In general, I think the online Paleo community is too hard on The New Evolution Diet. I experienced bafflement at a few things, and they are all on this list at Melissa McEwen’s site. In particular, throwing out egg yolks is, I think, ludicrous. Choline is a critical nutrient, and it’s all in the yolk. The idea that you should never eat butter or lard and that if cooking oil is needed you should use canola are patently ridiculous. Canola oil is complete crap. Why not recommend macadamia nut oil if you don’t like saturated fat?
I did find things to like, however. His menu plan is all in a conversational tone and doesn’t have specific quantities, as are the daily fitness suggestions. It makes the diet, which is not easy, sound much more approachable, and the fitness suggestions could be followed by anyone of any condition. If I wanted to eat like this, I would almost certainly lose weight. If I eat low-carb paleo, I do not lose weight (though I don’t gain any either). I think that DeVany wanted something that will definitely work, and I think this would. Because the diet is all to appetite, folks might start eating more fat on their own, I don’t know. I know that for myself, eating low fat (fewer than 30% of calories from fat) requires a very concerted effort as well as weighing and measuring. He doesn’t suggest you do this.
There’s a camp of paleo/primal (Nora Gedgaudas comes to mind) that restricts protein and uses a ton of fat for calories. I can’t gain or maintain muscle while eating “adequate” protein. I realize that CrossFit workouts are pretty aggressive and not everyone does so much – it’s certainly not a requirement for weight loss, but one of DeVany’s core things is to maintain a lot of lean mass for your whole life. People with a low body fat and large muscle mass don’t get decrepit and live longer. (The book has research about this.)
Basically, the book works for me because he makes it all sound easy. Even his suggestions for intermittent fasting sound pretty approachable, basically, skip dinner once a week.
In his fitness recommendations, I found this paragraph:
I go to the gym in the morning, not long after I wake up, for the simple reason that a workout is more effective if done on an empty stomach. You burn more energy this way. Sometimes I have a cup of coffee first, but nothing more; the caffeine starts the adrenaline flowing, increases blood flow to the muscle, and mobilizes glucose for burning. That, too, runs counter to what you may have been taught. The idea that you should eat first—the “experts” usually counsel a big helping of carbs, supposedly to fuel your muscles—is actually counterproductive if burning fat is among your goals. Later I’ll explain why it is better not only to exercise hungry but also to put off eating afterward for up to an hour.
This is my current way of doing things, and it works quite well. I’m doing CrossFit and I’m not eating strict paleo, though I have many things in common with Paleo eaters. I started doing this because of what I read at LeanGains. I thought I wasn’t doing intermittent fasting, but apparently I am because I close my evening eating window very early (7pm). I usually fast 12 hours before a workout, and then I don’t eat for 30 to 90 minutes after working out. It sounds like this would be hard, but it actually isn’t. I’m often not hungry for a while after I work out. In fact, his recommended fast for women is 13-14 hours, not 16 as it is for men.
I think the primary problem here is that this way of paleo eating is out of fashion. Lean protein is just not where it’s at for a lot of people. I’ve found that I do better that way as protein works better to satisfy me than fat does. I’m probably not the only one out there that finds this to be the case. For those that disagree I ask this: which can you eat more of, calorically speaking: bacon or relatively lean steak? I’m betting the calories would pile up a lot faster with bacon.
Next up: The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss.
I’m currently reading Art DeVany’s new book (The New Evolution Diet) – only the Kindle version is out at the moment.
His basic rules for eating are much more tight with the fat than what I know a lot of Primal/Paleo types eat. I have to say that, to be honest, I cannot free-eat Paleo with unlimited fat and expect to lose weight. I don’t *gain* weight, but don’t lose any either. He does allow for cheese as a flavoring – just not much of it – so that sets him apart from Cordain (Loren Cordain, The Paleo Diet). He also recommends no dried fruit at all and limited nuts. Cordain is pretty generous with both.
I do say that I share some of the paleosphere’s confusion on the canola oil thing. Why allow ANY OF IT at all? Cordain has changed his mind about it, and I think he’s right. If you need cooking oil, use light olive oil or 100% olive oil (these are more refined than extra-virgin and don’t burn anywhere near so readily).
I’m just getting to the bit on fitness, something I’m very interested to see.
Eventually, I’ll put up a proper review.
I’ve tried various foods in isolation over the last six months and have found out that some of them really need to stay OUT of my diet. Note that some of them *are* paleo-approved:
- gluten (knew that before I tried paleo)
- legumes (gluten-free soy sauce is OK)
- vegetable oils (if it wouldn’t leave a grease spot if I stepped on the whole food, I probably shouldn’t eat it at all)
- sorghum flour (but not molasses)
- teff flour and other exotic non-gluten grains
- ground flax seed
- brown rice
- broccoli
- green beans (waaah! I love them)
- raw cabbage
- brussels sprouts
- kale
I am clueless about why broccoli, kale, brussels sprouts and raw cabbage bring my digestive system to a screeching halt. I know what’s wrong with green beans – the bean part. I’m pretty sure that it’s the seed casing or husk on the flax, brown rice, teff and sorghum that’s causing me a problem (again, bloating and super slow digestion) because I have no problems with white rice. I also can’t eat more than 35g of fiber a day without the same problem occurring.
I wonder if cabbage is OK because I tend to cook the hell out of it? My favorite way to have it is cooked in the pan with ground beef and curry paste or powder. I have tried cooking broccoli more thoroughly, but that doesn’t seem to matter. I haven’t had cauliflower in a very long time, but I suspect it would cause the same issues as broccoli.
There are other non-paleo foods that are no issue at all (corn tortillas, white rice, peeled potatoes). If I hadn’t gone down to meat, veg and fruit (I didn’t eat nuts and seeds for about 4 weeks entirely for my own reasons) I would not have been adding things back and I would not have found out what I really shouldn’t eat.
I don’t seem to have any problems with nuts and seeds, though I don’t eat them in huge volume. I further don’t have issues with nightshades. I do fine with raw, grass-fed milk products, but I do get a bit of mucous if I have grain-fed, pasteurized fluid dairy products. Cheese and sour cream are fine.
I’m going to start out plugging this blog entry at Tribe of Five, because it echoes a lot of my feelings on this subject.
I’m not willing to carry the paleo placard in lieu of common sense. No, we don’t eat grains, legumes, or sugar. Yes, we eat plenty of grass fed meats, saturated fats, and fermented foods. But, so what? I’m not going to Trader Joes, picking up a pack of “free range” eggs and a jar of coconut oil and smugly walking out, feeling like I’m doing my part for the paleo party. We need to be connected to our food, to our farmers, to our land, and to ourselves in order to really understand how our ancestors walked this earth. That’s the only way we can make a difference of significance.
You should read the whole entry – it’s worth the few minutes it will take.
I’ve been trying to write something about this without sounding like a complete bitch. You don’t win friends by beating people over the head with your ideas. These entries at Honest Meat have been kicking around in my brain since they were written.
The following is the most relevant bit to me, but if you want to know more about the trials and tribulations of running a small biodynamic farm, read the entries above:
We certainly have some amazing customers, some who have been with us since the beginning, others who have loaned us money, and many who put faith in us when purchasing an egg share. We get the occasional compliment like “your eggs changed my life” or “I feel comfortable eating meat again when it is from you”. Yet we have other customers who want our products to be cheaper, for us to stop using organic feed, or for us to lower our standards in other ways. There are people who want us to use a soy-free feed, but yet are not willing to pay the added price that a non soy feed will cost (it takes longer to grow out an animal without soy and laying hens produce fewer eggs when not on soy). Many customers, in fact, will choose to get eggs from several states away from a farm they have never seen in order to get a soy-free egg or they will buy bacon or sausage that is sugar-free but happens to come from some nameless farmer in Iowa. Many people prioritize their personal dietary preferences du jour (I say “du jour” because these preferences change often over time) over supporting an actual local farmer or perhaps over humane animal care, environmental sustainability, etc. I encourage you all to look at the bigger picture and think about what values you want to support.
I know a lot of paleo peeps on the web would not approve of the beef I buy from the farm where I get my eggs and raw milk. Some of the meat they sell was grain finished for the last 30 days, but I care a lot more about the fact that I might have seen that beef out walking around and eating grass for the other part of it’s life. Some of the hamburger I’ve been eating for the last few months actually came from a former dairy cow, so it’s the final product of raw milk production. That cow ate grass for probably six years. The meat is a bit different than a steer that’s raised in a short window solely for meat, but it’s still quite good. I think it’s a great deal at $3.89 per pound.
The pork I buy is out in a pasture where the pigs can do as they like. They do root and dig, but they also get a corn and soy feed. What I care about is the fact that when I go to pick up my meat share once a month, my future meat is out there living a normal piggy life. They never use farrowing crates for piglets. It does not really matter to me if their feed is organic or contains soy. I care more about Haskins Family Farm staying in business. He makes most of his money on bacon, and you need fatty pigs for that. The realities of the marketplace are that people want particular cuts from an animal, and are not interested in many of the others. Corn and soy make for more pork belly. You have to pick and choose what’s important to you.
Speaking of Haskin’s Family Farm, a while back I wrote about stewing hens. That bird came from their farm, and that hen laid (I’m sure) many tasty eggs while she ate bugs and was fed a grain supplement and was protected from predators (foxes are a real problem – they have a dog out at night when foxes hunt and the chickens are in their coop). Again, it’s the end product of your breakfast eggs – it’s worth learning to work with it, especially if you like schmaltz.
Small scale farming will not make you a millionaire – the only reason to do it is because you want better food for yourself and your family, and you make that work by selling in what is a difficult marketplace. Part of the issue is slaughter.
This is from Honest Meat:
This topic warrants a much longer post, but basically California has only a handful of USDA-inspected slaughter and butcher facilities. Because there are only a few, it is hard to even get an appointment to bring your animals in (one place we called had a 7 month waiting list!). Also, because these abattoirs don’t have much competition, they don’t have to provide high-quality customer service to ranchers. They can charge what they want, they can choose not to follow your detailed butchering instructions (for example, put nitrates in the hams that you asked for “nitrate-free”, cut all the fat off your pork chops when you asked for 2 inches of fat on them, etc.). These abattoirs charge you by the carcass weight of your animal and then sometime they won’t even give you the whole animal back that you paid for, such as taking the head, the organ meats, the feet, etc.
The situation in Virginia is much the same. The Haskins Family can’t seem to get necks and organs back from their chicken processor. I’m not really clear on whether it’s not allowed for that processor or if it’s more of a demand issue where the processor just doesn’t have to care much what the customer wants. Their pigs are taken to True and Essential Meats in Harrisonburg, which was resurrected through the efforts Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm. Without them, they have few options.
What this all boils down to for me is that buying meat at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s is no different than buying at a conventional supermarket. I know just as little about the meat either way. Most of TJ’s and WF’s products come from industrial farms that have jumped through the hoops to get that organic label. If you read the Omnivore’s Dilemma, you know that’s worth the paper it’s printed on and nothing more. Small farms often can’t manage that, but the meat is more honest and lives a normal life, even if it’s getting a grain or soy supplement. These people are barely making this work – support them instead of buying what is, let’s face it, mystery meat from supermarkets, even organic ones.
If you join a meat CSA, you might get cuts you have no clue what to do with, but it’s worth it. Ask the farmer what to do with it – they always have ideas. Branch out from the premium cuts – your grandmothers and great-grandmothers did. Look at old cookbooks for more ideas. It’s more economical, and you’ll eat more variety this way and support people who are worth the effort.
I read a number of blogs from Paleo eaters, and while I enjoy them, I’ve been seeing a lot more…excuses lately. These so-called excuses are almost always about non-paleo recipe ingredients.
Part of the problem is that every day paleo mostly consists of meat and veg and maybe some fruit for dessert or some nuts for a snack. This doesn’t mean the diet is at all boring, but it does mean that half the recipes seem to be for desserts. It’s not that hard or complex to make meat and vegetables taste great, after all.
I’m not even going to pretend that it’s easy to stick to a Paleo diet. If you’re not surrounded by like-minded people all the time, it’s socially difficult. If you eat out much it’s even harder. Personally, I’ve only made it two weeks on full paleo, then I added dairy back in and made it an additional month or so before I started experimenting with adding back foods and ethanol.
If you’re putting up a recipe for paleo pancakes, cave cookies or a dish containing white potatoes, why do your readers need to hear about how you “don’t eat like this all the time”? Anyone reading the recipe can see that it contains butter or potatoes or whatever. Flag it as non-paleo, mostly paleo or primal or whatever you need to do. It’s not a competition or a re-enactment – just tell us what’s awesome about it and get on with the recipe!
I always wonder if the rationalizations are about assuaging guilt. Guilt over eating is stressful and unhealthy. Please do *yourself* a favor and move beyond it. And speaking of guilt, the other thing that drives me bananas is the idea of a “cheat meal.” Who or what are you cheating (on) exactly? Is there a referee watching and waiting to call you out for crossing some line? Are you “on a diet”, or is this a lifestyle change? I hope it’s the latter, but either way, a “free meal” sounds one hell of a lot better than suggesting you’re “cheating” on an inanimate concept like the Paleo Diet.
I have to say that “The Bear Complex” sounds like something a gay male friend would say he has. Come on, I know at least one of you thought that when you saw the title!
It is actually a sequence of five lifts [video link of a woman doing a demo]:
Power Clean
Front Squat
Push Press or Barbell Thruster
Back Squat
Push Press
Then you re-set back to the ground. I really like this one, and I’ll use it again at home.
While I’m on that subject…
I’m currently in St. Louis, and since there’s a fully equipped, well-run CrossFit box (CrossFit South City) nearby and I have no equipment at the house here, I’m working out there. In fact, I’m pretty much getting my ass kicked as I’m going four times per week. The bonus is that I’ve been able to learn new things, get some more coaching on the Olympic Lifts (always a plus!) and find my one rep max/PR on the Deadlift (160), Front Squat (125), Back Squat (135), Overhead Squat (85) and Shoulder Press (70). Today I did 29 pull-ups with a 50# assistance band (broken sets, not all in one go), which is a bit of a milestone for me.
I will definitely be working a bit less than this at home. I’m afraid I’d burn out or injure something if I kept things at this level all the time, and I’m sore somewhere almost all the time.
On Monday, Tino shared an article with me about what will henceforth be known as the Twinkie Diet. It was interesting, but I didn’t feel it was actually news. I figured that the Calories-In=Calories-Out obsessed crowd would be all over it, and that Anthony Colpo would likely lead the charge. He did write something about it, of course.
Today, I was happy to see that Stephen Guyenet (who’s one heck of a lot more interesting than Colpo) had felt that he had to blog about it due to the volume of email he’d gotten on the subject.
The body can only maintain body composition in the face of a calorie deficit up to a certain point. After that, it has no choice but to lower fat mass. It will do so reluctantly, at the same time increasing hunger, and reducing lean mass***, muscular strength and energy dedicated to tissue repair and immune function. However, I hope everyone can agree that a sufficient calorie deficit can lead to fat loss regardless of what kind of food is eaten. Mr. Haub’s 800 calorie deficit qualifies.
So, definitely not a newsflash. Guy eats a lot less for two months, guy loses weight. This, however is more interesting:
My hypothesis is that, in many people, industrial food and an unnatural lifestyle lead to gradual fat gain by dysregulating the energy homeostasis system. This “breaks” the system that’s designed to keep our fat mass in the optimal range. This system is not under our conscious control, and it has nothing to do with willpower.
The fat among us are being told over and over that they are committing two of the seven deadly sins, gluttony and sloth, and that that’s why they are fat.
My theory is that eating nutritionally empty foods causes people to overeat. Their bodies are still looking for nutrition, and if they are trying to get it out of Lucky Charms, they are going to eat a lot more calories in the process. Eating a cereal bar and a glass of skim milk for breakfast is going to make you hungry again in short order. Is that because it’s sugary? If you don’t have reactive hypoglycemia, then I don’t think so. It’s because it’s industrially processed fake food. You can’t fool mother nature – your body knows that you need something more nutritious, so it’s going to drive you to eat more. Can you get away with eating nothing but crap for a couple of months and lose weight? Of course you can, but what happens then?
Unfortunately, we’re never going to see a follow-up to this, I’m quite sure. Will the professor gain weight back? Will he continue to diet, but see his blood markers go the other way? Has he ever dieted before, if no, then damn near anything would work anyway. I will also note that I cannot find his blood glucose numbers on his Facebook page or in the article.
I don’t believe I’ve said much about this here, and I’m a bit behind everyone else because my copy of Robb Wolf’s The Paleo Solution was to be shipped when Amazon ran out of copies. I attended Robb’s seminar in July at Potomac CrossFit.
This is not the most awesome picture, but it’s the one I’ve got!
Long story short, I think Robb is a great guy as well as being extremely knowledgeable. His book is very easy to read, and I’d recommend it for anyone interested in learning more about nutrition and digestion. Even if you’re not sure that you’re interested in going Paleo, it’s chock full of information.
I did get to ask Robb my most pressing question: Why can’t I lose weight on a ketogenic diet? Yeah, that’s right, I don’t lose weight. In fact, according to my BIA scale, I put on fat and lose lean mass. I don’t *gain* weight even if I eat a lot, but my body composition definitely goes the wrong way. At this point, my weight is normal so everything is about body comp for me. The answer was “Cortisol“. My workouts force gluconeogenesis which raises cortisol. This causes my body to decide to break down protein instead of running on fat because it thinks it *needs* that fat.
Obviously, this doesn’t happen to everyone, but if you’ve stopped losing weight via low-carb, you might want to try easing some carbs back in. It helps if you have a glucose meter so you know how you handle carbs. My sugars are normal and stable. I have other hormonal issues to deal with (thyroid, estrogen dominance), but hyperinsulinemia and hypoglycemia are not among them. I can’t eat a breakfast composed entirely of caffeine and carbohydrates, or I do get hypoglycemic, but I figured THAT out in high school, though I didn’t know what was going wrong. I just knew that I felt like crap, so I started eating sandwiches for breakfast instead of cereal.
At this point, I have decided staying full Paleo is not for me. I did find out a number of things that I should not eat, and for that, I’m really grateful, but I just can’t ban whole classes of food forever. Here’s where I’ve landed.
- Gluten: Total lifetime ban. I just cannot digest it, no way no how. I only eat it accidentally.
- Legumes: Extremely minimal consumption. I do not do well with these at all. I recently tried adding them back so that I could unify more of the meals at home (Tino is a vegetarian), and it was a bad idea. In addition to the digestive issues of the infrequent bean eater, I also had noticeable bloat and inflammation. Incidentally, broccoli does the same thing to me, whether it’s cooked or not. I have to eat all my crucifers cooked, but only broccoli (so far anyway) messes me up this much even when cooked. It’s too bad, because I do actually like it. I also adore green beans, but I have to only eat them once in a while – they actually cause trouble for me like beans and broccoli.
- Vegetable Oils: Minimal Consumption. I eat out too much to eliminate them completely, but I either get all my dressing on the side or bring my own. I can’t eat fried food out of fryers that have contained gluten, so I do eat little of this outside the house. Basically, I eat McDonald’s fries now and then. Pretty much everyone else I know of cooks fries and breaded items in the same grease. At home, it’s very easy to work around with Extra Virgin Olive Oil for salads and Light Olive Oil (100%, not extra-virgin) for cooking where butter, bacon grease or ghee won’t do for some reason.
- Non-Gluten Grains: I eat white rice and corn tortillas with no blood sugar problems, no carb cravings and in moderation, no weight gain. My diet is a lot more enjoyable for this inclusion. You can only eat so many sweet potatoes. I do have problems with some of the more exotic non-gluten flours, so I try to stick to stuff I make myself from rice flours or eat foods that are inherently gluten free, like corn tortillas. I do have to watch it with the corn chips – I can really over consume those if I’m not careful with portions. I have yet to find a gluten-free beer that I actually enjoy. I hate sorghum in beer – it tastes metallic, and rice beers seem to always lean towards white ale, not something I never liked much. Nothing has enough hoppy bite either, so I just stick to wine and cocktails.
- Refined Sugar: I generally avoid this, but I don’t freak out about small amounts of sugar in stuff (liqueurs in cocktails in small amounts), and once in a while I like some ice cream, a gluten-free brownie or whatever. I do avoid HFCS because it’s always a sign that a product is totally jive.
- Potatoes: With the skins on, white potatoes are a problem for me. Yams and sweet potatoes are not an issue at all.
- Dairy: I eat dairy, but I’ve very recently made changes to that.
- Intermittent Fasting: I exercise fasted at about 7am, and I don’t generally eat after 7pm. I eat breakfast between 8 or 9am. This sucked the first few days, but I think it’s really working, and now I’m used to it. Basically, 13 hours every day, some days a little more. If I get much over 14, I turn into a raging bitch, and nobody likes that.
- Alcohol: I average out to slightly less than two drinks a day, cocktails or wine. My most common cocktail now is a Martini, and I generally only drink before dinner (except wine – that’s with dinner). I try not to overindulge as it’s dehydrating, and if I drink after dinner, I generally pay for it in less restorative sleep. I’m not binge drinking on the weekends, in other words, but some days I drink wine and cocktails and others I abstain completely.
If you’re not sure why you feel like crap, the Paleo Diet is a great way to straighten yourself out. After you’ve eliminated the possibly meddlesome foods for at least three weeks, you can add one back in ONCE and find out what happens. If you haven’t cut them for 21-30 days minimum, you’ll never sort that out. I really didn’t know that adding legumes back would be so bloody obvious. Lots of people tolerate legumes just fine but can’t eat corn. Everyone is different, and it’s worth finding out where you are at if you aren’t looking, feeling or performing to your potential.
I have recently cut way back on fruit. I decided I’m better off with the sweet potatoes, corn tortillas and the rice than eating more fruit. It’s not that I’m afraid of fructose exactly, but I think starches are a better choice for my goals. I’m also no longer using dairy as a protein source (the Zone was a bad influence there). I do eat my home made raw milk yogurt with frozen berries or cherries every day. I’m back to drinking my coffee black. Dairy (or coconut milk) would break the fast I’m trying to keep, and I’ve found that I drink a LOT more coffee if I have half and half or coconut milk in it.
I quit caffeine completely for three days and felt like a wet dishrag almost all the time. I could get out of bed just fine, but I felt groggy or just unmotivated most of the time. I’m now back on half the coffee I was drinking before. I feel like what I was doing before was probably excess and that this is more moderate.
I also cut back on nuts. The fat blocks for The Zone drove my consumption up. I eat less than 1 ounce of nuts per day. Most are unsalted and raw, but sometimes, I eat roasted and salted cashews.
I’m doing my workouts (CrossFit, three days on, three days off) fasted, and I’m trying to eat my largest and most carbo-rific meal at breakfast. Lunch tends to be small, and dinner is kind of medium. Some days I have a snack at 3 or 4pm if I’m hungry and my lunch was a bit *too* small.
I have no idea if you can call this Paleo or not. Certainly, I learned things from it and incorporated elements into my diet. Beyond that? I don’t care. I’m doing well, and things are moving in the right direction, and I think that’s a lot more important than obsessing about what to call my style of eating.
I made this prediction on Free The Animal today, and I’d like to go on record here: It’s only a matter of time before that conventional wisdom-spouting harpie, Tara Parker-Pope does a piece in the NY Times Well Blog about how dangerous this CrossFit “fad” is. I think it could happen any time now, probably by the end of the year.
Can CrossFit be dangerous? Of course it can. Any kind of serious exercise gig can injure you if done to excess. CrossFit’s particular issue is for an extreme Type A personality who is either in pretty good shape or used to be in superb shape and is now de-conditioned. These folks don’t know when to say when, and the high-intensity nature of the CrossFit combined with their strong will and moderate conditioning push them over the edge to Rhabdomyolysis. If you’re in bad shape, you just can’t actually *do* the exercise, and if you’re not a real Type A, you’d just say “if I do that, I’ll hurt myself.”
The Type A who’s out of shape can still wind up over-training, but that’s not terminal since the cure is more rest and relaxation.
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