Interview with Keith Thomas - A Paleo Pioneer

Time for another interview. Paleo has become fashionable. It is a movement now with thousands of people on the band wagon. That is not wholly a bad thing, and the many of the popularisers have done a good job.

Despite the recent media interest, there were a few souls who discovered this way of thinking years ago. Art DeVany is well known and Tamir Katz (interviewed here) was also an “early adopter”, but there were others.

I think I initially came across all this stuff about 5 or 6 years ago and one of the first resources that I studied was called EvFit, a fascinating website of thoughts, analysis, references and ideas put together by Keith Thomas in Australia.

I’ve returned to Keith’s writings repeatedly and I thought that it would be useful to ask him a few questions and dig a little deeper into his approach - not just to eating and training but to the influences that have shaped his thought.


Keith, thanks for agreeing to do this interview. As I said, I’ve been reading your site for several years and have really appreciated it. While paleo / evolutionary fitness sites are booming, few people seem to have discovered you, which puzzles me.

I was thinking about how to structure the interview and I’ve tried to group my questions in some different topics: the personal, the principles, the politics, the personalities and the particulars.

Good idea. let’s work through your “Ps”.

Personal

Starting off with the personal ones, could you tell us something about yourself?

I see from your site that you are now 61 years old. How long have you been concerned about your health and fitness? Do you have an athletic background?

Since the early 1960s. There was in Australia at that time an inspirational athletics coach, Percy Cerutty, who trained middle distance runners using exercise, diet and psychology. I was an impressionable adolescent then and that’s one impression that stuck. You can look him up on Wikipedia. I was also interested in the natural world and this pointed me in the direction of cross country running, bush walking (‘back packing’ today), kayaking and rowing. I started using weights in 1965 to complement my rowing training.

Apart from the rowing (which lasted just six wonderful months in 1964-65), none of this was competitive in the traditional sense, though I was keen to track my performances and to improve over time.

I have exercised consistently since the ‘60s, most weeks, in fact, apart from three years I spent in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. But even there I undertook long and strenuous hikes, some at over 14,000 feet.

Do you still train for any sports – I think I read on your site that you were involved in competitive rowing?

I resumed rowing in my late 40s and applied myself to it for seven years. Our crew took it more seriously than most of our age and we won a medal in the World Masters’ Rowing in 2005. But I was getting back aches and, inspired by Art DeVany’s description of endurance sports as ‘industrial drudgery’ (which regards the human body as a machine, rather than a living organism), I gave it up – reluctantly, as the camaraderie on the water was wonderful.

Has your training and diet helped you keep active at an age when many are content to sit back and just watch TV?

I’m sure it has, but there’s more to it than the merely physiological. I am motivated by the combination of knowledge, the examples of others and my expectations of what the future holds over the next 20 years. There is the example of my younger son, whose physical prowess, steely determination and self-sufficiency is such that few are in a position to fully appreciate his achievements. I am also motivated by what I have learned about human evolution and what this means for the place of Homo sapiens in nature. There my reading has been wide, but perhaps the two greatest personal influences have been my older son (when he urged Richard Dawkins’ books on me) and Stephen Boyden, the founder of the academic discipline of human ecology.

What brought you to adopt this way of eating, training and thinking?

Good question. We are all surrounded with examples, information and advice, but the trick is to select the best combination and then apply it – consistently. I have never been afraid to be different; in fact, being different in one aspect of my life enables others to accept me as legitimately different in other aspects. In 1966 I stopped watching television (I now view about 1-2 hours of television a year – yes, a year) and this has helped me maintain my intellectual independence.

Once again it’s a combination of information, examples and worldview. Mine all hang together in a consistent way. Some people are torn between their beliefs and their practice; we all have to make some compromises, but I need to make fewer than most.

How did you make the transition?

Well, I see it more as a development rather than a transition. I have always been physically active, usually grown some of my own food, always enjoyed the natural world and been conscious that my choices today can influence my physical well-being tomorrow. Discovering ‘evolutionary fitness’ (through Clarence Bass’ interview with Art DeVany) was the closest I came to an epiphany, but remember, I had a ‘prepared mind’; others may not find Bass’ interview as revelatory as I did.

Evolutionary fitness gave me a broad paradigm which I could use to weave together so many strands of my life into a single sturdy thread – into a whole that was both intellectually and emotionally rewarding.

Your website is very detailed and comprehensive. How on earth do you meet the challenges of maintaining a site with such sweeping scope whilst ensuring it remains current (and correct)?

As to correctness, I do my best, but I don’t guarantee anything. I’m a hopeless liar, so it was easy for me to be honest about my own experiences and achievements, otherwise critics would discover inconsistencies.

I built the website before blogging software was available and I saw last year someone commented about evfit.com “Yeah, stone age web design, too!”. I’m sorry about that, but I have no interest in taking my web design skills up to the next level – I have much better things to do with my time.

Early on – around 2004 – I found that my own web searches were bringing up pages from my own site. This gave me a new motivation: rather than jotting down relevant information in a notebook, or underlining sentences in a book, I began posting it on evfit.com. I’m still the biggest user of my site! Some days I make a dozen additions and changes to the site, usually adding to it as promptly as a blogger would, but having the luxury of being able to go back to existing pages and improving them as opportunities present themselves. Some pages I have edited over 100 times. Often I find myself adding new information as footnotes to existing pages to keep them current and to either raise qualifications or doubts about what I have written or to cite new examples to clarify or reinforce the evfit principles.

One further point: the ‘sweeping scope’ appears sweeping only because we are used to established academic disciplines and intellectual silos. It all hangs together rather well, but I guess we’ll get on to that soon.

Principles

Turning to the principles, I want to dig a little more into the paradigm, the basic assumptions that we are working with. I like your logic - the way that your site starts with a principle:

"if the conditions of life of an animal deviate from those which prevailed in the environment in which the species evolved, the likelihood is that the animal will be less well suited to the new conditions than to those to which it has become genetically adapted through natural selection and consequently some signs of maladjustment may be anticipated."

Then states some assumptions about your understanding of human evolution and then gives some observations about where we are:

We are Pleistocene beings in a post-industrial world: our environment is no longer Pleistocene, our bodies and minds are faced with activity levels, types and stresses that are not Palaeolithic and our diet is no longer Palaeolithic.

Putting the principle together with the observation am I right to assume that “some signs of maladjustment may be anticipated”. Where do you see these signs of maladjustment?

Ho! That’s a big one. I see them everywhere in our society. I began early on by thinking about industrial food production and marketing vs natural food and about sedentism vs physical activity. But soon realized this was too narrow.

Contemporary Western culture fosters a way of thinking about humans as not being animals in the normal biological sense, about the physical environment as being limitless, about ethics without regard to humans’ environmental footprint, about ‘progress’, and about physical phenomena as isolated objects rather than inter-dependent processes that take place in cycles.

All these features of Western civilization lead to a myriad maladjustments, often feeding off each other.

In my interview with Erwan LeCorre he talked about us being “Zoo Humans” – trapped in a totally artificial environment and screwed up in many ways – physically and psychologically - because of that. Many people focus on the diet and the exercise – the normal health areas. You tend to look more broadly. Do you see this “maladjustment” psychologically and socially as well?

Erwan’s a great inspiration! Anyone who has not watched his video should view it – today.

I agree with Erwan, of course, about “Zoo Humans”, he argues that we need to broaden our perspective to take more into account than caring for our own physiology as individuals. Our academic disciplines channel our thoughts into silos. Talk-back hosts shut callers up who show any sign of straying outside today’s ‘issue’. But these divisions are historically-based, they suit the status quo and are inadequate for dealing with the problems of today, let alone preparing for the problems of tomorrow.

One more point: just because you see terms like ‘cross-disciplinary’, ‘holistic’ and ‘innovative’, this does not necessarily mean they are being applied in reality. They are often mere labels that writers use to describe their work to deflect attention from its narrowness and its comfortable conformity with established arrangements.

Ray Audette was another writer in this space who has been forgotten in the last few years. In his Neanderthin book he came up with a nice little principle for diet. Talking about a natural diet, he writes:

My definition of nature is the absence of technology. Technology dependent foods would never be ingested by a human being in nature. I determined therefore to eat only those foods that would be available to me if I were naked of all technology save that of a convenient sharp stick or stone.

While people might argue with the details of technology and tools, what I like is the simplicity of his principle. Is there a similarly basic principle that you could offer to explain your approach?

I’m pleased you quoted Ray Audette; he’s another writer I admire. His book Neanderthin was pioneering and remarkable for its time (1999). He developed his synthesis almost de novo and it’s important to remember that when you read Neanderthin.

I use Ray’s principle today when I’m talking with people about evolutionary fitness. It’s still as effective at conveying our ideas as any soundbite I know. I don’t think I could better his ‘sharp stick’ principle for the job it does.

However, there is something I keep in mind all the time, although I have not formulated a ‘media grab’-length principle. But before I describe it, I should say that most people will reject this idea and many of them will find it unpalatable, even repellent. The thought is that humans, just like all other life forms, have evolved to be efficient carriers of genes into the next generation. All these life forms are in desperate competition with each other for energy (that’s the fundamental ‘meaning of life’ – any greater or nobler suggestion is a self-aggrandizing fantasy). The human mind can think of other things, but deep down, out of reach of our consciousness, our lizard brain drives us. My reading about human evolution and evolutionary psychology has helped me situate my ideas in context and put flesh on their bare bones.

Something that I have noticed from some primal / paleo writers is a “romanticism”. The Paleolithic world is presented not as a Hobbesian struggle but as Eden, full of Rousseau’s noble savages. You have touched on this a little in your essay on Romantic primitivism. How do you draw the line between the principles of evFit and Rousseauism / 'romantic primitivism'. What aspects of the modern world do you particularly appreciate?

That’s a sharp observation, Chris. and an important one. Unfortunately, Romantic Primitivism is used as a ‘sneer term’ in polemical debate and is therefore not something that can be debated rationally. No one proudly declares themselves to be a romantic primitivist and so using the term to criticize others stands in danger of being no more than an attack on a straw man. You have heard people say, in many contexts, ‘We can’t go back to living in caves!’ as if that assertion settles the argument. But think about it for a moment, it’s one thing we CAN all do. It wouldn’t be comfortable and many of us would die sooner than we would with access to the appurtenances of civilization, but the shortage of caves is the only real reason why cave dwelling for all is not possible.

There is an emerging and energetic school of primitivist writing (Daniel Quinn, John Zerzan, Derrick Jensen, Keith Farnish) which is inclined to romantic primitivism. I find myself in general agreement with their critique. Where I part with them is that, to my way of thinking, the futures they urge us to consider are just not practicable: it’s the same old Homo sapiens – delineated in relevant ways by evolutionary psychology – which will populate the future. The English writer John Gray , in his New Statesman book reviews and, especially, his own book Black Mass, ignores all political correctness, all wishful thinking and leads his readers to the best understanding going as to the unavoidable constraints on the range of our possible futures.

And the features of the modern world I appreciate? In principle, in the physical realm, there are very few. However, in practice I take my comforts in a measure that is unsustainable if 7 billion people do likewise. Here I am hypocritical, but I would take far fewer comforts if I knew all others were doing likewise. And, having thought this through, I’d be pretty relaxed about doing it if peak oil, economic collapse or a serious pandemic hit us. Dmitry Orlov asks "Are we going to continue destroying the planet, just to be somewhat more comfortable for a little while?" Our species' answer to Orlov is a resounding chorus of "Yes!". In the mental realm, I value freedom of expression and sophisticated written and spoken languages.

At one point with honesty you write “I have to admit that, objectively, my palaeo way is a little more than an absorbing hobby.” Is it ultimately pointless? How far can we approximate a paleo lifestyle in the modern world? Can we do enough to make a difference to our health and happiness?

In contemporary Western society men have hobbies, passions and interests beyond their family far more intensely than women do. It’s our little self-indulgence and it puzzles our spouses. At their worst, these hobbies can be destructive and undermine the well-being of others. In the middle ground are hobbies that do little more than fill in time while we wait to die (computer games, tv soaps, model trains) yet others provide payoffs beyond the realm of the hobby itself (wooden furniture, charity work). My own hobby has, so far, provided me with better than average health and – with all modesty – also gives an example, a benchmark, information and perspectives for others who want to improve their own well-being.

When I was studying philosophy there was a principle that you cannot get an “ought” from an “is”. Saying how something is doesn’t mean that you can say how it should be. Is the whole paleo approach guilty of getting an ought from an is?

Ah, yes; David Hume was the first author I read in my philosophy course. But you’d also remember Samuel Johnson’s response to Bishop Berkeley’s idealism: he kicked his gouty foot against a stone saying “I refute it thus!” My response will not satisfy a philosopher, but I believe that if we know enough that is relevant about what ‘is’, we can then lay out possible alternative courses of action that are not inconsistent with the situation and then select from these what we ought to do – because, otherwise we have little basis for doing anything. I take a naturalistic position and, therefore, am prepared to give priority to the evidence from human evolution over the strictures of formal Western philosophy. I wonder how many hunter-gatherer people let ‘you can’t derive an ought from an is’ direct their actions. One thing’s for sure, their view of what ‘is’, embraced the supernatural and their tribe’s comprehensive legal code and their taboos.

Where in particular would you like to see 'science' catch up with the “paleo approach” or has the case for evolutionary fitness already been made?

The science will never be widely accepted, as it undermines our culture’s assumptions about civilization, instant gratification, silver bullets, political correctness and human nature. Although the science about the link between smoking and ill-health is clear, millions smoke every day; the stage of the science is not the critical determining factor. I am not particularly interested in scientific research which provides further evidence to support the palaeo way. Once you get the paradigm right, new evidence just clarifies the nature of the bricks in the foundation – it does not put them there. For example, there’s been a mass of new evidence coming in over the past couple of years about the benefits of vitamin D. But to me that’s just providing a reductionist description in terms of human metabolism. Anyone working from the evolutionary health principle, without knowing anything about vitamin D, should have been able to work out that sunlight and fresh animal fat – taken as part of a palaeo lifestyle – would be health-giving. Recommending doses in terms of IU per day or minutes of exposure to sunlight is reductionist, linear thinking outside the palaeo paradigm.

Politics

Can we think a bit about politics in a broad sense? I am always faintly amused by the way in which paleo principles – at least in the American blogs – seem to go hand in hand with an aggressive “libertarianism” and individualism. Why do you think this is?

You know, I share this impression, too. But let’s remember that America is a diverse nation, so I wouldn’t want any American reading this to think we were pigeon-holing her. American popular culture is raucous and more brash than the cultures you and I are familiar with. Their history of subduing the frontier lives on in their view of nature as something to be knocked into civilized shape by their technology in order to increase their comforts. Their popular culture also relishes simple ‘solutions’ and black-and-white characterizations (good/bad, weak/strong). Those with a stronger European heritage understand more readily that many problems do not have solutions and we non-Americans are more inclined to accommodate ambiguity and contradiction. With that background out of the way, I see American libertarianism coming out of a simplistic embrace of the obsolete frontier mentality. Although the Americans reached the Pacific then settled the interior and went on to vanquish the Indian nations and create the dustbowl, they still think and behave as if the Earth were limitless in size and as if ‘environmental services’ were infinite and immediately replenishable. As I see it, once the human ecological footprint score surpassed 1.0, our politics, our ethical framework moved into a new phase in which ethical and political choices have to take into account for the first time the planet’s ability to support those choices.

Life in the Palaeolithic was likely to be circumscribed by law, custom, religion, loyalties and obligations. No room there for free-thinking individualists! Ethnographies of contemporary hunter-gatherers confirm that picture. To get a glimpse into the Palaeolithic world, one that is a corrective to macho individualism, I recommend the Inuit movie Atanarjuat.

If you do a search on Erwan’s website (Erwan is French) , you won’t find a reference to obesity. American popular culture, more than any other, is obsessed with body shape and images on American websites are generally representations of the website owner’s ideal or of people in progress along a before and after sequence. One of the most popular search terms which brings people to my website is ‘ideal male body shape’, but they’ll be disappointed to find uninspiring but honest pictures of me there – plus a critical discussion of the recent obsession with male body shape. The American ideal seems to be one of powerful dominance and the macho poses are, to my mind, faintly ridiculous and can also be seen as an expression of Americans’ attitude to other nations or to single mothers in their own population. Americans who are not obese and those who are deliberately losing body fat often present this as an outward sign of their exceptional personal will power and their individual achievement which somehow reflects their superiority over others.

I wondered if it was just an American thing – Erwan LeCorre who is French puts a high value on the social side of exercise – but then an American – Frank Forencich – came along and also stressed the social life, the tribe.

Right. And I mentioned earlier the fond memories I have of the camaraderie of the dedicated crew I rowed with. It’s not just American, of course, but American popular media enables macho individualism to be pushed out into the media, and clearly many Americans find comfort and even delight in doing so.

You seem to have a broader interest paying attention to the environment, the biosphere etc. Should a consistent paleo approach seek to reconstruct a Paleolithic biosphere if we are to attain holistic health?

I wouldn’t want to tell others what they should do or how they should think. What I can do is describe my worldview. And you are right, I prefer to think of ‘healthy people on a healthy planet’ as more than just an admirable frame of reference, but also a guide to our behaviour. I’m actively involved in a number of environmental groups and all my charitable donations go to such groups or to individual activists. Frank Forencich urges us to ‘be a good animal’ and good animals, as we know, don’t foul their nests.

Incidentally, can I clarify a couple of terms here? I see the Palaeolithic as a period in human cultural history (it coincides with the history of the species Homo, which began about 2.6 million years ago), whereas the Pleistocene is a geological epoch (beginning about 1.6 million years ago and covering the ice ages).

As I said in the introduction, paleo has become a fashion now. It is hitting the mainstream with articles in the New York Times for example. Businesses are starting up predicated on paleo approaches.

I may just be a grumpy contrarian, but I preferred it when it was underground and unusual! I noticed that you have traced the history of the movement. What do you make of the “movement” now and where do you see it going in the future?

Don’t worry – there will always be a few people who remain to be convinced! It’s my guess three main strands will develop.

First, the hard core underground who understand something about human evolution and who are prepared to put the time and intellectual effort into developing their own syntheses and applying it in their lives.

Secondly, the academics are beginning to pick it up, but very cautiously, because it is cross-disciplinary and uses a Darwinian paradigm, something the social sciences are reluctant to embrace.

Thirdly, popular culture and commercial enterprises will dumb it down to make a quick buck. We will be criticized as if we belong primarily on a strand which is not the one we align ourselves with. I get the impression cautious publishers try to dumb down the hard core. I’m pretty sure Neanderthin was not Ray Audette’s first choice of a title for his book. I get the impression Loren Cordain’s The Paleo Diet was re-shaped by the publisher to meet what they saw at the market. When his publishers retitled his book The New Evolution Diet, Art DeVany exclaimed in exasperation ‘Hey, I write science books, not diet books!’.

Beware the dumbing down!

As I said, it is also becoming a business. Is there a contradiction here in that businesses are Neolithic? Or is that a stupid question?

Coming from you, Chris, it’s not a stupid question at all. If it came from a reporter on the evening tv news, then it would be a stupid question.

Different people will take the palaeo way in different directions. I mentioned before the American writer Derrick Jensen: he sells a lot of books which are a full-on critique of civilization; he must make a comfortable living from his book sales but I don’t see that this cash nexus has compromised his writing in the least. The internet has expanded the free market of ideas and so for someone to make money out of the palaeo way will require that they produce something significantly different from the information in your blog and the sites you link to.

The most obvious business opportunities lie in the service sector: palaeo life coaches/personal trainers, palaeo cooking classes, palaeo restaurants. There is also a small and growing market for grassfed meat, pemmican and organic fresh foods. I know of one person in my city who works full-time as an organic gardener at the homes of ten different families – keeping their vegetable gardens in shape while they are at work, producing high quality fresh food just outside their back doors. There is also a gap in the market for a book of palaeo exercises, with the emphasis on clear illustrations of each exercise together with its palaeo rationale.

Personalities

If I throw out the names of some personalities – not all strictly paleo - could you give me some brief reactions to them?

Clarence Bass (very influential to me. He that first mentioned Art DeVany on his website and from him I found this whole area).

I regard myself as having graduated from Clarence Bass’ site now, but I still hold his work in high regard. In his early 70s he’s still experimenting (wisely) with his body in a scientific way and reporting the results with honesty, integrity and generosity.

Art DeVany

To me Art is the doyen of evolutionary fitness. He was driven by an illness in his family to apply his considerable intellect to the fields of human physiology and metabolism and then to palaeoanthropology to the point where he can debate as an equal with professionals in all those fields. Clarence and Art make life in one’s 70s sound like even more fun than I am finding it in my 60s!

Erwan LeCorre

I mentioned his video earlier. Anyone who is not inspired by it is probably a lost cause! From the media page on his website you can see Erwan focuses on physical activity and complementary psychology. He gives less attention to diet than do many others in the palaeo movement, yet his contribution is unique and valuable.

Frank Forencich

Frank’s books and classes provide something others don’t: palaeo exercise routines for groups, families, young and old. He made the most of his years in Tanzania and his first-hand knowledge of hunter-gatherer lifestyles permeates his writing.

Tamir Katz

Tamir Katz’s The TBK Fitness Program was one of the first books into the field (2003). He wrote it while completing his medical studies and his chapter on how to evaluate scientific reports is a unique and valuable feature of the book.

Are the any other thinkers that you would recommend people read if they want to expand their understanding of your approach?

It’s a broad field, Chris, and I find that lessons from one area illuminate solutions in others. Apart from writers on exercise, fitness and diet, I would highly recommend books by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis on earth systems science (or Gaia).

Their work is decades ahead of the pack, with pedestrian research plodding along behind them, gradually demonstrating the validity of more aspects of their work. Henry Plotkin’s Evolutionary Thought in Psychology shows just how reluctant the social sciences have been to adopt a Darwinian paradigm. Jerry Mander’s In the Absence of the Sacred provides one of the most accessible expositions of hunter-gatherer world views; he also provides a powerful critique of television. I won’t go on here, but there are many others listed on my site.

Particulars

We have been speaking a lot about principles but I’d like to look at some particulars. I know that most of the things I am going to mention are covered on you site, but for the purpose of people who are coming to this fresh it might be an opportunity to outline your own current position on things.

What do you think about the importance of sleep?

Sleep is often overlooked. The widespread introduction of the electric light a century ago took about an hour of sleep out of the average day. The fundamental issue with sleep is that the sleep/wakefulness cycle is critical to the optimal flow of hormones. So is diet. So is exercise. So are stressors/meliors. So is conviviality and love. In fact I would sum up the recipe for health and well-being as having the optimal hormonal rhythms and that those rhythms should be generated naturally, not with supplements or other medical intervention.

Several people in the paleo world make a lot of intermittent fasting, but I do not see much on it in your writing. What do you think about fasting?

Any one who ‘makes a lot’ of any aspect of the palaeo way probably has it wrong. The beauty of the palaeo way is its holistic perspective. But this means that non-Darwinian, linear and reductionist representations in popular culture need to be addressed and in doing so we ‘make a lot’ of some issues rather than others. Since I switched to palaeo eating I have lost ‘hormonal hunger’ and I have a large evening meal with the leftovers for breakfast. Generally nothing during the day. John Durant, in his recent New York Times interview describes the rationale for intermittent fasting very well. By the way, note that the interview with John appears in the ‘fashion’ pages of the Times! I also don’t drink water unless I’m thirsty. I never drink at the gym, nor for the following hour or two.

I was interested to see your piece on body shape. Posture is an interesting topic. Do you think that the common understanding of good posture is correct?

I think posture is an expression of our being. It’s the way we carry our bodies and is a consequence of our total lifestyle. If you look at Erwan’s video you get a good idea of what a young to middle-aged male should do; posture follows. Palaeolithic people never – or rarely – sat, and they certainly didn’t do anything that required them to use their bodies in the way we do today in front of computer screens.

How important is the social side of life? Friendships, team sports, family life, partying, celebration? Are we properly social animals or lone predators?

We move into evolutionary psychology here and any of the main texts on that topic will give a detailed answer to this question. Humans are also opportunistic and as adaptable as rats and successful feral animals and so will behave in a vast variety of ways. Clearly the enjoyment of conviviality is deeply rooted in our brain’s reward system. Yet people of the same species choose to behave in other ways. I see the current focus on ‘happiness’ as missing the point: I have heard of laughter and delight – outward signs of happiness – on the faces of people torturing animals. We humans take longer than any other species to become self-sufficient in our environment, so we need to live together in reasonable harmony over many years to become fully mature. The precise forms of successful living together will vary, according to tradition, externally-imposed pressures, needs of the immediate family etc., but we can’t deny or even ignore our social needs. We also know that direct interaction with others – rubbing along – is one of the best ways of stalling some forms of dementia.

Can an exercise routine (sorry for the word) replace the life style exertion of the paleo world? What about wear and tear? ( I saw you recommend regular injuries!)

Well, perhaps recommending injuries was a bit provocative. But it’s difficult to imagine that life in the Palaeolithic would have been injury-free. Most day-to-day injuries heal themselves, but we need to be smart and not persist in activities or a diet or other behaviours that cause us pain or which otherwise damage our bodies. People in the Palaeolithic would have been smart enough to do that!

As to wear and tear, I mentioned before ‘industrial drudgery’. Repeating the same movement over and over again is more likely to lead to wear and tear than exercise variety. That’s why I never do more than one set. Rather than five sets of one exercise, I’ll do one set of five exercises, each of which works the same basic musculature, but with different support muscles, different weights and from different angles. In all this, I don’t achieve the lifestyle exertion of the palaeo world, but I can come pretty close – say 80% of the way in terms of the significant variables. And the palaeo way is consistent with the evolutionary health principle. Remember, we were born as Pleistocene children to twentieth century mothers, so there is a lot of ground to recover.

What aspect of the paleo environment should be seek to put right for ourselves first, diet or exercise / activity?

Very early on we need to begin to appreciate the inter-relationships between these two and other behaviours and experiences that affect the production and use of our many natural hormones. And we need to do this under a Darwinian paradigm. Using this approach, it’s clear that – for best results – we should approach all hormone-related behaviours together. Our distinctions between them are – from our body’s perspective – meaningless.

However, that preferred route is often not practicable and newcomers to the palaeo way should progress by the route that attracts them most and not get stuck in a rut of procrastination. Start today, not tomorrow; just start!

I noted your recent experiments with Doug McGuff’s Body By Science approach. Have you now given up on that training mode? Why?

That would have to be one of the most boring pages on my site, Chris, and you are to be admired for having worked through it! Records of other people’s daily exercises or food intake make for pretty uninteresting reading.

I wanted to go into Body By Science as it is presented in the context of human evolution. In the end I found that the limited range of recommended routines was taking away the enjoyment I get from variety out of my gym sessions.

While my present exercise and activity may not be as effective for my metabolic health as the routines recommended by Doug McGuff, I feel they are pretty close. I also came to the conclusion that Body By Science may well suit people who are starting out. However, for those who have worked out their own way of maintaining above average fitness, health and strength, they have less to offer. But don’t take that as a dismissal. I recommend Doug’s book as it will give every reader a greater understanding of our metabolism and of metabolic health.

In Kurt Harris’s recent post on exercise he noted that Walking is an excellent evolutionary activity that we are, simply, evolved to do and doing it is nothing but good. Forencich also stresses the importance of walking. Do you agree?

I do. And I would not be surprised to find that it was walking per se, not light exercise of which walking is one among equally effective alternatives (jogging, indoor rowing, cycling etc.). I try to walk to work (four kilometres) at least once a week and walk always on the grass, not the pavement, leapfrog bollards and otherwise look for opportunities to use the walk as a gym session. I wear shorts and never defer on account of the weather.

There is walking and there is walking. The important thing is not to allow the artificial urban environment to distort our walking into an unvaried and mechanistic industrial drudgery, with each step identical to the one before. We can also use urban walking for our mental health: memorize street names, learn your route by heart so you can predict which building, tree or other feature will be the next one to come into view. I sometimes test myself on this at night, tracing the route in my mind before I fall asleep. But I also try to vary my route every day.

Yup - walking is a great human activity.

Do you see any place for “neolithic movements” in the achievement of paleolithic fitness? One of the examples would be gymnastic moves like the planche. Not something the hunter gatherer would do…but fun in their way?

Sure! And who knows what some young and competitive Palaeolithic men and women did in their abundant spare time? We can be sure they spent more time playing, chatting, bantering – some of it competitive. And I would not be in the least surprised if some, somewhere, did not have planche competitions! Let’s apply Ray Audette’s ‘sharp stick principle’ to exercise: don’t do it if it would have been impossible in the Palaeolithic.

There – the planche is just fine!

Conclusion

Keith, thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. Thanks also for all your writings which I have really appreciated over the years. I hope this interview will give point a few more people to your site.

(Thanks also to Methuselah and Asclepius who suggested some questions)

In spite of ..... or because of?

This is one where there are some assumptions at play! The paradigm is that fatty food is bad and exercise is good. Within that paradigm rising obesity in the face of a low fat diet must mean that exercise has been reduced.

There is of course an alternative paradigm - maybe one of the factors at play (and there will be a number of factors) is diet. Maybe less fat - replaced by carbs - is the problem

Anyway - here is the BBC story

Despite fewer visits to gyms and a love of high-fat foods, people in the 1960s were slimmer simply because they were more active, the government says.
Rates of obesity in English adults have risen from 1-2% in the 1960s to around 26% today, figures show.

.

......high fat foods like condensed milk and cooked breakfast were popular ..........

Of course there is a role for activity and movement is vital.....but see how fatty food is seen as a problem, not a reason for the lower levels of obesity

More to come

Sorry that I have not posted much this week - work has been busy and I have a lot to do this weekend too. There are some posts coming, including an interview that I've been working on for a while and which will address some really interesting issues around evolutionary fitness / paleo diet.

Squatting is hardcore

These type of videos crack me up. (apologies for some strong language in here)



Anyway the point - from Mark Young - is that heavy squatting can cause problems to the back. It reminded me of the point Matt made a while ago:

I see this differential in my toddler as well. Toddlers squat constantly, but it is all "mobility" work. The squats are done for the purposes of movement, not for the purposes of lifting a weight. If a toddler wants to lift a weight, they shift into a deadlift position.

It's probably been about a year since I've done weighted squats. At this point, I have no desire to go back to them. I am content training the deadlift as the main lift. I know squats have been utilized in weight programs for decades, but that doesn't mean that they are necessarily 100% healthy.

Mike Boyle raised some controversial points about squats last year:

Posture - more from Kathleen Porter

I think I have mentioned her book before.

Sprinting boosts Testosterone

at least it does in adolescent boys:

Androgen Responses to Sprint Exercise in Young Men

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a 6-month sprint training program on plasma androgens and catecholamine (CA) concentrations in response to a 6 s sprint in adolescent boys [training group (TG), n=6; control group (CG), n=6]. A 6 s-sprint test was performed on a cycle ergometer before and after training (Pre-T and Post-T, respectively). Plasma total testosterone (TT), bioavailable testosterone (BT), and CA concentrations were measured at rest, after a warm-up, immediately after a 6 s-sprint, and during the recovery (i. e. 5 and 20 min). After training period, plasma TT concentrations increased significantly at the end of the sprint and during the recovery in the TG. No effects for sampling times and period were observed in BT levels. Plasma TT concentrations after 5 min of recovery were positively correlated with the corresponding values of plasma lactate (La) concentrations and with post-6 s-sprint plasma adrenaline (A) concentrations (r=0.52; p<0.01 and r=0.61; p<0.01, respectively). These results suggest that sprint training increases plasma TT concentrations in response to sprint exercise in adolescent boys. Plasma A and plasma La concentrations increases in response to sprint exercise could be involved in this elevation of plasma TT concentrations.

McGill Exercises

In discussing back pain, some people - including Bill De Simone - have recommended that I look at McGill;s exercises. Here is a video of him looking at his ideas which are also described here:

Injury 2.....TMS / Z Health / the plank

So my backpain.

I have also on this blog highlighted my contention that there is a big psychological aspect to all this. I read Sarno years ago and was pretty convinced by his argument. Sometimes your mind will kick off pain to divert your attention from something psychological that it really finds threatening.

I interviewed Monte here too who builds on that argument.

My personality is such that I do worry. Relaxed on the surface but often quite stressed out underneath. So all this makes sense....and I can correlate back pain with stresses in my life.

I am still working on the mental stuff to get over this but I'm getting there.

Anyway, remember Z health and mc? The mc seminar was useful in that it built on the psychological element in a different direction. It accepted that much pain / muscular tightness was due to psychologically perceived threats. Z health is about physical ways to modulate that threat, to persuade your mind through movement that the threat is not serious.

But.....despite all that my back this week was such that I went to see a friend for a massage.

This is heresy to Sarno / Monte, but I still think there is a physical element sometimes. This particular muscle was in spasm for some reason. Possibly psychological, but maybe physical.

Colin is pretty skilled - he trains with weights, has been a cmpetitive powerlifter, wrestles and is a pilates teacher as well as a good bodyworker. I'd cetainly recommend him if you are around Ediburgh.

He spent some time on me today, not initialy on massage but thinking about rehab exercises. He is tracing things to my Gluteus medius muscle and Quadratus lumborum muscle on the right not firing properly. It becomes a movement problem about how I walk and squat etc.

The basic presecription is planks and side planks, strengthening the core.

Interesting because Dan John has written alot on the benefits of planks:

Like most people, I hate Planks. It was Joshua Hillis who got me to start doing them and I discovered a funny thing. I hate planks.

Why? Well, there you are shaking from stem to stern doing nothing but holding a position. It is very hard to look calm and collected while shaking. So, let’s make it harder!

I have one simple drill to assess all kinds of issues with my athletes. It is a one minute plank done as follows:

The first twenty seconds, the right leg is raised as high as it can be raised towards the ceiling…an Arabesque right leg, if you will. Without leaving the plank position, do the next twenty seconds with the left leg Arabesque position. Finally, do twenty seconds of the plank. This is how to increase your life: that minute will feel like forever.

So, how do we assess what happened? Many of my athletes who have done far too many Bench Presses and hard baseball throws complain that the planks hurt their armpits. For these athletes, we need Bent Over Rows and Bat Wings. Lots of Bat Wings. If the athlete flops on to the ground and maniacally begins stretching the hamstrings or complains about hamstring cramping, I know that the Goblet Squat and maybe the Deadlift are needed for repairing the Posterior Chain…especially a thing called “Sleepy Butt Syndrome.” (Wake up your Glutes!) These athletes probably should be doing light Good Mornings every day as well as a daily light dose of Goblet Squats. If we just have a shaking torso and screaming in the last ten seconds, well, that’s easy: include planks as part of you workouts, usually after you do anything heavy.

The last issue with planks is simply an observation from my experience, but it is worth considering. I had some athletes complain about cramping calves on planks and I just couldn’t get my mind around it. In our discussions, it always seemed like the cramping calves were also the same athletes who were missing little things like meals, sensible diet practices, supplements, recovery aids and an understanding that nutrition may have some value for the athlete. Hence, the conclusion: my athletes who get calf cramps are missing something in their diet. Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, one or two smart meal choices and a multi-mineral supplement and the problem vanishes. This isn’t science, but experience has some value.

Also here

Let's see how this goes.

Injury 1

This continues on a bit from my post about "skills".

I have occasionally mentioned on this blog my recurrent back spasms. Occasionally I get a back spasm. Usually in the quadratus lumborum. It has been going on for years since a deadlift workout in about 1992.

When I am injured - and I've had a couple of episodes this last couple of weeks - all this stuff about exercise and conditioning goes into the background. The focus is on simple movement. Just to be able to move freely and without pain is sometimes a great blessing that we can take for granted.

Skill sets start with being able to walk, sit, get dressed. When they are in place then the essentials are there!

More health benefits for a low carb diet - protection against mitochondrial mallfunction

Here is another one to think about with respect to the protective aspects of a low carb / primal / paleo diet (I know it is mice and we are not mice....but still worth thinking about):

Ketogenic diet slows down mitochondrial myopathy progression in mice

Mitochondrial dysfunction is a major cause of neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases of adult age and of multisystem disorders of childhood. However, no effective treatment exists for these progressive disorders. Cell culture studies suggested that ketogenic diet, with low glucose and high fat content, could select against cells or mitochondria with mutant mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), but proper patient trials are still lacking. We studied here the transgenic Deletor mice, a disease model for progressive late-onset mitochondrial myopathy, accumulating mtDNA deletions during aging and manifesting subtle progressive respiratory chain deficiency. We found that these mice have wide-spread lipidomic and metabolite changes, including abnormal plasma phospholipid and free amino acid levels and ketone body production. We treated these mice with presymptomatic long-term and post-symptomatic shorter term ketogenic diet. The effects of the diet for disease progression were followed by morphological, metabolomic and lipidomic tools. We show here that the diet decreased the amount of cytochrome-c-oxidase negative muscle fibers, a key feature in mitochondrial respiratory chain deficiencies, and prevented completely the formation of the mitochondrial ultrastructural abnormalities in the muscle. Furthermore, most of the metabolic and lipidomic changes were cured by the diet to wildtype levels. The diet did not, however, significantly affect the mtDNA quality or quantity, but rather induced mitochondrial biogenesis and restored liver lipid levels. Our results show that mitochondrial myopathy induces widespread metabolic changes, and that ketogenic diet can slow down progression of the disease in mice. These results suggest that ketogenic diet may be useful for mitochondrial late-onset myopathies.

Handstand Tutorial

I'd given up trying to master a handstand but I might give it another go. Nice tutorial. Hat tip to the Barbarians

Can you gain 8lbs in a single workout?

Remember Brad Pilon of East Stop Eat? (I interviewed Brad here)

Here he talks about how to add 8lbs of lean mass in one workout....



Check out the video and register for a teleseminar (it's free) to find out how supplement companies make some outrageous claims.

I like Brad's work. He really cuts through the hype

• How many calories it REALLY takes to build muscle
• Why HEIGHT has more to do with the amount of calories you need on a daily basis and how to use the "Rule of 7's and 3's" to determine how BIG you'll actually end up
• A sneaky trick that all marketers use to get you to THINK that you're gaining more muscle than you really are... and how this same sneaky trick is SAPPING you out of your hard earned money in the process
• How adding just 5 lbs of muscle in JUST THE RIGHT PLACES gives the illusion of a 25 lb increase in size... DRUG FREE...
• The TRUTH on testimonials and "before and after"pics and how EVEN YOU can make yourself look super huge in 24 hours... without ever touching the inside of a gym or taking a "magic powder". This is the one secret the supplement companies DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW

I still think Brad's Eat Stop Eat is the best introduction to intermittent fasting out there.

A general skill set

This sort of follows on from the last post.

I've been thinking about this for a while, trying to integrate different threads of the things that interest me in this whole physical training world.

Where I am coming to at the moment maintains the differences I've learned about between skill and strength. Strength training is one distinct area and - while there are controversies - I tend to come down in the HIT school as explained by Doug or John.

However I am still drawn to the general athleticism and enthusiasm of people like Erwan Le Corre or Frank Forencich.

I do not see the two schools as mutually exclusive though. Where I am now is thinking of the general building of strength - intense infrequent workouts - and then learning a set of fun skills, that will also be useful in life - more regular easy practice and play.

So currently I am training weights about once a week, but also training Krav Maga once a week - skill training - and doing easy playing around with other things - sprints, hill walks, gymnastic moves, turkish get ups.

In terms of an skill set I like the Methode Naturelle set of skills: fighting, climbing, throwing, running, balance etc. It is this general skill set that I am thinking of more and more as I get older. I want to maintain strength...but I also want to practice balance, squatting, fighting etc.

There was a thread years ago on a forum I used to spend time on about "Dad fitness" someone thinking about how to train to be fit for the tasks he had as a Dad - running after kids, picking them up etc. The more I think about it now, the idea for me would be to get strong and then practice the different skills.

Hope you don't mind the ramble....

The Transfer of fitness and agility

There has been quite a lot on this blog in the past about "functional" training, particularly about whether there is much cross over in training. The basic science is that there is no strength training exercise that carries over to athletic or everyday movements. You can get stronger, but to get better at the skill you need to practice the skill. My interview with Luke Carlson covered all this.

Anyway, I spotted this study today. It seems to say that people who do lots of sport and "leisure time physical activity" and in particular play games, have better general motor ability. Obviosuly the whole causation / correlation thing comes in again (i.e. do they play more games because they have more skilled at coordination etc or do the games make them skilled) but it is interesting to reflect on. Generalism in terms of games etc benefits general athleticism? I don't know the key is to learn the skill I think and to get stronger.

Is Generic Physical Activity Or Specific Exercise Associated With Motor Abilities?

PURPOSE:: Evidence of the effect of leisure time physical activity (LTPA) modes on the motor abilities of a mature population is scarce. The purpose of this study was to compare the motor abilities of physically active and inactive men and women and to examine the associations of different exercise modes and former and recent LTPA with motor ability and various physical tests. METHODS:: The LTPA of the participants (men n=69, women n=79; aged 41-47 years) was ascertained by a modified Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire, including questions on the frequency, duration and intensity of recent LTPA (R-LTPA) and former LTPA and on exercise modes. Motor abilities in terms of balance, agility and coordination were assessed with a battery of 9 tests supplemented with 5 physical fitness tests. Multiple statistical methods were used in analyses that were conducted separately for men and women. RESULTS:: The weekly MET hours of R-LTPA correlated statistically significantly with the tests of agility and static balance (rs =-0.275, p=.022; rs =-0.245, p=.043, respectively) among men, and with the static balance (rs =0.408), 2-km walking (rs =0.361), step squat (rs =0.355) (p

Fat is not bad..

The low carb / paleo blogs have been discussing this study for a while, but it is interesting to see a more mainstream news source take it up (although the story is a bit sceptical):

Review Calls for Reevaluation of the Fat-CVD Link

Emphasis on reducing dietary saturated fat may miss the target of preventing cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the epidemic of obesity and associated metabolic disturbances, authors of a critical review of the issues concluded.

Limiting intake of carbohydrates, particularly refined carbohydrates, offers the best hope for reducing the CVD burden associated with atherogenic dyslipidemia, Patty W. Siri-Tarino, PhD, of the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute in California, and colleagues concluded in an article published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

"Replacement of saturated fat by polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fat lowers both LDL and HDL cholesterol," they wrote. "However, replacement with a higher carbohydrate intake, particularly refined carbohydrate, can exacerbate the atherogenic dyslipidemia associated with insulin resistance and obesity that includes increased triglycerides, small LDL particles, and reduced HDL cholesterol."

"There is little evidence from [clinical] trials or from epidemiologic studies that a reduction in saturated fat intake below about 9% of total energy intake is associated with a reduced CVD risk," they added.

The conclusion:

Particularly given the differential effects of dietary saturated fats and carbohydrates on concentrations of larger and smaller LDL particles, respectively, dietary efforts to improve the increasing burden of CVD risk associated with atherogenic dyslipidemia should primarily emphasize the limitation of refined carbohydrate intakes and a reduction in excess adiposity.

Limit refined carbs.

Genes and running

This study found genetic differences between elite endurance athletes and elite sprinters. It is true that individuals are truly different and have aptitudes to excel in different areas.

Fasting and cancer treatment

I haven't had anything on fasting for a while, but just spotted this:

Fasting and cancer treatment in humans: A case series report

Fasting while having chemotherapy seems to lessen some of the side effects.

Old style MovNat

Just a bit of fun in the MovNat Methode Nauturelle vein.

Does running make you old or keep you young?

I had a post up a couple of weeks ago pointing to a study that said that the muscles of endurance runners aged in proportion to the amount of running they did. The argument was around the length of telomeres in the muscle cells.

Telomeres are structures at the ends of human chromosomes that protect DNA from damage. To help you visualize them, they are often compared to the little plastic tips at the ends of shoelaces. As cells age and replicate, their telomeres shorten. When telomeres become critically short, cells stop functioning properly. So, the general idea is that telomeres may be a “biological clock” that reflects your physiological age/health more accurately than your chronological age. In other words, the longer the telomeres, the healthier the cells. (from here)

This post is just to note that - as ever - it is a complex business and not as straightforward as it might all seem.


There is another study which says that endurance training keeps cells "younger" with longer telomeres:

Leukocyte telomere length is preserved with aging in endurance exercise-trained adults and related to maximal aerobic capacity.

Our results indicate that Leukocyte Telomere length is preserved in healthy older adults who perform vigorous aerobic exercise and is positively related to maximal aerobic exercise capacity. This may represent a novel molecular mechanism underlying the "anti-aging" effects of maintaining high aerobic fitness.

Of course it is all complex. There is an interesting interview here which goes through the background to this. Telomere length, it says can be affected by:

• Genetics
• lack of sleep
• fish oil (there it is again)
• stress
• high blood sugar

So it might not have anything to do with the exercise.

More Vitamin D

The benefits of Vitamin D keep coming:


High levels of vitamin D in older people can reduce heart disease and diabetes

Dr Franco said: "We found that high levels of vitamin D among middle age and elderly populations are associated with a substantial decrease in cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

"Targeting vitamin D deficiency in adult populations could potentially slow the current epidemics of cardiometabolic disorders."

Did Lactose Tolerance Trigger the Indo-European Expansion?

Given recent debates about Vitamin D, paleo and milk etc I thought this essay was interesting.

Did Lactose Tolerance Trigger the Indo-European Expansion?

Some extracts:

Agriculture allowed those who practiced it to greatly expand their numbers, but it is distinctly possible that the nutritional quality of the food of early farmers was initially worse than that which had traditionally been available to hunter-gatherers. Consequently, the health of each individual was not necessarily better in the Neolithic period than it had been in the Paleolithic era. The bodies of those who practiced agriculture had to adapt to a new diet consisting of foods that had either not been eaten before or had previously been of only minor importance.

According to The 10,000 Year Explosion, “For example, we see changes in genes affecting transport of vitamins into cells. Similarly, vitamin D shortages in the new diet may have driven the evolution of light skin in Europe and northern Asia. Vitamin D is produced by ultraviolet radiation from the sun acting on our skin – an odd, plantlike way of going about things. Less is therefore produced in areas far from the equator, where UV flux is low. Since there is plenty of vitamin D in fresh meat, hunter-gatherers in Europe may not have suffered from vitamin D shortages and thus may have been able to get by with fairly dark skin. In fact, this must have been the case, since several of the major mutations causing light skin color appear to have originated after the birth of agriculture. Vitamin D was not abundant in the new cereal-based diet, and any resulting shortages would have been serious, since they could lead to bone malformations (rickets), decreased resistance to infectious diseases, and even cancer. This may be why natural selection favored mutations causing light skin, which allowed for adequate vitamin D synthesis in regions with little ultraviolet radiation.”

Food Fascists

Good humour from Tom Naughton



Now I am a Brit who thinks the NHS is generally good and can't understand the American horror at the idea of a national health service, but I sympathise with some of the ideas here - usually the fascists want to ban good food and leave the bad. Remember they want to ban butter, but subsidise grain.

low rates of coronary heart disease despite a diet high in saturated fat

Well this shouldn't really be a surprise. The science is saying that there is no link between the intake of saturated fat and the risk of CHD [coronary heart disease], stroke, or CVD [cardiovascular disease].

Here is another study which is supporting that idea. (The study is full of assumptions by the way - the claim is that this is a "potentially atherogenic diet".)

Anyway, the Masai have a low carb, high fat diet but they have very healthy blood pressure and lipid profiles.

These researchers suggest their health is due to their high levels of energy expenditure. Who knows, maybe it is due to their diet!

Is their health in spite of or because of their diet?

Daily energy expenditure and cardiovascular risk in Masai, rural and urban Bantu Tanzanians

Background Several studies have revealed that the Masai, pastoralists in Tanzania, have low rates of coronary heart disease despite a diet high in saturated fat. It has also been suggested that they may be genetically protected. Recent studies detailing other potential protective factors, however, are lacking.

Methods A cross-sectional investigation of 985 Tanzanian men and women (130 Masai, 371 rural Bantu and 484 urban Bantu) with mean age of 46 (9.3) years. Anthropometric measures, blood pressure, serum lipids, and the reported dietary pattern and physical activity level were assessed.

Results 82% of Masai subjects reported a high fat/low carbohydrate intake, whereas 77% of the rural Bantu subjects reported a low fat/high carbohydrate intake, while a high fat/high carbohydrate intake was the main dietary pattern of the urban Bantu group as, reported by 55%. The most conspicuous finding for the Masai was the extremely high energy expenditure, corresponding to 2565 kcal/day over basal requirements, compared with 1500 kcal/day in the rural and 891 kcal/day for the urban Bantu. Mean body mass index among the Masai was lower than the rural and urban Bantu. Mean systolic blood pressure of the Masai was also lower compared with their rural and urban Bantu counterparts. The Masai revealed a favourable lipid profile.

Conclusion The potentially atherogenic diet among the Masai was not reflected in serum lipids and was offset probably by very high energy expenditure levels and low body weight.

Efficient walking

With all the recent interest in barefoot running I though this study was of interest. Barefoot running encourages you to land on the forefoot - it is the most efficient gait. Interestingly walking is most efficient when you land on the heel.

The cost of being on your toes

Walking heels-first is less work than walking on your toes or balls of the feet

"....Lots of elite athletes, whether sprinters or distance runners, don't land on their heel. Many of them run on the balls of their feet," as do people who run barefoot. That appears to be the natural ancestral condition for early human runners, he adds.

"The important thing is we are remarkable economical walkers," Carrier says. "We are not efficient runners. In fact, we consume more energy to run than the typical mammal our size. But we are exceptionally economical walkers."

"This study suggests that one of the things that may explain such economy is the unusual structure of our foot," he adds. "The whole foot contacts the ground when we walk. We have a big heel. Our big toe is as long as our other toes and is much more robust. Our big toe also is parallel to and right next to the second toe."

"These features are distinct among apes, and provide the mechanical basis for economical walking. No other primate or mammal could fit into human shoes."

....and it is all about fighting?

Carrier speculates that a heel-first foot posture "may be advantageous during fighting by increasing stability and applying more torque to the ground to twist, push and shove. And it increases agility in rapid turning maneuvers during aggressive encounters."

DVD Review: Ultimate Exercise Diet Seminar with Doug McGuff

Doug McGuff (I interviewed Doug last year here) mentioned this new DVD on his blog a couple of weeks ago and I received a copy last week.

I watched it the other night and really enjoyed it.

Presentation

If you are going to buy this - and I would recommend that you do - you need first of all to understand what you are getting.

This is not a fancy production with animations and graphics. What you get is a video of Dr McGuff giving a 2 hour lecture on nutrition. He backs it up with a whiteboard on which he has sketched out diagrams of the relevant metabolic pathways that he is talking about and there is a handout outlining the points he is teaching, but otherwise it is just Doug lecturing and answering some questions.

Don't buy this expecting a fancy production. To me that doesn't matter - the information and the way it is transmitted is what is important.

The hunter gatherer diet

I forget where I first came across the paleo diet. It was before Art Devany hit the web through his blog. It may have been through browsing the paleo diet site but it is years ago now.

Anyway, since I have read a lot of material about this topic - Neanderthin, the Paleo Diet for Athletes, Evfit.com, the TBK Fitness Program,, Matt's book....and lots more. I've read the books and I've spent probably hundreds of hours browsing this stuff on line.

This however is the clearest presentation I've yet seen on the subject. Watching this, the pieces of the jigsaw really came together more clearly than before. The books I've read have been good, but Doug's presentation explains the argument very clearly and simply in a consistent way.

The problem

The problem is clearly stated "since the advent of agriculture, the food that used to be the most scarce (carbohydrate) is not the most abundant".

This has driven up insulin levels which has led to a cascade of problems all under the umbrella of the metabolic syndrome.

The Biochemistry

I think the presentation of the biochemistry is what really makes this DVD. The basics of the paleo diet are easy to grasp.(This video for example explains it well). There is also the simple "motto" of the sharp stick test:

The 'sharp stick' test refers to Ray Audette's catchy description of how to distinguish palaeofoods from non-palaeo foods: "A natural diet is what is edible when you are naked with a sharp stick," Audette says,"when you have no technology."

What Doug brings to the party however is a very clear presentation of what is going on in your cells. How glucose gets in via the insulin receptors and the various steps in the processes it goes through to power the cells. He then explains what happens when the cell is full and the feedback loop stops the glucose coming in and sends it instead to fill up the liver and the muscles.....and then where it goes to cause problems.

He talks about how these processes are managed in your body through various sytems, reactions and feedbacks and how different foods have an impact. Realy interesting and well explaind.

Cholesterol, diabestes, the immune system, poisons in plants - there is stuff in here that was either new to me or explained ina new way.

Do Eat ....Don't Eat

That is the interesting part. But to be honest you could ignore all that and just focus onthe prescription from the doctor - what to eat and what not to eat. It will be pretty familiar if you have read much of this stuff before.

He takes a fairly pragmatic approach - the main thing is to focus on meat, eggs, fish, veggies, berries and saturated fat and avoid HFCS, sugar and grain products. He gives a simple hierarchy - get the most important things in place (e.g. dump sugsr and grains, eat meat) then worry about finessing things (when do you dump spuds.....start fasting).

Generously he also points to the writings of Kurt Harris and his 12 step, get started programme as a good template for adopting this way of eating.


Supplementation or Augmentation

Doug also discusses supplements. Again, if you have been following the recent science these will not be a surprise: fish oil, vitamin D3 and vitamin K2 (Stephan has discussed K2 alot)

Interestingly, the argument for Doug is not about supplementation but appropriate augmentation of the diet. Vitamin D3 for example is really important but for most of us we simply live in the wrong places to get sufficient from the sun so we need to add it to our diet.

(off topic but I always wonder how the Inuit get by with respect to vitamn D given their lattitude)

Some Humour

The funniest moment is at the end in the Q&A when someone asks for advice for a vegan. Doug's instruction is simple:

Eat meat

To be fair he does then explain that vegetarianism doesn't make sense from an ethical point of view - agriculture implies the destruction of vast complex ecosystems to create the monocrops on which we rely (wheat, corn or wahtever) wheat is murder - or from a biological point of view - we are built as carnivores from our teeth to our guts (we do not have the mutliple stomachs of vegetarian animals which allow the bugs in their stomach to digest the cellulose).

Really interesting arguments by the way which are developed in Lierre Keith's amazing book - the Vegetarian Myth. She comprehensively deconstructs the common arguments for vegetarianism while weaving in a narrative of her own personal journey. Morally - things need to die for other this to live - politically - agriculture destroys ecosystems and cultures - and nutritionally - you cannot be properly nourished on plants. This is not to defend factory farming, which is cruel and nasty, but it is to appeal to think maturely about what we eat and why.

Back on topic.....

Where to get it

So far the DVD is only available directly from Doug's Ultimate Exercise. Order this from Doug directly. (By the way I don't think it is up on the product page yet, but the contact details are there and the cost for the DVD is $45 + Shipping and Handling ($5.00 U.S., $10.00 International)). Mine arrived from the States to Scotland in about a week.

Highly recommended.