The Carb-Sane Asylum

If you interact with me at all on social media ... or if you just keep your eye on that Twitter feed over there on the right ... you're probably aware by now that Jimmy Moore is fasting.  Today would be Day 9, I think .... But first, a little intro from a podcast interview with Abel James -- aka the Fat Burning Man -- taped either shortly before or a day or so into the fast.

I've been poking around some eating disorder research recently due to the recent Elizabeth Licorish-Tara Lipinski kerfuffle (see also the follow-up ). But something else, that's seemingly always a hot topic when calories are discussed, is this concept of metabolic adaptation.  Quite often this gets referred to as having a "damaged metabolism".   I'm just going to use that term (and w/o quotes), and don't mean to imply that it is necessarily appropriate or justified, just that it's easier than explaining it repeatedly.  The damaged metabolism is thought to develop from frequent, chronic, and/or severe calorie restriction.  The mechanism is that the body down-regulates basal metabolic rate such that a 150 lb person who has dieted down from 250 lbs will require fewer calories to maintain that weight compared with a person whose normal, stable weight is 150 lbs.    So I was looking for some additional references about the "hamster wheel" (i...

When Elizabeth Licorish was 9 years old, she read a skating reference book that revealed that 12 year old Tara Lipinski trained five hours each day, enjoyed a diet rich in spaghetti and marinara sauce, stood 4 feet 8 inches tall and weighed 68 pounds. When she put the book down, did she .... (a) Hop on a bathroom scale (b) Ask Mom to make more pasta with marinara (c)  Request a longer training schedule. The answer to this is the subject of this post.  Apologies for the somewhat longer than intended delay in publishing.  Part I of sorts:   Women, Athletes & Calories -- Does Tara Lipinski Eat Enough? This post was inspired by a reaction piece in Philly Voice by freelance journalist Elizabeth Licorish entitled:   Dear female athletes: Please don’t follow Tara Lipinski’s 1,200-calorie diet.    In Part I, I tried to limit commentary mostly to answering the question in my title, though I did touch on other topics.  I'm h...

Yes. Blogstress Note:  This post has been brewing ... in my head and in the Blogger draft, for a few days now.  This issue really hit a nerve, but every time I started writing, things got even longer than my usual.    I didn't want it to be unmanageably long, but I also didn't want to start a whole series.  I think I may have found a way to cut this to two somewhat manageable parts, without straying too far off of blog topic. This will be a departure from normal events here, and yet ties in with topics I discuss with some degree of regularity, both in general and within the IHC:  Calories and Eating Disorders. click to enlarge Part I will deal with Calories Part II will deal with Eating Disorders This is going to be female-centric.  Sorry male readers! Without further ado: Yes, something got under my skin the other day on Facebook, and since this is my major outlet for sharing thoughts, I'm blogging about it here.   Apparen...

I eat cookies every day! (note:  Italics are Eades response)

Over the past several months I have fallen down more PubMed rabbit holes than I care to admit to ... and that's just for the Restriction Addiction book (which, by the way, I'm putting the finishing touches on for republishing the updated and expanded version). Research for that book was overwhelming at times because of the sheer volume of studies out there on food addiction, dopamine, food reward, obesity, eating disorders, etc.etc. A ton of them in rats. No ... my book is not a lengthy compendium with 1000 references. There are a few seminal reviews that illustrate key points. One of these is the following from Nicole Avena PhD. :   Evidence for sugar addiction: Behavioral and neurochemical effects of intermittent, excessive sugar intake.   The PDF for this is more like a mini-book, complete with sections and content navigation.  So when I was perusing the schedule for the upcoming New Age Paleo CONference and MLM Expo (aka PaleoFX) and saw her name among th...

This is going to be a quick post.  Nothing groundbreaking here, but there are some I-don't-care-what-the-Latin-phrase-is debate tactics that creep into too many of the discussions on eating disorders from all sides.   One such tactic is to accuse me, and others, of blaming the paleo diet or saying it causes eating disorders.  I didn't do that.   A scenario: You look in the mirror one day and don't like what you see.  Where did this gut come from?  Step on the scale, 10 lbs since a year ago!  Yikes!!  New Year's Resolution:  Lose 10 lbs.    The approach you choose is a standard one:  Establish a calorie deficit of 500-1000 cal/day , mostly calorie counting but adding a 40 min-1 hr walk 5 days a week.  Before you know it the pants are less snug, the belt tightened not just one but two notches.  Feeling good ... looking good!  Goal reached.  Hey, maybe I'll look and feel even better if I lose 5 more p...

11/29:  Another minor update.  There has been a ton of feedback both here and on Facebook and I'm personally quite touched that the overwhelming response has been positive.  These subjects are never easy to broach.  I will be posting an update as I have had many questions as to why I removed the picture that I did and inserted my sarcastic graphic in its place.  That too is a serious and extremely tenuous/touchy issue to address, but it really needs to be as it goes to the heart of this issue.   In any case, just so everyone is aware, yesterday the MDA post was updated as follows: This response is disheartening to say the least.  I think that most would agree that most if not all comments were respectful.  One of the last comments that was allowed was from one guy berating another for saying that she looked better before.  I don't see that as being any less appropriate than comments congratulating her for her after appear...

With apologies in advance for some tangent going ons ... As a popular paleo ( for marketing purposes  anyway) author released a paperback version of her 21 Day Sugar Detox this week -- yes, I'm talking about a $400-will-buy-you-a-certificate-that-says-so "holistic nutritionist" aka Certified Nutritional Consultant courtesy of 501c3 Bauman "college" -- I thought this journal article might be of enough interest to the inmates here to warrant a post. The plausibility of sugar addiction and its role in obesity and eating disorders

As many of my readers are likely aware, I have attracted the attention of a few true bullies and stalkers who consider it noble to ridicule my every word and move.  In line with this, they have picked apart my interview with Jimmy Moore and made fun of various parts.  Two of the issues both happened to involve cookies, hence the title of this post. My (long, long ago and one time) Cookie Diet: The purpose of my interview with Moore was ostensibly to discuss my issues with the science of Gary Taubes.  It wasn't to discuss my own life, weight, history, etc.  However this was around the time of the Twinkie diet so I guess Jimmy felt compelled to waste time (less for the real issues) discussing that.  In that context, I related a story from long ago .  I don't remember exactly what year that was, but as I recall what apartment I baked in I would have been under 25.  My weight struggles were continuing at that time having began with a crash diet ...

This post is a little past its shelf life, but I figured I'd publish it up anyway.  On the tail of Angelo Coppola's remarks on Jimmy Moore's 10 Things Paleo needs to address so I can continue scamming off of "paleo" post -- blogged on here -- Emily Deans over at Evolutionary Psychiatry picked up on another aspect of Angelo's remarks.  If you missed it, the first post was Orthorexia in the Paleo/Primal Community , and she followed up with  Orthorexia in the Paleo/Primal Community: Further Considerations .  If I have one general criticism it is that I'm not entirely sure Angelo was talking about orthorexia when he listed "Recognizing and addressing eating disorders among those who are trying Paleo approaches" among his suggestions countering Jimmy's. So while they are excellent posts, I fear the focus on the more controversial orthorexia overshadows what I see/saw quite frequently -- the development of binge eating disorders.  I'm not...

Such are the short pronouncements of one Swedish Diet Doctor, Andreas Eenfeldt.  Who, by the way, will be on hand to snap pictures of all of the obese low carbers in the audience for the third (or fourth?) year in a row of Jimmy Moore's KKKetanic.   He posted two short quips recently.  So short, in fact, that I'll quote them in full here. Paleo and Calories? The recent trend towards calorie counting in Paleo land is baffling. Some people need a reality check. There’s nothing less Paleo than counting calories. Calorie Counting and Eating Disorders Needing to count calories means something is wrong (the appetite regulation is disturbed) or the body weight goal is unnatural. We should  try to fix what’s wrong  and try to have healthy goals, if possible. Then there will be no need to starve. Calorie counting is an eating disorder.

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 pu...

Jimmy Moore is clearly following the instructions of Volek & Phinney's latest book on The Art and Science of Low Carb Performance .  This follows on TA&SoLC Living.  Peter Attia followed their recommendations as well when he went nutty ketotic.  His is an even more bizarre experiment than Jimmy's, because as I understand from his JumpStartMD talks (search on YouTube) he had lost whatever little bit of extra weight already without dropping carbs severely.  The guy also works out (or did at the time) almost 3 hours a day and bragged that he increased his calories to 4500 and even more per day.  He bragged at one point in that talk about consuming upwards of 400g fat per day!!  How anyone doesn't think that is the very definition of dietary insanity is beyond me.  Still, Attia is fit and extremely active, and by all indications has not seen detrimental lipid profiles resulting from his adopted lifestyle.

WARNING:  Rant! There's been quite the discussion going on in comments of The Men Who Made Us Fat , and I decided my commentary might be better organized in a blog post.  I can certainly see the positions of both sides there, but in the end I come down on the side of "Eric" when he says this: " Until we accept that Obesity is a lifestyle choice ( either voluntarily or by apathy ) no real fix can every be made without crushing regressive taxation on food. To blame "big food" is a dangerous cop-out that reinforces the negative cycle. " The so-called "simple obesity" -- the epidemic of indisputable overeating to the tune of an average of 500 calories per day -- is very much a lifestyle choice.  In my case, the obesity of the late 90's and the 2000's was in large part due to apathy or laziness.  Too many take out meals instead of cooking something.  And take out means too many fried, processed, calorie dense foods.  Or just eating cracke...

Hey gang ... I'm working on the Big Fat Lies blogumentary ... just when I think I've found everything I'm remembering to include, I come across more.  But I'm near completion and after some time to do other things in my life (grin) will likely get to publishing it next week.  In the meantime, I came across a quote that really turned me off to Taubes when I heard it.  It really had little to do with his scientific manglings, but more to do with his attitude about fat tissue regulation showing an utter disregard for eating disorders.  I blogged on it once over on the Chronicles blog but couldn't find the quote at the time.  So when I heard it this time, you can imagine it jumped out at me!   As someone who struggled with ED's, and could just have easily succumbed to anorexia rather than what eventually led to lifelong struggle with overweight and obesity, I found this personally offensive.  It's moreso because I feel that Taubes misuses the works of Hil...