On Fri, 30 Jun 2000, Jo Yoshida wrote:

> Hi Todd,
>
> Does Mr. Anchell address weight gain at all in his book?

Yes, he says that the diet will "normalize" one's weight, which
in some cases involves weight gain, but he doesn't go into detail
on that aspect.  His claim is that a normal weight is 12% body
fat, and he also doesn't give a different value for women, as
most sources do.  I don't know if this is because he is a sexist
or because he thinks 12% is indeed normal for both.

Meanwhile, as of this morning, I have lost four more pounds,
making a total of 11 lost since 6/26.  I am frankly astonished.
I have never lost weight at this rate in my life, and thought it
was metabolically impossible.  Even when I was on the Zone and
had an initial diuretic effect, I lost "only" 8 pounds the first
week.  I've done ketogenic diets very recently and lost weight
very slowly or not at all.  As far as I can tell from my
performance in the gym, my muscle mass is not affected.  Even Dr.
Anchell says only to expect 2 pounds of weight loss per week,
although some of the cases he describes were faster than that.

This is not an easy diet.  Without question, Neanderthin has a
more appealing range of food choices.  Plus there is the
cognitive dissonance of being able to eat a baked potato with
butter but not a salad.  On Neanderthin, I was allowed to have
nuts, a wide range of fruit, greens, squashes, etc., with as many
different non-meat foods at a meal as I liked.  But I gained
weight.  In practice, I didn't eat a lot of fruit on Neanderthin,
but I did eat nuts liberally, and salads frequently.  For me, at
least, what was causing the weight gain was clearly not "foreign
proteins"; it was something else.  I don't think my current diet
is lower in calories.  Certainly it is not so low as to explain
the weight I have lost.

I have no explanation.  Sorry for the windy reply; I know this is
a lot more than what you asked about.

Todd Moody
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