Lacto-Paleo/Primal Support thread

[Key Tones]

Auntie Em,

I just want you to know I am really enjoying reading Dr. Kurt Harris. Paleolithic metabolism, yes, very interesting approach.

In fact, I was just now reading this article about dairy, in case you are interested, Tori.

http://www.paleonu.com/panu-weblog/2...ohydrates.html

[Tori43]

Thanks so much. It is a great read.

[Eliza_Jazz]

KT, thanks for posting the link to the PaNu article. It was a fascinating read. I've been feeling badly about using butter and cream, but after reading the article I feel better. I like my cheese, too, but have successfully eliminated it from my diet.

[Antlers]

Haven't been here in a while... I've been stranded at my grandma's house due to a combination of my uncle being close to dying and the snow.

She also has crap for food, which leads me to cheat too much, leading me to feel pretty gross. But I do have some good food for tomorrow, so score!

[Auntie Em]

Antlers, I'm sorry about your uncle. I will keep him in my prayers.

Hope you can take good care of yourself while being there for your family.

[Eliza_Jazz]

Originally Posted by Antlers

Haven't been here in a while... I've been stranded at my grandma's house due to a combination of my uncle being close to dying and the snow.

She also has crap for food, which leads me to cheat too much, leading me to feel pretty gross. But I do have some good food for tomorrow, so score!

Hope it gets better soon ...

[Kissa]

Subscribing.

Yet another great thread Em. Thanks.

[Auntie Em]

Hi, Cindy. How nice to have you post here.

I haven't added any new posts recently, as the information I posted earlier, especially Dr. Kurt Harris' blog, gives abundant information (perhaps the best available anywhere). Dr. Harris and Dr. Deans are posting regularly at their blogs. There are links on their blogs to other blogs of relevant interest.

No need to reinvent the wheel here.

I wanted this thread to be a source of useful information

Best wishes to all.

[Kissa]

And that is precisely what you have accomplished. Great work. I have been studying for hours.

[Auntie Em]

Cindy, thanks very much for your kind words. When I found Dr. Harris' blog, his clear thinking just had the ring of truth, to me. I've been reading his posts over and over, and have checked all the sites he recommends. His recommendation of reading Dr. Richard Bernstein's book was another large piece of the puzzle for me. Dr. Harris also makes comments at several other blogs, which often give helpful details.

Dr. Emily Deans' knowledge of brain chemicals and what effects them, and Peter Dobromylskyj's brilliance and humor, just make the picture all the nicer.

Hope you are doing very well.

[Kissa]

Pretty good thanks.

[daisyHair]

Hi Gang...

I just wanted to say I am coming in to mark this thread. I've been reading about paleo and primal today. I really am very interested. I know I have a problem with cheese and artificial sweeteners. I think what I have read so far makes so much sense. I have LOTS to learn though.

[Antlers]

Last week was a big combination of good and bad which pretty much proved to me that my level of perceived anxiety is directly proportional to how well I'm eating.

I saw one of my best friends for the first time in at least a year and was less anxious around him than usual. He used to tell me I was neurotic, so that was a welcome change. Then I got progressively more anxious--with everything--as my diet degraded through the week.

My grandma does not understand the concept of not eating grain or potatoes, and part of the week I was pretty much on a processed-cheese-crackers-and-doughnuts diet. Not nearly as much as I would have pre-paleo but hey, watch me rationalize. I gained around eight pounds and became a giant bundle of nerves.

My uncle is doing well, which is a huge shock because we all kind of expected him to be on his last leg. He actually doesn't have legs, but I assume he would appreciate the mild humor in that. When he had the second leg amputated the conversation with me went something like:

Uncle: The only difference now is that I'm a big shorter.
Antlers: Yeah, by two feet (embarrassed hand-slap-over-the-mouth)
Uncle: (Raucous laughter)

But he's talking now and got to see two of his kids from his first marriage who haven't spoken to him in, gosh, probably fifteen or twenty years.

Also I don't know if I mentioned that some of the stress was due to having to take my cat to the vet and being told he was probably not going to live through it because his kidneys looked like they were shutting down... he looks fine right now, which is saying something because I expected him to be put down on Friday. He's like 18 years old, that's a resilient cat right there. In fact right now he looks -great.-

The reason I babble about all this, aside from the fact that I'm just a babbler, is that I've noticed through this week that there is a pretty strong correlation between how well I'm eating and how well I handle this sort of thing. Right now after a bit of a "detox" (I hate the word "detox," but it feels like that's what it is) I feel outstanding and calm even though there is literally nothing different from yesterday except that I haven't been eating crackers. I still feel a little sick, but the anxiety is mostly gone. Maybe all the sugar I used to eat just made me wired all the time.

Does anybody else have any experience with diet and anxiety level?

[Auntie Em]

Cindy, I'm glad.
Daisy, welcome!

Antlers, I'm glad your uncle is improving. Yes, how I eat has a great effect on how I feel. Sleep, exercise, water, supplements, pacing myself, and how I choose to think, as well. I told my family I was on an old-fashioned, low carb diet to prevent diabetes. They accepted that.

Best wishes to all.

[daisyHair]

Hi again!
So I am sure I am going to have lots of questions as I study. I am on the PaNu blog and reading re: fat and carbs here:

PaNu - P

Early in the page he says: "I believe that not only is saturated fat not harmful, but it is actually the key component to EM2 in a food-abundant environment."

Can someone let me know what EM2 is? I am enjoying his site very much but seem to feel like I came in at the middle because he is using terms I have not seen yet.

Thank you!

[Key Tones]

Originally Posted by daisyHair

Hi again!
So I am sure I am going to have lots of questions as I study. I am on the PaNu blog and reading re: fat and carbs here:

PaNu - P

Early in the page he says: "I believe that not only is saturated fat not harmful, but it is actually the key component to EM2 in a food-abundant environment."

Can someone let me know what EM2 is? I am enjoying his site very much but seem to feel like I came in at the middle because he is using terms I have not seen yet.

Thank you!

It is explained under the "What is PaNu" tab at the top of the website. The "evolutionary metabolic milieu" = EM2.

Basically, think "the metabolic state under which people evolved" or "paleolithic metabolism" when you see it in a sentence.

[Key Tones]

Originally Posted by Antlers

Last week was a big combination of good and bad which pretty much proved to me that my level of perceived anxiety is directly proportional to how well I'm eating....


Does anybody else have any experience with diet and anxiety level?

Antlers,

I have seen recommendations to avoid caffeine, sugar, and processed foods and to instead focus on whole foods many times (although many include what I believe are misguided "whole grain" recommendations).

I have never felt so grounded. It's wonderful, isn't it?

Sounds like you had a rough week...

[Kissa]

Yes, a very tough week Antlers, I was thinking as much myself. Sending good thoughts.

[daisyHair]

Originally Posted by Key Tones

It is explained under the "What is PaNu" tab at the top of the website. The "evolutionary metabolic milieu" = EM2.

Basically, think "the metabolic state under which people evolved" or "paleolithic metabolism" when you see it in a sentence.

Thanks!

[daisyHair]

I am finding it interesting what he is saying about eating one large meal to satiety and then just tea or coffee with cream the rest of the day or fast.

I find myself eating that way lately anyway. It seems I am not hungry in the AM at all.
I will have coffee with HWC with my DH before he leaves for work but I don't want any actual food until around 1pm. (although I am consuming around 150-175 cal in the HWC because I use quite a bit).

around 1 or 2PM will seem fairly hungry but a couple pieces of roast beef (around 2-3 oz) and an oz of cheese and I am full... around 5pm though I do start to get pretty hungry. I have been making a fairly large dinner meal with a huge salad or a cup or such of other veggie and meat/chicken or fish.. I think I AM eating too much meat at this meal but am unsure how to really change it up just yet.

This eating pattern is very different from my LC past when I would eat 5-6 times a day. It's a new change.. just over the last 2-3 weeks.

[daisyHair]

Originally Posted by Luvanurse443

Hey..heads up! Dr Harris will be on Jimmy Moore's podcast next week I believe...

I wondered if anyone can find this on Jimmy's site anymore.. I tried and can't find it!

I would love a link if anyone has any luck.

[daisyHair]

Originally Posted by Auntie Em

I thought I would post Mrs. Stefansson's preface to Dr. Richard MacKarness' book, Eat Fat and Grow Slim. It was her preface that gave me the courage to eat a mostly animal food diet, which I had been thinking about for some time. Her husband, the Arctic explorer, is popular among some who only eat fatty meat and water. In this preface, it is interesting to note that they ate grapefruit, cream, eggs, and butter, and drank coffee and wine, as small parts of their mostly meat diet.

The following preface wasn't put online at the above link to Dr. Richard MacKarness', Eat Fat and Grow Slim, as the online edition is from an earlier English edition. The preface is in the 1959, Doubleday and Company, New York edition. I have left the punctuation and use of italics as in the book. I put line spaces between paragraphs, rather than indenting the paragraphs.



"The Preface" to Eat Fat and Grow Slim, written by Evelyn Stefansson, April 22, 1959:

One morning at breakfast, the autumn of 1955, my explorer-anthropologist husband, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, asked me if he might return to the Stone Age Eskimo sort of all-meat diet he had thrived on during the most active part of his arctic work. Two years before, he had suffered a mild cerebral thrombosis, from which he had practically recovered. But he had not yet succeeded in losing the ten pounds of overweight his doctor wanted him to be rid of. By will power and near starvation, he had now and then lost a few of them; but the pounds always came back when his will power broke down. Doubtless partly through these failures, Stef had brown a bit unhappy, at times grouchy.

My first reaction to his Stone Age diet proposal was dismay. I have three jobs. I lecture, in and out of town, and enjoy the innumerable extracurricular activities of our New England college town of Hanover, New Hampshire. Forenoons I write books about the arctic, "for teen-agers and uninformed adults," to be able to afford the luxury of being librarian afternoons of the large polar library my husband and I acquired when we were free-lance writers and government contractors, which library now belongs to Dartmouth College. I take part in a course called the Arctic Seminar, and last winter was director. I sing in madrigal groups and act in experimental theater plays. Only by a miserly budgeting of time do I manage these things. "In addition," I thought to myself, "I am now supposed to prepare two menus!"

But aloud I said: "Of course, dear." And we began to plan.

To my astonished delight, contrary to all my previous thinking, the Stone Age diet not only proved effective in getting rid of Stef's overweight, but was also cheaper, simpler, and easier to prepare than our regular mixed diet had been. Far from requiring more time, it took less. Instead of adding housekeeping burdens, it relieved them. Almost imperceptibly Stef's diet became my diet. Time was saved in not shopping for, not preparing, not cooking, and not washing up after unrequired dishes, among them vegetables, salads, and desserts.

Some of our friends say: "We would go on a meat diet too, but we couldn't possibly afford it." That started me investigating the actual cost of the diet. Unlike salads and desserts, which often do not keep, meat is as good several days later as the day it was cooked. There is no waste. I found our food bills were lower than they had been. But I attribute this to our fondness for mutton. Fortunately for us it is an unfashionable meat, which means it is cheap. We both like it, and thanks to our deep freeze, we buy fat old sheep at anything from twenty-two to thirty-three cents a pound and proceed to live on the fat of the land. We also buy beef, usually beef marrow. European cooks appreciate marrow, but most people in our country have never even tasted it, poor things.

When you eat as a primitive Eskimo does, you live on lean and fat meats. A typical Stefansson dinner is a rare or medium sirloin steak and coffee. The coffee is freshly ground. If there is enough fat on the steak we take our coffee black, otherwise heavy cream is added. Sometimes we have a bottle of wine. We have no bread, no starchy vegetables, no desserts. Rather often we eat half a grapefruit. We eat eggs for breakfast, two for Stef, one for me, with lots of butter.

Startling improvements in health came to Stef after several weeks on the new diet. He began to lose his overweight almost at once, and lost steadily, eating as much as he pleased and feeling satisfied the while. He lost seventeen pounds, then his weight remained stationary, although the amount he ate was the same. From being slightly irritable and depressed, he became once more his old ebullient, optimistic self. By eating mutton he became a lamb.

An unlooked-for and remarkable change was the disappearance of his arthritis, which had troubled him for years and which he thought of as a natural result of aging. One of his knees was so stiff he walked up and down stairs a step at a time, and he always sat on the aisle in a theater so he could extend his stiff leg comfortably.

Several times a night he would be awakened by pain in his hips and shoulder when he lay too long on one side; then he had to turn over and lie on the other side. Without noticing the change at first, Stef was one day startled to find himself walking up and down stairs, using both legs equally. He stopped in the middle of our stairs; then walked down again and up again. He could not remember which knee had been stiff!

Conclusion: The Stone Age all-meat diet is wholesome. It is an eat-all-you-want reducing diet that permits you to forget you are dieting--no hunger pangs remind you. It saves time and money. Best of all, it improves the temperament. It somehow makes one feel optimistic, mildly euphoric.

Epilogue: Stef used to love his role of being a thorn in the flesh of nutritionists. But in 1957 an article appeared in the august journal of the American Medical Association confirming what Stef had known for years from his anthropology and his own experience. The author of this book has also popularized Stef's diet in England, with the blessing of staid British medical folk.

Was it with the faintest trace of disappointment in his voice that Stef turned to me, after a strenuous nutrition discussion, and said: "I have always been right. But now I am becoming orthodox! I shall have to find myself a new heresy."

April 22, 1959. Evelyn Stefansson

Hope this information helps a bit. I find this book most useful, even though some of the scientific theory of biochemistry has since been further researched.

---

ETA: According to this short biography, Mr. and Mrs. Stefansson started this meat diet in 1955. There is no footnote for this information, and thus, I am unable to verify the statement. Mr. Stefansson, (November 3, 1879 – August 26, 1962), seems to have kept the meat diet from 1955 to, at least, 1959, when Mrs. Stefansson wrote the preface.




In 1955 he adopted a "stone-age" diet—high-fat, low-carbohydrate, mostly meat—which he credited with helping him maintain fitness and health.

---

It would be most useful to be able to read reports later than Mrs. Stefansson's of 1959, as to how they fared, on the meat diet, from 1959 to his death in 1962, if they did, in fact, continue it. I have yet to find out if she kept the diet after he died. She died in 2009:

Evelyn Stefansson Nef, author and philanthropist, 1913-2009 | The University of Chicago
__________________

I LOVED reading this!!!
I noticed she mentions that meat keeps in the fridge for days. I have always wondered how long it is safe in the fridge. Do you know. Usually I throw it away after three days because I am fearful of it. I bet I have been wasting it. It's just my DH and I and we can't go thru an entire roast in three days.

I've often wondered about putting it in the freezer after a couple of days but I was always unsure if that was ok either!

[daisyHair]

Originally Posted by Key Tones

Lactose is becoming problematic. I'm not sure about other dairy - I just found out that dairy creates an insulin response much larger than can be accounted for by the protein and carbohydrate. I am insulin-resistant as it is. I'm mulling over giving up dairy.

Key Tones,

Would you mind going more into this? Wondered where you found this. I have not ran across it yet.

Thanks!

[Key Tones]

Originally Posted by daisyHair

Key Tones,

Would you mind going more into this? Wondered where you found this. I have not ran across it yet.

Thanks!

I started a thread about it. Also, I just read Dr. Bernstein recommends limiting cottage cheese to two tablespoons because of a larger-than-expected insulin response he has observed in his clinical practice.

I'm not clear on what the situation is with the whey powder, so I don't use it daily anymore. I don't need the extra insulin response given the amount of protein in it.

I think hard cheese, cream, and butter are fine--no concerns there.

Dairy Causes Stalls Because (Yes, Actual Research in this Post)

[Eliza_Jazz]

Antlers, I myself have been "plagued" with anxiety from a very early age, I totally understand your struggles . It's not something you can snap out of at will. It is my hope that as I continue refining and improving my diet, it will diminish and eventually disappear.

In the meantime, I have found the following extremely helpful:
1. exercise (walking is fine, I totally believe Mark Sisson when he says cardio can be harmful)
2. Relora - it has magnolia bark extract in it which calms you down while
keeping you alert (some people use it as a WL aid, for me, I use it purely to control anxiety)
3. GABA - an excellent amino-acid
4. Natural Calm - magnesium in a highly absorbable form (ionic magnesium citrate). It's been awesome!

You could go online and read customer reviews on any of #2, 3, and 4. They are non-toxic and safe. I feel I was reborn when I found them. I don't take all of them simultaneously, though I prefer the Natural Calm most, magnesium is so beneficial for us!

Best of luck and let me know if you have any questions.

[daisyHair]

Originally Posted by Key Tones

I started a thread about it. Also, I just read Dr. Bernstein recommends limiting cottage cheese to two tablespoons because of a larger-than-expected insulin response he has observed in his clinical practice.

I'm not clear on what the situation is with the whey powder, so I don't use it daily anymore. I don't need the extra insulin response given the amount of protein in it.

I think hard cheese, cream, and butter are fine--no concerns there.

Dairy Causes Stalls Because (Yes, Actual Research in this Post)

Thank you!
Learning so much today I am blown away, really.

So much is making sense to me.

[Eliza_Jazz]

This is without a doubt the most informational thread around here. Thanks to the links and clarifications, I have learned so much in just a couple of weeks. It is already taking my WOE in a different, better direction.

KT, Thanks for the great link. I too am considering removing all dairy except for HWC from my diet. Brie cheese may not agree with me, though I must be strong! I am convinced I will be much better without casein.

[Auntie Em]

Hi, all.

Eliza, thank you for your kind thoughts.

Dr. Kurt Harris has put up a new blog post today which is well worth reading. The title of the blog post is "Therapy versus Life." As always, it is full of common sense, and his explanations of food and science are easy to understand.

Best wishes to all.

[Antlers]

Originally Posted by Eliza_Jazz

In the meantime, I have found the following extremely helpful:
1. exercise (walking is fine, I totally believe Mark Sisson when he says cardio can be harmful)
2. Relora - it has magnolia bark extract in it which calms you down while
keeping you alert (some people use it as a WL aid, for me, I use it purely to control anxiety)
3. GABA - an excellent amino-acid
4. Natural Calm - magnesium in a highly absorbable form (ionic magnesium citrate). It's been awesome!

Thanks for the suggestions, I may use them if it gets terrible in the future, I think just my diet (and exercise, I do that too ) will suffice for now. Usually I tend to avoid most things in pill form. Not that I don't think they're usually safe, but I'm hailing from a couple communities where people strongly over-use pills and supplements so I am prone to addictive overuse of them.

[Auntie Em]

Antlers, I'm sending you good thoughts and smiles. Hope your day is going well.