Friday, July 27, 2012

Something to Read While Hunting and Gathering Your Next Meal...


Let's start with a quiz. 
Q. How do you know when somebody is on the Paleo Diet?
A. They won't shut up about it. 

So I've been asked, "how do you feel about the Paleo Diet?", enough times now that I feel I have to say something about it.

What is it about dieting that brings out the overzealous fanaticism in people? Dieters adopt a cult mentality and have a black and white answer to what's right and what's wrong. They shave their heads and inscribe the name of the diet on their forearms. At the head of every "diet" is the Jim Jones-ian leader handing out the kool-aid with the type of charisma that could talk a dog off a chuck wagon. 

To sum up the Paleo Diet, it's based on the idea that since the agricultural revolution about 10,000 years ago, mankind has started to eat too many unnatural foods which our bodies have not been able to properly adapt to (because evolution takes, like, millions of years). This causes us to die of diseases like cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes.

First of all, the Paleo Diet is based on false pretenses and wild-ass speculation without any scientific evidence to back it up. Considering the geographical variability of where our pre-historic ancestors may have evolved from there is no way that anybody can say with any degree of certainty what the cavemen ate and apply a set of rules that Paleo cultists must follow. If this is wrong, show me the study that doesn't include the words "probably" and "likely". What is "likely" is that our pre-historic ancestors just ate whatever they were able to kill or gather that day and didn't even bother with protein shakes or fish oil pills.

Second, do you really want to base your diet on a population that had a life expectancy of 27yrs old? "Oh, but that's because they got killed by dinosaurs and other nasty animals while they were out hunting and gathering". Or maybe it was because their diet sucked and they were constantly sick and unable to outrun or outsmart predators. 

Despite the lack of credibility, my biggest issue with the Paleo Diet, and any other "diet" for that matter, is the militant rejection of certain food groups. In the Paleo Diet, it's no dairy, no legumes, no grains, no alcohol and no meat that wasn't raised on a pasture. Presumably hunted down and killed within the confines of its pen. Of course, for people who care about performance, Dr. Cordain was good enough to release the "Paleo Diet for Athletes" which allowed us more carbs. It also allowed him to sell another million books once people stopped buying the original Paleo Diet book. I'm still waiting for the "Paleo Diet When Convenient" book for 95% of the current hypocritical, "bro, I'm so freaking paleo I have a sloped forehead", crowd who eat supplements, drink alcohol, and secretly eat a turkey wrap (no cheese) for lunch when it's too difficult to find a salad (no dressing).
You can tell this is really Paleo because the "C" couldn't actually make the "K" sound until about 500 years ago, so all the Kavemen had available to them in Paleo days was the "K".


As you are aware by now, I am not "Paleo". In fact, I am so non-Paleo that I completely lack back hair (or even chest hair). I eat peanuts, I eat beans, rice, and potatoes, Once or twice a week I eat ice cream which not only has dairy, but sugar. I eat loads of fruit, which as everybody knows contains FRUCTOSE (gasp!). While we're on the issue of fructose, if you are one of the carbophobic lemmings that avoids fruit because of it's fructose content I would like you to call your mother and apologize for wasting the brain that she gave you at birth. According to most of the heavily marketed diets out there right now, I should be over 30% bodyfat, type 2 Diabetic with my sclerotic arteries slamming shut at such an alarming rate that I will probably be dead by the time you're reading this. Assuming I can even get it posted. Hell, I just had bread with my dinner.


Carbophobe


Look, diets are stupid. They are based on an inherent desire to avoid accountability. It is so much easier to believe that we are victims of our own environment than to admit that we spend too much time in front of the computer or TV eating crap. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you are overfat then it's because you have spent too long eating too much and not moving around enough. Too many calories in, not enough calories out, the rest get stored. It's the First Law of Thermodynamics and it applies to everything. It even applied to cavemen, though they were hardly aware of it. If you're one of the ones that believe a calorie is not a calorie, and this universal law does not apply to you, well, I'm sorry. You're not that special. You probably also believe that rhinos are just fat unicorns. How the calories get burned and stored is largely dependent on how your hormones regulate your bodily functions, the nutrient density of your food, your activity levels, etc. But at the end of the day, if you're over-eating and under-active you will end up with a positive energy balance which means you will become overweight. Once you become overweight your hormones get all screwed up, your metabolism stops working properly, and it becomes difficult and frustrating to undue the damage. Especially since most people take about 10-30 years to do the damage and want it to be undone in 30 days.

Luckily for all I have decided to jump on the "Diet" bandwagon and start my own diet. I am going to give this to all for free!! I am calling it the NRD, which stands for Non-Retarded Diet and it goes like this. If it's natural, and you're not allergic to it, then eat it. Every time you eat, make sure there is a protein source along with the carb. If you want to gain weight, eat more of the NRD. If you want to lose weight, eat less. If you want to maintain your weight, then eat just the right amount. "But that sounds hard, Kevin, how will I know what the right amount is?". Easy, see how it goes for a couple weeks, it will become fairly obvious if you're going in the right direction and you can adjust accordingly. Other common questions that come with the NRD:
Q. What if I increase my activity?
A. Eat more (unless you want to lose weight, then eat less)

Q. What if I decrease my activity?
A. Eat less

Q. What if I'm sedentary?
A. Get at least 5 hours of activity per week, 3 of it with high intensity strength and/or interval work.

Q. What about cheat meals?
A. Great question! Go by the 90% rule. If you adhere to the NRD for 90% of your intake, you can have what you want for the other 10%. I'm good for one or two bowls of ice cream a week, and a Thursday night feast at Tacos Colima. This accounts for less than 10% of my intake. The rest of the time I adhere to the NRD. I haven't been above single digit bodyfat in 6 years. I exercise between 7 and 10 hours a week, most of that on the weekend. I haven't been sick since well before I started Dynamic 4 years ago, in light of the fact that I am regularly around people that come in when they have all kinds of nasty ailments so they can "sweat it out" at the gym.

It sounds simple and it really is once you've developed the right habits. But it's not easy, because it actually takes some effort and commitment. Look, if this were easy then everybody would be fit. But if you're not willing to commit to being healthy and put in the necessary effort then don't blame the DiGiorno's pizza you just jammed down your throat while you're watching people move around on TV. Blame the brain controlling the body attached to the hand that did the jamming. Maybe the Paleo Diet is the answer for you, but I'm assuming that it won't be the answer any more than the South Beach Diet was before that, or the Atkins Diet was before that, or the Zone Diet was before that. Once you get the right habits in place, the NRD is all you'll ever need. And you didn't even have to buy a book for that!
But apparently you can buy a t-shirt?


Coming soon. A 30 Day Challenge with a complete NRD intervention for 2 lucky Dynamic members.... Stay tuned :)

No comments: