Seven Nutrition Mistakes: What You Can Do to Correct Them

Using the Seven Nutrition Mistakes Below, Let’s Look at What You Can Do to Correct These

1. Everybody is Using Fish Oil also Known as Omega 3 Fatty Acids

If you’re going to use essential fatty acid supplements, then focus on Omega 6s.

The best sources for these are either borage oil or evening primrose oil (EPO). The first conversion step for the 6s is to gamma linolenic acid (GLA). This is the active ingredient. Borage oil has a lot of this.

I don’t even think one has to use Omega 3s, but if you do, the 6/3 ratio should be between 3/1 and 9/1.

2. Many Supplement with Zinc

Use a supplement that has no more than 15 milligrams of elemental zinc as you can take too much zinc AND too much in respect to copper. Keep the ratio of zinc to copper 10/1 or less. Using 15 milligrams of zinc as an example, then use 2 milligrams of copper.

3. Mineral Imbalances

Mineral supplementation is more important than vitamin use. The best source of minerals is chelated minerals — this is what I use in my product. You need the right amount and the absorption rate should be high.

Most sources are poorly absorbed. Using calcium as an example, calcium carbonate absorbs only about 10%, and this source is the one from the highly marketed coral calcium.

The government Recommended Dietary Allowances for minerals are pretty good so use them as a guideline.

4. Shotgun Approach

A dash of this and a dash of that. Wanna know what you need? Read the book I wrote on nutrition supplements. I spell it all out in there.

5. Using Supplements as Drugs

Supplements are not drugs and disease nowadays rarely arises from nutrient deficiencies. By following this attitude, you’ll be driven to make mistake #4.

6. People are Missing Out on Energy Medicine Because It’s Time Has Not Come

This is a tough one. The most popular energy medicine is homeopathy but the practice of it is out of touch so it’ll be tough to get that done correctly. Also, few people have the training or background to analyze what they hear or read. That’s why people consult with me, so I can take them by the hand.

There are many good companies who make excellent homeopathic combination products. This is a good way to start using the products. Many health food stores and drug stores sell these products so they are easy to get. They are labelled well and the indications are listed on the bottle such as sinus drops, headache drops, and intestinal drops.

Vibrational Medicine by Richard Gerber and a book called The Field by Lynne McTaggart are good ways to begin your studies in this area. Also, rent a movie called What the Bleep Do We Know. This stuff is coming out but we’re still decades before there will be much use of it on a large scale.

It just takes forever for things to reach take-off.

7. Continuing to Consume a Low-Fat Diet

This digs into so much that is wrong with many belief systems and the way our “experts” guide us. Few people read as deeply as they should and the medical, government, and university experts bought into low-fat and that shut-down rational thinking.

Studies continued to go on and low-fat can now be considered a dangerous diet because of glycation.

Low-carbohydrate is the diet of choice and just not for weight control.

Just saw an editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer and the journalist rips Obama as a bad example because he’s eating burgers at Five Guys. What’s the implication? Beef and meat are bad for us.

Just a little bit of  research will uncover that what this nation believes about meat and beef is wrong. There’s no proof that meat and beef are bad. And in fact, if followed as part of a low-carb diet, then eating beef and meat is the healthiest diet for us.

But no, he chose not to do the research. There’s plenty of writing on this site to cover all that.

So, what does he do that’s so healthy? He eats M&Ms. Talk about insane. Glycation. And cholesterol. Do you know the precursor for cholesterol synthesis? Glucose from carbohydrates.

Everyone thinks it comes from fat. Wrong.

Let’s start by getting some of the basics right.

Glycation: the Cause of Most Degenerative Diseases

Glycation is a Major Killer

Harman’s Free Radical Theory of Aging was the early belief as to the causes of aging.

But the newest theory presented in the mid-1980’s was Dr. Anthony Cerami’s Theory on Glycated Proteins and their effect on aging.

Diabetes is a model of rapid aging. The normal aging process that occurs in non-diabetics accelerates when a person is diabetic. Dr. Cerami focused his initial work on this disease.

Few People Have Heard Anything About Gycation

Dr. Cerami wrote:

“As people age, their cells and tissues change in ways that lead to the body’s decline and death. The cells become less efficient and less able to replace damaged materials.

At the same time, tissues stiffen. For example, the lungs and the heart muscle expand less successfully, the blood vessels become increasingly rigid and the ligaments and tendons tighten.

Older people are more likely to develop cataracts, atherosclerosis, and cancer, among other disorders.

Few investigators would attribute such diverse effects to a single cause.”

It’s Only Recently that the Hazardous Biological Effects of Glycation Have Been Understood

Food chemists from 100 years ago understood the process by which glucose binds to proteins, but biologists were unaware of this process and how it would contribute to disease development.

The chemical reaction was known as the Maillard or browning reaction, the same way meat browns when cooked.

• glycated proteins cause the vast majority of degenerative diseases
• glucose or blood sugar is the offending agent
• diets high in carbohydrates are dangerous
• glucose from carbohydrates binds to tissue proteins, gluing them together
• glucose binds non-enzymatically in a hap-hazard way
• one glycated protein binds to the one next to it and a chain reaction forms

Glucose Also Binds to RNA/DNA, Your Organs, and Blood Vessels

We are all made of proteins that provide our structure and glucose attacks all of them: brain, skin, eyes, organs; everything.

The Medical Establishment is hardly aware of this condition. Patients are encouraged to eat carbohydrates that yield glucose upon digestion. Talk about a dangerous way to eat. Eat fat and reduce carbohydrates.

The focus is still on fat. Fat was never the problem, it was always carbohydrates.

Now, the degenerative diseases are increasing exponentially with the rise in carbohydrate intake.

• arthritis
• heart disease
• genetic problems
• diabetes
• heart and blood vessels
• repair and maintenance mechanisms wear and tear
• eyes become damaged
• skin loses its elasticity
• brain tissue deteriorates
• the list of problems caused by glycation is very long and scary

You Can Avoid Glycation by Consuming a Low- or Carbohydrate-Restricted Diet

Thousands of studies prove that glucose isn’t the inert, non-reactive, non-dangerous substance that most biologists believed it was for the last century.

We consume lots of glucose and we’re constantly building the deadly, irreversible glycated protiens driving us to premature disease and death.
This data shows that glucose and glucose-derived glycated proteins are involved in and speed-up the aging process in all individuals.

Glycation is the main reason that I advocate a low- or restricted-carbohydrate diet.

It Makes NO Difference if the Carbs are Processed, Such as White Flour, or Unprocessed Foods Such as Whole Grains

All carbs digest to glucose and fructose, or fruit sugar, is more dangerous than glucose.
You should reduce your carbohydrate intake to maintain good health and slow the aging process.

My books describe glycation in detail and outline the hazards of carbohydrates. They also show how to correctly follow a low-carb diet. The popular Atkins’s program is full of flaws — learn how to eat healthy, stay away from dietetic and medical advice about what to eat. They’ll still living as if it’s the early twentieth century.

Dr. Atkins’s Low-Carb Plan Has Many Problems

Serious Flaws in the Design of the Atkins’s Low-Carb Diet Sabotage Unwitting Dieters

If you have heart trouble go to a cardiologist. If you need dietary info go to a nutritional biochemist who has personal experience in being overweight and solving the problem. Atkins was a cardiologist.

Atkins’s low-carb plan claimed that carbohydrates were the primary cause of overweight, and relegated calorie control to the trashbin:

• this mistake led to a flawed design from the top down
• the next problem was that Atkins had no idea how the body processes food as fuel
• it was impossible at this point to create an effective weight loss program

The First Major Blunder was Atkins Low-Carb “Induction Phase”

In the Induction Phase of Atkins’s low-carb plan, one reduces carbohydrates to about 20 grams per day. Why is this a major mistake?

Your body has two different enzyme systems for processing fuel: one for processing fat and one for processing carbohydrates. And, our bodies are very efficient and don’t keep things around that we’re not using: if you’re eating lots of carbohydrates, the enzymes that process them increase, and the ones that process fat decrease.

Most people eat between 200-300 grams of carbohydrate each day. When you drop from that to 20 grams using Atkins’s low-carb, you must burn fat for fuel. And there’s plenty around: fat on your body and now fat from your diet.

But, the enzymes for processing fat are in shutdown mode because there was no reason for your cells to keep them fully active because you were forcing the body to burn carbs just because of the vast number you were consuming.

Now, you go from plenty of fuel to almost none. The fat IS there but you just can’t process it.

What happens next gave the naysayers all the fire-power they needed to condemn the Atkins’s low-carb diet:

• nausea
• headaches
• excessive fatigue
• bad breath
• mental confusion
• lack of zest for living
• rapid ketosis develops (more on this later)
   

Atkins’s Low-Carb Induction Phase is Survived Only by the Hardiest Individuals

When I first did Atkins’s low-carb diet, many, many years ago, I promptly gained 5 pounds. You don’t tell a former football lineman that he can eat all the meat he wants because he’ll do it!

So, that’s how it plays out: some gain weight on Atkins’s low-carb plan, some (5-10%) lose lots of weight — more than 40 pounds — some lose 10-20 pounds, most (who do actually lose) lose 5-10 pounds and then hit the wall.

How did Atkins address weight loss plateaus? He had you cut your carbs by 5 gram increments until, in theory, you started to lose again. Rarely happened.

Of course, since carbs do not control weight and calories do, this plan could not possibly work. Few can tolerate living on less than 30 grams of carb per day.

Easy to give up on Atkins’s diet at that point.

Ketosis: Atkins’s Miracle for Slimness

When I did my PhD, I didn’t know much about ketones. If I had it would have made my work that much better.

I showed that exercising rats who had been administered estrogen switched to fat fuel as a source of energy, preferring it over carbohydrates. My work was published in the Journal of American Physiology. If I had known about ketones, I’m sure I would have found that they were the preferred fuel.

Ketones form during:

• starvation
• eating a low-carb diet
• with estrogen administration
• each condition lowers insulin which controls the release of fat from fat cells: low insulin, fat releases; increased insulin causes both fat and carbohydrates (converted to fat) to be stored in the fat cell

The production of ketones is one of the primary negatives of this diet as claimed by the medical Establishment.

• ketones were first discovered in the urine of diabetics
• that led the medical Establishment to believe ketosis was very bad
• but there’s physiological ketosis and pathological ketosis — one normal and one a disease
• using ketone sticks to test the urinary level is one way to determine ketosis

Ketones are a form of fat fuel. As the fat cell releases fat, it travels to the liver where it’s repackaged into a four carbon compound called a ketone body. This is released to the blood and becomes the primary fuel of all the tissues of the body including your brain and nerves.

(Atkins was unaware of much of this as I found out in 1989 when I was on his NY radio show as a guest. He took me to dinner and ate both his potato AND mine, sorta’ fell off the pedestal.)

Ketosis is a good thing because now you can begin to live off your own body fat and, MOST IMPORTANT, not experience hunger. So, ketosis is good.

How did Atkins mess it up? It takes time for your body to build up the enzymes to process ketones, at least 2-4 weeks. When they’re fully flowered, you start burning all the ketones for fuel and there are none left to spill over into your urine.

You can see now why the Atkins’s low-carb Induction Phase is such a disaster: can’t cut your carbs that hard without dys-regulating many processes. You can survive it, but it’s not easy, particularly when you have no idea what to expect (Atkins doesn’t tell his readers any of this).

So, when you quit losing weight, Atkins’s low-carb plan has you cut more carbs to get back into ketosis (ketones in the urine is how he measures it). But few will spill because they’re burning them as fuel. You cut carbs, as he says, but you’ll still stay stalled in your weight loss efforts.

What do you do? Quit the diet in utter frustation.

Atkins was right to try to create ketosis, but he just didn’t know how to do it correctly. The medical boys were wrong to claim ketosis was a bad thing. Be very careful when medical doctors try to do nutritional biochemistry.

Now that Atkins is Dead, What Happened to His Plan?

Since Atkins’s death the low-carb program has become very popular. And, most follow his plan. Those who took over his company actually published a new book using his plan in its entirety. They have no clue about its extensive flaws.

The other problem is that they have embraced the Glycemic Index or the “Good Carb/Bad Carb” philosophy, integrating it into the overall plan. So now, the diet goes from bad to worse.

Hey, I suffered through a five pound weight gain on Atkins’s low-carb when all I wanted to do was lose some weight.

It took several years for me to work out the issues, but when I finally understood the supremacy of calories and understood the dynamics of “regulation of metabolism” and issues related to enzyme function and adaptation, I was able to work out a plan based on how our body actually works.

Out the door went speculation and belief systems — I developed it based on hard science. My little 52-page book, The Low-Carb Diet: How to Do It Right is a comprehensive primer on doing this diet the right way.