Blah blah blah blah blah. The entire article is just blah blah blah. The guy needs an editor to cut it to 10% of it's size. Is he paid by the word or something? He sure knows the art of saying nothing using many words.
It's easy to criticize 'blah blah blah'. But the style of the article is personal testimonial plus character study. It's going to include discursive storytelling, and it's not trying to boil down a diet/lifestyle/person to the fewest possible words. The cheapest form of criticism is to skewer a work for not meeting some ideal it wasn't even aiming for.
DeVany is a very interesting and credible guy with a different spin on eating and training than you'll usually find.
Check out especially his warnings about marathon/endurance running [1] compared to the typical media celebration of marathon running as some ideal of fitness [2].
I've got to give the guy respect for giving references with his arguments but I don't think his sources are sufficient to suggest that marathon running is bad for you.
It's a shame he loses much of that respect as we near reason #1 and they get increasingly 'silly'.
Let's take #2: "At least four particiants of the Boston Marathon have died of brain cancer in the past 10 years. Purely anecdotal, but consistent with the elevated S100beta counts and TKN-alpha measures. Perhaps also connected to the microthrombi of the endothelium found in marathoners."
I can't quickly find numbers for the preceding years, nor how many each year had run it previously, so lets assume the numbers increased linearly over the preceding 10 years to give a total number of runners as 100,000. That, rather conveniently, suggests 15 - 20 incidents of brain cancer should result. Shock result - marathon running prevents brain cancer!
#1 is the first runner of the marathon, Phidippides, died. Hopefully I don't need to explain why this one is silly.
Some of his other points would be worth further study but I can't find a single point without weaknesses.
I've just noticed I'm comparing cases with deaths. Clearly some people will survive brain cancer.
The death rate would appear to be 5.6 per 100,000 according to this source neuro-oncology.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/6/3/179.pdf
It is worth noting that this is the annual rate suggesting that 5 runners of the Boston marathon should have died from brain cancer in the last year alone.
As I poorly stated in my initial comment I am aware of this problem. My hope was that by assuming virtually nobody ran the race 10 years ago, which I assume/hope is totally inaccurate, the two errors would cancel each other out.
It's a 'back-of-a-napkin' calculation. Certainly not accurate but a nice place to start for future refactoring.
Except why do I care that the reporter was early to the interview? Why would anyone care?
It's not a diary, it's an article about a new diet. Tell me about the diet. You want to add a supplement about the author fine. But I don't need 3 pages of useless text about the author without once mentioning what the diet actually is.
Sorry, but there is too much garbage in the world to spend 15 minutes reading all about some dude, and only then discover that the diet is no good for you.
First tell me about the diet. Then, if I'm interested tell me about the dude.
At least I thought I wasn't - this was billed as "The diet that really works". And that's what I was here to read, and then I didn't.
You want to write "personal insights about the man who made the diet that really works" no problem. I might even like to read it - but that's not what I was expecting.
You say you are writing about a diet, then do so, or change the title.
As eugenejen mentions below, this is an article from the Sunday Times in the Life & Style, Women's section. Perhaps instead of saying "this isn't what I expected, it is crap," you could be a little more aware of the context of the article.
It was a fine piece of writing, I enjoyed the short read.
Headlines are the last thing written, typically by someone other than the article author. Headlines are space-constrained and compete for attention by pushing a 'hook', rather than providing a perfect summary of what follows.
So if you feel misled by an attention-stealing headline, blame the headline, not the article.
Don't forget the article was published under "women" category. I think they may actually write like that because women tends to like to learn things with context. (No gender discrimination here. But I really feel there are gender difference in perception and communication)
If it is a scientific publication. Your point is right. But take it easy when same material is published on newspaper for general female readers. It is not to their taste.
I remembered most of time when I wanted to argue some points with all my girlfriends that I've dated, they remember much better when I said some stories around the point. They usually responded worser when I just tried to cut the crap and strike the point.
I have no problem believing that marathons may be harmful to the human body. The reason I run marathons isn't primarily for the races themselves but rather for the motivation the races provide to get in shape. You can't easily wing it or cram for a marathon (Lord knows I've tried), so the races' looming deadlines provide an escalating urgency to one's workouts. The resulting workouts are fairly short (amateurs rarely run full marathons in training, and only hit high distances near the end), intense, and irregular (ie, increasing over time with rest days interspersed as opposed to the same routine every day) -- qualities which match DeVany's own recommendations for how to exercise as related in the TimesOnline article. For a guy who preaches that one should consider the whole of complex systems, his dismissal of marathons considers only the tip of the iceberg. I believe that the health benefits associated with my training will more than make up for whatever health risks I may face on race day.
I agree with you on that his article requires editing.
But is this method a modified Atkins one? It requires dieters to experience not only the food that paleolithic human ates, but also the frequency of insecurity of hunger and periodic exposure to unaware danger in life. I had an old boss before who stuck to Atkins after coronary artery bypass to lose 40 lbs, but he still ate a lot, ate frequently and he hated the feeling of being hungry. The method in the article actually wants you to experience randomly meal skipping and hunger to get into the zone. I think at this point, it is different.
Even more obvious, if you want to relive the native experience, then you've got to simulate the hunt before eating. In modern terms, get your cardio in the morning before eating breakfast. Many believe as I do that this keeps your meta rate kicked up a bit for several hours afterwards. It is great for dropping weight, at least until Kurzweil has developed v1.0 of an evolved diet technology.
It's in the Sunday Times, so it's meant to be a leisurely read (and most likely in the magazine section). The purpose isn't to convey as much info in as few words as possible.
Carbs, not fats, are modernity’s most deadly assassins. And, even if they don’t kill you, they make you feel worse. I sleep better without them and I seem to have become a nicer person; what with that and the weight loss, my friends – or were they enemies? – barely recognise me.
The good, the bad and the tasty
The fundamentals of Arthur De Vany’s diet: bin the carbs and packaged food, and delight in lean meat and at least two veg meals
- Cook by colour and texture so that meals look beautiful. If busy, skip meals with little worry. You don’t have to have three square meals a day. Snack on nuts or celery. Drink plenty of water. I also drink tea, coffee and a little wine.
Carbs
Avoid bread, muffins, bagels, pasta, rice, potatoes, cereals, vegetable oils, beans or anything in a package — empty, high-calorie foods with a high carbohydrate content.
Flavour
Spice up your food with fresh ingredients such as basil, garlic, parsley, rosemary, spring onions, avocados and nuts, and use various oils, such as olive oil, for flavour.
Celery adds texture (and is good for testosterone too).
Fruits
Fresh fruits of all sorts are good; I focus on melon and red grapes. Fruit juice is out. I have one or two fruits with most breakfasts; now and then a piece with other meals.
Vegetables
Eat lots of fresh raw, steamed, sauteed or grilled vegetables. I never use frozen, canned or packaged vegetables.
Protein
Eat plenty of meat, such as ribs, steak, bacon, pork loin, turkey and chicken, but trim fat from the edges. Fish, seafood and eggs are also good choices.
Breakfast
I tend to eat last night’s leftovers: turkey with jarlsberg cheese and fruit, bacon with red grapes, omelettes with rosemary, olives and spring onions.
Lunches
Usually salads, with red cabbage, romaine lettuce, spring onions, garlic, kale, broccoli or cauliflower, with salmon, tuna, turkey, chicken, pork or steak.
Dinners
I sometimes eat a whole rack of ribs with salad and vegetables. Or a large steak, trimmed of fat. Almost always there is a beautiful salad and vegetables.
I made my point badly. I was playing off the fact that the comment I was replying too didn't have much substance other than "This article sucks." yet the author felt it necessary to fluff it up with some vacuous text for a few lines. Which is even more humorous when his main contention with the article is that supposedly it could have been 90% shorter.
I thought low-carb was already the fad of the past.
From "The China Study" about high-protein diets:
"And yet these books are immensely popular. Why? Because people DO lose weight, at least in the short term.[...](about a study) The first sign that all is not rosy is that these obese subjects were severely restricting their calorie intake during the study (35% fewer calories). [...](list some problems) Additionally, they found that the dieters had a stunning 53% increase in the amount of calcium they excreted in their urine, which may spell disaster for their bone health. The weight loss, some of which is simply initial fluid loss, might come with a very high price. [...](from an Australion study:) 'Complications such as heart arrhythmias, cardiac contractile function impairment, sudden death, osteoporosis, kidney damage, increased cancer risk, impairment of physical activity and lipid abnormalities can all be linked to long-term restriction of carbohydrates in the diet.'".
I was really surprised to learn that the horny old caveman was the same guy that wrote one of the most interesting papers I came across in media economics:
De Vany, Arthur & Walls, W. David, 1996. "Bose-Einstein Dynamics and Adaptive Contracting in the Motion Picture Industry," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(439), pages 1493-1514, November.
I gave up on this article before I got to the 'meat' as it was too waffley ... anyway, to lose weight my best advice is to:
* avoid fizzy drink as much as possible
* avoid crisps (do americans call them chips?)
* go easy on fried and fast food (no need to cut them out completely)
* Try to cut down on alcohol, but I don't really follow my own advice here!
Then
* walk or cycle as much as possible
* take the stairs instead of the lift for 5 floors or less
* and exercise 4 or 5 times a week doing whatever you find fun.
Maybe I am just lucky, but I never seem to put on any weight, and I do eat fast food and drink plenty of beer, but I do exercise a lot and cycle to work each day.
This guy should have just read In Defense of Food. Not much that he says here hasn't been known for quite some time. And it's very interesting to learn exact where our diet went wrong.
Diet doesn't really matter, I have a horrible diet I eat anything I want, I don't deny myself anything(junk food, fast food) but I'm in good shape because I work out an hour every day and burn off the calories I gain during the day.
Yes. Food isn't only calories. If it was, we'd be able to live off of nothing but sugar water.
Food brings in not only calories, but various other nutrients that your body needs to keep itself in good condition. It can also bring in things that the body works hard to get rid of, and still do damage while they're being removed.
Well, not entirely, although I'm fairly sympathetic to this way of looking at things.
For balance you should be ideally looking at calories absorbed = calories burned.
Why use different words? Well, firstly we absorb calories differently for different food types - we certainly do not absorb the full 100% of all calories available in any food. So measuring 'calories in' becomes 'caloric intake * %absorbtion'. It'll actually be some sort of integral of this products for each foodtype that you consume.
And then there is the question of calories burned. If you really want to stay slim, the best way to do so is to burn more energy when at rest. Of course, the easiest way to achieve this is by training your body to burn energy by doing exercise. But it is important to note that the calories burned just to keep you alive generally exceed the amount you burn during exercise by a decent factor.
But all of this is really nit-picking. Your basic premise remains true, you just can't beat physics. Anyone that is depending on this sort of information to optimise their weight-loss program has missed the point. Your lifestyle should not be so close to making you gain weight that these factors play an important role.
I don't think it's quite fair that you're being modded down. Actually, yes, that's the main thing.
However, as you age, your calorie expense goes down dramatically at one point... for some it's around 25. Others it's around 35. Others, it never happens! But most people find that at some point they have to seriously decrease their intake of food (without changing their lifestyle otherwise) or else they get a spare tire pretty quickly!
Well actually I did have a slow down at around 23, but when I noticed it, I just increased my work out regiment w/o changing my diet.
To me, I'd rather enjoy my food and then just spend an extra 15 minutes at the gym to balance it out instead of sustaining myself with horrible tasting lumpy green goo
You also need to consider the overall health effects of all the chemical additives in your food. Why dump those things into your body for the fleeting pleasure of succumbing to your lower brain.
I've actually read one book about "sugar addiction" where one candidate allegedly got their sugar fix from eating lots of fruit. Not sure how credible the book is, though, but I thought it was interesting.
Fruits aren't bad. Yes, fruits have sugar, but many fruits have a decent amount of fiber, as well. Fiber helps slow down sugar absorption. It's not that shouldn't have any sugar in their diet, ever. Natural sugars, eaten at the right time, in the right combination are better than processed garbage which will spike your blood sugars instantly. A good rule of thumb is whenever you're having anything that has fruit in it, it's a good idea to have protein right along with it. Even if it's just a few almonds or walnuts alongside that piece of fruit.
why is food always the culprit? what ever happened to just increasing the amount of exercise you do? Michael Phelps seems to be doing ok on 10,000+ calories a day
This also bothers me: "But what’s different about Arthur is, first, he is not selling anything, except for subscriptions to his website."
Swimming 6 hours a day is simply not an option for everybody. Besides, even with enough exercise I would imagine that some diets would still make you sick, for example if all you ate were chocolate and ice cream. (Note that I don't advocate the low-carb diet from the article).
The "not selling anything but..." bothered me too, also "Thirdly, he is very smart. His reasoning is immaculate and he knows a lot more than your average doctor or nutritionist." The doctors on TV trying to sell me on chocolate bars also look very smart...
yes I agree that 6 hours is unreasonable, but 90 minutes a couple times a week would probably have people in a lot better fitness than removing all the carbs from their diet. Frankly moving up from the 0 minutes most people get to 30 minutes a couple times a week would be more beneficial to most people than a change in diet.
"You must have a playful, intermittent form of exercise. And you must exercise. The benefits are profound. Make it fun, intense according to your own fitness and goals, and brief. Brevity and intensity are keys. Intensity means a little burn in the muscle, not heaving and straining. Brevity means you do not release stress hormones."
Because, unless you are very genetically gifted and/or using steroids, there are surprisingly low limits on the amount of exercise you can do and still see gains. After 45 minutes or so cortisol (stress hormone) levels rise and a process called gluconeogenesis sets in - your body begins burning muscle tissue for energy. The net effect of this is to lower your resting metabolic rate, which is what burns most of most people's calories. Which means you can cut back on the calories you consume, train like a madman and still get fatter.
3-4 sessions of 45 minutes per week, at a decent level of intensity, is about right for most people.
you can cut back on the calories you consume, train like a madman and still get fatter.
Could you post a link or reference for one example of someone who cut calories and "trained like a madman" and still got fatter?
There's a lot of debate about hormones, metabolism, calorie quality and optimum exercise. However it has still proven difficult to break basic laws of physics.
There's no breaking of the laws of physics involved here. Firstly you are still losing mass in this scenerio - but it is muscle tissue, not fat. Secondly, lower resting metabolic rate manifests itself in forms such as lower body temperature, or general lethargy, so you are burning fewer calories just for maintenance. Your body is a survival machine. If it thinks you are under threat of starvation, it will prioritize fat storage and energy conservation. It will even cut back on your immune system to do so if it thinks starvation is the most immediate threat.
Google for "overtraining" or read the articles on t-nation.com or musclebulletin.com.
I read the first article listed on t-nation.com and it starts up with this poignant observation about olympic swimmers:
"I'm sorry but these dudes look like AIDS patients. Would it kill you to at least get a tan and not remind the world of the Holocaust? And could you butch up the sport a little bit? Because deep down I know the male divers I just saw are in shower right now, naked, loofahing each other's taut athletic bodies... ."
With a bit of literary magic, over the course of 2 pages, we go from the Olympics to colorful commentary about Japan:
"You gotta wonder about the Japanese some times. These are the guys who invented vending machines that distribute soiled panties that you can take home and either use as Dennis Hopper ether masks or make soup with them. And they're the ones who invented underwear that you can wear six days straight by rotating them 120 degrees each day for three days and then turning them inside out and then repeating the underwear carousel thing for another three days. And then there's the bukkake thing, which is kinda disturbing even for a preternaturally open-minded guy like me."
So... I guess thanks for the exercise tips and the obviously credible reference but I think I'll stick with training like a madman and not eating as much.
Do train like a madman, but not for more than an hour at a time. There are diminishing returns and, sometimes, losses. Weight training is definitely superior to cardio, but you need both.
If you are specifically trying to lose weight, limiting calories is key, but you must eat plenty before and after these madman workouts and then don't eat as much on non-workout days. Just be sure to eat healthy stuff with a good ratio of macro nutrients. If you don't, the training will be more difficult and less effective.
Luckily, your body should be pretty good at telling you when it's hungry. Don't fight it (much). Diet and exercise info is all over the map, but the basics I have mentioned here are more or less undisputed.
Whenever I read t-nation, I'm struck by how self-conscious some of them are about being big. I see little regard for the fact that some sports don't require athletes to have enormous amounts of muscle mass.
I rarely look at the forums actually. There is some great content on t-nation once you know what to look for. Their Physique Clinic stuff is brilliant, for example.
Well, you've gotta figure out what works for you. This works for me (30% to 20% bodyfat in 6 months and 25% improvement in deadlift and bench press). I'm eating more than I did and exercising less - in terms of time, anyway. Whatever you decide, good luck :-)
Let me get this straight... you're claiming that after 45 minutes of moderately intense cardiovascular exercise, most people begin to see negative fitness effects?
I don't see the phrase moderately intense cardiovascular exercise in my comment. Head on over to t-nation.com and read some of their articles on training.
I've read every article on t-nation, I work out >20 hours a week, and I train for triathlons and marathons.
That being said, your statement is unfounded. If you're LIFTING, and lifting HEAVY, then yes, it doesn't make sense to go for more than 45 minutes, for exactly the reasons you stated.
However, cardio? People will see huge cardio benefits if they run for a long time. There's no "negative fitness effect."
Yes, you may burn muscle, but it's not like you're going to all together stop burning fat. In fact, when you hit glycogen depletion (the 'hitting the wall'), your body will switch energy burning modes entirely, and start burning a TON of fat.
I'm nit-picky about your statement because America, as a whole is in such a crisis. We look for any excuse to get out of exercise. Those idiots at the gym lifting 10 lb weights? Do you really think they're getting a good workout? They're not lifting heavy, and they can go far longer than 45 min doing 7 lb arm curls. What about those on the treadmill, walking for 45 minutes while talking on the cell phone?
As a society, we've become too used to everything being easy- we want an easy job with lots of money, we want to consume everything, and we want to be able to eat what we want, and just have the pounds come off.
Losing weight is hard. It takes discipline and focus. Now, especially in the two weeks of the Olympics, we should be able to collectively get off our fat asses and look at what some Americans have been able to accomplish with a ton of hard work and sacrifice.
Think Michael Phelps works out 45 min a day? All those gymnasts? Tyson Gay? So maybe you should step back, realize there's more to life than T-nation, and look at actual exercise science.
T-Nation is the equivalent of looking at some IT trade magazine talking about Java applets and their Web 2.0 capabilities. Yeah, it can be done. Is it the best tool for the job? No.
Most people that go to the gym are mainly trying to look better so those people should be doing heavy lifting. Even most training calls for time with heavy weights. Thus, the 45 minute or so rule. You point out a major caveat: Most people are not going anywhere near their limits. Around 45 minutes of high weight/volume training, one should naturally notice a loss of power not quit prematurely due to a stopwatch.
A (fat) person once told me she heard some advice that one should do cardio at a pace in which one will not experience heavy breathing and still be able to hold a conversation with the person next to them. What's next? Laying in bed as cardio?
Beginner advice: It's better to go out and just do something rather than overthinking it. Look at the people who are skinny, ripped, massive, fast, or whatever your goal is and do what they do. Many people apply premature optimization to working out. Diet matters but guys in prison become huge on three square meals a day. Sets and reps matter but Arnold wrote something to the effect of, "I don't know why beginners worry so much about details. If you are bad at pull ups, do as many pull ups as you can, rest, repeat." The key is to push yourself and measure your progress to make sure you are actually improving.
You don't "Switch" burning modes when you run out of glycogen stores. Your blood sugar drops because you can't process fat into sugar fast enough. You are always burning fat, and when you are running you are burning it pretty much as fast as you can. Thats why cyclists and long distance runners have to eat while they train longer than 1.5hrs to supplement their fat burning because the glycogen stores are out.
But you are not always burning fat, that's the problem. If the body needs energy like right now and it doesn't have glycogen on hand and cortisol levels are elevated, then it will cannibalize muscle. This is the point I was trying to make earlier. Powerade is strictly for amateurs; serious cyclists (et al) are drinking Perpetuum or Spiz, both of which contain BCAAs and other proteins to offset gluconeogenesis.
I don't agree. Calories are not treated equal and it's not only about staying not-fat eather but also promoting health. Calories are not just some unified fuel that you put in to your system. Your body needs to process different foods differently.
And it's not healthy long-term. His diet is designed to make him win Olympic gold in his early 20's, not to achieve a long, healthy life. The only reason any swimmers ever live past 40 is that they stop doing this well before 30.
Clearly, when he stops swimming 120 miles a week, he needs to eat less. I doubt that's too much of a problem; some people can listen to what their bodies are telling them and eat accordingly. I can, so I bet an elite athlete can.
But I'm unclear on what you think is terrible for him, long term. His diet or the training? Keep in mind his diet is what his body needs right now. I don't know what you're basing your conclusions on.
Science seems to be showing that your longevity is largely based on your metabolism. It's perhaps less accurate to think of a human's average lifespan in terms of years rather than in terms of calories burned.
Eating and then burning 10k calories a day probably ages you significantly faster than eating and burning 2k calories, possibly even 5x.
Also, most people, including elite athletes, are very poor at listening to their bodies and eating accordingly. There's a lot more to eating than simply being hungry. It's very much a habit. Google around for the psychology of eating, it's actually mind-boggling how complex and deeply rooted in our psyche it is. (Actually, most bodily functions go a lot deeper than we think.)
Ex-athletes are often very overweight specifically for that reason. They stop the exercise but not the eating.
The science I've read on metabolism is based on lab rats/mice, and it's still an open question about if that applies to humans.
I'm very aware that eating has a significant pyschological component, but, again, if you're going to say "ex-atheletes are often very overweight," I'd like to see studies.
Most animals have something like half a billion heartbeats of life. This can be extended to a billion through limiting diet and sex, or basically asceticism.
It's commonly cited that while athletes' hearts beat faster while exercising, they beat lower the rest of the day, thus giving them fewer beats per year. I'm assuming, though, that most athletes don't swim 6 hours a day + weight train.
On a related note, I met someone who swam for the US team in 1996. I won't name him or his event b/c it'd be mean to identify him, but let's just say the ensuing 12 years have done absolutely horrifying things to his waistline.
When I met him, I thought that there was no way he could be a swimmer!
Ha, yeah. That happens to a lot of athletes. It's a lot easier to stop swimming for 6 hours a day than it is to stop eating whatever the hell you want 6 meals a day.
Also there's a lot of evidence that all of that drastically increased metabolism basically burns years off of their lives.
this is a classic Atkins diet, and it will work, but it's a diet you need to stay on for the rest of your life if you want to remain lean. I'm currently addicted to carbs at the moment, and would have a real difficult time giving up beer.
Heck I can summarize it in 2 words:
Modified atkins.