PJ, thanks for the plug. Will of Steel? LMAO. I'm going to silkscreen that on the back of my next gym shirt.

I'm not getting into it again unless someone specifically asks me or goes back and reads the last 100 pages of my journal.

Otherwise, I'm sure Liz and Regina can handle it.

I won't have a problem. I don't even want to get into explaining all the things that happened when I went ZC.

to be fair, as I just posted what I read, don't stand behind it... It did state that they thought it was a temporary thing that happened until the body adjusted to a new diet... (perhaps not stated in those exact words)

Physiologically, all humans can live in perfect health indefinitely on nothing but meat and water. Psychologically, well isn't that a personal thing?

Asserting a thing doesn't make it true. Are you not able to understand when people talk about being *ill* eating nothing but meat?

I read it and I believe that they suffer. What I don't believe is their assessment of the reasons for their ills. There is nothing in meat that is even remotely unhealthful for humans. How can we believe that it's the meat that is the problem? Carbohydrate is highly addictive. Cutting them out will inevitably cause us to suffer from the simple withdrawal of them. It can go on for a long time too. This is a problem that causes us to suffer and it's unrelated to meat.

Eating only meat has only a few problems that I can see. The most obvious is taste. Not everybody enjoys the fat. But then taste is merely a habit. Babies don't have any taste to speak of therefore fat would be entirely normal as a food and for a human raised to eat fat from the first, he would thoroughly enjoy eating it as an adult.

Another problem is rabbit starvation. Combine this with the first problem above and it's obvious that anybody raised on a high carb, low fat diet would certainly come across this problem at some point. He would feel ill soon after eating lean meat exclusively for a time. We could see this as a problem of meat but I prefer to see it as a problem of taste since once we get over our aversion to fat, we can eat enough of it to never suffer.

The last problem is cooking. Overcooking will diminish the nutritional potential of meat to such a degree that we can develop diseases of deficiency like scurvy for instance. This is merely another problem of taste.

A problem not immediately related to meat is seasoning with salt and other things. This alone can cause us to suffer. Again another problem of taste.

So yes I believe they suffer but not because they eat meat.

That confuses me Martin. Your (near-religious) certainty about it, not the thing itself.

I love VLC. I love meat. It's easier for me to live on nothing but meat than to fold in veggies (most of which I loathe) or dairy/grains (which mostly spark cravings, addiction, etc.). I felt wonderful on VLC for a long time and lost a lot of weight. Now I feel like shit if I eat that way. And even with meals of say, sausage and eggs, I get reactive hypoglycemic response sometimes that I never got before unless I was eating pasta.

It's not because I'm afraid of fat (god no), it's not because I don't like meat (favorite food), it's not because I can't live without carbs, it's because I feel like shit when I eat close to ZC. I have no reason to be against it, but my body just doesn't like it anymore, though it used to love it. No amount of "opinions on paper about how meat has everything you need" is going to change a legit human experience ya know. When I added more carbs into my day I was astounded at how much better I felt, even on a meal per meal basis. A few berries, some beans in my meat-stew, it really helped. Not making it up... wasn't looking for excuses to eat them... just honestly felt bad and finally realized I'd felt bad for quite awhile and noticed one day when I added some carbs how astoundingly better I felt... that's how I figured it out, and some experimentation seems to confirm it.



I don't think me eating steak and chicken and pork is a problem. I think me NOT eating enough OTHER things which happen to have some carbs -- whether that is coincidence or not is left to be seen -- appears to be a problem.

What I find amazing is how Martin's ZC diet took him right down to his goal weight and then it just stuck there.... Maybe it isn't just "near religion"..............

One wrong statement though and only a sucker would buy into it... "Carbohydrates are highly addictive"... how dramatic!

I believe refined sugars are somewhat addictive, but like all addictions, it varies from person to person, but to make a blanket statement using the term "highly addictive", is merely highly inaccurate......

INTERESTING.... how long did you eat VLC/ZC? Whenever I hear hypoglycemia I think hyperinsulinemia. The heavier we are the greater the insulin secretion. This oversecretion would certainly take a few weeks to start decreasing.

Toxic bug has meat-eaters in its sights

Just when it seemed that contaminated vegetables posed a bigger risk of food poisoning than eating meat, along comes a pathogen that will only attack those of us who are carnivores.

The bacterium - a strain of Escherichia coli - makes a toxin that does its worst by latching onto a sugar molecule that humans don't have naturally. We can, only acquire it by eating red meat or dairy products.

"This toxin originally evolved to attack cattle or some other animals," says Ajit Varki, an expert in molecular medicine at the University of California, San Diego, who was involved in the study. By eating the toxin's intended target we made ourselves vulnerable too, he says.

When unlucky meat-eaters ingest this particular E. coli strain, its toxin kills the cells that line the gut, eventually causing bloody diarrhea, Varki says. It also heads for blood vessels and the kidneys.

http://www.newscientist.com/article...its-sights.html

Carbohydrate is addictive and that's not a belief. However, that carbohydrate is food is a belief. This belief is maintained by the addictive nature of carbohydrate. So while I believe people who say they suffer when they cut out all carb and eat only meat, I have to consider that they might be addicted to carbohydrate and only eating carbohydrate could relieve their suffering.

The alternative is that carbohydrate is food but then that puts our whole low carb ideology into question. Why do we cut carbohydrate if it's food? If it's food, it should not hurt us no matter the quantity.

I'm doing this debate often these days. I keep reading the same arguments, I keep writing the same arguments as well. I see no end to it because of the fundamental difference. Zero carb is unsustainable for those who believe carbohydrate is food. All the other reasons are merely a result of this fundamental belief.

My opinion might look like near-religious to you PJ. I prefer to see it as the inevitable consequence of irrefutable logic. In other words, I reasoned.

-edit- I think I come across as a little pompous there. Sorry about that. What I mean is that I write with conviction and it probably shows.

As 2bthinner stated about her love affair with the potato, that is also my love affair. Never met a potato I did not like. LOL That is what I really miss about being on the South Beach Diet. I do not care for sweet potatoes, but oh the white ones. I have been on the 2week phase one part of the SBD now for about 7 days and I have noticed that I am getting leg cramps at night like crazy. I have to say though, I do feel better on a low carb diet, could not go no carbs. My blood sugars are getting in the normal range.

[QUOTE=Cajunboy47]
One wrong statement though and only a sucker would buy into it... "Carbohydrates are highly addictive"... how dramatic!
QUOTE]
then why do so many eat carbs to such excess? Why are so many alcoholic?
yes, it varies but it is SO true! Highly addictive is an understatement.

My weight fluctuates a bit and it even increased lately (77kg or 173lbs). However, I don't feel or look fatter than I was, so from my perspective the weight increase is probably due to lean tissue growth of some kind.

Addiction is a function of the nature of the substance but also of the dose. Indeed, the nature of the substance could be to force one to increase the dose in order to get the same buzz. Smoking tobacco works this way: Inhaling tobacco progressively becomes more and more difficult. Eating carbohydrate causes insulin resistance which in turn demands more insulin and thus more carbohydrate.

The hyperinsulinemia and hyperglycemia immediately begin to subside as soon as we cut out carbohydrate. This argument comes from low carb and applies equally to zero carb. It is one reason given for why induction works.

I don't remember exactly how long I've been eating ZC. I'd say it's about 6 months or so. I plan to eat this way for the rest of my life though.