The Inuit Paradox – High Protein & Fat, No Fruits/Vegetables and yet Lower Heart Disease and Cancer
The Inuit Paradox
Want to know about a group of people who eat primarily only meat and fat, very little fruits and vegetables and are healthier than any other group of people? Well meet the Inuit from the frozen North. They seemed to eat all the things that are blamed for heart disease and cancers (meat and fat) yet somehow had little to no diseases of modern man. Let’s learn a little more about them. Below you will find several resources and reading materials on them (to keep you busy while I do my taxes for the next couple days!). But here are the highlights:
The Inuit traditional diet offers natural protection against two of the planet’s biggest killers — heart disease and cancer
Dewailly says the traditional Inuit diet is high in selenium, common to whale skin, and likely explains why prostate cancer is almost unheard of in the north, as are most other cancers. Cardiovascular disease is also rare, likely because the Inuit diet remains rich in wild game. “The traditional Inuit diet is fats and proteins, no sugar at all,” says Dewailly. “It is probably one of the healthiest diets you can have. The human body is built for that.”
from this article here
“The Inuit people are numerous groups of hunter-gatherers,” says Loren Cordain, a professor in the Department of Health and Exercise Science at Colorado State University and author of the book The Paleo Diet. “It’s not a single group. There are many, many cultures and they lived in many many parts of the Arctic. There was no single Inuit diet, other than the fact that none of them had a whole lot of carbohydrate or fresh fruits and vegetables.”
Scientists studying the Inuit in the 1970s found that as a group, they suffered much less than their European counterparts from certain diseases, such as coronary heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes mellitus. Yet their diet was very high in fat from eating foods like whale, seal, and salmon. Discover Magazine called this the “Inuit Paradox.”
from this article here
One of the differences is that the traditional Inuit’s diet is very high in omega-3 fats while our diet is very high in omega-6 fats. Science has shown that the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 should be as close to a ratio of 1:1 and certainly no more than 4:1. Inuits are about the only people to approach the 1:1 ratio, while we typically come in at 20:1, or upwards of 50:1 for real junk food lovers. A balanced omega-6 to omega-3 ratio promotes a balanced, non-inflammatory state in the body, while tilting the scale toward a higher level of omega-6 will promote an inflammatory ‘ and therefore diseased and degenerative ‘ state.
Man-made vegetable oil diets (margarine and other hydrogenated oils) are high in omega-6 fatty acids and convert into high levels of arachidonic acid (AA) in the body. The excessive amounts of AA in our omega-6-rich Western diets contribute to our chronic inflammatory degenerative diseases such as heart disease, asthma and arthritis.
from this article here
The main nutritional challenge was avoiding starvation in late winter if primary meat sources became too scarce or lean. These foods hardly make up the “balanced” diet most of us grew up with, and they look nothing like the mix of grains, fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs, and dairy we’re accustomed to seeing in conventional food pyramid diagrams. How could such a diet possibly be adequate? How did people get along on little else but fat and animal protein?
Fats have been demonized in the United States, says Eric Dewailly, a professor of preventive medicine at Laval University in Quebec. But all fats are not created equal. This lies at the heart of a paradox-the Inuit paradox, if you will. In the Nunavik villages in northern Quebec, adults over 40 get almost half their calories from native foods, says Dewailly, and they don’t die of heart attacks at nearly the same rates as other Canadians or Americans. Their cardiac death rate is about half of ours, he says.
and finally from the BIG story article at Discover Magazine here
Now you are probably asking, what about vitamins that are found in fruits and vegetables? How did they stay healthy without them? Well….they actually did get vitamins from some surprising sources: (taken from the various articles above)
Seal meat, especially blubber, are also very high in vitamins E, A, D and selenium. Recently, researchers have concluded that these inherent antioxidants are big reasons why Inuits are free of cardiovascular disease, while other mostly-fish-eating populations are still prone to this disease. Fish oils alone will not do the same as seal oil.
But vitamin A, which is oil soluble, is also plentiful in the oils of cold-water fishes and sea mammals, as well as in the animals’ livers, where fat is processed. These dietary staples also provide vitamin D, another oil-soluble vitamin needed for bones.
As for vitamin C, the source in the Eskimo diet was long a mystery. If we don’t ingest enough of it, we fall apart from scurvy, a gruesome connective-tissue disease. However, Arctic peoples living on fresh fish and meat were free of the disease. Native foods easily supply those 10 milligrams of scurvy prevention, especially when organ meats-preferably raw-are on the menu. For a study published with Kuhnlein in 2002, Fediuk compared the vitamin C content of 100-gram (3.55-ounce) samples of foods eaten by Inuit women living in the Canadian Arctic: Raw caribou liver supplied almost 24 milligrams, seal brain close to 15 milligrams, and raw kelp more than 28 milligrams. Still higher levels were found in whale skin and muktuk. Thick skinned, chewy, and collagen rich, raw muktuk can serve up an impressive 36 milligrams in a 100-gram piece, according to Fediuk’s analyses. “Weight for weight, it’s as good as orange juice,” she says. Traditional Inuit practices like freezing meat and fish and frequently eating them raw, she notes, conserve vitamin C, which is easily cooked off and lost in food processing.
Ok so far so good. So what are we saying here is a license to eat as much meat and fat as possible? Well…..let’s look at a couple more things:
The solution to the paradox may lie in the fact that not all fat is created equal. “[The Inuit] ate a lot of marine animals, like walruses and seals, whales and so forth, and the blubber of these animals is a very high source of monounsaturated fat,”says Cordain. “So if you contrast the Inuit diet to the Western diet, it actually turns out to be lower in saturated fat- very high in fat, but high in healthful fat, monounsaturates and polyunsaturates, high in a specific type of polyunsaturates called omega-3 fatty acids that come from the marine food chain.”
Arctic people had plenty of protein but little carbohydrate, so they often relied on gluconeogenesis. Not only did they have bigger livers to handle the additional work but their urine volumes were also typically larger to get rid of the extra urea. Nonetheless, there appears to be a limit on how much protein the human liver can safely cope with: Too much overwhelms the liver’s waste-disposal system, leading to protein poisoning-nausea, diarrhea, wasting, and death.
plenty of evidence shows that hunters through the ages avoided protein excesses, discarding fat-depleted animals even when food was scarce. Early pioneers and trappers in North America encountered what looks like a similar affliction, sometimes referred to as rabbit starvation because rabbit meat is notoriously lean. Forced to subsist on fat-deficient meat, the men would gorge themselves, yet wither away. Protein can’t be the sole source of energy for humans, concludes Cordain. Anyone eating a meaty diet that is low in carbohydrates must have fat as well.
Stefansson tucked into his rations of chops and steaks with fat intact. “A normal meat diet is not a high-protein diet,” he pronounced. “We were really getting three-quarters of our calories from fat.”
A key difference in the typical Nunavik Inuit’s diet is that more than 50 percent of the calories in Inuit native foods come from fats. Much more important, the fats come from wild animals. Wild-animal fats are different from both farm-animal fats and processed fats, says Dewailly. Farm animals, cooped up and stuffed with agricultural grains (carbohydrates) typically have lots of solid, highly saturated fat. Much of our processed food is also riddled with solid fats, or so-called trans fats, such as the reengineered vegetable oils and shortenings cached in baked goods and snacks. Wild animals that range freely and eat what nature intended, says Dewailly, have fat that is far more healthful. Less of their fat is saturated, and more of it is in the monounsaturated form (like olive oil). What’s more, cold-water fishes and sea mammals are particularly rich in polyunsaturated fats called n-3 fatty acids or omega-3 fatty acids. But the polyunsaturated fats in most Americans’ diets are the omega-6 fatty acids supplied by vegetable oils. By contrast, whale blubber consists of 70 percent monounsaturated fat and close to 30 percent omega-3s, says Dewailly.
Summing Up
Ok….got all that? Whew….Yes I know alot to read….but loads of important points. Let’s summarize:
- The Inuit ate a diet high in meat and fat, low in fruits and vegetables and still had low rates of heart disease and cancer (sadly only recently when more modernization came to them in the form of convenience stores, soda and other processed foods did you see the illnesses start to increase. Once sugar came to them….things went sour)
- Their meat they ate was completely different from the meat you are eating. Theirs was wild, fresh, sometimes raw, seal and other animals that you are probably not going to eat. Not to mention they also ate the organ meats, which again….most people are not going to do. Because the animals were wild they were also not fed grains, contained good amounts of Omega 3s and low amounts of Omega 6s…the opposite of modern meats.
- Their meat was actually low in saturated fat and more monounstaturated….completely different from the meat profile of fattened cows on grains (very high in saturated fats and loaded with omega 6s….proinflammatory).
- Their meats were high in Omega 3s (anti-inflammatory) and overall diet was more a 1:1 ratio of omega 3s to 6s (unlike todays ratio of about 1:25(+) of omega 3s to 6s)
So although we are not about to move to the great white north and eat raw whale blubber, we can use the knowledge of the Inuit and take home the following lessons (and you will see many familiar things below)
- Eat a diet of moderate protein (make sure you are eating with fat and not going overboard, for most this is not an issue as even a high amount of 1g/lb of bodyweight is still usually 30% of total calories)
- We are not eating seals or their organ meats, so get your fruits and vegetables (as we need them for sources of vitamins that are not in our meats)
- Have plenty of healthy fats including: some sat fats (but again look at how little sat fat the Inuit actually ate vs how much was monounstaturated), MUFA (Monounsaturated Fatty Acids like X-Virg Olive Oil). Even watch your sources of sat fat (see below), as most is very high in proinflammatory Omega 6s from grains/veg oils.
- Take some fish oil (Omega 3s) to help balance the Omega 3:6 ratios (most people probably need about 3g a day of EPA/DHA….about 2-3 teaspoons of fish oil). Some may need less, but that would mean their diet is already low in Omega 6s….which are everywhere nowadays!
- Lower dietary sources of Omega 6s including high fat grain fed beef/meats/eggs. Try for lean beef/meats (Omega 6s are in the fatty parts), Omega 3 eggs, or Grass Fed Beef (but be warned…even if it is says grass fed it doesn’t mean it is 100% grass fed…so read your labels carefully)
- Inflammation = increases in heart diseases and cancers….so get rid of the big evil inflammation messengers of Omega 6s/Veg Oils (excess PUFAs), Sugar and Trans Fats. Get rid of those 3 and you will go along way to increasing your longevity and health.
I’m also guessing that their low stress lifestyle, low exposure to environmental toxins, daily active lifestyle (they didn’t wear HR monitors and go do “cardio”), adequate sleep/rest, strong community and family ties also contributed greatly to their health, longevity and happiness!
photo by drurydrama
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Great synopsis Mike! I appreciate how you distilled the dietary lessons of the Inuit into a PaleoDiet version for modern, western man.
Wondering if you consider the saturated fats in coconut oil healthy, neutral, or bad (moderate). Likewise grass-fed, pastured dairy fat (i.e., butter)?
Scott – I agree that it’s important to look at things from the past but also need to relate them to what is really available today….as our modern meat sources are completely different from ones of the past. I found it also interesting that other groups also eating a diet high in other fish did not have the same benefits of the Inuits….so even the type of fish to eat matters. Coconut Oil/Milk is healthy IMO, as a MCT it is easily broken down in the intestinal tract as many with IBS/Chrons find relief with it. It is also supposed to be good for a healthy thyroid. Grassfed beef/steak is ok again IMO (as it is leaner and has less sat fat anyways), butter will depend on the source….as butter from grass fed organic cows is better than the standard grain fed butter (again remember the overabundance of omega 6s in grain fed meats). Also eggs are best if they are organic and omega 3 enriched (although not grass fed or a substitute for taking fish oil, but at least the omegs 3/6 ratio is more balanced than normal grain fed chicken eggs). Margarine will probably give you cancer…so stay away from that! I enjoy a wide variety of fats….mainly trying to keep them either healthy sat or MUFAs, I keep PUFAs limited and try to get more Omega 3s with some Fish Oil. In the end if you eat enough grass fed beef (which is higher in Omega 3s and low in Omega 6s)…you may not even need to supplement in extra Omega 3s…but in today’s world, it’s usually a safe bet to take a little as Omega 6s are everywhere. Funny….once I gave up trying to get a ton of fats from peanut/almond butter several years back….I noticed a huge difference in less inflammation in my joints (esp my knees which had given me so many problems from decades of hockey….and now they are fine!). I also crave more fatty meats with IF (like seen with the early pioneers and rabbit starvation principle)…I do not crave chicken…as it is too lean. Funny how the body knows what it needs to survive.
Of course, this is history, not today’s reality. The current situation of the Inuit is not rosy…. A suicide rate many times the national average does not point to a low-stress lifestyle. Global pollution and the concentration of toxins at the top of the food chain means that those Inuit who do still eat off the land often ingest terribly high levels of toxins. Skyrocketing rates of Western diseases and a diabetes epidemic due to dropping their traditional diet and adopting the worst possible alternative in under one generation. Their traditional nomadic lifestyle was destroyed in the 1950′s by the Canadian government in cahoots with the church and the Hudson Bay Company. Their community, social, and family identities were destroyed by residential schools. Recent steps toward self-government are going in the right direction. And (for now anyway) the Canadian north is one of the last areas in the world where small communities can still live off the land. If the Arctic ice cap does melt, as some suspect it will within our lifetime, that will end too.
Robert – It is sad to see that the current situation is from from the great health they had from their natural environment from years past. Hopefully we can just take the lessons from them and apply them to our lifestyles to increase health and longevity. I think I said it above…but once sugar came to town….everything went sour quick. One would have to wonder how much the sugar also contributed to the mental distress and suicide rate as it disrupts normal brain function and increases inflammation. Sugar + Increased Omega 6 (from processed foods/veg oils) is a one way ticket to inflammation, sickness and disease.
Hi,
what is the source for the “fact” that inuit wild game would contain more MUFA than normal wild game?
At least in Cordain data tables in his 2005 book (paleo for athletes) show clearly that wild game normally has 1:1 MUFA:SAFA ratio. When animal gets fatter (in the summer), ratio usually does not change.
What changes the situation here?
Great article, MOD. I believe we can learn a lot from indigenous groups who (used to) live with and off the land. We have the Sapmi people, who still do reindeer commerce, but now uses snow-mobiles and bolt-action rifles, and consumes an insane amount of grains, alcohol, and coffee. Their reindeer jerky is awesome, though.
I seem to have circulation problems. When I sit still for some time (maybe 25 minutes), then stand up, my vision turns blacks, almost as if I’m fainting. It has gotten worse since I went Paleo, but this is probably due to aging, as both my brother and mom suffer from the same condition. When jogging for several minutes (haha), it hurts in my lower left stomach area (spleen, I think). Normal? I’m an exercise newbie.
Any remedies? Apple cider vinegar? Exercise?
Cheers,
Emil.
MOD I know I have seen it before but would you be able to create a post listing in range the ideal fats–MUFA and PUFAs??
Jaana – good question…I believe in one of the articles above on the Inuit it talks about seal and whale blubber (not your normal hunter gather meals) being higher in MUFAs. So it will depend on what your “game” is (land vs sea animals). Also note that although MUFAs may also be 50%+ in wild game, also there is some PUFA-Omega6s and more PUFA-Omega3s…so counting those ratios it is feasible to see that MUFA:SAT may not be 1:1 and a higher ratio in favor of MUFAs. (Also note that when talking about what the Inuits ate, eating more skins/marrow/organ meats will raise the MUFA content vs just the “meat” portion in wild game….like if in “modern” times we were to eat Grass fed beef….chances are we are not eating the organs or bone marrow).
Here’s some other interesting links and info along those lines as well:
“Organ meats favored in preference to muscle meats in hunter-gatherer diets. Observations of modern hunter-gatherers have shown that muscle meats (the leanest part of the animal) are least preferred, sometimes even being thrown away in times of plenty, in preference to the fattier portions. Eaten first are the organs such as brains, eyeballs, tongue, kidneys, bone marrow (high in monounsaturated fat), and storage fat areas such as mesenteric (gut) fat. (Even this gut fat is much less saturated in composition, however, than the kind of marbled fat found in the muscle meat of modern feedlot animals.)”
http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/hb/hb-interview1f.shtml
“However, after almost 30 years of research, meta-analytical studies have shown that n3 fatty acids slightly elevate (by 5-10%) LDL cholesterol concentrations, but do not materially affect total cholesterol [Harris 1997]. Consequently, it may have been the higher dietary protein intake (23-26% of total calories) in the Inuit compared to the Danish controls (11% of total calories as protein) which accounted for these differences. However, since the Keys equation considers dietary monounsaturated fats as neutral (which more recent research indicates is not the case [Gardner et al. 1995]), it is possible that the higher monounsaturated fat content (57.3% of total fat) in the Inuit diet (vs. 34.6% in the Danes) may have also contributed to the plasma cholesterol differences.”
http://www.beyondveg.com/cordain-l/macronutr/macronutr-ratios-1b.shtml
Emil – Almost sounds like low blood pressure issue (esp if you talk about being heriditary). First thing of course I would say if you haven’t already, get it checked out by a doctor (as I am not a Dr nor should any of my advice be taken in place of more professional opinion). I’ve heard of people adding sea salt to water and that does seem to help. (as your clean Paleo diet is probably much lower in sodium now…so make sure you are also eating more vegetables for a better potassium/sodium ratio)
As for the pain…if it’s a spleen issue then that may be a sign of a bacteria infection (bad meats?) with accompanying inflammation. Of course for any healthy gut (good bacteria and kill off the bad) you could try ACV, probiotics, add onions and garlic, tumeric and ginger (anti-inflammatory) and clean up your foods of toxins and bacteria (including washing your fruits and vegetables, healthy fats and cleaner meats). Again though….not a doctor and any serious pain should always be checked out.
Another important reminder on why everyone should follow a standard healthy gut (bacteria), anti-fungal, and anti-inflammatory diet….because you never know what can happen down the road once inflammation and bacteria get loose in the body.
Sarena – Are you meaning like what % of your fats should be MUFA and PUFA? Like 50% MUFA….etc? I think a good rule of thumb is trim your meats, get healthy sat fats from leaner (or grass fed) meat and (grassfed or at least Omega 3) eggs, eat some nuts but don’t go overboard, get some fish oil, get the excess Omega 6s out of the diet and then make the majority of your fats MUFA sources.
If any implication were to be inferred, it would be that dietary fat should emulate fat sources found in game meat and organs (high in n-3 fats, low in n-6 fats, and high in monounsaturated fats).
from: Macronutrient estimations in hunter-gatherer diets – http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/72/6/1589
Thanks for the tips, Mike.
I actually have normal blood pressure, but it might be a cycle. I seems better if I exercise regularly.
My mom suggested the pains were lactic acid. Doesn’t lactic acid hit the kidneys pretty hard? It’s always been this way, so I might be an exercise newbie confusing burn for inflammation.
Cheers,
Emil.
Emil – even if you do not have consistent low BP, doesn’t mean it can’t come in cycles esp when you stand up after being seated for a while. Too many factors like blood sugar, potassium, sodium, dehydration, etc for me to even guess (but they do have to deal with the heart somehow). If you think you are having kidney issues….that could also be related to your blackouts/sodium/potassium/etc…again not a Dr, should seek more professional opinions and testing for real answers.
Mike, thanks a plenty for the input.
I just found out what the pains were. Side stitch. The most common cause is not warming up properly, which I am guilty of. It also comes from a lack of core muscles, and drinking water too soon before running.
My fluid and potassium intake is adequate, I think (probably 2-3 quarts and 3000-4000 mg a day, respectively). I will look into sodium, though. And see my doctor. Maybe I’m recovering from hyperinsulinemia (I used to have a BMI of 35).
Cheers,
Emil.
Emil – sounds like a good plan. Good luck and hope it all works out….and yes, warmup is key. You may want to look into some magnesium supplementation if you feel alot of muscle tightness and cramping often. Just another thought.
Very interesting article! I believe it is because of the Western diet that heart rate is so high. Even though they ate primarily meat, they weren’t eating unhealthy fried foods daily! Heart disease is a sad epidemic in the United States that needs increased awareness. Women’s heart disease is sometimes harder to avoid, especially with women who have diabetes. This site features a good article on breaking low-fat diet myths and let you know how low-fat dieting really helps out with fighting off heart disease.
Barbara – I think you see that once processed foods and sugar enter into a normal diet, inflammation is the #1 real factor that just takes health in the wrong direction. Inflammation is linked to heart disease, cancers and other degenerative illnesses. Something to be avoided for sure.
IMO, that whole “Eat low fat” advice over the last several decades is what got us in this sad shape of increasing obesity, heart disease, cancers and many illnesses in the first place! Because if fat goes down…and protein remains the same….only other thing that has to go up…and that would be carbs and sugars. Can anyone say insulin resistance and inflammation?
Since you are talking about another culture here, I thought it would be appropriate to list the three most common things people say to me when I tell them I am on the “caveman diet.” People are obviously very defensive about nutrition and I don’t really like to “debate” that much so I usually just kind of move on to a different topic. I would like more “ammo” in these types of conversations:
1. “Well good thing you are on the caveman diet, those cavemen lived to be so old!” *Note the sarcasm here. How do you answer this one?
2. “You don’t eat rice?! People in the asian cultures seem to be doing just great! What about those 100 year old asian people?”
3. “Sounds like Atkins, I heard that was bad for you.” *I have some comebacks for this but I’m sure you could say it better.
Thanks Mike, being able to handle these conversations is the first step towards getting some friends/family to try some of this stuff…
Much fruit (meat?) for thought.
Another interesting resource on the value of fats is “Eat Fat — Lose Fat” by Mary Enig, PhD and Sally Fallon. The authors claim that eating a relatively high-fat diet leads to rapid weight-loss. But in my experience, their claims are intriguingly logical but damnably wrong.
The problem lies with which fats actually promote weight-loss. Saturated fats don’t – this is old knowledge; sat fats, as fitness guru/comedian Covert Bailey colorfully put it, go straight from your mouth to your butt or gut, bypassing the GI tract entirely. I’ve been into fitness for 41 years, and I’ve found this to be reliably true: sat fats in tiny quantities help, but in larger quantities they make you fat. I tried the Eat Fat — Lose Fat diet for about a month and gained weight rapidly. Then I read a passage, hidden deep in the book, where the authors say: “Oh, by the way, if you eat too many calories, you may not be successful in losing weight.” Well, duh.
My question: how the heck did Ahnuld and Co., who are shown in “Pumping Iron” eating vast amounts of sat fats in eggs and hamburger, stay lean? By working out 4 hours a day at the gym? And, question 2: protein powders, in my humble experience, frankly suck compared to “nature’s real item” — i.e., eggs and milk. I get a much more pronounced exercise pump if I eat eggs the night before a hard workout, and a far better recovery if I make a smoothie with buttermilk and dates and Hammer Nutrition Recoverite (l-glutamine, l-carnosine, glycine, etc.) – thank if I use whey protein powder. Look for me to win Mr. Morbidly Obese Universe… (yes, I am joking; I’m not that much overweight, yet).
Nature knows best – but at age 66, exercising very hard just twice a week (once at gym, once on the trails; moderate exercise the other days), I do gain weight if I take more than the tiniest minimum amount of eggs and milk. What’s an old putz to do?
Robert – The battle against the daily lack of real knowledge about nutrition and health is a daily one. Stay the course…in the end people can come around if you give them time. As for the cavemen arguments…I would say:
for #1: “Well since most cavemen probably died from being attacked from wild animals or being left to starve after breaking a leg…I can see where people live longer nowdays…although looking around what I see in older aged people sitting in wheel chairs attached to machines is not something I call living”
for #2: “and I heard some guy who smokes, drinks and eat red meat lived to be 100 too. If you eat little calories and live a low stress lifestyle you have a good chance to live long…too bad modern Asian cultures are now being over run with increasing obesity, cancers and heart diseases”
for #3: “So what exactly is Atkins? What exactly is so bad for you by eating meat, fat and losing weight?”…personally I like to call people out on where they got their information and find most just “heard” it from “some” expert but can not explain why….it’s silly gossip at best.
You can use anything or make up your own….in the end, you have to just live your life, don’t force your lifestyle on others, explain why you are doing it and let them discover the health benefits from great sites like this (plug! lol. No seriously….feel free to link to any posts you see here to email to family and friends or put on your own blog) that can take on that daily battle for you (luckily you are starting to see more good information through more mainstream media too on the truths about fats and so forth). People can come around once they have the right information and make up their mind themselves….as that is usually the case for anything in life.
George – Good observation. Yes fat loss is of course at heart a hormonal response and total calorie in vs calorie out equation. Sat fat has many hormonal needs and does provide for healthy cell membrane structure, but looking at natural meats from long ago they were low in sat fat and the overall diet was high in more MUFA based fats. As for the BB and Arnold….well yes they did spend a lot of time in the gym and there are probably other things used which I won’t go into. But you will see in general that people with muscle and leaner body comp also have a higher metabolism because of it and therefore can burn more fat in a resting (or low aerobic) state as muscle is an active (and needy) tissue…fat is like an old college roommate, just sits on the couch and does nothing…so not going to do much to boost your overall metabolism. (Hence why it is important to train your type II fast twitch muscle, strength/explosive, as that is your main tissue that is shown to be the difference in aging). As for Milk, it still is going to contain sugars and does promote an insulin response (esp skim milk…as ask any farmer and they will probably tell you to fatten up their livestock just feed them skim milk all day). In the end if weight loss is your goal, skip the pwo shake w/ milk and just eat normal whole foods (eggs are good). Your body can restore muscle glycogen and build muscle for days, it doesn’t have to happen right after the workout (unless if you are having a hypoglycemic response pwo, have some fruit). You still have to also get the right balance of the carb/fat/protein calories for the day to be in deficit for the body to pull internal fat from storage for energy. Keeping active daily and eating right will get results….as real fat loss is just based on being consistent with the things that matter. Keep up the great and inspirational work at 66 years young! PS. My post on Fat Loss 101 can also provide additional insight into the hormonal responses and how the body signals for fat storage or burning.
Mike – Thanks so much. Your answers are very helpful – and they are spot-on with answers I’ve been seeking. By the way, I’ve been doing a modified Clarence Bass routine at the gym, very similar to your idea of “work out more intensely, less often” – and it has brought progress I never though was possible. Most satisfying. Thanks also for the encouragement to ramp-up the intensity of aerobic work – I am doing that and finding it rewarding. Of course, at my age “hard/easy” means “very hard/very easy.” Love it. Best – George
George – Fast Twitch Type II training is where you get the main positive hormonal benefits. Intensity can be modified many ways with increased weight, shorter rest periods, increased level of effort, higher volume, etc. Intensity is subjective to your personal level of effort, so do what you can and enjoy it. Add a couple Fast Twitch days, eat the right foods for the right hormonal response, get plenty of sleep and keep a fun active lower intensity lifestyle the rest of the time, and you will be on your way to never feeling or acting you age again! (all in a good way of course) Oh yeah, how could I forget…throw in a modified fast here and there and you will do well to help reset your primal hunger and craving patterns (so you can just listen to your body post workout and it will tell you what it wants and craves….like a good piece of steak!) and take advantage of the natural stress response systems for increased healthy cellular function (health, disease prevention and slowing down the aging process). Not too bad a plan I’d say.
From Dr mercola
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/04/26/natural-trans-fats-actually-have-health-benefits.aspx?source=nl
Mike – Thanks again. I totally agree with the recommendation to fast. I’ve fasted for up to 21 days following Paavo Airola’s juice fasting method (also Paramhansa Yogananda). For years I did a fast of 7 to 12 days every 3-4 months. It was wonderful – like getting your engine completely cleaned out and overhauled. Everything becomes sharper – exercise, thinking, feelings. During the fast is a wonderful time, too – so free, so attuned to wider realities. Thanks for the reminder – got to get back to it. I can tell you help a lot of people.
George – Wow those are some serious fasts. Not something I personally have worked up to but I am sure they are quite a health benefit. Most people doing Intermittent Fasting (IF) here are working on more shorter daily fasts with smaller eating windows or doing a longer 24 hour fasts a couple times a week. Either way the health benefits are tremendous. That and it just seems like a more enjoyable lifestyle while still being able to gain muscle, lose fat and keep up performance for an active lifestyle. (Not to mention all the anti-aging and health benefits from CR/fasting…which many studies are listed in the resources section). You can also check out the Intermittent Fasting 101 post, as an experienced faster you may find it an interesting read and take on how to apply fasting into a lifestyle. Keep strong, Keep healthy!
Sarena – interesting article. Isn’t it funny how we try and break down all these magic supplements like CLA for weight loss, Omega 3s, etc..etc..etc….when someone could of just said. go eat a natural wild raised grass fed steak. It always comes back to seeing that nature’s plan is not flawed and will always out perform any supplement (of course choosing the right natural sources for meats and so forth is important…but animals raised a natural way of how they were meant to live…provides us with everything we need…as I don’t believe there was ever a GNC created in the Garden of Eden. Ha).
I would like to comment as a food scientist with over 20 years experience.
Most wild animal foods don’t have a 1:1 ratio on n6:n3 fats as Cordain incorrectly claims (he is an exercise scientist and his knowledge of food science and traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyles is quite poor). It is typically somewhere between 3:1 and 6:1 and sometimes as much as 20:1 (seed eating birds).
Only cold water fish and marine mammals have a high omega 3 content. Humans evolved in the tropical grasslands of Africa so cold water fish simply weren’t part of the natural diet.
Stefansson notes that some Inuits lived away from the coast and very rarely ate fish or sea mammals. They were just as healthy as their coastal counterparts.
The traditional Masai pastoralists of east Africa have a diet based almost entirely on milk and meat with no fish and a high n6:n3 ratio. Their diet is extremely high in saturated fats. They are also free of diseases of western civilisation.
Numerous Clinical trials have shown that neither high omega 3 intake or high monosaturated fat intake intake protect against heart disease.
What almost certainly protects against heart disease is a lack of stress and vigorous physical activity not diet. The traditional Inuit and Masai lifestyles were exceptionally physically demanding.
Food Dood’s comments reflect the disinformation typically spread by dieticians who refer to themselves as “food scientists” although they have little training in science beyond the watered-down courses offered within their own departments at universities. “Dieticians” arose from university departments of Home Economics.
Dieticians should not be taken seriously on the topic of human nutrition. Any understanding of this group is enlightened by the old adage, “Follow the Money.” Dieticians are and always have been tools and stooges of the processed food and agribusiness industries. Their university programs and “food science” research are funded by agribusiness and the processed food industry, and following graduation, they are almost all employed by those industries with the exception of those who are employed by private and governmental institutions. In institutions, their role is to wear a white lab coat and bestow an authoritarian blessing on the cheap, anti-nutritive garbage called “institutional food.” They are in fact, simply sociopathic political propaganda functionaries who serve the financial interests of agribusiness, processed food industries, and status quo institutions like schools, prisons and hospitals where the goal is serve food at the lowest possible cost.
One of these clowns, a dietetics department head at Tufts, recently recommended “Fruit Loops” as an ideal breakfast. Their strategy appears to be to create universal public confusion by creation of deliberate disinformation. We have them to thank for such meaningless moronic tidbits as “balanced” diet, “Heart Healthy,” “calorie counting,” the concept of processed foods as “part of a healthy diet,” and the dung heap known as the US Department of Agriculture Food Pyramid.
Politically, their strategy has been to seek state protection by licensure, and they are forever reminding the public that they have a “state license” as if that had anything to do with quality assurance or meant anything other than the fact that they are politically motivated. Their licensure only serves as state permission to engage in their typical fraud and misrepresentation of the facts about human nutrition. As a result of their activities, the American people are overfed, undernourished, sickened and dying prematurely
Finally, Food Dood provides an excellent example of the error-filled commentary we can expect from dieticians. He is wrong in so many instances I could write book about it. The fact that the guy criticizes a man of Dr. Loren Cordain’s intellectual and professional stature reflects a level of hubris rarely encountered even in dieticians. These people are a nemesis.
mehitabel Reply:
OOhhhhhh…..snap! That was good.
The opening statement is certainly an attention grabber but forgive me for questioning another study that has found the truth. “Want to know about a group of people who eat primarily only meat and fat, very little fruits and vegetables and are healthier than any other group of people?” What about at the other end of the spectrum with the lengthy studies done on the Seventh Day Adventists who promote vegetarianism?. I’m not a Seventh Day Adventist nor a vegetarian nor an Inuit but someone more in the middle. I’m still trying to sort out the vast array of good, bad and ugly nutritional findings across the webscape but I’m not convinced the Inuit’s represent much other than that living in a cold, virus and bacteria suppressed climate combined with daily real life exercise is beneficial to health. The fact that their bodies survive without the range of phytonutrients found in plant sources just tells me more about the awesome versatility of the omnivore to survive on a wide range food sources. After all, if they were all dead we wouldn’t be talking about them regardless of what caused their death whether heart disease, cancer or freezing to death.
The comments on this article have some topics of interest to me especially fasting. Several years ago I was in the fasting habit. I’ve done 32 days, a few 21 day fasts, several 10 days, several 3 days, one day a week for awhile, all on water only. No I’m not some kind of health fanatic or spiritual guru. I was a meat and potatoes guy addicted to sugar but became a Christian while in my 20’s and my interest was sparked by Jesus’ comment that “in those days they shall fast”(meaning after he ascended) and the Apostle Paul’s comments of how he was in “fasting’s often”. I wasn’t too overweight at the time but it was a great learning experience for body, mind and spirit and something I think anyone should try at least once. You’ll also have a different perspective when you read about someone who was stranded in their car 3 days and claim they had to eat the dead driver and two live skunks because they were going to starve to death. If my food supply was now completely cut off for 4 or even 5 weeks it wouldn’t cause me any concern. I even played in a racquetball tournament on the 21st day of one fast (but I admit I burned out after about 40 minutes. No harm done but just couldn’t keep up at a high level). Others, whether spiritually minded or secular have the same experience of renewed energy and vigor, whatever you want to call it. Yes, the first few days can be tough because of our mental conditioning and excreted toxins but keep drinking water, grin and bear it and you’ll be amazed at the physical strength and clarity of senses that transpires. Read Paul Bragg’s book the Miracle of Fasting or Shelton White’s Fasting for Health. ( I’m talking to basically healthy people. If you have chronic diseases it can do wonders too but you should talk to someone with fasting experience first)
The biggest problem is what to do after the fast. Having an eating plan after the fast is very critical. At the time I was nutrionaly ignorant and didn’t have good eating habits before so I didn’t have anything to hang on to later. So after the fast if you go back to the Standard American Diet then all your health gains are quickly lost, and your weight loss is quickly gained! I’ll give you one piece of good advice I learned fairly quickly. Don’t eat an Italian sub after a 10 day fast. If you don’t die then you’ll wish you were dead!
Lastly, since those days many years ago I gradually gained 5 or 6 lbs per year for over 20 years and ended up at 297 lbs at 5’6″ tall, in the hospital for a week from complications of adult onset asthma, sleep apnea, high blood pressure, high cholesterol (is that still a fallacy?). Couldn’t walk 10 feet to the bathroom without stopping twice to catch my breath.
Now at 58, I’m 162 lbs and a personal trainer. Body fat from 40%+ to 8%, blood pressure from 145/95 to 105/65, total cholesterol from 220+ to 143, resting heart rate from 91 to 51. All natural without surgery and no weight loss medicines. Eventually weaned off of all medication except for my asthma inhaler which I use once in awhile. I’m still searching for total health and I haven’t arrived yet but I’m 1000% ahead of where I was. I like the journey but how did I get this far? I went to a trainer/nutrionist who said “do this” and I did it. Now after 10 years of eating what I consider to be a sound program of healthy eating and exercise I’ve found a healthy lifestyle that works for me. I don’t claim to have all the answers but I have enough to recreate my results in my clients lives and at last put the odds in their favor. I still get to the point where I think I’ve learned something then find contradictory studies, but I’ve arrived at a few conclusions I’ll wrestle you for (but not to the death. I might tap-out if you give me good fight.
If you want to know more then ask me and I’ll tell you. (Not a gimmick. Nothing to sell but I’ve already taken up too much space so just ask me and I’ll reply but don’t be disappointed. There’s no magic bullets.)
Rich
Attleboro, Ma
Mike OD Reply:
Rich,
Thanks for the heartfelt reply. I don’t think there will ever be just “one” magical diet that works for everyone. As you can look at Inuit, Seventh Day Adventists, Okinawans and many others to find much variety in diet. The Inuit are a good example to just demonstrate that high intakes of meat/fat with lower fruits and vegetables is not a pathway to higher risks of cancer/heart disease (which many in the mainstream believe). What must also be taken into account is that the meat is found in the wild (not factory/farmed) and they eat all the organs (esp the liver which is high in many vitamins/minerals). Much different than say someone who is living on just burgers.
As for the vegetarian debate, well I am not one…but support people who want to eat that way for their own personal reasons. Although I don’t think it is a healthier diet over meat based, as you will not find any “blue zones” (populated by high numbers of centurians) that are vegetarian. Many eat meat, drink milk, eat cheese (all in a more natural unprocessed way). If you haven’t read through this site, Weston A Price has many great articles including this one: http://www.westonaprice.org/abcs-of-nutrition/1555.html
Funny you mention Bragg and Dr Shelton. I read Bragg many many years ago when dealing with mostly clients who suffered from bone and tissue disorders (such as arthritis and fibromyalgia). I also read Dr Shelton’s books online more recently. I think you would also enjoy the “Primitive Man and His Food” by DeVires (1952) which chronicles mainly Dr Price’s travels around the world to see what people who are healthy are eating (and you will not find the same diet, except for real foods and unprocessed).
We also like to talk about “intermittent fasting” around here as a means to help improve health and weight loss for many. You can search through those articles below with the category links in the footer.
In the end, we all just want to be healthy…and there doesn’t have to be just one way to get there.
[...] per tablespoon). Fibre is NOT necessary to human health. Blubber has no fibre (and no carbs) and is 70% monounsaturated fat and 30% Omega3′s. Fat is very necessary to human health… and is better at moving your bowels than fibre, by [...]
[...] We have been told that those who eat a high-fat diet are the unhealthy nations. Yet the Innuit who exist on fat almost exclusively in the winter months have an extremely low incidence of heart disease and are not overweight. (Source) [...]