Soemtimes I just want to curl up in a corner and not eat, just drink water. I remember getting into an argument with this guy about some tribe that lives up in the mountains that don't eat food, they just live on air. They're called oxygenarians or something. I thought that was the stupidest thing I've ever heard but reports say they live to be in their 100s, go figure.

At any rate, I believe whole heartedly in the LC lifestyle. I remember over 35 years ago, my mom had a book about the dangers of sugar. It's no coincidence that LCers have lowered their bp and diabetes risk and many have came off their meds, not to mention dropped hundreds of unhealthy pounds.

So then I get this report from another "expert" that says breast cancer is linked to the high consumption of animal fat, and dairy. There goes my daily protein and yogurt.

Then again, I read the story of a famous Tejano singer (can't recall her name) whose mother and grandmother died of breast cancer, so she started taking care of herself from a very young age, diet and exercies and preventive measures - she STILL died from breast cancer and she was in her 20s.

So I figured, maybe I'll just eat fish and poultry - but fish are swimming in contaminated streams and the poultry is being injected with who knows what. And the veggies are being sprayed with pesticides.

I might look into retiring to a mountain sometime soon....

This made me laugh - Yes, retire to the mountains and eat air.... Oh, that is polluted though! Jill

Whenever you see a story condemning meat/dairy, do 2 things:

1) Find out the link to PCRM or PETA. 99% sure there is one.

2) Find out if the study was based on a diet high in fat AND high in carbohydrate. The combination is unhealthy....not the fat.

I can write a report on anything. Doesn't mean it tells the full truth.

The biggest component of longevity is genetics, and if you pull a bad hand in that deal, you're pretty much stuck. All the healthy living in the world isn't going to help some of the heritable conditions. Apparently, the singer didn't do the only intervention that might have helped what turned out to be the fullest risk, which would have been a double mastectomy. Even that wouldn't have been a guarantee, and it's a lot for an under-30 woman to come to terms with. There is some thought that some cancers are virally-driven; there's one form of cancer that is inherited in mother's milk and takes 60 years to present.

I don't really worry about what I read. As above, when I see "dangers of food groups," I look for controlled insulin = low carbs. If the report only talks about meat, or fat, without mentioning whether carbs were controlled, I pretty much discard the information. It's like talking about cheeseburgers--the danger is in the bun+burger, not in the stuff between the buns. And the shake and fries, of course.

If you want a good story about living on air alone, read "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer. (His book Into the Wild is also pretty good.) Not the life I want, thanks.

This is so true. I've never seen a truly LC (high fat) study yet that had any kind of negative results.

Lisa, yes I do get tired of it, too. But what I have decided is that if I'm going to die (and we all are going to die), I want to enjoy my life, feel the best that I can while I'm living. I do think that our food supply is screwed up with grain feeding, genetic engineering, and hormones. But I'm just going to do the best I can with what I have. LC makes me feel the best...so I'm going with that.

Good luck...don't worry about it too much. We simply cannot overcome our genetic programming (like the girl with the breast cancer), someday maybe they can, but not today, and we can only try to take good care of ourselves.

Oh and today on the news, they said its a myth that you need 8 glasses (or however many ounces that worked out to) of water daily - that its totally unnecessary!

And, get this newsflash - eating carbs DOES NOT make you fat! Ironically though, lowering them makes you lose weight. Couldn't explain that one.

I'm just going to stop listening to news about health and continue reading the sources that I trust.

Where did you hear this one? I'd like to bookmark it. And FWIW, this one I AGREE WITH. I will not "force" myself to drink that much water.

But there are GOOD studies that show that it is not protein but charbohydrates. So that "expert" is almost surely biased as hometeam said.
Go here to read more!

See, I don't know if I've ever actually drank the 8 glasses, and I've definitely never done the "half of your body weight" thing, BUT its interesting that they've told us this for dozens of years and NOW they want to dismiss it. Makes you wonder what else they'll do a 180 on????

It was a story on the local news this morning, the Health Report, but I didn't hear them credit where the original report came from, that stuff usually comes from some other place.

I think fat is only bad for you if you have high insulin levels.
Most people eating fatty food also eat carbs. So next time check and see if the study have looked at their carb intake as well.

I read it on MSN within the last couple of days, but couldn't find it today. Be aware that the article also debunks low carb and eating fat along with saying you don't need to drink water. I took the advice with a huge grain of salt.

It's a good skill for everyone to question what they're being told by experts. Then look for other experts that disagree so you can understand that there's still a lot of disagreement about most things scientific. Then do a little math and you can figure out that 32% more means something like 1 more death per 100,000 people. Learn what the term non-significant increase means and laugh when people publish reports that include those terms... it means their study didn't reveal anything.

It doesn't really matter what any expert says on this subject of water for me (much as it doesn't matter what they say about fat or LC) If I try to drink the recommended amount, I feel bloated, uncomfortable, much the same as if I eat too much food. That tells something. I'm happy with the way I'm doing it (guzzling about 8 ounces whenever I feel thirsty, several times a day, between meals)....I guess just like relying on my appetite to tell me when and how much I need to eat, I feel I can rely on my thirst to tell me when and how much to drink. Once I learned what those sensations really were, that is. I think it's enough b/c my urine clears by lunchtime and my nose is open and clear...it's gets stuffy when I forget to drink.

The Wall Street Journal ran an article a while back saying that there was no underlying scientific evidence for the "flush flush flush" advice, and I think that's probably true, not only because I do trust the WSJ. It's mostly an urban legend that has been passed around so much we all believe it. Easy enough advice to give, and pretty safe and easy to follow, as far as health advice goes.

Agreed, I feel better when I drink a lot. I don't measure; I just keep a pitcher at my desk and always have water to hand. But we would never have populated California if we keeled over dead without our 3 liters a day. If we still had to run outside to an outhouse (my town only got indoor plumbing in 1943), you'd certainly not be pushing intake. It's like most everything else--you get used to feeling a certain way, and if you couldn't get what you needed to feel that way, you'd get used to something else, too.

For most of recorded history, drinking lots of water wasn't an option (too polluted), and people lived on fermented beverages. Were they really drinking 3L of wine or mead per person?

Drink enough, and don't go round thirsty, and don't worry about it.

"oxygenarians"


They do drink fruit juice. I'll try to find a link.