Archives for November 2010

Yea, yea…I know. I’m behind again in getting the next post out, so for those of you not following Martin’s blog regularly (and why not!?), here’s a sample of the results those who follow his methods of diet, IF, and lift heavy get.

Danielle

The before was only from last year. Read the whole story here on Martin’s blog.

For Paleo-ish to go mainstream, it’s got to be somewhat price competitive

Let’s face up to it and admit it: the obesity problem in America, and why it leads the way worldwide, can be reduced to an essential single development: cheap "food." I’m increasingly coming to the opinion that the primary cause underlying that, is the relative cheapness of liquid calories (albeit, not nutrition — it’s just raw caloric energy). And the rest of the world now follows suit because they too are learning — from us — how to supply more calories per dollar and the obvious choice for any company wanting to maximize profit is to deliver their calories in the form of a quickly digesting beverage.

Most of you have heard the arguments supporting that, so I’ll not rehash it (feel free in comments). Now, health markers might be a different subject, but to my mind, there’s no quicker way to get fat than to drink a lot of your calories, and this is what people are doing, especially kids.

It’s not about factory farmed meats vs. grassfed and pastured. It’s just not. It’s the 20 oz sodas and sports drinks. It just is. I’ll blog more about this, soon.

So here’s a post to focus in on this issue, spurred on by an email I received.

I have been a follower of your blog for several months now, though I have only commented once or twice (usually your other readers have already said what I was thinking, and way more eloquently than I could).

Have tried to follow the "paleo" lifestyle thing, but having some difficulties, mostly due to budget constraints. No way in hell I could ever afford grass fed beef or anything, of course I have the land to raise my own, but not the time.

Found this article tonight that sums up my situation nicely. I know Mark Sisson has done several posts on "paleo on a budget", and I have followed several of those suggestions, but am finding it damn near impossible sometimes. I have a decent job and all, but once house & car notes, utilities, etc., have been paid, most weeks I have maybe $75 to buy 2 weeks worth of groceries for me and the kiddo. I know what I should be buying us, that’s not the problem, the problem is a box of burger helper is cheaper and lasts longer. I have made several improvements, ain’t brought bread into the house in months, and while my lovely child bitched incessantly at first about no bread and chips for weeks, now she doesn’t even notice.

So, any advice for the broke-ass paleo? Surely this can’t just be the diet to be followed only by the affluent foodies?

Thanks again, even if this doesn’t generate a response or even a post, I truly appreciate you, your blog, and your brutal assessment of so many things.

Alright, I really couldn’t get through that whole linked article, because my head was shouting "crock pot," and "chuck roast" the whole time.

The problem here is that people assume "kale chips" — and fucking vegetables in general — are superior to plain old meat, even the cheapest meat. How about this: liver is the most nutritious food on the planet, and one of the cheapest. Who, besides me, loathes the apologetically motivated faux emphasis on fucking vegetables in the paleo community and elsewhere amongst "real foodists?  "They are uniformly full of shit because they are motivated by some sort of apologetic inferiority complex, and it’s BULLSHIT! because we’re right.  Let’s just get it over with, already: a proper diet is a meat based diet. Shove your fucking organic vegetables up your ass! And while I’m at it: fuck "antioxidants." Yea, I’ll play the rabbit now and then but my diet is animal based, and if you want real density of nutrition, so is yours. Vegetables ought to take the place of lettuce on a sandwich in a paleo context. It’s garnish. Better yet, just dry ’em and use as a spice or herb. There.

For me, vegetables are couple times per week: potatoes. I actually enjoy those.

You see, here’s one thing about all aspects of all diets and all eating lifestyles, including paleo: nutritional density and cost are nowhere near correlated. Ounce per ounce and gram for gram, some of the most nutritionally vapid food is the most expensive, while some of the most nutritionally dense is the cheapest.

So there’s my rather unhelpful input, but I count on commenters to tell how they budget for optimal nutrition.

Or, as Sean Abbott coined it, "Bloggers Have Destroyed the Fabric of Society."

The subject matter is one Dr. John Lachs, distinguished "Centennial Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, where he has taught since 1967." Right off the bat, let’s just get past the rather embarrassing fact that he used the opinion section — now tantamount to a blog — of The Tennessean to publish the message that, well, opinion pieces are crap. But not just that. He’s indicting the whole foundation and structure of what has become a rather "power to the people" phenomena most notably characterized by blogs. It’s hard to pin it down, but judging by a number of sources there are more than 100 million blogs (putting this one in the top 1% of blog traffic).

OK, this is going to be a post where we eviscerate, chop up, season, roast, and consume. We’re eating liver tonight, folks. But, before I do that, here’s the full context: Internet bloggers’ uncrafted output completely self-serving. You might want to read the whole thing, get the context, and then enjoy the fun.

So here we go.

There once was a time when education taught perspective. We learned what was of significance and what did not need to be remembered.

Sure. And that’s still being taught in institutions of "higher learning." It has also always been taught on the streets, too. Book smarts, funded by means of public predation. Street smarts, funded by dark alley predation. In the middle, the victims of both.

Education placed us in the midst of intellectual giants and did not permit the illusion that we were of much significance.

Nonetheless, Dr. Lachs, you believe you’re significant enough to render blanket judgment over more than 100 million writers, at least 100,000 of which have attained audiences of thousands of readers and page views per day.

So, let’s say you do two semesters, 50 students per class x 3 classes; so you directly influence about 300 students per year. And you’ve been doing it for 40 years or so. Whoa!!! Stop the horses. You have directly influenced a whopping 12,000 students, Mr. Professor. That’s a fucking average two to three days of visitors for me, dumbshit. So who’s the fool?

Those days appear to be gone. With the aid of ready access to the Internet, anyone can memorialize any set of worthless experiences.

Worthless to whom?

…But yes, anyone can. They can also memorialize deeply and objectively meaningful experiences, and everything in-between. It’s the very nature of the thing, Mr. Prof.

The mystery to me is, why that chaps your hide. Well, perhaps it’s not a mystery at all…

This is one of the awful consequences of the new power to publish one’s own writing, no matter how jejune and thereby call attention to one’s ideas, no matter how infantile.

So in order to be valid and potent as a writer, one must only be "jejune" and "infantile" (redundancy alert!) in an institutional setting, in hopes that one might eventually become practiced, complex, profound and mature by the time they get their stamp of approval from such institution? And what of those such as I, who always aced English and writing and in fact, tested successfully to skip base requirements upon college entrance? I’m one. And there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of others.

Can you hazard a guess, dear Mr. Prof., how many of them might have applied their natural writing skills — indeed love and passion for writing — to blogging?

And this is a bad thing? Yes? Because you and those of like mind no longer have control — nor the audience? Yes?

Not so many years ago, publication required convincing other people that one’s work had merit.

Indeed. And it still does, in dying media. How about you stop and ask yourself why that is, Clueless? Seriously, are you so daft as to fuck up cause & effect on something so obvious and simple? Jesus C. already, professor. What, is there, some magical force drawing people to blogs over institutional media? Or, were the physical barriers to entry such that institutions had a strangle hold on what got published, and now that they don’t, people enjoy their niche choices? Or what? Is it that dumbshits can revel and persist in their ignorance? Have their ignorance affirmed? And when in history has that not been a phenomena of the human experience?

This constituted a check on the apparently limitless appetite of people for self-display. Editors and publishers exercised two central powers: They brought good work to the attention of the public and suppressed the self-indulgent lucubrations of ordinary minds.

Don’t make me laugh. You’re so full of shit. There was and always has been "good work" produced by institutions, and that is not in serious question by serious people. But the good work has forever been drowned by the twaddle, influenced (bought & paid for) primarily by institutional media’s two primary bedfellows: advertisers and the top dog institution that favors those same secondary bedfellows by statute and regulation: government.

…You silly, silly duped fool.

What we’re left with are institutions still producing good stuff and crap, and individuals producing/blogging good stuff and crap. But here’s the rub, Mr. Professor: the individuals are not only producing more crap, they are producing magnitudes more good stuff.

But you can’t see that, because you think everyone needs spoon feeding, as did you, and that they can’t see good, sweet smelling shit when they see and smell it. And, it’s voluminous. Your ignorant, stupid error is to focus on a tremendous volume of stinky crap, ignoring the fact that the gems outpace what the institutions produce by huge orders of magnitude.

The obstacle they represented was actually a vital safeguard so people would not embarrass themselves by their simple ideas and inferior prose.

So that’s what this is all about, eh? You’re just concerned that there may be folks out there embarrassing themselves? How touching and, I’m sure you’re nothing but sincere.

Blather fills our heads.

Indeed it does, Mr. Professor…

Today, by contrast, anyone can start a blog and fill cyberspace with a torrent of ill-chosen words. Mundane experiences, incoherent reflections and ignorant theories can be advertised to the world.

In other words, nothing’s new, just more of it. But it’s not "under control," anymore; right, professor? That’s the base, niggling issue, right?

I mean, c’mon, you’re not seriously going to argue that institutions don’t publish dreck. You know they do. So what is it, that there’s now more of it? Nobody listens to the anointed "authorities" anymore (presumably, because they prefer an anonymous blogger’s dreck)? Or, is there something else to it that is unrecognizable to you, perhaps because you like your daily dose of the spoon fed and it pisses you off that others hunt their own food?

Prejudices may be presented as considered judgments and untutored feelings are permitted to seize the focus of attention.

God forbid anyone’s judgments and feelings ever be "untutored" by institutional PhDs; or that they, for whatever reason, outshine your practiced, canned, reviewed, edited, sanitized, outlined, and approved for mass consumption "judgments" and "feelings".

Ah, oh: "permitted." That’s really the essential bugger. Isn’t it, professor? You were never "permitted" by your own authority because you’ve always lived on the institutional teat, however financed — such that you have had to spend your entire life seeking someone’s permission. And now it just frosts your balls good that other’s don’t have to. Makes you look like a fool and a patsy. Well, some of us just fucking do, and worry about permissions and apologies later. Too bad, silly man.

So go fuck yourself. It’s a new day, and I’m glad for it.

Apparently, there is no one to tell these bloggers to rethink and rephrase because what they produce is a draft in need of craft. The only thing that seems to matter is the satisfaction of the blogger, and people without standards are easily satisfied.

Oh, my. You don’t get out much do you, sir? Scan my blog and the blogs of those I regularly link. Check the entries and see the number of comments in the hundreds and read them (there are tutorials in "cyberspace" — or, "on the Internet" in 21st Century speak — that can help you with that). Then consider how ignorant you wish to remain by asserting that "there is no one to tell these bloggers to rethink and rephrase."

Christ. Blogging is indeed a chore. So many ignoramuses to put up with.

If all this detritus survives, what will future generations think of the condition of the human mind in our day?

Well for starters…perhaps…and let me think here of a decent descriptive…OK, how about: unleashed. How about that? That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it, professor? You’re no longer at the controls. Even worse, no one is at the controls.

…Must be terrifying for an institutional authority sycophant, such as yourself.

Alright, I’ll set aside his last bits of "pure profundity."

In the end, yea, this was unnecessary; just fun & sport. "Cyberspace" marches on in spite of his ignorant protestations. So yep, his original charge is valid: self indulgent.

On the other hand, this was unnecessary mostly because the institutional gatekeeping of what get’s published by any means, and what doesn’t, is dead as a doornail: and god fucking riddance. Professor Lachs is merely but one of thousands of such dying whimpers we’ll have to endure as the old guard of privilege, political and corporate influence, backscratching and all that goes along with it gets kicked to the curb.

What he and the rest of them ought to be asking themselves is why? Again, this whole thing was quite unnecessary because of the why. It is a priori obvious (don’t even have to get up off the couch to know it’s true) that people like the blogs and other self published & small enterprise media, news, and opinion better. That’s why we’re having this discussion and that’s the reason for the professor’s whine, and that’s why this is all unnecessary.

This guy simply laments the old days where his PhD was more valuable than the average clever blogger paying $4.95 per month, and commands orders of magnitude more influence.

Let’s all shed a collective tear for the professor’s lost world. Or not.

Now I must ask you, ladies, when I’ve ever done a post for the best among you? I’m talking, of course, of you who let the men in your lives have such a good time with you that the consequences last around 9 months + 18-20 years (nowadays, if you’re lucky: make those "little fuckers" grow up to be self sufficient ASAP, willya? …Tired of readin’ about 20-somethin’ live-at-home children — it’s getting to be epidemic).

Turns out, you maybe face even greater risk than had you let a kid — in his own right — have his way with you, only to bolt, and to sack you with the 9m+20y. By by whom might you face such greater risk? Maybe your doctor?

Alright, before we go any further, what in the eff is "gestational diabetes? Here, five minute education, if you’re interested. If not, follow along because you’ll get the gist of it anyway.

Here’s the email I got yesterday.

Hi Richard,

My name is Kelly and my husband, Bryce, and I are expecting our first child at the beginning of February. We have both been following the primal lifestyle for about 1.5 years now (a little longer for my husband), and Bryce is a huge fan of your blog. He’s always followed it pretty closely, though being deployed for the last 6 months has kept him from being able to do that. I’m writing to you at the suggestion of Bryce, as he values your dietary/physiology knowledge and general contempt of the mainstream medical institution very highly 😉

I just recently underwent 2 Oral Glucose Tolerance Tests (OGTTs) and received somewhat confusing results that my doctor could not fully explain. For the first test I was required to eat a "protein-rich" breakfast (not a problem for someone who eats bacon, eggs, and butter every morning!), followed by drinking a 50g solution of glucose derived from corn. My blood glucose level was then tested exactly one hour after I began drinking the solution. The reading came back at 197 mg/dl, and "passing" is 140 mg/dl. Imagine my horror and shock at that reading, from a woman who prides herself on her low carb diet and her body’s ability to handle glucose like it’s nothing. It wasn’t until after I failed this test that I learned from some basic internet research that a low-carb diet will, in fact, skew the results of an OGTT, making them higher than they should be.

Well, if you fail the first test, you are then required to take the 3 hour fasting OGTT. For this test, you fast 8-12 hours before the test begins and drink a solution of 100g of corn-derived glucose. Blood glucose levels are checked at the 1, 2, and 3 hour marks. I was required to schedule this no more than a week after my first test. Needless to say, I have spent the last week stuffing myself with carbs (potatoes, rice, wheat, fruit) in an attempt to reach the minimum 150g per day that is recommended for the 3 days prior to this test. Apparently, not eating enough carbs for 3 days before will skew the results for a woman already eating the SAD, and so I figured I needed to spend the whole week eating an irresponsible amount of carbs in an attempt to help my body "catch up." For 6 days, I ate between 150 and 200g of carbs per day.

I had my test this morning, and since I failed 2 of 4 readings I have been labeled with gestational diabetes. My readings were as follows:

• Fasting: 88 mg/dl
• 1 hour: 187 mg/dl (limit is 180)
• 2 hours: 118 mg/dl (limit is 150)
• 3 hours: 166 mg/dl (limit is 140)

So, as you can see, I failed the 1 and 3 hour marks, the first only by a few points. The doctor could not explain to me why my glucose level would actually increase from 2 to 3 hours past, and, unfortunately, this test is pass/fail. I could have surpassed the limit by 1 point on 2 readings and I still would have been diagnosed with diabetes.

I’m writing to you because Bryce and I are absolutely convinced that this is a misdiagnosis. While I have been primal for 1.5 years, we have indulged in the occasional cheat and I have never had a problem handling a large load of glucose/fructose. Pre-pregnancy, I practiced IF about once/week and would be fine not eating for 18 hours at a time. I had no negative physical reactions to the glucose solutions from my recent testing other than dry mouth.

If this is a mystery that interests you at all, I would LOVE your feedback. The doctor did not want to hear anything I had to say about paleo, and instead handed me a sheet recommending a diet consisting of low-fat dairy, franken oils, no more than 5oz of meat/day, and a limit of "high-fat" foods to 1 per day. Whole grains and fiber, however, were at the top of the list of good foods. I obviously will not submit to this BS, and would like to avoid having to check my blood sugar 4x/day for the rest of this pregnancy as well.

Any thoughts?

OK, upon receiving this my first thought was to put it up. This sort of thing, to my mind, is absolutely the very best reason for this blog — to deal with real world problems real people face. So I got permission and some added info.

That would be wonderful! Some other bits of information that may be important that I left out in my previous email:

• I am 24 years old
• My blood pressure is always at 120-122/60-75 and my monthly prenatal urine dips have all been negative for sugar (with the exception of the most recent one taken after my glucose test)
• I am 29 weeks along, and have thus far gained 17 lbs (pre-pregnancy weight was 110…at 5’3", obviously not overweight)
• My average intake of carbohydrates for the past 1.5 years has been <50g daily
• Though I increased carbohydrate intake for the 6 days prior to the test, I did not decrease fat or protein intake. My last meal, the bedtime snack recommended for the test, consisted of salami, pepperoni, cheddar cheese and some crackers.

I really appreciate you taking an interest in this case, and I look forward to your post!

The other thing I recalled was Robb Wolf, author of the newly published and NYT bestselling The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet, mentioning it sometime back. I found the post. He’s a buddy of mine, so I emailed to see if he had anything to add. In the meantime, I found a more recent post I’ll link later, but Robb also mentioned in reply that he’s covered it in some of his podcasts. Unfortunately, I’m like on number 15 and he’s up to around 50. So, you’ll need to go it alone, there. But, from the first link…

This is bad for both mom and baby from an epigenics perspective as baby is now predisposed to obesity, depression…all the fun that goes with high insulin levels. If you peruse the gestational diabetes link the line will go “we don’t know what causes gestational diabetes…” Well, some people don’t! The placenta directs a huge amount of control over both fetus and mom..it can sieve omega-3′s out of the moms body for the fetal brain development ( this is the cause of post partum depression BTW) and it exerts some powerful hormonal control over the mom’s physiology. One of these controls is a transitory state of insulin resistance. Why would biology want to do this? If the mom is a bit LESS insulin sensitive than the baby, the baby will be insured a steady supply of glucose and other nutrients. If the mom becomes MORE insulin sensitive than the baby it may be difficult for the little-whipper-snapper to receive adequate nutrients. Normally this situation is not a problem but add modern refined foods and this weird notion among many women that “I’m pregnant…I can EAT ANYTHING AND GET AS FAT AS I WANT!!”…well, the combo of a really bad modern diet coupled with an ancient biological mechanism results in diabetic moms and HUGE, over weight babies.

Hmm…, I was a big fat baby, at 9/6oz…

And then Robb points to what my initial curiosity was: what about 1AC?

What the retards in our medical establishment are missing (top of the list the clueless vegans) is the need to look at blood glucose OVER TIME and see what is happening. How we do this is by looking at the Hb1AC. What this test shows is how much glucose is sticking to red blood cells…this tells us our average systemic glycation rate (sugar sticking to protein) and is a great indicator of how well our blood sugar is controlled.

Now I’ll give you the second link.

If you consume a large bolus (75-100g) of glucose and fail to clear it in a timely manner, you are insulin resistant and thus have “gestational diabetes” (GD). I’ve written on this topic before and the whole thing makes me want to lobotomize myself with a blunt instrument. It’s a tough and incendiary topic. On the one hand our medical professionals deal with a huge population of women who eat very poorly, never exercise and somehow still manage to get pregnant. Miracle that this situation is, biology makes things worse. During pregnancy the mom becomes even more insulin resistant due to an evolutionary adaption in mammalian-mom’s in which they become slightly insulin resistant to allow a positive flow of nutrients to the developing fetus via the placenta. If the mom was more insulin sensitive than the fetus we could end up in a nutrient scarcity situation due to nutrition flowing to the more ubiquitous tissues of the mom. Biology fixes this problem by making mom a little insulin resistant, effectively “pushing” nutrients to the fetus. Score one for biology! Problems arise however when our modern diet and lifestyle make this otherwise favorable adaptation dangerous. Too many carbs (particularly chronic fructose intake), autoimmune complications with lectins, loss of insulin sensitivity due to sleep deprivation and stress can drive expecting moms into gestational diabetes. […]

So far so good? Great, now let’s go to Bizzaro world (ours) and see how a lack of evolutionary understanding on the part of our medical professionals can derail an otherwise good situation. In the example above “paleo mom” has been eating great and if we ran an A1c (a measure of blood glucose over time, much more valuable than the OGTT or blood glucose measure) we’d likely find she has low, BUT HEALTHY blood glucose levels. She is fat adapted, not insulin resistant and can thus run many of her tissues on fat. That folks, is good. But what happens when she is given a bolus of raw sugar, much larger than anything she, or her developing fetus have ever seen? Well, she has trouble clearing all that sugar. This may give people a headache, but some of this mom’s tissues are “insulin resistant” but healthy because they run on fat. […]

Where things are falling down is this mom is not having a blood sugar management issue typical of most people coming through the door of hospitals. Her metabolism is running on a comparatively “infinite” fuel source (fat) and she and her developing baby are doing just fine, thanks. At least until they were exposed to a 100g bolus of raw glucose (which they do not clear quickly, but this is a normal adapation to a lower carb intake) and are then told to increase her carb intake until she becomes….a SUGAR BURNER!!! The recommended diet change would drive average blood glucose up, increasing inflammation and advanced glycation end products typical of elevated blood glucose. Mom can now suffer legitimate blood sugar crashes due to an inability to access body fat for the preponderance of energy needs in her body. Thanks Doc!

Fuck sugar! Hey, just getting a word in edgewise…

So, the medical professional dealing with these folks is both confused and ignorant on a number of topics. Confusion grows from the fact that she is simply not used to seeing a healthy, fat burning mom walk through the door.

OK; you should, of course, read both of those links. It strikes me hunchwise that physiological insulin resistance might play an added role in this, but I only have the most slim awareness of it. I’m wondering if, in a real food, natural diet setting, a higher fat diet with significant palmitic acid might be a double whammy for a pregnant woman. Just a hunch. I’ll email Peter, cause he’s the expert on this.

So, what we’re left with is, to my mind, a rather odd situation: a normal, proper eating individual undergoing a natural phenomena (pregnancy) and failing a sugar burning test. 

"Miss, could you step up here," asked the seemingly nice and caring doc. "I want to test you. It’s for your baby."

"Test me for what," asked the girl rather innocently — merely curious — who’d been so horny as to let her man knock her up with no thought of the long-terms consequences.

"Dear, that’s really not for you to understand. …I want to ensure that you’re sensitive and fully responsive to bee sting anti-venom."

"…Sensitive…? …Anti…??? …But I stay away from bees; I had my experiences when I was a silly girl; and now I keep away…no matter the honey."

"Didn’t you read the literature? We told you to get 4-5 bee stings per day," the doc admonished; showing signs of impatience.

"But bee stings hurt! And worse, they make me feel bad for days. They itch; they hurt. It seemed the right thing to do to just avoid them."

"WELL HOW ARE YOU GOING TO HANDLE THEM, THEN!?"

And with that, the doc ushered her into the enclosure to get not the 4-5 stings she’s recommended to get in a day, but 4-5 in the space of a few minutes, just to see how sensitive she’d be to the anti-venom; in the space of an hour.

"You didn’t do too well," said the doc, conclusively. "I’m afraid we’re going to have to re-run the test."

"Re-run the test!!!? …You mean 4-5 more stings," asked the girl, pleading ‘no!‘ by implication.

"Oh, no," replied the doc. "See, we’re wondering if this was just a fluke, so here’s what we’re gonna do: over the next week, I want you to get stung 1-2 times per day, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5 and so on…for a week. Got it; understood!?"

"Oh no!"

"Yes, and then we’ll see if you can handle 10 bee stings in a hour!" (he tried, but could couldn’t resist letting off a tinge of excitement, at this point).

"And if I fail?" she whimpered.

"Oh, missy; you do not want to fail."

Update 11/26: Well I’m always so far behind in reading my comrades’ posts that I had not see Stephan’s most recent, which is very relevant to all this: Glucose Tolerance in Non-industrial Cultures. Enjoy; I did.

When Jimmy Moore emailed me a week or so ago to announce that he was drafting a post about the potential conflict between a Paleo lifestyle and Christianity (literally practiced — pay attention, cause that’s the theme), and wanting my input, I, for whatever reason, didn’t understand that my input to him would be published verbatim. That’s quite alright I should hastily add. I generally conduct my online affairs assuming anything I write can and will be used against me in the court of public opinion.

But anyway, Jimmy, a devout Christian, had the balls to do a post on it. Jimmy embodies my eternal conflict with the thing; and, as with certain devout family, there’s a special place in my heart for those whose hearts are in the right place, as it certainly is with jimmy moore. I loath the left end of the political spectrum, especially the collectivist end (but I repeat myself). It chaps my hide that I have to go to people whom I consider to be living in a fantasy world to get some semblance of reality in terms of public policy. But that’s where it’s at. Yea, I suppose I could be a friend of even someone like Sarah Palin, even though I think she’s either a moron or, so ignorant on so many levels as to make the distinction meaningless. But you know what: I trust her to leave me alone to a far greater extent than your average Prius driving, NPR sticker sporting, miserable commie — who would have me in the social cannibal pot in the blink of an eye.

On some days I wonder if the essential antagonism between left and right politics is one of lazy fear vs. irrational certainty. Lazy fear meaning, they can’t bear to take their own chances with what life tosses their way. Irrational certainty meaning, it doesn’t matter anyway because this life is merely a dress rehearsal.  But I digress…

Shifting gears, do note that many of your humble farmers producing your most nutritious food in the world are devoutly religious. And many or most believe it literally I’d speculate. Oh, well. There’s that.

In this particular case Jimmy’s post is the result of a reader question / conflict, the gist of which is:

I am a Christian, as are my parents. I know that you are, too, so perhaps you can put this into perspective for me. My mom keeps saying, “Why did God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, eating from the fruits and vegetables that grew there, if human digestive systems were not designed to eat those things? Why did God even create edible grains if we weren’t meant to eat them?”

The people in the Bible routinely ate “bread” and even Jesus used the metaphor, “I am the Bread of Life.” Christians “break bread” together as part of the commemorative act of Communion. You see where I’m going with this. At what time in human history were we hunter/gatherers?

The results of low-carbing speak for themselves, but this perplexes me.

I wanted to write something on this primarily to acknowledge jimmy moore for having the fortitude to raise the issue on his blog. As you can tell by the comments, he has quite a following of Christians who take things very literally. It’s been a while since I was steeped in such ways of what I now clearly see is: cognitive dissonance; but at the same time, I can’t help but have a soft spot in my heart for these people. Indeed, I once was one. Young, yes, but I was also single, with no kids. I literally had nothing to compel me to remain in fear of spirits, demons, and sooper powerz.

So here was my contribution to the fray, in company with Loren Cordain, Robb Wolf, Nora Gedgaudas and Diana Hsieh on the non-religious side.

OK, what’s going on here, and I’ve seen this before in my own family of many “born-again Christians” is she’s pointing out an apparent contradiction. In other words, she’s right: either paleo dietary principles are right or Christian doctrine. They can’t both be. Contradictions don’t exist in reality. That said, here’s a post I wrote sometime back to confront that exact thing.

It’s not important how it is that after being raised with a Lutheran dad, a Mormon mom — who then both converted to Evangelical, born-again Christianity when I was about 10 — I became a non-believer: the A-word. From ages 10-18 I attended school at the Baptist church my parents were involved with and then a second one they helped start. I actually got a great education, though deficient in science. Here’s the self-guided curriculum that was used.

I attended Divinity or Bible School for a year out of high school: Tennessee Temple University in Chattanooga, Tennessee which pretty much ended up being the beginning of my downfall from faith. But it took a long time, another 10 years roughly until I came to grips with the fact that I just did not believe any of it. And that was 20 years ago now. I want to be as inclusive in all of this as possible so I don’t think it’s important to force confrontation of the contradiction. As one friend of mine, also a non-believer, raised a Catholic says: religion is an intensely personal issue. Leave it alone. Focus on actions.

Virtually everyone lives with some form of cognitive dissonance. It’s probably an evolutionary survival adaptation. So, why single out religion when there are people who, for example, hold a marriage together where both people would be happier otherwise (and sometimes, the kids too). Or, staying in a job you hate and makes you miserable. You could go on all day.

Here’s how I might deal with the specific complaint from a believer’s perspective, though not perfect. “God created all manner of toxins, from outright poison that will kill 1,000 people with a single drop — and snakes and other poisonous animals — to mild irritants, like poison ivy and gluten. And then there’s the whole host of things some people are deathly allergic too — like peanuts — while others can eat their fill. Perhaps these are merely bumps in the road with the occasional steep cliff to avoid. So in addition to other pitfalls that test faith and allegiance in the spiritual realm, so there may be physical and nutritional pitfalls to avoid as well.”

Now I sure haven’t always followed that advice, in that I’m regularly rather hostile. I certainly do understand that it’s a source of inspiration and meaning for a great many.

As well, I should point out that while I didn’t have the benefit of choosing parents and a particular upbringing — as no one does — I’m pretty sure I and my brothers faired in the top 5th percentile when one considers the crap so many innocents must endure. Really, I lived a rather idyllic childhood, not only with parents around 24/7 (HUGE!), but four grandparents living between 100 yards and 2 miles away (two of which were avid hunters and fishers). Let me put it this way: I would not change a thing for fear of unintended consequences fucking up the great deal my brothers and I got. My parents did their best and it was better than good in spite of the fact that today, I’d do it differently in terms of religion having any part in things.

If I were ever to have children — which I’m not going to do — the very first thing I’d want them to understand is that Santa is fun fun for a time, but that he’s not "God Lite." It ends, and you’re on you’re own, and unless real science figures it out first, you’re going to die as people have done for millions of years and the very best thing you can do is to "mold the neuron-flux," by which I mean: people will remember you. My children would certainly be brash assholes. One life to live, man. Grab it. Shake the mutherfuck out of it.

The memory you make for yourself is, as of yet, your only shot at immortality. Shame you won’t be around to enjoy it. But for goddamnsakes, be an adult about that. …What I don’t get is the need for the literalism. Burning bushes? Parting Seas? Arks & world floods? Resurrections from the dead? Falls from grace? And on and on….

Prescient and apropos to the paleo and low-carb folks, what about selective evidence and confirmation bias? You know, it’s not at all hard to find the devout quoting bible scripture. It’s everywhere. They do it al the time. And I can too:

So Jephthah led his army against the Ammonites, and the LORD gave him victory. He thoroughly defeated the Ammonites from Aroer to an area near Minnith – twenty towns – and as far away as Abel-keramim. Thus Israel subdued the Ammonites. When Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, his daughter – his only child – ran out to meet him, playing on a tambourine and dancing for joy. When he saw her, he tore his clothes in anguish. "My daughter!" he cried out. "My heart is breaking! What a tragedy that you came out to greet me. For I have made a vow to the LORD and cannot take it back." And she said, "Father, you have made a promise to the LORD. You must do to me what you have promised, for the LORD has given you a great victory over your enemies, the Ammonites. But first let me go up and roam in the hills and weep with my friends for two months, because I will die a virgin." "You may go," Jephthah said. And he let her go away for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never have children. When she returned home, her father kept his vow, and she died a virgin. So it has become a custom in Israel for young Israelite women to go away for four days each year to lament the fate of Jephthah’s daughter." (Judges 11:29-40 NLT) …

So they sent twelve thousand warriors to Jabesh-gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children. "This is what you are to do," they said. "Completely destroy all the males and every woman who is not a virgin." Among the residents of Jabesh-gilead they found four hundred young virgins who had never slept with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan. …

The Israelite assembly sent a peace delegation to the little remnant of Benjamin who were living at the rock of Rimmon. Then the men of Benjamin returned to their homes, and the four hundred women of Jabesh-gilead who were spared were given to them as wives. But there were not enough women for all of them. The people felt sorry for Benjamin because the LORD had left this gap in the tribes of Israel. So the Israelite leaders asked, "How can we find wives for the few who remain, since all the women of the tribe of Benjamin are dead? There must be heirs for the survivors so that an entire tribe of Israel will not be lost forever. But we cannot give them our own daughters in marriage because we have sworn with a solemn oath that anyone who does this will fall under God’s curse."

Then they thought of the annual festival of the LORD held in Shiloh, between Lebonah and Bethel, along the east side of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem. They told the men of Benjamin who still needed wives, "Go and hide in the vineyards. When the women of Shiloh come out for their dances, rush out from the vineyards, and each of you can take one of them home to be your wife! And when their fathers and brothers come to us in protest, we will tell them, ‘Please be understanding. Let them have your daughters, for we didn’t find enough wives for them when we destroyed Jabesh-gilead. And you are not guilty of breaking the vow since you did not give your daughters in marriage to them.’" So the men of Benjamin did as they were told. They kidnapped the women who took part in the celebration and carried them off to the land of their own inheritance. Then they rebuilt their towns and lived in them. So the assembly of Israel departed by tribes and families, and they returned to their own homes. (Judges 21:10-24 NLT)

Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)

If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives." (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)

A man or a woman who acts as a medium or fortuneteller shall be put to death by stoning; they have no one but themselves to blame for their death. (Leviticus 20:27 NAB)

Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death. (Exodus 21:15 NAB)

If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death. (Leviticus 20:10 NLT)

A priest’s daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death. (Leviticus 21:9 NAB)

I could go on and on, and on…but before I do, may I just humbly note the obsession with intact female hymens? Quite Islamic-esque, I’d say.

…A final note for this section of the post is to recall how, as I was going through the religious gauntlet a’la a young’n and eventually went off to study Bible, how it was that the KJV (King James Version) was so essentially emphasized. My speculation today is this: nobody could really understand it or, the language was so arcane that rape, murder, slavery — as celebrated above — didn’t really register morally; or, if it did, only in some twisted anthropological sense. So here’s a good primer: EvilBilble.com. It strikes me as interesting, the diametrically opposed notion of an "evil" bible. But consider that morality is contextual. We evolved. At a point in time, a brute proto-human male taking a female as he wanted was survival, and natural. And now we’re here. And not only does it not cost us anything to refrain from such behavior; it’s evil now because our nature as human animals has evolved. But the Bible hasn’t and the point is that for the literalists it offers literal and timeless truths. "Truths" we now see as evil, as well we should.

You might regard this post as somewhat emboldened. Where could I have gotten that? As it happens, partly from here: Atheist Ministers Struggle With Leading the Faithful. What took them so long?

"I live out my life as if there is no God," says "Adam," who is part of the pastoral staff of a small evangelical church in the Bible Belt. […]

The more I read the Bible, the more questions I had," Jack said. "The more things didn’t make sense to me — what it said — and the more things didn’t add up." […]

"Reading the Bible is what led me not to believe in God." […]

"I realized that everything I’d been taught to believe was sort of sheltered," Adam said, "and never really looked at secular teaching or other philosophies. … I thought, ‘Oh my gosh. Am I believing the wrong things? Have I spent my entire life and my career promoting something that is not true?’"

Alright, it is surely time to close this up. So in closing, I want to relay the story of a dear friend who recently passed away after a decade long battle with cancer. While I have only entered various houses of worship over many years for weddings and funerals, always with some measure of discomfort or boredom over the religious aspects of such things, I recently enjoyed a "religious" service at my friend Nancy’s Unitarian Church for the memorial service of my friend. Nancy and Kevin, both Harvard Divinity, both ministers, have been friends of mine for a few years and it’s always refreshing to discuss religion with them because they approach it so honestly, non-threateningly and most importantly: no implication of guilt for being a human being. It’s quite refreshing to stand in the sanctuary of that church having a conversation with Nancy the minister and the harpist and have them both tell me on the subject of literalism: "we just don’t know." Now that’s the healthier way to practice religion, in my view.

As simply as I can put it, they are seekers of important lessons for humanity to be found in symbolism, ritual, tradition and ancestor worship and honor. They are in search of important, meaningful metaphor and not literal "truths" based on wishful thinking and worse. Do I personally need it? No, not really because secular philosophy serves my needs just fine in that regard, but I can certainly grasp an appreciation for it.

I understand that it’s probably the case that for most literalist religious believers it’s mostly a case of not being able to grasp the notion of morality and human good will apart from such belief structures. So things like this are a step in the right direction, since I really can’t stand most forms of atheist activism — such as attempts at preventing nativity scenes on public property and other such embarrassing nonsense.

Humanist Groups Aim to Push Back at ‘Bible-Derived Morality’

Right in time to spur awkward theological discussions with extended family members, the American Humanist Association and other related groups are preparing to launch a holiday advertising blitz aimed at drawing stark distinctions between believers and their less devout brethren. The AHA campaign, in particular, highlights some of the more violent and sexist passages of the Bible and Quran and contrasts them with quotes from Albert Einstein, Katherine Hepburn and others. The ads strike a much different tone than last year’s "Be Good For Goodness Sake" campaign that papered buses and trains across major U.S. metro cities. […]

From the American Humanist Association’s statement regarding their advertising concept: "There are millions of Americans of strong moral character who don’t happen to believe in a god. Humanists have always understood that you don’t need a god to be a good person, but many other Americans have not, and that’s one reason we’ve been running ad campaigns in the past. This year, we’re going further in our attempt to challenge the intolerant view that atheist and agnostic humanists can’t be good without Bible derived morality. We’re taking a hard look at what is included in religious texts."

Looks like Anne Rice has the right idea, here, too. For whatever reasons personal to her, she’s a "believer" with her heart in the right place. …Which is probably why she quit organized Christianity and just goes it alone.

I wonder what primarily distinguishes the literal believer from the non-literal one. Is it education, experience…or pure guile? Perhaps the non-literal believer (i.e., believer in spiritual meaning, for lack of a better description) just simply has no fear of the guilt and damnation the literalists are peddling…

Perhaps in a later post, sometime, I’ll relay my own story in terms of the process I underwent from being a fear-struck believer with a deep sense of guilt to the guiltless, boundlessly happy, totally fearless non-believer I am today.

Here’s the view from the porch in Arnold, CA, at 4,500 ft elevation. We arrived after the 3hr drive from San Jose about noon today. Our neighbors who live here full time said it hasn’t snowed this much this early in over 10 years. I think we bought the place in around 2003 and I’m used to rain over the Christmas holidays moreso than snow — and it’s not even Thanksgiving, yet. Snow begins in earnest late December and lasts through March. …An April surprise, now and then.

Apparently, this all happened since midnight.

Snow

It’s snowing furiously, on & off, and word is, a possible 2-3 feet tonight. I just hope the tree branches don’t get so heavy as to take down power lines. I’d like to stay until our planned departure monday afternoon.

I’m drafting a rather extensive post on the implicit contradiction between paleo and Christianity writ literal (which could apply to any literally viewed religion). But it’s taking a while, I’ve got iTunes streaming wirelessly to the Bose, and scotch whiskey is in hand.

Here’s what just came up in the random mix.

More later, and soon.

I think it was Robb Wolf who dropped that quote into comments sometime back.

Yep, another Real Results post, my favorite. I have another post on a very controversial topic well into draft that was going to go up this afternoon. It can wait. It seems that whenever I begin to question why it is I put so much effort into this blog and have for years, now, something comes along to remind me of exactly and precisely why it is I do it.

And it both energizes me and reminds me of the implicit commitment to this endeavor I’ve taken up for myself. Imagine that someone, somewhere, gets wind of this great lifestyle for getting lean and healthy, only to find a site no longer updated, or dead. I can’t really bear to think about that possibility.

So enough about me. First, let’s see the comment Marc dropped last evening.

Richard,

You changed my life. I found your blog in January and have since lost 60lbs, and seen numerous health improvements. I will send you a full report toward the end of the year but thought you could use hearing some appreciation about now.

You are appreciated. People may not share it enough but what you are doing is more important than surveys on a blog. You really are helping people lead better lives.

Thanks a million!

Speaks for itself. Being a 60 pound loser myself, I can attest to the life-changing nature of it. Congratulations, Marc, and feel free to add any other info you’d like in comments for the other folks out there where, right now might just be their "January."

Next up is Jeff, who just emailed me to let me know he had this to say over at Mark Sisson’s Daily Apple:

My name is Jeff Hopkins. I am 54 years old and have been seriously overweight my entire adult life. I have had many health problems due to the extra weight including diabetes, and most of the bad things that go with being obese.

The most I ever weighed (that I know of) was 324lbs. Thanks to finding Mark Sisson’s Primal Blueprint, Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solutions, and the Free the Animal blog, I am now a much slimmer 225 lbs. […]

I was desperate to change and knew if I didn’t I was going to have a slow miserable death. I remember making the deal with myself that I would eat this way for one meal at a time at first. It worked. It was amazing to watch the pounds fall off my body. I am convinced that this is the only way to live and I hope my short story can be of some use to you.

You’ll want to read Jeff’s whole story over at Mark’s, but in the meantime, here’s 1,000 words.

Jeff’s Before and After

I’m very gratified to have played a role in these dramatic transformations. I’m also very appreciative that so many are so willing to come forward as an inspiration to others. These Real Results, here, at MDA and other places are always unsolicited, read and look real, and have no relation to the typical "testimonial" bullshit you see everywhere as part of some attempt to sell some crap product or book that will only make people worse off.

Because in this case, "it’s almost like this stuff really works." Oh, and here’s more. You may have seen the post, but have you seen all the comments from those reporting their positive experiences? Check it out, if you haven’t.

Congratulations, gents.

While I’ve dabbled in grassfed meats over the last year or so, I never really got completely serious about it. I did a few orders from La Cense — and good stuff it was — but that’s not local. I’ve sourced a few things here and there from farmers’ markets and such, Whole Foods, and even a butcher shop.

But now I’ve gone all out, buying a subscription to Marin Sun Farm’s Meat CSA, which includes purely grassfed local beef, lamb, and pastured pork. I purchased a 6-month subscription to Package #2, which includes 4 pounds of steaks, 8 pounds or roasts & braises, and 5 pounds of ground, for a total of 17 pounds per month for six months. That works out to an overall $7.65/pound which I find very reasonable considering the quality, that’s it’s local, nicely packaged & frozen, and that the monthly drop off point is a mere five minutes away. And, I now have a 7 cu box freezer I picked up a couple of weeks back.

For the initial delivery I also supplemented with an additional 10 pounds in the steaks category for $100, $10/pound. I was really happy to see that 3-4 packages from that order are rack of lamb, perhaps my favorite meat in the world. I also got four dozen pastured eggs.

Marin Sun Farms CSA Pack

I must say that I enjoy the serendipity aspect of getting a CSA pack such as this. I probably should have written everything down so’s I could list it here, but there were many cuts I’m not very familiar with, particularly of lamb & pork. I’m looking forward to diving in. There were two bavettes included, so I believe I’ll grill up one of those tonight.

Grilled Bavette

F**k Vegetables

You know what? Every time I’m just satisfied eating meat and shun all else, I have to wonder what sort of conditioning I’ve succumbed to.

After all, I once believed in Santa Claus with all my heart. Then I graduated to the adult version.

Free of both, now. …And eating lots of meat.

You can find my introductory post to my ongoing Leangains experience right here.

This post is taking a different form from my original intention. I was going to post about my workout experience and how I see it as different from pre-Leangans days. And, eventually in the course of this series I’d shoot some interview questions at Martin, workout questions being among them.

But in discussing some of the goals I’d like to meet in a post like this with Martin it soon became clear that we ought to just partially do this in and interview format from the get-go, after a brief introduction summarizing my own experience. So that’s what we’ll do and, of course, Martin will be around to expand on his ideas and methods in comments. So let’s get to it.

PRE-LEANGAINS

As I blogged way back in the beginning, May 2007, I did have a sense that brief and intense was superior to the standard gym drudgery of 3-5 visits per week of an hour or more with significant time devoted to low-effort cardio. Instead, I went only twice per week, 30-minutes per session, did no cardio (I did a few sprints once or twice per week away from the gym), and focussed on 3 sets X 10 reps for as many as I could get in, i.e., little to no rest between sets or exercises. In addition, I normally did circuits of 2-3 exercises at a time, such that I could move from set to set with no rest, alternating between the exercises.

For the first few months, perhaps six, the two workouts were split between chest and arms one day, legs and back the next. Then, we simply went full body each time but employed different exercises. Eventually, we changed that to be more weights and machines oriented one day and more crossfit circuit styled stuff the next, though I don’t know much about what precisely constitutes crossfit. What I do know is that the weight day got me real pumped while the “crossfit” day got me plain exhausted. I’d call it a combination of bodyweight stuff, some weights, plyometrics, and so on with the result being that it was quasi aerobic, or cardio at the pace I performed it.

I did make significant progress. In roughly the three years I did this I went from 235 pounds to holding between 180-185 (I was 183/4 when I began Leangains). I don’t recall what weight I was lifting in the various moves at the outset but I do know that I gained significantly over the three years.

SIX MONTHS OF LEANGAINS WORKOUTS

Note: six months was the timeframe, but over the summer months I had time off for vacations and such so actual time was about 5 months of actual workouts.

From my perspective, there are four primary exercises in the Leangains method (at least in the program Martin designed for me according to my goals and abilities): Deadlift, Squat, Bench Press, and Weighted Chinups. In addition there are about 8-10 other exercises classified as assistance moves. This was a great perspective as it really focussed the goal. I had four exercises to focus on primarily and I didn’t really concern myself with gains in the others. They kinda come automatically. There’s an interesting push / pull dynamic with gains, and it’s never linear.

The other difference is that I went from two to three workouts per week. The primary reason for this was a sea change in the way I was doing things in a circuit fashion. Martin required that I drop the number of sets I was doing and, in addition, the number of reps. In exchange, I was to lift more weight and get some rest in-between sets and exercises. Attack every set with maximal effort was the name of the game.

So let’s summarize the results. I’ll provide individual gains for the aforementioned primary moves and will just group the assistance gains into one number and then give a combined total. These are gains over 20 weeks of actual exercise.

• Conventional Deadlift: 155 – 295 / 90% gain
• Back Squats: 185 – 215 / 16% gain
• Bench Press: 165 – 180 / 9% gain
• Weighted Chin Ups: 0 – 20 / 11% gain, using average bodyweight over the period to calculate
• 11 Assistance Exercises: 29% average gain
• Total Overall Gain Over 20 Weeks: 27%

As I said, I don’t recall where I began in terms of weight 3 1/2 years ago, but in that first three years before going to the Leangains approach I may have — just guessing — gained 50-100%, maybe more in a few things. But that’s over 3 years. This was over 20 weeks, 5 months of actual time in gym.

So call me impressed, and happy.

~~~

So at this point I’ll move into questions for Martin Berkhan.

Martin, you’ve seen my summary of my pre-Leangains time at the gym. What can you say about the methods I employed? Anything good and why? What’s bad, and why?

I didn’t see anything good about it and I don’t know where to start with the bad. A few observations in random order.

1. Set structure: I hate “3 x 10” or “4 x 8”, or similar absolute systems. What does that mean exactly? So you do 10 reps with your 14RM weight to get 3 sets of 10 reps with the same weight so that the third set can be completed? What if you can get 12 reps on the third? What’s the point of half-assing it with two easy sets which leaves you semi-fatigued so that you can never get one truly good set in? Huge waste of time and an inferior way to train.

2. Circuit-style workouts and “little to no rest” in between sets. Are you looking to improve your conditioning? Training for an endurance event? Because that’s not how you train for strength and muscle gains. Rest at least 3-5 minutes in between sets for strength. Studies shows that longer rest equals greater strength gains. Since muscle gains follow strength gains, you can draw your own conclusions from that.

3. Mixing conditioning/strength. In the best case you’ll get mediocre at both, in the worst case you’ll stagnate. Keep them separate. Either do a strength session or a conditioning session, and do them on different days.

4. Changing parameters from week to week, i.e. workouts are variable and not constant. This makes it impossible to track progress.

5. Did you even have a training log? Did you go for PRs on a regular basis like you should? Because that’s what you should’ve been doing.

Given my gains over the initial 20 weeks under your guidance, would you say those gains are typical, below, or better than what you see from the average client? And, how about considering gender and age (I’ll be 50 in January)?

I’d say they’re just what I expected given your level of compliance and commitment, which were good. You stick with a sound plan and the right diet and you get to reap the rewards which is what you did. You lost fat, gained muscle and increased your strength significantly.

I know you pay significant attention to goings on in the community. In the context of gym time, what do you see as the good and the bad? How about the really, really bad?

Well, I think I covered that under the first question. In the bodybuilding community you have the issue of people overcomplicating things and screwing around with the small stuff instead of focusing on the core movements, i.e. ten different curls and chest movements, worrying about the optimal pre-workout stack, etc. In the paleo community you have this notion of simplifying things but what I see is instead an overreliance on novelty and mixing things up too much. Workouts vary from week to week, includes some elements of conditioning and strength, etc. This is purely based on my observations and I’m obviously generalizing a good bit. This is an inferior way to train beyond the first sweet six months or so where you’ll get great results on just about any approach. Beyond that point I think you need a more structured approach and get your goals straight to make faster and better progress.

Can you briefly describe your reasons behind the four primary core exercises?

Those are the four money movements from which at least 80% of your gains will come from. I don’t necessarily choose those exact movements but I do choose a proper substitute depending on the client. I’ll talk briefly about each below.

Bench press: For chest and shoulders. Sometimes substituted for weighted dips or dumbbell presses. I prefer barbell over dumbbells since it allows smaller weight jumps for progression, i.e. going from 50 lbs dumbbells to 55 lbs dumbbells is a 10% increase in load, while going from a 135 lbs bench press to 140 lbs is a 4% increase in load. While I do include a set or two of the overhead press, I find that most people don’t need much direct shoulder work in the plans I make. Shoulders get a lot of indirect training via chins, deadlift and even squats to some degree.

Weighted chins: Depending on the relative strength of the client, it’s pulldowns, chins and then finally weighted chins. Extra loading starts with 5-10 lbs added when you can do 8 body weight chins since I believe it’s a movement that’s best trained heavy, in the 4-6 rep range. I always advocate chins, not pull-ups. Chins allows a greater ROM and people tend to cheat less when adding weight. Besides chins, close-grip chins is another favorite variety I use. Most people could build a great set of biceps focusing on weighted chins and close-grip chins only. I did.

Squats: Well, not much to say about this one. Best lower-body movement hands down. Front squats is another great alternative. Leg press is also fine. Some people simply aren’t built to squat and are better off focusing on leg presses instead. Most often tall guys with long legs.

Deadlift: Like squats, this is another no-brainer. Depending on your leverages, this will either be more of a back-lift or more of a lower-body lift. Either way, it needs a separate day; at least in the context I use it. Don’t squat and deadlift on the same day. In my experience, the deadlift is a lift that should be trained low volume, low frequency and high effort. Never more than once a week.

Why heavy, and why the allowance for lots of rest in-between sets and exercises?

Hard and heavy gives you the most return on your time investment. Make all your sets count and try to improve on them your next session. Being physically and mentally prepared is important, therefore the long rest periods. Besides, studies show longer rest periods equals greater strength gains. I should note that I use different setups depending on the goal of the client. For example, I’ve experimented with higher frequency training where sets were not taken to failure every session. However, that was in the context of gaining. On a diet, hard and heavy is the right way to go. Training volume should be low, effort high.

Are the workout programs you furnish clients mostly the same or are they different based on factors like goals, gender, age, ability?

No, they vary depending on the client; goals, available equipment, age, and so forth. However, I do have a few templates that I use over and over again. The one you used is one of the more common templates. Some people gained more strength on that one on their diet than they did on another one when bulking. It’s simple and effective.

Do you ever employ Olympic lifts (snatch, clean & jerk) for clients and if not, why?

No, never, unless they’re Olympic lifters or have a good deal of experience with the lifts. While productive, these lifts require skill and practice. Given that I do most of my work online, it would be irresponsible to include them in people’s templates. Most people can bench, squat and deadlift with good form, but they can’t snatch and clean.

Lots of my readers out there aren’t looking to get ripped but yet want a decent body composition and a good measure of strength. Supposing they’re not going to go all out for a Leangains program, what advice — or perhaps principles or rules of thumb — can you offer that will give them the biggest bang for their time & effort invested?

1. Track progress short-term and long-term. Use a training log to document every workout and compare your performance in between workouts. For long-term progress, use checkpoints. I talked about checkpoints here.

2. Don’t mix strength and conditioning. Keep them separate. Why? First of all, you can’t get a great strength session and a great conditioning session in the same workout. Second of all, there’s a very good reason to keep them separate if you look at what happens on a cellular level. In simple terms, conditioning activates a protein (AMPK) which blunts another protein (MTOR) that turns on muscle protein synthesis.

3. If your goal is fat loss, limit strength training to 3 days a week. 95% of the people reading this don’t need to spend more than 3 days a week tops in the gym to get to where they want, regardless if they just want to lose a few pounds or get ripped.

4. If you stagnate, be that in terms of fat loss or muscle gain, the first thing to fix is your diet, not your training or cardio routine. Count calories.

5. Start every workout with a core movement and pair them intelligently. Looking at Richard’s template, we did.

Monday: Deadlifts and weighted chins. Make sure you get 5 mins of rest in between deadlifts and chins.

Wednesday: Bench

Friday: Squats. Make sure you get a minimum of two days of rest in between deadlifts and squats, i.e. don’t do heavy deads on Wednesday and then heavy squats on Friday.

6. If you’re dragging yourself to the gym in order to do HIIT or burpees supersetted with hindu pushups, or whatever else is trendy right now, ask yourself if you’re really doing this for conditioning purposes or fat loss. I think if most people answered honestly it would be the latter. If you’re interested in gaining strength and muscle, while losing fat, keep in mind that strenuous cardio like HIIT and other high-impact cardio will make that a whole lot harder and less likely to happen. Focus your efforts on strength training and keep cardio light. Ditch the intervals and take a 45-60 min leisurely walk instead.

7. For fat loss, I always use reverse pyramid training with a double progression scheme. I talked about double progression here. So for example, in Richard’s plan he had “Deadlifts 2 x 4-5”. That means he’d warm-up and then do one set all out in the 4-5 rep range. He’d then rest, lower the weight by 10%, and do another set all-out. If he could get 5 reps in either set, he’d up the weight for that set by by 2.5-5% the next session. When using the RPT-scheme, use no more than 3 sets per movement in the core movements. For assistance movements, 1-2 sets is enough.

8. If you want to lose fat, and possibly gain some strength and muscle in the process, the most important aspect of your diet is protein intake. Though there might not be any benefits beyond 2 g/kg body weight in energy balance, protein needs are elevated on a diet. Generally speaking, 2.5 g/kg is the bare minimum I recommend you get on a daily basis on a diet.

9. There are also other reasons you’d want to keep protein high, such as satiety and TEF, where protein is superior to any other macronutrient. For this reason, I also recommend a high protein intake as part of a lifestyle diet in order to maintain body fat and protect against fat gain once you’ve reached your goals in terms of where you want your physique to be. I talked about this here.

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I’ll get drafting the next installment right away so it’s up within a week to 10 days. We’ll cover the dietary aspects of Martin’s approach and perhaps also the fasting depending upon length. But I suspect fasting will require its own post.

Update: Next installment is up. Leangains: The Dietary Approach

A while back I blogged about my general preference for Soft Star RunAmoc over Vibram Five Fingers for all but what the VFFs are specifically designed for: sporting activity. Shortly thereafter I recorded a video comparison of the two.

Today I still feel the same way. When I attended MovNat, I brought my flip flops, Vibram KSOs and my RunAmocs. When I wasn’t barefoot, which was a lot, I was wearing the VFFs for the dialy MovNat activities and the RunAmocs in the evenings.

However, a lot of people balk at the roughly $90 price, and when you consider the cut that goes to your state mobster, and shipping, you’re pushing $100 for either of these options (don’t even get me started on Terra Plana…). VFFs are beginning to show up in local sporting goods stores like REI and others so you’ll increasingly be able to save on shipping.

That also holds for a couple of minimalist, light shoes I’m going to show you — one of which I’ve been wearing almost daily for over a year.

I’m talking about the Sanuk Standard and the Vans Bali. Both are under $50 and when I got a pair of each, today, one (can’t recall which) was 40% off, so there are local deals to be had. You’ll find these at surf or boardshops.

So here’s a short video. Three minutes. Sorry for the light and auto-focus issues, but as you’ll see, they are very minimal and flexible — especially once you take out the insole.

Minimalist Shoe Review: Sanuk & Vans from Richard Nikoley on Vimeo.

It’s been too long but I had the urge. Actually, I have to thank Andrew over at Evolvify who did an outstanding and comprehensive post on a topic I was going to hit either today or tomorrow. But, he did such a job that it would have been silly not to just point to his, since I already knew about it. So I posted in his comments:

Though mine would have been my typical hit & run piece, I’m still glad you saved me the trouble, as this has been in my working queue since yesterday or whenever I got wind of it.

Now I’ll just mention it in a link roundup or BULLSHIT! episode and let people know where to get the straight scoop.

He replied:

But by saving your time, I may have deprived the world of one of your deliciously vitriolic, while justified, demolitions of ideological pap.

So… to Richard… You’re welcome for the time saving (I guess).

But to everyone else… I’m sorry.

Ha! Well, I’m flattered, of course; and I hate to disappoint and sure hope I haven’t, but I got right on doing a BULLSHIT! video and here it is. Oh, before I forget, thanks to reader Don Wiss who happened to email me an added piece of information while I was preparing and it was very helpful.

BULLSHIT! from Richard Nikoley on Vimeo.

Show notes:

Meaty fad diet goes back to Stone Age by Cornell McClellan

THE FIRST TRAINER | Silly paleo plan is rapidly gaining fans, but is it good to eat like a caveman?

(See the comments, universally negative toward McClellan and the article, so far)

And here’s his vegan connection.

~~~

Single egg yolk can double coronary risk: study

Three researchers say it’s a myth that dietary cholesterol is not a concern for heart, stroke (Dr. David Spence, a University of Western Ontario stroke-prevention expert; Dr. David Jenkins, Canada research chair in nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto; and Dr. Jean Davignon, a cholesterol expert with the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montreal).

While I do indeed sometimes have my fun — though dead serious too — with posts such as yesterday’s, today I’m again doing one of my favorite kind.

And, hey, nobody even had to vote on it for it to get done. Imagine that!

I got an email about a month ago from Mike calling attention to Robb Wolf’s guest post of sorts at Tim Ferriss’ blog that’s essentially a lengthy excerpt from Robb’s book, The Paleo Solution.

This article brought me to your site and the paleo diet.

Hmm, I don’t recall getting what would have certainly been massive traffic had this blog been mentioned anywhere in that article, even amongst the 800+ comments. While I was curious as to how, exactly, that article brought Mike here I let it pass and just filed the email away.

While cleaning things out the other day I came across it again and sent off a very quick question to Mike:

Now that a month has passed, how’s it going?

And here’s his response which, in addition to reporting some fabulous, amazing results on paleo, actually answers the question I never bothered to ask.

Wow, where to start. I should probably start by saying how effortless this has all been. I went from Standard American Diet plus chronic cardio (as Mark Sisson puts it) 3-4 times a week; to eating whatever I want and exercising easily and with a sense of actual enjoyment. Before, I ate out for almost every meal. Now, I actually know how to cook some delicious objects that I would put in my mouth, chew and love. The simplification of removing grains and shit that never seems to turn out well has been a particular boon. Cooking with fat is beautiful; and learning how is straightforward and uncomplicated.

Now, about myself. I started the end of September at 5’10" and 208lbs. Not obese, but definitely overweight. I was a fat slob two years ago, and spent almost all of those two years trying to lose weight and managed to shed 18lbs… at least it was something, right? When I read that excerpt of Robb Wolf’s book Tim Ferriss posted on his blog, it opened my eyes enough to at least want to try it. I remembered reading the no shampoo article on your site linked from BoingBoing a while back, and some connection was made in my mind between you and paleo. So I went to your site to learn more, and immediately began eating as prescribed.

The first week went smoothly. It seemed I had dodged the bullet on carb flu. After two weeks I hopped on a scale and learned I had dropped 8 pounds, bringing me back to an even 200. I was elated. The rash on my arms caused by candidiasis disappeared and has yet to come back. My energy levels remain constant, except when I don’t get enough sleep. Allergies are fading. My joints no longer sound like a bag of potato chips when I get up from a squat. My acne is completely gone. My skin, hair and scalp are healthy and glow-y thanks to no shampoo, soap or shaving cream. Every article of clothing that I had fattened myself out of in the previous years now fit; and thank god because my ‘regular’ clothes are starting to feel like sheets. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m starting to look decent naked. Another weird thing, my teeth no longer ache.

Today, I weigh 193lbs. I haven’t weighed this little in almost a decade. Yesterday I had to go shopping for clothes as everything else is beginning to look like a damn, baggy pirate outfit. I lost 15 pounds in a month, which sounds like something you’d see on the cover of Woman’s Bullshit Today at the checkout stand.

The other day I was at a birthday and made the mistake of eating cake. Hilarity ensued. Don’t eat cake.

It’s highly likely I’m going to be doing this paleo/primal thing for the rest of my life.

I believe that what excites me the most about so many of these testimonials we see is not just the 15 pounds of fat loss in a month. Yes, like I say, put body composition first and foremost as your goal and, in the context of a paleo lifestyle, the health markers should follow:

• energy levels remain constant
• allergies are fading
• joints no longer sound like a bag of potato chips
• acne is completely gone
• skin, hair and scalp are healthy and glow-y
• teeth no longer ache

Now, suppose you were to chase "health" instead of body composition in the context of paleo. Which of those health markers would you go after, and how?

Seen somewhere in a Tweet, earlier today. Oh Boy! A "Meal Management System." All all I have to do is look like a total loser hauling this shit around with me every day. Be prepared to absolutely laugh your ass off. Hell, I just went ahead and gave Bodybuilding.com the link on that. If anyone’s stupid enough to buy it and use it, then they deserve it.

Can you imagine that?