O.T. (Sort of): Food for Thought

[Lizistired]

That's great news!
Have you watched Dr Gominak's videos on D3 yet?

[Slartybartfast]

I saw the posts about it earlier this week. It's on my list. I edit the audio for my pastor's daily radio program in my spare time. Any time I'm gone my workload there doubles until I get caught up. Still digging out from being gone last week.

Just saw that Dr. Eades has a really good review of the book on his blog at http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/satu ... eat-belly/ It almost makes reading the book unnecessary.

[Slartybartfast]

For those of you who are concerned about diet as it affects weight, which affects one's xPAP therapy, here's an interesting snippet. Note, however, how the establishment press pooh-poohs Paleo eating. We've got a lot of educating to do. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... stors.html

I finished Wheat Belly, by Dr. William Davis. http://www.amazon.com/Wheat-Belly-Lose- ... =8-1-spell Overall, it's a well-written book, however his message could have been conveyed in fewer pages. His thesis is that the wheat our ancestors ate, which had only 14 chromosomes, has been so radically changed hybridization (44 chromosomes for modern wheat), its nutritional content has also changed, resulting in increased incidences of dietary maladies such as celiac disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and especially the deposition of omental (viceral) fat http://www.sharecare.com/question/oment ... st-harmful, which he calls "wheat belly."

While Gary Taubes' "Why We Get Fat" http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-Ab ... 851&sr=1-1 is tops on my list of "Aha!" books, Wheat Belly is certainly worth a read and focuses on what may be the specific reason whithin the milieu of the carb-heavy western diet that has resulted in the so-called obesity epidemic.

[DocWeezy]

I've glanced at Wheat Belly, it's next on my to-read list. I agree about Taubes' book--it has truly changed the way both hubby and I eat.

The interesting thing about the wheat is that when I eat ANY kind of wheat (whole grain, whatever), my glucose numbers skyrocket and stay high for hours (depending on how much I ate); when I eat whole grain rye flour, it does not do that--just a slight elevation and drops back down within a couple of hours. I don't have type 2 diabetes, but I was on on the edge of it when I went low carb, so for the past several months I've been doing glucose testing with a standard diabetic monitor to see how different foods impact my levels.

Just an interesting finding for me...and I'm happy to discover that I can handle the carbs from whole-grain rye krisp with no adverse impact. Lucky for me, I actually like rye krisp--especially with ham, cream cheese, and cucumber.

Weezy

[Slartybartfast]

I can't argue with your glucometer. If that works for you, then carry on! But folks with celiac disease (gluten intolerance) can't tolerate rye flour, either, so the gluten is still there.

Glycemic index of rye breads (and Rye Crisp) is a little lower than white or whole wheat flour, but not much. But glycemic index isn't infallible. I know that you can't get rye bread dough to rise without cutting it about 50% with wheat flour to provide gluten. It might be more complicated than just the source of flour. Dr. Davis talks about beer belly and wheat belly having a similar cause, yeast fermentation of wheat/grains. And he points out that while beer drinkers and wheat consumers accumulate omental (belly) fat, wine drinkers generally do not. So he hypothesizes that fermentation of grains does something that fermention of grapes does not do. The truth is still out there, but I think the folks who are looking at the effects of wheat and carbs in general on our propensity to accumulate excess fat are on to something.

[Slartybartfast]

And I just remembered Tom Naughton said something along those lines in http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/ ... ina-study/ to the effect that pasta causes his BS to spike while his skinny sister-in-law's BS doesn't. So we don't all respond the same way.

[rocklin]

I agree, the secret is to stop snacking between meals

For me, imho, the trick was to stop mealing between snacks.

[Lizistired]

Slarty, here are some more food for thought for you. I was pretty suprised at how much some of my hard working farmer neighbors took in. Around 2 mil over the last 15 years!
I'm not eating grains but still paying through tax dollars to make them cheaper than any other food on the shelves. I was suprised to find that China, where we got soybeans... buys most of their soybeans from us. So I assume that our taxes make grains cheap enough for them to buy and create the illusion of offsetting our trade deficit.
http://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=000 ... idySummary

[chunkyfrog]

Diet programs promote behavioral modification in order to help patients achieve their goals.

From my own experience, I have found that my habit adjustments are much easier to accomplish since my attitude has changed from one of deprivation to irritation at having been fed and accepted certain untruths about food for decades. Allow me to be more specific:

We know the process of changing habits has prime importance in a healthy lifestyle; however, we are strongly ingrained with destructive values, which make it much more difficult to change those habits permanently. Even the American Diabetes Association is in the habit of promoting far more carbohydrates than any of us could ever use, except to pack on fat. Perhaps this is because much of their financing and support probably come from the manufacturers of drugs and other products used to 'control' diabetes.

We already know that the infamous 'food pyramid' was not created by medical professionals, but by marketing experts affiliated with the Department of Agriculture--hence the emphasis on excessive quantities of grain products (bread and pasta).

Traditional cuisine is derived from peasant cooking; which arises out of poverty, and an abundance of starches, as well as long days of hard physical labor and a genuine need for high carbohydrate intake. As technology advances, the need for all those calories is decreased; but our taste for Mom's cooking remains with us. Can you think of a 'comfort food' that is not sweet or starchy? We may think that we now need new comfort foods--(the diet food industry is predicated on that concept); but I disagree: what we really need is comfort linked to good health and a full life--rather than from food alone. There is unlikely to ever be any corporate sponsorship for this plan because the only beneficiaries of such a paradigm would be vegetable growers and the patients themselves. The drug industry, corporate growers of grains, the manufacturers of medical equipment, and many more, would suffer without the gargantuan amounts of money to which they have become accustomed. Indeed, Diabetes and obesity are the foundations a huge industry--to cure it would be a disaster.

To hell with the lot of them! Sacrificing my health for someone else's financial security puts the lot of them on my poop list.

Thus ends my rant; --for now, anyway.

[Slartybartfast]

Don't know how many of you follow Gary Taubes' blog. He recently co-authored a letter to the NY Times in response to an article** they published which said that, in effect, obesity is an incurable condition. That may be true, but if it is, it is only so because the majority of the medical establishment has bought in to the surprisingly poorly supported notion that dietary fat is evil and carbohydrates are good. Taking a contrarian stance, Taubes and Peter Attia, M.D. have responded here in a nicely written concise summary of their position:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/resp ... -fat-trap/


**http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magaz ... wanted=all

[PST]

I was amazed to see this thread still going after having been away from CPAPtalk for six months. Back then it prompted me to read Taubes's earlier book -- Good Calories, Bad Calories -- and then to give low carb a try. I always thought Atkins and similar diets were about as credible as the magic fat-burning power of grapefruit and other diet scams. In my opinion, at least, some of the advocates of low carb, including Atkins himself, hurt their cause with a breathless style of rhetoric that made me think of informercial pitchmen. I assumed obesity was a simple matter of calories in vs. calories expended, and I was a lazy worm with no willpower. Taubes's explanation, which is quite nicely encapsulated in the petition Slartybartfast links to, is systematic and evidence-based in a way that helped overcome my skepticism. I found it convincing enough to make a real effort at low carb eating. I've lost over 50 lbs. in less than six months, all rather painlessly. I miss some of my high-carb favorites, but usually only when they are actually within reach (and smell). I haven't been a fanatic about it. In particular, I have not followed those writers (mostly paleo advocates) who treat wheat as a poison that should not be touched. I've just shifted a large majority of my calories out of carbohydrates by dropping desserts, bread, pasta, most potatoes, fruit juices, and a few other items. I don't worry about it, though, if some of those things crop up as ingredients: croutons on the salad, potatoes floating among the other vegetables in the soup, and so forth. There are a few things that really can't be eaten without slopping them over some rice. I assume (or hope, anyway) that most of the benefit comes from cutting out 80 percent of the worst of the highly available carbohydrates. In addition to losing quite a bit of weight, with no end in sight yet, I feel much more energetic, and as a result, I'm getting more exercise just in the normal course of daily activity.

[Vader]

Don't know how many of you follow Gary Taubes' blog. He recently co-authored a letter to the NY Times in response to an article** they published which said that, in effect, obesity is an incurable condition. That may be true, but if it is, it is only so because the majority of the medical establishment has bought in to the surprisingly poorly supported notion that dietary fat is evil and carbohydrates are good. Taking a contrarian stance, Taubes and Peter Attia, M.D. have responded here in a nicely written concise summary of their position:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/resp ... -fat-trap/


**http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magaz ... wanted=all

yet another reason to avoid the NYT.

Glad to see Taubes refuting the report. Thanks for posting, Slartybartfast.
I'm still following my low carb diet, and I've lost 40 lbs since August. I've lost all the weight I needed to, and then some! I'm at the point where I'm not needing to follow the diet rigidly, but still, my main concern is to avoid all sugars and refined flours. Really it's just weight maintenance now, and it's been the easiest "diet" ( I know you hate that word ) that I've ever followed. It's a lifestyle, and I don't see a reason to ever discontinue it. I feel great, and I must say I really LOOK great too!

[Slartybartfast]

I was amazed to see this thread still going after having been away from CPAPtalk for six months. [snip]

Timing is everything. I resurrected the thread today just to provide context. People come and go and I figured if someone cares to read back, some context might be illuminating.

Impressive weight loss, and isn't it eery how you're never hungry? Congrats on sticking with it and proving Taubes, Atkins, Eades and all the others right.

[Slartybartfast]

Don't know how many of you follow Gary Taubes' blog. He recently co-authored a letter to the NY Times in response to an article** they published which said that, in effect, obesity is an incurable condition. That may be true, but if it is, it is only so because the majority of the medical establishment has bought in to the surprisingly poorly supported notion that dietary fat is evil and carbohydrates are good. Taking a contrarian stance, Taubes and Peter Attia, M.D. have responded here in a nicely written concise summary of their position:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/resp ... -fat-trap/


**http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magaz ... wanted=all

yet another reason to avoid the NYT.

Glad to see Taubes refuting the report. Thanks for posting, Slartybartfast.
I'm still following my low carb diet, and I've lost 40 lbs since August. I've lost all the weight I needed to, and then some! I'm at the point where I'm not needing to follow the diet rigidly, but still, my main concern is to avoid all sugars and refined flours. Really it's just weight maintenance now, and it's been the easiest "diet" ( I know you hate that word ) that I've ever followed. It's a lifestyle, and I don't see a reason to ever discontinue it. I feel great, and I must say I really LOOK great too!

Wow, another success story. Congrats!
"Diet" is an unfortunate term, because to most people that implies reduced consumption. However as Taubes and the others have pointed out, it's not so much HOW MUCH you eat as it is WHAT you eat. And eating to keep your insulin level down is easy enough to do. So if you just remain aware of the amount of sugar/starch in the food you consume and minimize that, your weight moves in the right direction.