I enjoy giving speeches, but I hate making slides.  It’s so friggin’ tedious.  Putting slides together is pretty much all I’ve been doing the past few days, and I still have a long way to go before I’m ready to give my presentation in D.C. next week.

I’ve been grumbling a bit as I’ve been working, so it was good to receive a little reminder of why I’m dedicated to the cause.  I received this email from a woman I’ll call Linda, who recently saw Fat Head on Netflix:

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Dear Mr. Naughton,

I don’t enjoy talking about myself, especially not personal stuff. But I’m going to. At length. About things most people closest to me have no idea about. So please bear with me while I tell you my story, regarding my life-long struggle with food.

I am a 25-year-old woman who was raised as young as I can remember to feel guilty about food. My first food-related memory was just before I entered kindergarten and my mother, a chronic yo-yo dieter, was arguing with me to “Give that Oreo back, you could have 2 heads of lettuce for the number of calories in that cookie.” My parents were not only subscribed to a low fat, high carb diet, they were depressed alcoholics who both left work when I was 10 and went on disability, never to recover. They were drunk every night and attempted suicide about a dozen times each when I was between 7 and 14 years old.

Naturally, as an only child and loner, I found comfort in food – specifically the “bad” foods my mother told me I should not eat. However, after secretly binging in my closet and hiding the food wrappers under my bed, I always felt repulsed with myself, so I would restrict my food intake until the urge to eat became overwhelming, then I would binge again, etc. By the time I was 11 years old, I was a few inches above average height and about 170 pounds. That same year, I ate a trough-sized portion of potato salad at my grandmother’s house, contracted food poisoning from the rancid mayonnaise, and proceeded to vomit for about two hours straight (I know this because the drive from grandma’s house was 2 hours and I puked the whole car ride home).

Gross? Yes. But this is not gratuitous information, because that was the day my bulimia came to be. Something snapped in me that day. I went from 200 pounds at the age of 12 to 110 pounds the following year (I was about 5’7″ by the age of 13). It is also worthy to mention that as a small child who was in love with animals, I adopted a vegetarian lifestyle and decided to stop eating meat at 5 years old. My parents believed it to be a phase, but it stuck, and at 13 I went fully vegan. I was diagnosed with major depression and ADHD that year.

By 14, at 5’9″ and 90 pounds, I was hospitalized on medical bed rest constantly, for 2-3 months at a time. My heart was giving up. I did not care about myself and I did not fear death. I ceased to be a person; I was a walking eating disorder. Ironically, my bulimia had very little to do with counting calories or “being fat”, but instead the emotional association I had attached to those “bad” foods, the foods you should feel disgusting, gluttonous and ashamed for craving and eating.

It took me many years to function again, even on a basic level. I had to drop out of high school, despite a straight A average, because I was missing 2 months at a time for chronic hospitalizations. I have been at war with food for as long as I can remember. A decade later, despite the fact I have it under control, the feelings are still there. A few years ago, I attempted suicide. Seriously, not halfhearted. I would have been successful if a friend with my spare key hadn’t come by to check on me because I wasn’t returning her calls for a week.

After that scare, I began taking control of my life back. I stopped taking my antidepressants, pills that did nothing but make me feel like a doped up zombie, and substituted them for vitamins and St. John’s Wort. I was able to slowly bring my binging and purging down from a dozen times a day, keeping in no nutrition whatsoever, to once a day and keeping in about 1500 calories a day. I am now a healthy weight for my height, 5’10″ and 145 pounds, but thanks to everything I was told in eating disorder treatment by dieticians, in addition to advice from my doctor, my diet was mostly carbohydrates, a small amount of bogus protein (tofu, fake soy meat, yuck) and no fat.

Despite being in “better” health than ever, I was exhausted all the time. Despite being identified as a “gifted” child with a “genius” IQ at a young age, I could not concentrate on anything and had to leave university not once but twice. Last year, I had my gallbladder removed due to a large gallstone, was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, and had emergency surgery to repair an intestinal obstruction, which was so excruciatingly painful and debilitating. With my long history of bulimia and digestive problems, my doctor fears I am a high risk candidate for developing stomach or colon cancer.

I stumbled upon your documentary completely by accident a month ago. I cancelled my plans to go out that night (not that I had the energy to anyway) and instead watched it 4 more times in a row. It was not only groundbreaking, extraordinarily informative, brilliantly written and hilarious, it was an overwhelmingly emotional experience for me. I cried, for the first time in too long. I cried bitter, angry tears, tears of frustration, followed by hopeful tears of relief. I can’t believe I was blind to all of this for so long. I pride myself on being informed, on questioning everything, on being passionate about world issues, on opting out of the Western bubble of ignorance. Yet I had no idea about anything you described in your documentary. I blindly trusted “experts” like doctors and dieticians.

The morning after I watched your documentary, I went to the grocery store and bought three things: eggs, bacon and butter. I ate 3 sunny side up eggs, cooked in butter, with two slices of bacon. I did not feel guilt. I did not make myself sick. Then I cried yet again, because I never thought I would live to see a day when those shackles were broken.

Within an hour, I felt more energized than I have in years. I showered, got dressed, did my hair and makeup and did something I love but haven’t had the energy to do in years – I went for a hike and took nature photos. Before even realizing it or feeling tired, I had walked the entire 4 mile path. I stopped at a nearby restaurant and had a mushroom swiss burger and a salad for lunch. Again, no guilt, no shame. On my way home, I picked up a well-marbled steak and fresh cauliflower for dinner. I began reading up on the paleolithic diet that night and decided to adopt it.

Over the course of the month of February, my mood and energy level has improved at a shockingly rapid and consistent pace. The chronic, painful digestive problems I was experiencing have almost completely subsided. I went to my doctor this morning, who read me my blood work results from last week. She was baffled by the improvements and blatantly asked what the $%&# I did differently this past month.

My body fat has gone down, my muscle mass has gone up. My hair, which was previously falling out in clumps so badly that I chopped off 20 inches out of frustration, is thick and shiny. My skin went from sickly pale to glowing porcelain. I even applied to begin school again in September. Best of all, this has been the first month I can recall since my bulimia started – 14 long years ago – that I have lived completely (aside of 2 slip-ups) without it.

The precise version of this overly verbose, borderline incoherent rant is that you have completely changed my life; that is indisputable, and because there is no possible way I could have gone on living the way I was, nor did I want to, I don’t believe I’m guilty of hyperbole in saying you may have saved my life, and given me a second chance at it. For the first time, I feel like I am actually living instead of just barely existing.  And I truly have absolutely no idea how to begin thanking you for that.

I wish you, your beautiful wife and precious children all the health, happiness and success this world has to offer.

Yours very truly,
Linda

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Linda, you put a lump in my throat.  I wish you all the best on your path back to real health.  Thanks for reminding me that this is why we do what we do. (And no more slip-ups, okay?)

I’m going to busy making slides and otherwise preparing that presentation for the next several days, then flying off to D.C. to deliver it.  Fortunately, The Older Brother has agreed to take over the guest-host chair for a couple of posts next week.

As you can see from the picture above, we’ve equipped the farm with a couple of ferocious guard dogs to keep predators away.  We named them Coco and Misha as the result of several hours of intense negotiations between Sara and Alana, who started out with little common ground (Alana’s first choice was “Lulu,” which Sara hated) but eventually worked through a list of possible names using a rating system developed by Alana and came to an agreement.

Sara is a major dog-lover, a trait she inherited from her father.  When we lived in a subdivision, anytime she spotted a neighbor walking a dog, she dropped whatever she was doing and ran outside.  I’d eventually have to go outside and say, “Sara, the nice lady would probably like to go home now.  Get the dog off your lap and say thank you.”  Chareva’s brother has a big ol’ pit bull named Henry, and whenever we visit her family in Chicago, Henry is the main attraction for Sara.  As we drove away after our Christmas visit in 2010, Sara was in tears.

“Don’t cry, Honey,” I said.  “You’ll see Grandma again soon enough.”

“I don’t miss Grandma (sob, sob).  I miss Henryyyyy!”

She has of course been begging us to buy a dog for years, but we always had to give the same answer: someday, when we own our own house with a decent-sized yard, we’ll get you a dog.

Well, we’re in the house and the yard certainly qualifies as “decent-sized,” so it was time.  Besides, a farm without a dog just feels wrong somehow.  On a purely practical level, we wanted a dog that’s big enough and scary enough to ward off any predators once we start raising chickens and sheep.  Coco and Misha aren’t big and scary now, but they’re rottweilers and will grow into the role. (That’s Misha below, demonstrating her escape and evasion tactics.)

Rottweilers have been bred as herders and guard dogs for centuries and were listed as one of the best farm-dog breeds in an article I read on the subject while doing a little research.  Once we decided to take the plunge, I suggested we look for a couple of siblings so they could keep each company.  It’s not as if they’ll be socializing with other dogs on nightly walks around the subdivision.

Since I work full-time in Nashville and spend most of my evenings working on other projects (like this blog), Chareva will be taking on the role of dog-trainer.  She told me years ago she’s not really a dog-lover like I am, but I’m already seeing her mommy instincts kicking in as she feeds them, pets them, talks to them, and of course cleans up their little dog puddles.

When we were at the pet shop on Saturday to buy a doggie bed and other pre-adoption necessities, I couldn’t help but notice the dog food.  Most of it was such junk, I’m surprised the USDA doesn’t require it on school-lunch menus.  One brand’s label bragged that it included protein for strength, dried fruit for good health, and whole grains for a healthy coat!

Head.  Bang.  On.  Display Case.

If anyone out there can explain to me why any natural carnivore anywhere in the world needs whole grains for a healthy coat, please do.  By contrast, the breeder who sold us Coco and Misha told us she mostly feeds rottweillers raw meat to keep them healthy.  And not just muscle meat, but livers, lungs, tripe, bone marrow and gizzards as well.

As she told Chareva, dogs need those organ meats in their diets to get all the necessary nutrients.  And by the way, if you feed them dog food made out of grains, that can make them fat and sick.

Funny how a dog breeder knows more about nutrition than the average doctor or dietitian, isn’t it?

After the puppies each consumed a half-pound of raw beef for dinner here in their new home, we took them out to the back yard to do their business.  As we approached the trees, I heard something that sounded reasonably large scamper off.  In my mind, the scampering critter was saying, “Holy @#$% – ROTTWEILERS!”

Ha!  You think you’re scared now, critter?  Just wait until they’re grown.  Then try causing trouble around here.

I was interviewed recently on the Just Tap the Glass blog.  You can read the interview here.

Now back to working on my speech …

I’m taking tonight off to work on my presentation at a meeting of the Office of Research Integrity in D.C., which is just over two weeks away now.

For those of you who don’t already know, I was recruited by Dr. Richard Feinman, who is on a mission to convince the ORI that biased, manipulated, and cherry-picked research is doing damage to the nation’s health.  His group is giving four presentations in all.

My assignment (with input from Jimmy Moore and Laura Dolson) is to explain why large and growing numbers of people no longer trust doctors, nutritionists, government committees and other officially-recognized experts and are turning instead to the internet and social media to find health and nutrition advice that actually works.

Not that I’d know anything about that …

I have to spend tonight fixing an issue for a software client, but I received a couple of interesting emails over the weekend I wanted to share.  The first is from a woman named June:

I had two moments last week where I truly wanted to just bang my head against something.

I’ve been doing low carb, lost about 12 pounds since January eating all those nasty eggs and bacon and steaks and green veggies. Loving every minute of it. I’ve got another 70 pounds to go, and I’m  looking forward to summer and the local farmer’s markets where I can get grass-fed beef and all those fresh veggies.

I work at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland and they frequently have guest lecturers on different topics. Last Wednesday the lecture was “The Obesity Epidemic: How Have We Failed.” Now, I wasn’t expecting that they would come out and admit that the whole low-fat thing has been a bust, but I did want to see what would be presented.

The gist was “Everybody’s fat, we don’t know why, we need more research.” There was the usually finger-pointing at fast food.  But there was one part of the lecture that really got to me. The presenter showed a slide showing the obesity rates in the US going up-up-up. He later had a slide showing beef consumption in the US. There was an upturn, but then beef consumption rates just plummeted.

So, obesity rates rising, beef consumption plummeting. No correlation, right? Maybe  a negative correlation?

Oh no! Even though the presenter had to admit that there was a decline in beef consumption along with the rise in obesity rates, we still eat more beef in the US than they do in Japan and obesity rates are lower in Japan, so we should eat even less beef. This reasoning was being presented in the National Institutes of Health, the “Premier Research Center” in the United States.

I wanted to bang my head against something, but I’m pretty sure if I banged my head against the seat in front of me I would have freaked out the person sitting there, so I just sat through the rest of the lecture. Oh, and, no, there wasn’t any slide plotting carb consumption against the obesity rates. Wonder why.

Yup, I think we know why.  This is the same twisted logic the anti-cholesterol hysterics employed when a study showed that people with normal or low cholesterol suffer 3/4 of the heart attacks.  Why, uh, ya see, that just means we need to set the targets even lower!

On to the rest of June’s email:

Next, I was watching a show on The Cooking Channel called “The Supersizers Go…” This is a show from England showing two people, Giles Coren and Sue Perkins, who pick a period of time from the past and try to eat like people of that time would have for an entire week. They are very funny (they dress in period costume) and are very honest about what they do and do not like.

The show starts with them going off to the doctor for a check-up and predictions of all the terrible things that are likely to happen to them during the week. They then spend the week sampling what people of different social classes would have dined on, with a nod toward the upper classes. Then when the week is over it is back to the doctors to see what damage has been wrought by their horrible diets. They have done Ancient Rome and Victorian and Edwardian and several others. Usually they go back to the doctor having gained weight and their cholesterol skyrocketing and other lab values wacked-out and it is all blamed on all the meat and fat they were eating.

So, last week, they went Elizabethan. They were eating almost nothing but meat, meat, and more meat except for the one day they ate fish, fish, and more fish. There was narry a veggie in sight, but they did eat a lot of organ meat. They ate bread and pastry crust from meat pies and they drank a lot of beer and sugar was fairly abundant,  but mainly, it was wall to wall meat.

Now, when they went to the doctor at the beginning of the week they had their BMI calculated. Sue was at the very low end of normal and Giles was just in the range considered obese. As you probably can guess, no one would look at Giles and consider him to be overweight, let alone obese. The doctor duly voiced his concerns over all the protein they would be eating and what horrors that would do to their health.

As the week went on, their main complaint was that coffee and tea were not available to them, as these hadn’t made it to England yet.  At no time did either Giles or Sue complain about feeling tired or having digestive problems and they looked as energetic at the end as they did at the beginning. Their only complaint was that there was no tea or coffee.  They had huge meals, one or two banquets, and Giles even ate at a tavern to see what was available to the common folk.

So at the end of the week, back to the doctor. And what happened after this week of ‘unhealthy’ eating? They both lost weight. Giles lost about 5 pounds, but Sue lost over 10 pounds. The doctor was even surprised that Sue had lost so much weight in only one week.  There was no mention of lab values, so we can assume that their blood work at worst didn’t change and at best actually improved, and both of them had blood pressure within normal range.

When asked about the weight loss, the doctor surmised that all that protein had suppressed their appetite so they just plain ate less, BUT he then quickly cautioned that he wouldn’t recommend anyone going on a diet like this for any length of time! And the episode ended with Sue happily going off to gain back the weight she had lost. I just banged my head against the back of my chair, which did scare the cat a bit.

June

Pardon me while I go bang my head against my desk …

… Okay, I’m back.  So the doctor concluded that extra protein supressed their appetites, but he doesn’t want people to go on a diet that suppresses their appetites naturally.  Nope, better they should be hungry and then just fight the urge to eat — for the rest of their lives.

Here’s another email that demonstates just how little some doctors know about nutrition:

Hi Tom,

I just watched Fat Head last night and I was very enlightened! Having a heavy dose of skepticism though, and seeing that you are a comedian, I’m wondering… are you pulling a fast one on us yourself?! I’m one of those overweight type 2 diabetics who is sick and tired of taking insulin, which is causing me to gain weight! So, I really hope your science is correct!

Which leads me to my next concern:  I’m told my triglicyerides are too high and when I asked my doctor to explain, he said that means I have too much fat in my blood and so I need to cut out as much fat as possible from my diet except for fish oil tablets, which apparently are “good fats.”

I’m soooo confused!!! Why are my triglyceride levels so high when for years I haven’t touched red meat, butter and drink only skim milk?  Oh, I’m depressed too and take medicine for that….

After watching Fat Head I thought, what the heck, I’ll give it a try and went out and bought the best looking Porterhouse steak, cooked it for dinner, felt soooo happy, satisfied, content and not still hungry! I also forgot to take my Lexapro but didn’t feel the need!

I really feel better, but guilty somehow for eating “arterycloggingredmeat!!!”  So I hope you are telling the truth and could you please answer my triglyceride question?

Sincerely,
Sharon

Sharon, here’s why your triglycerides are so high:  you’ve been living on a low-fat diet.  Triglycerides are indeed a form of blood fat, but high fasting triglycerides are the result of fats being produced by your liver in response to carbohydrates.  For most of us, low fat = high carb = high triglycerides.

In study after study, people who go on low-carb diets have seen dramatic reductions in triglycerides, often ending up with fasting triglyceride levels well below 100.  Here are a couple of articles by doctors who (unlike yours) know what they’re talking about:

Dr. Mike Eades on diet and triglycerides.

Dr. William Davis on diet and triglycerides.

And Sharon, if you start eating steaks and find the depression going away, EAT MORE STEAKS.  Your doctor means well, but he’s just plain wrong.  Unfortunately, that puts him in the majority of doctors.

On a cheerier note, I received this email from woman who teaches English at a college right down the road from me:

Dear Tom,

I have taught Research and Argumentative Writing at Middle Tennessee State University for the past two semesters. Our course theme is food, which helps to ease students into the idea of looking at things critically, especially that which we do unconsciously. My students’ second assignment (which they are in the middle of writing) is an analysis of Super Size Me and Fat Head (which we finished watching this morning), in which they have to determine which film has a more rhetorically sound argument. My students always choose your film. Every student, every time.

Because I emphasize writing as a conversation between ideas, people, texts, etc., your film, as a response to Super Size Me, perfectly demonstrates this concept, as well as helps me to emphasize the critical thinking about that which we do automatically. Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving me something so perfect to work with.

Also–I was delighted to see you live in Franklin. I grew up there (but moved to downtown Nashville about 4 years ago) and my parents still live there.

-Emily

Emily, you made my day.  Super Size Me appealed to people on an emotional level, not on a logical or common sense level, and I’m pleased to hear your students recognize that.

I plan to throw a big ol’ Fat Head party and cookout one of these days to celebrate getting the farm up to snuff.  Consider yourself invited.

I think Richard Nikoley and I may have switched personalities for a day.  I read about a school official telling a four-year-old her lunch wasn’t USDA-approved and got REALLY ticked off, as last night’s post demonstrates.  Richard wrote a laugh-out-loud funny post on the same subject.

Richard, I’d like my sense of humor back when you’re done with it.