A couple of weeks ago, I received my copy of the latest book by Drs. Mike and Mary Dan Eades, The 6-Week Cure for the Middle Aged Middle. I finally got around to finishing it this week and started following the program a couple of days ago.
Well, to be honest, I’m almost following the program. More on that later.
In a nutshell, the book explains, in biochemical terms, why we tend to develop a big belly as we reach middle age and then spells out a program for shrinking it: For two weeks, you consume three specially-formulated protein shakes per day, plus one low-carb meal. No alcohol, no caffeine. For the next two weeks, you live almost exclusively on fatty meats, eggs and fish, plus small servings of non-starchy vegetables. Dairy is out. In the final two weeks, you can lighten up a bit on the restrictions, but it’s still a low-carb diet.
I saw a review of the book online that gives a nice summary, but then of course the writer had to run out and get comments from a few priests from The Holy Church of Accepted Advice For Living a Long and Healthy Life. Here are a few quotes:
Judith Stern, Sc. D., a nutrition professor at UC Davis and founder of the American Obesity Association …strongly discourages any plan that restricts fruits and vegetables. “Limiting any one food group is a bad idea. You can’t get all you need from a diet like this.”
So limiting any one food group is a bad idea, eh? I guess that explains why all the nutritionists are forever beating up on Dean Ornish for restricting fat intake to nearly zero – not to mention all the goofs who tell us we can get fit and healthy by eliminating all animal foods. And where does Judith Stern think my paleolithic Irish ancestors found fruits and vegetables in the winter? I’m pretty sure they managed to get by for months at a time without them, or I wouldn’t be here.
Most experts agree that a diet high in saturated fat and protein can be harmful for individuals at risk for heart disease.
Yup, most experts agree on that. Only trouble is, they’ve failed over and over to prove it, despite spending many years and million of dollars trying.
Dr. Neeraj advises patients with fatty liver disease to lose weight by decreasing their fat intake and increasing exercise. He encourages patients to consume a diet rich in complex carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables.
Oh, for cryin’ out loud … Drs. Eades and Eades cite evidence in their book that saturated fat actually protects your liver. If you want to give an animal a fatty liver, you feed it corn or fructose, not bacon and eggs. Was fatty liver disease common a hundred years ago, when Americans ate a lot more butter and lard? No, it wasn’t. But it’s very common now that we live on starch, vegetable oils and high fructose corn syrup.
In some comments I read on blog reviews, a few long-time fans of the Protein Power books complained that much of the material was familiar. Well, that’s true to an extent, but what did they expect? If you’re interested in nutrition and have read the previous books by Eades & Eades, as well as Taubes, Sears, Fallon, Carlson, etc., then of course you already know that natural fats are good for you and that carbohydrates spike your blood sugar, raise your insulin and promote fat storage.
Those concepts are covered in this book as well — and good thing, too. Most people still believe saturated fat clogs your arteries and don’t know diddly about what actually promotes fat storage. It’s been eight years since The Protein Power Lifeplan was published, so perhaps this book will find a whole new audience. Let’s hope.
And there is some new information in the book as well, including a detailed explanation of the differences between subcutaneous fat — the kind you can pinch up around your waist — and visceral fat — the stuff that accumulates in and around the organs inside your abdominal wall. Visceral fat is more metabolically active, and not in a good way. It promotes inflammation and heart disease, for starters.
It’s the visceral fat that the 6-Week Cure program is designed to flush out. I’m middle-aged and certainly have a bit of middle-aged middle in spite of being healthy overall, so after reading the book, I decided I may as well give the program a try. But like I said, I’m not following the book’s instructions religiously.
For one, I didn’t measure my girth in various standing and lying-down positions to determine how much of my fat is subcutaneous and how much is visceral. There’s a simple reason for this: I don’t care. I’ll probably lose some visceral fat, and I’ll probably lose some subcutaneous fat, too. Measuring the proportions isn’t going to change the results.
I did weigh myself at the gym so I’d have a reference point, but even that measurement is relative. I lift weights twice per week now, and as a result, I’ve been slowly getting heavier without getting any fatter. I finished my Fat Head diet at 194. After the saturated-fat pig-out I described at the end of the film, I was at 192.
Then I started lifting weights once per week using Fred Hahn’s slow-burn method and crept up to 208 over the next several months – a lot of the increase was in my legs, which got noticeably thicker. Then I tightened up on the carbs and went down to 200. Then I decided to lift weights twice per week and went up to 205, which is where I was on Tuesday. It’s not about weight for me; it’s about health and body composition.
For that reason, I also measured my belly around the fattest part, including the belly button and love handles. If I reduce that from the 41 inches it was on Tuesday, I’ll be happy … no matter what the scale says.
In addition to skipping some of the pre-diet measurements, I’ve also had to skip a couple of ingredients in my protein shakes. I couldn’t find DAG oil anywhere, and I don’t want to order it online. I also couldn’t find leucine tablets or powder, although leucine is listed as an ingredient for the whey protein mix I use in my shakes. It just doesn’t say how much. So I’m almost but not exactly drinking the protein shakes specified for weeks one and two.
And now for my biggest almost: the book instructs you to give up alcohol and caffeine for the first two weeks to help flush out your liver. I have no problem putting away the bottle of wine for a couple of weeks. But I will not, under any circumstances (short of a court order enforced by an armed guard), give up my morning coffee. I’ve tried before. It isn’t pretty.
Yes, I know it’s an addiction. I openly admit to being a caffeine freak. And trust me, it’s embarrassing to have the Red Cross call and say, “Mr. Naughton, we appreciate your generosity in giving blood, but the thing is, surgeons don’t appreciate it when their patients snap awake during a triple bypass.”
I’ll cut down on the coffee, but I won’t give it up, which means my weight-loss may be inhibited a bit. So be it. I just moved to a peaceful little town in Tennessee, and I don’t want to end up on the local news in a scene like this:
“Captain, captain! A moment, please … what can you tell us about the gunman?”
“We know he’s inside the building, somewhere there behind the counter, and he’s taken two employees and an espresso machine hostage.”
“Can you give us a description?”
“White male, around 50, balding, but with an attractively lean middle.”
“So we’re talking about someone with a non-toxic liver.”
“That’s right, because when your liver accumulates fat inside, it — hang on, looks like we got the perp on the phone. Yes, this is Captain Farley, is everyone okay in there? Does anyone need any food, or … huh? What the heck is a Power-Up Shake?”
So I’ll follow my almost version of the program and report back later. I hope the results are almost good.
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I read that DAG (Enova)’s manufacturer had stopped selling it due to some health issues that had arisen.
There’s something about this on Wikipedia DAG Oil
Maybe that’s why I couldn’t find it. It seems only marginally important to the whole concept, so I don’t mind skipping it.
Tom,
I’m on week 6 of The Cure and have been blogging about my experience the entire time. I found the DAG Oil in the grocery store next to Wesson and all the others. It’s sold under the “Enova” label. Half of one small bottle got me through the first two weeks. The Leucine is available in capsule form from GNC. I’m in rural NH, so if I can find them, I’m sure you can, too.
All in all, I’m down from 42″ and 44″ jeans to 38″. I just bought three new pairs of pants yesterday. One of my sport coats is too big, and all of my dress shirts are too loose. In fact, yesterday I stopped at Jos. A Bank and tried on one of their narrow-waist dress shirts. It fit!
As I already mentioned in my Diet Coke Memorial, giving up caffeine wasn’t the trauma I expected. In fact, other than weeks 2 and 3, I haven’t gone back. Yesterday I drove by the 7-Eleven and had no desire to stop in for a Super Big Gulp. It was almost surreal.
I raise a glass of “Fruit 2 Oh” to your future success!
Mike
Look like you’re getting good results. I’m pasting your URL below so others can follow your progress as well:
http://mdc6weeks.blogspot.com/
I’ve started calling this the Buzz Kill diet. No booze, no coffee. Damn. I wish I liked pot, since the book doesn’t mention it! (There was the drinking man’s diet, maybe it’s time for “the cocaine snorting man’s diet,” or the “heroin shooting man’s diet”…)
As you say, skipping the booze aint so bad, although, I’ve had to restart the diet a couple of times because certain events took place that simply required me to have a few drinks. I had no choice!
As to the coffee, It took me two full weeks to taper off the coffee. I cut down to 1 cup a day, and then I tried to go cold turkey. The Homer Simpson quote I read somewhere on your blog comes to mind, going cold turkey isn’t as delicious as it sounds! It felt like a hot branding iron were being pressed to the sides of my head!
So I resorted to an old trick, I got out the no doze pills. This method works for me cuz it strips out all of the pleasure of drinking coffee-the smell, the taste, holding the mug, and all that, and it reduces the whole caffeine thing to what it really is, an addiction to a substance. I took half a no doze three days in a row, and then went cold turkey again, and this time the branding irons left me alone.
I still miss the pleasure of a morning cup or five of coffee, but at leaste it’ s no longer a physical addiction issue.
I’ve tried various ways of kicking caffeine over the years, but never felt the same without it. Yeah, it’s an addiction, but considering caffeine has other benefits, I’ll live with this one.
Hey Tom, (a very Southern greeting, that “hey”)
I’m sorta-partly doing the 6-Week Cure at the moment — I’m in my second week of half-decafe/half “real” coffee… weaning myself down {sob} to all-decafe for the first two weeks of *actually* doing the program. (No, I’m not terribly sleepy all day, but I am am sleeping an hour later every morning… and I haven’t taken any one hostage yet!)
I’m doing only one protein shake a day at the moment (and one semi-low-carb meal, I do unorganized Intermittent Fasting) but I did buy a bag of leucine at a bodybuilding site and added it to that shake. I also didn’t bother with measurements, but I gotta say: after about 2-1/2 weeks with 1 or 2 shakes, and only 3-4 days with leucine (no DAG oil for me either — bought it, but ick! I’m still putting MCT Oil in my shakes) — I can feel that my “middle” is more supple and less… ‘crowded’ seeming!! It’s astonishing! I mean, I actually NOTICE that my interior abdomen is less…. crowded…
I’ll be glad to read about your results Tom. Way to go, Dr.s Eades!
Eleonr
(Oh, p.s., I tried to make a shake with vanilla protein powder, cinnamon DaVinci syrup and butter — going for that cinnamon-toast flavor, yah know? — but the blender just frothed the butter into little globules that floated on top of the drink. So, you can skip THAT flavor. May try to find some butter-flavored syrup, but that imitation-butter flavoring is full of bad stuff, so that’s no-go.)
I believe the proper southern reply is “Hey, yourself.”
I’ve only tried a couple of flavors, but they’re good enough to get me through. I’m partial to the banana-coconut. My daughters begged for a sample of my chocolate shake and loved it, so now they want shakes too. We give them a little cup of the stuff as a dessert.
I started the plan almost 3 weeks ago. Like you I didn’t measure because I figure the way my clothes fit will be enough of a measurement for me. My stomach is smaller, according to my clothes, and I’ve lost 9 lbs in that time. And I’ve found I really like having shakes for breakfast and lunch. I moved into the meat weeks and started missing having the shakes, so I decided yesterday to go back to having one in the morning. So I’m almost doing the plan too I guess.
Are you doing the stomach exercise in the book? I’m trying, but I only seem to remember to do it when I’m standing in line at the store or some other public place.
I do the exercise if I remember, which isn’t often. But I use an abdominal machine at the gym twice per week, and I also clench my ab muscles pretty hard every time I hear a politican speak on the news.
If you care enough, drop an email to the customer service dept of your protein manufacturer. It probably has enough Leucine in it. I use Designer Whey standard formula and they sent me the full amino profile on it, it has 2200 mg per serving (one serving = 18g protein). I’m not doing the diet right now but wanted to see what it had as I have started working in some shakes for breakfast.
Good idea. Turns out it’s 1746 mg. per scoop, and I’m using 6 to 9 scoops per day, so I guess I’m getting enough of the stuff.
Too funny! I imagine I would suffer the same, if I had to give up my morning coffee. So it leads me to ask, just what are the Eades’ reasonings for doing so? Does caffeine promote belly fat in some way? (oh please may that not be so!)
The idea is to give your liver a rest for those two weeks. Apparently the liver is able to flush out the visceral fat more easily if it’s not also busy processing caffeine, alcohol, medications, etc.
If you’re on a necessary prescription drug, of course, you keep taking it during the two weeks. So I’ve prescribed myself caffeine, as much for the health of my wife and children as for my own.
I hope the 6 weeks proves successful. The Drs. Eades are full of interesting information.
What I find funny about the response you dissected is the “experts say” in response to what other experts are saying. OH! So I should listen to the experts that YOU agree with, okay, I see how this works.
Also, just a quick note: “And where does Judith Stern think my paleolithic Irish ancestors found fruits and vegetables in the winter?”
That’s exactly the kind of rationale that flipped me. It’s like a lightbulb went on and I thought, “Wait a minute, sure bread’s been around for about ten thousand years, but humans were around for at least 200,000 years and that doesn’t include previous forms. I think I’ll give this diet a shot.”
I had that lightbulb experience when I interviewed Dr. Al Sears — I met him quite early in the production process, months before I met Mike and Mary Dan Eades.
When Dr. Sears started talking about human history, how starchy vegetables and fruits were available for a limited time in the autumn, just in time to fatten us up for the winter, the diets we see in the surviving hunter-gatherer societies, it all started to make sense.
Hi Tom,
This was an awesome review! Anytime I’m belly laughing when reading a post, it’s all good.
I am reading the book now and loving it. It’s full of information that makes a lot of sense and the recipes call for Real Food ingredients, which is so refreshing to see. (I’ve been a Weston A. Price fan for years now.)
My only concern are those protein powder shakes. They just don’t seem natural to me (protein doesn’t naturally come in powder form) and I *really* hope they don’t contain soy… I may try a substitute using raw egg yolks/raw milk shakes with Stevia or something… Shoot, but dairy is out the first couple weeks…not sure what I’ll do instead.
Any ideas?
Kelly
Paleo humans certainly didn’t make protein shakes, so of course it’s not a natural meal. I’m viewing the shakes as more of a temporary treatment than as a long-term eay of eating.
Soy lecithin is listed in the ingredients for the whey protein I’m using, but it’s nearly last in the list, which means there’s little of it. I’ll deal with it for a couple of weeks.
I should’ve mentioned the recipes in the review. My wife is always looking for good low-carb recipes, and this book is full of them.
My husband and I are just starting week 2 on the “Cure.” I thought I would have a hard time with the caffeine issue also but we did a week 0 (mentioned in the book) where I gradually used more and more de-caf in our coffee for that week. Neither of us has had any problems but I will be glad to go back to some caffeine!
The shakes get a little boring but we only have another week to go on the 3-1 part. I am down 4 lbs. and hubby down several (he was closer to his ideal weight).
I, too, have noticed a decrease in my belly. I have been doing that exercise and based on how is feels, I think it will help!
I applaud people who can give up the caffeine. I’m just not willing to go through it again.
One of the many lovely benefits of being married to my wife is that she sets a cup of coffee on the nightstand next to our bed before I wake up. She knows how much more agreeable I’ll be when I finally toddle downstairs.
Haven’t started the diet just yet but I’m beginning to buy its recommended ingredients.
Enova (DAG) is available at Walmart.
Luciene can usually be purchased at sports nutrition/body-building shops.
Caffeine better damn well be available at most establishments everywhere.
Maybe somebody should write a funny song about caffeine … hey, wait, I seem to recall one …
Great review, Tom.
I started my own Fructose Detox 12- Step Program awhile back, so I dropped all EtOH (only had some wine occasionally previously) because EtoH and Fructose metabolism operate on similar pathways metabolically and neurologically. It’s gone very well; mimics Eades’ spirit for the book.
I kept the morning coffee, though; it’s my ‘dessert’.
That was one of the excellent points Dr. Lustig made in his lecture about sugar and fructose: if you wouldn’t give your kid a beer, don’t give him a soda, either. I normally drink a bit of red wine here and there, but still enjoy a Guinness once in awhile too. I’m mostly Irish, so it’s in my DNA.
I forgot to mention that yesterday I went to the lab for another lipid panel. We’ll see what six weeks on this plan does to my numbers. According to my chart, I had Hyperlipidemia back in July when I got my last blood work done.
Let’s hope the numbers improve. Is the hyperlipidemia inherited, do you think? My dad’s cholesterol was typically around 400. Fortunately, I dodged that genetic bullet. I don’t believe the cholesterol causes heart disease, but it can signal an underlying problem.
I am nearing the end of week 2 of the 6wc. I dropped 6 lbs almost immediately (which was nice, but not really expected, since I’ve been on LC for about 10 years now, and didn’t expect a big water drop), but suffered 4 days of headaches in the process (Eades thinks it was probably caffeine withdrawal. Then I gained back a pound.
At that point, I re-read parts of 6wc, and discovered that I had been overdoing th enova oil (I got it at WalMart), and using 1 tbl in each shake instead of 1 tsp. Also, I had been adding an egg to every shake, instead of just one a day (Eades says “at least one a day”). So I cut back to minimums, and started very carefully weighing and measuring EVERYTHING except the meat for my one daily meal, which I estimate at 6-8 oz. I even cut way back on artificial sweeteners. So, for the next 5 days, I lost exactly…nothing.
Yesterday, I downed about 12-14oz of (very rare) beef for lunch, along with at least 2 cups of veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, and brussels sprouts) drenched in butter (over 1 tbl).
This morning, I found that 2 lbs had suddenly vanished. Hmmm…
I have to bring week 2 to a premature halt today, since I’m going to be travelling and attending classes for the next three days, and the “mostly meat” diet will be easier to come by.
Eades said several times in his book “Nothing in your experience has prepared you for how fast this program works.” Unfortunately, I think that has proven to be a bit of an oversell. OTOH, it does look like I finally have a handle on losing that last 50 lbs I should have dumped in 1999 (I was 150 lbs overweight at the time, and lost about 100, then stalled). But I don’t expect that it will be gone in 6 weeks. Maybe 8 or 9 months. And I expect that I’m going to have to do some intermittent fasting, and alternate between weeks 1-2 and 3-4.
For now, I am feeling better, my pants are getting loose, my blood pressure is down (much more and I’ll have to cut at least one BP med), I’m sleeping better, and getting hopeful that I will at long last shake loose from a couple of chronic health problems.
Best of luck, especially in clearing up the health problems. That’s really what this is all about.
I guess I am one of the few people who actually drink coffee for the taste? I am missing my Cabernet big time!
I’m just ending week 2 and also could not find DAG (Enova) in any stores. I tried my health food store, the Harris Teeters (fancy grocery store), Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods and no one even heard of it. I was also confused about the Leucine total. I was able to find the supplements (and was emptying capsules into my shakes) but found out that my powder had over 11 grams (11,500 mgs) in 3 scoops so I stopped adding it. Other than that I’ve followed the diet to a T.
I haven’t really lost but 3-4 pounds, but have noticed a big difference in my midsection. When I used to “pinch an inch” on my belly, I used to fill the inside of my thumb to my index finger with fat. Now there’s a sizable gap. People have been saying my face looks thinner and I feel a sizable reduction in my abdominal girth. 2 more days and then it’s Meat Week…WOO HOO!!
BTW, I experienced awful headaches for the first couple of days…anyone else? Don’t think it was caffeine as I sometimes skip for several days already.
I appear to be getting leucine in my shakes, so I’m good there. I didn’t have a headache, but of course, I didn’t give up the caffeine. I did feel a little foggy the first day until I ate real food for dinner, but I’ve been fine since.
Funny to see Kelly commenting here. I’m similarly interested in Weston Price and wondered how feasible it would be to create a whole-foods version of that Power-Up Shake. Then I realized it doesn’t really matter since the shakes are supposed to be temporary.
I need to stock up before I can even start. I bought the book a few days after it came out. We had our sump pump die spectacularly on us, so money’s been a bit weird.
I haven’t bothered with the fancy measurements but I laid down and looked at my gut profile from above and it’s hardly any different prone than it is when I’m standing. I didn’t even need to do that. I need only consider how stuffed my insides feel when I bend over from a seated position to understand that I’ve got way too much fat behind my abdominal wall. And I’m only 35. I have a feeling this program’s going to help me a hell of a lot.
Check in and let us know it’s working once you get started.
I know some of my fat is visceral, measurements or not. I can’t pinch much of anything above the belly button, but it’s not flat up there, either.
Today is day eight. I’m damn tired of those smoothies.
I may get tired of them too, but I’ll stick it out. Looking forward to the meat weeks. I know I can do that.
I’m working my way through the 6 week cure primarily as support for my wife (who has a bit of weight she’d like to lose) but certainly also to see how it can improve my health. I am 47 yrs old, 170 lbs, been strictly low-carbing (meat, berries are my only fruit, lots o’ eggs & bacon, nuts, green veggies; no grains or starches) for 2 years, lost 35 lbs of fat doing it, lift weights 3x/week (deadlifts, squats, etc), play full court basketball for an hour 3x/week, have relatively high blood pressure (135-140/80), and have a 34″ waist. But I still had a belly that protruded. It’s not big, but it’s not how I would like it to be or how I thought it should be given that I thought I was in pretty good shape. My goal on this diet wasn’t to lose weight but to get healthy and to lose that stuck-out belly.
Before I started the plan I had to give up my 6-8 daily Diet Dr Peppers (don’t drink coffee or tea). And had to give up ibuprofen. Couldn’t do both at the same time so I quit the pop cold turkey, went through 2-3 days of headaches and another 2-3 days of a bit of sleepiness in the afternoon. I’m hoping quitting the caffeine will help lower the blood pressure. During this process I stocked up on leucine from TMuscle (http://bit.ly/Dp8W6) and vitamins from Cheap Vitamins. I have done the Eades’ whole supplement plan plus I have continued to take my daily 1.8g omega-3, 4g CLA, 5g vitamin D. I never did get around to using the DAG oil. Oh well.
Once I got that out of the way, then I started the plan. I did three shakes per day (with 2-2.5 scoops plus an egg, plus 15g leucine; I only used the d-ribose in the morning shake before I worked out). Then at lunch I would eat either a burger (two burger patties plus bacon plus 2 eggs) or a similar slab of meat. The first 2-3 days I missed chewing more than I missed the food itself. Some days I didn’t even have the third shake; just wasn’t hungry. I also missed my daily 85% chocolate square and handful of nuts. But I made it through it.
I finished the first two weeks this morning. I just did my measurements. Only lost 2 lbs (I’m glad it wasn’t more), only lost 1/4″ around my waist (oh well) but…here’s the big finish…my belly is almost gone! My L-SAD went from 9″ to 7.5″ and my S-SAD went from 9.75″ to 9″. And, like I said, that’s while losing only 1/4″ around the waist. I can tell you that my middle *feels* different, less solid, more like I remember feeling as a kid.
So today we start the meat weeks. The local market just had NY Strips on sale for $4/lb so we stocked up on that. I know I can handle this. It’s essentially how I have eaten for the last two years (just without shakes of chocolate and nuts and my homemade protein bars). I actually like the protein shakes so they’re fine by me.
Good luck to you.
That’s what is motivating me as well, the desire to flatten that round part of the belly, which I can tell is mostly inside the abdominal cavity.
I’ve never had high blood pressure. It tends to run a bit low, actually, usually around 110/65. I’ve also, for my entire life, had a normal body temperature of around 97 degrees. If I get up to 98.6, it means I have a mild fever. Maybe that’s why I like caffeine so much … stimulating a system that tends to run a little on the low temperature/low-pressure side.
Just poured my second mug and read you blog and the comments. Take away alcohol, sugar, all processed foods. I get it. No problem. But don’t mess with my coffee.
I’ve managed to cut back a bit, at least. And I’ve already lost a few pounds, so the caffeine isn’t totally stopping weight loss.
Caffeine raises blood sugar and blood pressure, just as nicotine does. You’re much better off without it and will be able to function perfectly once you break your addiction… just sayin!
Yeah, I know. But I’ve tried before, and I never feel the same afterwards.
I’m on day 6 and love the shakes. I have a ton of Torani sugar free syrups, extracts and cocoa powder to use to keep them interesting.
I’ve only lost 1 pound though, and it came back this AM. Bleh.
Let’s hope you’re just a slow starter. Could be a lot more by the end of six weeks.
hi Tom,
i read the book, too… passed it on to the ‘rents. I was lost in thought one day, and found myself pondering if belly button depth has any indication on visceral vs. subcutaneous fat? i would expect that a deeper belly button would evident more sub-Q than a shallower one, which may indicate more visceral… iono. Just a thought, albeit a weird one!!! Good luck on the plan!
I’m not sure what to make of belly buttons. I know they look pretty good holding a cigar if you paint a face on your belly. Well, that’s what I’ve heard …
Interesting how in reviews of low carb diet books, a mainstream ‘expert’ is always called upon to tut-tut and admonish the authors. All in the interest of balance, I’m sure the reviewer would say. Funny that you never get the reverse. I’d love to read a review of a book by say, Bob Greene or Dr Oz, which included a stern telling off by Dr Eades about all the diabetes, obesity and heart disease their diet approaches are causing! You know, all in the interests of balance…
I came across this review of Gary Taubes Good Calories, Bad Calories book in a local magazine (I live in NZ) http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3614/columnists/13800/close_to_your_heart.html Apparently a review of 11 observational studies published by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition “showed quite convincingly that people with a high saturated fat intake have a higher CHD risk”. And yet another ‘expert’ (the medical director of our National Heart Foundation, no less) declared that “There is strong, consistent and conclusive evidence, which is absolutely compelling, that saturated fat is a major culprit when it comes to atherosclerosis, atheroma and coronary heart disease.”
Seriously, you just have to shake your head at the ridiculousness of it all.
By the way – love your blog! Always funny and interesting, really great stuff.
They always quote observational studies because that’s pretty much the beginning and the end of the evidence. When they’ve actually created control groups and intervention groups and followed them over time, they’re not so happy with the outcome.
I’ve cut back on coffee. I used to be a fiend (10-12 cups a day) but am now just moderate (3-4 cups a day). I have substituted what I would normally drink as coffee with a lot of black tea, green tea, herbal tea and plain hot water.
Keep in mind that I don’t have sugar in anything I drink, but there are fiends that drink that much (12 cups or so) with 2 sugars each time. Thats more carbs from coffee that many of us would be getting from all sources. (Probably more than me and I’m not strictly low-carbing).
I have two big cups in the morning, which probably translates to four restaurant-sized cups, plus an iced tea or two later. It’s not a crazy amount, but man, don’t try to take it away from me.
Hi, The article in the Listener that Shelley refers to is the one Leslie Bowden wrote in response to a letter about Taubes book that I sent her. Ms. Bowden writes a weekly nutrition column and is completely incapable of writing one without saying “low fat” in it at least three times. If she wrote an article on the correct way of trimming one’s toenails, doubtless that too would be easier if you ate low fat. She wrote one recently on HFCS, which was hilarious, I wrote suggesting she listen to “Sugar: the bitter truth” on YouTube, but she’s very busy and probably won’t be able to find the time!! Jayne
I’m afraid there are a lot of nutrition writers like her out there in the media. Poke them in their sleep, and they probably say, “Eat less. Low Fat. Whole grains.”
You don’t need special regimens and planned meal content. Just purge your pantry of everything related to sugar and grains. Then get some fibrous vegetables, grass fed beef, free range chicken+eggs, and wild caught fish. Find a source of raw unpasteurized heavy cream and raw cheese. Get some good oils high in saturated fat like red palm oil and coconut oil.
Just eat those things and get about 50% calories from the fat, 1 gram of protein per pound body weight and incidental carbohydrates from the fibrous vegetables. No fruit.
Workout a few times a week and heavy once per week.
Then just live and quit griping on the internet.
I’ve been living like this for a while and I have very little visceral fat and subcutaneous fat. No cravings ever due to insulin control. I feel like I’ll live forever.
Hi Tom
Not sure if you care, but I just want to let you know that your blog entries don’t print well from Firefox (at least not from 3.5.3). My eyes get tired reading from a screen so I often print out blog posts and other items of interest to read over a coffee at the local cafe, but no way, no how could I get yours to print without severe truncation on the right-hand side. I tried both ‘print preview’ then print, and selecting the text and ‘print selection’. I even tried printing from IE (using the ‘IE Tab’ add-on for FF which renders pages using the IE engine) but it crashed FF.
I’ve never tried printing it. When I want to print an article from the internet, I usually copy and paste the text into Notepad, save it, open it in Word. That way I get just the text, which is what I usually want.
I’m cancelling my Listener subscription when it runs out – I’m tired of mentally fighting their misinformation from nutrition and climate onwards. I don’t think I’ll even miss the letters pages.
Tom – your blog is much more useful and entertaining.
Pardon my ignorance … Listener subscription? Is that a magazine?
I tend to agree with Tom. The Eades’ new book is quite a nice read and has some good explanations of the science but apart from that it just digs up the Atkins induction phase with a few protein shakes for good measure. I always feel a bit dubious about recommendation like “you should buy this or that brand of “fill-in-the-blank” for this diet to work properly. I really commend Dr. Eades for sharing such a lot of valuable information on his website for free. I do feel, however, that latest post about this wondrous cooking appliance, smacks too much of marketing and commercialism. Fancy cooking your food in plastic bags, that must be specially bought in order for this machine to work…
(Your comment ended up in the spam folder. I just dug it out.)
I do have to say, I attended a dinner party at the Eades’ home where Mary Dan cooked flank stank in the new device, and it was WAY tender.
Hi Tom!
I am with you on the coffee! I’m from England, and as a nation that gets genuinely excited over hot beverages that ones going to be a struggle!
I am 29, and lean everywhere except for a large protruding belly. It looked and feels like someone has inflated it with air. I have thin arms and legs and on occasion I look several months pregnant (I am male incidentally). I have hidden it for years from people as I walk around ALL DAY with my belly held in. In fact I am exactly as described in The Cure, with a lot of visceral fat-and a bit of “normal” fat.
The different types of fat stores are a complete revelation to me. It also explains why when I have done other diets and extreme exercise routines, my body fat drops, yet the belly always remains!
Most recently I have been doing the “Warrior Diet”. Now I have to say that I felt great eating this way but it never did get rid of my belly. I think because that diet has too many carbs in it and my toleration level is low.
I am only on day 3 of the Cure and I have a pounding headache and I feel like I need “a fix”. I have had one cup of tea to help me through.
Do you ever come to England Tom? I will happily buy you a cuppa if you do
I’ve never been to the British Isles, but it’s on my to-do list. I’d love to see London, and I’d also like to find the towns in Ireland where my great-grandparents lived before they emigrated. My wife also spent a year of college in Aberdeen and would like to see it again.
I’ll take that cup whenever I finally make the trip.
Hi Tom
“For one, I didn’t measure my girth in various standing and lying-down positions to determine how much of my fat is subcutaneous and how much is visceral. ”
Would you mind expanding on that a little – or maybe point me somewhere I can find out more? Don’t think we have the book in NZ yet and this measuring in different ways intrigues me.
Am on holiday from polytech at the mo, but I know next week in nutrition we’ll be discussing ketosis…anybody got any pointers on where I can find info to refute the ‘it will cause your liver to fail’ dogma. Would like to be forearmed as much as possible.
Cheers, love your blog!
Subcutaneous fat, being on the outside of the abdominal wall, tends to fall to the side when you lie down. Visceral fat is held in position inside the abdominal wall and doesn’t fall to the sides. So if you measure your girth front-to-back (spine to belly button) both standing up and lying down, you get an idea of how much of your middle is visceral or subcutaneous fat. If there’s a big difference, most of your fat is falling to the side and is subcutaneous. If there’s little difference, most of your fat is visceral.
About ketosis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketosis
This page in a long article by Gary Taubes also explains ketosis.
Hi Tom, The Listener is weekly New Zealand magazine with the television and radio listings. It also has a large current affairs section and various columnists on different issues. Leslie Bowden does the nutrition column, I think both Shelley and I have sent you links to her articles. If you’re ever wondering if the low carb message is getting through to nutritionists, read her articles @ Listener Online, and be afraid, really afraid. Jayne
I read the article but didn’t take note of the publication name. The low-fat gatekeepers are everywhere.
Jayne – that explains the rather sanctimonious last few sentences of that review!
Tom – The Listener is the magazine that the Gary Taubes review I referred to earlier was published in. It covers current affairs, radio and tv listings for the week plus reviews of books, music, art etc.
I got it now. I read the review, but didn’t make the connection.
Hm… reading your post and comments, I think I need to do this…. but during summer vacation. 5 AM is way too early to wake up and not have caffeine, especially when facing a day of being “on” for five hours in front of middle schoolers.
I only have to face two kids, and I wouldn’t do it without coffee.
“Don’t think we have the book in NZ yet and this measuring in different ways intrigues me.”
@Tracey: I’m in NZ too (looks like this blog is crawling with Kiwis) and I got my copy on-line from http://www.realgroovy.co.nz/Product/4336590/6-Week-Cure-for-the-Middle-Aged-Middle“>realgroovy.co.nz
It only took 8 days to arrive. It’s the first time I’ve used them so I can’t give a recommendation based on huge experience, but based on this purchase they seem to be pretty good.
Sorry for the tardiness on approving the comment; it ended up in the spam folder.
“… anybody got any pointers on where I can find info to refute the ‘it will cause your liver to fail’ dogma. Would like to be forearmed as much as possible.”
On ketosis, I’ve got a few sites bookmarked:
Ketosis Myths and Facts on the
Low-Carbohydrate Diet
Low carbohydrate ketogenic diet enhances cardiac tolerance to global ischaemia.
What is Ketosis? (about.com)
Is Ketosis Necessary On A Low-Carb Diet?
A triple-pack from Dr Mike Eades:
Metabolism and ketosis
Ketosis cleans our cells
Ketogenic diet and brain energy
… and specifically, the myth of kidney damage:
Vampire Myths
… and from Dr McCleary, whom Dr Eades references:
Mother Nature’s Brain Fuel
That should keep you out of trouble.
Thanks for the links. Good stuff.
I just finished the first two, protein shake, weeks, and I’m sad to say that I can’t tell that my body changed at all. I was one pound lighter, measured exactly the same, and the second week on the shakes was really hard to stick to, since it was looking like I wasn’t going to lose any weight. I swear I did not cheat at all. I can take some consolation that my fat is subcutaneous and not visceral, according the Eades’ guidelines, and that I probably do not have NAFLD, given the amount of saturated fat I consume. I’ll see if the meat weeks make any difference in the weight. I promised myself I would follow the program faithfully for the first four weeks, so I will soldier on for now.
On a more pleasant note, my husband and I watched Fat Head last night. I wish I could afford to order about twenty copies and pass them out to…my doctor, a nurse I know, everybody I know who’s on a statin, any vegetarian I run into….You are brilliant. I love both your blogs. Can we get you your own talk show on Fox News?
I hope the meat weeks kick it up for you.
So far, Fox news has ignored all my press releases about the film.
How about some intellectual honesty? So the guru that we’ve read for years; dutifully followed his advice; is actually fat. Not obesey fat; but fatter than any of us would like. Let’s give credit to the other side. Is Michael Jacobson of CSPI fat? How about Dean Ornish? The other side’s gurus are thin. So our guy decides to come out with a book that asks you to do backflips for six weeks. Tom, did your ancestors have protein shakes and DAG oil? Does this mean the original Protein Power is a canard? Oh, we all cheat. No we don’t!
What is so disheartening about this is that it takes away the confidence I had in low carb eating. What happened to permanent lifestyle changes? Even though I don’t cheat, I’m not as trim as I’d like to be. It appears the Eades aren’t either. However, they probably needed some cash so they came out with a silly book and the lemmings just follow along. Sad day
Whoa, hoss, let’s not confuse correlations with causes here.
Different people have different propensities to get fat. Calling low-carb diets a failure because some low-carb dieters (including you and me) are fatter than they’d like to be is a bit like pointing out that everyone admitted to the hospital is sick, so hospitals must make you sick.
Diet programs attract fat people — that is, people who gain weight easily and have a hard time dropping it. Compare people who’ve gone on a diet — any diet — with people who’ve never gone on a diet, and the people who’ve never gone on a diet will be leaner. My son has a great build — tall, muscular, six-pack abs — but if I ate like he does, I’d be morbidly obese in six months. It would be insane for me to look at him and say, “Hmmm … Zack is really lean, and he lives on potato chips and Coca-Cola. I should try that.”
I’ve known plenty of fat vegetarians, and I was quite a bit fatter (and sicker) when I lived on a whole-grain vegetarian diet, the type Jacobson and Ornish recommend. I’ve never seen Jacobson look like anything other than a scarecrow. I don’t take advice on losing weight from people who’ve never been fat. Mike Eades has been fat, and openly admits he will gain weight if he cheats a bit too much or enjoys a bit too much wine.
The only fair question to ask is: which diet best helps me, as someone who tends to get fat easily, keep my weight under control without feeling hungry and lethargic all the time? For me, that’s low-carb. If the Ornish diet works for Ornish, good for him, but it didn’t work for me.
No, as I pointed out earlier, paleolithic humans didn’t make protein shakes (the stone blenders were lousy, and they could rarely find anywhere to plug them in), so this is not a natural diet. I’m treating it as a temporary treatment, not a long-term way of eating.
I’ll report my results as I go along. Some folks have already commented that they barely lost anything, some have apparently lost a lot. I don’t have a scale at home, so I won’t know anything until I weigh myself at the gym.
Tom, your reply to Keith Morton makes many good, important points, and I agree. If we know anything about food and weight and health, I hope it is that there is no one-size-fits-all diet solution. It’s foolhardy to even suggest that a diet that works for one person will necessarily work for everyone. Or, for that matter, that we all need to be an “ideal” weight or size (or BMI!) any more than we need to all be the same height or wear the same size shoes. This is one reason dietary research is often inconclusive even if a study is well-designed and not biased.
It’s important to remember all humans are not metabolically the same (though since some of us are more alike than others we may benefit from the experiences of similar people). We all have different dietary needs, and those needs can change over time–for example, the food plan and exercise regimen that kept me slim in my 40s wasn’t working so well a decade later. Fortunately, –at least for now–Protein Power is working for me.
Exactly. One controlled study that I read (and will probably write about later) concluded that people who aren’t insulin resistant lose weight equally well on pretty much any diet, whereas people who are insulin resistant show more dramatic results on restricted carbs.
I became insulin resistant as an adolescent, then made it worse by living on high-carb, starchy, low-fat diets as an adult. In my 30s, I had what I now recognize as symptoms of pre-diabetes. The only way I’ve been able to keep my weight down while still feeling strong and energetic is to restrict my carbs. I’m not skinny and probably never will be, but compared to my father and other men in my family at age 50, I’m in much better shape.
Ethyl said: “I just finished the first two, protein shake, weeks, and I’m sad to say that I can’t tell that my body changed at all. I was one pound lighter, measured exactly the same, and the second week on the shakes was really hard to stick to”
Ethyl I just wanted to encourage you. I also lost exactly one pound and zero inches during my two weeks on the shake plan. In fact I was so discouraged I switched to the meat plan a couple days early. But I am in my second week on the meat plan now and have lost *nine pounds*. That’s a total of ten counting the one I lost during the shake weeks.
Oddly no change in inches though – actually my waist has gone UP nearly 2 inches in measurement. But my slacks are a looser in the thighs so I guess my pounds have dropped from other areas.
Thanks to Debbie for her encouragement. I did forget to re-measure my L-SAD and S-SAD, and it turns out my S-SAD has dropped an inch, so apparently a little abdominal recomposition did take place. And like some others have mentioned, health food stores had no idea what I was asking for when I inquired about Enova or DAG oil, but there it was today at Walmart, right on the shelf with all the other cooking oils.
Hi to al the kiwis! The cure is in Auckland library and should be on the shelf in CHCH library in a couple of days. Jayne you won’t believe it I also send Leslie Bowden the link to the sugar is poisen presentation on youtube, after her silly remark that Gary Taubes should prove himself! She must be thinking its a planned attack!
I ment Sugar: the bitter truth (-:
I followed. Sugar is Poison was my title for the post. Great lecture either way.