I could not in good conscience start a thread on Matt Stone's advices anywhere else than the war zone, seeing as he is currently on a rampage against low-carbing.

But I believe this guy has very good things to say, since he has tried so much diets and way of eating in depth and read so much about nutrition.

So basically the High Everything diet is all about reversing the damages done to our metabolism that, among other bad things, resulted in superfluous fat gain.

The currently known multi-causal agents seems to be: Caffeine, Fructose and PUFA vegetable oils. These are only a problem when consumed chronically. Anything that disrupts or slows down your metabolism is your enemy.

It is important to note that we are all affected to different levels by this.

- Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant. Caffeine is the world's most widely consumed psychoactive substance, but unlike many other psychoactive substances it is legal and unregulated in nearly all jurisdictions (ref). Chronic use of caffeine results in a net slowdown of your metabolism. The constant stimulation puts a lot of strain on your adrenals. When your adrenals start being unable to keep up, your metabolism slows down.

- Fructose is an hepatic toxin (ref, ref, ref, ref). Only your liver can metabolize fructose and what it does there is very similar to what ethanol does (not good, if chronic). Over consumption of fructose directly causes insulin resistance. By the way, most fruits are not that high in fructose and are also packaged with the antidote. But sucrose (table sugar) is 50% fructose, so anything with added sugar is out. This video is really great on the subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

- (PUFA) Polyunsaturated vegetable oils (read margarine and most frying oils) are a great contributors to chronic subclinical inflammation (ref). Chronic inflammation means chronic production of cortisone by your body to lessen the inflammation. And we know that cortisone promotes fat gain.


Here is why this is in the war zone. Matt is convinced that low-carbing for a long period (maybe lots of years) will at one point (different for each of us) stop having it's wonderful effects and at that point you will have slowed down your metabolism and became more sensitive to carbs of any sorts. When this happens you will be stuck on a very big plateau. I can personally relate to this myself.

Eating low calories will also result in your metabolism slowing down. But in the case of low-cal it's worst because you forced yourself in a catabolic state and are slowly wasting away muscles with the fat. Also, losing fat this way is only temporary. You are not fixing the root problems and when you resume eating normal amounts of calories, you will gain fat fast and probably more than before. Plus, you are left with less lean mass (muscles).

All these diets most of us go through to lose weight actually damages us. What is needed is a way to lose excess fat in an anabolic state. So in order to truly reach your body's personal healthy fat content, you have to first fix the issues and fat loss will naturally follow. But fat loss is the last step, you will go through a healing phase before it happens.

So the High Everything diet is all about eating when you are hungry. You must never be hungry. Sure at first you might gain weight, especially if you were low-carb or low-cal before. Also you eat lots of saturated fats (animal, coconut, etc...), you eat lots of protein and yes you eat lots of carbs too. High Everything. BUT, you avoid caffeine, fructose, PUFA oils and ethanol.

For some the issues are not as simple to fix. You might have subclinical hypothyroidism, which affects 40% of the population, and/or an overused adrenal (ref, ref, ref). Or any other issues that needs finding and fixing before true fat loss occurs. It's a personal quest for all of us. Because unfortunately, most health care professionals won't be able to help you much, they're just too far behind on the actual science.

Another important thing to note is that our sensibility to these issues is worsening from generation to generation. So comparing with what your grand-parents or even your parents ate might lead you to wrong conclusions.

My personal story is this. After an initial weight gain of 15 pounds, I am now on my way down for good. I feel much more alert, strength flowing through me and I just feel good. I had to supplement with desiccated thyroid and adrenals and will soon start on the Iodine. My body temp before all this was 95.3 in the morning and is now 96.5, still too low but it's getting there.

I might not agree with Matt on everything, but I now agree that not all carbs are bad. There I said it !

I hope you enjoyed some of this info.

Patrick

Thanks Valtor but I think I'll stick to those foods that were available during the ice age. Coffee will remain my downfall until I can wean myself off it.

btw you should have seen how great I looked on the "High everything Diet" until I reached the age of 40

Yeah, dropping coffee and diet cola was very difficult for me. But if by avoiding these things I can eat carbs and feel better, than I don't mind.

Patrick

Maybe it was the ditching of those two items that is making you feel better. But so is going vegetarian for most people at first because they have ditched all the processed crap. How long do you think your body will sustain itself eating carbage? How much time do you have? I don't have that kind of time for experimentation.

I ditched caffeine completely 9 months ago, while I was still very much low-carb. Believe me I did my fair share of experimenting, like Matt, but I think he is ahead of me and that following his advice will save me a lot of time. I will sure keep everyone interested posted.

Patrick

I've been reading these threads on Matt's blog, and the letters people have written in to him about how LC has failed them and made them feel like cr*p, and his responses to them. But I can't quite get my head around the "high everything" philosophy. My son has been trying the Matt Stone approach for a couple months now, and so far he just keeps gaining and gaining. I mean when Matt offers this sort of advice to someone:



Well I don't know about you, but eating that way is one of the things that brought me well up over 300 pounds, when I just could not stop eating. Gatorade and ice cream to heal the metabolism?

Yeah, I agree my metabolism is tanked. I'm just not sure that ice cream and Gatorade (talk about a major yuck) is going to heal it, and in the meantime it will certainly send my blood sugar soaring up through the stratosphere.

Patrick
I agree with some things Matt says. I don't think all carbs are evil. I have been successful at losing my weight, and I did so eating whole grain oatmeal, whole grain breads, crackers, fruits and veggies along with meats, fish, egg, cheeses, etc. However, I would never recommend to anyone to eat too much of any one food group, nor would I think eating sugar or refined carbs is okay either. I do think there can be an initial weight gain as your glycogen stores fill up from eating carbs again. I'm curious to see how you do with this.

Debbie,

Matt can easily be made to sound weird when quoted out of context like that. To really grasp what this is all about, you have to read the eZine is writes every month (free on his website).

The stuff about ice cream is just a way of saying that anything is better than low calories.

Patrick

Gosh. I go away for the summer (no internet at the cottage) and this is what I come back to? lol


I'm not sure how you misquote "do whatever it takes to get calories in you." When you say that even ice cream is better than low calories, all I hear is "I can haz ice cream?"

Taubes wrote about those adolescent pigs who ate a low protein diet, and just ate what, five times as much to get enough protein, and didn't get fat, as an example of luxusconsumption. And if starving yourself leads to a greater propensity to store fat, maybe keeping the stomach full, with a constant flow of nutrients to the cells, could lower the level of fat storage. The stomach being the main fuel tank, rather than the fat cells, sort of thing.
My personal inclination, though, is to think that Matt Stone is a dangerous lunatic, nutritionally speaking.

-Donny

sounds interesting. i do a 'fun' day every 3-4 weeks where i basically carb up...but mostly through crap like ice cream and bread. i don't do it to keep me thin, i do it cause ice cream is awesome and it keeps me from dropping my LC WOE. do you do something similar or is your plan an everyday thing?

can you give me a run down of what you eat? what types of carbs especially. do you have a ratio? mine is about 75% fat, 19% protein, 6% carbs.

To me this just sounds like the old "eat until you're full" diet - unfortunately for me with certain foods I never feel "full" with the #1 offender being dairy and #2 wheat. So no ice cream for me Even if you say it's different from "eat until you're full" still certain foods are the issue for me rather than the number of calories, so based on my experience, this diet would not work for me.

LL

LOL, good post !

I guess we are all lunatic in our own way. But, I would much prefer to be a critical thinking lunatic than being a sheep who follows the idiotic mainstream guidelines, don't you think? At least on this site no one is such a sheep, so that's good !

Patrick

I stopped counting my ratios long ago. Since I don't have any food intolerance that I know of, I just eat any carbs I want. As long as there is no added fructose or Omega 6 hiding somewhere in it. Mostly rice and potatoes. Also, I avoid anything with artificial sweetener.

I have an occasional glass of red wine and sugary dessert on special occasions. I don't miss sugary things, I'm more of a salty type.

Patrick

Well it's all about finding what is wrong with your metabolism, that resulted in excess fat, and fixing it. So the quest is different for all of us. You sound like you are on the right track, so keep at it.

Patrick

Matt has interesting theories - I'll be interested in how this pans out for you!

I think low-carb poops out for some people - myself included. I went too low for too long. I do however think that there *is* a magic number for people - carb amounts that is. I think that a) people don't generally eat enough fat if they go very low carb and this creates a bad situation for metabolism and b) maybe one needs to keep below high carbs but above seriously low carbs for long term weight management.

Maybe it IS all about calories - but not in the way we might think. Maybe you have to seriously stuff yourself to lose anything on VLC? Maybe that wouldn't even make any difference in the long run. That is besides the point anyway.

Yeah I agree with Matt, and I think most people would do better with higher carbs, and more fat, but there is a cut-off point I think. Remember that the peeps eating potatoes and rice with lots of fat (sticks of butter) are actually still eating quite a high percentage of their calories from fat, despite the carbs. No sugar, no weirdo fructose or processed wheat/grains and voila - maybe it does work.

My husband is as thin as a rake, eats my diet (meat, tons of fat, nuts, veg etc) but he eats potatoes and rice in addition. Maybe I should try that, seeing as I've gained 7 kilos on low-carb so far. The gain started when I went VLC for a period of time. Now I'm stuck in 'low-carb-gone-horribly-wrong-land).