feet of clay, continued

I see that some of you figured out which once-respected paleo guru I excoriated yesterday?  ;-)  Stay tuned for the rest of the story....

Sure there’s some awesome science behind increased longevity and health being linked with caloric restriction and/or an abbreviated eating window – BUT if you don’t have all your ducks in a row (sleep, great nutrition, smart exercise, limited stress), then just NO ... Also, if you’re currently IF’ing and find yourself all, “OMG I’M GOING TO EAT MY ARM” hungry and can’t concentrate on a damn thing other than what you get to eat in two hours, then yeah, NO – not an awesome idea for you either.

As I suggested yesterday, not being able to IF indicates bodily malfunction.  In the latter case, above, that malfunction is between the ears.

We actually KNOW the reason why exercise is particularly good for type-two diabetics, and it hasn't got anything to do with "burning calories."  It's that exercise in an insulin-resistant person sucks the glucose out of the bloodstream and into working muscles independent of insulin receptors.  MANY gym-rats advocate fasting workouts ... and what happens when heavy exercise is undertaken in a fasting state?  You got it -- glucose is sucked up much faster than it can be created, and one becomes "OMG i'm going to eat my arm hungry." ... Do I detect a tiny little bit of cognitive dissonance here?

Nice of the writer to toss a bone to the increased longevity and health benefits of fasting, though.  But be careful -- as we know, living a longer life that's worth living isn't nearly as important as looking like a badass....

**FYI** If you are drinking a cup or two of coffee with butter and/or coconut/MCT oil (AKA: Bulletproof coffee) and pretending that you’re IF’ing – stop fooling yourself. You just ingested 200-400 calories and um, that shit counts.

OOH, CALORIES!  [headbangwall] All this time and he still doesn't understand that FASTING IS NOT ABOUT CUTTING CALORIES, IT'S ABOUT FORCING THE BODY TO BURN FAT/KETONES AS THE PRIMARY FUELS.  If the only fuel taken in is fat, you are not disrupting this plan.

But I made it with coconut flour (AKA – but the label says Paleo)… In case you don’t already know, this one REALLY lights me up – and not in a positive way… I mean really people, our Paleolithic ancestors were NOT baking ‘paleo’ breads, cookies, pancakes or other treats nor were they hitting the local Whole Foods and scoring ‘paleo’ bars and other -- READ: PROCESSED ‘paleo’ products. This probably means that you shouldn’t make a daily habit of buying, making and/or consuming these things either. I’m not going to expand on this any further here because I already wrote that story and you should probably read it if you haven’t. Here it is. You’re welcome.

This is what is known as "adding insult to injury."  We are too dumb to realize that even LC treats are still treats.  ...And I was even gracious enough to ignore the "paleo" part of this tantrum -- WE are thoroughly cognizant of the fact that MANY paleo-approved foods, even though "whole foods," are horribly fattening to the carb-sensitive.

Many a time have I ranted, myself, about the constant barrage of low-carb treat recipes online.  What the recipe-creators need to give us are easy, inexpensive, quick MEAL ideas.  Treat recipes are wonderful for the first pangs of people moving from the SAD to a more nutritious diet, who miss their cookies and pizzas and are in danger of backsliding.  Sometimes we need holiday-themed treats so we don't feel like the odd-man-out at Christmas or whatever.  But once we get our desire for sweets and snacks tamed, and get back to eating ONLY MEALS, the sooner we get better.

There is a time and a place for supplements and some of them are totally warranted, but if you’re doing what I refer to as “blind supplementation”, it’s time to open your eyes and see the light. I know this is super hard with all the information on the internet – but here’s what you do: STOP Googling your ‘symptoms’ looking for an answer in pill or powder form, instead go see a real (good) doctor and figure out what the issue is. Do NOT go out and purchase a plethora of vitamin, mineral, herbal, adrenal health or hormone supplements and try to figure it out on your own. That’s the perfect recipe for supplementing yourself sick. This is no joke, I’ve had a client that made herself Vitamin A toxic – not a good thing.

Here we go again, taking a plunge into the broad-insult pool!  WE are too stupid to supplement without help from a professional like him!  HE, though never having met or spoken to us, knows intuitively what we need -- WHOLE FOODS, especially all those anti-nutrient-containing things advocated-for in yesterday's post.  WE don' need no stinkin' VITAMINS!

Welllll, unless, maybe, we don't have good digestion?  Unless we're older, or have diminished stomach-acid, or a damaged small-bowel....

There probably are people who google a symptom and jump into a supplementation regimen that's potentially damaging, but there are also people who drive like shit and hurt themselves that way.  Does that mean we should outlaw the sale of fuel-additives?  [snort of derision]  I know, false equivalency, but my point is that SOME PEOPLE ARE STUPID.  I think it's well-established that it can't be fixed, and putting instructions on your bottle of shampoo is a worthless bandaid.  Intelligent people, such as those who are kind enough to read my blog and comment on it, are quite capable of not only discovering which vitamin might help, but also in reading about the caveats of its use.

Here’s the deal, you don’t know what’s going on in your body and even scarier, you don’t know what’s in the supplements that you’re putting in your body. Those things aren’t regulated! For all you know you might be swallowing a capsule filled with dirt from some guy’s backyard that his dog peed on earlier in the day. Before you ‘go in blind’; get checked out, do your homework as to which products to buy and if you start feeling worse on the new miracle cures – STOP taking them. Do not consult Google and add more. That is totally NOT productive. 

YES, we do know what's going on in our bodies -- it's what the ART of medicine used before it became the depraved, lab-test-based mess it is now.  SYMPTOMS.  And really -- what kind of IDIOTS are their clients, if they don't know how to shop?  Do they buy herbs from a stranger on the streets, REALLY?

But hang on -- the most risible irony is upon us:

My way or the highway… So, you know that paleo is great – it’s done totally awesome things for your health, body and life in general and yeah, you want to tell people about it. That’s great, in fact, you should talk about YOUR experience. What you shouldn’t do is villainize [sic] every other way of eating or try to convince everyone that paleo is the ONLY right way (I mean seriously, can you imagine the bacon shortage that would cause…). But really, if you take on an elitist attitude and stop seeing that there are other ways the work for other people and that in some (albeit rare) cases, paleo isn’t the answer – all you’re going to do is drive folks nuts. And sure, vegan bashing might be fun and all; but I’d venture to guess that there’s at least one or two super healthy vegans out there. Leave them alone.

Do as I say, not as I do!  I'm right, and you're not, and you should never copy my example.  Tell everyone about YOUR experience, but leave the vegans alone!  There might be, like, one or two, like, SUPER healthy ones out there! 

Guess who's been sleeping with a vegan recently....

Different strokes for different folks. What works for one will never work for all, and it’s important to remember that when you’re talking to people. Judging people for the way they eat or really for anything is just not okay. You don’t know their stories, their struggles or their whys, and they don’t know yours. My guess is that you’ve probably got a few less than stellar habits too, am I right? And – let’s be honest – you haven’t been paleo forever and there’s probably quite a few of you that would say you were a ‘healthy eater’ prior to the conversion.

More hypocrisy in spades, and that argumentative style which, when it runs out of logic begs "so people make MISTAKES -- have YOU never made a MISTAAAAKE?"  To which I usually answer something smartass, just because.

 Find YOUR groove and run with it – there’s no perfect recipe – health is a lifestyle, not a destination.

 But ... but ... but, at the beginning of this screed you were telling us that we were doing a lot of things wrong!  We HAD found our groove but YOU weren't happy with it!

Health is NOT a lifestyle, it is a condition of the body in which things are running as Nature intended they should.  Lifestyle affects it significantly, but depending upon a myriad of variables, what's sauce for the goose could be poison for the gander (if I may mix my metaphors a bit).  Many of the things which the writer said I MUSTN'T do under any circumstance are exactly what benefit MY body best.

So no matter if Robb Wolf himself wrote these lines, or one of his bro's, or that dumb chick WITH THE EATING DISORDER, it came out of his gym and is therefore it is HIS responsibility.  The biggest impact on me is that it lost him any remaining respect I might still have had.