IanG,

Speechless. Read Big Fat Surprise. Death by Food Pyramid. Primal Blueprint. Time magazine article on fat. Etc. The metastudies showing no correlation between saturated fat and heart disease.

Switzerland and France having the highest levels of saturated fat consumption in Europe and the lowest heart disease rate. Or just plain common sense. People have eaten lard for as long as there has been fire and even before that with uncooked meat. For as long as there were humans. If lard and saturated fats were bad you wouldntt even exist. No human would. What has followed the rise in obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia? People Cutting out lard not eating more. It has virtually disappeared from the Western world.

It is what humans eat, have always eat. No confirmed vegetarian population in existence anywhere except the last hundreds or couple thousand years at most because of cultural reasons. Humans have always eaten saturated fat.

And guess what? Your stored fat is mostly saturated fat. Hate to break the news to you, when your body uses any of your stored fat it is burning saturated fat. Even if you had none in your diet. Might not want to lose any fat ever again if you are scared of your body using saturated fat.

Pass the butter, lard, tallow, and coconut oil please. Your info on fat is 50 years old. Agree fish oil is good so is NATURAL saturated fat, not the hydrogenated industrial stuff like crisco harming folk.

What is considered Chronic Cardio?

I doubt I do that much but it's the majority of my exercise right now.

I tried looking at that other site you mentioned but it wasn't very user friendly.

Thanks very much.

Well then Larry, I guess you will live and I will die. We'll see who goes first lol.

I'm with Larry on this. My husband and I take in very little grains and virtually no wheat based products since I've been gluten intolerant for years and it's easier to keep wheat mostly out of the house. Plus he's been noticing that wheat based products don't sit with him right all the time.

But I actually saw the numbers when he had a cholesterol test a few months after we switched to full fat raw milk. His cholesterol dropped by 30 points. Nothing else was different. We also use real butter. Our diet is whole foods, very little is processed (only the GF baked goods, which we don't eat very often).

I don't eat fish anymore, I know too much about water pollution in general and the ocean in particular. I think about fish and get this mental image of them swimming in a toilet *shrug* I get my essential oils from flaxseed, coconut, hemp, olives and raw nuts.

This whole post seemed rude, no?

Some of us are actually interested in LARRY'S thread and don't need the drama here. He's entitled to his opinion in HIS thread and maybe some of us would prefer to converse with him here if you don't mind. It doesn't mean we agree or disagree but I'm always looking for ways to improve what might not be working to me. Ian made some excellent points too. Your response didn't help at all. 3FC drama at it's best. At least nothing has changed around here I guess.

Are we able to block posters so we can see the valid responses here so I can print out the parts I want to highlight? This thread was/is very helpful for 90% of it.

It's a matter of opinion because I'm not impressed with your manners to tell the truth, I'm quite cordial and have been on the site for a long time conversing with the OP. Of course you can block me and you really really should, I'm not fond of you condoning or condemning every word I say. I speak no ill of the way people choose to eat, I just don't see the kindness or informative nature of someone preaching that everybody is going to die because they don't eat xyz.

You made me laugh, wannabe. :lol:

(Sorry Larry, I won't take YOUR thread off topic again.)

Larry I confess I have never heard that it is possible to gain muscle while not exercising and in a caloric deficit. Short of steroids, I don't see how this is possible that your wife gained any muscle while recovering after surgery. How did you measure her body composition to come to the conclusion you did?

You're right, too much cardio can cause problems. My guess is that the number of people on this board who have to worry about this is exactly zero. You're still right on this point though.

Saturdated fat it is not bad for you. but like anything else it depends on the context. If you're maintaining or in a caloric deficit than the amount of saturated fat you can consume without concern is much higher than if you're eating the SAD. Lifestyle also makes a difference. Context matters.

JohnP I appreciate that response. And LastStraw thank you for your comments. And Wannabe also. I am pretty passionate and I make as strong statements as anyone here. Which is why I am trying to minimize or eliminate posting in general threads.

I think the passion comes from so many people wanting to be healthy and working at and having their good intentions 'stolen' so to speak. Many people have called the low fat advice of the last 40 years the worst medical mistake in human history. If you follow the soaring rates of obesity, dementia, diabetes, cancer I find it hard to argue that.

There are three maco-nutrients, fat, protein, carbs. When fat was demonized and make no mistake it was, there is only a couple things that can happen. Red meat was also demonized. People have upped carbs and vegetable oils. Grains are all non-cellular carbs, whole grains, not whole grains makes no difference. A vegetable is an example of a cellular carb. No human can just eat a grain, it needs to be processed. It then has a profound impact on blood sugar. We die with too much blood sugar in our blood. That is why insulin is so powerful and important.

Anyhow I can go on and on about the science. But Wannabe suffice it to say that I don't think you are doing yourself any favors if you are eating too many carbs. And modern wheat in the U.S. has been altered significantly. I thought gluten intolerance 18 months ago was a hoax. But I kept an open-mind. I was wrong. Too much evidence of the profound health implications of eating modern wheat.

Anyhow about chronic cardio. Exercise at 55 to 75% of heart rate is ideal for fat burning and avoiding too much cortisol. Above that and someone fit can jog and not go over 75% but an unfit person may go well above 75% at a jog and you can produce too much cortisol. A little bit of cortisol is a great thing, too much is bad.

Brief intense workouts can increase human growth hormone, testosterone which is important for men AND women, and yes as JohnP mentioned elsewhere mitochondria. Sprinting is also very important. And you can 'sprint' on a bike or in a pool. I run. I would ease into it though as it can be very challenging. Just a couple of 10-15 second sprints at 80% to start. Eventually 8 or so sprints at 20-30 seconds at near max. But it will take a long time to get there. And only sprint once every 7 to 10 days. Sprints have profound benefits on fat burning and fat lose.

I don't know for sure if my wife got more muscular. She seemed to. And we have a 4 year old. So it wasn't like she was doing nothing. On the other hand we have a lot of grass fed dairy. Grass fed dairy is excellent for muscle building. We have also both transitioned to being 'fat burners'. It could have been her losing fat thus exposing more muscle rather than gaining muscle. But perfectly correct that I am not sure.

This is a passion of mine because I literally rejuvenated myself than my wife. I just urge everyone to research. I suggest the Primal Blueprint, but lots of resources on the Internet. MarksDailyApple is an excellent site to me. You can sign up for the email there, he doesn't spam you. But you do then get access to free downloads or I think there is a download link there anyway. One of the downloads is 'Primal Exercising'.

But if you do sign up for the email he will then send about 7 articles every few days with the key points of Primal living. I'd urge everyone to at least see what they have to say.

LastStraw I do want to thank you for reminding me that people value my posts. That is why I came back. And yes I am passionate and that leads to many things, mostly good, sometimes to overdoing things. I am aware of that.

But I feel, on balance, my passion does a lot of good here. That being said carb counters is the place for most of it on 3FC.

I appreciate everyone on 3FC being able to share their ideas. Clearly, we are all very passionate about our journeys! I once read that people treat weight loss like many people treat religion and politics- we all prefer our own way! I think there is significant value in listening to other people idea's though. It bummed me out that here, on a forum where we are all exploring ideas, that some people seemed to try to squash those of others.

And PrimalLarry and TheLastStraw323, thank you for noting that sometimes, 3FC isn't a friendly place. I think it's a lot kinder than MFP but even in this thread, it saddens me that I've lost good friends on this site owing to a bullying mentality that still pervades.

Let's get back to uplifting each other, instead of acting like crabs in the bucket trying to pull each other down.

Ahem, I am pretty close JohnP. ;)

My diet Larry is, in actual fact, pretty close to primal.

My beef, if you excuse the pun, is why eat fats that are at (very) best neutral for you when you can load up on omega 3s which are so much better for you?

Ditch the butter. Eat the fish. I know you eat fish. So less butter, even more fish!

And a bowl of oats, doesn't do any harm. Processed sugar, yep I get the problem with that. But people (and bodybuilders) have been swearing on oats for as long as they have (not?) been on their lard. There are good carbs. And sources of carbs that are also high in dietary fiber seem particularly good for weightloss and health.

I simply could not load up a bar and do squats if it was not for steelcut oats.

That's the whole point, you have no clue what my diet is, you presume to know a lot of things about the health of people who don't match your diet. You urge and urge and urge people to read the stuff you like to read. But have you ever read a single thing about eating disorders? I have read a lot of the things you urge me to read, long before you started posting it all over the place. I can in turn urge you to read a few things about how to treat an eating disorder but will you read it?

Wannabe I think your focus on emotional eating and eating disorders does a lot of good for people. But I think it can leave many in a constant state of failure and hunger and sickness for the rest of their lives. Here is why.

What you de-emphasize to the potential point of harm is the biological basis for hunger. My wife and I are living proof. We were ALWAYS hungry. Always. I mean always. To the point where my wife called me an emotional eater. You eat so much all the time, you know it isn't good for you.

It turns out carbs and processed foods and the way wheat has been altered leave people in a constant state of hunger. Low blood sugar anyone? Being hangry on low blood sugar? It is a very real thing. We are also finding out every day the importance of the gut and good gut bacteria.

There is also being something called fat adapted versus a sugar burner. I couldn't go more than 3 or 4 hours without carbs before. My body cried out for them. I profoundly changed my biology with a change in diet which profoundly changed my hunger. Insulin and storing food as fat rather than burning it is very real. Many people are insulin producers 24 hours a day now. They don't get nutrients when they eat since the food is stored as fat and their fat is virtually locked away by the high levels of insulin no matter what they do. So they cannot lose the fat.

Your maybe do not neglect all of this but to my virtually only talking about emotions is like asking people for the rest of their lives to only use one leg. Not only can you not walk very well they can never run. They will always think of themselves as failures because they can't stop eating. And they can't. The biology of carbs and insulin is too strong. It is like asking your child to win a race on the one leg hopping when everyone else gets to run. They will never be able to do it. I virtually sprinted to phenomenal health and weight loss: once I understood the science. Then weight loss was easy.

That NEVER would have happened by ignoring that all calories are not equal and macronutrients are a profound key to weight loss and health. Weight loss and especially fat burning is largely impacted by hormones which is most impacted by the TYPE of food you are eating and secondarily by the amount. And the type of food you eat really impacts your hunger which of course then impacts the amount.

To ignore this science which started to come out with Gary Taubes over 15 years ago is a huge dis-service to someone. Google Andy Griffith show glucose. There are YouTube videos. It was common knowledge in the 1950s that glucose, deserts, bread, carbs made one fat. Just common every day knowledge from people living their lives. Everyone knew a calorie was not a calorie. And they were right. The experts then said they were wrong. Turns out the experts were wrong. People have to understand metabolism and carbs and insulin if they want to be successful in weight loss and more importantly health.

Ian, grass fed beef has large amounts of omega 3s. Grass fed dairy is one of the healthiest things you can eat. Almost the only source for K2 and great sources for vitamin A and D. It also helps to absorb nutrients. Oil on your salad? As long as not a vegetable oil: great, you get more out of the veggies. Grass fed butter on your veggies: great also. The new science on fat is a lot more to it then there was 50 years ago.

Grass fed beef very good source of omega 3s.

It's important to be aware that men and women approach their bodies differently. Women are under a constant pressure to look a certain way. Our lives depend on it, in our careers, in our personal relationships, and even our self esteem. That pressure creates a breeding ground for unhealthy behaviors and eating is a behavior. It falls on deaf ears but my attention to nutrition was an impossible feat when I was in the worst bouts of my eating disorder. The application of diets such as low calorie or low carb or paleo created a bigger problem than they solved. The way one chooses to eat is strictly personal and I have never criticized anyone's diet or nutrition philosophy. I never will, because I don't disagree with anything that is valid or that works for someone.

But the concept of hunger is more complicated than you give it credit for. This whole plummeting hunger business that was promised to me when I went paleo never worked. And I know what you're going to say here - that I didn't give it enough time. Well, I couldn't I was too busy binging and not being able to stop. My desire to binge increased and so did my failures. Not because carbs affect our blood sugar because they absolutely do. But because I was not eating out of hunger anyway. It simply wasn't my problem. In fact, I wouldn't recognize hunger if it hit me in the face back then. I was eating out of boredom, loneliness, stress, happiness, everything drove me to eat. That's not actual hunger, it's not physical hunger and it cannot be solved in a physical way. And the most important thing to realize is that deprivation and restriction exacerbate the dysfunctional eating behaviors.

My personal diet is fine. I am healthy and I enjoy the foods I eat. I do not make food a moral issue in my life and I think it's an unhealthy thing for anyone to attach their self worth to the food they eat, especially someone who comes down hard on themselves about eating something restricted. Diets leave alot of room for guilt and shame and those are the types of feelings that drove people like me to hide in my car and binge on a dozen donuts when my intention was NOT to do that! Eating is a behavior, and out behaviors are directly impacted by how we feel.

I will quote a member here who said something that really resonates with me. Our bodies may be more alike than different but the reason one diet cannot work for every person is not because our bodies are different, but because our minds are.