Intermittent fasting. A place for it in the paleo diet?
Before I address the title of this post, let me do a quick recap of my perspective of paleonutrition:
- paleonutrition was cyclic – there were both seasonal macro-cycles and daily micro-cycles
- scenarios dictated what our ancestors consumed, as well as when/how they were consumed
- our genome has an evolutionary memory and our body therefor expects us to provide (and deny?) it nutrients, food type and quantities
- so there was no magic paleonutrition macronutrient ratio – an average does not accurately reflect day-to-day consumption and should therefore not be blindly followed
- with a bit of common sense reasoning, we can propose scenarios that were mostly likely and frequently occurring
- we can then model/simulate those scenarios with diet and exercise (although the former is much easier to conceptualize)
- this ensures that we provide (and deny?) our bodies the nutrients and food types in a way that it has learned over tens of thousands of years to expect
Back to the topic of this post. When one ponders about the daily lives of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, it is very hard to accept that they lived in a ‘garden of eden’, as some have proposed. Life was hard, and it threw great curve-balls. It was certainly not predictable. Periods of lean and plenty were therefore a reality of life during the paleolithic era – even during times of plenty.
We were probably more gatherer than hunter, by way of consumption. Hell, even with sophisticated modern hunting equipment, hunting truly wild game in a truly wild environment is no easy feat. Add to that the facts that predators and scavengers probably often stole a kill, and that the storage of meat was not a good option, then it becomes very apparent that meat was probably a luxury item for most of the year. We were not always lucky enough to eat what we killed. So fruit and nuts were probably an important source of nutrition to survive until (and fuel) the next successful hunt. And then there were surely periods when there was nothing to eat. Those were probably the times when ‘leafy green veg’ were appealing enough to eat as a means to stave off hunger – they are certainly not a good source of calories.
That brings me to the question of fasting in the modern day paleo diet. Yes, it was a part of life then, and so it should be now. We cannot only simulate times of plenty – even when we’re eating pretty healthy ‘paleo food’. How to approach intermittent fasting? As with everything, they too were varied, and I’ll posit some options here, which are of course not cast in stone. I would recommend that the following ‘protocols’ only be followed for two days at a time, and then at least one ’successful hunt’ day must be had (more on that in a future post):
Low-meat fast
Eat a generous amount fruit and (some) nuts at every meal, and only a small portion of meat in the last meal of the day. This simulates a day of successful hunting (or scavenging?), when the kill was rather small -and also no leftover meat from a previous day’s successful hunt.
Fruit-fast
Eat only fruit (a generous amount) and some nuts for the entire day. No meat. This simulates a failed hunt, but a very successful day of gathering.
Water fast
Only water and the leafy green veggies on this day. This simulates real bad times. I would do this one for one day only at most twice a month, and then spaced far apart. Overdo this one, and your fat storage & muscle degrading
enzymes will get switched on and your metabolism will drop. Bad if it goes too far…
“Won’t fasting ruin my metabolism?” is a frequent question. The answer is “yes”, if you do it for weeks on end and “no” if you do it as prescribed here. In fact, on the days that fruit is allowed, there may be no drop in the basal metabolic rate at all – and possibly even a speeding up of the metabolism. An optimized metabolism is influenced as much by micronutrients as it is by calories, protein and exercise – and fruit (especially tropical) is especially rich in micronutrients, some which still have to be discovered. Another benefit of fasting is that the body becomes brutally efficient and frugal with its use of protein – you’ll need much less to sustain your optimal muscle mass.In summary, intermittent fasting was a reality of life in the paleolithic era and should thus be part of any nutrition system, but as with everything else, the type and severity of fasting can and should be cycled. All based on plausible ‘paleo-cyclic’ scenarios…
Best of health to all!
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