Tim Noakes, a professor at the University of Cape Town and co-founder of the Sports Science Institute of South Africa, is also arguably South Africa’s leading sports scientist.
Tim Noakes, a professor at the University of Cape Town and co-founder of the Sports Science Institute of South Africa, is also arguably South Africa’s leading sports scientist.
In his recent book, Challenging Beliefs, Noakes has put his faith in a controversial theory on nutrition. According to Noakes, this high-fat, high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet could be the saviour for people suffering from diabetes and those who are carbohydrate resistant.
It’s known as the Paleo Diet, or “caveman diet”. The diet was originally prescribed in 1861 by William Harvey, a London surgeon, to undertaker William Banting. It’s also incorrectly known by some as the Atkins diet, after Dr Robert Atkins re-discovered the art of ‘banting’, which is to lose weight by cutting out carbohydrates.
According to Noakes and other speculators, the human system of digestion was fully functional before the global sweep of agriculture that saw the rise of grain and fibre as nutritional bases. Thus, Noakes believes that we have acquired an “addiction” to carbohydrates that we really can live without.
This does not mean that carbohydrates are bad for you, or that you should completely rule them out. Noakes is merely pointing out that health problems associated with nutrition began to multiply with modern day Western processing.
Diabetes was rare 100 years ago, but now even children have adult-onset diabetes, Noakes said in his panel discussion at the Franschhoek Literary Festival earlier this month. However, there are critics of this diet, many of whom dispute that carbohydrates could be the source of modern-day disorders like obesity and diabetes.
For example, the Chinese and Japanese have been living on nutritional bases of rice and noodles for thousands of years, and only began to suffer from eating disorders when Western foods were incorporated into their diet.
Other critics say that a high-protein diet can damage the kidneys if not regulated properly, after a study conducted by Harvard University in 2003, while others believe that it is the carbohydrate basis of modern diets which increases longevity, as seen in Asia and the Mediterranean.
Tracey Roizman, who holds a BSc in Nutritional Biochemistry, a chiropractic degree and a postgraduate diploma in functional neurology, believes that the issue at stake is the expenditure of energy as opposed to the intake of calories. “Predominance of processed foods aside, sedentary (inactive) lifestyles account for many of the chronic and degenerative diseases that plague developed nations,” she says in her criticism of the Paleo Diet.
A Grahamstown resident who prefers not to be named, and who is both an experienced runner and hiker, decided to change his lifestyle after reading about some of the theories on reducing starch intake. Thinking on how a bowl of oats for breakfast can have your stomach growling by eleven, he decided to attempt the change to the Paleo Diet.
It has been four months and he says couldn’t be happier with the results. “It works fantastically,” he said, after describing some of the finer points of maintaining the lifestyle, such as exercising consistently and sticking to the diet. He is constantly “bounding with energy”, despite consuming no starch and can still exercise frequently without carbo-loading. “It is the quality of what you eat that is more important than the quantity,” he says.
Interestingly enough, this man is neither carbohydrate-resistant nor pre-diabetic, like Noakes. He just wanted a lifestyle change that made him feel better – and so far this one has been “unbelievably easy.” In Noakes’s words, “This is not a diet; it is an eating plan for life – a lifestyle.”
Noakes advises that individual eating plans are extremely personal, and that each individual has a specific body with specific needs. As a result, it is important to note that this diet does not cover a generic range of people and is not suitable for everyone. It’s up to you to figure out which foods work for you.
To quote Noakes once again, “Nutrition is a religion. It’s personal.”
Noakes’s “Paleo Diet”: What it’s not
• Sugar (Must be completely removed from your diet)
•All sugary drinks including cola drinks and sweetened fruit juices
• Bread
• Rice
• Pasta
• Potatoes
• Porridge
• Breakfast cereals
• Some high energy fruits like bananas
• All confectionery – cakes and sweets • Desserts
• Artificial sweeteners and products containing these products (like “diet” colas)
• You should also be very wary of so-called “low fat” options, yoghurt especially, since these are laden with sugar and so are less healthy than the full fat options. In fact you need to check all the foods that you eat. You will be astonished at how many contain hidden sugar.
What it is:
• Eggs
• Fish
• Meat – organic or grass-fed, not processed
• Dairy Produce – milk, cheese and yoghurt – all full cream
• Vegetables – mainly leafy, low carbohydrate sources
• Nuts – macadamia and almonds especially, but no peanuts or cashew nuts, as these are high in carbohydrates
• Fruits – very occasionally and then only those which have a lower carbohydrate content like apples and berries.
• Water, tea and coffee (all unsweetened).
