Alright, I just couldn’t resist. While I no longer catch a lot of heat for my potato eating ways, there are still a few of the low carb Paleo zealots around. I have in the past reported on my lipid panels, back in 2008 and then again in early 2009, almost two years ago.
Despite the fact that I don’t really see cholesterol as any sort of problem to be managed (manage your diet, i.e., eat Real Food, and let the numbers take care of themselves) it is, at least, some measure of confidence that something’s amiss in conventional “wisdom,” since I ought to have “awful numbers,” given the high amount of fat and saturated fat I ingest, albeit mostly all from Real Food sources.
So here’s the latest results:
Lipid Panel 1-11-2011
Of course, calculated LDL is bullshit, and especially so when you have low triglycerides. But, the Iranians of all people came up with a better formula for calculating LDL when trigs are low. And so:
Friedewald (1972) Formula: LDL = TC – HDL – TG/5.0 (mg/dL)
Iranian (2008) Formula: LDL = TC/1.19 + TG/1.9 – HDL/1.1 – 38 (mg/dL)
Plugging the numbers into the Iranian formula calculator yields a calculated LDL of 57 mg/dL vs. 91 mg/dL for the Friedewald equation. Well, let’s see how it stacks up, because I requested an LDL Direct, where they actually measure LDL instead of calculate it.
LDL Direct 1-11-2011
So actually, in my case, the Friedewald was actually off by only 9 units, so far closer than the one rendered by the alternative. However, what’s important to note is that in my experience for those with low trigs, the Friedewald equation almost always overstates LDL, a very convenient situation for the statin pushers.
Let’s take a look at the various ratios. Here they were from March, 2009 (percentages are improvements from the July, 2008 tests).
- Total/HDL = 1.68 (19% improvement; I’m now off the scale)
- HDL/LDL = 2.02 (98% improvement; again off the scale)
- TG/HDL = 0.35 (20% improvement; off the scale)
And now:
- Total/HDL = 1.96 (average is 4-6 and ideal is 2-3; still off the scale)
- HDL/LDL = 1.24 (average is .3-.4 and ideal is above .4; off the scale)
- TG/HDL = 0.36 (optimal is <2; off the scale)
And so, I guess those higher carb days, mostly from potatoes are not actually dumping fat into my bloodstream as high triglycerides. 37 mg/dL is pretty dam low. If that’s not evidence of an overall low carb diet, I don’t know what is.
I have one other issue to discuss and that’s alcohol consumption. I’m sure most everyone knows I’m a bit of a boozer. I love my scotch and I tolerate it pretty well. And while I’ll go a day or so without, it’s pretty much a daily deal for me to ingest a few. And so, I was curious to see what my alanine aminotransferase (ALT) would be.
The alanine aminotransferase (ALT) blood test is typically used to detect liver injury. It is often ordered in conjunction with aspartate aminotransferase (AST) or as part of a liver panel to screen for and/or help diagnose liver disease. AST and ALT are considered to be two of the most important tests to detect liver injury, although ALT is more specific than AST. Sometimes AST is compared directly to ALT and an AST/ALT ratio is calculated. This ratio may be used to distinguish between different causes of liver damage.
The last one I had was in July of 2008, roughly 9 months into pretty clean eating, a year into my working out at the gym, and 6 months into my fasting. I believe my weight was around 210 at the time, down from 235 (I’m now 175ish).
ALT 1 11 2011
You can click to enlarge, but what you want is 36 U/L or less. Less is better. My test from 2008 was 28, pretty close to the top of the range. I’m now at 16. Here’s the graph.
ALT Comparison
Pretty much cut that enzyme in half. But how can that be? I could see it staying the same, given my boozing ways, but to cut in half?
Here’s my speculation: the crap that the “experts” and “authorities” tell you to eat, such as grain products, cereals, much with sugar and in particular, high levels of fructose is, in the final analysis, far worse for you than even heavy alcohol consumption, especially if you drink spirits like I do and not beer and sweet drinks.
Pretty counter intuitive, but I guess I expect nothing less from our Puritanical culture that just has to glorify the stuff really making you fat and damaging your liver while demonizing the stuff that’s probably a wash in the context of an otherwise good, Real Food diet that eschews the garbage “foods.” Perhaps Dr. Robert Lustig ought to rethink his quote that “fructose is alcohol without the buzz,” to something along the lines of fructose and other sugary crap is far worse than alcohol (and still without the buzz).
Still on the subject of alcohol, Martin Berkhan has up a very informative post about alcohol in the context of fat loss and muscle growth.
I do find it interesting that over these two and a half years since first tested, that both my LDL and ALT liver enzymes have dropped. It made me think about Chris Masterjohn’s recent post about how elevated LDL on a LC paleo or low-carb diet in general is possibly being caused by your liver clearing out its fat deposits over time.
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Brett Legree 
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wilberfan
After losing 80 pounds eating Paleo in under a year, dropping my blood pressure dramatically and looking better than ever, my doctor made me go see a nutritionist because she wasn’t convinced, and my cholesterol was still high, in her opinion.
The nutritionist said, “keep doing what you are doing – it works for you – and lowering the fat in your diet while reintroducing the grains will do nothing for your cholesterol (and we both know the numbers are all screwed up anyway)”.
:)
A nutritionist that doesn’t follow CW? WOW!
Ha, that’s awesome. We had a Benefits Fair at my office a few months ago and I had my numbers checked after about 10 months of eating paleo. All of them were excellent. Then just for fun I got a bone density test – actually off the charts on how good that one was. They said 1.0 was perfect for the “low risk,” I clocked in at 1.6. The doctor asked me how I did it. Paleo and lifting heavy stuff, baby, that’s how.
I had some pretty high liver function tests once about a month after starting weight training. My doc was concerned and got me to retest a few weeks later. So I took a week off of weight training just before the test and my numbers went back to normal. There’s some study floating around about how some men show pathological liver function after lifting heavy (relative to their training) and I guess I could be one of them.
Anyway, that made me wonder how much confounding is going on with Paleo types and liver tests, especially since it seemed easy for me to randomly swing them so easily via physical activity.
Richard, do you have a plot of your cholesterol over time? It would be interesting to see if there was an early days bump in TC which is now hitting a low. There seem to be a fair number of paleo types who end up with high TC and I often wonder if that’s a permanent thing (ie, it would be high as long as they ate their brand of paleo) or if it’s temporary and would decline as the body adjusted to the new diet. I forget at what frequency you have these tests done but it might make for an interesting chart.
Haha, my triglycerides were 36 when they were last tested. Guess we are twins. Go potatoes!
That looks great Richard, my last BT was in Mar. 2010. My ALT was 13U/L, AST was 19U/L. Lipid Panels not as good as yours. TG at 80mg/dl and HDL at 63mg/dl.TC @ 209mg/dl and LDL at 130mg/dl. I drink mostly beer and wine, very little scotch or gin martini’s. The beer however is very low carb of 5.0 gm per 12 oz. bottle. Coors Light.
But, the Iranians of all people came up with a better formula for calculating LDL…
Why would the Iranians be any less apt to come up with valid science than any other group? Historically, Islamic science has been quite valid, and Western science has borrowed much from it.
Because Iran is no longer any bastion of science, nor is any Theocracy.
You are unfortunately conflating the citizens of a country with their un-elected government.
No Sol, that’s where you are dead wrong. The context of what I said WAS about the regime. It was the hair-trigger victims who were quick (and happy) to conflate (and then obfuscate my original context).
I’m not wrong. You mentioned their Iranian origin as if it mattered. It doesn’t.
“the Iranians of all people came up” – I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the government. To be shocked their citizens can come up with something, and then clarify in the comments about a theocracy … well yeah, that is conflating.
My many friends from that region always refer to themselves as Persians.
You don’t know what you are talking about, and you don’t know me. But you want to be a victim. That’s all that’s clear.
Victim? How am I the victim? I’m from South America.
Heh. Persians. In case you didn’t know, Iran is comprised of Persians, Kurds, and more.
Still – who mentioned Persians? Your having Persian friends doesn’t explain the way you crapped on Iran as if any kind of innovation or smart thinking from that country is shocking.
Thanks. Ergo, it wasn’t racist, which if you’ll check was the original complaint.
I decided to forego testing of anything, for all I know I’m at death’s doorstep. I figure if I feel good and look good who the hell cares.
I gave up beer and wine myself when I went paleo, nothing but vodka and scotch for over two years. It’s a lot healthier.
I was going to mention this is the post and forgot, but I went in for a shoulder injury that’s not getting better and it has been about three weeks. Impinged rotator cuff is best guess. Anyway, doc wanted me to get a blood panel since I was there, so I said fine. But yea, I’m no longer knocking on the door for tests, as though it’s going to convince me to eat junk in place of real food.
I damaged my right rotator cuff twice, takes a LONG time to heal. It varies from person to person but what has worked for me is to avoid the flat bench like the plague and stick to the incline bench …. don’t know why that works but it does.
Done. It was after a session on the flat bench, then going to incline where I first felt it and STOPPED. But it seems that all upper body work has exacerbated it since. So right now, it’s legs only. But I’m over 200# on squats for 3 sets and 500# on incline leg press for 2-3 sets.
Richard, if I can give you any “generic” recommendations (having not seen you in person) with regards to that shoulder it’s this: for a bit, do twice as much horizontal pulling as you do horizontal pushing. Or, even better, buy this DVD by Eric Cressey and Mike Reinold (THE shoulder guys!!!), and get to know everything shoulder related :) Meanwhile, DO check out these two articles for some great info t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance_repair/shoulder_savers_part_i and t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance_repair/shoulder_savers_part_ii
Good luck my friend.
Eric:
Very helpful. Saw a phys therapist yesterday and his appearance signaled to me he walks the talk. Excellent body comp, lean strong, very well developed. He echoed much of what I read from your link. Today I did my squats at about 200 but narrowed my grip to reign in the scapula. Then I did some light DLs at 185, some incline leg presses at 430, but then some light cable rows at 120 and some lat pulldowns at about 100. Slow and easy, and while I had shoulder discomfort, it was not stabbing pain and now, couple hours later the shoulder feels excellent.
I’ll keep at it.
Narrowing my grip in the squats helped me. Doing 2 to 3 times as many back exercieses than chest exercises might be the best exercise programming choice I ever made. I’m lifting for the first time tommorow since the car accident in August. As the back has gotten weaker the shoulders have resumed a rounded, forward posture.
Just a quick update, Eric, but what I’m finding is that even doing air rows when the shoulder hurts, really tucking in and squeezing those scalpula together, is better and more immediate than ibuprophen for pain relief.
I got past impingement by keeping my elbows close to my sides, being careful to never flare them out.
It worked great, steady improvement until it was completely gone, and I didn’t have to back off the weight amounts.
Richard, have you considered “Charles Atlas” types of exercises for your arms? I ask because I have shoulder and elbow trouble too and am looking into options.
Regarding the rotator cuff, you might want to look into Hyaluronic acid capsules or injection. I injured my wrist playing basketball a few years ago and even after it healed I had residual pain that wouldn’t go away, especially when I did certain motions. Long and short of the story, the only thing that worked really well for me was Hyaluronic acid tablets (I took Solgar brand). I don’t really know whether the injuries are comparable, but just putting that out there.
I never had a rotator injury but you might be interested by this: in Tim Ferriss’ new book The Four Hour Body there’s a chapter on reversing injuries and he writes about a method to speed up rotator recovery called Active Release Technique (ART).
quote:
“ART sessions are typically 5-15 minutes in length and cost $45-100 each. Most client injuries are treated in one to six sessions. Soft-tissue injuries eligible for ART treatment include rotator cuff impingement, tendinitis, low-back strain, ankle and wrist sprain, shin splints, hip flexor impingements, and carpal tunnel syndrome. But ART isn’t perfect. As Charles (Charles Poliquin) noted: “ART is 100% effective in 70% of patients.””
he recommends checking that website to find local ART specialists: http://www.activerelease.com
I’ll look into it, Michael. There’s two providers less than a mile from where I live.
Ever think of testing c-reactive protein? Or any thoughts on its usefulness?
Matt
Had that done in 2009 I think and it was super low. No worries.
Congrats! It is great that you and others are working to bust these myths about “high” cholesterol being related to a “fatty diet.” Thanks for posting actual numbers to show objectively the benefits of this way of life for you. My dad had similar results after his switch to a more paleo lifestyle, and his doctors still didn’t believe the results of the bloodtests they took!
Convincing people that fat is not the culprit in their health problems and weight issues is still one of the toughest parts of working with people on nutrition! Hopefully posts like this will eventually help to change common perception over time.
Great news about the tests. I thought I was stalling because of the scotch intake. Are you maintaining or losing with the Scotch? I read Martin Berkhan’s article and found it insightful. He suggests lean fat on drinking days but it doesn’t seem like you subscribe to that. Any insight?
There is no doubt in my mind that alcohol keeps my progress very slow. But it is what it is. I just keep plugging along and am satisfied with progress in the ounces. I’m certainly not gaining.
:(
R.I.P.
Thanks Richard for continuing to post your numbers (even though you say that cholesterol isn’t something that needs to be managed). I think that all this self-experimentation (and reporting) is a great way for us to rebuild some “cultural wisdom” that we have collectively forgotten.
Thank you Richard, for this. I have been concerned for some time that my alcohol consumption – mostly red wine and scotch (Dalwhinnie is my tipple of choice for that), with the occasional dry Hendrick’s martini thrown in for good measure – was harming me beyond slowing my weight loss, despite good liver function test results. I’ll feel much better about pouring that glass of Apothic Red tonight.
Oh – and the Greek olive oil? Holy mother of pearl, I could drink that stuff by the glass. I tasted it, then the Italian oils I hoard in my fridge, and couldn’t believe how bitter the Italian oils tasted. Now I don’t know how to get rid of them, because I don’t want to eat them any more…
Use the olive oil on your skin :)
Now THAT is a thought!
The only problem with this is that it makes your clothes REEK. If anyone knows the secret to getting this stench out of the fabric, please do tell! :)
Getting oil out of fabric is a problem (nutritionist by day and esthetician by night:) ) and any oil ruins sheets. So best to go au natural with some body oil or use it prior to a shower (obvious caution on the feet and tub) Don’t need to use too much a little oil goes a long way. Don’t forget to put some on your hair too (avoid the scalp area) then shower and shampoo (with or with out shampoo since you are one of Richards readers!)
Not sue about using the olive but we use sesame for “pulling” you know swishing in the mouth for a minute or so as a cleansing why not use up some of the olive doing the same ?
Sorry I have no miracle cure for the “stench”.
Hey Richard, Thanks for sharing. Interesting to see what is what :I guess.
I’m going with Kurt on the testing and well …not having any!
Trying your soapless experiment.No deodorent, no shampoo, no soap.Washing hands with soap but that’s it.I’m not cheating by buying some over priced all natural product.Works great.No more illusions from the cosmetic world.Won’t go back.Sorry to hear about the shoulder energy.Rest and maybe some swimming when the inflammation goes.Swimming in the sea or a river is good.I avoid Gyms.And use my own body weight to exercise.Who needs a gym- some buckets of water, a river, and a bit of yard work.Gyms are a bit industrial.All those robotic movements with those robotic machines aren’t natural.Climbing a steep hill or carrying something heavy is.Mixing and matching.Indians in the amazon are strong and they don’t have a girly gym to go to.Charles Manson the english prisoner wrote about working out in his jail cell with no equipment.To hill with the fitness industry.The movements on all that machinery is to robot like and less paleo.Hit the river and swim-you’ll get strong lungs, no injuries, and feel like tarzan rather than gym boy.Or girl?
I like the gym because that is where they keep the 45 pound plates.
Ow. That hurt my brain. What’s the takeaway? You did good, right?
I’m happy to answer specific questions, wilberfan. I did good? Yes.
I’m with Wilberfan, my brain hurt too.
You’ve never had a blood test, or you have no idea what the results mean, or you don’t care?
I’m sorry guys, but let me be frank since we’re all public in comments your youz brought it up: I’m not dumbing down my stuff for anyone. I built up to over 100K visits per month (actually, @107k now, 12th of month) posting stuff like this and even more (check the archives).
Frankly, I would be too embarrassed to admit to difficulty understanding such basic stuff that folks including teenage girls have been gobbling up for years. I’m going to assume you’re both smart enough. You just need to get off your fucking lazy, pussy asses and bone the fuck up.
And stop complaining.
Jesus Christ, already.
Nailed it! With 165 blog subscriptions, I tend to, uh, *skim* through most of them. Your post today will require some actual CONCENTRATION, and THOUGHT. /wince
Thanks a lot!
Now thanks for being a good sport, you! It’s just my “style” getting the best of me in that last comments.
I take it you were born by C-section, then, or grown in a test tube?
I can’t think of a much more useless euphemism for “lazy and weak” than “pussy.” “Testicle” might be more appropriate, especially when Mr. Nut says hello to Ms. Foot.
Just sayin.
Fucking get off it, Dana. People have gone through this a million times already. I use the word, always will. Stop being such a fuckin’ pussy, or a dick — take your pick — and a pain in the ass to boot.
Grow the fuck up, or get the fuck out.
Pretty sure ‘pussy’ refers to acting like a skittish cat, not part of the female’s reproductive system.
Just sayin.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure he meant it in it’s most commonly used “weak, completely unmanly, most-insulting” sense… ;-)
HA..HAHAHA….hahaha. This is one of the reasons I have been coming here for a year….lol.
Awesome. I especially love how getting rid of fructose and grains made you ALT plummet, despite your boozehounding ways. To many of us, this is not surprising. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is a huge cause of liver problems….although statins are giving it a run for the money.
Have you ever discussed your lipid numbers from years before taking control of your diet, etc? A comparison to years before might be interesting, if you haven’t already done it. I’m too lazy right now to look.
Those were on paper, not online and I’m too lazy right now to look. :)
But as a I recall, not too bad. Total C in the 220 area, with TG around 100 or so and HDL in the 60s. LDL I think around the 110-120 range.
What kind of scotch do you like?
Norm:
What kind: barrled or bottled. :)
Seriously, for everyday, I like simple Johnny Walker Red and prefer it to Black label on any day. For the specials, I love Macallan (I prefer 12 to 18, and I once did a blind test in Vegas to make sure), but just about any single malt will do.
Macallan is real nice, are any of the other walkers worth trying? Personally enjoy the black label, red is good too
Norm, I like my Red on the rocks, splash of club soda. Years ago a business colleague gave me a bottle of Blue label which I think then was around $175. I drank that neat, always, and it was great. It falsifies the assertion that a blended scotch can’t be top notch excellent. Have not tried the Gold label that I’m aware of.
Richard:
Get ahold of the book 101 Whiskies to try before you Die. It includes several blends, and a wide variety of single malts. I’m working my way through the book. I consider it my obligation to try all but the most expensive of them before I die. (the author isn’t a prestige whore, and simply lists great whiskies and deliberately avoids the super-pretentious and expensive ones.)
Without scotch (and Irish, I’m flexible) life would not be nearly as enjoyable as it is.
Here is a list of Peter’s posts on fructose, NAFLD, etc.
high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/search?q=nafld
There is good evidence for fructose and PUFA poisoning being necessary to the development of alcoholic liver disease. I had a (suspected to be functioning alcoholic) professor of surgery in medical school years ago that claimed cirrhosis did not occur from tippling unless one ate a bad diet with too much sugar and not enough meat. We thought he was just talking his book, of course, but 25 years later it looks like he may have been right.
Fish Oil megadosers might carefully read the rat study where fish oil/alcohol fed rats do not reverse their fatty liver unless the fish oil is stopped.
So yes, ALL excess PUFA is toxic, including magic fish oil!
“So yes, ALL excess PUFA is toxic, including magic fish oil!”
Someone please tell me what amount equates to “excessive” and I’ll comply.
I don’t know myself, but I do supp with moderate amounts, a coupla g of CLO and 1g of salmon, but only 3-4 times per week.
Sounds fine to me.
I think eating fish and avoiding industrial oils beats the shite out of taking pills. I only do some fish oil now and then in my diet as good fish is s bit scarce in northeast wisconsin. I do like to munch canned sardines and I have cod sauteed in butter about once a week.
I am mostly trying to fight the use of fish oil as a magic supplement without paying attention to overall PUFA intake. Fish pills are a lifesaver for those who eat garbage PUFA fried foods and are not otherwise likely to change their ways ( those people we all know who will NEVER get the difference between different kinds of fats), but that’t not us, I am hoping.
FWIW, my views and Peter’s and Stephan’s are all pretty much “convergent evolution” on this topic.
PS: Have you tried to eat a fast-food fried onion ring or french fry lately? They have a metallic taste that I find literally nauseating after 3 years or more of frying with butter and coconut. I find fried PUFAs the easiest thing to avoid now as they now taste more artificial than wheat or sugar ever did.
Which stands to reason, I suppose, as as least you can make the case that sugar and wheat are foods and not basically industrial waste products like vegetable oils.
Biodiesel indeed!
“Have you tried to eat a fast-food fried onion ring or french fry lately? They have a metallic taste that I find literally nauseating after 3 years or more of frying with butter and coconut. I find fried PUFAs the easiest thing to avoid now as they now taste more artificial than wheat or sugar ever did.”
Usually, my sources for the occasional o-ring or f-fry are quality pubs I go to and who take care to make quality crap. :) But I’ll tell you what I can not tolerate anymore: hash browns in a cafe, especially when they do them crispy. They just reek and taste of rancid oil to me. The only way they are passible is if just slightly browned on the outside and rather dry, i.e., the cook has not shot them with his squeeze bottle of frankenoil in order to crisp them up.
You couldn’t pay me to eat something deep fried from a restaurant – ANY restaurant – simply because I know of no restaurants that fry in beef tallow. I make the most amazing sweet potato fries, fried in beef tallow I render myself. I don’t eat white potatoes any longer, but I make my 16-year-old son french fries (usually when I’m making sweet potato fries for myself and my husband) and he refuses eat a french fry anywhere else…he says they just don’t taste good.
Poor kid takes a LOT of flack at school for his diet, but he handles it well.
Yeah, if you know they fried are in animal fat, rings or fries would be fine. You are right about hash browns being the worst, though. The white potato has little ability to mask the flavor of the soupy canola or whatever they fry them in – hash browns always seem just soaking in the oil. I’ve had good luck asking for eggs fried in butter sometimes, though.
For me the field test of whether it’s animal fat is to eat the item or it’s oil at room temperature. Coconut, tallow and lard all taste good cold and are instantly distinguishable from industrial lubricants.
Yea, the places I go to around here know to fry my eggs in butter. But at Gunther’s, an old German guy I’ve had cater parties for me, he fries both my eggs and a fresh order of potatoes in bacon drippings. Easy to do, German style, since the potatoes are peeled, boiled whole to al dente (which is done ahead of time), then sliced and fried with onion.
Grains and concentrated/added sugars are easy to avoid.
PUFA/Industrial oils/toxic oils is the big challenge here. How does one avoid those? Should one just avoid vegetable oil? What about olive, canola, etc? There’s lots of types of oils!
Easiest way to avoid frankenj oil is to cook most of your food at home. If you eat at restaurants, you’re going to get a significant amount, cause they all use them. Olive oil is fine, as long as it’s really olive oil. So is palm and coconut. Otherwise, avoid.
Indeed, my fries are made in beef tallow (as real fries should be, ask any Belgian) and when I taste the one at our canteen, made in high-oleic sunflower oil (so not the worst of oils), they taste empty, not satisfying. McDonalds fries taste like fried in varnish. At one time I was thinking something was wrong with me, because KFC fries didn’t taste that bad until I learned that they use palm oil for their operation (not the rapeseed oil mix McDonald uses).
Here in Chicago we have a hot dog place called Hot Doug’s that fry their french fries in duck fat. They are so freaking good. If you are ever in the ‘hood….
hotdougs.com/menu.htm
hahaha glad SOMEONE brought this out in the open, im about sick of the fish oil ‘clan’
Hi,
I agree on an analagous level — lung cancer is probably a consequence of omega-6, sugar, and gluten as well, not necessarily SMOKING. Look at the Massai.
Kurt — there you go bashing fish oil again! Hey that stuff is MAGIC! (seriously for intense brain or other inflammation it is awesome)
Granted these are low dose n-3 pufa 1-2 g/day for treatment (3 human trials), they do demonstrate the value of omega-3 supplementation for reversal of NASH, fatty liver:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2036.2009.04230.x/pdf
(it’s a review article, secondary or tertiary sourced, YOUR FAVORITE *haa ahaa!*)
Richard, Great post. Now I’d like to feast on your healthy liver with some chianti. *chuckle* COME OVER HERE.
-G
Hi G
Nice to hear from you! Long time no chat.
Can’t agree that your smoking metaphor is apt here, I am afraid. Not supplementing 3s in order to swamp out excess 6s can hardly be equated to adding an unequivocal toxin like cigarettes, if that is what you are saying. Maybe I misunderstood.
I have said repeatedly that 6:3 ratio is independent of excess 6 intake as a health variable. We should always correct 6:3 by focusing first on the numerator, even if increasing the denominator alone would have merit.
One of those is a limited trial where n-3 supplementation was of benefit in people who are eating too much n-6. I did not see a control arm that limited 6s or total PUFA for comparison.
My theme, if you will, is that the first, best method of correcting your 6:3 ratio is to reduce the 6s, not to supplement with 3s. And I am not denying that fixing your 6:3 ratio if it causing an actual medical disease CAN be done, I am saying it is BETTER to change the ratio by focusing on the 6s. I think I’ve been pretty clear on that.
I am sure I”ll deal with these issues of why many of us are now agreeing that supplementation for most people (not NAFLD in those eating at Mickdy D’s and refuse to quit) is unnecessary and can be counterproductive. This will of course run counter to pubmed evidence for “magical” fish oil, because no one ever tests for the effects of radical 6 reduction. Stephan has covered this well vis a vis the lack of human evidence that excess 6s are harmful (the Lyon study being the exception – by accident!)
So I agree, correcting your 6:3 ratio by adding some 3’s can be AWESOME, but only if you are refusing the AWESOMER step of radically reducing your 6s. They are in a stoichiometric competition, right? So you can get the same effect and the bonus of lower total inflammatory PUFA by radically reducing 6’s.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
* My usual caveat, if you don’t get any 3’s from fish or grass fed beef or butter, then replacement is replacement, not a magic supplement
Hey Kurt,
Nice to hear your podcast!
I know where you are coming from and I agree about obviously reducing omega-6 in junk food and large quantities of nuts, esp rancid nuts. Surely that is the most AWESOME route to health! However, I don’t know if certain types of people or those who have consumed decades of omega-6 would benefit from higher dosages of n-3 supplementation transiently for 1-2 yrs at the minimum — if enough cannot be consumed by diet then I totally think supplementation is highly relevant. For pts who cannot/willnot reduce omega-6, it has value.
What’s the biological half-life of omega-6 in membranes and tissues? I think it is quite long and in fact reported to be years. There is still a lot to understand about omega-3 and 6. Some of their emerging mechanisms of action are bioelectrical as well affecting membrane physiology and ultimately signalling. I occ take fermented CLO. Sometimes I worry how oxidized the n-3 might be??
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18492298
I was curious have you considered the evolutionary context of omega-3 v. saturated fatty acids? As Europeans/Asians migrated north, away from marine sources of carnivory and ultra high doses of omega-3 (crustaceans, fish, etc), what was the substitute in the brain??
Actually, I believe… it maybe SATURATED FATS. They share many similar properties: cardioprotective, GI protective, CNS protective, anti-inflammatory, vital component of the immune system and lipoprotein system (incl Lp(a) where vitamin C is scarce and mitigates hemorrhagic vascular responses)… They perhaps only differ in their insulin sensitizing effects. For Slavic, Russian, Polish, German northerners, mild IR (resistance) in the frickin cold is a beneficial, protective defense response, no?
Thoughts?? perhaps the latitude where are immediate ancestors (northern v. marine-based) thrived may really be the determining factor for omega-3 and saturated fat requirements…
*haa aha* I’ve posed this to a few people, no responses and I’ve been meaning to bridge your brain.
-G
Hi G
typed a longer response and my computer ate it! sorry.
Brief thoughts:
I get your reasoning. The idea of trying to swamp the membranes by over-eating n3s so it might not take 2 years to normalize your membrane ratios. You and Robb Wolf would agree on this, I suppose. I like the idea of an extra FEW g for maybe a year or so, but I am suspicious of massive doses, thinking the extra is just contributing to oxidation – n3 is even more oxidizable than 6’s of course. If you have any papers that speak to the long term pharmacokinetics of dietary n3 and membrane content equilibration, please email them to me..
As far as marine carnivory, my own reading of paleoanthropology literature makes me think that marine carnivory (the littoral hypothesis, etc.) is overemphasized in the paleosphere. Hence my heresies on both fish oil and iodine ; ) I think the 6:3 ratio you get from terrestrial ruminants is quite representative of the EM2.
I’ll try to follow up off blog later….
Fishing technology is less than 50 k years old…
Fishbone assemblages suggest a diverse marine carnivory (turtles, crocs, fish) at Olduvai about 1.95 mya and the more recently at the paleo lakes of Turkana in Kenya. Fishbones apparently do not survive degradation as well as mammalian bones but the quantity, quality and degree of tool marks on them suggest ancient man ate n-3 sources and not a small quantity compared to terrestrial. Tools=technology. Below Steele’s pnas article.
pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/03/1005992107.full.pdf
But again I believe humans are ‘opportuni-vores’ (wh*res?). Northern Eur-asians may have adapted, subsisted and thrived optimally at higher saturated fat intake versus n-3 marine sources.
Our n-3 requirement may be a reflection of ancestral profiles and current health status… e.g. northernern inlanders, less and equatorial shore-based, much much MORE.
Thoughts?
In my experience, one can gather quite a bit of food in terms of small fish, crustaceans, mussels, clams, oysters and sea vegetation from tide pools and from rocks that are accessible at low tide but remain submerged, and so on.
Hard to imagine that such a self replenishing, easy to access food source would not have been exploited, and add to that even during an ice age, climate would be relatively temperate near the sea compared to inland.
K,
You know everyone (Masterjohn, you, Kresser, etc) says that o-3 is more oxidizable in vitro but what about in vivo? Where are the studies? Anyone who quotes Ray Peat loses credibility — I looked at his stuff and he quotes only in vitro studies wtf. I prefer in vivo chronic dz studies — the best I’ve seen is high dose omega-3 prolongs time until dialysis in IgA nephropathy in trials 1-2 yrs in length. No change in SCr but significant delay to dialysis. This is profound to me and anyone who quotes R. Peat can honestly screw themselves. Research clinicians trump narrow-focused bench rats. (or n=1 ‘clinicians’ and self-experimenters like many of us in the paleoblogosphere!!)
Absolutely, I think you are right on about the 6:3 ratio for EM2. However not for everyone depending again on ancestral origins (and chronic illness status).
I’ve come across only a few decent membrane PK (pharmacokinetic) type of reviews or studies. They just are not done right now. The market is not there because it doesn’t bring on the Big Pharma grants and funding. Krill oil companies (like Neptune) and the big pharma that bought out Lovaza (pharmaceutical Rx fish oil) do not fund as well either because of the OTC supplement industry.
Personally I stop the omega-3 often for wks at a time to see if the n6/n3 have equilibrated and invariable I still have to go back to n3 supplements because I notice my mood slides down. Yeah could do an 6:3 ratio lab analysis but (like you said) labs are overrated. Probably we don’t consume as much beef, elk, bison and duck… I eat little seafood because the dioxin, mercury and PCB content so terrestrial and fish oil cap sources are it for us.
Met a really healthy guy recently probably ketogenic > 10yrs who reports getting depressed after a few days of n-3 supplementation or too much seafood (canned mackerel or sardines *haa!). He’s probably of northern euro descent. N-3 are potent hormones, right? like all hormones, deficiency or excess often create the same pattern of signs and symptomology. I suspect he either had some bad*ss desaturases (I doubt) or had a perfect 6:3 ratio from a high saturated fat/low carb ketogenic diet profile.
RE: Cigarettes — yeah Big Tobacco makes them toxic. Industrial fertilizers infuse pollonium into the plants which is carcinogenic. Gosh but I love cuban tobacco cigars… [i don’t inhale] Seriously however the French smoke like crazy and their rates of lung CA are low contrary to CW. None of the French are fat because of carb-restriction by the fashion conscious women and the high saturated fat intakes (lard, hard cheeses, cream, etc). Hell even trad’l crafted croissants have LARD in them. (also they don’t have GMO-crops like canola, corn and wheat; GMO products contain ‘death genes’ — you gotta watch ‘Future of our food’)
-G
-G
To me if one HAS to take Omega-3 to maintain a proper mood it sets off the spidey sense (and there’s some doctors posting on hear–I make no pretense of being an expert on the science of this).
IIRC, one thing we try to do other than just eat well, is live well (well at least from the Primal/Sisson school of thought). I’ve always found it odd that someone being happy or moody could be corrected by a pill. It seems a little off that someone now HAS to take some vitamin supplement (Omega 3 in this case) to be pleasurable. Taking it for nutrition seems fine. For mood…..??
(Again I’m not a scientist).
BTW I don’t want to sound like a heretic again but some of the ‘negative’ fish oil studies may actually be Big Pharma planted studies and BAD SCIENCE. My friends work in Pharma and yes they plant studies, articles, news pressers, et cetera to continue to try to make pharmaceuticals appear ‘good’…. shady? well what does one expect? it’s an industry probably $$$$$B/year I dunno. Attempts to discredit competing alternative therapeutics will never end.
You know I love a good study but one has to be skeptical… Pål discusses bad science… and bad scientists with bad intentions…
ramblingsofacarnivore.blogspot.com/2010/08/intention-to-treat-what-was-question.html
Not arguing they would not have been exploited – just noting that the mass of humanity during the majority of hominin evolution was not always close to marine food – cold water especially. To argue that high n3 from fish is necessary is to argue that it must have been pretty consistently available and I see no evidence of that in the paleoanthropoplogy I have read. The enthusiasm for fish and fish oil smells a bit like like the olive oil fad – politically correct because it’s not red meat. And I do love stone crab and seared ahi and all forms of sashimi, so I am not knocking fish.
I am sticking with my hypothesis that the 6:3 ratio you get from eating ruminants is perfectly healthy, and n-3 supplementation from fish or otherwise is only necessary to balance and excess of n-6 from incorrect diet ( to many nuts or seed and nut oils)
I never claimed there is NO evidence of marine animal consumption. I am claiming that without fishing technology, it is not possible for the deme – the population that will eventually leave africa – to be DEPENDENT on fish – ie., have a diet that is constistently and without interruption very high in fish.
Imagine that, indeed, an ancestor 2 mya ate a 100% fish diet. But we can find evidence that for some period of, say only 10,000 years occurring since then, little fish was eaten. that would be all the counterfactual one would need to prove we are not obligate fish eaters, right?
I must point out the substance of your argument is remarkably similar to the arguments made by those who claim we must be adapted to eating grains because neanderthals have fossilized starch stuck in their teeth or we found evidence of grain processing 150 kya. Why are these observations irrelevant when arguing for grains, but not for “paleo approved” fish? No doubt it is perfectly healthy to eat fish, but the idea that we are evolved to NEED fish is a wholly different argument.
I confess these kinds of arguments based on “Fossils show we ate this or that” are kind of tiresome. They prove nothing without the proper evolutionary and genetic context.
I’ve never heard any argument for why it would MAKE SENSE for a dependence on either fish or grains to have been selected for. There are conceivable mechanisms for such, but no real argument has been made. Yes, I know our brains need n-3, but prove we need it from FISH. Otherwise, it is simply an unnecessary constraint that would limit fitness and would have made spread of homo out of africa and into non-littoral environments very difficult.
As far as subpopulations each having different n-3 requirements, why hypothesize that? Genetic drift or selection could cause such, but it is just as easy to imagine that there is a physiologic range of tolerable 6:3 ratio (just like altitude, temperature, macronutrient ratio etc. etc…) that any one can function in. This is possible, but again you are proposing genetic changes that decrease fitness because they decrease dietary flexibility.
I take dietary flexibility to be one of the secrets of genus homo’s success.
I don’t discount that there may be some differences but I am more a lumper than a splitter, I guess.
BTW… about fish oil:
I always wondered why should an increased bleeding time (delayed anti-cotting response), like the one documented by Drs. Reg Saynor and Frank Ryan on their book ¨The Eskimo Diet¨, represent an evolutionary advantage.
The anti-clotting effect seen with fish oil administration may be excellent to reduce CHD mortality in randomized clincal trials with people eating an atherogenic diet, but would this same effect benefit someone eating a low n-6 diet composed of real food?
It means they probably got too much n-3, imo.
As far as your second question, that is my point. If your ratio is correct with low n-6 you should not need n-3 supplement.
Yes, but the question is if taking 900 mg of n-3 per day (the amount supplemented sown in the DART trial), is more detrimental than beneficial for those eating a low n-6 diet.
I think that with the available evidence we don´t know. The 900 mg figure is a low quantity, probably too low to cause damage associated to a high PUFA intake. Personally, besides an increased bleeding time, I have noted nothing special by eating 900 mg of n-3 daily. This last week I didn´t took any for instance.
I agree living well is also key to the “mood” but nutrition is vital to mood! Often one of the first things people notice when correcting oil consumption by stepping away from the Omega 6 is a lifting of the mood. If someone needs to supplement (with Omega 3) for a time then so be it, sometimes we are so out of whack we need a little help (can be dropped usually in short time)!
I am not a doctor or a scientist but have been undoing nasty food habits with people for over 20 years. “Foods and Moods” used to be a class I taught to HS students.
They don’t call me the “Food and Feeling Coach” for nothin’ :)
Actually I admit I don’t know anything and I brought up the exceptions to the n-3 requirement. I was trying to support the PaNu suppositions that ketones and saturated fats are far more important for some folks it seems than n-3 whether it is high dose or the frequently used dose 1-2g/day quoted by people in the paleo blogosphere.
If you believe Lands and your 6:3 ratio is already optimal, then any excess PUFA, including n-3, is detrimental. n-3 is more unstable and oxidizable than n-6 because it is more unsaturated. Count the double bonds.
I definitely would not be sanguine (no pun intended) about any excess bleeding time. You may be enhancing your risk for hemorrhagic stroke a la the Japanese.
was replying to max….
Just to be clear. I am deriving none of my opinions from Ray Peat…
That’s the part I don’t agree with Lands. I could be incorrect but Lands is not a clinician like you… he may not be in a role to witness improvements in performance, sports, visceral body fat recompositioning, autism, spectrum/Aspie/ADHD, asthma, autoimmune d/o and other improvements which both are seen in practitioner’s experiences, the crossfit/poliquin/zone/paleo blogosphere, and in vivo studies in Pubmed.
Whenever someone of HEEEYGE stature (like you) bashes fish oil, INVARIABLY the Ray Peat quoters come out of the woodwork (not Masterjohn, you, Hyperlipid or Kresser)! My bad but I was preparing pre-emptive defense for my favorite drug. I am totally sorry for any misunderstanding! life is a b*tch, an ASIAN B*TCH
Of course absolutely I don’t want any adverse collateral effects of accumulated o-3 supplements which completely exist (mercury, increased bleeding!!, poss downregulation of desaturases, excessive lowering of inflammation, immunosuppression, etc) which I’ve all considered and hence a love/hate relationship with omega-3.
Yeah, excessive bleeding time may have been an evolutionary disadvantage while getting life threatening wounds during a hunt.
Today, given the atherogenic nature of our modern diet and environment, it´s better for most people to have a delayed anti-clotting response to prevent the obstruction of a damaged (atherosclerotic) artery.
But if you avoid atherogenic factors (including excess of dietary n-6), the increased bleeding time may be a disadvantage, not an advantage.
BTW, death from hemorragic stroke in Japan is inversely associated to saturated fat intake (see The Great Cholesterol Con by Anthony Colpo).
BTW Richard and all, what´s your take on vitamin C supplementation ?
Eat some fruits & veggies. I don’t think taking vit C is necessary is you have variety in your diet.
I eat too damned many nuts. :(
I eat a shitload as well but no negative repercussions for me. It’s easy and (relatively cheap) calories.
Hi G.
Actually one can get more “net” n-3 from 38 g of sardines than from 2 fish oil softgels. The sardines are probably easier to swallow, come with some good quality protein, and are from a more reliable manufacturer:
bit.ly/gsaJI3
Actually I enjoy sardines esp in tomato sauce but I find them hard to eat daily. The calcium from the bones, thyroid gland and marine based iodine are excellent too!
For those who are interested, there’s another post on this topic at the Perfect Health Diet blog.
Quote: “Interestingly, in animal studies the harmful effects of alcohol on the liver occur only when it is combined with polyunsaturated fats.”
no more than 4% total kcal from all PUFA
6:3 ratio between 2:1 or better (lower)
Ex: 2% of kcal from n-6 on 2400 kcal per day is about 6 g or so. If you are already getting 1.5 g of n-3 as DHA EPA you would only add 1.5 gDHA/EPA from fish oil to supplement to the proper ratio.
Fish and grass fed beef and dairy and ruminant eaters who don’t go “nuts” on nuts, olive oil and fried foods at Hoooters usually need no fish oil at all.
Based on works of Lands – Read Stephan’s blog for more….
Thanks, Doc Harris.
Yeah I like Lands work too.
BTW if you come to California and visit Richard and not me I’ll kick ur FINE HOT *SS…!
OK one more thing… the gut microbiome affects host n-3 fatty acid tissue composition…
Feeding omega-6 (LA) + Bifidobacterium breve to pigs and mice increased CLA (liver), EPA and DHA (adipose).
ajcn.org/content/89/5/1393.short
So… eat your omega-6 with sauerkraut. I don’t have access but it would be interesting to see if the authors measured any changes in tissue omega-6 (AA or LA).
B.breve in VLBW babies improved GI s/sx and better wt gain in an RCT:
fn.bmjjournals.com/content/76/2/F101.abstract
Hi Rich, I’ve mentioned this story before however it seems the right time repeat it.
A good friend of mine had a grandfather who lived independently and spritely into his nineties. He ran a 39000 acre cattle station in Queensland Australia. For the majority of his life he ate preserved meats and raw liver ( I think this was to scare the grand kids) , home grown veg, drank neat whiskey and smoked very moderately.
The grandfathers son took over the property and with power being connected to the homestead has followed the SAD model (Freezers full of frozen this and that), he is in his early 60’s and about two years ago had a triple bypass, he does not smoke I am uncertain of his favourite tipple.
I do not condone smoking; it is no doubt a poison. As you mentioned last time I posted this tale the Neolithic shit you put in your mouth has a much greater effect on overall health than most realise.
Yep. All four of my grandparents smoked and lived into their 80s. While one quit relatively early, and one in his 60s, the other two smoked until the day they died in their 80s, and they were all pretty vibrant until the end.
While by no means paleo or anything close, they all were nonetheless real food fans and had 90%+ of their meals home cooked. In the case of my maternal grandparents, an enormous percentage of their food was from deer, elk, chukar, grouse, pheasant and other fowl they shot, and also salmon, steelhead and trout they caught and froze, canned, and smoked.
And my grandfather’s garden was in excess of 5,000 square feet. And not to mention the trips they would take to pick walnuts, almonds, and my favorite, pine nuts (along the highway from Reno to Virginia City).
FYI, I don’t have the link right this second, but try doing a Google search on choline and fatty liver disease. Apparently, things like fructose and PUFAs and alcohol (and carbs generally) do a lot worse damage in the absence of sufficient choline in the diet. Apparently it’s important in the signaling process that moves fatty acids out of the liver rather than letting them build up.
Number one source of choline in the human diet is *drumroll* liver. Second-best is wheat germ but screw that, it’s rancid most of the time even if it weren’t celiac city. Eggs are third-best. Puts Jimmy Moore’s egg fast into a whole new light as far as I’m concerned.
If you eat a lot of liver and eggs, or at least sufficient amounts to get your choline needs met, that may explain a few things, I’m guessing.
Very interesting Dana, cool.
I love labs like these where we can point naysayers to the effectiveness of the plan. I keep mine on my desk at work when people say, “You cholesterol must be through the roof!” I just hand them the now worn out(done Sept2010)pieces of paper and say, “yeah, NO!” I’m not poisoned, not dying, and not eating whole wheat cheerios or corn flakes to lower my cholesterol.
I had a similar shoulder injury in July. I’m still suffering and havent done any presses since August. Mine gets impinged on overhead work and sleeping on my face. MRI on mine gave me a torn cuff. Good luck, its a bitch to heal. For me picking up my little boy is sometimes interfering with healing. Reaching into the cabinet for some coffee also hurts. I’m convinced its the worst injury possible, besides having my balls cleaved off with a teaspoon. Nagging pain in the ass pain with a sprinkling of ROM issues if I need something off the middle shelf of the pantry. Good luck.
the good news for me is no ROM issues at all. In fact, moving it around and light work is when the pain stops. Pain is the worst when motionless, especially when the arm is just hanging there.
Richard,
So how much (if ever) do you consume of fruit? Love the results, thanks for sharing!
cj:
It’s hard to say because I don’t really keep track. I think last night I had a handful of grapes. Time before that, I had a small mixed fruit bowl in place of hash browns & toast along with bacon & eggs at a cafe. It’s very small portions a few times per week but probably most days are no fruit days.
Richard, (and Dr. Harris I guess as he is kindly posting on this forum)
Has anyone considered substantial attention to comparing Krill oil to standard fish oils (salmon, cod liver, blended fish oils)?
Most of what I can find through some exhaustive searches are either too closely linked to the manufactures of the product to assure credibility, or are vauge and fail to draw specific comparisons against fish oil.
Im a long time krill oil fan but only after Dr. Eads and Dr. Mercola’s 2008 push for krill over fish oil, since then ive not encountered any really juicey and convincing studies that prove its value (its expensive stuff)
any thoughts greatly appreciated!!!
J,
Toronto!
Yea, I forgot to add that I take 500mg krill on days I take the 2g clo and 1g salmon. I’ve heard that with krill, less is more, and perhaps that applies to all of it.
Have you noticed that hangovers are much rarer now? I have to go on a serious bender to get a hangover nowadays. I can drink 6 drams of scotch or bourbon and wake up feeling fine the next morning, no problems at all.
As for your smoking grandparents…consider that the modern day, Big Tobacco cigarettes are full of chemical additives and such that the tobacco your grandparents smoked most likely did not have either. But I’ve come to a point now where I think a nutrient rich diet would still be enough to protect a smoker of Big Tobacco’s adulterated fare from cancer. This is why Europeans and Japanese smoke like chimneys and don’t have near the cancer rates of the US – they don’t have fat phobia and they don’t eat near as much processed junk and fast foods.
As for fried foods…I agree wholeheartedly. Once you regularly eat real sources of high quality fat, you can immediately identify rancid PUFA oils…even by smell alone.
I just ate deep fried chicken for dinner – the batter was egg wash with a coconut and almond flour blend, fried in coconut oil. One thing I notice…I can eat such fare until I’m full, and I feel perfectly fine.
But the last time I ate one of those “awesome blossom” onion rings at Chili’s, after about 6 or seven mouthfuls, I started to get an upset stomach. That was over 3 years ago…but I remember the feeling well.
PUFA vegetable oil is some vile shit, once you know better and you’ve adjusted your taste buds to eating real, natural fats.
I know what you mean about that battered stuff soaked with veg oils making you feel ick. I wonder about peanut oil, though. A couple of times ny brother has deep fried a turkey in it, and I had zero issues and it tasted wonderful. Likewise, there is a very old style dog & burger joint around here and they deep fry in peanut oil. We’ve gone there a couple of times for a burger or chili dog and split an order of fries and they taste great, with no rancid or off properties at all.
I do know peanut oil has a higher flash point than most oils, might have something to do with the taste.
we deep fry a lot of turkeys in mississippi :) they are amazing and when done right, only the good turkey juice is really captured inside the meat
I’m sure in a few years once coronary heart disease rates have increased, these cholesterol levels will be deemed “too high” and will get you an instant prescription for statins. ;-)
I’d agree that trying to draw an arrow of causation between blood lipids and CHD, etc. is more “parking lot science” than anything else, but I got tested last summer when my employer provided it for free. (Meh, why not?) Although I don’t remember the exact numbers, the nurse was completely shocked, they were so “good.”
Looks like the meat and potatoes aren’t gonna kill me after all!
Here’s my speculation: the crap that the “experts” and “authorities” tell you to eat, such as grain products, cereals, much with sugar and in particular, high levels of fructose is, in the final analysis, far worse for you than even heavy alcohol consumption, especially if you drink spirits like I do and not beer and sweet drinks.
It’s been some time…but I’ve been re-reading some of the Weston Price articles again. While I agree with your basic premise here, I think the far more important thing is that eating paleo instead of the grains, cereals, vegetable oils, means that we are eating an abundance of fat soluble vitamins – and according to Price’s research, having adequate levels of A, D, E and K2 (what he called activator X) in the body results in a synergistic effect – your body uses the combination of all 4 on concert to absorb minerals more efficiently, fight off bacteria and infections, and is far more efficient at healing cellular damage.
So by eating a paleo diet, you have more than adequate levels of the fat soluble vitamins to counteract the damage caused by excessive alcohol, or smoking tobacco, or encountering any other substances that under/mal nourished people on the SAD cannot deal with.
I think this is why I no longer get hangovers from drinking a little too much; why when I get cut, my bleeding stops in less than a minute; why I no longer get headaches, allergy attacks, dandruff, cold sore outbreaks or why I’ve been immune to flues, colds and bouts of diarrhea that pass around all of my peers, co-workers, family and friends. Hell, just one month ago my wife caught a bad flu from her work that had over half her shift calling in sick. I slept next to her for an entire week (whereas we used to sleep separate if one of us got ill) and I didn’t experience even mild symptoms (though I did take 10,000 I.U. of D3 a day the entire time she was sick, thanks to reading your blog about that particular anecdotal preventative.)
While I do consider myself an advocate and somewhat follower of the “PALEO” diet, I prefer to tell people if they ask, that I follow a “nutrient-dense diet.”
Hi!
I’ve (tried to) follow Kwasniewski’s Optimal Diet for about 5 years now. As you may know the good doctor swear by the potato. Sometimes I’ve deviated from the optimal ratios and eaten less carbs than recommended, which is for most people about 50 g a day. Every time I’ve noted the same things. I feel better, more energetic if I eat my carbs and I’m satisfied on less food. Every “real low carb” attempt has led to an unbelievable hunger for meat. Maybe some of us have a less than optimal capability for gluconegenesis? Since I need to lose weight, carbs has turned out to be essential for me to achieve this. Without them there is no end to my hunger.
One reason for dr Ks preference for potatoes is of course that it’s basically an all starch food and I believe he’s right in that starch (glucose) is the least harmful carb. I see another reason. Potatoes are quite nutritous and contain almost everything, even if in small amounts. With the food situation we have today most of us can’t get grass fed meat and have to buy the chemical laden greens which probably aren’t very nutritions anymore. Here in Sweden potatoes are about the only organic product I can always get at a reasonable price. I wonder if a simple potato can’t prevent that we become totally depleted in some important nutrients.
A spud a day keeps the doctor away! ;-)
I totally agree. I went for quite awhile doing very strict Paleo, and I always felt a little off. One day I added some potatoes and it was like someone gave me a happiness pill. I realized how grumpy and depressed I had been.
I am starting to feel like all these strict diets are good for “healing” or weight loss, but not useful in the long run. Americans are at a disadvantage because we eat 80% carb. By cutting it down and allowing your body to go down to a normal weight etc, I think its perfectly fine we go back to some bread and potatoes as long as it is balanced. It doesn’t seem to hurt the French, Spanish, Japanese etc.
I also think the same goes true with a Vegan diet. In the short term, it can be wonderful to change your body. Sometimes if we are heavy or unhealthy we need to TEAR DOWN our bodies. Then when health is established, you go back to eating meat and building. THere are countless Vegs and fruities who felt wonderful in the beginning and months later feel like shit, but keep trying to catch that first feeling, kind of like a drug addict.
So I feel great, and look great and unless my health comes into question think I am going to move toward a diet that includes intermittent fasting but allows me to eat anything I want, in moderation and balance.
D,i m coming to the opinion that fasting cures all evil, even grains. More on that later.
I don’t mind the F bombs, but saying something nice about grains, that’s low! :)
lOl. How low can you go? I’ll not be saying anything. Nice, just sayin’. Essentially, if you must, a follow on fast is probably a good recompense.
today.msnbc.msn.com/id/41046649/ns/health-heart_health/
“Health experts have touted the heart benefits of keeping our levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol low, and our levels of “good” HDL cholesterol high. But new research shows heart disease risk may be better assessed by measuring HDL’s ability to remove artery-clogging plaque, rather than the HDL levels themselves.
The finding suggests there may be a protein or compound in some kinds of HDL cholesterol that is better at removing bad cholesterol than other kinds of HDL, said study researcher Dr. Daniel J. Rader, director of preventive cardiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
In other words, not all “good” cholesterol is equally healthy.”
[I post this shit because it beats working]
Richard, are you taking Thorne Research vitamin K2? Menaquinone in pharmaceutical doses is an interleukin 6 cytokine modulator. It appears to be a potent pain reliever. Dr. Stephan Guyenet at Whole Health Source blog may be able to provide more information about this vitamin.
I have the Thorne but have not taken in a long while. I use it to put a drop or two in my doggies’ raw flood they’ll share for 4-5 days. Right now I take the LEF K complex product which is 5mg mk-4, 100mcg mk-7. Ad some k1.
Before all that I took the Green Pasture’s butter oil but I’m frustrated that they seem to refuse to test it to get some idea of how much u2 is in it.
Richard, didn’t you notice some pretty nifty effects by switching to LEF’s K Complex?
Actually, I noticed effects soon after taking the butter oil from Green Pastures. That continued with both the Thorne and LEF products.
And oh by the way, Stephan is a long time email bud of mine and it’s actually he and his links to Chris M (also email bud) that turned me onto k2, aka activator x.
Hey Richard,
My little story about potatoes.
The reason I initially got into Paleo was because I was experiencing increasingly severe energy crashes (while having suffered energy peaks and troughs my whole life), falling asleep for 2 hours in the middle of the day was becoming increasingly common.
I went cold turkey, ditching all grains, potatoes as well. My energy problem was solved within 2 weeks after a transition period. But the downside was that I was losing weight, not what I wanted at all.
4 months ago I started eating potatoes again, but my energy levels are still stable and I still don’t experience those huge crashes anymore.
Sow maybe Hemel’s comment is true : “One reason for dr Ks preference for potatoes is of course that it’s basically an all starch food and I believe he’s right in that starch (glucose) is the least harmful carb. “
Occasional reader of this blog; nice lipid panel numbers.
Dump the racism next time. Persia/Iran has always been- and still is- a bastion of science despite being ruled by a murderous theocracy. Despite the monstrous government which usurped my ancestral homeland in 1979, Iran continues to pump out graduates and researchers, many of whom go abroad.
“Because Iran is no longer any bastion of science, nor is any Theocracy.”
Yet here you are using something scientific Iran derived. It’s a paradox!
“Without a doubt the finest university in the world is Sharif University in Tehran.” – Former Stanford faculty chair of Electrical Engineering.
youtube.com/watch?v=s957W6jomBc
Watch that video a few times, let it seep into you. When you’re done, have a nice long read of this:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Iran#Science_in_modern_Iran
It’s great being Iranian today, isn’t it? With two-bit hustlers running the country, it’s like it’s open racism season for Iranians- from petty comments in blogs like this to blockbuster Hollywood trash like 300.
I await your apology.
@Persian Background
Don’t hold your breath waiting on that apology, man. And if you think my comment was racially motivated rather than political….well, it certainly undercuts your assertion about the intellectual prowess of Persians.
The fact is, Iran is totally fucked and by your own account, has been totally fucked since, well, over 30 years.
I have but one question for you: if you folks are so smart, how is it that fantasy worshipers and murderers have ruled your country for so long?
I would love to see those impotent bastards with women issues strung up by their balls, in public. So when are all you smart Persians gonna get on the dime and take care of business, recapture your country and its rich culture, including pioneering science?
You are wasting your time Persian. I noticed the same thing. While the statement may not have been racially motivated, it is demeaning in the context it was said. But that is Richard, he thinks he thinks big, but not so much at times. It stung my heart too. But empathy is not one of Richard’s strong suits either. It’s his blog, he can be racist if he wants, even though he doesn’t know his words are.
“he can be racist if he wants”
You folks just crack me up.
Well, I guess there’s nothing left to do but await an opportunity to point out that the “Iranians, ‘of all people,’ showed a disdain for hyper-sensitivity.” :)
Seriously, you folks WAY need to lighten up.
I was trying to figure out what the hell had gotten their panties in a wad and it appears to be the phrase
“the Iranians of all people”
which is pretty damned innocuous but these days you can’t scratch your nose without someone calling you an “-ist”
@ Richard
Though I would not call you a racist but I think you qualify for the title of half literate about the world around you. Iran has the world’s fastest growth rate in science and technology in the world today, and more than three quarter of the research going on in Iran whether it is this one here or the surgery Iranians invented which saved congresswoman Gifford or even a prediction test for menopause all are funded by the same “authoritarian regime” you are referring to here. No large scale scientific growth can happen in any nation without careful policies implemented by a dedicated government. As for your assertions about human rights and rest BS in the comments I must say most of are racist and propaganda. Bad things happen in all countries. People have been killed by US and British governments eg. Dr. Kelly or protesting rioters in Paris. Get over it. It is no more dangerous opposing the government in Iran than if you were a communist in US of 1970’s or you do not subscribe to official truth in Germany. Again get over it. As for elections, ALL WESTERN independent polls conducted of Iranian 2009 elections prove that Ahamdinejad had won it fair and square and the minority who were being funded by 400 million dollar US congress budget trying to bring down the elected government in Iran had to be dealt with as is the case in any democracy. The minority who lost the election can not be allowed to take over simply because it serves the goals of CIA, just like the operation Ajax.
For sources Google and find out. I am not putting them here since I am not sure if links are allowed on this blog or not. Anyways you seem to be a scientific person so you should be capable of conducting a simple research on the matter. To spice it up, do also read how US supported Saddam and even fought shoulder to shoulder with him against Iranians. Another reason why Iranians living in Iran might not be a great fan of US is because of Iran Air Flight 655.
If after you go through these and still you can not see the truth then you are definitely a racist.
Smith:
You’re just another fuckin’ moron’ with no sense of what I am about, this blog, or anything of my history — including my dark-skinned wife and her family, and living around the world, often amongst unwashed darkies.
Shut the fuck up.
Now, as to the subject at hand, for someone as dogshit cleuless as you, I’ll give you a quote:
“It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by means of ten symbols, each symbol receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value; a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity and the great ease which it has lent to all computations put our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions; and we shall appreciate the grandeur of this achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Apollonius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity.” — Laplace
Just goes to show that science is meaningless without an accompanying CULTURE of freedom of expression, assembly, property, productivity and respect for woman as equals. …’Cause India is a dogshit country, which is why the dozen or so Indian friends my wife and I cherish, many of whom were at my 50th bday party 2 weeks ago, live and raise their families here instead of in the dogshit country and culture from whence they came.
That’s why Iran is a DOGSHIT country. Yes: dogshit. And Iranians ought to be properly ashamed of themselves for behaving as they do and letting such an INFERIOR CULTURE persist for so long.
What I am, is a culturist. I wrote about it over six years ago.
freetheanimal.com/2005/05/culturism.html
And more precision:
freetheanimal.com/2005/05/busted.html
Oh, and by the way, I don’t give a runny shit about the likes of pretty blond white girl “congresswoman Giffords,” nor any politician of any stripe. While all the world was entranced over that incident, how many gave the slightest concern to the many molested and maltreated little black girls all over the country? The only thing that might have competed with pretty blond Giffords is had we had another abduction of a pretty blond white girl, or similar riveting event.
“No large scale scientific growth can happen in any nation without careful policies implemented by a dedicated government.”
You’re the biggest fucking moron I’ve seen in comments in a while.
Wet lab: How does your area of pain feel when you experience weiting this? No judgement, just observation. Kinda cool too meet the beast. A fascinating journey no?Follow him back and yu start to understand Fms or whatever you choose to call it.Life is sweet!
Holy cow Richard, you gobbled your propaganda hook, line and sinker. Don’t forget, the view of Iran you have comes from the same media and corporate entities and gouvernment that tells you that saturated fat is evil and HFCS is good. What are your objective, first hand accounts of the Iranian culture? Iranians in the US? That’s second hand (it’s their experience not yours) and hardly objective. TV, news and books? Not even close to being objective. Your experience in the Navy? You must be joking, they are the declared enemy of your gouvernment, so they will be dehumanized so that they can be killed without remorse, as is done with any people that is found on the enemy list (kraut, gooks, hagis etc), justified ort not.
And talk about clueless, what has a quote of a 200 years ago guilottined Frenchman about Indians from 1000 year ago got to do with Iran today to do? Nothing. As is the rest of your bigoted insult. Smith’s post contains a lot of facts (that you could verify or challenge), yours only non sequitours and simple dumb racism (the culture part).
À bon entendeur, salut.
@ Richard,
So the test came positive and you are officially a racist now. Your wife is “dark skinned”, oh my. Is that true? Should I feel sympathy now? There were/are alot of freak colonialist racists with their unique perversions who would go out and fuck “dark skinned men and women”, not because they were NOT racist but because it was their sexual desire to fuck dark skinned people. Sexual desires are different from intellectual disposition of individuals. There are numerous stories of white racists colonialists having had fathered numerous dark skinned babies with dark skinned women both in your idealized United States and else where and no historian or anthropologist in his/her right mind would consider those colonialists not racist. As for your “Indian” friends, I think you are lying here. You go out and tell any Indian living in US that they come from a dogshit country with a dogshit culture, and see how they would react. The only dogshit here is your mentality and your dogshit perception of superiority. US culture of sexism and materialism is far from ideal for the rest of the world. As for your assertions that blacks are unwashed smelly inferior “cultured” people, I would leave it to the readers here to decide for themselves. Equality for women? Are you kidding? Making women dance at your macho games is equality? Why do men do not go and do sexual dances at feminine games? Women have been made into a sexual thing, in your ideal trashy culture. In Iran most science and engineering students are women, in US women have always been behind or EVEN kept behind in these fields. Maybe it is because more rapes happen in your ideal culture than any other’s. Right to assembly and expression? Is that why you have FBI in US? Is that why you had to go and kill people protesting in Los Angeles 1992, or Kent school shooting, etc.
But it is ok. One can not expect fairness of a racist person like you. I have met lots of Americans who were unwashed and smelly, but never thought of American culture as unwashed. I have seen that Americans have killed more humans since world war II than any other nation in the world, but have always been perplexed how this possibly can be justified in a so called “democratic nation”. But now I know the answer. It is a nation made of majority perverts and racists just like yourself who go and vote for war and booty stealing from other nations to keep artificial high standard of life for themselves in order eat to get fat so that they start up blogs writing how to get rid of the “fat” they got by killing other nations. That is your only productivity. That can only comes from your dogshit inferior culture. I gotta give you this one though, you came out honest with your racist self while most of your creed just hide their true faces in public.
And before I get called out on it, it was Lavoisier who was guillotined, not Laplace, but both where from the same era.
Holy cow Gallier.
You’re one of last people I’d figure to be so unable to make critical distinctions, conflating race, culture, borders, ethnicity and finally, the sate and government all at the same time.
A friend of mine is always fond of saying: “you can be as stupid as you want to be,” and in the case of your and Smith’s reply, I can’t think of a more apt application.
Now why do you suppose I spent no time challenging Smith’s facts? Perhaps because 1) I basically agree with them and 2) they’re non-sequitur, that latter point being the basis for the Laplace quote. ALL modern science traces back to India and its discovery of the zero (try to add a column of or do complex mathematics on a set of Roman numerals.
And yet, India, nor Persia, nor any ethnic Arab group went the necessary step further to lay the basis for a culture of freedom, wherein these tools could be put to proper use for individual human advancement in terms of a philosophy of life, liberty and property.
And look at India today. And look at Iran with its women still covered in large measure from head to foot.
The truth is, it is I that is the only objective one in this discussion. I’ve been blogging since 2003 and all the posts are in the archive. I’ll put my criticism of America’s sins against anyone, even yours and Smiths. Shit, where could I even start. How about my 17 search pages of “Land of the Free” updates?
lijit.com/search?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lijit.com%2Fusers%2Frnikoley2&q=land%20of%20the%20free�…
Or, how about the provision that every law in America includes the death penalty?
freetheanimal.com/2004/08/the_final_penal.html
I could go on and on and on, all day, night, week month and year.
The simple fact is I’m the one with the stones, and I’m also not the one with the childish kneeejerk reaction to words that imply one is racist. This cracker just doesn’t give a shit about that stuff and I truly enjoy watching the conditioned get their panties all in a bunch over it.
I’m also not the one who, so far as I can tell, just has no conception of what a rational philosophy of freedom is vs. one of human servitude to the masses and to the state, how it defines and shapes a culture and then how that essential culture then draws the most ambitious and creative from around the globe and how that makes it superior.
Not wanting to spend a whole lot of time casting pearls before swine, I’ll simply conclude that the one thing I’ve said on my blog over and over when it was primarily about politics, philosophy and culture is that it is a huge mistake to equate America with the United States.
“America exists all over the world.”
And it’s a good thing, too, because the United States has sought to destroy the _IDEAL_ of America since around the time of the Constitutional Convention. America in that sense can never be destroyed, but America is certainly less and less about the United States.
Frankly, I was hoping that with the fall of the Eastern block way back when that those places would become the new “America” to draw the best and brightest, but I just don’t see it. I see more of a global Endarkenment taking place, if anything. Probably not much is going to come of the latest uprisings in northern Africa and the Middle East, either. They may shuffle a bunch of shit around but individuals will still be subject of the state.
And this cracker, along with his dark-skin wife will still be left wanting.
Smith:
“There were/are alot of freak colonialist racists with their unique perversions who would go out and fuck “dark skinned men and women”, not because they were NOT racist but because it was their sexual desire to fuck dark skinned people.”
Now, you see, this is what happens when you just learn or absorb popular shit without any critical thinking. You become an ignoramus to such a grave extent that you can no longer even differentiate between colonial domination, enslavement and sexual torture from a marriage of two individuals and my integration with her whole family.
Yea, I married a “dark skin” NOT because I really do see all people as _INDIVIDUALS_, and/or actually happen to love my wife and her family dearly, but BECAUSE I’m racist, so racist, in fact, and so intent on fucking dark skins that I’ll actually go to all the trouble of marrying one, carrying on a charade with her and her entire family, going on 15 years, now.
So there, do you really not see how your ignorance and unwillingness to understand what I actually mean beyond your simplistic charge of “racism” causes you to make utterly ridiculous statements?
…Because you just know, cause you were taught it and never actually spent a second thinking about it that when someone uses words racists have been known to use, they are racist and there’s no other explanation.
…Because you just know, cause you were taught it and never actually spent a second thinking about it that there is intrinsic and primary value in various groups of people (race, ethnicity, gender, etc.) rather than primarily in individuals.
But the very simple reality is that I see individuals and only individuals. I care less what race they are, color of their skin, what ethnicity they might have been born into, or religion, their gender, their sexual orientation. All that matters to me is who they are as individuals, what their actual independently held ideas are, how they think and reason, how objective and open they are, how they judge and who they judge and why, their honesty, their integrity.
You, on the other hand, come from a place that values some primitive, tribal notion of group integrity over all of the above, and to such an extent that it will cause you to utter absurd, utterly ridiculous things.
[I already addressed your fallacious assumption that I’m a big US cheerleader rather than detester and outspoken opponent of the US government in my last reply, so I’ll skip those parts. You might in the future want to do a modicum of research on who you’re calling a racist and US jingoist, especially when it’s all right here on my own blog, on the record for years.]
“Making women dance at your macho games is equality?”
This tells me a lot about you. Nobody with a healthy thinking mind could possibly allow themselves the error of implying force in that. Other than that, I’m not much of a sports fan, so I’m kinda ambivalent about how such fans choose to express their enthusiasm. Seems to me, however, if you can find a way to make money being a fan that you might be among the smarter. The other part is that your statement suggest to me that you would find it of higher value if state authorities actually banned female cheerleaders, even for those who wanted to do it than to leave it up to individuals to chose their vales for themselves.
“In Iran most science and engineering students are women, in US women have always been behind or EVEN kept behind in these fields.”
Oh, forgive me. Yea, Iran is such a bastion of women’s liberation. But for the record, again, your research on your subject of scorn is deficient. I have long lamented the lost potential in the human race as a whole from the subjugation of women, holding them back, excluding them, etc., the most recent of which was in the comments of a subsequent post, right here, in league with none other than gallier2.
freetheanimal.com/2011/02/is-it-time-to-draw-attention-to-the-weak-leans.html#comment-58774
freetheanimal.com/2011/02/is-it-time-to-draw-attention-to-the-weak-leans.html#comment-58875
“Is that why you had to go and kill people protesting in Los Angeles 1992, or Kent school shooting, etc.”
Again, a big clue as to who I’m dealing with. Since I’m of the genus Americanus and Americans did that, then [I] (“you”) did that. This is what happens when you judge and value people primarily as part of some group (typically, whichever group is most convenient to your argument at the time) and not as individuals or, in the words of MLK, “but the content of their [individual] character.”
“I have seen that Americans have killed more humans since world war II than any other nation in the world.”
Uh, while I would never give the US a pass on killing anyone unjustly (out of anything but self defense) I think you’re being a bit exuberant. The main point being that government, per se, is the chief cause of death in the world, second only to natural causes.
freetheanimal.com/2006/05/262_million_dea.html
hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
Now, what the US regime certainly does excel at worldwide is imprisoning its own citizens with a huge percentage of them being totally non violent (drug “offenses”).
freetheanimal.com/2005/10/america_the_pol.html
So, there you go. That all pretty much blows all your assumptions right outta the water, which means: you’re got some premise checking to do.
The lesson for you here is that very, very rarely do _INDIVIDUALS_ actually fit into the simplistic molds that are regurgitated in TEWEVEE and spoon fed to the masses and apparently lapped up eagerly by the likes of you, and perhaps gallier2 as well.
Smith,
Per capita South America has the most rapes with USA coming in 9th. These are REPORTED RAPES.. The problem in the Muslim counties is that the women are scared shitless to report it because it will become their fault.
If you check out some of the comments here
nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap-crime-rapes-per-capita
You see comment after comment about women in these countries will not report rape:
“I worked 5 year in a little hospital in Saudi Arabia and I’ve never seen so many women suffering from rapes. Most of them, of course, never reported it for fear of getting murdered.”
“Sexual offences for some countries are incorrect. For example Muslim countries and Asian countries, like India, has a staggering sexual offence record. More than 80% of Indian women, for example, have reported being sexually assaulted at some point in their life according to private surveys.
Muslim men are huge sexual offenders and the statistics don’t reflect that, probably because their society is so closed to the outside world to give true numbers.”
“..all the others who say that Muslim countries are safer. I myself am a Muslim girl and having studied medicine I spent a two years travelling around Muslim countries and administering emergency treatment to women.
I can confirm that rape is very prevalent throughout Muslim countries, but out of all the women I treated (probably well in excess of 100) I do not recall even one of them reporting it. If they did do then I was never asked for a medical report which would imply that any such claims were taken seriously. Consider too that these were women who had been physically hurt during rape and therefore required medical assistance, as well as the reluctance to seek help after such incidents and the actual number will probably be much higher.
I could not comprehend just how powerless these women and girls felt, so much so that I plan to set up a charity to help victims of rape in these countries in the near future.”
And on and on…
So by your thinking, women here parade around at sports games in skimpy clothing and get raped. I guess we should cover ourselves in pillow cases so we don’t entice these men who can’t control themselves. How silly of us not to.
At least here I can make the choice in how I dress without being spat on and have rocks thrown at..
you go, D. Glad someone sees the charade and a bit of a distinction between some degree of gender freedom and subjugation.
I was channel surfing last night and caught a few minutes of “girls gone wild,” and while I hope those young rebellious beauties go off and make good lives for themselves and one day fret that their children might come across one of those videos, can you imagine how that might play in the women’s liberation republic of Iran?
Am I crazy, or was there a more recent post on this? One of my favorites because you were in rare form.
I like the idea of culturism. But you’re wrong in comparing an idealized (largely non-existent) American culture with cultures that actually exist in the world today. American culture has its benefits, but is poisoned by New England’s roots in puritan regions of England. As you’re aware, American culture as it actually exists in the wild is disgusting.
Jon, not sure what you ref by a prior post. So far as I know I have not talked culturism to paleos. But maybe I will. I think there’s a uniqueness to it and explains some things.
Not following you completely on the rest. Idealized America only applies to a distinction between the USA, qua state. Actual America is imperfect, and “spirit” might be a better descriptor than culture.
Never mind, I remembered that I got linked here from the paleo-libertarian mailing list. No wonder I couldn’t find it. The phrase that caught my attention was “I judge that all cultures on Earth are to varying degrees inferior to the idealized American culture” (from you May 6 2005).
re blood panel, pretty much my experiences, too. Calculated LDL high, but using the Iranian equation, everything falls back into place. And the ratios, like yours, are off the charts.
I drink mostly brandy or whiskey, some wine. I drink a relative lot. I never get hangovers, never. I credit my clean living…..I mean Real Food for that trick.
Becareful with justifying any substance abuse. It can turn into an extreme sport very quickly. i love to drink and can control it as can you. But can she or he?
I hear ya, but not my yob, man.
I find your work out posts to be inspiring. Today was the first time I worked out since the car accident in August. It was also the first time I’ve ever been nervous in a weight room. The goal was to not injure myself. 3 sets light RDLs, 3 sets light back squats, 1 set very light overhead squats, 2 sets light bent-over rows and one set of light pulldowns.
More back than chest, make that no chest. Anyway, I hope I have as much sucess with my workouts as you have had with yours and I appreciate you sharing the workout info as well as the nutrition info. When I’m in better shape, I’ll switch to something more like ADV’s hierachical sets, but I find that there is a minimum fitness necessary for them.
I’ve just changed my diet… I’m a slim guy with a small amount of fat on my stomach. I’ve cut out sugar and replaced it with xylitol. Limited fruit. No more grains. I eat butter and coconut oil with whatever meal. Many times it’s mainly just meat and butter/oil. My dad does most of the cooking, and he’s been sneaking in a small amount of refined corn oil (when there’s avocado oil right next to it), and some corn starch to thicken any gravy. I consume the coconut oil to block the PUFA. And I also fast for 18-19 hours by skipping breakfast (although I eat an egg/avocado in the morning because I heard fat loss is easier when you eat a little bit of something).
Can anyone predict what will happen to my lipid profile?
Thanks very much!
Thanks for all the numbers, but…. It’s just easier to eat real food and forget
about it. Today I fried a half a pound of bacon and then dropped in four egg
sunny up and poured them onto my plate next to the bacon and dripped out
every last bit of grease from the pan. THEN I LICKED THE PLATE CLEAN!
FRIGGING YUMMY! How liberating!
The day before? I made a 1 pound GF meat loaf and stirred the fat back into it
and ate it all. AWESOME! I’m strength training and still losing fat. Screw the
so called “health nuts” that say I’m flirting with disaster. Hail Grok!
Hi Mr Nikoley, finding your your blog and comments is like walking into a favourite bar and discovering everyone you want to listen to at this moment having a heated, lively discussion!
Not my words but I can’t help thinking of:
“A techno tribal, positively primal, shamanic, anarchistic, archaic revival.”
Thank you!
Thanks George. I really appreciate it.
Just got some degree of blood testing done. My doc is in no way worried about me, by the way.
Total Cholesterol is 299 right now.
HDL is 73 right now.
Triglycerides is 55 right now.
C-reactive protein is 1.2. Never had it measured before.
Just before switching from a vegan diet to this eating “way”, last August:
TC – 178
HDL – 38
Tri – 135
So relaxville, VW.
If you have been paying attention and I know you have, the doubling of the HDL and thirding of the Trigs writes a book.
Congratulations.
Thanks for that, and thanks for this site and your work on it. I don’t recall how I accidentally stumbled across this place, but it was in a search for something completely different. Glad it happened. I feel better than I ever have in my life. You get a pretty big chunk of the credit for it.
Here are my numbers; they aren’t so good.
TOTAL CHOL- 291
TRI- 73
HDL- 90
VLDL- 15
LDL- 186
CHOL/HDL RATIO- 3.2%
Here’s the troubling part: CRP 7.7
Inflammation marker way up from last time. The only thing different I think has been my consumption of alcohol since the last visit. And maybe eating several cans of tomatoes every week for a couple months.
Those numbers are fine Rob. The only downside I see is if your insurance company
sees those they will surely discriminate and jack your rates. They don’t understand
cholesterol’s real story yet. Just avoid the sugars and you’ll be fine.
Ha, I was there because my insurance company requested this information for long-term disability coverage. I hope they don’t deny me coverage; its the insurance I get through my employer.