My last post was getting uber-long and on other sites you get auto-signed out sometimes so the worrier got to me and I posted so to not lose it (though I had it copied anyway, ha).

Phil,

Thanks for the tips. I didn't think too much about the importance of sunshine until recently reading the forums here. The sun has always made me feel better and even as a child I would remember needing to go outside to "cure" my headaches. I'm rather dark (mediteranean blood) and so perhaps my sun requirement is slightly higher than normal. Its winter now but luckily I live in Houston, where there can be decent sun year round.

As for positivity, I completely agree, but still find it a challenge to be positive right now. It seems so much easier to be negative and my humor for the most part has been geared towards bringing down people, sometimes just to get a reaction. This is just another thing I need to try and catch in the moment before letting the thought spread.

Other things I plan on doing for health are walking barefoot as much as possible, defecating in the natural squat position, possibly sleeping on the floor (I've had some intense dreams when I tried this in the past) and hopefully more when I find out about them. Also will be doing my deep breathing daily as well as other realation techiniques.

Tyler,

I think grass fed meat is going to be much better in the long run than grain-fed. Its rather sad that the zc group seems to believe that the impact of grass vs grain is minimal at best. The true effects might not be seen for 20 or more years. It could easily be one of the reasons  the bear got cancer. I ordered 15 pounds of slankers ground beef in the past and will be ordering some soon again.

William,

Thanks for the link, I've actually read just about the entire bear thread as it originally was. The guy is the ultimate guru, though he never learned how to quote which was probably most surprising of all.


Also, Phil, I am going to repost here a post you made last month that should get some serious consideration for post of the year. You basically summarized my philosophy on what is taking place in modern society with respect to science. I've read "fooled by randomness" and have never agreed with someone so much and like you I don't really like it when I agree so completely but then again it was refreshing to see someone think very similarly to me, just quite a bit more elegant.

Over the years as I've investigated the derogatory claims of Moderners (among whom I don't include Tyler, though he has cited research, opinions, etc. from this school of thought--which I am grateful for, actually, because he has provided a very useful counterpoint to posit my speculations and ramblings up against without having to deal with the really harsh critics like PETA-type folks) about the Stone Agers and HGs in general I've found that most of them are based on false assumptions, fictions, and falsehoods. Manthropology is just the latest compilation of revelations about the fallacies of the Moderners, revealing that the abilities of even recent HGs were superior in multiple ways to moderners. The usual knee-jerk response is to engage in ad hominem and claim that the scientist or layman who reports these phenomena is just promoting the "noble savage myth" or longs for a primitive utopia.

What never gets mentioned is that the critics (and their claims that others cite) are sometimes influenced by a utopianism of their own, often unbenownst to them, that infected academia decades ago, which is a sort of Utopian Progressivism. It's dogma is endless progress, man as machine, and the perfectability of man. That which is new is considered "improved," and that which is old is assumed inferior unless widely publicized mountains of evidence make it impossible to ignore the obvious. The dogma of endless progress is far, far, far more common than noble savage mythology (how else explain the endless advancement of "new and improved" technologies, foods and drugs, almost without restraint?). It claims to be scientific, but much of it's original source material comes from fictional or misguided sources like Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes and it seems built on scientific reductionism and consensus. Assumptions are rarely questioned; instead, the same old fallacies (such as "the diet-acne connection is an old wives' tale") and faulty studies (such as the bogus 1960s study that claimed to refute the diet-acne connection) get cited over and over again ad nauseum and then Modernism's defenders point to the piles of rehashed articles and say "See, there is a scientific consensus backed by the weight of the evidence," when in reality it all teeters precariously on one or two bogus studies or maybe some snippets of 17th century philosophy.

"But wait a minute," you say. "Hobbes was a Monarchist, not a Progressive." True, but some of his concepts made an impression on the masses and were misinterpreted and reshaped over time (such as the "nasty, brutish, and short" quip, which Hobbes used to describe agrarian Englishmen, but which was transformed into an archetype of the HG) eventually infecting academia and the Progressives, deep into their psyches like an invasive cancer, probably setting science back several centuries. Plus, some Progressives replaced the despotism of monarchy with a new form of despotism: an all-knowing Mother Culture led by a cultural elite that sought to "help" the "savages" and "underclasses" by "civilizing" them.

Luckily, there have been and are reformers amongst the Progressives and the academics who have recognized where things went wrong and have been shedding light on this, such as Margaret Meade, Richard Leakey, Daniel Quinn, Jared Diamond, Art De Vany, Boyd Eaton, Loren Cordain, Michael and Mary Eades, and Nicholas Taleb. These and other academics, intellectuals and Progressives put various pieces of the puzzle back together that make up the ancient storehouse of knowledge and experience: man is not perfectible, everything new is not necessarily improved, many of the assumptions on which current scientific consensus is based are faulty, and beginning around 10 thousands years ago there was a "Great Forgetting," as Quinn called it, about ancient knowledge that we have only begun to re-learn within the past century or so.

Assumptions are being questioned, studies re-examined, paradigms shifted, and we are witnessing the dawn of a scientific revolution. I call it The Great Remembering.

"But hold on!" you say. "You did what you criticized others for doing--engaged in ad hominem about Progressives." Not all Progressives. Many would call me one, actually (others might claim I'm a Positivist or Libertarian--I don't think I fit neatly into any philosophical or political slot at present). Notice also that I didn't single any one out and was careful to explain that I'm not including Tyler in my critique. It was more of a general critique of the basic school of thought that seems to underlie the source materials that critics of RPD and HGs have relied upon, based on an impression I've garnered from years of watching Paleo dieters and advocates get attacked. Notice that I instead singled out some Progressives and likeminded academics for praise. I hope that I've managed to critique the message and its underlying underpinnings more than the messengers.

One thing I also try to remember is that all variations of Paleo diets, raw diets, and low carb diets are regarded as heresy worthy of ridicule by the powers that be. Based on their criticisms, they apparently regard us all as idiots or devils to be straightened out or silenced. So I try to remember not to criticize too harshly folks from similar ways of eating, but like a dumb, dumb I sometimes forget. So I apologize to any such I have offended in the past, and proactively apologize to the folks in the future I will likely also offend when I let my words get ahead of my brain.

For ten thousand years we have been blinded by The Great Forgetting. The Great Remembering has only just begun. Imagine what amazing revelations await.

Good luck and good eating.

http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/hot-topics/are-we-meat-eaters-or-vegetarians/msg19668/#msg19668

Here’s my story- I put the cliff notes at the bottom if you want to skip down

I'm not entirely ready to start my journey again but want to get my thoughts out in the open so here I go. I recently finished a 30 day stay at a rehab for gambling and alcohol and have temporarily moved in with some relatives to get away from my old ways for the time being as a half-way house of sorts. I am not sure how long I will be here but I am committed to recovery and will likely stay until I have found a job or other suitable living conditions where I can more effectively live my life.

I was playing poker professionally which was working out well for the most part financially but unfortunately I could not handle the constant stress and the horrific gut-wrenching pain that necessarily came with losing.  I can get into more details if anyone cares and probably will in the future. For now I just want to put myself in position to feel good again.

I began changing my diet a year ago last August after I haphazardly decided to read GCBC, which turned out to be one of the best things I had ever done. Nearly every single aspect of my life changed for the better and I can't extend enough gratitude to Gary Taubes for writing the book.

Ever since I was 13-14, I began to feel tired, unmotivated and slowly more depressed. I had some good years at the end of college where I came out of my introverted self a bit and cracked my insecure shell but this seemed to vanish when I went to grad school. Grad school was one of the worst parts of my life and where my depression really got a hold of me. It seemed like I was tired every day and constantly had no energy for anything that I wanted to do. I played sports all my life and found myself gasping for air nearly every time I played well before anyone would need a break. I’ve never been overweight my entire life.
Everyone would tell me how lazy I was and I was told constantly how tired I looked. I really believed I was just lazy and had to will myself to achieve more. During grad school I went to see several doctors, none of whom impressed me and several of which gave me diagnoses that were completely opposite from the last. I did 2 sleep studies, which for the first supposedly said I had sleep apnea though I never met with the physician who diagnosed me. I went to three different ear, nose and throat doctors whom two told me I didn’t have sleep apnea and one said I did. I went to a cardiologist and did a stress test which didn’t do much and then finally to a pulmonologist who said I should see a psychiatrist. It never occurred to me that I might be depressed during this time. I had been complaining about lack of energy to doctors of years now with nothing good ever coming from it.

With my degree being in statistics I was increasing more upset at the way the medical professionals were handling me. I couldn’t understand how they could treat me or give me proper diagnoses by talking to me for at most 10 minutes and then taking a few blood tests.  At the time I thought how I would never ever treat my patients like they did to me.

Not once did a doctor tell me to give up sweets or juices or even mention diet in the first place. I had no idea that diet played a role in anything. I suppose you could argue that it should be obvious but when everyone else is eating whatever they want and have seemingly endless amounts of energy even, much more so than me, even my 80+ year old grandma then you don’t really think about these things.

The pain from being so tired during the day and not being able to sleep is truly infuriating. I found relief when a friend of mine gave me some adderall one night. I felt alive for the first time post elementary school. The euphoria and energy running through my body was unbelievably amazing. I didn’t know a human could feel so good. I didn’t want to have another day without this glorious feeling. I felt complete; my body ran extremely well on it.

The effects, of course, were temporary and I would only take it at night but I made sure not to take it to many nights in a row as to not form a tolerance or get an addiction.

I started to taking some anti-depressants as time went on which helped a bit but never stayed on them.  It wasn’t till last August 2008, 2 full years after I completed grad school that I read GCBC. The book made such an enormous impression on me that I changed my diet immediately. Steak had always been my favorite food, especially the rim fat and so I was excited that I had a chance to eat it all the time. Before changing, I also cannot remember having much if any solid stools over the past 5 years. They were also extremely painful at times and I bled often. I had also begun urinating more frequently as well. By the end of the first week of VLC, I was having solid stools again and energy was soaring. Also the multiple headaches I was getting every week completely vanished as well. Luckily, I had little to no transitional symptoms, except for a small craving for carbs which went away for the most part after the first couple weeks. I attribute this mainly to my youth being 27 when I started the diet.

I kept the diet up, though I would still drink heavily on occasion about every couple weeks. I did manage at the beginning to go out several times with my drinking friends and not buy one drink. This had never happened in the past 6 years or so since I had been hitting the bars. My confidence was soaring as well and I even managed to pick up a girl completely sober for the first time.

Unfortunately the pattern of drinking to excess on occasion turned to drinking several times during the week, which led to breaking my diet more and more and eventually to a full blown “relapse”.  I see this relapse as no different as any other drug or process addiction relapse.  I continued my drinking binge all the way until rehab last month. I was looking for an excuse to stop drinking but couldn’t stop myself from drinking. I was having too much fun and could not stop on my own.

Even though I continued to eat mainly meat my energy levels and mood began decreasing and became near unmanageable when I went to Europe for 7 weeks this past July and August when I ate lots of carbs.  The rehab facility wouldn’t allow for outside food to be brought in so I had eat their food which tasted great but was quite carby as well, but I was away from poker and alcohol so my mood improved a decent amount while I was there.

Now, I’m out and free and able to have the freedom to eat what I want and am slowly easing my way back into my diet.  I began my journey last year eating fully cooked grain-fed meats along with eggs, cheeses, occasional yogurts, home-made ice creams and a few veggies and fruits now and then. I slowly started eating more and more raw and when I found this site I tried to eat raw as much as possible.  I followed the zc forum for a while but had lots of issues with the mentality though I agreed with almost all their dietary information and am very thankful for this site which seems to have much more in-depth information on many more issues.

I am interested in becoming as healthy as I can through all means not just diet even though diet probably composes >80 percent of this. Even though I like to think myself as objective and willing to be as unbiased and as open as I can, I really want this diet to work and have some serious emotional attachment to it since it pretty much saved my life. I love reading the threads here and getting as much information as I can about how I can improve myself and hopefully will be starting to implement several of these things as possible when I get more settled in. I really respect the posters here and enjoy the open discussions and look forward to participating and learning along with everyone else.

So, here I am – 28 year old male 5’11 about 188. I do enjoy lifting weights and since I plan on eventually moving down to no vegetation, I will want to test whether or not I can play high intensity sports like soccer/basketball. I ate a couple pounds of raw grain-fed beef the yesterday and will have about the same amount today. I am having trouble asserting myself to the people I am staying with about the way I feel about food and consequently have eaten a decent amount of cooked carbs the last week with horrible results. I get so tired so quickly it’s unreal.  



Cliff notes

Since 13 I have begun to feel more and more tired leading me to being very depressed and along the way accumulated numerous other smaller health problems. Last year after reading GCBC I changed my diet which completely reinvigorated me into someone that finally felt human. Unfortunately I still drank which lead to a “relapse” where I was feeling very tired again with decreasing health. Now, after spending a month in rehab I’m ready to embark on my journey again to good health.


Comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated-thanks:)

I also agree that the difference between pasture-fed beef and grain-fed walmart meat could be huge, and most likely is enormous when taken through the course of 40+ years. I just don't understand those that are choosing to go zc do not go the extra step to go pasture-fed.  Sure there might not be a difference but why risk it, if you are eating only meat for the rest of your life.

Cost wise its definitely more expensive, say at most ~$10 more per day so about 4k more per year or 200k over the course of a lifetime but I still think its a small sacrifice and still probably cheaper than a SAD.

What is Taubes' agenda? And what are his most serious flaws? I guess I should just wait for the article. But, I have yet to seen any serious legitimate criticism and would love to hear a good critical review. GCBC absolutely changed my life and I am eternally grateful that I read it. It literally changed every aspect of my life for the better.

Lex, do you mind going into more detail about your hair loss and when it stopped? How soon did you notice that it was stopping? Have you noticed any new growth? Also, other zc'ers have noticed new hair growth elsewhere- have you experienced this as well? Thanks again.

We are clearly not self destructive on purpose. We evolved to continue our genes by any way possible and so in my opinion cooking probably helped us stay alive longer. Cooking lets us eat certain foods that are not available to us raw.  Cooking also drastically changes the taste of food.

I haven't eaten raw foods long enough to tell if its acculturation getting in the way, but cooked meat still tastes better than raw. There has to be a reason why cooked food can taste so good yet be potentially harmful to us. I can't imagine us evolving to have taste buds that crave something that is so bad for us. My guess is that there clearly must be some short term benefit, perhaps faster availability of some of the nutrition and energy.

Or maybe its more psychoactive like cocaine, where we will crave more and more of it until we eventually overdose and die. In the example of cocaine, the short term benefits are obvious and immediate (euphoria and energy) and the potential harmful long term effects are of much greater magnitude. So cooking can be thought of an extremely mild psychoactive drug with small magnitude short term benefits.  I look at sugar in a similar manner. As always this is just speculation and I am confused but to me it seems there must be some short term benefit to cooking or else we wouldn't do it at all.

Lex, What does your family think of your lifestyle? How about friends/neighbors? Have any of them changed their diets because of you? Do you ever go out of your way to try and help others who are struggling with their health?

Lex, was wondering if you do anything else to optimize your health besides the way of eating that you follow.

For instance, do you sleep on the floor, walk/run barefoot, squat while you defecate???

Who sleeps on the floor?

Ive found a few things online suggesting that its better and even this article below recommends it as part of the raw lifestyle. Im currently attempting to go sleep on the floor full time but have yet to do it more than 2 nights in a row. Its not the most comfortable at first and sleeping in my bed is so easy especially when Ive been out drinking. Im really going to concentrate on keeping this up consistently this week as it goes along with the simplistic nature of how I think human life should work. We never evolved to sleep in beds, why should we start doing it now. Im on the floor now as Im typing this just about to sleep. My brother has also been doing this as of late and is getting very good rest and vivid dreams.  Ive experienced the same things the times Ive been able to sleep the entire night on the floor.

http://www.beautifulonraw.com/raw-food-blog/raw-food-lifestyle/raw-food-lifestyle-sleeping-on-the-floor/

I think you have to define transition in a more narrow sense. I think you will find, especially as the person gets older, is that the complete transitioning effects of the diet will take place over a number of years. Yes, the worst symptoms will occur during the first week or so with very few people experiencing anything too substantial after a couple months. Ive read seemingly hundreds of experiences from the zc board and have yet to see anyone have any real long term complaints if theyve stuck with the protocol long enough. Quite a few have not reached their goal weight or have stalled but nearly all feel substantially better which is all that matters.  I think cramping is about the only intermediate-term issue that quite a few "suffer" through.

Unfortunately its way too early to tell how long transitioning will take place. Who knows 5-10 years down the line, the overall health of zc'ers might start to decline and a transitioning downward might happen. Not that I think this will happen but its still a possibility. As for me I went vlc with most days being zc after reading GCBC with no memorable negative effects. I started feeling the difference. in a very positive manner, almost immediately. I went zc for a couple months straight and felt the same as vlc. I tend to agree with a poster above that if you do want to eat vegetation its best to do it in the summer time.

The one puzzling thing about the article is that the researchers say that this is a very rare discovery. I have virtually no knowledge on the subject, but arent there thousands of different bones from around this era that have been discovered. Do none of these bones give the same information about diet as the one above or is this the only one?

Do you have any other sources about bones discovered at or around this time period?