The Warrior Diet

[Guest guest]

>I eat the " Argentinean " way when I am in Vegas because I know what Vegas

>means for me - late nights - lots of food - lots of wine/beer, etc. Lots

>of fun but certainly not good for the waistline under normal

>circumstances. Yet I normally lose weight. If I know I have to eat during

>the day on a regular basis while there I just go Atkins, leaving out all

>the carbs except alcohol and veggies, and I remain lean as well.

Interesting. I kind of wonder of most of the world doesn't eat

" one meal " -- considering how much work it is to cook if you

don't have a fridge and electric stove. So the " with starch " method

works if you only eat in the evening, and the " low carb " method

works if you eat during the day?

>The author of the Warrior Diet seems to

>think that a really big meal cranks up the metabolism. Whatever the

>mechanism, it works for me.

I kind of wonder if part of it is the reverse of the " starvation "

principle. They say if you starve yourself your metabolism

lowers and you store lots of fat. If you " feast " , then maybe

it makes you satisfied so your body says " ok, not starving! " .

But maybe that ONLY works if you don't eat all that much

the rest of the time (otherwise no one going to Vegas

would gain weight!).

So how fat are Argententians, compared to Americans?

How is their diet as far as starches and sugars?

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

On Thu, 07 Aug 2003 19:56:51 -0700

Heidi Schuppenhauer <heidis@...> wrote:

>

> >i don't know much about cortisol, but what component of alcohol

> >causes this?

> >

> >it makes me think of someone i know who drinks heavily and has a

> >pretty extreme beer belly (and is a short female!).

> >

> >mike parker

>

> I don't know what it is about alchohol that raises cortisol

> levels, but the cortisol book says the same thing. Allergies raise

> cortisol levels too. Basically anything that the body perceives

> as " stress " . Now those Sumo wrestlers do 4-5 hours worth of

> training too, which you would think would be stressful ...

>

> -- Heidi

>

I'm curious about this as well. I can drink unpasteurized beer/wine

until the cows come home, and as long as there is little or no starch in

my diet I don't gain an ounce of weight or create a beer belly.

[Guest guest]

On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 20:23:22 EDT

ChrisMasterjohn@... wrote:

> In a message dated 8/12/03 6:39:19 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

> heidis@... writes:

>

> > Interesting. I kind of wonder of most of the world doesn't eat

> > " one meal " -- considering how much work it is to cook if you

> > don't have a fridge and electric stove.

>

> Maybe it has to do with what you *do*. You're what, a computer programmer,

> right? I can't imagine going out and mowing a hayfield with a scythe for a

> couple hours at 5 in the morning on a piece of fruit!

>

> Chris

>

Well the model for the " Warrior Diet " is actually someone who does do a

lot physically , i.e a warrior, thus the name.

[Guest guest]

>Maybe it has to do with what you *do*. You're what, a computer programmer,

>right? I can't imagine going out and mowing a hayfield with a scythe for a

>couple hours at 5 in the morning on a piece of fruit!

>

>Chris

Actually yesterday I cleared a patch of berries and did Taekwando with no

food. The weight lifters often do their aerobics on an empty stomach

(so the fat burns, not carbs) and the Sumo guys do 5 hours in the morning

on an empty stomach, then cram 5,000 calories in with 2 meals (I think the

reason THEY gain is sheer food-forcing: if they followed their appetites

they'd not be so fat, IMO). What is interesting though is that on the days

I was really working the hardest, I didn't get hungry until I stopped

(this was several all-day marathons), which was what got me thinking

about fat-release. One week I tried Nordic tracking on an empty stomach --

I was tired and dizzy for 20 minutes, then suddenly felt fine and full of

energy.

My life isn't that sedentary any more -- I work

mostly at night, which in fact is when I get hungry, sitting here thinking

about food! So eating at night works good -- I can snack and type ...

During the day I'm feeding animals, working in the yard,

cleaning house, cooking meals, and on my feet. Granted not usually

mowing hay, but I work up a sweat. If exercise could make me lose

weight, I'd be skinny!

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

>Maybe it has to do with what you *do*. You're what, a computer programmer,

>right? I can't imagine going out and mowing a hayfield with a scythe for a

>couple hours at 5 in the morning on a piece of fruit!

>

>Chris

Actually I just went out and " did " some more berry bushes (fed 'em to

the goats) and I came up with a good analogy ...

Suppose you are a 150 lb. hypothetical male scything some wheat

(poor guy, too late for the paleo!). Suppose you burn 3,000 calories

before you stop to eat.

Where do you suppose that 3,000 calories came from? From breakfast?

Not likely. If you ate bacon and eggs for breakfast, the protein will probably

be broken down into amino acids and used for muscle repair and to replace

blood cells. The fat will get stored eventually, but in any case, since

you are working so hard, blood is diverted from your digestive system

and digestion slows down. So a little bit of the food might make it

to become energy, but not much. If you had refined wheat flour for

breakfast, some of that would turn into glucose within an hour or

so, but not 3,000 calories worth.

So where does the energy come from? From glycogen in your liver and muscles, and

lipids in your bloodstream. The glycogen was stored there the day before,

mostly,

and the lipids come from your fat cells, mostly. So our 150 lb man, if he

has 10% fat (pretty lean), has 15 lbs of fat, or 45,000 calories handy to burn.

He uses up 3,000 calories scything. That night he eats some food, digests it

during the night, and replenishes the one lb of fat he lost working. He probably

uses up most of his glycogen too, which he can replenish at dinner.

So how come eating a meal makes you stop being hungry and gives

you so much energy????? THAT is the question. I think it mainly

has to do with your body telling itself that it is " ok " to release

fat and glycogen stores and turning off " hunger " .

Plus seratonin and endorphins and

who knows what make your brain feel good. But the idea

that the food is directly providing energy is, I think, mostly

illusory.

In fact, if you go out and scythe wheat on a full stomach,

some of the energy is diverted from your muscles to

your stomach, so you have LESS energy. Carnivores

just SIT after they eat, and sleep -- snakes take at least

a few days, just laying there, and cats sleep a lot. Even

my goats just sit and chew cud once their stomachs

are full.

The fact that a lot of us DO have to eat to get energy

probably says something about our insulin/cortisol

system. But I suspect the energy is still coming from

fat and stored glycogen, or at least a lot of it. Otherwise

we'd be living off nothing but glucose ... ok, maybe some

of us ARE living off glucose and the fat just sits there ...

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 8/12/03 8:50:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

slethnobotanist@... writes:

> Well the model for the " Warrior Diet " is actually someone who does do a

> lot physically , i.e a warrior, thus the name.

I understand that but obviously most people doing it aren't (hardly anyone in

modern society works a fraction of what people did 1 or 2 centuries ago), and

I frankly can't see how it would work unless you were chewing on coca leaves

all day.

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 8/12/03 9:02:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

> Actually yesterday I cleared a patch of berries and did Taekwando with no

> food. The weight lifters often do their aerobics on an empty stomach

> (so the fat burns, not carbs) and the Sumo guys do 5 hours in the morning

> on an empty stomach, then cram 5,000 calories in with 2 meals (I think the

> reason THEY gain is sheer food-forcing: if they followed their appetites

> they'd not be so fat, IMO).

Heidi,

I personally don't think 5,000 calories is an enormous amount of food for 2

meals (big, but by no means enormous), but it's certainly an enormous amount

for 1 meal. I can't imagine there are any serious weight lifters that eat less

than 5,000 calories in a day, so they'd have to eat similarly if they were not

not eat three meals in a day. Some people find it best to work out on an

empty stomach, but I think it's more likely to find it hard. I simply can't.

What is interesting though is that on the days

> I was really working the hardest, I didn't get hungry until I stopped

> (this was several all-day marathons), which was what got me thinking

> about fat-release. One week I tried Nordic tracking on an empty stomach --

> I was tired and dizzy for 20 minutes, then suddenly felt fine and full of

> energy.

>

> My life isn't that sedentary any more -- I work

> mostly at night, which in fact is when I get hungry, sitting here thinking

> about food! So eating at night works good -- I can snack and type ...

> During the day I'm feeding animals, working in the yard,

> cleaning house, cooking meals, and on my feet. Granted not usually

> mowing hay, but I work up a sweat. If exercise could make me lose

> weight, I'd be skinny!

What about people who don't have weight to lose? How are they going to eat

enough calories? If you suppress your appetite in the day, you can't usually

make up for it in one meal. I generally eat a 1500 calorie meal. But if I

skip my first two meals, I can't fit a 4500 calorie meal in me at the end of the

day.

I haven't done a lot of mowing hay but the little I've done leads me to think

most people don't do anything comparable. You work muscles you didn't even

know you had ;-)

Chris

[Guest guest]

Heidi,

A high-fat meal leads to postprandial spikes in triglycerides, so why could

the blood triglycerides be from the meal that are being broken down? Blood

sugar goes up pretty quickly too. (Minutes?) The wheat flour wouldn't *all* get

broken down at once, but some of it would get broken down by the time you get

out there, and the rest would come continuously.

For myself, if I eat a full meal, and go work out, I'm hungry enough to eat

another full meal afterwards.

Chris

In a message dated 8/13/03 12:41:37 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

> Actually I just went out and " did " some more berry bushes (fed 'em to

> the goats) and I came up with a good analogy ...

>

> Suppose you are a 150 lb. hypothetical male scything some wheat

> (poor guy, too late for the paleo!). Suppose you burn 3,000 calories

> before you stop to eat.

>

> Where do you suppose that 3,000 calories came from? From breakfast?

> Not likely. If you ate bacon and eggs for breakfast, the protein will

> probably

> be broken down into amino acids and used for muscle repair and to replace

> blood cells. The fat will get stored eventually, but in any case, since

> you are working so hard, blood is diverted from your digestive system

> and digestion slows down. So a little bit of the food might make it

> to become energy, but not much. If you had refined wheat flour for

> breakfast, some of that would turn into glucose within an hour or

> so, but not 3,000 calories worth.

>

> So where does the energy come from? From glycogen in your liver and muscles,

> and

> lipids in your bloodstream. The glycogen was stored there the day before,

> mostly,

> and the lipids come from your fat cells, mostly. So our 150 lb man, if he

> has 10% fat (pretty lean), has 15 lbs of fat, or 45,000 calories handy to

> burn.

> He uses up 3,000 calories scything. That night he eats some food, digests it

> during the night, and replenishes the one lb of fat he lost working. He

> probably

> uses up most of his glycogen too, which he can replenish at dinner.

>

> So how come eating a meal makes you stop being hungry and gives

> you so much energy????? THAT is the question. I think it mainly

> has to do with your body telling itself that it is " ok " to release

> fat and glycogen stores and turning off " hunger " .

> Plus seratonin and endorphins and

> who knows what make your brain feel good. But the idea

> that the food is directly providing energy is, I think, mostly

> illusory.

>

> In fact, if you go out and scythe wheat on a full stomach,

> some of the energy is diverted from your muscles to

> your stomach, so you have LESS energy. Carnivores

> just SIT after they eat, and sleep -- snakes take at least

> a few days, just laying there, and cats sleep a lot. Even

> my goats just sit and chew cud once their stomachs

> are full.

>

> The fact that a lot of us DO have to eat to get energy

> probably says something about our insulin/cortisol

> system. But I suspect the energy is still coming from

> fat and stored glycogen, or at least a lot of it. Otherwise

> we'd be living off nothing but glucose ... ok, maybe some

> of us ARE living off glucose and the fat just sits there ...

" To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are

to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and

servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. " --Theodore

Roosevelt

[Guest guest]

Interesting discussion. Might the warrior diet have the same benefits

as one with alternated fasting (shown to lengthen lifespan in mice)?

It seems to apply the same principle. Perhaps there's a certain amount

of hours necessary to fast before gaining any benefits?

BTW, I've noticed that as you move away from sugar/refined grains it

becomes easier to fast. I'm still trying to figure out how to get a

fasting lifestyle going but I don't think it will be that hard. The

last few times I've fasted I haven't felt without energy at all

(except near the end of the day).

-

[Guest guest]

-

>alternated fasting (shown to lengthen lifespan in mice)?

Calorie restriction is a crock of crap, if you'll pardon my French. If you

want to be torpid around the clock, it's the way to go, but remember what

kind of calories these lab animals are being denied: " scientifically "

balanced kibble. Healthy wild specimens already live as long as the

calorie-restricted ones do.

-

[Guest guest]

>Heidi,

>

>I personally don't think 5,000 calories is an enormous amount of food for 2

>meals (big, but by no means enormous), but it's certainly an enormous amount

>for 1 meal. I can't imagine there are any serious weight lifters that eat less

>than 5,000 calories in a day, so they'd have to eat similarly if they were not

>not eat three meals in a day. Some people find it best to work out on an

>empty stomach, but I think it's more likely to find it hard. I simply can't.

Personally I thought it was impossible to work out on an empty stomach,

so I never did it. Now I'm finding out I was incorrect (not for the first

time!).

5,000 calories isn't unusual for a weightlifter ... though these are Japanese,

and I guess the average Japanese guy eats something like 2,300 calories

a day (less than the average American). Actually the Sumos don't do

things *all* that different from bodybuilders (and they do pack on a lot

more muscle than the average Japanese guy) so the extra fat is interesting.

The bodybuilder info I've read often claims that aerobic exercise is the

secret to eating lots of calories and still maintaining little fat ... maybe the

Sumos do mainly non-aerobic exercise. The " weight-lifters " (non-showoffs)

carry a fair bit of fat too, I've noticed.

>What about people who don't have weight to lose? How are they going to eat

>enough calories? If you suppress your appetite in the day, you can't usually

>make up for it in one meal. I generally eat a 1500 calorie meal. But if I

>skip my first two meals, I can't fit a 4500 calorie meal in me at the end of

the

>day.

I don't know, and I haven't read the book yet. His idea is that you can work

out better and be stronger, and the mouse studies ARE very intriguing.

Fasting half a day is a darn sight better than eating a reduced-calorie

diet for the rest of your life!!!! Supposedly the mice get neurological

and life-extension benefits.

As for muscle-mass -- for body builders,

I just don't know, body-building is such an interesting thing, it's difficult

to get the body to hold more muscle mass than it " needs, " and it doesn't

really take much muscle mass to be strong.

>I haven't done a lot of mowing hay but the little I've done leads me to think

>most people don't do anything comparable. You work muscles you didn't even

>know you had ;-)

Having watched those strong guys get exhausted by it on PBS I can imagine

that the average woman wouldn't even want to *think* about it. The railroad

guys too -- I can't imagine how many calories you'd have to use up

to use up 4 lbs of pemmican a day.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

>Heidi,

>

>A high-fat meal leads to postprandial spikes in triglycerides, so why could

>the blood triglycerides be from the meal that are being broken down? Blood

>sugar goes up pretty quickly too. (Minutes?) The wheat flour wouldn't *all*

get

>broken down at once, but some of it would get broken down by the time you get

>out there, and the rest would come continuously.

This is true. But the spikes seem to go up way before the food gets broken down.

One

thing I was reading mentioned that the spikes start even when the food is still

being

chewed! I haven't read much detail on this and I'd love to get more info, but

I've

personally experienced the return of energy and fullness after a big bowl of

lettuce ...

lettuce just does not have enough calories to do much, so how could that

possibly work?

From what I've read, the blood-sugar/triglyceride bit is really complex. Some

triglycerides

(like MCT) really can go straight into the blood, and baked goods do get broken

down into

glucose (easily available, can be absorbed by the stomach) quickly.

But you have a lot MORE sugar and fat available to your body than that little

trickle

coming from your digestive system. You have POUNDS of it, easily accessible.

Your

body can release it any time. It's like having a million dollars in the bank,

but living off

a little allowance you get daily. Our bodies tend to wait for the allowance, and

not use

the million dollars -- but that isn't *normal* (or at least some people don't

think it

is normal). Hoarding fat and glycogen and forcing the poor person to eat

constantly

is a sign something is going wrong!

Basically what I think happens is your body

waits til it gets a meal, then says " Oh, there is a meal here, I'll unlock the

bank doors

now " and then your blood sugar and triglycerides go up. In fact I can unlock the

doors

just as effectively with a bowl of chicken broth as with a big meal, or with a

big salad,

or with some aerobic exercise (doing 20 minutes of aerobics on an empty stomach

is hard though!).

>For myself, if I eat a full meal, and go work out, I'm hungry enough to eat

>another full meal afterwards.

And people REALLY working out have different issues. I hear the book actually

talks about post-workout meals ...

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 8/13/03 11:27:02 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

Idol@... writes:

> Calorie restriction is a crock of crap, if you'll pardon my French. If you

>

> want to be torpid around the clock, it's the way to go, but remember what

> kind of calories these lab animals are being denied: " scientifically "

> balanced kibble. Healthy wild specimens already live as long as the

> calorie-restricted ones do.

And let's not forget the GM mice experiment, where the mice were genetically

altered not to produce insulin in response to carbs. The GM mice ate MORE

calories than the control group, but had just as good life-expansion as the

fasting mice in the other experiments. So insulin is the issue, not calories.

Most people thinking regular meals are best to keep insulin in line-- Heidi

says the Warrior diet seems to stabilize her blood sugar. I have no idea.

I wonder what the eating pattern of these *wild* mice is???

I question the irregularity of hunter-gatherers' meals. Periods of hunger

no doubt happened depending, geographically, where they were, but this

wasn't/isn't a universal thing, time-wise nor geography-wise. My guess is the

hunter-gatherers that *didn't* have to deal with periods of famine would be

better

off in health. When we talked about hunter-gatherers that have been studied in

the modern period in anthropology class, I didn't get the impression they

were feast/famining. The San, for instance, in the Kalahari desert, alternated

between hunting every day for an hour or two and catching small animals and

hunting all day for one day a week and catching giraffes. You catch a giraffe,

you feed the tribe for a week. No need to skip breakfast. If you don't have

meat for whatever reason, you just eat more mongongo nuts.

People talk about the supposed horrors of h & g life because they want to

believe we're better off. But when modern h & g folks are actually studied, a lot

of

that crap gets revealed as myth. For example, the idea that man developed

agriculture to give him leisure time! What a load of bunk! No one has as much

leisure as hunter-gatherers.

If h & g life is so conducive to feast-and-famine, why are there h & g groups

that live next to agriculturists, maintain contact with agriculturists, yet

never

adopt agriculture.

Once an interviewer asked a member of the San why they didn't adopt

agriculture if they knew about it, and he said, " What for, with all these

mongongo nuts

around? "

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 8/13/03 12:32:02 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

> This is true. But the spikes seem to go up way before the food gets broken

> down. One

> thing I was reading mentioned that the spikes start even when the food is

> still being

> chewed!

Hmm... so that indicates that eating is a stress on the body maybe. I know

cholesterol levels are widely variable and will go up with stress, probably

because they are precursors to adrenal hormones. However, I've read a few

studies that found postprandial spikes specifically in relation to a)high-fat

meals

and eating fructose. Fat is fat, and fructose gets turned into fat in the

liver pretty easily, as well as glucose. So, while there might be initial

spikes in triglycerides and/or cholesterol as a response to the stress of

eating,

quite clearly these fats start flooding the blood soon after.

I haven't read much detail on this and I'd love to get more info, but I've

> personally experienced the return of energy and fullness after a big bowl

> of lettuce ...lettuce just does not have enough calories to do much, so how

> could that possibly work?

>

Well, *I* certainly don't get energy and fullness from a big bowl of lettuce.

Do you put anything on it? Olive oil? It's pretty easy to turn a quart of

salad from insignificant to a 1000 calorie meal if the salad is big enough,

with olive oil.

Besides, it doesnt't take much carbs to get your blood sugar stabilized. If

my blood sugar crashes, if there's nothing else available, 2 oz of orange

juice or 2 grams of sugar will bring it back up quite soon, within minutes.

Your

system might just digest lettuce well, so it gives you just enough carbs

while not clogging up the system.

> From what I've read, the blood-sugar/triglyceride bit is really complex.

> Some triglycerides

> (like MCT) really can go straight into the blood, and baked goods do get

> broken down into

> glucose (easily available, can be absorbed by the stomach) quickly.

>

> But you have a lot MORE sugar and fat available to your body than that

> little trickle

> coming from your digestive system. You have POUNDS of it, easily accessible.

> Your body can release it any time. It's like having a million dollars in the

> bank, but living off a little allowance you get daily. Our bodies tend to

> wait for the allowance, and not use the million dollars -- but that isn't

> *normal* (or at least some people don't think it is normal). Hoarding fat and

> glycogen and forcing the poor person to eat constantly is a sign something is

> going wrong!

>

Storing fat and releasing fat are both done by hormones. My understanding is

that glucagon is primarily responsible for turning body fat into blood sugar,

and insulin the reverse. Yet insulin levels are effected not to long after

eating-- in response to carbs from the food going straight to the blood.

> Basically what I think happens is your body

> waits til it gets a meal, then says " Oh, there is a meal here, I'll unlock

> the bank doors

> now " and then your blood sugar and triglycerides go up. In fact I can unlock

> the doors

> just as effectively with a bowl of chicken broth as with a big meal, or with

> a big salad,

> or with some aerobic exercise (doing 20 minutes of aerobics on an empty

> stomach

> is hard though!).

I agree about the exercise. You might be right, but the protein in the

chicken broth would stimulate the release of glucagon which would turn stored

fat

into blood sugar, while the lettuce has its own sugar. If it is a " big " salad,

it should have sufficient carbs, I'd think (depending on how you define big,

and what kind of lettuce it is, etc, etc).

> And people REALLY working out have different issues. I hear the book

> actually

> talks about post-workout meals ...

>

Well, that was my point. Originally, I said the difference in how it works

is probably attributable to what you're *doing*. *Really* working out is what

people used to do. Whatever people do for farming and gardening now, or most

landscaping and contstruction, doesn't, in my estimation, provide as much of a

workout as mowing with a scythe or harvesting with a sickle, etc. People mow

at Old Sturbridge Village, but a group of people do a field in pieces that

would be done by one person then, probably. There's one guy who works there who

I buy eggs from sometimes who actually mows his own grass with a scythe--

everyone else thinks he's a nutcase.

Chris

[Guest guest]

,

Would you mind expanding on that? Do you have any studies or

information I could have a look at it? I'd be extremely interested in

seeing that after all the reading I've done on Calorie Restriction boards!

Cheers!

-

-----

Calorie restriction is a crock of crap, if you'll pardon my French. If you

want to be torpid around the clock, it's the way to go, but remember what

kind of calories these lab animals are being denied: " scientifically "

balanced kibble. Healthy wild specimens already live as long as the

calorie-restricted ones do.

[Guest guest]

>> Calorie restriction is a crock of crap, if you'll pardon my French. If you

want to be torpid around the clock, it's the way to go, but remember what

kind of calories these lab animals are being denied: " scientifically "

balanced kibble. Healthy wild specimens already live as long as the

calorie-restricted ones do. <<

Hmm, I had not thought of that.

It makes me think about my dogs. I started feeding a raw meat, low grain diet to

my dogs 17 and a half years ago, and about 7 or 8 years into that I went grain

free, ultra-low carb with them also (just some cooked and raw, food processed

greens, basically). Because sighthounds have very odd conformation (extremely

deep chests with a high " tuck " at the groin), they are believed to have a lesser

stomach capacity than dogs with more normal conformation. This may or may not be

true, but it IS true that dogs with this shape have a statistically higher

incidence of a disorder known as gastric dilation and vovulus, or " bloat and

torsion. " Dogs who eat once a day suffer from bloat and torsion more frequently

than dogs who eat twice or three times a day, so the recommendation for these

dogs is generally to feed at least twice daily.

So, the long and the short of it is, even though I try to raise my dogs as

" naturally " as possible, I have always minimized or avoided the wolf model of

" feast and famine " with them, with the desire to compensate for their unnatural

body shape.

And yet my deerhounds have all outlived their kibble-fed relatives - outlived

their littermates raised by other people who fed kibble, outlived their parents

who were owned by others who fed kibble, outlived their close relatives who

lived in kibble-feeding homes. Naturally there are many reasons this might be,

but when you have giant breed dogs routinely living to the age of 12 (average

lifespan of a deerhound is 8-10 years), and outliving all their relatives, you

have to conclude that eating 14 meals a week is not harming their lifespan.

There is no way to isolate all the factors involved with my dogs- but I do think

that the " kibble " diet of the laboratory mouse has to be taken into

consideration here. If is correct (and I believe he is) that all this study

did was extend lab mouse lifespan to the same as wild mouse lifespan, the

benefit may have been related to the composition of the diet requiring some sort

of altered feeding pattern, detox period, etc., rather than calorie

restriction/fasting per se.

I do know that all the studies done correlating reduced calorie intake with

longer lifespan in dogs did NOT fast them - they just reduced calories and kept

the dogs leaner. My dogs are all naturally lean (my deerhounds - my retriever

mix and my chow mix need/needed to have amounts restricted for them, as both

would eat until they popped if allowed). I think the book is still open on what

is optimum nutrition for dogs or mice or humans (although I lean toward an

evolutionary point of view and look at what the species evolved on).

Neither dogs nor humans are grazers by nature. I think that periods of either

intense activity or sleep, interspersed with high-fat, moderate protein, low

carb meals is more or less the correct model for both humans and dogs. (I can

see some humans, and probably some wild canids, getting higher carbs from fruit,

during summer months in some parts of the world.) There are periods of

famine/food shortage that limit food for both species, although there are human

cultures, such as the Ohlone Indians of California, for whom there is no

archeological or geological evidence of any food shortage or famine ever having

affected them, as far back as we can go, so this is not universal - I don't know

how common or rare it is.

And of course - I don't want to feed my dogs, or myself, our *actual*

evolutionary diet, I want to feed our OPTIMUM diets, which I believe would be

based on evolutionary principles. Is famine, or the feast/famine cycle, optimum

for dogs or for us? Or is it just something that is part of their/our evolution

in some times and places?

Christie

[Guest guest]

Quoting ChrisMasterjohn@...:

> And let's not forget the GM mice experiment, where the mice were

> genetically

> altered not to produce insulin in response to carbs. The GM mice ate

> MORE

> calories than the control group, but had just as good life-expansion as

> the

> fasting mice in the other experiments. So insulin is the issue, not

> calories.

Wouldn't the inability to produce insulin be fatal, just as it usually was

with type-1 diabetics before the availability of injectable insulin?

> Most people thinking regular meals are best to keep insulin in line--

> Heidi

> says the Warrior diet seems to stabilize her blood sugar. I have no

> idea.

For what it's worth, there was a recent experiment where they fed mice only

on alternate days. Despite eating the same number of total calories as the

control group, they achieved life spans similar to those achieved by

caloric restriction.

--

Berg

bberg@...

[Guest guest]

>Interesting discussion. Might the warrior diet have the same benefits

>as one with alternated fasting (shown to lengthen lifespan in mice)?

>It seems to apply the same principle. Perhaps there's a certain amount

>of hours necessary to fast before gaining any benefits?

>

>BTW, I've noticed that as you move away from sugar/refined grains it

>becomes easier to fast. I'm still trying to figure out how to get a

>fasting lifestyle going but I don't think it will be that hard. The

>last few times I've fasted I haven't felt without energy at all

>(except near the end of the day).

>

>-

I think they are all related. The " low calorie " mice (eat all day but eat less)

and the feast/famine mice both seem to have the same results. They

are not, at least according to the researchers, torpid, and they are

healthier.

But I totally agree that lab mice don't get the correct diet -- so it is still

an open question how they would fare on their " wild " diet (which is

no doubt low grain). The problem with lab mice though, is that they

are from a strain that has lived with humans so long that they have

*adapted* to our diet and germs, which is why they use them.

The thing is, all three diets -- low cal, low carb, and feast/famine,

are thought to work according to the same principles, which is

getting insulin under control. Personally I have no desire to live

my entire life either low cal or low carb, so I think it is kind of

exciting.

I'm not sure how sugar fits into all this. Usually a high-sugar-starch

meal makes it harder for me later. Yesterday night I had some baked

apples though and it had no affect on me this morning. The one-meal

cycle seems to work a LOT different than the smaller cycles. But Ori

has a bit about allergies in the " Stubborn Fat " article that I think is

relevant -- when I was eating wheat, my blood sugar was MUCH more

unstable. It is much better when I eat non-wheat starches (like sorghum).

So I think some of the reaction was a cortisol reaction to the allergen,

not to the starch. I'm not sure how this would work if I was still eating

a lot of the foods I react to.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

>Storing fat and releasing fat are both done by hormones. My understanding is

>that glucagon is primarily responsible for turning body fat into blood sugar,

>and insulin the reverse. Yet insulin levels are effected not to long after

>eating-- in response to carbs from the food going straight to the blood.

That's basically what I'm saying. Hormone levels get affected even if

the carbs don't go to the blood -- the hormones CAN give you energy

without food present at all. Body builders (at least the Parillo camp) do

an hour of aerobics on an empty stomach to force the fat to be used

(because you are at a low glycogen level first thing in the morning),

and surprisingly enough it does work. Chewing coca leaves probably

does a similar thing -- actually so does drinking coffee (releases lipids

into the blood). Humans can do a lot of work with no food being

currently digested, just like camels can live in the desert with no

water and bears can hibernate all winter.

>I agree about the exercise. You might be right, but the protein in the

>chicken broth would stimulate the release of glucagon which would turn stored

fat

>into blood sugar, while the lettuce has its own sugar. If it is a " big " salad,

>it should have sufficient carbs, I'd think (depending on how you define big,

>and what kind of lettuce it is, etc, etc).

Right -- protein does that -- but the body seems to start the

release even before the protein gets digested. And the body can release

glucagon even if you don't eat any protein, if the body decides

you need it. The lettuce I was eating wasn't much -- I just had a handful

and I was away from any food source and there was no dressing. Lettuce

commonly " works " in those situations though, as does chicken broth -- but

orange juice does not, for some reason. What I've read though, is

that the mere taste of certain foods starts the hormones flowing.

(like saliva and Pavlov's dogs!).

>Well, that was my point. Originally, I said the difference in how it works

>is probably attributable to what you're *doing*. *Really* working out is what

>people used to do. Whatever people do for farming and gardening now, or most

>landscaping and contstruction, doesn't, in my estimation, provide as much of a

>workout as mowing with a scythe or harvesting with a sickle, etc. People mow

>at Old Sturbridge Village, but a group of people do a field in pieces that

>would be done by one person then, probably. There's one guy who works there

who

>I buy eggs from sometimes who actually mows his own grass with a scythe--

>everyone else thinks he's a nutcase.

I tried using a scythe once and never could get it to WORK! I'm not sure

farmwork

really is " natural " though. The Indians out hunting probably didn't stop for

lunch

much though (snacked on jerky and fruit?) and it seems like the Roman soldiers

only stopped for dinner too, so they did a lot of work without big meals. I'd

love to hear more from an anthropologist, but in the books there seems to be

a lot of support for the idea of snacking on fruit, nuts, cheese, and dried meat

during

the day and doing the cooking in the evening, sheerly out of convenience.

-- Heidi

>

[Guest guest]

I would be most greatful if I could have a look at the study

with GM mice. This is very much news to me!

-

[Guest guest]

Heidi, if insulin is the common denominator, what are the best ways

for keeping it down?

So this means a non calorically restricted person minimizing insulin

could live just as long as a calorically restricted person (who

presumably minimizes insulin unconciously). Could this also mean that

a calorie restricted person still eating a lot of grains might not

obtain a longer/healthier lifestyle?

Cheers,

-

[Guest guest]

>Heidi, if insulin is the common denominator, what are the best ways

>for keeping it down?

Sheesh, that is what *I'M* trying to figure out! And half the rest of the world,

it would seem!

So far the options for regulating insulin seem to be:

1. Exercise

2. Restrict calories

3. Fast

4. Get yourself genetically modified :-)

>So this means a non calorically restricted person minimizing insulin

>could live just as long as a calorically restricted person (who

>presumably minimizes insulin unconciously).

Could be? Seems like there are some people who just live a long time and no

one knows why. A lot of the " long lived " people come from cultures that

eat a lot of lactic acid though, and lactic acid seems to have a regulating

response on insulin too (Add #5 to the above! Yay kimchi and kefir!).

> Could this also mean that

>a calorie restricted person still eating a lot of grains might not

>obtain a longer/healthier lifestyle?

Hee hee. Touche. Well, that is the case with the mice! Grains aren't very good

for

mice, but they live longer either calorically restricted or feasting/fasting.

I would think that even if you are grain-intolerant, if you only ate them

once a day (as opposed to constantly, as in our culture) then the villi

might have a chance to recover. Ditto with the famous SCD bacterial

issues ... if the bacteria only get fed " bad stuff " once every 24 hours,

they don't get as much of a chance to really do bad damage. I'm just

guessing.

But in MOST things to do with our bodies, we do something then

rest awhile. For instance, weight lifting -- if you life weights, you

wear yourself out, then DON'T lift weights for 72 hours. If you do

the same thing over and over you get stuff like " repetitive stress

syndrome " and if you do that with heavy weights, you can get

some real damage.

If you eat 6 meals a day though, your gut

is always digesting something for every inch of its length, so

you have 30 feet of digesting food. That has GOT to be harder,

I would think -- all 30 feet have to get lots of blood supply etc.

If you eat one big meal, then maybe 4-6 feet of the 30 feet is

involved at any given time, and the other 26 feet can rest.

So the pancreas and liver only have to secrete enzymes for

4 hours, say, while the food is in the upper intestine, then they

can rest.

Anyway, I'm just speculating. I can say that my energy level

is about 3x what it was a week ago, and my digestion has been great.

I even cleaned the fish tank on a whim. I'm eating the same

foods (keeping the number of variables the same as much as

possible) and about the same amounts. But my body is acting

*completely* different. Kind of amazing. It's kind of a paradigm

shift, like I felt when I first discovered NT -- " OK, THIS is the

right way to live " .

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

,

Are you responding to my post about the GM mice experiment?

If so, my answer would be... yes, *insulin* matters and calorie restriction

will do nothing for you directly. It will do some for you indirectly, mostly

in terms of insulin, and the crappier your regular diet is the more effect

you'll get from it. So if you want to decrease your life span enough from a

natural diet lifespan by eating crap, that would be a great way to reap the most

benefit from calorie restriction! Yay!

Yes, you will not reap the same benefits of calorie restriction with a

grain-based diet as you will without one. Especially since grains are pretty

low in

nutrients, and low-calorie diets are pretty low in nutrients. If you have a

reasonable calorie intake, than your nutrient to calorie ratio matters most,

but if you starve yourself you're going to end up with flat out not enough

nutrients-- especially if the food you *do* eat has a significant percentage of

low-nutrient foods like grains.

*Most* of the insulin benefit of fasting can be taken care of in fasting from

*starch* and *sugar*-- which is in fact exactly what the mice are doing,

since all their fed is grain crap. That way you get more nutrients and more

satiety.

The best way to get insulin under control is to exercise, both aerobic and

strength, to restrict grains and sugars in your diet, to include fat in your

diet, and to eat modestly-- i.e. not overstuffing yourself at a given meal.

You can get your insulin checked but I don't know if insurance usually covers

it. From what I've read, it should be under 5, and ideally under 2 (fat

chance for SAD diets and probably for me! :-/ )

One of insulin's primary roles is to regulate life span, and does so

exclusively in " lower " life forms such as worms. See Ron Rosedale's " Insulin

and its

Metabolic Effects " on Mercola's site.

Chris

In a message dated 8/13/03 8:53:52 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

paultheo2000@... writes:

> Heidi, if insulin is the common denominator, what are the best ways

> for keeping it down?

>

> So this means a non calorically restricted person minimizing insulin

> could live just as long as a calorically restricted person (who

> presumably minimizes insulin unconciously). Could this also mean that

> a calorie restricted person still eating a lot of grains might not

> obtain a longer/healthier lifestyle?

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 8/14/03 7:36:19 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

paultheo2000@... writes:

> I'm really interested in finding out if CR(ON) is bunk as was alluded

> too in another post. Perhaps CR isn't the mechanism but it seems like

> it fulfills the purpose just as well. Animals in the wild, or humans

> eating very healthily are probably calorie restricted anyway.

Huh? Calorie restriction diets are usually around 1200 calories a day.

There's no reason whatsoever to think most of Price's subjects ate that little,

and I certainly don't, despite the vast improvement in my health since eating

" NT. " In fact I eat more calories now, and in fact I eat even more since I've

been working out, which has also helped me, and which supposedly also lowers

insulin levels.

Chris

[Guest guest]

,

Do you work out with weights?

I've always been underweight, but when I started working out I gained 17

pounds in four months, and that was with my busy schedule only allowing me to go

once or twice a week.

Chris