Mark Sisson's Blog, page 276

8 Signs You Probably Don’t Need More Protein

Protein: it’s the only macronutrient everyone embraces. Vegans, vegetarians, SAD dieters, and paleos always seem to be cramming more of it down their throats. And usually, more protein is a pretty good move. Dieters, the elderly, the stressed, the wounded, the burned, and many other populations tend to benefit from more protein. A few months ago, I even talked about 12 signs that indicate a person needs more protein. But there is an upper limit, particularly for your wallet; protein is expensive. If you can find ways to reduce it in your diet without harming yourself or losing the benefits, why wouldn’t you do it?

Today, I’m going to explain the 8 signs that indicate you may have topped out on protein. It’s not that more would necessarily harm you. More just might be pointless.

You’re obviously gaining muscle.

Here’s the thing that a lot of strength training beginners don’t understand: gaining pure, unadulterated muscle mass is hard work. It doesn’t happen overnight, and no one except for genetic freaks and performance enhancing drug enthusiasts are putting on ten pounds of muscle in a month. Heck, even five or six pounds is a huge stretch for a beginner.

So if you’re noticing changes in the mirror, you’re probably okay on the protein. If your pants are getting looser around the waist but tighter around the thighs and butt, you’re gaining good weight. If friends are commenting on your gains, that’s a sign that whatever amount of protein you’re eating is working. And that’s about all you can ask for — gradual, steady muscle gain to the tune of a pound or less a month. Adding more protein on top of that probably won’t make a difference.

You’re not particularly hungry.

This is the holy grail of dieting, isn’t it? The absence of hunger. All the things that actually make weight loss happen — spontaneous calorie reduction, lack of junk food cravings, adherence to the diet, ability to focus on things that you don’t put in your mouth — flow from the lack of insistent, aggravating hunger. If you’ve achieved this, your protein intake is probably at the right level.

This applies in acute satiety. Protein is the strongest promoter of short-term satiety following a meal, more so than fat or carbs.

This applies in long term general satiety, too. If you’re not experiencing strong cravings and you’re able to handle yourself between meals without growing ravenous, you’ve probably settled on the proper protein intake.

You’re disgusted at the thought of another bite of chicken breast.

Our satiety mechanisms are particularly sensitive to protein intake because it’s such a vital nutrient, with both inadequate and excessive intakes posing problems. Mammals have even evolved an instinctual specific appetite for protein, unlearned and present at birth. You know how sometimes you just crave a juicy rare steak, so much that you’re salivating? That’s your specific appetite rearing its head. Protein cravings like that are to be heeded. It goes both ways, too. When that steak looks disgusting and you couldn’t possibly imagine another bite, you’re probably right and you should listen to your body.

It’s difficult for the cravings (or lack thereof) for protein to be corrupted. If your body says “no more protein, please” by inducing revulsion, you don’t need it.

You have confirmed kidney insufficiency, damage, or disease.

I’ve said it before: high protein diets do not predispose people to kidney trouble. A healthy kidney absolutely can handle higher intakes of protein without incurring damage. That some markers of protein metabolism go up is physiologically normal, not aberrant. They’re a sign that your kidneys are handling themselves well. If anything, higher protein diets that reduce body weight and improve metabolic syndrome biomarkers are protective of the kidneys and help healthy kidneys stay healthy.

However, if you have pre-existing kidney trouble, you may have to lower your protein intake until it’s resolved. As always in cases like these, your doctor is the best person to consult for specific advice; all I can say is “less is probably better.”

You’re already eating about a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight.

The majority of the evidence suggests that muscle protein synthesis benefits max out in most athletes at around 0.82 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight. There may be something to eating more — and some anecdotal evidence from lifters and bodybuilders would certainly dispute the numbers — but the evidence is unclear. One gram per pound of bodyweight is a good round number to shoot for. Any more is probably unnecessary, unless you’ve got tons of androgens circulating throughout your body (i.e., you’re juicing or you’re an 18 year old male).

You’re getting it from animal sources.

Gram for gram, animal-sourced protein — meat, offal, dairy, eggs — is more efficient than plant protein. It’s more digestible, contains more essential amino acids, promotes nitrogen balance more effectively, and supports growing mammals better than plant protein (PDF). If you’re eating mostly plant protein, you’ll need more grams of protein than a meat eater to get the same effect. One example is in age-related muscle wasting. Compared to soy protein, equal amounts of whey protein are far better at preserving muscle in the elderly at risk for sarcopenia.

What this means, of course, is that you may need less meat, eggs, and whey than you think. It goes a long way.

You’re an advanced strength athlete.

Huh? Wait a minute — don’t the more advanced powerlifters and bodybuilders need more protein? Actually, probably not:

In one study, elite bodybuilders training over an hour a day only needed 1.12 times more daily protein than sedentary controls to maintain nitrogen balance. It was the endurance athletes who needed way more protein than anyone (1.67 times more than sedentary controls) because they were catabolizing so much muscle during training.

And in another study, researchers determined the amount of protein required for nitrogen balance in people who’d never lifted weights, placed them on a 12 week strength training routine, then retested their protein requirements. After becoming “trained,” the subjects protein requirements actually dropped. They were more efficient at protein utilization.

Furthermore, muscle growth slows down as your training years accumulate. You can’t hope for newbie gains forever, and that means protein needs probably drop a bit the more you train.

So, even though it seems unintuitive, the more advanced you are with your training, the less protein you may require.

You’re not trying to lose weight.

To protect against lean mass loss during weight loss, many dieters increase protein intake. This is a good move for most because it helps maintain nitrogen balance and keeps appetite down. However, if you’re maintaining weight and not actively trying to lose it, you don’t need the appetite suppression, and you’re not catabolizing muscle. Protein intake needn’t be increased during weight maintenance.

Of course, if higher protein intakes are helping you maintain your weight by curbing appetite and cravings, carry on.

If some of this advice rings a little odd and seems contradictory to what you’ve heard or read, that’s fine. These are general recommendations to consider “less” protein in select situations, not low protein. As is always the case, play around with the advice and see if it works for you. The primary takeaway is that more protein isn’t always better.

Thanks for reading, everyone! Do these signs jibe with your personal experiences? Let me know down below!

You CAN Lose Weight and Get Healthy. Find Out How>>

Dear Mark: Burning Off Holiday Sugar, Long Bike Commute, and Low Calorie Diets for Teens

For today’s edition of Dear Mark, we’re answering three questions. First up, how can you mitigate and overcome an acute holiday sugar binge? What are the best exercises for getting rid of all that sugar, fast? Next, is a long (like, really long) bike commute congruent with a healthy Primal lifestyle, assuming you also want enough energy and time to lift weights, run sprints, and play with your kids? And finally, are there any downsides to calorie restriction in teens? Probably, so read on to find out.

Let’s go:

Greetings Mark!

I would like to know, given this time of year with abundant tasty treats laying around, what you feel would be the best way for a person to quickly run the sugar through the system and out of their body after say…making out with a tray of Christmas cookies?

Thanks!

Erin

What you want to do is clear out glycogen from your muscles. Glycogen is the storage form of carbohydrates, and by depleting it, we make room for the carbs we eat. Ideally, you’ll do this before you consume an unhealthy amount of sugar. Draining your glycogen stores sensitizes the muscles and clears out space for the sugar to go. Then, you eat a face full of cookies and it’s less of a problem to find space for it.

But exercise works whether you do it before or after (or, I suppose, during).

Best things for sheer glycogen depletion are sprint intervals. Get on the bike, the track, the hill, or the rower and crank out some sprints with minimal rest in between. I like running hills: sprint up, walk down, repeat. Tough, but fair.

CrossFit WODs rival sprint intervals for glycogen depletion. They’re full body, high intensity, and offer minimal rest. You’re basically always moving and burning glycogen when you do a CrossFit WOD.

Tabata bodyweight squats. For 20 seconds, do as many air squats as you can. Maintain form. Rest for 10 seconds. Repeat seven more times.

Tabata kettlebell swings. Same as the squats, only with swings. Use a weight that’s comfortable. Go a little lighter if you have to. You want to be able to maintain good form for the entire four minutes, not hurt yourself.

Burpees. Six sets of 10, or three of 20. More if that’s too easy. Minimal rest. These are nice because they engage the full body: arms, shoulders, chest, legs, glutes. The more muscles you use, the more glycogen you deplete.

Any of the ten-minute workouts from this post would do the trick. They’re quick, to the point, and can be performed at home with minimal to no equipment. Also be sure to check out the Workout of the Week archives for some ideas.

Lower intensity stuff works, too. A bike ride, a quick jog, anything to get your body moving.

You could even just go for a walk. A 20 minute jaunt is enough to lower postprandial blood sugar. Longer walks are even better and can also reduce the postprandial insulin spike.

But if I were trying to break out all the stops, here’s what I’d do:

Go on a hike, making sure to choose a trail with a lot of elevation and tons of large rocks, trees, and other things to climb, scamper across, and play on. Then, hike it. And play while you do it. Climb the trees. Pick up a big rock and carry it for 50 yards before dumping it. Sprint up the hills. Crawl for twenty yards, then crawl backwards. Leap from rock to rock. Do pullups on tree branches. Take detours; see that little deer track leading off to the right? Go check it out and see where it leads. Move and contort your body as much as possible. Breathe heavily, work up a sweat, and feel a burn. It’ll be fun, you’ll have a blast (especially if you convince everyone else to come along), you’ll get fresh air, and you’ll get an intense training effect in the process.

Mark,

I’ve been reading and comparing your High Cost of Commuting article against the many Chronic Cardio articles you’ve written and can’t exactly find an answer to my question, which is:

I currently drive to work, but am wanting to start biking to work again like I did over five years ago (before going Primal). However, due to the distance of the ride (16 miles one-way, 32 miles a day) and my desire to make the trip as quickly as possible, I am concerned that this will fall into the “chronic cardio” category (especially since I still want to sprint once a week, lift twice a week, and play several times a week–think volleyball, pick-up basketball, rough-housing with my boys, etc.). To me, getting to work using my body as fuel seems undeniably primal, not to mention that the old car I drive to work is devoted to that purpose alone, so I would eliminate the need for it.

I do also have a couple options combining biking with public transit, which would cut my overall biking mileage in half or by a factor of four while also reducing my total commute time a bit each day compared to biking the entire distance.

So, chronic cardio or Grok-approved?

Many thanks as always,

Weslee

Yeah, that’s a tough commute. Going as fast as you can for 32 miles a day wouldn’t leave much space in the week for other physical pursuits. Say you’re doing 15 miles an hour, which is vigorous (but not close to all-out) pedaling. Depending on elevation changes, tire pressure, your body weight, and other variables, that burns about 800 calories an hour (PDF), so you’d be looking at an energy expenditure of around 1,600 calories a day just from the commute. More if you really push it. It’s one thing if you’re a professional athlete getting paid to train. It’s another if you’re balancing all that training with a job, a family, and other forms of exercise. You’d need to eat a lot more food (which could be a plus or a minus, depending on how you see it), get perfect sleep, manage stress like a champ, supplement wisely, and you’d be exceeding the “don’t burn more than 4,000 calories a week” limit by a lot. Chronic cardio territory is likely.

If you decide to do it (and it sounds like you’re pretty set on it; I know the feeling!), this is the perfect opportunity to try out heart rate variability monitoring. This will give you objective feedback for tracking your recovery and planning your training so you can avoid, or at least hold off, destroying yourself.

I like the idea of combining biking with public transportation. Maybe go halfway on public transport, making your commute 8 miles each way. That’s not bad at all and can work with the rest of your desired training schedule.

Another option is to stick your bike in the car and drive to work Monday, bike back home that night (leaving the car at work), bike to work on Tuesday, drive home Tuesday night, and repeat as desired for the rest of the week. This will let you bike as often or as little as you want, need, or feel up to doing. And it also gives your legs a rest. I couldn’t imagine doing 32 miles a day and trying to squeeze in sprints or squats. The downside of doing this is you can’t get rid of your car.

You could work sprints and lower body work into your commute. Once or twice a week, throw in some all-out sprints as you ride. Sprint between traffic lights. Sprint up the hills. Toss in a 30 second sprint every two minutes. Round it out with some deadlifts or kettlebell swings for hamstring/posterior chain work (cycling is really quad-centric and you need balance) and you’d be in good shape. Heck, if there’s a playground with horizontal overhead bars along your route, stop in and get pullups out of way.

If/when you undertake this commute, avoid rigidity. Allow plans to change. Don’t feel obligated to make the full commute every single day as fast as you can and rush home to hit the weights or play ball or whatever if you’re not feeling it. Be flexible. This is where HRV monitoring can really help because it tells you — empirically — if you’re recovered enough to do the commute or squeeze in the workout. It tells you when to be flexible and when to stay the course.

Good luck and let me know what you decide to do!

Hi Mark!

I was wondering what the effects of a low carb and/or low calorie diet on testosterone as well as brain function, especially for a developing adolescent male.

Hashim

Well, it depends. If the teen happens to be obese (hopefully not), caloric restriction should actually increase testosterone by improving testicular function and reducing body fat, which has the tendency to convert a portion of circulating testosterone to estrogen.

But besides the treatment of obesity, I wouldn’t advise low calorie diets in growing adolescents. Teens aren’t just smaller, more impulsive humans. They’re sex hormone factories operating at full capacity, building new biological machinery like it’s wartime and the government’s infusing massive amounts of cash into their coffers. For those hormones to work and those bodies to grow and develop, they need food and nutrients. Shortchanging the coffers with unnecessary calorie restriction is not advised.

There’s evidence suggesting that calorie restriction just isn’t a good option for teens. For instance, one paper found that skipping breakfast led to lower cognitive function, with teens who ate breakfast performing better on tests and reporting higher energy levels. And across most of the literature available, breakfast consumption is fairly consistently associated with better academic performance, although there are other variables that could confound the results. Then there’s anorexia, which is particularly devastating to the cognitive function and brain health of teenagers. In teen girls, the cognitive impairments caused by anorexia are associated with hormonal disturbances; I wouldn’t be surprised if similar hormonal effects are found in severely calorie-restricted teen males, too. Anorexia is an extreme example of caloric restriction, but it showcases the potential dangers of insufficient food intake during development.

If the teen in question is just trying to lose weight, increased activity levels actually work fairly well in the adolescent population. I usually recommend a focus on diet before exercise for people trying to lose weight and alter body composition, but it works a little differently in teens. In my experience, overweight or obese teens respond better to increased activity than overweight or obese adults. Less likely to be “metabolically broken,” teens tend to match their calorie intake to their activity levels pretty rapidly — provided those calories are coming from nutritious whole foods like animals and plants rather than processed junk, sweets, and refined grains. You can simply have them train (or ideally play) a little or a lot more than usual while eating sensibly (Primally) and the weight will usually come right off without having to drastically reduce food intake.

It’s a similar story for carbs. Very low carb diets aren’t necessary in healthy teens, in whom cravings will usually follow requirements. If they’re training a lot, maybe playing sports after school, they’ll probably want — and need — a few more carbs. If they’re not as active, or if they’re active but not actively training, they’ll probably want — and need — fewer carbs. I don’t like to limit macronutrients in healthy children and teens, because chances are they don’t really need to do it. Obese teens are a different story, of course. They can benefit from lower calories and carbs, but your garden variety teenager who’s a little worried about the pudge on his stomach should probably just play a sport, eat more meat and veggies and less pizza, go for hikes on the weekends with friends and family, and think about lifting some heavy things.

If the teen doesn’t need to lose weight, there’s no need to consciously reduce calories. It’s way too early to start worrying about life extension through caloric restriction or anything like that. A teen’s quality of life — and hormonal and cognitive health — is better served with sufficient calories.

That’s it for today, everyone. Thanks for reading!

You CAN Lose Weight and Get Healthy. Find Out How>>

Weekend Link Love – Edition 328

There are only 10 days left to enter to win a free jar of Primal Kitchen™ Mayo! You can enter as many times as you like until the sweepstakes comes to a close. Learn more about Primal mayo and enter at the bottom of this blog post.

Research of the Week

In a middle-aged Japanese population, coffee intake was protective against colon cancer. Green tea had no relationship to colon cancer risk.

Farming gave us weaker bones.

If there’s any white crystalline substance that directly causes hypertension, sugar’s the more likely culprit than salt (PDF).

It’s not all about butyrate. Supplementing with propionate, another short chain fatty acid produced by the fermentation of fiber in the gut, lowered belly and liver fat in humans.

iPads are really bad for sleep.

In adults at risk of type 2 diabetes, a lower-carb, higher-fat diet reduces abdominal and intramuscular fat and increases insulin sensitivity.

New Primal Blueprint Podcasts

Each week, select Mark’s Daily Apple blog posts are prepared as Primal Blueprint Podcasts. Need to catch up on reading, but don’t have the time? Prefer to listen to articles while on the go? Check out the new blog post podcasts below, and subscribe to the Primal Blueprint Podcast here so you never miss an episode.

The Definitive Guide to Low-Level Aerobic Activity
10 Ways to Stay Healthy During Holiday Travel
Why Grains Are Unhealthy
The Definitive Guide to Conventional Wisdom
The Definitive Guide to Play

Interesting Blog Posts

Why you should make more of your workouts look (and feel) easy.

Dr. Ron explores how the lifestyle factors that increase heart disease risk probably also increase cancer risk.

Media, Schmedia

Actually, (properly grazed) cows are good for the environment.

It turns out that the dire warnings against parent/infant co-sleeping have been exaggerated — and they probably put more babies at risk.

Everything Else

Dr. Ron Sinha sat down with That Paleo Show to talk about a culturally-tailored approach to living Primal.

In Argentina, an organgutan was just granted “non-human personhood.”

How Americans die (in beautiful graph form).

What 2,000 calories looks like in chain restaurant fare.

Sparks literally fly when an egg meets sperm. Zinc sparks.

What happens when an office eliminates sitting altogether by removing all the chairs?

Kangaroo 1, drone 0.

20 ways to see the light.

There are limitations to blinded studies.

Recipe Corner

This beef and vegetable soup is simple, but hearty and nourishing.
Try making these cinnamon spice pancakes for your relatives tomorrow morning and see if they notice a difference.

Time Capsule

One year ago (Dec 28 – Jan 3)

11 Questions to Ask Yourself at the Start of a New Year – How to figure out your plan of attack for the coming year.
What is Your New Year Vision? – Where do you want to go? Who do you want to be? What do you want to do?

Comment of the Week

I think he was just WAXING poetic.

– Indeed I was.

Beef Carpaccio

Carpaccio is little more than thinly sliced raw meat, but the dish is so delectable it’s hard to believe that’s all there is to it. In a dish as simple as this, high quality (ideally grass-fed) beef tenderloin is a must for its fresh, pure, meaty flavor. Sliced paper thin, the meat will practically melt in your mouth. Beef carpaccio is about flavor and texture.

Of course, along with the great flavor and velvety texture of grass-fed beef comes a bonus; all that omega-3 content. Which makes this light but satiating starter appealing in every way.

Because it’s a starter, not a main course, you’re buying a smaller amount, which makes it a bit easier on the wallet to buy high quality – so go for it. Serve beef carpaccio at a special occasion, or not. Accompanied by a simple salad with Dijon vinaigrette, beef carpaccio is as appropriate on a holiday table as it is at a casual outdoor summer meal.

Servings: 3 to 4, as an appetizer

Time in the Kitchen: 20 minutes, plus 2 hours for meat to chill

Ingredients:

½ pound beef tenderloin (230 g)
3 to 4 handfuls of dark leafy greens, like arugula or baby kale
2 tablespoons lemon juice (30 ml)
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar (15 ml)
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard (5 ml)
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt (a pinch)
½ cup extra virgin olive oil (120 ml)

Instructions:

Wrap the tenderloin in plastic wrap and put in the freezer for 1 ½ to 2 hours. In the freezer for this amount of time, the meat becomes firm (not frozen) and is easier to slice very thinly.

Put serving plate(s) in the refrigerator to chill.

Thinly slice the meat into 1/8 to ¼ inch (3mm to 6 mm) paper-thin pieces. If the pieces are not as thin as you’d like, then loosely wrap the slices in a piece of plastic wrap. Use a meat tenderizer to pound the slices thinly.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt and olive oil. Toss with the greens.

Arrange the slices of meat on chilled serving plates. Arrange the salad around the meat and serve.

Not Sure What to Eat? Get the Primal Blueprint Meal Plan for Shopping Lists and Recipes Delivered Directly to Your Inbox Each Week

From Overtraining to Success with Primal Blueprint Fitness

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. I’ll continue to publish these each Friday as long as they keep coming in. Thank you for reading!

I come from an endurance background—lots of 5Ks, some middle distance—and so my exercise before I found the paleo diet was mostly running—and lots of it. I did enough of it that I developed tendonitis and had to stop competing, which was probably for the best because I was even more mentally drained than I was physically. Around the time I embarked on a primal diet, back in September of 2010, I switched to CrossFit workouts. Actually, CrossFit is what I found first. I had done a CrossFit workout once before without knowing anything about it, and while I hadn’t begun working out that way, it stayed on my mind (as CrossFit workouts can). When I found CrossFit.com and saw the workouts CrossFitters were doing and how athletic they were, I wanted in.

CrossFit’s website recommended that you “base your diet on garden vegetables, especially greens, lean meats, nuts and seeds, little starch, and no sugar.” It seemed very simple, and very odd. My endurance days had depended on plates of pasta, lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (on wheat bread, for health), and lots of milk for bone strength. Yet, I had seen the workouts CrossFitters were doing, had even tried one myself, and they seemed at least as intense as my hardest running workouts and races. But these athletes weren’t eating pasta. Their diets were not 80% carbohydrate. I started researching this bizarre diet, and found “primal eating.”

Back in 2010, primal eating was much more fringe than it is today, but it had some real scientific support and cogent underlying logic: “eat what your body is designed to process.” I was convinced and switched to primal eating. I’ve gained about ten pounds since switching to the primal diet, but I’m very active and attribute that to lean muscle gain. My weight had never been an issue for me, though. What I was after was athletic performance, and I had always understood that what I ate was a major component of that. Now, I had a diet that was enhancing my performance rather than dragging it down. Finding an exercise approach that similarly enhanced my fitness in the long term took a bit more time.

I began CrossFitting on my own at home and at a local non-CrossFit gym. My training plan was predominantly light-weight thrusters, kettlebell swings, burpees, rowing, and wall balls, performed intensely in rounds (or cycles as I think you call them) for durations of 3-15 minutes, plus a fair amount of barbell based strength work. I would characterize my workouts then as “Intense Aerobic.” Every workout was challenging and exhausting, but I never hit maximum intensity—even on my barbell work—and I rarely went easy. It was the kind of CrossFit program that a chronic cardio person would put together. My fitness certainly improved (as it would for any novice in the adaptation phase) but not astoundingly. In pursuit of better training ideas, I ventured beyond CrossFit.com to a number of other coaches involved in mixed-modal (CrossFit-style) fitness. Around June of 2012, I found James Fitzgerald’s site OPEXFit.com. Based on what I learned from OPEXFit, from September 2012 to May 2013, I focused on shorter, more intense mixed-modal workouts of 3-10 minute durations, and heavier strength training. I also really enjoyed rowing, which I found through CrossFit, and decided from May 2013 to July 2013 to focus on lowering my 2K PR (personal record). I switched back to a strength and mixed modal focus from August to December 2013.

In December of 2013 or January of 2014, I rediscovered Mark’s Daily Apple when I passed along an MDA article to a friend who was curious about the Primal [Blueprint] diet. I had read a few MDA articles when I first started eating primally, but MDA didn’t become one of my health and wellness resources—don’t worry, it has now! I was fascinated by Mark’s thoughts on exercise: lots of easy aerobic plus strength work (bodyweight and barbell) and occasional max effort sprints or high intensity mixed modal workouts. This coincided with my reading about polarized training on OPEXFit, and I knew then: I had been overtraining as an endurance athlete, and I had brought that same overly intense aerobic training to mixed modal fitness. Perhaps I could make more gains in less time (and, more importantly, spare myself the feelings of exhaustion, lethargy, and even depression that I had experienced in my days of excessive medium and medium-high intensity endurance training), if I made my training more polarized, more primal. I decided to switch to Primal Blueprint Fitness. The transition was not an immediate, 180 degree turn to the light, but I did begin to incorporate the principles Mark laid out. By May 2014, I was a completely Primal Blueprint athlete. My intense days were much more intense and much less frequent, my easy days were much easier (which took conscious effort and practice, actually), and I began to consider my 45-60 minute walks with my dogs a part of my overall fitness plan. I felt better; more relaxed about my fitness, more playful and happy with it.

And I want to stop to emphasize this point. I really enjoy mixed modal training—the diversity, both within an individual workout and within a mixed modal program, which requires competence in a broad range of movements. But when I was in my Intense Aerobic mixed modal phase, I wasn’t enjoying every workout because I was too tired to want to work out. I felt like I had to do it, and every workout was a max-effort race against the clock. I didn’t know what else to do. Moreover, when I was at my most tired, I believed I had to push the most. This is a precept endurance athletes everywhere will recognize. Though pushing past one’s limits is necessary for a race, or a specific time period, it is a grueling, harmful principle when practiced day after day. Letting go of that need to push hard every single time allowed me to experience my workouts as joyful expressions of movement, rather than as rungs on a ladder to the next personal record.

I’ve been on the Primal Blueprint Fitness path since. I work out at home, with a barbell, kettlebells, a rower, and a pull up bar I built in the garage, to which I added some gymnastic rings for dips. I also put together some farmer’s walk handles. On sprint days, I pick something intense, whether it’s from a mixed-modal training program on OPEXFit or another site, or one I’ve come up with. The rest of the days, I’m lifting heavy or walking around, or doing some easy aerobic mixed modal work, like burpees and rowing at an easy pace with lots of rest. In the last two months, I’ve become more strength-focused, and I’ve begun to incorporate sprinting and farmer’s walks—two powerful, simple, primal movements that have made a tremendous difference to me. As part of my playful, primal approach to fitness, I also joined a CrossFit gym, intending to go every other week as a fun test—like a 5K for mixed-modal athletes—and to meet other people in my community. I felt like I was getting stronger, and I felt more capable when I tried something different (like dropping into a random CrossFit class, or sprinting with my dogs). The joy of being active and the sense of confidence in taking on the unknown were all the reason I needed to follow PB fitness. But then my CrossFit gym hosted a Grace workout to raise money for breast cancer awareness, and I had the opportunity to test my fitness.

Grace is a CrossFit benchmark: 30 Clean and Jerks for time at 135 lbs. I used 115 lbs, based on my estimate of my 1RM power clean and jerk (CrossFit workouts are typically modified to suit the ability of the particular athlete). At the shout of “3-2-1 Go!” I power cleaned and push pressed 115 lbs 30 times in 3:05. When I got home, I looked at my workout log. The last time I did that workout, I did it with 115 lbs, in 4:05 on July 1, 2012. I had just hit a one-minute personal record! And I hadn’t been specifically training for that workout, or even for a CrossFit workout in general. I had been following Primal Blueprint principles: lots of walking, lifting heavy things, and conducting the occasional maximum intensity work.

Intrigued, I reviewed the two months of training I did before my 7/1/2012 Grace, and the two months of training leading up to my recent Grace personal record. To summarize them: preceding the July 2012 test, my workouts were primarily “Intense Aerobic.” They were hard enough so that I was exhausted after, but not anywhere near max effort intensity. They were essentially threshold mixed modal workouts. Of 39 workouts, 18 were intense aerobic. I also had a fair amount of body weight and barbell strength work during that period, but I did zero max effort intensity work (whether sprints or mixed modal). In the two months leading up to my recent Grace personal record, I had: three Intense Aerobic workouts out of 30 (notice I worked out nine fewer times—a near 25% drop). The rest were strength, or easy mixed modal aerobic work (kettlebell swings and squats at an easy pace), four max effort sprint sessions, and two aerobic strength sessions (farmer’s walks). That produced a one minute personal record in 30 Clean and Jerks at 115 lbs. And I think I could have gone faster—I did the first 10 reps in 21 seconds, and then had to back off. Remember the first time you ran a 5K and set a mile PR in the first mile of it? That’s how I paced my Grace. I was just so excited to be working out. I had a blast. My lungs were burning, I was working out with other people, and my wife was there to cheer me on. To see that all of the fun I was having as a PB fitness athlete was also making me fitter amazed me. It just confirmed my feeling that what I was doing—thanks to Mark—was working. I have more fun working out, spend less time doing it, and get better results. I’m at my primal best.

To anyone reading this story who is curious about Primal Blueprint Fitness, I recommend this: try it for a month. It’s really fun. Sprinting: I haven’t sprinted all-out just for fun since I was a kid, and it’s awesome. Letting go of having to hit every workout intensely has made exercise truly enjoyable. Letting go of a set plan makes working out easier. Variety is now part of the game rather than a threat to the training plan. That’s part of the reason I started sprinting and added farmer’s walks. They aren’t part of a set plan—I do them because they are challenging and fun. Also, you’ll start to find fitness everywhere, which will make you feel more active even though you don’t have an hour for an eight-mile run. Feel like walking the dogs and sprinting up a hill? Go for it. Thinking about joining a recreational league team? Do it. Have to travel? I bet you’re doing farmer’s walks through the airport with your duffel bags. The people who, like I was, have been going at an intense pace will have the most trouble doing this. It took me some time before I didn’t have to consciously be aware of easing up on an easy day, and I still have to be aware and slow down when I sense my intensity picking up. I think the first step is to ditch the watch. Don’t time your workouts. Go with what your breathing and heart rate are telling you.

I’d love to write more about this, but now I have to render lard from some pork fat I picked up at the farmer’s market. If folks have questions for me in the comments, I’ll be happy to answer as many as I can!

Jay

You CAN Lose Weight and Get Healthy. Find Out How>>

Happy Holidays

In the dim light of morning here, I’m thinking we’ll all wake up to varying ways of observing the day. Whether or not yours is a spiritual celebration today, there’s something to the collective tradition and cultural pause.

We might gather with ones we love or send our greetings from afar. We might share our meal and company today with strangers in either friendly camaraderie or personal service. We might spend the day in intentional or ambivalent solitude. Whatever your circumstances and celebration, however, I hope the day offers you the chance to recharge your physical self, to enjoy the experiences and connections that fill you, to honor the good in your life past and present.

I know I’m grateful today for my health, for my family and friends, for valued work and for the gracious and inspiring community here. With best wishes to each and every one of you, happy holidays….

The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for a Happy and Healthy Primal Christmas

Whether you’re celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, the Winter Solstice, or any of the other holidays that fall in and around late December, there are common experiences. Hosts hustle to get their homes decorated, cleaned, and ready for guests. Workers send emails and get caught up on everything before the holiday slow down. Shoppers fight throngs for mall parking spots and knit scarves; smarter shoppers wait patiently for the delivery truck to show up. Families gather. Gifts are exchanged. Food is prepared. Food is eaten. Merriment pervades and holiday cheer hangs in the air.

But there’s an omnipresent dark side common to every holiday, too: it’s not easy. We face mountains of junk food everywhere we go and easily-offended people who just won’t take “no” for an answer. We feel compelled to spend extensive time with family members, regardless of the state of our relationships or how we feel about them personally. We have to spend money. We have to cook, we have to clean, we have to follow the schedule and get things done on time.

It’s a lot to handle and we need all the help we can get. So today, I’m going to give you a cheat sheet for having a happy and healthy Primal Christmas (or holiday of your choice).

Last Minute Gift Ideas

Don’t lie. You forgot. Or you procrastinated. Or you’re just stumped; there’s always that one person in your life for whom you have no clue what to get. Rather than spend several days researching the optimal present for the difficult among us and creating Excel sheets, simply select gifts from lists carefully and thoughtfully curated by people you trust. Like me (I hope).

10 Last-Minute Primal Gift Ideas
Happy Holidays From Lil’ Grok and the Korgs!
13 Holiday Gifts to Support a Primal Lifestyle
12 Holiday Gifts for Your Primal Tribe
Primal Holiday Gifts
Nom Nom Paleo Holiday Gift Guide 2014
Paleo Holiday Gift Guide

Navigating the Social Aspect

The holidays would be a breeze if it weren’t for everyone else. There’d be no one offering you “just another drink” or “just a bite.” You wouldn’t have to politely smile and nod at an awkward and inappropriate political rant delivered at the dinner table. You wouldn’t have to explain why you’re not eating the bread or why you added butter and not margarine to your sweet potatoes. Unfortunately, though, the world and its inhabitants are probably not illusions generated by your mind. These are real people you must talk to and actual social situations that you must navigate. Hopefully, these articles will help you do it.

Dear Mark: Family Dinner
Dear Mark: How to Politely Pass on Dessert
Top 7 Most Common Reactions to Your High-Fat Diet (and How to Respond)

Savoring and Thriving, Not just Surviving

As much as we like to discuss how hard the holidays can be on everyone, they can also be pretty darn joyous, uplifting, and beautiful. You get out what you put in, and if you’re approaching the holidays with a survivor’s bent, you might miss out on all the great things happening.

15 Primal Ways to Savor the Holiday Season
Savoring the Holiday
A Primal Take on the Holidays: Surviving or Thriving?

Enjoying and Appreciating Ritual and Tradition

If there’s one thing that separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom, it’s that we follow rituals and maintain traditions. We bury the dead. We ritualize mating and coupling with rings and marriage ceremonies. We make art to commemorate things greater than us. We do things like they used to simply because that’s the way they’ve always been done. These things seem silly, maybe even quaint when you examine them closely. Buying a miniature pine tree, standing it up in your living room, and adorning it with lights, glass spheres, and various other icons? That’s pretty strange, viewed in isolation. Do most people know why they’re buying a Christmas tree? Maybe not. I don’t think it matters as long as it makes you feel like you’re part of something bigger than yourself. That’s an important part of being human, and it doesn’t require formal religion or even “spirituality” to make you feel good and whole.

The Power of Holiday Tradition
The Power of Ritual

The Joy of Giving and Receiving

Getting an awesome gift is great. But the best part of receiving something might be the confirmation that the person giving it really cares enough to devote time, money, and brain activity to your happiness. Same goes for giving to others. Having someone in your life who inspires in you the same kind of dedication and thoughtfulness required to give a great gift is priceless. Also, and this is actually central to the discussion of giving and receiving and general goodwill toward men and women, receiving and especially giving gifts confer health benefits. Some might call this selfishness, and so what? Selfishness can be a good thing.

The Benefits of Giving Thanks
The Joy of Receiving
How Being Thankful Can Make You Healthy

Dealing with Stress

Most of the other sections are at least tangentially related to stress, usually because they discuss stressors – events, activities, responsibilities, and people that upset homeostasis and create stress in your life. Learning how to handle those stressors is an important aspect of dealing with stress, but there’s more to it than that. How do we handle stress itself, directly? Whether it’s mother-in-law-related stress or trying-to-get-the-house-clean-in-time-for-company-related stress, there are helpful methods for improving our resilience and getting a handle on the physiological stress response.

The Definitive Guide to Stress, Cortisol and the Adrenals: When “Fight or Flight” Meets the Modern World
6 Tea Ingredients That Can Help You Unwind, Relax, and Chill Out (and 6 more)
15 Ways to Fight Stress
Hormesis: How Certain Kinds of Stress Can Actually Be Good for You
Rethinking Stress: It Could Save Your Life
And don’t forget Primal Calm

Staying Active

You’ve got your significant other nagging at you to do this or that. You’ve got family to pick up at the airport, presents to wrap, shopping to do, food to prepare. Hitting the gym is likely the last thing on your mind. And the devil may care “it’s the holidays!” justifications for sedentism are persuasive and tempting, but don’t fall for it. The need to stay active doesn’t go away just because the Christmas tree is up, and if you spend the last two weeks of December eating garbage, drinking, and sitting around in ugly sweaters, you’ll regret it. Those extra few, extra soft pounds around your middle, the middling results when you actually get back to the gym for the first time, the reduced stamina and strength, the icky feeling (yeah, “icky” isn’t a word I like to use, but it was about the only word I could find that captured the feeling) of not really moving for an extended period of time. It’s not good. Plus, staying active can actually deepen the holiday spirit, particularly if you involve your friends and family in the activities.

10 Active Ways to Celebrate the Holidays
10 Ways to Stay Active in the Cold Winter Months
15 Concrete Ways to Play
Why You Must Absolutely Play, Every Day! (plus 10 Pointers for Successful Playtime)
WOW: Primal Skirmish (check out the other Workouts of the Week, too)

Using the 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule was created with the holidays in mind. It acknowledges the reality of the world in which we live and the way our minds work. We can’t — and probably shouldn’t — be perfect. More often than not, those folks who claim perfection are sinning internally, barely keeping the grain and junk food lust at bay by sheer will and absolute avoidance. Pure, as it turns out, isn’t really pure. Perfect is impossible. The 80/20 rule allows us to safely sate our desires, whether those desires be to eat a slice of pizza because we’re craving it or because we just don’t want to eat salad while everyone else digs in to the pizza. Sometimes, it’s easier and healthier to just compromise.

80/20 Principle
Remember the 80/20 Principle
Dear Mark: 80/20 Revisited
The 80/20 Principle: When 20 Inches Toward 40
A Little Perspective

Cheat Days

For some, the best approach to a cheat day is total avoidance. The straight and narrow works for them, so why stray? Others benefit from cheat days, finding them useful outlets for temptation. Whatever happens, it’s usually helpful to acknowledge the “cheat” and own it. Don’t eat a cookie, say “that’s the last one,” and then go back and do it again ten more times. Be honest with yourself. If that means abstinence, cool. If that means arranging a formal holiday cheat day schedule, great. Just be consistent.

Dear Mark: Managing a Cheat Day
Should You Eat Periodic “Cheat” Meals?
Dear Mark: Should I Increase Carb Intake for Weight Loss?

How to Recover from Holiday Overindulgence

Despite our best intentions, we’re gonna overindulge. We’re humans. It’s what we do. We make mistakes. And even if the overindulgence is planned and absent guilt, there are still the physiological and metabolic ramifications to deal with. Luckily, there are articles for that.

How to Recover from Holiday Overindulgence
Post Holiday Recovery
Flatulence: Foes and Fixes
Why Fast? Part Six — Choosing a Method
You can eat a lot during the Holiday Season and gain no body fat, as long as you also eat little

Holiday Shopping Craziness

Ah, the holiday deal. There’s nothing quite like it, is there? Standing outside a store twelve hours before opening, sizing up the folks on either side of you (“I bet that guy wants the 40-inch LED TV. I could totally take him!”), spending weeks scouring the deals forums for inside scoops on sales. Your entire being consumed by the pursuit of the deal, you become a sex organ for the holiday economy. That’s all well and good, but I’d argue there are better ways to spend your holiday.

10 Healthier Ways to Spend Black Friday
The Pleasures of Slow Living

Drink Well

Alcohol is a big part of the holidays, whether because red wine goes great with the roast lamb you’re having for Christmas dinner or because drinking makes tolerating your extended family possible. You can abstain, of course. That’s a fantastic choice that many people take. But most people won’t do that. If you intend to drink, particularly more than normal, it’s important to drink well and help your body recover from your indulgences. Luckily, there are ways you can mitigate the harm of drinking by bolstering your body’s antioxidant capacity and choosing healthier sources of ethanol.

Choose Your Booze: A Guide to Healthy Drinking
Hangover Hacks You Can Hang Your Hat On
Alcohol: The Good and the Bad 
Dear Mark: Beef Suet, Lowered HR, Alcohol, and Long Easy Runs
The Highbrow Paleo Guide to Binge Drinking (and Addendum)
Drinking while on the paleo diet
Paleo Drinking Cheat Sheet
Paleo Plus Alcohol: Now We’re Talkin’

Food and Recipes

Last but not least, food! Food is the foundation. People come together, and eat. They “pass the gravy” to each other. They take bites and compliment the chef. They mutually coo over how good something tastes. It’s a beautiful thing, sitting down with people you like and love to eat good food. You may not be “breaking bread” at your Primal functions, but the intent and effect are similar. Another thing: since you’re something of an ambassador for the Primal movement in your respective families, you owe it to the movement to cook something delicious and uniquely Primal that makes people realize maybe we aren’t so crazy after all. If even one person rethinks their stance on your “caveman diet thingie,” that’s progress. Good cooking is the universal language. Become fluent (or at least proficient).

Why We Crave Comfort Foods
Heritage Turkey and Mashed Parsnips
Crock Pot Turkey and Primal Stuffing
Spice Rubs for Your Holiday Roast
A Primal Thanksgiving Menu (plus a Contest)
Ultimate Walnut Pie Crust with Pumpkin Filling
Primal Holiday Desserts
Last Minute Holiday Recipe Round-up

Above all else, revel in love — for self, for family, for lovers, for friends, for pets, for community, for nature, and for life itself. If you do that, a lot the other stuff tends to fall into place.

Merry Christmas, everyone, and Happy Holidays!

10 Ways to Stay Healthy During Holiday Travel

According to AAA, nearly 100 million Americans will be traveling during what they call the “year-end holiday season” (Dec. 23-Jan. 4). On the positive side, this means possibly spending quality time with family and friends, experiencing new destinations or enjoying a break from the routine of work and (at least some) domestic duties. On the other hand, it can mean a lot of sedentary time, roadside food, poor sleep, collective stress and airport crowds (with their accompanying germs). When the hoopla ends, some of us will greet the New Year relatively unscathed with little more than mild fatigue and gratitude for some peace and quiet. Others, however, will succumb to the added pressures on physical and mental health and spend a portion of their travel time (or what was supposed to be travel time) nursing an illness. It’s little wonder, given the holidays offer the perfect set-up with their intersection of extra-everything when we probably do better with less of, well, just about all of it. It’s a practical Primal question: how can we keep ourselves healthy (and sane) when the best intentions of the season turn on us?

Those of you who have been sick during or following holiday travel likely understand the logic of it all. There’s the massive build-up of energy that goes into covering all the bases at work before time off as well as the trip prep itself (not a small feat – particularly with small children). There’s the stress of financial outlay and/or logistical upheaval. Just this build-up itself can result in lowered immunity, causing what one expert calls “leisure sickness” or the propensity to get sick during the times we worked so hard for in hopes of rest and relaxation. That’s right – the clinical manifestation of Murphy’s Law, if you will.

If we tend to go treat life like a 5-alarm fire, the body will interpret danger and stay on alert, running down reserves to maintain a heightened state of caution. When we finally let down our defenses, however, it’s another story. The body senses the danger has passed, and we pay the toll for our overzealous mental vigilance and physical expenditure. In other words, we’re down for the count just as the holiday celebrations are underway.

Even if we begin our travel with some decent energy and are able to get beyond those critical first few days, the conditions aren’t always in our favor moving forward. Maybe the sleeping conditions at the in-laws’ leave something to be desired. The food situation on the road and at the destination is about as un-Primal as it gets. The agenda leaves little time for quiet, the full house little chance for solitude.

Whether your travels take you to extended family or to a holiday getaway, here are some Primal strategies to enjoy your time (and the trip home) with health intact.

Build up your defenses.

The cliche holds: your best offense if a good defense. You may not have much control over circumstances where you’re going, but you can start your trip in good shape by being well-rested for the couple of weeks prior as well as well-nourished with nutrient-dense Primal fare. Be sure you’re getting extra good doses of vitamin D, a key factor in immune function, and probiotic in the weeks prior to leaving. Some people I know take it a step further by bumping up their vitamin C and bone broth and taking zinc, elderberry and/or echinacea for a few days before traveling.

Take extra precautions with air travel.

Research appears to confirm a suspicion many of us harbor: we’re more likely to get sick following air travel. One study estimates a rate of 20% more likely in fact (PDF). It’s more than the close quarters, however.

Surfaces, as always, are the main source. Our phones and steering wheels likely carry more germs than we’d ever like to know, but airplanes are particularly dense harbors for pathogens. One often cited study showed that 20% of airplane toilet seats tested positive for E.coli, while flush and faucet handles tested positive 30% of the time. But that wasn’t it. Norovirus and MRSA were just as common on areas like trays and back seat pockets. (Another reason to skip the in-flight magazine…) This is one of those times when some hand sanitizer (no need for triclosan) is good idea – along with an extra dose of vitamin C.

Hydrate during and around air travel.

For the integrity of the metal construction, airplanes keep their humidity extremely low. Levels can dip below 10%, which can leave you feeling tired and drawn after even a moderate flight. Once you’re past the security gate, fill up a large water bottle and drink as much as you can without having to make umpteen trips to the lavatory. Be sure to drink extra water after you’re on the ground as well – especially if yours was a longer flight.

Get yourself in a flexible mindset.

Travel isn’t a time to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The idea is to avoid as much stress as possible. Go over options in your mind and get yourself in a place of mental flexibility. Be ready to look for the best possible options to eat strangely concocted meals to meet your Primal target, to rely on some of your own stores, and to fast entirely when food choices are dismal. Prepare yourself to adapt to a different schedule – not just for the sake of others’ expectations and traditions but in the interest of fitting in a nap when sleep is an issue or when you need extra downtime or exercise. Consider it a marathon rather than a race. Pacing and adaptation matter.

But decide ahead of time what you won’t compromise on – and prepare.

If your good intentions are forever moving targets, you’ll never stick to your plan. Don’t base your most important decisions on circumstances. Base them on your needs and priorities. Just put in some forethought and prep. More on that below…

Pack your own sustenance.

I like to look at it this way. Pretend Grok is accompanying you on your trip. What would you bring for him? Would you force your honored guest to suck it up and eat whatever was at the next food court? Of course not. Have the same courtesy for your own well-being. Pack enough to get you through not just the car trip/flight but the time in between when the offerings aren’t in line with your Primal needs.

If you’re driving, of course, you have the added luxury of packing an entire cooler of veggies and meat choices, and non-perishables like good jerky, nuts, Primal energy bars, pemmican and Primal Fuel. If you’re flying, do whatever you can with non-perishables, including packing them in your checked luggage. The idea here is to maintain your nutrient intake and avoid the immune-busting sugar and carb fest that too often characterizes the holiday line-up.

Load up on some key supplements.

Holiday travel is no time to get off your supplement routine. No matter how much other crap you have to pack, don’t skimp here. Be sure to take along all of your regular supplements (e.g. multi, vitamin D, probiotic), and some extra vitamin C to take 2-3 times daily. It can’t hurt to bring along some elderberry, zinc and echinacea as well for daily doses of the first two and as need be for the third.

Finally, may I suggest some Primal Calm? Because holiday travel is fun…until it’s not. I swear by it, and always keep some nearby.

Make your own sleep kit – especially if you’ll be dealing with jet lag.

Own pillow – check. Yellow glasses – check. Eye mask (when you can’t enjoy your own fantastic light-blocking curtains) – check. Melatonin? While I don’t suggest taking melatonin on a regular basis, it has been shown to help reset circadian rhythm and relieve the problem of jet lag. In this case, it’s definitely worth it. Keep in mind that strategic fasting, too, can help normalize your body’s clock.

Set concrete times for exercise – and fit in more whenever you can manage it.

Let’s face it – if you wait around for the perfect time to exercise, you’ll never find it. That’s true in life, and perhaps even truer during the holidays and travel. If you can keep your normal workout times, that’s great. If not, try to at least keep your normal workout schedule – meaning how often. Then fit in as much low level activity as possible. Reasonable physical activity (i.e. not chronic cardio) supports healthy immune function.

Don’t compromise on self-care.

Too many of us white-knuckle it through the holidays. Unfortunately, “just dealing” with the endless expectations for a few days/full week may result in consequences beyond the holidays themselves. This is your time and experience as much as anyone else’s – even the kids. Don’t commit to more than you really want to. Schedule time for quiet. Balance each day with some solitude and activity. Do something good for yourself every day you’re traveling (e.g. use the sauna at the hotel, enjoy a good book, find some fun trails).

Pushing yourself to make the most of every minute with an older relative you may not see next year or to get the most out of every dollar spent on a getaway is just that – pushing. That’s no way to enjoy a valued relationship or a long awaited vacation. Practice some daily self-care in the interest of maintaining health and being present – the best way I’ve found to make the most of any experience.

Thanks for reading, everyone. What am I missing here that helps keep you healthy in the midst of holiday travel? I’ll look forward to reading your insights. Happy holidays to you, and safe travels to all who will be hitting the road.

Prefer listening to reading? Get an audio recording of this blog post, and subscribe to the Primal Blueprint Podcast on iTunes for instant access to all past, present and future episodes here.

Dear Mark: Candle Fumes Safety, Quest Bar Carbs, Minimalist Shoes for Track, and Walnut Oil

For today’s edition of Dear Mark, we’ve got a four-parter. First up, how safe are indoor candles? Do some emit toxic fumes? Are there certain types of candles we should prefer over others? The second question concerns the carb content of Quest Bars. Can we really disregard all the fiber and sugar alcohols when determining the amount of digestible carbohydrates contained in the bars?  Third, what should a high school track athlete look for in a minimalist running shoe, assuming Vibram Fivefingers are out of the question? I help her narrow down the most important attributes. And finally, I may caution against making high omega-6 nut oils like walnut oil a daily staple, but do those recommendations change if a person is using it to actively solve a health issue?

Let’s go:

Hi Mark –

Do you have any concerns with the heavy or daily use of candles in a home (e.g., in an effort to reduce blue light in evening)? Some sources say that candles put off toxins. What’s your take? What about scented candles? Are there any candles safer than others?

Thanks!

Brian

(P.S. Primal Blueprint Certified Expert #75!)

Most candles sold nowadays are made from paraffin wax, a byproduct of petrochemicals. Burning them can release benzene and toluene, two chemicals linked to certain cancers and asthma. If the wick is lead-based (as many wicks with a metal interior are), it also releases aerosolized lead into the air. If the artificial fragrances in your scented candle are anything like those in cosmetics, their manufacturers don’t have to disclose the chemicals contained in a particular scent; those will also be released into the room.

You can find studies claiming that the emission levels  ofthese airborne candle-derived toxins never pose a threat to people, and maybe they’re right. Heck, it’s not like people are dropping dead because they lit a candle in the bathtub. Then again, nor are people getting lung cancer because they smoked a single cigarette. If any health issues do arise, they’ll likely happen over the course of an entire lifetime from the cumulative effects of chronic, steady usage.

Don’t worry about occasional usage of paraffin wax candles. Especially if you ventilate the room, there’s no real danger in acute, transient exposure. But if you plan on “heavy or daily use” of candles, you’ll want a safer alternative.

Soy wax is one alternative that doesn’t release benzene, toluene, and other petrochemical byproducts into the air. But the wax is almost certain to be derived from GMO soybeans. It’s not an immediate health threat, but if you’re opposed to the industrialization of agriculture and wish to withdraw support of GMO crops, you’ll also want to avoid soy wax candles.

Luckily, a safer and superior alternative that smells better and supports a sustainable industry (beekeeping over fracking and genetically engineered monoculture crops) is available: the beeswax candle. Just make sure your beeswax candle is 100% beeswax, and not some amalgam of beeswax and paraffin (same goes for soy).

I wouldn’t run shrieking from the room if someone lights up a regular candle. On a romantic, candle-lit night with someone special, I wouldn’t pause the foreplay to ask if “those are paraffin candles.” But if you’re going to use candles on a regular basis — and I think that’s a great way to reduce blue light at night and approximate our Primal desire to sit around a campfire at night — beeswax is the safest bet. That the soft honeysuckle scent comes from real natural bee vomit rather than a smell cooked up in a lab doesn’t hurt, either.

P.S. Great to have you aboard the Cert program, Brian! Congratulations!

Hey Mark,

I have a question concerning the sugar listed on food labels and how to account for that when I calculate my daily macronutrients. When I read food labels like those of Quest bars that claim they only have 1 or 2 grams of carbohydrates, yet I look on the wrapper and there are 22 grams listed in the carbohydrate section of the label. They say that because the “other” carbs are sugar alcohols and insoluble fiber, you only have to worry about those 2 grams.

My question is how should I factor this in to my account of daily nutrients. 22 grams or 2 grams of carbohydrates?

Also, are sugar alcohols bad for you (primal)?

Thanks,

Alex

Well, let’s break down the metabolic effects of those carbohydrates to determine if we should count them or not.

First, the sugar alcohols. I actually wrote a post about sugar alcohols a few years ago, but let’s look at the sugar alcohol used in Quest in more depth. Quest bars use erythritol, which has 0.24 calories per gram (sugar has 4 calories per gram). For the most part, there’s no evidence that erythritol has negative metabolic effects. Heck, it doesn’t really have any effect at all, good or bad:

Erythritol had no effect on blood sugar or insulin in healthy subjects, with 90% of it being excreted in the urine unchanged. Same goes for diabetics, who experienced no adverse effects on glucose control after two weeks of eating it every day.

Even short term massive overfeeding of erythritol — 1 gram erythritol per kilogram of bodyweight per day for a week — was well-tolerated by people.

As erythritol cannot be metabolized by oral bacteria, studies usually find it to be neutral for dental health. That said, one recent study even found that erythritol was more protective against cavities than xylitol, another sugar alcohol widely touted for its dental health effects. Regardless of which studies you read, erythritol is not going to make your dental health worse.

Some studies find that huge doses of erythritol (50 grams in a sitting) upset the stomach and cause nausea, but most find it has no effect on gastrointestinal response.

As long as you don’t get any weird stomach problems from the erythritol in Quest bars, I wouldn’t worry too much.

Now, the fiber. Quest bars use an interesting type: isomalto-oligosaccharides, or MOS. MOS are a recognized “functional food” with noted health benefits in many Asian countries. They’re used a lot in severely constipated patients, and it appears to be an effective treatment for that condition:

In hemodialysis patients, MOS reduced triglycerides and raised HDL while improving constipation.
In constipated elderly men, they also improved constipation, serving as an effective prebiotic fiber in the process. MOS also work well long-term in this population, improving the gut bacteria population, reducing constipation, and even improving lipid profiles.

Even if you’re not a constipated elderly man, you can benefit from the generally prebiotic effect of MOS. For instance, bifidobacteria and lactobacillus reuteri — two types of gut bacteria with considerable clinical support — both metabolize isomalto-oligosaccharides. That explains why the long-term MOS study in elderly men increased both bifidobacteria and lactobacillus counts.

Long story short: don’t count the sugar alcohols or fiber as digestible carbs that contribute toward your daily allotment of glucose.

Hi Mark,

I’m a high school student-athlete in track and field. I really want to run while wearing Vibrams, but when I went to track practice with them, the coach called me over and curtly told me to get “real shoes”. So I’m stuck having to wear non-toe shoes. (It would be an ideal world for me to be able to wear Vibrams all day, but if I walk around with them in school my classmates will notice and talk about me behind my back, which I suspect has already happened during the short time I was wearing them at school.)

I want to ask your advice: if you’re in a situation where you MUST wear more conventional-appearing shoes/sneakers *for running*, what specifics would you look for? I wore Vivo barefoot before but the shoe just didn’t cut it for me. I felt like my feet were plopping on the floor.

Thank you!

Helena

Assuming your lower body is conditioned to run in shoes as minimalist as Vibrams, look for a few characteristics:

Large toe bed. Vibrams allow your toes to spread of their own volition. They don’t force your toes into preordained dimensions that constrict your feet and alter your gait. The better minimalist shoes do the same by offering a wide toe bed. Try shoes on in person if possible in order to test the toe bed.

Minimal heel drop. If your shoe has “zero heel drop,” both the heel and the forefoot are the same distance from the ground. Bare feet have zero heel drop. Vibrams have zero heel drop. The standard running shoe has a 10 mm heel drop, meaning the heel is 10 mm higher than the forefoot. There are many minimalist shoes running the gamut between zero and 10. Get as close to zero as is comfortable, but don’t put your feet and ankles in a situation they’re not prepared to handle. Don’t think you’re failing or anything if a 2 mm or 4 mm heel drop feels better than the zero.

Everything else you’d like in a shoe. Just because the shoes you found have room for your toes and minimal heel drop, don’t neglect the importance of how the shoe fits, the weight, the traction, and the general “feel” of it on your feet. If your foot’s sliding around inside the shoe, a zero heel drop won’t save you.

Look into Altra shoes, or perhaps the Inov-8s. I have a pair of the Altra Adams. They’re very lightweight, very Vibram-esque without looking like Vibrams. Good for hiking, sprinting, and general scampering about. Neither they nor their female counterparts, the Eve, are available anymore (although it looks like you can buy the Adams through a third party seller on Amazon), but if Altra’s more recent offerings are of similar quality, you’ll be very happy with them. I’ve heard good things about the Altra One.

Hi!

I was wondering why you put on your walnut oil comment that you would not recommend using it daily. I drink a few tsps a day because it helps with my dry skin. Is that bad?

Thank you!

Rosanna

No, keep at it! If walnut oil is serving a specific purpose for you and your relationship is mutually beneficial, keep using it. My warning against high intake of walnut oil is merely a guideline for the average person, not a rule. Extenuating circumstances (“walnut oil helps reduce my dry skin”) absolutely justify the use. As far as I can see, you’re doing it right:

You’re using it for a specific purpose – to improve your dry skin – rather than because it’s “healthy” (low in saturated fat).

It’s working (it’s actually helping with your dry skin).

You’re taking it cold, not exposing its fragile fatty acids to heat.

You’re (presumably) keeping it in a cool, dark place without heat, light, or air exposure.

You’re doing everything right. As long as it’s helping, stick with it. Just be sure you’re eating fish or taking high quality fish oil. Those omega-3s are still important, especially in the context of your moderate to high omega-6 intake.

That’s it for today, folks. Anyone else got any additional responses to this week’s questions?

Thanks for reading!

You CAN Lose Weight and Get Healthy. Find Out How>>

Weekend Link Love – Edition 327

I was on the Paleo Magazine Radio podcast to talk about some extremely important aspects of a healthy lifestyle (and they don’t include diet).

My appearance on The Chalene Show podcast, where Chalene and I discussed my history and I broke down the Primal Blueprint, is now live. Go give a listen.

I also appeared on the Self Made Entrepreneur podcast with Jason Bax. If you’re interested in how I came to start, run, and grow Primal Nutrition, check it out!

Research of the Week

I was just thinking we were due for another round of articles telling us how we’ve got this whole evolutionary health thing totally wrong.

In patients with existing heart disease, saturated fat intake has no relationship to the risk of heart events or mortality.

Are you vegetarian or vegan? Not for long, according to research.

Maternal caffeine intake may predispose offspring to obesity.

The primary excretory organ for the fat we burn are the lungs.

New Primal Blueprint Podcasts

Episode 47: Interview with Alessandra Wall – Clinical Psychologist, Life Coach, and Certified CrossFit Trainer: Brock Armstrong (the voice of the blog podcast) interviews Alessandra Wall about her clinical approach to helping patients with emotional eating and professional burnout.

Each week, select Mark’s Daily Apple blog posts are prepared as Primal Blueprint Podcasts. Need to catch up on reading, but don’t have the time? Prefer to listen to articles while on the go? Check out the new blog post podcasts below, and subscribe to the Primal Blueprint Podcast here so you never miss an episode.

The Pros and Cons of Comparing Yourself to Others
Happy Holidays from Lil’ Grok and the Korgs
The Call of the Wild
10 Real-Life Reasons Why the Primal Blueprint Works for Me
What’s Behind the Mind-Body Connection?

Interesting Blog Posts

How diet impacts circadian rhythm.

Unsurprisingly, the media isn’t giving us the full story about statin trials.

Media, Schmedia

In Washington state, parents receiving WIC assistance can no longer use the funds to get whole or 2% milk. Only skim and 1% fat milk are permitted.

CNN covers the role of diet, supplementation, and lifestyle modification in treating — and perhaps even reversing — early Alzheimer’s disease.

Are midwives safer than doctors? The answer may (or may not) surprise you.

The former editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and current director of the United Health Group’s chronic disease initiative, Richard Smith, penned a nice op-ed in the BMJ lamenting the “global, uncontrolled experiment” of conventional dietary recommendations (PDF).

Everything Else

Brown rice is pretty high in arsenic.

The 20 most dangerous hikes in the world, according to Outside Magazine. Anyone do any?

A company is trying to build a vegan milk from scratch using yeast cultures and cow DNA.

You heard the experts: home cooking makes you fat and you should rely on microwave dinners and prepackaged snacks!

Lard might be the hot new cosmetic.

The pubic biome may help solve sex crimes.

We work too much, sleep too little, and it’s killing us.

Is the 2 hour marathon really inevitable?

Recipe Corner

Having trouble finding a way to enjoy liver? Try this orange liver sauté.
Duck fat garlic confit.

Time Capsule

One year ago (Dec 21 – Dec 27)

Dairy Intolerance: What It Is and How to Determine if You Have It– What is dairy intolerance, really?
How to Recover from Holiday Overindulgence – You know it’s going to happen (to a lot of you), so what can we do to make it better?

Picture of the Week

Santa Grok does barbell squats using tractor tires instead of weight plates. He’s way better than Santa Claus. (Longtime readers will recognize that happy bearded face. It’s The Unconquerable Dave, aka Papa Grok. If you don’t know him, read this.)