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

[Rontele]

Rontele: I was't trying to make a point, I was just wonderig if there was any historical evidence either way. Certainly personal experience is a reasonable basis upon which to base decisions.

heh, "life is too short not to eat pizza" about sums up my position too.

There is a ton of evidence out there. Unfortunately, (i) I don't have time to read up on it and (ii) don't really care.

[Elkhound Odin]

Is (i) and (ii) some lawyer speak for "read the fine print footnotes, but don't really bother because you wouldn't understand them anyway, just trust me on this?"

[Rontele]

Is (i) and (ii) some lawyer speak for "read the fine print footnotes, but don't really bother because you wouldn't understand them anyway, just trust me on this?"

(i) means I don't have time to pleasure read scientific data on the lives and lifespans of paleolithic men; I leave that to others and read their deductions and make conclusions for myself; and (ii) plain meaning controls on this one.

[iceman]

Fair enough, I just haven't really heard jack myself but I'm sure that's mainly because of (ii), above. I betcha Spats could've answered that question, though!

[Phill]

My diet follows the paleo program more or less (i eat a lot more veggies) but that doesn't stop my bullshit detector from going off full force after reading the page linked in the OP

[PNWbrit]

But I can ski lift-served all day without eating breakfast. In fact, I can't remember the last time I ate "breakfast"...I haven't eaten yet today and have no urge to.

I frequently don't eat breakfast or if I do then don't lunch. and have no urge to. I actually enjoy being mildly hungry or having an appetite for most of the day.

Ski lift serve (or tour) all day, work out with out bonking.

No paleo involved. Unless I work out hard I lose weight.

Remind me what benefits were there in adopting a quasi religious attitude against foods that I enjoy eating?

Oh yeah it's for the cAaaaaave meeeeen.

Certainly personal experience is a reasonable basis upon which to base decisions.

I'm with Ice.

[Spats]

if you want to clog your arteries with saturated fat ,increase your risk of cancer,and die young,eat like spats

You've been bamboozled by deliberate scientific fraud. There is no correlation between saturated fat intake and heart disease, and there never has been. Carb intake is what's linked to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. As I link repeatedly:

Patty W Siri-Tarino, Qi Sun, Frank B Hu, and Ronald M Krauss. Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease. Am J Clin Nutr Jan 2010
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abst...n.2009.27725v1
“A meta-analysis of prospective epidemiologic studies showed that there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD or CVD.”

And here’s the layman’s version, from Scientific American: “Carbs Against Cardio: More Evidence that Refined Carbohydrates, not Fats, Threaten the Heart“, Scientific American, May 2010
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...against-cardio

And here's a study showing that people who eat more saturated fat actually were healthier, more active, and lived longer! Yet since those results were not what the Framingham study was supposed to prove, the paper with these results was buried and never published.
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/c...ngham-follies/

Saturated fat is the best energy source for your body. Think about it: the calories in the human diet consisted primarily of fat associated with red meat (which is roughly 1/2 saturated) for millions of years. And we only started dying of heart disease after the invention of chemically extracted seed oils and the trans fats formed by their partial hydrogenation.

If you want to learn more about how we got bamboozled into thinking otherwise by deliberate scientific fraud, you can watch this humorous and excellent presentation: Tom Naughton's "Big Fat Fiasco"
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exi7O1li_wA"]YouTube - Big Fat Fiasco pt. 1[/nomedia]
(note: linking it, not embedding, because it's a multi-parter)

[Spats]

does the physical record that has survived to this time indicate anything in particular about the general health and well-being of the people of that era?

As far as the "but they all died at 30" argument:

http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gur...lan2007pdr.pdf
"The average modal age of adult death for hunter-gatherers is 72 with a range of 68-78 years. This range appears to be the closest functional equivalent of an "adaptive" human lifespan."
[...]
"Illnesses account for 70 percent, violence and accidents for 20 percent,
and degenerative diseases for 9 percent of all deaths in our sample."
[...]
"Post-reproductive longevity is a robust feature of hunter-gatherers and
of the life cycle of Homo sapiens. Survivorship to grandparental age is achieved
by over two-thirds of people who reach sexual maturity and can last an aver-
age of 20 years. "



As far as comparing Paleolithic hunter-gatherers to the farmers that followed them, in every case the hunter-gatherers lived longer, were taller and stronger, had better teeth, and were in far better health.

"Skeletons from Greece and Turkey show that the average height of hunter-gatherers toward the end of the ice ages was a generous 5'9" for men, 5'5" for women. With the adoption of agriculture, height crashed, and by 3000 B.C. had reached a low of 5'3" for men, 5' for women. By classical times heights were very slowly on the rise again, but modern Greeks and Turks have still not regained the average height of their distant ancestors." [Note: article written in the 1980s. Since then, Greeks and Turks have managed to get slightly taller.]

"At Dickson Mounds ... Compared to the hunter-gatherers who preceded them, the farmers had a nearly fifty percent increase in enamel defects indicative of malnutrition, a fourfold increase in iron-deficiency anemia (evidenced by a bone condition called porotic hyperostosis), a threefold rise in bone lesions reflecting infectious disease in general, and an increase in degenerative conditions of the spine, probably reflecting a lot of hard physical labor. "Life expectancy at birth in the preagricultural community was about twenty-six years," says Armelagos, "but in the postagricultural community it was nineteen years. So these episodes of nutritional stress and infectious disease were seriously affecting their ability to survive."

http://scr.bi/1643CM
(it's at scribd, but if I don't shorten it vBulletin 'helpfully' tries to embed it and fails)

And here's another long one about North America, if you're interested:
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/l...ter-gatherers/

1. Life expectancies for both sexes at all ages were lower at Hardin Village than at Indian Knoll.
2. Infant mortality was higher at Hardin Village.
3. Iron-deficiency anemia of sufficient duration to cause bone changes was absent at Indian Knoll, but present at Hardin Village, where 50 percent of cases occurred in children under age five.
4. Growth arrest episodes at Indian Knoll were periodic and more often of short duration and were possibly due to food shortage in late winter; those at Hardin Village occurred randomly and were more often of long duration, probably indicative of disease as a causative agent.
5. More children suffered infections at Hardin Village than at Indian Knoll.
6. The syndrome of periosteal inflammation was more common at Hardin Village than at Indian Knoll.
7. Tooth decay was rampant at Hardin Village and led to early abscessing and tooth loss; decay was unusual at Indian Knoll and abscessing occurred later in life because of severe wear to the teeth. The differences in tooth wear and caries rate are very likely attributable to dietary differences between the two groups.

Overall, the agricultural Hardin Villagers were clearly less healthy than the Indian Knollers, who lived by hunting and gathering.

Aren't EPA and DHA supplements extracted from algae using Hexane?

Fish oil supplements are extracted from fish using steam and big mechanical presses. (Typically from little fatty fish like menhaden, sardines, and anchovy.) I'm not sure how the vegan algae-source stuff is extracted.

So get cracking you guys, go for the stank!

There's a guy who does that.
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxvszzgYRjU"]YouTube - Aajonus Vonderplanitz Piece[/nomedia]

[Spats]

Spats...

I know you don't usually eat breakfast but Tim suggests you eat at least 30g of protein within 30 minutes of waking to get your body going the right way to increase fat loss throughout the day. So I have been upping my morning intake to 46g of protein 25g of which are from whey protein.

Just wondering what your thoughts are about whey and this practice of eating a lot or protein in the morning to increase fat loss.

Does Tim give a reference for that? I don't know one way or the other, and would be interested to see what he's basing that on.

Note: If he also recommends a workout right after waking, that might be the reason.

[zion zig zag]

I'm starting the last four weeks of an eight week paleo challenge and I'm committed to be strict with the finish. I still averaged about two cups of two percent milk a day for the first four weeks.

Honestly so far I haven't noticed any changes. I don't have any more energy, I haven't slept better and recovery feels about the same. I haven't noticed a change in strength or body comp so far either. I am open to the idea that maybe I'm just not that in tune with my body and maybe it's changed subtlety. I'm also holding out hope that the next four weeks will flip the switch and it will click. I did take pics and measurements before starting so we will see if there are any quantifiable results.

One thing I have a question about is the frequency of eating. My habits haven't changed in that regard and honestly I'm still hungry just as often. Today I woke up and had four ounces of steak with three whole eggs, two hours later I had an apple smeared with peanut butter and a large handfull of almonds. Just a minute ago I had an omelet with 4 eggs, mushrooms, spinach and turkey followed by a banana and a cup of blueberries. Am I eating too little at a time? Is there a specific reason that eating frequently is bad?

[Tye 1on]

^^^My doc says the same thing about early protein. Something about the body thinking 'oh, cool, gonna have protein today' and then releasing fat stores.

i don't know shit about this stuff, however do believe spats on the benefits of nuking carbs.

[Spats]

Significantly, a recent Harvard Study showed that, "replacing intake of white rice with the same amount of brown rice was associated with a 16% (lower risk of type 2 diabetes, whereas the same replacement with whole grains as a group was associated with a 36% lower diabetes risk."

Let's look at that study for a moment.

First, it's associational data from the Nurses' Health Study -- which is the one that told all women to take hormone replacement therapy because it decreased cancer risk by 40%, until an actual controlled study found that HRT caused more deaths from breast cancer.

Remember, as I said: associational studies don't tell you whether a food is healthy to eat, it tells you whether already-healthy people ate that food. As with the HRT example, any nurse taking HRT (which was very new at the time) was very health-conscious, and the healthy behaviors associated with that overwhelmed the actual effect of HRT causing more cancer.

Same with eating brown rice vs. white rice: almost no one eats brown rice voluntarily, because it's rarely served in restaurants. The only people eating brown rice are health freaks cooking it at home (vs. eating out), which fact by itself will correlate with substantially better health.

Associational studies are worthless in themselves as a positive predictor, and only point towards what should be done in a controlled study. I can design a study that shows owning Gore-Tex pants makes you half as likely to die from a heart attack -- but that's because the people buying them a) have lots of money and b) are exercising outdoors. Buying Gore-Tex will not magically make anyone healthier.

However, associational studies can do one thing, which is disprove causal relationships. If there is no correlation between the prevalence of two factors, it is unlikely that one is causing the other. Thus we see that, despite decades of flailing, no one has yet managed to associate saturated fat with increased risk of death -- which means that we can discard the hypothesis that saturated fat is bad for you, no matter what it might do to numbers on a chart.

There are also foods that are much more nutrient rich than brown rice and whole grains, but brown rice and whole grains (except in the presence of allergic reactions) are still a net positive when consumed in moderate amounts.

Consumption doesn't occur in a vacuum. Any time we ask "Should I eat this?" we have to ask "And if not, what should I eat instead?"

If the question is "Should I eat goldfish crackers, or brown rice?" brown rice clearly wins. I make this point in my essay: most studies compare "terrible" to "less bad". However, if the question is "Should I eat fatty meat, or brown rice?" fatty meat is superior in every possible nutritional measure.

Which brings me to the last issue with the Harvard study: for people who are consuming the government-recommended high-sugar ('high-carb') diet and are therefore borderline deficient in most nutrients, brown rice may actually be an improvement over whatever else they're eating. However, for anyone consuming a paleo diet, brown rice (or any rice) is a major nutritional downgrade. The only reason to consume it is as a source for quick energy via the glucose it contains, and the fact that brown rice has marginally more of certain nutrients is outweighed by the anti-nutrient content AFAIK.

[Spats]

One thing I have a question about is the frequency of eating. My habits haven't changed in that regard and honestly I'm still hungry just as often. Today I woke up and had four ounces of steak with three whole eggs, two hours later I had an apple smeared with peanut butter and a large handfull of almonds. Just a minute ago I had an omelet with 4 eggs, mushrooms, spinach and turkey followed by a banana and a cup of blueberries. Am I eating too little at a time? Is there a specific reason that eating frequently is bad?

Are you supplementing omega-3 at all? If you're not eating grass-fed and are eating lots of eggs and nut butters, you'll definitely need some. IMO.

Consider cutting down dramatically on the nut butters. They're huge omega-6 bombs, particularly peanut butter. (Whole almonds are fine in moderation, having a better PUFA profile.) Getting your n-3/n-6 ratio in line is a HUGE benefit, and to do that you need more red meat fat/fish fat and less other fat. That's what made the most difference to my attitude and health.

As far as food frequency, try doing some fasted workouts. Eat nothing upon waking, and right when you're starting to feel peaked, do a hard workout. The entire point to "paleo" is to force your body into a fat-burning state, and you can't do that if you're constantly snacking on fruit. I made a big breakthrough in this regard recently.

Hint: have a roast ready at all times to cut slices from. Big roasts (including pot roasts) are your key to paleo. Otherwise you're stuck eating things that aren't meat

[advres]

Does Tim give a reference for that? I don't know one way or the other, and would be interested to see what he's basing that on.

Note: If he also recommends a workout right after waking, that might be the reason.

Not a clinical study per se but his approach in his book is experimenting and explaining what has worked the best for him.

(p.96) "Get at least 20 grams of protein per meal. This is absolutely the most critical at breakfast. Eating at least 40% of your breakfast calories as protein will decrease carb impulses and promote a negative fat balance."

This is one of the few places he doesn't get all sciencey about, and it seems counter-intuitive but I have been losing more fat weight with more morning protein. I was more questioning the use of whey as a supplement.

Here is a little clip from the Dr. Oz show (go to 2 minutes in) that he explains this a little more.

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/four-...fect-body-pt-2

You could watch the whole segment if you want as it is only 15 minutes long and starts here if you're interested.

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/four-...fect-body-pt-1

Now if you do decide to watch, please don't think his book is anything like this. Dr. Oz just took a few ideas of Tims that would he 'could get behind' but the book, even though doesn't coincide with your diet 100%, would really be an interesting read for you I think.

[MultiVerse]

Remember, as I said: associational studies don't tell you whether a food is healthy to eat, it tells you whether already-healthy people ate that food. As with the HRT example, any nurse taking HRT (which was very new at the time) was very health-conscious, and the healthy behaviors associated with that overwhelmed the actual effect of HRT causing more cancer.

Same with eating brown rice vs. white rice: almost no one eats brown rice voluntarily, because it's rarely served in restaurants. The only people eating brown rice are health freaks cooking it at home (vs. eating out), which fact by itself will correlate with substantially better health.

...

Same with eating brown rice vs. white rice: almost no one eats brown rice voluntarily, because it's rarely served in restaurants. The only people eating brown rice are health freaks cooking it at home (vs. eating out), which fact by itself will correlate with substantially better health.

Which brings me to the last issue with the Harvard study: for people who are consuming the government-recommended high-sugar ('high-carb') diet and are therefore borderline deficient in most nutrients, brown rice may actually be an improvement over whatever else they're eating. However, for anyone consuming a paleo diet, brown rice (or any rice) is a major nutritional downgrade. The only reason to consume it is as a source for quick energy via the glucose it contains, and the fact that brown rice has marginally more of certain nutrients is outweighed by the anti-nutrient content AFAIK.

Just to be clear, brown rice has a lower glycemic index than white rice. Reason enough, along with the additional nutritional value to choose it over white rice. Contrary to what you wrote earlier, brown rice is not unhealthy even though eating a lot of it can lead to mineral deficiencies. Eating up to five servings per week showed positive health benefits in the study. The take away is that most carbohydrate intake should come from whole grains rather than refined grains, a conclusion borne out by many other studies.

While it is true that causation does not necessarily equal correlation the researchers at Harvard did attempt to statistically account for lifestyle differences, too. However imperfect that may be, the same can be said about some of the research you've posted in this thread.

That's where things get murky. What you've presented in this thread is at times more narrative than science. And while you are right about some things, a basic random fact check shows that you are factually wrong about other things, or in many cases ignoring contravening information like the potential health benefits of Phytic acid in brown rice in moderate amounts i.e. many compounds are beneficial at low dosages but unhealthy in high dosages.


Case in point, referring to the "government-recommended high-sugar ('high-carb') diet" is not a terribly accurate assessment of the government guidelines. Specifcally, look at their foods and food components to reduce and foods and nutrients to increase because they often recommend the opposite of your contention.

While I'm not a proponent of the governments guidelines (this is the first time I've ever looked at them, in fact) it amounts to some straightforward advice: Seek out calories from nutrient dense food. Eat more fruits and vegetables. Eat lean meat. Cut down on salt, sugar and saturated fats. Eat fish too. Drink water. Eat fewer calories. Move around.

Sure, it's easy to poke holes in some of their conclusions but on balance, it's some very good advice. Where you differ is in the ratios with the government recommending carb:45–65% protein:10–35% fat:20–35% but they do not recommend simple sugars and highly refined refined carbs.

[rather ripped]

I'm starting the last four weeks of an eight week paleo challenge and I'm committed to be strict with the finish. I still averaged about two cups of two percent milk a day for the first four weeks.

Honestly so far I haven't noticed any changes. I don't have any more energy, I haven't slept better and recovery feels about the same. I haven't noticed a change in strength or body comp so far either. I am open to the idea that maybe I'm just not that in tune with my body and maybe it's changed subtlety. I'm also holding out hope that the next four weeks will flip the switch and it will click. I did take pics and measurements before starting so we will see if there are any quantifiable results.

get rid of the milk, it's not Paleo. This will work. You should see a laps in energy right about now. Stay strict and it will pass. Milk is a problem for what you are trying to accomplish.

Man up, black coffee.

[rather ripped]

Just to be clear, brown rice has a lower glycemic index than white rice. Reason enough, along with the additional nutritional value to choose it over white rice. Contrary to what you wrote earlier, brown rice is not unhealthy even though eating a lot of it can lead to mineral deficiencies. Eating up to five servings per week showed positive health benefits in the study. The take away is that most carbohydrate intake should come from whole grains rather than refined grains, a conclusion borne out by many other studies.

...
While I'm not a proponent of the governments guidelines (this is the first time I've ever looked at them, in fact) it amounts to some straightforward advice: Seek out calories from nutrient dense food. Eat more fruits and vegetables. Eat lean meat. Cut down on salt, sugar and saturated fats. Eat fish too. Drink water. Eat fewer calories. Move around.

Sure, it's easy to poke holes in some of their conclusions but on balance, it's some very good advice. Where you differ is in the ratios with the government recommending carb:45–65% protein:10–35% fat:20–35% but they do not recommend simple sugars and highly refined refined carbs.

The science of nutrition has lots of weaknesses. Grains are not necessary and have caused health problems for the last 10,000 years. Cut them out. Paleo is pseudo science, but at least they know it.

[Art Shirk]

Consider cutting down dramatically on the nut butters.

Then how is Rontele going to support his family?

[Johnny Deep]

Cows milk is for cows.

[hafilax]

get rid of the milk, it's not Paleo. This will work. You should see a laps in energy right about now. Stay strict and it will pass. Milk is a problem for what you are trying to accomplish.

Man up, black coffee.

Strict Paleo has done absolutely nothing for me in aspects I can measure (energy, strength, sleep, stress) when compared to my regular diet and going back to my old diet hasn't shown any changes either. I did lose a little weight but that is counter to my goals. That doesn't mean that other aspects of my health aren't improved but simply based on the measure of how I feel, I don't feel different. I would probably need my blood analyzed to truly see if there is a change.

I believe that the people who notice the largest benefits from the Paleo diet are the ones who are most sensitive to the things that are eliminated. Of the group I have done it with only a few have really seen noticeable changes aside from weight loss.

It's definitely worth trying a Paleo challenge to find out for yourself but I don't think it is the universal solution it is claimed to be.

[Dantheman]

Today I woke up and had four ounces of steak with three whole eggs, two hours later I had an apple smeared with peanut butter and a large handfull of almonds.

Did you go for a big tour yesterday? That could explain things a bit. Otherwise I have no idea. My breakfast was pretty similar (4 eggs, 2 strips bacon, 3 cups raw spinach) and I was just barely starting to get hungry at 1:30.

Where you differ is nthe carb balance

And grain vs. non-grain carb consumption, total fat intake, saturated fat intake, cholesterol intake, full-fat vs. low-fat dairy.... Carb balance is far from the only or even biggest difference.

I happen to like carbs and I've found that my performance is improved by eating them over a high fat/high protein diet. I'm 5'11" and maintain a weight somewhere between 160 and 165lbs eating brown rice, oatmeal, potatoes, lots of berries & vegetables, eggs, and lean meat. In contrast, in spite of maintaining similar activity levels, a higher fat more paleo oriented diet can put me at 175-180lbs in a months time.

Was all that gain bodyfat? Major caloric excesses will lead to weight gain no matter what you eat. Have you tracked your calories for each diet on fitday to confirm that you were eating similar calories? If that gain was mostly lean body mass I don't see a problem at all. Shit, I weigh 160 w/ <10% bodyfat and I'm 5-6. I'm well muscled but far from a shirt-busting meathead.


Unrelated to the quoted content above, I am becoming increasingly convinced that raw energy balance (calories in/calories out) is not the whole story of weight gain and loss. By total chance I happened to read Gary Taubes recent Readers Digest article recently. One item that really caught my eye: How many calories do you need to overeat by to gain 40 lbs in 20 years (i.e. how many, many people get fat)? 20 (no, I did not leave a zero off there). Good luck managing your daily energy balance with that kind of precision.

[JimmyCarter]

Unrelated to the quoted content above, I am becoming increasingly convinced that raw energy balance (calories in/calories out) is not the whole story of weight gain and loss. By total chance I happened to read Gary Taubes recent Readers Digest article recently. One item that really caught my eye: How many calories do you need to overeat by to gain 40 lbs in 20 years (i.e. how many, many people get fat)? 20 (no, I did not leave a zero off there). Good luck managing your daily energy balance with that kind of precision.

That's just going off the whole 1 lb = approx 3700 calories line?
20 cal per day * 365 = about two pounds per year or 40 over 20 years.

[zion zig zag]

Did you go for a big tour yesterday? That could explain things a bit. Otherwise I have no idea. My breakfast was pretty similar (4 eggs, 2 strips bacon, 3 cups raw spinach) and I was just barely starting to get hungry at 1:30.

No big tour, just a relaxed day at the resort since it was shitty. Almost more of a rest day. I track what I eat on fitday and honestly the calories aren't huge, usually around 3200 a day with generally about 50% coming from fat. I can't remember the last time I went five waking hours without eating. Maybe I need to do some intermittent fasting to normalize.

[Platinum Pete]

Unrelated to the quoted content above, I am becoming increasingly convinced that raw energy balance (calories in/calories out) is not the whole story of weight gain and loss. By total chance I happened to read Gary Taubes recent Readers Digest article recently. One item that really caught my eye: How many calories do you need to overeat by to gain 40 lbs in 20 years (i.e. how many, many people get fat)? 20 (no, I did not leave a zero off there). Good luck managing your daily energy balance with that kind of precision.

Yeah, I think the calories in vs. calories out approach is far from the whole story. There is a lot of energy (which you could measure in calories) leftover in poop. If I ate 5000 calories of corn I don't know the caloric value of what I crap out, but I bet it isn't zero. In many parts of the world they still burn cow/waterbuffalo/yak turds for heat - gotta be calories left in there. Then factor in nutrient uptake and the things that either inhibit or enable that, or if you've eaten/drank something that encourages speedier digestion and you crap out food before it has the chance to break down enough to let out some amount of it's energy.

Hey Gameface - where's that write up of the 4Hour Body you promised? I'm really curious and have been experimenting a bit with what I've seen in the book. I'd love to get your full breakdown.

[advres]

Pete, after all the vitriol I received at the mere mention of what I was doing in the last thread I figured it just wasn't worth it.

But, I think that if maybe I explain and show my progress and even change one persons perception of the idea, it will be worth the flaming. So today being exactly 6 weeks since I started I will write something up and if I don't get it finished tonight, I'll get it posted tomorrow.