I presented my training session on the Paleolithic Model of Nutrition recently (it was recorded - will have an online product available soon in conjunction with Faction Strength and Conditioning). Getting ready to present, reviewing my presentation, and refining it based on audience feedback is always fun; the most recent cycle of preparation was particularly fertile with ideas for how to tell the story with more impact, more clarity and more repetition. It is, for example, really hard for people to believe you mean "eat more fat" or "eat a lot of fat". If you say that once, or twice, it does not sink in. Further, even if the whole point of the presentation is "if your diet produces wild excess in blood sugar, you are frocked" - I get questions about whole eggs v. whites only, or others that amount to a complete oblivion to the PRIMACY OF GLYCEMIC CONTROL.
I should probably put "it's the blood sugar, stupid" on every slide.
You see articles all the time about one group or another's fears of "toxins" in the food supply. Welcome to the industrial food chain, peeps, strap in and hold on.
But that's not what is killing those who eat the Western diet. What is killing you is the number one toxin, the undisputed killer toxin - blood sugar dis-regulated by diet (with compounding of the issue loop by lack of sleep and chronic stress).
The good thing is that one does not have to take anyone else's word about which foods or meals will wreck your blood sugar - you can do that for yourself now, courtesy of a $100 (at most) investment in a glucose meter and test strips (go to Amazon or other web source for the strips!). If you eat a meal with whole grain bagels or bread/pasta/orange juice, oatmeal - or whatever - when it spikes your blood sugar (on a whim I ate two doughnuts to test my glucose response, and it delivered an eye popping 212; I was back to 85 an hour later), it's not about dogma any longer. It's about not killing yourself with high blood sugar.
This is, to me, a great development for the sake of less bickering, for one, and for the sake of less dependence on "experts" and their opinions. More importantly, blood sugar meters, and blood tests being available on demand for a fee but without an MD's consent, means far more independence for those who wish to choose a safe, healthy path based on their own needs and values.
All of the arenas in which we find conflict are defined by the lack of definitive science. The lack of certainty makes ego and opinion influential, and sometimes profitable. Unfortunately, ego by its nature is unconcerned with the full picture of consequences - the greater the needs of the ego, the less likely the ego's owner will be able to see the victims of the contested ideology.
It dawned on me this weekend that many science of health and nutrition "experts" have for at least 40 years been saying the equivalent of: "I think there's a (saturated fat) lion in the bushes over there", while ignoring the (excess blood sugar) alligator sitting in the boat. It's taking them a long, long time to re-calibrate to the known killer vice the suspected.
I should probably put "it's the blood sugar, stupid" on every slide.
You see articles all the time about one group or another's fears of "toxins" in the food supply. Welcome to the industrial food chain, peeps, strap in and hold on.
But that's not what is killing those who eat the Western diet. What is killing you is the number one toxin, the undisputed killer toxin - blood sugar dis-regulated by diet (with compounding of the issue loop by lack of sleep and chronic stress).
The good thing is that one does not have to take anyone else's word about which foods or meals will wreck your blood sugar - you can do that for yourself now, courtesy of a $100 (at most) investment in a glucose meter and test strips (go to Amazon or other web source for the strips!). If you eat a meal with whole grain bagels or bread/pasta/orange juice, oatmeal - or whatever - when it spikes your blood sugar (on a whim I ate two doughnuts to test my glucose response, and it delivered an eye popping 212; I was back to 85 an hour later), it's not about dogma any longer. It's about not killing yourself with high blood sugar.
This is, to me, a great development for the sake of less bickering, for one, and for the sake of less dependence on "experts" and their opinions. More importantly, blood sugar meters, and blood tests being available on demand for a fee but without an MD's consent, means far more independence for those who wish to choose a safe, healthy path based on their own needs and values.
All of the arenas in which we find conflict are defined by the lack of definitive science. The lack of certainty makes ego and opinion influential, and sometimes profitable. Unfortunately, ego by its nature is unconcerned with the full picture of consequences - the greater the needs of the ego, the less likely the ego's owner will be able to see the victims of the contested ideology.
It dawned on me this weekend that many science of health and nutrition "experts" have for at least 40 years been saying the equivalent of: "I think there's a (saturated fat) lion in the bushes over there", while ignoring the (excess blood sugar) alligator sitting in the boat. It's taking them a long, long time to re-calibrate to the known killer vice the suspected.
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