Top 7 Most Common Reactions to Your High-Fat Diet (and How to Respond)
A couple weeks back, I wrote about the top 8 most common reactions you get when people hear you don’t eat grains, and I offered up some concise responses to those reactions. It was well received, so I thought I’d do the same thing for “your high-fat diet.” If you thought having to explain your grain-free diet was tough, explaining a high-fat diet – in particular, a high-animal fat diet – may seem even harder. At least with a grain-free diet, you’re merely removing something that many hold near and dear to their hearts. It’s “healthy” and “delicious,” sure, but at least you’re not adding something that will actively kill you. Fat is that deadly thing, for many people. It’s “fat,” for crying out loud. It’s bad for you, practically a poison. Everyone knows it. I mean, have you seen what fat down the kitchen drain does to your plumbing?
Actually, like the grain-free diet, explaining the high-fat diet is not that hard. I’ll even promise you that there are ways to do it, explanations and answers that don’t make you seem like a crazy person who hates his heart (I make no such promises for those of you with a stick of butter with bite marks and a tub of coconut oil with a greasy spoon beside it on your office desk, however). Now let’s get right to their questions and responses you can use:
“Isn’t all that fat gonna glom onto your arteries?”
That isn’t how it works. Atherosclerosis is caused by oxidized LDL particles penetrating the arterial wall, inciting inflammation, and damaging the arterial tissue. It is not caused by fat mechanistically attaching itself to the surface of the arteries like fat in a kitchen pipe. Also, it’s not like you eat some butter and that butter gets directed straight into your bloodstream. Your blood doesn’t have oil slicks running through it, or congealed droplets of grease gumming up the passageways. You are the product of millions upon millions of years of evolution, and I think our bodies can do better than trying to ape modern plumbing.
Response: “My arteries are not pipes. Fat is not solidifying in my blood like it can in the plumbing. Atherosclerosis is a complex process with dozens of factors beyond what’s in your diet, let alone the fat content.”
“Isn’t all that cholesterol gonna raise your cholesterol?”
If I were a rabbit, sure. When you feed cholesterol to an herbivorous animal, like a rabbit, whose only encounters with dietary cholesterol occur in a lab setting, their blood lipids will increase and they will usually develop atherosclerosis. For many years, the “cholesterol-fed rabbit” was a popular model for studying heart disease and gave rise to the now-popular idea that dietary cholesterol also elevates blood lipids in humans (thus immediately condemning them to a heart attack, naturally). Except it isn’t the case. Save for a select few who are “hyper-responders,” the vast majority of people can eat cholesterol without it affecting their cholesterol levels. And even when dietary cholesterol affects blood lipids, it’s usually an improvement, increasing HDL and the HDL:TC ratio while leaving LDL mostly unchanged. As for where all that blood cholesterol comes from, we make pretty much all the cholesterol in our blood in-house, and dietary cholesterol tends to suppress endogenous cholesterol synthesis. Boy, between “staying local” and “only making as much as we need,” our livers are downright green. I bet our HDL is GMO-free and organic to boot (not so sure about those sneaky LDL particles, though).
Response: “Dietary cholesterol does not affect total blood cholesterol. In fact, when we do eat cholesterol, our bodies make less of it to keep our blood levels in balance.”
“Isn’t all that fat gonna make you fat?”
Fat doesn’t make you fat. While you can technically overeat enough fat calories to accumulate adipose tissue, thus getting fat, this is a difficult feat, for two primary reasons:
Fat is very satiating, especially when paired with low-carb eating. Grass-fed pot roast, ribbed with yellow fat, connective tissue, and ample protein is far more filling than some crusty bread spread with butter. You’ll eat a decent slice of the former and be done, but you could easily polish off half a loaf of the latter with half a stick of butter and still be hungry. It’s difficult to overeat on a high-fat, low-carb diet.
Dietary fat in the presence of large amounts of dietary carbohydrates can make it difficult to access fat for energy, while dietary fat in the presence of low levels of dietary carbohydrates makes it easier to access fat for energy. Couple that with the fact that fat and carbs are easier to overeat together, and you have your explanation. In fact, studies have shown that low-carb, high-fat diets not only reduce weight, they also retain or even increase lean mass. That means it’s fat that’s being lost (rather than the nebulous “weight”), which is what we’re ultimately after.
Response: “No. Eating a high-fat, low-carb diet is the easiest way to inadvertently eat less without sacrificing satiation or satisfaction. It also improves your ability to access stored body fat rather than lean mass, which is helpful for fat loss.”
“But Dean Ornish/my mom/Walter Willet/the AHA/my doctor said saturated fat will give you heart attacks.”
They all may say that, and sound pretty convincing as they say it, but the science says differently. I tend to listen to the science, rather than what I think the science is saying:
- A 2011 study found that “reducing the intake of CHO with high glycaemic index is more effective in the prevention of CVD than reducing SAFA intake per se.”
- From a 2010 study out of Japan, saturated fat intake “was inversely associated with mortality from total stroke.”
- A 2010 meta-analysis found “that there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD or CVD.”
That looks pretty clear cut to me.
Response: “The most recent studies have concluded that saturated fat intake likely has no relation to heart disease, contrary to popular opinion.”
“Where do you get your energy?”
I get my energy from fat, both dietary and stored body fat. At 9 calories per gram, fat is the densest source of energy. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but humans tend to store it on their bodies. That’s not just for show, you know. We actually store it in our bodies as energy for later, for leaner times, for when food isn’t available. Fat is the ideal energy source for life’s daily activities; walking, working, even going for a hike or a light jog all access the oxidative, or fat-based energy pathway. Carbs only really come into play when you’re doing repeated bouts of intense exercise, like sprint intervals or high-intensity endurance training. But for just about everything else? Fat is king.
Response: “Fat is the body’s preferred and most reliable form of energy, which is why we store excess energy as fat on our bodies. Unless you think we accumulate body fat just to make pants fit tighter.”
“But isn’t fat totally free of nutrients? How do you get your vitamins if you’re eating all that fat?”
The richest source of natural tocotrienols (vitamin E), potent antioxidants, is red palm oil – a fat.
One of the richest sources of choline, a vital micronutrient for liver function, is egg yolk – a fat.
One of the better sources of vitamin K2, an oft-ignored nutrient involved in cancer prevention, arterial health, and bone metabolism, is grass-fed butter – a fat.
The best dietary source of vitamin D, a nutrient most people are deficient in, is cod liver oil – a fat.
See what I mean? Also, even when you’re cooking with a fat that doesn’t contain many vitamins, that fat is still going to improve the bioavailability of the fat-soluble vitamins (like A, D, E, K, K2) in the food you’re cooking.
Response: “Certain fats, like egg yolks, palm oil, extra virgin olive oil, cod liver oil, and grass-fed butter, are some of the most nutritious foods in existence. And without fat in your meals, you often won’t absorb all the nutrients that are present in other foods like leafy greens, since many of them require fat for full absorption.”
“Doesn’t the brain run on carbs, not fat?”
Yes, the brain requires glucose. That is true. However, the brain is more of a gas/diesel hybrid. It can run on both fat and glucose. Ketones, derived from fatty acids, can satisfy the majority of the brain’s energy needs, sparing the need for so much glucose. You’ll still need some glucose, as the brain can’t run purely on ketone bodies, but you won’t need nearly as much. And, best of all, your brain will run more efficiently on a combination of ketones and glucose than on glucose alone.
That improved efficiency means you can actually function without food. Since you have ample brain energy stores on your body (even the lean among us have enough body fat to last for weeks), and a high-fat diet allows you to access that body fat for brain energy, you’ll no longer suffer brain fog just because your afternoon meeting went a little long and you missed lunch. Instead, you’ll enjoy steadier, more even energy in mind and body.
Additionally, your body, through a process know as gluconeogenesis, can make up to 150 grams of glucose a day – more than the brain even needs (roughly 120 grams/day).
Response: “While it’s true that the brain requires some glucose for energy, using fat-derived ketones as well can make the brain run more efficiently and reduce its glucose requirements. On top of that, your body can probably create more glucose than your brain even requires.”
Compared to last week’s grains post, there were fewer entries today, the simple reason being that while grains are hyped beyond belief, people have but a few scant – albeit robustly defended – justifications for fearing dietary fat. The backlash almost always revolves around the visceral fear of “fat.” It’s a scary word, after all, but it shouldn’t be. No one should fear something so vital to life, so crucial for nutrient absorption and hormonal function, and so delicious with roasted vegetables.
Hopefully, these responses will help curb some of that fear.
So, what’d I miss? What else have you heard, and how did you respond? Let me and everyone know in the comments!
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
Are all high fat foods good for u? i.e. full fat double cream, and what about processed smokey bacon? full fat cheese? I read in the atkins diet book to eat high fat dairy products in moderation, but u can eat as much as u like of high fat animal foods? Does Mark Sisson and other primal supporters agree with all Dr. Atkins advice? was he right all along?
No, he wasn’t. He also advocated finding junky substitutions for high carb meals and eating those crappy things. He wasn’t exactly a proponents of eating leafy greens and other veggies.
Mark says dairy is ok if you tolerate it and not that often.
Hello
How you exlain to fat accumulated at my tummy as if ı 9 months pregnant women after ı obey to my friends advice? how can ı clean start to eat right while ı melt down this fat without any health problem?
primal pat, i am just reading the atkins book and he does advocate eating green vegetables and other veggies, i agree his own brand of atkins bars etc were not good, but i do think his book was spot on.
Excellent article on fat. Make sure your get your animal fat from farmers who base their activities on building and preserving soil fertility, without the use of chemicals. The free-range-animals they raise, if raised organically, will have that healthy fat. CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) fat, of your typical conventional grocery store animal fat, is poison. Find out how to find those farmers who will provide that good fat here: http://www.nu-gen.net/securing-best-food-sources/
Also, guide yourself to use of the principles of glycemic index and glycemic load, with healthy food choices, here: http://www.nu-gen.net/glycemic-index-glycemic-load/
On red palm oil:
I read a lot of comments about folks consuming red palm oil. Palm oil should be BANNED as it is the major cause for deforestation in Indonesia and the endangerment of orangutan and other wildlife. Just use something else please.
Also, it might be the richest known source of Vitamin E, it also contains a very high level of saturated fats and therefore should be consumed with much moderation if at all IMO.
The fact that it contains a high level of saturated fat is exactly it’s selling point here. That’s what makes it incredibly stable and why it resists oxidation. Keep reading the site; eventually the fat is bad disinformation will get cleared away if you are sincere. Even if I granted you that the production causes ecological devastation, if I have a choice between replacing one tree with a palm tree and losing some orangutans on one hand and improving the lives of thousands of people, I pick the people. Regardless, the ecological ramifications are from the industrial processors, not the organic raw producers that we are buying from.
Disregarding ecological impact for your own egocentric comfort is a wrong approach to life balance and typical of human greed. While it may be a good source of some lipids, there is absolutely no need whatsoever to consume palm oil to have a healthy diet and live a good life. It is not the only source of vitamine E and our primal ancestors where certainly not deforesting and processing palm trees to extract it’s nutrients. It goes against the principals of eating “primal food” versus processed food, which palm oil is.
I have several problems with high fat diet as described on this blog:
1) humans are poor hunters. our primal ancestors were eating very little meat as it was difficult to hunt. Most of our diet consisted of fruits, roots, nuts and green leafs and that’s why we have molars in the mouth. Meat was the exception, except during the glacial age as humans had to develop weapons to kill animals in order to survive as non animal food was more difficult to find during the cold months.
2) wild meat is virtually fat free. Bacon from sedentary farm raised pigs is obviously fat loaded, wild boars are lean and difficult to catch.
3) butter, cream, cheese and eggs were not part of our ancestor’s diet at all until humans became sedentary and started farming. While some might have gotten lucky to poach an ostrich egg once in a while without being killed by the nesting mother, our ancestors were certainly not gobbling 5 or 8 eggs a day and even less red palm and coconut oil .
4) grains also became part of human diet once sedentary yet has always been a much larger part of our diet for thousand of years. However, coronary diseases have exploded in the industrial era with the increased consumption of sedentary meat and animal sub-products. Obesity and diabetes has exploded more recently and particularly in the USA because of over consumption of processed sugars, cookies, soda drinks and corn syrup found in about every industrially manufactured food.
So, while I do agree 100% that we need lipids from multiple sources in our diet, I do not agree that we need a high percentage of it. We are omnivorous, it’s all about balance and common sense but consuming 8 eggs and a pound of bacon for breakfast as I have read in comments here is madness.
Let me take stab here at some of the stuff in this one.
1) Tell that to the Inuit, Not being able to spear a seal and/or pull some fish out of the ice was life or death for them. Further, they purposely over-consumed animal fatt to avoid rabbit starvation (look that up, it’s nasty). Sure we’re pretty crummy hunters with out bare hands but give us sharp sticks, sharp rocks, snares, fishing lines and nets, and we become something fierce that even the nastiest predators have to respect. (take a look at J Stanton’s excellent blog for far more info).
2) Wild MEAT has much less fat, it’s true. To get fatty meat you have to feed the animal in very odd ways, and often confine them, it’s not right, or good for us. However, most of the fat in a wilds animal is stored viscerally, not subcutaneously, i.e. around the internal organs. Even grass fed roaming cows have mounds of HPK fat as do deer and elk (though obviously the amounts vary by season for the wild animals). Sadly, most modern hunters dump the guts and take the meat, but there’s a lot of nutrition there, fat included.
3) This is partly true. I tend to consider pastoralism as somewhat different and slightly older than true agricultural ‘farming’. Pastoralists often roamed up and down mountains and through valleys in seasonal patterns to get the best grazing for their animals. That said, we’re talking about paleolithic man, so yes.. daily eggs is unlikely to have been something he/she had access to. I’ll grant that.
4) Ok, I see what you’re thinking. You believe that Coronaries are caused by meat/fat and that diabesity is caused by sugar. You’ll find that the people here and in the paleo community at large believe that both of them are attributable primarily to sugar/grains and that fat has been unjustly accused, in part because it’s much cheaper (read more profitable) for large companies to produce fats from vegetable sources industrially, than it is to produce it from living animal sources. Modern companies love the factory farm, don’t get me wrong, but it can’t hold a candle to the margins on soy oil and cottonseed oil. Hence Crisco (check out the Crisco history, fascinating, almost as good as Kellog). So around here we don’t think all fats are good fat.. we think that those naturally produced from humanely/naturally raised animals are good… and the rest is cheap glop, human feed, designed for its profitability without any other concerns. So yes… We’ll eat grass fed butter by the boatload, heaped upon our grass fed steaks and our fatty cold water fish and our fresh greens, and we’ll love every minute of it.
-Tim
Tim you make some interesting points and yes grain giants like Kellog and others like Monsanto are criminals in my eye’s. While I do plan on eating more fats as I need to increases my HDL level and reduce gains as I need to decrease my glucose, I just cannot believe that a 40-50% fat diet is the right way to do it. Inuits need(ed) to fight bitter cold all day and night, we don’t and they also had (still have) a much lower life expectancy than we do, even in comparison to the obese sugar fed North American population.
If you look at the Mediterranean diets, known for long life expectancy, fat is present from dairy, nuts and olives mostly but their meat intake is rather low, at least was before they got hit by the industrial crap like everybody else.
You should read “The Perfect Health Diet” which advocates 65% of calories coming from fat. Practically every sentence in that book is backed up by solid research.
Along with that every single review/feedback/story I have read from anyone going onto a Paleo/Perfect health diet eating pattern has been massively positive – Getting to ideal weight, more energy, a reduction or getting rid of a whole plethora of medical issues etc.
This book The Perfect Health Diet sounds interesting. I will check it out. My diet for the last 2 years consists of around 65% fat every day and I have never felt better in my life.
On the subject of eggs, the St Kildan people (very remote Scottish island – now uninhabited)existed on a diet of mainly eggs and wild birds with a few seasonal plants for many hundreds of years and were strong, lean and physically fit.
Check out the paper “Sunlight, Cholesterol and Coronary Heart Disease”.
The authors offer an interesting hypothesis in the paper and state that the Mediterranean diet may not be cardioprotective per se, but rather the latitude of the Mediterranean itself that is cardioprotective.
From the paper:
“It is well-known that death rates from coronary heart disease are much lower in the Mediterranean countries of southern Europe than in the Atlantic fringes of north-west Europe, and it usually assumed that this is due to different dietary patterns reflecting local agriculture. Hence we in north-west England are advised to drink red wine and to add garlic and olive oil to our diets and at the same time to stop eating ‘fish and chips’. But whereas migration has an effect on mortality risk, the individual adopting the risk of the place to which he has migrated, people who migrate tend to take their dietary patterns with them.
Furthermore, the dietary manipulation that has been part of prevention trials of coronary heart disease has been very disappointing, and overviews of the many dietary primary prevention trials have shown that there is no overall benefit. These observations suggest that agricultural production and local diet might not be the explanation of susceptibility to coronary heart disease in a given country, and we suggest that local agriculture is a reflection of local climate, sun exposure in particular, and that this is directly cardioprotective.”
@Geo – you have a few misconceptions here.
First, quoting from “Plant-animal subsistence ratios and macronutrient energy estimations in worldwide hunter-gatherer diets” by Cordain, et. al. (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 3/2000):
“Our analysis showed that whenever and wherever it was ecologically possible, hunter-gatherers consumed high amounts (45–65% of energy) of animal food. Most (73%) of the worldwide hunter-gatherer societies derived >50% (≥56–65% of energy) of their subsistence from animal foods, whereas only 14% of these societies derived >50% (≥56–65% of energy) of their subsistence from gathered plant foods. This high reliance on animal-based foods coupled with the relatively low carbohydrate content of wild plant foods produces universally characteristic macronutrient consumption ratios in which protein is elevated (19–35% of energy) at the expense of carbohydrates (22–40% of energy).”
Second, wild meat is not “virtually fat free” – it depends on the season. In the fall, as they fatten up for the winter, they accumulate substantial fat. The northern hunters, in fact, would hunt them most aggressively at this time in order to create stores of pemmican (essentially strips of meat in bulbous sacks of fat).
Plus, paleo hunters preferentially ate organs like brain and liver that are fat-laden in even the leanest herbivores. Thus, even if the “meat” was relatively lean, that doesn’t change the observation that hunters sought – and found – fat in their kills even if you would consider them “lean.”
With respect to eggs: you are confusing farming with foraging. Do you really believe humans were too stupid to raid the nests of wild birds?
With respect to CHD: coronary heart disease exploded with the advent of smoking and the first introduction of industrially esterified fats. When smoking declined and the ills of trans fats were identified, heart disease began to fall. In any event, cholesterol is a predictor of heart disease – only – it is not a cause. Worse for your point, dangerous lipid subfractions tend to fall as the diet shifts in the direction of healthy fats and HDL (a predictor of good heart health) rises as sugar/carb consumption falls. This relationships is so strong that HDL can be used as an estimate of the total carb consumption.
Consuming 8 eggs and a pound of bacon is not a balanced meal – I agree. However, it is not madness; when compared to the massive consumption of fats in the Inuit diet, it is reasonably within our genetic heritage (still – I wouldn’t do it…)
That’s a fun discussion and here’s an interesting article here about the Inuit diet
http://www.theiflife.com/the-inuit-paradox-high-fat-lower-heart-disease-and-cancer/
Here are a few key comments going against the bacon diet:
The solution to the paradox may lie in the fact that not all fat is created equal. “[The Inuit] ate a lot of marine animals, like walruses and seals, whales and so forth, and the blubber of these animals is a very high source of monounsaturated fat ,”says Cordain. “So if you contrast the Inuit diet to the Western diet, it actually turns out to be lower in saturated fat- very high in fat, but high in healthful fat, monounsaturates and polyunsaturates , high in a specific type of polyunsaturates called omega-3 fatty acids that come from the marine food chain.”
and
more than 50 percent of the calories in Inuit native foods come from fats. Much more important, the fats come from wild animals. Wild-animal fats are different from both farm-animal fats and processed fats [...] Farm animals, cooped up and stuffed with agricultural grains (carbohydrates) typically have lots of solid, highly saturated fat.
So I’m wondering, are you all eating exclusively $25 a pound grass fed beef and pig? I doubt it. I can’t afford eating grass fed beef more than once in a while personally. Also, I have yet to find grass fed pork, the vast majority of farm raised pork eat Monsanto’s GMO corn and soy, vitamin supplements and antibiotics. Yum. Personally I’ll take cage-free (which does not mean anything as it’s not regulated other than having a small access door to outside)organic eggs and organic peanut butter (not the Skippy stuff which contains hydrogenated palm oil) over high sodium, nitrates loaded corn fed bacon. Grass fed beef yes but bacon is a very bad idea IMO.
My daughter is a type one diabetic and she has eaten a high fat low/no grain diet since she was 10 years old. At every diabetes doctor appointment the doctors and nurses were always oohing and aahing at her a1c since it was pretty much the best in the practice. They were always impressed with her compliance, though they did get irked with me for not brining her every 3 months and handling her care so well on our own. When we told them that all this good news was caused by not eating grain and pigging out on sat fats daily, they told us at one visit that we were strange and must have something wrong genetically that caused us to tolerate our weirdo diet. At another visit they made me meet with a social worker so I could explain to her that my daughter was safe. And yet another visit resulted in us having to talk to the dumbest nutritionist ever who told me that without wheat Anna would become vitamin deficient. Finally they made me take her to a gastroenterologist because we eat funny and they wanted to be sure it wouldn’t kill Anna to eat the all that fat. It just went on and on. The best diabetic in their practice was treated like a freak because of her life threatening diet. At 16 I moved her to an adult endo and learned to just not talk about the specifics of what she eats.
Geez, they had you running all over the place! I lucked out with my doctor. He’s always been into this way of eating, before it was even had a name. Maybe not all the specifics years ago, but the general tenets. I wish I could refer everyone to this guy, but his wait times are long enough.
I always say, “I lost 80 lbs. eating this way!”
Loved this post – my strength is sadly not in science, so I appreciate your intelligent breakdown!
I’d also add a tiny bit of history into the mix. I find that when I mention the lipid hypothesis and how it was forced into popularity without due scientific process people often realize that there is history to current medical dogma and that some new fad didn’t come along to break it down (and sell books) over night. The China study is usually what people sight to refute whatever I say, so I’m doing my best to familiarize my “non-science brain” with the solid info that both you and Rob Wolf have offered up.
One other thing I’d mention. It’s KEY to distinguish high quality from poor quality fats when giving these explanations. We don’t want to inadvertently encourage folks to go wolf down a big mac, thinking that it’s good for them! And on a comprehension level, I’ve seen it turn on some serious light bulbs for folks when they realize that fresh, unprocessed, and responsibly produced fats are what we love. Otherwise some people think we’re referring to some pretty nasty stuff, including margarine and crisco!
To Mark’s question about the questions we get and our comebacks:
I had a well-meaning older friend suddenly say:
“Are you serious about losing weight? Well, you know the diet you’re on is just like Adkins, which we’ve all tried at some point, and which doesn’t work. So if you really want to lose weight…”
At which point she had to show me the online calorie counter she uses, and had to admonish me that “it doesn’t work to save it all up and enter it at the end of the day.”
Gah. I didn’t know how to respond to the Adkins comparison and was kicking myself for skimming over what Mark has written about it.
Thanks for this article. Will be printing and studying.
Something doesn’t add up. You said in the post that Walter Willet, the Chair of Harvard’s Department of Nutrition, said that saturated fats will give you heart attacks. Then you referenced a meta-analysis by Frank Hu that disputes the connection between saturated fats and heart disease. Frank is also from Harvard’s Department of Nutrition. Frank and Walter have published papers together. I guess you could say Walter is Frank’s boss in an acedemic sense. So Frank disagrees with his boss?
Kelly – Willet is a very interesting character (and brilliant, as well). He makes no bones about saying that our dietary ills can be traced to refined carbohydrates. But he is also the lead author on the 2012 epidemiological summary paper that said that red meat led to a 20% increase in all-cause mortality.
I’m in agreement on refined carbs. But this post was about praising saturated fat. I’d love to see an interview with Frank and Walter addressing the saturated fat/heart health question.
I you are going to reference papers by Frank Hu, why not also reference his 2011 paper that says red meat increases the risk of strokes?
http://stroke.ahajournals.org/content/43/3/637
I love this article. I am a nurse and have tried to tell people how we are supposed to eat. So difficult to get this concept through their heads. My lipid panel was horrible. When I turned everything around started to exercise, drink Shakeology and continue to eat butter, venison, fish and veggies my total cholesterol went down but almost 100mg and my Triglycerides which were 404 in November of 2011 are now 138 and it is June of 2012. Yes I tell them, I eat REAL butter, I use olive oil, and sunflower oil. Real mayo. I am full all the time, I am losing weight and gaining muscle and I am 49 years old. Building bone is very important to me as well so the bone blasting workouts of weight lifting I can do outside with splitting wood by hand, working in the garden, lifting and hauling branches and other debris in my 40 acre paradise. I have not been able to totally do without something on my feet. I tried the aqua shoes but it is very challenging and I need to build up my ankles more but it is a start. I love these articles keep them coming.
I have a friend of my mothers who is constantly telling my mom I am going to die of heart disease. She means well but when I try to explain her eyes just glaze over. The good thing is i actually am slowly converting my mom.
Mark,
Any insight on different apolipoprotien genotyping and responses to high fat diets?
What I struggle with is the vegetarians and vegans who think they’re way of eating is the ultimate. I guess anybody can be a food snob (Paleo included)…but I really feel they are tops. I respect their decision to eat the way they do – so I wish they wouldn’t look at me like I’m awful for actually eating meat….
A vegan can’t have high cholesterol. therefore, only by eating animal products can one have dangerous levels of cholesterol. Therefore, diet does affect blood cholesterol and anyone saying it doesn’t needs to leave their fantasy world and realize the truth: That too much animal fats and even animal protein can cause all types of diseases such as heart disease and colon cancer. Where this idea came from that diet does not affect cholesterol levels is beyond me, but my guess is probably the meat and dairy industry.
Primal people didn’t even make it old enough to develop a lot of diseases. There is no way they could have eaten the amount of hunks of meat we do now, as you just couldn’t kill enough animals for the tribe and there were no refrigerators. You could not have a big chicken breast or massive steak everyday.
Grass fed meat still has cholesterol and high saturated fat.
I am not vegan or vegetarian. I think wheat is not healthy. I think restricting grains can have some value but it isn’t like you guys make it out to be. Large amount of animal foods and animal fat and cholesterol is not good and can lead to many diseases including cancer, kidney disease and heart disease.
Keep grasping at straws Mark to save your business and your cult based on psueodscience and your twisted idea of evolution.
Why can’t a vegan have high cholesterol?
Explain please . . . .
There are many ways a vegan could develop hypercholesterolemia. For example, hypothyroid vegans or those with familial hypercholesterolemia.
Do you think that a vegan who ate only potato chips, tater tots and Coca Cola would have high cholesterol or low cholesterol?
The article stated that eating cholesterol does not raise cholesterol levels in most people. This is true for 70% of the population. In the remaining 30%, cholesterol is raised but HDL and LDL are raised proportionately. Here is a link to one study:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16340654?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
Yes, grassfed beef will have saturated fat, but there is weak to no evidence that saturated fat causes increased risk of CHD. See http://www.ajcn.org/content/early/2010/01/13/ajcn.2009.27725.abstract.
Whoo, are you sure you are on the right website? If you still believe saturated fat causes high cholesterol or that high cholesterol causes heart disease, you are not ready for this website. You might want to check mercola.com or naturalnews.com and skip the webmd. com.
I am completely serious as it has taken me years to convince myself that “everything I know is Wrong”.
pharmacist whose life was ruined by lipitor
What would a healthy blood lab report look like?–what should I look and/request for a blood lab report that would indicate I’m healthy (and primal!)–thank-you
I just love how you show there is nothing wise about conventional wisdom. Fat is good for you!
I don’t think Mark was saying that all fat is good for you. I think he would agree with me in saying that neither trans fat nor excess PUFAs are desirable.
g-d it. this is why i hate dieting. now, don’t get me wrong, i have 50 less pounds over 5 months to prove that a low carb diet, with no concern of fats, works.
now, i come looking at this seemingly interesting article and what do i find? a bunch of anecdotes weak analogies and a gaggle of internet jockeys who apparently have bested modern science! im not trying to deny or belittle your accomplishments, but for gods sake. listen to your doctor, trust your lipid panels, and boil your damn eggs! whats the point of playing quickshits roulette?
anyway, keep being awesome.
Perfect! I’m going to dinner at SAD friends’ house tonight. I’ll commit these handy responses to memory, along with the “Why I don’t eat grains.”
“I make no such promises for those of you with a stick of butter with bite marks and a tub of coconut oil with a greasy spoon beside it on your office desk, however”
Mark What do you mean by this? I know everything in moderation BUT people like me who do a lot of physical activity consume a lot of fat just to keep up with the calorie requirements. I eat a lot of coconut oil for this purpose. I lose weight otherwise. Can you put my mind at ease please?
Great article. I actually started using Udo’s Oil (local health food store exclusive) to get all my fats.. as it provides essential and non-essential fats.
You really can’t say enough about the need for fats in a diet. All other variables the same and changing fat intake (both up or down), gives me results when I’m at a plateau.
Thanks, Mark.
Love the response to “Where do you get your energy?” The tight pants comment at the end had me cracking up. Will definately be using that one!
Started going Paleo about three weeks ago. Feeling AMAZING! Looooving the food.
Thank you Mark and all the team for sharing this info.
I’m so glad the word is getting out, more people need to discuss this in the way that you have. I went to the Dr Oz and Food for your whole life seminar and it was the same old rhetoric on low fat low calorie. Dr Oz did try to impart that starving yourself to lose weigh is futile, but the other presenters were lame. I went to just day one, so maybe someone else was saying differently, but no one has yet to come out and say what you and a few other brave and scholar minds have been promoting.
Keep the faith and keep informing.
My family thinks its crazy that a girl takes protein shakes, ‘too much’ leafy vegs, loaded with high healthy fats but little carbs
I’m suffering becos no one understands what I’m really trying to do. I feel so helpless looking at their diet.
Too much veg… lol. Ain’t no thang, girl.
I got told about this health/ fitness site by a friend and it really is very good. Keep up the good work. Training is my life so I love to read anything that relates to the fitness world
Are there concerns about long term ketogenesis?