Wednesday 25 November 2009

Carbs are the blue pill

As a fan of Roissy’s blog, I’ll follow his recent post with an account of my experience on the Paleo diet.

Actually, in my case, it’s more a cross between the Paleo and ketogenic diets. In the Paleo diet you eat plenty of meat and avoid carbs and sugar. In the ketogenic diet the focus is more on consuming as much fat as possible – the perfect ratio is something like 4 to 1 in favour of fat versus protein and carbs. So that means plenty of double cream and butter, lard and so on.

Like Roissy, I have been unable to stay away from beer. Fortunately, my ancestors were all Northern European and must have drunk a truckload of the stuff. I have tried to substitute for whisky as much as possible, as it is zero-carb. And wine, too, which is low-carb.

I’ve only been on this for about two months. And I haven’t been really strict. But pretty much on track.

Weight loss has been something like a stone (14 pounds). And much has been off the gut, as I’ve lost about a belt notch and a half. I seem to have kept my muscle, too – unlike a period about 5 years ago when I exercised a lot and half-starved. I got the hipster-look, then, more or less, but it didn’t particularly suit me. My face got a little too gaunt and sharp.

But I'm not going for that now. I want lean muscle. So anyway - I've been getting very thirsty, at times. And I've wanted to drink more alcohol. My energy levels are good, but what’s really happened is that I have a shit load of nervous energy that I didn’t have before. I guess my testosterone levels are up, as I’m more contrary than ever. My dreams at night are more vivid, and I wake up earlier – although I mostly feel compelled to go to sleep earlier, too.

But yeah, my mood – like I said, I think my testosterone levels are up. And this doesn’t make you feel “good” in the sense that eating a pie or a pile of spaghetti would. I feel like I’ve been removed from a comfort zone, somehow. It feels like a loss, of sorts.

It has been shown that carbs are addictive. And so the withdrawal may be much like a withdrawal from drugs. This is not a flippant comparison – the effect on my emotions has been interesting, to say the least. And it is probably the case that carbs are just another thing that keeps the populace docile and happy with their lot. Just like prescription drugs, TV sports and soaps, and so on. And like those, they are all brought to us by Too Big to Fails, Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, Big Corporate Media etc.

So I’m going to stick with the lifestyle. It seems the perfect nexus of improving health whilst Sticking it to the Man. Dietary fat is the red pill.

Tuesday 24 November 2009

take it...

CRU leak

The Big story lately has been the leaked emails and data from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit. Some beautiful rantings here, here and here.



Look, all thinking people know that climate change is a fraud the size of Al Gore's new wallet. There seems to be a good deal of proof among all this data that the "scientists" working on the load of bollocks were messing things up in a big way. But will this change policy? The world politicos are going to go ahead anyway, just like they did with the second Irish referendum. You don't want to join Europe? Fuck you, we'll just keep asking until you do. You don't want an overarching World Government which will save the world and save all of you from yourselves? Fuck you, one day we're not even going to bother asking anymore.

A guy on Newsnight last night said that he was sad that people will look less favourably on science in the future. But, you prick, the whole point is that they were not practising science. Unless politically-funded and motivated malpractice, collusion and cover-up counts.

But there is a point here. The inexorable use by politicians of "science" to back their machinations has been gathering momentum for some time. The "consenses" on dietary fat, on sunlight and skin cancer, on the hole in the ozone layer, and so on, are all examples. People hear "scientists said..." or "experts say..." and then accept whatever is said as True.

Look, truth is provisional. Science is a method, not a goal. And there is no such thing as consensus in science. There are hypotheses and alternative hypotheses. Always.

The real tragedy is that people are trained not to think for themselves anymore. Which is why, I fear, this smoking gun will eventually stop smoking, cool down, and get polished and thrown into the river.

hey...

this is written by a libertarian ludic libertine hedonist, individualist, primal foodie, atheist, apolitical, Darwinian amateur philosopher. Standing, as are we all, on the brink of the Greatest Depression. I think the following ideas currently floating around like malignant parasitic insects, ubiquitous and iniquitous, need re-examination or outright extermination:

Democracy
Vaccines
“Too big to fail”s
Religion & “belief”
Environmentalism
The BBC
Marriage as a deal for men
Corporatism
Vegetarianism
Prohibition of drugs
Discipline & sacrifice
Zero sum views of the world
“Rights”
Common Fisheries Policy
“Hope”
Agriculture
Myth that fat is bad for you
Credentialism
Economics
“Teams” & teamwork

And they're all related. For now the first thing I’ll link to, to set the tone, is this exhilarating paradigm-busting essay on why work should be abolished.