This is big slap on paleo movement. People have often complained having "sluggishness" in their thinking process and performing challenging brain activities while on strict paleo diet. Our brain thrives on carbs and it is the fuel that powers it so the results are not entirely a surprise. As usual, the lesson is that neither extremes are usually not a good place to be: Too much carbs or too much proteins, both are bad choices.
Because you were on the wrong end of the spectrum (and probably eating the wrong carbs too!). The message here is: Everything is needed, in moderation.
Eat a balanced diet and exercise it's really not rocket science, people are spending way too much time and money on trying to hack their life style.
Run/Walk 5-10KM a day, do some anaerobic 2-3 times a week and don't eat total crap...
OFC when you eat 1000 cal meals you are going to have a huge sugar drop doesn't matter if it's a huge steak or whole cake.
People also waste too much time on controlling caloric intake over way too short periods if you can't control you weekday intake to the required levels just lay down on it during the weekend and you'll still be fine.
All these diet's are really a waste of time and money, eat on a regular schedule (never eat when you are starving, as in never get to the point of feeling real hunger), have a diverse diet, try to expand your meals to as many a day as possible, heck I've seen people losing pounds in a heart beat by doing things as simple as droping 1 item from their lunch or moving it to an afternoon snack...
50-60% of the absorbed your protein intake is metabolized into glucose.
Not to mention that people don't tend to eat the leanest cut available so all of those T-Bones and Rib-Eye's add a huge chunk of saturated fat into the mix and that's without all the addons like that nice sour cream and peppercorn sauce with those nice roasted potatos....
Consuming large portions of meat will increase your BG level's they won't spike as fast as if you would chuck down a bowl of ice cream but they'll rise quite well and crash just as quickly later...
I thought the paleo diet was a relatively balanced diet based on foods thought to be consumed at the time.
That would include a good amount of meat and a good amount of harvested vegetables and fruits and no processed grains. There should be plenty of carbohydrates, fat and protein in a diet like that.
A "slap" is too strong of a word. People have been aware that we've continued to evolve since the paleo era and some of us have better ability to digest grains and dairy than others. A popular diet right now is the Whole 30, which is similar to paleo diets but allows tubers. This research isn't some M. Night Shyamalan twist that has thrown everyone off. It's really up to the individual to listen to their body and do some research and figure out what works best for them.
What I don't understand is why the Paleo diet doesn't include a mandatory fasting period. Because lord knows our cave-dwelling ancestors were not getting three full meals a day. Intermittent fasting is also known to improve longevity.
Most of paleo is just understanding the science of how our food affects us at a level beyond the nutrition label. It evolves as new evidence comes in, so this can't be a slap against paleo any more than measuring the gravitational constant can be a slap against physics. If you've got the idea that it's about trying to emulate cavemen -- well, there are a couple loudmouths who add the historical reenactment angle, but that's not how most paleo people think.
We've known for a long time that potato consumption is ancient. The things that actually matter, and that the paleo-sphere actually talks about, are things like how harmful the glycoalkoids in the skin are.
I don't think paleo was never a strict low-carb high-protein diet like Atkins.
Obviously people's definition and how they follow the diet varies, but I think first and foremost paleo is about avoiding processed foods, sugar, certain newer foods like grains and dairy, moderating high-starch foods (which have less nutrients), and mostly eating vegetables, meats and fat.
Low-carb can definitely be a subset of Paleo but you're right, Paleo by itself is not strictly low-carb, the carbs you do consume will just be from fruits, vegetables and starches rather than grains and processed foods.
I lost 40 pounds on Paleo/Primal sticking to 50-80g carbs/day.
I read a bunch of articles from John Douillard, and he likes to say hunter gatherers were really hunter diggers. They mostly dug up tubers and ate those. You had to be the luckiest caveperson alive to be able to eat ham every morning.
Maybe I'm weird, but I like my authoritative positions on human evolution to come from evolutionary biologists, not woo-peddlers.
At any rate, humans can eat a very diverse range of foods. Inuits eat a primarily animal-derived diet, supplemented with a meager amount of gathered plants during a small portion of the year. Then the spectrum moves all the way over to peoples that eat mostly plant-matter with few animal products. Humans adapt wonderfully, that's why we're so prolific. There is no magic diet that happens to be "right."
The author has a doctorate from NYU and the article was published in a peer reviewed journal.
That's just a funny example, but there are tons of poorly researched peer reviewed papers which makes it exceedingly difficult for me to accept credentialis as being a useful signal. I find it's much better to have ideas stand on their own merit, rather than on the shoulders of those who are espousing them.
I don't disagree, but calling names is noise, not signal. "Woo" is certainly one of those names. We just don't notice it because most of us happen to agree. But the mechanism is just as harmful here as it is anywhere else. It closes thought rather than opening it.
Thanks Dang. I generally agree with the guidelines, but in this particular case, I don't think joshuapants should be required to give a full refutation of Ayurveda in order to state his opposition to taking health advice from such a practitioner.
I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but the term "woo" is a pretty widely used term in certain circles to describe fields and ideas that, shall we say, may not be self-critical and self-questioning enough in the ways you need to be in order to get to the truth. (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Woo)
Thus, I'm not sure if I would even classify it as "calling names". Ayurvedic practitioners might find it derogatory; I'm not sure. But it's a clear communication to a certain population of the what category joshuapants believes Ayurveda belongs to, and also a hint of what qualities of these peoples' thought processes might make joshuapants nervous when it's applied to other areas.
It's always possible to make one's point without using an intellectual slur like "woo-peddlers", which of course is calling names. None of us is immune to this bad habit, but we should all try to be. It doesn't matter how right one is; the mentality that thinks 'I'm right, therefore it's ok if I call names' is the problem in the first place.
> Humans adapt wonderfully, that's why we're so prolific. There is no magic diet that happens to be "right."
I totally agree! And a funny fact is that at the core of Ayurveda, the belief totally lines up too in that each individual is completely unique and must cater to their individual constitution or 'prakriti'. I agree that its a hard field to investigate rationally because so many of their concepts were recorded in sanskrit, a language built to express multiple meanings (some words have +20 meanings!).
A fun 'for instance' fact of sanskrit sometimes being 'unscientific' at first glance: a key component of health according to their science was the concept of 'agni' or digestive fire. So there were tons of passages referring to a great fire element inside our gut that cooks and refines matter. Of course we 'know' that no fire actually exists in our bellies, but it was a metaphor for what nowadays we understand as acids in our stomach, and our gut microbiome (composed of throngs of little organisms, eating, digesting, transforming, pooping so other microbes can eat that poop (yum!)). Little guys that can alter our mood, digestive capacity of vitamin absorption and a bunch of other important things that have been scientifically proven in the west.
One thing is clear: our brains required tremendous amounts of energy. Cooking starches allows us to extract more energy from them. Meat eating is calorically dense too and so that could of played a role (see Expesive Tissue Hypothesis). I have read meat-eating was hugley beneficial during resource scarcity.
The critical question is what diet do we thrive on? A carb rich plant-based diet is my guess based mostly on Dr. Michael Greger's work on summarizing nutrition science literature [0]. But I shall be convinced otherwise if the science is there.
This article is completely off the mark about the paleo diet.
Paleo is not necessarily low carb - usually about 20%~40% of calories are from carbs. Tubers like sweet potatoes are specifically recommended in paleo regimens.
The author is confusing Paleo with Atkins/ketogenic diets.
We've made resistant starch a big art of what we optimize for in MealSquares because there are 30 years of studies showing health benefits and the mainstream just never seems to have gotten the memo. Resistant starch is starch you can't digest but your gut bacteria can. When RS2 is heated and then cooled it forms into RS3, which seems to be the most beneficial version. Mostly from oats, though we have experimented with cassava (the starchy root used to make tapioca).
There is a very simple rule I use for this; not sure how accurate it is, but it works well for me.
- Protein - meat - is for repairing/building
- Carbs are for fueling
- Fats are somewhere in between. Cells membranes are basically fat and fat is also a very clean,dense and "slow" form of energy.
Based on your activity level:
- Couch potato: Eat very low carb (basically no starches, under 50g per day).
- Light activity: Eat low carb (under 100g per day).
- Moderate activity: Eat moderate carbs (under 200g per day). I am here, weight training 3 times per week, with 2-3 long walks (about an hour)
- High activity: Eat high carb (>200g per day)
- Eat between 1 and 1,5 g/protein per kilo.
- Adjust fat to achieve your desired calorie intake. For most of us, between 2.000 and 2.5000 kcals/day is a good target.
The key here is to stop demonizing carbs/fats and recognize that they have its place in our diet.
I have also observed that, regardless of your activity level, starting low-carb when you are obese is a good thing to do, but after 1-2 years, low-carbs diets go against you.
39 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 92.3 ms ] threadOFC when you eat 1000 cal meals you are going to have a huge sugar drop doesn't matter if it's a huge steak or whole cake. People also waste too much time on controlling caloric intake over way too short periods if you can't control you weekday intake to the required levels just lay down on it during the weekend and you'll still be fine.
All these diet's are really a waste of time and money, eat on a regular schedule (never eat when you are starving, as in never get to the point of feeling real hunger), have a diverse diet, try to expand your meals to as many a day as possible, heck I've seen people losing pounds in a heart beat by doing things as simple as droping 1 item from their lunch or moving it to an afternoon snack...
Not to mention that people don't tend to eat the leanest cut available so all of those T-Bones and Rib-Eye's add a huge chunk of saturated fat into the mix and that's without all the addons like that nice sour cream and peppercorn sauce with those nice roasted potatos....
Consuming large portions of meat will increase your BG level's they won't spike as fast as if you would chuck down a bowl of ice cream but they'll rise quite well and crash just as quickly later...
Ref.: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/66/5/1264.abstract
That would include a good amount of meat and a good amount of harvested vegetables and fruits and no processed grains. There should be plenty of carbohydrates, fat and protein in a diet like that.
We've known for a long time that potato consumption is ancient. The things that actually matter, and that the paleo-sphere actually talks about, are things like how harmful the glycoalkoids in the skin are.
Here's an article discussing the actual Paleo opinion on potatoes: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/potatoes-healthy/#axzz3ikd0kh... . In short: they're okay for some people, but avoid the skins.
Obviously people's definition and how they follow the diet varies, but I think first and foremost paleo is about avoiding processed foods, sugar, certain newer foods like grains and dairy, moderating high-starch foods (which have less nutrients), and mostly eating vegetables, meats and fat.
I lost 40 pounds on Paleo/Primal sticking to 50-80g carbs/day.
> John Douillard DC is an Ayurvedic Practitioner
Maybe I'm weird, but I like my authoritative positions on human evolution to come from evolutionary biologists, not woo-peddlers.
At any rate, humans can eat a very diverse range of foods. Inuits eat a primarily animal-derived diet, supplemented with a meager amount of gathered plants during a small portion of the year. Then the spectrum moves all the way over to peoples that eat mostly plant-matter with few animal products. Humans adapt wonderfully, that's why we're so prolific. There is no magic diet that happens to be "right."
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/81/2/341.full
Please don't do this here. "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The author has a doctorate from NYU and the article was published in a peer reviewed journal.
That's just a funny example, but there are tons of poorly researched peer reviewed papers which makes it exceedingly difficult for me to accept credentialis as being a useful signal. I find it's much better to have ideas stand on their own merit, rather than on the shoulders of those who are espousing them.
I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but the term "woo" is a pretty widely used term in certain circles to describe fields and ideas that, shall we say, may not be self-critical and self-questioning enough in the ways you need to be in order to get to the truth. (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Woo)
Thus, I'm not sure if I would even classify it as "calling names". Ayurvedic practitioners might find it derogatory; I'm not sure. But it's a clear communication to a certain population of the what category joshuapants believes Ayurveda belongs to, and also a hint of what qualities of these peoples' thought processes might make joshuapants nervous when it's applied to other areas.
I totally agree! And a funny fact is that at the core of Ayurveda, the belief totally lines up too in that each individual is completely unique and must cater to their individual constitution or 'prakriti'. I agree that its a hard field to investigate rationally because so many of their concepts were recorded in sanskrit, a language built to express multiple meanings (some words have +20 meanings!).
A fun 'for instance' fact of sanskrit sometimes being 'unscientific' at first glance: a key component of health according to their science was the concept of 'agni' or digestive fire. So there were tons of passages referring to a great fire element inside our gut that cooks and refines matter. Of course we 'know' that no fire actually exists in our bellies, but it was a metaphor for what nowadays we understand as acids in our stomach, and our gut microbiome (composed of throngs of little organisms, eating, digesting, transforming, pooping so other microbes can eat that poop (yum!)). Little guys that can alter our mood, digestive capacity of vitamin absorption and a bunch of other important things that have been scientifically proven in the west.
Whether or not the latest diet fad says X is good for me, I now think about how consuming X affects not just me, but the environment, and the X.
The critical question is what diet do we thrive on? A carb rich plant-based diet is my guess based mostly on Dr. Michael Greger's work on summarizing nutrition science literature [0]. But I shall be convinced otherwise if the science is there.
[0] http://nutritionfacts.org/
Paleo is not necessarily low carb - usually about 20%~40% of calories are from carbs. Tubers like sweet potatoes are specifically recommended in paleo regimens.
The author is confusing Paleo with Atkins/ketogenic diets.
Everything else is opinion.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.gr/2015/08/a-new-human-tri...
- Protein - meat - is for repairing/building
- Carbs are for fueling
- Fats are somewhere in between. Cells membranes are basically fat and fat is also a very clean,dense and "slow" form of energy.
Based on your activity level:
- Couch potato: Eat very low carb (basically no starches, under 50g per day).
- Light activity: Eat low carb (under 100g per day).
- Moderate activity: Eat moderate carbs (under 200g per day). I am here, weight training 3 times per week, with 2-3 long walks (about an hour)
- High activity: Eat high carb (>200g per day)
- Eat between 1 and 1,5 g/protein per kilo.
- Adjust fat to achieve your desired calorie intake. For most of us, between 2.000 and 2.5000 kcals/day is a good target.
The key here is to stop demonizing carbs/fats and recognize that they have its place in our diet.
I have also observed that, regardless of your activity level, starting low-carb when you are obese is a good thing to do, but after 1-2 years, low-carbs diets go against you.