By the way, while immersing myself in Weston A. Price Foundation-related reading, I came across a claim that baking bread using traditional sourdough methods does something to the gluten that makes it far less allergy-triggering, and possibly even safe for celiacs. Seems there’s one little link in the protein chain that’s been identified as the trigger for celiac symptoms and other gluten-related health issues. The human gut can’t break it down, but bacteria can. And bacteria are one of the components of a wild-caught sourdough starter.

I’ve also heard that sprouting grains changes the protein structure as well, not to mention giving the baked end product a nutritional profile closer to that of vegetation. I know that I can have one or two slices of Ezekiel bread in a day when I’m in ketosis and am not knocked out of it. I would be curious to try again from fasting glucose now that I have a meter, and then test myself after eating a slice, to see how far I spike if at all.

The work by Tabata is particularly illustrative and Tabata intervals (20 seconds hard, 10 seconds easy for 4 minutes) were shown by him to be very effective for fat loss, anaerobic improvement, and, surprisingly, improvement in aerobic capacity. The websites of Clarence Bass and Art Devany are excellent sources for further information about intervals and how to remain functional with age (both Clarence and Art are about 70). Clarence has a good discussion about Tabatas specifically plus some other studies of different high intensity intervals. Unfortunately, Art now requires a fee to view his site.

On a personal level, I can attest to the effectiveness of Tabata intervals. I used to conclude my weight training sessions with 15-20 minutes of a conventional aerobic activity, usually a rowing machine or uphill walking on a treadmill . When I learned about Tabata intervals at about age 50 I substituted my aerobic component with 4 minutes of Tabatas on the rowing machine. During the next 6 weeks my weight dropped from 217 to 202 lbs, and I was NOT trying to lose weight. Nothing else changed in my diet or exercise routine (which also includes competitive tennis). The weight just came off by itself.

High intensity intervals appear to work by causing a change in metabolism. They are certainly not long enough to consume many calories. On days that I do Tabatas (and twice a week is enough) I notice a different feeling in my body the rest of day. Something is happening which I can only describe as a feeling of warmth. I have since taken my weight lower to match what it was at age 25-30 and have done this without loss of muscle mass or strength, which is the other major advantage of intervals over long steady pace aerobics. Tabatas and uphill sprinting are the tools I’ve used to achieve this. The good dietary advice contained in this web site and Art Devany’s (which is quite similar to this one) will take you a good distance, but the right exercise tools are needed to take you further.

I agree that if any exercise will help one lose weight, it is high intensity exercise or resistance exercise. I’m just not sure how much, and I know it’s not as effective as diet alone. I probably need to look into this a little further and post on it.

From my understanding of studies I have seen, main sources of energy for extended exercise are muscle glycogen and plasma glucose. Muscle triglycerides and plasma free fatty acids are also important energy sources, but glucose is required in the reaction to utilize these sources. (Krebs Cycle). In a marathon or endurance event, when you run out of glucose, you “hit the wall.” In your low-carb studies, what kind of exercise where they participating in and where were their main sources of energy coming from?

There are numerous studies throughout the medical literature showing that people often (not always, but often) increase their endurance on low-carb diets, but only AFTER adapting to said diet. It’s beyond the scope of the comments section to write an entire post on all the whys and all the studies. Maybe I’ll do a post on this subject at some point. Until then, go to PubMed, enter ‘low-carbodydrate diet’ and ‘endurance’ in the search function and take a look.

As far as ‘hitting the wall’ goes during marathons, long endurance events such as marathons are usually fueled by fat, not glucose. When people have a chance to adapt to low-carb diets, they do well in these events. The type of races that requires glucose are sprints and other anaerobic exercises.

Great story, Hilarious!

I just started an office job, first thing I noticed when walking in is that everyone is fat. A few days into the job when I started to get to know people I overheard one fatty talking about how her brother is a nutritionist that recommends low fat, moderate carb, high exercise regimen to lose weight. I wanted to laugh, but kept it at a grin. She said she had been going to the gym 3-4 times a week sweating her butt of for at least an hour each time. She hasn’t lost any weight yet. Today I saw on her desk some new diet pills. Personally, I lost over 20lbs going from 182lbs(14-15%bf) to 159lbs(under 10%bf) in 2 months and absolutely no working out. The most workout I had was walking from my home to car to a desk job; literally sitting for over 12 hours a day.

There are even company sponsored nutritional guides around the office encouraging alot of whole grains and pasta with low fat content meat and cheese.

I’m thinking about giving a course on nutrition/diet for the office but this is pending company lending of the space for the course. Maybe not the most effective, but I would love to do a quick poll of who thinks saturated fats are unhealthy, then immediately bring out a jar of coconut oil, ask if everyone knows what it is and its fat content. Then eat a table spoon in front of everyone just to watch the faces contort in disgust.

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Dr Eades,

Ever since I went paleo, my #2s have gone down from once every 2-4 days to once every 4-7 days. I’m not constipated, they are just regular #2s but less frequent. Can infrequent #2s lead to any kind of health problems? Should I make an effort to increase the frequency and if so, how?

Thanks!

I wouldn’t worry about the constipation, if that is truly what it is. Meat is the perfect food, and, thus, is almost completely digested and absorbed. If you eat foods that you completely absorb, there is not a lot of waste moving on down the tube that has to be eliminated. As I say to my patients, such a diet is a lot for the jowls, but not much for the bowels.

I say: no way! A low-carb diet doesn’t exclude chocolate, by any means. You just have to make careful selections. I eat chocolate a LOT on my low-carb diet; I just mostly eat dark chocolate, and small portions which I savor instead of bolting. And by “a lot,” I mean that of the 47 days for which I’ve put up data on my food blog (http://sara.blogspot.com), I’ve had chocolate on 22 of them, so basically every other day. And that’s on a diet of under 50g (and usually under 35g) carbs per day, which is really quite low; non-diabetics can obtain a lot of the benefits of low-carb on a greater allowance than that.

Milk, similarly, can be worked in. Yeah, it’s relatively high carb, especially if you choose the reduced-fat variety (whole milk has fewer carbs per ounce, because more of the volume is occupied by fat). There are some reduced-carb milks, though — I like Hood’s low-carb milk, and one of my local groceries has a store-brand reduced-carb milk that’s also good. Even regular milk, though, can be fitted in — just give yourself a carb allowance, and choose where to spend your allowance to allow yourself the things that keep you from feeling deprived while still keeping yourself on track. It’s a lot easier to resist the call of the cookies if you’re not feeling like you NEVER get to eat anything you really want.

I think of my own mother’s death about two years ago. At 79, she had short-term memory failure and moved to an assisted living facility. The family urged her to relax her lifelong diet discipline and enjoy the food offered at her new home. She did–particularly the desserts–and gained 20 pounds in four years. We all told her she looked fine and not to worry. Soon after she developed breast cancer from which a year later she died.

I am absolutely floored at the thought that extra ice cream and pie could have been encouraging terminal cancer. Not to mention the fact that her lifelong diet of the usual gospel (fruits & vegetables, whole grains, lean meat and no fat) might have had a role in her memory loss. The truly ironic part is that my Mom was a scientist, paid attention to what she ate and truly thought she was doing everything right. Neither of us had any idea! Thanks so much for your work Dr Eades–how I’d love to put your book in her hands.