On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 16:07:42 -0600, Ashley Moran <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Cutting out chicken might help.  It's really to lean to form a large
> part of your diet.  ... You haven't mentioned severe hunger ormuscle weakness, so I'm assuming you aren't suffering rabbitstarvation.

No unusual hunger.  And I have been getting consistently stronger in the weight room the past few weeks, so if there's any weakness, I'm not noticing it.

> But it might be an idea to eat more fatty cuts of meat. When you say you eat beef exacty which chunks of cow do you go for?

We buy grass fed beef half a steer at a time.  Out of that will come various steaks, roasts, stew meats, fajita meats, and lots of ground beef.  A lot of the beef I eat is that ground beef.  I don't know the exact fat content, but it's enough that there is some to pour off after cooking.)

> I find most beef too lean to be worth eating, and only eat beef mince these days.  Steak
> especially is little more than dog food in my eyes.

My dog would undoubtedly agree with you.  :-)

> I'm really, really baffled!  Unless there is something odd going
> wrong with your metabolism, I can't see why you should lose weight on
> 2500 calories a day.  That's loads!!!

It is a lot, but it doesn't strike me as that unusual -- the "FitDay" program I use to track my diet estimates my maintenance calories at about 3200, and that's about right based on my experience.

> The only thing I can suggest is that you eat a really high fat diet,
> and don't make an effort to keep your calorie intake so high.  I
> can't believe you would start to lose muscle when your excess fat was
> gone. You might not fancy trialling that though.

Exactly.  I'd hate to burn off what little muscle I've got if it's just a matter of calories.  I will keep the fat levels up and see how it goes.

> Stage 1 in eating paleo is learning that everything the government
> tells you about food is wrong.  Stage 2 is learning that everything
> the doctors say about your health is wrong ;o)

Supposedly science says that bumblebees can't fly -- yet plain common sense shows they do.  I figure diet is a lot like that -- science may sometimes find things that just don't really work out that way in real life.  (The same can probably be said about a lot of things regarding the functioning of the human body.)

> It's better to trust your own gut feeling than medical advice; it's
> worth a lot more.

In a lot of cases, that's very true.  I have no complaints health-wise.  I feel fantastic, am rarely sick, and can do pretty much anything I want any time I want without any problems.  I just want to *keep* it that way as long as reasonably possible.  (Life's too short to spend it being sickly.)

--
   Robert Kesterson
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