Death/Black Metal and a rejection of "Mainstream" Soceity

In the past years I've made progress by thinking about "what society wants me to do", or less abstractly, "what am I being told to do from the media?"

I find Black/Death metal tends to resonate with my focus on this and the rejection of these suggestions. A message against society. Seeing what is wrong and changing oneself.

In the end, listen to Black/Death metal and think about what you want to reject about society.

NoPorn/NoFap

I've started with this whole exploration of no porn and no masturbation, and it definitely has let me learn more about myself.

I never really thought that I had a problem until I started reading about how porn has affected other people. One person mentioned spending so much time searching for porn and masturbating, with 30min to an hour gone every day. Since that was pretty close to my habit, I realized how much time I was investing in this. This is also at a time when I'm thinking about all the other things I want to work on, and how I don't have time.

There is also the social aspect. Apparently some people use it as a replacement for social contact. Reading that an looking at myself I realized I've done that many times in the past -- staying home on Fridays to read stuff on the internet and jerk off instead of going out with friends.

Given that reflection I've been making changes now. Currently I've started a No Porn restriction that I started back in December 16th. So far it is going well, although I am well aware of temptations to go and seek out some skin. The previous no porn restrictions made me aware of this porn-seeking behaviour, so I'm more aware of it now. I have yet to decide if I change the current restrictions once February comes, if I lift the no fap restriction or not.

This has also raised issues on sexual images being fed to the populace by the media, and how much the current culture seems to focus all on it. Especially the sexualization of women--something that I have become acutely aware of now that I'm off porn. It doesn't take much to get my attention.

The Great Porn Experiment

So I watching an interesting video recently, not sure how I came across it.

Raised some interesting points in regards to overuse of porn (or just use of porn), being that it leads to an arousal addiction. Which I think is actually rather apparent in all forms of internet consumption, especially media (a mindless consumption if you will--TV rots your brain!).

The one thing that I was thinking about is how I've been actively changing my porn habits from just any that I found, to selecting for women with healthy bodies (no tits-on-sticks), and reduced makeup usage. At one point finding nudist blogs were the best, because I could see women in their "natural" state.

Well, looks like I have more to think about in regards to using porn to instill a different cultural value.

State of Paleo

The Paleosphere is definitely changing. As more popularity is drawn to the movement, so are more people trying to take advantage of the free audience, and then there are others who learn a little about paleo, and then give their gut feelings on topics that used to be nicely discussed. I'm pretty much thinking about PaleoHacks with this.

But, then again maybe Paleo is loosing it's newness for me. I've pretty much learned quite a bit of the backing science, and rational, on why one would choose to eat 'Paleo'.

As Paleo is entering more into the light, more crazy shit is going to happen, but I'm just going to ignore it, and do my own Paleo thing. I don't have to agree with 'Paleo' people to eat the way I do. Anyways, I don't really tell people I'm Paleo, I just say I don't eat wheat, and I hate sweet things - which just turns out to be true.

There's also some aspects of my initial reading of paleo that really isn't reflected anymore, that is the departure from the mainstream culture. I remember reading about barefoot running, and squatting to poop, and thinking that it all makes sense, and that mainstream culture is wrong, and I kind of knew it all along. You could say Paleo was just another way that I could distance myself from the mainstream, although with Paleo I've had rather nice results. I like not being mainstream.

Germany and Sweet Foods

I posted earlier about how everything is too damn sweet, which was drawn mostly from my US experiences, but now I often think about German cuisine, now that I live there.

For the most part, German cooking is making a trend towards all kinds of fruit additives to their food. Not additives in a way that apple juice would be added to fruit leather for sugar, but more that there is fruit added to foods just to add a sweet flavor. Sauerkraut can be found with pineapple in it, plum compotes accompany roasts, and others. Then you have salads with a little marmalade added "for sweetness", or with a drizzle of maple syrup. I suppose this is kind of common in American mainstream processed food, added sugar that is, but it seems that even more "cultured" forms of German food has this added sweetness. Which reminds me that for a curry soup, there's often fruit, like mango, added in, or oranges added to pumpkin soup.

No wonder Germany is starting to have problems with diabetes and obesity.

What if

So, John at Hunter-Gatherer posted a link to an article claiming that the economy discriminates against men, which in turn reminded me of some things.

First off, I think the whole "men's rights" thing is a response to society giving men a particularly shitty identity. All the good parts of being male are not valued anymore, or not even considered worthwhile. A blog about cars actually touched on this rather well, which I also found via Hunter-Gatherer sharing it:

"Of course, “man’s work” isn’t what it used to be. Forget the “war on women” you’re hearing about right now, although it may well exist. There’s been a “war on men” for the last fifty years, and it’s been more successful than any of the Middle Eastern adventurism which has burned up the lives of American men like so much unwanted firewood at the end of winter. A war against the ideas of manhood, fatherhood, responsibility, dependability. The traditional American man — think Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird — has been parodied, denigrated, humiliated, ironized, writen out of existence. It’s no longer pleasant or even feasible to emulate our grandfathers and their unashamedly masculine lives.
Instead, we choose one of two paths. We become “modern men”, sensitive to womyn’s needs, ashamed of our basic desires, never sure whether to hold a door or let it slam shut. Most college-educated men take this path, particularly if they want to succeed in life. The men for whom success isn’t even an option — the rural, the uneducated, the discarded — well, they choose a distended hyper-masculinity. They can’t take care of their children, but they can bench-press a small car. They can’t hold a job, but they can kick your ass under MMA rules. They’ll never ascend above the service class, but if you are walking down a narrow hallway towards them you will guaranteedly have to bump shoulders with them. It is the appearance of masculinity serving in the stead of its actuality, an unemployed gym rat living with his parents and riding a Hayabusa covered with tribal graphics to the 7-Eleven on Saturday nights. "


I find this sentiment becoming more common, first I encountered it at T-Nation, but now I'm seeing it more. Men are getting pissed because it's not valued to be a man anymore. In a way it's not good to be a man, since men discriminate against women, and stuff like that. In general, it's just not a satisfying identity to have, much like the generic identity of being "white" in the US.

Jumping topics a little, women and men think differently. I remember reading an account of a Dutch transgendered man, who was a women, describing how his thought process changed as he took hormone therapy, and how he perceived the world differently. Anyway, women and men think different, so why wouldn't it make sense that they have different skills and capabilities? I think some of this gender equality discussion starts making an idealization of what humans really are, although this could just be me assuming they are using biological definitions wrongly, when in fact, they've redefined them for their own scholarly purpose. But, my main question is, what if men and women are different? What if there should be gender inequality?


I work in the science industry, and I wonder what would happen if there were to be only women groups, and only men groups. This would produce a change if men and women have different ways of working together and leading. The way gender equality discussions are going now, no one would ever probably consider condoning formation of single-gender groups, but I think it would be something interesting to consider.

Problems with Identity

I've had ideas for this post for a long time, always floating in my thoughts. Usually being brought up by a certain article I read somewhere. What going to try to address is identity, or cultural identity. I could probably write a book on what identity is, but it's probably already been done, and lengthy definitions tend to aggravate me.

People are having trouble identifying themselves currently. Media is defining people, instead of people defining themselves. People are being defined in terms of other groups, Black vs. White, Man vs. Women, Gay vs. Straight.

If people just defined themselves as who they are, and didn't rely on other groups for identification, there would be a stronger sense of identity among people.

What I'm trying to get at, albeit roughly, is that it seems that everyone is defining their identity in terms of others. There's "Black" Americans defining part of who they are with the racism they experience from "White" Americans. Women defining themselves by the lack of masculine characteristics, and men the other way around.

I guess if people just started not caring as much about how other people define themselves and fit their definition to them, and take a break on political correctness, we'd have more meaningful groups, or at least those that do not feel threatened by the existence of others. In regards to political correctness, I mean that people should still take care not to offend people, but I'm still going to define myself as a man as being strong of constitution and will, and not care that others define themselves differently. This starts getting into the territory of "What is a Man?" on a societal scale, instead of just being a personal definition.

That was a rough snapshot.

And one reason why I like T-Nation, it's a good platform to reach men, and "Your crumbling Y Chromosome" was conveying the ideals of a strong man, something that tends to be avoided, or just not done.

Everything is too damn sweet

Almost every vegetable or fruit breeder out there is selecting for sweetness, since that's what the consumers want nowadays. We have “super sweet” sweet corn, sweet carrots, sweet cabbage, sweet broccoli, and sickly sweet fruit. There is also a selection for “milder” tasting fruits and vegetables, with carrots tasting less like carrots, and apples less like apples. To me, it seems every plant product is tending towards some form of sugar delivery system.

This irritates me, as I want to cook with “serious” vegetables. Carrots that with slap you in the face with their terpene content, and flavor the shit out of soups. I'm also looking for fruits that actually taste different from each other, in other words, fruits that have higher concentrations of phenolics, and aromatics. In the past years I've been enjoying “antique” apples, and eating many different kinds, since some have more spicy notes reminiscent of licorice, or more milder notes like bananas and strawberry.

Another thing that I've been thinking about, is that since many of the compounds that give fruits and vegetables their characteristic are actually there for defense against pathogens and herbivores, by selecting against these compounds, were actually selecting for plants that are essentially harder to grow. Instead of plants defending themselves against pathogens, we have to take the roll with insecticides and pesticides.

If we just bred plants for being what they are, and not focusing on making a bland, sweet consumable for the masses, we could enjoy more kinds of flavors in our foods, and grow them better.

Now I just need to get some of these heirlooms varieties and breed my own.

Of Low carbs and High carbs

To summarize this post: I ate some ice cream two weeks prior, it caused some fat gain, I'm doing keto for 2-3 weeks and then adding carbs back in once I start lifting again (80-140g carbs a day).


I've recently been reading some articles from Danny Roddy and Anthony Colpo who are both firmly in the camp of higher carb diets. Anthony frequently makes fun of the LCing people, especially LCing athletes.

Reading their differing views also makes me question my views on carbohydrates, which changed a couple of months ago. Previously when I was in keto, I thought that eventually my body would become "keto-adapted", and that I would regain my athletic ability that I initially lost when switching to keto. I never regained my performance, and after getting a little freaked out about hypothroidism by reading some stuff by Matt Stone, I decided to add some carbs back in.

From that point on I've decided that for those engaging in athletic activities, be it strength or endurance, that carbs are a good thing. But I also think that for many people, who don't engage in athletics, that carbs aren't necessarily warranted in their diet. Like many LC people recommend, 60-100g would be fine for them to consume. I also think that there is some truth to the whole "metabolically damaged" thought out there, that some people's insulin receptors are not quite working optimally, or would handle a high carb diet well. I feel that going LC, then VLC/keto possibly reduced the number of insulin receptors throughout my body, and therefore made my body more insulin sensitive. This is all speculation of course. Warm fuzzy thoughts to help me sleep at night.

Anyway, before leaving for Germany I decided to add a greater amount of carbs to my diet, that instead of just eating fruit, I'd add in probably a little under a half-pound of potatoes a day, which I later switched to ice cream. The ice cream idea was still in my head from earlier, when I experimented with ice cream PWO, and also from hearing Danny Roddy talk about how Ray Peat eats ice cream (it seems to me that Ray is the only person Danny reads due to how often he cites him, but I guess it's no different than other paleo bloggers who can't actually do their own first hand research - but I digress).
       I did this for around two weeks I'd say, with some intermittent lifting (throwing rocks, one back day complete with romanian deadlifts, sumo deadlifts, and 600lb tractor tire flipping), although my activity level was definitely lower than normal. At first I noticed that my muscles seemed to be denser, that they took up more volume, but that could of been myself seeing what I wanted. After the first week, I noticed that my abdominal fat was getting a little more soft, and by the end of the second week there was definitely more of it there.
        I didn't really change the fats in my diet, if anything I reduced them trying to keep my calories the same, but since I didn't record anything, this was just qualitative, instead of quantitative.

After that, I decided that I was going to go keto until I find a gym in Germany, which will probably be two or three weeks, as I want to find a gym close to where I'll be living (although finding a serious gym is proving difficult - I definitely got lucky last time when I was living in Freiburg). Probably my main goal is to lean out a bit, kind of undo what the ice cream did, but a second is just to be in keto. If nothing else I like the idea of running off fats, maybe for the shock factor I get when I tell people what I eat, or when they see what I cook. Then there is also the high energy in keto that I've grown to like. For me, it's fun to be in keto.
    One thing is that I kind of see the dangers in being in keto all the time, being that it can lead to hypothyroidism and other such disturbances in hormone levels. That's also the one reason I've decided to do it for a short time, that I think that the problems of keto can't really manifest themselves over the course of two or three weeks.
    Once I find a gym and start lifting, I'll be adding carbs back in, around 50g every morning for breakfast, and another 50g post workout, with maybe around 30-40g coming from other vegetable sources. I will very rarely be eating fruit, and won't include it in my diet until it comes back into season.

More about the flux of "Paleo"

What I was talking about in my earlier post on the changing of paleo seems to not have been as well thought out as I would of liked. Or I just didn't think it through enough.

Anyway, for paleo itself, it should be in some constant state of flux, that it's a guiding set of rules, that can/should be manipulated for each person. No "one size fits all" kind of deal. I feel that the need to learn about ancestral nutrition/health and then base one's nutritional ideas off of that is already a little widespread, but the more it's said, the more it gets spread around.

You could say that I've been reminded to say this after I read the PaleolithicDiet's most recent email, which dealt primarily with warning people in the paleosphere not to get emotionally attached to certain gurus, or ideals. I call these overly emotionally attached people paleotards, primarily because I think it's funny, but it's not very PC. Anyway, I try to check myself against emotional attachment, but sometimes I find myself trying to defend something just because I like the way it sounds.

The Evolution of Paleo

A constant evolution is shaping paleo. Many have probably noticed this before, something along the lines of paleo changing until it is "done," or maybe realizing that it's going to be a work in progress as long as it exists. I'm not entirely sure what everyone thinks, but it is apparent that paleo is evolving.

What recently reminded me of the evolution, is a recent string of posts on how carbs really aren't that bad (or at least not as bad as the paleo community has been painting them). This mainly comes from two posts by Danny Roddy, and also Stephan Guyenet's critique of  how Gary Taube's carbohydrate hypothesis is flawed/wrong (I haven't read Good Calories, Bad Calories; or Why We Get Fat yet. This is making me question the worth of reading the two books). Changes in my own diet are partially mirroring the paleosphere, inasmuch that I'm starting to include more carbs and not be in keto as much I as I used to be. From this I would say that my own version of paleo is changing as I learn more about nutrition, and also as I learn more about how I work. 

What I really want to say about the evolution of Paleo, is that is should not really be feared, and in fact it should be embraced. Paleo separates itself from the other "diets" by being able to change, and not be stuck to some kind of dietary dogma that the followers must believe in. In effect Paleo is changing to reflect the current knowledge of human nutrition and it's critical interpretation in an evolutionary light. 

Starting on the Gnoll Credo

Just to keep posting, I've been fairly busy this summer working on coursework, lab work, and also getting ready to apply to grad school, something that I'm getting more comfortable the closer I get to it.

Anyway, I recently decided to get The Gnoll Credo by J. Stanton, and I'm enjoying that it's a fairly short read. I decided to get the book after reading a couple blog posts on his site, and thinking that he's making some good points.

As I'm reading the book, he's developing some of the same philosophies about western civilization that I've been thinking about recently. I'm planning on fleshing these ideas out a bit more, so I'll be writing about them later. I think I'll also analyze more of the book, because the writing style reminds of what Daniel Quinn did in Ishmael, in that to convey an idea, they tell a story. I find this method of idea conveyance quite effective, since it's putting an idea in context, so it can be easily conceptualized. Along these lines I also think Stanton puts a little too much added flesh into the story, but I guess that's me reading it knowing that there's underlying concepts that I should be finding. I'll work this up with more detail later.

Edit: As kind of an afterthought, I'm starting to think about ways to increase my understanding of evolutionary concepts (and how I could possible blend that into what I'l be studying in grad school). There's a lot of evolutionary thought flowing through the Gnoll Credo, and I'd say that if you're approaching paleo right, then you're dealing with a whole lot of evolutionary thought and conjecture. I'd pay not to screw it up.

I'll just add Modern Evolutionary Theory to the list of things I need to read about and learn. Yikes.

Did you have a good Midsummer?

My friends and I celebrated Midsummer last night, complete with a roasted pig shoulder and horns of mead raised to the Gods. Most of the people that came really weren't too keen on celebrating Midsummer exactly, but were there to celebrate the Summer Solstice, which I guess is a pretty good compromise. I'm primarily satisfied with starting to celebrate holidays with pagan origin, or restoring the pagan roots to appropriated holidays (Jul, Eostre).


Anyway, one of my friends was actually fairly important in getting me to start hosting my own celebrations or feasts, instead of looking for ones to join. We were/are interested in some sort of a cultural recreation, something of having a tradition that ties into our (Scandinavian) roots. I was always hesitant to do anything, since I was afraid of doing it 'wrong', not practicing the right tradition or something. I guess the best way to start a tradition, is to just start doing it, and so far I guess it's working well for us. It also gives us structured time and a reason to get together and feast.


Another thing that comes to mind with celebrating solstices in general, is that I think that it would give the celebrators a better feel of the seasons. A better connectedness to nature, so to say.

The take home message being: Go out and celebrate a solstice the next time around.

Also, enjoy some Unleashed:

Paleo and Me

Essentially the setup for paleo and me goes back to when I was in high school, when I was 16. Back then I was carrying around a good bit of fat, and around then I started making modifications to my diet in order to try to lose some of it. I also started lifting, but back then I didn't know that much about lifting, let alone lifting to lose fat. Off to college, and I was still trying to lose the fat, I was still lifting, but I also happened to enjoy the drinking scene there, and it turns out beer isn't a good weight loss aid when coupled with a cafeteria-style food supply, and I subsequently gained some more weight. All this while I was using the “calories in – calories out” theory to try to lose weight, and often times my meals would be rather carbohydrate heavy, the thought being that I could more carbohydrates, than I could of fat, and therefore feel fuller.

Anyway, sophomore year of college I kind of got serious about losing fat, and stumbled across Tim Ferris' “Slow Carb” diet, and did that for pretty much a year. I got smaller, although I'm pretty sure that was mostly muscle mass. Come junior year I joined up with a friend getting ready for a body-building competition, and changed my diet to a heavily controlled structured eating plan. In order to get ready for the “cutting” phase, I went into a “bulking” phase, and gained 20 or so pounds. At the end of the spring semester, I managed to lose around 27 pounds, so I managed a net loss of fat, and I also looked a little more muscular, which wasn't a bad thing.

That fall (the fall of 2009), I went off to Germany for a year of study abroad, and I was pretty much on my own for training and nutrition wise. I still was weighing out my food, but I was controlling how much carbs I ate, which were kept around 150, although it was primarily from dairy, with some post-work grains thrown in for good measure. Sometime during the winter of '09/'10 I noticed that when I would eat my grain serving, I would feel uncomfortably full, and I decided to cut out grains from my diet. Probably a month or so later I came across Mark's Daily Apple when I was reading StrongLifts, and started reading his blog. I was rather surprised about how everything was fitting in, it all made sense, and that I was almost eating paleo already. When I came back to the US in August of 2010, I went full paleo, since I could source grass-fed meat, and I have been eating paleo since.

I still drink beer with friends, although I keep it to one or two a night, any more and I have some digestive issues the next morning. As of now, I consider myself lacto-paleo, since I've added kefir, cheese, and heavy cream back into my diet. I've notice a little more of a mucous problem in my nose, but it's not that bad, and I've decided I can live with it. I also really like eating steak with cheese on it, and I also found grass-fed cheese recently, so I'm excited.

My diet changed over these years, but primarily my philosophy on food and mainstream culture changed too. I'll blog on this later.