Stevek,
Doctors aren't trained in nutrition. The average medical school in the U.S. provides 4-hours of nutrition training for every 4-years of school. If you want to know about nutrition or what the numbers in a blood test are telling you, see a qualified nutritionist.
The idea that we evolved eating mostly meat is the stuff of 1960s and 1970s Hollywood caveman movies. A quick look at human physiology will reveal that humans don't possess the kind of bodies that true carnivores and omnivores possess, (i.e. canine teeth suitable for holding prey, claws, relatively strong stomach acid, and short, fast digestive systems). We're not natural hunters so before we developed weapons, we had little choice concerning what we had to eat. Natural hunters have natural weapons capable of taking down prey, (teeth, claws and the speed and power to catch and hold prey animals).
If you check any nutritional source you'll find that carbohydrates provide
4 KCals per gram, proteins provide
4 KCals per gram and fat provides
9 KCals per gram. If you want to feel full you have to place a certain mass into your stomach. If you want to lose weight you need to make sure that mass contains fewer calories per gram. Eating to satiety, (feeling full), with fats will put more than twice as many calories into your system. This isn't a good recipe for losing or controlling weight.
Quote: "That kidney thing about meat and protein has not been fact for most people."
Tell me which of these three disorders you're familiar with;
1. Kidney disease/stones
2. Osteoporosis
3. Kwashiokor
Kidney disease and osteoporosis are on the rise in the U.S. and osteoporosis is already at epidemic levels. I'm willing to bet you've never heard of anyone who suffered from Kwashiokor which is caused by a protein deficiency. The other two are caused from protein excess, (not to say that kidney disease doesn't have other causes). Doctors will tell you that osteoporosis is caused by a calcium deficiency despite the fact that people who eat lower protein diets don't suffer from osteoporosis even though they may consume far less calcium.
Nutritionists will tell you that osteoporosis, along with kidney failure, kidney stones and a number of other health problems, are caused by excess protein. Studies have repeatedly shown that calcium suppliments don't help. In EVERY instance, high-protein diets have lead to a negative calcium balance and low-protein diets have lead to a positive calcium balance despite the presence or absence of calcium suppliments.
Please listen closely to what 2LAP is trying to tell you. His advice falls directly in line with some of the most recognized and successful nutritionists in the country. I'm not talking about just financial successes. I'm talking about people who run clinics which are curing the incurable. Doctors and the AMA will tell you that the progression of heart disease can be slowed but not stopped. These nutritionists are reversing heart disease in their patients and they're doing it through reduced fat diets.
I've been reading through your posts and I'm genuinely worried about you. You're on the road to a calamity. I know it's difficult to change ideas concerning diet. I found myself in a position to make my own changes about a decade ago. I didn't want to think badly of what I'd grown up to believe but I started doing some research and found that there really was no option.
When doctors tell you that your cholesterol level is within an average range, what they're telling you is that you have a 1 in 2 chance of dying from a heart attack. That's what having an average cholesterol level means in the U.S. Doctors don't usually worry until after the cholesterol count rises above 200. People are dying of heart attacks at a frightening rate who have cholesterol counts of 160, which is "normal" for Americans.
Carbohydrates don't build up and cause blockage to coronary arteries, fats and cholesterol do.
2LAP knows what he's talking about and I believe he has an honest concern for your welfare. Please, for your own sake, listen to what he's telling you. I've worked heart attack calls as an ambulance attendant. You have to see the fear and foreboding in those eyes to understand. They can feel death overtaking them and there is nothing they can do. They know. You don't want to be the one on the gurney and I can guarantee you, that's where your diet is taking you.
Should I ever have the pleasure of seeing you on a climb I want to drop you because I'm working my butt off to do it, not because you're clutching your chest and gasping for your last breath. Hang in there with us. The world needs more cyclists.
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Truncated list of studies concerning the osteoporosis/protein connection:
"Effect of calcium intake on calcium balance of young men given 500mg calcium daily" - Journal of Nutrition 104:695, 1974
"Urinary calcium and calcium balance in young men as affected by level of protein and phosphorus intake" - Journal of nutrition 111:53, 1981
"Calcium retention of young adult males as affected by levels of protein and calcium intake" - Trans New York Academy of Science, 36:333, 1974
