Trying Out a Low-Carb Diet

[Gosso]

Good to hear, Torts!

Like you said, the key is to get rid of the crap (empty and addictive calories) and don't fear saturated fat...it really is that simple.  Once you get down to your ideal weight I would suggest that you slowly bump up the carbs from "safe starches" like sweet/white potatoes, white rice, soaked legumes/grains, and fruit.

[Tortoise]

I recently read the book The Paleo Diet by Loren Cordain. Something I don't yet fully understand is why Cordain says the Paleo diet includes as much fruit as you care to eat (along with as much lean meat, seafood, and vegetables as you care to eat, of course).

He says fruit was a consistent part of our hunter-gatherer ancestors' diet, just like the meat and vegetables were, but he doesn't elaborate any further. However, in another part of the book he says that honey used as a sweetener should be used only in moderation in a Paleo diet since honey was available to our Paleolithic ancestors only seasonally.

Cordain's logic regarding fruit seems like it might be inconsistent with his logic regarding honey. Was fruit really available year-round in the Paleolithic age? Certainly it's available to us year-round now due to global shipping, but in any single geographic location it seems to me that fruit is very much a seasonal thing. There are times of year when fruit is plentiful, and there are times of year when most of the fruit trees are bare.

I think Gary Taubes mentioned the Paleolithic seasonality of fruit in his book Why We Get Fat as a justification for why it should only be eaten sparingly. He also pointed out that the wild fruit available to our Paleolithic ancestors probably bore little resemblance to the juicy, super-sweet, domesticated fruit we eat today. He claimed that the sugar content of our fruit today is probably much higher than it was in the Paleolithic age.

So what do you folks think about fruit: should it really be considered part of a Paleo diet? And if the fruit of today really is more sugary than the Paleolithic varieties, do the fiber and nutrients in the fruit help counteract the "toxic" sugar so that on balance, fruit is still healthy to eat on a daily basis?

[Gumby]

I recently read the book The Paleo Diet by Loren Cordain. Something I don't yet fully understand is why Cordain says the Paleo diet includes as much fruit as you care to eat (along with as much lean meat, seafood, and vegetables as you care to eat, of course).

I would ignore Cordain if I were you. While Cordain made some great contributions to the idea of eating an ancestral diet — way before others did — his work is terribly flawed. Most Paleos have moved beyond his suggestions about using modern cooking oils and dismiss many of his claims. For instance, Cordain recommends lots of polyunsaturated as a good source of Omega-3s despite the fact that most polyunsaturated is unstable and rancid before you even consume it. He also suggested that wild animals are lean, but failed to take into account that the fat is just distributed differently. And finally, Cordain recommended that people rub flax oil on their meat before cooking — which is probably the most carcinogenic thing you could ever do. Never, ever, heat flax oil.

Anyway, if you want to read about some of the differences in Ancestral eating approaches, read this short post from another Paleo author:

http://chriskresser.com/beyond-paleo-mo ... o-template

To be fair, Cordain's book was released a long time ago and so much has been learned about oxidation and saturated fat since then. In a way, Cordain has dug himself a hole and has no choice but to defend his early work despite the mountain of evidence that refutes much of it. I suspect that Cordain wrote his book in a way that other mainstream and politically correct doctors and nutritionists would take seriously — particularly since it was released during a time when people just assumed that cholesterol and saturated fat caused heart disease. But, anyone can now plainly see that his assertions have a bias towards the unproven and flawed Lipid Hypothesis.

So what do you folks think about fruit: should it really be considered part of a Paleo diet? And if the fruit of today really is more sugary than the Paleolithic varieties, do the fiber and nutrients in the fruit help counteract the "toxic" sugar so that on balance, fruit is still healthy to eat on a daily basis?

I don't see the wisdom in eating lots of fruit. Some fruit is definitely good for you.

The problem with fruit isn't just the sugar. Fruits can have other toxins in them (as natural pesticides) that can effect various organs in your body. For instance, Strawberries, Pears and Peaches are examples of Goitrogenic fruits. They contain Goitrogens that are toxins that interfere with your thyroids ability to absorb iodine. Now that doesn't in any way mean that fruits should be avoided. It just means that they should be consumed in moderate quantities and people with thyroid issues, or potential thyroid issues, should be careful not too consume to many Goitrogens.

And that's just one example. Almost all plants and grains have naturally occurring toxins — which play a major role in their evolution. In general, eating too much fruit can be often very difficult for the stomach to handle.

But, fruits are often a good source of anti-oxidants, which is great. But, it's important to realize that you can obtain anti-oxidants from a wide spectrum of foods, including meat, organs and fish. So, you have to find what works best for your body and then obtain anti-oxidants from as many different naturally occurring sources as possible (i.e. not by spreading flax oil on meats as Cordain would recommend).

[craigr]

I am back to eating Paleo the past few weeks and am down 6 more pounds. I am within 10 lbs. of my goal weight and feel great. No grains. No sugar. Very limited fruit and no fruit that is high glycemic index/high sugar (bananas, pineapples, other tropical fruits). I do eat some seasonal berries and an apple every now and then. I drink red wine on occasion. I am eating non-processed fats, meats, vegetables and am on roll now. Paleo eating works and carb diets don't if you want to take off weight effortlessly and feel good.

[Gumby]

I am back to eating Paleo the past few weeks

I think Paleo is great as long as one doesn't follow Cordain's original recommendations. The newer Paleo and Primal authors (i.e. Paleo 2.0, Kresser and Sisson) are definitely worth listening to.

[Tortoise]

That's great to hear, Craig.

When I started this thread my plan was to try a low-carb diet for 2 solid months, but I found it was just too difficult and draconian to eliminate virtually all carbs from my diet. I found it much more realistic to allow fruit into the diet to help me stay on track. So my diet is really more Paleo than traditional "low-carb."

And it's working great! The fat keeps melting off, pound by pound, week by week. I almost feel like I'm getting something for nothing. And, like you, I'm feeling great.

Gumby, thanks for the points regarding the need to be skeptical of some of Cordain's advice. I'll check out your links and take the newer Paleo research into careful consideration.

[AdamA]

I am back to eating Paleo the past few weeks and am down 6 more pounds. I am within 10 lbs. of my goal weight and feel great. No grains. No sugar. Very limited fruit and no fruit that is high glycemic index/high sugar (bananas, pineapples, other tropical fruits). I do eat some seasonal berries and an apple every now and then. I drink red wine on occasion. I am eating non-processed fats, meats, vegetables and am on roll now. Paleo eating works and carb diets don't if you want to take off weight effortlessly and feel good.

I was very skeptical about the low carb diet idea, but decided to do it after it was discussed here almost a year ago. 

I have lost 25lbs.  All I do is keep carb intake under 100-150 grams a day.
I also exercise a lot, though, and started doing so at the same time I changed my diet, so in not really sure if it's all diet related. 

The nice thing with this is that there's no calorie counting.  If I'm hungry, I eat, just not carb heavy foods.

Just my personal experience, though.

[Benko]

Gumby,

Paleo aside, different colored fruits and veggies are widely considered beneficial. So eating a variety of e.g. berries is likely very good for you.  OTOH I once heard of a fruitarian who eat 12 bananas per day which is probably a disaster given the amount of sugar. 

[craigr]

When I started this thread my plan was to try a low-carb diet for 2 solid months, but I found it was just too difficult and draconian to eliminate virtually all carbs from my diet. I found it much more realistic to allow fruit into the diet to help me stay on track. So my diet is really more Paleo than traditional "low-carb."

I try to target total carbs loosely. So I'll eat fruit, but in moderation and never as a juice drink. I also will eat berries in moderation because I like them in season. But I do not eat any grains (even corn) and avoid starches, sugar, wheat byproducts, etc. I miss beer a little, but I may have one once I get to my goal weight. I prefer red wine actually so it's no big loss.

I have not been rigorously exercising outside of multi-day hikes but I'm losing 1-2lbs. per week. That's what I was doing before the summer started and I got a little lazy. Meaning I ate enough to maintain my weight, but did not eliminate most carbs. Now I will remain paleo going forward but allow some cheat days (I love pumpkin pie for instance and it's Thanksgiving coming up). Mostly I try to keep in mind the direct link between insulin response and fat. It's so easy losing weight this way. I think in many years people will look back at this whole grain low-fat fad and wonder what the heck we were thinking.

My empirical evidence is conclusive: Eating fat does not make you fat. I have ate a ton of fat and protein the last month and have lost weight consistently. In another month I will get my blood numbers checked and see how the markers are doing. I should be another 4-6lbs. down by then almost to my goal weight. I was never obese, but at the same time was putting on consistent weight each year and it was not going in the right direction.

[Gumby]

Gumby,

Paleo aside, different colored fruits and veggies are widely considered beneficial. So eating a variety of e.g. berries is likely very good for you.

Absolutely! But not in large quantities. Eating lots of fruits and vegetables — in large quantities — is not good for the human digestive system and the naturally occurring toxins in some fruits and vegetables can wreak havoc on the body.

I think many people are often under the impression that you should eat a lot of fruits and vegetable in order to obtain adequate nutrition. But, it's largely a myth and doing so would likely ruin your digestive system. A quick comparison demonstrates that eating the meat and organs of high quality plant eating herbivores — who spend their entire lives breaking down and concentrating all of the nutrients in fruits and vegetables into their organs — provides us with a much more nutrient-dense package.

[align=center][/align]

(Fruits and vegetables do not contain true Vitamin A. Fruits and vegetables have carotenoids, and most people have difficulty converting significant amounts of carotenoids into Retinol, which is true Vitamin A).

When you really start to compare the difference between eating fruits/vegetables and eating organ meat, it becomes clear that our species evolved to hunt and seek out organ meat and fat for energy and nutrition. Fruits and Vegetables are a fallback option when meat is not available, since they aren't nearly as nutrient-dense.

Furthermore, many fruits and vegetables contain natural pesticides such as glucosinolates (found in crucifers) which are metabolized into thiocyanates (which lessens iodine absorption). Other toxins such as cyanogenic glycosides (found in cherries, almonds, plums, peaches, apricots, pears, raspberries, strawberries and other plants) are a form of cyanide that is detoxified to thiocyanate. A healthy individual can tolerate moderate quantities of these toxins — particularly if they have access to adequate iodine — but someone with thyroid problems or digestive issues (which include many people) cannot tolerate lots of these goitrogenic foods.

And finally, many fruits and vegetables will just irritate the gut in many people who don't have healthy guts. And eating large quantities of fruits and vegetables can cause digestive problems. FODMAPs (Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides And Polyols) are notorious for this and should be avoided by the many people with compromised digestive systems. FODMAPs can exacerbate and even cause IBS.

See... http://www.ibsgroup.org/brochures/fodma ... rances.pdf

I'm not in any way suggesting that people shouldn't eat fruits and vegetables. They should! Fruits and Vegetables are an important part of the nutritional spectrum. But people should not be putting lots of fruits and vegetables into a Vitamix each day and pouring them down into their gullet. That's not very healthy and it eliminates the chewing process which is important for neutralizing some of these toxins and juicing bypasses important "stop" signals to the stomach.

[MachineGhost]

So what do you folks think about fruit: should it really be considered part of a Paleo diet? And if the fruit of today really is more sugary than the Paleolithic varieties, do the fiber and nutrients in the fruit help counteract the "toxic" sugar so that on balance, fruit is still healthy to eat on a daily basis?

The only fruits I can eat without reacting to are berries (except blueberries), apples, pears and kiwi fruit.  That should tell you everything about whats "safe".

I do not see that fruits and vegetables are a significant source of macro-nutrients.  What they provide is alkalinity to acid-forming meat, anti-constipation fiber, endogenous antioxidant pre-cursors and disease-preventing phytonutrients.  Even then, the latter is not very significant in terms of efficacy -- excluding horseradish sauce -- vs supplement extracts.  I recall out of all the vegetables, only cruciferous and tomato sauce have any significant disease-preventing effects when eaten as little as twice a week.  The rest is just security theatre in non-Pritiken quantities.

[MachineGhost]

Paleo aside, different colored fruits and veggies are widely considered beneficial. So eating a variety of e.g. berries is likely very good for you.  OTOH I once heard of a fruitarian who eat 12 bananas per day which is probably a disaster given the amount of sugar. 

I was a fruitarian once and I can vouch for what a disaster that is.  I likely developed my intolerance to bananas from it.

[FarmerD]

In another month I will get my blood numbers checked and see how the markers are doing. 

Craig,
Sounds like you're basically eating the same as my diabetic diet.  When you get your bloodwork results back, you'll probably see elevated HDL and lowered Triglyceride readings like I saw.  This is the usual result when diabetics go low carb. 

“High triglycerides are a strong independent risk factor for heart disease, and they also correlate with obesity, and with low levels of HDL (the so-called "good cholesterol"). High triglycerides are also one of the five signs of Metabolic Syndrome, (also called pre-diabetes), a major risk factor for heart disease.
A low-carb diet will bring triglycerides down 100 per cent of the time (and that's regardless of whether or not you lose much weight on the diet). You read that right. Not 90 percent, not 95%, but 100 percent of the time. There are very, very few strategies in nutrition that have 100 percent success rate, but when it comes to lowering triglycerides, low-carb diets do in fact have that enviable track record.”?http://www.jonnybowden.com/2009/01/trig ... -know.html


How the Doctor Can Tell if You're Cheating:

“Two of the most consistent results when a person first reduces carbohydrates are a dramatic drop in triglycerides and an increase in HDL ("good") cholesterol. These changes are so dependable that Dr. Vernon calls them the "hallmark of carbohydrate restriction", and advised the doctors at the conference that they could use these two measures to inform them as to whether their patients were indeed following a low carb diet.”?

http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/predia ... erview.htm

[Tortoise]

The only fruits I can eat without reacting to are berries (except blueberries), apples, pears and kiwi fruit.  That should tell you everything about whats "safe".

Not sure I follow. I should use somebody else's unique reactions to various foods as a guide for what is/isn't safe for me?

I've never had a "reaction" to eating any kind of fruit. Maybe you have an allergy or other physiological condition that I don't have?

[Gumby]

The only fruits I can eat without reacting to are berries (except blueberries), apples, pears and kiwi fruit.  That should tell you everything about whats "safe".

Not sure I follow. I should use somebody else's unique reactions to various foods as a guide for what is/isn't safe for me?

He's just saying that he's overly sensitive to all the toxic phytates, lectins, oxalates, salicylates, phenols, glucosinolates, thiocyanates and cyanogenic glycosides found in fruits and vegetables. If you ate large quantities of any of these toxins, you too would react badly over time. MG just happens to react more easily than most of us.

[stone]

I just listened to an interesting EconTalk podcast in which the guest was Gary Taubes discussing his book Why We Get Fat. He made several interesting points supporting the idea that obesity is largely the result of diets consisting of a high proportion of carbohydrates.

The podcast motivated me to finally just try out a low-carb diet for at least 2 months to see what effect it has on my weight. I'm not fat, but I'm definitely not as thin as I was in my early- to mid-20s. I've had some success with calorie counting and exercise, but I never stick to them, and the weight comes back as soon as I stop. I want to try something different now, and a low-carb diet seems like an obvious choice. It won't require me to count calories or to exercise with strict discipline--just to avoid carb-rich foods as much as possible.

While I'm trying out this low-carb diet, I'd like to educate myself on the logic and science surrounding the topic. Ideally I'd like to read books with high-quality arguments both for and against low-carb diets. From experience I know that when I subject myself to just one side of an argument, I tend to get sucked in and start to lose my objectivity. I don't want that to happen here.

So how about it, folks? What do you think are the highest-quality sources of information out there (ideally in book form) on the role of carbohydrates in weight gain, and perhaps in heart disease as well? Books that attempt to debunk the carb theory of obesity and heart disease are welcome, too.

And if some of you would also like to share your favorite low-carb meal and snack ideas, I'd love to hear them!

My guess is that the best approach is to find some sort of exersize or sport that you enjoy enough that you have to exert discipline not to do it. I get the impression that exersize can make the body thrive on a wide range of diets. Time spent reading about nutrition perhaps would be uneeded if that time was instead spent surfing or running or mountain biking or playing football or whatever???

[Gumby]

My guess is that the best approach is to find some sort of exersize or sport that you enjoy enough that you have to exert discipline not to do it. I get the impression that exersize can make the body thrive on a wide range of diets. Time spent reading about nutrition perhaps would be uneeded if that time was instead spent surfing or running or mountain biking or playing football or whatever???

You have a good point. It's true that if you exercise enough, your body will find a way to burn almost any food for fuel. But, that's sort of like dumping the wrong octane fuel in your car and driving it into the ground — there are better ways to optimize fuel and energy.

Take Mark Sisson's "Primal Blueprint" approach for instance. Here's a guy who knows how to work out. Sisson trained as an elite marathon runner, covering up to 100 miles per week and finished 5th in the 1980 US National Marathon Championships and landed a qualifying spot for the 1980 US Olympic Trials. Over the past few decades he's competed in Triathlons and even finished 4th place at the big 1982 Hawaii Ironman. He's now 57 and has written several books about fitness and eating. He explains that too much exercise is not a good thing — it can really take a toll on your body.

He put together some really terrific graphics to explain his ancestral diet/exercise philosophy. Notice that one doesn't need to enter ketosis in order to reap the benefits of low carbs...

[align=center][/align]

[align=center][/align]

[align=center][/align]

For more information about the above graphics, see:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/press/th ... -diagrams/

[Gumby]

I try to target total carbs loosely. So I'll eat fruit, but in moderation and never as a juice drink. I also will eat berries in moderation because I like them in season. But I do not eat any grains (even corn) and avoid starches, sugar, wheat byproducts, etc. I miss beer a little, but I may have one once I get to my goal weight. I prefer red wine actually so it's no big loss.

I have not been rigorously exercising outside of multi-day hikes but I'm losing 1-2lbs. per week. That's what I was doing before the summer started and I got a little lazy. Meaning I ate enough to maintain my weight, but did not eliminate most carbs. Now I will remain paleo going forward but allow some cheat days (I love pumpkin pie for instance and it's Thanksgiving coming up). Mostly I try to keep in mind the direct link between insulin response and fat. It's so easy losing weight this way. I think in many years people will look back at this whole grain low-fat fad and wonder what the heck we were thinking.

I think it's worth mentioning that carbs and insulin do actually play an important role in our health — they are only bad for you in excess and when carbs are overly refined. So, to clarify, these diets are supposed to be low carb diets, not zero carb diets. Some people who go Paleo — and completely avoid starchy tubers and other carbs — often wind up shutting down their thyroids with chronic carbohydrate restriction. That's not a good thing. Your body won't function properly without good thyroid function.

In a recent podcast, Chris Masterjohn and Paleo author, Chris Kresser, explain some of the signs of needing more carbs...

The telltale Thyroid-Cholesterol signs you need more carbs

Chris Masterjohn:  All right, so there are a number of studies that have shown that carbohydrate restriction or fasting or calorie restriction can decrease thyroid function, and they tend to show a decrease in T3 in the serum and an increase in reverse T3.  T3 is the active hormone, and reverse T3 is kind of an antithyroid hormone.  And many of your listeners probably have seen the correspondence between Paul Jaminet’s blog and his guest blogger and Anthony Colpo last year, where these studies were debated quite extensively.  And I think when we look at these studies in the context of some of the biochemistry that has been studied regarding insulin’s interaction with thyroid hormone, then I think what we are seeing is a definite effect of the level of carbohydrate in the diet.  And I know that there are some confounders in some of these studies, especially when they compared it to fat; a lot of the fat was really low-quality fat, like corn oil.  But if we look at what insulin does, we find that there is evidence from humans, from cells, and from rats that insulin cooperates with thyroid-stimulating hormone, or TSH, to increase the production of the enzymes and proteins involved in making thyroid hormone, and we find that it contributes to the enzymes that activate thyroid hormone from T4 into T3, the active form.  So, I think what we’re seeing here is when we have insulin operating in its optimal conditions, then insulin is again sort of acting as a messenger that the body is in a state of abundance, and it’s contributing to the production of thyroid hormone and to its activation into T3.  And if you prevent the activation into T3, then the T4 — There isn’t very evidence that insulin actively prevents the production of reverse T3, but by promoting the conversion into the active form, that in itself tends to prevent T4 from being converted into the inactive form, reverse T3.  So, I think we’re looking at a definite effect of effective carbohydrate here, and I think the best way to test for this is to look for a decreased ratio of T3 to reverse T3.  From the clinical studies, that seems to be the most likely marker to look for to see if this is what’s happening, to see if this is why cholesterol has gone up.  I think that if you find that T3 or reverse T3 are out of whack, probably the best way to address that is to try increasing the carbohydrate intake — not necessarily meaning you have to go on a high-carbohydrate diet, but, you know, like, Paul Jaminet had sort of concluded at the end of that series that he still advocates a low-carbohydrate diet, but it’s possible to go too low for some people, and that’s when you might get deficiency in thyroid signaling.

Chris Kresser:  And I definitely see this, Chris, in my practice, and this is purely anecdotal, but I often get people who come to me who have been on a low-carb Paleo Diet, not for any particular reason, just because that was their understanding of the Paleo Diet, you know, as a low-carb approach.  And then they’re suffering from the classic hypothyroid symptoms:  Their hair is falling out, and their hands and feet are cold, outer third of the eyebrows thinning, you know, low metabolic symptoms.  And then they start eating some more starch and starchy tubers and fruit and increase their carbohydrate intake; and in almost all cases, their symptoms improve significantly.  The challenge clinically with that is the patient population who is on a low-carb diet because if they start to reintegrate carbohydrates, their blood sugars go up and they gain weight and they experience all of the metabolic issues that can be associated with that if they have metabolic syndrome, so it’s a little more challenging in those folks to just add the carbohydrates back unless you address the other mechanisms that are causing carbohydrate intolerance, whether they be metabolic issues or gut issues.  You know, some people with small bowel bacterial overgrowth can’t really tolerate a lot of carbohydrate.  So, it gets a little more complicated, of course, but I think that, at least in my experience, the phenomenon that you’re describing with low-carb diet contributing to hypothyroid and increasing carbohydrate intake improving thyroid function is definitely real.
Source: http://chriskresser.com/chris-masterjoh ... ase-part-3

Eating low carb is a wonderful way to stay healthy. But, just make sure you read about how to keep your thyroid healthy. It's way more complicated than you might imagine — including mastering ideal carb and iodine intake (not too much, not too little).

Here's a great post on nutritional deficiencies that can develop with low carb diets...

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/5-common ... bout-them/

[Tortoise]

My guess is that the best approach is to find some sort of exersize or sport that you enjoy enough that you have to exert discipline not to do it. I get the impression that exersize can make the body thrive on a wide range of diets. Time spent reading about nutrition perhaps would be uneeded if that time was instead spent surfing or running or mountain biking or playing football or whatever???

You have a good point. It's true that if you exercise enough, your body will find a way to burn almost any food for fuel. But, that's sort of like dumping the wrong octane fuel in your car and driving it into the ground — there are better ways to optimize fuel and energy.

Certainly regular exercise is very important for health, but from my own personal experience and some studies I've read about, it seems that focusing primarily on exercise to lose weight is far less efficient than adjusting one's diet (or a combination of diet and exercise).

There are two main reasons I say that. First, to burn something like 500 calories you can spend, say, an hour doing cardio exercise--or you can spend 5 seconds deciding simply not to eat that candy bar or handful of potato chips. Second, while exercise does burn calories, it also increases your appetite and thereby often causes you to eat more than you otherwise would. Have you ever come home after an intense workout and felt like you could practically eat a horse? Then you know what I'm talking about.

I have a friend who used to run marathons and train for them all the time. But surprisingly, she wasn't all that lean. In fact, she was slightly pudgy. Because she ate what she wanted, especially sugary and carb-rich foods. Evidently the thousands of calories she burned running for hours and hours each week weren't enough to keep the fat off. And I had a similar experience a couple of years ago. I decided to try eating whatever junk food I wanted and that I would exercise vigorously 5 or 6 days a week (combination of cardio and weight lifting) to keep my weight in check. Net result: I gradually got fatter.

This time around, I've kept my moderate exercise regimen the same and simply eliminated sugar, grains/starches, and processed junk from my diet. Net result: I'm losing weight faster than I ever have before.

[Gumby]

I have a friend who used to run marathons and train for them all the time. But surprisingly, she wasn't all that lean. In fact, she was slightly pudgy. Because she ate what she wanted, especially sugary and carb-rich foods. Evidently the thousands of calories she burned running for hours and hours each week weren't enough to keep the fat off. And I had a similar experience a couple of years ago. I decided to try eating whatever junk food I wanted and that I would exercise vigorously 5 or 6 days a week (combination of cardio and weight lifting) to keep my weight in check. Net result: I gradually got fatter.

This time around, I've kept my moderate exercise regimen the same and simply eliminated sugar, grains/starches, and processed junk from my diet. Net result: I'm losing weight faster than I ever have before.

Good point, Tortoise. I agree 100%. I wasn't very clear, but my point was that an elite athlete is technically able to burn any food or sugar into energy. My guess is that your friend did not finish in the top 10% or 5% of her age group. If she did, she'd be requiring a very high caloric intake. Anyone can run a marathon if they take long enough and really put their mind to it — but doing so doesn't make them an athlete. That may sound harsh, but what I'm trying to say is that technically elite athletes can often eat whatever they want to — in excessive quantities — and they may even have trouble gaining weight. They may even require lots of carbs. My guess is that your friend is not in that category.

However, I totally agree with you that the overwhelming majority of people would be better off just reducing carbs and sugar and just walking a few hours per week. That's way more realistic and as Triathlete Mark Sisson pointed out (see above) excessive exercise really isn't very healthy and tends to wear the body and immune system down over time. The workout regimen he recommends is actually pretty easy for the average person to follow. It's really just lots if walking/hiking and occasionally lifting something heavy. Sounds a lot like MT, actually

[Gumby]

The only fruits I can eat without reacting to are berries (except blueberries), apples, pears and kiwi fruit.  That should tell you everything about whats "safe".

Not sure I follow. I should use somebody else's unique reactions to various foods as a guide for what is/isn't safe for me?

He's just saying that he's overly sensitive to all the toxic phytates, lectins, oxalates, salicylates, phenols, glucosinolates, thiocyanates and cyanogenic glycosides found in fruits and vegetables. If you ate large quantities of any of these toxins, you too would react badly over time. MG just happens to react more easily than most of us.

MG, the more I listen to Kresser's podcasts, the more I think you probably have leaky gut, and possibly SIBO. If you listen to the following two podcasts, you'll see what I mean...

http://chriskresser.com/naturally-get-r ... g-your-gut

http://chriskresser.com/rhr-testing-for ... out-anemia

In the first podcast, Kresser outlines how Stokes and Pillsbury — over 100 years ago — hypothesized a connection between the gut, the skin and the brain and how bad gut flora allows toxins to permeate the gut lining and enter the bloodstream. For decades their work were forgotten until only the last ten years when recent scientific studies have begun to vindicate their work. Their hypothesis was about a century ahead of its time. Basically, all the toxins in your food are getting past the gut lining and wind up causing inflammation on your skin. A healthy gut would prevent the toxins from ever leaving your gut. The only way to fix the inflammation is to heal the gut.

The second podcast deals with how he tries to test for SIBO and leaky gut.

By the way, Kresser accepts patients remotely. You might want to contact him directly to set up a remote appointment. Your vast knowledge would likely make you an ideal remote patient. Something tells me you're going to get to the bottom of this eventually.

[MachineGhost]

Here's an example of the organic acids test that Kessler uses to check for small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO).  The patient appears to be HIV infected.  Apparantly, the test is also useful for customizing your supplement regime.

http://www.resistanceisfruitful.com/blo ... pdf?d9c344

And here's what looks to be the top of the line version:

http://www.metametrix.com/files/test-me ... ult-SR.pdf