Insulin Resistance Explained, and Why Cardio Sucks

Mark Sisson over at Mark's Daily Apple has a great entry today explaining the whole deal with insulin resistance, and how low carb diets prevent it from happening (and correct it if it already has). It's easy to read, and simple to understand. Read "The Definitive Guide to Insulin, Blood Sugar & Type 2 Diabetes". Here's a snippet:

Insulin was one of the first hormones to evolve in living things. Virtually all animals secrete insulin as a means of storing excess nutrients. It makes perfect sense that in a world where food was often scarce or non-existent for long periods of time, our bodies would become so incredibly efficient. How ironic, though, that it’s not fat that gets stored as fat – it’s sugar. And that’s where insulin insensitivity and this whole type 2 diabetes issue get confusing for most people, including your very own government.

If we go back 10,000 or more years, we find that our ancestors had very little access to sugar – or any carbohydrates for that matter. There was some fruit here and there, a few berries, roots and shoots, but most of their carbohydrate fuel was locked inside a very fibrous matrix. In fact, some paleo-anthropologists suggest that our ancestors consumed, on average, only about 80 grams of carbohydrate a day. Compare that to the 350-600 grams a day in the typical American diet today. The rest of their diet consisted of varying degrees of fat and protein. And as fibrous (and therefore complex) as those limited carbohydrate foods were, their effect on raising insulin was minimal. In fact,there was so little carbohydrate/glucose in our ancestor’s diet that we evolved four ways of making extra glucose ourselves and only one way of getting rid of the excess we consume!

If nothing else, copy this quote: It's not fat that gets stored as fat - it's sugar. Paste it into Word. Set the font size to 72. Print. Stick it up around the office. Make it into a huge paper airplane and throw it at the guy who always brings in Krispy Kremes. Stick it up at home. Send it to your mother. Hell, I may use it as this year's Xmas card.

I've just recently found his blog and, though he goes way lighter on the meat than I think is necessary (if I based my meals on vegetables with only "a few ounces" of protein, I'd be really frickin' hungry), it's got some good info for lowcarbers and those of us interested in paleo-style eating, or what he terms "primal health". I would argue that given the evidence, early wo/man ate far more meat than he seems to think we did, but whatever.

I was OVERJOYED to read "A Case Against Cardio" . I used to hit the treadmill an hour a day, 5 days a week in an attempt to burn my fat away. That's what you're supposed to do, right? Throw in a few strength training sessions, and presto! You're fit and fly, mama. Thing is, nothing happened for me, other than I got to listen to some really good audiobooks during my 4-6 mile runs. I was still a chubster. The treadmill changed from an ally to my nemesis. I was sure it was plotting against me. Probably had the elliptical in on it too.

Course, I was also eating massive amounts of gluten and casein, two proteins I'm intolerant to. That, and the high level of carbs hitting my system throughout the day, absolutely played a part. But still: I was tracking calories and workouts, and burning at least 400 calories in one cardio session. I was eating between 1300-1600 calories each day. I was not losing any weight, other than a pound or two here and there. I started switching up my workouts, doing different activities. Still nothing. I assumed that I wasn't doing enough; that my carefully calculated resting metabolic rate was just too super low for me to eat less than; that my metabolism was just slow and sluggish; that I was a big pig who had to learn not to stuff her face. Seemed the entire cardio suite was in on the conspiracy to keep me pudgy (or, as my mother would say, "solid".)

Enter low carbing - the rest is history. Weight (fat) melted off, slowly, steadily at first and slower still now that I'm just 8lbs from my goal (though intermittent fasting is helping things along - but that's a whole other post). And here's the thing: the fat came off without exercise. When I finally did return to the gym, strength training plan in hand, one of the trainers looked at me and said "Wow. You've lost weight!"

"Yep...haven't been exercising though," I replied, feeling somewhat sheepish.

He shrugged. "Losing weight is 85% diet anyway. The gym's for getting fit and building muscle."

Amen to that, brutha.

Here's what Mark Sisson, a former endurance athlete, has to say about it:

We all know that we need to exercise to be healthy.

Unfortunately, the popular wisdom of the past 40 years – that we would all be better off doing 45 minutes to an hour a day of intense aerobic activity – has created a generation of overtrained, underfit, immune-compromised exerholics. Hate to say it, but we weren’t meant to aerobicize at the chronic and sustained high intensities that so many people choose to do these days. The results are almost always unimpressive. Ever wonder why years of “Spin” classes,endless treadmill sessions and interminable hours on the “elliptical” have done nothing much to shed those extra pounds and really tone the butt?

Don’t worry. There’s a reason why the current methods fail, and when you understand why, you’ll see that there’s an easier, more effective – and fun - way to burn fat, build or preserve lean muscle and maintain optimal health. The information is all there in the primal DNA blueprint, but in order to get the most from your exercise experience, first you need to understand the way we evolved and then build your exercise program around that blueprint.

Sound interesting? Go give his blog a read. Since I've been back at the gym, I've gone 2-3 times a week, weights only. For the first time, I'm seeing real muscle definition. My poor man is getting worried that soon, because of my delicious womanly muscles, I'll be able to kick his ass. Whatever...like I can't already. Lately I've moved from free weights to body weight exercises - old school stuff like push ups, dips and squats - and one day, when I decide I can face my old nemesis again, I'll add in some sprint training as well. But it'll be short. Super short. I still growl under my breath when I pass the cardio suite. I'm wise to those plotting bastards.

Everybody's Different

A great post worth reading by weight-loss wonder and online pal PJ:

The Divine Low Carb! by PJThe Divine Low Carb: Everybody's Different

Since I've found low-carbing, and gluten/casein-free paleo-style eating, I've been tempted to think that it would work for everyone. All the world's problems could be solved if we all just ate like...well, like me! And of course, it isn't true. While I think our overall health picture would VASTLY improve if we stopped eating crap and focused more on whole foods, prepared in traditional ways, I have to admit that some people wouldn't fare well with my eating style. Lots of meat and fat and no grains could, for someone else, be what lots of grains and no/very little meat or fat was to me - a total frickin' disaster.

It's very tempting to assume that there's one true path, especially when you've experienced an epiphany of your own. Suddenly you're a dietary dictator, preaching your way to all who'll listen and (as South Park would say) loving the smell of your own farts. This scenario is pretty much what we've had for the past 20 or so years, with media and "experts" telling us to cut the fat, up the fibre, and hit the treadmill. For some people, this works. For a whole lotta others, it's an exercise in futility. It didn't matter how many hours I logged at the gym; when I was eating grains, legumes and other high carb fare, I was overweight no matter how little I ate. I could drop a few pounds here and there, but they always came back.

I know what works for me: adequate-high protein, pretty high fat (60-80% of my diet), low carbs. And those carbs are best, for me, when they come from veggies and some fruits. Weight-wise I am not as sensitive as others to sugar and junk, or to starchy veggies, but health-wise I feel a huge difference. A meal here and there, no problem; a day of lots of carbs and the Seven High-Carb Dwarfs appear: Sleepy, Spotty, Bloaty, Fuzzy, Heavy, Cranky and Fart. And this is not just from junk food. Several weeks ago I had a carb day that consisted of 2 bananas, some baked beans, and a Meaty Magic GFCF pizza with rice cheese and a rice flour crust. The next day I was exhausted, draggy, zitty, gassy, irritable and retaining 2 pounds of water. It was like having PMS. And I battled serious sweet cravings and hunger for days after.

But I have friends who can eat like this and not gain an ounce. My BF, for example, goddamn him all to hell. Mind you...pretty much everyone I know who eats this way has GI problems. Hmmm...maybe we're all a little more alike than we think?

Exercise in Futility

The Independent, London, UK

'Treadmill desks' could cut obesity rates in the office
By Jeremy Laurance
Published: 15 May 2007

As solutions to the obesity crisis go, one idea dreamed up by two US
scientists could transform our notion of the office. Instead of walking to work, the pair have designed a desk that enables the overweight to walk at work.

The walking desk - or "vertical workstation"- is fixed to a treadmill
enabling office workers to work while burning calories.

Professor James Levine and Jennifer Miller of the Mayo Clinic, in
Minnesota, who invented the device, say using it for a couple of hours a day could help obese staff shed up to 30kg a year.

They tested the contraption on 15 people with sedentary jobs who never
exercised. The participants set the speed of the treadmill themselves and
carried on working at their computer, which was fixed above on a frame with
adjustable arms. One arm carried the screen and the other the keyboard and
mouse.

On average, the participants burned more than twice as much energy
per hour at the walking desk compared with the normal stationary one. Their
energy expenditure was measured while they walked and worked for 35 minutes out of an hour and compared with the amount of energy used while working seated at
an ordinary desk. There were no falls or injuries and no unsteadiness. The
participants enjoyed using the device.

A key reason why waistlines have expanded over the past 30 years is the
increase in sedentary work. For millions, the hammer and shovel have been replaced by the keyboard and mouse as they spend their days at computer screens.

The desks cost about £1,000 each and slide over a standard treadmill.
By 2010, it is estimated that more than half the workforce of developed
countries will be working at computers. The inventors of the device suggest they could be walking at them too.

And then the treadmills could be hooked up to enormous energy storage devices that would power the whole office! And the fat they lose could be collected and used to power their cars! Like, how totally awesome!

It amazes me how difficult we as a species like to make things. People are getting fatter and fatter? Low fat didn't work? Diabetes, heart disease and other diseases of civilization are on the rise, despite diets full of whole grains? Better invent pills and machines to handle it - easier than, oh, examining our diet and making some changes based on current scientific evidence and, hey, even anthropological evidence. Better make designer frankenfoods, like shakes and bars and low-fat chips - easier than going back to whole, natural foods like meat and vegetables.

Putting desks over treadmills assumes that the office chubsters are just too damn lazy to move their fat asses without being forced. It assumes that fat people in general are overweight because they do nothing but sit around and eat all the time. And it may just be me, but the image of row upon row of office pods staffed with people running in place while staring into a computer is frightening, not to mention a rather ironic statement about our society in general. Is this who we are, chubby little gerbils wasting our days furiously getting nowhere...and not even noticing, because the Powers That Be say we're doing the "Right Thing"?

Of course, no-one's talking about the increase in appetite that comes along with increased exercise/calorie expenditure, or the fact that as a person loses weight, they generally have to increase their level of exercise to continue seeing results. Oh...and that aerobic activity, such as walking, isn't all it's cracked up to be as far as weight loss goes.

Rather than spending money on special desks, why not improve the food served in the office cafeteria? Get rid of the Taco Bell and the Mickey D's, the frozen chicken fingers and fries. Serve actual food, stuff that isn't all grain-based or smothered in breading. Why even put money into sub-par cookies and cakes and pastries? Cafeteria versions aren't that good anyway. Get good quality meats, vegetables, fruits - hell, get good quality cooks, people who know how to make simple food delicious. And make it easier for employees to bring, store and/or prepare foods themselves on site. Have a kitchen. Once a week, have a group lunch where people actually cook and serve food to their co-workers.

Rather than stick treadmills in the office, encourage employees to use the gym...and make sure they have time to use it! In my experience, people would use their lunch hour for the gym and then end up eating lunch at their desk while working; maybe an extra half-hour would be a good incentive, and wouldn't impact all-important company productivity except perhaps to improve it. If there's no on-site gym, team up with a local facility to offer employee discounts on memberships and services like massage and chiropractic.

Maybe, just maybe, if we can make our office environments more authentic and less artificial, the health of the people spending 40+ hours there each week will improve. At the very least, it could be a start.