Anaerobics: Destruction & Reconstruction

Anaerobics is anti-aerobics - literally, symbolically, morally and everything-l y. Fifty years ago in 1968, ' Aerobics' by Dr Kenneth H. Cooper was published. This book kick-stat1ed a period of the most profoundly foolish exercise and nutrition advice the world has ever seen. What made it so damaging was that the advice became universally hegemonic. It was pushed by experts and used as the basis for Government health policy. The l970 's and 80's saw an explosion of university research ' proving' the virtues of everything which turned out to be bad for us. People who disagreed were cranks.
We are now paying with rising levels of obesity, hea11disease, diabetes and a host of insidious disorders, many under the radar at a population level but worryingly noticeable le at a personal level. All the dieticians, nutritionists, exercise professionals and health experts who thought they knew what they were talking about; all of them backed by qualifications, certificates, degrees and PhD's - it was all tripe.
The 'scientifically proven' aerobics paradigm recommended three meals a day with snacks between, a high carbohydrate diet, healthy grains, polyunsaturated, low protein, low fat, energy balance, superfoods, wholefoods, five-a-day, light resistance, high endurance, fat-burning exercise, on and on; in other words, the derangements of modernity, practically the reverse of our evolutionary history - the apotheose is being the skeletal, sugar-fueled marathon runner, and the overweight, calorie-counting, jogger - at opposite ends of the discredited BMI table but both unhealthy and sick.

When society, culture, and modernity are stripped away, we are essentially wild animals. Wildness is in our genes. The denial of this has led to all sorts of chronic conditions and illnesses - for example, we now know that during periods of food deprivation the body 'e ats itself' via the process of autophagy, and that this is a good thing not a bad thing. However, for the past fifty years we

were told to constantly eat and keep energy stores topped up, thereby putting the brakes on a crucial nutrient sensing mechanism which keeps us healthy.

Anaerobics proposes that most of the problems of human health come from being too domesticated - not wild enough (including the food we eat). We have evened out acute hits of physical stress and adrenaline for chronic manmade stress. We've swopped robust, hard graft for 'fun-running' and Pilates. At the same time we've been told to avoid things which could harm us; the Sun, dirt, germs, eggs, red meat - elements of our lives for two million years, and to eat more wheat, grains, pasta, rice, and low-fat breakfast dust. This idiocy needs to be reversed.

If you are hooked on data and ' science', I ask you to read this book with an open mind, or stop reading now. Where there is no or little scientific evidence we must use experience, reason and logic - alien concepts to people who can't operate without 'so lid proof'.
When you loo k at health and nutrition through an ecological, environmental and evolutionary lens, you won't always get it right (it's a complex system), but you'll develop the ability to smell bullshit at a distance. Contrary to the contention of experts, you don't need to know how everything works (they don't either); as long as you understand that for a wild animal to remain healthy, it needs the challenges of a wild environment.