Let me start by warning you that there aren't any worthwhile shortcuts in life. If you want something, you are going to have to earn it. The same holds true when it comes to weight loss. Crash diets, magic pills, and cleanses are all marketing scams targeted at those of you who are looking for something quick and easy.

I received an email from a friend yesterday asking about the Master Cleanse. Sure, the advertising looks pretty and promises things that we would all want, but proceed with caution. Here was my response:

Play along for a minute, will you?

How many calories a day do you typically consume?

Subtract 750 from that number.

Multiply your new number by 7.

Now, divide that number by 3500.

What did you come up with?

I bet it is somewhere around 2-6.

In theory, that is the number of pounds of fat you would lose while on this "detox diet" for a week if "calorie in/calorie out" worked the way most people wanted it to. Instead, your body will begin to slow down to preserve as much energy as possible. Remember, you aren't fat because you are lazy and eat too much, but rather, you eat too much and are lazy because you are already fat. Check out my post on "calorie in/calorie out" for further details.

In reality, you may lose that amount of weight, but I give you the Bill Yundt GUARANTEE that it will not be fat. Instead, it will be lost water weight. Hopefully you don't dehydrate too much while trying to force a laxative diet on your body.

Think about the components of the drink and tell me it isn't a lemonade laxative. Water, OK we need that to live. Lemon juice, has nothing to offer except flavor and some sugar. Maple syrup, why maple syrup? Once in your body, sugar is sugar is sugar. It will be broken down into fructose and glucose and handled appropriately. The fact that it is maple syrup plays on people's gullibility. It tricks you into thinking it is something magical. Cayenne pepper, to irritate your gut and hopefully cause diarrhea and thus increase the amount of weight lost.

Now, I know that almost everyone who does the cleanse is doing it for quick and easy weight loss and justifies it by touting some bullshit health reasons.

There is nothing, I repeat, nothing healthy about a sugary laxative. I am being 100% serious here. It is harmful and can KILL you. You do your body more harm than good during this week or two of "cleansing" and the weight will come right back on as soon as you return to feeding your body. Not to mention the additional bloating that will result from starving yourself and then returning to normal eating.

In the words of one of my dearest friends, "What the french, toast?!"

As an alternative, why don't you give up carbs instead and lose the same water weight without having to worry about having enough energy to tie your own shoes or better yet, enough energy to LIVE!

Limit the carbs to less than 20g/day for 10 days and only from green vegetables such as broccoli, asparagus, and spinach. You can even forgo the carbs altogether and just eat ribeyes until you are busting at the seems.

Lovingly,
Common Sense

Now, there is something I clearly forgot to touch on in my reply. That is, insulin resistance. This specific detox drink contains almost 200g of sugar! Consuming that much sugar every day is not going to help anyone correct their insulin issues. Chances are, if you are doing this diet, you have some weight you would like to lose. You are also more than likely already insulin resistant, so consuming more sugar is not going to be very productive.

If you have tried some sort of nutritional shortcut in the past, share your experience in the comments.

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One of our loyal members sent this article to Jennie earlier today. As you all would have guessed, Jennie decided that I should have my feathers ruffled so she forwarded the link to me. Let's take a look at what I would so appropriately dub as "Scientific Garbage", shall we?

Generally, I'm not interested in what others have to say about the science; just give me the data and let me think for myself. Most of the public will do the opposite though. They have no interest in trying to make heads or tails of the study and instead, look for the convenient, easy way out. What I mean by this, is that an individual, or team of individuals, will draw a conclusion at the end of a study and major media outlets will write flashy headlines based on that conclusion. Mindless souls the world over will then read said headline and believe it to be the new gospel. This study, and the subsequent article about it, are a perfect example of this:

"High-Fat Diet May Make You Stupid and Lazy"

We all know that our less-informed friends and family members will recite this headline to us over and over again as we sit there, trying to enjoy our juicy steak. Little do they know, they are reciting "Scientific Garbage"!

This specific article goes on to quote one of the authors of the study:

Western diets are typically high in fat and are associated with long-term complications, such as obesity, diabetes, and heart failure, yet the short-term consequences of such diets have been given relatively little attention," said Andrew Murray, co-author of the study and currently at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

The fact that Mr. Murray references the lipid hypothesis right from the beginning lets me know that I should put on my boots because I am going to have to wade through quite a bit of B.S. The truth is, scientists are almost forced to support the lipid hypothesis less they risk losing their funding. I digress.

Getting back on track, I will have you know that Western diets are NOT typically high in fat. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the percentage of total food energy derived from the 3 major macronutrients is as follows: carbohydrate (51.8%), fat (32.8%), and protein (15.4%). As you can see, Western diets are high in carbohydrates. It is the carbohydrates and polyunsaturated fats (i.e. vegetable oils) that are causing the obesity, diabetes, and heart failure.

Later in the article, Dr. Gerald Weissmann, editor-in-chief of the FASEB journal, goes on to say:

"A long weekend spent eating hotdogs, French fries, and pizza in Orlando might be a great treat for our taste buds, but they might send our muscles and brains out to lunch."

I would expect this type of logic from my 10 year old daughter, not a supposed doctor! The deleterious affects of those foods have nothing at all to do with the amount of fat, but rather the type of fat. Those foods are all high in unhealthy, unsaturated fats while also being very high in carbohydrates. All of which should be avoided. Remember, there are other fats in this world besides the man-made ones used in frankenfoods.

As for the study itself, why wasn't there any mention of carbohydrate withdrawal and its known symptoms? You see, it is a known fact that carbohydrates are addictive and like other addictive substances there is a period of withdrawal whenever intake is drastically lowered. With carbohydrate withdrawal you may feel shaky, jittery, fatigued, depressed, nauseous, irritable, unable to concentrate (i.e. "brain fog"), etc. This will generally last anywhere from 2-10 days, but everyone is different. It is during this time that your body is calling out for more carbohydrates (i.e. glucose). If you can stay strong and resist the temptation to give in, your body will eventually convert over to burning fat for its energy purposes. In fact, it has been shown in other studies that the heart and brain both run 25% more efficiently on fat than on carbohydrates, after the switch occurs.

I'll concede that the researchers may have been right in concluding that a high-fat diet in its infancy may bring about fatigue and brain fog, but it isn't due to anything other than the fact that you are a junky trying to get clean. Stay in the fight and you will come out ahead.

All in all, this garbage reminds me of a bad movie where the main character continues to chase the wrong guy when all of the evidence points directly to someone else. As the viewer you are left to sit there, screaming at the screen, hoping irrationally that the idiot might actually hear you. Eventually, you realize though that you're better off just turning it off and throwing it in the trash where it belongs.

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It has been my experience that most doctors are slaves to the pharmaceutical companies and don't do much thinking for themselves. That is why they still believe in the diet-heart hypothesis and will steer you in the wrong direction when reading your lipid results. Here is what the numbers really mean:

Total Cholesterol - Don't be fooled here. Total cholesterol is not a good predictor of much unless you are setting a low score. In which case, you will likely suffer from dementia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, depression, cancer, or a stroke as you get older.

HDL - Often referred to as "good" cholesterol, the higher the better. 60-80 mg/dL is a good place to be, but if you work hard and get a score above 100 mg/dL, I'll give you a high-five!

LDL - Often referred to as "bad" cholesterol, this guy gets a bad rap. The size of the LDL particles is much more important than the generic number most doctors will give you. That's right, size does matter. Large and fluffy are nothing to worry about, while small and dense just might kill you.

Triglycerides - The lower the better here. The amount of triglycerides in your blood goes hand-in-hand with LDL particle size and insulin resistance. Because of this, your triglyceride level can generally be used as an indicator of your LDL particle size as well as your level of insulin resistance. Lower tri's equals large, fluffy LDL particles and less insulin resistance. Higher tri's equals small, dense LDL particles and a higher level of insulin resistance. A score less than 60 mg/dL is ideal.

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Brian's comment from the "Grain-fed Cattle vs Grain-fed People" post:

Bill-

I tried explaining the paleo diet to a few runners this weekend after our weekly softball game and they had the same dietary mantra that I had before I got brainwash...I mean, before I learned from you. "It doesn't matter what you eat, if you burn off more than you put in, you won't gain weight." I tried to explain to them about body composition and the role of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, but I'm pretty sure they just didn't believe me.

Is there a short, like no more than 2-3 paragraph answer to this common refrain that you have handy that we can all use?

Thanks.

Overweight individuals are not overweight because they ate too much and/or exercised too little. Instead, they are overweight because of the hormones in their bodies. You see, we all have the same hormones, but our lifestyles will dictate which ones are released and in what amount. Therefore, if you fuel your body improperly (i.e. frankenfoods) or stress your body too much (i.e. chronic cardio, lack of sleep, etc.) you will be promoting the production and release of hormones that may drive you to become fat. Once you are overweight, you will eat more and exercise less because that is the signal your body is now conveying. This happens because the hormones being produced in overweight people are triggering the fat cells to be greedy and not release the fat to be used by the body as energy. The body compensates by:

1. going into conservation mode (i.e. inactivity/lethargy)
2. signaling for more fuel through hunger/appetite.

A good example of this are growing kids. They don't go through growth spurts because they are taking in more calories than they are expending. Instead, they take in more than they are burning because they are going through a growth spurt. This means that the growth hormones in their bodies are signaling for an increase in energy so they can grow. Thus, the large appetites of children when they are growing.

Another good example would be someone who has been eating and exercising the exact same for a long time while maintaining a steady body weight and then they inexplicably put on a few extra pounds. This is because they have been following the calorie-in/calorie-out mantra for far too long and it finally caught up to them. They destroyed their inner workings to the degree that they are now insulin resistant and fat storing machines. The fat cells have become greedy and this will drive them to obesity unless changes are made to what they are eating, not how much.

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Dr. Davis, of The Heart Scan Blog, has posted yet again on the dangers of fructose. His most recent post, Fructose is a Coronary Risk Factor, concludes with:

Make no mistake: Fructose is a powerful coronary risk factor.
There is no doubt whatsoever that a diet rich in fructose from fruit drinks, honey, raisins and other dried fruit like cranberries, sucrose (table sugar), and high-fructose corn syrup is a high-risk path to heart disease.

Also note that many foods labeled "heart healthy" because of low-fat, low saturated fat, addition of sterol esters, or fiber, also contain fructose sources, especially high-fructose corn syrup.

In an earlier post, Goodbye, Fructose, Dr. Davis gives the following warning:

...fructose is yet another common food additive that, along with wheat, is likely a big part of the reason Americans are fat and diabetic.

Fructose is concentrated, of course, in high-fructose corn syrup, comprising anywhere from 42-90% of total weight. Fructose also composes 50% of sucrose (table sugar). Fructose also figures prominently in many fruits; among the worst culprits are raisins (30% fructose) and honey (41% fructose).

Also, beware of low-fat or non-fat salad dressings (rich with high-fructose corn syrup), ketchup, beer, fruit drinks, fruit juices, all of which are rich sources of this exceptionally fattening, metabolism-bypassing, LDL cholesterol/small LDL/ApoB increasing compound. Ironically, this means that many low-fat foods meant to reduce cholesterol actually increase it when they contain fructose in any form.

When you hear or say "fructose," run the other way, regardless of what the Corn Refiners Association says.

I have said it before and I will say it again, fructose will kill you! It isn't the saturated fats and red meat that are causing high cholesterol and heart disease; it is the grains and fructose!

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Fact:
Cattle are fed grains in the final stages of their lives to quickly fatten them for slaughter.

Fact:
The US government encourages people to eat grains in an effort to lose weight and become "healthy".

Now, I hope you can all see the problem here. If you can't, I am here to help.

Here is a picture of cattle being fed grains in an effort to fatten them:

Here are a couple of people being fed grains:

Now, I know there will be at least one of you out there who will argue that grains are metabolized differently by cows than they are by people. If you believe this, please explain to the rest of us how that is. Seriously, since the government started pushing grains on the American public, diseases of civilization have been on the rise and obesity has increased to such a level that it is being considered a pandemic! You are all smart enough to know the solution by now.

Long post short, grains are great for fattening both cattle AND people. Love yourself for a change and stay away from those damn dirty grains!

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Yesterday we discussed how prudent it may be to spend more on food now in order to save a lot on healthcare later. Is it absolutely necessary though to spend more on food to avoid the diseases of civilization?

In layman's terms, NO!

Here are a few ideas for going Paleo on a Budget:

1. Eat at home - you will lose money faster eating out than you would if you sat at home setting $1 bills on fire
2. Join a food club - find a local CSA or Co-op and enjoy the discount benefits of ordering agricultural products with a group of people
3. Grow your own - if you have the time and interest, start your own garden
4. Buy in bulk - buy your meat a quarter of a cow or more at a time and stock your freezer for the next year
5. Buy in season - stick to fruits and vegetables that are locally in season and save considerably
6. Buy frozen - fruits and vegetables are just as nutritious when frozen, but a fraction of the price
7. Go carnivore - stay away from those expensive fruits/veggies and stick solely to animal products

My family is currently making an effort to eat at home more often. We also try to buy our meat in bulk as much as possible. I feel that we have had pretty good success at keeping the cost down to this point. Personally, I have gravitated very closely to carnivorism over the past several months, so I will use that as an example.

A typical day for me will consist of 1.5 pounds of beef rib eye and 2 pounds of ground beef. This comes out to a grand total of $14.47 per day for food. I could also very easily swap out 3/4 of a pound of rib eye for 14 large eggs (7 whole eggs + 7 egg yolks) and arrive at a very similar level of macronutrients for a total of $10.39; a savings of $4.08!

With that being said, I challenge you to come up with a day's worth of food that contains approximately 4,000 calories and costs less than $14. If you are feeling really adventurous, you can try to outdo the cost of the second example. Feel free to use restaurants, fast food joints, supermarkets, mail order, whatever. We will then compare the nutritional profile of my daily intake to whatever you can come up with.

One last note. I will be more than happy to do a follow-up on the health merits of a completely carnivorous diet if requested to, but please don't flame me in the comments. Stay focused on the main objective of this post.

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