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Healthy Eating is Not an Extreme Sport!

The following email exchange (circa 2005) with an avid low-carb/Paleo/'Warrior' dieter demonstrates what can happen when people embrace dietary fads at the expense of good old commonsense.

"G" writes:

Hi Anthony,

I've written to you before in an e-mail asking you about the quality of grain-fed meat versus grass-fed; it was the one that you posted in your Straight Out of My Inbox 10! Although I've experienced wonderful improvements in energy levels and appetite control by switching to a low carb high fat Paleo diet, I'm beginnging to experience some painful signs of inflammation.

In order to get lots of fat that I need for energy to workout vigorously I get most of my fat from fatty meats (grain-fed) , eggs (omega-3 enriched), and butter. More recently I've switched to organic-grassfed butter, but noticed no difference.

I believe I'm suffering from inflammation because I get a very tight feeling in my chest after a meal. It feels like heart burn and then I get palpitations/abnormal heart rythm. Sometimes it scares me into thinking I'm having a heart attack. When I revert back to a more lean meat Paleo type diet I notice that this goes away, but then my energy levels suffer, and my hunger returns.

How can I avoid this? It's really bothering me. I tried taking more fish oil capsules but just started getting a lot of nose-bleeds, and still had the (what I think is) inflammation.

When I switch back to my high animal fat diets after a bout of lean Paleo eating I notice amazing energy and hunger control, and feel great for a few days. However, within a week or so the pain returns. It's been a vicious cycle recently, and I don't know how to escape my problem. I would greatly appreciate it if you could help me out.

Thank you,

G

Anthony replies:

G,

before I attempt to tackle this one, have you had your liver function tested lately? Does your blood pressure rise and your heart start pounding after a fatty meal?

Anthony.

G replies:

No, I haven't had my liver function tested lately. The last time I did get it checked was about a year ago, which was a short time after beginning low-carbing. My mother is a lab technician and studies blood for a living, so I was able to get a whole blood profile for free. Everything came up really well. I exercise 5-6 days a week, follow a low carb diet, sleep 8-9 hours a night, and don't drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. The time of the "attacks" varies. A lot of times it does occur right after a meal, sometimes it's random. What's interesting is that my family has noted that during, and after, a meal my cheeks become very red. I don't know if this is related. After doing a bit of reading I came across some info on angina pectoris. The symptoms listed are nearly identical to what I've experienced, which really scares me. I have a problem with stress and tend to get angry very easily when driving and doing daily activities. I notice when I have less stress the pain is reduced a bit, but I have definitely noticed that diet has the most drastic effect on the "attacks". I really don't know what to do here.
I keep bouncing back and forth from lean Paleo to high fat Paleo (which I find so much more fulfilling by the way!). I also follow an intermittent fasting pattern of eating. I randomly throw in fasts and find that after about 15 hours without food the attacks disappear. It appears that the fasting has some sort of protective effect against the attack, so I'm not sure how this fits into the equation. Thank you for responding to my question. I can't wait to here your next response!

Anthony replies:

G,

Next request: can you describe, in detail, 2-3 days of typical eating when you are eating high fat, and 2-3 days when you are eating low-fat? Don't forget things like coffee, tea, any snacks in between meals you may have, etc, etc. I need fairly accurate amounts (if you could weigh the food portions that would be best), as I would like to calculate your macro and micro nutrient intakes.

Your comments about stress and fasting provide some clues, but I still need more info. We need to find out why the problem seems to be triggered when you go high fat. Also can you describe in detail your exercise routine, and also outline your sleeping hours?

Also, can your Mum organize another full blood work-up for you, one that includes liver profile, androgens (including free testosterone and SHBG, DHEA), white blood cell count, serum ferritin, etc, etc? A full blood work-up will usually include most of these things as a matter of course,although you will often have to ask specifically for free testosterone, SHBG and DHEA--a lot of labs will merely do total testosterone, which can give a misleading picture of true androgen status.

Cheers,

G replies:

Anthony.

Sure, no problem. The Warrior Diet has been a backbone to my intermittent fasting protocol. During the week days I follow the Warrior Diet and I follow a 15 hour over-night fasting regiment on the weekends. I drink coffee and green tea randomly. Usually a total of 4 cups a week, combined. I generally drink the tea or coffee before a workout to give me a nice jolt of energy. Coffee tends to irritate the pain and green tea seems to have no effect. I never have pain during workouts. Here's a
sample a week of high fat eating with exercise patterns.

Monday: no exercise because of school and work. Get home from work 8:00 pm and begin eating. No food at all until this point in the day. I first start out with meat and eggs. I usually buy fresh ground beef patties from the market nearby. I start off with four of those grilled, and then slather butter on top of them to add fat. I'd say I probably add about a tblsp full of butter to each patty. I then move onto eggs. I fry up 5 eggs and use 3 tblsp of butter in the pan.

Then, I eat 4 fresh chicken cutlets ( 1/2 lb) pan fried in 3 tblsp of butter. I also add 1 cup of baby spinach to the eggs. After that I fry up 3 medium sized broccoli heads in 6 tblsp of butter.

Next, I eat about three cups of mixed nuts (cashews,almonds, brazilian nuts, filberts, pecans) and finish off with a medium sized apple, pear, or medium orange. The type of fruit varies from day to day, but the rest of my diet stays pretty much consistent with this throughout the week.

Here's what high fat eating is like on saturday and sunday(both days the same):

9:00 am-wake up, first thing I eat 5 eggs fried in 3 tblsp of butter, a handful of mixed nuts, spinach salad with raw sunflower seeds sprinkled on and about 5 tblsp of olive oil.

Dinner: 6:00pm- grilled t-bone steak with 1 tblsp of butter slathered on. 2 broccoli heads fried in 3 tblsp of butter.

Lean meats Paleo week of eating: Eating is very unvaried, much like my high fat week. I don't mind eating much of the same stuff and I never seem to get tired of the same meals.

I usually fast til 8:00pm on Mondays (due to work) and until 6:00pm on T,W, T, and F and then again I follow 15 hour overnight fast on Saturday and Sunday.

Here's what Monday-Fridays meals look like:

Start of with very lean meats. I cook them on my electric grill to get most of the fat out. I usually eat about a pound and a half of either chicken or turkey breast and add some salt and pepper to taste. I then eat lots of mixed nuts; probably 6-7 cups. after than I eat a pound of mixed vegetables (cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, sugar snap peas, string
beans) fried in 5 tblsp olive oil and 5 tblsp coconut oil. I finish off with 1 apple and 1 pear.

Saturday and Sunday:

9:00 am: 8 oz top round steak grilled, 2 handfuls of mixed nuts, 2 eggs
fried in 2 tblsp coconut oil, and 1 pear.

6:00pm: 1 lbs chicken cutlets grilled on electric grill. Spinach salad with
sunflower seeds and olive oil. 3 handfuls of mixed nuts. 1 orange.

For the days that I do exercise I make my own workouts with a deck of cards. I've collected workouts from various sites on the internet, and most of my workouts are of high intensity type. I randomly flip a card on workout days to reveal what the workout is for that day. I do this just to keep things random, and never follow a set program. Energy during workouts is generally well, but sometimes I get chest pain after the workouts if it happens to fall on a high animal fat day. The main
difference that I can see between my high-fat meat diet and my lean meats one is that I'm eating much more animal fat on the high animal fat version. I still eat nice amounts of fat on my lean meats version, they just come mostly from nuts, seeds, olive oil, and coconut oil. The problem I have with that is that I don't recieve as much satiation from plant fats as I do with animal fats. But then it seems as though the animal fats are what cause the pain, so it's a vicious cycle of bouncing
from one diet back to the other.

Here's a sample of what my workouts were last week:

Monday: off day
Tuesday: circuit of:
10 circuits of
Deadlift-225lbs-5 reps
30 push-ups
no rest between sets
Wednesday: Push press- 30-25-20-15-10-5 reps with increased weight for
each set. No sets to failure.
Thursday: circuit of:
400 rope skips
21 dumbell swings-55lbs
12 pull-ups
Friday: circuit of:
Push press-15 reps with 90 lbs
21 pull-ups
10 reps-turkish get-up-40 lbs
Saturday: Back Squat- 5-5-5-5-5 with 210 lbs
Sunday- off day

During the week I get to bed at 10:00 pm every night and naturally wake at 9:00 out of habit. Sleep is great during the week. On Friday nights I'm usually out late with friends and don't get to bed until 2:00 am, but don't have work on saturdays so I sleep until I wake. the time that I wake on Saturday's varies from week to week. Saturday nights I usually have a
hard time falling asleep at 10:00pm because of my late friday night. I must awake at 7:00am Sunday mornings because of work, so I generally only get about 6 hours of sleep on saturday nights. When I get home tonight I will ask my mom if she can take my blood, and I'll report the results to you as soon as possible. Anthony, thank you very much for taking your time out to help me. It is very kind of you to offer your intelligence with this problem I have. I sincerely appreciate it.

Thank you.

Anthony replies:

G,

when you say "four beef patties", what is the weight? Sorry to be so anal, but I need to know to estimate your macro/micronutrient intake. It gives me a better base to start from...

Also, I forgot to ask about supplements...can you tell me everything you take, and in what amounts, and when. Do you take any prescription (or nonprescription) items?

Cheers,

Anthony.

G replies:

Hey, no problem Anthony, you're the one who's going out of your way. I'm more than happy to help out along the way. The patties are 1/4 lbers, and I asked the butcher and he said that the come from the chuck of the animal, making them pretty fatty. For supplements, I take fish oil, cod liver oil, magnesium oxide, and potassium gluconate. I take 6g total
EPA/DHA of the fish oil, 2g of C.L.O., 225 mgs of magnesium oxide a day, and 270 mgs of potassium gluconate. I take all of these at once with my meal during the week and split the doses in half on the weekends to have an even amount for each meal. No prescription meds, and I never will. I refuse to take even aspirin when I have a headache. Hope this helped. Thanks.

Anthony replies:

Hi G,

First of all, I want to begin by reminding you that I am not a medical professional, and that any sign of potential cardiovascular disease should be taken seriously. Ideally, you should get a work-up that includes an EKG to help ascertain the status of your cardiovascular system. Over the internet, I can only give suggestions and throw out ideas, not issue precise diagnoses. The info in this email is my OPINION only, and is supplied for information purposes ONLY.

The second thing I would suggest is that you hunt down whoever told you to eat this way, and beat them senseless! If the dietary breakdown you provided is correct, then you are eating WAY TOO MUCH! Way too much food, and way too much fat!

When I received your first email, I was running all sorts of potential scenarios through my head, but when I started calculating your daily macro and calorie intakes, the cause of your problem became glaringly obvious: GLUTTONY!

Using the USDA database, the figures for your "Warrior Diet" days are an astronomical 576g of fat, and 6,454 calories! In one sitting, you are ramming almost 2.5 kilos of food into your gut. Hell, my liver hurts just thinking about it!

You are also not following a low-carb diet, as your daily carb intake comes in at 175g.

Unless you are contemplating a career in Sumo wrestling, or training for the Tour De France, there is just no need for you to eat so many calories.

My personal strategy would be to abandon the gorging, because gorging is not healthy! I would learn to eat until I am satisfied, and then stop. It's no great surprise you are getting 'heartburn'-type symptoms after you eat.

Heck, if I ate like this night after night, I wouldn't be surpised if my stomach eventually exploded! After reading about your daily food intake, I have developed a new-found sense of awe and respect for the strength and
resilience of the human gut!

A few other points...stop taking so much fish oil and cod liver oil! Six grams of EPA+DHA is unnaturally high (and that doesn't include what is in the cod liver oil!)...this works out to around 20 fish oil caps...and you tried taking even more?! No wonder you were getting nose bleeds! For a healthy adult, there is no need to take more than approx 900mg EPA+DHA daily, which
works out to around 3 typical potency fish oil caps, or a teaspoon of cod liver oil.

Ditch the magnesium oxide...it is useless...its absorption is minimal to nonexistent... go with mag chelate, citrate, aspartate or malate.

Unless you have some medically documented need for it, I also think the potassium gluconate is redundant. A diet of fresh whole foods should supply plenty of potassium.

G, you would do well to remember the following: More is NOT always better!

If scientists find that 900mg daily of EPA+DHA from fish oil lowers CHD mortality, that doesn't mean that you should go out and consume six grams. If eating 250 grams of fat per day is better than eating 50g, that doesn't mean you should eat 600 grams!

I don't want to come across too harsh, but your daily intake is EXTREME...16 tablespoons of butter…in one sitting!?! Crikey!!

Anthony Colpo is an independent researcher, physical conditioning specialist, and author of the groundbreaking books The Fat Loss Bible and The Great Cholesterol Con. For more information, visit TheFatLossBible.net or TheGreatCholesterolCon.com

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