Real Food Summit

Lisa A

Everything Matt has said about bingeing and a poor relationship with food resonated with me. I have been overweight since puberty and my whole life I have received the messages that I just needed more self control. This has led me to have a very unhealthy relationship with food including obsession and guilt. Since I have started eating real, whole foods that I have actually cooked in my own kitchen all that has changed. When Matt was talking I realized I haven’t had an obsessive food thought in quite some time. I eat what I need and feel good. I eat less and have far less guilt about what I am eating. Thank you Matt for bringing this to my attention and validating my efforts.

Ivana

Hi Matt,
Really enjoying your balanced, bio-individual and science-based approach to weight loss. I especially like the importance you place on optimizing the metabolism. I work in child health. Can you apply the same principles to children? Would a child’s body temperature also be a good indicator of a sluggish metabolism?

Guest

I can’t answer for Matt, of course, but as a now 52 year old woman I can tell you that I have had a sluggish metabolism and low body temps since I was a kid. My step mother used to put the thermometer back in my mouth at least a couple times, to see if a fever was gone. She ultimately decided it had to be gone b/c the reading was low, I don’t know what it was though. I now think it was (is still) due to not knowing I had celiac disease until very recently. That and a pretty dysfunctional family and the stress of that.

Thanks to what I’m learning on Matt’s website, and eating gluten-free, I have hope I may one day soon have a ‘normal’ body temp and metabolism!

http://primaltoad.com/ Todd Dosenberry

The last 10 minutes of this presentation was the most logical 10 minutes that I have watched during this real food summit.

And guess what? I have watched every second of every presentation.
We truly need to begin focusing on eating real foods. No one is perfect and never will be. Why tell someone what they can’t eat when it’s easier to eat the very foods that you are talking about?If you tell someone they can’t eat bread, pasta ice cream, chocolate, etc. then they will be thinking about these foods because they are disappointed that they can’t eat them. So, they may just eat more.

If you instead just tell them what they can eat – what is truly real and healthy for them – like all kinds of meat, eggs, potatoes, fruit, veggies with butter, etc. then there is a much better chance that they will begin eating these foods and eat less of the other foods.

Absolutely brilliant Matt Stone. Let’s bring this message to the masses.

LivingSuperhuman

I agree Todd. I always try to reshape explaining Paleo so that I’m talking in the positive sense. Saying do this and do that creates a conversation that facilitates a happy conversation. Don’t start the convo by saying, I’m taking away your ice cream! LOL …or beer. People get very emotional about beer.

I also work with little kids pretty often volunteering with tutoring and teaching them how to swim in the summer. I’m constantly reminding myself to correct them with “Do..Do…Do” and not using “Don’t…Don’t…Don’t” Although most of us have grown up to be wise adults, we still learn like we are kids. Don’t just tell us no, guide us to what is right.

Perfection is impossible. Just steadily increase the positive and the negative will have nowhere to go but down.
Hockeylife58

I agree brotha! The way I see it, the world is a war of ideas and it is important to always have an open mind, but not let every new difference of opinion crumble your foundation or else you will lose yourself. RRARF (Matt’s method of eating) is all about lowering food related stress/food and health paralysis. It goes a bit extreme in my opinion though encouraging processed foods for some people. Everything has its place but the point is don’t let food become just another stresser on the body. Orthorexia is just as bad for your mind as SAD is to the body. Balance is always key and in addition to JERF I like to say JLYL. Just Eat Real Food (for physical health) and Just Live Your Life (for mental health), don’t beat yourself up for having a good time
- http://primaltoad.com/ Todd Dosenberry
  
  Exactly. Just live your life! Of course being able to live an awesome life requires awesome health…

Christine Taylor

I would be interested to know your thoughts on the MSG in food, if that could be contributing to the addiction when eating out.

Taniko Kishimoto

I do have a couple questions here — at least a couple presenters have noted that only 3-5% of people who go on diets keep their weight off long term.

How do they determine this? People on diets in clinical studies imposed on them by outside investigators (in order, I’m assuming, to cut down on dietary variables, noble in itself but just curious, but perhaps not in touch with an individual’s own needs, perceived or otherwise)? Or self-reporting, which has statistical as well as honesty issues of its own?

Also, how do they define “long term”?

It does make intrinsic sense to me that people who go on starvation/calorie reduction diets WILL regain that weight — I’m simply asking questions about methodology.

Grace

I also love the idea of having a mindset of ‘nutritional abundance, not deprivation’. Helpful presentation – thanks!

Elaine

Sean, you just asked about what people should do, then listed an assortment of things they might avoid. Your list began, “white sugar, white flour…” This seems to implicate that “whole wheat” flour is superior. With all the commonalities among real food folks, I know there are different beliefs about grains — Jaminet’s complete avoidance of them and Sarah Pope’s belief that they are fine if fermentet.

Can you clarify you position?

thanks

Wade

The portion on weight-loss with real food meshes very well with Stephan Guyenet’s reward/palatability theory on obesity. I would definitely recommend reading the series to get a more complete understanding of the scientific definitions behind “palatability” and “reward.”

Glen Nagy

So its an addiction but you shouldn’t quite cold turkey. Ya that works great for addictions, alcoholics should go to happy hour and drink once a week, addicts should have a little crack and heroin, and cocaine, and fat people should not stop eating cookies cuz its too hard. I think he has it backwards, for some people cutting down on sugar may work, but for the majority of people its easier to stop eating sugar cold turkey, the first few weeks are hard but once your taste buds get used to not eating sugar all the time foods taste sweet that never tasted sweet before. As long as you keep feeding your sugar addiction you will always crave really sweet things.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Che-Patton/100000287946225 Che Patton

When your full on steak, lard fried potatoes, and eggs your not exactly ready for Sugar. But if you are having a sweet craving then it really helps to experience it and notice the difference between that ‘satisfaction’ and the whole meal satisfaction. My husband let go of his sugar cravings little by little, and it worked for us to begin eating whole meals and becoming sustained on those, and naturally letting go of the sugar cravings.

Paleo Pancake

Disappointed after such informative and scientifically sound presentations this week. What Matt’s presentation lacks in science he makes up for in pure gibberish. Where is he getting the research that proves that it’s ok for the body to eat processed foods? Simply because the brain craves it? The brain craves these foods because we’ve programmed it falsely by eating the modern Western “non-real” diet, as each and every other presenter has so beautifully proven. I hope people who are not really trying to get healthy do not take this presentation to heart.

Haglundj

33:31: It’s brilliant to emphasize health instead of only weightloss, thanks.

brenda

Matt, you talked about fixing the Thyroid/Metabolism… My body temp has been 96.8 for many years. was very thin up until I had children… Lost down to 105 about 15 yrs ago now am up to 165 (60 yrs old) and can’t loose any. I eat very healthy and work out at the gym 4 days a week… I have just “chalked it up to post menopause”… How do I FIX my thyroid/metabolism?

LM

I unfortunately started listening to you when you were really exulting the benefits of junk food. I had lost a bunch of weight doing low carb–I still ate a lot of potatoes and fruit, so I wasn’t as low carb as some. But my temps were low–in the low 97s pre ov and the high 97s, occasionally low 98s post ovulation.

Unfortunately, reading what you wrote gave me the excuse to go back and start eating unhealthy food. Now I’ve gained a bunch of weight. My temps are up a bit, but not always 98 when I wake up. I actually feel like crap too! Too some extent I really wish I hadn’t found your site. I know what I eat is my responsibility. Saying that, I really hope you focus more on the food addiction side of things. I’m miserable, fat, and still have food issues. I wish too that I had just listened to intuition which was telling me to move back to a WAP whole foods diet–no restricting, but just more conscientious. I had lost that. So, after being on a restrictive diet, with binges like you described, and losing weight, I feel like I am back where I started which is pretty damn depressing and makes me want to eat ice cream!

Treatlisa

Loved the psychological aspect introduced here. It coincides very nicely with what I have observed with my own food relationship. I noticed (years ago) when I wanted to lose 5 lbs – the deprivation (I thought would help) takes it’s toll and I would gain 5 instead. I am 50 now and agree with your advise of ADDING real food, including animal fats for satiety. It works much better for me than deprivation ever did.

I have so enjoyed this Real Food Summit and have purchased the package to have for sharing and review. Good work, All!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=5027334 Lisa Adele Kurtz

Thank you thank you for addressing the fact that underweight/high metabolism people exist and are interested in eating well too! So many things are always focused on loosing weight only and its refreshing to have a more well rounded perspective.

Jupitermarsapollo

I really liked how Matt talked about the key is to start think about adding nutrional food rather than eliminating “bad” food. Personally my diet was pretty crappy. I would say about 85% junk food (sugar, fried food, fast food, etc) and 15% nutritional food. And I tried and tried to give the bad stuff up. I did the low carb, paleo, eat clean. I could do it for awile, lose some weight, and then I’d binge and it come back. But I’ve lost 20lbs over the last year without dieting, and giving up anything that I desired, rather I did the reverse and added. Specifically these are the rules that I set for myself:

Minimum daily good stuff requirements:
1. Drink 4 bottles of water a day.
2. Eat one fruit a day. (I like apples, oranges, and bannas most)
3. Eat 3 servings of vegetables a day. (usually a salad at lunch, and then vegetables at dinner)
4. Eat at least 2 basic whole food starches (rice, potatoes, breads, pasta, beans)
5. Eat at least 2 portions of protein (meats, eggs, fish, cheese)

After I at least got my minimums of the good stuff, I could eat as much of anything else that I wanted included the bad stuff until I was full.

The really cool thing was that over time I NATURALLY ate less and less junk food. Not no junk food, just less. My diet now has flipped and I eat about 85% nutritious food and 15% junk everyday. And I did it all by reversing my mind set and not depriving myself but instead adding more healthy food.

Renni_G

Matt,
Have you thought about researching parasites? Underweight people that eat alot may have tapeworm. Sometimes all the absortption of the great foods we are learning about will be blocked from parasites. The body temperature segment was interesting. Eliminating the word ‘diet’ and replacing it with ‘lifestyle’ works for me. I did add foods to my diet after reading “The Paleo Solution” by Robb Wolf and that is how I found Underground Wellness. I had not eaten meat or chicken in 5 years and the meat and chicken I ate before that was commercialized as I learned in this JERF summit. However, removing the grains made sense and I eliminated them quickly and saw/felt a dramatic difference. I weaned myself off sugar, mostly chocolate (also bought a darker chocolate) a little slower because I thought I would binge on it if I went cold-turkey. I found the trick was to not get too hungry or I would binge. I still eat chocolate, but much smaller portions satisfy my craving, so some of this thinking is in sync with what you presented. Keeping close to home, not eating out has also worked for me as I can control what is in my pantry. I am going to try Kim Shuette’s tip to eat 1tsp of coconut oil between meals to control cravings. I also was told that celery raises serotonin levels, so I try to snack on that as well. What are your suggestions for healthy choice snack foods to control cravings and improve sleep?