I remember Ray Peat saying he used to eat lowish carb. Does anyone know around what age he switched to favoring carbs/sugar?

[yerrag]

@Insomniac

if you put it down to context, it isn't the age as much as the metabolic health of the elderly as far as being able to burn carbs efficiently. not all elderly are in poor metabolic health but we can agree though that generally they are, being that poor metabolic health when young carries over as one ages. With that having high carb is not helpful at all, but that doesn't have to only apply when one reaches old age.

I don't have to list many reasons, but being able to live a high carb lifestyle and being able to get away with it in good health, fit and trim, free of allergies and aches, and having vibrant energy and a very active and sound mind, in old age, is a matter of being able to use the mitochondria to burn sugar efficiently, and especially being able to produce a lot of CO2. CO², together with its ability to turn acidic as carbonic acid, and to turn alkaline as bicarbonates, gives stability to the pH that governs the virtuous cycles the body depends on to be maintenance and trouble free. Being a perpetually healthy and developing organism allows us to live long and stay useful for ourselves and for society.

[Insomniac]

@yerrag I've heard that even light activity has a large effect on glucose disposal and that's why being sedentary is such a large issue. But as one gets older with less muscle it becomes an even bigger issue since the muscle is the main place for glucose disposal.

But also to your point, exercise impacts the mitochondria.

Ray Peat once said something like he does squats every 10 years or something along those lines. He didn't believe in exercise without purpose. My sense was he didn't schedule regular fitness if there was nothing useful to do.

[yerrag]

@Insomniac Light activity is helpful definitely. I doubt any healthy elderly individual would want to be sedentary, unless he has a lot of research work lined up for material to use in a newsletter, like Ray Peat. He is a notable example showing that a lifestyle not revolving around being a gym rat or a 10k stepaholic is viable by virtue of having a strong internal or basal metabolism, external metabolism being optional. Using the brain as he does, he could be burning probably more than the walking 10k nandroids that litter neighborhoods and parks.

We have to be reminded that when our food supply wasn't taken over by Talmudist businessmen cum gaslighters, our recent ancestors didn't have gyms and didn't squawk walk with fancy wearables, and just lived normal lives doing chores and even get away without doing chores when they spend quiet evenings reading books and using their brain more than we do watching YouTube videos. They weren't overweight nor obese, not sickly, their heads and guts don't ache frequently, and peanut butter wasn't even an allergen nor a cause of death.

The only reason elderlies are sedentary these days isn't a matter of free will but a matter of being unhealthy all their lives with living a very unhealthy lifestyle including being drugged and poisoned through all means the Talmudists can introduce by hook or by crook thru established instructions that have become the way for toxic ideas to become accepted by the mainstream.

They are ridden with all sorts of pain that make it hard for them to walk.When they are in such a state of degeneration, and can't do the things that keep muscle tone and tension in a regular state of use, that worsens the situation where an already poor state of health gets worse. But to begin with, it's not for lack of exercise that they reached that point of disease.

But given that they are in such poor shape, it is a given that their metabolic health is shot. They can't metabolize sugar well, and they are also in a low metabolic state.

They can live probably better in carnivore or ketogenic mode, only because these metabolic pathways don't require the body to pass thru hoops to work like sugar metabolism does. The degree of difficulty is like doing a gymnastic routine that would get a score of 1 even when done perfectly, as opposed to doing a routine with the aplomb of Nadia Comaneci way back, which geta a score of 10. If my analogy is not clear, keto and carnivore is a low bar to pass, and doing hi carb is a very high bar to pass.

Very sick people can only pass the low bar.

Very healthy elderly people easily can dish out a lifestyle that involves plenty of carb intake, and that lifestyle verily sustains their continued optimal health. They can do physical activities just as they were able to in younger years, and will not just sit by and watch the sunset but will amble along the shore and enjoy their twilight years in radiant and productive health.
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Most of all, they can eat cakes and ice cream, and drink Coke and coffee, and drink life to its lees. And they can use their bonus years to share their wisdom, as gained over the years. They are blessed, and will certainly be a blessing to all.