Omnivore Rage

Omnivore Rage

Weight: 275

Exercise: Ran 2 mi yesterday, 3 mi today.

Having been a vegan for about 4 years (with a 1 year lapse in between), I am well used to all the usual questions that omnivores ask: 

"Where do you get your protein?"

"Doesn't eating only plants get boring?"

"How can you be a runner and not eat meat?"

"How can you possibly live without milk and cheese? I could never do that."

"What are you eating?!?"

"Quinoa? Never heard of it. Sounds gross."

The list goes on and on. Not that I'm complaining. The massive amounts of energy I get from eating vegan more than make up for it. I knew from the moment 4 years ago that I decided to stop eating meat, eggs, and dairy that I would be viewed as odd by most mainstream people. (Any of you who know me personally, already know that I am a bit odd, and totally comfortable with it). Thus, I thought I was very well prepared for anything that could be thrown my way about the subject of veganism and fitness.

The other day, I was totally caught by surprise. I was speaking with a very good friend of mine (who shall remain nameless), and happened to mention the fact that I was vegan again. As most people do, he peppered me with several questions about a vegan diet, and why I choose it. I apparently mistook his questions for genuine interest and politely suggested that he check out the facts, and perhaps consider adopting a vegan diet himself. I was totally unprepared for what happened next.

This friend of mine, normally a quite rational person, became angry. He raised his voice and said that he "would never do that." Further, he asserted that "people have to eat meat," and that anyone who doesn't is not only "dumb" but also a "scrawny weakling."

Ignoring the obvious insults, I asked him why we have to eat meat. He said "what else are you going to eat at Thanksgiving, Easter, or Christmas?" and also that he was a "meat and potatoes" kind of guy, because that's what he had always eaten.

His response to my questions got me thinking. I am definitely not a militant vegan who insists that no one eat animals, ever. I also don't go around throwing buckets of red paint on people who wear fur coats. I don't picket fast food restaurants. I merely advocate eating a plant based diet because it is the surest way to promote health, avoid or cure disease, and maintain vitality as long as possible. My third DevolveHealth eating rule says:

"Eat a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and legumes and VERY LITTLE if any meat, dairy, and eggs."

This is based on the simple logic (which has been backed up by a lot of research) that our primal ancestors would have eaten mostly plants (vegetables and legumes), fruit (which was only available certain times of the year), and seeds and nuts (also available only seasonally), and very little meat. It's not that they would try and avoid meat, but meat (also known as an animal) is pretty hard to come by. It turns out most animals, prior to domestication, didn't want to just lie down and be eaten. They were either much faster than we are, or had adequate weapons or size to fight us off. 

It was only after the development of weapons and then the domestication of animals that mankind had ready access to meat. It was only in the past 50 years or so that mankind (at least people living in industrialized countries) had access to as much meat as they wanted on the cheap, due to factory farming practices and cheap government subsidized corn.

As my friend was unintentionally pointing out, what we eat is a very emotional and cultural matter. Some of my own best childhood memories are of Sunday afternoons spent eating homemade spaghetti and London Broil with my mother's spaghetti sauce (if I ever gave that recipe away, she would drive up from Florida to kill me). 

The problem is, culture has changed with time, as have our waistlines and rates of disease. The typical diet about a hundred years ago (garnered from various sources) consisted of a small portion of meat, about 2-3 oz, fresh vegetables and grains, and seasonal fruits. Meat and grain made up about 20-30% of the food eaten, whereas the other 70-80% consisted of vegetables and fruits when available. There was no corner grocery store, and people had to live off of what they could farm, hunt, and fish. Thus, the diet would vary based upon what time of year it was, and how lucky or unlucky the family hunter/trapper was.

Compare to today. The average diet today consists of 50-60% refined grains or oils. These come in the form of processed sweets, pre-packaged foods, sodas, bread, and the like. 30-35% of our diet comes from meat, mostly in the form of chicken, pork, or beef, all of which has been factory farmed and is full of toxins, artificial hormones, and antibiotics used to keep the animals alive long enough to reach slaughter weight. That only leaves a measly 5-10% for fruits and vegetables. The most commonly eaten vegetable? The potato. There is nothing wrong with potatoes. They have many vitamins and minerals, and are quite healthy, when combined with other vegetables. The downside is that they are rather starchy, with a high glycemic index. Combine that with an overload of sugars, raising our post meal blood glucose, and the high protein and saturated fat load of the meat, and you have a perfect recipe for insulin resistance (read: diabetes). 

Sadly, my friend was misled. I can't really blame him though. So was I for many years, and I am a doctor, for God's sake. Since just after World War II, we have been very gradually conditioned to accept processed foods as staples, and encouraged to eat ever more meat and dairy. There are two main groups who are conditioning us this way. Offender #1 is the USDA. The US Department of Agriculture is a farm advocacy group. They are also the people who write our nutritional guidelines, and determine the "% daily value" which goes on the side or back of every food package sold in the US. Their primary interest is to make sure that the people they represent (namely the dairy farmers, meat farmers, and vegetable farmers, 99% of whom grow only corn and soybeans) make as much profit as possible. Is it at all surprising that the nutrition pyramid for at least 30 years has recommended grains, meats, and dairy products as the 3 most consumed nutrients?

Offender #2 is the National Dairy Farmers' Association. As the name implies, they work for dairy farmers. What they also do on the side is provide educational materials to schools on nutrition. I'm sure I don't even have to tell you what they are telling our children to eat. "Milk. It does a body good." speaks for itself. For more on just how bad milk is for you, read my previous post on milk. 

We all eat what we eat for a variety of reasons. Two of the most important are taste and history. We like food that tastes good, and we like to eat what we ate when we were children, because of the memories the food evokes. The same is true of holidays. We don't eat a turkey at Thanksgiving because it is an intrinsic part of the holiday (there is absolutely no evidence that turkey was eaten at the first Thanksgiving. It was probably added sometime in the 1800's). We eat it because it reminds us of our childhood, and happy times with family. In a way, it brings us closer to our distant and deceased family members, if only in our minds. Sadly, those "traditional" meals have been perverted over the years, by ever increasing levels of processing, and the agendas of groups who have placed profits over our health.

Now that makes me mad!

What are You Eating?

What are You Eating?

Weight: 276.6
Running: Getting better. 2-3 miles per day

As a consequence of my job as an emergency physician, I eat lunch and dinner (and even breakfast, depending on which shift I am working) at my desk. Since I get the opportunity to work on the sickest of patients, who are often unstable and can deteriorate quickly, I have to be close to the action at all times. This means eating at my desk most days. Years ago, I never realized the consequence of eating in public. Since I have been a vegan and back, and vegan again, I have become acutely attuned to an interesting phenomenon: people are always quite interested to what other people eat. While sitting at my desk checking labs, looking at past medical histories, and making medical decisions, many techs, nurses, and other physicians pass me without a second glance. Add an open food container sitting innocently next to me, and suddenly every single person who passes me asks the same question: "what are you eating?"

The interesting thing about the question is how it changes when I am sticking to a vegan diet. It isn't the words. They remain the same. It is the tone that changes. When I have a "balanced" plate in front of me, with meat, veggies, and grains, I get the normal "what are you eating?" No tone, no curiosity, no agenda. Similar to when someone asks "how are you today?" They don't really want to know. All they want to hear is "good," or something similar. It is mainly a rhetorical question.

Oddly, when I have a vegan entree in front of me which is non-traditional, the tone of the encounter changes. Take as an example two days ago. I had for lunch red kidney beans, quinoa, and avocado. Besides being delicious, this dish is full of protein, fiber, good fats, vitamins, and minerals. In short, it is the perfect lunch. Despite its obvious health value, when people looked at my food, they took on an incredulous tone when asking about it. Based on the tone, you would think that I was eating fried tarantula or something equally crazy.

Thinking about the responses of these well meaning people merely confirmed how screwed up our American diet actually is. The reason for the unusual responses is that quinoa and beans is unexpected. It was out of the range of what people who eat the standard american diet expect. These days, we consider a plate of 10 oz meat, a small spoonful of veggies, and a cup of potatoes normal. The diet we were designed to eat was quite different than that.

Our ancestors, before agriculture, were only able to eat what they could find or kill with their bare hands. If you think logically about what their diet might be composed of, we can make some conclusions about what we should be eating. Our ancestors would eat mostly vegetables, as those are plentiful and available year round. Next most likely would be fruit. Fruit is seasonal, but stays still and is easy to collect. Finally, and in the most limited of quantities, would be animal products. Although there are a great many animals in nature, they are rather fast and hard to catch. The ones who aren't fast outweigh us by hundreds of pounds, and have teeth, claws, and tusks to kill us.

Thus, since we are essentially unchanged from our primeval ancestors from a genetic standpoint, the proper diet for modern man should be as follows: 70% vegetables, grains, and legumes. 25% fruit. 5% (or less) meat, eggs, or dairy. Completely off the menu are processed sugars, oils, and flours, as those don't exist in nature in any form. Our bodies are simply not made to process them, and they are the cause of many chronic diseases that we suffer from.

A couple of years ago, when I wasn't quite as mature, I was quite annoyed by the "what are you eating" question. I have since revised my view of the situation. The best way to lead is by example, so when I am eating an extremely healthy meal, and someone asks with suspicion what I am eating, I choose to use it as a teaching moment. Hopefully, if I expose enough people to exciting new vegetables, grains, and fruits, and teach them to avoid animal products such as dairy, meat, and eggs, I can improve not only my health, but also the health of those around me. Not only is that my duty as a physician, but also my goal as a health educator.

The next time someone asks you "what are you eating," consider what you are eating, and if that food is the right kind of food to fuel your body. If so, please share your knowledge with others. For more info on what to eat, please visit www.devolvehealth.com, and learn to eat like our ancestors, and like our bodies were designed to eat.

Quinoa and Red Beans With Avocado
1 cup quinoa, rinsed
1 can red beans
1 avocado
1/4 tsp salt

Cook quinoa according to package directions. Drain red beans. Once quinoa is finished, mix both together. Peel and pit avocado, and dice. Mix in with quinoa and beans. Add salt and mix well. Serves one. Goes well with salad or other green veggies.

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Relapse

Relapse

Hi all. I know it has been a LONG time since I have written. An awful lot has happened to me in the past year and a half or so.

Those of you who have followed my blog the previous couple of years know that through a rigorous vegan diet and daily exercise, I had gone from a horribly obese 350 lbs to a svelte 200. I had reclaimed my health, lost my hypertension and borderline diabetes, and discovered more energy then I knew was possible. My depression, which had plagued me for years, had even gone away. Without a doubt, I knew my avoidance of processed foods and animal foods, as well as daily exercise had been responsible for my weight loss. Overall, I had never felt better in my life. I felt as if I was invincible.

Life, however, is never without its share of tragedy. Just when I thought I had reached my highest point, the universe decided to take me down a peg or two. First, my wife demanded a marital separataion. Not terribly long after, I found out she was having an affair. Finally, three days before our 11th anniversary, she filed for divorce. The marriage I had hoped to save for the months of our separation was over.

I was completely devastated. I went from living in a nice house to a one bedroom apartment. I only got to see my kids 8-10 days a month. The illusion I had of a "good life" was completely shattered. Financially, I was shackled by huge child support and alimony payments, which amounted to approximately 60% of my monthly salary. I was forced to work extra shifts every month in order to make ends meet.

As I have mentioned many times in the past, I am an emotional eater. When I get upset or anxious, I tend to resort to food as my comfort drug. As unhappy as I became, I simply quit. I stopped eating my unprocessed plant-based diet. I stopped exercising. Instead, I took to sitting and watching television to take my mind off of my circumstances. And I ate. A lot. I ate fried chicken, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, pizza, and all of the "comfort foods" that I used to rely on. 

It is surprising how simple it is to slip back into old patterns. I vowed that I would never eat animal products again, but under pressure, that vow was easily broken. Not surprisingly, given the research I have shown in previous blog posts (feel free to read them all), bringing back the animal foods meant the return of the weight, and the return of my chronic diseases. Depression, obesity, and high blood pressure quickly returned. I ballooned from 200 pounds to 280. I was afraid to write blog posts advocating health, because I felt like a hypocrite, and I was ashamed to tell my story, as it had taken a huge turn for the worse. 

Not too long ago, however, I realized something. This part of my story is worth telling. Relapse is part of the process of change. The question to ask is not "will I mess up," but "when will I mess up?" Clearly, resorting to those comfort foods was a huge mistake, and It cost me dearly. 

Thankfully, I regained control of my life. I deepened my connection with God, filling a lot of the void in my life. As much as I hate dating, I also met a wonderful woman who is as fully committed to me as I am to her, and we were wed in January. 

The waters having calmed a little in my personal life, I took a look at my health. At first, I thought going vegan again would be too hard, given that I had strayed from it for so long, so I tried to eat Paleo. That just didn't work for me. One good thing I discovered trying that eating plan was how bad gluten is for us. I will elaborate on that in a future post. 

Finally, since no other eating plan has ever worked for me, I decided to return to a vegan diet. Specifically, I decided to follow my own eating advice, the DevolveHealth Eating Rules:

1. Eat foods as they occur in nature

2. Eat a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, legumes, and nuts, and very little if any meat, eggs, or dairy

3. Choose foods for nutrition, not flavor

Within a week of committing to eat plants again, my energy returned, and I began to feel better. I have lost about 10 lbs so far, and will not stop until I reach my goal weight of 185.

As with many things in life, buried in tragedy is hope, and opportunity. I had thought my rough patch was just a punishment, but now I realize that I can make some good from it. The last time I reached out to you readers about nutrition and exercise, I did it as someone "on the other side" if you will. I had already achieved my goal. The mountain always looks smaller when you are at the top. This time, I will take you along with me on the journey, and we can help each other climb.

I encourage each of you to set a goal to reach with me, be it a weight goal or a fitness goal. On my end, I promise to post frequently on my progress and the lessons I learn. I hope you will commit to following me to fitness and a better life. Feel free to post your story, or your commitment in the comments. Mine is far from the only story worth telling.

Either way, this should be an adventure!

Jacob Ott, MD

The Freedom to Not Choose

Today is Memorial Day. We dedicate today to remembering those who have served and given their lives for the freedom that we all enjoy. The fact that we live in a country with a constitutional republic, in which we are free to express our views and opinions without fear of censorship, oppression, or even death is due to the actions of countless brave men and women over the course of two centuries and counting.

Freedom is something that must be constantly defended, because it is not a natural state. Ever since man has existed, we have tried to exert power over our fellows, and force them to work toward our ends. Sadly, most of the ancient wonders of the world were built with forced labor, and up until very recently, slavery was not only acceptable, but common practice. We are very fortunate to live in a country in which we are free to choose the course of our lives.

By now, you might be wondering how this all ties in to a health and wellness blog. Good question. There is one crucial point that most of us never think of with regard to freedom. Just because we can do something, does not mean that we should, or that it is best for us. Besides having unprecedented legal and social freedoms, Americans (and residents of other industrialized countries) also have culinary freedom which has never been experienced on the planet before.

To realize this point, you need to look no further than the cookout you will likely attend this afternoon. Represented at your Memorial Day cookout will likely be hamburgers, hotdogs, fried chicken, potato salad, potato chips, corn, fruit salad, watermelon, cantaloupe, beer, soft drinks, green beans, deviled eggs, cupcakes, cookies, and countless other foods. Before eating today, let's think for just a minute on what foods will be represented in the average American backyard today:

Beef                                         Chicken                                  Pork
Potatoes                                  Eggs                                        Corn
Mayonnaise                            Bananas                                 Grapes
Watermelon                           Cantaloupe                             Sugar
Beans                                      Milk                                        Wheat
Rice                                         Soybeans                                Pineapple

This list is far from inclusive, but it gives you the basic idea. As important as how many foods we have access to is how easily we can obtain them. Unlike our caveman ancestors, we don't have to forage and hunt in order to obtain the foods we eat. All we have to do is go to the grocery store, and we see all of the foods above and more sitting on the shelves. Cavemen would never have been able to match either the quantity or variety of food that we have at our fingertips. The foods above come from all over the world, from Europe to America to tropical islands in the middle of the pacific ocean.

It is wonderful that we have access to all of these foods, in quantities that ensure most people don't have to worry about where their next meal is going to come from. It is also somewhat ironic that this freedom is slowly killing us. In the past fifty years, we have been getting larger and larger and larger. Two-thirds of all Americans are now either overweight or obese. Infectious diseases like pneumonia, which used to be the biggest killers of people, have been supplanted with diseases of lifestyle like heart disease, cancer, hypertension, and diabetes. Mounting evidence in the past 20 years has shown that some foods, particularly meat, milk, and eggs, are directly related to the diseases which now kill us in epidemic proportions.

I, like all of you, dear readers, am extremely grateful for the men and women who died to allow us to live free of oppression and slavery, and to pursue our dreams. I shudder to consider what those men and women would think if they were to see how we are slowly killing ourselves. I have never served in the military. The fight I participate in is not for our freedom, but for our health. This Memorial Day, I would like to humbly suggest that we try to honor the memory of those who served by trying to take care of our bodies, and using some of our freedom to not choose some of the foods which cause us so much harm.


Happy Memorial Day,

M. Jacob Ott, M.D.

Supplemental Danger

Yesterday, I read a fairly disturbing study about calcium intake. The study, which was a retrospective study which took into account various factors, including supplement intake, showed that taking calcium supplements significantly increased the risk of heart attack. The exact findings are as follows:

• Participants who took supplements that included calcium were 86 percent more likely to have a heart attack, compared to people who didn’t take any supplements.
• Participants who only took calcium pills were more than twice as likely to have a heart attack. 

This is fairly disturbing, but not the first time a supplement has been indicated in a problem. A 2004 study showed that taking mega-doses of Vitamin E as supplements increased risk of death. Just like calcium, Vitamin E was previously shown to be helpful. Several other studies have shown single supplements, and even the ubiquitous multivitamin to be harmful.

What is the common link between all of these studies? The fact that it is a supplement. When we isolate a chemical from food, and put it in a pill, something happens. At best, it loses its effectiveness. At worst, it becomes harmful. The supplement study is only part of the story. In fact, rarely has a supplement ever been shown to be helpful in pill form. I have previously spoken about fiber, which is not effective in the myriad of powders and pills that are sold, and is only beneficial when taken as part of the food.

Why is it that our pills do not help us? I believe it is because we have an incomplete understanding of how food works. While we do our chemistry and isolate these chemicals, and then take them, we are unaware of the thousands of other compounds in the food which contribute to the action of the "vitamin" that we have isolated.

But Jake, you ask, what about calcium? I know I have to take a supplement of at least 1500 mg of calcium a day for bone health? My doctor told me so. All parts of the above statement are wrong. I will spend the rest of this post debunking the calcium myth:

1. Calcium intake is required to prevent osteoporosis: Point one is a partial truth. Bones are comprised of a matrix of calcium phosphate. In order to build or maintain bone, you must have some calcium. Where this truth gets distorted is in the advertising. People in this country have spent billions of dollars associating two items in our brain: milk and calcium. I wrote a previous post about this, but the short version is that milk does nothing to prevent osteoporosis. If it did, then the countries with the most milk intake would have the lowest rates of osteoporosis. In fact, the opposite is true. The more milk a country consumes, the HIGHER rate of osteoporosis it has.

2. Calcium supplements (or mega-doses of milk) are needed, because dietary sources are inadequate: The milk people, and the people who sell the pills would have you believe that people cannot get enough calcium from their diets, and thus some form of supplementation is necessary. Though good for the old bottom line, this "fact" is simply not true. Here is a list of foods which are rich dietary sources of calcium:


Spinach
Turnip greens
Mustard greens
Collard greens
Blackstrap molasses
Swiss chard
Kale
Basil, thyme, dill seed, cinnamon, and peppermint leaves
Romaine lettuce
Rhubarb
Broccoli
Sesame seeds
Fennel
Cabbage
Summer squash
Green beans
Garlic
Tofu
Brussel sprouts
Oranges
Asparagus
Crimini mushrooms

Many of these foods have as much or more calcium as milk, and are rich in untold other nutrients as well.

So, in summary, there is no need to take a calcium supplement, especially given the results of the study that came out yesterday. The formula for bone health is simple:

1. Eat a wide variety of plant foods, which are rich in all the nutrients you need.
2. Avoid excess protein intake. The acid load that proteins provide actually dissolve bone.
3. Perform load bearing exercise (running, jumping, etc...) the impact stimulates bone formation.

Good Eating,

 




M. Jacob Ott, M.D.

Runnin' in a Winter Wonderland

I don't know where you may be reading from, but at least here in Kansas, winter has arrived. For the past few months, the weather had been toying with us, offering temperatures in the 50's. There were even a few days in the 60's. Not very winter like.

I am an Ohioan by birth, so the cold does not really bother me very much. That doesn't mean I like it. I would definitely prefer 70 and sunny every day. Add some grey clouds and snow to the cold, and you have a recipe for some dreary days.

Since the cold is on my mind today, I thought I'd write about how workouts should change due to the short days and cold weather. I know that many people who are habitual exercisers tend to take winters off, because of the cold and the holidays, and then begin working out again in the spring. Though rest is good for your body, taking off three months can be seriously damaging to your fitness level as well as potentially your waistline.

I definitely continue to work out over the winter months, and I recommend that you do the same. If you want to use the winter as something of a rest period, consider working out 3-4 days a week, and taking the other days to rest.

You may need to modify your workouts as well. It is still OK to exercise outside. In fact, I kind of like winter runs. They can be rather invigorating. Be sure to take a few precautions, however:

     1. Dress for the cold. Be sure to cover your head, fingers, and toes well. If the temperature is in the 20's or below, frostbite can set in rather quickly, even in as fast as 30 minutes. As long as you are moving and active, hypothermia is not much of an issue in the short term, but be sure to get in out of the cold as soon as you are done. Also, wear some layers, preferably of a heat retaining tech fabric. Avoid wearing too much clothing, however, as you can still overheat. You should feel a little chilly when you start, or you are wearing too many layers. Trust me, you will warm up as you go.

     2. Be careful of slipping. In the ER, I see many patients who slip on the ice. Obviously, if you are running fast, this danger is increased. Be careful, especially going down hills or on pavement. Try to keep an eye on the ground a few yards in front of you, so you can identify any slick spots before you actually hit them.  If you do slip, try to sit down on your bottom, rather than extending your hand or leading with your head.

     3. Prepare for emergencies. carry with you at least a little water, a small amount of food (like an energy bar), and your cell phone. You don't want to sprain an ankle three miles from any sort of aid, and be unable to call for help.

Follow these precautions, and you will be able to safely work out through the winter. Who knows, you may even enjoy running in the snow!

M. Jacob Ott, M.D.