Initial thoughts on diet adjustment

Nutrition
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@Abe_Froman just wanted to first say I really enjoy talking with you. Thanks for being cool.

From what I understand it comes down to dosage and frequency. We’re descended from a long long line of animals that were primarily carnivores. My understanding is ya, of course, fruit tastes great so we sought it out, but came across it extremely rarely. Possibly only once a year.

We can’t digest cellulose like cows and deer, so that leaves meat. That’s what we ate. And not just chimps but like waaaaaayyyyy before then. All meat.

Could be dead wrong but I think fruit is so hard to come by, you’re either able to digest leafs or eating meat. No animals are 100% fruit.

So our metabolism evolved to use protein, but there’s tons more cals per gram in fat. So our metabolisms love it. We then store all the energy we eat, and moderate our blood sugar ourselves. Aka produce glucose to fuel our cells.

If a few times a year we gouge on sugar, no biggie. No impact.

But it’s all around us now. We’re using sugar doses through the day to control our own blood sugar, dumping it in by orders of magnitude what our entire blood volume holds. Every day.

I do want to re-stress that the sugars in fruit are identical to those in candy, etc. It’s just sugar.

Again, could be dead wrong! :slightly_smiling_face: Next week we discover we have NOT only been agricultural for about 10,000 years, chimps have been farming fruit for 2 mil years and that made up 90% of their diet. (Silly example….carnivore teeth….but you know what I mean!)

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@cagiva_wmx125 loved your point about cycling! It’s super funny! :laughing:

Just want to remind, as I siad above, that one apple has about 23 g sugar, can of coke 35 = 66%. So 2 apples is 46 grams, almost 1.5 cans of coke.

For sure the fibre in an apple slows absorption. But, as I said above, baked potato’s glycemic index is 85. Pure glucose is 100. 15% lower insulin response (right?). That ain’t good.

I think it’s important to paint things good or bad. It’s how I (we?) make decisions. Cigarettes bad. Veggies w vitamins good. Cycling good. Not cycling bad. :slightly_smiling_face:

Aware of the fructose stuff. Coke uses mostly high fructose corn syrup, I believe. Doesn’t really matter. All injected as sugar, dumped into our metabolism. Not the body generating it’s own glucose, as we are designed to do.

Still laughing at the cycling thing. Legit, great joke and insight, not making fun! It sounds terrible. Maybe we should all quit?!?! :laughing:

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Do you think avoiding diet advice that any cycling coach would give you in 2023 has improved your training?

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Or any registered general dietician.

@Chris1982 the question I always ask when debates like this occur, is why should we accept your views as more credible on this, vs virtually every educated professional person on the planet that deals with nutrition or human physiology?

Not trying to be nasty. But what more credible alternative source are you getting your info from?

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66

My guess would be reading things like Omnivore’s Dilemma and Mark’s Daily Apple or other Paleo/“Primal” sources. Nothing he’s saying here is wrong necessarily in terms of the history behind why “fat is bad” and industrial corn, but goodness I think we’re going a bit off the deep end trashing fruit because it contains sugar while ignoring basically everything else it has and comparing it to Coca Cola.

Our grandkids are going to think anything that is exclusionary of naturally occurring foods is crazy, IMO (barring some kind of medical necessity for excluding things in specific cases).

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67

Completely agree. I’m roughly paraphrasing multiple sources that just escape me right now…probably Anthony Bourdain or Michael Pollan or something, but my general practice and philosophy is something along the lines of:

Eat everything, but not too much of it. Eat your veggies, get enough protein, avoid processed or red meats most of the time if you can. Try to eat more stuff that looks like it was grown or raised, rather than comes in a bag from a factory.

There’s no miracle food or silver bullet problem food. Quantity and context matters. Some “diets” do a good job of offering general guidelines or boundaries to show what healthy eating looks like…like mediterranean or Japanese cooking

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68

It sucks my teeth and jaw developed to be so terrible at chewing raw meat despite spending the past 10+ million years doing nothing but eating raw meat. These molars are great at gnashing veggies for some reason though…stupid evolution. Just wish I had sharper teeth like a tiger or coyote or something that actually eats meat as a staple of its diet. Maybe another 10 million years will fix it.

You are dead wrong though, it’s almost comical. Chimpanzees in their natural habitats eat around 5% meat. They mostly forage for fruit and nuts all day. Have you never watched nat geo or planet earth or any of those shows?

They’re more frugivores than omnivores, and their watts/kg would crush a humans.

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69

It seems tracking blood glucose during a ride using a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) is very tricky.

However, I presume there is a decent protocol for testing your response to a food, a combination of foods, or a sequence of foods while stationery.

On average, certain foods will increase blood glucose faster than other foods, e.g. cola vs apple, but nobody is mean-average for everything.

A food diary would be the RPE equivalent—good enough. A CGM would give you more of a power meter approach. More data and helpful if you can figure out what to do with it.

I’ve heard of people finding out the cherry tomatoes on their salads were causing big glucose spikes and using that data, they cut out the tomatoes and started to feel better. You could really experiment for a month or two and get a lot of useful data that is specific to your body and your actual, locally purchasable food and eating habits.

This is only one aspect of health, but more and more people have access to this technology now.

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Posting because of timing with this thread. Maybe still in early adopter / might not be worth it stage.

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To quote Michael Pollan, who sums it up very neatly:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Whereby he understands „food“ as „real food“, not being a product of food science.

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Why should we eat meastly plants, it is not what we ancestrally did and plant foods have proven harms (poor oral health, oxalates, etc)

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Yes, it is. And meat has even more proven harm.

You’re also using an appeal to nature fallacy. Even if we say humans ate more meat throughout ancestral history (which they did not), that doesn’t make it better or healthier. They died young, of disease and were opportunists by necessity (meaning they ate whatever they could, however they could, the easiest ways they could…to survive). We’re trying to live long, never get sick, and in modern society can be nearly as picky as we want.

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Our ancestors didnt eat penicillin either, we should probably stop that.

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75

Yep, that was the one, thank you

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76

Just show me 1 peer reviewed articles that actually proofs eating meat causes any harm, just 1

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My man, I think you are the one here who has shown the need for some additional reading on the subject.

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78

This is my biggest problem with these threads, you get borderline cult beliefs on both sides. And a lot of what people are talking about come from the rise of cult diet / lifestyle influencers that sound great on the surface, or someone has a product to sell.

Everything I’ve seen for an all around healthy diet, that’s backed up by science and longevity (e.g blue zones examples) basically says lots of fresh vegetables, nuts, seeds, olive oil, fatty fish, lean / healthier meat where you eat it, and fruits with a lot of color in moderation (Raspberries, Blackberries, Strawberries).

The “Meat in Moderation” thing does appear to have some science behind it, moreso than carnivore.
And I’m saying that as a hunter and someone who sure the hell isn’t stopping eating meat. Protein does get more and more important as you get older, and animal based proteins are a better source than plant based proteins. And, red meat isn’t as evil as everyone makes it out to be either. There are big problems with preparations and what it’s usually paired with, factory farming, but a lean grass fed steak is much different than grocery store bought bacon or a McDonalds Hamburger (Even though bacon is AMAZING).

Sugar isn’t innately evil either, but yes you absolutely want it in moderation and large amounts of sugar and processed carbs along with anything fried or hydrogenated fats should be among the first things you kick out of your diet. It is absolutely a problem when we’re told Fruit Loops are fine, and a steak isn’t.

It’s this pesky endurance training thing. The diets we follow to perform, aren’t necessarily the best for general health and longevity.

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Still waiting for that 1 peer reviewed article that shows that eating meat is harmful…

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Here’s an example of what I’m talking about on Processed v. Unprocessed Meat and the differences.

https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqab028

Unprocessed red meat consumption was associated with a lower dementia and Alzheimer’s disease incidence while consumption of processed meat was associated with higher risks. There was no association found between poultry consumption and dementia risk.

Each additional 50-g/d increment in unprocessed red meat intake was associated with reduced risks of all-cause dementia. In contrast, each additional 25 g/day intake of processed meat was associated with increased risks of all-cause dementia.

Processed meat was defined as bacon, ham, sausages, meat pies, kebabs, burgers, chicken nuggets. Unprocessed red meat was defined as unprocessed beef, unprocessed lamb/
mutton, and unprocessed pork.

High levels of protein and iron in unprocessed red meat may potentially explain the link between unprocessed meat intake and could partially explain the link between a lower risk of dementia. Adequate protein intake has been associated with reduced dementia risk in elderly individuals. Iron is required to produce neurotransmitters and myelin in the brain.

On the other hand, processed meat contains nitrites and N-nitroso compounds, which may result in oxidative stress, lipid peroxidation, and activation of proinflammatory cytokines or other mechanisms potentially involved in the development of dementia.

These data also suggest it is important to distinguish between processed and unprocessed meat in nutrition studies.

This was a large prospective study that controlled for multiple confounding factors including age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, educational level, BMI, physical activity level, smoking status, typical sleep duration, stroke history, family history of dementia, dietary factors including total consumption of vegetables and fruits, total fish, tea and coffee, and alcohol.

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Sorry…my days as an educator are over. If a grown adult wants to swim against the current of overwhelming professional opinion on a topic, the burden of proof is on them IMO, not the other way around.

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