Unexpected Changes

I've experienced all of the expected changes now that I've begun to eat Paleo: increased vigor, weight loss and increase in muscle mass.

But I've also experienced a number of very welcome unexpected changes too.

1. Better Sleep. I sleep better now than I ever have before (at least since I've been an adult). I'm asleep within 10 minutes after my head hits the pillow and I sleep soundly through the night.

2. Greater Mental Acuity. I'm sharper that I I've ever been. I can focus for longer periods of time, and I can follow through on more complex lines of thought. This is welcome indeed.

3. Greater Power of Memory. I find it easier to recall facts. Names of people I know come to be more quickly than before. I also find it easier to lay down new memories. When I was young I never needed bookmarks. I could simply remember the page number when I left the book. When in my 20s, I lost this ability. Now at 41 it's back. I don't even have to try. I simply glance at the page number and then can easily remember it when I come back.

4. Get-Up-and-Go! I did expect that my energy would increase. But I was surprised to find that I now feel a strong need to get up off my ass and get in motion. It's not just that I now find it easier to get up and go. Rather I find it hard to stay in one place for an extended period of time.

5. Fewer Symptoms of Disease. A few weeks ago I had a cold. But I didn't realize that I had a cold until a few days in. The only symptoms were a bit of fatigue, a mild headache and just a tiny bit of a stuffy nose. That's much less severe that I used to experience.

6. Difference in Appetite. I used to crave carbs of all kinds: alcohol (more on that in a moment), candy, chips and all the rest. That thankfully is a thing of the past. They almost don't seem like food to me anymore. I don't like them.

7. Aversion of Alcohol. I used to drink. Late in the afternoon, oh about 5 or so, I'd begin to crave a drink; and I always indulged. Now I don't crave it at all. In fact most days I don't even think about it. What a relief that is. It saves money and brain cells too.

8. Acne. It's almost all gone. For the first time since I was 12, it's almost all gone. Hurray!

9. Helio Philia. I used to dislike the sun. Now I love it. I seek it out, and if I can't get into for at least a good half hour I feel deprived. I have much greater tolerance for the sun now too. I'm quite fair-skinned, and the sun used to bother me. Now it doesn't.

10. Clean Teeth. My teeth used to remain clean for only a little bit after I brushed. Most of the time they were covered with plaque. (I know, I know - Yuck!) Now they're slick and clean all of the time. Moreover (and this was a very great surprise to me) old stains have begun to disappear. My teeth are whiter now than they've been in years.

11. Greater Patience. I'm still no Gandhi, but I don't anger nearly as quickly as I used to. At one time I took my quickness to anger as a sign of a moral failure, as a sign of failure of will. Now I'm suspicious of that. I was prone to anger because I felt bad most of time. Now I feel good most of the time because I put the right fuel in my body.

In short, I had no idea that the belly and what's put in it are so important. A calorie is most certainly not a calorie. Not all calories are the same.

Sometimes I just say to myself "Goddamn I feel good!"

Paradigm Shift: Homeostasis

When I look back, I suspect that I embraced the so-called "Thrifty Gene Hypothesis" for the whole of my adult life. How I regret that now!

TGH tells us that we are built to put on extra weight when food is plentiful so that we might survive the periods of famine that were common when Homo sapiens first arose. If true, the so-called "obesity epidemic" is just what we should expect. Today food is plentiful, cheap and easily obtained. The Thrifty Gene drives us to eat, and we put on the fat that in a time of famine would prove so advantageous. But since we today experience no times of famine, we continue to accumulate fat throughout the whole of our lives and thus make ourselves vulnerable to the so-called diseases of civilization.

On TGH, the so-called diseases of civilization are really diseases of abundance; wherever we find long periods of caloric abundance, there too we will find the diseases of civilization.

The TGH, though perhaps plausible at first glance, is certainly without ground. In fact, it is most likely false. (My objections are not the only ones possible.)

1. History presents us with many examples of peoples who lived in a time and place of caloric abundance but were not fat. Let us consider one that we all know - mid 20th century United States. It was a time of caloric abundance. Food was cheap and universally available. Yet we were not nearly so fat as we are today. This is a counter-example to the TGH.

2. Peoples exist today who have more than enough to eat yet never grow fat. The Masai are but one of many examples. (They are a favorite example of mine. They are such a beautiful people - fit, healthy, lean and happy. They are a model of what the human animal is supposed to be.) Please, do research them. They eat well (at least those that still adhere to the traditional ways) but they do no grow fat.

3. The Thrifty Gene (if it exists) makes us sick in times of plenty. Thus it would be selected for only if the benefit it bestows outweighs the harm it does. The benefit (allegedly) is the ability to survive longer in times of famine. Here's the problem: we don't know what our species arose in a time when famine was common. Indeed we likely arose in a time of plenty. We are hunters by nature, and game was plenty.

4. Moreover, TGH seems to imply that we would always be sick. In times of plenty, we would grow fat and become sick. In times of famine, we would be sick. (Famine is mass starvation. Starvation ravages the human body.) But I find it implausible in the extreme that we are sick by design.

5. Finally, my last objection, the one that I think most important. TGH gets the human animal dead wrong. We are made to be lean and fit. This is our natural state, and any deviation from it implies pathology. Let the point sink in. (It took a long with me.) If you're fat (as I was for such a very long time), that's pathology. If you're always tired, that's pathology. If you are chronically hungry or if you chronically overeat, that's pathology. What is the cause of that pathology? From where does it come? For the great majority of us, it comes from malnutrition. We eat foods that, if made staples, are poisons. These are the high-carbohydrate, micronutrient poor foods. These are the bread, rice and potatoes. These are the beers and wines. These are the sugars.

Let me put the point this way. Proper weight is as much a part of homeostasis as is temperature. The body seeks to maintain proper weight, and it will if it's able. When we consume foods high in carbohydrate, we render the body ever less capable to maintain proper weight (and we make it ever more susceptible to the diseases of civilization). Feed the body right, and it will of itself bring the weight down; and it will do this whether caloric intake is more or less than calories used. The body will adjust. If caloric intake is restricted, metabolism will be retarded. If caloric intake is greater than needed, metabolism will be ramped up. The body will keep itself lean and fit if only it's allowed to do so.

And why would it do so? Why would this be favored by evolution? We are hunters. We are made to run, to lift, to twist and to jump. We are made to sweat. The body will do its damnedest to keep us ready to do these things. All we need to do is let it.

Paradigm Shift: Exercise

My paradigm of proper diet has undergone a profound shift. Gary Taubes is the cause.

I once thought that exercise was a duty and that, if I did not exercise, this revealed a defect of will. I thought too that indolence was a condition to which all humanity tends and that this tendency must be met by a steely will.

Thus when I did not exercise, I felt guilty; and I looked down on others who were in poor shape.

I now reject this. If we are out of shape, this is not the result of a moral defect. It is rather the result of disease, and in most of us this disease has its root cause in malnutrition.

If we were to eat right, we would be more energetic; and if we were more energetic, we would quite naturally and inevitably rise up off our asses and put our bodies in motion.

I don't mean to say that we'd run to the gym. Some will. Some won't. I don't. But we will become more active. We will feel a need to rise up, to move the legs and arms and likely to seek out the sun. (I thus suggest that we give up on the concept of exercise. It has about it an air of duty, of obligation and so of difficulty. Let us instead speak simply of activity.)

The human body is designed for activity. It was made to move, to lift, to run and to sweat. This is no less natural to it than is eating or breathing. We should feel the need for it; we should take joy in it. And we will if all goes right. If the body sinks into indolence, this is the result of profound dysfunction, and I contend that this dysfunction is almost always brought on my improper diet.

Eat as our first ancestors ate. Eat a Paleolithic diet. You'll want to get up out of that chair and get the body in motion. (I'm off to take a walk. Not because I think I should but because I feel an itch to move.)

Sorry Shape

I was in sorry shape. I was fat. I drank too often and to excess. I slept poorly. I was weak. I was prone to infection. I was often exhausted. My memory was poor; mental acuity (a trait that I value highly) had begun to wane. I often felt stressed. I felt good only one day in ten.

I thought it was own damn fault. If only I could get hold of myself and make myself do better, I thought, I could change all this. I could make myself eat less - and better. I could make myself put the bottle down. (It was a bottle and not a can. I drank bourbon, most often Evan Williams.) I could make myself exercise and whip my flabby body into shape.

I've come to think that all this was bullshit. (Not just wrong, but bullshit. I was more than wrong. I was full of shit. I don't mean to offend, but English offers no other way to make the point.) Now of course I wasn't the only one full of shit. The culture around us pounds the point in. It says that obesity is a matter of will and will alone. If someone is obese, it is a result either of indolence, gluttony or both. Our culture tells us that obesity is a result of moral flaw, of vice; and it demands that we reject vice for virtue and make ourselves into better beings.

I suggest to you that you reject all this. I suggest that you reject the view that obesity (and its attendant diseases) is a sign of vice.

I don't mean to say that if you're obese, you're a helpless victim. You are a victim, but you are not helpless. What you lack is a knowledge of the real cause of your obesity. It does not lie in weakness of will, and thus its solution does not lie in moral reform. Rather the real cause is malnutrition. If you're fat, you don't give your body what it needs. (Most of you, anyway. I mean to speak only of the most common cause of obesity.)

I will not attempt to prove the point. Others have already done so. I refer you to Gary Taubes'Good Calories, Bad Calories. It's a seminal work. I do not know whether it will result in a paradigm change, but it should.

Let me say only that I am persuaded of the point. The cause of obesity is malnutrition. Now that I've begun to give my body what it needs, the problems that I described at the start - weakness, exhaustion, obesity and all the rest - have either resolved or have begun to resolve. (I value most the greater power of memory and the greater mental acuity. I'm an academic by trade.)

If you're unfamiliar with Taubes, you will wonder just what I mean when I say that obesity (and all that other ills that attend obesity) is caused by malnutrition. I'll keep it simple. Rice, wheat, tubers, legumes and refined sugar - indeed all carbohydrate rich, micronutrient poor foods - became part of the human diet only very recently. Our bodies our not adapted to them. If we make them staples (as almost all of humanity has done), we become afflicted by the so-called "diseases of civilization" - obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease, certain common cancers, and certain forms of dementia. (The list is not complete. Google "diseases of civilization".) We must then make them a small part of our diet. We must also cease to fear meat and fat. They are not causes of disease. To the contrary, they are the most nutritious foods we eat. We need meat. We needs fats. They should comprise half or more of the calories we eat. Thus are our bodies designed.

What then shall we eat? We will eat those foods for which the human body is designed. We will eat a Paleolithic diet. We will eat meat and the fat of meat. We will eat vegetables and fruits. We will eat fish. (Indeed we will not shun fatty fish. Fatty fish will be happily eaten.) We will eat nuts. (Will we eat dairy? I eat a bit. Research the matter yourself. Observe how your body handles dairy. Make your own decision.)

But we will eat little wheat. Or rice. Or potatoes. Or sugar of any kind. If a food is carbohydrate and little else, it will only seldom pass our lips. Our Paleolithic diet is thus naturally low in carbohydrates but is high in protein, fats, fiber and essential micronutrients.

Let me end with a request. Research the Paleolithic diet. Try it. Observe the results. I predict that they will be spectacular.