Arthur de Vany's Evolutionary Fitness

[Sivodna]

Anyone heard of this guy? He's in his 70s and he looks amazingly good.

Here's a very crude summary of Evolutionary Fitness.

1. Evolutionarily speaking, we are still more suited/adapted to a hunter/gatherer life style.
2. We're not adapted to very long distance running and extremely strenuous endurance - we're better suited to short bursts of high intensity anaerobic exercise (e.g. weight lifting) along with moderate aerobics.
3. Lots of walking is very beneficial.
4. Hunter/Gatherer diet is about 35% lean protein and the rest comes from fruits, vegies, nuts, berries, etc, basically stuff that is already made by nature. So, that would mean anything man made, cultivated and "created" would be off limits such as cereal, grains, bread, etc.
5. Hunter/Gatherers lived a intermittent, somewhat chaotic, and varied lifestyle, so you should mix all this up and really keep your body guessing regarding food and exercise.

Art De Vany: Evolutionary Fitness Archives

I hope I don't sound like some ad for this guy. I've only recently become of aware of what Evolutionary Fitness is, and I'm trying to research it some hope. I was hoping you guys could chime in with anything you know about it?
It all makes a lot of sense, at least to me.
If you're vegan, please don't get all moralistic...

[ginkgo]

"We are more suited/adapted for" does not mean much. Just because our ancestors used to rape and pillage does not mean that we should do it or are meant to do it. If a 90 year old that smokes a lot looks good, does that mean that we should do it? You could say that we were meant to run around naked and defecate on the ground, but does that mean that it is any better for us?

[liamona]

Originally Posted by Sivodna

Anyone heard of this guy? He's in his 70s and he looks amazingly good.

Yeah I have. He does look good. A lot of so-called low-carb/paleo diet gurus look pretty awesome, like Anthony Colpo:



and Barry Groves:

[runningbird]

I think he puts forth good arguments. I have done a fair amount of distance running and I think it has done me more harm than good. Small stressors on the human body have been found to be beneficial, as long as it can adapt. Ken Wilber also argues that weights are much healthier than exhaustive aerobic exercise, whom I think is pretty intelligent.

[craftyjake]

Personally I think Art De Vany is spot on in terms of some of the stuff he speaks regarding fitness. Basically he took the lifestyle of humans before the agricultural revolution (before fatties) and practices it while analyzing it and making it as efficient as possible. How can it not work? It's natural

[Excellent Lodestar]

Art is one of the first guys to blog on EF; many are indebted to him.

[Beuford]

Interesting though I was lead to believe that humans can outrun most land animals over long distance. I don't think it is particularly damaging to train your body to be able to run distances of over 30km without stopping, at least not as bad as eating doughnuts, hotdogs, whitebread and such.

[Sivodna]

Originally Posted by ginkgo

"We are more suited/adapted for" does not mean much. Just because our ancestors used to rape and pillage does not mean that we should do it or are meant to do it. If a 90 year old that smokes a lot looks good, does that mean that we should do it? You could say that we were meant to run around naked and defecate on the ground, but does that mean that it is any better for us?

It's pretty simple. Don't start bringing morality into this.
We may be adapted to nasty things such as, say, genocide, but that doesn't make it right. Is does not imply ought.

But when it comes to diet, being adapted to certain foods is surely a great hint as to what would benefit us most in our dietary habits. If, say, we were not adapted to efficiently digest meat, then if we cut meat out of our diets we would notice massive gains in health.

[James81]

I think it's important to recognize what our ancestors did to see how our bodies have evolved.

But I think it's also equally important to recognize that we are still evolving.

So, while it's important to not cast off our roots, it's also important to recognize that we have evolved quite a bit since the hunter/gatherer days of our ancestors.

BTW, evolution is purely focused on what has caused us to SURVIVE as a species. Thriving, on the other hand, is a completely different animal.

But it works good as a base to work off of.

[Sivodna]

Good point, James.

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by Sivodna

2. We're not adapted to very long distance running and extremely strenuous endurance - we're better suited to short bursts of high intensity anaerobic exercise (e.g. weight lifting) along with moderate aerobics.

Actually I have heard Dr. Mercola (mercola.com) talk about how the human body is suited to long distance running far better than most animals. For instance, a cheetah can run at a burst of up to 60-70 mph, but ancient humans could still hunt them because our energy lasts longer. If they could track the faster animals during their short bursts of speed, the animals would eventually get tired and human hunters would catch up to them and kill them.

Interestingly, I remember reading about 3 guys who jogged an average of 50 miles per day for more than 100 days, across the entire Sahara desert. If that isn't long distance, what is?

[runningbird]

Mercola has a good point. What are Arthur's arguments for being better adapted to weight-lifting type exercise?

[Excellent Lodestar]

Originally Posted by runningbird

What are Arthur's arguments for being better adapted to weight-lifting type exercise?

This comes close to Art's findings:

YouTube - Paleo in a Nutshell Part 2: Exercise

[runningbird]

Thanks, but it sure didn't have much theory on the specific qualities of exercise our paleolithic ancestors engaged in.