The poor, misunderstood carbohydrate, Part II, and finale

I am not going to belabor this subject, as I’ve had a couple of other insights that play along with it. I do want to stress the following:

  • Nutrition has not changed since the nineteenth century, when it was understood that a diet rich in animal fats led to better health than enjoyed by most people coming out of that dreary and unhealthy time.
  • The formula has not changed: balance. Animal fats should be at the center of a healthy diet, though carbohydrates have a part to play.
  • In modern times, ease of production of carbohydrates in the form of sugars delivered by bread and pasta, starchy vegetables, high-fructose corn syrup (now labeled simply “corn sugar”) have led to super-abundance of carbs, simple and complex, in the modern diet.
  • “Complex” carbs like pasta and bread take a day longer for the body to process, but in the end, the body does not know the difference between complex carbs and simple sugars.
  • Hand-in-hand with this are epidemics of diabetes and obesity, often morbid obesity.
  • Just as medical doctors are not trained in healthy nutrition, nutritionists are not either. If they had the ability to walk backward through time, they would discover that they are in large part responsible for our epidemics.

I am going to return, but only briefly and for some math, to the article I relied on from Epoch Times to highlight the fraud of nutritionists. It is called Carbs Can Help You Lose Weight, and Here’s Why, by Zena le Roux, who we are told is a “health journalist with a master’s in investigative health journalism and a certified health and wellness coach specializing in functional nutrition.” I think of her as a snake oil salesperson, but of a special kind: One whose training precludes her from having any self-awareness. There’s a lot of that going around in what we call modern “science”.

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Anyway, later on that topic, and hopefully not too much later. First, I want to share a distressing episode I recently witnessed at a motel in Rock Springs, Wyoming. I arose early to find that I had not brought toothpaste, and went down to the main desk. There a morbidly obese young woman, arms covered in tattoos, stared blankly into her computer screen. I asked for toothpaste, and she obliged, and I thought as I watched her how unhappy she must be. No one wants to be fat, to walk down a street to averted eyes, to live in perpetual shame.

I am tentatively offering three words that might help her, should she have access to insurance and a doctor: Wegovy, Ozempic, Mounjaro. These are prescription drugs that effectively supply what those of us who low-carb have naturally: A button in our brain that says “enough.” People who take these drugs, all essentially the same, are losing weight. They are doing it effortlessly, often in the 10-15% of body mass range.

What can be bad about that? I don’t know, hopefully nothing. Preach as we will about proper eating, the world weighs against us, and bad diets are the norm. These drugs, though not around long enough to be considered safe without debilitating other effects, offer hope. I cannot be against hope for anyone suffering as overweight people do from self-loathing and shame. I want them to get better.

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Now, for some math, and skip ahead to the conclusion that follows if math is not to your liking. From Le Roux:

A 2022 Cochrane review … which included nearly 7,000 participants, compared low-carbohydrate diets (defined as 50 to 150 grams of carbs per day or less than 45% of total energy intake) with balanced carbohydrate diets (45 percent to 65 percent of total energy intake). The findings showed little to no difference in weight loss outcomes  between those who were on low-carbohydrate weight-loss diets and those who were on moderate-carbohydrate eight-loss diets over the long term.

Well duh. Less than 45 percent of energy intake? That compared to 45-65 percent carbs? Apparently Cochrane and le Roux do not understand the meaning of “low-carb”, as 45 percent of carbs for a normal adult (5’10 180 lb) would be 280 carbs per day! That’s a recipe for obesity. True enough, if people can get down to 50 grams of carbs per day, they might maintain, perhaps even lose a few pounds. For me, I eat less than 30 grams of carbohydrates daily. I think it is actually less than that, but I don’t count anymore. I just do not eat carby foods.

A man we met in Rock Springs annually low-carbs (a skinny January) and has lost as much as 25 pounds in a month on zero carbs in his diet, married to a woman who cooks for him and who understands his situation.

Conclusion:

That brings me to my close: I notice that men can low-carb and lose weight. I’ve long said that it is not as effective for women, and indeed post-menopausal women tend to gain weight, having to do with lack of estrogen. But there is something more going on. Once again, here is the photo that accompanies the on-line version of le Roux’s article:

I kidded earlier that she might be eating Rice Crispies, but let’s not kid ourselves. She’s having oatmeal. That amount of oatmeal probably has in it 25-30 grams of carbohydrates. But  it’s oatmeal! And oatmeal, according to nutritionists, is healthy food. Not hardly, but it is not just that. Women, I find, are attracted Las Vegas-style food bars of unhealthy foods, from salads* and dressing to pasta and pasta salads, vegetables, cereals, and fruit. This is food heresy, but I’ve long maintained that every fruit and vegetable has its own ad agency, and women fall for those ads more than men. Fruits especially, and most vegetables, are not necessarily part of a well-rounded diet, as they are carby.

Men, I have noticed, can eat meat with ease, allow fat to puddle fat on our plates, and throw back Buffalo wings and cheese without a salad, and this because we are men. We don’t need pretty food. We want fat and protein. If we fall back on our normal American diets like pizza, beer and all of that, we’ll get fat. We’ll begin to look like so many men we encountered on our Rock Springs trip, a bulging belly that hides a belt if a man wears one, and a scraggly beard that is mid-chest length. That’s how they live up there, I suppose. Rock Springs is on I-80, a major truck route, and I suppose truck drivers, more than the rest of us, suffer bad eating habits (and don’t like shaving).

Much of the resistance to the plain good sense of low-carbing (aka healthy eating) is from women who eat daintily and from plates full of designer foods like lettuce, fruit, quinoa, and possibly, just possibly, some cheese. Low-carbing ain’t pretty eating. It’s basic and if a man eats like a hungry man, it’s ugly.

*Lettuce is a good source of vitamin K, said to help with blood clotting. Vegetables in general are sources of vitamins, but must be eaten in moderation.  Vegetarian diets are slow starvation. Fruit, except perhaps watermelon and blueberries, should be avoided.

29 thoughts on “The poor, misunderstood carbohydrate, Part II, and finale”

  1. Here is a link to a naturopathic physician, Dr. Garrett Smith, who specializes in helping people correct the toxicities and deficiencies that are at the root of their medical issues, including obesity, which result from liver injury. Livestreams 53 and 71 are the best videos to watch first, because they explain his Toxic Bile Paradigm, which helps you understand where your symptoms come from, and how you can, over time, regain your health.

    The video I’m linking pertains to the Ozempic type drugs that Mark glibly recommends in this article. I’m taken aback that Mark would recommend any products of the pharma cartel. Drugs might make you feel better for a little while, but they will eventually cause new, deeper problems.

    We’ve been lied to for generations by the medical cartel and the nutritionists are just as bad. Dr. Smith studies the research and is able to uncover the truth, and generously shares his information to help people who are willing to do the work to heal themselves.

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  2. What’s the opposite of “taken aback”? Brought affront? I noted when writing about the new diet drugs that much is not known. I only offered that morbidly obese people are suffering and this offered hope.

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  3. So the new diet drugs are glucagon like peptides, or GLPs. They are all 31-mers, to the best of my knowledge, meaning 31 amino acids (AA) in length. The different drugs have slightly different, but almost identical AA sequences.

    Based on what I know anecdotally they do work very well for weight loss – hence their popularity. However they likely have quite undesirable side effects – from what the few people i knew who took them told me. And they are a big target of counterfeiters, with a huge black market. Because they are also very expesive.

    That said I can’t recommend them personally, I recommend will power.

    And as far as Mark “endorsing” these drugs, I find it very hard to fathom big pharma is tapping Mark for endorsements. Not that they don’t spend money on celebrity endorsements, but this blog would be a very strange place to put marketing money (based on Marks Covid hoax stance and general criticism of pharma from the beginning). And I’m trying to imagine Mark so desperate for money he would shill for pharma? Thankfully he doesn’t run pledge drives, like some other bloggers.

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    1. Hi Ray,

      I didn’t mean that Mark was literally being paid to endorse these dangerous drugs. He is just casually promoting their use, as if people who are obese (which is caused by toxicity) will be helped by another toxic substance.

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      1. There is a way out Mark but it’s never spoken of in diet circles. It’s simply eat a little less. It is very easy, you feel better instantly and it works for absolutely everyone.

        But it’s drilled into us as children as one of the worst sins there is. My wife lost the plot last night (Monday the day after the following story) when 3 of us said we were not eating dinner. I ended up bullied into having a spoon full, my two eldest daughters held fast. You have to eat every meal and lots of it every time.

        I was out Sunday night (after watching a play, Love Stories, not something I often do)… anyway we are having dinner afterwards at about 8:30, I could have happily gone home to be but …My wife and I discussed what we were going to have, I wanted just the entre (Tuna, it was pretty good, we shared it I probably had 100g, 3-4oz, of Tuna). We also had prawns, calamari, barramundi pork, lamb and beef as a main (I would guess at least 1kg, 2.2 pounds of meat) course to share and my wife wanted a side salad broccolini with a cheese sauce.

        I ate it all (except for some sweet potato mash and a piece of tomato). I was full after the Tuna. I felt like shit.

        I believe the obsession with eating as an event plays a big part in obesity. Both my eldest daughters only eat what they want, when they want so maybe it will change in the future. But the number of times I hear obese parents insisting their obese children eat more or finish their plate or complain they aren’t eating, I have my doubts.

        The obese grandma chastises her obese daughter for not feeding the obese grandchildren enough.

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        1. The only time I “feel good” about eating is when it’s in my mouth or being released back into the wild…if you catch my drift.

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        2. I think you are wrong about that … starvation diets exist and are still pushed by nutritionists, but only rarely work. We went on a short hike in 2020 with an overweight woman, suffering in the extreme as she was on a starvation diet. She had lost some weight, and would lapse into self-loathing when she began to eat her normal diet. We had known each other long enough for her to see me drop pounds effortlessly, but is intellectually stubborn, experts telling her that Keto is bad science. She loves experts.

          Keto, again, is normal eating, and takes us back several decades to a time when people ate normally, meat, vegetables (which I mostly avoid to this day) and an occasional sweet. We were not hungry. Our friend who was on starvation diet was also frightened by the virus and consequently in psychotic breakdown. I was thankful that over time I had absorbed the essentials of both eating and virology, and was free of fear. We are no longer friends.

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        3. Fat people do not get fat because they eat too much. Fat people eat too much because they are fat. It all starts with habits developed in youth. (Fat people would exercise more, but they cannot because they are fat.)

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  4. It would be a big pay check I reckon Mark would get from Ozempic, with the 2 dozen regular readers all of whom aren’t going near any new pharma drug anytime soon.

    Pharma drugs can be great, testosterone to gain muscle, pain killers etc but they all were designed to make money first and whatever else second. Long term consequences are if no concern.

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    1. I guess if I was going to monetize the blog, that would be a way to go. For the record, I take Temazepam on occasion, and pay $11-12 for 30, a three month supply. Or more. These days I hardly take it, but coming and going to Kenya, 50 hours on a plane, took 2 at a time for a total of 4 for each long flight. Jet lagged on return, I was taking one daily. That’s thankfully over now.

      We had 30 kids in my class in grade school, and one was overweight, Linda Godinez, hispanic. I see a lot of overweight people among mexicans and native Americans, and they seem OK with it, marrying fat spouses and having fat kids. Not my business. But I know and meet very fat people and know they would benefit from Ozempic, and if nothing else has worked for them, including my preaching, then I am happy to step aside and see them get some relief. They do not know how to be thinner, or they would be.

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      1. You could try Mark, but I don’t think the drug companies are going to pay you diddley squat.

        I think being lean often isn’t a priority for most people . They would rather fit in. If all of your friends and family are fat it’s simply normal to be fat. And what’s required to be lean is actually considered unacceptable by the group. I’m personally stuck in the middle, I can be like my kids and be lean or do what my wife demands and be fat. I never truly understood the pear pressure on people to eat poorly until the last few years. If I’m fasting it’s sort of fine to say I’m not eating, but if I just don’t want to eat it that is considered unacceptable.

        I have 3 daughters and between them they only have 2 fat friends and they are by no means obese, one of them is a very good athlete. I go out to football training and out of the 50 girls there are only 2 who are overweight. At the athletics club out of hundreds of boys and girls there are zero overweight. That is not one single child at the entire club.In my two children’s netball teams there are none. In my adult daughters new team half the team is fat. (In her junior team there were none) Including a lady who would be close to 300 pounds. Obviously many of these places end up selecting for leanness. But place like shopping centres and nascar crowds also select for overweight individuals.

        Walking around the shops in different areas at different times of day I notice certain suburbs are fatter (it seems to correlate with higher incidence of disability), older people are fatter, certain races are fatter, people at the shops in the middle of the day are fatter. And people that hang out together family or friends tend to skew together with their builds.

        I think for young girls a lot of it is about fitting in. If that means eating the same crap as everyone around you or wearing similar clothes or going to the gym or whatever your group is doing.

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  5. I personally find a high carb diet much healthier and sustainable…the key being you have to keep your fat intake low. I would much rather eat carbs than fat, and have been doing so for almost ten years now. Small amounts of lean beef, coupled with large amounts of fruit, rice and potatoes. Almost no vegetables. No junk/ fast/ processed food. I am a very lean 150lbs at 5′ 10″ and 67 years old. Blood work completely normal, and of course very good insulin sensitivity. My long ago experience with low carb led to thyroid issues, and the fact that without enough carbs you are running on stress hormones surely contributes to that. Relying on gluconeogenesis to supply your glucose seems wrong to me, since you keep adrenaline and cortisol elevated in the process. But to each his own, and I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind. There are numerous ways to stay lean, find what makes you feel the best. Trashing your health with drugs or restrictive diets to lose weight is not the way to go.

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    1. There are cultures that were lean and long lived on high carb diets it can definitely work well. Especially with a bit of meat or plants with a reasonable level of protein. I don’t think it’s about carbs, or fats, or meat. It is more about being able to process what you are eating. And being sensible about it.

      i also believe the whole stress hormones thing is very badly (and perhaps intentionally by our lords) misunderstood. But I’ll leave it alone for now.

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    1. Let’s ask the AstroNuts from Spacex about their lean diets. I heard Joe Biden went on the mission to rescue them.

      He decided to beat them back to earth by packing his own parachute.

      He had a Skydiving accident and his “Spine went through his Skull”….

      Now he’s the “Delaware Unicorn”.

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  7. Not sure about that, but I agree there is something (more than one thing) pushing people to eat too much. I agree it’s a lot harder to eat too much on a mostly meat diet. Just try eat 2.2 pounds of meat. I did last Sunday and it was hard work. And apparently that’s less than half a days calories for me.

    The trouble with the whole diet industrial complex is everything is taken to the extreme. No one just eats 5 percent less, or has one less beer or desert they go full starvation or whatever the next trend is. Life is and always has been about lots of little things over thousands of days.

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  8. Could you, on one hand, eat a huge tub of buttered popcorn at a movie? Me too. On the other hand, could you eat a 16-slice package of sliced cheddar cheese? Me neither. The cheese triggers the “enough” button. Popcorn, and carbs in general, do not.

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    1. Remove the butter from the popcorn…almost all the calories are from fat in your example. A huge tub of unbuttered popcorn would be negligible from a calorie standpoint, and quite low in carbs. The added butter in this case makes you overeat. So many of the things that get labelled carbs are actually combinations of fat and carb. I can’t overeat a bunch of apples, or a bowl of boiled potatoes. Make the potatoes into french fries and I can eat a lot. And get a ton of fat in the process.

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      1. The point was that popcorn has no “enough” switch, while cheddar cheese does. Some people attribute this to our ancestry, that carbs always in short supply, sweet berries a rare treat. I don’t know this stuff.

        Further than that, I realize that Asians are rice-centric, and healthier than Americans. I’ve been often enough to Europe to notice fat people there, and that is the point … I notice them. Here is the US, I live in fear that one will occupy a seat next to me on an airplane. But fat people do not stand out here, they blend in.

        The science is well enough understood, that an overbalance of carbs, both complex and simple, stimulates production of insulin, which triggers fat storage. Dietary fat does not become body fat. Why the world does not comform to this easy oversimlification, I don’t know.

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        1. Mark, the obese friend i mention below – I remember in high school he would graze on an entire box of cereal while we watched a marathon of Star Trek or Dr. Who. And get real fat. Cows can get real fat on grass.

          As far as Asians, Japan is probably the nation with the longest lifespan. Although Asians seem healthier, and thinner, there are major issues, especially as lifespan is not as long as you would expect. In Thailand, based on my anecdotal evidence, lifespans are not that long, especially compared to the West. From what I can determine diabetes kills many – no doubt in part due to the rice based diet. The other huge killer is kidney failure. An American i know over there clued me into that – because of the high temperatures, and how common farming is – i.e. working in the heat, they drink far too little water, so their kidneys do not have sufficient water for natural dialysis. So toxins build up in the kidneys. I noticed last time i was there, before i purposely drank more water, that my urine became very concentrated and smelly.

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  9. GLP1s

    “Yes, as it turns out, the blockbuster GLP-1 drugs are powerful inducers of anhedonia – lack of interest, pleasure or general enjoyment of life. This is not only a core symptom of clinical depression, but is also notoriously hard to treat. Btw, the SSRI drugs are known to exacerbate rather than treat anhedonia, so this little fact right there should be enough to show everybody just how “antidepressant” those drugs really are. But getting back to anhedonia, not only is it very difficult to treat with existing drugs, losing pleasure/joy from life is just one step away from giving up on life and many people attempt suicide after reaching that stage. Now, of course the fact that something causes anhedonia does not directly mean that it causes depression. However, after digging a little deeper, evidence quickly emerges that GLP-1 AGONIST DRUGS DO, in fact, drastically increase the risk of ANY major psychiatric disorder, including clinical depression, and, of course, suicide. So, this is how medicine “treats” obesity – by causing people to lose interest in eating…”

    Georgi Dinkov

     researcher bioenergetics, oxidative phosphorylation, metabolism, biochemistry and nutrition

    https://haidut.me/?p=2744

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    2. Sounds about right. I had meant to post a personal story about a close friend I grew up with who has ruined his life, in part, by taking SSRIs for 30 years. He’s 57, very obese, about 5’8″ 300 pounds. Next door neighbor, smart kid who was a little off, and had a lazy streak, from a good family. So he is this fat, yet gets an incredible amount of exercise. Because he works in a dining hall at a university, doing deliveries of boxes all day long. Because he eats all the bakery shit, like donuts etc, he cannot lose weight. And he is completely miserable. The SSRIs actually make him shit himself all the time. I got him to go off them, then some f-ing doctor treating him for a related condition – he had to get hernia surgery because his intestine burst through his groin – told him it was a bad idea to quit his meds! That is modern medicine for you.

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  10. Could it be possible that a diet of no carbs is the healthiest for humans? Maybe early humans existed for thousands of years through ice ages eating only meat. Don’t they find fossils of animal bones butchered with stone tools and not much evidence of any other food? Our digestive system is very different from a chimps or gorillas which both are able to digest vegetation much better than us. Maybe rollercoasting insulin and glucose levels are the main cause of health problems?

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