Nutless policy

Has been, to quote KGH, "a rousing success." Now binge-free, I've managed to take command of my appetite. I've lost most of the macadamia weight (at least 5 lbs) I put on, and I'm looking and feeling much better than I have in awhile.

I had some early nut cravings (see my "Hypothetical Scenario" post), but now I'm over them. They cannot compete with meat.

I previously wrote that LC paleo was boring. I now believe the opposite. Meat, formerly a special-occasion delicacy, is the centerpiece of every meal. Why am I complaining? This is awesome. I didn't even like nuts pre-paleo. I've always loved meat.

Today I had steak, two kinds of sausage, eggs, onions and green peppers all sauteed together in butter, then topped by hot sauce and some surprisingly delicious salsa I got at Albertsons. Was frickin' amazing. I'm planning on making the same thing tomorrow.

As it was a post-workout meal, I had sweet potatoes w/ butter and cinnamon, dipped in this chilled coconut cream and cacao powder mix from last night. So goddamn good.

I've feel like I'm nearing some sort of paleo zen state, like what Methusaleh describes in Paleo at its Best.

Ironically, the one thing I still find myself ODing on is coconut milk, the one remaining nut. The stuff is superbly healthy, but so tasty and accessible that it's really easy to rack up the calories with.

Perhaps I should purge it and simply add more butter to my meals (mmm)?

Life Rules

I seem to be someone that responds to explicit rules well. That's why I like the paleo diet. Eat this, not that.

I've obediently followed my aforementioned diet rules since posting them, and am seeing good results.

It seems by producing simple rules which I can mindlessly obey, I save myself the intellectual overhead of computing whether, and how much of, I should eat at any given meal.

So I've decided to construct a few simple life rules that I think should prove beneficial.

1. Start a conversation with at least one stranger a day.

2. Program for at least an hour ever day.

If I fail to do any of these, they can be made up after, but not before the failed day.

Now to get programming...

Hypothetical Scenario

What would happen if I fasted the shit out of a couple days, exercised, bought some Mauna Loa macadamias, got high, then gorged on them while listening to this song:



I think I would explode out of sheer ecstasy.

My Diet Rules

Here are my diet rules. It's a modified PaNu. All the standard paleo rules apply.

All the healthy animal fats, meat, and vegetables I can eat. Cheese and coconut included.

But, I can only eat twice a day max, and I cannot snack.

Berries in moderation are allowed, but no sweet fruits.

Sweet potatoes are OK post anaerobic workout, and if I make sweet potato chips I can have some for dessert to help supply body's glucose needs.

And of course... the most important rule of them all...

NO. MORE. NUTS.

Advice from Taleb: Tinker

I was listening to an EconTalk interview of Taleb, and towards the end, he had this profound insight: most innovations occur not because of a priori reasoning, but trial and error tinkering.

Though paleo is entirely a priori reasoning, I stick with it because it works. Whatever works is whatever works. As Stephan at Whole Health Source says, our current methods for determining health are quite crude. Thus, it's best to go with what we know, historically, works -- a paleolithic diet, high in animal products.

Now, I'm doing a more Taubesish diet. I feel comfortable doing this because 1) it's worked for me in the past and 2) Taubes is really frickin good looking. Go on YouTube and look at some of his earlier interviews. Dude looks like he's carved out of stone. His images on google show a belly, but a recent talk shows that he's back in old Taubes form. Compare him to low-fat Ornish, who looks like a goblin. So quickly avert your eyes, and steer them towards Sisson or PaNu.

The diet is obviously working for them, why wouldn't it work for me? Go with what works.

Paleo Problems

I was listening to Jimmy Moore interview Gary Taubes today, and Taubes brought up an anecdote about how one of his detractors had tried the low-carb diet early in his life, lost weight, but quit because it bored him. Boredom, or lack of variety, I feel is one of the worst aspects of low-carb Paleo (PaNu). Previously, I was absolutely in love with my Cordain diet, mainly because he allowed unlimited access to fruits and nuts, which I was addicted to. I LOVED fruit. Then I went on PaNu, and found it much more convenient to eliminate fruit; the benefits are nice -- no more acne and I seem to recovery from injuries quicker -- but goddamn, I really liked fruit.

Then I learned that nuts were frowned upon (lectins, way too much n-6, nutritionally bankrupt, maybe some phytates in them as well). Trying to eat them in moderation inevitably failed, as they are so addicting, so I eliminated them. So now I'm stuck with vegetables, meat, and fat. I don't like vegetables that much, and PaNu says they are overrated, so I basically stopped eating them, which left meat and fat -- not much variety. My meals are good, but rather dull. I actually got over the fruit thing rather easily, but nuts, man, I constantly craved those. So I cut out nuts, and lost a ton of weight (down to 146 lbs). I realized that I could afford to gain weight, so I added them back in (particularly almond butter), and I got back up to 153 lbs relatively quickly.

When I first added butter to my diet (after being on low-fat Cordainish diet), I noticed that my face got fatter. Higher fat tends to give me a fatter face, but not necessarily raise my weight. I still want to experiment on this higher-fat, low carb diet, because I believe it can work. It's simply a matter of sticking to it. Regular paleo was much easier to stick to (much wider range of things I could eat). Now I've basically limited myself to meat, fat and vegetables. Luckily, I LOVE meat, so I think it's quite doable. The other saving grace is coconut. Not only is coconut acceptable, it's 'excellent.' I love coconut, and I can probably use it to stave off my nut cravings.

This diet should also enable me to have a solid n-3 to n-6 ratio for the first time in my life.

thinking for yourself

I have a problem where I slavishly follow the advice of those I respect, like KGH of PaNu. I just sorta do whatever he says. I cut out the carbs, fruit and ate lots of fat. But then he says that ratios really don't matter, and i'm like oh, okay, i'll eat more carbs now; I'm completely at the mercy of his advice. I feel like if i cross his advice, i'm implicitly saying he's wrong, and for some reason i don't want to do that.

I probably ate ~3500 calories today, which is ridiculous. I never eat this much. i had a whole 2 cups of whipping cream (I whipped it) a little thing of sour cream (as in, I ate a whole small container of sour cream), a whole steak, 2 eggs. ridiculous.

Update: holy crap, no wonder I gained weight. That has got to be wayyy 3500 calories. I even recall eating butter straight from the stick that week (it was finals week). Then I went home on Spring break and binged horribly. Definitely put on some pounds. Didn't represent well for the paleo diet, which I feel is a responsibility of mine (representing the diet well), and the best way to influence others to try out.