Food for thought from the people met and books read in 2019
I know 2019 already feels like a long time ago, but last year had been one of many unexpected, bewildering revelations. As I allow them to sink in slowly, I thought it’d be worthwhile to look back on the several encounters, which had caused the foundations of life-long beliefs to wobble and eventually crumble, before giving way to more evidence-based logic.
It wasn’t like there had been one single eureka moment. After all, it takes a lot more to change existing doctrines than to form fresh ones from scratch. Hence, I define 2019 as the year of re-discoveries. While 2018 had been characterised by new discoveries – the very first year KT and I moved far away from home and started on a blank canvas with wide-eyed wonder – our second year living abroad had given us additional time to form deeper and more meaningful relationships with our surroundings. No longer tied up with frequent ‘social obligations’ back home (of which I miss dearly, of course, and am thankful for technology to help breach the distance), it frees us up to connect with people quite unalike us in terms of backgrounds and behaviour. These daily interactions gently chip away at our subconscious biases, challenging much of what we’ve been told growing up – until one day, we wake up to realise what we’ve taken for granted to be the truth our whole lives has suddenly become absurd.
On Nutrition
The seeds of what was to become a new obsession with nutritional science were actually planted much closer to home. In between jobs at that time, I had gone back to Singapore to spend time with my family at the start of 2019, as well as extend a short trip to visit KT’s family in Penang. As we chomped down our wok-fried char kway teow (with extra hum) and slurped the last drop of assam laksa soup from our bowls, my dad (who had booked a flight on a whim to join our food pilgrimage in Penang) expressed amazement at how my brother-in-law was able to stay in shape, despite copious amounts of food piled on his plate at every meal and a demanding work schedule as a medical doctor.
“Intermittent fasting,” Dr Ching revealed.
He went on to explain how he adopts the 16:8 intermittent fasting method, restricting his feeding window to 8 hours a day (and not eating during the remaining 16 hours) to control the amount of insulin spikes in his body. A common way would be to skip breakfast and eat the first meal of the day at 12pm, before finishing up dinner by 8pm (no supper!).
What is insulin?
When it comes to our energy cycle, the body exists in two conditions: the fed state or fasted state. We’re either eating and storing food energy, or fasting and burning energy. The brain is unable to give both directives at the same time. Each time we put any form of carbohydrate-containing food in our mouth, it gets broken down into glucose (simple sugars) and seeps into our bloodstream. Elevated blood sugar levels are damaging, signalling the pancreas to release a hormone called insulin, which:
1. “Pushes” the glucose into our cells to be immediately used for energy
2. Stores any excess glucose as glycogen in our liver and muscles (which can be converted back to glucose as fuel later on)
3. However there is limited space in our liver and muscles, so once they reach storage capacity, the rest of the glucose is converted to fat and stored as fat deposits under the skin and around organs (e.g. liver).
Therefore, if we were to continuously eat throughout the day, our body is constantly in the “fed state” with high levels of insulin, furiously working round the clock to purge sugar from our bloodstream and storing them as fat. With intermittent fasting, insulin levels fall, and our body gets the opportunity to burn stored energy – first from the glucose that is immediately available in the cells, and then depleting the glycogen from the liver and muscles. Usually, stored glycogen is enough to power the body’s needs for 24-36 hours, so once those have been used up the body then proceeds to break down stored adipose tissue, or body fat, for energy.
I know, the “medical-speak” can be overwhelming – which is why back in Penang last year, we had listened to KT’s brother’s impassioned speech with genuine interest, but superficial understanding.
YouTube lessons from our Bay of Islands airbnb host
And so, we packed our newly acquired knowledge of intermittent fasting back to Auckland, even attempting a noncommittal fasting regime, where we “kinda” skipped breakfasts and restrained from post-dinner snacks. Until our first getaway over Easter, when we spent three nights in Phillip’s lovely home in the Bay of Islands.
Our airbnb host was a chatty semi-retiree who had much to share on a wide range of topics that overlap with our interests, including a growing concern for the environment, colourful stories from running his own travel business in the past – and of course his first-hand experience with intermittent fasting.
“See this?” he gestured at the flapping loose skin that draped below his chin, “This is what’s left of the 40kg weight loss from my intermittent fasting over the last few months.”
The proof was dramatically visual, but achieved its intended effect of making us sit up and pay attention.
That night, we ended up spending the next few hours binge-watching with Phillip in his lounge YouTube videos explaining the science of intermittent fasting, including this one-hour interview with Dr Jason Fung, amongst many others. We discussed at length how fasting for health has been a tradition centuries, a practice adopted by Jesus, Prophet Muhammad and Buddha. Plato fasted for greater physical and mental efficiency. Hippocrates advocated fasting as a way for the body to heal, stating “to eat when you are sick is to feed your sickness”. In more recent times, Benjamin Franklin was quoted “The best of all medicines are rest and fasting”.
When we look back at our hunter-gatherer days, homo sapiens had to last for days without food, while foraging for plants or animals. Our body, it seems, is adapted to survive long periods of feast and famine. Therefore, whenever excess food is consumed, it zealously stores them as fat to prepare for the likely days of famine ahead. Except, famine no longer happens in today’s world, where pantries are always stocked for the constant urge to fix a sugar craving, resulting in consistently elevated levels of blood sugar and insulin.
The truth is, we have not evolved to be eating all the time, or even three meals a day. The whole concept of breakfast, lunch and dinner is a routine that had been conjured up in modern times, further cemented during the Industrial Revolution, a convenient meal time schedule for factory workers (which too extends to the typical 9-to-5 office worker today). Later on, opportunistic Big Food companies would brand breakfast as “the most important meal of the day”, warning of the dangers of skipping it. They would then promote “healthy” whole grain cereal high in fibre, as well as “indispensable” fruit juices full of vitamin c. These edible products are packed with carbohydrates and sugar – both non-essential macronutrients to humans, which can wreak havoc on both brain and body by causing addiction, inflammation and a whole range of long-term chronic diseases. This is something I will soon learn more about, to my horror.
Meanwhile, we ended our holiday in the Bay of Islands with surprisingly enlightened minds. I would say April 2019 marked the start of our (serious) commitment to intermittent fasting.
About 6 months later, KT had lost 8kg and me, 5kg – approximately 10% of our initial body weight. Although we hadn’t embarked on intermittent fasting to actively lose weight, it was still nice to shed the extra pounds visible around our waists. More importantly, our minds felt sharper and our time spent more productively – afterall, we had effectively reduced our daily meals by ⅓. The first week into intermittent fasting was probably the toughest, but drinking coffee or tea (without sugar) helped stave off any hunger pangs in the morning. It wasn’t long before I could skip breakfast without a second thought and breaking fast at 12pm became a norm. If you have more burning questions or concerns on Intermittent Fasting, Jason Fung’s “Complete Guide to Fasting” is a comprehensive book to start with.
We celebrated our success in “biohacking” – what some call the practice of optimising our brain and body through non-traditional medical science and self-experimentation. Little did I know that managing insulin spikes via intermittent fasting was just the tip of the iceberg.
Stepping into the world of keto
Being newbies in town, KT and I don’t have very exciting social activities, so sometimes it’s refreshing to come across like-minded people like Fernanda and Joseff. A young Spanish/Brazilian couple who had also moved to work in Auckland, we ended up carpooling down to Mt Ruapehu for a snowboarding trip one weekend. Our conversation topics progressed naturally from listing our top finds in New Zealand, to comparing cultures back in our respective hometowns, to sharing the exciting challenges of assimilating into a new country, to debating global issues like climate change. We joked about how Singaporeans tend to unceremoniously cut to the chase when it comes to work discussions, whereas the Latinos would first swap commentaries on the latest football news and then enquire about each other’s family members, before easing into the agenda of the day. We exchanged our favourite books of the year so far, which for me included both Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens and Tim Marshall’s Prisoners of Geography. I noted how we were so different in backgrounds, yet similar in mindsets.
During that trip, we were also introduced to what would become one of my favourite podcast series, Tom Bilyeu’s Impact Theory and Health Theory. Bilyeu interviews leading experts to extrapolate wisdom on productivity and health, many of which include nutrition and biohacking. His compelling session with Dr Ken Berry would open our eyes to the ketogenic world.
The ketogenic diet is basically a very low-carbohydrate, high-fat and moderate-protein diet. This is achieved by excluding all high-carb foods such as bread, pasta, grains, sugar and even starchy vegetables and fruits, while increasing the consumption of foods high in fats like nuts, avocados, oily fish, red meat, olive oil and butter.
By restricting carbohydrate intake, the diet trains the body to burn fats rather than carbohydrates for fuel. The concept is similar to intermittent fasting, whereby insulin spikes are minimised. When we eat fat or protein, it doesn’t signal the pancreas to produce insulin like when we consume carbohydrates. Recall how when the body is in the “fasted state” or energy-burning mode (i.e. absence of insulin), it first uses up the glucose immediately available in the cells, and then depleting the glycogen from the liver and muscles, before finally tapping into our fat reserves for energy.
Wait a minute – don’t we need to eat carbs for sustained levels of energy? And to replace carbs with FATS? Aren’t fats bad for us?
While the science behind intermittent fasting was easy for me to grasp, the fact that a low-carb, high-fat diet could be good for our health was something harder to accept, given that it went against everything I have been taught growing up. I needed more to be convinced – and started diving into an inexhaustible list of literature on this complex topic.
Turns out, the human body has absolutely no nutritional need for carbohydrates at all. On the other hand, fat and protein are essential building blocks required to nourish, build and repair our cells (example, with omega-3 fatty acids and amino acids). Some tissues do require carbs to function, but all of which can be produced by the body, through a natural process called gluconeogenesis, whereby the liver converts protein to glucose.
When our body becomes incredibly efficient at burning fat for energy, it enters a metabolic state called nutritional ketosis. Since glucose – also the primary source of fuel for the brain – has been depleted at this stage, the liver also starts converting fatty acids to ketones, an alternative source of fuel for the high-maintenance brain. There are studies that suggest ketones as a superior brain fuel, explaining the boost of mental clarity, focus and even a mild sense of euphoria felt by people in ketosis. Could it be that when the Buddha experienced nirvana, he was actually in a state of ketosis?
Anyway – if humans don’t need carbs, how did this macronutrient creep into modern day guidelines to become such an integral part of a healthy, balanced diet then?
A lot of literature points back to Ancel Keys’ contentious ‘Seven Countries Study’ in 1958, in which he found an associative relationship between the total amount of fat consumed by the citizens of seven countries and their rates of heart disease. However, we know that correlation does not equate to causation, and to craft up dietary guidelines based loosely on non-randomised controlled trials is an irresponsible, non-evidence-based approach.
The study ignores a host of other factors, such as cigarette-smoking, sugar intake and the potential role of polyunsaturated ‘vegetable’ oils – framed in inverted commas here because strangely, the oils are in fact chemically extracted from seeds instead of the healthy-sounding vegetables. Later on, it was argued that Keys had cherry-picked his dataset to prove his hypothesis – choosing to publish only 7 out of the 22 countries, which data was available for. Additional data from some of the other countries would show a direct linear relationship between increasing heart-disease mortality rates and the intake of polyunsaturated fats – the ‘vegetable’ oils we are told to eat in place of saturated fats, because they are supposedly more healthy. In fact, since countries eating higher amounts of fat were simultaneously eating more sugar, the very same data could just as easily have implicated sugar, not fat, as a potential causation of cardiovascular disease.
Yet another victorious moment for carbohydrate-dependent industries was in 1972, when President Richard Nixon was under pressure to reduce the cost of food and improve the wealth of US farmers in order to win re-election. His solution? Raise the production of wheat, maize and soy in industrial amounts, and then market this relatively cheap product not just to Americans, but also the rest of the world, by introducing the 1977 US dietary guidelines that highlighted the importance of grains and demonised fat (subsequently evolving into the Food Pyramid with whole grains at the base). Ironically, the low-fat, high-carb “heart-healthy” diet actually caused obesity and type 2 diabetes to skyrocket from there, and cardiovascular disease continued to prevail.
Wow, so everything we’ve been told about nutrition had been based on a poorly controlled, non-conclusive study with an economic agenda? It is horrifying to consider this as a possible underlying cause behind today’s epidemic of obesity, diabetes, Alzhiemer’s, coronary heart diseases and even cancer. In the face of overwhelming and at times conflicting information, I was getting very confused.
A timely getaway (when in doubt, look to nature for answers)
Thankfully, in the midst of my depressing discoveries, we were due for another short getaway – this time to KT’s colleague’s farm up north over the Labour Day long weekend.
I’ve had the privilege to meet several passionate locals who have inspired me to do more – amongst them Yuyu and Carlos, a middle-aged couple who hold daytime office jobs in Auckland, but commit every single weekend to drive 3-hours up north in order to work on their farm. We excitedly accepted their invitation to stay over at their piece of sanctuary. For three days, we took pleasure in being completely present, with the lack of any internet connection or even cellular network. They showed us their young and thriving olive grove, explaining the process of planting these trees that span across years. We walked past their grazing sheep and spotted a few lambs. Then, we hopped over to their neighbour’s garden, who generously welcomed us to pick freshly ripe lemons and oranges from blossoming trees. Yuyu commented on how her blueberries were starting to bud, and that it was time to spread a net canopy to keep the birds out. In the distance, we could hear a low, rumbling sound as Carlos ignited the engine of his farm truck.
Our hosts shared their vision of being fully self-sustainable on their farm one day, a dream that had been in the making for six years now, with a few more years before becoming reality. We exchanged opinions on food and medicine, agreeing that modern diets are becoming increasingly nutrient-poor, as humans continue to put highly-processed and cunningly-addictive edible products full of harmful sugars and vegetables in their mouths. Not surprisingly, inflammation occurs and our body gets sicker, relying on yet another pharmacological drug to suppress the symptoms – and the vicious cycle goes on.
As mentioned earlier, sugar and carbohydrates are absolutely non-essential for human survival. In fact, overconsumption leads to long-term health effects. Why is it lurking in everything we eat then?
Besides the politics that have so successfully ingrained carbs (pun intended!) as a key part of a balanced diet, there are two biological reasons why we can’t stop. Firstly, sugar is addictive. There are studies that suggest it might even be as addictive as cocaine. When we eat sugar, dopamine is released, activating neurons in the brain that cause a pleasurable “high” which we crave to experience again and again. Over time, our brain adjusts to release less dopamine each time we reach out for more sugary products, so the only way to repeat the same levels of “high” is to increase the dosage – or sweetness levels. Refined carbs (bread and rice) cause similar effects as they are easily broken down to sugar when ingested, causing the same kind of glucose spikes in the body. Whole grains, too cause glucose and insulin levels to increase, but due to their less processed nature, require more time to break down into simple sugar components, therefore “spreading” the gradient of the spike to something more gradual. In the end, carbohydrates, whether complex or refined, end up as glucose and are treated the same way by our body.
Secondly, the brain can’t detect fullness from carbohydrates. Our brain is an incredibly complex command centre, and when it comes to food, acts as a sensitive appestat that stops us from overeating when it receives signals of satiation. However, we have only evolved to be satiated from fat and protein. This is why there are common reports of being easily satiated on a high-fat, moderate-protein, low-carb diet (hence naturally restricting the calorie-intake without having to starve), whereas it’s harder to stop reaching out for that second serving of carbs, because our brain isn’t wired to signal satiation from this so-called macronutrient.
Historically, homo sapiens and our ancestors have been thriving without much carbs for millions of years, until the agricultural revolution in the recent 10,000 over years. There is growing evidence, from stone butchery marks on prey bones to hafted spear points, that we have been eating meat for at least two million years. An emerging theory postulates that modern humans evolved from herbivorous primates after early stone tools helped unlock a new nutritional world of animal fats and protein, possibly causing the rapid increase in human brain size. Meat-eating may have been a critical driver that transformed us both mentally and physically to what we have evolved to become today.
A closer look at the human gut compared to plant-eating gorillas and cows further supports this hypothesis. Even though these large, muscular animals appear to build their strong bodies solely from high-carb plant foods they eat, the truth is more complex. Gorillas, with their voluminous large colons, are hindgut fermenters, whereas cows have a fermenting four-chambered stomach in the foregut. This explains why they can break down the thick cellulose walls of plants, and convert the 100% nutrient-poor carbohydrates into energy-dense saturated fatty acids. So the next time somebody uses an ox as evidence how humans too can be strong from eating purely plants, you may wish to educate them on the non-fermenting capabilities of our short and small colons.
If fats are good for us, what about the high cholesterol levels typically associated with a high fat diet?
That appears to be a myth too, and a very dated one. There have been numerous up-to-date books and research papers published to debunk the cholesterol myth, yet little progress seems to have been made on the generic public misconception on this very important fat molecule in our body.
In fact, cholesterol is required by almost every cell in our body. It is so vital to our health and well-being that our body manufactures it. Our liver makes about 80% of the cholesterol to build tissues, fight infections and regenerate brain cells, without which can hamper muscle repair and cognitive function. Only about 20% comes from the food we eat. Ironically, cholesterol levels are a poor predictor of heart disease, with some studies showing an inverse relationship between blood cholesterol concentration and life expectancy – meaning the lower your cholesterols are, the shorter you are likely to live (and a greater risk for developing cancer and probably dementia).
On the other hand, it is excess glucose and insulin levels in our bloodstream – caused by eating too much carbohydrate – that cause inflammation in our body, leading to a risk of long-term arterial damage and coronary heart diseases. As we age and/or increase our carbohydrate intake, our body may develop insulin resistance, meaning the cells no longer respond well to the insulin responsible for pushing the glucose into our cells for energy and storing them as glycogen in our liver and muscles. The sugar cannot be cleared from the bloodstream, leading to type 2 diabetes and occlusive arterial disease in which blood supply flow may be obstructed to the kidney (kidney failure), limbs (gangrene) or eyes (blindness). There have also been tragic instances whereby blindness and loss of hearing directly result from a poor diet, like this teen in the UK who ate nothing but fries, chips, white bread and other processed food, leading to cellular nerve damage. This boy pretty much demonstrates in a compressed, sped up timeline what is actually happening to our body when we make poor nutritional choices. After all, as the glucose in our blood cells cause inflammation, it is first the tiny capillaries that gradually get damaged without causing any alarm, closing off one by one. Until only decades later, when we suffer the consequences of vision loss, hearing impairment, erectile dysfunction, dementia and more.
It is worthwhile to mention other factors that possibly led to the rise of chronic diseases today, namely smoking, alcohol, stress levels – and most insidiously, refined seeds or “vegetable” oils high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) such as soybean, canola, sunflower oil. A little bit of PUFA is not a problem, as they are found naturally in whole foods like walnuts and salmon. However, the industrial refining process of vegetable oils strips away all their natural, protective antioxidants. The complex extraction of the PUFAs also exposes them to heat, pressure, metals, and bleaching agents. This chemically alters the molecules into a wide variety of potent toxins that can lead to free-radical reactions, causing cellular damage in our bodies – leading to fatigue, migraines and dementia. If you have eaten a raw soybean or sunflower seed, you will realise how non-oily they are. Just imagine how much industrial processing and harmful chemicals would be required to extract the oils from them (you can also Google ‘vegetable oil extraction’ for an illustrative chart of the complicated process).
Conversely, it is the much feared saturated fats like butter, lard and coconut oil that are natural and healthy. If you think about it, it would be impossible to extract oils from soybeans in your kitchen, but you can easily make homemade butter from cream or non-homogenised milk. In a similar concept, olive oil is simply produced mechanically by pressing whole olives. Here’s a pretty comprehensive list of good fats and oils vs the bad ones and why. In today’s minefield of conflicting information, I guess I always fall back on what’s natural, if not closest to its natural form with minimal intervention. Homo sapiens have managed to thrive on a low-carb, high-fat lifestyle for millennia, until human intervention in the form of misguided guidelines and industrial manufacturing seems to have caused the epidemic of chronic diseases today. Sometimes, Big Food tries to appeal to our natural instinct, such as slapping labels on corn flakes or ice-cream that say “100% natural” – but have you ever seen corn flakes or ice-cream sprout from the ground?
Back in Yuyu and Carlos’ farm, we were encouraged to walk barefoot on the grass to discharge our body’s electricity into the earth. I know, it sounds very hippy, but earthing – or grounding – is an actual practice with benefits backed by science. Humans have evolved in direct daily contact with the earth’s surface, and it was not until recent centuries that this is disrupted by buildings, pavements and shoes. When our body’s overall accumulated charge cannot be balanced, internal chemical reactions start to happen and advocates even attribute this to the rise in chronic diseases.
And so we kicked off our shoes, dug our toes into fresh grass and enjoyed simply being with our own thoughts, and with nature, refreshingly out of reach from the distractions of “modern civilisation”.
That weekend, we were also told to help ourselves to the wide repertoire available on our hosts’ bookshelves. As if planted by the keto gods, we picked out “What the Fat” by Grant Schofield, Caryn Zinn and Craig Rodger, as well as “Exhausted to Energized” by Dr Libby Weaver. “What the Fat” was a perfect light read that detailed the low-carb healthy-fat diet (less extreme than keto, complete with recipes illustrated by delicious-looking images). “Exhausted to Energized” also touched on nutrition, but delved deeper into the cellular level of our body – explaining how evolutionary factors like our sympathetic nervous system (the fight or flight response), serotonin from the earth’s natural circadian rhythm and how the molecular structure of different foods transform into energy. Both books would be the first of many which I would subsequently dive into, in my still ongoing attempt to grasp the complex science of nutrition. That long weekend of October 2019 also officially marks the start of our experimentation with the ketogenic diet.
Most of what I’ve written above had been based on several research-referenced books on nutrition, which have helped me navigate with a more discerning eye through the vast amount of confusing and sweeping statements in mass media, be it online articles, lifestyle magazines and even news platforms. If you are interested to understand more on the science and politics of nutrition, I highly recommend reading “Real Food on Trial” by Tim Noakes (who has recently become my favourite sports scientist!) and Marika Sboros. Other books that stood out in my list were “Deep Nutrition” by Dr Catherine Shanahan and “Lies My Doctor Told Me” by Dr Ken Berry.
On Running
If you have stayed with me till this point, thank you. I’m not sure if the old me would have cared enough about nutrition to last through such a long-winded article. It’s been a long learning journey, but the next two sections will be much snappier, I promise.
Before my newfound obsession, I hardly had a second thought toward my food, eating whatever I felt like, or what was most convenient. I attribute this mostly to my lack of awareness on the extent of the damage nutrient-poor edible products have on the body, but also in part to a misconception of the calorie-in, calorie-out model. Perhaps because of a fairly active lifestyle, running an average of 50-60km every week, I thought we could get away with whatever crap we ate.
Yet if you actually looked into the concept of how calories came about, it makes zero sense nutritionally. A food calorie is the amount of heat produced when that food is burned (in a lab). The specific method of measurement is via a calorimeter, whereby one kilocalorie is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one litre of water by one degree. Since each gram of carb, protein or fat produces different amounts of heat, each macronutrient consists of different calorie contents.
By this definition, burning kerosene, paper or wood in the calorimeter easily generates heat too, therefore contain calories. But we wouldn’t put them into our body because none of them contains essential nutrients – or worse, are harmful. The same principle applies to the edible products we eat today. When we put sufficient nutrient-dense food in our mouth (like fat and protein instead of kerosene, paper or wood), it signals the brain to stop eating, which translates to the feeling of fullness (automatically limiting calorie intake). Yet – as mentioned earlier – when we eat carbs like sugar or starchy grains, our brain doesn’t respond properly. We don’t feel satiated, and can’t stop. As the body continues to take in nutrient-poor or toxic products, it reacts via allergies, inflammations and illness as a form of rejection, signalling us to start eating right.
This is one of the reasons why the popular fallacy of restricting calorie-intake and exercising to lose weight is so hard to sustain. If you’d like to lose weight, perhaps try fixing your appestat (the brain) with the right food, so it’s not an internal battle every time you try to stop yourself from going for that extra portion because your body is still starving.
Truth is, running barely helps with weight loss. Conversely, it was because I wanted to run faster and further that prompted me to experiment with dropping a few more kilos (improve strength-to-weight ratio) and becoming fat-adapted (tap into fat reserves to avoid ‘bonking’ during ultra-marathons). Instead of running so I could eat whatever I wanted, it was more important for me to eat the right food so I could run as far as I desired.
Running, therefore, was what drove me down this whole nutritional rabbit hole in the first place.
Before this, I’ve been a self-professed carb lover with a sweet tooth. I’d have no complaints eating la mian (noodles) or pasta every meal. Post-dinner cravings for dessert were a common affair, compelling enough to drive several extra miles to our favourite dessert shop for a slice of decadent chocolate mud cake. KT, on the other hand, was always the more mindful eater. He preferred chicken breast meat over the thighs because it was lower in fat, and would opt for white rice instead of the fragrant, fat-soaked chicken rice. Little had he realised that the devil was in the rice, not the fats…
Hence, going keto required a complete change of mindset for the both of us, as we each dealt with slightly different challenges. KT had to get over his “fat-phobia”. For me, “keto-flu” completely knocked me over for days as I suffered full-blown withdrawal symptoms from cutting carbs out of my life. I was irritable, low on energy, brain-fogged and had a nagging headache. On hindsight, I was definitely a sugar/carb addict.
Over a week later, it was like the storm clouds had cleared and the sun revealed itself again, this time warmer and brighter. I felt good. Gone were the peaks and slumps in hunger and energy. And it wasn’t just about the weight loss (I only lost like 1-2kg on the keto diet anyway). There was a heightened sense of clarity and… content. I’m not sure if this was the slight intoxication keto-fans often rave about, but I felt amazing.
Running-wise, the benefits went beyond the reduced weight on my joints. What blew my mind was how KT and I completely stopped being reliant on gels, dates and energy bars for endurance runs. For years, we have been used to “carbo-loading” before long runs, fuelling up on bananas right before starting, on top of bringing along those gooey gels. After we successfully became “fat-adapted”, we would – miraculously – comfortably clock morning runs over 30km on an empty stomach (save for our cuppa’ long black to give a caffeine boost) – without feeling much hunger the whole time. Recall how our bodies have two options for fuel – glycogen (from carbs/sugar) and fat, the latter being tapped into only after our glycogen stores have been depleted. We can store about 2,000 calories in glycogen, but up to 100,000 calories in fat. This is why marathoners typically hit the infamous wall around 30km when their glycogen storage has been depleted, but fat-adapted athletes can tap on their much fatter reserves to keep going. It was incredible and almost unbelievable to experience this for ourselves.
As 2019 demolished my pre-existing notions around nutrition, it also brought to light how something as primitive as running can be vulnerable to commercial influence. Further to how the general public has been indoctrinated on the indispensability of carbs and gels in running, the business of hydration hasn’t been spared either. For decades, we’ve been advised to drink as much as we can, even before feeling thirsty. In Waterlogged: The Serious Problem of Overhydration in Endurance Sports by Tim Noakes (yes, my favourite sports scientist mentioned earlier, famous for challenging beliefs and admitting being wrong), the dehydration myth is debunked as Noakes raises the dangers of fluid overload, a persistent dogma championed by (and of course, benefitted) sports drink industries. Noakes stresses the power of our brain and its natural capacity to regulate our body – therefore to only drink when we are thirsty. This is in line with his Central Governor Model, which postulates that fatigue is a form of biochemical signal, triggered by the brain to override further physical activity that may seriously damage the body. Recall how the brain is also a natural appestat that prevents us from overeating via feelings of satiation after we have consumed sufficient nutrients.
There were two aspects that transformed my approach towards running last year. Nutrition was one. The other was my running gait – or how my foot strikes the ground. In short, I completely overhauled the way I’ve been running for decades.
The reason was a culmination of numerous factors. One, we signed up for a free workshop that introduced us to the physiology of running. Two, KT’s curiosity over his sister company at work led him to buy a pair of Altra minimalist trail shoes. Then, we watched with bated breath Eliud Kipchoge break the two-hour marathon barrier (and then obsessed over his elegant finesse on repeat). Last but not least, a close friend mailed over one of my favourite books of 2019, Born to Run by Christopher McDougall.
Again, McDougall – in a quest to resolve a foot injury – falls back on nature and evolutionary biology to illustrate how humans are born to run extreme distances, without getting hurt. In fact, our adaptation for endurance running is precisely what sets us apart from other mammals. This includes our hairless skin and unique sweat glands that prevent overheating, our ability to take multiple breaths per stride (versus a four-legged animal restricted to one breath per stride due to their speedy galloping-style), our Achilles’ tendons acting like springs that propel the body forward, and our upright, two-legged bodies that increase air capacity to maintain long distances (albeit at the expense of sprinting speed). All these evolved traits enabled early humans to hunt as a group and outrun a deer to exhaustion, even though the odds were against us when it came to pure speed.
Yet, today’s runners are riddled by injuries despite running comparatively shorter distances against our ancestors. McDougall attributes this to the modern running shoes that, perhaps, are guilty of over-stabilizing the foot. When we used to run barefoot, the impacts against the ground send signals to the brain that direct us to elegantly land on the forefoot or midfoot as a natural way of bolstering the landing. With thickly cushioned shoes, however, this crucial feedback loop is masked and our foot falls into the trap of carelessly landing on the heel, kicking our natural shock-absorbers out of the equation. As we pound on obliviously, the impact shoots up and slowly wears off our joints with each step.
The debate over the potential harm of cushy shoes and foot strike vs heel strike continues till today, with McDougall alluding to big shoe companies blatantly ignoring the mounting evidence against overly cushioned shoes. Even if it meant a painful and tedious transition was needed before my running regained its natural shock-absorbing form, I’m glad I chose to follow the footsteps of our forefathers in the end.
On Life
One of Plato’s most striking works for me is his allegory of the cave, in which he compares humanity to a group of people imprisoned in a cave since childhood, looking at the shadows on the wall caused by a fire behind them. They are captivated by these shadows. It’s their only reality, because they can’t see the fire behind them, much less leave the cave to grasp the concept of the sun. So it is with modern society, we get lost in the shadows, our jobs, in consumerism, and everything we’ve been conditioned to believe in, including what’s best for our health and wealth.
It almost feels like the past year had been my uncomfortable journey out of the cave. At first, the blinding light from the fire – and then subsequently from the sun – hurt my eyes, but after slowly adjusting to the brightness, I can finally appreciate the true brilliance of the world out there. The first step began with realising how everything I’ve taken for granted about nutrition, running and so many prevailing issues are simply the result of historical events leading up to the present, driven by competing agendas along the way. Like how Harari succinctly puts it in Sapiens, “We study history not to know the future but to widen our horizons, to understand that our present situation is neither natural nor inevitable, and that we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we can imagine.”
In a way, spending time overseas too opened my eyes to options beyond the familiar boundaries of my comfort zone back home. Over time, I’ve come to realise that just because something is conventional doesn’t mean it’s normal. Luckily for me, in sport-crazy New Zealand, a common language here appears to be one that includes running. The local race calendar, in particular, works quite well as a conversation opener.
“Are you training for the Auckland Marathon?” my neighbour would shout out from his lawn after I returned from my run, before sharing in return that he’s “just going for a half this time”.
“Were you at the Kerikeri Half Marathon last weekend? I didn’t see you this time!” my touch rugby teammate would check in during our game.
“You should go for the People’s Triathlon Series! There’s one happening in two weeks,” even the friendly, grey-haired Vodafone technician-cum-triathlete who came to fix my broadband modem chimed in, after spotting the wetsuits hung over our road bikes at home.
I was pleased to have discovered a topic that helps break the ice with most locals. However, the extent of their dedication continues to amaze me. Broken bones, for instance, is often responded with nonchalance, as if an inevitable, integral passage in life. When my touch rugby teammate shared the x-ray image of his fractured collarbone from a mountain biking accident in our WhatsApp group, another would reply on a similar injury with his daughter (“race you to recovery!”). After returning from our summer break, KT received news that his boss would be out due to a holiday misadventure causing a “broken shoulder, collarbone and ribs, as well as a collapsed lung”, which another co-worker commented was “the kinda news you always hear after coming back from the holidays”. I remain baffled by their normalcy.
I can only recall one topic in sport where the Kiwis match my levels of bewilderment. When I (proudly) share that Joseph Schooling beat Michael Phelps in the 2016 Olympics 100m butterfly and was paid 1 million Singaporean dollars for winning the Gold Medal, it has typically led to disbelief followed by debate around athletes’ motivation (or love) for sport and the necessity for such handsome cash incentives.
Amidst these conversations, I’m struck by how much New Zealanders are driven by their passion points. Whether it’s running, fishing, gardening or painting, the locals are accustomed to a culture that defines them by personal obsessions. Coming from a society that tends to measure a person’s worth through his or her personal possessions and professions, this was a refreshing reminder that alternative value markers exist. In one of my last books of 2019, This is what inequality looks like, Teo You Yenn expressed the precarity of dignity with these thought-provoking words “As long as our well-being and worth as persons are deeply linked to economic productivity, income, a specific way of doing family, then everyone’s dignity is essentially at risk. In this ethos, no one has inherent worth as persons.”
3 Key Takeaways
After an eye-opening and incredible journey of rediscoveries, I’d like to end this reflection with three key takeaways from 2019.
1. Question everything
Don’t accept anything at face value. Even if everyone else is doing it and it’s the way things have been done for as long as you can remember, find out why. And how it came to being. Also, if you come across alternatives, don’t dismiss them. Try it for yourself. No matter how much you’ve read about the science behind keto or minimalist soles, nothing beats running your own experiments. Keto worked well for KT and I, but everyone’s body differs slightly. Some evidence suggests that all humans initially started out as lactose intolerance after weaning off breast milk, but certain populations evolved to accept large quantities of milk even into adulthood. There are certainly vegans out there who are lean and fit with quick-witted, sharp minds. Perhaps they have similarly gained a higher tolerance for carbs (and therefore, insulin sensitivity) – yet, who knows how much better they could feel too after adopting a low-carb, high-fat diet?
2. Our brain is incredible
… if we don’t screw up its natural wiring, that is. Our brains have been responsible for the survival of homo sapiens for hundreds of thousands of years. It’s evolved to trigger biochemical signals that make us respond appropriately at the right place and time. The problem is, it still thinks that we are in the savannah today, like how we’ve been built for feast or famine. When we eat nutrient-dense food (like fat and protein), we automatically stop because our appestat tells us we are full. However, when we consume nutrient-poor edible products (like sugar or carbs), it doesn’t send the correct signals to stop, and all the carbs are converted into stored body fat for later use, in times of famine. When it comes to stressful situations, the brain has only two primal responses: fight or flight. Modern day deadlines and rejections, though technically less perilous, cause the same chemical reactions as life-and-death situations, back when we were being chased by predators. Therefore, it is always important to take a step back to view things from a different perspective.
Yet simply understanding the mechanics behind the brain allows us to wield it better as a powerful tool. For example, perceiving fatigue as simply a biochemical signal lets us push our physical limits further. Understanding that stress is just our brain in survival mode, but knowing that we’re not actually going to die in the concrete jungle can help us manage it better. As the popular saying goes, “it’s all in the mind”.
3. Look to nature for answers
Because, nature has gone through the long and elegant process to evolve according to what works (and what doesn’t). Problems arise once humans interfere. Even Albert Einstein supports this with his famous quote “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”
So, take a step back, tear away from the man-made shadows in the cave and venture into the sun!
END