Syrus, any more links you’ve found interesting since your last post? I’ve been watching the ones you linked and there is a ton of good information there.
Have you done any research on acrylamide? It’s becoming more mainstream, but with regard to processed grains Patrick Holford was all over this a decade ago, telling people to avoid all breakfast cereal. Another feather in the cap of the Paleo approach.
Hmmm… I have been a little busy and havent been reading as much.
http://www.ajcn.org/content/58/6/902.full.pdf
Measurement of zinc bioavailability from beef and a ready-to-eat high-fiber breakfast cereal in humans: application of a whole-gut lavage technique
A study showing the bioavailability of zinc is 4x more in beef then in cereal.
This guy is always good
The main area I’ve been looking into is Vitamin D right now, which sort of has a paleo implication.
I use this graph to make a point about where you probably want to be with vitamin D. Although every link hasnt been established, I would venture a guess that vitamin D deficiency affects athlete performance to a pretty great extent.
5 000 IU/day might be a good place to start.
Syrus,
Could you give an example of your grocery list, and perhaps a few meal ideas for breakfast/dinner? I like what I’m hearing and reading about paleo-type diets, but I imagine getting bored only eating meats/fruits/veggies with no grains.
I’m not hardcore paleo, I’ve done well eating some dairy and occasionally some oats or rice. Every saturday I go to my local farmers market for most of my food for the week.
I’ll also eat some granola with almond milk and add flax and chia seeds, or I’ll eat some sushi or brown rice for some extra carbs. I can usually eat the same thing each day and not get bored of it since I enjoy these foods so much. For better ideas, I would recommend any type of paleo cookbook, there are tons, and some great recipes out there.
When I was in college many years ago I ate breakfast with some track guys a couple of days each week. One guy was a middle distance runner and also ran cross country. Lean and skinny, he ate eggs, bacon, and whole wheat toast most days.
The other guy who would eat with us was a sprinter, 100m and 4Xrelay. Stocky and muscular, he fueled up with sugary breakfast cereal (i.e. Fruit Loops) with several doughnuts as a side dish. He would drink fruit punch with breakfast.
According to the middle distance guy, the sprinter ate junk food at every meal, and snacked on chocolate and candy, and drank soft drinks as his beverage of choice. Of course, the sprinter was ripped and had very low bodyfat.
Obviously, genetics and metabolism play a great deal into the differences between these two guys. And of course, the two had very different training regimens once at track practice.
Of course genetics play a huge role. That is an example of a genetically insulin sensitive individual. Cases like that are interesting cases of genetic diversity but offer no insight into what are optimal practices. In terms of DNA, there is always a range of possible up/down regulation that can occur from individual to individual. You can never assume what the genetically gifted do is anything close to best practice.