Overcoming Nature Part 1: the Alpha Male

Sometimes I wonder how individuals draw the line in their evolutionary lifestyle, and I realize that within the philosophy there are all kinds of different conclusions about how to live wild in the modern world. Some climb trees, some still hit the gym. Some eat potatoes, some don't eat tomatoes. Some run marathons, and some do marathon wine drinking. It's a rich and varied world out there, folks.

Others have emphasized the silliness of historical re-enactment, but it's worth reiterating, because I wanna take the idea one step further, to culture. Much of the talk about what's good or bad about the paleolithic model tends to center around diet and exercise, but there are some profound ways that we are, well, being douchebags to each other. And yes, it's bad to be a douchebag. In smart people terms, there are identifiable natural mechanisms at work that detract from human potential and general human goodness. I think it's worth calling them out and playing them down.

Status Seeking

We are hard-wired for thinking about nearly everything hierarchically. Paleoanthropology touts the 'alpha male' model, where male hierarchy is formed by "a mixture of strength, hunting skills, and force of personality" (Bond 203), which leads to the alpha male designation.

In short, we want on a biological level to feel smart, strong, influential, and successful. But since everything is relative, this really just means that we want to be better than others around us. We want a better house, a more beautiful wife, a nicer car; in all, better status relative to others and especially to our own social network. These natural compulsions translate into careerism, wealth accumulation, selfishness, and so on -- all of which are 'totally natural' in evolutionary bro-wisdom.

So why's that bad? It may not be. There may be people out there being true to themselves by stepping on toes and that's all good. But there's a lot of unhappy people out there chasing goals they barely understand without ever questioning why they want those things to begin with, or whether the world and they themselves would be better off without those goals.

Introducing: The Douchebag Alpha

Ever meet a guy with an alpha male complex? I'm sure you have. He's the guy that gives orders like he's the boss, interrupts you while talking, rarely smiles, has to beat you at everything, doesn't share with others. You know the type. If you're a woman, you might 'naturally' be attracted to his confidence and social standing (more on this to come in the next blog post). If you're a man, you might respect him in that I'm-not-sure-I-like-or-fear-this-guy kind of way. But if you're astute to the ridiculous game he is playing, then you know the truth -- that objectively, this person is a douchebag.

I know where this discussion is headed. "But hey, it's only natural for a group of people to need to follow someone who can unify the group and take decisive action." Yes, but that's called leadership. Perhaps there may be a fine line between a leader and an alpha-douche. I mean to point out the difference between the two.

5 Things I Hate About Alpha Males

That fratitude. After coming of age, it shouldn't take long to figure out what is cool, and what is uncool. Or what life is about. So stop giving me your I-Am-Hunter face and be real for a second.

False leadership. A circle of friends is no place for a one-man cheerocracy. Take the thoughts, feelings, and ideas of others into account before acting like you run the show.

The motives. The respect? The status? All the girls? Grow the f*ck up.

It's obvious. I bet some men think they are sooo clever playing 'cocky-funny' to girls and sticking their chest out.

It's annoying. In fact, being alpha is bad for everyone, including the alpha. And check this out too.

Thoughts?

The Brain That Changes Itself

The Brain That Changes Itself is a book that contains some powerful intersections between neuroscience and the paleo lifestyle. It's by Norman Doidge, M.D., who researches at Columbia, and wrote a fascinating account of the frontiers of brain science. Some truly remarkable stuff.

The book mainly explores neuroplasticity, the idea that the brain can be changed on a neuronal level through environmental changes in stimuli. I wanted to share a couple of quotes from the book that I think my paleo people will enjoy.

In support of novel, dynamic, complex movement:

"That's why learning a new language in old age is so good for improving and maintaining the memory generally. Because it requires intense focus, studying a new language turns on the control system for plasticity and keeps it in good shape for laying down sharp memories of all kinds...Anything that requires highly focused attention will help that system--learning new physical activities that require concentration, solving challenging puzzles, or making a career change that requires that you master new skills and material...The same applies to mobility. Just doing the dances you learned years ago won't help you brain's motor cortex stay in shape. To keep the mind alive requires learning something truly new with intense focus. That is what will allow you to both lay down new memories and have a system that can easily access and preserve the older ones." (pp. 87-88)

In the world of exercise, variation is universally recognized as a good thing, but I bet most people don't truly run with the idea. When I first got into weight training as a young man, variation meant bench press one day, incline bench another day. But there is far more potential for variation in movement, and it just requires a bit of imagination. I like to think of exercise as a skill building endeavor. That way, you get the benefits of focus and learning.

I'd suggest marrying what's fun with what's challenging. So forget zumba, it's too easy, and take up salsa. Skip the weight room now and again, and throw some sand bags around. Even carpentry or gardening fit the bill.

In support of barefooting:

"Finally, they are working on 'gross motor control,' a function that declines as we age, leading to loss of balance, the tendency to fall, and difficulties with mobility. Aside from the failure of vestibular processing, this decline is caused by the decrease in sensory feedback from our feet. According to Merzenich, shoes, worn for decades, limit the sensory feedback from our feet to our brain. If we went barefoot, our brains would receive many different kinds of input as we went over uneven surfaces. Shoes are a relatively flat platform that spreads out the stimuli, and the surfaces we walk on are increasingly artificial and perfectly flat. This leads us to dedifferentiate the maps for the soles of our feet and limit how touch guides our foot control. Then we may start to use canes, walkers, or crutches or rely on other senses to steady ourselves. By resorting to these compensations instead of exercising our failing brain systems, we hasten their decline. " (pp. 90-91)

Especially in regard to aging, these ideas matter greatly. I think the takeaway here is the fundamental connection between motor processing and movement in the physical world and all that it entails (sensation, balance, etc.). Movement is a complicated mechanistic dance between many variables in the brain and body, and you can enhance those mechanisms simply by kicking off your shoes and applying yourself to something new. The results, however, are more universal and even surprising improvements and changes in brain function.

The Detriment of Sentiment

Let's get deep for a moment.

Out of stardust, life sprang, and our planet developed into dynamic, beautiful, interconnected ecologies. From stardust arose consciousness, emotion, the things that make life precious. That blows my mind, and is the underlying framework for why I love animals so.

I spent last weekend touring some of the farm country of Carolina, meeting the farmers who articulated more like scientists, but most notably, meeting the healthy, lovable animals that I had been eating. I met them face to face, and I wallowed in how cute the pigs were piled together comfortably in the dirt, and I saw beauty in the subtle colorations of turkey feathers, and I melted when I pet the soft coat of the baby goats, and I lingered near the chicken coop to hear the young chicks chirp out their song.

In those warm moments, never before had I been so sure that killing and eating animals was the right, just, and responsible thing to do. Because none of those animals would be there if I didn't.

At one farm, they were barbecuing lamb sausage near the pen where the live sheep were held. The irony was deafening, and even uncomfortable, to look out at the cuddly creatures while enjoying a lamb sausage. A child among us was quite vocal about her discomfort, and a couple in our party chose not to partake in the "World's Best Lamb." Understandably so.

We are not immune to sentiment. Killing is a brutal thing no matter the method. But feelings betray us.

We live on a planet where lifeforms must kill and consume other lifeforms in order to survive. This is the dark, beautiful, universal truth of the world. Whether grains from an unsustainable factory farm or animals from a real farm, we must kill and consume other lifeforms.

On the real farm, those animals were born to be eaten. To not eat them is to abort them, and to eat them is to give them the gift of life. It's a mutually beneficial ecological relationship.

I watched those pigs relish rolling in the dirt. They would stick their snout in the feeder and make that cough-sneeze sound and then waddle to the shade and collapse there. I saw the dogs run playfully through the rows of vegetables, yapping at the other animals. The ducklings circled each other in a dark puddle, keeping their brothers and sisters near. Their mother had black speckles evenly spaced throughout her rich brown feathers. The father wore a white necklace and a turquoise sheen glowed from under his black chest. They were family.

Tragic to think they would have never been born at all.

China Study II: Income and Disease

I was one of the lucky few to get an advanced copy of The China Study II: Income and Disease. It hits shelves May 23rd, and I have to admit, the data is compelling.

In this culminating work that pools the same national data as the original The China Study, T. Colin Campbell applies a sophisticated form of meta-analysis to reach some startling conclusions about how our wealth affects our health.

Here's my favorite page, right out of The China Study II. Notice the strong correlation below?

The China Study II: Income and Disease is rife with correlation after correlation like the one above. Since correlation indicates causation, the conclusion is clear: money causes cancer, and is probably responsible for the sweeping array of debilitating diseases of the wealthy, from chlamydia to hairy tongue.

The data has spoken. I urge you to give up your wealth in order to achieve better health. Send your money to poor countries like Ceylon and El Salvador, so they can be the ones with face cancer. It's only fair that they share the burden of wealth with us, for we are all equal children of God.

Happy April fools,

Kev

More Vegetables Than Vegetarians

The media has done a superb job of branding the paleo diet as a meat diet. Indeed, people seem to think that's all we eat. Many naysayers go there first, naming The China Study or maybe even some other idiot who skipped Day 1 of Stats class (when they teach the refrain, "correlation is not causation"). Or worse, they cite conventional wisdom as a legitimate source, "But all doctors say the same thing about meat."

Conventional wisdom holds little weight with me, but if that's what will convince some people (perhaps the ones who skipped stats AND history class), then let's roll with it. (History class, by the way, is where you learn that conventional wisdom is ALWAYS wrong.)

Perhaps the most universally accepted piece of conventional wisdom about health, told by our grandmothers and our cartoons and our doctors and our vegetarians alike, is "eat your vegetables." Well, I'm here today to demonstrate that the paleo diet is more vegetably than a vegetarian diet. Now please allow me to unravel your cognitive dissonance with copious amounts of what is known in academic circles as 'quantifiable proof'.

Following are 4 randomly selected vegetarian food pyramids from the interwebs that espouse vegetarian diets. To account for paleo bias, I chose three that were vegan.

Vegetarian Example 1: Vegetables come in at about 15-20% of total food volume. The biggest group? You guessed it! Grains.

Vegetarian Example 2: Vegetables come in at about 15% as well, being stamped out big time by grains that dominate almost 30% of the pyramid.

Vegetarian Example 3: Same story with vegetables again at 15%, being drowned out by Neolithic foods like grains, dairy, beans, even sweets.

Vegetarian Example 4: Vegetables come out of nowhere with 30-35%! Don't know why tomato is in the carb section, but I'll let that slide.

Vegetarians average (an inflated) 20% vegetable intake on the pyramid. Not too shabby.

Now, for some mind-blowing. Four Paleo Pyramids:

Paleo Example 1: Boom. Primal Blueprint puts vegetables in the base of the pyramid, I'd say that's about 20-25%.

Paleo Example 2: Some random loser posted this I bet. Veggies at 15%. (Outlier, obviously. But we'll count it.)

Paleo Example 3: CastleGrok's pyramid gets chosen at random and delivers vegetables at a whopping 25-30%.

But wait. Paleo Example 4 (perhaps closer to average than any other) delivers vegetables at about 30% yet again.

Paleo wins with about 25% vegetables in the diet. But I'm not satisfied.

I know for a fact that I eat almost twice the vegetable matter than my veggie-minded friends and especially more than my conventional-eating cronies. And I think that deserves some exploration.

First, let's look at the economic incentives. Vegetarians are likely to eat disproportionately more grains and legumes than the pyramid recommends because those things are cheap; Paleo dieters are likely to eat disproportionately less meat/fish because those things are expensive (we buy fresh, wild, grass-fed to boot).

Another confounding variable is population. Vegetarianism attracts people for two reasons: ethics and/or health. In particular, people sympathetic to animal rights and sold on disease prevention. These populations are not concerned with measuring proportions or optimizing athletic performance and are therefore more likely to stray from the 'optimal model' or pyramid, quite reasonably leading to indulgences, not to more vegetables.

The paleo population is also dominated by people concerned with ethics and/or health. In particular, environmental responsibility and athletic performance. Because they are motivated to excel athletically, they are likely to adhere to the optimal model, which limits fruit and nut intake, inevitably leading to even more vegetables than their vegetarian counterparts who stray.

Also worth noting is that vegetarianism in general contains more categories of food, commonly dairy, grains, legumes, sweets, fruit, etc. The more categories, the more each category becomes diluted. And you bet your ass that the vegetable category dwindles with all the others.

Now, excuse me while I go eat meat.

Undeniably Sustainable Animal Foods

I'm so sick of hearing the oversimplified argument that 'meat is bad for the environment'. Here are three whole categories of food that either promote ecological health or have a neutral effect. (Be sure to account for the benefit of excluding unsustainable grain production.)

1. Regenerative organic husbandry, like pastured beef (read this Guardian piece)

2. Overpopulated species, like deer and rabbit (read this post)

3. Alternative protein, like insects (watch this TED talk)

Further reading:

Meat: A Benign Extravagance, Simon Fairlie

The Vegetarian Myth, Lierre Keith

Take the 2011 Paleo Community Survey

In order to understand the nature of the paleo movement and possibly win some swag, I urge you to take a few minutes with the 2011 Paleo Community Survey. From the Naturally Engineered landing page:

Why should you participate?
The resulting data will be invaluable in terms of understanding the nature of the paleo movement. It will be provided to other bloggers and researchers with the goal of providing a clearer picture of how the paleo diet has affected the lives of its adherents. The survey itself is relatively short and should only take a couple of minutes to complete.

As well, several incentives for completion of the survey have been provided, and will be explained further at the end of the survey. These include a coupon code for Paleo Treats products and the opportunity to win one of several giveaway Amazon.com gift cards.

Qualitative Results on Self-experimentation

So what's up with self-experimentation? Is it dumb or helpful?

I think Kurt Harris was right when he played down the importance of results on self-experimentation, but I also think Richard Nikoley was right when he pointed out that personal results aren't always in line with mainstream expert opinion.

Solid scientific evidence is king, especially when it cautions a certain food item, but where the grey area exists, self-experimentation can be helpful. This is why several weeks ago, I embarked on my own self-experimentation. By no means was this extensive. I just wanted to see how my body reacted to changes in diet, in order to see if the diet could be optimized for my own goals.

The particulars: I gave about two weeks to each type of eating strategy, keeping to it about 80-90% of the time. Some of the categories may seem strange, but they were things that I either came across or dreamt up or heard interesting arguments for and wanted to try them myself. I only noted things that were significant, so no 'this kind of, sort of changed'.

I should note that I was doing more of a pure paleo diet before starting this experiment. That means Cordain-style. No proportions or anything, just eating the right foods whenever I wanted, as much as I wanted, and not worrying about anything. Also, I exercise 3 to 6 days a week, highly varied in different elements of athleticism: aerobic, strength, etc.

Here are some observations of each of my adventures:

Pure paleo. Low fat, low carb, meat, veggies, fruit, nuts, berries.

*High variety in food items eaten

*Great skin tone

*Lean physique (certainly not WeakLean)

*Tremendous appetite

*Sometimes limited mental focus and burnout

Zone-paleo. Strict balanced proportions of protein-fat-carb using paleo foods. 6 meals a day.

*Consistent, sustained energy levels

*Dodgy appetite (always somewhere between hungry and full)

*Improved recovery time

*Blunted binge 'cheat' cravings (cuz I was never starving for them)

*Gains in speed and strength over two weeks

High-carb paleo. Added potatoes and white rice, moderate fat intake, 3 meals a day.

*Energy fluctuated throughout the day

*Digestion issues

*Meals were filling and cheap

*Slight fat gain

*Plenty of energy for exercise

*Increased appetite

Lacto-paleo. Added butter and cheese mostly, little milk and greek yogurt.

*Skin tone went to shit

*More dynamic flavors in meals

*Digestion just fine (unexpected result)

*Low food volume (felt full on less)

*Decreased appetite (butter)

In conclusion, I learned a little and found some gems outside the Cordain-paleo model. I'm certainly going to use more butter, simply because it's palatable magic. Also going to add potatoes every now and again. Red potatoes in particular are delicious.

There's also the fat issue. I found that consciously adding fat to meals was very helpful, and made the meal taste better and quench my appetite more easily. This was true for butter, as well as paleo stuff like avocado, coconut, even olives. It was also helpful to think of each macronutrient relative to others, and I'm still doing that without even trying because it makes cooking easier.

I found that the Zone diet was too frequent of meal timing to be convenient, and I'm the kind of guy that likes to gorge himself, so I'm sticking to three meals and some intermittent fasting. I'm definitely not drinking milk, and I'm leaving cheese for cheat meals because I want my skin complexion back. Also, I found white rice to detract from the flavor of the meal most of the time, and it did weird things with my digestion, so I'm limiting that too.

N=1 might be bad science, but it helped me tweak my diet so that it's more fun and more substantive. I can definitely vouch for self-experimentation.

Quick Book Review: The Jungle Effect

Just finished thumbing through The Jungle Effect, an anthropological look at some of the healthier people on Earth and what their unique diets might tell us about disease prevention. It sticks to exotic cultures, like the Tarahumara in Mexico, the Okinawans in Japan, the Cretans in the Mediterranean, and so on. Daphne Miller, the MD-turned-anthrocurious-traveler who authored The Jungle Effect, practices medicine in San Francisco and teaches nutrition at UCSF, so that's how come you're supposed to listen to her. But as you may know, the medical establishment often vies with the evolutionary-proned biases you see here on this blog. So, yeah.

The book adheres loosely to the slow-carb diet, where non-paleo foods are encouraged based on the fact that these exotic cultures eat lots of them and seem to be just fine. "Just fine" meaning that they don't have diseases. I certainly wouldn't say she is seeking health optimization, like so many of us do here in the paleo community. (The book oddly reminds me of Weston A. Price, who concluded that raw milk was good for you based on reasons similar to Daphne Miller's.)

It was fun to read about the Tarahumara, because I finished Born to Run yesterday, which is all about running and the Tarahumara take center stage in that book. (Born to Run yesterday, The Jungle Effect today -- it's like I'm an English major again!)

The Tarahumara are examined in the realm of Type 2 Diabetes. They eat a diet of primarily maize (corn) and beans, and they run hundreds of miles at a time. She concludes that a similar slow-carb diet could be equally beneficial for Westerners with Diabetes since the Tarahumara don't get the disease. That means 70% of total calories from carbohydrate sources. On the plus side, she acknowledges that their use of lard as a good choice for cooking, though only in tiny amounts.

So why am I even reviewing this book when I don't usually review books?

While I respect her anthropological perspective on health and her honorable background in medicine at a fine institution, I was bothered by a few things worth highlighting for you, esteemed reader.

Obscure line of reasoning. The Tarahumara don't have diabetes, so mimic their corn and bean diet? Sounds especially strange from an MD. Although, her true recommendation only leans that way moderately.

Overemphasis on diet. While she did a great job examining the anthropology of diet, I would have liked a great deal more information on the other major factors of health: sleep, stress, posture, movement, community, toxin exposure, etc.

Maybe it goes to show that part of why anthropological evidence can be so frustrating is because it's so inconsistent. You get people eating mostly carbs that have minimal disease (Tarahumara), then people eating mostly fat that have minimal disease (Eskimo). Therefore, it's hard to take one example conclusively, especially when there are equally viable ones elsewhere ready to rebut.

Eat Ice Cream With Your Guinness

I got home to California for the holidays on a beautiful sunny day, and I couldn't help but take off my shoes and shirt and run barefoot to the nearest park for a quick bout of metabolic conditioning.

I was so happy to play outside for the first time in a while. (I'm not used to Carolina winters so my exercise has been indoors lately.) All of a sudden, a huge branch decided to fall out of a Magnolia tree.

I covered the back of my neck with my right forearm and tried to get out from underneath it, but I failed. It missed my arm, and hit me directly in the back of the head, fracturing my skull and making me see spots of white. Oh, and my ears were ringing loud. And it felt like I had the worst brainfreeze plus the worst migraine all at once.

I was in bed for several days barely able to move, eat, or drink. After day 5, I had sciatic pain so bad that it replaced the pain in my head as the principle concern. After day 8, I was eating and gaining back weight again -- I had lost almost ten pounds in water weight and through muscle atrophy.

Three weeks later, I'm almost fully recovered. I'm still way out of shape and I lost some sense of smell, but otherwise glad to be alive. Paleo logic appears to be intact, and I can't wait to hit the reset button on my paleo lifestyle and come back at everything from a new angle. Here's one thing I took away:

Life's too short to be perfect. At the point of the accident, I was nearing 7% body fat and held personal records in various off-the-wall tests of performance. What I mean is: eat ice cream with your Guinness. Life isn't about perfect health or perfect performance. Life is about all the awesome experiences we have before we die. Health is important, but perfection is unnecessary. Cheating should be done with intention and should not be half-assed. But that might just be the brain damage talking.

"Everything in moderation is what some advocate. I dunno. Sounds extreme. EVERYTHING? I say moderation in moderation." - Unknown