My Personal Story

I wanted to take some time and explain what drove me to get some help for my problems.  I was an obese, asthmatic, young man who suffered from psychosis like symptoms, depression, and autism.

I've saw a couple of doctors who told me to take more meds, to just "talk it out", to just accept that I had uncurable problems. I had enough!  Nobody could explain what was wrong with me, because nobody thought that "nutrition" could be a big deal.

Nutrition was going to be a big part of my life.

It finally crossed my mind, when I stepped on the scale and it registered 236 lbs, that something had to be done. Holy macaroni batman! It was time for change.

I finally saw the light when Tom Naughton's big FAT HEAD showed up on my television screen.  After noting that bacon and cholesterol could be healthy, I hit up google and scearched "bacon" diets.  These of course would just be the intro diets that I would try before I stumbled onto "marks daily apple."

I was very happy to find out that red meat, veggies, fruits (all foods that were tasty and made me feel good,) were perfectly healthy.  The problem was wheat!  I removed it from my diet, only to discover that my psychosis and depression disappeared over the course of a month.

Maybe there could be a grand unifying theory to all of my problems? I never even thought about how I would feel mentally if I started eating like this. That was just the icing on the cake. Rather, the heavy cream in my berries smoothie.

Jumping straight in, I lost 54 pounds in total over a period of 8 months. I felt much better! I really did.  I suffered from the low carb flu, but who didn't? Looking back, I might have gone a bit slower, switched to rice first, and cut my sugar intake in half.  That might have been a more prudent decision, but I was too excited about bacon.

The one thing I will say that very low carb paleo and primal didn't fix was my autism.  I gave my body a rediculous ammount of good fatty acids, and I still suffered from poor decision making, inability to focus on boring things, social anxieties, orthorexia(!), and I even stalled my weight loss too.

I only had to add the tubers and vegetables back in, and watch my macros to get back on track and fix the rest of my problems, including my cholesterol.

Of all my symptoms, I still only suffer from the social issues, because autism probably won't go away.  I can only try to make things better.

Maybe it's time to go to a psychologist to talk some things out now?  Who knows?

Feel free to tell me your story below, or if you have any suggestions on how I can fix my poor decision making process.

Until next time,

-Josh

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Vitamin D, Wheat, Psychosis, and Some Personal Insight

Vitamin D deficiency is REAL. This study set out a year ago and it gave us a BIG wake up call. We aren't going outside during the right time of day to get optimal sunlight. We aren't supplementing, and we are certainly not getting it from our food. Some studies are also linking gluten and vitamin d deficiency to psychosis problems.

Suffering from psychosis? My opinion doesn't matter, but this article says you should be eating a well rounded diet with lots of antioxidants, vitamin c (potatoes win again), more omega-6s from natural sources, vitamin A (EGGS! LIVER! ANIMAL PRODUCTS), vitamin E, vitamin D... the list goes on. The one thing to note here, is that a lot of fat soluble vitamins (A, E, K2-MK4, and D3) need FAT in order to absorb them, and the best way to absorb them is through the use of saturated fat.

Vegans lose out again with psychosis because they simply don't eat grass fed beef liver. Not to mention they eat tons of wheat/whole grains/processed sugars in the form of bread (maybe even less than the average person,) but that's beside the point.

Now back to vitamin D3.

It's easy to see that we all need to supplement vitamin d3, unless you are in the sun all day. Even going outside for 15 minutes regularly at 12 noon will only give you 5000 IU, and 10,000 IU if you go to the beach with a bathing suit. So honestly, no matter what, you probably aren't getting enough vitamin D3.

My solution? Concentrated lanolin supplements. Yeah, supplementation can have it's good points. Just remember that it's not an excuse for not walking outside or breathing some fresh air every now and then.

Vitamin D3 supplements are working very well for me. If I could pay for fermented cod liver fish oil, I would, but sadly, I cannot afford it right now. So instead, I just get a concentrated form of it in 5000IU vegetable capsules.

I leave you with this video, which explains a bunch of really cool things about vitamin d3 and what it could be responsible for... or what seems to be missing in children with a psychotic disorder.

-Josh

Today my daughter got her eggs in bacon grease! That's my girl!

The Gluten Free Pizza

Domino's is making a gluten free pizza and everyone around the world cheered and switched to the gluten free cheesy goodness that is pizza. Then we all lived happily ever after.

Except we didn't.

This kind of stuff drives me nuts. Companies are realizing that people think wheat is bad for them, but instead, they do the same process of figuring out how to make their food tasty, have rewarding textures, smother it in cheese, and suddenly it's an acceptable product to sell. Companies aren't stupid! It is also made on the same equipment used with wheat, so anyone with Celiac, high sensitivity to wheat, or myself, cannot eat it.

So what's their target market? The common person. That's right! They aren't targeting the wheat free movement, they're targeting the mainstream man. They are playing off of the fact that "gluten" and "sugar" is the new "fat." Everything about it is misleading and wrong. Here are the exact reasons why YOU shouldn't eat a gluten free pizza.

• When you see the words fat free, or gluten free, think the words "Super processed concentrated sugar with a high reward palatability rating."
• Amylopectin A in a ground up form is dangerous. This should be obvious, because it's the chemical that makes you fat when you eat wheat, how is this different?
• What about those small dense LDL particles that cause heart disease?
• Cheese is a high reward food, need I say more?
• Sauce is a high reward food, see above
• What about the vegetable oils they use to serve it?

So there you have it. The reasons why I'm mad when I read things like this. Sure, you removed a big piece of the problem, the gut damaging gliadin and gluten, but what about all the other problems? Well that's just like comparing regular cigarettes with low tar ones.

-Josh

Today's "Lower" Carb Lunch

Pardon my phone's quality, I wanted to share with you my low reward palatability paleo (technically primal) lunch.  1 half cup of spinnach, 2 small potatoes, 200 calories of smoked salmon, an apple, and just one tablespoon of butter.

Who cares about the calories?  I'm full, and will be so until I get some food tonight.  I know I'm only supposed to update Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but I could throw some random food posts in every now and then!

How I Would Change the Leptin Reset Protocol

This picture is the hormone Leptin. It has been the topic of many discussions in the health community, and I disagree with their statements. Particularly Jack Kruise's statement that one needs to eat 50g of protein after waking up in order to uptake leptin correctly. I'm pretty sure that eating 50g of protein at one sitting is excess, and it's completely unnecessary.

So instead of complaining about how medical doctors don't understand, or that it doesn't fit my lifestyle, let us reassess a way to feel full, without overdoing protein. That feeling of fullness is what we want, right? So let's replace 20g of the 50g of protein in the "big protein breakfast," with a potato or two.

Here are the rules:

1. Eat a Low carb Paleo Diet (Less than or equal to 100g of sugar from any source except fiber)
2. Eat no more than 30g of protein at every meal, and don't skip breakfast.
3. Don't avoid potatoes, they keep me full and give you the "full" feeling quicker
4. Restrict protein to about 80g a day (70g if you are a woman)
5. Cover the bases nutritionally and eat the most varied diet I possibly can.
6. Whole foods, no sauces, low reward textures like uncooked egg yolks, medium rare burgers, potatoes, raw veggies, smoked raw fish(!)

So in short, 30g of protein for breakfast with a starchy tuber or two, eat when I am hungry, and stay under 80 grams of protein a day eating a full low carb paleo diet.

Example breakfasts:
1/4 pound grass fed beef/buffalo, 2 medium sized baked potatoes, all the veggies I can eat
3 eggs, 2 full slices of bacon, 2 potatoes, veggies
3 sausages (10g of protein each), peppers, 1 potato
1/4 pound grass fed beef liver, fibrous veggies, etc

If this isn't enough to get me full, then I will increase my vegetable content, and make sure I eat 2 potatoes.

Good? Good.

On a completely unrelated note, I plan on updating the blog every monday, wednesday, and friday. What do you guys think? Also, leave a comment about my leptin reset and what you think. Thanks,
-Josh

My View on Supplements

Today we should talk about supplements, because I know everyone has them. They are the things that fill in the gap where your nutrition is failing. I personally think they are a bad idea, and if you can get what you need in the food you eat, then you should simply do that instead.

I believe there are few exceptions to this rule, as we are widely deficient in D3, K2, and a few other vitamins, espcially if you are following a "ketogenic" diet of less than 30g of carbohydrate a day. There's just no way to fit 30g of carbohydrate from fibrous veggies every day without a bit of supplementation. You're going to have a deficiency somewhere.

This is a liver pill that my wife made. She simply steamed it until the juice came out, baked it at 180 for 2 hours, ground it up and baked it in a pan again for another 2 hours, and finally encapsulated it.

No oxidation, because the temperature is too low. Just pure grade dehydrated liver.

Every morning I have my cup of coffee, I take 6 pills and put 2 tablespoons of good quality butter in my coffee, so I can absorb the fat soluble vitamins. Sure, it's not ideal. In fact, I should just be eating the darn liver all by itself. The problem of course, is not me. It's my mother in law, who would vastly prefer I should not stink up the house with the liver smell. Well it looks like I'm getting liver pills instead. Besides, she is practicing to become a placenta encapsulation specialist.

Unfortunately, I highly doubt that all supplements are good. Take whey protein for example. This article written by "Amy Kubal" explains why I ditched the powder, and just ate the beef and potatoes post workout. You should be taking advantage of the post workout insulin sensitivity! Bananas, apples, beef, and chicken. Nearly any lean protein will do. You don't have to take my word for it, though. Find what works for you. If supplementing whey protein just to fix your macros, then do it. I even hear Branch Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs) are pretty good for fasted workout training and as a result, good for weight loss.

Vitamin D3 in cod liver fish oil is probably the only required supplement by everyone. It would be best to get it "fermented" to pull out all the vitamins and nutrients to make them more bioavailable. The same thing goes for vitamin K2, getting the best quality butter in your coffee in the morning is certainly important. Maybe even supplementing Natto might be a good idea, but I doubt it's better than my buttered coffee.

Iodine is another good one. However, when we supplement iodine, we forget to take selenium with it. This is why liver is so important!! I am guessing that supplementation of iodine in the long run is also very ill advised, because you could just take some seaweed paper, or eat a fish. You can always catch me pounding down some sushi with fish eggs. Once again, whole foods paleo wins on the micronutrient level.

The one other supplement that people seem to need, is CoQ10. You can get it in a pill form (like me in my liver pill, because I'm a slacker,) or you can eat some liver, kidney, or heart. CoQ10's importance cannot be emphasized enough, because it is a huge part of ATP. Once again, the well rounded paleo diet covers your bases, but vegans and vegetarians lose out (along with b12, k2, and dietary cholesterol, etc.)

So as you can see, I would rather get my vitamins from the whole food. Period.

We should try not to supplement unless we have to, because it's much easier to cook a cup of broccoli than pay for a future health treatment. Thanks for reading. Leave a comment explaining what kind of supplements you take.

-Josh