Diet Debate

Nathan Pritikin, a genius who seems to be pretty much forgotten, said a long time ago that running while on the SAD is a good way to commit suicide--or something like that. His advice to people who came to his center was to switch diets and then start out slowly. If you are on a SAD and engage in marathon running then logically you might be in more danger than the couch potato on the same diet.

A good article but the author is only assuming that he knows the diets of the runners. Maybe they eat an unhealthful diet until race day. Unless he could come up with a clear picture of what they are eating I think he is making unwarranted assumptions. And unless he has proof that marathoners who have been eating a high fat diet mostly free of grains and vegetables do not suffer infarcts then what he says is only speculation.

Recall Pritikin's arguments with Jim Fixx who said that it didn't matter what you ate as long as you could run a marathon. Not the only one to make this claim and die while running.

I also remember reading Lance Armstrong's book and I believe he loaded carbs while preparing for races but did not get the idea that that was his regular diet.

Dolores

jc:

I looked briefly at the article. Just too long, based on my current knowledge and opinion of it. LOL !

I have posted a couple times a study regarding cardio exercise and anaerobic threshold (AT). People's AT is all over the map. It rarely occurs at 80% of 220 - age. Only very fit people can exercise safely using that formula.

Healthy cardio occurs when the body can expel all CO2 produced, as it is produced. That means normal breathing rate. If a person is breathing at all faster than normal while exercising, they can't exchange all the CO2, and some of it is riding around in circulation. That CO2 is both an artery irritant and an oxidizing substance. Its better tolerated with perfect arteries.

As bad as my arteries are, but as excellent as my cardiac fitness has become, with a long warmup, I can push my heart rate to 170, 100% of 220-age for me. But I don't do that for more than a minute most times, and 5-10 minutes at the longest. No adverse affects yet, and I certainly get them easily enough from a just little fatty food.

I limit the vast majority of my training not by heart rate, but by breathing rate. It makes for slower training improvements, but considering I have 12 inoperable blockages of 80%, I have gained a certain degree of confidence that I am keeping my heart strong in a safe manner.

I also stay away from the SAD diet, and have a balance of perhaps 70-75% carbs and complex carbs (grains, veggies, fruit, rice, potatoes ), 25% protein, and residual amounts of fat.

My cardiologist has been expecting me to have a weakening heart and slowly swelling ankles indicating onset of heart failure. So far he has been quite surprised that there are no signs of either one.

My last lipid panel two weeks ago had Tri's of 67 (up from 51), HDL of 47 (up from 45), and LDL of 69 (up from 55). I think the rise in LDL and tri's is due to a reduction in my exercise. All still very good numbers.

Re: Healthy cardio occurs when the body can expel all CO2 produced, as it is produced. ...

1 calorie out of carbohydrates produces about 30% more CO2 than 1 calorie out of saturated fat.

The first thing I noticed almost immediately when I switched to a very high fat diet (11 years ago) was that my breathing rate decreased and my ability to hold breath when swimming under water has increased substantially.

If you are into athletic medicine you can probably confirm it, that the human respiratory yield and therefore the overal muscular yield is contstrained by the rate of CO2 expulsion, not by the oxygen absorption (at sea level).

That is, in theory, body's endurance should increase when metabolism switches to fat and ketones as opposed to carbohydrates. One confounding factor is slow adaptation to high fat, for most people, but once it is done, it should be beneficial from athletic point of view. There was a series of papers written by Buffalo University team and one from New Zealand on cyclists. Unfortunately they were only short term studies.

Stan (Heretic)

Hi Heretic,

Long time no hear. :-)

Re: That is, in theory, body's endurance should increase when metabolism switches to fat and ketones as opposed to carbohydrates.

Of course, you remember Nathan Pritikin opened a kitchen in Hawaii, to sponsor 3 athletes training for the Hawaii Iron Man Triathelon, in 1984. They placed 1st, 2nd, 4th. The brother of one of the athletes placed 3rd, and he was unofficially on the Pritkin diet, too. Sometimes theory doesn't turn out to be fact.

Best regards, EngineerGuy

How do you get essential fatty acids?Will flax seed and a fish oil pill do the job?

I don't know of any native population (green zone-long lived and healthy)that eats only plant products.Even the Sardinians eat goats milk,cheese,and meat on the weekends.

They also eat a good deal of bread every day....along with fava beans it's their top staple.

It may be that a low fat diet is best for those who already have heart disease but that does necessarily mean it is a healthy diet over all.I don't know.

Hi EngineerGuy,

Yes, I too missed our friendly rants conversations about Masai and other topics https://img.webmd.com/community/images/smile.gif

No, I cannot explain Pritikins' ! Whatever the reason it must have worked for those runners.

Regards,
Stan (Heretic)

I did not live out the theory myself though it is possible I never got fully ketotic. I did Bernstein's diet quit strictly for 9 months and just felt worse and worse. I used to surf for 3 or 4 hours at a stretch and just feel a bit tired and hungry. On low-carb/high fat afte 1-2 hours I would be so "done" it would take me 2 days to feel 1/2 way normal again. I found that really, all I could comfortably do was walk w/ poles about 2 1/2 miles and even with that (about 45 minutes) I often would be pretty wasted the rest of the day. On McDougall, though it wasn't perfect for me by a long stretch in terms of sugar spikes or EFA's, I could surf 3 or 4 hours and feel pretty good after and be recovered after food and a couple hours rest.

EG, I am probably Nathan Pritikin's biggest fan but I seem to remember reading about his diet for the three athletes. These guys were already winners of previous races. Was that a good test--to take guys who had won before and say that eating pritikin's diet was responsible for their success? I think in this case it would be more honest to say that Pritikin's diet was very good and didn't cause them to be less prepared for their race.

On the other hand, Eula Weaver, a lady in her eighties who couldn't get out of her wheel chair got well enough on Pritikin's diet to be able to win senior races.

Dolores

jc:

The post appeared to be addressed to me, so I'll reply.

"How do you get essential fatty acids?Will flax seed and a fish oil pill do the job?"
>> I take two fish oil pills daily, and get some tuna and tofu 4-5 days a week.

I don't know of any native population (green zone-long lived and healthy)that eats only plant products.Even the Sardinians eat goats milk,cheese,and meat on the weekends.
>> I have some chicken almost everyday, egg whites, plus some pistachios tuna and tofu pretty regularly.

They also eat a good deal of bread every day....along with fava beans it's their top staple.
>> Corn bread is still not harming me, nor is a slice or two of whole grain breads or bagels almost daily.

It may be that a low fat diet is best for those who already have heart disease but that does necessarily mean it is a healthy diet over all.I don't know.
>> I've had a fairly low fat diet most of my life. It certainly has not interfered with athletics, sex, or problem solving ability.

DMW

CO2 output is based on respiration. I have never heard anyone on any exercise oriented website advocate a high fat diet. There is so little nutrients in fat as to be pointless to add them. Athletes might not avoid them, but they certainly don't go trying to SPECIFICALLY add fat to the diet unless they can not maintain or gain weight. Few athletes fall in those categories.

My new son-in-law plays basketball, and used to have burgers nearly every meal. My daughter and I convinced him to give them up. He said he feels better, sleeps better, feels stronger, gets less tired, and rarely ever gets headaches anymore. With less fat in his diet.

Higher fat diets, and higher body fat, interfere with the bodies inflammation fighting ability.

I am not into "athletic medicine", whatever that is. Other technical gobbledygook posted sounds bogus and is not clear as stated. Maybe to a doctor or exercise physiologist.

In fact, I am amazed that I am maintaining a higher weight on less calories eating a low fat diet. I used to have 800-1,000 calories nightly trying to keep my weight up to 158 or so, where it now seems stable. I exercise less than before, but the main difference is taking out 108 flight of stairs, up and down, 5 days a week, and three 90 minute weight workouts a week. My lunch was a large bowl of stir fry using olive and canola oil. I had a couple burgers on the weekend, and pizza occasionally.

Based on my experience, people's health will improve in proportion to the amount of fat they stop eating, and the addition of exercise, about an hour a day, or 2,200 calories a week.

We are muscular creatures meant to move. We can run, swim, climb, and engage in myriad other activities. I never bother to test my breath holding ability. Voluntarily raise the level of CO2 in the blood ? WHY ? Sneak in a little extra oxidized LDL ? No, thank you.

How about playing basketball or rowing for an hour without breathing changes, even though one is working very hard and the heart rate hits 100% of 220 - age ?-

Endurance increases as circulation and strength improve in the muscles used, especially the heart.

Heretic: Please let us know when you are at 7% or 20% of cardiac blood flow, and what kind of athletic endeavors you are doing at that time. 7% was where I was prior to bypass surgery. 20% is where I am with the dozen inoperable blockages I had and still have. Without an angiogram in 3 1/2 years, I don't know if the blockages have improved. They probably have, based on my current level of athleticism and healthy LOW FAT diet.

Sharks feed primarily on fatty sea mammals. Of course they also swim nearly 24 hours a day mainly in cool water.

Great apes are primarily vegetarian, and are incredibly strong.

More than minimal fats and oils make me gag, and always have. My roommate in college was lot bigger than me but a worse athlete. He switched to my diet at that time, and improved so much in 3 years he won a National Championship in pairs rowing. He mainly cut fatty foods, and added fruits and veggies.

DMW,The low fat diet may be healthy (overall) for you but some don't seem to tolerate a low fat diet.There is likely a good deal of variation as to what is healthy in each person.

For example Heretic eats a very high fat low carb diet that solved many of his health problems.

Dr William Davis cures many of heart disease(plaque reduction and halting of cardio incidents)but uses a balanced diet with plenty of fat.He uses on going CT heart scans to monitor the progress of cornary calcium regression.

I was developing nasty deficiency symptoms on super low fat McDougall MWL diet 7-10% fat. Splits in tips of finger that would not heal for many weeks, non-healing skin ulcers, ever worsening sinus allergies. All rapidly clearing up on Fuhrman where I eat bout 30% fat, some from the veg but mostly from the nuts/seeds, plus I take DHA drops as supplement (200mg/day)

I also had some considerable trouble on the super low fat Ornish reversal diet in 2006.The Fuhrman diet is much better.

I'm not sure exactly what Essee recommends but his diet stops cardio incidents and is heavily starch based.I don't know how much fat he allows.

Hi DMW,

Bringing hamburger as an example of a high fat dish is misleading. It depends what does it contain. With fries, soda pop and buns it would contain more refined carbs than fat! I could in fact quote your son-in-law case as an example that high carbohydrate junk food is bad!

Science does sometimes sound like "technical gobbledygook", unfortunately. However, the scientific methodology has been proven the best way for finding the truth. If you disregard that approach then you are at a mercy of someone's opinion or completely on your own!

People with technical gifts, logical and science abilities have been around up until now, not to dazzle you (plural "you") with geek terminology nor have some nefarious power-play agenda, but (mostly) to help you.

Stan (Heretic)