Mark Sisson's Blog, page 354

100 Days of Change – My Transformation Story

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!

Note: Andrew experiments with Intermittent Fasting. While IFing is an effective tool for many people, it is not a required component of the Primal Blueprint. As Andrew says, YMMV (your mileage may vary).

I’m nearly 56 years old and about four years from retirement. I have been training for retirement by building skills and habits for things I want to do when I retire, and at the same time I’m training for my eighties. Health care is on a path to crisis for people my age, and I figure the only way to survive the health-care crisis is to not need it. I came up with the 100-days idea because I figure it takes about three months to make a real change in oneself, and I had several real changes I needed to make. I choose to think in days, because change-making is a daily commitment.

My first 100-day objective was simply to get more active and build strength. I was 230 pounds, it was late July 2011, and I began a weight-lifting/cardio routine coupled with low-carb/Primal Blueprint diet. After 100 days I was much healthier and 220 pounds. I wasn’t strict enough with the calorie restriction, so despite eating more Primally I didn’t lose all that much weight. I did lose fat, but gained muscle.

The second 100 days began in November 2011, and my objective was to become a better Nordic skier. I skied 108 days between mid-November and the end of March. I went from being a floundering spastic to being able to ski with most of the better skiers in my age range, but I never had their speed or endurance uphill. My weight didn’t change much, but again I had not embraced the caloric restriction idea. Low-carb is important, but I think that at some point you have to eat less if you’re going to lose weight.

The third 100-day objective was to get myself to a healthy weight and be prepared for intense XC ski training at the beginning of the next ski season. At that time I wanted to be firmly under 200 pounds. I set my sights on losing another 25 pounds and starting trail running and mountain biking to help with my conditioning.

Running has never been my thing because of lower back trouble. Running made it so painful I figured I just wouldn’t be able to do it. I was wrong about that of course (more on the back pain later). Trail running turns out to be a lot easier on my back than road or treadmill running.

I began alternate-day eating in April this year at 220 pounds. I took a real interest in Nordic skiing (both classic and skate) last winter and I happen to live near an excellent Nordic ski facility, which transforms into an amazing XC running and single-track biking facility when the snow leaves. This is my playground.

My program for the summer was to eat only within a 4-hour window every second day, and run or ride 4 to 10 km 4 or 5 times per week. For 10 weeks I followed the ADE program without faltering and then began to relax a little, going to one meal a day for a week, then back to alternate days for a while. I was still eating a lot less, but as I approach a healthy weight it becomes less important, and sometimes it seems to work better eating a smaller amount once every day.

I took the word fasting out of the alternate-day program because I think fasting is more than skipping a meal, or even several meals. Not being a scientist or nutritionist, all I have is my own body for a lab and my own experimentation for evidence. Some things I have proven sufficiently to guide me, other stuff I’m still testing. As such, you should consider this anecdotal and your mileage may vary!

I believe there are three phases of hunger as follows:

Psychological demand to eat. You can ignore this. All you’re doing is messing with your mind.
Physiological demand to eat. You can ignore this too. Now you’re messing with your digestive system and it tells you about it.
Physiological need to eat. Don’t panic, but pay attention. This is the zone where real changes take place in your body. This is what I consider fasting to be.

Physiological need is quite a different matter from the demand phases. It kicks in late on day 3 or maybe day 4 of a fast. In my opinion, before that time all you did was skip a meal or two or three. I’m not suggesting that phases 1 and 2 are easy; in fact they are the most difficult.

Eating carbohydrates means you have to address phase 2 regularly. As such you get into phase 1 and 2 urges regularly. I think that to make caloric restriction work more easily you need to get over the carb addiction. That might take two weeks, but I consider it essential to a positive caloric-restriction program.

I have tried this both ways and it is one of the things I consider fact. YMMV.

Food as a reward, particularly desserts, baffles me. You work hard at keeping your cravings under control for a week or two and then reward yourself with the very things you know to be the cause of all your troubles. It doesn’t make any sense! Say you painted your house and worked very hard for a couple of weeks to make it the pride of the neighborhood. Would you graffiti bomb the place as a reward? No, you think that would be stupid.

I want to mention my experiments with artificial sweeteners. I have proven to my own satisfaction that they sabotage a diet. I have done this in a couple of ways. I have been eating low-carb (about 50-100 grams/week) for many months. My hunger urges are totally under control.

As a test I rinsed my mouth out with sugary-sweet iced tea and spit out the drink without swallowing any. Within 20 minutes I was craving food in the worst way I’d felt in months! Then a few days later I mixed up some artificial sweetener in water and repeated the mouth rinse. Same reaction! I was suddenly craving food like I hadn’t felt since the last test. I did this test a couple of times, which is not sufficient for any real scientific research, but I found it compelling enough. My hypothesis is that the taste buds catch a hint of sweet and trigger an insulin reaction. I figure the artificial sweetener fools the system and you get a shot of insulin in anticipation of a sugary ingestion coming in.

So, if I’m right, you need to stay away from sweet-tasting things. Anything that causes insulin to be secreted from the pancreas will lower your blood sugar and make you feel hungry. That’s my theory, and again YMMV.

I seem to work out best when I’m hungry. I have the most energy just before my meal. If it has been 40+ hours since my last food, I have power to burn. I ride up the hills without stalling, I make quicker decisions and reflex actions, and I often want to go longer than I have time for. For the last few months my most sluggish rides and runs have been right after a meal, even a small one.

I would like to summarize the concepts and ideas that helped me through the last three 100-day programs, and will help me through the next one.

Marry Smart. A supportive wife makes this kind of thing so much easier!
Get off of and away from carbohydrates and sweet-tasting foods. This makes missing meals a lot easier.
Don’t drink calories. Stick to water and tea or coffee. Juice, milk, beer, booze – all poison. If you can’t live without your beer, realize that it is going to make this whole thing very difficult.
Plan some physical activities for non-food days. You will have at least a couple of hours to kill while you’re not shopping, cooking, eating, and cleaning up.
Reschedule your life without mealtimes. This may be the biggest benefit of alternate-day eating – free time!
When you get hungry on a non-food day, exercise or, if it’s late, go to bed. It will pass.
Don’t reward yourself with foods that don’t fit the plan. Cheesecake and ice cream are always bad choices while you’re working on your weight-loss goals.

My next 100 days are about fixing my back troubles. I realized at some point that I can have a sore back whether I sit around or get out and do things. In choosing to be as active as my back will allow I’m now running into a bit of a problem going as far and as hard as the rest of my body and mind are anxious to. I’ve decided to take on the main thing that has been holding me back for all these years. Now I know that 100 days is not all that long, and I can fix things if I keep my attention on them. I’ve been to a sports physiotherapist and I have a course of stretching and strengthening exercises to do. I do them eight times per day. I’ll check in with physio regularly and do exactly as prescribed. I don’t expect any program to succeed unless I do the work and follow the plan. At the end of this 100-day period I’ll be into a new ski season, and a different 100-day objective.

So far I’ve stayed with the programs I laid out for myself. After just finishing the hardest 100 days yet I look back at the beginning and remember how I felt, how hard it was getting my butt up those hills on my bike, and how slowly and painfully I ran. I weigh somewhere south of 195 puonds now and I have reset my target weight to 185. At my height and frame size I don’t think I could be considered overweight at that point.

I could be saying “I wish I’d done that” but instead I’m saying “I’m glad I did that.”

Andrew

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15 Primal Ways to Savor the Holiday Season

This past summer I did a slow living inspired guide to enjoying summer. Those lazy days feel long gone now, but I’ve heard from a number of readers lately who are looking to fill their winter and holiday seasons with the same Primal inspiration. Besides the amazing recipes and great winter workouts, what food for thought can the Primal Blueprint offer this time of year? What can we do to make the most of these shortest, darkest days and busiest holiday weeks? What does it mean – in practical as well as broader terms – to apply a Primal lens to the season?

Let me actually reframe it in terms of the Primal Connection – the concept that our evolutionary roots have something to teach us in creating a contented, fulfilling life – because I think it most aptly addresses the question. In making the Primal Connection, we’re motivated to embrace the full potential and pleasure of our physical as well as intuitive selves. We’re moved to reconnect with the natural world and our innate rhythms. We’re drawn to explore deeper, more essential dimensions of social relationships and expand our practice of creative play.

The modern dilemma is often untangling ourselves from the distracting and distorting cultural baggage attached to these fundamental inclinations. Look at what we too often put ourselves through this time of year. As much as we’re driven to fit in with our surrounding culture – a complicated instinct of its own – there’s a certain irony in the fact that these weeks are often our most unhealthy. While nature encourages us to lay low, rest more, and keep life casual, many of us are burning the candle at both ends. We sleep less, eat more junk food, rush more often, overspend more frequently, and then wonder why we’re so tired and cranky by the end of it.

A lot of great blogs and publications encourage us to slow down during the holidays. By all means, the slow movement is as applicable now as it was back in August. In the spirit of those readers’ inquiries, however, let me take it a step further. If slow suggests a pace for living and a subsequent winnowing of priorities, what practical cues can the Primal Connection add to that deliberation? What can our Primal roots remind us to prioritize in the midst of the commercial blitz? And how do we put the holidays in perspective and give the winter season it’s celebratory due? In short, beyond the buffets, what does it mean to keep it Primal this time of year?

Rhythm

With solstice tomorrow, make a point of observing what so many Primal cultures caught onto quickly – the significance of the longest night of the year, however you choose to see it scientifically, spiritually, or metaphorically. Some of you, I know, go all out celebrating solstice. I have friends who specifically go on personal or organized retreats for the night. Others throw parties. Still others purposely take a quiet evening at home or go star gazing outside the city. However you mark the occasion and make meaning from it, consider it your own private New Year’s.
As a culture we tend to put too much emphasis on specific days. The inclination too often results in an explosive or deflated critical mass. Why not make a goal to appreciate the beauty and significance of this darker, sparer season throughout all its months? Even if you don’t consider yourself a spiritual sort, check out Winter: A Spiritual Biography , a book specifically about winter as part of the natural rhythm of life.
Take advantage of winter’s dark-light schedule. Make fire a part of every week if not every night. Break out the candles, light the fire place, or clear the fire pit in the backyard. There’s something unique to the warmth and quiet of a fire, and I can’t imagine anything (well, almost) more Primal than that.

Physical

In keeping with the light and dark cycles of the season, give your body the benefit of dim evening and a full night’s sleep. Why not save a bit of money and do a weekly voluntary power outage?
Plan for stress – and its antidotes. Grok wasn’t ever in charge of the office holiday party, his kids’ scouting troupe caroling, the extended family dinner, shopping for thirty relatives and friends, and cooking and decorating for the neighborhood open house. Granted, if you can give some (or all) of the work away, by all means do. (No is a complete sentence after all.) That said, if you’re one who thrives in the center of the bustle, at least give yourself the benefit of some high caliber release time. Do something pleasurable for yourself. One hour of quality relaxation is worth five hours of sitting slumped in front of a television.
Prioritize healthy pleasures: home spa, professional spa, partner massage, sex, casual workouts, comfortable clothes, hot drinks, Primal comfort food (favorites?). A happy body does wonders for one’s mood. Imagine that.

Inner Life

Give yourself some psychic space by taking a break from media, parties, crowds, and other duties/chores. Especially for some of us, the succession of social obligations and extra responsibilities can leave us feeling burned out. When you add to that the regular barrage of (mostly bad) news, it’s crucial to retreat to your own Primal ground. Even within the closeness of the band community, Grok found plenty of silence and relative solitude for himself in a day. Make extra time for these when life is fuller and/or more stressful.
Rein in expectations. Can you imagine any event was as hyped in Grok’s day as the holidays in our country? We make rampant joy the goal, but the focus too often ends up counterproductive. I imagine Grok would see it as kind of a backward endeavor. Create the ceremonies to honor the events and/or particular values, and what will come will come. Release your attachment to the outcome, and you might end up experiencing something wholly unexpected.

Social

Prioritize primal level connections. We’re designed to seek out and benefit from feeling connected – to people, to community, to culture. Yet, we can strain to experience real bonding in the huge cultural and social nets we cast these days. Prioritize your tribe – those couple dozen or so people in your life you’d consider band mates in a different time. If you feel like you’re running out of social or emotional bandwidth this season, home in on a tighter circle. Likewise, take advantage of the whole season to connect rather than cram too much in at once. Quality matters over not just quantity but also over culturally imposed schedules. Send New Year cards in January (Groundhog Day, anyone?). Have your neighborhood open house in February. Remake your annual meetup with old friends into something more relaxed and fun post-holiday.
Value ritual. When you think back to your childhood, what stands out about the holidays? What did you enjoy? What is the stuff of good memories? Chances are, it’s ritual to some degree. Don’t underestimate the power of minuscule details in your own and others’ experience of the holidays. Ritual adds a sense of nostalgia to the events, yes, but it also adds continuity and equilibrium to life in general. (That’s nothing to sneeze at these days.) Wear the same old sweater your kids laugh at every year. Decorate the house the same way. Keep the same favorite dish front and center at the big family meal. Go to the same concert. Drive down the same streets to look at the lights. There are well over three hundred days in a year to experiment and throw off convention. When it’s all said and done, however, there’s something to the steadiness of the familiar.

Nature

Do an outdoor winter retreat. Every year friends of ours spend four days and nights between the Christmas and New Year’s holidays at a nature center in their area. The center hosts a full family retreat complete with winter sports, hikes, and kids’ activities. They consider it the best family time they share all year. In another take, a friend does a solo snow shoeing weekend in January as the ultimate time to get away and unplug from the universe.
Head out on a winter night hike. If you’ve never been, you’ll be hooked the first time. There’s something amazing about the light on the snow and quiet. The full moon is next week. Consider it the perfect time for a full moon night hike or cross country ski/snow shoe trek. Take the kids, and enjoy the giddy energy and imagination they’ll bring to it.
Make an outdoor winter bucket list, and do it Primal style. Too often (especially in those Northern climates) people get past the holidays and feel stuck in limbo until spring. See how many Primal activities can get you loving the winter season. (Remember: there’s no bad weather, just inadequate clothing.) Write down your old favorites, but make room for the new, unusual, and adventurous. There are undoubtedly activities you’ve never even heard of awaiting your discovery. (Hmmm…maybe there’s fodder for a post here.) And that doesn’t even take into account the outdoor festivals, competitions, sights, and trips. Sure, Grok might have never tried heli-skiing, but I’m still calling it Primal.

Play

Schedule play if you have to. It seems contrary to the point, but some of us might need the structure in the midst of an overloaded schedule. (Sure, you might end up just taking a nap on the couch instead, but that’s not so bad either.) The point is carving out space for self-determined time and freedom. The wholly unself-consciousness and free form of play takes us out of the mindset of manic planning and orchestration that can reign this time of year. Preserve those times when you and your loved ones (kids especially) can do whatever you feel like in the moment. Some of the most fun and meaningful holiday memories happen when you allow yourself to just be in the moment and let crazy, spontaneous, or casual whim take over. Consider the schedule part a modern accommodation to keep the Grok spirit alive and kicking. We sometimes gotta do what we gotta do. The end result is worth it.
Use the post-holiday lull to take up or return to a creative hobby. Grok had more going on in that department than we imagine, and a quieter season of the year (not the migratory period, for example) would’ve been the time he indulged his curiosity. Be inventive. Push yourself in your craft. Try a totally new art or skill. January is one of my favorite months for this reason. Sure, I’ll be plenty busy with this one coming up, but somehow January always feels like the most spacious month. After the structure of the holidays and their obligations, January can seem like a wide open field. Add to it the promise of a new year, and the (relatively) sparse calendar is like a blank canvas for the creating. Make it what you will.

Thanks for reading today, everyone. Share your own thoughts and suggestions on enjoying a full Primal season. Have a great weekend.

The Sequel to The Primal Blueprint Releases on January 8

In a few short weeks I’ll be releasing The Primal Connection, the long-awaited sequel to The Primal Blueprint. As friends and colleagues within the ancestral movement have so generously described, The Primal Connection offers the first really new dimension in the paleo/Primal space in years. Is there any better way to start the new year – not to mention the fact that we all survived the Mayan apocalypse? In all seriousness, I’ve been pumped about this launch for months now.

Like The Primal Blueprint, The Primal Connection is both a culmination and expansion of principles I’ve first introduced here on MDA. It picks up where The Primal Blueprint left off, by extending the primal theme beyond the diet and exercise basics. In it I present a comprehensive plan to overcome the flawed mentality and hectic pace of high-tech, modern life and reprogram your genes to become joyful, care-free, and at peace with the present. Inherent to The Primal Connection is the concept that we can use the model of our ancestors to create not just a healthier existence but also a more balanced and fulfilling life. My hope is that upon reading it you’ll emerge with a renewed appreciation for the simple pleasures of life and our most precious gifts of time, health, and love.

Just as I did for Primal Blueprint Healthy Sauces, Dressings & Toppings earlier this month, I’ll have something special put together for devoted Mark’s Daily Apple readers when this book is released on January 8th, 2013. So mark your calendar and be ready to jump on the offer while it lasts.

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10 Last-Minute Primal Gift Ideas

I do a gift list every year on Mark’s Daily Apple, and each time I try to put a fresh spin on it. Last year, each of the 10 Primal Blueprint Laws got a corresponding gift. Two years back, I separated the gifts into stocking stuffers and bigger ticket items. This year, since it’s getting to be that time, and lots of you have waited til the last minute, I’ve put together a list of last-minute gift ideas. These are items that, if ordered by today, should arrive (at least in the continental US) by the 24th of December. Unlike most last-minute gifts, these are actually legitimately good and useful items that any Primal (or otherwise health conscious) person would be happy to receive. And you don’t have to wade through the frightening morass of desperate humanity that frequents brick-and-mortar stores in the days leading up to the holidays.

Oh, and just because these are presumed to be gift ideas for other people, don’t think you can’t treat yourself to a gift or two. First up, I’ve got a special Primal Fuel holiday announcement to make…

Primal Fuel

Back when I first released Primal Fuel, I pledged to lower the price when and where I could (without cutting any corners on quality) through volume sales and larger ingredient buys. With the fabulous testimonials and a significant number of you on autoship, I’m pleased to announce that I’m now able to reduce the price by a further $10. Hopefully, with this price reduction, the number of MDA readers who already enjoy and rely on Primal Fuel will grow even larger. After all, the Primal Blueprint is not about recreation or reenactment of ancient life. Grok isn’t the final word; he’s just the starting point. Ultimately, the Primal Blueprint is about taking cues from evolutionary biology and modern clinical research to arrive at the best place possible. And Primal Fuel is simply a delicious, convenient way to obtain healthy coconut fat and gold standard whey protein without going overboard on the carbohydrates.

In addition to the price reduction, I’ve also put together a special limited-time offer. Through the end of the year, going on automatic delivery (which you can cancel at anytime) for Primal Fuel will get you a free copy of The Primal Blueprint 90-Day Journal AND a free copy of The Primal Blueprint 21-Day Total Body Transformation. And you’ll receive the Primal Fuel Blender Bottle for free as well. This is the perfect way to help you or a lucky gift recipient get a jump start on 2013 health and fitness goals. Just add the Primal Fuel to your shopping cart through this link and both books will automatically be added to your order at no additional cost. (For new Primal Fuel automatic delivery orders only.)

Note: If you are already on automatic delivery for Primal Fuel your future shipments will be dropped to the new $69 price. Happy holidays!

Omni Red Palm Oil

In spite of its rich full-spectrum vitamin E (tocopherols and tocotrienols) and CoQ10 contents, red palm oil gets a bad rap sometimes. It has a funny taste that’s difficult to hide, so it has to be a feature of whatever dish you’re making. Plus, the most common source of palm oil – Southeast Asia – is plagued with sustainability issues. Natural forests are destroyed to make way for the palm plantations, and those forests are home to some of the most intelligent, sensitive, awesome great apes on the planet: orangutans. More than the other apes, I’ve always been partial to orangutans. They seem like wise men of the forest, solitary saintly hirsute figures that regard you from their tree-top nests and make you reevaluate your own life. They’re also being killed in droves because of palm oil, which has turned a lot of people off from a particularly nutritious source of fat. Luckily, Omni palm oil comes from Ghana, a nation without orangutans and without palm oil sustainability issues.

iPad Blue Blocking Filter

Imagine if you were transported back to the upper Paleolithic with an iPad in tow (this is not a Terminator-style time machine, so you can keep your clothes and belongings). Assuming you could still get service from the future, you’d be like a god. You could predict lunar and solar events, post to Primal message boards about what paleo man really ate, show them funny cat videos, and take sweet photos of real life Groks in hunting poses using hip Instagram filters. You’d be like the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, only more so. Of course, you’d probably also disrupt the heck out of their sleep. You’d all be crowded around the blue glow of the screen as the campfire flames died out, ignored and forgotten. Melatonin production would halt, and you’d have created an entire tribe of groggy-morninged night owls with severe insulin resistance. My point? Technology is great, but it comes with a price. If someone who’s got you scouring your mind looking for the perfect gift insists on using their iPad before bed, the least you can do is buy them a filter that blocks the hormone-disrupting blue light.

Nature’s Garden: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants

Forget organic versus conventional: for sheer nutritional content, nothing beats wild plants. Being able to go on a hike and spot all the edible plants, herbs, and other things that grow is empowering. I can’t do it, mind you, but it’s got to be a helpful skill to have. It’s also nice not to have to kowtow to the whims of those overbearing, fascistic farmers market vendors (kidding) and instead be able to go “shopping” for the freshest greens money can’t buy whenever you want. This particular guide – Nature’s Garden - to wild edible plants comes highly recommended, so give it to someone who you think will really utilize its knowledge.

ProSource Exercise Fitness Gymnastic Rings

Put aside, for a moment, the awkward product name that looks like it was spawned in an SEO guy’s nether regions (“I know, let’s call ‘em Exercise Fitness Rings!”), and consider that gymnastic rings are perhaps the best all purpose upper body strengthening tool around. If you don’t believe me, find a set and try to do a few dips. Simply holding yourself up at the top of the dip position is surprisingly tough for beginners. You’ll shake and tremble and quake up there, suddenly forced to reckon with your own body weight and a floppy, ever-moving base of “support.” That’s the thing about rings: you have to create the base of support. It’s not attached to the ground. It’s not made of steel. It’s suspended from two dangly cords that simply will not stop moving around and taking advantage of every tiny shift of imbalance you provide. Plus, you can take these portable rings everywhere you go for a fantastic workout.

The Primal Blueprint Chef Kit

I may be biased, but this is an objectively great deal. You get all three Primal Blueprint cookbooks PLUS a Primal Blueprint Apron, a newly-designed Primal Blueprint Poster, and a Primal Blueprint Shopping List and Pen, all for less than the cost of the three cookbooks. This is perfect for anyone who’s ever asked, “How can you eat this way? What do you even eat?” Three books of full-color photos and descriptive recipes will provide a quick and timely answer.

Feel free to keep the freebies and distribute the cookbooks as you see fit.

Dunecraft Dome Herb Terrarium

As I’ve mentioned before, herbs don’t just add flavor to dishes; they are antioxidants in their own right, protecting fragile fats and reducing the formation of carcinogenic compounds during cooking. Only problem is, fresh herbs seem to go bad really quickly, far before you’re able to use them all. You spend ten bucks on some sage, rosemary, thyme, and tarragon for a specific recipe, and you only end up using a couple tablespoons of each. Such a waste. Sure, you could keep dried herbs on hand, but those aren’t as good as fresh. If your giftee’s got a brown thumb but still wants fresh herbs at arm’s reach, the herb terrarium is a no-frills, impossible-to-mess-up option. Plus, the extra seeds mean they can keep growing more herbs once the original ones have died out. They get enough terrarium experience under their belt and starting a real garden shouldn’t be much of a stretch. “Teach a man to fish….”

Instant Pot IP-LUX60 6-in-1 Programmable Pressure Cooker

Many of you guys know you should be making stews with tougher, cheaper cuts, doing bone broth, and finally using those oxtails you’ve had in your freezer for months, but those are all considerably demanding of your time. You’d love to be able to hang around in the kitchen for hours, taking the time to lovingly prepare difficult dishes, but you probably don’t have the time to do it. Modern life demands much of us, and some people adapt by eating fast food, cooking frozen meals, and generally letting their nutrition fall the wayside. But not MDA readers. You guys want the best of both worlds: you want to cook amazingly nutritious meals while still retaining enough free time to handle the demands of a busy life. Enter pressure cookers. Pressure cookers cut cooking time by reducing the boiling point without applying ungodly amounts of heat (less than crockpots on the low setting, in fact). Pressure cookers also preserve nutrients. This particular model comes highly regarded.

iGrill Cooking Thermometer

We often like to consider ourselves artists in the kitchen who can’t be bothered with recipes or temperatures. We just “go by feeling,” or something like that. But you know what? Sometimes knowing for sure what’s going on in the oven is smart. Sometimes knowing the exact temperature of the interior of that roast or that turkey will result in better tasting food. It’s not as sexy, but it’s far more reliable. This particular cooking thermometer interacts with your iOS device, so you can leave the kitchen and your phone will beep when it’s ready. Just don’t put the phone in the oven.

If your giftee doesn’t have an iPhone or other iOS device, this old standby works pretty well, too.

Self-Massage Kit – RAD Roller and VooDoo Floss Bands

Everybody loves a good massage administered by a competent masseuse, but those are generally one-shot deals. You get your massage and you’re done. If you want another, you’ll have to pay for it. That can add up. However, just because you aren’t trained in massage and physical therapy doesn’t mean you can’t help yourself out with the assistance of a couple simple tools. It won’t be as effective as a professional working on you, but it’s certainly better than wallowing in your own pain and accepting poor tissue quality. The RAD Roller is a more concentrated form of foam roller. It hits hard to reach spots, like the hamstrings, that the foam roller can’t effectively hit. Plus, if you’re unsure of how to address your tissue issues, the RAD Roller comes with a PDF guide showing you the basics. Then, once you mash your tissues and iron out any tough spots, you can move on to the VooDoo Floss Bands for improving movement quality. Wrap a body part, like the quads or the ankles, and move. Squat, or lunge, or just put that body part through a full range of motion with the floss bands compressing the tissues. Then, remove the bands and see how much more fluid the same movement has become. Floss bands also help push lymphatic fluid away from injured tissues, thereby improving the healing process.

That’s this year’s list, folks. If you’re still looking for ideas check out the just released Primal Blueprint Hoodie and the Primal Blueprint “Adapt or Get Dropped” Men’s Performance Workout T-Shirt (women’s workout shirts coming soon) Now, get on those orders; you don’t have much time left!

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Should You Get Your Genome Sequenced?

Earlier this year, I explored the “evolution” of human dietary requirements in the last 10,000 years by examining some of the SNPs – single nucleotide polymorphisms, or variations in genetic sequences – that relate to diet and nutrition. I concluded that while certain genetic changes to the way we process certain foods have arisen in certain populations, for the most part we’re still best off eating from an ancestral, Primal spread of animals, sea creatures, and plant life. Nothing has changed on that front in my mind, but people are still understandably curious about their genetic predispositions toward various conditions, and, with the recent reduction in price for SNP sequencing from 23andMe (to $99 with no subscriptions required), as well as slightly more affordable full-on genome sequencing (~$1000) on the not so distant horizon, it’s easier than ever to actually do it.

But should you?

I definitely don’t think everyone should do it. It’s the least expensive it’s ever been, but there are other factors to consider before making your choice and taking the plunge.

The stress of “knowing.”

What if you were to do it and the results came back showing you carried the allele for an increased risk of heart attack? Would you go on statins? Would you change your diet? Would you freak out and bounce from veganism to Primal to fruitarian? You might not even change anything about your lifestyle, continuing to eat healthy and exercise regularly and get plenty of sleep only, but with the addition of a nice helping of useless stress to go along with it and complicate matters. And the added stress can make the threat of disease even higher.

Laymen misinterpreting data.

“The gene for” is a scary phrase that’s permeated our culture. We worry about the gene for breast cancer, the gene for Alzheimer’s, the gene for baldness, and so on, but the reality of genetics is much more complex. Most of us aren’t equipped to evaluate the data we get from these services, and trying to do so may get us into trouble.

An excess of data and paucity of interpretation.

We know a good amount, but the field of personal genomics is still in its infancy. What if you come up with a particular SNP that has successfully predicted a disease in several studies – you’re gonna get that disease, right? No. In all those studies that showed a connection, not every single person with that SNP got the disease. There could be other, unknown alleles that interact with the original “bad” SNP, countering it and rendering it null. There could be lifestyle factors that affect the expression of the gene variant, intensifying or negating it. We just don’t know yet. And in case you thought we just need more data to get it right, getting more elaborate sequencing may confuse things even more, at least until the experts are better versed in analyzing the results.

Inaccurate results.

They’re still working out the kinks on this stuff, as one journalist who tried out several different competing genome sequencing services and got wildly varying results discovered. Or how when Razib Khan, a huge proponent of 23andMe and other sequencing services, used the ancestry feature set and found out that while he was 40% Asian, his daughter was only 8% Asian. He was able to adjust the parameters and get it figured out, but the average consumer may be misled.

That said, it’s true that the more people get sequenced, the more data the experts will have to draw on and learn from. Thus, doing it could help “the greater good,” if you care about that sort of thing. I actually think that’s a legit reason to get the sequencing if you’re going to do it, but it may not be enough to justify it in your eyes (and wallet).

If you’re a chronic worrier, a person who assumes the worst and runs to Google whenever you get an odd symptom (remember, everything’s cancer on Google), use caution. Sequencing your genome or getting an SNP analysis could ease your worry and show you that you’ve got nothing going on, or it could kick start your mania and make things even worse. If you thought Primal blogs and message boards get unnecessarily arcane, check out the level of analysis on personal genome sites! I was tempted to write “overanalysis” back there, but did not, because the complexities of genome research are such that detailed analysis is often required rather than overkill. And that’s my point: if you don’t have the time for it – if you’ve already got a busy schedule and heaping more work on top of it would only add stress – it’s probably not worth it.

If you’re the curious sort, a person who wants to know how much Neanderthal blood you’ve got and whether your earwax is moist or dry, go for it. You’ll likely find some interesting data to play around with. If you can afford it, you’ll probably be glad you got sequenced.

If you’re already doing everything right, wowing the doctors with your health markers, losing weight if you have some to lose, improving in the gym, and generally just feeling fantastic, you probably don’t need it. You might learn a few things, but it won’t all of a sudden invalidate your current healthy habits.

If you’re the type who needs a kick in the pants to get going and get healthy, if you’ve been lagging and feeling crummy, if you need the fear of the genome to get you moving in the right direction, getting sequenced might be worth it. 

Gene expression is still king. Just because you got your results back and have the SNP “for” a particular condition doesn’t mean you’re going to get it. You might be more likely to get it provided you engage in certain behaviors. However, many of these behaviors are things you are already (or should be) avoiding: sitting inside watching TV all day, eating processed refined food for all your meals, eating food fried in rancid seed oils, failing to exercise or move your body on a daily basis, being socially isolated, never experiencing nature, failing to use your brain, and rarely laughing or smiling. Sure, a few genetic states might conflict with the general Primal advice:

Like a sunlight allergy; if you’re allergic to the sun, you’ll know it because it might feel like “hot wax” on your bare skin.
Folks with hereditary hemochromatosis may absorb and store excessive amounts of iron, which can increase inflammation and lead to various illnesses. Testing ferritin levels, giving blood and limiting dietary iron – or consuming iron-chelating coffee, tea, and red wine with iron-rich foods – are good moves for people concerned about hemochromatosis.
Some people carry an allele that impairs their ability to utilize and convert folic acid, but that just means you should be getting your folate from leafy greens and organ meats rather than folic acid supplements – which you should be doing anyway.

Overall, I like the potential of genetic sequencing, but it’s not quite there yet. Family history trumps genetic data, at least for now. Ask Grandma about her parents and parents’ parents, look at old family photos, explore causes of death for your relatives – these will give you a nice general picture of the state of your genetic susceptibility to various diseases. It’s not as “exact” as genome sequencing, but it’s much easier to analyze.

In the end, whatever your genome has to say about you, the basics are always going to work out. Eating plants and animals, walking a lot, lifting heavy stuff, sprinting, and all the other usual Primal Blueprint advice is never going out of style. For that reason, I’m not very interested in getting my genome or SNPs sequenced. Over the course of almost sixty years, I’ve got a pretty good handle on what makes me tick, what makes me feel like crap, and what makes me healthy, happy, strong, fit, productive, and energetic. If, for argument’s sake, I discovered that whatever I’m currently doing to feel all those awesome things would somehow negatively interact with a random gene mutation, I still wouldn’t change a thing.

But I sure as heck might worry more.

Thanks for reading, folks. I’d love to hear from you, now. Have you had your genetics sequenced? Are you interested?

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Dear Mark: Strong but Stiff, Denatured Proteins, Weeklong Fasting, and Oxalates

Today’s edition of Dear Mark is a bit of a grab-bag. First, I give advice on how to loosen up after strength training. Being able to deadlift however many pounds is nice and all, but what if you’re too stiff on your days off to do anything with the strength? Next, I briefly discuss the effect of heat on protein powder and raw cocoa powder. Raw fans will try to scare you away from anything heated, but are they exaggerating (or outright getting it wrong)? Find out below. After that, I sort of try to convince a reader not to embark on his planned week-long fast. Or, at the very least, to reconsider the week duration and try something a little shorter first. And finally, I discuss whether or not dietary oxalates are a toxic substance that should be avoided at all costs.

Let’s go:

Dear Mark,

I go to the gym three times a week and lift weights. Once a week in addition I do some sprinting on the treadmill, and once a week I do a high-intensity bodyweight workout. After many of my workouts I feel very stiff the next day. What can I do about this? Is it worth it to build up my strength if I’m so stiff I can’t do anything with it?

Thanks

Rhiannon

No, I don’t think strength is worth very much if you’re hobbling around stiff-legged all day, too sore and functionally decrepit to translate that added “strength” into kinetic energy. Since you wrote in about this, you probably feel similarly. It’s a common intuition to have.

Luckily, there’s a simple fix that doesn’t require you stop exercising, or even cut back much: mobilize.

Start your day with a brief but effective movement session. I highly recommend drawing on this VitaMove routine by Angelo dela Cruz, PrimalCon presenter, bodyworker, and ninja warrior, for inspiration.

As Angelo says, rather than dynamic, be fluid and thorough. Don’t use momentum to throw your body parts around time and space. Seek full range of motion with every movement. Be deliberate, even slow. When you squat, for example, bend at the waist, grab your toes until your hamstrings stretch, and pull yourself down as deep as you can. Oscillate back and forth, shifting weight between your feet and really feeling the stretch in your thighs. Extend your arms overhead and stand up, squeezing your glutes and bringing your hips to full extension at the top as you stand.

My favorite hip opener when I’m short on time is the walking lunge stretch. Take a big forward step as you lunge, back knee hovering above the floor. Hold that position, extend your arms out in front, and place your palms against each other. Keeping your arms straight, move them as far to the left as you can, then as far to the right, then repeat it. Think big, sweeping, expansive movement; you should feel your fascia stretching. Lunge forward with the next foot and repeat the arm movements. Experiment with different arm movements, like chopping motions.

On your off days, go for a walk. Do about an hour, if you can. Keep those joints fluid and moving.

Also, consider dropping one of the weight lifting or bodyweight days. I think three days of strength training plus a day of sprints is plenty.

I’ve made homemade protein bars using both whey and egg white protein powders. Does baking these have any adverse effect on the nutrition or protein content? I also have a raw cocoa powder that I use in a few different things, but I also use when I make these baked bars – any issue with heating raw cocoa powder?

Greschen

If heating protein resulted in an inability of the hominid digestive system to access and assimilate said protein, I don’t think we would have gotten very far as meat-eating, fire-starting, barbecuing apes. Raw foodists will talk about heating resulting in “denatured proteins” as if they’re a bad thing (and I gotta admit, they do sound kinda scary), and that’s all well and good, but denatured proteins are generally more digestible than undenatured proteins. We’re always denaturing the proteins we eat before we eat them. When we cook egg whites, the proteins become denatured and more digestible. When you stick seafood in a lime juice bath to make ceviche, you’re denaturing the proteins. That doesn’t “destroy” the proteins; it just rearranges them. They’re still broken down in the gut into amino acids.

The confusion may arise from the fact that denaturing proteins in living tissue (like, say, you) often causes cell death. Denaturation of living protein, bad. Denaturation of dead protein that you’re about to eat, good. If anything, baking your protein powder will make them more available in the body, rather than less. And besides: most whey proteins have already undergone a heating process. You’re in the clear.

As for the cocoa powder, I wouldn’t worry about heating it, either. For one, some of the earliest cocoa fans – the Mayans – consumed it roasted, not raw. And second, the roasting process actually increases the antioxidant activity of the cocoa bean. All those cocoa polyphenols we’re so interested in are actually boosted by heat. It seems the Mayans got that one right. Furthermore, many supposedly “raw” cocoa powders undergo plenty of heat stress, whether it’s during the crushing process or because there’s little consensus on what “raw” actually means.

I am considering attempting a week long fast. I have been fasting intermittently for some time now, and thought it would be a cool challenge to go an entire week. As a fat adapted “caveman” should I worry much about muscle loss, or any other potential problems for that matter?

Nick

Amino acid scavenging from existing stores will start to happen when your liver glycogen is depleted, which will occur at somewhere around the 24-30 hour mark (depending on a number of factors, including your activity level during the fast). Any dietary protein available will go toward gluconeogenesis and liver glycogen replenishment. After that’s all used up, you’ll draw on your own tissues – probably less so than the average person thrown into a week-long fast, given your ability to use fat and spare glucose, but muscle loss will still occur. A week is a long time.

Short term fasts with refeeds generally prevent any metabolic slowdowns, but a week-long fast will put your body on alert. Thyroid activity will downregulate and leptin will drop. By all accounts, you’ll officially be in “starvation mode.” This will be highly unpleasant.

In my fasting series, I wrote about how severely obese patients have had success with year-long fasts, but they were under medical supervision and had a lot of extraneous tissue to burn through. I take it that you do not, so I would advise against a weeklong fast. If you insist on pushing the limits (can’t blame you there), start smaller. Try a day-and-a-half long fast, first, and see how you respond. Go from there, and stay cognizant and realistic about how you’re feeling during the fast. Be willing to cut it short if you feel terrible.

Hi!

I just wanted to ask you to add to your Primal Blueprint a warning of the dangers of oxalic acid. We hear we need to eat a lot of plant food, like dark, leafy greens. Oxalic acid in many fruits, vegetables, nuts and berries can cause kidney problems and even death. I would like you to share with the public that we should be aware of foods high in oxalic acid, not eat the same plant foods regularly, and not consume too much of it. It doesn’t take much oxalic acid and it doesn’t need to be over a long period of time, before you might get ill from oxalic acid! It’s highly toxic! There should be a warning to people about this, especially when they choose to eat Primal! (And this is why I think we were born with a sweet tooth! To avoid plant food that are high in oxalic acid!)

Best regards,

S.S.

I don’t know that I’d characterize oxalic as “highly toxic,” at least not unequivocally for everyone.

In healthy guts, oxalates will generally pass through the GI tract into the stool without being absorbed and causing problems. Just between 2-15% of dietary oxalates ever get absorbed in healthy people, depending on the inherent solubility of the oxalates (almond oxalates, for example, are more absorbable than black bean oxalates). In compromised guts, oxalates will be absorbed at greater rates. People with celiac disease, which is usually characterized by a perpetually permeable gut lining if left untreated with a gluten-free diet, are at a higher risk of calcium oxalate kidney stones due to (in part) greater oxalate absorption. Certain species of gut flora also contribute to oxalate degradation (PDF), so individuals without the right species will experience impaired oxalate breakdown, leaving more oxalate available for absorption. Probiotic supplementation with the right species has been shown to reduce urinary excretion of oxalates and the formation of stones in patients with hyperoxaluria.

When oxalate is absorbed, however, the vast majority of it is excreted through the urine. Too high a concentration of urinary oxalate can lead to impaired dissolution of oxalate and the formation of kidney stones; less oxalate in the urine by volume means the oxalate is easier to dissolve.

Some people definitely have problems with oxalates, either because of intestinal permeability, hyperoxaluria (excessive urinary excretion of oxalate caused by impaired oxalate degradation enzymes and/or increased oxalate absorption), or dysfunctional gut flora. Those people will want to limit oxalates and cook their greens. Other strategies include taking a calcium citrate supplement with meals (calcium citrate binds to oxalate in the gut and reduces its absorption), taking a magnesium-potassium citrate supplement, and supplementing with probiotics.

The benefits of “high oxalate” foods like leafy greens, nuts, and other vegetables are such that I wouldn’t give up every oxalate-containing food. If you’re worried about oxalates, rotating the greens you eat (kale and collards are some of the lower-oxalate greens) and limiting the amount of raw vegetables you eat should reduce your oxalate absorption.

If you do have leaky gut, celiac, any intestinal disorder like Crohn’s or IBS, generally poor digestion, or have a family/personal history of kidney stones, check out Low Oxalate Info, a handy, comprehensive website dedicated to low-oxalate living.

That’s it for today, folks. Thanks for the questions and keep them coming!

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Weekend Link Love

Research of the Week

New data reveals that eating fewer, larger meals is “more advantageous metabolically” for obese women than eating smaller meals more frequently throughout the day. Another dearly-held nutrition myth edges ever closer to chomping down on powdered particles of earth and waste matter.

UC Berkeley researchers just found a new gene that encodes for de novo lipogenesis, or the conversion of carbs to fat. There’s talk of drugs targeting this genetic pathway, of course, or you could always take matters into your own hands and just limit carbs (FDA approval not required, yet).

Interesting Blog Posts

Leo Babauta wrote a quick little guide on removing holiday clutter. I find that clearing out the physical clutter in your life has a positive correlation with the disappearance of mental clutter, and I don’t need a randomized control trial to tell me that causation is involved here.

Over at Paleo NonPaleo, a large swath of the Primal/paleo world (including yours truly) was interviewed about their holiday advice and predictions for the new year. Go check it out.

Anyone remember having a pen pal? If you have, you’ll love Paleo Pen Pals. If you’re scratching your head in confusion, this post will bring you up to speed (and you’ll love it, too).

Media, Schmedia

More and more people are getting hip to the perniciousness of modern wheat and shifting toward ancient heirloom grains like einkorn. Might I suggest they take a few more steps, ditch grains altogether, and start eating like the real ancients?

Or we can simply wait for global climate change to take care of wheat for us.

Guess what got voted one of the worst dieting trends of 2012? We must be doing something right.

Everything Else

Archaeologists found evidence (special clay pots) that people were making cheese as early as 7,000 years ago. The process hasn’t changed much, researchers say, although I don’t think ancient Northern Europeans were making Velveeta or Kraft singles.

This will seem familiar to many of you, I’d imagine.

Recipe Corner

Homemade Sichuan bacon. That is all. Oh, yeah, and there’s apparently some cabbage or other green thing mentioned too.
Gaze longingly and guiltily at the greasy Chinese buffet no longer, for a healthy recipe for General Tso’s chicken is available.

Time Capsule

One year ago (Dec 16 – Dec 22)

The Joy of Receiving – There are a lot of gifts out there for the taking, guys. They may not all be tangible or come with a gift receipt, but we need to be ready to accept them if we hope to really live.
Tails, Tendons, and Tripe: A Guide to Discovering the Odd Bits – Learn how to discern between the spleens, the pancreases, the coagulated blood cubes, and all the myriad edible bits and pieces that we’d be more comfortable ignoring (at our own peril).

Comment of the Week

So glad to see the hipsters are hunting now. In fact my husband said he spotted a few in Oregon on his elk hunting trip. I suggested to him that we should start a line of camouflage skinny jeans. I know… Brilliant!

- Brilliant idea, Trinity. Go for it.

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Homemade Gravlax

Gravlax is a satisfying snack, a delicious breakfast, and an elegant appetizer. It’s different from lox which is cold smoked, and it’s made by curing fresh salmon in a mixture of salt, sugar, and seasonings. Traditionally, dill is the main seasoning but it’s not required. You can use any herb you like and/or add a wide variety of crushed spices to your cure, ranging from peppercorns to star anise to caraway or fennel seeds.

Preparing the fish only takes a few minutes, but curing takes several days so plan ahead. Salt cures the fish by drawing the moisture out. The sugar also helps the salmon cure, but is there mostly to balance the flavor and effects of the salt. Gravlax made without sugar can easily become too dry and tough, and taste overly salty.

The amount of salt and sugar used in gravlax recipes varies widely, due more to personal preference than food safety. As this recipe proves, large amounts of salt and sugar aren’t really necessary. Experiment and find your own favorite ratio of the two, keeping in mind that not enough salt will result in mushy, under-cured fish and too much (without any sugar to balance it out) will make the fish tough and super-salty.

The amount of curing time also varies, again due in large part to personal preference. You can start tasting the fish after twenty-four hours. However, it’s most likely the texture and flavor you’re looking for will emerge somewhere between forty-eight and seventy-two hours. Sliced very thinly, homemade gravlax should have a fresh but bold salmon flavor. The texture will be slightly firmer than raw salmon, but should never be tough or chewy.

Pair gravlax with thin slices of cucumber, tomato, or other raw veggies, and over salad greens, steamed asparagus, scrambled eggs and anything else you can think of. When in doubt, just eat gravlax alone, draping paper-thin slices over your tongue and savoring the flavor before it melts away.

Servings: Four to six

Time in the Kitchen: Fifteen minutes of prep time, plus twenty-four to seventy-two hours of curing

Ingredients:

1 pound of very fresh, skin-on salmon fillet, ideally the same thickness (about one inch) all the way through (450 g)
1 tablespoon sugar (15 ml)
2 1/2 teaspoons kosher or fine sea salt (10 ml)
1/4 to 1/2 cup finely chopped fresh herbs (60 to 120 ml)

Instructions:

Use the freshest salmon you can find, ideally wild, both for health reasons for its fatty, rich flavor. Thinner fillets (1-inch thickness or less) will cure easier than thicker fillets, which may need more salt and sugar than this recipe specifies.

Examine the fish for small pin bones by pushing your finger down the middle of the fillet. Remove any bones with tweezers or needle-nosed pliers (or ask the store to remove them for you).

In a small bowl mix together the salt, sugar, and fresh herbs.

Drape a large piece of plastic wrap over a rimmed dish. Over the plastic wrap, thoroughly rub the entire filet of salmon with the cure mixture, rubbing most of it into the flesh side.

Set the salmon down on the plastic wrap, skin side down.

Fold the plastic wrap tightly around the salmon. Lift the salmon out of the dish and tightly wrap the salmon in another piece of plastic wrap (if wrapped tightly enough, you don’t need to place weights on top, like some recipes call for).

Refrigerate the wrapped salmon in the rimmed dish (it will leak some liquid that you won’t want all over your fridge) for roughly twelve hours then flip the filet over.

You can taste the salmon after twenty-four hours, but this recipe generally needs forty-eight to seventy-two hours to fully cure.

Unwrap the salmon. Scrape or brush off the herbs and any salt or sugar that might remain. Using a very sharp knife, slice off the skin then slice the gravlax very thinly to serve.

Eat as is, or with a squirt of lemon.

Keep the gravlax wrapped in clean plastic wrap or in an airtight container, refrigerated. For optimal freshness, eat within a few days.

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Where’s Timothy Now?

Who’s Timothy, you ask? Timothy is a fellow that submitted a Primal Blueprint Real Life Story a few years back. He’s also a PrimalCon veteran (we’ve been lucky enough to have him and his family attend each PrimalCon thus far), a Shovelglove Master, and an all-around great guy. Oh, and you might recognize him from The Primal Blueprint 21-Day Total Body Transformation.

As you may know from past “Where Are They Now?” articles, I like to periodically check in with friends that have shared their success stories on Mark’s Daily Apple to see how they’re doing. There was The Unconquerable Dave and his update post The Unconquerable Dave: Still Unconquerable (Grok on, brother, if you’re reading), and a host of others (1, 2, 3).

I caught up with Timothy recently and, lucky for us all, he was happy to provide an update. And what an update it is.

First, here’s a pre-Primal pic from Timothy’s original success story.

If you haven’t read Timothy’s story, do so now: Complete Recovery Within a Week. It’s worth your time.

Now, without further ado, let’s find out how the Primal lifestyle has been treating Timothy.

Enter Timothy…

Dear Mark,

It’s been three years since I first discovered Marks Daily Apple. My wife had just given birth to our first child, and at age 33 I was motivated for the first time to make a serious effort at improving my health. I knew I needed more physical and mental strength to be a good father and husband. But I was completely ignorant about exercise and nutrition.

In my luckiest break ever, I stumbled across MDA. Intellectually, I was convinced. Of course the human body does best in its native environment; how silly not to have thought of that! But what really convinced me, on an emotional level, was reading the success stories of those who transformed their own lives, complete with astounding photographic proof. Maybe, I dared to fantasize, such magic might work on a basket case like me!

Oh, man, I had no idea.

I put down the processed foods and picked up a sledgehammer. It was a fun game to think about the Primal paradigm and apply it to every aspect of my life. The first changes came almost overnight, and that taste of success made me hungry for more. I discovered that cooking real food was actually enjoyable. And later that weightlifting was my favorite hobby, even better than video games!

A few months ago, I decided to apply everything I had learned to bodybuilding, taking a Primal approach to the Leangains method. This seemed like the ultimate challenge of mind, body, and soul. After twelve careful weeks, the results astonished me! Here’s a photo from before I started lifting.

Here’s one after I had been lifting for one year.

And here are two from the end of my diet (much credit due to the coaching of Andy Morgan of rippedbody.jp).

Going Primal didn’t just introduce me to my favorite hobby. It gave me more strength and vitality than I could ever have imagined and drastically enhanced my enjoyment of life. But most important of all, I got what I came for: being a capable father to my son. This worked out so well we soon had another! (Going Primal has noteworthy effects on fertility). Keeping up with two healthy boys is a serious challenge, but thanks to my degree in Primalology from MDA, I am prevailing with aplomb.

Just for fun, here are eight of my thoughts after three years. I hope they will inspire those who come after me, and amuse those who came before:

We have more potential than our tiny minds can imagine. People rarely appreciate how amazing our ancestors were. We’re all descended from an unbroken dynasty of heroic survivors stretching back millions of years in the hominid line alone. That legacy lives in our genes, stronger than ever, but waiting for the right environment to be expressed. Every living human is a unique gem that only needs primal polish to shine. That polishing can go on for a lifetime. Our dreams barely scratch the surface!

Homo Sapiens must squat. As the bipedal animal, this is our most distinctive physical adaptation. My toddler does it perfectly by instinct. But as we grow up, we become crippled by sedentarism and lose our facility in this basic motion. The more we neglect squatting, the more uncomfortable it becomes, and we avoid it even more, until we can barely stand up from a chair. But it’s worth working through that discomfort and discovering what you knew as a child, because squatting is the foundation of human strength.

Homo Sapiens must fast. As omnivorous survivors, this is our most distinctive metabolic adaptation. It’s no secret that ancient humans survived countless cycles of lean times and abundance. As J. Stanton writes, prey animals graze, but predators fast and gorge. Our bodies perform best under these conditions. This works on at least three levels: daily intermittent fasting (e.g. skipping breakfast), day-to-day calorie cycling (overfeeding after a vigorous hunt, underfeeding and resting on other days), and seasonal cycling (lots of calories during some months, not quite enough during others). What is the optimal frequency and magnitude? I’m doing my best to find out…

SLEDGEHAMMERS! Is there any greater exercise appliance? Sure, barbells are best for building strength. And kettlebells are fun and functional. But for me, nothing spells paleolithic party time like a weighted stick. You can shovel it! You can swing it! You can throw it in the air, whirl it overhead, swing one in each hand like a crazy berserker! My personal favorite is to simulate stone-age combat. I came up with a hammer combat protocol that combines Moving at a Slow Pace, Sprinting, and Lifting Heavy Things for a hugely entertaining devil of a workout, one that was extremely effective in the final weeks of my recent diet.

True ecstasy is mastering heavy lifts. Everybody talks about runner’s high. How come nobody talks about lifter’s high? These days when I deadlift for reps at my limit, or power clean and press a barbell overhead with all my strength until it finally crashes down – the euphoria is indescribable. It’s like being tasered with pure ecstasy, or being mind-melded with aliens, or dying and being resurrected on the spot. Only crazier! The effect was minor when I first started lifting and my body was just learning to exert itself. But now that I’ve practiced for a year and a half, holy smokes, it keeps getting more intense. That feeling is all the motivation I need to keep lifting.

Un-deafen your palate. “I couldn’t live without bread.” This was my most dreadful fear when I first went Primal. And to abandon not just bread, but all forms of birdseed! Even cinnamon rolls, heaven forfend! Maybe it was gliadin addiction, maybe just habit from growing up on fast food, but I was seriously concerned about a life sentence in a culinary prison devoid of all pleasure. HA! Now I realize that bread, and all the other supernormal stimuli of modern food substitutes, had deafened my palate to the subtle flavors of real food. After turning off the static, my sense of taste slowly awoke. Eggs, salmon, and bison are just as soul-satisfying for me now as bread used to be, with the added bonus that I feeling great after eating them. As for cinnamon rolls, they can’t compete with a pot of maple cinnamon coconut quinoa. I did this experiment recently and the results weren’t even close.

Willpower doesn’t exist. This was a shocker for me, because conventional wisdom is that success, especially on a diet, comes from making a decision and just plain sticking to it. But when I honestly thought about it, none of my successes came from willpower. When I actually did try to rely on “willpower” it was almost always self-sabotaging. What works instead? Habit, distraction, playfulness, desperation, vanity, OCD, cognitive dissonance, endorphin addiction, the urge to disprove doubters, the desire to set a good example – these are a few of the tools that worked for me in various contexts. But willpower, what does that even mean? It’s just an illusion. Like consciousness!

Set a good example. We’re all in this together. I honestly believe that everybody would be Primal if they only knew what it felt like. How much happier our world would be! But how are folks to know? Not everyone is lucky enough to stumble across MDA. But neither is confrontation productive. We can only set a good example. Few people notice. Fewer still inquire. But when we open even one other person’s mind, that action echoes through eternity. It is not given to all of us to have children of our own, or to create cultural monuments to live after us. But we all have a real shot at immortality through our brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews in the human race.

Every one of our ancestors, without exception, unto the humblest protozoa, prevailed where countless others failed. And so we walk the earth right now. Only for an instant, but one flash of lightning is enough to illuminate the world. Where will we strike next?

Grok on,

Timothy

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What Would Grok Do?

I have to admit I’m still caught up in the excitement of last week’s launch of the new Healthy Sauces, Dressings & Toppings cookbook. (Favorites yet, anyone?) But wouldn’t you know – there’s more in the hopper. In a few short weeks I’ll be releasing The Primal Connection, the long planned sequel to The Primal Blueprint. As friends and colleagues within the ancestral movement have so generously described, The Primal Connection offers the first really new dimension in the paleo/Primal space in years. Is there any better way to start the new year – not to mention the fact that we all survived the Mayan apocalypse? In all seriousness, I’ve been pumped about this launch for months now. Like The Primal Blueprint, The Primal Connection is both a culmination and expansion of principles I’ve first introduced here on MDA. Inherent to The Primal Connection is the concept that we can use the model of our ancestors to create not just a healthier existence but also a more balanced and fulfilling life.

Simply put, there’s harmony and homeostasis to be found in congruence with our Primal roots – including those that go well beyond diet and exercise. Examining the conditions under which we evolved can shed light on why we think the way we do, why we’re satisfied (or unsatisfied) by certain living conditions, and how our modern lifestyles so often miss the boat and leave us psychologically stranded. I’ll call it the Grok principle, which begets the somewhat tongue-in-cheek but remarkably serviceable mantra – ”What Would Grok Do?”

I mean, of course, no offense to those who embrace the original religious connotation of the popular query. For better or worse, the question has gone the way of cultural meme, and it was time our Primal icon got in on the self-development action. In essence, when we live with full consciousness of fundamental truths about these human forms of ours, we’re more in control of ourselves and of our chance at health and happiness in this lifetime. Do our evolutionary patterns dictate our each and every thought, action, and reaction? (a.k.a. Hominids will be hominids.) Of course not. Make no mistake, however: they’re in on the conscious and unconscious deliberations for all of the above.

Some would argue we were little more than desperate, grunting savages before the Neolithic Revolution some 10,000 years ago (never mind that hunting and gathering continued in most parts of the world for thousands of years past the Neolithic beginnings – and still continues today). Many believe we didn’t truly become cognitively and culturally “human” until we settled down on farms. The truth is, we made our critical cognitive leaps and developed anatomically modern brains tens of thousands of years before we were plowing fields. We developed expanded social constructs, explored artistic methods, and invented cultural rituals while we were still foraging. The result: these conditions under which our modern human brains evolved continue to influence our innate expectations today.

When we look at the rising rates of stress, anxiety, and burnout, what do you think our evolutionary blueprints have to teach us about recovering a sense of emotional balance? The answer is much more than you might think. Living in congruence with basic patterns of our past doesn’t explain or remedy every problem we’ll face. We’re designed, after all, to live a full spectrum of emotional experience and witness life (and death) in raw, unfiltered form. The Grok principle, however, helps us examine our lives against the basic parameters of evolutionary conditions. It gives us perspective on what we think is big but is not, what we think is crucial but is not, what we imagine to be optional but is not. Asking ourselves what Grok would do opens our field of vision beyond the priorities of modern society and helps us hone in on the the original significance of certain emotions, on the original impetus for certain instincts or motivations, on the original social and environmental frameworks for relationships and self development.

When we acknowledge the legitimacy and limitations of these primal influences, we’re better equipped to understand our fundamental needs as well as more empowered to make fully conscious choices that fuel our personal wellbeing. The evolutionary lens can shed a revealing light on the widely diverse and confounding dimensions of this humanity of ours: what we need versus what our culture tells us we should want, what experiences are essential to actualizing our core primal potential, what lifestyle conditions tend to facilitate overall wellbeing. Why don’t 500 Facebook friends make us happy? What does city living do to us over time? Why do we feel inexplicably restless when life gets secure and predictable? It’s not just reflected in anthropological patterns. The results show in modern day studies of everything from hormonal profiles to health outcomes. In short, the Grok model offers a touchstone for daily living.

Back to the question of the day. Checking in with a “What would Grok do?” mindset can remind us of the power behind our default settings – both the vital needs and the untapped potential we often overlook in the bustle and confusion of modern living. The question can, in the thick of life, help us fully embrace or return to what really matters. It can encourage us to scrutinize our concept of thriving. It can remind us that the path to emotional as well as physical vitality is simpler and more achievable than we often think it is.

Now let me turn things over to you. In your estimation, what does it mean to play the “What Would Grok Do” game? How do you find yourself applying it in your own life? How has the general principle, if not the specific question itself, changed your life? Thanks for reading today, everyone. I’ll look forward to reading your revelations and experiences.

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7 Foods You Don’t Need to Buy Organic

A couple weeks ago, I gave you a list of the top 10 foods you should strive to buy organic. Some of you found the list useful, while others felt a bit overwhelmed and disheartened by the information, saying that it felt like they couldn’t eat anything that wasn’t organic. Today, I’ll try to make things a little better by giving you a list of the foods which are perfectly fine in their conventional form. However, even if the following conventional foods are relatively safe for your health, some would argue that you should still buy organic in order to support the workers and protect the environments exposed to agricultural chemicals. That’s totally valid, and it’s part of the reason why I try to buy organic, but it’s not what I’m discussing here. It’s a topic for another time. Today is about maximizing the health of you and your family while cutting costs when and where you can.

So, what common, Primal staples can you buy conventional?

Coconut

You won’t see coconut on any Clean 15 or Dirty Dozen lists anytime soon, because the general public has yet to catch on to its fatty, nutty delights. That said, we Primal people eat coconut. We sauté with coconut oil and slather it onto vegetables, sweet potatoes, hair, skin, and armpits. We drink and make curries with coconut milk and cream. We obsess over coconut butter, paying tribute to its glory with a greasy spoon. And when we’ve been running or training particularly hard – or it’s hot out – we often reach for the coconut water. We like our coconut, so it’s in our best interest to determine whether we should be buying organic or not.

Luckily for us, it doesn’t look like organic coconut makes a big difference. Several studies have looked for pesticide residues in coconut products and come up virtually empty handed. There’s this 2008 study, which was unable to detect any pesticide residues in crude coconut oil. Poly-aromatic hydrocarbons, which are generated during the coconut flesh quick drying process and are carcinogenic, were detected in crude coconut oil but were removed in the refining process. Virgin unrefined coconut oil, then, may still contain these hydrocarbons, unless it’s wet-milled and processed without quick-drying the flesh. That goes for both organic and conventional coconut oil, to be clear.

In another study, researchers examined 15 samples of coconut water using two different methods of pesticide detection and were unable to detect any of the 11 pesticides they were looking for.

Coconut milk is also going to be as free from pesticides as any other coconut product. Since it’s made from fresh flesh, not the dried, heat-treated stuff, coconut milk should also be free of poly-aromatic hydrocarbons.

Onions

Onions don’t just make you cry for cutting them, they make pests weep at the thought of eating them. Onions are naturally resistant to pests, which is probably why just 0.3% of onions tested for chemical residue came up positive. Big Agra may cut corners and prioritize profit over quality or consumer health, but that just means they won’t fork out the money for chemicals if they don’t have to; they’re not comic book villains, dumping drums of noxious endocrine disruptors and carcinogens onto their crops to punish us. Not onion farmers, at least.

So, feel free to go wild with conventional onions, because there is very little, if any, advantage to organic onions from a health perspective. Unlike many other fruits and vegetables, conventionally grown onions have the same level of polyphenols as organically grown onions.

Avocado

Avocados are another safe food that ends up with some of the lowest pesticide residues around. Maybe it’s the scaly skin and the way they just kinda “lurk” there up in tree tricking pests into thinking they’re up against alligators. Maybe it’s the fact that a bug got burned one too many times with a beautiful looking avocado that turned out to be stringy and brown on the inside. Maybe pests just hate waiting for an avocado to ripen (who doesn’t?) and give up. Actually, even though a somewhat significant amount of chemicals can be used on avocado orchards, they just don’t make it into the fatty, delicious flesh we crave and consume.

Avocado farmers, both organic and conventional, do use extensive amounts of copper as a fungicide. Copper is an essential nutrient, but too much can be harmful. A single Florida avocado contains 0.9 mg, which is about 100% of the RDI, so don’t go around eating several a day.

Honey

The idea of organic honey is fantastic – who wouldn’t want to eat honey produced by bees who dined exclusively on organic, wild, untouched, pure flowers? I sure would.

But the reality is that bees will be bees. They’re going to buzz around and get into trouble, and they’re not going to distinguish between organic and conventionally-grown plants. I suppose you could surround the bee with only organic plant life, but considering bees have an average range of five kilometers from the hive (and twice that when food is scarce), you’d have to control a lot of land to do it. Plus, you know how bees have those cute furry bodies? Yeah, that fur picks up all sorts of stuff from the air. Not only do you have to worry about non-organic pollen, you also have to contend with every non-organic airborne particle in the area.

Buy local honey. Buy raw honey. Buy honey from someone who raised the bees and (at least kinda sorta) knows where they spend their time. But don’t shell out extra money for organic honey unless you happen to really like that particular honey. Those first two characteristics – “local” and “raw” – should come before organic.

Asparagus

I love asparagus, but even I balk at the astronomical price of organic asparagus. Luckily, it’s one of the cleanest vegetables around. When you read that residues from nine different pesticides were found on it, though, you might get a little worried until you look a little closer and realize that the most prevalent of the chemicals – methomyl – was only detected on 3.3% of samples tested.

Organic might eliminate that small probability of pesticides showing up on your asparagus, but I don’t think it’s worth the price tag. Conventional should be just fine. If you’re really worried, domestic conventional (referring to the United States) is far better than imported conventional.

Sweet Potato

Sweet potatoes are a hardy bunch, and the hardy among us – the athletes, the lifters, the highly active – sometimes need a bit of dietary starch to fuel their efforts. Conventional sweet potatoes are a fine choice. Their leaves sometimes get eaten by bugs, but since that rarely affects the viability of the underground tubers that people actually eat, farmers generally don’t feel the need to protect the leaves with agrochemicals.

However, sweet potatoes do sometimes have a problem with fungal growth after harvesting, and the tubers have been known to receive a quick dunk in a dicloran bath before being packed and shipped to curtail this. Dicloran (not to be confused with the flame retardant known as dichloran) is a fungicide that gets a “possible carcinogen” rating from “What’s on my food?” It’s also the only chemical to show up consistently in conventional sweet potatoes. On average, a kilogram of sweet potatoes contains 1.69 mg of dicloran. Based on toxicology studies that suggest a dicloran upper limit of 0.14 mg per kg of bodyweight, a 60 kilogram human can easily get away with consuming up to 8.4 mg of dicloran. Peel your sweet potatoes and you’ll get rid of even more.

Farmed Bivalves

I’ve mentioned this before in a previous post on farmed seafood, but farmed oysters, clams, and mussels are essentially “wild.” They’re not kept in ponds, nor are they given pesticide-rich soy and corn topped off with unsustainable fishmeal. Instead, they sit there attached to their moorings in actual ocean water acting like the filter-feeders they are. For all intents and purposes, the farmed bivalves you eat are identical to wild ones. As such, there would be little point to eating “organic” shellfish.

In 2002 (PDF), Greenpeace did an exhaustive survey of all the chemicals used in aquaculture to find out whether consumers eating the end product had anything to worry about. And, while they found extensive usage of parasiticides, anaesthetics, spawning hormones, oxidants, disinfectants and herbicides in fish and shrimp farming, only one instance of chemical usage in bivalve farming was found: northwest US oyster farming sometimes used carbaryl, an organophosphate that inhibits acetylcholine esterase and increases the levels of acetylcholine in the brain (which kills parasites but can actually enhance human brain function, provided you eat or make enough choline).

Organic bivalve farming standards are being unveiled, but, since “conventional” bivalve farming doesn’t use chemicals, those new standards won’t affect the amount of chemical residues that end up on your plate. Instead, they’ll be focused on managing sediment buildup from bivalve farming, with no impact on the actual nutrition of the animals. Regular old farmed bivalves are perfectly fine – and I recommend you eat oysters, mussels, and clams regularly.

That’s what I’ve got, guys. I hope some of you are pleasantly surprised and feel a little more empowered to make educated decisions on whether to buy organic or not. Remember: you have to eat something, and conventional fruits, vegetables, and animals are way better than not eating fruits, vegetables and animals at all.

Thanks for reading, and be sure to let me know if I missed any foods in the comment section!

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