There isn’t a whole lot?more that I wanted’to say about low-intensity exercise other than for some indivuals, particularly those very sensitive to stress, may fare better keeping intensity level very low. But I did want to get a few words in about lactic acid and growth hormone, as there is?a huge blind?infatuation?with growth hormone these days.
Growth hormone is far from being worthy of blind worship. Growth hormone is something that surges when the body is subjected to major stresses. Two of the most major stresses – fasting and high-intensity exercise at or near one’s maximum heart rate, stimulate the most dramatic increase in growth hormone. Anorexics, for example, have much higher levels of growth hormone, and are even thought to develop resistance to growth hormone similar to what happens in rats when carbohydrates are removed from the diet. Growth hormone interacts with other hormones, like IGF-1, and high levels of growth hormone with low levels of IGF-1 are hallmarks of type 2 diabetes.
So growth hormone isn’t necessarily good or bad. It depends, like most things, on context. I suspect that very large elevations in growth hormone induced by intense stress may not yield the effect many people think they will get from growth hormone. Most think of growth hormone as being synonymous with the fountain of youth. Phil Campbell, one of the leading researchers promoting high-intensity exercise and the Peak 8 or Sprint 8 program he developed, even states that growth hormone should be called “youth hormone.”? Through his growth hormone lens, he even recommends avoiding carbohydrates post-workout despite the giant wealth of?research unanimously pointing towards the superiority of big, high-glycemic index carbohydrate’supplementation before, during, and?immediately after exercise. Others avoid carbohydrates at night to get a bigger?nighttime growth hormone’secretion during sleep.
In fact, if you were only trying to maximize growth hormone without any other considerations, the best way to do that would be fasting, carb-restriction, keeping calories low, and?regularly performing maximum intensity exercise.?Great for short-term weight loss. Horrible for long-term health, metabolism, and future body composition.
Like just?about anything, there are multiple angles of investigating something. A myopic view on growth hormone without any regard for other growth factors needed for that equation to be successful, or regard for the possibility of developing growth hormone resistance and having the exact opposite intended result long-term, is a dangerous view. A great example of this in action is bone loss in anorexics with raised growth hormone levels – ironic considering growth hormone’s direct, active role in growing new bone.
As far as how lactic acid ties into this – lactic acid, presumed by Ray Peat and others to be a harmful byproduct in any context, increases in proportion to the cardiovascular intensity of exercise. More lactic acid – more growth hormone secretion. To keep lactic acid production low, heart rate shouldn’t exceed about 70% of one’s estimated maximum heart rate (220 – Your Age). And lots of low to moderate exercise is even thought to improve lactic acid clearance – probably a good thing. It might be a little quick to state that “cardio” is dead and that high intensity interval training, circuit training, and other forms of breathless exercise are unquestionably superior in every situation. That may certainly not be true for you, the individual.
Anyway, not trying to scare anyone away from hard exercise. Just trying to even the playing field between the modern high-intensity fad and the old, low-intensity fad. There are pros and cons to each approach, and most probably need a blend of both for health and well-rounded fitness and functionality.
As always,?keep an open mind and find what you like, what works, and what increases your metabolism, lowers stress, and enhances your life overall. These kinds of considerations don’t even seem to enter into scientific debate, which speaks volumes about the limitations of?a purely science-guided approach to living a long and prosperous life.
Lack of dietary carbohydrates induces hepatic growth hormone (GH) resistance in rats
The role of growth hormone in diabetes mellitus?
Importance of raised growth hormone levels in mediating the metabolic derangements of diabetes?
A good guideline to implementing high intensity weight training is simply “Am I getting stronger?” If the numbers go up (initially thanks to neural adaptations) it is a sign that you are not overtraining. Later on, a longer period is probably needed to properly evaluate, as the progress is slow. Being mentally and physically ready for a workout also tells you a lot, althouh one can easily force himself into thinking he is overtrained on 1x week training, becuse the guru said so. Little fatique is not overtraining, and sometimes my best trainings are on days I don’t feel best initially.
I personally started at twice a week frequency of short workouts, as I think it’s a bad idea to star 1x a week because it doesn’t form enough of a habit, and its hard to learn the fundamentals this way. You also don’t really tax your reserves very much as a starter. 3x a week on the other side is already a too much of a commitment for me, wit little to no additional benefit.
For low intensity activity, it depends on goals, but there aren’t that many dangers. I wouldn’t recommend more than 1 hour a day though if you also train with weights. And because of the goals that are not performance based, there is no need of tracking or making it complicated.
I’d say 3-6 30 minute walks a week are ideal. More could negatively affect hypetrophy if that’s a goal, less is usually not enough mentally.
Finally I believe mor people are underrecovered than overtrained and sleep and stress are major players here.
First!
Regarding high intensity exercise… when was the last time anyone saw a 90 year old taxed for breath, bordering on failure? Never. However an individual could likely exercise at low to moderate levels well into old age, up until death.
I choose to stick with exercises that don’t stress me out. Even the most resilient of us can not withstand stressors forever. I believe the best exercise is the kind of exercise one can do every day for the rest of one’s life, not something that needs even one day of recovery.
Great comment Gabriel.
You can withstand stressors, you are built for it. Sublethal stressors are healthy, depending on the context. Our biochemistry professor at medical school always said he prefers to sit on a balcony and drink whiskey to running, but that you need your dose of oxidative stress.
And if you ask HIT trainers, they all have their 85 year olds who still train with them, are strong, and try to seduce younger ladies at the gym:-) You don’t have to be on board with HIT, but safe weight training is no. 1 investment for your healthy aging. What’s the point of being “healthy” if you can’t get off your chair? Just walking won’t help, I am afraid…
“You can withstand stressors, you are built for it.
…you need your dose of oxidative stress”
I agree with you
Our ancestors certainly endured a lot of stress at times. Our bodies have been shaped by evolution to handle and even require a certain amount of stress. If our bodies were not supposed to experience stress, then we would not have “stress” hormones.
Running away from wild animals or walking for days on an empty stomach in search of food is, in my opinion, a lot more stressful than jogging for 15 minutes or doing a long weight training session every now and then.
Exercise can lower stress hormones. I know from experience because I used to have anxiety attacks which were effectively treated using exercise to burn up the excess stress hormones that are running through the body with nothing to do. And it did not take a lot of exercise. If I go a few days without moving around a lot–as does sometime happen in the winter when the weather outside is so bad that I can’t go for my brisk walks–adrenaline starts to build up, even when I consume a lot of carbs and salt. Trying to use food alone to treat stress will cause serious weight problems in many people.
If constant low stress is the best situation, then we should just stay in bed all day. Don’t expend energy to get up to go to the bathroom, or to eat or prepare food or drink water. Eventually, we will attain the lowest stress situation possible: death.
No doubt about it, stress is good for you to a degree. But there are so many sources of oxidative stress in our daily lives now, I feel that adding a high intensity workout to it can fry the circuits for many. It all depends, it really does.
I don’t think HIT is bad for you if you are in shape. I joined a soccer league about 2 months ago and when I started I was really badly out of shape and felt like I couldn’t move after games. Now I handle the stress just fine and I feel fantastic the next day. I think your body just takes longer to adapt as it gets older.
A lot of adults have spent most of their lives not sprinting because sprinting for HIT by itself really sucks, but when you have an adrenaline surge going as you’re trying to get back in time to defend it’s a lot easier because it’s fun, not working out. I’d love to see a study on the effects of adrenaline combined with HIT.
If you are walking I’m willing to bet that meant you could get off your chair.
Right on!
I’ve got a question for all you warm people. Since reading Matts books, over the last year I’ve gotten my AM temps up to the low 98’s, sometime as high 98’s post ovulation, but after I get out of bed my temps drop 2-3 points. When I feel warm and toasty, the highest I get is low 97’s but when I’m cold it can be as low as high 94’s. I use the same thermoter in the same way all the time. I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong. I refeed for a month this time last year then have eaten as Matt prescribes since. I also read Eat for Heat and Diet Recovery 2 and have tried to follow those as best as I can without stressing about it.
I still have a lot of low metabolism symptoms, dry skin on my legs, no sex drive( it’s actually gotten worse since refeeding) chilly feet mid morning, periods are few and far between, wakeing up between 3-4 am (not to pee anymore though!) and more I can’t think of…. I’ve gained about 20 lbs. and am still gaining 1-2 lbs a month, which is ok cause I was probably underweight, but makes me think my metabolism sill hasn’t recovered. Do I just need more time? I’m starting to get discouraged. My husband and I would like to start trying to get pregnant this summer but I really don’t want to use fertility drugs like we have in the past.
Let’s just say I RRARFED almost a full year ago, and I’m still ‘not quite where I want to be’. It depends on how long you’re in recovery. I was on the diet bandwagon for more than half of my life, beginning in my early teens. I can’t expect one year of treating my body nicely to just even out. It’s been so slow. I gained 45 lbs and eventually stopped there no matter what I eat to appetite. (I tried hopping on the 4 hour body diet bandwagon two months ago thinking I could readily lose the weight by this point, and the damn scale didn’t budge and now I hate beans).
The more you lose the diet mentality, the less you care. Most every day I wish my body were different, but at least the ‘positive’ thoughts are equal or sometimes more. Right now I am very grateful that I got a tiny hairline fracture in my elbow a week ago, and it’s nearly healed up. Could have been worse if I was starving. And it sucks not to be able to have full range of motion of my arm. Brushing my hair is hard! Be grateful. Worry is a stress. Easier said than done, but this takes constant work on my behalf to get out of my negative head. Also, I’ve gained 45 lbs, but haven’t lost friends, male interest, and I’ve only made gains in focus, clarity, and personality.
Also really try to pay attention to what foods/stressors (exercise included) cause your temps to go down. A 20 minute jog kicks my temp down to 96 degrees, when I usually hover around 98 to 98.4. I drink ginger tea with honey every morning (warming) and mostly eat warm and easily digestible foods. A cold orange (obviously) drags down my digestion not only for the meal, but delays me the rest of the day. I am still very sensitive. Vegetables? Forget it! For me, digestive enzymes, probiotics, and Vitamin D have helped immensely.
My theory is, if you’re still asking about your recovery process, then you’re not quite there. Time time time and rest and food and time. And gratitude. Best wishes to you.
ShanP,
After a youth of crappy food, and then ~6 years of crappier low-carb, it was a good, long while before my temps got high and remained high and stable. Even today, several years after first reading Matt’s stuff, I can crash easily if I do it wrong.
It’s good you have temps in the 98’s even some of the time. Keep at it. Recovery comes with time. As long as your temps are capable of being up there, you’re on the road to recovery. But I can’t really say how long the road will be.
Good luck with pregnancy. Your current health improvements can only help.
Thanks for the encouragement! I have mistreated my body (yo-yo dieting and starvation) since I was 12 so i guess it will just be a while to heal. For now I’ll just keep eating the food.
The fact that I feel so nasty after high-intensity exercise, but so good after something light (e.g. walking or swimming) is a good enough reason for me to stick with the low-intensity stuff for now. Also, high-intensity exercise gives me insomnia, whereas low-intensity exercise helps me sleep better. I guess it really does depend on the individual.
Yes, I think that’s one of the first things that had me questioning the high-intensity lore… high-intensity exercise worsens sleep for me and low-intensity exercise improves my sleep too.
Did you abandon high intensity exercise alltogether, or just adjusted the frequency?
Personally both forms of exercise improve sleep for me. I am one lucky bastard:-)
No. I just lifted weights earlier today. It’s impossible for me to do a high-quality set of something without seeing my heart rate go way up. I think it’s the mentality of always trying to push it to the limit every time you do something physically that’s draining for me. I do better with mostly easy stuff and some hard stuff every once in a while.
I agree that twice a week is very frequent for such training. I decided to guide myself by numbers and start at the highest possible frequency I can maintain. But overall I’d say once a week is ideal for most, it’s practical for busy people and you spend more time “above baseline” as Doug McGuff would say, which is ultimately a goal. To use that strength in life. When I train twice a week I feel like I just recovered in time for next training, tere are no days I am “above baseline”, but at the moment there is no time for other sports and activities anyway so i don’t care.
What are your thoughts on lactic acid produced as result of high intensity exercise vs lactic acid ingested with certain foods? From what I understand, Ray Peat says it’s all bad and should be avoided, but that limits several enjoyable foods, such as (unstrained) yogurt (sweetened, of course), sourdough bread, naturally fermented sauerkraut and pickles, etc.. Not that I think these should make up a significant portion of one’s diet (esp. fermented vegetables).
I think Ray Peat’s position on ingesting lactic acid is extreme. Don’t eat a gallon of yogurt every day, of course, but I don’t see what harm can come from eating reasonable amounts of the fermented foods that humans have been ingesting for thousands of years. The lactic acid produced from cancerous cells affects the body in a different way, I’m sure, and that is not good Cancerous cells constantly produce lactic acid which causes the body to become too acidic.
You may find this article interesting.
http://www.delano.k12.mn.us/high-school/academic-departments/science/mr-b-wiesner/cross-country/10-things-you-should-know-about-lactic-acid
You hit it on the head. A lot of Peat’s positions are extreme. It points out a major problem with dietism. That can be summed up as follows: If a lot of something is bad for you, so is a little of it. If a little of something is good for you, then a lot must be even better.
That’s what I’ve thought about Peat for a long time as well. Rarely can hormones, foods, substances – whatever, be filed into neat categories of heroes and villains.
The funny thing is, I don’t think Peat himself is as rigid with his own diet as his followers are with theirs. I have heard Peat mention eating muscle meat and bacon, both of which are not “allowed” on a Peat diet. He has even mentioned eating patties made from mosquito larvae.
And Peat drinks soda, which contain phosphoric acid, which can upset the calcium/phosphorous ratio in the body, which will then disturb the parathyroid gland, which will then pull calcium out of the bones and deposit it in the soft tissues, which will then cause hardening of the arteries, which will then require high does of vitamin K to pull the calcium out of the soft tissues and put it back in the bones.
But seriously, I credit Peat with helping me to get over my fear of sugar and milk. I have always loved milk, sweet fruit and cheese but vegan propaganda said milk was unhealthy, so I gave up dairy. And fructose made fruit evil, so I stopped eating sweet fruit. I think Peat is right that oranges and milk are good food and much better than most vegetables and nuts, but that does not mean a person should eat only milk and orange juice. Or become obsessive about ingesting no more than 5g of PUFA per day. Those people on the Peat forums are creating so much unnecessary stress in their bodies trying to follow a perfect Peat diet. They need to loosen up and eat a slice of bread.
Ann, where did you get the idea that Peat doesn’t allow meat in his diet? He does, but says that it must be balanced out with the rest of the amino acids by eating gelatin. Yes, he will occasionally eat bacon, but he does this weird thing where he cooks it to remove some of the fat, then recooks it in coconut oil (if my memory serves me here). Anyway, Peat has some good ideas. I think we all agree on that…But I don’t agree with you on one point. I started paying attention to him way before it became fashionable, had a few consultations with him, listened to all those interviews on KMUD, as well as those done with Josh Rubin…my conclusion is different than yours. He’s pretty much as fanatical as his followers.
“my conclusion is different than yours. He’s pretty much as fanatical as his followers.”
Peat advices to limit muscle meats and eat the most gelatinous cuts like oxtail and shanks. Only the non gelatinous cuts of meat need to be balanced with gelatin. In one interview with Josh Rubin, someone asked him what he had for dinner, and he said steak, ice cream and soda and he did not mention gelatin. So clearly he is not obsessed about balancing his meats with gelatin.
It is clear that Ray Peat has found a way of eating that works for him. He is not overweight and looks darned good for someone almost 77 years old. If it works for him and he seems “fanatical” about it, then there is nothing wrong with that. He had health problems from an early age and he is still around and in better shape than many people much younger than he. Fanatical is doing things in spite of the fact that they are NOT WORKING for you. The problem with many of his followers is that his way of eating is not working for them as well as it is for him, but they are afraid to adjust it.
I personally have never contacted Peat, but many of my problems were fixed from eating mostly dairy, orange juice, salt, sugar and less starch. I no longer have night sweats and hot flashes and I can now sleep through the night, whereas before, I used to wake up at least three times during the night. My extremities are no longer cold. In addition, my chronic acne and menstrual irregularity are also gone. And I did not have to force feed myself thousands of extra calories and become overweight in the process.
Now, if I stick with eating lots of dairy, sugar, salt and orange juice, would that be considered fanatical? Not to me, because it works for me. Why should I go back to eating lots of starch, for example, when my body does not tolerate large amounts of it? I definitely do well with lots of dairy and sweet fruit and orange juice is an easy way to ingest fruit, especially in the winter when there isn’t much fruit available and it is very expensive.
I have listened to his interviews and he does not seem fanatical to me. He offers information but that does not mean that he expects the person to be completely inflexible in applying it. Anyone who is willing to eat patties made from mosquito eggs is pretty flexible in my book. His advice has worked for me and I have learned to make adjustments that bring variety to my diet without undoing the benefits. If his advice had worked for you, would you still consider him fanatical?
Late comment here but RE lactic acid/fermented veggies: I once lived with Koreans and at the time I was obsessed with fermented foods and also trying to low-carb. One roommate saw me eating kimchi got from the jar and told me that if I didn eat kimchi with rice, it would ‘make my stomach sick’.
It seems plausible. If there are no starches in the gut for maybe fermented food attacks the tissues.
Yeah, but I love sourdough toast with butter. My Dad always gave me sourdough and a banana as a midnight snack when I was very little. Thats some of my earliest memories. It went down easy and didn’t bounce on me.
I don’t care who says what about plain yogurt, I freeze it and eat it and I hate it with sugar or fruit. I prefer this to ice cream and eat a lot every day, as I never get sick of it.
Anyone still on th potato hack or have results to share? I made it through two meals lol.
Tierney,
I think I may have lasted about as along as you did. Unfortunately, I started the potato hack using Tatertot’s suggestion of cooking a bunch of potatoes at once and then putting them in the refigerator to then eat cold the next day. I did quickly grow tired of eating cold potatoes with just salt on them. I think if I was to try it again, I would eat them hot or at least warm. The strange thing is after just one day of doing that hack, my body temps plummeted from a nice toasty 98.8 F down to 97.7 (at the high during the early evening) WTF!??
I was not inspired to try the Potato hack based on Tater-tots recommendations. However, he did inspire me to go and pig out on some Tater-tots.
I think I could not get enough calories with it. I was starving by dinner time, but even thinking about a potato made me want to barf. I cannot deal with hunger. I can never understand how some people can go on very low calorie diets and not go nuts from hunger. I end up binging the first day (in fact, after dinner on potato-day I ate almost a whole bag of Bugles…)
I think I am going to try a moderately calorie-restricted diet, maybe even WW. I am so unhappy at my current weight.
The best approach for intentional weight loss is probably just to do a standard bodybuilding diet. Unrefined carbs and protein at even intervals throughout the day with a slight deficit combined with regular exercise and a lot of patience.
That is pretty much what I am talking about. I just need to figure out what a “slight deficit” means for me.
I hate to chime in and talk about weight loss on here but I estimate losing about 15 lbs of fat in the last twelve months doing what Matt described above. My cals were between 2100-2500 on average I think. Moderate weight lifting 3 times a week and taking steps to stay stress free as possible. I am a 27 yr old dude though so don’t think this has much carryover. I was fat as eff after Refeeding but I wouldn’t trade that experience in for anything. I had a screwed up perspective before deciding to just let go and chill for a while. Doing a lot better now. Good luck
Don’t forget the weekly “refeed” in the equation. :-)
Yeah, I was going to say have a big feast whenever signs of metabolic rate falling surfaced.
Thanks guys. Very helpful.
In the middle of “The Obesity Myth” by Paul Campos – and even after 2.5 years of drinking Matt’s kool-aid, the ideas in this book are still quite the rabbit hole. I keep having to set it down for a minute to digest what I’ve read. Of course, it has pretty much nothing to do with low intensity exercise or lactic acid, but it does address why Matt is so reluctant to recommend “intentional dieting.” Namely, it does not work.
How has that worked for you in the past? Have you been a chronic dieter and has it worked for you? Are you forgetting that all the data available points to the fact that not only does dieting not work it makes the problem worse? Why don’t you find all the resources you can that can help you fix the real problem without dieting? I am reading Jon Gabriel’s book right now and the Step Diet. I read Sitting Kills Moving Heals recently as recommended by someone in the comments here. It was very interesting. I really think that the dramatic decrease in low to moderate day long activity might be a big factor as to why so many people are overweight. I bought a pedometer and am going to see where I am at my current activity level. Anyway, I hate to see you get desperate and impatient so that you grasp at short term harmful methods and forget the long term consequences. I have about 40 lbs probably I would rather be without myself but I have made up my mind that I am not going to do harm to myself anymore. You really ought to read the Gabriel book. He talks about how self loathing, hating your body and having the mentality that you are going to force it to lose when it wants to be fat will actually make your body fight you harder. The book deals with identifying the reasons why your body wants to be fat and eliminating them. When you diet you are trying to outsmart your body that has decided that for survival it needs to be fat by lowering metabolism, making you tired and sluggish, etc. and trying to force it to lose. It won’t work.
I’m talking about a deficit of maybe 200-300 calories/day, nothing extreme. I really doubt that is harmful. Everyone I know who has done WW has lost weight. I am super lazy about counting anything though.
Right now I think I eat too much because a) my husband cooks a lot of stuff I wouldn’t normally eat, and way too heavy on the meat for me, and b) I am compelled to finish my kids’ plates because I am neurotic about wasting food.
It looks like Gabriel has an emphasis on gluten-free? I am definitely not going there again.
The potato diet was stupid, I will agree on that. I am ashamed that I even tried it.
Ha, Tierney. You just described me. I cannot cope cope with hunger, I hate counting anything, and I finish my kids’ plates supposedly because I don’ t want to waste food. Maybe we should think of it as “waisting” food instead and maybe we would be less hesitant to scrape the tidbits into the garbage or compost.
I did have some success with GoKaleo’ s Calorie Primer and calculators to try figure out how many calories I generally eat, and how many I need to maintain what I think is my ideal weight. I only counted closely for two days and got a pretty good picture. CalorieCount.com made it fun.
I too used to be this way “I am compelled to finish my kids? plates because I am neurotic about wasting food” and this is a hard one to break but since you know you’ll be doing this, try serving yourself less and what you eat off their plates will balance as your serving.
Sarah and Carla- glad I’m not the only one finishing my kids’ plates. It’s a problem because neither of them eat much. Sometimes what’s left adds up to a second adult portion. The ridiculous thing is that I have chickens that will eat anything and turn it into eggs! And I have a compost bin for anything after that!
Thanks, I will try GoKaleo’s calorie calculator!
Their bodies adapt and stop making hunger pangs. Mine does, which is part of why I struggle with the ‘only eat when hungry’ idea. My body does not make me feel hungry enough to eat even 1200 calories, not that I can’t eat, but if I stop sooner than ‘rip roaring’ hungry, I might only eat 900 and then my body temp tanks and all of those lousy symptoms show up.
For me a low intensity workout of strength, stretching, breathing, movement and flow makes my body happy, stronger, toner and more energized. Not to mention a great posture, a major decrease in mental and emotional stress, and an increase in self-appreciation, self-acceptance, self-love and self-confidence. My go to 3 x a week is a 90 min Level 3 Yoga class. I get to be toned, healthy but still look like a voluptuous woman – which I dig. I am not into this ‘he-woman culture’ we have going on right now! It use to be the women with curves were highly thought of as sexy – the Marilyn Monroe generation. Growing up it morphed into the anorexic heroin run-way model look (yuck) and now it seems woman are trying to look more like men.
Which I think women can definitely rock it with the best of men in business and beyond : ) but I still prefer to look like and feel like a woman while doing it!
Great post. Thanks Matt!
Bella- I do really well with yoga also. I think that males still find curves attractive, providing they are straight and like women. The feminist movement became a little confused when instead of elevating the lives, bodies, and activities of women to equal that of men, we became convinced that what we did was second class, not just the idea of what we did. The body image became mixed up with that. I remember those big shoulder pads designed to ‘balance the hips’. Balance the hips??? Why? They are hips. Meant to carry babies. If they were balanced they would not be hips, they would be a skinny dude butt.
Yoga makes strong, attractive female bodies better than just about anything. Guys need some additional barbell work, IMO (well, I do anyways) but I always get a lot of benefit from yoga.
In 2010-2011 I was putting in about 250 miles a week doing high intensity cycling – lots of climbing and climbing intervals (I live in San Francisco/Marin), and while I had pretty legs, I had *terrible* insomnia and brain fog. Never occurred to me at the time that what I was doing was stressful, oddly enough, or even – obviously – bad for me. After all, in this part of the country, everyone is practically “training” for something: triathlons, marathons, half-marathons, whatever.
I had a really gnarly bike accident on the Golden Gate bridge one day in June 2011, and that put an end to my bike training, and I got into yoga instead. Insomnia went away pretty quickly and only returns if I do really high intensity weight training or am under serious stress/lack of sleep.
Some people with strong constitutions seem to be able to deal with the stress of training, low carb, etc, better than many of us less well-endowed (constitutionally, that is) more sensitive folks. A lot of these people will just be ripped, full of energy and then suddenly drop dead from a heart attack at 46 or 55 or something.
One of my venerable Chinese pulse teachers used to always warn me about training to hard, doing too much exercise and stressing my body. He had a very very dim view of low pulse rates that endurance athletes get so excited about. He said that they become addicted to exercise because they are so weak that it becomes the only way they can get their blood volume up and their circulation going, so it becomes like a drug, essentially. They feel like shit if they are not doing some form of training. He used to say more esoteric things like “the Qi should move the blood, not artificially through exercise” and he did Tai Chi and more esoteric practices and was amazingly strong, could do the splits at 80, and had a very clear mind until he passed.
Anyhow, I think another aspect of exercise is how much it is motivated by VANITY, in other words, needing to have a somewhat “hot” body (in terms of our current cultural obsession around what that is) instead of having a “hot” body in terms of metabolism and what is healthy…..
Sean, I love what your teacher had to say. I think he is right on. Exercise extremists are always talking about how shitty they feel if they skip a workout, which isn’t normal. But since we have this idea that exercise=good, when people say that, those of us who feel just fine without our workout admonish ourselves for being so lazy.
I quit smoking a few years ago, and I actually lost weight. I did this by sprinting hard every time I wanted a cigarette, or if I was at work, I’d run into a back room and do a million pushups or deltoid press some heavy cans in the pantry. I was just switching out one drug for another, and looking back that was when my body first started showing signs of degrading into an adrenal fatigue type situation.
Sean C –
Oh wow. Your last paragraph is SO right on! (Also find what your Chinese teacher had to say quite interesting.)
Well all want to look our best, and there is nothing wrong with that. However, if the primary motivator for moving one’s patootie is to mold your body into some media-hyped-photoshopped-etc image – then something is going to suffer somewhere down the line. Women’s health suffers in particular I believe, because we were not designed to be ripped & rock hard, even the mesomorph body types (which I am) with near single digit body fat levels. Unfortunately that is the “new skinny” that is being hyped – Twiggy from the 70s with muscles & a boob job.
I think low intensity is probably where it’s at for me. It kind of sucks though, because why I used to love exercising was for that totally fried, wired, feeling. I’d never eat carbs (or anything, for that matter) after exercise because there was no desire for it. Adrenaline, baby. Yep, I’m an extremist by nature, but the systems aren’t taking to it anymore. Maybe I’ll dig up that Jane Fonda low impact aerobics VHS I got when I was 7.
I’ve been known to dabble in the old school VHS workouts. Ever try Richard Simmons’ Sweatin to the oldies? ….Man, that was fun. I would do it when I was 16.
Anyone here ever hear of T-tapp? I’m too weak with my CFS to do anything more than walking, but when I was less sick this was great. It’s amazing. It’s lymphatic pumping, no stress movement.
I have heard of T-tapp but had a hard time learning all the move. I have the book and a DVD or two around here somewhere. I will take a look. Leslie Sansone is good too–Walk away the pounds or something.
Just adding an extremely late reply (perhaps for the benefit of anything searching through this archive and/or searching for T-Tapp). I discovered t-tapp about 7 years ago and have a weird love/hate relationship with it :D I LOVE how it makes me feel (I find it very anti-fatigue, plus it is energizing but not stressing). The hate part is hard to explain, the system has a kind of difficulty factor to do with concentration, you have to focus a lot on form and on isometric tension (if that is the right term) this seems to be part of it’s magic, but also part of it’s dread factor. Other workouts feel easier mentally (you can just run on autopilot), but more stressful physically if that makes any sense. It doesn’t help that the DVD production values are pretty crappy and there is no interesting music or scenery, just Teresa Tapp in her living room with a weird eagle on the wall behind her :D I’m going through a t-tapp phase again now and remembering why I always come back to it, I see quite rapid inch loss (mostly around the waist) plus improvements in posture, mood, sleep and energy levels in a way that I just don’t seem to get with other exercise (though Bar Method and Essentrics come close). A weird thing I’ve noticed about exercise, I used to be a dancer training 4 hours or so a day and then burned out in my early twenties, since then exercise seems to stress my body quite dramatically and I struggle to do more than 30 minutes at a time (I always figured that one day I’d get over that, but I’m 37 so I guess not :D), I also get severe water retention after some types of exercise. T-tapp on the other hand seems to actually reduce water retention so that is another bonus for me.
I’m looking at trying some low-intensity exercise in the near future. Three reasons-
1. I’ve been doing compound-movement weightlifting – dead lifts, squats, bench press, etc. But I only really feel like doing that 1/week. More than 1/week wears me down. And I need something to do the other days.
2. I’ve noticed I have zero endurance. I can squat 275 lbs., but running up the stairs too quickly can leave me winded. That can’t be healthy.
3. I still haven’t lost even 1 lb. on RRARF/Eat for Heat. I’m at my strongest and healthiest ever right now, but also my heaviest. I’m up 30 lbs. from when I first found this website, and I don’t want to buy even bigger pants. Maybe this is what I need to finally kick that natural, slow weight-loss I keep hearing about into gear.
I’m 40. I’ve been working out consistently for 20 years. I spent all day yesterday going through my food and exercise journals that I’ve kept for since (yes, quite an obsession, eh?). Turns out, the only times I’ve been able to lose weight, and keep it off, were when I was consuming sugared cereal with milk for breakfast and lunch, cheeses and crackers for snacks, a light dinner (with a light dessert) and then a snack before bed. Not too much of anything, but enough of everything. I noticed a distinct weight gain whenever anything was out of proportion, including exercising too much/too high intensity. I lost 80 pounds by just working out for an hour, with minimal weights, every day. When I did more than that, or at a higher intensity, weight came back right where I had lost it (upper body, middle; endomorph). And I’ve been trying to get to that 80 pound loss for 20 years!!
I’m slowly getting back to exercise now after coming down with pneumonia (that certainly stopped all that high intensity madness, didn’t it?). It’s tough to not get my heart rate up too much, but I think this is where I need to be. I also used to weight train nearly every other day, but I realized, I just don’t even like it. I like the feeling during, but I often felt just drained. :(
Just wanted to add that I worked out today to a kickboxing DVD — I didn’t do any jumping and didn’t get my heart rate above 155 (I’m trying to stay in the 145 range, which I was in for 50 of the 60 mins of the DVD). I burned 420 calories. The last time I did that DVD was a month ago; I did all of the plyo and intervals, getting my heart rate up in the 180s. I only burned 400 calories that day, and was only in the heart rate range for 20 of the 60 mins.
I would have never thought that just breezing through it easily could have burned more calories than going at such a high intensity. Crazy.
It’s interesting to see these responses and I will look forward to seeing more.
I’m at a place where I’ve gotten my temps normalized, and feel my metabolism is in good shape. RRARF/EFH/DR2 and minimal exercise got me there just fine. I hit my highest weight ever (175) but am slowly creeping down with simply eating about 200-300 calories below my TDEE, mostly great food, but nothing obsessive and I still have ice cream, pizza and waffles in my life. I’ve been walking a hour a day. that’s it. I love walking, and this series has helped put my mind at ease (every time I tried some kind of HIT or heavy lifting I’d back track, and my intuition just kept saying fuck that shit, just walk) My goal is about 1lb. fat loss a month. So far that’s been a totally sustainable and easy process. I don’t even notice, I feel very satiated after meals. Looking through records from years past I see a pattern where I was losing at about this rate, then I’d get frustrated and think I wasn’t losing (or losing fast enough), try some dumb diet (raw, paleo, etc) and just rebound. Geez. seems so simple now, but my brain was in crazy- land.
Great testimonial. This is exactly the kind of approach that seems like it would work for me. I love walking, just need to make it a habit, and make the time for it. And cutting just a few hundred calories seems entirely doable. Thanks.
does anyone have any thoughts on colostrum and the growth factors ect in it?
Just chiming in with some general 180 input. I recently JUST figured out the true meaning of one of Matt’s lines regarding sexual tension in gyms. I used to go to the gym tons during my under-eating, over-exercising days and have never experienced what I have last week. Back to the gym after a year of recovery – it took one male and one grunt to make me understand exactly what that mean. Oh god. Haha! On another note, ive already lost 20 of the 40 lbs I gained RRARFing, all without consciously trying. I always had my weight at the back of my head, but ta mostly the love of sport that pushed me to occasionally exercise. Hopefully the other 20 will follow. I started off doing more high intensity, but I have to agree, I feel sooo much happier after an enjoyable 30 min swim at the pool than 3 sprints on the bike.
I would like to know what it takes to sleep through the night. I don’t know if I have ever slept straight thru the night! Eating the warming foods, putting salt in everything just makes me thirsty. Overdoing it maybe? The salt, I mean. It’s about 2 months now and the foods that brought me up to 98 temps are not doing it now. Sometimes I feel like I’m too broken to fix.
I love to be outside when it is sunny and warm and take walks. Walking is my favorite exercise but I only do it when I really feel like it and don’t push it since I am trying to take it easy right now. I am pretty sure it was that stupid lowfat low cholesterol diet my dr put me on that messed me up 4-5 yrs ago. Then I went straight to WAPF and now back to junk food. One of my problems is I am impatient. I want results now! My DH keeps telling don’t give up. I won’t give up because I don’t know what else to do. It is nice to have this place for support. I keep going back to that post on sugar. I was cutting way back on sugar when I was on WAPF and what did I get? 4 cavities! I didn’t go back to the dentist to fill them. Don’t have $550 and don’t want drilling. Trying to heal them myself. Pretty sure I don’t know what I’m doing. I have to agree with Matt: the more I read the more I don’t know, or something like that. Sorry if this is too long or off subject. For me everything revolves around my low temps.
Million dollar question. I don’t know. Ray Peat will tell you to drink gelatin, or milk and have some salt and something sweet right before bed. You can even try eating something salty and sweet when you wake up in the middle of the night. All I can say is that it hasn’t worked for me, but, who knows, it might work for you. It may be that if you can just learn to chill out in a big way then over time, the stress will subside and you will eventually sleep better. The problem is that work gets in the way and so does taking care of children in my case. Hard to get rid of the stressors in that situation.
I think raw milk will help your teeth. I used to have crappy teeth but not a single cavity after starting raw milk.
Like I have mentioned before, casein powder is doing wonders for my nails and hair. (or the combo of whey/casein, I haven’t tried casein alone.) Gelatin never did anything like this. Maybe it would help with teeth and bone too. It seems to be powerful stuff!
I’ve never had a cavity in my life, but then last year I started to develop three at once. They really hurt, so I started using tooth powder instead of paste (all pastes have glycerin in them which coats the teeth, making the saliva unable to get in there and remineralize your enamel), put clove oil on them for a few nights and increased my mineral supplementation. By the time I got to the dentist, the pain was history and I apparently had no cavities after all. It’s worth a try.
Julia, what kind of tooth powder do you use? Do you just make your own?
Does anyone else here use GymBox? I get it on the Roku. It has all sorts of exercises at different levels, for about $10/month.
Hi peeps,
I’ve recently stumbled upon the topic of breathing through the nose. It’s so interesting I want to share with you some of what I found. I think it fits the blog post somewhat. I’ve the past few nights tried out taping my mouth so that I breathe through the noes the entire night. It feels different. The first thing I noticed is that my mouth isn’t dry when I wake up in the morning.
Here are some writings that you might enjoy:
George Catlins book from 1870 “Shut your mouth and save your life”:
Catlin traveled around and interviewed more than 150 Indian tribes in North, Central and South America, in total over two million people. The tribes who were not influenced by western lifestyle had basically no infant mortality, birth defects, or any children who died from diseases. Statistics for the United States during this period showed that of the Europeans settlers about every four children died at birth. Even in cities like London and Stockholm the infant mortality rate was equally high. Catlin said that breathing was the crucial difference between natural populations healthy and wholesome inhabitants compared to those with poorer health who embraced Western-style living. “Indians” was breathing through the nose and the “white” breathed largely through the mouth. From: http://medvetenandning.se/blog/lar-ditt-barn-andas-bra/
http://medvetenandning.se/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/shut-your-mouth-and-save-your-life-george-catlin.pdf
?When Crying it Out Doesn’t Work? by Dr Mary Kathleen Fay:
http://kidsleepdotinfo.synthasite.com/
In Swedish: training with mouth taped:
http://medvetenandning.se/blog/tejpad-for-halsan/
I’ve ordered their book and the relaxor, a small plastic gadget to train slow, strong, relaxed breathing. I’ll get some more tape to continue this mouthwatering experiment. This type: http://www.shopping4net.se/Common/PCCs/Products/Grpx/A4Net/Img-ASK00-CE-1_1.jpg
:)
edited/
Hi peeps,
I’ve recently stumbled upon the topic of breathing through the nose. It’s so interesting I want to share with you some of what I found. I think it fits the blog post somewhat. I’ve the past few nights tried out taping my mouth so that I breathe through the noes the entire night. It feels different. The first thing I noticed is that my mouth isn’t dry when I wake up in the morning.
Here are some writings that you might enjoy:
George Catlins book from 1870 ?Shut your mouth and save your life?:
http://medvetenandning.se/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/shut-your-mouth-and-save-your-life-george-catlin.pdf
“Catlin traveled around and interviewed more than 150 Indian tribes in North, Central and South America, in total over two million people. The tribes who were not influenced by western lifestyle had basically no infant mortality, birth defects, or any children who died from diseases. Statistics for the United States during this period showed that of the Europeans settlers about every four children died at birth. Even in cities like London and Stockholm the infant mortality rate was equally high. Catlin said that breathing was the crucial difference between natural populations healthy and wholesome inhabitants compared to those with poorer health who embraced Western-style living. ?Indians? was breathing through the nose and the ?white? breathed largely through the mouth.”
From: http://medvetenandning.se/blog/lar-ditt-barn-andas-bra/
?When Crying it Out Doesn’t Work? by Dr Mary Kathleen Fay:
http://kidsleepdotinfo.synthasite.com/
In Swedish: training with mouth taped:
http://medvetenandning.se/blog/tejpad-for-halsan/
I’ve ordered their book and the relaxor, a small plastic gadget to train slow, strong, relaxed breathing. I’ll get some more tape to continue this mouthwatering experiment.
This type: http://www.shopping4net.se/Common/PCCs/Products/Grpx/A4Net/Img-ASK00-CE-1_1.jpg
:)
re-edited/
Hi peeps,
I’ve recently stumbled upon the topic of breathing through the nose. It’s so interesting I want to share with you some of what I found. I think it fits the blog post somewhat. I’ve the past few nights tried out taping my mouth so that I breathe through the noes the entire night. It feels different. The first thing I noticed is that my mouth isn’t dry when I wake up in the morning.
Dry mouth – more prone to dental cavities, right?
Here are some writings that you might enjoy:
George Catlins book from 1870 ?Shut your mouth and save your life?:
http://medvetenandning.se/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/shut-your-mouth-and-save-your-life-george-catlin.pdf
?Catlin traveled around and interviewed more than 150 Indian tribes in North, Central and South America, in total over two million people. The tribes who were not influenced by western lifestyle had basically no infant mortality, birth defects, or any children who died from diseases. Statistics for the United States during this period showed that of the Europeans settlers about every four children died at birth. Even in cities like London and Stockholm the infant mortality rate was equally high. Catlin said that breathing was the crucial difference between natural populations healthy and wholesome inhabitants compared to those with poorer health who embraced Western-style living. ?Indians? was breathing through the nose and the ?white? breathed largely through the mouth.
From: http://medvetenandning.se/blog/lar-ditt-barn-andas-bra/
?When Crying it Out Doesn’t Work? by Dr Mary Kathleen Fay:
http://kidsleepdotinfo.synthasite.com/
In Swedish: training with mouth taped:
http://medvetenandning.se/blog/tejpad-for-halsan/
I’ve ordered their book and the relaxor, a small plastic gadget to train slow, strong, relaxed breathing. This: http://medvetenandning.se/produkt/relaxator/
I’ll get some more tape to continue this mouthwatering experiment. This type of tape: http://www.shopping4net.se/Common/PCCs/Products/Grpx/A4Net/Img-ASK00-CE-1_1.jpg
:)
A lot of this may be metabolically-determined, as the exchange ratio between oxygen and carbon dioxide is very much a factor of metabolic rate. In other words, there may a be much deeper physiological reason healthy natives were breathing through the nose and not the mouth.
That’s cool. I just biked to town and back, mouth taped. I thought I would have to bike slowly, but I was never out of breath. Faster biking than usual, too.
John Douillard talks about this kind of thing quite a bit. His work might be interesting to you.
cool, I’ll check him out!
Hi Matt,
I have always been a mouth breather probably due to very narrow nasal passages at birth. I noticed that since upping my CO2 intake (adding Baking Soda to OJ, drinking carbonated water etc), breathing thru my nose has been easier but I cannot do it for lonag periods of time because I always end up yawning constantly. When I do High Intensity workouts I always end up yawning big time (people in the Gym would say I sound like Chewbaka from Star Wars). Is there any Physiological reason why breathing thru my nose or doing intense excercise would make me have a yawning fit?
I’ve learned to breathe through my nose this year after a lifetime of chronic mouth breathing. I read quite a bit of Buteyko stuff and may still pursue that more intentionally, but I find that it is easier and less stressful to just learn to breathe through my nose while not thinking about depth and frequency too much. I can start on the buteyko experiment later. I feel like my palate is narrow and at first I thought it would not be possible to breathe through my nose all the time, but I think I now sleep through the night almost all the time with my mouth closed. I’ve also noticed that at times it is difficult to breathe easily and my breathing is deep, while at other times, when I’m approaching a sense of well being and physical harmony (definitely not the norm for me) my breathing is naturally shallow and easy. I also stumbled upon Catlin’s book after reading Price and figured that he maybe got it wrong as price would have said that it was primarily a nutritional problem manifesting in physical changes that led to mouth breathing. Two different perspectives of the same phenomenon. Buteyko would probably say that the problem is primarily with breathing and the Buteykoites seem to think that since breathing improperly is found in many disease states, that breathing properly will fix them all. Same old lens of perception on all sides. Perhaps they are all correct to some degree, and regardless, it seems fine to approach it from all sides. For now, I have narrow palate from whatever, probably a combination of malnutrition and mouth breathing, and feel that learning nose breathing has been really good for me, though not in many ways that I can really pin down. I’ve also noticed something else. I feel like there is not really enough room in the roof of my mouth for my tongue. It used to mostly hang down between my teeth, now it usually hangs down too low (according to some doctrines anyway) but I try to be somewhat conscious of it and often have it more in the roof of my mouth. The claim is that if the tongue is positioned properly, that alone can widen the palate by its constant pressure. Since starting to Nose breath, less than a year ago, the gaps between my teeth, which have always been very tight, are much looser. Some are still pretty tight, but others are very loose and floss just slips right in there.
Thanks Steven e. Have you tried taping your mouth at night?
When you say your tounge hangs down too low, is that backwards/downwards or forwards/outwards, from your mouth? Let’s compare notes in another year or two, continue on.
Suzy: I haven’t had to tape my mouth. I’m sure I would have tried it but for facial hair. I figured that would suck in the morning. I just learned by being conscious of it. My tongue has tended to be forward and outward. If I place it all the way in the roof of my mouth it just feels too crowded and awkward, certainly not effortless or natural like I figure it should be. Therefore, it is generally touching my teeth more than not.
The buteyko nose clearing exercises have been helpful. The idea is to exhale, stop breathing and hold your breath while doing some sort of work that causes the production of more CO2. I can’t remember the rationale, but for some reason it allows the nasal passages to moisten and dialate. If my nose is slightly plugged I’ll exhale gently, hold it and either walk fast, jump up and down or bob my head. If I’m in bed, sometimes I’ll just tense all my muscles. following that you just breathe through the nose and into the lower lungs as shallowly as you can manage. I can also sometime unblock by just using the shallow breathing, but it is somewhat uncomfortable and can take a while before breathing becomes easy and free. maybe you already know all or some of that, but I’ve found it very helpful this winter. I couldn’t maintain nasal breathing through the one cold I had this year, but otherwise, I do pretty good just by conscious persistence. I feel better breathing through my nose and less dumber!
I was drawn to Matt’s line of thought having been diagnosed with diabetes in 2007. I’m 140lbs, have always been physically active, always ate well (but never faddishly) and there is no family history of diabetes – anywhere. I am 52.
So the first thing I did was start reading up and one of my first stops was Doc Mercola and the diet+exercise cure. So I went at it. That sort of worked for about a year. After that my sugars started going haywire, very often without having eaten any carbs. I started suffering from insomnia, sugar levels higher when I got up in the morning than when I went to bed at night. Meanwhile I was starting to look like the living dead. I was always thin, but boy, now my clothes were starting to hang off of me. Unfortunately, instead of questioning the merits of the low-carb/exercise orthodoxy, I decided that I wasn’t going at it hard enough and upped the pressure: HIIT, Peak 8, circuit training, the works. Because I was always very fit, slim and agile, I could do it without damaging tendons etc. But my condition got worse and worse.
I really think Matt is onto something. There’s a lot more to diabetes than either obesity or genetics. And what is being recommended as the cure may well turn out to be part of the problem. What a radical and profound thought, that strenous exercise may not be very good for you!
Mark, you’ve really been around 360 degrees and back, haven’t you? I got a bit tired just pondering what you’ve experienced over the last years.
Funny, I was just watching a Bo Jackson documentary last night and one of the guys said he barely worked out. HUH? He ran a 4.12 40yd dash in the NFL combine. For those who don’t know a4.12 is flat out insane for anyone to run, let alone someone 220 lbs. Mind you he did this over 2 decades ago. A time when the average player was not as fast they are today. This isn’t a steroid guy either. He was just as dominant through high school and college. He spent a lot of his off time shooting arrows, apparently more so than actually working out. It was really weird to hear someone I idolized so greatly as an athlete hardly worked out. Usain Bolt seems to be within the same realm of ability. I’m 29, played a little college football, had great potential, and workedout all the time. However, it’s amazing how many athletes I know that hardly did much off field training and seemed to be the better athletes. In visa versa, I know several that could rip the gym apart but were average at best on the field. So, crazy. Now I find out a sheer walking, talking LEGEND like Bo Jackson “hardly worked out.” My mind is blown.
James, I would be wary of anything you hear come out of pro sports. These guys lie like there’s no tomorrow.
Bo was no way natural. No pro athlete for the past 30 years or so has been natural in my opinion. There is too much money, too much competition and pressure to perform. If anyone uses, they all use.
To be sure, Bo had great athletic gifts but he had “help” like they all do.
Hershel walker is supposed to be natural too and only does pushups? He’s a ripped 220 at 50 years olds with traps like a gorilla…..yeah right.
And that CT Fletcher guy…natural my ass!!!!
You are correct though that the best lifters in the weight room are usually not the best players on the field.
Beyond a certain point strength does little for your game. If you can’t play…you can’t play.
Any insights on what a person with acromegaly (elevated growth hormone from pituitary adenoma) should do in terms of nutrition/exercise that might differ from advice for the general population? My growth hormone levels are regulated with medication but I feel I still have some symptoms. I wonder if this indicates a need for low-impact exercise, along with other dietary things?