Ted Naiman M.D.
Why
Carnivores
Are Always Thin!
Why
Carnivores Are Always Thin
An average of one thousand people die every day in this country from obesity-related diseases. All of us want to achieve our ideal body weight, yet two-thirds of all of us are either overweight or obese, and the trend is worsening. The following can help you conquer excess body fat and its associated illnesses.
S ECTION 1 Carnivores Win!
H UMANS A RE C ARNIVORES 1. Humans evolved by eating mostly meat and other animal products. 2. These animal-based foods have the highest energy and nutrient density of any foods on earth.
For the past two million years humans have thrived and multiplied, slowly evolving to become the dominant species on our planet, thanks in part to a diet that was perfectly suited to make us strong, smart and healthy. During greater than 99 percent of this period, our diets consisted predominately of meat and other animal products of every kind, with perhaps some nuts, green vegetables, and small fruits in certain regions and in certain seasons. These are the most nutritionally dense foods on earth, and these foods, loaded with essential amino acids and essential fatty acids and other micronutrients, helped us develop ever larger and more complicated brains.
3. This diet enabled humans to develop intelligence and strength and become the dominant species on our planet.
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S ECTION 2 The Agricultural Revolution
S UDDENLY , G RAINS W ERE C ONVENIENT 1. The agricultural revolution was incredibly recent in terms of human existence and evolution. 2. Prior to this, we were always hunter-gatherers.
Fast forward to a few thousand years ago, when the agricultural revolution arrived. If we stretched out all of human history the length of a football field, a diet based on agriculture (dairy products, grains such as wheat and corn and rice and oats, sugar, fruits systematically bred to be large and filled with fructose, etc.) would only be a few blades of grass at one end. 3
S ECTION 3 ‘Diseases Of Civilization’
O UR M ODERN D IET I S K ILLING U S 1. Hunter-gatherer populations were free of many of the chronic diseases we face today. 2. Introducing a ‘modern’ grain-based diet to a hunter-gatherer population immediately leads to the ‘Diseases Of Civilization’.
After the ‘Agricultural Revolution’, we were immediately faced with the many 'Diseases Of Civilization', chronic illnesses which are unheard of in hunter-gatherer populations but immediately develop in these populations upon exposure to a diet based on agriculture: obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, atherosclerosis, gout, gallstones, osteoarthritis, ulcers, acid reflux, constipation, diverticulitis, appendicitis, cancer, dental cavities, periodontal disease, diabetes, ulcerative colitis, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, and a host of other autoimmune diseases (to name a few). Many hunter-gatherer civilizations transitioned from their native diet to an agricultural ‘western’ diet just within the past century (the Aborigines in Australia, as only one example) and immediately fell from extremely good health to extremely poor health. 4
S ECTION 4 Glycemic Index
G LYCEMIC I NDEX : A C RUCIAL C ONCEPT 1. Our native diet of animal products and vegetables had a very low glycemic index. 2. Our modern diet of grains and sugar has a very high glycemic index. 3. High glycemic index diets lead to excessive insulin and then insulin resistance. 4. Insulin resistance leads to diabetes and other chronic diseases.
How does an agricultural diet lead to these diseases? It is very simple: glycemic index. Glycemic index is the term that describes how high our blood sugar (glucose) goes up when we eat certain foods. Protein and fat essentially have a glycemic index of zero, so foods like meat or eggs or other animal products don't raise glucose at all, and green vegetables and nuts have a very low glycemic index and do not lead to a significant elevation of glucose either. Most carbohydrates on the other hand have a high glycemic index, and re5
fined carbohydrates have a terribly high glycemic index. For example, a steak or a piece of chicken or fish or eggs would have a glycemic index of zero, and a salad might have a glycemic index of one or two, and a handful of nuts might have a glycemic index of five or so. Then you have table sugar, or sucrose, with a glycemic index of EIGHTY and whole wheat flour with a glycemic index of ONE HUNDRED and white flour with a glycemic index of ONE HUNDRED AND ONE! Nothing in the history of human evolution has ever raised our glucose so high and so rapidly, and most humans have difficulty dealing with this. Our bodies are constantly fighting to achieve homeostasis (stable, constant operating conditions) and we like our body temperature to stay within a narrow range and our glucose to stay in a narrow range as well. When we eat a very high glycemic index food (such as sugar or flour or corn or other grains), our bodies have to respond to this threat to homeostasis with an unusually massive quantity of insulin, the hormone we se-
crete from our pancreases to lower glucose. Unfortunately, insulin is also the body's storage hormone which immediately signals our bodies to store all the calories in our bloodstreams as abdominal fat. Worse yet, after prolonged and continued exposure to higher than normal amounts of insulin, our cells lose sensitivity to insulin and we develop 'insulin resistance', which leads to abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, atherosclerosis and heart disease, and increases by at least fourfold our risk for most cancers (especially breast, colon, and prostate cancers). Recall that these illnesses are almost never seen in hunter-gatherer populations and then immediately develop when these populations go from a super low glycemic index diet of meat and green vegetables to a super high glycemic index diet of grains and milk (lactose) and sugar and corn and rice and legumes and potatoes, etc., foods that humans were never evolved to eat. 6
S ECTION 5 Nutritional Value?
M ODERN D IETS A RE N UTRITIONALLY E MPTY 1. Hunter-gatherer foods such as meat and green vegetables are the most nutritionally dense foods on earth. 2. Modern foods such as grains and sugar are actively dangerous because of their very high glycemic index. 3. Modern foods are also low in nutrient density.
Hunter-gatherer foods, such as meat of all kinds, green vegetables, nuts, eggs, and small fruits in small quantities in season (berries predominately) are the most nutritionally dense foods on earth and have an extremely low glycemic index (actually zero in the case of meat and animal fats). Compare this with agricultural revolution foods, very recent in terms of human existence, and to which humans were never exposed for most of our existence, such as grains (wheat, corn, rice, oats, etc.), beans and other legumes, milk (lactose or milk sugar), sugar, potatoes, and fruits bred to be unrealistically large and filled with fructose (fruit sugar). These foods have an obscenely high glycemic index, especially cereal grains such as wheat and rice and corn (truly terrible; they have a higher glycemic index than sugar). To make things even worse, foods like grains and potatoes and sugar have NO NUTRITIONAL VALUE WHATSOEVER. That's correct. 7
Oh, did I mention that 80% of all the calories consumed in this country currently come from wheat flour? Yup. Breakfast cereal, bread, sandwiches, pizza, pasta, cakes, cookies, pies, muffins, crackers, bagels, English muffins, pastries, anything breaded and fried, anything in a box, anything in a bag, just about everything manufactured, these are all made from wheat flour. With a crazy high glycemic index of 100 (or higher), much higher than any food humans have ever been exposed to throughout almost all of our existence. Oh, and no nutritional value whatsoever. And which immediately lead to a massive spike of insulin causing weight gain and abdominal fat storage and cancer and diabetes and high blood pressure and all of those other 'Diseases Of Civilization'. Oh yes there is also the fact that certain wheat proteins bind to the opioid receptor in your brain, making these foods about as addictive as crack for certain people. Don’t forget, for many years and for no apparent reason we've been encouraged to eat more "whole grains" (code for
whole wheat flour) by the nutritional powers that be. Taken all together, this is why we are currently faced with an obesity crisis, previously in this country alone but now increasingly throughout the world.
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S ECTION 6 Isn’t Fat Bad Somehow? "But wait,� you say, "I thought we were supposed to eat more whole grains? And avoid saturated fat and cholesterol and stuff like that? And aren't vegetarians healthier than everyone else?"
W HOLE G RAINS A RE W HOLLY B AD 1. Humans evolved to be carnivores, and our optimum diet is high in protein and fat. 2. Attempting to eat less fat inevitably means eating more carbs, which is dangerously unhealthy.
First, humans definitely did not evolve to be vegetarians. In mammals, there are two basic types of gastrointestinal systems, herbivore and carnivore. Sort of like the dinosaurs, we mammals tend to fall into the use of one of two possible sources for the protein that our bodies cannot manufacture: animal protein (carnivores) and plant protein (herbivores). All you have to do is look at the gastrointestinal tract of herbivores (multiple stomachs, such as four in a cow, as well as some other specialization for reclaiming nutrients from relatively low nutrient density plants) versus carnivore gastrointestinal tracts (one stomach, different specialization for relatively high-density animal protein). Humans have a carnivorous gastrointestinal system without 9
question. Also without question, humans have been eating animal protein as their main source of nutrition and calories for millions of years, the vast overwhelming majority of our existence. Is vegetarianism bad for you? Well, unfortunately if you look at geographical populations with regions of widespread vegetarianism (India, for example), you will see disproportionately high rates of obesity and insulin resistance and diabetes among the vegetarians as compared with non-vegetarians. This occurs because if you eliminate animal products from the diet, you inevitably replace them with higher glycemic index (and nutritionally less dense) carbohydrates, which sadly leads to negative health consequences.
as a cow or pig) is to feed it grains (like corn). Yet all too often we unthinkingly feed ourselves these identical foods (grain-fed people are just as fat as grain-fed cattle).
It is ironic that many of us will intentionally feed a lowcarb and high protein diet to our carnivorous pets (dogs and cats) in order to keep them thin and healthy, but all too often we don't do this for ourselves! Equally ironic, we all know that the best way to fatten an animal (such 10
S ECTION 7 Decades Of Bad Advice
T HE F OOD P YRAMID I S D ANGEROUSLY W RONG 1. We have been told to eat less fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol to prevent heart disease, when in fact this has been proven to be false. 2. Recommendations to eat more fiber and more whole grains are based on no evidence whatsoever.
Let’s look at the general nutritional advice that has been perpetuated for the past fifty years or so by the government and various agencies. We have been told to eat less fat and saturated fat, as is was assumed that perhaps this would lead to lower rates of cardiovascular disease. Not only has this never been proven, but in reality a low fat and cholesterol diet has been proven to offer no lowering of cardiovascular risks and in fact a higher risk for cancer and dying in general. We have also been told to eat more fiber, for a myriad of reasons, when not only has this never been proven to be helpful (such as a reduction in colon cancer or cardiovascular disease) but higher fiber diets have been shown in studies to provide no particular benefits. Other items of general dietary advice that we have heard for years, such as lowering sodium intake and eating more 'complex carbohydrates', are similarly unproven. 11
S ECTION 8 Try It!
P ALEO D IETS M AKE A L OT O F S ENSE 1. A diet that humans evolved to utilize must be our ideal diet. 2. A diet that humans have thrived on for millions of years cannot be a ‘fad’.
Eating like a hunter-gatherer isn't complicated, it is actually rather easy once you understand how to do it and why it works! Unlike every other diet out there, eating a hunter-gatherer diet, or a 'Paleo' diet (named for the Paleolithic era of prehistoric human history) is not a 'fad', unless you would consider two million years and the entirety of human existence save for a few decimal points of a percentage to be a fad. Once you understand why and how it works, it makes sense. Besides, we all know many fat herbivores (hippopotamus or rhinoceros perhaps) but carnivores are always thin, right? As long as they are fed their native diet, the one they evolved to eat, yes they are!
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S ECTION 9 Eat This! First, let's look at the foods that you want to eat: Meat (any kind including beef, pork, and poultry; avoid processed meat and aim for high quality, grass-fed, pastured, free-range, organic, etc.) Seafood (any kind, fish, shellfish, etc.) T HIS I S W HAT A H UNTER -G ATHERER E ATS
Eggs
1. Hunter-gatherer foods focus on meat, eggs, and other animal products.
Green vegetables (salad vegetables and other non-starchy vegetables)
2. Plant-based foods include a wide variety of green vegetables, nuts, and fruit.
Nuts (tree nuts of any kind are great, as are seeds; peanuts are legumes and not recommended) Fruit in small quantities (berries have the lowest glycemic index and the highest nutrient density; many other modern fruits are bred for maximum fructose and should be eaten sparingly) 13
Also while dairy products as a category came along with agriculture, and milk has quite a bit of lactose in it (milk sugar; can raise blood sugar and furthermore most adults are lactose intolerant), a few dairy products such as butter and cream are mostly fat and therefore have a fairly low glycemic index. Many people have allergies or intolerances to proteins in dairy so if you have any autoimmune problems you should probably avoid dairy altogether. Some people however tolerate certain fermented dairy products reasonably well (products such as cheese and unsweetened plain yogurt have very little lactose left and the remaining protein and fat has a fairly low glycemic index and as long as you don’t have intolerances or allergies to dairy these might be ok).
So here are some specific examples of things to eat: Breakfast: omelet with meat, mushrooms, etc. Lunch: salad with meat (chicken Caesar, etc.) Dinner: meat and green vegetables (steak and asparagus, etc.) Snacks: nuts, celery with nut butter, beef jerky, raw veggies, hard-boiled eggs, sunflower seeds Dessert: small quantities of berries, maybe some very dark chocolate
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S ECTION 10 Don’t Eat That! Now for the foods you should avoid! Sugar (corn syrup, fructose, evaporated cane juice, whatever--all terrible!) Grains (wheat, rice, corn, oats, etc.--these should never be eaten!) C ARBS A RE M OSTLY B AD
Potatoes (and other starchy vegetables)
1. Cereal grains are incredibly unhealthy as they possess a much higher glycemic index than any food throughout human evolution.
Legumes (beans have a high glycemic load and are difficult to digest)
2. Sugar is probably the worst ‘food’ of all time. 3. Many foods that are generally considered to be ‘healthy’, such as fruit juices, have a very high glycemic index and should be avoided.
Large quantities of fruit or juice (modern fruit is usually engineered for maximum sweetness and eating much of this is unrealistic; our ancestors occasionally ate small fruits in small quantities) Milk (as mentioned previously, some butter and cream as long as you are not intolerant or allergic) 15
Beer (you could have a glass of wine on occasion perhaps but for the most part, alcohol is bad!) Specific examples of things you should NOT eat: Breakfast: cereal, toast, juice, muffins, bagels, pancakes, waffles--terrible! Lunch: sandwiches with bread, French fries, cookies, soda--disastrous! Dinner: potatoes, pasta, bread, pizza, processed foods--yikes! Snacks: any processed or refined food with a label--not fit to eat! Dessert: cakes, cookies, candy, pies, anything with sugar--pure evil!
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S ECTION 11 Don’t I Need To Exercise?
Y ES , P LEASE E XERCISE , I T I S E SSENTIAL ! 1. Exercise is crucial for physical and mental wellbeing. 2. Building muscle is more effective than cardio for weight loss (but do some of both). 3. Don’t waste time with low intensity cardio, the real gains occur with high intensity exertion for short intervals! Faster and more effective. 4. Don’t count reps with resistance training, just ‘max out’ (muscle failure) every time!
You absolutely need to exercise to be healthy! Also you want to exercise to feel good, both physically and mentally. However, don't forget that 90% of weight loss results are from diet changes, so if you are trying to lower your body fat percentage, diet needs to be your highest priority. Do you know how far an average person would have to walk to burn off just ONE pound of fat? THIRTY MILES! Yeah. Good luck with that. So like I said, diet has to come first! Once you have the diet mastered, yes please definitely exercise, you will be much healthier and you will feel better and you will lose even more weight. A few points about exercise. To maximize your time and your benefits, you should aim for the highest level of exertion you possibly can, however brief. For example, SPRINTING at a maximum pace for 4 minutes is superior in every exercise physiology parameter to jogging at a moderate pace for an entire hour, or walking 17
for an entire day. So please don't consider just plain walking to be adequate exercise, and please don't waste your time by jogging on the treadmill for an hour. Instead just spend five minutes doing something with a super high level of exertion, like jumping rope! Just five minutes of this will give you an incredibly intense workout, and save you a ton of time. Don't have a jump rope or not coordinated enough for jumping rope? Just pretend you're holding a jump rope (sort of a virtual jump rope) and go for it. Don't overlook resistance, or strength, or weight training, especially if you want to burn fat and lose weight! Because jumping rope for five minutes burns like 60 calories and that's it. On the other hand, if you gain muscle mass with strength training your metabolism speeds up. For example, if you gain one extra pound of muscle mass, you will burn an extra 300 calories every night,
just while sleeping! Now which sounds better, gaining muscle or doing cardio? When you are doing strength training, you again want to go for maximum exertion and maximum effort and especially muscle failure, this is where you really see results. What do I mean by this? For example, let's take pushups. Don't just do 20 push-ups or some arbitrary number. Don't even count how many you do. Instead, ALWAYS MAX OUT by doing as many push-ups as you possibly can. Then when you can't possibly do any more, do just three more! Then do just ONE more, as slowly as you can, ten seconds up and ten seconds down. After all of that, your muscles are burning and you're exhausted but right at that moment (maximum muscle failure) is where you actually get results!
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If you are already getting a lot of exercise, that’s great! But in reality, fifty percent of us never get any formal exercise on a regular basis. Here’s my advice to those with no exercise program. Skip the gym or any sort of complicated exercise regimen entirely, just spend 20 minutes or so in your living room two or three times a week doing some high-intensity cardio (jumping rope, etc.) for five minutes followed by fifteen minutes of body weight exercises. For example while you're watching TV in your living room you can do five minutes of virtual jump rope, then max out on sit-ups and push-ups and pull-ups (bar in doorway) and squats and back extensions and there you have it, easy, quick, sustainable, practically no equipment, and you're in great shape. Try it, it works!
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S ECTION 12 Great Resources: I owe all of this to the following experts, and with much gratitude I ask you to buy and read all of these books! Why We Get Fat And What To Do About It by Gary Taubes Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes A D EBT O F G RATITUDE
Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis
1. I owe most of what I know about nutrition to the persons I reference on this page (although even these authors built their work on others who go unmentioned here but to whom I am grateful).
Protein Power by Dr. and Dr. Eades
2. Sadly I cannot say that I learned much of value on the topic of nutrition either in medical school or in my medical residency, and unfortunately much of what I was taught was essentially dogma without scientific evidence.
The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf
The Art And Science Of Low Carbohydrate Living by Drs. Volek and Phinney
The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson Also I highly recommend watching the documentary film 'The Perfect Human Diet', produced by CJ Hunt, available on iTunes or at perfecthumandiet.us 20