User august - PaleoHacks.com

Answer by August for How much do you spend on groceries?

2013-06-19T14:41:47Z

Go to the frozen fish section of your store and see if you can find some seafood without sodium tripolyphosphate. I think that's what it is, anyway. I can buy bags of whiting fillets. If you can find shrimp without that stuff in it, that's pretty good too. The trick here is figure out what your protein requirements are, and do portion sizes that correspond. I don't manage this as well as I'd like to, but if you can just eat the protein you need and then fill up with good fats and vegetables, you could save money.

If you are going to buy meat from the store, look for good looking roasts. Ground meat and chicken are not good choices. Additionally, koshering the roasts seems to help. To kosher you immerse the meat underwater for thirty minutes. Then you take it out, dry it off, and salt the crap out of it and let it sit for an hour. Then you rinse any excess salt off, dry it off, and it is ready for cooking. I have never done this with pork. Even though I am not Jewish, I just assume it wouldn't work because there is no way to make pork kosher. Now, pork eating cultures have these long marinades in something acidic- I think you can find something about that in the Nourishing Traditions book. Anyway, these preparations can help pull stuff out of the meat, if they are putting anything in.

I am trying to buy more stuff at the farmer's market than ever before, mainly because I've recently had problems. It is the summer time and at summer parties the hamburgers and fruit seem pretty safe, but between whatever is in the ground meat and possibly FODMAPS in the fruit, well, according to my guts, being social leads to distress. So I am less concerned with budget and more concerned with feeling halfway decent.

Answer by August for Bad stomach pain

2013-06-19T14:06:48Z

Coconut and Avocado are on the FODMAPS lists.

Answer by August for Anyone ever use alcohol to kill candida or other yeast problems?

2013-06-19T14:03:41Z

Because you'd die before all the yeast would.

Answer by August for What is the black, slightly gritty or powdery substance which wipes out from my cast iron pan at times? Iron? Seasoning? Burnt food? Seasoning is partially-to fully stripped.

2013-06-19T13:57:49Z

Rust + carbon. The rust comes from the pan, the carbon is leftover burnt food. Try heating the pan up, then put some water in it, as the water boils take a metal spatula and scrape the pan (don't put too much water in at once). When it the pan looks smooth dump the water and dry the pan. You want to leave it on the stove for a little while longer until it is really dry. Then put some fat on it. Lately I've just used one of those half sticks of butter and I just sort of wipe it on with the butter-stick, and then use a paper towel to make the coating smooth. Anyway I just remembered Paul Wheaton has done the video on this. In fact, if that comes up right, the first three videos should be helpful to you. The metal spatula is a very important part of cast iron pan maintenance, and he is the guy who brought that up.

Answer by August for Skinny fat, Calories, Looking good naked and Power lifting - Any Questions?

2013-06-18T19:53:28Z

I'm guessing you know what to do in the gym. Deadlift, squat, etc...

If you want to gain muscle you probably will have to eat when you don't particularly want to.

You should eat carbs and protein after workouts and at night. You should eat fats and protein on non-workout days and before workouts. You are probably eating enough protein already. It is probably not a good idea to mix carbs and fat. It took me a long time to gain any weight. I really had to push it. I gained 15lbs. Some of it was fat, so I tightened up my diet again and lost 8lbs pretty fast. I know I gained muscle, but I'm guessing it was like 4lbs, because some of that weight gain is likely water too, since glycogen and muscle love water. So, I'm thinking if I'm more careful about keeping fats and carbs separate I won't gain as much fat this time around. Right now I mainly seem to be losing fat in a few really stubborn areas but the scale pretty much reads the same, so I think this might be that recomposition thing people talk about.

Answer by August for Explain to me how eating fat is GOOD for you?

2013-06-18T14:01:12Z

Weston A. Price foundation's principles of healthy diets

Answer by August for What has surprised you the most about the Paleo lifestyle?

2013-06-17T16:44:47Z

The day I realized my hands were smaller. The shock of seeing myself in the mirror. It is less of a shock now, but it still makes me smile, especially on days when I feel bad.
When I do something that reminds me I am much more physically capable.

Answer by August for Paleo and vaccines

2013-06-17T16:15:55Z

I don't think there is overwhelming support, though maybe some of the people trying to make a living in the paleosphere just don't want to touch this subject. My general idea for vaccines- research them.
What I think- I think, for me, for things like flu shots and gardasil- risks outweigh the benefits. For the flu, they are always behind the curve, and shooting you up with what they hope you'll get. For gardasil, well, they never really proved a link between HPV and cancer. Their proposed mechanism is 'irritation', if I remember correctly. I would imagine any vaccine would have to be similarly 'irritating' in order to get the immune system to respond. I am sure the funding is much better now, since cancer is so much more interesting than warts. I do hope the little girls shot up with this crap turn out okay in the end.

For vaccines for children, well, I don't see giving newborns them immediately. One should wait until the immune system firms up. I can't remember when that happens right now, but if I had a newborn, I'd be looking it up. Then I'd ignore every vaccine that has come out during the era of federal laws that protect vaccine companies from liability. I'd look for older ones with proven track records, ones that protect children from really dangerous illnesses- you, know stuff that tends to end in death rather than the sniffles.

Every shot brings with it the potential for complications, so you want the potential benefits to outweigh the potential risks. Most of the modern things just don't meet the criteria for me.

Answer by August for spam / trolling - please choose 'close'

2013-06-17T15:48:54Z

Detox is not real. If you are real, stop eating crap and start eating real food. That is all you can do. There are no shortcuts. Bedwetting has been linked to both milk and wheat issues. Don't eat that stuff anymore.

Answer by August for Post workout carbs, what's the best source?

2013-06-14T21:27:26Z

Medjool dates are awesome. But then, you end up turning to rice because it is cheaper and you can buy enough so that there's some at home if you don't feel like going to the store.

Answer by August for ketosis dry throat and vision blur

2013-06-14T19:22:48Z

I've heard of his concerns, but I don't know how. It would seem to me that the liver puts out glucose and could just make more. Maybe the brain is just that greedy.

What is your carb level? Even the medical grade diets have some little bit of fruit in it. Additionally, some of the athletic research suggests you can sneak in fast acting carbs after a workout and get back to pre-workout ketosis levels pretty quickly.

I also wonder about your salt intake. Over at ketotic.org they recommend 5g a day.

Also, Dr. Bernstein at some point suggested that if you felt low on blood sugar you could take like 2g of pure glucose. Blood sugar would rise, but insulin wouldn't, so ketone levels would pretty much stay the same. I think I tested my blood sugar on this once, and it did seem to rise just a point or two and there was no subsequent downshift that I associate with heavy insulin.

So, while I doubt the glucose deficiency thing is real, I suspect it would be trivial to get enough of it while in ketosis.

Answer by August for Do you meet the RDA for fiber on any given day?

2013-06-14T18:59:05Z

I don't think I do. I find the idea that fiber is particularly helpful somewhat laughable. Most things that are supposed to be fixed with fiber can usually be fixed with more fat, or at least that's what I discovered back in the days I was dieting. So, once they started vilifying fat, the next stupid mainstream conclusion was that we needed fiber. Meanwhile, the industrial food corporations needed an excuse to sell us industrial waste byproducts as food. And lo, the breakfast cereal aisle was born.

Answer by August for [Meta] Unleash Your Thin w/ Jonny Bowden - Paleohacks Podcast Episode #7?

2013-06-14T13:27:30Z

Got it too. I am thin. Why would I listen to that guy? The trouble with Paleo and monetization- Paleo works. I was already doing pretty well before Robb Wolf got his book out the door.

Could you swing a Paleo cell phone? It could just be a touchscreen phone, but with an e-ink screen. Maybe version two could do something about aiming the signal away from our brains?

Then there are shoes. I still don't see a quality shoe out there. Sure, there are great shoes for running and working out and stuff, but not for everyday wear and certainly not for formal occasions. Additionally everybody seems to get the zero-drop thing, but nobody seems to get the 'natural products' thing. Leather is paleolithic. Plastic is not.

More sophisticated communications stuff- this is a little more esoteric, but it ties into the cell phone thing: if we are going to watch screens that are shooting photons at us, we should do that during the day, so we need to schedule it. There is only so much time in the day so we need efficient ways of handling the stuff. I suspect the algorithm they use in spaced repetition software is at least part of the answer.

And there are actually products out there that could be on these banner ads here on paleohacks that have relevance to us.

This is not to say I underestimate what it takes to get these ideas off the ground.

Answer by August for Leaning out/Body Recomp- Carb Questions

2013-06-12T21:50:25Z

Since you intend to continue using these Beachbody workouts, no adjustment of carbs is necessary. These sorts of workouts trick your body into thinking it is constantly being chased by a lion. Cortisol becomes dominant and any chance you have of gaining muscle is impossible on such a regimen.

It is possible to lose fat while consuming carbs. I don't know if it possible for you. I lift twice a week and then eat carbs on those days after workout. The rest of the week is low carbish. Initially was less careful, went up 15lbs, but managed to lose 8lbs of that and feel like what's left is muscle and I am slowly inching up now, but my belt fits fine still.

It seems like fat/protein is good when you aren't working out. Carbs/protein is good after you have worked out. I don't think it matters what type of workout- what matters is whether or not you've really depleted muscle glycogen. My impression is that this stuff was researched with endurance athletes, at least initially. (Workouts do matter in terms of what you want to look like.)

It is possible you were just eating to little. Generally speaking, I want to do this clean, but if I don't see results, I know I can always eat more until my jeans start getting tight, and then clean up my diet again. The powerlifters/bodybuilders eat like crazy to lift heavier/grow muscle. A 10lb swing on the scale really shouldn't faze us too much.

Answer by August for Any PH'ers recover from Isotretinoin/ 13 cis RA? (pics)

2013-06-12T18:47:20Z

Koanic Soul has suffered accutane side effects, so if you can stand the strangeness and dig through his site, you may find stuff that helps.

I think for a long time he was eating rice and scallops or shrimp. Food quality seems to be reality important to him too.

Answer by August for need to lose 20lbs as fast as I can burt safely?

2013-06-12T18:39:27Z

Wikipedia says "The most common cause of acanthosis nigricans is insulin resistance."

So, maybe low carb paleo is the way to go for you. Now technically, you'd still be insulin resistant, but if you don't eat very many carbs (and not a ton of protein either) your pancreas won't put out a lot of insulin.

You can also lose weight on such a diet. I lost 113lbs. Now, the thing I don't like about your question is the fast part. I know you'll probably try to do this anyway, especially once the scale starts going in the right direction, but if you just concentrate on eating good food, rather than calorie restriction, you'll get there in a more healthy fashion. Meanwhile, you'd be keeping the insulin low, so the acanthosis shouldn't get any worse, and might even get better. I did calorie restrict myself, so I know the temptation, and I think I would have been better off being a little less extreme.

Answer by August for Paleo and "Nourishing Traditions" Newbie Question

2013-06-12T18:26:59Z

Paleo is just stricter. Nourishing Traditions addresses the problems with grains, legumes, and dairy by peparing these things in traditional ways. The paleo way is to just not eat them. But even here on Paleohacks you will get a lot of folks having some sort of dairy and eating rice, or whatever.

I think most of us are on the same page in terms of fats, salt, etc..., though sometimes I read about some paleo guy talking up lean meats, low salt, and green leafy vegetables. Whenever I hear that I chalk it up to marketing, because that isn't really paleo- it is just mainstream diet advice, but with a little more meat instead of the whole grains.

Answer by August for Does bi polar cause physical symptoms?

2013-06-12T18:17:00Z

The drugs cause physical symptoms. Depending on what you do, you may get physical symptoms. Just as an example of what I am talking about- going to bed at a reasonable time rather than taking bed time as a good time to start a fight with your significant other. Yeah, over time, the self destructive behavior results in self-destruction.

The flip side to this is if you get serious about eating clean, sleeping right, and generally being a good person, they won't be too bad and they might even go away entirely.

Answer by August for Leangains vs CBL for training times and carb load times?

2013-06-12T15:50:29Z

Currently I go to the gym at 9am twice a week. I train fasted and wait until 12am to go to lunch. I get grilled shrimp and steamed rice, in an attempt to get low fat, high carbs and a good protein. Then, on my way home I usually pick up some kind of fruit, and I eat rice/some lean protein at home. I know there is some timing that isn't perfect, but I am assuming that, if the muscles are depleted of glycogen, they are going to be ready to take up glycogen even if I don't get it to them right away. On off days I am relatively high-fat/low carb, though I have more cheats now since I am trying to gain muscle and CBL seems to increase my overall hunger. Things are going in the right direction. The one thing I don't like, that is worrying me is that I keep getting those cramps in my feet- and it seems to come from the carbs (I've got a question on here about that). I've heard a recent suggestion that more salt might counteract it. Last night I awoke with a terrible cramp in my foot. I limped into the kitchen and took some salt. It seemed to help, but maybe just walking around on it helped, I don't know.

I hesitate to say do this at all if you are trying to lose weight, but one insulin spike a week seems to help reset some things, so take one post-workout night and eat a low fat/high carb meal. Since you are looking at this though, I'm guessing you also secretly want to gain muscle, in which case it is really hard to get the carbs in just at night. That is why I am cautiously eating a starchy lunch in addition to the nightime carbs. I was pretty stuffed anyway last night- I had defrosted some fish for a protein source, but I just couldn't eat anymore after the rice. I heard somewhere the target is like 3xbodyweight, which is above 500 for me. It seems crazy, but I wasn't gaining at all until I started pushing it.

Answer by August for Newish Paleo - Bad Water Retention

2013-06-11T20:21:34Z

More food, probably. More salt even more likely.

Read the labels on your salt (and on your fish) to make sure it is just natural salt. They put a lot of weird stuff in regular salt- pickling salt is just salt. You might be able to find other salts that are basically just salt- sea salt, kosher, etc...

Now, in the fish, there might be that sodium trypolyphosphate. I have notice that these industrial forms of salt will bloat me up. So, you might want to check that. Regular salt is a good and necessary part of our diet, and once you get away from the faux stuff, you can more or less trust your inclinations and salt to taste.

Answer by August for Any hope of getting my skin to become thicker? (HELP, PLEASE)

2013-06-09T19:18:41Z

This isn't acne specific, but Carlsons 5mg K2 will improve your skin overall. Your skin should actually feel smoother a day or two after you start taking it. It also makes some sense in that its one of those vitamin you would have missed by going vegetarian, and it is hard to get a lot even on paleo.

Answer by August for Fasting and physical activity

2013-06-09T19:12:17Z

Well, there are a whole different group of people that fast- religious people. Those people notice that exercise can actually help. They get tired, grumpy, or whatever, and go take a walk or something. Exercise usually raises blood sugar to some extent.

So, don't go do anything crazy, but don't just still still in your house all day either.

Answer by August for Are these foods Paleo?

2013-06-08T21:34:17Z

1) No. I think there is flour somewhere in there. It is possible to make it in a way that meets the paleo standards, but it is unlikely. They will probably use some sort of grain filler.

2) It seems that cashews are not, in fact, legumes, as I have been told. My original answer was that they were not paleo, but the correction is in the comments, and it seems to be solid, from what I can google.

3) Yes. If they are store bought industrial pork chops they are likely to have a different fat composition than properly raised pigs. This is why we supplement with Omega-3. If there is something really off with pig fat, you will be able to notice it. It will actually taste rancid. It goes bad like old nuts go bad.

Answer by August for CRIES FOR HELP!!! How to gain weight (muscle)!! Crossfit & Paleo

2013-06-08T21:22:17Z

Your friends and family are telling you to stop the nonsense. Dude, or dudette, stop the nonsense. Exercise less. Eat more. Stop trolling. Never create another account in which you use the username Crazy. Because that is just nonsense. And you should stop the nonsense.

Answer by August for muffins won't RISE!!!!!

2013-06-08T20:52:29Z

I don't see how they can rise. Do they taste okay despite not being risen? Frankly, if I were trying to pull something like this off, I'd probably use rice or tapioca flour- something with a decent amount of starch in it. The almond flour will give it body, but I think it needs some starch to rise.

Alternatively, I'd beat the bloody hell out of some egg whites. There are a lot of recipes that depend on whipped egg whites, and I imagine those could be translated into a paleo friendly treat. French Macarons are on my list to translate into paleo-ish awesomeness. They are worth googling and already mostly egg white and almond. The neolithic agents could be avoided. I guess Fragoso has the name and the lead time. She'll end up in France and perfect the damn recipe before I have a chance to finish with this huge chunk of pork belly I bought at the farmer's market this morning. All this working and everything is keeping me down.

Answer by August for Gave up Fruit - Effects (bit long)?

2013-06-08T12:42:37Z

Well, it could be low-carb flu, but it also could be the calorie restriction in general. 7lbs a month is a lot to aim for. 4lbs per month would give you a little room to eat a little more.

You should be able to tell how much carbohydrates matter to you; when you eat them, how quickly to you find yourself eating again? I found if I ate a banana I'd be eating again in two hours, but if I ate brisket at the same time of day, I could go hours without thinking about food.

Answer by August for Chocolate <> hyper-vigilance

2013-06-08T12:16:11Z

I've been having 90% bars at around 10am for my 1st meal of the day. No impending sense of doom. No hypervigilance. Have you been watching the news? There are a lot of non-food related reasons to feel an impending sense of doom.

Maybe there's still to much sugar in yours. Do you find yourself hungry two hours later?

Answer by August for Ancestral foods that aren't paleo vs paleo foods that aren't ancestral.

2013-06-07T19:20:26Z

Generally speaking, what's in these paleo, but not necessarily ancestral foods, are things that we are adapted to. Lauric acid, MCTs, starch, even the dreaded fructose. We are adapted to those things, even if our ancestors never had access to the original plant.

So, when the neolithic came, many of us have anscestors who were exposed early to it. I guess the assumption here is that since we've had wheat around longer, maybe we are more adapted to it. Maybe, but this sort of argument works a lot better for milk, since we've only got to leave an adaption that was already on in infancy on during our lifetime.

But here's the real deal- both of these approaches are only so helpful. I am pretty sure you can hurt yourself with your very own ancestral foods, and if I eat extra virgin coconut oil I can get very, very sick. We've got a general framework, but then we've got to turn to somebody like Matt Lalonde for the biochemistry. The simple example is butter. We could say anathema, since it comes from dairy, but it is mostly just animal fat, and we know animal fat is good. Since animal fat is good, both for the guy who's ancestors have never seen a cow, and for the milkman's children, then butter is probably good for both too.

Answer by August for insulin sensitivity and fruit

2013-06-07T19:02:14Z

Even the ketogenic diets that are strong enough to be considered therapeutic by medical doctors have at least strawberries in them.

Anyway, if you want to burn fat, you want a relatively low level of insulin, not necessarily insulin sensitivity. Being insulin sensitive means your cells do what insulin says do, and insulin says STORE. If your insulin is talking to a fat cell, then, if you are insulin sensitive, you will STORE FAT.

What you are trying to do instead, is keep insulin low, and have some mild restriction, so that various other processes are saying to the fat cells, hey give us that energy. Meanwhile, the brain is still a glucose hog, and the liver puts some out into the bloodstream in order to make the brain happy. The rest of your tissues become somewhat insulin resistant, because that glucose needs to go to the brain, not any other cells.

So have a few berries in the evening.

Answer by August for Tons of food to get enough carbs on carb refeed day?

2013-06-07T16:55:03Z

I've used dates and rice. It is a lot of food. Coming from a low carb background, I was in disbelief about it, but I just wasn't getting and gains until I started pushing it.

Here is a warning though- if you are going to use fruit, beware of FODMAPS. Most of the lists say beware of dried fruits, but I think that is just because it is a concentrated source of sugar. What had me convinced I had appendicitis or something was watermelon, cherries, and mangos. I wanted a little variety but ended up with trouble.

I am thinking about getting the over-ripe bananas from the store and freezing them. What I got from watching Migan's videos about it was that I need just over 500g carbs. Seems crazy. So far though, besides the FODMAPS pain, things are going in the right direction.

Comment by August

2013-06-19T13:38:12Z

More people are going to die because they are going to implement bad science.

Comment by August

2013-06-18T19:58:33Z

Isn't drawn butter clarified? Butter, in general, is animal fat, and animal fat is paleo. Clarified butter gets even the few remaining proteins out, so it is even better than regular butter.

Comment by August

2013-06-18T19:29:12Z

I could imagine, if there were national funding back when bacteria was being discovered, someone proposing that lactobacillus acidophilus causes cancer, because everybody who has cancer seems to have it.

Comment by August

2013-06-18T19:12:21Z

Matt, I know what he said. I listened to it long ago- which would be why I knew it was there to link to in the first place. You've simplified the math too much. I'm pointing out the math is a bit more complicated, and it points to the risk being higher than any purported benefit. The shot doesn't fail if you die; the shot fails if you get the flu, if you develop some sort of reaction to the latest adjuvant, if you go through the pain of getting a shot and never get exposed to the strain in the shot, etc.

Comment by August

2013-06-18T13:56:48Z

Butter is mostly animal fat, and animal fat is paleo. It does make sense to be initially suspicious of neolithic foods, but once you work out the relative safety of it- well, there are only so many things I can buy in the grocery store anymore... Now, some butters are worse than others, depending on how they are processed. Much depends on how many proteins remain in the butter.

Comment by August

2013-06-18T13:50:08Z

The only thing I'd add to this is that true vegans will eventually run into vitamin deficiency problems. B12 is the most obvious, but I am sure there are others. They feel better for a while because they stop eating crap, but eventually they run out of important stuff and can seriously damage themselves if they don't go off the diet.

Comment by August

2013-06-18T13:41:04Z

Re: Flu Shot chriskresser.com/…

Comment by August

2013-06-18T13:36:30Z

I know what Chantix is people. I used it to quit smoking years ago. Just quit cold turkey- that is depressing enough! The point is people were developing a vaccine to do something similar. Even if the vaccine is aimed at nicotine rather than blocking the receptor, it still is pretty dangerous in my opinion. There is a reason nicotine binds to that receptor so well. Chances are you'll have your body binding up things you need as well as nicotine.

Comment by August

2013-06-18T13:28:52Z

I don't think organic food was caused by autism either.

Comment by August

2013-06-18T13:27:02Z

They just say it, they don't prove it. There are correlations and since they've got the white coats they get to say that this particular correlation means causation. I was disappointed when I clicked on that link. I thought, this being paleohacks, you might have found something more persuasive than the average 'red-meat-is-bad' study.

Comment by August

2013-06-17T16:30:56Z

Always? Did you see the attempt at the anti-smoking 'vaccine'? It supposedly blocks the nicotine receptors in the brain. There are drugs- Chantix- that do the same thing. It causes depression. I stopped taking it as soon as possible. They were going to bring out a vaccine that did the same thing. The receptor is there for a reason, not just for smoking. I think they gave up- I hope. I don't think flu shots make the risk analysis. I think Chris Kressler explains the numbers on one of his podcasts. They are always shooting you up with the last virus, not the one you run into in the real world.

Comment by August

2013-06-17T16:23:45Z

Easily explainable by Mommy Bloggers Of Autistic Children. They all go gluten free organic. You have it backwards. Organic food is caused by autism. Much like low carb paleo was caused by obesity.

Comment by August

2013-06-17T15:43:07Z

LC/HF causes an insulin resistance because blood sugar is being reserved for the brain while everything else is being encouraged to run on ketones. In this context it is healthy. Additionally the LC/HF environment means less overall insulin, which may contribute to healing whatever issue causes the non-healthy version of IR, the one that happens in the presence of carbs. A few low carbers have SLOWLY ramped up their carbs and shown a healthy return of insulin sensitivity. Some pregnant paleors have had to deal with this too- they fail tests for gestational diabetes unless they ramp up.

Comment by August

2013-06-17T15:18:07Z

They tend to do something like a four to one ratio with fat/carbs. youtube.com/watch?v=VTsyz-HIEf4

Comment by August

2013-06-17T15:15:34Z

They certainly increase appetite. It's a bit scary, but in my opinion necessary if you are trying to grow muscle.