I’m just getting back to my desk after a several days in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

I had a little R & R, played some golf, and just enjoyed myself in general.  Had all the same kinds of food I wrote about in a post last year, so I returned well fed.  Now I’m tanned, fed, fit and ready to type, so it’s back to the grindstone.

Thanks to the poor economy, this trip was a little more exciting than previous trips.  At least the golf part.  When we pulled the carts up to the first green on the first day we played, the caddy told us to pull off the cart path and park the carts down by the green.  When we asked why, he replied, “Banditos.”

Turns out that hard times have driven many desperate people to turn to crime to feed their families.  According to the caddy, ‘banditos’ hide in the jungle along side the cart paths and come out while the players are on the green and steal anything they can get their hands on.  A few weeks before we got there, there was an actual armed robbery on the course.  Fortunately, our trip was without incident, so I returned home with all my belongings.  Didn’t even lose anything to the airlines, which is probably a more likely way to lose valuables than to banditos on the golf course.

Aside from banditos, there are other dangers on the courses in Mexico.  I took the photo of this guy shown below as I drove by him in the golf cart.  Anywhere there is water on the Marina Vallarta course, there are crocidilos lying about.  You’ve also got to keep an eye out for snakes whenever you hunt for lost balls in the jungle bordering the courses.  And there are iguanas everywhere.

One of the things I like about Mexico is always coming upon the unexpected.  The giant head in the photo above was half buried in the ground just off the tee box of one of the holes.  I caught a glimpse of it through the trees and couldn’t figure out what it was.  I walked around and through the brush until I could see it and snapped a photo with my iPhone.  What is it?  A football player? Why is it there in the middle of nowhere?

While I was south of the border my web guy was hard at work, which is a nice segue into a couple of blog housekeeping issues.  Those who read the comments have discovered that my comments are now up in a salmon color.  And my tech guy has installed a plug in so that I can answer specific comments and end up indented right below them so that I don’t have to use the @[insert name] business.  Anyone who wants to reply to a specific comment or even to a reply to a comment can do so by clicking the blue highlighted ‘Reply.’

This makes the entire process much, much easier for me, and will help – I fervently hope – me to keep up with the comments in a more timely fashion.

At long last the 6-Week Cure blog is finished.  All I have to do is have the tech guy click it on and you will be able to click on it from the menu at the top under ‘Blogs.’  All it is right now is an empty template.  MD and I have to populate it with a little content before it goes up.  I’m hoping it should be up with some content within a week.

I’m having trouble getting MD to focus on anything but the wretched Choral Society (of which she is the president) right now because of her big event coming up in about ten days, so if there is going to be content, I’ll have to create it.  And I’ve got a lot of other posts I want to do that aren’t 6-Week Cure posts.

MD has been working on an extravaganza that will be performed on Feb 13th and 14th in Santa Barbara that may well be the social event of the season.  I’ll post more on it as the time draws nearer, but just to give you an idea as to what’s going on, her group is singing the world premier of a choral piece written by Sir George Martin (yes, he of The Beatles fame), and, as it turns out, Sir George himself is coming from London to conduct it.  Along with the choral piece, Sir George will conduct the chorus in a version of Eleanor Rigby that he scored as a choral piece.  The rest of the performance will be Beatles tunes scored for chorus accompanied by a world premier ballet choreographed for this occasion.  So, she has a lot of work to do to pull this all together.  I suppose I’ll cut her some slack in the blog-content-creating department. At least until Feb 15.

As for my own content on this blog, the next post will be the long-awaited and promised post examining and critiquing Anthony Colpo’s Fat Loss Bible.  It will actually be a two-part post with the first part devoted to showing the errors of Anthony’s thinking vis a vis the metabolic advantage, and the second will be an in-depth look at a famous paper that Antony has dismissed out of hand but which, as you shall see, is really a brilliant study.  With these two posts, I’ll put paid to Anthony Colpo and hope to never mention him again.

I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t posted a lot, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about posting.  I’ve got a number of things I’ve been wanting to write about that  I plan to have up as soon as the Colpo deal is finished.  I want to add my two cents worth on a bunch of the problems some Paleo dieters seem to develop.  And I’ve got a post cooking on the thyroid and iodine.  One on fructose, and one on saturated fat.  Plus the analysis of the next stupid study that will inevitably pop up and seize the imagination of the mainstream media types who will shout it from the rooftops.

61 Comments

    1. Very few like his attitude, Dr_A. He’s his own worst enemy. If I had good sense, I would ignore him and just let him blather on as everyone else does. But I’ve got just enough of the redneck in me that I feel compelled to fight back.

  1. So glad to hear the 6 week cure blog idea is finally going to come to fruition. Hopefully you will be able to answer all the questions posed in the comment section of your post on the 6 Week Cure Blog Idea. Look forward to that.

    Regarding your review of Anthonly Colpo’s e-book, I look forward to that too. I am hoping you will be able to explain why some people cannot lose weight on low carb without also looking at the amount of fat they eat (i.e. lowering the fat content of the low carb diet)..

    When I look at the data from the Stanford Study (2007) and the Masai study (2007) and the Israeli study, I cannot help but notice that there are people who do not respond to the low carb diet in the same way the majority of people do — the statistical outliers.

    For example 3% of the Masai are obese. Why? Who are these obese meat eaters? Are they older? Are they women? Although its nice to know most people do very well on a low carb diet, there are those who do not. What is the physiological explanation for that phemenon?

    We saw in the Israeli study, that although the men on the unlimited calories, low carb diet lost a lot of weight, the women on the unlimited calories low carb diet did not. What is the physiological explanation for this phenomena?

    Lastly, the Stanford study. Not all the women on the Atkins diet lost a lot of weight. We do not have a lot of infomration on just the low-carbers in the study, just a statistical comparison of low carb versus LEARN, Zone and Ornish with the low carbers losing more than the other groups and having etter values. But what about the outliers on the low carb group?

    So Dr Mike, I would like to hear your take on these outliers. Physiologically speaking, what is going on here? Just saying they are not following the plan, does not apply to the Masai study. Since they had no other option, the obese Masai 3% have some physiological explanation.

    Look forward to your blogs on “The Fat Loss Bible” and the new 6 week cure blog as I hope they clarify these issues for me and for all the rest of us who apparently have to watch our fats as well as our carbs.

  2. I’ll be anxiously awaiting the post on thyroid and iodine. After low salt (so low iodine) diet, Bernstein low-carb diabetic diet, lots of soy for a year, I developed severe incapacitating chills of low thyroid, severe depression, exhaustion (CFIDS), etc.

    1. Try cutting out the soy. I have no idea why, maybe the good Dr. will explain it, but lots of us with thyroid symptoms do much better when we cut out the soy and eat real meat, eggs, etc.

      1. Auntie Wie: I did cut out the soy. Luckily I became allergic (hives) to it after a year, before I eventually found out it is bad for thyroid. Since systemic Candida, I have difficulty digesting eggs and meat and have been sticking to cheddar cheese.

        1. Actually the soy may have brought on the low thyroid. For a lowcarb diabetic treat I made my own tofu from soy beans, adding vanilla and stevia and gobbled it up every day.

  3. I am very curious about your upcoming post on the thyroid and iodine. I think iodine is often overlooked by family doctors…

  4. I’m new to your blog, but I love the indepth information you give. I just started eating per The Primal Blueprint, which seems to be very similar to what you recommend. Your blog is helping me get through this initial adjustment period so I very much appreciate it.

    I just wanted to add that I am looking forward to your post on thyroid and iodine as I started taking nascent iodine a month or so ago and it seems to have made a big difference albeit one that is difficult to describe. I’ll be interested to know what you think about the nascent iodine.

      1. I just saw your infomercial yesterday . . . very well done. I am curious though, are you planning on selling the Sous Vide Supreme through Amazon.com?
        The search engine at Amazon seems to be set up for the product, but following the link doesn’t bring up the actual item.

        1. I’m not sure about whether we’re going to be selling through Amazon or not. This thing has taken on a life of its own. We now have a marketing department full of people who make those kinds of decisions. I’m not really involved in the day-to-day operation of the company, although it does seem to gobble up a lot of my time.

  5. Espero realmente su diseminación de los lenguajes declamatorios de Sr. Colpo, pero por supuesto usted sabe que él acaba de agregar otro capítulo ilegible en su libro “They’re all Mad” y reclamara victoria de nuevo. Es realmente ridículo ya. ¡Pero seguro es divertido!

    Vamos a beber un poco de tequila y olvidarnos de ese hijo de puta stupido!

      1. Awesome link and that gator claw is totally creepy! I just love my SVS and use it almost every day. Tonight was shrimp in butter and garlic.

        It even replaces the microwave to warm up leftovers without over cooking. The SVS is a great way to get the most out of my local grass-fed beef stocked in the freezer and helps us stick to our low-carb ways. Cheers to you, MD and the SVS team!

      2. LOL!!!!!You sound nice and tequila ‘croc-ed’ already!

        Your other friend the great Oz of Oprahland counseled Carnie Wilson on dieting today. First, he told her to throw out all the other diets including the ‘protein only’ one. Then he tested her blood sugar-and informed her she was a “borderline” diabetic-her BS was 100-who knows when she last ate.
        She was shocked to say the least. I was too! So a heart surgeon and an addiction expert are going to help her.

  6. Dr Mike, it’s not just the rednecks, mate! Us Aussies don’t like Voldemate either. He commits the major sins of being full of himself and not reacting to others taking the piss out of him with good humour. These are cardinal sins where I come from!

      1. LOL! Good one, Michael.

        It’s a turn on ‘Voldemort,’ the evil villain in Harry Potter, but made Aussie — ‘Volde-mate.’

  7. Can I buy a Wretched Choral Society through your Amazon portal? Do they come in a women’s cut?

    You know you are going to catch hell for that comment, from more directions than one… ;->

    1. Ah, I see. I didn’t get it because I’ve never read a Harry Potter book nor seen one of the movies, so Voldemort means nothing to me. But now that I know, it does sound applicable.

  8. Hi Dr. Mike, just an FYI.. tell your tech guy that the style sheet for your blog isn’t working correctly in Firefox 3.6.

  9. Oh meant to ping you about Vitamin D. I’ve been researching it for a page on my site, and ran across several studies which showed that calcium supplements and iodine supplements both DECREASE serum 25(OH)D3 levels. Iodine supplementation also increased TSH levels, possibly through lowering serum levels of vitamin D. On the positive side, supplementation of Vitamin D had a positive effect on insulin sensitivity and lowering blood glucose. Just hoping you’ll post on this one day..

    Studies:
    http://hyper.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/29/1/531
    http://www.optimox.com/pics/Iodine/IOD-21/IOD_21.htm

      1. Man, I look forward to that one. Especially, how to incorporate D-3. I’ve been taking the 50,000 IU pills every ten days in the winter along with a dinner of liver and onions and raw milk. Because, from snippets I’ve read, I’m getting the feeling that massive shots of D3 need to be taken with massive doses of vit A and calcium. But I can’t keep all the threads straight; I could be way off.

        Again, really looking forward to anything you compile on vitamin D-3.

      1. Eh, excuse me, but as someone who’s actually eaten camel (in Jalalabad) let me say it’s incredibly fatty (I must have had the hump) and tastes like concentrated bacon. Huge flavour. Not like chicken at all!

  10. When you post about the thyroid and iodine I am very interested in hearing whether Vitamin A is necessary when taking iodine supplements.

  11. Also, if you have poor night vision and are hypothyroid and your multi contains only Beta Carotene 10,000 iu, should you add a few thousand Vitamin A ius?

  12. Dr. Eades: this is more FYI, but feel free to post if you like.

    Regarding your upcoming iodine post, apparently in the 30s my state of South Carolina promoted itself as “The Iodine State” as a way to help sell agricultural products grown here. They even went so far as to put it on license plates (pictured in the links).

    http://www.scencyclopedia.org/iodine.htm
    http://troywatsoncharleston.blogspot.com/2008/03/sc-wonderful-iodine-state.html
    http://www.sciway.net/sn/53.html#8

    I’ve also wondered to what extent iodine deficiency might be a factor or cause behind the supposed cretinism of some rural Appalachian mountain folk of yore.

  13. Can you explain something to me? I am looking at one of the studies Colpo uses as support: Johnston (2006) and I can’t make the numbers add up.

    In one table the paper reports baseline weights and fat mass, so I can back out baseline fat free mass. Then in a different table, it reports baseline fat free mass, but it’s different. And not a little bit different, like a rounding error, a lot different.

    Example: Ketogenic group
    Table 1:
    weight (kg): 95.8
    fat mass(kg): 38.8
    —>Fat free mass, there fore should be 57kg

    Table Three: Ketogenic group
    Fat-free mass (kg): 54.9

    Both charts are labeled baseline. It’s very hard to reconcile the various numbers they report on charts and in the text.

    Is this common? Maybe there are measurement tools at work that are conventional that I don’t understand. The differences are strange and potentially important. I don’t really understand what nutritional people care about, but I wanted to see who lost more percent body fat. If I back out the numbers from table 3 fat free mass reported and weight reported in table 1 and in the results section the Keto groups lost slightly more.

    Question 2: The study reports Resting energy expenditure. It increases from 5.8kcal/kg to 7.24 in the ketogenic group, and 6.64 to 7.51 in the low carb, but not very low group. That’s a 25% increase in the keto group. I would think that speaks to the body composition of the fat free mass, at least somewhat. The text doesn’t discuss it though. It would seem to make sense, though, that if they lost a higher percent body fat, as backing out the numbers indicates, that they’d have a higher REE, so it caught my eye.

    I know your busy, but any insight would be appreciated.

    1. I just spend 3/4 of a day dealing with Colpo. I don’t know if I can stand anymore right now. Plus I need the full citation for the paper. I can’t really tell what you’re asking from the information you provided. And I don’t know the context in terms of what Colpo is saying the paper says.

    2. I agree with your calculations of the FFM. I don’t know what they did. Usually FFM is the difference between total wt and fat mass.

      And I agree with you that it could well relate to the actual FFM instead of the FFM they have listed.

  14. How much protein would you say is required for a zero carb diet?

    A few years ago you did a post saying that it takes 1g of protein yield about .7g of glucose, and that, with ketones, the body’s glucose requirement drops to about 120-130g.

    http://www.mreades.wpengine.com/drmike/ketones-and-ketosis/metabolism-and-ketosis/

    One of the commenters calculated that this would mean a zero carb diet would require 250g of protein, and you replied that “you can get by on much less.”

    1. On a zero carb diet, ketones would reduce your blood sugar needs to about 120 g per day, all of which would have to come from gluconeogenesis. Protein converts to carb at about 0.7-0.8 g protein to g glucose, so you would need about 150 g to convert to glucose and probably 20-30 g beyond that to deal with the wear and tear of protein structures that needed replacing. That’s my best guess.

  15. Your RSS feed isn’t working for me anymore. Firefox says “XML or text declaration not at start of entity”. Looks like there’s a blank line at the beginning of the XML that shouldn’t be there.

  16. Just a note:
    Your RSS feed hasn’t been working for a couple of weeks. See if your webguy can bring it back up. Cheers.

  17. The helmet thing… I live in San Diego and I KNOW I saw that thing somewhere around here and I’ve been driving myself batty trying to remember where and what it was.

  18. I did the 6-week cure back in Feb and had great results. Problem is, starting in late-March, I developed muscle cramping in my “right side only” in the pec, tricep and lat muscles. These cramps are not severe but are persistent and never go away. My first thought is that I have gotten my calcium out of wack, but could be a combo of calcium, magnesium and potassium. Example: If I purposefully contract my tricep, the muscle will start to jump and will continue jumping until I force another movement to the muscle. Your thoughts please?

    1. I can’t possibly diagnose and treat over the internet. Have you tried potassium. That is the most common cause of symptoms like yours.

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