More Livin La Vida Low Clue: Make sure to get your ...

... locally farm-grown and raised coconut oil!  This was too long to tweet, but Jimmy Moore is at it again stirring up contention in the Paleo community.  
We’d certainly be a lot better off in our weight and health as a society with less need for pharmaceutical medications and chronic disease management if everybody just started consuming foods they recognize as being grown, raised and harvested by local farmers in their communities. Of course, it wouldn’t happen overnight as sustainable farmer Nick Wallace shared in my recent podcast interview with him. But getting a good percentage of people to choose real foods like grass-fed beef, pastured eggs, coconut oil, green leafy vegetables and more would certainly be a great step in the right direction of where we need to go nutritionally-speaking in the years to come to prevent a total healthcare meltdown from happening. I see this as a common mode of thinking that permeates through both the low-carb and Paleo communities.
I can certainly get locally grown and raised grass-fed beef, pastured eggs (WTF is up with that term?  It just sounds off to me, but anyway ...) and green leafy veggies, but there are no coconut trees anywhere!

Tropical oils got a bad rap when they started to be used in processed baked goods instead of butter because ... drumroll please ... they were cheaper ... and as a bonus had a longer shelf-life.  But most of this was palm oil which is decidedly different than coconut oil (or palm kernel oil which is rather alike CO in FA profile).  With global CO production being only 2% of oils, and US use of soybean oil, it is simply highly unlikely that CO use was considerably greater historically in the US.  Note that palm and palm kernel oils make up the largest fraction of the global edible oil market at 27%, exceeding soybean at 23%.  I searched (granted not exhaustive, but time/priorities and all that limit) for historical stats, and was unable to find anything on US use of CO, or tropical oil consumption stats in general other than this (biased in veggie PUFA favor) which pegs total tropical oil (palm, palm kernel and CO) at 4% of total fat intake in the early to mid-90's.  

So ... while I realize coconut oil is the great unifying elixir in paleo and low carb communities, this fixation on eating this anything-but-whole-food as a veritable staple in some diets is utterly ridiculous.  The whole notion of added fats really isn't paleo, and people can argue till the grass-fed cows come home how it is easier to extract oil from coconuts than a soybean or a corn kernel, it doesn't change the fact that our ancestors ate the whole coconut where available.  They didn't break it down to flour and oil and milk and cream and butter to make various recipes and cook their meat in, etc.  

BTW -- Is cluelessness in social constructs and human dynamics paleo or something?  From an outsider's POV, I never really saw a lot of contention in the community, other than, perhaps, competitive jockeying for brand recognition.  I don't know what went on behind the scenes at AHS11, but I was shocked to see Tom Naughton, Gary Taubes, and to a lesser extent Michael Eades and Andreas Eenfeldt on the speakers' list.  In Andreas' case he was replacing Jimmy Moore, and realize this was before Jimmy had "converted" to paleo.   Eades basically co-opted Taubes' Shai schtick, Naughton gave a version of his Scientists Suck schtick, and I will admit I didn't bother with the other two.  I don't know Pottenger's biases, but my interactions with Aaron Blaisdell on PaleoHacks would indicate he's firmly in the LC camp.    I certainly can't blame them when trying to get AHS up and running for courting some low carb star power, but with this inclusion were sown the seeds of discontent.  Taubes to this day doesn't speak to O3:O6, which, whatever your opinion, remains a cornerstone of the movement.  He also persists in misrepresenting traditional diets, most infamously that of the Arizona Pima in furthering his TWICHOO.  Eades is even easier to dismiss, because despite his somewhat paleo roots, the man published a decidedly un-paleo low carb work of pseudoscience fiction in the fall of 2009.  This diet included shakes, DAG oil, d-ribose and allowed (nay, encouraged) all manner of artificial sweeteners.  One can argue that the meat weeks on this plan or his former Protein Power plan were more paleo all they want, someone true to an ancestrally-based lifestyle first and foremost never publishes the crapola that was the 6 Week Cure.  Naughton at the time was all about science and bromantical defenses (offenses?) of Eades' metabolic advantage wing of the LC cadre.  Paleo??  Ancestral??  Admittedly he seems to have gone a bit more that route of late, but certainly not something anyone would have associated with Fat Head when he was selected to speak at AHS11.

But worst of all, the mere notion to consider to invite Jimmy Moore to speak was an act of utter organizational incompetence.  Sure, out of necessity, Jimmy had been dragged figuratively kicking and screaming to adopt a  crazy extreme diet of nothing but grass-fed beef, pastured eggs and coconut oil in January of 2011.  But prior to that, Jimmy's LLVLC webpire -- including his podcasts -- was built upon and supported by all manner of LC junk foods.  Surely the organizers of AHS were aware of this?   It's not like any of this was a secret -- he blogged daily of the crap he ate.  Indeed he didn't even make it very long into that latest experiment before dark chocolate -- 6oz in one day sometimes, which doesn't sound like all that much until you go look at a Cadbury bar or a bag of Lindor truffles -- made its way into the mix.  Likely not naturally sweetened, but since the manufacturer apparently didn't sign on to sponsor his consumption, we'll never know.

In an act of attempted "professional" suicide I'll never really understand, Jimmy began trashing former LC food sponsor after former LC food sponsor with his n=1 jokesperiments, beginning in May 2011, after he fell off the paleoish bandwagon without explanation.  He suspended these on the advice of his "internationally renowned" doctor -- because eating a piece of real toast and having a totally normal glucose response to it was evidence that he dare not challenge his deranged metabolism -- but this was long after his invite to speak at AHS11.  No doubt his speech would have been about how low fat made him fat ... which would have been ancestrally related exactly how?

In any case, though they can't be blamed for the LC v. paleo rift, the organizers of AHS11 are responsible for setting the stage.  And a stage they provided ... for the Insanie they helped Gary Taubes earn ... but more importantly a dialogue that needed to be opened.    But other than Gary Taubes -- who sought to keep TWICHOO alive -- and folks like Eenfeldt who are still trying to grow and capitalize off of careers in LC -- there remains only one person who saw challenge/debate/antagonism/controversy at every turn.  Jimmy Moore.  Really.

The problem boils down to this:  For all the free-thinking, well-educated, anti-establishment fervor in the community, nothing *offends* the sensibility of a dedicated low carber more than voicing one's differences with TWICHOO.  And try as they may, TWICHOO is NOT, I repeat, NOT, an evolutionarily supported hypothesis by ANY stretch of even Taubes' own vivid imagination.  It was Jimmy Moore who stirred up false controversy and contention with his safe-starches data dump.  He, and he alone, was responsible for the ensuing fall-out ... including the nonsensical un-debate over the concept at AHS12.

Meanwhile, the paleo community has mostly only ever really known an obese Jimmy Moore.  Nevermind that, at 230 lbs with a 42" waist, he was never sensationally skinny as his first book's subtitle trumpets.  Most everyone in the paleo world -- heck, most in today's LC world even -- never met a Jimmy weighing under 275 lbs, with a lipid profile even Atkins would cringe at, and apparently nagging health issues both mentioned (low testosterone), imagined (hyperinsulinemia) and unmentioned (hemorrhoids).   Still ... he had that popular podcast and all that exposure -- for the good of the movement! -- so what harm can be done by inviting him into the fold?  Paleo gets marketed to a whole new niche, after all.

Of course it doesn't hurt that some people in this community seem rather more willing to believe that someone like myself would make a crank call to Carnival about Jack Kruse and a potential bioterror attack than that getting a 3/4 million dollar book advance just might have influenced some of the content of GCBC and fueled Taubes' incalcitrance in correcting obvious scientific errors in same.  It's easier for Jimmy Moore -- who to this day has his ridiculous Haters tee pic as his avatar on social media -- to point fingers of distraction than to own up to the reality that any animosity at this point is of his own doing.  I suppose it's better than the skinny-necked caricature mix between Beavis and Frankenstein, but ....

Now folks are using a "cutesy phrase" about being agnostic on macros/carbs.  This frustrates Jimmy Moore about the supposed myopia of the community he continues to try to capitalize off of despite the facts that:

  • Paleo (LC-lacto or whatever) was a huge fail for Jimmy (he gained roughly 20 lbs on paleo between AHS11 and PaleoFX)
  • His current diet is neither paleo nor whole foods based
I would add a point I usually don't mention, but I see mentioned more frequently these days:  Jimmy doesn't even believe in evolution.  I find it difficult to stomach promoting a diet that IS based on this notion that the human genome has not evolved since paleolithic times to handle/thrive on the neolithic-and-beyond food.  I'm sorry, but to attach that label in any way, shape or form to oneself is disingenuous if that isn't at least a basis for one's beliefs.  Otherwise it's just a label -- trending popular on Google -- to capitalize on.

I suppose it never occurred to Jimmy that the reason why ...
There’s a relatively new phrase that I’ve seen popping up more and more frequently by a few people online as a means of combating those of us who show support for carbohydrate-restriction for optimizing our weight and health
... is because these people want nothing to do with "combating" Jimmy Moore and would rather he just go back to where he came from.  Or perhaps he knows, which I suspect he does, and the only way he can see his relevance in paleo moving forward is to continue to stoke the phony flames of controversy over carbohydrates in the paleo community.  The paleo-rati has chosen to disengage.  Smartly.  But this may not be enough -- as the lessons of Jack Kruse should have taught folks by now.  Jimmy will have none of that, he will keep stirring the pot of false controversy and feigned victimhood.  Paleo peeps would do themselves a favor to just distance themselves, unequivocally,  from this flaming hypocrit!


Comments

Anonymous said…
You know what he was trying to say...

Pasured eggs means they aren't fed anything by the farmers. They forage for bugs, rodents, etc.

C'mon are we seriously arguing about the fact that he included coconut oil in that paragraph? Who cares!

I wouldn't say he's clueless, I'd just say he was trying to fit too much information in that one paragraph. I'm pretty sure he knows there's no coconut trees. Don't be childish...
Anonymous said…
Even the most forage-happy heritage chicken can only get 50% of its nutrition from forage. This is pretty much the case with any non-ruminant 'pastured' animal.
Derek H said…
I don't believe she's being "childish". He would not be able to even achieve a low carb, "moderate" protein, high fat diet without coconut oil. It's an important part of his "whole food, paleo diet".

I've been looking forward to a post like this for a while. I left a comment on the post you're referencing just to see if it would get past moderation. Seems like the hero worshipping comments are very abundant recently. To his credit, it did get through.

I find it humorous that he uses a survey of his own readers to try and prove that paleo followers are low carb or keto creatures, and only 1% are athletes.
CarbSane said…
I'm not being childish, nor am I nit picking. Coconut oil is part of Jimmy's rote and repetition vernacular (high fat, moderate protein, healthy low carb diet ...) and I'm pointing out an oversight 4 year olds watching Sesame Street would not accept (this is a reference to a program/game aimed at children "which one of these things is not like the other ...").

I'm a stream of thought type. This started out as a short quip and ended expanding on the notion of CO as paleo, whole or even ancestral traditional food. It's none of these.

Where can I buy eggs from wild chickens foraging for rodents?
Anonymous said…
I eat 40/40/20 (typically) fat/protein/carbs without coconut oil. We dropped it from our diet, as we are interested in eating more locally and that means good old animal fats.
CarbSane said…
Thank you Derek! Yes, that *staggering* 92% of LLVLC readers who eat low carb was indeed quite hilarious. It's like finding that 92% of readers of Durian Rider who bothered to respond to a durian and date smoothie giveaway/survey were indeed raw vegans.

His diet these days in neither paleo nor whole foods.
Unknown said…
I don't see how the diet of the chickens that produce the eggs can possibly make a difference in your quality of life.
Unknown said…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Moore_(author)

In 1999, he lost 170 pounds on a low-fat diet, but claims to have gained the full amount back in four months.

http://livinlavidalocarb.blogspot.com/2005/12/low-fat-been-there-done-that-made-me.html

I am having nighmares about my low-fat, portion-controlled diet in 1999 when I lost 170 pounds.

Sure, the weight came off on a low-fat diet for me and I started feeling better physically from not being weighed down by my obesity. But my problem was the nagging, constant hunger pangs that would not go away whenever I limited the amount of food I ate. Plus the low-fat foods were just so gross to me. Have you ever eaten low-fat cheese? Or how about low-fat turkey slices where they put something like 100 teaspoons of salt in them for flavor?! No wonder DiVecchio drinks so much water in a day!

Now that I think back on my low-fat diet experience, I wonder what my hunger level would have been like had I exercised even a little. You see, I lost that 170 pounds on a low-fat diet without doing any exercise and I used to brag about it. Boy I was such a dork back then, but I've learned my lesson now that I'm livin' la vida low-carb. :)

Just as I limited my carb intake to 30-40g per day during my weight loss, DiVecchio says people should not go over 30 grams of fat per day. But the difference is now that I am maintaining my weight loss, I eat about 100-125g of carbohydrates a day while DiVecchio is still stuck on her 30g of fat schedule for the rest of her life. Yikes! Nightmare!


http://www.examiner.com/article/china-study-author-says-your-long-term-health-will-be-seriously-compromised-on-a-low-carb-diet

Jimmy says this about T. Colin Campbell - " It’s one thing to disagree with a particular point of view because it differs from your own. But to think that you have the one and only pathway to truly healthy living simply because that’s all you’ve studied for the past few decades"

Sounds like Jimmy to me!
Unknown said…
http://paleodrama.tumblr.com/

Match the person to the quote. Both were obese for most of their lives and are roughly the same age (around 40). They have both been eating what they believe is healthy since the early 2000s. Both suffered from “metabolic derangement.”

a.

This cutesy little phrase is most often stated by some truly well-meaning people in the Paleo community who it seems would prefer not to be associated with low-carb diets at all for whatever their reasons. Whenever comparisons to low-carb diets are made with Paleo or the two are lumped together in the same category, some are very quick to play the carbohydrate agnostic card because they want nothing at all to do with low-carb diets and will do everything they can to squash any correlation or relationship of Paleo with them. They add that Paleo is about food quality first and that macronutrients really aren’t a concern to them as long as the food choices come from real whole foods. Thus, they describe their diet as being macronutrient agnostic. I’m both fascinated and frustrated by the myopic nature of holding such a position…Being aware of your carbohydrate intake is not insignificant for people who have health issues such as obesity, diabetes, high triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol, PCOS, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure, cancer, cardiovascular disease, brain health issues like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, epilepsy and more. In case you didn’t realize it, that’s a very large segment of the population who can’t just throw caution to the wind and choose to be carbohydrate agnostic. It’s IMPERATIVE that people dealing with these issues know exactly what they are eating from all of the macronutrient categories and customizing a plan that works well for them.
b.
“But…but…some of us are so damaged by obesity and the Standard American Diet that we simply can’t ever eat carbs again!”. Bullshit, times 3. I was obese for 3 decades. At 35, I had a whole laundry list of metabolic issues: PCOS, high blood pressure, blood sugar regulation control problems, low HDL, and obesity (not to mention depression, panic attacks, migraines, hair loss, cyctic breasts and acne and much, much more). I reversed it ALL while eating carbs.

a. is jimmy moore b. is gokaleo
Anonymous said…
You can't. A chicken that feral doesn't lay much of anything compared to what even small-scale producers (farm or farmer's market only) need consistently to make any money. As I already noted, it's another myth that animals can live off grass and happy feelings if one is engaged in 'traditional' or 'sustainable' production. It's more complicated and not so simple as it's often made out to be.
Steven Hamley said…
I'm seeing fewer comments and especially fewer pro-carb comments each time Jimmy does these kinds of posts. If anything I'm seeing Paleo antagonism from the low carb community*, but the Paleo community doesn't really care, they have largely disengaged from safe starches debates and the like. I don't understand Jimmy's motivations because each time he does one of these posts he separates the communities further.

By the way the first time I heard 'macronutrient agnostic' was by Robb Wolf in 2011 or something. Speaking of which, AHS 2011 was important because following the Taubes vs Guyunet thing, Stephan did a great critique of the CIH and the community moved forward.

* Comments along the lines of 'carb-addicted lifestyle', 'crossfit/young, rar, rar, rar' and 'fat + carbs = donut'
Unknown said…
"Carb-addicted lifestyle"

I have to confess that I have a hard time making it through the day without a hit of food, by 10 am I am jonesing something awful and my secret stash of oatmeal starts calling to me like a siren.
Lesley Scott said…
"I would add a point I usually don't mention, but I see mentioned more frequently these days: Jimmy doesn't even believe in evolution." This religious aspect is probably why the term "macro agnostic" pissed him off enough to write that post. It makes no rational sense, but if adherence to this "Low carb lifestyle" is the way you extend your religious leanings into what you eat, then there's no "agnostic" about it. The odd few times I've read posts over there any more, I've wondered about this weird faith-over-evidence blind loyalty to the "low carb lifestyle". It's got to be religiously-motivated since it makes no sense in terms of the pretty awful things it's doing to his health. In fact, from that perspective, suffering like that for your "beliefs" is probably considered some kind of badge of honor.
CarbSane said…
Interesting Lesley! Ya know, I've seen Jimmy refer to his body as a temple at times, in line with God's wish that we respect our bodies presumably by adhering to proper diet. I've also noticed over the years that in casual settings he likes to wear tee shirts often with logos. When he's not wearing his Haters garb he either has some chemical structure with a slash (sucrose or fructose usually) or a fatty acid or ketone that he's fueled by. The other theme is God tees. One might conclude such garb is intertwined into a collective religion for him. Also he has said more than once recently the irony that he may be harming his health to benefit others. Seems dietary religiosity is a good explanation for is behavior.

bentleyj74 said…
Re dietary religiosity...I agree. Re the T-shirt slogans...even my teenagers recognize that they're not really a dignified best look for anyone. If that's his day to day garb I sort of get the impression he's a man comprised entirely of slogans rather than an adult with a fully developed identity.
Sanjeev said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Puddleg said…
I actually thought the Jimmy Moore quote on Paleodrama was the first wholly sensible thing he's said.
He says "be aware of your carb intake" if you have those conditions...
FFS, why not?

Galeko's position is all n=1 - carbs (and God knows how much exercise) worked for me so bullshit to you - while Jimmy's has some clinical numbers behind it.

Hey, I took amphetamines for years, I actually reversed a few health problems doing that, but I'm not going to go Galeko on you and say "bullshit" if you tell me speed kills and taking it is not a good idea.
Gianni said…
The funny thing is that it would seem I'd have agree with JM:
I'm VLC and always found the stance of part of Paleo community, on the above subject, naive.
I'm not agnostic on macronutrients, let alone atheist.
But, even more for weigthloss, as already said, I only have enough faith on Protein and Fructose as being the extremes (ok, besides, maybe, alcool and other stuff). Instead, starch and fat are somewhat in the middle, and I can totally see how, why, most people could be agnostic on them.
Instead, what was always easy to "believe" for me is that JM is doing LC backwards.


But, in any case, those subjects are to me, at this point, useful mostly for entertainment purposes (and an excuse to practice a bit more writing english). Since I honestly think I know exactly how to get lean, or stay lean. And generally manage to do it.


Instead the CO would be something on which I still would have legitimate doubts. One of the topics that would need more debates in these nutrition commmunities. One of the "few" things I'd really like to hear more about, and of which I'd love to see more studies.
Besides being really "that Paleo" or not (at the end: who cares!?), I often ask myself if it isn't hugely overrated, and mith have some downsides not mentioned enough. Or if not.
Who knows...

The only thing I could say with confidence is that, to me, good olive oil tastes better on foods like salad(/Tuna-Salad) and for the other kind of foods I prefer butter.
Gianni said…
Of course one point on which I totally agree with Carbsane is that those 85-90% Fat diets don't look so "Paleo".

And the fact that to acheive it you need to use all (and lots of them) these added oils, speaks for itself.
Because they might not be as "industrial" as the "full of omega-6, seeds oils" the Paleo community, in my opinion rightly, demonizes, but for sure they are even "more neolithic" than many agricultural carby stuff etc.
Derek H said…
Do all the Jimmy Moore enthusiasts believe that if Jimmy when on the show Survivor, given all the rice and bananas he could eat, that he would walk away 39 days later having gained weight? That would be a great n=1 experiment.
bentleyj74 said…
Of course you aren't seriously comparing carbs to speed? There is substantial clinical evidence supporting GoKaleos position as well as her results. JM has little to recommend his on either front.
Unknown said…
An interesting experiment is to set aside a day and pick a food such as rice or bananas and try to overeat on a CICO basis relying solely on that one food. Count the calories.

It is virtually impossible to overeat using that method. I had to give up on potatoes because it's so difficult to eat enough of them to fulfill my goal of consuming 2000 calories a day.

Where people get in trouble is when they tart up the basic food with butter and coconut oil or whatever the hell is the fashion these days, then it's real easy to overeat.
Unknown said…
We are in a filter bubble. There are plenty of studies showing the above listed conditions improving on low-fat/raw vegan/ and other diets that Jimmy Moore would consider high carb.
LeonRover said…
World English Bible (Matthew 5:44):

"But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you . ."

But Cracker Christians are choosy, Old Testament FundaMentalists, and in addition have little sense of irony.

If Jimmy had chosen his tee with the layout:

"Lovers love"

"Matthew 5:44"

he would have had a publicity coup.

Hey, but Jimmy promotes "Pre-Made Paleo"; are such items not a product of industrial manufactured food ?

"Frailty, thy name is woman" ?

No, "Frailty, thy name is Jimmy More".

Slainte
Derek H said…
Exactly. Say what you want about Don Matesz and his very public "conversion", but low carbers who cry out that they're always hungry when eating low fat diets should try to eat the sample menu he posted.

Also, like Evelyn discussed, the fact that he added chocolate to his self described perfect diet plan may shine light on the foundational problem - the neurological effect food can have with so many people.
Alex said…
There's no need for me to eat Don's diet, because I believed all that new-age hippy Eastern woo nonsense for almost 20 years. I know very well how my body reacts to high carbohydrate intake: my blood sugar spikes and crashes, causing ravenous hunger. The food journal in Don's latest post has him getting the bulk of his calories from rice, dates, and bananas. For me, that would be metabolic hell. If I were on Survivor, with all the rice and bananas I could eat, I don't know whether I'd lose or gain weight, but the nutritional deficiency and personal inappropriateness of such fare would leave me feeling uncomfortably malnourished.

Unknown said…
I do not buy the blood sugar stuff AT ALL, not one single iota of it, nada, zip, zilch.

It is normal for blood sugar to fluctuate. Were it not so, humanity would have been long extinct.
Sanjeev said…
> my blood sugar spikes and crashes, causing ravenous hunger

this is PRECISELY, to a TEE what I believed for 7 years.

I'm guessing that 2 good years of Atkins (the first 2 out of 10) had coloured my memories. In order to justify my current diet for the 8 bad years I retrospectively made my own past hunger in my pre-Atkins days worse than it had been.

This is a well known cognitive/memory bias- memories are re-written/encoded to agree with current schemata.

In the last 3 years I've occasionally gone very low fat for several weeks at a time and about that stuff I believed (I would be incredibly hungry on high starch/low fat): bzzzzzzzttttt ... I was WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

But like Jimmy points out: we all must discover our own way.

; )

I do see a scenario that can drive folks back to low carb when trying to introduce some starches into their diet - their time in LC land has so convinced them of the evils of carbohydrate they actually

1 unwittingly starve themselves when adding carbohydrate back in

or 2 actually do get more hungry for one meal and assume this will continue indefinitely (for some I suppose it could but IMHO the test period should be at least a week, not one meal)

or 3 permit[0] themselves to overeat tremendously for a day (they've convinced themselves the carbohydrate IS SUPPOSED to make them hungry so they're excessively permissive with carbohydrate), declare that carbs really ARE the devil & go back to LC.

I also think one of the things that LC folks don't realize is that just as there is an adjustment (LC flu) when they get off the carbs, there is also an adjustment period if/when they go back on. This is why you'll see the advice to add 150g carbs for three days before an OGTT.
Derek H said…
Alex - I'm not saying Don's diet is the optimal diet (I don't believe there is such a thing), I was just stating how hard it is to over eat plain potatoes, plain oatmeal, or other non decorated whole grains while remaining full for a sufficient amount of time. It actually falls in line with Stephan's line of thinking. Do you want to know an easy way to eat a pile of oatmeal? Melt in some dark chocolate chips and peanut butter.

I also did notice that Don and Tracy have ventured into 30 bananas land - and watched about 15 seconds of their new video. That was enough.
Derek H said…
I also don't imagine that a keto diet is very nutrient dense either - I don't envision him eating piles of mixed greens after his 6 oz of dark chocolate.
Alex said…
I've never actually gone truly low-carb, except for a few tries at going VLC and not being able to endure the brain-splitting headaches. In all my diet tweaking over the past 9 years, I never stopped eating carrots or fruit, except for bananas, grapes, dates, and dried fruits. I never bought into the low-carb koolaid that you can stuff your face with unlimited amounts of buttered bacon and still lose weight. Regardless of what I eat, if I consume too many calories, I gain weight; if I restrict calories, I lose weight.

My diet had been predominantly vegetarian and largely based on grains and beans, and when I hit my late thirties, I started putting on weight. In Sept 2003, when I ditched most of the starches and started eating more meat, I lost 30 pounds over the next five months because eating less carbohydrate drastically reduced my hunger, and I spontaneously ate fewer calories. Over the years since then, I've done all sorts of dietary tweaks, and the one thing that is consistently true, over and over again, is that eating starch, on a regular basis and in sufficient quantity, ups my appetite and drives me to overeat.

Sure, if I counted calories, I could eat far greater quantities of starchy foods than I do now and not gain weight, but I'd be miserable. I prefer the ease of eating ad libitum, and by simply avoiding starch, my carbohydrate intake stays below the threshold of causing excessive hunger. My weight does fluctuate, but it's generally between 168 and 172, which at 6'1", is quite slender.
Derek H said…
That is quite slender, as I'm the same height and weigh around 220. I've always ate more "primal" naturally, and have recently started experimenting with more plant based mainly for $ reasons and variety. I want to begin running to actually reduce some of the muscle mass in my legs (not a typical goal, but I've had enough of heavy lifting). For my build, I'd have to work hard to reach 190ish. I'd like to accomplish that before turning 30 in 9 months.

I haven't experienced excessive hunger yet (3 weeks), but it is more of a nuisance at times. I can't get 30 minutes into my morning workout without my bowels reminding me of the significant intake of fiber.