Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Paleo Cult Conspiracy Proselytization




As a proud member of the Paleo Cult Conspiracy, I often receive comments and emails from folks asking me how to get started, what's a good book or blog to read up on and other means of getting initiated into the cult.

I usually refer folks to Mark's Daily Apple, Dr. Kurt Harris' Archevore blog, and Richard Nikoley's Free the Animal.

All great sources, all packed full of details, extensive explanations, and anecdotal experiences with literally hundreds of others who have joined the cult.

More importantly, they are all free.

You absolutely do not have to buy books, dvd's, cds, mp3 downloads or attend seminars to learn about the tenets of our cult, nor are they required to join. That being said, if you do decide to spend your money on such things, there are certainly highly recognized, legitimate cult members who do produce such things for those cult members who wish to explore the more intensive aspects of our ideology.

You should consult many other cult members and their testimonials before you decide to spend you money to further your understanding...but again, you don't have to.

There is more than enough personal accounts out their on teh interwebz by other prominent cult members to give you more than enough information and direction to begin your initiation for the price of nothing more than your time.

So why exactly should you want to join our Cult?

Some of you who read this blog (and other manosphere blogs that also report on their experiences upon joining the cult) think it's all much ado about nothing...or a waste of time. Or that "science" has "proven" that the only thing that matters is counting calories, and eating less food while exercising more.

Cool.

This cult is are not for everyone. We don't wish to make our cult become THE ONE TRUE WAY ALL MUST FOLLOW.

We only want those who want to voluntarily join and maintain their membership in good standing.

If you think you're better than we the brainwashed, blind fanatics of a crazy cult, good for you.

We don't need your approval or your validation. As cult members, we KNOW what the cult can and does do for it's members, and we will continue with out rituals and traditions and lifestyle, regardless of what you think.

Membership is open to all who wish to join. We do not discriminate based on gender, race, creed or sexual orientation. We only discriminate against one sort of self-selected person: members of the Vegan Cult Conspiracy. They usually don't want to join anyway. The only time we have a problem with them is when they try to recruit our cult members over to their version of the dark side.

So...you've seen the testimonials, you've heard all the anecdotes. Somehow, you've managed to read these accounts of brainwashed cult members, and you are considering joining up with our cult yourself....where to begin?

First, you need to understand the dogma and faith based tenets of our cult and exactly why we are a conspiracy.

This is not simply a diet one begins to lose weight.

This is what makes us a cult and not a fad diet. Once you join this cult and you adhere to our tenets for long enough of a time to experience the benefits, most realize that it becomes a way of life.

Fad diets are based on the premise of losing excess stored body fat, and by no matter what means that are prescribed, it usually involves burning off stored fat tissue through caloric deficit...aka short term starvation.

This is a heresy to our cult. If you cannot fathom rejecting this paradigm, this cult is not for you. Move along, there's nothing to see here.

For those willing to at least consider this, than please, read on.

The primary tenet of our cult are this: Recognizing the proper foods to eat that provide Nutrient Density, and recognizing the foods that optimize the human bodies use of those nutrients. By focusing on nutrient optimization, over time, we can experience optimal genetic expression - or how the human animal's body is supposed to look, feel and function.

The corollary to this tenet, is learning to recognize the foods that inhibit the use of the nutrients, foods that deplete your body of those needed nutrients, and foods that actively damage the body. Once you learn to recognize these characteristics of all the things found in our world that people call "food" we than adjust our daily consumption choices to maximize optimal nutrition and minimize or outright eliminate those foods that interfere with attaining that goal of optimal nutrition.

Once you gain this knowledge and apply it over time, you may experience a whole host of differences and changes in your health and well-being.

Overweight people lose weight...and keep it off. Other folks who want to gain weight and change their overall body composition also experience the benefits of cult membership. Others who have no desire either way to change their weight, are cult members because they discover other ways in which cult membership changes their lives.

Members with severe allergies and chronic conditions like gout, type II diabetes, arthritis, chronic migraines, asthma, rashes, eczema, insomnia, wildly fluctuating energy levels, depression, acid reflux, acne, chronic diarrhea, and other sorts of maladies experience relief, lessening of the symptoms, and many cases outright disappearance of these conditions.

Some folks criticize our cult by claiming we offer our lifestyle as a panacea, a cure all. It is not. Some people may have in fact have damaged bodies so badly they are incapable of experiencing the benefits that many other cult members do.

One former cult member (whose blog I used to read regularly until he stopped blogging), had damaged his bodies ability to handle consuming any form of fat by taking the pharmaceutical acne drug accutane when he was younger. His experiences in our cult lead him to form his own cult (The Aquatic Ape Conspiracy Cult) with a far more rigid protocol to follow to heal himself. But experiences like his are relatively rare. Needless to say, discovering our cult and it's tenets did help him find the path to healing he was looking for, and he is better off for having joined in the first place, even if he did end up leaving. I also believe anyone who joins his cult would be far better off than your average non-cult member in the Anglosphere eating anything and everything the corrupted culture has to offer.

See, probably the most important aspect of our cult is the principles of self-experimentation and finding what tenets and dogma of our cult work for you.

Our mantra is YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY.

A sub-tenet to this mantra is: LET NOT PERFECTION BE THE ENEMY OF GOOD.

A variation on this theme is the 80/20 principle.

We are not strict or obsessive.

Certain individual cult members may be fanatical in applying our tenets, but it is certainly not necessary to do so, should you decide to join.

We do not cast members out for failing to adhere to our belief system to perfection. We recognize that every cult member is in a unique situation, and that diet and exercise are merely parts of the sum total of living a complete life.

There are tradeoffs for which we can calculate the risk/reward ratio of a certain behavior, and recognize that for other aspects and areas of our life outside of just diet and exercise may take precedence.

For instance, if a cult member is getting married, he or she is not a heretic to be cast of the cult because they ate a piece of their wedding cake, even if it is nearly an article of faith in our cult that cake is sinful.

We are a CONSPIRACY Cult, because many of our tenets and proscriptions are based on the realization that there does in fact exist entities and organizations that are in fact profiting off of making sure the average person eats the wrong foods and suffers the ill effects so that they can make themselves rich selling you pharmaceutical treatments that alleviate or mitigate the symptoms for those conditions. These entities are in the Government, the media and the educational institutions, as well as various industries.

By joining our Cult, you lessen their ability to trap you in their conspiracy. Does this make us cult members paranoid?

Sure, if you're a cult member long enough, it comes with the territory.

Every time I'm offered food from an unknown origin, I contemplate what poisons it may contain, and whether or not I'll make the judgement as to whether or not I ingest it. In my own experiences, I find that minor transgressions of cult orthodoxy, like small amounts of refined sugar have little to no ill effects on my health, so I will occasionally eat some ice cream or some dark chocolate. On the other hand, when I eat almost any amounts of Omega 6-imbalanced, partially-hydrogenated oils, it usually instigates an inflammatory reaction that require medication to alleviate.

In short, eating a regular sized serving of french fries or a typical doughnut fried in "vegetable" oil, always results in myself suffering an asthma attack within an hour or so. But that's just me. Other cult members may not experience any such reactions, so they can decide for themselves on when, where and why they decide to ignore the tenets of our cult.

YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY

If you're the sort of person who believes that anything labelled as a conspiracy theory is crazy, and only lunatics and crackpots believe in said theories, than membership in our cult is certainly not for you.

If you cannot comprehend the notion that certain toxic substances are manufactured, packaged and sold for massive profits, and that the regular person eating such fare regularly for a long period of time will eventually become sick, than quite frankly, you are not smart enough to belong in our cult.

Yes, we can be a bit elitist like that.

After all, calories in < calories out is all that matters, anything more is deranged fantasy!

Trust me, looking at people who tout such beliefs emphatically, we who come from the perspective of being a Paleo Conspiracy cult member, consider you to be the brainwashed, ignorant fool.


That makes us even.


I'll stick to my fanatical cult outside of the mainstream, conventional wisdom.


Feel free to stick with yours, I and my fellow cult members really don't care.


But if you're interested in joining up, stay tuned...


Up Next: Paleo Cult Conspiracy Initiation

19 comments:

WP said...

I haven't seen anything yet that debunks the calories in calories out theory.

However, I'm wholly convinced that certain foods and/or combination of foods (veggie oil, processed sugar, gluten, etc) entirely affect the calories in portion of the equation; it flips off the satiety switch and keeps people eating until they are uncomfortably full.

Eating whole, unprocessed, natural foods is a self regulating system. You feel satiated before you reach that gut busting feeling.

Keoni Galt said...

I haven't seen anything yet that debunks the calories in calories out theory.

The theory to LOSE WEIGHT?

I agree. Short term starvation usually works to lose weight.

That's the whole point...Paleo is about much more than simply people looking to adopt a diet to lose weight.

Amateur Strategist said...

Been doing this as much as I can to the best of my ability... ever since I posted about it here... what 2 years ago? Long time ago, anyway.

I've lost 20 pounds with it (or should I say 9% of my weight? Well, as long as I don't tell you both, it's not really revealing info) without starving and eating things I like.

However, I does have another question. I've been eating the occasional burger that I cook myself via pan when it's too cold out to grill, and since on Mark's Daily Apple it's wise to keep and consume bacon fat for it's fullness factor... I've been consuming the fat/grease/stuff that remains after I pan-cook a burger (when it's too cold out).

I would like to ask if this is alright or not before it becomes a regular thing. I get an occasional chest pain after doing so, but I can't pinpoint it to this practice just yet. Is Beef fat healthy? (Eventually I'll be on to grass-fed only meats, but until then, I have a supply of things to get rid of first. This is just to inform that it is not grass-fed).

Amateur Strategist said...

Shoot, forgot to say thanks again, Keoni!

Keoni Galt said...

Hey Am Strat, glad to hear some of this has been working for you.

I do that all the time. When I make omlettes or burgers or such I cook with butter and/or bacon grease, I always dump the remains all over my food before I eat.

Chest pain? From bacon grease or beef fat? I dunno, never happened to me...and I've been eating like this for about 4 years now.

Amateur Strategist said...

Awesome. Good to know, will be looking more into this particular instance, but I should mix up my diet anyway with other stuff to ensure I'm getting the right nutrients... etc.

I should also say that I do cook with real butter or bacon grease, but not the burgers. They make their own cooking oil, so to speak.

Thanks!

gallier2 said...

WP said...

I haven't seen anything yet that debunks the calories in calories out theory.

There's nothing to debunk. the calorie in calorie out proposition is true, but is absolutely uninteresting and unhelpfull. Saying that overweight is a result of eating more calories than expended is tautological. It's like saying that alcoholism is a result of overdrinking, yes true, but so what?
It's also like saying that your clogged toilet is overspilling because you put more water in than went out. It's true but it won't help repair it. You can shut off the incoming water, it won't overspill anymore but it won't solve the issue.
Trying to solve obesity by starvation doesn't touch to problem that put you in that position in the first place and there is ample evidence that, in fact, it makes it even worse.

gallier2 said...

What I forgot to mention, that the CICO proponents always forget, is that both sides of the equation are bound. This means that if you try to influence one side of the equation, you will alter the other side in complex and not obvious ways. There are several overfeeding studies showing people augmenting CI to incredible heights with minimal change in weight (or only transient weight gain). As any long time dieter can tell, starving also brings down severly CO. Trying to up CO by doing cardio-type exercice has also been shown to increase the drive to eat more (working up an appetite).
The CICO proposition is even more ridiculous when one considers the different roles and metabolic pathways used by the body for all the macros. Measuring fructose, glucose, palmitic acid, linolenic acid, proteins energy yield with the same unit is completely retarded, it's like assessing the quality of a book by measuring the heat it produces when burnt.
To give an example: amino acids (proteins) are counted with 5kcal/g but in the body they are used for a lot of stuff of which energy is only a minimal part. Furthermore there at least 2 pathways to get energy from protein. The direct oxydation in the citric-cycle which would yield not far from the 5kcal, but it also can and will be used for gluconeogenesis, i.e. protein will be converted to glucose and that glucose will then be used. In that case, your 5kcal of protein only yielded 1 real kcal of energy, because the conversion isn't free.
And don't let me start on ketones and fat metabolism, or even the calories provides by fibers (contrary to conventional wisdom, fiber can provide not negligible amount of energy).

black said...

I started with Fast5 and then expanded into Paleo with your site. Almost exactly what you've described you're doing.

And the same as you, it's worked wonders for me. I've lost 50 pounds over the last 3 years and am fitter then I have been for 15 years with no Yo-Yo cycle.

Trying to explain it to people has been extremely difficult; exactly as you describe in your posts. It's so culturally unconventional people glaze over.

Thanks and keep up the good work!

Ulysses said...

OT - Have you noticed that Snark apparently abandoned his blog and it's now a site about tattoos? Took me a sec to figure out why you had a tattoo site in your blogroll.

WP said...

I only referenced CICO because a seemingly large portion of the Paleo community appears to believe it is an invalid concept.

Its true, but as mentioned above it doesn't nearly encapsulate the effects that poor-quality food has on the human body.

Gallier - mind expanding on the ketones and fat metabolism you mentioned? Always like to soak up knowledge.

Anonymous said...

Out of the park once again, KG.

Don't you love that this "cult" is one where the only tenet of the faith is that you don't have to do anything. The information and science are there, use them or not, read them while you're eating an entire white flour birthday cake with crisco and sugar icing if you want to. It's your deal, and when you're ready to not feel like hell all the time, wipe the frosting of your face and maybe give eating better and sleeping well a whirl. Very fanatical.

gallier2 said...

@WP

I don't know where your "paleo community" is, but one where a large proportion thinks CICO is invalid is not the same I have witnessed. The most bloggers and commenters I read do state quite clearly that eating real food and doing good exercise will take care of CICO from alone.

As for ketones and fat metabolism, I will make it short. Here a fascinating article written by Chris Masterjohn:

http://blog.cholesterol-and-health.com/2012/01/we-really-can-make-glucose-from-fatty.html

which is a masterpiece. He shows quite clearly that we can derive a non negligible amount of glucose from fat derived acetone when in ketosis. Glucogenesis from fat has always been thought to be impossible in mammals and Chris explains why and he also explain why it is possible despite of that.
The other point I made was about colon fermentation of fibers, which can yield several hundreds of calories worth of butyric acid. A short chain fatty acid that is very quickly metabolized. These calories are never counted in any food table.
There are also other substances which yield net energy and are rarely counted: alcohol (granted that one is well known) and acetic acid (it is mentioned in passing in Chris' aricle).
These are other reasons why CICO should not be the main focus of our attention. It is impossible to even calculate the value of CI.


(sorry I have read the studies on pubmed years ago and haven't bookmarked them)

how to do things said...

Now the continuous and extensive timeframe fringe movement of proselytism through persecution, allurement and destruction, the Hindu anglers are removed.

Peter M said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rmaxd said...

@Gallier2

CICO isnt excepted by alot of communities for a number of reasons

Quality & bio-availability of real food, cancels the calory out effect of getting fat

Also another massive blow to CICO is the fact, the more food you eat the more anti-nutrients you consume

flavia said...

....and we don't drink Kool-Aid :D

how to get rid of anxiety said...

Once you gain this knowledge and apply it over time, you may experience a whole host of differences and changes in your health and well-being.

Anonymous said...

If you believe CICO perhaps you do not fully understand either how calories are measured, or how the body processes fat - protein - carbs?

Calories are measured by putting the substance in a small chamber. Heat from an external source is added in controlled quantities to burn the substance, and the extra heat which is produced above the external source of heat is considered to be the calorie content of the substance.

Here's the rub. The human body does not burn the food. It processes and digests it.

And, fat and protein and carbs are each processed differently.

CICO would mean all the different processes would produce the same exact result, which would be an amazing thing. They do not all produce the exact results.

Which is why so many people can become healthy with low carb diets like Atkins or Taubes. But, low carb allegedly only works on 70% of the population. Others need different combinations, based somewhat on genetic haplotype.

I have a physiology text book used in medical schools. I got it for $20 used on Amazon. TEXTBOOK OF MEDICAL PHYSIOLOGY, ELEVENTH EDITION, BY GUYTON AND HALL. Pp 808 - 818.

It is hard reading without medical school training in vocabulary and concepts, but with determination and online dictionaries, you can do it.

The section referenced gives great detail on how the elements are digested, and what the result is.

Atkins and Taubes explain how the different elements affect you. Carbs tend to create lots of insulin, and that messes you up, also insulin makes you hungry again. Which is why you see fat people eating all the time.

I am hypoglycemic, which means Atkins was much harder. I have lost 44 pounds over 5 years, and am much stronger. I can carry 110 pounds (50kg) of cement, I am age 69. I have 22 year old women hitting on me, and under circumstances which indicates it is neither papers nor money they are after. When I moved to this Third World village, swinging a pick ax 20 minutes meant a 3 hour nap. Now, ten years later, I can swing a pick ax all afternoon and no nap.

Mileage will vary is the most important words you have said. My needs are different. I stopped losing weight, until I started eating 2 pounds of natural lard a week. I need a lot of fat.

Anonymous age 69