Happy Thanksgiving Day!

Since I'm having Thanksgiving alone this year (not unusual for me), a full turkey was out of the question and, besides, I prefer ham. Turkey's too dry for me. So, I have my crock pot busy working on a beef stew I'm going to have later this evening, and I've already had a brunch of a 1 inch thick, 6 inch long sirloin steak with onions, jalapeno slices, mustard, carrots and bottled water. Yum! It was good.

But, the main thing I wanted to address in this entry is the answer to a thought I've been having: what if everyone - the entire human race - or even a large percentage of us went back to eating the paleolithic diet of meat, vegetables and fruits? What would happen if billions, or even just millions of people began excluding grains and dairy and processed foods from their diet forever?

Of course, the answer points out, in glaring contrast, exactly what I've been alluding to here; i.e., that the food industry, in particular, grain and dairy producers and the companies that manufacture foods using their products all have a vested interest - a market - to protect. In league with them, the entire medical establishment and the pharmaceuticals industry has a vested interest - a market - to protect. The grain and dairy producers make billions per year from their products, which are, in turn, used by food manufacturers to make yet more billions per year selling their products made with grains and dairy products. The medical establishment has built an entire industry around "treating" various diet-related diseases that are caused by a diet rich in grains and dairy, while the pharmaceuticals industry has built a multi-billion dollar industry around selling drugs to suppress the symptoms of these dietary diseases - but never to cure them. So, you have a chain of vested interests, all joined together at the hip, all profiting immensely from your pain, suffering and ill-health - and all with a huge motivation to not only continue this sad state of affairs (sad for us, great for them), but to actually expand upon it! Anyone who would argue otherwise is either a lobbyist for one or more of these industries, or is a simple minded idiot. Since most of the American public are quite obviously not lobbyists, what does that imply?

But, maybe I'm being too harsh on you folks. After all, for your entire life - indeed, for the entire lives of the 500 ancestors who lived before you - grains and dairy have been part of the human diet and no one has had any inkling that there was ever anything different or wrong with that. In fact, just the opposite. We've been told all our lives that we require grains and dairy in our diet for survival and good health. So, it is no surprise, then, that the vast majority of human beings have unlearned the eating habits of their distant ancestors (in fact, everyone living today never knew of those eating habits, to begin with) and are pursuing a diet that is killing them, all the while believing that what they eat is good, healthy food.

But, getting back to the original question, in light of what I've just said, it should be glaringly apparent to anyone who can think critically (and our numbers are shrinking) that there is a huge monolithic power arrayed against us that has our ill health and suffering - not our well-being - at heart as they pursue their huge profits, made from willfully poisoning our food supply on a daily basis. To anyone who would ask if I believe these folks would deliberately do such a thing to billions of people worldwide, I would answer, do you really believe, in light of what I've said above, that they would not? As I said, there is a vested interest to protect, worth countless trillions in revenue. Oh! I left out one of the key players in this "food chain" (pardon the pun, I couldn't resist!): government, and those behind the scenes who actually control it (which are people very different from those whom we've elected). Who benefits from the taxes paid by the huge multinational corporations that supply the world's food products, manufacture drugs and medical appliances, etc? So, you see, we are all slaves to a behemoth that feeds off of our continued ill health and suffering, whether we like it or not.

But, through the Paleo Diet, we can all free ourselves from the machine we've been enslaved by. You don't need grains and dairy and processed foods any more than you need high cholesterol, high blood pressure, high triglycerides, diabetes, heart disease and cancer. In fact, you'll lower your risk of all of these conditions by not eating grains and dairy and processed foods. You have the power to decide what you put into your body. The choice is all yours, not the people who want to keep you hooked on what they're peddling to us. A little food for thought on this day we give thanks to the Lord for our bountiful feast.

Into the Normal Range!

This evening, prior to dinner, I checked my blood sugar and found it was at 102. The high end of the normal range for blood glucose is 110. My blood sugar, two hours after dinner (broiled burger patty with onions and jalapeno slices; carrots; cranberries and bottled water), had spiked to 137, which is lower than my previous lowest measurement.

So, it looks as if the Paleo Diet and the cinnamon are paying off. I expect that, with minor fluctuations, my blood sugar is now headed into the normal range, where it will ultimately stay - without any medication whatsoever!

My doctor is going to freak out when I tell him I did this simply by cutting grains, dairy and processed foods from my diet and doing a little walking. His mindset is that the way to handle everything is with drugs. He does absolutely nothing to encourage the patient to make corrections in diet, and that is especially alarming in the case of diabetes - which is a dietary disease! So, you ask, why haven't I dumped this guy and found a better doctor? Because they're all the same! They are trained to become legalized drug pushers, shills for the pharmaceuticals industry, right from the start of their education. The emphasis in modern medicine is upon suppression of symptoms with the use of drugs - not curing disease. Why? Because, if they were to cure these diseases, the market for their services, as well as the market for drugs, would dry up. There is a reason why the American Cancer Society has been around for 94 years without having found a cure for cancer. There is a reason why the American Diabetic Association encourages diabetics to eat grains and dairy - the very same foods that caused their diabetes, in the first place! Diabetes is a diet-related condition, correctable by changes in diet - not the "incurable" disease that doctors and the pharmaceuticals industry want us to believe it is. I am living proof!

15 Pounds in 24 Days...and Falling!

Not only is my blood sugar coming down, but, so is my weight. As of this morning (11-17-07), I have lost 15 pounds in the 24 days since beginning the Paleo Diet, and the first three days were my transition period, when I was still eating some of the "bad" stuff.

So, from merely cutting grains and dairy and processed foods from my diet, plus walking a little, I am down from 233 pounds (as weighed by my nutritionist - now former nutritionist) on October 25th to 218 pounds, as of today. Proof positive that the Paleo Diet is great for weight reduction.

What is happening is that my body has accumulated a lot of fat over the last ten years or so and now, in order to maintain itself, it requires the same amount of calories per day that I was taking in. But, the difference is that now it's not finding those extra calories, because I'm no longer supplying them. If there aren't sufficient calories to maintain all that fat, then it gets burned off as my body goes into "starvation" mode (actually, a state of ketosis) and begins burning fat for energy. Since I have way more fat on me than there are calories to maintain it, it's being burned at a fairly high rate: about .6 pounds of it per day, by my calculations.

Ketosis is a stage in metabolism which occurs when the liver converts fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies which can be used by the body for energy. Aside from rapid loss of body fat, you can tell you're in a state of ketosis by the smell of your urine. It has a kind of "funky" odor to it that is quite unusual.

Any successful weight (fat) loss program should produce ketosis, otherwise, you're just losing water and, worse yet, perhaps muscle tissue. The big difference in the Paleo Diet is that you're gaining muscle mass, just by the way you're eating. In your former typical American diet, you had very little protein to supply the body with the building blocks for lean muscle tissue. But, on the Paleo Diet, which is rich in high quality protein, you're supplying your body with all the protein it needs to build new muscle. This means that, when there are fewer calories in your diet than there used to be (because you're not pumping yourself full of sugar and starch anymore), your body has to find fuel elsewhere and it starts using your fat reserves as fuel. In other words, your body goes into a ketonic state, in which your liver is processing fat into fatty acids and ketones. It's the ketone waste you smell in your urine. Since the Paleo Diet ensures you'll be gaining muscle mass - not losing it, you're protected from the ill effects of other diets, which only cause you to shed water and muscle tissue.

If my calculations are correct and I'm losing weight at the rate of about .6 pounds per day, assuming that remains constant, I'll be down to about 190 pounds in another 46 days or so. Now, you may ask, what's to prevent this from becoming a "runaway" weight loss? Well, your body's natural tendency is toward equilibrium. In other words, you could never continue losing body weight as long as you're eating food, once you get to a certain weight. We each have an ideal weight at which our body will naturally reset itself to, given the right conditions; i.e., the right diet and exercise level. It's been many years since I've been at that ideal weight and I have gained muscle mass, via strength training in the 1990s, so I don't really know what my ideal weight is, yet. My body will tell me when it gets there. I would guesstimate, though, that it's somewhere between 190 and 200 or so. I say this because, when I began putting on muscle in my early forties, I started out at a weight of around 190 or so. But, I may not have been as lean then as I thought I was, and part of that weight may have consisted of some excess fat. I guess I'll know for sure when my weight loss stabilizes and I'm at equilibrium again. Man, that's gonna feel good!

The Cinnamon is Working!

The other day, I began my cinnamon experiment, taking one tablespoon of cinnamon powder per day in an effort to see if it reduces my blood sugar.

Well, the first dose was about an hour before dinner followed by a walk before dinner. I tested my blood glucose both before and after eating, allowing two hours after the meal. The results on my first test were that my blood glucose remained stable at 156, both before and after eating.

Last night, I followed exactly the same regimen and, for the first time, my blood sugar test after dinner was actually lower than the reading I obtained before the meal! If this becomes a trend, then I've found the ideal program for reversing my diabetes: the Paleo Diet, coupled with a small dose of cinnamon and excerise daily. I can do that!

Cinnamon as a Remedy for Diabetes

Well, since I first met with my nutritionist two weeks ago, I've already lost 4 pounds on the Paleo Diet. My blood sugar has remained in the 100's and my test this evening showed perfect stability of my blood sugar at 156 both before and two hours following dinner. I might be able to credit that result to a vigorous walk before dinner and the fact that dinner consisted, in part, of green apple slices topped with powdered cinnamon. Cinnamon is known to lower blood sugar and, of course, so does exercise, by burning off glucose.

After this happy result, I did some research on cinnamon as a remedy for diabetes and found that, in a study in which patients were given half a teaspoon of cinnamon powder daily, their blood sugar was reduced. The study also confirmed that this effect is the same in people who don't have diabetes.

So, I've decided to consume at least one tablespoon of cinnamon per day, as well as use it in my meals, and see if I notice any effect. My goal is to get my glucose down to around 100 and maintain it there. So far, I appear to be on track to achieving this, since the upper limit of normal blood sugar is 110.

By the way, I've canceled my second appointment with the nutritionist and won't be seeing her again. Why would I, when she advocates allowing me to eat the foods that will perpetuate my diabetes and actually make it worse? In the end, I'm the only one I can trust with my own health.

Off to a Great Start!

I'm a fifty-five year old man and I was in good shape in my forties, doing strength training and walking six miles a day. Since then, I've developed high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglycerides and, now, just two weeks ago, I was informed that I am a type 2 diabetic. That's the bad news.

The good news is that I had begun reading Loren Cordain's The Paleo Diet before I was diagnosed and would have been giving it a try, anyway, to reverse the other conditions I'm afflicted with, aside from the diabetes. Having started the Paleo Diet within two days of my diagnosis, I have already begun to see my blood sugar coming down from the 200's to the 100's, in just days, folks.

Now, I'm a believer. I am finding the Paleo Diet is not only easy to do and easy to stick with, but is so because it is the natural diet of humankind. It is what our ancestors ate for over 2 million years, before the advent of agriculture and the domestication of cattle, some 10,000 years ago, brought grains and dairy into the human diet. In short, this is the diet we were all meant to eat.

Since the introduction of grains and dairy, human beings have been afflicted with an increasing array of diseases and conditions that were unknown to our paleolithic ancestors. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglycerides and diabetes are all diet-related diseases that, even today, are unheard of in modern day hunter-gatherer tribes (what few of them are remaining. We keep killing them off by introducing them to "civilization"), let alone in our paleolithic ancestors. We know, from archaeological evidence, that our paleolithic ancestors never suffered from these conditions. We know that they didn't eat grains or dairy, as these weren't introduced until about 10,000 years ago. So, it has been principally the introduction of grains and dairy products, as well as modern man's processed foods and chemical manipulation of foods that has created all these dietary diseases.

Today, there are more obese people than ever in history. Paleolithic people were lean and muscular. Today, there are more people with high triglycerides and high blood sugar than ever in history. Paleolithic people had normal blood sugar and triglyceride levels because they didn't have the elevated levels of sugar in their diet that we have today. Today, there are more people than ever in history suffering from high blood pressure and heart disease, Paleolithic people never knew such conditions. They didn't exist.

Getting back to my own case, since starting the Paleo Diet, just days ago, not only has my blood sugar begun coming down, but I'm feeling 100% better than I was and I'm anticipating that when I return to my doctor in a couple of weeks to check my lipids and blood pressure again, I'll find that has begun to normalize, as well.

Since I was consuming cheese daily and drinking a gallon of milk every three or four days or so, I'm convinced that dropping dairy from my diet entirely has, by itself, been of tremendous benefit. That's to say nothing of the effects of cutting grains and processed foods out, also.