I've Joined a Cult

ROK ON · 18-06-2013 4:03pm

Will be watching this thread with interest.

It should be relatively easy for me to adhere to this diet in that I pretty much detest pasta and rice (other than risotto). However I like bread and cake and spud.

Anyhow when you say you don't eat sugar, you do mean I bthe processed form?

You can eat fruit, correct?
What about unprocessed maple syrup or honey/honeycomb?

A local cheesemaker of mine makes a fantastic blue - Beara Blue. It is gorgeous as a sale with some nice leaves, honeycomb and pecans.

Lumen · 18-06-2013 4:16pm

ROK ON wrote: »

It should be relatively easy for me to adhere to this diet in that I pretty much detest pasta and rice (other than risotto). However I like bread and cake and spud.

I have read that whilst a very low carb/high fat diet can be healthy, and a very high carb/low fat diet can be healthy, a high carb/high fat diet will kill you.

ROK ON · 18-06-2013 4:19pm

Lumen wrote: »

I have read that whilst a very low carb/high fat diet can be healthy, and a very high carb/low fat diet can be healthy, a high carb/high fat diet will kill you.

That is part of the point.
I notice in the South of France that when folks eat carbs( say at breakfast) they are only eating carbs.
Then at dinner it's salads and protein with damn all carbs.
Food groups are isolated from one another so to speak. Similar in certain parts of Italy.

petethedrummer · 18-06-2013 4:22pm

ROK ON wrote: »

You can eat fruit, correct?
What about unprocessed maple syrup or honey/honeycomb?

I eat some fruit but not fruit juice. I eat alot of berries. As for honey I don't know. I haven't looked into it. Lowering my carb intake has turned off my sugar cravings and I simply don't crave sweet things anymore. I am out of the 4 o'clock sweet machine gang. Though I do have the odd cappuccino with the chocolate sprinkled on top. I ask them not to put it on if I think of it beforehand.

There is a debate going on over fruit. Some say it is fattening. People like Robert Lustig say that in whole form it comes with fibre and because of that the effect on the blood sugar is greatly reduced. I simply don't know, my reading hasn't taken me down fruit street yet.

ROK ON wrote: »

A local cheesemaker of mine makes a fantastic blue - Beara Blue. It is gorgeous as a sale with some nice leaves, honeycomb and pecans.

Sure eat away. I get some carbs and sugar in some of the foods I eat (carrots/beetroot for example). There is no need to go bonkers. I just don't eat the large sources of it. Your body can deal with it in small amounts. And some people can handle enormous amounts. I can't.

petethedrummer · 18-06-2013 4:26pm

Lumen wrote: »

I have read that whilst a very low carb/high fat diet can be healthy, and a very high carb/low fat diet can be healthy, a high carb/high fat diet will kill you.

Yes, I have read something similar. I think Robert Lustig is of the opinion that sugar combined with fat is lethal combination. I have watched his talks but not read his books yet. Most of my reading has been related to Fats and Cholestorol rather than sugars and obesity.

Dr Nic · 18-06-2013 5:15pm

ROK ON wrote: »

Then at dinner it's salads and protein with damn all carbs.

Salads have no carbs? Sounds like my old man offering my vegetarian girlfriend lamb...

niceonetom · 18-06-2013 5:39pm

So you've finally decided to go recruiting. Well at least the Cult of Keto doesn't send you door to door. And how have we gotten this far into the thread without instagram foodp0rn of steak or the like - that's mandatory for Paleotards, no? You're not properly paleo until you're paleo on the internet.

Full disclosure: I've been dabbling with a generally paleo diet since last autumn and, while I'm nowhere near as far down the rabbithole as you are, Pete, but I have an idea where it goes. I do not subscribe to the low/no carb aspect of it - it's a misconception to see Paleo as necessarily ketosis oriented, it's really macro-nutrient agnostic - if you follow a paleo diet you well certainly eat less carb and a lot less sugar simply because these are comparatively rare in unprocessed foods (and paleo counts anything that contains grains as processed). I do eat sweet-potato and starchy roots veg which aren't compatible with keto. I also eat a ridiculous amount of fruit, though most lower sugar fruit like apples and berries. I haven't gone Keto and am still unconvinced of its compatibility with the requirements of road cycling (though I know it's now nearly mandatory for ultrarunners and ironmanists).

I found that on a paleo diet my weight came down a little (though I don't really need to lose weight) and my body composition changed for the better.

Seeing as there's a good amount of overlap between what I aspire to eat (I fall off the wagon often) and what you actually eat, I think I'll set up some skittles for you to knock down. Put all that reading to use. These are the conventional wisdoms that are already in this thread and must be addressed to deal with the core ideas of these diet. So:

Fat, especially saturated fats like lard, butter and coconut oil, are good for you. The supposed link between such fats and heart disease is incorrect.
Red meat, including fatty meat, is fine. Eat it.
Eggs are fine. Eat them. A lot.
Grains like wheat, corn, rye and even rice are not a natural or healthy part of the human diet. They should be avoided.
Legumes are bad too for similar reasons.

I think if you can address those then a lot of the WTF reactions you get from people when they find out that you, say, eat more than 20 eggs a week (as I do), might go away.

Anyway, good thread. I'm looking forward to seeing how it progresses.

petethedrummer · 18-06-2013 6:07pm

Yes Tom, I finally went full retard.

niceonetom wrote: »

Put all that reading to use. These are the conventional wisdoms that are already in this thread and must be addressed to deal with the core ideas of these diet.

Lol gimme a chance sheesh, 1 day in and only expected to post 2 youtube videos. I will slowly drip good books, papers and videos I have come across. Someone should start a pro-carb thread or a pro-vegetarian one. It would be interesting to hear from all angles. There is a lot to read and I don't have time to go down every route. I also am not coming from this from a weightloss angle so I cannot say it is a panacea for weight issues.

Also I am not a paleo. Lots of what I eat was not around in paleo times. It is High Fat Low Carb. I do not want a catchy title. Though I do like the idea of a tiger skin loin cloth.

As for me saying to you via PM that I had been in Ketosis. I am now not sure on that, it may have been an increased feeling of wellness due to the elimination of blood sugar issues. I may have been close. I don't have ketone monitor and I don't intend to measure this stuff (except for a quick cholesterol check) and will go by feel.

niceonetom · 18-06-2013 6:44pm

petethedrummer wrote: »

Also I am not a paleo. Lots of what I eat was not around in paleo times. It is High Fat Low Carb. I do not want a catchy title. Though I do like the idea of a tiger skin loin cloth.

I didn't mean to imply that you were paleo (though you did that yourself in your first post), in fact I meant to draw the distinction between your explicitly HFLC diet and the macro-agnostic Paleo model.

And "paleo" or "primal" as a term shouldn't be taken to mean "eating like a cave man" though that's how some describe it (usually its critics), it's really just a loose way of describing a whole slew of diets united around a basic agreement that much of what we eat today is a result of first the agrarian and then the industrial revolution and shouldn't necessarily be treated as healthy. We know that it's essentially impossible to mimic the actual diet of some notional hunter-gatherer ancestor, and even if it were it wouldn't necessarily be ideal or even very healthy. But there is a general consensus among these various strands that the taming of wheat and other grains is something that we, biologically, aren't all well adapted to dealing with, and that the much later industrialisation of food production to massively increase the availability of sugars is a bad thing.

Those basic ideas face a lot of challenges though. The conventional wisdom, half-understood and strongly held, is that fat makes you fat (and die of heart disease) while grains in bread or pasta, rice, breakfast cereal etc. should form the base of our diet. The paleo (and even more so the HFLC) diet is very counter-intuitive to a lot of people, that's why I'm challenging yo to justify the basic tenets.

Ole Rodrigo · 18-06-2013 8:51pm

Pete, if I may weigh in with some support for what you are saying, I too have been reading up on some of this, and as niceonetom says, the Paleo/ Primal view is principally about avoiding foods that our bodies have not completely adapted to ( post agrarian ) and avoiding those which raise blood sugar to excess ( one and the same thing as it turns out ). Mark Sisson ( a former triathlete but we'll let him away with that ) runs a blog in which he has collated much research, including that of Gary Taubes, to support the primal view. You could distill all of his articles into saying that with diet, there are degrees of healthfullness. One the healthiest side you have a diet rich in organic meats and wild fish, fresh leafy greens and root vegetables, nuts and seeds and low sugar fruits such as berries. Then things deviate on a sliding scale over to the least healthful, which are foods high in processed grain and sugars which offer little or no micro nutrients and wreak havoc on the digestive system and blood sugar. Everything else is between those two opposites at some point.

Mark Sisson points out that with a reasonable degree of fitness ( your body conditioned to use fat stores for energy ) its possible to engage in most amateur level cardio sports without having to resort to sugary carbs for energy. Ive tested this myself too and he's right. Fruit is enough for recovery afterwards.

Running counter to the Prinal view is the high carb low saturated fat model, which has many advocates in sports nutrition( especially cycling ) and the burgeoning ' Nutrarian ' point of view ( Joel Furhman ). What they both have in common is the emphasis on lots of fruits, vegetables ( especially leafy greens ) , nut and seeds. The difference is crucially about calories. Fat ( animal protein ) provides a convenient source of calories, so you don't have to sit there munching through 10 kilos of spinach to get 2500 calories. And grains do the same. The debate is whether good quality grains ( wholegrains, oatmeal, brown rice ) are a better energy source than saturated fat ( animal foods ) Mixing the two however, can lead to problems. Most human cholesterol is created by the body, up to 75%, the principle mechanism of this is raised blood sugar. The remaining 25% comes from animal products ( fat ). So the principle cause of high cholesterol is the manner in which the body creates it. A diet that supports cholesterol production (high in sugar and grains ) mixed with a diet that ingests cholesterol ( animal fats ) will likely cause problems. Tackling the means of production is the best strategy rather than not eating eggs.

The Primal critics point out that people have been adapting to different diets throughout history. Primal advocates respond with the ' degrees of healthfulness ' principle.

Lastly, what they all fail to emphasise is that a lot of people manage to eat healthfully without resorting to labels and food gurus ( although in fairness Mark Sisson and Michael Pollan do to some degree ). What they all do is emphasise a diet high in fresh fruit, vegetables nuts and seeds - and low in processed foods. The quote from Michael Pollan is ' Eat food ( as in real food ), not too much - mostly plants " .

Disclaimer: This is not medical advice :pac: My sources of info were:

www.marksdailyapple.com
Eat to Live, by Joel Furhman.
In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan.

Ole Rodrigo · 18-06-2013 8:59pm

ROK ON wrote: »

That is part of the point.
I notice in the South of France that when folks eat carbs( say at breakfast) they are only eating carbs.
Then at dinner it's salads and protein with damn all carbs.
Food groups are isolated from one another so to speak. Similar in certain parts of Italy.

A salad - presumably with just greens and root vegetables - has plenty of carbs. The calories from a salad with meat and greens and veg will be mostly fat, then protein and carbohydrate.

petethedrummer · 18-06-2013 9:29pm

ror_74 wrote: »

Pete, if I may weigh in with some support for what you are saying,

Anyone can weigh in, as long as you are on my side. :pac:

Inquitus · 18-06-2013 9:38pm

petethedrummer wrote: »

Anyone can weigh in, as long as you are on my side. :pac:

I remember you saying something about not being able to cycle past about 80km on the evil 200, clearly this diet is not Jens Voigt approved!

j@utis · 19-06-2013 10:13am

I just read this and it made me laugh: “Where do you get your energy from?”.
The best bit: : “Fat is the body’s preferred and most reliable form of energy, which is why we store excess energy as fat on our bodies. Unless you think we accumulate body fat just to make pants fit tighter.” LOL

niceonetom · 19-06-2013 10:59am

j@utis wrote: »

I just read this and it made me laugh: “Where do you get your energy from?”.
The best bit: : “Fat is the body’s preferred and most reliable form of energy, which is why we store excess energy as fat on our bodies. Unless you think we accumulate body fat just to make pants fit tighter.” LOL

The "Where do you get your energy from?" question is legitimate and I wouldn't be entirely satisfied with his answer.

Fuelling from fat seems perfectly possible for events that are either short enough to be fuelled straight from glycogen (explosive sports and aerobic activities below, say, 60 minute duration, everything from crossfit to a 40km TT) or so long that the rate of calorie usage is low enough to come from fat burning - IM, ultrarunning, other self-paced endurance efforts.

What I don't understand, and haven't seen many examples of, is people using fat as a primary fuel source for events that fall between these two - a 2 or 3 hour road race for instance which requires the ability to ride way above fat burning exertion for significant portions of time. The glycogen you start with will not be enough to fuel the total effort and fat, even from a well trained fat burning metabolism, cannot supply the energy fast enough to sustain the intensity.

So, is being paleo something a racing cyclist can only do between races? For me it seems so.

petethedrummer · 19-06-2013 11:12am

Today's video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vr-c8GeT34

AstraMonti · 19-06-2013 11:34am

Give us an example of a weeks worth menu.

petethedrummer · 19-06-2013 11:45am

AstraMonti wrote: »

Give us an example of a weeks worth menu.

Sorry, I'm not advising anyone on what to eat. There are books for that.

AstraMonti · 19-06-2013 11:46am

I am just interested of what you eat in a week.

enas · 19-06-2013 11:49am

petethedrummer wrote: »

Sorry, I'm not advising anyone on what to eat. There are books for that.

Still, I would be interested. Not as an advice on what to eat, I'm quite confident I don't want to follow that diet, but still I'm quite interested in your experience. Like others I guess, I do find this diet very restrictive, so I'd be interested in knowing about a typical week of your new diet. But I understand it's a rather tedious exercise.

petethedrummer · 19-06-2013 12:17pm

OK yesterday.
Breakfast. - in Work
1 sausage
2 poached eggs
2 bacon.
a piece of cheese.

Lunch - in Work
Pork Belly
Leafy salad + olives - some shaved cabbage(i think, it was white and crunchy) with some beetroot. Lots of olive oil.

Had a late dinner
I roasted chicken and had the leg & thigh with the ve g(Onions + Celery). roasted in the tray. I'll be eating chicken for the next 4 days! The joys of cooking for 1. And I drizzled some of the dripping on the chicken.

Had some brazil nuts at various times and a couple of slices of cheese here and there.

Today so far.
Breakfast - At home
2 sausages
2 fried eggs.

1 brazil nut.

actually make that 2 brazil nuts. I just had another.

petethedrummer · 19-06-2013 12:17pm

3 brazil nuts

DirkVoodoo · 19-06-2013 12:21pm

My brother is mad into goji berries at the moment. He isn't on any kind of diet like this, but he has cut out a lot of crap, sugars, etc.

His goal isn't weight loss though, he is on some weird "Man of Steel" type diet for a shirtless summer.

Sap.

petethedrummer · 19-06-2013 12:23pm

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

His goal isn't weight loss though, he is on some weird "Man of Steel" type diet for a shirtless summer.

he needs to do more pushups.

petethedrummer · 19-06-2013 12:37pm

niceonetom wrote: »

So, is being paleo something a racing cyclist can only do between races? For me it seems so.

Probably, i don't have the answers. As I have been mainly reading up on whether this is gonna prematurely kill me or not. I am now reassured that it won't but I have to get through all the books I bought.

I can't comment on my own racing as it has been curtailed due to my bloody hamstring. But I did notice vastly reduced muscle soreness after training and didn't require a sleep immediately after a long spin. During a race I can't comment. Playing football I didn't notice any inability to repeatedly sprint against very fit regular players.

I would have no problem believing that sipping on a sugary drink or taking some carbs post excercise is a good idea for bike racing. I just have not gone down that avenue. And being so innately aerobically talentless I don't know if I'll bother. I'll coast around and wait for the sprint.

Ole Rodrigo · 19-06-2013 1:35pm

petethedrummer wrote: »

.
Breakfast. - in Work
1 sausage
2 poached eggs
2 bacon.
a piece of cheese.

Today so far.
Breakfast - At home
2 sausages
2 fried eggs.

Sausages can't really be considered paleo/ primal/ketogenic because of their usually high gluten content (gluten being one of the problems associated with grains)

smacl · 19-06-2013 1:38pm

petethedrummer wrote: »

Call it Atkins, paleo, primal or whatever..... it is a very high (saturated) fat, low carbohydrate way of eating.

Sounds more Atkins than Paleo. We had a few people at work who did the Atkins diet when it came out, my only advice would be to stock up on air fresheners and leave the windows open. Paleo is more about raw and unprocessed foods, though is also low carb. I've a few friends from the martial arts community who swear by it, and seem to thrive on it. I'd give it a go myself, if they could just find that ancient tribe that also drank a gully load of beer.

Any way, best of luck with it, and looking forward to reading how it works out for you.

Ole Rodrigo · 19-06-2013 1:55pm

ror_74 wrote: »

Sausages can't really be considered paleo/ primal/ketogenic because of their usually high gluten content (gluten being one of the problems associated with grains)

I should have prefaced this by saying I'm on your side :pac:

petethedrummer · 19-06-2013 2:11pm

smacl wrote: »

Sounds more Atkins than Paleo. We had a few people at work who did the Atkins diet when it came out, my only advice would be to stock up on air fresheners and leave the windows open.

I don't fart any more than I did before. Probably less due to less wheat.

Like I said before I am not a Paleo or strictly following Atkins (don't have his book). I generally look up recipes online which are high in animal fat, use cheaper cuts of meat and low in carbohydrate. Yesterday was a bit of a meaty day. It's not like that everyday. I eat far more fish now. I might go 3 days in a row with fish as the only meat. Buying for 1 you tend to eat the same meat a few days in a row though.

It will be chicken again tonight - post training spin.

Ole Rodrigo · 19-06-2013 2:51pm

Paleo answers to cyclists concerns:

http://www.pelotonmagazine.com/Feedzone/content/6/147/5-Minutes-with-Health-and-Fitness-Expert-Mark-Sisson

Interesting point about overcompensating with carbohydrate consumption, I know I've done that myself. In fact it is this that can result in an unbalanced diet, making you erroneously question how healthy cycling is.

Nothing to do with cycling - just too much carbs (sugar) for the effort expended.

I've Joined a Cult

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