When I first learned of Twitter, I thought it was the most idiotic thing I had ever heard of. My thinking was similar to that of the suits in the photo above. Who gives a flying flip about the fact that I’m at the gas station or grocery store, or, God forbid, that I’m headed to the golf course?
But after reading about it a little more, I realized the potential. Not for having all my friends know where I am or what I’m doing every second of the day, but for the transmission of information about other things. I read a lot, and I’m constantly coming across articles of interest. My first thought is almost always, I should blog about that. Then I realize that the piece really isn’t worthy of an entire long blog post.
When we first started the website, I figured I could get the info out by putting it in the News Headlines section of the front page, but I soon realized that almost no one was reading the news headlines I put up. How did I figure this out? By putting up a news headline about, say, a new study that came out, then having 15 commenters ask me if I had heard of this same new study.
The other problem I have with the news headlines (other than that no one reads them) is that I can’t comment on them. If I put up a poorly done study showing that high-carb diets make us all healthy, for example, the few people who read the news headlines might think I thought it was a valid study when in reality is was a POS.
So, Twitter to the rescue. I can post on the almost blogworthy articles and do it with a little (very little) commentary. Plus I can, if necessary, inform readers if I happen to be stuck somewhere traveling with no wi fi available while comments stack up. I can use my iPhone (more about which later) to do that. And maybe, just maybe, if I am out and having an extraordinary low-carb breakfast, I may find myself taking a picture of it and posting to Twitter. But don’t count on a lot of that. If I get another hole-in-one, you can be sure that I’ll be burning Twitter up with photos.
Speaking of my new iPhone, I’ve taken yet another step into the world of higher technology, but my foray hasn’t been without a few missteps. I got the iPhone for a number of reasons, but one of the chief ones was so I could monitor this blog and deal with comments while away from my computer. I tried doing it the first few times with disastrous consequences.
I tried going through the comments and approving them, but in the process of trying to enlarge them (which one does by spreading one’s fingers while touching the touch screen) so I could read them without my reading glasses, I managed to delete several at a time the first few times I did this. So, if you sent in a comment and it vanished (I know people get some kind of message when their comments are awaiting moderation, but I don’t know what message they get – if any – if their comment is deleted), that may be what happened. One comment in particular that I deleted has been causing me heartburn. A cardiologist wrote in questioning my take on statins and referring to an old simvastatin study to bolster his argument, and I inadvertently deleted the comment with my fumble fingers . If you read this, Doc, please resubmit. I don’t want you to think I was avoiding your question.
You can follow my musings on Twitter in a couple of ways. There is a little blue bird and the words ‘follow me on Twitter’ in the upper right part of the blog beneath the ‘about me’ and above the big sort of orange RSS feed subscription button. You can click there, and you will be taken to all my updates. Once there, you can also sign up to be notified whenever there is a new update. I imagine that most people reading this will know vastly more about this process than I, but for those who don’t, there it is.
So, have fun with it. But be forewared, I probably won’t be able to keep from indulging myself in a political update or two here and there. The field is simply too rich to be ignored right now. Please bear in mine that I come to politics from a libertarian perspective, and that I pretty much loathe all politicians of all stripes.
Oh, and I haven’t yet succumbed to Facebook, but as the fact that I’m now on Twitter attests, I’ll never say never.
The official website of Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades, low carb pioneers and authors of Protein Power.
But we can’t comment on what you say on Twitter can we Dr Eades ? Regarding Darwin’s ‘Origin of the Species’, I am currently reading Richard Dawkin’s ‘The Ancestor’s Tale’ 🙂
Anne
Thank goodness Twitter has an RSS feed 😉 I’m with Anne, it’s unfortunate we can’t comment on Twitter, but I thought you might like to see this horrifying diatribe by the founder of the Vegan pet food company, Eric Weisman (Evolution Diet Pet Food Corp.)
http://www.weismannutrition.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=browse&id=189435&pageid=31
Egad! What a nauseoma. Perhaps he should consider euthanasia.
Congratulations on joining the world of Twitter. Look forward to your first tweets.
I think you may have deleted my comment w/regards to the studies I sent you. The comment is still showing awaiting moderation. Let me know how I correct it. Thanks.
It’s still there. I just haven’t pulled the papers yet.
Two things.
1. Welcome to Twitter!
2. For your iPhone, Wordpress has a free app for the iPhone which really makes managing a Wordpress blog a breeze on the go. Here is the link (which opens in iTunes) http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=285073074&mt=8
Also, pickup a good Twitter app for the iPhone. It’ll make checking and replying to tweets a lot more enjoyable. The current king of the hill is Tweetie (which also just game out with a great app for your Mac) and Twitterrific is also great (and they too have a great Mac app). If you ever need any help, feel free to ask. I used to work for Apple as a certified trainer and I never get tired of talking or teaching Apple.
Ok, so maybe more than TWO things, but I think its all valuable info!
Thanks for the info. I appreciate it. I may come calling if and when I need help.
I certainly did get a message when my post was “accidentally” deleted. It was from a very apologetic fellow calling himself Dr. Mike.
So naturally I did what I do with all unsolicited emailers, I googled “penis enlargement” and signed up his email address on every form I could find. That’ll teach him not to delete messages.
So that’s why I’m getting all those ads. I was able to contact you because I read your comment and knew you had commented before. When I tried to approve I accidentally hit ‘delete.’ But since I knew who you were, I looked up another comment you had written, got your email, and emailed you.
Some of the ones I deleted on my iPhone, I wasn’t even able to read before they were gone, so I have no idea who sent them.
very timely post, as I had also come across twitter quite often lately and always decided against signing up, due to the same reasoning that you mention at the beginning of this entry… but if even you say it’s worth a look… that’s a pretty good reason right there. I hope you and mark sisson make it worth my time .)
I can’t speak for Mark, but I’ll do my best.
Only one comment so far? I guess everyone’s gone over to twitter…
There are a few. I was out and just got back and got them posted.
Hooray! Twitter is an excellent way to share links of interest, to find quick answers to minor questions, and to receive support for bucking the social pressure to live grain-a-holic life. It’s also a great way to procrastinate, if needed. 🙂
Folks here might be interested to know about the other low-carb / paleo twitters, including but not limited to…
http://twitter.com/Mark_Sisson
http://twitter.com/rnikoley
http://twitter.com/skustes
I follow about a dozen more, but I’m too lazy to find them all. Perhaps other tweeters can post their favorites.
For what it’s worth, I’m at:
http://twitter.com/DianaHsieh
I’ve had my iPhone for two months and love it almost carnally. Maybe in jaded Cali it doesn’t get a second glance, but here in Virginia it’s rare that I take it out in public and someone doesn’t take interest in it. Enjoy!
Dr. Eades, I would like to challenge you to see if you have an open mind. Other people in the low-carb world don’t. I have made a breakthrough in my health about two months ago and so have a number of other people who I regularly talk with. We have done this by eating what we call the “High-Everything-DIet” (HED). You can read about my experience on Matt Stone’s blog, 180 Degree Health. And here is the website for discussing the diet. We currently have 581 members and are extremely active (300+ posts a week).
http://180degreehealth.blogspot.com/2009/03/hamburglars-metabolism.html
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/High-Everything-Diet/
Before you dismiss the idea, it’s not a license to eat junk foods, but rather a diet where the refined sugar, PUFA oils, and trans fats are eliminated, and people are free to eat unlimited meat, butter, eggs, coconut oil, macadamia oil, fruit, 100% fruit juice, honey, grains, maple syrup, whole grains, refined grains, beans, potatoes, milk, cream, cheese, etc. Initially, the emphasis is on starch – not sugars. But many people seem to do better eating natural sugar along with the starch. In short, it is high-carb, high-fat, high-calorie, high-starch, high-sugar (unrefined – if tolerated), and protein adequate. I believe that 0.5-1.0g of protein per kg is adequte, because the HED spares protein (due to being high-fat, high-carb, high-calories). But 10-20% protein seems reasonable based on primitive diets.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/12/myth-of-high-protein-diet.html
Here’s the kicker. In addition to eating all you eating, you occasionally eat MUCH MORE than you more than you want, with one or two high-calorie feast days or cheat days a week. On these days, you are free to eat refined sugar in the form of cheesecake, tiramisu, Danish butter cookies, high-cream ice cream, premium chocolate, cream pies, macaroons, pancakes with lots of butter and maple syrup, etc. In short, you can have your cake and eat it too.
I lost 11 pounds in 3 weeks by eating like this, my digestion improved 100-fold, and I found my self able to eat any combination of foods without bloating or indigestion or other problems. I achieved a stunning improvement in my health in every way. Many other people on Matt’s blog and my forum have achieved similar improvements. One person had chemical sensitivites and they vanished. He can sit in a room full of perfume and cigar smoke without a reaction, simply by eating the HED (he ate lots of whole milk, orange juice, and sourdough bagels).
Many people are not open to this information. I have tried to present this information on a few other blogs (like The Healthy Skeptic) and my posts were rejected. So I want to see if you will accept the challenge to explain my results and tell me how I’m damagin gmy health, when it has improved in every objective way. I need less sleep. I have more energy. I have a good sex drive. My mood is stable. I’m not hungry. I have no food cravings. I feel a hundred times better than I ever felt on a low-carb diet. And I’m not the only one.
Read this to get a better idea of the diet that I am describing. I will be posting this comment on my group and Matt’s blog so that everyone knows about it and you can’t hide from it. You are free to respond or not respond. But the cat is out of the bag. Many people are improving their health by eating high-everything. I never would have believed this in the past, because I used to believe (like you) that high-everything is the worst diet possible. But I think you have confused high-everything with SAD. I believe that high-everything is healthy when you exclude refined sugar (except sporadically) and processed vegetable oils (pref entirely).
http://d.yimg.com/kq/groups/10655729/656391700/name/High-Everything-Diet.html
Thanks,
Bruce
I do have an open mind, but it’s not so open that my brains fall out. If you have had success on this regimen, I am happy for you, and I hope it continues. I know in my own case that if I added pancakes, bagels, syrup and the other foods you include in your diet, I would gain weight rapidly. I know because I have done it. I scrupulously avoid trans fats, PUFA and fructose in my own diet, and even when I go off the reservation and abandon my diet, I still avoid trans fats, PUFA and fructose. I eat bagels, fruit out the yang, and carrot cake, and when I do this, I gain weight like crazy. So, I’m happy it works for you, but I don’t think it will work for many of those who are insulin resistant or have that tendency, as most overweight people do. If I were you, I would check my blood sugar and urine, just to make sure. If these are normal, go with God and eat all you want.
You must be freeing up a gazillion tabs right now. 😉
I am indeed. But more are added every day. 🙂
is it just me? When I click on any of your the posted links on your Twitter I get a blank page.
I rechecked them all, and they work for me. Anyone else having a problem? I’m not skilled at this, so I want to make sure I’m doing it correctly.
Facebook!! Please! It’s a wonderful forum for linking, Jimmy Moore does a wonderful job this way. We who don’t have Twitter would greatly appreciate it!!! Keep up the good work!
You can always check the Twitter stuff out by going to the front page of my blog and clicking on ‘Follow me on Twitter’ in the upper right. You won’t get the Tweets (God, I hate that term) as I put them up, but you can get them any time you check the blog. For now, I’m leaving Facebook for a later date.
The HED will reverse insulin resistance. See the book, The Potbelly Syndrome, read the other material, Broda Barnes, and so forth. Connect the dots. You gain weight because you have a damaged metabolism. You need to heal. You will never do so by dieting. Weight gain can be minimized with the strategies employed and people will stabilize and begin losing. Two women have done the diet and they gained 7-10 pounds and stabilized within a month. I predict they will begin losing if they stick with the HED and avoid diet gurus and their advice.
Thank you for publishing my comments. I was afraid you wouldn’t. But you need to really pore over Matt’s two blog posts and the HED rules and the testimonies on Matt’s blog and by other people on my group. Then get back to me with your thoughts. I’ll be looking forward.
Diets are the worst thing ever inflicted upon humanity. People are slaves to diets, they hide from their problems and cover them up rather than attacking them and facing them head-on. Matt Stone ate zero-carb for a month and lost a few pounds. Then he switched to a diet of white rice, orange juice, and carrot juice – very little fat – and continued to lose weight. He currently eats about 200g of carbs a day and unlimited fat and remains lean with a body fat around 10% probably. That is what a healthy metabolism can do. Don’t you want that for your readers and yourself? You should want to be able to eat normally and not gain weight, not to live in a dietary prison for the rest of your life. That’s no fun at all. It’s bad for your health & it’s bad for your mind. Heal by saying good riddance to diet dogma.
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/High-Everything-Diet/
http://d.yimg.com/kq/groups/10655729/656391700/name/High-Everything-Diet.html
http://180degreehealth.blogspot.com/2009/03/hamburglars-metabolism.html
http://180degreehealth.blogspot.com/2009/04/plower-vs-force-revisited.html
I read the Potbelly Syndrome years ago, and I’ve spoken at multiple meetings put on by the Broda Barnes Foundation, so I’m familiar with both. But I don’t recall anything about the HED in either of these. The Potbelly Syndrome was about an infectious cause of potbellies and Dr. Barnes focused primarily on the diagnosis and treatment of subclinical hypothyroidism.
75 years ago there were few trans fats in the diet, no HFCS, and very few PUFA, yet 25-30 percent of the adult population of the United States was overweight, a statistic that held pretty steady until the late 1970s/early 1980s when the seeds of the current obesity epidemic were sown. This 25-30 percent figure occurred in people who were following the HED available at the time, which is pretty much the same as the HED you’re advocating. According to work by Gerald Reavan and others, about 25-30 percent of people appear to be carbohydrate intolerance in the sense that too many carbs in these people tend to produce an overproduction of insulin and insulin resistance, which tend to progress into the full-blown metabolic syndrome in many of these people. I suspect that the 25-30 percent of adults who were overweight 75 years ago were these same folks who were obese on the HED. If you look at old newspapers and magazines from that time, you will see that there were as many advertisements for diet aids then, if not more, than there are now. I’m sure that will inspire you to say that this shows that diets cause obesity, but I can tell you, people don’t go on weight loss diets unless they first become overweight.
I’ve been on hundreds of radio and TV interviews, and in just about each interview, I seem to be asked ‘Is your diet for everyone?’ I always give the same answer: If you are slim and healthy and all your bloodwork, blood pressure, etc. are fine, then keep on doing what you’re doing. If, on the other hand, your overweight, unhealthy, have high blood pressure, etc., then maybe you should give low-carb dieting a look. I can say the same thing to you. If you’re doing great on the HED, I’m glad to hear it. And I hope your success continues. But I don’t think it’s for everyone. And I certainly don’t think it’s for me.
Dr. Eades, did you actually experimented with the ¨High-everything¨ approach for a reasonable amount of time? Of course that if you are coming from a restricted-carb diet and you eat bagels all in one shot, you will feel like crap. But if you do it gradually, the results are incredible. By following mainly the high-everything way of eating, I have achieved a level of health and general well-being that I never had before.
A low carb diet ameliorates symptoms of carbohydrate intolerance, but that´s clearly not a cure. The problem with a high-carb diet are not the carbs; many improve their health when switching from a high-carb diet to a low-carb diet because they were eating too little fat (and usually of the wrong kind). A healthy person should be able to thrive on a diet with plenty of natural starches and sugars, as long as it is not too low in saturated fat.
Re: Deborah’s complaint with the links– All your links have worked fine for me. No problems whatsoever.
Dr. Mike, you’ve not mentioned Jeff Volek’s book (The TNT Diet) in awhile– I think it was in the comments section back in 2007 where I saw you talk about it. You were a bit unsure of the whole carb “reloading” idea back then, and I wonder if you’ve developed an opinion one way or the other on the role that Volek assigns to carbs for reloading purposes. I noticed that the same year (within a few months) that The TNT Diet book came out, a study in the AJP-Endocrinology & Metabolism came out saying that protein + carbs were no better for protein synthesis than protein alone (can look at the full text of the study here: http://ajpendo.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/293/3/E833 ). It makes me cautious about Volek’s “reloading” recommendations, and I wonder if he would have written his book differently in light of that new study. What do you think?
I’m not sure I would rely on just one study to refute a lot of other research. Jeff Volek is one of the finest researchers and scientists working today, so I’m sure he’s aware of this study. I don’t recall that his book recommended carb reloading as much as he simply wrote that if you’re going to do it, right after a workout would be the best time.
Hello all: I would like your opinion on if it’s ok to eat 10 to 11 ounces of baked-chicken for dinner, with some green-vegetables? or is it better to eat less chicken and more carbohydrates for weight loss? Because I have 2 options for my dinner:
OPTION 1:
A vanilla whey protein shake of 2 scoops of whey protein and 1 cup of low-fat milk: 300 calories
26 ounces of apples: 382 calories
http://www.dietandfitnesstoday.com/calories-nutrition-facts.php?amount=26&units=1&id=09003
TOTAL CALORIES OF DINNER OPTION # 1: 682 CALORIES
OPTION 2 DINNER:
10 ounces of roasted, baked cooked chicken: 676.4 calories
Cooked green vegetables: 124 calories
http://www.dietandfitnesstoday.com/calories-nutrition-facts.php?amount=10&units=1&id=05055
TOTAL CALORIES FOR DINNER 2: 800 calories
HOWEVER: DINNER 2 HAS LESS CARBOHYDRATES !!
I vote for more chicken, fewer carbs.
Hi Doc,
In a Tweetie-pie of yours, you mention the Cassini images. Even better is the cannonical site wherein are every image, both raw and processed from Cassini. Follow the image diary for hours of fun. It’s truly staggering.
On the front page is the link to the full res version of the images shown in the newspaper article you link to.
But there’s other simply gobsmacking stuff, including detailed maps of most of the moons, and all the images from the Huygens probe.
http://ciclops.org/index.php?js=1
Cheers, Michael Richards
Fabulous site! Thanks for sending. It’s already cost me a couple of hours of productivity. 🙂
on the blank page issue…it was my computer (sigh)–got it solved, thanks…
Too much good stuff to miss out on!!!!!
On this mornings diet news posted on my diet program, I read this Reuters review on a new study that claimed low carb helped weight loss but low fat best in long run for heart health. Have you seen it? I thought the abstract a bit strange but it was published in the Dietetic Review or some such.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_83321.html
I don’t see how they could make such claims after only one month and I also could not see how the conclusions were related to the data or the data presented in this abstract (poverty stricken at best).
Perhaps a comment on Twitter? And I do read your news. Didn’t know who it was that decided what to put up. Thanks for letting me know.
This is the same study I posted on a couple of years ago that was presented then as a poster. As I pointed out at the time, it is really a lousy study. I figured it probably would never get into print, but it finally made it into the most rinky dink of all the nutrition journals. You can read everything you need to know about it in my old post.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Twitter, Dr. Mike! I too thought it was the most idiotic thing until the light bulb went on in my head and I sensed the same thing you did–it’s another outlet for spreading the word. Facebook is similar and gives you the potential to reach millions more with your message. You should seriously consider it and starting a Protein Power fan page…I wouldn’t be surprised to see you reach thousands, even tens of thousands more who had never heard of you and MD before if you did. Consider it.
As for the iPhone, I consider it the single biggest and best investment in my blog business. I like to keep up with comments while I’m away, too, and thank God I’ve never actually deleted anyone’s comments unwittingly. 🙂 KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK! I look forward to having you guys come with us on the March 2010 Low-Carb Cruise to the Bahamas.
We look forward to it as well. It may be a while before I’m on Facebook. I can’t deal with too many pieces of new technology all at once.
Doc,
I’m calling you out. I subsist purely on fried chicken soaked in maple syrup and have lost 189 pounds in 8 weeks, and I am the healthiest man ever. period. Do you have the guts to analyze my diet and explain my amazingness?
—
Ok sorry . . . I couldn’t resist in light of the High Everything Diet Comment. I’m sure that there are plenty of people who are 10-15 pounds overweight, who could be healthier if all they changed was to drop some sugar and processed vegetable oils. It sounds a little better than the SAD. That being said, I found the tone of the comment hilarious and refreshing. It was like you are “the man” that must fought if people are to stop being opressed by the low-carb diet.
Well just to be clear, I feel liberated by my paleo, low carb diet. I watch people around me at work constantly snacking, feeling like crap when they don’t eat exactly every 2.5 hours, wanting to pass out after every meal, and gaining weight. Their lives are controlled by food. I rarely if ever feel the need to snack. If I have to miss a meal I take in stride (thanks to occasionally IF’ing). I usually eat whenever I’m hungry, and always eat till I’m full. Everything I eat is fresh, delicious, and satisfying! And when the situation calls for it, I can cheat on the weekend with pizza and beer (at the price of a carb hangover the next day), and I don’t beat myself up about it.
In about a year of doing this, I’ve lost around 35 pounds (I’m 6’0″, 24 yrs old) and i’m grateful I figured things out before I was 35 and had gained another 30-50 pounds. Like the HED people (allegedly), I too feel great, get sick less, have better digestion, sleep soundly, and have none of the other symptoms of the SAD that plagued me throughout college. So thanks for all your efforts and your great blog. I routinely come here for ammo to be used on the nutritional battlefield ;-). Your post on the study of the two native american populations was excellent!
Thanks. I’m glad you enjoyed the post. I put the entire study up on Scribd if you want to read the original.
Dr Eades, this is completely off topic but I wanted you to know.
Three years ago I was diagnosed with osteopenia in my hip from a dexa scan.
I changed a couple of things with my diet. I upped my protein and fats, and then I started taking 5000 units of Vitamin D3 daily. I also quit most carbs especially wheat and wheat gluten. I am generally under 5 grams per day but that has happened only in the past 5 months or so. Before that I was at 20-30 grams per day.
A couple of weeks ago I had another dexa scan and there is no evidence of osteopenia in my hip. Gone, zip, nada.
When the nurse from the doctor’s office called she asked me if I had been taking Fosomax. I reminded her that I would never take that stuff.
I also don’t take calcium with my D3 since my blood work has always shown adequate calcium levels. I do eat a lot of fatty meats though.
I am thinking that increasing the protein and fats (animal fats only), losing the carbs, and taking the Vitamin D3, worked together to increase bone mass.
We cannot give the credit to exercise since I don’t exercise regularly. I am 62.
It’s all good. 🙂
Thanks for the update.
This is a bit off topic, I admit, but I wonder what your take is on the Pig Flu outbreak. When I read news articles about the scare, very few questions are answered. What is the process for confirming that someone has this flu? Are they just guessing that when someone dies with flulike symptom that it must be this particular deadly disease? Also, I haven’t seen any information about how that has affected pigs. Are they dying, as well?
My initial reaction is that there is an overreaction here, based upon incomplete media reports and my general distrust for scientist, but I’m not sure what to believe.
Indeed there is an overreaction. At least in my opinion. I posted on this subject yesterday.
Just for the record, I read the news headlines you put up and go to the article if it is of interest to me. Please keep it up.
I don’t get a blank page, as Deborah did, but I did get a number of “login, please” or “subscription required” pages.
An example is this Tweet: Or it could mean that these women bumped their iodine levels. Seaweed is a great source of iodine. http://tinyurl.com/c2mz9c
When I click the link I get a form that requests my name and institutional ID number. I have the former, but not the latter. 😉 –Anne
Sorry. Since I subscribe to a lot of these journals, I get full access. And I forget to go to the public site to make my link.
Here is the site you’re looking for. It requires neither your name nor your institutional ID number.
I’m so happy you have joined Twitter and I have really enjoyed the articles you have posted so far.
I have a question about the article that you mention Iodine intake.
How much Iodine should the average person be getting a day.
Thanks!!!
Most people in this country eating a standard diet (even a low-carb diet) probably need a little extra iodine. I take one Iodoral 12.5 mg tab per day, which does me nicely.
Bryce: “I’m sure that there are plenty of people who are 10-15 pounds overweight, who could be healthier if all they changed was to drop some sugar and processed vegetable oils.”
I wasn’t eating any refined sugar or preocessed vegetable oils before. I lost weight by eating more carbs and more calories and doing less exercise, because dieting doesn’t work. It’s just damaging your body and your metabolism. Diets are a curse on humankind.
Bryce: “It sounds a little better than the SAD. ”
It’s the complete polar opposite of SAD. It’s high in the good things and low in the bad things (like sugar and processed vegetable oils). It’s nothing like SAD. The only thing you should eat in fast food restaurants is the meat and cheese and bread. Avoid soft drinks (including diet), avpoid fried food (unless fried in beef fat or lard maybe), avoid ketchup and mayonnaise and other condiments full of sugar, avoid milk-shakes and desserts. How is that anything like SAD, except that you can occasionally eat foods with sugar (but no processed vegetable oisl)?
“That being said, I found the tone of the comment hilarious and refreshing. It was like you are “the man” that must fought if people are to stop being opressed by the low-carb diet.”
People are being oppressed by low-carb diets. All diets are oppressive. Eating everything is the most sustainable and healthy diet. Read more and you will learn that. You are going to hear more about this “anti-diet” in the future. Diets deprive you of health. They damage the metabolism and never fix anything, they just cover up problems. Get healthier by giving up the diet mentality and eating High-Everything (except sugar and PUFA oils and hydrogenated oils filled with trans fat). You’re avoiding the wrong things.
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/High-Everything-Diet/
People are being oppressed by low-carb diets?!?!?1! Now I’ve heard everything. I’m sure we’ll hear about it more in the future. Sounds like someone is angling for a book contract.
Dr Mike, I have recently switched over to the low carb lifestyle and had been doing fine until one day I simply fell off and binged on a lot of cake and ice cream. I did go back on low card the very next day. Since that, about 7 days now I excluded almost all carbs and lost 7 pounds. But this past Saturday I ended un in ER. I went walking around the golf park and suddenly developed extreame case of tachycardia and arryhtmia. I felt needle like pain all over my body and very bad case of fatigue. I sat down but felt like passing out. In ER they gave me 20 mg of Metaprotol and I felt much better. But the doctor told me I had lots of ketones in my body and it was probably the cause of my unwellness, even though the rest of blood test was fine and no sign of dehydration. I have been feeling weak and very fatigued all week. I cant even do much walking as my heart starts racing and I ad been experiencing burping constanly, loss of appetite completely and stomack bloating all the time.
Have you heard of induction causing such symptoms as extreame fatigue and palpitation? How long should I wait before adding more carbs to see if I need to get out of ketosis to avoid that much shock to my body?
Yours is obviously not a standard induction problem. I would increase the carbs a little and maybe gradually work into the diet instead of going whole hog at once. And once you start, you probably should avoid binging on cake and ice cream.
Basically my question is can a relatively fast weight loss on a low carb diet disbalance the homeostasis and cause various symptoms? Especially in people with undelying propensity for anxiety syndrome? Since beta-blocker helped me a lot, and given that beta-blocker of non-selective origin stops adrenalin receptors on the heart and blood vessels. would it be safe to assume that adrenalin caused heavoc on my body and was triggered by drastic weight loss or carb withdrawal? At least hypotetically speaking.
I suppose anything is possible, at least hypothetically speaking. If you go into heavy ketosis and fail to keep up with fluid intake, you can become dehydrated. If you become dehydrated, your heart beats faster to compensate. If you notice your heart beating faster and/or you feel lightheaded (another symptom of dehydration) and you have the propensity for anxiety attacks, I’m sure it could bring one on. I’m not sure this isn’t what happened.
Hi Dr. Eades,
I’m new to both this website and low-carb. I was almost-vegetarian for awhile and was feeling terrible – constant migraines, mental fog, dizzy spells, bad mood, etc. – I was afraid I had some terrible health problem, but finally I realized maybe it was the diet and decided to give this a try. 4 weeks so far, and I feel a million times better than I have in ages. No migraines at all. Interestingly enough, I never even had the low-energy adaptation stage (maybe because I’m already thin and don’t really have weight to lose??). It felt like I should have always been on it! Honestly, the hardest part is being bombarded by messages that I’m killing myself with the red meat, etc. (even though I was anemic before and craved red meat all the time, but never ate it for “health” reasons)
Did you see this article in the NY Times? “Paying a Price for Loving Red Meat”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/health/28brod.html?_r=1&ref=health
(Not sure if you already posted it on Twitter – for some reason I’m not seeing the bird icon on your home page)
Click here for my take on it.
Dr. Mike,
I wonder if you could comment on this study reported by Tara Parker Pope in the NYT today (Meat Intake and Mortality), which concludes that eating more meat results in higher mortality.
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/169/6/562?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=1&author1=sinha&andorexacttitle=and&andorexacttitleabs=and&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&fdate=3/1/2009&resourcetype=HWCIT
I don’t twitter but will continue to follow your writings here on your blog! Thanks again for all that you do.
-Michelle
I posted on this study a couple of weeks ago.
No worries. I figured you were busy, but wanted to make sure it wasn’t an accidental deletion or spam filter.
I do have a slightly shorter question. What are your thoughts on iodine and fluoride?
I’ll give you the back story.
I grew up on well water in Virginia and was never exposed to fluoride growing up until I moved to NYC at 18 (where I still reside). I was always chunky in VA (due to poor diet, lack of exercise), but was plain obese in NYC, but when I moved to Santa Barbara in 04 (which has voted down fluoride), I immediately tightened up (skin tightened up that is). Whereas in NYC I was always bloated and watery, skin kinda loose, in SB I was tight as a rock, and combined with my first low carb diet I finally got abs for the first time and kept them with practically no effort.
At the end of 05 I moved back to NYC for work, and immediately went back to watery, even though I was still low carbing it. The watery, bloatish quality came back in a few days. Around this time I started drinking a lot of tea and instant coffee (which is chock full of fluoride according to USDA), 6 months later I developed problems with my joints, I couldn’t hold down any food, and every time I stood up or put any pressure on my feet it felt like my bladder was going to explode. I had tests for everything they could throw at me, kidney stones, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis , etc.. everything came back negative. A sign that had escaped me and my doctors was during this time I came back my teeth started showing the first signs of overt fluoridosis.
So to make an already long story short, after 2 years of doing “okay” and immunologists testing me for allergies and enviromental triggers and coming back negative, I stumbled upon some info about fluoride. Started doing research and noticing besides the obvious fluoridosis on the teeth, a lot of the ailments matched up, and the timeline of when I was sick vs healthy matched up perfectly to when I was drinking/using fluoridated water and when I wasn’t.
I got rid of all avoidable sources of fluoride (Drinking water, toothpastes, tea/coffee) and start taking heavy amounts of iodine in the form of kelp tablets (based on the principle that they’re competing halogens). The difference the last month has been shocking. My weight has been going down as have the water weight/bloated look. It hasn’t been a miraculous overnight change, but it’s been a nice slow sustained weight loss and the bloats been going away and my body is slowly tightening up again in a way that seems more natural/plausible.
I’m curious as to what your thoughts my be on this. In particular the iodine vs. fluoride. I don’t recall you talking about these in PP except for iodine for hypothyroid/older adults.
Guess in hindsight maybe this wasn’t a shorter question 😉
Dr. Mike “Drudge” Eades,
I am enjoying the heck out of your Twitter posts! Lots of neat things to think about. I have to go to work every day, so I am very grateful you are surfing and posting.
I linked my Twitter and Facebook accounts, so that a normal post to Twitter is grabbed by Facebook as a post as well. Since Facebook has become more Twitter-like, it might not even be noticeable if I was very verbose, but I’m not. I have apps for both on my iPhone, as well.
It is possible to reply to Tweets, and Tweetie has the ability to show which Tweet was replied to, to follow a conversation backwards in time. I believe there are other apps which may be better at following conversations, but I’ve been happy enough with Tweetie so far.
Hope you’re enjoying the iPhone. The iPhone was the reason I switched to gmail, so I could have imap, have you had time to look into if imap would be a good fit for you? If you have any questions I can help with, let me know.
I contemplate IMAP almost every day, but haven’t had the gumption to try to set it up yet.
Thanks for the updated link on the iodine article. That one works. 🙂
Dr Mike, thanks for reminding me of your earlier post on the above study. I can see that the abstract I read has no more information in it than the abstract of the poster session you attended. I kind of figured as much. Although I have read all your posts, I am sorry I forgot that one but remembered it when I read it again. Thanks again for the link to the post.
I’ve probably done it before, but I’m gonna join the chorus for Facebook.
Hi Dr. Mike,
I wanted to alert you to an eye-opening post from my blogging buddy Monica at FA/RM.org on the role mass factory farming may have played in the swine flu epidemic.
http://www.fa-rm.org/blog/index.html
I’m a champion of a truly free market, not some environmentalist hippie socialist ragging on “big business”. But, what we have in US subsidized, government regulated, monopolistic factory farming is the opposite of a free market. Not to be dramatic, but it is, in fact, fascist (which is government regulation of private property–socialism is government ownership of all property–looks different but leads essentially to the same place).
I thought her excellent post might be of interest to you and your readers.
Thank you so much for all of your work!
Thanks for the heads up. Truly frightening.
Hello Dr. Mike. Well, I followed you over to Twitter and I must admit I am baffled.
At first I thought Twitter was hugely successful because of its appeal to egomaniacs, but in light of your tweats (?), I converted over to thinking it exists for information junkies and could be a great resource of interesting information. The fact that it seems to have been created for people to network and be social with one another boggles the mind even further because it is obviously ill-suited for conversation. Please help me understand… do you have any resources to help me learn how to use it effectively? Would welcome others comments also.
A funny, actually not so funny sidenote – within minutes of joining, I had several followers – one seemed pretty normal, one was obsessed with drugs and being “so high” and the other three looked like vampires. When I went to check one’s profile, a screen came up informing me that they had been booted out for misbehaving… mah-done.
I don’t really have any resources to speak of. I just took the plunge and figured it out, which didn’t take a lot of figuring. I did read (or at least skim) a book on how to expand a business with Twitter, but I couldn’t understand what the author was talking about most of the time. And I didn’t want to expand a business – I wanted to do exactly what I’m doing with it.
Dr. Mike,
Just a follow up to my earlier comment about Jeff Volek. I have to say that I totally agree with you. Dr. Volek is fantastic, and I’ve been known to spend hours on PubMed going over abstracts of his work. He’s a bright light shining in a very dark place.
After I posted my comment about that study, I found that Dr. Volek has indeed commented on it. He appears to think it has validity. Here is a link to his comments, if you’re interested: http://tinyurl.com/coejca
Being that I used to be an avid bodybuilder and have done the whole carb-reloading thing after exercise in the past, I’m going to experiment with “protein-only” post-workout and compare my results with what I used to get with the carbs + protein. Should be interesting. Since I eat low-carb every day, I’ll be keeping my workouts very short — 25 minutes tops — as my glycogen stores won’t last long. I’m determined to find the best way to incorporate low-carb into bodybuilding. Right now, the bodybuilding world is riddled with the whole “low-fat” message. Surely there’s a better way.
Thanks for the link. I hadn’t seen his comment on the study.
Public service announcement regarding HED:
http://www.freetheanimal.com/root/2009/04/hed-high-everything-diet-if-eating-garbage-is-your-problem-just-eat-more-of-it.html
Another angle on Smithfield and this swine flu madness:
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-chinese-agribiz-giant-eyes-smithfield-ta
Gotta admit, I did and still poke fun at Twitter and ‘Tweeting’ and all that, but the way you are using the resource is truly outstanding. I check it often.
This, however, although ostensibly a good thing, spooks me a little bit:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/22/twitter.locked.in/index.html
Based on posts by Bruce K on Stephan’s blog…
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/04/nutrition-and-infectious-disease.html
Jana:
“As far as I can see, the ‘high-everything’ diet also restricts a lot. Actually only sat fat, starches and calories are not limited. For example, Kwasniewski differs from this diet more or less only by not allowing too many starches (but they are also the preferred carbs in his diet).”
But other diets restrict one or more of those things (carbs, fats, calories). So the HED is unique and it’s not really a diet. It’s ANTI-diet or NON-diet. There is no reason to limit anything, like JK does. The body will heal much faster by eating High-Everything (carbs, fat, and calories) – with the exception of refined sugar, HFCS, artificial sweeteners, and junk fats (PUFAs and Trans Fats).
“May I ask, which foods have you been eating on this diet?”
I eat anything and everything with great digestion, energy, focus, and attitude. That’s the whole point of HED – getting to where you can eat everything (gluten, wheat, lactose, casein, potatoes, beans, fiber, fruit, 100% fruit juiice, honey, maple syrup, occasional sugar). You are not dieting by my definition of the word, which is to “avoid foods, restrict *ANY* macro-nutrients, or restrict calories.”
I can eat a dozen different foods at the same time and have perfect digestion, no bloating, calm stable energy, no fatigue or indigestion or anything. And I am NOT the only person eating HED who can – the HED has many followers who attained the health I have or discovered they already had it when they gave up dieting. People have improved their health rapidly and dramatically, eliminating allergies and chemical sensitivity, food intolerances, and other problems simply by eating the HED. And you will notice that the final rule of the diet says you should try to overcome the rules. That is what brings you to an entirely new level of health – the level where the rules fade, and you have even more freedom than the HED has given you from the start.
Also, Jana, sugars are not restricted if you can tolerate them. People are free to eat fruits, 100% fruit juice, grapefruit juice, orange juice, honey, maple syrup, and other natural sugars. The whole myth that fructose is damaging is bullshit. It only applies to people with a crappy slow metabolism caused by dieting (eliminating foods or restricting macro-nutrients or restricting calories by any deliberate or conscious means). The HED is not a diet. It’s a way to overcome dieting and get to the level of health where you can TRULY eat high-everything (high-fat, high sugar, high starch, high calories, and even some alcohol and other sugar and other things perhaps). Basically, the term diet doesn’t do it justice. It is a tool for overcoming diets.
Also, the HED is not a high meat or high protein diet. Protein should not be more than 20% of calories, preferably more in the neighborhood of 6-10% like the human milk contains or the Kitava Diet. I feel that the HED will spare protein strongly by several mechanisms (namely being high in carbs, fat, and calories).
The Myth of the High-Protein Diet
NutritionData – Milk, human, mature, fluid
In short, the HED is not a diet. It’s a way of overcoming diets and living your life free of dietary rules and dogma. I hope you will consider the ideas with a calm and open mind. Read the testimonies that have already been given on Matt’s blog and the HED website. Forget about stupid rat studies cited by people like Stephan and Peter. Rats can’t tell you how they feel. Go with your heart and mind and instincts.
The HED will bury all other diets.
Join us or watch us surpass your health by an increasing margin.
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/High-Everything-Diet/
Bruce
Okay. This is four or five comments on this subject. I’m sure most people who follow the comments have seen it by now, so I would rather you not use the comments section of this blog to troll for followers. You’re welcome to comment on anything and everything anytime, but I’m deleting any more comments proselytizing for the HED.
Anecdotal observations (so worth exactly what you paid for them) over many years of Diabetes groups is that a significant minority (if not more) were eating something akin to a High Everything Diet already. Yeah we must be in that 30% of carbohydrate intolerants because it didn’t work.
The one thing that can be said in its favour is that when we are placed on a Heart Healthy Low Fat High Carb diet this generally worsens our numbers and greatly speeds the diabetic progression in exactly the same way that a low carb diet doesn’t.
Now a vanishingly small number of diabetics actually do seem to make a low fat diet work, but they are well outnumbered by the rest of us. Proportions may be different in a non-carbohydrate-intolerant population, it’s plausible that a HED diet improves on the SAD but it is certainly non-optimal compared to something along the Protein Power/Primal balance
hi dr eades,
this isn’t about twitter (good for you….it takes me a very long time to accept new technology and i only recently bought my first ipod and dvd player so you’re light years ahead of me!) but i do have a question. i’ve been loving your blog and the low carb way but my body has taken a strange proportion. i’ve lost a good amount of weight and inches and am quite trim in my chest, belly and waist (ribs and clavical are clearly visible) but i still have way too much fat on my hips, thighs and upper arms…i’ve begun to look like a bosc pear. i do weight lifting and lotte berk routines at a ballet barre so i am building muscle but i’ve got this nasty fat that won’t budge. i eat meat/fish/poultry, vegetables, nuts/seeds, very small amounts of cheese, fruit and unsweetened greek yougurt. i’ve considered cutting out the fruit and yogurt but i seem to get very lightheaded and exhausted when i do. i’m 49 years old, 5′ 8″ tall and about 155 pounds…definitely in perimenopause but feel terrific and take no meds. any suggestions?
many thanks.
ida
Thank you, Dr. Eades. I had planned this to be my last comment on this thread. I’m sorry for posting it in an unrelated thread, but I just picked the first thread I saw. People can read all about this radical and subversive “anti-diet” on my website. I hoipe you consider the ideas and comment on them in the future. I have changed my life completely. My whole attitude on diet has changed, thanks to implementing these paradigm-shifting ideas. Cheers, Bruce
Oh!
P.S. What is your opinion on the swine flu epidemic, Dr. Eades?
Pretty mild. Pretty overblown.
for Vladim, and Dr. Eades:
“Richard Veech warned against ketosis in people with pre-existing heart conditions since the elevation of free fatty acids in blood affects “the transcription of uncoupling proteins,” which can induce cardiac abnormalities like unstable angina and cardiac arrhythmia.”
Found this on http://books.google.com/
Hunger: An Unnatural History
By Sharman Apt Russell
Published by Basic Books, 2005
ISBN 0465071635, 9780465071630
262 pages
That said, it’s kind of sketchy and who knows what the original context of the conversation was.
I have personally had some palpitations, PJCs (premature AV junction contractions), while on very low carbohydrate diets. I think it may be electrolyte imbalance, due to water loss. I find it virtually disappeared after sprinkling Morton’s Light Salt (a good source of potassium) on water, and on foods. These PJCs are benign, I found after having stress test at a cardiologist and a couple of ECGs. Additionally I had a CT Heartscan done (score: 0).
This is in regards to your tweet (ugg… I hate saying that as well) discussing poor/misleading study analysis conducted by university medical centers.
http://scienceblogs.com/bioephemera/2009/05/fake_journals_the_internet_and.php
If you don’t feel the journals are talking about your drug enough, well then just make your own journal!!! They DID do a great job on the name…
Yes, I’ve got this one on its own special tab awaiting a post. I didn’t figure a tweet (loathsome word, that) would get the full measure of my disgust across.
Never thought I’d say it, but I’m now on Tweeter!
This is one of those tools that can be used for great good…..or can be a tremendous waste of time!!! Looking forward to lots of good from you!
I hope I’m up to the task.
for Vladim, and Dr. Eades:
“Richard Veech warned against ketosis in people with pre-existing heart conditions since the elevation of free fatty acids in blood affects “the transcription of uncoupling proteins,” which can induce cardiac abnormalities like unstable angina and cardiac arrhythmia.”
Found this on http://books.google.com/
Hunger: An Unnatural History
By Sharman Apt Russell
Published by Basic Books, 2005
ISBN 0465071635, 9780465071630
262 pages
That said, it’s kind of sketchy and who knows what the original context of the conversation was.
I have personally had some palpitations, PJCs (premature AV junction contractions), while on very low carbohydrate diets. I think it may be electrolyte imbalance, due to water loss. I find it virtually disappeared after sprinkling Morton’s Light Salt (a good source of potassium) on water, and on foods. These PJCs are benign, I found after having stress test at a cardiologist and a couple of ECGs. Additionally I had a CT Heartscan done (score: 0).