Dr. Phil Maffetone & Dr. Mark Cucuzzella: Be Your Own Health Advocate (At Any Age), Minimalist Marathoning, and More on MAF vs. Race Pace

May 30, 2016
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On this show we’re joined by two powerhouses, Dr. Phil Maffetone and new to the show Dr. Mark Cucuzzella.

Mark is an elite master’s marathoner, doctor, educator and more. You can connect with his work at naturalrunningcenter.comhealthyrunning.org, and his online running shoe store featuring exclusively minimalist shoes at tworiverstreads.com.

On this show we dive into a fully holistic and integrative chat about what it really takes to be your best self with health and performance!

  • Mark Cucuzella shares his incredible journey that’s led him to overcome injury and run 2:24 marathons, and at age 49 he’s still running sub-2:50 making him one of the best master’s marathoner alive.
  • How MAF training helped Mark overcome years of overtraining, and still allowed him to have major success in the marathon
  • How and why Mark switched from a high-carb diet to a low carb diet 5 years ago, while still training, leading to better management of his insulin resistance, health and more positives.
  • Mark and Phil discuss MAF Method principles, progression with MAF, and more
  • The very important role of a healthy diet in making progress with the MAF Method. However, Mark still got results with MAF on a high-carb “unhealthy” diet; why?
  • Comparisons with Lydiard-style training
  • On health markers like HbA1C – Mark says normal and healthy would be 4.5-5.0%, while pre-diabetic is 5.7%-5.9% and diabetic is 6.0%
  • Mark is a doctor who takes a different approach to health than what we see in Western medicine–because we can see more clearly that Western medicine is failing us as it relates to chronic disease, etc.
  • Instead of dissing high cholesterol look to the ratio of triglycerides and HDL
  • Healing without drugs, and instead: Food as medicine
  • Mark has to manage insulin resistance and poor glucose tolerance (in his genetics), and how he does this effectively
  • “A Beautiful Medicine”
  • On taking charge of y our health and well-being and problems with mainstream medicine
  • Run talk:
  • Running Boston in Vibrams, and the Harvard research that’s being done by Irene Davis
  • Loading rates: lower loading rates equated with less injury issues
  • Discussing minimalist vs maximalist shoes and injury
  • Shoes don’t cause injury, the dysfunction does

Comments (2)

  • cherrytomatopie says:

    Hey there, just wanted to thank you for the discussions on blood sugar/low carb/insulin resistance. I've been struggling to get my blood sugar down and listening to your podcasts convinced me it was time to get down to business and switch to a low carb high fat diet. I'm also on metformin for now, hoping that's temporary, but need to reset the system. It's rough, just started, but I'm ready to get healthier. I'm not an endurance athlete but a runner and find the podcasts inspiring and informative.

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