Meat and Veggies on 100 dollars a Month

It's cheep food time!  Once again, a food challenge, same rules as last time, only it's not really paleo, since the current version of paleo is still in a complete cesspool, full of KKK wizards, drunken misogynists, internet stalkers, dens of vipers, on and on althewhile while people trying to make money on tin-foil hat sales wring their hands as they hopelessly watch their whole market base go down in flames......

What's next?  No, not paleo on Dr. Oz.  Another great food challenge to cheer us all up.

I am armed with a camera this time, and a freezer full of free ham fat.  Watch out world!

Paleo has been weird, but the rest of the world has been kind and generous.  Still, this challenge won't be a cinch, especially since food prices are higher than last year.  So, if there is to be any cheese-cutting around here in April, it will be because of the bumper crop of Jerusalem artichokes, not because I can afford an actual wheel of cheese.

This year will feature more food gifts and less home-grown produce, due to crop failure, laziness, and the general time of the year.  It will be too late for lettuce and too early for tomatoes.   The good news is that this has been a wonderful year for all types of citrus.  Yay!!!  No Scurvy.

A Trip down Memory Lane

I love to troll the free bin at the library.  Lots of good, really old stuff to be discovered, or re-discovered.  A certain person has been decluttering their library of all diet and recipe books, and several low carb favorites or classics have shown up.

A recent find is "The Steak Lovers' Diet" by Melvin Anchell, MD. 

The foreword by Dr. William Campbell Douglass is worth a read.  He is sort of an obscure alternative medicine author, and despite the foreword having been printed in 1998, it contains lots of information that has been popularized by paleo authors over just the past few years.  You know, stuff like Weston Price and how we don't need all that Vitamin C and how vegetarians are wrong and there's just too many of them, and how the American Heart Association sucks.

I checked out another of Douglass' books, "Into the Light", and it is a fascinating read, if not a bit out of date.  Some of the chapters read just like you might have found them in Jack Kruse's blog.  All that quantum stuff, and light.  Maybe that is where he got his stuff.   It is too bad that the dominante alternative medicine folks didn't feature him more, perhaps because he wasn't a vegetarian by any stretch of the imagination.

Anyway, where was I?  Oh, the Steak book.  This diet is apparently a rehash of the Pennington diet.  You know, THAT Pennington who has a research center full of obesity researchers that we all love to make fun of.  The original Pennington diet was rather low carb compared to today's standards.  Apparently, Pennington didn't think people needed to eat lots of carbs for their brain.  His patients lost weight on the diet by starting a meal of all types of meat, cooked in all sorts of ways (except breaded and stuffed) and afterwards, they could have one serving of a "second course".

The second course could be:  white potatoes, sweet potatoes, grapes, watermelon, rice, grapefruit, banana, pear, raspberries or blueberries.

That's pretty much it.  Coffee, and a bit of lemon is OK, NO artificial sweeteners.  Notice that there is NO bread.

The original tater tots over there at DuPont lost a bunch of weight on this.  Of course, they were execs, so they were all men.  But, I am sure that "their women" as some paleo-writers like to phrase it, followed the diet, as they were frying, broiling and braising all the big game the men dragged home from their long day at the chemical plant, and probably got a bit envious of both the weight loss and the yummy food.

It is interesting to take a look at the carbs.  They are mostly foods that contain quite a bit of glucose and little fructose.  These are pretty much the foods that Dr. Rosedale says NOT to eat, presumably because of the high glucose content.  This diet would probably send the majority of the woo-fueled-jihaddists into a tailspin.

Dr. Anchell has an interesting section on the recommendations of the Drs. Wortman, and their financial involvement in a recalled weight loss drug that might have colored their approach to weight loss recommendations.  Never heard about that before.

The Guru Speaks

How long have we been waiting for a new dawn?

Robb Wolf earned his way back to my blog list.  Nuff said.

Things aren't what they seem even more than ever

My diet is dwindling down to fewer and fewer food groups, and moving into dangerous territory.  And I was thinking that it would really dwindle down to only kale, except the bagrada bug has also taken care of kale.  And, it is a good thing that Dr. Kruse just discovered that we can get all the electrons we need from the ground, instead of trying to get them from all this adulterated food.

First it was the genetically modified salmon, but now milk?  I was mostly on the primal side of paleo, but now will I have to go full-blown paleo?

I had planned another milk post even before this new plan came out this week.  It seems like People In Charge want to change our milk again, this time by adding artificial chemicals that cause neurological disruption (OK, at least in me.)  I don't think this is a good idea for this adulateration information not to be included prominently on the label.

This week, I visited that local store that says everything is 99 cents but that they really sell for a dollar.  I grabbed a container of whipping cream.  How bad can budget cream be?  Well, I was shocked that cream now contains milk.  I was somewhat prepared for the variety of gums and thickeners that are added to cream, but this addition of milk to cream and still calling it cream really stumped me.

...Like the label on one bottle of a dairy-type item  "Fat-free half and half".  And I don't know, maybe it the weird math-geek in me, but I am thinking that if it has no fat, how can it be half and half?  To me, half and half means 50/50, not 100/0 with additives.  If someone wanted to sell something with 100/0, then they couldn't call it something that implies some sort of 50/50.

Anyway, where was I?  Oh yeah, aspartame.  Years ago, I actually had something in common with our Dear Dr. Emily.  I had a diet coke habit.  I enjoyed a diet coke mid-morning, and mid-afternoon, until the coke machine at work turned out such bad-tasting water that I couldn't drink it anymore.  Then I started bringing my own cans to work.  This opened up an opportunity to experience a wide variety of diet Coke flavors.

After about a decade of this, I realized that aspartame consumed regularly wasn't doing me any good.  I thought it was the caffeine, but then realized I didn't get those effects from drinking gobs of caffeine-laden real coffee.  I got unnecessarily jittery, and less clear-headed than before, and a bit anxious.  After awhile, after reading so much negative press about aspartame, I switched from Diet Coke to regular Coke, but had only one "serving" a day.  I figured that sugar wasn't be best for me, but better than aspartame.

When I switched from aspartame to HFCS, I did gain weight.  Since then, of course, I have given up all pre-packaged soft drinks.  Every once in awhile I'll buy a bottle of sparkling mineral water and add in some home-made syrup.  I especially like chocolate-mint soda, but I have to be careful with it because it does contain too much sugar.

Now that I am not eating any adulterated unlabeled food anymore, I guess it is time to go to the beach and dig my feet into the sand and suck up all the electrons.  Mmmmmm!  Tasty!  I love being a groundaterian.

I'm going to clue you-all in as to why I think dieting makes people crazy.  Here's what is totally STUPID about the state of diet recommendations and our ability to follow them.  Practically every "diet" food being sold on the market has added aspartame.  Recently I visited a chain grocery store right in Dr. Mary Dan Eades backyard.  I was shocked that there was a whole aisle of yogurts and yogurt-like products, and I could not find ONE SINGLE FULL-FAT variety of yogurt!   Everything was low fat, and most contained aspartame.

Am I the only one thinking it is really funny that the People In Charge remove that nasty butterfat from the cow and treat it as toxic waste, and then add a real toxic unnatural additive to what is left and call that milk?  Not funny-ha-ha, funny-this-is-weird.

This Here Post is For My Friends

I have some really great friends who are locked in the stranglehold of current cardiology-thinking.  They have been watching their food intake, especially things like sugar and junque food.  They have tried to up their exercise in between injuries.  Their cholesterol numbers have gone down for a time, then inched up, prompting their doctors to threaten statins if some body doesn't do something.

Here's a nice blogpost from the past by Peter.  It shows lots of charts and graphs of data with a different light shined.  They show the relationship between blood cholesterol levels and cardiac events.  Not a very convincing relationship, is it?

If you aren't into charts and graphs, go to the bottom of the blog post and see the graph of cardiac events and HbA1c.  Wow, not good.  It shows that the relative risk of cardiac events go way up as the HbA1c is higher.

HbA1c is a measure of how much damage blood sugar has done.  Blood sugar goes up when people eat lots of simple carbs.  In normal people, when blood sugar goes up, insulin is released to clear all the sugar out.  These people can keep their blood sugar levels lower by eating low-glycemic carbs.

As things progress, people may develop pre-diabetes or full-blown type 2 diabetes.  At this stage, many can be helped by going on a low carb diet, but sometimes that still doesn't fix everything.  It is surely better than feasting on chips, candy and soda on a regular basis.

I have another friend on metformin and a statin, but while the statin has lowered her cholesterol levels, she is tired and achey, and seems to be suffering from the side effects of the statin drug.  She wants to stop the statin, but her doctor has insisted she continue.  She asked me what she should do, and I gave her the name of another doctor.

I have another friend who is being badgered by her doctor because her total cholesterol is around 240.  This is AFTER SHE WAS DOING ALL THE RIGHT THINGS!!!!!  Unfortunately, I don't know of another doctor in her area, but I would suggest in the meantime that she quit beating herself up over the occasional barbeque dinner and focus more on keeping candy and sugary drinks out of the house.

Anyway, friends, thanks for reading.

My Year on the Leptin Reset

It has been a year since I did my second version of Jack Kruse's leptin reset.

This week, I found and read through a little notebook with notes on the reset.  At the time, I had planned several trips out of town, and so I wanted a compact format.  This was also at the time when I started having lots of trouble with those [redacted]people, so I was reluctant to rely upon either them or any other computerized tracking system.  After my trips, I abandoned the little notebook, so it was fun reading through it again.

I had started the leptin reset in the summer of 2011 when my lowish carb diet wasn't working well.  In May, I started a couple of days of strict low carb, and then Drs. Eades free Metabosol came in the mail.  I did the Metabosol throughout the first weeks in June, but after a few pizza meals, I was back to where I started, even up a couple of pounds, so I decided to abandon that plan and start the leptin reset in earnest in July.

By the beginning of that August, I had lost around 5 pounds on the leptin reset, was feeling much better and controlling carb cravings like never before.  But, the success was short-lived, and I resumed my difficulty with carbs and gained all the weight and then some by fall.

In January 2012, I did the leptin reset again, this time for about 6 weeks before starting back in with the exercise.  I lost more weight this time, and a total of around 15 pounds by the end of the "Paleo on 100 dollars a month challenge" in March.  By this time, I had also started CT.

Throughout the summer, I added in a few more carbs, and quit monitoring my food and weight so regularly.  The result was that I gained back the weight.  By the beginning of 2013 I was exactly the same weight as I was the year before, but with some differences.

No chronic cardio, no regular strength training.  I just live my regular active life, go on hikes here and there, and stretch if I feel un-stretchy.

Work like crazy to get wheat out of my diet.  I realize now how delicate my improvements are, and how easy it is to get completely out of balance.

Eliminated the need for sleep medication.  I started using progesterone, which has helped in so many ways.  Even though it has contributed to my weight gain, it has made me much more accommodating to all types of stresses, like from heat and exercise.  I also respond to carbohydrates differently, which can be alternatively a good thing and a dangerous thing.  I think I am much more careful with carbohydrates while on progesterone because, while I can take a few more hits, when things go south, they go south much more rapidly.

Better body proportions.  I weigh more but my clothing fits differently.  People say I look better, younger and my skin is much better.

CT around once or twice a week.  This usually involves going to the beach at least once a week and getting in the water for quite a long time, taking mostly cold showers and being in cold air some part of the day except for in the summer.

Moving back more towards a macrobiotic-but-grain-free diet consisting of more seafood, sea vegetables and seasonal food.  I was never on strict epi-paleo.  My carb and vegetable consumption is much higher.  Not as high as what Dr. Wahls recommends, but much higher than what Jack recommends.

Lab-free.  I haven't been sick, haven't been to the doctor for awhile, and I don't even know what my cholesterol levels are.  I have my blood pressure measured when I give blood, and it is at high-school level (110/70).

I know how to get back on track.  When the diet is hard to follow and I am craving carbs, I know I have moved from fat-burning territory back into carb-burning.  The best way I have found to get back is to use Metabosol for a few days and also some CT.

Here are the conclusions I have made about the leptin reset:

1.  The results are not permanent.  I need to continue to be vigilant about diet.  ANY higher-carb diet that I eat to satiety results in weight gain.

2.  CT does not work for weight loss.

In the coming months, I'll be eating a basic whole foods low carb diet, with seasonal fruits and vegetables. I plan on a lifestyle of "deep seasonality".  During the past months, while reading up on macrobiotics in prep for some blog posts, I really did see how much many similarities between where paleo is going and where macrobiotics already is.

During the past few weeks, I have also noticed that in the vegan, low carb, and Kruse-world communities, despite the advances in diet choices, lots of people are still mean and nasty.  I found the Optimal Health Cave, but I immediately started having problems with some very difficult people on both sides of the current argument over the validity of some of Jack's EMF theories.  So, I am trying to pull myself out of all that muck while I unfriend or "foe" certain people, and try my best not to be that way myself.

While I am not following the Leptin Reset to the letter anymore, I do think that while Dr. Kruse's understanding of physics and electronics seems atrocious, I think there is really something to the idea that EMF is polluting.  I will continue my research and experimentation on this subject, but mostly off-line.  I really agree with Jack, that there were some "askholes" on his site, and I am just not going to deal with their crap, so the best way to do that is to keep in touch with my IRL friends who know quite a bit about grounding and faraday cages.  But, I was extremely disappointed in Jack's responses to many other participants, who had deep and real questions and concerns that I think need to be dealt with.  Jack needs to understand that if his theories are so mind-blowing, groundbreaking, and life-changing, then why is he still a Jackhole?  Slamming people on minor technicalities alternating with the posting of pithy motivational phrases lifted from others indicates he still has some balance work to do.  It is true, people who insist that they have all the answers to the universe are held to a higher standard of behavior.

Recently, dealing with some of these people was like dealing with some of the Paleo/lc debates.  I am not into debate, I am into inquiry, discussion and exploration, and finding things that work.  Sooner or later, any fine discussion gets taken over by the high school debate teams, full of those pimply-faced nerds who couldn't even get on the "C" basketball team, which muck it up for every true seeker.  I think nothing is ever settled by debate, only things torn down.

That means I'll be reconnecting with that neighborhood nerdy kid who became an astrophysicist, that radio guy who builds faraday cages as a hobby, and others who effing love science.