Almost right

Here's an interesting short video about fat, even though the "brushing off" of saturated fat is wrong. At least science is heading in the general direction of the truth. One can only hope.

http://ed.ted.com/lessons/what-is-fat-george-zaidan

The Bionic Broad out.

Hitting the wall

With the advent of summer vacation, I usually begin my day with the recorded TV shows that Best Half doesn't especially care for, and Chopped is usually good for some mindless entertainment.

But I knew that I was in trouble when all four contestant chefs had each lost at least 100 pounds by giving up, "butter, cream, and all those other harmful fats." Then, when one of the ingredients in the basket was pork rinds, Ted Allen lamely quipped, "You gain weight just looking at pork rinds." I looked at my cup of coffee (Fat-bomb coffee) and hoisted the sucker in a toast to Mainstream Media Culture's continuing state of willful ignorance.

If I eat a diet of pastries, bread, pasta, potatoes, cake, pie, candy, rice, corn, sugar, sugar, carb, carb, carb, how can I blame the fat for my obesity? This reminds me of my teacher days, when whining students would bleat, "How can I have an F? I turned everything in." Right.

At the high school where I'm blessed to be employed, I see students, every day, mind you, stand in line to get their pizza slice, fruit drink, chocolate milk, and apple or carrots. The kids then blot the pizza with a napkin, complaining about the grease. The grease?!? How about the crust (sugar), the drinks (sugar), and the raw veg/fruit (sugar)? How about the baked "chips" (sugar), the fruit cocktail (sugar), the cookies (sugar), the slushees (sugar), the sports drinks (sugar), and the frozen treats (sugar)? Or the French toast sticks (sugar), the pancakes with syrup (sugar), and the Pop Tarts (sugar)? The students eat this way every day, a population that is 75 - 80% Latino, genetically pre-disposed to diabetes and obesity.  But oh no, it's the arterycloggingsaturatedfat! And we wonder why so many of our young people look like Pillsbury Doughbutts.

(Breathe. Breathe.)

We. Need. Saturated. Fat.

People on low-fat and/or high-sugar diets are starving themselves at a cellular level. When they take the fat out of their diet, it has to be replaced with something, and that something is usually some form of carb: Starches and sugars/fructose. Blood sugar levels rise; insulin is triggered. Insulin not only stores fat, but prevents the fat cells from releasing those fatty acids to be burned for energy. In the process, the mitochondria (the "energy factories" of the cell) are damaged. We get fat.

I know thin, hard-hitting gym rats who could out-perform me at any physical task, and who are on brutally low-fat diets. Their skin looks hard and stretched, because saturated fat keeps the cellular walls pliable, allowing waste products out. Sat-fat-depleted cell walls get stiff and non-porous, trapping those wastes in the cell, which shortens the life expectancy of the cell. Think of plastic left out too long in the sun. Cr-r-r-a-a-a-ack.

I know people who insist that they need carb for energy, and eat lots of it, avoiding all those "evil fats." They have skinny arms, and skinny legs. And pot-bellies. And bra-rolls. They are the skinny-fat ones, who probably have much more visceral (internal) fat than is healthy, wrapped around their gizzard. Visceral fat is NOT inert. It is very much active, and the chemicals it pumps out cause inflammation of the blood vessel walls. That inflammation is what causes our arteries to clog like a sink trap at a beauty shop.

Since low-fat dieters (and Typical American Diet-eaters) give their bodies an unending supply of sugar, the liver doesn't need do one of its most important jobs, which is the on-demand conversion of non-carb sources into glucose (gluconeogenesis). So, it gets very lazy. This can lead to a fatty liver, which results in scarring and eventual cirrhosis. (My obese grandmother, who never touched a drop of alcohol in her life, was found at the time of her death to have cirrhosis.)

 We. Don't. Need. Carb. (Just in case you didn't read the explanation of gluconeogenesis.)

Imagine my trying to use a tiny charcoal grill to cook up big, juicy steaks for the whole family. Since I can't get enough charcoal into that itsy-bitsy hibachi to do the whole job, I have to keep adding more and more fuel, and more and more charcoal lighter to ignite that fuel. Eventually, I might get done, but, by then, my family would be a semi-circle of starved skeletons around the grill.

Now imagine a different scenario: Me, my brand-new gas grill, and a freshly filled canister of propane. Fuel on demand. Turn up the heat. Turn down the heat. In a flash, I would be done, my family and I around the table, stuffed and steak-breathed.

Why would I want to burn sugar, a short-term storage solution in the body? After my glycogen stores in the muscles and liver are depleted, and I "hit the wall," so to speak, what am I supposed to do? Insulin keeps me from burning my own fat for energy. Well, guess what I do? I crave and eat more carb. And hit the wall again. And crave. And crave. And crave. The body won't let itself starve.

Why not choose to burn a readily available source? Once the body goes into a health-promoting fat-burning mode (ketosis), we have energy whenever we need it. Plus, it puts the liver back to work. We burn our own fat. The liver burns its fat. A win-win situation if there ever was one. Thinner me. Thinner liver.

But no. Cream and butter are evil, and pork rinds make us porky. Hand me those rice cakes, will you?

The Bionic Broad out.

Hard truth

Photo courtesy of mepassaocardapio.com

Oh, where to begin, where to begin?

For the past two weeks, I have been mentally wrestling with the idea of "man vs. food," and, by that, I am not referring to the nausea-inducing TV show of the same name. (Dear Lord, I have a stomach that can hold 6 - 8 ounces. What would I do with 5 pounds of food? Aaargh.)

Yesterday, with my newly-sleeved Bro-in-Law, I was discussing the fact that Sleeved Ones oftentimes undergo a grieving process for food. No longer are we able to eat recreationally, emotionally, or frequently. We are slapped in the face with the fact that we not only have developed a relationship with a non-sentient item, but that the relationship has to change. That brought me around to the idea of "comfort food."

We chide older children for still sucking their thumb, or carrying around a tattered blanket, or refusing to give up a care-worn stuffed animal. But while we berate our children, we think nothing of glomming down a bag of chips, a carton of ice cream, a few chocolate bars, more than a few brews, or a 2-liter of soda after a terrible week. Comfort thumb, comfort binky, comfort bear, comfort food.

Almost all comfort foods are high in carbs: The pasta in the mac and cheese or lasagna, the sugar in the chocolate or ice cream, the grain in the beer, or the potatoes in the chips or mash. And, usually, these foods are associated with pleasant memories, much like the bubble-gum pop music I used to listen to when I was but a wee thing.

From a biochemical standpoint, the rise in blood sugar (glucose) from all that carb is temporarily calming, and acts like a short-term relaxant, a bit of a narcotic. (Then the "crash," of course, and the cravings, and the jitters, and more carb, and the "crash," and...well, you get the picture.)

Comfort foods are powerful reminders of past relationships, loved ones gone, and happy childhood times. But there comes a time when the foods, themselves, become more important than the comfort they bring.  

When I was in the military, I'd swill alcohol at the club with friends after a particularly tough week. Eventually, I needed no tough week as an excuse to swill. The alcohol became more important than the de-stressing sessions with friends. I didn't need the friends, only the alcohol. "Warning, Bill Robinson!"

Such it is with comfort foods. More times than I can count, I hear people say, "I'msofatI'msofatI'msofatI'msofatI'msofatI'msofatI'msofatI'msofat," and then snarf the monstrously huge Panera bagel, chocolate bar, piece of cake, doughnut, or box of Cheez-Its.

As Cher said in Moonstruck, "SNAP OUT OF IT!!!!!!!"

For crying out loud, what do we want?

Is the food more important than liking what we see in the mirror, wearing with no shame a bathing suit, being able to move during sex, or keeping up with kids and grand-kids? If so, every time we open our mouth to complain about our weight, plug it with Panera.

If not, if our health and happiness and self-esteem and image are more important, we must find a way to cope with the emotions that send us running for culinary comfort.

Before you pop the Pringles or dunk the doughnut, EAT SATURATED FAT. Let me repeat that: FAT. SATURATED. EAT IT.

Have a cup of coffee or tea. Add heavy cream. Sweeten to taste with Splenda, etc., or don't sweeten it, if you're a Yankee. Eat a couple pieces of bacon, or a few cubes of full-fat cheese. (Touch a cracker and I'll slap your hand.)

After 15 - 20 minutes, if you still want the carby comfort, go for it. But you won't eat as much, trust me. You might not eat it at all.

Carbs beget cravings, cravings beget carbs, which beget even more cravings. It is a cruel fact of obese life: The more carbage we eat, the more we want, ad nauseum.

Lousy week? Breathe deeply. (Stress causes us to tighten our upper body, reducing the amount of air we pull in.) Walk the dog or yourself. Clean out a drawer, or clear some annoying clutter. Play a mindless online game. Call a friend. Watch a few videos from Wimp.com.

If you've done all that, and you still want to eat, substitute: Eat the darkest chocolate that you can, at least 78% cocoa. Munch nuts (not cashews - too high in sugar). Fry full-fat hard cheese until it's crispy. Eat fresh berries sweetened with Splenda and drowned in heavy cream. Microwave pepperoni until it's crispy and use the chips to scoop up your favorite (full-fat and not loaded with corn syrup) dip. Make that grilled cheese with tons of real butter, full-fat cheese, and a lower-carb bread (My Male Household uses Oroweat's Double Fiber bread.) Use Dreamfields lower-carb pasta to make that mac and cheese, spaghetti, or lasagna. Do something.

But let's not open our pie hole and moan "I'msofatI'msofatI'msofat" if we're not willing to do something about it.

The Bionic Broad (who still battles the Chip Monster) out.

Don't get statin-ed

Do you take statins? Do you know someone who does? Please make the time to watch this, and share it with your friends and loved ones.

The Bionic Broad out.

Juiced

Yesterday, I had my two-month check-in with the post-op Bariatric physician. In the waiting room, a video played on a monitor, in some Time Lord never-ending loop. Please understand that this medical office mostly services patients who are, like me, post-op, and those attending the required classes before having weight-loss surgery. Let's just say that all the chairs in the joint are triple-wide.

I didn't pay much attention to the video, as I was busy trying to conquer level 17 on Jewels Deluxe. But one speaker came on, and his voice was so nasal and whiny that I had to listen. After I had gone through a full loop and watched the whole message, I was flabbergasted.

I want you to imagine a weight-loss center waiting room running a loop of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Or anything off of Food Network. Silly, right?

In my waiting room, before an audience of many people weighing 300+ pounds, my HMO was running a video on the benefits of a diet full of fruit and vegetable juices.

Excuse me?

Behold:

1.  Protein and carbohydrate are turned into glucose, a type of sugar.

2. The normal and healthy amount of glucose in our bloodstream at any given time is about 1 teaspoon.

3.  A half-cup of tomato juice has about 5 grams of carb. One gram = 1/4 teaspoon. So, that measly half-cup of tomato juice has over a teaspoon of sugar. It may not sound like much, but, without the fiber to slow down the impact of the sugar hitting the bloodstream, the juice makes our blood sugar level double within 7 minutes. That triggers insulin, and, if you read my last post, you know that that is B-A-D for those trying to lose or maintain their weight. (Actually, it's bad for everyone.)

4. At the opposite end of the spectrum, grape and cranberry juices have about 18 grams of carb per tiny little half cup. Doing the math, each half cup packs a blood sugar wallop of over a tablespoon of sugar. That level of sugar in the blood is toxic, and must be dealt with. That is the job of insulin, as you know, which handles the situation by forcing that glucose into the fat cells, oftentimes in the belly. Not good.

God didn't put bottles of juice on trees and sprouting from the ground. If you want fruit, eat fruit, preferably low-sugar ones like berries. That berry is a whole package, with all the nutrients and fiber.

It's the same with veggies. Choose non-starchy ones, in all of Nature's colors. They, too, are dense packages of nutrition. Potatoes, peas, corn, and iceberg lettuce don't qualify. 

So ask yourself. Would you rather have the steak, or the blood squeezed from the steak? Sure changes the face of the backyard BBQ, doesn't it?

The Bionic Broad out.

Coconutz

It's already been an interesting morning: Both cats threw up at the same time, coordinated as if they were doing some kind of underwater ballet. My Best Half saved me by having the coffee ready to pour this morning. The joys of marrying the right person.

And speaking of coffee (Great transition, huh?), I have used myself as a guinea pig this week. With a Costco-sized block of cream cheese under one arm, and two quarts of organic virgin coconut oil under the other, I made a concentrated effort to get my diet up to approximately 80% fat calories. Since the fat-phobic among you just fainted, I'll keep talking to those of you who know that saturated fat is healthy, artery-CLEARING, HDL-elevating, satiating, and necessary for a healthy brain.

I started each morning with my fat-bomb coffee: At least a tablespoon of the coconut oil, EZ-Sweetz (liquid Splenda), and heavy whipping cream. That kept me happy and humming until lunch-time. Lunch was as much as I wanted of cream cheese and bacon, or cream cheese and sliced radishes. In the afternoon, I drank my thermos of fat-bomb coffee. My evening meal one day was a few cubes of roast beef and cabbage frizzled in bacon grease. Last night was a bit of full-fat cheese with crispy Swiss chard chips. I've also had steamed broccoli and asparagus, both drowned in butter. Last night, I made low-carb coconut-almond shortbread with coconut oil instead of butter. I was really craving something sweet. And what were the results?

I am currently taking an antibiotic that can lead to tendon rupture, so I have not been to the gym. I normally walk no more than 4,000 steps a day, as I have a desk job. So...

I lost four pounds this week.

Yes, this is counter-intuitive. Some would cry, "Water weight!" I could reasonably agree with that, but let me mention another fact: I lost almost an inch off of my waist this week. No poopie.

That's not water weight, that is belly fat gone.

I mentioned in my last entry that, if insulin is circulating in the bloodstream, the body can't tap the fat cells for fuel. All insulin allows is fat STORAGE. Both carb, especially sugar and other highly processed crap foods, and too MUCH protein, can trigger insulin excretion.

Short- and medium-chain fats like butter and coconut oil are burned quickly for energy, in the absence of carbohydrate, and are much less likely to be stored as fat. It's as if they have priority seating on that metabolic airplane. If you add carbohydrate to the mix, especially sugar, all of a sudden that sugar is now the first-class passenger, and fat storage revs up while the fat is kept waiting for its turn. Not good.

In my case, with insulin kept low, and without much cheap-and-easy sugar to burn, my pancreas had to release glucagon, a hormone that allows for the release of fat for fuel. (It's as if insulin is glucagon's evil twin.)  Insulin lowers blood sugar levels by loading up the fat cells, especially those in the belly. Glucagon raises blood sugar levels by tapping fat cells for fuel for the body to burn for energy. There's a lot more to it than that, but I am not a biochemist, and do not claim to be.

I'm just a broad with weight to lose.

People who eat the Typical American Diet (TAD) usually have big bellies and muffin-tops. Now you know why. They are also insulin-resistant, meaning that their fat cells are more and more hesitant to accept that new fat. Imagine what your living situation would be like if, one by one, your relatives and friends showed up at the door, suitcase in hand, to live with you. Eventually, overcrowded, you would yell, "Enough is enough!" That's what TAD-plumped fat cells do.

Now imagine your friends and relatives hiring armed thugs to intimidate you into letting them move in, no matter what you say. That's what the pancreas does. It makes more, and more, and more insulin to FORCE those reluctant cells to let the fat in. Eventually, your pancreas gets tired and gives up. Voila! You are now diabetic. What a gift.

Low-carb eaters are also insulin-resistant, but in a different way. Because blood sugar is kept to a minimum, and the brain needs blood sugar, the rest of the body locks and bars the door to new fats being stored. "Take that delivery to the brain," they say. So what do the cells use for energy? They run on ketones, chemicals resulting from burning fat for fuel. Body cells like ketones. Heart cells LOVE ketones. And, just as nice, cancer cells LOATHE ketones. They can't run on them.

So, let's see. Low-carb eating = No new fat storage, body taps fat cells for energy and produces ketones, brain gets the glucose, the body runs well on ketones, heart function actually improves with ketones, and cancer cells can't grow well in those conditions. Sounds like a win-win to me.

Bring on that sat fat. I have 5 more pounds to lose to get to goal.

The Bionic Broad out.

Fat is our friend

Side note: I don't know how much longer I'm going to keep this blog "on the air," so to speak. The 'net is swarming with a gazillion sites that highlight all aspects of the low-carb lifestyle. There are tons of good sites that have recipes, and humor, and...well...they do it much better than I do.


I have been a low-carber on and off since Dr. Atkins published his first book in the early 70s. My weight has been down (age 18, weight 145, desperate to join the Army), and up (age 35, first pregnancy, weight 245), and down again (age 56, one year post-gastric sleeve, weight 165). Through the years, I've known, based on research and personal experience, that eschewing carbohydrate is the healthiest way of eating (WOE). Even when I was eating 1 - 2 pounds of candy every weekend, I knew that I was killing myself. I'd drown myself in sugar, then go back to low-carbing. I bounced around like this for years, at least until I lost one of my good friends to diabetes.

B. and I had been friends for 20 years. I never knew if she was a Type 1 diabetic, or a Type 2 that ended up insulin-dependent. Through the years, she would "play" with her insulin, adjusting her dosage when she wanted to eat something that she knew that she shouldn't. Eventually, she ended up in the hospital, one leg amputated, 90% blockage around her heart, and kidneys non-functioning. She lasted longer than the doctors expected, but even B. couldn't survive all that. When I got the phone call from her daughter, I broke down. B., younger than me, gone. 

That did it. I had to quit playing around with my WOE. 

Fact: Any time our blood sugar goes over 140, we are doing cellular damage. That damage is cumulative. 

Fact: The normal amount of sugar (glucose) in our bloodstream at any given time is about 1 teaspoon. Think about that sugary soda, or dessert, or piece of candy, that contains 7 - 8 teaspoons of sugar. That amount of sugar is toxic to the body.

Fact: Cancer cells have to have glucose. They can't run on anything else. The higher the blood sugar level, the happier they are. The more they grow. It's no coincidence that people who have high blood sugar often develop cancer. One of my church friends developed liver cancer. What did the doctor tell him to eat? Fruit. Lots of fruit. My friend is no longer on this earth. Another church friend, a diabetic, ate his waffle combo every morning without fail. Yep, you guessed it: Pancreatic cancer, and also gone.

Fact: You DON'T NEED carbohydrates. The liver makes all the glucose we need, on demand. The brain needs glucose, so the liver supplies it. Ketones, the by-products of burning fat for fuel, are what the heart prefers. The rest of the body does very well on them, too, thank you very much.

Fact: Dietary fat doesn't make us fat. Dietary carbohydrate, especially sugar, does.  Dietary fat is our friend. It keeps us full. It doesn't cause insulin, the fat-STORING hormone, to be released. It causes glucagon, the fat-RELEASING hormone, to be released. 

If you are fat and craving sweets, it's because you are starving at a cellular level. 

Once insulin packs fat into those cells, and your carbohydrate-rich diet keeps insulin circulating in your blood stream, the body CANNOT tap those fat cells for energy. You are starving. You are hungry. You crave sweets. The body needs fuel. But here's how to break the cycle: DON'T give the body more insulin-releasing carb. Give it lots of fat and some protein. Seriously. 

Warning: If you have been on a low-fat diet for years, adding a lot of fat to your diet all at once could aggravate your gall bladder. Please talk with your doctor, who will, of course, tell you that you're going to clog your arteries with all that fat, and that your kidneys will explode with all that protein. Yada yada yada. Do yourself a favor and find a doctor who can read. There's a ton of research out there proving him or her wrong. Maybe find a more educated doctor?

Use whipping cream in your coffee. Eat bacon and whole eggs. Put real butter on those non-starchy veggies. Eat full-fat cheeses and fatty meats, like salami. BUT: You can't do this while, at the same time, eating a high-carb diet. You must choose one path, and one path only, grasshopper.

Am I skinny? No. Do I still need to lose about 10 pounds? Yes. But that's not where I want to focus. I am looking down the road: Diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, psoriasis and other auto-immune diseases. All these things can be directly linked to Metabolic Syndrome, a by-product of the Typical American Diet (TAD). I know that I'm going to die of something, but there seems to be some better ways to go, eh?  

The Bionic Broad out.