There are many ways to do the Potato Diet.

A strict Potato Hack involves eating nothing but cooked and cooled potatoes. Nothing else. No fixings or even salt. This hack can be done for 3-5 days. Or you could do a single day. Or you could eat nothing but cooked and cooled potatoes all day, followed by a regular dinner.

I created a variation of the potato diet called Potatoes and Protein. Add a lean protein to the cooked-and-cooled potatoes.

Which one is best? I think this depends on two factors. How much weight do you need to lose and how motivated are you? If you have a lot of weight to lose and are highly motivated, go strict. If you don’t have that much weight to lose or have less motivation, try a half-tater variation.

Strict

Penn Jillette was in terrible health. He was over 100 pounds overweight, on lots of prescription medications, and was at high risk of getting a heart attack. He picked the hard version of the potato hack.

Penn Jillette lost over 100 pounds in 3 months. He began his diet by consuming nothing but potatoes for 15 days. After that period he completely lost his taste for all the junk food that made him heavy and was so readily available in his hometown of Las Vegas.

Like myself, he has maintained his fat loss over several years. Read his book Presto! to hear his story.

Half Tater

SMTM asked me recently my thoughts on the “half tater” approach.

After I did a few strict potato hacks to jump-start my fat loss, I shifted to a diet of skipping breakfast, eating cooked-and-cooled potatoes for lunch, and then a typical dinner.

As I got closer to my ideal weight, I felt it was more important to increase my protein to defend against muscle loss. See my P-Ratio post for an explanation of why increasing protein becomes more important at a lower body fat percentage.

Potatoes and Protein is a half-tater variation. Start with a bowl of potatoes and then add lean protein on top. Add some veggies and hot sauce. I still do this frequently.

Resetting Your Palate

I stress the volume effect of potatoes a lot in this blog. But there is another equally important benefit of the potato. Plain cooked-and-cooled potatoes don’t have much flavor. By themselves, they don’t taste bad or good. By engaging in potato hacks, you will appreciate the flavors of healthy normal foods much more than before.

My notes after my first potato hack in 2015:

I imagined myself eating a lot of food after 3 days of potatoes, but I didn’t. It was Thanksgiving Day and I never ate less food on that holiday. I also didn’t desire sweet foods. There is a big bowl of Halloween candy in our kitchen that I didn’t touch once. In the week after Halloween, I was visiting the bowl a few times a day.

If your diet is processed or highly flavorful and you want whole food to taste good, I recommend going on a strict multi-day potato hack to start your diet. If you already eat and enjoy the taste of whole foods, then a half-tater approach might be enough for you.

Gagging on Potatoes?

I’ve read reports that some people start gagging on cooked-and-cooled potatoes. I had this happen once early on. I was eating too fast. I was slamming the potatoes to shut down the hunger as quickly as possible. You can do that with other foods, but not potatoes. Eat them slower.

Is eating cooked-and-cooled potatoes slowly boring? Yes. That is a feature, not a bug. Learning how to slow down when eating is a skill that will help you achieve and maintain leanness.

Last Words

I think this will be my last post on the Potato Diet. I believe I’ve covered it all. You are either motivated to try the diet or you aren’t. I was highly motivated. Now I’m 40 pounds lighter and it feels effortless.

If you have any questions, drop me a comment.

Potatoes by Peter Schad

I recently received a comment on my 2011 post High Satiety Paleo Friendly Foods? from Dawn:

Did you ever break the code on night eating? I also need food before bed and will still sometimes wind up eating cashew butter at 2am. Would really love to stop this.

I was reminded how I needed to eat right up until I went to sleep for most of my adult life. If I didn’t, I would wake up hungry or sometimes have trouble falling asleep.

I did crack the code for myself. It was a 3-step process.

Step 1 – Go For Protein

The first step was recognizing how different foods shut down hunger and for how long. I discovered high volume foods were best for quieting hunger while eating and that higher protein foods kept me full for longer periods between meals.

I got this idea in 2018, which I shared in the post Potatoes and Protein – Two Attacks on Hunger. Having a meal with a decent amount of protein increased the odds that I would not wake up hungry.

This is what works for me. For others, it might be carbs, fat, and/or fiber. During the daytime, find what foods keep you full the longest and then eat them for dinner.

Step 2 – Gradually Eat Sooner

One day it hit me that my belief that I couldn’t get to sleep unless I ate right before bed was likely as flawed as my 2007 belief that I had to eat first thing in the morning.

When I first started intermittent fasting, I had conditioned my body to eat something every 3-4 waking hours. Thank you Zone Diet! 🤦🏻‍♂️ I gradually began eating my first meal later and later each day. After a few months, my morning hunger was tamed. I could skip breakfast completely with no effort.

I applied the same strategy to the end of the day. I gradually kept moving my last bite up earlier and earlier from my bedtime. A few minutes early each day. Instead of eating 15 minutes before bed, I now have a 2-3 hour gap.

Step 3 – Ignoring the Hunger

If you start to feel a little hungry in bed, recognize the hunger and don’t indulge it. And then repeat that process again and again. Over time, those nighttime hunger signals will quiet.

My mistake for many years was rewarding those hunger signals, which only guaranteed they would return night after night.

Photo by nrd

Last Words

In recent years, there have been more health recommendations to avoid eating right before bed. Doing this can result in worse sleep. Learning how to build that gap is a skill worth developing. I’m glad I did.

I posted Mostly Weight Stable Regardless of Diet Part 2 this weekend. I wanted to show others that I was able to drop 40 pounds and keep it off for 4 years using both the Potato Hack and my own Potatoes and Protein Diet. Long-term success on the potato diet is absolutely possible.

A few days ago, Slime Mold Time Mold posted SMTM Potato Diet Community Trial: 6 Month Followup. Although I applaud SMTM for spreading the word about the Potato Diet, I had trouble reconciling their analysis with my own experience and understanding of the diet.

In their post, they share the results of their study participants. Most did not maintain their fat loss after they resumed their “normal” diet. They conclude:

The first thing we see is that most people gain back the weight they lost over time, and on average, it looks like they are back close to their original weight about six months later.

More from their conclusion:

Still, the potato diet is a relatively successful weight loss intervention, since one month of dieting gives consistent results that tend to stick around for about six months. And given the significant individual differences we see, it seems that for some people the effects are more lasting. While we don’t know why this happens for some people and not for others, there’s a small chance that you’ll end up being one of these outliers, and you’ll keep losing weight after the potato diet is over.

I know why it happens. Those that regained weight increased their calories. As much as I revere the potato on this site, it is not magical. It just happens to be the food with the highest satiety score. If you trade high-satiety foods with low-satiety foods, you will increase your calories. Maybe not immediately, but eventually.

The final sentence was too much for me and is the reason for this post.

But in general, it seems like the conclusion is that 4 weeks of potato diet will make you lose weight, and six months later most people will be back around baseline.

That doesn’t need to be true. I’m going to tell you how to have long-term success on the potato diet.

These days I use an Instant Pot with a liner to prepare my potatoes.

Understand Satiety

A potato is just a tool for achieving satiety with fewer calories. There are other foods that also work well, but the boiled-and-cooled potato just happens to be the best.

I’ve shared this image numerous times. Understanding this graphic is the key to understanding satiety and how to reach satiety with fewer calories. The people in that study that failed traded the stomach on the right which was full of potatoes for one of the two on the left. This resulted in more hunger, which resulted in them consuming more calories to achieve satiety.

Understand Flavor

People eat more calories from foods with higher flavor. If you would like a detailed scientific explanation, please read The Hungry Brain by Stephan J. Guyenet, Ph.D. That book goes deep into systems in the brain that regulate our appetite. There is even an explanation given in the book on why the Potato Diet is effective for fat loss.

Boiled and cooled potatoes have a neutral flavor. When you are eating plain boiled potatoes, you stop eating once you are full. You don’t keep reaching for more potatoes. This is not true for other foods in modern society. When you get full eating pizza, there always seems to be room to eat one more slice or some ice cream.

From How To Successfully Use a Low-Fat Diet:

The classic mistake people make when doing any diet is they eat fewer calories of the same flavorful foods that made them heavy. They chase flavor to make the process more enjoyable. You don’t want to chase flavor, you want to chase satiety.

Fill up on foods that taste fine, but not as amazing as before. You are retraining the brain’s association with flavor and satiety. When every meal tastes amazing, we overconsume calories. This is in evidence everywhere you look today.

Potato hacking is a way of reducing flavor to reach satiety with fewer calories. You are retraining your brain. You are breaking the association between highly flavorful meals and satiety. When you do this successfully, your appetite will decrease. When your appetite decreases, you will consume fewer calories, and this leads to fat loss.

Dealing With Cravings

I developed a technique to help me deal with calorie-dense food cravings that I found helpful, especially in the early days. I call it the “BUT FIRST” method, which I detailed in How I Beat Food Cravings on the Peasant Diet.

Track Your Weight and Inches

It is common knowledge that weighing oneself regularly is beneficial to holding oneself accountable to a diet. I weigh myself 2-3 times a week, but I discovered taking a tape measure around the widest section of my waist to be a better metric.

I decided to use the tape measure daily instead of just 1-2 times a week. Within a few days, I could guess my size within 1/4 of an inch at a glance. I discovered the daily feedback loop of the tape measure was more powerful than I expected.

We may be able to rationalize a few pounds of weight gain on a scale but seeing your waist expand by 1/4 or 1/2 an inch will have you running to the kitchen to boil potatoes.

Gradually Increase Protein

If you have a lot of weight to lose, focus on the potatoes. As you get within striking distance of your ideal weight, start increasing protein. Protein defends against muscle loss when dieting. Protecting muscle protects metabolism. As one gets leaner that defense requires more protein. I explain the P-Ratio in High Volume or High Protein Foods For Fat Loss.

Potato Hacking FTW!

If you do a potato hack and follow the guidance on the post, you will not only lose weight, but you’ll maintain the fat loss without experiencing hunger.

In August 2017, I posted Mostly Weight Stable Regardless of Diet where I did a deep analysis of how much I weighed going back to the start of the century. And I shared a quote from an earlier blog:

I see that I was weight stable within 10% and usually 5% despite following wildly different diets.

My conclusion showed that each time I pivoted to a new nutritional philosophy, the changes were minor or temporary.

So even though I had a dip for a few years, you can see that I have been mostly weight-stable. During this entire time period, I never counted calories and my activity level and diet varied a lot.

That was August 2017. I had just dropped from my peak of 222 to 200 following a Potato Hack. I even state in that post that I considered my ideal weight range to be 190-200. (Height: 6′ 2.5)

What happened next?

I gradually lost another 20 pounds over the next 18 months following variations of the Potato Hack. As I got leaner, I increased my protein intake to defend against muscle loss. Potatoes and Protein!

Potatoes and Protein – A No Hunger Template For Fat Loss

The New Normal

I love weighing 180 pounds. I never thought I’d say that. I clearly had body image issues. Since I was a teenager, I wanted to be big. I didn’t want to be a Stick Boy.

In a 2008 post, I feared dropping below 200 pounds.

Today I weighed exactly 200 pounds. Uh oh! Even though I’m clearly leaner than I’ve ever been, it is a bit scary to drop 5% of my weight in such a short time, considering how long it took to gain that weight.

Years later, I would freak out at the 190 mark after a few people started telling me that I looked too thin. I now know that I wasn’t too thin. At the time I didn’t. From the post You Look Too Thin:

When you lose weight, your clothes get loose. And if you aren’t sure you can maintain your new lower weight or you don’t want to buy new clothes or both, you don’t look your best. Being lean in baggy clothes provides the appearance of being too thin. Being athletic in baggy clothes provides the appearance of being weak. You can look sickly, which can be concerning to those that care about you.

Whenever I had these bouts of fear that I was losing muscle, I would sabotage my leanness and start eating more to get my “gains” back.

The last few years have been a teacher for me. I finally accepted that I was carrying more weight than I needed. I detailed that realization in the post Body Weight Wisdom I Heard 20 Years Ago. Check out the post if you haven’t already. I consider it one of the most important posts on this site.

Last Words

Once again I am weight stable, but now at a lower weight. Potatoes taught me about food volume and satiety. Combining them with lean proteins keeps me lean without feeling hungry.

You already know that I am a frequent blood donor. Now I can add hair to my donation list. I used the last 3 years as an opportunity to grow my hair long.

Yesterday, I was able to donate 14+ inches of hair to Wigs For Kids. 😎

In March, I posted My 2022 Fitness Plan. How well did I stick to the plan? Mostly, pretty well, but I had an injury that slowed my progress.

I did return to the gym and most weeks I went 3 times, which was the plan. I focused on exercises for taller lifters (goblet squats and incline DB presses) as well as some classic HIT machine work (super slow and static holds). My recovery continues to get worse every year, so I’m reducing intensity and volume below what I want. 😢

I failed this year on Zone 2 cardio. I’m only doing exercises in my gym where I can nasal breathe. And although most of the year, I walked 10,000 steps a day outdoors, I would consider that to be less than Zone 2 requirements.

I continued doing a yoga workout every single morning. I also substituted pilates and stretching routines some of the time. I started with Amazon Prime courses and then moved on to YouTube. My flexibility, mobility, and posture have all improved this year. I only wish I had started this daily practice 20 years ago.

Injury of the Year

My injury this year was “turf toe”, which I got from doing a yoga toe stretch. It is the pose where you are sitting back on your glutes, which are resting on your heels. This stretches the toes.

I did a routine where this stretch was held for about 40 seconds. If you are a 100-pound pixie yoga girl, that is probably fine. If you are a 6′ 2+ dude weighing 180, maybe 40 seconds is too much for a beginner?

I then made the injury worse, by misdiagnosing it for a few weeks, and straining the toes further. Eventually, I bought some pricey carbon fiber insoles for my shoes to prevent the toe from bending. And almost two months later, I was healed.

During this period, my step count dropped to under 4,000 a day. I worked around the injury as well as I could at the gym.

My Rapamycin Experiment

I mentioned this May 2021 injury in a recent post.

I had the opportunity to try and kick a field goal after a fancy dinner held on Century Field, which is where the Seattle Seahawks play. Although I made the field goal, I got a high hamstring tear. It still isn’t fully healed.

After hearing Dr. Matt Kaeberlein on Stem Talk #139 and Tim Ferriss #610, I decided to try Rapamycin to see if it would help clear up the inflammation from my hamstring injury. I was out of ideas and since I am near the same age as Kaeberlein and he was able to clear his injury with Rapamycin, I had to try it.

I used a 10 mg dose once a week, which was the same dose Kaeberlein used. I did this for about 3 months. During this time, I felt no improvement in my hamstring. The only thing I noticed was I needed to shave daily (instead of on alternate days) and my fingernails were growing faster. I stopped the cycle and my “turf toe” injury got better quickly and my shaving schedule went back to alternate days. I did read a Reddit post where someone suspected their injury was slower to heal on Rapamycin.

Rapamycin may be amazing for longevity, but it failed to help me with my issue of concern. I don’t know if my right hamstring will ever be 100%.

2022 Lessons

I tried a massage gun to help with muscle tightness. Even at the lowest setting for a minimal time, it produced soreness and no relief. After a few weeks of experimenting, I sold my Theragun at a small loss.

I fixed my numb feet and toes via calf stretching. 🙌🏻

Although my flexibility and mobility have gotten much better, yoga has taught me that my balance needs a lot of work. That will be a focus in 2023. If you have any tips or resources on balance improvement, please drop a comment.

If I’m going to do cardio, I need to find something that interests me that I can do outside. I was stumped for ideas until I heard Peter Attia #225. In that show, they discussed rucking. Of course! This will be perfect for me since I already walk a lot and I’m not interested in running at this time. I rucked in the military. Cardio with core strength and no pounding on the knees. I’ll start rucking in early 2023 with a backpack and some books. I believe in earning your gear, so I won’t consider buying a dedicated ruck until I build a habit with what I already own.

I continued daily cold showers.

Another year has passed and I continue to be lean and weight stable at 180. Effortless. The potato hack was a great teacher. 🙏🏻

About two years ago, I started experiencing numb feet and toes. I noticed it when I first woke up in the morning upon standing. As the day progressed, it became less noticeable. Wearing socks and shoes also masked the numb feeling.

Like any good health hacker, I did my internet searches. I went through every item on WebMD and Healthline and none of the ideas made any sense for my situation. Feet numbness can be common in heavier people as they approach or have entered diabetes. That wasn’t me.

I was stumped until a friend of mine told me she fixed hers by stretching her calves and hamstrings. It couldn’t be that simple. And if it were, why wasn’t this idea listed on WebMD or Healthline? But for me, it was that simple. It solved the problem and I didn’t even think my calves were tight.

This blog has more than a decade of me tinkering around with different health experiments trying to gain a little edge here or there. This might be the greatest hack I’ve ever done. Maybe 2nd to the potato hack? By stretching each calf every morning, all my numbness is now gone.

I bought a slant board to do goblet squats, but it is also perfect for calf stretching.

Every morning, I deeply stretch each calf for about 45 seconds. One time each. That is all I need. In the photo above, you can see the angle that I use for my stretch. The problem is gone. It took just a few days for me to tell it was starting to work.

There are many ways to stretch your calf muscles. The slant board was just the best tool I had nearby. If you are feeling any foot or toe numbness, give stretching a try. Even if there is another cause, you’ll be able to eliminate tight calves as a reason within a week or two.

I hope the search engines bless this page and that this tip can help someone out there.

Twenty years ago, I was living in a gated community near San Diego. One of the homeowners on my block was named Mike. He was about 20 years older than me. One day we were having a brief conversation by the mailbox.

He made a comment about my weightlifting. I had converted my single-car garage into a free weight gym and a few times a week, one could hear Marilyn Manson playing over the sound of weights clanging. Mike wasn’t shaped like the other homeowners. He was stocky and although overweight looked to have some muscle.

Part of my home gym.

I asked Mike if he lifted weights. He told me that he didn’t, but did in college when he wrestled. He told me that lifting weights makes him too heavy. I’ve thought about this brief conversation at least 500 times over the past 20 years and my interpretation has changed as I’ve gotten older.

My initial response was how misguided he was. Muscle is awesome. Mike had a natural foundation. He could regain his college muscle quickly and be jacked. The found muscle would help him burn more calories and trim him down a bit. Even if his weight went up a bit, his body fat percentage would certainly drop as he would see a rise in lean body mass.

In 2018, I posted My Wrong Advice For the Big Guys. For many years, I believed big guys were at a natural advantage for getting jacked and that getting jacked would be an easier path to getting lean. I was wrong.

Unknown to me, the bodybuilding trainers discovered through observation and experimentation that it was actually much harder to build muscle on a body with extra weight. When given the task of training a big guy, they would direct them to cardio and fixing their diet until enough progress was made before hitting the iron.

Even if I still believed that big guys have an advantage, now that I’m the same approximate age that Mike was during the conversation, I can now see he was directional accurate. Being lighter as we age just feels better.

Accidental Understanding

I’m going to do a follow-up post on the history of my weight and the lessons learned along the way, but I wanted to share my conversation with Mike first.

When we had the mailbox chat, I weighed 205 and I was on a quest to get to 225. I was chasing the physiques of Evander Holyfield and Laird Hamilton. 205 felt fine to me. It was what I knew.

Then starting in late 2013, I began experiencing knee pain. My activity level collapsed. My appetite didn’t and my weight gradually increased to 222. When you are 6′ 2, adding 20 pounds is not as noticeable as would be on a shorter individual. But weighing an extra 20 pounds didn’t feel comfortable.

A few years later, I jumped on the potato hack with the goal of getting back to 200. I blew past 200 and landed at 180, which was not planned, but turned out to be ideal for me. This is where I’ve been for a few years now.

Being 180 feels great. I move better and even though I had some injuries this year, I would not have wanted to experience them at a weight of 20 or 40 pounds heavier. At 200+ pounds, I never stuck to a yoga practice for more than a week. At 180, I haven’t missed a single morning in 424 days. Movement feels better.

Mike’s concern about not getting heavier was valid. He probably knew from his prior experiences that once he starts slamming the weights, his appetite would rise, and although his biceps would be popping out of his shirt, he may have needed to get pants a little bigger. His life experience, which I did not appreciate at the time, was more concerned with the downside of being heavier at his age and not the upside valued by the younger man. I understand now.

Recently, nutritional pioneer Ray Peat died at the age of 86. I have several posts on this blog that reference his work. I’m not a strict follower, but I have borrowed some of his ideas.

This post will not be about Ray’s contribution to our understanding of nutrition. It will be about preserving the digital legacy of someone that has passed away.

Dead Men Can’t Pay For Web Hosting

When I heard that Ray had passed away, my first thought was what was to become of his website. Ray did a great job with his site. He published his articles and he left them alone. Unlike so many in the nutritional space, he kept his site going, and he didn’t move links. I run a broken link checker on this site and I’ve never once had to fix a broken link to RayPeat.com.

I hope Ray has an assigned backup for his domain registration and if so, I hope they maintain his website. But I am doubtful. Many of his most popular followers have demonstrated the inability to keep their own websites up and running. See my 2017 post titled The Digital Graveyard of My Health and Fitness Mentors for examples.

Whois hides the registrar information for RayPeat.com, but it does say the domain is expiring on March 1, 2023. If it is not renewed, bots are far more likely to capture the domain faster than a fan the second it becomes available. If that happens, all of Ray’s writing will be taken down and replaced with spammy affiliate links. There are thousands of inbound links to RayPeat.com. That makes it worth the effort to capture the domain.

Screenshot of RayPeat.com

My Story

In 2010, a popular Miami-based radio personality died. Then a few months later, the man running his website died. From the post My Tribute to Radio’s Neil Rogers:

Just when I was about to reach out to Eric, I discovered he had recently died. Young man too. I believe he was in his 40s. Eric was a one-man operation. At this point, I realized it was just a matter of time before the NeilRogers.com site went dark. Servers need human intervention and they also need someone to pay the electric bill. Using a download program I was able to grab all the audio from the site, which were the bits he played. A few months later the site went dark. There was no backup name on the domain registration. No one knew anyone associated with Eric. To this day the data on that server or any backups remain lost.

The rest of the post describes the other steps I took to successfully preserve that digital legacy.

My Advice

I hope I’m wrong and someone out there continues to renew the registrar and hosting. But if not, here is what I would do.

1. Copy every article off of RayPeat.com
2. Create a bare-bones HTML mobile-friendly (responsive website). No server code (WordPress, Drupal, etc). Static HTML and CSS only.
3. Go to GitHub.com and create a repo for the site. Make the repo public. This allows anyone the ability to download or copy (fork) Ray’s work.
4. Once the repo is set up, use the GitPages feature in the repo to create a free website.
5. If RayPeat.com is lost, buy a new domain. I bought NeilRogers.org when NeilRogers.com was lost. Map the domain to the GitPages and then set the payment to the registrar to auto-renew annually.

The good news is the effort to save Ray’s content is far less than the work I had to do to save thousands of hours of audio. All of RayPeat.com could be saved in a weekend, but the clock is ticking.

Some might argue that the Wayback Machine on Archive has snapshot copies of RayPeat.com, so all my outlined steps are unnecessary. That is true today, but not necessarily true in the future.

I love the Wayback Machine and have even donated money to them, but whoever owns a domain can request that their domain be removed from their search results. This means if someone that doesn’t care about Ray’s work acquires the domain, they can have the domain scrubbed from the Wayback Machine.

I briefly poked around the Ray Peat Forums and Reddit page. I didn’t see anyone mention preserving his website. I hope I missed the post and someone has already taken a leadership role. Please leave a comment if you are that person or if you need my assistance. I expect I will have to update some broken links to Ray’s site next year.

I have 3 short fitness stories for you today.

Army Basic Training (1987)

When I got off the bus at Fort Benning, Georgia, after some yelling, the drill sergeants told us that we would all gain muscle. Then they looked at a young recruit from American Samoa. He was jacked. Imagine a young version of The Rock. The drill sergeant amended his sentence and said “Except you. You’ll probably lose some muscle.”

When it came time to take the PT test, there was a problem. He had so much muscle that when he tried to make his upper arms parallel to the ground, his chest would touch the ground, which meant it wasn’t an Army-valid push-up.

The testers solved this problem by digging a little trench so that he could do push-ups over it. This allowed him to go low enough without his chest touching the ground. After the first rep, he asked if he was good. The grader said yes and proceeded to get a perfect score without breaking a sweat.

Smoking and Running (1995, 2022)

One of my favorite stories on this blog has to be The Legend of Marlboro Marc. The post is a decade old, but the story goes back to 1995. Please read the entire post if you have the time. Here is the short version:

Marc decided to mix his two hobbies. He would run and smoke at the same time. And this wasn’t a cold Ohio morning, this was during the mid-afternoon heat in South Florida. He would jog and smoke through South St. Pete while getting incredulous looks from neighbors. During one run, Marc came up with a brilliant idea. He would run an entire marathon chain smoking cigarettes.

To make it worth his effort he would seek out sponsorship.

That story is real, but also incredibly unbelievable. Until this week.

From Chinese Marathoner Smokes Opponents With 3.5-Hour Time … While Rippin’ Darts!!! 

Chen — who crossed the finish line with an impressive 3:28 time — finished 574th overall out of nearly 1500 runners who competed … despite taking heaters to the face throughout the race.

I don’t recall Marlboro Marc’s exact marathon time. I do remember my 2 times (3:33:51 and 3:41:56) were faster than his. But Chen was 5-minutes faster than my smoke-free lungs. Unbelievable.

My Brief Chat With Pavel (2004)

In 2004, I met Pavel Tsatsouline at the Arnold Expo in Columbus, Ohio. I had a few of his books.

I mentioned to him that it would be nice to have posters of the exercises he used in his two stretching books. I told him how I had to photocopy all the pages, cut them out, and then assemble them on a poster to display in my home gym because flipping the pages and holding the books in place was annoying.

He liked the idea and said other people had the same suggestion. To my knowledge, no posters were ever produced.

This was before YouTube and smartphones. If I were chatting with Pavel today, I’d suggest a mobile app called Pocket Pavel. All the workouts from all his books. Pin the workouts you are interested in doing. Launch quick instructional videos for each movement. Built-in timers. Save workouts. Review history. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Back in 2013, I posted Approaching Nutrition From An Investor’s Mindset. It was a very popular post where I framed some of the nutritional debates as an investor would. We can also use an investing mindset when we head into the free weight room.

This will be the post I wish I had read when I was younger.

Investment Window and Muscle Window

The goal of an investor is to put away money on a regular basis into investments that grow with the goal of being able to retire and live off those investments at some point.

When we lift weights, we also have a window. However, the window looks different. Although one aims to lift their entire adult life, the deposits made early are worth far more than those made later.

A younger man will not only have higher testosterone levels, but he will have superior recoverability. He will not only be able to recover from a successful workout, but also from injuries.

Let me illustrate that point with a personal example.

In 1988, I had knee surgery. Not the sleek orthoscopic knee surgeries we have now, but one where they cut open my leg, ground down some bone, and then put me in a full leg cast, which I wore for months. The next year, I ran a sub-4 hour marathon having never run a single race before.

Fast forward to May 2021, I had the opportunity to try and kick a field goal after a fancy dinner held on Century Field, which is where the Seattle Seahawks play. Although I made the field goal, I got a high hamstring tear. It still isn’t fully healed. For the first year, I could only drive my car for 10 minutes before the pain would arrive. I don’t know if I’ll ever be 100%. All the sports massages and daily PT exercises have made my recovery painfully slow.

That’s the cold reality of aging and recoverability.

How to Invest For Retirement

It is commonly accepted advice to save a portion of your earnings for retirement. As your career progresses, your wages will typically rise and your contributions will get larger. The earlier you begin investing, the more you have the potential to compound gains.

When you are further away from retirement, financial planners will recommend a more aggressive portfolio allocation. More stocks than fixed income. Growth stocks and emerging markets. Historically, these investments have the most potential for higher returns. However, they also have the most downside risk. If you are young enough and don’t need to access retirement for decades, you have the potential to ride out any down period.

As we get older and our retirement account has grown in value (hopefully), we want to lock in some of those gains by moving to safer investments that will be less likely to decline in a recession or financial crisis.

Muscle For Retirement

What if we view muscle in the same manner as investing? Early investors and young lifters have lots of potential gains ahead of them. They both can take greater risks. If something goes wrong, they recover quickly. Time is on their side.

An all too common mistake in retirement planning is that people wait too long to take it seriously. They lose those early years of saving and compounding. This mistake is true for fitness. I’m guilty myself.

What percent of men between 18 and 30 lift on a regular basis? I don’t know. But it is far too low. At that age, you have so much testosterone that you can practically gain muscle by looking at weights. And if you tweak something, you’ll recover so quickly that you’ll be back lifting in no time.

Pricing an Investment

On my 17th birthday at MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station), my weight was 156 pounds at a height of 6’2.5. My testosterone was peaking and I had never lifted weights. Through the eyes of an investor, I was sitting on an extremely undervalued investment.

Did I make deposits in the free weight room? Nope. I didn’t start lifting until I was 24. I wasted those 7 years. Had I lifted back then, I would have earned a lifetime of muscle and quickly reached my genetic potential.

Reducing Risk

Another common mistake in investing is when people stay in higher-risk investments too close to retirement. It could work out for them and often it does, but one recession or financial scare could set back their retirement date by several years.

The same principle is true in the free weight room. Guys that have been building strength and muscle throughout their golden decade, keep adding more and more weight to the bar, all while their recoverability and testosterone are falling.

This is a point I’ve brought up before and I’ll continue to bring it up. I posted this 11 years ago this month.

This brings us back to our old friend survivorship bias. I see lots of guys in their 20s slamming serious weights. I see a few guys doing it in their 30s. Where are the 40-60-year-old guys? Occasionally I’ll see one, but it is a rare sight. Where did all those guys who had amazing bench press numbers 10-20 years ago go? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: People do not en masse voluntarily quit participating in something for which they are highly skilled at doing. What happened?

I know what happened. They continued to use the same exercises (investments) that brought them the highest return without considering that the risks of injury were increasing as the weight got heavier at the very same time, and due to age, their recoverability was declining.

I’ve been critical of the barbell back squat and heavy benches for being unsafe. I’d like to partially walk that statement back. I think both of these exercises for some young 20-year-old with lots of muscle potential are fine levers for a few years of muscle growth. Same as investing in growth stocks. And like a young investor, if something goes wrong, dust yourself off, and get back in there.

However, if you are over 35 and already made decent muscle gains, why not lock in some of those gains and move to safer exercises? I threw out the age of 35 as a conversation starter and not something fixed. Depending upon your age, somatype, and other factors, that age could be higher or lower by a few years.

Catch-Up Contributions

In the United States, workers over 50 are allowed to contribute more money each year to their 401k plans. This allows those individuals that are falling short of their retirement goals to make up the difference.

Sadly, we can’t do this in the gym. I can’t make up for the fact I didn’t lift weights in high school or college with additional workouts today. That window is closed. Maybe TRT or getting young blood would help some, but naturally, it isn’t going to happen.

When I tried to push the workouts in my mid-30s, I frequently got injured. I tried to play catch up and my recovery rate couldn’t match my motivation rate. Thankfully, I found and grasped the concepts of HIT before I was sidelined for good.

Last Words

I hope this post reaches some young men and gives them something to consider. The exercises that build us when we are young can be the same exercises that break us when we age.

I was going through the fitness archives of this blog recently. Over the years, I’ve posted many varying opinions on what is the best fitness strategy.

I started out following the muscle magazines. Do a bunch of exercises and hit the muscles from every angle. Do 3 sets of 8-12. Then I found Pavel and preached the low-reps low variety workouts. After Pavel, came HIT (very slow reps, lower weights, and going to failure). Then I added more volume and stopped going to failure. This year I added some exercises for taller lifters (incline DB bench, more goblet squats).

Throughout this journey, I’ve stayed interested and when I honored safety, I stayed consistent. I think if you get these 3 things right, it probably doesn’t matter what path you take to get there. We can disagree about optimal and we will, but how much does that matter for the average person? Probably not much.

I believe you’ll make more gains following a less than optimal plan that is interesting and safe than an optimal one that is either not interesting or not safe. Not necessarily in the short run, but eventually.

I mentioned this briefly before, because I am now the old man in the free weight room in my gym. There was one guy over 40 that did these insane workouts. He’s gone. And there was a guy probably around 50 that has serious muscle. He kept pushing the pounds. I haven’t seen him in a few months now. They were both highly interested. It is my belief they didn’t honor safety. Now they are inconsistent. Removed and replaced with a new generation of lifters. Same as it has always been and always will be.

This post is setting the stage for my next one. I wanted to go on record as not being tied to any single fitness camp. Find something interesting for you. Find out how to do it safely and then consistently show up to do it. If and when your interest fades, find a new interest and repeat the process.

Photo by Adam Wilson

Rick Rubin was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast. He talked about how his health improved and he lost 130 pounds when he abandoned his vegan diet.

JOE: What about veganism got you that big?

RICK: It’s a carb only diet. It’s just carbs.

The vegans online were quick to point out that Rick ate a highly processed vegan diet. He wasn’t taking the whole foods approach. But that doesn’t refute his carb statement directly.

I can refute it because I recalled Rick’s interview with Tim Ferriss back in 2015. (transcript PDF)

…you know, almond butter was something that I
was allowed to eat, because in Phil’s world, almond butter is
healthy. So, I probably ate two thirds of a jar of almond butter every day.

Almond butter is a calorie-dense food that is almost pure fat. Not carbs. He never mentioned almond butter to Joe Rogan. How many calories were in a jar of almond butter when Rick was consuming all those jars?

I did a post in 2011 on the brand Costco sold. From the post, Someone Has Been Messing With My Almond Butter, a jar of almond butter had between 4,140 and 4,370 calories. Rick was consuming about 3,000 calories a day just from almond butter. Yet, carbs made him fat? Nope.

Almond butter is very easy to overconsume. I know from personal experience. In 2012, I performed a food reward test between almond butter vs almonds. I did 3 weeks on each and ate to satiety when snacking. Here was the calorie score:

Almond Butter: 4140 calories * 3 jars = 12,420 calories

Raw Almonds: 2576 calories * 3 pounds = 7,728 calories

When I swapped raw almonds in for almond butter, my calorie intake decreased and so did my weight. These days, I don’t even buy raw almonds. My diet has more carbs and I’m leaner than ever. When you eat a mostly plant-based whole foods diet, staying lean is effortless.

In my previous post, I mentioned with a positive tone that I was able to increase my body temperature from 97.0 to 98.4 F. This post will explore if an increased body temperature is beneficial. I’ll start the post by sharing what others claim to be the benefit and then finish up with my own experience, as I’ve now had a higher body temperature for several years now.

The Immune System

From the article Important: Why You Need To Measure Your Body Temperature:

Body heat is needed for all sorts of vital health functions – from tissue renewal and repair to enzymatic functioning and fighting off pathogens. A warm body – as long as it’s not too hot- is a sign of a healthy thriving body.

Chronically low body temperatures is synonymous with decreased vitality and wellness and are a clear sign of a slowing metabolism. An extreme example of this is an elderly woman wrapped in jackets, beanies, gloves and scarves despite it being a hot summers day outside.

A warmer body temperature may be better for the immune system. I don’t know if this is true, but it logically makes sense. If the body needs to trigger a fever to fight off an infection, I could see it taking more energy and resources to mount that fever from a low body temperature. As we age, many will see a reduction in body temperature. And we know from the past few years that older populations are far more at risk than younger ones to fighting COVID. Could body temperature play a role?

The article Warmer body temp puts the heat on the common cold covers two studies that show a higher body temperature was more successful in fighting off illness. At cooler temperatures, immune cells were impaired.

Higher Caloric Burn

I’m leaner than I was when my body temperature was lower. Initially, I gained weight, because I was following the Ray Peat type advice to eat ice cream and drink Mexican Coke. I eventually dropped those foods. My body temp remained high, likely due to the extreme PUFA restriction (see #3 on this post).

I wanted to find out how much higher my metabolism is now. The Ace Fitness certification website teaches:

For every increase of 0.5 degrees C in internal temperature of the body, BMR increases by about 7 percent. The chemical reactions in the body actually occur more quickly at higher temperatures.

For me, that works out to about a 10% increase. That is amazing. If the average American is gaining 1.1 pounds (0.5 kg) a year, then having a 10% boost to my metabolic rate is very likely playing a role in keeping me leaner than I was when I was running at a lower temperature.

Other Claimed Benefits

I’ve seen others claim improved sleep and mood, but I didn’t find any decent supporting articles. It all seemed anecdotal. Are there other quantifiable benefits?

My Experience

I always had cold hands and feet. My thyroid tests are perfectly fine. I still get feelings of cold, but not as easily. Is this a result of the higher body temperature? Maybe. I also engage in cold exposure, which likely helps me throw more heat than I did years ago. Check out the recent Getting Stronger post Benefits of Cold Adaptation or the video version for the latest information on this topic.

I don’t have detailed data, but I feel like I have fewer sick days now. Having a higher temp has not made me invincible. In early 2015, I had an upper respiratory infection that lasted a month. By that time, my body temperature was where it was at today. My last cold was in late 2019. Since then, I haven’t gotten sick with anything. This is also about the same time I restarted daily cold showers. In short, I don’t know if a higher body temp has improved my immune system. I suspect so, but I can’t prove it.

As for weight, I’ve never been leaner in my adult life. It feels easy to be this lean. I’ve maintained 180 pounds now for about 4 years now (height of 6’2.5). If I had my old body temperature back, my metabolism would be 10% slower. Staying this lean would likely require some effort.

There are longevity concerns. Am I running the flame too hot? Does a higher metabolism result in a reduced life expectancy? That is a debate that longevity experts are having now. I can see both sides of the debate. I’m partial to the argument that although higher temperatures could reduce longevity if I’m able to stay leaner and fight off infections better then that should provide at least an increased health span if not a longer life.

Overall, I will say I feel better when warmer. It is a minor effect and I have changed a lot of variables over the years, so it may be hard to parse out if it was the increased body temperature or cold exposure, or both. One interesting tidbit is that I engaged in a few years of cold exposure prior to seeing any increase in body temperature. That suggests that PUFA restriction was the main driver of increased body temp.

Back in 2013, I put together a 3-part series on PUFA. I referenced several health influencers from different camps that all agreed that excess PUFA was bad for health.

• The Common Enemy in Nutrition
• The Problem With PUFA
• Quantifying PUFA, Expert Opinion, and My Conclusion

I was persuaded to drastically reduce my PUFA intake. But unlike the low-carb Paleo crowd, I decided it mathematically made sense to reduce fat and increase carbs, because many of the fat sources favored by Paleo actually had a fair amount of PUFA. Also, I estimated it could take a few years to reduce stored PUFA levels, so going below a healthy baseline level for a while seemed to be correct to me.

A year later, instead of focusing on all PUFA, I narrowed my dietary limitation to seed oils and added back whole food sources of PUFA, such as nuts.

• Nuts, PUFA, and Vitamin E

Here we are in 2022. I avoid seed oils, I’m lean, and my body temperature is higher than when I started reducing PUFA/seed oils. More on that later. So I was correct? Well, it seems this debate isn’t settled.

This year I noticed several smart people defending seed oils. And the people attacking seed oils the loudest these days have reduced credibility in my eyes. With that background out of the way, I want to reopen the seed oil debate, now that I’m older and hopefully wiser on the topic.

Why Are Seed Oils Bad?

When I started putting this post together, I thought of 4 reasons cited to avoid seed oils.

1. High Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratios are unhealthy. Seed oils increase Omega-6 and this is inflammatory. This inflammation then leads to numerous health problems.
2. Keto and Carnivore dieters often claim that saturated fat is better for heart health than seed oils.
3. Seed oils reduce metabolism. Lower metabolism makes weight gain easier.
4. Seed oils increase appetite, which leads to increased obesity risk.

The debate I see online seems to all be focused on the first 2 items. I actually think the last 2 items are the most interesting.

#1 Inflammation

Seed oils may not be as inflammatory as previously believed. The 2018 study Omega-6 fatty acids and inflammation states:

…it is commonly believed that increasing dietary intake of the omega-6 fatty acids ARA or its precursor linoleic acid (LA) will increase inflammation. However, studies in healthy human adults have found that increased intake of ARA or LA does not increase the concentrations of many inflammatory markers. Epidemiological studies have even suggested that ARA and LA may be linked to reduced inflammation. Contrastingly, there is also evidence that a high omega-6 fatty acid diet inhibits the anti-inflammatory and inflammation-resolving effect of the omega-3 fatty acids.

I didn’t see that coming. What about oxidized seed oils specifically?

Kevin Bass found a study showing that even after heating sunflower seed oil to 200 F for 24 hours, did not cause an increase in inflammatory markers when fed to pigs.

Investigators fed pigs sunflower oil heated to 200 C for 24 hours to pigs.

In response, the pigs' intestines became highly inflamed and it was proven that oxidized seed oils cause inflammation, sickness, and death.

Actually no the opposite was shown

No inflammation

LOOO

1/5 pic.twitter.com/a6foRt626I

— Kevin Bass (@kevinnbass) July 22, 2021

It appears that the “oxidized seed oil leads to inflammation” theory has some holes. It may still be true and we may need to dive deeper into the different oils to learn more, but it doesn’t appear to be as settled as I believed.

#2 Saturated Fat is heart healthy?

About 3 years ago, I posted that I no longer had faith in the Paleo argument, which has since been embraced by the Keto/Carnivore groups, that saturated fat is heart-healthy.

• Saturated Fat Revisited

I decided that people that lied to me about carbs might be wrong with their contrarian views about saturated fat. So I tested this for myself. When I reduced my saturated fat, my blood work improved. Then my blood work got worse when I increased my saturated fat during an elimination diet. And when I reduced saturated fat again and my bloodwork improved again.

Saturated fat defenders will often dismiss the most popular blood markers used to measure health. I’m not qualified to have that debate, but I have seen a strong trend away from the view that seed oils are worse for cardiac health than saturated fat.

This saturated fat vs PUFA argument is the least interesting to me because my diet is lower in all types of fat. Protein and complex carbs are serving me well.

#3 Metabolism

Does a diet high in PUFA reduce metabolism? This was brought up years ago by Danny Roddy, Ray Peat, and Matt Stone. Recently, the site FireInABottle has not only published technical articles on the topic but has uncovered historical examples of populations before and after seed oil was added to their diet.

My n=1 story is that drastically reducing seed oils for years increased my body temperature from 97.0 to 98.4, which I maintain today. I’m maintaining a lower body fat percentage with far less effort than when I had a lower body temperature.

• Body Temperature and Vegetable Oil

If you follow the links on that page, you’ll see the case for why fat built with PUFA would generate less heat than saturated fat. Do seed oils with a high amount of linoleic acid send a hibernation signal to metabolism? Could this be one of the primary reasons for the global obesity epidemic?

• Escaping PUFA Hibernation

I suppose with enough evidence I could change my mind that seed oils don’t have a negative impact on metabolism, but for now, I’m a believer.

#4 Appetite

Does the brain receive the satiety signal as quickly when the fat source is a seed oil high in linoleic acid? According to Hyperlipid, no. From Hyperlipid For Dummies:

Although carbs cause the increase of insulin which drives fat into fat cells, Peter points out that the fat signals when this process is to stop. Saturated fat signals for this process to stop once the cell is full, whereas linoleic acid stops the stop signal. This is a breakdown of how the fat cells communicate satiety with the brain.

This material is too deep for me to know if it is correct, but it is persuasive.

Conclusion (for now)

What I see online today is many accounts with low credibility are making exaggerated claims about the dangers of seed oil. Then some very smart serious people shred the weakest arguments as a way of dismissing the dangers entirely.

Maybe seed oils aren’t inflammatory. Maybe when combined with a reduction of saturated fat, cardiac blood markers improve. Both are possible. However, I don’t see anyone debunking the metabolic claims or the biochemistry Hyperipid discusses relating to linoleic acid and satiety.

I’ll continue to avoid seed oils. I am able to prepare my own meals at home. For most meals, I don’t need any oil. If I do, I reach for Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Avoiding seed oils appears to be working well for me. I’m warm and my appetite is in check. In a world that is getting fatter every year, I’m the leanest I’ve ever been and the process feels effortless.

I don’t discuss politics or the latest outrage on this blog. I figured out many years ago that it was a pointless endeavor that would provide no value. My focus here has primarily been on increasing one’s health. Based on personal experience and observation, I could see that being obsessed with the news wasn’t healthy.

Now we have a study that supports my view. From News addiction linked to not only poor mental wellbeing but physical health too, new study shows:

People with an obsessive urge to constantly check the news are more likely to suffer from stress, anxiety, as well as physical ill health, finds a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Health Communication.

And…

The results revealed that 16.5% of people surveyed showed signs of ‘severely problematic’ news consumption. Such individuals frequently became so immersed and personally invested in news stories that the stories dominated the individual’s waking thoughts, disrupted time with family and friends, made it difficult to focus on school or work, and contributed to restlessness and an inability to sleep.

73.6% of those recognized to have severe levels of problematic news consumption reported experiencing mental ill-being “quite a bit” or “very much” – whilst frequent symptoms were only reported by 8% of all other study participants.

61% of those with severe levels of problematic news reported experiencing physical ill-being “quite a bit” or “very much” compared to only 6.1% for all other study participants.

Sitting, smoking, spiraling (2022) by Elena Redmond (via Artvee)

I barely look at the news. I subscribe to a few Seattle neighborhood blogs to see what is happening near me. I don’t even follow what is happening at the city level.

For national news, I peek at the headlines on the CNBC app the first thing in the morning. Why CNBC? It is a financial site that will only report news that can move markets such as war or certain types of legislation. If it can’t move markets, it usually ends up being more gossip than news. It has been a great filtering tool. Ironically, I rarely read the financial news on site.

For world news, if I remember, I will open the BBC Mundo app and parse my way through an article or two in Spanish.

To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week’s newspapers. – Nassim Taleb

It is unfortunate that so many health bloggers that once provided value have become political. I don’t see the purpose of alienating at least half the audience that you spent years building.

I’ve had to unfollow several people online in recent years that went from sharing valuable health and fitness information to sharing the “daily outrage”. Getting pulled into their misery wasn’t good for my health. Now we have a study that agrees with me.

In my last post Seed Oils, Blood Donations, and Body Temperature, I shared new research that my frequent blood donations reduced the level of “forever toxins” in my body and could have raised my metabolic level. Did this help me go from 222 to 182 pounds? And whereas most dieters regain some of their lost weight, I’ve been able to stay lean for years now without effort.

I was primed to learn more about the role pollution is having on obesity when Slime Mold Time Mold posted a link to this study: The Effect of Air Pollution on Body Weight and Obesity: Evidence from China (61-page PDF)

The study does show an increase in obesity levels with increased pollution levels.

…we find significant positive effects of air pollution, instrumented by thermal inversions, on body mass index (BMI). Specifically, a 1 μg/m3 (1.59%) increase in average PM2.5 concentrations in the past 12 months increases BMI by 0.31%, and further increases the overweight and obesity rates by 0.89 and 0.19 percentage points, respectively.

The study is just 12 months. Now just extrapolate that across an entire population year after year, decade after decade.

The part of the paper I found most interesting was the description of the 4 ways air pollution can increase obesity. I summarized them.

1. Metabolic disorder: Oxidative stress, adipose tissue inflammation, and negative effect on glucose metabolism.
2. Increasing the risk of other chronic diseases: Cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, heart diseases, and some cancers.
3. Sleep disorders: This could lead to decreased leptin, thyroid-stimulating hormone secretion, and glucose tolerance, as well as increased ghrelin levels.
4. Reduced physical activity: Air pollution causes people to stay indoors more which reduces physical activities and increases sedentary behaviors such as sitting, reclining, and lying.

You can read the paper for all the citations.

I am fortunate that I live far away from freeways and factories. I’m now driving less than 200 miles a month and those are on city streets. I replaced the air cabin filter on my VW with a HEPA one. For many people, your highest level of pollution exposure will be when driving on a freeway.

Photo by Mike Marrah

Less Meat, More Lentils

Now for the part that will upset a few people.

Animals are bio accumulators of environmental toxins. When you eat their fat, you are consuming the environmental toxins that they could not excrete via digestion. Even if every single bite of meat is grass-fed pasture-raised, which is a great idea, are these animals breathing clean air and drinking clean water?

Beats me. I don’t know, but it is a question worth studying. We live in a toxic world. Everywhere we look we see people in declining health. We may be extending life spans via pharmaceuticals and increased safety protocols, but health spans (the period of our lives where we are in good health) look depressing to me.

I still consume a small amount of super clean (and lean) meat when I’m at home. Maybe 1-2 pounds a month. I’m happy with lentils.

Back in 2015, I shared the success I had with raising my body temperature. I was able to increase it over the course of about 2 years and I’ve maintained that increase ever since.

97.0 –> 97.5 –> 97.9 –> 98.1 –> 98.4 –> 98.5 F

I list several reasons in the post How I Raised My Body Temperature. On that list of reasons was my drastic reduction of PUFA. Over the years, I began to think it was the most important variable.

This view was supported last year. In my post Body Temperature and Vegetable Oil, I discussed an article on FireInTheBottle.

By 2013, I had already eliminated the use of vegetable oils. However, growing up I had my fair share of vegetable oils and other sources of PUFA. And my body temperature was always around 96.9 – 97.1F whenever I went to donate blood. So I began an experiment to be hyper diligent about removing PUFA from my diet. I made sure nothing I consumed had vegetable oil in it. I also removed nuts and seeds from my diet.

And.

When I engaged in the experiment, I knew that the information was speculative, but the This is Your Body Temperature on Vegetable Oil article shares the story of a population that was exposed to vegetable oil in recent years that experienced the exact opposite of what happened to me. Their body temperatures fell rapidly.

I still think this is the most plausible explanation, but there might be another one. What I am about to suggest is pure speculation. Did regularly donating blood cause my body temperature to rise?

The article Regular Blood Donations Can Reduce Toxic Forever Chemicals in the Bloodstream: Study got me thinking about this alternative hypothesis.

They’re in the air. They’re in the water. They’re in the food we consume. And now, they’re in our blood. They are perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) or “forever” chemicals — substances that make up plastic and never degrade. They’ve been linked to numerous health conditions: they contaminate the delicate balance of gut microbiomes, cause asthma and other lung diseases, and now they’re in our bloodstream where they’re difficult to remove.

A landmark trial has now found that donating blood regularly can cleanse the bloodstream of PFAS — a finding that marks the first time we’ve figured out how to rid the body of forever chemicals that have entered seemingly, well, forever.

The article dives into the numbers on both donating blood and plasma. Plasma donations work better. I’m interested in trying a plasma donation, but not until the mask mandate is lifted at Bloodworks Northwest. Plasma donations take 90+ minutes.

During this same period that I removed seed oils, I was aggressively donating blood every 56 days. Over the 2010-2020 decade, I donated 5+ gallons of blood (5 in Washington and a few pints in California).

Do these forever chemicals impact metabolism? I don’t know, but it is a question worth researching. Please read The Environmental Contaminant Theory of Obesity. I think it is the most important post I’ve had on this blog in a long time. Part 6 of the Slime Mold Time Mold series discusses these forever chemicals as a possible explanation for the rise in obesity.

If the average human has about 10 pints of blood and I donated 5+ gallons, I was able to replace all my blood 4 times over. Did this purge of forever chemicals elevate my metabolism?

I see a few smart people arguing about the increase in obesity. Is it the rise in calories or the fall in metabolism? Can’t it be both? As we age, body temperatures tend to fall. Mine increased. Was it the elimination of seed oils or blood donations or something else? I don’t know.

Even if blood donations don’t result in any increase in body temperature, the evidence continues to mount regarding the health benefits for the donor. It is a win for you and the recipient.

If you are a frequent blood donor, did your body temperature rise? Drop a comment with the details.

Since the interests of this blog involve food and risk, I thought I’d address a topic that isn’t getting serious attention from major news outlets. That is the possibility that food shortages are coming. If you search Twitter you will find several accounts that are predicting that massive disruptions in our food supply are coming soon. They cite various reasons including supply change issues, fertilizer restrictions, and the war in Ukraine.

There are two reasons that I can think of why this isn’t a larger story. The first is that the evidence is weak and therefore extremely unlikely to happen. The second reason is the evidence has some merit and reporting on it would lead to hoarding and shortages.

Which is the truth? After doing a bit of reading on both sides, I’m assigning a 5% probability that the US would experience any food shortages in the next year. Other countries, depending on their own food security level, could have a higher risk.

5% Is Not Zero

In my opinion, not preparing for a 5% risk is unacceptable. I’ve already begun to stockpile bags of rice, dried legumes, and canned food. If I had an extra freezer, it would be full of grass-fed meat.

Did you know that a 5-pound jar of peanut butter has 13,490 calories in it, is shelf stable for 2 years, and sells for less than $11 on Amazon?

I also have an Instant Pot and I know how to cook. It is shameful that we live in an era with so much access to cooking knowledge that younger adults are clueless when it comes to food preparation. Relying on an app and a delivery driver for your very survival is a terrible strategy.

Lessons From 2008

Really longtime readers of this blog might recall how I called the real estate and stock market collapse in 2008. At one point, I felt there was a risk that the banking system could freeze up. A very small risk, but one I was uncomfortable with.

From the September 2008 post Watching Wall Street and Waiting:

We may or may not have an Argentina style banking crisis, but ignoring the possibility isn’t wise. Bad unexpected things can happen. And they can happen very quickly. After I woke up from my bad night of sleep, I asked myself what I would do if I knew a hurricane or fire could hit me in the next week or so. Here is what I did today:

• Pulled $500 out of an ATM. Will do this every day this week. In a crisis, you can’t be certain your credit or debit cards will work or be accepted. Cash is accepted everywhere – for now.
• Made sure my car had a full tank. Oil has since spiked by $25/barrel.
• Loaded up the refrigerator. Bought lots of canned tuna, dry beans, and bottled water.

Do I think something bad is going to happen? No, but if it does, I want to be prepared. Once I feel the crisis has passed, I’ll start spending the cash or re-deposit it in the bank. The food and water will be consumed. No loss. Just greater peace of mind and hopefully a better night of sleep tonight.

We didn’t get the crisis, but a few months later, Seattle got hammered with a generational snow storm that shut down the city for a week. Many stores and restaurants were closed. I had a full pantry of food. 😎

What We Learned From Cat Food

I don’t have a cat, but I learned this from a few cat owners during the lockdowns. Certain types of cat food became scarce due to supply chain issues.

Cats are often picky eaters and will only eat a specific brand. When owners started seeing that they were unable to get their brand of cat food, they went from a shopper mentality to a hoarder mentality. Instead of buying what they needed, they would buy months of cat food as soon as they could. This caused other cat owners to see empty shelves and hoard themselves at the first opportunity.

What if cat food and the baby formula shortages are just the first act of a deeper crisis?

Can you imagine what grocery store shopping would look like if these whispers of food shortages got louder? It would be like the panic shopping you see days before a hurricane is predicted to hit a coastal city. Only it would be everywhere and at the same time.

It is an unlikely situation, but if it happens, I’ll be safe at home with a bowl of rice and beans and not in a fist fight at Trader Joe’s.

Photo by Sandie Clarke

Where are you located and where do you place the odds of food shortages in the next year? And what steps are you taking, if any, to prepare?

Long-time readers of this blog might recall how I was an early enthusiast of the quantified self movement. I wanted to believe that I was capable of hacking myself to a better health outcome by running experiments and tracking variables in a spreadsheet.

I ultimately rejected quantified self. You can read about that journey on my Quantified Self page. On that page, I talked briefly about the future.

I do think there can be tremendous value and insight into collecting and analyzing health data. That collection would need to be passive and the analysis done by someone else.

I wrote that in 2014. Fast forward to 2019 and I am seeing several interesting fitness wearables on the market. This got my attention because the data collection would now be passive and that data could be run through an algorithm to provide me with actionable analysis.

The 3 wearables I purchased were the Oura Ring, Apollo Neuro, and the Muse 2. I also have a first-generation Apple Watch that was gifted to me.

The Muse 2 was supposed to help me become better at meditation. It failed. I trashed the device in the post The Muse 2 is Stressing Me Out. The Apollo Neuro was supposed to push me into different states and moods quicker via vibrations. I used it for several months and didn’t notice any benefit. I wasn’t sure it was helping me, so I stopped using it and saw no change. As for the Oura Ring, my relationship was more complicated.

In 2020, I didn’t like the Oura. In 2021, I liked it. By 2022, I hated the Oura.

Initially, I believed that the Oura was helping me resolve my insomnia. The thing is, I never had insomnia until I got an Oura. It was only after I started checking my sleep score daily did these sleep issues surface.

A core lesson of overcoming insomnia is accepting the fact that one can’t control sleep. Did you know that most insomniacs have perfect sleep hygiene? It is a form of control. Sleep comes when the conscious mind surrenders to the unconscious mind. Having the Oura track and grade me every minute was not helpful. Once I removed the Oura, my sleep got much better.

I boxed my wearables up and gave them to a friend to sell.

Photo by Alexander Possingham

Patterns in Hindsight

Looking back I can now see that all the reviewers and podcasters that discussed these wearables (and a few others) were either investors in the company or (more commonly) receiving an affiliate commission for each sale.

Positive reviews outnumber negative reviews by far because there is no financial incentive to post a negative review.

Work on Intuition…for now

It is my opinion that wearables need to get a lot better before I would consider making another purchase. They will, but we are a long way off. In the meantime, you don’t need a wearable to tell you if you slept well or if you are too tired to work out. Build your intuition and follow common sense.

Alcohol, caffeine, a warm bedroom, and eating right before bed are the things that are most likely to cause your sleep to suffer. You don’t need a $300 ring to tell you that.