Hello Joseph:

In your example, you contrast two older people, one of whom elected to put
on 20 lbs of additional muscle - presumably the other did nothing.

Muscle wasting loss begins as early as age 25. From 25-50 the rate of loss
is up to 0.5 pound/year. From 50-late 60s loss accelerates at up to one
pound/year. After that it goes as high as 2 pounds yearly to early or mid
eighties, and assuming someone who's been rotting away since age 25 hits
those birthdays, mid 80s goes up to four pounds yearly. Increase is not
linear but exponential loss.

All of which says of those two older folks, if the one puts on 20 lbs of
muscle, s/he's gained back to less than earlier. The other one is still
subject to background degeneration that's been going on for years.

Most standard physicians don't look upstream for causes of metabolic
syndrome. 

I don't really believe the seniors you describe were 'just fit enough' -
that precipitating events could so  profoundly shut them down argues for
abiding in illusionary 'just fit enough', in denial about their actual
chronic degeneration - largely because detrimental reliance on physicians
who don't know better. Hips often break not do to falls, instead due to
severe calcium loss resulting in bone collapse causing the fall.

-----Original Message-----
From: Paleolithic Eating Support List [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Joseph Berne
Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 7:00 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Art DeVany's book: "The New Evolution Diet"

I'm in total agreement with the gist of this latest thread, but I'd like to
add that if you're interested in having enough fitness to putter around your
garage or house for the purposes of quality longevity it might be worth it
to develop a fitness level beyond that.  Imagine two older people, with
great diets and general health, one of whom has worked to put on 20 lb of
additional muscle (above what they realistically need to do their everyday
chores) while the other hasn't done the work to add that muscle.  They might
both be equally functional in their everyday lives until they become ill.
Any kind of protracted illness or injury can make a serious dent in one's
fitness.  If you have muscle tissue to spare, losing some while ill would
leave you weaker but still functional (in the sense of being able to go
about your daily routine without assistance).  If you don't have that
functional headroom an illness or injury can leave someone incapacitated,
and recovering from that is extremely difficult.
I've seen senior citizens (including relatives of mine) who were just fit
enough to do what they wanted to do and no more.  I've seen a single bout of
pneumonia or a broken bone send them into a nursing home or wheelchair
bound.
The human body, unfortunately, doesn't want to "hold onto" a fitness level
above what it needs on a regular basis, and I've seen no reason to think
that diet plays any role in mitigating that.  Exercise seems to be the only
way to develop that functional headroom.
On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 11:48 PM, Ken O'Neill <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Exactly. Well said. One thing to add, though - the purpose of exercise is
> to
> prevent muscle degeneration, and stop muscle wasting along with regaining
> lost muscle. Every pound regained requires up to 50 calories per day
simply
> to maintain itself. Since the average 70 year old has lost 30-35 pounds of
> muscle, assuming regaining 30 lbs of muscle would result in 1500 calories
> daily to maintain it. If someone's lost that much muscle, no doubt their
> hormones are in a big mess, too.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paleolithic Eating Support List [mailto:[log in to unmask]
> ]
> On Behalf Of Jim Swayze
> Sent: Monday, January 04, 2010 6:45 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Art DeVany's book: "The New Evolution Diet"
>
>
>  P.S. One other note to the group, everyone here needs to read Taubes'
> article on exercise.  Again, he's got it half right.  But the half I
> really like is that if you're exercising to lose weight, you are by
> and large wasting your time.  The purpose of exercise is to improve
> functional capability and decidedly *not* to burn calories.  Calories
> will take care of themselves if you eat right, the best example being
> a ketogenic paleo diet.  Anyway, here's a link to the article: http://
> nymag.com/news/sports/38001/
>



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