Who do you believe? the government or the whole of nature?

[Toddy]

You are stirring to no good point.

The original OP might have raised some eyebrows and a few choice comments, but his post has stimulated debate and interesting conversation.
We'd rather it was kept that way.

Toddy

 

[Ray Britton]

Robin Wood

I do not have one particular source for the at least 30 minutes of exercise to hand, although that is the current 'nationwide' figure the NHS are using now (and for some time (but generally is in reference to a brisk walk, and not in reference to bushcrafting lol)). As with all these things (and although I have taught this as a subject professionally) if anyone wishes to know what will be best for them, as in duration; regularity and type of exercise, it is best to consult (one to one) with a professional. This does not have to be in a gym, but can simply be with your local practice nurse or doctor (both ways are free).

In the same way that you find 20 minutes of exercise very useful, you or I would be very foolish to recommend it to 'anyone', as they may have some condition they have not told you of, which may may it harmful for them.

When I did my last health related diploma about two years ago, this 30 minute minimum (but with a general max of 35) was the figure being taught, and as far as I know is still worded exactly the same. Don't get me wrong, with you doing your 20 minutes of exercise daily and especially before meals, it will temporarily raise your metabolism. But, to do this on a long term basis, and to get CV fitter, you need to extend the length of exercise (bearing in mind the caveat of seeing a professional first, above, to get good advice).

 

[Toddy]

I suppose it comes down to defining exercise.
My husband doesn't feel he's had a decent walk unless most of it's been uphill while I find that twenty minutes chopping wood, smashing bricks (yesterday's garden tidy up) to rubble, or a hurried twenty minutes walk home with two bags of groceries, an ample sufficiency

Off the top of my head I can't recommend any specific book Ph34r, some of the anthropology readers with a focus on the traditional hunter/gatherer societies might be best. Most of my reading is archaeology, where the anthroplogy is more of the fleshing out rather than the bones of the topic.
I'll see what I can find though

cheers,
M

 

[Paul_B]

Paul_B where are you finding these peer reviewed studies on eating loads of carbs being good for you? I can't. The fact of the matter is that modern agriculture is perhaps 10 to 20 thousand years old. That isn't enough for us to have evolved to deal with the change in diet from that we had previously. We were pretty much scavengers, eating berries, nuts, seeds and meat if we could get it. We'd generally be last at the kill, so we'd end up with the (fatty) bone marrow. The romantic notion of a hunter gatherer knocking off fresh kudu every day is a Hollywood fiction. We simply didn't have the modern purified carbs in our diet and I firmly believe this is why we have such a prevalence of type 2 diabetes in our culture. Ray Kurzweil believes it too - he applied it to his type 2 and cured himself.

If you need degrees to back it up - my wife is an anthropologist and studied this stuff.

For what its worth, we've been living the low carb diet for a while now and have lost significant weight, never catch the bugs that fly around the workplace and my wife's recent blood test showed the blood work of a teenager (she is significantly older than that). The doctor wanted to know what she'd been doing to achieve it.

So there you go. Someone has to break the trail and there is often a lot of vested interest in the status quo.

Pteron - I actually said you should read the peer reviewed documents not that I had read them. My point was that before you believe one point of view based on a commercially published book aimed to sell copies to make money for the people involved without doing your own research then you are a fool. Certainly when it comes to your health and well being. The OP read the book and seemed to do such that. Following any one piece of advice based solely on it sounding right and plausible is wrong.

As far as scavengers and the lother comments about not having time to evolve I bow to your wife's expertise. However I would like to point out that irrelevant to whether we have evolved or not a healthy diet now would have been a healty diet then. I have never advocated eating refined carbs. Personally it is rare that I buy and eat cakes, chocolate and other similarly refined foods. My exception is cereal bars such as natures choice ones but that is as an emergency snack when I am flagging on the hills. My dietary needs when in the hills is rather high. Based on current knowledge in nutrition a friend worked out that on a challenge walk with the distance and ascent involved we needed something like 21,000kcals! What a hard day that was. I try very hard to eat as close to natural products as possible. All my foods are cooked fresh from as close to natural state as possible. Scavengers also ate that way just differently I guess, i.e. mainly fruits and vegetables. I am an active guy so I actually need between 3500 and 4500kcals a day. This is to meet my lifestyle and my metabolic rate.


There is a lot of vested interest in nutrition as food supply is very big business. As is diet and "nutrition" books such as the OP brought up. Saying that those who work on the basis of current thinking have vested interests and not ackowledging that books such as the OP mentioned doesn't is wrong-headed.

From my viewpoint I eat the diet that I like to eat and that keeps me active and healthy. I am a slim, fit and active individual who despite getting close to 40 (too close for my liking) is probably fitter than most people in their 20s. I also have family history of long living people so combine the two I think I too am doing ok.

 

[Paul_B]

I had a relative who lived into his 90s despite eating a lot of cream every day with his lunch and tea. He had fry ups in the morning and his wife used to collect the oil from the fryup pan and re-use it the next morning or use it on the roast potatoes. Basically all the wrong things to do. He also ate his own fresh garden produce. I'm sure in your view of nutrition and UK accepted advice would say he ate the wrong things with some right things. Still 90s is a good innings. He was no hunter gather. He ate a lot of refined sugars was probably classed as obese too. Still 90s is a good innings.

 

[Toddy]

I think that's a very valid point there. Genetics plays a huge part in our health and longevity.
My little, decidedly well rounded, grannies and great grannies lived to their late eighties, one lived to be 102. My tall, lean, broad shouldered grandfather and his siblings all lived to their late 90's.
Two extremes of physical shape and diet and exercise lifestyles, yet they both lived long healthy lives.

Sometimes I'm a fatalist, "What's for ye, will no' go by ye."

On the otherhand, none of them lived stress filled lives. I wonder what kind of roll that plays in the whole matter ?

cheers,
Toddy

 

[pteron]

I had a relative who lived into his 90s despite eating a lot of cream every day with his lunch and tea. He had fry ups in the morning and his wife used to collect the oil from the fryup pan and re-use it the next morning or use it on the roast potatoes. Basically all the wrong things to do. He also ate his own fresh garden produce. I'm sure in your view of nutrition and UK accepted advice would say he ate the wrong things with some right things. Still 90s is a good innings. He was no hunter gather. He ate a lot of refined sugars was probably classed as obese too. Still 90s is a good innings.

Well he's probably doing it right if you read this: http://www.paleonu.com/get-started/ (apart from the sugar!)

 

[pteron]

Pteron - I actually said you should read the peer reviewed documents not that I had read them. My point was that before you believe one point of view based on a commercially published book aimed to sell copies to make money for the people involved without doing your own research then you are a fool. Certainly when it comes to your health and well being. The OP read the book and seemed to do such that. Following any one piece of advice based solely on it sounding right and plausible is wrong.

I agree that you should read the peer reviewed documents, but you should also take them with a huge pinch of salt and certainly understand who paid for the research.

Your diet sounds like the diet I advocate - natural unprocessed food so somewhere along the way we are agreeing.

 

[Melonfish]

I'm going to respond to "trust the gov't" simply with a firm NO!
as a budding anarchist i'd like to think of myself as getting as far away from the umbrella nanny state as poss but it just isn't possible in the UK anymore.
do i believe them on my diet, not really, but recently there's been some interesting programs and books out looking at our food and its becoming something of a revolution. People like huge furry whittling-tool leading the charge on organic and home grown and many people up and down the country have started turning their little gardens into food growing factories.
i reckon if we continue like that we should be looking at something a bit better and less processed in the near future!

btw did anyone catch that program last night "E numbers an edible adventure" its a real eye opener, last weeks was good too all about E number dyes.

 

[gregorach]

btw did anyone catch that program last night "E numbers an edible adventure" its a real eye opener, last weeks was good too all about E number dyes.

Yup - last night's was great! I've always wanted to know how to extract saltpetre from horse manure, and now I do. (Assuming that they didn't leave out a vital step...)

 

[Ph34r]

Yup - last night's was great! I've always wanted to know how to extract saltpetre from horse manure, and now I do. (Assuming that they didn't leave out a vital step...)

Which is the tendency with these things

 

[_mark_]

I just love the old pies and sausages! Food is one of the great pleasures in life as anyone who has gone without it for any length of time will testify to. Reducing it to its constituent parts removes much of the enjoyment.

 

[Laurentius]

I am not sure BMI is really a very good indicator of anything, but not long ago I exceeded mine, though since then I have lost a stone in weight, and still going down.

I never used to care about what I ate, and to be honest I can't say I do care about the content of what I eat so much as the quantity. I have exceeded the natural lifespan of my primitive ancestors, so I am in extra time, what should I care?

When I was younger I had a metabolism that could deal with anything and I was as skinny as a rake, it's slowed down a bit since, so I have to be more careful. However I do not think anything is to be gained by following particular regimes at all, as the movie says, eat less, move more.

However I won't give up the beer in the pursuit of the body of an adonis, that is too much to ask

 

[Retired Member southey]

Oooo as you say BMI means absolutely nothing. I play rugby and have a sturdy build, not over weight at all and yet my bmi puts me in to the over weight category, when going for a recent medical the doc had to do a load of other measurements so as to prove to any one who would read the report and not have me stood in front of them that I'm not overweight. I think the waist and hips measurement is supposed to be the more accurate measurement, I cant explain it very well, I'm sure someone else will know exactly how it works.

 

[pastymuncher]

When I was younger / fitter I had a BMI check by my Dr. he looked at me, laughed and told me I was overweight, according to his charts. When I say I was fitter I had very very low body fat, as I was cycling climbing and doing martial arts, all at quite a high level, but I do have quite a large frame and build.

Back O/T I'm not sure a high fat or a high carb diet is good. Balance is the key, yet seemingly difficult to achieve with modern processed foods.
It seems we are too far removed from our bodies to listen to them, watching the t.v. driving the car etc while you eat, rather than listening to your body telling you it's full, or having to work for our food.

 

[Toddy]

I think too that it's all too easy for us to have any food we choose, any time we choose.
Strawberries in December, or even milk and eggs all year round for instance.

Perhaps if we reintroduced seasonality into our diets again, we might regain some appreciation of how the available foodstuffs affect us.

cheers,
Toddy