January 2011 Archives

You've probably seen this xkcd about coercing positive spammer behavior. Lately, it seems that this is starting to happen on my blog, and unfortunately it's not as rosy as xkcd hoped. I've gotten a surge of spammy comments linking to the usual weight-loss and drug sites, but the actual comments are pretty on-point:

• "Very impressive. It is not look like an amateur design. So, what about the expert's design. I'm sure it will be more wonderful." - comment on White House Photoshop Disaster
• "The main problem I see when people try to diet is that they try to change their entire diet. It seems the first step people can take that is simple is just to control portions. Just because you order the BigMac meal doesn't mean you have to eat every bite of it." - comment on How I Ate One Million Good Calories and Discovered My Personal Fountain of Youth

... and so on. They're inane comments, but if it weren't for the spammy links in the metadata, as a moderator I wouldn't really have any complaint about them.

I have several theories how this is happening.

• The spammer has developed a clever site that gives unwitting people incentives to write comments on blog posts (e.g., in exchange for seeing another porn image), and then uses their responses to post the spam links on my site (and thousands of other sites like mine). This is just another variation on an old hack that breaks CAPTCHAs.
• The spammer has developed a Markov text generator that steals comments from other, similar articles and adapts them. I don't think this is the case because I've searched for snippets of the comment text on the web and haven't found anything.
• (Shudder) The spammer is paying or otherwise coercing real, English-speaking humans to read articles and comment on them. I don't believe this could possibly be cost-effective.

No matter what the cause, I've switched comments to be quarantined by default.

It's been about a year since I read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes and decided to follow its advice. What a year it's been! I've eaten well. I've never been hungry. I'm strong and alert. And measurable results? Look at 'em:

• My weight is stable. As of this morning, I am within 2% of my lowest weight since freshman year of high school. To reiterate: I weigh the same as I did when I was 14.
• My lipid profile is amazing. Good cholesterol levels are high, bad ones are low, triglycerides are half the recommended limit of 150, and all the ratios are way better than recommended. They're better than the earliest personal measurement I have, which is from age 24.
• My blood glucose is fine. Although I haven't measured it for about four months, it has always been on the high range of normal for fasting, random, and GTT. I have no reason to expect that they've changed.
• My liver is in great shape. In 2009, several scans of my abdomen suggested fatty liver, which meant I likely had non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, or NAFLD. Another scan in October 2010 showed that my liver had returned to normal.
• My energy level is incredible. In the twelve months of 2010, I designed, implemented, and shipped two iPhone apps, with a major update (an entire frickin' spaceship store) to one of them; as a contractor, I shipped another substantial e-commerce mobile application; I wrote a Django-based social networking prototype, learning a lot of Python and JQuery along the way; I got my pilot license current again; and I walked my kids 1.5 miles to school every morning.

Now, I don't have hard pre-diet data to possibly show any improvement correlated with my diet changes. But I feel better than I've felt in years, and because nothing else changed, I know it's because I'm eating better.

What's my secret? It's simple: avoid refined carbohydrates and sugar. Ignore everything else about food -- calories don't matter, sodium doesn't matter, fat doesn't matter. Carbs (including sugar) raise blood glucose levels, which elevate triglyceride and insulin levels and eventually cause so-called "diseases of civilization" such as diabetes, heart problems, obesity, and even cancer and Alzheimer's. Avoid carbs and you will probably avoid these diseases, too.

I said my secret was simple. But that doesn't mean it was easy, too. Just about everything in a typical American diet is full of sugar and refined carbohydrates. For example:

• Flour. That's bread, pizza, pasta, lots of soups, croutons, sandwiches, tortillas, wraps, anything with a bun, almost anything deep-fried (because it's usually battered or breaded, too)....
• Rice. Combined with the flour/sugar rules, Chinese food is a thing of the past, as well as sushi.
• Sugar, corn syrup, honey, agave, etc. Besides the obvious pastries and candy, this means soda, anything at Starbucks that costs more than $2.00, any salad dressing with a hint of sweetness, and (surprisingly) a whole lot of foods that come in a box.

So what's left to eat? Mmmmm, lots!

• All the eggs you want. Fortunately there isn't any link between dietary cholesterol and cholesterol levels in the blood, so eggs are pretty much the perfect food.
• All the meat and fish you want, especially including bacon. The "saturated fat is bad" claim is, to put it delicately, a total lie. (Read GCBC for the sad story that led to this common belief.) In 'N' Out "Protein Style" Double-Doubles are perfect, as is salmon with pesto butter.
• Nuts. Raw almonds and pecans are my favorite snack.
• Cheese and milk. These dairy products actually aren't zero-carb, but getting whole milk and delicious high-fat cheese will slow the absorption and keep blood glucose from spiking.
• Low-carb tortillas are a lifesaver as a bread substitute. Mine are 6 grams net carbs after subtracting all the carbs from dietary fiber.
• At a soup & salad bar, get the chicken soup (no noodles), then head over to the baked potato bar and load up the soup with sour cream, grated cheese, bacon bits, and green onions. So good, and so good for you.
• Salads! Just make sure you avoid high-carb vegetables such as carrots, corn, potatoes, raisins, and most beans. A good rule of thumb is if the vegetable tastes sweet or starchy, then it has a high glycemic index, which is bad. Go for ranch dressing or oil & vinegar. No croutons!
• If you're ever in a situation as a guest at a restaurant or home where the only choices include refined carbohydrates, eat your food with oil and protein! That means extra butter and sauce on your pasta, with a couple extra meatballs. If you can't avoid carbs, at least slow them down.

Why did I embark on this dietary quest? Personal health reasons that I don't want to get into publicly, but let's just say that I am not a fan of angiogenesis. And now that I've tried it for a year, I can't imagine going back to my lethargic, occasionally overweight self. Even for pizza.

Interested? First, read the book. You'll be surprised, perhaps a little put-out at media and government portrayal of healthy habits, and especially motivated to fix your diet. Get through the few days of low-carb induction. And if you make it, you'll never be hungry, you'll be able to eat as much as you want, you'll be healthier than you've ever been, and you'll accomplish more at work and in life than thought you could. Start today!

• 12 Easily Persuaded Men
• A Streetcar Named The Bus
• A Tale Of No Cities
• Apollo 12: Houston, We Have A Problem Figuring Out The Coffee Maker
• Back To The Present
• Batman Naps
• Blair's Witch Project
• Cremating Miss Daisy
• Die Immediately
• Drafting Private Ryan's Mom
• Easy Insurance Rider
• Edward Hands
• Friday The 6th
• Gone in 60 Minutes
• Horton Hears A Honk From His Carpool
• How To Train Your Dragon Dictation
• Ironing Man
• Jaw
• Kramer vs. Kramer's Marriage Counselor's Billing Department
• Man On Wire With Parachute
• Mosquito-Man
• Pirates Of The Caribbean-Themed Bar Mitzvah
• Preserved In Translation
• Pulp Tweet
• Raiders Of The Last Beer
• Reason With Bill: Vol. 1
• Schindler's Evite
• Scott Pilgrim vs. That Flu Bug That's Been Going Around At Work
• Several Weeks After The Devil Knows You're Dead
• Slumdog Disqualified During Audition
• The Accidental Modestly Successful Entrepreneurs
• The Blair Witch Costume
• The Bridges of Madison's Mouth
• The Day The Earth Stood Normally
• The Ethernet Network
• The Hurt Locket
• The Rapidly Ending Story
• The Shawshank Acceptance
• The Shawshank Acquittal
• The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre County Museum
• WALL-E Service Pack 2 (Improved Garbage Collection)
• Who Washed The Electric Car?
• Zack and Miri Make A Latte
• Zombielawn

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