Exercise away the plateau?

I have to admit it, I'm lazy as hell. I've never been all that keen on exercising, or when I was a kid, playing. Back then, I liked to stay inside and read instead.

One summer when I was in college, I did a summer program where I was a camp counselor glorified baby sitter for high school students. We were expected to stay in the dorm pretty much around the clock with the kids. The gym however, was an acceptable place to be if we weren't in the dorm. So I started going to the gym to get the hell away from the dorm and the kids. I exercised everyday almost for about two or three hours. I had never been to the gym so much in my life. Why did I do this? I'm sure you've heard of the 'freshman 15' where the new college student gains fifteen pounds from eating the crap that Sodexo (used to be called Sodexho), or some similar food service, serves. I had gained something like 90 pounds in the two years that I had been at school. I never thought I particularly stuffed my face. I simply ate until I wasn't hungry. Skinny people do that all the time and don't gain weight. Anyway, I was approaching 250 pounds, and this after I had been down to 163 pounds (after eating Atkins no less!), from a high of 270 pounds when I was in high school. Let's just say, I wasn't having any of it.

This is before I understood how low carb works, so in addition to going to the gym I cut back my food intake. I was hungry all summer, but I lost twenty-five pounds (which left me at about 225 pounds) and in the end found it easier to do the elliptical machine for nearly an hour. I also lifted weights too. The last time I went to the gym, which was just before school started for the fall, this skinny bitch approached me and told me that I ought not to lift weights until I had lost more weight. Really? People seem quite capable of poking into your personal business. I shut her up by telling her my doctor had told me to. Well, I didn't have a doctor, but most doctors would tell you that resistance training is beneficial, especially if you're overweight.

I stopped going to the gym because during my senior year, I barely had time to sleep, much less exercise. I did maintain my weight though, and I credit that to living in an apartment-style dorm and not eating at the cafeteria very often. I think Sodexo makes it a point to inject sugar, er, I mean High Fructose Corn Syrup, into all of their food. Typical fare was a burger with fries, or mystery meat with potatoes and some other vegetable. Don't get me wrong, if I had understood how low carb worked, I could have probably eaten there on it. I just didn't know at the time. Ignorance is not bliss.

When I graduated I stayed about 225 pounds for a while. Then I decided that I really wanted to lose some weight since I was going to Europe, so I started restricting calories and going to the gym again. I typically walked on the treadmill for an hour with it set to being inclined. I did lose another twenty pounds. After my trip, all the weight came right back the second I started eating until I was content. That's a great thing about low-carb. You can eat until you're not hungry, and you don't gain weight. The same could never be said when I wasn't doing low-carb.

Anyway, I was back at 220 pounds when I started this low carb journey back in May of last year. I'm currently at about 180 lbs, which I haven't weighed since before I went to college.

So what's the point of my story? About exercise. When I used to walk a lot, especially before my trip to Europe in 2009, I would be so sore. All the time. My legs used to feel like they were on fire the next day, especially if I skived off of walking for a few weeks and then started doing it again. (Maybe the pain is what made me not ever have the inclination to be a gym rat.) The first day after walking a few miles was always hell. And it often didn't get much better. I would think, 'I have been walking five miles every other day, shouldn't it get easier?'

Well, I've been stuck at 180 pounds for about a month now, and it's kinda annoying. I am 5'9" tall, and I think I probably ought to weigh 160 or maybe a little less. My BMI is currently 26.6, which is slightly overweight. I might ought to weigh 150, I'm not sure. I'd have to see when I get to 160. Anyway, I decided that I could do one of three things to break this plateau. I could try exercising, which I haven't done, because as I said at the beginning of this, I'm lazy as hell, not to mention I'm not masochistic. I don't like pain. The second thing I could do is cut out the diet coke and splenda sweetened kool-aid I drink, since artificial sweeteners could be a problem because they do raise insulin levels (I hate plain water, and I have cut back on the diet coke, you don't even want to know how much I used to drink). Or I could cut out the bit of dairy I eat (mostly cream or half and half) since I have read of other people who said dairy caused them to plateau. I decided I wanted to try exercising first. Walking is probably good for us, and I want to go backpacking in Europe again someday, so if I keep up being able to walk long distances, that would be a good thing.

I walked two miles yesterday. This after not walking, much less exercising, in months. I'm not sore today. I suspect it's the low carb diet, which reduces inflammation. (Inflammation causes pain, particularly in the joints). It's pretty amazing actually. I'm hoping this breaks the plateau. I'll let you know.

The Cholesterol Lie: They'll never let it go

If you've read anything by Uffe Ravnskov, you'll know that cholesterol does not cause heart disease. So, when I read this article this evening, I thought, they'll never let it go will they?

Fat Alone, Not Where It Sits, May Be Key to Heart Problems

"That challenges the widely adopted notion that not all obesity is alike, with so-called apple-shaped people, who carry fat mainly in their midsections, facing a bigger risk for heart problems than those whose excess fat is carried on the hips or elsewhere.

Not so, say the researchers behind the new study. When it comes to obesity and heart disease, no excess fat is good fat, regardless of where it ends up, their analysis has found.

"Society has accepted the idea that if you carry more weight around the middle, your risk of heart disease is higher," said Dr. Emanuele Di Angelantonio, the study's co-author and a lecturer in medical screening at the University of Cambridge in England. "But actually this study shows that it doesn't matter where your fat is located. If you're overweight you're at risk, full stop."...

They also found that tracking a person's blood pressure and cholesterol levels, as well as monitoring their history of diabetes, appeared to be best way to assess heart disease risk. When such indicators were readily available, they noted, adding in BMI and waist measurement information did not improve risk diagnosis..."

So, basically they do mention that diabetes is a risk factor for heart disease. What causes diabetes? Elevated blood sugar over a prolonged period of time that causes insulin resistance. What causes elevated blood sugar? Eating carbohydrates. Bleeding simple, and yet they're like Don Quixote, tilting at windmills. Forget testing for cholesterol. It's irrelevant! Test for blood glucose levels instead. That would give a better idea of whether someone is healthy or not.

If you are overweight, then you probably have elevated blood sugar and/or are insulin resistant. In fact, I'm not sure that it's possible to be overweight and NOT be insulin resistant. Hence why being obese is associated with cardiovascular disease, because every time your blood sugar is elevated, you are damaging your internal organs. Yes, you read that right. Every time you drink a Coca-Cola, every time you eat a piece of chocolate cake, you are DAMAGING YOUR INTERNAL ORGANS. In fact, even if you are not overweight and even if your insulin works well and it brings your blood sugar down quickly, it is probably never quick enough to completely avoid the damage that is done. Add this up over days and years, and you have cardiovascular disease. Not to mention all the other disease of civilization, like cancer. If you damage your cells repeatedly, they repair or regenerate themselves. If your cells are required to do this frequently, the cells regenerate quickly, leading to high cell turnover, leading eventually to a cell that doesn't regenerate in the right way, which leads to cancer.

The good thing is, your cells will repair themselves if given a chance. The bad news? You can never go back to eating the way you did if you want to remain healthy. You have to ask yourself what is more important. The slice of chocolate cake or your health? Death is inevitable. Health is your choice.

Insulin Resistance and Response

I've spent my day reading all about insulin resistance and insulin response. It's a very fascinating subject.

What prompted this was that I saw arguments on some forums that insulin has a short half-life, therefore it cannot have an adverse impact on tissue. I think that this is quite frankly, codswallop. Not because it's been proven one way or the other, but because the amount of time (or exposure) is not the only thing that determines damage. Frequency is just as important to take into consideration. Temporary high blood sugar spikes could possibly damage your internal organs. If it happens once, it might not be a problem, but when it happens repeatedly every day, over the course of time, it would come as no surprise if organ damage developed. Insulin does indeed have a short half-life, it is estimated to be between 9 and 16 minutes in humans.

However, this does not mean that insulin does it's job in this amount of time, nor does it mean that insulin is reduced completely in that amount of time. By definition, a half life is the amount of time it takes half of the thing in question to decay. Because it is always half, if you understand basic math, you will realize that it's exponential as to how long it takes for something to be cleared completely¹ from a system.

The math is for n, the number of half lives elapsed, the percentage remaining is 100/(2^n). This does not tell you how much is left after n cycles, the quantity being dependent upon the initial amount produced or in the case of insulin, secreted. It takes five half-lives for complete decay to be achieved. This means that after a meal insulin is in your blood at higher than basal levels for at least 45 to 75 minutes based on the 9 to 16 minute half-life. However, in real life, it may be much longer. Insulin remained elevated in subjects after a meal for more than 120 minutes in this study. If you are eating high carb meals with snacks in-between, how often do you think your insulin levels are elevated?

In a healthy person, perhaps this isn't enough time to do damage, even with frequency (although I doubt it, which may be why almost everyone becomes insulin resistant at some point, even if it's when they're old). However, a lot of people become insulin resistant when young. Insulin resistance means that your cells are unable to use the glucose in your blood. Insulin secretion will continue in waves so long as glucose levels in the blood are raised. If glucose levels remain elevated long enough, your pancreas' β-cells may lose their ability to produce enough glucose and this is by definition diabetes.

So is it just carbs? Not completely. If you are insulin resistant, and trying to lose weight, one reason why it's very important to make sure that on a low carb or paleo diet that a good quantity of your diet is from fat, is because protein can cause an insulin response just like carbohydrates. So get the 'low fat' crap out of your head! One study showed that consuming a steak could cause plasma insulin levels to rise nearly 100 pmol/l above fasting levels, whereas cod fillet only caused a rise of 50 pmol/l. This may very well be because steak has about twice the protein as cod fillet. According to caloriecount.about.com, one ounce of steak has between 7.7 and 8.6g of protein (depending upon the type of steak). The same amount of cod fillet has 4.8g of protein. The study's authors say the difference in insulin response could also be attributed to carnosine, a dipeptide which is found in beef but not cod. Regardless, lean meat can cause an insulin response.

Keep in mind that protein is vital for rebuilding muscles, and if you're weightlifting you may need more than someone who's not.

Now, what do all these studies mean? Not a damned thing if you ask me. Honestly, the people funding the study influence the results. The data can really be interpreted to mean anything. And I do mean anything. We now know that cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease, but rather inflammation and homocysteine probably do. And yet there are dozens of studies about the nefarious effects of cholesterol, most of them poorly done, and the data manipulated to say what the researchers wanted to be said.

So, what causes insulin resistance? It seems no one is very sure, and there may be multiple causes. Some say it's chronically elevated insulin due to elevated blood glucose from over consumption of carbohydrates. Some of it is probably genetic. Whatever causes it, eating low carb or paleo is beneficial, as it reduces inflammation and makes insulin resistance unlikely. Indeed, though it is anecdotal, many people have noticed improved glucose tolerance after eating low carb for a long time.


¹ Insulin is never completely cleared from our system. We secrete insulin in small amounts every few minutes, even when we haven't eaten.