Thank you! I often feel a bit foolish for "reading the internets" about a subject that I feel pretty bought into but now I have a better idea why and what I'm looking for. Maybe in 10 years I'll have built up enough positive, prime rib associations that I won't need the extra support.

The internet squabbles on other sites are off putting and depressing, as soon as one starts up, the site is usually taken off of my RSS reader. 🙂 I appreciate that you keep your site free of most of the BS.

I started my internet career with a forum for low-carb support. Now I think there's actually hope for me to optimize my health and live well. I don't take anything at face value, but I weigh everything I read. There are so many seemingly well-informed people who dig for science and answers out here! I don't even pick up health magazines in the waiting rooms any more.

I've been able to shed poor eating habits, poor health advice and a sedentary lifestyle that will, hopefully, allow me to grow old gracefully. I don't care if I have to get picky at restaurants. After ten years, it doesn't cause any eyebrows to go up. Once a waitress even complemented my "healthy" choices.

I appreciate the Gnolls site for the education I get here. Keep up the good work!

Good stuff JS.

Now if you'll excuse me I have some negativity to breed 😉

Good stuff, JS! The process of learning and studying is itself rewarding, even when it turns up nothing. Heck, nothing's more compelling than a good variable reinforcement schedule. I'll learn nothing nine times out of ten... but what if this time is number ten! And in fact the rate of reinforcement is much higher on this blog.

One effect of constant primal trawls is to raise my own standards of what is possible. This girl lifts heavier than me; this guy has made a more incredible transformation. If I compared myself only to those in my local milieu, complacency would dog me. But in the wider world there's always somebody to admire, emulate, and try to one-up. So I never lack motivation to conquer my goals and set new ones.

Most of all, as you put it so well in a previous article that I never tire of linking, we don't know everything about nutrition. We know even less about anti-nutrients. Nutritional science today is about where astrophysics was in the 17th century. I want to know more! Not just for practical reasons, but to better appreciate the infinite elegance and beauty of the human animal.

Good sound thoughts. I think you're probably right that it has a lot to do with a drive to find reinforcement for our choices.

Have to point out though that the real deep dish to lust after is Lou Malnati's!

Well written thoughts here.

There is lots to be said about exercises in being an "external viewer of self". This is like soft information in science applied.

I suppose I could think of my past sum experiences as a mixed bag; there are in fact associations reaching back that are useful to re-purpose in a new context of diet and well being. I don't mean that search to imitate old associations of comfort foods with new lesser ones, but to draw upon other areas in my younger years.

I think everyone has certain memories that stand out if you really think about them; where intuitive notions fit so well with a situation at hand. Positive associations were made and one's understanding of self grew in some way. It may take years and wisdom to allow us to evaluate which of those are kept and can be drawn upon in other disciplines, say newly cultivated intuition as a discipline.

Maybe it was a combined sense of adventure and connectedness on a road trip; maybe it was successfully taking apart and rebuilding an engine to make it run better only by learning to see how the parts are designed to work together; maybe a certain film gave special insight into the causality of human behaviors and passions. The sorts of things that can contribute to how to build a mindset for a newly adopted way of living, practically effecting even food choices (without going manic).

Or even within the research of the historical, the questions could shift to more difficult but interesting ones-- going from "What did culture X eat, how often and what did it do for them?" to q's like "Can we put together a causative model that explains their patterns of thought?"... so in turn, what were the underlying reasons and circumstances to bring about *their* positive associative connections, such that inferred dietary patterns among other practiced cultural traits?

i think i still get into my spurts of internet-ing for paleo discussions 'cause i know there is, in fact, no ONE paleo diet - very likely many many variations on the theme (of which we can only "know" the probable basics...) and i look for those who have been creative with those possibilities.

yes - conformational bias drives all of us to dig around at moments i think, but to see how others do and reason out the paleo path is (still) quite interesting--

recently i have been ruminating on the assertions of the likes of Graham Hancock on the very real possibilities that we have not had this nice linear evolutionary path (that is rather universally assumed by paleo discussions for lack of better confirmed information) and been considering what previous dietary diversions our species has played with and how they affected our diet. is it hunter-gatherers all the way down (like the turtles...) or have we had longger genetic-influencing episodes of very different dietary intake?

the question then becomes what exactly are we genetically adapted to? i believe again, certain basics can be postulated but the possible variations prior to the historical record (for which we have a shaky grasp more than a couple thousand years back)- clearly hunter-gathering is the apparent dominant genetic influence, but what else is lurking in our adaptations long laid dormant?