Letters from a Caveman Part 5: The Shaman

Letters from a Caveman Part 1: Time Travel
Letters from a Caveman Part 2: The Great Food Hoard
Letters from a Caveman Part 3: The Dwelling of the Lost
Letters from a Caveman Part 4: The Tribe of Hunters
Letters from a Caveman Part 5: The Shaman
My Lost Two Weeks and Blog Hijack

Since my last message I have been in great pain, my tribe. I am also greatly excited, for I have met the shaman of another tribe who I believe to have great powers.

In my last communication, I told you about the dwelling of the hunters, where many great men (and women!) lifted rocks and practised their hunting skills. I had journeyed there with my hunter friend and we lifted many rocks of different sizes in many different ways until we could lift no more. Now I am almost unable to walk and my hunter friend thinks this is funny.

My tribe it is 12 moons since I was first taken away from you by some great magic and found myself in the body of another, in this strange land beyond the mountains. I have been watching myself each morning in the piece of ice in the waterfall chamber. I have come to recognise my new other self and become less afraid of him.

The woman has begun to command me to do things again, but I have not yet beaten her for this. My elders and fellow hunters, do not think less of me for this, but I may not beat her at all. For I have begun commanding her, too, and she does obey. The woman commands me to do things which are not important and I have come to learn that by obeying these commands I appease her and she will obey my own commands.

My tribe I will not pretend that the woman and I have found peace. For sometimes a command goes unheeded and there is great anger between us. But my tribe, this is often resolved not with a beating, but with wrestling of another kind. My fellow hunters, you will understand what I mean.

This happened before the last moon but to tell you this story I must first tell you about another piece of great magic I have not mentioned in my previous communications. I did not wish to speak of such things to my whole tribe.

My tribe, in this flat-walled dwelling there is a chamber where a strange, hollow white rock can be found, in which there is a tiny pool of water. This rock is the size of those we place around the fire to sit on and has two pieces of wood to cover it. I came to understand that the woman and I must use this pool as our tribe uses its waste area. Yet this rock is in the same chamber as the water we drink and wash in! There is waterfall magic in this rock, for when you press part of it, our waste is washed away by an even smaller waterfall than the one in which we wash.

When I first found myself here I greatly angered the woman because I did not use this rock - and now it has become the cause of further anger. I have come to accept that I must use the white rock as the waste area, but there is one thing the woman demands which I cannot obey. She commands me to arrange the wooden lids in a certain way which confuses and angers me. This has been the cause of many conflicts, but also of many resolutions that did not involve a beating, and for this reason, my hunters, I continue not to obey.

My tribe, I must tell you about the shaman.

Before the last moon I journeyed to the dwelling of my hunter friend, who I came to understand has no woman. He had many sand-coloured foods in his food store and we feasted on these. My hunger was great even though the woman and I had only recently feasted on such foods.

Soon, other men came to my friend’s dwelling, and I understood that many of these were also my friends. Some were like the hunters we had seen lifting rocks and some were like the man with child from the dwelling of the lost. When these men arrived there was much shouting and playful violence, which made me both joyful and sad, my tribe, because it reminded me of my home with you.

The men talked of a great feast in another village, then a journey to a dwelling where there would be a gathering and dancing. They talked of potions and dream drinks and I was greatly excited, for as you know, this is the way our tribe celebrates the changing of the seasons and other important events.

I also saw that I had talked to one of these men at the dwelling where we lifted rocks. My tribe, at this moment I came to realise something about this strange land. There are many tribes here but there are no tribes here. Perhaps there is only one tribe. I have seen a tribe that hoards food, a tribe that uses communication tools all day and a tribe of hunters; and now, in my friend’s dwelling, I saw a new tribe. Was this the tribe of the man I had seen lifting rocks, or was hunter tribe his tribe? I was confused, but also happy, for this tribe felt more like my own tribe than any other I had visited.

My tribe when the shaman arrived, there was much reverence. He was a man of great stature, with long, beaded hair, like that of our own Shaman. His eyes saw only the distance and his words were most mysterious. My friends and I gathered around the shaman and watched him work with his potions and herbs. There was much discussion and playful anger as the potions and herbs were passed around and exchanged for the leaf tokens the woman had taught me to use.

I was silent during these talks, as I knew nothing of these potions and was wary of the shaman’s magic. But then I recognised something – for the shaman has brought many mushrooms like those our Shaman puts into the dream drink. At this moment I spoke immediately and demanded all of the mushrooms. My friends found this very funny and also made a great cheer as the shaman exchanged the mushrooms for my leaf tokens.

My tribe, my friends will soon arrive, for it is this day of our great feast and gathering. I will communicate with you again as soon as I can.

Letters from a Caveman Part 1: Time Travel
Letters from a Caveman Part 2: The Great Food Hoard
Letters from a Caveman Part 3: The Dwelling of the Lost
Letters from a Caveman Part 4: The Tribe of Hunters
Letters from a Caveman Part 5: The Shaman
My Lost Two Weeks and Blog Hijack... Read more

Letters from a Caveman Part 4: The Tribe of Hunters

Letters from a Caveman Part 1: Time Travel
Letters from a Caveman Part 2: The Great Food Hoard
Letters from a Caveman Part 3: The Dwelling of the Lost
Letters from a Caveman Part 4: The Tribe of Hunters
Letters from a Caveman Part 5: The Shaman
My Lost Two Weeks and Blog Hijack

My tribe, I have arisen early while the moon is still in the sky and the birds have only just begun to sing. I have many things in my head that I must tell you about.

I told you about the dwelling of the lost in my last communication. I have come to understand that I must visit this place each day and use a communication device there. I must also, by tradition, take food from one of the tribes who live there and eat with the man whose stomach is like that of a woman with child.

I have learned to eat the food which is the colour of sand. Indeed I must tell you that I enjoy this food and have eaten it in large amounts. Two moons ago I took no meat because I knew the sand food would taste good and satisfy my needs.

My tribe, I also told you my fears that the guardians of this food would grow angry when I took it. Three moons ago, the man's small piece of animal hide did not appease the guardians and they grew angry with me; but they did not grow angry with the man. When I readied my self to fight, they became quiet and the man was able to appease them with the hide.

I must tell you that I was pleased that day to return to the woman. The other men and woman at the dwelling of the lost have begun to look at me in a different way and laugh less often. I must also tell you that I can communicate with the woman better now. For many moons she was commanding me to visit a shaman. This was making me fearful and angry, for as you know, we must view the shaman of another tribe with great suspicion. But now she no longer talks of this.

Now the woman does not command me to do anything; and not all the things that displeased her displease her still. Two moons ago I began eating the great eggs from the cold food store in the dwelling. I was expecting the woman to grow angry but instead she bade me watch as she prepared them. My tribe, our women would exchange all their bracelets and necklaces for the great tool the woman used to prepare the eggs. This tool creates fire in a single moment without flints or twigs or wood. The woman quickly created a cauldron of smoking water and heated the eggs as our women would heat roots.

The woman has also taught me to use animal hide to appease the guardians of food and tools. This made me very happy, because I was afraid I must soon fight the guardians of the food at the dwelling of the lost. I have seen the great weapons with which they cut the food and was afraid that the weapons they permit others to use would give me little protection.

My tribe I told you that I must journey to the dwelling of the lost each day; but before the last moon, the woman told me that by tradition I must not journey there until another two moons had passed. And on that same day, I was visited by a man who I knew to be a friend. This man also resembled a woman who is with child; but he resembled a woman who is only recently with child. Yet he also had the arms of a hunter.

I understood that I should journey with my friend in the belly of his beast to another dwelling. My tribe, at this moment I felt a great moment of sadness; for the feeling of leaving a woman behind and setting out on these strange plains with a fellow hunter reminded of my home with you. My tribe, I must return to you, but I do not know how. With each moon my memory of you grows weaker and I grow more like the people in these many strange tribes.

The woman is stirring. It has become customary for me to bring a drink to her in the morning, so I must end my communication soon. But first I must tell you about the dwelling I visited with my friend the hunter.

My friend’s beast is mightier and more savage than the woman’s and it was necessary for him to wrestle with its neck most violently to control its great speed. As I have come to expect we left the beast amongst a sleeping herd and entered a dwelling. In this place there was the sound of a great drum being beaten, although I could not see a drum anywhere. My tribe I now know why there are so few hunters to be found in the other places I have seen; for in this dwelling were as many hunters as there are people in the whole of our tribe.

I could at first not understand what I was seeing. There were many trees and rocks in this place which some of the hunters were lifting; some made hunting cries and other angry noises or ran upon strange rocks which must have been slippery like the rocks under a waterfall, because the men did not move forward as they ran. I must tell you that some of the hunters in this place we unlike any I have seen before; for their arms were as big as the legs of a man. I spoke to my friend that these hunters would surely not be able to run fast enough to catch prey. This made him laugh. I also asked whether instead they would use their great strength to kill sleeping animals with their bare hands. My friend agreed with this and laughed once again.

My tribe I told you about the man at the dwelling of the lost who resembled a woman who is with child. Now at this place I saw a woman who looked mightier than strongest hunter in our tribe and made hunting cries as she lifted great rocks above her head. As I have said to you before, this is indeed a strange place of many wonders. My friend saw that I was looking at the woman hunter and understood my thoughts. He said that what I was seeing was not normal.

I must end my communication, as the woman is demanding her drink.

Letters from a Caveman Part 1: Time Travel
Letters from a Caveman Part 2: The Great Food Hoard
Letters from a Caveman Part 3: The Dwelling of the Lost
Letters from a Caveman Part 4: The Tribe of Hunters
Letters from a Caveman Part 5: The Shaman
My Lost Two Weeks and Blog Hijack... Read more

Letters from a Caveman Part 3: The Dwelling of the Lost

Letters from a Caveman Part 1: Time Travel
Letters from a Caveman Part 2: The Great Food Hoard
Letters from a Caveman Part 3: The Dwelling of the Lost
Letters from a Caveman Part 4: The Tribe of Hunters
Letters from a Caveman Part 5: The Shaman
My Lost Two Weeks and Blog Hijack

My tribe, I am communicating with you at the end of another strange day. The woman's behaviour has surprised me once again and again I have journeyed in the belly of the beast.

When the moon had only recently disappeared, the woman commanded me to go into the part of the dwelling where the magic waterfall is. In the same way as I understood how to use this communication tool, I knew how to make the waterfall begin. But like when we journeyed in the belly of the beast, I was afraid to use the magic, so the woman made the waterfall begin and left me.

I had not been in that part of the dwelling before and began exploring its small area. I discovered many potions with powerful smells that reminded me of the huge fruits in the dwelling of the forager tribe. Suddenly I cried out – there was another man close by who had crept up on me with amazing stealth. I prepared to fight and the man did too. For many moments we stood like this, as if meaning to pounce.

My tribe, it was at this moment that I imagined the cackling of our elders mocking me, for I came to understand that I was looking at a piece of ice, so smooth and flat that it was showing me my other self, as the lake near our own dear village does when the wind is still. But you should not mock me, because what I saw in the ice was not the other self I have seen in the lake. It was different. My tribe, I told you in my first communication that I felt like a spirit inhabiting the body of another. Now I know this to be true and am sure that the shaman of one of our enemies is to blame. I beg of you and of our own great Shaman to find the magic to take me out of this body and bring me back from this strange place.

I must tell you that not every part of this day has been bad. When I had washed under the waterfall, I become resolved to settle a matter of great importance. I told you in my second communication that the woman behaves like a man. She commands me to do things and becomes like a demon when I do not obey. As you know, such women must be punished, or they cannot be controlled.

I found the woman grooming herself in the part of the dwelling where the large sleeping mat is kept. I adopted my most forceful face and pushed her onto the mat and held back her arms, ready to begin beating her. But my tribe, instead of resisting she became less angry than I have ever seen her. I do not know which of you are able to understand my communications, so I must not tell you more -for it is something I can only tell my fellow hunters. But I will tell you that since then, the woman has begun obeying me more and commanding me less even though I did not beat her. This is indeed a strange place.

The woman then took me to another tribe in the belly of the beast. They lived in a huge dwelling as tall as a two great trees. I felt that I had been there before, but when the woman left me there alone I was afraid. When I had recovered my bravery, I entered the dwelling and began exploring. When I entered, a man beckoned me and began talking about things I could not fully understand. Somehow, I knew that the man was my friend, so when he began walking I followed him.

Two moons ago my speech would have been taken away by the magic that allowed us to go to the top of that dwelling without climbing. But I have now seen so much magic that the tiny chamber in which the man and I travelled seemed familiar to me. The room we went to contained many communication tools and each one was being used by a man or woman. I have never seen so many men and women together in a place without any noise of talking.

My tribe, I am greatly confused by the tribe in this place. They do not behave like a tribe, yet gather together in this huge dwelling that is like a village. Have they all been taken away from their own tribes and spend the day communicating with them as I am doing now? Did the woman bring me here because she knows that I too, am lost?

Later, when the sun was at its highest, the man took me to another part of the dwelling in the magic chamber. I was very hungry and the man said that he was hungry too, so I understood that we were intending to hunt or forage. But once again, I found that another tribe was allowing me to take their food.

I must tell you that the food this tribe was offering was unpleasant. We collected the food from them on smooth pieces of bark. Most of the food resembled in colour the sand by the lake and had been heated by fire. There were some pieces of animal meat, which I took; but the man guarding the food also wanted to give me the sand-coloured food, and I could see that the bark of others was filled with this food. The man I had first met had a small piece of magic hide like the woman, and I was thankful that he was able to appease the guardians of the food with this.

There is another thing I must tell you about the tribes here. You know that when a woman is with child she becomes bigger and that when a child appears it has much skin, like a tiny bear. Many of the men here have more skin even than a woman with child or a child just born. They must find hunting extremely difficult.

The man I first met has more skin than any I have seen before. I asked him if this is why he eats food caught by others and he laughed many times. Other men who were eating nearby also laughed. I could not tell if this meant it was true. I also observed that the man had not taken any meat, but instead had taken large amounts of the sand-coloured food so that his bark almost overflowed. I wondered whether by tradition the food tribe would only permit those who were known as successful hunters to take meat.

My tribe, the woman has returned in the beast to take me away from this dwelling of the lost. I have been made tired from exploring and talking with strangers about things I do not fully understand. You must know by now that the woman is troublesome, and yet I am pleased she has returned. The belly of the beast no longer frightens me and I yearn for the sleeping mat which is so much softer than any in our village.

My tribe, please find a way to communicate with me. I will communicate with you again soon when the woman is not using the device in our dwelling.

Letters from a Caveman Part 1: Time Travel
Letters from a Caveman Part 2: The Great Food Hoard
Letters from a Caveman Part 3: The Dwelling of the Lost
Letters from a Caveman Part 4: The Tribe of Hunters
Letters from a Caveman Part 5: The Shaman
My Lost Two Weeks and Blog Hijack... Read more

Letters from a Caveman, Part 2: The Great Food Hoard

Letters from a Caveman Part 1: Time Travel
Letters from a Caveman Part 2: The Great Food Hoard
Letters from a Caveman Part 3: The Dwelling of the Lost
Letters from a Caveman Part 4: The Tribe of Hunters
Letters from a Caveman Part 5: The Shaman
My Lost Two Weeks and Blog Hijack

Hello again my tribe.

I have a chance to communicate with you again, since the woman is inside the tiny waterfall in which she washes daily. She uses this communication tool often, so I must act swiftly. She is indeed a skillful worker of its magic. She seeks many pictures of garments and uses a small, stiff piece of hide to work magic I do not understand.

I have not heard from you since my last message and this has made me very sad. I am hoping that you are making plans to find me or collecting the ingredients for a powerful spell to bring me back.

My tribe, I must tell you about a place I went to with the woman before the last moon. And I must tell you about the way we travelled there. First, she led me out of the dwelling to a place that contained many sleeping animals. I somehow knew that these animals were used for travelling in the same way as we sometimes jump on the backs of wounded prey for sport and are carried some distance. But I could not understand why these beasts remained dormant.

The woman led me to one of the beasts and gave me some new piece of magic from her hide bag. It resembled a bracelet with many large teeth. I knew I could use bracelet to bring the animal to life but my fear was so great that I was unable to act. The woman became angry and snatched the bracelet from me.

My tribe, when I tell you that for many minutes I was unable to use any words either of our own language or the language of my adopted body, I would not be telling a lie. For at this point we climbed inside the bowels of this great animal, which began roaring as the woman used the bracelet’s magic. The beast fled its sleeping herd with great haste with the woman and me still in its belly. The greatest magic of all was that the woman was guiding the animal with her hands, as though gripping its throat. And for the long time the beast was running, it did not once fight with the many other beasts we passed on the strange plains we travelled through.

The woman guided us to another sleeping herd beside a vast dwelling, a hundred times greater than any in our village. When we left the animal it whimpered and I wondered whether she had wounded it with the force of her hands during the journey.

My tribe, what we discovered in that great dwelling was so amazing to me that once again I was unable to speak. The first thing I saw was a thousand fruits, berries and roots, of many colours, piled high and cleaned. It was as if the tribe who dwelled there had foraged the whole world for a year.

Beyond these piles there were many rocks, each as high as a tall man. There were grooves and ledges on the sides of these rocks where flat-sided objects of many colours had been placed.
I knew that we would be able to take food from this place and appease the tribe who lived here with the woman’s small piece of magic hide. But I still became very concerned. They would surely become angry when we took their food when we had not brought whole hides or tools to exchange for it. My tribe, we know only too well that our own Shaman’s magic is not accepted by other tribes.

The woman found a huge basket, woven from the toughest twigs I have even known and began taking the fruits from the great piles. She did this using other, smaller baskets that were like water but not wet, so that I could see the fruit inside!

My tribe, I told you I do not have much time, but I must tell you about these fruits. For they are bigger than any I have seen before and when I began eating them, the taste was so good I was unable to stop. It was like the honey we discovered many seasons ago, except unguarded by the painful bees. The woman was, once again, displeased by my behaviour. I knew it would anger the tribe of this village, but my hunger was so powerful I was unable to resist.

The woman has begun asking me whether I have an illness. I cannot not find the words to explain what I have explained to you, so I tell her that I do not have an illness, which does not please her. My tribe, I must tell you that this woman commands me to do things in the manner of an elder. If she lived in our own village I am sure she would by now have been cast out.

The woman moved the animal basket to the rocky area and began taking the flat-sided objects. I saw that a man was guarding the flesh of dead animals in a corner of the dwelling. I went to him and asked what beasts he had slain to hoard such an amount of meat. This seemed very funny to him and he told me he had not slain the beasts himself. I asked if this was because he is lame. This did not amuse him and he asked if I wanted any of the meat or would instead be leaving. Then the woman arrived and commanded me to follow her. As I have told you, it is in her nature to do this.

I was angered, knowing that I must soon punish her for her behaviour, but when I looked at her I saw many demons in her eyes and I swallowed my anger and was silent. As we know, the village of another tribe is no place for such a dispute.

The woman used her magic piece of hide to appease the tribe whose food we had stolen, and guided the great beast back to its sleeping herd. During this journey, she told me that we must never buy meat from that tribe because it contains poisons. My tribe, I told you that I have knowledge that has come from nowhere about these foreign tribes and villages and strange magic. But there are some things I am unable to understand. Does this food-hoarding tribe mean to kill us with poison because we have stolen their food? Did they use poison to kill the animals and this has spoiled the meat?

I must end my message here, for the sound of the waterfall has ceased and the woman will soon demand to use this tool. I will communicate with you again soon.

Letters from a Caveman Part 1: Time Travel
Letters from a Caveman Part 2: The Great Food Hoard
Letters from a Caveman Part 3: The Dwelling of the Lost
Letters from a Caveman Part 4: The Tribe of Hunters
Letters from a Caveman Part 5: The Shaman
My Lost Two Weeks and Blog Hijack... Read more

Letters from a Caveman, Part 1: Time Travel

Letters from a Caveman Part 1: Time Travel
Letters from a Caveman Part 2: The Great Food Hoard
Letters from a Caveman Part 3: The Dwelling of the Lost
Letters from a Caveman Part 4: The Tribe of Hunters
Letters from a Caveman Part 5: The Shaman
My Lost Two Weeks and Blog Hijack

Can you hear me, my tribe?

Something very strange has happened to me and I find myself in a place far away from you.

The last thing I remember is the gathering when we feasted and the men consumed the dream drink prepared by the Shaman. Instead of awaking in my dwelling with my woman, with memories of dancing with the spirits, I instead awoke here, in a vast and confusing territory where dwellings stand as high as a hundred men and people roam like herds of animals.

I think this must be the work of an enemy shaman, who has used dark magic to send me here so that our tribe has fewer young warriors to fight them. This place must be far beyond the mountains and it would surely take me many days to find my way home. I fear for you in case the same fate has befallen other young men in our tribe and the women and the old are not protected from the savagery of our enemies.

Perhaps they sent someone in the night to add his own magic our dream drink.

Something else is troubling me. I am not myself. I do not mean this in the way that we are not ourselves when we have taken the dream drink. I have thoughts and knowledge that I did not have before. When I awoke in this strange dwelling with bright, flat walls, I immediately knew where to find the food store. I was able to communicate with the strange woman who lives here with words I have not used before and recognised the name she gives me, which is not the same as my own.

It is with this knowledge that I discovered this tool. I am sure it is used to communicate with tribes, and when I sat before it, I knew the magic I needed to do this. It is like the animal hide we use to draw messages on, but much thicker. And this one has been cut and folded once, and is now so hardened by time that it could not possibly be folded again. There is surely great magic involved, because I can draw my message by pressing pictures already drawn on the hide and my own pictures then appear, lit with fire.

I hope our Shaman is able to understand this message. If you can hear, me, Shaman, I beg you to use your powers to bring me back. I am frightened by this place and by the magic around me. I feel like I am a spirit possessing the body of another. I am using magic and many new words and do not know if this is the work of good or evil. Sometimes I suddenly understand the magic clearly, then it is lost, like when the dream drink trance comes to an end.

I must end my message now, my tribe, as the woman is growing more angry. When I awoke I found many eggs in the food store and she was displeased by the manner in which I ate them. I understand that I must now go with her to another place. I will communicate with you again soon.

Letters from a Caveman Part 1: Time Travel
Letters from a Caveman Part 2: The Great Food Hoard
Letters from a Caveman Part 3: The Dwelling of the Lost
Letters from a Caveman Part 4: The Tribe of Hunters
Letters from a Caveman Part 5: The Shaman
My Lost Two Weeks and Blog Hijack... Read more

Paleo Binges and Christmas Carb Fests: Body Composition Update

After trumpeting the success of one year of Paleo eating and posting a graph of my progressively improving body composition (One Year Later: Hunter Gathering and Body Composition), it was inevitable things would take a turn for the worse. I described my weighing ritual and equipment in that post, so I won't repeat it here. This time I have marked the chart with key events and time spans to highlight the likely causes of changes to my weight and body composition.

We pick the story up in November 2008, as I came to the end of a year of strict Paleo eating. During this time I had never knowingly eaten non-Paleo food and was quite fastidious about avoiding food that was suspect. My only concession was eating at a restaurant once a week, where I would resist the temptation to demand a list of ingredients from the chef. I tried to follow my hunger and avoid gluttony, and was quite self-consciously trying to become leaner. My whole mindset was one of less, rather than more.

Paleo Greed

Around mid-November, something strange happened. Whether because I had achieved a leanness with which I was happy, or because there was additional stress at work and more frequent trips away from home, I began overeating. The food remained Paleo, but I was being consistently greedy. More nuts than I needed, bigger pieces of chicken, gratuitous teaspoons of nut butter. You can see what happened on the graph - over a 3-4 weeks period I gained about a third of a stone, apparently all fat.

To me this shows that even on a low-carb Paleo diet, you can gain fat if you don't obey your appetite.

Water Retention

There are footnotes to this. I was spending a couple of nights a week in hotels at the time and getting my food from supermarkets or restaurants. This, plus my once-weekly social restaurant visit meant my salt intake was probably doubled or tripled. Since sodium encourages water retention, I suspect some of the additional weight was attributable to that. Whether this means the additional weight was not in reality all fat is difficult to say - it is not clear how the fat percentage measurement system of my scales is affected by increased water content.

The second, related point is that it would have been harder to control my appetite when eating food from supermarkets and restaurants. Although the food was ostensibly Paleo, it would have inevitably been adulterated. I must confess to at least two Marks and Spencer Chicken episodes during that time, which as we know, means I was not eating just chicken, but sugar and salt too.

I recall one occasion where I bought a half roasted chicken, a large avocado, a 150g bag of mixed nuts and a yellow pepper. The nuts were totally plain, but I sat in front of my hotel TV rhythmically tossing them into my mouth well after my hunger had vanished, as though my latent greed had been activated by the sugar and salt in the chicken. Boredom, too, is the enemy of dietary restraint, which I doubt helped.

Gim Tales

As my period of stress and hotel-dwelling came to an end in early to mid-December, there was a 2-week period of restraint, while I girded myself for the impending festive feasts. I didn't know it at the time, but I would fall off the Paleo wagon in quite spectacular style on several occasions before the end of the year.

There is a gap in the chart for the week I spent with my folks over Christmas, where the grim tales of dietary catastrophe unfolded (tale 1, more tales). The spike on the chart at the start of January tells you all you need to know, marking my return to the scales and the revelation that I had gained half a stone.

Diet Illusion

This spike looks very similar to the one seen at the end of November 2007 when I had a last carb binge before going Paleo. Clearly this would have been a combination of water retention, sheer volume of undigested and semi-digested food and some fat accumulation. Over the week that followed each spike, you will notice a dramatic fall in weight to reveal a true weight gain of closer to a quarter or third of a stone.

This is a good illustration of how the multitude of diets gain a reputation for working - most recommend eating foods that are lower in salt and eating less. People typically increase their calorific intake before starting a diet, taking that final opportunity to indulge; as a result, they inevitably lose several pounds over the first week, of which most is water and intestinal baggage.

Missing Fat

Those of you familiar with the science of low-carb eating (eloquently documented in Gary Taubes' Good Calories Bad Calories) will know that the byproducts of carbohydrate digestion supposedly make possible the storage of dietary fat. No carbs, no fat storage. I know it's not quite that simple, but for a while I have been wondering where the fat goes when it can't be stored. I need to do some more reading before posting on the subject, but I have a theory based on observations you might not all want to read about...

At the start of January 2008, the very time when I needed to retreat to the sanctuary of a whiter-than-white Paleo diet to cleanse my system of the festive toxins, I was obliged to spend two weeks consuming bread and other nasties for my Wheat Experiment. Apart from the garlic naan debacle, I was pretty sensible, resisting the temptation to treat the test as a license to gorge on all the wheat-based foods I hadn't managed to tackle during my festive binges. As you can see from the graph, my weight remained steady during this time.

Since mid-January, I have been on a particularly low-carb, Paleo regime, probably in and out of Ketosis, with regular fasting. I have nevertheless been careful to get regular and varied portions of fruit and vegetables in my diet, albeit in reduced amounts. You can't see it from the chart yet, but I have been making steady progress. I hope to be able to post an update in a few months showing a return to former glory.

Extra Muscle

One final point to note. According to the chart, I gained a few pounds of muscle during the festive binges. I did notice an improvement in strength, possibly helped by my better sleeping at the time. I will be carefully monitoring the chart and my training performance as I restore my former leanness, to see whether I can keep these gains. If I do, there will be a disturbing resonance with the 2005 -2007 bulk-and-cut ethos I was so keen to discard...

See Also:
One Year Later: Hunter Gathering and Body Composition
My Wheat Experiment
My Wheat Experiment Blood Test Update
Paleo Apple Crumble and the Chestnut Tojan Horse
When does Intermittent Fasting become an Eating Disorder?
High Carb Feasts could Help you Sleep
High Carb Feasts and Sleep - A Failed Attempt... Read more

Sugar Peddling Kelloggs Pull 'Misleading' Advert

Arch sugar-peddlers and all round nutritional charlatans, Kelloggs, have been rapped on the knuckles by the UK's Advertising Standards Authority for a recent poster and print advert in which misleading statements were made about their Nutri-Grain Soft Oaties biscuits. The watchdog banned the adverts, ruling that they were likely to mislead consumers. Guardian.co.uk has the full story here and another take on it can be seen here.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

The offending statements were

wholesome cookie goodness

and

made with oats and wheat, source of fibre, 6 B vitamins and iron

Here is the Guardian's quote from the ASA:

By referring only to those ingredients that could convey a nutritional benefit without also referring to those that might have a negative impact on health, the ad could imply the snack was wholly beneficial to health or that the Soft Oaties with Oat & Chocolate Chip were healthier than they were.

Apparently, the ASA accepted that the ingredients list was accurate, but said the product was also high in sugar, fat and saturated fat.

New Front

This is great news. For me opens up a new front in the war against companies who mislead consumers about the healthiness of their foods. This is the first time I have been aware of a company being taken to task on a statement like this - normally they seem to be able to throw the word healthy around with impunity and refer to ingredients selectively in a flagrant attempt to mislead the ignorant and the derail the weak-willed.

I also like the fact that this ruling was driven by complaints both from the public and from a food campaigner at Which? This tells me people are starting to take advantage of the mechanisms available to make a difference.

Over the last year I have complained directly to a number of companies about their marketing foods as healthy when they contain unhealthy ingredients. The targets of my campaigns have been companies whose ethos is supposedly one of health and therefore whose efforts to mislead seem most morally unacceptable.

Different Route

Needless to say, the majority of the offenders have ignored me (Roll Call of Shame: Companies Who Don't Listen). If I can find the time, I will pursue a route closer to the one we have seen in action here. The rationale applied by the ASA potentially applies to some of the products about which I have been complaining, albeit that the issue in those cases is more one of marketing than advertising and therefore probably falls outside the ASA's remit.

I will find out more.

See Also:
Campaigns
Roll Call of Shame: Companies Who Don't Listen
... Read more