The Writing Walls are Crumbling.

Tags

Biden, bipartisan, debate, discussion, left wing, moving forward, right wing, Trump, walls

I have had a very hard time blogging over the past four years. It wasn’t just Donny and his insane cabal but his many followers. I have unfriended many people during this reign, and I have blocked many of them. And I did try to listen. I tried to understand the divide, not just in America but in Canada and around the world . I have teased and ridiculed not only Donny but these followers. I knew converting the mindless was not possible, but they were never my target. I targeted the middle-of-the road centrists, the non-partisan voters who see truth above party politics. Unfortunately, these people tend to be more laissez-faire and vote less than the indoctrinated [on both sides]. Biden winning the vote feels like a victory but a tainted one. We are not in a good place.

Now that we have a change on the horizon, can I dump the farcical memes and get back to arguing with logic? I hope I can. I hope we all can. I would much rather see far-righters and far-lefties write out what they believe and openly discuss their arguments. I would hope we can all sit down quietly, read others’ stances on issues, and work to some consensus. It is this back and forth playing with ideas that moves us forward. It is how I move my writings forward. I don’t write knock-out stories in one go. It takes many tries of pushing that theme or pushing this character or pushing that conflict. All of my best writing has come from pushing into areas I never ended up in. The same is true, I believe, for moving forward in social and political discourse. Life is story, and those of us who write a lot of story can attest that what we think is best almost always is not.

I could not write much about life these past four years because so many have adopted views of life I do not agree with. And no, it is not just the righties. I am anti-government. When governments in my Canada want to implement new programs, I cringe, because I know my government’s debts will rise with no compensating benefit. Too many pay no service at all to our enormous debts.

What do I want to Write About?

The list is long, and I don’t claim to be qualified to write about much of it. But the following is a quick list.

• Socialism
  • what is it?
  • where should social policies fit in a capitalistic society?
  • what do Liberals really want?
  • what are Conservatives afraid of?
• Competition
  • I am for competition, when it makes sense
  • when does competition not make sense?
  • how do we manage non-competitive units so everyone is happy?
• Executive Accountability
  • this is currently a critical problem in not only America but in Canada and around the world
• Taxation
  • does the low-taxation-of-billionaires model make sense?
  • what is the logical management perspective on achieving good government?
  • of course, taxation of expatriates and management of tax fraud.
• Reading and Writing
  • I work at my writing every day. I have many ideas on making writing more interesting and relevant
  • reading is a forgotten skill. We have millions of experts who do not read anything more than Facebook posts or their favorite news headlines
  • how to correctly punctuate lists 😉
• Racial Injustice
  • unfortunately, the list is endless!
• My many other interests: books, fountain pens, inks, poetry, nutrition, diabetes, and more.

There is so much to write about and such little time to do it. I’ve been sitting on my hands for so long, I don’t really know if I can do this. Is Humpty Trumpty falling off the wall enough to get me back into this? But of course I have to write. The only way we’re going to move forward as a civilization is through discourse and debate. I remember when the Berlin Wall started to come down. It was the day my firstborn entered the world. I was so hopeful. The world really did seem to offer a brighter future. But of course we’ve erected replacement walls, and unfortunately we always will. I think the purpose of my writing and many other blogs has to be the dismantling of walls. These ideological walls need to crumble.

The SAD month of MAY

April was poetry month, and now May is short story month. That’s a short story a day, every day, for 31 days. I’ve done seven NaNoWriMos and eight NaPoWriMos or equivalents. I don’t want to try to name this month. NaSsWriMo?

I sat at my desk on Monday, May 1, 2017, having written 54 poems and a blog post about it, wondering what to write next. Do I pull out 2012 and commit three or four months to fixing it? Do I continue salvaging parts of 2016 to make a short story collection? Maybe I should pull out 2010 or 2014 and have a second go at those unfinished novels. 2016 called the hardest and I’d all but settled on it. That would mean skimming the 50,000 words looking for nuggets. I have pulled the first three scenes as stories already, but where to next? Always the question.

So I did what any good writer would do: I opened Facebook. Almost immediately I found a post by my friend Andrea about a contest in May to write a short story a day. We talked about this in the past on our Sunday morning write-ins, I’ve participated in 15 other x-a-day events, so I didn’t need to think about the implications very much. I went to the Story-A-Day site, signed up, took the first prompt, and wrote a 1489 word story.

Bang. #1 done. It felt great.

\The story had nothing to do with anything I’ve written before, but it was based on reality. For that reason alone, I will not share it. Especially where fiction is weaved in, and some of that fiction is not nice. Sorry I had to kill you off, X.

May 2’s prompt fit almost perfectly a scene/story for 2016 I had been pondering. I sat and wrote. I took a break at 500 words to think, ponder, and write nasty political tweets — Even though I gave up my U.S. Citizenship, I still fight for Americans living abroad. And I’ve been quite acerbic lately towards the liberal shills out there supporting #FATCA and calling people like me tax cheaters.

I could not fit today’s prompt into any existing project, which is no concern, but I could fit it into a potential 2017 NaNoWriMo story. I’ve been pondering writing Science Fiction instead of my social conscious urban literary stuff.  I only invested 313 words in it, but I think it is full of theme, conflict, and potential. The conflict is implied: we’re all becoming the same, and what does that mean for humanity. Could be my backbone theme for my seen-book series *grin* It is a very thin piece, trite, but I actually love it. I will try to write more around this piece and other ideas this month and through the busy summer ahead of me. NaSsWriMo might just make NaNoWriMo very productive.

Enjoy

Prompt: People called him The Doll Maker. Nobody ever wondered aloud why every doll had the same face.

“Did you guys see Doctor Davis’ new robots?”

The lunch table paid no attention to him. Jared set down his tray and pulled in his chair.

“He can choose any face he wants with a few clicks but he picks the same face, the same physical features for every one of them. You guys don’t find that odd?”

“Jarrod,” Emily says. “You had a busy morning? You’re late.” She stuffs a roll of California Gold into her mouth.

“You haven’t heard a word I said.”

“Sorry,” she says as she crunches on the crusty, green roll of processed unknowns the government has certified as optimally nutritious for young scientists. She chases it with a glass of fortified water the color of the noon sky as displayed in the wall monitors. “We were just discussing Doc Davis’ new robots. Did you know he ordered them to all look identical? Why would he do that?”

Jarrod picked the gray New Jersey Jets roll up from his gray plate. “It makes no sense. You’d think he was building an army or something.”

Emily inspects her mint-green plate for crumbs but finds none. “I know. It’s so creepy. We’re not going to be able to tell which is which.”

“They’re all fucking robots,” William chimes in with his usual cheer. “Who cares what they look like? You ask for a Solar Coffee, they get you a Solar Coffee. It’s not like you’d have sex with one of them.”

“Speak for yourself,” Emily says.

“They’re all male,” Jarrod says.

“So?” says William.

“They’re all so…unremarkable,” Emily says and smiles.

“He could have selected at least some variety,” Jarrod says.

“They’re robots,” William says.

“What does he have planned?” they all say simultaneously. They stop but don’t laugh.

William picks up his blue Florida Fish Roll from his light-blue plate and looks at it. “Why are they all the same?”

 

2012 NaNoWriMo Version 5 Completed!

Tags

bata reader, manuscript

I feel drained. The 80cm of snow we’ve received since last Wednesday (this is Sunday) have something to do with it. 50cm more are due tomorrow. That’s 52 inches of snow. That’s enough snow to bury children and animals, not to mention cars. I literally have nowhere to shovel this snow. We are talking about cancelling our car insurance for the next three months because we won’t be going anywhere in them.

Middle Of Second Storm

Still, it doesn’t compare to the stress I’m feeling as I finish this edit of the novel I’m working on, my fifth major version in two and a third years. I know there are changes to make: too many ellipses, thinking verbs, rhetorical questions, voice transgressions, theme continuity issues, and story line consistencies. And these are only the headers of my shopping list. Yet the need for input from others outweighs these abstract objectives. At the end of this edit, as I reviewed my notes and made a few more changes, I felt myself sinking into Johnny Weissmuller quicksand.

I think a writer needs to edit from a good place. We cannot be fighting our visions. I feel my story is a piece of art. I feel my story can be an attractive read for millions. Seriously. But I am finding the doubts creeping in. Every page I read makes me question my sanity, my ability to write. I have made so many mistakes! Of course what I need is time away and some concrete feedback.

So I sit here typing this post as the first printed copy of my V5 manuscript prints. It is 126k words, which at font-10 and 1.5 line spacing equals 277 printed pages. I am printing double-sided this time. My previous manuscripts were just too thick. And I did not make the decision alone. I checked with my primary readers for their preferences, and they are fine with reduced note making space. The next steps are to distribute copies to 6 to 8 readers. One EPUB version is already out.

In a month or so, I’ll need to gather the herd. I’d like to take my readers somewhere for at least coffees. I’m thinking a Starbucks on a snowy Sunday morning. I might even rent a room at the library and bring in some pizza. If I host them at home, I could also serve beer. We’ll see. If I get a constant message that it sucks and there is zero hope anybody would want to read it, then they’ll be getting nothing 😉

Bulletproof Coffee

Tags

blend, Bulletproof, butter, coconut oil, coffee

I’ve been saying for some time that I drink Bulletproof Coffee. What is Bulletproof Coffee? It is a term invented by Dave Asprey at Bulletproof Exec. It is basically a branded, high fat, low carb coffee.

My morning coffees have consisted of varying portions of whipping cream, butter, coconut oil, and palm oil. They keep me full until the afternoon. My blood sugars are near perfectly stable during this time. Amazing breakfasts.

I’ve been getting off track, all year really. I stopped taking Victoza in September, and since then I’ve gained ten pounds. The once in awhile cheat is now all too regular. My weight is up to 237 which is not good. My lowest in the last decade is 221. I need to reset my diet, get back on a wagon.

I decided to re-examine my coffees. Anecdotal evidence suggests I should see better results. I should not get so hungry at nights. I smelled a problem, so a couple of days ago, I decided to read David Asprey’s site. *whack* I’d never read it before. I just assumed he was doing what I was doing, and any differences were branding efforts — he is trying to make money off of this. I like making money as well as anybody, but let’s be real — it introduces bias. Sometimes fact can become distorted in the name of sales. I was skeptical of his efforts, so I never dived into his site.

Recipe: How to Make Your Coffee Bulletproof®…And Your Morning Too

The first thing I learned is that one should use unsalted butter.

*duh*

Yeah, whenever I use butter, salted, I cannot add more than a teaspoon per cup or it tastes yuck. It can be fixed with cocoa powder, but I don’t always want my coffee turning into an Irish Cream concoction. Easy fix. We have awesome butter in New Brunswick. This is dairy cow paradise. I picked up a pound of unsalted butter.

Dave uses some sort of fat he trademarked as BrainOctane. At the moment, for me, this is nothing more than high priced coconut oil. Fat is fat — yes, I know about different types of fat — and my gut says he cannot improve on nature. Maybe he can, but my wallet says no. I will investigate it though. MCT has been a popular term used in LC forums, but I have never seen the science. I continue to use coconut oil, and I am not hung up on its virginity.

The next difference was the cream. Dave Asprey claims that cream cancels out the antioxidants in the coffee. Possible. I’m not an antioxidant fanatic. I get enough of them in my veggies, herbs, and fruit. If I need cream for my coffee to taste good, I will keep using it. But for my first try, I omitted it. I reckoned I could always add some if I needed it.

Dave also claims the concoction needs to be blended. I suppose he hates the layers of film fats give to coffee. Fine, they never bother me. I don’t have a full-sized blender, but I do have a magic bullet.

Finally, Dave claims coffee beans matter. He claims industrial coffee beans are infected with mold and the toxins from the mold affect our health. Maybe. He does supply some science links. I always buy freshly roasted coffee anyway. It it moldy? Is it dangerous? I’m not sold. Wouldn’t authorities somewhere have raised concerns if this was the case? I don’t know, but I’ll bet Dave would argue they don’t because coffee is such a huge industry. All I want to do is laugh. Accuse with one hand and commit foul with the other? I am not mail-ordering my coffee. I want it fresh and local. Oxygen is a bigger threat to coffee than anything, and industrial coffee, even improved, is more oxidized than my fresh Java Moose coffee.

So I made a batch of BPC, as close as I could get anyway. I French Pressed some coffee, poured some of it into my Magic Bullet where six tablespoons of unsalted butter and a tablespoon of coconut oil waited for it. I blended it until fluffy, then poured both containers into my regular coffee pot (for warmth in my drip maker).

All I can say is wow. Seriously. It tasted fantabulous. The coffee flavour stood out, and the creamy, blended butter and oil made it as smooth as … butter.

The interesting part came at lunch time, 1:30ish in the afternoon. I was not hungry at all, but I wanted more coffee. I made another batch, and I ate a small bowl of Campbell’s beef and veggie soup the wife had made. BG was 5.something.

7:30p.m. I woke from a four hour nap. Not coffee related at all. I hardly slept the night before. My blood sugar read 3.7. I was not hungry.

And then I ate a plate of nachos and fucked up my evening.

*sigh*

At this moment, it’s 2:30 p.m. and I am finishing my second batch of the day. I am not hungry and I feel energetic. I feel clear. My lunchtime BG was 5.2. I am looking forward to my next batch. I am looking forward to getting back on track.

Thanks Dave. I am not a full believer in all you claim, yet, but I do believe in HFLC. Keep up the good work!

Grandma’s House

Tags

beer, coke, pepsi, popcorn

Poetic Asides Prompt #268

Just think, If you’ve been religiously following Robert Brewer’s blog since inception, you’d have written 268 weekly poems by now.

This week’s prompt contained multiple words. We only needed to use one of them.

toast
pop
right
paper
howl
little

Toast and pop brought me immediately to my grandmother’s little house on E. Front St. in Wauzeka Wisconsin. I have not been in it since maybe I was about eleven or twelve years old, 1972 or 1973. My brain cells from that era are AWOL. It wasn’t anything special. It was small and cramped, and its bathroom was always in shambles, but it had a yard with a chestnut tree in back and a line of climbable maples in the front. It had a large propane tank we could climb on and a garage we could get in trouble in. The backyard was annually flooded by the Kickapoo river which we were not allowed near. For good reason too. It was brown and deep and if you fell in, they likely wouldn’t find you until New Orleans. Pft! The black trains ran by at night, and our only other pastimes were watching TV and playing cards. The Rockford Files, the lowly Milwaukee Brewers, the state news, cribbage, Euchre, Crazy Eights, and later Bridge were rituals. Cousin Mike — Grandma raised my cousins — might play his record collection of Dylan, CCR, Jethro Tull or one of his innumerable more local records such as Mason Proffit’s “Come And Gone.”

Coke and Pepsi were staples, along with popcorn, chips, and the new Tang. One of my younger brothers called Coke Coca Cola pop and the other called Pepsi Pessi-Cola pop. We celebrated the treats like any good 70’s family and turned these names into car-chants and we drove down highways 14 and 133 from Madison for the weekend. Is it any wonder I became diabetic a few years later? Don’t even bother with your retort that sugar doesn’t cause diabetes. I am not sold on that defense.

Card playing was pushed as safe, family entertainment — which it is — and while smoking and alcohol were not front and center, they were not exactly hidden. They tended to come out later at night when kids were sleeping, and only when company were present, which they always seemed to be. The 70’s homes were much more social than today’s. Grandma was the school librarian and English teacher. Dad taught the Hornets music for a few years until moving on like most teachers did then. A couple of years ago I stopped to chat with an older tourist at the Saint John City Market who wore a Wisconsin shirt. Turns out he was a music teacher from Praire du Chien, a few miles away and knew him. I whipped out the cell phone and they chatted a bit before he headed back to his cruise ship. Small world, 2200 miles away.

Grandma’s house also had bats. She hated the little demons with a passion. Always tried to scare us with her story of swatting 300 of them one night with her broom. One would squeak into her kitchen through a little hole and just as its legs waddled through, *whap*, she would let it have it. 300 little black demons piled up on her kitchen floor in a Wauzeka legend. We three boys and cousins Mike and Danny would stand out at dusk with busted tennis racquets, splintered baseball bats, and rolled up Mad Magazines and try to bash the little buggers as they orbited the house. Then we’d wail on each other until the referees jumped in, bathed us, and send us to he kitchen for card playing lessons — they taught us how to play, and we thought we were teaching them our own wisdom. Eventually family friends, fellow teachers, sweaty old farmers, and perhaps a local farm laborer dad had befriended, would trundle in with their beer, chips, and maybe a bottle of whisky which would be hidden until we disappeared to bed. The kitchen would soon fill with bodies, stories, and laughter. As young heads nodded and chairs became scarce, off we’d go to our beds upstairs.

Grandma’s house means bats
The little black screechers invade every summer evening
And we little ones howled all the way to bed
Until we learned how to play cards
Until we showed we could win at crazy eights or dirty clubs
We had to go to bed before the serious fun started
A kitchen full of grown-ups eating popcorn and drinking
Coca-Cola pop, Old Milwaukee, or that other stuff they wouldn’t
Bring out until we finally went to sleep
And even when we snuck down to peek
We were too young to read its dark, mysterious label
On that shiny, large clear bottle
We were pretty sure we saw its cousins lying shattered in a ditch

Am I Getting Enough Glucose?

One of the main objections with ketogenic diets is that they do not supply enough glucose for the body. Objectors claim that glucose is our main fuel, and if we do not get enough of it, our brain, heart, organs, and even muscle will shrivel up and die. They do not exactly say shrivel up and die. They just say it is bad. The truth seems to be they do not know the exact impacts. Why? Because the events have never happened.

People on hunger strikes do not generally succumb to brain and organ atrophy. There are many cases of people lasting many weeks with no food; yet their brains continue to function. Where do they get their glucose? We do store glucose in the form of glycogen. Ask a marathoner how long their glycogen store lasts. Not long enough to finish a marathon, usually. So how can it carry a person weeks through a hunger strike? How did so many Jews survive concentration camps?

Protein. 58% of protein will be converted to glucose. Yes, the number is in doubt, but that is not really relevant. Our daily carbohydrate need is estimated at between 80g and 120g a day. If you are on a 2,000 calorie diet and eat 20% of it as protein, that’s 400 calories / 4 * 58% or 58g of carbs.

Fat also contains glucose. True. Fat lives in the form of triglycerides, three fatty acids and a glycerol or sugar. About 10% of fat becomes carbohydrate. 1600 calories / 4 * .1 = 40g.

So before we eat any plant food at all, we have 98g of carbohydrates in our diet. Most of us on ketogenic diets eat about 50g of carbohydrates a day. Dr. Bernstein recommends 30g, so will go with that conservative number. It is pretty hard not to eat 30g of carbs a day. 58 + 40 + 30 = 128g. Bingo!

Yah, but.

Yeah, when we starve, our bodies will convert fat and protein to enough glucose for our vital parts.

“How often does your sugar go too low on a ketogenic diet?” John asks.
“How is that relevant?”
“If you have sufficient glucose in your bloodstream, your brain, heart, and organs are getting enough. It is like a gas gauge in a car. You cannot see your gas tank or your engine using the fuel, so how do you know there is enough? You look at a gas gauge. If there is sugar in our bloodstreams, our body is being fueled.”
“Yah, but if I don’t eat any carbs, and my glycogen runs out, my body will have to use its own protein.”
“People who starve get very thin, but the muscles atrophy before the organs fail.”
“Yah, but my dietitian says … ”
“Your dietitian might suffer from reactive hypoglycemia. It could explain her inability to use her brain.”

Reactive hypoglycemia is an ironic condition. It occurs when someone eats too much sugar, gets too steep a rise in blood sugars and their body responds with a large insulin response. Unlike a fibrous food, this sugar spike is short-lived. It shoots blood glucose sky-high but does not follow-up with more. A sweet potato on the other hand will also spike blood sugar, but it will keep adding sugar as much of it is entrapped in the fibre. Hopefully the large amount of butter you added also slows down the absorption. The result is a less intense insulin response and a closer time matching. In the case of the pure sugar consumer, the insulin will quickly drive down the blood sugar, but the insulin will linger, expecting follow-up sugar like “real food” will supply. Blood sugar drops below normal and the vital body parts go hungry. Trust me when I say that hypoglycemia affects your brain. I have experienced hundreds of diabetes related hypos, and you do not want to be doing anything dangerous when it happens. I truly am lucky to be alive today.

Yeah, I recommend at least 20% of your calories come from protein. Muscle repair is a constant need, and lets not kid ourselves. With less glucose in the pipeline, the pressure on gluconeogenesis to eat our muscle mass may actually be greater. That too doesn’t make complete sense to me, but nevertheless, eat your protein.

I just don’t see ketogenic eaters suffering from hypoglycemia. Sorry, but I don’t. And I don’t myself. I’ve never come close to it, even when fasting. And here’s the kicker for me. I perform much, much better aerobically and anaerobically when I eat ketogenically. I am too old and too lazy to test intense workouts, but when I walk, jog, lift weights, play hockey, or hike through the woods, I have done a million percent better [apologies for the Minaj mimic].

The worry that we do not get enough glucose in ketogenic diets is bogus in my mind.

Weekend At The Cottage

Tags

cottage, friends, huggable, nubile, Writing

We spent the weekend at a friend’s cottage along the Northumberland Strait in Nova Scotia, just east of Rushton’s Beach if you can find it on a map. The water was warm, the beer cold, and the 30 or so friends all friendly. We smoked some huge pieces of meat, played games, talked, and just vegged out.

I thought a bit about my writing and how I want to proceed. These casual discussions told me I’m not perceived as a writer, not by my wife, not by my friends, not by anybody but people who have heard me read.

Ah, a key piece of the puzzle. People need to read my writing. It’s a scary thought, though. I’ve been pounding the idea into my head for the last couple of years that I can write, that I do write, and that I should write, write for fame, and fortune, write to make a difference, write to write. I don’t know if I believe these purposes or not, but the last one sticks out whenever I think about it. It pops its head up like a previously sleeping dog smelling a plate of pulled pork entering a room. I need to write for the sake of writing.

Looking back over the year since last November I think I can say I have written. I expanded my current story from 52k words to a current 105k, and this effort involved ditching completely probably 50k words. I’ve written a lot of poetry too. I can’t honestly call it poetry, though. It’s more like prose-poetry, to me. Still, it’s creative. I’ve spent the majority of my writing time editing: massaging my prose. It’s hard work. It is creative work too, but it’s harder. It’s different.

A meal alone is different than a meal with friends. The extra food I took home will taste good, but it won’t taste as good as it did straight out of the oven and shared with 30 huggable people. And Ross, nubility does not apply.

By the way, my blood sugars stayed perfect, and I didn’t get drunk enough to fall down.

Writing is similar. There’s creatively juicy writing and businessy polished writing. I feel my creative juices flowing right now. I have an urge to write

The problem is I have story already to begin for NaNoWriMo. If I dig into it now, I’ll need a new story for November. It may also put my current editing on the shelve. I don’t like that idea; I may never get it off. But then again, maybe this creative outlet will help me with my editing. Maybe It will satisfy the urges enough for me to be able to sit down with my business focus.

Steven King does it, so why can’t I? The King works on two projects: one during the day and one in the evening. One is a new write and the other an edit. He can pay for his time, though. I can’t. I need to be a little more frugal.

Maybe I can try writing new stories one or two nights a week. Maybe that will be enough to whet the appetite and motivate me to edit more. Feed creativity with creativity.

Heck, what’s the worry? I’m a  writer. It’s only writing.

Harmonizing Guidelines for the Treatment of Chronic Illnesses – Diabetes

Premiers Forge Own Healthcare Path

Whoop! NOT!!

Recently Canada’s premiers [equivalent to American Governors] all got together for their regular talks. Don’t ask me when they meet. I’m an American and can’t vote for them, so I don’t usually pay attention to the details of such things. Actually I wouldn’t remember anyway; I focus on important topics. *har har*

I only want to talk about one statement in the article. I feel the impetus to discuss the entire realm of social medicine, but that would be going down a rat hole. The statement is harmonizing guidelines for the treatment of chronic illnesses.

Yes, I’m saying this is a bad objective. In fact, I’m saying it’s pure folly. It will kill even more people off early.

“Pretty dramatic statements there John.”
“Yup.”
“Can you explain what you mean by them?”
“Yup.”
…

But do you really want to listen? Do you really want to think? Let’s begin with a startling statistic:

In the United States alone, nearly 90% of adult diabetics — more than 16 million adults aged 35 and older — have blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol that are not treated effectively, meaning they do not meet widely accepted targets for healthy levels of blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol. In Mexico, 99% of adult diabetics are not meeting those targets. The study, “Management of diabetes and associated cardiovascular risk factors in seven countries: a comparison of data from national health examination surveys,” is published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization’s March edition.

We have a 90% failure rate to achieve our objectives. Nine out of every ten diabetics is headed to an early grave. That’s about 7% of the entire population, and in Canada that means about 2 million people are not effectively treated for their diabetes.

“That’s a double negative. You can’t use double negatives.”
“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t work.”
“Exactly!”

The system is broken. Why do we want to strengthen a broken system?

“It’s not broken, John. Patients simply refuse to follow directions.”

Amazingly this is the same reason the USDA gives for the obesity epidemic.

“It’s not broken, John. People simply refuse to follow our guidelines.”

Let me tell you something. People are following orders, sorry, guidelines. I always did. But then, well, I stopped following them.

“Bad John!”
“But they weren’t working. Why should I do something that doesn’t work?”
“We can’t help you if you do not follow our directions.”
“I’ll try harder this time.”

Thirty two years later John is being wheeled into surgery, unable to see anything but the blood in his left eye. Sorry, I wish I followed directions a little better. Dang.

There is a group of people actually doing very well managing their diabetes. There are no statistics, but I estimate at least half are achieving the required objectives. It might even be as high as 90% success rate. Many blow these target numbers away. Mine do, usually:

Measure->Target->John’s Number
A1C<-6.5%<-6.4% (best 5.6%)
LDL<-2<-1.82
HDL->1.6->2.92
TG<-1.5<-.44
BP<-140/80<-130/71

What is this group and how do they do it? It is called the DOC or Diabetes Online Community. We discuss, debate, encourage, support, cheer, hold hands, love, and we help each other. If I have a question about anything, all I need to do is ask. I go to a forum, post the question and wait. Ten minutes later I have half a dozen experts giving me their opinions. Let’s be clear about my numbers. I set my own basal rates and I:C ratios. I basal tested intensively. I profiled my meals and titrated my doses. I adjusted my diet to a very high fat, low carb eating style to where my lipids look outstanding and my complications have halted, and I got my own blood pressure down to near normal. I tested tonight after exercise at 106/59. I’m almost 52 years old and have been diabetic for 37 years. Under doctors’ care I bested my A1C at 7.3%, ran high BP over 140/80, and my cholesterol sucked so bad I actually agreed to take a statin. I learned almost every technique I used from other diabetics, either directly or from a website such as a blog. My endo never heard of basal testing, doesn’t agree with high fat diets, and won’t even comment on my BP.

Actual conversation when I asked about better ways to set my basal rates:

Dr. John: “Linda [DE] has algorithms for setting basal rates.”
Linda:”Dr. John sets all basal rates.”

Later:

Spike: “Simply basal test. Basal rates should keep your basals flat without food, and the only way to do that is skip your meals and test.”
John: “That sounds too easy.”
Spike: “It’s very simple. I don’t understand why all doctors don’t do this.”

I know why; because they are resistant to change, stuck in their ways, and reliant on guidelines.

“These aren’t doctors. They don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s dangerous.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Stay away from them.”
“Okay, so what do I do when I have a question?”
“Read our pamphlets.”
“What if it’s not in a pamphlet.”
“Call your diabetes educator.”
“What if it’s in the middle of the night?”
“It can wait until morning.”
“Can I call you?”
“I don’t take calls.”

You know, I make a half a dozen or so life and death decisions every day, and I don’t take days off. I have this ball and chain attached to me permanently, and I can’t live my life by carrying around a suitcase full of fucking pamphlets. Sorry, but I can’t. That fact is that under the current system, when things don’t work well people get frustrated and quit.

“You can’t quit. This is too serious.”
“Don’t you think if it’s so serious, you’d design a system of help where I could ask for assistance 24*7 where I could get advice relevant to me, where I could talk to someone matter-of-factly instead of being lectured to, where they would consider my own choices and not try to force me into a one-size-fits-all diet, insulin regimen, or exercise program?”
“We talk about those things at your annual check-up.”
“You talk about these things. I am only allowed to listen.”
“I can only spend 15 minutes with a patient.”

*Red Alert, John is about to go postal!*

We don’t need more pamphlets or courses or doctors visits or endo visits. What we need is 24×7 assistance whenever we need it, wherever we are, from someone who will accept our individual care plans, who will not berate us, cajole us, or lecture us but who will cheer us and make us feel good about what we are trying to do.

We are not getting this from our healthcare system, and anything that moves us further away from the support we need is a bad move, a very bad move.

Suck it up, healthcare policy makers and practitioners. Accept the fact that patients in the DOC do a far better job than you ever will. We are the true masters of this domain, and it’s time you listened to us! John’s recommendation? Prescribe a membership at a diabetes forum to every patient. Set an official target of 1,000 posts a year. Berate them if they fail!

An the answer to whether I will take a statin is still no!

Cholesterol Logic

Tags

asociation, carbohydrates, cholesterol, faith, food, insulin, LDL, nutrition, saturated fat, science, studies, sugar, sugar kills

Cholesterol is a hot and complicated topic. It’s not easy to wrap your head around it, especially when you consider that even the experts haven’t so far.

Here’s a bit of proof: The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute is in charge of cholesterol treatment policy. It tells the rest of the world what to do. Nevermind for now that Big Pharma tells the NHLBI what do do. The fact is the NHLBI does not know what causes atherosclerosis. They cannot say without reasonable doubt that cholesterol causes it. In fact, they say outright “The exact cause of atherosclerosis isn’t known.”

For the logically feeble readers: if you do not know what causes something, you cannot say what causes something.

“Bill, somebody egged our windows again.”
“It’s those damned Pentecostals, Martha.”
“How do you know it’s them and not the Catholics?”
“Because I see them driving up and down the street all the time in their bus!”

This is cholesterol logic. It’s thinking like this that has made the western world fat and sick. It’s this type of logic that has made it okay to drink Coke and Pepsi, to add sugar to 87% of the 600,000 food products in America *Dr. Lustig Rumor from #AHS12*, and to consider bread a household staple because it tastes good and is full of added vitamins which many think we only pee away.

The path to cholesterol policy has not been paved with good science. We fed excess cholesterol to rabbits, herbivores, and they developed atherosclerosis. Nobody asked why. Nobody speculated if that cholesterol was sitting in a box for three months that it might be somewhat rancid. Nobody asked whether feeding a foreign substance to a herbivore was valid. Nobody asked whether no dead rabbits was important.

“Eating cholesterol hardens arteries, and that’s all that matters.”

Apparently that’s not all that matters. Anything that raises or lowers cholesterol also matters. *palm-plant* Eating saturated fat raises cholesterol; therefore it’s bad for you. Oatmeal lowers cholesterol; therefore it’s good for you.

“But the Presbyterians also drive their bus up and down the street, Bill.”
“It can’t be them. We’re Presbyterians.”

Cholesterol logic.

There have been lots of studies about the associations between cholesterol and heart disease, and there have been many studies on associations between foods and cholesterol. By extension, either directly or implied, there are also associations between food consumption and death by cause. Which of these is most important?

The answer is none of them. All association studies do is raise questions. We cannot assign cause to associations. I don’t care how good your math is, statistics do not form physical links between two things. This has been written about time and again, and I’ve argued it with mathematical geniuses. But the fact remains: math can never explain a cause of anything. You always need to proceed with scientific experiments to validate the questions.

Scientific experiments have never proven cholesterol or saturated fat causes heart disease; therefore the NHLBI’s assertion that we do not know its causes is correct.

And we should, therefore, not be saying what is or isn’t dangerous based on such evidence. The Seven Countries Study, The China Study, the Nurses Health Study, The Farmingham Study, and countless others should only raise questions; they do not provide any answers. Anybody who makes a conclusion about cause based on an association study is either totally incompetent or biased, take your pick.

Let’s quickly take a look at a confounding study: Dr. Ronald Krause’s 2010 Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease. This study basically says all the other food studies are wrong: they do not prove there’s an association between saturated fat consumption and heart disease.

“But it’s obvious that eating animal fats and meats raises cholesterol; therefore it must be bad.”
“I hope you don’t bet on the races much.”
“The races? They have nothing to do with this discussion.”
“Exactly!”

Cholesterol logic.

I won’t get into metabolism much; because I am not a biologist, but I do know enough to be a little dangerous. Please correct me if I’m wrong here.

Dr. Peter Attia states that LDL-P is the problem, not LDL-C. Let’s first look at the “science” of fat metabolism without getting into the details. Fats are packaged in our guts into chylomicrons which utilize an APO-B 48 protein. The liver packages available carbon energy into triglycerides utilizing the APO-B 100 protein. The 100 means it expresses 100% of an LDL particle. Fats do not contribute directly to LDL counts. Period. This simple gap should exclude all such discussion, but of course it doesn’t. We have to place our trust in more remote, black box effects like studies.

“These people ate more fat and their LDL-C went up. Therefore, fat cause cholesterol to rise.”
“Couldn’t something else cause it to rise?”
“What kind of stupid question is that? You get a C for your grade.”
“Sorry, I thought science programs encouraged stupid questions.”
“Only stupid questions that make us rich and famous.”

Cholesterol logic.

Possible explanations: Eating high sugar degrades LDL quality. The resulting particles are smaller, and since the Friedwald Calculation is based on volume, the LDL-C looks lower. And when sugars [fuel for TG production] are eliminated, the rise in LDL-C is due to large, fluffy, benign particles. We are pretty sure that high triglyceride production results in low LDL particle size, but I do acknowledge that this is an association as is small LDL particle size with increased risk of atherosclerosis. But if you want to trade association punches, I submit that mine are stronger than yours. Let’s go! Actually, the smallness theory lives in somewhat of a doubtful house. The whole retention-response theory holds very little attraction due to scarce and conflicting evidence. Still, it seems likely that whatever causes small particles may also cause heart disease, just like whatever causes obesity also causes diabetes [not all type 2 diabetics are obese].

“That makes perfect sense John, but your LDL-C is still higher than I want. Take this statin.”
John sits in stunned silence for a few moments. “No.”

Cholesterol logic.

Here’s an interesting study on Iranian women. These women had very low levels of triglycerides and when their LDL-P was measured, it was discovered the value was far lower than their LDL-C values. It even prompted a proposed new calculation of LDL-C when triglycerides are very low. By the way, if triglycerides are very high, LDL-C isn’t performed because the calculation isn’t reliable. Just sayin’.

Another interesting study shows glycation [attack by sugar] directly decreasing cholesterol size and quality making it atherogenic. To me this is very damning evidence against sugar.

What does John know? Well, his cholesterol numbers are outstanding on a high saturated fat diet, so all of you saturated fat causes cholesterol causes heart disease good can bugger off. John’s eye-artery issues have gone away with his diet. We might say they’ve gone away with his lower blood sugar levels, that’s still a possibility, but it’s more sure with his diet. Zero signs of eye disease in last four years of LCHF. My good BGs have lasted six years. Those first two years were hell. And of course less sugar consumed equals fewer blood sugar problems. Back to logic. If fat was a cause of arterial issues, wouldn’t John’s eyes be getting worse? There’s been zero new blood vessel growth, zero bleeding, zero background retinopathy, and zero artherosclerosis seen in his eyes in four years of LCHF eating. And when I say high fat, I do mean high fat. 60-70 percent of my calories come from fat. I drink a quarter to a half litre of whipping cream every day and use two to six tablespoons of coconut oil plus fatty meat, butter, high fat cheese, olive oil, and more.

Examination of the small blood vessels (arterioles) in the retina of the eye with an ophthalmoscope is valuable for diagnosis. Atherosclerotic arterioles reflect light (emitted by the ophthalmoscope), giving them a “silver wire” appearance.

I am living my life on faith. I am following an ancestral style of eating and dispensing with modern man’s conclusions of what a healthy diet is. I do this largely because what man has said doesn’t add up but also because the results of my forays have been spectacular. I’ll be honest here: I don’t trust humans. They are biased, corrupt, and stupid. I raised my kids by telling them that 80% of people were idiots. “Be in that top 20%,” I said. They said I was wrong. It’s more like 90% are idiots. The biggest fault I see is the populations’ lack of sound logic. They think with Cholesterol Logic.

Rat Holes and Bunny Trails

Behind the home where my parents used to live there was a wood of, oh, maybe 500 acres. It was heavily treed, very rocky, but littered with little open areas called fields. Connecting the fields and lakes and rocky outcrops were these obvious man-made features called paths. These pastoral havens were idyllic getaways in the midst of a city, and many people used them: drug dealers, teenager binge drinkers, young children on hikes, and moi.

When my wife and I were dating, we’d sometimes walk through this wood, during the daytimes of course, when it was safer. It was a getaway for us. Young lovers need getaways.

As we’d walk along the trails, we’d find side trails or splits. Should we continue the main path or head down that side trail? Of course we explored the little paths. Some would lead to nice places and some to not so nice places. Still others would bend back and rejoin the main trail. Usually somewhere along these trails were obvious resting areas, say a circle of logs surrounding a dead fire, a litter of empty beer cans, a few condoms, and a bra. Sometimes we’d find an open rocky area where we could see all around for hundreds of feet. We could even look down on the forested main path, even see the tops of the trees lining it. We could view other explorers while remaining hidden. Still other times these paths would lead to small, open meadows filled with wildflower, sunshine, and wild porcupines. I’ve been chased by more porcupines … We discovered the main path led to a lake, and along the lake was a rocky stage, a larger area of rocks perfect for hosting bonfires, beer bottles, and even lawn chairs under a setting of open sky and power lines.

Bunny trails and rat holes.

Bunny trails are trails breaking off the main paths that don’t lead anywhere meaningful. They are nice sidelines, might present a nice little diversion, but they don’t get you to your destination. Have you ever been to a class at school where you expected a deep lecture, say on the seven networking transport layers, and the professor decided his wife’s sister’s wedding fiasco was much more interesting and important? Light, interesting, fun, but completely off topic. Bunny trail.

Rat holes are dark and dirty dead ends. A former coworker named Peter used this term in meetings. When discussion starting heading into a rhetorical argument, one that couldn’t be solved then and there, he’d say “we’re heading down a rat hole.” Everybody knew what he meant and would stop and nod. Yes, he used the term effectively to keep meetings on track.

In my recent blog about high fat diets and cholesterol, a responder raised a concern about endotoxins. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22210577 Basically when you feed a type 2 diabetic a bunch of fat, they have negative responses. They get filled with inflammation. I don’t dispute the results of this study, but I question whether it’s the final destination, the final say in the matter, or is it a bunny trail or a rat hole.

Inflammation seems to be a commonly accepted cause of disease, especially heart disease; though when you listen to the more knowledgeable talking heads — the Chris Masterjohns of the world — you get the idea that oxidised LDL is the real culprit. Are they related? Perhaps. It’s not for me to decide, but lets say they are. Let’s say inflammation is the culprit.

I think everybody agrees that it’s not the fat in these cases that causes the inflammation. All seem to agree, even the vegans, that it’s the bacterial response in the gut. The bacteria see the consumed fat as foreign and attacks it which produce these nasty endotoxins. Sounds very plausible, and the science seems well thought out and demonstrable. By the way, it’s important that we are able to demonstrate science. It’s great to do a study that A is associated with B, but we have no right saying A causes B unless we can demonstrate it. Too many people say cholesterol causes heart disease because it’s associated with it. Nevermind nobody has ever been able to demonstrate how it happens. It’s associated, so it must be the cause. Such thinkers should be strung up by their ankles and whipped with bacon.

Sorry, I ran down a bunny trail, back on the main path now.

So is this endotoxin story the end of the path? Have we explored the whole wood? Are you ready for you and your partner to do what you came in here to do? Is this the field you will lay the blanket down in, open that bottle of wine you packed, and strip all your clothes off in?

Ask any established high fat eater to get their inflammation tested. I had a H-CRP test last year, and it was 1.0 which is low, not the lowest, but it’s very low and not considered an indication of risk. Other’s I’ve followed have also been low. There may also be other similar tests for inflammation, but I really don’t want to explore that trail at the moment. Let’s assume there are, and that all high fat eaters test negative for inflammation. It’s what we claim. What’s going on?

Herbivores can’t eat meat, and carnivores can’t eat plants, not as primary sources anyway. What’s going on? The answer seems simple. It’s the bacteria. We rely on bacteria to break down our food. There are many types of food breaking down bacteria, but lets divide them up into two groups: carnivore and herbivore. One group is great at breaking down plants and the other group is great at breaking down animals. If you throw animal matter into plant bacteria, you’ll get a negative reaction, whatever that means. If you throw plant matter into animal bacteria, you’ll get a negative reaction.

Humans are omnivores. We have bacteria for both types of food. But it also makes sense that our gut bacteria will adjust to our diet. If we eat all plant food, we’ll nurture plant bacteria. If we eat all animal food, we’ll nurture animal bacteria. The modern, western type 2 diabetic eats mostly a plant diet. Sorry PETA people but they do generally follow the food guidelines which say to limit saturated fats to 7% of the diet. Arguably as much as 93% of the diet is designed to nurture plant bacteria. Now throw a huge meal of animal fat into the pot. What do you expect to happen?

Let’s take another bunny trail. It’s very common to read in HF threads that “I just can’t eat high carb meals, and I can’t eat gluten at all.” Why? “It makes me sick.” It’s true in my experiences. I tried three gluten-based meals this spring and winter. I can’t even remember what the were except for one. For a meal at Valentines Day I ate a dozen sugar cookies. Yup, John splurged big time. And while you could argue that this meal would make anybody feel sick, believe me when I say I felt miserable for three days. I felt like puking but not like puking. My head pounded and my body ached. It took three full days for the symptoms to go away.

I used to eat high carb like I was taught. I never felt this way before. I and others shake our heads in wonder at these experiences. We assumed we were just not in tune with our bodies. The more I think about it and the more I experience reactions — I ate some low carb black bean chocolate cake last night. It tasted fine, but I feel sick today — the more I suspect it’s our gut bacteria at work here.

John’s subjective conclusion: feed a vegan animal food, they will get sick. Feed an animal eater some plant food, they will get sick.

Before I finish, I want to mention that endotoxins ar by no means the only sources of inflammation. Sugars, especially fructose are known to oxidize tissue through glycation, AGEs and RAGEs. But these can also be made through burning meat. And then there’s fat. Did you know that if that bottle of canola oil wasn’t deodorized, you wouldn’t be able to go near it because of the odor? PUFAs are extremely oxidized when you buy them. Why do we refine wheat? We don’t refine it for better taste. We refine it to remove the fat content. Wheat contain PUFAs, and if it is stone ground, it goes bad very quickly. Industry developed grain rollers to remove the natural fats so that wheat wouldn’t go bad. The whiteness was a bi-product.

We do not know where the trail leads, and if you don’t admit that, don’t even bother commenting here. We do not yet understand the mechanisms behind modern diseases, and we need to know. Perhaps both Vegans and Paleos are right. Perhaps it is the mixture that kills, the mixed, balanced diet our governments push on us as healthy.