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January 19, 2010
Faith
I was just whining to CR-girlfriend Paige that I am feeling a little unmotivated. I'd been doing so well, seeing weight loss on the scale, major improvement in my Pilates practice, feeling more energetic and better over all. But in the last couple of days I'm feeling a little less enthusiastic. Last night I went out with a friend who knows nothing of CR and ended up splitting a cheeseburger and fries. Hadn't done that in ages. It tasted pretty good, especially the dead cow, but of course I felt awful afterward, not guilty just icky. And then I didn't sleep well, and had to get up and run to get my stuff together to go to Scranton, then go to the office for a rather intense two hour meeting, then hit the road for a three hour foggy drive. I was tired, a little stressed, and not feeling like hanging out all day in the cold.
I'm back to not eating breakfast again, so I didn't eat until close to noon when I was driving. I reached into my food bag, packed with bok choi and romaine salad, nonfat organic yogurt, turkey cooked in red wine vinegar with capers, flax oil, and so I thought, two pre-measured bags of almonds and pumpkin seeds. I was going to have my strength-providing bag of nuts and seeds on the journey, but I couldn't find them. They were nowhere in the bag and I thought, how stupid, I made such an effort to carefully pack every morsel of my food and now I forgot something!
So I bought a stick of string cheese, 80 cals of part skim mozzarella, at the Allentown rest stop. Fought an epic battle with the wrapper to open it, ate it, felt okay. Got to my meeting at a Perkins. The sweet nurses I met with insisted on buying lunch, and we all got breakfast. I had an eggwhite omelet with mushrooms, tomatoes, mushrooms, green peppers and onions. Decaf coffee and diet Coke. Tomato slices on the side, obviously no pancakes or toast or potatoes. One of the nurses had wheat toast and a fruit cup. The other had one egg sunny side up and blueberry pancakes.
Meeting was great... a reminder of why I do the work I do.
Then I drove back to the hotel and realized I was starving. And feeling very, very low energy. Had meant to work out but realized it wasn't going to happen. Got out my turkey and salad and ate some of it. Eventually MR wrote and remembered that he'd put my nuts and seeds bags in the bag with my supplements in my suitcase, so I did in fact have them, but by this time I was already full. I did some work, caught up on some emails, wrote a silly blog about lip gloss.
I was just feeling exhausted and unmotivated. The scale was up this morning, of course, and on Monday I had the worst Pilates class ever. My teacher was out of town and we had a sub, whose entire workout seemed to revolve around exercises that I can't do with my tailbone injury, even though it's so much better since Iyengar. I somehow managed to re-injure the tailbone, so sitting hurt for the rest of the day. I sat there thinking I'd have been better off staring into space for an hour, attempting to modify the exercises. Not an inspiring experience.
I was feeling extremely inspired about the projects I'm working on with RDF and Laurie, the director of the Nutrition and Metabolism Society. But a little bit questioning if I could keep up this long term low carb CR thing, plus Pilates and yoga and cardio (been hitting at least half hour on the treadmill per day, and when I do treadmill I go up to 8 or more incline.) I had felt so good when I started CRCR, almost high... okay, definitely high. But now I was lacking focus. That slip with the cheeseburger... the general knawing hunger without a clear object. The lack of energy. General listlessness. Where had my magic CRCR gone?
Then it occurred to me. I hadn't had my fat. The missing nuts and seeds, though located, had not been consumed. No flax or olive oil today. No wonder I was feeling off! Fat is not only the great stabilizer of blood sugar, it is the great stabilizer of mood. And energy levels. Without the once-forbidden macronutrient, I am now a listless little pile of non-energy. There is no stick of part skim mozzarella, no matter how cleverly hidden within overly secure packaging, that can take the place of my little pre-measured bag of nuts and seeds. Even protein and very healthy veggies can not make up for the fat. I need it now: I am not so much addicted as awake. I didn't realize, for all those years, what I was missing. It fixes everything: it conquers sugar cravings, clears the mind of highs and lows, and re-focuses the tastes so that what is good tastes good and what is bad is unattractive.
I get overconfident and think I can live without it, but the results of even a few hours of deprivation are obvious. MR was always right about this. Without adequate fat, it's not just carbs that creep. It's hunger and cravings and a general lack of stability. Fat, albeit in the forms of MUFA and PUFA (the names of my non-existent rats!) is the drug that makes me function at a level that I'd never imagined possible. But it's not a drug: it's a real part of so many foods I'd loved but repressed my taste for because I was taught that they were bad.
I take a leap of faith every time I eat my nuts and seeds. The programming is so deep that I feel like I should skip the fat so that I have more room for carb later. But I should know by now where that road leads. To cravings and temptations to throw it all out the window and eat whatever. To the "I'll start tomorrow" mentality. My beloved, almost magical equilibrium that allows me to be so creative and productive seems to be directly connected to my fat consumption.
Of course, there are limits. Ketogenic got too extreme very quickly. I can't handle the cold, though it would be fun to try in summer! I miss my healthy veggies too much, and I started to feel that if I took another bite of turkey I'd be ill! But the insight that fat consumption comes first, and all follows from that: it defies every rule I've ever learned, but still I've never been half so... on... as when I am on a higher fat diet. (there's a very obscure Carly Simon lyric reference in there that probably none of you will get.)
So, as George Michael says in what is one of his best songs ever: I've gotta have faith. I know from experience that this works, but the sinister voices in my head that say, "You can save calories by skipping your fat," have to be treated as the liars they are. There is so much more at stake than weight: my long term health and longevity depends on me being able to get my calorie levels lower, and I knew from the moment I met RDF that carb restriction was going to be the key. And the secret key to carb restriction is loading up with fat, early in the day, and without skipping doses. I should just think of it as my medication and take it with the fervor with which I used to take anti-anxiety pills, back before I realized that I don't have an anxiety disorder, I just have a bad reaction to sugar and caffeine.
I need it, it's not bad, it's not fattening, it's not fat that makes you fat. Even the links between saturated fat and heart disease are starting to unravel, and there is hope that someday I will eat hard boiled eggs with reckless abandon.
But for the moment, I know that my nuts and seeds and oils are enough. Early in the day, before I eat anything else. Nearly pure fat. The thing I used to think was the enemy.
It's a funny upside down moment when the eggs are sunny side up and the world is upside down. The bad guys are good and the good guys are bad. The bagel is the enemy, the cream cheese could be your friend.
Ummmmmm... cream cheese.
Posted by april at January 19, 2010 4:50 PM
Comments
Just a suggestion: you might try having a small container of Astro Zero yogurt with about a dozen of your almonds stirred in, for breakfast. I find it very effective in keeping hunger at bay for a couple of hours and MR says it's even Zoned!
Posted by: Judith at January 19, 2010 8:42 PM
hey April,
Here is my high fat confession, I crave mayonnaise, like I like to slather it all over romaine lettuce. Mayonnaise is my favorite fat, I CRAVE it. (another favorite is organic extra virgin first pressed olive oil on fresh steamed broccoli).
But, this is not a daily indulgance, and...when I do decide to indulge, I like a brand called Smart Balance Omega Plus Mayonnaise, you can find it at any supermarket.
One could cube eggwhites with mustard and some of this mayo for a high protein omega 3 healthy fat egg salad meal...
Gawd, I LOVE sunny side up eggs though...
Posted by: Sheila from H.B. at January 19, 2010 9:25 PM
Oh, April...another thing I forget to mention. Sorry you were feeling down. Alot of people are going through this right now. This always seems to happen around the third week of January, "they say" that this is when the most people get depressed, its the most depressing time of the year, (I think Christmas is, though...)
Now I am going crazy wondering what the Carly Simon song reference is...
Posted by: Sheila from H.B. at January 20, 2010 10:03 AM
Poor April!!
I thought you were eating better. Yet, I see you writing that you're eating egg whites, nonfat yogurt, flax oil, and you're relying on nuts to get your fats!!?? Nuts are among the worse source of fats (too high in polyunsaturated fatty acids creating an inflammatory environment in your body), with the exception of the only nut I eat, the macadamia nut.
BTW, studies have shown that fat intake does not reduce hunger. Protein reduces hunger, fat is basically neutral to the hunger response, and carbs increase hunger.
Posted by: Scott Miller at January 21, 2010 1:56 PM
Scott -- can you cite some evidence for your claims?
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Posted by: april at January 22, 2010 6:16 AM
I made a lot of claims! Do you mean regarding PUFAs?
Here's some worthwhile reading:
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/05/coronary-heart-disease-epidemic_19.html
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/05/eicosanoids-and-ischemic-heart-diseas.html
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/05/eicosanoids-and-ischemic-heart-disease.html
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/07/animal-models-of-atherosclerosis-ldl.html
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/09/animal-models-of-atherosclerosis-diet.html
http://www.paleonu.com/panu-weblog/2009/6/22/fats-and-oils.html
http://nephropal.blogspot.com/2009/06/fats-introduction.html
http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/omega-6-omega-3-ratio.html
http://drbganimalpharm.blogspot.com/2009/06/benefits-of-high-saturated-fat-diets-in.html
And I can go on and on...
Surely, MR must be fully aware of all of this? This is Basic 101 stuff.
Posted by: Scott Miller at January 22, 2010 8:40 AM
Mmmmm, white-on-white cream cheese eggwhite omelet.... yum. :-)
Posted by: Andrea at January 22, 2010 3:02 PM
Scott,
When April or I says "evidence," she doesn't mean popular articles on non-peer-reviewed pop websites, but actual scientific data -- and preferably, from prospective epidemiology or clinical trials, rather than leaping from biochemical pathways considered in isolation to actual health outcomes: speculations on health outcomes based on different fatty acids' oxidation rates and substrate effects on eicosanoid synthesis are *guesses* that need to be vetted by following up in living humans to actual health outcomes, not stated as a dogmatic conclusion as the above websites do.
Epidemiology and clinical trials clearly show that replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats lowers cardiovascular disease as well as cardiovascular and total mortality.
Posted by: MR at January 25, 2010 9:01 AM
The links I've included refer to studies. And moreso, they include interpretations of these studies, just as you've done in you're anti-SFA post.
>>> Epidemiology and clinical trials clearly show that replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats lowers cardiovascular disease as well as cardiovascular and total mortality. <<<
Two things:
[1] This simply isn't true, and if you'd read some of those links, you'd see that you are dead wrong on this.
[2] The medical establishment has incorrectly linked total LDL values to heart disease, which often explains why the researchers of many studies have erroneously concluded that saturated fat (which does raise LDL--the good large-particle kind) lead to heart disease.
This is so seriously well understood but a rapidly growing group of enlightened researchers now, that I'm stunned you haven't read the memo. ;-)
I suspect that your myopic adherence to CR practices has blinded you to broader advances on other key topics.
Do yourself a 10-minute favor and read this blog post (by a PhD in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, who is focused on systemic inflammation): http://is.gd/7nX7u
BTW, what is you HDL level? Mine is 99 as of my latest test (trigs at 47, Lp(a) at 3. I strongly suspect my values crush you values. ;-) Oh, and my CRP is 0.2.
I avoid all processed oils, period.
Posted by: Scott Miller at January 30, 2010 6:06 PM