This topic contains 854 replies, has 38 voices, and was last updated by PeonyLover 2 years, 6 months ago.
USA, I hesitate to add this because you have so much nutritional knowledge so I hoe you will forgive me if I am teaching my grandmother to suck (low carb!) eggs. Or if you have discussed this before.
Raw garlic has an excellent effect on blood sugars, triglicerides – and all that jazz.
Here is one of many links: http://jn.nutrition.org/content/136/3/800S.full
I found this an interesting anecdote too: http://curezone.com/forums/am.asp?i=23506
I’m going to try this hoping the lemon will at least counteract the effects of garlic smell and at best do some good.
Yes, it will be an ongoing fight- but that’s OK – and we can sometimes eat what we like and that’s better than most diets. xx
No, no matter what the anti-oxidants, air popped or not, corn is grain, and is pretty pure carbohydrate. Eat it by all means, but don’t call it a la Wheat Belly. 1.5 oz gives 28grams of carb, which equates to more than 20% of your calories on a fast day.
Kelp noodles may have seen some kelp at some distant point in their evolution, but they ain’t vegetables. Denatured, processed, not what I mean by vegetables which really need to be fresh or lightly cooked. 1 gram of carbs per 4 oz (4 calories)
Peppers are fruit, high in sugars. Not particularly bad, but not veg. The lowest carb count I can find for a whole medium red pepper is 7 grams. (another 28 calories)
Which leaves you with 8 lettuce leaves, not exactly a huge bowl of salad!
Its fine, probably better than many diets, but don’t be disappointed when you fail to lose weight.
Oh, and while we are about it, read up about the effect of large amounts of animal protein on women.
Yoni Freedhoff is entirely right. Davis is not consistent, or rather he isn’t clear that wheat elimination is not always the whole answer.
But the paleo diet does seem to work if one can sustain it. However, most diets seem to work(at weight management) if sustained, but also most don’t manage to sustain their diet forever.
However, all the evidence shows that carbs, and sugar make us fat, and protein and fat don’t.
I’m pinning my hopes on reducing carbs and sugar, and losing a little more, plus gaining other health benefits from IF.
Its an interesting question, isn’t it – what to eat?
The more I read Dr Davis, the less convinced I am of the coherence of what he writes. So here is my take on Paleo
The theory is that we are, biologically speaking, cave men/women. So we should, to the extent it is possible, eat and live like a cave man. And keep an eye on the research, while remembering that its often very limited in its scope, and rarely do we see large human trials.
So, if you think a cave man would recognise it, its probably safe to eat. And Dr Davis was right, if its in a packet, and especially if it has an ingredient declaration, its suspect.
Leafy veg and herbs, fruit (but remember that most modern fruit is way, way higher in sugar than the wild stuff), root veg, nuts seeds, legumes(but probably not in huge quantities).
Meat, fish, eggs, but remember that research shows that very large amounts of animal protein are not good for women. Its highly unlikely that cave men would have caught enough to eat large quantities of animal protein, without guns etc animals are surprisingly hard to catch!
For people of a healthy weight, and with no sugar metabolism problems I think that a limited amount of starchy seeds and root veg are probably fine. But if you are heavy, and/or have diabetes its probably a good idea to avoid them altogether because of their ability to cause insulin/sugar spikes.
I think milk is a tricky one, I personally eat the ‘pre-digested’ forms such as cheese and yoghurt freely, but I don’t drink the stuff.
There’s a fair bit of evidence against the plants of the nightshade family – tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, aubergines, and certainly if you suffer from arthritis or other inflammatory conditions it would probably be worth eliminating them for a while to see what happens.
If you cut out the carbs, and stick to the recommended (by your govt) amounts of protein, then the bulk of your calories are going to come from fats – in nuts and seeds, and in full cream cheese, butter or cold pressed vegetable oils(not that cave men pressed oils!), and by not cutting the fat off your meat.
But suddenly it becomes remarkably difficult to pack in that number of calories so maybe CRON (calorie reduction with optimal nutrition) becomes more like what we are going to end up with.
What I actually do is that I eat like that when I am at home. I have a spoonful of honey daily on my home made yoghurt, and a square of chocolate to feed my sugar habit. And I occasionally crack and eat something sweet, but it is gradually happening less often. When I go to friends or a restaurant I eat what is put before me, but leave the grain stuff to one side as much as possible. I couldn’t get by without pulses, and I am pretty sure they do me no harm.
I hardly drink now, because I find it doesn’t agree with me. I drink herbal teas and fizzy water.
I’ve not come across uncured bacon before.
What I would like to see on your menus is big bowls of salad, or lots and lots of green veg. We are talking about the amounts that would normally be served for 3 or 4 people here.
Hi ruthi,
I enjoyed reading your above post. While I know nothing about the paleo diet so I won’t offer comment on that, what you said about the salad portion size invited response. When I made a salad for lunch one weekend at my boyfriend’s parents house, I got out a bowl and filled it with a delicious salad, all for me. We had a giggle when him and his mum pointed out that it was their family salad bowl, sufficient for the five of them when the kids were at home!! Go the huge / ginormous salads with lots of nutrients and no processing!!
That’s the whole point, Iwant – it wasn’t really sufficient, and because they eat so few veggies, they end up filling up on carbs.
I tried going paleo about 10 years ago, when there was relatively little information on the web, and I was a lot less well read. I cut out the carbs and ate fruit, veg and protein freely. Even eating too much fruit(and too much animal protein in those days too), and without fasting I lost a lb a week very steadily. But I found it hard, possibly because I was undiagnosed hypothyroid. This time, now that I’ve got over the first week, I am doing pretty well.
Right, I have watched Part 1 and I am in heaven – scientific proof for all that I know to be true!!!
And I read up on uncured ham and bacon. Uncured ham is just a ham joint from the pig that is not cured, ie raw meat.
‘Uncured’ bacon is actually cured, but with natural nitrites from plant sources, rather than ‘synthetic’ nitrite.
All ham and bacon is gluten free, unless its had a crust of some sort added. Here in England they have a horrible habit of putting a crust of disgusting yellow dyed breadcrumbs (or what passes for them) on the outside of hams. Yuk! But you only get gluten in four grains, wheat, rye, barley and (some) oats. Its a testament to the pernicous invasion of all our foods by grains, and wheat in particular, that ‘gluten free’ becomes such a universal label.
As for the latest processed sugar substitute, you know what I am going to say about that!!! So I won’t bother!
HI USA 🙂
I’m loving the Jason Fung series. Thanks for posting the link 🙂
In Insulin Toxicity and How to Cure Diabetes he was talking about alternate day fasting I think?
I watched the DR Goldhammer. Still I think I’d have difficulty keeping that sort of diet up forever. No meat or fish is easy enough I’m veggie already but no fat, sugar or salt. While I think it would be good healthwise, just keeping it up would be too hard. Bless 5:2 etc, fasting seems so easy in comparison.
Generally I’m getting on ok. Still not reliably x2 36 hour water only per week but x1 water only 36 hour fast and one 24 hour with 500cals. I’m aiming at x2 36 hour water fast.
It’s just occuring to me to do back-to-back 2 days than a separate day.
I wonder if the second day would be easier than the first?
It’s week 8 for me and 10.5 kilos down (1.5 stones) I’m going to be brave and have my doctor do my blood tests in December to see how they compare to the ones I had privately end of September.
Just need to start HIIT now on my crosstrainer. THis is harder than fasting but I hope it will get easier.
Hope it’s all going well with you 🙂
Boredom remains my biggest problem on fast days.
THe 2nd days starts quite easily so I may try to do a 2 day water fast.
Hi all,
Boy DrFung makes good sense. Not sure who his audience are but they seem sceptical so probably colleagues not students? But never mind 🙂 he knows what he is talking about.
About boredom. I had to smile at your question Ruthie and USA 🙂
The joy of eating is the difference! The taste, the activity, the comfort, the shopping, the breaking the day up into parts, the habit I suppose.
I mean fasting is not very, very diffcult but it is a bit dull. I can sort of enjoy the accomplishment – but I prefer feasting days!
Someone was writing recently about replacing meal times with me times. I would have found that useful when I had a full time job and before my husband died but my days are fairly empty at the moment. I’m not looking for symapathy, I keep busy enough but keeping busy is not the same. Food is an enjoyable part of my life.
Recapping a few points USA,
◆Low-Carb Mediterranean Diet Cuts Diabetes Risk◆
– I was always a bit sceptical about the way the benefits of the mediterranean diet were skilfully focused onto olive oil almost disregarding everything else in the diet. Skillful marketing but it seemed too simple to me.
– ◆could u explain a 24hr fast i do the 36hr◆
Yes, that’s me misleading you, sorry 🙁 I think of a 36 hour water fast as a proper one and I think of a 24 hour fast as the same thing but then I have a 500cal meal. Just my personal shorthand getting into the way 🙂
In one of the DR Fung videos he is talking about how our big modern industrialwheat is different from wheat centures ago. I was wondering if spelt or Kaniwa bread might be a better idea as an occasional wheat substitute? Just pondering. But as today is a fast day I’m going to stop thinking about bread now!
Best wishes,
OK, I’ve watched the first 3 parts, and here is my very brief summary
1)Diets don’t work. Our bodies compensate for more or less food to maintain roughly the same weight. When we cut our food our metabolism slows down to reduce the calories used. And that slowdown continues way beyond the diet, so our calorie requirements are lower even a year after the diet end, making subsequent dieting harder and harder.
2)Its insulin that makes us fat, its the job of insulin to convert blood sugar to body fat.. High carb low fat diets cause the release of more insulin, hence more fat deposited. There is NO evidence to suggest that high carb low fat diets are healthy, or work. There’s no evidence that exercise leads to weight loss either (most of our energy consumption is just living and keeping warm, exercise makes a very small percentage difference to our needs)
3)As we produce more insulin our cells get overloaded, and stop responing as well – insulin resistance, which is the early stage of diabetes. When we are insulin resistant our blood sugar rises, even though there is enough insulin in the system.
4)If there are gaps in the supply of insulin that resets our sensitivity to it, so we aren’t resistant. One of the main causes of insulin resistance is snacking, (which, to worsen matters tends to be on sweet high carb foods). The result is that there is a non stop stream of sugar coming into our bloodstream requiring an insulin response, and non-stop insulin production causes resistance.
5)Its not just carbs that provoke insulin production, but also proteins – especially milk protein.
6)The fibre that comes with most complex carbs (vegetables etc, and unrefined grains) tends to mitigate the sugar rush effect, and so is less likely to cause insulin spikes.
7)He seems to think vinegar is good. But apart from that oddity he’s basically proposing something that looks much like a paleo diet – but I expect in the next episode we’ll hear why that isn’t so good!
8)Stress leads to high cortisol levels, which also leads to fat deposition. 7-9 hours of sleep is important, nay essential. And stress busting exercises like yoga or mediation are also good.
@ruthi
“OK, I’ve watched the first 3 parts, and here is my very brief summary”
Great summary to help all of us to gauge where we should focus.
➰
Hello USA, You always send the most thoughtful and considerate replies. xx
I do several of the things you mentioned. There is a difference with filling you time and not being able to go home. For that is what bereavement feels like. But really, I don’t want to go into that here.
I hope you enjoy your job then returning to work will be a nicer thing.
Your coconut/flax flour bread sounds unusual 😉 I look forward to hearing how it goes.
xx
OK, Part 4, and the Calcium story.
Part 4 is about sugars, grains and fasting.
Important bits
1)Although fructose is metabolised by the liver, and not involved in the insulin process directly, it still causes insulin resistance. Moreover, although its sweeter than glucose, it tends to make you hungrier, rather than less hungry – so then you eat even more.
2)Modern wheat is not the same as ancient wheats, and seems to cause more of an insulin spike. Moreover its much more highly processed than in the past, more finely ground, and the wheatgerm is generally removed (even in many so-called wholegrain flours in the USA. If you look at epidemiological data, rice eating nations like Japan and China develop obesity and diabetes when they adopt a western, wheat based diet. You can kind of deduce that since wheat used not to cause obesity, that its modern wheat that is the culprit. He doesn’t menion Gliadin directly
3)Now onto fasting. With conventional low calorie diets, your blood sugars fall as you go into famine mode. This makes you feel tired, cold and hungry as your body attempts to conserve energy. But when you fast the body seems to rev up (in evolutionary terms probably to ensure you have the energy to go out and find food fast). And it burns fat in order to fuel that energy. Contrary to popular belief, when you fast you do NOT go into energy conservation mode.
4)Calorie reduced diets (1500 calories or so) of the sort normally prescribed cause loss from both fat and muscle/bone. When you put that weight back on its all fat, so then you are worse off. But very low calorie diets and total fasting burn fat only, preserving muscle and bone mass.
5)Diabetes IS reversible by fasting. In fact fasting returns insulin to normal levels, and returns cells to normal levels of insulin sensitivity, so blood sugars normalise.
I should point out that he was talking primarily about alternate day fasting, but he did mention the mormons who fast once a month, and have much lower rates of diabetes than mormons who don’t.
And now to Calcium (and Milk)
Its only the Western world who consume loads of milk. In Japan and China they only have about 400mg of calcium in their diets, but they have LOWER rates of osteoporosis than we do.
RDA for calcium is taken by looking at average consumption and adding a bit – so by definition more than half the population consume less than the RDA. But western consumption is already very high in comparison to eastern consumption or that of ‘wild man’. [That got me wondering about other RDAs, because we are always told that its the amount to prevent deficiency disease, but maybe we’ve been suckered]
And then we look at calcium supplementation. This does nothing for osteoporosis, but it does increase heart disease – no really!
I am gobsmacked, and have thrown away my calcium pills! [I have always thought that milk was questionable as a part of the diet because it wasn’t available to stone age man]
And Speedy, I do really feel for you. It is so very hard when you lose what gives life meaning. And you have lost both your husband and your work, so a double hit.
Work is easier to replace – and volunteering can eventually be as meaningful(and timeconsuming). But I agree that nothing really replaces the companion of your life. It does get easier, though (and for me pets have been really helpful!)
When I was a quit smoking counsellor I used to hear quite often ‘But smoking is my best friend. It always makes me feel better, and never criticises’. And what you are risking, is making food your best friend. Its different, of course, because we do all have to eat – and you might as well make that a pleasurable experience. And I bet you are a good cook! Is there a way you can cook for others? So you get all the attendant pleasures without having to eat it all yourself?
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