1. I love Starbucks drinks. Is there a way to enjoy the caramel macchiato without all the sugar?
I'm glad you describe these as "drinks" and not coffees. If anything, they are liquid desserts and they are loaded with sugar filled syrups.
What a lot of people don't know, is that you can actually get them "sugar free" even if it's not posted on the menu. This means that you can get a sugar free caramel macchiato, if you order it that way. I believe they use Splenda as the sugar alternative, but you will have to double check to be sure. Also, you would probably not be able to use your own sweetener as the Splenda is in the syrup.
Look, this type of stuff are novelties that shouldn't be staples in your diet. You definitely don't ever want to buy a sugar filled caramel macchiato but if you want to have a sugar free one, once a week or once a month, that's fine as long as your overall diet composition remains anti obesogenic with minimal sweet taste.
2. I don't understand why more people do not follow your blog. You are mostly unknown but the information you provide is spot on. I have cross checked it extensively.
I don't mind being unknown. I don't want to be known, especially in the diet and health sphere. They have too many charlatans and I don't want to be lumped in with them. This is not a career or business for me. This is a hobby. I like to write and make things simple. I am doing what anyone on here can do. I gather information from legitimate obesity research and post it so anyone can find and understand it.
Most people simply do not like the information I provide because I don't promise the "magic pill" they seek or I am not spouting the narrative they want. I am upfront and honest about overweight/obesity. I don't hand-hold, placate, coddle or give alternatives so the person can continue with the lifestyle that caused their obesity to begin with. People dislike the fact that I point out obesogenic behaviors as they want to believe that what's happened to them is not their fault in anyway, but it's someone else's instead.
As of this post, there is no known cure for overweight/obesity. So, anyone who tells you they're selling one, lies. My blog is for those that are sick and tired of being lied to. So, the information that I provide is simply so that people can better manage their body fat and health using the truth. In other words, things that might actually work, not feel-good nonsense and slogans.
3. I heard that exercise is not effective for weight loss. Is this true?
It's "true" but it is also shenanigans as are most things you will come across when dealing with overweight/obesity. A lot of the stuff you will read about diet, overweight/obesity and exercise is based on word play and half-truths. This is one of them. I'll explain why.
The study that concluded exercise was ineffective for weight loss was based on calories. Again, people keep equating "calorie burning" with weight loss. That's not the case. You can burn a lot of calories and still be uber fat. In fact, people who are obese burn a lot of calories. This study basically concluded that not only can you not burn enough calories, during a workout, to make a difference in your weight, but active hunter/gatherers burn about the same calories as the common person in the United States.
Why is this surprising to anyone? It shouldn't be. The study was based on a false premise to begin with. It's like me conducting a study to prove that trolls really don't live under bridges. Trolls don't exist so my study was a bust to begin with. (Well, they do kind of exist but on the internet, not under bridges.)
We have long known that calories in/calories out (CICO) does not equate to any significant weight gain or loss and does 0 for body fat gain or loss. We know this from the countless calorie deficit diets and starvation research that have been studied for more than a century now. This is not new. So, the only thing this proved was what we already know. The type of weight loss that an overweight/obese person is trying to achieve cannot be obtained through calories. It's obtained through metabolic homeostasis and that can only be done through lifestyle changes which include exercise.
If you want to improve your blood glucose regulation so that your metabolism can balance its own energy, you need to exercise. You won't get to lean without it, at least not in any ethical and healthy way. I can lock you in a basement and might be able to starve you into leanness, if you don't die of malnutrition first, but that's not addressing your obesity, regardless of any pounds lost. What you want to do though is reverse overweight/obesity and that is only done through a sustainable diet and exercise routine.
4. My mother doesn't do anything but talk about diet all of the time but yet she is still obese. She will even talk about diet to strangers. It seems like she is endlessly dieting. Why hasn't she become slim yet?
"Serial dieters" are always talking about diet. These people believe that diet will help just about anything, but it hasn't helped them lose a pound. These people go through all kinds of "fad" diets and then end up right back at the usual "healthy diet" of no "junk food" and also no results. It's all nonsense. Food lists after food lists but not one pound lost, yet they want to help everyone else with their diet.
Like I have said many times before, the only intervention that works for addressing obesity is a lifestyle one. Not a diet one. Lifestyle. Diet is a very small part of your overall lifestyle. In fact, you sleep for longer periods of time than you eat. You also sit for longer periods of time than you eat. You sit while you eat. This means that movement should be priority number one as that's what you mostly don't do.
People want to only address diet because it's easy, fun and familiar. Addressing obesity through food intake is like addressing alcoholism through alcohol intake. How has that worked for alcoholics so far? Serial dieters aren't ready to do the hard work that it takes to change their entire obesogenic lifestyle. So, it's not surprising that your mother is still obese after all these decades of following "diets" which is basically equivalent to following food. She will most likely continue to be obese. Until an obese person can stop making food the center of their existence, they will continue with their problem.
5. I have a friend who used low carbohydrate dieting to better their health and drop some weight. They swear up and down that they are completely healthy because they can lift a lot of heavy weights at the gym, but they are still 200 lbs., and it isn't muscle. Does lifting heavy stuff mean you are metabolically fit?
No. That is ridiculous. I don't know where the heck this idea is coming from. I swear, the low carb world has just given up on losing body fat. Literally. I don't know why people equate "lifting things" to having more muscle mass. You can lift a lot of things and still be mostly fat.
I have discussed this before. Lifting heavy things does not mean you are fit or healthy. It doesn't mean you have a lot of lean muscle mass either. Lifting heavy things just means you can lift heavy things. Fat people lift heavy things all the time. For example, they lug around their own body weight all day long. When you are constantly carrying around 200+ lbs. of weight, you tend to be pretty strong. This is why overweight/obese people can lift heavy things and they can also knock you out. Having a large body mass, means you naturally have more muscle but that doesn't mean you are mostly lean muscle mass. You are still mostly fat.
Your ratio of lean muscle mass to fat mass is what truly determines your fitness and health. Being a 200 lb. person that can bench press 400 lbs. doesn't mean anything, except that you are a 200 lb. person that can bench press 400 lbs. You will still develop the complications of diabetes.
This has happened to body builders who haven't maintained low body fat. I had spoken about a body builder I knew, who did it professionally, and now has diabetes. His muscle mass did not save him from his growing fat mass. Building muscle is not enough. You have to get rid of body fat because if your body is piling on excess body fat, then it means your metabolism is broken from chronic blood glucose dysregulation.
6. Is it true that the Wahls Protocol cured Wahls of multiple sclerosis (MS)?
This question may be irrelevant on this blog, but I will answer it anyway as this is the type of stuff seen all the time in low carb/obesity/diabetes circles. A warning to the sensitive - you will be triggered.
Look, with all due respect to Dr. Wahls, she hasn't been recognized as having discovered the cure for MS. Unless she is hiding her Nobel Prize very well, we can safely assume she hasn't received it. We don't even know if she had true MS to begin with. Just because you have all of the clinical manifestations of a disease, does not necessarily mean you have that particular disease. You are simply diagnosed with the most common denominator. No diagnosis is set in stone. They are simply approximations done mostly through the process of elimination.
MS is a potentially disabling disease of the brain and spinal cord. In MS, the immune system attacks the protective sheath that covers nerve fibers and causes communication problems between your brain and the rest of your body. Eventually, the disease can cause permanent damage or deterioration of these nerves. The course of this disease is different with each individual. Some people deteriorate rather quickly, while others go into remission for years with no new symptoms or significant progression.
To make matters even more confusing, in rare cases progression simply halts and actually reverses for no apparent reason. This has also been documented in confirmed amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients. These events are known as "spontaneous reversals or resolutions". No one knows how or why they occur. They aren't linked to any specific "thing". The body simply stops doing whatever was causing the pathology, correcting itself. This is not surprising in a universe governed by chaos. Chaos can be either good or bad, depending on the results. The same effort it took to grow a brain tumor is the same effort it takes to dissolve it. It is just not a common occurrence, but it can happen and has.
Other things besides MS can also cause a deterioration in nerve communication, mimicking MS. We don't have to go through all the different toxins and conditions that can cause "pseudo-MS", so let's just focus on Wahls herself and what we do know about her. The main thing that stands out to me in Wahls case was her being a vegan for a prolonged period of time before her condition developed and further deteriorated. Severe B12 deficiency mimics MS. It is extremely coincidental that the moment Wahls began eating meat, she gets up from her chair. She claims, "meat cured her" and technically, it most likely did.
So instead of debating whether this woman found a magical cure for MS or not, the more important take away message here is that fad diets are very dangerous. There have been multiple cases of people ending up paralyzed and with brain legions from severe B12 deficiency because they have dabbled in unnatural diets like veganism and not bothered to monitor their nutritional status or supplement accordingly. Wahls was lucky as prolonged B12 deficiency damage can oftentimes not be reversed.
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