So I felt it would be good to give Matt Stone's perspective on the RBTI. Matt and Pippa were in Roseville on Sunday Sep 4th and that's where we got our testing and initial consults. After we all had our tests and consults done, Matt sat down to give us all an overview of the program. The first eight minutes were a really excellent explanation of RBTI from his perspective. The following YouTube video is a recording of that talk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvI7MY7lptw
Friday, September 9, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
RBTI Initial Consult and Impressions
So yesterday I met Matt and Pippa in the flesh. It's funny how many people knock Matt on his blog. Everybody's just following guru Matt to his next obsession. We all need to get over it and just live our lives. True that, but such criticisms don't understand Matt's real goal, which is exactly that. Like myself, Matt is an information nerd more concerned about understanding things at a deep level than being right or making money. Like me, he will continue to pursue and acquire health information until he has a deep and comprehensive view... far deeper than currently exists anywhere. Although he's far more dedicated to it than I ever will be. In person, he's much like he is in his videos: slightly dorky and a bit too enthusiastic about health stuff.
The notions that Matt is trying to make money or is in some kind of ego craze are laughable. There was nothing glamorous about him and Pippa spending their labor day weekend driving six hours to meet a bunch of health nuts and WAPF groupies and play with their urine samples (granted I am spinning that as negatively as possible). Matt didn't even collect any money. Pippa collected $25 for consultation. Such is my outlay so far, and it doesn't look like the costs of this program will be increasing much anytime soon. More on that later. I asked Matt about his income sources, which are apparently non-existant at the moment. I have to believe that considering how much content he must go through to churn out all the material and answer all the blog posts he does.
The Program
I have to say overall this appears to be much more easy to follow program than I anticipated, more akin to say incorporating Weil's guidelines in "Healthy Aging" or Guiliano's in "French Women Don't Get Fat". Both have excellent information but are overly verbose and perhaps cumbersome to implement in their entirety. Or maybe Matt and Pippa have just done a good job at breaking this program down to the essentials. So let's get to that.
The No Foods
This is the biggest potential hurdle. These foods are really more about avoidance than moderation. They cause immediate disturbance to body chemistry which can last for several days, during which body healing is compromised. First on the list is pork in all its forms (including as gelatin or additives in dietary supplements). Next up are nuts and seeds, chocolate (and cocoa), shell fish and skin fish, black and green tea (but not coffee in small amounts), and finally undercooked or raw meats, such as sushi. Sea salt is a food to minimize.
My thoughts on the no foods
I find the avoidance of pork interesting, not just because it's listed in the Bible as an unclean meat. That to me indicates ancient cultures avoided for it reasons unknown (I believe it was cultural wisdom that was later attributed to the word of God). They aren't the only culture. Certain Native American cultures will not touch pork, or at least it's more likely in the older generations. I know this anecdotally through firsthand accounts due to my time on health blogs. I had thought the Okinawans ate a fair amount of pork, so I looked up Dan Buetnner's research with the Blue Zones, and it appears they ate it only occasionaly for celebrations. This jibes with RBTI as a healthy, well-mineralized body would have only a small disturbance from the no foods and would remain healthy as long as the no foods aren't being consumed consistently. There may be healthy cultures eating a lot of pork, but I just don't know enough to qualify it.
Chocolate I am already suspicious of. It never seemed to fit normally along with other foods. When I was low-carb and unhealthy, I would regularly binge on dark chocolate. Now that I'm practicing more intuitive eating, I find myself cutting it out, along with alcohol. I don't doubt it's disruptive to body chemistry, along with caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. It appears to be more disruptive than I would have anticipated though.
The sea salt guideline is drawing a lot of flak on Matt's blog but I'm willing to go with the flow on this one. Apparently it shows up in the body chemistry. I'm trying to think how we've collectively come to the conclusion that sea salt is healthy. Any references are appreciated.
The other foods are not that big a deal to me, so I don't have much comment on them.
Meal Patterns
This is the other biggie of RBTI. Have a carb heavy breakfast (oatmeal or other porridgy breakfasts are recommended), a big lunch, and a light dinner. Actually, Guiliano seems to advocate a similar pattern, except that she asserts that the big meal can be lunch or dinner. RBTI does not assert that, but since RBTI isn't overly strict, I may end up stretching the rules here and there a la Guiliano. Meats and sweets are eating at lunch and avoided at dinner. Dinner is typically made up of non-starchy vegetables and is things like soup, salad, Spanakopita, low-fat yogurt, etc.
I've been adjusting to the meal pattern over the last few days (prior to the consultation) and I have to say I already agree with the avoidance of meats and sweets after 2pm. Some of my worst nights falling asleep in the past few months were meat heavy dinners. And sweets don't just don't feel right in the evening. Don't know why, but left to myself, I don't want any. The meal pattern was a rough adjustment, but it's already beginning to feel natural.
Dairy, butter, etc.
Yes, RBTI advocates use of skim-milk, low-fat yogurt, and minimal amounts of butter. This is directly against a lot of WAPF teachings. But let's take a critical step back here. I read Nutrition and Physical Degeneration and Weston A. Price didn't restore health in kids using gobs of butter. He restored health using high-vitamin butter and freshly ground whole wheat in a single meal that was otherwise part of a very deficient diet. He acknowledged that healthy cultures recognized the importance of high-vitamin butter and organ meats, but there is nothing to say you need to go through pounds and pounds of butter, as some WAPF followers seem to believe. A couple things: fat is necessary for absorption of certain nutrients but contains no minerals itself, and high-solvency oils like those found in butter are more difficult to digest.
Weston A. Price wasn't the only researcher to study traditional diets. If we look at the research of others such as T. L. Cleave, we see healthy cultures that ate very high carbohydrate, some 80 to 90 percent. Sweet potatoes, yams, and grains are common.
Lemon Water
RBTI does require the use of distilled water if you are to truly follow it. Often this has lemon and a bit of sweetener dissolved in it, depending on where your body chemistry is at. My best understanding of this is that distilled water best matches the body's own natural pH and thus requires less work for the body to maintain it's own enviroment. Contrary to a lot of conventional wisdom, RBTI does not always advocate drinking a lot of water. It depends on your chemistry. If your salts are too low or you tend towards hypoglycemia, drinking too much water can be a major stress.
Water is generally not drunk in the late afternoon or evening, another principle I agree with. Although I used to drink lots of unsweetened lemon water (prior to becoming a health nut) I would naturally stop in the evening, as I found my system was still trying to clear out the excess after I went to bed (annoying).
My Consultation
It doesn't amount to much. Apparently I've had too much sea salt (and chocolate) and not enough water recently. My prescription is a water flush (i.e. drink plenty of water the next few days). Other than that, Pippa said I would need to retest after the flush. That's going to be a couple of weeks or so until the test kit arrives that the group of us here in Mpls ordered. Yes, we're only ordering one kit for all of us so far. This program is going to be really cheap.
The other thing she said was that their was pressure on my heart and it may have been beating louder. I had noticed that my heartbeat felt louder the past few days but had been only mildly concerned about it.
The notions that Matt is trying to make money or is in some kind of ego craze are laughable. There was nothing glamorous about him and Pippa spending their labor day weekend driving six hours to meet a bunch of health nuts and WAPF groupies and play with their urine samples (granted I am spinning that as negatively as possible). Matt didn't even collect any money. Pippa collected $25 for consultation. Such is my outlay so far, and it doesn't look like the costs of this program will be increasing much anytime soon. More on that later. I asked Matt about his income sources, which are apparently non-existant at the moment. I have to believe that considering how much content he must go through to churn out all the material and answer all the blog posts he does.
The Program
I have to say overall this appears to be much more easy to follow program than I anticipated, more akin to say incorporating Weil's guidelines in "Healthy Aging" or Guiliano's in "French Women Don't Get Fat". Both have excellent information but are overly verbose and perhaps cumbersome to implement in their entirety. Or maybe Matt and Pippa have just done a good job at breaking this program down to the essentials. So let's get to that.
The No Foods
This is the biggest potential hurdle. These foods are really more about avoidance than moderation. They cause immediate disturbance to body chemistry which can last for several days, during which body healing is compromised. First on the list is pork in all its forms (including as gelatin or additives in dietary supplements). Next up are nuts and seeds, chocolate (and cocoa), shell fish and skin fish, black and green tea (but not coffee in small amounts), and finally undercooked or raw meats, such as sushi. Sea salt is a food to minimize.
My thoughts on the no foods
I find the avoidance of pork interesting, not just because it's listed in the Bible as an unclean meat. That to me indicates ancient cultures avoided for it reasons unknown (I believe it was cultural wisdom that was later attributed to the word of God). They aren't the only culture. Certain Native American cultures will not touch pork, or at least it's more likely in the older generations. I know this anecdotally through firsthand accounts due to my time on health blogs. I had thought the Okinawans ate a fair amount of pork, so I looked up Dan Buetnner's research with the Blue Zones, and it appears they ate it only occasionaly for celebrations. This jibes with RBTI as a healthy, well-mineralized body would have only a small disturbance from the no foods and would remain healthy as long as the no foods aren't being consumed consistently. There may be healthy cultures eating a lot of pork, but I just don't know enough to qualify it.
Chocolate I am already suspicious of. It never seemed to fit normally along with other foods. When I was low-carb and unhealthy, I would regularly binge on dark chocolate. Now that I'm practicing more intuitive eating, I find myself cutting it out, along with alcohol. I don't doubt it's disruptive to body chemistry, along with caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. It appears to be more disruptive than I would have anticipated though.
The sea salt guideline is drawing a lot of flak on Matt's blog but I'm willing to go with the flow on this one. Apparently it shows up in the body chemistry. I'm trying to think how we've collectively come to the conclusion that sea salt is healthy. Any references are appreciated.
The other foods are not that big a deal to me, so I don't have much comment on them.
Meal Patterns
This is the other biggie of RBTI. Have a carb heavy breakfast (oatmeal or other porridgy breakfasts are recommended), a big lunch, and a light dinner. Actually, Guiliano seems to advocate a similar pattern, except that she asserts that the big meal can be lunch or dinner. RBTI does not assert that, but since RBTI isn't overly strict, I may end up stretching the rules here and there a la Guiliano. Meats and sweets are eating at lunch and avoided at dinner. Dinner is typically made up of non-starchy vegetables and is things like soup, salad, Spanakopita, low-fat yogurt, etc.
I've been adjusting to the meal pattern over the last few days (prior to the consultation) and I have to say I already agree with the avoidance of meats and sweets after 2pm. Some of my worst nights falling asleep in the past few months were meat heavy dinners. And sweets don't just don't feel right in the evening. Don't know why, but left to myself, I don't want any. The meal pattern was a rough adjustment, but it's already beginning to feel natural.
Dairy, butter, etc.
Yes, RBTI advocates use of skim-milk, low-fat yogurt, and minimal amounts of butter. This is directly against a lot of WAPF teachings. But let's take a critical step back here. I read Nutrition and Physical Degeneration and Weston A. Price didn't restore health in kids using gobs of butter. He restored health using high-vitamin butter and freshly ground whole wheat in a single meal that was otherwise part of a very deficient diet. He acknowledged that healthy cultures recognized the importance of high-vitamin butter and organ meats, but there is nothing to say you need to go through pounds and pounds of butter, as some WAPF followers seem to believe. A couple things: fat is necessary for absorption of certain nutrients but contains no minerals itself, and high-solvency oils like those found in butter are more difficult to digest.
Weston A. Price wasn't the only researcher to study traditional diets. If we look at the research of others such as T. L. Cleave, we see healthy cultures that ate very high carbohydrate, some 80 to 90 percent. Sweet potatoes, yams, and grains are common.
Lemon Water
RBTI does require the use of distilled water if you are to truly follow it. Often this has lemon and a bit of sweetener dissolved in it, depending on where your body chemistry is at. My best understanding of this is that distilled water best matches the body's own natural pH and thus requires less work for the body to maintain it's own enviroment. Contrary to a lot of conventional wisdom, RBTI does not always advocate drinking a lot of water. It depends on your chemistry. If your salts are too low or you tend towards hypoglycemia, drinking too much water can be a major stress.
Water is generally not drunk in the late afternoon or evening, another principle I agree with. Although I used to drink lots of unsweetened lemon water (prior to becoming a health nut) I would naturally stop in the evening, as I found my system was still trying to clear out the excess after I went to bed (annoying).
My Consultation
It doesn't amount to much. Apparently I've had too much sea salt (and chocolate) and not enough water recently. My prescription is a water flush (i.e. drink plenty of water the next few days). Other than that, Pippa said I would need to retest after the flush. That's going to be a couple of weeks or so until the test kit arrives that the group of us here in Mpls ordered. Yes, we're only ordering one kit for all of us so far. This program is going to be really cheap.
The other thing she said was that their was pressure on my heart and it may have been beating louder. I had noticed that my heartbeat felt louder the past few days but had been only mildly concerned about it.
Why RBTI Part 2
So in the last post, I explained the general condition that I am experiencing and the couple initial forays I made into alternative medicine and my subsequent cold feet. There are a few things I see differently about RBTI that are persuading me to give it a chance. I will cover those here.
Trust
Basically this is my trust in Matt Stone of 180 Degree Health. I came across his clear and concise arguments against low-carb over a year and a half ago. I've been following his blog as he explores new ideas and cuts through dietary dogma ever since. Matt, it seems, goes out of his way to explore new off the wall ideas and not get stuck in any one paradigm. He's very well informed and answers questions directly. RBTI is the most promising thing he's seen in quite some time and he's been studying it now for the past month or so.
I don't need to explain my condition
Thank God. RBTI uses one set of tests and one set of numbers for all patients. I'll be more likely to have my conditioned explained to me, then to have to attempt to explain it to my practitioner. The tests themselves aren't all that expensive and I can buy the equipment and then test from home, so any up-front costs are one time only. Also, the consultation can be done over the phone, and most likely will be some simple rules based on my numbers along with some general RBTI guidelines. Also, if RBTI fails to help my condition, it's easier to see it as a failure of RBTI rather than some failure on my part to describe it adequately.
More dietary freedom
RBTI allows for processed foods, desserts, and the like. My understanding here is it's more about the overall context of the diet, avoiding specific disruptive foods, and following a meal pattern that allows the body to rest and heal. I still plan to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, but many of us recovering from health obsession need to learn to let go and eat a frozen pizza or scoop of ice cream.
The underlying prinicple makes a lot of sense
Ok, if you've already googled RBTI, ignore what you think it means. I'm going to give you mine (and Matt's) understanding: provide as much support balancing the body chemistry as possible while giving it an adequate mineral supply and watch its healing processes increase by an order of magnitude. This is the same principle you would apply in restoring soil health or marine health and it also works for the body. The body is also like its own ecosystem and it is self-regulating. Unfortunately, like any ecosystem, the more damaged it becomes, the more delicate it is and the more difficult it is to restore. This is exactly how RBTI sees it, and the healthier you are (according to the numbers), the more dietary freedom you have. This explains why it seems healthy people can go around eating whatever they want with immunity, while unhealthy people struggle constantly with different diets. The healthy are probably doing enough intuitively to keep things on track.
Intuitiveness
This gets me to a final thought I have about RBTI as I've been learning about it from Matt's blog and from the newly formed Facebook group. There seems to be aspects of it that align with my intuitive eating patterns of seven or eight years ago: drinking water with dissolved lemon juice throughout the day, eating a carb-heavy breakfast, eating a lighter dinner with cottage cheese or similar easily digestible protein. RBTI may end up clearing up some of the remaining dietary dogmatisms I have and I may well end up adopting some of the practices well into the future.
My expectations
My expectations are that RBTI is going to have me feeling a lot better over all. I will be trying to follow it off and on for a month or more. After September, I may try to follow it more stringnetly. My hope is that by holidays (Thanksgiving) I will be feeling very good and would plan to let go of a lot of the RBTI specific restrictions. I may incorporate many of the RBTI recommendations into my lifestyle.
I will do my best to track my numbers (test results), general feeling, and other health measures as best I can, although past experience tells me that can get overwhelming, so I'll do my best.
Trust
Basically this is my trust in Matt Stone of 180 Degree Health. I came across his clear and concise arguments against low-carb over a year and a half ago. I've been following his blog as he explores new ideas and cuts through dietary dogma ever since. Matt, it seems, goes out of his way to explore new off the wall ideas and not get stuck in any one paradigm. He's very well informed and answers questions directly. RBTI is the most promising thing he's seen in quite some time and he's been studying it now for the past month or so.
I don't need to explain my condition
Thank God. RBTI uses one set of tests and one set of numbers for all patients. I'll be more likely to have my conditioned explained to me, then to have to attempt to explain it to my practitioner. The tests themselves aren't all that expensive and I can buy the equipment and then test from home, so any up-front costs are one time only. Also, the consultation can be done over the phone, and most likely will be some simple rules based on my numbers along with some general RBTI guidelines. Also, if RBTI fails to help my condition, it's easier to see it as a failure of RBTI rather than some failure on my part to describe it adequately.
More dietary freedom
RBTI allows for processed foods, desserts, and the like. My understanding here is it's more about the overall context of the diet, avoiding specific disruptive foods, and following a meal pattern that allows the body to rest and heal. I still plan to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, but many of us recovering from health obsession need to learn to let go and eat a frozen pizza or scoop of ice cream.
The underlying prinicple makes a lot of sense
Ok, if you've already googled RBTI, ignore what you think it means. I'm going to give you mine (and Matt's) understanding: provide as much support balancing the body chemistry as possible while giving it an adequate mineral supply and watch its healing processes increase by an order of magnitude. This is the same principle you would apply in restoring soil health or marine health and it also works for the body. The body is also like its own ecosystem and it is self-regulating. Unfortunately, like any ecosystem, the more damaged it becomes, the more delicate it is and the more difficult it is to restore. This is exactly how RBTI sees it, and the healthier you are (according to the numbers), the more dietary freedom you have. This explains why it seems healthy people can go around eating whatever they want with immunity, while unhealthy people struggle constantly with different diets. The healthy are probably doing enough intuitively to keep things on track.
Intuitiveness
This gets me to a final thought I have about RBTI as I've been learning about it from Matt's blog and from the newly formed Facebook group. There seems to be aspects of it that align with my intuitive eating patterns of seven or eight years ago: drinking water with dissolved lemon juice throughout the day, eating a carb-heavy breakfast, eating a lighter dinner with cottage cheese or similar easily digestible protein. RBTI may end up clearing up some of the remaining dietary dogmatisms I have and I may well end up adopting some of the practices well into the future.
My expectations
My expectations are that RBTI is going to have me feeling a lot better over all. I will be trying to follow it off and on for a month or more. After September, I may try to follow it more stringnetly. My hope is that by holidays (Thanksgiving) I will be feeling very good and would plan to let go of a lot of the RBTI specific restrictions. I may incorporate many of the RBTI recommendations into my lifestyle.
I will do my best to track my numbers (test results), general feeling, and other health measures as best I can, although past experience tells me that can get overwhelming, so I'll do my best.
Why RBTI Part 1
As I sit here, I hold with me a 7 page intake form, an extensive list of general dietary recommendations, and a list of specific supplements I am supposed to be taking. This is from February of this year. It was from a consultation with a naturopathic doctor. I did no follow-up consultation, no lab tests, and only weakly followed the recommendations. The problem, as I saw it, was I had no guarantee that the program or the doctor in question was going to help me with the problem in question, or that she even understood it. She was not the first time I sought help.
The first was with Sean Croxton of Underground Wellness, who does his own diet and lifestyle coaching. I had a full consultation with him as well. The format was rather similar: a lot of specific questions designed to get a general set of imbalances followed by a recommended set of labs specific to my consultation. There were to be follow-up consultations and dietary recommendations.
Typcically, once you add consultations, lab tests, and supplements together, $1000 isn't a bad estimate for an initial foray into the world of alternative medicine. Unfortunately, it's a lot to ask in a world where you are on your own, and in a doctor who's efficacy you are unsure of and who you are not sure understands your condition. Such are the courses available to people who are looking for very specific, guided help beyond "get more sleep", or "eat plenty of fruits and vegetables", or "you're perfectly healthy", or "we could prescribe something". There are many people bouncing around in the blogosphere that have specific physiological complaints which are medical system seems to just sweep under the rug, or throw into catch-all categories like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Fibromyalgia.
My Condition
The condition of which I complain did not exist six or seven years ago. It's onset definitely came during my extended low-carb stint. It was a very unhealhty period of my life, characterized by excessive exercise, inadequate sleep, and reliance on chocolate and alcohol. I understand now that an obsessive mindset was pushing my body well beyond its limits. At the time, I attributed my physical malaise to insomnia and lack of sleep, which I was in turn attributing to stress. I now recognize it went beyond that and attribute it to some sort combination of the following: an accumulated nutitrtional deficiency, some imbalance in body chemistry or homones, or atrophy or down-regulation of some important glandular or hormonal system.
What it feels like
On a good day, it's barely noticable. I will go through many of my normal activities without even thinking about it. Then when I sit down to meditate, it will be apparent. On a bad day, it is difficult to ignore, and focusing on work is much more difficult. On an average day, I am aware of a sensation in the upper back, near the neck, and near the front of the head, kind of in and around the eyes. The sensation is not pleasent although I would not classify it as pain, itching, or any other common physical description. The unpleasentness depends on the severity and the more severe, the more likely it is to extend down the legs and arms. I remember back during the midst of the unhealthy period, during a very bad day, describing the sensation to a friend of mine as a "raw nerve" sort of feeling. At that level, it's difficult to even fall asleep.
Why I sought alternative help
Seeking alternative help came months after I quit eating low-carb, well after I'd been stocking up on real, whole, healing foods, long after I'd cut alcohol, chocolate, and other stimulants way down in my diet. For some reason my body just wasn't bouncing back and the variables were just too complex to sort out. This is not the sort of thing I imagine asking a general practitioner about, so I didn't even bother. The times I sought help were periods of doubting that I was actually healing, or healing fast enough. I don't doubt now that my body is recovering. It's just very slow, has large ups and downs, and so is difficult to gauge process.
How it's affected my life
The main problem with my condition is that it's made me far more anti-social than I would otherwise like to be. Rather than going out, going to parties, going to clubs, I have often closeted myself in my house simply for the idea that I need rest, or that if I didn't get enough rest or get to bed early enough, tomorrow may be a cruddy day. I went through a much more liberal month or two recently, but this may have come at the expense of a slowing or halting in my progress, so I have begun pulling back again.
In my next post I will talk about why I've chosen to experiment with RBTI and what my hopes are for it.
The first was with Sean Croxton of Underground Wellness, who does his own diet and lifestyle coaching. I had a full consultation with him as well. The format was rather similar: a lot of specific questions designed to get a general set of imbalances followed by a recommended set of labs specific to my consultation. There were to be follow-up consultations and dietary recommendations.
Typcically, once you add consultations, lab tests, and supplements together, $1000 isn't a bad estimate for an initial foray into the world of alternative medicine. Unfortunately, it's a lot to ask in a world where you are on your own, and in a doctor who's efficacy you are unsure of and who you are not sure understands your condition. Such are the courses available to people who are looking for very specific, guided help beyond "get more sleep", or "eat plenty of fruits and vegetables", or "you're perfectly healthy", or "we could prescribe something". There are many people bouncing around in the blogosphere that have specific physiological complaints which are medical system seems to just sweep under the rug, or throw into catch-all categories like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Fibromyalgia.
My Condition
The condition of which I complain did not exist six or seven years ago. It's onset definitely came during my extended low-carb stint. It was a very unhealhty period of my life, characterized by excessive exercise, inadequate sleep, and reliance on chocolate and alcohol. I understand now that an obsessive mindset was pushing my body well beyond its limits. At the time, I attributed my physical malaise to insomnia and lack of sleep, which I was in turn attributing to stress. I now recognize it went beyond that and attribute it to some sort combination of the following: an accumulated nutitrtional deficiency, some imbalance in body chemistry or homones, or atrophy or down-regulation of some important glandular or hormonal system.
What it feels like
On a good day, it's barely noticable. I will go through many of my normal activities without even thinking about it. Then when I sit down to meditate, it will be apparent. On a bad day, it is difficult to ignore, and focusing on work is much more difficult. On an average day, I am aware of a sensation in the upper back, near the neck, and near the front of the head, kind of in and around the eyes. The sensation is not pleasent although I would not classify it as pain, itching, or any other common physical description. The unpleasentness depends on the severity and the more severe, the more likely it is to extend down the legs and arms. I remember back during the midst of the unhealthy period, during a very bad day, describing the sensation to a friend of mine as a "raw nerve" sort of feeling. At that level, it's difficult to even fall asleep.
Why I sought alternative help
Seeking alternative help came months after I quit eating low-carb, well after I'd been stocking up on real, whole, healing foods, long after I'd cut alcohol, chocolate, and other stimulants way down in my diet. For some reason my body just wasn't bouncing back and the variables were just too complex to sort out. This is not the sort of thing I imagine asking a general practitioner about, so I didn't even bother. The times I sought help were periods of doubting that I was actually healing, or healing fast enough. I don't doubt now that my body is recovering. It's just very slow, has large ups and downs, and so is difficult to gauge process.
How it's affected my life
The main problem with my condition is that it's made me far more anti-social than I would otherwise like to be. Rather than going out, going to parties, going to clubs, I have often closeted myself in my house simply for the idea that I need rest, or that if I didn't get enough rest or get to bed early enough, tomorrow may be a cruddy day. I went through a much more liberal month or two recently, but this may have come at the expense of a slowing or halting in my progress, so I have begun pulling back again.
In my next post I will talk about why I've chosen to experiment with RBTI and what my hopes are for it.
Monday, March 14, 2011
HB 2490 and Nutritional Dogma
So a number of progressive groups are collecting signatures to petition the AZ state government not to pass HB 2490. Apparently, this issue is so urgent, there's not enough time to provide much detail, either from change.org or democracyinaction.org. From what I can tell, the AZ legislature (specifically the House Commerce Committee at this point) wants to prevent local and municipal governments from placing restrictions on the kinds of give-aways offered by governments.
What this means is that local governments wouldn't be able to prevent companies from McDonald's from using toys as a marketing gimmick. Thing is, I'm not sure I support this. Although I strongly oppose marketing towards children, I also strongly oppose standard nutritional dogma, which local governments, such as San Francisco, will end up enforcing. Enforcing bad nutritional dogma disturbs me more than Happy Meals do, so this is one petition I'm not signing.
Photo Credit: Colin Grey
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
"Eating Too Much"
This is an off the cuff rebuttal of the idea that we “eat too much”. It’s an idea that is deeply ingrained in our culture and sneaks into the phrasing of everyday language in ways we don’t even notice… even for people that don’t believe calorie restriction leads to weight loss.
But I’d like to really ask the question, are we eating too much? Well, usually when we say that, we mean that a person will get fat and then acquire all the health conditions that associate with obesity. Never mind the dubious assumption that the amount of adipose tissue is causal or even correlates with ill health, you have to ask yourself whether calorie consumption would even be the primary driver of fat storage. Why not of muscle growth? Why not of a faster metabolic rate? Why not of more stamina, awareness, or immunity to disease.
But the real clincher: you have to ask yourself, shouldn’t the body be able to keep track and regulate everything using hormones. The answer is most certainly yes, because if it were not, the human race (and every other species that needs to eat for that matter) would’ve been toast long before civilization ever got off the ground.
And that’s where even using phrases like “eating too much” gets tricky, because it implies such a thing is even possible, that the energy storage systems would not be working towards homeostasis over the long term. Unless of course, fat people are just not hungry and feeling stuffed all the time, but just eat anyway. Yeah, that must be it.
So if “eating too much” is what makes you fat, “eating too little” must be what makes you thin. There are certainly plenty of people trying this. The problem with this is most people attempting this seem to suffer the converse of the symptoms listed above: loss of lean tissue, slowdown in the metabolic rate, etc. It makes sense when you think about it. From an evolutionary perspective, the body has to be able to deal with widely varying amounts of calorie intakes over long periods of time, and still maintain homeostasis, just like it has to do with all nutrients.
So if “eating too little” causes these responses in people, then presumably the reverse is also true. From an evolutionary perspective, we’d expect the body to take full of advantage of a calorie and nutrient surplus. Sex drive, lean body mass, etc. should all go up. But here’s the rub for all you chronic dieters. It’s well known that the body isn’t simply going to do this coming out of a starvation state. It’s instead going to store fat for quite a while, which is an appropriate adaptive response to the conditions of chronic dieting.
Some of the more astute out there may have noticed that weight gain occurs under times of stress, but then still rationalize it with sentiments like “stress makes people want to eat more”. But shouldn’t we consider that stress itself might be a primary driver in weight gain, considering that cortisol is one of the main hormones involved in the deposition of belly fat.
And it’s interesting too that animals in captivity seem uncannily to develop obesity and all the Western diseases. And it’s not due to the amount of calories.
So we have to ask the question, if obesity does correlate with Western diseases, then why? Is it because stress causes both belly fat and illness and we are all under some form of chronic stress? Is it because modern processed foods cause hormonal disruption which causes both? Is it because calorie deprivation (i.e. dieting) puts the body in a starvation response which then causes poor health and belly fat growth (later on)?
Personally, I’ve come to the point of never trying to “eat too little”. I certainly want my body to know whatever it needs is available. I don’t want it cutting back immune function or libido just so I can be “skinny fat”. I could go on, but I’ll end here.
Further Reading:
Calorie restriction is not effective for weight loss.
But I’d like to really ask the question, are we eating too much? Well, usually when we say that, we mean that a person will get fat and then acquire all the health conditions that associate with obesity. Never mind the dubious assumption that the amount of adipose tissue is causal or even correlates with ill health, you have to ask yourself whether calorie consumption would even be the primary driver of fat storage. Why not of muscle growth? Why not of a faster metabolic rate? Why not of more stamina, awareness, or immunity to disease.
But the real clincher: you have to ask yourself, shouldn’t the body be able to keep track and regulate everything using hormones. The answer is most certainly yes, because if it were not, the human race (and every other species that needs to eat for that matter) would’ve been toast long before civilization ever got off the ground.
And that’s where even using phrases like “eating too much” gets tricky, because it implies such a thing is even possible, that the energy storage systems would not be working towards homeostasis over the long term. Unless of course, fat people are just not hungry and feeling stuffed all the time, but just eat anyway. Yeah, that must be it.
So if “eating too much” is what makes you fat, “eating too little” must be what makes you thin. There are certainly plenty of people trying this. The problem with this is most people attempting this seem to suffer the converse of the symptoms listed above: loss of lean tissue, slowdown in the metabolic rate, etc. It makes sense when you think about it. From an evolutionary perspective, the body has to be able to deal with widely varying amounts of calorie intakes over long periods of time, and still maintain homeostasis, just like it has to do with all nutrients.
So if “eating too little” causes these responses in people, then presumably the reverse is also true. From an evolutionary perspective, we’d expect the body to take full of advantage of a calorie and nutrient surplus. Sex drive, lean body mass, etc. should all go up. But here’s the rub for all you chronic dieters. It’s well known that the body isn’t simply going to do this coming out of a starvation state. It’s instead going to store fat for quite a while, which is an appropriate adaptive response to the conditions of chronic dieting.
Some of the more astute out there may have noticed that weight gain occurs under times of stress, but then still rationalize it with sentiments like “stress makes people want to eat more”. But shouldn’t we consider that stress itself might be a primary driver in weight gain, considering that cortisol is one of the main hormones involved in the deposition of belly fat.
And it’s interesting too that animals in captivity seem uncannily to develop obesity and all the Western diseases. And it’s not due to the amount of calories.
So we have to ask the question, if obesity does correlate with Western diseases, then why? Is it because stress causes both belly fat and illness and we are all under some form of chronic stress? Is it because modern processed foods cause hormonal disruption which causes both? Is it because calorie deprivation (i.e. dieting) puts the body in a starvation response which then causes poor health and belly fat growth (later on)?
Personally, I’ve come to the point of never trying to “eat too little”. I certainly want my body to know whatever it needs is available. I don’t want it cutting back immune function or libido just so I can be “skinny fat”. I could go on, but I’ll end here.
Further Reading:
Calorie restriction is not effective for weight loss.
Blog Spotlight: Chris Masterjohn
Cholesterol. That is Chris Masterjohn’s main focus. It is one of the most maligned substances and one of the most misunderstood. And it is where we get some of our worst dietary advice from the mainstream media and medical industry.
Some of us give up on modern nutritional dogma after reading too much, when we realize it is too loaded with fallacies and cognitive dissonance. Others, such as Chris Masterjohn, give up after direct negative experience.
Cholesterol, and lipid metabolism, is a complex subject. It’s not surprising it’s been broken down into such stupefyingly simple terms. But this simplification has done the common man a great disservice. It gives the impression people know all they need to know and precludes debate.
Chris has dug deep, learning all that he can. He has provided critical reviews of both Uffe Ravnskov’s The Cholesterol Myths and Daniel Steinberg’s The Cholesterol Wars. I myself have not read The Cholesterol Myths, but I have read The Cholesterol Wars and Gary Taube’s Good Calories Bad Calories.
Perhaps I like Chris because I find he has come to many of the same conclusions I have. That may be confirmation bias. Or it may simply be the fact that he has discovered a way that makes all the pieces fit, and it is similar to how I have managed to put everything together and so far I have yet to see anybody piece it all together any better.
Chris rightly labels his theories as hypothetical and clearly delineates where and what type of studies would need to be performed to validate them. He’s also careful with terminology, with derivation of causation, and with what exactly can be ascertained from any particular study.
Recently, he’s written an alternative theory to the lipid hypothesis, which is really just an old debate that was closed without proper scientific evidence. Personally, I agree with Chris that is more likely the amount of time LDL particles spend in the blood, rather than the total level, that determines their role in athersclerosis. It was one of my biggest beefs with Steinberg, who stated simply that elevated cholesterol as a single variable “proves” that hypercholesterolemia alone is causal to heart disease*. I am impressed and grateful that somebody else has also seen this flaw in Steinberg’s logic.
If you want to get a real understanding of how lipid metabolism works, and what the likely factors are that cause it to break down**, then forget what you already know about cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and dietary fat. These concepts are simplistic, backwards, and will only get in your way. Prepare yourself like a sponge and get ready to start soaking in lots of information, because you’ll need it to start forming your own understanding and making your own decisions.
*Steinberg talks from the very beginning of his book about how he's laying all the groundwork to prove the lipid hypothesis, and I kept waiting for him to provide non-circumstantial evidence, but of course it never happens.
Further Reading:
More on the Lipid Hypothesis
More on Cholesterol and Heart Disease
Example of how misconstrued evidence can turn into wild claims in the media when it supports conventional dogma
Some of us give up on modern nutritional dogma after reading too much, when we realize it is too loaded with fallacies and cognitive dissonance. Others, such as Chris Masterjohn, give up after direct negative experience.
Cholesterol, and lipid metabolism, is a complex subject. It’s not surprising it’s been broken down into such stupefyingly simple terms. But this simplification has done the common man a great disservice. It gives the impression people know all they need to know and precludes debate.
Chris has dug deep, learning all that he can. He has provided critical reviews of both Uffe Ravnskov’s The Cholesterol Myths and Daniel Steinberg’s The Cholesterol Wars. I myself have not read The Cholesterol Myths, but I have read The Cholesterol Wars and Gary Taube’s Good Calories Bad Calories.
Perhaps I like Chris because I find he has come to many of the same conclusions I have. That may be confirmation bias. Or it may simply be the fact that he has discovered a way that makes all the pieces fit, and it is similar to how I have managed to put everything together and so far I have yet to see anybody piece it all together any better.
Chris rightly labels his theories as hypothetical and clearly delineates where and what type of studies would need to be performed to validate them. He’s also careful with terminology, with derivation of causation, and with what exactly can be ascertained from any particular study.
Recently, he’s written an alternative theory to the lipid hypothesis, which is really just an old debate that was closed without proper scientific evidence. Personally, I agree with Chris that is more likely the amount of time LDL particles spend in the blood, rather than the total level, that determines their role in athersclerosis. It was one of my biggest beefs with Steinberg, who stated simply that elevated cholesterol as a single variable “proves” that hypercholesterolemia alone is causal to heart disease*. I am impressed and grateful that somebody else has also seen this flaw in Steinberg’s logic.
If you want to get a real understanding of how lipid metabolism works, and what the likely factors are that cause it to break down**, then forget what you already know about cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and dietary fat. These concepts are simplistic, backwards, and will only get in your way. Prepare yourself like a sponge and get ready to start soaking in lots of information, because you’ll need it to start forming your own understanding and making your own decisions.
*Steinberg talks from the very beginning of his book about how he's laying all the groundwork to prove the lipid hypothesis, and I kept waiting for him to provide non-circumstantial evidence, but of course it never happens.
Further Reading:
More on the Lipid Hypothesis
More on Cholesterol and Heart Disease
Example of how misconstrued evidence can turn into wild claims in the media when it supports conventional dogma
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