Diet Vs Safe cycling

Ole Rodrigo · 23-01-2015 11:46AM

harringtonp wrote: »

I combine them for convenience though gut reaction would be separate is best and that is only again because of CAVEMAN. He didn't live very long as pointed out earlier but a lot of evolution went into adapting him best for his natural eating habits... you know a pile of meat together after a kill, a gorging of berries or fruit when in season

If you mean average lifespan, yes it was short. However ' Cavemen ' , or pre agrarian humans were genetically programmed for the same longetivity as modern humans. They just had to navigate through a larger number of things that would kill them.

desertcircus · 23-01-2015 11:52AM

harringtonp wrote: »

I combine them for convenience though gut reaction would be separate is best and that is only again because of CAVEMAN. He didn't live very long as pointed out earlier but a lot of evolution went into adapting him best for his natural eating habits... you know a pile of meat together after a kill, a gorging of berries or fruit when in season

Given that mixing both carbs and fats is the default setting in more or less every cuisine on earth, the appropriate question is to ask why segregating them is necessary - just like any other change to the default. If you argue that we should all eat fifty oranges a day, saying "where's the evidence that we shouldn't?" is a worthless argument.

As for the claim itself: having flicked through the claims I can locate, there seems to be no empirical evidence, or even a theoretical explanation. For separating carbs and fats to be beneficial for weight loss, there needs to be a concrete explanation of how the mechanisms involved in digestion are changed by the presence of both fats and carbohydrates, and evidence that the change results in weight gain compared to segregating them. I've found no such explanation, except the claim that the different digestive enzymes interfere with each other and prevent each other from working properly.

There are two problems with this: one, there's no basis for this claim, which should be incredibly simple to test, and two, if segregating carbs and fats allowed the different enzymes to work more efficiently and extract maximum benefit from the food, then doing it would result in increased weight, not decreased. The mechanism being touted, if it was real, would do the exact opposite of what's being claimed. It's junk science designed to medicalise a non-medical issue and make it harder for people to achieve sustainable weight loss.

12 sprocket · 23-01-2015 12:05PM

From an American Government consumer Dept

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could lose weight simply by taking a pill, wearing a patch, or rubbing in a cream? Unfortunately, claims that you can lose weight without changing your habits just aren’t true.
Doctors, dieticians, and other experts agree that the best way to lose weight is to eat fewer calories and be more active. That's true even for people taking FDA-approved pills to help them lose weight. For most people, a reasonable goal is to lose about a pound a week, which means:
· cutting about 500 calories a day from your diet
· eating a variety of nutritious foods
· exercising regularly
For more on healthy eating, visit Nutrition.gov, ChooseMyPlate.gov, or the Weight-control Information Network.

http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0061-weighing-claims-diet-ads#thetruth

uphillonly · 23-01-2015 12:34PM

doozerie wrote: »

Similarly, various of the foods listed as "carb meals" have notable amounts of protein in them (e.g. one sample of "brown pasta" I have here has 12.7g protein per 100g, some "brown rice" I have here has 8.9g protein per 100g).

Basically trying to break those foods exclusively into "fat meals" and "carb meals" simply doesn't work. Again, I don't know this diet so perhaps it doesn't really attempt to segregate the foods so strictly but some of your earlier posts suggest to me that it does try to do exactly that.

And don't forget either that many vegetables have carbs in them - to take a relatively extreme example, depending on what source you check carrots have between 4g and 10g carbs per 100g. It's actually quite tricky to eat a "no carb" diet, but personally I wouldn't even try it.

As regards training with no carbs, I do this regularly. My weekend training rides I do with no food intake at all from the point I stop eating the previous day to the point where I get back home again after the ride. I also don't carb-load the previous day. I started these fasted rides a year ago, shortly after I switched from a high carb diet to a low carb diet. I fully expected I'd bonk, I'd always relied heavily on carbs for immediate fuel, but I didn't bonk. A year later and I'm able to do intensive 3hr rides fasted, and I've done a few 5hr rides of moderate effort fasted too, and at no point during those rides did I ever feel on the verge of bonking. Glycogen stores explain part of that (estimated to be capable of fuelling in the region of 2 or 3 hours of moderate effort by the average person), burning fat as fuel explains the rest of it. In short, if you adjust your diet carefully over time then you can adapt your system to fuel itself largely on fat, and carbs are not necessary immediately prior to, or during, lengthy rides of low to moderate intensity.

Doozerie - just curious, what are the benefits of this over having some porridge pre-ride?

Is is forcing a fat burn & not something you'd need to continue if you were already at race weight?

ford2600 · 23-01-2015 01:28PM

Jawgap wrote: »

More polyunsaturated fats - the 'good' fats.

Generally, I was always led to believe that the consumption of animal fats should be avoided, but not completely eliminated from the diet.

Incidentally - this week's New Scientist leads with an article on meat - "Let them eat steak: How to eat meat the healthy way"

Basically it all comes back to the same mantra - everything in moderation.......even, occasionally, moderation!

Good and bad in relation to fats isn't really helpful(or cholesterol for that matter). The only fats there is good science to purposefully avoid are trans fats.

Once you get your essential fatty acids on board, how are polyunsaturated more beneficial than than monounsaturated or saturated? From my reading as a fuel source monounsaturated and saturated are preferable.

As an aside the marketing of omega fatty acids like there is something magical about them, hasn't helped either.

As for avoiding saturated, the Cochrane institute among others have found no link between saturated fat and heart disease. (As an exercise look at heart disease in France/Switzerland as against Ukraine and their relative saturated fat consumption)

The human body is incredibly adaptable to diets with widely varying macro nutrient content. How anyone can state what is optimum for an entire population is beyond me; yet that's what has been presented to us for years.

On meat, assuming it decent quality( grass fed not the pork, bacon and poultry sold), I wouldn't worry too much about health effects. There are plenty studies showing higher levels of cancer/ cvd etc but I've yet to see one which controlled for lifestyle choice known to increase risk smoking, excessive alcohol etc. An anti hflc writer Anthony Coplo has written a good article on it.

ford2600 · 23-01-2015 01:35PM

uphillonly wrote: »

Doozerie - just curious, what are the benefits of this over having some porridge pre-ride?

Is is forcing a fat burn & not something you'd need to continue if you were already at race weight?

Can't speak for doozerie but I don't do it do drop fat. My reasons would be

Forcing body to adapt to fat so as to cycle with very little need to eat, even on really long cycles

Convenience; alarm clock going off to being on bike in 15mins including coffe

For 4/5 hrs no loss in performance and ditto for 3hrs higher intensity on mtb. Might even have slight edge when fasted as no energy wasted metabolising food.

Most places which are convenient to eat when out on bike, sell predominantly crap food irrespective of macro breakdown.

The feast over about two hours when I return home!

BenEadir · 23-01-2015 02:07PM

Fair Play Padraig, that's impressive.

I used www.myfitnesspal.com app on my phone a few years ago and found it very useful for keeping a basic track of calories. If you're trying to limit calories to a certain figure to maintain a steady weight loss it is very useful and I found most products I purchase in supermarkets are on there.

If I find the whole "keep carbs and fats" separate thing unmanageable I would happily switch back to a calorie limited diet and use MFP to keep some manners on myself. The only issue I had with MFP is I felt it over calculated the number of calories you burnt off exercising which led to a a situation where you could easily over eat/drink on a given day relative to your true target.

If you have a smartphone it's definitely worth a try, I'd use it far quicker than keeping a manual paper based diet record.

petethedrummer · 23-01-2015 02:20PM

ford2600 wrote: »

Forcing body to adapt to fat so as to cycle with very little need to eat, even on really long cycles

Training fasted or with limited carbohydrate is supposed to increase mitochondrial density in the muscles. Don't have any sources to hand. easily googleable.

coppinger · 23-01-2015 02:38PM

+1 on myfitnesspal.com or some sort of phone food diary, helped me lose 5kg's

petethedrummer · 23-01-2015 03:36PM

Jawgap wrote: »

Seriously - the whole Paleo-diet thing is another faddy McFad diet from Doctor O'Fad who got a PhD (he's not a medical doctor) from Fadsville university!

It's another diet that rails against carbs (it also encourages people to exclude whole grains and legumes from their diet).

You can have a listen @47:25 where arguably the two leading Paleo exponents do NOT bash carbs.

http://robbwolf.com/2015/01/13/episode-253-chris-kresser-red-meat-again-and-neu5gc/

Jawgap · 23-01-2015 03:58PM

petethedrummer wrote: »

You can have a listen @47:25 where arguably the two leading Paleo exponents do NOT bash carbs.

http://robbwolf.com/2015/01/13/episode-253-chris-kresser-red-meat-again-and-neu5gc/

Sorry I can't listen to that podcast on this computer.

I didn't say they bash carbs but they have a bias against them.

Also what about the exclusion of whole grains? My understanding is that the paleo-diet requires or advises its adherents to avoid eating all cereal grains? Including brown rice?

Half the world's population lives on rice, and some of those countries have pretty impressive population health outcomes, Japan for example.

I suspect that these fad diets are designed to do one thing and one thing only and that's sell books and web site subscriptions - people would be better spending the money on a consult with a private dietitian, and get some tailored advice, imo.

petethedrummer · 23-01-2015 05:14PM

Jawgap wrote: »

I didn't say they bash carbs but they have a bias against them.

If the carbohydrate comes in the form of table sugar, HFCS, Modern Wheat ....then yes. And they do bash volume for certain people.

Jawgap wrote: »

Also what about the exclusion of whole grains? My understanding is that the paleo-diet requires or advises its adherents to avoid eating all cereal grains? Including brown rice?

There is no one paleo diet. It's a starting point or template. Again, if you listen to Wolf or Kresser it's about individual tolerance. Granted most would advise against limiting modern Wheat. Which is probably anathema to someone who thrives on whole grains.

Jawgap wrote: »

Half the world's population lives on rice, and some of those countries have pretty impressive population health outcomes, Japan for example.

Very true. They have been eating it for centuries (millenia?). Quite well adapted to it. I'm not by extension suggesting that Europeans are not. The Japanese are not very well adapted to dairy or alcohol. 80%(ish) of black people are lactose intolerant. Should black people start horsing the milk in because northern europeans handle it well? Horses for courses on a population and individual level.

Anyway, over the last 2 years. I have listen to endless health and nutrition podcasts. So to save everyone else the bother, most of the 'paleo' exponents broadly follow this kind of approach (based on a relatively sedentary office working day)...
Breakfast: Fast or Fatty Coffee or Green Smoothy or a Cooked Breakfast.
Lunch: Large Salad with healthy oil and fish or meat
Evening Meal: A regular meal with what the layman would consider a 'normal' amount of carbohydrate.
Snacks: Generally nuts.
Most have a 80/20 approach and advocate reward or cheat days depending if you're a glass half full or half empty personality type. And there is a huge emphasis on exercise and lifestyle factors.

As for a paleo diet harming cycling. I suppose like anything, if you don't educate yourself and listen to your body then it might. It might not though... http://www.stickybottle.com/uncategorized/full-results-of-all-races-at-todays-des-hanlon-memorial-in-carlow/

Jawgap · 23-01-2015 05:26PM

petethedrummer wrote: »

I.......So to save everyone else the bother, most of the 'paleo' exponents broadly follow this kind of approach (based on a relatively sedentary office working day)...
Breakfast: Fast or Fatty Coffee or Green Smoothy or a Cooked Breakfast.
Lunch: Large Salad with healthy oil and fish or meat
Evening Meal: A regular meal with what the layman would consider a 'normal' amount of carbohydrate.
Snacks: Generally nuts.
Most have a 80/20 approach and advocate reward or cheat days depending if you're a glass half full or half empty personality type. And there is a huge emphasis on exercise and lifestyle factors.

......

Ah here - you mean the 'diet' advocates fasting or a cooked breakfast? Does that mean if you're a paleo adherent you can have a fry most days (that's what I usually take to mean a 'cooked' breakfast)?

Seriously, I've looked to see if there any scientific studies to back the paleo up and they are limited (to say the least) - mostly small scale, longtitudinal studies. Aside from those (which are inconclusive as to the unique efficacy of the paleo diet) is there actually any peer reviewed evidence to support such an approach?

Also why a 'green' smoothie when there's plenty of evidence to show that the darker the fruit (or vegetable) is the better in terms of anti-oxidants and the like?

BenEadir · 23-01-2015 05:37PM

As I'm about to end Phase One i.e. the no carbs phase I've been researching Phase Two and here are the summary guidelines:-

Harcombe Diet Phase 2 - Sustaining weight loss

The second phase of The Harcombe Diet has just three rules to follow in order to find your natural weight and stay there. Here it is all about forming the basis for how you will eat for the rest of your life, so it needs to be healthy, practical and effective. The three rules are as follows:

Rule 1. Don't eat processed foods. Foodstuff is naturally full of all the vitamins and minerals we need, so don't buy or eat anything that needs a label.

Rule 2. Don't eat fats and carbs in the same meal. Most foods are either carb/protein or fat/protein. Carbs tend to be from the ground and trees and include grains, fruit and veg, whereas fats basically come from anything that has or once had a face, such as meat, fish and dairy.

Eating both carbs and fats together means the carbs are used for energy and the fat is stored as body fat causing weight gain. If you eat fat alone, however, the body uses this for energy/cell repair and doesn't store it. Fats are therefore generally better for you than carbs.

Rule 3. Don't eat foods that cause your cravings. It is important to restrict food depending on your condition(s) until your immune system can recover and you build up a tolerance to the problem food again. Avoid reintroducing too many things too quickly to avoid losing control to cravings - if you can't wait to reintroduce something this is your problem food!

OK, I'll hunker back down and wait for the above to be torn to shreds

BTW, spuds with a veg omelette for dinner this evening and porridge for brekkie before my spin tomorrow. Looking forward to it.

Jawgap · 23-01-2015 05:44PM

petethedrummer wrote: »

If the carbohydrate comes in the form of table sugar, HFCS, Modern Wheat ....then yes. And they do bash volume for certain people.

There is no one paleo diet. It's a starting point or template. Again, if you listen to Wolf or Kresser it's about individual tolerance. Granted most would advise against limiting modern Wheat. Which is probably anathema to someone who thrives on whole grains.

Very true. They have been eating it for centuries (millenia?). Quite well adapted to it. I'm not by extension suggesting that Europeans are not. The Japanese are not very well adapted to dairy or alcohol. 80%(ish) of black people are lactose intolerant. Should black people start horsing the milk in because northern europeans handle it well? Horses for courses on a population and individual level.

First, hominids have been on the earth for a couple of million years and rice was only introduced into the diet in the last 10,000 or so - so I'm not sure how Asian populations could be well adapted given they've only been consuming the stuff for about 0.5% of their recent evolutionary history.

Second, some paleo diets recommend 'raw milk' - "Free the Animal: How to lose weight & fat on the paleo diet" by Richard Nikoley

"Nikoley recommends eating “real food” such as meat, organ meats, poultry, fish and shellfish, vegetables (limit potatoes), some fruits (berries and melons primarily), nuts, fats (lard, tallow, butter, ghee, coconut oil, red palm oil, olive oil), whole fat dairy and heavy cream (preferring “raw” milk if available). Foods to avoid include grain-based products, processed foods, certain fruits, potatoes and vegetable/grain/seed oils such as canola, sunflower, safflower and corn. Nikoley is a proponent of “intermittent fasting,” and recommends exercising for one hour per week, but avoiding cardio because it is “catabolic and makes you hungry.”

There'd nothing like a dose of Campy or E coli O157 to shift the weight off of ye:D

petethedrummer · 23-01-2015 06:02PM

Jawgap wrote: »

Ah here - you mean the 'diet' advocates fasting or a cooked breakfast? Does that mean if you're a paleo adherent you can have a fry most days (that's what I usually take to mean a 'cooked' breakfast)?

Well I think the point of it is that if you're not hungry in the morning and you feel like it then you could try a morning fast. If you are hungry, have one of the other options. In Kresser's case, cooked breakfast seems often to be leftovers from the previous evening meal. At the start of every podcast he tells what he had for breakfast. It don't think it's meant to be perscriptive daily option.

Jawgap wrote: »

Seriously, I've looked to see if there any scientific studies to back the paleo up and they are limited (to say the least) - mostly small scale, longtitudinal studies. Aside from those (which are inconclusive as to the unique efficacy of the paleo diet) is there actually any peer reviewed evidence to support such an approach?

The evidence for any diet seems nearly impossible to nail down. It's like a war zone. It's a shouting match of personal biases, correlation/causation, incorrect conclusions, epidemiological studies, poor intervention studies. Every single study is torn to shreds by people on different sides.

This is a good podcast with Peter Attia, worth a listen no matter what your stance on carbohydrate is. Some interesting stuff on the cycling and the heart. He's started the NUSI foundation with Gary Taubes to investigate the insulin hypothesis and the effect of carbohydrate on weight. http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/12/18/peter-attia/
The reason Taubes ended up in nutrition was because the science was so messy and he wrote about 'bad' science. Whether his interpretation of nutrition science is correct will be highly contested. Their results will be torn to bits, just like the China study was by people who think red meat is perfectly healthy. What Taubes and Attia uncover may only be correct for a sub section of the population.

Jawgap wrote: »

Also why a 'green' smoothie when there's plenty of evidence to show that the darker the fruit (or vegetable) is the better in terms of anti-oxidants and the like?

I believe 'green' is a generic term used as I think kale forms the basis of most. I would guess most people put berries in them. I don't know much about them. I've never had one.

Jawgap · 23-01-2015 06:23PM

petethedrummer wrote: »

Well I think the point of it is that if you're not hungry in the morning and you feel like it then you could try a morning fast. If you are hungry, have one of the other options. In Kresser's case, cooked breakfast seems often to be leftovers from the previous evening meal. At the start of every podcast he tells what he had for breakfast. It don't think it's meant to be perscriptive daily option.

The evidence for any diet seems nearly impossible to nail down. It's like a war zone. It's a shouting match of personal biases, correlation/causation, incorrect conclusions, epidemiological studies, poor intervention studies. Every single study is torn to shreds by people on different sides.

This is a good podcast with Peter Attia, worth a listen no matter what your stance on carbohydrate is. Some interesting stuff on the cycling and the heart. He's started the NUSI foundation with Gary Taubes to investigate the insulin hypothesis and the effect of carbohydrate on weight. http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/12/18/peter-attia/
The reason Taubes ended up in nutrition was because the science was so messy and he wrote about 'bad' science. Whether his interpretation of nutrition science is correct will be highly contested. Their results will be torn to bits, just like the China study was by people who think red meat is perfectly healthy. What Taubes and Attia uncover may only be correct for a sub section of the population.

I believe 'green' is a generic term used as I think kale forms the basis of most. I would guess most people put berries in them. I don't know much about them. I've never had one.

I don't see what the problem is or why it should be a war zone - you recruit people to the study, divide them at random, place one group on the diet, leave the other group to their own devices, gather data on the participants, monitor them during the process, do the stats and arrive at a conclusion.

I don't have a 'stance' on carbs - I do on pseudo science. In the final analysis, less in than you put out, a varied diet and everything in moderation is still, to my mind, the best advice - but it won't sell many books.

And how can you even have a 'paleo' diet - the diets of different groups varied so wildly - the people roaming in Africa were eating a completely different diet to the ones roaming the tundra.

A paper by Alexander Ströhle and Andreas Hahn (Diets of modern hunter-gatherers vary substantially in their carbohydrate content depending on ecoenvironments: results from an ethnographic analysis)makes this point - pre-agricultural humans between 11°and 40° north or south of the equator had a diet that was up to 40% carbs (still less, admittedly, than your typical 'Western' diet), whereas north of 40° that carb content fell off markedly such that by 60° North people had a diet that was less than 10% carbs.

petethedrummer · 23-01-2015 06:40PM

Jawgap wrote: »

First, hominids have been on the earth for a couple of million years and rice was only introduced into the diet in the last 10,000 or so - so I'm not sure how Asian populations could be well adapted given they've only been consuming the stuff for about 0.5% of their recent evolutionary history.

Like i said I'm not going to suggest they are any more suited to it than europeans are. Anyone who has ever spent time in the company of coeliacs knows its a safe option for people with real digestive problems. But on a population level some humans are more adapted to some foods than othrs.

Jawgap wrote: »

Second, some paleo diets recommend 'raw milk' - "Free the Animal: How to lose weight & fat on the paleo diet" by Richard Nikoley

We're getting the crux of it here. There is no paleo diet. I think it is a framework to look at modern food and lifestyle and it's effect on our health. Or if it is diet/religion there are many denominations.

I have a few friends who grew up on raw milk and never had any problems with it. I think some advocate using it to make Raw milk Keifier for the probiotic benefits for your gut microbiome. There are theories that over use of anti-biotics in humans and the animals we eat has caused the obesity epidemic and other health problems. You can make cows fatter by feeding them low doses of anti-biotics. But I suppose we're not cows and human micro-biology seems like another minefield.

Jawgap wrote: »

There'd nothing like a dose of Campy or E coli O157 to shift the weight off of ye:D

I got food poisoning eating fish once. Should I stop eating fish?
I also got it once from sausages.:(

ford2600 · 23-01-2015 06:40PM

Jawgap wrote: »

I don't see what the problem is or why it should be a war zone - you recruit people to the study, divide them at random, place one group on the diet, leave the other group to their own devices, gather data on the participants, monitor them during the process, do the stats and arrive at a conclusion.

I don't have a 'stance' on carbs - I do on pseudo science. In the final analysis, less in than you put out, a varied diet and everything in moderation is still, to my mind, the best advice - but it won't sell many books.

And how can you even have a 'paleo' diet - the diets of different groups varied so wildly - the people roaming in Africa were eating a completely different diet to the ones roaming the tundra.

A paper by Alexander Ströhle and Andreas Hahn (Diets of modern hunter-gatherers vary substantially in their carbohydrate content depending on ecoenvironments: results from an ethnographic analysis)makes this point - pre-agricultural humans between 11°and 40° north or south of the equator had a diet that was up to 40% carbs (still less, admittedly, than your typical 'Western' diet), whereas north of 40° that carb content fell off markedly such that by 60° North people had a diet that was less than 10% carbs.

I think the practice of trying to eat Paleo is nonsense.

The foods have changed so much in the interim as to make it an impossible task. If it just means eat real unprocessed foods then that is fine, don't know why that needs a label though.

As for eat in moderation, that assumes everyone is the same and can handle varying macro diet and remain at optimum health. It makes little difference to lots of people( including me at 40, at 60 who knows) but some people don't do well on a modern high carb diet. Eat in moderation is pretty useless to them when it's their macro breakdown which matters most.

Why we seek to force a one size suits all advice with food when humans differ in some many other ways/needs is beyond me.

Ole Rodrigo · 23-01-2015 06:41PM

One things for sure - our ancestors didn't sit around pontificating on the dynamics of fat adaptation. :P

I do green smoothies from time to time. They are a good way up your fruit and veg quota. Water, spinach (lots), banana and mint leaves in a blender. The more you get used to them the less you taste the chlorophyll and the less fruit you need to put in.

Generally fruit does not combine well with vegetables, the exception being leafy greens. They are one of these things that don't need any science to back up claims - condensed raw greens and fruit. No argument except that in high doses ( a few kilos per day ) you need to switch the type of green to avoid build up of oxalate.

Also, there is diminishing marginal returns on anti-oxidants, but green smoothies are more about getting a wide range of micronutrients in their raw form than anything in specific.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130722071955.htm

Jawgap · 23-01-2015 06:52PM

petethedrummer wrote: »

Like i said I'm not going to suggest they are any more suited to it than europeans are. Anyone who has ever spent time in the company of coeliacs knows its a safe option for people with real digestive problems. But on a population level some humans are more adapted to some foods than othrs.

We're getting the crux of it here. There is no paleo diet. I think it is a framework to look at modern food and lifestyle and it's effect on our health. Or if it is diet/religion there are many denominations.

I have a few friends who grew up on raw milk and never had any problems with it. I think some advocate using it to make Raw milk Keifier for the probiotic benefits for your gut microbiome. There are theories that over use of anti-biotics in humans and the animals we eat has caused the obesity epidemic and other health problems. You can make cows fatter by feeding them low doses of anti-biotics. But I suppose we're not cows and human micro-biology seems like another minefield.

I got food poisoning eating fish once. Should I stop eating fish?
I also got it once from sausages.:(

It's difficult to know where to begin.....

.....the use of antibiotics as growth promoters was banned in the EU nearly a decade ago, so unless you are getting your meat and milk from the Americas, it's not an issue.

....the point about raw milk is that pasteurisation neutralises the pathogens, just as fish and sausages are rendered safe by proper cooking. The European Food Safety Authority recently issued a risk assessment on raw milk - I'm all for consumer choice, but let's not pretend that raw milk is not a risky product. There's a reason why we pasteurise products like that, and if you think Campy and O157 are worth the risk, what about TB and brucellosis?

....the while probiotic thing is more nonsense - consider the size / surface area of the human gut, the extensive and complicated nature of the bacterial flora found there and then consider whether you could ever consume enough 'friendly' bacteria to meaningfully alter your gut flora.

petethedrummer · 23-01-2015 07:11PM

Jawgap wrote: »

I don't see what the problem is or why it should be a war zone - you recruit people to the study, divide them at random, place one group on the diet, leave the other group to their own devices, gather data on the participants, monitor them during the process, do the stats and arrive at a conclusion.

Well it would appear to more learned people than myself that humans are too hard to try and make stick to a diet or lifestyle. Unless you lock them in a labfor weeks on end. Peter Attia discusses this in the podcast above.

Here's a loose study. done by a vegetarian researcher. so not an advocate of atkins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eREuZEdMAVo

It turns out more people did well on Atkins. But rather than declare Atkins the victor which I did the first time I watched it. They should have taken the people who performed badly on each and gave them a new diet. Then track the results. They'd probably find each diet is beneficial to a different subset of the population in the study. Their needs may change over time.

Jawgap wrote: »

I don't have a 'stance' on carbs - I do on pseudo science. In the final analysis, less in than you put out, a varied diet and everything in moderation is still, to my mind, the best advice - but it won't sell many books.

I'm not going to argue against the law of thermodynamics. The fat didn't appear from nowhere. But I don't think calories in calories out tells you much. It's a bit like saying how do you get to be rich. Spend less than you earn. It's the ultimate truth but it's a bit simplistic. I would guess that people have different hormonal responses to food and lifestyle factors; different metabolic rates, differing responses to exercise, different fat burning capabilities. Diet might be like exercise where differing approaches are required at different times.

petethedrummer · 23-01-2015 07:36PM

Jawgap wrote: »

....the while probiotic thing is more nonsense

Lol. I don't know what to think in this regard but there's a fella down in cork looking into gut bacteria and human health!

http://www.nature.com/news/gut-brain-link-grabs-neuroscientists-1.16316
http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-09-08/bacteria-our-gut-may-influence-both-our-physical-and-mental-health

Chips Lovell · 23-01-2015 07:50PM

Jawgap wrote: »

In the final analysis, less in than you put out, a varied diet and everything in moderation is still, to my mind, the best advice - but it won't sell many books.

I'd hazard a guess that Pete reckons he eats everything in moderation. The issue is that your opinion on what constitutes moderation and his may differ. And as he's pointed out, there's very little scientific consensus these days on what constitutes a balanced diet.

Jawgap · 23-01-2015 07:58PM

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

I'd hazard a guess that Pete reckons he eats everything in moderation. The issue is that your opinion on what constitutes moderation and his may differ. And as he's pointed out, there's very little scientific consensus these days on what constitutes a balanced diet.

Sure there is.

The 'Eatwell Plate' for a start. 'Unfortunately' for the diet weight loss industry that's a free, easy to understand resource, so there's no secret to be sold. Thus creating an incentive to muddy the waters with as much as possible.

BenEadir · 24-01-2015 01:22PM

45km this morning after a couple of spuds last night and porridge with water this morning. Much much better than last week. No bonking that's for sure.

Thanks for the advice everyone including those who completely disagree with what I'm doing, it's all good to know.

Phase one ends today. 9kg dropped in total.

The challenge now is to keep it off in a sustainable manner and slowly drop another 8kg over the coming months to get to 85kg.

I'll update from time to time as I go, both good and bad.

DaithiMC · 27-01-2015 10:18AM

BenEadir wrote: »

45km this morning after a couple of spuds last night and porridge with water this morning. Much much better than last week. No bonking that's for sure.

Thanks for the advice everyone including those who completely disagree with what I'm doing, it's all good to know.

Phase one ends today. 9kg dropped in total.

The challenge now is to keep it off in a sustainable manner and slowly drop another 8kg over the coming months to get to 85kg.

I'll update from time to time as I go, both good and bad.

Another spud for the pot, so to speak, in relation to sustaining weight loss and maintaining long term health.... http://www.optimal.org/peter/cron.htm

ford2600 · 10-02-2015 01:33PM

Jawgap wrote: »

Sure there is.

The 'Eatwell Plate' for a start. 'Unfortunately' for the diet weight loss industry that's a free, easy to understand resource, so there's no secret to be sold. Thus creating an incentive to muddy the waters with as much as possible.

The eat well plate is just a rehashed food pyrimad. It's a low fat diet, 2/3 of reccommendations are predominatly carbs.

Reccommending it as optimum for everyone is nonsense.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/advice-to-cut-intake-of-fat-and-saturated-fat-wrong-1.2096666

Edit; worth a read OP, very good website in general
http://www.dominicmunnelly.ie/2013/09/is-your-cardio-keeping-you-fat-and-out-of-shape/

Hi Ho · 15-02-2015 06:25PM

Jawgap wrote: »

...And how can you even have a 'paleo' diet - the diets of different groups varied so wildly - the people roaming in Africa were eating a completely different diet to the ones roaming the tundra.

This is very true. It's the interpretation of 'science' that matters. Science scan show that a certain Inuit population lives very long probably because of diet, but to suggest that this would be suitable for Celtic genes ( or whatever) wouldn't be a good use of science.

BenEadir · 02-04-2015 11:24PM

Hi all, OP here.

Just wanted to update the thread. I'm three months into the Harcombe diet and I can report that although I haven't followed it to the letter I have applied the key principles i.e. vastly reduced carb intake (no white flour or pasta whatsoever) , all sugar in tea/coffee and sugary drinks gone from my diet, all (nearly all) processed foods , burgers, sausages, convenience foods gone and take aways are (mostly) gone as are sugary snacks such as chocolate bars, crisps etc.

Typical days food might be:-

Breakfast - chopped apples and bananas with natural yoghurt and milled linseed or porridge with bananas and sultanas

Lunch - 3 poached eggs with loads of grilled streaky bacon on a big bed of green leaf salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and milled linseed sprinkled over it or 2 x 8 ounce rib eye steaks and 3 fried eggs or 900g of grilled lamb chops.

Dinner - Not much given the lunches I tend to have!!! Maybe some grilled fish with steamed asparagus and freshly made hollandaise sauce.

The initial period I called "detox" resulted in a loss of circa 10kg and since then I'm glad to report I've kept it off and actually lost another 1.5kg or so although that fluctuates a little from time to time as I have had a few blow out dinners and nights out for big events but always back on plan the following day.

It's actually bizarre, the odd time I've had a bit of junk food e.g. burger and chips I really felt bloated and a little unwell. I've also noticed I have a much reduced appetite, I don't eat the volume I used to eat and feel full and satisfied after eating much less than previously.

Anyway, I'm not here to declare I have succeeded or anything like that but to say I've kept the weight off, lost a little more and I'm quite happy to have dropped or massively reduced the junk food, processed food, white flour/pasta etc and alcohol from my diet. Did I actually need the Harcombe diet to achieve that? Probably not, I should have known these things were not a good idea and to reduce or eliminate them but it did provide me with a framework for cleaning up my act in a sustainable (thus far) manner which I'm happy with and grateful for.

End of update!!

Diet Vs Safe cycling

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