I've been doing a lot of sewing recently -- my daughter is going with me to the living-history village next weekend, and though she can wear most of my 19th-century-appropriate wardrobe there ARE some things she'll want to have of her own ... like underclothes. The first thing I made for her was a pair of drawers, and the second was a chemise. She'll wear my spare corset this time, but if she continues in "the hobby" i'll make her one of her own. Ditto, on a petticoat.
Those two items made, I cut out and almost finished putting together a "top," and will also have a skirt ready for her. Yesterday was a little less busy than some of the days' work I've been putting in -- I only went down to the basement once, I didn't have to iron any yardage, and I didn't make a lot of trips downstairs from the third-floor sewing room: a light day, compared to some.
What made it unique is that it occurred to me to put on a pedometer. Working just from 9 to 3, I ended up walking about 1.25 miles ... within my own house. And that didn't include the WHOLE day, as I took the pedometer off before our evening activities -- dinner out and an operatic performance. We walked at least another half-mile, possibly closer to a full one, because parking wasn't all that close to either destination.
People who love to WORK OUT seem to think that if you're not doing something in a gym or pounding pavement, you're not getting any exercise at all. I call BS.
People who shop and cook and sweep and take out the garbage probably get a lot more exercise than they think. Maybe the constant whine of "modern people are too SEDENTARY (read, 'lazy')" is just first-class nonsense too, if they participate in any home-maintanence. Maybe, if people ARE "moving less" it's because they're living in a small one-story house in the suburbs. ;-) There's noplace to walk TO, and that's a real pity -- neighborhood shops and restaurants are wonderful things, but they only work in a place with dense population. You can walk AROUND, but ...why? Frankly, i find that even in a fascinating neighborhood, just WALKING gets really old after the first couple of years, especially when i have more interesting and inspiring things to do at home.
My next challenge will be to wear the pedometer while vacuuming. ;-) And doing "fur patrol" on the stairs. And dusting. I should have put it on J while mowing, before we tore out three-quarters of the yard....
Saturday, November 8, 2014
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
what about fat?
Empirica had a new blog post out yesterday -- i'm glad Amber is writing more these days! She proposes that ketosis is the "default human diet" from the energetic point of view, which was very logical ... except for one thing.
As she described things, you either run on glucose or on ketones. In my opinion, she left out an important alternative. She didn't broach running on FFAs.
A properly-functioning "young" body on a mixed diet (we'll leave alcohol out for now) gets a reasonable glucose peak after a meal, and burns the sugar off preferentially until the increase in insulin stores the excess and both glucose AND insulin drop. Then it burns fats. That's what the human body is designed to do.
Everyone observes that it takes a couple of days for ketones to start churning out in bulk, when starting a LC diet. What are you running on before this happens? First you burn through your stored glycogen, and the body has to perceive a glucose shortage ... then you get the magic -- physiological insulin-resistance and gluconeogenesis for those tissues which insist on using glucose. Hell, even THE BRAIN is now known not really to run exclusively on sugar -- the sugars seem to be converted to lactate. And the real magic: the brain is now recognized to turn FFAs to ketones, IN SITU. Essentially, part of the brain DOES run on fat, just not in the same way muscle cells do.
I believe that Amber is missing part of the equation. I believe the traditional fuel use went something like this in a healthy person:
As she described things, you either run on glucose or on ketones. In my opinion, she left out an important alternative. She didn't broach running on FFAs.
A properly-functioning "young" body on a mixed diet (we'll leave alcohol out for now) gets a reasonable glucose peak after a meal, and burns the sugar off preferentially until the increase in insulin stores the excess and both glucose AND insulin drop. Then it burns fats. That's what the human body is designed to do.
Everyone observes that it takes a couple of days for ketones to start churning out in bulk, when starting a LC diet. What are you running on before this happens? First you burn through your stored glycogen, and the body has to perceive a glucose shortage ... then you get the magic -- physiological insulin-resistance and gluconeogenesis for those tissues which insist on using glucose. Hell, even THE BRAIN is now known not really to run exclusively on sugar -- the sugars seem to be converted to lactate. And the real magic: the brain is now recognized to turn FFAs to ketones, IN SITU. Essentially, part of the brain DOES run on fat, just not in the same way muscle cells do.
I believe that Amber is missing part of the equation. I believe the traditional fuel use went something like this in a healthy person:
- meal eaten of some mixture of protein, fat and carb;
- glucose preferentially burnt for a couple of hours;
- excess energy stored;
- until next meal (hours after -- no snacking for most of history), body seamlessly goes into lipolysis upon diminution of postprandial insulin;
- ONLY extended undernutrition leads to heavy ketone-body production. Otherwise, rinse-repeat.
It's only in the "damaged" body that you find difficulty in switching between fuels -- that's why restablishing metabolic flexibility is crucial in a person who has been overweight and is rectifying their dependence on glucose as the primary fuel.
That's also why fat-fasting is a tool for forcing a recalcitrant body into burning fat for fuel, and shouldn't be a lifestyle in and of itself -- it's too low in protein. That's why chasing high ketone-body concentrations is an academic sport and shouldn't be our GOAL for weight-loss or -maintenance. Ketone bodies in your blood imply undernutrition, which we consider "good" for weight-loss --
UNLESS you're "cheating" by taking ketone-salts or MCTs! Then it means "nothing." You can produce ketones on a very-high-carbohydrate (percent) diet, if you get the calories low enough. Weight-loss requires burning the fat off your butt for fuel -- not creating lots of ketones from your dietary fat.
When we use ketones for brain-health, that's a different story. Wooo's neurological issues are ameliorated by a diet which is protein-limited and high in the right kinds of fats -- burning too much glucose/lactate gives her a "short circuit." Galina prevents migraines with the diet she has refined. I find that running my brain on fat/ketone makes it function much better -- i sometimes wonder if i wouldn't be an Alzheimers risk, if i had continued to be a glucose-burner.
[aside: from a link someone put on twitter this week, I was inspired to wonder if we "20th-centurions" are predisposed to neurological sensitivity by low fetal DHA....]
Our hearts and other muscles seem to love to run on fats. They are "cheap and easy" fuels, which put no strain on the body to release and utilize ... so long as one has the metabolic flexibility to tap into them.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
YOUR health answers are not MY health answers
I was just reading Gwen's latest, about a Mark's Daily Apple post which really resonated with her. HER part of the writing is reasonable and heart-felt, but more and more i get the feeling that what Mark writes is no longer very applicable to me.
That fact doesn't BOTHER me -- i don't expect his writings to have universal applicability -- but more and more he's writing things like (paraphrased) "EVERYONE needs to eat their veggies" and "EVERYONE needs x amount of exercise"....
NO. No, we don't, and i don't care how many appeals to authority he throws in -- actually the more he DOES, the less i'll take him seriously.
I certainly agree that to have a good life you have to prioritize and take care of your own health, through doing and eating things that will make your body and mind perform to the best of its ability. What i disagree with is that one is only doing so when personalizing HIS SYSTEM ... and yes, he's subtle, but that's the message that's coming across. We have to eat what HE considers "healthy," we have to get the KINDS of exercise he describes as effective, we have to participate in physical "play," we have to have the kind of social life that his research shows to be important....
We are all more different than he's giving us credit for. What some people consider "fun" i might consider stress. The diet that makes me feel best is actively harmful to others. Somebody else's cozy social life ... i frequently find disruptive to thought, and smothering.
We can't PLAN joy -- we have to recognize it when it pops out to surprise us. And savor it when it happens.
We can't please everyone, so we gotta please ourselves ... at least part of the time. And not feel guilty about it, or that we're doing it "wrong."
That fact doesn't BOTHER me -- i don't expect his writings to have universal applicability -- but more and more he's writing things like (paraphrased) "EVERYONE needs to eat their veggies" and "EVERYONE needs x amount of exercise"....
NO. No, we don't, and i don't care how many appeals to authority he throws in -- actually the more he DOES, the less i'll take him seriously.
I certainly agree that to have a good life you have to prioritize and take care of your own health, through doing and eating things that will make your body and mind perform to the best of its ability. What i disagree with is that one is only doing so when personalizing HIS SYSTEM ... and yes, he's subtle, but that's the message that's coming across. We have to eat what HE considers "healthy," we have to get the KINDS of exercise he describes as effective, we have to participate in physical "play," we have to have the kind of social life that his research shows to be important....
We are all more different than he's giving us credit for. What some people consider "fun" i might consider stress. The diet that makes me feel best is actively harmful to others. Somebody else's cozy social life ... i frequently find disruptive to thought, and smothering.
We can't PLAN joy -- we have to recognize it when it pops out to surprise us. And savor it when it happens.
We can't please everyone, so we gotta please ourselves ... at least part of the time. And not feel guilty about it, or that we're doing it "wrong."
Sunday, November 2, 2014
supplements are tricky...
I can understand why a lot of people just don't want to mess with them; it's far from straightforward, figuring out what might, can, or won't work for YOU. And even when you think something DOES, as time passes, it may fizzle out on you.
We see this often in people telling their thyroid-supp stories -- they feel low, and their doctor consents to prescribe, and they feel better for awhile, and then they crash.... In this case, i believe we're seeing a body which is limiting its production/conversion for a reason -- the body wants the "rest" that low-thyroid states produce. The patient, however, intends to go on with life as usual, and the supplemental hormone allows the continuation of overdoing.
Bodies don't like being forced to do something they feel is deleterious to their well-being. So the patient's body cuts back its own production/conversion even more than before, and the supplemental hormone is pulling the whole weight of the situation.
We need to stop thinking of the body as a locomotive-engine chugging out constant ergs up and down the hills of life, and think of it more as a horse-drawn wagon -- you damn well better take those grades at different paces than the level parts, or the results might be ugly.
But i digress: i meant to point out how the body goes about adjusting things when we try to push it in a way it doesn't want to go. Not to mention that you can't manipulate ONE hormone or neurotransmitter, and expect everything else to remain the same. Or, as in the theme i was actually approaching (though a little too obliquely) -- even when something seems to work, or not work, in the short term, it's what happens further down the road that's significant.
Before we start a new supplement, we should always do our research. This often turns up few solid FACTS, but intimations as to whether it "might be right for YOU" -- gawd, how i hate that line in commercials! :-D But we need to do the background checks! If you look at an herb, for instance, on webmd, and click on the "reviews" tab, you'll get a skewed-but-potentially-helpful view of WHOM it helps or harms, and how it made them feel. You can do it on amazon too ... but you can't go by numbers of five-star vs. one-star ratings, because of the infuriating practice of soliciting PROVIDER rather than product reviews (grrrr); you have to read the actual comments.
Considering that some supplements give us almost instant results while others may take three or more MONTHS to truly show their characters, this means that we probably shouldn't introduce more than about three or four new items per year. ...I don't know anybody who waits that long to judge whether something is worthwhile, do you? And it's particularly off-putting to have to order a new container of some substance, when the first container-full didn't seem to have much of an impact!
So i've recently changed my starting line-up, if i may use a baseball analogy to describe my morning collection of capsules-to-swallow. :-) I just ran out of SAMe, and since the subsequent batches weren't as effective as i perceived the first one to be (and they should have been better, as they were in bubble-packs for freshness), ol' Sammy has been sent down to the minors. Phosphatidylserine has been brought back from retirement, and the rest has done him good -- he's been hitting 'em out of the park since his return.
Phosphatidylserine is supposed to improve the absorption of glutathione, one of my most valued players, and it seems to be doing just that. Since i restarted it, my energy has been better. I take them at the same time, or the P before the G. I seem to be needing less sleep (not that i'm trying to get away with less).
Did SAMe "stop working" for me, or did i mistake its benefits when i first started it? Dunno! Either is possible. ...Supplements are tricky!
We see this often in people telling their thyroid-supp stories -- they feel low, and their doctor consents to prescribe, and they feel better for awhile, and then they crash.... In this case, i believe we're seeing a body which is limiting its production/conversion for a reason -- the body wants the "rest" that low-thyroid states produce. The patient, however, intends to go on with life as usual, and the supplemental hormone allows the continuation of overdoing.
Bodies don't like being forced to do something they feel is deleterious to their well-being. So the patient's body cuts back its own production/conversion even more than before, and the supplemental hormone is pulling the whole weight of the situation.
We need to stop thinking of the body as a locomotive-engine chugging out constant ergs up and down the hills of life, and think of it more as a horse-drawn wagon -- you damn well better take those grades at different paces than the level parts, or the results might be ugly.
But i digress: i meant to point out how the body goes about adjusting things when we try to push it in a way it doesn't want to go. Not to mention that you can't manipulate ONE hormone or neurotransmitter, and expect everything else to remain the same. Or, as in the theme i was actually approaching (though a little too obliquely) -- even when something seems to work, or not work, in the short term, it's what happens further down the road that's significant.
Before we start a new supplement, we should always do our research. This often turns up few solid FACTS, but intimations as to whether it "might be right for YOU" -- gawd, how i hate that line in commercials! :-D But we need to do the background checks! If you look at an herb, for instance, on webmd, and click on the "reviews" tab, you'll get a skewed-but-potentially-helpful view of WHOM it helps or harms, and how it made them feel. You can do it on amazon too ... but you can't go by numbers of five-star vs. one-star ratings, because of the infuriating practice of soliciting PROVIDER rather than product reviews (grrrr); you have to read the actual comments.
Considering that some supplements give us almost instant results while others may take three or more MONTHS to truly show their characters, this means that we probably shouldn't introduce more than about three or four new items per year. ...I don't know anybody who waits that long to judge whether something is worthwhile, do you? And it's particularly off-putting to have to order a new container of some substance, when the first container-full didn't seem to have much of an impact!
So i've recently changed my starting line-up, if i may use a baseball analogy to describe my morning collection of capsules-to-swallow. :-) I just ran out of SAMe, and since the subsequent batches weren't as effective as i perceived the first one to be (and they should have been better, as they were in bubble-packs for freshness), ol' Sammy has been sent down to the minors. Phosphatidylserine has been brought back from retirement, and the rest has done him good -- he's been hitting 'em out of the park since his return.
Phosphatidylserine is supposed to improve the absorption of glutathione, one of my most valued players, and it seems to be doing just that. Since i restarted it, my energy has been better. I take them at the same time, or the P before the G. I seem to be needing less sleep (not that i'm trying to get away with less).
Did SAMe "stop working" for me, or did i mistake its benefits when i first started it? Dunno! Either is possible. ...Supplements are tricky!
Friday, October 31, 2014
three reasons NOT to eat your veggies
I'm really on a roll with the "refuting paleo authorities" rants, aren't i? ;-)
Chris Kresser, whom i respected until he got that ol' delusions-of-grandeur disease, has one of his podcasts freshly out -- you know, those ego-massaging audio shows, which begin with WHAT HE ATE FOR BREAKFAST, as if the world hangs breathless, waiting for that august pronouncement....
He, along with Mark, is distinctly pro-veggie because they're so HEAAALTHY (tra-la-la). He offered three reasons we should all be stuffing our faces with them, so i of course need to offer you three more, proposing that his opinion is a total CROCK [evil grin].
Vegetables (we'll leave fruits in the cellar waiting for their turn at castigation) are full of ANTIOXIDANTS, and OMG, those things are just fabulously spectacularly HEALTHY ... for the plant. Oh wait -- you mean they don't work AS antioxidants when we eat them???
No, that doesn't seem to be their function. It SEEMS that they act like OXIDATING agents and that in THIS case that's a good thing! Because (tongue in cheek here) our own bodies don't make enough oxidants we NEED vegetables to perform this sometimes-toxic operation, so that it prompts our systems to churn out more antioxidants of their own!
What?
Suppose we already have trouble generating enough endogenous (the actually effective kind) antioxidants for our basic needs? So we eat vegetables that require we produce more than before ... kinda sounds stress-causing to me. As a matter of fact, this sounds very much like the argument that claims low-carbing makes you hypothyroid, because in a healthy person adding carbs requires that the body produce more hormone to metabolize it. And the enemy of my enemy is my friend....
Well, if you discount the antioxidants-which-don't-reduce, how 'bout them PHYTONUTRIENTS!!!
Name me one essential phytonutrient. Lycopene? A carotenoid which has been found of use in certain illnesses -- I SEE! This is an argument for Manifest Destiny as well as Intelligent Design because Sky Daddy gave us a disease which we couldn't cure till we learned how to make pizza sauce!!! He wanted us to discover America, and learn that tomatoes aren't toxic, and make sure they found their way to Italy, and set the chefs to work revolutionizing a peasant bread dish, and ....
OH, you mean a MEDICINAL plant -- we ain't talkin' about HERBS today! Do you have foxglove with your dinner? I have absolutely no problem with plants-as-medicine. I'm talking about "eat real food, mostly plants."
How about RESVERATROL! What, did you say you can't get significant quantities from "eat real food" -- that you have to concentrate it significantly to show benefit? AND you say that the benefit from drinking red wine actually comes from the ALCOHOL? (hehehe) Well, who'd 'a' thunk it....
Sorry, Chrissy, when you have concentrate plant "nutrients" to get benefits from them, then we're talking about drugs again.
Don't skip that paleo-requirement, of canonizing KAAAAALE -- "it's all about the kale"! Just THINK about how filling and how full of wonderful minerals kale is! ...FILLING.... Back in the '80s I tried a super-low-fat diet, filling up on vegetables and lean meat -- big problem there was that my stomach may have been "full" but my appetite certainly wasn't satisfied. That may be the problem with LFers grazing -- you're full but still hungry on a nutrient level, so as soon as there's room in your stomach you go searching for something to eat that might actually make you feel FED. Rinse and repeat.
And just think of the fact that kale is also not only full of ANTInutrients (so doesn't do a damned bit of good to eat it raw in a salad or ground up in a smoothie), it's also one of a huge family of GOITROGENS.
So are sweet potatoes and brussels sprouts and sauerkraut and broccoli and cauliflower and ....
Do i have to also list the high-FODMAP vegetables which the Veg Squad so love?
[sigh]
Don't get me wrong -- if YOU like vegetables and they agree with your system, by all means chow down! I and many other people like me have problems with them, and they are by no stretch of the imagination something we should TRY to consume more of!
It's just another damn case of "it suits me so you have to do it too" that has become so rife in the nutritional world.
Chris Kresser, whom i respected until he got that ol' delusions-of-grandeur disease, has one of his podcasts freshly out -- you know, those ego-massaging audio shows, which begin with WHAT HE ATE FOR BREAKFAST, as if the world hangs breathless, waiting for that august pronouncement....
He, along with Mark, is distinctly pro-veggie because they're so HEAAALTHY (tra-la-la). He offered three reasons we should all be stuffing our faces with them, so i of course need to offer you three more, proposing that his opinion is a total CROCK [evil grin].
Vegetables (we'll leave fruits in the cellar waiting for their turn at castigation) are full of ANTIOXIDANTS, and OMG, those things are just fabulously spectacularly HEALTHY ... for the plant. Oh wait -- you mean they don't work AS antioxidants when we eat them???
No, that doesn't seem to be their function. It SEEMS that they act like OXIDATING agents and that in THIS case that's a good thing! Because (tongue in cheek here) our own bodies don't make enough oxidants we NEED vegetables to perform this sometimes-toxic operation, so that it prompts our systems to churn out more antioxidants of their own!
What?
Suppose we already have trouble generating enough endogenous (the actually effective kind) antioxidants for our basic needs? So we eat vegetables that require we produce more than before ... kinda sounds stress-causing to me. As a matter of fact, this sounds very much like the argument that claims low-carbing makes you hypothyroid, because in a healthy person adding carbs requires that the body produce more hormone to metabolize it. And the enemy of my enemy is my friend....
Well, if you discount the antioxidants-which-don't-reduce, how 'bout them PHYTONUTRIENTS!!!
Name me one essential phytonutrient. Lycopene? A carotenoid which has been found of use in certain illnesses -- I SEE! This is an argument for Manifest Destiny as well as Intelligent Design because Sky Daddy gave us a disease which we couldn't cure till we learned how to make pizza sauce!!! He wanted us to discover America, and learn that tomatoes aren't toxic, and make sure they found their way to Italy, and set the chefs to work revolutionizing a peasant bread dish, and ....
OH, you mean a MEDICINAL plant -- we ain't talkin' about HERBS today! Do you have foxglove with your dinner? I have absolutely no problem with plants-as-medicine. I'm talking about "eat real food, mostly plants."
How about RESVERATROL! What, did you say you can't get significant quantities from "eat real food" -- that you have to concentrate it significantly to show benefit? AND you say that the benefit from drinking red wine actually comes from the ALCOHOL? (hehehe) Well, who'd 'a' thunk it....
Sorry, Chrissy, when you have concentrate plant "nutrients" to get benefits from them, then we're talking about drugs again.
Don't skip that paleo-requirement, of canonizing KAAAAALE -- "it's all about the kale"! Just THINK about how filling and how full of wonderful minerals kale is! ...FILLING.... Back in the '80s I tried a super-low-fat diet, filling up on vegetables and lean meat -- big problem there was that my stomach may have been "full" but my appetite certainly wasn't satisfied. That may be the problem with LFers grazing -- you're full but still hungry on a nutrient level, so as soon as there's room in your stomach you go searching for something to eat that might actually make you feel FED. Rinse and repeat.
And just think of the fact that kale is also not only full of ANTInutrients (so doesn't do a damned bit of good to eat it raw in a salad or ground up in a smoothie), it's also one of a huge family of GOITROGENS.
So are sweet potatoes and brussels sprouts and sauerkraut and broccoli and cauliflower and ....
Do i have to also list the high-FODMAP vegetables which the Veg Squad so love?
[sigh]
Don't get me wrong -- if YOU like vegetables and they agree with your system, by all means chow down! I and many other people like me have problems with them, and they are by no stretch of the imagination something we should TRY to consume more of!
It's just another damn case of "it suits me so you have to do it too" that has become so rife in the nutritional world.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
PD is at it again!
It seems to be breast-cancer awareness month -- you know, that time of year when you haven't already spent your money on loved-ones, so you theoretically have more to donate to the paychecks of executives of charity organizations and their pet researchers....
In honor of this horrible and avoidable disease, and the organizations which milk the bereaved families and survivors of it, one of the "Primal" Docs has posted a list of things to do, for "Keeping Your Breasts Healthy Naturally." PRIMAL, MY ASS. It's the same old tired worthless BULLSHIT.
Number Eight was the first item which inspired my extreme annoyance -- make sure to eat plenty of those healthyfruitsandvegetables, kiddies! ...Oh, except for the fact that we have REAL DATA which demonstrate that HF&V don't actually do diddly-squat to improve health.... Petro wrote about this YEARS ago. But the authoress-ND claims we should also cut back on meat and dairy because, "a more plant-based diet helps to reduce your risk and protect your body from many types of cancers" <-- this is a FUCKING LIE, and she should know it.
Number Nine was the icing on the cake. We should be "keeping ... healthy" by TESTING, because self-exams (shown to be worthless) and mammograms (DON'T GET ME STARTED) are PREVENTIVE MEASURES in maintaining health. Yeah, jolts of radiation, soft-tissue trauma, stress, and frequent invasive treatments caused by the false-positives and those conditions which didn't require intervention in the first place, ... yeah, they sure do help keep you healthy!
Give her credit, she did actually mention iodine, and considering the load of fatuity in that article, it was a distinct surprise. What she didn't go on to explain is that after the thyroid, the breasts hold the most iodine in the body -- something about breast tissue requires a lot, and if you have a lot of breast tissue, you probably require more than you'll find in your diet. Oh, but she COULD NOT RESIST the mid-twentieth-century-questionable-science of warning us that we should never never supplement iodine without consulting our physicians, because as you know, we laypeople are way too stoopid to even dream of trying to be responsible for our own health! Self-treatment, after all, comes from Satan just like Halloween and birth-control and working outside the HO-O-O-O-OME.... (sorry, I couldn't resist -- I watched a bunch of Mrs. Betty Bowers' videos yesterday.)
Cancer is an ugly subject, and I ardently despise those in the field who cling to their paradigms and academic kingdoms, denying the distressed and suffering patients the opportunity to use KNOWN helpful, healthful, HARMLESS techniques to improve their conditions because they're "unproven." Well, certain treatments ARE KNOWN to be deleterious to health (chemo, radiation), and they insist on using those anyway. It's the same in Alzheimers -- over and over it's shown that STOPPING SUGAR and reducing total carbohydrates are supportive of health. The reason there's no "proof" of the efficacy of a ketogenic diet is that the pharmaceutical industry damn well doesn't want there to be any!
Just because in some studies, dying patients refuse to give up their treats (their LAST PLEASURE), doesn't mean that others wouldn't feel the "sacrifice" is worthwhile. We see this BS ALL ... THE ... TIME about LC being "unsustainable" but that's only true in people who demand their starches and sugars -- motivated individuals seem to find it pretty easy to continue for life. For crisesake, give patients the OPTION of trying it! Improving quality-of-life by ceasing to consume a toxic dietary superfluity has got to be the first step -- not telling us to load up on FRUITS cuz maybe we'll glean a little antioxidant or polyphenol from some tired strawberry that was picked green two thousand miles away, and has been sitting in a ripeness-retarding gas bubble for the last few weeks....
When people face a life-threatening illness, that is NOT the time to milk them and the system for every nickel you can squeeze out, testing and poisoning and overprescribing ... though that's exactly what some medical-industrialists seem to do. No, building up the patient's endogenous resources should be the first step. The PD who wrote the article went to lots of lengths to get women to dump things like BPA and other xenoestrogenic compounds out of our environments. She stresses the problem of estrogen-dominance, without addressing the fact that such a situation means there's something else awry in the body.
How much money is squandered through the emotional appeals of cancer societies and heart associations, and all the other similar social vampires? How many people have died unnecessarily, because the system would rather poison them than advise them to cut out starches and sugars, and eat more lamb?
How might society improve, if EVERYBODY took a vitamin-mineral supplement, as shown to be helpful in that prison study?
Our health-care systems would be a lot less over-burdened if the standard advice were first-things-first and FIRST do no harm, but when society DENIES that sugar is deleterious to health for financial reasons, we start being out-of-step with nature ... and it just goes downhill from there.
In honor of this horrible and avoidable disease, and the organizations which milk the bereaved families and survivors of it, one of the "Primal" Docs has posted a list of things to do, for "Keeping Your Breasts Healthy Naturally." PRIMAL, MY ASS. It's the same old tired worthless BULLSHIT.
Number Eight was the first item which inspired my extreme annoyance -- make sure to eat plenty of those healthyfruitsandvegetables, kiddies! ...Oh, except for the fact that we have REAL DATA which demonstrate that HF&V don't actually do diddly-squat to improve health.... Petro wrote about this YEARS ago. But the authoress-ND claims we should also cut back on meat and dairy because, "a more plant-based diet helps to reduce your risk and protect your body from many types of cancers" <-- this is a FUCKING LIE, and she should know it.
Number Nine was the icing on the cake. We should be "keeping ... healthy" by TESTING, because self-exams (shown to be worthless) and mammograms (DON'T GET ME STARTED) are PREVENTIVE MEASURES in maintaining health. Yeah, jolts of radiation, soft-tissue trauma, stress, and frequent invasive treatments caused by the false-positives and those conditions which didn't require intervention in the first place, ... yeah, they sure do help keep you healthy!
Give her credit, she did actually mention iodine, and considering the load of fatuity in that article, it was a distinct surprise. What she didn't go on to explain is that after the thyroid, the breasts hold the most iodine in the body -- something about breast tissue requires a lot, and if you have a lot of breast tissue, you probably require more than you'll find in your diet. Oh, but she COULD NOT RESIST the mid-twentieth-century-questionable-science of warning us that we should never never supplement iodine without consulting our physicians, because as you know, we laypeople are way too stoopid to even dream of trying to be responsible for our own health! Self-treatment, after all, comes from Satan just like Halloween and birth-control and working outside the HO-O-O-O-OME.... (sorry, I couldn't resist -- I watched a bunch of Mrs. Betty Bowers' videos yesterday.)
Cancer is an ugly subject, and I ardently despise those in the field who cling to their paradigms and academic kingdoms, denying the distressed and suffering patients the opportunity to use KNOWN helpful, healthful, HARMLESS techniques to improve their conditions because they're "unproven." Well, certain treatments ARE KNOWN to be deleterious to health (chemo, radiation), and they insist on using those anyway. It's the same in Alzheimers -- over and over it's shown that STOPPING SUGAR and reducing total carbohydrates are supportive of health. The reason there's no "proof" of the efficacy of a ketogenic diet is that the pharmaceutical industry damn well doesn't want there to be any!
Just because in some studies, dying patients refuse to give up their treats (their LAST PLEASURE), doesn't mean that others wouldn't feel the "sacrifice" is worthwhile. We see this BS ALL ... THE ... TIME about LC being "unsustainable" but that's only true in people who demand their starches and sugars -- motivated individuals seem to find it pretty easy to continue for life. For crisesake, give patients the OPTION of trying it! Improving quality-of-life by ceasing to consume a toxic dietary superfluity has got to be the first step -- not telling us to load up on FRUITS cuz maybe we'll glean a little antioxidant or polyphenol from some tired strawberry that was picked green two thousand miles away, and has been sitting in a ripeness-retarding gas bubble for the last few weeks....
When people face a life-threatening illness, that is NOT the time to milk them and the system for every nickel you can squeeze out, testing and poisoning and overprescribing ... though that's exactly what some medical-industrialists seem to do. No, building up the patient's endogenous resources should be the first step. The PD who wrote the article went to lots of lengths to get women to dump things like BPA and other xenoestrogenic compounds out of our environments. She stresses the problem of estrogen-dominance, without addressing the fact that such a situation means there's something else awry in the body.
How much money is squandered through the emotional appeals of cancer societies and heart associations, and all the other similar social vampires? How many people have died unnecessarily, because the system would rather poison them than advise them to cut out starches and sugars, and eat more lamb?
How might society improve, if EVERYBODY took a vitamin-mineral supplement, as shown to be helpful in that prison study?
Our health-care systems would be a lot less over-burdened if the standard advice were first-things-first and FIRST do no harm, but when society DENIES that sugar is deleterious to health for financial reasons, we start being out-of-step with nature ... and it just goes downhill from there.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
it is as i expected
Bill Lagakos recently tweeted the link to a study which demonstrated that rye flour was less problematic than wheat.
Now, I'm not going to pull a Neolithic and back off my basic philosophy, as so many previous-paleos have done -- I'm still fully convinced that avoiding grains, "industrial seed oils" and non-whole-fruit fructose is worth the effort. But in the world in which we live, if we don't huddle at home all the time, it IS an effort. It becomes indescribably tedious to CONSTANTLY ask what is in that sauce, or if the fish is wild-caught, or are the eggs cooked in real butter....
It's a question of the perfect becoming the enemy of the good ... or at least the tolerable.
Those who really NEED to avoid certain foodstuffs are in a different category, of course. The celiac must ALWAYS avoid gluten. Those whose health demands that they feed their brains or hearts ketones don't have the luxury of being flexible. I'm LUCKY, and I know it. My health issues have more to do with getting enough of certain nutrients and less with banishing even the tiniest quantities of the NADs ... especially since I discovered nicotine gum as a remedy for histamine crises.
Basically-healthy individuals are the bane of the paleo blogosphere -- in general, they assume that if they can tolerate something, then everyone should be able to do the same. THEY'RE WRONG.
Middle-of-the-road people like me, I've learned, can be as bad. Thanks to many bloggers with intractable problems like constant hunger or trigger foods, I've learned how very lucky I AM -- I can have the occasional fried food or dessert in a restaurant SO LONG AS I COMPENSATE. Many people don't have this luxury, and I'm not egotistical enough to claim they could if only they'd ... oh, dose themselves with RS, or get their vitamins, or get fecal therapy, or ... fill in the blank.
Life is a learning experience ... or ought to be.
But back to rye! Its proteins are not as damaging (to me) as those of wheat, but it's still potentially problematic to the sensitive -- Petro tried the WAPF tricks with it, and STILL it isn't tolerable to his family. AND it's still high-carb. This is where the compensation part comes in! IF i'm not actively trying to lose weight (and i'm in holding-pattern mode right now), I can have a supper of Welsh rarebit on my own home-made sourdough 100%-rye bread if I've been so good as to keep the rest of the day's menu VLC.
Yesterday I would have felt REEEEEALLY guilty eating the delightful German lunch I did, had I not been "good" the rest of the day. We drove down to Hermann MO to enjoy the glorious weather, autumn color, and charming historical sites. Googling "best restaurant in Hermann" presented me with several good choices, but being Monday some of them were closed; the Vintage restaurant at Stone Hill Winery sounded great though, and we LOVE good German food so....
We ate sauerbraten and wuersts and schnitzels and rotkohl ... AND potatoes, and a bit of rye bread for dessert. We accompanied it with part of a bottle of Old Vine Reserve Norton (took the rest home). Having walked quite a bit that morning, I experienced no sense of guilt. Supper was an ounce or two of Kerrygold's delicious cheddar with another glass of the wine (breakfast had been a LC omelette).
I wouldn't do this EVERY day, but occasionally I enjoy it immensely. As I tell friends and family, if I eat exemplarily paleo-LC most of the time, I can have a self-indulgent blowout from time to time without feeling like a failure.
Now, I'm not going to pull a Neolithic and back off my basic philosophy, as so many previous-paleos have done -- I'm still fully convinced that avoiding grains, "industrial seed oils" and non-whole-fruit fructose is worth the effort. But in the world in which we live, if we don't huddle at home all the time, it IS an effort. It becomes indescribably tedious to CONSTANTLY ask what is in that sauce, or if the fish is wild-caught, or are the eggs cooked in real butter....
It's a question of the perfect becoming the enemy of the good ... or at least the tolerable.
Those who really NEED to avoid certain foodstuffs are in a different category, of course. The celiac must ALWAYS avoid gluten. Those whose health demands that they feed their brains or hearts ketones don't have the luxury of being flexible. I'm LUCKY, and I know it. My health issues have more to do with getting enough of certain nutrients and less with banishing even the tiniest quantities of the NADs ... especially since I discovered nicotine gum as a remedy for histamine crises.
Basically-healthy individuals are the bane of the paleo blogosphere -- in general, they assume that if they can tolerate something, then everyone should be able to do the same. THEY'RE WRONG.
Middle-of-the-road people like me, I've learned, can be as bad. Thanks to many bloggers with intractable problems like constant hunger or trigger foods, I've learned how very lucky I AM -- I can have the occasional fried food or dessert in a restaurant SO LONG AS I COMPENSATE. Many people don't have this luxury, and I'm not egotistical enough to claim they could if only they'd ... oh, dose themselves with RS, or get their vitamins, or get fecal therapy, or ... fill in the blank.
Life is a learning experience ... or ought to be.
But back to rye! Its proteins are not as damaging (to me) as those of wheat, but it's still potentially problematic to the sensitive -- Petro tried the WAPF tricks with it, and STILL it isn't tolerable to his family. AND it's still high-carb. This is where the compensation part comes in! IF i'm not actively trying to lose weight (and i'm in holding-pattern mode right now), I can have a supper of Welsh rarebit on my own home-made sourdough 100%-rye bread if I've been so good as to keep the rest of the day's menu VLC.
Yesterday I would have felt REEEEEALLY guilty eating the delightful German lunch I did, had I not been "good" the rest of the day. We drove down to Hermann MO to enjoy the glorious weather, autumn color, and charming historical sites. Googling "best restaurant in Hermann" presented me with several good choices, but being Monday some of them were closed; the Vintage restaurant at Stone Hill Winery sounded great though, and we LOVE good German food so....
We ate sauerbraten and wuersts and schnitzels and rotkohl ... AND potatoes, and a bit of rye bread for dessert. We accompanied it with part of a bottle of Old Vine Reserve Norton (took the rest home). Having walked quite a bit that morning, I experienced no sense of guilt. Supper was an ounce or two of Kerrygold's delicious cheddar with another glass of the wine (breakfast had been a LC omelette).
I wouldn't do this EVERY day, but occasionally I enjoy it immensely. As I tell friends and family, if I eat exemplarily paleo-LC most of the time, I can have a self-indulgent blowout from time to time without feeling like a failure.
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