This is what I wrote last June in the post When Writing a Diet Book, The First Rule is to Slam the Competition:

Dr. Atkins taught the world about ketosis and low-carb dieting.  He understood the damage sugars and processed carbohydrates were doing to the dieter.  Again, despite his nonsense about avoiding fruits and his obsession with staying in ketosis for fat loss, the book held clues to at least part of the equation.

I now think I’ve been wrong about fruit as well.  Fruit is probably best avoided on any fat loss diet.  What about all those vitamins?  As I discussed in the post My Super Immunity Project Revisited, once you remove the insulin spiking carbohydrates, vitamin absorption increases.  Meat, seafood and non-starchy vegetables provide all the nutrients a body needs.

Photo itty bitty baby pear by suttonhoo

Then there is damage caused by fructose.  More  evolutionary nutritional writers are coming to the conclusion that fructose may be more responsible for fat gain than even glucose.  From the post Fructose, Vitamin C and Calcium by NephroPal:

It should be no coincidence that fruit trees had a survival advantage with the bearing of their fruit. Fructose inhibits the brain entry of the satiety (fullness) hormone LEPTIN into the brain. This would entail increased hunger and encourage greater intake of the tree’s fruit – ensuring further seed dispersal. This is why I have referred to them as “sneaky fruit trees.” They produce the sweet substance fructose that in return not only increases hunger but also is addictive. Such that withdrawal of sugar (which is 50% fructose) stimulates stress.  Glucose (as seen in starch) is not the problem but fructose. Thus, high fructose consumption correlates with the metabolic syndrome – diabetes, hypertension, obesity, high uric acid levels, and low HDL, high LDL, high triglycerides.

Dr. Atkins was right, I was wrong.  If you are trying to lose fat, you are best to avoid fruit as you are sending hormonal signals to store body fat and inhibiting leptin, which tells your brain to stop eating.   In the December post Physique Hacking, I alluded to a new experiment.   Since mid-November, I’ve cut my fruit intake down by 80-90%.  For my entire life, I’ve consumed fruit daily.  Most days, I would consume multiple servings.  Instead of treating fruit as a healthy store of nutrients, I now treat it as something to eat more like a dessert.

I’d love to say that cutting my fruit intake leaned me out, but I’m already pretty lean.  I will say that I tend to gain some weight during the low daylight months of December and January.  Not this year.

Too bad fat loss doesn’t work that way.  Yes, you can knock off a few pounds in the short term by running around like an idiot, but will that result in long term fat loss?  Rarely.  Gyms around the world are full of people diligently burning calories to get lean and yet very few met their goals.  This isn’t a problem of willpower, it is human physiology.

The role of the body is to survive, not to look good by swimsuit season.  Simply burning calories tells the body to send a stronger hunger signal and/or slow down.  Back when I was a runner, I never got leaner.  I just got more hungry and when I wasn’t running I was more tired.  My body was sending hormonal signals to save the host.  It could care less if my marathon time was under 4 hours.   And when I used willpower to override those signals, my body had two more tricks it used: injury and sickness.  Chronic cardio plays hell on your immune system.  Runners are always sick or injured.  It is their body telling them to stop.

Me in 1995.  I exercised way more back then.  My waist size is smaller now.

Since stronger hunger signals usually lead to carbohydrate consumption and carbohydrates trigger the fat storing hormone insulin, the result is these exercise programs that promote high caloric burn can end up causing greater fat gains in the long run.   Getting lean is about working with your body to trigger the optimal hormonal responses and not beating it up with pointless cardio.

When a blogger using the FTP account option published a new blog, Google would build the files on their server and then open an FTP connection and transfer static files to that blogger’s web host.  The problem was that Google didn’t just send the file that was created or updated, they sent EVERY FILE.  They had no way to know if your changes impacted other files, so they sent them all.  If you have 30 posts, this isn’t a big deal.  If you have 300, every update becomes a nightmare.  Transfering MBs of files every time you add a comma is a painful experience to the blogger.

I can only imagine what was happening at Google.  God knows how many hundreds of thousands of bloggers were transferring hundreds of terabytes daily on their dime.   Everyone loves free software until someone has to pay the bill.

What Google should have down is create a desktop application version of Blogger. They already create one for Picasa and Google Earth.  That would have offloaded the FTP activity to the user and off of Google’s servers.  Then create a settings page that would allow the user to configure what gets published.  And then publish those changes in the background.  Desktop applications have an advantage over web applications when it comes to background processing.  I don’t how many hours I wasted staring at the Blogger FTP status screen while I was ready to write a new paragraph.  If you need inspiration, look at Microsoft’s Live Writer.

There you go Google.  Feel free to cut me a check for this face saving move.  You lost a lot of goodwill this week with your announcement.

Let me quickly tell you my story of why I am glad I have remote photo backup.

In October 2003, my house was evacuated as fires raced across San Diego.  My house was spared, but I know others that lost everything.  Every photo.  During the fires, I went around emergency barricades with a friend so we could get to her photos before the fire came to her home.  We risked our lives choking on smoke to save photos.   I can not stress how important remote photo backup is.

Many years ago I wrote my own code to manage my online photo galleries.   Now I gladly outsource this role to SmugMug and Flickr.   Why?

1. Managing thousands of photos is a task better suited for a team of developers and not an individual.
2. Photos have grown in size as cameras have added megapixels.  This fills our hard drives quickly.
3. Hard drives and computers do fail.
4. SmugMug and Flickr backup all media and that backup is remote.  You may be diligent about backing up to a remote drive or burning DVDs, but if you are a victim of fire or theft that won’t help you much.  Both companies back up the photos, so I don’t have to it.

Why SmugMug and Flickr?  I am not a fan of any photo site that requires one to create an account to view someones photos.  I am also not a fan of cluttered sites with ads that are pushing you to buy prints.   There are 100% free sites out there, but free sites can’t stay free forever.  They either end up charging users or they turn the user interface into an ad-cluttered visual nightmare.   In some cases they just shutdown.

Screenshot of my Elvis the Concert photo gallery on SmugMug.

This leaves Flickr and SmugMug.  I like both, but I prefer SmugMug.  SmugMug has amazing customer support and great tools like Send To SmugMug and Album Fetcher.  Send to SmugMug is a file uploader application that runs on your computer, which is similar to the Flickr Uploader.  Album Fetcher allows you to pull down complete photo galleries after you’ve uploaded them.

One thing Flickr does that annoys me is they embed “nofollow” into every outbound link.  SmugMug doesn’t do this.  What this means is that if I create a blog with a few photos and I decide to link to that blog, Flickr tells the search engines to explicitly NOT FOLLOW the link.  They want the traffic for themselves.  Now this isn’t a problem if the account were a free service, but Flickr Pro users pay for their accounts.  Then Flickr has the balls to require link backs to Flickr when you go to embed photos, even if they are your own photos.

SmugMug doesn’t play those games.

My SmugMug referral code is: IzodUqeQndZYc It will save you $5 if you decide to open a new SmugMug account.

I’ve been with Blogger since April 2000 and I’ve finally had enough. It is clear that Google has no intention of repairing the code that runs the FTP accounts. It is slow and buggy.

Today Google announced it will no longer support FTP accounts after March 26th.  In other words, if you built a site using your own domain and the Blogger service, you now have less than 2 months to migrate to another tool or you will be forced to use Google as your web host.   Some people have been with Blogger for a decade.  This is going to suck for them.  It took me weeks to move 2 years of blogs and update all the links and I’m good at this.  The average Blogger user is about to experience some pain.

I am fortunate that I moved this site to Wordpress two years ago.  However, DigitalColony.com still uses Blogger.  It can’t be rolled into the Google Borg because I host code labs on my domain.  Looks like I’ll be putting the Digital Colony rebuild on the front burner.

Two years ago I told you Blogger sucked.  I also warned you about BlogSpot.  It is crappy code.  Avoid it.

Stop Getting Sick from Colds A+ : My thesis of loading up on superfoods, especially those with antimicrobial, antiviral and antiparasitic properties has worked wonders.  I NO LONGER GET COLDS.  Despite being surrounded by sickness, my immune system fought off everything.

Even though I ended up getting a minor cold in September, I still believe that my immune system is much stronger now than ever before.  However, I may have been wrong about the importance of loading up on superfoods.  There may be another factor at play that is more responsible.

When I began eating a higher quality, greater quantity and diversity of veggies, I needed to make room for this food.  So I reduced my carbohydrate intake.  My health improved immediately, so I gave full credit to the superfoods.  Now I am rethinking my conclusion.  What if the removal of the carbohydrates played a greater role in improving my health than all those veggies?

The flip side to nutrient intake is nutrient absorption.  What if the reduction of carbohydrates helped me absorb the vegetable nutrients better?  Can I credit a lower carb diet with not getting sick more than the superfood intake?  This was an idea I was exposed to in Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes.

The vitamin-C molecule is similar in configuration to glucose and other sugars in the body.  It is shuttled from the bloodstream into the cells by the same insulin-dependent transport system used by glucose.  Glucose and vitamin C compete in this cellular-uptake process, like strangers trying to flag down the same taxicab simultaneously.

He goes deeper into the science to explain how insulin will win the battle against vitamin C in this uptake process.  What does this mean?  Insulin spiking carbohydrates interfere with vitamin C uptake. Still think orange juice and those sugar filled cold medicines are good for you?

What other nutrients could be affected by the effects of insulin?  Good Calories, Bad Calories looked into the diseases of vitamin deficiency.  Scurvy (vitamin C), beriberi (vitamin B1) and pellagra (vitamin B3) surfaced only after diets had their carbohydrate intake increased or when switched to a more refined carbohydrate.   I always wondered why so many of our carbohydrate “food products” needed to be fortified with additional vitamins.

I believe it is still wise to eat a wide variety of nutrient rich vegetables, but it may be more important for your health to do so with fewer carbohydrates.   Ditch that Vitamin Water and steam up some broccoli.

Larger Image

Fitness writer Paul Chek states in his video that “most of the people that teach health are unhealthy” and “if you can’t teach in your underwear, you shouldn’t be talking about health“.   There is a lot of truth to that statement, but I am willing to give Regina Benjamin a pass if her new plan titled The Surgeon General’s Vision for a Healthy and Fit Nation 2010 can reduce obesity.  The plan is 21 pages long.  I read it and pulled out the core recommendations below.

Even though the report lists these recommendations as general healthy choices, the focus is targeted at obesity.  In other words, these ideas are not presented as just good healthy ideas, but methods for tackling obesity.  So I will frame my opinion based off the belief this list will tackle obesity.

Reducing consumption of sodas and juices with added sugars.

Agree 100%, but I’d go further.  Eliminate all juices.  Fructose is directly metabolized in the liver and converted into triglycerides.   It is poison.   Watch Sugar: The Bitter Truth if you want the scientific details.

Reducing consumption of energy dense foods that primarily contain added sugars or solid fats.

I agree reducing consumption of foods with added sugar is good, however she is dead wrong on solid fats.  The government considers these to be solid fats:

• butter
• beef fat (tallow, suet)
• chicken fat
• pork fat (lard)

Animal fat is highly nutritious, provided the animal eats a healthy diet.  Source grass fed meats and eat animal fat.  Grass fed animals have a healthy Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio, which makes fat loss easier.  How did humankind survive for 2.5 million years before agriculture arrived?  We ate and prized animal fat.  Avoiding margarine and vegetable oils should be the goal.

Eating more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins.

Grains are the last thing you should be eating if you are obese.  Grains spike your insulin levels and send a signal to body to store fat.  You should eliminate grains completely.  Fruit should also be reduced or eliminated if you are obese.  Vegetables are great, provided they aren’t starchy, like potatoes and corn.  Lean proteins are fine, as are non-lean proteins.  As one reduces their carbohydrate intake, it is perfectly fine to seek out fattier cuts of meat.

Controlling your portions.

If it were that simple, diets would be far more effective.  Caloric restriction leads to more hunger, less movement and most of the time a return to weight gain.  I’d rewrite this rule as Control Your Carbs.

Drinking more water.

We are the most hydrated population in the history of the world, yet our obesity rates are the highest.  The obsession with water intake will do nothing to cure obesity.  Listening to our bodies for true signs of thirst and hunger is far better than listening to some government bureaucrat for guidance.

Choosing low-fat or non-fat dairy products.

Wrong!  Fat has this wonderful quality called satiety.  It sends a signal to our brain telling us to stop eating once we’ve had enough calories.   Studies show that once our country adopted the low-fat propaganda that caloric intake went up.  Fat is not the culprit.  Also, our new Surgeon General might want to read the latest medical studies, which are show kids that drink whole fat milk are leaner.  Makes sense to me.  Whole milk is more filling.

Limiting television viewing time and consider keeping televisions out of children’s rooms.

Good idea, but not for the reason implied.  I’d go further with this recommendation and say:  Turn off the TV and get your kids involved with the family food preparations.  Shopping and cooking.  In the book Hungry Monkey, 4 year Iris helps her dad in the kitchen, even with dishes she doesn’t want to eat.  That kid will grow up with a healthy attitude about food.

Becoming more physically active throughout the day.

Being physically active is a good thing, but will do little to cure obesity.   Increasing your activity will also increase your appetite.  Learning how to reduce your carbs is tough at first.  Trying to do while beginning an active exercise program is near impossible, especially for an obese person.

Breastfeeding exclusively to 6 months.

Excellent idea.  Anything to delay the ingestion of soy formulas is a good thing.

There are other ideas in the report such as encouraging recess and physical activity in the schools.  I think a better idea would be to teach kids cooking skills.  Replacing trips to fast food restaurants with home cooked meals will do far more to cure obesity than exercise.

Dr. Benjamin’s policy paper is nothing new.  It is the same old failed ideas we’ve been exposed to for the past thirty years.  They aren’t working.