Explain Instincto Diet Fully #2

[GCB]

No, laborers need probably around 5000 Kcal/day or more. Male with moderate physical activity like me need around 3000 Kcal.

5000 Kcal/day ? Please let me know your sources. Mine indicate for normal male workers between 25 and 50, 2400 Kcal/day, for heavy workers 3000, for very heavy workers 3600 and for extremely heavy workers 4000 Kcal/day.

The instinco theory does not constrain anyone to take two meals per day only. As a matter of fact, D. Guyaux advises to take several single foodstuff meals daily in the practice of instinctive nutrition – or “AIR”, as he has called it. Numerous instinctos, including myself, had a go at it.

If I recommend to take two daily meals only, it is to rehabilitate the alimentary instinct in the beginnings. To multiply the meals or to nibble all the day long, for example, hinder this rehabilitation. That’s why I recommend to start with instincto diet during a holiday period, and by complying to some rules evolved from experience.

But after this rehabilitation, someone requiring more calories and then unable to fulfill his or her needs with two daily meals only can eat like his/her instinct indicates without any overload risk.

It looks like you failed to understand that instinctive nutrition is foremost (and in principle) the law of pleasure: what is tasty is beneficial , and what is beneficial is tasty. Rare are the exceptions, and a few rules are enough to reach the maximal pleasure. Once this enjoyment level has been reached and has become usual, the rules do not require anymore to be applied from outside, for the simple fact that transgressing them reduce pleasure.

The case of hard workers is included in this general law: if the caloric requirement isn’t met, the food able to fulfill that particular need takes more attracting flavors and is easier digested because the organism releases more enzymes and the rations are adjusted accordingly. I’ve always observed that, and have never seen skinny and tired instinctos as you claim it – except in a few singular cases as I explained here . To sort it out, may I suggest you let me know me in private (with their consent) the names of the persons you would have seen in such conditions. Of course, I won’t quote their name publicly.

Without concrete and verifiable cases, I'm unconvinced about the relevance of your personal conclusions.

[Paleo Donk]

I've seen GCB state that proteins should be around 1/12 of the diet. I keep finding more and more evidence to limit protein as there seems to be no need for excess protein once nitrogen balance is achieved.

I wonder why both GCB and Iguana have a bias against us raw paleos who consume much animal products. Is it simply because of the amount of animal protein that is a problem? What would you fellows say about a diet that limits animal protein to around 10% and supplies the vast majority of the rest of the calories from raw animal fats and also additional vegetation as needed?

Basically, is it the protein that is the problem or just the amount of animal matter in the diet that you think is the problem. I really am starting to believe that excess protein is a much bigger problem than we suspect, but that animal fat is not at all the problem. In the Clara Davis study, bone marrow(not sure if raw) was the highest chosen food for one of the infants.

[Iguana]

No, laborers need probably around 5000 Kcal/day or more. Male with moderate physical activity like me need around 3000 Kcal.

Nothing in the “instincto” theory forbids you to eat 3 or more meals a day! 2 daily meals is not a dogma but just an advice as it has been found to be fairly well suited to most people, especially those working in the morning and afternoon with a break at lunch time.

About your “emacied instinctos”, there’s something especially hilarious. As a fine example of “emacied instinctos”, you told me that “X’s father is much too thin”. To verify such hearsay, we did a survey on 43 long term instinctos and found out this guy’s weight to be 78 kg for 1,85 m, therefore a BMI of 22.8, slightly heavier than the mean BMI (21,75 kg/m2) considered as normal by the medical institutions! Alphagruis (Gérard) got very angry and wrote that this guy and his family were included in our data whereas they do not practice the instinctotherapy. He then launched a whole stream of abuse at GCB and myself, as usual!

Par exemple, je ne serais pas étonné du tout que des membres de la famille d'Api voire Fred figurent dans la "statistique".
Or ces personnes ne pratiquent justement pas l'instinctothérapie.

It would be good that Carnivore and Alphagruis agree on whether this man is too thin because he has practiced instinctive-nutrition for 23 years or whether he has an ideal weight because he precisely doesn’t practice it! 

The fact is that his whole family perfectly practice a 100% raw paleo instinctive diet, but after encountering serious troubles with French stubborn social welfare workers and administration since the kids didn’t eat the standard diet, they don’t want to be called “instinctos” anymore. The parents barely avoided their children to be taken away by the administration and social services, as happened to some less fortunate families in France and even in Switzerland. Fred, you know this family perfectly well and I don’t think you would dare pretending that its other members are “emacied and tired”! Your assertion about the father is absurd enough.

It would be good as well that both detractors of the instincto diet, Carnivore and Alphagruis, agree about our daily need in kcal: up to 5000 according to Carnivore, while 1800 are enough according to Alphagruis  :

http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/hot-topics/anti-instincto-thread/msg39707/#msg39707
My diet is Raw Paleo with fatty meat and organs, fish ,shellfish, eggs etc with a modest part of fruit and plant food (essentially greens plus some nuts) in winter and more in summer. Fruit is rarely tropical. Typically around 1800 kcal a day only even in case of important physical activity. I know in advance what kind of food might be appropriate. Nothing to do with an "instinct" IMO, just initial training.

So, for one, instincto diet leads to consume too much calories, while for the other it prevents from consuming enough calories… Both opinions are derived from intricate and doubtful theoretical or statistical considerations based on our poor knowledge of biochemical and living  phenomenon – so complex that we are totally unable to apprehend them globally .

On the opposite, instincto-nutrition simply allows anyone to find the adequate food quantities bringing the needed amount of calories while directing spontaneously towards either stuff rich in carbs, or towards proteins, or towards fat according to the fluctuating needs and specific digestive capacities of each individual. Still, it is necessary to do as we are told by our senses of smell, taste and other relevant perceptions.

Cheers
Francois

[KD]

Why would the detractors have to agree on what is what? that makes little sense. Anyone can piece together there own reasons though either experiences of themselves or others or cite logical fallacies without agreeing on anything else, its not a yes or no survey of two choices. Team Edward.

As for the BMI thing, your really have to be joking. Citing WHO data unless you are going to embrace all their other suggestions for nutrition makes no sense. Vegans take this logic all the time, they criticize requirements, and then cite any victories in number crunching. First off, there there is no way 25 BMI is overweight. Secondly, BMI is meaningless as it doesn't take into effect muscle composition. Using a BMI calculator, I'm almost at 22, and I'm visually at least 10-15 lbs underweight even though I'd say I look 5-10 lbs heavier than my numerical weight. So for some with no muscle, 22 BMI might be 10-20 lbs underweight visually. that is under baseline normal, not under the limit of what is overweight. Getting up to 185 lbs would put me in the 'overweight' category according to WHO. In the only time I ever was that weight I looked to be about normal/thin and I was actually less muscular, which means with more muscle I could probably be at least 26 BMI and still look trim/healthy. Basically any athlete or actor or any non visually thin male is 'overweight' via BMI according to this system.

The idea of putting up something *optimal*, against such low standards is a major issue (for me). There is no way 21 BMI screams of vitality and ideal health by anyone impression (unless one has the body composition of a featherweight boxer ~ 21 BMI which is on a temporary 'competitive' composition, in other words - extreme), and if that is the mean (average) obviously many people were far below that. I don't see how one can rule out that some may have been skewed according to alphagruis's overeating sweet foods point. I don't see how a single diet wouldn't yield some to under-eat and others to overeat, that seems pretty consistent with anything I've observed with even 'natural diets'. Rather then address whether this is possible - which seems to be the main idea most critics can rally around in terms of whether the ideal amounts and types of foods are chosen per instinct over other systems- It seems easier to draw attention to the disagreements among critics, which is totally unimportant.

[Iguana]

Why would the detractors have to agree on what is what? that makes little sense.

Ok, they are not compelled to agree! I just found their extreme disagreement highly comical – just like the different diet proponents and nutritionist wildly disagree about almost everything except that the Earth revolves around the Sun. I don’t care at all about calories and how much kcal I ingest daily. I suppose it varies largely from day to day. I just balance and enjoy without counting, calculating or constantly reading about diet, and I feel good with what and how much I eat.

As for the BMI thing, your really have to be joking.

Of course there are individual variations, but the data relates to an average. On the number of subjects these individual differences are compensated. That’s why it’s always hazardous to draw conclusions for an individual from an average. But to compare averages between them is perfectly relevant, as long as they were established under adequate conditions.

These numbers are a better way to roughly compare things than visual impressions, which are completely subjective. Over a certain number of sampled persons, the differences you talk about become blurred, already on 20 or 30, then on 43 it doesn’t count anymore statistically.

Workable criticisms should rather relate to possible skews in the choice of the persons.

I don't see how a single diet wouldn't yield some to under-eat and others to overeat, that seems pretty consistent with anything I've observed with even 'natural diets'. Rather then address whether this is possible - which seems to be the main idea most critics can rally around in terms of whether the ideal amounts and types of foods are chosen per instinct over other systems- It seems easier to draw attention to the disagreements among critics, which is totally unimportant.

Instincto nutrition is in no way a single diet! Each one has his own instinctive diet, different from the others, different from day to day, climate to climate and place to place. 

[KD]

Of course there are individual variations, but the data relates to an average. On the number of subjects these individual differences are compensated. That’s why it’s always hazardous to draw conclusions for an individual from an average. But to compare averages between them is perfectly relevant, as long as they were established under adequate conditions.

That is what I find totally ridiculous about it. The average OF the small group fit within the WHO level of what is 'acceptable' but it was not at all what even the WHO (which as I point out is skewed) said is average. Therefore, if there were any instinctos that had BMI's above ~21 or so, there HAD to be plenty of instincos asked that had to have BMI's well under what is considered healthy if the 'average' was the tail end of what is acceptable. Thats just common reading of data. On cursory research, jockey's (horse racing) can get into 22+ BMI and they arn't allowed to weigh over 120 lbs. Keep in mind we are talking about characteristics of the worlds healthiest people, not the WHO standards of health. This is like taking the average of pull-ups a standard American can do, and doing within that range says one is fit.

as for not fretting about diet, you are probably right in what makes a long term approach doable. Even so, that doesn't compute when discussing such specific points like this and elsewhere. If we are talking BMI, you can't just duck out on the pretense of lifes pleasures without conceding that the original point had some merit if one wishes to have a robust healthy body. The statics tell a different story in comparison to the 'tedious' methods of tracking or whatever need to get done against natural impulses. Obviously we can't quantify visual opinions, but ultimately that has importance and often more significant reading of health. If someone looks to be a healthy weight, and weighs much less, then it is one indicator that their diet and lifestyle is serving to create healthy tissue and lose waste. If someone can't create healthy tissue and create impressive health to please even basic subjective criticism from unhealthy people, odds are what is going on internally is not matching up with any theories no matter how seemingly guided by nature.

[GCB]

And therefore we should not generalize from our experiences. Many rawfood "gurus" generalize on the basis of anecdotal evidence and, even worse, explain away results that do not support their predictions (bad practice, detoxination etc.), i. e. they consider only results (seemingly) supporting their hypotheses. Therefore their hypotheses cannot be falsified. A good example are German rawvegan gurus.

Exactly! We are all tempted to conclude too quickly in the direction that suits us, and to reject the facts that do not suit our ideas.

A means to fight against these temptations is to get rid of the desire to show this or that; but it is extremely difficult.

In 1964, I was lucky to start the experiment without knowing at all if it would be possible to survive with raw food only. My question was thus double: are we genetically adapted to the culinary nutrition? Aren't we perhaps more adapted to a raw diet? Mankind could in fact find itself sitting on the fence: not yet adapted to dairy, cereals and cooked stuff while being not adapted anymore to a raw paleo diet. I stood thus inevitably neutral in front of this uncertainty, my own survival being concerned.

The observations carried out day after day on humans and animals convinced me that we are still much better adapted to the raw, primordial food, on the level of the operation of our senses as well as that of our metabolic system. Thereafter, nothing came to invalidate this postulate, except that the products of agriculture don’t show anymore the characteristics of the wild products (it suffice to compare a wild fruit with its agricultural counterpart), and that one thus needs a series of rules to adapt the operation of the self-regulation mechanisms to the current environment data.

However, it is in 1974 only, that is to say after ten years of experimentation on a large number of volunteers and animals, that I published a first writing: “Instinctotherapy: elixir of youth? ” where I announced my observations and my first conclusions – still with a question mark.

All my research and all my publications always remained faithful to this spirit of interrogation, even after the many scientific discoveries which came to confirm my assumptions.

Besides, the interrogation and the questioning of the knowledge goes through the whole method itself. Instead of going to affirm the utility or the harmfulness of such or such food, it is a matter of questioning our body and of interpreting correctly the signals it sends to our mind; and next, to check if obedience to these signals converges towards balance and health. This method has the great advantage of avoiding the preconceived ideas and inevitable false calculations in dietetics, considering no one can know the true needs or capacities for assimilation of a given organism at a given moment.

[carnivore]

5000 Kcal/day ? Please let me know your sources. Mine indicate for normal male workers between 25 and 50, 2400 Kcal/day, for heavy workers 3000, for very heavy workers 3600 and for extremely heavy workers 4000 Kcal/day.

It depends also on the size and the basal metabolic rate. If I don't eat 3000Kcal a day, I simply loose weight. And I am not a heavy workers!

[...]
 and have never seen skinny and tired instinctos as you claim it – except in a few singular cases as I explained here .

Well, now that you are out of prison, you should see them...

[Iguana]

Well, now that you are out of prison, you should see them...

I do not see what your allusion to the prison as to do with this topic. GCB has been in jail, everybody knows  it and it’s unnecessary to repeat it over and over again. He already paid dearly for acts he denies having done, now he’s out and it would perhaps be wise to stop bothering him with that.   

[GCB]

I've seen GCB state that proteins should be around 1/12 of the diet. I keep finding more and more evidence to limit protein as there seems to be no need for excess protein once nitrogen balance is achieved.

I wonder why both GCB and Iguana have a bias against us raw paleos who consume much animal products. Is it simply because of the amount of animal protein that is a problem? What would you fellows say about a diet that limits animal protein to around 10% and supplies the vast majority of the rest of the calories from raw animal fats and also additional vegetation as needed?

Basically, is it the protein that is the problem or just the amount of animal matter in the diet that you think is the problem. I really am starting to believe that excess protein is a much bigger problem than we suspect, but that animal fat is not at all the problem. In the Clara Davis study, bone marrow(not sure if raw) was the highest chosen food for one of the infants.

Indeed, the problem of animal fats is not at all comparable to that of proteins, which are long chains of amino-acids; they contain up to more than a thousand of them. Proteins are recognized by the immune system as foreign to the organism. Normally, the digestive enzymes break them into small sections to release the amino-acids, which are not recognized anymore as foreign and do not trigger an immune system reaction. They can then be used to build the human proteins necessary to our organism (these not being antigenic).

What happens then when proteins are badly digested in consequence of a denatured or unbalanced nutrition? Some escape the digestive enzymes and are not split into elementary amino-acids, that is to say they remain whole, or that sections including several amino-acids remain. However, a chain of 6 or 7 amino-acids can already have a structure foreign to the human body and trigger an immune system reaction (it constitutes by definition an antigen).

The problem of fats concerns much less the immune system, because these are much simpler molecules being only very seldom antigens. The consequences of an excess of lipids are primarily metabolic: fatty skin and hair, fat tissues formation, obesity, etc.

But badly digested proteins penetrating repeatedly in the circulating masses (lymph or blood) will put the immune system in alarm. This can cause an “intolerance”, i.e. exaggerated reactions against these molecules or against others more or less resembling, or alternatively a “tolerance”, or paralysis of the immune system against looking alike molecules.

From the elementary concepts admitted in immunology, one can thus predict that by absorbing regularly excessive amounts of meat, some of these molecules escape the enzymatic mechanisms of assimilation and induce either intolerances or tolerances. In the first case, the symptoms will be allergies, even autoimmune diseases. In the second case, it can be feared that the immune system “tolerates” some cancerous cells, being unable to recognize anymore the membrane’s proteins by which it identifies them under normal circumstances.

The question is therefore to know what can increase the passage in the blood of badly degraded proteins:

1.   digestive overload: if the meat quantity to be digested exceeds the enzymatic potential, one can expect an increase in incompletely degraded residues;
2.   bad associations: proteins to which other molecules (for example AGE’s) are joined are unlikely to correspond to the enzymes in charge of their degradation and incompletely degraded residues will result.
3.   food processing or other denaturations.

The occasional presence of significant quantities of incompletely degraded molecules hardly poses problem: the immune system is there to take care and eliminate them by sticking antibodies to their antigenic sites. A large occasional meat meal or other animal proteins should certainly pose no problem. On the other hand, to multiply the meat meals beyond a certain frequency (for example every day) will induce a repeated penetration of the same antigens, with allergic, autoimmune or cancerous disorders as foreseeable consequences.

The problem is similar with the consumption of denatured cereals or dairy products, main sources of antigenic proteins in traditional food. But it would be a pity to jump out of the frying pan into the fire in favor of a carnivorous trend that could, in the long run, harm the whole paleo diet movement.

[Paleo Donk]

Thanks again for the thorough response. But why is that carbohydrate from vegetation is preferred to animal fat? And what would be your objection to a more carnivorous diet that is high in animal fat and low in protein (say 10% of calories)? And going further, what if this diet were followed so that animal protein was only consumed 2-3 times per week?

Personally, I have what it seems chronic low white blood cell count as well as improper release of stomach acid (as tested from ingesting up to 10 HCL pills at once after a protein meal without a burning sensation) and believe that the simplest explanation would have it from the above that not fully digested chains of amino acids are triggering an immune response.

I agree that it will be quite interesting in 10-20 years time when we have a fuller account of the now quite large paleo crowd who have gone everyday eating significant quantities of cooked improperly fed domesticated animals.

[carnivore]

I do not see what your allusion to the prison as to do with this topic. GCB has been in jail, everybody knows  it and it’s unnecessary to repeat it over and over again. He already paid dearly for acts he denies having done, now he’s out and it would perhaps be wise to stop bothering him with that.   

But it is so clear : he couldn't see the numerous underweight instinctos in jail !

[GCB]

Error: I regularly received updates about any isssue concerning instinctos.

[Iguana]

That is what I find totally ridiculous about it. The average OF the small group fit within the WHO level of what is 'acceptable' but it was not at all what even the WHO (which as I point out is skewed) said is average. Therefore, if there were any instinctos that had BMI's above ~21 or so, there HAD to be plenty of instincos asked that had to have BMI's well under what is considered healthy if the 'average' was the tail end of what is acceptable.

Have a look at the table here  and you’ll see there’s none under a BMI of 18.5, limit of underweight according to WHO.
BMI according to Wikipedia:
“most widely used diagnostic tool to identify weight problems within a population, usually whether individuals are underweight, overweight  or obese.”

What do you, KD, Carnivore and Alphagruis are so eager to show? That the instinctos are too thin and emaciate (Probably in view to increase the harassment pressure raw paleo dieters families are subject to by the administration and social welfare services in Europe. Kids growth is slower without dairy products and their growth period is longer, therefore some medics infer that a raw paleo diet is dangerous and that chidren should be taken away and fed cooked food). We provided you a small statistical survey showing that we are not considered thin by the WHO. And now you come and say that the standards of the WHO are skewed, that your visual impression are more accurate and reliable.

Of course, BMI is a simplistic tool with shortcomings, but better anyway than subjective  impressions. Perhaps you and Carnivore should propose to the WHO a new and superior method of simply comparing body weight according to size.

But it is so clear : he couldn't see the numerous underweight instinctos in jail !

Perhaps they got underweight  while he was in jail and got a normal weight again once he’s been freed ?

Apparently your own notion of “underweight” seriously conflicts with the WHO’s.

Next, what is “an instincto”, for you ? Is a guy having been tall and thin his all live through going to get suddenly short and fat by practicing instinctive nutrition ? Is a guy “an instincto” as long as he’s read GCB’s book and tried for a few years to practice his own particular kind of instincto-nutrition, per example without meat but with cooked rice and his own urine as supplements?

The fact is that there are no “instinctos” per se. There are only honorable individuals like you and me with a history, a heredity, a personality, different ways to practice, different sexes, size, body constitution, former and actual health and psychological state, beliefs, education, ways of life, provisioning… and so on. Some are tall and relatively thin, some are short and sturdy, many women and girls are still a bit too fat according to my own visual impression and taste.

I was about 60 kg on a cooked diet, no matter how much I ate – and I have always eaten a lot! I’m now at 58 kg, still no matter how much calories I ingest daily. As a matter of fact, it’s rather an inverse relationship: the less I eat, the more weight I take – but anyway I’ve never been significantly over 60 kg, even when I exerted a lot of physical activity  at my job and doing sports.

Even if a proper instincto diet would be at fault concerning  persons you rank as “underweight” according to you own purpose made classification system based on visual impressions, what kind of remedy  do you propose? You tried integral zero carb carnivorism  for several months and you said on your own French Paleocru forum that you are no longer a carnivore (which, by the way should prompt you to change your pseudo). Apparently, your zero carb diet didn’t work for you. So, would you be kind enough to let us know what kind of nutrition you suggest?  

Francois

[GCB]

It depends also on the size and the basal metabolic rate. If I don't eat 3000Kcal a day, I simply loose weight. And I am not a heavy workers!

A priori, it proves that you do not assimilate correctly. A bad assimilation can come from many causes: disorder in the meals, nibbling, cooked exceptions, bad provisioning, etc. In addition you didn’t tell me everything about your cooked rice exceptions and undoubtedly many other elements which would explain these figures. It may also be that you have a physiological problem, or that you calculate the caloric intakes on the base of your rations in an erroneous way. Or that it would be normal that you lose weight, for example to eliminate the fat matters or “toxins” accumulated during your regular consumption of fatty commercial meats, or during your diet preceding your instincto’s attempts.

It should be known when and how you measured your caloric rations: if it was during your exclusive meat consumption, it can come from assimilation’s difficulties due to the exaggerated quantity of proteins and lipids. When excessive rations are enforced, the organism tries to restore its balance by emitting instinctive signals (modification of the flavors), and if that is not enough, it reacts by blocking the assimilation. It’s a way to prevent an overload related danger.

I also remind you that you practiced on the basis of my book “La Guerre du Cru”, where I specify that an adequate training is needed, and you did not get this training.

That said, your remark does not invalidate at all the instincto theory, it tends to invalidate the “official” standards and the mean values observed in the instincto practice.  But the essence of instinctonutrition is precisely the respect of the individual diferences.

You speak about “numerous” instinctos thin and weakened: the suppression of the standard cooked food tends to trigger elimination of foreign matter reactions, which can result in a weight loss. This weight loss relates primarily to fat tissues. The organism empties its “garbage cans”, and it reflects on the general weight, whereas the process is favorable to the health. To know where one actually stands, account should be held not only of the weight, but of the body constitution.

What occurs sometimes, it is that a person seeing her weight decreasing worries unnecessarily and starts to force the rations or to take regular cooked exceptions in view of taking weight. The result is then the opposite: the overload multiplies the badly degraded molecules, which stimulate the autoimmunity, and then a vicious circle is set up.

That’s why I suggested you to let me know (in private for their own protection) the names of the persons who appeared underweight to you. So, we might be able to see the real reasons of our disagreement.

[carnivore]

A priori, it proves that you do not assimilate correctly. A bad assimilation can come from many causes: disorder in the meals, nibbling, cooked exceptions, bad provisioning, etc. In addition you didn’t tell me everything about your cooked rice exceptions and undoubtedly many other elements which would explain these figures. It may also be that you have a physiological problem, or that you calculate the caloric intakes on the base of your rations in an erroneous way. Or that it would be normal that you lose weight, for example to eliminate the fat matters or “toxins” accumulated during your regular consumption of fatty commercial meats, or during your diet preceding your instincto’s attempts.

It should be known when and how you measured your rations: if it was during your exclusive meat consumption, it can come from assimilation’s difficulties due to the exaggerated quantity of proteins and lipids. When excessive rations are enforced, the organism tries to restore its balance by emitting instinctive signals (modification of the flavors), and if that is not enough, it reacts by blocking the assimilation. It’s a way to prevent an overload related danger.

I also remind you that you practiced on the basis of my book “La Guerre du Cru”, where I specify that an adequate training is needed, and you did not get this training.

That said, your remark does not invalidate at all the instincto theory, it tends to invalidate the “official” standards and the mean values observed in the instincto practice.  But the essence of instinctonutrition is precisely the respect of the individual diferences.

You speak about “numerous” instinctos thin and weakened: the suppression of the standard cooked food tends to trigger elimination of foreign matter reactions, which can result in a weight loss. This weight loss relates primarily to fat tissues. The organism empties its “garbage cans”, and it reflects on the general weight, whereas the process is favorable to the health. To know where one actually stands, account should be held not only of the weight, but of the body constitution.

What occurs sometimes, it is that a person seeing her weight decreasing worries unnecessarily and starts to force the rations or to take regular cooked exceptions in view of taking weight. The result is then the opposite: the overload multiplies the badly degraded molecules, which stimulate the autoimmunity, and then a vicious circle is set up.

That’s why I suggested you to let me know (in private for their own protection) the names of the persons who appeared underweight to you. So, we might be able to see the real reasons of our disagreement.

My five years of instincto-nutrition was strict, no cheating. Only after this fiasco did I tried rice and also carnivorism during one year which didn't work.
With a rawpaleo diet (with more than 2 meals a day), I have regain my health (and my weight). I simply eat more calories (and also more animal protein) than during this instincto experiment. I have met numerous people who pretend to eat instincto and who are underweight and lack energy as I was, so I fully understand their trouble, and also strongly believe that they should get more calories by eating more often.

[KD]

What do you, KD, Carnivore and Alphagruis are so eager to show? That the instinctos are too thin and emaciate (Probably in view to increase the harassment pressure raw paleo dieters families are subject to by the administration and social welfare services in Europe. Kids growth is slower without dairy products and their growth period is longer, therefore some medics infer that a raw paleo diet is dangerous and that chidren should be taken away and fed cooked food). We provided you a small statistical survey showing that we are not considered thin by the WHO. And now you come and say that the standards of the WHO are skewed, that your visual impression are more accurate and reliable.

Apparently your own notion of “underweight” seriously conflicts with the WHO’s.

So, would you be kind enough to let us know what kind of nutrition you suggest?  

Francois

I think it would be good start as I said to not group critics into one category. I could be wrong, but I believe Carnivore is saying that his experience is that eating towards his natural stopping point was not enough to maintain a healthy weight with activity. So part of the solution was simply to eat more than desired. On that I probably agree just from going over the data and logic, but I don't share his experience so its probably unfair to him to group me into that criticism. As for WHO, ABSOLUTELY I am saying (on my own) that it has 0 reflection on what we are talking about when according to that system virtually all athletes and people considered to be athletic (actors, policemen, soldiers etc..) are considered to be borderline overweight if not obese. I can only gauge accurately from my own BMI (22) that this information is worthless. 6' 74 kg 30 waist, s->m shirt size. this is not average or within average, this is well below average. We can define what is beautiful or healthy in comparison to what the SWD (overweight?) world sees so, but just in terms of current facts, this isn't average. To my knowledge of HGs, there are very few that drop below 20 BMI. AS a shot in the dark, as I believe I have suggested time and again in this thread, I would probably suggest that people do not eat according to instincts that are skewed by modern conditions, availability and most importantly activity. If you can call up an order on Mon Thong and deer meat without any spiriting or requiring any physical strength or prowess, regardless of stopping points or fine tuned mechanisms, they will be skewed towards continuing to be small and inactive.

Of course, BMI is a simplistic tool with shortcomings, but better anyway than subjective  impressions. Perhaps you and Carnivore should propose to the WHO a new and superior method of simply comparing body weight according to size.

As I said, if you want to embrace the WHO's suggestions - who many health-conspiratorialists would probably suggest as methods of pop. control - without their other suggestions for health fine. But to claim that as an acceptable gauge of ideal health, it loses a massive chunk of credibility IMO. The issue in question would be: following instincto how does one achieve goals that go beyond ones natural inclinations (like actually achieving a much higher BMI for instance, lets say it was 'necessary' for a career), which I believe is the essence of 'improvement' for lack of a better word. Since I am - clearly - extremely skeptical about instincto bringing adequate nutrtion (even if once again it meeets minimal WHO requirements for nutrients) I certainly don't believe it is safe for children who have even greater nutritional needs and desires to be integrated socially. But alas I have no connections to governmental officials here or in France, so you'll have to accept that my interst is mostly theoretical.

[Susan]

I think it is not important if somebody is lean or to the contrary robust when he feels good and when he is able to achieve his personal aims. Summarily when he feels himself healthy.

When I started my instinctive experience I lost about 14 kilograms. I was always a very lean type, after a few weeks instinctive nutrition I seemed to be a skeleton. But inside I felt happy, every meal was a like a Christmas festival. I was very tired too and so I did what all animals do when they want to recover: I slept a lot. And bit by bit I regained weight and force. Later on I removed my fillings and crowns. After visiting a meeting of instinctive raw eaters it was obvious for me that this is necessary to regain my health. I was shocked seeing some people who praticticed instinctive eating since many years and who were looking very ill. I asked  some of them about fillings knowing that they can cause a lot of health problems. And in nearly all cases I found the confirmation of my assumption. Involved were not only elder people but young people also.

I wonder why the experts while discussing about BMI and calories not even start to consider this issue which I mentioned a few days before.

For some scientists it is a matter of fact that teeth fillings inhibit healing. On the other side raw instinctive eating can lead to a profound process of healing. Why does it seem so difficult to think about the possibility that foreign material inhibits instinctive nutrition?

KD posted:

If you can call up an order on Mon Thong and deer meat without any spiriting or requiring any physical strength or prowess, regardless of stopping points or fine tuned mechanisms, they will be skewed towards continuing to be small and inactive.

It is a very interessiting fact for me that sometimes I need to hunt: Before I call up an order for meat I have to run a few kilometers.  At the begining of my instincitve experience it was nearly unconscious meanwhile the coherence of "hunting" and the need of meat is obvious to me and often makes me laugh.

[KD]

Susan, thanks for shareing your experience. My criticisms as I mentioned earlier are deffinetly not to say that one cannot be healthy following their instincts, my questioning is more in line with the fact that these instincts can be distorted and therefore modern intelect and knowledge shared among peers (and not mainstream science) can in many cases yield better results, even when they appear to work against 'instincts' and desires.

I believe the mercury issue scratches the surface of this phenomena. I recently spoke with a RAFer who had attended a conferance specifically on mercury ( I assume this was not a forum of traditonal dentistry). Literally one of the conclusions was - based on the fact that most people have fillings and yet not all people experience debilitating symptoms - that some are more sensative than others! To me, what this leads me to believe is that there are many serious issues that go way beyond and before mecury toxication through fillings, and that this intoxication only represents a greater burdern to already pre-existing problems. It could be very well true that removing fillings + rest + diet allows the body to tackle those other issues, but there are known issues with removing fillings. More importantly, its possible for people on other diets: 100% raw or otherwise to maintain healthy weights with fillings, whther they could indeed be healtheir without. So I don't see it completely as a valid 'excuse' (not that you are making one) for instinctos to be merely "above dangerously underweight" if inded they are.

Initially the point at which you felt happy and well, despite your 'observed' health likely by others , is really the issue I think others were pointing out. This mirrors my experience on other WOE where I 'felt great' (not surprizingly it included lots of fruit) and looked underwight yet could blame others as being overweight to satisfy my ego. Anyway, I am indeed glad you found the solutions to more complete health!

Ultimately, to me I guess I have pretty high standards on what is health. Health to me is mastery of body, mind, and spirit - for lack of a better term. If someone is capable of running down an animal or of high feats of strength, I don't think they need to particpate in those things every time they want to eat to replicate our ancestors or that ordering food is artifical or wrong. But I do believe ones desires are skewed if they do not have a presence of body, mind and spirt that would serve them in a natural setting, but rather ultimately various inclinations that are entirely civilized and citig as instincts

[GCB]

Thanks again for the thorough response. But why is that carbohydrate from vegetation is preferred to animal fat? And what would be your objection to a more carnivorous diet that is high in animal fat and low in protein (say 10% of calories)? And going further, what if this diet were followed so that animal protein was only consumed 2-3 times per week?

The instincto offers a base of empirical observation different from other diets. The nutritional balance auto-regulated by the instinct is characterized by all kinds of physiological criteria that are no longer respected when some “errors” are made.

The most significant criterion is the inflammatory tendency: with a correct balance, there is for example neither oedema nor erythema around a small open wound. The crust is bordered by the skin without any swelling nor redness. However, it is enough to force the carbohydrate consumption beyond the limit indicated by the alliesthesic mechanisms or to use a foodstuff which thwarts these mechanisms (highly selected fruit, honey in jar, etc) to see signs of the inflammation increasing in the next hours after consumption. Other signs indicate the presence of an imbalance (dyspepsia, flatulence, somnolence, etc). In their absence, one can thus be sure that balance is respected.

The problem is a little different for fats: the most apparent criterion of overload  is seborrhoea (fatty skin and hair). On the level of digestion, one also notices the loss of the “transparency” feeling characterizing ideal digestive balance. These signs appear when one exceeds the oral feelings of pleasant savor, melting consistency, and easy swallowing which indicate (when fat is consumed without mixture nor process of any kind) the real need for lipids. Therefore, there are for the lipids too the same correlation between signs of alliesthesic overload and signs of metabolic overload.

The rations to which these criteria lead correspond closely enough to the nutritional standards, i.e. one eats definitely less fats than carbs, and than any variation compared to these values induce easily observable disorders. But once again, these disorders are observable only if basic balance is sufficiently precise so that these signs are usually not apparent, and can thus reappear in the event of overload. When we are permanently overloaded, a point of comparison is missing and we can be convinced to be in a correct balance whereas it is far from being the case.

[Paleo Donk]

So, what about the infants that chose so much bone marrow? Didn't you say Inuits were instinctos yet they consume around 80% calories from fats?

The rations to which these criteria lead correspond closely enough to the nutritional standards, i.e. one eats definitely less fats than carbs, and than any variation compared to these values induce easily observable disorders. But once again, these disorders are observable only if basic balance is sufficiently precise so that these signs are usually not apparent, and can thus reappear in the event of overload. When we are permanently overloaded, a point of comparison is missing and we can be convinced to be in a correct balance whereas it is far from being the case.

Did Alphagruis hack into your account? This is a beautiful anti-theory.

[Susan]

KD, do you really think that there will be a human expert who is wiser than mother nature?

I myself can't believe it. How could the human species survive millions of years without these experts?

The problem is that human instincts are distorted not even the alimentary instinct. Another eyample for a distorted instinct is the maternal instinct. I' ve read many years ago the book "The continuum concept" written by Jean Liedloff. After reading this book it was obvious for me a mother has to do when she give birth to a child. But there was a big difference between theory and practice.  So I was not able to fullfill all the needs of my first born child. For example it was impossible for me to stay in a permanent physical contact with him. I needed a lot if practice before my maternal instinct was regained.

It's the same with the alimentary instinct. You need a lot of practice to regain your instincts. For this reason I think it will be better to talk about pratice and not about theory.

[GCB]

So, what about the infants that chose so much bone marrow?

It is frequent, in the instincto context, to see someone consume enormous quantities of a specific stuff during a more or less extended period. But this period is always limited, the stuff ending up by becoming repulsive and the person is automatically led to widen her choice so as to balance correctly. The effects of these apparent overloads were always positive, for example a spectacular weight increase, or the disappearance of a disorder, incurable up to that point.

Such occurrences convinced me of the alimentary instinct operating coherence, even if the ingested quantities appeared a priori unbalancing - of course, still as long as the rules of instinctive nutrition are correctly applied, in particular the absence of any denaturation of the flavors and consistencies (no mixture, seasoning, of thermal denaturation, etc).

It should be noticed that Clara Davis does not specify if this marrow was eaten raw or cooked. But raw marrow is a delight for someone who really needs it (it appears on the other hand too fatty or too chalky and unpleasant in the opposite case

Didn't you say Inuits were instinctos yet they consume around 80% calories from fats?

I think that Inuits reacted rather instinctively in their environment. They had less mangos than whales at disposal, that’s why they had to fall back on fat. But the Arctic is certainly not an ideal environment for primates and the Inuits' case can hardly be taken as a reference, although their health was much better than that of average Americans…

We have therefore to see this massive recourse to seal or whale blubber as a substitute made essential in consequence of an unsuited environment. It is clear that man is not physiologically adapted to the climate of Greenland, contrary to the snow fox and mosquitoes…

Did Alphagruis hack into your account? This is a beautiful anti-theory.

I not sure to understand correctly what you mean by “hack into account”.

I’ll answer soon in more length to Alphagruis last relevant post (see the "Instincto Debunker debunking thread"). It appears to me more and more that he hasn't really understood my approach of the food and health issue (and neither my approach of the sexuality and love subject).

The instincto is indeed an anti-theory, not because it wouldn’t be verifiable or falsifiable (!), but because it questions all the existing theories related to nutrition. It isn’t for no reason it has been so much fought by the medical community, the media, the government, justice, professional scientists…

But I’m not concerned: time will tell…

[GCB]

My five years of instincto-nutrition was strict, no cheating.

But you've practiced from my popular book « La Guerre du Cru », which provides only theoretical explanations, and perhaps from advices of other instinctos probably just as ballpark as you. May I recall you what I say in this book (something I stress even more in the latter edition « Manger Vrai »):

IF YOU WANT TO GO TO PRACTICE
To restore the function of the alimentary instinct is not an operation as simple as it sounds: it takes a lot of intelligence to escape the traps of intelligence!
A solid theoretical and practical training is essential if you are to avoid the pitfalls and wasted time involved in starting by yourself. The instincto pioneers themselves erred for years before everything was sorted out. However, you’ll find in the following pages a few rules that should hopefully allow you a successful first experience of three to five days which should give you, to begin with, the largest well being on the digestive side.
See also : http://www.reocities.com/HotSprings/7627/ggraw_eat6.html, or more actual but in french in my personal website : www.gcburger.com

It looks like you have confused the words "three to five days," with "three to five years."

Worse than that: you remained all this time blocked to meat consumption (aside of some rare pieces of chicken ). However one of main rules of instinctive nutrition precisely specifies that one should not remain more than a few weeks blocked to a food category. It’s absolutely clear that the deprivation of meat is a dangerous cause of slimming.

That’s the most important point; it shouldn’t be occulted if you want to understand what happened to you! As my own experience has shown, instinctive nutrition doesn’t work without a sufficient range of animal foodstuffs. The question is to know how much of each specific foodstuff is needed and only our instinct can really adapt precisely the ingested amounts to each individual and varying needs.

You still haven’t let me know the names of the persons you have gleaned some guidance from during these years and of those having more recently appeared to you « underweight and lacking energy ».

With a rawpaleo diet (with more than 2 meals a day), I have regain my health (and my weight). I simply eat more calories (and also more animal protein) than during this instincto experiment.

It’s quite normal that your weight increased by eating heaps of fatty meat. Interestingly, you made the opposite mistake to eat no meat at all during your so called “instincto” years! But anyway, what matters for the long-term health is not weight, but the body constitution.

You have inevitably put either apparent or diffuse fat (especially with supermarket meats you used and which are concentrates of "toxins"). Such a game can go for a while, but in the long term, you expose yourself to serious dangers.

Overload in fat paves the way to cardiovascular disorders (atheroma), and that of  protein to hyperkeratosis, metabolic disorders (gout, joints problems), allergic diseases or autoimmune diseases, a vulnerability to infectious diseases and with some bad luck, to cancer.

I remind to you that your results, which you had the honesty to communicate in your « Journal », show a catastrophic imbalance, to tell the truth.

Here are my blood test results. I am on a mainly raw carnivorous (zerocarbs) diet for 8 months, eating mainly beef (grass-fed and grain-fed), and some horse, pork, lamb. I also eat tallow and pemmican, and clarified raw organic butter.
FBG = 0.96 g/l (0.74-1.06)
A1C = 5.5% (<6%)
Urea = 0.52 g/l (0.17-0.43)
Total cholesterol = 4.31 g/l (<2)
HDL = 0.65 g/l (>0.4)
Triglycerids = 1.47 g/l (<1.5)
LDL = 3.37 g/l (<0.9-1.6)
VLDL = 0.29 g/l (0.05-0.25)
Vitamin B9 (folic acid) = 2.94 (>5.38)
Fasting blood glucose is pretty high, like my A1C and my urea is too high.
LDL is very high and VLDL is a bit too high.
Folic acid is too low.
Triglycerids could be lower.
I believe I still eat too much fat, as my pulse raises to 90 after eating, and I have some unpleasant symptoms.
I'll try to stick to one meal a day for the next months, to see if health improves.

The fact that you do not recall here this important point makes it difficult to take your "evidence" seriously.

I have met numerous people who pretend to eat instincto and who are underweight and lack energy as I was, so I fully understand their trouble, and also strongly believe that they should get more calories by eating more often.

Give me some figures about the people you refer, and if possible their names by private message so that I’ll be able, on one hand to believe you, and on the other hand to examine each problem and determine its causes, as I always have done. It would be useful for these people and also allow us to move ahead.

I remind you that the guy you told Iguana “he is much too skinny” has a BMI of 22.8 - which  is above the average of what WHO considers as the normal range, 18.5 to 25!

Once more you may understand that it’s difficult to take you seriously...

[KD]

KD, do you really think that there will be a human expert who is wiser than mother nature?

I myself can't believe it. How could the human species survive millions of years without these experts?

Do you really believe I'm going to fall for a trick question? Ok I'll bite and lay the cards down. Since we do not live in nature and do not even resemble natural beings in many respects, the answer is an un-doubtably Y E S on my part, and have proved that quite well I think in previous posts that cannot even be answered apparently. seeing since you already agree mercury fillings ( a minor scratch as I say) are enough to sway ones instinct, how about all the other factors of environment like the countless examples given of wild animals both natural and artificial foodstuffs removed from their place of origin will affect their choices and quantities. In addition, the fact that whales, with no modern dentistry and eating 100% their instinctive raw diet, have 0 mechanism for ridding themselves of mass amounts of dangerous mercury and other heavy metals that surpass humans in %. This is just one example of proof -to me- that even our natural diet is not 100% as effective as diets and tools geeared at removing things specifically, and not inline necessarily with what our roots or desires are.

I've tried to keep my criticisms away from debunking an existence of an alimentary instinct that always chooses adequate food, because I have merely to cite the results of following such instinct, no matter how refined in creating less than adequate results. So in other words, like the maternal instinct, it impresses me not that it can be regained because it doesn't necessarily correspond with what will be the ideal method. Just because someone has the greatest connection to their maternal instincts, will not make them the best mother, someone with the closest connections to their dietary instincts, not the most healthy. I think this is more 'believable' than you think. On a forum like htis, your 'concept' is certainly the EASIEST one to take. Seems like even a properly raised child would reason this quite well. and would have to be distorted in thinking otherwise in such seemingly correct comparisons to nature.

The issue is not whether one knows better than nature, the issue is whether one can act in accordance with nature's laws, but bend them into understanding to their advantage in assessment of un-natural circumstances both internally and externally. Only animals can succeed 'passively' because of the  past abundances and balances of their situation which were geared towards success. A cat roaming the streets of a small city, will never get the nutrition or sunshine or any number of factors of a cheetah in the wild. Its connection to its instincts will not help it get the even adequate nutrition in comparison to a health minded guardian that can supply it with its studied opinion/knowledge of 100% clean carnivorous nutrition from fresh sources, and not diseased meat and matter and street dust. Prior to this situation it IS following its instincts (at least to the best of its ability due to degeneration, despite claims here that cats will eat 'instincto' so I guess it fits my analogy even better) and many here are far closer to - or worse off - than the street cat than the cheetah.

In conclusion since its perfectly possible that choosing individual foods and whole nutritional guidance can be affected by circumstance - regardless of purity of instinct mechanisms, it shows very well that understanding and experience that chooses to alter circumstance can trump instinct quite well in terms of a specific desired result. When this crosses over into the domain of physical feats and prowess or re-aligning spiritual health, clearly knowledge and efforts that go beyond instinct are quite valuable, including the 'tools' of civilization so oft dismissed. Keep in mind many of these tools have healed many without the need to even alter their nutrition, and this is a fact. The combination of anthropological nutrition with these tools being the best combination for success and thriving as a contemporary being.