Sunday, June 29, 2008

Food, fremented cream and 85% chocolate

OK, another non technical post. I hit a patch of work so I'm just glad to have arrived home one day while Squiggs was still up and eating.

Voices are the neighbours... Except the lip smacking from Squiggs!




Peter

52 comments:

Anonymous said...

Peter...beautiful kid...and very lucky to have you and your wife as parents. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and experiences. I am also trying to provide my 10 month old baby girl the same kind of nutritional values, must of which I have acquire here in your blog...and for that a bif thank you. (Sorry for my English is not my mother language)

Chris said...

Great stuff

gunther gatherer said...

What a delicious gathering! Very cute.

Peter, are you still 65kg in that clip? You look quite slim.

When you get a chance, is there any way you can give us a breakdown of your progress once you began JKs diet hardcore?

Thanks! And I agree, terrific blog.
G

ItsTheWooo said...

Shoulder shrug = adorable

Peter said...

Gunther,

63.2kg, too busy to eat! Probably loosing some muscle too as I've switch from digging the allotment to holding an orthopaedic drill.... The drilling pays better! My preferred weight is between 64.4 and 64.8kg. I do the occasional >65kg if doing lots of hard labour and keeping up on calories.

OK, I'll try an get a post together about the first 6m. Just seems so ordinary with hindsight. I wasn't anti veggie in those days. Nowadays I have no active impression of eating strange food. It just seems normal!

Peter

gunther gatherer said...

I've only been doing JK religiously for a month, and I'm amazed that you can forget to eat, since I still experience hunger. JK says your body's energy and nutrition needs go down as you stay on the diet, so is that what's happening to you? Do you feel like you just don't really need to eat now?

Another question: when you make an effort to go gain weight, like to go above 65kg, what macro do you normally increase? Carbs would be the obvious choice, but it seems raising just about any of them would cause weight gain.

I'm certainly losing weight quickly now, but I have to say, I'm used to much bigger meals (I'm 70kg, hoping to get to 66kg). I can tell you if the hunger doesn't go away, I'm going to have to up fat intake to make this more bearable... What are your upper limits, btw???

Thanks,
Gunther

Dr. B G said...

Peter,

I loved how the Babe grabbed the 95% chocolate after you were thru (took less than 8 seconds)! We know who rules your home and hearth *wink*

Gunther -- if you have all consuming hunger, try adding a bit of carbs back -- (70-95% chocolate has about 6g/square BTW) esp if you are having:
-night sweats
-nightmares
-restless sleep

(means hypoglycemia perhaps in the middle of the night -- which I get every once in a while)

-G

emil henry said...

What a pretty kid. And your beard is awesome too!

Thanks for all the help, by the way. I lost 50 kilograms by going low carb (Paleo with some dairy, but more Optimal Diet-leaning recently), starting last summer. It's quite a big change, me being seventeen and all, which made people suspect I was doing amphetamines (weight loss + suppressed hunger + awesome energy and concentration). At the moment I'm 74 kg @ 183 high. My ideal weight is probably around 70-76 kg.

I see a lot of sad fates in my country (Norway). As we're quite wealthy, many people prefer to do surgeries rather than dietary change to lose weight. Also, I see people doing weeks on nothing but three or four "knekkebrød" (hard bread, like a mix between crackers and bread), exponentially increasing their frustration from blood sugar crash and repeated failures to lose weight long-term.

Again, thanks for your wisdom.

Cheers,
Emil.

Anonymous said...

I was just watching this Dean Ornish presentation: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dean_ornish_says_your_genes_are_not_your_fate.html

One of the slides says that Saturated Fat decreases brain cells.

The citation is Jiang W. et al J. Clin Invest. 2005 115(11):3104-16

Can anyone confirm/refute this?

frank said...

Iwfc
This is interesting – from The Society for Neuroscience website:
http://tinyurl.com/4ntt49
“It's not clear how excessive saturated fat harms the brain, but there are many theories. Some blame its effect on glucose, a sugar that provides energy to the body and brain. While a short-term supply of glucose can help the brain, excess fat may create a situation where brain cells receive a long-term, harmful exposure to glucose. Research on people with diabetes, a disease marked by problems with glucose, fits with this idea. For example, one report found that diabetics perform poorly on memory tests. Other research indicates that excess fat affects certain brain memory molecules. One of the studies on rats found that the high fat diet cut levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor and other related molecules in the brain, which are thought to aid the formation of memories.”

There you have it – excess glucose is the brain-damaging culprit and as far as BDNP goes the actual study used a high SFA and high sugar diet.
http://tinyurl.com/4fxo6h

frank said...

Sorry, the above post should have read BDNF.
Being very overweight is associated with low BDNF:
http://tinyurl.com/4vukzr
Saturated fat and sugar diet not so good after brain injury:
http://tinyurl.com/47pmua
And high SFA-high sugar is correlated with poor outcomes in schizophrenia too:
“Although associations of this nature cannot be assumed to be causal, these findings nevertheless allow the hypothesis that a diet high in saturated fat, low in polyunsaturated fat and high in sugar is detrimental to the outcome of schizophrenia.”
http://tinyurl.com/4retwo

Anonymous said...

Dean Ornish looks pudgier each time you see him. I wonder whether it is because his diet is fattening or he isn't able to follow it. Either one would lead me to question his ideas about diet. As Frank noted, studies blaming saturated fat for damage to the brain were high in sugar. Also, saturated fat is an ambiguous term. In many studies, they claim lard is a saturated fat, but it has 40% SFA and 12% PUFA. Beef suet fat has 56% SFAs and 3% PUFAs. That is what I'd call a saturated fat. I would argue that PUFA oils would be a lot worse for your brain than butter, coconut oil, beef suet, and dark chocolate.

There's something to learn from all studies, even the "poorly degigned" ones. For example: Many dismiss the results Kekwick and Pawan's studies on high-fat vs high-carb diets. The authors excluded many people, after they were caught cheating (sneaking food). But the results of the study remain. Those eating low-carb diets lost more weight than those eating high-carb diets. Either there was a metabolic advantage for low-carb or the low-carb diets made people less hungry and they didn't cheat, while the high-carb diet did the reverse.

I disagree with Frank's assessment, that saturated fat and sugar is the problem. Most people don't eat high saturated fat diets. They eat PUFAs by the cup: restaurant cooking oil, mayonnaise, salad dressings, fried food, fast food, junk food. Studies usually don't isolate saturated fat from trans fat and toxic PUFA oils. Many studies feed animals beef fat mixed with safflower oil (80% PUFA) and call it a "high saturated fat" diet. Most people pick lean meats, cut the fat off their meat, drain the fat after cooking, get low-fat or fat-free dairy products, etc. I challenge the assertion that people eat a high saturated fat diet. Most of the fats they eat are from toxic high-PUFA vegetable oils.

Anonymous said...

IWFC, Ornish's presentation is full of contradiction. He says chocolate increases brain cells and saturated fat decreases them. Cocoa butter is 60% saturated and 3% PUFAs. He also says alcohol (in moderation) builds new brain cells. The term saturated fat is meaningless. It can apply to anything. Some people can chicken a saturated fat: 33% SFAs, 23% PUFAs. Others call lard a saturated fat at 40% SFAs and 12% PUFAs. Clearly the terminology has no meaning. I argue that there will be a big difference between someone eating lots of beef fat or butter, and someone eating a lot of lard and chicken fat. Ornish would say they are both "saturated" fat and thus bad. He would probably say it's better to eat lean chicken than fatty beef. But chicken has 10 times more PUFAs than beef. A whole chicken (without skin) has as much PUFAs as 70/30 ground beef. But the chicken has 3% fat and the beef has 30% fat by weight. (Chicken has 23% PUFAs by fat and beef has 2.3%.)

Beef, ground, 70/30, raw
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/beef-products/8004/2

Chicken, whole, meat only, raw.
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/poultry-products/650/2

Chicken, whole, meat and skin, raw
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/poultry-products/645/2

So, Dean Ornish is getting folks to eat a low-PUFA diet - which I agree is healthy. You don't have to eat a punishing low-fat diet to do this. Just replace fake fats like Crisco and margarine with safe fats, like butter and ghee and tallow. Replace turkey and chicken fat with duck or goose or pork. Eliminate high-PUFAs and add low-PUFAs like coconut oil, macadamia oil, cocoa butter, etc. I think Ornish has been smoking a lot of marijuana if he thinks marijuana is healthier than natural saturated fats from red meat, dairy, tropical oils, and so forth.

Lauren said...

Adorable kiddo! Wish I'd been brought up liking the good stuff from the get-go.

Love your blog and all of the commentary and links you provide on studies. Fully support your message and the high-fat low carb WOE!

Anonymous said...

Great post Bruce....thanks for the details regarding saturated fat and PUFA ratios.
Peter you have done good to a lot of people through this blog...A big THANKS!!

Peter said...

For those who did'nt follow Bruce's comment about Ornish being a pot head, just look up the link cited by IWFC from the Ornish talk.

It's here.

I can't face listening to Ornish, so if I missed some other pro pot comment, sorry!

Now it's debatable whether Ornish has problems getting his citations correct as a result of his chronic dietary indiscretion in to the low fat world, or because he really does have a herbal problem.

Whichever.

If Ornish does have a citation detailing the damage done by dietary saturated fat (don't see anything to this effect in the cannabis paper's full text, fascinating though this is) I would be very interested to see it. Especially if the "high saturated fat" diet DIDN'T include >30% of calories from sucrose.

I can't be ars*d to listen to Ornish for long enough to see the slide (how far in to the video is it?).

Have to agree with Bruce, even though I don't much like to comment on Ornish's personal appearence. He doesn't look too healthy to me.

I also find it impossible to ignore glucose as the apoptotic trigger for brain cells, whatever the roll of PUFA. Hyperglycaemai kills. Apoptosis may be a tidy death, but it's still death.

Peter

Anonymous said...

I'll give Dean Ornish one thing. He does have a good sense of humor. He always includes a couple good jokes to soften the blow of his extremely oppressive diet. Right after saying that pot builds new brain cells, he imitated the stoner laugh and asked "uh, what were we talking about?" I also liked his presentation a while ago showing how humans evolved from lower animals and how we have begun "de-evolving" (into pigs) by eating the typical Western Diet.

http://fanaticcook.blogspot.com/2008/05/prostate-cancer-lifestyle-treatments.html

Anonymous said...

Peter,
It seems that my blood glucose goes very high (from my normal 80-89 to 160-170) after eating potato (a very small one)...I know is not good to be hyperglycemic.

Do you get that from eating the potato?

When I use to get my cabs from low-carb vegs this didn't happen...but I am now trying to stay away from fiber/vegetables.

Any suggestions I would appreciateit.

Thanks

frank said...

Bruce I wasn’t asserting saturated fat was the problem – sorry if it seemed ambiguous. I LOVE my saturated fat!
The Society for Neuroscience site also said donuts and fries were high in saturated fat which is clearly nonsense as they would be far higher in rancid PUFA or TFAs than anything else. Nobody (except people like us) cooks in tallow or dripping any more thanks to satfat hysteria.
I feed my cat raw Palaeo – I use a chicken and beef mix; I remove the skin and all visible chicken fat and add in suet or dripping (plus gelatine and bone broth) instead so he is also getting low PUFA diet. I use the beef to provide higher carnitine for better efficiency of metabolism of the LCFAs that remain. I sometimes think I’d be better off eating his food!
I’d like to see those BDNF studies repeated with suet and butter as the main fat and no sugar and low carb. As we evolved we gained in intelligence and brain size thanks to saturated fat and cholesterol. If saturated fat was the culprit we would have Devolved.

frank said...

LOL - now I just saw Bruce's Ornish quote on Devolution. It certainly seems that way!

frank said...

I thought you all might find this one interesting:
Brain Res. 2008 Jun 11. [Epub ahead of print]

Induction of ketosis may improve mitochondrial function and decrease
steady-state amyloid-beta precursor protein (APP) levels in the aged
dog.


Studzinski CM, Mackay WA, Beckett TL, Henderson ST, Murphy MP,
Sullivan PG, Burnham WM.


Department of Pharmacology, University of Toronto, Canada; Sanders-
Brown Center on Aging, University of Kentucky, USA.


Region specific declines in the cerebral glucose metabolism are an
early and progressive feature of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Such
declines occur pre-symptomatically and offer a potential point of
intervention in developing AD therapeutics. Medium chain triglycerides
(MCTs), which are rapidly converted to ketone bodies, were tested for
their ability to provide an alternate energy source to neurons
suffering from compromised glucose metabolism. The present study
determined the short-term effects of ketosis in aged dogs, a natural
model of amyloidosis. The animals were administered a 2 g/kg/day dose
of MCTs for 2 months. Mitochondrial function and oxidative damage
assays were then conducted on the frontal and parietal lobes. Amyloid-
beta (Abeta), amyloid precursor protein (APP) processing and beta-site
APP cleaving enzyme (BACE1) assays were conducted on the frontal,
parietal and occipital lobes. Aged dogs receiving MCTs, as compared to
age-matched controls, showed dramatically improved mitochondrial
function, as evidenced by increased active respiration rates. This
effect was most prominent in the parietal lobe. The improved
mitochondrial function may have been due to a decrease in oxidative
damage, which was limited to the mitochondrial fraction. Steady-state
APP levels were also decreased in the parietal lobe after short-term
MCT administration. Finally, there was a trend towards a decrease in
total Abeta levels in the parietal lobe. BACE1 levels remained
unchanged. Combined, these findings suggest that short-term MCT
administration improves energy metabolism and decreases APP levels in
the aged dog brain.


PMID: 18582445 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Peter said...

Hi Hela,

If potatoes do spike you BS like this stick to the veggies, despite the fiber. For diabetics JK uses veggies rather than potatoes. If you are glucose intolerant the same probably applies. 140mg/dl seems to be the figure to keep below. I don't think I've ever picked up a value above 140 since the 3 days of carb loading I did before my OGTT. Usually my post prandials are around 110-120 with potatoes and in the 90s with just veggies. Do you follow your HbA1c?

Peter

Peter said...

Hi Bruce and Frank,

Managed to listen to the Ornish clip of FCs post. It was short enough to manage. The pig graphic is great! JK describes the classic Western diet as piggish too, he talks about "trough" (piggish) diseases, basically metabolic syndrome. But JK also looks at "pasture" diseases, frequently auto immune, the flip side of piggish nutrition. Anyone enjoying their whole grains on the Ornish plan will be dosing themselves with wheat germ agglutinin and gluten... So healthy!

Also re prostate cancer, who can tease out in any way what aspect of his multiple intervention trial influenced the cancer? Low sugar, reduced calories, reduced PUFA, chemical castration with soy isoflavones, group support, relaxation, lack of conventional chemotherapy????

Peter

Peter said...

Frank,

Re amyloid in dogs

I've been thinking about ketogenic diets as a potential therapeutic tool at work. We see a lot of demented elderly patients but without some degree of basic science backup I'm loathe to go out on a limb as an employee in a large practice... This will help, as will working full time again!

Peter

emil henry said...

What would be the appropiate serving size for liver? 200 grams? I'm thinking about stewing some with bacon and sour cream.

Cheers,
Emil.

Anonymous said...

Frank: "Bruce I wasn’t asserting saturated fat was the problem – sorry if it seemed ambiguous..."

Good. There is a myth - started by Loren Cordain perhaps - that sugar and saturated fats are a very bad mix. But I believe sugar and PUFAs would be a much worse combination, over the long-term. The saturated fats might look worse in the short term based on meaningless markers, but in the long term I think there would still be lower mortality and morbidity, which is what counts.

"The Society for Neuroscience site also said donuts and fries were high in saturated fat which is clearly nonsense as they would be far higher in rancid PUFA or TFAs than anything else. Nobody (except people like us) cooks in tallow or dripping any more thanks to satfat hysteria."

Good point. I would totally ignore their claims about "saturated fat" until someone tells me what source of fat they actually looked at. My guess would be lard, with 3+ times more PUFAs than ghee and 4-6 times more than beef fat or kidney suet.

"I feed my cat raw Palaeo – I use a chicken and beef mix; I remove the skin and all visible chicken fat and add in suet or dripping (plus gelatine and bone broth) instead so he is also getting low PUFA diet... I sometimes think I’d be better off eating his food!"

That sounds like a good diet. Many cat owners feed them whole chicken, which is very bad IMO. I don't put much stock in "prey model" feeding, with no concern for PUFAs.

"I’d like to see those BDNF studies repeated with suet and butter as the main fat and no sugar and low carb."

I would like to see the effects of sugar too, but I would rather they test something natural like honey, potatoes, carrots, fruit, etc. The BDNF studies talk about "saturated fat", which could be anything from beef to lard to chicken fat. There is no meaning to such terminology. It's just the usual scare tactics.

Anonymous said...

Peter,

Thanks....yes I follow my HbA1C and as of June/04/2008 it came back as 5.3 and as of June/16/2006 it was 4.1 (then I was eating ketogenic diet with high fat, moderate protein and very low carb)...none-the-less I incorporated the potatoes to increase the carbs a little to take me out of ketosis (due to the stress on the body).
Any comments? or ideas?

Hela

Peter said...

Oh dear, heresy time.

Green leaf veggies to carry the butter it has to be.......... You can keep yourself out of ketosis with cabbage/courgettes/broccoli slowly fried in butter but it makes tons more washing up than chips or a baked potato. Sometimes you have to do it. My rule of thumb is 4 point something for HbA1c if you can do it.

Peter

Anonymous said...

Thanks Peter...I guess you really agree with me that by Hb1AC is kind of high.
What vegetables do you suggest...and what is you opinion on raw tomato (I love it)?

frank said...

Bruce that was the exact conclusion I came to re whole prey diet using chicken. I don’t think wild prey would have been so high in PUFA (not even organic chicken). I figure that in a wild bird or mouse, most of the fat would be visceral and highly saturated. The first mix I did for him was whole chicken, and he ate way over what I expected. When I added beef and suet he halved his intake while still growing at the same rate. I suspect because chicken is low in carnitine and high in PUFA he was having difficulty utilising the LCFAs. Adding in fat higher in short- and medium-chain fatty acids and higher carnitine meat provides him with higher energy for a given amount.
The people who have (very generously) provided such whole prey recipes only consider total fat percentage with no consideration of SFA/MUFA/PUFA ratio. When you see calculations for fat percentages of different animals I think they really only consider muscle meat anyway.
A couple of years ago I emailed the US Renderers’ Association a question re visceral fat of differing animals. I got a nice response from a Dr Sergio Nates, President and Director of Technical Services, Fats and Proteins Research Foundation, Inc., and while his Palaeo thoughts were somewhere in the middle of Cordain and LC, he did send me a useful pdf that I shall email to Peter in case anyone else is interested in seeing the information.

Peter said...

Yes please Frank

Peter said...

Emil,

We split 400g between us, so it's about 200g/serving. Use Fiday to see how this slots in to the rest of the day if you need to. It's quite low in fat and carries a glycogen load.

Peter

emil henry said...

Thanks. I'll cook some tomorrow, if I can.

Is it usual to have irritated stomach (meaning diarrhea; not full-blown) from high cream consumption? I had like 1 cup yesterday, and more like 1.3 cups today (the latter consumed quite rapidly). It might be the dextrose, though. I've eaten little cream the last year however, and I believe I've reacted to larger doses before (I've been eating Paleo this far). I might stick it out, and try an isolation diet: a period of cultured dairy, and then a period of no dairy (but still some dextrose). Any suggestions?

Peter said...

Hi Emil,

I doubt the dextrose, no one seems to lack the ability to uptake glucose. Lactose is a possibility, how long are you gluten free? Have to say I almost always ferment my cream nowadays but diarrhoea was never a problem for me back in Atkins and early OD days when cream was always fresh pasteurised UK supermarket sourced. Switching to butter or ghee would decide re lactose... Kwasniewski does claim there is a limit to how much fat can be absorbed per hour, hence self regulation of weight on the OD. As far as I can tell this does not apply to many people I have met, it's usually possible to increase cream to get increased weight without diarrhoea from too much fat.

You have to start wondering about salicylates and amines after that, then you're in to Emma territory. I was going to say I'd sit it out for a while but the pun would be too awful...

Peter

Peter said...

Hi Gunther,

Eating is very much something which is based around one significant meal a day. Now I'm working full time long hours the eggs at breakfast tend to get missed unless I'm on a day off or a late start. A creamy cocoa will set me up until coffee break. Cream and 85% chocolate tend to get spilt between elevenses and lunch, then it's home for the main meal some time between 5 and 10pm. I enjoy eating, I really like the combination of cream, chocolate and coffee, nibbled, sipped and swigged in close sequence. Main meal is always varied. But if the theatre list is heavy it's fine just to slog through without a break, though the nurses are usually starving by 10.30am....

Remember I don't really do calculations any more. I'd say extra protein up to 90g and more fat are what let me put weight on. Carbs usually stay low. Exercise also helps weight gain but this is over a week or so and tends to be sustained gain.

Hunger is not a feature. See what happens when you go for weight stability. Just increasing fat is the best way if this doesn't produce the nausea of fat overload we've talked about elsewhere....

Peter

emil henry said...

Peter,

I'm gluten free since last summer, but I've had some slices of pizza now and then (probably once every three months). I might have lactose intolerance, or it might just be the fact that I've eaten next to none dairy in about nine to ten months. That being said, I have never reacted to sour cream. It might even be environmental: I found this tawn fish soaked cardboard that had been rotting inside my trash cabinet for two straight days. The smell was absolutely horrid. I felt somewhat sick, and the temperature was pretty awesome too --- 30 degrees centigrade (this is Norway; we're used to -20 most of the year), and I probably drank too little water. It feels like a stress reaction, with slight nausea and a feeling of "hotness" (inflammation?). My previous incidents have always involved both cream *and* gluten, which would obviously stress my body.

Differential diagnosis makes me confused.

Stephan Guyenet said...

Frank and Peter,

I'm interested to see the fat composition data as well if you don't mind! Thanks.

gunther gatherer said...

Hi Peter,

Yes, I've pretty much gone with a similar rhythm in order to reserve carbs and protein allotments for social life purposes. The longer you hold off on the big meal of the day, the more you can eat once you're there.

You still drink coffee? I thought it created insulin resistance. That must be some rush with all the chocolate at the same time, and maybe not so good for low insulin purposes...

Problems with hunger occur on long days, when I've eaten all my carbs and protein early on in the day. I seem to burn through it all in just 3 hours or so, then I need something to eat. I´ve resorted to eating butter with a little salt in order to fill in there, as it's the only thing I'm left with that's purely fat. I don't drink the cream because I don't have a way to ferment it, same with yogurt.

Is there a better mostly-fat source I can use to fill in the gaps?

BUT I've got a really fantastic list of resolved health issues that I never dreamed would ever go away: from disappearing facial acne, Raynaud's, rectal itch, frequent nighttime urination, higher Resting Metabolic Rate and energy level and disappearance of the frequent colds, flus and sinus infections that always plagued me. Was this similar for you?

Even if I don't get to my ideal weight, I'd stay with JKs plan just for the above alone.

Stephan Guyenet said...

Hi Gunther,

That's interesting that your Raynaud's resolved. That's one of those mysterious problems that medicine has virtually no understanding of. Any guess what was causing it or why it resolved?

Peter said...

Hi Gunther,

Yes, my list was a bit different and I still have mild shoulder acne, the facial and chest stuff is pretty well gone. The biggest change for me was the loss of my osteopath bill. I went back to see him 6m in to LC and explained that I hadn't deserted him for a kyropracter, just my back was better.

I use my fermented cream as a LC, modest protein filler, usually in cocoa. If you don't mind the fiber then macadamia nuts are pretty good too.

Raynaulds does seems to go, a bit like acid reflux does, on LC eating. I doubt medicine understands much about either beyond acid reflux being an omeprazole deficiency!

Coffee is decaff, doesn't seem to affect brain function or blood sugar.....

Peter

Half Navajo said...

Since i have been eating high fat...acne no more! I started getting acne when i was 21, and now 25, i have had to use bynzoyle peroxide the whole time to keep it clear. Now nothing except lots of sunlight and amimal fats and my skin glows! I get compliments on my skin now...sooo glad i found this blog and JK!

Stephan Guyenet said...

Hi everyone- I just put up two posts about the Inuit, one on cancer and the other on lifespan. Come on over if you're interested.

gunther gatherer said...

Hi Stephen,

The Raynaud's I had my entire adult life, coupled with low body temperature. About 12 years ago, I was told after a blood test that I had low thyroid levels, and I think these three things are related. That these would resolve first makes sense if taking out gluten resolves thyroid and other auto-immune disorders. And I consider acne, and even hair loss, to be two (minor) symptoms of these.

Speaking of hair loss, there is definitely no falling out anymore, although the possibility of getting a particular bald spot BACK remains to be seen. If that happens, Peter gets a case of 85% chocolate...

There were other strange things too that resolved, like I've just begun dreaming during sleep for the first time since I can remember (I'm 37).

Peter, on the practical front, you say you don't measure your carb, fat and protein intake. I'm currently still measuring religiously in order to teach myself how to "eye up" measurements automatically.

Did you measure at the beginning and stop once you felt you'd reached a healthy weight? Or do you still measure from time to time in order to adjust your weight when it goes too low (or high)?

In order to make this a lifestyle, measuring everything that goes in your mouth and, as you say, hunger, can't be options...

Thanks, G

gunther gatherer said...

And one last Final Question, Peter:

When you began JK, did you set your daily macronutrient levels at your weight at the time, and adjust accordingly as your weight went down? Or did you set it all immediately for your goal weight of 64 kgs?

It seems the first method is an easier induction period with slower weight loss, but the second could be a fast track to one's goals...

Thanks, G

Manda said...

i have Raynaud's as well--have had it since i think 12 (i am 32). i have been gluten free and grain free for about 6 months now and have been doing OD/low-carb, high-fat for about the same (as soon as i discovered this great blog) :)

now that it's summer i can't really tell if the Raynaud's has subsided or not, but i am hoping come winter i will not have to deal with it anymore!

i was so excited when i read in JK's Optimal Diet that he acutally mentioned how one causes Raynaud's and other autoimmune by diet and how to correct it. first time i have run across this info after many years of research. i love JK!

Peter said...

Hi Misty,

Tomatoes are mostly water with 3g sugar per 100g fresh weight. Should be fine as a part of a meal. The list of veggies is long, and this time of year lots are available in the northern hemisphere. All the crucifers, french beans, runner beans, even lettuce, peppers, onions, anything which allows a reasonable BS level. To quote Dr Bernstein's followers, "Eat to your meter". Your meter knows better than I how your blood sugar will behave, ask it!

Peter

PS technique is important in using a BS meter, there's loads of advice on Dr B's forum.

Dr. B G said...

Team Smith,

Every winter I used to be extremely cold in my hands and feet and I wondered if I had Raynaud's. After I started vitamin D (and fish oil) supplementation, the cold sensations are all gone and resolved.

Have you ever considered getting your 25(OH)D tested? It's key to achieve normal which many experts say is 60 - 70 ng/ml. (in the winter in Northern Cal -- that took 4000 IU/d minimum for me).

Does JK discuss vit D? There aren't that many food sources unfortunately -- mostly from sun exposure.

Linda said...

gunther gatherer said...
BUT I've got a really fantastic list of resolved health issues that I never dreamed would ever go away

Wow, that's fantastic! I'm eager to see what symptoms of mine disappear with changing my diet (frequent sinus infections, colds, headaches). Doctor hasn't a clue, blood tests all negative, so really there's "nothing wrong with me" :)

I tried some 40% cocoa chocolate as an experiment, and an hour later starting itching, red patches on my face as well... So I suppose cocoa doesn't react well with me. At least I don't seem to have a problem with diary!

Richard said...

Maybe someone has asked this and I didn't see it, but can you share your recipe for the fermented cream drink?

Thanks.

Peter said...

Hi Richard,

Yes, stuff does get lost. A problem with the blog format...

It's here.

Peter

Annette said...

You could also ferment cream with viili culture (I find viili made with raw cream delicious) or kefir grains. You might need to rinse the latter in plain milk or yogurt occasionally to keep the fat from clogging them up, but I find both methods are much less trouble than using a yogurt maker.

Peter said...

Hi Annette,

My yogurt making has fallen to pieces at the moment (rented micro kitchen!) so a simpler culture system would be nice. I've yet to manage to get kefir grains in the UK and the viili would be nice if I could get a starter culture. I'll have a look on the net for UK sources...

Ta, Peter