It doesn’t hurt the naysayers here to at least give it a try

every aspect of my health has improved! the conclusion i came to was that processed foods are evil!!

It does hurt the naysayers here to at least give it a try

I have a tailor made diet where i eat anything that doesnt upset my stomach and doesnt give me any problems going to the toilet i.e. meat, fish as my main serves, with potatoes, eggs, berries, vegetables especially greens and carrots, almonds, honey as my supplements

i cannot tolerate dairy products, grains, fruit, curry based foods, rice, pasta and sugars

This seems to be a typical diet for a person from southern europe, however what type of diet suits you depends on where your roots are from, however i noticed that cultures that typically have a high carbohydrates diet are generally shorter and have bad eyesight

Ir takes a bit of time fine tuning your diet, and you need to give yourself at least a year for trial and error

Furthermore the low fat diet is bad idea is spot on. Fat is crucial for humans and we would die without it. It is also the primary ingredient of sex hormones like testosterone. However marc isn’t specific enough about which kinds of fats we should be eating and this is likely because of the short duration of the podcast and is probably spelled out in his book.

The fats we eat should be UNsaturated fats both monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. Saturated fats in our diet should come from animal products not processed foods we eat. The problem comes because the food industry hydrogenates and partially hydrogenates fats in order to make them less perishable (hydrogenating makes a fat more saturated and more solid in consistency). The problem arises when we consume excess amounts of saturated fat due to intake of both animal products and processed foods.

Unsaturated fats can be found in Olive oil, nuts, seeds and avocadoes to name a few sources. Most saturated fats come from animal protein sources and processed foods.

His approach to fitness does contain some bearing of truth that low intensity exercise burns fat more effectively than the other the other forms he describes. However he is close minded in his approach towards fitness.

Essentially there are two types of exercise: Aerobic and Anaerobic. This boils down to in the presence of oxygen and not in the presence of oxygen respectively. This refers more to the biological processes the muscles and mitochondria in the cells undergo, it does not mean that for the latter option you work out in space or do not breathe.
Aerobically: means in the presence of Oxygen. This form of exercise is effective in burning excess body fat for energy and occurs when prolonged activity at low intensity is sustained. Activities like extended periods of walking, biking etc. qualify.

The body prefers to use fat as a source of energy as it is a much more efficient energy storage medium than carbohydrates. The limiting factor is the body’s ability to get the fat from the adipose tissue to the muscles requiring energy. If the intensity of exercise exceeds a certain point the muscles cannot acquire fat rapidly enough and switch to carbohydrates.

Anaerobically: means not in the presence of oxygen. This form of exercise occurs at high intensities and while it does not burn fat directly, but the hormonal effect it has on the body is profound. If the intensity of the exercise is high enough the body responds by releasing Human Growth Hormone (HGH). HGH does a number of jobs but most importantly here: it repairs damage done to muscle tissue during intense exercise, this task requires a lot of energy and that energy comes from stored fat. Not only does HGH utilize stored fat for the repair process but also aids in the formation of lean muscle.

Ever wondered why World-class sprinters and swimmers are heavily muscled and very lean? Because they exercise primarily if not exclusively in an anaerobic state.

That being said true anaerobic exercise occurs when activity is in excess of 90% of max heart rate. So there exists a grey area where exercise being done is too intense to be aerobic but not intense enough to be anaerobic (prolonged periods of anaerobic activity are physically impossible: for example you can’t sprint for an hour, at most one can sprint for a minute before slowing down) such as marathons and activities described by marc.

As far as this goes: “The idea that average life expectancy 10,000 years ago was 25 (it was 45 until well after the First World War) doesn’t mean that everyone kicked the bucket at that age. Average life expectancy factors in infant mortality (throughout most of human history, if you survived infancy and childhood, you had a good shot at a long life… IF you survived them), death from accidents (remember, they certainly didn’t have modern trauma centers!), death from predation, etc. What people did NOT die from is the range of degenerative “diseases of civilization” like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc.” Mark said the same thing, but this is a total crock. You cannot say that these life expectancies factor in all of these things unless the methodology for deriving the individual expectancy explicitly says it factors in those things. For example, the child mortality rate may or may not be included in such calculations because there may be no good fossil evidence of the child mortality rate. Sure, those numbers probably average all those things, but there is no reason to assume they do. Modern statistics are completely different because they are based on record-keeping rather than archeology.

First, please read Sisson’s book, or at least spend a decent amount of time poking around his website, before dismissing his ideas as guesswork, speculation, or pseudo-science. A podcast interview doesn’t give much time or scope for citing sources. The Primal Blueprint is actually quite well researched and documented, both anthropologically and nutritionally.

The idea that average life expectancy 10,000 years ago was 25 (it was 45 until well after the First World War) doesn’t mean that everyone kicked the bucket at that age. Average life expectancy factors in infant mortality (throughout most of human history, if you survived infancy and childhood, you had a good shot at a long life… IF you survived them), death from accidents (remember, they certainly didn’t have modern trauma centers!), death from predation, etc. What people did NOT die from is the range of degenerative “diseases of civilization” like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc.

For more information on what healthy people in traditional cultures around the world actually ate, in the historical period but before the advent of the modern, “Western” diet, I strongly recommend checking out the Weston A. Price Foundation (http://www.westonaprice.org). The section on traditional diets (http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/index.html) might be a good place to start.

Finally, I would consider myself a Primal Blueprint “success story.” I’ve been on the PB (which is a lifestyle, not just a diet) since July, after my doctor told me to find a high-protein, low-carb/low-sugar diet to lose weight, and in that time have dropped from a high of 256 lbs to my current 239 lbs. I would like to drop another 39, but that’s significant progress.

Most significantly, I’ve lost 5 pounds more than I did in a comparable period in cardiac rehab, eating a supposedly “heart-healthy” (low-fat, but relatively high carb) diet and doing much more intensive cardio workouts than I am currently. I also have much more balanced energy levels. Sisson’s right: “chronic cardio” (intensive cardio exercise) increases appetite, so (unless you have iron willpower) you end up eating more, and carbs pack on the stored fat. At least if you have my metabolism!

So I would say, explore the Primal Blueprint in much more depth than just a brief podcast before you decide to discount it. I’m living proof that it can work to reduce weight and level off the peak-and-valley energy patterns of a high carb diet.

The people you describe as eating complex carbs all their life, then living to be healthy, strong and robust at age 70 are, as you admit, part of island populations. Key word there, island. Their ancestors probably didn’t have too many woolly mammoths to hunt for food; so their bodies probably adapted to whatever lean foods were available to them in that island ecosystem.

People whose ancestors inhabited large continents 10-20,000 years ago, (i.e. most of us) probably lived and ate the way Mark describes in the podcast. They hunted and ate large game; as well as foraging for whatever nuts, berries, and vegetables they could find.