Matt Metzgar

Vegetables

Vegetables are an important part of any diet.  Hunter-gatherers ate a lot of plant food and a lot of vegetables, especially when fruit was not in season.  Studies consistently show that vegetables help prevent many diseases and health conditions.

Vegetables can be roughly divided into two categories: above ground and below ground.  Above ground vegetables are more of the leafy type, such as lettuce and broccoli.  Examples of below ground vegetables include sweet potatoes and carrots.  Though it hasn't really been studied, I think both types of vegetables are needed for optimal health. 

Below ground vegetables tend to have more carbohydrates than those above ground.  For example, I usually eat a potato or sweet potato with dinner.  In the past when I've gone without potatoes, I've definitely felt the difference.  Without below ground vegetables, it's tough to get a sufficient number of carbohydrates each day.

In Loren Cordain's analysis of hunter-gatherer diets, he showed that 23.6% of all plant consumed was in the form of tubers, roots, and bulbs.  I think this component of the Paleo diet is a very important one for achieving good health.

Mickey Mouse

Persistence Hunting

How did the ancient hunter-gatherers hunt?  Here's a paper(pdf) that documents a few hunts by a hunter-gatherer tribe.  The hunts were fairly long and involved lots of walking and running.  The running wasn't all continuous, it was medium-length segments of running interspaced with walking and hiking. 

Overtraining is a Form of Inflammation

Overtraining is a problem for many athletes.  But specifically what causes it?  How can it be prevented?  And do certain types of training increase the likelihood of overtraining?

This new theory goes a long way towards answering these questions.  With normal, healthy exercise, there is what is known as "adaptive trauma." The stress of exercise begins a cycle of the body responding to this stress with local inflammation, healing the body, and rebuilding it stronger.  With overtraining, the stress is too much for the body and inflammation increases, leading to a systematic inflammatory response in the body.

In a nutshell, when you are overtrained, your body is in a state of inflammation.  This explains why a person becomes lethargic when they are overtrained.  In a previous post, I mentioned that those who are depressed have levels of inflammation in their body 40 to 50% above normal.  Overtraining leads to higher levels of inflammation, and more feelings of lethargy and tiredness.

This makes mood an easy way to monitor overtraining.  If a person's mood starts to deteriorate, they should take a look at their exercise program.  Pushing through the low feelings may make the inflammation even worse. 

Eating for a Run

Here's a new study that looks at how fasting and carbohydrate affect running.  Participants ran a normal 90 minute training run under three conditions: fed, fasted (for 16 hours), fasted plus a carbohydrate supplement.

The result? No difference in any of the measured variables.  Carbohydrate balance may affect race performance, but this study shows it does not have any major effects on regular training runs.