1

2

Copyright © 2010

Hans Wu

All Rights Reserved

3

Disclaimer

This book is not intended for the treatment/prevention of disease. My

advice does not substitute for medical treatment whatsoever.

Everything has been provided for informational purposes only and all

recommendations outlined herein shall not be adopted without

consultation with a doctor. Use of guidelines in this book is at your own

risk and is your responsibility.

Author's Note

The ideas explained and discussed in this book are by no means novel

discoveries. Most things have been discussed and researched in the

literature and online communities for many years now. This eBook is

just an explanation for what I have implemented in my life and

recommend for others. For more information visit my blog Beyond

Paleo. The url is: http://beyondpaleo.blogspot.com

If you have any questions you can contact me at:

beyondpaleo@hotmail.com

Hans Wu (2010)

4

Acknowledgements

There have been many resources online that I have used to discover

many of the issues discussed here, my home forum is the Immortality

Institute (http://www.imminst.org) where the participants have already

discussed the various ideas laid out in the book before I even had the

capability to understand them all, so I would like to thank all the users

there.

If you do not know by now, I hate to proofread and my grammar is

horrendous, so I would like to thank Lisa Ma for taking the time to look

over the book and correct my numerous mistakes. If there are still

mistakes it is her fault.

Last but not least I would like to thank my mother for entertaining these

crazy ideas that I have tried to implement in the household. Sounded

crazy at first but the results are undeniable.

Also thanks for reading the book, not the highest quality you will ever

see but hey it is free.

5

About This Book Everybody has their own idea of what healthy eating is. People

shun certain foods and eat others with gusto with nothing to base

their ideologies on other than the word of the “experts” and how

they feel. Over the years I have found that expert opinions are

usually conflicting and that how you feel is not a good barometer

for your health; the body adapts and the mind overpowers.

Over the years I have tried to combine my interest in science and

motivation to live a long healthy life and work my way from the

bottom up to determine what in our lifestyle can be beneficial or

detrimental to our health. If you have every worked in a hospital

or experienced the slow unrelenting loss of function that older

folks experience, you know it is something that one definitely

wants to avoid. My goal is not to be bed bound at 100, instead it

is to be able to carry my great grandchildren on my shoulders.

For years I have been reading books, research papers, and

articles in the field of nutrition, exercise, and health. Henry Ford

said that “thinking without constructive action becomes a

disease.” This is an attempt at constructive action.

6

Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................. 7

Chapter 1: The State of Nutrition ................................................ 9

Chapter 2: The Paleolithic Diet .................................................. 12

Chapter 3: Calories and Nutrients .............................................. 30

Chapter 4: Weight Loss/Gain ..................................................... 44

Chapter 5: Minimizing Damage .................................................. 53

Chapter 6: The Natural and Supplements .................................. 63

Chapter 7: Maintaining the Body ............................................... 71

Chapter 8: Biometric Measurements ......................................... 77

Chapter 9: Perpetual Leanness .................................................. 84

Chapter 10: Paleo Shoes, Posture, and Sitting ........................... 93

Chapter 11: How Much Life Left? ............................................... 98

Appendix I: Olive Oil ................................................................. 105

Appendix II: Acne and Balding ................................................. 110

Appendix III: Skinny Fat Body Type .......................................... 115

Appendix IV: Riskier Supplements ........................................... 117

Appendix V: Bodyweight Exercises ........................................... 122

Appendix VI: Soft Tissue Therapy and Stretching .................... 123

7

Introduction

Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see

through these eyes alone, and if they are dim, the whole

world is clouded. ~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Evolution created intelligent but imperfect self-repairing

machines. Our cells and tissues are constantly wearing out and

being regenerated and most of the time we don’t even notice it.

We age because of this incomplete process. As we exhaust our

cells, it gets repaired, but it is never like the original. Slowly

over the years the gap between our original state and repaired

state widen expressing itself as the typical changes of old-age.

Only recently has this “gap” come to the forefront. In the past we

suffered from infectious diseases, injuries, and starvation; most

of the world still does, but modern science has focused on the

new problem of chronic diseases (that is where the money is).

For those reading this book, you are probably more likely to die

of the diseases of civilization than the more “tropical” diseases.

Modern technology has rid us of many diseases that would

otherwise end our lives when we turn 40; instead we now live

until 80, a territory where evolution has not had a chance to act

upon. In return for our extended lifespan, technology has made

us stressed, out-of-shape, and overweight.

While we have doubled our lifespan in the last century (and will

be able to extend it in the next), people now suffer from diabetes,

heart disease, and dementia. It is not exactly my preferred way to

live the last half of my life. One extreme intervention for

preventing this suffering is Calorie Restriction with Optimal

Nutrition (CRON). This is a lifestyle where you consume less

than you expend but achieve all your required nutrients. The

metabolic adaptation that takes place extends maximum lifespan

(probably your best bet to achieve 120 years of age), but also

keeps you younger at the older age. The Okinawans probably

8

went through some form of Calorie Restriction due to poverty

from World War II and they are the healthiest and longest living

population on earth for now.

Am I practicing Calorie Restriction? Not yet. Despite the

attractions of CRON I cannot bring myself to implement it. The

benefits are that it extends health (physical and mental) and life

span, the cons are emaciation. Doesn’t seem like a very bad

trade-off, and I don’t have a good reason for not doing it, but it’s

like when you know you should write that thank-you letter but

you don’t. You don’t have a good reason for not doing it but you

still don’t do it.

Instead of implementing CRON, I have tried to develop a

lifestyle regimen which is a happy middle ground between an

extended health/life-span and the lack of emaciation, and this

book is my attempt to share it.

Due to the internet and the accessibility of information everyone

today is trying to improve their health. People nowadays want to

understand their conditions more than ever. Most want to take an

active role in their own health in hopes of living a healthier and

happier life. There is a lot of information out there and it is hard

to sift through it all. My book is just one of many, I cannot

guarantee the ideas are right, but that’s up to you to decide.

Everyone should try to understand the human body and learn

how to treat it well. It may not seem urgent to keep yourself

healthy now, but your actions today will affect you for the rest of

your life. The damage may not be apparent when you are young

but it is happening and will show itself down the road.

9

Chapter 1: The State of

Nutrition

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick

society. ~Krishnamurti

The modern food guide was not created until 1992. By this

measurement the science telling us what to eat is only 18 years

old, a science in its infancy stage. Nutrition and metabolism are

intertwined and metabolism is an incredibly complex topic.

While a lot of work has been done in the field what is right and

what is wrong is still under debate, despite what the “experts”

will tell you. To settle all this we should base our theories on the

results of Random Controlled Trials (RCTs) but this is very hard

to perform on humans

Most of our data comes from epidemiological studies and

experiments performed on rats/mice. Epidemiological studies are

a problem because of mutlicollinearity: some things just go

together and make it hard to determine which one is responsible.

In nutritional epidemiological studies they take a group of

people, ask them what they eat, and determine which ones died

of a heart attack (or cancer, or got Alzheimer’s) then do a lot of

complex math and see which ones match. This is where

multicollinearity comes in. If saturated fat and carbohydrates

commonly show up together in food products how do you

determine which one is the cause of heart disease? For example,

if you find that people who eat donuts get more heart disease,

what in the donut is causing the problem? You can do as much

math as you want but you won’t find the answer, but at the same

time that doesn’t mean you won’t come up with an answer. There

are better ways to do these studies such as prospectively,

longitudinally, interventional but I won’t go into detail regarding

those.

10

The other problem is the data collected from rats, mice and

hamsters. Let’s say we used lions instead for our studies. We

feed it celery for 6 months and we are surprised it died of a heart

attack, we feed it beef for 6 months and they are perfectly

healthy with clean arteries. Then the newspapers can say that

celery causes heart disease, and then the researchers can use their

data and find a relationship between celery and heart disease (I

have seen weirder correlations). It’s too bad lions don’t have a

shorter life-span. Mice and rats do have a shorter life, in that way

we don’t have to wait decades for the results of a study to come

out. The problem is what do rats eat? They are herbivores. Their

natural diet is a bunch of plants with hardly any cholesterol or

saturated fat. If we feed it lots of fat no doubt something bad

happens.

Beginning in 1992 the US government began recommending a

diet high in whole grains and low in animal products (a high-

carbohydrate low-fat diet). This began to alter our psychology of

what was considered healthy. With the fear of saturated fat

spreading across the nation, the only thing left to turn to was

carbohydrates and the industry jumped at the idea of low-fat

products, which suddenly meant that high-carbohydrate diets

were good. The agriculture industry (which provides the grains

we use to make processed foods) had developed into a very

powerful entity which now greatly influences our food choices.

If you look at the advisory panel for the USDA Dietary

Guideline recommendations it does not seem very impartial.

One dietary regimen that I thought cut through all these

problems was the Paleolithic Diet. It is based on the principle

that what helps us maintain our health is what we evolved to eat.

Just like a cow eats grass and lions eat meat, in our natural

environment we eat a certain way. The problem is that the

diversity of the human diet is vast. Some are high-carbohydrate

and some are low-carbohydrate, but this is a recent phenomenon.

Anthropology shows that we evolved in the equatorial region of

Africa for millions of years and the diet present there is probably

11

the diet we are adapted to consuming. Also, despite the variation

in diets, there are strong commonalities between them all.

This idea of the Paleolithic diet will be the foundation from

where we will start and improve our nutritional choices.

12

Chapter 2: The Paleolithic

Diet

Red meat is not bad for you. Now blue-green meat, that‟s bad

for you! ~Tommy Smothers

Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote an essay in 1973 titled, “Nothing

in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution.” This

is the principle that the Paleolithic Diet is based on. We are what

we are because we ate what we ate. Through millions of years

we consumed foods available to us in nature which have now

allowed us to become what and who we are today. Gary E.

Belovsky (1986) modeled Hunter-Gatherer Foraging and in a

table he laid out the calories from meat and vegetables of various

tribes (reproduced partially here):

!Kung Winter !Kung Fall

Meat (%) 31 90

Vegetables (%) 69 10

Intake (g/ind) 740 816

Source: Belovsky BE. Hunter-Gatherer Foraging: A linear

Programming Approach. Journal of anthropological

Archaeology.1987. 6, 29-76.

As far as I know we evolved from the tribe of the !Kung, who

live in equatorial Africa. By taking an average of the winter and

fall percentages we see that we probably ate half our calories

from plant sources and the other half from meat. The ratios aren’t

that important. What we can see from the table is that we are

omnivores. We ate both vegetables and meat (especially if we

could get our hands on it). We are not made to be vegetarian (like

many people would lead you to otherwise believe).

13

To understand why this diet has so much appeal you would have

to understand evolution. Here’s a small refresher course that I

hope helps. I love Kent Hovind’s explanation of evolution:

“Twenty million years ago there was the big bang. 4.6 billion

Years ago the earth cooled down. It rained on the rocks for

millions of years and turned into soup, and the soup came alive 3

billion years ago. So your great great great great great great

grandpa was soup.”

This tells you what happened but not how it happened. Before

we start I want to say that this is a thought experiment, I

apologize for any inaccuracies portrayed here. So, imagine a

population of 10 primates living in the jungle. They all eat

leaves. One day a primate happens upon some meat (I don’t

know how) and eats some of it and dies. Its digestive tract hasn’t

evolved to consume raw meat. Soon the primate is replaced.

Another day another primate finds some meat and eats some, by

some quirk of the randomness of nature (mutations) this primate

has developed not only the digestive capability of digesting meat

but also has developed a taste for it. This primate then has

children who also have the same quirk, but this new primate also

utilizes the nutrients better (another mutation) and thus develops

bigger muscles and brains. This bigger muscled, more brained

primate is liked by more females thus also has more children

with the same quirks. So on and so forth until the meat eating

primates’ move somewhere else to find more meat. The

vegetarians stay behind to become chimpanzees and apes, the

omnivores move on to become us.

Extend this process down to minute-details over millions of

years and there you have human evolution. The first primate died

because of the lack of ability to digest meat. This is because it

didn’t have the mechanisms to digest it. This principle also

applies to us. There are some things that we haven’t developed

the mechanisms to digest yet and probably never will

(considering human evolution has either completely stopped or

at least slowed down incredibly).

14

However the thing about evolution is that it only acts up to the

point of reproduction (or maybe a little bit farther, grandmother

effect). So while it may provide us with big muscles in the short-

term it probably doesn’t extend it into the long-term. This is the

trade-off we see with CR. By restricting calories we signal to the

body that it is not a good time to reproduce (bring a child into the

world) so the body should try its best to preserve itself until

times are more plentiful. That is not to say we should ditch the

Paleolithic Diet (PD), but there are lessons we can learn from it.

Nature did not intend us to grow old and ill. We were designed to

die young, of old age, but free of disease. – Ernst L Wynder

and Marvin M Kristein

Note: One way of extending the human lifespan would be to

implement a policy stating couples cannot have children until 60.

Therefore only those with good enough genes to reproduce at 60

will be able to have children. The people with bad genes will not

have children thus those won‟t get passed down. This would be

artificial selection. Not something we can implement

ethically/morally, just interesting.

Grain and Anti-nutrients

Nature is a battle for survival. We survived because of our

brains; other animals survive through sheer size, speed, or just

really good camouflage. Every species has adapted to their

environment and there’s balance in the world (at least without

us). Plants also survived, probably the best the most successful

(except maybe insects). However plants are immobile, sure some

are lethal physically (e.g. venus fly-trap), but most must utilize

other methods to protect themselves. One method is anti-

nutrients which are found in high amounts from legumes and

grains. Vegetables such as broccoli, kale, tomatoes, etc… seem

to have defenses too but we seem to be much better adapted to

these than the ones found in grains and legumes, most likely

because grains and legumes only became a large part of our diet

15

10,000 years ago, which is a far cry from the millions of years

we have been evolving. There are two important classes of anti-

nutrients: class A (the protease inhibitors and lectins) and class B

(the antiminerals e.g. phytate).

Protease inhibitors block your digestive enzymes preventing it

from breaking down protein.

Lectins are plant proteins that bind to carbohydrate moieties on

our cells. This is a special type of anti-nutrient that everyone

should take the effort to either destroy or just simply avoid.

Lectins are dangerous because they bind to carbohydrates found

on your gut cells, and of course these carbohydrate groups have

other function besides being bound by an anti-nutrient. When

lectin binds it can lead to a host of problems. You can think of

the carbohydrates on your gut as a lock and the lectin as a key.

Normally the lock should not be opened because your gut

protects you from the outside world (just like our skin). You

would not want your skin to have gaping holes, so following this

train of thought, you definitely do not want your gut to have

holes. When the lectin (the key) binds to the carbohydrates (the

lock) it opens a door that leads to malfunctioning membranes

and proteins, and may even cause inflammation and autoimmune

disorders.

Could it be that it is our modern consumption of lectin that leads

to obesity? The study below speculates that the holes caused by

lectin will allow lectin into the bloodstream, where it can then

bind to a bunch of other carbohydrates in the blood (like the

brain):

Jönsson T, Olsson S, Ahrén B, Bøg-Hansen TC, Dole A,

Lindeberg S. Agrarian diet and diseases of affluence--do

evolutionary novel dietary lectins cause leptin resistance? BMC

Endocr Disord. 2005 Dec 10;5:10.

16

By consuming large amounts of lectin (from grains, peanuts,

beans, etc…) you will be opening yourself up to the risk of

autoimmune disease:

Cordain L, Toohey L, Smith MJ, Hickey MS. Modulation of

immune function by dietary lectins in rheumatoid arthritis. Br J

Nutr. 2000 Mar;83(3):207-17.

The consequences of lectin consumption are not things you want

to deal with. Another question we may have: do dietary lectins

cause disease?

Freed DL. Do dietary lectins cause disease? BMJ. 1999 Apr

17;318(7190):1023-4

Phytates (or phytic acid, or IP6) are a strong acid that binds to

divalent and trivalent heavy metal ions which then form

insoluble salts (not absorbable), for e.g. zinc, calcium,

magnesium and other trace minerals. Oxalic acid is another class

B anti-nutrient. There are doubts as to whether class B anti-

nutrients can cause deficiencies in the diets of western societies

considering the amount we eat, but if you’re not getting enough

minerals in the first place large amounts of the anti-nutrients will

probably be detrimental.

Both of these classes are found in large amounts in grains (e.g.

wheat, barley, maize, rye, rice etc…) and legumes (e.g.

soybeans, beans, peas).

The good thing is that we can inactivate these anti-nutrients.

Why not just avoid them? Well because they are just too damn

tasty (they also contain nutrients too).

A dentist named Weston A. Price traveled the world over 60

years ago studying the dental health of isolated populations.

What he found was that many of the people in areas untouched

by Western civilization had very healthy teeth. They had proper

jaw development, very little tooth decay, and were all generally

17

in very good health. He wrote about his findings in a book titled,

“Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” published in 1939. Price

found that cultures who consumed grains or beans took great

effort to prepare them properly. They removed the bran, ground

the grains, soaked them and also fermented them. That seems to

be quite a bit of work but the benefits are numerous (and tasty).

For a very detailed overview of fermented cereals around the

world the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the

United Nations published a book in 1999 titled, “Fermented

Cereals a Global Perspective”.

Amazingly, the effort put into grinding, soaking and fermenting

is able to inactivate and break-down the various anti-nutrients

found in plant material and then heating it finishes of the job for

most of them. Stephan over at Whole Health Source, a blog, has

this recipe:

Soak brown rice in dechlorinated water for 24 hours at

room temperature without changing the water. Reserve

10% of the soaking liquid (should keep for a long time

in the fridge). Discard the rest of the soaking liquid;

cook the rice in fresh water.

The next time you make brown rice, use the same

procedure as above, but add the soaking liquid you

reserved from the last batch to the rest of the soaking

water.

Repeat the cycle. The process will gradually improve

until 96% or more of the phytic acid is degraded at 24

hours.

Very simple process that takes very little effort.

Wheat

The wheat we know today traces back to a wild grass called

Triticeae. From what I’ve read it has a very pleasing flavor, so

that’s probably why it got utilized from the beginning. The

18

modern wheat we consume today arose from a variety of wheat

called einkorn which had 14 chromosomes. Through artificial

breeding and selection we now utilize a variety of wheat that

contains 42 chromosomes. There are numerous reasons for this,

including easier seed collection as well as improved texture from

increased gluten content.

Gluten is a protein found in wheat. In patients with celiac disease

their immune system reacts to gluten and in turn causes immune

system to attack the gut. The result is flattening of the villi:

On the left the increased surface area increases nutrient

absorption, on the right, the surface area is less thus decreasing

nutrient absorption. Common symptoms are failure to thrive in

children, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and nutrient deficiencies.

There is speculation (especially in the Paleolithic Diet world)

that many react to gluten but just lack the symptomatology.

There are beliefs that gluten causes leaky gut syndrome, which

then leads to various other disorders. Also it seems that when

gluten breaks down it causes opioid-like peptides to be produced,

causing addiction (discussed in Chapter 4):

Bernardo D, Garrote JA, Fernández-Salazar L, Riestra S, Arranz

E. Is gliadin really safe for non-coeliac individuals? Production

of interleukin 15 in biopsy culture from non-coeliac individuals

challenged with gliadin peptides. Gut. 2007 Jun;56(6):889-90.

19

While the Bernardo et al (2007) study is preliminary (only 6

subjects) what they found was that non-celiacs also responded to

gluten (had an inflammatory/immune response). There is an

hypothesis by Dr. Fine (from Enterolab.com) that only 0.4% of

the population is not reactive to gluten because certain proteins

(HLAs) found on most of our cells are reactive to gluten and

only 0.4% of the population do not have those proteins. So even

if you do not have out-right celiac disease, you may have some

sort of reaction to it. This is not good considering that these holes

in your gut will allow bacteria and toxins through, leading to

many problems down the road (possible autoimmune diseases):

Drago S, El Asmar R, Di Pierro M, Grazia Clemente M, Tripathi

A, Sapone A, Thakar M, Iacono G, Carroccio A, D'Agate C, Not

T, Zampini L, Catassi C, Fasano A.Gliadin, zonulin and gut

permeability: Effects on celiac and non-celiac intestinal mucosa

and intestinal cell lines. Scand J Gastroenterol. 2006

Apr;41(4):408-19

Beyond the gluten there are the dangers of wheat germ

agglutinin (a lectin, see section above). There are some

researchers who think that lectin causes celiac’s disease rather

than gluten. While the whole issue of gluten is questionable, the

issue of wheat lectins is definitely not:

Pusztai A, Ewen SW, Grant G, Brown DS, Stewart JC, Peumans

WJ, Van Damme EJ, Bardocz S. Antinutritive effects of wheat-

germ agglutinin and other N-acetylglucosamine-specific lectins.

. Br J Nutr. 1993 Jul;70(1):313-21

This evidence, combined with the fact that Weston A. Price

discovered cultures who consumed wheat but only consumed it

in the form of sourdough bread (which is fermented, which may

alter the gluten), gives me reason to avoid it.

20

No Soy for the Boy

Besides the anti-nutrients found in soybeans, there are other

substances found in soy that probably have detrimental health

effects (this may be more applicable to males than females, but I

strongly caution against soy in either case). Soy is commonly

touted as a health food these days because it seems to be a good

source of protein (but the anti-nutrients interfere with that), low

in fat (just because it is low in fat doesn’t mean it is good for

you), and apparently the “healthy” Asians consume tons of it. If

you have ever been to some of the Asian countries it is true that

they consume tofu (which probably contributes to their shorter

stature) but it is not their main source of protein. It is almost

always a side dish, and most times it has been fermented (which

removes the anti-nutrients, but not the isoflavones). While there

are numerous speculative mechanisms by which soy could

provide health benefits to the consumer, I have yet to see solid

evidence that the isoflavones being consumed confer any

benefits; if anything all I see are risks.

Genistein and daidzein are phytoestrogens found in soy protein.

They are very weak estrogen mimics, meaning they do things

that estrogen does but much more weakly (so you have to take an

larger amount to equal the estrogen your body produces to create

the same effect). While in pre-menopausal women the

phytoestrogens may not have an effect, in post-menopausal

women and males, it has a marked effect. As an analogy, think of

the young healthy female as a big bucket full of water (estrogen).

If you put a drop of water (phytoestrogen) into it there won’t be a

big difference. On the other hand, think of males and post-

menopausal females as a thimble with water, if you put a drop

into it there is a considerably larger effect.

The connection between estrogen and breast cancer is

conflicting, so is it even worth it to take the risk? For males,

there is research to show that soy consumption leads to

decreased sperm production/quality and decreased testosterone

production. In these studies, healthy males consumed 60mg of

21

the soy isoflavon, approximately 30g of tofu per day (2mg of

isoflavones per 1g of tofu). This is really not a lot. While there

seems to be support for the aging effects of testosterone (eunuchs

live longer and castrated dogs also live longer), the decreased

testosterone may perhaps be a benefit for longevity. At the same

time, I do not think the trade-offs are very impressive.

Finally, my biggest problem with soy is the possible effects it has

on the brain:

White LR, Petrovitch H, Ross GW, Masaki K, Hardman J, Nelson J, Davis D, Markesbery W. Brain aging and midlife tofu consumption. J Am Coll Nutr. 2000 Apr;19(2):242-55.

Here is a prospective epidemiological study (which is a good

type of study) showing the effects of tofu consumption on brain

degeneration. They found that adults consuming tofu daily had

worse memory performance than those who did not consume

tofu. This is quite scary because Alzheimer’s is one disease I

would rather avoid. There is not enough evidence to speculate on

what the possible mechanism may be; it could be the

isoflavones, the aluminum, etc. While various soy studies have

shown beneficial effects, those were short-term studies; this one

was a long-term high quality study.

For more information there is a great article: “Soy What? The

jury's still out on soy's benefits” by David Schardt.

The choice to consume soy is up to you. The benefit/risk ratio

does not seem very favorable to me. It really depends on where

your goals are:

Male – If you want to have breasts, be impotent, and

imbecilic then be my guest.

Female – If you want to risk breast cancer and brain

atrophy then soy is the key.

22

Vegetable Oils

If vegetables are healthy, shouldn’t vegetable oils be healthy? It

really depends. If you can press it out of the plant in question it

seems okay. If you must extract it with modern processing, that

is another question.

By Weight Soybean

Oil

Margarine Butter Olive

Oil

Lard

Polyunsaturated

% 57 34 3 8 10

Monounsaturated

% 26 49 29 75 44

Saturated % 15 17 56 16 42

This is a table with some commonly used fat sources.

McDonalds used to use lard, but after the saturated fat scare they

changed to corn oil (similar to margarine). Others in the food

industry did the same and the result was trans-fatty acids.

By comparing soybean oil and lard we can see that there is a

large difference. The soybean oil (modern processing) has a very

high polyunsaturated fat content (very high in omega-6 fatty

acids), while the lard is higher in saturated and monounsaturated

fatty acids. Based on the Paleolithic Diet we should be

consuming a fatty acid profile closer to that of lard rather than

margarine or soybean oil.

There are many important differences between polyunsaturated

fatty acids compared to monounsaturated and saturated fatty

acids. The first is the hormonal effect in the body. The

polyunsaturated fatty acids can be split into two groups, the

omega-6 fatty acids (n-6) and omega-3 fatty acids (n-3). These

are known as the essential fatty acids (EFAs). They are required

for important production of various factors our bodies require to

survive. Generally n-6 are inflammatory (they cause things to

become red and swollen), while n-3s are anti-inflammatory (e.g.

fish oil, aspirin). Therefore, if you consume a diet that is high in

n-6 and low in n-3 your bodily state is skewed towards

23

inflammation. Short-term inflammation is necessary, its long-

term inflammation that can cause problem. If your blood vessels

are constantly inflamed something is bound to happen. With the

introduction of soybean oil, corn oil, and margarine to replace

our traditional fat sources, the n-6/n-3 ratio has been strongly

skewed towards n-6 with commonly known dietary ratios today

of 20:1. Compare this to our Paleolithic ancestors, who probably

had ratios closer to 1:1.

You cannot necessarily solve the problem by increasing your n-3

intake. Instead, it is important to bring your n-6 intake down

because of the other important differences between the fatty

acids type: oxidation and reactivity.

Monounsaturated

Polyunsaturated

Saturated

The basis of the fatty acid names are descriptive of how many

double bonds each type has. The number of double bonds is

important because it determines how reactive it is in the presence

of oxygen or free radicals. It’s a tough concept to explain so

hopefully you have had some chemistry classes. All you really

need to know is that the more double bonds it has the more

chances there is for it to “break” (oxidize).

There is not only controlled oxidation of fatty acids (beta and

alpha), but autooxidation (happens by itself) as well. The type of

damage that happens in autooxidation is bad because it

perpetuates more damage. Just think about keeping non-

hydrogenated margarine at room temperature and butter at room

temperature and seeing which one goes rancid faster. The

increased rancidity in butter is due to autooxidation, a process

that also happens within the body.

24

The important thing to realize is that the type of fatty acids you

consume in your diet ends up being the type of fatty acids your

body utilizes. The more polyunsaturated fatty acids (the ones

more likely to go rancid) causes your body to go rancid (the

actual process is a bit more complicated).

One of the numerous mechanisms by which CR works is by

decreasing the incorporation of polyunsaturated fatty acids into

cells. So we should try the same by using safe oils:

Coconut Oil

Palm Oil

Avocado

Olive Oil (please see Appendix I)

Animal Fats

Our diets should be mostly saturated fats and monounsaturated

fats, leaving polyunsaturated fat consumption to our intake of

foods such as nuts, avocados, and the 3 servings of fish per week

(and maybe some flax seed oil).

Weston A. Price Nutrients

Through his research he discovered the importance of fat-soluble

vitamins and found that there were several nutrients that

provided the populations he studied with such incredible dental

health. They were Vitamin D3, Vitamin A, and Activator X (later

found out to be Vitamin K2).

Recently there has been considerable research done on these

vitamins. Weston A. Price was definitely ahead of his time in this

field.

Vitamin D3

This has actually been misclassified as a vitamin, for in reality it

is a hormone. Vitamins are something our body cannot create

thus we must obtain it from the diet. On the other hand,

25

hormones are closely regulated by our body and are created

under the correct circumstances. D3 is a hormone because we

produce it from the sun. A young man near the equator standing

naked in the sun for 30 min can produce up to 20,000IU. This

may seem like a lot but under these conditions the body regulates

itself (like he was designed to). The government sets the

maximum recommended intake at 2000IU. This is the minimum

I recommend. If you are supplementing with Vitamin D3 you

should obtain it in a softgel form (because its D3 is fat-soluble

and tablets don’t have fat). For more information on the

importance of D3 you should visit the Vitamin D Council’s

Website (http://www.vitamindcouncil.org). There is a lot of

research that shows that if you are deficient in Vitamin D3

(which most people in western society are) you are at much

higher risks for cancer, infectious diseases, osteoporosis, muscle

loss, etc. Start dosing with 20IU/lb of bodyweight for 3 months

and then get a blood level test from your doctor. Aim for 30-

50ng/ml (75-125nM/L).

Vitamin K2

The Institute of Medicine has set an RDA for Vitamin K, but that

is for the plant form (phylloquinone) AKA Vitamin K1. What we

are interested in is the animal form K2. Sources for K2 usually

come from pastured butter, organ meats, dairy, and fermented

products, many of which we do not consume today. K2 is

important not just for bone health but for other reasons as well:

Supports endocrine function

Reduces chronic inflammation

Decreases mortality rates

Proper development and growth for children

There is a great article on the Weston A. Price Foundation

website by Chris Masterjohn: On the Trail of the Elusive X-

Factor: A Sixty-Two-Year-Old Mystery Finally Solved

(http://www.westonaprice.org/abcs-of-nutrition/175-x-factor-is-

vitamin-k2.html).

26

Today, all newborns in developed countries get an injection of

Vitamin K. The reason is because nowadays newborns lack

Vitamin K due to 2 reasons: 1) poor placental transport of

Vitamin K, and 2) lack of production of Vitamin K due to sterile

gut flora. I seriously doubt that thousands of years ago a baby

had to have vitamin K injections to be healthy. The problem may

be due to the fact that the majority of the developed world

ingests Vitamin K1 instead of K2, the plant form rather than the

animal form. It seems that K1 has problems passing through the

placenta but K2 doesn’t seem to have as much of a problem:

Iioka H, Akada S, Hisanaga H, Shimamoto T, Yamada Y,

Moriyama IS, Ichijo M.A study on the placental transport

mechanism of vitamin K2 (MK-4). Asia Oceania J Obstet

Gynaecol. 1992 Mar;18(1):49-55

From this we see that thousands of years ago our ancestral

mothers consumed Vitamin K2 from their organ meats and

fermented foods, allowing the fetus to receive adequate Vitamin

K from both the placenta and breast milk and thus side-stepping

the need for injections.

Japan has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world

(recently surpassed by Singapore and Sweden). I would not say

that their standard of care is better than everyone else’s or that

their technology is better. There may be some cultural issues

involved, but one difference that I have seen is that newborns in

Japan receive Vitamin K2 (the animal form) while most other

countries utilize Vitamin K1.

There are many forms of K2 (due to differences in the length of

the carbon chain) but two forms with plenty of research behind

them are MK-7 and MK-4. MK-7 comes from fermented plant

products such as natto, and MK-4 comes from the organs of

animals. If you choose to supplement with MK-7 45mcg seems

to be enough per day, if you choose MK-4, 1mg per day is

needed.

27

Just like at one point Vitamin D3 was considered the miracle

vitamin, the next one the media stumbles upon will probably be

Vitamin K2.

Vitamin A

Vitamin A is an interesting vitamin in that it also has hormonal

actions on the body. It definitely works in synergy with Vitamins

D3 and K2. There are studies showing the risk of fractures with

high intakes, but most of that research has probably been done

on populations deficient in K2 and D3, because these nutrients

are very important for bone health. If studies come out with data

that show those with higher intakes of Vitamin A done in people

not consuming D3 and K2 it does not apply to us. However this

is the only data we have for long-term Vitamin A intake so it is

better to be safe.

If you eat a varied enough diet with enough beta-carotenes and

consume meat daily, then you probably do not need a Vitamin A

supplement. There does seem to be evidence that some people

with polymorphisms (altered genes) may prevent the conversion

of beta-carotene to retinol. I do not know how you could figure

out if you have that polymorphism, but I suspect hyperkeratosis

of your skin may be a sign that you are deficient in Vitamin A,

either by not ingesting enough beta-carotene, or not converting

it. Keratosis pilaris (bumps on the back of your arm) seem to

respond to Vitamin A supplementation but the data is scant. If

you do supplement I wouldn’t recommend more than 1500IU a

day, and you must consume Vitamin D3 and K2 to hopefully

prevent possible bone fracture. Most multivitamins have large

doses of retinol (Vitamin A) so be careful.

Fructose/Sugar

Table sugar is half fructose and half glucose. You may know

fructose as the fruit sugar/”natural” sugar. It's commonly used as

28

a sweetener as it is almost twice as sweet as glucose, but fructose

causes a very different metabolic response than glucose does:

Stanhope KL, Schwarz JM, Keim NL, Griffen SC, Bremer AA,

Graham JL, Hatcher B, Cox CL, Dyachenko A, Zhang W,

McGahan JP, Seibert A, Krauss RM, Chiu S, Schaefer EJ, Ai M,

Otokozawa S, Nakajima K, Nakano T, Beysen C, Hellerstein MK,

Berglund L, Havel PJ. Consuming fructose-sweetened, not

glucose-sweetened, beverages increases visceral adiposity and

lipids and decreases insulin sensitivity in overweight/obese

humans. J Clin Invest. 2009 May;119(5):1322-34.

What was found in this study was that the group consuming

fructose gained the same amount of weight as the glucose group;

however, the fructose group gained it all around their abdomen.

This is called visceral or central adiposity. Waist size is one of

the best predictors of metabolic syndrome because that huge

belly is a sign that your metabolism is damaged. Your body has

three main types of fat stores: intramuscular lipids,

subcutaneous/deep subcutaneous, and visceral/central adipose

tissue. The subcutaneous type is found under the skin, this is the

type that you measure when looking at skin folds. The visceral

type is the poisonous type.

Visceral adipose tissue is located around your organs. An

especially important organ with regards to diabetes, heart disease

and metabolic syndrome in general is the liver. Visceral adipose

tissue doesn't respond to hormones like normal adipose tissue

should. The turn-over rate with visceral adipose tissue is very

high (even in the presence of insulin), and it is constantly

releasing free-fatty acids (even when in the fed-state). It also

releases inflammatory hormones and interacts with the hepatic

portal vein (which is very important in signaling the metabolic

state of the body). All of this coupled together interferes with the

normal processes that should occur when you consume food and

when you are not consuming food. If you continuously feed this

adipose tissue then at some point your body just gives up.

29

Fructose is commonly found in large amounts in sodas, candies,

and anything that has been sweetened. And yes, it is also found

in fruit.

This does not mean you shouldn't consume any fruit, as fruit has

a lot of beneficial factors in and of itself. It's just best not to

make fruit a central of your diet. Two servings of fruit a day

should be enough to get the benefits.

The problem with fructose is that the other parts of the body

don’t have the mechanisms necessary to deal with it, but the liver

does. So when it passes through the liver the body tries its best to

metabolize it. Nowadays most peoples’ glycogen liver stores are

constantly full so what happens is that fructose becomes

involved in lipogenesis (making of fat) which then leads to fatty

livers (like with alcohol).

If you suffer from gout, it may be the fructose that is the

problem:

Nakagawa T, Hu H, Zharikov S, Tuttle KR, Short RA,

Glushakova O, Ouyang X, Feig DI, Block ER, Herrera-Acosta J,

Patel JM, Johnson RJ. A causal role for uric acid in fructose-

induced metabolic syndrome. Am J Physiol Renal Physiol. 2006

Mar;290(3):F625-31.

Gout is a painful disorder caused by the crystallization of uric

acid in your joints and soft-tissue. Uric acid is one of our natural

antioxidants we utilize when under stress. Usually our kidneys

are pretty good at getting rid of it when it’s not needed, however,

under hyperinsulinemia (high insulin levels) due to

diabetes/metabolic syndrome, the kidneys have trouble filtering

uric acid as well as salt (which leads to high blood pressure).

Kidney problems coupled with the fructose-induced uric acid

production leads to gout.

30

Chapter 3: Calories and

Nutrients

„Tis not the eating, nor „tis not the drinking that is to be blamed

but the excess. ~John Seldon

For this section I recommend getting used to the program Cron-

O-Meter (http://spaz.ca/cronometer/):

There are tons of different programs available to track your diet

but this one is free, up-to-date, and gets the job done. It’s also

open source!

31

Calories

The amount of energy your body burns in a day is represented by

the calorie. The resting metabolic rate (RMR) is a measurement

of how much energy your body requires in a day if you just sat

there for 24 hours.

Everyone’s RMR is different (just like everyone’s set-point is

different) but there are equations out there that can help you

estimate your daily requirements. The most accurate equation is

probably the Katch-McArdle formula which is based on lean

body mass (LBM). This equation requires your body-fat

percentage, which most people don’t know. The other formula is

the Mifflin-St Jeor Equation:

Male: BMR = 10×weight(kg) + 6.25×height(cm) - 5×age + 5

Female: BMR = 10×weight(kg) + 6.25×height(cm) - 5×age –

161

Multiplied by an activity factor:

1.200 = sedentary (little or no exercise)

1.375 = lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3

days/week, approx. 590 Cal/day)

1.550 = moderately active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5

days/week, approx. 870 Cal/day)

1.725 = very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a

week, approx. 1150 Cal/day)

1.900 = extra active (very hard exercise/sports and

physical job, approx. 1580 Cal/day)

A male who is 70kg, 170cm, and 20 years old has a BMR of

1667.5, and including his activity factor (1.200), his daily caloric

requirement is 2000 calories.

The best way to determine your maintenance calorie level would

be to observe your normal eating habits for one week by

measuring and weighing everything that you eat. Taking the

32

average amount per day out of those 7 days would be your

required daily caloric intake for weight maintenance. I’ve done

this many times and the Mifflin-St Jeor equation is actually very

close to my number.

Macronutrients

Protein, carbohydrate, and fat are the macronutrients. In terms of

calories this is how it breaks down:

1g of protein = 4 calories

1g of digestible carbohydrate = 4 calories

1g of fat = 9 calories

Others: 1g of fiber = 1-2 calories, 1g of alcohol = 7

calories

In the end, calories do count. If you want to lose weight you

have to eat below maintenance; if you want to gain weight you

eat above. While it is calories that account for your overall

weight, there are factors we can manipulate that hopefully

increase our non-fat mass while decreasing fat mass (discussed

in Chapter 9)

Protein

Protein is an essential nutrient, our bodies can make the fats and

carbohydrate we require but without protein we cannot survive.

While very low carbohydrate diets and very low fat diets are

possible, a very low protein diet is not; this would lead to protein

deficiency (Kwashiokor) and result in death. Consequently, when

designing a proper diet the first consideration should be protein

intake.

The RDA for protein is 0.8g/kg of bodyweight, however Flango

et al. (2010) have recently shown that there is “evidence that

protein requirements have been significantly underestimated,”

and that the RDA should probably be closer to 1.0g/kg.

33

Athletes regularly consume 2.2g/kg of protein per day to achieve

higher performance and muscle mass. This can be accomplished

via two important pathways: insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1)

and the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway. Both

pathways are involved in causing growth. However, this may be

detrimental to long-term health. Calorie restriction inhibits these

pathways, and while they may not be the main mechanisms

through which CR acts, they are definitely important. Excess

calories and dietary protein (specifically leucine and methionine)

activate these pathways.

I have chosen to consume a more moderate amount (between

1.0-1.25g/kg/day) because personally, I’m not interested in

growing; I am interested in extending my health-span. While

1.0g/kg of protein is good enough to maintain a moderate

amount of muscle, it’s decidedly not enough for significant

muscle growth.

Osteoporosis

High protein intake is usually explained as bad because of the

increase in acid it causes the body. When things head to your

kidneys to be filtered it is either in the form of an acid or a base,

and protein causes more acid at the kidneys. Acid is supposed to

be bad because the only way your body can buffer it is by

removing calcium from the bones (which is basic) thus

neutralizing the acidity, but this causes calcium loss which then

leads to bone loss (osteoporosis and osteopenia). It definitely

makes sense, but as always the body is much more complicated

than that and we should be consuming more than the RDA rather

then less.

Osteoporosis is a disease where your bones are not as strong as

they should be. If a teenager tripped and fell, he would be able to

get back up without an issue, however if a senior with

osteoporosis tripped and fell they have a very high chance of

fracturing/breaking a bone. If they happen to break a very big

bone (e.g. pelvis) they die. So this is something we have to try

34

our best to avoid. Some commonly recommended prevention

interventions are weight-training (stresses the bones causing

them to grow) and increased calcium intake from supplements.

While the former has supporting data, the latter is conflicting. As

you read in Chapter 2 Vitamin K2 and Vitamin D3 are very

important for bone health. While things are changing, most

calcium supplements do not contain these other vitamins and

most people do not take enough of K2 and D3 to have a large

effect. So while calcium intake is important, you have to also

consume K2 and D3 (note: avoid supplements that contain

magnesium and calcium, because they compete with each other

for absorption).

Most of the studies that the acid-base theory was based on did

not reflect reality (pure protein instead of whole food protein

sources, small sample size, and errors in the methods). It is fairly

clear now that adequate protein is required for calcium

homeostasis and hormonal support for the bones:

Hunt JR, Johnson LK, Fariba Roughead ZK. Am .Dietary protein

and calcium interact to influence calcium retention: a controlled

feeding study. J Clin Nutr. 2009 May;89(5):1357-65.

This was a random controlled trial (very good) showing that

higher dietary protein intake was associated with greater

retention of calcium than the lower dietary protein intake.

For older folks it is recommended that they consume over the

RDA (>0.8g/kg) thus I recommend 1g/kg as mentioned above:

Cao JJ, Nielsen FH. Acid diet (high-meat protein) effects on

calcium metabolism and bone health. Curr Opin Clin Nutr

Metab Care. 2010 Aug 16

Whether this whole acid base theory has any relevant

significance I do not know. Long term metabolic acidosis

definitely seems bad for the bone, but it also seems protective

against heart disease.

35

Get your RDA of all nutrients, do some weight-training,

adequate protein (1g/kg), and get the fat soluble vitamins (K2

and D3) and you might stave of osteoporosis.

Carbohydrates

Many people blame excess sugar and carbohydrate intake for the

increase in chronic diseases today, and I would have to agree.

This is not to say that you should not eat any carbohydrates

whatsoever, but you should definitely eat within your body’s

ability to deal with the load.

Diabetes is a disease of insulin resistance that comes about due

to overloaded energy stores. Your body stores carbohydrates and

fats in 3 places: muscles, adipose tissue, and the liver. The

adipose tissue stores it as lipids, muscles have the ability to store

it both as glycogen and lipid droplets, and the liver stores it as

glycogen (but pathologically can also store tons of fat). When the

adipose tissue is full and the skeletal muscles are full, the extra

carbohydrates and fats you consume in your diet float around in

the blood causing a host of problems (hyperglycemia).

When you eat pure carbohydrates (not including fructose), your

body goes into carbohydrate oxidation mode and shuts down fat

oxidation (saving the fat). When you eat a mixture of

carbohydrate and fats, the carbohydrate is preferentially burned

and the fat gets stored. If you eat pure fat, fat oxidation is

bumped up because of the lack of carbohydrate. Now this all sits

on a spectrum. If your metabolic rate is 2000 calories a day, and

you consume 2000 calories of carbs, it’ll burn off the 2000

(unless you are diabetic). If you consume 1000 calories of

carbohydrate and 1000 calories of fat, you’ll burn it all off but

you would never tap into your fat stores. To tap into the fat stores

you must create a caloric deficit; the body has to have a reason to

tap the fat on your body.

36

It is common belief that obese people eat a ton of food. While

that may have previously been true, they don’t eat 4000 calories

per day forever; if they did they would just gain more and more

weight. A lot of people claim they have a slow metabolism, but

in reality their metabolic rate divided by their lean body mass is

very similar to normal people, if anything it is a bit higher (fat is

metabolically active too). It’s not that their metabolism is slow;

instead, their body’s ability to defend the set-point in the face of

excess calories is not as effective as a lean person’s.

Let’s say a male who is 180 pounds with a metabolic rate of

2000 calories consumes 4000 calories for a couple of months

because of stress, and as a result he balloons up to 250 pounds of

mostly fat. After this, he goes back to his original 2000

calories/day diet. Good news: he won’t gain anymore weight.

Bad news: even though he’s eating much less, he still won’t lose

the weight. To lose weight you must tap into your body’s fat

source.

Ingested glucose shunts to 3 pathways: glycolysis, glycogenesis,

and the hexosamine biosynthesis pathway (HBP). Glycolysis is

where you use the glucose as fuel, glycogenesis is where you

build more glycogen, and HBP helps signal your cellular energy

levels (among many other functions). As mentioned before,

today’s society suffers from excess energy intake. When you

satisfy your caloric needs glycolysis is full, and when you eat

lots of carbohydrates your glycogen stores are full. In the end,

the only pathway left is HBP, and HBP activation leads to insulin

resistance.

One way to avoid this fate is to ensure you glycogen stores are

low. If your glycogen stores are low your body has space to store

the incoming carbohydrate. This way if you ever do consume

junk-food high in sugar/carbohydrates (e.g. pasta) on special

occasions, your depleted glycogen stores can be utilized to

sidestep the excessive glucose intake (and maybe even offer a

margin of safety in caloric intake).

37

Human glycogen stores are around 15g/kg of bodyweight. For a

70kg male that turns out to be 1050g of carbs (4200 calories).

That means 2200 calories over maintenance; this is a

considerably large margin of safety in case you cheat that day.

The important thing on that day would be to not consume any fat

because it would just get stored.

Beyond these facts, there’s also the danger of hyperglycemia

(aka high blood sugar). Hyperglycemia is a very damaging

condition because of the reactivity of sugars like glucose (causes

glycation, see Chapter 5).

One interesting aspect of low-carbohydrate diets is ketosis.

Ketones are a break-down product of fatty-acids and many

tissues in the body can utilize it as an energy source. When

glucose is absent or low, the body produces ketones so that

glucose can be saved for the brain. There may be benefits to

ketones but I haven’t been fully convinced as of late, and the

safety of long-term ketogenic diets are untested. I choose to stay

at the border into ketosis at 100-120g of carbohydrate a day

(excluding fiber). I actually intermittently enter ketosis due to

fasting and resistance training which depletes glycogen.

Everyone’s brain is around the same size, so we all utilize

similar amounts of glucose. This means 100-120g is set for

everyone. It’s important to get the 100g of carbohydrate because

this circumvents the need for gluconeogenesis, which is the

creation of glucose from amino acids and glycerol. Considering

our lower protein intake, it would be best to save the amino acids

for what the body requires and provide the glucose directly from

our diet. This also helps save our muscles from being catabolized

to provide the amino acids.

Fiber

Fiber also falls into the group of carbohydrates so it will be

discussed here. Much of the anti-nutrients I discussed above are

present in the bran of grains which people love to consume as a

38

fiber supplement. I prefer to get my fiber from non-grain sources

such as green-leafy vegetables, root vegetables, mushrooms, and

nuts. In total I get 30-40g of fiber a day. I’m not certain as to

what the optimal fiber intake is, but I have found that 30-40g of

fiber from fibrous vegetables is needed to help reach the RDA of

all the nutrients.

Intake of indigestible carbohydrates does have other benefits

besides keeping you regular and promoting satiety through

volume. One of them is the production of butyrate in the colon

and the maintenance pf healthy flora in the gut. Something that

has been spreading in naturopathic magazines and journals is the

concept of the leaky gut. Basically, your gut is only supposed to

allow nutrients through and keep toxins and poisons out.

However, because of damage to the gut through consumption of

lectins (remember chapter 2), excess sugar intake, not enough

fiber and too much gluten, holes develop in our intestinal wall

allowing everything to get through, leading to various problems.

I don’t know if leaky gut syndrome actually exists but this

certainly illustrates the importance of your gut flora (gut

bacteria). They are a part of us and help us regulate our

metabolism and protect us from the outside environment.

Without them we would die, so it is important to keep your gut

bacteria happy and healthy. This can be accomplished by getting

your fiber and consuming fermented food products (e.g. cheese,

yogurt, kimchi, sauerkraut, etc.). There is extensive research

connecting fiber and the prevention of colon cancer. It may be

multicollinearity again, but it may also be the phytate that helps

prevent colon cancer.

Fats

So far we have established that a 70kg man should be consuming

70g of protein, 100g of digestible carbohydrate and 30g of fiber.

This total caloric intake comes out to 740 calories. Considering

he probably requires 2000 calories a day to maintain his weight

that leaves 1260 calories for dietary fat, which turns out to be

140g. In reality, if he incorporates this lower-

39

carbohydrate/moderate protein intake diet he will spontaneously

decrease his caloric intake. This would cause loss of body fat

(granted if he performs resistance exercise and watches his

nutrient timing). Some nuts, some cheese, some olive oil on your

salad, some fatty cuts of meat and some flax seed oil and you’re

there.

Considering the carbohydrate intake and protein intake, this diet

automatically becomes a high-fat diet. This is good for several

reasons. Firstly, fat is satiating which helps control caloric

intake. Studies show that low-carb diet spontaneously help

patients decrease their caloric intake, so maybe we can get some

benefits of calorie restriction after all, especially considering our

use of intermittent fasting in all this. Secondly, the fats help keep

our body functioning smoothly as it helps support hormone and

neurotransmitter levels, provides us with more stable energy

levels throughout the day, gives us better skin, etc.

Micronutrients/Phytonutrients

Dr. Bruce Ames, who has done considerable research on Alpha

Lipoic Acid and Acetyl-L-Carnitine, has also established a

theory of aging: Triage Theory. Basically, without optimal

nutrition the body sacrifices short-term survival at the expense of

long-term survival. Each micronutrient your body uses is

involved in some important process to keep you alive, so if you

are missing one of them or some of them the mechanisms

involved in keeping you alive are not functioning optimally,

leading to DNA damage, cell damage, oxidative damage, etc.

By using the program Cron-O-Meter and measuring your food

intake for a week you should get an idea of which vitamins and

minerals you are deficient in.

The other component is the phytonutrients. Phytonutrients are

the substances found in vegetables which seem to confer health

benefits upon the consumer. Unlike the anti-nutrients in grains,

the phytonutrients have probably been consumed by our

40

ancestors for millions of years as hunter-gatherers. There is an

interesting theory about xenohormesis which suggests that as

environment conditions worsen, plants alter their phytonutrient

content and thus mammals that consume these plants begin to

prepare their bodies for the tough times ahead.

You’ve probably heard about ORAC values, a measurement of

the antioxidant capacity of substances in a test tube. This really

has very little to do with how the same substances function

inside our bodies. We are not looking at ORAC scores, we want

phytonutrients which have strong evidence backing their benefits

such as I3C from broccoli, ECGC from green tea, and allicin

from garlic have other functions beyond their antioxidant

capacity. If you are getting the 30-40g of fiber from fibrous

vegetables then you should be getting plenty of phytonutrients.

Some fruits and vegetables with research supporting their

benefits and should be eaten often are:

Broccoli

Blueberries

Green Tea

Dark Chocolate

Olive Oil

Many of the beneficial phytonutrients are found in the peel of the

fruit. Many people are afraid of the chemicals and other

substances on it, so what I recommend is either soaking the

vegetables/fruit in water with a very light amount of soft

detergent or purchasing one of those all-natural vegetable

washers or detergents. Heck I even eat the orange peel because

of the benefits of d-limonene (if you ever have heart burn give

some orange peel a try).

In terms of micronutrients it’s probably best to aim for 1.5x the

RDA just in case. With value investing, a very common principle

is the margin of safety, meaning that if you want to buy

something you think is worth 1 dollar, it’ll be better if you spent

50cents just in case your estimate is wrong. I would say that the

41

use of Cron-o-meter and relying on your measuring and

weighing skills definitely constitutes an estimate.

Carninutrients

Just like plants have phytonutrients, meat has carninutrients

(carni- stands for carnivore). There are various carninutrients that

we consume which are beneficial. A lot of research has been

done with regards to vegans/vegetarians because of their lack of

meat intake. If they don’t consume meat they don’t get the

following carninutrients:

Taurine

Carnosine

Creatine

Vitamin B12

There are many more but these are just some of the important

ones. Take taurine as an example:

Sebeková K, Krajcoviová-Kudlácková M, Schinzel R, Faist V,

Klvanová J, Heidland A. Plasma levels of advanced glycation

end products in healthy, long-term vegetarians and subjects on a

western mixed diet. Eur J Nutr. 2001 Dec;40(6):275-81.

This study found that vegetarians have higher plasma levels of

advanced glycation end products (see Chapter 5). It is suspected

that lack of taurine might be the cause. If you do decide to be

vegetarian make sure to get your bases covered by

supplementing with the carninutrients.

Is Meat Bad For You?

If you have read the Paleolithic diet chapter you know we

probably evolved on meat. As you are also aware of now, meat

has carninutrients which have beneficial properties. The

orthodox view of our society is that saturated fat causes heart

disease. This whole scare probably started with Ancel Key’s

42

“Seven Country Study.” Then came the “China Study” by Colin

Campbell which blamed fat consumption on the various diseases

in Chinese populations. With this bias the problem of

multicollinearity took its place and we have this connection

today, saturated fat causes heart disease. Nowadays we use

cholesterol levels as a risk factor for heart disease, and we use

the reasoning that saturated fat raises cholesterol and cholesterol

causes heart disease. Then we do a bunch of studies showing that

saturated fat raises cholesterol, which should then lead to heart

disease. My understanding of heart disease is this:

As you get older you accumulate fatty streaks (this is normal),

but as the fatty streaks get worse (and your blood vessel get more

inflamed due to other factors) macrophages invade the blood

vessel and eat up the fat. As they eat the fat they get bloated and

become foam cells (which are found in plaques). As you can see

the blood vessel shrinks and become much smaller (on the right).

What causes this accumulation of fatty streaks and

macrophages? It is probably oxidized LDL (oxLDL). The fatty

streaks are deposited by lipoproteins. Fatty acids don’t flow

through the blood by itself, it is usually attached or contained in

lipoproteins. There are different classes of lipoproteins, and that

is where you get HDL, LDL, and triglycerides (I will be

discussing these in the biometric chapter).

OxLDL is bad because the fatty acids get damaged then become

small. This leads to shrinkage in the size of the LDL particle and

a change in shape. When it changes shape, the body utilizes it

less effectively and thus it floats around, leaving time for the fat

to become oxidized in the blood. As it gets more and more

oxidized, the fat becomes sticky and attaches to the blood vessel.

43

If you remember from chapter 2 on the Paleolithic Diet, the type

of fatty acid most likely to become oxidized is polyunsaturated

fatty acids (the one with lots of double bonds). Your lipoproteins

are in the contents of whatever you are eating; if you eat tons of

PUFAs you’ll get tons of PUFAs in your lipoproteins. If you

consume lots of saturated fats you get saturated fats in your

lipoproteins.

It’s true that the plaques (that block the blood vessels) are made

out of fat (and various other materials) but blaming it on

saturated fats is jumping the gun.

What is it then? Is it the protein that’s bad for you? Well you

need that protein so no.

There is one thing that makes meat bad, namely its high fat and

protein content. This is due to the methods by which meat is

usually prepared these days. Cooking fats with protein at high

temperatures (grilling, baking, frying, etc.) is a very bad idea

because at these high temperatures, oxidation is rampant and the

formation of glycative-damaged products is very high. It’s not

that meat in and of itself is bad, it’s the way that it is prepared

that is bad. We all know consuming burnt material isn’t good,

but it doesn’t have to look charred for it to be burnt!

44

Chapter 4: Weight

Loss/Gain

Don't dig your grave with your own knife and fork. ~English

Proverb

Eating and storing is much more evolutionarily advantageous

than not eating and not storing. This is the Thrifty Gene

Hypothesis: those more likely to store energy are more likely to

survive. It is much harder to lose fat than gain fat. While your

body does gain weight when you eat more and lose weight when

you eat less, it is much more complicated than that. We all have a

programmed set-point. It is a weight range that our bodies fight

to maintain. If you have tried a diet before you know how hard it

is to lose weight and keep it off. For example, I am 5’10” and

weigh 175lbs at 10-11% body-fat. On an average daily basis I

consume 2100 calories to maintain this composition. If I ever

wanted to get down to the single-digit body fat levels I would be

required to decrease my caloric consumption down to probably

1700-1800 average daily. While I may be able to achieve those

caloric intakes for a while soon metabolic adaptations will take

place that will make me colder, less likely to exercise, dreaming

about food, shot libido, loss of muscle mass, all which are the

result of going below your set-point because the body is trying

its best to conserve energy and make you eat. If I eat over set-

point, like 2600 calories a day, my metabolism will go up, I will

have more energy, and I would gain weight. Everyone’s body

tries its best to defend a set-point, and every person has a

different in response when defending the set-point. You

probably seen those very thin people who eat a ton and yet stay

thin; they have a very good defensive mechanism. If one day

they eat a ton, they are more likely to become active and increase

exercise and non-exercise activity thermogenesis (such as

tapping their legs and fidgeting).

45

The big problem here though is that our set-points are much

more likely to go up, than it is to go down. Set-point is by

feedback to the brain and in general I consider there to be two

pathways: the Reward pathway and the Fed pathway. The reward

pathway has to do with how happy you feel after eating. For

example, if you have ever been stressed or got dumped you are

much more likely to eat sweets and carbohydrates. The simple

reason for this effect is that these types of foods raise dopamine.

Under these conditions the reward pathway is below its natural

set-point so the body tries to raise it by any means necessary,

thus eating. This pathway is usually responsible for addiction to

drugs such as cocaine and nicotine. After smoking for months,

your brain is used to a higher dopamine level and when you try

to stop smoking, it’s hard because your dopamine levels drop, so

most people begin to eat, but sooner or later they start smoking

again. One thing you see with addiction is that, the person never

“breaks” the addiction, they just use “willpower” to overcome it,

but they will always crave it under similar circumstances. As you

can see set-points usually go up, but doesn’t come back down

(just like weight gain), this is because on the way up the body is

adapting to stronger signals (more dopamine), but on the way

down it has nothing to adapt to because if set point were to move

lower, it has to adapt to a lack of signal.

The Fed pathway is where the body tells itself it is full. If you eat

and your stomach is full or your body knows it’s gotten enough

calories your appetite gets suppressed. If you ate an extra 1000

calories the day before and didn’t exercise it off, today you’re

not as hungry so you spontaneously eat less. Then why do we get

fat if the Fed pathway works. It stop workings because of the

reward pathway, that feeling of happiness overrides the fed

pathway, ever hear of the saying “there is always room for

desert.” So what happens is that one day you start consuming a

lot of junk food constantly stimulating the reward pathways

(which the body likes) and a few months later your 15lbs heavier

(freshman 15).

46

Why would nature develop such a detrimental mechanism? In

our natural environment it is not detrimental at all; in nature we

do not have constant access to concentrated sugar, wheat, and

fats. Today we do have access to these supernormal stimuli. We

have existing mechanisms which are supposed to respond to

thing in nature like sweetness (sweet potato, occasional fruit,

rare access to honey), but today this response becomes

exaggerated because our access to it is exaggerated. Our bodies

did not evolve to be in the presence of donuts and cookies, it

evolved to be in the presence of berries and potatoes. It is the

supernormal stimulus that causes the reward pathway to short-

circuit our fed pathway, sooner or later our fed pathways get

damaged (leptin resistance, insulin resistance) and we suffer the

consequences (diabetes, heart disease, obesity).

This is why most diets never work, sure you can follow it for a

couple of months at best but sooner or later our body wants to

get back to set-point.

What can we do then? The first thing is not to gain the weight in

the first place. But if you have gained the weight there are some

things we can utilize that might fix the system a bit.

Weight loss is a long-term goal. No one is looking for a short-

term fix, anyways yo-yo dieting probably isn’t the best thing for

your metabolism:

Steen SN, Oppliger RA, Brownell KD. Metabolic effects of

repeated weight loss in wrestlers. JAMA, 1988 Jul 1; 260(1):47-

50

What the study found was that wrestlers who cycled their weight

up and down had a slower metabolism compared to those who

did not. This is commonly seen in those who diet and then

suddenly gain back more weight than they started with. It is

known as the rebound effect and is present in many systems in

the body.

47

So we don’t want a short-term solution. A long-term solution has

two qualities that make it work:

Flexibility (rigidity causes to much mental stress)

Adherence (you have to be able to follow it long-term)

A big reason why diets fail is because of the rigidity imposed by

the rules. Let’s say you are on a low-calorie diet trying to cut fat,

one day you eat a couple cookies and all of a sudden your 500

calories over your limit. At this point the mental stress caused by

this low-calorie eating breaks your will-power causing you to

give up on the diet and binge 2000 calories over your limit. Later

you suddenly realized what you’ve done and decide to give up

on the diet. Or another example, you are dieting and one day you

are invited to a party with lots and lots of food. The environment

causes you to lose control and again you give up on the diet.

What we want is a way to increase the flexibility of the diet, we

don’t want a plan after the fact, we want it before the fact. By

planning this cheat day ahead of time we can mentally prepare

ourselves for the repercussions and take steps to offset that day.

This is where fasting comes into the picture.

Fasting is where you do not eat for a set number of hours. I

consider fasting to be greater than a 16 hour period where you do

not ingest calories. There’s lot of talk out there about not

skipping meals, your metabolism will slow down, it’ll hurt you

gut, bad for your health, blah blah blah blah blah. I mean it does

make sense but the problem is that just because it makes sense

doesn’t mean its right. Of course your metabolism slows down

compared to when you were eating, but it doesn’t slow down to

zero. If you consume 500 calories your body has to digest and

process those 500 calories. If your body utilizes 500 calories to

digest 500 calories that is a very inefficient storage system (goes

against the thrifty gene hypothesis), so it must take less to digest

500 calories, lets say 50. Then we store 450 calories. Sure your

metabolism is faster by consuming that meal but it doesn’t speed

up enough to overcome the extra 450 calories stored. The smart

thing to do would be to just not ingest those calories in the first

48

place. What about for health? I have never read anything about

how constantly exposing your arteries to influx of dietary

products is healthy. If anything it is damaging. There is a lot of

damage that occurs in the post-prandial state (after eating) and

there is a lot of research about how to minimize post-prandial

damage (see Chapter 5). I will discuss this concept of fasting

more in a later chapter, but for now all you have to know is that

fasting is beneficial, not fasting is harmful.

So let’s say you are going to a big party where you know you

can’t resist. Why not just create a huge caloric deficit the day

before or on that day. If the party is on Friday, fast for 16 hours

on Wednesday and Thursday, after the fast eat a normal sized

meal. That way you just created a deficit of probably 2000

calories, and then do your thing on Friday. If you throw in some

resistance training on Friday in the morning or before the party

that’s even better for calorie partitioning (more on this later too).

Don’t be too hard on yourself when you fall of the bandwangon.

You have 100 years to live, one day isn’t going to put a huge

dent in your lifetime.

The next part of a successful long-term diet is adherence. It has

to be a diet you can follow. It doesn’t take too much willpower

(this also ties into flexibility) and is also a diet you don’t feel

deprived of. This is where the low-carbohydrate diet comes into

the picture. I discussed many of the issues in the previous

chapter but I will go over them again.

Blood glucose helps regulate your appetite. Your brain is a very

selfish organ and it always gets what it wants. Because if it

doesn’t you die. That hunger you get after eating a high-

carbohydrate snack isn’t “real” hunger in the sense that you

should eat something because your body is running below its set-

point. No it’s “fake” hunger, because of that quick spike in your

blood sugar levels, excess insulin was produced which causes

your blood sugar to fall below baseline, which means less sugar

for your brain so your brain wants you to eat. This is the whole

49

low-blood sugar thing people experience when they are hungry.

What it leads to is consumption of sweets and constant grazing

throughout the day. I’m sorry but we are not cows or apes.

Humans probably went through periods of fasting, where they

hunted (exercised) and then consumed after a successful hunt.

Our bodies have adapted without the need for a constant infusion

of glucose. The reason people rely on snacks nowadays is

because this constant grazing has shut-down fat-burning

mechanisms.

This leads into a hotly debated topic of the Metabolic Advantage

(MAD). The metabolic advantage is a state that low-

carbohydrate dieting confers upon its user by allowing intake of

unlimited about of fat/protein in the absence of carbohydrate but

still leads to weight loss. While if you consumed the same

amount of calories on a high-carbohydrate diet you would be

humungous. There’s good points on both sides but from my

reading of the research it definitely doesn’t seem like unlimited

calories. There probably is a metabolic advantage for those with

a derangement in their leptin/insulin signaling systems but

outside of those folks, the metabolic advantage probably doesn’t

exist, in my honest opinion (At most the metabolic advantage

seems to be 300 calories). So if the metabolic advantage

probably doesn’t exist on the low-carbohydrate diet why do I

recommend it? I recommend it for its other qualities:

It’s tasty

More satiety

Stable blood sugar

Breaks the supernormal addiction (at least gives you the

willpower)

If you are consuming low-carbohydrate, then the calories has to

be made up with something else, either protein or fat. Now

protein isn’t a good idea, because excess will become glucose,

and probably leads to aging (more on this later). So what is left is

fats.

50

Carbohydrate loading is easy and also fun while we’re doing it.

Athletes and bodybuilders can easily consume over 3000 calories

of carbohydrate in a day. There’s something unsatiating about

carbohydrates. I could easily eat a whole box of cereal in one

sitting (depending on the box probably 2000 calories) but could

you eat 2000 calories of cheese? The funny thing is that I would

probably be hungry after the box of cereal (resulting low blood

sugar) but with the cheese I would be full and disgusted for the

day. By lowering your carbohydrate intake you not only stop

consuming the junk-food but it allows you to increase the fat

content of the diet which keeps your blood sugar level and

satiety centers satisfied.

The other benefit of a low-carbohydrate high-fat diet is it turns

up fat-burning machinery (this doesn’t mean you burn more fat

from your body, that will depend on your caloric intake). This

spares glucose for the brain while the rest of the body runs on

fats (ketones). The ketones may also have beneficial properties

themselves.

Beyond the ability of low-carbohydrate high-fat diets to control

your caloric intake, a low-carbohydrate diet also has benefits that

will prevent the damage of your cells. This is important for the

prevention of chronic illnesses as we get older.

Left out of the discussion is the importance of exercise.

Remember I said set-point doesn’t go lower, well it seems when

exercise is applied it does go lower (it also seems that way with

fasting too). By combining exercise, fasting, and a low-

carbohydrate diet a body fat percentage for males below 15%

and for females below 25% should be fairly easy to attain and

maintain.

Body Types

You probably heard of the term endomorph, mesomorph, and

ectomorph. It usually specifies the type of body that people have

naturally. The endomorph has a very easy time gaining weight as

51

fat; their metabolism is less likely to compensate for the extra

calories they consume and they are more likely to gain fat

instead of protein. This ratio of fat and protein is called the P-

ratio (protein/fat).

Dulloo AG, Jacquet J, Girardier L. Autoregulation of body

composition during weight recovery in human: the Minnesota

Experiment revisited. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 1996

May;20(5):393-405

This study shows from the famous Minnesota Experiment that

every individual has there own P-ratio, thus putting them on the

spectrum between ectomorph and endomorph somewhere. An

ectomorph would gain more muscle than fat (if they can gain)

and a mesomorph gains equal amounts of both.

Apart from the P-ratio there are two more components that

determine your body type: speed of your metabolism and how

effectively you unconsciously control calorie intake. Your

metabolism is actually made up of a couple of parts. There is

there basal metabolic rate (BMR) I mentioned in the beginning

of Chapter 3. There is the thermic effect of activity (the activity

factor you multiply by, the more you exercise the more you

burn), the thermic effect of food (it takes calories to digest food)

and the biggest factor, the non-exercise thermic effect of activity

(NEAT) which are movements outside of exercise such as

shaking your leg, fidgeting your hands, bouncing up and down in

your seat. NEAT can actually burn off up to 700 calories a day

depending on the person. While the movements may seem small

it adds up over the entire day.

The other component is how well you control your caloric intake

around your set point. Some people control it really well, some

people don’t.

52

Endomorph

Low P-ratio

Low NEAT

Does not control caloric intake well

Ectomorph

High P-ratio

High NEAT

Controls caloric intake well

Mesomorph

In the middle

What determines your body type? In the end it is probably

genetics and the environment in which you grew up, but I

believe they can be overcome with hard and smart work (Chapter

9).

Recently a new phenotype has been described and that is the

skinny-fat bodytype. The skinny-fat body type are the people

that are thin but have metabolic dysregulation just like someone

that is overweight with insulin resistance. While other people

would gain weight, the skinny-fat person does not gain weight

but can still end up with Type II diabetes (discussed in Appendix

III).

53

Chapter 5: Minimizing

Damage

About the only thing that comes to us without effort is old age.

~Gloria Pitzer

Aging is a disease because of damage. Just like the transmission

of a car gets worn-out, every cell in your body gets worn-out.

Unlike a car though, you can’t replace your cells with new parts.

The damage created is just a part of being alive. Our body tries

our best to fight the entropy but evolution just did not have the

need to act on the parts that would keep us alive forever. Even

though we cannot prevent all the damage from occurring we can

try our best to minimize it. It just makes a lot of sense that we

should minimize damage to our bodies, we don’t need to

increase the speed by which we age.

Source: Cai W, He JC, Zhu L, Chen X, Wallenstein S, Strike GE,

Vlassara H. Reduced Oxidant Stress and Extended lifespan in Mice

Exposed to a Low Glycotoxin Diet. Am J Pathol. 2007 June;

170(6):1893-1902

In this study Cai et al show that the group of mice consuming a

lower AGE diet lived longer. AGE definitely is not good for

mice, but they also aren’t good for humans. There is also a study

showing that by combining a high AGE diet with CR, the CR

benefits are abolished (no lifespan extension). Clearly this type

of damage should be minimized.

Lesson on Survival Curves

Kaplan Meier survival curves are useful because they allow you

to look at how a population is doing. On the x-axis (horizontal)

you have age of death (or some function of time) and on the y-

axis you have the percent still alive. So for example, we’ll use

the black line. At the very left up top, 100% of the rats are alive,

54

by the time you move along the line and get to the middle 50%

are alive, then at the bottom 0% is alive. So the lines can take

different paths. It can become more square, meaning less rats die

near the beginning, but then suddenly drop off at around the

same age (like humans), or that there is a very high death rate

throughout the lifespan creating the blue line (not accurate

because the blue line also shows a decrease in lifespan). The

other way it can move is parallel, the graphs could shift to the

right showing that at each time period the rat is living longer,

thus extending life span.

So in our example above with mice and AGE diets, the AGE-fed

mouse is the blue line and the controls were the black line (a CR-

mice would be the red line).

There are two sources for this type of damage: your blood sugar

levels and the damaged intermediates you consume in your diet.

Blood Sugar

High blood sugar is a dangerous thing. The body keeps blood

sugar regulated in a fairly narrow range through various

hormones (e.g. insulin, glucagon, glucocorticoids, epinephrine).

If your glucose levels are too low you die (the brain needs

glucose); if your glucose levels are too high, nothing acute

happens, but high glucose levels eventually lead to diabetes.

How well you body responds to your carbohydrate intake

depends on many factors such as source of carbohydrate, how

55

much fiber, protein, and fat you consume, how long since you

last ate, exercise, etc. However, the major factor is your insulin

sensitivity.

When you ingest a bowl of white rice (which is just starch and

water), the amylase (enzyme) in the mouth begins digesting the

starch molecules, which continue to be broken down in your

small intestine. It then gets broken up into tiny glucose

molecules, which are then absorbed through the hepatic portal

vein and released into blood for all the cells in your body. Your

body cannot really burn off all the carbohydrates at one time, so

now the muscles, adipose tissue, and liver suck it up from the

blood to prevent it from doing damage. This absorption of

glucose from the blood depends on a hormone called insulin,

which is released when you eat in preparation for storage. For

many reasons, consuming too many calories and excess

carbohydrates leads your muscles, adipose tissue and liver to

stop responding to insulin. This can lead to high blood sugar

levels (hyperglycemia) and then diabetes. Since your liver cannot

respond to insulin anymore, it believes that you don’t have

enough glucose in the blood, which then causes it to start

pumping out glucose into the blood, making matters even worse.

56

Glucose may not sound damaging, but in large amounts it is. In

the picture above (on the left) you have a normal shaped protein.

Protein does its job because of its shape; if you change its shape

you change the protein. Usually for a protein to do its job it has

to fit into another protein that accepts its shape (like a key and

lock). If the protein’s shape is changed it will no longer work

properly (the key doesn’t fit). The picture on the right is the

same protein but with a glucose molecule attached to it (the

circle), by attaching a sugar to the protein it alters its shape, and

the shape is no longer allowed to do its job (it becomes

damaged). It becomes attached through a reaction known as the

Maillard reaction.

This may not seem like such a big deal since new protein can be

created and usually old protein can be broken down, but what we

are worried about are the proteins that stay with us forever, such

as the proteins that make up our arteries and the proteins that

make up our neurons. If they get damaged, they don’t get

removed or replaced.

Glycation doesn’t just end with the proteins. It can also cause

damage to fats. PUFAs are very reactive, and under high

temperatures they are reactive with sugars too. By damaging the

protein and lipids of the body, more and more damage occurs in

a vicious cycle. Glycative damage is actually one reason oxLDL

are produced. As the arteries get damaged by the excess sugar,

inflammation occurs and more macrophages are produced.

A good way to measure this type of damage is testing glycated

hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is the protein that carries oxygen in the

blood, thus it shares its environment with glucose. Red blood

cells have a turnover rate of 120 days, so as the hemoglobin gets

damaged and removed, new undamaged ones are made to

replace them. From this you can find the percentage of

hemoglobin that is damaged. The more glucose you have in the

blood, the higher the percentage.

57

To get this test go to your doctor and ask for it. You preferably

want a level between 4% and 6%, however if you are already

diabetic aiming for below 7% is good.

In normal healthy individuals, glycated hemoglobin is a good

measure of how well you handle post-prandial hyperglycemia.

Post-prandial meaning after eating. Your blood glucose doesn’t

spike up and down randomly throughout the day for no reason, it

usually follows what you consumed. If you ate 250g of

carbohydrate then your blood glucose will spike much more than

if you ate 100g. If you happen to have a blood glucose meter I

prefer to keep post-prandial glucose below 120mg/dL, this is

where my 130g of carbohydrate a day number also came from.

Here’s another example to further stress the damaging nature of

glycation. Meat undergoes the Maillard Reaction, this is what

gives it the flavor when you grill it. Te Maillard reaction is what

leads to browning and it is also what leads to burning. This

process occurs in the body. The higher your blood sugar goes,

and the longer you stay in that environment the more “browning”

and “burning” occurs to the cells in your body. If you cook your

meat at a very low temperature it takes the meat longer to burn

into nothing, more normal glucose levels slow down the damage

you accumulate.

To prevent blood sugar spikes, consume fiber with your

carbohydrate sources (vegetables) and have some fats to slow

digestion. Also make sure to get your exercise and consume a

lower-carbohydrate diet because this depletes glycogen stores,

increasing insulin sensitivity (the emptier your energy stores are

the faster and more they can store).

Glycemic Index

The glycemic index is a measurement for how different food

types spike your blood sugar level. This would be a useful tool if

everyone ate only one food at a time, but I consider it a moot

point considering people consume mixed meals. Sure, white rice

58

has a high glycemic index, but when you eat it with a bunch of

broccoli, some meat, and fruit, what is the glycemic index

measuring exactly? The glycemic index diet probably works

because it tells you to eat more vegetables and less sugar.

Damaged Food-Products

Besides the glycation that occurs inside your body, you should

also be worried about the glycation in the food you digest

outside of your body. In the study I mentioned at the beginning

of the chapter, it showed that the AGEs in your diet matter. Fried

meat, bread crust, and evaporated milk are all processed at high

temperatures which lead to excessive glycative damage.

Here’s a table showing the AGE content of a selection of foods:

Food AGE

Pasteurized skimmed milk 0.35

Pasteurized whole milk 0.52

Evaporated whole milk 46.2

Butter 0.37

Cheese 5.80

Raw minced beef 0.72

Boiled miced beef 5.02

Fried minced beef 11.2

White bread crust 37.1

Source: Goldberg T, Cai W, Peppa M, Dardaine V, Baliga BS,

Uribarri J, Vlassara H. Advanced glycoxidation end products in

commonly consumed foods. J Am Diet Assoc. 2004

Aug;104(8):1287-91

For a more recent list it can be found in this study:

Uribarri J, Woodruff S, Goodman S, Cai W, Chen X, Pyzik R,

Yong A, Striker GE, Vlassara H. Advanced glycation end

products in foods and a practical guide to their reduction in the

diet. J Am Diet Assoc. 2010 Jun;110(6):911-16.e12

59

What was found in the study by Uribarri et al (2010) was that:

Fats contain more AGEs

Meat is the largest contributor

Carbohydrate groups contain the lowest

Grains, legumes, breads, vegetables, fruits, and milk are

the lowest in AGEs

Another interesting point in the paper was that if you marinate

your meat in acidic vinegar the AGE content is reduced by 50%.

What we learn from all this is that high temperatures for long

periods of times are damaging. We should cook in moist heat and

lower temperatures. Between time and temperature, which one is

more important? Well, the rate of chemical reaction is usually

exponential with temperature and linear with time, so it is better

to cook at lower temperatures for longer, then higher temperature

for short periods.

Why don’t we just consume grains, breads, and legumes all the

time? Firstly, meat has carninutrients we should be getting, and

we must also be aware of balancing blood sugar and the

consumption of dietary AGEs. Diabetes is a disease due to high

blood sugar, so I think keeping your blood sugar under control is

more important.

Basically, stay away from processed foods (high temperatures,

especially evaporated products like infant formula) and when

you cook meat, steam it or boil it after marinating it in vinegar

and various spices. Also, always use moist heat to make dishes,

there really is no reason to be frying your vegetables in oil. You

can quickly heat them on a pan with water then add the oil later

if necessary.

60

Iron Levels

Women have monthly cycles which cause them to lose ~30mg of

iron every month while males gain ~1mg of iron per day after

the end of their growth period. There may be many explanations

as to why women live longer than men (~7 years longer, e.g.

estrogen, disposition) but one interesting possible reason is that

men get overloaded with iron as they age and women do not

(until they hit menopause).

Overall, our bodies are actually fairly good at regulating iron

stores. At the same time, hemachromatosis (a disease which

causes iron overload in humans) shows us the dangers of excess

iron: liver damage, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis. We can see

that excess iron is a bad thing. Iron causes all these problems

because of its interaction with the free radicals that are produced

from metabolism. The free radicals by themselves are not that

damaging, however, when combined with free iron the damage is

increased. The more iron there is, the more damage that occurs.

Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and liver disease are all associated with

increased iron stores in their respective locations. Here is a

prospective study showing the association between high iron

stores and atherosclerosis:

Jehn ML, Guallar E, Clark JM, Couper D, Duncan BB,

Ballantyne CM, Hoogeveen RC, Harris ZL, Pankow JS. A

prospective study of plasma ferritin level and incident diabetes:

the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study. Am J

Epidemiol. 2007 May 1;165(9):1047-54.

The problem with many supplements and fortified foods is that

they are very high in iron. Not only that, but people go out of

their way to purchase extra iron supplements. Nowadays many

people also take multivitamins which contain Vitamin C. Mixing

Vitamin C and iron together is bad because not only does

Vitamin C increase iron absorption, but it also reacts with it

causing the production of free radicals. Dietary iron is usually

not a big problem (as long as you implement the interventions

61

discussed below) because it comes with substances that protect

the body from the damage (e.g. phytochemicals, carnosine,

taurine). Most multivitamins include the entire RDA for iron, so

if you are eating a wholesome diet you are getting 2x the RDA.

There are two types of iron: heme-iron (found in red meat) and

non-heme iron (found in vegetables, grains, legumes).

Absorption of non-heme iron really depends on the environment

where various fatty acids, proteins, and vitamins/minerals can

affect its absorption, but overall the absorption of non-heme iron

is not very good. Non-heme iron makes up ~85% of dietary

intake. Heme iron is absorbed very well thus while it only

contributes ~25%, it provides more iron to our bodies than non-

heme.

Based solely on this we can conclude that we should not

consume any meat. Yet just like many things regarding your

health, just because too much is bad does not mean that none of

it is better (e.g. protein See Chapter 2). In my opinion, it is better

to be on the lower side than the higher side. However, decreasing

dietary iron should not be the goal because dietary iron helps

outcompete cadmium and lead in our intestines thus preventing

heavy metal toxicity. Instead we should be focusing on how to

get rid of the excess in men (unlike women, men do not have

cycles).

Exercise is good for getting rid of iron because just by sweating

and breaking our cells we lose 1mg from exercise (so you have

to sweat!). The other thing we can do is to donate blood:

Meyers DG, Strickland D, Maloley PA, Seburg JK, Wilson JE,

McManus BF. Possible association of a reduction in

cardiovascular events with blood donation. Heart. 1997

Aug;78(2):188-93

What was found in this study was that men who donated blood

were less likely to have heart attacks (which is a good thing).

62

Donating at least twice a year is good. Not only do you help

others but you also help yourself in the process.

The other thing you can do is to supplement with an iron chelator

such as phytate (see Appendix IV), other phytonutrients also

work (such as those found in green tea). Phytate is very good at

binding iron, but the thing to watch out for is to not go overboard

(or else you get anemia). So if you do plan to supplement with

phytate, make sure to get your ferritin (this stores iron) levels

checked. We want it on the low side, but not past it.

63

Chapter 6: The Natural and

Supplements

Better to hunt in field, for health unbought, than fee the doctor

for a nauseous draft. ~John Dryden

A lot of this book has discussed the Paleolithic diet: we evolved

in nature to eat certain things, therefore it may seem like what is

natural is best, ergo what is natural cannot do any harm. This is

the naturalistic fallacy. If everything in nature was good for you,

why are there poisonous plants and mushrooms? Clearly we

need to view what is “natural” with a more skeptical eye. If you

walk into a supplement store today you will see numerous herbal

extracts, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and other ingredients.

If you ask the sales clerk if all this stuff is safe they would say,

“oh yeah it’s all natural” and the customer will buy the

supplements, take them home, and consume them without

knowing that there could be consequences down the road. When

you spend money on something that is supposed to make you

healthier, one should definitely apply a more skeptical eye to

what they are buying. We aren’t supposed to be looking for what

is natural; we want to look for what is safe and effective.

Now safety is not something that can always be judged, so when

you consume something it should definitely have a very high

benefit to risk ratio. Every supplement you consume outside of

whole foods means taking a risk, if you want to take that risk, the

trade-off better be beneficial.

Let’s take aspartame and stevia for example. Both are zero

calorie sweeteners commonly used in products today for those

who do not want to consume sugar. Aspartame is regularly

blamed for causing cancer, and stevia is championed as being

all-natural, thus entirely safe. I prefer my drinks with aspartame.

While stevia has been used by for generations by South

American Natives, this type of data doesn’t have any edge on

64

clinical data (outcome trials, animal toxicity data, prospective

epidemiology). Just because it has been used historically doesn’t

mean that it’s safe. How is one generation supposed to link

cancer 40 years down the road to their ingestion of stevia leaves?

If stevia caused diarrhea I can see how they would make the

connection. To determine what is safe and effective we must turn

to the scientific method, and so far aspartame, sucrolose, splenda

all have this type of data behind it while stevia does not.:

Magnuson BA, Burdock GA, Doull J, Kroes RM, Marsh GM,

Pariza MW, Spencer PS, Waddell WJ, Walker R, Williams GM.

Aspartame: a safety evaluation based on current use levels,

regulations, and toxicological and epidemiological studies. Crit

Rev Toxicol. 2007;37(8):629-727.

The most convincing study is this one that has life-span data:

Source: Soffritti M, Belpoggi F, Degli Esposti D, Lambertini L, Tibaldi

E, Rigano A. First experimental demonstration of the multipotential

carcinogenic effects of aspartame administered in the feed to Sprague-

Dawley rats. Environ Health Perspect. 2006 Mar;114(3):379-85.

What they show in the study is that the rat fed aspartame and the

control rats had the same lifespan. In other words aspartame did

not cause more deaths despite what the conclusion of the study

states (the data was probably due to chance because the

researches were just really bad at taking care of the rats, many

rats died prematurely). If anything, the female group seemed live

longer when fed aspartame. So for the occasional treat I see no

reason why I would choose regular soda over diet-soda (30

grams of sugar or couple 180mg of aspartame).

Supplements

The supplements you should be taking should really be

determined by your diet. After a week of tracking with Cron-O-

Meter you should have a good idea of what you are deficient in.

If for some reason you can’t reach 1.5x the RDA for each

65

vitamin and mineral, you can decide to take a supplement.

Buying a supplement is a hard decision, because not only do you

have to buy the right form of the ingredient, you should also try

your best to buy a high-quality supplement so that you get what

you are paying for.

Beyond the “active” ingredient in the pill, it can also contain

other ingredients that are used to fill up the pill and also make it

easier for the machines to pack the pill:

Lubricants. Fatty acids, or stearates, which speed up

manufacturing.

Disintegrators. Cellulose or sodium lauryl sulfate that

help the pill breakdown.

Binders. Promotes cohesion, like polyethylene glycol.

Diluents. Fillers, such as starch that increases the bulk of

a product.

This is by no means an exhaustive list but you should be aware

of what you are putting in your mouth. If you take a look at

pharmaceutical drugs most pills don’t have more than 5 of these

other ingredients. The less it takes to make the pill, the higher

quality the pill usually is.

Some other ingredients I stay away from are:

Propylene Glycol

Artificial Colorings

Sweeteners

Sodium Benzoate

Aluminum Silicate

While ones I consider safe are:

Magnesium Stearate

Gelatin

Stearic Acid

Lecithin

66

Cellulose

Di-Calcium Phosphate

Glycerin

These lists are by no means extensive but just keep an eye out

for how other ingredients there are. I have found some very

pricey supplements with 8-10 other ingredients.

Which supplements should you be taking then? Well there iss the

Weston A. Price nutrients, vitamins A, D3, and K2 (MK-7 or

MK-4) and maybe some magnesium and a source of omega-3s,

because modern diets are usually deficient in these nutrients.

Vitamin D3

This is not actually a vitamin but a hormone that our bodies

require to function optimally. Back near the equatorial region of

Africa we probably produced tons of Vitamin D3 due to

exposure from the sun. In 20 minutes our bodies have the

capacity to produce 20,000IU of Vitamin D3, yet for most of us,

when we go outside we cover ourselves up, stay in the shade,

and slap on sunscreen. These are actually fairly smart things to

do considering that UV light causes skin aging, damage, and

maybe cancer, but doesn’t do much for our Vitamin D status. So

the first thing you should be supplementing with is at least

2000IU of Vitamin D3. What should optimally be done is to

supplement with 25IU/lb of bodyweight then get blood tests

performed measuring your levels to ensure that you are in the

optimal range >30ng/ml and less than 50ng/ml. You can read

more about Vitamin D and the Vitamin D Council website.

When you purchase the supplement ensure that it is in a softgel

form because Vitamin D3 is fat-soluble, and tablets don’t have

any fat.

67

Vitamin K2

We are animals so we use K2, but K2 is found mainly in cheese,

organ meats, and fermented soybeans; many foods people do not

consume today and because of modern processing even if you do

they are not present in large enough amounts. This means we

should probably supplement with it. Most people associate

vitamin K with bone health and this is true. Vitamin K2 helps

activate Vitamin K dependent (VKD) proteins allowing the body

to bring the calcium to where it is needed, instead of letting the

calcium float around in the body possibly leading to calcification

(heart disease).

Beyond just bone health, it has an array of other benefits:

Cancer

Neuroprotection

Cardiovascular health

Dental health

There are two forms: MK-7 and MK-4. MK-7 comes from

fermented soybeans while MK-4 is the endogenous animal form.

If you take MK-7 take 45mcg a day, if MK-4 take 1mg a day.

Also ensure that it is in a softgel form.

Magnesium

If you’ve analyzed your diet you are probably deficient in

magnesium. It takes conscious effort to design a diet sufficient in

magnesium so most people would rather supplement with it.

Even though I do achieve the RDA I choose to supplement with

some extra to get over the RDA just in case.

In the distant past, the majority of our magnesium was probably

from our water intake. Nowadays we filter our water and it

basically has no minerals in it. Supplementing with 250mg of

extra magnesium a day would benefit a lot of people in terms of

bone health, cardiovascular health, and diabetes.

68

There are many different forms of magnesium but a cheap and

absorbable form to take would be magnesium citrate. Make sure

to stay away from magnesium oxide. While the oxide form is the

most popular, it’s not as absorbable as other forms. The reason

oxide is used is because the pills are smaller than if you used

citrate.

Omega 3 Fatty Acids

I actually don’t recommend fish oil unless you have neurological

problems. The reason for this is that the very long chains of

polyunsaturated fatty acids in fish oil will be incorporated into

the inner mitochondrial membrane and possibly reduces your

lifespan. I am not saying that omega-3s are not beneficial, just

that I would rather get my n-3s from shorter chain fatty acids. If

you remember the section on vegetable oils in Chapter 2, double

bonds are more likely to react and oxidize. Well, the PUFAs in

fish oil have the most double bonds you will find. The more fish

oil you consume the more long chain PUFAs in your body.

For an introduction to this aging theory read here:

Hulbert AJ.Explaining longevity of different animals: is

membrane fatty acid composition the missing link? Age (Dordr).

2008 Sep;30(2-3):89-97.

Basically what has been found is that species with more long

chain PUFAs in their membranes live a shorter life than those

with less PUFAs. It is interesting to note that CR also reduces the

incorporation of long chain PUFAs into the membranes.

What do we supplement instead? Well get your fish three times a

week, and the rest of the days supplement with 6g of flax seed

oil (1 tablespoon).

Common arguments against this are that flax seed oil conversion

into animal form omega 3 fatty acids are inefficient (~10%), but

69

just because it is inefficient doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen at all.

Research has placed optimal amounts of omega-3 intake at

around 250mg (which comes out to 3 servings of fish per week).

One tablespoon of flax seed oil is enough to make 250mg.

This may seem like a mechanistic argument (which is bad) but

there is also research to show that flax seed oil has just as good

cardiovascular outcomes as fish oil. You may also have heard of

the flax seed and prostate cancer association. If it is the lignans

in the flax seed, the oil doesn’t have any lignans so it doesn’t

matter. If it is the actual oil itself, well a new study out in March

2010 showed that there is no connection:

Carayol M, Grosclaude P, Delpierre C. Prospective studies of

dietary alpha-linolenic acid intake and prostate cancer risk: a

meta-analysis. Cancer Causes Control. 2010 Mar;21(3):347-55

It looks at prospective studies (which is good) and they found no

connection.

The Rest of the Nutrients

It’s preferable if you get the rest of your nutrients from food, but

if you find it hard I suggest topping it up with a multi-vitamin.

The only good brand of multivitamins out there is AOR. Don’t

take the full-dose, a partial dose will do.

I only suggest a partial dose because unless you are munching on

sugar all day, you do ingest nutrients. Most of the multivitamins

designed nowadays follow the principle “the more the better,”

which is good for the companies because that’s what people will

buy, but it is not good for you. As I mentioned in chapter 2, too

much pre-formed Vitamin can double your risk of fractures, too

high of a zinc-copper ratio leads to prostate cancer, too much

copper can lead to dementia, extra selenium (and most

multivitamin has a lot of that) can lead to diabetes, too much

folic acid and thiamine will cause cancer down the road. Most

multi-vitamins these days contain a lot of these vitamins and

70

minerals, because these vitamins and minerals are what

customers actually seek out. If someone buys a multivitamin it

is not rare to see them taking an extra b-vitamin supplement

(way too many b-vitamins) and some extra zinc.

Just a quick note on folic acid, if you consume 100mcg of folic

acid from food you absorb 50mg, if you consume 100mcg from

supplements you absorb 100mcg. The RDA is set for food intake

not supplement intake.

Toxicity is not the only problem. It’s the design of the

multivitamin that is also something one should pay attention too.

There are eight forms of Vitamin E, most vitamins use alpha-

tocopherol which can decrease your body’s stores of the other

forms of Vitamin E (in nature the gamma-tocopherol is the one

that is consumed in higher amounts). The beta-carotene is

usually synthetic (cheaper to make), inclusion of various herbal

extracts with no evidence backing up its safety or efficacy, and

also inclusion of various phytonutrients that are beneficial but

not in high enough dosages to have an effect (included for

cosmetic purposes). Many also include green tea extract, which

binds to minerals decreasing absorption, as well as magnesium

oxide instead of the other forms because it fits into a smaller pill.

However, it is not absorbed properly.

Not only is taking a full dose and badly designed multivitamin

incredibly dangerous, but at best you are just wasting your

money. As I said, I only know a couple of companies that design

their multivitamins and do not suffer from these deficiencies, and

one of them I trust is AOR. Be careful out there because your life

and health depends on it.

Please see Appendix IV for more risky supplements that I

believe may also beneficial.

71

Chapter 7: Maintaining the

Body

Fasting is the greatest remedy, the physician within. ~Philippus

Paracelsus

Our world is full of stress. We experience internal (e.g. free

radicals, oxidative stress) and external stress (e.g. toxins, lack of

food). Many people assume that no stress is best but that may not

be true. Our bodies are very adaptive and when exposed to

various stimuli, our body is capable of up-regulating protective

mechanisms, which we can then utilize when the stress

disappears. So it seems like the right amounts of stress,

intermittently in various forms, is probably good for us in the

long-term. This is called hormesis.

Some examples of hormesis are: exercise, alcohol, fasting, eating

vegetables (xenohormesis); some more controversial ones are

radiation and small doses of poison.

As we all know, exercise is good for you, but too much leads to

overtraining and down the road your body is going to

breakdown. There is evidence to show that alcohol intake

probably leads to better cardiovascular health (20g or so a day),

perhaps through the production of hydroxytyrosol (which is also

found in large amounts from high quality olive oil).

Plants also elicit these mechanisms in us. As I mentioned in the

anti-nutrient section of Chapter 2, plants develop defensive

mechanisms to protect themselves from predators. While we may

not be adapted to grains we may be adapted to the various green

vegetables and fruits found in nature that we would feed on, so

we've adapted to these poisons. “That which does not kill us

makes us stronger,” to a degree.

72

Hormesis probably played a role in our evolutionary history by

selecting those who had mechanisms in place that could be up-

regulated when exposed to stress, thus preparing them for larger

stresses in the future. Those without the gene that leads to up-

regulation probably died off when those large stresses came

about.

For an example of the importance of hormesis we will use

exercise. When you exert yourself your blood starts pumping and

you take more breaths because your body requires more oxygen.

It is the utilization of oxygen that produces the free radicals that

everyone takes antioxidants to prevent them from damaging our

cells. Quite intuitive, isn’t it? Take antioxidants that soak up free

radicals so no damage is done and thus we are healthier. But no,

that's not what happens. There's an evolutionary reason for these

free radicals, which is to help up-regulate stress coping

mechanisms (and exercise is a stress).

In this study:

Ristow M, Zarse K, Oberbach A, Kloting N, Birringer M,

Kiehntopf M, Stumvoli M, Kahn CR, Bluher M. Antioxidants

prevent health-promoting effects of physical exercise in humans.

Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2009 May 26; 106(21):8665-70

What they found was when vitamin C (an antioxidant) was given

to an untrained individual performing exercise, the beneficial

effects of exercise was blocked. It seems that free radicals help

signal, telling the body it has to adapt. This is a very good

example of the difference between “it makes sense that it should

do this” vs. “does it actually do this.”

Autophagy and Fasting

Calorie restriction may also work its magic through autophagy

(self-eating). Our bodies are constantly making new enzymes,

cells, and other stuff all the time. Our bodies aren't perfect so it’s

bound to make numerous mistakes in our lifetime. Also

73

considering the damage we do to it by the crap we eat and the

stress we experience, it is a surprise we don’t age faster. While

our body does have mechanisms by which to deal with some of

it, we never get into the optimal state to remove the garbage.

Today we are taught to eat 3 square meals a day and maybe even

have some snacks when hungry. We are constantly in a fed state,

and never have a chance to enter the fasted state. We are always

trying to build and store nutrients instead of breaking them

down. The only times that we may be in the fasted state is when

we are asleep but that doesn't take into account the fact that lots

of people eat very late night snacks.

So let’s say you don't eat for 24 hours (fasting). During the 24

hours your body still needs to run on something so it taps into

your body’s own energy stores. It requires glucose for the brain,

which the body can produce by breaking down liver glucose

stores. If your liver glucose stores are low, the body tries to leave

the glucose for the brain and instead breaks down fatty acids into

ketones. This allows other tissues to use ketones while the all-

important brain can still get its glucose. Another source of

glucose would also be amino acids. But this isn't amino acids

from your muscles, its most likely the crap that doesn't work and

instead is floating around in your cells and body. Basically, by

not eating your body decides to recycle the garbage. So as you

can see, if you never fast, or never eat below maintenance (i.e.

calorie restriction), you never get to take out the garbage. Also

there's the added benefit of ketones (if your liver glycogen stores

are depleted, which we will do with resistance training, Chapter

6, and low-carb diets).

There are some common myths associated with not eating and I

will address the two important ones here:

Metabolism slows down: FALSE

Heilbronn LK, Smith SR, Martin CK, Anton SD, Ravussin E.

Alternate-day fasting in nonobese subjects: effects on

74

bodyweight, body composition and energy metabolism. Am J

Clin Nutr. 2005 Jan; 81(1):69-73

What this study shows is that the metabolic rate did not slow

down. It also showed that the use of fats as energy increased (as

it should).

Even if metabolism did slow down, it wouldn't slow down

enough to overcome the deficit you created that day. On that day

you created an 800 deficit, by finishing the fast with a 1200

calorie meal. Do you really expect your metabolic rate to slow

down to 1200 within 24 hours?

Muscles will break-down: FALSE

Norrelund H, Nair KS, Jorgensen JO, Christiansen JS, Moller N.

The protein-retaiing effects of growth hormone during fasting

involve inhibition of muscle-protein breakdown. Diabetes. 2001

Jan;50(1):96-104

So by fasting you actually increase growth hormone, which has

the effect of helping you retain your muscle mass. It doesn't

make any sense for your body to directly attack your muscles

and start breaking them down for energy. You need muscles to

hunt and survive.

If anything, it definitely seems like for effective muscle growth

to occur, periods of nutrient depletion are required. This may be

due to the rebound effect the body experiences when going from

the fasted state to the fed state.

At a minimum I recommend fasting 2x per week for 24 hours,

then ending the fast with tons of vegetables, and some meat, and

some carbs.

A 24 hour fast would work like this. On Monday, finish your last

meal at 6pm then don't eat until 6pm the next day. Then choose

another day to do that. I've actually included my fasting schedule

75

into a larger scheme combining calorie cycling and resistance

exercise.

One problem with fasting is that it brings you into an insulin

resistant state because you are burning fat during that 24-hour

period. Insulin resistance is beneficial under this circumstance

because the glucose should be saved for the brain. However,

breaking a 24-hour fast with one meal may put quite a bit of

stress on the body, especially if your meal contains

carbohydrates. What I have been doing over the past couple of

months is consuming a small meal beforehand with some

carbohydrate, protein, and fiber; usually just a salad with a small

sweet potato, or some oats with lean chicken breast that will

return insulin sensitivity before I consume my larger meal. When

I say small, I mean very small. One bowl of vegetables with

about 20g of carbohydrate and 1 serving of lean chicken breast.

Supplementation During Fasting

On fasting days, do not consume antioxidants. It may be that it is

the increased free radicals (just like with exercise) that provide

the benefits. A research paper published in 2010 found this:

Underwood BR, Imarisio S, Fleming A, Rose C, Krishna G,

Heard P, Quick M, Korolchuk VI, Renna M, Sarkar S, García-

Arencibia M, O'Kane CJ, Murphy MP, Rubinsztein

DC.Antioxidants can inhibit basal autophagy and enhance

neurodegeneration in models of polyglutamine disease. Hum Mol

Genet. 2010 Sep 1;19(17):3413-29.

Just like Vitamin C inhibited the beneficial adaptations of

exercise, excess antioxidants may even prevent basal autophagy;

the type of autophagy that happens on a regular basis. Better

rethink those antioxidant supplements.

Fasting versus Calorie Restriction

Intermittent fasting (IF) is commonly described as calorie

restriction without the calorie restriction. It extends life but you

76

still get to eat the same amount of calories as before. Careful

analysis of the data shows this is probably not true, there is

simply no life extension without loss of bodyweight (implying

reduced caloric intake), and looking at the autophagy data those

that lost the most bodyweight due to fasting had the most

autophagy. There has been research done comparing different

measurements such as insulin sensitivity between CR and IF. The

data is conflicting, but one of the most recent and well-done

studies done in humans has shown that IF does not provide the

benefits of CR if calories consumed are the same (and weight is

maintained). This agrees with the rat/mice data (IF does not

extend life without calorie restriction), however, one difference

that has been shown is that IF may offer greater protection of the

brain than CR:

Mattson MP, Wan R. Beneficial effects of intermittent fasting and

caloric restriction on the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular

systems. J Nutr Biochem. 2005 Mar;16(3):129-37.

Fasting and calorie restriction are not the same thing, and I am

not recommending you consume all the calories you didn’t eat

one day in the day after. While IF may not provide the life

extending benefits of CR, there are benefits and it is better than

not doing anything at all.

77

Chapter 8: Biometric

Measurements

Friend to Groucho Marx: “Life is difficult!” Marx to Friend:

“Compared to what?”

Modern medicine has provided us with many ways to measure

our health. Some tests I wish I could afford are the genetic

screening provided by 23andme and the Biophysical250, which

tests 250 biomarkers (basically most of them in existence). To

judge your health you do not need all those 250 markers, but

there are some important ones that you can easily ask your

doctor to prescribe and then interpret yourself.

Vitamin D3

I discussed the importance of Vitamin D3 in Chapter 2. Take

20IU/lb of bodyweight for 3 months then get a blood test and

aim for 30-50ng/ml (75-125nM/L). If your doctor doesn’t want

to give you that blood test either try and convince him (read the

Vitamin D Council Website) or find another doctor. An

alternative would be to just pay for one from the Vitamin D

Council Website (as of August 2010 it costs 65USD).

Lipid Profile

This test gives you 4 numbers, total cholesterol (TC), high

density lipoprotein (HDL), low density lipoprotein (LDL),

triglycerides (TG). This is my lipid profile as of July 2010:

TC: 5.47mmol/L (211mg/dL)

HDL: 2.53mmol/l (98mg/dl)

LDL: 2.69mmol/L (104mg/dL) (calculated)

TG: 0.51mmol/L (45mg/dL)

78

The LDL number is not actually measured, instead it is estimated

from the Friedewald equation which estimates LDL based on

TC, HDL, TG. It is actually inaccurate when TG are as low as

mine are, and as low as most low-carbohydrate dieters are, there

has been a new equation for low TG created:

Ahmadi SA, Boroumand MA, Gohari-Moghaddam K, Tajik P,

Dibaj SM. The impact of low serum triglyceride on LDL-

cholesterol estimation. Arch Iran Med. 2008 May;11(3):318-21.

Friedewald (1972) Formula: LDL = TC - HDL - TG/5.0 (mg/dL)

Iranian (2008) Formula: LDL = TC/1.19 + TG/1.9 – HDL/1.1 –

38 (mg/dL)

Using the new formula my LDL is actually 1.91mmol/L

(74mg/dL), which is lower the American Heart Association

guideline! If you are low-carbohydrate dieting and your doctor is

trying to interpret your profile, make sure to provide them with

the real numbers, and maybe even educated them on these new

findings.

Dr. Ronald M Krauss determined two patterns for the lipid

profile, A and B. The A pattern profile is where the LDL (the so-

called “bad” cholesterol, looks more like a band-aid to me) is

large and buoyant. OxLDL are the small dense LDL of pattern B.

So pattern A is good and pattern B is bad. Since most doctors do

not prescribe VAP tests to actually measure LDL size and

particle number we have to estimate. As you know, oxLDL is

bad, so Pattern B is very bad. Pattern A is what we want.

Pattern A is usually present if you TG are low and your HDL is

high. Pattern B is present if TG are high and HDL are low. This

can be represented in the TG/HDL ratio, which is one of the

most accurate predictors of heart disease based on your typical

lipid profile test.

79

Diet, micronutrients, and exercise determine your lipid profile. If

you consume the American Heart Association (AHA) low-fat

diet you will inevitably end up with Pattern B (ironic eh?), if you

consume low-carbohydrate high saturated fat you will end up

with Pattern A. The triglycerides are very representative of your

carbohydrate intake. If you consume lots of carbohydrates, your

triglycerides are high, the high carbohydrate intake also

somehow decreases HDL (by somehow increasing an enzyme

that breaks down HDL). Saturated fat also helps boost HDL.

After knowing this, it definitely seems like the whole lipid

profile thing was just a measurement of your carbohydrate

intake, which represented your intake of processed junk foods.

After a couple years they found that total cholesterol didn’t tell

much so they then focused on LDL, then LDL didn’t tell much

and now its TG/HDL, but the TG/HDL ratio is low only when

you are consuming saturated fat and low carbohydrate (with an

exception, which is calorie restriction).

Magnesium and various other nutrients also seem to have a

connection with the lipid profile but the mechanisms are not

clear yet, but just know it’s important to get your nutrients. Also,

exercise increases HDL and decreases TG. We want Pattern B,

not Pattern A.

Even after knowing all this, government and medical society

recommendations are still to lower TC, instead of focusing on

the profile itself. A study in 2008 done in Japan found that

cholesterol levels above 5.18mmol/L (200mg/dL) were at lower

risk of dying than those with lower cholesterol levels

(<4.14mmol/L[160mg/dL]):

Kirihara Y, Hamazaki K, Hamazaki T, Ogushi Y, Tsuji H,

Shirasaki S. The Relationship between Total Blood Cholesterol

Levels and All-cause Mortality in Fukui City, and Meta-analysis

of This Relationship in Japan. Journal of Lipid Nutrition Vol. 17

(2008) , No. 1 pp.67-78

80

By depleting your body of cholesterol you may not be able to

build the plaque (controversial still), but at the same time your

body requires the cholesterol for other functions, and if you don’t

have enough you are more likely to die. Doesn’t seem like a very

good trade-off to me.

Glucose Related Tests

There are two tests in this category you should get if you can:

HbA1c and fasting glucose

My results (as of August 2010):

HbA1c: 4.3%

Fasting Glucose: 4.5mmol/L (81mg/dL)

In Chapter 5 on minimizing damage I discussed HbA1c. It is

basically a test of how much damage is done by the glucose in

your blood. The higher the percentage, the more damage being

done, and possibly the faster you age. Best to keep it below 5%,

but below 6% is good.

Fasting glucose is a test of your insulin sensitivity. If you

consume less than 0.8g/kg of carbohydrate per day (excluding

fiber) your fasting glucose may be as high as 5.5mmol/L

(99mg/dL), which is nothing to worry about because you are in a

non-pathological insulin resistant state. The important number is

HbA1c, because this is an actual measure of damage. Since I

consume around 100-120 grams of digestible carbohydrate per

day, my fasting glucose is fairly low.

C-Reactive Protein (CRP)

This is a measure of inflammation. While the data is conflicted

about its importance in real life diagnosis, I consider excess

inflammation bad. I like the CRP near the lower end of the range.

81

Body Fat

I wish there was an easy and inexpensive way to test your body

fat percentage but there is not. I also wish we had a test for

visceral adipose tissue but I do not know of one (CRP maybe?).

So I have opted for how you look in the mirror and calipers to

make sure you are not getting fatter. Cheap calipers may be very

inaccurate but it is useful to gauge relative change. If you are

getting fatter you should see it in the mirror and also on the

calipers.

Another measurement that can be utilized is the waist to hip

ratio. If you have a lot of visceral adipose tissue your waist

circumference will be larger, it is taking up space and pushing

out the organ (e.g. beer belly). Women should have a waist to hip

ratio <0.7 and men <0.9. Measure waist circumference at the

belly button and hip circumference at the widest part.

Resting Heart Beat

My resting heart rate is 60 beats per minute, ideally it should be

below 70. Faster heart rates are usually due to excess stress and

inflammatory factors.

Blood Pressure

This is an interesting biometric that lots of people have problems

with. Optimal blood pressure would be near or below 120/80

(systolic/diastolic). When doctors find out that their patients have

high blood pressure the common advice given is to decrease salt

intake. From all the literature I have seen decreased salt-intake

does not work that well, and because this folk wisdom has been

passed around, people are even becoming iodine deficient (most

modern diets source of iodine comes from salt).

82

It definitely makes sense that by decreasing salt intake blood

pressure should go down:

On the cup at the top left you have a semi-permeable membrane

separating the two sides with different amounts of salt. The semi-

permeable membrane only allows water through but not the salt.

In the beginning the water level is the same on each side, but as

the water flows through the membrane, more water accumulates

on the right so that it can dilute the salt concentration until it is

the same as the left. The reason for this is diffusion. If you place

a drop of blue dye into water it tends to expand uniformly until

the water is a homogenous blue. This is because it takes energy

for the blue dye particles to stay together so they float apart

because nothing is keeping them together. This also occurs with

water; by having more salt on one side there is “less” water, so

the water from the left flows to the right (because it takes energy

to concentrate water).

The bottom half of the picture is your blood vessels. On the right

is a person without hypertension with normal amounts of salt.

On the right is someone with hypertension and for some reason

has more salt, thus water flows into the blood vessel, increasing

the volume and it pushes again the blood vessel (like filling a

balloon with water). The extra pressure causes the heart to work

harder than the heart on the left (this leads to left ventricular

hypertrophy, which is bad).

What causes excess salt to accumulate in the blood? This is

where the renal system comes into play. Your kidney produces

83

your urine. Urine is concentrated byproducts your body doesn’t

require anymore and this includes excess salt. If you have too

much salt in your body it is probably because your kidney is not

doing its job properly. There is a very strong connection between

diabetes and hypertension; there is lots of data to show that

excess sugar causes damage to the arteries leading to the kidney,

and also that hyperinsulinemia (high insulin levels) prevent the

kidney from filtering uric acid and salt:

Muscelli E, Natali A, Bianchi S, Bigazzi R, Galvan AQ, Sironi

AM, Frascerra S, Ciociaro D, Ferrannini E.

Effect of insulin on renal sodium and uric acid handling in

essential hypertension. Am J Hypertens. 1996 Aug;9(8):746-52

If you have hypertension check your insulin levels, if it is high,

lower your carbohydrate intake.

Apart from insulin, magnesium and potassium intake are also

involved. Your fluid balance is closely tied to your salt balance

(as shown in the picture provided up top). The internal balance

of calcium, potassium, sodium, and magnesium are all very

important. Some common deficiencies in the average diet

include magnesium (as I mentioned in Chapter 6) and potassium.

Instead of decreasing sodium intake, everyone should be

checking their intake of magnesium and potassium (yams and

vegetables are a very good source of potassium).

84

Chapter 9: Perpetual

Leanness

The idler never attains great age. ~Thomas Easton

Exercise is not going to extend you life into the extreme. On

average, I suspect maybe 2 years at most:

Paffenbarger RS, Lee I. A natural history of athleticism, health

and longevity. Journal of Sports Sciences, Volume 16,

Supplement 1, 1 May 1998 , pp. 31-45(15)

What the study found was that those from the Harvard Alumni

who remained active gained 1.5 years by age 90. However,

exercise is something everyone should still be doing; while it

does not extend life it does decrease your chances of dying

prematurely. By exercising you protect yourself from many

chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. The

improvement in strength and endurance you achieve applies to

all parts of the body: improved heart function, increased bone

strength and a more robust brain. It lowers blood pressure, burns

up fat, controls weight, and helps improve your lipid profile.

Finally, exercise not only makes you feel good, but it also makes

you look good which is what most people are interested in.

How does one remain lean 24/7/365? We are all aware of the

cyclical dieting that many people go through. When summer is

over, they pack on the weight, pack on more weight at the

holidays, then try their best to cut down for the beach season

again (but most fail). As I mentioned in Chapter 4 on weight

loss, this up and down cycle is not very good for your

metabolism. It probably increases the likelihood of gaining

weight when you are older. What I am more interested in is

maintaining a lean state all year round. Now, each person’s

natural state of leanness is different, but this is mainly due to

genetics and the environment one grows up in (remember Set-

85

Point). What I hope is that I have created is a regimen that helps

you maintain your muscle mass and helps cut body fat. Extra fat

is not good and loss of muscle is not good either (we need it as

we get older, and it also seems that loss of muscle leads to loss of

bone. We don’t want to die of a simple fracture due to tripping

over a tiny rock). My recommendation is that men achieve 15%

or lower, and women achieve 25% and lower (unless pregnant).

There are various ways to measure body fat (the accurate ways

are expensive) but to keep it simple let the mirror be your friend.

If you see more definition and fewer lumps you are heading in

the right direction.

Many types of different training can be performed and they differ

in their metabolic effects on the body. There is resistance training

(e.g. weight lifting) and endurance training (e.g. jogging) (yoga

and pilates like activities can also be another separate category).

Each type of exercise/activity burns a different amount of

calories:

Acivity and Calories/min 123lb woman 170lb man

Running (8min/mile) 11.3 15.0

Swimming (fast crawl) 8.7 12.0

Walking (5.5 km/h) 4.5 5.9

Weight Training (strength) 4.4 6.0

Weight Training (circuit) 10.4 13.7

Cycling (8.9 km/h) 3.6 4.9

Rope Skipping (fast) 10.0 14.2

As you can see, the most effective calorie burner is aerobic

exercise. Steady state is much more effective at burning calories.

You can run for 1 hour but you can’t do interval training for 1

hour. Even if you take into account excess post-exercise oxygen

consumption (EPOC) it will not compare to 1 hour of cardio.

However, my focus is not to burn calories (you should watch

how many calories you put into your mouth in the first place. Of

course, cardio is great for emergencies and cutting to single digit

body-fats). My focus is more of the positive metabolic effects of

86

exercise and I think resistance training offers all those without

the possible detrimental effects of cardio.

Cardio has become synonymous with heart health. Lots of

people I know do marathons for healthy reasons. If

cardiovascular exercise is good for the heart we would expect to

see marathon runners with a lower risk of heart disease:

Eur Heart J (2008) 29 (15): 1903-1910. Running: the risk of

coronary events: Prevalence and prognostic relevance of

coronary atherosclerosis in marathon runners. Möhlenkamp S,

Lehman N, Breuckmann F, Bröcker-Preuss M, Nassenstein K,

Halle M, Budde T, Mann K, Barkhausen J, Heusch G, Jöckel KH,

Erbel R

They looked at 108 healthy male marathon runners (ran at least 5

marathons in previous 3 years). When they compared

Framingham Risk Score (FRS, which is what your doctor uses)

they found that the marathon runners’ scores were lower than

that of age-matched controls. However, when the researchers

looked at coronary artery calcium and late gadolinium

enhancement (probably the best predictors of heart attacks,

second to the actual heart attack itself) the marathon runners

were actually at higher risk (and 21 years down the road, 4

marathon runners had a heart attack as well as very high CAC

scores). In a later paper by the same authors, it was found that

the more marathon runners ran, the higher the risk of heart

attack.

It could be a matter of intensity; perhaps 1 hour of cardio a day is

beneficial and more is worse. It may be the speed at which they

run, as well as the crap that runners eat to support their energy

intensive activities (all those carbohydrates).

Exercise is not the cure to aging. However, it is definitely

beneficial. My activities consist of resistance training, the

occasional basketball/soccer game, and the very occasional 5km

run. I choose resistance training not only because it provides

87

more benefits than endurance training, but also because I find it

more enjoyable and it doesn’t cause the injuries that might occur

if you do lots of cardio. By injuries I mean the ones caused by

the repetitive motion of running for long periods of time. Your

body is meant to move in various ways, running locks you into

one way for a long period of time. The more repetitive

movements you perform the more likely you are to get injured.

The benefits of resistance training are numerous: increased

insulin sensitivity in the muscles (upregulated GLUT4), signal

maintenance of the neuromuscular junction (which tend to die

off as you get older), strength maintenance, muscle maintenance

(which probably doesn’t help with sarcopenia, but if it does help,

it is much better than cardio), and finally bone stress (which thus

signals maintenance and improvement of bone mass).

How does resistance exercise fit into the picture of perpetual

leanness, which includes fasting and low-carbohydrate eating?

The Schedule

Low Intensity High Volume

(LIHV)

Total Duration: 30

minutes

4-5 sets, 10-20 reps.

Alternating lower-body and

upper-body.

Squats --> Pushups -->

Lunges --> Pull-ups -->

Ab Wheel on Knees -->

etc...

High Intensity Low Volume

(HILV)

30 min workout:

2-3 sets, 3-6 reps.

Alternating lower-body and

upper-body.

Weighted Squats -->

Weighted Pushups --

> One-legged Squats

--> One-armed

Pushups -->

Weighted pull-ups or

One-arm Pull-ups -->

Ab Wheel on Toes --

> etc...

88

Note: please see Appendix V for discussion of some bodyweight

principles.

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

8:00am

LIHV

Workout

12:00pm

Eat

largest

meal of

the day

6:00pm

Start

eating

again

whenever,

but stop

eating by

6:00pm

6:00pm

Eat

dinner,

a 24

hour

fast.

No

more

eating

after

8:00pm

(better

for

sleep).

8:00am

LIHV

Workout

12:00pm

Eat largest

meal of

the day

6:00pm

Start

eating

again

whenever,

but stop

eating by

6:00pm

6:00pm

Eat

dinner, a

24 hour

fast.

No more

eating

after

8:00pm

(better

for

sleep).

8:00am

HILV

Workout

12:00pm

Eat first

meal of

the day

If you do

want to

include

one day

of

cheating

this is

the day

to do it.

Rest day

Rest days.

Stop

eating

food every

night at

8:00pm

though.

Fasting on

this day is

up to you.

Sometimes

I do

sometimes

I don't.

There are 2 (sometimes 3) 24 hour fasts in the week. I do not

workout on fasting days because that would just speed up muscle

catabolism, instead, I workout on days that I eat. When you

exercise there are a lot of beneficial adaptations that take place in

terms of nutrient portioning and body composition (increased

blood glow, GLUT4 upregulation). So if you consume your

meals after working out, hopefully the nutrients get taken up by

the muscles instead of the fat.

Low intensity high volume days are interspersed with fasting

days because this helps with glycogen depletion. By depleting

89

glycogen it leaves room for the extra carbohydrate days that

might come on Friday (for example if you cheat).

By depleting our calorie stores between Monday to Thursday we

take advantage of the low calorie days to burn fat. The resistance

training is meant to help you retain your muscle mass and not

lose it in the 4 days. Then comes Friday, where you crank up the

intensity which then sets into motion muscle building factors and

you can take a break for 3 days to allow for adequate recovery.

I do not know if this actually works but I have seen beneficial

effects over the last couple of months. I am sure that if you

included carbohydrate in the rest days (Friday-Sunday) you

would actually be able to increase muscle mass without gaining

fat (a lean bulk). Since that is not my goal I have settled on this

schedule to allow for workouts, fasting, and recovery. For now

this seems optimal to me.

Exercise Supplements

If you walk into a supplement stores you find various workout

supplements. There are pre-workout, intra-workout, post-

workout, pre-sleep formulas and many more. Many of the

expensive brands contain 50 or more ingredients and the

amounts/dosages are all hidden under the term “proprietary

formula.” Most people continuously switch between various

products and brands because they just do not see the claimed

effects, so how proprietary can it really be? These claims

include:

Increase muscle mass by 300%

Boost testosterone by 800%

Gain 6 lbs of lean mass in two weeks

Lose 2 inches of your waist in 2 days

Third party research/Backed by Science

These claims seem unlikely, and to tell you the truth they are.

They aren’t false but they aren’t true either. For example, by

90

claiming an increase of lean muscle mass by 300%, are they

saying that if you have 100lbs of lean mass you will suddenly

have 300lbs of lean mass by taking their supplement, or do they

mean they found in some obscure study done on rats where the

circumference of their forelimb increased from 0.00001 to

0.00003 gain 6lbs of lean mass? Water is lean mass too; I can

drink 6 lbs of water pretty easily. Lose five inches? By not eating

for two days I can drop 2 inches (I just urinated it out). Don’t

waste your money on these products, because they just do not do

that much. If there are benefits they are incredibly small, and the

risks you’re taking are incredibly big. Remember our benefit to

risk ratio, well in these situations it is really low.

A commonly utilized ingredient in workout supplements is

arginine. It is used because it is a precursor to nitric oxide (NO)

that dilates blood vessels and gives users that “pump” they feel

when they exercise. NO is actually a very important molecule

inside of your body, the NO pathway is involved with many

different processes. For example, blood vessel dilation under

stress: the ability of your blood vessels to react is very important

for your survival, and by supplementing with arginine you are

basically short-circuiting that process. Not only that, by

supplying excess arginine which is then converted to NO by your

body, you may be suppressing your endogenous production of

NO later on in your life when you discontinue the arginine. In

my opinion the risk is too high and the benefits are nil. Another

claim for arginine is that it boosts growth hormone:

Marcell TJ, Taaffe DR, Hawkins SA, Tarpenning KM, Pyka G,

Kohlmeier L, Wiswell RA, Marcus R.

Oral arginine does not stimulate basal or augment exercise-

induced GH secretion in either young or old adults. J Gerontol A

Biol Sci Med Sci. 1999 Aug;54(8):M395-9.

This study shows that arginine does not increase growth

hormone; instead it may even decrease GH after your workout,

again interfering with a possible adaptation to exercise.

91

The other widely sold product is branched chain amino acids. I

doubt we truly require these isolated. If you consume adequate

protein (especially in the form of whey) you are getting a large

amount of BCAAs already (whey is 25% BCAA while beef is

15%). BCAAs are expensive and useless if you are ingesting

adequate protein. However there are benefits, if you don’t ingest

adequate protein BCAAs will help with retaining muscle mass

and might also boost your immune system in times of sickness

when you cannot ingest enough food.

If you truly want to gain muscle, there are only three things you

need: whey protein, creatine monohydrate, and caffeine. (I won’t

go over all the forms of creatine but the monohydrate form is the

tried and tested one, sure the other ones don’t cause bloating, but

that is probably because it doesn’t work).

Stretching and Balancing

Our joints are supported by muscles, connective tissue, ligaments

and for them to function optimally and without pain everything

must be in balance so that the joints are not pulled apart (e.g.

hips, ankles, knees, and especially the shoulders). Commonly

utilized bodyweight exercises are pull-ups, pushups, and squats

and if not balanced can cause muscular imbalances. The pushup

for example depends on the contraction of your chest and hips so

to balance this we throw in a stretch that is very similar to the

plank exercise for abs except the other way around:

So you basically make yourself into a table. This helps to extend

the chest and hips. It is sort of like the opposite of a pushup. At

92

first you may have tightness in your shoulder not allowing you to

flatten out completely but with practice you’ll get there.

The squat relies on the contraction of your psoas muscles and

many others in the front of your body, thus to counteract that we

utilize a back bend (which I took from Yoga):

This helps extend the front of the body.

Now to balance the pull-up we also use another position from

Yoga called the downward dog:

This position activates your back muscles to help support the

position.

Ensuring muscular balance helps prevent pain and injuries that

will occur down the road as our bodies wear out. There are many

other therapies just as trigger point therapy and soft tissue

massage which I will refer you to better resources in Appendix

VI.

93

Chapter 10: Paleo Shoes,

Posture, and Sitting

In our natural state we did not have chairs to sit in, nor did we

have folk wisdom guiding our posture. Our ancestors most likely

all moved in an optimal state with optimal positioning. This

chapter will explore some of these issues.

Shoes

Running shoes are terrible. We did not evolve in the presence of

running shoes, or even shoes in general; we evolved with our

bare feet touching the dirt and rocks on the ground. We ran

barefoot, we walked barefoot and we stood and sat barefooted.

The mechanics of motion when wearing shoes and not-wearing

shoes are different. For example, go run on the grass with your

thick-soled, supported arch, raised heel running shoe, then try it

bare foot, it’s quite a different experience. With shoes we tend to

flex the foot and strike the heal, while bare feet our foot position

is more relaxed and its more of a front-mid foot strike.

What I have done is bought some very expensive shoes to mimic

our natural state. There’s Vibram Five Fingers and then for

something more natural, Vivo Barefoot shoes. Both are well

made but pricey. However, you’ll thank yourself for spending the

money. The way you feel by activating the proper muscles and

technique for walking/running is something worth spending the

money on.

Related to barefoot states, our feet have also been in contact with

the ground. The ground from before is not smooth and

homogenous like the floors we experience today. It’s much more

varied and for the uninitiated its also much more painful but

you’ll get used to it. By evolving barefoot our bodies have also

developed mechanisms that react to various stimulations of the

foot:

94

Li F, Fisher KJ, Harmer P. Improving physical function and

blood pressure in older adults through cobblestone mat walking:

a randomized trial. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2005 Aug;53(8):1305-12.

So, every once in a while go walk on some rocks/pebbles. Nike

can’t improve upon something that evolution has taken millions

of years to perfect.

Posture

The picture on the right is the posture

most people today are told is the

proper posture. Shoulder’s back head

up, which causes an excessive curve

in the lower back. But in reality

based on traditional populations the

posture on the right is more

“natural.” Hip back until you can

drop a straight line down from the

hip socket to the ankles. To

counteract the weight backwards we

must lean forward (think caveman

like) then we pull our head up and

back. This gives us a much straighter

spine. If you have children you will notice that this is how your

children stand.

The posture on the left is held up by your muscles and ligaments

while the posture on the right is held up by each and every bone

sitting on top of another. For more information read Esther

Gokhale’s book “8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back” (it is accessible

for free on Google Books). Also, make sure to read the section

on sleeping (stretch lying on the side).

Sitting

Today we sit on reclining chairs and stools, when we “do our

business” we sit on a toilet rather than squat over a hole. The

95

back problems and hip problems commonly found among people

today may have roots in the lack of indigenous squatting done

today. What is the indigenous squat?

You keep your heels flat on the ground. Feet a bit wider than

shoulder width apart, then take your glutes straight to the floor.

Many people have problems with this at first, their behind cannot

pass parallel. This is tightness in your hips. If you have

problems, try holding onto something in front while squatting

down. If you can get all the way down, it is more of a stability

issue (not activating the right muscles). With practice you will

get there. Every day you should take some time to get down into

this position and open the hips and stretch the spine.

Here’s a research paper using X-rays to study the quality of the

spines comparing indigenous populations to Western society:

Farhni WH, Trueman GE. Comparitive Radiological Study of the

Spines of a Primitive Population with North American and

Northern Europeans. J Bone Joint Surg Br. 1965 Aug;47:552-5

It is probably the squatting that provided indigenous populations

with their higher quality spine.

96

If you watch Western people squat, to get their posterior down to

the ankles they have to lift their heels from the floor. Lifting the

heels defeats the purpose.

Sleeping and Circadian Rhythm

Just like in the past we did not have chairs and shoes to alter our

physical form, we did not have constant sources of light

throughout the day. The earth rotates within a 24 hour period. In

nature certain things happen when there is light and certain

things happen when it is dark. By developing an internal 24 hour

clock our bodies can carry out processes at the right time of the

day and night. These internal timers can be found all the way

down to cyanobacteria who upregulates photosynthetic

machinery during daylight hours so it can absorb the most of

amount of light. The presence of circadian rhythms in bacteria,

plants, reptiles, and mammals shows that it probably confers

some type of advantage which helps species survive. In humans

we can see the diurnal rhythms in our hormone levels (e.g.

leptin, cortisol), behavior, body temperature, liver metabolism,

and much more.

What has been shown is that by deviating from this 24 hour

synchronicity humans can develop all forms of metabolic

disorders (e.g. diabetes, cancer, heart disease, all things we are

trying to avoid):

Scheer FA, Hilton MF, Mantzoros CS, Shea SA .Proc .Adverse

metabolic and cardiovascular consequences of circadian

misalignment. Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Mar 17;106(11):4453-

8.

In the study by Scheer et al what they show is that by extending

the human circadian rhythm from 24 hours to 28 hours decreases

leptin levels, increases glucose levels, increases insulin

resistance, and alter lipid homeostasis which is all associated

with metabolic syndrome (which we want to avoid). This is

probably why shift workers and night-workers are associated

97

with increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer.

Not only that, what has also been shown is that species who

deviate from the 24 hours the most also have decreased lifespan:

Wyse CA, Coogan AN, Selman C, Hazlerigg DG, Speakman JR.

Association between mammalian lifespan and circadian free-

running period: the circadian resonance hypothesis revisited.

Biol Lett. 2010 Apr 14.

Lots of factors affect your internal clock (such various nutrients,

caffeine, alcohol) but one of the ways your internal clock

synchronizes to the rotation of the earth is through light. So it is

important to make sure that you do not alter your circadian

rhythm too much. You should go to sleep at around the same

time everyday, wake up and make sure you get exposure to

enough natural light in the morning. Also ensure that you do not

consume food later in the day (because glucose, protein, and fats

do alter the rhythm too), thus the association between altered

circadian rhythm and obesity.

Some things I implement in my life to improve sleep quality is to

use black-out shades (because I do prefer to sleep later). I also

utilize a program called f.lux (http://www.stereopsis.com/flux/)

which dims the computer screen thus decreasing the amount of

light into the eyes when the sun is down. Also ensure that lights

are turned down later in the day.

98

Chapter 11: How Much

Life Left?

Storing your car in New York is safer than entering it in a

demolition derby. But not much. ~Daniel S. Greenberg

Currently maximum human lifespan is thought to be 125 years,

which is just shy of the record holder Jeanne Calment, 122 years.

The rest of us probably have no chance of reaching such an

advanced age. To become 120 years old you would have to have

incredible genetics (look at the supercentenarians that smoke and

drink) or implement calorie restriction, and maybe even have to

do both. The Leiden University Medical Center has studied

populations of older individuals. One population study of 420

Caucasian families which included long-living members has

turned up some very interesting data. Numerous studies have

been released looking at various health factors (remember

Chapter 8) and it was found that the children of centenarians

have similar biometrics as their parents. For example,

measurements of serum glucose, triglycerides, insulin, blood

pressure, thyroid hormone and insulin sensitivity were all much

more favorable than matched partners (such as the centenarian’s

son’s wife who does not have centenarian parents). What this

shows is that extensive longevity has a very strong genetic

component.

What is interesting is that calorie restriction takes a person

without centenarian parents and alters the biochemistry and

metabolism of the practitioner to match those of the very long-

living. CR increases insulin sensitivity, lower blood glucose,

allows for the same cholesterol profile (high HDL, low LDL,

triglycerides, and overall low cholesterol), low blood pressure,

and the same thyroid hormonal profile (high TSH, with normal

T4, suggesting TSH resistance, by today’s measurement this

would be hypothyroidism, however, it is not pathological in

centenarians and CR-folk). Considering that CR actually slows

99

down the rate of aging, I think that CR-folk can probably reach

up to 110-120 years old depending on their genetics and when

they started practicing, earlier being better. CR done today is

practice in conjunction with Optimal Nutrition (ON), while

centenarians probably do not practice ON. If those who are

genetically gifted practiced CRON, I would suspect that they

could live beyond 120.

Life Span

It may seem like we have extended our lifespan in the last 1000

years. The ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians had a life

expectancy of 30, now we can expect to live up to 80 (Japanese

women can expect to live up to 86.44). Its seems we easily

doubled our life span and if you plot it, it looks like we are

gaining a solid 2.5 years every decade in a straight line with no

plateau in sight. If you plot human survival curves it definitely

seems very square, but the squaring effect stopped at about 1950

(figure 3 in the study below) and seems to be shifting parallel:

Westendorp RGJ. What is healthy aging in the 21st century?

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 83, No. 2, 404S-

409S.

Remember Chapter 5?

In 1950 we reached the black line and now the survival curve

seems to be moving like the red one. As I said in the beginning

100

of the chapter, maximum lifespan seems to be 125 years and I

suspect that this has always been the case for thousands of years.

The jump in life expectancy had nothing to do with our

understanding of the biology and underlying mechanisms of

aging, it had to do with eliminating factors that kill us (e.g.

infectious diseases, acute injuries, starvation) and securing things

that keep us safe (e.g. health care, food, refrigeration, sanitation).

With the help of modern technology we have eliminated most

causes that kill us prematurely and now we are exposed to aging

itself. The previous gain in life expectancy isn’t something we

should expect to see again because now it is different. Instead of

preventing the bacteria from killing you, you have to prevent

your metabolism from killing you, and so far the only way to

slow that down is through calorie restriction.

How long can you expect to live by implementing my suggested

changes into your lifestyle? If CR-folk can reach the age of 110-

120, with the interventions in this book it may be possible to live

to 98-100. Here is some data to back it up:

Mackenbach JP, Kunst AE, Lautenbach H, Oei YB, Bijlsma F.

Gains in Life Expectancy after Elimination of Major Causes of

Death: Revised Estimates Taking into Account the Effect of

Competing Causes. Journal of Epidemiology and Community

Health (1979-), Vol. 53, No. 1 (Jan., 1999), pp. 32-37

Mackenbach et al (1979) determined that by preventing heart

disease, cancer, and various other diseases (e.g. diabetes, stroke,

etc…) one can expect to gain 10 years in their life expectancy.

What if we were to try our best to optimize ALL our risk factors?

Let’s take 11 of them: diastolic and systolic blood pressure,

smoking, vital capacity index, blood glucose, hematocrit value,

body mass index, serum cholesterol, sex, pulse rate, and left

ventricular hypertrophy. If we made all these measurements into

the lowest risk factor group, how long can we expect to live?

Luckily the math has been done:

101

Manton KG, Stallard E, Tolley HD. Limits to Human Life

Expectancy: Evidence, Prospects, and Implications. Population

and Development Review, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Dec., 1991), pp. 603-

637

Manton et al. optimized the 11 risk factors above and predicted

that life expectancies up to 100 years old can be achieved. Since

models are usually wrong, and regarding age people like to be

optimistic, as well as factoring in the “luck of the draw”

(genetics) I estimate that I can personally live to 90-95 years old

(10% down adjustment). Just a big fat guess but I feel confident

about this number.

Health Span

Even if we took the pessimistic view of 90, I would still

implement the lifestyle described in this book. Healthy life

expectancy is the number of years one can live with minimal

morbidity. For example, let’s say you live until 90 but have

diabetes for 15 years, then cancer for 10. Your healthy life

expectancy from birth is only 75.

Japan has the longest healthy life expectancy:

Takeda S.[Healthy life expectancy and the standardized mortality

ratio for the elderly in Japan's 47 Prefectures] [Article in

Japanese]. Nippon Koshu Eisei Zasshi. 2007 Jan;54(1):25-31

It seems the longest health span is 80-84. This is quite close to

the life expectancy of 86 (I know I’m mixing up data but close

enough).

From all the research, health span and life span are closely

correlated, healthier people just tend to live longer. But as

lifespan begins to reach the maximum (outside of anti-aging

interventions) morbidity will be compressed as people get

healthier. Even if I were to only achieve 86.44 (not saying I’m a

102

Japanese woman, just that this is a number for the healthy) I

would be glad that I gained 10 years of healthy lifespan where I

am not suffering from cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and

Alzheimer’s.

I have volunteered at a care home for over 4 years and had the

chance to work at a hospital for 1 year, the way that seniors

spend the rest of their lives in these situations is not something I

want to go through.

When I am 80 years old I still expect to be able to walk on my

two feet without help, get out of a chair, pick up my great-great-

grandchildren, lift weights, and debate/discuss with the younger

generation. To do that you must keep your body and mind

healthy at a young age.

Where to Now?

Research in the field of aging is exploding. Of course, there has

been some resistance (hey, death is “natural”) but sooner or later

we will have interventions that will expand both our health span

and our life span. The common interpretation of anti-aging

interventions is that you will be 120 years old but be more

decrepit than a 90 year old (which is really bad), but this is not

how these interventions will work. The new technologies being

developed will not make you “older,” instead it will extend you

lifespan by making you younger. The first development that will

come will probably be CR-mimetics. These are pharmacological

interventions that will mimic the metabolic altering effects of

CR, after that it will be Strategies for Engineered Negligible

Senescence (SENS) (read Aubrey De Grey’s book on this matter,

“Ending Aging”). SENS isn’t about trying to mimic the effects of

CR, it goes beyond that in that it is trying to go into our bodies

and fix/reverse/remove the damage that happens. If the damage

is gone then the cause of aging is diminished. This seems like a

tall order but it is definitely possible.

103

It is because of SENS that I have put serious thought into

adopting CRON (please donate to SENS). It is the only way of

ensuring maximally robust lifespan, and this is important

because of the speed at which science advances. Less than 20

years ago we did not have the internet, and now it permeates

almost every facet of our world. Science and technology build

upon themselves and with each new block they reach farther

heights than ever before. To take advantage of these new

discoveries from SENS one has to have a body that is robust

enough to deal with the effects of these new drugs/interventions.

If you reach the age of 70 but can hardly move and have

dementia, you will not be able to survive the application of the

new technologies. However, if you are 70 years old with robust

health (like with CRON) then you can. Let’s say the intervention

extends your life by 10 years, because of that one discovery,

more will come and within those 10 years another intervention

will come along extending life another 20 years, and so on and

so forth, until immortality is reached (this is by no means far-

fetched). I am not saying that these interventions will be created

in my lifespan or yours, but the thing is that you never know, and

it would be best to not only live as healthily as possible, but to

live as long as possible. The only way to achieve the maximum

is through caloric restriction (this speeding up of technology is

known as the Singularity, read Ray Kurzweil’s book, “The

Singularity is Near”).

(If you plan on practicing CR make sure to do tons of research.

Roy Walford‟s book “Beyond the 120 Year Diet : How to Double

Your Vital Year” is a good place to start. As far as I know the

downsides are: loss of libido, hunger, social struggles and

emaciation)

I think that I have taken this lifestyle as far as it can go, the only

other place to enter now is the world of the extreme, calorie

restriction with optimal nutrition. Will I enter that realm, I don’t

know yet, but it is best to decide sooner rather than later.

104

Concluding Thoughts

My goal when I started researching all this was to try my best to

prevent the chronic illnesses. I saw how much pain they can

cause to everyone. Just take Alzheimer’s for example: lifeless

eyes with no sense of self, time, or place, a dreadful disease with

a slow progression that places strain on yourself as you lose your

soul as well as strain on your family, friends and society. Even if

you wanted to end it you couldn’t because you have basically

disappeared. Everyone’s goal in this life is different, but I am

certain that no one wants to end up in such decrepitude. The

regimens laid out in the book will help with preventing this,

screw the USDA Food Guide and the American Diabetes

Associate Diet, throw out common “wisdom” and rely instead on

hard science. The basic principle of this book is: eat the right

foods, but not too much; allow the body to take out the garbage;

be conscious of what you put in your body; and exercise.

105

Appendix I: Olive Oil

There has been a Slow Food movement in our Western culture.

The idea that we can access authentic traditional cuisine through

local food, as well as the proliferation of extra virgin olive oil

(EVOO) are both prime examples of this movement. Today, the

best selling brands are the ones with the name of countries like

Italy, Spain, and Greece plastered on the front signaling the

source of the oil and providing a connection between the

consumer and the country of origin. However, large producers

have taken advantage of our love of olive oil and many of your

purchases today are not as high a quality as you would think. In

terms of olive oil, quality is very important, because without it

you are just consuming another plain old oil without the flavor,

aroma, or the health benefits of olive oil that has been used for

hundreds of years.

After reading an article on olive oil and then doing some

research, the health benefits of olive oil were pretty clear. The

Mediterranean diet definitely seemed to confer lots of health

advantages to the user and olive oil seemed to be the difference

(among many others). Thus, even though everyone is afraid of

fat nowadays, olive oil is still a best seller.

Is it the monounsaturated fat and low saturated fat in the olive oil

that provides the health benefits? Well, after learning about the

Paleolithic diet and looking at the research, saturated fat does not

seem to be a problem. Comparing the monounsaturated fat intake

of the U.S:

Dougherty RM, Galli C, Ferro-Luzzi A, Iacono JM. Lipid and

phospholipid fatty acid composition of plasma, red blood cells,

and platelets and how they are affected by dietary lipids: a study

of normal subjects from Italy, Finland, and the USA. Am J Clin

Nutr. 1987 Feb;45(2):443-55.

106

It was probably not the monounsaturated fat so that left the

polyphenols:

Konstantinidou V, Covas MI, Muñoz-Aguayo D, Khymenets O,

de la Torre R, Saez G, Tormos Mdel C, Toledo E, Marti A, Ruiz-

Gutiérrez V, Ruiz Mendez MV, Fito M. In vivo nutrigenomic

effects of virgin olive oil polyphenols within the frame of the

Mediterranean diet: a randomized controlled trial. FASEB J.

2010 Jul;24(7):2546-57.

The polyphenol content varies depending on the quality of the

olive oil, which in turn depends on many factors: where the olive

was grown, how it was harvested, how it was grown, when it

was harvest and grown, at what maturity level was the olive, the

transportation, milling, packaging and storing all affect the

polyphenol content, quality, taste, and aroma of the oil. In the

past couple years, chemical tests have been developed to

determine if the oil is adulterated, but of course not all oils are

tested and as individual consumers it is fairly hard to get all the

oils in your grocery tested. However, there is another way to

determine the content, which is tasting. Tasting works because

many of the polyphenols provide differing flavors to the oil, e.g.

oleuropin is bitter, and various other polyphenols and substances

found in olive oil provide various effects such as pepperiness,

fruitiness and bitterness.

Buying high quality olive oil is important because since the

popularity of olive oil increased, many companies and producers

have been adultering the oils we purchase in stores. While a

high-quality olive oil may cost 20-30 dollars per 500ml, we can

nowadays buy it for less than 10 dollars per liter. Some things I

have read about is mixing olive oil with cheaper oils like

soybean oil, corn oil, hazelnut oil (which made me sick

considering how much I try to avoid those oils), adding

chlorophyll (green color), beta-carotenes and other things to

vegetable oils to make it look like olive oil, labeling normal low-

quality olive oil as extra virgin olive oil. Over the past couple

years there has been huge scandals involved in sham olive oils

107

thus necessitating the need to create ways to detect them, which

there are many of now, but regulatory bodies do not have the

capacity to test all oils so it is left up to the consumer to be able

to determine what is real extra virgin olive oil.

Tasting

Why is the label “extra virgin” important? This is a term from

the International Olive Oil Council that signifies that the oil must

have passed certain chemical tests, be fault free, and passed rigid

taste tests. However, these tests aren’t exactly in place to ensure

quality, but are just there to ensure that the oils are deemed

edible.

If there is a defect

the oil is labeled as

virgin, and if it is

inedible it is

labeled as lamp oil

(scary thought that

lots of people may

be consuming

lamp oil grade).

Thus we either

have to pay

independent labs

to test our oils,

which can get

expensive, ask the

producer to

provide us with

independent tests they have performed (and not all companies

are happy to oblige) or we try our best to use our senses to taste

for extra virgin olive oil qualities.

The first thing is that the oil has to lack defects. On the picture

you can see the various defects; I have had experiences with oils

108

that have tasted rancid, sour, and metallic, but were labeled as

extra virgin.

The positive attributes are harder to get used to and it would be

best if you go to an olive oil tasting session, or visit a gourmet

store and ask if you could taste the various olive oils on the shelf

(some are happy to oblige). These positive attributes are

important because it is the health conferring polyphenols that

provide these various palates.

The bitterness and fruitiness should be a flavor you taste/smell in

good extra virgin olive oil, while the pungency is the pepperiness

you will feel when swallowing that stings the back of your

throat. Below is an example of each category:

Defects Fusty: Brined olives, lactic acid.

Musty-Humid: Mouldy

Muddy: Stale muddy water, baby vomit, wet soil.

Sour: Vinegar

Metallic: Metal on teeth (try some Epsom salts).

Rancid: stale oil (try leaving raw walnuts in a room for a couple

of days)

Positive Attributes Fruity: Grass, orange, lemon, apple, nutty, leafy, almond,

eucaplyptus, perfumy, buttery.

Bitter: grapefruit rind, tonic water.

Pungent: chili, makes you cough, hot, pepper.

Always check for a date on the product you are buying, making

sure it is not too old (also taste for rancidity, it is a very bad

sign).

There is a process to tasting olive oil (just like wine) and this is

due to the fact that our noses and our tongues are connected (oil

should be at around room temperature):

109

1. One tablespoon in small container with lid

2. Swirl: releases aroma

3. Smell it: you should have a fruity smell

4. Slurp: this brings in air which spreads the flavor/aroma

5. Swallow: it should sting and last for a bit.

For more information buy Deborah Krasner’s book, “The

Flavors of Olive Oil: A Tasting Guide and Cookbook.”

Chemical Tests

Some producers do have certificates of authenticity (COAs) on

hand that might show the free fatty acid level and peroxide

levels. These are important because it tells you how well the oil

is stored and how “fresh” it is.

Fats are usually in the form of

triglycerides. When the fat becomes

red, part of it breaks off (bad

storage) the fats, which are actually

acids, creating acidity. So COAs

testing olive oil usually give an

acidity value that should be lower

than 0.8%.

The other important value is oxidation/peroxidation. This is a

measurement of how damaged the fats are (due to heat, light,

preparation). We don’t want damaged lipids so this value should

be 20mEq/kg or less.

While we can taste for polyphenols it is not the most accurate

way to determine the concentration. Many of the studies seem to

show that consuming polyphenol oils with content of 300mg/kg

and above are the best. If the producer is willing to provide a test

on the polyphenols, that would be great.

110

Appendix II: Acne and

Balding There are a couple disorders that affect our self-esteem today

that our ancestors probably did not have to experience, obesity,

acne, and balding. By setting up a lifestyle that can prevent

metabolic syndrome we can prevent the damaging psychological

effects these disorders have and hopefully be on our way to

achieve a healthy body image.

Acne

In western populations acne affects up to 95% of adolescents and

50% over the age of 25. The economic and psychological effects

are undeniable and best avoided. However in hunter-

gatherer/traditional populations there have been no reports of

acne in the anthropological reports:

Cordain L, Lindeberg S, Hurtado M, Hill K, Eaton SB, Brand-

Miller J. Acne vulgaris: a disease of Western civilization. Arch

Dermatol. 2002 Dec;138(12):1584-90.

It is commonly stated that acne has no relation to diet and that it

is mainly genetic but taking into the account that acne is fairly

recent phenomenon genetics just does not explain the

pervasiveness of this ailment in western society.

Acne vulgaris (vulgaris meaning common) develop because of

many factors: 1) pores get clogged because excess skin cells clog

the pores (hyperkeratinization); 2) increased sebum production

(which is the waxy/oily substance your skin produces to

protect/maintain itself); 3) Propionibacterium acnes colonizes

follicles causing inflammation. Below is a picture I drew

depicting the usual path that a pimple takes. First the gray stuff

gets produced in to large amounts, which then clogs the pores as

111

more gets produced and as sebum gets produced. It then causes

and the bacterium is allowed to proliferate which then causes the

big red bump all over your face.

Our skins should not have evolved so that everyone gets acne, it

should only occur to signal to the other sex that something is

wrong with the metabolism. The metabolism goes awry because

of your hormones and hormones depend on diet (and genetics

but only in special cases). Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)

affects women and is characterized by excess androgen (male

hormones), too much insulin, and insulin resistance. PCOS

patients often struggle with acne. These hormonal profiles are

associated with acne in “healthy” people and by correcting the

hormone levels acne lesions decrease:

Smith RN, Braue A, Varigos GA, Mann NJ. The effect of a low

glycemic load diet on acne vulgaris and the fatty acid

composition of skin surface triglycerides. J Dermatol Sci. 2008

Apr;50(1):41-52.

The diet is a very important factor that determines insulin levels.

By elevating insulin with a high carbohydrate diet, it activates

pathways which then results in increased androgen production.

This leads to elevated insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and

decrease insulin-like growth factor binding protein 3 (IGFBP-3)

[which bind IGF-1, thus resulting in more free IGF-1]. Somehow

this leads to low amounts of retinoids in the skin which is

responsible for keeping cell proliferation at proper levels (thus

the use of retinoids to treat acne). So to stop this progression we

have to lower insulin and we lower insulin through a low-

112

carbohydrate diet (like the one espoused in this book). By

lowering insulin we prevent the hyperkeratinization, excess

sebum production and even lower inflammation. Without the

environment of excess growth (caused by IGF-1, insulin, and

androgens) the bacteria is not allowed to grow excessively.

I briefly discussed the glycemic index in chapter 4. Many studies

on acne these days utilize the glycemic index instead of actually

controlling total digestible carbohydrate intake. This is probably

the reason why the studies are equivocal. One low glycemic

index diet can lead to an overall high carbohydrate intake

(grains), while another will lead to a low carbohydrate intake

(mostly vegetables). So just make sure to keep you blood sugar

and insulin levels under control and your acne will soon go

away.

Note: Foods like milk and chocolate have also been implicated

in causing acne. I suspect that milk might be a problem because

of the growth factors present in the milk (which also raises IGF-

1, possibly so if you are trying to get rid of acne you should

probably stop the milk intake). Chocolate is not a problem unless

you are consuming milk chocolate. Milk chocolate is not “real”

chocolate in the sense that most of it is sugar and milk. If you

like chocolate go for 90% and above dark chocolate and the

acne problem should go away.

Male Pattern Balding (MPB)

Here is a disorder that men will pay thousands and thousands of

dollars per year to prevent and hopefully reverse. For now totally

reversing hair loss is a dream (except for maybe implantation)

and slowing it down and stalling it has nightmarish side effects

(depending on the method implemented). Some of the most

common drugs utilized today are DHT lowering drugs which

stops the enzyme that converts testosterone to DHT. While DHT

is one of the many culprits the whole pot of risk factors which is

metabolic syndrome is in my opinion the greatest cause of MPB:

113

Su LH, Chen TH. Association of androgenetic alopecia with

metabolic syndrome in men: a community-based survey. Br J

Dermatol. 2010 Aug;163(2):371-7. Epub 2010 Apr 23

From what I have seen metabolic syndrome (e.g. large waist

circumference, beer belly, bad diet, acne, fat mass) is correlated

with MPB. Also it seems that those who consume low-fat diets

and exercise a lot (such as marathon running) are also

predisposed (remember Chapter 9, probably has to do with the

damaging diet they consume, exercise does not prevent illness!).

What this all points too is that in general metabolic syndrome

causes hair loss because of the inflammation, higher DHT levels,

and insulin resistance:

González-González JG, Mancillas-Adame LG, Fernández-Reyes

M, Gómez-Flores M, Lavalle-González FJ, Ocampo-Candiani J,

Villarreal-Pérez JZ. Androgenetic alopecia and insulin resistance

in young men. Clin Endocrinol (Oxf). 2009 Oct;71(4):494-9

This connection has only recently been studied and there are

many issues to tease out. Some studies show that those with

MPB have higher levels of testosterone but metabolic syndrome

decreases total testosterone and sex-hormone binding globulin.

The way most hormones work is that they are created by cells

but also present in the blood stream is a binding factor that

inactivates the hormone. This is done so that there are always

hormones in the blood but when needed the binding factor can

be broken down to release more hormone instead of making

more hormone from scratch. Treatments such as DHT lowering

agents do seem to work so it does have an effect but for all I

know it is preventing the damaging effects of high insulin,

glucose, and inflammatory levels. Metabolic syndrome may

decrease total testosterone but free testosterone could be higher

or the conversion to DHT could be higher or sensitivity of the

114

hair follicles to DHT is higher. But one thing for sure is that if

you want to keep your hair, do not use steroids and do not get

metabolic syndrome.

115

Appendix III: Skinny Fat

Body Type

The skinny fat body type has become a problem

over the years, not only for those trying to gain

muscle but also as a health policy subject. We are

not surprised when someone says that the United

States is suffering from a diabetes epidemic, but

most are surprised that China is also suffering an

epidemic. It is true diabetes is usually associated

with obesity, but obesity describes body fat, and

thin people can be fat too. There are two types of

ectomorphs, the ones that stay “ripped” while

consuming 8000 calories and another softer

ectomorph: these are the skinny types.

Mandavilli A, Cyranoski D. Asia's big problem. Nat

Med. 2004 Apr;10(4):325-7

China’s diabetes problem (now 1 in 10) went undetected because

the measurements we utilize today only apply to Caucasians e.g.

waist size and body mass index. While these are good

measurements for most Westerners, most Asians fall into the

skinny fat phenotype (I think it is probably the lack of proper

nutrition in most Asian countries). So, people see a country of all

underweight people and assume there is no problem. The

individuals themselves also assume there’s no problem. I know

many people who eat like shit all the time and they say it is no

problem because they are not fat. But they are fat, and they are

doing just as much damage to their bodies as the obese are.

This phenotype is due to genetics (mainly your predisposition

towards an anxious personality) and probably undernutrition

while in the womb and as an infant:

116

Freedman LS, Samuels S, Fish I, Schwartz SA, Lange B, Katz M,

Morgano L. Sparing of the brain in neonatal undernutrition:

amino acid transport and incorporation into brain and muscle.

Science 1980 Feb 22;207(4433):902-4

The brain gets what it wants, and when it doesn’t, other tissues

are not allowed to develop properly such as the muscle tissue.

This also stresses the body probably priming your neural

circuitry for a less stress-robust personality (leading to

overproduction of cortisol which is a hard environment to build

muscle in and also decreases anabolic hormones). For some

reason, this body type leads to tall and long bone structures that

stretch the muscle, decreasing the amount of tension you can

place on the muscle. There is also a decrease in fast-twitch

muscle fiber, which leads to the soft look many skinny-fat types

have.

Skinny fat types are not just a problem for Asians; I have seen

them from all cultures. I suspect they have very high amounts of

visceral adipose tissue.

In the study above about China, you can find a picture

comparing the body fat between a normal weighted Caucasian

man and a typical skinny-fat south Asian. The Caucasian man

has 10% body fat, and the skinny-fat Asian has 20% (but by all

means the Asian looks much thinner than the Caucasian).

The moral of the story is that even though you are thin you are

not safe. Your best bet would be to get the blood tests (in Chapter

8) and determine your health.

117

Appendix IV: Riskier

Supplements

Some other supplements that I personally take that I think are

worthwhile are:

Lithium

Phytate (IP6)

Beta-alanine

Taurine

Acetyl-L-Carnitine and Alpha Lipoic Acid

Lithium [1.25mg/day]

This mineral is not on the Institute of Medicines official list of

essential vitamins and minerals but there is convincing evidence

that humans do require it and consumed it in times past:

Schrauzer GN. Lithium: occurrence, dietary intakes, nutritional

essentiality. J Am Coll Nutr. 2002 Feb;21(1):14-21

We most likely got the lithium from our drinking water:

Ohgami H, Terao T, Shiotsuki I, Ishii N, Iwata N. Lithium levels

in drinking water and risk of suicide. Br J Psychiatry. 2009

May;194(5):464-5; discussion 446.

What the study shows is that populations with more lithium in

the drinking water are happier and at less of a risk of suicide.

Most people know of lithium as an anti-depressent, but those are

pharmacologically high dosages greater than 120mg per dose. It

seems our unofficial RDA for lithium is probably around

1mg/day.

118

Lithium is interesting because of the neuroprotective properties

is can confer at higher dosages but there is speculation that this

also occurs at lower dosages:

Chuang DM. Neuroprotective and neurotrophic actions of the

mood stabilizer lithium: can it be used to treat

neurodegenerative diseases? Crit Rev Neurobiol. 2004;16(1-

2):83-90.

I take 1.25mg per day because the pills usually come in 5mg

dosages.

Phytate (IP6) [2g/day]

In Chapter 2, phytate was labeled as an antinutrient. IP6 binds to

covalent ions rendering them inabsorbable thus wasting them. If

you eat over the RDA some phytate in your grains and bran

should not be a problem, but for me I would rather not dump my

minerals in the toilet. Phytate does have numerous benefits and

the research has been going on for years and years.

Kumara V, Sinhab AK, Makkara HP, Beckera K. Dietary roles of

phytate and phytase in human nutrition: A review. Food

Chemistry Volume 120, Issue 4, 15 June 2010, Pages 945-959

It is very effective in preventing colon cancer (at least in rats, but

it probably transfers to humans in this case), modulates the

immune system and has an anti-inflammatory effect. I break it

down in my legumes and grains but I also choose to supplement

with it as a pill. If you do choose to supplement it, consume it

away from food, two hours after a meal or two hours before.

Besides the anti-cancer effect, the prevention of calcification of

tissues (which Vitamin K2 also prevents) as well as the decrease

in iron content in men can be a benefit in the long-term.

119

Beta-alanine [2g/day]

This altered amino acid is a precursor to the dipeptide carnosine.

Carnosine prevents cell damage and aging, it also prevents

glycation end-products:

Alhamdani MS, Al-Azzawie HF, Abbas FK. Decreased formation

of advanced glycation end-products in peritoneal fluid by

carnosine and related peptides. Perit Dial Int. 2007 Jan-

Feb;27(1):86-9

While you can buy carnosine in a supplement, I prefer to utilize

beta-alanine because 1) it is cheaper and 2) the human data

showing tissue elevation of carnosine is very extensive.

Vegetarians lack beta-alanine.

Taurine [250mg/day]

The reason for supplementing with taurine is a paleolithic one.

Taurine is found in high concentrations from seafood and organ

meats. Cooking also destroys about half of it from the meat we

commonly consume today. While some mammals produce

taurine by themselves, other mammals such as cats and humans

rely on dietary ingestion. Taurine is involved in many activities:

preventing atherosclerosis, modulating intracellular calcium,

osmoregulation, preventing glycation, and possibly even

preventing the transfer of diabetes from the mother to the fetus:

Bouckenooghe T, Remacle C, Reusens B. Is taurine a functional

nutrient? Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2006 Nov;9(6):728-

33

Vegetarians lack taurine.

120

Acetyl-L-Carnitine (250mg) and Alpha Lipoic

Acid (150mg)

These two are in my opinion the riskiest of them all. The data on

the long-term safety of these supplements are lacking but the

benefits sure seem impressive.

L-Carnitine is something we consume in our diet from meat. It is

involved in transporting long chain fatty acids from the outside

of the mitochondria to the inside of the mitochondria where it

gets burned. Therefore there is speculation that ALCAR

deficiency may cause insulin resistance because the fat trapped

in the muscle has nowhere to go. Acetyl-L-Carnitine is just L-

carnitine with an acetyl group attached, making it more

absorbable and also helping it reach the brain better. The data in

rats regarding mitochondrial regeneration is very impressive:

Aliev G, Liu J, Shenk JC, Fischbach K, Pacheco GJ, Chen SG,

Obrenovich ME, Ward WF, Richardson AG, Smith MA, Gasimov

E, Perry G, Ames BN. Neuronal mitochondrial amelioration by

feeding acetyl-L-carnitine and lipoic acid to aged rats. J Cell

Mol Med. 2009 Feb;13(2):320-33.

The data regarding ALCAR in humans also shows its safety.

Most studies are done in humans regarding Alzheimer’s disease

and weight loss. While the positive effects seem very weak, I use

it as a preventative measure to keep my mitochondria healthy.

Most studies use alpha lipoic acid and acetyl-l-carnitine together

because they are synergistic (carnitine also seems to increase free

radical production while alpha lipoic acid soaks them up,

however, the studies used very high dosages of l-carnitine, much

higher than what we consume). My main reason for

supplementing lipoic acid is for the post-prandial effects as it

definitely seems to help with glycative products in type II

diabetics:

121

Mittermayer F, Pleiner J, Francesconi M, Wolzt M. Treatment

with alpha-lipoic acid reduces asymmetric dimethylarginine in

patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Transl Res. 2010

Jan;155(1):6-9.

There are two forms of Alpha Lipoic Acid you can purchase:

racemic (normal) or the stabilized R form. We are interested in

the R form because the racemic (normal) form contains the S-

form, which is not found in nature.

122

Appendix V: Bodyweight

Exercises

An important part of various exercises is to utilize the full-range

of motions. Sure, cutting the distance you have to move by a

couple inches makes it easier, but it would be better to activate as

many muscles as possible. Let’s take the pushup for example:

As you move

down your hips

should not sag

downwards.

Keep them up

by pushing the

glutes up. The

chest should

touch the floor

then when you

go up and reach

the very top,

and make sure

to activate the

various muscles

around your

shoulders and ribs, and also try to extend up as far as possible.

Most people just wait until their elbows lock and then head back

down, what we want to do is reach the top and try and reach

more. Hopefully you can feel the difference.

123

Appendix VI: Soft Tissue

Therapy and Stretching

Beyond your muscles and bones there is connective tissue,

ligaments, tendons, etc. sitting in between everything else. These

can be injured just like your muscles can. I don’t know if hunter-

gatherer/traditional populations required soft tissue therapy and

stretching, but they didn’t sit in front of a computer in a chair,

using keyboards and mice, and playing console games with

controllers by contorting their body in weird positions then

keeping it there for hours on end.

Over the years of playing video games, sitting in front of the

computer and playing sports I have developed pains in various

part of my body. This usually goes away when I exercise but

would later come back with a vengeance. It wasn’t anything

excruciating, it was just very annoying. Soon I discovered soft

tissue therapy and it has been a godsend:

Muscles: Testing and Function, with Posture and Pain by

Florence Peterson Kendall (Editor),

Elizabeth Kendall McCreary (Author),

Patricia Geise Provance (Author),

Mary McIntyre Rodgers (Author),

William Anthony Romani (Author)

The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook: Your Self-

Treatment Guide for Pain Relief, Second Edition

Clair Davies (Author),

Amber Davies (Author),

Anatomy Trains: Myofascial Meridians for Manual and

Movement Therapists

Thomas W. Myers LMT NCTMB ARP Certified

Rolfer (Author)

124

These three books are great in terms of helping you understand

where the pain comes from and also helping you solve it.