pmr episode seven - paleo magazine...podcast episode seven 2013 page 1 tony federico: joe and ben,...

Podcast Episode Seven

2013

{Music}

Host: Welcome to PMR, Paleo Magazine Radio, where we bring you Paleo

nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle perspectives from both the experts and the

everyday. PMR is brought to you by Paleo Magazine, the first and only print

magazine dedicated to the Paleo lifestyle, and is hosted by Tony Federico.

{Music}

Tony Federico: Hello, everyone, and thank you for tuning in to PMR. My name is Tony

Federico, and I’m your host on this journey of modern-day primal living.

There are a lot of myths about endurance sports. Whether it is, running is bad

for your knees, that you need to carb up, or that you wantonly burn away

dietary indiscretions with cardio. To clear up the confusion and to discover

how the Paleo lifestyle fits into endurance training, I’ve invited two experts

onto the show, Joe Friel, TrainingBible Coaching founder and co-author of

The Paleo Diet for Athletes, and Ben Greenfield, triathlete, author, and host of

the popular podcasts, The Get Fit Guy and Ben Greenfield Fitness.

So, strap on your running shoes or slip on your Vibram FiveFingers. It’s time

to run.

{Music}

Paleo MagazinePodcast Episode Seven

2013

Tony Federico: Joe and Ben, welcome to the show.

Joe Friel: Thanks a lot. Hi, Ben. How you doing?

Ben Greenfield: Joe, what’s up, man? I think the last time I saw you, we were on Dig Me

Beach, on Kona.

Joe Friel: That’s right, yes. Good to hear from you again.

Tony Federico: That’s awesome. I didn’t even realize you guys knew each other, but I guess I

should have assumed as much.

Ben Greenfield: Triathlon is a small, small world.

Joe Friel: {Laughter}. It is, yes.

Tony Federico: So, I actually wanted to start the episode by addressing endurance sports in

general, and kind of wanted to get your perspective on why the average person

should take part in endurance training.

Ben Greenfield: Go for it, Joe.

Joe Friel: Well, I think the bottom line is, we get down to the most common primal

denominator. It’s just that that’s our heritage. We were designed to be

endurance athletes. That’s what we’re all about. In fact, that’s the reason we

exist as a species on the planet, is because we’re very good at endurance;

better than any other animal. And because of that, we thrived. So, I think

encouraging people to be active in that way is probably a good force in a very

basic sort of way. Not to mention the fact it happens to be fun besides, to get


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involved in sports, and healthy, and there’s just – there’s so many good

benefits that come from it. But I think the bottom line is, it’s just because

that’s what we’re designed to do.

Tony Federico: I read the book Born to Run and I thought it was a really interesting read for

me personally, as someone who’s kind of dabbled in endurance training from

time to time. He gives a pretty convincing account of why we’re designed to

be endurance athletes, basically, in things like our Achilles tendons, and our

skin is literally water-cooled—you know, the fact that we have sweat glands

and are more or less hairless. You know, very much unlike our ape cousins.

Is that the perspective you take, as far as endurance training and our kind of

biologic origins of running are concerned?

Joe Friel: Yes. Basically, you’re right, that a lot of things we see about ourselves

physiologically, developed that way because it allowed us to hunt. And

allowed us to hunt in a way other hunting animals don’t. I just got back from

safari in South Africa. And over the noon hour we were out driving around in

an open-air Land Cruiser, looking for animals. And we found a couple of

lions lying in the shade around noontime, sleeping. That’s typically what all

other predators do, is they hunt during the cool part of the day, and when it

gets hot they find some place to lay down in the shade and take a nap.

Humans are just the opposite. We found that we could actually cool our

bodies off during the heat, for a couple of reasons. One, because we’re

vertical, so we expose less skin perpendicular to the sun. That allows us to be

a little bit cooler. But primarily because our body cools itself, as you

mentioned, with sweat glands, which only, like, about three to four other

animals on the planet have. Because of that, we could hunt during the

noonday sun and chase down animals over the course of several hours, that


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could not stand the heat, and eventually they would just wilt and collapse in

the heat. Which gave us the opportunity to finish off the hunt and to feed the

family. So, we developed actually living that way, based on our endurance.

Tony Federico: I think I’ve heard the term persistence hunting—wearing the animal out.

Joe Friel: Yes.

Ben Greenfield: I would definitely agree that running in part as an endurance activity, has

really kind of substantially shaped many of the places that we’ve gone as

humans, in terms of the way that our bodies have developed, and what we’ve

been able to accomplish as a species. At the same time, I do not think that

modern endurance sports does a very good job simulating ancestral activities

such as hunting and gathering. I really do not think that we can fool ourselves

into believing that, you know, running in a pair of built-up, overpronation

shoes on hard pavement for 26.2 miles, is something that the human body is

necessarily going to benefit from.

And so, for me, I’ll be the first to admit that I think the Ironman Triathlon, for

example, probably takes a few days, if not weeks or months, off of my

lifespan. And it’s probably not all that good for me physically or biologically.

But there is also a big mental component here. Not only is there a really,

really cool social aspect of being able to, you know, finish a day of work and

go jump in a pool with your friends, or head out on a bike ride on the

weekend; but there’s also that concept of learning the stick-to-it-iveness and

the persistence that comes with endurance sports, as well as being able to kind

of climb your own personal Mount Everest.


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And I don’t hold anything against anyone whose personal Mount Everest is a

600-pound bench press or some strength or power event. But for me

personally, you know, I’ve done bodybuilding and I’ve played a variety of

sports, and I’ve also done endurance sports. And the endorphin release and

the joy of competition derived from – you know, even going down and doing

something like Ironman Hawaii, is something that I haven’t really found

paralleled in a lot of other sports. Despite the fact, again, that I’m not going to

argue that it’s healthy or that it has some kind of ancestral benefit, even

though, you know, we can draw rough correlations between modern

endurance sports and an activity such as persistence hunting.

Tony Federico: So, you maybe would be more likely to say, you know, running in maybe

some minimal shoes out on a trail, and doing so in a self-paced way—you

know, that would be something that would be much more of an analog to our

sort of ancestral movement, versus this really linear, very specific type of

activity that we see in, like, a triathlon. You’ve got your shoes. You know, it’s

a straight line on pavement.

Ben Greenfield: Sure. Even in my triathlon preparation, I run as little as possible, wearing as

little as possible. And that’s my mantra {laughter} when it comes to running,

so…

Tony Federico: So, let’s talk about that a little bit more specifically, as far as training shoes are

concerned. Because I know there’s a lot of different opinions. You know,

people say that barefoot shoes are going to cause you to get injured. Other

people say barefoot-style shoes or even purely barefoot running is what you

need. And my own personal experience is that I had debilitating knee pain

from participating in long distance running with, like, standard Nikes, and for

years I was completely unable to run or even stand without pain.


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And it wasn’t until I started wearing Vibram FiveFingers, just kind of around

the house and then standing around in them at work, and then doing some

little jogs, and eventually the knee pain went away. This past weekend I did a

Spartan Race down in Miami for me, which is eight miles; but, for me, that’s

pretty good. And it was in Vibram FiveFingers. And my knee didn’t hurt at

all. So, my personal experience is that minimal is the way to go. But I’d like

to get your expert opinion on that.

Joe Friel: Yes. I think it comes down largely to the individual, as does almost

everything we talk about. I guess it all starts when we’re children, or as

babies, actually. Our parents—mother, usually—has the child in shoes long

before they can even walk. And we begin to change the dynamics of the foot

and the way we use it, because of that, at a very, very early age. And so, we

adapt to shoes very early on. Then later in life if we decide to go shoeless,

Vibram FiveFingers, or even a minimal shoe—minimal running shoe—that

puts great challenges on our feet and lower legs; even knees, and our hips and

thighs, just because we’ve made such a big change from what we’ve adapted

to.

So, some people adapt very easily. What I typically have done with athletes –

I believe in going towards minimal as we can get, by getting there very, very

slowly. And I’ve asked them simply to start out by taking their shoes off

when they come home from work and spending the rest of the evening around

the house shoeless. They begin to at least get used to their feet not having

something on it all the time, and get a little bit of strength established that

way.


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And then we’ll begin to do grass drills—warm up with shoes on, take the

shoes off, and do some fast running in a park or grassy field of some sort, to

again get the feet gradually adapted. Put the shoes back on; finish the

workout. And over time, we cut back on the structure or the supportiveness of

the shoe they’re using, till they can get to a shoe that’s much more conducive

to running well, as opposed to having little casts on your feet. So, I try to

accomplish that. But sometimes people have such adaptation to shoes and

such weak feet and legs, that they really have a very difficult time doing it.

Tony Federico: Absolutely. One thing I did want to ask you guys about, kind of going back a

step: what do you think about high-intensity interval training, and do you

think that that’s a suitable substitute for endurance training?

Ben Greenfield: I certainly think that you can get good aerobic adaptations to high-intensity

interval training. As counterintuitive as it may seem, you actually can, by

engaging in hard and fast efforts, do things like improve your mitochondrial

density or your capillarization and blood flow delivery to muscle tissue. And

for someone who is kind of time-strapped, I think that it’s a good way to be

able to get some endurance without necessarily going out and doing much,

much longer aerobic sesssions. Which also work—you know, which can also

deliver you similar benefit. But I think that there’s kind of more than one way

to skin a cat, when it comes to turning yourself into a good endurance athlete.

I think the mistake that most people make is, they go out at one single, steady,

kind of sort of hard speed that never really dips into interval training, but also

is hard enough to have some pretty big recovery implications, compared to

something like easy aerobic efforts.


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And so, yes, I mean, I’m a fan of high-intensity interval training. That’s what

I do. I personally only train eight to ten hours a week. And because I train

relatively little for something like Ironman Triathlon, I have to incorporate

high-intensity interval training. If I had the freedom of time to train 20 or 30

hours a week, for example, I would shift and instead do more aerobic, kind of

fat-burning-zone training. But yes, I mean, I definitely think that there’s a

time and a place for interval training.

Tony Federico: And do you think as far as body composition – you mentioned the fat-burning

zone. I think that’s something that really trips a lot of people up. So, if

somebody wants to change their body composition, do you see endurance

training as a way to do that? Or, is it really coming back to diet?

Joe Friel: I would take it back to diet primarily. I think it’s (sounds like: so much) what

you do exercise; it’s what you eat, that has a lot to do with your body

composition, as far as fat. Now, certainly, doing exercise of whatever type—

endurance exercise or power exercise—is going to strengthen muscles, which

is good. That’s certainly beneficial.

But as far as fat storage, it only comes back to the type of diet. I’ve known

lots of athletes who train lots of hours—you know, 10, 15, 20 hours a week—

and can’t lose weight, simply because they eat the wrong stuff, essentially.

So, I think it comes down to both things in terms of body composition but it

really, in terms of fat storage, has a lot to do with how much insulin we release

into our bodies, and that comes primarily from what you eat.

Ben Greenfield: And endurance exercise, I would say, and studies have shown, it actually

slows your metabolism. It turns you into a very, very efficient, economical

machine. And even though that may sound good, and is good if you’re


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running a marathon, if you’re using it as a primary fat-burning means, it’s not

very effective compared to doing something like engaging in weightbearing

exercise like weight training combined with high-intensity interval training,

for example. So, for somebody who’s trying to lose fat, I think that’s a

quicker way to do things with less of a chance of slowing your metabolism.

Tony Federico: Now, as far as diet is concerned, do you see the Paleo diet as being something

that is really optimal for an endurance athlete? Or, is it something that maybe

some flexibility – like, so, for example, eating the glucose gels and things like

that during race day – you’re going to excuse that because it’s race day? Or,

do you think that you can really stick to a more whole foods approach even

when you’re engaged in these types of events?

Joe Friel: I think it comes down largely to what the athlete’s chronic diet is really all

about. You could use the Paleo diet and still be high-carbohydrate. You’re

just getting lots and lots of fruit in your diet; but it’s still Paleo. Or, you can

eat a Paleo diet which is low-carbohydrate, high-fat, or high-protein. It can be

varied in many, many different ways.

So, it really comes down to, what is the athlete eating chronically? And that

has a big impact on what the body eats during exercise. I’m coming more and

more to the conclusion that athletes don’t need carbohydrate during exercise

as – nearly as much as they believe they do, if they’re willing to eat a low-

carbohydrate, high-fat diet.

I just recently read about the guy who set the course record for the Western

States 100, who eats a Paleo diet, very high-fat, low-carbohydrate. And he – I

think he took something like 20 minutes off the course record and was taking

in only 100 calories per hour of carbohydrate. Wasn’t sure he needed that, but


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thought he ought to take it in, because when he does long runs, five- and six-

hour runs, he uses only water. So, he’s quite adapted to exercising without

any carbohydrate whatsoever. But even in the race, he felt perhaps he ought

to be something in, so he did; but minimal compared to what we normally tell

athletes to take in.

Tony Federico: Let’s go ahead and give you a minute to chime in there, Ben.

Ben Greenfield: I for the most part agree with Joe that there’s, you know, kind of two ways to

skin a cat when it comes to endurance sports and what you’re going to eat,

you know, based off of the diet that you’re kind of used to eating. And that a

high-carb athlete—you know, whether Paleo or not—is kind of in a

physiological state where their preferred metabolic fuel is going to be glucose;

whereas a fat-adapted athlete would be able to operate on lower levels of

carbohydrate, such as the name of the guy that won the Western States.

Tony Federico: Was it Timothy Allen Olsen?

Ben Greenfield: Yes. Tim Olsen. Exactly. And that’s certainly another way to do things. But

I mean, when you look at something like, you know, the composition of a gel

—let’s say something like fructose and maltodextrin—you’re going to find

many of those types of sugar sources that you’ll find in some gels, you know,

basically once a Paleo food is kind of broken apart. I mean, in many cases the

body isn’t going to view those sugars physiologically much different than the

type of sugars that it’s getting from taro root, or yam, or sweet potato, or

whatever else. You know, sugar is sugar, to a certain extent. And there are

certainly some nutrient density differences.


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But, for me personally, what it comes down to is the fact that endurance sports

in general is a much more fat-demanding sport that can be fueled primarily by

fatty acid utilization with small amounts of carbohydrate and glycogen, but

much less than what most endurance athletes tend to rely upon. So, I am

definitely a fan of kind of skewing the diet towards lower carbohydrate intake,

cyclic higher carbohydrate on the very, very difficult training days, and kind

of pushing the body more towards fat use as a fuel.

Tony Federico: Well, Joe Friel and Ben Greenfield, it’s been a real pleasure. I appreciate you

guys coming on the show.

Joe Friel: Sure, Tony. Thanks.

Ben Greenfield: Thanks, Tony.

Tony Federico: If you’d like to learn more about Ben Greenfield’s training programs and how

he can make you superhuman, visit bengreenfieldfitness.com. You can also

visit trainingbible.com or joefrielsblog.com to learn more about Joe Friel’s

methods for achieving peak athletic performance.

We’re going to take a short break, but we’ll be right back with ultrarunners

Jen Barker and Matt Hart. I’m Tony Federico and you’re listening to PMR.

{Music}

Tony Federico: Welcome back to Paleo Magazine Radio. Jen and Matt, thank you for coming

on the show.

Matt Hart: Thanks for having me.


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Jen Barker: Thank you.

Tony Federico: So, you guys are both ultrarunners, correct?

Jen Barker: Yes.

Matt Hart: Yes.

Tony Federico: What is the specific definition of an ultramarathon? Is it 50 miles? What’s

the actual definition of that?

Matt Hart: It really is anything longer than a marathon. But the typical distances are

50K, which is 32 miles, 50-miler, 100K, and then 100-miler. But you could

run a 30-mile race and that would be considered an ultra; or 28 miles is

considered an ultra.

Tony Federico: Okay. So, what ultra endurance events have you participated in so far? How

many of these runs have you done?

Jen Barker: I’ve done, maybe five or six now? Maybe more. I don’t know. I don’t really

keep count. But a couple of 50-milers, and I’m now training for my second

100.

Tony Federico: {Laughter}. I don’t think most people would say, “A couple of 50-milers.” I

think they would know exactly how many 50-mile races they’ve done. But

that’s pretty awesome.


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Jen Barker: {Laughter}. Well, I have done exactly two 50-milers. But I’ve done a lot of

50Ks that I don’t know the distance, and some 40-milers.

Matt Hart: I’m probably pushing around 20 ultras at this point.

Jen Barker: Oh, wow.

Matt Hart: I’ve done six 100-milers and – I don’t keep track either, actually, to be honest

with you. I’ve been doing it since 2006, so they’ve kind of just piled up.

Tony Federico: And how do you get into something like this? How do you go from being

just, you know, like an average person, just kind of walking around to

different things, maybe going for a jog here and there, to deciding that you’re

going to run 50 or 100 miles?

Jen Barker: For me, it was while I was training for my first marathan, a friend had read

Dean Karnazes’ Ultramarathon Man, told me about that, told me that he had

done a 50-miler and had done okay; and we kind of made a bet, and I said that

I thought I could better his time. So {laughter}, that started me on my

ultramarathoning journey that I hope never ends. I really enjoy them.

Tony Federico: And you were already a runner at this time, I’m assuming?

Jen Barker: Yes. I was training for my first marathon at that time. I was training for the

Nike Women’s Marathon. And I did okay at that, and I told myself that if I

did all right at it and I was uninjured, that I would come home and sign up.

And that’s exactly what I did. And I signed up for the Mississippi 50-miler.

Tony Federico: And how did you get into this, Matt?


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Matt Hart: I had a bit of a more circuitous route, I think. Seattle in the early 2000s was

kind of a hotbed for adventure racing, and I had been mountain biking and

trail running just to be fit, and there were all these adventure races. Map to –

you know, map and compass. You get a team and you navigate from

checkpoint to checkpoint, which you’ve got to kayak and mountain bike and

trail run.

And so, in training for adventure races I got more and more serious and started

doing, like, 24-hour races and expedition-length adventure races. You kind of

have to be generally good at all the other sports, so I just started running a lot

of trail and a lot of miles. And in training for adventure races that meant a lot

to me, I would go and do ultramarathons as a way to train—as a way to have,

like, a really hard session.

Tony Federico: So, ultramarathons were preparing you for things that were harder than

ultramarathons.

Matt Hart: {Laughter}. I don’t know if I’d say harder. Sometimes longer, definitely.

Tony Federico: Ah. So, obviously, the focus of this podcast is the Paleo lifestyle. You know,

we’re looking at eating in a way that our ancestors ate, moving in a way that

our ancestors moved. How do you guys see the Paleo diet helping you, in

terms of what you love to do?

Jen Barker: Since I’ve gone Paleo – it’s been about a year and a half now, just packing real

food with me on the trails and steering clear of all the refined sugars and dairy

and everything, my runs have gotten a lot better. I’ve lost a lot of weight,

about 20 pounds, so I’m a lot lighter on the trails and my times are much


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better. And I feel great. You know, I may get weird looks when I’m eating

Medjool dates on the trails, or figs, while other people are pulling out their

GUs. But it works for me, and I really love how I feel doing it.

Tony Federico: And so, were you following, sort of like, the standard – you know, because

there’s the American diet, and I think there’s also the standard American

runner diet, which is a lot of GU packets and a lot of electrolyte powders and

things along those lines. Were you kind of doing that thing previously?

Jen Barker: Yes. I definitely was using a lot of GUs and some powders. I’d hadFROM

college on, and I was tired of dealing with it, and started doing some research,

and decided to get rid of dairy and wheat. Then I read Wheat Belly, and then

started hearing about primal and Paleo diets, and read up on that, and got a

copy of The Paleo Diet for Athletes, and it’s been on from there.

Tony Federico: That’s awesome.

Matt Hart: I spent a number of years sort of doing the standard runner’s diet or the

standard endurance athlete’s diet. And I seemed to kind of run up to a lot of

the typical issues. Like, I could get down to, you know, pretty low body fat

percentage for important races; but I just felt like garbage. You know, I wasn’t

eating really any fat other than my carbohydrate diet. And I found myself

taking a lot of naps after a long session and a big carbohydrate meal. And for

a while I was convinced it was just hard training, and I needed the naps.

But after going Paleo, those have disappeared. You know, I have better

energy. I have less energy swings. I just don’t rely on carbohydrates like I

used to. I burn fat so much more efficiently. I’m so insulin-sensitive. Like, if

I hang out, you know, not exercising, on the couch, and have a Snickers bar, I


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will be asleep in 20 minutes from the insulin spike. I don’t do that, but I’ve

had (inaudible).

Tony Federico: I’ve heard of that happening before.

Matt Hart: {Laughter}. Yes. I mean, like, a Clif Bar, I think. That happened to me once.

And I remember, I took a nap and woke up. And I looked at the wrapper, and

I was like, oh, yes, there’s still 30 grams of sugar in this thing. That’s what

just happened.

Tony Federico: Clif Bar hangover.

Matt Hart: Yes, definitely. But to be honest, I eat Paleo 24/7 when I’m not training. But

when I go out and train, you know, I’ve tried it with whole foods. You know,

just this past fall actually, I did some really long runs, 30 mile runs, with just

real food—like, literally, fruit in the bag, and dates, and – I just wanted to do it

as an experiment. But I definitely am, like, a Paleo Plus, or Paleo for Athletes.

But I’d say even cleaner than Paleo for Athletes, is sort of what I’d ended up

on. Because if you read what Joe Friel kind of has listed as his ideal day of

training, he still has, like, Coca-Cola, and a bunch of garbage food that I try to

avoid, definitely. But when I’m training, I still have gels and some (sounds

like: graze)-style foods.

Tony Federico: So, you’ll make some accommodations for just sort of the logistics of having

to carry enough stuff with you to kind of get through the event?

Matt Hart: Yes.

Jen Barker: Yes.


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Matt Hart: And to perform well. Because I’ve tried it both ways, and I just feel like, you

know, at some point, eight hours into a run, that fructose load from fruit or – it

just seems to back me up, and I’m definitely not performing as well. So, I’ve

just taken to – you know, when I’m training or when I’m racing, I have the

foods that work for me as energy foods. But, I mean, with that all said, I still

definitely don’t have any dairy and I definitely avoid gluten. But, you know, a

gel packet’s definitely a processed food and not, you know, a whole, natural

food.

Tony Federico: Wouldn’t be Paleo, as they say. I don’t think cavemen were eating gel

packets.

Jen Barker: {Laughter}.

Tony Federico: But they probably weren’t doing ultra endurance activities as well. So – one

of the things that kind of interesting is that both of you have sort of mentioned

fruit. I’m kind of curious about starch. Because if we kind of go to the Paleo

perspective, it seems like human beings were starchivores maybe even before

we were carnivores, or primarily carnivorous. So, things like roots, and

shoots, and potatoes, and cassava, and stuff like that, would have been maybe

a more common ancestral staple. In many parts of the world they still are

staple crops. What do you see as the role of starch, just in your own

experience?

Jen Barker: For me it’s still really important. But I rely primarily on sweet potatoes and

yams, especially before long runs. Race day mornings, it’s become a ritual

that I, you know, wake up and I eat a sweet potato for breakfast. It’s just


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something that I do. That’s the role that they play for me. It’s really just the

sweet potatoes and the yams. I don’t know about Matt.

Matt Hart: Yes. I have my sweet potato or a yam every day, pretty much. And usually

after training, you know, I get home and just cook one up. Have some yam

fries or have something already baked that I can just heat up. So, almost

every day I have one. It’s super important. I just like the taste of them, but it

also gives me that bit of starch, I think, that I need.

Jen Barker: Yes. I baked some with me and they’re in the car as I travel, so I’d have them

for my training run tomorrow.

Tony Federico: You’re on your way to a run, aren’t you?

Jen Barker: Yes. I’m on my way to a training run for the Massanutten 100. It’s in

Virginia.

Tony Federico: And you’re literally on your way. You’re in a car right now, right?

Jen Barker: Yes. We pulled over at a truckstop {laughter} so I could do this call, yes, on

the way.

Tony Federico: Are your friends looking at you through the window? {Laughter}.

Jen Barker: {Laughter}. They escaped inside. I don’t know what trouble they’re getting

into in the truckstop, but {laughter}…

Tony Federico: And you mentioned, like, getting some weird looks from other runners, you

know, with things like, you know, eating a date versus pumping a GU packet.


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Have you ever had any conversations with fellow runners? Because I know

it’s, like, a community event and you’re all kind of going through this

together. You’re all gathering at the starting line and kind of taking off, and

you might run with somebody for a little while. Does this ever come up in

conversation? Do you ever have any interactions, kind of, around this?

Jen Barker: Oh, it definitely does for me. I’m pretty vocal about it on Facebook and

Twitter and out on the trails. And I’ve met people who are just like, oh, well,

you know, I saw your post. Maybe we just kind of know each other through

the ultra community. And I saw a post of yours. You know, how is it working

for you? And I tell them. And then the next race I’ve had people say, hey, I

switched and I’m – started using dates, and I love it. So, once people get off

the refined sugar, I think especially during ultra events, you know, and during

other physical activities, and they start using real food, just – you feel better.

Matt Hart: Yes. I mean, I try not to be an evangelist, but I can’t really help it at this point.


Matt Hart: I also coach ultrarunners and endurance athletes. And so, you know, I don’t

force any of my clients to eat a particular way; but if they ask me questions, I

give them from my experience what I think works the best. And, you know,

I’ve had clients lose 100 pounds eating this way. I’ve had, well, innumerable

clients lose 20 to 50 pounds. And then I’ve seen it pass on. Like, I talked to a

client who was like – I’ve never even met this guy’s brother; but he said, you

know, I told my brother how I’ve been eating, and he’s 50 pounds lighter.


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It’s hard not to be excited about it and evangelical. I mean, my Mom just

decided to start listening to me, like, six months ago. And she’ll frequently

text me, “I’m lighter than I was in high school.” Stuff like that.

Tony Federico: Wow.

Matt Hart: Like, it’s pretty powerful stuff. But there are a number of examples of

vegetarians being successful and very healthy and – you know, so there are a

number of ways to skin a cat. But I’ve definitely found this to be the easiest

to maintain and the thing that makes sense to me intellectually.

Tony Federico: Joe Friel, the co-author of The Paleo Diet for Athletes—he was actually on

part one of this episode. We were just talking a second ago. One of the big

things that he was saying is, what is the individual adapted to? And you

mentioned that there’ve been successful vegetarian athletes. I think that’s a

really good point. Because we do have to take in account that individual

variation. If somebody’s been eating a super-high-carb standard American

diet, and then on race day they try going Paleo, they might have a pretty bad

experience with it.

So, you know, I think having a progressive approach and kind of easing

people into it and finding out where they are – really like anything else in life,

taking it step by step rather than trying to jump into the deep end of the pool

all at once.

Matt Hart: Yes. Letting them sort of figure it out for themselves. It’s funny how many

people will criticize it and not steep themselves in, like, having read some

vegetarian diet books, or anything about Paleo. That’s what I find the most

frustrating. Friends of mine, smart people, kind of bash it on these small, little


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ideas, or these common arguments—that cavemen died when they were 15 –

you know, really early; and who wants to live in a cave, kind of thing—that I

find the most frustrating. But, you know, there are a number of ways to skin a

cat and, you know, people will come around to it if they, you know, are open-

minded to it, I think.

Tony Federico: When I was going through and getting everything lined up for today, there’s a

runnersworld.com email, and the title of it was, How an Ancient Diet can Help

your Running. And the whole thing was Professor Loren Cordain and Joe

Friel and the diet of our ancestors. And this is coming from Runner’s World.

Most of the emails that I’ve gotten from them are, you know, the standard

message of high carb and, you know, kind of more processed stuff. So, to see

this established company putting forth an ancestral diet, an ancient diet—

seems like it’s coming around. It’s kind of becoming more and more

mainstream.

Matt Hart: Yes. I think Trail Runner had to respond to it. In 2009 one of their managing

editors, Andy Burfoot, went out with Cordain and Friel and, like, spent a day

eating with them; went to dinner with them. It’s a really interesting article.

But, like, you know, any fitness trends, they kind of have to address it to some

degree. And it’s great to see that they’re sort of open to it.

Tony Federico: Yes, absolutely. That they’re not so, I guess, entrenched in – I mean, the

message that they’ve been putting out there is very different than that. You

know. So, for a company or for a business, that’s a tricky spot to be in, when

you’ve been promoting one thing and then – kind of comes around, hey,

maybe this is a better way to do it. But, you know, if they’re responsive, I

mean, you’ve got to give them respect for that, so…


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Matt Hart: The more people it works for, you know, the more cheerleaders you get, it just

kind of builds on itself.

Tony Federico: Absolutely. Well, hey, guys, we’re actually running out of time. But I really

appreciate you coming on. I wish you the best with all of your endeavors and

your endurance runs, and hope that maybe one day I too can join the ranks of

ultramarathoners. And it’ll probably be by running one mile more than a

marathon. But…

Matt Hart: {Laughter}.


Tony Federico: I think I can do it. I’m inspired by your stories.

Matt Hart: Awesome.

Jen Barker: Thanks so much for having me.

Tony Federico: Well, that concludes this episode of Paleo Magazine Radio. I’m Tony

Federico, and on behalf of everyone at PMR, thank you for listening.

Host: If you would like to share your story on PMR, please visit our Facebook page

at facebook.com/PaleoMagazine. For full transcripts of the show as well as

exclusive online content, go to our webpage, paleomagonline.com. You can

also talk to us on Twitter at #pmradio.

{Music}


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THE END


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