Speaking of Eating Disorders ...
I'm trying to figure out why Stefani Ruper advocates for paleo (for women!) when: {colored emphasis mine, plain bold is hers}
When you discover the paleo diet, it just sort of makes sense in that basic way, and you leap head first into an orgy of statistics and science and success stories. But for me–as probably for a fair portion of paleo dieters–my excitement was mostly at the promise of being effortlessly thin. With the paleo diet, I wouldn’t have to feel so restricted. The “satiation power” of fat and protein would make the burden of my weight maitenance efforts slide off of my shoulders. I’d eat sardines. I wouldn’t feel hungry. I’d be skinny. Life would be perfect. Hooray!
Needless to say that wasn’t quite how the story went down at all. As a matter of fact, it was at this point in my life, for the first time ever, that episodes of overeating became real food binges, in which I might eat half of a pumpkin cheesecake after a whole Thanksgiving dinner, a whole serving tray of gourmet desserts on my birthday, or a few loaves of dessert bread at Christmas parties. The fact that I had forbidden carbohydrates of nearly all forms from my diet meant that I needed them all the more strongly. This phenomenon is one of the great monsters I try to tackle with this blog:macronutrient restriction. If your diet is actively restricting you and making you feel deprived, chances are quite good that food intake, choices, and willpower will all domino behind that.
This also meant that eating a “paleo diet” didn’t heal me at all. It made my struggle all the more difficult, and precisely because the diet was supposed to work but didn’t, I felt even more like I was doing something wrong. This was frustrating and discouraging on several levels. What was wrong with me that it wasn’t work? What did I need to do? Did I need to do the diet even more “perfectly”? I tried. I think a lot of us know what that’s like.
Perhaps someone can explain to me why this woman keeps associating herself with low carbers as well. Ruper was introduced to paleo by Nora Gedgaudas' book. Nora is very low carb. Since Eenfeldt is now equating calorie counting with eating disorders, I wonder how he would feel about this experience of someone who is still, almost unfathomably, outright supportive of a paleo diet (nevermind she never defines this). Carbohydrate restriction -- counting or not -- would not be paleo. Paleo man would have eaten the carbs!!
Comments
But LC doesn't solve the problem for these people; the whole problem just takes a different tack. The dieter just starts obsessing about carbs instead of cals. And this time it's worse, since the diet is actually not working.
I think this promise to finally relieve one of their torturous obsessive-compulsive behavior is the main appeal of LC. And also why folks stick with it and apologize for it long after we can see it's obviously not working (like Mr. Moore).
The laws of physics do not apply in Paleo-dom. Matter can change form absent the application of energy. Lead changes to gold in a total vacuum.
I have been unable to find a publisher for my book titled "The Two Years Of Living Hell Diet And Exercise Plan."
I've seen plenty of folks get healthier and slimmer on Paleo/Primal eating. And I've seen others not lose, stall, or gain. And some had skyrocketing LDL, and others had normalized cholesterol.
We are not clones. We don't all thrive on the same diet, though the reason I do read and have adapted some paleo principles is because it makes sense to eat REAL food. In my case, as a major-butt fat absorber, I can't eat high fat without insane cholesterol rises. I can do a moderated fat, moderated carb diet and feel fine and do better. Moderating carbs for appetite control. Moderating fats for food appeal without massive calories (ie, not as much saturated as Paleo-ers preach cause my LDL can't handle it, not as low as some popular heart health diets promote cause just shoot me now if I gotta eat 10% fat, bleh).
People trying to lose weight are gonna have to monitor SOMETHING. Change stuff. Exercise, calories. Something is gonna be monitored until it's automatic. I mean, after a while, one knows what a plate of a meal OUGHT to look like to be roughly at one's fuel needs and not over.
Then portion creep can come into play and monitoring has to be repeated.
FOlks like me who got to be 300 lbs have something whack in the appetite control/feedback system. We don't stop eating when moderately full. We want more. More. We may have fat tooths or sweet tooths, but we just want what we want.
I think many folks are looking for effortless weight loss. And some are looking for "I can eat all I want of X and Y" weight loss.
I think anyone who is in search of a diet that lets them eat ad libitum who doesn't have some sort of good biochemical feedback that lets them feel full with a modest amount of real food is self-deluding.
I can't eat all I want. Of anything except maybe greens. hahah Everything else has to be controlled to some degree.
We count to balance checkbooks. We count to make sure we're paid correctly. We have weekly spending allowances.We set all sorts of numerical goals, lists, plans for our lives so we don't go out of bounds and self-destruct. Why is setting a food budget that ridiculous, particularly for those of us not good at naturally controlling intake?
I've known folks who could eat ad libitum and eat large and be size 5. I wish I was that person, metabolically. I am not. Dem's da breaks.
Jimmy, like me, is an overeater by inclination. We could outeat folks. We love fatty numnums. But I faced the fact that fatty numnums don't like me and eating ad libitum is nuts for me, unless it's a huge platter of steamed veggies. Then, trust me, I can stop eating before I reach caloric disaster. :D
I wonder how come food is supposed to be effortless, but then they go through hell at Crossfit. I've read about soreness levels that cripple folks for days. Sweat and grunt and whatnot.
Seems like hell just got moved from eating to moving. ; )
And I like a lot of the principles of Paleo and adopted several--even tried some of DeVany's stuff in 2011 with good results, until I started getting all woozy, near passing out with fasting weight training. I just worry when stuff get cultish, which for a few it has. I wonder if it's just within the person: the person with obssessive or other issues brings them to whatever diet/lifestyle-plan they adopt. The normal folks benefit best, cause they never go overboard. The extreme folks may benefit or may go berserk. Maybe...
Exactly.
It's my belief that cutting out one macronutrient, whether it be fat or carbs, can work for short term results, but eventually a balance must be introduced. Sooner or later, the dam will break will continue if you don't and the cycle will repeat.
Re Stefani Ruper, she and people like her are the reason why Paleo is a cult and will never go mainstream. What the hell qualifies her to talk about infertility? Where is this infertility crisis anyway? Other than individual cases, it seems to be confined to women who put off having kids until their late 30s and even 40s, when yeah, fertility declines. That's nature's plan. I thought Paleo was all about nature. And the only way you can deal with fertility issues is with ART, which certainly isn't paleo. These people are jokes.
One thing that's bugged me since I discovered this community is this search for some thing, that must be subconscious/physiological/totally outside our control or knowledge that went wrong that caused our obesity. Most of these theories seem to be put forth by slender men who generally have a hard time putting on any weight if at all. We are not rats in a cage ...
Some people benefit from limited specific carbs.
Unless you're actually claiming people are intolerant to carbohydrates as a whole, in which case... Right.
Even if such were a case, it's a very, very small portion of people. Similarly one could say the same about fat if they've had serious gall bladder injuries.
So what if somebody who is sedentary and leaves on a french-fries and coke while staying thin? No one knows what is inside of that person.
@Evelyn, PD - I don't doubt your evidence, because I know one guy who is like that, the rat. He led a hiking weekend I went on - skinny as a rail, and he'd eat a snack of whole milk and cake at 10 PM. That would make me huge in no time at all. I still say that that doesn't work in most cases - most lean girls eat like lean girls. He was extremely active.
"The thing is, there is a TON of info out there for how to change metabolic rate, and most of it doesn't bear out in studies."
Broscience, right? I've had it with the fitness industry. Had. It.
"Perhaps it does work for a person here and there, and maybe it's worth a couple bucks for a book to give something a try, but ..."
Sure, give it a try but don't expect much. I've come to that conclusion about putting on appreciable muscle. The studies say that I can put on nearly 4 pounds, and I can lose a bit more than that of body fat, if I don't change anythinge else. But I ain't gonna get "ripped" or "sensationally skinny." Ain't gonna happen.
As for any woman who suffers from infertility, she'd be better of going to a medical doctor who got his/her MD from an accredited university, rather than a self-styled expert in woo. Woo is poo.
Of course this is tied to the food and not the person?
The body craves different things. Not giving it what it wants is not fixed by giving it more of what it doesn't. Sometimes we crave fat. Sometimes we crave carbs. Sometimes we crave protein. Person A at a certain meal might be content with the makeup of 1 meal while another might not.
Hence the problem with most people. You can deny yourself for only so long. Why do smokers trying to quit overeat? Similar scenario. They're bodies are craving one thing while they try to sate that craving with something else.
As for "You cannot overeat on meat". Lemme offer you my "n=1" experience after having put down a couple 22oz helpings of beef in a sitting: Yeah, you can.
I would like to ask of this 'balance'. Because I can go to every corner of this world and everyone seems to have their own balance?
What is balance? Okinawan diet? The Inuit? The Kitavans? From the tone of things, S.A.D. sometimes sounds pretty balanced. If we're espousing balance as the gold standard, then it has to have uniform applicability, otherwise, it is just more arbitration that can or cannot work.
Yesterday I picked-up my son from his rock-climbing trip, he couldn't wait to come home to eat,so we dropped at a barbecue place. I couldn't finish my 1/4 lb portion of beef,probably because I ate it without their too sugary souse, but my son finished it for me .
You mean everyone is different? Does this shock you? Is that the problem, that we're looking for some written rule? Because there is none, no big bad macronutrient that's causing obesity. Trying instill one is probably a large part of the problem.
Why compare natural diets with SAD? They are not even remotely the same thing. What's balanced about SAD, with it's non-nutritive processed fats and carbohydrates? I don't know of anyone who would advocate eating that.
The Hunzas eat a lot of wheat and millet, not a lot of fish. Okinawans? Kinda not so much, yet both appear to be a healthy people. Yet those people seem have incorporated the different groups into their diets to satisfy their nutritional needs. It's a common trend. Why would native americans even both to come up with soaking their corn in alkali to make its nutrients more available? They didn't know what niacin was.
"Balance" varies by individual, by the nutritional content of the food and by the diet of the person over a long period. We get the things we need from fats, from carbs and from proteins. I know the big spiel is that "carb have no nutritional value", but we didn't evolve to make sketchy vitamins of limited bioavailability and fiber substitute.
"I found out that when meat is consumed daily but without excess,"
How can you have excess when it's impossible to overeat it?
Lol! Without explaining why my point was missed, which seems to be a trend on the internet because tone cannot be conveyed, let me comment on Okinawan diet that was at the centre of my comment, which is the one that's making rounds in all the pro-starch debates 'zomg those gais eat almost 85% starch'. It is very low fat. And that presents a challenge to your original statement and premise of 'low fat' being as bad as 'low carb'. Similarly, there are cultures and individuals--fewer, fine--who do well on low carb. This really does go to that balance issues which as it turns out, is subjective.
- ""Balance" varies by individual, by the nutritional content of the food and by the diet of the person over a long period. We get the things we need from fats, from carbs and from proteins. I know the big spiel is that "carb have no nutritional value", but we didn't evolve to make sketchy vitamins of limited bioavailability and fiber substitute."
So then it is a load of subjective rhetoric that has no general applicability and every individual has to figure it out for themselves. Glad that we have that cleared up because for one moment, I thought we were endorsing an orthodox view point on balance in the context of nutrition.
Bad Okinawans! Bad! Bad Okinawans! Shame on you for restricting your fat content! (http://apjcn.nhri.org.tw/server/APJCN/Volume10/vol10.2/Sho.pdf)
Yep. And some people benefit from limiting fats. And others benefit from limiting protein.
Amazing people, those Japanese.
http://www.ilgenetics.com/content/news-events/newsDetail.jsp/q/news-id/213
Most people want to lose weight because they want to be more attractive, wear nice clothes, fit into the seat on an airplane, they stuff it into a "health" framework because it feels better to look at it that way.
Once on MDA someone posted that since she had gone primal she had noticed that there was less buildup of wax in her ears, how crazy do you have to be to even keep track of how much wax is building up in your ears?
Long time reader, first time commenter.
First off, I'd like to thank you for remaining skeptical in this area of alternative health. It's refreshing to see someone apply science and critical thinking. Too many "gurus" have peddled so much woo and the amount of people soaking it up is shocking.
Slightly off topic, in terms of Eating disorders, I think the problem (at least in my case) is when all these "experts" sensationalise and claim that gluten, hfcs, carbs, omega 6, "toxins" will cause xyz and is the reason why you're overweight. Dr Harris hit the nail in the head with his blog post, "Proof that Orthorexia exists".
In my case, it led to food avoidance, orthorexia and now I'm battling with bulimia nervosa.
On the topic of Jimmy Moore's weight problems, I honestly cannot sympathise with him considering he's had straight thinkers like Lyle McDonald, Yoni Freedhoff and yourself on his podcast.
Thanks, keep up the good work and I apologise for my rant :)
You're in good health then? What about the 'broken metabolism' you told me about? I asked how you could get fat and miserable from eating carbs if your metabolism wasn't broken, and you said of course it's broken. That's why you eat LC. The conclusion must be that your LC diet is not mending your metabolism. It's a sticking plaster, not a cure. I would be worried if I were you. I don't see how anyone who can't tolerate carbs can consider themselves healthy. It means at the very least that their pancreas isn't working properly.
My doctor thinks I have very good markers of cardiovascular health, I am very fit, I didn't go to his office for 5 years to get antibiotic for a bronchitis I used to require after a seasonal flu. When I had a foot surgery 3 years ago, the anesthesiologist put me in a "very good health" category and told that if everybody would be like me, cardiologists would be without a job. However, I am not a generally healthy person. I was diagnosed at age ten with a gallbladder inflammation, have multiple allergies, inherited migraines from my dad, have to eat a LC diet and avoid foods that cause or exaggerate allergies, I have an underactive thyroid. I am sure that the management of my health issues and attempts to get thinner with exercises led me to an excellent cardio health. Many women my age who were thinner and healthier that me when they were young are in a worse physical shape than me now, they suffer from menopause, consume pills for their anxiety and don't know what to do with expanding waists. Most think I am nuts not eating bread and sweets or at least own an iron will. I agree with you - my diet is not mending my metabolism - it is just a working plaster, I don't think it is mendable. I didn't make matters better with doing starvation diets several time during my life.
__________
According to Eenfeldt, more sane than those who track calories & activity.
People often mean different things when they say that their metabolism is broken. When a person looses weight, body uses counter-mechanisms to prevent the continuation of a weight loss. As a result such person can't easily loose weight any longer on the regiment which was used before and says that the m. got broken. Another example - one member of a family eats everything and stays thin, while another one gains weight eating the same food and leaving the same life-style. Having a liver producing too much glucose is often referred as a broken metabolism. Have your pick.
Thanks Galina, you've just admitted that broken metabolism, as bandied about in the LC world, is fact-free nonsense talk.
When the liver produces too much glucose, that is diabetes, which I specifically excluded from my question, because it is a medically valid case of a broken metabolism.
" A cocktail of other hormones associated with hunger and metabolism all remained significantly changed compared to pre-dieting levels. It was almost as if weight loss had put their bodies into a unique metabolic state, a sort of post-dieting syndrome that set them apart from people who hadn’t tried to lose weight in the first place. "
They used the therm a "post-dieting syndrome"
Also, some people have physiological reasons to fatten easily, while others homeostaticly maintain constant body weight.
It is not an example of a broken metabolism. Those are perfectly normal reactions.
Do me a favor Galina? Stop using these meaningless phrases. When you are talking about diabetes, insulin resistance, etc., use those phrases because they have a specific medical meaning.
But I'm really tired of reading your LC dogma here. You use every opportunity to slip in the LC crap, and it's annoying.
Broken metabolism is meaningless bullshit. You have admitted as much. So stop using it.
I don't think I use it myself, I can't be sure 100% without checking, but I don't think I exactly told Jane that world combination in my conversation with her. But of course, you can have your wish, because here we both agree.Broken metabolism is rather meaningless explanation of a weight-loss stall or a weight gain.
I guess, when people are propelled with dogma, LC or not, they use some concepts without thinking, as if they follow a cult. It is my impression that the Carbsane blog is for people who lost weight by different means,not only ELMM, and Evelyn trays to fight specifically LC dogma, not necessary such way of a dieting itself. Please, try to understand that LC used intelligently could be a valuable tool in a weight loss. May be my position will irritate you less, if you keep in mind I tryed everything else.
I'm only going by what Jane said at 8:02 above: "What about the 'broken metabolism' you told me about?" I'm not so obsessed as to go through every comment you've made here but it sounds consistent with what you have said, at great length.
The position that LC can be an effective weight loss tool if its practiced in a calorie deficit modality doesn't irritate me at all. YOUR position, which I am positive you will say you never said, is that LC creates the calorie deficit by means of the metabolic advantage. Which I consider to be total bullshit.
I don't think that making a fuss over the phrase "broken metabolism" is carping or nitpicking. The broken metabolism is a core deceptive concept in LC, which has caused many an LC dieter to give up in despair. It did that to me. I thought I had a broken metabolism and I couldn't lose weight with calorie deficit. I hate the lying bastards who purvey this bogus concept, and I hope that every one of them goes bankrupt in 2013, but I'm not holding my breath.
I tried a low carb diet for too long.with lots of yo-yoing. Couldn't do it as I wanted to eat the carbs I ditched when low carb. So carbs are back and doing better than ever. Yes I have to calorie count for a while but worth it. Was stuck in low carb dogma for so long. As a low carber from way back hate seeing newbies get into low carb - try to discourage them unless low carb can offer some benefit to them.
At the beginning of LCarbing, it looked like it was enough to just avoid carbohydrates, nowadays I try to eat less, less often, fast, you know the rest.
I often comment about such advantages as good hunger control(it provided an opportunity to fast for me)on LC , stable energy level, on a LC diet my allergies and migraines got way better, I think it is huge. Hot flashes do not bother me any longer.
About broken metabolism. Any diet will cause that "post-dieting syndrome" if certain amount of weight was lost. Probably, hunger would be less of an issue on LC, but body doesn't care on which diet pounds were lost, on LC or not, your body will try to put lbs back.
Most of the Easy to fatten people who claim that they need the LC diet have a point(another instance when people talk about their broken metabolism), if they are like me and my mom and have an abnormal BS readings after eating even not refine carbs, even without being diabetics.
It is always tempting to worn newbies who are about to start what you tryed earlier. I noticed that Diana is very enthusiastic about exercise right now, and I want to repeat the old and boring warning - please, be aware of injuries, put the injury avoidance very high on your priority list,it is almost unavoidable, let your body to adjust , ask trainers how to perform exercise safely, never ignore the first sign of a trouble and have a back-up plan.
:)
Joking aside, it was hard, but worth the effort, because I finally, for the first time in my life, gained mastery over my weight. Discovered I didn't have a broken metabolism. Lost weight and kept it off.
I am exercising for health. No matter how infantile Jimmy Moore thinks that is.
Eating paleo to be "thin"--I was there before. Honestly, looking back at it, I sort of laugh it off. First of all, the bullcr*p I read in various "Paleo blogs" is a bunch of nonsense. Upon learning more in-depth biochemistry as a biochemistry major in university, some of Paleo stuff I read just sounds like major broscience.
I have learned that one needs to eat what makes them feel good. And everybody is different. If eating paleo makes you feel great, go for it, but preaching it as if if should be the diet of every human being is wrong. And honestly, I believe a real secret to health and weight management (minus the exceptions, severe metabolic cases...ACTUAL, and not feigned, sensitivities/allergies/other health problems) is to just be happy with life, get enough sleep, not be so stressed, SLOW DOWN, move around a bit, don't eat too much + chew slowly, and eat when you truly feel hungry. If you eat with fear or with prejudice against a certain food, almost certainly something bad will happen to you. If you calm down, view food as a valuable source of fuel, enjoy and eat when you truly feel hungry, you will automatically eat less and feel quite full with surprisingly small portions...even with junk food. That is just my experience. And eventually, fine-tuning your diet to what matches best for you is just the little icing on top once you've got the basics down. I find that, for example, learning for yourself that eating more paleoish is best for you is much better than convincing yourself that paleo is the best way simply because gurus told you so.
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