"Eat Like A Predator, Not Like Prey": Paleo In Six Easy Steps, A Motivational Guide

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Originally Posted by BurnHard

I'm actually embarrassed that I gave you the impression that I think I understand all the issues... I find myself daily admitting to shortcomings in my knowledge or understanding in most everything I discuss, and I agree with you that sometimes I "fill in" gaps with regurgitated material. I try to avoid that and am *always* open to hearing a rational and well supported argument against my position.

So...

A) What specifically are you addressing? My post about exercise? Or my support of Paleo? I don't want to play the bitchy passive-aggressive card, I'm actually interested in others' opinions & an interesting discussion.

B) Do you work with MMA fighters and do you give a maggot-athlete a good deal on exercise & nutrition consulting? ;)

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Actually, I should have been more clear and perhaps will continue to edit my post. I do not want to "call anyone out", just post alternative views.

I may not be remembering correctly, but I recall much of your lifting advice to be similar to what you listed above. I will agree that high intensity / low volume exercise / weight lifting is appropriate... but only at certain times and for certain specific goals.

Often times an individual is not prepared to handle high loads such as your commonly prescribe. In addition, the physiological benefit is short lived and the gains fairly specific.

My issue is this: When you start to talk with many people whom have gotten over the allure of crossfit (not saying you subscribe, just an example) you begin to hear the stories of aching shoulders and bla bla bla. I've worked out at a few crossfit gyms and in "globo-gyms" with people whom crossfit.

What I've found is that most in that category do not really understand the body and how it works. Many movements set people for injury and while crossfit coaches insist on proper form they lack the knowledge to understand and correct the reasons that there was a break in form. I've observed this in those whom are quasi-crossfit wannabe's and also in those who have crossfit coaching certifications.

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Originally Posted by BurnHard

True. Most personal trainers are useless anyway ;)

I however do bench press, deadlift, and squat as well, which technically is 'limited range of motion', and I do those with 90-95%-max weights with the goal of improving strength because I'm lacking in some aspects. I also run 5-8 miles DAILY, slow, to build an aerobic base, which I am also lacking compared to my anaerobic training. A lot of miles on a treadmill when it's too cold. What I'm sayin is, too general an exercise guideline cannot be applied to everybody since individual athletes have specific needs to improve specific weaknesses or strengths...

But what I'm talking about does not apply to 99% of the population and the lazy slobs who sit on the erg/bike barely outputting 50Watts and talking on the phone :rolleyes2:rolleyes2 Those are the guys who will benefit from the article's kind of exercise guidelines the most.

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Re-reading this, I can believe that suggestions you have given previously were because of the training you are doing for yourself.

And yeah. Trainers at gyms are some of least knowledgeable people whom I have met. I have more respect for spats and the like whom are interested and do their own learning than 95% of the people who I graduated undergrad with. I basically take the stance that everyone sucks at what they do until they prove otherwise.

In terms of your training, you really can't limit yourself to those high intensity numbers. At that point you're training primarily neuromuscular recruitment... which is exceedingly important for strength... however so are increases in crosssectional diameter that are found in lower intensity numbers.

Additionally you need to be able to move quickly...which is true "power". You do not find that type of training with loads that high. Low reps and moderate intensity while allow you to recruit quickly. After all, do you want to just lift someone up...or f'ing toss him?

Cause cavemen lived long, healthy lives, right?

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Originally Posted by karpiel

Cause cavemen lived long, healthy lives, right?

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don't you live in your mom's basement?

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Originally Posted by XtrPickels

I've worked out at a few crossfit gyms and in "globo-gyms" with people whom crossfit.

What I've found is that most in that category do not really understand the body and how it works. Many movements set people for injury and while crossfit coaches insist on proper form they lack the knowledge to understand and correct the reasons that there was a break in form. I've observed this in those whom are quasi-crossfit wannabe's and also in those who have crossfit coaching certifications.

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fwiw, i have been called to a couple crossfit-induced injuries on the amber lamps round these parts in the past few months... one particularly gnarly rhabdomyolysis/compartment syndrome.

pickles- i'm curious and would love to hear if you have the time/inclination to write out- what sort of diet do you advocate/follow yourself?

good read, good info. i dont think this has to be a 24/7 ordeal unless you're extremely sedentary and looking to show off some abs, but its a stellar guideline. i've been wondering what the ideal dressing is following these guidelines if i am eating a salad?

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Originally Posted by Rontele

don't you live in your mom's basement?

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It's a walk out.
:fmicon:

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Originally Posted by BeanDip4All

fwiw, i have been called to a couple crossfit-induced injuries on the amber lamps round these parts in the past few months... one particularly gnarly rhabdomyolysis/compartment syndrome.

pickles- i'm curious and would love to hear if you have the time/inclination to write out- what sort of diet do you advocate/follow yourself?

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Hey Court- I'll say that I am Paleo-eque / whole foods. Typical dinner for me will be a bunch of flank steak, raw veggies, fruit, nut butter and a yogurt. I tend to cook proteins ahead of time and consume throughout the week. I, personally, have some issues including low level UC (see my thread in gimp central: ) that really do not like too many nuts but does well with yogurt. I typically do not buy anything that is non-perishable and if I do buy products like bread it is rare and from a bakery and not in a bag. Additionally, due to issues, I do not process fat soluble nutrients (not enough bile gets to the intestines because of the bile-duct block) so I supplement with a multi-vit and fish oil. Additionally I typically supplement with turmeric, ginger and quercitin for inflammation. I feel as though I've seen noticeable improvements in my vitiligo, especially with the addition of the inflammation supplements. However, that is completely observational and I really can't back that statement up.

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Originally Posted by shroom

good read, good info. i dont think this has to be a 24/7 ordeal unless you're extremely sedentary and looking to show off some abs, but its a stellar guideline. i've been wondering what the ideal dressing is following these guidelines if i am eating a salad?

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Freshly squeezed Squirrel.

This is going entirely OT but is way too interesting to not discuss, sorry OP :D

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Originally Posted by XtrPickels

I will agree that high intensity / low volume exercise / weight lifting is appropriate... but only at certain times and for certain specific goals

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100% agreed. Specialization is the keyword IMHO, and that means both with regards to the individual athlete and the sport. I'm not going to do isolated bicep curls for MMA purposes, neither should a marathon runner squat 95%-max on a weekly basis (or ever). I'm not going to focus as much on strength once my weaknesses shift elsewhere, nor will a 5k runner keep doing long aerobic base runs when he needs tempo runs or intervals to build speed. What I'm saying is, training specific to the individual and the sport is key.

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Originally Posted by XtrPickels

My issue is this: When you start to talk with many people whom have gotten over the allure of crossfit (not saying you subscribe, just an example) you begin to hear the stories of aching shoulders and bla bla bla. I've worked out at a few crossfit gyms and in "globo-gyms" with people whom crossfit.

What I've found is that most in that category do not really understand the body and how it works. Many movements set people for injury and while crossfit coaches insist on proper form they lack the knowledge to understand and correct the reasons that there was a break in form. I've observed this in those whom are quasi-crossfit wannabe's and also in those who have crossfit coaching certifications.

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I love certain aspects of CrossFit and do the occasional CrossFit type workout, but I'm not a big supporter of CF and do not make it the basis of my MMA training as it is focused too much on GPP rather than sport-specific needs, and the CF.com WOD does not have any concept of periodization whatsoever...

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Originally Posted by XtrPickels

In terms of your training, you really can't limit yourself to those high intensity numbers. At that point you're training primarily neuromuscular recruitment... which is exceedingly important for strength... however so are increases in crosssectional diameter that are found in lower intensity numbers.

Additionally you need to be able to move quickly...which is true "power". You do not find that type of training with loads that high. Low reps and moderate intensity while allow you to recruit quickly. After all, do you want to just lift someone up...or f'ing toss him?

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Full agreement again. Just my randomly scrambled thoughts here:
- Heavy lifting is only part of my routine. 2-3x/week if I'm really looking to drastically increase strength, 1x/week if I just want to maintain in the 8 weeks leading up to a fight.
- The same goes for HIIT type workouts - they're only part of my training, in fact, I do a lot of aerobic base/LISS type running, and a lot of AT/Tempo running when coming closer to a fight.
- Increasing crossectional diameter of the fibers usually involves an increase in mass (correct me if I'm wrong...), something which I have to be very careful about re: weight class.
- Explosive power training is also part of my training and becomes my primary focus leading into a fight: Plyo work, jump squats, depth jumps, explosive bench...

With all the indoors "machine" training I do I probably fail OP's article's criteria for Paleo :fm:

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Originally Posted by XtrPickels

However, your understanding of training / performance physiology is inaccurate and I do not agree with it (as I perceive what you are saying).

This is a touchy subject for me because, well, its my job to know.
I say this as a (former) national caliber athlete.
I say this as a consultant to world class athletes
I say this as an exercise physiologist who has "fixed" athletes whom train ineffectively and drastically improved their performance.
I say this as someone who has "known" you for years and whom is challenging you to understand the ideas contrary to your own.

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One of the reasons I crosspost things here (instead of just in the paleo echo chamber) is because I learn when things aren't coming across the way I intend them to, or when I need to correct them.

The article is very much aimed at someone who is trying to lose weight, and who is either sedentary or doing low-impact cardio as part of that effort -- something which has been proven over the years to be either ineffective or actively counterproductive. (i.e. "45 minutes on the elliptical, now I'm going to go get a smoothie!" which contains more calories than you burned.)

It is absolutely true that specific sports and activities require specific skills and strengths. I don't pretend to know everything that is involved in that, and I'm sure you know more than I do.

And though there is apparently a big overlap between 'paleo' and CrossFit (although possibly less now that they've cut Robb Wolf loose and cozied up to the Zone Diet), I have no experience with CrossFit. As such, I have no opinion on it, and am certainly not pushing it as a training method.

So it sounds like I need to add some clarification to that particular section: that I am speaking of weight loss and general fitness, not training for a specific sport or goal. If you want to run a marathon, of course you'll have to train steady-state cardio. (Though whether you should run marathons is another question.) And if you want to ski, play hockey, or sport climb, there will be specific training that can help you improve at those skills.

Thank you for your calm and reasoned response. It'll help me improve the article.

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Originally Posted by Spats

(Though whether you should run marathons is another question.)

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What?


-Your article comes off the end all be all of diets, not weight-loss specific FWIW.

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Originally Posted by Spats

(Though whether you should run marathons is another question.)

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Originally Posted by BeanDip4All

on the amber lamps

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:biggrin:

Just for kicks, here's what I ate earlier:

2 little purple potatoes, sliced, lightly fried in butter
Red pepper
Anaheim pepper
Onion
Fresh garlic
1/2 pound hormone-free, grass-fed hamburger
3 eggs (NOT SHOWN...had to put them in last)
Gluten-free tamari, ginger, other spices

http://tetongravity.com/forums/attac...1&d=1296105093

BurnHard: that's a great video, isn't it?

That's one way to hunt, and the fact that humans are hairless indicates that daytime hunting was important to us. There is speculation that "the wall", which marathoners hit around mile 20, exists because that's the absolute farthest we ever had to chase anything. Either it dropped long before that, or we never caught it.

Note that the hunter is running through savanna trees, not very quickly...using his brain as much as his legs, and continually shifting pace and direction as traces appear and disappear. Pounding away with heel strikes for hours in a stupefied trance on pavement, or on a treadmill or elliptical, isn't the same thing at all.

Also note that once we got the spear thing mastered, we usually hunted [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_megafauna"]megafauna[/ame]...which is why it's all gone now. It was slower than we are :D

Spats- I like some thoughts of the Paleo diet, but am not behind the logic and reasoning behind it. My stance has always been that I have eyes in the front of my head, and I have developed canine teeth for a reason, to eat meat. To that end, I agree with the poster who compared human diets to bears in the omnivore category. BUT, where I disagree is that we should get with what humans have been eating for millions of years. The problem is that current humans are not nearly where we were millions of years ago. I agree that we evolved and have remained largely unchanged, but some of those changes are evident in size, shape, and even dietary capabilities.

One of your posts in the bread thread mentioned comparing this diet to those of the Masaii (sp?) and other "primitive" tribes. Many of these tribes have livestock and eat meat, and drink blood, but they also drink dairy. SO, I guess the big hangup that I have is the exclusion of dairy from the whole equation. I know there are dairy allergies, but we all come into the world drinking dairy as our sole source of nutrition. I know that we don't continue to drink "mothers" milk, but bovine/ovine/caprine dairy products and milks, to me, fit in with your fatty meats discussions.

Otherwise, and interesting read. I am trying to cut down on my grains, but there are some things that I am just not committed enough to do. Beer is good. So is decent bread, occasionally. I do think that wheat is a bit evil, but that is for the other thread. Thanks for stimulating some thought with the two threads.

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Originally Posted by hafilax

The only thing I strongly disagree with is the vilification of seeds. Grain seeds are far different from sunflower seeds or even almonds (which I recently found out are a seed and not a nut). Lots of seeds are perfectly edible, contain lots of energy and nutrients and the fat content is good for keeping you full and don't have the bad effects of grains.

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Sunflower seeds are also incredibly high in omega-6 fats (9g per ounce!), which is why I can't recommend them. Same with peanuts: they're really a legume, not a nut, and they're about 1/3 omega-6! Not good.

Other nuts have a much better fat profile. Minimizing polyunsaturated fats, and making sure the ones you get have a good n-3 to n-6 ratio, is one important goal of a paleo diet IMO. PUFAs oxidize (go rancid), hydrogenate, and glycate very easily. There's a reason everyone used to fry everything in butter, coconut oil, tallow, and lard before Ancel Keys' scientific fraud scared everyone away from them.

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Originally Posted by hafilax

I'm also confused by your picking glucose over fructose. Most Paleo sources I've read recommend the opposite unless you're an athlete looking to replenish glycogen stores. If you're looking for weight loss then the lower glycemic load of fruit is preferable to the high glycemic load of a sweet potato.

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Fructose isn't caught by glycemic load tests because they only, by definition, test for glucose. But fructose gets metabolized in the liver and basically turns straight into triglycerides. Furthermore, it's much more unstable than glucose in the bloodstream (as is galactose) and tends to form glycation products (a sugar stuck to a fat or protein, usually protein), which are becoming strongly implicated in heart disease.

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Originally Posted by hafilax

The body is quite good at dealing with toxic substances as long as the amounts are small. I don't know what those limits are and from my limited reading of Paleo papers I haven't seen a discussion of the upper limit of how much is required to get a leaky gut etc. It's all, grains are bad don't eat them. Guess what, there's cyanide in apples and nicotine in tomatoes. We can set an upper limit on how much tuna to eat, why not grains? Maybe it really is that toxic but I haven't seen any numbers to back that up. I have especially strong doubts about legumes being that bad.

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Do the reading on lectins and wheat germ agglutinin yourself...that's what I did. And you'll note the link in the article that shows the REAL point of the China Study, which is that the only variable independently correlated with heart disease was...

...wheat consumption.

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Originally Posted by hafilax

I'm on the tail end of a 30 day Paleo challenge and quite frankly I hate it. The food is bland and limited.

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Did you try here? I link this at the end:
http://theclothesmakethegirl.blogspo...o-recipes.html
Lots of great stuff! Curries, chilies, stews, homemade mayonnaise, chutneys and sauces and who the hell knows what.

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Originally Posted by hafilax

I've been losing weight which is counter to my goals and I've concluded that I'm incapable of getting enough calories under strict paleo.

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What is 'strict paleo'? No dairy/no potatoes? I'm not a big fan of that unless you have problems with casein. If you don't, go for it! If you can't gain weight drinking half and half, I don't know what to tell you :D

I'm not strict paleo: rice and frozen yogurt are my two main cheats. (I do eat dairy, which some consider a cheat.)

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Originally Posted by hafilax

I know you are well read on the subject so I'm wondering if you have any non-Paleo blog sources I could read specifically about the doses needed in order to see the leaky gut issues or insulin sensitivity problems. I'm really sick of the Paleo hyperbole and would be much happier reading some facts without all of the colourful language telling me that grains=death.

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The contention on gut issues is, I believe, that the worst of them specifically have to do with wheat and other gluten grains. Oats are suspect due to being nearly identical in protein structure and usually contaminated with wheat. Corn has some issues, but far less, and rice is the least offensive digestion-wise. It may be that you do better by dropping back and just going gluten-free, keeping rice and occasional corn dishes in your diet.

The blogs I link at the end of the post are all very science-oriented and not hype-oriented. I think Health Correlator, Heart Scan Blog, and Whole Health Source are probably the 'hardest' of the science, particularly Health Correlator.

I think that the more active you are, the more carbs you can get away with. And if you're not naturally fat, you're probably not excessively insulin-sensitive, so as long as you're eating plenty of fat with your carbohydrates.

Hey, if it genuinely doesn't make a difference to you, then don't bother. There's a reason I put at the top "Don’t stress about perfect adherence, or obsess about making it all the way down the list: any progress you make will most likely improve your health, mood, and physical fitness." A lot of people find that just going high-animal-fat, and paying attention to omega-3/omega-6, improves their health dramatically without entirely cutting out anything in the diet.

Just my opinion. Hope it helps.

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Originally Posted by SterlingSpikeDancer

One of your posts in the bread thread mentioned comparing this diet to those of the Masaii (sp?) and other "primitive" tribes. Many of these tribes have livestock and eat meat, and drink blood, but they also drink dairy. SO, I guess the big hangup that I have is the exclusion of dairy from the whole equation. I know there are dairy allergies, but we all come into the world drinking dairy as our sole source of nutrition. I know that we don't continue to drink "mothers" milk, but bovine/ovine/caprine dairy products and milks, to me, fit in with your fatty meats discussions.

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You'll note that the article only excludes milk (mainly as a weight-loss tool...don't drink calories), not cream, butter, or cheese, and doesn't put a prohibition on dairy. You have to experiment with it. Some people find they do much better without it, some find it doesn't make a difference and continue to eat it because it's delicious. Especially if you're white, which means you're very likely to actually digest lactose. And I do say explicitly that there is no reason to exclude butter except frank allergy. There are a lot of paleo purists who won't touch potatoes or dairy on principle. I'm not one of them: I use boatloads of butter, and smaller quantities of cream (and whole milk, when I can't get it).

So I guess what I'm saying is that I agree with you :D

As far as genetic adaptation, it is absolutely true that the longer a population has been eating grains, the less likely they are to have the HLA genotypes associated with celiac. But wheat contains toxic peptides that are dangerous to everyone, not just celiacs.

To quote Art de Vaney from The new Evolution Diet:

"Jogging is a useless exercise" and "Bread is the ultimate poverty food-it exists only because grain is cheap, easy to grow and virtually imperishable. Now, in the age of domesticated protein and refrigeration, bread has outlived its usefulness. It is an inferior food that has no place in a healthy diet."

Bread can be yummy but I never eat it unless there is some warm, spongy or crusty really GOOD bread. 99% of it is shit and if you really think about the bread you have eaten lately you'd probably agree. I mean I am gonna eat the bread they give me at The French Laundry-or any damn thing for that matter. I am not going to waste it at the fucking Olive garden's endless breadstick bullshit

This thread is right in line with most of what I have been thinking about today. I eat paleo and am a believer in it's essential values. When I started Crossfit as my primary exercise and pretty much stopped pounding the pavement, I began to notice my body started becoming what I wanted it to be and could not seem to achieve by running. Plus, when I do run now I feel like my lungs are huge. Mucho stamina.

MF

Interesting read.

I turned into a big fattie for almost 2 yrs after my son was born. I just ate & ate like I was still preggo. Then I got sick of not being able to fit into any clothing I liked and I got drastic. I cut my portions and started walking. I dropped quite a bit. But I wasn't happy, I wanted to be very lean. I decided I liked Atkins ideas and went on a kind of modified Atkins...deciding that bread, potatoes, and rice were the devil.

12 years later and 72 lbs lighter, I've not gained it back despite the occasional 5 lb fluctuation. Those little spikes usually occur around holidays or when people feed me baked goodies and yummy potatoes and stuff, and I let them. But then I start to feel really gross and I stop.

I feel much better w/ those foods absent from my diet. From time to time I lose my resolve and eat that stuff & pay for it. Lately I've been cheating and eating half a muffin w/ breakfast and eating crackers w/ my cheese and I have noticed chubbiness. But it's so easy to drop that in just a few weeks by completely removing the culprit.

That's my experience anyway and it's really not hard to live w/out the bread/potato/rice. I don't eat much sugar either, treating it as a condiment (I don't stress about eating a few hershey kisses but I don't do that every day). I guess it's not so bad for me b/c I love fish, meat, fruits, veggies and especially bacon. They fill the void fine for the most part until I get really tempted by some of the bad culprits and cave in but I can usually stay away.

In sum, I do not believe in sugar/bread/rice/potato having a place in my diet in moderation. I have kept that much weight off for so many years by treating them as a "holy" treat to be revered and enjoyed almost never.

Sprite

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Originally Posted by Spats

The article is very much aimed at someone who is trying to lose weight, and who is either sedentary or doing low-impact cardio as part of that effort -- something which has been proven over the years to be either ineffective or actively counterproductive. (i.e. "45 minutes on the elliptical, now I'm going to go get a smoothie!" which contains more calories than you burned.)

It is absolutely true that specific sports and activities require specific skills and strengths. I don't pretend to know everything that is involved in that, and I'm sure you know more than I do.

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To ask a sedentary person to do high intensity intervals is asking for trouble. They will not have the ability to do them in a volume (even though it can be lower than steady state) that is truly conducive to weight loss. Additionally, medical complications are more common.

If I were you I would add in a quick "If your doctor approves...".

If someone is going to workout 4 days per week.... I see it as 2 hard and 2 easy. An untrained individual cannot give 4 quality days per week for very long. Heck, world class athletes do not do that many hard workouts per week. If they do... everything just becomes "moderate" as you accumulate too much fatigue to truly go "hard".... it may feel like you're working hard.... but the work output has diminished... which is the biggest problem with constant high intensity training.

Good job on trying to piece everything together Spats. Its a large undertaking.

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Originally Posted by XtrPickels

I, personally, have some issues including low level UC (see my thread in gimp central: )

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Damn Pickles, I hadn't seen that. Good luck.

As for crossfit trends, The Zone is out because people are realizing that it's complete bullshit and Paleo is in because it's really easy to describe, easy to follow and shows good results with the least amount of effort.

IMO the advantages of Paleo are:
-it eliminates a lot of common food sensitivities (wheat, soy, dairy)
-it eliminates a lot of calorie dense foods
-the lower energy dense foods must be eaten in greater volume
-the high fat content keeps you full
-eliminates processed foods

I feel like the hype about leaky gut, poisonous gluten and legumes, and insulin spiking dairy to be fear mongering which is effective for people who really can't control their diet on their own. They need to fear the consequences of a loaf of bread. For the rest of the population I think that moderation is possible.

Guess I'll spend my free time today looking for papers on the perils of wheat.

When I say I've been eating strict Paleo I mean absolutely no grains, dairy (even butter) although I've been pushing the envelope in the legume department with snap peas, peas and green beans. The only prepared condiment has been dijon mustard.

The successes:
-Cottage Pie with sweet potato
-tomato-meat sauce with elk sausage and ground beef on spaghetti squash
-scrambled eggs with basil and sundried tomatoes
-pork tenderloin cooked in a dutch oven (oven was broken so stove top was necessary) with a pan sauce made with plain apple sauce salt and pepper

The failures:
-baking with almond meal
-beef stew without soup stock (I don't have time to make my own)
-mayonnaise (the cheap olive oil I have is disgusting and has a nasty bitter aftertaste; I'm sure it can be good but it doesn't keep very long)

The crux of it is that I don't have time to prepare sauces for every meal that will last only a few days or must be frozen and thawed. AND I HATE COCONUT. Adding butter will make a huge difference and cheese will open up a whole other dimension.

great article, but one question.

Region played the biggest part in paelo diet. Why no mention of that in the otherwise well thought out article?

^ I think regional differences are somewhat moot now, in that we KNOW what the "good" parts of each diet are and can obtain those things regardless of location. Also, not many of us are living in our "natural" evolutionary zone... an example is people eating ocean fish in non-coastal regions.

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Originally Posted by jfost

in that we KNOW what the "good" parts of each diet are

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Do we?

There's a lot of new research disproving the saturated fats & cholesterol myths, there's a lot of research pointing to sugar leading to inflammation/CVD and diabetes, and a lot of research pointing to benefits of a myriad other nutrients (fish oil, antioxidants, phytonutrients, etc, etc, etc). I personally try to adhere to a lifestyle that accommodates most of this new research and the Paleo principles.

Yet there's still SO MUCH we don't know, so much we don't understand, and so many scientists who shouldn't be scientists and still confuse correlation and causation...

Just saying, we don't know nearly as much as we think we do about the human body and nutrition. What parts of each diet may be "good" is also very relative to goals - a higher fat lower carb diet may lead to improvements in certain aspects of health, but could (purely theoretically) lead to diminishing brain sizes over centuries or millenia. We just don't know *everything* yet...

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Originally Posted by jfost

^ I think regional differences are somewhat moot now, in that we KNOW what the "good" parts of each diet are and can obtain those things regardless of location. Also, not many of us are living in our "natural" evolutionary zone... an example is people eating ocean fish in non-coastal regions.

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Makes sense. I was more concerned with regional variations and how that fact might relate to body type and then taking that to the level of eating for body type.

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Originally Posted by DasBlunt

great article, but one question.

Region played the biggest part in paelo diet. Why no mention of that in the otherwise well thought out article?

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In the whole scheme of things the paleo diet really isn't absolutely reflective of what exactly paleolithic people ate. Its about more getting back to foods which the body has evolved eating.

In terms of locational differences, we're all so damn cross bread (ha!) that any specific regional adaptions are most likely long lost.

I console myself by saying that if a paleolithic person came across some brownies... they'd stuff themselves just like I do.

DTM- Thanks for the thoughts.

I refuse to listen to any diet thread where Tip has posted more than twice. :wink:

Also, there was some skimming and scanning and I saw "no beer." No fucking dice.

[quote=XtrPickels;3158634]To ask a sedentary person to do high intensity intervals is asking for trouble. They will not have the ability to do them in a volume (even though it can be lower than steady state) that is truly conducive to weight loss.]/QUOTE]

That's where we disagree. Calories burned via aerobic output in a normal 'exercise program' are rounding error to calories burned by muscle building and changes in underlying metabolic rate. (Note: I'm not talking about going out and BC skiing all day, I'm talking about 45 minutes on the elliptical.)

For instance:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...?dopt=Abstract
hGH elevated for 90-120 minutes, peaks up to 450% of baseline, after a 30 second all-out sprint! There's your anabolism and fat loss, right there.

Furthermore:

Wideman L, Weltman JY, Hartman ML, Veldhuis JD, Weltman A. Growth hormone release during acute and chronic aerobic and resistance exercise: recent findings. Sports Med. 2002;32(15):987-1004.

“Following the increase in GH secretion associated with a bout of aerobic exercise, GH release transiently decreases. As a result, 24-hour integrated GH concentrations are not usually elevated by a single bout of exercise. However, repeated bouts of aerobic exercise within a 24-hour period result in increased 24-hour integrated GH concentrations.”

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Originally Posted by XtrPickels

If someone is going to workout 4 days per week.... I see it as 2 hard and 2 easy. An untrained individual cannot give 4 quality days per week for very long. Heck, world class athletes do not do that many hard workouts per week. If they do... everything just becomes "moderate" as you accumulate too much fatigue to truly go "hard".... it may feel like you're working hard.... but the work output has diminished... which is the biggest problem with constant high intensity training.

Good job on trying to piece everything together Spats. Its a large undertaking.

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Thanks. I spend a lot of time on this stuff, and none of it involves reading anyone's book. Most of it is spent following references on Medline, Google Scholar, and whatnot.

I agree with you on goal-directed training, most obviously including weight training. If you're burning your arms out (for example), there's no point in burning them again before at least three days pass.

But anyone can do two or three 5-minute interval sprints a day. And as far as I can tell, three 30-second sprints will boost anabolism (therefore raising resting metabolism) more than any amount of low-effort 'cardio'.

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Originally Posted by XtrPickels

In the whole scheme of things the paleo diet really isn't absolutely reflective of what exactly paleolithic people ate. Its about more getting back to foods which the body has evolved eating.

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Exactly. None of the plants that Paleolithic people ate are found in a supermarket, because no one would buy crabapples or ancestral bananas. And much of the meat we ate is from animals that we hunted to extinction.

That's why it's more about staying away from things we DEFINITELY didn't eat (cereal grains, legumes, seed oils) than trying to exactly recreate what we did eat.

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Originally Posted by XtrPickels

In terms of locational differences, we're all so damn cross bread (ha!) that any specific regional adaptions are most likely long lost.

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That's not true AFAIK. Prevalence of lactose intolerance varies from <10% in Europeans to 100% in Native Americans. Prevalence of HLA-B8 and other HLAs related to celiac is also very unevenly distributed. And tests for a single gluten antibody give results from <0.5% to 15% of the population, depending on the population studied.

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Originally Posted by Shredhead

What about alcohol?

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Bad for you. Hand it over.

Why do you say corn has less issues than wheat? Haven't people been eating wheat much longer than corn, especially those of you with no ancestry in the Americas? Im pretty curious about this stuff but i like baking too much to cut my wheat significantly. Any suggestions, i suppose corn based bread can be done done and maybe dark ryes.

Here's a suggestion that often seems to fall by the wayside but somehow always manages to come back in favor after a while: Moderation.

funny stuff there. My favorites:

Eat more meat. If it’s not meat, it’s not a meal.
But remember that fatty meat is always your primary source of calories.
They’re made from seeds, and they’re extracted using poisonous organic solvents (hexane)
Learn to drink water

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Originally Posted by Spats

Exactly. None of the plants that Paleolithic people ate are found in a supermarket, because no one would buy crabapples or ancestral bananas. And much of the meat we ate is from animals that we hunted to extinction.

That's why it's more about staying away from things we DEFINITELY didn't eat (cereal grains, legumes, seed oils) than trying to exactly recreate what we did eat.



That's not true AFAIK. Prevalence of lactose intolerance varies from <10% in Europeans to 100% in Native Americans. Prevalence of HLA-B8 and other HLAs related to celiac is also very unevenly distributed. And tests for a single gluten antibody give results from <0.5% to 15% of the population, depending on the population studied.

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Anyone ever consider evolution of our dietary systems?

(Edit to add the article that started this thread, for reference.)

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Originally Posted by abraham

Why do you say corn has less issues than wheat? Haven't people been eating wheat much longer than corn, especially those of you with no ancestry in the Americas? Im pretty curious about this stuff but i like baking too much to cut my wheat significantly. Any suggestions, i suppose corn based bread can be done done and maybe dark ryes.

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Wheat (and rye) has specific immune and endocrine disruptors in it: wheat germ agglutinin, gluten exorphins, and the awkward fact that gliadin increases intestinal permeability, which allows all sorts of crap to end up in your bloodstream that shouldn't. This is in addition to the anti-nutrients such as lectins and phytic acid that all grains share to some degree, and is the reason that wheat specifically is implicated by the China Study data in heart disease and weight gain, compared with rice:
http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/12/15/new...th-weight-gai/
http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/09/02/the...disease-oh-my/

Gluten exorphins are physically addictive. Yes, there are opiates in wheat, formed by the products of partial digestion of gluten. People have trouble dropping candy, but they get violent when you tell them to drop bread, and they can't resist the bread basket. There's a reason for that.

Corn isn't good for you either, but it's less bad than wheat. White rice is the least bad of the grains, containing the least anti-nutrients and metabolic disruptors.

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Originally Posted by iceman

Bad for you. Hand it over.

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Moderate amounts of wine are, if anything, associated with longevity...and I'm not opposed to the occasional distilled alcohol. All I'm saying is there's a reason it's called a "beer gut".

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Originally Posted by iceman

Here's a suggestion that often seems to fall by the wayside but somehow always manages to come back in favor after a while: Moderation.

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Moderate amounts of poison are a better idea than large amounts of poison -- but no poison is an ever better idea :D

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Originally Posted by XtrPickels

My issue is this: When you start to talk with many people whom have gotten over the allure of crossfit (not saying you subscribe, just an example) you begin to hear the stories of aching shoulders and bla bla bla. I've worked out at a few crossfit gyms and in "globo-gyms" with people whom crossfit.

What I've found is that most in that category do not really understand the body and how it works. Many movements set people for injury and while crossfit coaches insist on proper form they lack the knowledge to understand and correct the reasons that there was a break in form. I've observed this in those whom are quasi-crossfit wannabe's and also in those who have crossfit coaching certifications.

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I have eaten Paleo for a year and a half. Crossfit introduced the way of eating by way of a "challenge". 60 days, eat Paleo... before and after pictures to determine the winner. It was just for fun and wasn't meant to be scientific. The results were dramatic. People leaned out and one guy gained 15 lbs of pure muscle. I got second, but should have gotten first.:mad:

I have found Crossfit to be a great way to train. It is very difficult to find coached training with qualified trainers. The coaches at out affiliate are very high level - though not perfect. Doing what Crossfitters do can result in injury. Skiing is the same way.

Try looking for a personal trainer that can provide the atmosphere and challenge that Crossfit does all over the world. Personal trainers don't cut it, except for a few. High intensity training and heavy lifting - that's Crossfit. I personally believe that low intensity training ought to be included... wouldn't matter though, it's too boring for me.

I eat nuts and berries, fruits and vegetables, lean meat, fish and seafood. My supplement is Carlson Fish Oil - 8 tsp per day. I find I can eat as much as I like, as long as I am not abusive about it. I cheat once in a while, but try to avoid gluten. I don't eat: dairy, grains, legumes unless it's a cheat.

It works for me. My Crossfit eats Paleo/Zone, but I am not there yet.

Spats,

After reading your post, this make alot of sense. Been doing it for almost a week now and already feel better.

One question. Whats your thoughts on Quinoa? I read an article a year ago and the called it a "super food". I've been eating it ever since. If I can keep that in my diet, I would be extremely happy.

Quinoa, Amaranth, Millet...