Robert Kesterson wrote:
> Maybe.  My point was that I spent the first 37 years of my 
> life on the  
> SAD, including plenty (and I mean *plenty*) of white flour, 
> sugar, and the  
> like.  I had more than my share of pizzas, bread, candy, 
> cake, pie, and so  
> on.  Pizza buffet places would cringe when I walked in.  (For 
> that matter,  
> all buffet places cringe when I walk in.  I don't lose money at the  
> buffet. :-) )  And at the end of those 37 years, other than 
> being a little  
> overweight*, I did not have any major health issues.  

And that's what I and several other people here were talking about--many
times people say "But I'm in perfect health other than..." and then give one
of the symptoms of modern foods syndrome (aka the diseases of civilization),
such as "being a little overweight." Many of the symptoms are things that
are considered "normal" or very mild, except that they are extremely rare
among hunter gatherer groups. The Greenland Inuit Eskimos are supposed to be
the "fattest" of all hunter gatherers. Cartoons invariably portray Eskimos
as somewhat pudgy, with round faces. Yet even their adult male average BMI
was reportedly only 24. The only fat Eskimos I've seen by our standards are
the ones eating modern foods. All the old portraits and black and white
photos I've seen of Eskimos who were still eating a largely traditional diet
show what look like surprisingly lean people. Not as thin as Australian
aborigines, but nowhere near as heavy as average Americans. Considering that
they were reportedly eating enough fatty marine animals to give them 7-10g
of long-chain omega 3's a day on average, that's rather amazing.

> *You might think "a little overweight" would not describe 
> someone who  
> could lose 55 lbs.  But at my height (6' 4"), it really 
> didn't seem that I  
> was "fat".  Nobody I knew considered me particularly overweight.  

I'll use a fictional example based loosely on your figures to illustrate a
point (and I hope this doesn't come across as picking on you, as I do
believe you when you say you weren't considered out of the ordinary by
anyone at your heaviest). Whether the figures exactly match yours or not
doesn't really matter--ballpark figures will suffice for the example. A
medium framed man of 6' 4" height is by American standards (which are
heavier than the HG norm) supposed to range within 171-187 lbs. (which of
course doesn't take into account percent muscle mass--but my understanding
is that HG's tend to be more muscled than Americans, not less). Assuming
that he weighed just 50 lbs. over the middle of that range, that would put
him at 229 lbs, which would be considered 42 lbs., or 23%, overweight for
that range and moderately obese, according to the US Department of
Agriculture. His BMI would be 27.9, as compared to the range of AVG BMI's
for HG's of 19-24. That's a 16% higher BMI than the heaviest HG's (Greenland
Inuit) and 30% higher than the avg for all HG's studied. Since HG's tend to
be fairly well muscled, BMI if anything likely underestimates the level of
obesity of moderns compared to HG's. So while perhaps being considered just
"a little overweight" by modern standards, such a fellow would stand out
among HG's. You could easily pick this fellow out of a group of 100 HG adult
men. Also, if a group of 100 HG men dressed in modern clothing were gathered
together in an American city (and pretending there were no noticeable racial
differences), people would likely think, "Look at all those skinny men! Who
are they? Are they long distance runners or models or something?" They would
stand out as "abnormal," when they are actually the natural norm for our
species. A HG man who was a guest at an American home might find his hosts
pushing donuts, cookies and candy at him to try to "fatten him up" so he
could look "healthy" (ie., overweight). Even people of 100 years ago would
today be considered quite lean. The perception of what is considered normal
weight rises year by year. Clothing and stadium seats have expanded to
accommodate the growing waistlines of Americans. If you've seen photos of
Ray Audette, Loren Cordain, Boyd Eaton and Joseph Mercola, you know that
they would be considered unusually "lean" or "thin" by most Americans.

I know most Americans wouldn't consider 55 lbs above clinically optimal
weight as that much overweight for a tall man, but it would be extremely
rare for a hunter-gatherer or any animals living in the wild (other than
hibernating animals) to carry that much extra weight above their usual
weight range. That is basically the point of what I was saying before--that
most people don't realize that what is considered "normal" for middle-aged
people today (a little pudgy with some "love handles," or balding, or near
sighted, or having some joint stiffness or pain, or having cholesterol
that's a "little" high, etc.) was not normal for the first 3 million years
of human history. "Normal"/healthy LDL used to be considered anything at or
below 120, then that figure was revised downward to 100 when it was
discovered that patients whose LDL was lowered to around 100 did better.
Then Cordain et al checked hunter gatherer data and discovered that 30-70 is
the norm among traditional HG's, who had much lower rates of heart disease
than Americans. So what is considered "normal" in the U.S. today is not
necessarily what is optimal.

What Audette, Eaton, Cordain and all have been trying to tell us is that the
standard should not be the average American or even what is considered
clinically optimal (which tends to be rather arbitrary). The only logical
standard for optimal health ranges is what is found in nature...the natural
environment that we evolved in. Human beings are designed to be much thinner
and have much, much lower LDL than most of us think--including most doctors.