New Information
It happens quite often around here. I post something about what Gerald or Geraldine Guru says about fill in nutrition topic du jour, and more often than not I get at least one comment notifying me that Gerry has changed his/her stance on said topic. I'm then told that it is the mark of a thoughtful and serious person, as they have changed their position based on new information. If this were the case, I would agree. But more often than not, this is not new information ... outside of their world.
The sad reality in this greater community is that the demographic most influenced by Gary Taubes was not scientists (thankfully) or the medical community (sadly, some have been), but the guru community. They picked up and ran (and boy did they run!) with TWICHOO. And make no mistake, many in the paleo/primal community were heavily influenced by this and seemingly did not engage in any independent, critical thinking, let alone research of their own prior to writing their own various books.
As has been discussed in the comment section here recently, "paleo" is not new. It's also not the romanticized notion we have in this modern era. Let's call our nutritional eras BG and AT -- for Before GCBC, and After Taubes. The last couple of years have been (hopefully the beginning of) the BT era -- Beyond TWICHOO.
This BT era has caused lots of problems for the Gerry Gurus in our midst. They can change their stances, but there are always those books and blog posts and podcasts out there ... some more troublesome than others. And many have undergone varying degrees of nuance -- from clever shifts in the semantics to out-and-out reversals. If one points these out, we're reminded of the "goodness" of Gerry's actions in bringing information to the masses. You see, they are even credited with being magnanimous for doing so! Oh ... and good scientists too, because when faced with new information counter to one's hypothesis, the good scientist retools the hypothesis.
This would all be fine and dandy, if the information was really new. And it is not. This is why I often harp on the dates on the various journal articles we discuss here. Many from years, even a decade or more BG. Many discussed in general media critiques from the early AT era. Bottom line, there is no excuse for books published in 2009,10,11,12 to contain the blatant falsities they do. Compounded by the certitude with which these unsubstantiated ideas were put forth.
Others can choose for themselves whether or not to let these folks off the hook. I'm not here to tell anyone how to think, who to be grateful to for exposing them to something that improved their lives, etc. But it doesn't change the reality. The truth. That most of the Gerald and Geraldine Gurus in this greater community have profited off of promulgating MISINFORMATION. Parroted, made up, misrepresented and/or misinterpreted MISINFORMATION.
Comments
What I learn from this is that once I find out a guru is wrong, that's fine, I just can't trust them again, their credibility is gone. You should only get one shot if your goal is to be a guru. You can't get a second pass when you have shown that you do the homework, that you don't cross your t's and dot your i's.
It's sad but someone like the beloved Sisson is painfully wrong. I can't take what he writes as serious anymore. I am not going to call for him to correct what he says, I just won't be reading his material or buying his books anymore.
1) Calories don't matter for fat gain.
2) Insulin is the be-all-end-all hormone for fat gain.
3) [combining 1 & 2] Eliminating carbs and moderating protein controls insulin and allows you to eat as much as you want while shedding fat.
Did anyone ever believe those things? That you could swill cream & coconut oil all day and drop fat? It's equally absurd as the premise that calories are the be-all-end-all of fat loss, so downing 1,000 calories of Twinkies (R.I.P.) a day is as good as 1,000 calories of wild fish and rice. Both ideas lead to bizarre conclusions that undermine them.
My reading of Wolf, Sisson, et al. has always been well-encapsulated by the following comment by Wolf, which was part of the same post where he backtracked on low carb:
"LC is fantastic for this in that one typically feels satisfied on high protein, moderate fat, loads of veggies. If one is insulin resistant, this approach can be nothing short of miraculous. HOWEVER! If one manages to cram enough cheese, olive oil and grass-fed butter down the pie-hole, this is in fact, a “mass gain” diet.
"LC is fantastic for the insulin resistant individual, as it addresses both glycemic load and satiety. But if one manages to bypass normal satiety mechanisms, or if one can find some combinations of highly palatable, but low-carb foods, it’s still a ticket to Fat Camp."
Exactly. A low-carb diet made up of unprocessed/non-industrial/non-highly palatable/non-sugar-and-fat-infused foods is a powerful strategy for many people. And Wolf---like every other person who has real clients with real lives who demand real results---has found that a low-carb, real-food, calorie-restricted diet plus resistance training is the best recipe for fat loss.
Let me try to close with what I think is an important point: The idea that hormones and brain chemistry control fat loss and gain---through compelling people to eat or not eat; through affecting whether energy that enters the body is stored as fat or muscle, or burned as energy; through affecting activity levels---is the key insight of Taubes, Guyenet, Kruse, etc. Taubes got hooked on insulin; Guyenet on the reward pathways; Kruse on leptin. Others have chosen gut health, or sleep, or stress, or inflammation as their hobby-horses.
But the underlying idea is to emphasize the uselessness of the "Eat less, move more" paradigm. In order to do those two things, your hormones and brain chemistry must be in order. Once they are fixed, then eating less and moving more is easy, and the fat pours off. Does that confirm the Calories-in, calories-out theory of fat loss? Yes, of course. But getting there is the battle.
That, to me, is the essence of Guyenet's work: That he recognizes that calories matter, but also that the concept of willpower in eating is just drivel, so he's been searching for an explanation for people's compulsion to eat. And that's no different from anyone thinking hard about this, who all ask the question: "How can I get people to eat less and move more?" The answer to that question is not "Encourage them to eat less and move more;" it's "Repair whatever it is that is compelling them to overeat and under-exercise." And that's complicated. (Or not: http://conditioningresearch.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-punch-is-just-punch.html)
The fucking batshit insanity of this chick's experiment in Nutty K is breathtaking. I really loved the part where she said that she was doing it for "science" and then admitted it was for vanity.
It's ALL for vanity (twisted vanity, because at 100 pounds she didn't need to lose an ounce) and to make a buck. That's not the case with the sad little brainwashed dittoheads, many of whom DO have genuine health issues, and who are desperate for a quick fix to a tough problem. But it's certainly the case with the LC "gurus."
#2 is THE cornerstone of Sisson's Primal Blueprint.
All of the LC gurus still push what I call TWICHOO. He's no guru, but on his most recent interview someone mentioned calories and Jimmy said that was an evil word or somesuch. C'mon!
I don't buy the hormones in order then weight loss miraculously happens stuff. Most of these people never address the reasons people overeat.
It's kind of funny when a newbie who just read the Primal blueprint signs up to marksdailyapple forum and comes out with an "I know I shouldn't eat an apple because it will spike insulin" type of question or is completely flabbergasted at how people could be losing weight on a high carb insulin spiking potato diet. I don't think there's many believers left of the carbs>insulin>worn out pancrease theory of diabeates.
I think it was in the Paleo Summit video with Sean that I heard Mark Sisson talk about all of his ailments from his competitive days. I just couldn't help but wonder how HE was still alive! To be fair, now that Don Matesz has gone (back?) to the vegan side, we learn of myriad maladies from which he suffered during his 14 years of carnivorous paleo. Didn't prevent him from writing and selling a book (though now I think he's taken it out of circulation).
It's not the being wrong part for me, it's the claims of being duped while at the same time acknowledging that every study suggested otherwise.
Reminds of that quote you posted of Taubes talking about dismissing evidence to the contrary. There was no duping.
Look, I ate a fairly crappy diet for longer than I care to divulge here, and you know what my health consequences were?
Nada. Not one.
Oh wait, I did have cavities (due to bad oral health), and I would get fat or thin depending on caloric intake - and nasty mood swings -- but actual, demonstrable health problems. Not one damned thing. Amazing, huh?
I don't doubt that some people really DO have health issues, but some of this litany of non-specific, never validated by objective sources problems gets the old bullshit meter ticking.
When I adopted good oral hygiene, I stopped getting cavities. Who'd a thunk?
"Why do people overeat?"
That question doesn't have an answer. You can answer why an individual might have a compulsion to overeat, but like any psychological problem, it's probably different for everyone.
http://artdevanyonline.com/1/post/2012/12/peak-glucose-does-the-damage-of-hyperglycemia-and-glutathione-completely-prevents-it.html
Can a science person please explain the fractal-ness of our physiology?
Wiki says:
"A fractal is a mathematical set that has a fractal dimension that usually exceeds its topological dimension[1] and may fall between the integers.[2] Fractals are typically self-similar patterns, where self-similar means they are "the same from near as from far".[3] Fractals may be exactly the same at every scale, or, as illustrated in Figure 1, they may be nearly the same at different scales.[2][4][5][6] The definition of fractal goes beyond self-similarity per se to exclude trivial self-similarity and include the idea of a detailed pattern repeating itself."
So how exactly is our physiology fractal and what does that mean to me on a personal level?
I despise him.
I tend to think people are naturally inclined to consume. It's just that in our world, consumption isn't necessarily tied to energy expenditure like it is in the wild. Whether a lion, a deer or a squirrel, if an animal wants to consume more, they have to work more to get it. Same with our ancestors.
There's also a social dynamic involved, perhaps. I mean, what is overeating exactly? Is it never feeling full to begin with or not stopping when full? So, so many variables out there.
To your second---that hormones are key for fat loss---huh? Do you not think that the compulsion to eat (i.e., appetite) and whether energy is stored (as fat, muscle, glycogen, etc.) or burned are at least somewhat dictated by hormones? If you inject someone with testosterone, she will build a hell of a lot more muscle than without. If you screw up someone's leptin signaling, she'll eat a lot more than otherwise. The same with brain chemistry. If someone smokes some good indica, she'll want to crush everything in the fridge, even if minutes before she was full.
And that's all I'm saying about the pointlessness of any advice to eat less and move more. That's the same as telling a drowning person trapped at the bottom of a pool to just break the surface of the water and breathe.
@marksuave25 Yes. You nailed it. Why do people over-consume is the big question, and, as @anotherdeadletter says, we have to assume that the answer is mult-factorial and different for everyone. Which is why for all of Mark Sissons' flaws, his advice of addressing food, sleep, stress, exercise, sunlight, fun, contamination, gut health, and so on is so useful.
It starts here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QImWYirF0es
Just started watching
This use of "fractal" reminds me of Kruse's quantum bull puckies.
This particular piece reads as an advertisement for the glutathione he sells. Most studies with glutathione use injections. I looked into that years ago for a friend. If there are any with Parkinsons in the audience, they might want to look into glutathione injections as these have been proven beneficial in stemming the progression. Patches, creams and oral, not so much. Suzanne Somers is likely wasting money on her glutathione cream she uses.
I haven't had time to read that study, but to me the release of cytokines at peak glucose doesn't tell me a thing. There's a difference between stimulus-prompted release and chronic and/or inappropriate release of something. Insulin comes to mind! There's nothing bad/wrong/harmful about the acute insulin response to a hyperglycemic spike.
I think the "pointlessness" of ELMM is premature. Too many are waiting for magic to happen where this occurs spontaneously like we're told it does. There are many here who finally saw results when they ditched this fairy tale and just followed that supposedly wrong conventional wisdom.
I imagine newbies must be quite confused when they read back and/or get the responses they do today by "newly enlightened" followers.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Fractal_wrongness
or click
> Animals in captivity, fed by trainers, will overeat as well.
When you use the words trainers and captivity I'm assuming you mean there's an element of domestication or forcing by trainers - in fact neither's needed; wild animals overeat just fine on their own. I saw a documentary of tigers in a sancuary once - in there they don't have to work for food and it's not limited they ate and ate and ate to overweight.
> blogblogDecember 29, 2012 1:38 AM
> Contrary to popular opinion many wild and farm animals mammals will readily over-eat even on natural foods.
____
For once I agree with blogblog - Stanford primatologist/neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky gives the example of the apes he studies in Africa finding the garbage dumps of hotels patronized by western tourists (and rich Africans) - the apes gorge on the refuse. They get all the same problems as humans who over eat.
Access, low work-to-acquire, palatability
lead to
overeating and obesity.
seems to apply to multiple species.
In most natural settings, there's a direct relationship between obtaining food and eating it. When that relationship is broken, the problems arise.
Because it's what they want to hear. I can eat all the meat and butter I want!? And lose weight? Right on!
"Look, I ate a fairly crappy diet for longer than I care to divulge here, and you know what my health consequences were?
Nada. Not one."
Complete and utter rubbish. You would have almost certainly suffered a plethora of medical conditions - colds and allergies, weight gain, headaches, indigestion, blood glucose fluctuations, insomnia etc that you considered completely normal.
The fact is that a human should be able live a physically active disease-free lifestyle for 80+ years without any form of medical intervention.
Most HGs don't practice any form of oral hygeine - they don't get cavities.
When can we expect a book from you that sets it all straight, gets it ALL right?
As as a point of clarification: What I've recommended to folks has changed little in 8+ years, my understanding of mechanism has changed dramatically.
I Bow before the All-Knowing who populate these environs.
Well. Since I have your attention. I must say that as much as I've wanted to like you as a "guru", and I DO respect very much what you've done in practice, I've been floored by some recent developments. Obviously more recent developments have sidetracked me from addressing those.
So, let me ask. Are you still planning to headline the LC Cruise in May? You would be a fool to. Just my opinion, of course.
"What I learn from this is that once I find out a guru is wrong, that's fine, I just can't trust them again, their credibility is gone. You should only get one shot if your goal is to be a guru. You can't get a second pass when you have shown that you do the homework, that you don't cross your t's and dot your i's."
Why did I quote that? Well, I followed your link to Plant Positive, looked over all his/her videos and selected "41 PUFAs Oxidize!", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOcfxpZi6a0, as the first one I wanted to watch.
I'm only 8 minutes into it, but it is so biased and so flagrantly misrepresents the information that I find it highly annoying. For instance, at 5:50, we are shown Table 3 from the Lyons Diet Heart Study, with the very annoyingly high-pitched (for a male) voice-over claiming that this demonstrates the superior health benefit of PUFA over SFA. But look at the numbers: there was significance for total cal, total lipid, SFA, PUFA (reduced, ie, in the opposite direction!!!), oleic, linoleic, linolenic, fiber and cholesterol. So actually, we do not know which of all the factors are ASSOCIATED WITH (not causal to) the benefit, and in particular, I like that the w-6 to w-3 ratio has been brought into the range recommended by the Lands' equation for the experimental group more than the false dichotomy presented.
Unfortunately the internet gives people like you more attention than you deserve. If you had made a book pre-internet, you would be but a drop of water in a puddle. Nothing more than a fringe "nutritionist" (real nutritionists with actual college degrees please don't hate me) and nothing more than a whisper.
I know enough to avoid you and your poisonous advice on nutrition. I wouldn't be surprised if you made a follow-up book about the Paleo advantage to a dog dookie diet and people praised you for being the second coming....the King of the Feces, the Feces Whisperer. LOL I would love to watch you eat sh*t. For it is what you and everyone who pushes false information deserves. Messing with people's health and mind to make a buck....yuk!
Still makes me have images of some gay porn fetish site....I'm not saying he is....but he does strongly hate women and loves to be out with the guys doing "man" things. Just sayin.
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