The Low Carb Nugget

Personal update, avocado hand, and brain needs. Find the episode notes at LifeAfterCarbs.com/nugget.

American teenage boys consume an average of a 161 grams of sugar a day. That's 40 teaspoons of sugar. And you wonder why American children are becoming more obese? When it comes to our bodies and our health, both as individuals and as a nation, sugar is a dirty trick, not a sweet treat.

Say what you want about strawberry jam, but it's fat free. The way some people think, that makes it heart healthy.

Coming soon -- a bigger nugget!

If eating carbs will sicken or even kill you, should you eat fewer of them, or rely on pharmacological options to reduce your body's response to dietary carbohydrates?

Is it worse to be obese or half-starved?

Net carbs are the difference between total carbs in a food and the fiber. The idea is that fiber doesn't do much if anything to raise your blood glucose, so you can safely ignore it. Keep your net carbs low, and you'll keep your blood glucose and insulin response low. Then your body can burn fat. But can you really trust net carbs as a guide for eating?

When it comes to diet, "intermittency" means making frequent, significant changes in how much you eat. You need to throw your body a dietary change up, and not let it adjust to a single continuous level of intake.

The main lesson of the diet so far is that weight loss is a complex and perplexing topic. It's one of the great mysteries of life. But if a method is working for you, stick with it.

A study out of Australia suggests that breaking up a calorie-restricted diet with periods of increased eating could produce better results for weight loss. Researchers at the University of Tasmania reported their findings in the International Journal of Obesity. What exactly did the study find, and what might it mean for those on an LCHF diet?

There's a difference between minimal protein intake and optimal protein intake. The minimum daily requirement for an inactive adult is 0.36 grams per pound of body weight. You can live on that. But more is probably better, even for the sedentary. The goal is not just to survive, but to thrive. So how much protein is optimal?

Dietary protein intake is an important number to get right. If you eat too little protein over a long stretch, your body will suffer. If you eat too much protein, you could be at greater risk for kidney problems, and your blood glucose may rise, requiring a further release of insulin. Exactly how much protein you should eat depends on several factors. Your size and activity level are two.

To start or restart a ketogenic diet, you need to think about your macro-nutrient targets. Both carbs and protein need to be strictly limited, but dietary fat will be your friend. So what are the specific targets?

Cheating on a low carb diet: you can't eat a sweet or carby treat every day, even if you do it mindfully. You won't get in or stay in ketosis if you do that. But a rare, planned indulgence is acceptable if it keeps you eating LCHF for the long-run.

Typically, people diet to improve their health, their appearance, their mood and confidence, and their chances at living longer. All of those are good, and the nice thing is, they're connected. But the strongest motivations are personal.

Diet myths examined. For a long time, big mainstream news outlets followed lock-step with organizations such as the American Heart Association and the FDA. They promoted the low-fat diet, and the "calories in, calories out" model of weight control. But things are slowly changing.

It's important to be active, to move around. You need to move around every day, and many times a day, if you want to stay healthy, and frankly, alive. A study published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine drives the point home.

The article in question is a long, detailed, authoritative look at the vitamins, minerals and other micro-nutrients essential to brain functioning and mental health, and where those micro-nutrients come from. Where they come from is mostly animal-based foods.

The study's findings suggest that eating a diet higher in fruits, vegetables, and legumes helps you live longer. The benefit peaked with the consumption of 3 to 4 servings of such food per day.

The best low carb survival foods are nutritious, portable, widely available, and require no refrigeration or cooking. They are ideal foods for either fleeing or hunkering in place.

In this episode, Jim sketches out the goals, plans, methods, and tools for his keto diet reboot.

Today is the start of the 5th month of this podcast, and we're half way to a hundred episodes. It seems like a good time to reflect, and lay out some plans.

Evidence continues to come in that undermines the Lipids Theory of Cardiovascular Disease. The latest evidence was in a big, global study published online this week by the respected medical journal, The Lancet.

Those who eat a diet that includes meat and other animal-based food sometimes face criticism on two grounds. First, the diet is deemed cruel. Second, it is deemed unsustainable. Is either objection valid? Can we live on soy-burgers and indoor-lettuce alone?

There's a growing consensus that two square meals a day are better for us than three or four, but the issue is the timing. When should you eat your first meal of the day, and your last?

Which foods good for an LCHF diet are also good for your brain's health and staving off dementia? Jim runs through the list. Look for show notes at LCHFGazette.com.

For weight loss, accountability is the key, not just accountability to others, but to yourself. Some argue that weighing in every day is a way of taking account every day of your behavior as it relates to your body weight.

The standard advice for dieters regarding their bathroom scale is to step on it as infrequently as possible. Once a month might be ideal, or once a week at the most. Weighing in once a day is asking for psychological abuse. Or so the theory goes.

When you encounter an article about a dietary study, it pays to read more than just the headline and summary, which are often more alarming than the details warrant.

One of the great things about adopting an LCHF diet, other than losing weight and inches around the middle, is that you can drink your coffee with cream in it. Not "creamer," not "milk," not "half-and-half," but real heavy whipping cream.

Today's topic -- alcohol in a low carb diet. Is it a good idea? Assuming that you're an adult, that you're not an alcoholic, and that you have no religious convictions or drug interactions to worry about, perhaps it is!

According to news reports, butter reserves in Europe have plummeted due to increased butter demand and declining milk production. Butter prices in Europe are doing what prices always do in response to scarcity, they're climbing.

At first glance, chia seeds appear to be a dubious addition to a low-carb diet, even if they are supposed to have been the super-food of the Aztecs. That's because a single serving of chia seeds contains about 13 grams of carbohydrates. However, a closer examination of the food label reveals the chia seed's saving grace . . .

To show the obesity trend on a graph, what data could we use? What would the obesity line look like? We all know obesity has been increasing for decades. But what are the statistical details for the United States?

The data undermines the "let's all become vegetarians to fight obesity" argument. It's hard to convince people that eating meat is making them fat when they have been eating less meat, and more plants, for several decades, without trimming down.

What we all want to know, of course, is whether sleeping more will prevent obesity or even aid in weight loss. Which way does the causal arrow point? Or is there an arrow at all?

Eating low carb, high fat is not just about cutting out foods you once loved, but also about finding new foods to love as you lose weight and achieve ketosis.

As the avocado becomes more popular, plastic surgeons in the United States and the United Kingdom are seeing an increasing number of hand injuries. Apparently, a lot of people try to slice an avocado while cupping it in one hand. That's not a safe method!

Macadamia nuts have long been a go-to snack for low carb dieters. Dr. Robert Atkins was said to love macadamias. He had good reason to, even aside from the buttery deliciousness of the nuts. Now even the FDA sees goodness in the macadamia.

Can the same diet cause some of its followers to lose 50 or 60 pounds while others lose only 5 or 10 pounds, or even gain weight? If so, why does this happen? Does it matter if the diet is low carb or low fat? What can we learn about such individual variance that might be useful?

Among the theories for what causes obesity, excess sugar consumption is one of the more plausible. Call it the "Too Many Sweets" theory. This theory plays into stereotypical images of over-weight people eating big slices of cake or piece after piece of candy. But how much truth is there to the "Too Many Sweets" theory of obesity?

The only canned fish many people eat is tuna. Tuna is OK on a low carb diet, but a better choice may be the humble sardine, especially when packed in pure olive oil. One tin of sardines makes the center-piece of a solid meal. Sometimes, it can be the meal.

The assumption is that lowering your LDL cholesterol by any means, whether it's lifestyle and diet change or drugs, will lower your odds of cardio-vascular disease and premature death. But is this true? Or is there a better marker for heart health, and thus a better risk factor to target?

Drink coffee, live longer! The big news this week, at least for us coffee drinkers, was a pair of studies published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that suggest coffee drinking reduces your odds of dying from various causes.

An LCHF diet is recognized as a way to lose weight, but it can have other benefits as well. For example, it may contribute to improved oral health.

Today's question: Is there a place for candy bars in a healthy, LCHF diet? The short answer is, yes. The long answer is, it depends on the details. Specifically, the details of the candy bar -- the chocolate content versus the sugar content.

Summer is in full swing, which means ice cream consumption is rising. The average American consumes 23 pounds of ice cream a year. That's a lot of sugar. But here's a low carb, ice creamy option.

It may be a good thing to avoid scarfing the All-American wiener at today's super-feast. Yes, it is meat-based, and absent the bun, you can eat hot dogs on a low carb diet. It pays to check the carb-count, though . . .

The question for today is pragmatic and historical: What did American soldiers eat during the Revolutionary War? If they ate anything at all, of course, because sometimes food was in short supply.

When the weather warms up, and the ice melts, there's a big jump in public displays of breaking a sweat. If people are running or walking for the sake of general fitness and well-being, or to get ready to compete in a foot-race, more power to them. But if they are exerting themselves in the hot sun for the purpose of losing weight, then they need to stop and think.

On the website "Sugar Science: The Unsweetened Truth," there is a page entitled, "Hidden in Plain Sight," which points out that sugar is added to almost three-quarters of packaged foods sold in supermarkets. The sugar goes by many names.