Science, conventional thinking, and body composition
“All I’m saying is that everything you have learned about this before is wrong.” For some reason, that gets my attention. It got my attention when I read an article by RnP about training for long course fast then long instead of the conventional base, then speed.
It’s what brought me to Endurance Nation.
A radical reappraisal of scientific data that results in a contradiction of conventional thinking has changed my life for the better on a number of occasions related to my personal and professional life. So, when a friend sent me an article about nutrition and weight management by Gary Taubes, with the claim, “all I’m saying is that the conventional thinking is wrong,” I read it. It has led me to reevaluate many of the assumptions from which I have been working in trying to improve my body composition.
I want to be clear that I am not posting this in order to persuade anyone to stop doing something that is working for him or her. I do want to put out here a different way of thinking about food and fitness than the conventional approach and see if others have any similar experiences as I have.
First, I lost 30 lbs of body fat over a year and a half once I started training seriously for an Olympic distance triathlon. Through a combination of consciously keeping down my calories and frequent (5 or 6 days, 5-10 hours a week) workouts, I brought my body fat down from 35% to just under 20%, going from 180 to 150 lbs. I have small bones and I am just under 5’7”. Since then, I hit a hard long plateau.
I have counted calories with the iPhone app, timed my carbohydrate intake before and after workouts, and gone hungry for much of the time. No success. My weight goes up and down in a five pound range, never budging beneath 18% body fat unless I’m dehydrated.
Gary Taubes’ big book is Good Calories, Bad Calories. His book with less documentation but similar information is Why We Get Fat (and what to do about it.) You can look him up on YouTube and hear the lecture he gave at Dartmouth in seven parts.
http://www.youtube.com/results?sear...h&aq=f
So, here’s what I learned from Gary Taubes.
- Different people have vastly different genetic tendencies to be lean or fat.
- “Calories in, calories out” is a physics equation. Weight regulation is biology more than physics.
- High fat diets (even including saturated fat) are not as fattening, nor as likely to cause heart disease and other problems, as a high carbohydrate diet of the same number of calories.
- An exercise regimen will not necessarily produce enough leanness in many people to prevent the common diseases of our era, especially autoimmune diseases and heart disease.
- Eating too much because of lack of will power is not what makes us fat.
- Lean people do not have a higher level of will power than fat people.
- The only way to get lean, for people who have a genetic tendency to get fat, is to discover one’s own personal tolerance for carbohydrate intake and not go over it.
- Foods labeled “reduced fat” and “light” have usually been manipulated to increase carbohydrates. They are more highly processed and should be avoided.
Yeah, I know. It sounds like Adkins. There are some important differences in Taubes’ approach, primarily Taubes’ attention to evolutionary science and his detailed study of the scientific data over the last century or more.
Since reading Taubes, I have also read several other authors who take an evolutionary approach to nutrition. I have adopted a modified Paleolithic diet, avoiding anything that has been processed. I’m not at all a 100% adherent, but I have cut way back on bread, chips, cereal, and dairy products. I have almost completely eliminated processed sugar or anything containing processed sugar or high fructose corn syrup. And, yes, I’ve cut down my beer drinking to one day a week (one or two beers instead of trying to make up for my weekday deprivation.) My sugar exception is for Clif shot blocks before and during a long ride. I get my blood sugar slightly elevated before and during a long ride or run by eating a piece of fruit. When I am hungry, I eat, and I keep eating until I’m not hungry.
I’m down a few pounds and just under 17% body fat for the first time since I’ve been measuring, but it is still too early to give you any meaningful data based on my n=1 experience. I feel good and energetic most of the time, and my craving for sweets has mostly gone away. The long term test, however, will be how well I can stick to this over the whole year or more, and whether it brings me down to a decent body fat percentage for a triathlete. I think getting below 12% for a 52-year-old male is a reasonable goal.
Comments
The challenges are finding the time to vary my recipes. I can pull something together for every meal, and order a salad with grilled chicken or shrimp at a restaurant, but it will take some time to learn some creativity without pasta, rice, potatoes or beans.
Typical day of eating: breakfast is eggs and a piece of meat, either bacon or leftover chicken, fish, or beef from the night before. I eat a small portion before my first workout, then the rest after.
I don't usually need a snack before lunch, but I carry some fruit with me, whatever is in season. Some paleo disciples don't eat any fruit since all the fruit we can buy has been selectively bred to increase the sugar content. I eat it, but in moderation. (Somewhere I have to draw a line between committed and obsessed.)
My favorite lunch is a barbacoa salad from Chipolte. No corn, beans, cheese or sour cream. Plenty of guacamole. At home, I'll have fish with grilled vegetables, or a hamburger without the bun, or leftover stew, roast, or chicken.
Dinner time involves a lot of grilling these days. We shared a grass-fed calf with some friends, and so I can pull something out of the freezer and throw it on the grill. Or, I'll grill a dozen chicken thighs with a creole "blackened" spice on it, or a combination of Mexican spices. I'll eat my fill for supper and put the rest in the fridge. My family and I will eat them all within a few days. We have a garden, so this time of year we have all kinds of fresh vegetables, including asparagus now. The lettuce in the garden is coming to an end, but we have swiss chard and Kale. The tomatoes and blackberries will be ripe soon.
There are lots of paleo recipes on the internet, of course, and I downloaded a book of recipes, but once you get the general idea, you can adapt pretty much anything you like (except beer and french fries.)
I take Sunday off and eat whatever I want. Not sure that's such a good idea. I don't feel so great by Sunday night, so I have probably been going overboard, may have to rein it back in a bit.
Let me know how you do if you decide to try it.
Taubes' book GCBC was terrific, very eye-opening. His current book seems to be more of an advertisement for the Atkins' diet (which is what he himself follows most of the time). I'm very skeptical of his ability to make recommendations for athletes, knowing the hell I went through on Atkins while trying to play in a soccer league at the same time.