yduj57's Journal, 04 August 2012

Okay, it is very clear now. I can't have nuts in my diet. And I have to keep my net carbs at 25 or less. The weight has been dropping the last few days after being essentially stalled since late June. It is much easier to give something up when I see such a direct correlation.

I was reading more of Good Calories, Bad Calories, by Gary Taubes yesterday. It is a dense book, and it takes a lot of concentration to get through. He was writing about this guy named Vilhjalmur Stefasnsson, a Harvard anthropologist, who lived with the Inuits for a decade following World War I. He lived on the same diet they did, of nothing but meat. The subsisted on caribou, fish, seal and a variety of other meats and eggs. They did not consider vegetables and fruit proper food for human consumption. Occasionally they would eat roots in times of famine. The Inuit had excellent health, and were vital and active.

Most people at the time thought such a diet would cause all sorts of health issues. The belief was that we needed a variety in our diets to get enough of the range of vitamins and minerals that we needed. Diseases like scurvy and beriberi were liked to vitamin deficiencies. However, the diets that were common where these diseases were prevelant were also high in refined carbohydrates.

So this presented a conundrum. How could the Inuit be so healthy with a diet devoid of fruits and vegetables? In 1928, a year long experiment was conducted by Eugene Du Bois and ten colleagues from Cornell and Russell Sage Institute of Pathology. For three weeks, Stefasson and another participant, Kartsten Anderson, a Danish explorer, were fed a typical diet with a variety of food sources and macronutrients. During this time they had a whole series of tests and examinations. After the three week period, they ate nothing but meat. They continued this for next year. Initially under observation, but eventually on their own. If they cheated, then Du Bois believed it would be spotted in regular checks of their urine. The amount of ketones found in their urine was so consistent with each that they believed neither had strayed from the all meat diet.
Each of them ate about 2 pounds of meat each day, or 2600 calories. The final conclusions from Du Bois was that they were surprised at how undramatic the results were. There was no measurable or observable loss of physical or mental health. Both lost a few pounds, even though both were fairly sedentary. One had a drop in blood pressure, the other had their blood pressure remain low. No damage to organs, and no vitamin or mineral deficiencies. One had mild gingivitis at the beginning of the experiment, but it cleared up over the duration of the experiment. In an introduction to a book that Stefansson wrote about this diet, Du Bois said, both were left "as healthy as or healthier than the balanced diet they had been eating in the years immediately preceding the study." (from pages 320 to 325)

There is so much more that followed this. Other studies that other researchers conducted with these same or similar types of parameters. And all found the participants lost weight with ease, and were very healthy after.

As someone who was eating less and less meat over the years, and less and less fat....and whose weight, and other health parameters had been getting worse over the years, this information is revealing. It has altered my way of thinking about food in dramatic terms. Food can be medicine. But not in the way I used to consume it.

I do think we each have very individual biochemistries that respond differently to different diets, and that there is great variability over time as well. A diet that worked for me twenty years ago, no longer will. My husband and daughters can eat more, and greater variety and not gain any weight. So I share this not as an attempt to convince anyone that this is the way we should all eat. No. I just find that it is making me have a paradigm shift. The rules as we have been taught for too long, are not necessarily the right way to go. We each need to conduct experiments with our diets to find the right combinations that will unlock that fat, and finally set it free!

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1951 kcal

Fat: 150.96g | Prot: 103.76g | Carb: 48.99g.   Breakfast: bacon, tomato, red pepper, spinach, mushrooms, butter, creamer, coffee, tomato, eggs, onion. Lunch: coconut oil, chocolate protein powder designer whey, espresso, psyllium, trader joe's, chia seeds, heavy cream. Dinner: red wine vinegar, red onion, lemon juice, cucumber, pesto, mahi mahi, olive oil, italian parsley, tomato. Snacks/Other: buffalo chicken wing, parmesan cheese, caesar dressing, romaine lettuce. more...

3562 kcal

Activities & Exercise: Walking (moderate) - 3/mph - 1 hour and 30 minutes, Resting - 14 hours and 30 minutes, Sleeping - 8 hours. more...