Driving me Crazy

What do you really need to eat?

2009-10-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

I think we have a hangover from our heritage as an agricultural society. It is the notion that we must eat 3 large meals per day. In those days, we worked 18 hours in the fields, together, and the need for large meals was clear. These days, most of us are not manual labourers. Eating three large meals is a habit we have inherited from the days, long gone, when there was still walking, lifting, stuking, forking and cleaning of stalls to be done.

I'm not saying that mealtimes shouldn't be family times, but it might be time to examine the nutritional needs we have in our current society and set some new guidelines.

We know, for example, that it is important, especially for children, to get adequate nutrition in the morning. An egg, some WHOLE GRAIN toast with peanut butter and a glass of milk are a good start to the morning. In the winter, a hot cereal would be good as well.

A protein snack mid morning. A wedge of cheese and a carrott.

Lunch should be protein, veggies, a non-sugar drink and some complex carbs. Depending on your occupation on an afternoon, it should reflect the amount of calories you are likely to burn in that afternoon period.

A mid afternoon protein snack. A low sugar yogourt for example.

But supper? Should it be an extremely hearty meal when most settle down to an evening of TV watching or computer work?

Twenty five years ago when I was a military wife, we had Dutch exchange students at the base. They were quite horrified at the amount of food we ate at supper time. I don't know if it was just this group of Europeans, or if it is a Euro thing. My friend told me they had soup, a piece of cheese and some veggies in the evening, and a coffee later.

Given the obesity epidemic, the fact that a high carb meal is well known to slow one down, and our current activity levels of any evening, dinner/supper needs to be rethought as a small repast reflecting the energy needed in the upcoming several hours. Lunch at supper, and supper at lunch might be a better solution to our spreading waistlines. Unless you are stuking hay in the field or digging a ditch after your evening meal.

Not a good way to start the day

2009-09-28T11:19:00.000-07:00

You see all the ads on TV about eating cereal in the morning. They make me cringe when they suggest it's a good way to lose weight.

Not cereal. Cereal of most types is a bowl of sugar. Even with some whole grains, it's still a sugary way to start the day. And it will for sure spike your blood sugar and you'll be hungry.

A better breakfast would be cottage cheese, some berries, coffee with sweetener....or even eggs and bacon with most of the fat drained away.

No orange juice. I admit I take a mouthful of OJ with my iron pill in the am. Can't give that one up.

I continue to be horrified at the diet advice given to Type 2 diabetics. Cut down on those carbs and cut down on your insulin and metformin, I say. And 30 minutes at least on the treadmill every day even if you are active.

In Canada, the RDA for carbs is 300 grams! Yikes. We try and stay under 50. My husband has lost 30 lbs. and my father 22, and I'm hovering still at the 65 mark. Need to get at it.

Watch those carbs. Eat as few as possible. My husband has a piece of toast with peanut butter on it in the am, none at lunch, and a bun or something at supper with his protein and veggies. He's a big blueberry eater. We both take vitamin D, 2 grams a day, as we live in Canada well North of the Mason-Dixon line.

In the winter I will have oatmeal once in a while, with ground flax added, and a sucralose brown sugar. Maybe a few almonds thrown in.

We also eat a lot of Greek salad. Can't get enough. So we eat a modified low-carb Mediteranean diet. It is the best.

They just don't get it, or don't want to.

2009-09-07T16:07:00.000-07:00

They just don't get it. Or they don't want to.

I'm starting to be a conspiracy theorist. Or maybe people simply don't want to believe that our bodies haven't had enough time to evolve to process carbs that well. Oh well.

If you read what Jennifer Aniston or any other normal weight adult, with a few exceptions, eats, they just don't eat MUCH and they eat extremely carefully. She talks about watching the carbs.

The simple fact is that our body burns fat when it doesn't get carbs. For almost everyone except Type I diabetics, this is a good thing. Two thirds of us are overweight. Designers are going into the large sizes because there are fewer and fewer small people. That is not a good thing.

For those of us with BMIs over 30, we need to burn fat. The only way to do that is to deprive our body of carbs so it switches to burning fat. And our body is well able to do so. It always gets its fuel. That is why anorexics die -- the body, lacking fuel from either carbs or proteins, starts using lean muscle mass for fuel, including the liver and heart. But we are not going there.

I was looking at my favourite yogourt at the store. It has 25g of carbs per serving. Too damn much. Very few options for low carb yogourt. I could only have that one yogourt, a slice of bread, and a few other incidental carbs during the day to stay under 50g. And half an hour on the treadmill plus taking a lot of steps during the day will burn several pounds a week. I stay satisfied with some lean meats and right kinds of fats like olive oil and avocados, or nuts.

When people talk about ketoacidosis roll your eyes as it's not likely you are going there. You do want to burn fat and eat lean protein. I prefer South Beach to Atkins, but that is my preference. I lost my gall bladder a few years back (and am glad of it) so like to keep the balance of digestive fluids at the optimum.

It's biochemical truth that carbs make fat. If everyone ate half of their daily carb intake for several months, North America would lighten up considerably. Archer Daniels Midland or the other big food companies might not like it, but it would be a good thing.

Again, why low carbs?

2009-06-21T20:58:00.001-07:00

People ask again and again why carbs are bad for you. I guess the simple answer is, "because they make your body store fat."

Some people tell me, "I love carbs, I eat a lot of them." One friend in particular eats almost no fat and FREAKS if some fat gets into her diet. Well, if you have no fat in your diet, you are going to suffer somewhere. See my post on sat fats and the fact that they do have some redeeming qualities. But if you are not fat, you shouldn't change your eating habits too much unless you have high triglycerides, low hdl, high ldl, wrong size ldl particles, high blood pressure, diabetes, high inflammation indicators or a history of breast cancer or other cancers. why?

Because a high carb diet affects all of the above. Keep track of your carb intake for one day. Those slices of bread, the hidden sugars in drinks, yogourt, peanut butter and lots of other places all add up. They added carbs when they took out the fat.

Your body will make energy out of fats and stored fat if you cut your carb intake. Eat a piece of toast with peanut butter on it in the morning if you find you can't live without carbs. You'll burn it off quickly, and then your body will go back to burning fat if you eat protein, vegetables that are low sugar, and low sugar fruits. It's all about burning the fat around your middle-it is the most dangerous fat and impedes your organs and strains your heart.

Without carbs, you may have higher cholesterol, but as your triglycerides lower, the size of your LDL particles will get bigger, and that is good for your heart. The small LDL particles are the ones that stick together and cause blockages.

The only for sure scientific correlation is that people who have good levels of HDL have fewer heart attacks. So of course that is the ultimate goal, is to get that number into the approved range. And that takes a change in diet, to include olive oil, oils from nuts, lean proteins, salmon and other fatty fish and vegetables that don't raise your blood sugar.

The easiest route is to follow South Beach as closely as possible. It's the sugar in our diets that is killing us. And carbs equals glucose equals sugar. Bye bye baked potato, rice, white bread, chips and pop.

Women, Insulin and Breast Cancer

2009-06-12T17:06:00.001-07:00

It used to be all about estrogen. It was postulated that obese women, and there are too many of us, synthesized estrogen in adipose tissue. Now there is some thought that insulin is also part of the problem, due to high carb diets we are all following to keep fat levels low.

But we know now that that's all bunk, right, and we should be following a "plant-based, Meditteranean, low carb, right oil and fat" diet.

Anyway, an article of interest is "Insulin, Insulin-like Growth Factor-I, and Risk of Breast Cancer in Postmenopausal Women." Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol 101, Issue 1, Jan 7/09.

The multitude of authors conducted a study and looked at 835 subjects who were nondiabetic. They looked at their various blood profiles and concluded that insulin levels were positively associated with the risk of breast cancer but with a few caveats, like hormone use. Obesity was also associated.

The conclusion was "these data suggest that hyperinsulinemia is an independent risk factor for breast cancer and may have a substantial role in explaining the obesity=breast cancer relationship."

They observed "strong positive association" between risk of breast cancer and high fasting insulin levels in postmenopausal women who weren't diabetic and weren't on hormone therapy.

This means that women who are obese have to lose weight, get their insulin levels down and get active. It also mentions high estradiol levels but I'm not sure what women can do about that, other than lose the adipose tissue that produces too much estrogen.

I'd love to hear some medical comments on this.

More evidence

2009-06-08T17:01:00.001-07:00

Today an article in Archives of Internal Medicine on the benefits of a low carb diet with a vegetarian twist.

It benefitted blood pressure, apolipoproteins and the ratio between total and ldl cholesterol.

More proof that carbs are not good for us.

I've been looking at articles from as far back as 2000, regarding things like "the metabolic syndrome, LDL particle size, and atheroclerosis: the Atherosclerosis and Insulin Resistance
(AIR) study". This was the first study to show a relationship between having small LDL particle size, metabolic syndrome and thickening of plaques in the arterial walls carotid and femoral arteries. And smaller LDL particles are not good.

Another article from the Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology journal, called "Change in LDL particle size is associated with change in plasma triglyceride concentration", talks about how LDL particle size is inversely related to plasma triglyceride concentrations, so the higher your triglycerides, the smaller the size of your LDL particles. It seems the smaller particles are the ones found in plaque folks.

I'm painting a picture here.

So how to lower your plasma triglycerides? Eat fewer carbs. In Canada the RDA for carbs is about 300 g. On South Beach, I would say you get less than 20g a day during Phase I, probably 50 during phase II and less than 100g during Phase III and the rest of your life, depending on whether you gain weight or not.

Exercise is also good for you. It burns whatever glucose you might have in your system and gets you into fat burning mode. It also increases your fitness level and endurance.

Next post: insulin levels and breast cancer

I didn't know sat fats did anything good...

2009-06-01T15:57:00.000-07:00

"The approach of many mainstream investigators in studying the effect of consuming saturated fats has been narrowly focused to produce and evaluate evidence in support of the hypothesis that dietary saturated fat elevates LDL cholesterol and thus the risk of CAD. The evidence is not strong, and overall, dietary intervention by lowering saturated fat intake does not lower the incidence of nonfatal CAD; nor does such dietary intervention lower coronary disease or total mortality." (German and Dillard, Am J or Clin Nutr, 2004)

What?

That was 5 years ago and today on CNN the Crestor add still vilifies sat fats and cholesterol in contributing to CAD.

Anyway, I think changes are starting to happen, perhaps with Pres. Obama's stress on utilizing science.

In any case, we know that sat fats are essential in the body. Heck, we produce them ourselves, especially lactating women feeding their babies.

OK, so some good sat fats:

Butyric acid - may play a role in cancer prevention, is a modulator of the immune response and inflammation, functions as an antitumor agent by inhibiting growth and promotion differentiation and apoptosis (s-that is, cell death).

caproic, caprylic and capric acids - the second two have antiviral activity, monocaprin has antiviral activity against HIV, caprylic acid has antitumor activity in mice.

lauric acid - antiviral and antibacterial functions, kills heliobacter pylorii in the stomach, anticaries and antiplaque agent, has adverse effects on various microorganisms including bacteria, yeast, fungi and enveloped viruses, by disrupting lipid membranes and deactivating them.

myristic acid - associated with CAD but most strongly related to average serum cholesterol concentrations, can also increase HDL levels.

palmitic acid - in normal healthy people with normal cholesterol levels, palmitic acid lowers serum cholesterol, replacement of laurate-myristate with palmitate-oleate has a beneficial effect on an important index of thrombogenesis.

stearic acid - and other acids with less than 12 carbon atoms are thought not to increase cholesterol concentrations. Produces beneficial effects on thrombogenic and athergenic risk factors.

So they are not completely without merit. Next time, the effects of sat fats on cholesterol.

The Skinny on Saturated Fats

2009-05-30T11:34:00.000-07:00

Maybe Gary Taubes already said this, but sat fats are not the culprit.

I'm reading an article by J Bruce German and Cora J Dillard, from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2004;80:550-9, for those who check references.

What the article basically says, is don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. First, what more and more of us know, "high-carbohydrate diets were recognized as contributing to the lipoprotein pattern that charcterizes atherogenic dyslipidemia and hypertriacylglycerolemia."

In short, when the food industry began to remove sat fats from foods, they substituted carbohydrates in many forms. And those carbs not only made us fatter or obese, they changed our blood lipid profile to one which is "atherogenic" or bad for our blood vessels and circulation, and they gave us high triglycerides. Thanks a lot.

More interestingly, the article points out some of the things that saturated fats, or fatty acids, do is not bad, and what's more, some have positive effects on the body. The article states that there is no strong evidence that saturated fat elevates LDL cholesterol and thus the risk of CAD. What has not been studied is the possibility that some of the saturated fats might have positive effects, since mammals have within the mammary gland the means to produce a number of saturated fats, namely butyric, caproic, caprylic, capric, lauric, myristic, palmitic and stearic acids, to ensure the growth and survival of mammalian offspring. Evolution is a funny things, and things seem to have happened for a reason.

The article notes that saturated fats are the preferred fuel for the heart, a source of fuel during energy expenditure.

It concludes that the advice to remove sat fats from the diet has made us all fatter, and has failed to have any effect on the prevalence of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Next time: the sat fats and what they do for us.

Sugar Sugar

2009-05-10T11:38:00.000-07:00

Honey, ah sugar sugar,....
You are my candy girl, and you've got me wanting you.

You know the rest.

And it's a sad fact that sugar is the origin of many of our problems, personally and as a society. Not only is obesity a personal problem, it is a societal problem.

Gary Taubes did us a great favour with his research on obesity and its patterns and causes. Were it not for him, we would still be thinking that low fat diets were the Greatest!

While exercise is a must for every human being who can do it, it is more important how you eat. If you exercise at a high rate every day, but eat a high carb diet with lots of saturated fat in it, chances are you will have high triglycerides, low HDL and high LDL. You probably have a bad level of C reactive protein as well, which is an indicator of how much inflammation you have in your body.

More and more, research in places like Harvard and Duke Universities is pointing to inflammatory processes and the size of your LDL particles as good indicators of your risk for cardiac disease. And researchers are realizing that "good fats" are important in lowering some of that risk.

A lot of these risk factors are related to the amount of sugar in your diet. High glucose in the blood throws everything off.

Heck, I would even bet that women with problems with their periods that is blamed on perimenopause and other such things, are probably insulin resistant and if they embarked on a program of walking and taking something like Metformin, their problems would stop as their insulin resistance decreased. It happened to me, but I don't want to generalize to a population. My doctor was absolutely skeptical at first, but no longer. She has studied hormones and now thinks that high blood sugar is the cause for many problems.

Want to change one thing in your diet? Reduce the amount of carbs you ingest. Switch to sugar free pop, eat an egg or egg substitute for breakfast instead of that cereal from a box, and look at the yogourt and fruit that you eat, and think about how many carbs are in them. The fewer carbs, the better.

Eating Wrong

2009-05-04T07:36:00.000-07:00

I've been off the wagon a few weeks, and the worst part is, I knew I was doing it the whole time.

I could blame hormones or whatever, but I just lost my focus. We have been cutting down a bit on our calorie and fat intake, and using more plant based foods. My husband has of course lost another five pounds. Now I need to get back on the train, and regain my focus.

We no longer make such a big deal about evening meals. I think evening meals are the downfall of society. We make a big fuss over supper, claiming big hunger after a long day of work. I now suggest that we should fuel our bodies for the day while we are "working hard", if many of us do that anymore. Are there a lot of big fat ditch diggers? I don't think so. I think the problem has been that we have a food worship society that is left over from our agrarian roots, where having food was cause for celebration.

My husband and I often have low fat cottage cheese, hummus with vegetables, a salad of some sort (there are so many interesting recipes that are low carb) and some fruit. we do eat dark chocolate. So dinner has to correspond with what we are planning for the evening. No big roast, potatoes and pie if we have a fairly low key evening. Which most of them are.

I suggest everyone eat a big breakfast, a good size lunch, and reasonable snacks with a small dinner. So much more reasonable for the modern lifestyle. And always, low carb.

Planning

2009-04-18T09:26:00.000-07:00

I always forget to buy something for low carb life.

It does take planning. Since I eat lots of eggs, they are constantly in demand, but I also use the egg substitute, and am finding more low fat cheeses these days. But it has to be in the fridge to be useful.

I'm also roasting larger numbers of chicken breasts for lunches and snacks. With gardening season almost upon us here in Western Canada (we plant end of May with luck) I'm going to grow lettuce this year, so lots of salads.

Always planning. Planting some herbs as well, as mint and dill are always welcome in salads. My kids are even following low carb and sometimes my daughter phones and asks me what she should eat in restaurants, and I tell her "meat, salad and vegetables!".

It can be done. Thinking and planning.

My Review of Paul Revere - 2 Piece Entertainment Set

2009-04-18T09:25:00.001-07:00

Oneida

Set includes: Casserole Spoon and Servall

Very nice, and useful!

Shawn Regina, Sask, Canada 4/18/2009

Pros: Nice Weight, Comfortable Handles, Dishwasher Safe, Attractive Design, Durable

Best Uses: Daily Use

Describe Yourself: Cutlery snob

I have had Oneida Stainless (many of the same set) for 33 years and they are still in excellent shape.

()

They are coming around

2009-04-17T17:01:00.000-07:00

Check out Dr. Mehmet Oz on Oprah.com. He is coming around to the low carb way. He and Dr. Michael Roizen recently gave advice on that website on how to lose weight, and included such advice as not eating anything white, including baked potatoes, rice, white flour, sugar.....sound familiar? He talked about eating the right kinds of oils. They caution about the sugar in salad dressings. They talk about the right kinds of snack to carry with you at all times in case you have a craving, and alternatives to snacking (water, sex.....) Also suggested is to eat breakfast, and to limit your choices so that having breakfast becomes easy and automatic. They are still afraid of egg yolks though. Blueberry smoothies were also a suggestion I like.

Exercise suggestions are walking, light dumbells, yoga and breaking into a sweat at least once a week.

Dr. Oz also suggest fidgeting to keep your metabolism working.

All in all, considering the reach of Oprah, this is good news. There was no low fat ranting. He seems to be a convert of sorts. Not sure he would agree with my evaluation, but I can see less daylight between him and the low carb approach than before.

http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/health/weightloss/slideshow1_ss_health_diet/1

How to low carb

2009-04-16T17:19:00.000-07:00

Some people have a real hard time figuring out how to lose weight, and when I talk to them about low carb living, they really get confused.

Most of us are nutrition illiterates. I was until I started reading articles like What if its all a big fat lie and the Soft Science of Dietary Fat by Gary Taubes. I also read his book, Good Calories, Bad Calories. What a revelation.

Then I bought a few books on metabolism that would be termed texts. And I got some from the library. I think I understand more about how my body works.

It is the why that most of my friends and colleagues don't get. "Aren't carbs good for you?" and "They are low fat." Well, no and yes. They are low fat. But they make you fat. They make your body store fat.

My kids (all adults) now understand about the few good carbs, all whole grain or super complex carbs which are relatively low GI. I tell them the trick is to eat as few of them as you can manage. Two of them go on South Beach from time to time, with some success.

In Canada, the expected intake of carbs is about 300g per day. Way too much. I try and stay around 50 g, from my breakfast cereal and bits of other things during the day. I know a lot of people who would probably eat 500g of carbs a day because they love a big serving of low fat potatoes or rice with supper.

And we eat way too much. Those of us who don't dig ditches for a living really need to eat more like birds.

It's an ongoing struggle, for sure, but low carb does work.

Fat and your body

2009-02-02T13:49:00.000-08:00

Most people wonder what triglycerides are. Triglycerides are the fats as they are stored in your body. That stuff you want less of. It is a flag for you when your triglycerides are high, as that means there are lots circulating in your blood stream, and most likely you are in the process of storing them. They have to be broken down to get out of your cells, and that happens when you have used up (or don't have) glucose in the blood stream to burn as fuel for your body. So that is how a low carb diet burns fat: it absolutely will get fuel from wherever it can get it. And that will be the protein in your diet, and the fat stored in your body.

My husband has lost 30 pounds in the last four months on a low carb diet. He wants to lose another 10-15 lbs. He eats less than 50 g of carbs a day. I have lost 15 lbs and stay under 100g of carbs, which is one third of the recommended daily allowance in Canada. I'm sure I used to eat a lot more carbs before I knew to count carbs.

His triglycerides are now low compared to last year. His is more of a Meditteranean diet, I guess, but it is pretty low carb. We used olive oil. His HDL is good, and so is his LDL. Mission accomplished, and he walks on a treadmill. His family has high blood pressure and stroke as risk factors.

I was happy someone pointed me at "Good Calories, Bad Calories" or GCBC as its known. I recommend it.

It's official. Capitalism sucks.

2009-01-26T20:40:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know, except for all the other systems that suck worse.

I used to laugh in senior political science classes when someone said that capitalism held the seeds of its own destruction within itself. Who said that? Marx? Well, The chickens have come home to roost on that one.

So, right now, an enemy of the people would be the non=consumer. Even while people are losing their jobs, their houses and their lines of credit, they are being told that not spending money is not helping the situation.

The problem is that people have been spending like drunken sailors. More credit cards. Paying the minimum balance on one with a cash advance from the other. Making the minimum payment on the final card with your overdraft. Buying a house you can't afford, driving a car that's way beyond your means, shopping, eating out, drinking, travelling. It made the economy crazy.

At the same time, Boards of Directors were demanding increasing profits and higher rates of return on investments, so chances were taken, debts bundled into something notional called asset backed commercial paper or ABCP. Employees were given large bonuses for keeping the whole thing together with Elmer's Glue and #6 Binder twine.

Then it started to go wobbly. Like Roseann Roseannadanna once said, "It's always something." What was the first thing to go wrong? Not sure. But I remember reading a few years ago that there was a correction coming. At the time it didn't seem possible. I didn't think the end of history was going to be the complete collapse of the American economy. Things were steaming along so nicely. But remember, one of my profs said, the Mexican currency crisis didn't only affect Mexico.

So what does the little guy do now? In the USA, Mr. Obama might send out cheques. Does the little guy pay down his Visa? Does he put it into savings and chip away at it in the months to come? Or does he buy a flat screen and a case of beer and sit on his couch and weep silently as he watches Homer Simpson in high definition? I hear the big corporations, who are getting big cheques, are still handing their employees bonuses and remodelling bathrooms.

Tomorrow we'll see what Mr. Harper does with our money in Canada, which shells he moves around in front of us. Should we be building new roads or propping up the railways, which have a smaller carbon footprint? Does Mr. Harper care? How do we best want to be bribed with our own money into thinking we can spend money we don't have again?

So figure out which side of the fence you are on, folks. Are you an enemy of the people and cautious? Putting off that consumption? Wearing clothes from the consignment shop? Brewing your own lattes? Or a devil may care type who will have as many Visas or Capital Ones as you can qualify for?

Do the right thing for your country.

Obama's victory: The triumph of science over opinion

2009-01-21T18:15:00.000-08:00

We all value our own opinions, however haphazardly they are formed. Most of us defer to someone we know who has training in a field, and has a right to have an opinion in that field based on years of education and experience. I have an undergraduate degree in economics and political science. I have experience in accounting and policy research. I was in the military.

I hesitate to comment on global warming or nuclear issues, as I don't have experience in those areas, and anything I say would be an uninformed comment.

But there are many people who defer to their own haphazardly formed opinions, which is called "common sense" in the everyday parlance. It is not always common sense. My grandmother told me it was common sense that sex caused babies, and one could not expect otherwise. She died shortly after I announced that I was pregnant for the third time, so I never got a chance to disabuse her of the notion that I believed that nonsense. ( I had no subsequent children.)

When it comes to science, there has been a disdain for science in the US and even in Canada in the last few years. It comes with the Conservative dogma. That dogma has waned in the United States with the decline of Bush and the catastrophic market and economic crash that ensued because of the decline of regulation. Science was pooh-poohed in favour of dogma, with other catastrophic repercussions around the world, especially in countries in Africa, Asia and South America. Again, birth control is an example, as well as the use of condoms to reduce AIDS transmission.

Science must always be used to combat ignorance and superstition. Mr. Obama has served notice that science is on the upswing as the basis for decision making again. Where dogma once prevailed, as in the mantra of deregulation, the science of limited regulation will once again prevail.

We're coming back from the dark ages again.

Mr. Obama

Even Harvard guys like low carb

2009-01-16T07:50:00.000-08:00

It's refreshing to read and hear that Harvard, Duke and other high quality universities are finally on the low carb track.

Most of the foods that we should eat are low carb. For example, beets, cabbage, swiss chard (I don't like it and my mom tries to get me to eat some fresh from her garden every fall), cinnamon, plums/prunes, pumpkin, sardines, blueberries....

Convenience foods aren't good for us. They are just convenient. We need more biochemistry, nutrition, physiology discussions on the blog sphere, so that people get the facts.

We've only been cultivating grains for about 7000 years, folks. They are not part of our nutritional history long enough that our body knows what to do with them other than to turn them to glucose, which of course is bad news.

Gary Taubes explains it so well

2008-12-13T14:03:00.001-08:00

Watched his lecture at Berkeley again.

At the hour point, he cuts to the chase. Fat storage happens because of alpha glycerol phosphate, which is needed to bin fatty acids into triglycerides. AGP (my abbrev.) comes from burning glucose and nore is available to store fat when insulin levels are high. Want to store less fat? Keep insulin levels in the blood low. Take in less glucose.

Yalow and Berson in 1965 say "Insulin is the principal regulator of fat metabolism". Gary talks about how emaciated type I diabetics can be, as they no longer produce their own insulin. They have nothing to drive fat accumulation with. When treated with insulin therapy, Dr. Best (yes, that Dr. Best) describes how they develop adipose deposits in the stomach where the insulin is injected.

My husband and I started the South Beach Diet in late September 08. My husband has lost 25 pounds and his blood profile has improved so much his doctor is ecstatic. My husband's triglycerides are WAY down from where they were. The doctor had recommended South Beach. I have lost 17 pounds. Don't you hate men who always win in the weight loss game? My profile is improving as well. LDL and HDL levels close to normal.

It's the insulin, stupid.

Weight of the Evidence: Glycemic Index Doesn't Matter Much in Overall High-Carb Diet

2008-12-13T14:03:00.000-08:00

Weight of the Evidence: Glycemic Index Doesn't Matter Much in Overall High-Carb Diet

Saw Twilight again! Yikes.

2008-12-13T12:30:00.000-08:00

Don't know whether it was 5 or 6. Doesn't matter anymore. For my age group (40+) I'll bet I would win the prize. I just keep agreeing to go with any one of my friends who wants to go. The girls are laughing. And I'm not really a Twilight Mom, as my girls are in their 20s, and one will not go see the movie till its on DVD. (Doesn't like theatres....)

There are some universal reactions from all my friends. All have said how handsome Edward Cullen is. Not sure that translates directly to Rob Pattinson, as he looks different in person. (The hair.....)(the youth...as I have said before, he is younger than my youngest..) Everyone likes that the action is not too intense, no swearing, they like the "sexual" undertone (that one is hard to quantify, isn't it?) They like Bella. Most identify gaps in the story line that leave them a bit out in left field...but you cannot in 2 hours take hundreds of pages and cram them into a story line. People universally like the shots in the forest and in the meadow. Also the bedroom scene.....(we are all married women, some for several decades, and it brings back that memory of hot passion of the first romance/liaison...)

So this is a great love story. Hope the new director gets it right when they start on New Moon, which promises to be interesting. I'm wondering how they'll do the Italian portion, how they'll explain the Volturi -- it's a leap. That movie will have modern vampires, ancient vampires and the Quileute wolves to deal with. Hmmmm.

But many of my friends, all over 40, have bought New Moon. Will New Moon earn Summit another big bag of cash?

Personally, I liked Midnight Sun a lot, and think it could or should be finished (Go Stephenie) and either could have scenes cut into upcoming movies or done on its own, if she did finish it. Give her the money, someone. And release the DVD, Summit. Good Christmas present for us.

Rob Pattinson and Heath Ledger

2008-12-12T12:06:00.000-08:00

I worry about Rob Pattinson, in a motherly way. He's younger than my youngest child. He's handsome, creative, musical, and by his own account, anxious. He describes getting sweaty palms when he thinks about the crowds he's facing in his new found fame and adoration. There is already a cult behind him. He's also a Brit in the American movie machine and in Los Angeles, where the ghosts of Marilyn Monroe, John Belushi, River Phoenix and countless others lurk. There are also many walking wounded, as Robert Downey, Jr., Kiefer Sutherland, Brittney Spears and Amy Winehouse attest to us every day on the covers of magazines. I worry about new-found fame and wealth, and what bad things will happen to Rob, because I remember Heath Ledger well. They seem to have the same intensity and hyperfocus. I saw a column somewhere that asked, "Is Rob Pattinson the new Heath Ledger?" Let's hope not. Heath was chewing on anti=anxiety drugs, oxycontin, oxycodone and other things in an effort to medicate himself against something. What was it? Anxiety that he wouldn't perform to the standard he wanted to? Against expectations of the industry of hangers-on who are dependent on the continuing light of the stars? Against his own personal demons in addition to all this? I hope Rob Pattinson has a good head on his shoulders and careful advisors. It would be heartbreaking to see it all go wrong, as it has so many times before.

Who is at fault here?

2008-12-12T11:59:00.000-08:00

Re the Detroit automakers. Are the problems facing the industry caused by the workers or management, or a combination of both? If workers can only make the cars that come down the line, than those who made the production decisions are at fault for causing cars to be built that went unsold, or those who got into complicated and nonsensical financing schemes to keep a failing industry going. The autoworkers, while they should make decisions knowing that some may end their jobs, shouldn't be forced to give up their hard won protections. They need protection from the bad decisions of management, especially now.

Are people going to continue to buy cars? Without a doubt. For north american auto makers, they need to be different cars than the pickups, hummers and big SUVs that have gone before. Just as we have moved from the huge monster cars with big engines, we now need to move to fuel efficient cars. Detroit has to belatedly get with the program.

Labour costs are high, but it is a tedious job and labour is all most people have to sell. Automakers and all other manufacturers want to have people who can afford to buy the products they build, as Henry Ford knew well. Trying to steal their job security and buying power under the guise of financial crisis will only serve to prolong and exacerbate the same.

A word about Twilight

2008-11-28T20:01:00.000-08:00

I admit it. I love the series of books and the movie Twilight. Why? Who knows. I'm a Master of Arts student in political science doing a public policy thesis on nursing. I've been in the military, a civil servant (now retired) and have worked in the private sector as well. This is something COMPLETELY different for me. I enjoy all the hype that has been generated around the movie - love the capitalist marketing machine. It's a prime example of making something out of not much, not to say that the movie is irrelevant. Our lives must be at some kind of low level if we thrive on this stuff, but here I am admitting that I am enjoying it all. I have to laugh at all the magazine articles about Rob Pattinson and Kristin Stewart and the other cast members, who are probably horrified at some of the things that get written. The hype machine. But I'm all for entertainment and I enjoy the soundtracks of movies when they introduce new material. I'm enjoying the Paramore and Muse music, as well as Rob Pattinson's songs. And I say to my friends, there was no swearing and less sex than one would see on afternoon television. Bravo. I've gotten so that I just don't go to movies any more - I'm done with war, horror, chase, shootemup, etc. It leaves me with little but foreign movies and Twilight. And it's nice to watch a love story, even when the stars are younger than my kids. I may just go for the third time.

Fat percentages in "optimal" diet still not settled

2008-11-07T14:15:00.000-08:00

We know that the amounts of fat and carbs in the optimal healthy diet has not been settled. Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard Department of Nutrition says, "(W)e have found virtually no relationship between the percentage of calories from fat and any important health outcome. But what does seem important is the type of fat and the form of carbohydrate." (Harvard World Health News) He goes on further to explain how the message of substituting unsaturated fat for saturated fats got mixed up with substituting carbohydrates for fats. What's more controversial is when he says that the view that all complex carbs are good is not substantiated by any data, and is inconsistent with historical knowledge that the type of fat is a critical factor.

I personally have gotten fat by eating lots of carbs, thinking they were "OK". My friend lost 60 pounds on a low carb diet and I thought she was crazy. She pointed me to Gary Taubes' book "Good calories, Bad calories" and I learned a bit about endocrinology and have been researching more. I now try to stay away from potatoes, rice, bread, crackers and sugary things. I've had good success and have been able to reduce my metforming dose. I am careful about what kind of fats I eat and stay vigilant with saturated fats. I must admit I eat a lot of eggs.

When you learn more about how your body works, you wonder how you have gotten by all these years. I am looking at endocrinology texts now, and reading sources like medical journals. Of course there is a lot of money to be made (and has been made) from low fat foods. Obesity will cost health systems lots in the future until the message changes from Heart Associations and nutritionists.

It's the insulin, stupid.

2008-10-28T15:15:00.000-07:00

I'm convinced that the root of many of our diet problems is having a hangover from a life we no longer live: that is, being farmers who till the soil manually, stuke wheat, weed large gardens, manually clean farmhouses, clean horses, tote feed buckets....you get the picture. You burned your calories off.

We were just on holiday and met a number of Europeans who were travelling on the train through Canada with us, who were horrified at the size of both the meals and their fellow travellers. While the portion sizes on the train are far from what you'd get at a local restaurant chain, having 3 gourmet meals a day is too much. As is the plain old North American diet, which can be several large bowls of cereal (sugar laden), orange juice (sugar laden) toast with jam, (sugar laden...), then lunch, which can be just as bad. Then supper. Also beer, wine, liquor or Coke. It's the aftereffect of high carb/glucose diets that is making us fat.

For me, the new motto is, "It's the insulin, stupid."

And in a farmer's garden, lots of potatoes were grown. It was a staple. It filled you up. That is fine for people who never eat too much and stay slim the majority of their lives. But if you get overweight, your body works against you. If you combine bread, potatoes, beer and a sweet dessert, you've got the recipe for a constant state of high insulin in the blood stream, hunger from the highs and lows of glucose, a state of inflammation and the pathway to chronic disease. It would be better to eat eggs, ham, meat, salad, steak and broccoli. You'd feel full and wouldn't need those desserts. The beer is a different story.

Our metabolism is such that an influx of glucose into the blood stream requires a big insulin push, whereupon fat is stored. Fewer carbs, less fat storage. It's that simple. Every complicated article and textbook I read boils it down to stimulating less insulin. Insulin has such a complex effect on our bodies. Many of its effects aren't well understood even yet, with all our advanced research capability.

Losing weight is a complicated array of processes, but by not carb loading, you don't facilitate fat storage. And while saturated fat continues to be considered a problem, eating lean protein, lots of plant materials (low sugar fruits and vegetables) and small amounts of "good" fats like olive oil and omega 3 fats, and getting some exercise to reduce insulin resistance is the way to lose weight.

Think about it. Lions in the wild are carnivores, eat few carbs, and still grow.

The low-fat message has confused North Americans, and they started eating just about anything that was labelled low fat. Dont get me started on the food industry and how well its done because of this lack of interest in the realities of human metabolism. it all drives me crazy!

Low Carb diets do work folks.

2008-09-21T15:57:00.000-07:00

So my husband and I have been following a sort of South Beach diet, somewhere between strict phase 1 and phase 2. He of course has lost 10 lbs to my 7, which is par for the course. I don't eat fish which complicates things. I'd like to but get a scratchy throat which could mean allergies. But we've eaten chicken, beef, ribs etc, cottage cheese, cheese.....just little bread. It can be done. I've been eating carb free jello. I have sugar free coffees.

Most interesting is that my blood sugar (I'm a type2 diabetic) is now hovering between 5 and 7 all the time. My doc reduced my metformin a bit. Nice!!! My ankles aren't swollen as much, and she also reduced one of my heart meds that affect my blood pressure. I went to Pritikin in the spring and they say that losing 5% of your body weight improves your health, so I am closing in on that. I need to do it several times.

I got onto this because one of my acquaintances lost 60 lbs and improved her blood profile while doing it. She pointed me to the book "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes and the rest is history, in that I am doing lots of research on the idea that carbs and therefore insulin can almost be said to be the root of most of the obesity epidemic.

Of course skinny folks don't have to worry as much except if they eat a high carb diet, of simple and easily digestable carbs. Also high fructose corn syrup is a culprit. But being fat brings its own brand of wonderfulness - high blood sugar, high insulin readings, insulin resistance. Fat doesn't just lie there, it is working all the time and affecting you.

I'll let you know how things go, and how my blood profile changes over the next while. Learning to burn fat and stay away from carbs will be interesting.

A sane person's view

2008-09-07T11:46:00.000-07:00

What has happened to the driving public? They have all gone mad. Or have gotten so insufferably arrogant. For instance, so many people in large trucks think that they are safe turning after the light is red. It
is like they are saying, "Try it" to the rest of us who drive Corollas. It is true that a car in the intersection when the light turns yellow has the use of the intersecton until they are through, but you can't enter the intersection when the light is red and expect to get through safely every time.

And don't get me started about red lights. I see at least one person running a red light every time I drive. These are the people who speed up when the yellow light is getting old. You are supposed to be cautious when the Don't walk sign stops flashing and be prepared to stop.

I'm prepared to support red light cameras and the resulting fines. Call it a tax on stupidity.

Society works in most respects because people support reasonable rules. If driving becomes too haphazard, there will be more carnage on the road from every day driving and not just high speed chases and road rage.