As always, I'm not an expert. Just a rational thinking individual. Find someone you know and trust to talk to about health and nutrition.

Jimmy Moore from Livin La Vida Low Carb had a great write up on the top low-carb news stories from this year. I thought I'd share a few of them here as well with a few thoughts of my own.

• Susan Masino Awarded $1.7 Million National Institutes Of Health Grant: "Susan A. Masino, Charles A. Dana Research Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Trinity College, has been awarded a four-year, $1.786 million grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to help determine whether adenosine is a critical mechanism underlying the success of ketogenic diet therapy in treating epilepsy."

This means that she's been given a huge amount of money to study a low-carb diet to see how it affects Epilepsy. Intriguing. Many doctors are broadening their horizons to ketogenic dietary approaches for these types of neurological disorders and some are having success experimenting with a ketogenic approach with people struggling with auto-immune disorders.

• Low-carb Diet Best For Lowering Blood Pressure: "(Reuters Health) - People with high blood pressure who want to drop some pounds may want to choose a low-carb diet, a new study shows.

  In the study, overweight or obese individuals who went on a low-carb diet lost about the same amount of weight as those who cut down on their fat intake and took the weight-loss aid orlistat (sold as Xenical or Alli). However, the low-carb diet produced more favorable effects on blood pressure."

Stabilizing the metabolic system has wide-spread systemic benefits. One of those happens to be lower high blood pressure.

• Low-carb Diets Improve Cholesterol Long Term: "Low-carbohydrate weight loss diets have an edge over low-fat diets for improving HDL cholesterol levels long term, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health.  

  Dieters who followed low-carb or low-fat plans for two years along with a lifestyle modification program lost the same amount of weight -- on average about 7% of their body weight or 15 pounds.  

  But throughout the two-year study, low-carbohydrate dieters had significantly increased HDL, or "good," cholesterol levels compared to low-fat dieters."

Eating dietary cholesterol doesn't significantly increase your cholesterol levels. In fact, it seems more and more studies are pointing to a lower to low-carb approach actually bringing the lipid profiles back into HEALTHY ranges.

• Egg On Their Faces - Government Dietary Advice Often Proves Disastrous: "Every five years, the federal Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services revise their Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a publication that sets the direction for federal nutrition-education programs. In an age when aggressive government agencies in places like New York City seek a greater hand in shaping Americans’ diets, the next set of guidelines, published later this year, could prove more controversial than usual because increasing scientific evidence suggests that some current federal recommendations have simply been wrong. Will a public-health establishment that has been slow to admit its mistakes over the years acknowledge the new research and shift direction? Or will it stubbornly stick to its obsolete guidelines?"

Bottom line: tread lightly when it comes to dietary advice from the government.

• Saturated Fats Not Linked To Heart Disease (Meta Analysis): "Dietary intakes of saturated fats are not linked to cardiovascular disease, so says a meta-analysis of 21 studies from across the world.

  Data from almost 350,000 subjects obtained from 21 studies indicated that dietary intakes of saturated fat are not associated with increases in the risk of either coronary heart disease (CHD) or cardiovascular disease (CVD), US researchers report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

  “Our meta-analysis showed that there is insufficient evidence from prospective epidemiologic studies to conclude that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD, stroke, or CVD,” wrote the researchers, led by Dr Ronald Krauss from the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute in California."

Not 1 study, not 2 studies, but a pretty big handful of 21 studies pointing out that saturated fat isn't the culprit when it comes to heart disease. So what is? Most likely carbohydrate foods.

• A Reversal On Carbs: "Most people can count calories. Many have a clue about where fat lurks in their diets. However, fewer give carbohydrates much thought, or know why they should.

  But a growing number of top nutritional scientists blame excessive carbohydrates — not fat — for America's ills. They say cutting carbohydrates is the key to reversing obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and hypertension."

Yep. It's no wonder for thousands of years mankind has survived just fine on diet without a lot of carbs (sometimes none at all). We haven't adapted to more carbs. We've become MORE sedentary and LESS health concious. Though, we tend to have extended lifespans, we don't have QUALITY of life throughout those years. Heart Disease, Diabetes, strokes, autoimmune disorders, arthritis, obesity, etc. - all of these we try and combat with medications and a low-fat approach that DOES NOT WORK in the long run.

Want to improve the quality of your life and live longer? Cutting your carbohydrate intake is the best way to do so.

As always, I'm not an expert. Just a rational thinking individual. Find someone you know and trust to talk to about health and nutrition.

So here's a great piece of information from Gary Taubes (author of Good Calories, Bad Calories).

Basically, he goes after nutritional studies that compare low-carb diets to low-fat diets. Most of these studies end up posting results that say that both types of diets are usable tools in the weight loss tool arsenal. They fail to mention that these low-fat diets are usually calorie-restricted while the low-carb diets are not.

A prime example of this, is a report posted by scientists that says:

Successful weight loss can be achieved with either a low-fat or low-carbohydrate diet when coupled with behavioral treatment. A low-carbohydrate diet is associated with favorable changes in cardiovascular disease risk factors at 2 years.

Now, it's great that these researchers are trying to get to the bottom of what makes diets successful. But they're missing some of the key factors involved. And we're seeing more and more positive low-carb research coming to the forefront but it's still an uphill battle because of the anti-fat and monocrop worshiping media/nutrition establishment.

When you restrict a diet overall, you also cut the total carbohydrates consumed. It's not rocket science.

Most, if not all, of these studies are showing that the weight loss is pretty significant on the low-carb diets and at times is significant on these low-fat diets. But what they seem to fail to include in their reports is the calorie restriction part on ONLY the low-fat diets.

So, in this report in 2008, researchers ran the same type of diet comparing 3 approaches: low-carb (Atkins); mediterranean; and low-fat. The results were pretty standard, all 3 groups lost weight. What failed to be mentioned was the calorie restriction of the mediterranean and low-fat approaches. The Atkins approach was not restricted.

So, if you account for the lowering of TOTAL ABSOLUTE carbohydrate consumption on all 3 diets, you can see that the success in the first two was ALSO related to the lowering of carbohydrates. This is a factor that is not controlled.

Controlling Variables?

If these researchers want to really prove what works, they need to account for changing variables like carbohydrate calories consumed. As soon as you restrict calories on ANY diet, the total number of carbohydrates goes down. It probably has nothing to do with being a low-fat diet!

Think about it. Any time you ever decided to get with it and get in shape. You might go on a low-fat diet, but you also cut carbohydrate foods (even if you're not doing it because you believe that a low-carb approach works).

Taubes says this when talking about people who go on diets (of any type)...

Specifically, they’ll get rid of or cut way back on the high-glycemic index carbohydrates and the foods or drinks with the high sugar or HFCS content. They’ll do so  because these foods are the easiest to eliminate and the most obviously inappropriate for anyone trying to get in shape. (And because for a almost 200 years these foods have been considered uniquely fattening.) They’ll stop drinking beer, for instance, or at least drink less beer or drink light beer instead. They might think of this as cutting calories, but the calories they’ll be cutting will be carbohydrates and, more importantly, they’re liquid, refined carbohydrates that are exceedingly easy to digest and so, perhaps, exceedingly fattening.

They’ll stop drinking caloric sodas – Coca Cola, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper – and replace them either with water or diet sodas. In doing so, they’ll  be removing not just  liquid carbohydrates but specifically sugars — sucrose or HFCS. The same is true of fruit juices. An easy change in any diet is to replace fruit juices with water. Dieters will get rid of candy bars, deserts, donuts and cinnamon buns. Again, they may perceive this as calorie-cutting – and maybe even a way to cut fat, which it is – but they’ll also be cutting carbohydrates, and specifically sugars with their high fructose content. And if sugars with their high fructose content are uniquely fattening as significant evidence suggests, then this reduction in sugar content may be precisely why the diets work.  Starches like potatoes and rice, refined carbohydrates like bread and pasta, may also be replaced in these diets — even “low-fat” diets — by green vegetables and salads or at least whole grains, because for the past 30 years, we’ve been all told to eat more fiber and to eat foods that are less energy dense and less processed.

Any diet that restricts calories also lowers the total carbohydrate calories you consume. Carbohydrate foods have been linked to creating insulin resistance and fat storage (not fat burning). So, regardless of the "diet" you choose, technically, if you're restricting your calories you're also restricting your carbs (whether you know it, accept it, like it or not).

Now, with that in mind, if we're beginning to see a clearer picture of why diets work (in varying degrees), why would you not choose the one that was the most successful degree of all those? Science is clearly showing that over consumption of carbohydrate foods is probably the biggest factor in our struggles with weight.

It must be our societal bias against fat and our love for and addiction to monocrops (wheat, corn, soy, etc).

My wife and I started our nutrition rebellion back in July 2010.

We had been toying with a primal approach to nutrition and both knew that we were overweight and generally unhealthy. The previous year I had made several trips to see the doctor about blood sugar issues that made me dizzy and nauseous at times. Basically they told me what every doctor probably says in that situation eat healthier and exercise a little more.

So we kept on eating the standard american version of healthy which was very HIGH carb compared to what we're doing now. I feel like I made some progress but would always end up in the same place that I started. We exercised pretty intensely during this time, but never really made any outward progress. I'm sure we were experiencing heart and cardiovascular benefits from the workouts, but we still weren't losing weight.

Why?

Because even though we were eating a so called healthy diet, we were still eating the WRONG stuff. After learning, reading, and researching about a more primal approach to eating we began to experiment and then in July 2010, we officially started a 6 week "paleo" challenge. Although, our version of paleo wasn't quite as strict as the Cordain version, we cut out all grains, legumes, and most dairy.

6 weeks in and I had lost 14 lbs and Lydia had lost 15 lbs. That's huge, but not necessarily amazing. 6 more weeks in and we had both lost about 10 more lbs. Better!

We are about 5 months from that first week in July. We still have a bit more to go, but we've not gained anything back! The key was a MINDSET change not only a diet change. When we changed out minds about the definition of "healthy" food we categorized certain foods as unhealthy that used to be in our healthy category.

For us, as with most people, we used to buy into the notion that whole grains and oats were really good for you. But if you take a little time and read the studies on them and look at the claims that are made when these things are talked about in the literature, there is NO SOLID EVIDENCE to back up any of the claims. If you read a box of cereal or whole grain pasta it says something to the effect of "Whole grains MAY BE good for lowering cholesterol and preventing some types of cancer!"

Seriously? May be?

Either they are or they aren't.

There ARE many studies out that are incriminating grains and starches in most of the ailments of civilization. Disorders such as heart disease, strokes, obesity, diabetes, leaky gut, IBS, arthritis, etc. And to think we've believe for our entire lives that these things were good for us.

Between the insoluble fiber ripping holes in your intestinal lining and the lectins leaking into your bloodstream and wreaking havoc on your immune system and the high carbohydrate content that stimulates and increases fat storage...there's not really much excuse for ANYONE to be eating these things, whole or not!

Personally, my blood sugar levels have leveled off. My hunger and cravings are gone. My energy levels are higher. I'm actually doing CrossFit now and all my strength gains are impressive. I've done all this GRAIN FREE.

My wife is in the same good boat. She's feeling good, working out hard, and making great improvements in general!

I don't know about you but sometimes all it takes is just a short, but powerful personal story to help us see what might have been in front of us all along. The government and modern nutrition has been experimenting on the American people for the last 50 years or so with this so called healthy "low-fat" diet. Look around you. We're all fatter and less healthy than we've ever been as a nation.

You might not believe it works. You might think it's hogwash. But YOU CAN NOT DENY my personal experience and the experience of thousands and thousands of people who are GAINING HEALTH by moving to a more primal nutritional approach.

We've lost about 50 lbs between us!

Rise and rebel!

Does the government have the right to legislate health? Specifically by the way of diet?

We've seen cities like San Francisco and New York City throwing around absurd laws like banning happy meal toys are regulating salt in dishes. Cincinatti is toying with the idea of instituting "Meatless Mondays" - where resturants offer meatless dishes. They would be "forced" by law to offer meatless alternatives to their dishes.

Conflict of interest?

One of the members of the Food Task Force in Cincy is a vegan. "Everybody cares about their health, health of their children. It's an invitation to try something new once a week," she says. Burke is also co-owner of the vegan restaurant Loving Hut. She said healthier food is better for the environment.

"If people cut out meat once a week, it's the equivalent of taking thousands of cars off of the street," Burke said.

This is pretty much inaccurate though, since any rational thinker (unattached to the  vegetarian/vegan moral philospophy) with a small amount of research can see that growing rows and rows of single food crops has probably damaged the environment just as much or more than raising meat. That's a different topic, but to think that forcing restaurants to offer vegetarian dishes (if they don't want to) is saving the world is absurd.

Notice she says it's an "invitation" to try something new. How is it an invitation if you legislate it into an ordinace or law?

C.S. Lewis says it best when he says, "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Basically, if the government FORCES you to do something good, no matter their intentions, it's still tyranny.

Is there ever a time when a City Council should just run the CITY and not its individual restaurants? I say yes. Always.

HT: Tom Naughton | WLWT (Cincy)

This week was a good week.

Kept the carb % under 20% and ate pretty good all week. We had a "primal" potluck tonight where all the folks from CrossFit Brunswick brought paleo and primal dishes. It was a FEAST!

Here's a look at my macronutrient breakdown:

Robb Wolf posted a great story this past week about a girl's journey to a more healthy and primal approach to nutrition. It's a great inspiration and motivator for me and I hope it will be for you too! http://bit.ly/9eoQa9

Mark Sisson (marksdailyapple.com) shared 3 reader submitted stories that you'll want to see as well! http://bit.ly/95zGvn

Then of course, there's me and my wife! We're down 26 lbs and feeling great! Read about my first 14 lbs lost (and a significant body shape change). I've included some before and after photos as well (of me).

As always, I'm not an expert. Just a rational thinking individual. Find someone you know and trust to talk to about health and nutrition.

Objectives To compare the efficacy of a low-carbohydrate high-fat versus a moderate-carbohydrate low-fat diet for weight loss and cardiovascular risk reduction.

Methods In a prospective clinical trial, 137 participants (body mass index ≥25 kg/m2) were randomly assigned to Control (46 randomized, 44 completed), Low Carbohydrate (45 randomized, 42 completed), or Moderate Carbohydrate (46 randomized, 40 completed) groups. Outcomes included measures of body size and composition and blood chemistries.

Results Both the Low and Moderate Carbohydrate groups lost significantly more weight as well as inches from their waists and thighs than the Control group, while the Low Carbohydrate group lost a greater percentage of body fat. Although the Moderate Carbohydrate group showed significant reductions in serum cholesterol, the Low Carbohydrate group showed the greatest improvements in serum cholesterol, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein, low-density lipoprotein, and very-low-density lipoprotein.

Conclusions Moderate approaches to weight loss such as a moderate-carbohydrate low-fat diet may be prudent.

(Taken from a 2007 International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition study) 

Of course this is just one study, but look at the results and then compare them to the conclusion. Am I the only one who sees the lunacy in the conclusion? 

Let's break it down:

They put two groups on two different diets. Group A is a moderate-carb low-fat diet. Group B is a low-carb high-fat diet.

BOTH groups lost some weight and inches. Group A had an improved serum cholesterol level. But Group B (the low-carb group) had the greatest improvements in "serum cholesterol, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein, low-density lipoprotein, and very-low-density lipoprotein."

Look at this line: "while the Low Carbohydrate group lost a greater percentage of body fat."

Wait, what? The group that ate a HIGH-FAT diet actually lost a greater percentage of body fat? Interesting, isn't it?

Not only that but the overall "cholesterol" snapshot was BETTER for the folks who ate the low-carb high-fat diet.

So their conclusion (when obviously the low-carb diet was more effective at weight loss AND stabilizing cholesterol levels) was to suggest that the OTHER diet was the prudent choice?

Looks to me like the established "experts" are grasping at straws to support a conclusion that isn't really provable.

But as always, I'm no expert. Just a rational thinking individual. That in no way qualifies me to tell you what to eat or how to eat it...find someone you trust and get good advice. But at the same time, dig deeper and always question the status quo.

By the way for those of you who think I'm a crazy wacky nutritional nut (I do eat nuts by the way) my diet consists of meats, veggies, fruits, berries, seeds, and nuts. I eat some carbs. I just prefer the ones that aren't wrapped up in a nasty, sugary, refined, chemically processed package.

I eat real food, not food products. And I would put that up against any refined flour, artificial sweetener, chemically extracted fat, diet pill, weight loss shake, or any other UN-NATURAL food any day.

Beware: BOXER PICS! Haha.

Here's my before (07-12-10) and afters (08-20-10) after the first 6 weeks of a strict paleo challenge. Pretty proud of myself. That's 14 lbs lost (seen more in inches around the waist!).

(download)

Click here to download:

the-first-6-weeks-july-12-2010-aug-20-2010-thcyfwonDIochilovqkJ.zip (105 KB)

I ate VERY low carb (and high fat/moderate protein) for 6 weeks while doing CrossFit 5 days per week. I was able to keep up my energy and strength. Had plenty of energy during the day and slept great at nights.

My blood sugar levels stabilized.

Anyways, We're starting another 6 week cycle today (about 4 months out from that first 6 week start). To date I'm about 25 lbs down and still dropping. Kept up the primal eating very consistently. We splurge on "normal" food occasionally and it usually either makes us feel bad or makes us never want to eat it again!

As always, I'm not an expert. Just a rational thinking individual. Find someone you know and trust to talk to about health and nutrition.

In my last note I wrote about how important it is to track the TYPES of calories you're eating more so than just counting calories. Today I wanted to share a little about how I actually do this. I mentioned LoseIt.com and wante to break it down so that you could join me as a friend (russhutto) and begin tracking YOUR nutrition journey at LoseIt.

1. Join LoseIt.com: It's free!

2. Click on goals. This is where it can get a little trick. You need to decide if you want to set a goal weight and let LoseIt decide how many calories you want to eat per day OR do it like I do which is to choose to maintain my weight (even though I'm losing weight) and to set my own calorie budget. Personally, I choose to eat good, clean, primal foods, and I track the percentages of fats/carbs/proteins in them, so I'm not worried about having a daily calorie budget. I moved my daily calorie budget to over 3,000 calories. I won't ever eat that much, but at least I won't have loseit bugging me about calories. When you set this up you can enter your current weight, goal weight, and you can adjust your calorie budget.

3. Weigh-in. You'll want to limit your weigh-ins to once a week. You shouldn't weigh every day. Your body weight fluctuates several lbs from day to day. I weigh in once a week. You'd be fine even if you weighed in once every two weeks (or even less frequent).

4. Enter your foods. This is pretty cool. If you have an iPhone you can use the LoseIt app. I've done this before and it works great. I prefer the web portal though (loseit.com). Bring your profile up and just enter your food! Bam! It's that easy. Sometimes you might have to google a certain food item, or even create a custom food to find the nutritional info you need, but it's worth it to get an accurate picture.

5. I actually have a daily and weekly summary emailed to me. I can go back and track what I've done that day and week. The biggest help for me personally has been just seeing where I'm at during the day. Make good use of your REPORTS tab. If I'm trying to keep my carbs under 50 grams per day, and I'm at 50 through lunch, I'll not eat any for dinner later. If I'm only at 20 carbs at dinner, I might splurge on a piece of fruit or more veggies! Find YOUR goal for carbs and go with that. The government says you should eat over 300 grams of carbs per day. A good weight maintenance amount would be 100-150 grams per day. If you want to LOSE weight, you'll need to eat less than 100 grams per day. Don't be afraid of fats and proteins. My daily intake is about 60% fat and 30% proteins. Try to keep my carbs at about 10% each day.

6. Add me as a friend! Do a search on LoseIt for my username: russhutto. We'll do this together!! Have fun! Find friends who can journey with you (even through facebook)! Part of my success is the small "family" of friends through CrossFit Brunswick. We challenge each other and even rail on each other when we fall off the wagon! I'll be more than happy to answer any questions and I have a great coach/trainer who will also answer any questions that I can't!

This here blog is a collection of thoughts, ideas, dreams, stories, research, articles, photos and anything else that I can cram onto a web page about my journey through the jungle of life.

I'll share my thoughts and ideas about nutrition and fitness. How switching from a Standard American Diet to a primarily primal (paleo) diet has changed my life. At that link there's an almost thorough journal of those first 6 weeks.

I'll be posting rants and raves (sometimes rages) about the modern nutrition philosophy that seems to keep people spinning their wheels, stuck in a mire of misinformation and bad science.

What I post in these pages is probably contrary to what you've been fed your whole life by the government and by doctors. The modern nutrition establishment is a huge industry and is pushed along, sometimes unwittingly, by the big pharmacy companies, the big agriculture conglomerates, and the big commodity animal machine.

Sadly, it seems that the very accessible and inexpensive foods that we eat so eagerly (and so much of) are actually killing us faster than any outbreak of Swine Flu could ever. Anyways, enough with the about stuff. Let's dig in and get dirty.