Mark Sisson's Blog, page 195

Squash and Kale Salad with Tigernuts

The sweet and nutty taste of tigernuts makes the tiny tubers a perfect topping for salad. In this recipe, tigernuts garnish a salad made from acorn squash, kale and bacon. Each bite has a range of sweet, salty, spicy, and pleasantly bitter flavors.

Tigernuts are a Primal and paleo friendly snack that can be eaten straight out of the bag. Though the flavor is good, the texture of tigernuts can be a little dry and chewy when eaten alone. But when tossed into an olive oil drenched salad, with creamy acorn squash and fatty bacon, tigernuts don’t taste dry at all. In this salad, tigernuts are a tasty contrasting texture.

High in prebiotic fiber (resistant starch), tigernuts can be helpful for feeding gut flora. All that fiber can also lead to digestive distress, if too many tigernuts are eaten at once. So go slow, and don’t eat too many out of the bag before you toss a small handful into this delicious salad.

Time in the Kitchen: 1 hour

Servings: 4 to 6

Ingredients

1 acorn squash, halved and seeded?5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided (75 ml)
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes (2.5 m)
½ teaspoon smoked paprika (2.5 ml)
1 bunch curly kale, ribs removed, leaves torn into small pieces
1/3 cup tiger nuts, chopped (tigernuts can also be purchased sliced) (50 g)
2 pieces cooked bacon, crumbled

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 425F / 220C.

Slice the squash into 1/2-inch thick crescents. Toss them in a bowl with 3 tablespoons/45 ml olive oil, plus the garlic, red pepper flakes and smoked paprika.

Spread out the squash on a baking sheet in a single layer. Lightly salt. Roast for 25-45 minutes, or until tender and golden. Flip the squash once while it cooks.

Toss the kale with the remaining 2 tablespoons/30 ml olive oil. Massage the oil into the leaves for a few minutes. Set aside.

Take the baking sheet out of the oven and slide the squash slices off. Spread the kale out on the hot baking sheet and cook for 3 minutes, just until it begins to wilt.

On a platter or in a large bowl, combine the kale and acorn squash. Garnish with tigernuts and bacon.

The post Squash and Kale Salad with Tigernuts appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Vote for Mark’s Daily Apple in Paleo Magazine’s “Best of 2016”!

Perhaps it’s the competitive spirit left over from my marathon and triathlon days, but I love a good contest. And it’s that time of year again when Mark’s Daily Apple and all things Primal compete for the title of Best in Paleo Magazine’s Best of 2016 issue.

Here’s a little bit of backstory if this is your first year taking MDA to the finish line. Paleo Magazine is the premiere print and online subscription publication for all things paleo, primal, and ancestral health. Every year, Paleo Magazine accepts nominations and holds an open vote for the world of paleo/primal aficionados to pick their favorite examples of companies, products, forms of education, and entertainment that are the most cutting edge, relevant, and noteworthy representations of the community. Being on this list means you’re recognized as the cream of the ancestral health crop. And we want Mark’s Daily Apple and the subsequent resources it provides to be recognized for what they are: the leading examples in the ancestral health community!

In the past, we’ve taken home awards for Best Lifestyle/Fitness Site (MDA), Best Supplement Product (Primal Fuel) and Best Paleo eBook and Book (Primal Blueprint Fitness and The Primal Connection respectively), among others.

Once again, I need your help to beat our record. Paleo Magazine has expanded the “Best of” categories this year, and we have some good ideas for how to fill them!

Here are some of the many categories—and some Primal Blueprint sites, programs and products you can nominate.

Best Blog (General Health/Wellness) – Mark’s Daily Apple
Best Blog (Fitness) – Mark’s Daily Apple
Best Podcast (General Health/Wellness) – Primal Blueprint Podcast
Best Book (General Health/Wellness) – The New Primal Blueprint
Best Book (Science) – The Paleo Thyroid Solution
Best New Cookbook – The Paleo Primer: A Second Helping
Best Online Program – Primal Health Coach
Best Online Shop – PrimalBlueprint.com
Best Paleo Company (Food) – PRIMAL KITCHEN™
Best New Idea – PRIMAL KITCHEN™ Ranch Dressing
Best New Packaged Product – PRIMAL KITCHEN™ Ranch Dressing
Best Paleo-On-The-Go Product – PRIMAL KITCHEN™ Collagen Bars
Best Paleo Drink – Primal Fuel
Best Paleo Supplement – Primal Probiotics
Best Paleo Bar (Nut Based) – PRIMAL KITCHEN™ Macadamia Seal Salt
Best Paleo Hiking Grub – PRIMAL KITCHEN™ Collagen Bars

So click here to head on over to the Paleo Magazine voting portal and submit your nominations for Mark’s Daily Apple, PRIMAL KITCHEN™, and your other favorite Primal and paleo resources.

Thanks for the support. I’ll keep you posted about the results!

The post Vote for Mark’s Daily Apple in Paleo Magazine’s “Best of 2016”! appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

I Was Amazed You Could Fix So Many Health Problems with A Change in Diet!

It’s Friday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. In fact, I have a contest going right now. So if you have a story to share, no matter how big or how small, you’ll be in the running to win a big prize. Read more here.

I have always tried to be ‘healthy.’ From the age of 14 (really!) I worked as an Aerobics Instructor and Personal Trainer. I taught the message I was trained in ‘eat less move more’ & ‘calories in versus calories out.’ If you were overweight, it was simply because you were a pig and you were lazy. Fat was the enemy and from the age of 14 I refused to eat it. I even refused avocados based on the fat content. I suffered pretty bad acne as a teenager and a visit to the Doctors saw me on a course of Oxytetracycline with endless repeat prescriptions. Oxytetracycline is a broad spectrum antibiotic, which works by interfering with the ability of bacteria to produce essential proteins. Great news for my pizza face, nuclear bomb to my gut.

Fast forward a couple of decades—I spent ten years in the health & fitness industry and a decade as a Business Manager for a recruiting firm in the city (think 10 hour days chained to a desk and headset, if you took a break or left at 5 p.m., you were a slacker) and the past decade as a Mum to two kids age 10 & 7. I had to ditch my corporate job as it didn’t fit in with motherhood…good move! Health continued to be a priority for not only me now but my husband and kids too, and finding a decent income that fit around my children proved difficult.

I had always been up and down mood wise, with definite spells of depression. I didn’t take medication for it and never linked food with mood. Where I am from in Yorkshire, UK, you are taught to ‘pull yourself together’. Easier said than done.

Things sort of crept up on me. I continued with my low-fat, high-carb diet and my chronic exercising pattern (3-5 hours of classes at the gym per week). By age 38, my life looked like this: insomniac, constipated, libido-less, overweight, anxious, chronic heartburn (chowed down on Zantac whilst pregnant), chronic nausea (think hungover with a side of morning sickness), headaches (popped NSAIDs like candy), sore feet (plantar fasciitis), full body aches and pains, dizzy, flat, disconnected and I developed really weird phobias! Even though I had spent my 20s travelling the world I now was terrified of flying, which causes problems when you are English with a New Zealander husband and live in Australia!! I also developed crushing fears around the kids getting sick, I couldn’t stop my mind from going down this dark hole of worries. Although I was still functioning—groceries had to be bought and kids taken to school, I was utterly overwhelmed and certain I was dying of some awful disease, the outcome of which seemed like welcome relief.

At a really low point a voice inside me said “go gluten free!” I had always viewed people with dietary restrictions as ‘fuss pots’ (there’s that Yorkshire in me again), but I decided this could be worth a go, anything to stop feeling so sick. So on Easter 2013 I posted my GF plan on Facebook, seeking advice, and a dear friend said to me the magic words “why don’t you try paleo?” I had never heard of paleo and when I realised it included cutting out grains, legumes, alcohol, sugar and dairy I thought it was totally INSANE! I also couldn’t believe where I found gluten—what was gluten doing in my fat free ice cream??!! Anyway, in a desperate attempt to reset my health I did a Whole30—well more of a Whole45 and found a great naturopath who diagnosed me as having Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) plus a leaky gut. Grateful not to be dying of some awful disease and now empowered to make changes. Why was this the first time I was finding out the truth about food?

The turnaround in my health was nothing short of a miracle. After an initial mean detox from going gluten free (they say the worse the detox the more you needed it, right!) I found relief from my nausea. ‘Strangely’ about two weeks in to my Primal life I jumped out of bed and my feet didn’t hurt!! Wow—this was amazing!! I became amazed that you could ‘fix’ so many niggling health problems ‘just’ by changing what you ate!! I became a bit evangelical!! EVERYBODY needed to know this!! Wow! I became a Primal geek and listened to podcasts round the clock and my bedtime reading included books like Grain Brain, It Starts with Food and of course The Primal Blueprint & The Primal Connection—a real fave of mine!

One day my friend Caz said to me “Jeez, H, it’s like you’ve found God.” Point taken. I was compelled to spread the Primal word, so I started a blog and called it “Primal Soapbox.” People read it! I got emails and people stopping me in the street, telling me they felt the same as I had done, asking me “what should I eat.”

I started to share recipes, and the feedback I got was “how do you have the time!” So I offered to make it for them! My food line was born! I had also found a way to supplement our family income, just by cooking with my Thermomix in my kitchen!! Council (health dept) approved five items that they deem ‘low risk’ enough to be baked from home, for sale to the public. I started to sell my homemade Paleo Fruit Toast, Seasonal Paleo Bread, Gluten & Grain Free Cookies, Paleo Pizza Bases and gut nourishing Gellies at our local community markets, health shops, gourmet pizza shops, delis and cafes.

The feedback I got was AMAZING! My Primal Alternatives were life changing! It’s fine having plants and animals, plants and animals, plants and animals, but sometimes you want a slice of hot toast…and oh! Pizza night!!! I found my products helped people to ‘stay on the wagon,’ and it made going Primal way more sustainable and doable.

Meanwhile – to satisfy my thirst for my Primal knowledge and to gain credibility I graduated as Primal Health Coach, such an amazing course! I could listen to the course work whilst I was creating and then sit the tests! I now have a successful Primal Health Coaching business, and I work with women across the world empowering them to get their health back.

Meanwhile, my health continues to improve. My sleep is AH MAZING I thought this level of sleep was only reserved for husbands! Everything is just working like it should be—for the first time in my life. My mood is default happy and positive, and my resilience is off the charts! Yes, life is still up and down, but it no longer overwhelms me. I barely think about the kids getting sick, and if they do I can handle it, plus I have done a flight to the UK and have a flight to NZ planned for 2017.

Not to put you off with any hocus pocus, but the one thing that has been most transformational for me is my connection to the universe. I feel so connected. I feel like the universe ‘downloads’ my purpose to me. My inner guide is honed. I am living ‘on purpose.’ I know my reason. Part of my transformation has been personal growth, I have been drawn to light workers and realised I am one too. When I received guidance to franchise Primal Alternative so that other Mums like me, with a passion for Primal could also work from home and align their passion for income, I did it. I am so proud to now have www.primalalternative.com and invite you to take a look. There was so much work involved in there that I would never have had the courage, focus or energy to do pre-Primal.

I feel like my previous life as a Personal Trainer and then Recruiter has primed me for a life as a great coach. I take great pleasure in educating women that their health issues are not their fault and they are not alone. I delight in watching women transform ‘just’ from getting back to the foods and lifestyle that we thrive on as a species.

I choose Primal over paleo because Primal is about becoming an expert in you. I think that a blanket approach to health is quite negligent and find Primal to be more empowering, flexible, and therefore sustainable and doable. Primal is all about the joy of life.

Much gratitude to Mark Sisson for leading this tribe and being an inspiration to us all. Thanks for reading!

H

You can find more about me and my work here or on my Facebook page.

Watch out for my upcoming interview on the Primal Blueprint Podcast!! Woooo!!

The post I Was Amazed You Could Fix So Many Health Problems with A Change in Diet! appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Win Whole30® Approved Goodness from U.S. Wellness and PRIMAL KITCHEN™!

The Prize:

A $100 Whole30® approved variety package from U.S. Wellness Meats. U.S. Wellness now carries over 30 Whole30 approved items including: Beef Breakfast Polish Sausage Sliders, Bison Chorizo Sausage, Pork Breakfast Sausage, Hickory Smoked Sliced Beef Brisket, Garlic Beef Franks, Pork Bacon Slices, Slow Roasted Shredded Beef, and my personal favorite, Beef Braunschweiger.

PRIMAL KITCHEN™ Whole30® Kit: In the world of real food eating, it’s often what you put on your food that keeps it interesting. The PRIMAL KITCHEN™ Whole30® Kit includes my California Extra Virgin Avocado Oil, Classic Mayonnaise, Chipotle Lime Mayonnaise, Greek Vinaigrette, and dairy-free Ranch Dressing.

BONUS: Get a FREE extra bottle of Primal Kitchen Ranch Dressing when you order the PRIMAL KITCHEN™ Whole30® Kit by January 31st.

Unfamiliar with Whole30®? The Whole30® program, developed by celebrity nutritionists Melissa and Dallas Hartwig, is a 30-day short-term nutritional reset, designed to help you put an end to unhealthy cravings and habits, restore a healthy metabolism, heal your digestive tract, and balance your immune system

As I laid out in my bestselling book The Primal Blueprint, an ideal diet should focus on quality sources of protein (all forms of meat, fowl, fish), lots of colorful vegetables, fruit (mostly berries for their antioxidant properties) and healthy fats (nuts, avocado, coconut, olive oil). The Whole30® builds on these principles with a 30-day diet of eliminating certain foods (sugar, grains, dairy, alcohol, unhealthy oils and legumes) to discover how those foods may impact health, fitness, and quality of life.

The Contest:

Today’s contest is so easy a caveman could…well, it’s super easy. Follow @USWellnessMeats, @PrimalKitchenFoods, & @MarksDailyApple on Instagram, then tag a friend on the contest post here, and we’ll gift a SECOND prize package to the winner’s buddy! More tags = more chances to win.

While there can only be two official winners, you can still acquire some of your own top quality meats by visiting U.S. Wellness online. And don’t forget to check out U.S. Wellness on Facebook and YouTube. Grok on!

Eligibility:

Only U.S. residents are eligible.

The Contest End Time:

January 22 at 11:59 PM, PDT.

How the Winner Will Be Determined:

A winner will be chosen at random and emailed to arrange for delivery.

The post Win Whole30® Approved Goodness from U.S. Wellness and PRIMAL KITCHEN™! appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

4 Ways to Harness Mindfulness for Health Goals—and a CONTEST

It’s hard to believe we’re already midway through the 21-Day Challenge. How is everyone faring? What effects are you noticing? Where have you found your successes and your stumbling blocks?

What’s motivating you right now? How do you feel yourself settling into the practices you’ve adopted since the first day? Even if you’ve experienced some wavering (that’s no reason to abandon the venture, you know), what brings you back to the center of your intention? How do you reclaim the moment?

Reclaim the moment…. A rather powerful concept. It reminds us that—at any time—we can realign ourselves with the now. Moving our attention from the past (regret) or the future (pessimism, anxiety), we claim the potential of the present. We apply ourselves mindfully. In possessing the moment, we achieve self-possession.

But let me be clear. This isn’t some mental game. This is how success happens. Now…and now. Applying mindful observation to our sensations, to the environment’s feedback, to our own string of thoughts—without getting sucked into side stories about what we should think about them—this is where self-empowerment resides. Health research concurs.

Mindfulness targets binge eating.

We all have those moments where our basic (or skewed) survival instincts override conscious reason. A binge at the neighbor’s playoff party or an evening raid on the chocolate stash can leave your kick-start challenge or health aspirations in the dust, setting you back woefully far. It’s a common enough situation, and there’s no point dwelling in regret. But what if you could rewire your consciousness to fend off a replay?

Research suggests that the solution may be simpler than you think. One study evaluated the efficacy of mindfulness-based eating training (MB-EAT) in addressing the core issues contributing to binge eating disorders. According to the study proponents, MB-EAT “involves training in mindfulness meditation and guided mindfulness”, including controlling responses to emotional states, making conscious food choices, and developing an awareness of hunger and satiety cues. In essence, making you more consciously aware of the mechanisms behind the uncontrollable drive for certain foods.

And apparently it works. Following a review of several MB-EAT clinical studies, “evidence to date supports the value of MB-EAT in decreasing binge episodes, improving one’s sense of self-control with regard to eating, and diminishing depressive symptoms.” Another study published in the same year came to a similar conclusion, finding “initial evidence supporting the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions to the treatment of eating disorders.”

Yet another, which evaluated the effect of mindfulness-based meditation on the binge-eating habits of obese women, found that these women were able to decrease their binge eating frequency from around 4 times per week to 1.5 times per week. Those binges were also shown to diminish in severity.

I certainly believe that if you’re serious about kicking any undesirable eating habits, you must first address all of the underlying causes…and state of mind most certainly slots into this category. Mindfulness meditation or training can help you to recognize problem areas in your eating practices and consciously overhaul any habits you’re ready to leave behind.

But beyond simple binge aversion, mindful eating can help us not only enjoy our food more, but actually can get us thinking about the quality and contribution of that food—i.e. consciously examining and critiquing the food we put in our bodies before we shovel it in.

Some Take-Home Action Items:

Download a mindfulness-based meditation app on your smartphone or tablet. It doesn’t need to be something fancy or expensive, just provide someone or something that can guide your mind to becoming more consciously present. Performing a meditation for 5-10 minutes in the morning or evening will provide the building blocks for your mindful eating approach.
Apply mindful awareness before you even bring a food home. As you stand there in the grocery aisle, really think about whether you’re buying it because you want it, or buying it because you need it. If it’s a Primal food, need will almost always align with want.
Before you sit down for a meal or even a snack, enter into a consciously alert state. To do this, remove any potential distractions from your immediate surroundings – TVs, radios, magazines, phones, computers, maybe even the odd person, if they’re edging into the chatterbox category.
Deliberately slow yourself down. Savor the flavor and consistency. You’ll find your taste will sharpen, you’ll reach satiety sooner, and you’ll be more in tune with how your body reacts to what you eat.

Not only will these practices help you avoid overeating or turning to foods you’ll regret later, it’ll elevate your enjoyment factor exponentially. What’s the point in eating if you don’t pay attention to what you eat, anyway?

Mindfulness dissolves stress.

You could resolve all other anti-health stumbling blocks and still trip over if stress has you firmly in its talons. And a proven way to target stress, anxiety and depression is to practice mindfulness.

Of course, mindfulness meditation is a great start. It allows us to become acquainted with the sensation of quieting focus, which can feel so antithetical to what drives the modern world. The key, however, is to then extend that lightness into daily living. I’ve talked previously about how dispositional mindfulness is the way to go. This takes mindfulness beyond the realm of ad-hoc meditation and plants it firmly in everyday life—moment by moment.

Harnessing an awareness of your thoughts and and sensations throughout the course of each day, can enable you to overhaul the physiological effects of psychological stress. In short, dispositional mindfulness buffers against real and perceived stress, improves self-esteem, and minimizes the subsequent negative hormonal responses that can lead to weight gain, disordered eating, and general health issues.

For more on a Primal perspective on dispositional mindfulness (and how to integrate it into your life), check out this post I did a while back. As I mention there, it’s more about tuning into the subtleties of your mind and body, to the point that it becomes second nature. Taking up daily conscious behaviors, performing meditative activities as much as possible, and focusing on your breathing whenever you feel your emotions getting the better of you, are easy ways to develop dispositional mindfulness.

Mindfulness promotes a “whole-body” approach to health.

I’ve written before about how our bodies actually play a role in steering our emotions. The physical act of doing something, such as dancing, singing or touching can and does impact the way we think, and the way we interact with the world. Grok worked through emotional trauma or underlying mental instabilities by partaking in dances and physical rituals that encouraged feelings of stability, safety, and belonging.

For this reason, consider extending mindfulness to encompass your whole body. It seems a little redundant, on account of the fact that you’re now treating your whole physical being as a “mind,” but if recent research into our gut (a.k.a second brain) is anything to go by, there’s more truth to that than we might initially realize.

Think of the postures you embody when preparing for your day, a good meal or an evening’s workout. Are they empowered or disempowered? Even if you’re not feeling the same degree of enthusiasm after a long day or short night’s sleep, assume stances that summon power—and you’ll feel stronger and resilient.

Another example: are you tuned into what movements your body might enjoy in a workout, or do you slog through the same routine regardless of what you’re picking up on? While a certain degree of structure keeps us aligned with our goals, performing a range of motions and exercise variants fitting to your preferences in the moment may both challenge different muscles and abilities and perhaps enhance your mood to boot. You’ll walk away feeling more energized in both regards.

This is exactly what the 21-Day Challenge advocates. Your body responds to this mindful movement by correcting imbalances and upgrading muscle and bone networks, and that’s good news for everyone.

Mindfulness supports a regular exercise regime.

We so often think that adherence to our goals necessitates pushing, manipulating even reprimanding ourselves. I’ve always believed in integrity rather than discipline. Sure enough, adopting a more mindful attitude can help us stay in that space where integrity meets intention.

A study published in the Journal of Behavior Research and Therapy  performed an interesting trial whereby they examined the relationship between exercise maintenance and mindfulness on 266 YMCA gym members. According to the study designers, “those who were successful at maintaining exercise tended to score higher on measures of mindfulness and acceptance…exercisers having greater mindfulness and acceptance are less reactive; responding with more balanced appraisals to threats to their exercise regimen which in turn promotes increased exercise maintenance.”

Another study of 62 women over 6 months found that those who applied mindfulness meditation practices to their daily or weekly routine had a much higher level of physical activity (i.e. exercise) than those who didn’t use mindfulness. And wouldn’t you know, they also showed greater reductions in BMI, most likely due to their concurrent reduction in binge eating.

Personally, I incorporate mindfulness meditation every day as does my wife, Carrie. My approach doesn’t look the same as hers, but we both reap major benefit from our practices. I even work with more active meditation styles for “rest day” workouts when I can tell my body needs some extra recovery time between more intensive days. The result? I simultaneously get to relax, enjoy some low level movement, and attune to my body’s cues with more precision. The advantages carry over, believe me.

Thanks for reading today, everyone. And now check out the contest below for a fun way to share your own experience of MINDFUL LIVING.

CONTEST:

Can you think of one way you practiced mindfulness during the last week? Even if you didn’t identify it as such in the moment, when did you bring a quieting focus to a choice or an hour of your day? If one doesn’t come to mind, how would you like to incorporate more mindful living in the coming week of the Challenge? Share your answer below, and I’ll give you the opportunity to share something special with family or friends. I’ll be giving away three 21-Day Total Body Transformation Essentials Packages to one lucky person who leaves a comment below. The winner will be chosen at random.

Deadline:

This contest expires today, Jan. 19, at 11:59 pm PST.

The post 4 Ways to Harness Mindfulness for Health Goals—and a CONTEST appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

11 Physical Challenges to Take This Month

Some people don’t need any help finding physical challenges. They naturally and intuitively figure out ways to engage physically with the world and test their prowess. But that’s not everyone, or else we’d see people sprinting down the street, hurdling park benches, climbing flagpoles, and swinging from tree branch to tree branch. It’d be a cool world, to be sure. It’s just not the one we live in.

In this world, where physical challenges are usually optional, we have to go looking for them.

What are some fitness challenges to try? I’ve got 11.

1. Climb a tree tall enough to make you a little queasy.

How high you go depends on the climber’s faculties and experience. Don’t underestimate yourself on this one, however.

This one, of course, tests both psychological and physical fitness. Everyone has that point where they begin questioning the decision to climb. And climbing itself requires hand-eye coordination, tactical planning, and physical strength. Compared to bouldering, climbing a tree is much more user-friendly, allowing the climber to dictate the terms of ascent. You can rest in between branches, or go full steam ahead. You can get winded, or take long rest periods in between bouts of exertion.

Try different routes up and back. Practice until you can ascend and descend smoothly.

Do pullups and dips on the branches. Use your legs for assistance if needed.

Take a selfie at the top. Post it to social media and bask in the adulation. You earned it.

2. Return to an activity you used to do all the time but haven’t touched in years.

For me, it’d be basketball. I always liked the game but was too small to make it very far in school. That’s actually why I turned to running—the more illustrious football and basketball options didn’t work for a guy my size.

Maybe you were incredibly passionate about martial arts as a kid, but drifted away after high school. Go take an introductory class at the local gym. They’re usually free.

Maybe you were a decent wrestler in high school. Get back into it. Barring that, roughhouse with a friend.

Maybe you figure skated as a kid, giving it up when it became apparent you weren’t elite-level material. Go down to the ice rink and strap on a pair. See how it feels.

Unearth your passions and check for viability.

3. Go rucking for at least 3 hours.

From hunter-gatherers lugging auroch quarters back to camp, Roman legionairres carrying 80 pound packs on campaigns, to patchouli-scented trustafarians backpacking their bong through Bali, the act of trekking with something heavy on your person is a time-honored human tradition.

Maybe you grab a couple friends and go backpacking in the nearest uninterrupted slice of nature (lots of places have short backpacking trips you can cover in 2-3 nights). Maybe you do a dayhike with a really heavy bag. Maybe you freak your neighbors out by walking around the block a few times with a kettlebell in the rack position.

Just carry something heavy and go walk.

4. Swim in cold water for ten minutes.

Aim for sub-65° water. Cold enough that you inhale sharply, but not so cold that you have to take Wim Hof’s course just to survive.

Swim sprints with plenty of rest. Swim laps at a slow pace. Try swimming the entire length of the pool underwater. See at least how far you can get.

Breaststroke and freestyle are the easiest strokes to learn from scratch.

You don’t have to swim. You could just sit there. But I find swiming, even very light swimming, helps me deal with the cold water.

5. Try a set of weighted max-rep (20 minimum) squats.

There’s something about putting a moderately heavy weight on your shoulders, squatting down, coming back up, and repeating it as many times as you can.

They don’t have to be back squats. Other options include the zercher hold, the front rack position, goblet squats, wearing a weight vest, or holding weights in your hands.

They don’t have to be heavy. Aim for 20 reps at least, so choose a weight that makes that possible but really difficult at the same time. It should be a struggle toward the end (these 20 rep squats are sometimes called breathing squats, because you have to stop in the middle to catch your breath).

If squats don’t agree with you, check out any of the alternatives I mentioned a couple years ago.

6. Do the horse stance for at least five minutes.

This is the horse stance. It’s a mainstay of Chinese martial arts, whose proponents say it develops a type of lower body strength and stability unlike any other execise. It teaches you to “root” to the ground. It’s also not too bad for the quads and glutes.

Assuming you have the flexibility, it starts out real easy. But after 30-45 seconds, things get serious. Your thigh might start trembling. You might feel the urge to dip your shoulders and break the integrity of your spine. Work up to being able to sit in the horse stance for five minutes.

Do it every morning, first thing when you get up. I find it opens up the hips quite nicely, so any subsequent movement comes more easily.

For a little added difficulty, try slowly rising up on your toes while in the stance. Maintain the upright torso. Then slowly lower yourself back down. Repeat.

If you can get someone to whack you with bamboo poles every few seconds, all the better.

7. Do the Wingate Test.

The Wingate Test is what exercise physiologists use to test an athlete’s peak anaerobic output: 4 30-second, all-out sprints on a stationary bike at maximal resistance with 4 minutes rest in between. To illustrate just how difficult these are, subjects peforming Wingate Tests typically get puke buckets.

This month, take a Wingate Test. I don’t intend for you to commission a an exercise scientist to run a study on you. Just get your hands on a stationary bike of some sort, crank up the resistance, and do it. Set aside 20 minutes or so to complete the whole thing. Puke bucket is up to you.

8. Walk all day long.

Long, long walks are restorative. They’re where you find yourself, where you arrive at solutions to problems you thought were unsolvable.

But they’re also physically harder than you think. Most people just aren’t prepared to walk all day long anymore. Even people with pristine 10k daily step records bow out after a few hours.

You may have to work up to an all-day walk by taking lots of shorter walks (this is my secret trick to get you to walk more frequently).

I recommend a blend of city and country if you can make it work. That way you can stop for coffee, maybe browse a book store, ford a stream, hear a hawk’s cry, climb a tree (see above). You know: do it all.

9. Run a mile for time.

Men, try to break 7 minutes. Women, try to break 8 minutes. Move that number up if you’re older or out of shape. Drop it down if you’re younger or in great shape. But think about keeping it intact if only to motivate you to do your best.

Run that mile.

10. Compete against another human.

Competition is good, to a point. It drives us to be our best, and it wrings every last drop of quality out of us. It’s also a powerful motivator, helping us ignore pain and suffering in order to perform and beat the other person.

Competition can be formal (join an adult sports league, sign up for a StrongMan or powerlifting competition) or informal (challenge the local bully to a foot race). It can take many forms, but what’s important is that you test your physical prowess against another human.

11. Attain the feat you’ve been pining after.

Everyone has that white whale of exercises, that physical feat that just eludes us. Sometimes it remains out of grasp because we’re not really trying as hard as we can to get it. This month, get it.

Want your first real pullup? Get after it.

Want to beat your Fran time? Start training.

Want to bench press bodyweight? Redouble your efforts.

Drop everything and work solely toward achieving this specific goal. And if you don’t achieve your goal, you have improved and progressed.

Okay, enough talk. Get moving, folks. Accept a challenge, then defeat it. And maybe shared about it here, eh?

Which one are you going to try? Something from your own stash? Or are you going for more than one?

Thanks for reading, everyone.

The post 11 Physical Challenges to Take This Month appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

How Long Does It Take for Fitness Benefits to Show?

A big reason most people never stick to a serious exercise routine is that the benefits most people are interested in take a while to appear. Fat loss, muscle gain, boosts to strength, speed, and stamina—these physical manifestations of training adherence can take weeks and even months to show. That’s plenty of time for folks to give up, convinced exercise is just not for them.

I get it. I do. But that’s not a valid excuse for not exercising. You know it’s important, you know what the benefits are, and I’m not going to sugarcoat things: training is not optional.

So while we can’t really change when the benefits appear, we can change our expectations of the benefits, making them more realistic and limiting our disappointment when they fail to show in our preferred timing.

So when can we expect some benefits from our hard work?

Some benefits “show” immediately as long as you have the right tools to test them. If you were to take a muscle biopsy, you’d see that muscle protein synthesis—the incorporation of protein into muscle fibers, the first signs of muscular hypertrophy—begins just four hours after you lift something heavy. 

If you were to sample some bone marrow after a single bout of resistance training, you’d notice that you just upregulated production of the cells that heal your endothelial lining.

If you were to hold a stethoscope up to your hamstrings immediately after a sprint session, you’d hear the *pop-pop-pop* of new mitochondria being spawned.

But those aren’t visible to the naked eye, nor are they accessible to the masses. We don’t feel our bone marrow pumping out progenitor cells. Amazon doesn’t sell muscle biopsy kits.

What benefits can we expect (and notice) immediately?

Fat oxidation: Many types of execise will boost the amount of fat you burn over the course of a day. Sprinting, high-intensity intervals, and even doing moderate aerobic activity before breakfast all increase 24-hour fat oxidation.

Insulin sensitivity: A single bout of intense exercise—lifting, running, sprinting, CrossFit—will deplete glycogen and improve your insulin sensitivity. You can’t “feel” that, but you will notice the improved postprandial blood sugar, as well as the ability to consume more carbohydrates without gaining weight the next day.

Endorphins: One immediate benefit is the release of endogenous opioids, also known as beta-endorphins. Studies indicate that it takes about an hour of endurance training for beta-endorphins to release (the runner’s high), while short-term anaerobic training produces similar effects in even less time. One study found that an acute bout of low-volume, high-intensity Olympic weightlifting caused elevations in beta-endorphin. High-intensity anaerobic work produces the biggest endorphin rush for your buck.

Neural strength: Improvements to neuromuscular efficiency happen within days of starting a lifting program. Beginners get stronger almost immediately simply by learning proper technique and how to fully contract the muscle fibers they already have.

Mood: Acute exercise boosts mood immediately after training, even in patients with major depressive disorder.

Sleep: Exercising in the day has a modest but beneficial effect on sleep that night.

Cognitive function: A single bout of high-intensity interval training boosts cognitive performance and brain-derived neurotrophic factor.

Gene expression: A single bout of endurance training also triggers gene expression in both exercising and non-exercising muscles, upregulating the genes responsible for fat oxidation and metabolism.

What benefits can we see later?

Improved body composition: Thanks to improved insulin sensitivity, better glycogen storage (and depletion), increased fat oxidation, and preservation of lean mass, you should start seeing or feeling the first hints of real positive developments in your body composition after about a week. Remember: whether you’re sprinting, lifting, jogging, or all three, exercise is most effective at improving body composition when paired with healthy eating.

Hypertrophy—actual increases in muscle size—needs a few weeks to get moving. It actually takes longer to develop size than strength, though not as long as you might think.

In one study, training the forearms to failure 3 times a week led to a 0.1 cm increase in forearm thickness at 2 weeks and another 0.1 after 4 weeks.

Another study had subjects do leg extensions for 12 weeks. They got stronger and grew muscle up through the first 8 weeks, but the last four weeks’ strength gains were almost all neural rather than structural.

Another study split adult males into two groups. One group did high-volume, lower-intensity full body lifting. The other did low-volume, higher-intensity full body lifting. After 8 weeks, both groups were bigger and stronger in the arms and legs, though the high-intensity group saw more significant growth.

Beginners may just need to get over the initial hump of training-induced muscle damage. One recent study put young men who hadn’t trained in the last six months on a ten-week, twice-a-week lower body lifting schedule, finding that muscle hypertrophy only occurred once muscle protein synthesis exceeded muscle damage. At week one, with muscle damage highest, hypertrophy was minimal. Week three saw less muscle damage and more hypertrophy. Week ten saw a huge drop in muscle damage and a huge spike in hypertrophy. As muscle damage dropped—a marker of adaptation to the training demands—hypertrophy spiked.

Your dominant limbs will probably gain strength faster than your non-dominant limbs, even if you train them equally. There shouldn’t be any difference in size gains, however.

All in all, hypertrophy doesn’t hit its stride until the 8-10 week mark.

As for endurance adaptations, it takes about eight weeks of exclusively low-level aerobic work to build a strong aerobic base. That forms the, well, base of the Primal Endurance program.

You can improve your VO2 max in two to four weeks using intense intervals, two weeks using 4-6 30-second all-out sprints 3x a week (or five weeks sprinting once a week), or continuous endurance training. Running half-mile intervals at full mile race pace is a good way to increase VO2 max fast, if you’re really into it.

Bone mineral density (BMD): Resistance training and high impact exercise maintain bone mineral density, but they can also increase it in elderly, middle-aged people, or anyone who needs it. In older adults, six months is enough to increase BMD, though most BMD studies last a year or two. In one study, overweight Latino kids needed 10 weeks of whole body vibration training for bone resorption to drop, a necessary precondition for increasing bone mineral density.

Whatever you do, don’t take these numbers as gospel.

People respond differently to training for a variety of reasons….

Genetics, for one, plays a role in how—and when—you respond to training.

Prior training status also changes things up. If you’re untrained, you’ll likely see faster results. A complete novice just getting into lifting weights can expect to add 5-10 pounds to the bar each workout for the first few weeks; that’s real strength. If you’re an experienced fitness buff, you’ll need more time. If you’re experienced but coming off a long layover, you’ll see a quick rebound—quicker in many cases than the untrained see.

Age is another factor to consider. The older you are, the longer it’ll take you to respond to training—in general.

Gender also modifies some of the time tables. A 12-week sprinting program helps both men and women lose body fat and improve VO2 max, but men lose fat more quickly, while women gain Vo2max more quickly.

Most importantly, consider that these studies report data only for subjects who follow the study protocol and do not drop out. The folks who don’t follow the program aren’t included in the results. So when I say 8 weeks is enough time to gain several pounds of lean mass, I’m talking about people who spend 8 weeks training three times a week, never skipping a workout and never training anything else.

That’s not you. You’re juggling work. You’re cooking dinner. You’re trying to squeeze in enough time to make it to the gym, or the CF class, or the track, or the trail. If you want to skip a workout, you can. There’s no research scientist compelling you to complete the program.

You’re also not doing just sprints or just weights or just endurance. You’re likely taking walks, lifting some heavy things, playing games, biking on the weekends, running a mile, doing a circuit. No one study can encompass the context of your life and the heterogeneity of your training.

A single workout can make you happier, sharper, and stronger. It can help you sleep, clear space in the muscles for glucose storage, and have a healthier response to food.

Then you do another one two days later, and those benefits only increase.

And another. With even more benefits.

My point? Don’t get hung up on the concrete benefits. They’re coming, and some of the best ones are already here. Let the training work. Just keep doing it.

Thanks for reading, everyone. As we approach the home stretch of the Challenge, I’d love to hear from you. What benefits have you noticed so far?

Take care, everybody.

The post How Long Does It Take for Fitness Benefits to Show? appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Contest: Prizes for Your Thoughts

The Prize:

The Primal Blueprint Platinum Package, and 5 Primal Blueprint Publishing books of your choosing.

The Platinum Package is the ultimate in supplementation and is what thousands of Primal enthusiasts and I take daily. It includes: Primal Master Formula, Primal Fuel, Primal Probiotics, Primal Omegas, and a Primal Sun booster.

What are five of your favorite Primal Blueprint Publishing titles? Want a copy of The New Primal Blueprint—the brand new, updated version of the book that started it all? Or would you like to try out one of our other new releases, like The Paleo Thyroid Solution, Good Fat, Bad Fat, or Primal Endurance? Perhaps you’re looking to expand your cookbook library…. The choice is yours! Today’s winner picks any FIVE books from PrimalBlueprint.com!

The Contest: 

This one’s simple. If you’ve used any of the Primal Blueprint supplements I’d love to hear from you. Has Primal Fuel helped you eliminate sugar cravings and lose body fat?

Have Primal Probiotics helped improve your digestion and regularity? Did you reverse a vitamin D deficiency with Primal Sun?

Tell me about it by filling out this form.

I get success story emails every day, but I never tire of hearing how the Primal Blueprint family of supplements (books, events and services) have helped people take control of their health and change their lives.

Eligibility:

Anyone can enter.

The Contest End Time:

January 22, 11:59 PM PDT.

How the Winner Will Be Determined:

One winner will be randomly selected.

The post Contest: Prizes for Your Thoughts appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Dear Mark: Your Challenge Questions Answered

Last week, you guys asked me a ton of questions as part of a contest. Today, I’m going to answer an initial batch. (If you don’t see yours, check back on Mondays to come when I’ll take up others.) First, can excess fat be stored as body fat? If so, how? Second, can this way of eating help with seasonal allergies? Third, what’s the proper pushup progression for someone who can’t do a full one? Fourth, when should I take my probiotics, vitamin D3, and fish oil? Fifth, is canned fish a viable way of obtaining omega-3s, or does the canning process damage the fats? Sixth, is there a trick to beating a weight loss plateau? Seventh, is there a way to make sardines palatable? And eighth, if you can’t walk one day, can you make it up the next?

Let’s go:

Hi Mark,

I’ve never found a great answer to what happens to excess fat that is eaten when one is an efficient fat burner. If insulin isn’t present to store it, does it get stored? By what pathway? Do we excrete it? I can guess that pathway.

Thanks,

Sam

Excess fat is stored as body fat thanks to acylation stimulating protein, or ASP. Like carbs stimulate insulin, dietary fat stimulates ASP, the “most potent stimulant of triglyceride synthesis.”

The trick is that when one is an efficient fat-burner on a low-carb, high-fat diet, it’s really, really hard to overeat enough fat to lead to major fat gain. Such a nutrient-dense metabolic milieu promotes satiety and reduces hunger, leading to the spontaneous and inadvertent reduction in calories. It’s this effect, coupled with the improvement in substrate utilization and retention of lean mass, that’s most responsible for the improved body composition and increased fat loss seen on these diets.

There’s always some insulin, by the way. And insulin doesn’t directly store fat. It switches the body into glucose-burning mode and hinders the release of stored body fat for burning.

Some excretion occurs, yes, but not much. We’re quite efficient at absorbing and utilizing dietary fats.

Hi Mark,

I was wondering if the 21 day challenge and primal eating would be able to help with seasonal allergies. The cedar tree pollen is killing the entire family this winter ?

It might. Check out these two posts on the subject I wrote.

Long story short, these tips may help you:

Give up gluten.
Eat your fish.
Find local cedar tree honey.
Take quercetin.
Get enough vitamin C.
Try some spirulina.
Eat enough zinc (oysters and red meat).
Eat fermented foods.
Get sunlight or take vitamin D3.
Take prebiotics and probiotics.
Fix your leaky gut.

I struggle with push ups. Are there any other exercises that I can do other than push ups to build those muscles?

Totally. Start with wall pushes. Progress toward full floor pushups by gradually lessening the angle between you and the floor. So, from wall pushes you’d move to counter pushes to coffee table pushes to pushups on the lowest step on a staircase. When those get easy, you can probably graduate to a full pushup on the floor.

Whatever you do, always maintain the proper plank position.

Hello Mark, I am excited for this 21 day challenge, as I incorporate supplements into my diet, does the timing of when I take my soil, oil, and sun (Vit D) matter? Can I take them together in the morning, at lunch, are there different times they need to be taken?

Thanks,

Chris L

It doesn’t seem to matter too much.

Some people report sleep disturbances taking vitamin D late in the day (with vitamin D acting as a daytime signal for your circadian rhythm).

You might absorb probiotics better with food or 30 minutes before a meal, since they seem to survive the transit through our gut when taken this way (as opposed to after a meal). This makes perfect sense given how we’ve historically encountered probiotics: attached to the food in the form of dirt (soil based organisms) or intrinsic to the food (fermentation).

Take fish oil whenever you take the probiotics, as it’s food.

Hi Mark. Instead of Omega 3 capsules, I have taken to eating tinned mackerel in brine. However, what concerns me is whether the omega 3 fatty acids may have been oxidized by the cooking process used to cook the mackerel. Is that something to worry about?

Canning fish is a rather gentle process, and the end result provides bioavailable omega-3s.

The fish are cooked whole. Fatty acids are always more stable in whole food form.

The fish are pressure cooked inside the can. This minimizes expose to oxygen and light—two powerful oxidative forces.

Eating canned fish (salmon and albacore) and taking fish oil capsules both result in similar changes to tissue EPA and DHA—so the omega-3s are “making it through.”

Hey Mark,

I’ve been primal for the last year with the exception of December.

I’ve had great success with weight loss but I struggle getting my body fat percentage below 16%. Any tips? And I have been pretty consistent with my sprint training every week

What you try of the following depends on where you’re starting. That’s up to you to decide.

Try skipping a meal each day. By skipping either breakfast or dinner, you’re tacking an extra 4-8 hours of not-eating onto the 8 hours of not-eating already occurring when you sleep. That can boost fat burning and make it easier to reduce your calorie intake.

Try lowering carbs. Carbs tend to creep up. If you’re eating more carbs than you’re earning in the gym, you may be hanging around in an hyperinsulinemic state. This inhibits fat oxidation and makes it harder to burn fat—especially if you’re also eating higher fat at the same time.

Try increasing carbs. If you’re training really hard consistently, you may be earning carbs but not eating them. This can create a depressed metabolism and increase stress hormones, which can hamper fat loss. Pay your glycogen debt.

Try a carb refeed. You may not need to eat more carbs generally. Oftentimes a simple carb refeed consumed shortly before or after an intense workout does the trick.

Make sure you’re lifting heavy things. I find strength training to be one of the most overlooked promoters of fat loss.

Grab a copy of my weight loss troubleshooting eBook. It’s got some great tips.

Dear Mark,

Do you have any recipes that use sardines, preferably after processing them through a food processor? I want to eat sardines, they are healthy, affordable and think I would enjoy the taste, but cannot seem to actually put one in my mouth.

Laura

My favorite way to eat sardines (besides just out of the can or slapped onto a salad) is mixed with extra virgin olive oil or avocado oil, chopped preserved lemon (fresh lemon juice works too, but the funkiness of the preserved lemon is ideal), kosher salt, coarse pepper, and a few chickpeas (read up on legumes for my updated stance). If you don’t want the chickpeas, throw this onto some salad greens.

A guilty pleasure of mine also involves sardines: rice, sardines, ketchup. Trust me on that. It’s worth the rice to get sardines in your life.

Hey Mark! It may be nice in Southern California, but here in Northern California it’s an “atmospheric river”–not ideal for getting out and walking. My office is small, so no good indoor place to get some steps in. So, my question is–does walking a lot (~20,000+ steps) on other days “make up” for missing days like today when it’s pouring? Or is walking daily more important (even if it’s walking in circles inside your office/home)? Thanks!!

Yeah, totally. You can walk a bunch one day and none the next. Do whatever works. Life is fractal.

Some daily movement is ideal, of course. Options?

Do some light movement routines like the ones laid out in the rajio taiso post from a couple years back. Don’t count this as a “workout,” but do keep moving for a solid 15-20 minutes at a time. Easily done in a small room.

Pace the room. I’d get pretty miserable. I don’t know about you.

Go outside and walk in that storm! There’s nothing like disappearing into a rainstorm, hood up, walking in time to the percussion of the drops thundering down. I like going barefoot when I walk or hike through the rain, as bare feet are easy to wash, rain doesn’t ruin them, and the soles come with equipped with Darwinian anti-slip technology you won’t find elsewhere.

That’s it for today, folks. I’ll get to more questions in the future. For now, though, keep up the great work!

The post Dear Mark: Your Challenge Questions Answered appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Contest: You Might Be Primal If…

The Prize:

12 PRIMAL KITCHEN™ Chocolate Hazelnut Bars: The PRIMAL KITCHEN™ Chocolate Hazelnut Bar is the coveted combination of chocolate and hazelnut we all remember and love, and it’s guilt-free to boot. Nutritional bonus: it’s packed with beneficial healthy fats, 15 grams of protein and low in carbs and sugar (only 3 grams). To craft the perfect high-protein, low-sugar bar, we’ve toasted our hazelnuts for sweet aromatic flavor and crisp, crunchy texture, and paired them with unsweetened chocolate.

12 PRIMAL KITCHEN™ Macadamia Sea Salt Bars: Who doesn’t love the distinctly buttery, sweet flavor of macadamia nuts with a hint of sea salt? PRIMAL KITCHEN™ Macadamia Sea Salt Bars were created with Mark’s favorite nut in mind and contain only 12 grams of carbs—the lowest carb bar in the PRIMAL KITCHEN™ lineup!

12 PRIMAL KITCHEN™ Dark Chocolate Almond Bars: Turkish almonds and roasted pumpkin seeds are enrobed in a dark chocolate, chewy, caramel coating with an added touch of coconut for a subtly sweet taste and mightily beneficial impact on your health. All PRIMAL KITCHEN™ protein bars are made with grass-fed collagen protein from Brazil. Collagen has been shown to help improve joint mobility, improve sleep quality, support skin, hair and nail growth, and enhance digestion.*

12 PRIMAL KITCHEN™ Coconut Cashew Bars: What do you get in a PRIMAL KITCHEN™ Coconut Cashew Bar? Monounsaturated fats for heart health, prebiotic fiber for digestive health, plus antioxidants, minerals and 15 grams of protein from grass-fed collagen. That’s more collagen than a cup of bone broth! Cashews, almonds and pumpkin seeds satiate with a nutty crunch, while coconut imbues our bars with a creamy, sweet flavor.

The Contest (an Oldie but a Goodie):

If you were alive in the mid-1990’s, you may remember comedian Jeff Foxworthy’s empire of “You might be a redneck if…” humor. Today I’m looking for “You might be Primal if…” jokes. Think one up and leave it in the comment board.

Examples:

You might be Primal if you’ve been banned from your local grocery store for repeatedly violating the “No shirt, no shoes, no service” policy.
You might be Primal if you’ve never used an elevator. Ever.
You might be Primal if you prefer your apple with worms.
You might be Primal if you accidentally broke your neighbor’s second story window with a kettlebell.
You might be Primal if every butcher in America can recognize you on the spot.
You might be Primal if you measure friends, relatives, and children not by the mettle of their character, but by how far you could throw them.
You might be Primal if you’ve started to use Tabata intervals for dish washing, shopping, shaving, and dating.
You might be Primal if you make guests take off their shoes before leaving the house.
You might be Primal if you measure time by the number of cows you’ve consumed since an event occurred… “When did we take that trip to Portland?” “Oh, that was about 3 cows ago.”

Eligibility:

Anyone in the world can enter, though this prize may only be available to U.S. contestants. In the case of an international winner, substitute prizes of equal value will be shipped.

The Contest End Time:

Midnight PST, tonight!

How the Winner Will Be Determined:

I’ll pick a handful of my favorites and let all of you decide the winner through a reader poll.

The post Contest: You Might Be Primal If… appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.