Actually, I don't think I'm that active.

In between my morning run and weight session, all I do is sit all day! That's kind of like a lion, isn't it?

Certainly a male lion... since the females are the primary hunters!

Awesome!

I should have tried this pure carnivore thing eons ago!

I lift at a normal rate. But only do three sets of one exercise per body part. Time spent lifting should only be about 45-60 min.

Absolutely- vigorous exercise is essential for good health as a human. Lions lazy? That is a novel concept. True, they don't run around much if well-filled with meat after a successful hunt, but they, and all carnivores spend a lot of time travelling and searching for prey, then have to be able to run fast and grab hard, fighting with their prey- most animals do not like to be eaten and put up a hell of a fight. The males do a lot of fighting with other males and have to stay strong, or lose their harem- the old saw about the males not hunting is also, alas, false- they always pitch in when a large animal is targeted. Otherwise only a few of the females in the pride involve themselves in each episode of stalking and killing. The A(ustralian)BC and BBC have produced some excellent programs on various carnivores, many narrated by David Attenborough- and in Oz at least they can be bought on DVD- if any one is interested in following up.

The common domestic tabby sleeps a lot, which may be why they live so much longer than dogs, who run around a lot. We are the same, even most modern hunters walk long distances carrying heavy stuff, and then return with the meat. Besides, heavy exercise makes you feel terrific!

The best thing to help stay zero is to never bring anything you don't want eat home and put away in the fridge or pantry. Likewise any roommates or partners need to follow this. I no long need any such support, lucky too, as my wife eats a lot of what I consider rubbish. It never looks the least bit edible. In my first years I had problems, so I always asked to have the bread taken always at a restaurant and the veggies left in the kitchen, 'just a plain blood rare steak, with all the fat left on it, please'. I also got the munchies smoking pot, but dealt with it with home made jerky and cheese. I no longer get the munchies, ever- although I do not understand why not.

I did not like most veggies as a kid, true- but I learned to eat most of them as teenager (never could understand how ANYONE could eat a turnip). Through all of this discussion, I have never claimed I did not miss a lot of vegetation that I had learned to eat on starting to eat this way. I did. For years. But I think the turning point came one day when a nicely made salad or dish in a Japanese sushi bar (caution: only eat the sashimi) restaurant looked like a flower arrangement, very pretty but nothing I was interested in eating...

I love raw meat, it tastes great, I only sear the outside to kill anything growing on the cut surface- admittedly, cooking adds a nice, unique flavour also. I prefer to buy large 4-5 kg blocks of meat in cryovac, cutting portions off as I go, keeping the bag closed in the fridge- best temp setting is 2C. Please be aware that fresh red meat is not compatible in the same fridge with raw chicken or fish- both can (and will) cause the meat to spoil quickly. I have four fridges on the property. One is just for meat (and cream).

The three small ones run on 12v, the big one is 240v. Our electricity is generated here from solar and wind, with a diesel back-up. We use 12v DC- legacy of het early days, some lights and the fridges, 24 vDC for the inverter, 120v and 240v/60 Hz AC for everything else. Anything which is made to run on 50 Hz does better on 60. Not the other way around, however. My shop and studio- with kilns and welders, etc need the 9kw Onan genset running.

Two of my collection of rare and endangered papers have turned up.

'Adventures in Diet' by Vilhjalmur Stefansson -in 3 parts- was published serially in Harper's Monthly- I don't know the date of publication, the dates are not on my photocopies. He covers in detail the year-long meat-only dietary study undertaken by himself and Karsten Anderson under the supervision of the Russell Sage Institute of Pathology at Bellevue Hospital in NYC, in 1928.

The other one is from the Journal of the American College of Nutrition 5:417-427 (1986); 'Atherosclerosis: An Insulin-Dependent Disease? Contains 60 references at the end.

These were spare copies, I still have not located my main collection of metabolic studies.

Did I mention that you must never work out without sufficient days off? At least one day minimum in between workouts and the best is two to three. A proper workout micro-damages tissues, and uses up your store of energy reserves- this is what stimulates you to grow stronger/bigger. The day after a workout is used up just restoring you to the state you were in before the last workout, plus maybe part of the next day as well, if you are an advanced trainer and just increased your work load. The second day of (total) rest is when you will gain. You need only work each muscle once a week. A cycle of two and three days off is ideal in most cases. This equals twice a week in the gym. Trust me, I began at 55 and it was a hard go until I had tested all the (misinfo) and found out the truth.

I was even told that it was impossible to gain muscle mass after age 40- by an MD, no less. He did not recognise me a few years later, and was blown away by my new mass. The awful thing was, after spending a considerable amount of time first-off telling me my diet was (nuts) and I was wasting time at my age lifting, he had grown obese. Funny how the truth will out.

I have been veggie free some 20+ plus days now. I may occasionally throw in a veggie later but I am happy and feeling great!

My problem is not with the debate however it is with the insinuations I have read that The Bear may be lying about his life... A good debate is fun to read.

Thanks to Frederick and TheBear for your replies re lifting.

However, although I appreciate what you have both said, I am not a lifting newbie, so I do already know this sort of info. I probably didn't make my question clear enough - what I meant was what one would do for a 'carb up' prior to lifting if following a carb-free woe, is there a need for carbs?

The Bear, do you eat prior to lifting? - and if so, what? - or do you train 'empty'? Do you eat immediately after, and again, what would you eat if you do?

What I'm interested in is knowing about the timings and the nutrition involved.

Thanks

I find ALL this information beneficial. Some of it I have not read about at all. Keep it up! I am enjoying it tremendously!!
I am not very knowledgeable to offer my input, but I am learning something new everyday!!

I don't think anyone is telling anyone that what they are doing is wrong. It is just as Lisa said If someone, like a teenager, reads this, and then tries to eat this way without knowing all the info. It can be detrimental to their health.

My doctor never said anything to me about my fasting glucose being 110. As a matter of fact, it was I that did the research and found out it was a little too high. I did low carb and it is down to about 92. Now, that still may be a little too high according to this information. When are PC physicans going to get on board with all this new research. They are the ones giving false information to patients, and the Food Pyramid???? Such bunk!! JMHO

Anyway, all the information is very important. Let's not take things to heart and ruin this discussion.

Great weight lifting experiencial info Bear. I, too, would love to hear more detail about your daily meal choices and before/after lifting meal choices.

Thanks for all the thought provoking posts everyone. Disagreement is stimulating as long as it is done in a respectful and courteous manner. I agree that the opposing view points are what make this so informative and energetic a thread.

The Stefansson paper 'Adventures in Diet' is available on line here.

Thanks Mike.

Yah, thanks Mike!

If cats would speak, here is what they would say on this thread:

After all those eons our ancestors tried to teach you stupid hominids how to eat animal meat and fat to grow your brains… to think how long they had to spend just teaching you how to use rocks to break open skulls… all the generations it took just to get you to make a simple spear… then, before your brains are even finished growing, you abandon the hunter lifestyle for beer!

Animal husbandry was suppose to be a compromise… but now you're moving away from that. It is so obvious that your brains are actually starting to shrink! First you start feeding cows corn… and if that wasn't bad enough, you start feeding us the stuff! This is the last straw! You all need to stop this grain farming, reduce your population size (it's really getting out of hand), start eating animals exclusively, and get back to growing those brains! How are you ever going to properly take care of us with half-sized brains?!

Notice how I said "if cats would speak". Not could speak.

Oh, they could speak… but they won't. You see, they already tried this back in Egypt… and those people turned them into gods. Not exactly the arrangement they had in mind.

Like I said… "survival of the cutest" (VERY intelligent!).


BTW... I may be "sent away" for communicating these cat messages... and my cats are well aware of this... but they are willing to sacrifice me for the "greater good" of all cats.

From one cat servant to another...you are a trip Dean!

LOL!

People have pets. Cats have support staff

For some reason, reading this thread made me want meat so bad , I ate 5 big chicken wings with lots of skin/fat on it for lunch. I normally would eat a salad along with the meat, but I decided to skip that today. My meal had a lot of calories, but for some reason, I did not feel lethargic and sleepy as I normally would if I ate a very big meal. Maybe the reason I felt sleepy in the past was because I ate too much veggies (even if they were lowcarb). I had so much energy after lunch. I am not a super taster -- I love my veggies -- but I am open minded to this meat eating way. Forty-seven years of this is enough evidence for me that it works.

Anyway, very fascinating thread! Thanks for sharing, theBear!

Excellent..thanks so much for posting that link Mike!!
Since this thread started i have been less and less interested in veggies..lol. I am still doing the atkins induction, but not eating as many veggies, some days i eat none now! I have to say i think i feel BETTER on non veggie days..interesting!!

A much better link for Stefansson would be this one;

http://www.lowcarbportal.com/archiv...otein/index.php

Getting into some of the nonsense on Kent's site would open up a much bigger can or worms than we already have!

BTW my cat (or any cat/lion) has never used a rock to break open a skull ....

.... stop giving him ideas!

Thanks Sailsouth. That is an interesting looking site. I look forward to exploring it.

Dean, I think that very much depends on how you define 'carb abuse'. It seems that some would define it as any deliberate consumption of carbs.
My definition, OTOH, is not quite so stringent since it's my opinion that going from one extreme of an absolute crap high glycemic junk food diet to the opposite exteme of as close to zero as one can realistically get is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If someone's never done anything but one extreme or the other, who's to say that they wouldn't have done even better including a moderate amount of lower carb vegetables and berries high in antioxidants in their diet? Best preventive measure? A whole foods controlled carb diet that's adequate protein, not limited in healthy fats, high on the veggies (the more colorful, the better), low to moderate on the fruits (mostly berries and melons) and very low in any type of grain or grain product if they are eaten at all. A close second would be for people to learn how to cook and prepare the majority of their own meals and stop relying on restaurant or pre-made meals. That way, you know exactly what you're eating plus it's more cost efficient.

I have done all extremes and in-betweens. I do best with less then 5 net carbs a day. Go figure.

Animals are tasty, but eating meat, meat, meat all the time would get pretty boring. Do you suppose that paleo-dudes would walk right past wild berries on their way to a hunt to get more bang for their bucks?

On the contrary, eating only meat is great, in fact just eating nothing but NY sirloin steaks for several MONTHS exclusively leads to each one tasting even better than the last (been there, done that). Vegetables ARE boring- tasteless (or slightly bad) for the most part, requiring a dose of spices to make them palatable, and the idea you need a lot of variety at mealtime comes strictly from having learned to eat them.

You see, the body just LOVES the taste of fresh rare (or raw) meat, it's your mind which develops the idea that meals are a form of entertainment and must be changed all the time- A meal of nice, fatty meat is not like a movie- it will bear constant repetition very well indeed. I do rotate meats, not for myself so much as for my reduced carb, mixed-diet wife- I generally do all the cooking.

I don't generally eat before training, although the 'steak plain' that my boxing coach gave us an hour before a match would suit. There is never any 'need' for carbs. Carbs are a no-no at all times and under all circumstances, they are a 'poison'- why eat poison? I eat three times a day, not because I am hungry but because I think that is a good number of times to eat. I generally do eat after my exercise, but it is not a fixed routine. I have said earlier that I eat meat/fat, any kind- including eggs butter and cream. I have no specifics on menus, whatever is easy.

Thanks for the link to Stef's articles, I wish someone had OCR'd and posted his book, The Fat Of The Land. I have a copy and also a master photocopy made from it which I have used to make further copies, but a digital version would be very desirable.

I may still have (somewhere) the letter Stef wrote to me shortly years before his death in 1962, in reply to a letter I wrote to him describing my early experiences in following my all meat dietary regime.

Lions have a simple way to open skulls, they crush them with their jaws.- Mostly they just eat the liver, tongue and skeletal muscles, the rest is scavenged by hyenas and vultures, of course hyenas also have NO problems opening skulls.

I still don't understand how the 'saturated fat is bad for you' idea ever came along- since we store energy in exactly that format. It should not take the wits of a rocket scientist to deduct that we must be optimised to burn it.

I have come to the conclusion that 5 gm/day is about as close as one can get to 'zero-carbs'. It works very well.

I finally found one stash of articles, not all. I failed to note a few dates on the photocopies of some magazine articles:

'What's the best fuel for muscles?' Jeff Everson- interview With Greg Ellis- Weider's Muscle and Fitness mag, May, not the year.

'Body Fat' by Vincent P Dole, Scientific American, didn't mark the year/month- unfortunate, it has very important information on the fat tissues.

'Dietary hyperphagia in Rats: Role of Fat, Carbohydrate, and Energy Content. Israel Ramirez and mark L Friedman, Physiology & Behavior, June 1990.

'Regulation of Hepatic Fatty Acids Oxidation and Ketone Boldy Production' J D McGarry and D W Foster, Ann. Rev. Biochem 1980 49:395-420.

This batch is not complete, there are several more papers here- somewhere. I am still searching.

Thanks Bear for the references. I read all I can on the subject and I'd love to look for those articles at the Medical Library.

If you want, mail me a copy, and I'll OCR it. That's what I did with Letter On Corpulence by Baniting: http://www.lowcarb.ca/corpulence/index.html

Wa'il

Ok--I've just been lurking and reading this thread. It is AWESOME. Informative and stimulating debate.

I've been doing mostly Meat, Eggs, and Dairy for about 3 weeks now. (If I read correctly, that is what Bear has been doing for 40 years?) I've never been a big meat eater..but the the more I eat this way, the more my hunger is for meat. I've always been a big veggie eater...but I don't miss them as much as I thought I would. I have more energy on my Meat, Eggs, and Dairy then I've had in years and years...seriously..so much of a change it really surprised me.

Just my 2 cents and my minor experience...I'm going to go back to lurking this thread....I'm learning way too much that way Mercy

Bear,

Thanks for those references. If you could get a digital copy of "The Fat Of The Land" up on the web, that would be more than super!

Some questions:

Since I don't have four fridges… should I only thaw one type of meat at a time? I usually have a variety of meat thawing at the same time, cuz I like to cook food ahead of time. Or should I just cook them really quickly after they are thawed, and not let them sit in the fridge? I have never heard of this before.

Also, is it best to avoid all exercise (total rest) and not even take a walk or anything on the rest days between the two workout days a week?

I have heard that after a strenuous workout, it is the best time to eat (especially protein), because "your body is just screaming for nutrients" at that time. Is this true? Or does it matter if you eat soon after a workout or not? In other words, will it make any difference in your growth?

And is it necessary to worry about getting too much fat (like going over 80% or something) or will your body just naturally not crave any more than you need? I love butter and cheese and heavy cream. Should I just use a lot of it, and not worry about eating too much? I hate counting anything… or using fitday and the like!

Thanks for all the great info!