Mark Sisson's Blog, page 284

Weekend Link Love – Edition 317

Head on over to Paleo Magazine Online and lend your voice to their annual “Best of” poll. This year, we’re up for several categories. You know who to vote for, right?

Research of the Week

You often hear that “fire made us human” by introducing a broader range of (cooked) foods to our diets, increasing our calorie intake, making those calories easier to digest, and paving the way for larger brains, but fire also changed how our brains work. By sitting around a campfire at night – every night – we became master storytellers and consumers of those stories.

Amidst the furor over a cure for Alzheimer’s, a group of ten Alzheimer’s patients have just seen remarkable improvements by minimizing carbs and grains, utilizing coconut oil and short fasts, reducing stress through yoga and meditation, getting optimal sleep, improving mitochondrial function, and taking a few supplements like turmeric, resveratrol, vitamin D, and vitamin K2. Now why does that sound so familiar?

Just 20 minutes of strength training can improve your memory.

It’s just a case report of a single patient, but cool nonetheless: after going on a paleolithic ketogenic diet, a 19 year-old type 1 diabetic patient was able to discontinue insulin therapy, showing normal blood glucose and evidence of restored insulin production (PDF).

Delayed feeding of gluten doesn’t change the rate of celiac in kids with family history of the disease, but it does delay the onset.

New Primal Blueprint Podcasts

Episode #37: Listener Question and Answer with Mark Sisson – Brad and I discuss using holistic methods to overcome injuries, recent modifications to my gym routine, the upcoming collaboration with Katy Bowman, and much more.

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.

How to Outsource Your Physical Activity
Have You Checked Your Heart Rate Variability Lately?
Mark’s Daily Apple Best of 2014, Volume 5: Getting Unstuck
The Definitive Guide to Primal Supplementation
How to Deal with Health “Noise”

Interesting Blog Posts

Could multiple sclerosis begin in the gut? (I wouldn’t be surprised.)

The Atlantic wonders whether kids should be running marathons and completing Olympic-length triathlons. (They shouldn’t, by the way. I mean, what???)

Pharmaceutical-grade circadian enhancement (without the use of actual pharmaceuticals).

How much sleep do you actually need?

Media, Schmedia

Canadian researchers are calling for a shift in how we determine heart healthy diets – away from focusing on specific nutrients (like individual saturated fatty acids) and toward considering the effects of whole foods.

Is a 3-day work week in our future?

Everything Else

You really need to set aside a half hour to watch this episode of South Park.

Australian aborigine oral traditions accurately describe meteor impacts from thousands of years ago.

A case for including half-kneeling stances in your strength training.

Does evolutionary theory need reworking?

This article makes me really, really want to visit the Nordic Food Lab.

Some Amish farmers are foregoing pesticides by fortifying the plants’ immune systems with targeted supplementation of specific nutrients.

Sleeping brains understand words.

School lunch in Sweden looks incredible.

You know, I’ve never admitted this publicly, but I’ve been fighting a decades-long addiction to a certain noxious green plant. I’m just glad my kids never got hooked on okra.

The as-yet earliest cave art was just discovered, and it’s in Indonesia.

The New Yorker covers Dunbar’s number: is there a physiological limit to friendship?

Monkey midwives.

Recipe Corner

Moroccan-spiced “rice” that your vegan buddies can happily enjoy.
Oven-roasted chicken with Bartlett pears and fresh rosemary. Don’t even think about using D’Anjou pears, you heathens.

Time Capsule

One year ago (Oct 12 – Oct 18)

Embracing IMF: 10 Strategies for Practicing Intermittent Media Fasting – Remember to get plenty of protein post-media consumption.
The Barefoot Backlash: Are the Naysayers Right After All? (Hint: No) – Yes, you can still go barefoot and live to tell the tale.

Comment of the Week

Yada, yada, yada…..why spend time doing all this reading myself when I can just wait for somebody to narrate it to me on the podcast

– Ha. You got me there.

Watercress Herb Sauce with Fish

This vibrant green sauce is such a simple way to add a powerhouse green – watercress – to your diet. Make the sauce in your blender in a just few minutes by combining coconut milk with watercress, cilantro, green onion, garlic and ginger. Similar in flavor to a mild green curry, the sauce pairs especially well with fish but can also be served over chicken or red meat.

Watercress, with its fairly mild but peppery flavor, is an excellent source of beta-carotene, vitamins A, B1 and B6, C, E and K, iodine, iron, calcium, magnesium and zinc. It also contains a flavonoid called quercetin that might reduce inflammation.

So while there are plenty of good reasons to make this enticing sauce with watercress, variations are just as good. Spinach instead of watercress, parsley instead of cilantro…you can even add chicken stock and turn the sauce into soup broth. And don’t get caught up on exact measurement amounts for the greens and herbs; just throw a few handfuls in there. The sauce might turn out slightly different each time, but no less delicious.

Servings: 2

Time in the Kitchen: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

2 6-ounce/170 g skinless halibut fillets (or other white fish), 1 to 1
1/2-inch thick (2.5 to 3.8 cm)
1 13.5 ounce can coconut milk (383 g)
1 tablespoon finely chopped ginger (15 ml)
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 cup cilantro leaves (a large handful)
1 1/2 cups watercress leaves (2 handfuls)
1/4 cup chopped green onion tops (60 ml)
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste (1.2 ml)
Garnish with fresh herbs (cilantro, parsley, basil) and a wedge of lime

Instructions:

Lightly salt the fish. Set aside.

In a blender combine the coconut milk, ginger, garlic, cilantro, watercress, green onion and salt until it’s blended into a smooth green sauce.

Pour the sauce in a wide in skillet. Bring to a simmer. Add the fish and cover. The cooking time will vary depending on how thick the fish is, but is likely to take 5 to 7 minutes.

Serve alone in a bowl or over cauliflower rice or sautéed spinach.

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

Not Too Shabby for a Person Who Qualifies for Social Security

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!

My food consumption was pretty typical for an American of my generation (I was born in 1951). I ate what I thought was a reasonably good diet according to conventional wisdom, however my weight gradually increased over the years after age 30. As I got older, I developed high blood pressure (BP) and my blood biochemistry became problematic. I worked a high stress job for many years as a Navy lawyer and, after I retired from the Navy, as a corporate regulatory lawyer.

I had a real health scare early in 2005 brought on by work-related stress and an underlying condition in my brain. I spent five miserable days in the ICU. Statistically, I could have died but I had no lasting impacts other than a lifetime prescription to take BP medicines. When my internal medicine specialist told me to find a general practitioner to take over my care in 2006, he said I needed to “eat better and get more exercise.” Needless to say, that didn’t help much.

I got a fair amount of exercise, although sometimes that took a back seat to my demanding work schedule. I ate food based on what I had absorbed from the culture that was, unfortunately, a jumble of conflicting information (not all of it sound). And I really liked salty snacks. I had always been athletic so my weight was not a major problem, although it continued to go up slowly after I retired from the Navy at age 41. My heaviest point was around 200 pounds, as shown in the 2008 picture below taken during a cruise to the Mediterranean. I am just under 6 feet tall, so I was a bit overweight by conventional standards.

Early in 2013 I started to look into the connection between diet, exercise and wellness because my standard cardio workouts on the elliptical had only lowered my weight from 200 to 193 and my blood biochemistry was not what I wanted. I was taking 4 BP meds per day and wanted to find a better way. I read everything I could lay my hands on and became convinced that Paleo was a good way to go. It just made sense to pattern my food intake in a way driven by my genes and not by marketing. I decided to make significant changes to my nutrition starting August 1st, 2013. I went with a Paleo approach initially but was concerned about the rigidity of Paleo and whether I could stick with it. I was highly motivated to make changes but wondered how long I could stay away from certain off-limits foods. Also, I did not like the concept of “cheats”—it just rubbed me the wrong way. Another concern was that Paleo would be too boring. I found some good Paleo cookbooks that addressed this concern. The cookbooks gave me and my family lots of good ideas for tasty meals.

I found The Primal Blueprint two weeks into my Paleo experiment and read it cover to cover very quickly. I liked Mark’s 80/20 rule and the idea that Primal is not about perfection but about enjoying life, being flexible and getting healthier. Being a probable Type A personality, I had already subjected my body to a lot of stress over the years and did not want to repeat that mistake. Based on Mark’s book and the information on MDA I modified my nutrition to the more flexible Primal way. It was and is a better fit for me.

I started losing weight very quickly in the first few weeks. That tapered off after about two months but continued on a nice glide path over the next four months. At six months my weight stabilized at 168 pounds—the same as when I graduated from college 41 years ago!

I feel I have probably added 5-8 pounds of muscle doing Primal “lift heavy things” workouts, so that is a total of 30+ pounds of useless fat gone. I like being able to see the blood vessels on my arms again. I have added my own flourishes to Mark’s approach and really enjoy working out now (cardio was becoming a drag). I throw in some sprint work on the elliptical from time to time but not the old boring cardio stuff that drained my energy. When I started my strength workouts I had trouble doing one pull-up. Now I can do 10. I can also do 50 push-ups. Not too shabby for a person who qualifies for Social Security.

One of my prime goals was to shed the slab of fat around my belly button. Right away my waist began to noticeably shrink. I liked that and was very motivated to stay the course. I even amused my wife with periodic gut checks. My waist went from 39 or so down to 32 over 9 months. A totally unexpected positive thing happened: my hair got darker! There was one “downside”—I had to get my pants taken in because they no longer fit.

My problematic blood profile improved dramatically in just 6 weeks to the amazement of my healthcare professional. She wanted to know how I did it and I told her about MDA and Mark’s book. I only take two BP meds per day now and hope to wean off them someday. My current triglyceride to HDL ratio is 0.93 points down from its dangerous level just two years ago.

I think the Primal way is the best and I will stay with it for the rest of my life. Some of my family members and friends have also gotten good results from eating real, whole food and skipping the processed stuff.

I want to go to PrimalCon someday and compare six-packs with Mark! Just kidding (about comparing)!

Ed

The Power of Words: How We Talk about Food

Last month, linguist Dan Jurafsky came out with a book called The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu. In it, he explores everything from language choices that distinguish cheap restaurant menus from more expensive ones to the kinds of vowels marketers use in naming food products (e.g. short vowels for crispy Ritz or Cheez-Its, or longer vowels for rich Jamoca or Almond Fudge). In another linguistically focused mindbender (published last year), David Chen, a behavioral economist, found that people who spoke a language like English that was “futured” (a language that includes a distinct future tense through the use of helping verbs, for example, such as “I will —”) as a whole saved less money and practiced fewer lifestyle behaviors that supported future health than societies whose languages don’t have a future tense (generally collapsing it with the present tense as German does). (PDF) It’s the kind of seemingly irrelevant detail that ultimately stuns in its demonstration of how subtle cultural and linguistic patterns really do pervade our collective thinking and communication in ways we’re wholly unaware of. As Chen himself was quoted, “Why is it that we allow subtle nudges of our language to affect our decision making?”

If details as understated as those mentioned can (apparently) hold sway over our thinking, what about the more obvious blasts of influence? Regardless of your thoughts about the above research, clearly how we talk about food affects our relationship to it.

Sure, it works on a societal level. Consider the common phrasing we’re all exposed to every day, such as the snack attack, cheat day or guilty pleasure? What about treating yourself? What about “king” size? On a branded note, what about Happy Meal or Weight Watchers? (Am I the only one who looks at this name and is bothered by the seeming identification with unrelenting vigilance?) Let alone “part of a well-balanced diet”… What phrases am I missing here?

While we may over time disown those phrases from our own vocabulary, do they ever wholly lose their influence? What lingers longer than we’d care to admit?

Simultaneously, I’m curious about how our penchant for measuring, quantifying (and thereby justifying) our food impacts our perception. Beyond the screaming labels defining “snack size” or “guilt-free” (my personal favorite), there are the charts and lists themselves – the numbers and RDA percentages parsed out in grids that should help us make the “best” decisions. While the fresh, unpackaged food generally doesn’t carry such labels, the concept, I’d argue, is part of our consciousness. On some level, it all runs together in our minds. What’s the impact of viewing food through a nutritional grid? While it’s not exactly the “nudges of language,” there’s a message.

Whether it’s the lengthy ingredient lists and nutritional charts on food packaging, never before have we had so much technical “information” about our food in the sense that our knowledge of it has become so stunningly intellectualized. We know the breakdown of calories and fat grams and vitamin percentages. What does it mean for our relationship to that food – or to food in general – when much of our understanding of it is encapsulated by technical charts (in addition to marketing label cliques)?

The irony of this intellectualization (and probably the explanation for it) is that we’ve never been so disconnected from our food.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s the farm-to-table movement in all its variations: CSAs, cow-shares, community gardens, homesteading, farm-sourced restaurants, etc. On a humorous note, I think of a Portlandia episode (the only one I believe I’ve ever watched) that took a joking stab at how much intimate detail about animals’ personal lifestyles a farm-sourced restaurant should be able to offer its diners.

Perhaps, wanting to believe our food has been coddled with unmatched care is an inevitable reaction to the standard of viewing food as engineered product easily broken down into quantifiable nutritional equations and pre-packaged portions. As idiosyncratic as it is, it’s an improvement in the big picture despite the available humor.

For our ancestors, their food was their immediate environment. They saw their leaves, fruits and tuber greens growing amid the vegetation of their everyday landscape. They knew exactly how their meat sources lived because they shared the same general territory. They observed these herds intently, passed on stories of the animals’ migrations, and even painted pictures of them on cave walls. They tracked and, on unfortunate occasion, stepped in their scat each day. Or maybe collected it for burning. There wasn’t likely much sentimentality, but there was an intimate knowing.

Even then it wasn’t about “source” specifically. Seriously, how many “sources” were there? It wasn’t a matter of choice or “grade” but proximity. There was no sense of calories, macro- or micronutrients. Is our thinking in objective measurements eventually another modern distortion like the marketing claims or mental games of treating ourselves?

What other subtle linguistic or even seemingly scientific influences might be holding us back in some unrecognized way? However much we know about what to eat, how we talk about eating itself introduces new, perhaps half-conscious, layers to the question of mindset. Knowledge, it seems, may not always trump our associations.

Thanks for reading today, everyone. What are your thoughts on how we talk about food and eating? How has your language around food changed in obvious or subtle ways since going Primal? Have a good end to the week.

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How to Outsource Your Physical Activity

As humans living in the Information age, we’re winning. We’ve got nature on the ropes. We haven’t quite extricated ourselves from our disgusting physical forms, but that’s only a matter of time. And I think if you take a look around at the splendidly sterile environment we’ve constructed with its flat surfaces, moving staircases, and automobile-friendly streets, you’ll realize that we’re close to never having to lift a physical finger again. But until the robot butlers, maids, and personal assistants have arrived, the threat of physical activity looms and we have the responsibility and duty to outsource it as much as possible.

There are a few holdouts, those radical luddites with their running shorts and their bicycles and their hiking. You may know one, or even be one yourself. If that’s the case, I implore you to consider the negative effects of physical activity before you take another step:

Sweat – I don’t like sweat. It’s wet and salty and smelly and it stings the eyes. Also, sweaty hands are slippery hands; I once witnessed a TV remote control tumble from the sweaty hands of an exerciser and fall to pieces just before The Bachelor aired. The horror!

Increased fitness – Being physically active will increase your fitness levels which will promote even further physical activity. It’s a deadly cycle that’s best avoided.

Protein requirements – The more physically active you are, the more protein you’ll want to eat. Protein will give you cancer, heart disease, and impotence, so the less physical activity the better.

Realization of one’s mortality – Engaging in physical activity makes you realize you exist inside a fragile physical body, a soft fleshy sack of crumbling bones and pullable muscles. When you run, you’ll come into contact with the hard ground and know you can break upon it. When you try to lift a weight, you’ll realize that your capacity to change the physical world around you is severely limited.

Effort – Physical activity requires effort, the enemy of all that is good. Regularly giving effort has a host of negative health effects, like increased time-to-exhaustion during difficult tasks, improved diligence, and excessive accumulation of grit.

Okay, with that out of the way, hopefully everyone reading this is on board with the importance of physical activity outsourcing. If you’re not, there’s probably no hope. Enjoy your physical fitness, strong muscles, and sweaty hands!

If you are interested in outsourcing your physical activity, this is how you do it:

Never leave your couch. A recent study into the living spaces of lifetime World of Warcraft addicts revealed the recipe for sedentary success. Empty Mountain Dew bottles and KFC chicken buckets to hold urine and feces, respectively, and eliminate bathroom trips; a pinch-style trash grabber and long-handled broom, to extend your arm’s reach and maximize couch time; a muumuu for easy access. Premium setups include catheters, colostomy bags, and manservants, but the WoW addict recipe is far cheaper and works almost as well.

Get the best and biggest HDTV money can buy. TV has always tried to represent reality, and it’s been quite successful. With today’s range of ultra high definition televisions, you can surpass reality. The 4k TVs are bar none the best to get. Yeah, they’re expensive, but so is a lifetime of health maladies caused by physical activity.

Watch nature programs instead of going outside. Experience the crystal clear beauty of an Amazon rainforest from the comfort of your own home without having to walk around and get wet.

Hook up a quality surround sound system. This will make your viewing experience even more realistic. Just try not to turn your head when the rear speakers kick in and you hear a velociraptor sneak up behind you; that’ll only burn more calories.

Sign up for premium sports channels so you don’t have to play them. For whatever reason, humans are drawn to sports. I’m not sure why. They’re dangerous, they involve lots of sweat and dirt, and the whole purpose seems to be to get you to move, jump, run, and throw things. Crazy, right? The good news is that watching other people play sports on television appears to satisfy those sporting urges. Don’t watch sports in person because that involves walking to the venue.

If you have to play a sport, stick to miniature golf. The small courses minimize the amount of movement you do, and the lack of long distance drives eliminates overly intense swings. Golf carts are still advised, of course.

Get everything delivered. Groceries, books, clothing, everything can and should be delivered. You’ll want to sign up for Amazon Prime, of course.

If you have to leave your house for whatever reason…

Get a reliable car. The automobile is the greatest thing that ever happened to humankind. It allows us to travel at high speeds with minimal physical movement of our limbs. We mustn’t squander it. Make sure you get a reliable car that’s less liable to break down and leave you walking. And whatever you do, never change your own tire.

Drive absolutely everywhere. I don’t care if you’re going over to visit the next door neighbors for dinner. Drive there. I don’t care if Google Maps shows a two mile trip will take an hour due to traffic. You drive.

Get a disabled placard. Parking as close as humanly possible to your destination is essential for minimizing physical actvity. You can compete for regular spots all you want, but it’s no guarantee. A placard is.

Utilize valet parking whenever it’s available. Those valets are there for a reason! Keep small bills on hand. If you tip well, they’re usually okay with you pulling up onto the curb to get as close to the doors as possible.

Avoid manual transmissions. Shifting gears may not look like much work, but a study out of the University of Michigan found that people who drive cars with manual transmissions have more developed right forearm musculature than drivers of automatics.

I’m serious. Use your car for everything. Drive your car down the driveway to get your mail; inch close enough that you don’t have to get out to grab it. With the window down, grab your trash can and roll it along as you drive to leave it at the curb. If you insist on walking your dog (they’re honestly better off without the walks, just like us), do so by using a long training lead (15 foot, minimum) sticking out the window and driving slowly down the street, close to the curb. Move furniture by running cables from your car’s bumper to the furniture and driving really, really slowly. People really sell themselves short and do way too much with their own feet that a car could do.

Use drive-throughs. This one’s obvious. Be sure to drive close enough to the window that your mirror comes a hair from scraping it; leaning out to pick up your food is hard work! Another benefit of drive-throughs: the food they typically serve is highly processed and digests very easily, requiring less physical activity from your digestive tract to extract the nutrients.

Use escalators, moving walkways, and elevators whenever possible. The future cityscape was supposed to be nothing but moving sidewalks and escalators and human-sized pneumatic tubes whizzing us around. It still can, I maintain, but we have to show civil engineers and city planners that we want – nay, need – them. Vote with your feet by using them to stand placidly on a moving walkway, escalator, or elevator.

If the escalators and/or elevators are out of order, make do with the first floor. Say you’re a man at Macy’s shopping for a pair of boxer briefs and a new shirt, but the escalator’s out of order and the men’s department is on the second floor. Instead of going home empty handed, grab a lace thong and a billowy blouse. Branch out and be adventurous, why don’t you?

Stairs don’t exist. Okay, stairs do exist, but it’s in your best interest to start training yourself to think they’re a figment of your imagination. Because if you’ve successfully convinced yourself that stairs do not exist, you won’t go near the things. And ignore that nonsense about “using the stairs in the event of a fire.” Where would you rather be in a fire? Exposed to the raging inferno while struggling and huffing and puffing down the stairs, breathing in lungfuls of toxic smoke? Or nestled safely in the warm cocoon of a modern elevator? Exactly. If you’re having trouble developing the delusion, we have an online seminar coming out soon that promises to make stairs invisible to the human visual cortex.

Utilize throngs of humanity. You hear about people getting trampled to death at concerts when everyone rushes the stage or in crowded venues when there’s a fire or a gunshot and people flee. Those are usually called “tragedies,” and I agree that people shouldn’t have to die, but I dunno. It sounds like an opportunity to me. Next time you find yourself forced to walk down a sidewalk, try to weasel your way into the middle of a large group of people moving in one direction and just let yourself be swept away. Gangs, hordes, roving bands of investment bankers in the midday lunch rush – it’s all a throng, and it’ll all usher you along the path while minimizing the amount of physical effort you exert.

If you follow all of these tips, expect good things. You should be able to reduce your daily extracurricular energy expenditure to less than 50 calories. You’ll be free of sweat – forever. Your dangerous muscles will atrophy, your annoyingly heavy bones will lighten, your taut calves will become mercifully shapeless. Your feet will get the lifetime of rest they deserve. You will fuse with your couch. Never again will you squint against a brilliant sunrise blinding you as you crest a treacherously steep summit on a miserable morning hike. Nor will you fear the wave’s painful slap knocking you from the surfboard into the sickeningly warm Kauai water, or feel the torment from grinding out a PR in the deadlift, or bear the piercing chirp of neighborhood birds on an early evening walk.

Yeah, life is way better when you don’t do anything.

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Have You Checked Your Heart Rate Variability Lately?

People are always looking for that one biomarker to rule them all, the number on a paper that absolutely determines your health, longevity, fitness level, sex appeal, happiness, and productivity. Throughout the years, it’s bounced around as researchers think they’ve found “IT” – from cholesterol to LDL to BMI to small dense LDL to CRP to blood pressure to pulse rate and back again – but we always come up wanting. The “one biomarker” never pans out because biology is complex and irreducible to a single number.

However, there is one biomarker showing promise as a broad indicator of overall health and fitness: heart rate variability (HRV), or the variation in the intervals between heart beats. If your heart beats like a metronome, with intervals of identical length between each pulse, you have low heart rate variability; this is “bad.” If your heart beats follow a more fractal pattern, with beat intervals of varying length, you have high heart rate variability; this is “good.”

This probably sounds counterintuitive. Most people assume that a steady, consistent pattern of heart beats is the healthiest. I mean, doesn’t the human body need a steady, consistent flow of blood and nutrients to its cells and tissues? But recall the musician’s lament about the drum machine – that it “has no soul.” The perfect metronomic unfoldment of the drum machine is too perfect. It’s robotic. It’s unnatural. Same with our hearts. A healthy heart (with soul) pumps as needed. It responds to the demands of the organism; it doesn’t follow preordained intervals.

In general, a high HRV indicates dominance of the parasympathetic response, the side of the autonomic nervous system that promotes relaxation, digestion, sleep, and recovery. The parasympathetic system is also known as the “feed and breed” or “rest and digest” system.

A low HRV indicates dominance of the sympathetic response, the fight or flight side of the nervous system associated with stress, overtraining, and inflammation.

Therein lies the beauty of HRV: it offers a glimpse into the activity of our autonomic nervous system, an aspect of our physiology normally shrouded in mystery.

That’s why cardiac specialists have been using HRV for decades to track the health and recovery of their patients, and it’s why HRV is a predictive indicator of overall heart health, risk of heart attack, and other cardiac events. For instance, low HRV is associated with the development of coronary heart disease and multiple metabolic syndrome (diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol). Low HRV is prevalent in people who’ve had heart attacks, and among patients who’ve had a heart attack, those with low HRV are at a higher risk of dying in the subsequent three years. Among the elderly, a high HRV is strongly associated with “healthy longevity,” or the kind of graceful aging relatively free of morbidity we all desire.

But the most enthusiastic proponents (and much of the research) are in the fitness world, where endurance athletes, pro footballers, Olympians, CrossFitters, and other high performance athletes use HRV monitoring to track their rest and recovery periods, pinpoint optimal training and competing times, and avoid overtraining. To understand why top athletes are finding HRV so valuable in their training and performance, read the following excerpt from Module 7 (“Exercise is Ineffective for Weight Management”) of the Primal Blueprint Expert Certification:

Surprisingly, and perhaps counterintuitively, a high HRV score – greater variability in the time gap between heart beats – indicates a healthy, fit, well­-rested heart. Elevating your average HRV values over time is indicative of improved cardiovascular fitness. A low HRV value (a heart beating closer to a fixed rhythm, such as one second apart in the example) is believed to be an indication of a poorly functioning heart–perhaps an overtrained athlete or a person who is unfit, overstressed, or has developed cardiac disease risk factors. By tracking HRV regularly, one can establish a baseline value and then be alerted to excessive stress or insufficient recovery when HRV readings are lower than normal.

If this information has piqued your interest in trying HRV, it’s easy to get started. You will need some equipment to get the best results. It’s difficult to track your heart rate variability without a sensitive instrument because the variations are relatively slight and to the naked eye (or ear, or finger) might look or sound perfectly linear. A finger on a pulse doesn’t quite do the trick.

Here’s what you’ll need to get started right away:

A heart rate monitor. Either get a chest strap (more accurate, more expensive) or a finger sensor (slightly less accurate, less expensive). Try to go for a Bluetooth-enabled model, like the Polar H7, Zephyr HxM, or Wahoo Chest Strap.

Heart rate variability smartphone app. Check to make sure your monitor is compatible with the app before you buy it. iThlete and Bioforce seem to be the most popular apps; both are available for Android and iOS. SweetBeat is another popular choice.

If your heart rate monitor isn’t Bluetooth enabled, you’ll also need an ECG receiver that connects to the monitor and plugs into your phone.

Begin your n=1 odyssey by monitoring HRV with a daily test at the same time under the same conditions. Traditionally, checking HRV first thing in the morning upon waking before coffee, breakfast, or the day’s stresses commence is the most effective time to test. The test will take just a couple minutes and the values will be recorded by the app. Do this every day. In a short time, you will have established a baseline value/normal range for HRV, and the app will have plotted a graph of your HRV history that you can refer back to against your workout/health history. Remember that really awful week of 12 hour work days as the quarter ended? It’ll probably show up on your chart as a week of low HRV. Or how about that deload week you finally managed to take last month? That’s why your HRV was remarkably high.

If you want to check this concept out without spending any money on fancy equipment, download the free “Stress Check” app for iOS or Android. This app seems to deliver some reasonable data with a simple percentage score equating with your supposed stress level. e.g.,  I tried it after an easy cardio workout and I was at 35% (labeled “moderate stress”). An hour later, working in the office, I was at 18% (“low stress”). After a short afternoon nap I was at 3%. Realize that app doesn’t give you a proper HRV value like the SweetBeat app (which requires a chest strap transmitter to process data). It’s likely they are creating a simple percentage score inverse to the HRV value that they are taking an educated guess at from your pulse rate.

As mentioned in detail in the Primal Blueprint 90-Day Journal about general self-experimentation, anyone looking to self-experiment with HRV should track subjective 0-10 scores in daily energy levels, motivation levels, and state of health/immune function and try to calibrate these scores with the degree of difficulty of your workouts. I’d venture to guess that if you are well aligned with these subjective scores, you will see a pattern emerge with favorable corresponding HRV scores. Conversely, if you’re drifting toward or locked into a chronic exercise pattern or period of high stress, low HRV scores should follow.

I’ve been following the HRV fitness literature for years with great interest, but until recently had yet to really pursue it on a personal level because, well, I’m no longer a high-performance athlete. As I did more research in preparation for releasing the certification, however, I realized it had broader applications that applied to just about everyone.

So lately, I have been testing HRV and can attest to its value. Shortly after a lively Sunday Ultimate frisbee match, I tested it. As any regular Ultimate player knows, these are high intensity and long duration games; they’re pretty darn demanding. Predictably, my HRV was on the lower end after the game, indicating a need for rest and recovery.

The following morning, as I nursed the usual soreness, my HRV had improved from my immediately post-match score, but was still low enough to indicate that I should be in rest and rebuild mode.

Tuesday, things were almost back to baseline, so I kept things light and went for a couple walks. Nothing strenuous.

By Wednesday – which is usually when I hit it hard with a high intensity gym circuit or interval cycling session – my HRV scores had recovered, giving me the green light to go for it. And sure enough, I had a productive session. I shudder to think how incredibly beneficial it would have been to have this technology by my bedside when I was cranking out 100-mile marathon training weeks come hell or high water back in the 70s and 80s. Maybe I’d still be running marathons today….NOT!

One interesting non-fitness benefit I’ve personally noticed from measuring HRV: if I get a “high-stress” reading on the monitor, I find myself actively and subconsciously calming myself and relaxing. Dr. Ron Sinha, who uses HRV monitoring in his patients with metabolic syndrome and covers the topic extensively in The South Asian Health Solution, told me this might happen on our podcast a while back.  I’ll start breathing more deeply, get a lid on the racing thoughts, and just generally slow down. And it works! I know it works because the instant feedback allows me to see the effects of my response in real time (and a recent study in musicians suffering from performance anxiety also confirms it). You know how when you’re driving and come across a speedometer on the side of the road flashing your speed, you immediately slow down and moderate your driving for awhile after? The HRV monitoring had a similar effect for me.

Simon Wegerif, founder of iThlete and one of the driving forces in creating affordable HRV measuring technology, says HRV is so accurate that you can essentially override your intuitive signals and get your butt out there even if you don’t feel like it. I’ve heard exercise scientists offer similar nuggets for many decades, things like “prick your finger and get a blood lactate value that will dial in the proper workout that day.” That’s the “better living through chemistry” argument, and while I totally respect exercise science and am super enthusiastic about HRV being a huge breakthrough in tracking overtraining and burnout symptoms, I can’t downplay the value of intuition and subjective variables when making training decisions. Every single elite athlete I’ve coached or known, in any sport, has shared a similar point of view. So I caution you against getting overly obsessed with technology and being robotic in your approach, even if you are honoring HRV and going easy when mandated by low values. Use both your gut/intuition/subjective impression of how you feel and the objective measurements of the HRV monitor to make decisions and optimize your training and health. After all, the indomitable human spirit of Rocky Balboa and his raw training methods were still able to knock out the laboratory perfected robo-athlete Ivan Drago in the famous boxing documentary Rocky IV!

What excites me most about HRV is its potential to encapsulate the PB spirit of using both modern technology and ancient Primal intuition to attain optimal health and performance. Some people have that intuition dialed in; they may not need a chest strap monitor to tell them they’re overtrained or stressed out. But not everyone can do that, and by getting that instant objective feedback, they can learn more about how their body works.

I’m interested to see where HRV monitoring can help, not just in athletic performance and recovery, but for general health, stress resilience and reduction, and productivity. I think I’ll be playing around with HRV more and more, and I hope to report back in the near future.

Have you tried monitoring HRV? Did you find it useful? Or are you of the mind that HRV monitoring is useless? Let us hear about your thoughts and experiences in the comment section!

Dear Mark: CrossFit and Carbs; How to Lose Weight as a Teen

For today’s edition of Dear Mark, we’ve got two questions. First, I handle one from Heidi, a full-time CrossFitter with low body fat, a love for carbs, and a desire to burn more fat than sugar. Find out whether her love of CrossFit is compatible with her desire to stick to a low carb Primal way of eating. Next, I cover a question from Sam, a 14-year old teen who wants to drop about 15 to 20 pounds. He’s currently eating Primally and following the P90x routine, but is there another, perhaps better way?

Let’s find out:

Mark,

I just recently joined your subscriber list and downloaded your ebooks. I have a question regarding the transition from burning carbs to burning fats.

First a little background: I am a 40-year-old woman who has been pretty active her entire life. I have been doing CrossFit for the past two years and really enjoy the intensity. I am 6 foot tall and 150 pounds. And last I checked my body fat percentage is about 14%.

I absolutely love carbs and figure that my body is addicted to carbohydrates and uses them for fuel. Last year I tried the paleo diet and after about 10 days I got extremely sick. I had a severe migraine and could not function and craved carbohydrates uncontrollably.

What is your suggestion for helping my body make the transition to burning fat versus carbs? And how long do you think that would take?

My end goal is just to maintain a low body fat percentage, nice muscle tone, and overall health.

I respect the information that you are providing and look forward to your response!

Heidi

Glad to have you aboard! Thanks for following.

CrossFit is a notorious carb-burning modality. That’s fine, but it’ll be hard to maintain a very low carb or ketogenic diet while engaging in near-daily CrossFit workouts. That’s just the nature of the beast. Sometimes, carb cravings should be heeded. Sometimes, you just need more glucose. This sounds like one of those times. Cravings aren’t always an example of your body sending unreliable signals. I’ve always said that eating some carbohydrate after a high-intensity, glycogen-depleting workout (like a CrossFit WOD) is the best time to eat it. You’re more likely to fill glycogen reserves that way and your muscles are insulin sensitive and thus require less to do the job. Exercise even up-regulates something called non-insulin dependent glucose uptake, a glycogen-repletion pathway that allows carbohydrate utilization without any insulin at all.

However, there’s emerging evidence that given adequate adaptation time to a ketogenic diet, you can maintain or even improve power and strength output. For instance, there was the group of trained gymnasts who lost body fat and maintained or even improved their strength levels (hanging leg raise, pushup, dip, pullup, squat jump, countermovement jump, and continuous 30 second jump were all tested) on a zero carb, meat/fish/olive oil/green vegetable-based ketogenic diet. They were given a full thirty days to adapt. Most people don’t give themselves an entire month before declaring a diet useless or dangerous or bad for physical performance, but this study suggests that they should.

There’s also the cyclic ketogenic approach, where you eat lower carb most of the time but load up on Primal safe starches and fruit post workout. And by “load up,” I don’t mean the 400-500 gram carb fests that people embark upon after doing yoga for 45 minutes. Try to find your minimum effective dose of carb repletion. 200-250 grams should be plenty for most CrossFitters on a WOD day. Start at 200 and see if you need more – or less.

Also, you might consider increasing your body fat percentage. That’s a low enough percentage that many, if not most, women in that range begin feeling and seeing negative symptoms, including carbohydrate cravings and low leptin levels. Remember that body fat secretes leptin, a satiety-promoting hormone. Ample leptin (and good leptin sensitivity) is an indicator of adequate energy availability to the body. Low leptin (caused by inadequate body fat stores) indicates inadequate energy availability to the body; food cravings are a natural response.

If you’re balking at increasing body fat, 14% is very low body fat for many women and looks quite different than 14% on a man. This isn’t scientific, but here’s a picture showing what 15% actually looks like on a woman; here’s one showing 15% on a man. Consider shooting for 20-30% body fat levels. That sounds like a lot to you, I’m sure, but you might feel better with fewer cravings. Here, take a look at what those levels look like on a woman. You obviously know how to get back down to 14%, so if the higher levels don’t work for you, you can always cut down. It’s worth a try to see if your cravings subside and performance maintains.

Bottom line, though: if you want to become more of a fat burner, you have to cut back on the exercise because the CrossFit is exhausting your glycogen stores and demanding that they be replenished with more carbs. In most people, fat simply can’t support that level and volume of intensity. That’s okay, if that’s what you’re going for, but I suspect you’d be happier and overall healthier if you toned down the workouts, kept the bulk of your carb intake on workout days, and did a lot more easy, slow movement – walks, hikes, even pure strength training, as opposed to 30-minute WODs, are more conducive to fat-burning. Don’t give up CrossFit. Don’t give up the WODs. Just do it differently (maybe your box has a strength training or Olympic lifting-focused day that you can try out instead of the metcons for a change).

Good luck!

Hello Mark,

I am a 14 year old boy that is 15 to 20 pounds overweight and I am doing the Primal Blueprint diet and doing the P90X program 5 to 6 days a week. I only do 30 to 40 minutes of each video and I do abs every day. I was just wondering if you had an estimate for the time it would take for me to get in as good shape as an average high school boy my age.

Sam

Well, seeing as how about 21% of teens aged 12-19 are obese (as of 2012) and even more are “just” overweight, I’d say you’re doing better than the average high school boy. The fact that you’re reading this blog, asking questions, and going forward with an exercise plan of your own puts you in rarefied territory. Hats off to you, Sam. It’s a great start.

You’re probably about to start full blown puberty. That’s where your voice deepens, you get some sweet body hair (if you’re genetically inclined to grow body hair), and, most importantly for your situation, your testosterone levels skyrocket. Thanks to the testosterone boost, it’s also where pudgier preteens begin to lean out and build more lean mass. This happens without you doing anything in particular. It’s purely hormonal; your body is just following the script. If you’re eating well and exercising, the effects will be even more pronounced. I suspect you haven’t hit your testosterone phase.

If I were you, I would make a few changes to my workout routine. P90x is great at improving endurance, cutting fat, and increasing your pain threshold, but it’s not amazing at building lean muscle. Instead of 5-6 days a week, try 2-3. And cool out on the abs. You don’t need to do them every single day, and the heavy emphasis on sit-ups and crunches can negatively affect the stability and health of your spine, especially when you’re 20 minutes into your fourth straight day and your form goes out the window. Planks, hanging leg raises, ab rollouts, and even squats and deadlifts are excellent ways to strengthen your torso (or “abs”) without the volume of P90x.

Lift some actual weights, if you have access. Although people will tell you differently, no research has ever shown that weight training actually stunts growth in youth. Kids who lift enjoy stronger bones (which extends into adulthood), increased lean mass, improved insulin sensitivity (which will help you lose body fat), and overall better health – just like adults who lift. Lifting heavy things will also build some nice stuff to be revealed once you lose the body fat.

Primal Blueprint Fitness, primarily a bodyweight program that can be modified to include weights, is a great place to start. Plus, it’s free if you sign up for the newsletter (which is also free).

There’s also non-workout stuff you can do. You’re 14, which makes you an incoming freshman, right? How about going out for a sports team? If you don’t feel up to it (high school can be intimidating, especially if you don’t feel you’re at your physical best), you can always play on the side and then come back next year ready to dominate. Consider non-traditional sports, like Ultimate Frisbee, swimming, or maybe lacrosse. They’ll get you really fit without the level of scrutiny applied to basketball, football, and baseball.

You should try active commuting to school, if it’s feasible for you. Walk or bike to school instead of taking the bus or getting a ride. Remember, attaining and maintaining optimal weight is much more about integrating constant physical activity throughout the day, rather than focusing on punctuated bursts of intense activity. Since you’re probably sitting down for most of school, walking/biking to and from campus can really help mitigate all the inactivity. Throw a few workouts in a week, some play/sports, a weekend hike or two, and you’ll be in great shape.

Let me know how it works out for you, Sam.

That’s it for today, folks. Thanks for reading and be sure to chime in with your words of advice or encouragement for Heidi and Sam (and anyone else who might be in a similar position)!

Weekend Link Love – Edition 316

We keep getting registrations and questions about the Primal Blueprint Expert Certification. Thanks for the interest. It seems like lots of people – understandably – want to know exactly what is in the coursework before they take the plunge. If that’s you, be sure to check out last week’s podcast. It’s two and a half hours and covers the entire course in great detail. Even if you don’t end up taking the Cert, you will learn a ton about Primal living, the 8 Key Concepts and 5 Action Items – so give it a listen either on the blog or in iTunes.

Research of the Week

Meat chickens have really been hitting the bench hard lately.

We’ve lost half the world’s wildlife since 1970.

Stone tool use evolved independently throughout the world.

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.

16 Ways Green Space Improves Your Life
We Are Family: PrimalCon Oxnard 2014
Mark’s Daily Apple Best of 2014: Primal Criticism Rebutted
The Definitive Guide to Grok
How to Succeed with a Growth Mindset

Interesting Blog Posts

How eating liver and kidney used to be patriotic.

The Merrymaker Sisters give their recap of PrimalCon Oxnard. I get the impression they liked it.

Media, Schmedia

Interesting facts embedded within a new NY Times piece on celiac: it’s five times more common than fifty years ago, and just 17% of celiacs know they have it.

A nice (well, not exactly nice) roundup of the effects of excessive sitting on our health.

Everything Else

Here’s a superfood I can get behind.

I wonder if any of these surfing dogs can hang twenty.

Your baby might end up looking like your ex-boyfriend.

An Oglala Lakota chef is serving only pre-colonization foods in his restaurant. Something tells me his food’ll be fairly healthy. Oh, and his restaurant has a great name, too: The Sioux Chef.

Now I can’t wait to see who wins the Virginia Slim Ironman point series!

Not content with engineering individual genes, researchers are preparing to create organisms with entirely new gene clusters.

Eyes can be a window to your health.

When Greg Hindy vowed to unplug from the world for a year, he really meant it.

Even when we starve, our gut bacteria eat.

Recipe Corner

You know those people who put hot sauce “on everything” and go through a gallon a week? Here’s a recipe that should save them money.
Paleo falafel. But don’t expect your vegetarian friends to eat it.

Time Capsule

One year ago (Oct 5 – Oct 11)

The Physiological Consequences of Being Hyperconnected – What all that texting, email-checking, and Facebookin’ might be doing to our bodies.
Is Barbell Dogma Doing More Harm Than Good? – Does everyone really have to be slinging heavy weight around to be fit?

Comment of the Week

What a wheely good way to get tyred out.

– Well done, Stevemid. Well done.

Further Your Knowledge. Deepen Your Impact. Become an Expert! Learn More About the Primal Blueprint Expert Certification

Salami Vinaigrette

Chorizo vinaigrette doesn’t have a lot of eye appeal, but the garlicky pork flavor is even better than bacon on a spinach salad. Add mushrooms, hard boiled egg and warm caramelized red onion to wilt the greens and the salad is plenty appetizing, even without a gorgeous dressing.

While it’s not a good idea to dress every salad with vinaigrette made from cured meat, this recipe only uses 2 ounces of high-quality salami and delivers a whole lot of flavor. If you’re spinach adverse, or vegetable adverse for that matter, maybe a drizzle of chorizo vinaigrette will help the veggies go down. Chorizo vinaigrette is also delicious over roasted vegetables, sautéed greens of any kind (and grilled seafood).

Servings: 4

Time in the Kitchen: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 red onion, thinly sliced
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided (80 ml plus 30 ml)
2 ounces dry chorizo salami, sliced thinly and cut into small pieces (56 g)
1/4 cup sherry vinegar (60 ml)
1 garlic clove, chopped
6 ounces baby spinach (170 g)
4 ounces mushrooms, sliced (113 g)
2 to 4 hardboiled eggs, grated or sliced

Instructions:

Warm 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Cook the onion (seasoned lightly with salt) until very soft and lightly browned, about 20 to 30 minutes. Turn the heat down if necessary so onion doesn’t get too brown.

While the onion is cooking, put the rest of the salad together.

In a blender, combine chorizo, sherry vinegar, garlic and 2 tablespoons/30 ml water. Blend, trying to finely chop the chorizo. Drizzle in the remaining 1/3 cup olive oil and continue to blend until the dressing is as smooth as possible, stopping the blender and scraping down the sides as necessary. The dressing is meant to be fairly thick, but you can add a little more water if you’d like to thin it out.

In a big bowl, toss together the spinach, mushrooms and dressing until well coated. Add the hardboiled egg and warm onion. Toss gently and serve.

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How Primal and Capoeira Helped Me Reclaim My Six-Pack

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!

My name is Hilton. I’m Brazilian and was born in 1976 to a family of heavy drinkers, heavy smokers, and heavy carb eaters (they were heavy meat eaters too, a point I can’t deny). Many of them were obese and loaded with diabetes and hypertension.

As a kid, one could say I had the body type of a frog: skinny arms and legs with a big belly—and my diet was probably the source of the problem. Brazilians’ main meal is lunch, and classic Brazilian lunch is rice, beans, meat, french fries and tomatoes, always sided by soft drinks or very sweet juices.

At 15, noticing how little success I had with the girls (oh, I stuttered a little too, and had glasses), I decided to gain some muscle by doing bodyweight exercises (pull-ups, pushups and abs exercises topped with some running). Although the diet was the same, it worked—I still had the skinny arms and legs, but damn they were strong. As for the belly, it vanished. Hello, six-pack!

I only learned to eat veggies in my late teens, as a matter of money. As a college student, short of cash, I had to stick to the meals offered by the university restaurant. They were much cheaper than regular restaurants and were much easier than cooking at home, which I didn’t know how to do at the time anyway. Plus, it was really good for me—so no hard feelings!

But besides the new feeding habits, there came beer, parties and junk food—loads of each. So I said “buh-bye” to the six-pack and put on 27 pounds in a single year (this was in 1995).

1996 came, and I decided to drop that load again. I became a vegetarian and joined a capoeira (Brazilian martial art) school. It worked like a charm. By the end of that year, I had my six-pack back. I reintroduced meat to my diet in the beginning of 1997, and kept training capoeira (6 times a week), running (3 times a week) and swimming (3 times a week).

By the middle of 1999, I got a knee pain. After some x-rays and MRIs, no lesions were detected, so I was sent to physiotherapy. I had dozens of sessions, and the pain was still there. I quit capoeira and running, and stuck to swimming (most of the time, using only my arms to avoid hurting my knee). Then the pain “spread” to the other knee, and then to my upper back. The dark times had arrived.

After hundreds of physiotherapy, acupuncture and reiki sessions (plus a truckload of homeopathy) later, I had pain on my shoulders, elbows, upper and lower back, and knees (luckily money was not an issue after I graduated, since I had no kids). On average it was not incapacitating, but it prevented me from exercising hard since I would pay the price of having some three or four days of excruciating pain afterward. Sleeping became somewhat of an issue, too. I kept swimming VERY slowly, just to maintain my stress under control. Weight started to build up again…

In 2001, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. The rheumatologist told me that I had a mild case (given the amount of pain I had at the time, I can only gape at how people with severe cases live on one day after the other) and prescribed cyclobenzaprine (which made me thirsty and somewhat groggy). But more importantly, he suggested that since I had a mild case, I should accept pain as a constant in my life, and focus on being fit. According to some studies, fibromyalgia pain seems to decrease when you are strong and stretched.

So I came back to my beloved capoeira, stuck to medication, avoided too much sugar or fat, and ate lots of veggies. It hurt like hell in the beginning, but it paid. By mid-2002, I was back to exercising and had a strong body again—still skinny, but strong with a six-pack again. Everything was fine…until December 31st, 2007.

While bodysurfing, a wave threw me on the shallows, and I hurt my right shoulder badly. I had two surgeries to fix it, wherein I lost some cartilage and part of my joint movement (fortunately, people who hardly know me can’t tell how much amplitude I have lost. Since I had above-average stretching thanks to capoeira, even though I’m limited, my right arm looks normal. But handstands and cartwheels became very hard to perform. The same difficulty applied to raising heavy weights with my arms fully extended.)

After the accident, I steadily gained 5.5 pounds per year. I still practiced capoeira, but without using my arms since I was always afraid of being taken down and hurting the shoulder again. I kept it to a minimum (15 minutes each 15 days). Lots of ice cream, pizza, snacks and chocolate found their way into my cabinets and fridge—and I ate them all. My six-pack ran away again, and left constant heartburn in its place.

A friend mentioned the paleo diet in July, 2010, and I thought it was worth a read. But I didn’t decide to try it until March, 2013. I did some research on the internet and found MDA. I read anything I could for a few days, and decided to change my way of eating on March 1st, 2013.

In exactly four days, I dropped 3.3 pounds and was hooked.

From the beginning, the heartburn was gone. After some time my feet and nails ceased to crack. My fibromyalgia pains lessened a lot, but were still there. My wife was sure I would “die with clogged arteries from that much animal fat,” so I stuck to a routine of having my blood checked every 60 days. All my biomarkers got better, or didn’t change. My meals got more expensive (unlike my college days, money was an issue since I now had one daughter and a bigger house to keep up), healthier, slower and tastier. I craved bread from time to time, but never cheated—until the cravings completely disappeared.

After six months, I had dropped almost 35 pounds and got back to the same weight I had before the accident; the same weight I was at 18 years old when I practiced intense activities 6 times a week. The difference was that I wasn’t practicing anything at all…just eating real food!

Only then, after losing those 35 pounds, did I start working out. Pushups, pull-ups, squats, planks, and a 10 pound medicine ball—combined with occasional sprints and the daily walk to work (2.2 miles, covered each day in 40 minutes)—got me in the best shape of my life. I was still a lean guy (no bulging muscles) but I was strong.

As the weight dropped and I said “Hello again, six-pack,” I noticed another BIG change: people around me stopped mocking my new lifestyle and started asking about what the heck I was doing. So I started preaching whenever I could, and got some “followers.” We were “the cult.” But we were also getting leaner and stronger by the day, so more and more people came. I managed to stage some talks, and, as of now, I have turned some 40 or 50 people onto the paleo way of life. This included family members, coworkers and people I had never even seen—they were “converted” by my faithful. Together, we have dropped more than a ton of weight between us, as well as blood pressure, statins and diabetes medication.

A lot of people thank me for changing their lives, and I refer them to you and the strong paleo/LCHF gurus out there (Robb Wolf, Chris Kresser, Andreas Eenfeldt, Michael Eades, Paul Jaminet and all the gang). There’s also José Souto, MD: the Brazilian paleo/LCHF guru who started his own blog in 2011 and is the greatest reference in the country.

I also decided to get a degree in nutrition (I already have a bachelor of science in computer science), and have three more years to go. It’s weird and sad to see how the “common wisdom” is spread inside college. People in their first year already “know that all that matters is the caloric balance.” But there have been a lot of heated discussions in my class, to say the least.

Anyway, I’d like to thank you a lot! I have almost 1.5 years on the path to health, and feel that every day has something new to show me!

Cheers from Brazil!

Hilton