Monday, November 4, 2013

The Eat as Much As Possible Diet (Part 2)

Edit (6/25/2014):  I will be migrating to a new site to share information on life.  I also will be releasing a book based on my experiences and ideas.  I will post the link once the site is fully developed.
Edit (7/29/2014):  Please see scottschlegel.net 

Passion
Most people can't understand my passion for truth in nutrition because they haven't experienced what I experienced from a "healthy diet" pimped by out-of-shape health gurus (see Andrew Weil), Whole Foods, and a health industry that thrives by convincing you you are sick.  Shout out to webMD.  I did it all. I sprouted seeds. Ate fruit I can't pronounce.  Ate fermented food that smelled like nursing homes.  I cleansed until I shit nothing but water.  The results were less positive than an Angela Landsbury pregnancy test.
Picture of Health - Emaciated.
I worried about glycemic index while you were shitting in Pampers.  I did Insanity, P90X, Bikram Yoga, High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and meditated years before every out-of-shape person I know became a Beach Body coach. And don't just pull the "everything in moderation" BS because I ate a wider variety of foods than most people know exist.  At one point, I was eating whole chickens - yes, the entire thing, bones and all.  Man shit, huh?  Not so much.

Unfortunately this experience wasn't as short as Paris Hilton's singing career.  I stuck to a low carbohydrate and low calorie diet for seven years (22 to 29).  Last winter, after my "catecholamine honeymoon" ended from a climax reached by doing super low carbohydrate diet (less then 25 grams a day), having zero attraction to females and no libido, I even questioned my sexuality, and was for, lack of better words, depressed. I'm not saying this is true, but my experience shows that sexuality and depression seem to be hormonal which is at least partially diet.

I couldn't sleep, lost hair, had chronically dry skin, brittle nails, and became very defensive about many topics. I guess not much shit is funny when you are starving to death.  Malnourished people seem to cling desperately to beliefs about how the world should be.  Really, no one cares if you are offended.  I suspect it is some kind of defense mechanism for the organism - the last thing you get to keep are your thoughts.

That said, I still think our debt-based monetary system is a ball of fuck.  End the Federal Reserve Banking Cartel and their parasitical extraction of wealth via interest payments from American debt serfs (students, mortgage holders, etc) on lent-into-existence money.  Otherwise, not much bothers me.

Limits to Genetic Expression
I'm not saying we have complete control of our bodies because our genes were tuned up or down for several millenia based on our ancestors' environments and nutrition.  But assuming we all started in the same spot, all DNA provides the ability to regenerate and express characteristics of all other humans.

Stimulants:  Cocaine Coffee Caffeine Cocoa
I work with a guy who served in the Chilean Army.  He said they would go on marches for days at a time, and coca leaves were heavily consumed to provide energy.  It's well known that cocaine causes weight loss, and I figured it must override the body's natural preservation mechanism and enable conversion of stored fat and muscle into glucose.  This sounds like epinepherine (adrenaline). My experiences with God-like energy while doing fasts made me experience this, and anyone who's done cardio for over 30 minutes can feel adrenaline kick-in to shuttle stored fat into cells  for energy.  Physiological stress.

This is inefficient, stressful energy production.  Danny Roddy lays it out well in this article:  How to Burn Fat and Why You Shouldn't.  It feels good, especially if you aren't an adrenaline junkie and eat how I eat to permanently suppress the HPA stress axis.  Your tissue will become more sensitive to all glucorticoids, when and if, you need to use them.

Practical advice:  Therefore, as counterintuitive as it may seem, if you want to raise your metabolism with any stimulant, I recommend consuming them with sugar of some sort so that your body doesn't need to rely on stress hormones (glucorticoids) to keep up.

Why Can't You Sleep?
Researchers have found that cortisol (muscle to glucose) is responsible for causing dreams and causing us to wake. As I described in my previous post, the body begins creating glucorticoids in response to night.  For this reason, I recommend consuming cholesterol rich foods (or any upstream hormone) early in the day so the cholesterol is used for pro-life and not pro-survival hormones. Also, salt suppresses aldosterone and epinepherine along with sugar.  "Carb coma" isn't an accidental term.  They satisfy you.

Salted orange juice works wonders.

Types of Sugar
There are a lot of common misconceptions about sugar.  Everyone assumes that consumption of sugar - no matter the type - causes blood sugar to rise rapidly and the pancreas to respond with insulin, and somehow using this system will lead to diabetes. I realized that insulin sensitivity is actually a survival mechanism.  Cells will become less sensitive if it wants to hang onto energy (as I talked about free amino acids and free fatty acids suppressing insulin sensitivity), and more sensitive if it wants to use it.

From my experience, it seems carbohydrates taken alone - fruit - seem to increase my insulin sensitivity. Research shows fatty diets can cause pancreatis.  My brain tells me very quickly when my blood glucose levels have cleared.  Most Type II diabetics I've met say they can eat simple sugars because the body uses them rapidly whereas starch leaves blood sugar elevated for hours.  I'll be having lab work done in January to prove my hypothesis on fasting blood glucose and insulin levels.

Glucose requires insulin for use. Fructose doesn't require insulin.  It seems the liver has an affinity for this type of sugar.  It is found in varying amounts in fruit. Sucrose is a disacchharide that splits into glucose and fructose.  In a way, it provides balance between the two, which may be a good thing.  Honey is high in sucrose along with plain white sugar.  Monkeys that have had their adrenal glands removed reach for sucrose more than the others. Lactose is milk sugar.  It is relatively low glycemic index. Starch is chains and chains of glucose.  Which is likely why it leaves blood sugar levels elevated for a longer period of time.  Research shows that the infamous High Fructose Corn Syrup appears to look more like starch in a microscope, which makes sense, because it is from corn which is a starch.

Practical advice:  Cinnamon and magnesium both improve insulin sensitivity.  Oh, and if sugar makes you break-out or have skin issues, eat more zinc or vitamin A.  A glucose restricted diet only generates the bare minimum sugar which will only satisfy necessities, which may not include skin growth/repair, which arguably is a cause of acne.

Entropy of Food and Body Composition
I came to notice that all the foods I recommend eating are composed of low molecular weight particles. Gelatin is a low molecular weight protein, milk fat is loaded with short chain fatty acids (more than any other food), and fruit sugars are monosaccharides.  I suspect shorter molecules are more easily handled by the body, and that they are less prone to degradation due to entropy.  It's strange that people recommend eating seeds and nuts while their oils degrade very quickly in the sun.  If our body is mostly composed of fat that degrades easily in the sun, I suspect we will have tissue that degrades easily in the sun.

Practical advice:  consume short and medium chain fatty acids more than long chain unsaturated fatty acids.

Red Light Therapy
Red light increases metabolism.  As the sun sets and moves away from your location, its light begins to red shift away from the UV side of the spectrum slightly.  I recommend sunlight therapy in the afternoon hours.

Muscle Versus Body Fat
I wrote very negatively about exercise in my first post.  But, I figured there has to be something to it.  I still suspect anything grueling is likely too stressful for the body.  However, there is a case to having more muscle in order to relieve stress.  As I wrote, glycogen and glucose are the body's premier sources of energy. When those are exhausted, protein and fat get used under stressful, likely anaerobic conditions.  By developing muscle tissue via pure, calm repetition, the body increases its glycogen storing capacity which allows it to go longer without needing food, and provides storage that is not as unsightly as body fat.  In addition, high levels of body fat convert more testosterone into estrogen.

Update
I will admit I began gaining a little undesirable body fat about four months into this.  At the time, I was consuming about 1/3rd cup of white sugar with whole milk at a time.  Since I slowed down the rate of consumption and switched from whole fat (essentially, I believe that all fat slightly seems to interfere with glucose metabolism) to skim milk.  I also began a stepwise increase in calories instead of just rapid changes.  Your body has enzymes that convert sugar to fat or to glycogen.  I suspect if there is not enough enzyme activity for converting to glycogen, the body will begin making body fat.  However, the wonderful thing about developing metabolism is with a little self-control, it stays high for about five days and any excesses fall off while progress made metabolically seems to remain.

About four months ago


Definitions:
Building hormones:  Pregnenolone, Progesterone, Testosterone, DHEA, T4, T3
Tearing down hormones: Prolactin, Estrogen, Parathyroid, Glucorticoids (Adrenaline, Noradrenaline, Cortisol, ACTH)
Essential Metabolism Minerals and Vitamins:  Zinc, Magnesium, A, D, E, K, B Vitamins, Calcium - prefer food sources for all.




11 comments:

  1. Did you end up having that lab work in January?

    Any thoughts on starch/sugar ratio?

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  2. Hello. Yes, I did. My fasting blood glucose was 81. Right between my High Fat Low Carb (85) and my high starch (75). I do plan to write more when I have the time.

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  3. In regards to losing body fat, it sounds like eating sugar will prevent the body from releasing fatty acids. Is this the same as releasing stored fat from cells? I'm trying to understand how to eat like you suggested while losing some excess weight/fat.

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  4. Sarah, good question. Contact me on facebook for ease of replies. https://www.facebook.com/scott.schlegel.94

    You're right, consuming sugar stops the release of body fat from being metabolized for energy. I've never been overweight so I'm not sure I can give the greatest advice to you. If your fat composition is mostly unsaturated, you'll slowly want to replace that with coconut oil only. Try to avoid unsaturated fats like the plague because they'll be stored and then their thyroid suppressing mechanism stops the weight loss anyways. Choline might help your body remove stored fat. Cortisol and estrogen must be in check to reduce body fat. And make sure you are consuming enough B vitamins (particularly niacin or niacinamide) so that sugar is not converted into fat. Zinc, magnesium might help with hormones.

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  5. You say you eat 23 times your lean weight. What do you eat in a day and how do you fit it all in? How many calories do you eat at a meal?

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  6. Hi, good article, read both parts. Just wondering, did you manage to stop hair loss through this diet?

    Thanks,
    Gavin

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  7. J Max? I don't typically eat "meals" per se except for dinner. Most of the rest of the day is filled with easy calories such as milk and orange juice and honey.

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  8. Keep blogging. Looking to reading your next post.
    #glutenfreefitness

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  10. Very interesting. But there are also other factors which are under-rated: Sulfur is one of them. It is an essential element which is active in almost all metabolic processes, and if we have a lack of it, because of a lack of it in the soil where the food grows, the processes just won't happen correctly.
    I'm French, and I just saw recently a documentary on youtube (in French, sorry no english version yet) on the importance of sulfur and calcium (gymsum aka plaster of Paris, made of calcium sulfate for ex) in the soil and our body, and also manganese and its important role with the adrenals. The guy is a geologist (Philippe Perrot Minnot)and after retiring he studied the "geology of the body".
    There are kinds of levels of functioning which are inclusive, but this is my opinion. The most basic one from which no other can exist if this one is absent is the Desire to live. Then, I guess, that's my vision, it's electricity and its frequencies (see Lakhovsky for ex), then minerals, so the chemical processes, then the biological ones, and the role of hormones vitamins etc. Ray Peat work is amazing in that respect. I stopped polyunsaturated fats years ago, and the change has been obvious: pre diabetic condition gone, completely! My daughter, a teenager at that time lost her extra weight. On the contrary, one of my brothers is a raw foodist vegan for decades and his state of health is very bad: muscle loss, teeth and bones problems: he eats galore of seeds: sesame, almonds etc.
    And there are also some other factors that helped a lot: One is the inclined bed. We live in a tropical place and we got infected by scabies and ringworms with rescued cats. We couldn't get rid of them. After not even one month of sleeping on an inclined bed, the diseases were gone, and my daughter saw two tooth decays disappear too but a couple of months late. And it's logical: in doing this, you keep metabolism active. But beware of the initial hexeimer reaction: I got really sick the first week. See the NASA studies about the counter effects of the absence of gravity for more information and the work of Andrew Fletcher.
    Another important thing is breathing: CO2. Peat talks about this. I was a person to get mouth ulcers all the time and a mouth breather. Since I pay attention to breath through my nose and to not keep my mouth open, they are gone! I also play clarinet, and I breath much slowly when I play. If I feel tired, I play just 15 mn and I'm fully awake: Amazing! I noticed also my temperature going up 1° with a few minutes of slow breathing. So, this is an essential part that I should rank just after the Passion for life.
    This coming monsoon, I'm gonna experiment with drinking and cooking with only rain water. Quality of water is crucial too.
    So, health is definitely multi-factorial, and I just wanted to share this.

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