Seth's Blog

David Cramer left the following comment here:

Since you started posting these, I’ve been taking D3 in the mornings and notice that I wake up much more easily. I started with just 400 IU, then increased it to 800 IU. One day I took 1200 IU and woke up at 4:00 AM the next day. I’ve gone back to 800 IU since 4:00 AM seems a bit early. For the past week, I’ve also been giving one of my daughters (11 years old) 400 IU each morning, and she seems easier to wake up in the morning (normally it’s quite difficult.

I asked him for details.

Tell me about yourself.

I’m in my 40s and live in Austin, Texas and have two daughters. I first encountered your work when I read about the SLD in Levitt and Dubner’s blog. I read the pdf of your papers linked from that blog post and tried the SLD with sugar water. At the time, I was at the high end of my ideal weight, but was not motivated by weight as much as curiosity. I found the irony and absurdity of the SLD appealing. I also liked the idea that it could be tested easily and cheaply. I went from ~170 to ~145 lb in couple of months, but really only did SLD for ~3 weeks. I now occasionally have a nose clipped green smoothie in the morning.

How long have you been taking D3 in the morning? What time do you take it?

I started a couple of weeks ago after you started blogging about it. I take it around 7:00 AM. That would normally be about an hours after I wake up.

The most obvious change since you started taking it is that you wake up more easily? How soon did this start after you started the D3?

Yes, that’s the change I notice. It may be improving my sleep quality, but that’s very subjective and not something I track closely anyway. The effect started almost immediately.

Could you describe (a) how easy it was to wake up in the month before you started the D3 and (b) how easy it was to wake up after you started the D3?

I would often set three alarms on my cell phone and return to bed formore sleep after dismissing the first two. After D3, I usually wake up before my alarm and don’t feel the need to go back to sleep (e.g. after going to the bathroom). Post-D3, when I wake up, I’m awake. Previously, I was still very drowsy for some time, even after getting up.

What time do you usually wake up? get out of bed? do you use an alarm clock to wake yourself in the morning?

Usually 6 or 6:30. Occasionally a little earlier if I have an early meeting at work.

Did D3 have any effect on how easily you fall asleep in the evening? On how often you wake up in the middle of the night?

I haven’t noticed any difference in falling asleep. I don’t typically wake up in the middle of the night.

How much sunlight do you get on a typical morning?

Although I live in Texas, I doubt I get much in the morning this time of year. I do bike to work a couple of times a week, but my arms and legs would be covered. I might even wear gloves if it’s cold. I work inside in an office during the day.

What brand of D3 do you use? what form (e.g., gelcap)?

NOW gelcaps.

How can you tell your daughter “seems to find it easier to wake up in the morning”?

She’s a sound sleeper. Normally it requires repeated reminders and threats to get her up. Even after you get her out of bed, she’ll fall back asleep on the couch. With 400 IU, I’m noticing less of that. I plan to up to 800 IU this week to see if there’s a difference.

• Independent discovery of nose-clipping? Nasal soft strips reduce appetite, according to an infomercial.
• Does it matter how you take Vitamin D? A little bit of research.
• Hypercalcemia (too much calcium in the blood) after patient takes 5500 IU/day Vitamin D3 plus 2000 mg/day calcium.
• Fat Chef. A new TV show on the Food Network. Chefs try to lose weight.
• Kickstarter project: Restaurant guide to San Francisco on a map folded in a new way.
• The acne-diet connection. Dermatologists — the supposed experts — continue to say they aren’t connected.

Thanks to Anne Weiss, Phil Alexander and Dave Lull.

Years ago I had lunch with a woman whose father ran a chain of weight-loss clinics. They were very successful and he was often invited to give talks. He never accepted these invitations, his daughter said, because he was seriously overweight — like 300 pounds.

I was reminded of this by Tara Parker-Pope’s recent New York Times Magazine article “The Fat Trap”. Parker-Pope tells us she is “at least 60 pounds” overweight, a bit of brave honesty for which I give her credit. I give her less credit for unskeptically quoting expert after expert — her article is essentially a review of expert opinion. If these experts are as wonderful and accurate as she says (by repeating their ideas), why is she 60 pounds overweight?

She never answers this question. She doesn’t even seem to ask it. However, someone else asks it. “The Fat Trap” includes this:

In most modern cultures  . . . to be fat is to be perceived as weak-willed and lazy. It’s also just embarrassing. Once, at a party, I met a well-respected writer who knew my work as a health writer. “You’re not at all what I expected,” she said, eyes widening. The man I was dating, perhaps trying to help, finished the thought. “You thought she’d be thinner, right?” he said. I wanted to disappear, but the woman was gracious. “No,” she said, casting a glare at the man and reaching to warmly shake my hand. “I thought you’d be older.”

I already knew it was “just embarrassing” to be fat. What’s interesting is that the story that follows this unremarkable idea doesn’t support it.  Her date wasn’t saying she’s fat. Sixty pounds overweight is not surprisingly fat. The “well-respected writer” can’t possibly have been surprised simply by that. Her date knows this. He’s bringing up something that puzzles him (“if you know so much about health, why are you fat?”), a reasonable question. By “you thought she’d be thinner, right?” he means “you thought, because of her job, she’d be thinner, right?” Parker-Pope and her editor don’t notice this.

Parker-Pope continued to reshape reality in an interview she gave, which included the following:

Q. What were your hopes in writing “The Fat Trap”?
A. My hope was that people would leave the article feeling informed and empowered. . . . [I got the story idea talking] with Dr. Michael Rosenbaum at Columbia about the science of weight loss. . . .  [He told me what dieters already know:] that most people who are fat, are going to stay fat. . . . The truth is: Once you’ve gained weight, it’s really, really hard for most people to lose weight and keep it off.

Is she sure this “truth” is empowering? To me it sounds discouraging.

The speed of the obesity epidemic — 30 years ago, Americans were much thinner — implies that the obesity epidemic has an environmental cause. Genes don’t change that fast. Something about the environment — something that controls weight — has changed. Not exercise. Thirty years ago, Americans probably exercised less than now. It is likely that something they ate kept them thin, without trying. Parker-Pope fails to understand this. Or at least failed to ask the experts she spoke to about it. What about the environment has changed? she should have asked. If I were her, I’d be angry. The obesity epidemic is 30 years old! Thirty f—ing years! Why is it taking so long to figure out the cause?

The length of the obesity epidemic reflects research failure. Against her own self-interest, she doesn’t grasp this. At the end of “The Fat Trap”, like a brainwashing victim,  she says:

I do, ultimately, blame myself for allowing my weight to get out of control.

I disagree. She should not blame herself for not knowing how to stay thin — hardly anyone knows. No, her failure is journalistic: (a) not grasping that the obesity epidemic must be due to changes in what we eat (lots of people understand this), (b) not grasping this means there must be a way to be almost effortlessly thin (in the 1970s  people were much thinner with little effort), and, above all, (c) not confronting the experts she interviews. Her insensitive date spoke an uncomfortable truth. Now she is failing to ask uncomfortable questions (why is it taking so long?) Much worse.

My theory of weight control says the crucial environmental change that caused the obesity epidemic was increased consumption of foods that produce very strong (= very fattening) smell-calorie associations. To produce a very strong smell-calorie association, a food must (a) have a strong smell (a strong “flavor”), (b) have quickly digested calories (e.g., a high glycemic index), and (c) have exactly the same smell each time. All three features, especially the third, are much more true of factory food, fast food, and junk food than of handmade food. Typical food processing almost always increases flavor (e.g., add spices) and speeds digestion (e.g., cooking). Factory and chain restaurant food processing produces much less variable flavor than ordinary human food processing. Exactly when the obesity epidemic started, there was a big shift toward factory and chain restaurant food. One reason was microwave ovens. Microwave entrees taste exactly the same each time. Another reason was an increase in eating at chain restaurants. The Shangri-La Diet goes into more detail.

At the end of “The Fat Trap” is this:

All the evidence suggests that it’s going to be very, very difficult for me to reduce my weight permanently.

No, not all the evidence. Alex Chernavsky used the Shangri-La Diet to lose 25 pounds and has kept it off easily and apparently permanently.

Alex Chernavsky, who often comments here, has updated his Shangri-La Diet (SLD) page. It now shows his weight over four years: two years before he started SLD and two years that he has been doing it.

Before he started SLD he was slowly gaining weight. After he started SLD, he went from 220 pounds (BMI = 32) to 193 pounds. He slowly gained a few pounds. Then (on my advice) he added a tablespoon of nose-clipped coconut butter and the steady climb stopped. Ffor about nine months has been steady at 195  pounds (BMI = 28). In other words, there is no sign that he is regaining the lost weight.

Because Alex has added a lot of omega-3 to his diet (via flaxseed oil), I’m sure his health has improved in other ways. Because he is a vegan, he had no interest in a conventional (Atkins) low-carb diet.

Alex reminded me that a doctor named Quigley left the following comment:

I’ve tried to find data that your diet works for SUSTAINED weight reduction in a study that would be applicable to a generalizable population. As you know, temporary weight loss is relatively easy. Sustained weight loss (wt loss > 2 yrs), is hard. If your diet can do it, I’d prescribe it every day.

 

• Interview with me on Jimmy Moore’s Livin’ La Vida Locarb
• This article about natto helped its author win a prize for best newspaper food column
• great QS talk about self-measurement by John Sumser. “It all started when I quit smoking. Bad idea. Since I quit smoking in 2004, every quarter for 7 years it has rained shit on me.”
• In a QS talk, I compare the Quantified Self movement and the paleo movement.
• Chinese high-school students in America: Not what was promised. Lack of “rigor” has benefits, as I have blogged: “Dismayed by the school’s [poor] college placement record, Chen considered transferring. Instead, he began to enjoy himself. Because his courses were undemanding, he had time for friends and outside interests. He took four Advanced Placement tests on his own.“I’ve developed my personality a lot,” Chen said. “Everything turned out for the best.””
• If you read The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, a pro-vegetarian book, you may remember the big role played by some casein experiments with rats. Rats that ate a low-casein (= low animal-protein) diet were supposedly in better health than rats that ate a high-casein (= high animal-protein) diet. In this article Chris Masterjohn shows how misleading that was. “One thing is certain: low-protein diets depressed normal growth, increased the susceptibility to many toxins, killed toxin-exposed animals earlier, induced fatty liver, and increased the development of pre-cancerous lesions when fed during the initiation period of chemical carcinogenesis.”

Thanks to Janet Chang.