Blood Sugar

I bought a blood sugar tester the other day so that I can check my glucose levels. I have to say I'm pretty surprised at the results I've gotten. Certain foods that I wouldn't think would raise my glucose levels that much have raised them significantly if I binge on them. I guess that's a lesson not to binge on even low glycemic foods as they can cause a large insulin spike if eaten in large quantities. My fasting morning levels are usually in the 90's but hope to change that. I'm aiming for the 70's but I don't think it really matters that much as long as my insulin levels are low. I have no idea what my insulin levels are but I'll find out as soon as I get some bloodwork done.

Falling Off the Wagon

I'm going to decrease my fat intake a bit and up the amount of carbs I'm getting from fruit. I didn't realize how stressful it is for your brain to run on purely ketones. I haven't been following my diet for the past few days. I just kind of broke after I had some sushi with rice and a beer. My glucose starved brain just forgot how wonderful it was to be run on carbohydrates so I just caved. My willpower was gone and I stuffed my self with beer, cookies, and potato chips.

Art Devany doesn't recommend a very high fat diet for reasons I don't want to explain (I would post the link but it's a paid site and you have to be a member). But basically, living purely off of fat and protein isn't good for the long term. You have to cycle cycle in carbohydrates so you don't lose all semblance of control.

So, yeah. Time for more carbs in my severely restricted diet.

Is Fasting Good For You?

I used to do the whole bodybuilder thing of eating frequent meals throughout the day so that I would stay in an anabolic state. I wanted to build muscle and it seemed like the logical thing to do. I think the bodybuilding approach is a sure fire way to build muscle fast but it's definitely not right if you're prone to gaining fat. If you're a former fat boy like me, you probably have very greedy fat cells and all that food that enters your body will be stored straight to them. Occasional fasting is good for increasing your insulin sensitivity in your muscles so that you will gain muscle easier. I'm not sure what it does to your fat cells but you certainly do burn quite a bit of fat with occasional fasting.

Bodybuilders fear that they will go catabolic (a state where you're body breaks down cells in your body for energy) if they miss a meal or two. There's really no need to fear a large decrease in muscle mass if you make intermittent fasting a regular part of your life. There's really not that much decrease of real muscle mass. Your muscles may deflate a bit due to the loss of glycogen stores (glycogen is stored with water which make your muscles swell) but your body will not give up that muscle easy if you regularly do some kind of strength training. Plus fasting releases growth hormone which promotes fat loss and muscle growth.

If you're doing the whole bodybuilder thing and you gain fat easily, you may want to think about skipping a meal once in a while. It won't kill you.

Brain Fog

I can't ignore this issue because it's so common when you come from a diet of pizza and beer to a strict paleo-type diet. Brain fog happens when your blood sugar is low. Your brain prefers running on glucose. When you don't supply your brain with glucose from dietary sources, it will use the glucose that is stored in your liver and muscle cells. However, once those stores run out, your body starts to produce ketones from your fat cells. It takes quite a long time (at least for me it does) to get used to a brain running on ketones. You'll notice your ability to concentrate fall dramatically. This isn't really a bad thing. Your body just needs a couple of weeks to adjust to the sudden disappearance of potato chips and milk shakes. Once your insulin levels are not chronically high and come to a natural level, the brain fog disappears. If you really have to, just have a piece of chocolate or fruit. This should give you a little energy boost. In the long run, a paleo-type type will keep your blood sugar far more stable than a high carb diet because there are no insulin spikes.

Fat Head

I just saw Tim Naughton's movie, Fat Head, and I have to say I'm pretty pleased with it. It's just a great movie that cuts through all the lies that you were fed by "nutritional experts. The thing that resonated with me the most was when Naughton tells the audience of his experience with eating a very low fat diet and his corresponding depression. When I started a very low fat diet, as recommended by my high school health class in sophomore year, I became severely depressed by my senior year. I wish somebody told me that fat in the diet was essential to emotional well being. I would have been a lot happier in my later teen years. Who knows what kind of damage I could have done to my developing nervous system.

You can watch the movie for free on Hulu

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Sprint Your Way to a Lean Body

If you're really serious about losing that extra layer of fat you should consider doing a little sprinting. Do not jog. For the love of God do not jog. Jogging, or doing any low-level cardio activity, is rather counterproductive for fat loss. Jogging does technically burn more fat during the exercise than does sprinting but in the long run sprinting kicks jogging's ass by a long shot.

Here's why.

Jogging only activates your type 1 muscle fibers. These are your endurance muscles. They are the muscles you use while you walk or jog at a slow pace. They have very limited potential for growth and do not burn a lot of energy while at rest. In other words, they don't get very big and they don't burn fat while you're sitting on your lazy ass. Once you get of the treadmill, you're done burning fat.

Sprinting activates your type 2 muscle fibers. These are your badass, lift a heavy car, dunk a basketball, punch someone in the face muscle fibers. They are the muscle fibers you use when you do any strenuous activity. Unlike type 1 fibers, they do burn a lot of energy. Even when you're watching TV. After your done with your sprinting workout, you're metabolism is kicked into overdrive for 24-48 hours. This is because your body is adapting by replacing damaged muscle cells.

Jogging does nothing like this. In fact you actually lose muscle mass while jogging. Just think of the emaciated look of a long distance runner and the lean muscular body of a sprinter like Usain Bolt. They are miles apart in terms of body composition. Really, who would you rather look like?

Sprinting gives a bigger bang for your buck. When you workout, think intensity not endurance.

"The Top Ten Worst Nutritional and Dietary Mistakes People Make"

This is one of the best nutrition articles I have ever encountered. I haven't heard about Nora Gedgaudas until today but I am buying her book as soon as I can. Here is a link to an interview with her. Interesting stuff. I especially like her warning not to trust doctors when it comes to nutrition. I doubt myself sometimes when I hear what a doctor tells me to do. His advice is always so antithetical to what I actually believe about nutrition. Of course, he is way smarter than me and clearly understands the human body better than I do, but reason and experience tell me that his nutritional advice is worth almost nothing. Last time I had a checkup, probably three years ago, he was absolutely amazed at my HDL/LDL ratio. It was the best he had ever seen. He told me to keep doing whatever it is I was doing because it's working very well. Funny, because when I told him the diet I was eating he told me I wasn't getting enough carbohydrates. Sigh.

Anyway, here is the article:

10) Relying on superficial descriptions such as “natural” or even “organic” on labels to determine whether a food is truly healthy.

Here’s where the Food Industry gets you. They hone in on buzzwords they think will sell their product. Terms like “natural” or “organic” are useless if the product in question is loaded with sugar (organic or not) or if the product contains highly processed ingredients and /or additives. Furthermore, labeling laws designed to supposedly “protect the consumer” are dubious, at best. Learn to read the fine print in the actual nutritional analysis on the back and come to understand the ingredient lists. A good rule of thumb where packaged food is concerned is to follow the edicts of ‘The X-Files’ and “Trust No One”. If it wouldn’t look like food to someone wandering around 40,000 years ago with a loin cloth and a spear, it probably isn’t food for you, either!


9) Relying on the media, your doctor or even conventional nutritionists/dieticians to provide accurate nutritional information

Keep in mind that most "mainstream" information sources have an inherent agenda (hidden or not so hidden in them). Anyone providing "education" regarding what it is you need to be healthy who comes from a mainstream perspective will either directly or indirectly be furthering the financial interests of various multinational corporations, mainstream medicine and/or pharmaceutical companies. This is not paranoia or cynicism...it is reality.

–And there is considerable reason to be cautious.

Medical doctors—although often well-meaning-- may be the singularly least qualified persons to offer nutritional recommendations. Their education in nutrition is almost non-existent and carefully cultivated by medical schools entirely toward promotion of pharmaceutical interests. Keep in mind that somewhere around World War II medicine ceased to become a profession and became a full-blown industry. One really does not go to medical school to study health; but rather, one goes to medical school to study disease…and the treatment of the symptoms of disease by the use of drugs, surgery and (often expensive) medical intervention. Medical schools are essentially funded by pharmaceutical interests. --Not that doctors are ill-intentioned in the least, but hospitals are profit-oriented institutions…and the advice you get there may not be in your own best interest so much as the interest of the hospital or clinic (this observation was actually imparted to me in confidence by the head of a department at a major medical university). The same may unfortunately be said for many “natural health care providers” that are often as beholding to the interests of neutraceutical companies as allopathic physicians are beholding to drug companies. I do not suggest people ignore the advice of their healthcare providers, only that people be cautious, do their homework and/or seek second (if not multiple) opinions wherever possible. No one will ever care more about your health and your own best interests than you.

Conventional nutritionists and dieticians (the very people that design hospital food and school lunch programs…take a hint) are bound to the dictates of the unfounded and enormously unscientific USDA Food Pyramid. However well-meaning, these folks have been “indoctrinated” and fully trained by a complex, very corporate-driven system determined to retain considerable political and economic power.
Finally, the media on nearly all fronts are utterly bound by the interests of their advertisers: food, telecommunication and pharmaceutical industries. They literally cannot afford to be objective or tell the “truth” when millions of their advertising dollars are hanging in the balance from fast food, processed food telecommunications and drug companies.

8) Believing that junk food “in moderation” is OK.

This is a biggie. People will rationalize ‘til Sunday why it’s OK for them to eat French fries or potato chips “once in a while” or have their daily beer. While it’s true that it really isn’t what you do “once in a while” that usually determines your ultimate health or success in life (of course, the definition of “once in a while” is another interesting thing to consider) but what you do consistently that matters most…this does have its exceptions.

For instance, the only genuinely safe amount of trans-fats in anyone’s diet is ZERO. A single serving of trans-fat in French fries or chips may take up to two years for one’s body to fully eliminate, and its biological effects on your system in the meantime are chaotic and anyone’s guess as to how deleterious they are likely to be. Is “occasional” Russian roulette an “OK” thing? MSG is an excitotoxin and always does some degree of neurological damage. Is neurological damage “in moderation” OK? Furthermore, sugar consumption in any quantity is damaging and dysregulating to the system. Some of the effects are reversible and some not. Ultimately, it is the cumulative effect associated with glycation and insulin production that determine our health and life span. We live in a world where we can ill-afford any compromise to our health or well-being. Every meal matters. Is “a little hormonal chaos” or “just a tad” of systemic damage acceptable?

In the end, it’s all a matter of what you prioritize. If health really matters to you, then the less you compromise it, the better. If superficial indulgence matters more…then I doubt you would be reading this. It’s a choice we make. We need to make our choices more consciously and thoughtfully--and less impulsively. Furthermore, the less you compromise your health, the easier it becomes not to compromise (you just don’t get tempted after a while) AND the least likely you are to backslide and fall back into less healthy patterns of eating. --Like the Nike ad says: “Just Do It”. Stick to your guns. Maintain your “health integrity”. The ongoing and positively cumulative payoff will well exceed any superficial compromise to your impulsive desires. Your quality of life will not suffer in the absence of French fries, candy, potato chips, dessert or doughnuts. If you think it will, then you may need to take a look at what may be either addictions or a lack of healthy priorities.

7) Following “government guidelines” or “The Food Pyramid” for healthy eating.

Anyone who wants to see for themselves what “government guidelines” and The Food Pyramid can do for their health only needs to drive to the nearest Native American Reservation and look around. The government supplies these reservations with much of their food, based on these guidelines. Take a look at the tragically pervasive rate of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, alcoholism and any other degenerative illness you can think of. Look at life expectancy. Consider also what now constitutes “food” in government guideline-designed school lunch programs. After all…everyone knows that “ketchup is a vegetable”…

6) Thinking that “being slim” means you are healthy---using weight as your litmus of “good health”.

Although it’s always better not to be overweight, looking good on the outside in no way means everything is working right on the inside. It is entirely possible to be slim…AND diabetic. It is entirely possible to be slim and suffer a heart attack or stroke. It is entirely possible to be slim and get cancer…or just about any other disease. Superficial image isn’t everything. –It’s not even close. This is a major...and often disastrous cultural illusion. Diet programs designed to help you lose weight are typically focused on “low calories” to the exclusion of quality health or nutrition. They typically supply their desperate victims with empty processed foods and coddle them with empty “low-cal” and “low fat” carbohydrates and sugary treats to seduce them into their programs (“look---I can EVEN eat chocolate cake and STILL lose weight!”). Those that market these programs, often supported and or designed by registered dieticians, should be ashamed of themselves.

5) Using vitamins to “make up for” unhealthy eating habits.

Keep in mind that vitamin companies are profit-oriented institutions, also. Many would like you to believe that you can make up for eating crap by just taking your daily “One A Day”. There is no such thing. “Supplements” are just that: ---Supplements. They can be an incredibly useful adjunct to an already healthy diet…but never E-V-E-R a substitute.

4) Believing that exercise can “make up for” unhealthy eating habits.

I could go on with this one for hours. It’s an extremely common misconception and one that allows far too many people to rationalize extremely unhealthy dietary habits. Exercise does not determine your biochemistry—diet does. It’s true that exercise (properly done) has many important health benefits. It can help improve, for instance, insulin sensitivity. This will not, however, somehow magically compensate for eating that stack of pancakes for breakfast. Although it is possible to burn off the sugar (with anaerobic exercise) it is NOT possible to burn off the insulin. Trans-fats, too, will NOT melt away and evaporate on the treadmill or stationary bike at the gym after you ate those French fries for lunch. Exercise is an ADJUNCT to a healthy diet…NOT a substitute.

3) The belief that “genetics is destiny”.

Don’t get me started.

Even by the most conservative geneticists’ standards, we have anywhere from 80% to 97% control over our own genetic expressions. We ALL have dormant genes for all sorts of things, both good and bad. You’re not just fat because your mother and father were fat. –Nor are you destined to have a heart attack just because half the people in your family have had one, or by the same token will you get diabetes, or cancer. Genetics can have some influence, certainly…but genes are turned on and off by regulatory genes and regulatory genes are mainly controlled by nutrients. A gene will not express itself unless the internal environment is conducive to its expression… and we have ultimate control over that by the foods we choose to eat, the emotions we habitually choose to experience, the toxicity of the environment in which we live and the lifestyle we consistently choose to live. Learn to be the master of your own genetic destiny.

2) The belief that eating healthy means having to give up enjoyment of food, good flavor, fat, dietary cholesterol or animal source foods.

All of us, regardless of our ideologies, ethnic backgrounds or anything else are genetically “hunter gatherers” and 99.99% identical to humans living 40,000 to 100,000 years ago. We are, in effect, creatures of the Ice Age and designed to consume a diet rich in animal source foods and natural fats, together with a variety of fibrous plant matter. Vegetarianism and veganism are modern day ideas founded more in ideological principles than principles of human physiology and anthropological evidence.

Animal source foods are only as healthy as their sources, and no one should be eating hormone- and antibiotic-laden, feedlot-fattened, or unethically-treated meat sources. The alternative is not vegetarianism/veganism…the alternative is finding healthy, ethically- or naturally raised sources of these animal source foods that we have consumed and have been physiologically adapted to eating as hominids for the last 2.6 million years. Ethical livestock farmers are out there…and we should all be giving them and NOT the commercial livestock industry our business. Plant foods are wonderful, too, and a source of many antioxidants and phytonutrients needed by us more today than ever before. They are far from the entire picture for health, however.

1) The belief or assumption that eating a quality diet is too expensive…or too difficult or complicated to maintain.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The dietary guidelines suggested in my book: “Primal Body—Primal Mind” can not only save you hundreds of dollars in grocery bills (while still being able to afford very high quality meat, fish, eggs and produce), but one also must take into account money to be saved in avoiding medical bills or loss of work income through illness. We’re talking pennies on the dollar here. By approaching diet from an educated, principle-based (and not “formulaic”) perspective one automatically understands what is needed and also knows better how to navigate the landmines of mis- and dis-information set by corporate economic and/or political interests. It’s all way easier and far cheaper than you think!!

To Cheat or Not to Cheat?

Hamlet probably had an easier decision to make but this is still difficult a choice for a dieter. Let's face it, when you're out with your friends at a restaurant it's almost impossible to order the salmon with a side of broccoli. That pizza everybody is devouring is going to look mighty tempting. You also isolate your self a little bit when your eating habits are so different from everybody else. If you're serious about being healthy you can't let others sabotage your weight loss. Believe me the sabotage will come but you have to be strong.

But we are human and we have to live in the real world. Civilization is going to bombard you with sugary snacks and you have indulge a little bit. The point is to not allow others to influence you. If you're going to cheat, at least choose to do so. Don't let someone else choose for you by making fun of your "weird" diet.

Eating Happy Cows

I'm suffering from a little bit of cognitive dissonance because I eat factory farmed meat. This terrible practice is weighing on my conscience. Clearly, factory farming is wrong but it's almost all that is available as far as meat goes.

Grass-fed meat is available but it's quite expensive and I can't afford until I get a better job. Right now grocery-store meat is all I ever eat (rhyme not intended) and I know for a fact that 99% of that comes from these killing factories. As a conscientious eater I can't ignore that I am fueling the industry by participating in it so I think I'm going to cutback on my meat consumption until I can afford pasture raised grass-fed meat. It's way better for you anyway.

Stop Counting Calories, Dummy!

Open up almost any health magazine and read the tips on losing weight. I bet almost every writer in there subscribes to the idea that as long as you burn off more calories than you take in, you will lose weight. This is only part of the big picture. It's really not very helpful to think this way. If you do, you will end up counting all the calories you consume and burn and wonder why you're not losing that 2 pounds a week your diet journal tells you you should be losing. Who has time to do all the calorie counting nonsense anyway? It's very stressful. The reason it doesn't work is because you're body is far more complex than you can even imagine.

There are roughly 50 trillion cells in the human body. 50 trillion! Millions die every minute only to be replaced by another similar cell. It's just staggering to think about. All of those tiny little cells in your body don't know you and don't give a damn about you. They're all as stupid as can be. Even the one's in your brain are dumb. Despite the stupidity of these cells, as a team, they make one remarkable walking, talking, breathing organism. One that can ride bikes, blog on the internet, and drive a car.

When we think about the body, we don't think of it as a decentralized network of cells all looking out for themselves. We think of our body more as a machine when it is anything but. Just think of the language we use when we talk about it. We call food "fuel" as if it's a gasoline powering an engine somewhere in your body. Your body is not like a car or any other mechanism. It is a complex organism that is the product of millions of years of evolution.

It's helpful to know this if you want to be healthy. After you discard the old machine model of the body you can start to think of it as an organism. You are an organism that needs to eat the right foods and exercise to balance all those hormone swimming inside your bloodstream. That's the key to all of this. It's about the quality of food you take in that will manage your weight not the quantity.

You won't lose weight at the rate you hope to if you merely count calories and don't consider the quality of the food you eat. If you eat 2000 calories worth of Twinkies and Pepsi every day, chances are you will gain weight. But if you eat 2000 calories of lean meats and veggies every day you will most likely lose weight. Same amount of calories, different outcome. Why is this so? It's because the lean meats and veggies won't disrupt the delicate balance of hormones your body as been accustomed to for thousands of years. Twinkies, soda, grains, legume and other foods of large scale agriculture are completely foreign to your ancient body and will raise your insulin to levels that it is not used to. Humans and our predecessors have never been exposed to the absurd amount of carbohydrates that we are just surrounded by.

Will Paleo Ever Go Mainstream?

Probably not. But still...

Nightline on ABC had a segment devoted to the paleo diet. Two of my favorite Paleo spokesmen were on the show: Arthur Devany and Robb Wolf. This may be a sign that the Paleo lifestyle is slowly moving from the fringe of weirdos and closer the center of so called normal people. Don't get me wrong, I think there is a long way to go before the average American views bread as being an unhealthy food, but still, it is growing. Every so often there is some new study or news report extolling the benefits of a high protein diet or weightlifting. A few years ago the results of a study that tracked the changes experienced by women on a low fat diet. The result? There was no significant difference in mortality or health problems compared with the higher fat eating control group. Also, there is more evidence that weightlifting is excellent at the prevention of osteoporosis in women. Maybe people will start eating and moving the way we were designed to rather than waist our time starving ourselves and spending countless hours in the gym doing worthless cardio work.

This is probably wishful thinking. It takes a long time to see the truth when everybody is feeding you lies. It is still assumed that the caricature of paleolithic man as being a hunched over brute that didn't live past thirty is correct. People can't understand the thought that ancient man was much more physically healthy than modern man. Homo erectus, an ancestor to our species, had bigger brains than us! Sure, we live way longer, but that's because we don't get eaten by sabre toothed tigers anymore or die of terrible accidents as often. Infant mortality also skewed the average life expectancy of hunter gatherer times. We do live longer but it is usually a life of chronic illness and malnourishment.

As more scientific evidence that supports the claims of the paleo diet come in, I think we will see more supporters on the mainstream.

Are Carbs the Devil?

You don't need anyone to tell you that there is too much conflicting information about carbohydrates. Carbs have been demonized and extolled by different experts and it's still not very clear to the general public what role carbs should play in their diet. Are carbs good or bad? The simple answer to this is some carbs are good.

Let me explain.

First a little info about macronutrients. You learned about these in high school health class but you probably forgot all about them (okay so you never really paid attention in health class). Carbohydrates are one of the three macronutrients found in food. The other two are fats and proteins. Usually, on the back of processed foods, there is a label with a break down of the amounts of carbs, fats, and proteins. Some foods have more of one macronutrient than the others. Steak, for instance would be mostly protein and fat with no carbohydrates in it at all. Veggies, on the other hand contain mostly carbs with very little fat and protein.

So, why are some carbs bad and some good?

Let's first break down what happens when your body digests carbohydrates. Carbohydrates raise your blood glucose levels which in turn raise your insulin levels. Blood glucose is simply the sugar in your bloodstream. Your muscles and brain use glucose as energy. But too much glucose is toxic to your body. Insulin is released to counteract the high blood sugar. It causes your body to store that excess glucose into your muscles and liver in the form of glycogen to be used later. When your muscle and liver stores are full, your body will then convert that glucose into fat to be stored in your fat cells. Without insulin, your body's cells would be swimming in glucose which is poisonous in high amounts. That is why it is so urgent that type 1 diabetics take insulin along with their meals. Type 1 diabetics cannot produce insulin on their own so they need to inject it from an external source.

If you followed that last paragraph, you understand that carbohydrates raise blood sugar, which raises insulin, which raises fat stores. The less carbohydrates you eat, the less fat you gain. It is best to limit the amount of carbohydrates you eat to very low levels if you want to lose body fat. But this is not enough because all carbs are not created equal. Some sources are better than others.

The best types of carbohydrates to eat are those from vegetables: romaine lettuce, carrots, beets, tomatoes, kale, spinach, etc. That is because vegetables contain a lot of fiber slows the digestion process so that your blood sugar doesn't spike. Blood sugar spikes are bad because they are followed by an insulin spike which severely drops your blood sugar and makes you hungry all over again. The fiber makes it so that your blood sugar slowly goes up and remains relatively stable.

The next best carbohydrates are from fruits. Don't eat too many fruits those because they contain more simple sugars than veggies. Simple carbs more easily spike your blood sugar because they are digested more rapidly. Eating too many fruits in one sitting shouldn't be a problem for most people. Have you ever tried to gorge on fruits? It's pretty hard. After the first three apples your done eating. Personally, I don't like to eat a lot of fruit, but when I do I like to eat a few berries with my breakfast of steak and eggs.

The absolute worst carbohydrates are those from grains and sugars. Yes, that's right. Grains. Yeah, I said it. I want to repeat this a few times so it sticks. Grains are not healthy! Grains are not healthy! Grains are not healthy! Whew. Nice to get that out. I know this is treading on sacred ground for some people (especially vegetarians and especially vegans) but if you follow the paleo logic you would know why this is so. There are a whole myriad of reasons why grains are bad but let's stick with the blood sugar part. Your body digests the carbohydrates very rapidly, just like it does with the carbohydrates in Skittles. Got that? For example, you eat a loaf of bread, your blood sugar will soar just like it does with any candy you pick up from the drug store. Try and think of bread and other grain products as sugar. The two slices of bread between your sandwich are like two slices of sugar. The bowl of cereal your eating is like a bowl of sugar. Don't punish your body by eating this crap.

Don't be to confused about it all. Just keep it simple by adhering to a few simple rules. Eat mostly veggies, a few fruits, and little to no grains and sugars. Carbohydrates aren't all bad, it just depends on the quantity and quality of the ones you eat.