Why do people get freaked out (GOMAD)

[Mehdi]

@killerdude494949
I wrote this earlier: you won't get anywhere with this. There's the China Study philosophy, there's the Weston Price philosophy. Both are well researched and make sense. But both are completely opposite philosophies. You can keep quoting research, studies, docus, whatever. Someone can come up with the complete opposite material. This is wasting your time.

Example:
http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/China-Study.html => critizing china study
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRel ... cdent.html => criticizing Weston Price

Campbell (China Study) is a vegeterian. Does that make him biased? You'll keep confusing yourself reading opposite philosophies all the time. As SamuraiMark said: keep an open mind, keep trying different stuff, you'll find out in 50 years who was right.

[SamuraiMark]

Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCFZoqmKf5M

Good video. I did enjoy it, and it reiterates much of what I have been saying*. The 'paleo' diet, based on what I remember from the video, doesn't seem to be anything more than eating a wide variety whole foods, as advocated by both the Canada Food Guide and the US Food Pyramid.

I agree with you, and I think most everyone here agrees, that processed foods are, if not outright bad for you, certainly 'less good' than options that are closer to the source (steak vs. spam, apples vs. apple juice, refined grains vs. whole grains, etc.).

Cheers,
Mark

* Not that anyone should listen to me. I'm not an expert. I'm a mouthpiece with enough education to be dangerous. Use at your own risk!

[killerdude494949]

You failed to notice the lack of starches in the list of our ancestral foods.

Problems with mainstream food pyramid:

-Way too many "grains". They dont even advocate whole grains like quinoa but highly processed stuff like bread and cereal. Might as well reccommend sugar out the bag. This already tells you what kind of "intellegence" is behind these reccomendations.

-Fruit. Not that I'm claiming fruit is unhealthy, but most people are ignorant, and will generally eat a surplus of fruit, usually of the high sugar kind. High sugar fruits are native to the tropical climates, and fruit, in general, is not something you can eat all day long, all year long, in nature. Too much fruit will make you fat and strain your liver. Fruit is agriculture.

-Their reccomendation of vegetables is primarily of the starchy kind. More agricultural products.

-Their idea of healthy dairy is pastuerized, homogenized, fat-artificially-taken-out-of, milk. These kind of milk comes from commercial agriculture. Hmm, don't see the trend yet?


There are way more issues with it but I am shedding light on these specific ones for a reason.

As you can see, surely the agricultural products are definetly healthy for us, so lets dig in!

[Liv92]

I thought that video was clever.

[SamuraiMark]

-Way too many "grains". They dont even advocate whole grains like quinoa but highly processed stuff like bread and cereal. Might as well reccommend sugar out the bag. This already tells you what kind of "intellegence" is behind these reccomendations.

Incorrect: http://www.mypyramid.gov/pyramid/grains.html

-Fruit. Not that I'm claiming fruit is unhealthy, but most people are ignorant, and will generally eat a surplus of fruit, usually of the high sugar kind. High sugar fruits are native to the tropical climates, and fruit, in general, is not something you can eat all day long, all year long, in nature. Too much fruit will make you fat and strain your liver. Fruit is agriculture.

"People" eat a surplus of processed refined crap. People "guilty" of eating too much fruit are in a significant minority. The fruits that are typically made available to use offer rich natural sources of carbohydrate, fibre, vitamins and minerals. Too much fruit, meat, veggie, dairy, whatever, will make you fat. Too much carbohydrate will make you fat. Too much protein will make you fat. Too much fat will make you fat. Fat, protein and carbs are all energy providing nutrients. Your body will store excesses from any of them as fat.

Please provide evidence that "too much fruit will ... strain your liver."

-Their reccomendation of vegetables is primarily of the starchy kind. More agricultural products.

Incorrect: http://www.mypyramid.gov/pyramid/vegetables.html

-Their idea of healthy dairy is pastuerized, homogenized, fat-artificially-taken-out-of, milk. These kind of milk comes from commercial agriculture. Hmm, don't see the trend yet?

The emphasis on low fat products in the food pyramid is predicated on a number of FACTS:

• The average north American already gets a LOT of fat in their diet
• Every gram of fat contributes 125% more calories than a gram of carb or protein
• considerable research linking saturated fat (common in dairy) with serum LDL Levels

North Americans do not have a problem with calorie deficiency, quite the opposite. Low/no-fat options help an ever-growing obese population with calorie control. Replacing fat content with sugar can be a problem for people who don't bother to read labels, but you need to add >2.25g of sugar for every gram of fat removed to obviate the caloric difference. Sugars (I do read labels) is often added to fat-free products, but not in those quantities.

As you can see, surely the agricultural products are definetly healthy for us, so lets dig in!

As opposed to the ... ? Non-agricultural products? You're suggesting we should all head to the woods and start hunting game? That is clearly not a sustainable model for our population. I agree that the current system is not ideal, and can improved, but agriculture is the only way to feed the planet.

Mark

[killerdude494949]

Sorry, thats not working on me. My beef with the grains isnt the fact that they are processed or not, its the fact that humans have NOT eaten grains for 99% of our existance and we were fine without them and once they entered our food supply, we began to develop more health issues. Check the Eygptians.

Fructose can only be metabolized in the liver. Eat enough fruit over the span of 20 years and you'll find out about it yourself. Or you can pick up a copy of "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes and flip to the chapter about sugar.

You're pretty convinced of your idea that too much of anything will make us fat, which is true, but you apparently don't understand it isn't feasible to eat 10,000 calories a day of meat and vegetables. You will never get fat on a diet that contains no sugar or starches because those are the only foods that are easy to eat a shit load of and never get sick of them.

http://www.youtube.com/user/FatHeadMovie

Watch a few of those videos and find out what "reaseach" is actually behind the notion that saturated fat will harmyour health.

[SamuraiMark]

Sorry, thats not working on me. My beef with the grains isnt the fact that they are processed or not, its the fact that humans have NOT eaten grains for 99% of our existance and we were fine without them and once they entered our food supply, we began to develop more health issues. Check the Eygptians.

"We never ate it before therefore we cannot eat it now" is not a valid argument. Are you suggesting that, as early humans traveled the planet, they did not incorporated into their diets all the different foods they encountered? What proof do you have that we started having "health problems" once we started eating grains? Humans today, all over the planet, eat large quantities of grains and experience no health issues. Starch is our primary source of energy. Are you suggesting that the billions of healthy people eating starches every day are in fact, not healthy? The countries with the highest life expectancies are all countries which eat grains regularly.

Fructose can only be metabolized in the liver. Eat enough fruit over the span of 20 years and you'll find out about it yourself. Or you can pick up a copy of "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes and flip to the chapter about sugar.

You're avoiding my ask. I didn't ask you to tell me how fructose is metabolised. I asked you to provide evidence that "excessive" fructose will "strain" your liver. What constitutes excessive fructose? What does "strain" mean? These are important questions. There are people here who believe that Avidin in eggs can cause a biotin deficiency. And it can. But only if you eat >24 eggs every day for months. So please, elaborate. How, and under what circumstances, does fructose "strain" the liver and what does "strain" mean?

Gary Taubes is a journalist trained in physics and aerospace engineering who is currently employed writing books about controversial subjects. I have not read his books, but citing his work is bordering on another fallacy. I don't go to my mechanic to ask about my diet, and I don't go to my lawyer to ask about fixing my car.

You're pretty convinced of your idea that too much of anything will make us fat, which is true, but you apparently don't understand it isn't feasible to eat 10,000 calories a day of meat and vegetables. You will never get fat on a diet that contains no sugar or starches because those are the only foods that are easy to eat a shit load of and never get sick of them.

Were getting out on a limb here. Who is eating 10,000kcals per day? Are you suggesting that people commonly eat 10,000kcals of fruit every day? How is that at all relevant? No one eats 10,000kcals a day, and no one eats 10,000kcals a day of fruit. This is completely irrelevant!

You cannot get fat on a diet of fats and protein? Is that what you are saying? Let's come back down to earth and adopt a more realistic example. If you need 2000kcals a day to meet your energy needs, and you consume 3000kcals of fat and protein every day (let's assume ZERO carbs), please explain where the other 1000kcals magically disappear to?

10,000kcals is approximately:

• 100 apples or
• 10lbs of sirloin or
• 1000oz of broccoli

Who, in their right mind, would eat any of these? Who would eat 100 apples? The feasibility of eating 10,000kcals in a day is completely irrelevant. The reality is, if you could and did eat this much in a day, it would not matter whether it was fruit, veg, grain or meat. The vast majority of those kcals are going to end up around your waistline. Excess protein is stored as fat. Excess carbs are stored as fat. Excess (dietary) fat is stored as fat. This isn't conjecture, this is how your body works.

http://www.youtube.com/user/FatHeadMovie

Watch a few of those videos and find out what "reaseach" is actually behind the notion that saturated fat will harmyour health.

There's no way for me to respond to this without getting snarky, so I'll just say this: a video by a comedian/health writer does not constitute proof of anything. If you have valid research that supports your position, I'd be happy to read it, and I'll gladly change my stance.

My stance: A balanced diet is composed of whole foods including fruits, vegetables, grains and meats with fat/carb/protein ratios that meet the AMDRs.

Mark

[guru]

My stance: A balanced diet is composed of whole foods including fruits, vegetables, grains and meats with fat/carb/protein ratios that meet the AMDRs.

Amen to that.

[skor]

I would equate drinking a gallon of milk per day, every day to raping myself. When I lift heavy, move a lot and sleep well, my appetite is through the roof - and there is no need to force anything down my throat. Half a gallon of kefir on some days would easily come down. But to *force* it on a daily basis?

GOMAD is a simple and probably effective approach to gaining muscle; at the same time I'm almost sure that it's highly sub-optimal in terms of long-term health for an absolute majority of strength-training population.

[Mehdi]

I would equate drinking a gallon of milk per day, every day to raping myself. When I lift heavy, move a lot and sleep well, my appetite is through the roof - and there is no need to force anything down my throat. Half a gallon of kefir on some days would easily come down. But to *force* it on a daily basis?

GOMAD is a simple and probably effective approach to gaining muscle; at the same time I'm almost sure that it's highly sub-optimal in terms of long-term health for an absolute majority of strength-training population.

You're not doing it long-term, only 2 months max. So perfectly safe.

[skor]

I would equate drinking a gallon of milk per day, every day to raping myself. When I lift heavy, move a lot and sleep well, my appetite is through the roof - and there is no need to force anything down my throat. Half a gallon of kefir on some days would easily come down. But to *force* it on a daily basis?

GOMAD is a simple and probably effective approach to gaining muscle; at the same time I'm almost sure that it's highly sub-optimal in terms of long-term health for an absolute majority of strength-training population.

You're not doing it long-term, only 2 months max. So perfectly safe.

Fair point. Then I wonder WHY would one need such an extreme *short-term* weight gain? What is the usefulness and need of GOMAD for 2 month vs slower approach?

[SamuraiMark]

Fair point. Then I wonder WHY would one need such an extreme *short-term* weight gain? What is the usefulness and need of GOMAD for 2 month vs slower approach?

I don't think it is an issue of need, more an issue of desire. I believe there is some research suggesting rapid weight gain/loss might be unhealthy, hard on the heart or some such, but GOMAD is meant for people who want to pack on some muscle (along with the consequent fat gain) in a short period of time. I'd be surprised if it was truly unhealthy for someone who is otherwise already healthy. For someone with existing heart conditions, I'd think twice.

I think it also helps those people who think they are 'hard gainers' and those who otherwise have a hard time meeting their energy needs if they are working really hard, say SL5x5 plus 3-4 hard spin classes or HIIT training every week.

But this is all mostly just IMO.

Mark

[killerdude494949]

It's called BULKING UP, people.

It MUST be short because your gonna get fatter to an extent.

If you don't want to gain a little fat to get big, so be it, just be ready to take years to do it.