[Tyson]

Haha, no, but only because it's deep fried!

Last night I had asparagus wrapped in bacon - 1 asparagus per 1 slice of bacon - the bacon was crispy and the asparagus was tender - awesome!!!!

[Mikeinsacramento]

Haha, no, but only because it's deep fried!

Last night I had asparagus wrapped in bacon - 1 asparagus per 1 slice of bacon - the bacon was crispy and the asparagus was tender - awesome!!!!

OK, now I'm interested in this thread.

[Tyson]

To follow up on my previous LDL post on page 1 of this thread, it turns out that LDL crosses the blood-brain barrier, and the payload that it delivers?  Cholesterol - which our brains desperately needs.  Which again goes toward the fact that normal LDL function is not disease causative, it's when the LDL becomes dysfunctional and ends up as smLDL, oxLDL, or glycated LDL that problems follow.  The paper below does not touch on these dysfunctional types of LDL, but rather what is the function of LDL when healthy, and why do we have LDL receptors in our brains:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2138047/pdf/10768.pdf

[HT cOz]

Sugar + liver =   I Vote for sugar as #1 enemy and glutton #2.

[John Casler]

To follow up on my previous LDL post on page 1 of this thread, it turns out that LDL crosses the blood-brain barrier, and the payload that it delivers?  Cholesterol - which our brains desperately needs.  Which again goes toward the fact that normal LDL function is not disease causative, it's when the LDL becomes dysfunctional and ends up as smLDL, oxLDL, or glycated LDL that problems follow.  The paper below does not touch on these dysfunctional types of LDL, but rather what is the function of LDL when healthy, and why do we have LDL receptors in our brains:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2138047/pdf/10768.pdf

Cholesterol is very important.

The brain needs it.

When sunlight hits our skin, it is the key component in creating Vit-D (the sunshine vitamin)

Some of our hormones use it as a component (like TESTOSTERONE)

That is why our livers make it, and send it out to do good.

[HT cOz]

I think natural sugars that occur in fruit are great and there is a lot of fiber in the fruit as well. It is the refined/concentrated sugars of modern life that is playing havoc with our health. It doesn't matter if it is cain sucrose or corn fructose we just were not made to consume hundreds of empty calories per day in those forms. Worst of all when they are in a liquid.  If your metabolism is at eualibrium just 1 12oz coke a day will cause you to gain ~10lbs/yr. That's crazy to think about.   

[gprro]

Happy I was browsing around the non audio areas and found this thread. I'm at the point of being seriously stressed out and fed up of trying to figure out whats good and bad to eat. So many conflicting "diets from experts"

Part of the being fed up part is I'm in the worst shape of my life ( officially in my mid 30's now I guess), and have tried to adjust some things and get healthy for the last 9 months or so, and it's not working that great. Was an athlete most of my early life, and just thinking about dieting during college was enough to drop to a pretty lean 215lbs. Stayed mostly lean into the 240lb range as I got a little older. I'm 6'2". Stress and other things I think led to being about 275 at some point last fall. Im now around 260, but I feel like my fat level is still near the same. Was, and still am a little worried about something like Cushings syndrome. More mid section and facial puffiness than I think I should have. Have developed stretch marks around the stomach sometime in the last few years as well. I'm probably susceptible to them though, as when I started with weights in my teens I got them too. Had a Dr. do basic blood panel, and nothing but my liver was bad. Re check after fasting, and everything looks ok. I really need to find something that works!

So maybe an AC diet plan, haha I wish there was a definitive list of things to eat. Thinking that the starch and sugar thing is the culprit though. Actually just got an add in the mail talking up something called the glycemic load diet, differs from the glycemic index stuff. Developed by some cardiologist, Rob Thompson? Basically saying starch is the enemy, and agreeing with the charts earlier, the add booklet showed a similar one with obesity and wheat consumption coinciding. Also from USDA and national center for health stats. The diet is saying stay away from the secret starch (they tell you the secret and build a diet for you if you order the book, $32 if you decide to keep it). Weirdly though they claim white bread is somehow better than wheat? Maybe because of how long the wheat bread keeps your insulin levels up?

Anyway I need to drop 30ish pounds without loosing muscle. I have some college friends (ex football players) that have lost up to 100 pounds in one case, and still look skinny fat though. Trying to avoid that I need to figure this out. My diet isn't that bad. I do like breads and potatoes though.

[Tyson]

I'd say that the main health wreckers are sugar, wheat, alcohol, and vegetable oils (except olive oil).  These should probably be avoided always, over the long term.  Other starches like potatoes, carrots, beans, rice, oatmeal, should be limited only while you are actively trying to lose the weight, and can be added back in after you've met your weight loss goals. 

Olive oil, coconut oil, butter, eggs, beef, chicken, fish, shrimp, lobster, and non-starchy VEGGIES can be eaten in unlimited amounts (for weight loss).  Load up on the veggies.  I like to make mine in butter, lots of butter.  Do not count calories, eat as much as you want.  But limit snacking between meals.  Snacking will put on or keep on weight like crazy. 

Exercise is a good idea, but not "cardio" in the sense of jogging, since that just causes you to work up an appetite and make you want to eat more (and your body will tend to overcompensate when it comes to eating).  Moderate exercise like walking or easy biking or moderately slow swimming are all great, at least initially.  And resistance training is very important - do some pushups, pullups, squats, hard, every few days, especially on days you have high energy.

Oh, one other thing - most people do extremely well on the approach above, but a small subset of the population (APOE 4/4's) are very, very sensitive to saturated fats.  You can order up an ApoE test from your Dr. to check it out.  If you are ApoE 2/2, 2/3, 2/4, or 3/3, you are fine.  Even the 3/4's don't always have a problem with sat fat (I'm 3/4 and I have no problems with it).  But ApoE 4/4 has a genetic issue that mis-handles saturated fat and can cause your lipids to get worse, not better.  For the other ApoE types, it's either neutral, or has a beneficial affect by raising HDL.

Actually, since we are talking ApoE, here is the chart from Berkeley Heart Labs on how things like specific diet or exercise changes affect the different genotypes:



Full text is available here, it's pretty interesting:

http://www.bhlinc.com/cirm.php?chapter=19

[Tyson]

Ah, one other thing I should add on a personal note - I take crestor to lower my LDL, and it works great.  But it's hard on the liver.  I started to eat eggs because they tend to protect the liver.  And I was also starting to eat a lot more butter and coconut oil.  The cool thing is my latest labs show that the liver is in the best shape ever, and my HDL jumped 20 points.  The coolest part is that my HDL2 (the most protective HDL subfraction) increased the most, 4x more than the HDL3 increase (which is the least protective).  Sooo, I'm stoked

[gprro]

Interesting info, thanks! I'd love to have a dietition or doc monitor me for a while. Dinner tonight was a couple very lean burgers, grill pan fried with a little butter, with chopped onion, tomatoe, a little baked beans, and a small amount of ketchup and mustard on top. No bun. Half a Heath klondike bar for dessert, it's the weekend. I can actually cut those in forths, and stretch them  a few days and be happy. Am having a beer now. I'm worried I'd be one of the ones that alcohol was a no-no,  . Def like a drink or two a couple times a week...

[viggen]

Thumbs up for your research, Tyson!

[Tyson]

Welcome!  Of course, I am no doctor or anything, so take it for what it's worth   I don't think cutting sugar, wheat, constarch, and upping vegetable intake, olive oil intake, or lean meat/fish intake is gonna be controversial, so that's something everyone should do (for best health).  The Sat Fat I'll add one caveat - in some people it can cause a large increase in LDL.  Before making this type of change, it would be very wise to get a VAP or NRM and see what your blood levels really are, try it out for 3 months, and re-test.  Most people will see a dramatic improvement in lipids, but some might not.  And I'm always in favor of finding out for sure for YOU in things like this.  Same with alcohol - most people it provides a benefit, some it does not.  Best to check it out with a liver panel in addition to the VAP or NMR.  Knowledge is power (to make good choices).

[Tyson]

Thanks for posting, Tyson! I highly recommend "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes to anyone interested in diet who hasn't read it. It's quite a tome, being targeted to doctors and health professionals. He has a newer one called Why We Get Fat that's more consumer oriented (which I haven't read but intend to).

The documentaries y'all mentioned, King Corn and Food, Inc., both do a good job showing how government subsidies only drive us to eat foods that are bad for us (refined wheat, corn, soybeans, vegetable oils, sugars, Soylent Green...). I enjoyed the humorous documentary Fat Head as a response to Spurlock's anti-business Supersize Me.

Thanks for the recs - I got both books and have now read both of them.  WWGF is not bad, it's pretty concise and probably a good read for someone that doesn't geek out over this stuff.  On the other hand, GCBC is incredible.  Textbooks don't have this level of research/annotation.  And the overall picture painted is pretty dismal.  The population studies were particularly fascinating.  Healthy native populations with a wide variety of diet compositions with zero heart disease, diabetes, or obesity before adopting a "western" diet, and then massive levels of all 3 after starting to consume copious quantities of sugar and starches (wheat), usually within a single generation!

[geezer]

We all know that what we ingest affects our physical and mental conditions. But the nature of your diet may affect you in unexpected ways. At least that’s true for me, as I found out about 15 years ago.

At that time I was suffering with severe allergies caused by pollens, molds, and other airborne particles. The worst symptom was that my nasal passages were permanently closed up, so I had to breathe through my mouth. I got very little sleep. Nothing my allergist did helped, except frequent heavy doses of steroids, which I refused as a long-term solution.

One day, while browsing in a bookstore, I came upon a book by Dr. Elson Haas, who claimed that some innocuous foods, to which you are not allergic, can cause you to become allergic to some other, apparently unrelated, substance.   If so, eliminating the “trigger” foods can eliminate the allergy.

Haas’s recommendation was to eliminate all foods from your diet, except certain fruits and vegetables that are most likely to be benign. Then, if your symptoms go away after a few weeks, you know you had been eating one or more trigger foods. Then you start including new foods, one by one, to your diet and if symptoms re-appear you know not to eat that food.

Diet books pop up in book stores like weeds, and many are bogus in my opinion, so I was suspicious of Haas’s ideas, but being desperate, I tried it. I thought I detected improvement after about ten days, and after about a month and a half, my allergies were entirely gone!

After almost a year, and a few false starts, I found that I had to stay away from gluten (wheat; rye; barley), dairy, tomatoes, white potatoes, and corn. Also, I eat no processed foods (including refined grains). In that period I had become used to a vegetarian diet, so I remained a vegetarian except for fish and eggs, which I include for their health benefits.

Here is a list of the benefits that resulted, some surprising, some not:

I lost 20 pounds (not on purpose), getting back to my high school weight.

My allergies were gone.

My blood pressure, which had crept up to about 140-150 over 90-95 (where my doctor wanted to start me on medication) went down to about 120/70, without medication

My HDL went way up to 110; the rest of my blood tests were also in the good range.

Previously, I suffered headaches once or twice a week. In the 15 years since the diet change I’ve had zero headaches.

Previously, I couldn’t touch even a little alcohol without getting a blazing headache. Now I have a drink or two every day (mostly red wine) with no problem.

I used to get eight or ten cold sores each year. In the last 15 years I haven’t had one.

I get no more swollen ankles.

I want to emphasize that my weight is stable without trying. There is no calorie counting in our house. But I do try to get at least 30 minutes of exercise each day, mostly walking. My regimen includes lots of herbs and spices, and almost every day I eat orange, red, yellow and green vegetables, a handful of nuts, and at least two types of fruit. I take no medicines (not counting vitamin and mineral supplements). Not bad for an 80 year-old.

I wouldn’t expect everyone to see the same kind of results, of course; we have different genes. But if you have health problems this system might be worth a try. It doesn’t cost any money; in fact it saves money. What it does require, which many people don’t have, is will power.

[wushuliu]

Thanks for posting, Tyson! I highly recommend "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes to anyone interested in diet who hasn't read it. It's quite a tome, being targeted to doctors and health professionals. He has a newer one called Why We Get Fat that's more consumer oriented (which I haven't read but intend to).

The documentaries y'all mentioned, King Corn and Food, Inc., both do a good job showing how government subsidies only drive us to eat foods that are bad for us (refined wheat, corn, soybeans, vegetable oils, sugars, Soylent Green...). I enjoyed the humorous documentary Fat Head as a response to Spurlock's anti-business Supersize Me.

Just read this book and the author goes to great lengths to debunk the current low-fat, low-cholesterol, high-carb guidelines. It really is all about the refined carbs and sugar. It is not a diet book, it is an extremely thorough examination of scientific evidence - or lack thereof - as used and abused in the realm of public health policy through 20th century, written by an established journalist. Very dry at times but a must read. His findings back up the Tyson's opening graph all the way.

[django11]

A good series on HBO called "Weight of the Nation"...

[Atlplasma]

Just read this book and the author goes to great lengths to debunk the current low-fat, low-cholesterol, high-carb guidelines. It really is all about the refined carbs and sugar. It is not a diet book, it is an extremely thorough examination of scientific evidence - or lack thereof - as used and abused in the realm of public health policy through 20th century, written by an established journalist. Very dry at times but a must read. His findings back up the Tyson's opening graph all the way.

I read Why We Get Fat and found Taubes discussion of insulin resistance to be quite fascinating. My wife and I have been trying an Adkins style diet for a few weeks and having good results. If everyone ate a low carb diet, the average grocery store would be the size of a Seven-11.

[geezer]

I read Why We Get Fat and found Taubes discussion of insulin resistance to be quite fascinating. My wife and I have been trying an Adkins style diet for a few weeks and having good results. If everyone ate a low carb diet, the average grocery store would be the size of a Seven-11.

Taubes's position seems to have a lot of overlap with the "paleo diet," whose foundation is detailed in two interesting books: The Paleo Answer, by Loren Cordain (2012); and The Paleo Solution, by Robb Wolf (2010).

[OzarkTom]

William Banting in 1863 was the first to write a low-carb book. The medical profession called him a lunatic then, as they did Atkins more recently. So Banting gave his book away to get around the Medical profession.

Another worthy reading here on the net is the Weston A. Price Foundation. Price found in the 1920's, cutting carbs and sugar from your diet and your teeth will not rot and fall out even without toothbrushes.

Also a recent article on 60 Minutes says to keep cancer away, cut the sugar out. Sugar is toxic and is a killer. People now eat 130 pounds of sugar each year. Cancer, diabetes, alzheimer's, and heart disease is at now an all-time high.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9MH_tks_wE

[Atlplasma]

Fat America is really a recent trend. When I was in college some 30 years ago, it was rare to see an overweight person. There was one fellow in my fraternity who had a bit of a beer belly, but everyone else was pretty slim. Being obese has become "normal" and that's really unfortunate. The healthcare and societal costs are enormous.