Mark Sisson's Blog, page 323

Contest Results: Grocery Time

 

I love seeing the pics submitted for this contest. It’s always a pleasure to see the happy, healthy, glowing faces of Mark’s Daily Apple readers. Not to mention the great looking food! Once again, many thanks to everyone that participated.

The lucky winner of this random drawing will take home a Kangaroo Pro, 1 quart of Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil, 1 quart of Organic Coconut Cream Concentrate, a 2.2lb bag of Organic Coconut Flour, a 2.2lb bag of Organic Coconut Flakes, a 17oz jar of Organic Raw Honey, 6 jars of 14.2 oz. jars of PRIMALFAT™ – Virgin and Certified Organic Coconut Ghee, and 2lbs of fresh fish from Wild Pacific Salmon.

And the winner is…

Gretchen G. and family!

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Contest Results: Primal Post-Its

 

The submissions to this year’s Primal Post-Its contest provides a glimpse of the world seen through a decidedly Primal lens. There are some scathing remarks, some biting commentary, but mostly witty and humorous plays on words, and that’s exactly what I was hoping for.

Many thanks to everyone that participated in this contest. While you’re all winners in my book, only one person can take home the prize package. Before we get to the winner a quick shout out to PaleoTreats and Primal Island, both of whom have sponsored this contest.

This was a tough one to decide, but at the end of the day the Worker Bees and I held a blind vote for the best submission and winner is…

Stephanie P. for “Honey Bunches of Bloats”. Well done, Stephanie.

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The Complete Story Behind the Woman That Lost 88 Pounds in Seconds

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!

Hi Mark,

If you were on the Internet at all a couple weeks ago, you may have seen an article or two or six about a young lady losing 88lbs over the course of a year, complete with morphing GIF progress pictures, a la Roseanne’s opening credits. The animated GIF took my story viral with headlines reading “Woman Loses 88lbs in Seconds”. Well, would you believe that same gal is an avid MDA reader who attributes the bulk of her weight loss to her Paleo/Primal lifestyle? Yes, seriously!

My name’s Amanda, and my decision to go Primal was the best thing that ever happened to me… even if I didn’t know what it was called at the time.

People often ask me, “When did you decide to lose weight?” The simplest answer (and one that, unfortunately, hasn’t been appropriately conveyed in my recent surprise media blitz) is that I didn’t; I was simply tired of being tired, and in trying to fix that, the weight loss naturally followed suit. For context, let’s jump back to the day I fondly refer to as my Day of Reckoning.

It was an otherwise forgettable Saturday in April 2011, and I closed my eyes as I gingerly stepped onto the doctor’s scale. In what I can only assume was an effort to lighten the mood, my general practitioner hummed as she gently tapped the counterweights into place. “222 pounds,” she announced. This was the first time I had weighed myself in over 7 years. I didn’t mention this fact to my GP; it was one thing to be 24 years old, 5’4″ and obese; it was another to admit willful ignorance of my health to the person I’d just tasked with fixing it. Because surprisingly enough, my weight wasn’t the primary reason for my visit to the doctor that day (I had resigned to being overweight years prior). Since graduating high school (and consequently living on my own), I was in a constant state of fatigue and anxiety. I was drowsy during the day and completely restless at night. I had horrible indigestion, regular migraines, mysterious muscle cramps, a myriad of skin problems…the list goes on. I had initially blamed graduate school for the constant headaches and your standard-issue lack of willpower for the insidious weight gain, but as I (and my academic performance) continued to suffer, I became desperate for answers. After a battery of tests, my GP concluded that I was “stressed”. As for the weight gain? “Not enough exercise”.

I left the clinic feeling initially defeated, but on that day, a single, unshakable notion implanted itself in my brain: there’s got to be something they’re missing. This nagging feeling drove me to a quest for knowledge. And after months of scouring the Internet, reading articles, and even consulting two other medical professionals, I still only had theories. In an almost last-ditch effort, a nutritionist friend recommended I try an elimination diet of the most common food allergens (gluten/wheat, corn, soy, eggs, nuts, lactose, casein, honey, etc.) for 30 days, then slowly reintroduce them and see how I feel. The idea that any of those foods could cause me pain seemed totally counter-intuitive to everything I had been taught about nutrition, but I was tired of being tired, so I figured it was worth a shot.

So on July 5th, 2011, I did a complete overhaul of my diet and started “eating clean”, as I called it. Within days, I felt better. I was more alert during the day. I had fewer headaches. I was less irritable. I slept like a baby. I was so ecstatic that my energy levels were up that I didn’t notice my clothes were getting a little baggy. Figuring I should probably learn from my past mistakes, I decided to buy a scale, snap one single “Before” picture and, just for funsies, keep track of whether or not I had lost any weight.

By August 5th, I had lost 18 pounds.

I wasn’t counting calories, practicing portion control, or even exercising (well, beyond walking to and from my classes). I had dedicated myself to “clean eating” so I’d stop feeling like crap, and the weight just kept falling off.

After the first 30 days, I reintroduced eggs into my diet with no discernible side effects. Two weeks after that, nuts and low-lactose dairy re-joined the party, also with no negative side effects to speak of. Two weeks after *that*, however, was my birthday. After almost two months of no bread, I had convinced myself that I deserved just one slice of thick, syrupy french toast (one of my old favorite foods) to celebrate my 25th year of existence. About 15 minutes after consuming said slice of deliciousness, I knew I had made a huge mistake. Almost immediately, I had a horrible cramp in my stomach. About 30 minutes after the pain subsided, I could barely keep my eyes open. I was in pain, moody, and exhausted… and it was only 10am! Sugar and wheat products were clearly problematic for me, and I quickly learned that not only could I, in fact, live without them, I could thrive without them.

I also started calorie counting, though not intentionally at first. Because the majority of my meals consisted of eggs/meats/fish and veggies, I filled up very quickly on significantly less food than I used to. Over time, I naturally began eating less and less. Purely out of curiosity, I started keeping a food journal to see how many calories I was consuming while still being satiated. I was pleased to discover that I was unintentionally eating at a deficit! On average, I was consuming about 1300-1400 calories/day, which for someone living a sedentary lifestyle like I had been, proved to be plenty of food.

To say I felt empowered is an understatement. For the first time in years, it actually felt possible for me to be in control of my health. But beyond anecdotal evidence and a lot of trial-and-error, I really had no idea what I was doing. That’s when I found Mark’s Daily Apple, and everything fell into place. Mark’s explanations and insights reaffirmed the core tenet of my own circumstantial lifestyle change: thanks to genetics and body chemistry, eating some foods will make you feel kind of terrible. Not eating those foods will probably make you feel better.

After even more research, I dialed in my diet and began applying ketogenic macronutrient ratios to my paleolithic food choices, a combination that proved to be quite powerful in my only-marginally-active state. I began posting about my efforts on a lovely little website called reddit, where I found a fantastic community of folks looking to improve their lives by reclaiming their health. While I posted my “final” set of progress pictures and advice there over a year ago, it was actually a repost of my pictures by an anonymous redditor a week ago (totally unbeknownst to me) that brought my story to its most recent “buzz” status.

It hasn’t been easy getting my full story out there. Many media outlets wanted to simplify and distill my efforts down to sound bites; others flat-out refused to report on my actual diet, as my happily eating saturated fat while shunning grains and not exercising simply didn’t fit their conventional “diet” narrative. It’s been very frustrating at times, but for every misleading news segment, I get a dozen or so folks tracking me down on reddit and asking me about my story. Needless to say, I dole out Mark’s Daily Apple links like it’s my day job

It’s been a little over two years since I decided to reclaim my health through the Paleo/Primal Blueprint diet with a “keto” twist. Admittedly, I’m still working on the “moving more” part of the lifestyle equation. My current approach has become decidedly less “keto” and more Paleo as I attempt to up my activity level (i.e., incorporate more carbohydrate on workout days), and I’m going back and reading all the MDA Primal Fitness posts with a new level of appreciation and zeal. I can’t wait to see what the next chapter of my health discovery will yield, and, honestly, I don’t mind one bit if I’m the only one around to see it

A million thanks to Mark and this incredible community for everything that you do. Be excellent to each other and Grok On!

-Amanda

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Contest Poll: The 2013 Grokfeast Challenge

I’d like to thank the seven groups who participated in the Grokfeast Challenge this year. Your level of creativity, commitment, and enthusiasm serves as a hallmark for Primal living at its best. It’s been an immense pleasure reading and publishing your experiences on Mark’s Daily Apple.

As good as they all were (seriously, again, great job, everyone), only one group can win the cow. One more shout out to US Wellness, who is donating all the grass-fed beef. If you ever want to take your beef eating to the next level, hit up their newsletter and join the grass-fed revolution.

OK, now on to business. Watch the finalist videos below and then make your vote count. This poll will close and a winner will be announced at 4 pm PDT, Friday, October 4.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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Contest Entries: The 2013 Grokfeast Challenge

This is it. It’s time for this year’s entries to the 2013 Grokfeast Challenge! At the beginning of the Primal Blueprint 21-Day Challenge I asked you to get together with friends and family, have some great food and fun, and film it to show the world how to get Primal. And you did. Seven groups from across the U.S. threw some fantastic tribal gatherings and these are the results.

Watch all the videos in the playlist above or by following the links below, and check back later today when you’ll get a chance to vote for your favorite Grokfeast video from the finalists the Worker Bees and I have chosen. On the line is $1500 of meat from US Wellness.

Links to individual Grokfeast Videos

Grokfeast in Nashville, Tennessee submitted by Aly C.
Grokfeast in Chicago submitted by Jeff S.
Grokfeast in Oak Park, Illinois submitted by Dan L.
Grokfeast in Baltimore submitted by Dan C.
Grokfeast in California submitted by Becky J.
Grokfeast in Colorado submitted by Molly
Grokfeast in The Ohio State University submitted by Zach R.

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Contest Poll: 2013 Primal Blueprint Workout Videos

It’s time for you to decide another winner! At the start of this 21-Day Challenge I put out a call for Primal Blueprint Workout Videos. And you responded with 9 top-notch clips. Boiling the submissions down to the top videos for this poll was no easy task. My crew and I discussed at length what made up a good fitness video. Was it fun and entertaining? Was the workout something we can see ourselves doing? Did it inspire and keep us watching? How well did it represent Primal Blueprint Fitness? On and on. In the end we held a blind vote and ended up with the following three picks. To everyone that didn’t make the cut, many, many thanks for taking the time to put together an amazing contribution to this year’s 21-Day Challenge. Honorable mentions go out to each and every one of you.

Before the vote, a recap of what’s at stake:

The Prize:

This year’s prize package includes an Ultimate Sandbag, a Praxis, a 30 foot 1.5″ manila undulation rope from Cal Ropes, two exercise mats from Square 36, three RadRollers, and a Platinum Package. The retail value on all this is, I don’t know, a lot.

Watch the finalist videos below and then make your vote count. This poll will close and a winner will be announced at 4 pm PDT, Thursday, October 3.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Get Your Omega-3s: Order Two Bottles of Primal Blueprint Fish Oil Capsules and Get An Additional Bottle Absolutely FREE

Contest Entries: 2013 Primal Blueprint Workout Videos

Here we go again: more reader-created videos! A couple weeks back I asked you to make a Primal Blueprint Workout video for a chance to win a prize package that includes an Ultimate Sandbag, a Praxis, a 30 foot 1.5″ manila undulation rope from Cal Ropes, two exercise mats from Square 36, three RadRollers, and a Platinum Package. And make workout videos you did. You sent in videos with zombies, the Flintstones, a talking tree, and more; even an ode to Breaking Bad, Primal-style. Many thanks to everyone that submitted a video for this contest.

Watch all the videos in the playlist above or by following the links below, and check back later today when you’ll get a chance to vote for your favorite workout video from the finalists the Worker Bees and I have chosen.

Links to individual Primal Blueprint Workout Videos

Primal Blueprint Fitness: GrokStar submitted by Chris G.
Primal Blueprint Fitness: Los Flintstones submitted by Robert C.
Primal Blueprint Fitness: The P.U.R.E.E. (FTMW) submitted by Nacho R.
Primal Blueprint Fitness: Zombie Edition submitted by Alexandra W.
Primal Blueprint Fitness: Primal Pasture submitted by Anthony D. L.
Primal Blueprint Fitness: Breaking Blubber submitted by Curtis C.
Primal Blueprint Fitness: Beach Movement submitted by Carl E.
Primal Blueprint Fitness: Do the Woodchuck submitted by Eric H.
Primal Blueprint Fitness: Hitech-Lotech submitted by Jake K.

Get Your Omega-3s: Order Two Bottles of Primal Blueprint Fish Oil Capsules and Get An Additional Bottle Absolutely FREE

Contest Poll: 2013 Primal Blueprint Recipe Videos

It’s time for you to decide a winner! At the start of this 21-Day Challenge I put out a call for Primal Blueprint Recipe Videos. MDA readers got right to work. As a result, YouTube has never seen better looking food.

As you might imagine, my crew and I had a tough time narrowing the field. We lost nights of sleep, shed many tears and cursed our duty of having to eliminate so many great videos from the running. And in the end we held a blind vote. To everyone that didn’t make the cut, many thanks from myself and (yes, I’ll take the liberty) the MDA community for your contributions.

Before the vote, a recap of what’s at stake:

The Prize:

A $1000 gift certificate to Tendergrass Farms. That’s a whole lot of delicious meat.

A Primal Blueprint Library: Every published book from Primal Blueprint Publishing. (Retail value: over $250)

Watch the finalist videos below and then make your vote count. This poll will close and a winner will be announced at 4 pm PDT, Wednesday, October 2.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Get Your Omega-3s: Order Two Bottles of Primal Blueprint Fish Oil Capsules and Get An Additional Bottle Absolutely FREE

Contest Entries: 2013 Primal Blueprint Recipe Videos

A couple weeks back I asked you to film and share your favorite Primal Blueprint recipes for a chance to win a prize package that includes a $1000 gift certificate to Tendergrass Farms. We’ve got some great entries this year, from meat jello and bone broth to pumpkin spice latte and Primal chocolate chip cookies. Many thanks to everyone that submitted a video. I hope you had as much fun making them as we have watching them.

Watch all the videos in the playlist above or by following the links below, and check back later today when you’ll get a chance to vote for your favorite recipe video from the finalists the Worker Bees and I have chosen.

Links to individual Primal Blueprint Recipe Videos

London Broil with Roasted Carrots and Parsnips submitted by Cherie
Bacon Brussels Sprouts with Brown Butter Vinaigrette submitted by Emonee L. R.
Primal Chocolate Chip Cookies submitted by Lynne S.
Meat Jello: Trotters+Tongues=Trongues! submitted by Joanna W.
Primal Wraps submitted by Kirk H.
Game-Time Loaded Zucchini Skins submitted by Stephanie P.
Pumpkin Spice Latte submitted by Kristin W.
Coconut Curry Soup submitted by Rachel and Mario R.
Primal Breakfast submitted by Mark F.
Primal Springerle Cookies submitted by Eric H.
Bone Broth from Grassfed Lamb and Chicken submitted by Stephanie P.
Primal Pie submitted by Ryan O.
Fried Banana Peels Part 1 and Part 2 submitted by Zach R.

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A Weekend to Remember: PrimalCon Lake Tahoe 2013

Today we take a small detour from the 21-Day Challenge programming. As many of you know, this last weekend marked the first ever PrimalCon – our Primal Blueprint health and wellness retreat – in Lake Tahoe, CA. I wrote about the Power of Community this last week, and then got to experience it along with over 100 other people firsthand. It was incredible.

Now it’s Sunday evening and it’s all over. I’m back home. A big white lab licks my feet. Everyone else sleeps. Yet the weekend lingers. The laughter, the smiling faces, the mutual exchange of knowledge and wisdom, the natural opulence of Lake Tahoe – it’s all there. Heck, I’m still full from the food! It’s all fresh in my mind, so I thought I’d give you a guys a little recap of what went down.

Just so you get a sense in case you’ve never been, there are a few awesome things about being in Lake Tahoe. The elevation is such that you’re close enough to the sky that you really feel the sun, even if it’s technically “cold” outside. That clean sunlight combines with the cool mountain crispness to create a climate that’s warm and refreshing all at once. It doesn’t seem possible, but it is. Kind of like salty and sweet; what are usually bitter opposites emerge complementary bedfellows.

Then there’s the sky itself. It looks… different. There’s just a quality to it that I’ve never seen elsewhere. The clouds are somehow more billowy. The blue is bluer that other skies, as if the blue sky overhead and blue lake below are playing a game of atmospheric color pingpong that compounds the brilliance of both.

Tahoe is BIG, too. I mean, the scale of everything is just huge. The lake is massive and impossibly deep. Everywhere you look pine trees tower over you. You’re surrounded on all sides by sheer rock faces and looming mountains. And at night? On a clear night? The infinite entirety of the cosmos are laid out for your perusal. If you live out in the country, stargazing might be old hat. But I live in Malibu, which is right next to one of the most teeming, sprawling metropolises in the world whose residual, perpetual glow makes stargazing frustrating.

So, when my pals Joe and Colleen, longtime PrimalCon veterans and North Lake Tahoe residents (and badass triathletes), suggested we hold the next PrimalCon in South Lake Tahoe, I leapt on it. What could be a better backdrop for a conference partially founded on the love  of nature than one of the most naturally beautiful spots in the world?

First thing I noticed on Thursday night at the dinner meet and greet: a lot of new faces. That was cool to see. PrimalCon Oxnard has grown into a community of repeat attendees that’s both tight-knit and welcoming to newcomers (that happens quite organically when everyone’s united under the big tent of ancestral health). PrimalCon Tahoe was an opportunity to make new friends and establish new connections.

Ten minutes into it, a community was forming. It was like watching time lapse photography of a growing sapling. What’s supposed to take several weeks to months unfolded in minutes before my eyes. Strangers, total strangers who’d never met before closed in on each other to form pockets of animated conversation. It was like people were bypassing that initial trepidation state where you’re kind of sizing people up, wrestling with personal hangups, trying to get comfortable in your own skin before you even think of engaging with another human being. They went straight to “Oh, hi, what’s your name?”

All this over great Primal food, with an incredible grass-fed wagyu beef meatloaf from famous PrimalCon chef David Aflalo as the centerpiece. Dessert soon followed – rich chocolate velvet (not sure how else to describe it) with real whipped cream courtesy of Brad Kearns.

Folks then headed off to sleep. It was a long day of travel and the next few days were packed.

Hot coffee and Primal Fuel smoothies in hand, attendees and presenters gathered at the Camp Richardson boathouse for opening ceremonies on Friday morning. A few lingered outside on the docks, taking in the brilliant sunrise peeking out over the mountains.

Then the fun began: PrimalCon Tahoe was on!

All throughout the weekend, attendees had many opportunities to hang out with our expert presenters, and that’s where PrimalCon really shines. Where else can people go from listening to an MD talk about using Primal principles to get patients completely off meds to pushing a car until your legs want to quit and your lungs burn?

Where else can you learn how to Olympic lift with impeccable from some of the world’s foremost experts and then sit down with those same experts to learn about converting your family to Primal living and eating?

Or have a heart to heart session with a Primal success story?

Or how about learning how to do a parkour-style vault over a balcony from a movement coach, then heading on over to a roundtable discussion about ketosis and neurodegenerative diseases lead by her doctoral candidate husband?

Or having to choose between an Active Release Technique-employing doctor of chiropractic or a bodyworking healer who uses Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome as inspiration for his techniques?

Or getting tricked into the hardest workout of your life by a world-renowned master of play that you don’t even realize was a workout until you wake up sore all over the next day?

Or get coached by Sarah Fragoso and Chrissy Gower through portions of the fitness module and on how to integrate paleo practices into your daily life. (These women are certainly wearing many hats as wives, mothers, coaches, and paleo experts!)

Or getting live cooking lessons from a professional Primal chef and healthy cooking coach?

Or fixing your posture and promoting healthy movement patterns simply by tweaking how you think about your spine?

Speaking of cooking, how about the food?

Lunches were catered by Not So Fast!, the San Diego Primal food truck: grilled wagyu burgers, thick-cut bacon, several different salads, guacamole, and their famous house banana chips. Dinners were served up by famous PrimalCon chef David Aflalo: wagyu meatloaf, wild caught California salmon, crab salad, braised kale, sweet potato mash with coconut and pomegranate, pot roast with caramelized mushrooms, what tasted like beef confit (braised beef with a crispy exterior… the highlight of all the meals). Great food, Bob, June, and David! Everyone was raving all weekend.

The nature! Having sufficiently filled up on healthy Primal grub on Friday, people loaded up in the shuttles to head out to the Angora Lake hike. The brave ones took the long ascent up the ridge, climbing around 1200 feet in just over a mile to reach the final trail to the lake. It was tough and undoubtedly led to a sea of sore glutes and thighs the next morning, but it was worth it for the view – and the cliff diving.

Saturday was stand-up paddle boarding, Ultimate Frisbee, gymnastics, and sprint training.

Back at Camp Richardson, Robb Wolf joined me in giving the keynote address. Well, really, it was more of a free-wheeling Q&A session where Robb and I got to geek out with everyone and have a few laughs and a lot of fun.

J. Stanton of gnolls.org even made an appearance, holding court on metabolic flexibility and other topics for an entranced audience before digging in on the chow with everyone else.

The crown jewel was the luxury wine cruise through Emerald Bay on Saturday as the sun went down.

Then the bonfire, lovingly hand-crafted by our resident Primal fireman and longtime (everytime) PrimalCon attendee, Chris Adams. Wine, music, chocolate, cheer, laughter, dance, love – it was all in the air. I wish we got some good photos, but it was that kind of vibe where you never even think to take one because it would only get in the way. You know? Plus, it was dark and they wouldn’t have come out anyway.

This is a global community with new outposts springing up with each successive PrimalCon. Primal representatives from Denmark, Ireland, England, Canada, Australia, Alaska (I know, it’s a US state, but c’mon, it’s a trek) and Germany all showed up to our little event. One guy drove over 20 hours from Vancouver! I mean, people traveling halfway across the world for PrimalCon? That’s the fuel that feeds my fire.

People talk about post-wedding blues, where you’re kind of sad that it’s all over. There’s none of that for me today, and the same goes for all the attendees I met. Sure, you want it to keep going if possible, but it’s not like PrimalCon ends and it’s all over. You’ve made friends. You’ve learned new things that you’re mulling over for weeks afterward. You’ve made business contacts. You’re left with a warm afterglow that lasts for a lifetime.

If you couldn’t make it out to Lake Tahoe, consider joining us in Tulum, Mexico next year for an event that is shaping up to be the ancestral health event of the 2014. And check back this week for a sense of what the Mark’s Daily Apple community looks like across the globe. Readers will be running the show over the next few days as I publish their recipe, workout and Grokfeast contest video submissions.

Grok on!

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