Part of it has been reading Robb Wolf's stuff, and part of it has been my general lack of explosiveness and recovery in the gym.

Granted, I've been hitting the weights pretty (really) hard, but I've been hitting the kitchen harder - putting down close to 2-3lbs of quality meat per day and usually 4-6 eggs... not to mention occasional rutabagas, turnips, squash, etc... I've upped the calories but still feel a general lack of power in the gym. Fats still make up at the very least 60% of my diet, usually closer to 70%.

So, I'm considering supplementing a small amount of creatine daily. This would be the only addition to my diet besides the alternating cod liver / fish oil I drink every night before bed, and the green tea that I've been slowly phasing out. I would not load the creatine with anything other than water. 

Robb Wolf is the epitome of bro-tology, but I'm not a "It's not Paleo" nazi either, I still enjoy the effect of supplemental omega3's and the occasional pro-biotic (usually in the form of Kombucha, however).


I've been eating fruit after workouts... however once I started pounding fruit my weightloss stalled pretty strong. Usually I would eat a large mango and a plum or two (in season here right now). I've had strong success in weightloss by following a cyclic ketogenic diet (vlc for 4-5 days then a carbup the day before the "big training day" with a high carb post-workout meal, then back to VLC for a week) - I'm planning on experimenting with this for the next few weeks.

I've dropped the intermittent fasting because I just can't sustain training with the fast days - the hunger used to not be a big deal, now it's pretty much unbearable... my body is telling me it needs to eat a bit more. The additional creatine I felt would be a small paleo compromise, that could help me keep my atp levels up without spiking my carbs with extra fruit.

Well, I'm glad Rob is bringing a concept of paleo to the masses. And I take back my "bro-tology" comment, I made that statement after recently reading a T-Mag interview and I felt he came off like he was "building a better Paleo".

What I don't particularly agree with:

Dairy - he advocates in many cases (i.e. paleo + dairy for mass building and maintaining)
Tubers - he strongly advocates sweet potatoes (akin to Cordain's Paleo Diet for Athletes), and even white potatoes if more carbs are *gasp* needed.

These two foods seem to be in his "core" concepts. I know from experience as a recovered carb/dairy addict that someone will come along who doesn't understand why they aren't losing weight when they are being "so strict" on Rob Wolf's idea of "Paleo". His concepts are basically a gluten-free, bean-free, Palumbo/Body Opus approach... but as Warren says, "It's Not Paleo".

It's like the Cordain "Lean Meats only" thing all over again. I like Sisson's approach - he was smart enough to call his diet something else.

The tubers thing has been gone over ad nauseum. Use the search function, specifically Warren Dew's posts.

More to the point, why do we need a carb source?

Tubers imo...

Well that's just it. "IMO" doesn't really matter when we're talking about science.

Well that's just it. "IMO" doesn't really matter when we're talking about science.

Well do you have the science to show they weren't?

Dr Nathanial Dominy further investigated this dilemma using stable isotope analysis, which tests the chemical signature on tooth enamel and is able to inform the researcher what type of food that chemical originally came from. He tested the tooth enamel of early hominins, todays mole rats which feed exclusively on bulbs and tubers (underground storage organs such as onions and potatoes) and fossils of mole rats, which were taken from sites where hominins were also discovered. The enamel of both rat samples matched that of the human sample providing strong evidence that early humans consumed tubers and bulbs.  His research published in Nature further tested this hypothesis using molecular genetics. In this research they focused on the gene for salivary amylase, an enzyme in saliva that digests starch. Plants use starch to protect their fuel stores making them difficult to digest. He found through his research that chimpanzees, which subside mainly on fruit, had only two copies of this gene whereas humans have several copies of this gene. Having several copies allows more salivary amylaze to be made thus more easily breaking down starches. Thus, at some stage between the evolution of humans and chimpanzees, the duplication of these genes occurred, allowing humans to more easily subsist on tubers.
http://darwinstable.wordpress.com/2008/11/27/did-hunter-gatherers-eat-starchy-tubers/

Assumption aside, guesstimations about how primitive man ate/lived is all inconsequential when we are arguing about it on an internet forum.

I don't really think anyone here can believe they are "emulating" the diet and lifestyle of pre-Agricultural man in any way, shape, or form (excluding casual context). The research into this WOE was concluded from research about the diet and life of pre-ag man, and the conclusion is what we practice today.


Maybe it's because I read Neanderthin before any other Paleo book and it absolutely changed my life, but the premise for eating this way wasn't because "it was what our ancestors ate", that was simply the thought that spawned the research - the real reason is that certain foods have certain toxins - and honestly, most of the foods that are recommended on the Paleo diet are free of these toxins.

Sweet Potatoes, regardless of who ate them and when, contain trypsin inhibitors and other trace elements that disrupt protein uptake. White Potatoes potentially contain some of the highest levels of solanine second to the actual Nightshade plant. It doesn't matter that these toxins are reduced to "trace" levels by cooking, because for some of us, "trace" levels of gluten, HFCS, casein, might potentially make us sick again.

And I'm betting that the advocates of sweet potatoes have never been morbidly obese or had a true "addiction" to food. You tell someone that "they can have sweet potatoes, meat, and cheese - lose weight, and feel great!", there is a good chance they will binge on the cheese and sweet potatoes, as they most closely resemble the foods they got fat on in the first place.

I am not a zero-carbavore, although I was for my first few months... and was for the past week until I broke my carb fast with a couple bananas pre-workout (fixed my issues in the gym, btw), and don't necessarily believe it's the OnlyWay(tm), in fact I've eaten plenty of carbs in the form of less-starchy roots such as rutabagas, turnips, carrots, parsnips (as well as plenty of summer and winter squashes). However, coming from someone who was once a carbohydrate addict, I can tell you for a fact that if traditional neanderthin-inspired paleo included tubers, I would still be 400+lbs and would have moved onto a different diet.  

And to get back on my original post - I am still considering adding 3-5 grams of creatine/day to my routine. However, eating a much starchier fruit in quantity (bananas) with breakfast this morning ended up fueling me quite well for my 2 hour olympic weightlifting session... I can understand now that carbs might help, but still dispute using sweet potatoes to this end.

Read post above. Modern day HG's. Archeological evidence.

Most hunter gatherers eat no tubers.  The only ones that seem to are the Hadza, who live in close proximity to peoples who have farmed tubers for millenia.  The Hadza also eat grain given them by missionaries.  Check the relevant thread in the research forum for more detail.

It's also to be noted that modern hunter gatherers are not necessarily representative of paleolithic peoples.  Modern hunter gatherers generally live on marginal lands where large bodied game have been hunted out, and at a minimum have habits from after the broad spectrum revolution, which happened nearly as recently as the agricultural revolution.

The enamel isotope evidence you mention doesn't distinguish between tubers, which are not paleo, and root vegetables, which are.  In addition, it sounds like it's the australopithecine evidence where the data doesn't actually make any statistically significant distinctions at all.  It's also to be noted that australopithecines were from before the paleolithic, and had small brains and large guts, unlike us.  We're not adapted to the same foods they are.

By the way, the extra amylase gene copies are known to be recent as well, and not all humans have them.  They seem to be an adaptation to a starchy neolithic agricultural diet, just as adult lactose tolerance is an adaptation to a neolithic dairying.  Those adaptations don't extend to the far more complex genetic changes needed to be adapted to relevant antinutrients, nor to immunity to diabetes or metabolic syndrome caused by excessive carbohydrate consumption.