Someone mentioned in the comments section awhile back that if I ever produced another documentary, I should try funding it with a KickStarter campaign.  I have to admit, I wasn’t familiar with KickStarter.  After looking into it, I love the idea of fans supporting the works they’d like to see produced.

I’m not currently planning another documentary (apart from the companion DVD for our kids’ book), but there’s one in production now that I suspect all you Fat Heads would love.  It’s called Cereal Killers.  Here’s the trailer:

And here’s an introduction by Donal O’Neill, the producer:

I can tell you from my Fat Head experience that most of expenses involved in getting a film out into the world occur after the shooting stops and the post-production begins.  (Until Fat Head went to Netflix and finally drew a wide audience, I thought producing it was going to be the biggest financial mistake of my life.)

Here’s a link to the KickStarter page for Cereal Killers.  I just went there and made a donation.  I’d urge you to do the same.  People who make films like this need and deserve our support.

Last summer, Chareva and I encouraged the girls to create their own YouTube videos (with lots of help from Mom) and call the series Paleo Kids’ Club. The idea was to have them, as kids, talking to other kids about diet and health. They liked the concept but balked at doing the actual work, so we let it go.  Summer is supposed to fun, after all.

This summer, for whatever reason, they’re considerably more enthusiastic. (I think it had something to do with joining me for a podcast when I sat in for Jimmy Moore. They enjoyed that.) In the interim, Chareva and I decided to call their show Fat Head Kids’ Club, for several reasons:

1. Branding; i.e., a better tie-in with the book when we finish it, since Fat Head will almost certainly be in the name.

2. We’re not strictly paleo — we like our cream and butter. We’re closer to what Mark Sisson calls primal.

3. Some people in the paleo world have become vegan-like zealots, denouncing all that doesn’t fit their particular definition of the word.

4. Some people in the paleo world are also strangely hostile towards low-carbers, insisting that everyone must eat potatoes and other starches to be healthy and anyone who doesn’t is deluded.

In short, I didn’t want to link my girls to the word paleo and invite attacks from any self-appointed High Priests of Pure Paleo. Since I produced Fat Head, a Fat Head Kid is whatever I say it is.

I’m busy with other projects, so my role is mostly limited to serving as technical adviser/script consultant. Chareva and girls have been coming up with episode ideas, and Chareva taught herself how to edit video in Adobe Premiere, sometimes by picking my brain since I’ve been using Premiere for years. She also turned the girls’ downstairs playroom into a makeshift studio.

I don’t know how many episodes they’ll ultimately produce, but I’ll post them when they do. If you look at the top banner of the blog, you’ll see I added a Fat Head Kids’ Club link. After I post their videos on the main blog page, I’ll also post them on that page. That way anyone looking for the videos won’t have to scroll through old blog posts to find them.

Here’s their introductory episode. Enjoy.

Interesting items from my inbox …

And if you do develop diabetes, you’ll probably laugh about it

At least the Feds won’t declare this possible weight-loss drug illegal — because it already is:

Toking up may help marijuana users to stay slim and lower their risk of developing diabetes, according to the latest study, which suggests that cannabis compounds may help in controlling blood sugar.

Although marijuana has a well-deserved reputation for increasing appetite via what stoners call “the munchies,” the new research, which was published in the American Journal of Medicine, is not the first to find that the drug has a two-faced relationship to weight.

Three prior studies have shown that marijuana users are less likely to be obese, have a lower risk for diabetes and have lower body-mass-index measurements. And these trends occurred despite the fact that they seemed to take in more calories.

Hmmm, if marijuana users are skinnier despite taking in more calories, that would seem to violate the calories-in/calories-out theory.  Naw, that can’t be.  Obviously, there’s something about getting high that makes people want to go jogging.  All that talk about a “runner’s high” was just a cover story.

Why? “The most important finding is that current users of marijuana appeared to have better carbohydrate metabolism than nonusers,” says Murray Mittleman, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the lead author of the study. “Their fasting insulin levels were lower, and they appeared to be less resistant to the insulin produced by their body to maintain a normal blood-sugar level.”

Easy there, Professor Mittleman. If you go around suggesting that insulin levels and carbohydrate metabolism are involved, you’ll get clobbered by bloggers who insist insulin has nothing to do with obesity and is, in fact, a wunnerful appetite suppressant. (I guess all those obese people with high insulin levels are ignoring the wunnerful appetite suppressant and eating just for the heck of it.)

While marijuana may initially promote appetite and overeating, in the long run it has the opposite effect because it desensitizes cannabinoid receptors and may even protect against obesity.

So don’t skip the gym and break out the bong just yet: there’s still not enough data to tell whether marijuana, like alcohol, could have health benefits in moderation. Mittleman says the study relied on self-reported use of marijuana, which can be unreliable.

Gee, do you think? Food questionnaires are notoriously unreliable, and those people are trying to tell the truth. If we want to know who’s smoking pot and who isn’t, I’d suggest a survey question more like this:

Have you smoked marijuana in the past six months?

A. Yes

B. No

C. Oh, man, I can’t ‘t remember

Then mark down people who answer A or C as pot-smokers.

Media declares girl a hero for parroting her mother’s opinions

It’s the kind of story media reporters love — and makes me want to barf:

A 9-year-old girl from Kelowna, B.C. has become somewhat of an international star after speaking at a McDonald’s annual shareholders meeting in Chicago last week.

Hannah Robertson and her mother Kia were invited to the meeting as members of the watchdog group, Corporate Accountability International. They spoke on behalf of an online campaign created by the group called Mom’s Not Loving It and have also started their own healthy eating blog Today I Ate A Rainbow.

Got the picture so far? Hannah’s Mom is an anti-McDonald’s activist.

“Mr. Thompson, don’t you want kids to be healthy so they can live a long and happy life?” Robertson asks CEO Don Thompson during the question and answer period. “It would be nice if you stopped trying to trick kids into wanting to eat your food all the time.”

Cue the big cheers from the media and the social activists. Why, by gosh, it’s a pipsqueak version of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Look at the little darling taking on the big, bad CEO.

Puuuuuke!

Seriously, does anyone who considers Hannah an “international star” for standing up and repeating her mother’s opinion believe she’s ever been “tricked” into eating at McDonald’s? And if so, where was Hannah’s mom at the time? Unless Hannah has her own money and her own car, I’m pretty sure she’s incapable of eating at McDonald’s without her mom’s approval. I’m also pretty sure her mom never approves.

If you’ve seen the bonus interviews on the Fat Head DVD, you’ll recall Jacob Sullum pointing out that people who get their undies in a twist over McDonald’s advertising to kids aren’t concerned about themselves or their kids — they don’t eat there anyway. They’re concerned about the people they consider too weak or too stupid to avoid the temptation of Happy Meals — in other words, people they consider inferior.  Here’s a perfect example:

Hannah and her mother acknowledge McDonald’s has stepped up efforts to offer healthy foods, such as fruit smoothies and apple slices in the Happy Meals, but suggest the company must avoid specifically marketing their fast food to kids. “Take toys out of the Happy Meals and not using cartoon characters and sports icons,” Hannah tells Global. “It’s kind of like tricking them into thinking that McDonald’s is good for them and it’s like this amazing thing,” she tells CBC.

I’m sorry you and your mom consider other kids your age to be such gullible idiots, Hannah. If only the kids who aren’t as smart as you had parents who could protect them from the Svengali-like powers of Ronald McDonald.  Oh wait, they do.  But of course, your mom thinks the parents are idiots too.  That’s why she believes they need her to protect them from temptation and thus from their own decisions.

The CNN and ABC star is now back in her Grade 4 classroom, but hoping to hear from Thomspon. “I gave him our business card and told him to email us about healthy eating ideas for McDonald’s,” she says.

Yes, I’m sure the CEO of McDonald’s is dying to hear how your mom’s idea for McTofu Nuggets will boost their bottom line.

More School Nonsense

Technically, butter’s been off government-approved school menus for a long time. But apparently schools in New York are now cracking down on illicit butter-buying:

Butter was exiled from school cafeterias as far back 2008 in an effort to make meals healthier. But some school kitchen managers say they are being ‘bullied’ on how to prepare meals and threatened with ‘disciplinary action’ should they go against the ban.

Well, I am shocked — SHOCKED! — that there could be bullying involved when people ignore government bureaucrats.

The spreadable delight has been banned from school cafeterias. It can’t be used for cooking or offered with bread.

And now it’s the subject of an aggressive crackdown that threatens the livelihood of school kitchen managers who’ve dared to order the illicit treat.

“Please explain why your managers are ordering BUTTER!!!” a Brooklyn regional school food manager fumed in an email last week to officials overseeing 25 schools.

Um … because it’s delicious and good for us?

Department officials say butter is one of several ingredients they’ve stripped out of meals in recent years to make them healthier. Also off the menu: whole milk and white bread.

Brilliant. Let’s ban water and broccoli next.

Greenpoint mom Brooke Parker was baffled by the anti-butter crusade. “I don’t understand why the mayor is attacking butter. What’s he got against butter? It’s not that bad for you,” she said. “How about making sure kids have gym classes before they ban butter?”

How about if they restore gym classes, then don’t ban butter?

Parker’s daughter Vivian, 6, a kindergartner at Public School 84 in Williamsburg, didn’t mind.

“They don’t have butter at my school,” she said. “They said it makes you fat. I don’t like butter anyway. They have cream cheese for our bagels instead.”

Head. Bang. On. Desk.

With such rampant anti-fat hysteria in the public school establishment, I’m surprised they just didn’t just ban meat from the menu.

Oh, wait … one school did:

There’s no “mystery meat” at one Queens public elementary school.

Public School 244 in Flushing is the first public school in the nation to serve all-vegetarian meals for breakfast and lunch, according to city education officials.

Chefs at the Active Learning Elementary School have swapped chicken, turkey and ham for black beans, tofu and falafel, and kids are digging in with delight.

“This is so good!” squealed 9-year-old Marian Satti, devouring her black bean and cheddar cheese quesadilla Tuesday at lunch. “I’m enjoying that it didn’t have a lot of salt in it.”

My bull@#$% meter is not only ringing, it’s gone all the way up to 11.  The kids are eating low-fat, low-salt, vegetarian meals and they’re squealing and digging in with delight? Well then, we don’t need to ban meat or fat or salt, do we?  Clearly the kids love the low-fat, low-salt, vegetarian stuff, so that’s what they’ll choose anyway.  Somebody call Hannah’s mom and tell her she can stop worrying about Ronald McDonald tricking kids into eating cheeseburgers.  They’d rather eat tofu and black beans.

I’m thinking what we’re looking at here is a rah-rah article by reporters who believe the all-vegetarian menu is a good idea.   Don’t worry about the school forcing its dietary preferences on your children, folks!  See – they love it!

The students are pioneers in a citywide effort to make healthy food a staple of every child’s day.

My b.s. meter was correct.  It’s a rah-rah piece, all right.  School officials decide the kids won’t eat meat anymore, and instead of calling the kids what they are – a captive market being subjected to someone else’s dietary preferences – the reporters call them pioneers.  I’d puke again if the media adoration of Hannah parroting her mom’s leftist opinions hadn’t already emptied my stomach.

Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott, who often crows about maintaining a fit lifestyle, said the launch of the vegetarian food-fest should be duplicated in schools across the city and country.

Yes, by gosh, Chancellor, if only you could impose your dietary preferences on every kid in the country.  Well, perhaps in some future decade, when that annoying concept of individual liberty is finally gone, you’ll get your chance.

So … we have schools banning butter, whole milk, and now meat – all in the name of making kids healthier.  Anybody want to guess what the reaction would be if some school administrators who believe a low-carb/high-fat diet is best for kids tried to force their preferences onto the school menus?  Anybody want to guess what would happen if they ordered the vegetarian kids to put meat on their plates?

Dana Carpender is best known for her many low-carb cookbooks.  (We bought several of them, including copies for relatives, before I even knew Dana.)  Her latest cookbook is for people who want to go more paleo, or would just like to have a collection of recipes that don’t include butter, cream, sour cream or cheese.  If you’re a low-carber who needs to avoid dairy products, this is the book for you.

In the introduction to 500 Paleo Recipes, Dana explains why she wrote the book:

Low-carbers around the world tell me a shift is occurring.  I hear from more and more people who are shunning soy products, who avoid gluten, who are seeking out grass-fed meat and dairy and wild-caught fish.  More and more, I hear from people who have quit using artificial sweeteners.

Many of the recipes in my previous books are paleo-friendly, but many are not.  Indeed, my own eating habits have shifted over the years, to the point where there are recipes in my own books that I would no longer be willing to eat.  I’ve gone gluten-free, no longer eating even low-carb bread or tortillas, yet quie a few of my old recipes call for these items, or ingredients such as vital wheat gluten, wheat germ and wheat bran.  Some use canola oil, which I haven’t touched in years.

She then explains what paleo means … or more precisely, how she chose to define it for the book.  As she notes, there is no one definition of paleo.  Different people who promote what they label paleo diets sometimes disagree with each other about what foods are acceptable.  And of course, few if any of us eat a true paleo diet anyway:

It bears pointing out that unless you eat only locally hunted and gathered wild foods, you’re not really eating the same as Ogg.  (Or Grok, with a tap of the hat to blogger and author Mark Sisson, of The Primal Blueprint.)

So for the purposes of the book, Dana mostly defines paleo foods as those you could eat raw, even if you typically don’t.  You can eat meat, eggs, fruits and vegetables raw.  You wouldn’t eat grains and legumes raw unless you enjoy a good bellyache.  She also eliminates dairy, alcohol and processed foods in her paleo recipes.

If you’re a low-carber, you’ll be glad to know Dana lists the calorie and macronutrient counts for each recipe in the book.  This isn’t strictly a low-carb cookbook, but there are still plenty of low-carb recipes:

You’ll find very low-carb meat and egg recipes here, absolutely, and recipes for non-starchy vegetables, nuts and seeds, and other low-carb favorites.  But you’ll also find recipes for sweet potatoes, winter squash and other starchy vegetables.  You’ll find more fruit than I have hitherto allowed, and recipes including honey.

Just as many low-carb folks don’t eat paleo, many paleo folks are not strictly low-carb.  Most low-carbers were drawn to the diet because of obesity, blood sugar problems, or a combination of the two.  Many paleo folks, though, have always been slim and athletic, with robust metabolisms that can tolerate more carbohydrates.

Yes, and when the never-been-fat paleo youngsters insist we should all eat plenty of “safe starches” because they personally tolerate potatoes and rice so darned well, I want to smack them.  My glucometer knows better than they do.  Speaking of which:

As always, you need to pay attention to your body.  If you have blood sugar problems, your glucometer is your friend.  Pay attention to your body and pick and choose the recipes that work for you.

Amen, Dana.

As you’d expect in a book of 500 recipes, there’s a little bit of everything here:  appetizers, main courses, salads, desserts, dips, cereals, pancakes, soups, broths … there even recipes for making your own yogurt and sour cream using coconut milk.

I happen to love sour cream and don’t have any issues with dairy products as far as I can tell, so I’ll probably stick with the real thing.  But even if you have no intention of becoming a paleo purist, there are plenty of recipes in here you’ll want to try just because they sound appealing.

I encourage people to buy low-carb cookbooks to avoid letting dietary boredom torpedo their goals.  After all, if the Atkins diet were actually as limiting as some people assume it to be (nothing but steaks, eggs cheeseburgers with a little bit of salad), almost nobody would stick with it.  Same goes for paleo, or low-carb paleo, or sort-of-low-carb paleo:  you need variety to avoid boredom.

500 Paleo Recipes will help keep your diet interesting.

I hope you all are enjoying Memorial Day.   (For our non-American readers, I hope you’re enjoying Monday.)  I had plans to work on some side projects this weekend, but caught up in testing video technology instead.  Last summer we encouraged the girls to produce their own YouTube segments for other kids, but they weren’t interested enough to take the idea and run with it.  After they joined me for my guest-host gig on Jimmy Moore’s show, they decided it was fun (and the compliments in comments section were certainly encouraging), so this summer they’re going to give their YouTube show idea a whack.

They want their show to to be fun and cartoonish at times (now where did they get that idea?), so I was experimenting with setting up a green screen in their playroom downstairs, keying out the green, working with cartoon animations (which will be Chareva’s contribution, but I needed to test the technology), pulling the animation into Adobe Premiere, etc.

We did manage to get out on Saturday night and go see the Nashville Sounds (our local AAA baseball team).  The game was followed by fireworks, and then the girls got to go run around the bases with a gazillion other kids.  After we got home from the game, I watched Saving Private Ryan.  On Memorial Day weekend, I usually watch either that or Band of Brothers.  I like to remind myself what the soldiers we honor on Memorial Day sacrificed for all of us.

Anyway, it’s still a holiday weekend, so instead of writing a full post, I decided to share some recent emails from viewers:

Mr. Naughton,

I finally got around to watching your movie about a month ago. I am certain you get plenty of e-mails regarding this, but I wanted to thank you. I started following your eating suggestions, and they have worked fantastically. I’ve lost 11 lbs in 29 days, and have never felt better in my life. I was diagnosed with depression when I was in high school, but have now been free of my medications for more two weeks, and my doctor can’t seem to believe that I just don’t feel like I need them anymore. I haven’t been stressed or depressed at all. Thank you so much for your wonderful work, and I plan to buy copies of your movie for my parents and siblings in an attempt to get them to eat better as well.

-Thank you more then I can express,
James

The weight loss is nice, James, but I’m more delighted to hear about the depression being lifted.  As Nora Gedgaudas wrote in Primal Body, Primal Mind, no amount of therapy can replace a missing nutrient or negate the effects of foods we shouldn’t eat.  Here’s to your continued progress.

Thank you, Mr. Naughton, for your documentary. It hasn’t changed my life too terribly much, but it has affected something much more dear to my heart.

My oldest son is 4 and a half. He is caring, precocious, affectionate, and … autistic. Yet very few people would ever suspect that he was autistic, because of how caring and open he is.

It wasn’t always that way. I bought into the bologna of feeding my child low-fat high carb diets, and he was distant, unfocused, easily disturbed by bright lights and loud sounds. He never made eye contact with me, and in fact we very rarely spoke at all. I watched Super Size Me, and felt that I was doing what was right for my son by imposing the limits to his diet that I had imposed. I saw your documentary on Netflix, and was amazed. It made sense, it was well researched, it worked. I drank whole milk as a child, and here I was trying to force my son to drink skim milk. I was giving him skinless chicken breast, whole wheat toast, and some sort of vegetable for dinners, and watching him get worse. His doctor was concerned about him, I was concerned about him.

I switched him to whole milk, he likes it and drinks it. I started putting butter on his veggies. Another success. I let him have chicken nuggets more often, and cheese. He improved. He is still autistic, and still has many of the underlying issues. He likely will his whole life. But… we hug without him flinching. He listens to me. We can talk about science and math. He is making friends. He is happy and healthy. He has gone from being feared to have a more severe autism to high functioning.

Your documentary gave me the tools to research what my children should be eating, and has improved both of their qualities of life. They are lean, hyper (but not hyper-active), curious boys.

We do not eat low carbohydrate, but we do eat a much higher percentage of our calories as saturated fat now. I am losing weight by being lower carb and using intermittent fasting.

Thank you so very much, sir.
Cindy

That’s great news, Cindy.  For the record, I don’t think kids need to be on low-carb diets.  They just need to avoid the junk foods, which will usually mean reducing carbs anyway.  I wish you and your boys all the best.

Hey there, Tom!

I’ve emailed you in the past, but usually just to ask questions or make comments about news stories.  But today, I figured it was time I sat down and told you how you’ve changed at least four more lives.  I hope you’ll bear with me.  I tend to ramble.

I didn’t have the best upbringing.  My mom was a single mom, worked, was going to school, dealt with my older sister who was probably the worst problem child you could ever have (she kept running away, stealing, and got pregnant at 12).  Mom drank a lot and sometimes used drugs, and was severely depressed at least at one time.  Needless to say, we didn’t eat very well back then.  I remember a lot of easy stuff, like frozen meals, spaghetti, pizza, and lots of chips, cookies, and candy.

I think partially because my only friends at that time were my cats and guinea pigs, I decided to become a vegetarian at the age of 14.  I honestly can’t remember what my thought process was, or what spurred me on to make that decision.  My mom didn’t protest really.  Since I was already chubby at that age, I bet she thought it would help me lose weight.  When I told my pediatrician, she was pretty upset (this is the only doctor who ever questioned my vegetarianism, but I was a kid so I didn’t listen to her).  She asked me where I was planning on getting my protein from, and being 14, I told her I ate lots of peanut butter.

It was that year that my health and my life started taking a pretty nasty turn for the worse.  Since my mom didn’t have the time or patience to cook separate vegetarian meals, I mostly just ate around what she made for herself.  If she made mashed potatoes with chicken gravy, I would eat just mashed potatoes for dinner.  If she made a sweet and sour stir fry with chicken and rice, I would eat the few vegetables I liked (which wasn’t many back then) with rice and lots of sweet and sour sauce.  I ate cereal for breakfast.  Lots and lots of cereal.  Sometimes two huge bowls at a time.  I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.  And don’t forget all those chips, cookies, and candy I was still eating, because they’re vegetarian.

About a year later (right before my 15th birthday), I had to have my gall bladder removed.  No ifs, ands, or buts.  No one asked if I wanted it done.  No one offered alternatives.  No one even told me what causes gall stones.  I didn’t find out what causes gall stones until just last year, and when I found out, I was pretty mad.  You know what causes gall stones?  Not using your gall bladder (i.e. low-fat diets).

That was also when I started to really pack on the weight.  I was already big to begin with.  I was a large child; tall for my age, with huge feet and big broad shoulders.  I was just big all around.  But when I started eating vegetarian, I got really fat.  When I had my gall bladder removed, I was 200 pounds.  Two years later, I hit my peak of 275 pounds.  For a 17 year old 5’8 girl, that’s a lot of weight to be carrying.

But it wasn’t just the weight that was the problem.  I was severely depressed.  My hair was falling out.  I started growing hair where girls shouldn’t be growing hair and my menstrual cycle would skip several months at a time (which I later found out was because I had developed PCOS).  I started turning away from the world, and at age 16, I dropped out of school.  Luckily I found my future husband around that time, and even though I was morbidly obese and not always fun to be around, he loved me and helped me fight off some of my depression.  Also being around him meant I wasn’t eating out of loneliness so much, and we spent a lot of time out in nature, so that by the time we moved in together when I was 22, I had managed to get down to 230 pounds.

Then a couple years later, I finally decided to try DIETING!  I found a website called Spark People that lets you track your calories and your exercise minutes.  I became instantly addicted.  I spent literally hours a day on Spark People, reading the nutrition articles, chatting on the forums, and tracking my food.  But it wasn’t fun.  I felt starved all the time.  Food was the only thing I thought about.  What I would eat, when I would eat it.  If I had 50 extra calories at the end of the day, I would plan out what small indulgence I could give myself (not much for 50 calories).  I persisted, though, and in five months, I managed to get down to 185 pounds.

Then I got appendicitis.  Again, the doctors didn’t give me an option.  No one offered me alternatives.  No one told me what causes appendicitis.  I was wheeled into the OR and had one of my organs taken from me.  It wasn’t until last year that I found out that appendicitis is a “disease of civilization”.  The worst part is, exactly one year later, my husband had his appendix removed too, and as the cook in our house, I know I did it to him and it makes me sick.

The weight crept back on after that, a little at a time.  I would occasionally try low calorie dieting again, but it was almost impossible for me to stick with it.  Like I said before, I’m a big girl.  Even if I was skinny, I would be big.  My hips are big, my shoulders are big, my feet are big.  But BMI doesn’t take that into consideration, and so to lose weight, I was told on Spark People to eat 1300 calories a day.  That’s constant hunger.

About a year ago, I was clicking around on Netflix when I saw your movie.  I was kind of intrigued, but a little hesitant to watch it because I just LOVED the movie Super Size Me and I didn’t want to hear an opposing opinion.  But after a week or two, I finally gave in and watched it.  Holy cow.  It was so life changing.  I was like, really?  This is how it really works?  Why did I have to wait 27 years to hear it?  Why did I have to find this information in a documentary filmed by a comedian?  Why isn’t this information being shouted out across the rooftops for everyone to hear it?

I was excited about the life-changing information, but also skeptical.  I wanted to have my husband watch it, but I wasn’t sure what he would think about it.  So I started just telling him some of the things you said in your film.  After about three days of constantly saying, “And something else he said in his movie…” my husband got annoyed and decided to watch the movie for himself.

I can’t say we changed our diets instantly.  I think it was a couple of days before we really decided to try low carb eating.  I was still trying to be a vegetarian at that point, and since I’m the one who cooks, my husband was pretty much vegetarian himself as well.  I cooked lots of tofu, seitan (a meat substitute made from wheat gluten….seriously), and some beans.  We saw some improvements right away, but nothing huge.  After a couple of months, we started slacking off again, and almost completely went back to our old way of eating.

Around last August or September, we decided, you know what?  If we’re going to do this, we need to really do this right.  We cut out all wheat (except for the low carb wraps my husband uses in his lunch), all sugar, and I decided to give up my identity as a vegetarian.  The first steak I had was so glorious.  It was life changing.

Since then, things have started changing at the speed of light.  For both of us, our energy has increased dramatically.  Our moods have really improved, too.  My husband used to get really depressed all the time, but now he’s so chipper and full of energy when he gets home from work.  I have issues with SAD, and even though this winter was rough at times, it was no where near as dark or depressing as last winter.  My fingernails are strong and long for the first time in 14 years!  I used to always have fingernails that were thin, brittle, and would peel off in layers, but no more.  Even though it’s gardening season, my fingernails are beautiful.

The most amazing thing to me is the muscle we’ve both put on.  My husband was what you’d call skinnyfat all his life.  6’5, 195 pounds, with absolutely no muscle.  Even though I was a weak, depressed vegetarian, I was stronger than him.  Now, he’s lean and muscular with like a runner’s build.  He’s almost completely lost his belly bulge and is starting to get some definition there instead.

As for me, even though I hadn’t lifted weights at all since becoming a low-carb exvegetarian, I put on a lot of muscle as well.  I can feel new bulges in my arms and legs, and I don’t get winded as much when I’m lifting heavy things.  I thought all the “experts” said you can’t gain muscle and lose weight at the same time!

My husband started at 195 and is now about 178.  Like I said, he’s lost almost all of his flabby tummy and the flabbiness around his face and arms.  He looks awesome, and I know for a fact that he’s eating more now than he did before.  He doesn’t suffer from severe coldness much anymore, and if he does, he’ll eat something really fatty and that helps him get warm again.

I’ve only lost about ten pounds, taking me back down to 185.  But for me, it’s not about the weight.  It’s about my fingernails, my energy, my good mood, no longer having to eat ever two hours, no longer feeling obsessed about food, no longer having crippling wrist pain, or awful IBS, or tons of pimples.  It’s about eating real whole food that makes me feel like a real whole person.  Besides, why do all women have to be stick thin?  I think round curvy women are beautiful.

We’ve been trying for a baby for the last year.  Sometimes I fear we’ll never be able to conceive, but then I remind myself that my body is still healing from 14 years of malnutrition and carb-overload.  And it’s all thanks to you, Tom.

I know this email has gone on forever already, but I also wanted to tell you that you’ve changed more lives than just mine and my husband’s.  As we’ve improved and passed on info and shared books with our family and friends, they’ve been changing their diets, too.  My hubby’s brother went low-carb and lost at least 20 pounds (probably more by now).  My mom’s low-carb and has lost 11 pounds and isn’t taking her blood pressure meds anymore.  My sister, who looks pregnant because she’s so fat, is seriously thinking about going low-carb.  And even my mother-in-law, who is a complete and total carbivore, has cut out potatoes and pasta, and limits her sweets.  Doesn’t that make you feel like a rock star?

Thanks again for all that you do.  I hope you keep spreading the word.  I know I will!

-Julie

You’ve learned a valuable lesson, Julie:  this isn’t just about weight loss.  It’s about feeling great and being happy.

When people email me with their stories, I always offer to change their names if they prefer to remain anonymous.  However, Julie has already gone public on her own blog, so with her permission, here’s the link to her blog.  It’s a good one, so check it out.

Happy Memorial Day.

I was interviewed earlier this week on Sam Feltham’s Smash The Fat Live show.  (I didn’t realize until the last minute it was a video show, so Chareva didn’t get a chance to run in and redecorate my office and adjust the lights, which is what she usually does.  Sorry if it looks a bit messy behind me.)

You can listen to/watch the interview here.