Mark Sisson's Blog, page 321

A Simple Flip of a Switch: Body Fat Lost, Athletic Performance Improved, and Inspiration Served

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!

Having always been relatively healthy—no chronic diseases or weight loss demands—I came into Primal living differently from many of the stories I read on Mark’s Daily Apple. Now 13 months into my Primal journey, I am grateful to be physically and mentally healthier than I’ve ever been.

My journey did, however, begin with a doctor. Despite my cushy shoes and custom orthotics, clicking, popping, and throbbing in the base of both big toes led me to seek a podiatrist’s help. I was quickly diagnosed with arthritis. A procedure had to be performed at a hospital to correct the problem and I was told to stop running and mountain biking. After telling the good doctor that I wasn’t going to take his advice because I absolutely love running and biking, I asked what he’d recommend to lessen the future degradation of my joints. He said, “Vibram FiveFingers, and read Born to Run.” I took that advice and “ran with it.” My feet have healed themselves, and now it’s rare for me to ever wear shoes. If I do, I’m in my huaraches or FiveFingers.

While talking to a colleague at work about my FF, he recommended that I check out MDA. I did and I never turned back. The Primal concepts were so simple—so logical—that I felt compelled to try it.

Like many guys in their 30s, I enjoy being active and tried to do whatever I could to stay active and not get fat. With two young boys, a career, and the Standard American Diet, this seemed to get harder every year. I wouldn’t consider myself a chronic cardio kind of guy, but runs of 5 or 6 miles and mountain bike outings for an hour at time were common. I also enjoyed an occasional 5 or 10k race where my times were respectable.

Going Primal seemed like a simple flip of a switch that improved everything in my health. The very first thing I noticed was that my energy level was always the same, no matter what time of day, assuming I got the proper amount of sleep. Peaks and valleys of energy were gone. I noticed that my athletic performance drastically improved. I went from competing with myself in 5k runs to placing in my age group in almost every race—without really training for it.

Although I was never drastically overweight, I wanted to trim down for reasons of vanity (and subsequently, health). I cut ten pounds through calorie restriction prior to going Primal, but had energy problems and I really decimated my enjoyment of eating. When I discovered The Primal Blueprint I cut another 20 lbs while feeling great. I learned to love real food and discovered a passion for cooking that I never knew existed! My waist is now the same size it was when I was a competitive sprinter and soccer player in high school. My body has found its ideal composition and I’m very happy with it.

What makes my experience more fulfilling is watching my parents have even more success than me. They saw my physique change, my diet become more fulfilling, and my athletic performance blossom, so they asked what I was doing. I introduced them to PB and their success has been astonishing. My mom doesn’t have to take her diabetes medicine anymore and my dad hasn’t weighed this little since the 1970s! They look great, feel great, and have had to replace their wardrobes because they lost so much weight!

Nowadays, my siblings, my parents, and I will be seen together eating delicious plants and animals, avoiding grains, wearing goofy shoes with toes built in them, and enjoying the Primal lifestyle!

Trip D.

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Why Diets Fail

Question of the day: what does the term “dieting” conjure up for you? Anecdotes, laughs, regrets, frustration, anxiety? I bet there’s quite a collection of stories to be told. When I think of diets, I think it’s common to think deprivation – of calories, of real food, of satisfaction, of enjoyment, of peace of mind. And that’s how it generally goes in our culture, isn’t it? We diet, we end the diet, we go back on the diet because either it didn’t work the first time or it did but then we fell right back down the same hole again. So, we keep playing the same game of deprivation, white-knuckling it until we get to that glorious sham of an “endpoint,” what I would call the “and they lived happily ever after” conclusion delusion. From a maybe more humorous angle, I think of deprivation dieting as an extended version of the mental game, “don’t think of a elephant.” Gee, what’s the first and most predominant thing you’re going to think of? How much determination and energy is it going to take to not think of the elephant 40 times per day? How about just forgoing the game altogether? Just eat the elephant already.

On a more serious note, I think of the way we work ourselves into a love-hate relationship with food (and sometimes ourselves). We tell ourselves erroneously that food makes us fat, but the pull toward it has never been stronger and more loaded with psychological baggage. Food shouldn’t be the reason for our existence, but it should never be the enemy. From an ancestral point of view, the whole framework is insane. Dieting in the modern sense distorts our relationship with food as basic sustenance.

Incidentally, research shows it can also distort our physiology. A team at the University of Pennsylvania found that a restrictive short-term diet not only had higher levels of the stress hormone corticosterone but also showed lasting epigenetic changes in genes influential to stress regulation.

Likewise, dieting even changes our brain activity. A study at the Oregon Research Institute demonstrated that caloric deprivation increases the “reward value” of food as determined by activity in relevant regions of subjects’ brains in the presence of food images and the presentation of food itself.

On this note, I caught an intriguing article in The New York Times a few weeks ago. It offered the provocative premise (research based) that dieting makes us “dumber.” The article cites studies demonstrating the “mental strain” deprivation puts on our brains and the likelihood of failure we face as a result. Of most interesting note is the research on mental “bandwidth.” Dieters apparently do worse than non-dieters on all manner of basic cognitive tests – everything from spatial reasoning to information retention. Does this really surprise anyone?

The reasons behind this cognitive strain are multifold. Dieters are distracted – by the endless calculations, the various and sundry trade-offs, the obsessive regrets and gymnastic style justifications they contort their minds into throughout a day. It’s frankly exhausting just to read about. The author also connects the strain, however, to a larger “scarcity” force in our biology and brain activity. According to research, when we’re preoccupied with not having enough, we literally lose IQ points. From an evolutionary standpoint, that also isn’t surprising.

When we diet, we deliberately choose scarcity. Why? In the end, deprivation is a self-defeating behavior. It will always be self-defeating behavior. Sure, there may be that temporary grit-your-teeth triumph many of us have experienced in the pre-Primal pasts. The fact is, you can scramble, deprive and exhaust your way to a target weight, but chances are you’ll just roll right down the other side of that mountain once you’re there. The better choice is always investment as opposed to deprivation. A better, healthier lifestyle calls you to invest in yourself. It’s not a mental game of mathematical twister or complicated rule book. It’s a lifestyle you create over time.

Related to this concept, as the Times article explains, is other research that suggests the perceived complexity of one’s weight management approach determines the ability to adhere to the plan over time. The more rules and more complex those rules were, the less likely participants were to adhere to the eating program. In short, “cognitively challenging” doesn’t work when it comes to diet.

Ring true? I’ve heard from many people that one of the things they love most about The Primal Blueprint is its simplicity. No fuss, no frustration. The Blueprint is intended to be a straightforward map to healthy, ancestrally sensical eating and living. While we can get as elaborate and impressive as we want in terms of recipes, the nuts and bolts are clear. Plain sailing.

With time and experience, the Blueprint takes on richer nuance, variety and personalization, but that investment yields long-term, consistent benefit in ways a quick-fix will never even approach. In “dieting” you count down the days. In a lifestyle shift, you commit to a learning curve.

The fact is, the trajectory of genuine dietary and lifestyle change is gradual, but it definitely doesn’t have to be slow. Anyone who’s done the 21-Day Transformation Challenge knows you can make substantive change in a short amount of time and experience substantial results. The difference is, you gradually make it your own. When you do a short-term diet, it tends to revolve around restriction and regimen. Choosing a healthy lifestyle, on the other hand, revolves around adaptation and experimentation. You accept the new approach into your life. You allow the philosophy to become a long-term part of your socialization, your holiday routines, your time management, your family life, your private recreation, your shopping sources, your kitchen library, your life’s enjoyment. A good diet should ultimately be about living the good life. It’s a countercultural kind of message, however. The results, I think, are the difference between deprivation dieting and good Primal living.

Thanks for reading today, everyone. What’s your take on dieting? Does the research ring true to you? What’s been the difference between past dieting and Primal living?

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Starch: Fallback Food or Essential Nutrient?

I’ve always said that carbs aren’t bad in and of themselves. They’re better in certain contexts and worse in others.

Are you CrossFitting five days a week? Training for the Olympics? Breastfeeding? These are contexts in which carbs are warranted, helpful, and even healthy.

Are you insulin-resistant and hyperinsulinemic? Are you a moderately active person with a few extra pounds? Are you diabetic, or nearly so? These are contexts in which a low carb intake would be warranted, helpful, and even healthy.

With my Carb Curve, I’ve tried to establish a basic framework that works for most people who come to this site looking to get healthy. I think I’ve mostly succeeded. 150 grams of carbohydrates from fruit, squashes, roots, and tubers is more than enough for the vast majority of people to feel sated, healthy, and energetic without leading to weight gain or exacerbating metabolic syndrome. Add more if you need it to fuel your training; remove some if you’re particularly sedentary, diabetic, or looking to lose weight; try a carb refeed every few days of 200-300 grams if you’re very low carb or ketogenic. Round that out with all the non-starchy vegetables you want and you’re looking at a very diverse diet rich with phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals with lots of room for nutrient-dense meat and fat sources. Not bad, right? Pretty simple, and the results speak for themselves.

Despite that, there’s an undercurrent that high-carb Primal and low-carb Primal are interchangeable. That macronutrient ratios don’t matter regardless of health status or metabolic context, and that we evolved eating a diet rich in, if not based on, starchy tubers.

Today, I’m going to address some of the most common arguments for these claims. I’m not arguing against including starch in your diet, now. I’m arguing against this notion that inclusion of large amounts of starch is the defining characteristic of an ancestral diet.

Let’s jump right in…

But Grok Ate Tubers, and Lots of ‘em!

This is a common refrain. And sure, wild tubers, AKA underground storage organs, have been around longer than we have. They’re an important food source for many animals, including primates, so it’s no wonder early humans utilized wild tubers. But before you rush out and buy potato futures, consider a few points:

Wild tubers are not Russet potatoes. They generally don’t turn into creamy smooth starchy goodness when baked. They’re tough, fibrous things that provide a fraction of the usable energy modern cultivars provide (PDF). Whereas your typical kilogram of potato offers over 1000 calories, a kilo of many wild tuber varieties hover at around 300 calories. Eating these would have provided a moderate dose of glucose – akin to, perhaps, butternut squash – plus a load of prebiotic fiber for the gut flora. In addition to fiber, wild tubers are extremely rich in minerals, with some varieties offering over 500 mg of calcium per 100 grams of tuber – so they’re also more mineral-dense than the tubers most of us can buy at the store.

They were very likely fallback foods. Among the Hadza people of Tanzania, tubers are the least-preferred food source. If you could see the aftermath of a tuber feast, you’d understand why: piles and piles of chewed up fiber, spit out after sucking all the caloric glucose-rich starch from the tubers. It gets the job done, but it’s not very pleasant or appetizing. Now, before you point to the fact that tubers were also the most-available food source, consider that the environment of the Hadza is not the environment of early man. The geography may be the same, but everything else has changed. Like most all other extant hunter-gatherers, they are the remaining members of people who have been driven off the best, most resource-rich lands into the margins, those scrubby relatively resource-poor lands. They’ve literally been marginalized. They eat lots of tubers because they are widely available and they eat less meat and honey because they aren’t always available (even though they prefer the latter two). Before agriculture and the rise of the state, land was sparsely populated by humans and rich in game. Animals were simply more numerous and thus easier to come by. I’m not saying that our ancestors were carnivores – quite the contrary, in fact – but all else being equal hunter-gatherers on game-rich lands will have more opportunities to consume (the preferred) animals and less cause to fallback on fibrous tubers than hunter-gatherers on marginalized lands.

Specific genetic adaptations to tuber-based diets emerged only recently. Adaptations include detoxification of glycosides (potentially toxic substances found in tubers), enhancement of folate biosynthesis (tubers contain little folate, so people subsisting on tubers would need to develop ways to make enough of their own in-house), and improvements in starch metabolism. If we’d been eating a tuber-rich diet for our entire history as humans, why would these recent genetic adaptations even be necessary?

But We Make Salivary Amylase!

Salivary amylase is like pancreatic amylase in that it digests starch into simple, absorbable sugars, only in your mouth. It helps prepare starch for further digestion, particularly the more you chew. Plus, your amylase-rich saliva gets swallowed and continues working on the starch throughout digestion. Compared to the fruit-eating and starch-eschewing chimpanzee with two copies, humans have between two and fifteen copies of the salivary amylase gene. Some have posited that this indicates a necessary role for starch in human nutrition. It sounds like a reasonable argument.

As I’ve mentioned before, though, having a high number of salivary amylase gene copies isn’t universal. It depends on your background. If your ancestors ate a lot of starch, you’re more likely to have more copies than the people whose ancestors did not eat as much. Beyond the first copies around 200 thousand years ago, researchers are still piecing together exactly when the extra copies of salivary amylase genes were added to (some segments of) the human genome, but judging from the emergence of other recent, tuber-specific adaptations (mentioned above), it wasn’t too long ago for many of us.

And if you are one of the high-amylase individuals, remember why salivary amylase is ultimately there: to assist in the digestion (and thus assimilation) of dietary starch. It’s not there to justify overconsumption of starchy tubers whose carbs you don’t really need. High copies of salivary amylase genes are only helpful if you need the glucose to survive. If you need the calories, if you’ll use the calories, then the salivary amylase will help you do it. But if you’re a mostly sedentary modern computer-using human who works out moderately and drives to work, I wonder whether you truly need so much starch.

Which brings me to the next argument.

But People Didn’t Start Getting Fat en Masse Until the Advent of Industrial Foods; Most Starch-Eating Agriculturalists Were Actually Pretty Thin!

This is true. You can look at old pictures from the turn of the last century and you’ll notice that most everyone is slim. If you could travel back through time and space to visit and view Mayan empire, the Indus valley civilizations, the Roman republic, the signing of the Magna Carta, the first farmers in the fertile crescent – you would bring back photos of mostly lean people as well. Lean, often perpetually exhausted and overworked people.

Agriculture introduced the concept of “labor.” People living in agricultural societies had to work hard to survive. Rather than draw on the seemingly endless bounty of nature, agriculturalists imposed themselves on the land and struggled against the very laws of nature to force crops to grow. They worked long hours and performed tons of “reps.” It’s been estimated that medieval peasants, for example, had to consume up to twice as many calories as modern humans just to keep up with the demands of their daily labor. They certainly weren’t fat on their high-calorie, high-carb diets because they were “earning” their carbs with loads of glucose-demanding physical work. If you’re not doing the work of a medieval serf, you won’t have the same tolerance of and need for starch.

I’m not suggesting hunter-gatherers didn’t work or physically exert themselves, by the way. Hunter-gatherers worked, for sure, just not the kind of daily, miserable, physically-exhausting toil you’d do as a farmer. Maybe three to five hours a day. It wasn’t day in, day out, either; a successful hunt was followed by days of relaxing, partying, and feasting. It was more fractal, varied, random, seasonal.

Thin doesn’t always equal healthy, anyway. Remember: I stayed thin and “fit” on 750-1000 grams of carbs every day when I was running 100 miles a week. Doesn’t mean it was a good idea or I wasn’t hurting myself.

But the Kitavans Ate a Starch-Based Diet and Were Healthy!

I’ve touched on the Kitavans before, and I largely agree. They were healthy. Here’s the thing, though: most people aren’t raised in a pristine South Pacific island environment replete with sunshine (vitamin D), crystal clear waters, coconuts, biologically congruent sleep patterns, extended families and strong communities, and extended breastfeeding with a near absence of gluten-containing grains and processed seed oils (that last one could be said for the medieval serfs and other pre-industrial starch eaters, too!). They’re very active and although they consume relatively low amounts of fat, what fat they do consume is derived from coconuts (saturated fats) and fish (omega-3s). Not to mention the epigenetic advantages of having parents and grandparents who lived this way. There’s far more to the Kitavan way of life than all the tubers they eat.

If you hope to have the same results eating a potato-based diet, you better get all the lifestyle and other dietary factors right (plus figure out how to travel back in time to influence the way your parents and grandparents lived and ate!).

As an insular island people, the Kitavans may also have genetic component to their tolerance of a high-carb diet, similar to the proposed adaptations related to gluconeogenesis that allow Arctic natives to flourish on a very low carb diet nearly bereft of significant plant input. If you don’t have those same island genetics, you may not have the same response to the Kitavan diet. Give it a shot, though; you could do a whole lot worse!

Anyway – those are the arguments I’m seeing. They’re interesting but ultimately limited and short-sighted in my opinion. My goal is not to attack or dismiss them (or dietary starch), but rather to offer some nuances to consider before integrating them into the Primal framework.

What do you think, folks? What other arguments are out there? What have you experienced with starch?

Let me know below, and thanks for reading!

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Making Music: Why You Should Pick Up an Instrument and Start Playing

In previous posts, I’ve spoken about the need to participate in innately human acts, those behaviors that seem to persist across cultures and languages and through space and time. To me, such universality implies importance and, perhaps, necessity. Why do humans from all places and all times dance or make tools or produce art if not to satisfy some Primal need that goes beyond tooth and claw survival? Today, I present to you another universal cultural constant deserving of our attention and participation: music.

Most people enjoy listening to music. Even if they don’t, even if someone isn’t the type to keep up with the latest bands or always have something playing in the background, there’s always that one song that gets them. The Beatles, for example. Who doesn’t like them? Anyway, listening to music has a number of positive physiological effects on us as I’ve discussed in a previous post, including reducing stress, providing dopamine hits (which we interpret as “getting the chills”) to our brain’s pleasure centers, and boosting motivation during exercise. What about the health effects of making and playing music? After all, someone has to play it.

Most of the research into the health effects of music playing focus on the brain, and for good reason: the brain is doing most of the work! The static model of the brain is dead, supplanted by the plastic model which shows that as we learn new things and think new thoughts, the anatomy of our brain – and its capabilities – changes. Recent research shows that music practice, which forces our brains to work in a completely different way, is an important contributor to neural plasticity. Even just two weeks of piano practice elicits neuroanatomical changes to the auditory cortex in non-musicians. It can also reduce or prevent the age-related degradation of Broca’s area, a section of the brain partially responsible for speech production. The same protective effect has been seen in the auditory cortex, which controls speech recognition among other things, of aging musicians.

Music training may enhance brain plasticity in other areas of the brain as well; other research has found that children who engage in musical training show increases in IQ, verbal memory, and linguistic ability, even when the control group is composed of kids with otherwise similar backgrounds (socioeconomic status, academics, etc) except for the music training.

That’s all well and good, but the primary benefit to playing an instrument is that it just makes you feel good. It’s obvious, even though I haven’t really played much since the sax, flute, and clarinet back in school, that playing music is fun. Just look at what it’s called: playing. 

Oh, and if you want a study to prove that playing music makes you feel good, I’ve got one. Last year, researchers found that playing an instrument (the drums), singing, or dancing all cause endorphin release (as shown by an increase in post-performance pain tolerance and, I’d guess, the presence of big old smiles). Merely listening to the same music did not have the same effect. You had to actively participate, either in its creation or through dance. Performing music also increased positive affect, helping participants feel enthusiastic, energetic, confident, active, and alert.

I believe it. I’ve gone down to the Venice Beach drum circle on Sundays just to vibe out. That’s where people from all walks of life (albeit with considerable representation from the hemp clothing-wearing demographic) hit the sand right around noon to jam. You’ll have rich entrepreneurs, dropouts, Rastas, addicts, tourists, surfers, day laborers, kids, sportos, motorheads, geeks, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, militant vegans, Crossfitters, soccer moms, and hipsters all banging on drums (or empty water jugs), shaking tambourines (or their tushes). Between dancers and drummers, the participant-to-spectator ratio is far higher than most other events, and that contributes a lot to the energy of the circle. By the time dusk hits, the circle has grown, and the beat changes organically. You’ll have different beats going on all over the circle, but somehow it meshes and blends. It’s very Primal. Feels like something straight out of Grok’s life. Highly recommended if you’re ever in the area.

I’m thinking we set up a drum circle for the next PrimalCon. What do you think?

Forget about all those health benefits supported by links to studies for a minute and consider how music affects you and those around you:

Think about how singing little ditties that you just made up on the spot using mostly nonsense words sends your four month old into the upper echelons of joy complete with ear splitting toothless grin.

Think about how tribal shamanic drumming can induce hallucinogenic, mystical states in those who listen to it.

Think about all those memories that are inextricably linked to the songs you listened to when those memories were being formed, and how you can relive the feelings you felt simply by listening to (or even thinking about) the songs.

Think about how you feel when you hear that song. You know, that song.

So music has power. You know that by listening to it and feeling what it does to you and by seeing the effect it has on others. Now imagine what it must feel like to wield that power, even just for an instant until you fall off beat and have to pick it back up, even if your only audience is yourself or an illiterate infant, even if you’re just jamming on a beach at midnight in front of open flames and wine bottles.

Oh, I almost forgot! There’s another benefit to playing music. For many people, picking up an instrument also means facing down a fear. Putting yourself out there, even if it’s just playing an unfamiliar instrument in front of people in a totally informal setting, can be really, really scary. It’s good to do things that scare you, whether it’s give a best man speech, ask that girl out, or pick up a guitar. It’s throwing yourself out into the uncomfortable unknown where you might mess up, make a fool of yourself, or be forced to admit that you’re not good at something. That last one is really tough for me and, I suspect, for many of you.

Okay, you’re convinced of the benefits and interested in obtaining some. To make it easier, I’d suggest picking up a relatively simple, easy to learn instrument that appeals to you, maybe off of Craigslist to reduce costs. Here are a few options. Be sure you listen to music made with the instrument before pulling the trigger:

Djembe – a West African hand drum
Ukelele – a guitar-like instrument with four strings, making it easier for beginners
Penny whistle – a simple woodwind instrument that hails from the British isles
Recorder – another simple woodwind instrument
Your own voice – singing is the oldest, most accessible way to make music

Once you’ve chosen an instrument, simply google “how to play [your instrument].” Look for free lessons on Youtube. Find a local drum circle or jam session on Meetup.com. Pay for lessons. Or just play around and have fun. Just play, whatever you do.

You know, I haven’t told many people this, but it’s on my bucket list to get good enough at the piano to make $50 in tips playing at a dive bar somewhere. I think I’ll see about doing that now. How about you?

What say you, readers? Who plays an instrument? Why do you do it? Have you noticed any of the benefits mentioned in this post? And what would you recommend to beginners?

Thanks for reading! Take care and Grok on!

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Dear Mark: Calorie Intake While Nursing, Tom Hanks and Type 2 Diabetes, and DHA Bad for Adults?

For today’s edition of Dear Mark, we’ve got a three question roundup. First, I hear from a nursing, weight-lifting, child-chasing mother of four who’s concerned about the amount of food she’s craving – even though she’s already at her pre-baby weight. I (hopefully) allay her concerns in my response. Next, I discuss the ridiculous nature of the conventional dietary advice we give to type 2 diabetics, as well as how there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. I also issue a formal invitation to Tom Hanks, who’s just been diagnosed with the disease. Finally, I explore whether or not DHA truly is bad for adults. Should we only give it to our kids after all?

Let’s go:

Dear Mark,

I absolutely love your website and blog. It has been a source of advice, inspiration and guidance to me over the last few months since I have been breastfeeding and running around after 3 other kids! I find I am always hungry though, especially as I am now weight training at least three times per week and pretty active with four kids. I am also still breastfeeding at night at least 2-3 times so sleep is an issue. I have read your blog posts on breastfeeding and also looked through the forum, but can you give me some suggestions on good foods to turn to to quell my constant appetite. I try to eat primally most of the time but I do find I get cravings for high fat foods like nuts and carb dense foods like sweet potatoes. Should I try to limit these or are they ok in the context of breastfeeding and training a lot? My baby is 4.5 months old and I was back to my pre baby weight within a few weeks of his birth.

Thank you so much,

Rebecca

Producing an ounce of breastmilk requires about 26 calories. To produce the average 25 ounces that an infant eats each day, then, you’ll need about 650 “extra” calories per day, so in this case, your appetite is warranted. “Giving into” the cravings is a good idea because they represent a very real physiological need at the moment; don’t feel guilty. Besides being a manufacturing plant for nutrient and calorie dense human growth serum, you’re also training regularly, chasing after three kids, and battling disrupted sleep. Those are all significant stressors that deserve a few extra calories.

It’s really awesome that you’re craving nuts and sweet potatoes rather than cookies and pasta. Start ignoring the cravings, though, and that’s when you’re liable to find yourself ear deep in a bowl of Cheerios in the middle of the night with no memory of how you got there.

(Although I would be careful with the nuts. You don’t want to overdo omega-6 fats, which will make it into your milk, nor do you want to consume too much phytic acid, which may reduce nutrient absorption. Consider eating more full-fat dairy, avocado, olive oil, or coconut to get your nutrient-dense fat fix. Eat nuts, just don’t make a meal of them.)

Plus, you’ve hit your pre-baby weight already? With no problems supplying your baby with milk (I figure you would have mentioned that in the question)? I think you’re doing great, Rebecca. I can’t think of anything you need to change. Calories aren’t going to hurt you if you’re not gaining weight.

Dear Mark,

I am a huge fan of the Primal Blueprint and do my best to incorporate it into my life every chance I get. At 29 years old, I initially subscribed to the Primal Blueprint to “lose the little belly fat” around my waste that had been accumulating over the years, and I succeeded in losing 23 lbs over 3 months. After reaching my initial goal and educating myself more on the subject, I found a new reason to live Primal… Diabetes.

I work as a paramedic and aside from having DM run in my family, I am constantly blown away by the sheer number of patients I meet that suffer from Type II Diabetes. I am convinced that Diabetes will reach “epidemic” status in the next 30 years and nobody in the “mainstream” seems to be doing anything about it.

Recently, Tom Hanks went on the “The Late Show” to announce that he has developed Type II Diabetes and the disease has been trending ever since. Finally! People are actually talking about this disease that can lead to so many other problems like heart attack, stroke, and amputation of limbs! But nobody seems to be addressing the elephant in the room… Insulin! Am I missing something here? I’ve heard doctors on the radio, read their advice in articles and here’s what they have to say: Exercise, lose weight, and watch what you eat. Call me crazy, but I have a feeling that most people suffering from Type II Diabetes have been trying this their whole lives with little success, and having the end result being Type II Diabetes. Why are no doctors coming out and saying “Stop eating foods high in sugar that cause insulin resistance”? It seems like such a simple solution. What am I missing?

Thank you,

Jeremy

In the public sphere, it seems pretty dire, I agree. The mainstream advice continues to let people down. Just look at this pitiful excuse for a “diabetic meal plan” that the Mayo Clinic recommends right after suggesting diabetics need to “count carbs”:

Breakfast – Whole-wheat pancakes or waffles, one piece of fruit or 3/4 cup of berries, 6 ounces of nonfat vanilla yogurt (in other words, a breakfast made entirely of carbohydrates).

Lunch – Cheese (what, no mention of “low-fat” cheese?) and veggie pita, medium apple with 2 tablespoons of almond butter.

Dinner – Beef stroganoff; 1/2 cup carrots; side salad with 1 1/2 cups spinach, 1/2 of a tomato, 1/4 cup chopped bell pepper, 2 teaspoons olive oil, 1 1/2 teaspoons red wine vinegar.

Snacks – Two unsalted rice cakes topped with 1 ounce of light spreadable cheese or one orange with 1/2 cup 1 percent low-fat cottage cheese (wow, a whole orange!).

I suppose that works if your goal is to count really high. To think that people actually try this is sad. I’m imagining a perpetually starving overweight woman with T2D measuring out her olive oil by the teaspoon, weighing low-fat cheese spread only to discard the quarter ounce that gets stuck on the knife after somehow willing herself not to lick it clean, dutifully limiting herself to half a tomato (and eagerly unwrapping the saran-wrapped uneaten second half the next day), and frantically scraping the salt off her rice cakes because she forgot to buy unsalted ones. What a miserable existence made all the more miserable and unfortunate because of its lack of efficacy.

But in private, in the trenches? From what I’ve heard from an admittedly biased cross section of folks in the medical field, increasing numbers of doctors are putting their diabetic patients on low or “lower” carb diets. Because it works. And because they want their patients to live healthy, long, enjoyable lives. That gives me hope. I hope it’s true.

Speaking of Tom Hanks, when the news hit, I was in Seattle en route to Philadelphia the next morning. It was the evening, and I spent the entire night sleepless in my Seattle hotel room, racking my brain trying to figure out how a guy with all the world’s knowledge and money at his disposal – one of the very lucky few in a league of their own – could miss the basics, and how I could actually be of service. It was frustrating. He didn’t deserve to walk the road to diabetic perdition lined with insulin shots, heart disease, and amputated limbs.

“Saving Tom Hanks,” I thought to myself, “could really make a splash.” It would be huge. Big, even. All he’d have to do was pay attention to the very basic advice I give, and all I’d have to do is do that thing I do so well. Plus, I have a feeling we’d get along. I’m not saying we’d become bosom buddies or move to the ‘burbs together or hit the town as a pair of ladykillers or anything, but we wouldn’t clash or have nothing in common. I certainly wouldn’t be cast away.

I’d love to wake up next morning, turn on the computer, and hear “You’ve Got Mail” because Tom Hanks’ rep read the post and shot me an email to help him get healthy. The real punchline of all this is that it wouldn’t even be that hard to get him to follow the 10 Primal Blueprint Laws. Eat lots of plants and animals, reduce carb intake, do some sensible exercise (like walking a green mile every day instead of riding in cars so much). To use his brain, Hanks could do stuff like study the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, code simple programs on the computer, or learn how to brew homemade hooch in his bathtub. There’d be no need to get extremely loud and incredibly close to him like some drill sergeant; the success would serve as effective motivation all by itself.

So, Tom, consider this an official offer: give me sixty days with The Primal Blueprint and I’ll turn your life around.

Hi Mark,

I’ve been reading your blogs for years and years now, and live a paleo/ primal lifestyle:) Someone recently sent me this article and was talking about EPA being great for adults, but DHA being only beneficial for children, and causing heart palpitations in adults. I take a good dose of fish oil daily, and feel great, and have no heart palpitations… but I don’t know if I’m possibly doing harm to my future, or if this is just nonsense….

Here’s the link to the article  http://dig.pharm.uic.edu/faq/2012/Sep/faq2.aspx

Thanks for your time,

Joanne

I don’t think you have anything to worry about, particularly if you’re already taking fish oil without suffering from heart palpitations. If anything, DHA and not EPA actually reduces the chance of developing atrial fibrillation, a serious condition that can be presaged by the presence of heart palpitations.

The article you linked actually doesn’t say anything about heart palpitations. It’s comparing the triglyceride-lowering prowess of a pharmaceutical EPA-only fish oil product to that of a pharmaceutical mostly-EPA-with-some-DHA fish oil product. The only “negative” aspect of DHA they mention is its tendency to increase LDL levels. That’s not even really a negative effect, since the LDL increase comes from an increase in LDL particle size which probably indicates a reduction in LDL particle number (larger LDL particles register as higher LDL-C without an increase in particle number).

As for DHA being good only for kids, that’s probably an honest misinterpretation. DHA, you see, is an especially important nutrient for children’s development. A considerable body of evidence suggests that DHA is crucial for brain growth and development in the last trimester and years of a kid’s life:

Moms with higher levels of DHA while pregnant have kids with slightly higher IQs at age eight.
Maternal omega-3 status is associated with language development of the offspring at five years old (outweighing any negative effect of mercury exposure from fish consumption).
DHA supplementation during pregnancy may prevent low birth weight.
Women are better at converting ALA (alpha linolenic acid, the plant omega-3) into DHA than men, and they preferentially store DHA in their thigh fat, just so they’ll have enough for any fetus that decides to stop by.

And that’s just a limited smattering of research. To relay it all would take several complete posts; that’s how important DHA is to fetuses and kids. Everyone knows this. Heck, every brand of baby formula includes DHA at this point. That doesn’t mean DHA is bad for adults, though. It’s just really, really important for kids. Adults, whether young and healthy or aging and at risk of neurodegenerative diseases, benefit from DHA supplementation, too.

I mean, if DHA is unhealthy for adults, that means none of us should be eating seafood, because most fish and shellfish contain more DHA than EPA. And yet study after study suggest that fish consumption is linked to improved health markers across a wide range of populations.

Adults, don’t worry about your DHA. Well, worry, but worry that you’re getting enough.

That’s it for today, guys. Thanks for reading and be sure to leave a comment or question!

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Weekend Link Love

Make sure to vote in Paleo Magazine’s Best of 2013 poll – Part 1 and Part 2. We’re up for Best Paleo eBook (Primal Blueprint Fitness), Best New Paleo Book (The Primal Connection), and Best Paleo Lifestyle/Fitness site. Voting is open through November 1st.

Research of the Week

A recent study confirms that children learning to walk should not wear stiff, thick shoes. Light, flexible shoes were found to be the ideal choice. Why? Because “plantar pressures while wearing the most flexible shoe are similar to those while barefoot,” which “may enhance proprioception.”

For the first time, the World Health Organization has classified outdoor air pollution as a carcinogen. Particulate matter was analyzed separately and also found to be carcinogenic. Is anyone actually surprised?

Interesting Blog Posts

Bodyweight training is often recommended to those uninterested in building mass or gaining weight. Here’s a post explaining how to obtain mass using just your bodyweight (and a few tools like a pullup bar and the law of gravity).

How one family made Primal living work on their trip through Italy.

Should you treat GERD with nutrition or drugs? Dr. Eades weighs in.

Media, Schmedia

President Taft was a yo-yo dieter, “continuously hungry.”

Why your brain needs way more downtime than modern society affords.

How some teachers who are flouting conventional curriculums by letting kids learn what they want to learn and figure out problems on their own are getting amazing results. It’s a new (but old) teaching method.

Everything Else

Speaking of Italy, the country is losing its taste for pasta. Yearly per capita consumption has dropped by over 20% in the last decade.

Check out Zach Anner, a comedian with cerebral palsy who does workout videos every Wednesday. They’re hilarious and inspiring all at once – a rare combination.

An apparently messianic photographer named Jimmy Nelson has deigned to grace the world with his vision of tribal peoples poised on the precipice of being lost forever. Deifying captions aside, Nelson’s photos of different tribes from around the world are truly fantastic. You should look at them.

Even though people acknowledge that walking is healthy and they should do more of it, they by and large are not doing it.

A 72-year old hunter fell down a ridge, hurt himself, and was cut off from civilization for 14 days. He survived by building fires and shelters, catching squirrels, picking berries, and eating algae he knew to be safe and edible. It pays to know what you’re doing out there, huh?

Recipe Corner

A nice way to enjoy liver: warmed and combined with toasted cashews atop a bed of greens.
I don’t really go for chips and dip, but if I did, I’d make sweet potato chips and tomato-avocado-lemon-date dip.

Time Capsule

One year ago (Oct 20 – Oct 26)

What About Type 1 Diabetes? – We always hear about type 2 diabetes, but how can Primal living and eating impact type 1 diabetes?
So, Is Organic a Scam? – It’s quite popular to bash organic food as a marketing scam, isn’t it? I let you know whether I think you should buy into that.

Comment of the Week

Granted, the temps haven’t yet dipped toward freezing, and I don’t know if we’ll get snow this year or not. But we have a native species here in the Northwest–the “Cargo Shorts All-Year-Round Guy”–whose weatherbeaten legs go exposed in all but the coldest conditions. And if they can handle being bare-legged, I imagine being bare-footed can’t be too hard.

- Ha! I know that species! An interesting animal indeed.

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Pan-Fried Mackerel (or Sardines) with Spicy Tomato Sauce

The bold flavor of mackerel (or sardines) is an asset in this dish, pairing perfectly with an equally bold tomato sauce that’s spicy, garlicky and richly seasoned with cumin, coriander, paprika and cinnamon.

If the fishy flavor or oiliness of mackerel and sardines puts you off then acidity, herbs and spices are the way to go. The acidic lemon and herb marinade in this recipe will mellow both the oiliness and the fishy flavor. Tomatoes add more acidity to the dish and there is no shortage of spices in the sauce.

Learning to love mackerel and sardines – or if you already love them, learning to eat them more often – is worth it. High levels of healthy omega-3 fats and low mercury levels make these little swimmers the perfect fish to consume. Plus, both are affordable and really easy to cook.

Deep-fry, pan-fry, broil or grill the fillets for just a few minutes and the flesh will be moist, almost creamy, with a crispy, salty layer of skin on the outside. If you’re not up for cooking fresh mackerel and sardines, all is not lost. This tomato sauce is pretty great with canned fish too.

Servings: 2

Time in the Kitchen: 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 pound fresh mackerel or sardines, cleaned (see below)

Marinade

4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons olive oil (30 ml)
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro (60 ml)
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley (60 ml)
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh mint (60 ml)
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander (2.5 ml)
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin (2.5 ml)

Tomato Sauce

3 garlic cloves
1 small shallot, roughly chopped
1 serrano or jalapeno pepper roughly chopped
1 teaspoon paprika (5 ml)
1 teaspoon cumin (5 ml)
1 teaspoon coriander (5 ml)
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon (a pinch)
1 tablespoon finely chopped cilantro (15 ml)
4 tablespoons olive oil, split (60 ml)
2 tablespoons tomato paste (30 ml)
1/4 cup water (60 ml)
4 tomatoes, chopped

Instructions:

Sardines can be eaten whole with the guts, bones and head intact, if you like. Mackerel usually taste better if cleaned and must be boned. You can ask the fishmonger to clean and bone the fish for you (if you want the head left on, make sure to tell them) or do it yourself.

If removing the head, use a knife or scissors to lop it off just behind the gills. Next, cut along the belly and open the fish. Scrape out the innards. Turn the mackerel over so the skin faces up. Push down along the center of the fish to pop the backbone out. Turn the fish over and use your fingers or a sharp knife to carefully lift the backbone away from the flesh. Remove any small, loose bones that remain.

Mix together the marinade ingredients: garlic, lemon, olive oil, cilantro, parsley, mint, coriander and cumin. Cover the fish evenly with the marinade. Marinate 30 minutes at room temperature.

While the fish is marinating, make the tomato sauce. Using a food processor, blend the garlic, shallot, hot pepper, paprika, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, cilantro and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil into a paste.

Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the spice paste. Heat and stir for a few minutes then add the tomato paste.

Stir constantly for about 30 seconds then add the water. Stir to blend then add the tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Simmer 10 minutes. Season to taste with sea salt.

While the tomato sauce simmers, scrape most of the marinade off the fish. Pat the fish dry and lightly salt.

Pour a thin layer of olive oil or coconut oil in a large cast iron frying pan over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot, fry the fish in batches, about 2 minutes per side.

To flip, carefully work a wide offset spatula under the fish, trying to keep the skin intact, and turn the fish, cooking it for 2 to 3 minutes more on the second side.

If the skin peels off, don’t worry. Just let the torn skin crisp up in the pan then serve the pieces of crispy skin alongside the cooked fish. Might not look as pretty, but it will still taste great.

Transfer the fish to plates, spoon tomato sauce on top and garnish with fresh herbs.

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And the Truth Shall Set You Free!

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!

Ok, so I don’t really like using a quote from scripture to start my success story but it really is the best title. I hope that through this story I can show you just how much that is indeed the case.

I have never really been “overweight.” I was blessed with decent enough genetics that through most of my childhood and early adult life (I’m currently 26, by the way…and male) I was able to maintain a good weight while pretty much eating whatever my mom put on the table or packed me for lunch. I even managed to not really gain the “Freshman Fifteen” when I went to college. However, I did put on a little weight mainly because the dorm cafeteria was basically all you can eat. Eating two patty-melts or two “pizza pockets” each meal while also eating a huge salad with WAY too much dressing, cheese, and croutons on it finally did start to catch up to me. By the end of my freshman year I was about 5’7” (that hasn’t changed, sadly) and about 165#. Things were about to change for the better though.

My love for fitness and health began during the summer before my sophomore year of college. I was working out at Lifetime Fitness while visiting home and I happened to bump into a couple of friends from high school. They taught me how to work out better and began to teach me a little more about eating right. One of them had been a personal trainer for a while so I got a good load of conventional wisdom but thankfully it was mostly helpful. I put on a good amount of muscle 0ver the next year or so, but realized one day that I still was not as lean as I wanted to be. I knew something had to change and I figured it was my diet.

At that point, I had already been toying with the idea of trying “The Abs Diet” put out by Men’s Health Magazine. I had been intrigued by it from the first time I heard of it because who doesn’t want to see his six-pack? I took the plunge. Basically, the premise of the diet was to eat the 12 “Power Foods” which consisted of almonds and other nuts, beans and legumes (yikes), spinach and other green veggies, dairy (uh…), instant oatmeal (what?!), eggs, turkey and other lean meats, peanut butter (man…), olive oil, whole grain breads and cereals (crap!), extra whey protein, and raspberries and other berries. You ate 3 meals and 3 snacks throughout each day on a pretty specific timetable as well. The workout consisted of a circuit workout a few times a week and you were allowed one cheat meal a week (which was great except that it kept me on a reward system with food – eat right for 6.67 days and then eat total crap 1 meal). All in all though, it actually worked for me. It was a six week program and in that time I lost about 10 pounds and you could indeed see my abs! I was very pleased. I continued to eat this way for a couple of years and maintained the weight that I had achieved and overall felt pretty good and was happy. I know now that I was not really eating all that well, was eating too much, and was pretty steeped in conventional wisdom! At this point I’d already graduated from college, gotten married, and began my life with my beautiful bride. I also continued to eat “The Abs Diet” way and subscribe to Men’s Health Magazine. I began doing CrossFit and loved it. Well, in 2008 things really took a turn for the worst!

I have always been a type A personality. To this point it had not really manifested itself in my eating habits other than always making sure I had at least three or four “power foods” in each meal (which is why I was eating way too much) and eating at the right intervals as prescribed by the diet. Well, one article in Men’s Health tapped into my anal retentiveness and I began falling down a slippery slope of food and health obsession. The article basically talked about how to put on a lot of muscle while staying lean. Here was the basic description: Eat one gram of protein per pound of body weight a day (for me about 160g), half your body weight in fat per day (about 80g), and using a formula to figure out daily calorie needs the rest of you calories came from carbs (about 140g). Although the ratios are off a little and I wasn’t eating enough fat this really isn’t that bad of an approach to eating. The only problem was that I was still eating the Power Foods so most of my carbs were coming from grain, cereals, and beans. I was eating fruits and veggies, but not nearly enough. This was when I started counting calories and macronutrients. I would literally track everything that I ate every day, how many grams of protein, carbs, and fat I was eating, and total calories… by hand. I became obsessed with it. During this time my brother asked me if I felt like I was controlled by food – I avoided the question but in the end the answer was yes. Food had taken control of my life. It was all I thought about and if I messed up or ate too much of this or that macronutrient or too many calories I freaked out. It was bad. It got to a point that I would take 45 minutes to pack a lunch and snack for the next day at work because I had to “run the numbers.” My wife and I started to fight a lot as a result and it was all very frustrating. My cheat meals also became more excessive because of the stress the rest of the week caused. I would consistently eat WAY too much once a week of complete junk, but I continued to be muscular and lose weight (thanks to CrossFit). I was also the leanest and lightest I had been at about 150#. So all this counting and stressing worked, but it was NOT sustainable for my life or for my marriage. My wife and I had a really big fight one night and she asked me “what happens when we have kids and you miss 45 minutes of time with your family every night so you can pack food?” That hit me like a tone of bricks – something had to change. Enter the Zone (ha!).

While perusing the CrossFit discussion board I found out about the Zone diet. I had never really read into it because it always seemed so complicated. After this fight with my wife I looked more closely into it and found out that it was not nearly as bad as I thought. I figured out what I needed in blocks a day and printed off a block chart and starting using it. Although I was still weighing and measuring my food it allowed me to do so much faster and start to get me away from being so exact in my measurements. I began to be able to estimate (which was a huge step!). Things started to get a lot better. Also while on the discussion board I found out about CrossFit Strength Bias (CFSB) and the Paleo Diet. I used CFSB to put on a lot of muscle and got myself up from about 150# to about 163#. I was very pleased with my results. On the other hand, I had read up on the Paleo Diet and had pretty much dismissed it out of hand. No Grains, Dairy, or Legumes! Preposterous! These were staples of my diet and I had lost weight eating them. Not for me. During this time, however, I was not nearly as lean as I wanted to be and started asking a lot of questions on the board about how I was eating and how to lean out, etc.  This was all about three or four months ago.  One day someone on CrossFit mentioned the website MarksDailyApple.com. I had never heard of it so I checked it out. That was the day my life changed forever.

I began to read all the articles on MDA about the Primal way of eating and living. I read about why grains and legumes were so bad and why dairy probably wasn’t the best thing for me. In a couple of days time I spent hours on that website. I decided to give it a try. The main change for me was the grains, dairy, and legumes. It took me a while and it wasn’t easy but over time I gave up all those things and started eating Primal. I still used the zone diet block system and weighed and measured my food, but very quickly I found I was becoming less and less stressed about it. I also loved the whole lifestyle approach that was such a staple of MDA and the Primal way of life. Things were better than ever with my food and my life. I was able to let go of feeling the need to eat every so often. I began eating less overall and also doing IF including a couple of 24 hour fasts once a week! For me, coming from 6 meals a day, this was a big deal. I now ate food around my life as opposed to planning life around my food.

At this point, in 2013, I’ve pretty much found myself in a maintenance mode. I’m pleased with my weight and body composition and it’s become easy to eat and move Primally. The most wonderful part is still that I no longer obsess about food. My family has also grown as my wife and I now have a 16 month old daughter. Life is good.

So that’s pretty much it. I must never forget where I have come from and how much finding The Primal Blueprint has changed my life. Maybe now you understand why I entitled this story what I did. Primal eating and living has set me free from myself and from food. I am happier, healthier, and more vibrant. I no longer stress about food and all that goes along with that. I can now focus on the more important things in this life and enjoy it for all that it is. I have you to thank for that Mark. You showed me the truth and it has indeed set me free.

Grok on!

Ryan

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Embracing IMF: 10 Strategies for Practicing Intermittent Media Fasting

These days most people have heard of the “media diet” concept. The idea is, of course, that we we partake of media sources too much, too often every single day. The result? We’re informationally bloated – mostly with junk media, the kind of stories and drama that will suck up every existing piece of serenity in our lives and have us going back for more. Whether it’s our smart phones, our tablets, our laptops, our T.V.s or Wii console, we can’t seem to let them be. As a result, we suffer the psychological, social and – as I wrote about last week - physiological consequences of this contemporary hobby horse.

One reader’s idea (Thanks, Patrick) in the comment section of last week’s post especially grabbed my attention when he brought up the idea of “periodic media fasts,” specifically “IF-ing all communication devices.” Being a rabid fan of the intermittent fasting concept, I was intrigued. Intermittent fasting in the traditional sense (no food), of course, can do wonders for honing our metabolism and upregulating epigenetic activity. Intermittent euphoria, a concept I’ve shared in the past, can upregulate – and likely upgrade – your emotional satisfaction.

So what would IF-ing media look like? Maybe we can call it IMF, huh? (I think our use of the letters is more catchy and entertaining than the International Monetary Fund, don’t you?) Well, for starters, it can look like any regular IF configuration. For some folks, that means not eating until noon. For others, it means only eating within an eight hour window each day and fasting the other sixteen. Others fast for a full twenty-four hour period once a week. There are numerous other approaches as well.

The same can hold for an IMF trial or routine. It’s not about using any particular pattern but simply reining in your media use, practicing periodic abstinence. When we come back to it after the few hours or few days, we might experience a similar sense of upregulation. Maybe our efficiency is better. Maybe we’re more focused and less distracted. Maybe we find we’re bored with it and don’t want to bother with most of what used to reel us in.

Whether you’re willing to trim down your media by small increments or larger blocks of time, let these offer you some get-started ideas. I hope you’ll share yours as well.

Avoiding the minute to minute media fix…

1. Use the “do not disturb” setting on your phone.

Not everyone is comfortable turning off their phone. After all, what if the daycare center calls with an emergency? Customize your phone’s “do not disturb” setting to allow calls from certain numbers. The rest of the calls/texts will be there when you’re ready to tune in again.

2. Impose a hard and fast email schedule.

Instead of being “available” all day, maybe you’ll only respond to emails or texts 1-2 times a day. Schedule specific times, and try to be consistent in that time each day whenever you can. Not only will it offer fewer distractions in the day, but answering emails in “batches” (a Tim Ferris hat tip here) will encourage you to be succinct and on-task. It will become a chore to begin and finish rather than a continual thread itching throughout the entire span of the day.

3. Embrace a low information diet – set up feed reader and use RSS for this.

Choose what blogs and sites you’ll explore, and keep your readership focused. Again, it’s best to schedule the time in the day or week when you’ll read your feed. Any tips for a Google Reader replacement?

Dodging the hour to hour temptations…

4. Leave your phone at home.

(I can hear the inner gasps….) No one to my knowledge has spontaneously combusted simply because they went for an evening walk without it. We all managed to survive without them until several years ago.

5. Downgrade your text/data plan on your phone.

Cell phone carriers are doing away with the now obsessively coveted unlimited data plans, and you’d think the country was rationing Mountain Dew, people get in such an uproar about it. While the modern me understands the bristling against the overage traps, the Primal part says go ahead and embrace it! Sure, few people are interested in the old style, do-nothing-but-actually-call cell phones anymore. If you don’t mind getting by without one, by all means go for it. If you enjoy having access to the Internet and map apps while traveling or just can’t totally cut the string on mobile FB/Twitter/Pinterest/Weather Channel/etc., consider self-imposing a ceiling on your usage (with rather harsh overage costs as a looming deterrent). Use an app to monitor usage, which can help you gauge your activity and avoid fees.

6. Cancel/downgrade the DVR/cable/Netflix/Hulu.

See how many services you’re willing to limit or do without. The fewer temptations, the better off you’ll be.

7. Unplug the wireless system (and every other system) for all but an hour a day.

Sometimes we just need to make it inconvenient for ourselves to break the rules. This is a pretty low threshold approach, but can be a great one for certain circumstances. When I’m working from home writing, I keep the wireless unplugged to prevent myself from getting on the Internet or checking emails.

Getting the media monkey off your back for longer stretches…

This is where you’ll really feel the break. Trust me – you won’t miss ANYthing (except this blog, but I promise all posts will be neatly archived and waiting expectantly for you).

8. Impose a Power Outage.

Why not shut it all down once or even twice a month? Let loved ones know you’ll be unreachable by most modern means, and sign off for the weekend. You’ll curse Monday even more.

9. Take a Personal Retreat

Take away the temptation altogether by going where there are zero bars to be had. A real retreat (whether at a retreat center or a personal camping spot off the grid) will let you feel the real benefits of extended unplugging.

Quarterly/semi-annually/annually

10. Do the long-term numbers.

Between the cost of Internet/data/subscription related plans and the tech devices themselves (everything from DVRs to the latest IPhone), it might be interesting (if not worthwhile) to examine how much money you’re spending on media. There’s no judgement intended here. It’s simply to gather information and discern whether you feel what you get for that money maintains or improves your life enough to warrant the expense. What else could a portion (or maybe even – for the willing among us – all) of that spending category go to? It’s always helpful to ask whether any specific spending is getting us the life we want.

I love grand personal experiments, and I consider this subject good fodder for a Primal test. What will happen psychologically when you reduce media? Will you feel more relaxed, more focused? Will you feel more or less connected to people? Will you have more free time? What will you do with it?

I think for most people, a regular IMF practice will have eventual impact of naturally consuming less media over time. If we limit or circumscribe our usage enough or set up annoying barriers to using devices, we learn over time that we don’t need it as much as thought we did. In fact, the vast majority of us will acknowledge we don’t miss it either. We end up filling our hours with other pursuits that we eventually can’t imagine giving up to go back in the direction of media frenzy. We don’t feel compelled to watch every Showtime series that piques our interest. We don’t feel the need to keep up on the government shutdown circus. We don’t feel the need to bother with Facebook more than once every day or two.

Any kind of IFing practice, I believe, naturally helps you plan and prioritize your life. Within the structure we set for ourselves, we get into the habit of consuming less and choosing more thoughtfully. We see the limited resources of our life in a new way – our time and energy – and more consciously decide how we’re going to allocate them. We develop a more thoughtful sense of economy in our lives. Intermittent fasting, the choice of deliberate deprivation, helps us discern the path to personal abundance in daily life – whatever we decide that should look like.

Here’s my challenge to you. Pick just one of the above IMF strategies and stick with it for the week. See how your life changes – or perhaps doesn’t. See how your intentions or activity with regard to media changes – or doesn’t.

Thanks for reading, everyone. Let me know your thoughts on intermittently bowing out of the connected society for some special Primal time. Have a great end to the week.

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The Barefoot Backlash: Are the Naysayers Right After All? (Hint: No.)

[image error]Every few days, I get emails from readers worried about the growing barefoot backlash. The media has gone from shooting out a positive article or two every couple months about this “crazy, quirky new fad” of barefoot running to spearheading the charge condemning the practice as dangerous and unAmerican. It’s like clockwork; when something becomes too well known and popular to justify glowing, exploratory write-ups that interest readers, you start attacking it, and the readers come flowing back. They see the results of a perfectly reasonable study fall into their newsfeed and the wheels begin to turn. “How can I interpret this research in such a way to maximize ire raised?” The press loves a good backlash, even (especially) if they have to manufacture it.

And so the headlines come in droves. And boy are they scary and ominous.

The Barefoot Running Injury Epidemic (meanwhile, the 2nd and 3rd “Most Read” articles on that site are “Five Do-It-Yourself Remedies of Plantar Fasciitis” and “How to Beat Runner’s Knee”)
Why Barefoot Isn’t Best For Most Runners (complete with anti-Paleo strawmen, of course, and written by a running shoe store employee!)
Is Barefoot-Style Running Best? New Studies Cast Doubt (studies said it, and they’re new, thereby invalidating any previous ones!)
Barefoot Running Stumbles (clever, eh?)

The scare tactics used in these articles will be familiar:

Quotes from podiatrists and physical therapists who are seeing a “rash of barefoot running-related injuries” in their clinics. I would certainly hope that podiatrists and physical therapists are seeing people with injuries. It’d be pretty strange if people without lower extremity injuries were going in to see the podiatrist just for the heck of it. Besides, how does their anecdotal evidence compare with the empirical evidence that 90% of people training for a marathon (the vast majority of whom are wearing shoes) will get injured?

Construction of strawmen, like this idea that barefoot or minimalist runners are all doing it for the “increased running economy” and “to run faster.” Who says that? People generally switch to barefoot running to avoid (or fix existing) injuries, improve proprioceptive awareness, and increase sensory enjoyment of running. There’s even evidence that running in Vibram Fivefingers (and, presumably, in other minimalist shoes or none at all) results in greater improvements to mood than running in standard shoes. Besides, now that they mention it, there actually is evidence that minimally-shod runners are more economical due to greater amounts of elastic energy storage and release in the lower leg.

References to the lack of elite runners going barefoot. Well, yeah. Going barefoot has never been about maximizing your performance or destroying the opposition. It’s not about emulating what the elite do, because, let’s face it, the elite are sacrificing health for the sake of performance. Shoes allow you to tune out the pain and push yourself past your body’s naturally-endowed limits. That’s fine if you’re getting paid (well) to do it, but if your training is extracurricular, it should be enjoyable and health-promoting.

As is often the case, the blame lies squarely in the laps of the “journalists” salivating over the prospect of a controversial story that will populate the comment section with angry parties from both sides and drum up hits to their article, not the scientists behind the research. They’re generally just trying to figure out what’s going on with the barefoot running thing, and their conclusions are very reasonable and measured. Let’s look at some of the most recent research into barefoot running to see what’s really going on:

Study #1: Economy and rate of carbohydrate oxidation during running with rearfoot and forefoot strike patterns.

What an anti-barefoot article might say about it: Rearfoot striking is more economical than forefoot striking.

What the study actually says: “No differences in Vo2 or %CHO were detected between groups when running with their habitual footstrike pattern.” Habitual forefoot runners and habitual rearfoot runners were equally economical. However, when forefoot runners tried heel-striking and heel-strikers tried forefoot running, the latter group were less economical than the former group. This shouldn’t surprise you. Forefoot running takes practice, especially if you’ve been heel-striking all your life. Most people end up on their tippy toes bouncing up and down rather than smoothly gliding forward on their first try; the up and down motion wastes a ton of forward momentum and is anything but economical.

Study #2: EMG and tibial shock upon the first attempt at barefoot running.

What an anti-barefoot article might say about it: Barefoot running has “detrimental effects on the runner,” increasing strain on the calves and shocking the shins.

What the study actually says: Barefoot style running may be “ultimately less injurious,” but it poses an initially greater shock to the lower extremities that must be accounted for. Habitually shod runners who heel strike should “undertake the process cautiously” before switching to barefoot running.

Study #3: Minimalist shoe injuries: Three case reports

What an anti-barefoot article might say about it: Running in minimalist shoes has been shown to increase injury rates.

What the study actually says: “All three of the runners switched immediately to the minimalist shoes with no transition period. We recommend that any transition to minimalist shoe gear be performed gradually.”

So, is going barefoot totally safe? Do we really have nothing to worry about?

Well, no. I never said we did. No one said that. Nothing is inherently safe. It’s all in how you do it.

Barefooting is not a panacea. It doesn’t make you invulnerable to running injuries; it makes you more sensitive to their approach.

I’m not sure we’re even meant to run as much as some people like to do, whether barefoot or shod. As humans, we can distance run. As humans, we did distance run. But Grok wasn’t training for marathons. He wasn’t logging miles for the hell of it. The distance run evolved as a necessity, as a way to procure food: the persistence hunt. It was an intermittent event, an acute dose of endurance activity, not a chronic one repeated ad infinitum. Because of that, there’s a threshold – and it’s different for everyone – after which you’re going to incur injuries if you keep running. Being barefoot offers a good barometer for that threshold. When we’ve had too much barefoot running, we generally feel it in our feet. Our soles grow tender, the foot muscles themselves might get overworked and sore, and the surrounding and supporting musculature and connective tissue start to tire. That’s a feature, not a flaw! Our feet are telling us to lay off them, to take a break, and that if we don’t, we risk serious injury. Shoes sever that connection. They obscure the message and make us think we have more in the tank than we actually do.

You can’t just “go barefoot” and have perfect form. You have to work at it. Barefoot running and even walking are skills that must be learned, whether through expert instruction or careful exploration of one’s own experience.

I used to think that sticking someone in a pair of Vibrams or having them run barefoot on a beach would naturally and necessarily prevent heel striking. This is not always the case. As minimalist running has grown more popular, it’s become increasingly clear that some people are able to maintain their heel striking habits even while minimally shod. Heel striking in minimalist shoes or while barefoot is far more damaging than heel striking in padded shoes. The only advantage I see is that it’s such a jarring experience to slam your bare heel on the ground (seriously, try it: jump up an inch off the ground and land on your bare heels; you’ll feel the shockwaves up through your entire body) that you couldn’t keep it up long enough to do too much damage. Heel striking in padded shoes is tolerable, which allows the damage to accumulate inconspicuously. Similarly, boxers are more likely to develop brain damage than mixed martial artists, probably because the padding on boxing gloves allows fighters to take hundreds of blows to the head in a single bout. MMA fighters wearing smaller gloves with far less padding often end fights with a single blow. They’re actually better off because they take far fewer hits and fights are over far more quickly.

Barefooting is a big change for most people who’ve spent the bulk of their lives walking and running in shoes.

Barefooting feels natural for the majority of people, but just because it feels right doesn’t mean your feet and lower body musculature aren’t atrophied from years or decades of shoes. You have to make the barefoot transition slowly and deliberately or risk some of these injuries mentioned in the articles, especially if you’re planning on barefoot running, which places a considerably greater load on your body than walking.

Like the recent flurry of articles criticizing ancestral health and Primal living ended up lecturing us on things we’d already hashed out in the community years ago, much of the barefoot backlash involves breathless “experts” uncovering what we’ve already known for a long time.

What about you, folks? Have you experienced a barefoot backlash? If you’ve ever tried barefooting or wearing minimalist footwear, how did it work out for you? Stick with it?

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