This whole thread reminded me of a post I made quite a long time ago about my husband and his weight gain and loss that happened to coincide with my Low carbing. I am copying it here:

my husband is a First Nation Canadian of Dene Origin. We live on the reserve in Northern Manitoba.

The people here still live a very traditional lifestyle. As we speak my brothers in law are out on the boat checking fishing nets to bring the catch to my mother in law and some other women who are working on cutting, preparing and smoking the fish. In the winter months the diet is primarily caribou meat. My husband hunts for his family of 10 brothers and sisters and parents plus their children and probably brings in about 20 caribou a year himself during the season from Novemeber to April.

At my mother in law's house, on any given day you could go inside and find some kind of meat or fish being dried, smoked, boiled or baked in (or outside of) her house. There certainly was no availability of grains, and sugar and flour were luxury items picked up on twice yearly supply trips until the store was built about 15 years ago. Low Carb eating is a matter of nature here.

I can tell you that you see very few overweight people in this community, and what there is of that, is likely recently acquired due to the influences of the fast food and overprocessed food that has become available in the past 15 years with the advancement of the store here. (Northern Store by the way, chain of North West Company). My husband works there, and there are not a lot of healthy food options!

Just a personal note, my husband weighed about 180 lbs when I met him 3 years ago. He had maintained that weight for most of his adult life, standard size 34 pants which were a little baggy on him. He worked hard cutting and hauling wood for heating his house during the long winters and even hauling water for drinking and doing laundry and cleaning as we only got a water system here last year. He ate a diet of primarily meat.

When he started living with me, his diet changed dramatically as I was in carbo-heaven at the time, and he loved every new thing he tried. His weight went up to as high as 225 just about when I started low carbing in April of this year. I'm sure part of that was food, and some had to do with the fact that he now lived in a house with a furnace (teacher accomodations are a little more advanced) and didn't have to do as much physical hard work just to survive day to day. With no real effort on his own, just the fact that I stopped cooking potatoes and rice and buying bread etc... he has dropped 25 lbs and is down one pants size. He still has some bread and eats far more carbohydrates than I do, but I think the "push" he got into what is probably a more natural state of eating for him and his culture and probably genetics is showing a substantial difference without much effort.

For these anecdotal reasons, I really believe that the way we were meant to eat, is far different from how I have been eating, and although I am not calling my people here "cavemen", I certainly think they are a lot closer to a "natural" diet than any diet I was raised on.


So, it seems to me that when my husband's eating, with no real concious effort on his part, got closer to what is "natural" for his people, his weight started to stabalize, and when a bunch of items that were untypical of his traditional diet were added, he started gaining quickly. Not exactly a scientific study, but seems to coincide with the general argument.

Mari