I have a bit built up over there – expect more soon. Add it to your RSS reader.

I will still post stuff here some times, when the topic at hand doesn’t fit neatly into the no-BS, implementation-driven vibe over there.

However, I will drop in with interesting tidbits from time to time. I’ve received a few emails recently asking me some variation of “which is worse?”, so here’s a list.

The standard, proven offenders, in order of most malicious to least. Keep in mind, I don’t recommend anyone eat any of this crap. And different people will put these in a different order – and they certainly can be in a different order if you have some sort of medical condition.

1. Wheat (and other gluten containing grains)
2. Processed Food (and all its consistent hyperpalatability)
3. Soy
4. Vegetable Oil
5. Table Sugar and High-Fructose Corn Syrup
6. Natural Food Toxins (i.e. n6 and physic acid in nuts)

So, of course, this is all dose-dependent. Except Wheat, which is why it’s number one. Wheat is bad in any dose. But beyond that, a costco tub of jelly beans is gonna mess you up more than a shot of soy milk, for example.

And the kicker with Number 2 above is that Processed Foods almost always include ALL of the nasty beasts on the list. So, yea, don’t eat processed food. It makes you fat and sick.

Anyone who has ever read an article (or watched a youtube video) about CrossFit likely has concerns about the health and safety of the whole operation. It’s impossible to deny that olympic lifts and compound movements can be injurious when performed incorrectly. It’s hard to deny that racing the clock to finish high-rep WODs is likely to cause dangerous breakdowns in form. It’s arguable whether a weekend of seminars and workouts (CrossFit Level 1 Cert) is enough qualification to guide all levels of people through these potentially harmful classes. This is all old news.

The way I see it, life is a series of decisions as to how much danger you’ll accept. It’s everyone’s right to accept the dangers of joining a CrossFit box, or much worse, the dangers of opening a poorly run affiliate.

The fact of the matter is that there are plenty of CrossFit boxes with great trainers, doing the workouts just as intended and keeping their clients safe. The issue I have with CrossFit is that even in this ideal situation, CrossFit isn’t what most people should be doing.

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The first time I walked into my CrossFit box of choice (henceforth “The Box”), I signed a waiver and performed the WOD (scaled in a big way as the trainer’s caution won out over my hubris, thankfully). After the workout, I signed up for three months and paid upfront.

The membership form requested information about any injuries, as did the trainer prior to that first workout. I listed shoulder problems, half because it’s true and half to explain my planned avoidance of SDHPs and all things kipping.

Notably absent from the form, and not asked by the trainer or owner – my goals. No one asked “why are you here?” or “what do you want to get out of this?”. I figured they assumed that as a pretty lean and muscular young man, I was there to become a CF Badass.

I realized later that they didn’t ask my goals because it would have served no purpose; they wouldn’t have done anything differently for me to help me achieve them. They still would have had me doing the WOD 3 on, 1 off like every one else. This is how CrossFit is designed.

With a regretful mix of arrogance and apathy, Greg Glassman (CF Founder) describes that CrossFit doesn’t change for the trainee, the trainee changes for CrossFit.

“If you came to me with a set of goals that looked like ‘lose the fat, improve my musculature,’ or ‘move toward a better aesthetic,’ I wouldn’t do anything differently for you than if you came to me and said, ‘I want to improve my work capacity across broad time and modal domains.’ “

Yea, that’s stupid. And it’s also ignoring other common goals, like “carry groceries in from the car,” and “have big biceps.” These goals may seem weak or vain, but if that’s what the trainee wants, it’s what the trainer they are paying should try to give them.

Glassman continues: “I want to be a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. Specialization is for insects. I’m looking for breadth of experience, and anyone who is at all wise realizes that being a specialist represents a compromised position.”

You know who else specializes, in addition to insects? Olympic athletes. I can guarantee you wouldn’t know the name Michael Phelps if his mission in life was to be pretty good at a bunch of crap.

The irony here is that CrossFit is very much specialized. CrossFit refuses to adapt to the goals of the trainee, refuses to be custom. By avoiding doing anything really well, they have specialized in mediocrity.

CrossFit is not the best way to lose fat. CrossFit is not the best way to get strong. CrossFit is not the best way to be better at a sport. Even athletes training for “the sport of CrossFit” don’t train with CrossFit anymore. Think about it – CrossFit isn’t even the best way to get good at CrossFit.

The good news is that elements of CrossFit are a great tool in many types of training. The foundations of CrossFit are solid and there is evidence that the early days were bright. I firmly believe that strategic applications of extreme intensity are vital to optimal health and athleticism in a large variety of pursuits. I love the (old) lean towards skill and strength over volume.

It is with volume that CrossFit has box-jumped the shark. The repetitions and AMRAP times have increased steadily since the early days, but the frequency (3 on 1 off) remains. Something has to give, and that something is intensity, health, or both. CrossFit has lost its way.

It’s easy to see how this happened. Intensity is addictive; we love a good beat-down. Also, with trainees scaling weight regularly, the only way for a programmer to hold their feet to the fire is with more reps or time. The focus on skill work and mental challenge has faded as the movement has grown.

Hidden behind the grungy appeal of warehouse workouts and puking clowns is a fact becoming increasingly hard to ignore: CrossFit is “forging elite fitness” not like a blacksmith with a hammer and anvil, but like a scared child signing their father’s name on a bad report card – CrossFit is faking it.

Luckily, there is a simple solution. When a trainee walks through the door, ask why they came in, what they want. Then program specifically for them. Fortunately, there isn’t a large variety of goals, so you can have three or four programs running and just plug them into one with a few personal tweaks. And the different programs can have a fair amount of overlap, like sharing a couple of strength days. It would take more work, but you’d have happier healthier clients, which likely means more of them, so you can have more staff.

I came down pretty hard on CrossFit here, but I really did love my time at The Box. It was great for me because it caused me to realize that I hadn’t been pushing the intensity envelope as far as I could. I’m also really glad that I established a baseline competency with olympic lifts. The trainers were great, I’m sure better than most.

Also, spending a little time in a globo-gym since my days at The Box has shown me that the majority of trainees have horrible form – even with basics like the squat and deadlift. In the last month at 24hr Fitness, I’ve seen three people squatting without lifting their heels (compared to dozens up on their toes), and two of them told me they have been to a CrossFit box before.

The fact of the matter is that on the vast spectrum from zero activity to optimal, CrossFit is much closer to the latter than the former. What bothers me is that CrossFit is so close – has so much promise – yet has missed the mark a bit.

*I typically dislike “5 Steps to blah blah blah” type posts, but this seemed like the most convenient way to package the message here.

1. Set Your Goals Wisely

Most people trip up right out of the gate, and understandably so, because goal-setting is a fickle game. Luckily, a few pointers can get you off and running in the right direction.

• Be open and honest with yourself about what your goals actually are. Striving for six-pack abs may not seem virtuous or valiant, but the heart wants what it wants.
• Be specific and quantify success when possible. If you want to impress all the other lunkheads in the rack at the globo-gym, pick a weight you want to be able to squat. Bad goal: “I will squat heavy.” Good goal: “I will squat 400lbs by July 1st.” This helps you formulate a useful plan and let’s you know when you’re done (so you can celebrate!).
• Pick reasonable goals and/or be open to the fact that it may take longer than you thought to achieve what you’d like to.
• Write them down – on paper. Put them where you will see them often. Tell everyone you know what your goals are, so you’ll feel accountable to them. Hell, put your goals on Facebook so random half-friends will inquire whether you were successful next year at a party.

2. Set a Plan to Achieve Your Goals

Just about any plan will work (at least for a while for most people). “Mine is best though, of course.” -Everyone

• Be reasonable and honest with yourself about how much time/energy you will actually to commit to this. The critical error many resolvers make here is borne out of exuberance and excitement. This is where “I will lose 10lbs of fat by April” turns into “I will hit the treadmill for two hours every night!”. I realize you are raring to go, but don’t make plans you will not be able to stick with all the way through to your goal.
• Again, be specific with your plans. This will make it very clear to you whether you are following your plan. Failure will not be so easily hand-waved away when your plan is crystal clear, black and white. Plans like “I will not drink any soda” and “I will lift weights on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings at 5pm” are good examples. Something like “I will drink less soda” or “I will work out three times per week” are not good.
• Make a good plan. This part requires the most work, but fortunately, is probably the least important for beginners. Obviously, I spend a lot of time reading and thinking about optimal diet and exercise, and have well-formed opinions on the matter. I’ll list some basic recommendations for common goals at the end of this post. I think this education and interest has helped me tremendously (I’m way fitter than I thought I could ever be a few years ago), but most beginners can make progress on any half-decent plan so long as they stick with it. So don’t get all “paralysis by analysis” at this stage.

3. Actually Do It.

This one seems obvious (and it is). So there is no excuse for #$%*ing it up at this point. None.

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Common Goal Types and What I Would Do

1. Fat Loss

Diet. Eat like this and you’ll lose fat without a problem (if you have fat to lose). If you’re of the female persuasion, stop taking oral contraceptives while you’re trying to lose fat. They don’t always cause fat gain, but they really work to prevent fat loss. Exercise can help here if it is smart (think short and intense or long and easy), but it isn’t necessary for fat loss. I don’t see any reason to force it if you’re not feeling it.

2. Muscle Gain

Lift HEAVY stuff and EAT A LOT. You’ll get the best results eating real food, but you can gain muscle eating just about anything. Go high-protein (1g/day/lb of body weight) and eat most of your calories post-workout to maximize returns. Read here for more detail for building a specific plan. If you’re a beginner you can get away with just about any silly crap for a while, but more advanced lifters will need to plan smarter.

3. Improved Health

If you stop eating poisonous stuff you can clear up just about anything (see the Should Not Eat section here). Exercise for health is pretty damn easy too, MDA has that on lock.

If you have any goals that don’t really fit into the above, or some valuable advice to dispense, hit the comments.

As we near the end of 2011, let’s take a look back on what has changed, and why.

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Fish Oil – Trending Down

For years, the grand paleo poobah (Robb Wolf) has been recommending a lot of fish oil. So much so, that Whole9 put up a calculator, and supplied a special apparatus for getting in your massive daily “metabolically damaged” dose (not really). A sign of the changing times, where there was once a calculator, there is now an informative and well-reasoned Fish Oil FAQ. Even the poobah himself came out and (quite gracefully) changed his recommendation. Props to Chris Kresser for getting this ball rolling.

The Current Stance – Varies a bit by source, but general consensus is to limit PUFA consumption as much as reasonably possible. This means the best option may be to avoid Omega6s whenever possible, and get by on the incidental Omega3s in your high-vitamin/fermented cod liver oil (that you’re already taking for VitA, K2).

Nuts – Trending Down

This longtime paleo stalwart saw a major fall from grace in the last year. It’s a shame, they seem like such a great thing to eat until you actually sit down and think about it. Lots of PUFAs, often lots of n6, often oxidized (think roasted nuts) before they even make it to your gullet by the handful. Oh, and lots of phytic acid, which is part of the reason we’re avoiding grains.

The Current Stance – You can get away with nuts once in a while, but I say “why bother?” They don’t provide anything you can’t get somewhere else and they are often eaten as a snack, another thing you don’t need.

Low-Carb – Trending Down

Paleo eaters have long identified with low-carbers, but the relationship is getting more tenuous every day. The bottom line is that paleo is about eating real food, including carbohydrate. It’s becoming clearer that disease and dysfunction is caused by garbage food, not carbohydrate. Paleo dieters don’t omit wheat because of the starch. Wheat is more than just starch.

The Current Stance – Many are still saying things like “earn your carbs”. Give it a few years and (I think) most people will be saying “go ahead and eat as many #$%^&*@ sweet potatoes as you want.

Potatoes and Rice – Trending Up

This one is likely largely connected with the fading low-carb allegiance in the paleosphere. It’s also the only trend on here that leaves me a little wary. I personally eat white rice and peeled white potatoes on occasion, but I don’t fool myself into thinking they are an ideal food. Andrew at evolvify made a good argument for reconsidering increased rice and potato consumption, with an important point, “Paleo is bigger than lectins and phytates and saponins.”

The Current Stance – This one is hairy. Purists will tell you that these neolithic foods (white potatoes are different than sweet potatoes in significant ways) are guilty until proven innocent, and I tend to agree with their stance on this one. Potatoes and rice are not necessary for health, and there is some chance they are detrimental. This is one where you have to make your own decision (the humanity!).

“Paleo” Treats – Trending Down

This one has been a long time coming. I’m not sure who got the first swing in here, but it’s clear that the paleosphere smelled blood in the water and attacked these suboptimal food choices. (1,2,3,4).

The Current Stance – From Whole9: “To use an analogy we can all (probably) understand, the Paleo-ification of poor food choices is a little bit like having sex with your pants on.” Yea, that doesn’t sound too cool. If you talk to someone who has been eating paleo for a while, they’ll likely tell you they made a bunch of this crap early on and kind of regret it. Learn from their mistakes and say no to junk food regardless of what’s in it.

Offal and Other Weirdness – Trending Up

Offal has been around paleo for a while, so I think the trend is mostly a result of a large sophomore class of paleo eaters maturing and eating smarter. As seen on twitter recently (I’d love to know who tweeted it) “The stages of paleo: low-carb zealot, expert “paleo” baker, passionate natural foodie.” (paraphrased)

The Current Stance – There’s a reason that paleo dieters tend to eat more strange stuff as they mature, it is darn smart. Eat up.

Bacon – Trending Down

Bacon and olive oil have pretty similar fat profiles, and you wouldn’t heat olive oil until it’s crackling and smoking in a pan would you? Exactly. So, bacon may not be the best idea. This is why people call the Whole9 crew buzzkills.

The Current Stance – People get unhappy when you take away their bacon. Unfortunately, it’s still not a great choice. I’ve switched to using bacon as a condiment, and you might want to consider doing the same.

Health – Trending Up

It seems to me that paleo has markedly changed its principal interests and selling points. It seems like the majority of content producers in the paleosphere have transformed their message from “eat paleo for a six-pack” to “eat paleo for a long and healthy life”.

The Current Stance – Health is good, mmkay? The cool part is that if you eat for optimal health, a six-pack is not far behind. The increasing focus on health leads to more meaningful discussion and less neuroses. In my experience, people who design their diet for health tend to be happier (and saner) than those with enviable physiques on the mind.

Rational Thought – Trending Up

(Almost) all of these trends highlight part of what makes the paleosphere great. Perhaps as an homage to our roots, paleo is constantly evolving. The dedication to accuracy in the paleosphere is second to none, and it’s what makes us great (back-pat). I’ve heard some complaint about how the paleo recommendations are always changing, but it’s actually a good thing. Be happy to be a part of it. Change or be suboptimal.

My schedule has been three workouts per week (MWF mornings), and I follow the programming designed by the head trainer of the box I attend. In preparation, I spent the spring on a dedicated strength program, then mixed in more high-intensity work over the summer.

The first lesson I learned is that I had no idea what high-intensity really means. Daunting workouts with a screaming trainer got me seeing “the white buffalo in the sky” like never before.

The first two weeks or so, the workouts were nearly impossible, and I was ravenously hungry outside of the gym. Then, almost like a switch was flipped, the workouts got easier (still hard, but they seemed more manageable), and I had no appetite at all for weeks three and four. I had to force down meals, even smoothies, and I was hot just about all the time. During this period, I went from about 10% BF to about 9%BF – pretty impressive and unexpected. Since then, my body fat has pretty much come back to where it was (which is fine with me, honestly).

I attribute these changes after the first two weeks to increased mitochondrial fat adaptation. Whether I developed greater mitochondrial density, or they just got more efficient – I don’t know, or care. I’m impressed with the change though, because I had already been eating paleo, exercising regularly, and fasting frequently for over a year. I guess there is something fairly magical about working really, really hard.

*UPDATE*

Somehow I neglected to mention the great increase I’ve seen in capacity due to my CrossFit training. I measure my capacity with sprint repeats. I run as far as I can for 10 seconds, then rest for 60. When my distance drops below 90% of my max for the session, I call it a day. Comparing a test last week with my last test before starting CrossFit, my capacity (measured in number of sprints completed) has increased about 62%. Pretty impressive.

*END UPDATE*

Below is a before and after pic, though I misplaced my camera in the spring. So the before pic is from April (instead of September, I was leaner and more muscled by September), and the after pic is low res/generally crappy. So it is basically useless, but I feel like a post of this nature needs a picture.

This before and after pic shows nothing but a tan. Maybe some shoulder development.

I have also gained some skills I didn’t possess going in. My bar muscle-ups are much stronger, and my handstands have improved immensely, especially considering how little specific work I’ve put in. I had basically never done any olympic lifting, and now I feel comfortable with all the major lifts. The trainers have even helped me improve my form on lifts I thought I had down pat; they have helped me engage my lats and keep my head neutral on the deadlift, and I can get deeper in the squat without a butt wink through improved thoracic mobility (h/t to KStar as well).

I have really enjoyed the experience, but in the interest of balance, it’s not all great news.

I feel like I am in a constant state of recovery. Despite being dedicated to recovery (described in detail below), I feel like I’m only really at 100% for the hour between waking and training on Monday mornings. This brings up serious questions in my mind about the benefits of CrossFit for general physical preparedness (GPP), which I’ll discuss in my next installment.

My strength has dropped a bit (i.e. 1RM deadlift down from 400# to 330#), as I expected going in. I could probably keep it up if I dropped to two CF workouts per week plus a pure strength session.

I have some shoulder issues (separated each shoulder playing hockey), and despite my best efforts to protect and maintain my shoulder health, I fear they are a little worse for the wear. I never do sumo deadlift high pulls (my one deviation from the workout prescriptions) or kipping pullups, and I work my shoulders with mobwods and lacrosse balls constantly. Still, my shoulders now each click in two places on full rotation, and are often knotted and nasty.

It got a little better as time progressed, but I found it pretty stressful to not be doing my own programming. That combined with not knowing what the workout entailed until 30 min before it started really gave me fits. It’s a little paralyzing to not know what you can/should do today because you don’t know what tomorrow’s training will be.

These complaints are by no means a serious indictment of CrossFit – that will come in the next post.

My Protocol

As mentioned above, I trained MWF 8am.

As has become my custom (thanks Leangains!) I go into my workouts fasted with 10g BCAAs. Most days I trained on about 14 hrs of fasting.

Immediately after my workout, it’s time for food and cold therapy. On days where most of the work has been lower body, it’s 50lbs of ice in the tub. On more upper body days, I go up to the neck in our pool (it’s insanely cold – I’d guess under 45F). Wherever I soak, it’s for 25-30 minutes, during which I eat the first two servings of my post workout meal:

Smoothie: whey, strawberries, banana, creatine, store-brand emergenC
Entree: 1 lb of chicken cooked dry
Dessert: either 1 lb of sweet potato mixed with applesauce and whey or a few bowls of store-brand (white) rice chex with raw milk or colostrum. Not the most “Paleo” meal, but it’s gluten-free, and makes ~2000 cals in one sitting pretty palatable. The giant PWO meal is a huge help with recovery.

I hit the rumble roller hard on afternoons, typically adding in a MobWod or two for what’s tight.

Outside of the PWO meal, I typically eat two large meals a day, super clean paleo. I pretty much just eat beef, sweet potatoes, eggs, liver, bone marrow, pork, coconut oil, and cheese, totaling about 3000 cals/day.

Supplements are pretty basic: 5k iu VitD, 1 tbsp CLO, 8g creatine, and 450mg Mg-Malate with 35g Zn a half hour before bed. Min 8 hrs sleep, 9-10 most nights.

The Bottom Line

All in all, I’ve enjoyed it a lot, but I don’t think I’ll join a box again any time soon. I’ll definitely be implementing high-intensity workouts (now that I know how intense that really can be), but they’ll be less frequent, and I’ll do the programming myself. I’ll probably even throw down some classic CrossFit benchmarks (the girls) on occassion. I’ll miss the trainer’s guidance/encouragement, and the group warmups.

Michael Pollan was on Colbert the other night, where he stated that he supports a soda tax. While I don’t think anyone should drink soda ever (it’s not people food), I’m not a fan of taxing food, for a few reasons.

First and foremost, I don’t think the government should have any influence over what we eat. They already do, and it’s a disaster. Farm subsidies are no one’s friend (save Cargill, PepsiCo, etc.), the USDA MyPlate recommendations are not based on science, and food laws have resulted in disgusting abuses of power.

Second, if we tax soda, food that I like (think saturated fat) is not far behind. We all know that in drafting legislation, money is power – corporate lobbyists wield the heaviest swords. In food, the powerful lobbies represent the wealthy companies, those who turn big profits with value-added food products. In short, we’d end up with taxes that favor processed foods.

Saturated fat is an easy target because these companies can easily work it out of their products (think fat-free muffins), while real foods like meat and eggs are stuck with the tax. Bad news bears.

So, yea, taxing food is a bad idea. As a thought exercise, let’s try to come up with a food tax that we could get behind.

As so eloquently put by Sean Croxton (I’m still jealous), the key to health is Just Eat Real Food, or JERF. So let’s tax the fake food.

As we’ve seen above, the makers of value-added food products are the ones with the power here, so a “processed-food tax” would never get passed.

If it did, it would be a great lesson to shoppers about what “real food” means. Also, it would be convenient for grocery stores – they could just have the aisles in the center of the store be the “Tax Zone”.

Again, I don’t want to tax food. Don’t go around saying I want to tax food. Just go around the outside of the grocery store and buy the real food. Warning: no value has been added to this real food.

White Potato

Sweet Potato

Steak

Of course, advocates of safe starch are not recommending replacing steak with potatoes. More like as a replacement of gratuitous coconut oil, bacon grease, walnuts I guess – the possibilities are many.

Oh and as Don and Stephan (1, 2, 3) (and the Kitavans, by some accounts) showed, one can live on safe starches.

For the record – I eat lots of steak and lots of sweet potatoes.

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You may also like my latest thoughts on nutrition.

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Most of my thoughts are still the same, so you’ll notice some obvious carryover from that last post.

Also, this time around, I’m going to speak to what I believe to be some important lifestyle factors. Maybe I should title this post “Live Like This, Not Like That.” That just seems too dogmatic.

Paleo Bumper Sticker (From Naturally Engineered's Zazzle)

First I’ll lay out what I think are the big ones, then common ways to mess it up, and finally an appendix of supporting detail.

The Big Stuff:

1. Don’t eat processed food. If it has a nutrition label, ingredients list, and barcode, chances are good it is not real food.
2. The staples of your diet should be animal products and vegetables (even, or perhaps especially, the starchy roots and tubers).
3. If something feels wrong, figure it out. Eating right will make you feel amazing – if you don’t feel amazing, investigate why.
4. Food over pills. Do your best to get your nutrition from food (and sunlight in the case of VitD) not supplements.
5. Let paleo into all corners of your life. In addition to eating like a human is meant to, think about what it means to live like a human is meant to. It includes exercise, social interaction, time management, and sleep, to name a few.
6. Make it YOUR diet. Every animal has a diet, and the goal here is to eat your version of a human diet. What you eat is important and should be treated as such; your diet is everything you put in your mouth from now until the day you die. You should develop an intimate understanding of how your body works with food – just pay attention.

I reserve the right to change this whenever I want.

Common Mistakes:

1. Continuing to eat garbage. I think a very wide range of diets can be called paleo – it sure doesn’t bother me. You can’t call it paleo if you’re still eating bread crusts or drinking diet coke. I’ll rip off your bumper sticker.
2. Thinking that paleo has to be Paleo or “paleo” like they read it in a book. People are different – you’ll be a different person tomorrow – so their diets should be different too. Also, things change. There are many brilliant bloggers and authors in the paleosphere and not one is recommending the same thing today that they did one year ago. Make decisions for yourself based on your own research and experience.
3. Paleo-izing a crappy diet and lifestyle. Eating paleo pizza every night and bear-crawling for your monthly 10 minute workout does not a healthy human make. This will also result in removal of your bumper sticker.
4. Thinking that more = better. Ex. “I worked out this week and lost weight, I should work out every day!”
5. Not owning your life. No one cares about your health more than you do.

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From here on out, the post is just a little more detail on the diet front.

What you should eat:

Meat and Eggs

In my opinion, protein is the most vital macronutrient, and meat/eggs are the best source of that protein. (For the love of diet, eat the yolks too!) It’s pretty widely accepted that what separated us from monkeys in evolution was the percentage of meat in our diets; it allowed for larger brains and flatter stomachs. Animal products are so great because the protein, vitamins and minerals are present in the forms that we process most efficiently. Think of the animals as convenient processors for our benefit: they take in nutrients in forms that aren’t as beneficial to us (grass for cows, flax seed for chickens) and produce meat and eggs with the nutrients readily available (beef, omega 3 enriched eggs). Also, go nuts with the fish, if for nothing beyond the anti-inflammatory effects of the Omega-3’s found in large proportions (don’t worry about mercury). Source of your meat and eggs is important, but don’t let it be an excuse. If you can’t afford grass-fed beef or pastured eggs, feedlot beef and eggs are still better than bread.

“Leaf and Stalk” Vegetables

Take ‘em or leave ‘em. There are definite hormetic effects associated with many compounds in veggies, meaning that some level of consumption is beneficial but too much can be detrimental. The name of the game here is variety. You can have a pound of veggies with your dinner every night if you want, just mix up your choices and be sure to eat them with fat (so you can absorb some of the fat-soluble micronutrients).

Root Vegetables

Here I’m talking about potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, taro and the like. I’ve expressed fear about white potatoes in the past (hey, it was the cool thing to do), but thorough searching turns up no real damning evidence. Studies have shown that rodents have issues with supraphysiological doses of glycoalkaloids, a compound found in potatoes (mostly in the skin). I don’t eat many white potatoes (I like sweet potatoes), and I always peel them because I don’t like the skin. If you are going to have a digestive issue with potatoes, the skin is most likely to be the trigger. [UPDATE: Andrew's work at evolvify gives me some pause on rice and white potatoes.]

So that got a little out of hand. I think you can eat all the starchy root vegetables you want. In fact, I’ll even go as far as saying that you should eat them regularly. These are veritable nutritional stars, with ascorbic acid (vit-C) you may be missing. I once advocated a low-carb diet for everyone, but those days are behind me (Chris Kresser’s podcast with Stephan Guyenet  got the ball rolling in my brain and it’s been downhill from there). I know many of you are married to the idea of paleo as a low-carb diet (remember that ego quote?), so you don’t have to take my word for it (KH, RW).

I do think that low-carb diets can be great for initial fat loss, and for forcing mitochondrial fat adaption, but aren’t the optimal way to live for everyone everywhere as I once thought. I’m not necessarily recommending a high-carb diet either. I think that macronutrient ratio is largely unrelated to health outcome when food quality is high (excepting special cases like diabetics or those without gall bladders). For the record, I currently eat about 30-40% carbohydrate.

Fat

Animal fat is good. Especially the thick, stable stuff from naturally raised ruminants (like cows). Coconut milk and oil are good go-tos as well, in addition to butter and ghee if you choose to do dairy. Don’t fear saturated fat, do be wary of polyunsaturated fat (PUFA). As discussed here and elsewhere, you want PUFA intake low (like 1% of cals) for optimal health. That means no “vegetable” oils. It can also be a convincing argument for controlling your bacon intake a bit. For the PUFAs you do eat, you’ll want to strive for a 1:1ish Omega3:Omega6 ratio, which should be easily achieved with a few n3-rich servings of fish (and maybe some cod liver oil) since you’re avoiding n6-rich vegetable oils.

Offal

Get some weird stuff in your diet. Bone marrow, pastured liver, hearts, brain, tongue – get some variety when it come to these nutritional MVPs. If you don’t like the sound of all this strange, you should be able to at least get down some chicken liver pate.

What you should not eat:

“Vegetable” Oils

No corn, soybean, canola, sunflower, safflower, peanut, or “vegetable” oil. No “vegetable based shortening” like crisco either. Avoid large doses of PUFA in general, especially the Omega6-heavy varieties. Olive oil is ok in my book so long as you don’t heat it (think salad dressing).

Large Doses of Fructose

Watch this to save me some typing. I don’t think that it would be prudent to put a one (or even three) size fits all recommendation of fructose intake, but I’m sure too much is a bad thing. I personally aim to avoid more than 10g in a sitting (post-workout one possible exception) and 30g in a day. I often come in under that, and very rarely over it. What I’m really hoping you’ll drop here is anything with table sugar, and maybe put a leash on consumption of the more fructitious (I know…) fruits (apples, pears, and watermelon are three that come to mind). And for the love of god, no agave nectar.

Grains

Grains are bad because of the hidden evils they pack in their protein. The biggest offender in this category is gluten, found in wheat, barley, and rye. (1,2,3) There are other good ones too, like gliadin, another wheat protein that  may trigger reward centers in the brain and increase appettite. These nasty little grass babies tend to provide some mineral-robbing phytic acid as well. All this nastiness can be avoided with this simple rule: never eat any grains. Of course, there are a few exceptions we’ll tackle in “The Middle Ground” section.

Soy

I wish that I could just paste the Soy-bashing section of The Vegetarian Myth here – definitely the best part of the book imo. We already know not to consume the ubiquitous soybean oil, but Chris Kresser explains why to avoid the rest as well (1,2). The big scary thing about soy is that it can cause cancer, hypothyroidism, and sexual dysfunction. And that all those hippies think it is so healthy.

Also, soy is a legume, and we don’t want to be eating any legumes. They offer incomplete protein, phytic acid, and cause digestive issues in just about everybody (their reputation in this regard, while comical, is not joke). If you must eat beans, look into preparing them in a way that mitigates their downside (soaking, gentle cooking, etc.).

The Middle Ground:

I’m ok with white rice once in a while (not brown – the brown part is the protein and protein from grains = bad), but remember it’s pretty flat nutritionally, so it shouldn’t make up too much of your intake. Sweet potatoes, yams, and even white potatoes are a better starch choice. Also, some people seem to do okay with corn once in a while – like actual whole corn kernels or ears, though you should find out for yourself with an elimination diet.

Give dairy elimination a try for a month, then bring it back and see what happens. I personally have no issues with dairy (unless I consume it with copious amounts of fruit), but many people do. Cheese source is not a huge deal imo, butter should be pastured (Kerrygold is a widely available option), and any dairy you drink should be raw. Grocery store milk, homogenized and pasteurized, is a processed food. There is a large population that encounters problems with “milk” but does great on real, raw dairy.

I’m increasingly wary of fish oil supplementation. The stuff won’t kill you (well maybe slowly), but I think it’s probably wiser to drop your n6 PUFAs as much as you can and get by on the n3′s in your food (eat some fish), or those in high-vitamin or fermented cod-liver oil, as Chris Kresser recommends. And never, ever, try to get supplemental n3 in plant forms (like flaxseed). [Just a few days after I posted this, the illustrious Robb Wolf officially updated his fish oil rec - I must have finally changed his mind! ]

I don’t want to get driven out of paleo-land with torches and pitchforks, so I’ll leave this note in the middle ground section until everyone else in the paleosphere is on board. I guess I’m a chicken. A chicken who thinks that you shouldn’t eat nuts. Lots of PUFAs, often lots of n6, often oxidized (think roasted nuts) before they even make it to your gullet by the handful. Oh, and lots of phytic acid, which is part of the reason we’re avoiding grains. More anecdotally, I know lots of people who pack the things away like candy (not to mention jars of nut butter), which raises a red flag in my mind in regards to regulation of appetite. Also, nuts are a snack, and I’m not a fan of snacking – for reasons I’ll discuss next time. I should note that macadamia nuts are kind of an anomaly here, and are probably ok – just don’t eat them by the handful.

As I mentioned above – I believe ideas like this should evolve over time – and educated discussion is a great way to force that evolution. Feel free to strike up such a discussion in the comments.

I think that low-carb diets can be a great treatment for a host of conditions, perhaps especially “diabesity.” I do not think that carbohydrate is what makes people obese or diabetic (in most cases). To be fair, I’m certainly not convinced that hyper-rewarding diets are what cause the diseases of [western] civilization (DOC) either. Fact is: wheat, vegetable oils, and sucrose (in large quantities) are poisonous (in addition to being part of the high-carb, hyper-rewarding SAD), and eating poisonous stuff is probably bad for you.

As pointed out by @evolutionarypsy, Stephan is not talking about what causes DOC; he’s just interested in body fat regulation. I’m not sure those two can be separated so readily. Certainly some people get fat without getting sick (or vice versa), but I think it’s a good bet that being sick changes how your  body regulates body fat. I don’t think that being fat causes sickness, so I guess in my mind the options look like:

• The same thing causes obesity and DOC (This is where Taubes would say, “Carbs!”).
• Poisonous food causes sickness, which can cause obesity.
• Hyper-rewarding food causes obesity, poisonous foods cause sickness.

I’m sure the truth is not encompassed by any one of these options (most likely in something I haven’t considered at all ).

I tend to lean towards the third option currently. As I said, I don’t think obesity and DOC are completely separable (for instance – systemic inflammation caused by poisonous food can interfere with leptin signaling, resulting in poorly regulated body fat levels [alluded to by Emily Deans] ), but it’s certainly possible to get sick/notfat or fat/notsick, so it seems to me that the causes of fat and sick should be seperable.

As for tending towards the FRHO – it simply covers more anecdotal/epidemiological ground than the CHO. I’m sure I don’t even need to mention the Kitavans, who live happy and thin on a high-carb, low-reward diet. Personally, I had great success in terms of body composition half a decade ago with my own high-carb, low-reward diet. It was not a healthy diet by any means (plain bagels, veggies, chicken breast, sandwiches with few condiments/cheese), but I had a low-bf. More recently, after great success on a low-carb, low-reward diet (lc paleo), I’ve ratcheted up the carbs (but not reward) and maintained my ~8% bf.

Skip this sidebar if you don’t like the anecdotal stuff. I just returned from a two-week vacation four days ago. On said vacation, I ate a high-reward, high-carb diet (think paleo + lots of ice cream, cookies, cake, beer). As you’d expect, I put on a little body fat. The day after I got back to eating paleo (actually a little more low-reward, high-carb than normal), I got hot. And I mean hot. It’s finally calmed down this morning, but I spent the better part of three days sweating sitting still. And I haven’t been hungry, so I haven’t been eating as much. I’m just about back to my pre-vacation body compostion (happily). These symptoms, in my opinion, are evidence that my brain has told my body to shed body fat (just like the FRHO predicted!).

Now it’s certainly true that even though a significant percentage of my calories have been coming from carbohydrate, I’m probably consuming less total carbohydrate than I was on vacation. So you could argue that the weight loss and lack of appetite are due to a lowered production of insulin (as the CHO would). I can’t come up with a CHO-friendly explanation for why I’ve been running so hot.

So this post has turned into a long, rambly disaster, when all I came here to do was share some pictures.

In an effort to more clearly separate the theories (as I see them), I’ve constructed extremely rudimentary charts detailing how I think each hypothesis works. Again, these are super simplified, and I’m using the term “metabolism” loosely.

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From a mechanistic point of view, two serious flaws in the CHO become clear to me while looking at these (over-simplified) pictures. First, the CHO doesn’t include the brain in the body fat level planning party. Most will agree that body fat is useful for survival in times of famine or low temperatures, but that it can also be antagonistic for swift, efficient movement in hot weather. If it makes sense to control body fat in ways not related to our food intake (seasons, location, climate, stress, etc…), why wouldn’t our brain serve as the regulating official?

Second, by the CHO, your level of body fat is not relevant to the way your “metabolism” behaves. This seems absurd because most would agree that those with more fat lose fat faster, and that when people become obese, they tend to gain fat over a number of years and then level off.

Another big critical piece of evidence that the FRHO holds up better than the CHO, is this chart from Whole Health Source:

That looks a whole heckuva lot like the response to a step input of an underdamped second-order system. For those of you out there who haven’t taken a Controls or Vibrations Class, this is exactly the way some systems respond when the input signal changes suddenly. The system attempts to change its output to satisfy equilibrium at the new input, but it changes so rapidly to do so that it can’t stop changing fast enough, so it overshoots, then reverses direction of change to achieve the desired output.

In terms of the FRHO, all three diets represent a change of input (lower food reward). This causes the hypothalamus (controller) to desire a lessened incoming leptin signal. To achieve this, it signals the “metabolism” to shed pounds, because the leptin signal level is proportional to fat mass. The subjects lost weight rapidly until the leptin signal was lower than desired, at which point they gained a few pounds and hit equilibrium.

The fact that the FRHO explains exactly why ALL THREE DIETS CAUSED THE SAME SHAPE WEIGHT LOSS CURVE, and the CHO can’t even explain why the low-fat group lost weight at all is a big deal.

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All a very long-winded way of saying I’m in the FRHO corner of the debate.