“Women shouldn’t run – and everyone should avoid coffee!”
Should women avoid running? And should you – male or female – stop drinking coffee? Those controversial messages were delivered by Dr. Michael Fox with his lecture on the Caribbean low-carb cruise recently.
We invited our moderators to write guest posts here at the blog. Here’s report number four – about Dr. Fox’s message – by moderator Peter Biörck:
Guest Post by Peter Biörck
Women shouldn’t run!
One of the more refreshing and appreciated presentations on the Caribbean low-carb cruise was by Dr. Michael Fox. He works as a physician in a fertility clinic in Jacksonville, USA.
Since 2004 he has used LCHF for treating women with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and who have not been able to conceive. This became a great success! Before they started dietary treatment fewer than 50 % of women got pregnant. With LCHF as part of the concept about 90 % conceive and often within a few menstrual cycles after being advised by the clinic.
There are a couple of interviews with Dr. Fox where he talks about LCHF and fertility.
For those who are eating LCHF it’s hardly controversial that the diet helps against disease conditions that are associated with the metabolic syndrome. PCOS is most likely one of those diseases. However, it is more controversial that Dr. Fox claims that aerobic exercise is a bad idea for all women and especially so if you want to conceive. The female body perceives prolonged exercise with a relatively high pulse as a life-threatening situation. When this is repeated over and over the body is exposed to stress that makes the brain (hypothalamus) down-prioritize a number of things, one of them may be the ability to conceive. Permanent damage to the brain’s hormon signaling can be observed after only a year of intense aerobic exercise.
Dr. Michael Fox therefore recommends that all women stay away from aerobic exercise, such as running, bicycling etc. Men don’t seem to be as sensitive to the stress that aerobic exercise produces. Dr. Fox claims that there are evolutionary explanations to the difference between women and men. Cave men were the ones who were out hunting and probably this is the reason that men can cope with aerobic exercise better.
Should women then not exercise at all? No, Michael thinks that weight-lifting a few times a week combined with walks and an active mobile life is the best recipe for health! On the membership pages there’s an interview where Dr. Fox talks more about why aerobic exercise is a bad idea for women.
Michael Fox has five children, the last were triplets that came to be without any assistance from the fertility clinic. Some of his colleagues find this hard to believe!
Another sacred cow that Michael chooses to discourage from is coffee drinking! Both men and women should avoid drinking coffee (caffeine) several times a day. Caffeine triggers cortisol release (produces a stress reaction.) One effect of frequent coffee drinking may therefore be weight gain or failure to lose weight despite a good diet.
Comment
Thank you for the fourth cruise report, Peter! More to come.
If you became interested in Michael Fox and want to know more about what he has to say, his entire presentation from the cruise will soon be available on the membership pages.
Running
The message about women and running is of course controversial. I think there’s a point, at least when it comes to the chance of conceiving. Women who exercise hard can dramatically reduce their chances of conceiving and this is good to be aware of.
Coffee
Attacking coffee drinking is of course also a sensitive thing. That it causes release of stress hormones seems likely – even though I haven’t seen any studies on this.
After having listened to Dr. Fox I tried to go cold turkey myself. This trial lasted only for a few hours before I had to give up – I had too many important things to do on the cruise and it wasn’t OK to be tired with withdrawal symptoms. But since the cruise I have dramatically reduced my coffee drinking to less than half of my previous consumption. The goal is to take a break for a few weeks to see how it makes me feel.
Have you tried to quit drinking coffee? If so, how did it impact you?
Previous reports
Type 1 Diabetes and LCHF – A Great Combination
Annika Rane’s Reflections on the Low-Carb Cruise
The 2015 Low-Carb Cruise – Brief Video Report
LCHF for Beginners
How to Lose Weight
Diabetes – How to Normalize Your Blood Sugar
My question is whether this is due to "coffee" or "caffeine"? If it's a phenomenon only of coffee, how would someone who stalls on coffee fair on another caffeinated beverage, such as green tea?
I quit coffee completely as of yesterday. We'll see how long that lasts! :)
Coffee or Caffeine ??????????????????????????
The same for TEA, Tea have caffeine too and Iced tea is my drink everyday or in a restaurant.
So please, somebody ( Andreas ) can clarify this ... !!!!!!!
Is really hard to loose weight for me and also I take two espresso coffee w/ cream a day, could be the reason...?
Please advice.
Thanks...
Lower quality offerings are often over or under roasted, have higher caffeine and many places use way too much coffee relative to water for the respective serving.
As a result, lousy coffee is often doctored with copious milk and sugar to compensate.
The venerable "blue zone" Okinawans drink plenty of green tea. It doesn't seem to hurt their fertility.
I drink 2 to 4 cups a day of real coffee and that has no impact on my weight.
Of course my coffee is not loaded with sugar, I put whole milk only.
http://authoritynutrition.com/top-13-evidence-based-health-benefits-o...
Also, as someone pointed out above, Authority Nutrition has written extensively about the evidence that shows coffee/caffeine is good for us on balance.
I'm sorry but axing coffee seems irresponsible to me. So many things cause rising cortisol. Just don't drink a gallon a day for pete sake!
Several times, with no particular issues or benefits, if I wind down the consumption over several days. Stop cold turkey : headache.
Other leading diet advocates, such as Dr. "Wheat Belly" Davis, recommend coffee as a weight loss aid. This debate is apt to remain unresolved for a long time.
And of course, we must be clear that we are speaking of black caffeinated coffee ... and one wonders about organic, single-origin, high altitude, and how processed, etc., etc.
Several times in my long life I've decided to give it up. I went through the headaches and other terrible withdrawal symptoms. Stubborn, I am. So I followed through and gave it up every time. Several months following the "give up coffee" process, I always asked myself, "Why did I do this? Has it made an impact on the quality of my life?" The answer was always the same, "No!"
I consider the doctor's theory in this matter a crock.
One comment about the website: I looked everywhere trying to find the interview with the esteemed doctor, and couldn't find it. The GUI needs tweaking, guys.
http://www.dietdoctor.com/interviews/fox#1
Bottom line, the benefits, if any, weren't worth the cost of quitting caffeine.
I have taken up having a cup of decaffeinated coffee in the morning first thing, with come cocoa powder, mostly because of the evidence of the benefits of both, and I have come to enjoy it. But I certainly don't need it. I generally don't have any on weekends or on trips. If I were to suffer performance-diminishing side effects of withdrawal, that would make me rethink whether I should be consuming that much caffeine.
As for coffee, after I started LCHF I developed a poor tolerance to coffee and caffeine. After a while I could not even drink too much decaf and quit coffee for a year. I found no difference in my weight and little difference with productivity, if any. After I (and my wife) started running 3 to 8 miles per week, I found I could up my carb intake and my tolerance to coffee returned. I don't know if how these are related but I do think caffeine does have metabolic effects. If I exercise within one hour or so of a meal, I am sluggish and fatigued for the first 15 minutes or so. If I have a coffee before hand, no sluggishness.
Seriously, the worst post so far on this site I can remember.
There is no scientific proof that running has any effect on fertility that I know of. Most direct link to my knowledge which is indirectly linked to running is body fat content and the ratio of nutrient intake / total kcal used. And this can be true as well for any other female athlete as well as women not performing any sport.
Running is no doubt a stress on the system. However, some stress is always good and too much is bad. The difficult question is how much is too much, and that can vary from person to person depending on their conditioning, general stress levels and metabolic health.
Also, running at different paces has qualitatively different effects. Dr. Phil Maffetone, for example, advocates training to burn fat on LCHF with heart rate no higher than 180 minus age. Going above that heart rate sends stress signals and fires up carb-burning metabolism. As Dr. Fox says (quoted above): "The female body perceives prolonged exercise with a relatively high pulse as a life-threatening situation." Note the "relatively high pulse" qualification: sugar burning pulse. There are several studies showing cardiovascular issues with a disturbingly high percentage of marathoners who run above fat-burning zone, especially with carb-loading. Other studies show diminishing health returns once weekly running exceeds 8 kilometres. A heart that starts burning sugar is destined for trouble over time, so the longer in sugar-burning zone the greater the likelihood of heart arrhythmia, for example (caused by mitochondrial damage from burning sugar too long). Runners from back in the 1970s used to refer to training in the zone above fat-burning and below sprint as "junk miles." Long, slow, distance was the mantra back then. Now the Dutch skating team trains 70% LSD and they dominated at the 2014 winter Olympics.
So there is likely a grain of truth in the caution for people generally with respect to excessive running at a "relatively high pulse." I had stopped endurance sport a few years ago based on the data until I could sort it out. I have since restarted, confident that going low carb and emphasizing LSD training and sprinting is okay on reasonable interpretations of the data.
As for coffee, there are studies showing clear benefits to coffee. It seems caffeine tolerance is variable, person to person and with diet. I, too, seemed to get more caffeine sensitive with lchf. However, I find that really potent 100% chocolate (direct from beans, with mild roast and minimal conching) will affect me, whereas the same chocolate when eaten with quality butter does not have the effect. The French, as usual, are geniuses of cuisine in that most of the dark chocolate recipes incorporate butter or cream.
For the runningpart of this article; I have never been a great fan of running or high intense exercise like aerobics, it always feld like I was pushing my body to much over it's "limits".. I rather go for a long walk with my dog or take my bike into the woods to have the exercise I need.
For the coffeepart; In the past I also quit a couple of times. I thought my migraine was triggered by the caffeine. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it did't. Since I eat LCHF I finally understand that my migraine was'nt triggered by caffeine but by my high carb diet.. My migraine is gone, the keto state of my body works really good for my brain! I also do not "depent" on coffee to start my day, can do without it, but I just enjoy the taste of it!
It's an anti-oxidant and it's not at all linked to "stress". Show us a real study.
Apart from the hyped/stressed feeling, that takes hours to get over, the joints in my hands, particularly the base of the thumb to wrist joint, ache and get stiff. That can't be a good sign:)!
At 70 tears old I am in great shape...flt with flat belly....thank you diet doctor..stay healthy all!!!