My renewed interest in caloric consumption started with my review of my first year on the all carnivorous diet. I gained about ~15 lbs, by not counting calories and stuffing myself at each meal (when I started, I ate 2-3 meals). It's unclear to me whether this weight was put on because I was eating too much protein, too much fat, too much food (too many calories) or or even too many meals (fasting has a fat burning hormonal effect).

There are so many different schools of thought on caloric consumption (sometimes called "volume", other times called "too much fat") that entertaining the idea enters the mind into a world of cerebral gymnastics. Now, I want to be very clear that I believe that hormones are driving fat accumulation, not the quantity of calories, but the question I'm interested in is:

When insulin levels are low, what is responsible if fat is still not being mobilized?

Who is to blame here? Is it volume (calories), meal timing, or a macro nutrient? And if it's a macro nutrient, which one?

We learned from GCBC that whatever makes you fat also makes you sick. This conversation is extremely relevant to obtaining optimal health. Here are some accepted theories as well as points of contention when it comes to what the body does with specific macro nutrients.

• Carbohydrates are converted into glucose and raise blood sugar potentiating the release of  insulin.
• Protein is converted into amino acids. When there is a long term deficit of glucose, gluconeogenesis is initiated, which is the manufacturing of glucose from amino acids. Short term deficits of glucose are covered by dipping into your bodies store of glycogen (stored glucose) in your liver, not by breaking down proteins. (thanks to Dr. Kurt Harris of The PaNu Weblog - read the comments for more info). The second school of thought on the protein to glucose issue is brought to us by my good friend Lex Rooker. Evidenced by his meticulous BG tracking in his wildly popular journal, Lex's data showed a different story on the conversion of protein to glucose. Lex's self experimentation indicated that glucose rises higher after eating a meal containing more protein than when eating a meal containing less protein. This rise in BG happens even when blood glucose before the meal is already at 100 mg/dl. This would suggest that at least some protein is converted to glucose independent of blood glucose levels, glycogen stores, or a "metabolic emergency". For all the details, make sure to stop by the raw paleo forum and give his incredible journal a read.
• Fat does not have a noticeable effect on insulin. Fat can be stored independently of insulin by the enzyme Acylation Stimulating Protein (ASL) - which is influenced by insulin. A very small amount of fat is converted into glucose, but is done so inefficiently by the liver. 

Let's look at some of the greats in the low carb universe and see what they think about calories (and for some, meal timing). I took all of their quotes completely out of context, mostly from message boards, so if they seem a little out of place, they are. I tried my best to represent each all-star's view accordingly. Here they are in no particular order:

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Here is a repost from Charles Washington over at his Zeroing In On Health Blog. Charles has been on a role lately with some really great posts. I have added bolded text to the post to indicate importance.

"The experts all suggest that the obese would ameliorate their problem or even prevent it if they merely exercised, perhaps sixty or ninety minutes per day, as prescribed by the USDA Dietary Guidelines. By this logic, they need to create a negative energy balance by increasing energy expenditure and eating less. This doctrine is re-enforced in public-health messages, popular writing, and even on electronic displays on stair climbers, treadmills and other exercise apparatus that tell us how many calories we allegedly expended in our latest workout.

The belief in physical activity as a method of weight control is relatively new but it has been contradicted long ago by the evidence. In 1932, Russell Wilder of the Mayo Clinic lectured on obesity and reported that his patients lost more weight on bed rest than they did with strenuous physical exercise. In fact he said strenuous physical exercise actually slowed the rate of loss. He said

“the patient reasons quite correctly that the more exercise he takes the more fat should be burned and that loss of weight should be in proportion and he is discouraged to find that the scales reveal no progress.”

Until the 1960s, clinical investigators routinely pointed out that moderate exercise would lead only to insignificant increases in energy expenditure and these could easily be matched by slight and comparatively effortless changes in diet. In 1942, Louis Newburgh of the University of Michigan calculated that a 250-pound man will expend three extra calories climbing a flight of stairs which is equivalent to depriving himself of one-fourth of a teaspoon of sugar or a tenth of an ounce of butter. “He would have to climb twenty flights of stairs to rid himself of the energy contained in one slice of bread.”

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Next on our list of common dietary misconceptions is the belief that a person is unable to receive a satisfactory amount of vitamin C while on a carnivorous diet. The logic behind this false assertion is that while meat contains trace amounts of vitamin C; it comes nowhere near the RDA's recommendation of 60 mg a day.

For the average person, low levels of vitamin C might not seem like a big deal. After all, today we most often equate vitamin C as something to help us combat the sniffles and not much else, but medical history shows that vitamin C deficiency used to be quite deadly. Scurvy (the medical name for vitamin C deficiency) was rampant among sailors and pirates throughout history. As you can see from Ricard Farr's description, scurvy was feared for good reason, as it was a pretty nasty way to go.

"First your gum swell and bleed. Then your skin goes pale and you start to bruise very easily. Your teeth and nails loosen. You are constantly exhausted. Next the stiffness and pain start, often in the back of the legs. Wounds fail to heal. Most disgusting of all, old wounds that you had long forgotten about break open again and give off a dreadful smell as they begin to rot. If you are tough enough to live through this, your teeth and nails actually fall out, along with your hair."

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Updated on Monday, June 29, 2009 at 11:21PM by Danny Roddy

Let's take 5 minutes out of our lives and listen to what an obese cartoon pig on YouTube has to say about nutrition.

I'm done throwing logs on the fire on how much I dislike the vegan way of eating, so I'll disregard the talking pig’s pro-vegan message. Obviously the video was not made by an impartial source. The people at Bizzaro.com have a clear anti-fur, pro-tofu agenda, so it’s understandable they would create a video promoting vegan ideals. What really grinds my gears is that these propaganda-style videos are made to appeal to people who know very little about nutrition, which is fine except for when the information spouted is completely incorrect.

Before I start sounding arrogant (may be too late), I'll do the only thing I know how to do; pick the video apart so we can see how absurd the claims truly are.

The pig states that humans are not evolutionarily designed to eat meat for the following reasons: 1. Our teeth and jaws are rounded and are optimized for vegetation, 2. We fail to posses natural hunting skills (specifically night vision), and 3. Our digestive system lacks enzymes to digest animal products.

The first factoid can be dismissed by a very basic understanding of our dental structure. Human mouths contain incisors, canines and molar teeth in both jaws, as well as ridged molars. The jaw moves up and down like other carnivores, not in a rotary motion like most herbivores. This up and down motion indicates it's objective is to crush and tear. So, the video’s depiction of the caveman biting into a woolly mammoth is probably a little sensationalized to say the least. If you check out Barry Groves comparison betwen carnivores, herbivores and man you will see that we have far more in common with the carnivores than we do the herbivores, especially in regards to the digestive process.

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Thanks to Chris from conditioningresearch.com for the heads up on this video. It's interesting listening to Mary G. Enig and Sally Fallon expand on how "unhealthy" saturated fat went from an idea into conventional wisdom. Definitely worth the watch.

The footage is originally from Tom Naughton's documentary Fat Head, which I don't recommend.

 

Updated on Monday, June 29, 2009 at 11:57AM by Danny Roddy

Updated on Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 12:42AM by Danny Roddy

Updated on Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 1:20AM by Danny Roddy

Updated on Tuesday, August 25, 2009 at 11:48PM by Danny Roddy

In my vegan days I considered myself quite the fiber superstar. While the RDA recommended a poultry 20-25 grams per day, I consumed 40-50 grams a day from veggies and fruits. By mainstream health authority standards I was kicking ass. While I marveled at my accomplishment I couldn't help but feel conflicted. I was secretly constipated and feeling terrible.

Where did I go wrong? Too much fiber? Not enough fat? Both? To understand the gravity of how badly I was screwing up my body, we have to understand what fiber is, why it's not needed, and most importantly; why it can be harmful to ones health.

Fiber is the indigestible roughage of plants and grains. In short humans do not have a digestive enzyme to breakdown fiber, so it collects (ferments) with bacteria in the colon until it's excreted.

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One of the most common things I hear when I talk to someone about carbohydrate restriction is that they have done Atkins, they lost a bunch of weight, but gained it all back after they added carbohydrates back in. There are so many things wrong with this logic that I don't even know where to start, but I digress, because that's not what this post is about.

Let's explore the reasons which make cutting carbohydrates difficult. We'll take a look at the king of hormones, insulin, we'll dive into the world of neurotransmitters and we'll explore a low carb phenomenon called "the induction flew". Finally we'll close with a sermon from Bear about one of the strongest influences; one's own acculturation.

It's interesting to note that out of the three macronutrients (carbohydrates, fat, & protein) few have problems with overindulging in too much fat or protein. This is explained by the fat storage, evolutionary hormone, insulin. Insulin is released by the pancreas whenever you consume carbohydrates. The problem begins when your insulin becomes chronically elevated (too many carbohydrates) which is constantly priming your body to prepare to be fed. This is when hunger becomes insatiable and binge eating usually occurs. Getting ahold of out of control insulin will improve health, keep hunger in check and should be the cornerstone of any way of eating. The carbohydrate level to keep insulin in check is different for everyone (insulin sensitivity) thus dropping to zero carbohydrates is a good square one approach. Check out this post for a short video on the subject.

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Updated on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 12:00AM by Danny Roddy

Updated on Sunday, December 20, 2009 at 2:38PM by Danny Roddy

Where is the evidence that a healthy diets must contain fruit and vegetables? Is there a scrap of data out there that suggests that something deleterious will happen if you do not consume these foods? Lets take a look at the data from past and present, not listen to the experts, and we can decide for ourselves.

In 1928 Vilhjalmur Stefansson, author of Not By Bread Alone, convinced the "The American Meat Institute" to fund a year-long all meat study supervised by a panel of prestigious doctors. When Stefanson and his partner, Karsten, embarked on the all meat diet, they were closely monitored while they stayed at Bellevue hospital located in New York. 

Charles Washington explains in his Zeroing In On Health Blog the details of the all meat trial:

"During the first three weeks, they ate a mixed diet with fruits, cereals, bacon and eggs, vegetables, etc. They were examined by a group of specialists.  The most tedious part was the calorimeter studies. They would get in these big, wooden, coffin-like structures and they had to lay in there for three hours. They couldn’t read and had to be nearly motionless while a group of scientists peered at them and took measurements. They couldn’t even think about anything particularly stressful or pleasant. 

When they were on the mixed diet, they could come and go as they pleased. Afterwards, they were on the meat and then they were put under lock and key and the scrutiny began. They could not be out of sight of at least a doctor or nurse. This was mostly to calm the skeptics who included the European authority, Dr. Hindhede, who predicted that they could not last longer than 5 days on meat. He tried it on some of his patients and they broke down in 3 days. The good doctor figured it to be physiological even though Stefansson believed it to be psychological.  Dr. Francis Benedict, who performed the landmark study on fasting in 1915, was also present with his prediction that they would only last 3 weeks. This is surprising because he examined people who ate nothing. He should have been particularly interested in how these results compared to what he measured just 13 years earlier. Benedict believed that perhaps Stefansson and his men were lying about their experiences of being in good health on an exclusive meat regimen because this clearly ran counter to his experience."

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