World class athlets

[KD]

god really blessed them?

yep, each and every one.

[King Salmon]

George Forman eats (and has been for years) hamburgers & hot dogs.If I could be healthy on chocolate chip cookies,I would do it

Yep,it's all about genes & karma.You gotta work with what you got.

[TylerDurden]

This is all rather idiotic. Selecting one of the very few outliers in the population who look great(if only in terms of appearances, we don't know if the athletes mentioned have Crohn's etc. or whether their harsh dietary regimes are going to ruin their health in a decade or two etc.) is absurd. A more reasonable comparison would be between someone like KD or sabertooth who both have photos posted here, and SAD-eaters like the following 3 (I saw many, many people like that when I went on holiday to the western United States some time back!):-








Here are 2 photos of RPDers for contrast:-

[turkish]

TD,
 you nailed it, a picture is worth a thousand words (at least).

My wife commented, (two nights back), ever since i started here - i started to look younger and got a spark in my eyes.

[TylerDurden]

TD,
 you nailed it, a picture is worth a thousand words (at least).

My wife commented, (two nights back), ever since i started here - i started to look younger and got a spark in my eyes.

Yes. One of the most frequent things mentioned in RVAF diet circles is that people start looking younger than before the raw diet, with middle-aged and older people noticing even bigger differences in that respect. I think that has to do partly with the fact that heat-created toxins target a lot of things like collagen, so once one gets rid of the levels of such toxins to some extent, one gets firmer skin like in younger days, thus looking younger.

[KD]

heh heh

I can say this for certain. I am not an athlete, never been an athlete, or trained from birth to be an athlete. Always picked close to last in pick-ups, failing the presidential fitness tests in P.E. etc..I've been disappointed myself in the past with testimonials of raw veg folks claiming to be 'athletes' when they can't even come in the first 1000 in a marathon or whatever. In that case one cannot claim fowl play and drugs as the only factor and be taken seriously. At the same time, there are obviously short term things that might have long term consequences, and harmful things as suggested will be a drop in the pan until they accumulate later. Just looking at bodybuilding. It is probably fairly true that if someone eats tons and tons of baked chicken breasts and supplements, they will look big, but most people know this isn't real vibrance or will even give lasting health or results. Actual sport is different in that it does require perhaps a bit more 'health' and other systems to be working well internally, but that doesn't mean there isn't some degree of 'nitro' going on that only lasts so long. To me this is no more shocking than average people eating what EVERYONE acknowledges as crap and still looking and feeling vibrant at young ages. Unfortunately this is clearly changing across the spectrum as things 'evolve', and more or less proves that these things can potentially become exacerbated even in the fairly young and well bred.

heres an article on an endurance runner who is mostly paleo/primal, and minimizes carbs. I don't have other articles on hand but I know he eats quite a bit of raw animal foods. Obviously he doesn't do what he does for kicks, but does seem to have a fairly relaxed approach which might work best for him, so maybe that is something to look into.
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/jonas-colting/
I doubt he would be impressed or shocked by Kobe's diet, just chooses what works and makes the most sense for health I think.

When it comes to comparisons, as I said earlier - largely you will only find inspiration in shifts between people themselves (with raw/restrictive stuff you def have to check for tissue growth as opposed to just weight loss of course). At the same time it doesn't hurt that it seems like on top of health concerns, gains and performance ARE available on this diet that might not otherwise be and particularly for people who find they can't just eat whatever or have struggled with 'pure' veganism and vegetarianism.

I'm beginning to feel confident saying also that people that I know who DO consider themselves to be athletes might not make the same progress as me even if they pay very close attention to their diet in their own way. If my goal was to be competitive in one thing or another, its perhaps not likely that I would all of a sudden take on the ability of a life-time trained athlete, but i'm satisfied with kicking some ass on an amateur level, considering athletics is like 15% of my life's interests. I guess we'll have to just see in the following years and with many of the other people here or other paleo/primal communities that I believe ARE actually involved in competitive sports.

[King Salmon]

This is all rather idiotic. Selecting one of the very few outliers in the population who look great(if only in terms of appearances, we don't know if the athletes mentioned have Crohn's etc. or whether their harsh dietary regimes are going to ruin their health in a decade or two etc.) is absurd. A more reasonable comparison would be between someone like KD or sabertooth who both have photos posted here, and SAD-eaters like the following 3 (I saw many, many people like that when I went on holiday to the western United States some time back!):-








Here are 2 photos of RPDers for contrast:-

This is even more idiotic.Western U.S.? You obviously didn't go to Venice Beach

The point of this thread is/was to explore how world athletes eat SAD and remain healthy.Are you changing the subject because you're jealous? It's so easy to show anonymous unhealthy people and compare them to healthy RPDers.It would be just as easy(and pointless) to compare unhealthy people to healthy Vegans,Vegetarians...Whateveratarians.Now,do you have anything to say about world class athletes?

[wodgina]

Some of these world class athletes are paleo people. Look at some of the rugby players, rock solid, strong bones, facial structures just like we all would of looked 40000 years ago.

[KD]

 It's so easy to show anonymous unhealthy people and compare them to healthy RPDers.It would be just as easy(and pointless) to compare unhealthy people to healthy Vegans,Vegetarians...Whateveratarians.

The second pic was when I was having some hormonal issues. the one below is paleodonk contemplating suet vs. donuts.

[KD]

Some of these world class athletes are paleo people. Look at some of the rugby players, rock solid, strong bones, facial structures just like we all would of looked 40000 years ago.

theres a bunch of ex (or current) rugby guys at my cf gym. I don't know how long they have strictly adhered to paleo prior, but I know they are pretty big on it now and definitely have that kind of mold, seem very happy and healthy.

[wodgina]

The second pic was when I was having some hormonal issues. the one below is paleodonk contemplating suet vs. donuts.

Donuts

[TylerDurden]

This is even more idiotic.Western U.S.? You obviously didn't go to Venice Beach

The point of this thread is/was to explore how world athletes eat SAD and remain healthy.Are you changing the subject because you're jealous? It's so easy to show anonymous unhealthy people and compare them to healthy RPDers.It would be just as easy(and pointless) to compare unhealthy people to healthy Vegans,Vegetarians...Whateveratarians.Now,do you have anything to say about world class athletes?

The other poster was suggesting by implication that the results of those athletes were due to their appalling diets and that they were somehow immune to negative effects of cooked foods. I was pointing out that this was a false assumption, that we have no real idea just how those athletes are affected by their diets.And those photos I gave were indeed representative of western US - well, of numerous small towns I visited in California and Oregon.

[Stig of the Dump]

The key to this whole debate is statistics.

One of the mainstays of Paleo diets is that we are not adapted to modern food.  Well adaption is a process that occurs over time.  In a few hundred million years, given enough competitive pressure ("death without progeny" for the "failures"), everyone would be very well adapted to pizza and coke.  Perhaps athletes are the first few people "breaking through" genetically - "mutants", as goodsamaritan suggested, for want of a better word.  (And ignore the negativity in that word - if it is a positive adaptation, it is a great place to be - we are all ultra-lucky "mutants".)

Perhaps some sort of futuristic superintelligence, that could trace and understand the relevance of every atomic movement in the body, could even see and comprehend the changes.  We can't, nor have we even looked.

Much more important is the pure statistical argument.  I'd guess at an outside there are a million paleo eaters in the world; maybe ten thousand raw paleo eaters; very few long term.  I'd guess nearly all of them were forced onto it through health problems of some kind.  (I used to joke that everyone in health shops looked unhealthy; same reason.)  The number of second generation raw paleo must be countable on one hand (and are likely the descendants of the same people with health problems).

Now what are the odds that that handful of people could compete with the cream ("cream" doesn't even cut it - you can see cream - try and see fifty thousand or so "elite" athletes in a milk bottle of 7 billion parts!) of a worldwide gene pool, when that cream are likely to have indeed made some of the early adaptations needed to deal with the worst of their environmental (dietary) change?  To all intents and purposes: Zero.

(Meanwhile, I'll make the best of myself.)

[Brother]

Some of these world class athletes are paleo people. Look at some of the rugby players, rock solid, strong bones, facial structures just like we all would of looked 40000 years ago.

Crossfit is all the rage here atm. The default diet teached is paleo. On the youtube vids every single one of them, without using the word 'paleo' describes a diet that cannot be interpreted in any other way (edit: one guy did use the word 'paleo').  They look good! Notice the emphasis all of them has on fat and protein. All of these people look really good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY9ceulkVzs

[kurite]

Hey figured I would add my two cents worth. My tennis coach is very fit, he regularly exercise 3 hours on his own plus 7 to 9 hours of playing tennis with his students. Hes got a six pack and looks like hes in perfect health. He eats absolute crap but still sustains a very fit body, however on a regular basis he gets sick, in the last 4 months hes had to cancel 3 lessons because he came down with some illness.

[raw-al]

The thing about health is it is a long term thing. When you are 20 to 30 your immune system is very resilient and able to cast off crap. You have to look at where these athletes are when they go past 40 - 50 - 60 years.

In the case of contact sports they are usually a mess between the drugs and surgeries especially as they age and with non-contact sports they will tend to have other issues depending on the nature of the sport.

A friend who was in the Olympics spent quite a bit of time with structural pain. He is the only person I have ever seen do an iron cross from an arms up position. Awesome! Another friend used to call him "fat carrot" because he was built like one.