Mark Sisson's Blog, page 359

How to Survive a Natural Disaster

With one of the biggest storms – Sandy* – in recent history having just ravaged the eastern seaboard of the United States, bringing flooding and power outages and downed trees and the kind of awe-inspiring displays of raw power that only Mother Nature can bring to bear, I got to thinking about Primal disaster/emergency preparedness. Obviously, regardless of the lifestyle habits we subscribe to, we’re subject to the same basic concerns as anyone else: food, water, warmth, light, shelter, entertainment. The food we eat is gonna look different, and we might try to look at the bright side of being without power, but not much else changes.

Food? Yeah, it’s important, but this post isn’t about food. And anyway, a couple years back, I published a tongue-in-cheek guide to surviving the apocalypse, and despite the humor, the recommended non-perishable foods and drinks from that post are still solid choices. The only items I’d add would be canned seafood beyond just sardines – like tuna, salmon, oysters – and kale chips. Because kale chips are that awesome. Oh, and try to get everything in BPA-free packaging. Avoiding endocrine disruption may not be your first priority in a disaster situation, but it can’t hurt.

I won’t go into the standard disaster preparedness checklist. That’s pretty basic stuff that you can find anywhere. Everyone knows the material items they’ll need to survive, the things you can buy at the store and keep in your basement or garage and forget all about until the day arrives. But in the event of a real disaster, whether it’s modern fast zombies, old school shambling zombies, or an unprecedented subtropical storm, there is one essential – and totally Primal – factor that many of us are in danger of overlooking:

The importance of having people nearby on whom you can rely (and they you).

In my experience, most discussions about disaster preparedness overemphasize the individual aspects of survival. You’ve got your bug out bags, your go kits. You’ve got your fantasies of building underground bunkers capable of withstanding a direct hit from a nuclear weapon, amassing as much ammunition as you can find, stockpiling an arsenal that would put Michael Gross from Tremors to shame, and lining your property with machine gun nests, bear traps, and a moat full of great white sharks, piranhas, and salt water crocodiles. Ultimately, these folks are assuming the worst – not just of the situation, but of the people around them – and end up preparing to face the coming onslaught all by themselves. It’s important to be self-reliant, but is it enough? Is it even possible? Are you prepared to move that fallen tree blocking your front door all by yourself? What about the extrication of your living body from the ruins of your house – think that’s a one man job? Can you wrap wounds, set bones, and fashion slings? Do you have carpentry, hunting, and masonry skills? If not, you might want to think about having a group of people upon whom you can rely (and vice versa). You might want to think about obtaining the one resource you can’t simply buy and store in your garage (without going to jail, that is): friends.

Friends can help each other hunt, forage, and garden. Ten pairs of hands (or guns, or minds, or sets of legs) are better and far more effective at doing the things required for survival. Ten guns can defend better than one gun. Ten pairs of hands can chop more wood, carry more water, build more things, and pull more weeds than one pair of hands. Ten minds can come up with a better solution for water purification or shelter fortification than one mind. Ten sets of legs can cover more ground and find more survivors and food than one set of legs.

We all have friends, of course. But in today’s world of Facebook, Twitter feeds, message boards, email, and mobile phones that allow instant connectivity with anyone and everyone anywhere, our friends often live far, far away from us. Or perhaps across town, which doesn’t help us if the roads are blocked and our cars are underwater. For friends to be helpful in disaster recovery, they need to be close. What about our neighbors – the people who we do have at arm’s reach? These are the people who will be able to help us when disaster strikes. These are the people with whom we’ll be able to share supplies and divvy up responsibilities. However, research shows that these people are increasingly not our friends. We might share casual words on trash day with them, but we probably feel awkward asking them to feed our cat and water our plants when we’re away.

When life is going as planned, strangers are fairly civil to each other. You bump into someone in the mall accidentally, you apologize. You see someone coming up behind you as you enter the bank, you hold the door open. This is basic common decency. Easy stuff. But when the world is falling apart around you, what do you do? Your innate sense of preservation kicks in. You grab your kids, your spouse, call your friends, your parents, and stuff the cat into a pet carrier. In other words, you don’t even have to think about saving you and yours; you just act. This is an incredibly Primal response.

When you expand your circle of “yours” to include the people who live around you – and they expand their circles to include you – everyone looks out for everyone. Everyone’s better off. Most importantly, each individual person is better off, because if you’re the unlucky one whose ceiling fell in or whose canned goods were washed away, your neighbors are that much more likely to pull you out and invite you in for some canned tuna and water. And you’re more likely to do the same for them. The beauty of it is that because these are now your friends that need help, you don’t feel “put upon.” You want to help them, because, well, they’re your friends and that’s what friends do. That’s what a tribe does.

Research even shows that in real life disasters, it’s not the government aid, the fire trucks, or the emergency responders that really help people survive in the immediate. It’s the friends, the neighbors, the community. It’s Paul from next door who you let borrow your tool set last year who’s going to pull you out of your collapsed kitchen, not the anonymous emergency responder coming from fifty miles away. A government worker isn’t going to know how many people live in the house across the street, nor will he know whose room is whose; you will. The official response is important, but we can’t rely on it (or ourselves) for everything.

Daniel Aldrich, professor of public policy at Purdue, has made the study of post-disaster resilience in communities his focus. After living through Hurricane Katrina shortly after moving to New Orleans, he noticed that the most successful pockets of the city were the ones with the strongest social ties. The federal response to the hurricane’s aftermath was infamously inept and initially nonexistent, and the folks who knew and liked each other survived and rebuilt their communities faster than the folks who had fewer ties, making this a prime example of the power of community, or what Aldrich calls social capital (PDF). The same held true for communities struck by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the 1995 Kobe, Japan earthquake, and, I’d imagine, the many thousands upon thousands of tribes, neighborhoods, communities, towns, city-states, and enclaves hit by floods, fires, famines, pestilence, earthquakes, tsunamis, and other disasters throughout history and prehistory. Why else do you think humans are social animals? Why else would the tribal structure have been evolutionarily preserved if it weren’t helpful for survival?

So, folks, if you want to survive the next disaster, make friends with your neighbors. Get to know them. If you have a lemon tree, take a paper bag full of them over. Have a block party. Throw a barbecue. Pet their dog, feed their cat. Get yourself a tribe.

What do you think, folks? Do you know your neighbors?

*To all my east coast readers and anyone else affected by the recent storm, our thoughts are with you.

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9 Ways You Might Be Inadvertently Sabotaging Your Weight Loss Efforts

Whenever friends, co-workers, or loved ones complain about not being able to lose weight and turn to us for answers or advice, we can all generally rattle off a few suggestions that, if followed, usually set them on the right track. For the soda-swilling cubicle mate who keeps a recycling bin just for cans beneath his desk who asks, ”Why can’t I lose weight?,” you suggest stopping soda. For the fast food addict who wonders why she can’t hit her high school weight, you suggest avoiding fries, getting water, and ditching the buns. To the vegetarian best friend who eats “healthy” but is growing increasingly skinny-fat, you send a link to MDA. Those are simple solutions. What about your stalled weight loss? You’re Primal, you’ve lost a bunch of weight already, you’re feeling good, you don’t have many complaints, you know all about nutrition, and you’re sticking with the lifestyle – but you’re not losing as much weight as you’d like. Well, it could very well be that you’ve inadvertently throw a wrench into weight loss efforts.

What do I mean? Let’s take a look:

You’re overly obsessed with dietary purity.

Now, if you’re celiac or gluten sensitive, it’s natural to be concerned about even minimal amounts of gluten in soy sauce. If you’re allergic to dairy, you should be that guy who pesters the waiter about the powdered milk in the gravy. If you’re pregnant, I wouldn’t blame you for worrying over the source of the fish you’re being served. But if you’re generally healthy – or on your way there – and you’re not acutely intolerant or allergic to any particular food, I’d argue that worrying over a single component of a single meal to the point of physical manifestations of stress (racing heart, sweaty palms, nervous tick, scattered thoughts) is not conducive to weight loss. You’re trying to be so perfect that it becomes the enemy of the good.

You’ve ignored the other aspects of the PB lifestyle.

When I put together the ten Primal Blueprint laws, I tried not to emphasize any single one over the rest. They are all important for health and vitality. “Eat lots of plants and animals” may trump “Move around a lot at a slow pace,” “Get lots of sleep,” and “Play” in the body composition arena, but you cannot overlook or underestimate the others. The more people I encounter, the more I see that every aspect is vital for real success with this lifestyle – and that includes weight loss. I didn’t make it ten laws just to hit a nice even number, ya know.

You’re wedded to an ideology rather than what actually works for you.

At last year’s PrimalCon, I fielded an interesting question during the keynote. An attendee asked whether it was okay that his kid ate lots of fruit and other Primal carbs along with meat, eggs, and veggies. I asked how the kid was doing, and he said, “Great.” I said to keep it up as long as it was working. You don’t mess with success. Now, if he had just assumed that his kid was getting too many carbs and decided to replace the fruit and potatoes with spoonfuls of coconut oil, he would have been doing his child a disservice. The kid probably wouldn’t understand why some of his favorite foods were now off limits; the kid would get stressed out and unhappy and his sense of metabolic homeostasis could have been disrupted as a result. Since the guy was attending PrimalCon, he was obviously a fan of the Primal Blueprint – but he wasn’t an ideologue. He recognized that his kid did well on a diet somewhat different than his own, and that this was okay.

You’re not tailoring your macronutrient levels to your lifestyle.

If you’re a CrossFitter going five days a week, doing the WODs as RX’d, and finding yourself growing a bit pudgier despite your best efforts, you may need to eat some sweet potatoes. Conversely, if you work a sedentary job and do some gardening and some dog walking for exercise, you probably don’t need to modify your low carb consumption. I see carbs as elective macronutrients, in general. I don’t elect to eat all that many of them, personally, but that’s because I’ve tailored my lifestyle such that this is the healthiest way for me to eat. Eat more if you’re going to be burning glycogen. Eat fewer if you’re not. Eating too few carbs while working out with high intensity and high volume will ruin your adrenals, depress your thyroid, and stall weight loss. Eating too many carbs without putting them to good use or enjoying exercise-induced insulin sensitivity will promote hyperinsulinemia and weight gain. Make sure it all matches up.

You’ve taken the “exercise doesn’t cause weight loss” claim a bit too literally.

It’s true that “eat less, move more” is an overly simplified, ineffective piece of weight loss “advice,” akin to a psychiatrist telling a depressed patient to simply “feel better.” However, that doesn’t make it a downright falsity. Exercise is an essential part of losing weight – particularly unwanted adipose tissue – and you can’t ignore it forever and hope to lose the weight you want to lose. I don’t think it’s helpful to look at exercise as a mechanistic obliterator of calories, because that can enable the “I’ll eat this cupcake and then run for twenty minutes on the treadmill” mentality that just doesn’t work. But exercise is a potent enhancer of hormonal function. It can raise testosterone, growth hormone, and improve insulin sensitivity (all of which improve fat loss). It can divert the calories you do eat toward lean muscle and away from body fat. It can divert the carbs you eat toward refilling muscle glycogen. All in all, as long as you don’t overdo things, exercise is an important ally in fat burning and lean mass accumulation.

You’re switching things up too often.

A downside of this Internet stuff is that there’s almost too much information out there. Not only that, the flow of information never stops. New blogs are popping up every day, each one pushing a slightly or radically different view. New studies are coming out from different researchers with different biases or areas of focus or sources of funding. Instead of ruminating on your own experiences, you can hop online and read a hundred different accounts of a hundred different dietary variations. It’s crazy. It’s great – if you keep things in perspective – but it can also lead to information overload and a wild goose chase for the “perfect diet.” Instead of doing that, try sticking to a “program” for a few weeks, at least. Heck, a few months is even better. Give the regimen (whatever it is) a chance to do its work. Give your body a chance to figure things out. Muscle confusion might sell P90X videos, but it’s not a useful approach to diet.

You’re overthinking your food.

Eating should be a relaxing, enjoyable, eminently pleasurable experience. It should be stimulating, but not because you’re analyzing the micronutrient content of the spinach based on the duration and temperature of the steam used to cook it and wondering whether or not you should reduce the light green cooking water into a syrup and add cold pastured butter to make a mineral-rich demi glace oh but wait the butter is looking a little too white I wonder if this was fresh spring grass-based pasture or hay-based pasture because the vitamin K2 content will vary wildly and oh man if it was pastured on grass the omega-3s might oxidize in the pan. Sounds stressful (even to read), right? Acute stress is great and all, but eating is an everyday occurrence, and if it’s a stressful event just to eat, that stress will inevitably become chronic. Chronic stress is the enemy of fat loss. Relax. Sit back. Pull up a chair. Enjoy your food. Enjoy your company. Have a glass of wine. As long as you make sure the bulk of your food is high quality, you’re gonna be just fine.

You’re eating too little.

Yeah, it sounds funny, but it’s true: eating too few calories can make fat loss extremely difficult. The beauty of going Primal is that it often causes spontaneous reductions in calorie intake, which is one of the reasons why it’s so good for weight loss. In some people, though, calorie intake continues to drop unabated, because, hey, it helped me lose weight at first, so why not go even lower? Right? Except it doesn’t work that way. When you continually eat fewer calories than your body requires, you are doing two things. First, you’re applying a chronic stressor to your body. A lack of calories for a day or two (say, if you’re on an intermittent fasting regimen) signals a missed kill, a momentary hiccup in the food supply. No biggie. You’ll get ‘em next time. It’s an acute stressor that will actually improve your health. A lack of calories for weeks or months, on the other hand, signals a famine, war, starvation. It’s a chronic stressor that will impede weight loss and promote fat storage. Second, eating fewer calories gives you less of a chance to obtain the micronutrients you need for optimal functioning. All said and done, a 2,000 calorie diet will have more minerals, phytonutrients, and vitamins than a 1,000 calorie diet. Make sure you’re eating enough food.

You’re eating too much (healthy Primal food).

Primal can make weight loss really smooth, but some folks have the idea that they can eat as much as they want and not gain weight. Though it’s certainly harder to gain weight eating just plants and animals, it’s not impossible. Some people’s satiety mechanisms don’t kick in simply because they ditched grains, sugar, legumes, seed oils, and reduced carbs. Some people assume that since I’ve written posts extolling the weight loss benefits of a diet made up of grass-fed butter, coconut oil, sweet potatoes, cheese, olive oil, lamb, grass-fed beef, fish, and other healthy Primal fare, quantity is suddenly immaterial. It isn’t. While I’d argue that overeating Big Ass Salad is better, healthier, and causes less adipose tissue growth than overeating McDonald’s, it’s still overeating.

That’s what I’ve got today, folks. What do you think? Anything look familiar to you? Thanks for reading!

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Is It Primal? – Spirulina, Chlorella, Amaranth, and Other Foods Scrutinized

There are many thousands of foods out there at our beck and all, and you want to know which ones are Primal-approved and which ones are not. I know this because I get a lot of emails from you guys asking me about this food or that food. I’m happy to give my perspective, but I also want to iterate (or reiterate, in case I’ve already said this) that eating or not eating any of the aforementioned and heretofore-mentioned foods will neither ratify nor revoke your Primal Cred card. Heck, such a card doesn’t even really exist! These are just my opinions based on the evidence available to me.

Without further ado, let’s dig in to the foods in question. We’ve got spirulina, chlorella, amaranth, Mycryo, and freeze-dried produce on the docket for today.

Spirulina

Spirulina is a type of microalga – tiny algae, seaweed that you can’t see (“can’t-seeweed”? No, that’s terrible) – found in tropical and subtropical lakes (so I guess it’s not actually even seaweed, but rather lakeweed). In certain areas of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, where it grows naturally, spriulina has long been prized as a food source rich in protein, vitamins, fats, and minerals. How rich?

By dry weight, spirulina is around 60% protein, and because it contains all the essential amino acids, spirulina has been called the finest source of non-animal protein around. That may be true, but I’d wager it’d be less expensive (and tastier) just to eat some eggs.

Purveyors and enthusiasts often claim that spirulina contains vitamin B12, but that’s not really true. It contains something called pseudovitamin B12, which sounds interesting but is “not suitable for use as vitamin B12 sources, especially in vegans,” because it is inactive in humans. Nice try.

Spirulina contains a lot of gamma linolenic acid, or GLA, a polyunsaturated omega-6 fatty acid that’s pretty rare in average diets. Contrary to how we usually conceive of omega-6 fats, dietary GLA is actually more anti-inflammatory than inflammatory in practice.

Spirulina is filthy with iron and vitamin K and, being a vibrant blue-green, contains tons of pigments with antioxidant properties.

It’s passed extensive toxicological safety tests (PDF) and has been shown to exert hypocholesterolemic and immune-boosting effects, which sound uniformly beneficial until you realize that a “boosted” immune system could also exacerbate autoimmune conditions, like autoimmune inflammatory myopathy.

I don’t see any real glaring issues with spirulina, but it seems more suitable as a supplement than a straight-up food source. Most studies use, at most, 7 grams per day; when you look at the impressive nutritional content of spirulina on some sites, it’s often for a 100 gram dose, which is far beyond what you’d be willing to eat.

Verdict: Primal.

Chlorella

Chlorella is another freshwater microalga favored by conventional and vegetarian health nuts, albeit without the longstanding legacy of spirulina. It is high in protein, fatty acids (including EPA) (PDF), magnesium, zinc, iron, and chlorophyll, plus plenty of phytonutrients. Of course, chlorella is hard to digest because it has a tougher cell wall than spirulina, which is easy to digest, but “broken cell wall” chlorella is more digestible and widely available in supplement form.

Much has been made of chlorella’s ability to remove heavy metals, dioxins, and other toxic materials from the body. Is it true? Kinda. One study in pregnant women found that chlorella supplementation reduced the maternal-fetal transfer of dioxins; it also reduces the transfer of dioxins through breastmilk. Another – this time in rats – found that chlorella helped reduce cadmium absorption in the liver when the two were co-administered. Still, this doesn’t tell us much about chlorella’s ability to remove stored lead, mercury, and cadmium once they’ve already been absorbed or swallowed. I suppose we could just take a shot of chlorella every time we consumed anything that might be contaminated with metals (or breathed air contaminated with heavy metal particulates), but that would get annoying fast.

Chlorella’s just another “superfood” in a long line. It’s got some interesting nutrient content, like EPA and complete protein (especially for vegans). It’s proved beneficial in several human studies, improving the antioxidant status of Korean smokers, improving metabolic parameters of at-risk patients, reducing mild to moderate hypertension (in some subjects), and increasing immune function. But it’s not going to cure whatever ails you. No one thing will.

Verdict: Primal.

Amaranth

Amaranth is an herbaceous plant, but when most people say “amaranth” they refer to its grain-like seed, or pseudograin. Amaranth grain has been used for thousands of years, particularly in South and Central America, where the Aztecs, the Inca, and the Maya all cultivated extensive amounts of amaranth. In fact, when the conquistadors arrived to find the Aztecs using the pseudograin in delicious-sounding yet completely heretical religious ceremonies where sculptures of the gods would be fashioned out of amaranth and honey and then broken apart and eaten, they banned its cultivation. I suppose the symbolic consumption of the body of a deity hit a little too close to home. Besides, amaranth and honey taste way better than bland bread, so they had to eliminate the formidable competition.

Being a seed that acts like a grain, amaranth is fairly carb-dense – about 65 grams per 3.5 ounce serving of dry grain. It’s also rich in iron, magnesium, protein, and calcium.

If you’re going to eat amaranth grain, particularly as a “safe starch” source, a little traditional prep work is advised to make it as safe as possible. “Steeping and germinating” – also known as soaking and sprouting – amaranth grain for 5 and 24 hours (PDF), respectively, eliminated phytic acid and tannin content while minimizing loss of dry matter and making the protein more digestible. Soaking and sprouting for longer periods were unnecessary and in some cases even diminished the nutritional content.

What I like about amaranth, at least relative to other grains and grain-like seeds, is that it also produces edible, nutritious leaves. Amaranth leaves taste a bit like spinach and can be eaten raw, though they’re substantial enough for sautéeing and stir-frying. Legend has it that a clove or two of chopped garlic goes well with sautéed amaranth leaves. Heck, even the root and stems are edible and employed in various cuisines.

Verdict: Not Primal, but if you already do rice and quinoa, it’s worth looking into.

Mycryo

I’ve discussed the considerable health benefits of the cocoa bean (or is it “cacao bean”; I can never quite remember), one of which is the cocoa butter. Mycryo is cocoa butter, only in powdered, freeze-dried form. You can sprinkle it directly onto foods along with spices and salt and pepper before applying heat. According to proponents (and Mycryo’s producers), Mycryo will give a steak a fantastic sear. It’s also an interesting way to control the amount of fat you use, if you worry about that sort of thing. At the very least, by selectively applying only as many freeze-dried fat globules as the job requires, you’ll waste far less than you would using more traditional forms of cooking fat.

I don’t see any reason why Mycryo would be harmful. It’s certainly a novel form of an inarguably Primal fat – cocoa butter – but then again, so is the powdered coconut milk I use in Primal Fuel. There aren’t a ton of studies on the effects of freeze drying on fatty acids, and zero (at least that I could find) on the effects of freeze drying on the fatty acids specific to cocoa butter, but in the few that were available, I was able to discern that only the polyunsaturated fats are negatively affected by freeze drying. And even then, it takes time for that damage to accrue.

In regards to Mycryo, it appears that the oxidation fears are unwarranted. Cocoa butter is over 50% saturated, with the bulk of the SFAs coming from stearic and palmitic acid. SFAs are resistant to oxidation as a general rule. The rest of cocoa butter is unsaturated, but mostly monounsaturated oleic acid, the same fat found in olive oil and beef fat that’s highly resistant to oxidation. Between 0-3% of cocoa butter fat is polyunsaturated and therefore in danger of oxidative damage from freeze-drying – not a very worrisome amount, by any stretch of the imagination.

I’ve never used the stuff, but my interest is piqued. I could see people doing some interesting things in the kitchen with it. Check out the cooking demos for some ideas.

Verdict: Primal.

Freeze Dried Fruits and Vegetables

We already know that fruits and vegetables are Primal, so the real crux of the contention here is the freeze drying, which can be a helpful way to produce shelf-stable produce. Obviously, fresh, preferably just-picked fruits and vegetables are superior choices, but what if we’re going on a road trip, going camping, or flying to Mars and we want access to berries, broccoli, and spinach? Just like Mycryo above it, you’re probably wondering whether or not freeze drying fruits and vegetables negatively impacts their nutritional content. Does it degrade the vitamins? The polyphenolic compounds? What about minerals – are any of those lost to the drying process?

Vitamin C levels appear fairly sensitive to freeze-drying. One Brazilian study (PDF) found that freeze-dried tropical fruits, including mango, pineapple, guava, and papaya lost up to 37% of their vitamin C, though the authors concluded that even freeze-dried, the fruits remained a valuable source of the vitamin (especially compared to other methods of drying).

Polyphenol content appears to be quite stable after freeze-drying, at least in blueberries, strawberry tree fruits, raspberries, strawberries, yams, asparagus, corn and marionberries, to name just a few. In fact, that strawberry tree fruit study concluded that “freeze-drying is the best drying method to keep the nutritional value, antioxidant activity and sensory properties of fruits.” Mineral levels remain steady, too.

One negative I can see is the lost water content. The water content of a food contributes greatly to its ability to satiate those who eat it, so if you’re snacking on dried fruit, it’s easy to put a lot of it away. For this very reason, you’re likely to eat more calories from dried mango than from fresh mango.

Fairly minor negatives aside, if you’re in a situation where you need to pick a shelf-stable produce option, freeze dried appears to be your best bet. While it does degrade some nutritional aspects of some fruits, it depends on what fruit you’re talking about and what specific nutrient you’re worried about. Overall, I’d say it’s a wash and it’s definitely better than eating none at all. Treat freeze-dried fruit and vegetables like their fresh counterparts, making sure to account for the fact that it’s a little too easy to eat the equivalent of six pounds of fresh fruit in freeze-dried form.

Verdict: Primal.

That’s what I’ve got for today, guys. If you have any other foods you’ve been wondering about, send them along in the comment section. Get as specific or as obscure as you desire.

Thanks for reading. Take care!

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Dear Mark: First Trimester Frustration, Liver Dosage, and NY Times Barefoot Piece

Being pregnant is tough – or so I hear. You’re tasked with creating a child, with actually building an entire human being bit by bit from scratch. You have to carry that child, even as it grows to seven, eight, or even nine pounds or more inside your body. And all the while, your body seems to be rebelling against “what is best.” You want to eat the best food and get the right exercise and do all the right things, but what happens when your body fights you? What are you supposed to do when all you can stomach are mac and cheese and tortilla chips? For the first section, I try to help a woman in her first trimester with these issues. Next, I discuss the question of retinol overload from dietary liver, along with whether or not we need to worry about nutrient density in other organs, too. And finally, I give my take on a recent NY Times piece on barefoot running that seemed to call its usefulness and relevance into question.

Let’s go:

Mark,

I am in my first trimester and have read several of your posts on pregnancy. However, I am seriously struggling to maintain my primal/paleo lifestyle. I can barely stand the sight or smell of meat. I have been able to eat some vegetables and fruit. I have been primal/paleo for a year and love it! It seems though that my pregnant self does not love it. I am so concerned that I am not feeding my body and baby the best food as I have been giving into eating whatever I can manage to keep down. Many foods that sound appealing are foods from my childhood…mac and cheese for instance and tortilla chips. I worry that going away from primal/paleo will make this pregnancy more difficult and is not healthy for my baby. I continue to CrossFit 3-5 times per week, but not having enough good fuel has made that more difficult also. Being so putt off from meat, nuts and many vegetables is making this extremely difficult and I am at a loss as to how to handle this.  I guess I am just concerned and would appreciate any words of advice you may have.

Sincerely,

Callie

First of all, don’t stress out about this! While nutrition is important during pregnancy, so is stress management. And not just for the health of the future baby, but also for your health, including your ability to cope with postpartum depression. So, you know, take walks, get massages, try out meditation or yoga, get your partner to give you foot and back rubs – that sort of thing. Besides, the first trimester is notoriously hard on a woman’s appetite. Things should improve as time goes on.

Make super smoothies. Invest in a good blender. Toss in some frozen fruit, ice, some milk (if you do dairy), juice, or coconut milk, some protein powder, a few egg yolks, an ounce or two of nuts, and a handful or two of leafy greens. The egg yolks will provide choline, folate, vitamin A, and healthy fat. The fruit will give you phytochemicals and vitamins. The milk will provide protein, fat, and minerals. The coconut milk will provide medium chain triglycerides. The protein powder will give you protein. The greens will provide folate and minerals. The fruit flavor should predominate, making it easier to get down. You can even toss in some fish oil without it really affecting the taste much.

Get a good prenatal. Prenatals are there to give you what you need in the (likely) event that eating healthy food is impossible or repulsive. Chris Kresser recommends Pure Encapsulations Nutrient 950 with vitamin K2. Whatever you get, make sure it contains folate, rather than folic acid.

Primalize your non-Primal foods. Let’s take your two examples – mac and cheese and tortilla chips. If mac and cheese are all you can eat, dress it up. Buy gluten free mac and cheese (usually made from rice). When you make the cheese sauce, add a few egg yolks (from a farm you trust) to the mix; you won’t even know the difference. See if you can’t handle adding some ground beef or a few ounces of baked salmon to the mac and cheese, or maybe even some chopped, steamed spinach. Get tortilla chips cooked in lard or a high-oleic seed oil. Check the nutrition label for a high monounsaturated fat content and a low polyunsaturated fat content. Instead of just eating salsa, make a nutritious dip for the chips, like guacamole. Add an egg yolk to your guacamole (trust me, it tastes good, especially if you make it from scratch).

Reduce the CrossFitting. Five times a week is too much, in my opinion, especially if you’re doing full-fledged 20-30 minute WODs. Reduce the intensity, the duration, and the volume. Stick to 2-3 workouts a week, focus on strength versus metcons, and do a lot of walking.

Eat high quality cheese as a snack. Since you’re loving mac and cheese, real cheese shouldn’t be too much of a stretch. Cheese is high in protein, fat, calcium (important for the baby’s growth), conjugated linoleic acid (if it’s grass fed, especially), and even vitamin K2 (if it’s grass-fed and aged). Pecorino romano is a nice aged choice that’s almost always made from grass-fed sheep’s milk.

Check out Chris Kresser’s guest post from a while back and focus on the foods he outlined. You may not be able to get all the “sacred fertility foods” down, but at least you’ll have something to work toward.

Dear Mark,

Liver is awesome. But how much is too much of a good thing?

Do other organs (kidneys/hearts/lungs/brains) present the same problems with regards to retinol or other vitamins?

Tyrone

We’ve all heard the stories about the hungry Arctic explorers who died from retinoid overdose after eating polar bear (or sled dog) liver, and almost every pregnant woman has been admonished by her doctor to avoid liver because the vitamin A can increase the risk of severe birth defects. And yes, it’s true: you shouldn’t eat polar bear liver because of the extreme retinol content and vitamin A supplementation has been linked to birth defects.

That said, polar bear liver is special; just a gram of it contains between 24,000 and 35,000 IUs of retinol. A gram of beef liver contains just 165 IUs. Lesson? Don’t eat polar bear liver.

As to the risk of birth defects from liver, that’s been overblown. Retinol from food does not have the same effect on the fetus as supplemental retinol, and even though a 1995 study proved this, “avoid liver” is still standard advice given to pregnant women. In the study, women received retinol in the form of fried calf liver, oral supplements, or intramuscular injections. Both types of supplemental retinol caused huge spikes in all-trans-retinoic acid, the primary teratogenic (causing malformations to the fetus) metabolite of retinol, while liver caused no such spikes. Levels of the birth defect metabolite were 20-times higher than baseline after supplementation.

We’ve also heard that “vitamin A causes osteoporosis.” But that’s an oversimplification that ignores the very real phenomenon of nutrient interactions. Our bodies didn’t evolve eating isolated supplements. They evolved eating whole foods, and, as Chris Masterjohn has shown, it appears that vitamin A only really becomes a problem for our skeletal health in a vitamin D-deficient state. Of course, most experts won’t ever speak with that kind of nuance, instead preferring the easy way out of making declarative statements about isolated compounds.

None of the other organs you listed contain comparable levels of retinol, but they, along with liver, are rich sources of copper and iron – two essential minerals that we need but can also overdo. Folks with iron overload disease should limit their organ intake, or at least keep an eye on their levels.

I’d stick to around a half pound to a pound of liver per week, max. A bit more if you’re eating non-ruminant liver, which is lower in retinol. Less if you’re also eating other organs (not because of the retinol, but because of the copper and potentially the iron).

Good on you for eating organs!

Thought I’d show this to you. Thoughts? I’m a barefoot runner of 3 years. I can run 30km easy. I can’t run 1 km in shoes without pain. Obviously I’m on team barefoot.

Myths of Running: Forefoot, Barefoot and Otherwise

Joshua

Ultimately, by defining the “best way to run” as that which allows the runner to “use the least energy and run the fastest,” I think they miss the main point of barefoot running: to reduce injury and prolong one’s ability to run and be active. Going barefoot isn’t really about being the fastest runner around. It’s about removing a barrier between the ground and your foot to heighten proprioceptive awareness and allow your body to make subconscious adjustments on the fly. Instead of having to consciously decide to adjust your gait to avoid injury, an experienced barefoot runner will do so more quickly and with less hesitation – since that barrier to awareness has been removed or reduced. And besides, there is evidence that running barefoot or minimalist improves running economy. Anyone who’s seen Barefoot Ted trotting along a trail can attest to this. And I’d assert that you when running barefoot you don’t have to run as far (or as fast) to get the intended strength and muscle development.

Although it’d be tough to put together a study that tested for this, I also think a big advantage to barefoot running is that it’s simply more enjoyable to experience the world that way. Our feet are remarkably attuned sensory organs, with nerve endings blanketing the bottoms of our feet, just begging to be used. Ram Dass once said “If you wear shoes, the whole world is covered in leather,” and I believe it. Feeling the grass between your toes, the sand beneath your feet, and yes, even the occasional sharp rock digging into your heel is an essential (but now missing) part of the human running (or walking) experience. You won’t find that aspect detailed in PubMed, but I think it’s pretty darn important all the same.

For some people, heel striking might be the fastest way to run and win races. I don’t care about that anymore, and I’ve never claimed that. All I know is that the heel strike is the improper way to land for the bare, natural human foot. So the fastest runners in the nation land on the heel, with the foot splayed out, with pigeon toes, and so on? Great. They’re fast in spite of their form. And the millions of people who read that article aren’t the fastest runners in the nation, nor are they getting paid to go out and run. They’re running to be healthier, and I worry that looking at what the professionals get away with is only going to open up the amateurs to injury and disappointment.

Thanks for reading, folks. Take care and Grok on!

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Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-to-prepare-for-barefooting/#ixzz2AMU9B91U

 

Weekend Link Love

Research of the Week

Contrary to what science reporting typically says, a new study finds daily multivitamin use to be slightly protective against cancer in men.

It’s confirmed: meat and eggs from soy-fed chickens contain soy isoflavones. The title of the article – “Soy protein present in egg yolks and chicken tissues” – isn’t quite accurate, but soy isoflavones are often phytoestrogens and thus somewhat concerning.

Boys are reaching puberty younger than ever before, a new study shows, but “it’s unclear why.” Perhaps the phytoestrogens from soy-fed chicken products are involved?

Interesting Blog Posts

Dr. Emily Deans explores whether physically preventing someone from scowling (with Botox) can help with real depression.

The SockDoc has an interesting perspective on doping in sports… and in regular life.

Media, Schmedia

On a diet of “milk, butter, and almonds,” 96-year old Ramjeet Raghav is the world’s oldest new father, will “go on all night” when asked by his wife, and thinks “it’s very important that a husband and wife have sex regularly.” I like this guy.

We “feel alone together,” despite – or, perhaps, because of – constant digital contact. What do you think?

Alternatively, you could always hire someone to slap you every time you began to frivolously check your phone or Facebook account.

Everything Else

Bet you’ve never done a virtual vertical hill climb challenge. Bet you don’t even know what that is. Registration is now closed for Hilloween II, but you can still challenge yourself to a hill climb. And stay tuned for Hilloween III next year.

Eleven top athletes share their favorite meals, some of which are pretty Primal-friendly.

Recipe Corner

Pork chops deserve more attention, I think. How about some spiced pork chops with warm apples?
Next time the Don’s daughter is getting married and you want to ask him for a favor, you should probably come prepared with Italian wedding soup.

Time Capsule

One year ago (October 28 – November 3)

Introducing the New Primal Blueprint Food Pyramid – In case you haven’t seen this, be sure you’re up to date with the PB pyramid.
30 Primal Hacks for the Fall Season – No, I’m not talking about inept spokesmen for the Primal lifestyle. I’m talking about tips, tricks, and hints for making the most of autumn.

Comment of the Week

If I had to go to all the trouble that Worker Bee goes through when drinking… I’d quit.

- Ha! Maybe that’s the point of it all, Peter.

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Chopped Bok Choy and Steak Salad with Olive Dressing

Mention bok choy and the first thing most people think of is stir-fry. Nothing wrong with that, but cooking a vegetable the exact same way every time is a shame. Especially since bok choy is more versatile than you might realize. Why cook it into soggy submission when the crisp and leafy texture, and mild but pleasantly bitter flavor is so delicious raw?

Chopped Bok Choy and Steak Salad with Olive Dressing takes bok choy in a new and exciting direction. The Kalamata olive dressing adds a bold, salty flavor to the raw bok choy and mushrooms, seared steak and roasted red pepper. If the combination sounds odd, don’t worry; it’ll make complete sense when you take your first bite.

The leaves of bok choy taste basically the same as any dark, leafy salad green and the crunchy stalk has a mild, cabbage-like flavor. You can use bok choy in any type of salad, either alone or mixed with regular greens, with delicious results.

Serves: 3 to 4

Time in the kitchen: 25 minutes

Ingredients:

1 to 1 1/2 pounds (450 to 680 g) of bok choy
1 roasted red pepper, finely chopped
Large handful of mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 to 1 1/2 pounds (450 to 680 g) skirt steak
1/4 cup olive oil (60 ml), plus more for searing meat
2 tablespoons (30 ml) lemon juice
1/2 cup (60 g) pitted kalamata olives
1 small garlic clove

Instructions:

Trim just enough off the bottom of each bok choy so the leaves separate. Wash and dry the bok choy.

Slice up the bok choy stems; the leaves can be left whole or sliced as well.

In a large bowl, toss the bok choy, roasted red pepper and mushrooms. You can throw in some regular salad greens too, if you like.

Heat a large skillet with a drizzle of oil over medium-high heat. Lightly salt and pepper the steak. Add the steak to the skillet. Sear three to four minutes on each side for medium rare. Let the steak rest on a cutting board for a few minutes.

While the steak is resting, make the dressing. In a blender, combine the olive oil, lemon juice, olives and garlic. Blend until thick and almost completely smooth. You may have to stop the blender once or twice and stir the dressing a bit before blending some more.

Thinly slice the steak in the opposite direction of the grain. Add the steak to the large salad bowl, then add the dressing. The easiest way to evenly cover the salad with the dressing is to gently rub it in with your hands.

Healthy Sauces, Dressings & Toppings Coming Soon!

We’ve just put the finishing touches on this book, and it goes to print next week! I’m really happy with how it has turned out, and I’m sure you’ll love it. In case you missed the announcement last month, this new cookbook is all about turning ho-hum meals into Primal masterpieces with delicious and nutritious sauces, dressings, marinades, condiments, and other toppings. It includes over 120 easy-to-prepare recipes inspired by traditional and contemporary cuisine from around the world. From the staples (ketchup, mustard, hot sauce, mayonnaise) to the innovative (Blueberry Chutney, Coconut Cilantro Pesto, Avocado Lime Dressing), every recipe will enhance the nutritional value of your meal, using only Primal-approved ingredients. That means no gluten, grains, legumes, added sugar, or unhealthy oils. The recipes we developed for this cookbook have already changed the way I prepare my Primal meals. I can’t wait for it to do the same for you.

If you’re a long-time Mark’s Daily Apple reader, you know that I always do something special for devoted readers when I release a new book. Primal Blueprint Healthy Sauces, Dressings & Toppings drops on December 3rd, and this book release will be no different. In fact, it will be bigger than ever…

At the end of next month I’ll be offering a bunch of fantastic free gifts to anyone that orders one or more copies (it will make the perfect holiday gift!) during the week leading up to December 3rd. So stay tuned and be ready to jump on this special offer while it lasts.

Don’t Miss It! Receive an Email Alert When the Limited-Time Offer is Announced by Subscribing to the Mark’s Daily Apple Newsletter

Type 1 Diabetes No Match for Primal Lifestyle!

It’s Friday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. I’ll continue to publish these each Friday as long as they keep coming in. Thank you for reading!

My name is Shawn and I am 28 years old. I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes about a year ago. I haven’t seen many stories or articles related to diabetes on the MDA website so I thought I would share how going Primal has helped me take back control over my health and wellbeing.

First of all, I have actually been very healthy most of my life (or so I thought). In college I lifted weights, ran, and did pushups and sit-ups in my dorm room on a regular basis. I despised salad and fresh veggies, and loaded up on Hamburger Helper, cereal, and PB&J because it was convenient and I “worked it all off” during my workouts. I am 6’ tall and my weight maxed out at about 205 lbs (92 kgs) during my last year of college (2007)…perfectly healthy I thought.

Fast forward several years (during which I managed to drop about 10 lbs thanks to army basic training) to September of 2011. I started losing weight…lots of weight…about 25 lbs in 3 weeks to be exact, I drank water by the gallons, and I could no longer exercise without getting severe cramping in my legs. Something was obviously wrong, so I made an appointment with my doctor who I hadn’t seen in about 10 years. I had a fasting blood sugar level of 350 (normal is 70-99 mg/dL). The last several months of 2011 were very challenging. There was no explanation why I got this disease (no family history) and trying to come to terms with the fact that I would have to deal with this every day for the rest of my life was a bit overwhelming. I started working with diabetes educators and nutritionists at the local hospital and was told that I should take in about 320 CARBS/DAY(!!) based on my activity level. And they call themselves nutritionists?? Even my endocrinologist said I could eat whatever I wanted because the disease “sucks enough the way it is” and I just needed to shoot up with enough insulin to cover the food I was eating. At this point I still did not know any better so I bought into their conventional wisdom.

Needless to say, my blood sugar control was not good. I would go up to 250 right after meals, but since I dropped down to normal again after a few hours my doctor was fine with it. Being all too aware of the side effects of uncontrolled blood sugar, I decided to educate myself and become my own “nutritionist/doctor.”

Around January of this year a friend exposed me to the paleo diet. I checked it out and was intrigued. I started doing extensive reading and research (during which I came across this website) and decided to give it a try. I slowly started purging out the sugars/carbs/processed foods that were poisoning my body (especially cereal which was a staple of my diet at the time), and whaddya know…my blood sugars and overall health improved drastically, and my insulin requirements dropped like a rock!!!

Fast forward another 8 months to today and life has never been better! Through my faith, support of my wonderful wife and family, and a little help from the Primal Blueprint, I have been able to cope with my diabetes to the point that it is a mere afterthought in my everyday life. My diet includes massive amounts of meat/eggs/veggies/salad/nuts to fuel my active lifestyle, ~120 carbs worth/day with virtually no SAD food (if I do slip up, my blood sugar pays the price!). I do still indulge in some diabetic friendly, Primally questionable foods (quite a bit of cheese, a few peanuts, and the occasional artificially sweetened drink). I guess there is always room for improvement? I still work out quite often, but in Primal fashion: biking in to work as often as possible (~16 miles, 50 minutes each way), sprint sessions when I can’t get on the bike, and circuit-type training with pushups/pullups/core exercises/any other bodyweight exercise I can think up 4-5 days/week . The results: My weight has stabilized at 187 lbs (slightly less than pre-diabetes weight) while also managing to drop a couple pants sizes. I have tons of energy, especially compared to some of my type 2 diabetic relatives who always feel run-down due to their poor diets. (I’m trying to convert them, but no luck as of yet). And of course, combined with the omnipod insulin pump that I am now on (which I would strongly recommend to all insulin-dependent diabetics) I find it quite easy to tightly control my blood sugars (i.e. less than 100 AT ALL TIMES with very few hypoglycemic episodes, i.e. low blood sugar). And possibly the best part, my family/friends/coworkers are noticing these changes and starting to question their own diets and lifestyle habits…it’s like a contagious disease (the good kind)!

A few stats for the diabetics out there (or non-diabetics) who may be interested:

A1C – September 2011=13.0 (newly diagnosed), January 2012=5.7 (pre-Primal), May 2012=5.4 (partially Primal), November 2012=?? (should be under 5).
Average total insulin use per day (bolus+basal)=13-14 units (doctor thinks I’m still in the honeymoon phase after 1 year. Possibly, but I think it’s more a result of my diet and fitness level.)
Cholesterol levels at diagnosis: HDL=35, LDL=90, Tri=sky high because of high BS. Next test in November, the real indicator of the effectiveness of my new lifestyle!

I look forward to a long and healthy life (in spite of the diabetes) as my Primal lifestyle continues to evolve, and hopefully I can get more people on board! Thanks for reading and I hope this can provide some motivation for the diabetics out there who may need a little extra motivation once in a while!

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What About Type 1 Diabetes?

You hear a lot about type 2 diabetes on this and other sites in the community. It’s easy to see why: type 2 diabetes is the “lifestyle” diabetes, the preventable one, the one that “doesn’t have to happen” and that you can “fix if you just dial in the food.” All true, for the most part. Whether you’re in the camp that thinks it’s red meat or egg yolks causing it, or fatty liver from excess PUFAs and fructose, the point is that people commonly accept the idea that T2D is preventable and manageable with the right diet and lifestyle. But what about type 1 diabetes? Why don’t we hear so much about it?

First of all, it’s rarer than T2D. For better or for worse, there simply isn’t as large an audience for stuff about type 1 diabetes. Second, type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disease. In T1D, the pancreatic beta cells that produce insulin in the body are destroyed by an autoimmune attack. Left untreated without exogenous infusions of insulin, T1D results in severely elevated blood sugar and, eventually, death. Autoimmune diseases are confusing, tricky, and hard to manage. I mean, your body is attacking itself and preventing a completely necessary physiological function – insulin release! It’s not something you want to mess around with. It’s not a subject you can tackle lightly.

And I think that’s why people have steered clear of making any absolute recommendations regarding T1D and Primal or paleo. That said, we can make some general recommendations, I think, that won’t cause many problems and can even help solve some of them (with a doctor’s approval and assistance, of course).

I find the standard issue protocol a little odd: let people eat all the carbs they want and supplement with, as Dr. Kurt Harris once put it, “massive doses of insulin required to compensate for 6 times a day tsunamis of glucose arriving from the gut to keep the glucose from putting you in a coma.” Sure, it “works” in that it doesn’t kill you outright, but it’s an imperfect solution. It’s trying to replace an innate, finely-tuned physiological function (insulin release in response to glucose) with the blundering inexactitude of exogenous insulin administration by human hand.

Are there any other options?

Low carb diets certainly work. Richard Bernstein, an MD with T1D himself, wrote The Diabetes Solution, a popular book that prescribes an essentially ketogenic diet for diabetics. It’s the diet he used to manage his own condition, and it’s apparently helped a huge number of people (the latest 2011 edition of the book has 45 5-star reviews on Amazon).

Indeed, several studies support the use of low carb diets in the treatment or management of T1D:

A low carbohydrate diet in type 1 diabetes: clinical experience–a brief report. - After three months on an isocaloric low-carb diet (70-90 grams per day, with extra fat and protein to make up the missing calories), the weekly rate of hypoglycemic incidents in T1D patients dropped from 2.9 to 0.2 and requirements for insulin after meals dropped from 21.1 IUs to 12.7 IUs. After a full year, insulin requirements were even lower at 12.4 IUs per day. Total and HDL cholesterol remained the same, while triglycerides dropped.

Low carbohydrate diet in type 1 diabetes, long-term improvement and adherence: A clinical audit. - Researchers tracked long-term diet compliance and HbA1c levels in T1D attendees of an educational course recommending lowered carbohydrate consumption. Those who complied with the recommendations saw their HbA1c drop from 7.7 to 6.4 after four years, while those who did not comply saw their HbA1c move from 7.5 to 7.4 (no change) after four years.

Effects of carbohydrate counting on glucose control and quality of life over 24 weeks in adult patients with type 1 diabetes on continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion: a randomized, prospective clinical trial (GIOCAR). - Among adult patients with T1D, carb-counting improved quality of life, reduced waist circumference and BMI, and reduced HbA1c levels.

Does low carb “cure” T1D? No. The pancreatic beta cells remain damaged and unable to produce insulin, but the amount of exogenous insulin required for proper physiological function is lower when you’re not eating so many carbs. This improves quality of life (not so many needles), it improves metabolic risk factors, and it improves body weight (not so many needles full of insulin). By all accounts, low carb seems to help T1D, and it definitely doesn’t hurt it. So that’s something.

What about going Primal? And not just the food recommendations – can the kind of lifestyle changes I encourage have any affect on T1D?

Well, as I always like to do, let’s talk about epigenetics and gene expression. Most people think of T1D as a “genetic disease,” as in you “just get it” if you have the genes associated with T1D. But, as my astute readers undoubtedly know, genes do not represent our destiny. Genes – particularly the ones associated with disease – require an epigenetic trigger before they’re expressed and become active. For genotype to give rise to phenotype, you need an environmental stimulus. This is true of numerous diseases, and type 1 diabetes is no different. And sure enough, among monozygotic twins (same genotype) with the genes for T1D, there is just a 30-50% concordance rate for the trait. That means though they have the same genes, if one of the twins has T1D the probability that the other twin will have T1D is only 30-50%. In other words, there’s something more at work than genes (otherwise there would be a 100% concordance rate). And, it’s shown that when people move from a low-T1D incidence area to a high-T1D incidence area, T1D goes up. The genetics aren’t changing; the environment is changing.

If I know my readers, you’re now wondering about these epigenetic triggers. Right? Let’s take a look at several candidates (you may be familiar with them):

Vitamin D – The further away you are from the equator and the less UV rays you’re exposed to, the greater the incidence of T1D.

Breastfeeding – There is a strong association between protection from type 1 diabetes and having been breastfed as a baby.

Gluten - 7% of type 1 diabetics also have celiac disease, which by some measures affects just 0.7% of the general population in the United States. Babies with early exposure to gluten often display evidence of T1D-related antibodies.

Omega-3s - In one study of children at (genetic) risk for developing T1D, omega-3 intake was inversely associated with the disease.

Sound familiar to anyone?

Interesting, but what about once you already have T1D? Well, if you catch it early enough, there’s a chance you can restore or halt the destruction of beta cell function, just like the 6-year old Danish boy who enjoyed total remission of type 1 diabetes (complete with cessation of insulin therapy) upon adopting a gluten-free diet. Most people don’t catch it early enough, though. For them, the folks with full-blown type 1 diabetes, the same Primal prescriptions are going to be helpful.

Avoid gluten. Studies suggest that avoiding gluten can improve type 1 diabetes, particularly in those with celiac disease. It can also reduce type 1 diabetes-related antibodies and reduce intestinal inflammation in type 1 diabetics. I suspect it’s helpful for diabetics with “mere” gluten sensitivity, too (which is probably a ton of them!).

Get sun or take vitamin D. Although you can’t go back in time to prevent the development of T1D, you can make sure your vitamin D levels are adequate. Plus, folks with T1D are at a higher risk for having low bone mineral density, with which vitamin D can assist.

Get your sleep. Sleep isn’t just helpful, it’s especially helpful in T1D. Altered sleep patterns disrupts circadian rhythms, which disrupts insulin sensitivity in type 1 diabetic youths. Same goes for adults with T1D, who suffer impaired peripheral insulin sensitivity after just a single night of bad sleep.

Exercise intelligently. “Vigorous” exercise can exacerbate blood glucose levels, with some researchers even proposing an intense 10 second sprint as an effective way to boost blood glucose levels in type 1 diabetics experiencing a hypoglycemic episode. Lift weights, walk a lot, and sprint occasionally – but be careful about how often and how intensely you do it.

Keep the carbs low. The fewer carbs you eat, the less insulin you’ll need to administer.

Overall, I don’t think going Primal is just helpful for type 1 diabetics who want to reduce their reliance on exogenous insulin; it looks almost essential. At any rate, I see nothing inherent to the Primal Blueprint that would preclude a type 1 diabetic from adopting it.

When you do approach your doctor, you don’t even have to mention the grains, legumes, sugar, and vegetable oils you won’t be eating, the sun you’ll be getting, the sprints you’ll be occasionally sprinting, the quality and quantity of sleep you’ll be focusing on. Just say you’re thinking of trying “low-carb,” which your doctor will no doubt be familiar with and (hopefully) open to trying.

Tomorrow, I will feature a success story from someone who’s using a Primal approach to effectively manage his type 1 diabetes, so stay tuned for that!

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The Deload Week: What It Is, How to Do it, and Why It Might Help You Get Stronger

Machines are amazing. They can perform at maximum output for months upon months upon years without skipping a beat. And when they do slip up, they can just get the parts replaced or their programming retooled. Humans are not machines. We can’t perform at maximum output for months and even years, only stopping to get a quick tune-up or a replacement part. However, humans are better than machines, with our ability to organically heal our own bodies and recover from injuries and wounds and illnesses, but we require time to do so. It doesn’t happen overnight, though, and in the absence of pharmacological assistance, there are no easy ways around this simple fact of our existence.

People get that, I think. They know that when you slice your finger open cutting a tomato, it’s going to be a few days or a week before it heals and closes up. They know that continuing to use that particular finger without modifying their behavior will probably prolong the healing time. But when it comes to training – to lifting weights, running sprints, doing endurance work – people seem more likely to throw this basic physiological concept out the window, even though exercise-induced muscle damage needs healing time, too. Otherwise, you don’t get the muscle adaptation, the progress, the strength, the fitness. You only get the damage.

That’s why, if you’re training on a consistent basis, you may need a deload week.

Wait – what’s a deload week?

A deload week is a “take it easy” week. It’s a break from training hard and training often, and scheduling a deload week is often how hard-charging athletes and weight lifters (a notorious bunch who never want to take a break) force themselves to recover from their pursuits. Exercise, you see, especially effective, intense, hard exercise, requires that we recover. It’s just like any injury, wound, illness, or stressor faced by our body. We have to recover before we can get stronger. In fact, you don’t get stronger from the act of lifting weights. You get stronger by recovering from the act of lifting weights. 

Many (most) of the best strength coaches include deload weeks in their programming. Though peer-reviewed studies may carry more cachet than anecdotes, I find anecdotes from certain demographics – like people who turn other people into strong, healthy, fit athletes – extremely persuasive. And time and time again, they show that deloads aren’t just about recovering so you can continue where you left off, but that a deload week can actually improve your fitness and/or your strength to levels greater than where it was before the deload. That’s right: you can lift less weight for less reps (or even do nothing) and come back stronger than before and stronger than you’d have been had you never taken the week off. And as shown below, some of the research appears to partly corroborate that idea.

Also, I can vouch for the danger of the opposite viewpoint based on my own experience. When I was racing competitively, I took very few breaks. I’d take a break only if I had to – because of an injury or illness – but never of my own volition. Even then, I’d always get back to training “sooner than possible,” so I never even really fully recovered from the injuries or the illnesses. The result of course was that I never really recovered from my training, either. I was hurting all the time, got sick a lot, and I was probably even selling my performance short by overdoing it and never taking a rest. When you’re in the thick of training competitively, though, you never really think to take a break, because you always feel the other guy’s mileage (or strength gains) breathing down your neck – rightly or wrongly.

Now, before we get to how to incorporate a deload week into your routine, let’s take a look at the research and cover a few important points about deloading:

7 Important Points on Deloading

1. A deload doesn’t have to be an unload. When you deload, you don’t have to cease all activity. You can reduce your weights, sets, and reps. This mode of training is extremely effective, with one study even showing that college athletes (not beginners, mind you) gained more strength on an “autoregulatory progressive resistance training” regimen (where trainees proceed at their own pace, increasing or lowering the resistance according to how they feel) than on a linear progression model (where trainees add resistance in a linear fashion regardless of how they feel). The athletes weren’t stopping training altogether. They were just lowering the resistance when they felt they needed a break, and it worked really well. On your deload, you should remain active. Don’t just lie there on the couch, completely immobile. Continue the walking. Throw in some lighter weight, lower rep sets. Work on joint mobility. Stay active, but don’t push it. Stay fresh. Just don’t do anything that you have to “recover” from.

2. You’re not going to lose your muscle and all your progress. Research shows that it takes around three weeks of inactivity for the first signs of muscular atrophy to emerge. Strength losses can and do occur in less than three weeks, but this is almost entirely neural, and no loss in fat-free mass is observed. As for your progress being disrupted, a recent study compared a continuous fifteen week resistance training cycle to a periodized fifteen week cycle. In the latter group, trainees lifted for six weeks, took three weeks off, then lifted for six more weeks; the former group lifted for fifteen weeks straight. Researchers examined the effect of both types of periodization on muscle hypertrophy, strength (1 RM), and overall muscular adaptations. They found that a three week deloading cycle did not impair muscle adaptation. Muscle size and one rep max progressed equally in both groups, even though the deloading group spent three weeks doing absolutely nothing. And, as Dr. Andro explains, the deloading group actually got a (not statistically significant) bigger boost upon resuming training – so the deload may even make you stronger than had you never taken it!

3. You might even enjoy (limited) “newbie gains” all over again. It’s well-known that in untrained individuals, merely doing anything (bicep curls, P90x, barbell work, machines) will give good results, but that those results begin to taper off if the training quality is poor. People talk about maximizing one’s newbie gains so that you don’t squander the fleeting window of neuromuscular adaptation. Well, the same research group that compared continuous training to periodic training with three weeks off expanded their scope in a more recent study. Trainees either trained for 24 weeks straight or in a “six weeks on, three weeks off, six weeks on, three weeks off, six weeks on” fashion. The second group showed a tiny bit of atrophy during the rest periods but more than made up for it with the response of their muscles upon resuming training. According to the study’s author, “the effects of retraining after short-term cessation on muscle growth are comparable with those observed during the early phase of training.” Now, a week of deloading isn’t the same as three weeks of deloading, but the point is that ceasing training can pay off.

4. Make your deload deliberate; time off because of an injury or illness doesn’t count. You want to deload on your own terms. If something comes up, like a vacation, by all means you can count that as a deload because you won’t be heaping much additional physiological stress on your body. But if you’ve come down with the flu or pulled a hamstring and have to rest, that’s not really a deload. Your body is recovering from the illness and trying to overcome the issues associated with that.

5. You can’t always “go by how you feel.” Listening to your body is important, but many of us have lost that connection, had it disturbed by overzealous training, or forgotten how to interpet the body’s messages. Sticking to a deload schedule regardless of how you (think you) feel can pay dividends.

6. Your joints will thank you. Remember that connective tissue takes longer to adapt and heal than muscle tissue. Your muscles might recover perfectly well from your normal schedule of training, but your cartilage, your tendons, and your ligaments run on a different schedule entirely.

7. Older guys and gals need it more than the youngsters. Getting old can be quite graceful, but if you try to push yourself like you’re still young, you will pay. Take the deload week.

How to Do It

Deloads are pretty simple, but they’re not always easy to actually integrate. People just can’t seem to shake the feeling that they’re slacking off (believe me; I know the feeling). Here are a few options:

Take a week off. Don’t even go near the gym. Don’t lift a weight or focus on “cardio.” Walk, cycle, hike, swim, or play. Keep it light. Get a massage. Try yoga.
Reduce your load and volume and maintain the movements. Instead of doing 3×5 squats at 80% of your 1 rep max, try 2×5 at 50% of your 1 rep max. The weights will feel easy, they’ll move fast, and you won’t need to recover from it, but you’ll keep your joints moving and the movements fresh in your mind. Also, you won’t kill yourself from lack of lifting.
Try a deload every six weeks or so. Most serious coaches recommend three or four weeks on, one week off to their intermediate and advanced trainees. These are people competing in strength sports and pushing serious weight, so you may not have to deload quite so often.

Whatever you choose, it probably won’t hurt – unless you don’t deload at all. I’d suggest conducting an experiment of one, tracking your progress, and seeing if it works for you personally.

Let me know your thoughts, folks. Have you ever included deloads in your programming? If so, how did they impact your training?

Thanks for reading!

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So, Is Organic a Scam?

Over the past several weeks, I’ve laid out a considerable amount of evidence showing that there indeed are substantive differences between organic produce and conventional produce. Organic is often more nutritious, with a greater concentration of phytonutrients (contrary to what the popular media has been saying). Conventional produce shows up in your kitchen with far more pesticide residues, and these residues appear to be especially harmful to youngsters, babies, and fetuses (feti?). Antibiotic resistance, which is on the rise, is partially attributable to the widespread usage of antibiotics in conventional agriculture; organic agriculture forbids their usage. Many studies have also shown organic farming to be better for the environment, the local ecosystem, the renewability of the farm, and the health of its workers. Organic food is usually more expensive, but the research tends to suggest that you’re getting something extra out of it.

That’s all well and good, but should you buy organic? This is the real question that needs answering.

I don’t think there’s a single answer. It’s contextual (as it always is). So let’s look at a few different contexts.

Who should probably spring for organic?

People who are pregnant or thinking about becoming pregnant. Fetuses are particularly susceptible to the effects of pesticides and reliant upon the nutrients from high-quality plants.

People who are going to be feeding small kids. Humans develop slowly, especially when compared to other animals, and the first five years are especially crucial to the health and long term development of children.

People who eat a lot of a particular type of produce. If you’re making kale chips by the pound on a daily basis, get the organic kale. Spread the potential damage around.

People who eat from “The Dirty Dozen.” Check out the list of the twelve most pesticide-ridden examples of produce of 2012 (plus the 15 cleanest counterparts that don’t necessarily need to be organic). I have to say, though – doesn’t it seem like they’re shortchanging us for a cutesy rhyme? I find it hard to believe that there are only 12 “dirty” and 15 “clean.” What about number 13? Number 16? At any rate, the lists are helpful tools.

People who have the money. Organic can be more expensive than conventional. You don’t want to be the guy eating organic golden beets down by the river, but if you can afford organic food, I’d suggest doing so.

Other motivations may not involve your immediate personal health, but they’re also good reasons for going organic:

To support the health of agricultural workers. It can be easy to forget about them, but they’re people who deserve the ability to make a living without constant exposure to dangerous chemicals.

To support improved sequestration of carbon into the soil. If we’re all about paying homage to our Primal roots, we should acknowledge that the earth used to sequester a whole lot more carbon into its soil before we began altering its surface through agriculture. Its Primal roots are lots and lots of carbon sequestered in its soil!

To support the maintenance of healthy soil and biodiversity. Healthy soil means healthier, more nutritious plants. A biodiverse farm uses fewer pesticides and requires less labor to repel invaders.

To prevent the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. I’ve explained how antibiotic resistance impacts our health before.

However, when it comes down to it…

Just eat plants – whatever type you can obtain and afford.

Don’t let the spectre of organic paralyze you. Don’t let it keep you from availing yourself of the wonderful bounty of the plant kingdom. Don’t avoid that Asian market full of interesting and mysterious vegetation just because nothing’s labeled “organic.” Don’t go full-on carnivore. Keep in mind that all those studies that find links between fruit and vegetable intake and improved longevity, lowered risk for disease, and better birth outcomes aren’t referring to organic produce. The vast majority of produce consumed in this and other countries is conventional, with just 0.9% of global agricultural land being devoted to organic farming (PDF), and it’s still consistently linked with health benefits. When a study talks about “fruit and vegetable intake” being associated with health benefits, you can assume they’re talking about conventional produce unless specified otherwise. 

Besides, organic is changing. Big Agra, seeing dollar signs, is getting involved, and the authorities have been more than willing to alter their original conception of organic to make things a little easier, a little simpler (at least for the big guys with droves of lawyers ready, willing, and paid to navigate the legal landscape). Prime example: back in 2002, 77 non-organic items were allowed to be used in organic food production without ruining the name. This is known as the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances. Today, that list has ballooned to include over 250 non-organic items that can be used in organic food (crops, livestock, processed food production). What does “organic” mean, then? Is organic spinach from Walmart just as good, just as fresh, and just as nutritious as organic spinach from the farmers market?

But still, I think as a general rule, “organic” food is more likely to contain fewer pesticides, be grown under more environmentally friendly conditions, be safer for your children (both born and unborn), have more polyphenols, negatively impact the health of fewer agricultural workers and fewer bees, and spawn less antibiotic-resistant bacteria than “conventional” food. The evidence is pretty clear.

Buy local.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: local trumps all. When you buy from a farmers market, you can see the person who produced your food. You can ask them what, if any, pesticides were used, and, if any were, go home and research their effects. You can bounce from one stand to the next, trying samples of all the various offerings, until you find the best one. You can be assured that this bunch of kale or that flat of berries was picked that day and immediately brought to market, rather than several weeks ago and allowed to sit around in cold storage. But – and I almost think this is the most important factor of all – you truly know that your food was sown, grown, and harvested by real people with faces, names, personalities, and real stakes in the game. Sure, we all “know” that people are responsible for the food we eat, but we don’t ever meet them. We never get the felt presence of immediate experience that’s so crucial to really understanding and experiencing life if we get our produce from packages from distant lands. The vitamins and minerals might be the same, but the experience is not, and that matters. Food’s not just sustenance and polyphenols and calories.

I hope I made things a little more clear today. My intent was not to scare people away from conventional produce. Rather, I wanted to give you a fair summation of the evidence and clear up some popular misconceptions made even more popular as of late. Take the information presented, see how it applies to your life situation, and go from there. But whatever you do, eat your plants and your animals. Live your life, enjoy it. Be with loved ones, talk with friends. Play as much as possible, get sun when it’s available. Feel the ground on your bare feet, walk every day, and lift some heavy stuff now and then. Ruminate on the awesomeness that is life, and try to find peace with where and what you are. Laugh. If some measly pesticides manage to do you harm despite all that other stuff, at least you’ll have lived a good life.

Thanks for reading, folks. Take care and be sure to leave a comment on what you’ve taken from this series.

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