Mark’s Daily Apple

Eggs - It’s What’s for Breakfast9

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Keep on Crackin’

Stop the presses: A new study published online in the International Journal of Obesity suggests that eating two eggs for breakfast (and not just the whites!) is healthier than eating a bagel.

As avid Mark’s Daily Apple readers, this one is easy to chalk up as a “well…duh” type of study, but the researchers note that the importance of the study is that it lends further support to the importance of high-quality protein in the diet. In fact, a special issue published in May in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition finds that not getting enough protein may increase your risk for obesity, muscle deterioration and chronic disease.

But back to the eggs. For the study, researchers from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University assigned 152 otherwise healthy but overweight or obese participants to one of four groups: Egg, which required them to eat a breakfast containing two eggs; bagel, which required them to eat a breakfast containing bagels that was identical in terms of energy density and total energy to the egg breakfast; egg diet, which allowed the egg breakfast as part of a 1000 kcal energy-deficit low-fat diet; and bagel diet, which allowed the bagel breakfast plan, but this time with the calorie restrictions. Study participants were required to follow these diet parameters for at least five days per week

After eight weeks, participants in the egg diet group exhibited a 61% greater reduction in body mass index (BMI) than their peers in the bagel diet group. But we all know BMI is a bit of a tricky measurement and isn’t necessarily reflective of a healthy weight, so consider this: When compared to the bagel dieters, participants in the egg diet group also exhibited a 65% greater weight loss, a 34% greater reduction in waist circumference (which some experts would argue is far more indicative of future health risks) and a 16% reduction in body fat (now we’re talking!). However, the researchers note that the weight loss-enhancing benefits of eggs only appear to work when they are eaten as part of a calorie-restricted diet since the regular egg and regular bagel group exhibited no significant changes. We’d add that many people that follow a Primal Blueprint type diet generally eat fewer calories naturally as a result of upping fat/protein (which increases satiety) and decreasing carbs (which avoids the insulin roller coaster and related cravings).

Based on these findings, the researchers conclude that an egg breakfast helps overweight adults lose more weight and feel more energetic than those who ate a bagel of equal calories. Speaking to the mechanism behind the findings, the study’s lead author suggests that “the increased satiety and energy due to eggs helps people better comply with a reduced-calorie diet.”

If you’re reading at home and thinking “well that’s all well and good, but I haven’t had a whole egg in years,” consider this: The researchers note that between the groups, there was no discernible difference between total cholesterol, high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL) and triglyceride levels. In addition, a registered dietitian and chef drafted to comment on the study noted that “nearly half an egg’s protein, and many of the other nutrients, are found in the yolk, so make sure to eat the whole egg for maximum benefits.” And this speaks nothing of all that golden fat goodness in the yolk.

It’s Saturday morning. Get yourself some eggs and cook up a mean omelet (see Further Reading below…)!

427 Flickr Photo (CC)

Further Reading:

Eggs for People on the Go

Spanish Omelet Recipe

Baked Eggs, Eggs Curry and More!

How to Eat Enough Protein

The Definitive Guide to the Primal Diet

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Posted: Health, Nutrition, Weight loss, Worker Bees' Weekly Bites

What’s Wrong With The Zone Diet?16

Dear Mark,

I just watched your video about the 2 minute salad; simple, fast, and no measuring. I agree with the primal way of eating and I’m torn between the freelance style of PB and structure of The Zone. What is your opinion of The Zone?

First, let me thank Rob for his question. I’ve had a lot of conversations about The Zone and other heavily publicized diet plans. It’s fair, I think, to look at the good and the bad of the diet. Unless you’re talking about the grapefruit diet or similarly comical fad, diets generally have to have at least some positive point(s) to gain a decent following, as The Zone has. Nonetheless, what can initially look like a rational foundation begins to show cracks when you look at how the philosophy actually plays out.

The Zone’s Positives?

It suggests vegetables and fruit as the primary sources of carbohydrates and fiber. It suggests more protein than most popular diets. It appreciates the value of omega-3s. And finally, it pays homage to the diet-hormone connection (although I take issue with how the theory gets applied in the actual diet prescription).

The Zone, I’ll say, isn’t by far the worst diet out there. It gets a few key things right or somewhat close. That said, however, I think there’s big room for improvement.

Since you asked, here are my “beefs� with The Zone.

The “Moderate� Hobby Horse

In Dr. Sears’ words, “Any diet that uses the word high or low to describe it is hormonally unsustainable. The only diet that can maintain hormonal balance for a lifetime must use the word moderate to describe it.� Just from a rhetorical standpoint, this statement gets under my skin. O.K. – moderate according to what culture, what historical (or pre-historical) age? Based on his theory, we’re genetically designed for a 40-30-30 plan kind of “moderation�.

The Fear of Fat

What’s with the dinky serving of almonds or avocado in each meal? Yes, monosaturated fats are great. So, why the miniscule serving? And then there’s the commandment about only the leanest meats. Sure, I get the fat-toxin connection, and it’s why I tend to often (but not always) choose relatively leaner meats, but this has nothing to do with The Zone recommendation. Dr. Sears, pardon my saying, just seems like another fat-o-phobe. But, with the higher carb allotment, I guess fat gets you into more trouble. (What about that little bit of biochemistry? Didn’t see that mentioned. Hmmm.)

Too High in Carbs

I already said that I applauded the focus on veggies and the secondary role of fruits. It’s true that The Zone downplays the role of grains, and I like that as well. (Little surprise, yes.) But here we find ourselves back in the land of unfounded, forced “moderation.� Sure, Dr. Sears talks insulin regulation, but the rubber doesn’t exactly meet the road in The Zone diet. For an eating plan to truly facilitate hormonal balance, you have to put the brakes on the insulin response. This means low carb. But that’s a bad word in The Zone.

Hunger

Without the fat, most people are going to be hungry on this diet. I know I would be. I’m not one for diets. Hunger sets in (on a regular basis, no less), and too many well-meaning people are set up for failure. In contrast, the Primal Blueprint is a sustainable lifestyle that offers a model for eating that a person can realistically stick with over time.

Too Structured

Along with the hunger issue, imposing too much structure is too hard (or tedious) over time. I guess it might be easier if you took a Sharpie to all your dinner plates for the assigned pie graph. The plan even goes so far as to set out specific time intervals for eating. For example, eat within an hour after getting up. Eat dinner within 2 ½ hours of the prescribed afternoon snack. You should eat five times a day total. The more structure, the more confusion and temptation there is when a dieter gets off track. Again, I’m all about what’s sustainable. Experience has taught me that the fewer and more simple the guidelines, the better. Maybe that’s just me. On a true low-carb program, the more you learn to burn fat, the less hunger becomes an issue and the less often you need to eat in a structured fashion to sustain energy.

Protein Suggestions

While the 30% is more than most dietary organizations or popular diet plans recommend, the absolute hard and fast rule again doesn’t sit right. You don’t need to be an Olympic athlete to benefit from more than 30% protein intake. And, no, it won’t necessarily turn to fat – unless you drive it there with the higher carbs. Finally, Dr. Sears touts soy as one of the best sources, saying that using soy as a primary protein source could be the healthiest choice overall. Most of you know my take on soy, and I stand by my opinion. The research in that vein keeps coming. Too bad The Zone hasn’t caught up with the times on that one.

So, you’ve heard my take now. I’d love to hear your comments. Anyone here tried it before and want to offer up some personal anecdotes? Thanks for reading. As always, thanks for the great questions.

Further Reading:

The Definitive Guide to the Primal Eating Plan

Why the Atkins Diet Works

Processed Soy and Meat Alternatives

10 Outrageous Diet Scams

Primal Recipes

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Posted: Carbs, Diet, Hype, Marketing, Nutrition, Sisson Said What?

Dear Mark: Fiber, Fat and Fasting14

Weekly Reader Mail

Dear Mark,

I have two questions. My first regards training and rest days. Simply, how many days of complete rest should I take for an entire week? I someone who’s been overweight for most of his pre-teen and teenage life, and who was able to lose that excess weight at 17 (I’m 20 now). My current goal is to “look fit” (and be healthy), which primarily entails eliminating the stubborn fat on my body that have refused to go away. If I’m doing three days of high-intensity interval training, for around 15-20 minutes per day, and three days of 1 hour lifting, for a total of 6 days per week with one day of rest, is that doing too much?

Secondly, where do I get most of my fiber on a primal blueprint diet if most high-fiber vegetables can only be attained sparingly (I’m a poor college student)? I’ve been looking around your site for the answer, and the only thing I’ve read mentioned in passing was flaxseed. If that is your suggestion, where can I buy it? I couldn’t find it in the cereal aisle of my local grocer.

First off, because you are still trying to lose the “stubborn� fat, I just need to remind you (and other readers) that 80% of your body composition results will come from PB-style eating. Yes, you still have to exercise to build or maintain muscle and to stimulate some added fat-burning enzymes, but you don’t want to fall into the common habit of thinking you must exercise nearly every day to burn off stored fat.

OK, having said all that, the amount of rest you need depends on your work load and perhaps your level of fitness if you’re transitioning to a new exercise routine. Given the program described, I’d say your one “day off� could be completely adequate. However, I wouldn’t hesitate to add another day off if you feel like you’re not recovering between workouts. Listen to the signals your body is sending, and know the message might be different from week to week depending on sleep and stress levels, etc. If you choose to take that extra day, you can always use it to incorporate some low to moderate level “life� activity: hike, bike ride, kayaking, a game of ultimate Frisbee, or even some energy-intense house projects. Your training won’t take a hit if you take an extra day or two off. And if you’re eating well, your fat-burning won’t suffer at all.

As for the fiber question, I’ve often said that dietary fiber is over-hyped by the media. Truth be told, we don’t really need that much beyond what we get from eating vegetables and a few fruits each day. (People get themselves into trouble when they eat processed foods and throw off their body’s systems.) A natural, whole foods diet just doesn’t require “whole grains,� despite all the hoopla. Grok and his entourage did just fine without Metamucil and multigrain cereal for breakfast. Our bodies adjust to a more natural fiber intake over time. Adequate water and plenty of exercise can also help keep the pipes running. Nonetheless, here’s a list of fiber content estimates that can help you target your produce purchases. In short, apples, pears, berries, eggplants, artichokes, and all manner of raw and cooked greens are all good higher fiber options. You’ll note from this list that dried figs, yams, and a number of cooked legumes rate among the highest in fiber (10-19 grams per serving—with varied serving size) for non-grains, but (as you know) I don’t recommend these foods as regular MDA fare because of their high carb content.

Hi Mark,

Can you give me an idea on what oils to include in my diet. They are so expensive over here in the UK. I have recently bought brazil nut oil, walnut oil, and olive oil. I want to make sure I fulfill my daily needs without overlap (due to expense). Also how much of each should I be consuming. My other question is should I work out in a fasted or non fasted state.

I’m all for incorporating nuts into the diet, and nut oils offer a healthy (and tasty) alternative to canola, corn and sunflower oil. Your choices above are fine. Nonetheless, I don’t have a specific daily requirement for any particular oil. Use what you need to for flavoring and getting enough fat in your diet. To cut the expense, I’d suggest eating more whole nuts and nut butters (homemade is cheaper and pretty darn easy). Also, tropical oils, butter and lard offer cheaper options that can also be used in cooking. Each, of course, has its own distinct flavor. Experiment with them and find the best uses/recipes for each. As long as you’re going low carb, the extra saturated fat isn’t a concern. Of course, I always suggest “cleaner� versions of any animal product (especially anything high in fat, where most toxins are found).

As for working out while fasting, I don’t see a problem with it in general. Of course it depends on how long you’ve fasted, too. If you ate last night and work out this morning without eating, there’s not only no problem there, there may be a benefit in terms of fat burning if today’s workout is a long slow one, or in term of growth hormone if today’s is a short, intense workout. As for working out during a longer planned fast, if you’ve done it before and felt fine, I wouldn’t recommend necessarily dropping your workout during fasting days. You might want to dial back the intense training on extended fasts, though. Or if you’re new to fasting you might want to keep your exercise on those days low to moderate and save the heavy stuff for the rest of the week.

Ironically, whereas I would often recommend not eating immediately after a workout, if you have NOT fasted prior (in order to maximize growth hormone), it might be beneficial in this case to “break� your fast following hard resistance training sessions. In the 30 minutes to an hour following a weight workout, your body has a uniquely efficient potential for protein uptake. I’d suggest taking advantage of that timing. This goes double if you’re older or are working hard for muscle mass gain. I’m basically saying don’t regularly starve yourself for a long period both before AND after a hard workout. You can eat before and starve after or starve (fast) before and eat after. Hope that all makes sense.

Thanks, as always, for your messages. Keep ‘em coming!

buck82, jfravel, Tim Morgan Flickr Photos (CC)

Further Reading:

Homemade Cashew Butter

10 Delicious DIY Salad Dressings

What is the Primal Blueprint?

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Posted: Dear Mark, Diet, Fitness, Health, Nutrition

Weekend Backsliding?8

Slippery Saturdays

Researchers say Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the most productive days of the week. Monday tends to be “recoveryâ€� day from the weekend, and the rest of the week, well, we’re often coasting along waiting for the weekend to arrive, aren’t we? (Ah, the lure of the weekend: the free time, the social activities, special occasions, the chance to kick back…) But is our cherished refuge also our health’s downfall?

A study from the Washington University School of Medicine suggests that the tendency toward weekend backslide on health goals is a common problem. The researchers assembled daily weight, caloric intake, and physical activity data from participants both before and during assigned intervention programs. The participants included a total of 48 men and women, aged 50-60, whose BMI scores ranged from normal to obese.

Initial, “pre-intervention� data showed that participants ate an average of 236 more calories on Saturday than during the week. To top it off, activity levels on Sunday hit a slump. Researchers found the same pattern after assigning year-long weight loss intervention programs, which included a “caloric restriction� group (20% reduction in daily caloric intake) and an “exercise� group (20% increase in daily physical activity). Participants kept food diaries or wore activity monitors throughout the intervention programs. During this period, the caloric restriction group lost weight during the week but only managed to hold steady over the weekends. The exercise group also lost weight during the week but actually gained weight over the average weekend given the higher caloric intake.

Susan Racette, the study’s author, offered this perspective on the findings: “There is less structure on the weekend for a lot of people, and that can wreak havoc. …A little indulgence turns into a big indulgence. Being vigilant on the weekends is really important for people either trying to lose weight or maintain a weight loss.”

The study seems timely, given the responses of a few Primal Health Challenge participants (and other readers), who have noted that staying Primal on the weekend is tough. We would agree. As the study author suggests, weekends don’t go by the book. Weekends are, after all, about three hour brunches getting caught up with friends, long days at the beach with the kids, an afternoon of errands and home projects, long naps on the couch, movie theaters, dinners out, hosting guests. They’re packed, spontaneous, free form. And that’s the point of weekends really, don’t you think? A break from the day to day grind.

But we think that “grind� shouldn’t necessarily include a good diet and fitness program. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water! (Can you hear the siren song coming from the kitchen, the concession stand, or the weekend specials menu?) It’s hard to hold onto the regimen when life becomes, well, so unregimented over the weekend. Nonetheless, if you’re committed to sticking to your goals 100% (like the Primal Health Challenge), it’s clear you need to up your resolve on the weekends. Get up in time to make a decent breakfast. Pack your “lunch� the night before if you’ll be on the run all day. Call ahead or check online for restaurant menus to plan any dinners out. Have a hearty salad before heading out to Batman.

And then there’s the other side of the coin. Though the Primal Health Challenge dares us to go for the gold every time, settling into that personal, sustainable level of Primal can mean simply allowing for Sensible Vices on weekends as part of an overall health and wellness scheme. No, it’s not about letting everything go to pot, but it is about letting loose (guilt-free) to enjoy the best weekends life has to offer.

What are the tricks and treats behind your Primal weekends? Best strategies to share? Most frequent temptations?

Oh, and by the way, Happy Thursday, everyone. Back to the regularly scheduled grind…

Johnny Thirkill Flickr Photo (CC)

Further Reading:

How Our Eyes Deceive Our Appetites

The Original Sensible Vices

Sensible Vices: Round 2

The Art of Compromise

How to Eat More Chocolate and Drink More Wine Every Day

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Posted: Diet, Health, Nutrition, Personal Improvement, Prevention, Worker Bees' Weekly Bites

The Definitive Guide to the Primal Eating Plan35

Do the Math

In my recent Context of Calories post, I explained how the different macronutrients we eat at each meal (fats, proteins, and carbohydrates) have different effects in the body. I suggested that, despite their raw calorie values, it’s far more important to get a lasting intuitive sense of how much of each macronutrient you need and when you need it (or not).

But how do you do that? How do you figure out the proper number of calories - and breakdown of fats, protein and carbs - to accomplish your fitness and health goals? To lose weight? Lose fat? Gain muscle? Maintain status quo? Run marathons?

In fact, most popular daily diets look at overall calories as the main factor in weight loss and weight gain. The age-old conservation of energy Conventional Wisdom says that “a calorie is a calorie.” From there most diet gurus generally prescribe some formulaic one-size-fits-all breakdown of fats, protein and carbs. A classically trained Registered Dietician will tell you that protein should be around 10-15% of calories, carbs should be 60% (and mostly from whole grains) and fat under 30%. This macronutrient breakdown stays the same regardless of how much weight you need to lose or what other goals you might have. Barry Sears has his 40/30/30 “Zone” diet. The USDA bases everything on a choice of between 2,000 and 2,500 calories a day. But, as I said earlier, it’s not that simple. Calories do have context.

The human body uses these macronutrients for a variety of different functions, some of which are structural and some of which are simply to provide energy - immediately or well into the future. Moreover, with regards to energy conservation or expenditure, the body acts as both an efficient fuel storage depot (and as a toxic “waist” site) as well as a potent generator of energy, depending largely on the hormonal signals it gets. It will store glycogen and/or fat and it will build muscle - or it will just as easily tear them all down and use them for fuel - based on input from you: what you eat, how much you eat, when you eat, what you’re doing before or after you eat - even what you’re thinking when you eat. Yet because your body always seeks to achieve homeostasis over time, the notion of you trying to zero in on a precise day-to-day or meal-to-meal eating plan is generally fruitless (yes, Charlotte, some fruit is allowed). The good news in all this is that falling off the wagon once or twice this week won’t have the immediate disastrous effect that you might imagine - as long as you can keep your average intake under control and understand how the various macronutrients function over time.

Which brings me to the crux of today’s discussion. Not only is it nearly impossible to accurately gauge your exact meal-to-meal calorie and macronutrient requirements, doing so will drive you crazy. In fact, to accurately figure your true structural and functional fuel needs (and hence to achieve your goals) it’s far more effective to look at a much larger span of time, like a few weeks, and aim for an “average” consumption. Then you can review that average daily intake over weeks or months and adjust accordingly. Below, I’ll give you a way to figure a “jumping off” point to start with, but remember, our genes are accustomed to the way our ancestors ate: intermittently, sporadically, sometimes in large quantities, and sometimes not at all for days. Their bodies figured out a way to maintain homeostasis and preserve lean tissue and good health through all this and so can we. Our genes want us to be lean and fit. It’s actually quite easy as long as we eat from the long list of Primal Blueprint healthy foods and try to avoid that other list of grain-laden, sugary, processed and otherwise unhealthy foods. Realistically, we also want to allow for the occasional party-splurge, a pre-planned (or accidental) intermittent fast, an over-the-top workout or even a week of laziness. Where most people get into trouble is in miscalculating their energy needs over extended periods of time - not day-to-day. They don’t see the average amount of carbs creeping upwards, or they figure they need x amount of calories, but don’t have a clue as to what kind of food those should be coming from.

I start with these four basic principles to guide my Primal Blueprint eating style:

1) 80% of your body composition will be determined by your diet. Yes, exercise is also important to health and to speed up fat-burning and muscle-building, but most of your results will come from how you eat. I’ll write more on this later, so just trust me on this one for now. Suffice to say, people who weigh a ton and exercise a ton, but eat a ton, still tend to weigh a ton. I think I’ll have that made into a t-shirt…

2) Lean Body Mass (LBM) is the key to life. I’ve said it many times on this site: lean mass (muscle and all the rest of you that is not fat) is directly correlated with longevity and excellent health. Rather than strive to “lose weight”, most people would be better off striving to lose only fat and to build or maintain muscle. Since other organs tend to function at a level that correlates to muscle mass, the more muscle you maintain throughout life, the more “organ reserve” you’ll have (i.e. the better the rest of you will work). Refer back to rule #1 and eat to build or maintain muscle.

3) Excess body fat is bad. Most human studies show that being significantly overweight increases your risk of nearly every disease (except osteoporosis - because ironically it responds to weight-bearing activities). Fat just doesn’t look that great either. See rule #1 and eat to keep body fat relatively low.

4) Excess insulin is bad. We’ve written about it here a lot. Chronic excess insulin may be even worse than excess sugar (and we know how bad that is). All animals produce insulin, but within any species, those that produce less insulin live longer than those who produce a lot. Eat to keep insulin low.

Here is how I use these principles to guide my individual macronutrient intake:

Protein

Protein takes priority. If there is ample glycogen (stored glucose) and the body is getting the rest of its energy efficiently from fats, protein will always go first towards repair or building cells or enzymes. In that context, it hardly seems fair to assign it a “burn rate” of 4 calories per gram. It’s like saying the 2×4 studs that support the walls of your house can burn nicely if you run out of firewood. They will, but I prefer to burn other fuel first. At a minimum you need .5 grams of protein per pound of lean mass/per day on average to maintain your “structure”. If you are moderately active you need .7 or .8, and if you are an active athlete you need as much as 1 gram of protein per pound of lean mass. That’s at a minimum, but it’s on a daily average. So a 155 lb moderately active woman who has 25% body fat (and thus) has 116 lb of lean body mass needs 93 grams of protein on average per day (116 x .8). If she gets 60 or 80 some days and 110 on others, she’ll still be in a healthy average range. And even if she exceeds the 110, it’s no problem if she’s eating low carb because the excess protein will convert to glucose, which will reduce her effective carbohydrate needs (see below). At 4 calories per gram, that’s between 320 and 440 calories per day in protein. It’s not that much.

Carbs

If you’ve forgotten everything you ever learned in biology, just remember this and “own” it: Carbohydrate drives insulin drives fat (Cahill 1965, and Taubes 2007). The idea in the PB is to limit your carbs to only those you need to provide glucose for the brain and for some reasonable amount (certainly less than an hour) of occasional anaerobic exercise. And the truth is, you don’t even need glucose to fuel the brain. Ketones from a very-low carb diet work extremely efficiently at that task. Either way, ideally, we would like most of our daily energy to come from dietary or stored fats. Typically, (if you are at an ideal body composition now) I use a rule of thumb that 100-150 grams of carbohydrate per day is plenty to keep you out of ketosis (and ketosis is NOT a bad thing) but away from storing the excess as fat if you are the least bit active. Don’t forget that your body can make up to 200 grams of glycogen from fats and protein every day, too. On the other hand, if you are looking to lose body fat, keeping carbs to under 80 grams per day will help immensely in lowering insulin and taking fat out of storage. On the other other hand, if you are insistent on training hard for long periods of time, you would add more carbs (say, 100 per day extra for every extra hour you train hard). It becomes a matter of doing the math and experimenting with the results.

Ironically, it’s tough to exceed 100 grams of carbs even if you eat tons of colorful vegetables - as long as you eat like our ancestors and consume no grains, no sugars and few starchy vegetables (potatoes, yams, beets, legumes, etc). Even if you eat a ton of vegetables AND a fair amount of fruit, you’ll be hard pressed to exceed 150 grams of carbs on average per day. Our remote ancestors couldn’t average 150 grams of carbs a day if they tried, yet they had plenty of energy and maintained their lean mass. At 4 calories per gram that’s only between 400 and 600 calories per day. Add that in to the protein above and our sample girl is barely at 1,000 calories on the high end. So where does the rest of the fuel come from?

Fats

Learn to love them. They are the fuel of choice and should become the balance of your Primal Blueprint diet. Fats have little or no impact on insulin and, as a result, promote the burning of both dietary and stored (adipose) fat as fuel. Think about this: if protein and carbs stay fairly constant (and carbs stay under 150), you can use fat as the major energy variable in your diet. Feeling like you need more fuel (and you’ve already covered your bases with protein and carbs)? Reach for something with fat. Nuts, avocados, coconut, eggs, butter, olive oil, fish, chicken, lamb, beef, the list is a long one. 100 grams of fats per day would only add 900 calories to our girl’s daily average, putting her at between 1620 and 1940 calories a day. Even if she averages somewhere between 1400 and 2200 calories per day over a few weeks, as long as she pays attention to protein and carbs, her body composition will shift to lower body fat and more desirable lean mass. If she decides to do some walking, a few brief intense weight sessions and a sprint day here and there, that process would accelerate greatly. If she gets to a point where she’s content with her body fat, she can even add in a little more fat to provide energy that she previously got from her stored fat.

The main thing I’ve figured out from eating this way for years is that I don’t need nearly as many calories to maintain health, mass, and body fat as I once thought I did - or as the Conventional Wisdom says I do. I eat 600-1000 calories per day less than when I ate a carbohydrate-based diet, yet I maintain slightly lower body fat and slightly higher muscle mass on even less training. Remember: 80% of body composition is determined by diet. The best part is that I don’t ever feel hungry because I base my eating on exactly what my 10,000-year-old genes want me to eat.

Further Reading:

Definitive Guides to:

The Primal Blueprint

Grains

Fats

Cholesterol

Insulin, Blood Sugar and Type 2 Diabetes

Stress, Cortisol and the Adrenals

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Posted: Carbs, Definitive Guides, Diet, Health, How To, Nutrition, Weight loss