How to sabotage your new healthy lifestyle

So you're looking to screw up your healthy new lifestyle that has been making you feel better, lose weight, and has given you more energy.

Well, let me tell you how you can do it in just a few easy steps.

1. First, spend time thinking about how unfair it is that others can eat the foods you want to eat.
   The most important part about this step is to surround yourself with two kinds of people. You want to make sure you have people around you that have never had a real weight problem and that tend to eat whatever they want. You'll also want to be sure to spend time around people that have a weight problem or better yet type 2 diabetes, but have decided to just eat whatever they want regardless of whatever it does to their health.
   
   Once you've surrounded yourself with these people, you'll want to make sure that you savor every bite of food they eat. With each bite of candy bar, french fry, or slice of pizza, you'll want to visualize how absolutely irresistibly delicious it must be.
   
   Don't forget that it would be totally worth it, regardless of how crummy you feel after eating it or how much the numbers on the scale move up. That piece of cake, doughnut, or chocolate bar is guaranteed to be the best you've ever had.
   
   
2. Second, you'll want to make sure you give in to a craving
   As your friends/coworkers/family described in the previous step are eating their until their hearts content, make sure you take them up on their suggestion that "one bite won't hurt", "everything's okay in moderation", or "you're being too hard on yourself". Once you've realized that one bite really can't hurt, that everything really is okay in moderation, or that you really are being too hard on yourself, it's your chance to go ahead and give in! Dig in and enjoy!
   There are really two different approaches here, you can either just have a bite and tell yourself that you'll be okay now, or you can go all out and tell yourself it's just this one time.
   
   
3. Third, repeat step 2 as often as necessary to completely destroy your health and more importantly your commitment to a healthy lifestyle.
   I know that part of step 2 was to tell yourself that it was "just this one time". Remember that even if you know you're going to do this again tomorrow or next week, it's really important to keep saying "just this once".
   
   
4. The fourth and final step is to think about how impossible it is for anyone to continue low-carb for the rest of their life.
   This is the final nail in the coffin for your healthy lifestyle. Make sure you convince yourself that you couldn't possibly have lived that way for the rest of your life anyway. I mean regardless of how much better you felt, it would be impossible for someone to stick to eating just whole natural foods for the rest of their life anyway.
   

That's my definitive guide for how to blow your healthy low-carb lifestyle.

Each person may require their own blend of unique steps to ruining their commitment to their healthy lifestyle, so make sure you fine tune the program to your needs.

One thing to remember is that once you've gotten yourself started on ruining your commitment to a healthy lifestyle, it should be pretty easy to keep the ball rolling. After even a short time you'll find that your body and mind will get more committed to ruining your good health and you'll be back to your old self in no time!

If you've got any advice that has helped you or others close to you destroy a healthy lifestyle, feel free to throw your two cents into comments.

Best of luck,
Alex

Department of Redundancy Department

This will be anything but a completely original post, but I was laughing my butt off about what I saw on Dr. Mike Eades site tonight, so I had to quickly put up something about it.

There are these two great you tube videos that you have to see. They are both parodies of the High Fructose Corn Syrup commercials that have been clogging the airways like that stuff will indirectly cause clogging of your arteries. (No scientific foundation for that statement)

Anyway, my favorite is the second one, but check them both out. My wife and I thought they were hysterical.

What do you think?






Alex...out

PS. Don't fear the fat, but you should be scared as hell of HFCS!! It's the frankenest frankenfood ever.....

The whys and whos of fats

I've talked about fats a few times before (here and here). Of course you know I love to end my posts with "Don't fear the fat!".

My wife says I'm obsessed with fat, but I think she's wrong. I'm just not fat-phobic like so many people. I see fat for what it is, an essential nutrie and a dense energy source that has no effect on insulin unlike carbohydrates and to a less degree protein.

In the effort to help educate people and get them to be less fat-phobic, I try to glean good information about fat and spread it around like butter. ;)

The latest information I got is really interesting to me, and perhaps you already know this, but it's news to me. I listened to some podcasts on Jimmy Moore's Livin La Vida Low Carb. You can download them here and here.

To summarize, this is an interview with Barry Groves whom I know little about. I do know that he has a site called Second Opinions with some interesting information about the benefits of low-carb living.

While it wasn't the focus of the interview he did with Jimmy Moore, the thing I was most interested in that he talked about was fat. He spoke at some length about the different types of fat, but didn't spend a ton of time talking about the health effects of those fats, but the various sources and the whys of where different fats come from.

Essentially, he explained, the different types of fats come from different sources for environmental reasons. Fat typically is meant to be in a in a semi-solid flexible state at your body temperature. If you're warm-blooded, then you regulate your body temperature and probably keep it somewhere near 100 F. If you're cold-blooded or a plant, your heat is derived from your environment.

As Groves stated, plants that grow in tropical warm climates will tend to have higher amounts of saturated fats because saturated fats will be more solid than unsaturated fats at the higher temperatures of the tropics. This helps those plants keep their structure in warmer temperatures. Coconut and palm kernel are perfect examples of this.

If you're a cold water plant or a cold-blooded animal that lives in a cold climate, then you need to be made of more unsaturated fats. If you were cold all the time and made up of primarily saturated fats, then you would be rigid and couldn't move at all. Logically, cold water fish must have more unsaturated fats and they do!

Now imagine you're a warm-blooded animal. Oh wait, you are. You're body is constantly running at tropical temperatures. That means your body fat should be primarily saturated and it is.

Furthermore, we know that unsaturated fats go rancid and oxidize more easily at higher temperatures and that the more saturated a fat is the more stable it is. If you have an old bottle of vegetable oil, you might know the smell of rancid oil. If you've cooked with vegetable oil, then you've probably noticed that it burns easily when compared with animal fats like lard, chicken, or beef fat. The tendency to go rancid, burn, and oxidize is the reason someone invented trans fats. By specially treating vegetable oils, you can make them last longer, but you can't make them better for you.

Remember that oxidized fat can contribute to the formation of free radicals in your body. While these free radicals might sound like rebels fighting against big-government, they're not. These may be where cancer get started. They're the reason you need anti-oxidants or need to avoid things that cause oxidative damage.

So, if rancid, burned, or oxidized fat is bad (and it is), then you want to eat fats that will not rapidly oxidize or go rancid in the tropical climate of your body. Consequently, you want to get your fat from saturated and mono-unsaturated sources.

Some food, uh, fat for thought.

Cheers,
Alex

PS. Don't fear the fat! Especially when it's the right fat for your tropical temperature.

I'm cold turkey until I get some hot turkey!

Recently, Jimmy Moore of Livin La Vida Low Carb decided he would go sweet free until Thanksgiving.

He's been having a hard time losing some weight he's put on in the past year and he thinks that eating low-carb sweets, artificial sweeteners, and even fruit may be a part of his problem.

Well, I'm writing to tell you that I'm on board too and I hope you'll join Jimmy and I.

Why on earth would a low-carb nut like me rail against artificial sweeteners? They're great for avoiding the poison more commonly known as sugar, but does that mean that they're any better for you?

The main premise behind eating low-carb is that your body was designed to eat whole, unrefined, natural foods. This means that foods that require processing and refining to be edible are best avoided. I read a book called the Paleo Diet, in which the author, Loren Cordain, said that a good rule of thumb was to only eat foods which could be eaten raw. When I say this to people, they think I'm crazy because they believe you can't eat eggs or meat raw. Of course you can! I'm not saying you should, but obviously our ancestors did and people still do.

By that premise, obviously, our bodies were not meant to consume great amounts of sugar as it was generally unavailable to our ancestors except in the form of some occasional honey or seasonal fruit. Our ancestors may have also gnawed on sugar cane, but they did not consume refined sugar.

If I haven't lost you yet, then allow me to close this argument by saying that our body was not designed to consume artificial sweeteners. I won't say that they're going to give you cancer or that you'll get sick and die from eating them. I have found that they can cause problems with my reactive hypoglycemia and I think they have some of the same addictive properties of refined carbohydrates like sugar and white flour. I also think that they may tend to encourage low-carbers to loosen their resolve because you may fall back into craving more sweets.

So, if you've improved your health and well-being by consuming foods that your body was made to thrive on, consider kicking the parts of your diet that don't fit that bill. To make a long story short, I'm giving up sweets until at least Thanksgiving. I'll probably indulge that day, but will I go back to sweeteners after that. Only time will tell.

While we're on the subject of what your body was designed to thrive on and the foods for which it was not designed, can you think of any others you should consider getting rid of......?

How do you feel about artificial sweeteners? How much do you normally consume? Do you think that sugar and other refined carbs are addictive? Do you find that artificial sweeteners have the same effect?

Cheers,
Alex

PS. Don't fear the fat! Especially if it's from all natural animal sources. No processing required.

I'm dreaming of a Green Thanksgiving

One of the things that makes me proud to be on low-carb is that it can be one of the greenest ways to eat, and no I'm not talking about the veggies.

Eating low-carb in a nutshell is simple. Eat whole foods that are the foods your paleolithic ancestors thrived on. Since our ancestors grew to thrive all over the world, you can find anything you need to live on near you. Eat some plants, eat some animals, eggs, full fat dairy products, and some nuts. Everything beyond that is an indulgence and is physiologically unnecessary, but sometimes emotionally or psychologically necessary.

So, eating green on low-carb is much easier than it is when trying to consume a diet high in refined foods. Grain products will tend to have a fairly large carbon footprint because they are grown in centralized areas and distributed all over the country and the globe. The same is certainly said of all the packaged goods you buy. If you want to reduce the carbon footprint of your dinner plate, try buying veggies grown locally from your local farmer's market and talk to the sellers there to see where you can buy locally raised meats. You might have to change the way you buy a little, but it could be a big payoff for everyone and give you a new perspective.

To find your local farmer's market, check out the following links
(if you're not from New England, try this link and add your state to get your local market)
Maine Farmer's Markets
New Hampshire Farmer's Markets
Massachusetts Farmer's Markets
Rhode Island Farmer's Markets
Connecticut Farmer's Markets
Vermont Farmer's Markets

I haven't transitioned to completely local eating, but I do take a lot of satisfaction in buying local produce or picking some fruits and pumpkins from the local orchard.

My goal this year is to have an "as green as it can be" Thanksgiving. I'm looking to find a local turkey farm where I can buy a fresh, and perhaps organic, turkey. I also plan to try to get all veggies from local growers and to get my dairy from local sources as well. Anything I can't get from a local source, I'm going to get organic. The other part to my plan is to make as much as possible from scratch. If you know any great places to get this stuff, spill the beans.

It's only one meal, followed by a few days of delicious leftovers, but I think it's a cool way to get started. I think it will be kind of a fun adventure in eating and will bring a little different perspective to the food which we so often take for granted.

For some interesting reading, check out a recent article by Michael Pollan "Farmer in Chief". I may not agree with all of Michael's philosophies on eating, but with regard to his discourse on the globalization of the food supply and the absurdity of the way our food is shipped all over the world, I do agree with him. I also agree with him that our food an nutrition is an essential topic for our next Commander in Chief.

Well, I'd love to have some people join me in the spirit of having a "green" Thanksgiving. Are you with me?

I'd love to hear what you think too! Think I'm crazy, off my rocker, overreacting? I'd love to hear it. Think I'm too much of a softy and not being strict enough? Let me have it!

Cheers,
Alex

PS. Don't fear the fat!

Crispy Fried Pork Chops

My wife, daughter, and I just had these for dinner tonight, so I figure I ought to share this with all of you.

Ingredients:

• 3 - 4 lbs pork chops - I used center cut bone-in, but I just buy whatever's on sale
• 2.5 cups soy flour - I prefer organic soy flour, but I've had a hard time finding it lately
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 0.5 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp basil
• 1 tsp oregano
• 0.25 tsp crushed red pepper
• 1 Tbsp parmesan cheese
  
• 3 eggs
• 0.25 cups heavy cream
• Enough frying fat to cover the bottom of the pan with about a 1/4 to 1/2 inch of oil - I used rendered chicken fat, but lard or tallow would work great too. I would only use vegetable oils if you have no other choice. Please don't use vegetable shortening it is hydrogenated and no one should be eating it.
  

Directions:

1. Add your fat to a deep skillet and heat over medium heat until the oil is hot. The oil should be somewhat thin, but not smoking.
2. Preheat your oven to 400 F.
   
3. Combine eggs and cream in a dish that is large enough to dip your pork chops in.
4. Combine dry ingredients in another dish large enough to dip your pork chops in.
5. Dip each pork chop into the dry ingredients, then the wet ingredients, then the dry ingredients. When moving from wet to dry, let the excess egg wash drip off the pork chop before dipping in dry ingredients again.
6. Gently shake the excess breading off the pork chop.
   
7. Place the dipped pork chop into the hot oil carefully. Be careful not to drop the pork chop causing the hot oil to splash.
8. Fry each chop until is dark brown on the bottom, then gently turn over. Again, be careful not to splash the hot oil.
9. Fry until the new bottom side is dark brown, then remove from the pan and place on baking sheet or broiler pan.
10. When all chops have been fried, put the the baking sheet or broiler pan in the preheated oven. Bake chops for 10 - 20 minutes. Thicker chops or bone-in chops will take longer than thinner or boneless chops. My chops were bone-in and about 3/4 inch thick, they baked for 20 minutes.

If you don't care for or can't find soy flour, I imagine you could use almond flour. I haven't tried it yet. I've tried coconut flour, but that turned out to be a little grainy tasting.

So, what are you waiting for? Get your oil heated up and start frying!

If you try this, let me know how it turned out and what, if anything, you tried that was different.

Cheers,
Alex

PS. Don't fear the fat! It's what makes these chops sooooo tasty.

I'm back!

Sorry I haven't posted much for the past month or so.

For those of you who don't know me personally, I've suffered from reactive hypoglycemia for a long time. I'll give you a little background on it and some information about it and get on to how I've dealt with it.

Clinically speaking, reactive hypoglycemia, also known as post-prandial hypoglycemia, is when blood sugar drops "too low" (sorry I don't know the numbers) within 2 to 5 hours after a meal. The symptoms can include anxiety, shakiness, light-headedness, sweating, nausea, difficulty concentrating, depression, heart palpitations, flushing, epileptic-type response to flashing lights, headaches, craving sweets, and increased appetite.

I personally experienced almost all of the above and the symptoms I didn't develop my wife did. In retrospect, my and my wife's symptoms have been evident for a long time, but people know so little about this problem that many people don't get the treatment they need because the symptoms can be attributed to all sorts of problems.

The general advice that many receive is to drink some juice or eat some crackers. People are told to eat every two hours or so. I took this advice and it worked to temporarily relieve symptoms, but never offered permanent relief.

It took a long time to start to make the connection between what I ate and the severity and frequency of my symptoms, but when I was around 19 I started to make the connection. At first I thought sugar was my whole problem, but I later learned that all carbohydrates contributed to the problem, not just sugar.

After years of suffering and reacting to symptoms of low-blood sugar by eating, my weight had skyrocketed until I was nearly 100 pounds overweight and my wife was about 60 pounds overweight. We were hooked on a high-carb diet. We tried losing weight by reducing fat, cutting calories, exercising and failed at every turn.

About 6 years ago I started reading books about low-carb eating. I read "The Zone" by Barry Sears, "How I Gave Up My Low-Fat Diet and Lost Forty Pounds" by Dana Carpender, and "Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution" by Robert C. Atkins. I found a little bit of information about normalizing blood sugar levels in these and I thought this way of eating might work for me. I experimented with reducing some of the carbohydrates in my diet and immediately my weight started to drop and my symptoms improved. I had the evidence I needed to move forward with trying the Atkin's Diet. I talked to my wife and persuaded her to try it with me.

Within a couple weeks, most of our maladies disappeared. My wife's migraine headaches got better, we both had energy again, shakiness, anxiety, and depression appeared to be a thing of the past.

We later found that these weren't all gone completely. Artificial sweeteners and caffeine also turned out to be culprits as well. These affected me more substantially than they did my wife.

I have intermittently removed these from my diet with positive results. One of the things that plagued me for years is that even when I avoided all the "culprit" foods in my diet, I still developed many of the same symptoms I had experienced in the past. I tried going "no-carb" and very low-carb without any positive results. I went to my doctor and she said "eat 6 or 7 small meals a day" and "eat a little bit of everything". She didn't listen when I told her I was eating low-carb, she was too busy giving advice that sounded right to her.

I kept careful food logs for a month that detailed when I ate, what I ate, how I felt, and what I did. I saw my doc again in a month and brought my food log. She wasn't interested. I told her I noticed that when I ate, I experienced symptoms, but when I fasted for long periods I had no symptoms. She remarked "that's odd, you would expect it to be opposite". Her final advice, "just keep eating small frequent meals". I knew she was insane and that she just wasn't listening. I had spent $300 on blood tests that told me nothing. I had to figure things out for myself.

I was desperate for some help because the anxiety, depression, and inability to concentrate were really taking a negative toll on my life, so I wrote to Dr. Jay Wortman at DrJayWortman.com. He suggested that too much protein could be part of the problem. He advised me to try to eat about 1 - 1.5 g of protein per kg of body weight. I started experimenting with that advice with some positive results, but I still was developing symptoms intermittently.

Next I stumbled upon the "Optimal Diet" by Dr. Kwasniewski read more here and here. It is a low-carb diet, in which you avoid eating too much protein and get the majority of your calories from fat. I did that for a month and saw, in general, a tremendous improvement in my symptoms.

Finally, I ready a post on Stargazey's site about reactive hypoglycemia with advice to wait 5 - 6 hours between meals. The advice is based on allowing insulin levels to drop between meals. For me that advice has turned out to be spot on.

I have since combined that advice with eating the prescribed amount of protein by Drs. Mike and Mary Eades in "Protein Power Lifeplan".

Since I have made these most recent changes, I have finally been relieved of my symptoms. Now I eat about 34g of protein at each of three meals a day, I get most of my calories from fat, and I get a few calories from carbohydrate. I am able to take some amount of artificial sweeteners, but I don't eat them during the day when my symptoms are more likely to occur.

If you have symptoms of reactive hypoglycemia, I encourage you to seek out information as I have and don't be afraid to ignore your doctor's advice if they're not really helping. Try keeping a food log with details about when, what, and how much you eat and any thing you notice about how you feel. Talk to people and don't stop searching until you get the answers you need. I don't know if I've solved the problem, but I think I have just made a major breakthrough.

I couldn't have done it without the help of so many of the websites, blogs, and books out there. Each shed a little more light on a poorly understood subject.

The positive changes in my health, my weight, and my mental health have all come from the low-carb community. That's why I'm proud to be a part of it. I hope that someday someone's life will be improved by something they found on my site.

So, there's your glimpse into some of the craziness of my life. If you have any questions, feel free to post them in comments or of course email me at LowCarbNewEngland@gmail.com.

Cheers,
Alex

PS. Don't fear the fat! Without it, I wouldn't have anything to eat!