“Weight Loss is All About Nutrition”
No, it’s not. Weight loss is about proper hormone management, and that primarily comes from observing circadian rhythm, natural light, and avoiding unnatural light (nnEMF). Because we are bioelectric beings and different wavelengths of light at different times of day control healthy hormone functions. I follow Jack Kruse and Leland Stillman for this kind of information. Biophysics trumps biochemistry.
Calling oats one definitely one or the other is kinda splitting hairs. But that is what we like to do round these parts.
https://www.askdifference.com/cereal-vs-grain/#:~:text=The%20main%20difference%20between%20Cereal,may%20be%20ground%20into%20flour.&text=The%20word%20cereal%20is%20derived,goddess%20of%20harvest%20and%20agriculture.
Weight loss is about proper hormone management, and that primarily comes from observing circadian rhythm, natural light, and avoiding unnatural light (nnEMF).No, it's not. It's all about gut biome. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5082693/ See how easy this stuff is. :) Actually, who really knows. Probably a little of all of the above. However, I think as time goes by we will come to appreciate the gut biome and the importance of it's role.
A plug for photos and sample size of 1: I only fixed my diet by reading a guy who was ripped and wondering how he could have done that. It’s not just humans love stories, it’s that nutrition is so complex you have to see empirical results to really trust anything.
Inuits have terrible overall health and a shortened lifespan.
Not true for original diets. Read Price, he spent a lot of time with them, and warned them “Not to eat at the white man’s store”. They were some of the healthiest people on earth in one of the harshest climes man has ever lived in. But modern Inuits are some of the mos unhealthy people on earth, since they can’t handle carbs and sugar well (not to mention booze).
…roots, berries, nuts etc. Its not all about protein. I’d bet the average hunter gatherer consumed about 80% of his diet from vegetables. Meat was wild game, brought down through great exertion…and you didnt get it everyday. You may have gone weeks without a piece of meat, and seasonal periods of starvation were the norm.
I remember reading about the lives of the Iroquois Indians that dominated the cold northeastern forests. Unlike the Algonquins, they did little farming and put less food up during winter. They literally starved for long stretches.
It has been demonstrated that people who starve or have starved for long periods, ironically, end up having very clean, clear arteries late in life even if its been many years since the starvation. Check the the dutch, who staved with food shorages during WW2, that generation was incredibly long lived and had very little heart disease later in life.
I hope no one thought I was making excuses when I mentioned hormonal differences in weight loss. I do think post menopausal women have a harder time losing weight but that’s not offered as any sort of excuse. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see how many PPers have adopted such healthy eating habits which are very similar to my own research and efforts. The breadth of nutritional knowledge here is amazing! I think we have each found our way to this knowledge by being willing to question the “wisdom” of the (industry-sponsored) nutritional experts. It’s hard to do that for some though. I still have friends who are deathly afraid of saturated fats like butter because of the life-long programming. I’m hoping the next breakthrough will be the abandonment of the cholesterol hypothesis. But statins are the most widely prescribed drug in the US so I’m not holding my breath.
Hey thanks for the reply Adam. Much Love and Respect for you. I realize now that some of my comments were coming from a mean and angry place and I wish to apologize for this. Seeing that image of the pyramid with animals at the base triggered something deep down in me. Thoughts of oppression and slavery instantly come to mind, not just for them but for we who do not rule the world. We still have the freedom to cultivate our gut biomes. Why not aspire to learn how to do this in the most peaceful way possible? Very curious to read you say, “Personally, I’m more plant-based myself these days. I use meat more of a ‘seasoning’ than a main dish now.” That deserves another post. Thanks for inspirational video!
I do think post menopausal women have a harder time losing weight
I think everyone agrees with this! It’s well known medically, plus would be surprising if untrue anyway.
But statins are the most widely prescribed drug in the US so I’m not holding my breath.
Hesitate to go here, but oral contraceptives are also a very common prescription in the U.S. and a massive challenge many women have that men simply don’t: trying to keep a natural hormonal balance while on drugs that deliberately mess with said cycle (many women use NFP rather than drugs for this). BTW, lack of menstrual cramps is just another surprising effect of a high-nutrient diet we’ve seen - DDs were truly puzzled their friends talking about menstrual pains since they’ve never had any. Diet is magic.
One more (taboo) gender dietary subject: statistically women love breads, sweets, and fruit more than men (sure true in our house as well) which is a challenge for women who like to bake. And of course, the stereotype for men is to eat meat, so this whole dietary change to fat and protein seems easier for men, at least in my circle.
And a final issue: men are often encouraged to lift weights, while women to run. But in our family women have benefited even more from lifting weights than the men (true for diet as well), if that’s possible (esp squats & deadlift). Again, not a big sample size, but it’s just another thing that women are not encouraged to do yet seem to benefit at least as much or even more. Again, caveat of small sample size.
My wife and I moved to low carb.
One day a couple of months later we did a town run. took longer than expected.
We were on the way home at 3pm, having headed out 8am, and my wife asked if I was hungry.
We had not eaten since breakfast, but I was not hungry… my wife commented the same.
Lack of the usual starving feel was quite noticeable.
Slipped back into eating carbs over Christmas as other family still on them…pants got tight. fast!
Cheers Hamish
I wonder if some crafty cavemen pushed The Proterozoic Diet “Here suck on some algae - you’ll feel better and besides way back, we used to do that” There are a number of good Ted talks like Christina Warinner’s that shed some led light on the good ole caveman fire. She also speaks to an issue we’ve raised before. According to archeological record, You can not compare what the paleo chewed caught sucked or drank with any of the “modern” sexy diets pushed as paleo. They simply had little to no access to many of these things. As Christina also points out ( and it’s common sense) there was no one paleo diet- it varied dramatically by the locals their terrain their plants and many many factors. Years back, there was a very similar discussion on this site when Adam posted on a Paleo Expert. I suggest you take a look Like Adam, another theme often said is that you’ll have a hard time getting “your protein” Like Christina often said in her Ted talk, there’s no real scientific or archeological basis for that. There is plenty of protein in a variety plant diet and B12 comes out of natural soils fed by a diverse natural world As others have wisely said, the key is fresh non GMO food and a wide variety of food. They say some primates can recognize and eat well over a hundred edibles in the wild...I wonder why
I discovered lifting late in life and can’t recommend it enough for other women. Running and cycling have their place but the benefits of lifting go far beyond cardio health. I think a lot of women avoid it past the 5lb dumbbell thing because they’re afraid they’ll bulk up like a man, and that’s not a look most of us want. It generally doesn’t happen. Plus, there is nothing so satisfying as a well-executed clean and jerk. It feels so good!
Here is something I found useful to get started.
Most of the crap that used to slip into my daily diet was in the evening. You know that time you might sit down to relax, watch a movie, read a book or surf the net - it’s the danger zone.
So I made a simple change to my daily routine by taking a shower and flossing and brushing my teeth half an hour after dinner. Having brushed my teeth it mentally signals the end of eating for the day and it has personally worked out very well for me.
I’ll also repeat meat as a seasoning. If you use less you can afford better quality. I used to live in rural Japan and was often invited to old folks houses to eat. One thing I observed was that while meat was offered and plentiful the older 75+ generation ate very little, instead sticking to a bit of sashimi and an abundance of homegrown vegetables (most of the front yards where I lived were given over to some kind of vegetables and random bags of it would appear on my door through the year). Those old people were the most lively, happy and healthiest I think I have seen anywhere. I once bore witness to an 83 year old woman hurdle a peddle bike lying by the side of a rice field!
The Japanese, particularly the Okinawans, have got it right. Mostly home grown vegetables, small quantities of meat, a little grain, no dairy.
Not saying there arent other ways of eating healthy, but to me that is the ideal.
Animal scientists review current literature every 10 years or so and if warranted will alter recommendations for sheep ,beef cattle etc. It seems to be almost impossible to do this for humans.I could offer many possible explanations such as politics ,diet has become a religion,difficulties in experimental design etc.etc.
If it seems to work for you and your blood work doesn’t become too extreme it is probably OK.
Adam,
Please don’t take offense but I still think you put your head on Arnold ‘s body.
I had been aware of the low carb diet for some years courtisy of Karl Denninger( Market-Ticker) but my wife was reluctant to switch
Untill the day her mum tested her blood sugar ( she had been put on pills for type 2 diabetes and had a tester )
She scored 22 ( The Mayo Clinic recommends emergency room treatment above 16.7 )
She decided to go low carb…
Result:- 3 monhts later she always stayed below 8 while following the diet, and could have a high carb desert and stay below 10. ( she tells me she does it to check her insulin response… 
)
No drugs at all needed.
Cheers Hamish
It failed me at age 67.
Want to lose weight?
Get cancer, lol.
So I don’t necessarily look at weight loss as a desired goal for health (unless one is noticeably overweight) nor is weight necessarily an indicator of health. In my life, I’ve been as light as 180 (at 6’2") when I was into serious distance running to as heavy as 232 when I was not fat but packing a lot of muscle from heavy weight training. I felt good, in different ways, at both weights.
My weight in recent years has been 220-225 but with dietary measures designed to address cancer, I’ve dropped to 200-205 and have stabilized there.
Want motivation for eating healthy? Forget about weight loss. Get cancer. It teaches you a lot physically, mentally, and spiritually.
I’ve studied and instructed in various aspects of human movement, exercise, and nutrition for 45 years at the undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate levels so it’s interesting to read all the comments above. There’s a lot of excellent information for the most part but a few things that are not quite on the mark.
The past few days, I’ve had a few posts deleted and I don’t know why. Maybe I posted too many. So I’m reluctant to go through the effort of constructing a detailed analysis, discussion, and organization of the above subject only to have it deleted.
Nutrition, despite being a science, is also a lot like politics, religion, music, investing, etc. There are lots of viewpoints that bring people to success and, in many (but not all) cases, there isn’t necessarily single correct approach. But there are certain principles which hold true under any and all circumstances, many of which have been covered here such as the importance purity and health of food sources, avoidance of overeating, and the value of fasting, to name a few.
I do notice though that a lot of the posts are more snapshots rather than panoramic pictures and a well organized, unifying approach seems to be lacking. Two of the overarching aspects of eating that seem to be lacking here are (1) intentionality and (2) consciousness. They provide explanations for many of the successes (and, conversely, failures) of a diversity of diets. Also, the consideration of stages of the life cycle as well as whether eating is for growth, maintenance, detoxification, healing, recovery, or some other particular reason.
As for me, I’m still working on tweaking my present diet for healing from cancer but I’m convinced of the advantages of an almost exclusively plant based diet. Please note that I ate healthier than 99% of people for most of my life and essentially followed a paleo diet in the latter half of my life. Unfortunately, that strategy failed me. So I began seriously reconsidering and researching other options, trying to remove as much of the prejudice and pre-conceived notions that I held. The result: the science in favor of a plant based diet is absolutely undeniable.
Here’s some food for thought in the fascinating documentary, The Game Changers, not only for health in general but also for optimizing human athletic performance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSpglxHTJVM
I know from personal experience that bench pressing strength, dead lifting strength, 1 mile running speed, etc. are not necessarily indicators of health nor do those parameters necessarily translate into optimal health and function. Also, appearance has significance but what is going on internally is more important than what is visible externally. My PSA has steadily dropped month-by-month from 626 to 197 to 1.08 to 0.72 with my latest blood work last week, pain is gone, bowel and urinary function are improved (along with minimal odor to bowel movements), sleep quality is improved, energy and stamina are up, skin is cleaner and clearer, the need for deodorant is gone, etc. I’m still on a medication but planned radiation therapy has been cancelled for the time being. Ultimately, it is up to God but, as stated by Elder Pasios, “We should try to do everything possible so that God does everything impossible.”
Here is some added scientific evidence in favor of a plant based diet:
Luckily I never had to lose weight because I found Mark Sisson’s website when I was around 30. It’s kept me in great shape since. Some of the Success stories he posts are amazing.
First, and most importantly, if you have kids, give them the tools to succeed (health wise) later in life. The body type you are in your teens will tend to stick with you into adulthood. Lean and athletic in your teens is much easier to work with than if you start off obese, or “skinny fat”, with little muscle tone.
Other Notes:
Brushhog
I think you nailed it.
Ao, you are absolutely right. I studied (and taught) biochemistry for thousands of hours, focusing on absorption/transport/metabolism of amino acids, peptides, fatty acids, minerals, carbohydrates, and “vitamins” by the human body. It is extremely black/white clear that our bodies (considering the body as a machine) have been designed (evolved) for plant and insect based diet.
The biggest objection to vegetarianism is the lack of Vit B12 in plants. But we evolved while eating lots of shi# and particularly, lots of insects. Other basic undeniable evidence is the adjustment to dietary ascorbic acid and detailed evidence of specific characteristics of enzyme systems that are finely tuned for lysine scarcity, polyunsaturated fat (vs saturated fat) abundance due to high plant low mammal consumption.
Maybe instead of arguing “animal vs vegetarian!!!” the real issue is high mammal consumption vs low mammal consumption. Someone somewhere should have written a book that details this biochemical evidence (I would love to find such book). I wanted to write such book 35 years ago but no one seems interested to discuss or read about the reality about how things work. Talking subjectively is so much more fun. I am only prompted to toss my 2 cents in, in response to the great comments from AO and VTgothic…
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” comes to mind. I think that we can agree that our ancestors and modern day people eating traditional diets, for the most part, stick to that. They ate/eat small amounts of animal products (mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians plus eggs and possibly dairy), some invertebrates and a whole lot of plant matter. If you believe Weston Price, agricultural people ate/eat a good amount of legumes and grains, mostly sprouted, fermented or soaked as part of the plant component of their diet.
Of course, some ate more animal products, but I don’t think any ate none (veganism) until modern times. This diet seems to be a key to good health. And if we all eat small amounts of animal products from pastured animals, we contribute to ecosystem and soil restoration as well as rebalancing the global carbon cycle.