Hi, My Name Is Markus, And I Am An Addict.....

How sugar addictions kept us alive and kills us now

Science and Nutrition

True. We are advised by toddlers.

I would say, forget science when it comes to diet. One of the lovely and bright nutritionists I know turns into a total idiot when he starts talking about the “science of food.” (e.g. drinking raw milk is very bad for you) Some of the diet apostles are more religious than the pope and more radical than Osama bin Laden.

Like medicine, god, and sex - diet is too complex for science. Science is great for relatively simple problems - like building and launching a space shuttle - but the complexity of our bodies is just another dimension altogether. Take an intentional LSD trip and you know what I mean.

I know that I know nothing

Socrates

It is called the Socratic paradox. That almost got him killed.

I am wiser than this human being. For probably neither of us knows anything noble and good, but he supposes he knows something when he does not know, while I, just as I do not know, do not even suppose that I do.

Socrates

A kind of long-winded way to proclaim: I am aware of my ignorance. You, idiots, are not. That actually got him killed.

Fun fact: Socrates also played soccer for Brazil in a later reincarnation. where, once again, made the others look like idiots.

Compare that to the Fauci paradox

I don’t know shit but I tell everyone that I do

Fauci paradox

What wasn’t passed on by Plato (Socrates couldn't be bothered to write things down he didn’t know - Plato did it for him) was that he uttered these words to three contemporary people named Faucilus, Birxilus, and Walenskystupidus and that got him killed in the end.

But Socrates was so chilled that he turned his slowish dying (he drank the poisonous substance while surrounded by his loyal disciples) into a fascinating lecture about the nature of consciousness - while he was dying. How cool is that? And we still think the human race evolved since then.

Isn’t it amazing how our public health care, guided by our all-knowing scientists improved public health? What is the obesity rate again? How high was it thirty years ago?

That’s why we are the sickest people in the history of mankind. Science screwed it all up. The greedy people, actually. They pay the scientists to screw it up so they can get rich. Many scientists do know that they don’t know but do it anyway. It just pays so well.

Seriously, science is too petty and dumb for life. It is a reductionistic mechanistic tool that will never unearth the insane complexity and interrelationship of life.

The whole universe creates the next moment

Nisargadatta Maharaj

Try to put that into your spreadsheet.

Science is great for building phones though. And other dead technical things. It has its place but the dog left the kennel a long time ago and is roaming the streets now, multiplying rapidly, and becoming a real nuisance sticking its nose into stuff it doesn’t understand and never will. Like diet.

Immense harm was done when scientific diet recommendations were turned into public health recommendations. The old food pyramid is a good example of that. A diet is highly individual and always temporary. It's not a fixed thing. What our body needs on a given day depends on dozens, if not hundreds of different factors. A fixed, inflexible diet will kill you eventually. It has to stay fluid. Which is a complicated thing for a logical brain. That’s why we also have intuition. For the complicated stuff.

Once upon a time, we had the perfect adviser for what to eat every day: Our healthy appetite. That was before marketing was invented. And before food became a “consumer product” companies could get stinking rich on. People just went to the food market in the village and bought natural untempered food. No obesity then.

They looked at the different foods available and unconsciously checked in with their bodies and appetite, and voila, bought what their bodies needed that day. And they didn’t read lifestyle magazines, sponsored by food companies, that tell them what they need to eat to be fit and healthy.

Those people who are still tuned into their bodies, without being side-tracked and confused by hundreds of opposing opinions about what is best for "them", always find the ideal diet for the day. That's what appetite stands for: It is a sophisticated and yet simple instruction from our body to our brain: Today I am lacking this. Get it for me. It is so clever that it “knows” that this broccoli in front of us has certain chemicals in it that we are currently lacking. It’s marvelous. After all, our bodies are the most sophisticated chemical factories.

Sadly, this doesn't work for most people anymore because clever marketing, greed, and addictive food messed it all up.

Sugary Carbs

One of these addictions, the most powerful one, is sugary carbs. It is amazing the war on drugs doesn't battle processed carbs. If it would, you would kill three problems with one stone: The processed food industry and most of the pharmaceutical and medical industries.

I just learned this morning of a new medication called Ozempic. Apparently, it gives you 5% weight loss courtesy of a range of nasty side effects. But the real winner is pharma because you gain it back as soon you stop it. Another lifelong revenue stream developed by scientists.

Any person taking it should consider this: You take something to take less of something else. How about a shortcut: Take less of something else straight away?

Adding sugary carbs to the list of illegal drugs is appropriate because I bet, they are more addictive than heroin. In contrast, most of the drugs currently on the list, when used wisely, are one of the best medicines available on earth.

Every drug is a medicine. Every medicine is a drug. The difference is in the dose.

Sugary carbs - or more precisely - processed carbs are probably the biggest killers on earth. Combine that with synthetic rancid vegetable oils and you have the cause for most diseases that plague the modern man: From heart disease to cancers to mental diseases. That stuff is not natural. We are not meant to eat it.

Most people get that with machines. They wouldn’t put coca-cola or orange juice in their car to replace petrol. It wouldn’t drive and probably kill the motor. But they put it in their bodies. Our bodies are highly complex organisms that developed in synchrony with our natural environment over millions of years. I never heard of rivers of coca cola or lakes of red bull.

Partying Neanderthalers

Unlike today, carbs were difficult to get for our ancestors. Their diet was much higher in protein and fats. They mostly got carbs through berries (which are the lowest carb fruits you can get) and ripe fruit from wild fruit trees and honey. (Of course, it was more complex than that but I am not writing a scientific paper here).

So when the tribe found ripe fruit or honey, they binged on it. (Some indigenous African people still risk their lives harvesting honey from beehives on 40 m high trees. - that’s how much they crave it). But the good taste is just the bait. Those carbs were essential for our survival.

Sugary carbs from ripe fruit and honey are incredibly dense in energy compared to fats and proteins. We need to eat very little to meet our energy requirements for the day. But we don't stop after eating just a little. Something within always seems to make us eat more than we need. We can’t stop. It’s so good. It’s addictive. It is totally addictive. And it needed to be super addictive. Otherwise, we all would have been dead a long time ago. It is “save-me-from-starvation-addictive.”

Our ancestors had no supermarkets or fridges. They didn't need them. Our bodies developed this amazing ability to store food within ourselves. Our bodies keep eating carbs, even after we are full and transform them into body fat.

So the tribe would bunker down around the fruit trees and binge for days, if not weeks, and gain many kilos of body fat. Sometimes they got lucky and the fruit was already fermented and alcoholic and they got drunk on top of it. Monkeys in Africa still do that. Some move on to other alcoholic beverages.

When all fruit was gobbled up, they would move on but it could be weeks before they would find more carbs. They sourced proteins and fats from animals, seafood, nuts, etc. but they needed carbs to survive, especially their brains.

Then our bodies developed this other fantastic ability. When carbs run out in the food supply, the stored fat is transformed into ketones and our brain and body can use these ketones instead of carbs. Without that mechanism, we very likely would be extinct.

Burn that fat, fat baby

All good and well. Fast forward to modern times with supermarkets around every corner and fridges everywhere. We mastered the widespread production of an abundance of food high in carbs. So much food energy. So addictive.

What didn't change, of course, is the process of turning carbs into body fat. It would be very dangerous to drop that mechanism from a biological perspective. But what many people have lost - partly or fully - is the ability to use ketosis, and burn up the fat. Use it or lose it, applies.

I used to run off-road half marathons through hilly and challenging terrain. It took me around two hours to finish most races. I usually finished within the top twenty and cheered on the other runners who came in after me. The fastest runners only carried minimal drinks and food. I used a 250ml bottle and one gel, just as a backup.

The slower runners carried liters of sugary drinks in their camelbacks and had food belts full of gels. The top runners were excellent fat burners. The slower ones relied heavily on sports nutrition to make it through.

But the sports nutrition industry makes sure the majority of runners believe they need these drinks. And a vicious cycle begins. Some of my cycling mates did ten-hour training weeks and still could not lose their belly fat because of sports drinks. Tooth decay and diabetes are other side effects. I ever only used water or green tea for training and minimal sugar for competition.

I believe, that the ability to quickly go into a fat-burning state will slowly diminish for people who never burn fat but, instead take some sugary food as soon they feel hungry and weak. That is exactly what fasting does and that's why fasting has been a health remedy for millennia. Periodic fasting is an important part of Christian and Muslim religious practice. There is great wisdom in it.

We are all naturally selected sugar addicts

Judy has some good resources in this article

To recap, our addiction to carbs is natural and has a very important purpose. Eating more carbs than we need and transforming them into fat was essential for our survival.

Many overweight people beat themselves up because they can't stop eating sweeties. The guilt trip can re-enforce the addictive behavior. Now, that we know the above, we can relax. We can truly face the fact that we are all naturally selected carb addicts. How does that help?

The AA addiction groups are still one of the most successful methods to beat addiction in the world. A key step in the AA model is to take responsibility for our addiction and acknowledge that we are addicts. "Hi everyone, my name is ……………. and I am a carb addict."

And, in principle, that is a good thing and it is in our nature. We don't have to beat ourselves up ever again. Does that mean we can just binge guilt-free now?

Of course not because it will kill us. It will kill us before the next famine because of obesity. But I also believe it will kill us during the next famine. We are mistaken if we think those 20kgs of stored fat give us an advantage over the skinny guys. We have the fat storage but we threw away the keys to the storage. The keys are our ability to transform our fat into ketones.

When I did my research before a ketogenic stint, there were many warnings for obese and diabetic people to rush into a ketogenic diet. It can be dangerous. That’s what I mean when I say we lose the ability to burn fat over time. The good news is that you can get it back. But, as always, do your research. Start slow, first do no harm. Don't push things.

Want a crazy diet?

I love to try new stuff. Once I did a whipped cream diet for a week. Yes, you heard that right. I always loved cream - I have at least 1/4 liter of it every day. And I love whipped cream even more.

Goetz Heine is a very successful German triathlon coach. He came up with that. It’s not mainstream. My mates thought I am mad. He guided me through it from the other side of the world. The rules are very simple: You can eat as much whipped cream as you like. You can add non-sugary spices like cinnamon or chili to it if you like, but you don’t eat anything else. My dietician friend wanted to have me consigned to the psych unit.

No whipped cream diet for you, buddy

I was training for a big bicycle race at the time.

I plunged into deep ketosis in no time. I lost about four kilos in one week on an already slim frame. But weight loss, while always handy as a cyclist, wasn’t the main reason. Performance was.

It started easy and got very hard to do at the end. But performance improved by an amazing 5% two weeks later. One of his professional athletes won several Ironmans doing that. And I still eat lots of cream.

Cutting out processed carbs and adding healthy natural fats and proteins is just one example of dealing with our sugar addictions.

For some people, realizing that they are sugar addicts is no surprise. Most know that. But maybe they didn’t know that this is not only normal but essential for us to survive. This can be a huge relief to know. They are not failures. They do what they are supposed to do: Add fat when carbs are available. This was the right behavior for millions of years and still is with wild animals. So, there is nothing wrong with them. And they are not alone in it.

What’s “wrong” is that we got so rich and lazy that this natural mechanism becomes problematic. And we get deliberately swamped with addictive sugary food everywhere because it sells so well.

Knowing all this can bring on a friendly supervising meta-consciousness that guides our more animalistic parts into consciously choosing healthy natural fats and proteins the next time we go shopping. And there is great news with a more ketogenic diet: You can eat as much as you like.

It is very difficult to overeat on a ketogenic diet. That’s the beauty of it. Because fat and protein are not addictive like carbs, you will automatically stop as soon you are full.

You don’t have to make yourself stop. You are simply full and it is ok. Many people lose weight on a keto diet and are not hungry doing it. And often lose the brain fog that they forgot they had. I was so sharp and switched on during keto.

Which makes total evolutionary sense. After our tribe moved on from their fruit tree binge (with or without a hangover), they didn’t find any food for days. They all switched to keto. Those newly found kilos of extra fat would sustain them for weeks but they needed to hunt again. For that, they needed to be sharp. Ketosis delivered.

Now, before you medical and scientific people come down on me like a swarm of bees and point out the many holes and inaccuracies in my story and cry "this research says this, and that research says that," please don't. But I love to hear about your opinions and thoughts based on personal experiences and what worked and didn’t work for you. I think that can be very helpful to others.

I don't recommend fasting or other things to anyone. I don't recommend anything - full-stop. I just share my personal experiences and opinion. I am not saying this is the truth. I know that I know nothing.

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