RE: Surviving the Extremes: The one way human physique outperforms nature... Kinda.
a great piece of anthropomorphic conjecture. Perhaps the real answer lies in the clues of our best friends. We are similar to cats and dogs. Cats are good ambush hunters and scavengers. Dogs are pack hunters and also good scavengers. We combined all these skills to (beat) our rivals; dogs, cats & hyenas. We adapted as part of our environment. Our bipedal nature is efficient and it allowed us to range far and wide in large territories. We learned what was where and when in relation to food sources. Perhaps our masterstroke above all ? omnivorous ability. We could and still can pretty much eat anything. Our dog and cat rivals on the other hand can't and couldn't exist or forage for all the other things we eat. And really to have that endurance we needed to store a lot of starch rich tuber in our muscles and in extra fuel tanks as widely distributed fat. Carbohydrates are maybe one of the keys to our survival, evolution. Interestingly, I have been living on a severely reduced carbohydrate intake (under doctors orders) for about 9 months and my endurance is very low at the moment. I have also eaten up 30lbs in bodyfat reserves !
Thanks for the thought-out comment. Yeah it's interesting that we domesticated both the endurance side-kick and the ambush ratter to mutually benefit the whole trio. What a great relationship to observe in superspeed over millenia heh.
I hope you doctor knows what she/he is doing! sounds rought. I like to have at least 100lbs of body fat, you know, just in case...
yeah @mobbs my doctor is a bit of a lean mean machine himself. He knows what he's doing. I've calculated that I still have about 70-80 lbs in extreme reserve, based on my fighting weight ;)
I also don't have the endurance muscle fibres. I'm like a Cheetah. perhaps we had different strategies. I couldn't run down an Impala over a whole day let alone a few days. I think weapons were perhaps the real magic bullet we no doubt learned how to throw or sling a stone, millions of years ago and a well placed rock would stun an animal, just long enough to run over and smack it ! :) would be great to see it all speeded up.. we kind of can through fossils
Sounds like a ketogenic diet! Your doctor understands human nutrition, so I would say you're in good hands.
ketogenic indeed. not the best fun and I'm kind of returning slowly to a normal diet over the next couple of months. Let's just say it's been an experience.
Never even heard of it! Primarily used to treat epilepsy in children? That's something I should look up more!
it's designed to make your body switch from glucose to burning fat as a primary fuel. the ketogenic diet was used from the 1920's onwards as a way to reduce convulsion in epileptic patients. That's not why I was asked to go on it and a ketogenic diet should only be maintained under medical supervision.
nice