Just some more nit points

- I think the “useful idiots” phrase was Lenin, not Stalin
- Your blog is great, but the formatting is absymal. I have to switch to “No style” to read anything at all.
- It may well be that most vegans are depleted of something, but I’d not be so sure that you cannot manage eating vegan. Nuts, almonds, peas, beans, yeast, coconut oil… the usual whole grain and rice not so bright idea.

Not sure what’s up with the formatting. I check it in IE and Firefox, and it’s fine.

Some folks can probably get by on a vegan diet, but the world is full of ex-vegans who finally accepted that their health problems were due to vegan-induced malnutrition.

You don’t have to actually drink raw milk straight in order to benefit from it. You could make other foods out of it. Kefir is the easiest to do, you just pop the grains in and leave it on the kitchen counter for a day or two, then filter the grains back out. It eats up the milk sugars and adds nutritional value to the milk.

Raw cheese is really good for you too. If you don’t want to take up cheesemaking, more and more stores are selling it. Organic Valley has a few varieties and maybe you have some local artisan cheesemakers too.

One of the areas in which I disagree with you is I think we need health care reform. I do NOT think what Obama’s doing is going to work. When it comes to health care I’m redder than the Pope at a Catholic nudist colony–I grew up a beneficiary of the regular military healthcare system and while it’s not perfect, neither is the civilian system and I think it’s criminal to make people go without basic care just because they have chintzy employers, or none at all. I want single-payer. Badly. Like, *yesterday.*

But.

You should have heard (maybe you did) all the talk amongst so-called “progressives” about what exactly Obamacare was going to look like. You would have been *disgusted* at the amount of fattie-bashing that went on. (Hey, I’m a fattie. I use the term ironically.) It was all “obesity is expensive” this and “obesity leads to chronic disease” that and “fatties will bankrupt the system” that other thing.

I was like, Excuse me? You’re going around telling people “eat food, not too much, mostly plants” and “be a vegan, you COW-MURDERER” and then you expect us NOT to get fat, and furthermore, to NOT overtax the health-care system? HOW does that work, again?

That is one area in which I guess I can never be completely liberal or progressive or whatever the hell they are calling it this week. OMG. The insulting part is that at least among some feminists, there is a movement to be more body-positive, to NOT get on someone’s case ’cause they’re twenty pounds overweight. Apparently that has not filtered out to the rest of the Left, particularly not the ones who joined up ’cause they heard liberal girls were easy. (I hate that faction of the Left most of all… but never mind.)

grr. Sorry. It just pisses me off.

Venting is allowed.

Regarding this MeMe woman: She’s a whack job. I had never heard of her outside of your blog. (I don’t watch a lot of tv or read magazines) But I looked her up after reading about her here. Upon reading an interview with her in elle or the guardian, I don’t remember which, it’s obvious that she’s #1. insane #2. probably has body dismorphic disorder and #3 probably anorexic.

What kind of fool would take her seriously, let alone follow her “advice”. She’s a bully who couldn’t figure out a smarter way to make a living, so she’s decided to publicly berate a a group of people she loathes, the overweight, and make some money/try to get famous while she’s at it. Diet and nutrition considerations aside, if she were talking the same kind of garbage about any minority group she wouldn’t be featured in any magazines, and nobody would openly say “I know she’s kinda wierd but she has a point.”

My two cents.

I agree with your analysis. Unfortunately, she’s all over TV (including Nightline) whenever the issue of obesity comes up, despite having no credentials.

If that doesn’t happen, Christina, it just means you’re in homeostasis at a higher level of fat; it doesn’t mean you’re not healthy.

“There were 288 strokes in the group of women who consumed the most fat each day (95 grams) versus 249 strokes in the group eating the least fat (25 grams), Yaemsiri told the conference.

After taking into account other factors that affect stroke risk – weight, race, smoking, exercise and use of alcohol, aspirin or hormone pills – researchers concluded that women who ate the most fat had a 44 percent greater risk of stroke.”

288 divided by 248 gives 1.156, most of the “risk” of higher fat intake came from the adjustments.

The big deal made over studies like this one is maybe some of the best evidence we have that fat is not particularly dangerous. Who the hell would trot this crap out, if they had anything better to offer?

Someone who needed to justify the grant money, that’s who.

“A moment on the lips, forever on the hips? A bad figure is hardly the worst of it. Eating a lot of fat, especially the kind that’s in cookies and pastries, can significantly raise the risk of stroke for women over 50, a large new study finds.”

Oh my goodness… LOOK AT THE TYPE OF FAT?? In COOKIES AND PASTRIES??? Just maybe the strokes might actually be caused by the carbs in the cookies and pastries?? I am not a statistician nor a scientist but surely this is a flawed survey.

Show me a survey of a low carb high fat group of women v a low fat high carb group and then compare the results.

Yeah, I had that same thought. Reminds me of the joke about the Irishman who consumes a six-pack of Guinness, a bottle of Irish whisky and potato. Feeling sick the next morning, he says, “Just my luck; I got a rotten potato.” (I’m allowed … I’m Irish.)

I find what works well for me is sufficient exercise to mobilize fat- running/hiking works well for me because of the endorphin and adrenaline fix and the freedom. I will feel great up to about 6 miles, but more than that I’ll start to feel depleted and need to eat more (but may still lose weight). Since I’m one of those people who will eat a certain minimum amount no matter what I’ve done that day (1500 calories just doesn’t cut it), some exercise seems necessary. For some reason, weight lifting didn’t do it for me (didn’t lose despite careful eating) so after a month I went back to what I enjoy more anyway. I also enjoy running/hiking ultras, but they often throw me out of whack with hormonal changes (retain water for a couple days), and I might be tired and famished the next day, so something is being affected. Thowing your body temporarily out of balance isn’t necessarily bad, and you need to be aware that each food/exercise etc stressor may have unintended consequences, or that response will change as your status changes. It’s astounding to me that people like MeMe and Oz don’t understand this (he really gets on my nerves sometimes).

As for the calorie counts on fast food, the last time I checked one, I decided to go elsewhere b/c the item I wanted was too low in calories! So it goes both ways.

Thanks for another great post Tom.

@ Christina, be patient, allow time for your body to recognize that it has the nutrients it needs and doesn’t need to keep such a tight hold on the stores. You could also try adding bulky low carb veggies and supplementing with vitamin D (heavy people tend to be even more deficient), and getting your thyroid status checked. Good luck!

I just watched the whole Nightline debate on Is It Okay To Be Fat? MeMe talked about how little she eats and how much she exercises. She simply has no clue that she doesn’t eat much and likes to exercise because her body doesn’t want to store fat, not the other way around. If the obese woman she was preaching to tried exactly the same diet and exercise routine, the end result would be a thyroid that’s even more depressed.

I’m assuming your kids are still young enough for “How to Train Your Dragon.” Here’s another movie idea:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/hometeamdawg/TrainDiet.jpg

Awesome! If Dreamworks will pay for it, I’ll happily shoot it.

They told about size 4 models who were “fired” for being too fat. There was also a “plus sized” model (size 12), who had previously suffered the effects of trying to be too thin so she could model. Now she accepts her size 12 and is a successful “plus sized” model. Anyone who thinks she is fat should have their head examined.

I’ve seen pictures of the size-12 model. She’s gorgeous. And MeMe simply proved once again that she doesn’t know squat. The large woman said her size is the result of too many diets, and MeMe didn’t believe her, which means MeMe knows nothing about how calorie deprivation can damage thryoid function.