Lex's Journal

[lex_rooker]

Hey Lex. That's an interesting titbit. Do you recall how it took to switch for different levels?

Josh,
It actually took many months, and after more than 4 years, changes are still going on as evidenced by my lab tests.  The changes are not as big, but there changes none the less.

As an example, the conventional wisdom is that we are fully keto-adpated (fully switched to a fat based metabolism) within 6 to 8 weeks.  Conventional wisdom also stated that urinary ketones will always be extremely high when eating a VLC or ZC diet and BG will be low.  What actually happened to me (and everyone else that I know that has stuck with VLC or ZC for 18 months or longer), is that physical performance starts to return and we begin to feel better after 6 to 12 weeks.  However, ketones remain (level 3-4) high showing that we are still discarding lots of fatty acids.  BG is low as many tissues still have not made the switch and are sweeping glucose from the bloodstream.  Weight loss will continue as the body sacrifices tissue (mostly fat but a small amount of muscle as well) in an effort to maintain BG at an acceptable level.  You will also probably have intense cravings for carbs.

After about 9 - 12 months weight loss will stabilize as more tissues convert to using fatty acids and the glucose produced from the protein eaten is enough to fulfill the body’s glucose needs.  Urinary ketones will begin to drop but will still be at moderate levels (2-3) as more fatty acids are used as fuel and less are discarded.  BG begins to fluctuate a bit more as the is an occasional excess so it no longer stays at the lower levels, but will rise slowly after meals into the upper normal range (around 100 – 110) and then slowly decline until it reaches its lowest level in the morning before your first meal of the day.  Your weight will have bottomed out (BMI may drop to 18 or even a bit lower) and will start to rise very slowly.  You will no longer crave carbs but if you eat them the cravings will return with a vengeance, and your body’s transition will be dramatically slowed or halted altogether.

In the 12 – 18 month range most of the body’s systems have fully converted to use fatty acids as their primary fuel so there will be few fatty acids to discard.  Urinary ketones will be present, but in trace amounts.  Ketones may rise to level ONE after a very fat laden meal but will be at Trace or below almost all the time.  BG will rise and stay in the upper “normal” range almost all the time.  Mine seldom varies more than a couple of points from 100 mg/dl no matter when it is measured.  Calories will start to count again and you will put on weight if you overeat significantly, but the weight gain will be much less than when consuming the same amount of energy in carbs. 

While all this is going on you will see continuing incremental changes in lab tests.  Triglycerides will improve dramatically, Cholesterol will drop if it is high or rise if it is low.  The ratio of HLD to LDL will improve from year to year.  BG will stabilize and become almost rock solid around 100, and will body weight stabilize as well.  Usually at a BMI around 21-22.  From a practical daily living point of view, you will find that your endurance for long moderate energy expenditures has increased dramatically (you can run at a moderate pace long distances), however, your ability to perform very intense work like maximum level weight lifting will have degraded.

This has been my experience and verified by dozens of others who have taken the VLC or ZC path and stuck with it for the long haul.

Lex

[lex_rooker]

Is there a wilderness area where white rice with soy sauce grows naturally? Perhaps there was some during the paleolithic era?  

Of course, it's very near the place where they harvest Twinkies and there is a natural spring of ice cold Diet Coke just off the side of the road.

[lex_rooker]

 
That´s interesting. What kind of evidence is this? Are there studies on this subject?

Lots of info on this.  Pub Med, Hyperlipid, PaNu, and a host of other sites and blogs.

 
BTW, Doen´t this imply that certain food combining rules make sense? 

No.  Classical food combining is about efficiency of digestion.  It has nothing to do with how the body handles glucose and fatty acids at the cellular level.

You seem to think that sugar is a kind of poison. Why? Is there any evidence that sugar is detrimental even in moderate quantities?

I suppose this depends on your definition of “moderate”.    And, yes, I’d say that the body handles excess Blood Glucose as a poison.  It does everything it can to lower it.  If it gets out of hand it will cause death.  This does not mean that we don’t require some BG, nor does it suggest that all consumption of carbs is bad.  Only that excess BG is detrimental to health.

And if it is not natural or at least not healthy to eat, for example, 100g sugar per day, then why is there sugar in mother´s milk? The sugar will cause the BG of the baby to "overshoot" and make it sick.

Amazing assumptions here.  There is a significant difference in the nutritional requirements and metabolism of an infant vs an adult.  Mother’s milk has moderate sugars and is high in fat. Both are necessary for rapid growth of an infant.  However, no other animal continues to consume mother’s milk after weaning which occurs at a rather early age.  There are sugars in the milk of carnivores (lion’s, cat’s, dog’s) and all other mammal’s milk.  However, after weaning it is no longer necessary, and probably detrimental – especially in the large quantities we consume today.  With the rapid growth and cell division going on in an infant, you would want to force huge amounts of energy into the cells as it would be rapidly consumed.  In an adult this is not the case.   

And where do you think did the paleolithic hunters and gatheres find so much animal fat? Wild animals are usually lean and if our ancestors had adapted to a diet consisting exclusively of animal food then we should be able to live on lean meat without a high proportion of fat.

The idea that I like best is that early man started out as a scavenger.  Lion’s & Tiger’s, & Bears (Oh My!), would make a kill, and eat most of the flesh along and other scavengers like dogs and vultures would pretty much pick the bones clean.  Then along came a human who picked up the bones and cranial cavity (head), took it back to camp and proceeded to use tools (rocks and sticks) to break open the bones and head to get at the food that the other animals couldn’t easily get too.  Brains and bone marrow are almost pure fat and very nutritious.  Is this theory correct?  Who knows, but the bones found at various sites seems to support the idea.  Remember that archeological digs show that humans were in very small bands widely scattered about.  The food model required to feed a small tribe or two is completely different than feeding 4 million people packed into the area of the city of Los Angeles.  We converted to agriculture for the vary reason that as our numbers grew, our normal food sources were not enough to sustain our growing population.  This does not mean that the newer food sources are optimal, as evidenced by high rates of degenerative diseases not related to bacteria or other pathogens.

All of the above not withstanding, I’ve never said that the path you have chosen is wrong – only that I believe your assumption that your body is keto-adapted and burning fat as its primary fuel is incorrect.  This is based on my personal experience and the experience of dozens of others that have taken the VLC/ZC path.  I’ve also never stated that the path I’ve chosen to follow is better than yours – only that I’m happy with the results I’m getting and for now, at least, have no plans to change direction.  I’ve also posted information about exactly what I do in great detail.  I openly post all my lab tests, and discuss the good and bad things that have happened to me along the way.  My hope is that others can use this information as guide posts for their journey as well as to help them make the decisions as to what direction to take or whether to embark on the journey at all.

If you are pleased with your results, by all means continue with what you are doing.  It’s what works for you that counts.  What I think is irrelevant. 

Lex

[alphagruis]

 Is it because fruits don’t belong to his dietary culture? How does he know that on the contrary, eggs, insects, meat and fish belong to cat’s dietary culture?

The answer is very simple: God, sorry instinct tells him 

[alphagruis]

Amazing assumptions here.  There is a significant difference in the nutritional requirements and metabolism of an infant vs an adult.  Mother’s milk has moderate sugars and is high in fat. Both are necessary for rapid growth of an infant.  However, no other animal continues to consume mother’s milk after weaning which occurs at a rather early age.  There are sugars in the milk of carnivores (lion’s, cat’s, dog’s) and all other mammal’s milk.  However, after weaning it is no longer necessary, and probably detrimental – especially in the large quantities we consume today.  With the rapid growth and cell division going on in an infant, you would want to force huge amounts of energy into the cells as it would be rapidly consumed.  In an adult this is not the case.    

It is indeed remarkable that this makes also sense from a biochemical point of view. Glucose seems indeed to be the best and prefered fuel for rapidly growing tissues or proliferating cells such as cancer cells or yeasts in wine fermentation. This is apparently related to the fact that anaerobic glycolysis only extracts a part of the available energy in glucose and thus ends up in a precursor of building materials for new cells. Rapidly growing tissue therefore needs a lot of glucose that ends up in building materials after only a very limited anaerobic degradation by fermentation rather than just energy after complete oxidation. Complete oxidation of glucose or fat would yield more energy but no such building materials since it ends up in carbon dioxide and water i.e. waste for animal cells. Fat cannot be fermented in this way and provide the relevant materials and  thus is a fuel that yields a lot of energy and is best in slow cell regeneration or replacement as in a non pregnant grown up active animal.    

[Josh]

Lex, thanks for the answer. Can I just check..when you say ketone levels 3-4 etc I think you mean the levels on the ketostix? I have 6 Levels:

Negative
Trace 0.5 mmmol/L
Slight 1.5
Medium 4
Strong 8
           16

So when you say levels 3-4 you mean 8-16 mmol/L etc. ?

Thanks a lot, Josh

[KD]

Since this type of thing seems to be dismissed or left out here, I'm glad you make alot of the disclaimers about transition. People seem to be so hung up with doing the opposite of 'CW' that they rarely criticize the 'CW' among the avant-garde paleos of the blogosphere and the instant euphoric promises of raw. I do have some questions however if you don't mind this current intelligent Q & A in your journal.

1.) if people are doing a low carb diet that includes high fats as you say but too many carbs to initiate fat burning, then wouldn't they be doubly screwed in performance and energy? Other than whatever advantage of their diet (raw, paleo, organic wild grass-fed etc... and staying away from obvious junk) wouldn't they generally feel fatigued if they were not getting enough glucose of a typical athletic person that burns glucose? People like Mark Sisson etc... claim to have high energy on diets that are neither raw or truly LC never mind VLC. I don't know too much about KGH, but from what I gather, even at '5%' carbs and with the amount of protein he must be above the 30 g range. I believe (hopefully I am correct) that alphagruis recommends getting the required brain glucose from the diet itself which is above this limit, so if one had this goal would it make less sense to eat fats and expect energy? I have heard of some competitive ultra-marathoners who are 'low-carb' but increase their carbs somewhat during races, but I am assuming there is still much less glucose than the carb loading sugar-gel crowd. It seems like you are saying there is no in between, or at the very least, everyone that is not strict VLC or ZC has likely never experienced keto-adaptation whatsoever. Is it possible that once one had gone from 4-18 months of never going above 30 g that they could be better adapted to larger amounts of carbs (not digestive wise, but just in this fuel process) or at least switch back to a default easier? If not wouldn't traditional hunter societies had a difficult time introducing carbs seasonally without massive energy shifts?

2.) I think what Paleo Donk was trying to convey was that since excess protein converts to glucose, wouldn't VLC'er and potentially some ZC'ers that were eating tons of muscle meat also get in ranges of glucose ( I guess not carbs technically) that are too high? I don't know exactly in numbers the conversions of protein to glucose. I'm assuming not 1:1 ?

3.) What do you mean by maximum level weight lifting, do you mean competitively? or compared to what it might be for the same individual on a diet that was not keto-adapted i.e. higher carb'ed? I guess to be clear, do you think a diet under 30g and say over 70% fat is adequate for building strength at say an amateur 'natural' level?

4.) I'm a bit confused by the time frames with weight loss etc...As there seems to be some folks here that don't have the same problem, wouldn't this have to do alot with tissue damage, whether the person was eating raw or cooked meats, their lifestyle etc..? I know you came from years of various raw diets, but were alot of others coming from a standard diet onto a cooked ZC or VLC diet? There are many here who claim to eat ZC or VLC and very little of this process is spoken about unfortunately. Would it be claimed that these people are just avoiding this inevitable breakdown if they are not experiencing it?

thanks

[King Salmon]

wow,so much good stuff here.Lex,are we keeping you busy enough?
One thing thing I've noticed from this forum and another ZC forum,is that, there doesn't seem to be a ton of "satisfied customers".Digestive issues,fatigue/energy issues,weight issues...etc are all over the place.On top of all that,there seems to be a ton of confusion as to what to eat and how much(reminds me of SAD dieters).It's interesting but a little sad as well.I mean,bears,lions,sharks aren't confused.I guess humans love to think,analyze and ponder themselves to death.

After all that,the ones who seem to be satisfied with positive results are doing completely different things:from mostly raw ZC(Lex),to mostly pemmican(Delfuego),to raw omnivore(Sully),to mostly cooked ZC(Charles).So,now what?

p.s. please excuse any inaccuracies,I'm simplifying to provide specific examples.Feel free to correct me.

[lex_rooker]

KD,
I wish I had all the answers but sadly I don’t and neither does anyone else.  Most of your concerns seem to be around athletic performance and since I never was an athlete I can’t really say.  I’m also a few months shy of my 60th birthday so peak performance is not something I’ve worried over for a long time.  I’m far more concerned with getting out of bed every morning and/or getting the trash cans to the curb on trash day without throwing my back out or otherwise injuring myself.

Q1: There is a big difference as to how the body responds to everyday energy demands and how it responds to maximal effort type activities.  I have no experience in this area so really can’t comment beyond my general observation that most people that I talk too say that if they convert to a fat based metabolism they increase endurance but sacrifice brute strength.  Though I’ve never been a weight lifter or especially strong, I can say that on my current diet I can easily run long distances even though I’m not a distance runner and don’t train, but flag rather quickly doing high intensity wind sprints.  Is there a middle ground?  Lyle McDonald seems to think so.  He champion’s a Cyclic Ketogenic Diet for athletes and feels that this provides the best of both worlds. I’ve read his work and it seems to make sense in context with my experience.  It’s just way to complex and adds nothing of value to the kind of lifestyle that I want, however, it may be just the ticket for you.  Just do a Google search on Lyle McDonald and you’ll find everything you need.

Q2:  Well I thought this way too, but found that there seems to be more to the problem than would first appear.  My experience has been that my BG hangs right at 100 no matter what I do.  My doctor was a bit concerned because BG seemed high, especially when not eating any carbs, but we reasoned out what we THINK is happening.  I eat about 100g protein and 225g fat per day.  This provides about 2,400 calories with 83% of calories from fat.  If 60% of the protein was being converted to glucose, this is still only 60 grams and yet my BG is always at 100.  I tried reducing fat and doubling the protein to see if BG would rise, yet BG stayed rock solid at 100.

Here’s what we think is going on.  My body uses fatty acids as its primary fuel.  Most tissues are rejecting glucose in favor of fatty acids.  There are a few tissues that need glucose but their demands are very small, and the conversion of protein as well as the conversion of the glycerol in the fat triglycerides in my diet provides far more glucose than my body needs.   Since most all this surplus glucose must be manufactured from non carb sources, there is no massive BG spike when I eat.  Instead, proteins and triglycerides are slowly broken down in the liver over several hours and the glucose created is gently and slowly released into the blood stream.  Since there is no large fast BG “spike” from carbs, my body responds to the slow rise in glucose by releasing insulin very slowly to just counteract the gentle rise – hence BG stays stable at the high end of the “normal” range.  With BG in the high range the body thinks there is plenty of food so it makes no effort to conserve energy.  This same effect causes people following a VLC/ZC diet protocol to appear to be diabetic or insulin resistant when given a glucose tolerance test because their pancreas is no longer primed to pump out huge amounts of insulin several times per day to deal with massive BG spikes.  If we start eating carbs again, the insulin response will return after about 3 days of high carb input.  Most of this information can be found on Peter’s Hyperlipid Blog.

Heavy carb eaters often have the opposite BG curve – their’s hovers at the lower end of the range.  Using the same reasoning as above, a carb eater consumes a meal high in carbs with a very large gylcemic index (rate that the carbs are converted to glucose) when compared to protein and glycerol conversion.  The glucose spike is large and rapid.  The body is not designed to efficiently respond to large rapid BG peaks as blood circulation takes time so the effect of insulin is not detected instantly.  This causes the body to overshoot the glucose spike with too much insulin and BG plummets.  If it goes too low then the body will start releasing glycogen stores and/or sacrificing tissue to be converted by into glucose to keep BG levels in a safe range.  BG will now stay at the lower end of the normal range as the body will only release glycogen or convert tissue as necessary to maintain a minimum level.  It doesn’t know what caused the low BG and will reserve energy stores in case food is scarce.  It’s job is to conserve energy and you’ve fooled it into thinking times are lean and you are starving. You will also most likely crave something sweet which the body has learned will get you to drink a sugar drink or eat a candy bar and, if you do, the whole yo-yo starts over.  BG spikes, insulin dumps and overshoots, BG rapidly falls, body reverses and starts releasing stores to keep BG up, and you crave something sweet.

Q3:  The issue is intensity vs endurance.  It seems that muscles do respond to glucose and fatty acids differently.  Glucose fueled cells seem to be able to provide greater intensity (lift heavier weights, wind sprints, etc) where fat fueled cells seem to be able to sustain moderately high energy output (running, moving moderate weights for long periods).  Phinney did a good bit of work on this as well as McDonald mentioned above.  I don’t lift weights or do any other exercise for the sake of exercise as I feel it is a waste of time.  I prefer to spend my time in my shop making and repairing things, so if you want to know how diet affects athletic performance you’ll have to go somewhere else.

Q4: Time frames will vary with the individual as well as what dietary protocol they choose to follow.  There are as many variables as there are individuals.  People will often say that they are doing something that they are not truly doing and that just makes more noise to filter from the data – not an easy task.  People may not knowingly lie to you, but they may lack experience or knowledge to the point where they believe something that is not necessarily true, and provide inaccurate information.

I’m by no means perfect and if you’ve read my journal you’ve found that more than once I’ve had to admit that some of my carefully reasoned ideas were total nonsense.  Today I think I’m doing much better than I have in the past.  Now I’m convinced that only half of what I say is totally wrong and the other half is just ordinary drivel.  This is a significant improvement as not long ago half of what I said was totally wrong and the other half was pure drivel.

Lex

[lex_rooker]

King Salmon,
I understand your frustration.  I’ll do my best to help give you some tools to evaluate some of the claims.

Lex (that’s me!) is doing raw ZC now and for a little over 4 years.  I have nothing against carbs and will eat the occasional hand full of cherries now and again as I do love them.  I’m not a purist and will eat cooked food when out on the town or with family on holiday gatherings.  When people ask me for suggestions I recommend that they eat mostly meat and fat and supplement with a small green salad and/or a piece of fruit every day as a snack.  I ate this way before going ZC and to be honest I see little difference in health benefits either way.  I’ve stuck with ZC in an effort to reverse my BPH, and though it hasn’t gotten worse, it hasn’t been magically cured over the last 4 years either.

Today I eat 100g of lean meat mixed with 225g of rendered fat every day.  That comes to about 2,400 calories 83% of which come from fat.

Delfuego and his family eat pemmican.  I believe he makes his as 35% dried lean meat and 65% fat.  The ratio of fat to lean is almost identical to what I eat as about 80% of his calories come from fat.  His actual intake of protein and total calories will depend on how much he eats, but his fat to lean ratio is almost identical to mine.  Pemmican is made with red meat that has been dried at a very low temperature so that for all intense and purposes it is raw – it’s just dry raw meat.  This means that for all practical purposes what Delfuego and I eat is pretty much identical.  I do add a bit of organ meats in the form of Slankers pet food to my mix, but then Delfuego was experimenting with drying organ meats and adding them to his pemmican as well.  Bottom line – our food is the same.

Sully is very young. He can eat anything and feel great.  In fact, probably the more carbs he consumes the better he feels assuming he’s still doing intense workouts.  Carbs seem to provide explosive power – especially in the young.  The young want bigger, stronger, faster and they evaluate everything they do (including diet) by this criteria.  Fats provide endurance which many young don’t have the patience for. Also, most active young people can eat just about anything and feel great.  When I was young I could eat just about anything, have lots of energy and was skinny as a rail.  However, as I aged I found that problems started to occur and that I didn’t feel my best when eating certain foods and I also started to put on weight.  On occasion I’ll pick up a diet book by a young MD author trying to make a name for himself.  His recommendations are often right in line with what I thought worked at his age as well.  I’ve learned to give a bit more weight to those who are a little more mature (polite speak for old).  We have to hit much closer to the mark to maintain good health.

Charles in charge.  Charles is relatively young and was leading a very poor lifestyle.  He made significant changes that had a profound effect on his life and health.  His changes are rather recent and his health has improved so dramatically that he feels he’s found the holy grail.  As he continues to age, he will discover that some of what appears to be working perfectly now, will not continue to work quite so well.  And, if he is as smart as I think he is, he’ll change and adapt just as I have been forced to do.  You see, just as Sully represents me when I was 20 something, Charles is just me a little further down the road.

I guess what I’m saying is that you need to look at the age of the person, as a young body can tolerate far more abuse than an old one and appear to thrive.  You also need to evaluate where they are on the path as some will put on ideological blinders and stop progressing as they can’t (or won’t) let go of some cherished belief (the died in the wool vegan, fer instance).  Others will just not want to keep putting in the effort, and still others will be blown about from one theory to the next like leaves in the wind hoping for the miracle that will never come.

I’m no more immune to these problems than the next guy.  I think I’ve fallen for every diet and lifestyle gambit there is.  So far I’ve lived to tell about it.  And, be aware that my counsel is probably just about worth what you’ve paid for it….   

Lex

[KD]

I try to follow those blogs and things you mentioned ( I know of Lyle's stuff, but I should investigate further), it just gets too complicated or time-heavy for me sometimes to keep up. I appreciate the digest version.

I can see that most of my comments seemed performance related but it was more to get ahold of the concepts of fat adaptation and so forth with a more 'outward' example. I can understand the language you are using but I couldn't pose a question that way.

It just seems to me that alot of people get benefit from being on LC (over 30 g for sure) approaches, - especially raw - and I was curious if you thought that benefit was mostly due to the leaving out of crap->increase of nutrients and/or the standard detox or healing nature of the food - and that at that point the carb level (over 30) didn't matter much. Based on what you had written it would seem that if someone was burning glucose as fuel and not fat, one would think it quite pointless to then eat so little carbs thus have much of the issues you mentioned with the carb curve but with low resources. They would be avoiding excessive sugar in the diet, but they wouldn't exactly be using the large quantities of fat consumed efficiently or apparently much at all. My point (I guess) was that if someone COULD perform on this type of LC diet, they must be getting some energy from the fats consumed even if they wern't fully ketogenic ? I do agree that performance really is a tough indicator of these complex internal things, as the body seems to have its own functioning (as in making do) mechanisms regardless of what we throw at it sometimes. I tend to tend to think the Sisson's and Co. - if not from  being 'young' - more or less comes from a life lacking health problems (for whatever reason - the lucky bastards).

Not being similarly lucky, after several bouts of raw and RAF, On VLC I have found my adaptation (if that is even the correct word yet) was slow (from what I had read in other sources as you mentioned) in that I felt like solid shit for 4 months strait (although I felt pretty bad before beginning the diet). Now it already seems like my energy and strength has shifted to being above average for at least 2 months strait. I would choose health over any kind of strength or movement, but I am hoping to still salvage all three. I've never been one to measure BG or other factors too closely even though I do get regular medical bloodwork for a variety of past concerns. I noticed 3-4 months ago my BG was around 106 (which I thought was bad for consuming almost no carbs) and my most recent this week was down to 94. I'm unaware of how long the overnight fasting period is supposed to last, but since my last meal was RAF as usual I guess it digests quickly and returns quite normal during the night sometime, although possibility if I had a full 12 hrs (got the labs at 7:30AM and have been eating late) it might have been even lower? just a hypothetical. I guess I could get some ketostix and get a better gauge on how I'm processing things, but similarly the way I feel and my medical tests seem sufficient right now.

I’m by no means perfect and if you’ve read my journal you’ve found that more than once I’ve had to admit that some of my carefully reasoned ideas were total nonsense.  Today I think I’m doing much better than I have in the past.  Now I’m convinced that only half of what I say is totally wrong and the other half is just ordinary drivel.  This is a significant improvement as not long ago half of what I said was totally wrong and the other half was pure drivel.

Haha, I seem to have the impulse to majorly disagree with alot of things in these forums lately so I tend to keep my mouth shut now, as can never really say for certain if my ideas are any less derivative of some other equally ridiculous concept of other origin...that and I specifically made sure I had no internet cable in my new apartment!

[King Salmon]

Thanks Lex,but one more thing.Delfuego said that he and his wife did ok on raw meat for a while and then had problems.So,they switched to seared meat,which was also ok for a while.Then had problems with that.Finally,when they switched to pemmican,the red sea parted.What's the deal with that? I mean,if you and delfuego are essentially eating the same thing,why such a big contrast in his 3 different results?

In other words,why does he find pemmican such an "improvement" over raw and/or seared/cooked?

[klowcarb]

Thanks Lex,but one more thing.Delfuego said that he and his wife did ok on raw meat for a while and then had problems.So,they switched to seared meat,which was also ok for a while.Then had problems with that.Finally,when they switched to pemmican,the red sea parted.What's the deal with that? I mean,if you and delfuego are essentially eating the same thing,why such a big contrast in his 3 different results?

In other words,why does he find pemmican such an "improvement" over raw and/or seared/cooked?

Why don't you ask Delfuego, KS? How is Lex supposed to know Delfuego's inner motivation?

Re: working out on ZC/VLC. Maybe it depends on your health background and your inner motivation. My strength in lifting has only continued to increase since I went ZC. I started lifting in 2004 and went ZC in March 2009, so it has been 1.5 years of ZC for me (raw and cooked meat and eggs). I gain strength progressively (not size however--I'm tiny by genetics). I don't do endurance as I don't think that is great for a lean, muscular body, but I do do high resistance SS cardio and I hike and snowshoe, which are anaerobic. I do most of my cario fasted and have great energy for it.

[klowcarb]

I had a rather quick adaptation to ZC. My only problem comes when I don't take in enough calories for my lifestyle. I use Fitday to make sure I get at least 1gm. protein per my body weight and extra for repair, and then the rest is fat. About 62-72% fat and rest protein.  I find on ZC that I don't need to work out as much to keep very defined and strong. At 29 I am in the best shape of my life due to ZC, strength-training, no chronic cardio and fasting.

[King Salmon]

K,I would, but I'm not ZC.Therefore, I don't qualify for membership at that site.I tried to post as a guest and the site wouldn't let me.Maybe there's a way to do it, but I couldn't figure it out.

[miles]

What site is this Delfuego guy on, ZIOH?

[TylerDurden]

What site is this Delfuego guy on, ZIOH?

Yes, ZIOH. Perhaps even dirtycarnivore as well?

I would be cautious re anything DelFuego says. In the past, he's made some very dubious claims.

As for the raw meats issue, many people such as myself have experienced minor, temporary detox issues after transitioning from cooked to raw. I , for example, experienced c.3 days of extremely frequent diarrhea when I first transitioned but it then went away, just as happens with other RVAFers. DelFuego obviously didn't stick to the raw-eating for long enough to ever detox properly, and I'm sure he was still eating cooked-meats while eating some of those raw meats, and that commonly leads to digestive issues, as cooked and raw require different types of digestive processes.

[Hanna]

Now from a pure scientific point of view, and I have fun with science , the calorie restriction experiments are of high interest.
    

Alpha,
Re calorie restriction: If someone lives in a colder climate, then he needs more calories than someone who lives  in a warmer climate. Right? (Although I don´t know HOW MUCH more calories one needs if one lives in a cold climate compared with a warm climate...) Does this mean that if someone wants to age as slowly as possible, then he should live in a warm or, even better, in a hot climate?

[King Salmon]

Tyler,that makes sense.For example,Charles seemed to have given up on raw when, as he says, "the squirts" didn't stop after the better part of a year.So,he switched to cooked.

In Delfuego's case,he prefers pemmican over raw and cooked.But,if he's made dubious claims,then I don't know.It's difficult enough to trust/believe some people on internet forums as it is.

I just don't see how someone can feed 4 people every day on pemmican.Camping or travelling,sure,no problem.I'm surprised he hasn't started a pemmican only forum.....oops,I better shut up....hehe

[alphagruis]

Alpha,
Re calorie restriction: If someone lives in a colder climate, then he needs more calories than someone who lives  in a warmer climate. Right? (Although I don´t know HOW MUCH more calories one needs if one lives in a cold climate compared with a warm climate...) Does this mean that if someone wants to age as slowly as possible, then he should live in a warm or, even better, in a hot climate?

Hanna, This is as yet a minor detail or effect, I don't know the answer and I guess nobody knows. Roy Walford, a scientist involved in these CR investigations, on the other hand also argued in his books that a lower temperature of the organism's environment might a priori have positive effects on longevity or health.

It is essential to realise that the aim of CR is not to eat the absolute minimum possible of calories but rather to undergo a progressive training of the organism that eventually makes him to function properly with substantially less calories than conventional ordinary ad libitum eating people are expected to need from conventional wisdom. In other words it is a dietary manipulation intended to increase the efficiency with which the organism uses its food. This increase in efficiency needs several years of adaptation and is very well  documented in an observed decrease of basal metabolic rate and for instance the increased efficiency of mitochondria energy conversion and acompanying reduction of electron transport chain losses.

http://www.scientificpsychic.com/health/cron1.html  

[TylerDurden]

Tyler,that makes sense.For example,Charles seemed to have given up on raw when, as he says, "the squirts" didn't stop after the better part of a year.So,he switched to cooked.

You see, it's bizarre claims like this that make Charles statements deeply questionable. RVAFers generally only experience things like diarrhea for a very short period(a few days) while transitioning to raw. They might get an occasional detox(not usually diarrhea but perhaps mild flu-like symptoms) once every so often(every few months in my own case), but that's it. The only way Charles could get the squirts for a whole year would be if he was continuing to eat sizeable amounts of cooked meats along with the raw meats, or if he ate raw liver all the time(that's the only raw animal food that produces liquid-like stools, though it's not really diarrhea as such).So, Charles is not being too honest, clearly, re such claims.

[RawZi]

RVAFers generally only experience things like diarrhea for a very short period(a few days) while transitioning to raw. They might get an occasional detox(not usually diarrhea but perhaps mild flu-like symptoms) once every so often(every few months in my own case), but that's it.

    Mine lasted close to a month, but absolutely no flu-like symptoms.  I had health conditions prior that kind of felt like flu sometimes all the time for months and more.  RAF took the symptoms away.  Never had the runs since, except two times eating adrenal I got a strong detox that limited itself to an hour.  Raw eggs sometimes make me go, but not bad, it's fine.  

[djr_81]

You see, it's bizarre claims like this that make Charles statements deeply questionable. RVAFers generally only experience things like diarrhea for a very short period(a few days) while transitioning to raw. They might get an occasional detox(not usually diarrhea but perhaps mild flu-like symptoms) once every so often(every few months in my own case), but that's it. The only way Charles could get the squirts for a whole year would be if he was continuing to eat sizeable amounts of cooked meats along with the raw meats, or if he ate raw liver all the time(that's the only raw animal food that produces liquid-like stools, though it's not really diarrhea as such).So, Charles is not being too honest, clearly, re such claims.

I didn't have it quite that bad but did have plenty of problems when eating grain-finished in the beginning. If Charles was eating grain-finished, and had issues with it, I could see it being possible but agree it's still highly unlikely.

[Michael]

You see, it's bizarre claims like this that make Charles statements deeply questionable. RVAFers generally only experience things like diarrhea for a very short period(a few days) while transitioning to raw. They might get an occasional detox(not usually diarrhea but perhaps mild flu-like symptoms) once every so often(every few months in my own case), but that's it. The only way Charles could get the squirts for a whole year would be if he was continuing to eat sizeable amounts of cooked meats along with the raw meats, or if he ate raw liver all the time(that's the only raw animal food that produces liquid-like stools, though it's not really diarrhea as such).So, Charles is not being too honest, clearly, re such claims.

Good points Tyler!  It would be interesting to have a forum poll to see just how common and long-lasting these kind of initial symptoms are among the group?  It certainly doesn't reflect my own experiences either.

[Hanna]

Alpha,
Thanks, that seems to be a useful link.

on the other hand also argued in his books that a lower temperature of the organism's environment might a priori have positive effects on longevity or health.

But when the temperature of the environment is lower, one needs MORE calories (or a higher proportion of protein) to maintain body temperature?


This is an article that (tries to?) debunk calorie restriction. What do you think about this?

http://www.livescience.com/health/090127-bad-calorie-restriction.html

Yet all along there have been cracks in this longevity theory. Yes, many species of animals in the laboratory live longer when on a caloric-restricted diet. The big exception, though, is the housefly, which dies faster when starved. So one question to ask is whether you are more like a fruit fly or a housefly?
Also, while some laboratory mice can live longer on a restricted diet, the progeny of wild-caught mice reap little to no benefit from fewer calories. This led scientists to think that maybe the animals gaining the most extra years from calorie restriction are those animals bred to study calorie restriction.

A team led by Raj Sohal of the University of Southern California's School of Pharmacy tested the diet on two types of mice: mice bred to be fat on a normal diet and mice bred to be lean. Only the chubby variety of mice, albeit lean in this study, lived longer on the caloric-restricted diet. The naturally lean mice forwent all that delicious cheese for naught.

(...)

The most significant finding from this study, however, is that the diet lowered the metabolic rates of both types of mice. The leading theory has been that a slower metabolic rate—and the subsequent lower rate of oxygen consumption and lower rate of free-radical production—was the cause for the increased longevity. This theory is now up in the air.