Very good points, I think when you're hooked on sugar and grains it seems to mess with your instincts about what will truly nourish you. It takes a while on HFLC to test and work things out for yourself; you start to discover what gives you energy, clear thinking, feeling vitalized; and what triggers cravings, aches and pains, etc. But it just takes a while and you have to pay attention.

I know I do really well with root vegetables, even if they do have carbs. But even a little fruit, which used to be OK, triggers cravings for me; yet a little dark chocolate is OK (maybe because of added fat of cocoa butter). I also have to watch eating large meals at once, even though that seems to be an IF practice, just a large amount of food at one sitting seems to be insulogenic (think I read something about that somewhere).

there are groups that MUST be what they are. and will say all the time IT IS what they are. that is fine cause it is THEM. as a group. not a thing wrong with that.

if you are an VLC'er looking to chat in a meat and water only group...then you are the idiot for going there :p :p :D :thup:

In that it is them and they won't bow....why should they? they make it clear meat is it.

I am in the ZIOH group on FB. I eat ONLY meat and if thru the situations in my life I ''must'' eat a small side salad to get thru an event or starving I will....we ALL must default and find OUR own choices.

if you are wishy washy on ZC then other 'zc groups' that chat more about 'we need plant foods' etc and WHY this and that are more acceptable then use them....but I say ZIOH is spot on. they do their thing, don't tolerate more chat about what they won't do and hold that right to do it. Plus lately, since the 'split' of alot of problem posters, it is WAY more friendly :) :)

Too bad there isn't a group for "I prefer meat, in general, and realize that I don't really need veggies, but sometimes I like them. And even, once in a while, a handful of berries."

Because that's me. A group of one, I guess. :D

HA HA I hear you but even on ZIOH '''no one''' is saying the total truth of what they eat.....just like on ANY forum.

it is an illusion....only one you can be true to is yourself in reality and while some are doing exactly as they type they are....more I believe are not doing their plans they chose. Many are doing what they say, but many are so often 'wondering' why eating perfect they lose nothing...and in my eyes, thru way past experience, most don't tell the truth in 'total' of their off plan times.

ZC is just that. 0 carbs from anything but meats. IF ANYONE must sub a different food in on occasion they sure are not spouting it out on ZIOH LOL cause they won't go there with ya.

See I find it funny, I wouldn't touch a handful of berries for anything! you couldn't pay me to eat fruit yet some lettuce and salad I will 'cave' if needed....but again, this is SO personal to each of us.

I am 99% meat all the time....rare occasions under default/duress/starvation situations does I opt for that 'non optimal salad' :) :) :)

I am a meat hound. you gotta be one to go to ZC at all.

From what I've read in several arctic diaries, people didn't try eating lichen until they were starving in winter when the cariboo were emaciated or had left the area and there was absolutely nothing else to eat. On return trips they went back to frozen carcasses to scavenge parts they'd left behind. They may have popped an adrenal gland and found it made them feel better. They broke bones and made a broth (if they had some vegetation or seal oil to make a fire with) and threw in other stuff they had on hand, like leather. In areas with no vegetation, just seals, after couple of weeks they'd get so bored that they'd try eating all sorts of things to get a different taste or texture - to me that is one reason to have vegetables to break up meat boredom.

Eliminating grains & dairy made it clear what they had been doing to me, but it was a complete elimination diet that really put my body in tune with what individual foods did to me. Even the difference between grass-fed meat and grain-fed meat feels different. My brain always feels sharper on grass-fed meat and wild fish.

An arctic diary can give you a picture of what it looks like to eat an Inuit diet, but only from the POV of a person who was not raised as an Inuit.

Many of us get bored with meat. But we were raised with a wide variety of foodstuffs. We were not raised to believe that meat is for humans, vegetables are for the animals that become our meat.

It's an interesting take on it, but not, necessarily, accurate d/t cultural differences.

Been eating low carb for more than 6 years with adequate success. There are so many factors contributing to where you end up at any point along the way and I must admit I don't always have good control when it comes to bad habits although for the most part I try and keep them in check. Being older now there has been a significant change in a certain area and the idea of using a plant based diet has come up because it supposedly changes arterial blood flow. I've seen a couple of these videos and although convincing, not sure I could follow this type of diet but it does bring new meaning to the plants, no plants, ZC, LCHF etc. arguments that ensue on a daily basis. Had I not ended up with ED I would have never bothered to look at this stuff.. Thoughts anyone? http://nutritionfacts.org/video/low...ary-blood-flow/

A group of two, at least. I recently noticed that I hadn't really looked at the low carb veggies & I'm adding a few more into my diet. Did you know that a medium-sized radish has only .2 grams of carb? I'm loving it! :D

Whirrly--This is the first "paper" mentioned in that video, a letter to the editor about a meta-study the authors did looking at flow-mediated dilation and low carb vs. other diets. I have no idea what criteria a letter to the editor might go through to be published--I'm pretty sure it will be nothing like what would be required to be considered peer-reviewed literature.

This letter lists all of ten references--one to the study the letter was in reference to.

That's reference one. Reference two is about flow mediated dilation, but not specifically about low carb--and it's a cohort study, so even if there was a "low carb" arm somewhere in there, it won't be people on low carb diets, but people who happen to be eating the least carbohydrate--basically, people eating higher fat, higher protein diets without cutting the carbs.

Reference three is actually low carb. A search for the word "artery" gave me nothing, as did "flow." Couldn't find anything related to blood flow.

Reference four compares flow mediated dilation with a low carb vs. a mediterranean diet. There was a difference between the two in the mediterranean diet's favour at day five, but it disappeared at day 60

In reference five--switching between olive oil and carbohydrate for part of the diet's calories made no difference to flow mediated dilation. This is sort of run of the mill, where fat does decrease flow mediated dilation, saturated fat like palmitic acid in butter and cream seems to be the "villain."

Reference six is actually relevant, so let's skip that for now. :lol:

Seven--this one compares a high fat to a low fat diet, not low carb to low fat. Maybe it matters to somebody, just not to me.

Eight--yay, team. This is a Volek study.



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...5?dopt=Abstract



Going back, the study in reference six was similar in that it did compare flow mediated dilation on a genuinely low carb diet (Atkins, under 20 grams of carbohydrate) and a low fat diet. There was an improvement in flow mediated dilation with low fat vs. low carb there. The authors mention a weakness of their study;



http://hyper.ahajournals.org/content/51/2/376.long

In other words, people were screened out if they had hypertriglyceridemia, high insulin levels etc. Volek's group was described as having moderate hypertriglyceridemia, we're probably looking at one study where people were relatively insulin sensitive vs another (Volek's) where they were less insulin sensitive, if you're looking at the effects of blood fats on flow mediated dilation, this is an important thing to consider.

Nine is a year long intervention with people randomized to low carb or low fat. Low fat does better, at least that's what the abstract says... How many people, randomized to a diet for a study, are all that faithful to the diet by the end of the year? The general history of diet studies says "not many." At this point, it's possible people have remembered how much they love bacon and butter--but forgotten the important parts of the low carb diet, such as not eating carbs.

Ten is a meta-analysis of observational studies. Which is to say, people who just happened to eat less carbohydrate than their peers were lumped together, simply eating more of your calories as fat would give you a high "low carb score." Piffle.

One thing that can't be shown in any of this--where there is a difference in flow mediated dilation, should we care? Flow mediated dilation is in response to a stressor. Pressure is used to compromise blood flow, the body responds, when given the option, with vasodilation. As with any response to stress, the strength of the response scales to some degree to the insult received. This may be me saying something ridiculous--but it's always possible that under one diet, restricting blood flow might be more stressful, the oxygen deficit etc., might be greater over the given time period than under the other diet. All things being equal, greater flow mediated dilation might be better than lesser, but still, conditions besides the constriction itself might go into deciding just how much dilation is even appropriate.

other than the artic explorers there really is no 'zero carb' studies at all so to me to 'compare' anything to a zc diet is useless. in that we need veterans with years under their belt to be studied and that won't happen any time soon in this age of our food available now.

thing is it comes down to how do you feel and results you achieve.

I am STELLAR on a zero carb all meat menu :)

there is no study to dispute my results for ME.
there is no study to say otherwise for ME.

it is so personal. but it also takes time. while one jumps into a zc lifestyle from 'junk food heaven' it wasn't me so I can't go there on that. I went from a VERY low carb way of life....about 5-6 total carbs per day to a ZC way of life. So I 'was there' and the leap was short :) and I adapted so well it was unbelievable.

I guess when it comes to ZC you are 'one that can do perfect' or one that can't even consider doing it ever' and that is fine :)

Unless under 'extreme' circumstances I won't ever eat a plant again :) but if I am dying, a salad, yes I will eat LOL
I ain't gonna die from not eating any time soon most times so I can wait til I can get my meats and survive just fine.

while we change eating so much our bodies must detox, have hard times changing and more. it takes time for ANY plan to have effect. You either give it the time or dump off fast, I however gave my VLC alot of time and felt wonderful, but opted into ZC while gave me SO much more!!

but again, my ways will never be everyone's ways LOL

http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0LE...GfJd2.s71cglJM-

good article

I'm not a carb counter. Too many years of diets requiring that I obsess about the weight and mass and type of food consumed taught me that, to live with a diet, I had to keep it simple.

I learned where the carbs live in the foods, and eat real food when I'm hungry and stop eating when I'm full.

Recently I have been dealing with a health issue and nobody seems to be able to tell me what is causing it. This brought me to ZC. Naturally, I'm not really eating zero carbs, but I've cut the vegetables out of my life. Fruit was gone years ago, along with bread. If I'm allergic to a food, this should help me track it down.

Even though it has been just a couple of weeks, I believe I'm doing better, and my eating life is certainly simpler. ;)

I've been "zero carb" - I say loosely - a couple of weeks now. I eat eggs, use spices, and some hot sauce/mustard (just vinegar based - no sugars or chemicals). I eat bacon and natural all beef hotdogs (no fillers). I will also have a bit of dairy here and there (like a bit of hard cheese on a burger occasionally), a bit of butter here and there though I mostly use bacon fat. I don't tolerate mayo so I don't eat that. No cream either. For drinks, it's one caffeinated coffee in the a.m. (black), water or club soda. Some use coconut oil as well but I had digestive issues with that even before ZC, so I don't touch the stuff.

My scale is moving down slowly again, and I literally feel FANTASTIC. I do supplement with extra salt, potassium, and magnesium though. Before I did that, I was REALLY dragged out. The supplements helped so much and IMMEDIATELY, I was surprised. Esp how much the potassium helped.

I was low carb before the leap to ZC as well so the move wasn't too bad other the energy levels issue outlined above. I think the simplicity of ZC is the best thing about it. No wondering how much carbs are in various vegetables, or lc baked goodies, you know? And I always had carb creep from those things as I found even those lc things difficult to moderate. This plan = eat meat, drink water. Pretty hard to mess up.

This WOE is working good for me right now, but is not for everyone. I'm cool with that, don't push it whatsoever. Note, I do have a bit of veg here and there on social occasions (3x in 10 weeks), so I'm not that hardcore but I find I just do better without the veg. For now. Who knows what comes in the future?

People should just do what suits and works for them. Not sure why more people just don't think that way. LOL

Exactly. I think on the FB groups where people get cranky, they get tired of being asked the same questions, over and over.

I mean, I've only been here for a bit over a year, and I smack my head every time somebody equates grams of steak with grams of protein.

Picture getting asked, "But aren't you worried about developing deficiency diseases?" multiple times a week, and for years! OY>

That's fantastic that ZC is working so well for you, Ms. Mum. A stuck scale, even if you know why it's stuck, is disheartening when you really want it to move.

There's a large segment of society which are so frightened of "difference" they try to enforce a ridiculous conformity on everyone. I have found that simply doing one's own thing, and shrugging them off, leaves them unable to counter.

You are not influence by our social disapproval? Well, that's all we've got!

Then we get allies coming out of the woodwork, silently admiring, like me :) I have toyed with the idea, but currently am getting good results from fasting, per Dr. Fung.