I forgot to mention: if you have money rather than time available, there’s MetaMed, which has personnel overlaps with LW, and does the looking-up job for you for a fee. See the write-up/pitch for it by Eliezer.
He takes individual variation very seriously. Blood and saliva tests are a good idea before supplements because needs and reactions for supplements vary a lot.
He believes that the human body has evolved to be good at living, and it’s better to support it and find out what’s getting in its way rather than just trying to prevent symptoms.
At the same time, he also comes up with a scoring system for a person’s symptoms—efforts at treatment should either improve the score or be discontinued.
Possibly important for LW: He believes that very low carb diets + hard exercise with insufficient recovery + fasting all increase stress hormones, and can lead to exhaustion that takes a lot of time and work to cure, and that people don’t necessarily get a lot of warning before they’re in trouble.
Possibly important for LW: He believes that very low carb diets + hard exercise with insufficient recovery + fasting all increase stress hormones, and can lead to exhaustion that takes a lot of time and work to cure, and that people don’t necessarily get a lot of warning before they’re in trouble.
In general this seems accurate but I request clarification regarding the ‘hard exercise’ claim. The word ‘hard’ in that context sets off warning bells. While either suitably extreme instantiation of ‘hard’ or a tautological instantiation of ‘insufficient recovery’ could make this claim denotatively true the connotations are something to be wary of. In particular I would like to assert the following claims and in so doing invite disagreement if the advice from your source happens to contradict them:
High intensity exercise is better than low intensity exercise in terms of effect on stress hormones. For a given degree of physiological distress and fatigue induced better stress hormone results come from high intensity exercise than low intensity exercise.
For the prevention of overtraining—the state where recovery is insufficient to the demands of exercise—an often effective solution is to reduce the amount of low intensity exercise and replace it with high intensity exercise. Obviously there will be less exercise as measured by time but more by measures of physical adaptation.
Except in extreme cases the effect of high intensity exercise on stress hormones is decidedly positive. Not only does such exertion reduce the level of stress hormones (and stress) in the body on average it also makes the body better able to resist the effects of stress. In particular the new neurons produced due to high intensity exercise are less vulnerable to destruction via chronic or acute stress. Many rats died in the discovery of this phenomenon.
I don’t wish to criticise or reject your source. Pardon me if I am excessively wary of the wording. Unless his advice contradicts the above claims, what you have conveyed of his lessons thus far indicates that he is worth listening to. I’ll add that his observation about fasting matches my research on the subject. Those that eat irregularly can in general improve their cortisol levels by consuming protein in the morning—that seems to be a fairly consistent finding.
From memory, since I don’t want to hack through the podcast again: He came up with an extreme example (something like Crossfit + an hour of cardio a day) and then clarified by saying that Crossfit can be very good, but it’s important to have a coach rather than do it on your own, and also something to the effect while it’s better to get blood tests and such, you have a clue that you’re pushing yourself too hard if you’re developing sleep problems.
From a different source: Serious problems with “Strong is the new skinny”—take a took at the number of comments from coaches who say they have to restrain their clients from over-training. I think there’s a cultural problem.
The more I learn about human metabolism, the more I realize how complex it is. And because of that, I am more skeptical of simple, broad claims, that aren’t backed up by solid research.
Wow, now I’m really glad I asked! This sounds like exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!
You’re welcome. Glad to help.
I forgot to mention: if you have money rather than time available, there’s MetaMed, which has personnel overlaps with LW, and does the looking-up job for you for a fee. See the write-up/pitch for it by Eliezer.
Not quite enough of it for MetaMed, but thank you for the suggestion.
This health coach seems sensible, and might be cheaper than Metamed.
Nancy, what made you think that coach was sensible?
He takes individual variation very seriously. Blood and saliva tests are a good idea before supplements because needs and reactions for supplements vary a lot.
He believes that the human body has evolved to be good at living, and it’s better to support it and find out what’s getting in its way rather than just trying to prevent symptoms.
At the same time, he also comes up with a scoring system for a person’s symptoms—efforts at treatment should either improve the score or be discontinued.
Possibly important for LW: He believes that very low carb diets + hard exercise with insufficient recovery + fasting all increase stress hormones, and can lead to exhaustion that takes a lot of time and work to cure, and that people don’t necessarily get a lot of warning before they’re in trouble.
In general this seems accurate but I request clarification regarding the ‘hard exercise’ claim. The word ‘hard’ in that context sets off warning bells. While either suitably extreme instantiation of ‘hard’ or a tautological instantiation of ‘insufficient recovery’ could make this claim denotatively true the connotations are something to be wary of. In particular I would like to assert the following claims and in so doing invite disagreement if the advice from your source happens to contradict them:
High intensity exercise is better than low intensity exercise in terms of effect on stress hormones. For a given degree of physiological distress and fatigue induced better stress hormone results come from high intensity exercise than low intensity exercise.
For the prevention of overtraining—the state where recovery is insufficient to the demands of exercise—an often effective solution is to reduce the amount of low intensity exercise and replace it with high intensity exercise. Obviously there will be less exercise as measured by time but more by measures of physical adaptation.
Except in extreme cases the effect of high intensity exercise on stress hormones is decidedly positive. Not only does such exertion reduce the level of stress hormones (and stress) in the body on average it also makes the body better able to resist the effects of stress. In particular the new neurons produced due to high intensity exercise are less vulnerable to destruction via chronic or acute stress. Many rats died in the discovery of this phenomenon.
I don’t wish to criticise or reject your source. Pardon me if I am excessively wary of the wording. Unless his advice contradicts the above claims, what you have conveyed of his lessons thus far indicates that he is worth listening to. I’ll add that his observation about fasting matches my research on the subject. Those that eat irregularly can in general improve their cortisol levels by consuming protein in the morning—that seems to be a fairly consistent finding.
From memory, since I don’t want to hack through the podcast again: He came up with an extreme example (something like Crossfit + an hour of cardio a day) and then clarified by saying that Crossfit can be very good, but it’s important to have a coach rather than do it on your own, and also something to the effect while it’s better to get blood tests and such, you have a clue that you’re pushing yourself too hard if you’re developing sleep problems.
From his blog: On combining fasting and exercise.
From a different source: Serious problems with “Strong is the new skinny”—take a took at the number of comments from coaches who say they have to restrain their clients from over-training. I think there’s a cultural problem.
Fasting can be bad for people with disregulated cortisol.
Thanks NancyLebovitz.
The more I learn about human metabolism, the more I realize how complex it is. And because of that, I am more skeptical of simple, broad claims, that aren’t backed up by solid research.