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Tim Noakes on Carbohydrates
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06-12-2013 3:47pm#1
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It certainly isn;t the diet that the best runners in the world are following. I'd be curious if someone could name me one runner who placed highly in either the WC's or Olympics who actually follows this nonsense?
Here's one
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fancy dan sprinters dont count when their endurance event is 200m
. But he did also have fires . 0 -
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That post makes an awful lot of pretty stupid assumptions. TBH man if you wanna win the contest for longest amount of time spent not eating while on an 86 hour jog/ kayak/bareback horse ride through the only undiscovered part of the Amazon then fair play- hell you can even call yourself "world champion" at that, if you wish - but don't expect me to think that your strategy for doing it constitutes sound advise on an "Athletics" forum.
I am belabouring the point about Olympic/ WC caliber athletes and their diet because as I see it- times have continued to break ground and evolve over the last 30 years w/ astonishing speed. While this has happened I'd imagine very little of the Kenyan/ Ethopian distance runner's diet has changed. My point is we are most likely over thinking the importance of purely scientific nutrition. I think the general tone of the thread probably makes sense, eat as clean as you can, stay away from processed foods and eat a balanced diet. My major beef w/ Noakes et al is that I've yet to see an elite distance runner who has benefited from eating low carbs.
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Dont want to be a troll
Dont want to be a troll
Dont want to be a troll
cant. resist.
a. little. information. is. a. dangerous..........
Ok, its gone.
Resonable post: Arguably, the body is set up to do do only two things
1. Improve the possibility of you passing on your genes
2. Regulate your blood glucose levels.
Thats it. So you are messing with one of the body's two core missions. Obviously we all know that horsing in the mars bars is a bad idea, but cutting sugar out is relying on a stopgap form of metabolism for your energy. A mechanism which prevented our ancestors from dying when real food was scarce.
This whole paleo diet thing scares me. Have a read about carnivore metabolism?.....they are often metabolically retarded, with crappy versions of enzymes that we have. We evolved to be omnivores, and now we are stuck as omnivores. Ive heard noakes talk about this stuff and he comes across as a guy who barely understands what he is saying. It worked for him and his diabetes-predisposed family, so now he wants everyone to try. That ice-age stuff is crazy. Things dont change that quickly.
Here's one which I think is interesting which ive not heard anyone point out yet. If carbohydrates are bad, why is the biggest single component of human breast milk (after water) carbohydrate? Surely we would have evolved (during this ice age) a mechanism for extruding lard for babies out of breasts (where am I going with this?
). Why would we evolve systems for pumping these evil, inflammation-causing carbohydrate molecules into developing babies?
Since regulating your blood sugar is the key, it follows (IMO) that low GI food is a good thing (preventing glucose spikes, insulin response etc), but cutting out the main source of ATP-generating molecules in your diet, over the long term, and throwing in the stress of endurance exercise, is a bad idea.
Like everything else, when the hype dies down I'd bet that the data (and balance of opinion) will point back to what everyone's grandparents knew well: a little bit of everything is best.0 -
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theboyblunder wrote: »Dont want to be a troll
Dont want to be a troll
Dont want to be a troll
cant. resist.
a. little. information. is. a. dangerous..........
Ok, its gone.
Resonable post: Arguably, the body is set up to do do only two things
1. Improve the possibility of you passing on your genes
2. Regulate your blood glucose levels.
Thats it. So you are messing with one of the body's two core missions. Obviously we all know that horsing in the mars bars is a bad idea, but cutting sugar out is relying on a stopgap form of metabolism for your energy. A mechanism which prevented our ancestors from dying when real food was scarce.
This whole paleo diet thing scares me. Have a read about carnivore metabolism?.....they are often metabolically retarded, with crappy versions of enzymes that we have. We evolved to be omnivores, and now we are stuck as omnivores. Ive heard noakes talk about this stuff and he comes across as a guy who barely understands what he is saying. It worked for him and his diabetes-predisposed family, so now he wants everyone to try. That ice-age stuff is crazy. Things dont change that quickly.
Here's one which I think is interesting which ive not heard anyone point out yet. If carbohydrates are bad, why is the biggest single component of human breast milk (after water) carbohydrate? Surely we would have evolved (during this ice age) a mechanism for extruding lard for babies out of breasts (where am I going with this?). Why would we evolve systems for pumping these evil, inflammation-causing carbohydrate molecules into developing babies?
Since regulating your blood sugar is the key, it follows (IMO) that low GI food is a good thing (preventing glucose spikes, insulin response etc), but cutting out the main source of ATP-generating molecules in your diet, over the long term, and throwing in the stress of endurance exercise, is a bad idea.
Like everything else, when the hype dies down I'd bet that the data (and balance of opinion) will point back to what everyone's grandparents knew well: a little bit of everything is best.
Your evolutionary starting point and the end point "a little bit of everything" I sympathise with but I think you have warped it just a small bit by elevating "regulating glucose" to one of the primary aims. The primitive brain needs to ensure your survival first (by maintaining homeostasis internally and by interpreting signals from the environment correctly - "oh, that's a tiger, run") and then it is designed to attempt to reproduce. Stable glucose levels are part of the homeostatic response but the body can regulate this just fine, with no impact to health, even in the total absence of carbohydrates, if given a few weeks to adapt.
To concede a point: where the jury is out is whether high-intensity endurance training can be fuelled while in ketosis. The health benefits of ketosis are overwhelmingly supported by evidence whereas in terms of endurance performance it is early days. Some individuals seem able to sustain 77% of max heart rate intensity in ketosis without any drop in performance (according to Volek's studies) but that is "only" roughly 10k intensity. So we may see that for events faster than 10k, a fat-adapted athlete (as apart from a keto-adapted athletes) is ideal.
I should note that in my own experience systemic inflammation time reduced (from my observation) by 2/3rds within 3 weeks after starting a keto-adaptation program. This is not proof - merely a strong indication that observation matches what the science lays out in my own experience.
With respect, the remainder of the post looks like it's based on opinion absent some critical pieces of knowledge to understand the complexity of this issue. I would add that I would not look to Noakes for my main source of information on this (I've never read his stance on this). The authorities to read are Jack Kruse (in general), Jeff Volek (low carb) and Loren Cordain (Paleo Diet).
The "ancient pathway" that is triggered in low carb conditions (ketosis) is not necessarily a "stop-gap" (that is your interpretation). Looking at the evidence presented by Volek and Kruse, my interpretation is that it was anything but.
A few points I felt misrepresented the facts:
1. Paleo Diet has little or nothing to do with a carnivore diet, so framing it in this context is misleading. We share certain enzymes with cats and other predators, and other characteristics with our frugovore ancestors. The Paleo Diet is not a particularly carnivorous diet. One issue is that the Paleo Diet has been refined and there are many dilettantes writing about it online.
2. Fat metabolism is not just a starvation "back-up" plan (to my earlier point). This is a modern perspective because it is hard for us to imagine a world where you can't get a tray of fries, donuts, bagels or whatever stuck into your hand at every corner. Once carbohydrate drops down to roughly below 50g per day, the "ancient pathway" does take over and our over-reliance on glucose disappears. This is known and the clinical results are outstanding in a wide variety of contexts, even in studies sponsored by biased (high-carb, low fat) interest groups. Jack Kruse brings us closer to the truth by pointing out that our biochemistry changes with the seasons. So it follows we should eat "seasonally" if your only goal is optimum health (let's leave performance aside for now as they can be mutually exclusive in the short-term, if not the long-term). All mammals, including us, have an ability to cold-adapt. Kruse's work, as i understand it currently, shows that the colder it is the fattier a diet we will thrive on and the less healthy carbohydrate intake is. This was no surprise when I described my current eating to my father. Paleo was far-fetched to him (he did not live in a world without bread etc.) but on hearing about the high fat consumption he said "yes, we ate that like that. It makes sense".
Keep in mind that even on a 50g per day carb intake, you're getting plenty of glucose into your system (through gluconeogenesis and the vegetables, salad leaves etc. that you would eat).
3. The breast-feeding argument distorts the argument here somewhat. No serious low-carb and/or Paleo (Paleo is not low carb) advocate suggests carbohydrate is "poison". They either argue that most people (not all, the literature is clear about a proportion of people with unusal carb tolerance and how they differ) cannot handle the amount of processed and refined carbs available to us (unprecedented in history) and/or that foods from the neolithic onwards, especially the designer foods such as modern wheat of the last 50-60 years, are "wild cards" that we can have no adaptation to and which long-term harm is unknown. The composition of mother's milk, why lactase is one of several important components and how it shapes our species is covered in some detail in "The art and science of low carb LIVING" and Jared Diamond also goes into it in "The World of Yesterday", so I recommend checking up on that. There is nothing about it that undermines the arguments for an evolutionary diet low in carbohydrates for the greater part of the year.
I cannot fully do the huge body of work justice (it would take me too long and the "official writers" have it covered, but here's my pet theory, from my undrestanding of the literature, which I hope to spend the next 3-5 years verifying and seeing verified by the experts actively involved in it:
1. Athletes should avoid neolithic foods in general
2. Athletes should eat and compete seasonally. Live in a state of ketosis in Autumn and Winter and compete in endurance-focused events during that time
3. Up intake to the high-end of ketosis (100g carbs) and/or (for some individuals) go into a normal evolutionary diet with no limits of healthy carb intake. Compete in more power-focused (shorter) events at that time (Spring,Summer)
4. To make this work several protocols will need to be adopted:
- Cold adaptation (regular and systematic exposure to cold in winter to ensure our bodies sets itself up for "winter metabolism" rather htan being stuck in "summer metabolism" for life
- EMG protocols (reduce exposure to blue light frequences and electro-magnetic signals, especially at night, to ensure circadean rhythms are running correctly. Carb cravings are heavily link with this type of stressor)
- Stress management (all forms of stress seem to trigger carb cravings so setting up an environment for a healthy and balanced life - not 8 to 8 "office time" for instance, would be necessary to succeed)
- Inject randomness in your eating patterns (it's not healthy to never be hungry, small fasts and/or days of calorie deficit versus days of calorie plenty is ideal for the body)
The added benefit is that living in a cold adapted state on a high-fat/low carb diet has shown to correlate with a longer lifespan. This makes perfect sense from an evolutionary perspective where access to food was never even year-round as it is now. Looking back binging myself on pineapple in Winter made no sense.
I should say that some will argue seasons and winter adaptation is a moot point in the tropics. Cold exposure will be small obviously, but Jared Diamond observed changes in eating patterns similar to arctic people during the Dry Season where most foods become scarce and most population groups had to rely on extremely starchy tubers (what is now called super-starch or resistant starch - forms of starch that do not interfere with ketosis and thus may give us the best of both worlds. Most modern tubers have been bred to be easier to absorb thus losing this benefit).
All this seems extreme and it has to be: the mismatch between our ancestral environment and modern life is now so great that we find, in our experience, that you can rarely get away with "playing with just one variable", you have to play with them all to get the result yo uwant.0 -
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