Have you ever been tempted to go on a vacation with a health/food theme?
- The website for a vegan cruise (from the propaganda factory PCRM – I used to like this organization for their vegan ethics until they started their program to help people go vegan, and all the foods and recipes I got in email every day were made up of gross soy meats and soy this and soy that – made me wonder where the money was coming from)…..
- ….and what is was like for Mark Sisson (author of The Primal Blueprint, and committed carnivore) when he went on a vegan vacation with his wife and her family. Stories of plates piled high with pasta and breads, and skinny-fat vegans.
Cholesterol and saturated fat from the perspective of people who aren’t terrified of it…..
- 7 Reasons to Eat More Saturated Fat (Tim Ferriss)
- The Definitive Guide to Cholesterol (Mark Sisson)
- The Definitive Guide to Fats (Mark Sisson)
- What If Bad Fat Is Actually Good For you? (Men’s Health)
- Benefits of High Saturated-Fat Diets: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
I really enjoyed reading all this, and while I didn’t turn around and start gorging on fat, I have hugely lowered by intake of processed vegetable oils. I also liked this article on cavemen who walk among us.
I was also stunned at this woman’s before and after photos, after she went on a paleo diet. It’s hard to imagine making my own beef tallow or EATING RADISHES (heh), but I do love the idea of less processed foods, less sugar, and more healthy fats.
Speaking of losing weight, I was intrigued by Tim Ferriss’s post: How to Lose 20 lbs in 30 Days Without Doing Any Exercise, which is a title I’d normally laugh at, but his tips are actually quite sensible.
I myself am still working at weight loss, but I’m taking it slow and not worrying about the numbers on the scale too much. I did decide I wanted to keep track of my carbs, sugars, and fats, and for that I needed some kind of calorie-counter or diet application. I finally decided on getting an account at Calorie King, which had a special deal running for March. It’s GREAT, I am hugely impressed with the the interface and how easy it is to track foods, find foods in their database, enter foods in the diary, and print out the data you’re putting in. I recommend it to anyone interested in tracking their food and nutrition intake.
Interesting stuff. I would really like to do that weight loss diet to kick off the five I gained on the cruise that have stayed around, except that I don’t just have low energy when I avoid carbs, I have catastrophic serotonin problems. I suppose exercise would help that, but I have to say… yesterday, I ate about a pound and a half of cooked spaghetti all by myself within five hours, and I could just feel the opiods smoothing out all my rough edges.
And if I could get Henrik to follow that diet, life would be good. He’d probably skip the legumes and double the meat, and the hardest thing would be getting him to stop drinking soda and orange juice. Oh well… he’ll die earlier but happier, I suppose.
Yeah, I liked the diet. Normally when I hear about a quick weight loss diet I groan unquietly to myself, but I liked Ferriss’s ideas of eating the same super-nutritious foods every day, and avoiding sugar and processed carbs.
I’ve known a few people who talk about getting really moody or depressed or just “out of sorts” on a low-carb diet. I haven’t ever gone truly low-carb long enough to know whether I’m in that camp, but I do know that I crave sugar for it’s mood-altering effects. For me it lowers anxiety or stress in the moment (only to increase it later, but my brain often fails to acknowledge this connection).
Eating the same few meals over and over and over again sounds like a freaking nightmare to me! Variety is not only a tasty thing, but a healthy one, IMO….
Johanna, that’s interesting about the mood stuff and the low-carb diet. Carbohydrates are the only source of energy that the brain can use efficiently, so it makes sense. They’ve done studies showing that people’s IQs go down when they’re on a low-carb diet, too.
Eating the same thing every day: I don’t think I’d mind having a pretty regular routine a few days a week. For me it’s like the story of how Einstein bought 7 suits, all the same, so he’d never have to think about what to wear. I wouldn’t be that extreme with food, but I could probably get pretty close before I’d complain to much!
Thanks for the tip: I’ll take a look at calorie king. It’s been a year since I tracked my food, and last week I tried out fitday, which was ok, but really lacked a lot of typical foods. I tracked my food religiously for well over a year, first with Fred Hutch, and then primarily with weight watchers, while I was losing. The online WW tracker was great, but you don’t get the carb/fat/protein breakdown, and that’s what I’m really interested in now. (I won’t be going on any low carb diet any time soon, though. Carbs are my primary fuel for running endurance.)
And nope, I’ve never been tempted by a vacation with a health / food theme, and those are not at all up my alley.. I assume you don’t count hiking trips?
By the way, that before/after chick? Love the post-paleo tatoo.
Nope, not counting hiking trips.
I meant vacations where there’s a diet happening, like the McDougall vacations and stuff like that.
Of course a hike is a much healthier way to spend your time, in my opinion….
Calorie King is GREAT, I bet you’ll really like it. Let me know!