Ray Peat doesn’t seem to be very fond of exercise. This is one area where he has opened up a huge gaping hole in the armor of his interpretation of science, hormones, and so forth. In fact, his brush off of exercise as being something that raises cortisol, growth hormone, and lactic acid and is therefore bad gives me reservations and hesitations about pretty much all of his work. To file exercise into a strict category of ?bad? shows his lack of experience with it, and his strong bias towards intellect and away from physical accomplishment.
But the fact of the matter is, exercise can be a very powerful tool for health enhancement. During aging, the remarkable ability of exercise to restore youthful, anabolic hormones (you know, the ones that combat the catabolic hormones Ray is at war with) and delay the loss of functionality and mobility is unparalleled. Exercise gives the body powerful incentive to undergo adaptation, forcing the regeneration of new tissue, denser bone, and greater agility and strength.
It’s these adaptations that Peat seems to ignore. He notes only the short-term effects of exercise, which stimulates the stress response in the human body, generates lots of the villainous lactic acid, and, if looked at through this narrow lens, just seems to do a lot of damage. But this ignores the reparative mechanisms, and the adaptations that occur. It ignores the lowering of baseline cortisol even though exercise itself causes acute surges in cortisol. It ignores the body’s increased proficiency at disposing of lactic acid.
Peat ignores, while poking fun at ?breathless exercise? as if it were a pursuit of the dimwit, how lung capacity expands in response to high-intensity exercise, and greatly enhances the lung’s ability to deliver precious oxygen to the cells (something he has pinpointed in his other conclusions as being one of the hallmarks of healthy aging). This becomes more and more important as we age ? and lung volume could very well be considered a great yardstick for a person’s rate of aging ? with ?breathless exercise? being the best known way to expand lung volume.
While I have no blind infatuation with exercise ? and have experienced many tolls being taken on my own body from various exercise pursuits, numerous investigations all reveal that the human body has a physical need for movement. Without physical challenge, it atrophies and health suffers in numerous ways. While there are plenty of overexercisers out there in need of increased rest (hence my own advice to avoid exercise on a temporary basis in order to raise your metabolism), there’s no doubt that it’s more common in Western populations to suffer from lack of exercise and poor exercise programs (either all cardio/endurance, or all weightlifting in narrow ranges of motion with too much weight) ? not excesses of exercise.
A truly great scientist would recognize the positives and negatives of various types of physical movement and exercise and recognize when and how to use it and for whom ? or at least acknowledge that there are both benefits and drawbacks and maintain a balanced perspective about the issue in general. Peat is clearly nowhere near grasping this possibility. Because of this, he is missing what for many could be a very valuable tool for health enhancement, health preservation, quality of life, and life extension.
But I still tip my hat to him for balancing out the sick mainstream adoration with the ?no pain, no gain? approach to health. It is a strange disease, often combined with wacky diet ideas, diet food, and protein shakes that spell disaster for “jillians” of’soon-to-be screwed people. Clearly someone had to step in and say something.
But come on Ray, let me hear your body talk…
Yeah its a big chunk in his armor that he dismisses exercise in the manner he does, but as we must do with everyone, we have to sift the wheat from the chaff, and simply appreciate people like Ray for what they do best.
Stop The Insanity I wrote in a recent blog post, but don't go to the opposite extreme either.
My body temperature is still very low, but I feel better overall when I exercise. I practice martial arts and boxing (by myself these days) and really enjoy those a lot for the skill development. One more point for ENJOYING whatever exercise it is you're doing.
Good one here. Intellectualizing everything can definitely go to the extent of ignoring common sense/bodily intuition. Bodily intuition being what I would've wanted Olivia Newton-John to use on me if I was one of the guys in that video. Or maybe if I was the one singing the song and it was a bunch of women in bikinis working out…that's a good idea. Now all I need is my flame-pattern Speedo and my star-shaped glitter sunglasses.
I was just practicing some karate. It's the endorphins speaking — trust me.
I guess maybe the utility of Peat's stance is that it/he shows that one can be healthy and well without _having_ to do masses of exercise. On the other hand, I know that inability to exercise correlates pretty exactly with being sick, for me at least.
One of the biggest signs that I'm feeling so much better these days (since quitting carbophobia) is not only steadily improving exercise tolerance but that I'm actually enjoying some kinds of exercise. I haven't generally been a lover of exercise in my life, so it sure feels good to come back to the place where moderate amounts feel like fun rather than torture. And like jib, I feel better when I do it too: Peat must have an explanation for that?
Michael:
Just skimmed your article. Good stuff — thanks for sharing that :D
The part about enjoyment and socializing in relation to exercise reminds me: the best exercise I ever got was always social. As a kid, my neighbor and I would rough house/beat the shit out of each other. I remember throwing each other around and we got so worked up we were scrapping with each other with no shirts on in the middle of January (New England January) — I remember going home with a completely torn up T-shirt one day.
I think I ripped it myself so I would look cool. But that's beside the point.
Running around the woods, racing, hide and seek, rough housing/sparring/wrestling…
Just a week or so ago I was playing with my friend's dog. It was just overflowing with energy and it got me motivated too — and I was tumbling around and chasing it back and forth and just going crazy with it. It was awesome. Just wanted to share. I do think the social thing is huge.
I was going to incorporate that idea Jib, but it didn't quite make it in. How you perceive your task makes a huge difference when it comes to the hormonal response – something that Hans Selye loved talking about.
Ela-
I think exercise enjoyment and tolerance (and recovery) could probably be a great guide for finding the right diet. If Peat weren't such a fataholic I think he would notice vast improvements in lactic acid clearance, exercise recovery, and performance without negative consequence. I certainly do.
Dang, Matt- hoping to get a reference to Frank Forencich in here. One of these days maybe.
Agree that movement is an essential part of life. The point is to get to a place where sedentism isn't appealing. No use in dragging your feet, or convincing somewhere to drag theirs, out to do something they don't want to do. But remembering and re-connecting to what is exciting and fun about our fantastically awesome bodies- that's where health is at.
Also- why the hate on lactic acid? I'm all about ferments, and they're full of the stuff. It would take a lot to convince me that it's no good.
Matt,
I don't think that Ray Peat is against all kinds of exercise. When he talks about exercise, what he means is anaerobic, exhausting endurance excericse. I don't think he dismisses the beneficial effects a well balanced exercise programm can have.
"Exercise physiologists, without mentioning functional systems, have recently discovered some principles that extend the discoveries of Meerson and Anokhin. They found that "concentric" contraction, that is, causing the muscle to contract against resistance, improves the muscle's function, without injuring it. (Walking up a mountain causes concentric contractions to dominate in the leg muscles. Walking down the mountain injures the muscles, by stretching them, forcing them to elongate while bearing a load; they call that eccentric contraction.) Old people, who had extensively damaged mitochondrial DNA, were given a program of concentric exercise, and as their muscles adapted to the new activity, their mitochondrial DNA was found to have become normal."
I like this example pretty well:
{Johnny exercises. This makes Johnny look awesome, helps him sweep the leg effectively, knock out teeth of wiseguy wine stocking grocery store punk that laughed at him for asking a simple question and saying that he was scared of crane kicks, and gives him the BEST spike (including Jimmy's) in the SECPCVL (Southeastern Conference Professional Church Volleyball League)}
How are any of those things bad?
Ray Peat is correct on this one. Exercise doesn't just raise your metabolism, it raises your metabolic requirement. Well so does being fat. Aside from the increased risk of injury, excessive physical activity can teach you real quick if you have been doing something wrong with your health (Jim Fixx, Isaac Hayes, and John Hughes are easy examples).
We are talking about a machine so complex that we don't even know exactly what it is doing with the food we put into it.
"Well just throw some of this stuff in the machine and run it around the track. What could possibly go wrong?"
Another thing, illicit DRUGS can make you feel good but that doesn't mean they are beneficial. Getting a "high" from exercising is not an indication of improved health. Only increased longevity is an indication of improved health. Exercise nuts are not the ones living the longest.
Matt,
You state "?breathless exercise? being the best known way to expand lung volume."
Are you sure it's not just ONE great way to increase lung capacity? I'm thinking of certain yogis and Buddhist monks and nuns who practice deep breathing. They can inhale and blow up like giant puffer fish they take in so much air! I'm also recalling a Buddhist monk who I swear was a wall of solid muscle. He spends the bulk of his time sitting in meditation. Not sure about the rest of his health…or the rest of his time.
I'm also wondering if Peat differentiates between "exercise" and "work". Working in the yard, painting a house, folding laundry are all forms of "exercise". I'm wondering if we're not missing the nuances of his classifications of certain types of movement.
Maybe he doesn't like exercise for exercise' sake.
But you're the King Peatard this month. You can tell us if he's said anything positive about "exercise" without using that word.
It has been a long time since I have dived deep into Peat [since I usually walk away grumbling about some study he cited that when looked up doesn't demonstrate his point :-)] – but if IIRC he doesn't dismiss activity/exercise per se, but is not a model of clarity either on the issue. It is easy to walk away with the idea that he is anti-exercise, period.
It is kind of like reading some of the WAPF site and materials. One can easily walk away with a perceived low carb message (at least in the past) despite the emphasis on dairy and grains.
@Jib,
Thx! Glad you enjoyed it. I don't hang out in comment boxes to often anymore but its nice to slide over here every once in awhile. :P
Yeah the social/fun aspect can be huge for someone looking to establish exercise as a regular habit.
Def agree with Jib about enjoyment.
I've been wondering how Christopher McDougall and Barefoot Ted can run 50-mile races without looking anything like emaciated marathoners. Some of it may be due to improved form and training. I'm sure that some of it is because they LOVE running. They don't do it to lose weight, or to win trophies, or because they feel bad if they don't.
I'd like to be in that state, too, because I enjoy running, but as of now I can't pull it off without a big dip in metabolism, cold hands, etc. Maybe post-RRARF I'll be in better condition to try again.
This also depends on your definition of exercise. If a pro athlete asks a trainer to get him in shape then that would carry a different meaning compared with 55 year old house wife requesting the same. I've read 90% of Ray's stuff and I don't get the sense he is against exercise(maybe just excessive)
BTW, Johnny thats good material!
I was just listening to Ray's talk on KMUD radio about CO2 and he said that mild muscle building activity and anything that's fun and doesn't cause discomfort is fine.
Also to give an example of what Jannis said above about concentric and eccentric contractions, Ray said you should push a bike up a hill and ride it down.
Johnny Lawrence for the WIN!
Johnny, would you do a guest post sometime and give us a 'day in the life' of your crane kicking, leg sweeping badass self?
on Peatardage:
Really? So old foogies like me, who NEED muscle mass to not limp into old age should not exercise because it might cause stress?
Fuck off Ray Peat. I am keeping my musc elles, just like Popeye, ya bastard.
i think we are all meant to lie on the couch like limp, large-eyed, translucent noodles, sipping warm gelatin and popping marshmallows down the gullet……
Ray recommends against eccentric contractions (like the biking reference above). He advises ?lift a heavy weight–and then just drop it?. Maybe Paleolithics used weights to break things.
Whenever I try to get back into exercise, and I do some high intensity stuff, I get sick halfway through the workout and even if I eat prepared healing clay or raw cheese, the nausea continues for at least 1 hour. I also can't stretch or even walk around during those moments. Sucks ass. Aajonus has said before that exercise can release poisons stored in the areas of the body that are exercised. I'm not sure if this is true, but it feels like it! That, or my body is allergic to lactic acid, lol.
Good post Matt, and I'm glad you pointed out that there are positive and negatives, depending on how it is applied. This is the most important point and it is the most ignored.
I don't think Peat is against all exercise. It has been mentioned one here several times before that he likes bodybuildin type exercise. I think he is just against aerobic exercise.
Absolutely spot on in this criticism of Peat. On one hand, you've praised him as one of the greatest thinkers of our time, but on the other, point out that examples of black-and-white thinking such as this make you have reservations about his entire work. On one hand, Ray is the only one bold enough to dare think (or dare say) that estrogen can be harmful, serotonin can be harmful, omega 3s can be harmful, but on the other, it seems he crudely divides them into categories of "good" and "bad".
To soften this up a bit, (as I have also used to defend Matt, in making such sweeping statements as declaring tradition to be "irrelevant"), is that Peat may be being so blunt and one-sided simply to make an impression on an audience that is rigidly affixed to the opposite belief. Almost as if playing "devil's advocate". Or perhaps we are simply seeing Peat's limitations, as important as his information may be. (Another thing to be suspicious of is how elusive he is. For example, he could respond to this post, couldn't he?)
Anyways, I think we have the right conclusion here: If it's not fun, you're not doing it right. In fact, getting exercise might be the only actual health benefit of drinking alcohol: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh8yzvs8EM4
Ok, as a professional cosmetologist since 1984, I am here to cry Bull Shit on that hair dude on fire story.
Anyone ever cut their head open as a kid? How much hair you got growin' on that scar? I'll tell you how much, Zero, Ziltch Nada. Same for burned skin, it does not grow hair. Period.
So I don't know what whackadoodle 'report' that came out of but there are witch doctors who want to read it.
Seriously, the more Ray May goes on, the more I see him as a nutty old scientists gone haywire. Insane in the Membrane.
later
Hairdresser On Fire
PS Yes, I am very busy, busy busy for all you Morrisey fans.
My last post was off-topic. You can remove it or ignore it if you want.
I don't think Peat is against all excercise. That quote Jannis gave, I was about to put it here. Anyway, I think Peat isn't even against all stress. There's that anecdote he gives of a bold man growing hair after burning his scalp. In that sense, I think he believes many stresses (or estrogen, serotonin, etc.) are a necessary part of life, but a problem when unbalanced with respect to anti-stress hormones, rest, etc.
"Some types of injury or irritation can activate regenerative processes. A dermatology journal described the case of an old man who had been bald for many years who fell head-first into his fireplace. As his burned scalp healed, new hair grew. In the U.S., experimenters (Ito, et al., 2007) have found that injuring the skin of mice stimulates the formation of stem cells that are able to become hair follicle cells, supporting the regeneration of cells that had been absent. A brief exposure to estrogen, and other stress related signals (nitric oxide, endorphin, prostaglandins) can initiate stem cell proliferation."
BTW, Michael, so you have too noted that problem with Peat and his references-studies? Stephan Guyenet was upset because of that too. Specially in e-mails I have noted the evidence he gives is not the best for the topic, and get the hunch that he just takes too much from too little. If that's a pattern, I say it is MUCH WORST than any critique Matt has given, and a matter for concern. I hope Matt is proof checking the evidence Peat shows, and at least reading some of the studies he uses. I find it a bit disheartening, but it's got to be done…
FOR SCIENCE!
Ehem, sorry.
Matt himself said: "We just don't know and no one can be trusted. What people say works is meaningless. What they use as evidence of their beliefs is meaningless."
Those are some harsh words, but I guess that the minimum one can do is at least check the data, even if it's possible that the data may be false. It's one step closer to the true, and I'm yet to see an investigator that justs outright gives false data (God saves us!!!). Someone should right a blog post about that, BTW. That's also why it bothers me that Matt often forgets to give references for some of his statements. One could lie, or just get the facts wrong because of imperfect memory, etc.
*write a blog post, not right a blog post, sorry. That happens when you lose your bedtime because of 180degreehealth. The freakin' thing is like crack cocaine!
I will re-post my comment here, since el66k was talking about a similar topic:
Jared Bond said…
Absolutely spot on in this criticism of Peat. On one hand, you've praised him as one of the greatest thinkers of our time, but on the other, point out that examples of black-and-white thinking such as this make you have reservations about his entire work. On one hand, Ray is the only one bold enough to dare think (or dare say) that estrogen can be harmful, serotonin can be harmful, omega 3s can be harmful, but on the other, it seems he crudely divides them into categories of "good" and "bad".
At first, I was offended by your comment, because you misrepresented Peat. But after some thought, after getting rid of some assumptions which I held, my anger diminished.
I won't assume that Matt was criticizing Peat about exercise. I will assume Matt was just adding what he thinks of exercise, irrelevant to Peat. I also don't assume Matt was refuting his supposedly "black-and-white thinking." Matt was just adding some of his own research, to complement Peat's work.
Jannis, JT, and el66k all recognizes this. They refuted the myth that Peat was black-and-white about exercise, stress, serotonin, and estrogen. As they have proved, Peat was not entirely against exercise, stress, serotonin, and estrogen, but was against them in unbalanced amounts.
Again, we should just assume that Matt was just adding some of his own research, to complement Peat's work. That's what we should assume, unless evidence suggests that Matt was further misrepresenting Peat.
A truly great scientist would recognize the positives and negatives of various types of physical movement and exercise and recognize when and how to use it and for whom ? or at least acknowledge that there are both benefits and drawbacks and maintain a balanced perspective about the issue in general. Peat is clearly nowhere near grasping this possibility.
If you read the above quotation, it would seem that Matt was misrepresenting Peat, but I won't assume that Matt's intention was to represent Peat accurately, because it's possible that Matt was just playing devil's advocate to make a point, despite that the description misrepresents Peat's thoughts. Again, we should just assume that Matt's intention was to just add some of his own research to complement Peat's work; Matt's intention was not to represent Peat accurately, per se, but to make a point about the rigidity of lifestyle habits.
Organism as a Whole…
Matt may have been exaggerating a little, but you're confused if you think he didn't generally mean what he said. Or when he said in this post, "…gives me reservations and hesitations about pretty much all of his work."
I know that Peat isn't completely black and white. Exercise, of all the issues, I don't think he has a strong stance on either way, nor does he need to. I was more talking of the things Matt mentioned– cortisol, HGH, lactic acid, as well as estrogen and serotonin. Peat must know that estrogen is good for something, but you'll hardly hear about it on his site (the quote about temporary stress being a growth promoter is the closest you'll get). (–And also raising the catecholamines, which apparently my post-menopausal mom lives on, because she can't stop taking estrogen, despite taking progesterone.) Instead, estrogen ends up being the cause of pretty much every disease in existence, (and seemingly, progesterone would be the cure). He does not paint a complete picture, but then again, I assume he doesn't mean to, expecting his audience to already have the general picture, and himself simply presenting the opposing evidence.
It seems as though us criticizing Peat has pushed you past the brink of cognitive acceptance. It's one thing if you think we're misrepresenting Peat, and we welcome correction, but you act like it's offensive to even question Peat. Look, Peat's great, a valuable asset, but he may have blind spots and prejudices, and frankly, his sanity is questionable. I agree with el66k that maybe we should be checking his references here and there to see just how competent he is.
Peat is under the magnifying glass– this is exactly why I'm excited to be here.
Great stuff!!! i like your video. Thanks lot off.
All I've been reading in on this blog before was that Peat is against exercise except for weight lifting, because other exercise is supposedly harmful. (Which is, of course, obviously complete nonsense.) I don't remember anyone speaking up back then, but now Matt is misrepresenting Peat?
Matt – In response your comments in the last post about moving to 180degreehealth.com would you consider including a forum? I think this would engender much more constructive discussion, will result in a more satisfying experience for your readers and will ultimately attract more people to your site.
Thanks
Catty
Catty,
A forum has been in the works for a while now (at least since last summer, from what I remember). I reckon it's just a process that takes some time- Matt certainly expressed an interest in one.
Cheers,
Rob
WENAF!
I made an unofficial 180 forum a while back that looks pretty awesome. Matt sued me over it for copyright infringement. He's probably waiting for that to get resolved before he makes one that's not as good as mine.
I agree with the forum. The lack of a forum has been the biggest weakness for this site. There have been many discussions that would start getting really interesting and then Matt would make a new post and it was over.
I think checking the studies the Peat references would be a great project for someone who had the time and the interest. Maybe Matt could let them do a guest post on it. I would do it, but don't have the time.
This is the most common criticism of Peat. Needs to be checked out, especially when you have people that base their whole lives around it.
Michael,
Do you have any specific instances you can share?
180 forum would be tits, get on it matt!
how much Protein do you recommend, matt?
There seems to be some conflincting advice as far as protein is concerned. Low protein seems protective but you also say that someone like Doug Graham is prematuraly aging because of his low protein lifestyle.
Jared, why do you think Peat's sanitity is to be doubted. Besides the ice-cream thingy. No, but seriously, why?
"Another thing to be suspicious of is how elusive he is. For example, he could respond to this post, couldn't he?" If I was a famous writer myself, I'm not sure I would like to just spend my time searching for health nuts like Matt and refuting their blog posts. Would you?
Something funny happened on the way to The Forum…
do you have any idea the time it takes to moderate a discussion forum?
Perhaps if Matt set it up to include ads and affiliate links MAYBE it would compensate him for his time. Maybe.
Perhaps if someone here would offer to co-moderate, it might be do-able.
Or those who want a forum most should set one up and call it "radical nutrition" or something so those of you who feel called to lengthy discussions can have them. You could get Matt's permission to link to or republish his blog posts on that forum. It could be a companion site or "fan" site.
I wonder about Matt's time commitment to this blog. It's a passion, but a low income endeavor to be sure. I hope he's getting something out of all this.
By the by my waking temp was 98 this morning. I had ice cream just before bed. Wonder if there's a connection.
I know that the "black-and-white" insanity should be emphasized, because that is a big problem with diet gurus and scientists, and not just Peat.
However, it LOOKS like you and Matt were accusing Peat and his followers exclusively, to have a "black-and-white" mentality; when the fact is that the mentality is not exclusive to Peat and his followers.
But in my last post, I said that I don't take any offense to that, because I would presume that you were using Peat as a "case study" of how the "black-and-white" mentality is dangerous. Every diet guru has a tendency for a "black-and-white" mentality, and it appears on the surface that Peat's "black-and-white" mentality is greater than other diet gurus. So I would ASSUME that you were not necessarily talking about Peat only, but was extrapolating Peat's dietary extremism as "black-and-white", to set an example of that mentality.
My last post was a clarification, which was also a justification of why Matt extrapolated Peat's beliefs, in case other people accuses him of misrepresenting Peat.
(Off topic–but Peat's articles are not intended to be dietary recommendations–they are just explaining how the body works. Whether Peat personally believes if stress hormones are essential or not is irrelevant to his science.)
the guy likens caffeine to a vitamin and seems to lack basic understanding of fats and omega 6's according to mary enig
he thinks sugar and ice cream is healhy
it's a joke
Better than asuming so much let the man himself (Matt) talk the talk.
To clarify, I understand that everyone should be questioned, and their science should be taken to the fullest scrutiny, no matter how "good" they are.
I'm not one of those people who Matt or Jared Bond was talking about. I completely agree with your points, that everyone should be questioned, taken to the fullest scrutiny, and there isn't a "black-and-white" mentality.
When I was clarifying Peat and refuting your misrepresentations, do not assume that I was disagreeing with the general point of Matt's article. I was just too lazy to clarify my intentions, before I made my comments, so it appeared that I was disagreeing with your main points, even though I was agreeing with them.
I was just mind-reading Matt Stone and Jared Bond's justifications of why they say things which appear to exaggerate Peat's work on the surface. I was just saying that Jannis and el66k understands Matt's main point, and their criticisms are complementary and a refinement of trivial facts in Matt's article, and not a rebuttal to Matt's overall point.
Lisa S–funny thing happened on the way to the Forum–lol! Agree that a forum would be a good way to organize all the side discussions: I often get confused as to which active blog post has which discussion adjunct to it; agree also that you'd need at least a few moderators to take care of it so that it wasn't overwhelming.
Lisa,
I think this is Matt's full-time job. Having a forum would only benefit Matt even more, especially if it became a place where people could find info on a lot of the different health topics that are covered.
I dont know if it would be fair to Matt of we moved everyone over to another site to have a forum there. Matt has put in a lot of effort to form an online community of peoplewho comment regularly. This is what makes Matts blog stand out from the rest.
JT You are correct, Matt lives off of the monies we spend on his not free ebooks etc. If he does a forum, perhaps there should be ads/a small fee to keep him up to his fuzzy head in Talenti Gelato.
:)
Deb,
Yeah, I think he could use his forum to link to his books and other books that he reviews. I wonder if he has plans to start a consultation biz?
If exercise was bad I doubt it would come so naturally. Children, (and animals) run, climb, swim and play. Perhaps if adults imitated children more, they would be able to remain physically active longer.
Cats are lithe creatures that manage to stay able to jump onto high places into old age.
Dogs do not tend to age as gracefully as cats. Perhaps flexibility is a factor.
Something tells me Barefoot Ted Macdonald, a world record holding distance runner, is going to live a long and vibrant life:
http://www.barefootted.com/index.php?q=/
Exercise can be healthy so long as remains fun and joyous.
(Ted never seems to run to exhaustion, and I believe he alternates with walking on sections of the races he does).
What strikes me as odd about some of these speculations is that you can ASK Ray Peat what he thinks about exercise to know for sure, or anything else he writes about.
He answers e-mails via his site. His replies are short now because he doesn't have much time these days thanks to so many queries, but it would save everyone a LOT of time to just ask for his current thoughts to know for sure instead of posting speculations.
Thanks to anyone who has quoted Peat here from their personal exchanges with him. He doesn't write much about exercise in his aticles, so it's easy to assume he's against it, I guess.
By following what he recommends (his answers to my questions via email, plus studying his work) my health has improved a lot and it's like I have gone back in time, to when I was my healthiest at around age 17, which is more than 20 years ago. I was into WAPF and then Paleo for a few years recently, so I wasn't coming from the SAD. I had improvements with both WAPF teachings and Paleo, and thank everyone I learned from and was helped by, but this has taken me beyond that.
Is he right about everything? Well, probably not, of course, and who is? He's right about enough for me personally and other people I know who have experienced similar health problems/mysteries, so now I pay more attention to what he says than most of the other stuff I have access to online. No disrespect meant toward other people providing information, like Matt Stone here, this is just my personal experience.
I was eating healthy food for years yet I couldn't reach the top of the mountain, so to speak. And I'm not at the top yet, but I can see it and feel it now. Sometimes when I look out and see beauty that I, for reasons that finally make sense to me, couldn't see for years, it's almost spiritual in feel. Since following his dietary recommendations, notably adding gelatin, and taking thyroid, I have color enhancement with my vision now – I used to see like this when I was young, I can now remember it.
I wish every good person out there trying to find answers to their health problems all the best in finding the answers and feeling first better and then, hopefully, great. I've been at this for a while, and I'm not done, but there's hope, truly. Ray Peat's way of doing things may not work for all, but I'm glad that I discovered him and gave his ideas/findings a chance.
It cracks me up when I read comments by nutritionists (!) saying Dr. Peat doesn't get why PUFAS or sports are great for you. I always look for the references I am used to find on many pages following the conclusions when Ray Peat writes anything …. Usually with his critics there is nothing but a published opinion to show the scientist Peat (who has studied nutrition for 50 years) is wrong. Brave. Stupid, but brave.
About sports: It is not healthy. Of course not. The human body (that of animals, too) is made to work as much as necessary to gain food. Work is loss of energy. That doesn't mean you shouldn't move. It means running, fitness training, work outs e.c. are bad for you. So hard to grasp that? Man used to run in order to catch or avoid to be caught by wild animals. Running is what you do in extreme situation. It makes your body produce cortisol and prolactin and yes, both are responsible for inflammation which is responsible for degenerative deseases. Have a look at the studies!!! No oncologist will ever recommend anything but dumb bells (Ray Peat does, too). And now the whole community doubts Peat and everything he says. Why?
Because his armor is broken when he mentions sports are not healthy. (Btw – what does he need an armor for? Is he being attacked because he tries to help? He must be right: Medicine is not an exact science. Its not a science at all. I'ts an armed religion.) This must not, cannot, will not be! He, the intellectual genius in his ivory tower forbids us simple people to do sports! Do you really believe that? Peat is a scientist. He is aiming at the truth. What makes him tick (in my opinion) is to find out how everything works and to let people know so they have the means to help themselves.
When he advices someone not to do sports it is not because he dislikes sports or is bad at it (fcol!). There are good reasons. Btw he says you should eat chocolate or do sports in bright light – both keeps cortisol down.
You say sports make you feel good so it has to be good for you? Think about this for a minute. Alcohol, cigarettes, drugs make you feel good, too. Are they therefore good for you? Somebody mentioned the classic symptom above: low bodytemperature rises while doing sports. Yes, that's because the body produces lots of cortisol and cortisol acts very similar to and interacts with thyroid hormones. If you have a chronically low body temperature you most probably don't have enough thyroid hormones. They can be supplemented and you'll feel the difference within 20 minutes. During sports your parathyroid gland produces the enegy you need. The body senses a life and death situation and gives you what it can …. Usually neglecting the immune system and the brain by doing so. As soon as the cortisol fades away the effect is gone again and the body temperature falls.
I used to do sports all the time: jogging, swimming, tennis, rowing, climbing – until I got cancer. I'm sorry but this is the thing you hear a lot in an oncology: Why me? I was living so healthy, eating vegetables and salads with essential fatty acids, avoiding animal fats and red meat, eating fish once a week, I quit drinking coffee, never took pills – not even aspirin, always went to the doctor, avoided the sun, used sunblocker 50, drank lots of water – and did sports a lot, I even loved it. Its what I said. Its what most of us said and it was true. Only that it was all wrong.
I discovered Ray Peat. I avoid PUFAs and eat coconut fat, I avoid vegetables and eat tropic fruit like mango. I eat red meat and liver. I drink coca-cola and coffee, orange juice and lots of milk. I eat lots of cheese and carotts. I sit in the sun for hours and don't use carcinogenic sunblocker. I don't do sports, only dumbbells – my body looks ten years younger. I use aspirin every day, natural progesterone, thyroid. The cancer is gone. I am healthy. I feel like it and I look like it.
Thanks to Ray Peat. And thanks to my being smart enough to listen to him.
Dear Mr. August 2nd Anonymous
You are the the reason I wake up in the morning, no seriously, I couldnt of said it better myself.
Everyone on here is totally bashing Peat after all his great theories, just because someone said someone said Ray Peat doesn’t like exercise. Its true that science is really an armed religion. You people are nuts.
The truth is I’m sure he advocates exercise. That is in small moderated doses.
Now Peat may not be right about everything, but hes sure better than anyone else I’ve ever read, he put together theories that have been slowly building in my head for a long time.
You cant base things off of illogical reasoning, you cant just trust your gut on things when it comes to health. You cant just assume exercise is good, anything that tastes really good is bad, and what all the doctors “know” is right, and that anything that makes you feell and look good is healthy. You cant say well im gonna eat what my ancestors ate cus that makes sense DUH. thats called the DUH factor and its wrong.
Its all about the chemicals in the body. And Ray Peat doesnt know everything about everything. He only goes on what he has. If i were him having such intamite relationship with cell stress, I would be wary of exercise as well. Its hard to understand such a complex thing, so understudied, and make definite claims about it.
If its true that people lose Co2 during aeroibc exercise, which realy depends on how much the person activley tries to suppres their breathing, then aerobic exercise could be bad for you, cus anything that make you lose carbon dioxide is automatically going to be bad for you.
No one knows for sure whether thers some secret reason why exercise is good for you, or what reasoning the body may have that a large stress could increase your health, I postulate that increased blood flow may be the cause.
Also all the stuides I’ve read that Peat mentioned were very accurate and demonstrated his point clearly, though i can understand how people can become confused by the scientific jabber.
The things Anonymous was doing before he got cancer seems like the paradigm of good health and healthy living. Obvoisly the minority is right (Ray Peat style) and the Majority is wrong. Get used to it.
It still hasnt been decided how much exercise is bad or good for you.
No one is without their subjective inclinations. Its a long way from now until we find very good reasons as to why the body works in such mysterious ways. Right now all we have is good hard science, read studies diligently, intelligently, scrutinizingly, logically, and hopefully come out ahead.
/rand end.
Hallo Anonymous,
thank you very much for what you shared with. I’ve just discovered Dr Peat. It was like a revelation to me. I’ve tried so many (not) eating (someting) protocols, spent hours making web research on food and the best exercise, believed in contraditory ideas, been misled, confused. I worked out almost every day (gym, cardio, swimming), was addicted to it. But I’ve never had a dream body. I hope you are still healty and fine with Peat. Thank you again for your words.
Of course, our opinions differ in a lot of things. But dismissing things without trying it can be a problem. As for Ray Peat, sure he may tell himself that he doesn’t need exercise but when the time comes that his lack of exercise will be detrimental to his health then it might be too late to do things and no ones to blame except for himself.
Ray Peat does not think all exercise is bad, just the forms of exercise that take you beyond your lactic threshold. He is all for walking,resistance exercise and climbing. To purposely go for a high intensity run does not seem to offer much benefit in my opinion and the disadvantages outweigh the benefits.
He’s not against exercise. He mentions how useful concentric resistance training is for regenerating muscle, promoting oxygenation and preventing lactic acid build up.
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/adaptive-substance.shtml.
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/protective-co2-aging.shtml
Just did some reading on Ray’s articles. He doesn’t state that exercise is villanous in every possible way. He does recommend exercise as a health promoting tool, only in a certain manner; in his case this seems to be the recommendation of exercise that is based mainly on concentric movements and [if possible] at high altitudes prevent lactic acid from building up.