High Fat and Healthy: The Maasai Keep on Walking
Reader Peter emailed this new study today after he saw a discussion in which I was participating on Rusty’s site (fitnessblackbook.com) regarding the Maasai diet. Investigators in this new study suggested that one reason that the Maasai (African nomadic cattle farmers) have lower rates of heart disease, despite a high fat diet, is the amount of low-level aerobic activity they do on a daily basis. Many of you will recognize this as rule #2 of the Primal Blueprint, “Move around a lot at a slow pace.” Seems the Maasai take that to the extreme, burning 2500 calories a day in excess of their basal metabolic rate by walking. The fact that they have a fairly low carbohydrate intake simply reaffirms that most of their energy demands are coming from the high amount of animal fat in their diets – and that at low level aerobic activity carbs are simply not necessary. Don’t think that doesn’t mean they can’t sprint occasionally or lift heavy things though (Blueprint’s 3 and 4), because we know they are able to produce enough glycogen each day from this same high-fat, moderate protein diet to fuel those all-out short bursts.
Finally, while the researchers claim it’s the exercise that prevents the heart disease, they approached it from the typical “high fat diets generally increase CHD risk” POV, which we all know to be an erroneous old Conventional Wisdom assumption. A high fat diet doesn’t actually increase risk of heart disease or death unless it’s also accompanied by relatively high carbohydrates and, hence, insulin.
Further Reading:
Dear Mark: Primal Blueprint for Both Men and Women?
Subscribe to Mark’s Daily Apple feeds
Posted By: Mark Sisson
(
Walking while on a high fat diet is good to know. I have long been a believer of an extended low level or walking workout while coupled with a high fat diet as opposed to carbs.
When we look at the Maasai and many other people who still live like we all use to thousands of years ago, we see those are healthy people, usually muscled and with low bodyfat, and what do they eat? Lots of meat or fish depending on where they live and no carbs or almost no carbs. I think we just have to look to our origin to know what’s natural for our bodies and health.
I know Mark that you got your stuff pretty much balanced diet and exercise wise but I have read from so many low-carb boards how aerobic exercise is bad for us that I want to praise endurance training with a couple of words.
As Mark said we have to remember that Maasai people move around all day long. They don’t need extra “moderate” aerobic exercise. What does typical western people do? Sit all day long. Most of us don’t have time to walk around all day long, that’s why I think endurance training should not be eliminated.
A lot of “broscience” people talk how aerobic exercise speeds aging, adds oxidative stress and so on… Bunch of nonsense.
Current idea is that oxidative phenotype -> longevity. Resveratrol for example induces oxidative phenotype (endurance type) -> SMALL fibers that are characterized as mitochondria rich and energy efficient. No hypertrophy! Longevity and endurance training responses have many other things in common.
“Compared with power athletes, the ratio of all-cause SMR(Standardized Mortality Ratios) was lower for endurance (0.63; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.51-0.79) and mixed sports athletes (0.76; 95% CI, 0.65-0.89); the respective ratios of SMRs for coronary heart disease were 0.59 (95% CI, 0.39-0.85) and 0.63 (95% CI, 0.47-0.84) for the same groups, respectively.”
source:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/285/1/44
Remember moderation and balance.
what do the maasai do int there day?
they have a really short life expectancy, if that’s what you are going for by all means aim for their diet.