What Our Ancestors Ate

Meat. It does a body good.

Jon Benson
Creator, Fit over 40

No wait, that's milk.

Too bad most milk does a body bad. Of course that makes for poor advertising. But I digress.

Should you eat meat?

Countless debates have raged over the issue of consuming animal flesh for food.

My take on the issue is based on opinion, personal experience and clinical fact.


What Our Ancestors Ate


There a dozen books on the subject of "Paleolithic nutrition", or eating the way our ancestors ate.

While the details remain open to debate, most authorities agree that the caveman ate his fair share of meat.

In his book "The Warrior Diet", Ori Hofmekler makes some rather bold claims regarding this fact. He points out that the caveman ate not only the meat from wild game, but also the intestines, eyes, liver...you name it.

That is pretty gross to me, but there was not aDenny's around the corner. And I am not surethat would be much better, come to think of it.

But there is a catch.

The meat from those days, even the meat from as little as a hundred years ago, has changed quite a bit.

Cows are fed hormones these days. Just as bad, they are fed excessive amounts of grain.

Cows are herbivores. They are not designed to eat grain.

Grain contributes to major problems in the fat distribution within the meat.

Once, the Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio (these are essential fatty acids) was about 1:1 or 1:2. Now, with the advent of engineered cattle, it is more like 1:20 or higher.

This is the primary reason that excessive beef can cause heart issues. It is not the meat itself as much as what we humans have done to the meat.


Yea or Nay on Meat?


So am I saying not to eat meat? No. However, I am also saying that only certain people should eat meat.

There is ample evidence that we have evolved over time to eat meat. Our teeth are designed to tear flesh, for example. Our digestive system is more like canine than any other animal, and we all know what dogs prefer.

Others should definitely not eat meat. Those of you with religious or spiritual convictions on the matter, and some folks who simply do not digest and utilize animal products very well should obviously avoid meat entirely.

Others may simply not like the taste.

But some people actually need meat to feel healthy and strong. I am definitely in that camp.

How do you tell if your body is more of a meat- eater or more of a plant and starch-eater? Start by role modeling.

Coming up next:

"Making Meat Work For You" - click here to be notified!

Do you burn fat faster when you exercise on an empty stomach?

From: Christian Finn (United Kingdom)

You'll hear many arguments for and against exercise on an empty stomach.

In theory, because your blood sugar levels are low, exercise in a fasted state (usually first thing in the morning) will help you burn fat faster.

Critics say that exercise for more than 30 minutes on an empty stomach is unhealthy, and won't help you burn fat faster than normal. Without the necessary energy to fuel your workout, muscle protein gets burned for energy.

They also advise against weight training on an empty stomach. Because a lot of energy is required for this kind of exercise, you won’t be able to work your muscles hard enough to stimulate muscle growth.

Burn fat

There are many energy drinks, such as Lucozade Sport and Gatorade, promoted for use before, during, and after exercise. Drinking Lucozade Sport before exercise, for example, is supposed to "ensure that the body is fully hydrated and that energy stores are topped up with a boost of carbohydrate to maximize performance."

However, if your goal is to burn fat faster — rather than...

The rest of this report is available in the Members-Only Area. Subscribe to the Members-Only Area and you'll enjoy immediate access to a "secret vault" of expert knowledge and university-tested tips and tricks you can use to shed stubborn fat once and for all... get bigger biceps, broader shoulders, a bigger bench press... or strip away the fat from your belly to reveal a flat and attractive stomach. Click here now to join.

If you're a member, you can click here to continue reading

Hollywood's Deadly Diet Dangers

Tom Venuto Burn the Fat

I admit it. I bought the National Enquirer. I know, I know, you should never admit you bought the Enquirer, but the headline GOT me! "Hollywood's Deadly Skin And Bones Diet: Stars Risking Their Lives To Be Thin." Not to be outdone, IN TOUCH magazine's cover story was remarkably similar with the headline: "SCARY SKINNY!"

Actually, I wasn't "reading" the Enquirer at all, I was, ahem, "Doing professional research…"
And besides, you have a lot of time on your hands at the checkout line when your weekly grocery list includes:
7 grapefruits, 4 packs of blueberries, 6 apples, 12 dozen eggs (yes of course, I throw away most of the yolks, thanks for asking), 9 lbs of chicken, 2 lbs of lean top round steak, 3 packs of salmon, 4 cans of tuna fish, 2 tubs of quaker old fashioned oats, 7 bags of broccoli, 7 bags of mixed vegetables, 4 bags of spinach, miscelleanous salad vegetables, a big giant bag of sweet potatoes, several bags of brown rice… uh.. and that's just in the first shopping cart, LOL!
TABLOID TELL-ALLS!
Anyway, on the cover of the Enquirer there were photos of a "bony skinny" Angelina Jolie at 5' 7" 100 lbs, Anna Kournikova at 5' 6" and 110 pounds, and Cate Blanchett at 5' 8" and 106 pounds, among others.
After I flipped past the picture of Sharon Stone's butt cellulite circled and enlarged for detail (no, I'm sorry to say, I'm not joking about that!), the feature story inside discussed an issue that's really quite serious:
Dr. Stanley Title said that "The skin and bones diet is extremely dangerous and can cause serious health implications. Literally, they are starving themselves to death."
Dr. Title said that Hollywood celebrities know that they look 10 lbs heavier on camera so they've almost all at one time used extreme measures (often including diet drug abuse), to the point where even casusal observers notice the protruding bones and rail thin bodies and wonder if they've gone too far.
People are dying to be thin, and unfortunately, that cliche has proven to be literally true on more than one occasion in the case of severe anorexia.
SKINNY DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN HEALTHY

All too often, people forget to include "health" when they're setting their goals. It's just "x lbs" or "size X" or "X% body fat," but seldom a mention of health, energy, nutrition and quality of life.
There's a side to this "scary skin and bones diet" that's even more alarming than what the Enquirer alluded to.
I am privy to this only because I'm a fat loss coach who has taken thousands of body composition tests over the years, which is why most people don't know about this.
Dr. Title, in the Enquirer story, said that these diets "leave the dieters looking skeletal with bones protruding under the skin." True. And many clearly are flirting with eating disorders.
But something else I've noticed from my experience is that starvation dieting can often produce the opposite of the intended result. Instead of improving your body composition…
YOUR BODY FAT TO MUSCLE RATIO CAN ACTUALLY GET WORSE AND YOU BECOME A "SKINNY FAT PERSON!"
That's right. Not only does skinny NOT = healthy, skinny also does NOT = lean, and skinny certainly does NOT = muscle.
Starvation dieters become victims of "skinny fat syndrome" and they diet off lots of "weight", but the weight consists of more muscle than fat, so they end up with almost no muscle left, but a lot of the fat still remains!
Too bad they're dieting off all their muscle, because MUSCLE is the engine that drives your metabolism.
Sometimes it's not the "skin and bones" diet at all, it's the "Bones and Fat diet."
I've measured the body composition of some women who at a casual glance looked thin or even down right skinny, and to my absolute shock and dismay, I found they were carrying body fat in "worse than average" range!
One woman I took a test on was about 5' 7" and 121 pounds. On any height weight chart or by any other standard that would be thin.
And this shows the flaw of thinking only in terms of "skinny," "thin" or even just "bodyweight": Her body fat measured an astonishgly high 28%!
That's 34 lbs of fat out of 121 lbs, leaving only 87 pounds of lean body mass and fat free-tissue!
Imagine for a moment an arm bone, with a one inch pad of fat surrounding it, kind of like foam insulation around a pipe. That's what her arm was like, only the insulation was pure fat!.
When I grabbed the back of her (very thin) arm- it was just one giant fat fold! Literally no muscle - just bones and fat.
Are you now starting to see the problem we have here with the way most people are dieting and thinking?
Do you realize how slow your metabolism would be if you only had 87 pounds of lean body mass? How about how weak you would be? is that what you really want?
I used to think "fat" was bad. Then I found out about "skinny fat" - nothing worse than skinny-fat, right?
Not so fast, How about "skinny-fat, malnourished, unhealthy and weak?" NOW THAT'S BAD!
People are so fixated only on the pounds of bodyweight and the outward appearance of "skinny" or "thin' they are paying NO attention to health, energy, strength, function, muscle and vitality - the things that count!

Your friend and coach,

Tom Venuto, CSCS, NSCA-CPT
Burn the Fat


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