July 18, 2013 Over the Hump Bump II: Insulin Wars II: Mark Sisson

Part II of my CarbSane is so cruel and vitriolic in her criticisms of Mark Sisson bumpfest today.  Crying Wolf II , Bump I

This one is especially  ironic given point 9-of-12 of Mark's email to Grashow blamed lack of dietary discipline and sloth for my weight.   Here he says that doesn't work anyway!  {shakes head}

Be sure to notice how I misquoted, misrepresented and ridiculed Mark Sisson, took pot shots at his appearance and denigrated him on a personal level.  Oh wait.  That didn't happen.  This post was originally viewed by around 400 people and didn't even crack the Top10 list at the time.

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Original publish date:  12/15/10

I thought I would share some thoughts on some of the responses of LC "experts" to James Krieger's excellent series on insulin.  For any who missed them, here are the links  “Insulin…an Undeserved Bad Reputation”, Part 2,Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.

Jimmy Moore asked an array of people in LC circles for their thoughts HERE

A recent undercurrent in the blogosphere is discounting the importance of insulin, instead pointing toward leptin, among other hormones, as the “master hormone.” I disagree with this slightly, not because I discount the importance of leptin, or grehlin, or any of the nearly innumerable myriad hormonal players in this crazy, complex amalgamation of meat and bones we call the human body, but because it misses the point of what I’m trying to do: maximize buy-in and discuss what works for the largest amount of people that come looking for the type of help I provide.  .....

..... Even if “eat less, move more” is ineffective advice that rarely works over the long-term, it makes intuitive sense to someone who isn’t steeped in this stuff every day. We need simplicity.

That’s why I like focusing on insulin – because it simply works, and it’s easy to understand.  

This response just floored me, but I have to admire Sisson for his honesty.

The low carb "movement" needs a simplistic gimmick to maximize "buy in" for the cause.  Who cares, ultimately, if the LC message is as wrong or moreso than the old ELMM??  Sisson is, and has for a very long time been in the business of selling supplements, protein powders and the like.   His 80/20 rule for primal eating certainly allows for an awful lot of flexibility, yet he's peddling the highly processed Primal Fuel as an acceptable meal replacement (e.g. it is an 80% food).  This not only contains whey powder (that is highly processed folks) and powdered coconut milk (again, highly processed) but also maltodextrin (due to the coconut powder, but so what?  it's an additive) and sucrose (sugar!).  But natural starches?  Get away from me with those, right?  He seems to have come around a bit on some of those, but it seems to me that Sisson makes up a lot of this stuff as he goes along.

If carb restriction really worked any more in the long haul for the majority of people, wouldn't the obesity epidemic amongst adults have been "cured" by the 2003/2004 surge of Atkins?  Yet there are prominent people in LC circles who have regained substantial amount of the weight they've previously lost.   And, of course, we simply can't ignore the elephant in the room:  prominent, committed low carbers who have regained weight or continuously struggle to maintain while staying true to their carb restriction.

Discussing ASP and insulin and leptin and all the nitty-gritty details in the comment sections of blogs seems like second nature for many of us, but we run the risk of forgetting that it all looks like chemistry textbook gibberish to the average dude or lady who just wants to fit into the jeans they wore in high school. At this point, they don’t need to – nor, probably, could they effectively – worry about carb refeeds or boosting leptin or fine tuning macronutrient ratios in accordance with activity. It all gets to be way too much for the newbies. They want something as simple to understand as “eat less, move more,” except one that works.

When has ELMM not worked?  It does work, it's just that it is difficult to maintain over the long run.  Just as carbohydrate restriction is.   The whole Paleo/Primal thing is quite popular right now, but I believe we'll begin to see that, like other plans before it, this will wane as we inevitably have the people who find the more restrictive forms untenable for the long run.  

If you’re trying to lose a lot of weight, eat fewer carbs to lower insulin spikes and mobilize fat stores. Exercise with intensity to improve insulin sensitivity, so that when you do refuel your glycogen stores with carbs, less insulin is required for the job. Get plenty of sleep, because mismanaged cortisol due to lack of sleep induces insulin resistance. You do those things to manage insulin, and you’ll lose weight. Then, once it works ... "you can become a nutritional and fitness geek" (paraphrased that last part in "").

This is a common thought progression I see around the LC web.  Boils down to large numbers of "followers" who default to the notion of "I don't really care how it works so long as it does".  This is just fine by me for the individual, but it is not an excuse for an "expert" or anyone seeking to educate people on a healthy diet.  It doesn't seem to be of any concern to Sisson or others peddling insulin theory that there are many people for whom carbohydrate restriction doesn't work for weight loss.  These folks are often encouraged to go more and more extreme and become, as Dr. Michael Dansinger called them, "carb cripples".  This is the needless outcome for too many who buy-in to the overly simplistic, and ultimately flawed, insulin theory. 

What is so difficult for the layperson to understand about eating more protein and fewer carbohydrates will lead to a spontaneous reduction in intake, and subsequent weight loss, in many people?  That's hardly a difficult concept, and it's not propagating misleading science either.  Honestly I didn't take much of an interest in how or why LC worked for me, although I did read the original Atkins back in the late 90's.   I do believe that Atkins perpetuated my "diet mentality" with his claims about how one bite of potatoes could undo days of low carbing, etc.  Atkins did delve into insulin a bit in that book, but his was the first "fad diet" presentation to the public.  Atkins CLEARLY acknowledged energy balance, but he was WRONG that it boiled down to massive amounts of caloric energy excreted unused as ketones in the urine.  And yet, to this day, I see Atkins acolytes make the claim that "he was right all along".  No he wasn't, and his "in your face" attitude towards the mainstream and wild unsubstantiated claims ultimately undermined his message and relegated low carbing to the "fad diet" status so many of his successors strive to overcome.  

With the simplistic insulin theory, many modern-day "leaders" of the LC movement are making the same mistake.  Is this the way towards mainstream acceptance of carbohydrate restriction?  I would say no.