Posts filed under ‘Basics’
Set Point vs. Settling Point
UPDATE – This post is no longer in line with my thinking in some ways. See newer post.
I overheard a young (and overweight) young man complaining that he had been having trouble losing weight. His slightly less overweight female friend suggested that his body might be thwarting is fat loss – that his body has a natural “set point” and that any attempt at straying from said point would be futile.
This idea seems solid on the surface, but as I hope to show, it’s a little off.
May 26, 2011
Garbage to Infinity
Warning: This is going to be one of those boring posts without any links to research or awesome graphs. Take comfort in its brevity. *I wrote this passage before this post became a rambly mess. Apologies.*
I don’t have much issue sticking to my diet – most of the time. So far, the only time I’ve had trouble is when I let myself off the hook ahead of time. Just this last weekend, I was visiting my parents and I was planning to loosen up a little bit. That little turned into a lot (a few beers, a few oz of m&m’s, and some frozen yogurt). I should have avoided the problem by making clearer plans. I’m not about to beat myself up about it, because it’s not worth the stress.
Instead, I’ll use it as a learnable moment, which works out great, because it happens to fit the standard spiel I dispense whenever the subject of adherence arises.
May 25, 2011
Manic Monday: Low-Fat Faileo
This one will be quick because, frankly, it’s been addressed before, and I just want to pass on some key info.
“Faileo” is a pretty popular buzzword in our neck of the woods because it refers to a very common failure of the newly indoctrinated dieters among us; the mistake of eating paleo without the fat. Unfortunately, this particular mistake is bound to happen, considering the lipophobic society many of us have grown up in.
Melissa McEwan of Hunt.Gather.Love had a great post on this last year – another reason this will be short.
1 comment May 16, 2011
Isocaloric but Very Different
“It’s all about calories.” It’s a widely held belief, and as I discussed in my two part series on thermodynamics (1, 2), it’s really hard to measure all those calories and that “calories in vs. calories out” says nothing about where food is stored or used.
Unfortunately, most people don’t care to think about the issue in depth. So here’s a nice easy one.
Let’s take a look at two isocaloric diets: Diet #1 is 2.5cups of table sugar per day, and Diet #2 is 4.5lbs of chicken breast. Both diets come in at 2000 cals/day.
2 comments May 11, 2011
Low-Meat Paleo
Like many of my posts, this one starts with a conversation at a party. Last weekend, a friend of a friend expressed her interest in a paleo/primal diet over a red cup of “jungle juice” (don’t fret – I avoided the syrupy substance).
Here’s the catch: She’s not a fan of meat.
According to her, this abstinence is neither ethical nor nutritional, she is just “grossed out by the texture.” At least that was what I took from our conversation. It doesn’t really matter why she wants to be flesh-free, the question is the same: How should I eat paleo without meat? Is it even worth it?
It is worth it. Read on for more about why and how.
2 comments May 9, 2011
What’s Being Said