You are right about Loren Cordain. I’ve enjoyed his book, and some day will look at his prescriptions for endurance athletes too. Mark is a great source of information.

Looks like you too have a new site. Good luck with that. Liked your latest lunch!

Tim

I’m an endurance athlete as well, although a cyclist, and by all measures a ‘hack’ as well. But it always gives me great pleasure to know that I can enjoy my activity without partaking in the ritual ingestion of kilograms worth of refined starch traditionally required as a prerequisite to any such activity.

Cheers to that.

I think your comments re DeVany are spot on, and I enjoyed the analogy of being man-handled out of the political rally.

I love Art. I love his ideas and erudition, but I especially like it when he thinks he’s rational Enlightenment – and then displays as much emotional inconsistency as the rest of us!

Iwan

It is refreshing to see someone take an objective perspective in relation to EF in spite of being a convert. As a fellow convert I have spent many hours on DeVany’s site and my own experience has been transformative. Nevertheless I have always found the testimonies there and the general tone to be somewhat akin to the atmosphere in an evanglical church. Don’t get me wrong, I have a great deal of respect for DeVany, but from experience I know that in the months leading up to his blog becoming subscription-based, he started increasingly vetting comments in a way that compromised the objectivity of the debate. My suspicion is that his EF approach is bang on the money and that research, in time, will prove this – but I also think that its wider reputation could in the meantime might be damaged unless we have a little less of the ‘halleluiah’!

If you were around the corner, I’d buy you a beer. Much to share

I think the road to paleo is littered with peshawari nan!

Iwan

I hadn’t seen the functional fitness article. Thanks for that.

I’ve seen disagreements within De Vany’s community on the role of saturated fat, for instance, and I see there are differences between, say Loren Cordain’s book and the Rosedale approach in terms of diet. You’re right though, it begs more questions.

My own experience is that it can take time to adapt and stay on the wagon. It took me several attempts, I guess, and I am still trying to figure if I’m doing everything correctly. Finding the correct level of meat intake is the thing I struggle with most, but I think that may be just a question of modifying old cooking habits. BTW, even though my kids are pretty flexible eaters, I make big exceptions on their part, so that not a great deal has changed for them in truth…(yet).

Developing a complex exercise regime based on high intensity takes a certain level of commitment and using weights in the way I do creates a little bit of risk. So I’d say it requires more intelligence and perhaps more studiousness than popping out for a run used to. And it is easier to compare notes at the office about marathon or triathlon regimes than kurtosis in workouts.

But as Art would say, everyone has to find their own way with this, and that requires an understanding of what one’s goals are and where you are coming from. I suspect there will be a lot more attention in the future. The sports science I read does seem to be trending a little bit in this direction.

Tim

I was disappointed with the focus on weight loss at the very start. Surely the emphasis of this approach is the enhanced metabolic and functional fitness, yet no where in the article (from what I could see) did we see any biochemical measurements nor any mention in shift of muscle/body fat ratio’s. As a consequence, some of the deprecating comments are therefore fair game. Interestingly, a piece in the Times around functional fitness (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article4538649.ece – no Crossfit?) has only drawn one comment vs the 55 on diet!

I adopted De Vany’s approach sometime ago and have, like many others, found benefit. The converted are often the most vocal but I do yearn to test for silent data. I’d love to hear from those who have tried the approach of changing diet and exercise to an EF manner but have found it to be counter productive to their health. De Vany’s site is full of stories on conversion but the lack of silent data is quite deafening.

I agree the posts are less than helpful the amount of ignorant posts up questioning things like the difference between olive oil and vegetable oil is insane. The comparison’s to the atkins diet are also ludicrous and obviously being made by the uninformed who do not have a grasp on the ideology.

Any chance of knowing when the book is going to be released for us in the UK?