Quick notes for mid May 2015

Updated 5.12.2015
Quick comments derived from reading the various tabs open in my browser currently.

Exercise is absolutely part of a healthy weight loss.

The low carb high fat (LCHF) crowd has been touting an editorial published at BMJ (the former British Medical Journal) that argued that exercise isn't good for weight loss. I don't necessarily disagree having noted any number of times that you "can't outrun your fork" and that, "there's a reason eat less comes before move more." However, the editorial writers are LCHF purveyors who have written and sold books touting the diet, which they did not disclose. Someone complained, and the article was pulled for a bit and the disclosures were added.

Dr Tim Noakes (one of the authors) in under investigation in his home country of South Africa for telling mothers to wean their infants onto a LCHF diet— which is stupid on its face. I'm not going to waste too much time on the issue because this article takes apart the nonsense, and notes the evidence on the effect of exercise on diet.

Moving more is incredibly important while losing weight. Yes, you can lose weight using a calorie deficit alone. However, exercising and maximizing non-exercise movement (non-exercise activity thermogenesis, NEAT) definitely helps offset any metabolic slowing. Moving more also gives you a buffer to maintain a energy deficit in the energy balance equation while eating or drinking a bit more. There are plenty of other benefits to exercise, of course, but to lose weight you must expend more energy than you ingest, and movement will help you do that.

Triglyceride levels are falling in the US

Health Day reports on the CDC's announcement that triglycerides levels (as a population) are declining. Not because we're eating better and moving more, though. The CDC didn't actually speculate as to why trig levels are declining, but the article notes that fewer people are smoking and more people are popping statin pills.

Today in HAES

Don't diet, learn to trust your body. Posts like this (by Linda Bacon, no less) remind me that HAES (Health at Every Size) was originally developed to help eating disorder (ED) sufferers heal, and that there are aspects of HAES that I like quite a bit. Being "attuned" to your body and feeding it what it needs is a great concept. However, how does one become an "attuned" eater? I've spelled out how I did it, but I did it with the knowledge of roughly how many calories per day I was aiming to eat. Simply listening to your body and eating as often and as much as you want is a good way to pack on a lot of pounds quickly (read through the fatosphere, there are plenty of example of this outcome.

A changing business plan?

Suddenly Paleoista is okay with not following "true paleo"? Hmmm, I'm sensing a shift in business plan. Paleoista (former vegan) has been the most consistently militant about maintaining "paleo" purity, railing often about the recipes for paleo-ized treats throughout the paleosphere. Of course, Paleoista doesn't have kids, so has no idea of how difficult it can be to get them to go along with an arbitrarily restrictive diet, which "Paleo" is in a big way. She is convinced that everyone will bloat and have a bad reaction to gluten and dairy (which she apparently does) but that is simply not the case. Many people can eat wheat with no bad reaction, and a just under a third of humanity can process lactose without issue.

A shift was apparent in the after Paleofx posts by some big "Paleo" names. This blogger is moving away from "Paleo" because she’s realized that "Paleo" IS orthorexia. There shouldn’t be ANY rules in food, except that you like the taste, it doesn’t make you sick (ie no lactose intolerance, celiac disease etc) and you don’t eat too much. (How much is too much varies with age, height, and desired weight). She dings the Whole30 (patron saints of orthorexia, with their Harvard educated MD enabler) and the 21 day sugar detox. ALL are disordered eating patterns. Veganism would be included by many, but so long as you’re not calorie restricting, all three macronutrients are amply represented in a vegan diet. It’s the arbitrary restriction of macro-nutrients that I think is heinous. The Whole30 however, as befits patron saints, are in a WHOLE (get it?) other category of orthorexia.

Ahh but then she veers into HAES territory. Which again, I partially agree with (in that I think eating well and in the proper amount and moving regularly are more important to health than arbitrary restrictions or body sizes… but health and weight ARE related. The fat is part of you, the fat play a role in your health. If you are larger than your body can compensate for (whether that’s reflected in blood markers or joint pain) you are NOT healthy at that size.

It seems to be mostly women who are backing away from "Paleo," here's another example. Even the Harvard educated enabler listed above made be learning a few things at last. She eats beans and rice now. She also has young kids who are about to enter the preteen and teen years. Yes Emily, you’d better relax a bit. Because the kids WILL eat with friends and they WILL discover that the sky doesn’t fall. And then they come home to orthorexia— NOT a good thing.

Yes parents have incredible influence on what kids can eat. But over time that influence reduces as kids become more independent. At that time, you’d better hope that you laid the right groundwork or you’re going to have a huge rebellion on your hands. Of course for Deans, as a psychiatrist, orthorexic programs represent a kind of full employment plan, as people who are damaged using orthorexic fad eating patterns such as the Whole30 may eventually need treatment to heal an eating disorder.

Holy hell, even Mark Sisson is backing away from (his own) hard and fast rules. Suddenly legumes are on the menu? Never heard of this guy, but now he’s anti-paleo too.

Scientific proof that apples keep the doctor away.

This is the abstract only of a study that purports to show that if you eat an apple a day, you will have fewer trips to the doctor than non-apple-eaters.

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