Ashley Moran wrote:

> Interesting what you say there- I do martial arts too, and I've
> trained several days in a row eating little more than fatty cuts of
> meat and lettuce.  I can't say I've felt any worse.
>
It's depends on what "doing martial arts" means. My routine looks
something like:

Lift weights - 2 hours per day, 6 days per week
Walk - 2-10 miles per day, 7 days per week
Solo MMA (6 x 3 minute rounds with 1 minute rest on a heavy bag. floor
bag, mook jong (wooden dummy), and/or double-end bag) - 4 days a week
Solo sword (Stroking, position, and footwork drills, approx. 20-30
minutes) - 7 days a week
Partner kickboxing drills (Focus mitts or Thai pads, approx. 5-10 x 2-3
minute rounds per session alternating roles.) - 4 days per week
Sword dueling (20-30 minutes, not continuous - tends to be in bursts) -
1 day per week
Full contact sparring (3-5 x 3 minute rounds with 1 minute rest) - 1 or
2 days per week
Tuesdays and Thursdays I teach  a 1-1/2 hour class
Saturdays I teach a 2 hour class

All of this is done at a very high intensity, and where contact is
involved it is full power (I have an excellent repoire with my partners
and observe stringent safety protocols.) With the exception of walking,
which is the only part of my routine that I do for health/Paleo reasons,
everything else is highly anaerobic. If I am not exhausted at the end of
a three minute round then I am not really training.

The nature of anaerobic work is that, by definition, your body does not
have enough oxygen available to fully exploit the various energy
pathways. The primary energy source during this kind of activity is
stored glycogen. If you don't replenish the glycogen between sessions,
then your energy level will suffer. This was not a problem for our
ancestors, who only occassionally needed to engage in high intensity
activity. For most people, there is more than enough time between high
intensity activities for their bodies to replenish glycogen. What I am
doing is fairly extreme, so my diet has to be adjusted accordingly.

> Unfortunately, a paleolithic diet is by its nature very extreme in
> some senses.

It doesn't have to be. The only thing strict about Paleo in the general
sense (Various author's interpretations aside) is the food choices. And
even there, there are hundreds of foods that have been around forever.
You just have to avoid the packaged, processed foods. To me that's not
much of a loss. Besides, there are some packaged foods that can be eaten
occassionally. You just have to read labels carefully; which is
something we should all be doing anyway.