Pain, Pain, Go Away!

On the theory that popcorn is just a vehicle for fat and salt that's lightly crunchy, I have a great substitute: chard chips. You can even eat them hot! They're full of vitamins and nutrients, too, and don't contain glyphosate (unlike corn). I like this recipe better than others I've tried because pre-drying the leaves makes them crispier and greatly reduces cooking time. Note that Swiss chard is high in oxalates if that's something you have to watch.  Photo from Pexels .  Recipe 1 batch Swiss chard, washed Nutritional yeast (available in the spice aisle) Avocado oil Salt Separate the Swiss chard leaves and hang them out to dry for a few hours until they're wilted.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Cut out the center vein and any other large veins in the leaves. Cut the leaves into sections about 3" to 4" square. Place them on a wire rack on a cookie sheet. Brush them on one side with avocado oil. Sprinkle with nutritional yeast and a little bit of s...

Ivermectin has been in the news lately with headlines like "Man ODs on Horse Dewormer" and "Hospitals Full of Ivermectin Patients." If this is the only perspective you've heard, let me tell you why people DIY their own health.  DIY Health Years ago, a commenter at Dr. Davis's Track your Plaque blog recalled when he was diagnosed with diabetes. He researched the illness, found that doctors and veterinarians had completely different views, and he wondered how humans and animals could be so different. He concluded that the veterinarians had it right. For a while, he thought about seeing a veterinarian for his diabetes, but finally decided to take care of it himself. He's not the only one taking care of his own illness. I'm part of online communities whose members have had to either fix their own health problems or watch them get worse. Dietary guidelines for all Americans include "healthy whole grains," even though too many Americans are overw...

I'd been a die-hard fan of low carb for years when, two years ago, I had complications from an infected tooth and a lot of stress. I had no more appetite for fatty food than someone with seasickness.   For that reason, I started eating higher-carb, lower calorie. Results? I re-developed acid reflux (though not as severe as before) and got a cavity--my first one since starting low-carb. I also had sugar crashes where I could hardly stay awake. There seemed to be a feedback loop where stress caused me to eat badly, which worsened my stress, which caused me to eat badly. I took probiotics, since strong antibiotics for my infected tooth made me queasy in the first place, and gradually ate less and less carb and more fat. It's only been in the past few weeks that I've been able to eat sardines again. Results from lower carb and higher fat? More energy--I mowed my whole lawn in one day last weekend, and yesterday, mowed it all without a break after doing a lot of other yar...

If you're having trouble feeling well on a low-carb diet, read a book like The New Atkins for a New You or The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living to do some troubleshooting. Eat some fat and salt, avoid polyunsaturated fat, and take a magnesium pill in the meantime. If you're having trouble finding low-carb food, stock your home with it, take it with you for lunch, and don't leave the house hungry unless you know for a fact that there's low carb food where you're going. If you don't know how to prepare low-carb food, get a recipe book by Dana Carpender. But if it's just too yummy or if everybody else is eating it or you deserve a treat or it reminds you of happier times or all the experts still don't agree... You can make all the excuses you want, but you're the one who decided how to live your life. -Mugen, Samurai Champloo There's something sexy about defiant people who face reality with courage and skill instead of del...

In the article, some prominent researchers point to the many flaws in the lipid/diet-heart/cholesterol hypothesis and blame refined carbohydrate for soaring rates of overweight and diabetes. Others urge caution in eating saturated fat. Ornish says eating meat will damage the planet. There have been many recent clinical studies exonerating LC diets, but the science has been there since Atkins wrote about his diet in 1972. The end is in sight for the disastrous experiment the government performed on America, and later the rest of the English-speaking world. *To highjack the lead is to take over the leading in partner dancing.

Note to new readers: please note I'm not a health care provider and have no medical training. If you have heart palpitations, I have no idea whether the following will work for you. Over the past several days, I've had a rough time with heart palpitations and feeling physically jittery. I was wondering if I was going to turn into one of those people who can't sit still. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it would be a major lifestyle change. Kidding aside, something wasn't right and I really needed to get back to normal. I tried popping potassium pills like candy. I ate more. I doubled up on my iron dose. I went to yoga and even got on the treadmill at 6 AM yesterday. I tried the nuclear option of eating more carbs to stop peeing away minerals. Most of these things helped, but the problem kept coming back. A comment from Galina made me look up epinephrine, one of the drugs my surgeon used to anesthetize me Friday. First, the assistant at the surge...

Years ago, before the Perfect Health Diet came out, I followed a program that involved eating quite a bit "safe starch." It was called Body for Life. It involved eating six small servings of carbohydrate along with six small servings of protein, plus two servings of fibrous vegetables per day. (A serving was the size of your fist or the palm of your hand.) There were six workouts a week (three weightlifting, three cardio) and one free day every week where you ate whatever you wanted and didn't exercise. In all fairness, these two programs are different: BFL allows certain grains, legumes and low-fat dairy and discourages fat. It doesn't call for a wheelbarrow full of vegetation. Nevertheless, my experience eating lots of fruit and lots of starch is relevant to the PHD because the amount and type of digestible carbohydrates are similar, and for the first few years, I didn't eat wheat except on free days. At first on BFL, I felt great. Before, I was continually...

Another modern trend - healthy food should be expensive, not nutrients-dense and preferably exotic, or you would be eating like plebs who live on a dollar McD menu. --Galina L. I don't try to jump over seven-foot hurdles, I look for one-foot hurdles I can step over. --Warren Buffett, pleb who eats at McDonald's Despite all the talk about wild-caught v. farmed, grass-fed v. CAFO and the vilification of fast food, a lot of us plebs benefit simply from carbohydrate restriction. But even though diabetes and obesity are rampant, and carb restriction alone would help millions of people, the impression is out there that you need to eat in a very specific way, far beyond just watching the carbs. Following a low-carb diet is already a high hurdle for many people. If some people want or need to raise the bar for themselves, that's fine with me, but there's no need to turn low-carb into a hurdle that a lot of people can't jump over. Organic produce and grass-fed or p...

I often hear the term "balanced diet" used to attack low-carb eating. "You're cutting out entire food groups!" some people cry, as if their own recommendations didn't curtail or cut out other entire groups like red meat and fat. "Good health = balanced diet, and that means some carbs," said Paul Nuki of the NHS Choices web site after he called low-carb proponents "quacks." To be clear, a low-carb diet isn't a no-carb diet. Even Atkins induction call for two small green salads a day; it's just starchy foods such as potatoes, sugary fruit and grains that are limited so much that many of us don't bother with them. It might also clarify things to know where the idea of a balanced diet came from. Early in the 20th century, the disease pellagra was the scourge of the American South. Poor Asians from India to Japan suffered from beriberi. Rickets was rampant in parts of the United States. What do pellagra, beriberi, and rickets...

Need another reason to give up proton pump inhibitors? Four years ago, I gave up PPIs and cured my GERD with a low-carb diet. I saved hundreds of dollars a year (even figuring in the cost of groceries ), dropped 20 pounds, got rid of aches and pains, improved my HDL cholesterol level, had more energy, and stopped getting cavities. Statistically, I lowered my risk of bone fracture. In case you need another reason to go low-carb and throw away the pills, PPI use is associated with acute kidney injury . Since this study is an association, it could be that PPI use doesn't case kidney injury, but that something else is causing both. It could be that a high-carb diet raises blood sugars to diabetic levels (while also causing GERD) and that high blood sugar causes kidney injury. We know that diabetics are prone to kidney disease. Wouldn't that be a rich irony--that it's too much carbohydrate and not protein that damages your kidneys? If that's the case, there's a double...

Hope you're having a Merry Christmas! It's the fourth anniversary of this blog and it's been almost that long since I started a low-carb diet and never looked back. That's not to say I never have a moment of weakness. Too much chocolate last week brought back the GI problems that I set out to solve four years ago. I can't eat chocolate bars in moderation, so I don't keep them around anymore. For others, it's Christmas cookies, stuffing, bread, pie, and other carbs that make this the most fattening time of the year. How to get back on track--or start a LC diet? Someone asked me this just yesterday. Since different approaches work for different people, here are a few sources for various types of people. Just tell me what to eat. Here's a quick guide to low-carb from Dr. Andreas Eenfeld t. I want to know how this actually works. Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades, who have treated thousands of patients with low-carb diets, explain diet, hormones and...

"You might want to read The China Study ." Good lord, there's someone still recommending that book after it was debunked by an English major and picked apart by Michael Eades and Chris Masterjohn ? Recommended by someone who works in a dentist's office, no less--where they're supposed to tell you to avoid carbage? Yet the dental hygienist did today. Maybe she was worried about business slowing down. Maybe she hadn't heard that at least two of its main critics got a mouthful of cavities on vegan or vegetarian diets. I didn't have any cavities, sensitive gums or other issues that a little more flossing wouldn't fix, and told her that I quit getting cavities after I started a low-carb diet. I added that since I'm from a family full of diabetes, that's another reason to be on a low-carb diet. "Well, if your diet isn't working for you, read The China Study. " I wasn't about to argue with a vegan holding a pick in my mouth. ...

Once again, I'm planning a Halloween without candy, temptation or weight gain. Instead of turning off the lights and ignoring the doorbell, I'll be giving the kids money. I'll put my spare change in a big bowl and throw a few coins into their bags. The kids love it and so do I. My hairstylist has her own way of avoiding eating leftover candy: she buys the same candy she puts out for her clients, and puts leftovers in the dishes in her salon. She remarked today that if you give kids fruit, they'll probably throw it away. We saw this with changes in school lunches, and even if a kid does like fruit, it can be hard to eat if they wear braces. Meantime, here are a few videos to get you in the mood for Halloween. Above: "Gus Fring, Hiding in Plain Sight." Scenes from Breaking Bad. Warning: violent scenes. Scenes from Death Note. Song: "This is Halloween" by Marilyn Manson. The Orphanage trailer. Creepiest movie I've ever seen.

Carb Control Works Again Something that just happened makes me wonder how often low carb diets "stop working" for people because they don't realize the extent of their carb creep. The scale and the clothes-o-meter told me last week that I was gaining weight. I had to face the idea that I can't eat peanut M&Ms without gaining. weight. Just by cutting out my few handfuls of M&Ms every day, I'm down four pounds. That doesn't sound like much, but on me, it makes the difference between having a flat belly and having the beginning of a pot belly. What really struck me, though, was how much better I felt. Once again, I can run on six hours' sleep. My head feels clearer and I've started on projects I meant to do months ago. A coworker happened to give up the M&Ms at the same time and noticed how much better she felt, too. As she put it, you know all that sugar has to be bad for you if you feel so much better without it. Who Says Thanksgiving...