DIets and Disorders

This is going to be a quick post.  Nothing groundbreaking here, but there are some I-don't-care-what-the-Latin-phrase-is debate tactics that creep into too many of the discussions on eating disorders from all sides.   One such tactic is to accuse me, and others, of blaming the paleo diet or saying it causes eating disorders.  I didn't do that.  

A scenario:

You look in the mirror one day and don't like what you see.  Where did this gut come from?  Step on the scale, 10 lbs since a year ago!  Yikes!!  New Year's Resolution:  Lose 10 lbs.    The approach you choose is a standard one:  Establish a calorie deficit of 500-1000 cal/day , mostly calorie counting but adding a 40 min-1 hr walk 5 days a week.  Before you know it the pants are less snug, the belt tightened not just one but two notches.  Feeling good ... looking good!  Goal reached.  Hey, maybe I'll look and feel even better if I lose 5 more pounds!  Step on scale after a week.  No loss.  Another week.  No loss.  Still one more week.  No loss.  

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Paleo™ ApprovED ... Enough.

11/29:  Another minor update.  There has been a ton of feedback both here and on Facebook and I'm personally quite touched that the overwhelming response has been positive.  These subjects are never easy to broach.  I will be posting an update as I have had many questions as to why I removed the picture that I did and inserted my sarcastic graphic in its place.  That too is a serious and extremely tenuous/touchy issue to address, but it really needs to be as it goes to the heart of this issue.  

In any case, just so everyone is aware, yesterday the MDA post was updated as follows:

This response is disheartening to say the least.  I think that most would agree that most if not all comments were respectful.  One of the last comments that was allowed was from one guy berating another for saying that she looked better before.  I don't see that as being any less appropriate than comments congratulating her for her after appearance.   Mark could have just closed the comments, but instead he (or whomever really runs that place in his name) attributed the term *trolling* to those who expressed concern.  No, name withheld here should not have to defend herself because someone over at MDA should have had the good sense not to publish this at all.  This is yet another characteristic of this community that is troubling.  I read many expressions of concern for this young lady's well being, concerns I share, and Mark's comments here will only serve to deepen her denial.  Shame on you Mark Sisson.  Shame.

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11/28:  I hope all of my readers have a wonderful day today.   I'm uncharacteristically not too busy, as I am not hosting for a rare change.  But I have stumbled upon a bit of bad timing with my last post.  It requires followup and that will be forthcoming sometime this weekend.  But not today.  

Enjoy your self.  Enjoy your family, your friends, your pets, whatever.  The only thing I plan to do today regarding food is to make sure my stuffed mushrooms and shrimp-deviled eggs are perfectly delish, and that I leave room for my sister's amazing, once-a-year-at-T'giving, pecan pie.  I hope you will do similar whatever and whomever you are.

Be HAPPY.  Be THANKFUL!

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Minor Update 11/28:  You may also wish to read:  When Orthorexia Goes Bad  It fleshes out some background and some additional thoughts on ED in general.

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Original post ...

Blogstress note:  I had not intended to spend time on this until after my "desk clears" of projects in the works and my real life job.   I had to make an exception, as I am genuinely angry, and this is where I can express that anger.  This will read a bit disjointed, but I ask that you give this a full read before responding and bear with this aspect of it.  It's not my most concise or well written effort, for which I apologize but ... time ... or lack thereof is my excuse.  Some of this was written a while ago, the rest yesterday and today.  It got too long so I am publishing it up blemishes and all while it is timely, and hope to post a Part II shortly.

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Sugar Addiction and Prelude to a Review of The 21 Day Sugar Detox

With apologies in advance for some tangent going ons ...

As a popular paleo (for marketing purposes anyway) author released a paperback version of her 21 Day Sugar Detox this week -- yes, I'm talking about a $400-will-buy-you-a-certificate-that-says-so "holistic nutritionist" aka Certified Nutritional Consultant courtesy of 501c3 Bauman "college" -- I thought this journal article might be of enough interest to the inmates here to warrant a post.

The plausibility of sugar addiction and its role in obesity and eating disorders

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Cookies & Calories

As many of my readers are likely aware, I have attracted the attention of a few true bullies and stalkers who consider it noble to ridicule my every word and move.  In line with this, they have picked apart my interview with Jimmy Moore and made fun of various parts.  Two of the issues both happened to involve cookies, hence the title of this post.

My (long, long ago and one time) Cookie Diet:  

The purpose of my interview with Moore was ostensibly to discuss my issues with the science of Gary Taubes.  It wasn't to discuss my own life, weight, history, etc.  However this was around the time of the Twinkie diet so I guess Jimmy felt compelled to waste time (less for the real issues) discussing that.  In that context, I related a story from long ago.  I don't remember exactly what year that was, but as I recall what apartment I baked in I would have been under 25.  My weight struggles were continuing at that time having began with a crash diet in my late teens and progressed through frank eating disorders to mostly a yo-yo weight cycling.  

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Wagons, Wheels and Eating Disorders

This post is a little past its shelf life, but I figured I'd publish it up anyway.  On the tail of Angelo Coppola's remarks on Jimmy Moore's 10 Things Paleo needs to address so I can continue scamming off of "paleo" post -- blogged on here -- Emily Deans over at Evolutionary Psychiatry picked up on another aspect of Angelo's remarks.  If you missed it, the first post was Orthorexia in the Paleo/Primal Community, and she followed up with Orthorexia in the Paleo/Primal Community: Further Considerations.  If I have one general criticism it is that I'm not entirely sure Angelo was talking about orthorexia when he listed "Recognizing and addressing eating disorders among those who are trying Paleo approaches" among his suggestions countering Jimmy's.

So while they are excellent posts, I fear the focus on the more controversial orthorexia overshadows what I see/saw quite frequently -- the development of binge eating disorders.  I'm not so worried about the orthorexics so long as they don't sanctimoniously lecture me about my supposed addictions and failings or inflict their diets and dogma too stringently on their children.  And even those who do, hopefully there are people in real life looking out for those kids, because the internet really isn't the forum to discuss such matters constructively.  No, I'm more concerned for those who previously ate "normally" who now binge frequently and seek assistance breaking the cycle.  It's the people continually falling off the wagon or having the wheels coming off their wagons, hence the title of this post, that I think of when someone mentions the lack of attention to ED in the community.  Whether or not this is what Angelo was referring to or it was orthorexia I don't know.  Both need to be addressed, IMO, but when I hear "eating disorders" I can't help but think bulimia and to a lesser extent anorexia in the Incestral Health Community.  (I won't address anorexis in the remainder of this post, except to say there are some fairly prominent folks in the IHC who may possibly be.  Also, for some reason paleo seems to attract a cadre of recovering anorexics whose specific needs possibly tenuous states are often ignored when blanket advice is being doled out.)

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Calorie Counting isn't Paleo, it is an Eating Disorder!

Such are the short pronouncements of one Swedish Diet Doctor, Andreas Eenfeldt.  Who, by the way, will be on hand to snap pictures of all of the obese low carbers in the audience for the third (or fourth?) year in a row of Jimmy Moore's KKKetanic.  

He posted two short quips recently.  So short, in fact, that I'll quote them in full here.

• Paleo and Calories?

The recent trend towards calorie counting in Paleo land is baffling. Some people need a reality check. There’s nothing less Paleo than counting calories.

• Calorie Counting and Eating Disorders

Needing to count calories means something is wrong (the appetite regulation is disturbed) or the body weight goal is unnatural. We should try to fix what’s wrong and try to have healthy goals, if possible. Then there will be no need to starve.

Calorie counting is an eating disorder.

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Speaking of Eating Disorders ...

I'm trying to figure out why Stefani Ruper advocates for paleo (for women!) when: {colored emphasis mine, plain bold is hers}

When you discover the paleo diet, it just sort of makes sense in that basic way, and you leap head first into an orgy of statistics and science and success stories.   But for me–as probably for a fair portion of paleo dieters–my excitement was mostly at the promise of being effortlessly thin.  With the paleo diet, I wouldn’t have to feel so restricted.   The “satiation power” of fat and protein would make the burden of my weight maitenance efforts slide off of my shoulders.   I’d eat sardines.  I wouldn’t feel hungry.  I’d be skinny.  Life would be perfect.  Hooray!

Needless to say that wasn’t quite how the story went down at all.   As a matter of fact, it was at this point in my life, for the first time ever, that episodes of overeating became real food binges, in which I might eat half of a pumpkin cheesecake after a whole Thanksgiving dinner, a whole serving tray of gourmet desserts on my birthday, or a few loaves of dessert bread at Christmas parties.  The fact that I had forbidden carbohydrates of nearly all forms from my diet meant that I needed them all the more strongly.  This phenomenon is one of the great monsters I try to tackle with this blog:macronutrient restriction.  If your diet is actively restricting you and making you feel deprived, chances are quite good that food intake, choices, and willpower will all domino behind that.

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Nutty Ketosis: Questions for Volek & Phinney ... and company

Jimmy Moore is clearly following the instructions of Volek & Phinney's latest book on The Art and Science of Low Carb Performance.  This follows on TA&SoLC Living.  Peter Attia followed their recommendations as well when he went nutty ketotic.  His is an even more bizarre experiment than Jimmy's, because as I understand from his JumpStartMD talks (search on YouTube) he had lost whatever little bit of extra weight already without dropping carbs severely.  The guy also works out (or did at the time) almost 3 hours a day and bragged that he increased his calories to 4500 and even more per day.  He bragged at one point in that talk about consuming upwards of 400g fat per day!!  How anyone doesn't think that is the very definition of dietary insanity is beyond me.  Still, Attia is fit and extremely active, and by all indications has not seen detrimental lipid profiles resulting from his adopted lifestyle.

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Marketing & Manipulation ... and Musings ...

WARNING:  Rant!

There's been quite the discussion going on in comments of The Men Who Made Us Fat, and I decided my commentary might be better organized in a blog post.  I can certainly see the positions of both sides there, but in the end I come down on the side of "Eric" when he says this:

"Until we accept that Obesity is a lifestyle choice ( either voluntarily or by apathy ) no real fix can every be made without crushing regressive taxation on food. To blame "big food" is a dangerous cop-out that reinforces the negative cycle."

The so-called "simple obesity" -- the epidemic of indisputable overeating to the tune of an average of 500 calories per day -- is very much a lifestyle choice.  In my case, the obesity of the late 90's and the 2000's was in large part due to apathy or laziness.  Too many take out meals instead of cooking something.  And take out means too many fried, processed, calorie dense foods.  Or just eating crackers and cheese watching TV -- before you know it a sleeve is gone, and you haven't even had a "meal".  It's ordering the quarter pounder and medium fries when a regular burger and small fries is enough.  It's having McD's on the road instead of packing a snack for the long trip.  CHOICES.

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Gary Taubes on Anorexia

Hey gang ... I'm working on the Big Fat Lies blogumentary ... just when I think I've found everything I'm remembering to include, I come across more.  But I'm near completion and after some time to do other things in my life (grin) will likely get to publishing it next week.  In the meantime, I came across a quote that really turned me off to Taubes when I heard it.  It really had little to do with his scientific manglings, but more to do with his attitude about fat tissue regulation showing an utter disregard for eating disorders.  I blogged on it once over on the Chronicles blog but couldn't find the quote at the time.  So when I heard it this time, you can imagine it jumped out at me!  

As someone who struggled with ED's, and could just have easily succumbed to anorexia rather than what eventually led to lifelong struggle with overweight and obesity, I found this personally offensive.  It's moreso because I feel that Taubes misuses the works of Hilde Bruch -- probably the single name most associated with studying and treating eating disorders -- to support his so-called Alternate Hypothesis.  Bruch is the author of The Golden Cage and various other books on both anorexia and obesity.  I have a copy of this book and just paged through it to refresh.  Bruch was not, as Taubes would have you believe, fixated on some metabolic even that precipitated this disease or others.  Her focus was on finding out how it starts so perhaps to prevent it from progressing, and how to help (mostly young girls) sufferers unlock their cages.

Sure, you can feed an anorexic carbs (and protein) and pump them full of insulin and put bodyweight back on them.  This will not cure them, however, and may well be one of the more cruel things you could do to a human being capable of literally starving themselves to death because they are so afraid of gaining weight and their reflection in the mirror.

So I put together this "short" since I was playing with a different video production program.