The Paleo Diet - Robb Wolf on Paleolithic nutrition, intermittent fasting, and fitness

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The Paleo Solution – Episode 116

Performance Menu: Journal of Health & Athletic Excellence

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Topics:

  1. [5:11] Green Beans and Autoimmunity
  2. [9:07] Jack Kruse’s Leptin Reset
  3. [15:54] Becoming Batman
  4. [34:01] Cortisol and Morning People
  5. [36:57] Vericose Veins
  6. [40:46] Phytic Acid and Iron Overload
  7. [47:16] Cravings vs. Nutrition

Questions:

1. Green Beans
Dora says:
I was recently diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, after 5 years of no one being able to tell me what was wrong with me.  I do take responsibility, however, for not finding the smart ones.  I am also 99% confident that it was triggered by the other idiot I went to for IVF who over stimulated me and sent my estrogen levels through the roof for a very long time.  Anyway, as it turns out I have lived my life almost Paelo without even knowing it (don’t like bread, pasta, beans or even ate processed foods). Since I learned I have HT I immediately began to follow a very strict Paleo Diet with Autoimmune Protocol, per your book and Dr. Cordain.   Although I never eat beans I do enjoy green beans.  For my situation, can I eat green beans if I remove the actual been and only eat the shells?  I do cook them.  Lastly, I do thank you and Dr. Cordain for this protocol as it has been the only way that I have been able to even begin to recover and I almost feel like my old self after 5 years.

Thanks.

2. Leptin Reset
Meg Says:
Hi!

I hope you guys are doing well!

I just wanted to get your thoughts on Dr. Jack Kruse’s leptin reset protocol. I’m intrigued and eager to try it as i have hashis and suspected adrenal issues and anything to help get my hormones back in line seems good to me!  From browsing various boards, people seem to say it’s life changing although many tend to drop it as it can be difficult to take in that amount of protein first thing in the morning and resist snacking.  However, those that can stick it out are true believers and say it’s changed their life and their relationship with food…helped to reset hunger signals, drop fat, sleep better etc.  Dr Kruse advocates a primal/paleo diet in conjunction with this system.  Apparently the reset lasts approx 6-8 weeks and you must adhere to it 100% or start all over again.  He gives markers to know when you are truely leptin sensitive again (working out without being sore, better skin, better sleep, can skip lunch, etc)  to know when to stop the protocol.

The main ideas:
1. Eat a big ass breakfast – min of 50 g protein with little to no carbs
2. No snacking – stick to 2-3 meals a day
3. Eat primal/paleo
4. Make sleep a huge prioty
5. No working out during the reset until you begin to show signs of being leptin sensitive again (only when you can work out and not get sore are you truly leptin sensitive. Apparently doing HIIT things before youre ready will just cause more harm than good.)

Thoughts?  I assume it can’t hurt to try it, but am curious if I have a shot in hell in getting optimized hormone-wise this way.  For the record, I am on Armour/Cytomel, eat paleo, have hashis and celiac, and walk/do yoga for the time being (until I get the adrenals sorted out).   His blog is very science heavy – I can’t always follow it – but thought that someone with a big brain like yours will be able to analyze it.

Keep up the great work – I love your book and podcast!  By the way, Instead of preaching to everyone about how they should go paleo, I find that my results speak for themselves. My husband and now even parents are starting to dip their toes in the water (cutting out gluten) after seeing symptons that kept me sick for about 2 years going away….now I just have to stay on top of my hashis and adrenals….

Thanks!

3. I Want to Be Batman: A Training Question
Josh says:
Hi Greg and Robb. The podcast is great. I wish there was a Catalyst or Norcal to train at where I live. 🙁 Sounds awesome.

Okay, I’m confused about this “Crossfit” thing. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to get you guys riled up about unsafe training methods doled out by under-qualified trainers. 🙂 What I’m confused about is how to approach “general fitness” as opposed to sport-specific fitness. So I’m curious about your approach general fitness.

I can’t quote it exactly, but in an earlier podcast I heard Greg say something like “if you train to be good at everything, you’ll just suck,” or something to that effect. The point being, it is better pick one thing to be awesome at, and focus specifically on that (be it weightlifting, running, gymnastics, or whatever).

That said, I know a little about y’all’s history with Crossfit, and I also know that the main attraction of Crossfit and the general physical preparedness-scene in the first place, is the promise of training to ultimately become an all-around general-purpose badass. And that’s why people train to be great across all these different “fitness modalities,” and all of that stuff. Which seems to contradict Greg’s “don’t overgeneralize lest ye suck” dictum (unless I misunderstood the context). What if a person doesn’t want to be a champion powerlifter, but does want to be damn strong; doesn’t want to be a champion sprinter, but does want to be damn fast, and so on? What to do?

So, my question is this: let’s take a hypothetical person: and let’s say that this hypothetical person’s goal is to train to become an all-around beast of an all-around super-fit ass-kicker. Strong, fast, powerful, flexible, coordinated, enduring, nimble, skilled; everything. Not the best at everything, but really damned good at everything (and at least respectable amongst the specialists, albeit not placing in any elite contests or anything of course). Basically, this guy wants to, before he gets too old for it, train to become Batman. So, if general wicked all-around baddassery is a person’s ultimate goal, and assuming that the way to general badassery is to train a bit of everything, and assuming that time-to-train is very limited, given the need to hold a job and whatnot, then which would be the better approach to attaining said GPP goal?

Approach 1: Train Crossfit-style consistently, forever, hitting at least two of the three major metabolic pathways hard each time: as much as sleep, eating, and recovery will allow. Repeat repeat repeat. Leave out the really stupid stuff so to avoid injury. This would be the simpler approach: hit the Crossfit website, or whatever cousin site looks good, and do the workout of the day. Every day. Track progress on “Helen,” brag about my “Fran” time, or whatever. Spend the rest of my time defending kipping pull-ups to passers-by. Wear toe shoes all the time. Done.

Approach 2: Break down fitness goals into 3-4 month “chunks” and, while maintaining a baseline ‘maintenance’ program in the background of general lifting, running, and what not, create a laser-like focus for the main body of work for each period of time on crushing out one specific short-term goal. I hope that makes sense.

So, for example, let’s say I broke down a year’s training into into four “focus blocks” by season, to make it simple:

Winter: strength focus (heavy compound lifts, eating, GOMAD, and beard growth)
Spring: metabolic conditioning focus (sprints, wallballs, jumping, throwing things, and yelling)
Summer: endurance focus (running, swimming, panting, sweating, VO2 max and wanting to die)
Fall: power/explosiveness focus (olympic lifts: because it makes me feel cool to waltz into a normal gym during bro-curl-in-the-squat-rack hour and pop out some snatches – it freaks their shit out)

This approach meaning: at least two or three sessions per week would be spent doing focus work, and the remaining two or three days would be spent doing the baseline maintenance stuff (bro curls, chin-ups, squats and cardio to keep things in check). Set a goal. Meet it. Switch goals. Repeat every few months.

Would my hypothetical Batman-in-training get better results doing the “focus blocks“ method this way, or just trying to do everything all at once each workout, as per Crossfit? Phrased another way, which approach would make one suck less?

Right now I’m doing a strength-focused routine (compound lifts), and I’m making good progress (I’ll do some cardio and metcon, but it’s kept to a minimum for now). I am getting stronger, so what I’m doing is working. However, would me switching over to metcon focus in the spring destroy all my awesome beardly winter progress?

I hope my question wasn’t too stupid! As far as training goes, I know some stuff, and now I’m getting just smart enough to be dangerous. Help!

Thanks!

4. Cortisol and Morning People

Ben Says:

You may have heard that people are either a “morning person” or they are not.  However, given the realities of cortisol – high in the morning and lowering throughout the day – does that mean if someone is not a “morning person” something is simply off, perhaps diet, exercise, sleep?  Naturally speaking, are we all born to be morning persons?

5. Varicose veins and weightlifting

Katie Says:

Hi Robb and Greg,

I’ve been really enjoying your podcasts and listen to them all the time.  My question for you is concerning varicose veins in the back of my legs, something I’ve unfortunately inherited from both grandmothers.  During my second pregnancy ten years ago the bulging started to appear and it has slowly been getting more prominent.  The two disadvantages to having them are the ugly look and the dull pain I sometimes experience when I’ve been on my feet a lot.

I would really like to have the veins treated and not feel self-conscious at the gym or at the beach but I’m concerned that there may be long-lasting negative impact on my legs from a training perspective.  I’m 5’3″, 41 years old, 130lbs and do Crossfit about 3x per week. I’ve been eating Paleo for about 4 months now and it’s had a positive impact in many areas of my health which is excellent.

Since the typical treatments for varicose veins entail shutting down veins to redirect circulation or stripping them out of my legs altogether (yes, really), I’m worried that the problem will either reoccur or there will be increased pain when I’m deadlifting or doing box jumps.

Do you have any advice on how to proceed?

Thanks for all your great work,

6. Phytic Acid (IP-6) and Iron Overload

Alexander says:

Hi Robb,

I turned to a Paleo lifestyle back in February 2011 after reading a little blurb about it in Joe Friel’s Triathlon Training Bible and then reading your book subsequently. I haven’t looked back. I performed fantastically in my first triathlon and looked and felt great. About a month after the triathlon, however, I developed an array of strange symptoms– eye floaters and blurriness, chronic tension headaches, low frequency hearing loss, sleep fragmentation, no bowel regularity, tingling and numbness all over my body. I don’t blame the diet:  I still adhere to it, and in an even stricter sense (cutting out a lot of fruits, etc., to lower insulin and promote immune response), since all this started afflicting me. It’s been a rough couple months of misdiagnoses. I recently had a spinal tap (already had the brain MRI and tons of blood work) to try to rule out MS (haven’t received the results yet). All of this to say: in my own research, people suffering from chronic neurological illnesses on paleo who are not seeing improvement, in my opinion, shouldn’t be barring phytic acid from their diet. Studies have linked cases in several chronic illnesses (like MS) to iron overload, and when phytic acid is taken in supplemental form (IP-6) on an empty stomach, it bypasses digestion and is able to chelate the excess iron, as well as other heavy metals, in the directly in the bloodstream of the suffering person. I’m pretty sure I’ve listened to all the podcasts and haven’t heard this specific positive property of supplemental (not dietary) phytic acid addressed, and paleo diet auto-immune/chronic disease sufferers should be aware of it. Have you read up on this, and what are your thoughts? Thanks.

7. Cravings vs. Nutrition
George says:
Gentlemen,

I have been doing Whole30’s program for about a week now. I usually have a sweet tooth but during this time I have sworn off sugar. I stopped eating dark chocolate and even fruit. Now, other than the typical cravings I have for pizza and crap like that I have also been getting cravings for sugary stuff. My question is, how do I know if this is my body telling me that it wants some carbs via fruit or this is just a wicked craving?

I crossfit 4 – 6 times a week. 29yrs old, 185 – 190lbs. After a WOD (at 6am) I usually have a Progenix shake. That is the most sweet thing I usually eat during the day. When my sweet hunger pangs were in full effect I had to drive to whole foods and pick up some pineapple chunks and mango slices just so I don’t go batty and order cinnamon sticks from the pizza joint below my apartment. Now that I ate some fruit my cravings aren’t as fierce. Is this just sugar withdrawal or is this my body’s way of telling me it wants fruit?

Comments

  8. Hello! Thanks for answering my question (#2). Since submitting it, I have been following the protocol with great results. I’m an active participant on the monster leptin thread over at MDA (I’m nuttmegs). Its definitely been an education as his posts are very science heavy, but as I’m digesting it over time, some of it is starting to stick 🙂

    Its only been a month or so, but I’m sleeping better and my cravings are gone: I used to be a paleo snacker: constantly chowing down on “healthy” foods between meals, now I’m satisfied enough by breakfast that I often don’t think about food until dinner which is huge. My sleep is much better and I’m waking up earlier naturally, w/o an alarm clock on the weekends.

    Since submitting this question, I’ve uncovered that I may have some other underlying causes to my fatigue, in fact he wrote a post recently triggered by comments/complaint of mine on the thread which is amazing and a good read for anyone suffering from chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and other autoimmune disorders:
    http://jackkruse.com/hey-lyme-disease-meet-leptin/

    I’m now seeking some medical help to get to the bottom of some of my more persistent symptons along with taking action and addressing my leaky gut issues

    He’s very involved in the thread: answering questions and providing a lot of food for thought. There are a ton of success stories over there along with people being honest about their struggles with the reset (mainly the big breakfast thing).

    I see it as a way of life at this point – I look forward to my hearty breakfasts as it truely sets me up for a good day.

    Oh and I have an appt with Chris Kessler scheduled for today which I’m very much looking forward to.

    Reply

    • Hey Nuttmegs! I recognize you from MDA (I’m Hazyjane).
      I’m glad to hear that you’re getting good results from the leptin Rx! I was mainly doing it for hormonal/endocrine rewiring. I also have Hashi’s and I really like what it did for me, esp. for my brain function. I had so much more cognitive power!
      I had adrenal fatigue while I was doing it, which was affecting my sleep big-time, so I want to do it again, now that my adrenals aren’t so whacked-out and see how it goes (the holidays derailed me;) because it was doing good things for my hormones, but I still have some progress to make.

      I think consulting with Chris Kresser is going to be good. I’ve been on a functional medicine immune balancing protocol for my Hashi’s and it has helped me tremendously. Good luck!
      -Erin

      Reply

  9. Whew! Good to know that it wasn’t just me. I must comment that the podcast not being there this morning totally wrecked my Tuesday morning chi. It is my Tuesday tradition and makes the week humm just that much better. I’m off kilter for the rest of the week. 😉

    Reply

  10. Under duress, your HRV goes down…it decreases…that’s not a good thing.
    Hormone re: stability of HRV: melatonin.

    Controlling your HRV can reduce stress and the resulting physiological damage. By using a monitor, Greg, you can learn/develop techniques to improve your HRV…biofeedback-style.

    Getting control of your stressors, and learning how to increase HRV by breathing and other biofeedback, is a good thing.

    Reply

  11. Dang, I want a signed copy of both books but my pants are from GoodWill and therefore not very smart, though quite frugal.

    Reply

  13. Under distress in a healthy individual, HRV is decreased which is bad… Duh. Im going to guess that the stability is related to cortisol levels, I.E. High cortisol = decreased HRV.

    To Greg, I feel like the right answer is that HRV numbers are worthless.
    Power athlete – lift heavy, walk slowly = good HRV
    MMA – short heavy metcons that match time domains of fights. Try to stay out of nasty cortisol response. Mix in some meditation, mr miyagi style.
    Endurance – just don’t, that shits for the birds.

    I hope I win free stuff.

    Reply

  14. Under duress, HRV decreases, HR remains elevated, parasympathetic nervous system cannot regulate sympathetic system. Norepinephrine is released on adrenergic receptors.

    Gregs question: Ummmm, going to take a stab at it based on my former training experiences- this sort of response can signal over training. Most likely in endurance athlete. Respond with rest.

    Reply

    • Fack me, hormone question was “what correlates with stability” (now that I went back and re-listened to your question): androgen hormone- I think it’s estrogen that correlates with stability.

      Reply

        • Ha, I think then there are a lot of hormones that answer your part II question especially when you phrased it as “correlates with”. It also depends on what you meant by “HRV stability”: was it ‘a stable fractal’? or ‘stabilizing the HR’ and thus decreasing the HRV? Stable HRV would be sympathetic and parasympathetic working together to continually fluctuate and monitor the HR as needed using both acetylcholine and (nor)epinephrine (high sensitivity to changes in state, ease of HR change, high HRV, healthy state). Stabilizing the HR from duress comes from dominance of the sympathetic and release of adrenaline/(nor)epinephrine. Now I’m thinking you were looking for “adrenaline”.

          Reply

  15. I am not a HRV person at all, however, I am gonna take a stab in the dark here on a couple of these things. I am just swinging blindly on this, if I had the time, I would research it on PubMed, but it is one of those days.

    HRV and overtraining, I would think the resting HR in an overtrained person would be elevated, not reduced, because there is some stressor causing it to be high, mimicking the FLight or fight response, which we want during training but what we don’t want in recovery. Recovery I would think parasympathetic.

    What hormone is causing HRV. Cortisol would be the obvious answer, however, I think that would be too obvious. One of the things which declines in those who are overtrained is testosterone, so I am going to go with testosterone as the culprit for changes in HRV.

    Keep testosterone levels in balance, no issues with recovery, no issues with HRV.

    To answer Gregs questions what would I do?
    Weightlifter- This is a tough one, as there should not be HRV or overtraining in a person who is under a smart and effective program. Due to the nature of the type of program a weightlifter is on, I would prescribe just plain rest from training for someone who is overtrained. Mobility and recovery work, massage, ice bath?

    MMA FIghter- I would prescribe just lifting weights, heavy but not 1-3RMs, probably sets of 8-10. Idea is to stimulate testosterone release, and sets of 8-10 shoudl do this with major muscle movements, squats, bench, Bent over rows, possibly deads. not too much, just enough to cause the nads to squeeze out some testosterone and get the system moving. This along with massage, recovery work etc.

    Endurance athlete-Same as MMA FIghter, depending on how competitive, I would enhance strength training, and maybe some short intense interval bouts, but nothing longer than 10 minutes total of intervals, until things change.

    And he swings………………………………..

    Reply

  16. Re: Batman Protocol

    I have to admit that this is my goal too. It’s what attracted me to CF originally. CF may possibly be a good test of batmaness, but it is pretty poor at developing it.

    I think Greg’s original point was that if you try to IMPROVE everything at once then you don’t improve anything (and thereby suck). If you wanted to learn Spanish, Russian, and Chinese you wouldn’t take one class of each MWF – you’d be hopelessly confused. Your body is the same. It can’t adapt to all sorts of conflicting stimulus.

    The most basic building block of batmanity is strength. And when I say strength I don’t mean muscularity. I mean the neurological ability. I really feel that the structure is an outgrowth of the neurological development. Just to be clear, we’re talking about batman muscles and not bodybuilder ones. if you don’t have a solid base of strength then you are wasting your time with the other stuff. When in doubt or short of time, develop strength.

    Mark Sisson has the right idea. Sprint (Power), Pick up heavy shit (Brute Strength), and hike/play/explore for long periods (Endurance). Honestly, if you can do those three things at a high level then you ARE batman. Metcon, fighting, acrobatics, whatever, are skills/qualities you add on once you have that solid base.

    Lastly, I would say always choose skill over capacity. Skills are forever, capacity is temporary. Train strength as a skill – Pavel Tsatsouline is the authority on this.

    Reply

    • Started reading some pubmed on sex hormones to find the answer but my brain wandered to sex so I lost focus and quit. Pretty much the same thing happens at school… 😮

      Reply

    • I wasn’t going to play this game, but I got sucked in 🙂

      Seems that reduced HRV is a result of high sympathetic nervous function. Good if you’re being chased by a bear, bad if you are supposedly at rest. Low HRV at rest would suggest overtraining, inflammation, stress (all the same thing, really).

      As a diagnostic tool it seems limited. You’d need a baseline to compare it to and that would be hard to determine considering that your average schmo is carrying around a lot of inflammation – just like how “normal” triglyceride levels are a lot higher than “healthy”.

      Acetylcholine is the chemical that the parasympathetic nervous system uses to “kill the motor” and downregulate bodily function into recovery mode. If that counts as a hormone then cool. 🙂

      Reply

  19. Happy 40th Robb! Stay inquisitive, stay irreverent (or is it irrelevant?) and keep it real yo!
    Also, best wishes on your upcoming parental gig. It’ll be interesting to see
    If you still refer to children as “little people”. Over and out

    Reply

  20. I searched the C.A. Site (including the store) for the Blood Donation Article mentioned in the Podcast, but, alas, I failed. Could you please provide a link? Thank You.

    Reply

  22. HRV is reduced under duress in a healthy individual. The major hormone that’s highly correlated with HRV stability is DHEA-S (Parasympathetic Nervous Activity Mirrors Recovery Status in Weightlifting Performance After Training, Chen et al.,2011).

    Reply

  23. Respectfully, asking about “heart rate variability stability” is far too fatigue to have a lot of meaning and shifts in either direction, either increasing or decreasing HRV represents different mechanisms of allostatic control and quite different hormonal releases accordingly. As I’m sure you well know, there are a range of stress hormones that are released within the sympathetic stress response that are then decreased during shifts towards parasympathetic dominance.

    There is really no such thing is “heart rate variability stabilty” as ANS function is constantly modulated through allostatic processes in response to acute and chronic stress. In other words, HRV is constantly changing because the body is contantly being exposed to stress of all types throughout our daily lives and of course many different hormones are constantly varying as well. This is what allostasis is all about and how the body copies with stress both on an acute and a chronic basis. It sounds like you may have something specific in mind that you’re looking for as far as a particular hormone, but “heart rate variability stabilty” doesn’t really mean a whole lot.

    As far as an individual under “duress” it can only be assumed you’re talking about a period of acute stress, which obviously causes HRV to decrease during the stressful event. If you’re talking about someone that’s being exposed to stress chronically, then you will see increases in HRV at rest as allostasis works to minimize the impact of the repeated stressor and restore homeostasis. It all depends on the individual’s ability to adapt to stress and a variety of genetic, training and lifestyle factors all affect how HRV will change in response to chronic stress, which is obviously what is important within the context of training.

    I’m not sure what your actual experience using HRV is, but it doesn’t sound like something you’ve had a chance to put into actual use. I would suggest doing further research on its use and effectiveness before making judgements about its usefuleness in the grand scheme of training, fitness, health, wellness and performance because HRV gives us an inside out view of adaptation in motion and thus it has many powerful implications when used appropriately.

    Reply

    • Joel! Huge fan of your work, would love to have you on the podcast. Here are my my specific questions:
      1-What happens in an ACUTE stress response in an otherwise healthy, trained individual (you already covered that, HRV decreases for the acute period)
      2-What biomarker can give us insight into the likelihood of HRV showing an adaptive or mal-adaptive response. OR said another way, what biomarker can I check in a SWAT officer before he goes into a kill-room scenario and have strong predictive value of his performance (and also HRV).

      I have never used these methods in my day to day practice, I’m dealing with a very general crowd, but I have followed the work of folks wo do use this as a means of performance tracking.

      Let me know if you’d like to come on the show.

      Reply

      • Rob,

        Thanks for the kind words. I’d be more than happy to be on your podcast.

        As for your questions:

        1) Yes, during acute stress, of course HRV goes down as sympathetic drive goes up because the stress response’s role, first and foremost, is to maintain energy homeostasis and since there is increased energy demand – or at least the anticipation of increased demand – during the period of stress then the body must crank up energy prodution to maintain energy homeostasis withing the muscles and vital organs.

        This increased production is fasciliated largely by the increase in sympathetic drive and related stress response hormones such as glucocorticoids and catecholamines. It’s also important to point out that the immune system’s role in the stress response is often overlooked but it plays a vital role in signaling with both pro and anti inflammatory cytokines and helps coordinate the acute stress response as well as the cellular repair processes that follow.

        2) As far as HRV and performance, it depends on the kind of performance you’re talking about, but you obviously want a strong stress response during periods of acute stress like you’d see in the SWAT kill room scenario and there’s research showing greater decreases in HRV before and during such stress correlates with performance. Craig Weller and Jonathan Pope have an article coming out in Tnation soon that discusses some of this research I believe.

        Of course it makes sense that higher levels of adrenaline and other sympathetically driven hormones – which of course are hormones that correlate with HRV – are going to lead to better performnces because they are what help the body produce more energy necessary to support greater level of force production and of course meet the immediate demands of the stressor. This is a bit different during an endurance event, however, because the stress is much more prolongued and economy of energy expenditure becomes hugely important and you don’t necessarily want a huge sympathetic drive in this case.

        In any event, as for people that seem to be dismissing the use of HRV as a “waste of time” or unnecessary, I would suggest further studying the adaptive processes that the body goes through in response to training and how allostasis uses ANS function modulates the entire thing from beginning to end. HRV shows us how the body is responding to stress and helps us to find where the right balance between stress and recovery lies.

        When exposed to the chronic stress of training, we can see the body go through a very distinct pattern of allostatic response that closely follows Selye’s GAS model. We can see how the body is adapting to the chronic stress by the changes in HRV that are seeing and this means that HRV provides insight into where we are on that GAS continuum at any point and time and lets us optimize loading while managing lifestyle stress factors to more effectively get what we’re looking for. What’s quickly found with HRV use is that everyone is different and that’s why the group approach to training everyone with the same loading ultimately fails to product the best results.

        My guess is that the vast majority of people overlooking HRV have simply never used it and don’t understand the value of the information it provides. The problem is that there hasn’t been enough practical information put out there on how to use it effectively to monitor and manage the training process. There is a reason so many elite Soccer and Rugby clubs all over the world have shelled out 35-100k or more to get the Omegawave, HRV works when you know how to use it.

        Reply

        • This is fantastic stuff, I’ll ping you an email and let’s get a date set up for yoou to come on. Like I said, i’ve been a huge fan of yours for a long time.

          Reply

          • Sounds great, thanks. I’m finishing up a book on HRV that will clear up a lot of this and help people understand how to really use it. If you don’t know what you’re looking at, the numbers it provides can just look like a lot of noice, but if you know how to analyze the trends and understand what they reflect, it can be a hugely valuable tool. I’ll send you over the book when it’s finished up, I think you’ll find a lot of interesting connections in there.

        • Hi Robb and Greg,

          I wanted to thank you both for the podcasts, you guys are a hoot!!!
          We have done several presentations in our office center on the paleo lifestyle with excellent results for our patients. And as with any good scientist, my wife and I experimented first. She is a 2 year post cancer survivor, who had some funky thyroid numbers about 7 months ago. We had been primal up to that point, with no overt sugar since the cancer diagnosis. Dude, 6 weeks later thyroid returned to normal range!!!How do ya like me now?!?! Keep up the great work.

          Joel, we have been using HRV along with sEMG and Thermography in our chiropractic office for over 9 years. The results are fascinating to say the least. HRV starts normalizing after 4 weeks in the office. We try to educate our patients regarding HRV by telling them that they need to balance sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The analogy we use is you get chased by saber tooth tiger up a tree(sympathetic) after you kill it with your spear and eat it(parasympathetic). It’s all about the balance and the chiropractic adjustment has a significant beneficial effect on HRV. Looking forward to the book.
          Take care

          Reply

  24. HRV is reduced under duress in a healthy individual. 2) HVR is strongly associated with the baroreflex, therefore anything resulting a dysregulation of the renin–angiotensin-aldosterone system will result in hyper or hypotension. If you have either it would decrease the amount of leeway your heart has between contractions. So if I’m going to pick one it would have to be aldosterone (although is really a hormone and not a neurotransmitter). As far as I’m aware the most significant neurotransmitter would have to acetylcholine – it is the main regulator after all.

    I’m sorry if I butchered that.

    As for Greg’s question: How to pout that data to good use? Let’s say I had solid data for a month. I would use it to make sure there was no heart abnormalities… and that’s about it and the only reason I would waste my time with that is because for some unknown reason, I had the bright idea to encumber my athlete with the crap for a month so I’d feel the need to give them something for their trouble. There are too many variable to what can affect HRV during the run of a day, even moment to moment basis. Stick with the basics: good food, good sleep and solid training. Practice stress reduction. You’re going to inevitably hit some poor training days, but I think its a mark of an athlete and a coach to be able to push through that. Whether that being knowing how to motivate yourself and hone your focus to push you through the program or knowing when to back off a little bit and work on other things, direct or indirect to your goals. Ie maybe I’m having an extraordinarily weak day, so I’m going to focus more on movement efficiency and minor corrections in technique than on the weight that is on the bar, running a PR, or embarrassing my sparring partner.

    Thats all I got.

    Reply

    • That is to say, I think that there may be some potential value in HVR but I think the energy required to acquire the data and decode it could be better spent.

      Reply

      • Shit. I guess the fact that I didn’t see your car in the parking lot should have been a good enough hint that I wasn’t in the right ball park.

        Mind giving a quick explanation of how that works? I’m drawing a blank on search results for humans. Dogs on the other hand…

        Googled & used PubMed for “neuropeptide y heart rate variability”

        Reply

      • But more importantly, Happy B-lated! How does it feel to be a 40 yr old, with the knowledge of a 60 yr old and the body of a 20 yr old? I’m betting pretty damn good.

        Reply

  27. Hey Robb,

    speaking of Ido Portal, I remember a while ago you mentioned that you might get him on the podcast?

    That would be more than awesome and an instant classic, the man has so much to say when it comes to training and nutrition!

    thx for all the great work,
    Oliver

    Reply

  29. I don’t know the answer, but I know how to fix it. Let me start by saying my friend and I train 6 days a week lifting and doing crossfit inspired workouts. We take the same supplements (creatine, NO, and whey protein) and typically eat the same thing. He weighs more than me by about 15 pounds. Both of us are very lean btw. Anyway he went to the doctor his heart rate was around 39 they were concerned and told him to come by in. Within that time he broke up with a girlfriend and all that mess. He was very stressed, so I go back to the doctor with him just to make sure i didn’t have a abnormal heartbeat both of ours were 59 and 60. I think because it was so low is the stress levels. Sorry typing this at work.

    Reply

  30. Robb,
    We met at AHS. Sorry I havent had time to write something for the blog. I’m at a conference so can’t write much on a phone interface, but for my dissertation, “normal” folks are completig a 5-minute speech performance (i.e. acute stressor) and I’m collecting HRV, among other indices (including cortisol and IL 6), and deriving RSA. In general, we expect leas variabilitynin the heart rate over time among those who are the most acutely distressed (I’m collecting data before, during, and hours following stressor). When I get home to my Handbook of Psychophysiology and bacon I can write a response to the above. Didn’t hear the original snippet in the podcast or read all of the above comments so I’m not sure of the context of this discussion. But there is wiggle room in how we interpret HRV (and RSA, etc.) that is, greater and lesser variability in heart rate mean different things in acute versus prolonged periods of distress. If you are over this topic, I won’t write more when I get home, just let me know. I could wax and wane about vagal tone forever.
    Cheers,
    Ashley

    Reply

  32. Hey Robb and Greg!

    Like everyone, huge fan and after making my paleo conversion in April last year made the effort to listen to every episode of the podcast and have just now caught up. That’s right, all 116. Dedication right there! On to my questions.

    1 – I’ve read your book, Dr. Cordain’s first book, and am currently reading his new book. Both refer to AGEs and them being bad, but neither say “You should worry about them in your food at a level of X.” I bring this up because Dr. Cordain does provide a table of common foods and their AGE levels, but no real guidance. I see on here that Avocado, a food I thought to be fantastic, contains 1,577 kU per 100 grams of AGE. 1,577 sounds like a huge number, but you look at the rest of the table and see numbers higher also in foods that are generally paleo accepted, such as Broiled Salmon at 3,347 or a Broiled Steak at 7,479. I know the takeaway on these paleo foods is to cook them low and slow instead, but I’m curious as to the level of AGE we should be nervous of.

    2 – I’m a gigantic newb to the paleo lifestyle still, and literally just began training using the section in your book after spending the last 8 months simply getting the eating right. That still has a little ways to go yet too, but I’m ready to train now! The long and short of it is that I’m a healthy beginner in some areas such as endurance, where I brainwashed long ago that the road to health was running my ass off day in and day out. However, I’m complete beginner material in the strength category, which I’m trying to change. I’m 6’4″, 224 as of this morning, and am still working on leaning out. I have a little bit of a gut going on, and that’s all there is to lose before my next goal of being “Brad Pitt Fight Club Ripped”. My question is this. Stick with the complete beginner’s course until I’ve got everything up to snuff, or mix in the healthy beginner program where I’m able? Thanks for all you guys do. Were it not for your help, I’d still be at 255 killing myself to lose weight!

    – D.J.

    Reply

    • DJ-
      whatever seems good for you amigo. The distinction is just a bump-up in intensity…small steps get ya there, so just keep the trajectory kinda flat, long term is most important element.

      Reply

  33. Increasing parasympathetic tone while reducing excessive sympathetic tone can be expected to slow heart rate, reduce blood pressure, provide a sense of well-being, and—based on preliminary clinical studies—provide an additional means of control over coronary plaque growth.

    Nearly all people at the start display chaotic patterns of autonomic phenomena. If examined as variation in heart beat-to-beat cycles, patterns are disordered, following no particular rhyme or reason. At the extreme, beat-to-beat cycles show no variation, demonstrating perfect regularity of heart rhythm, a sign of very poor parasympathetic tone. Autonomic balance, whether achieved via prayer, meditation, deep diaphragmatic breathing, or various biofeedback techniques, is characterized by increased beat-to-beat variation. This is contrary to most people’s notion that perfect regularity in heart rate is desirable—it is not. Specifically, variation in heart beat is brought into phase with respiration. When heart beat variation is brought into phase with respiration, parasympathetic tone is heightened, sympathetic tone is subdued and autonomic balance is restored.

    A state of autonomic balance is different from a state of relaxation, since relaxation is not necessarily associated with increased parasympathetic tone nor phasic cycling of heart rate and respiration. Relaxation is associated with reduced tone of muscles, clearing the mind of stressful thoughts, but is not necessarily coupled with improved autonomic balance.

    When you inhale, heart rate should increase; when you exhale, heart rate should decrease. These are normal physiologic responses to changes in blood volume returning to the right side of the heart: inhalation causes an increase in internal chest pressure (intrathoracic pressure), which causes resistance to blood return to the heart, which in turn leads to reflex increased heart rate; the rush of blood volume and drop in chest pressure with exhalation triggers the opposite. Even in the 10 seconds of a standard EKG recording, such variation from heart beat to heart beat can be seen (if present; it is often visibly absent).

    Heart rate is therefore in synchrony with respiration. However, the degree of variation from beat to beat is governed by the balance of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. In addition to the contribution of the respiratory cycle, the sympathetic nervous system causes acceleration of heart rate, i.e., shortening the time interval from beat-to-beat, while the parasympathetic nervous system slows heart rate, i.e., lengthens the time interval beat-to-beat.

    Many situations are associated with increased sympathetic “tone” and thereby increased heart rate and decreased beat-to-beat variability. Chronic stress (increased adrenaline and cortisol), overweight, sleep deprivation, pre-diabetes and diabetes, coronary disease, and social detachment are among the situations associated with increased sympathetic tone and decreased beat-to-beat variability.

    Increased parasympathetic tone, and thereby decreased heart rate and increased beat-to-beat variability, are accomplished with exercise, weight loss and achieving desirable weight, omega-3 fatty acid supplementation, adequate sleep, social relationships, and feelings of well-being.

    In addition to the yin and yang of sympathetic and parasympathetic influences, negative emotional states and health conditions also disrupt the variation in heart rate, such that the inspiratory/expiratory cycle no longer determines heart rate or heart rate variability and no discernible pattern is evident.

    Reply

  34. Huh. I know this is old, and I didn’t read all the comments, but I would’ve thought that under duress, HRV increases.. This is based only on my subjective experience with anxiety attacks. During anxiety attacks my heart rate was through the roof upon inhale, and then painfully (not literally painfully, but it was always uncomfortably hard) upon exhale. Similar effect happens after orgasm, but I’m not sure the pre-afterglow period is considered ‘duress’ of any kind :p

    Reply

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robb

Robb Wolf is a former research biochemist and 2X New York Times/Wall Street Journal Best-selling author of The Paleo Solution and Wired To Eat. Along with Diana Rodgers, he co-authored the book, Sacred Cow, which explains why well-raised meat is good for us and good for the planet. Robb has transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the world via his top-ranked iTunes podcast, books, and seminars. He also co-founded the 1st and 4th CrossFit affiliate gyms in the world, The Healthy Rebellion community platform, and is the co-founder of DrinkLMNT Electrolytes.

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