be a made-up malady, just like "restless leg syndrome."  It subsequently occurred to me that it might simply be the perceived lack of function which comes with excessive O6 intake ... because the latter DOES interfere with thyroid receptors.

Googling "linoleic acid interferes with thyroid receptors" will produce a plethora of hits, ranging in credibility from PubMed to jock-blogs.  The concept is neither new nor terribly controversial (though there's always reason to question in-vitro rat studies).  So why do we hear so little about it?  Until i found the concept (buried in an old book review by Chris Masterjohn), the closest i'd come to learning this was reading "saturated fat in the diet is good for thyroid function."  ...I love how so many sites state absolutes like this without any kind of reasoning or discussion....

Considering this, it's no wonder some people feel crappy on a low-carb diet -- they're doing it wrong (and god rest Dr. Atkins, but he told them to).  Yes, i DID just say THEY'RE DOING IT WRONG, and i meant it.  Much as i dislike the blame-the-victim mentality implied by those words, it IS possible that a lot of failure in the LC world has to do with mistakes that can be pure innocence or outrageous stupidity (like getting one's few allowed carbs from CANDY, like one outspoken "anti" did).

We NEED our saturated fats, BECAUSE those seem to be the best choice for thyroid-challenged people in maximizing function.  Monounsaturates are better than polys, but still inhibitive.  And we need fats, in general, because it BOOSTS CALORIE INTAKE, which is GOOD for our thyroid function*!  Learning this, i'm beginning to rethink my strategy in making mayo and other salad dressings.  I love a good olive oil, and ditto for avocado, but hey -- certain things (like well-being) are more important than others.

It becomes important for hypothyroids, even if they're not low-carbers, to avoid omega-6 fats to the best of their ability -- because they're ubiquitous.  EVERY time you dine out, you ARE getting linoleic acid, no matter what you eat.  It's in your meat, your eggs, your cheese, your fish, your coffee-creamer, your vegetables, your ice-cream and ronaldmcdonald only knows what else!  In our beloved grass-fed beef and lamb, it still comprises a significant amount of the fat involved, though in better proportion than in CAFO meat ... and there's also a goodly amount of thyroid-inhibiting monounsaturates in there.  Among our best friends, ironically, are the fruit-based oils such as coconut and red palm, and palm-kernel (SEED!), and their artificially-isolated cousin, MCT.

Eating a low-carb diet is soothing to a hypothyroid, because the less dietary glucose we have to dispose of, the farther our limited supply of hormone will go.  People who claim that it's "stressful" to us aren't looking at the big picture.  However, we absolutely positively MUST do it correctly, by minimizing disruptive poly- and monounsaturated fats, and maximizing all those heart-healthy SATURATED fats we've come to love!

(And by getting our allowed carbohydrate intake from a garnish of low-starch, low-fructose, low-toxin vegetables instead of from a chocolate box.)

______
*  nothing seems to inhibit even normal thyroid function like calorie-restriction!

thyroid sufferers -- do NOT be afraid of low-carbing!

I just read the study Eddie linked on The Low Carb Diabetic, about "shifting the paradigm" in treating various illnesses with a low-carb diet (co-authored by our good Adele Hite); i was COMPLETELY on board with the paper till i found THIS statement (emphasis mine):

 There are, however, certain populations in which reducing carbohydrate intake to very low levels may not be appropriate:  patients with ... thyroid defects, .... 

 There are a couple of rationales for why this hypothesis persists, and i wish to gawd somebody would run a proper RCT to straighten it out -- because i'm absolutely, positively sure that the position is BULLSHIT.

I'm not the only one, either.  One of those who agree, Sam the "worldly monk," wrote an outstanding article about this misconception -- i can hardly add anything to make the point better!  It's just that compared to a lot of theorizers, i'm the one in the trenches with considerable experience.  Notably, the only significant argument Sam got was NOT from a hypothyroid....

The more starch/sugar one consumes, the more thyroid hormone is needed by the body to clear the ensuing glucose spike from the blood.  We see the same situation with vitamin C -- the more BG, the more C is needed.  Apparently, lab-test-junkies of the gym-rat persuasion have extrapolated LOW T3 FROM A LOW-CARB DIET!!! without actually experiencing any hypothyroid symptoms ... the absence of which defines a diagnosis of EUthyroidism.

Wooo also CLEARLY elucidated the situation of hypothyroid symptoms being seen in euthyroid individuals who are losing fat weight; it's all about the body getting enough fuel so that it knows it can afford to "waste" energy for optional purposes!  One apparently just does not see people damaging their thyroids irrevocably on a low-carb diet, and becoming clinically hypothyroid!  But you DO see people doing that who insist on eating things like wheat and legumes and sugar and industrial seed-oils -- THAT is where the modern glut of thyroid patients are coming from (opinion:  don't ask me for references).

So if you're hypothyroid and want to try LC-paleo to see if you can improve your health and sense of well-being, DON'T AUTOMATICALLY BELIEVE that because someone as savvy as Adele wrote it, it has to be true.  The paper quoted above makes the point ITSELF, that the historical record of health and dietary recommendations are full of mistakes.  You'll only KNOW if LC gives you a better quality of life if you dive in and try it yourself -- and NOT like that Oz yoyo did for ONE DAY!!!

doing everything right and not losing....

Not me, thank the gods, but maybe worse -- my daughter.  :-(  We're having to start tweaking HER diet, because at 36 she's starting to get into the difficult-to-lose age.

She's comparatively new to the low-toxin-and-carb, higher-fat dietary plan.  In the past, she's lost weight with the CW technique, but i've convinced her that a real-food diet is important for herself as well as her kids.  Having eased into low-carb from low-calorie, L has even learned to add more good fats.  But for some yet-to-be-determined reason, the scales are resisting her.

So we're tweaking!  I've suggested that the first thing to do is drop dairy for a week and see what happens.  I think i'll suggest next that instead of her usual workout she try tabata sprints.

I also need to get her to use a tape-measure more than scales, now that i think of it!  I wouldn't be surprised to find that she's putting on muscle as fast as she's taking off fat, and therefore getting a "false negative" in the loss department.  ...I can hardly wait for L to get back from her lunch break so i can ask her some new questions!  :-D

flashback

Some of my readers (family and friends-i've-actually-met) may wonder why i read diabetic blogs, being a non-diabetic:  the answer is easy -- carbohydrates are not my buddies, any more than they are theirs!  Thus i pick up good information as well as recipe ideas and frequently get a good laugh -- especially at http://thelowcarbdiabetic.blogspot.com.  The guys there have a history of verbal tangling with the "Low-Carb Anti's" in diabetic forums, and i'm often well entertained by stories of the battles.  LCAs are LCAs, no matter what the forum!

Apparently, one of the main d-LCAs (ooh, sounds like a bad particle, doesn't it?) has just discovered the GLYCEMIC INDEX!!!  Too bad it's "old science" and pretty much discredited as well.  The great usefulness of this concept, to me, has been as a tool to show people that whole-wheat bread is more damaging to blood-glucose than table sugar.  But in composing his post, Eddie included a terrific video from Barry Groves that i want to share, along with an anecdote....

A few years ago i picked up the Montignac book du jour about using the GI to lose weight.  Pretty book -- lots of pictures.  A few darned good recipes, too.  I was excited to be able to use some cereals and pastas again, with his technique which would theoretically allow me to shed some pounds.  Talk about eating your cake and having it too!

Ya know how with almost ANY new diet you dump some pounds, even if it's only from a heightened metabolism that comes with enthusiasm and excitement?  Not this time.  A couple of weeks of the Montignac Method, and i gained.  The new Atkins he AIN'T.

NO-O-O-O-O-O! NOT TATERS!!!

Veggies instead of meat?  That WOULD make my White Dog blue*!
___________

*  THIS is George Rodrigue's Blue Dog, who Spense was impersonating at NOLA's Mardi Gras a couple of years ago --

"carbs for the thyroid" revisited

...But NOT revised!  THIS is why it makes me so friggin' ANGRY when i hear euthyroid people say that eating low-carb will lower your thyroid function.

Hypothyroidism is pretty much defined by its symptoms.  If lab values are "just fine" but symptoms remain, the disorder hasn't been properly treated -- this is what we see in sufferers all the time.  However, if lab values "show reduced thyroid function" in the absence of symptoms, i argue that there is no case.  I can FEEL when my thyroid is working under-par, but i don't believe for a second that the Lead Musclehead who promotes HC for people like me has any sense of his function until the blood-test results come in.

I woke up rather chilly this morning, and the only thing different was a larger-than-usual carb intake yesterday as compared with the day before.  Weather in the teens (F), no change in thermostat setting, same blankets on the bed.  This is EXACTLY the same thing that happened at the end of my whole30-ish experience last year, when i began adding neolithic foods back in --

LIGHT BULB GOES ON -- it's beans!!!  Rice doesn't seem to do it all by itself, nor potatoes.  Nor sugar, in moderation.  I'll have to experiment with lentils (i love lentils!) to see if it's ALL legumes or just some of them.

:-)  It's almost embarrassing to have a "eureka moment" publicly like this....

the old if-then

I don't often get a flashback to middle-school -- those were NOT the happiest years of my life!  But ruminating on the better aspects of burning-carbs-with-exercise last week, i pulled up two memories of the old days....

Which classroom gave us our first contact with the subject of logic?  I'm not sure; it had to have been either English or science.  And, or, if, then:  that was the sort of thing my geeky mind found entertaining!  (It wasn't until my last year of high school that i discovered algebra could be as fun as working puzzles -- up to then math had just been drudgery.)

SO!  IF you're doing a lot of physical work like hauling weights up an 8% grade, THEN you can afford to eat more readily-burned fuel like starches.  IF you are not doing such work AND you eat the starches anyway, THEN you will either gain fat weight OR burn the excess calories as heat, but the latter only IF your metabolism is "whole" enough to do that sort of thing.

I could go on like this forever.  Central point is, all your hormonal and metabolic ducks have GOT to be in a row to be able to pull off the starch-eating.  Most of the time, mine are not.

The other connection from the "bad old days" is just an object-lesson:  when i ceased riding the bus the 1.1 mi distance to school and began walking it twice a day, the "seal-puppy" i once was lost quite a bit of fat and got significantly more fit.  An adolescent's hormones can be just as F'd up as a middle-aged woman's, i suspect!  This SHOULD nudge me to do my 2 miles a day ... but will it?  ..."Earth to Tess...?!"  [crackle of "dead air"]

ONLY eat more carbs ...

...IF you plan to burn them off with exercise NOW.  This is one of the lessons i'm taking away from my vacation experience.

While i was stoically trudging up and down the hills of Seattle, the rice and potatoes i ate didn't seem to mess me up.  I'd hike all around after the breakfast that included hash-browns (because no lone omelette is big enough to sate me except the ones at Billie's!), and before and after lunch/dinner (which sometimes included dessert) as well, in order to try different wonderful restaurants in the area.  I vowed to myself to bring along a pedometer on all future trips during which i expect to do a lot of walking, just to satisfy my curiosity.

My jeans didn't fit any differently till we got on the train to return home, and i continued the potato-and-rice-including regimen without putting in the mileage.  My ability to delay meals markedly declined, as well as "muscle energy."  I felt generally less resilient, and distinctly more gassy.  Trying to carry luggage up the steep narrow rail-car stairways caused my knees to refuse to straighten.

Back at home, i won't be getting as much or the same kind of exercise.  Walking on the flats around my neighborhood with the dog won't give me the same kind of workout i got last week -- for which my back will be grateful!  Climbing the countless stairs that i do at home doesn't compare, either.  Even if i cared to continue the higher-carb diet (which i DON'T!) i couldn't justify it through energy expenditure, and WOULD gain fat on it.

Exercise like a mad person just so i could eat these bland foodstuffs???  Gag!  I'm a hedonist!  I want my rack of lamb ... which, coincidentally enough, is for dinner tonight!

"normal response" to carbs, at last?

There's no doubt about the fact that i feel best on VLC.  But surprisingly enough after this holiday of unusual carb intake, my mood and physical sense of well-being are pretty high.  Why?  I can guess, and it's all about exercise, omega-3 and hormones.

We walked ALL over the downtown area of Seattle, and though the hills did a number on my back and legs, i know we burned a boatload of glucose in the process.  I ordered seafood at meals whenever i wasn't actually craving red meat.  I encouraged mitochondrial performance with carnitine, and boosted raw material for testosterone production with pregnenolone supplements.  Through it all, when not having to wait in uncomfortable public areas for late trains, i've been sleeping well.

I've resisted snacking most of the time, and when i succumbed it was generally to pistachios or cashews (once, waiting for the dinner train an extra 3 hours or so after having no lunch, i had myself a happy-hour with cheese-flavored rice crackers and Abbeys).  I've tried to satisfy appetite on the meat or egg main dish , and then "fill up the corners" (if you'll forgive the Hobbitism) with non-starchy vegetables, then potatoes and finally with sweets.

The celebration-worthy part of gaining a little fat through it all is that leptin is doing its proper job of inhibiting subsequent appetite.  Eating a good-sized meal with more carbs than i'm used to is not spurring me to chow down again in a couple of hours, but to WANT to fast for awhile!  Many days, we've been eating a late breakfast and an early dinner, and that's all.

Well, i'm not going to "continue the experiment" when we get home -- i'll be gratefully returning to the VLC diet i actually PREFER.  I enjoyed that croissant and the four bites of sourdough toast i had, but i feel no desire to make a regular indulgence of it.  Pushing my luck any further is NOT at all tempting!

another "duh" moment

My mood, energy and well-being vary significantly, depending on what i eat.  If i eat like "normal people" for awhile (i'm out of town, eating in restaurants a lot, snacking, or at the mercy of some other person's cooking), i lack vitality, i tire easily and take a long time to recover, and tend to be crankier.  Now, by most people's estimation, i'm STILL EATING LOW-CARB (under 100g/d), but far more than i'm used to ... and some of the food is FRIED.

AHAAA, shouts the mainstream, it's that high-fat diet!!!

NO.  It's that omega-6 overdose.  ...In ME, who has NO industrial-seed-oils in the house AT ALL.  Can you imagine the imbalance in those poor overweight devils who try to live on salad ... with commercial dressing?

In one of those blinding-light-on-the-road-to-Damascus moments, i "saw" last night that the reason i FEEL SO GOOD eating my at-home diet of grassfed/pastured meat and eggs is ... the additional omega-3s.  I take cod liver oil every day and eat salmon and sardines regularly, but obviously in my case more is better.  My thanks to Wooo and Sidereal for pointing out recently what a difference O3 makes to the brain.

It wouldn't be the first time....  I need to supplement all kinds of things that properly-functioning individuals safely assume they get from food.  Iron, B12, carnitine....

We're going out of town again as a Christmas treat -- the first vacation J and i have enjoyed ALONE together without him having any work duties, in over a decade.  I'll be eating out for over a week.  Tell ya what i'll also be doing -- loading up on fatty fish!  I considered leaving the CLO at home, but that ain't gonna happen now.  If i have to fill the hotel fridge with lox, i WILL do it!  ;-)

back to "normal" -- whatever that is

:-)  At least, i'm back to an Atkins-level carb intake.  Yesterday, black coffee for breakfast, lunch a "Cuban chicken melt" with mushrooms on the side and decaf to drink, then a couple of glasses of red wine with the dish our family calls "fake stroganoff," a "paleo biscuit" and generously-buttered broccoli.  Today's menu will resemble the classic Strong Medicine regimen.

I still have more subcutaneous fat on my belly than i've had for months.  :-(  Tomorrow i MAY have guts enough to get on the bathroom scale, but i'm not promising anything.

What with all the vegetable matter i've been consuming this past week, i have less-happy intestines and gut-bugs than usual.  My allergies are much worse, too.  The vague aches in some muscle groups are back.  2012 has been eye-opening for me in how i've observed my body to perform on different foodstuffs!  The only things that don't have ANY downside are fatty ruminant meat and water ... just as Dr. Donaldson wrote half a century ago.

It's fun to break the rules for a short time -- a change is as good as a rest, you know -- but once you discover what your body will put up with to maintain a decent quality-of-living, to stray from it very long is just plain DUMB.  ... And for the record, i did NOT run out and try to buy a final box of Twinkies.  Those things are NASTY.

another "wow" moment at Hyperlipid

Peter's post this morning gave me another OMG-problem-solved moment.  That guy ought to get the Nobel Prize for Blogging!  (Wait, isn't there one?  May i propose it?)

So simple, so elegant, so complete!  Perpetrator of obesity is linoleic acid, and carbohydrate is accessory to the crime.  Case closed.

Now, if only we could get industrial seed oils those heart-healthy polyunsaturates out of friggin' EVERYTHING in the food supply....

calories are good (from the right sources)

After decades of trying to minimize the number we can be satisfied with, in the course of a day, i find myself a delighted contrarian on the subject now.  Who'd'a' thunk it?

Calories, carbs, fat-grams, points -- it seems to help people focus on what they're doing, to have something to count.  In fact it's an old esoteric secret, using something that's merely emblematic to focus concentration where it's needed to do a job (think voodoo doll, or an icon, mandala or candle-flame).  Also, measuring things and mathematical gymnastics are "scientific" tools that help us to feel that what we're doing is based on solid, reliable FACT, rather than the shockingly-bad ideas which have gifted us with the "obesity epidemic."

It's easy for me and my contemporaries to remember back, and see how things have changed in the diet-and-health realm.  When i was a child, there were darned few "fat kids" in our school; nobody but "health nuts" went out of their way to get exercise, and yet before the age of menopause/andropause few people were particularly overweight.  These were the days when everybody ate white bread and drank whole milk, we weren't afraid of sugar, our home and school meals were full of fats AND carbs, and the only reason we used margarine in our house was because it was significantly cheaper than butter and we weren't very well off.

My kids, however, grew up in a society in which we were rather afraid of eating the "wrong" foods.  In search of health, their generation has enjoyed a surprising lack of it:  obesity, diabetes, infertility, mental disorders, ... i don't know where to stop.  Suffice it to say, our dietary changes seem to have wrought a sad result -- all in the hopes of IMPROVING health.  :-(

So here we are today, struggling to fix the damage done by the mistaken or greed- or fanatically-inspired diet advice of the last half-century.  It's truly and disgustingly absurd how we have clung to some of the most archaic, simplistic non-science -- like the obsession with calories.  Ironically, the Mephistopheles of my dietary-morality play, Ancel Keys, did a piece of early work which shines a beacon of brilliance upon this murky subject.  The "starvation study" showed that low calorie intakes (higher than a lot of diet plans dictate) caused some nasty psychological effects, as well as other health issues.  Calorie restriction was pretty well proven to be a bad idea -- yet that is the CONSTANT advice one is given for weight loss, improved health AND longevity.

For millions of years nobody counted calories, and the human race thrived and multiplied.  Then suddenly people started paying attention to the situation in large numbers, and the situation went straight to hell.  To me, this is just confirmation that whenever mankind sticks meddling fingers into natural processes, we fuck it up.  Science thinks it knows a lot more than it really does -- be skeptical of its sweeping pronouncements!

So ignore calories!  The only good use for paying attention to them is in making sure you're getting ENOUGH FAT.  YES.  This is opposite everything we learned before ... but we can all see where THAT idea has gotten us.

doing it wrong, yet again....

I'm starting to have a real problem with another resident of the blogosphere....

If people want to give low-carbing a REAL chance to benefit themselves, they do it in a manner recommended by the "experts" -- you know, those with real experience.  If they want to "debunk" any part of the system, they design their own diet.  AND THEY ALWAYS DO IT THE WRONG WAY.

Might as well be goddamned politicians, the way they bend right and wrong....

"gateway drug ... to CARBS"

:-)  I changed the emphasis in this quote a bit, for dramatic effect.  Unless i'm much mistaken, it needs to be attributed to Dr. Mike Eades.  I made note of it when i first read the words, as important to the scheme of things in my life.

The gateway drug to carbs is ALCOHOL.

I'm not sure of what all the mechanism includes, but part of it is simple disinhibition.  The fact is so well-impressed upon my brain, it isn't easy to sneak up on me with forbidden temptations but i can rationalize to myself under the influence of a couple of glasses, and give myself permission to eat questionable things.  Sometimes -- not often, thank heavens -- the things are downright, unquestionably WRONG for me.

And THIS is the best reason to keep "bad" foods OUT of the house.  Who knows what dark mood, bad event, or simple "liquid overindulgence" might trigger a run for the cheetos?  If they ain't there, it's easier to avoid them.

Yesterday, the shipment from the Concannon wine club arrived, and i had to open a bottle to make sure it shipped all right.  ;-)  Two glasses in, a pizza sure would have tasted good, but i was too strong to be tempted to order one.  The stash of hotel popcorn that i'll be taking to Texas with me, later this month, was less resistable.  At least it had palm oil instead of hearthealthypolyunsaturates....

mistaken dietary ideas

I was reading along in Dr. B.G.'s blog this morning when the lightbulb went on over my head.  Forgive me for getting excited about such an elementary revelation, but after all it IS monday....

BTW, happy Thanksgiving, Canada!  :-)  Eat something "evil" for me!

Back to where i was before i so rudely interrupted myself:  ...she was talking about a paleo diet improving health markers even in the absence of weight loss, when my brain woke up a bit upon seeing the H-word.  There's nothing like having a chronic problem, for sharpening up the eye-to-brain circuits, allowing even a similar-LOOKING word to bringing the mind to attention.  Yep, she DID say "hypothyroidism," not something similar-but-not-to-the-point.

She listed it as a contributor to chronic high insulin.  Since thyroid hormone has, as one of its many jobs, that of helping to escort glucose into cells for burning as energy, it makes sense that a shortage would allow too much sugar to lurk in the bloodstream, necessitating more pancreatic effort to clear it.  Could this be the MAIN reason hypothyroids have trouble losing weight, because YOU CAN'T BURN FAT IN THE PRESENCE OF SIGNIFICANT INSULIN?  Could it be that the lowered metabolism infamous in hypothyroidism is pretty much moot?  Remember how Wooo showed that metabolic rate isn't broadly correlated with fat burning/storing?

Hypothyroid people have been as misled as diabetics, concerning how they should nourish themselves! The way you can boost thyroid levels in "normal" people is NOT a good guide for OPTIMIZING thyroid production in those of us who are thus challenged!

OUR goal should be to reduce our NEED for higher thyroid levels!!!  An' ya wanna know what makes us require more hormone?  One big thing is the same substance that makes people need more insulin.  Another thing is stress.  Be nice to yourself.  (Eat bacon ... not safe starches.  OR fruit.)

just updates

I'm all excited -- i checked out a fencing club in this area, and it looks like the people there will be fun to play with, so i ordered myself a new jacket this morning.  WOOOOOHOO!  :-)  I'm gonna fence again!

This sport was my LIFE when i lived in Oklahoma the first time.  Of course, that was also THIRTY years ago!  I know i'm going to have to baby my knee around; it's distinctly possible that when i fenced before, i predisposed Ralph to the injury i'm suffering with now.  A fencer's knee on the sword-arm side takes a lot of strain if s/he isn't careful.  I'm grateful that my original coaches were very picky about how we moved, otherwise i could be in worse shape.

This is the incentive i need to do my bike-tabatas regularly!  Yoga, too.  Fencing is an asymmetrical activity -- it's important to balance out.  When i did it before, is when i first added weights to my fitness routine.  ...Boy, does it seem like a long time ago!

A few days ago, i ordered and read (thanks be to Kindle for PC) that "low-carb performance" book.  Truth be told, i found it disappointing and lacking in useful content.  It seemed to be written to convince a "CW athlete" that LC is possible, not to give helpful advice to a low-carber.  But i'll go back and see if i can glean some actual tips....

It will be interesting to see how my body does the old moves with an entirely different fuel system.  Then, i was in the full throes of a high-carb diet -- our whole club was -- the first book i owned on nutrition was "Eat of Win"!  I'm wondering if ginger- or licorice-root tea will be the best thing to put in my water bottle?  Hmmmm.

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I've been waking up with a headache the past couple of days.  I can't tell if it's caused by allergy or posture or oxygen shortage caused by covering my eyes with a pillow to keep light out.  However, it's an incentive to finally spring for the light-excluding window shades i've been thinking about for awhile. I tried a sleep-mask, but it makes me all sweaty about the eyes and nose, and i hate that!

Otherwise, i'm getting back to normal at last.  I vow, WHEN we go out for meals next week ('cause it's gonna happen), i WILL NOT order a starchy side-dish, nor will i consume more than a half-cup of veggies at a meal!  The pleasures of the palate are not worth the bodily discomfort!