The Thrifty Dieter's Blog: You can get healthy cheaply!

SC State Fair 2009

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:01:00 +0000

Well, after a sucktacular couple of weeks full of Swine Flu, a broken (TWICE) heater, a crappy birthday (mine) and more bills than I had the money to pay, we had the State Fair. I had bought the tickets and ride coupons way in advance (I AM the Thrifty Mom, after all) and we went last night.

Going to the state fair with no money is sort of depressing, but the kids had a ball and that is ALL that counts:

Daddy and Bitty Girl doing Cheesy Grins and THCTD looking lovely.

Fiver, Boy, and Bulk

Left to right: Bulk, Boy, THCTD, and Bitty on one of the most popular rides of the day.

Fiver and Bulk, not to big to enjoy one of the classics.

We stayed for hours - longer than we ever have with the kids - and still missed a bunch of the sites. But we all ate and the babies rode the rides and we were pretty tired and happy at the finish.

Oh and FWIW, just between you and me and the goal post, the new parking is the stupidest waste of space and money I have ever seen. It's inefficient and impractical. Gamecock Money Making Machine FAIL.

Today on the "Diet DUH" report:

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 12:03:00 +0000

"Doctor's efforts to fight childhood obesity not working."

YA THINK?

Duh-huh, people. No shit, Sherlock.

"FRIDAY, Sept. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers are recommending that officials in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia rethink their efforts to combat obesity in children because the current strategies -- emphasizing healthy diets and exercise -- aren't working.

In a study released online Sept. 4 in BMJ, Australian researchers followed more than 250 overweight and mildly obese Australian children who visited their general practitioners between 2005 and 2006. A total of 139 were given counseling over three months about changing their eating habits and increasing exercise; the other 119 did not get such counseling.

Parents said the kids who received counseling drank fewer soft drinks, but they didn't eat more fruit or vegetables or less fat, and they didn't lose significant amounts of weight.

The researchers reported that brief, physician-led intervention produced no long-term improvement in body mass index, physical activity or nutrition habits.

The counseling isn't harmful, the study authors noted, but it doesn't seem to work and is expensive.

"Resources may be better divided between primary prevention at the community and population levels, and enhancement of clinical treatment options for children with established obesity," the researchers concluded."

Number one, O great medical / dietary community, and for the thousandth time, DIETARY FAT ISNT THE PROBLEM. So thank goodness they didn't eat less fat.

Number two, (and here's the 'duh' bit) YOU'RE TALKING TO THE WRONG PEOPLE, PEOPLE!

(Sorry to shout, but this is just so stupid.)

Let me go ahead and say this, for the record. It's the cure for childhood obesity. Srsly. What a revelation and I'm sharing it with you, the medical community! I'll even type ... really ... slowly ... so ... you .... can ... get ...it.

Ready?

Blue's Cure For The Childhood Obesity Epidemic:

>> PARENTING <<

Yup. That's it. That's all.

Don't speak to the kids. What kid listens to anything a random grown up has to say anyway? Don't expect the community to do something miraculous and cure obesity. Certainly don't look to the government!

No. Obesity begins at home.

Starting with what Mommy stuffs in her face whilst pregnant (Krispy Kreme anyone?), to what she offers baby the day he's born (breast milk which is naturally packed with nutrients and fats [milkfat] and very low in sugars [lactose]? Or formula which is loaded with soy, grains, and sugar [corn syrup]?

Parents decide whether they will feed their babies vegetables first or just start with the sweet fruits ("because she loves them and eats so well when we feed her peaches 3 times a day!" They decide whether to only put milk or water in the bottle or just say "Forget it! He's crying and the juice always settles him down!"

Parents decide whether to make turkey and cheese sandwiches on whole wheat with carrot sticks or whether to just toss a Lunchable and a sports drink in their kid's book bag, or worse, just let them eat the swill that the school serves (hey ~~high fructose corn syrup sauce~~ katsup is a vegetable, right?)

Wake up, world. Snap out of it, medical community. Open your eyes, dieticians.

Parenting can END childhood obesity.

We just have to tell parents the truth. Let them know what sort of crap they're feeding their kids. Educate the public on the dangers of soy and seed oils and HFCS. Help them fight the food industry and the government nutrition standards and demand good food in the stores.

What do you think? Is that all it takes? Just parents stepping up? What are your suggestions for ending / fighting childhood obesity? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Morning Rant: Sunday coupons and crap overload

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 16:49:00 +0000

Right. Quickie this a.m. (I have 6 minutes before I have to make breakfast for the Evil Geniuslets, lol)

I just HAD to share this with you:

Like all good thrifty / frugal people I clip coupons. Honestly though, I don't get too many and here's why: store brands are just as good 99% of the time and are streets cheaper than name brand.

BUT, we do still have a v. few name brands that we cling to. Bodog, hanging grimly on to his upper-middle-class suburban upbringing, where they buy ONLY name brands, still insists on certain ones. Even I share one or two. Caffeine Free Diet Coke is one. Bodog and I have never found any store brand that can exactly match the taste.

So I carefully go though all of the inserts in the Sunday paper with my eyes peeled for usable coups (and price matches since I shop at WalMart where they'll match any competator's price, yeah!)

Well, every Sunday I have the same brain explosion and vow to blog about it, and this is the Sunday I actually do it! Here's the crap I find every week-end in the sales papers:

Death-By-Carbohydrate foods; sugar laden cereals ("Now provides fiber!" like that's gonna cancel out the astronomical sugar/carb content and chemicals and dyes.); "diet" FrankenFoods; hydrogenated vegetable oils masqerading as food ("Fresh buttery taste!" Why not just eat butter, you imbeciles?); and adverts for restaurants that make you store glucose by just reading them ("Never ending pasta bowl"?! Let's waddle on over! Just stick a knife in your heart right now! It'll save the years on double hand-fulls of meds and a motorised chair cuz you're so fat and sick you can't walk! "Includes unlimited breadsticks!" Ugh! )

Also featured are loads of "comfort foods" (I HATE that term. Food does not comfort me. I don't require food to give me pleasure or make me feel happy or safe. I require food to sustain me. My loved ones comfort me; my home, my animals, my books, etc, etc. Food? Nope. It's just freakin' food, people. I enjoy the heck out of it, but I don't have an emotional attachment to it. Sorry!)

ANYway ... cookie dough, brownie mix, icing, microwave chocolate flavoured crap, ice cream, and on and on. It makes me slightly queasy to look at all of it.

But the worst is the dog food. By a long shot. Teensy individual portion servings for teensy overindulged dogs and all designed to look like human food. As a matter of fact, the dog food FrankenCrap looks better than the frozen human food FrankenCrap ... and you know what? They both have the same ingredients.

Now, we know that we have existed in approximately our current form for about 2 million years. So have dogs via wolves. What did we eat? Meat, eggs, fruit, veg, seeds, nuts, and insects. What did wolves eat? Meat. Period. I'm sure they wouldn't turn down a found broken egg or a juicy injured insect, but otherwise: meat.

So why the bloody blue hell is there a dogfood* with "delicious ingredients like orzo, baby spinach, and tomatoes"?!

Because there are credulous, besotted dog owners out there who want FiFi to eat what Mummy eats, yes she does! Mummy loves her Feefulls, doesn't she? Yes she does, and wants her to have yummy noms in her tums tums!

Sick yet? I am. And the worst part is, so is FiFi. Increasingly, our beloved pets are suffering from the same high carb/ high sugar induced diseases that we are: obesity, heart disease, diabetes. Did you see how well I did the baby talk? That's because I am the besotted owner of 6 rescued dogs (yes, I said SIX, and 4 cats!) and also want my animals to get the very best. Fortunately I cannot afford to buy gormet dogfood, but unfortunately that means I'm unable to feed my dogs and cats what they were meant to eat: raw meat. I do my best by supplimenting all the fat, grease, eggs, and leftover meat I can, though.

Do you find the Sunday inserts a smorgasboard of obesity and ill-health -inducing crap, or is it just me? Do folks not know how bad this stuff is for them? Do they not care? Do they know they are ruining their animal's health as well? How many absurdly fat dogs and cats have you seen?

GAH!

*This dogfood is Cesar Bistro, BTW. Nothing against this company, they're just catering to people who actually have no idea that the $30/bag premium gormet dry dogfood that they buy is made of corn and soybeans. I have never seen a wolf grazing in a corn field. Ever.

How about we nip it in the bud?

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 12:11:00 +0000

Great article in the NY Times by an overweight doctor struggling to advise an overweight patient.

It's frank and up front about the awkward juxtaposition of a person reciting the same old "eat less, move more" rhetoric when that person clearly is either not following his own advice or - surprise, surprise - that advice is complete crap.

Charles Washington from Zeroing in on Health did a better job than I ever could of stating what is obvious to any of us low-carbers: stop the dogma and advise the slashing of sugars/starches/carbs. Instead, these doctors not only follow the same old useless advice, but continue to espouse it knowing, from their own experience, that it doesn't work (obviously). Charles Washington says:

"This advice should not be based solely on the doctor’s experience. It should be based on an understanding of the science of metabolic syndrome and the advice of Dr. Spock and those who came before just 50 years ago. Carbohydrates are the key to fattening and if one wants to avoid weight gain, then they must decrease carbohydrate consumption. They used to know and teach this until Ancel Keys came along with his total cholesterol nonsense. Now, doctors must stand confused in front of their patients with only their experience to rely on. Is it any wonder that the patients glaze over? I think it’s only right. If an obese person came up to me trying to tell me about the unhealthiness of my diet, I would have to laugh. I mean, really."

Indeed. My husband's own cardiologist* is an enormous bloke, at least 30lbs overweight. While I don't in any way think that this affects his abilities as a doctor - I think he's a fine doctor and I love him as a person - but it does skew any diet advice he gives. The nutritionist or dietitian or whatever she was at the hospital (the HEART hospital) was as round as a bagel and sipping an iced something crappy from Starbucks when she v. seriously advised me to get Bodog on a low fat diet "right away" and cut out all those nasty saturated fats that were damaging his heart.

I'm pretty sure his welcome home supper was two 1/4lb ground beef patties, fried in bacon grease and topped with cheese and chili.

Eight months later Bodog's blood pressure and cholesterol is perfect and he's lost 30lbs. The sheaf of low-fat diet propaganda lined the budgie's cage (crap on crap, perfect!) and he has learned to live on less than 80g of carbs a day. Erm ... my husband, not the budgie, lol!

But overweight doctors aside, the patient in the article was a child, an 8 year old, and so of course that got me into Mommy Mode. My thing is this: how can we avoid having the doctor even have to discuss diets with our children? Answer: don't let our kids get overweight in the first place.

Can it be done? One of the doctors in the article invoked a "omg been there, done that" response in me:

"But Dr. (Julie C.) Lumeng has struggled with her own weight — she says she lost 50 pounds in the past year after a gestational diabetes scare — and she understands how hard it is to translate her own beliefs into daily practice. When she gets home from a long day at work, she told me, she knows she really ought to tell her three children to turn off the television and ride their bikes, while she is cooking broccoli and salmon for dinner.

“I know it all, I do research in this,” she went on. “But in the moment I’m exhausted, it’s been a long day at work, everyone’s sort of irritable. You can know what you need to do, but when the moment comes ... .”"

As a mom I can SO identify with this! Many many times I am tired, irritated, and have a dozen things unfinished to do in the house or online for my business and it's supper time. Throw in the fact that I've personally cooked a hot healthy breakfast, dinner, and tea for these kids and the urge to blow off supper (I dunno, popsicles as a meal? Popsicles have vitamins and stuffs, right?) grows strong like the force.

But this is where we moms must show our mettle. This is our Normandy Beach of our children's diet. This is where we need to pull up our big girl underpants and say: "No. No I will not feed my child a microwave kids meal, or a fast food kids meal, filled with chemicals, sugar, soy, and carbohydrates! Even two slices of whole wheat bread with plain turkey and cheese is preferable." We also need to teach our kids to eat good foods. If you wail that your toddler won't eat wheat bread or turkey or cheese and will only eat Frankenchicken nuggets and mac and orangefakesauce so that's why that's all you serve him, well, mommy epic FAIL.

They won't starve themselves. No really, they won't. It's our responsibility to put good food on the table in front of our children. It might take them 20 times of taking one bite per meal to learn to like something but we must do it.

The basic gist is this: an overweight 8 year old didn't take her own money down to the Micky Ds and gorge on Big Macs. She didn't do this. Her momma did.

There's nothing in the world wrong with fast food every now and again, or even sweet treats (popsicles!), on occasion, but the fact is that WE control what our young kids eat. The opening lines of the article struck me as terribly, terribly sad:

"The mother came out of the exam room to intercept me: she knew I would probably have to talk to her daughter about how she was gaining weight, she said, but please don’t use the word “fat,” or even “overweight.” Don’t make her feel bad about herself. "

She allowed her daughter to get fat! And only now is she concerned about her self image? A bit late for that. I never, NEVER want to be in the situation where my baby girl's self confidence is weakened by something I DID TO HER.

Nuff said.

*For anyone who hasn't been following my blog, my husband, Bodog, a type 1 diabetic, had a heart attack last November (at the age of 34) and had to get 2 stents in his heart.

It's really simple, duh.

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 10:38:00 +0000

Brilliant, brilliant video on what I rant about ALL the time:

It is just idiocy to believe "the machine" and actually buy that processed, packaged, de-fatted, reduced, enhanced, fortified, CRAP is better for you than Just. Plain. Food.

Use your brains, people.

Many thanks to Zen To Fitness and his great post on how to nourish the body wherin he had this vid.

Today's funny

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:00:00 +0000

Obviously a BritCom (a genre of which I am inordinately fond). I had to stop it and laugh.

"Meat eater":

Dr. Sears is off his rocker and sugar is still bad for you

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 09:24:00 +0000

OK, I have been surfing around the net, like ya do, clicking a link, reading a bit, finding another interesting link in the text or sidebar, clicking that, etc, etc.

Well, I'm having a friendly debate with a Tweep who claims that Sugar in the Raw is healthier and more easily digested than regular sugar.

In researching the subject I came across a hilarious bit of stupidity from one of my least liked people: Dr Sears. I consider this bloke a fool in general. Irritating and full of misinformation. Now, I don't watch telly, so I'm blissfully not exposed to his wind often, but I encounter his "wisdom" via starry-eyed admirers of his.

Here's Dr. Sears's sage (read: laughably misinformed) thoughts on nutrition: This guy is a DOCTOR!

"Sugars are one form of carbohydrates and carbohydrates are good for you, as long as you eat the right kinds in the right amounts. Carbohydrates are your body's main source of energy. You couldn't live or work without them. Your body needs a lot of carbohydrates - around 60 to 70 percent of your total calories should be in the form of carbs."

This man shouldn't be allowed to practice medicine much less be on telly. This is pure horseshite, the entire paragraph. Hans Adolph Krebs (of the Krebs Cycle) proved that the body happily converts fat, protein, and carbs into energy with equal zeal. If you "couldn't live or work without" carbs then how do you explain the Maasai, who lived for so long on mostly milk, blood, and meat, or the Inuit, who used to subsit on mostly meat, fish, and blubber? Or how about the loads of ZC (zero carb) people out there right now? For that matter, what about me, a Very Low Carber? I eat no sugar, no grains, no starches, no legumes, no fruit (and haven't for over 2 years) and eat a serving of vegetables maybe 3 times a week. Throw in my wee bit of dairy and I'm lucky to rack up 10 grams of carbs a day. I never go above 20.

Yet I have an incredible amount of energy (much more than I ever had before - even back when I was at my present weight but on a low-fat diet). I am flabbergasted that people, people who are trusted by the public, no less, are still spouting this nonsense!

Then, on a better note, I found this, on wikipedia with accompanying graph. It's sobering to say the least.

"In the United States of America, a scientific/health debate has started[citation needed] over the causes of a steep rise in obesity in the general population — and one view posits increased consumption of carbohydrates in recent[update] decades as a major factor.[9]

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey I and Continuous indicates that the population in the United States has increased its proportion of energy consumption from carbohydrates and decreased its proportion from total fat while obesity has increased. This implies, along with the United Nations report cited below, that obesity may correlate better with sugar consumption than with fat consumption, and that reducing fat consumption while increasing sugar consumption actually increases the level of obesity. The following table summarizes this study (based on the proportion of energy intake from different food sources for US Adults 20-74 years old, as carried out by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, Hyattsville, MD[11]):"

Year      Sex      Carbohydrate      Fat        Protein      Obesity

1971      Male         42.4%           36.9%    16.5%       12.1%

1971      Female      45.4%          36.1%     16.9%       16.6%

2000      Male         49.0%          32.8%     15.5%        27.7%

2000      Female      51.6%          32.8%     15.1%       34.0%

There it is in black and white, folks. More carbs, more sugar, LESS fat, and startling rise in obesity.

What more proof do we need? What can we sensible folks do to get these idiot doctors and 'dietitians' to QUIT flogging the "fat is baaaaaaad" dogma?

*sigh*

By the way, I never found any evidence that any of the 'raw' sugars are more healthy or more easily digestible. Sugar in the Raw is just table sugar without the cane juice filtered out. They are both sucrose and both equally terrible for you. I also contend that one is not more easily digested. I think that's just wishful thinking, an old wives' tale perpetuated by the veggie/vegan/"healthy eating" (*snort!*) crowd. I think that folks mollify themselves with all the buzzwords "raw!" and "natural!" and plunk down the huge amount of money these vanity sugars cost, then pat themselves on the back for being so health concious.

I eat meat.

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:02:00 +0000

These people are incredible idiots. Srsly. These morons are so laughingly stupid and uniformed that, if their 'advice' wasn't so dangerous to people's health, I'd be rolling on the floor.

As it is, they sickeningly regurgitate the putrid muck of conventional anti-science and embrace the lies of popular "health wisdom".

Realbuzz.com 'healthy active living' EPIC FAIL.

(thx to Dr. Michael R. Eades MD, for link via Twitter.)

I ask, again, how folks can actually believe such rubbish as a low-fat diet being good for you when Americans have been following one for over 30 years and getting fatter, sicker, and, apparently dumber (to keep mindlessly gorging on garbage like the above article).

It's right up there with people who actually believe that humans are supposed to be vegetarians. What's next? The earth is flat? The moon landing was a hoax?

Dr. Eades happens to have a recent blog post on the very subject of what we are really meant to eat: meat.

"Au contraire to what our vegetarian friends would have us believe, we have the GI tracts of carnivores, not herbivores, and we were designed by nature to use every last speck of the nutrients in meat. We can survive on all-meat diets just fine, whereas we can’t survive on an all-plant diet without supplementation."

And a fact that vegetarians and vegans cannot seem to grasp (impaired brain fucntion due to eating no meat, maybe? I'm being serious.) that we evolved our large brains BECAUSE we ate meat.

"We’ve developed our large brains and our social instincts as a consequence of meat eating. I’m planning a post on this subject in the near future, so you can see how our very humanness arose because we developed a taste for meat. We are carnivores to our very cores – were we not, we would still be roaming the savannas with brains the size of grapefruits."

Brilliant!

On the subject, I just couldn't resist this "I eat meat" funny t-shirt for all of us carnivores and low-carb folks. I am SO getting myself one!:

As I've said time and again, going low carb, punting grains and sugars and starches, moving your body, getting more sun, that is: getting healthy, doesn't have to be hard. Really. There is no set plan, no ideal diet. Like Tony, the anti-Jared (who has lost over 200lbs - thats 50lbs more than I have!) said: "Diets are like snowflakes, no two are going to be alike."

You have to experiment and see what works for you.

Take me, for instance. I dropped 100lbs like 10 sacks of hot potatoes by just slashing grains, starches, and sugars from my diet. I ate whatever else I wanted - spoonfulls of peanut butter, any and all meats, mayonnaise, margerine, chunks of cheese, etc, etc.

By the time I discovered Paleo (or Lacto-Paleo for me since I still eat some butter, heavy cream, and cheese), dropping fruits, nightshades, and legumes was easy. I continued to eat what I wanted and continued to lose weight. Eventually I drifted into an easy equilibrium of eating mostly fatty meats, eggs, and trace amounts of butter, cream, cheese, nuts/seeds, and veg (I eat a small serving of lettuce, raw carrots, or cooked greens - cabbage/collards - abt 2-3 times a week).

My health is excellent, my blood pressure is great, and my cholesterol is the lowest it's ever been in my life. I feel good and have tonnes of energy, BUT, after over 150lbs lost, I've discovered that if I want to continue to lose weight, I have to watch my calories (and cut back on my beloved cheese and nuts).

So even on a plan that turns out to be great for you, you might have to make adjustments now and then. Take this Primal chick whom I follow on Twitter who is experimenting with going 100% carnivore (called ZC or zero carb)*. She's had tremendous success and in that blog post does a good job of detailing her thoughts about the plan.

"VLC is poorly defined. Is it Atkins Induction with two cups of veg? Is it animal products only? What I like about meat-only is that it's a clear end-point, from which I can choose to reincorporate various foods and judge scientifically my body's response to them, without too many confounding variables. It goes without saying that grains and refined sugars will never be part of my diet; I may ultimately resume the primal lifestyle since it works very well for me, with perhaps a little more restriction on the frequency of fruit and amount of veggies, given my recent learning. I'm not predicting the outcome. I like this journey of discovery and learning, keeping it as pure as possible, with me just along for the ride. :) "

VLC is Very Low Carb, which applies to my own diet plan, and she's right about its being poorly defined. That's my point. There is no one perfect plan. Do like she and I both did and jump in with something that sounds good, whether its a DIY diet like Paleolithic or a set plan like Atkins, and roll your own.

Just stick to the basic principals of good health: eat whole fresh foods, not processed anything, eat meats, fats, nuts, and vegetables; dump refined flours and sugars, hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup; move yourself, walk more, do some body-weight-training; get outside in the fresh air and sunshine, without chemicals on your skin.

You don't have to go carnivore, you don't have to go VLC, you don't even have to give up all grains and sugars (though I really recommend it), but just do something. Build your own diet plan and get healthier. Trust me on this: when you get to be my age (45), having the arthritis almost miraculously better and having the energy levels through the roof really, really makes a difference!

How have you adapted your eating plan for life? Are you still on the same plan or did you have to tweak it a bit? How so?

*In case you are freaking out about the concept of 100% carnivore, I do it all the time. I have never done the pure version (which is just meat, no spices, and water. Period.) but I have gone for weeks eating nothing but meat as my food; no veg, no cheese, no nuts, no butter. I noticed no difference in energy level or well-being. It's great.

Butter -vs- hydrogenated hormone filled oils, erm, margarine

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:14:00 +0000

Fabulous article on butter -vs- margarine here.

I love the opening lines: "Why anyone would still willingly eat margarine is beyond me. Seriously."

Indeed. Margarine is like coagulated death. Not only is it loaded with hydrogenated oils, it's often soybean oil (and you can keep your female hormones to yourself, thanks, and my kids won't be getting any either.)

If you can get past the wincingly awful grammar gaffe* (twice!) of using "comprised of", the rest of the post if fab.

The author carefully details what's horrible about margarine: chemical solvents used to produce those trans-fatty acids, for example, and what's wonderful about butter:

"... short-chain and medium-chain fatty acids that come from butter offer antimicrobial and immune-enhancing benefits to the eater. [snip]
Butter is rich in vitamins and minerals that are not present in margarine. For example, butter is rich in real Vitamin A – a vitamin that is critical to reproductive health and vitally important to both babies still developing in their mothers’ wombs as well as young children. Butter is rich in Vitamin E, Vitamin K, Vitamin D and the mineral selenium..."

I personally switched my entire family over to real butter at the end of last year - a hard row to hoe for a person as frugal as I am - and buy it in restaurant sized bulk packages. I am convinced, however, that it's best for my family, and by golly, our food tastes better! I substitute olive oil in cooking and use butter mainly as a spread/garnish. I have also noticed that we use MUCH less butter on food than we did margarine. Quality over quantity!

Do you still use margarine? Why? And if you've switched, what are you doing to offset the increased cost of using real butter?

*Grammar rant: "Comprised of" is a big grammar FAIL. You mean "composed of". Comprised means "to include" or "to be made up of", thus a library is not comprised of books, rather books comprise a library.

Proximity to fast food does not make kids fat

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 10:36:00 +0000

Despite what the government-as-nanny folks want us to believe, apparently, living in proximity to fast food makes no difference in the weight of children:

"Living near a fast-food outlet doesn't make children fat, nor does living near a supermarket stocked with fresh fruits and vegetables make them thin, new research shows.

The study by Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis researchers examined a decade of data on more than 60,000 children aged 3 to 18. They compared the children's weights before and after fast-food outlets or supermarkets opened near their homes. The study found that living near a fast-food outlet had little effect on weight gain and living near a supermarket wasn't associated with lower weight."

Would anyone like to join me in a big ol' "DUH" here?

The restaurants and supermarkets have nothing to do with it. The PARENTS have everything to do with it. You CAN choose to not go to a fast food joint.

When will folks acknowledge that your child's health is YOUR responsibility? Parents cannot blame fast food, television, video games, advertisers, or the food industry. No, you can't!

YOU are in control of what your baby eats from birth. YOU have the ability to research food ingredients and NOT feed craptastic Frankenfoods like special 'kids meals' (the Kraft Lunchables chicken nuggets has 40g of sugars and a whopping 57g of carbs (!) and has enough hydrogenated soybean oil and corn syrup to bathe in). YOU have the ability to turn off the telly, to pull the plug on the video game.

Kids learn by example, too. Mom, how many of those death-by-carbs '100 calorie snacks' or 'nutrition bars' have you eaten this week? How often have you and your kid gone out for a nice walk? YOU have the ability to take wee Emmah Ravyn or Noah Brayson to the park or the playground - NO , don't schedule a bloody playdate! Just take him to a nice park and turn him loose! Preferably one that actually still has cool shit like the merry go round (remember those? Massive 12 feet across metal saucers of fun! Complete w/ slick rails to cling to! I got spun off a million times, scraped my knees and elbows and busted my chin! FUN!)

C'mon, people. Mommy FAIL. When you were pregnant, most likely you watched everything you ate, didn't you? You took your suppliments, paid attention to your doctor, you even read aloud to your baby in utero, I'll bet.

So why is he slouched on the sofa right now, dangerously overweight, mindlessly playing a video game with one hand and stuffing cheesy poofs into his face with the other?

I am NOT an ifaster

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:38:00 +0000

I slower?

Heh. No, I just wanted to report on my second attempt at the diet lifestyle (or diet technique) of Intermittant Fasting.

Let me preface this by saying that I totally agree that Intermittant Fasting is a wonderful thing. I think the random fast is v. good for you; it keeps your body on its toes, so to speak, and I don't know about you, but at 30lbs from my goal weight, the concept of missing a meal shouldn't bug me much, lol. I also firmly believe that our ancestors didn't eat multiple times a day. They were probably lucky to fill their bellies every other day. I think that the concept of set mealtimes and multiple daily meals is a fallacy by society - and the intent was social not nutritional! If more people simply slashed carbs and sugar then ate when they were hungry, obesity would lose it's death grip on America.

I also want to reiterate that while I obviously adore tweaking my own dieting attempts (just like I love adjusting my appearence with peircings, henna tattoos, and odd haircolours), I don't ever change my basic WOE. I believe that low carb is the only way to be healthy and I adore my Lacto-Paleo lifestyle.

All that being said, I wanted to try the Intermittant Fasting because I only eat once a day, anyway. (When you don't eat bread, cake, cookies, crackers, pitas, cereal, potatoes, sugar, bagels, soda, candybars, etc, etc, *gag* then, folks, you don't get hungry!) The basic set up of IF is either doing 24 hour fasts a couple of times a week, or doing daily fasts - for example, the one I like: 18 hours fasting then an 6 hour 'eating' window. (There are many more variations that I won't go in to.)

The immediate problem I faced with IF was that, while I only eat once a day, between 11 and 2, my day is book-ended by two of my fave non Paleo indulgences: coffee with heavy cream in the morning, and alcohol at night.

I had already steeled my resolve and decided to cut down my alcohol intake (I've reduced it by over half and am terribly proud of myself!) but when I want a cocktail, I want to be able to have one, and that would negate my fast for that day (if my 6 hour window included the morning coffee, it's be, say, 5am to 11am, then fast the rest of the day).

So what to do? Well my solution was to drink my morning coffee black and train myself to eat my one meal later. That made my eating window 2pm to 8pm.

It wasn't hard. Well, pushing back my eating time wasn't hard. Neither was the actual 18 hour fast. No biggie.

So what was the problem?

Problem was, I wasn't happy.

See, the thing that I love most about the Low-carb / primal / Paleo way is that I am never hungry. I get peckish around noon, eat whatever strikes my fancy that is fatty, meaty, cheesy, or of the crunchy veg variety and I'm stuffed full like a snake. I stay satisfied and satiated for the rest of the day.

With the IF I was, duh, fasting and so, despite still eating the one meal that I normally ate - and just a few hours later - I got ravenously hungry about 11am. As a former food addict who weighed over 300lbs and who ate all day and consumed food simply because it was there, I have a LONG history of obsessing about food. Well those 3 hours between onset of hunger and the beginning of my eating window were a nightmare. I could get nothing done. I couldn't concentrate. I also tended to overeat once I reached 2pm.

Strangely, though, it wasn't all this that made me decide the IF wasn't for me. It was my coffee, of all things.

Like most working people and moms, I have a pretty rigid morning schedule. I get up at 4a.m. every day, start my coffee, put on a load of laundry, fold a basketfull and put it away, perhaps hang up a load I did late the night before. I do any dishes left over, do some of my strength training, check my email and Twitter, all of this while my coffee brews.

Then I sit down at the computer to actually work and do so with a steaming mug of half caff coffee w/ heavy cream. I love the taste, it's a nice morning indulgence, plus it wakes me up (yes, I can do all the aformentioned whilst half-asleep, LOL). At 7am every day I get up from working and make a full breakfast for my family, so I have a limited window.

Drinking my coffee black was throwing off my groove as Kuzco would say. I hate black coffee. I tried various teas and other drinks, but it was an even worse experience. Sure it was something I could have overcome with effort, but, again, I wasn't happy. And unhappy Blue made for NO work and snarling Morning Mommy.

Oh, and bizarrely, I gained several pounds whilst experimenting with fasting.

So I decided that while IF is a marvellous paleo/primal tool, it's not for me. I like my routine, it works for me, I'm not hungry, plus I can lose weight pretty much effortlessly while doing it.

Have you tried Intermittant Fasting? What version do you do? How has it worked for you?

I TOLD everyone I had my reasons ...

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Sun, 31 May 2009 09:24:00 +0000

... for not giving up dairy!

If you're a regular reader you'll 'get' this (I'm a rabid Zach Quinto fan plus I'm a Paleo who refused to give up dairy), if not, you'l at least find it ... weird. Don't ask me to explain the video, I don't understand it either, but, hey, it's got Zachary Quinto in it! ;)

I want to be around to see my grandkids!

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Sat, 23 May 2009 12:07:00 +0000

Super good post by Rebecca over on Skinny Dreaming about how you owe it to your kids to get fit.

She doesn't pull punches and I agree 100%:

"I'm tired of seeing parents who can't be bothered to get fit. These people have children who need and depend on them, yet they still complain that dieting is too hard, they don't want to give up their favorite foods, and they can't find the time to exercise.

Now, before one of these parents who can't be bothered gets up in arms about my saying this, I will state that I was one of those parents! I gained a bit more weight with each child and became so completely obese that it was a struggle to get off of my fat ass and do anything."

I was this parent too! After my last child, I weighed 322lbs and was largely (pun intended) responsible for keeping Krispy Kreme in business.

And you know what? It's pure self absorption and self indulgence. Two weeks after my last was born I looked down at my grotesque self and the huge plate of carb-of-the-moment CRAP I had in my hands and I thought: "Do you really care more about the brief moments of feel-good that this shit gives you than your own babies?"

I had had 5 kids because I wanted them. Some days it's all I can do to keep from screaming in annoyance and frustration, but I soldier on because I adore them and they're really good kids and tomorrow will be a better day. I breastfed 5 babies because I chose to. At first it wasn't fun or easy and I suffered through thrush, bad latches, and all, but I stuck with it because it was best for my children (and if you work on through the tough first weeks its infinately easier than bottles). I quit my job and halved our family income. It was bloody hard (and still is) to rely on my own Thrift, but it was that important to me to raise my own children.

I made all these big, hard decisions and yet I couldn't stop myself from eating yet another 100 calorie pack of death-by-carbs crisps?! I was eating myself into the grave.

So I gave it all up. All the grains, all the sugars, all the refined foods. And, yeah, it was bloody rough. Rebecca puts it this way:

"Yes, exercise is hard work. And resisting the opportunities to binge on sweets and junk food can be challenging. Losing weight and getting fit is definitely not easy! But it is worth it. I am doing this for myself, but I am also doing this for my family. Remaining fat and not doing anything about my deteriorating weight would just be selfish of me."

When my mates talk about baking cakes, noshing on chocolates, sipping latte grandes at coffee houses, I just think about the last time I stepped into a Wal Mart and watched the obese parents shuffle up to the check out with their bread and cookies and pasta and crisps and sugary sodas, their carb-packed 'diet' stuff, and 'low-fat' FrankenFood horrors.

And then I look at my sweet children.

Why do you wear your seatbelt in the car? Why do you not smoke? Why do you look both ways before crossing a street? Because if you don't wear your seatbelt, smoke, or fail to watch where you're going, you have an excellent chance of dying. And if you die, who's gonna take care of your children?

It doesn't matter how you do it: low fat, low carb, counting calories, insane workouts. It doesn't matter how you look: getting into a size 4 is NOT the point. It's not even just about what you eat. DO buckle that seatbelt, DO put down those cigarettes, DO move your body, Do get outside and get some sunshine.

The point is that you need to be around as long as possible for your kids. And that means taking care of yourself rather than indulging your selfish whims. And you can, but you have to stop all the excuses. You have to finally do it.

What have YOU done to get healthy for yourself and your family? Do you have any tips on how to get started?

Review: Emerald's 100 calorie pack nuts

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:36:00 +0000

So, I'm having a shufti over the nut section of my local (v. v. high priced) Bi-Lo,(the upside of this posh-neighbourhood store is the wide selection,) and I spy these:

After I got done cringing over the '100 calorie' crap (those poor poor hungry people who are still counting calories!), I just had to check it out more closely.

One was "Natural walnuts and almonds" ingredients: walnuts, almonds. Hmm. So far so good. Fat 9g, carbs 3g, protein 3g. Lookin' pretty damned good! I tossed these in my cart.

I checked the other out, just for comparison: "Cocoa roast almonds". Now, I don't like chocolate, but I know of a LOT of low-carbers and Paleo people who eat everything from tiny bits of regular chocolate to the unsweetened baking chocolate (The thought of which, frankly, makes me gag) because they just have to have their chocolate fix.

The ingredient list was bad:

The almonds are dry roasted and there's non paleo potato starch plus some frankenfood chemicals. Fat 8g, carbs 4g, protein 3g. Obviously not the healthier choice, but, out of curiosity and for the sake of comparison, I decided to try it. (I can pass them on to my chocolate loving mother.)

I started with the plain nuts. Here's the wee packages inside the box (there are 7):

And here are the actual nuts. The walnuts were broken up quite a bit, but not pulverised. There wasn't any dust or teensy pieces and both types of nuts seemed to be good quality.

I honestly enjoyed them and they made a good small snack. If I can fit them into my budget, I'll probably keep a box around as a grab-and-go quick low-carb / paleo snack.

"OK. Yeah. But what about those chocolate ones?" you ask (a bit too eagerly).

Well ... if you are dieting to lose weight, I'd recommend you NOT, repeat NOT, buy these. Don't even push your trolly down the nut aisle, ok?

Srsly. This product is exactly what is typical of the food industry today. You take a basic, wholesome food (almonds), add some chemicals, some starch, some ... SUGAR, and toss in a substance (chocolate) that has millions of Americans already addicted, and you have a recipe for repeat sales and obese customers.

The "Natural walnuts and almonds" are wholesome, convenient, and good. The "Cocoa roast almonds" are insane. I dislike chocolate but when I opened the pack that candy bar smell burst out, bringing memories of my days of eating Snickers, Kit-Kats, and Almond Joys in twos and threes. The nuts themselves are very sweet and crunchy, immediately triggering shoveling behaviour.

I had to snap out of it after the first nut and get hold of myself. Memories of myself at 300+ lbs and my 52 inch waist helped, but it was tough. And remember: this from a person who hates chocolate!

So, again, if you are low carbing or Paleo, the plain nuts are a quick convenient snack. As for the dark chocolate healthy-disguised nutty sugar bombs? Run. Run v. far away. You'll be doing your heart AND your backside a favour.

Cake or Death?*

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:25:00 +0000

Two of my v. fave bloggers: Vin Miller at Natural Bias and Tom Naughton of Fat Head both happened to post about the one simple reason why Americans have been steadily getting fatter and fatter (and sicker and sicker) since the 1960s: sugar and carbs.

Vin talks about regular sugar: "Particularly in America, the modern diet is very high in sugar, and this is one of the primary reasons why obesity, poor health and disease have become so prevalent. Did you know that the average American eats over 100 pounds of sugar a year? One. Hundred. Pounds.

A large bag of dogfood generally weighs 40lbs. Over 2 of those. Of sugar. Per year. go to your pet food supplier of choice and take a look at 2 of those bags. It will nauseate you.

And if you are saying to yourself: "Oh not me ... I hardly eat sweets!" Yes. Yes, you do. It's not just candy bars and cake. look at the ingredient lable for your katsup, your mayonnaise, your BBQ sauce, your spaghetti sauce. Hell, check out the lable of your Campbell's Tomato Soup!

Did you kow that the first ingredient of KFC's new "healthy" grilled chicken that you just congratulated yourslef on choosing over the fried is SUGAR?

Remember that refined grain products, like flours and high fructose corn syrup, are sugars, too.

"If you take a moment to consider how much processed food most people are consuming on a regular basis, the reason why so many of them suffer from obesity and poor health should be obvious. Sugar and refined carbohydrates are a major ingredient in nearly all modern foods and are being consumed in record proportions. Many people are unaware of the associated risks and even believe that highly refined foods such as bread and pasta are healthy choices! "

Sugars, starches, and carbs all do the same dreadful thing to our bodies.They spike our blood sugar, get stored as fat, trigger an insulin response, THEN, when your blood sugar bottoms out an hour later, you become ravenously hungry again ... starting the cycle anew.

Don't forget that your fat cells are not like jars of marbles. It's not like if you eat a second helping of Red Velvet cake only then will your body store it as fat - drop some marbles into the fat jar.

NO! Your body constantly all day and night, no matter if you're fat or thin, moves those glucose marbles into and out of your fat cell jars. They are little dynamic systems, constantly gathering fat and releasing it. Your body cells don't wait until mealtimes to get their energy, they get it all the time. Energy is freed up one way or another - from the low-fat, organic, whole grain vegan snack bar you just choked down with a cup of soy 'milk', from the fat in your fat cells, even from the protein in your own muscles - to 'feed' all your body's cells. All day and all night. No matter if you're Kiera Knightly or Michael Moore.

So how is it that some of us get fat?

Vin says: "Sugar is our primary source of energy, and when consumed, it can be converted to glycogen and stored for future use. However, many people consume an excessive amount of carbohydrates that significantly exceeds their storage capacity for glycogen, and when this happens, the sugar resulting from carbohydrate digestion is stored as body fat. The large amount of sugar and refined carbohydrates that exist in processed food is the primary reason for this excess and the people who consume it on a regular basis are often significantly overweight. "

But it's not that they're eating carbs, right? I mean all that whole grain bread and low-fat wraps and lean meats are good for us, right? It's because fat people just eat too much. America is fatter cuz modern Americans can't be trusted not to supersize, right?

NO! Diet understanding FAIL.

As Tom says: "We don’t eat too much because we’re more gluttonous than our grandparents. We eat too much because in the 1970s the McGovern committee convinced us we need to live primarily on low-fat grains and other starches. We eat too much because our insulin levels are too high. We eat too much because we’re storing too many calories as fat.

In other words, we eat too much because we’re too damned hungry."

But you can't tell Carb Addicts that can you? How many of you low carbers have seen people's eyes glaze over when you say : "no bread"? I confess that I am just astonished that people just REFUSE to listen and believe all the proof that their cookies, cakes, crisps, crackers, bagels, pasta, wraps, crusts, rolls, and bread are not only making them obese, but damaging their health.

But they will look at those of us who have lost startling amounts of weight, see that we are thinner, healthier, have more energy - but most of all are not hungry! - but they refuse to give up their Carb Crutch. From Vin:

"Minimizing the consumption of sugar and refined carbohydrates is truly one of the easiest ways to lose weight, but many people are unwilling to give up processed foods and choose to compromise their health even further by overexercising instead. "

It's sad, and what's worse is that the FDA could be helping rather than hurting the health of Americans, but won't. Vin pointed out: "As the food industry enjoys incredible profits from sugar, and the pharmaceutical industry benefits from all the health problems that it causes, the rest of us are stuck in a never ending cycle of wanting more sugar, gaining more weight, and becoming less healthy."

Tom summed it up best: "from a public policy perspective, emphasis should be shifted toward encouraging people to drastically reduce their consumption of carbohydrates; do that, and the “eating less” will take care of itself. But in a country where sugar, wheat and corn are all subsidized by the taxpayers, I don’t expect this kind of policy shift to happen anytime soon."

Unfortunately, I believe this is true. :(

Here, again, are the links to the posts of Vin Miller at Natural Bias and Tom Naughton of Fat Head that I quoted here. Check them out. They rawk.

*Thank you to the fabulous Eddie Izzard for this line which I snarked. It made the perfect blog title and he's an amazing person who deserves the linky love!

Does Jillian Michaels have the right attitude?

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:21:00 +0000

Jillian Michaels on weight loss. I don't watch television, so I have never seen this show, and I don't agree with everything she says (I don't think bunches of cardio is nessessary AT ALL for good health or weight loss - much less intense uber-workouts), but I confess that I love the "quit whining and bitching and get on with it" notion.

(Note: Remember, I don't watch television, so I've never seen the show they mention. Several people say she's a real bitch with a mean streak. I'm basing this post on that interview.)

"You were overweight as a teenager. Does this make you more sympathetic to the contestants on The Biggest Loser?

I'm not sympathetic. I have zero sympathy. I understand about emotional eating, I understand how painful the process can be, but I also understand that change is possible. In my experience, honesty is the best policy. And being a friend to somebody is not always the best way to help them."

Right on! I am empathetic to anyone struggling to lose weight - been there, done that - but I have no sympathy for any excuses. I've heard (and spouted) them all.

"You recently said that by the time The Biggest Loser contestants come to you they're half dead. What did you mean by that?

Yes, I said "half-dead" And everybody was like, "oh, I can't believe she said that." Are people just not tuning into the show? We've got 30-year-olds whose internal organs are 60. If we were having this conversation about somebody who was a drug addict or somebody who had anorexia or bulimia, we would openly admit that it was suicide. "

Agree! Why is overweight not viewed as the horrible health hazard that it is?

"So what do you think is the number one worst thing people are doing to their bodies right now?

Oh my God, they eat processed food and it is horrifying to me! You look at people, they'll be having a sandwich on white bread with turkey. Okay, well, the turkey's probably processed, meaning it's got nitrates in it. And of course white bread doesn't grow white. It's stripped of all its nutrients and all its fiber. High fructose corn syrup: poison. Artificial sweeteners: poison. Artificial coloring: poison. MSG: poison. Nitrates: poison. Unload all those things and you're off to a good start."

I don't care if she's the biggest bitch on the planet, she's totally nailed this one. America is killing itself one forkfull at a time. Refined carbs, chemicals, HFCS, and soy products are knocking us out like flies. How many people died of diabetes or heart disease yesterday?

A musing on WASTE.

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Wed, 13 May 2009 12:07:00 +0000

Great post by Wendy Thomas of Simple Thrift on how much edible food we throw away.

As I said in her comments, with 5 kids under the age of 8, we have a LOT of 'accidental' food go to waste: the 2-year-old drops half his sandwich on the floor, the clumsy 6-year-old knocks her milk over ... again, the picky 7 year old refuses to eat something and plays with it till no one else will eat it either, and so on.

But all recoverable bits of organic matter in our house go either into the slop buckets to go to the pigs or the chickens, or onto the compost heap.

I don't consider this waste as it goes to make more food for my family.

But most hoseholds aren't like Wendy's and mine - or any other of the thrifty folks I follow on Twitter or whose blogs I read. Most people make WAY more food than their families will eat. They cater to their overindulged children by fixing even more, different, food when they refuse what was cooked. Many will carefully save leftovers (in expensive matching plasticware, natch!) but then it rots in the fridge because no one can be arsed to - or most likely - is too prissy to, eat leftovers.

A huge number, like some of my inlaws and their married-ins; simply chuck it, still warm, into the garbage disposal. (Then they toss those paper plates, napkins, paper towels, plastic cups, forks, spoons, etc into the most expensive brand of black plastic trash bag you can buy so it all can hurry to bulk up the landfill ... for the next 30 years.)

This behaviour makes me retch.

OK, fine. You don't have pigs or chickens: cool. You live in an apartment: no problem. The closest you come to gardening is paying some people darker than you to cut your lawn. WhatEVER.

Then stop making so much food. Stop buying stuff that's on sale just because it's on sale. Stop buying stuff just because you have a coupon for it. Stop starting yet another diet that's doomed to fail and going through your kitchen throwing out all the 'bad' stuff and then running to the store to buy loads of the 'good' stuff (much of which you'll turn out to hate.) Plan meals. Make lists. Stick to them. Use simple, basic ingredients. If you buy washed, chopped lettuce in a plastic bag, that's going to go bad quicker than a humble head of lettuce that you actually have to *gasp* break up yourself.

Do you really want your kids to watch the news of thousands of children their age in 3rd world countries who die of starvation every day, then watch mom blithely scrape plates loaded with food into the garbage?

Wasting food is just as bad as wasting electricity or petrol. Every bit you waste of anything not only impacts your purse but affects the environment in the form of waste treatment and landfills. PLUS, the more you waste the more the companies cheerfully produce, using resouces, damaging our planet, and so on.

Most of all, you are illustrating to your children a horrible lesson: "I don't give a damn". "I don't care about waste because it's all about me and what's convenient and easy for me right this red-hot second. Who cares what the economy, society, or the planet looks like 30 years form now. It's all about Me. Right. Now."

Nuh-uh. Not me. Not THIS mom.

And you don't have to either.

Vacuous celebs, ketosis, and media FAIL

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Tue, 12 May 2009 11:33:00 +0000

OK, so this made me laugh out loud.

Mia Farrow went off her liquid fast (function of which was to "call attention to the crisis in Darfur") because it was "affecting her health".

Now, I will NOT comment on the notion of some wealthy, white actress going on a fast having ANY impact whatsoever on the tragic lives of the people of Darfur. I'd like to, but this is a diet blog. Political nonsense will have to be adressed elsewhere. On to the diet nonsense.

So, anyway, after 12 days of fasting:

""Mia's health has taken a downturn over the last couple days and her doctor has asked her to stop immediately."

Oh, dear. So she became ill from this courageous undertaking? Well, apparently not:

"On CNN's Larry King Live Tuesday night, Farrow said her doctor told her Monday she was healthy except for low protein."

Huh. So she's fit and fine? Then what's the big deal? Ohhhhhh, something with a scary name!

""Ketosis or something like that," Farrow said. "Yes, but it's reversible.""

Well, thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for THAT! That horrible state of ... what was it? kee TOE sis is totally reversable! They must have barely saved her life!! Here's more info on the tragic state:

"Ketosis is a state in which the body burns its own fat for fuel and can "cause health problems, such as kidney failure," according to the medical Web site WebMD."

GREAT SCOTT! A person's body burning it's own fat for fuel?! How bizarre! Who wants to get rid of her own body fat?! And it can cause kidney failure?! Let's run over to WebMD and check it out: (cuz all thinking people trust that source for medical advice ...)

"By restricting carbohydrates drastically to a mere fraction of that found in the typical American diet, the body goes into a different metabolic state called ketosis, whereby it burns its own fat for fuel. Normally the body burns carbohydrates for fuel -- this is the main source of fuel for your brain, heart and many other organs. A person in ketosis is getting energy from ketones, little carbon fragments that are the fuel created by the breakdown of fat stores. When the body is in ketosis, you tend to feel less hungry, and thus you're likely to eat less than you might otherwise. However, ketosis can also cause health problems, such as kidney failure" "

Uh huh, uh huh ... fascinating. Hey ... when did we start talking about low carb diets? Was Mia's fast low carb? I thought her protein was low? Why are we referencing an article about high protein, low carb diets? Oh, well, whatever. Tell us about the kidney failure!

"Kidney failure. Consuming too much protein puts a strain on the kidneys, which can make a person susceptible to kidney disease."

OK, so, wait. I'm confused again. Ketosis will not cause kidney disease, high protein will. So that was a big fat load of bullshit. Plus, wasn't Mia's diet -again, I ask - lacking in protein? Gosh. So puzzling. Maybe I need to read more 'facts' from CrapMD:

"It is well known that high protein diets (consisting of red meat, whole dairy products, and other high fat foods) are linked to high cholesterol."

Yeah? Why is it that after 2 years low carb and 8 months Paleo (and eating 90% fatty meat and eggs every day) my personal cholesterol dropped to 136, ten points lower than it's ever been in my life? Hmm. perhaps I'm a freak of nature. Let's move on.

"Unhealthy metabolic state (ketosis). Low carb diets can cause your body to go into a dangerous metabolic state called ketosis since your body burns fat instead of glucose for energy. During ketosis, the body forms substances known as ketones, which can cause organs to fail and result in gout, kidney stones, or kidney failure."

Ketosis is NOT unhealthy. It is NOT dangerous, you dolts. It is the body's mechanism for supplying energy during periods of no food.

Dr Michael R. Eades sez:

"Early on, the metabolic system doesn’t know that the starvation is going to go on for a day or for a week or two weeks. At first it plunders the muscle to get its sugar. [snip] But we wouldn’t want it to continue. If we could reduce that amount and allow our muscle mass to last as long as possible it would be a help.

The metabolic system could solve its problem by a coming up with a way to reduce the glucose-dependent tissues’ need for glucose so that the protein could be spared as long as possible.

Ketones to the rescue.

The liver requires energy to convert the protein to glucose. The energy comes from fat. As the liver breaks down the fat to release its energy to power gluconeogenesis, the conversion of protein to sugar, it produces ketones as a byproduct. And what a byproduct they are. Ketones are basically water soluble (meaning they dissolve in blood) fats that are a source of energy for many tissues including the muscles, brain and heart."

The dangerous state is ketoacidosis such as happens with diabetics and I am sick of the brainless wastes of carbon in the media who apparently can't be arsed to actualy research anything and instead regurgitate the stinking vomitus of popular diet misconception so that all the idiot blockhead Tweeters and bloggers and friends and co-workers of us Low-Carbers can trot it out in a big, roiling dish every time they see us.

Dear media: get your shit straight, plz. kthxbai.

Transitioning to Paleo

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Mon, 04 May 2009 10:01:00 +0000

Superb post by one of the Paleo guys I follow on Twitter on transitioning to Paleo. V. succinct and to-the- point.

I was one of those people who researched the plan, it made sense to me, so I switched, literally, that day from a low-carb plan to Paleolithic. But a lot of folks need more time and this article really will help.

I love how he points out that there are many different versions of Paleo and that you can tweak it to suit you (which is why it rawks as a way of eating!)

Your Saturday morning diet rant

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Sat, 02 May 2009 10:10:00 +0000

Just a couple of teensy vents for you today.

Number one, what's up with the people who say to me "well, I don't know what Lacto-Paleo is" (said to me in a totally arch and snotty tone as if I'd made those two words up) or "what's Lacto-Paleo?"

OK, you know what Paleo is (this is assumed in this rant, lol), why can't you suss out the lacto part? There are lacto-vegetarians, ovo-vegetarians, pesco-vegetarians, and ovo-lacto-pesco-vegetarians (!)(otherwise known as regular people who want to feel all cuddly and warm about themselves) so what's so puzzling about lacto-paleo?

Do you really not recognise the root "lacto"? As in "lactate"? As in the making of the milk? Hello!

Last of all: You haz de Googlez. Look it up for fark's sake! Don't stand there acting like you just don't have time for all this tin-foil hattery that I'm pulling out of thin air. It's a legitimate WOE, people. Many, many low carbers are enjoying what is essentally a Lacto-Paleo lifestyle.

Second vent:

Why is it that many restaurants have low calorie and even vegetarian choices but almost none have low-carb choices? (Feel free to comment and tell me "Blue, it's because people are idiots!" LOL; alas, I know that's true!)

Seriously. I should be able to walk into a Burger King and say: "I want a number 3 and could you Low Carb that, please?" and they'd bring me my whopper made sans bun, NO fries, and a drink. Instead, if I'm running late and I dive into the Micky Ds for breakfast I have to have this convo:

"Good morning. May I get a sausage McMuffin with the cheese on the side?"
"Whut?"
"May I get a sausage McMuffin with the cheese on the side."
"You don't want no cheese?"
"No. I want the cheese but I want it on the side, not on the McMuffin."
"You want extra cheese?"
(gritting teeth) "No. I want a sausage Mc Muffin and I want the cheese that goes on it, separate."
(turns to other cashier) "So she don't want no cheese?"

If you ever hear of a 45 year old mother of 5 strangling a cashier in South Carolina, that'll be me!

(In case you're wondering about the cheese, if I just order it and try to remove the muffin myself, my lovely cheese sticks to it and gets wasted. If i try to order one without the muffin, I have to endure the "whut?' factor plus they inevitably just yank one apart that's been made, throw cheese on it and nuke it in the back - yuck!)

We need to start a campaign and demand that restaurants offer low carb choices! It would actually be quite easy for most of them and it would make them money. Think about it - most of us primals avoid all restaurants for this reason.

What do you do in a pinch when you're out and need a good primal/paleo/low carb meal? Any good low-carb friendly restaurants or meals that you know of? Tell us in the comments!

Quick catch-up over here. too

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:59:00 +0000

Apologies for not posting for so long. I posted a short explaination over on the Thrifty Mom blog.

So, the financial news sucks, but the diet news is much better.

I'm down to 168lbs, that's over 150lbs lost. I read about a theory that when a person is on a high fat diet, such as mine, that any excess protein can trigger an insulin response and stall weightloss. I decided to try cutting back my protein, and upping my fat, and, obviously, have had a good response to it!

I'm also doing strength training 4 times a week (crunches, squats, push-ups, free weights) and, by golly, my thighs are getting pretty muscle-y! LOL!

But here's the best part for anyone who has followed me on my low-carbohydrate diet journey then onto the Paleolithic diet WOE, I went to the doctor for my annual check-up. It was a blast.

These folks hadn't seen me since my six week post partum (this is my OB I'm talking about, here) check up and I weigh 155lbs LESS now. Also, after getting all the girly stuffs (oh, how we look forward to the boob squishing!) out of the way, I requested that my BP and cholesterol be taken.

Well, my blood pressure was fine and my cholesterol was 136. ONE THIRTY SIX. That's 10pts lower than it's ever been in my life! Bodog, whom I put on low carb as soon as he came home from hospital, has seen his BP and cholesterol sink to normal.

After eight months of eating fat, meat, eggs, cheese, butter, and v. limited green veg, my cholesterol has IMPROVED. I would love to have had the whole profile done, but, alas, it costs too much. Perhaps next year when I've been eating paleo for 20 months.

Right. That's all I have to report today. I'll keep you updated on the diet, the financial situation, etc. Please feel free to join us on the Evil Genius Woman forums where we have a small (so far) but enthusiastic community of dieters.

Also please check out my newest website The Thrifty Mom Dot Com, your one-stop source for all things parenting, dieting, and snarky! We'll be showcasing our new diet/foodie t-shirts and gifts there soon.

Eat me. No, wait ... I mean, eat yourself.

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:49:00 +0000

This hilarious post by Tom Naughton over at Fathead has me still giggling.

It is true when you think about it and I am SO gonna start calling the established nutrition anti-science crowd "The Holy Church of Accepted Advice For Living A Long and Healthy Life".

Skinny Asians and Leaner Pigs

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 18:14:00 +0000

I am constantly fascinated by Twitterers and bloggers, article writers and folks IRL who faithfully regurgitate non-truths and anti-science from the low-fat, high-carb establishment.

I've already had one Tweep storm off in a huff, taking her ball and going home on Twitter because I dared to say that I disagreed with her opinion that overeating causes us to be fat, period, and that furthermore, overeating was a compulsion that we could not control.

(She never explained how I had lost 140lbs if I was labouring under this brain-grip. I was keen to know. Thought I had Heroes-like superpowers.)

At any rate, here's two more articles full of bullshit that were Tweeted today:

(NOTE: I do not know these Tweeps, so I do not know what their opinions are on said articles. They may think they're craptacular as well. I'm not saying that they agree, just that these articles might be taken on faith as actual science by the credulous.)

This one, about the Korean rate of obesity being so low is interesting:

"the obesity ratio for Korea was 3.5 percent. Closely trailing Korea at 3.9 percent was Japan, which is the other Asian country in the Western-heavy club. The fact book is based on a survey of people aged 15 or older conducted in 2006 or the latest year available. Switzerland came in third with an overall obesity ratio of 7.7 percent. Norway and Italy came in at 9.0 percent and 10.2 percent, respectively.

Bringing up the rear was the United States which had a chunky ratio of 34.3 percent. Other countries with the highest obesity rates were Mexico (30.0 percent), New Zealand (25.0 percent), Britain (24.0 percent) and Greece (21.9 percent). "

Yow. We're 1/3 fatter than our closest continental European fatties? And Sumo Supersized compared to the asians? Argh!

But then the article wraps up with this odd statement:

"A Ministry of Strategy and Finance official in charge of dealing with OECD reports said the healthy condition for Koreans and Japanese seems to be due to traditionally vegetarian diets for the Asian countries. "

Eh? I've always understood the asian cuisine to be mostly veg and meat w/ rice and noodles as a side dish. NOT vegetarian. In fact, Wikipedia sez of Koren cuisine:

"The consumption of pork and beef increased vastly in Korea in the 1970s. The per-capita consumption of meat was 3.6 kilograms in 1961, which increased to 11 kilograms per person in 1979. The result of this increased meat consumption brought about the increase of bulgogi restaurants which gave the middle class of South Korea the ability to enjoy meat regularly. The consumption of meat rose to 40 kilograms in 1997, while fish consumption was 49.5 kilograms in 1998."

Hmm. Koreans have eaten dog for centuries. I'm pretty sure that's not vegetarian.

Speaking of not vegetarian, here's a smackdown of my fave meat, pork. It's full of outdated thinking and they start in on the fat-bashing immediately. Wanna bet 89% of the people who read this over breakfast were snarfing a bagel or a bowl of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs?

"whether a meat is red or white isn't the best indication of the type and amount of fat it contains, Brewer says. A serving of chicken from the leg, skin on, contains more saturated fat and about the same amount of cholesterol as the same-sized serving of 95% lean ground beef."

They even invoke the idiotic 'study' about meat=death. *yawn* You remember that one? Where the meat eaters who died just happened to be the sedentary, overweight, smokers ... but it was that damned red meat whut killed 'em!

Here's an interesting tidbit:

"Pork is leaner today. Several decades ago, the meat industry responded to consumer demand by finding ways to make meat less fatty. The pork industry, in particular, began to breed for leaner pigs. The result, says Ceci Snyder, assistant vice president of the National Pork Board in Des Moines, was that the average pork loin on the market in 1982 was 64% leaner than one in 1970. The fat content of pork has continued to drop -- albeit more slowly -- since then."

So ... wait.

About 40 years ago we all dropped our fat and upped our carbs at the advice of the FDA, and real butter, lard, real cream, etc left our supermarket shelves; all our dairy products became low fat, and we all started nervously watching our fat intake to the point where we demaned they breed leaner livestock? And at the same time our rates of diabetes and heart disease and obesity began to climb to the percipitous rise they now enjoy?

But fat is bad for us?

As a lolcat would say: ai haz a confoozled

Paleo diet = grapefruit diet? Give me a break!

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 11:18:00 +0000

Our Stupid Article for the Day has been found!

(I thought about doing a Stupid Article Saturday every week, but, honestly, I find stupid diet articles several times a week. And why wait? Why delay gratification for snark?! Let's get at it ...)

WebMD's Worst Diets Ever - diets that don't work.

Uh-huh. Grab your tinfoil hats, folks! Let's see what Kathleen Zelman, MPH, RD, LD has to say!

First paragraph she jumps right on us primal types with this snotty little snippet:

"You've heard of them, maybe even tried them: miraculous-sounding diets that claim to melt off pounds with minimal effort. There are hundreds of these quick-fix diets out there, from the grapefruit diet to the detox diet to the "caveman" diet."

Ohh, burn! Put us in quotes like the Paleolithic / Primal Way of Eating is a freaky fresh diet some new-age hippie in Cali just pulled out of his homeopathically cleansed arse. Nope, honey. Been around way longer than every other. Try 2 million years.

Wow, and Ms Dawn Jackson-Blatner (Say that out loud. I guarantee you'll laugh. Sorry ... unnessessary snark. I'm OK now. ... *snort*) is so far off the farkin' mark I can barely see her from here:

"One reason's it's so hard to tell the difference is that even the worst diets will likely result in weight loss, at least initially. But it does little good to lose weight, experts say, if it comes right back.

"Don't be fooled into thinking it is because of some magical food, pill or potion. What causes weight loss is eating fewer calories than you burn," says Dawn Jackson-Blatner, RD, a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association (ADA).

WTF? Are real professional people STILL clinging to this insane, untrue and fully disproved notion?! It is NOT that simple, people. Fat metabolism is a complex, dynamic process. It's NOT just "calories in, calories out".

Brace yourself, there's more from ol' Jackson-Blatner:

"Crazy, unbalanced diets cause weight loss because they are basically low-calorie diets."

Golly bob howdy! Really? I my own self have, to date, lost 140lbs on a "crazy unbalanced diet" and am currently losing on 2500-3000 calories a day. Yes, you read that correctly. Do I have special DNA altered by space aliens? Cool!

On to the worst diets. Diet number one is us paleo / primal people (ohh, should I have put that in quotes?)

"1. Diets that focus on only a few foods or food groups (like the cabbage soup diet, grapefruit diet, strict vegan diets, raw food diets, and many low-carb diets). Beware of any diet that rules out entire food groups. People need to eat from a variety of food groups to get all the nutrients they need, says ADA spokeswoman Andrea Giancoli, MPH, RD."

Another little nugget of wisdom from the faux science sector. *rolls eyes*

People. The 'balanced diet' concept is a fallacy. Seriously. We do NOT need grains or legumes or starchy tubers. Our bodies do not require bread, crackers, cookies, cake, corn, rice, oatmeal, potatoes, beans, or peanuts. We ran, hunted, bred, gathered, slept, and raised babies for 2 million years without any of these foods.
That's a hella long time. We get every vitamin and mineral, every nutrient our bodies need, from meat and veg. If we "need a balanced diet" to survive then why aren't we extinct?

o hai, perhaps we are going to be soon! According to these guys we all just lack willpower:

Yale University's David Katz, MD, author of The Flavor Point Diet, says that while restrictive diets do work initially, they fail over the long haul. You can lose weight on diets that focus on single foods (like cabbage soup), but how much cabbage soup can a person eat? Before long, you grow weary of eating the same foods every day, and cravings for favorite foods lead you back to your former eating behavior.
Keep in mind that all foods can fit into a healthy lifestyle in moderation -- even things like bacon, super-premium ice cream, and chips. And when diets forbid certain foods and dieters envision a life without their favorite treats, those diets usually fail. "Any time you restrict a certain food, it triggers cravings for the forbidden fruit and sets up a restriction-binge cycle," says Blatner. "

Yeah, yeah ... right. Poor us. We all have no control over ourselves whatsoever. *sniffle* and are entirely incapable of saying "Holy cow! I'm the size of a cow! If I don't stop this crap, I won't be alive to see my grandchildren!"

We're all gonna fail without the sage advice and comforting wisdom of the misinformed nutrition industry! Show me the food pyramid! Show it to me! *weeps* If you need me I'll be running around, screaming, with my hands in the air!

...
...

Right. Did we get that out of our systems?

Let's look at the truth, shall we?

Thanks to the FDA and the nutrition industry we, as a people, have been nomming more and more carbs and sugar during the last 40 years and correspondingly growing more and more obese whilst opting in for such fun extras as diabetes and heart disease. (If fat is so bad for you, howcome heart disease is skyrocketing when everyone is obsessively watching his fat intake, hmm?)

Many of us are insulin resistant, almost all of us are bombarded with creamy, gooey, flakey, crispy, carby, sugary CRAP all day every day. No wonder we can't stick to any diets. We have become addicted to soda and crisps, to pizza and candy bars. 50 years ago, a delicious treat, eaten AT MOST, once a day, after supper, was a fresh apple pie made from butter, flour, sugar, spices, and tart apples. Just plain food with the minimum sugar cuz it was expensive. And it was a special treat. Things like candy and ice cream was a rare indulgence when you went into town. You drank water or cider or tea and ate meat and veg the rest of the day.

Nowdays our feet hit the floor and we start sucking down the carbs/sugars. We eat nasty breakfast cereals with scoops of sugar, toaster pastries, jellies on our 2 slices of toast. We snack all day on crisps and candy and cookies; we suck down sodas and sports drinks and flavoured waters. Even V-8 is loaded with carbs and sugar! We have dessert after both dinner and supper - we snack in between. We gorge on fast food and worry about the fat. Have you looked at the carb and sugar content of that chinese take-away?!

We are a nation conditioned to eat and stimulated to do so by the carb/sugars we consume. They raise our blood sugar, then crash it, insulin floods in, and we eat. Rinse and repeat, over and over. All day. Every day.

You have to break this cycle.

I'm NOT trying to flog the Paleo Way of Eating. It's not right for many, but it does work. The truth and the real science is that you can lose weight and keep it off if you quit listening to the nutrition and diet industries. Stop eating processed foods, cut out most of the carbs and sugars, eat more vegetables (NO, corn and potatoes are not vegetables!), move your body more, get outside in the sunshine without your SPF15.

No, it's not easy to start and there will be some rough patches. There is no magic pill. Like a marriage or like raising a kid, changing the way you eat permanently is tough. You have to have the determination to do it.

But all those things are worth it, doncha think?

Thoughts? Brickbats? Have you lost weight and kept it off on anything the industry would call a fad diet? I'd LOVE to hear about it!

Today's funneh

noreply@blogger.com (MrsEvilGenius) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 10:46:00 +0000

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