Nutritional Misinformation pretty much runs rampant in the US and the entire world. Since the introduction of the food pyramid obesity rates have increased. Along with getting fatter diabetes has followed suite increasing. Following the food pyramid does not make you healthy but quite the opposite. It leads to over consuming of carbohydrates and sugar and trying to eliminate healthy fats. The term balanced diet is in truth horrible unbalanced. With over thirty years of failed diet information from the government you would think that the American people would see that a high carb low fat diet is bad. With all the studies out there that prove it is not healthy you would think people would wake up. Much like with current politics and the need to prepare for a shifting society normalcy bias prevents most people from seeing the truth. Today is mostly a rant about and I know how many of you love those.
Cholesterol
I’ve been working out with a buddy recently and have tried to give him some nutritional advice. He doesn’t listen to a damn thing I say. Ever. In the past I’ve lost almost 100 pounds, I’m currently loosing weight and have coached people into wining weight loss contests. Weight loss and nutrition are passions of mine and I am constantly working on educating myself. I like to experiment with myself and see what works. I’ve tried just about everything there is. I know that everyone is different but we are all human and our bodies tend to follow the same rules.
Back to the friend I asked him what he was eating for breakfast that morning. He told me he had some pancakes with agave syrup, because the agave syrup is good for you because it’s low calorie and organic. Well so is rabbit shit but that doesn’t make it good for you. I told him he would be better off with some eggs and bacon or eggs and fruit than fucking pancakes. He told me he doesn’t eat eggs because they have too much cholesterol. I almost flew off the handle. I asked him if he knew that testosterone was made from cholesterol. He of course did not nor do most men. On the standard American diet (SAD) we have been told that cholesterol is the devil and to avoid it. I feel this is one reason for the pusification of the male gender. Men are suffering from low testosterone levels at much younger ages than our fathers and grandfathers. Keep your pancakes and agave I’ll keep my bacon and mancard.
I’ll starve without Gluten
My friends mom was just diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. When I heard this I remember Robb Wolf’s story of being diagnosed with the same thing and how paleo literally saved his life. I was all excited to share his story with her and how to cure it. I told her to go paleo and give up gluten. She said that she couldn’t because she would starve. WHAT! I told her I’ve not really, except for the occasional cheat, not eaten gluten in years. I am far from starving. I eat delicious food and feel great. This is the kind of misinformation that’s killing us. We’ve been told for too long whats supposed to be healthy and have grown complacent with those foods. When you challenge what people think they know about nutrition they shut down. This joker James has to wrong and all the doctors and government has to be right. Wrong we are a fat sick and dying populace because people are afraid of change.
Sometimes I just want to pull my hair out. I feel like a prophet carrying a great message of change and being told I’m crazy. People prefer to eat their poison and keep dying than change. I originally tried Atkins and low carb almost ten years ago. I knew I was obese and what I was doing wants working. I told myself I wold give it three months of my life. If nothing changed I would try something else with nothing to loose. Instead I dropped considerable weight and sparked my interest in nutrition. I’ve learned a lot along the way and still know so little. The biggest take away though is embrace change. If the advice your taking is not working change it. That change might just save your life.
Have you lost weight? How did you do it? Let me know in the comments!
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Great post and rant! I am in nursing school right now and I am learning how nutrition affects all aspects of one’s health. Have you had your cholesterol checked? I had mine checked recently and I was a little worried since I eat a lot of “fats” and “cholesterol” in the form of home grown eggs and extra virgin olive oil. Well, my doc told me that based on my cholesterol levels my heart should last for 200 years and to keep up what I am doing. I have been steadily losing weight over the last 3 years, cholesterol is awesome and my BP is back in normal ranges.
We eat a lot of rice, wife is asian, and make our own bread and noodles from scratch. Not paleo I know, but we add flax seed and wheat germ and are able to control the sodium and sugar content, and avoid the useless poisons added to commercial food. We eat less meat per meal than most americans and always have lots of veggies and fruits in our meals.
I think if more americans went back to home grown food and making things from scratch, we would see a huge reduction in many of the health problems. My wife’s home country has been adapting a more western diet and the rates of obesity, diabetes and other “western” health problems are rising exponentially. Connection perhaps?? I think so.
I also have a couple friends with chrones/collitis. I told them about Paleo and they replied that the drug cocktail they were on was helping them. Then I said wouldn’t you like to learn to eat better so you could avoid the drugs. They said no. One I loaned the Robb Wolf book to and she returned it unread. So sad. I have about 40 more lbs to lose. I lost about 40 doing paleo alone, but have stalled for quite a while due to not exercising and probably still eating too much. I am an emotional/boredom eater. I’ll be 50 next may and really want to drop the other 40lbs. I am exploring Greg Ellis’s theories which are also low carb. The bottom line is that most people thing I eat like shit and guess what? They are on cholesterol meds and my blood work comes back just fine! So I’m the dumb ass right? They are Statin drugs. I am drug free, I still don’t wear glasses at 49 1/2. Hmmm…
I had some stalling issues and I added more exercise, cause I wasn’t really doing anything. I’m also working on increasing fat intake and watching my calories.
People do not like to hear advice that they have no intention of doing when it requires a change in their lifestyle that is different from the norm.
My sister has dropped about 2 1/2 sizes simply by not overeating, avoiding junk food, not drinking sodas, eating smaller portions and exercising. She looks and feels wonderful. And she makes much of her own food from their garden. So I agree with Nate with that.
All you can do is give advice when asked and try not to take it personally when people refuse to listen.
Congrads on losing all the weight!
I did not go paleo to lose weight , though I did loose a small amount. My energy level dropped every day around 2:00 until I ate a (high carb snack) If I ate a large meal complete with carbs/sugars I was hungry again in short order. Now the amount of food I consume is less
(weight wise) my energy level is better. I feel better in general except for my joints, which I think are age and self inflicted abuse.
good story made me laugh
Nice rant :-). The same thing goes for all kinds of advice. I figure if you want to change, talk to someone who has already been through that change and listen to their advice. Sounds like common sense, but hardly anyone actually does it.
Since you know a fair bit about dieting, I wanted to ask if you’d experimented with intermittent fasting? I’ve been reading some stuff on 5:2 fasting, where you fast for two days of the week and eat normally the other 5. On the fast days, you eat about 500 calories in one meal, but nothing the rest of the day. The results and scientific papers sounds interesting.
Keep up the great work!
I’ve only mildly looked into IF. I sometimes do a semi short version. I’ll stop eating for the day around 3pm and not eat until the next day. So sometimes about 20 hours.