Pain, Pain, Go Away!

A potato is a lump of sugar. -Guest on Jimmy Moore's podcast Three years ago when I got into low carb diets and helping my mother control her diabetes, I gave myself a blood glucose test. Since I was wheat-free, I used a suggestion from the Blood Sugar 101 site : I ate a potato. That you can use a potato for a home glucose test should be the first clue that it isn't very good for you. Further clues take a little more digging (sorry). It's a given in camp paleo that grains and beans are Neolithic foods--foods that we weren't eating much of, if any, before we started farming. They're full of lectins and antinutrients. But so are some other agricultural products: potatoes have been cultivated for around 7,000 years in Peru,(1) and spread to the rest of the world only in the past 500 years.(2) Even if you're Irish, German or Russian, your ancestors haven't been eating potatoes for more than a few hundred years. Traditionally, potatoes went through a proces

Long-time readers may recall my sinus infection that just wouldn't die. Over six months, I took antibiotics, long naps, a decongestant that gave me an allergic reaction so bad I stopped to wonder if I'd wake up the next morning . It finally ended when I came up with SWAMP and took megadoses of vitamin D, Mucinex and salt. It's February and once again, I've been fighting off a cold for a few weeks. While SWAMP consists of taking 50,000 IU of vitamin D for two days, I've had to take 40,000 IU for the past several days to keep my cough from getting worse. I'm not the only one who's taken large doses like this long term. Jeff T. Bowles, a layman, wrote and self-published a book called THE MIRACULOUS RESULTS OF EXTREMELY HIGH DOSES OF THE SUNSHINE HORMONE VITAMIN D3 MY EXPERIMENT WITH HUGE DOSES OF D3 FROM 25,000 to 50,000 to 100,000 IU A Day OVER A 1 YEAR PERIOD (caps in original) about his research and experiences. Bowles is a little crazy, and his problems

Let me tell you about the assault trial I was involved in. Last Friday, I showed up for jury duty around 8 AM. Since the court was having some technical difficulties, we had to wait an hour just to get started hearing instructions from the judge. By the time the lawyers got a satisfactory jury put together, it was noon. The trial commenced after lunch at 1:30. From then until 8 PM, with a few short breaks, we listened to witnesses, arguments, lots of objections, and instructions from the court. We deliberated for about ten minutes and found the defendant not guilty on both charges. We agreed that the evidence just wasn't there (we were surprised the case even got to court), and that the three feuding neighbors deserved each other. On a day like that, needing frequent little meals would have been a major inconvenience. Our breaks weren't long enough for us to go out for a snack, unless it was to a vending machine. There wasn't anyplace to store food that needed refrig

Relative: What are you doing? My mother: I'm throwing out everything with carrageenan in it. It's really bad. Scientists use it to make [research] animals sick. That's what made Lori so sick the other night with a migraine headache. Relative: I'll take the salad dressing. It doesn't bother us. My mother: Doesn't your daughter get migraine headaches? This conversation sounds absurd, but knowing the people involved, I'm sure it happened as my mother described it. In the relative's household, there's obesity, diabetes, migraines, hypoglycemia, fatigue, acne, and no doubt some other ailments I'm not privy to. Is this the new normal? Does illness seem so inevitable that some people aren't willing to think about what's causing it? Or do anything with an answer when it's handed to them? Let me tell you how I've felt since I've been free of carrageenan poisoning for the past week. My stomach doesn't hurt, I can eat low car

Edited to add: I made a mistake in counting the carbs in these cookies: they actually have 2.5 net grams of carb, not one, and five grams of protein. I apologize for the error. By popular demand, my recipe for low carb almond meal chocolate cookies. (Recipe adapted from this one at The Naked Kitchen.) Each of these cookies has a scant 2.5g net carbohydrate and 5g of protein. Why almond flour instead of wheat flour? Cardiologist William Davis wrote a whole book called Wheat Belly on wheat's being one of the worst foods you can put into your mouth. (Wheat elimination is part of his program for reversing heart disease.) Wheat is an appetite stimulant; it can send your blood sugar over the moon, leading to insulin resistance and advanced glycation end products (AGEs) that, well, age you; it can cause autoimmune disorders. Even in you've had a negative test for celiac, you might be wheat sensitive. I can attest to the last part. I'm not celiac, but once I eliminated wh

Have you even been going along on your normal diet and suddenly started gaining weight? You're not alone: I was again in that position last week. I was getting a wheat belly without the wheat. During my recent illness, I put on a few pounds, but didn't worry about it. Last week, though, I started gaining a pound a day. This was not good. I didn't want to think about what shape I'd be in after a year's time. But it was funny that conventional wisdom first came to mind: eat less, work out more. No: after two years' blogging and research on low carb diets, I'm convinced of their healthfulness and effectiveness. Working out is great for fitness and well being, but unless you're a serious amateur or professional athlete or dancer (and maybe even if you are), it's not much use for losing fat. My carb intake was under control. But carbohydrate isn't the only thing that spikes insulin: dairy does, too. Paleo researcher Dr. Loren Cordain writes in

"Price is what you pay, value is what you get." -Warren Buffett EDITED TO ADD: See if you can spot my poor reasoning in this post. That, and $1.75, will get you a plain coffee at Starbucks. Why does low carb food cost more? In general, it's more filling, it's more nutritious, and it has little or no added sugar or refined flour, which are nutrient sinks. Check out the macronutrients in a Starbucks double chocolate brownie (1) compared to a low-carb walnut-mocha brownie (2,3,4) (click for larger image, press ESC to return): I'm not putting down Starbucks--the results would probably be the same for any brownie made of flour, sugar, eggs, chocolate, etc., including homemade brownies like Grandma used to make. My point is that even though the low-carb brownies cost more to make than Grandma's and are less convenient than Starbucks, they're real food. With all natural fats, 14 grams of protein and no added sugar or refined flour, they aren't junk f

Donating blood yesterday, going to bed late last night, a light breakfast, light lunch, and coming home lightheaded tonight: this is how I account for thinking that a dinner I knew added up to a lot of carbs (46) was a good idea. My resistance was lowered and not replenished. At least I didn't go far over my  daily 50-carb limit, and the meal was real food full of nutrients. But I know that big meals make me feel like a slug. There's been research over the past few years about willpower being limited. Some clinical studies have looked at glucose's relationship to willpower, others have looked at performance on sequential tasks. Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang write , In one pioneering study, some people were asked to eat radishes while others received freshly baked chocolate chip cookies before trying to solve an impossible puzzle. The radish-eaters abandoned the puzzle in eight minutes on average, working less than half as long as people who got cookies or those who were

You've probably attended a family holiday dinner like this: the dinner is served a few hours late, the adults are slumped in front of the TV, and the kids run around the house screaming. What can account for these different behaviors? It could be what I've heard called sugar hangover, and when I say sugar, I mean carbohydrates in general. Consider a typical Thanksgiving Day: breakfast is some combination of cereal, juice, toast, jam, fruit, waffles, granola bars, pastries, yogurt, smoothies, and so on. It's all high carb food. Four hours later, everyone's blood sugar has crashed. For most adults, this means feeling tired and hungry. They won't snack because they don't want to ruin their appetite for dinner. For kids, though, some research has shown that they get a big adrenaline rush when their blood sugar crashes. Adrenaline is the fight-or-flight hormone--the one that sends them screaming around the house while their parents are too tired to send them outsi

Yesterday as I put my lunch in the refrigerator at work, I noticed a bunch of unfamiliar people in the break room. One of them, Pepe, started in: they were there for the health fair, they would check your cholesterol, the sugar in your blood, your height, your weight, and it would just take six minutes. A coworker asked him if he'd ever considered a career in sales. Just for blog fodder, I participated. They really were fast, and one even found me at my desk (in an office nearly half the size of a city block) after the tests were finished. My HDL cholesterol was 65--up from 42 from a year and a half ago, and up from 57, where it was last year when I'd been three months a low-carb diet . A level over 60 is considered good. I haven't taken any medication to make this happen. I went on a low-carb diet and eliminated wheat. I also take vitamin and mineral supplements in addition to a high-nutrient diet. What impressed me more, though, was that the nurse (and Cigna) said that bl

Having read about the benefits of krill oil for arthritis pain and blood sugar control , I bought a bottle for my mother. So far the results for her blood sugar have been encouraging if inconclusive. Her blood sugar levels took a dive into the normal range a few weeks after she started taking krill, but that was followed by some high-carb holidays. And her record keeping leaves something to be desired. She's not sure yet if it's going to help her arthritis. Since krill oil is supposed to be a great anti-oxidant (keep that word in mind), I decided to try it to see what it would do for me. What it did was commit the worst trespass any ingested substance can cause: acne. Straightaway, I got a cyst on my knee that was so painful I couldn't dance. Then I got one on my jaw; both of them went away within a few days, though--but I hadn't had one in years. My keratosis worsened and even showed up on my face. (Keratosis is having those hard little lumps in the hair follicles of

Previously: Body for Life: What Went Wrong, Part 1 and Body for Life: What Went Wrong, Part 2 I didn’t know anything diet or metabolism or how prehistoric humans ate when I first read BFL. But if I’d only read the book with a more critical eye, I might have questioned its assertions. Little Meals throughout the Day? For example, Phillips claims it’s better to eat small, frequent meals throughout the day, or "graze." He has some iffy reasons for doing so. On p. 44 of Body for Life, Phillips states, It’s revealing to take a look at the animal kingdom and notice the relationship between creatures’ eating patterns and their body “types.” At one end of the spectrum are animals that load up on large amounts of food at one “meal,” then go for days, weeks or even months without eating at all. Bears are a prime example of this type of infrequent feeder....At the other end of the eating-pattern spectrum are the frequent feeders: animals that eat almost constantly but in far lesser amou

Does Molly's fur coat make her look fat? My dog, Molly, has been to the vet a few times in the past couple of months for an infection and teeth cleaning. The vet recommended that Molly lose some weight and asked how much Molly was eating. "One and a half cups a day of ... dog food and some cabbage," I said. And yes, that's using a measuring cup, I explained, not a slurpee cup. Yes, Molly gets exercise--she runs on the treadmill every day. Nonetheless, the vet suggested giving Molly less food. Is this a good idea? Let's consider some observations, facts and assumptions. First, is Molly fat? Someone at the dog park nicknamed her "Marshmallow," and her hips look quite a bit wider than her chest when she sits down. Yet there aren't rolls of fat on her. When I pinch her fat around her middle, it's only 3/8" thick. Her hind quarters are too firm to pinch. Her midriff is thick and her hips are wide--but maybe that just means she isn't built lik

The more I read, the more I realize that people have to be their own advocates concerning their health. There's a lot of information out there, but a lot of it is contradictory--even information that comes from doctors. Without medical training, how do you sort it out? Lately I've been reading The Power of Logical Thinking by Marilyn vos Savant. Readers of a certain age may remember the Monty Hall dilemma from her column in Parade magazine in 1990. She correctly answered a reader's question about probability. The problem was so simple that grade-school age children could--and did--test it for themselves. Yet vos Savant got mountains of mail from professors and Ph.D.s telling her she was wrong. There's a section in her book about averages. "You can drown in a river with an average depth of two feet," she observes. This reminded me of a woman I met last weekend. As she and I talked, the conversation turned to health. She was quite a bit overweight and said she

It's been three and a half weeks since I stopped eating wheat (except on my weekly free day). I haven't changed my exercise routine, just my diet. Keep in mind I that about the only wheat I ate in one day was two slices of bread, maybe a pita too on a rare day. I've substituted fruit, beans, rice and potatoes for wheat. Results: My cravings for junk food have disappeared. I've stopped snacking on caramel corn, chocolate and diet soda on my non-free days. I eat two tiny pieces of chocolate per day, at most. My hair stays clean longer. Certain foods taste better. Coconut chai tea tastes like a candy bar in a cup (yes, I drink it straight) and even sardines taste better. Since I got a scale ten days ago, I've lost two pounds. I even had to tighten the straps on my backpack today. Three happy words: no menstrual pain. I have more energy. If I were a horse, my name would be Secretariat. My mother, who is diabetic and in a rehabilitation center with a broken leg, agreed