Our bodies were not meant to zero carb

(TJ Borden) #63

No bacon for a month? The sacrifices you make for science are amazing. You are truly a bigger man than I am…well I still have 200lbs to lose, so I guess I’m technically the bigger man, but… you know what mean.

#64

Richard, I am a big fan of 2 keto dudes. I started the keto diet 6 weeks ago and have had a high heart rate and high blood pressure as well. This is unnerving. I am 111 lbs and normally my heart rate is 60 and my bp is 110/50. This worries me because my heart feels like its beating out of my chest. No fat adapted yet. Is this a transitional phase? I just want it to slow down. Do not want to revert back to old ways of eating. I know the keto genic diet is great and treats many maladies. Just concerned about my vitals. They have been elevated for over a month. Not searching for medical advice as I am a medical practitioner. But, I want advice for someone versed in keto. Thank you.

(Brian) #65

Well… sort of. But not the same kind of genetic engineering that Monsanto is using on corn and soybeans and some other crops.

It was something that they carefully bred from the brassicas they were growing about 500+ BC, something like 2,500 years ago. Exactly what those original brassicas were, I haven’t really researched out. But it’s not like broccoli is something that’s only been around for a few decades.

I suspect there was quite a lot of crossbreeding an hybridizing that happened way, way back. I think I would find it all rather fascinating were I able to spend some time with it. I’m all for that kind of thing as it has brought about some disease resistance, vitality, and plant health that strictly “heirloom” varieties often lack. Similar things happen in the animal kingdom, too, for instance, breeding different kinds of cattle for desired characteristics. (It’s a big topic.)

Though some would disagree, I find the idea of breeding different varieties of tomato to develop desirable characteristics much more palatable than crossing tomato genes with fish genes and who knows what else. The latter hasn’t been happening until just the last century. (Just my opinion, though.)

(TJ Borden) #66

I agree 100%, which is why it’s frustrating when regulators (the very same that tell us sugar is good and fat is bad), use blanket terms to push policy that, while well intentioned, is grossly misguided. I don’t know of any single company that has done, and continues to do, more damage to the survival of the human race than Monsanto. C&H has nothing on them.

My wife teaches high school AP biology. She regularly does a lab in which the kids have to go to local natural
food stores and bring back an item labeled “non-gmo”, it’s an affluent district, so the cost isn’t an issue and there are plenty of stores around.

Once they test it, it turns out to be accurate about half the time.

(Bunny) #67

May also depend on what meats you choose to eat long-term (years)? I deeply speculate a high ofal intake besides lean cuts would probably change the negative variables in any vintage research? Lots of grass fed cuts in New York? Lots of grass in New York lol!

CLINICAL CALORIMETRY.
XLV. PROLONGED MEAT DIETS WITH A STUDY OF KIDNEY FUNCTION AND KETOSIS.
BY WALTER S. MCCLELLAN AND EUGENE F. Du BOIS. (From the Russell Sage Institute of Pathology in Affiliation with the Second Medical (Cornell) Division of Bellevue Hospital New York) Recieved for Publication February 13, 1930.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS.

  1. Two men lived on an exclusive meat diet for 1 year and a third man for 10 days. The relative amounts of lean and fat, meat ingested were left to the instinctive choice of the individuals.
  2. The protein content varied from 100 to 140 gm., the fat from 200 to 300 gm., the carbohydrate, derived entirely from the meat, from 7 to 12 gm., and the fuel value from 2000 to 3100 calories.
  3. At the end of the year, the subjects were mentally alert, physically active, and showed no specific physical changes in any system of the body.
  4. During the 1st week, all three men lost weight, due to a shift in the water content of the body while adjusting itself to the low carbohydrate diet. Thereafter, their weights remained practically constant.
  5. In the prolonged test, the blood pressure of one man remained constant; the systolic pressure of the other decreased 20 mm. and the diastolic pressure remained uniform.
  6. The control of the bowels was not disturbed while the subjects were on prescribed meat diet. In one instance, when the proportion of protein calories in the diet exceeded 40 per cent, a diarrhea developed.
  7. Vitamin deficiencies did not appear.
  8. The total acidity of the urine during the meat diet was increased to 2 or 3 times that of the acidity on mixed diets and acetonuria was present throughout the periods of exclusive meat.
  9. Urine examinations, determinations of the nitrogenous constituents of the blood, and kidney function tests revealed no evidence of kidney damage.
  10. While on the meat diet, the men metabolized foodstuffs with FA: G ratios between 1.9 and 3.0 and excreted from 0.4 to 7.2 gm. of acetone bodies per day.
  11. In these trained subjects, the clinical observations and laboratory studies gave no evidence that any ill effects had occurred from the prolonged use of the exclusive meat diet. …More
(Hoteski) #68

Tell that to the Eskimos lol

(Sondra Rose) #69

Hi, not Richard, but a long-time Ketoer and nutrition coach.

Electrolytes can get out of whack when going Keto and trigger the symptoms you described. Suggest supplementing Magnesium in a chelate form, as well as Potassium. Salt food to taste. Do a search for “Keto-Ade” on this site for an electrolyte replacement recipe.

(Bunny) #70

Hypothesis:

  1. What happens (article below) when eat you too much meat\protein and exceed a certain threshold (e.g. 4 oz.) of protein then we are creating excessive gluconeogensis (K must compete with glucose) and thus causes arterial calcification (ischaemic heart disease). Thus a high sugar diet?

  2. Omega 6 to 3 ratio ischemia[1]

Offal way to die

The Last Word has told us that lions prefer to eat the fat and organs of their prey rather than the muscle. Apparently, muscle tissue is relatively poor in energy and vitamins (for lions, at least), and lions are able to make glucose in the liver from protein, so do not need carbohydrates. What, then, are the equivalents in humans? And if, when civilisation crashes, I finally manage to catch a stray cat or dog, which parts should I eat first, and why?

• An earlier answer was a little misleading and perpetuated a common myth about the Inuit and their traditional diet. The idea that the Inuit enjoyed peerless health on an all-meat diet has been defying evidence for decades. They obviously survived, but their rates of stroke were higher than the average for Western populations and, as their diet changed and westernised, their rates of ischaemic heart disease dropped.

As for protein, if meat is too lean and that’s all you eat, then you will die. This is sometimes called “rabbit starvation” because it was discovered among people who were trying, of necessity, to survive only on rabbits. But the outcome will be the same for any other similarly lean meat. Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council has cited survey data in which not a single person getting more than 30 per cent of their calories from protein was meeting their recommended intake of vitamins or minerals.

Humans can indeed survive on all manner of unhealthy diets, but any implication that they are beneficial should be dismissed.

Geoff Russell, St Morris, South Australia …More

[1] Omega-6/Omega-3 Fatty Acid Ratio: The Israeli Paradox Dubnov G. · Berry E.M.

(Banting & Yudkin & Atkins & Eadeses & Cordain & Taubes & Volek & Naiman & Bikman ) #71

Uhm, while I agree that lacinato kale is too ugly to be ornamental…
https://hort.uwex.edu/articles/ornamental-cabbage-and-kale/

PS- name an essential carbohydrate. There isn’t one. Name an essential micronutrient that is only found in carbohydrate source. Not many of those. Lastly, only the zero carb folks are going zero carb. Many of us are simply reducing carb to the level of ketosis, while eating more fruit and veg than we do on the SAD.

Get off our lawn.

(Brian) #72

LOL!! Do I hear Bob Nelson on that one? “Nelson Shmelson”? Many years ago I had a video of him doing a one-man thing, probably an hour long. Not everybody appreciated(s?) his humor but I still remember some of his silliness.

Maybe it wasn’t a reference, but it still gave me a bit of a chuckle going down memory lane.

:slight_smile:

#73

@Hoteski and all -

It’s important to acknowledge that there’s been a lot of stereotyping of the Inuit peoples by a number of whites/europeans in general - and in the ZC and LCHF worlds. I think white people need to learn more and do better.

In the United States and Canada, the term “Eskimo” was commonly used by ethnic Europeans to describe the Inuit and Alaska’s Yupik and Iñupiat peoples. _ It is not a word from any of the Arctic languages. Since the late 20th century, aboriginal peoples in Canada and Greenlandic Inuit consider “Eskimo” to be a pejorative/derogatory term_, and they usually use the term “Inuit” in Canada, and are considered a distinctive group of Aboriginal Canadians. And… the word ‘Eskimo’ actually came from a northern Native American tribe’s word for ‘eater of raw meat’ which was then attached to and used as a blanket term by white people for the Arctic peoples. The Arctic peoples originated from what anthropologists call the Thule culture, who emerged from western Alaska around 1000 CE.and migrated to Canada, Siberia, and Greenland.

The traditional diet of the Arctic peoples (of which there are many different tribes and numerous languages over a vast regions ranging in Inuit-Aleut-Sami cultures in recent centuries) was indeed very high in fat from eating foods like whale, seal, and salmon.

HOWEVER, they not only fished and hunted - they gathered and stored according to the seasons (really mostly two seasons up there). Sure, they had times where they were ZC, perhaps months at a time, depending on their storage and trading conditions. Vilhjalmur Stefansson’s experiences on the Anglo-American Polar Expedition when he lived with the Inuit of the Mackenzie Delta for one winter, was not the sum total of everything Inuit, nor did he live with them for more than a few months. It’s wonderful that he reported what he did and that he witnessed people drinking fat and such - but it should be understood as part of something much bigger, something vast. It’s also critically important to know that Stefansson was pro-colonization - in 1921, he encouraged and planned an expedition for four young men to colonize Wrangel Island north of Siberia which he started out doing for the Canadian government, then switched it to the British goverment - all white people!

Back to diet - the truth as far as I know is that the Arctic peoples also loved their berries, seaweed, and herbaceous foods. This is clearly stated in Inuit cultural heritage museums and programs in Nunavat and elsewhere. I’ve learned a little bit about this from an Inuit acquaintance as well as a friend who was an anthropologist in the far north of Alaska. It’s also written of by anthropologists Edmund Seales, Harriet Kuhnlein, Susan Rowley, John Bennett and others:

The gathered, stored, and traded carb items include:

Berries including crowberry and cloudberry
Herbaceous plants such as grasses and fireweed
Tubers and stems including mousefood, roots of various tundra plants which are cached by voles in underground burrows.
Roots such as tuberous spring beauty and sweet vetch
Seaweed

Surprisingly, the wikipedia page on Inuit Cuisine is quite good, and extensive in its cititations for those who are interested. It’s also worth noting that the berries Vit. C complemented collagen uptake from the broths, and that the fibrous and herbaceous plants contributed to a specific gut microbiome.

I think that misinformation about the ancient traditional diets of Arctic peoples is ultimately disrespectful and this needs to change.

There has been a lot of modern cultural genocide in the Arctic regions - many, though certainly not all surviving peoples have been systematically displaced from their lands through industrial “development”, and TV marketing of industrial culture and the standard industrial diet replacing community traditions like the evening fire and hunting/gathering food sharing. For those who are interested in learning more on that, highly recommend the book “In The Absence Of The Sacred: The Failure of Technology & the Survival of the Indian Nations” by Jewish global economics scholar and elder activist Jerry Mander (b. 1936), with a M.S. in International Economics from Columbia University’s Business School.

Currently, in the Nunuvat region of far north Canada, stores sell veggies for $15/pound, along with lots of industrial junk food - and most of the younger people don’t hunt or gather anymore, and are terribly malnourished and living in food scarcity/food injustice due to cultural genocide. There are cultural revival efforts happening, but the conditions there for city people are very, very dire.

(Richard Morris) #74

It’s not typical. I suspect it could just be a sign of low sodium, but I really don’t know.

(Rob) #75

To be fair, the piece you quote is just some unsubstantiated ramblings of a non-professional contributor to a magazine (unlike your usual sources) :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:.

This is from 2004 so is about at the Atkins level of understanding but has a better (or at least more supported) view of Inuit life.

http://discovermagazine.com/2004/oct/inuit-paradox

I don’t know the answer but there are far too many people doing very well on ZC to make any pronouncements against it per se. As ever, n=1 counts.

As far as the Inuits go, I’m going to dig into the mortality research since all I see are utterly contradictory statements supporting whichever position the author agrees with.

(Bunny) #76

I am deeply curious also, Inuit were eating to survive and maybe it is possible to overeat even on a meat only diet relative (portion size) to physical exertion and maybe that’s all it is?

The issues related to heart disease would be just as prevalent as with any type of food?

The modern anthropologists, scientists and health care professionals or what have you come in and say “Oh, it surely must be the high fat meat only diet!” when it is just simply the case of the Inuit over eating and not enough physical activity from modernization, abundance or something to that respect?

Delving even deeper into this other than what is termed as a “traditional Inuit diet” their maybe other factors of progressive modernization of any indigenous people to factor into this?

(Nicole Sawchuk) #77

@Emacfarland just reading back up on the thread and wondering how you have been doing with ZC? Your story has always fascinated me because it appears you defy the “norms” with everything in low carb world. I feel like we are similar and enjoy following your posts as you seem to overcome a lot and find what works for you. I’ve been thinking of going ZC but like you, I worry I will get sort of sick of it even when I am not a veggie person.

(Erin Macfarland ) #78

@N1coleS I went about 6 weeks strict ZC, and then found myself not feeling as great as when I first started out. I was tired, I lacked energy in the gym and I was feeling burned out on meat. So I added back some veggies and some dark chocolate. My intention wasn’t to devote myself to ZC for the long term, since I don’t really seem to have issues with eating veggies (that I know of) and I am metabolically healthy. I understand it takes man months to fully adapt to ZC, so I wasn’t expecting to not have any issues with energy fluctuations, but it was really affecting my ability to get through my busy days. I felt better and more balanced going back to a keto template, however I got some very useful feedback from my body and from ZC groups regarding protein. I realized I had been trying hard to moderate my protein when eating keto prior to trying ZC. In some previous posts of mine you might read about how I was discussing being very hungry after eating a substantial keto meal, and how, despite trying to “fill up” in fat, I couldn’t seem to feel satiated. After trying ZC and really allowing myself to eat as much fatty meat as I needed to feel satisfied, I continued to eat higher amounts of meat when i went back to a keto style of eating. This has helped immensely with that post meal satiety I couldn’t get when keeping protein lower and trying to fill up on fat. I listened to a fantastic podcast with Dr Ted Neiman in which he discusses how our bodies have a protein threshold we need to meet in order to feel satiated, and how we will keep eating until we meet it, and it’s much higher than most people think. He discussed how the composition of the American diet has drastically cut protein and this is one reason why people will eat beyond their energy requirements, because they are eating foods low in protein and their bodies keep sending out hunger signals until that threshold is met. I know there is a lot of interest in ZC right now and I have kind of gravitated towards eating mostly meat and animal products with the addition of some veggies and chocolate and maybe a few nuts. I know this is not what the ZC “vets” advise but I never cared about forcing myself to adopt this way of eating permanently. I could care less if I’m not “hardcore” ZC, as a matter of fact, I left the ZC groups I’d joined because of their elitist attitude and their tendency to bully people who challenged their beliefs. I don’t think it’s right to mock people for having different beliefs than me, and that really turned me off of being part of that community . So that’s been my experience so far. Right now I IF every day for about 20 hours, I don’t do long fasts because I’m pretty lean and very active and it’s not mentally healthy for me, but that’s based on my own history and knowledge of what works. Then I’ll eat over the course over a few hours, usually fatty steak or burgers, bacon, pork cracklings (my vice, I eat a bag a day, lol) I’ll have some veggies like cauli rice or broccoli or green beans, some dark chocolate, maybe some nuts sometimes. I don’t limit how much meat I eat I’ve found my body gives me a pretty clear idea of when I’ve had enough. And I don’t usually end up digging around for more to eat after I’ve finished my big meal!

(Nicole Sawchuk) #79

Thanks for the update @Emacfarland! I started working out again in January after taking a year off and immediate I began to gain weight. That’s a different topic, but the biggest thing I noticed after I added exercise was that I was hungrier than ever! I started adding more fat to my diet by actually adding BPC and even eating pure coconut oil yet the hunger was persistent. I listened to the podcasts of eating to satiety but fat didn’t seem to be cutting it. Instead it appeared it was stoking the hunger! Fasting for even 20 hours was so hard. People kept hinting it was too low of calories (but it wasn’t that, in fact I was eating more than ever) and so the other thing that kept getting recommended was to keep increasing my fat and cut my protein further. But when I decided to actually measure my protein, I was surprised that I was fairly low side. Since increasing fat didn’t do the wonders everyone else claimed, I started reading Dr Naiman’s posts and following all these carnivore and ZC threads. I began to increase my protein until I felt stuffed last month. And like you, I started to finally feel satiated again! Its not like I am eating excessive protein (I’m probably getting closer to 1.0 g/ kg lbm). While the exercise and I pray I have started building muscle may have led to the partial increase in weight, I am starting to believe that the increase in fat was the biggest reason for the weight gain. I am still fairly lean (well I would say I am now average body type) and other than getting a little more toned and losing maybe another inch around my stomach, I was just trying to maintain. I loved eating in a 4 hour eating window as it works with my busy schedule and I feel fantastic this way! But something hasn’t been working for me since January. Now I need to lose that little bit I have gained (again its not the scale but more of the slight increase in inches around my stomach I am seeing). I’ve been considering ZC, but like you I would not be hardcore. I don’t mind the occasional vegetable and I really like nuts (have given them up the last couple weeks) and it saddens me because that was my last vice! ZC appeals because the one thing I can’t stand doing anymore is measuring or weighing my food!

Wow - I am all over the map with this reply…sorry.

(Erin Macfarland ) #80

Don’t apologize lol!! I’m glad to hear you’re figuring out what works!

#81

I’m glad I found this ZC update for you, @Emacfarland. Thanks for asking for it, @N1coleS!

I am very similar to you, Erin, largely in being recovered from a restricting eating disorder, that similarly brought me down to a dangerous what-are-you-doing-we-want-to-take-you-to-the-hospital weight. There are a lot of things in keto that my body responds differently than the norm, and I think a lot about how my history has maybe caused my body to need different things, or created specific adaptations/skills to deal with low energy input. So that satiation works very different for me.
I’ve been contemplating the ZC thing, for the only reason of hoping it would help that satiation. And thinking about food. I just want food out of my life. On the Keto Woman Podcast talking about ZC carnivore Amber says something about still enjoying food, but when it’s done it’s done and it doesn’t play such a big role in her life-- and this sounds like heaven!!
I am glad to hear your experience here, and that you are allowing yourself more protein and this is helping you. I have been the same with the fat to satiation-- hungry at the end of a meal, so more fat and more fat and more fat to no avail. And scared by the keto masses to up my protein. Thank you for sharing your experience of no meat limit so I can feel good about trying more protein myself.

(Michele) #82

Serendipity to the rescue. I’m 6 months into keto. In the last couple of weeks I’ve been feeling ‘hungry’ even after eating a well balanced meal. Maybe I should write ‘well balanced’! I’ve been observing my experience and wondering why. Is it a lack of an essential micronutrient? Enough fat? Water? … Reading this reminds me that yesterday I ate a significant protein (grilled chicken with aioli) meal and felt stuffed at the end. So now I will observe and increase my protein intake slightly and see what happens. It’s been frustrating wondering what’s going on especially when I know the hunger isn’t being driven by carbs or insulin spiking (no cheat meals/carb cycling etc for me). Thank you yet again people of the Ketogenic Forum :smile: