Ketogenic diet as a way to lighten pack?

It is all very complicated when you try to analyze all this stuff. So don't.

So my suggestion is that you start by exercising every single day. And just walking 2 hours a day AT A FAIRLY FAST PACE will be sufficient. At a good pace, that would be around 6 miles per day, 42 miles per week. That is EVERY DAY — don't skip a day unless you have the flu or a broken leg. Don't have two hours? Then do an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon/evening. You can exercise more if you want, just do the minimum 42 miles per week walking at a minimum. Don't have the 14 hours per week available? Analyze your TV and computer time. You can sacrifice some of that. No gym membership needed. Still can't find the 14 hours? Look harder, you life depends on it. Everyday walking will help wire your brain to stomach communication system and together they will determine the correct portions to eat without you trying to think it out.

Now just stay away from a lot of heavily processed foods, especially flour and sugar products. Don't even keep this stuff at home. You can get your needed carbs from fruits and vegetables. Go ahead and eat stuff you like. Your body will start to crave the foods it needs if you are not eating enough (e.g., fats, protein, carbs). If you get a craving for ice cream or a candy bar, walk to the store and get just one. It is okay. Need a Big Mac or a Taco? Its okay, go get one. Just don't eat them every day. Minimize alcohol. One glass of red wine a day is okay too. Try Gallo Hearty Burgundy, usually on sale for $6.99 @1.5 liter — don't be a wine snob, you will learn to like it. And you will save enough money on this inexpensive wine that you will be able to celebrate special events with a bottle of Dom Perignon (don't drink the whole thing, share it with your significant other).

Of course good genes help, and this may not be ideal with those with some diseases.

My father is 88 years old and has been doing this as long as I can remember, other than the Champagne. He is slender, fit, and a pain to debate as this has kept his mind very sharp. I do the same, although some here would debate the sharpness of my brain :)

P.S. Now when you go backpacking eat anything you want, to include junk food.

I didn't want to muddle my previous post, so here are some additional comments:

There are some outdated dietary sayings that float around, and I call them myths because even though they are be correct at some level, they don't translate well to the complex system that is homo sapiens. (Worse, it does a disservice to people with weight problems.)

Some easy ones:
"a calorie is a calorie", or references to the 2nd law of thermodynamics:
Only true in a bunsen burner, also comes from a misunderstanding of thermodynamics.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC506782/

"fat burns in a carbohydrate flame":
Should be rephrased as "both muscle fat and carbohydrate burn in an amino acid flame"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18500949
(An intermediate reference; the Robergs and Roberts text is the original cited)

That said, humans are pretty adaptable; carb consumption, if harmful, might only be harmful in excessive amounts, or in people who have some level of metabolic derangement. Could this be triggered by certain neolithic foods? There certainly seems to be a decent correlation, which while not causation, as the xkcd comic says, "it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'".

Roleigh,

That's correct (edit: dietary protein can be used to obtain necessary glucose; fats can provide all other energy); your brain is often said to need at least 100-120g of glucose per day. If you go no-carb (think Inuit), that need will drop to about 30-40g, as the energy deficit is made up by ketone bodies. Eating adequate protein will allow your liver to produce the necessary glucose without cannabilizing muscle tissue. (Your liver uses fat to power this process, which also creates ketone bodies.)

Glad to see someone (Jeremy) finally chime in with a reference to gluconeogenesis. The brain functions quite well on ketones except for a very small portion of tissues that do seem to require glucose. Gluconeogenesis can also supply sufficient glucose to deal with krebs cycle issues.

That said, in individuals that are not fully ketoadapted (as in: most of us), the liver's not terribly efficient at the process, and that's probably why you had such issues with low energy for those months, Piper.

Dietary carbs shouldn't be entirely demonized, however. A healthy body can handle them just fine, and is evolutionarily adapted to do so: starchy tubers are used as a secondary calorie source by hunter-gatherers still present in the environment where the genus Homo emerged, and the genetic adaptation to produce Amylase (an enzyme that breaks down many starches found in such sources) is a testament to that. Most northern "eskimo" cultures did include some starch and fruit-based carbs seasonally, and the few that didn't (mostly alaskan if I recall) should be regarded as an extreme example of what can be done, but not necessarily what "should" be done.

If your metabolism hasn't been altered by a life of bombardment with inappropriate foods, good carb sources are nothing to frown upon, provided that intake isn't excessive. I can eat the majority of my calories as carbs (from the right sources) and not experience health problems, but there's definitely a difference in how I feel and function between a more glucose-based metabolism and more ketone-based metabolism. Not exactly better or worse, but different. So it becomes a matter of preference, and I usually prefer to get most of my calories from fat and avoid spiking my insulin for that reason.

I have noted that I'm a lot better at dealing with the cold when carbs are minimized, probably for precisely the reasons you speculate related to insulin levels. I've noted (and this is completely anecdotal so take it for what it's worth) that a lot of people I know who are "skinny" but have a little belly of subcutaneous fat stores, which seems to indicate that they can handle the carb intake without getting obese but are probably inefficient at mobilizing fat for energy, are the same individuals who are ALWAYS cold. I speculate that their consistent cycles of carb intake insulin elevation keep them from utilizing the fat they have stored to generate body heat. As far as I'm aware, the "brown fat" cells that generate that heat require fat rather than glucose to do so (can't confirm that though). I suppose it's something I should research further.

"Tom, how do these experts who state that the primary energy source for the brain is glucose or that a certain amount of carbohydrate is required to facilitate the metabolism of fat account for the fact that Eskimos have lived centuries on a totally carb-free diet? I'm sure they use plenty of brain power to survive in such a hostile environment."

Roleigh,

I didn't expect to change your mind. I was merely trying to add a different perspective to the conversation. The experts as you call them constitute a majority opinion across the medical and scientific communities, and what they say makes sense to me. As one of the above poster above noted, gluconeogenisis will provide glucose for the brain, up to a point. In its absence, ketone bodies will fill the bill, as is the case also with the heart. The problem arises when dietary protein is inadequate and body fat is exhausted. Then the body starts cannabalizing itself to obtain the necessary protein. All that said, ketone bodies are not the body's optimal choice, coming into play under normal circumstances only when adequate carbs are unavailable. As a physician friend of mine remarked today when I ran this by him, the body is enormously flexible and always has backup systems available for abnormal situations. I think this is one of them. Also, while ketone bodies seem to function fine for endurance, they are not as efficient as carbs for high intensity exercise. Or so the "experts" say. Also, as you mentioned, civilization didn't really start to take off until ready sources of carbohydrates, mostly grains but also potatoes, became available. I wonder if there is a message for us there? Both the Inuit and others, such as the Masai, have remained either hunter/gatherer or pastoral to this day.

Along the lines of Nick's post, I am fairly active, not overweight, and I do fine on a fairly high carb diet, as do many, many others I know or have known in the past. I do, however, end up at around 30% carbs on backpacking trips where the pace is relatively slow and the caloric efficiency of my energy sources is paramount.

Miguel, I think you represent a special case, and a ketogenic diet is increasingly recognized as effective approach to treating diabetes. At least that is the gist of what reading I have done.

Darned interesting thread. Thanks to all who posted.

I was on the Atkins diet for two years and was amazed at how much weight I lost while consuming 3,500 to 4,000 kcals per day. I carefully monitored my ketones and remained in a state of ketosis for months at a time. I noticed a drop in my ability to train with much aerobic intensity but endurance seemed to be uneffected and perhaps even enhanced with very even blood sugar levels.

In addition, headaches I had experienced for decades were gone within a day or two. I slept great and had a much better feeling of overall wellness and have been on a relatively high protein diet since.

As your body switches from running on glucose to ketones was pretty rough for me, and was enough to keep me from cheating. I wasn't much good to anyone for a couple of days but it was fine after that.

I took several backpacking trips during that time that clearly showed me ketones and backpacking could work, but I had to slow the pace a bit and make up with more time on the trail.

It is a low volume diet which took some getting used to but not too bad after you got used to it. The point of the Atkins diet is to find your carb sensitivity and manage the level. Like most "diets" it is a lifestyle that requires permanent change. I spent some time with fhe Tinglet Indians in Alaska and they have generally moved away from their traditional diet and as a result type 2 diabetes has become a big problem.

I wouldn't recommend a backpacking trip as the time to try a radical departure from your normal diet, but if you have been running on ketones for a couple of weeks prior without issues you should be fine. As a side benefit for any tentmates, flatulance is pretty much nonexistant while your body is in a state of ketosis.

The problem arises when dietary protein is inadequate and body fat is exhausted. Then the body starts cannabalizing itself to obtain the necessary protein.

This is a curious statement, Tom. The body has trouble whenever any nutrient is insufficiently provided for, no? The same could be said for carbs when in high intensity workouts… What happens when dietary carbs is inadequate? Hypoglycemia. I'm not sure what you are trying to get at by stating this.

Also, while ketone bodies seem to function fine for endurance, they are not as efficient as carbs for high intensity exercise. Or so the "experts" say. Also, as you mentioned, civilization didn't really start to take off until ready sources of carbohydrates, mostly grains but also potatoes, became available. I wonder if there is a message for us there? Both the Inuit and others, such as the Masai, have remained either hunter/gatherer or pastoral to this day.

Why is there this assumption that the preferred state of being for a healthy organism is high intensity exercise? Why not the opposite way of thinking, where low-intensity exercise (but exercise none-the-less) is the norm and the measure from which you should start thinking about health? If you glance out your window at animals quite the opposite is always apparent… animals invariably go for the less intensive route, only performing high intensity activity when it is necessary, and usually only as long as absolutely needed, no more. Also, you assume that the "higher" and "healthier" state of being for human societies is civilization, as if hunter/gatherers somehow live in a lesser state of being. I'm not sure why you necessarily equate civilization with health. In almost all cases hunter/ gatherers that live their traditional lives tend to be far stronger and healthier than "civilized" equivalents. You have just to take a look at their bodies to see the effects of their lifestyles.

Miguel, I think you represent a special case, and a ketogenic diet is increasingly recognized as effective approach to treating diabetes.

That's the thing. There has been a lot of inquiry into why diabetes happens in the first place and why it has become a skyrocketing epidemic in modern societies. Why, for instance, does the optimal lifestyle for a diabetic completely follow the optimal guidelines of the lifestyle for a non-diabetic person? Almost everything I have read points to diabetes being highest among people who ate the least amount of carbs before their lifestyles changed to modern diets. These are also societies that often sustained periods of famine. The theory now is that people prone to diabetes actually carry genes that, in a lifestyle of few carbs and intermittent fasting, helped them survive, because diabetics are prone to getting fat. Only in an environment of constant plenty, constant high calories, and unending access to carbs does diabetes arise. The coping/ survival mechanism that diabetes prone people carry within themselves was never meant to deal with the onslaught of over-nutrition that modern society allows. And the fact that there are so many people getting diabetes says something about the way we eat. Of course, the lack of exercise has a big part in this, too. But as Mark Sisson suggests in "Primal Blueprint", our health depends about 80% on nutrition and only about 20% on exercise. This is consistent with my above observation that perhaps a gentler form of keeping active and staying healthy is more natural. This constant drive to perform high intensity exercise is quite unnatural for most of our day-to-day lives. Perhaps we should learn something about long-term health and the problem with over-eating and over-training.

Yes, this is a tangent from the OP, but so is half of the rest of this.

Something to consider: Moderation

Taking the middle path is probably the hardest path to take. The dominant culture we live in is not one of moderation, especially not our fast-food and TGI Fridays way of doing things. Self-indulgence and giant portions are typical selling points.

Because our culture's diets are so extreme in one direction, I think we often swing to the extreme in the other as well: diets not based on moderation and variety, but diets equally extreme in their denial of entire food groups, processes, etc. From Raw Veganism to Strict Paleo to intermittent fasting to no-carb, high-carb, etc. I think the sheer variety of "diets for optimal performance" in America/the West goes to show how absolutely conflicted and uncertain we are about what we should be doing when it comes to food. Other cultures don't seem to have this problem; they eat what they've always eaten (though Western fast-food culture is eroding this behavior worldwide).

It makes perfect sense (to me) that in order to resist one extreme, ones takes up its opposite; I've been there, but in the long term, it's always been unsustainable. While it's certainly possible to maintain for some, I've always found any highly restrictive diet to be relatively short-lived; that seems to be the case for most people.

Granted, we can site the Masai, the Inuit, ancient Japanese, and other groups all over the planet for their unique diets and jump to the conclusion that's how we should be eating…But if you average the full-spectrum and sheer variety of human diets and general health, it seems to point to one general idea: we're HIGHLY adaptable and we can generally thrive and achieve "peak" fitness following just about any diet providing a few key elements are there: minimal processing (whole foods), exercise, and moderation.

Amen on the moderation post. Reminds me of the best humorous retort, "moderation in all things including moderation!"

I stumbled across a new health blog today, very, very impressive and I loved her take. Her name is Denise Minger – on her about page she has this quote:

"This site isn’t specifically low-carb or high-carb, vegan or carnivore, raw food or cooked food, or anything else that could be neatly labeled. My own experience as a (recovered) raw vegan taught me that diet-dogma is killer, so the emphasis here is on unraveling research rather than building an ideology. My goal is to make nutritional science accessible and non-boring to those who really care about their health."

Her diet is interesting too (she is not totally raw which is why I think she added the "SOS" to her url.)
http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/01/20/my-current-diet/

Anyway, the reason I included mention of her is that it's not good to be dogmatic as important as it is to keep studying and challenging long held beliefs even one's owns.

Moderation is super important in backpacking as when you do a long hike you have to compromise your diet so it's important to appreciate how to stay healthy eating a varied diet.

By the way I had to add this, can one hike and do intermittent fasting? Read this about a faster who did the hike from Whitney Portal to Mt. Whitney and back to the Portal without any food. The answer is yes.

http://www.gnolls.org/2443/occasional-insanity-outperforms-daily-misery-day-hiking-mt-whitney-fasted/

you can eat cr@ppy stuff and still lose weight … whether you are "healthier" in the long run or will live to be 100+ years old is another question of course …

the trick is to keep your output greater than yr input … like anything else

i lost 15 lbs this season on little caesers pizza, A&W burgers and fries, and gummy bears … simply because i climbed 5 days a week during climbing season …

like i said … the truth about paleo diets is simply that those cavemen exercised alot more than most people did today … you need to when yr next meal or running away from crazed cave bears depend on it …

+1 to the entire post

and specifically, the conclusion "we can generally thrive and achieve "peak" fitness following just about any diet providing a few key elements are there: minimal processing (whole foods), exercise, and moderation."

Moderation is one of those things that is often sensible, but it's necessary to define what you're being moderate about. Moderate consumption of real foods is obviously the way to go; the tricky question is "what is a "real food" for Homo sapiens?" Humans are pretty adaptable, yes, but no animal is adapted to do well with EVERY food, even in moderation.

Essentially, why eat anything, even in moderation, that causes one's health to suffer? For example, for me to continue eating wheat despite repeatable personal experience of health alterations and mounds of science on the toxicity of gluten and detrimental effects of gliadin and wheat starches, in the name of "moderation"… sounds to me like ignoring the facts in the name of a phrase that sounds "wisdomy." Wheat is bad for me and I should not consume it, in moderation or otherwise.

Thing is, I'm not an outlier. Assuming you're a human, wheat is bad for you to, along with a lot of other components of modern diets. Sure, tolerance varies, and the effects may be so low-level as to be accepted by our culture as natural "aging." You can live on it. But if you could live better without, then why not? Moderation is, indeed, something that needs to be "moderated." Not everything we eat today is good for you, in moderation or otherwise, except perhaps as compared to starvation.

If you'd prefer to moderately consume things that harm you, great. I drink alcohol, among other things perhaps I "shouldn't." But using the whole "moderation" thing to look wise and reasoned and cast those who care about such things as barking up the wrong tree only has the appearance of being rational, while in fact it requires one to do very little empirical learning and analysis. Sure, science has limits, but so does the "commonsense." It's important that each "moderate" the other. I doubt the dismissive use of a surprisingly empty phrase about "moderation" is going to result in much progress combating the complex, intertwined issues of public health, environmental degradation, and polluted living environment that we find ourselves mired in, where the "moderation" that proved successful for a given culture in the "recent" past may no longer apply. It's more important to understand what, as humans, we physiologically *are,* and to do so it's important that we look further back.

Moderation is only useful if you've defined its parameters, and those parameters are what's being discussed.

My idea of a great discourse on diet and moderation is what Denise Minger posted in her blog recently

http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/08/13/ancestral-health-symposium/

See the middle section on this page, entitled "Paleo and vegetarianism: let’s be friends!"

Denise is one of the most enjoyable, entertaining, and incredible nutrition researchers I've come across in a long time. I stumbled across her blog looking for a good critique on the movie, Forks and Knifes. I wish I could write half as good as she does.

I think the original posting on moderation was the gist that there are a lot of sense in many healthy diets out there. Of course, junk food or food that one suffers inflammation or sensitivity to should be zero-ed out. I recently came across two food sensitivity testing companies, Alcat and SageMedLabs, and I intend in my annual physical next month to find out what foods I'm sensitive too. I suspect Wheat and Corn are two of them but I don't know and won't know until I get the test results back. I'm going with the SageMedLabs test as they work very well with your insurance company to have it covered.

I've been Paleo off the trail for about 16 months and on the trail the only non-paleo items I have are one-minute instant rice and pre-cooked, dehdrated beans. By the way, Denise Minger's article above makes the strong point that the latest Symposium on Paleo Diet shows that it is no longer a single diet but encompasses a wide range of diets and that makes the most sense. Loren Cordain asserts there are about 20 different Paleo diets he has studied in his medical anthropological studies.

Erik, what a remarkably lucid and clearly explained post.

Sometimes it's frustrating to talk with people who haven't bothered to really do their research into these things. I've been forced to figure out why certain ways of eating and exercising don't work for me, because diabetes has serious and often immediate consequences if I don't get it right and understand how and why something does or doesn't work. For some reason the simplistic calories:energy output way of thinking just doesn't work for Type 1 diabetics… at least not most of those I know. More and more these days people are finding that restriction (but not elimination) of carbs and regular exercise are what help control blood sugar levels and mitigate the effects of diabetes. These parameters work for healthy people, too, not just diabetics.

Nutrition is a damningly complex subject. It makes learning about UL and backpacking look like a walk in the park. Perhaps that is why so few people attempt to really learn about it. Also, when you are young your body tends to be resilient, so you might get away with eating bad food and not feel any consequences, but do it over a long enough period then eventually it will catch up with you. I think it is far better to treat your body right from the start and keep this up, as much as possible, throughout your life. Later your body will thank you for it. I know I wish I had known much more about nutrition when I was younger.

"This is a curious statement, Tom. The body has trouble whenever any nutrient is insufficiently provided for, no? The same could be said for carbs when in high intensity workouts… What happens when dietary carbs is inadequate? Hypoglycemia. I'm not sure what you are trying to get at by stating this."

Not really, Miguel. When carbs are exhausted in high intensity workouts, you either slow down or grind to a halt because you can't oxidize either fat or protein fast enough to provide the energy necessary to support the high intensity of your workout. This is something I have had a lot of experience with, and it happens long before you go hypoglycemic, a condition I have never experienced over many, many years of high intensity workouts. When glycogen stores are exhausted, the liver will provide glucose via gluconeogenisis to support fat metabolism. If it is not from dietary sources, it will come from muscle, and that is problematic. When both glycogen and fat are exhausted, energy will be supplied by metabolizing more muscle, and that is even more problematic. Protein is a special case, although losing the fat protecting the organs is also a serious matter.

"Why is there this assumption that the preferred state of being for a healthy organism is high intensity exercise? "

I made no such assumption. If you understood that from my post, I apologize for not being clear. I will say that high intensity exercise, properly used will enable you to perform well at lower intensity under demanding conditions such as high altitude. That is where it fits into my backpacking training. When I was racing seriously, high intensity training was mandatory if I was to remain competitive, but that is a special case that does not apply to the general population.

"Also, you assume that the "higher" and "healthier" state of being for human societies is civilization, as if hunter/gatherers somehow live in a lesser state of being. I'm not sure why you necessarily equate civilization with health. In almost all cases hunter/ gatherers that live their traditional lives tend to be far stronger and healthier than "civilized" equivalents. You have just to take a look at their bodies to see the effects of their lifestyles."

Again, I apologize if you understood that from my post. My feelings on the subject are decidedly mixed. I make no assumptions or value judgments about hunter gatherers' state of being other than that they, like the rest of us, take joy in their existence. I definitely DO NOT equate civilization with health or a healthy life style, although that is partially because we do not take advantage of the opportunities civilization offers us and partially because of the misuse of our knowledge. Optimally used, civilization could offer us the benefits of both worlds. All that said, hunter gatherers face a set of health challenges we do not, and are powerless in the face of the onslaught of "modernity". Their way of life is no bed of roses, and never was. I do not look upon them as "noble savages" or otherwise romanticize them, but view them as one more manifastation of humanity in all its diversity, and a reminder of the price we have paid for what we have achieved and misused so casually. As I said, for me it is a mixed bag.

"That's the thing. There has been a lot of inquiry into why diabetes happens in the first place and why it has become a skyrocketing epidemic in modern societies. Why, for instance, does the optimal lifestyle for a diabetic completely follow the optimal guidelines of the lifestyle for a non-diabetic person? Almost everything I have read points to diabetes being highest among people who ate the least amount of carbs before their lifestyles changed to modern diets. These are also societies that often sustained periods of famine. The theory now is that people prone to diabetes actually carry genes that, in a lifestyle of few carbs and intermittent fasting, helped them survive, because diabetics are prone to getting fat. Only in an environment of constant plenty, constant high calories, and unending access to carbs does diabetes arise. The coping/ survival mechanism that diabetes prone people carry within themselves was never meant to deal with the onslaught of over-nutrition that modern society allows. And the fact that there are so many people getting diabetes says something about the way we eat. Of course, the lack of exercise has a big part in this, too. But as Mark Sisson suggests in "Primal Blueprint", our health depends about 80% on nutrition and only about 20% on exercise."

I have no quarrel with what you say, but I do have this sense that exercise plays a larger part in the problem than Sisson claims. As for the unhealthiness of the modern diet, that is an individual choice. Nobody has to sussist on Big gulps and Doritos, etc, nor do they have to sit on their butts in front of an X-Box all day. I have seen too many people, of both sexes and all races and body types, who don't do that live extremely healthy lives. Those who have a genetic predisposition to diabetes are another matter, one that I am not competent to comment on, but everything I have read and heard from health care professionals leads me to believe that a large percentage of those who contract type 2 diabetes did so as a result of poor diet and lack of exercise.

"This is consistent with my above observation that perhaps a gentler form of keeping active and staying healthy is more natural. This constant drive to perform high intensity exercise is quite unnatural for most of our day-to-day lives. Perhaps we should learn something about long-term health and the problem with over-eating and over-training."

No quarrel with this statement, especially the overeating part, although on behalf of those of us who at one time or another in their lives have chosen the high intensity path as PART of their life style, I will say that it does have it attractions and rewards. Whether it is natural/healthy or not I will leave to individual judgment, but after years of weaving it into my life, I am still going strong at 71 with my knees, hips and ankles in good working order, as are many of my former compatriots. One thing you need to understand is that high intensity training is not, indeed cannot be, constant. It very quickly leads to breakdown. Like everything else in this life, moderation is the key to success.

With out haven read all these long post I ll throw as few things out there:
-Not all carbs or fats are equal. Starch/glucose is fine sucrose and fructose are very bad except in very small amounts. In other words root vegetables are healthy as well as the occasional fruit. Refined flours and sugars are not.
– Saturated and mono saturated fats are fine polyunsaturated and trans fats are very bad for you except in very small amounts. In other words meats, milk, eggs, tropical palm/coconut/ macadamia fats are good for you. The new industrial oils made from cheap subsidized crops are not,ie. corn,soy,rapeseed (canola) ect.
You can see that there is a pattern here: real food is good for you no matter if its high carb or fat. Processed "food" is the cause of a laundry list of disease and you can see it all around you every day.
We are omnivores after all- we can live off either fuel. But, we CAN make our own glucose but we need to consume fat to live.
Now, health is a separate matter from "fuel" you can eat the most horrible processed carcinogenic, diabetes inducing foodstuffs and get an energy boost while running. What concerns me about this is how the "calories in/calories out" crowd refuses to believe that their junk food fuel of choice damages them as well as fuels them because they believe all food is equal and its just a matter of calorie/vitamin density. Therefore if you run around every where and burn calories what you eat doesn't matter. This is pure marketing and I blame this line of thinking for the state of our nations health.
Where a lot of confusion comes in is when ketogenic diets are used for therapeutic reasons. If you are metabolically damaged i.e. you are over weight pre or full blown diabetic ketogetic diets can do wonders for reversing your health- so much so that people who have completely changed their life from it become a little over zealous about low carb ( understandably ). The fact that doctors and the mainstream media seem to be against them and try to deny their success and the mountains of scientific evidence only feeds their zealotry because it feels very much like a conspiracy and they very much want to help others who are suffering from the same diseases they cured themselves of. They are largely right it is a conspiracy -the government pushes food guidelines that help the processed food and pharmaceutical industry and those guidelines are what most doctors go by. This is why the medical establishment is no help to patients who eat a bad diet and only prescribe medications that help mask symptoms while the disease continues to progress until the patient dies.
Magazines who also represent the interest of advertisers have convinced a generation of athletes that those same high profit food stuffs can not only help their performance but are necessary. For example, if you believe that you need a really high amount of protein ( more than you get from a steak )to build muscle explain the muscularity of a bull or the vegetarian gorilla? the increase in athletic performance in the last half century is the triumph of performance enhancing drugs, not supplements and whole grain pasta!
It should be noted that people who have reversed their obesity and diabetes from a ketogenic diet can over time add back more and more carbs. Although sometimes their metabolism is so damaged that they may have to carefully watch their carbs the rest of their life. If you are more or less healthy and only have a few pounds to lose you can still benefit from a ketogentic diet and later add back carbs. the important thing whether you do a keto diet or not is that your source of carbs be whole foods like potatoes, parsnips, carrots and not flour(including whole grains) and sugar.

I wonder if the Tarahumara could be consider a paleo culture- I don't think anyone would argue that they are indeed a healthy culture (I'd have to rate any culture that runs 100's of miles per month from young to old relatively healthy). Looks like their diet is the antithesis of the "paleo" diet. Beans, corn, rice are important to their diet- their diet is roughly 20-25% protein, 65-70% carbohydrates and 15-20% fat- hardly "paleo". Of course they consume little to no processed foods and their carbohydrates are for the most part complex.

Might be worth someone traveling to Northern Mexico and tell the Tarahumara they have it all wrong- quit running so dam(n) much and get rid of their carbs.

Paleo culture may or may not be healthy but agriculture has historically had its advantages. An agricultural society can produce more food which frees up some people to pursue technological innovatiions. Thats probably why hunter/gather societies didn't invent a lot of stuff, no time. Whatever you think of technological progress the sad fact is advanced technological societies have a way of conquering or peacefully subverting hunter/gather type societies.

So for further reading paleo diet vs. atkins diet vs… I guess the UDA Food Pyramid?

Paleo is used in the context of the paleo diet as a short hand for evolution. As in there is no modern study of biology with out considering evolution and genetics. It grew out of the whole foods movement. Humans have been doing agriculture for only about 10,00 years , industrial processing for about 50, but eat a diet based on meat and root vegetables supplemented with leafy greens and fruit/berries for about 35 million (the paleo era).
Hollywood has severely perverted our sense of history and how humans have lived before the modern era. I would encourage anyone to take a few anthropology classes or read up on it. It would be too time consuming to deconstruct all the misconceptions about history. But the paleo diet is not about reconstructing diet its about using science i.e. biology i.e. evolution to figure out what is and is not healthy to eat. One way to do this is to compare cultures who eat different diets, for instance- if someone says saturated fats cause cancer and heart disease but cultures around the world who eat a high sat fat diet don't have any signs of these diseases it is reasonable to conclude that the hypothesis is incorrect and so on.
It should be noted that grain agriculture and civilization has always been based on slavery and short brutal lives filled with war. Grains and drugs were never meant to be "healthy" just an efficient way to subdue a population by settling them , store food for war and collect taxes.

In practice, depends what you are doing. I doubt the BPL group running the R2R2R this spring will be fueling themselves with cold, leftover BBQ ribs or cold poultry drumsticks in place of carbo-rich goo.

Same thing at camp. You may want no/less sugars for dinner if watching your weight, but some for breakfast or on the trail (though that can come from fruit to keep it real).

"Humans have been doing agriculture for only about 10,00 years , industrial processing for about 50, but eat a diet based on meat and root vegetables supplemented with leafy greens and fruit/berries for about 35 million (the paleo era)."

I don't think humans have been around for 35 million years, Brian, more like 200,000 years. As for agriculture, it seems logical to me that humans would also have included grains in their wild form in their diet. Otherwise how would they have known to domesticate them? I doubt very much it was an epiphany that led them to suddenly start planting wheat, rice, millet, etc, out of the blue.

"Hollywood has severely perverted our sense of history and how humans have lived before the modern era. I would encourage anyone to take a few anthropology classes or read up on it."

What makes you think all the good folks here at BPL get their info on the subject from Hollywood?

"It should be noted that grain agriculture and civilization has always been based on slavery and short brutal lives filled with war. Grains and drugs were never meant to be "healthy" just an efficient way to subdue a population by settling them , store food for war and collect taxes."

Exactly where did you come up with this particular idea? Sources? To be sure, human history has been filled with wars, but also periods of peace and high achievement that have allowed us to progress, in fits and starts to a point where we at least have a chance to reach our full potential, instead of spending most of our waking hours in search of enough food to stay alive and reproduce the next generation. All of this has been the result of having a steady food supply, based on grain, adequate to free a segment of the population up for other activities that have been the basis of human progress. As far as I know, every civilization of any consequence has been based on one or another grain or, in the case of the Incas, grain and potatoes. The problem is not grain, or carbs in general, but, rather, excess consumption.

Regarding just exercise more and you'll lose weight. Sorry, didn't work for me. I was hiking the friggin Pacific Crest Trail for criminy's sake, 25-30 miles a day, and I was already gaining back the weight I had lost. My high-carb diet along with the calorie deficit pretty much hosed my metabolism, and by metabolism I mean I think I became severely insulin-resistent. I gained everything back when I got home without overeating. Yeah, that's right, with a will of steel I had one single victory feast and then went on a diet immediately after the hike and still gained all the weight back and more.

Regarding moderation. Didn't work for me, either. I ate really normal, very healthy but any exercise at all made me ravenously hungry which led me to eat too much. I tried exercising less so I wouldn't be tempted by hunger but I couldn't lose weight. I could only exercise and be miserably hungry and totally preoccupied with food to a point where it interfered with my life. It was clear I had a problem with managing food and energy. I read that a high fat low carbohydrate diet could calm my hunger so I tried it. That's all I really wanted from it.

I have had minimal and slow weight loss in the last 2 months. One belt notch, that's all. But I feel a lot better. I don't have to eat every few hours anymore. My mind isn't pre-occupied with food, which was disorienting until I got used to it. I went backpacking with better, tastier food and needed less of it to stay energetic and satisfied. I postholed in the snow up to my knees for hours without tiring. I've never done that before. I pitched my tent on the snow and slept with just a z-rest under me (but two quilts on top!). I froze and woke up to shiver but I did sleep. This way of eating certainly has restored a resilience I lost hiking the PCT on the "eat whatever you want while you're backpacking" diet.

"It should be noted that grain agriculture and civilization has always been based on slavery and short brutal lives filled with war. Grains and drugs were never meant to be "healthy" just an efficient way to subdue a population by settling them , store food for war and collect taxes."

I don't think slavery is a precondition for agriculture. On the other hand I do think a lot of the tyrannical empires we've seen would only have been possible with agriculture. I just can't imagine how a society of hunter/gathers could be controlled by a despot or how they could control (or benefit from) a large population of slaves. It would have been nice if we'd stayed hunter/gathers in some ways but aside from the question of progress there's another problem. A agricultural power can raise a professional army and conquer a tribe of hunter/gathers (its been happying since anciet times). So hunter/gathers either die out or modernize themselves to protect against invaders and end up with a stronger more centralized government than can fight off the invaders but it can also us its resources to oppress its people.

Piper if you're happy with your current diet I have no problem with it. My question is if you're keeping up a very active lifestyle (i.e. thru-hiking) and not losing weight could it be that your body is okay at whatever weight it was at? I'm all for healthy living and if you want to drop weight I won't argue with you. I'm just not convinced everyone has to have a perfect body to be healthy. Seems like to me a more important question would be whats your colesteral and heart rate.
At any rate Kudos for sticking with it and making it work! Thats more discipline that a lot of us have.

Interesting posts ("paleo cultures", "history"). What I understand is that the paleolithic diet is really, historically speaking, about 20 different types of diets depending upon the paleolithic culture being studied. Loren Cordain in a You Tube lecture covers this ( http://youtu.be/5dw1MuD9EP4 ). In some, the carbohydrate load is quite heavy (where the people ate lots of tuber, such as native Hawaii Indians who ate lots of Poi (from the Taro root)). In others, the carbohydrate load is very low (such as the historical Eskimos). The commonality of the diet is that instead of grains/legumes (excepting peas)/beans — they used tubers and other starchy vegetables (such as Yams, Squash), along with vegetables, fruit, nuts, animal. A varied range of macronutrient ratios are involved in these various diets.

A good (and fun piece to read, as she (Denise Minger) is a great writer who entertains as she educates) is here: http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/08/13/ancestral-health-symposium/ where she talks about meeting a meat-free, lacto-ovo paleo dieter/Researcher named Aravind who she writes of:

"I think Aravind summed it up well in a post on Paleohacks:

Paleo is about toxin avoidance. It is not about being a meatasaur, low carber, re-enactor, etc. I am a very proud member of this community and a very strong supporter of the movement. … This community is squandering a huge opportunity to gain the support of a crowd (like me) that is completely on board with the virtues of avoiding neolithic toxins and actually would lend support to our movement."

The whole page there is a great, fun read about the modern Paleo movement and what it shares with vegetarianism.

The other post about how the paleolithic diet prevented mankind as a whole from evolving civilization, that is undoubtedly historically true but not anymore in this day of transportation by air, modern day refrigeration, humidity-controlled food storage lockers. We're able to enjoy a paleolithic-diet without reverting back to the stone age. Whether the farmers are growing vegetables/fruit/nuts/grass-fed free-range cattle or grains/legumes/beans, a division of labor and efficiency of scale can still exist and do exist. I of course feel that organic farming inevitably requires fewer animals per square feet but that doesn't mean we have to abandon the cities, etc. It just means we have to pay a little more for good Organic food.

"Regarding just exercise more and you'll lose weight. Sorry, didn't work for me. I was hiking the friggin Pacific Crest Trail for criminy's sake, 25-30 miles a day, and I was already gaining back the weight I had lost. My high-carb diet along with the calorie deficit pretty much hosed my metabolism, and by metabolism I mean I think I became severely insulin-resistent.I gained everything back when I got home without overeating. Yeah, that's right, with a will of steel I had one single victory feast and then went on a diet immediately after the hike and still gained all the weight back and more"

It sounds like you have a serious physiological problem, Piper. I'd say if the Ketogenic diet works for you, God bless and go for it. I am curious, however, about the makeup of your diet when you were hiking the PCT. Was it mainly carbs? Or was it distributed across carbs, protein, and fat? If so, what were the percentages? There is potentially a lot for us to learn from this, IMO.