A full year... A summary of the year, future plans, and pi day!

So, as of about a week ago I have been on the meat diet for an entire year... I guess I never really got around to explaining that point in my blog... lol.  I celebrated this pi day as the unofficial anniversary of the self-experiment, with (of course) a meat pie (I had one last year too, but this time there are more pictures, and I intend to post them).  I also intend to make some changes to the meat diet and continue it - for at least another year.  I have yet to get a blood test done :/  I apologize.  I am a little too cheap to spend money on unnecessary medical procedures, however minor.

I want to try to sum up the experience as best I can, and try to be unbiased about it...  However possible that is...  What has shocked me the most about the experience as a whole is how not abnormal it has been.  I haven't really felt any different, with the possible exception of some digestive differences - most of which were not even very unpleasant, or significant.  I didn't lose much weight, which didn't surprise me too much (I don't have a great deal of it to lose though, so I'm not exactly complaining) - and though I don't have (or ever intend to take) before and after pictures, you're simply going to have to take my word for it when I say that I am now at least less fat than I was when I started (though this likely has something to do with the fact that I have been working out).  It has been very inconvenient to try to eat at restaurants or people's houses though.  I usually try to simply be polite and eat what I am offered, or choose restaurants that suit my needs, like sushi bars or steak houses.

I do want to get into the details of the digestive stuff though, so please skip this part if you aren't interested...

And it actually gets a bit gross if you thought you had the stones but want to change your mind...

It's not too late...

I may have mentioned this before, but one of the strangest things I've noticed is that I just don't pass a great deal of poop these days... In fact, it seems like a tiny amount in comparison to what I've been eating.  When I first noticed this it got my hypochondria acting up, Which of course led to me being utterly convinced that I had a blockage and was going to die (which... led to a laxative... which of course convinced me that my fears were entirely unfounded).  After that, I decided to go with it, and however unusual it seemed to not poop much, the movements were regular - perhaps even more-so than they had been before.  In addition to that small issue, I have also dealt with occasional bouts of diarrhea.  Considering that this happens to most people on normal diets I wouldn't consider it too abnormal - except that it has a tendency to last a little longer than expected...  As I have noted before, there is a reason to believe that this will result from not consuming enough fat, and there is also some evidence to suggest that adding salt to the diet can prevent it (weird...).  I have personally noticed that I tend to have this problem when my diet is mostly boiled eggs (or when I am simply stressed out) - boiled eggs are lower in salt and fat than what I generally consume, and when I have free range of things like butter and heavy cream and thoroughly fatty ground beef, this problem entirely vanishes.  I haven't really been constipated at all on this diet - pooping is never something difficult, though occasionally I expect to poop, or expect to poop more and there is no more [This goes back to the first digestive change, of course - the belief that I ought to be pooping more than I am has led me to occasionally, at least temporarily, conclude that I am constipated, then I turn out to be wrong] (This has been an improvement for me - I actually dealt with occasional constipation before, and considered it unpleasant, naturally) {TMI?}.  Anyway, I have also noticed the occasional acetone-smelling urine that is common among those on high fat, low everything-else diets {I warned you that this part maybe should be skipped!} (Some say this is a sign of dangerous ketoacidosis, but that is simply untrue - dietary ketosis, which is a much safer biological state, can lead to this as well).  The smell is unnerving and immediately makes me assume something is wrong, but it's really no big deal.

It's done.

You can start reading the blog again.

It's interesting again without being gross - really.

I didn't know to expect this when I started, but there is some debate about the body's ability to function without glucose.  I haven't noticed a significant difference, to be honest, but according to Dr. Peter Attia (I briefly mentioned him before - fitness fanatic and ketogenic diet advocate) it should be expected that high-intensity, short duration exercise (like lifting weights) should be slightly negatively impacted by a ketogenic diet, and aerobic exercises should be positively impacted by such a diet.  I can't run to save my life, and the numbers I've been putting up on the weights have gone up... so either the diet hasn't affected me much, or I haven't been truly ketogenic (Either is possible, really.  According to him, the impact on high-intensity exercise is quite small - and considering that I couldn't run to save my life before, if you increase that capability by - say - 150%, I still can't run to save my life!).

I've been surprised by my own ability to change my tastes more than anything else.  I mentioned long ago that I am practically addicted to milk, I have a serious sweet tooth, and I do not prefer fatty cuts of meat.  Well, I've been able to change all of those.  I have recently made the decision to wean myself off of milk.  I know it sounds sad, as I may never be capable of going back - but really, what am I missing out on?  The lactose intolerant can still consume a wide variety of dairy products since only milk and ice cream (and maybe a few others) are actually high in lactose.  There's also the fact that the lactose intolerant are supposed to still be able to tolerate some lactose, just not the nearly limitless quantities those of us with working digestive systems can handle.  I have replaced most of the milk in my diet with cream (I'll get to why in just a minute), though I still cut it with a little milk because it's too thick otherwise.  As for the sweet tooth, I literally don't have cravings anymore.  I can smell waffles in the morning and think, "Damn those smell good!" while I dive into a plate of ground beef and scrambled eggs, perfectly content not to eat a half a cup of syrup.  Of course, if I do get started on eating something sweet, I usually can't stop myself...  Some time ago I decided to have one piece of toast with honey.  And a cupcake.  And another piece of toast.  And another cupcake... I had a good excuse, but it was still inexcusable.  As for the fatty cuts of meat - that just took realizing the difference between fats that taste good and those that don't.  The fat that is marbled throughout a tri-tip steak as beautifully as if the cow were descended from heaven into the feedlot to be slaughtered especially for me tastes fantastic.  Whereas if you try to saute the 3/4 inch of fat from around the corner of a pork shoulder blade steak, it feels like rubber and is virtually inedible.  Either kind of fat is desirable when slow cooked until it is like butter stuck to meat.  Come to think of it, sticking butter to meat is also a fine way to make it taste butter... better.

I've been delighted by the fact that the diet is a fantastic conversation starter - even if it does make me a hipster to use it in that way.  Though I do occasionally run into someone who simply cannot be swayed, most people are open to hearing what I have to say (and most of them still think I'm going to die).  I do occasionally struggle to explain why epidemiological studies aren't solid proof of anything, or how hormones work, or what studies actually show about people on high-fat diets (mostly because, except for being able to explain away epidemiological studies, I know very little about the other two areas of scientific research - and the reason I struggle with epidemiological studies is that people tend to believe them anyway...).

That about sums up the experience - it has been not as difficult and far less expensive than I expected it to be.  It's been fun, and it seems like it hasn't killed me - so naturally I intend to keep it up.  I do want to make some changes though.  I want to start including non-starchy vegetables.  Why?  Variety is definitely a huge issue, but another one (believe it or not) is that I want to try to up my fat intake even more.  How to non-starchy vegetables help with that?  Simple - how do most people eat non-starchy veggies?  If you can't come up with the answer, think of a salad or a raw veggie tray - what is it that sit in the middle of either one?  That's right!  A giant blob of salad dressing.  What are the components of any (good) salad dressing?  Right again!  Some sort of fat, and some sort of acid, usually with salt and pepper.  So that's the idea in a nutshell - I will eat non-starchy veggies like broccoli and celery and asparagus and drench them in homemade dressings or hollandaise sauce or peanut butter and try to incorporate that into the meat diet in an effort to eat more fat.  A plus side of this is the purported beneficial effects of fiber ( mentioned before that I haven't had too much trouble with that area of digestion).  Since the veggies will have some vitamins in them (not that I haven't been getting most of what I need from meat and eggs) I am going to stop taking my multi-vitamin, but I will continue to take my vitamin D unless there is a miraculous change in the weather and I turn into some douchebag who walks around shirtless in the sun (protip: not gonna happen).  I do want to get a blood test done too, but I just think it isn't going to happen :/

The last topic to discuss is pi day (March fourteenth, aka 3/14 for the uninitiated)!  Last pi day, my brother and I celebrated the commencement of my meat diet with a glorious meat pie (I had actually been on the diet for a bout a week or so at that point, but whatevs).  A meat pie in our case was essentially a meat loaf, with no breadcrums, topped with a bacon weave lattice as a sort of "crust."  We basically used a meatloaf recipe by Alton Brown (of Food Network fame) and removed any offending ingredients, and added extra bacon, and baked it in a pie plate.  Needless to say it was basically the most fantastic thing I had ever tasted.  It also looked beautiful.  I took pictures, and a giant slice of it was my facebook profile pic for a while.

The obligatory bacon

Well, this year I had to outdo myself, so I made two pies (and you thought that was for tau day!)!  They were, once again, the most fantastic things I had ever tasted.  I also took pictures, and if I can figure out how to post them you will get to see them!  [Note that the cigarettes in the picture are not mine - I do not smoke cigs]

The meat pie, sans bacon weave

That about sums it up for now!  Until next time!

The finished product, artfully displayed

More on Essentail Readings: Update

Some time ago I posted about essential readings.  I intend to add to that post by updating from time to time.  As you can imagine, I am likely to add Good Calories, Bad Calories to that list, but first I need a more condensed summary.  It'll happen.  I also want to add another blog to this list - it's by some guy who is a fitness fanatic and also eats a ketogenic diet - he and Taubes are associated in some way.  I've read a bit of his blog and he has some useful information there, some of which I would like to try to summarize at some point.  One large point he makes is that he was able to lose weight while actively reducing the amount of time he spends exercising, and I think that's interesting (you may recall that I lost weight this summer after ceasing the gym trips... more on that later).  No time right now to finish this, I will edit it later, I just wanted to get some thoughts down.

More things I've been lying about...

I mentioned a long time ago that I wanted to keep a weekly update of my weight - for whatever reason. Anyway, I have not been doing so... partly because for the past 4 months I haven't had a scale (although that's no excuse since I think I only recorded my weight here one time). Anyway, I'm up to about 156 right now. I'm okay with that - it's a pound heavier than where I started, but I'm not as fat as I used to be, which is cool. I should have taken before and after pictures so that I could talk about posting them and then never follow up on it.

I finally got around to taking my blood pressure! And boy was it weird... the first measurement was something like 150/80 which spooked me a bit. So I repeated it: 140/75. Again: 130/70 [these are approximations]. Now, I know that taking your blood pressure repeatedly on the same arm can yield decreasing results like that, so I switched arms. This measurement was about 110/60. This shocked me for a number of reasons. First, why did it start so high? Second, why did it come down so low? And third, why did this all happen in about 5 minutes? Makes me wonder how accurate actual blood pressure readings are, and if we might want to start averaging blood pressure over the course of like an hour to really get a more accurate reading.

I also butchered a pork shoulder recently! Costco had a slab of pork shoulder, bone removed, weighing in at 25 pounds for about $1.70 a pound... I couldn't resist. I did not, however, manage to do a good job of chopping it up. I should have checked a guide online, but instead I just went at it with a carving knife. I got a few good steaks and several chunks of pork roast though. I still think I prefer getting my meat nicely packaged in meal-sized portions (don't reread that...).

I think I'm going to retire input/output. I watched a special about a "condition" called orthorexia, where people become obsessed with keeping track of what they eat for whatever purpose, and I've come to realize that it's not worth the effort. Besides, you know what I eat most of the time: eggs, cheese, meat, a bit of milk, occasional walnuts/pecans. And butter. Lot's of butter. And then I will share with you what is actually interesting. Same with the output - you know the details of what I have told you - it's usually not very interesting, and when it is I will say so.

I wanted to keep this brief, so I'm going to wrap it up now. I did want to mention the hipsters though. I've noticed a trend among the hip that can help to identify them during the winter. You know the skinny jeans? The skinny jeans that are also usually too short? Coupled with the fact that the bottoms are generally rolled up? So you can see their socks below their skinny little ankles? Yeah... that's how you can ID the hip during the winter months. It takes some work though - even some of the most hip won't risk that cold on their ankles.

Anyway, till next time.

A (not-so) Brief Update, Focusing on the Gym

Hey, so my last post talked almost exclusively about Gary Taubes' book, Good Calories, Bad Calories. I will repeat my praise of the book here, and I highly recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in diet/health/obesity/diabetes/weight loss/what have you.

But there are other things to talk about. For example, I don't believe I uttered a single word last time about the workout situation! Things are finally (and really this time!) back to normal. Starting in about mid-January, I got a membership at the YMCA, since they waived the joining fee for the new people in January. They also have this financial assistance program for people who are poor, or underemployed, or college students (simply a combination of the previous two) so it actually costs me quite a bit less each month than my old gym membership ever did.

Plus, the facility is really nice - they have an indoor track and everything. My old gym was a snap fitness, and they didn't have a real bench or a rack or anything for weights, so I didn't do bench or squat, or really anything that I couldn't do with dumbbells. Now I'm doing them regularly, and unashamedly begging for spotters whenever I bench (my bench is really pretty pathetic, so it's almost embarrassing asking for a spot - but that's not my style to be embarrassed about anything - except dancing). In fact - and I don't mean to brag - I'm hittin' it pretty hard. The indoor track is a huge part of it... I hate running, and I hate running on a treadmill even more, and I have short, poorly coordinated legs, so the elliptical machine makes me feel like my hip is going to fly out of my pelvis. But the indoor track is cool - you get to run past people who are walking to make yourself feel fast, and with the right music it's actually kinda fun to try to run with the rhythm (if it's too slow or too fast I can't keep it up for too long though).

Speaking of which, I definitely listen to the Black Mages at the gym. In case you are unaware, the Black Mages are a Japanese progressive metal band led by Nobuo Uematsu, of Final Fantasy fame, which does covers of music from the Final Fantasy series. It's fantastic - and for someone like me who is used to getting a lot of work done listening to battle themes there's nothing like it to get my blood pumping for a workout. Apparently they have a relatively new album which I am thinking about investing in... Anyway, it almost makes me wish people could hear what I'm listening to at the gym, as I run around the track in old nerdy t-shirts. Now that I'm actually making some money, I may try to get some new ones :)

As for the details of my routine: I try to go for a nice warm-up with a few laps around the track, usually about a half mile at a decent pace, followed by a walked lap then straight to the weights (if I'm gonna be doing squats I take it easier on the running). After that, I split up my workout into two days, so one day I might do back and chest, and the next shoulders and legs (or some similar combination of those) and I throw in little things here and there, going for about 5 or 6 days a week at the gym, occasionally throwing in a much easier day, or a day of just running (if it sounds like a lot, its not - I'm usually in and out in about an hour). I aim for three sets of about 10 reps each for each exercise, after a warm-up set, and usually dropping the weight down because I can't maintain it yet. I figure I'm not working out hard enough to really worry too much about over-training at this point, so I'm not too worried about that. I also haven't been doing deadlifts - although I want to do them... I admit I've tried to do them before, and they make me sore in a bad way, which means I'm doing something wrong. Don't try to give me advice - I've watched youtube videos all about doing them right and I just can't get it... I'm too awkward. I'm avoiding the risk of injury by doing other things while I wait for an opportunity to have someone show me how to do them and tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Also, if you have read Gary Taubes other book, How We Get Fat you will recall that he details an entire chapter to the "elusive" benefits of exercise. Basically his point is that if we envision exercise as a way of increasing the calories out part of the calories in/calories out dynamic, then we must realize how hopeless things are - the calories in/calories out idea is simply untrue. This is why I don't get to the gym and run for 20 miles or some other such nonsense (and because I'd give up and say eff that by about mile 1.5). However, exercise does have a tendency to reduce insulin resistance, which does help people lose weight. And if you lift weights it has a tendency to make you stronger, so you don't end up fat, old, bald, poor, and short (I remind myself whenever I don't want to go to the gym that I am already short, I am balding, I will one day be old, and I will never be fabulously rich - so if I can't at least avoid being fat I won't have much going for me - except for my charming personality, of course... and shocking good looks... and razor sharp mind and...). Uh, anyway, if the goal is weight loss, then the key to exercising is intensity. Intense workouts cause a shift in hormones that tends to make you lose fat when compared to lower-intensity workouts. All exercise will increase your production of cortisol, which, put simply, makes you fat. But more intense exercise also increases your production of glucagon, testosterone, adrenal hormones, and human growth hormone - which all have a tendency to make you less fat (women, don't worry about testosterone making you bulky - if it were that easy for guys they wouldn't workout) [I also want to do a post about glucagon someday and how it is basically the counter to insulin, but now is not the time]. In other words, the net hormonal effect on weight loss is more positive for intense workouts than for less-intense workouts. The details of it aren't entirely clear to me, but I do know that the calories in/calories out aspect of exercise isn't what makes you lose weight, and the hormonal explanation makes more sense. So it makes sense to go with what makes more sense.

Speaking of all this business, have you ever tried to find accurate information about exercising? I feel like it is exactly like diet/nutrition/health. Everyone is trying to sell something and promising to make you look like Suzanne Somers or Ahnold or make you lose 300 pounds in 6 days or something else that clearly requires too much plastic surgery or at least ought to have required more. I'll admit I've checked a few websites myself and almost been convinced - I have talked about Mark's Daily Apple before... He's the guy who talks about the "primal blueprint." And he was so close to being right about a lot of things - yes intense exercise is good; yes, we ought to eat fewer carbs in general; yes, most fats are not bad for you - that it's almost enough to suck you in, but his reasoning was so flawed. Just because our ancestor's ate it - even if for a long time - does not imply that it is good for us; and just because we did not eat it does not imply that it is bad for us.

Taubes showed this repeatedly in his books: The Japanese and many Asian peoples do fine on diets high in carbohydrates when they eat primarily rice, despite the fact that our ancestors likely didn't eat much rice. All people do poorly on diets high in sugar - regardless of the source of that sugar... It rots teeth, it causes heart disease, and liver diseases, and all kinds of horrible things - even though our ancestors likely ate as much sugar as possible (which didn't amount to much). Many mushrooms are poisonous when consumed raw, but are fine sources of trace nutrients when cooked - there's no way our ancestors ate them for too long. The Masai people of Africa live in a state of relative health despite subsisting on a diet of mostly cow's milk. And whey protein and fish oils - two sources of food that our ancestors likely didn't have year-round access to - have a tendency to be exceptionally healthy.

But anyway, then he went on to say that eating primal eliminated his B.O. Put bluntly, he's retarded for saying this. Put less bluntly, it discredits him greatly, and is further evidence that he is simply trying to sell something.

In a frustrated way, what I'm saying is that I'd like a definitive summary of what we know about exercise in a (relatively) concise format similar to Taubes' books so I could more easily sift through all the garbage to know what is true.

What else... I know!

*POOP WARNING*

So, I mentioned in passing in my previous post something about a bit of diarrhea... It was actually quite unpleasant - I believe this may be what was referred to in the "meat for a year" study as the factor that caused the scientists to change their plan to both subjects eating more fat than lean. I won't go into great detail - but it is interesting to note a few things. One is that it didn't seem to be severely dehydrating me - I didn't change my fluid intake much and didn't notice any ill effects. Two is that aside from an often unpleasant frequent urge to use the toilet, I didn't feel bad... there was no pain or cramping or headaches or those sorts of things that you might expect with this sort of issue. Three is that my over-consumption of cayenne pepper did cause a certain amount of unpleasantness... Combined with diarrhea it was actually really unpleasant at times... I'm trying to cut back (but it goes so well with roasts!) Four is that it went on for about a week, probably a couple days more. Since then I have been intentionally trying to eat more salt and more fat, and the problem seems to have cleared up.

I believe it may have been less severe than what the study mentioned because I was still eating mostly fat, rather than mostly lean - just not enough fat. But honestly who knows. I'm gonna try to stick to what I'm doing now though to basically avoid it. I wish I could pin down the cause more accurately, but there's no way of knowing without intentionally trying to force it to happen again - which I don't want to do.

*POOP WARNING OVER*

Anyway, I think it's time to end this post. Until next time.

So it begins again...

Hey... It's been a long time, so you may be wondering why I haven't been blogging much.

The real answer is that I've been really lazy about almost everything, so this rather small and unimportant part of my life was naturally the hardest hit. What I would tell you if I didn't have the facade of anonymity to protect me, however, is that I have been so busy with real life and school and work that I haven't had time to focus as much on my meatetarian diet, so there hasn't been much to blog.

Well, there hasn't been much to blog either, so that's actually part of the real answer too - I was bad over the holidays - as was to be expected - and since a few days after New Year's I've been pretty consistent. I've also decided to try adding more salt to my diet - it wasn't a lie that I've been busy with work, and when I'm gone for long periods of time, it's easier to pack a lunch than to buy one while I'm out and about... So I've been eating a lot of boiled eggs, and peeling them in my car while I'm stopped at lights (or on the ferry). And in the process, I've been eating my foods with less salt than is usual. I've actually had some bowel issues recently, and I think this (and stress) may be a part of it.

I also read a book - I think I listed under my "required reading" post - Good Calories, Bad Calories, by Gary Taubes. The book was filled with a wealth of information about research done on the relationship between diet and health, mostly chronicling how utterly lacking it is. It did, however, point out that the theory that fats and cholesterol in the diet are harmful is simply unsubstantiated; and it presented a more thoroughly (though not entirely) substantiated theory that carbohydrates - particularly sugar - in the diet are harmful. Basically, it confirmed what I have been telling you from the beginning in ways that I could not begin to have access to (such as reviewing the relevant statistics/scientific papers). It was far from light reading, however, and even though I read it recently, many of the finer details escape me. For example, I was relaying this bit of information to a friend, and aside from Dr. Atkins (who was a clinician, not a researcher) I could not name a single researcher who had come to the conclusion that fats in the diet are harmless and nonfattening. Not that there weren't several researchers in the book mentioned by name who made such claims... it's just that there were so many that after a while I started forgetting names or blending them together. Those names that stick out were towards the beginning of the book, and the beginning of the book was about the faulty hypothesis of the evils of dietary fats.

Anyway, here's a brief summary followed by details: Taubes begins with an interesting introduction about President Eisenhower's attempts to follow a "heart healthy" diet, and descending into heart disease despite his efforts, eventually dying after experiencing eight (could be wrong on the number) myocardial infarctions (I love that expression). He then details the theory that dietary fats and cholesterol cause heart disease, and explains why it's wrong, and how it came to dominate the medical/research communities. Then he details a (not so) new hypothesis that dietary carbohydrates cause heart disease and fatness, and explains why it makes more sense (and explains how before the mid-20th century, this belief was widely held). Then he gets a bit specific about how we fatten, and how we get heart disease, and discusses some clinical diet trials showing that high fat diets tend to result in better weigh control, whereas standard calorie restriction diets almost invariably fail. He explains that the theory of "calories in, calories out" fattening/weight loss is faulty, and it makes more sense to base our theory of fattening and weight loss off the effects of hormones - in particular insulin. Towards the end he details some theories about obesity and diabetes and metabolic disorder and essentially concludes that we would be a lot better if if we ate more meat and less carbohydrates - virtually the exact opposite of what we have been told since the '50s and '60s.

On that note, Ancel Keys was the first to bring the fat-is-bad hypothesis to mainstream science, and he based this jump to the mainstream primarily on what is known as the "seven countries study." The seven countries study examined the relative risk of heart disease among middle-aged men in seven countries: the US, Finland, the Netherlands, Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Japan. The study showed, according to Keys, that among populations with high saturated fat intakes the rate of heart disease was increased.

The problems with Keys' seven countries study can be separated into many issues: First is that the study was initially of 22 countries, and if the 15 "discarded" countries are included with their dietary data, the alleged correlation between dietary saturated fat intake and heart disease starts to disappear; Second is the fact that the study was seen as being so conclusive - even if higher heart disease rates could be correlated with higher saturated fat intakes, that does not imply that the saturated fat intake causes the heart disease, or that adopting a low saturated fat diet could reduce your odds of developing heart disease ( however, it's quite obvious that this has been the conclusion of at least the American Heart Association and the like); Third is that Keys seemed to have intentionally misread the data to make it look as if dietary fat, especially saturated fat, were the culprit, when physiological studies implied the exact opposite; Fourth is that using the same data, we can see that higher sugar intake correlates much more strongly with higher heart disease rates than does any other variable in diet.

I could go on for more, but the point has already been made. Keys made an incorrect or at least extremely biased conclusion about diet and health, and pressed his point until everyone in the medical/research communities agreed with him. Other researchers followed in his footsteps, making similar mistakes by being blind to anything that didn't agree with what they expected the outcome to be. This led to the belief that eating meat makes you get fat and then get diabetes and then heart disease and then you die - which I hope my (almost) year has shown to be false.

Meanwhile, there were at least a few researches showing that high meat consumption was far from the ocean of maladies it was claimed to be. Vilhjalmur Stefansson (I've talked about him before) was part of a study about the effects of a year-long all-meat diet, about which many papers were written. There was a researcher by the name of Banting (related to the Banting who wrote his Letter on Corpulence) who discovered insulin, who was followed by researchers who delved into diabetes research, which led to a theory which is today known as "metabolic syndrome." Metabolic syndrome is essentially a less severe form of (type II) diabetes, characterized by a resistance to insulin, which tends to lead to fatness. This theory was developed by Gerald Reaven, who was also a proponent of low-carbohydrate diets (I'll admit, I had to look up Dr. Reaven, even though I remembered the name metabolic syndrome). This all makes sense, of course, based on the fact that diets high in carbohydrates necessarily force your pancreas to produce more insulin (in order to deal with the blood sugar). Chronically high insulin levels lead to insulin resistance, which leads to a vicious cycle in which the pancreas must produce even more insulin in order to keep blood sugar at healthy levels.

In addition to detailing studies that show meat isn't harmful but carbohydrates are, Taubes also demonstrates that the mainstream medical community seemed to shun those who disagreed - many of the researchers he mentioned lived in obscurity despite their cutting edge research (he mentions one man, whose name I cannot remember, whose experience working on the Manhattan Project and giant centrifuges led to the discovery of the many different particles which carry cholesterol, known collectively as lipoproteins, who worked in obscurity because his research showed that overall cholesterol levels barely correlated with heart disease risk - though particular types of lipoproteins were strongly correlated with increased heart disease risk, and with high carbohydrate diets).

He then takes apart the weight loss theory of calories in, calories out by revealing that even the medical communities that encourage people to "eat less and move more" accept that this lifestyle change is not enough to make most people lose weight for a significant period of time.

This whole idea of the ivory tower in a science with practical applications is something that had never occurred to me. Sure it can occur in a science like psychology - which has limited practical applications beyond making people feel good about themselves- and it does, considering the sharply skewed views of psychologists (I don't have to reveal how I feel about it here - google it if you must). But in a science with real, researchable, practical, and significant applications to how people lead their daily lives - which allegedly has physiology to back it up - I could not imagine scientific bias possibly being an issue.

Basically, this has been my review of the book - but this final point I'm trying to make is far and away the most significant one. The book reads like an expose on the flaws in the philosophy of science surrounding such areas of study as diet, nutrition, health, obesity, and even statistics. It is at times exciting, disheartening, victorious, and downright depressing - and perhaps I only found it so because I have developed a passion for these areas of study. But I can assure you that if it is read with an open mind, it will change your life in significant philosophical ways... This is not to say that you will find Jesus if you read this book, but hopefully you will no longer read headlines in newspapers and magazines, or listen to commercial on TV and believe a single word said without looking into it more deeply.

If I could add anything to the foreword of the book, it would be this: Forget everything you ever thought you knew about diet, nutrition, and health. Not because it is necessarily wrong, but because no one has ever told you the how and why of it because they deemed you incapable of understanding the science behind it. This grievous insult ought not be taken lightly - the problem with this is that the basics of statistics are the only aspect of the science that needs to be understood (the workings of the physiology are either true or untrue - proven or unproven and stated as such - your capacity to understand what it means for the advanced glycation end production to bind to the protein [mostly made up fancy concoction of words] is unnecessary, provided the physiology is being accurately and truly described), and the basics of statistics are this: correlation does not imply causation, and true conclusions about correlation can only be drawn from experiments with correctly controlled variables and those conclusions can only be about those variables (not related variables which were not controlled).

Enough about that book... lol.

That's enough for now - I really am trying to be better about my blog updates, but I wasn't lying about being busy. It's a blessing and a curse - since I enjoy this so much, I hate to have it taken from me by force - but working more and making money has its perks too :)

Until next time! Never eat sugar again... lol

School has started... Not so many hipsters?

Well this is embarrassing.

First I say, "It's been a while!" then talk about how normal everything has gotten, and then promise to post new things like pictures and do regular updates. Naturally, none of that has happened (But the pictures really exist!).

To recap: It's been a month since my last update, I'll get to the exciting bits before long here; I indeed have pictures of the chanterelles from the first trip, and will post more pictures of the newer ones as well - eventually (there have been two other trips since then); I have not been going to the gym regularly, that was apparently a temporary thing (I will return); and the digestive process is the one thing that has normalized (though I had an unfortunate experience with an overabundance of hot sauce...).

So onto some more new things! School has started ;_; And it may be just me, but it appears that there are fewer hipsters this year. Only time will tell - warm weather separates the men from the boys (or in the case of hipsters, the emaciated vegans of indeterminate gender from the less-so-but-still-slightly effeminate emaciated vegetarians). Come colder weather there will be scarves flying and oddly-put-together flannel outfits with skinny jeans and stout snow boots topped with truly epic, though still somehow ironic, untamed facial hair jutting out from beneath hats that people might have worn in the 60's, but still shouldn't have (I don't like hats).

Now that THAT sentence is done, I am enjoying school so far. I need something to stop me from being lazy, and apparently cooking for myself is not enough. But 3 heavy higher math classes is more than enough. I like learning and I like doing more than nothing - at least for now. I ran into some people at a table in one of the huge public areas at UW, and they were advocates of the LaRouche PAC. I had no idea what the LaRouche PAC was, but they had signs proposing the smashing of solar panels, so I needed to understand why. I'm not a huge fan of solar panels - at the moment, they are an inefficient novelty that uses up a lot of water and costs a ton of money for the energy they put out - but there's nothing wrong with them in theory (except that it always seems to be those "Mother Earth is tired of being raped, so rape the sun instead" vegans who support them). Give them ten years and they will become efficient - give them twenty and they'll be economical too. Any-who, the LaRouche people told me about a couple of interesting things about water usage in the US and gave me some literature - which promptly proved their insanity. The literature droned on and on about "the evil British Empire" and how we need to ally ourselves with Russia and China in order to form a Pacific alliance to counter them strategically - and this isn't my usual "I hate stupid people" hyperbole - they really said these things.

I went on another trip to Seabeck for more mushrooms. Found a couple of a different type as well - another type that is not quite as easy to identify as Chanterelles, but still easy enough for a novice like me - the bolete. There are many kinds of boletes, and only a select few are poisonous. One of these is called the devil's bolete - it has the shape and other characteristics of a normal bolete, but is bright red, and it's flesh turns blue when bruised, and it smells like a dead, decaying body. Normal boletes look like a mushroom from Mario Brothers, only they are usually brown and usually don't have spots (colors vary from a bit greenish to yellow to orange to red to brown - avoid red and orange types). They are fat, large mushrooms with stout stems, and lack gills - they have spore tubes that start with a smooth covering with pores in it (the covering falls off as they age). Most boletes are edible, though some are notoriously bitter (and thus considered inedible despite not being toxic). Boletes should be cooked. They are also a favorite of grazing slugs and insects, so it's best to go bolete hunting after the first frost. Enough about them - we got a TON of chanterelles! Many many pounds! I don't even know what to do with em all, but I'm sure I'll think of something.

I was typing up this blog post when I suddenly realized I had an errand I desperately needed to run, after which I went to the gym! Success!!

Going to bed now, more details some other time. Night!

It's been a while...

Hey blog followers! I'm back and updating things!

I have to admit to a few things though before I begin:

First of all, I have been less than fully meatetarian these past months. Yes. It's true. I've been eating and enjoying candies, pastries, and fruits and vegetables. I even went mushroom harvesting recently and fully intend to eat them. I have not, however, intentionally eaten bread without the express purpose of being polite. I have chosen wine over beer except when eating with friends, and have not drunk any soda (not even diet soda). My diet has still been mostly meatetarian, but it has also been mostly uninteresting (one of many reasons I have not been updating regularly).

Second, I have not been exercising much. I went to the gym two times in July, and maybe about 4 times in June. I could get specific about that last one but there's no point. Basically I've been pretty lazy all summer with no reason. I've also been trying unsuccessfully to get a job - maybe it'll happen - but once school starts, tutoring and homework will take up much of my time, so I might not have time... I'll keep looking anyway. Good news is that I have started up the gym trips relatively regularly starting last week (HA!). It's almost like starting all over in terms of endurance and strength levels, but I didn't get fat - in fact, I lost five pounds! I expect to bounce back quick enough.

Third, I had a health "scare" which I do not wish to detail here for the sake of my readers (it was unrelated to the meat diet) which spooked me into not doing anything for a period of time, and then going to the doctor, who basically laughed at me and said, "You're fine, but call me if you're not." This is why I stopped going to the gym, and why I slipped on the diet, and because of those two factors (I think...) I ended up with a serious bout of long term... loose bowels. That bout is over now, and everything is indeed back to normal. I think I wasn't eating enough fat and I didn't do anything to try to fix it... Never again!

Anyway, things are back to normal! Time for an update!

Like I said, I went harvesting chanterelles with a friend today, and intend to eat them with a steak soon :) That's the plan. There's also a recipe I saw in a cookbook at BnN that I want to get - it called for chicken and chanterelles (not that I want the cookbook, I want to get the recipe out of it from the bookstore... this is a hobby of mine) and was almost fully meatetarian - since I consider fungus to fall under the meatetarian heading since it has almost no carbs. I've never eaten chanterelles before and I am excited to try them :) My sister-in-law got me into mushrooms (oh gersh... I just realized what that sounds like!) by telling me to try them at a Mongolian restaurant in the pick-it-yourself barbecue, and I decided they tasted awesome! So I'm excited to try chanterelles because they are allegedly the finest tasting mushrooms around, and are super plentiful in the northwest about 6 months out of the year.

Speaking of which... in the northwest they are early this year! They probably are convinced that it's fall already since the weather has been so subpar :/ but I enjoy it. So my friend and I went out on a hike in Seabeck to find them! It's kinda an unwritten rule of mushroom harvesting that you don't reveal your source (but it's now a written rule...), so I won't be specific, but I will give hints. We found the mushrooms in relatively deep coniferous forest with thick canopies - almost no direct sun made it to the floor. They were most common in areas with little underbrush (but not no underbrush!) and seemed to like growing around mossy areas. They seem to like the firs and hemlocks most, however, pacific chanterelles are apparently not picky - we also found them growing around the bases of bushes like oregon grape and huckleberries (I ate some of each...) They didn't seem to like the larger deciduous trees, and were more common in the more damp and cool areas of the forest. They are difficult to confuse with any other mushroom, so there's no need to worry much about poisoning yourself, but don't get lost! My friend and I decided to go on a trek through some thick underbrush and then we just kept going until we were basically swimming in a sea of ferns... It took us about an hour and a half to get back to where we knew we had been lol. Very fun trip in all though - I will be eating the chanterelles soon, and going on another trip before long as well.

Whew! No need for input/output tonight, I figure I've done enough for today hehehe. Glad to be back!