User david moss - PaleoHacks.com

Answer by David Moss for What source of carbs you feel best on?

2013-03-23T08:20:34Z

I'm pretty similar. I would suggest trying sweet potato too. I also tolerate (gluten free) oats quite well.

Answer by David Moss for How much protein each day you guys eat?

2013-03-13T19:01:11Z

About 15-17.5%. Higher if very low carb, lower if eating a few carbs.

Answer by David Moss for Easiest recipes for abundance?

2013-03-10T16:13:37Z

I pretty much always prescribe: putting a load of meat and vegetables in an oven and roasting them or putting a load of meat and vegetables in a huge pan or slow cooker with wine or pureed tomatoes and stewing them. The former's probably more useful if you're eating on the go, but the latter might be fine if you cook the sauce down enough.

Answer by David Moss for Detoxifying cleanse

2013-03-08T12:26:38Z

This is just a more or less random selection of fruits and vegetables. There's no benefit to be gained from this particular combination of plants, to the avoidance of meat or to the presence of lavender in your bath. It would also only be beneficial to avoid the flax seeds. Indeed, it would be a positive benefit to include some animal products, so you don't miss out on some compounds that genuinely are necessary for 'detoxing' (if the term has any meaning), to wit: methionine, taurine and choline.

Answer by David Moss for Meal plan for active teen girl w/ inflammed liver?

2013-03-08T08:22:37Z

Hi Zombers.

As everyone on here has noted, you need professional help for your eating disorder. Of course, you're already speaking to doctors who are fully aware of your eating disorder, so this is already given and you're already, obviously, getting professional help of some kind. If you want you can request a nutritionist via your doctor, but they will doubtless also tell you something that you don't want to here (that you need to focus on the eating disorder that is making you ill and not on dieting to lose weight), but they might at least give you some advice about precisely what foods to eat if that is what you want.

To clarify some of the points that have already been made. If you are dying from an eating disorder, your focus has to be on surviving that and not in losing 15lbs in the short term. You can't simultaneously deal with your eating disorder, while inadvisedly trying to lose a lot of weight simultaneously, by definition.

At the risk of drawing some ire, I'm going to address your question about what foods you should eat. To reiterate: this is not the thing to focus on right now. However, it's obvious that you're going to think about what foods you eat/don't eat now and it's obvious that you're going to have to think about it at some point in the future. Also one presumes that part of what is contributing to your eating disorder and questions on here is a fear of unhealthy food/eating the wrong thing, so it's worth addressing: Humans have eaten a very broad variety of foods in different combinations for hundreds of thousands of years while maintaining perfect health. Completely healthy diets have spanned from 90%+ potatoes to 90%+ animal meat and fat and everything in between. Practically any combination of protein, fat, starches vegetables, fruit will be fine. As has been noted before: any combination will definitely be better, in your position, than not eating anything.

It's quite definite that no-one here can advise you of what size portions of the above completely healthy foods you need to eat, since we don't know the details of your physical condition. If you are committed to eating healthily, but want guidance about what precisely to eat (which is to be expected) then the only way you can get this is by speaking to your doctor and explaining clearly that you want guidance on this. Eating healthily should obviously be your goal and the goal the doctors want you to work towards, but just to reiterate again: eating healthily cannot, for you, be at all focused on rapidly losing weight in the short term.

Answer by David Moss for Sugar Detox day 2, It's so hard

2013-03-05T15:28:50Z

Chocolate, like almost any stimulant, is going to be quite addictive. Think of it as akin to withdrawing from caffeine: in a few days you should be fine.

As to sugar- you can get a lot of sugar, if you like, from some paleo carbs. Not an ideal food in general, but if you drink some juice, you will get a decent quantity of sugar. A large glass of orange juice is about as much sugar as 50g 50% chocolate. Try that to see if it affects your cravings (I'm guessing it won't).

It may also be that you're craving tasty combinations of carbs and fat, in which case you might try some sweet potato and butter, or whatever.

All in all it seems obviously worthwhile to carry on not eating sugary stimulant foods. Feeling rubbish isn't a sign of dangerous detox, deficiency or anything.

Answer by David Moss for Depression and Paleo

2013-03-05T12:15:56Z

Basically just cut out the chocolate (I'm sure the theobromine and caffeine and withdrawal therefrom is having more of an impact on your mood and energy than the insulin from the milk in the chocolate- that and the large amounts of sugar).

Going all meat, fat and vegetables (which would therefore not be zero carb) sounds good in general. Going zero carb isn't obligatory, or necessarily helpful. Doing either would be good simply insofar as it would mean not eating chocolate. Including some sweet potato (or whatever starch you like) might "help you feel better."

Answer by David Moss for Can vegetarian food and diet help us to lose weight?

2013-03-04T10:33:07Z

This is a completely misconceived question. "Vegetarian" is defined by exclusion, namely: food that isn't meat. Therefore it makes no sense to ask whether 'vegetarian food' is good, because this is just asking 'is food which is not meat good?'

Answer by David Moss for Why am I so hungry? Day 2 of Paleo

2013-03-03T18:01:25Z

What would you have eaten before?

I know you specify that you're not eating fewer calories, but I think it's quite possible that you are underestimating calorie intake. When I started eating low carb (and not exactly paleo), I thought I was slathering on hundreds of calories, drenching my cabbage in olive oil, but it transpired that I wasn't. Calorie counting is also not an exact science.

Answer by David Moss for Hungry all the time, not losing weight like I thought

2013-03-03T17:57:27Z

I would go with a paleo diet more centred on meat, animal fat, vegetables and, if you like, starch, in place of processed white meat products, nuts and fruit. In particular fruit smoothies are unlikely to be satiating. Nuts too are mentioned on here with great regularity as something that doesn't satiate and which people like binging on. If you're not hungry eat more of a whole animal product (i.e. not just the lean bit) until you are satiated on protein and fat, rather than eating a modicum of lean meat and then snacking on apples.

Answer by David Moss for Paleo (W30-compliant) caffeine without coffee

2013-03-03T16:07:59Z

I have sought this too, because I get a bad reaction from the tannins in coffee/tea/chocolate. I just take caffeine pills, which are basically just caffeine and a bit of glucose, thus avoiding the need for energy drinks. This helps reduce the psychological component of caffeine addiction too (i.e. the associations/enjoyment of drinking caffeinated beverages).

Answer by David Moss for Why am I addicted to almonds?

2013-03-03T12:56:06Z

It's presumably largely because they "taste amazing" and are very easy to eat. I think it is extremely unlikely that you are driven to eat almonds due to magnesium deficiency or some such (especially since almonds, like chocolate, contain a lot of antinutrients which will stop absorption of this nutrient), hence why most people don't find themselves binging on magnesium supplements, tomato juice or spinach. I think one of the main distinguishing features between almonds (unsatiating) and heavy cream (satiating, at least in my experience) is that cream on its own is quite uninteresting.

Body by Science: Hype, hack, paleo?

2010-02-18T12:22:42Z

Inspired by this question about CrossFit, I'm wondering what people think about Body By Science, (in some ways, the polar opposite of CrossFit)?

Broadly, BBS calls for a very intense, ultra-slow weights workout once a week, potentially lasting no more than 12 minutes in total and is positively critical of long sessions or specifically designed to improve "aerobic fitness".

Even if this system is effective, do people think it's paleo, compared say to more 'natural,' or 'spontaneous' approaches?

Answer by David Moss for Feeling terrible and dont want to workout anymore... HELP!

2013-02-27T13:11:08Z

Eat a few more carbs. I personally think there are loads of benefits to low carbing and no necessity for moderate-high carbing in general. That said, after a heavy workout (which includes any kind of weights) there is no reason not to and ample reason in favour of having a couple of sweet potatoes to replenish one's depleted glycogen. If you want, you can still keep carbohydrate content very low outside of the post-exercise window.

Answer by David Moss for Nada's disgusting, bigoted and sexist

2013-02-24T08:50:32Z

A difference in life expectancy isn't necessarily a problem. Saying that it's not a problem that men live shorter lives than women doesn't mean that it's not a bad thing that men die or that men live shorter lives per se. There are lots of biological inequalities that we don't think are a problem (e.g. that women can run less fast than men). Were it the case that men or women lived shorter lives because some contingent environmental problem caused one of the sexes to live much shorter lives then we might say there is a problem. But that might well not be due to the relative difference, but due to the fact that one sex were living less than they could do were the problem rectified. If it's just a deep-seated biological fact that men die sooner, it's not clear that we are mandated to work to make every man live longer so that there is less of a gap between men and women, rather than just work to increase life expectancy in general.

Answer by David Moss for Unpasteurized Cheese UK?

2013-02-19T12:09:40Z

Sainsbury and Tesco both sell unpasteurised cheese (both do cheddars from Canada, if I recall correctly, and Sainsburys has some other unpasteurised french cheeses.

Answer by David Moss for LG and carb-loading/refeeding: anti-Paleo ideology?

2013-02-17T17:28:24Z

Like you I much prefer being low carb, for the positive benefits in how I feel. There's certainly no need to avoid ketosis. If you want to improve your capacity for sprinting and such high intensity stuff, then I think you would only need a quite modest increase in carb intake. Rather than diving in with some huge 'refeed' you may as well just try gradually increasing your carbohydrate intake- especially immediately after exercise- and see what happens.

Answer by David Moss for How much protein do you eat?

2013-02-17T10:42:10Z

Probably around 15% calories- 100g give or take. A little bit more than the average, which is around 12% (pretty uniformly).

Answer by David Moss for Has anyone else started calling people folks? Why people pick up habits from others

2013-02-13T18:53:23Z

I've never listened to Robb Wolf, so no.

Answer by David Moss for Help. I'm new. Limited budget and need to plan a 2 week menu and shopping list.

2013-02-12T17:31:02Z

I mostly just buy the cheapest kinds of meats (ground beef, roasting joints, tough slow-cook cuts or any kind of offal) and some vegetables (largely carrots or frozen brocolli or spinach in my case, but sweet potato would be another cheap option). Then roast them all up or chop and fry or stew. You don't really need to think about the details too much other than meat + vegetables- just get whatever is cheap and convenient.

Answer by David Moss for Diet unpalatable + concerned about sleep

2013-02-09T15:05:42Z

Paleo doesn't need to involve piles of meat with some plant-based garnish. You can still eat "a lot of seafood, vegetables, fruits, "safe starch." If you prefer seafood, don't eat any other meat at all.

There's almost certainly nothing specific to cake that you're missing. Perhaps try eating your safe starch with more butter/coconut oil. You might not be eating sufficient calories, that will certainly make you weak and sleepy.

Answer by David Moss for HELP! MY PARENTS WANT ME TO STOP!

2013-02-08T12:21:54Z

This is really difficult and I've experienced similar responses from my own family. I would recommend just saying that you will eat a lot of some paleo carb. No-one can reasonably insist that grains and dairy specifically are necessary for runners (though, of course, many nutritionists will try). You can easily eat an entire butternut squash quite frequently within a paleo framework, which should be seen as a decent amount of food. Of course there is no guaranteed that this will be acknowledge, I for example, have been accused of not eating enough even when I've had my plate piled high with beef and a kilogram of carrots or 6 egg omelettes with 100g of butter. Basically people have very inflexible ideas of what food is normal and required, so if I'm eating 500g livers made into pate with butter and cream or eating, I'll still be told that I need a slice of toast with it (nutritionally), or be told that I need something other than an entire 1000kcal+ block of coconut cream before going out (like some rice crispies) or else I'll be hungry.

Answer by David Moss for Expert opinions needed

2013-02-08T09:43:31Z

Perhaps what you need is not just carbs per se but some of the nutrients (potassium, magnesium) commonly found in carbohydrate foods. I would suggest making some carrot soup (boiling a load of carrots, pureeing them, seasoning with herbs/spices/butter iyl). This will give you a modest amount of carbohydrate, but also a lot of nutrients and should be significantly more filling than other sources. I would boil up 1kg or so at a time and eat until you're satiated- you don't need to eat all of it!

It's also possible that you don't do well on dairy, so you might try cutting the yoghurt. You might also want to try out protein sources other than eggs.

You don't need "expert advice" to eat protein for breakfast. It's worth just experimenting

Answer by David Moss for why does chocolate give me a sore throat?

2013-02-07T06:08:21Z

Tannins. These have been discussed here quite a lot in connection with chocolate, but basically, they will serve to slough the mucus lining away from your throat and chocolate is extremely high in them.

Answer by David Moss for Does Paleo ever become less time consuming?

2013-02-06T11:52:38Z

Almost all of the time-consuming activity you mention isn't necessary for paleo.

I spend most of Sunday afternoon and into the evening putting together and roasting Chicken

All you need to do is put some meat in the oven and you've prepared days worth of meat.

Pumpkin pancakes

I've never heard of a pumpkin pancake, but it's surely not necessary to a paleo lifestyle. Preparing a pumpkin/squash/etc. just requres putting a pumpkin in the oven.

Cook the pumpkin/squash/sweet potato or whatever in the oven alonside the meat and you've made multiple meals. Conversely, if you want to cut down on the cooking time you can just fry meat and vegetables together.

Answer by David Moss for Why does my skin and energy get so much worse when I eat paleo?

2013-02-06T10:31:41Z

Eating tens of thousands of calories of junk food will doubtless make your skin 'glow' and you feel full of energy. Eating more than a couple of pounds of beef will just make you feel sick and full of beef. I would suggest eating beef and sweet potato instead.

Answer by David Moss for Olive oil in the UK

2013-02-05T18:02:59Z

I buy mine from Oxfam. It's organic, fruity and peppery, fair-trade etc. That's the brand: http://www.zaytoun.org/products/catalogue/organic-fairtrade-extra-virgin-olive-oil/

Answer by David Moss for Chickpeas paleo yes or no

2013-02-04T17:32:52Z

There's no point being paleo just for the sake of it. Chickpeas are by definition not paleo, but they may well not be a disaster for some people. The downsides would be them being a concentrated source of starch (bad if you want to restrict carbs, not so bad if you're an athlete), containing some anti-nutrients and suchlike that may irritate the gut (individual responses may vary and the anti-nutrition will not be so significant if you are eating lots of other foods and just having some hummus), relatively high in omega 6 (again, only a concern if you are eating significant quantities- if you're having a little bit of hummus, then the tahini and oil will be a much larger source of omega 6). Hummus is probably going to be quite unhelpful for weight loss anyway insofar as it presents a highly palatable source of concentrated calories, irrespective of whether it's made of chickpeas or some paleo substitute.

Answer by David Moss for Need sound advice on my situation, struggling all around

2013-02-04T13:07:12Z

I've found that it can be quite difficult to lose the last bit of belly fat even when one has extremely low body fat elsewhere (e.g. when your face is so thin people think you are anorexic, where you can see the striations of the muscles on your chest, shoulder and thighs clearly etc.). Since going low carb paleo I've found my body composition or fat distribution has improved somewhat, so my face appears fuller and more muscular while the rest of me appears leaner. If the fat you want to lose is concentrated around your abdomen you might want to focus on some stress-reduction techniques. One thing that I did notice make a difference to my belly fat is long, low-moderate intensity cardio. I generally believe that high intensity exercise is the important thing for health, weight loss and recomposition, but seemingly this long-slow cardio did some good (maybe through burning more calories than intense work, maybe through stress/cortisol modulation, maybe through appetite suppression, who knows...). In any case, that would feed into my suggestion for exercise in general, which would be for more intense exercise than crossfit (short bursts of HIIT and/or weights in particular) plus longer, lower intensity stuff than crossfit. It may be that crossfit is the best thing for you to fit into your life in practice though, so weigh up the pros and cons.

If you have issues with depression etc then getting plentiful good omega 3, magnesium, b vitamins and anything else related to it should be a priority.

Impossible to judge whether you would do better eating more calories, less calories, more fat or less fat and more carbs: I think you'll just have to experiment.

There are lots of tricks/hacks that might reduce body fat some more. Intermittent fasting or eating within a limited window of time might help. Taking some creatine to go along with the more intense exercise and raise testosterone levels might help. Blandifying your diet might also be a good move. Don't pay too much attention to the hierarchy: for example, if you're low carb, it seems particularly unlikely that there's any reason to avoid adding oil to meal and instead 'eating it on the side.' For me, the last three steps (presented as the most extreme) are obvious, low cost things that almost everyone should do, conversely.

Answer by David Moss for Recommendation for a high-carb book

2013-02-03T17:29:11Z

There won't be any books defending against Taubes' thesis, because Taubes is the one opposing the mainstream. Those representing the view Taubes criticises have little incentive to address a whole book to defend against his views.

The best place to look for discussion of this would be on the WholeHealthSource blog, where Stephan explicitly argues against the insulin hypothesis. Relatedly, Taubes and Stephan just had comments published in Nature about this.

Comment by David Moss

2013-03-14T18:19:07Z

It is a gender issue if a lot more men think breastfeeding is necessary than women - that is unless men are just more nurturing and self-sacrificial than women. I agree incidentally, that breastfeeding is close to obligatory unless it's impossible... but I also think that most educated women these days acknowledge that and feel very self-conscious if they can't manage it. If Linds is speaking to people who are less educated about the benefits (perhaps because they're younger), then that probably explains the different attitudes more than women being lazier and more selfish these days.

Comment by David Moss

2013-03-09T20:57:13Z

You don't need to apologise.

Comment by David Moss

2013-03-08T17:28:35Z

It may be true that it would be better if the person with ED had not come onto PH to seek diet advice. But given that they have come on here to ask about diet, then it's probably best to response and reiterate than there's no reason (even by paleo logic) to be restricting their diet.

Comment by David Moss

2013-03-08T17:25:56Z

In that scenario it would seem even more clear that it would be better to carry on speaking to them, telling them to seek help, than to say "Not appropriate" and forcibly stop them speaking to us. A disanalogy between the situations is that suicide is not intrinsically to do with food, whereas ED is: in virtue of this, I think it's helpful and necessary to keep pointing out that no, restrictive diet isn't necessary and that a broad variety of foods can be healthy...

Comment by David Moss

2013-03-08T13:58:08Z

The presence of less cooked meat in the middle of the meat doesn't suffice to offset the (possible) harms of the outside being very cooked. The biologically relevant thing is whether any of the meat has been cooked at a high temperature. The inside of the meat will necessarily be less cooked anyway.

Comment by David Moss

2013-03-07T21:25:25Z

Fwiw, I'm not sure closing that closing the thread is the best move in this situation. To be sure, the best advice to give here is to seek professional help, but it seems more likely that the OP will take that advice if they continue being told that here rather than being shut out. Ideally, of course PH would not have to field these questions, but if we are asked them, it's not obvious that we should ignore them.

Comment by David Moss

2013-03-06T20:03:15Z

Yup. Definitely the stimulants.

Comment by David Moss

2013-03-06T17:28:43Z

I second reading the evolutionary psychiatry blog anyway, esp the stuff about ED and OCD.

Comment by David Moss

2013-03-06T14:04:39Z

Yup, the ones I get are only 50mg each, so even simpler.

Comment by David Moss

2013-03-06T11:17:42Z

It's not a given that he needs to eat less than his appetite. His appetite may be more or less than his required calorie intake. Changing diet may reduce appetite to less than maintenance calories. That's doubtless more sustainable than simply being hungry forevermore.

Comment by David Moss

2013-03-06T11:14:29Z

No, I would recommend exchanging your chicken/turkey for beef (lower PUFA, more micronutrients).

Comment by David Moss

2013-03-03T20:57:53Z

You can't get the relevant kind of K2 (K2-MK4) only the evolutionarily novel K2-MK7, which isn't utilised as efficiently). You can't get the relevant kind of omega 3, unless you are eating crazy amounts of algae and you can't efficiently convert the plant form. I don't know what you mean by "healthy fats" but you will find it difficult to get i) animal form o3, ii) SFA (aside from from coconut, iii) will find it hard to avoid PUFA if you are eating grains, beans, soy, nuts, lots of vegetables.

Comment by David Moss

2013-03-03T20:15:41Z

I said it was "extremely unlikely" that it was due to a magnesium deficiency.

Comment by David Moss

2013-03-03T19:02:10Z

Doesn't sound much different then, but lacking the gluten free bread. I would just eat more eggs and whatnot. It's also worth bearing in mind that a salad is necessarily a very slowly digested mode of energy, conversely gluten free bread would hit your blood stream very quickly.

Comment by David Moss

2013-03-03T16:05:46Z

Exactly, that supports my case entirely. It might be worth not eating almonds around the time of your magnesium supplementation just so as to reduce the extend to which its anti-nutrients can interfere with it.