CrossFit/PALEO doctor Tim Noakes could lose medical license over FALSE advise

It used to be that you did not talk about religion or politics in polite company. Diet may soon be added to that list.

Personally, I don't think anyone has nailed the diet debate. In the end, we are all use faith more than science. We are all prone to confirmation bias, and every other bias when it comes to diet.

I follow a plant heavy, paleo diet. My primary source of nutrients are plants, but I also eat meat - wild and/or non-factory farmed meats and fish in moderation. I eat plenty of fat - even saturated - from coconut, butter/ghee, avocado, olive oil, and those meats. I'd guess about 40% of my calories are from fat. Maybe 50%.

I avoid vegetable oils (unless you call olives or avocado's vegetables), and factory farmed meats. I keep simple sugars and carbs at a minimum.

I moderate my carbs up and down based on my activity level. I'm no longer a competitive runner (last race about 30 years ago), so unless I'm out doing interval work, lifting weights or doing hard physical work, then I keep my carbs on the low side. Not Atkins low, but lower than the SAD,

Before switching to this type of diet, I had trouble keeping my weight down. My glucose, triglycerides, and cholesterol levels were borderline high. Now all my levels are great. My weight is stable (down to 172 from 190...6-1 so even 190 is not "fat", but....), and my energy is great. I feel better at 55 than I did at 45.

I do not follow a strict paleo approach (if there is such a thing), In fact, I do not call what I do paleo. I don't think about what grok would eat. Instead, I try to determine which foods seem to work for my body. In general, a whole foods, low inflammatory diet works for me. 90% of what I eat fits under the paleo umbrella. 10% does not. More or less.

It works for me.

Competitive runners, BTW, do need carbs. You can burn fat when 100% aerobic, but once you get above that you need carbs.

Thank you for your well-reasoned, balanced post. You have found the balance which works for you and many others. I agree with every line.

The new buzz word when discussing diet, "paleo". Ah well, I guess there's plenty of people making money out of it.

You're right. A good, sensible post! The passion we carry for diet is much like religion/politics and so there is obviously overlap and people get all fired up. And for sure we are all very biased (no doubt I am). Many variables at play and that is why many of the peer-reviewed studies on all sides must be questioned. I'm glad you found a diet that works for you. Not to be super nit-picky (I probably am being though), but I noticed you mentioned that you are on a "low inflammatory diet"....but 40-50% fat and most from animal products. How do you know for certain it is "low inflammatory" though? It is likely that all the veggies you are eating (fairly high carb in general so not sure what your actual % of carb intake is v. fat) are a big key your health improvements - and , as you mentioned, are your "primary source of nutrients." Not to mention the environmental impact/energy savings of consuming more plant sourced meals. (Don't even get me started on Alan Savory though!). If you consider yourself mostly "Paleo" though do you eat legumes? (just a question). Again a very sensible post!

Nutritional guidelines for endurance athletes.

Fresh from the german journal of sport medicine.

In english and gernan. Enjoy.

Double Coach wrote:

jjjjj wrote:

I'd be inclined to take his claim very seriously based on all the research he has conducted. But the idea of losing his license for research-based medical arguments is trampling on free speech and ignoring scientific dispute as a healthy sign of working science.

HOW IS IT TRAMPLING ON FREE SPEECH???!!! I swear, 95% of people have no idea what free speech even means.

How do you know it's 95%? Could it be 935? Could it be 50%?

Right! You don't know. I have neither the inclination, or time to hear you tell me how you detest my presence. But deep down inside, You want me on that free speech, you NEED me on that free speech. I use words like, Freedom, Youz guys, and Happy. I don't give a damn what you think! I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way.

A couple of thoughts here:

1. Endurance athletes need to fuel their bodies. They need a lot of calories, especially during Marathon prep. When you train that hard, you can get away with a high carb diet. For 90% of the people, it is not a good idea though (insulin spikes, etc).

2. The high carb diet that Sage promotes here is vastly different from the SAD diet of 90% of Americans. Sage, similarly to Arne Gabius, puts an emphasis on vegetables and fruits. They consume very little pasta or bread or processed food (cookies, microwave meals etc.).

Try to find a high-carb diet without benefit of agriculture. You can't. You might dig up a few roots and pick a few berries and wild fruits, but you'll never survive on that. Most of the year they're not even in season. Green vegetables? A calorie-free joke. You'll starve.

Meat is, and always has been, the food that made humans human. The ability to grip a spear and kill prey, and eventually put sharp rocks on the spear, led to our big brains, shift to bipedalism and ability to migrate around the world and survive where apes cannot. Gorillas are stuck in the jungle, constantly eating while they sit around on their bloated, gassy behinds to conserve energy.

Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution can't be erased by a few thousand years of agriculture. We have relatively tiny hindguts and no foregut and aren't equipped to eat grass and cellulose. It doesn't matter how far you run, you can't load up on carbohydrates beyond the ability of your muscles and liver to store them. It just turns to fat.

Alex... wrote:

Do not drink your calories.

Let's not get crazy now...

Diets certainly do bring out the passion in people. Very few of them have withstood the rigors of scientific scrutiny. Personally, my focus has always been on the science behind it, and the results. There were a lot of skeptics in the the scientific community, relative to the program I was associated with...........until we documented and published the results in peer reviewed scientific journals, and presented at scientific meetings. The more we published, the more presentations we made, the less skeptics there were. Eventually there were the copycats. In any event, the bulk of the research I was involved in was in the risk factor reduction in populations with atherosclerotic vascular disease, diabetes, hypertension certain forms of cancer IE western degenerative disease. Published results were profound. This was through a low fat, high complex carbohydrate diet, daily monitored exercise, smoking cessation, stress management. For someone with pre existing disease, there are few options if the disease is not to progress. Those folks must make a dramatic change in lifestyle or it worsens...........in 100% of cases. For someone absent of clinically significant disease, the options are more varied, however its always good to know where you stand relative to risk, and monitor changes in risk serially, and then make the changes in lifestyle as needed to minimize it.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Try to find a high-carb diet without benefit of agriculture. You can't. You might dig up a few roots and pick a few berries and wild fruits, but you'll never survive on that. Most of the year they're not even in season. Green vegetables? A calorie-free joke. You'll starve.

I don't disagree with you.

I saw a picture of Arne Gabius daily food intake. It was a big size table full of veggies and fruits. Clearly he must be eating 24h a day. Every other vegan would just add a load of grains and end up with a sh|tty diet.

No one is immune to the ravages of CAD, not even our meat eating ancestors. In this poor guys case he was shot with an arrow however on autopsy had genetic variants that put him at risk of CAD, and his fatty diet likely didn't help. Many studies have shown evidence of CAD in mummified hearts autopsied from ancient burial sites so the premise that our meat eating ancestors were healthy is likely a myth. Additionally, they died at such an early age due to violence and other diseases its hard to say just how healthy they might have been. Irrespective of that, the contemporary human isn't nearly as physically active as our early ancestors, and not really able to handle the excesses in the contemporary western diet, as we once may have been.

Sage, old SMTC, Rexxing, thanks for standing up for the research and common sense of a lowered fat, high complex carb, lean protein eating patterns. I might add (have worked in healthcare and Cardiac Rehab for over 25 years), that this is what is emphasized to lower cardiac risks. Also to possibly lower some cancer risks like colon cancer. My backround is Ex Phys and Biochemistry, fyi.

Also, might clarify that what appears to be the healthiest fats are mono-unsaturated, like nuts, olives, avacados, etc.

Great postings and historical info from Ross, too.

As a biologist it makes complete sense to me that humans would be as phenotypically varied for dietary adaptation as we are for metrics like height, melanin-content of skin, propensity for long- vs. short-distance running, etc.. This is why the one-size-fits-all prescriptions will likely fail for a significant portion of the population. It is as evident that carbohydrate-intolerant folks are developing diabetes from carbohydrate-rich diets high in sugar just as fat-intolerant people are developing CHD from saturated fats, and particularly trans fats in the modern diet.

Confounding variables relative to the genotype are environmental stressors and factors, for instance, early antibiotic use, which I know has affected my own g.i. health and as a result what foods I can tolerate or require. My half-brother, growing up in the same food environment as I, was not treated with antibiotics long-term and had none of the g.i. issues I had, whereas my sister, who also was subject to long-term antibiotic treatment as a child, has almost identical issues. In my case, I view a more LCHF diet as remedial, along with probiotic supplementation, and the results have thus far been dramatic and positive, but have taken decades for me to uncover. Ultimately I hope to get to the point where otherwise healthy foods, such as whole grains in moderation, will not cause unnecessarily adverse effects as they have in the past.

My hope is that nutrition becomes a more scientifically sound and nuanced practice in the future, rather than fraught with political and ideological bias, and just as a good coach can identify the needs of each individual athlete in training, that each of us can find the program which best suits our unique dietary needs.

I will also addendum that the combination of sugar with fat, in particular with trans-fat, is the most potent concoction against dietary health known to man, I think even disparate voices on this thread can concur on this. Instead the levity inherent in the term "junk food", it might as well be called "death food" for all of the increased mortality associated with it's heavy consumption, not just in industrialized countries but now extending it's deadly tentacles into the third world.

I view it as being about as toxic as alcohol; while many can consume it in "moderation", there are millions for whom it is a life-corroding influence, and should be regulated in access in particular for children. Not realistic I know, at this point, but definitely it's production and marketing fuels a tragedy which still hasn't fully played itself out.

B-Sample wrote:

I will also addendum that the combination of sugar with fat, in particular with trans-fat, is the most potent concoction against dietary health known to man.

Are you saying these are particularly bad when consumed together?

I did not say that all my fats were from animal sources. I eat avocados, use coconut oil in cooking, use hemp oil and olive oil in salads etc. I'd say only 25-40% of my fat comes from animal sources - a fair amount of that is ghee and eggs.The research on if animal products are inflammatory is inconclusive, in my opinion. Is it all animal products, or just some. Is it just factory farmed where we are feeding animals products they are not evolved to eat? An unhealthy animals has a different ratio of fats. A ratio that might not be the best for use to consume.The vegetables I eat are not all that high carbs. I'd say I get around 25-40 grams of carbs a day from them. I do eat many things that most "paleo's" will not. Beans is one. Rice is another. A few other grains as well. I've also been known to eat pizza a few times a year (but for the most part I limit gluten a lot).I've tried quite a few diets. Vegetarian, vegan, Atkins, pure paleo, mediterranean, and probably a few more that I've forgotten. Of those, I feel the best on my current diet. That's does not necessarily mean it's the best, but I do feel better. Vegan had the quickest turn around on, but eventually I started feeling not as good until I added back small amounts of meat. I'm sure a case could be made that I did it wrong.The one portion of paleo propaganda that makes sense to me is that we had thousands of years eating a particular way, and that we have adapted and evolved to prefer that type of diet. We are omnivores. Eating some meat - especially from healthy animals - is in our biology.In the end, none of us really knows. We pick and choose the studies which fit our bias. Some of those studies are not the best. They all use correlation and often ignore or did not sample other correlating data. So we use faith and call it science.I'm certainly not saying I found the answers and everyone should eat like me. Even if it turns out to be the best for me, may not means its the best for everyone else.

lort wrote:

where we are feeding animals products they are not evolved to eat?

The best example here are chicken/eggs.

9/10 Americans will chose eggs that have "fed a vegetarian diet" on the label. That usually means a mix or corn, grain and soy.

The natural diet of hens consists of worms, bugs and insects, among other things. Totally not vegetarian.

Definitely. Why else are donuts deep-fried? If they weren't you would stop at one, if you could even finish that. It is analogous to combing gunpowder with steel weaponry: either can be dangerous, but the combination is magnitudes more lethal.

test2 wrote:

B-Sample wrote:

I will also addendum that the combination of sugar with fat, in particular with trans-fat, is the most potent concoction against dietary health known to man.

Are you saying these are particularly bad when consumed together?