For Evolving Brains, a ‘Paleo’ Diet Full of Carbs
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
- Protein - meat - is for repairing/building
- Carbs are for fueling
- Fats are somewhere in between. Cells membranes are basically fat and fat is also a very clean,dense and "slow" form of energy.
Based on your activity level:
- Couch potato: Eat very low carb (basically no starches, under 50g per day).
- Light activity: Eat low carb (under 100g per day).
- Moderate activity: Eat moderate carbs (under 200g per day). I am here, weight training 3 times per week, with 2-3 long walks (about an hour)
- High activity: Eat high carb (>200g per day)
- Eat between 1 and 1,5 g/protein per kilo.
- Adjust fat to achieve your desired calorie intake. For most of us, between 2.000 and 2.5000 kcals/day is a good target.
The key here is to stop demonizing carbs/fats and recognize that they have its place in our diet.
I have also observed that, regardless of your activity level, starting low-carb when you are obese is a good thing to do, but after 1-2 years, low-carbs diets go against you.
The critical question is what diet do we thrive on? A carb rich plant-based diet is my guess based mostly on Dr. Michael Greger's work on summarizing nutrition science literature [0]. But I shall be convinced otherwise if the science is there.
Paleo is not necessarily low carb - usually about 20%~40% of calories are from carbs. Tubers like sweet potatoes are specifically recommended in paleo regimens.
The author is confusing Paleo with Atkins/ketogenic diets.
> John Douillard DC is an Ayurvedic Practitioner
Maybe I'm weird, but I like my authoritative positions on human evolution to come from evolutionary biologists, not woo-peddlers.
At any rate, humans can eat a very diverse range of foods. Inuits eat a primarily animal-derived diet, supplemented with a meager amount of gathered plants during a small portion of the year. Then the spectrum moves all the way over to peoples that eat mostly plant-matter with few animal products. Humans adapt wonderfully, that's why we're so prolific. There is no magic diet that happens to be "right."
Please don't. "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names."
I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but the term "woo" is a pretty widely used term in certain circles to describe fields and ideas that, shall we say, may not be self-critical and self-questioning enough in the ways you need to be in order to get to the truth. (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Woo)
Thus, I'm not sure if I would even classify it as "calling names". Ayurvedic practitioners might find it derogatory; I'm not sure. But it's a clear communication to a certain population of the what category joshuapants believes Ayurveda belongs to, and also a hint of what qualities of these peoples' thought processes might make joshuapants nervous when it's applied to other areas.
The author has a doctorate from NYU and the article was published in a peer reviewed journal.
That's just a funny example, but there are tons of poorly researched peer reviewed papers which makes it exceedingly difficult for me to accept credentialis as being a useful signal. I find it's much better to have ideas stand on their own merit, rather than on the shoulders of those who are espousing them.
I totally agree! And a funny fact is that at the core of Ayurveda, the belief totally lines up too in that each individual is completely unique and must cater to their individual constitution or 'prakriti'. I agree that its a hard field to investigate rationally because so many of their concepts were recorded in sanskrit, a language built to express multiple meanings (some words have +20 meanings!).
A fun 'for instance' fact of sanskrit sometimes being 'unscientific' at first glance: a key component of health according to their science was the concept of 'agni' or digestive fire. So there were tons of passages referring to a great fire element inside our gut that cooks and refines matter. Of course we 'know' that no fire actually exists in our bellies, but it was a metaphor for what nowadays we understand as acids in our stomach, and our gut microbiome (composed of throngs of little organisms, eating, digesting, transforming, pooping so other microbes can eat that poop (yum!)). Little guys that can alter our mood, digestive capacity of vitamin absorption and a bunch of other important things that have been scientifically proven in the west.
We've known for a long time that potato consumption is ancient. The things that actually matter, and that the paleo-sphere actually talks about, are things like how harmful the glycoalkoids in the skin are.
Here's an article discussing the actual Paleo opinion on potatoes: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/potatoes-healthy/#axzz3ikd0kh... . In short: they're okay for some people, but avoid the skins.
Obviously people's definition and how they follow the diet varies, but I think first and foremost paleo is about avoiding processed foods, sugar, certain newer foods like grains and dairy, moderating high-starch foods (which have less nutrients), and mostly eating vegetables, meats and fat.
I lost 40 pounds on Paleo/Primal sticking to 50-80g carbs/day.
That would include a good amount of meat and a good amount of harvested vegetables and fruits and no processed grains. There should be plenty of carbohydrates, fat and protein in a diet like that.
OFC when you eat 1000 cal meals you are going to have a huge sugar drop doesn't matter if it's a huge steak or whole cake. People also waste too much time on controlling caloric intake over way too short periods if you can't control you weekday intake to the required levels just lay down on it during the weekend and you'll still be fine.
All these diet's are really a waste of time and money, eat on a regular schedule (never eat when you are starving, as in never get to the point of feeling real hunger), have a diverse diet, try to expand your meals to as many a day as possible, heck I've seen people losing pounds in a heart beat by doing things as simple as droping 1 item from their lunch or moving it to an afternoon snack...
Not to mention that people don't tend to eat the leanest cut available so all of those T-Bones and Rib-Eye's add a huge chunk of saturated fat into the mix and that's without all the addons like that nice sour cream and peppercorn sauce with those nice roasted potatos....
Consuming large portions of meat will increase your BG level's they won't spike as fast as if you would chuck down a bowl of ice cream but they'll rise quite well and crash just as quickly later...
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.gr/2015/08/a-new-human-tri...
Everything else is opinion.
Whether or not the latest diet fad says X is good for me, I now think about how consuming X affects not just me, but the environment, and the X.