Review: Eat for Heat by Matt Stone. No stars.

Eat for Heat by Matt Stone 180degreehealth

 

I bought this ebook Eat for Heat by Matt Stone because I had heard certain online identities crapping on about how great he is and how he really fixes people up metabolically. And it was reduced to $0.99 so what would be the harm? Unless this book is a hoax, it is complete crap.

 

In a nutshell:

How to eat for ‘heat’

Don’t drink water (unless at certain times of the day – as determined by a urine test)

Only eat extremely calorie-dense and crappy junk foods (but only at certain times of the day – as determined by a urine test)

High-carb salty foods are great pick-me-ups when you are ‘cold’

When you wake up at dawn’s crack, slip a salty/sugary combo under your tongue to go back to sleep.

 

It’s like the bulletproof coffee nonsense but on steroids. It is so hard to believe this guy actually expects to be taken seriously.

Don’t even waste your time reading it – I wish I could unsee it.

 

Sarah Wilson’s “I Quit Sugar” ebook

I have just read Sarah Wilson’s little, pretty and very palatable ebook “I Quit Sugar”. Covering the same ground as David Gillespie’s “Sweet Poison” and “Sweet Poison Quit Plan”, it is more a practical guide than a dissertation on the science behind it. Which is great – many people just don’t care about that – and there are plenty of places to get it if they do (ie Gillespie). This book takes the reader through an 8-week sugar quitting plan providing strategies, tips, support and motivation to kick the sugar habit, feel better and lose weight.

It really is shocking how much of that crap we eat. It really is insidious and in everything. To understand the full extent – read Gillespie. To get a quick, easy guide to how to turn it all around, consult the Oracle of Wilson. I’ve been off sugar for a while so am not in need of the (rather interesting) crutches and distraction methods – but this stuff is hardcore and is designed to assist hardcore addicts.

It’s not rocket science by any means, but it is the vital missing ingredient between your vague desire to give up the sweet stuff and actually doing it.

Paleo Twitterfomercials and the beginning of the end

A rant.

I can already see the beginning of the end for Paleo. Yes, sometimes I am a glass-half-empty kinda gal.

When I open my Twitter feed of ‘Paleo Tweeters’ I see twitterfomercial after twitterfomercial, selling the next big thing in paleo self-help diet maintenance and control, recipes for pumpkin custard spicy non-dairy paleo latte (I swear Mrs CL ordered the exact same thing from an LA Starbucks a few years ago around Thanksgiving).

Newsflash, primal people: CAVEMEN DIDN’T HAVE OPPORTUNISTIC MORONS SHOVING THIS MARKETING CRAP DOWN THEIR THROATS ALL DAY EVERY DAY! THEY GOT UP, RAN AROUND, ATE AN ANIMAL, LAY AROUND IN THE SUN, TOOK A SWIM, FOUGHT OVER A WOMAN, THEN ATE ANOTHER ANIMAL, THEN WENT TO SLEEP.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I never saw a caveman chowing down on anything that looked remotely like this:

Paleo primal pumpkin alternative substitute pastry crust holiday pie with cop-out paleo non-dairy frosting

I keep worrying that tomorrow I’ll visit Twitter to find you can now buy frozen paleo dinners, instant dehydrated just add water paleo cup-a-snack, paleo desserts packed with all-natural carbs and fructose. I thought the whole point of being paleo was doing it all yourself. Arm yourself with knowledge and go forth and put it into practice. We no longer have to rely on being marketed to and being on the consumerism merry-go-round – we are aiming to break that model; it is the cause of all the trouble to begin with! We don’t need the middle man. All we need is the outer limits of the grocery store, where the meat and veg are kept, and the world is our oyster. This entire economy springing up around paleo is totally counter to the ideology of what it means to be paleo/primal. If you buy into it – YOU ARE NOT PRIMAL! YOU ARE A GLUTEN-FREE, GRAIN-FREE, DAIRY-FREE ITERATION CONSUMER OF THE SAME CRAP EVERY OTHER SUCKER CONSUMES. You need to know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it – the first and only rule of paleo.

 

Talk about taking away our agency in our own decisions – a “paleo-approved” food label! What’s to stop this thing becoming just as warped and ineffectual as the Heart Foundation Tick (currently endorsing McDonalds filet-o-fish meals)? And to be paleo you need to practice an optimal balance of the foods you eat, not just grab 6 packets of ‘paleo-approved’ lard and eat them in one sitting. Walmart will have a whole paleo-approved section, and will have found a way to industrialise grass-feeding, and get endorsed for it.

Anyway, it’s inevitable, really. Like the dotcom boom and bust. And this grumpy old cavelesbian will be left muttering to herself, “Being paleo actually meant something in the good ol’ days… We had to decide for ourselves what to eat and how to live, based on our knowledge and independence.”

 

 

I am the Marlboro Woman

My dad smoked 2-3 packs a day until he was 40. Never showed any sign of wanting to quit. Until one day as he was driving home from work – no doubt puffing on his 50th smoke of the day – that he heard a story on the radio about Marlboro, and how the Marlboro Man had been one of the most successful ad campaigns ever. Dad was a Marlboro Man too.

Come to where the carcinogens are

When he got home, he turfed his smokes in the bin and never looked back – not once. See, he wasn’t into his health – he continued to drink copious amounts of beer and spirits and wine until he was 60 – but he couldn’t stand the idea of being just another sucker lapping up the Marlboro ad campaign. He didn’t give a crap it was killing him. He didn’t care when my siblings and I hid his cigarettes or ripped them up or threw them out – he just got out another pack and lit up. But when he discovered he was the punchline in some global joke, his lifelong loyalty to Marlboro reds stopped dead in its tracks. And that stubbornness was far greater than any nicotine craving would ever be. Cold turkey after 25 years solid as a smoker. RESPECT.

And the more I look into it, the more I think about what has been marketed to me during my life, the more I hate marketing, and want to resist it. Why should I use something, say, a beauty product, that is killing me with chemicals, and pay for the privilege? Why should I eat some ‘product’ developed by some company to be marketable and to suit this and that audience and to tap into this market and so forth, that is packed with chemicals, processed shit, trans fats, and every other unnatural piece of crap invented since the 1950s? And pay for the privilege? And be expected to believe it is even “healthy” for me!?

I read a great post on this last night, by Primal Med Ed, on all the crap she has thrown out just in the creams/lotions/utensils department: Paleo and Stuff.

Why use harsh chemicals to cleanse and tone your face when you can use apple cider vinegar? Why use exorbitantly priced face creams (and all the other bodyparts) when you can use coconut oil for everything? Why use sunblock when it may in fact enhance the risk of skin cancer (and contributes to a Vitamin D deficiency, leading to depression and a host of other issues)? Other than for the enrichment, let’s face it, of a company and its shareholders?

Once you stop and think about why you are doing any of these things and how the whole process got started, it makes you feel a bit ill. I bought those chemicals for my face because I had a blemish and this company put a bunch of acid and other chemicals in a jar with some convenient wipes and said if I wiped this stuff on the blemish it would disappear. Seems like an easy solution – SOLD! But what else is happening? What are those chemicals? Other than what they do to make the pimple go away, what are they doing to every other thing in my body? Are they benign?

Same goes for food – what the hell are food additives doing to your insides? The companies don’t know or care, they have a product to sell. Regulatory authorities don’t know or care – they have to wait for someone to kick up a stink about it and do some research on it and then for that research to be validated by further research and rebutted by research funded by the company feeding you the chemicals, and then they may or may not do something about it.

I know it sounds like I am advocating for conspiracy theories, but I’m not, I’m just saying: think about WHY you are doing these things. When I identify the reason why, I feel like a fool, and feel like turfing those fucking Marlboros out the window!

The Marlboro Man would never put up with this nonsense!

Look what finally arrived!

Now all I have to do is devour these two books, ransack the farmers markets, and spend hours in the laboratory concocting delicious treats!

Check out what I won – “Sweet Poison” by David Gillespie

I entered an online competition and look what I won!

Can’t wait to read them – and put another dagger in the back of sugar consumption. By all accounts it’s a great book, and has been taking Oz by storm – encouraging us fatties to do something about it!

Vibrams five fingers on my toes

Just a quickie to show you my new Vibrams – which I am wearing around the house while I get used to them!

How to deal with fish oil – try, try and try again!

I’m not super massively into supplements. I will take 24g whey protein after a workout, and I take a general multivitamin daily. But I prefer to get my nutrients from all the delicious wholefoods I eat every day. Let’s face it, I’d rather munch down on delicious food than just pop a few pills. But the one supplement I am cultishly devoted to is fish oil – loaded up with omega 3.