Mark Sisson's Blog, page 374

Are Eggs Really As Bad For Your Arteries as Cigarettes?

This past weekend, amidst all the Ancestral Health Symposium madness, I caught the headline while flicking through my phone for a few brief seconds. Didn’t open it up, though. Just cruised on past. I’d hoped to just forget about it, to ignore it, to banish it to the back of my mind where half truths and junk studies go to die. And truth be told, I pretty much had forgotten about it until I checked my email to find a ton of frantic emails from readers wondering if their beloved and dependable egg yolk breakfasts were killing them faster than the cigarettes they don’t smoke. What? You didn’t hear?

STUDY: EGG YOLKS ALMOST AS BAD AS SMOKING

Followed by (with less hysterical capitalization) “May increase carotid plaque build-up.”

So what are we looking at here?

We’re looking at a study in which a trio of researchers (two of whom with extensive ties to the statin industry) quizzed a group of middle-aged and elderly stroke patients about their lifelong egg intake and smoking history, making sure to stress the importance of accuracy and honesty in their answers. Yes, you heard me right: they expected people to remember every last egg they ever ate. Still, everyone in the study was assumed to have supernatural memory, so I guess it evens out.

Those who ate the most eggs were the oldest – almost 70 years old on average, compared to the relatively sprightly 55 year-old egg avoiders. It’s pretty well accepted that with age comes the progression of atherosclerosis, a process that takes, well, time to occur. Plaque doesn’t just snap into existence; it develops. All else being equal, the older you get, the more plaque you’ll have.

Those who ate the most eggs also smoked the most and were the most diabetic. To their credit, the authors tried to control for those factors, plus several others. Although they tried to control for sex, blood lipids, blood pressure, smoking, body weight index, and presence of diabetes, the study’s authors didn’t – couldn’t – account for all potentially confounding variables. In their own words, “more research should be done to take in possible confounders such as exercise and waist circumference.” Hmm. “Possible” confounders, eh?

Exercise reduces inflammatory markers of atherosclerosis.

Exercise even reduces markers of atherosclerosis in pre-pubertal obese children!

Exercise reduces thickness of the carotid arterial wall. It doesn’t get much clearer than that. Exercise is a massively confounding variable that the authors failed to take into account.

What about waist circumference?

A high waist circumference predicts atherosclerosis of the carotid artery.

Or how about stress, which also wasn’t considered?

Perceived daily psychological demands – the amount of crap you perceive to be heaped on your plate – are associated with progression of carotid arterial plaque.

Yeah, it’s not like the size of a person’s waist, whether or not they move of their own volition or sit in an easy chair all day, and how much stress they endure have any impact on their risk of developing atherosclerosis. Those things may be linked, and I’m sure the authors would have loved to include them in their analysis, but there just wasn’t enough space on the questionnaire. Besides, it’s not like a little physical activity and mediation could even undo the damage wrought by 4.68 sinful egg yolks per week. Why, that’s nearly a half dozen!

Seriously, though, the subjects were all stroke patients who’d lived to tell the tale. They’d been in contact with the medical community (you generally don’t just shake off a stroke without medical attention), who no doubt gave them the standard required advice to prevent another event, which includes “a reduction in saturated fat and cholesterol intake…and a boost in physical activity.” Since the egg-eaters obviously didn’t listen to their doctors’ recommendations to cut back on cholesterol intake, I’d wager they treated the exercise recommendations with similar levels of disdain. What do you think?

Here’s what I think: this is an observational study whose already limited worth depends entirely on the memory of an inherently fallible creature being infallible. As such, it cannot assign causality, contrary to what the media (“Egg Yolks Can Quicken Hardening of the Arteries“) and authors (“It has been known for a long time that a high cholesterol intake increases the risk of cardiovascular events”) say. Furthermore, why single out egg yolks? I mean, I get it – the authors sort of have a vendetta against eggs – but what about other foods? Were those even analyzed or asked about? What about the stuff that people generally eat with eggs, like pancakes and vegetable oils, or the foods that contain egg yolks, like baked goods and mayonnaise? For all we know, egg yolk intake could have been a marker for eating garbage; most people aren’t tossing raw yolks into post-workout shakes, gently poaching eggs with coconut vinegar, or horrifying co-workers with a bag full of hard-boiled eggs like we Primals are wont to do. They’re getting Grand Slams at Denny’s, eating bologna sandwiches with mayo on white bread, and overcooking scrambled eggs in canola oil until they’re rubber.

For fun, though, let’s look at what some other studies have found with regards to the artery-clogging capabilities of whole eggs:

Egg consumption and endothelial function: a randomized controlled crossover trial. Two eggs daily did not impair endothelial function (the flow of blood through the arteries), nor did it increase total or LDL cholesterol. Overall, eating two eggs a day elicited no change in cardiovascular health when compared to eating oatmeal (a cardiologist’s pride and joy).

Daily egg consumption in hyperlipidemic adults – effects on endothelial function and cardiovascular risk. In patients with high cholesterol, eating several hard-boiled eggs a day had no effect on endothelial function.

Effect of a high-saturated fat and no-starch diet on serum lipid subfractions in patients with documented atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Obese patients with heart disease ate lots of saturated fat, zero starch (including zero grains – sound familiar?), and tons of vegetables, and saw massive weight loss without any negative effects on their blood lipids. Once upon a time, I had access to the full study (it was freely available at the website for the Mayo Clinic, who’s since taken it down…wonder why), and I remember seeing that they ate three or four eggs a day. If egg yolks were bad for all heart disease patients, these guys would have felt the effects.

Okay, despite all those confounders and other egg studies that support yolks as harmless and the fact that this was merely an observational study without the power to assign causation and whose authors failed to even propose a potential mechanism of action, let’s entertain the notion that something was going on with this population of egg eaters. What if the egg yolks did have something to do with the atherosclerosis?

In a previous post on “Human Interference Factor,” I highlighted a study showing hens given an unnatural industry-standard diet high in omega-6 containing grains (soy and corn) produce less healthful eggs than hens on a more natural diet of grains lower in omega-6 with supplementary antioxidants. When subjects ate two of the soy/corn-fed eggs a day, which were high in omega-6 fats, their oxidized LDL levels were increased by 40%. Subjects who ate two of the other eggs each day, which were low in omega-6 fats, had normal levels of oxidized LDL (comparable to subjects in the control group, who consumed between two and four eggs a week). Since the oxidation of LDL particles is strongly hypothesized to be a crucial causative factor in atherosclerosis, it’s conceivable that eating normal, industrial eggs could have a negative effect on carotid plaque.

Anyway, what are the takeaways here?

Exercise, practice stress reduction, and get your waist circumference checked.

Don’t smoke.

Don’t age.

Don’t pay too much attention to ridiculous observational studies (this is part of stress reduction).

Oh, yeah – eat egg yolks, and lots of them. Doubly so if you’re low-carb (remember the starch/grain-free high-egg diet referenced above). Make ‘em pastured, if possible, or at least from hens that ate something besides soy and corn. They’re more nutritious and probably “safer” than industrial eggs.

(In retrospect, that mention of the authors’ ties to the pharmaceutical industry was a low blow. After all, I myself am a direct benefactor of my local pastured egg industry; they pay me in delicious golden yolks.)

I hope you found this post helpful. Have at it in the comments.

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Is Your Olive Oil Really Olive Oil?

For thousands of years, humans have been picking, prizing, and pressing the fatty drupes found among the oblong leaves of the gnarled, twisted olive tree into rich, green-gold extra virgin olive oil. And for almost as many thousands of years, humans have been coming up with ways to fake it, to pass off cheaper, less delicious, less nutritious oils as the real thing. The earliest known written mention of olive oil – from Syria, 24 BC – describes how court-appointed inspectors would tour olive oil processing facilities to ensure quality, purity, and the absence of fraud. In ancient Rome, the vessels containing olive oil bore detailed information about the contents, including varietal of fruit used, place of origin, name of producer, the weight and quality of the oil, the name of the importer, plus the name of the official who inspected it and confirmed the previously mentioned data. Let’s just say they really, really liked their olive oil, and that olive oil adulteration has always been an issue.

It continues today, of course, and studies are bearing out the fact that extra virgin olive oil is often adulterated with cheaper, more refined, deodorized olive oils, oils from olives deemed unfit for human consumption, and/or random nut, seed, and vegetable oils spiked with chlorophyll and beta-carotene to replicate the authentic color. An Australian study found that over half the supermarket EVOO was anything but, even the supposedly legit stuff from the Mediterranean countries; New Zealand researchers had similar results with Mediterranean imports into their country. Last year, a University of California at Davis study (PDF) found that 69% of imported extra virgin olive oils failed to meet international standards, while 90% of California EVOO tested passed (the study was partially financed by major California olive oil producers, and producers of some of the failed imports are crying foul). Similar adulteration is taking place in China, where imported olive oil is mixed with cheap seed oils. In 2007, the New Yorker published a harrowing account of widespread and longstanding fraud in the Italian olive oil industry (“Profits were comparable to cocaine trafficking, with none of the risks”), and more recently, a study found that four out of five Italian olive oils were “debased.”

I’ve spent the last few years recommending that you eat extra virgin olive oil, and now it appears as if the fraud is pervasive enough to throw everything you thought you knew into a state of confusion. So what are you supposed to do? How do you know if your olive oil is actually olive oil?

The Fridge Test

By now, you’ve probably all heard about it: to test the legitimacy of a supposed olive oil, stick it in the fridge for a day or two. If it begins to solidify, you’ve got yourself a bottle of true extra virgin olive oil. Does it hold true?

Kinda.

Pure monounsaturated fat, also known as oleic acid, solidifies at 39 degrees F. Since olive oil is primarily oleic acid (about 70-85 percent, generally), sticking a bottle of real olive oil in the fridge should elicit solidification. The original olive oil adulterants, sunflower oil and safflower oil, were mostly polyunsaturated, so adulterating olive oil used to be easy to spot. Now, with high-oleic sunflower oil, high-oleic safflower oil, and high-oleic canola oil on the scene, adulterated olive oil can still solidify in the fridge. Thus, the fridge test is still a necessary, but not sufficient, test for the legitimacy of your extra virgin olive oil. It’s really a test for the degree of monounsaturation in the oils. It’s important (toss any oils that fail the test), but it’s not the full story.

The Taste Test

Good olive oil is often bitter, pungent, spicy, and slightly abrasive. It’s not always smooth and easy going. In fact, the “off-notes,” the intense flavors that make the uninitiated screw up their face actually indicate the presence of high levels of polyphenols, those antioxidant plant compounds which make olive oil so good for you. If the olive oil you taste burns the back of your throat and tastes funny to you, chances are you’ve been using and are used to adulterated (or at least non-virgin) oil.

To my knowledge, olive oil adulteration hasn’t progressed to the point where scammers are able to simulate the flavor of true EVOO. If they were to do it, I’d imagine they’d have to add polyphenols or olive extracts to the vegetable oils, and that can’t be cheap. And even if they did add olive extracts and synthetic polyphenols, it’d be better than having none at all.

Does It Matter?

Aside from being cheated out of your money for a disgustingly disappointing mix of soybean and canola oils, can any real health issues arise from consuming adulterated olive oils?

There are allergy concerns, of course, if the adulterant contains an allergen, like peanut oil. Owing to the similarity of its fatty acids to olive oil’s, hazelnut oil is another popular adulterant as well as a fairly common allergen, and one study even showed that people with hazelnut allergies could identify olive oil spiked with hazelnut oil because they suffered symptoms after eating it.

Another health issue that can arise from using adulterated olive oil is the one caused by excessive intake of omega-6 fats from the soybean, sunflower, safflower, canola, or any other cheap high-PUFA oil being added: generation of inflammatory eicosanoids, systemic inflammation, and oxidized blood lipids. Luckily, the fridge test is sufficient to ferret out PUFA-rich “olive oil” and prevent this from harming you.

Depending on the source and age of the adulterants (year old soybean oil, five month canola, etc), the once robust polyphenol profile of the starter extra virgin olive oil will have been severely diluted. And since the healthful, anti-inflammatory effects of olive oil can mostly be attributed to the polyphenols, olive oil adulterated with inferior, polyphenol-less oils will be less stable, more rancid, and more prone to oxidation. Oxidized oils are not very good for us; here’s why.

I’d say it does matter, and not just because of taste (as if “taste” isn’t reason enough). Here are my roughly recommended guidelines for choosing a good, real EVOO:

My best results have come with domestics – wherever I am. My favorite olive oil here in California is a California olive oil. The best Italian olive oil I ever had was in Italy. Same for Spanish olive oil. In all those studies referenced above, domestics seemed to win out. The NZ and Australian studies found that local oils bested the imports, just as the California study found that the top oils were from California. I’d imagine Italians like Italian olive oil and Spaniards like Spanish olive oil and so on and so forth because they’re not getting the imported, adulterated dregs.

You might have to spend a little money. Sure, I’ve made some good, affordable finds at Trader Joe’s in my day (including a $15 a liter bottle of spicy, unfiltered to the point of clogging the spout, lime green EVOO from Italy that appeared on the shelves for a month or two last year only to disappear before I could grab another bottle), but generally, I’ve gotten what I’ve paid for.

Do some tastings. Look for specialty shops or farmer’s market stands that allow and even encourage tastings of their olive oils. Take at least an ounce (the quarter teaspoon some places try to offer is way too meager to get an accurate reading), slurp it up, and swirl it around in your mouth like you’re trying to make a saliva-EVOO emulsification. Be obnoxious about it, even. But as you swallow the oil, relax and be ready to note the peppery polyphenol kick at the end, usually experienced at the back of your throat. Good EVOO should linger pleasantly in the mouth, even after it’s been swallowed.

Do the fridge test. Even though it won’t prove that your oil is pure, you’ll at least know that your EVOO wasn’t cut with PUFA-rich oils.

Avoid clear bottles. Although I’ve bought some fantastic olive oil from dedicated small-time producers that was stored in random glass jars, I usually opt for EVOO that comes in dark bottles or stainless steel containers. First reason being, light exposure oxidizes olive oil and degrades the polyphenol content. Second reason, most quality olive oil producers care about their product enough to ship it in suitable vessels.

Buy a winner. I always keep up with the latest winners of the Los Angeles International Extra Virgin Olive Oil Competition. Whenever I’ve tried one from the list of winners, I haven’t been disappointed. Here are some other lauded competitions.

Talk to people who know good olive oil. Talk to olive farmers at the farmers’ market who grow and pick and press and sell the stuff, talk to the mustachioed olive oil aficionado who owns the olive oil shop that you’ve never stopped in to see, talk to your friends who know about this sort of thing and splurge on olive oil all the time.

Ultimately, absent a team of sensory experts, access to gas chromatography equipment, and the ability to astrally project your soul backward through time to the time and place of the oil’s production, there’s no one way to tell, no grand, all knowing test. The closer you are to the proximate producer of the oil (buy “close to the mill”), the fewer times it changes hands before reaching yours, the “feeling” you get from sniffing the herbaceous fragrance, tasting the piquant fruitiness, the enjoyment you derive from it – this is how you determine the worth of your oil. It’s more art than science.

Thanks for reading, folks. Be sure to drop a link or reference to your personal favorite (or favorites) extra virgin olive oil, preferably one that’s widely available or available online, as well as your tips for finding a good brand.

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Dear Mark: Coffee and Insulin, Fat and Post-Workout Meals

In today’s edition of Dear Mark, I cover two topics near and dear to many of your hearts. First, I discuss the interaction between coffee intake and insulin. Does coffee stimulate its secretion? Does it impair insulin’s function, or our body’s reaction to it? Find out how you should approach coffee on a Primal Blueprint eating plan. Then, I explore the suitability of dietary fat in the post-workout meal. Does it belong? Should you be stocking skim milk, de-fatted chicken breast, non-fat yogurt, and cartons of egg whites for your post-workout meals? If you’ve just lifted something heavy, should you therefore shun the yolks and fear the fat for the rest of the day? Find out below.

Let’s go.

Does coffee raise insulin levels? A lot of contradictory stuff out there. Hoping you could get to the bottom of it. Also, how does it affect GABA?

Thanks

Odin

What makes coffee research so confusing is that a lot of it is actually caffeine research. You see, researchers love isolating whole food constituents to avoid confounding variables. It’s easier to get a definitive result about caffeine than it is to get one about coffee, because coffee contains huge and diverse levels of antioxidant compounds. If you don’t, and coffee has a health effect, how do you know if it’s the caffeine or something else in coffee causing the effect? That’s helpful, but most of us are drinking coffee – not popping caffeine pills. So, while caffeine is definitely one of the main active compounds in coffee, it’s not the only one. Adjust your interpretation of “coffee” research accordingly.

That said, both caffeine and coffee have been shown to exert negative effects on insulin sensitivity. Not on insulin itself, though. As standalone substances (without a meal to accompany them), neither caffeine nor coffee have an independent effect on insulin secretion.

But insulin sensitivity, the efficiency with which your body handles incoming glucose? Yeah. Caffeine tends to reduce it. It’s not necessarily a terrible thing, though, when you consider why this occurs. Caffeine increases adrenaline, which increases lipolysis – the liberation of fatty acids from body fat. The increased sense of energy you get from coffee is partly caused by the increased availability of energy in the form of free fatty acids. Of course, an increase in free fatty acids shooting around your body causes a subsequent – and necessary – drop in insulin sensitivity to allow you to actually burn the fat. It all makes perfect sense when you consider the entire picture, but it sounds pretty scary out of context.

Despite all the clinical trials showing that acute intakes of caffeine and coffee tend to reduce insulin sensitivity, the overwhelming majority of the observational literature finds that coffee is linked to lower body weight and protection from type 2 diabetes. Heck, heavy coffee drinking is even linked to protection against non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, an affliction characterized by insulin resistance. And although what I’ve said about correlation and causation in the past holds true in this case (even though it’s supporting something that we might like), the connection is undeniably interesting, especially when you consider that heavy coffee drinking is universally lauded as unhealthy and that habitual coffee drinkers are probably more likely to smoke, stay up late, and eat bad food. Perhaps there is a mechanism there (one suggestion in the NAFLD paper is the antioxidant content of coffee).

Part of it stems from the fact that habituation to a behavior affects the effects of that behavior. You know how once you’ve been drinking coffee for awhile, you don’t really get the “buzz” anymore? You still love (need) the stuff, but it’s not so much a stimulant as it is a normalizer. Well, the coffee buzz comes partially from adrenaline, the secretion of which drinking coffee promotes. Adrenaline is also a potent stimulator of lipolysis, the release of free fatty acids from adipose tissue. Since the liberated fatty acids are causing the temporary insulin resistance, and the fatty acids are liberated by adrenaline, and the adrenaline buzz is lessened with habitual coffee drinking, maybe the insulin resistance is similarly lessened when you’re a coffee fiend. Sounds sensible, right, but what does the research say?

Sure enough, when you give overweight, generally healthy habitual coffee drinkers five more cups a day and measure their “biological risk factors for type 2 diabetes,” things look a little different. Their insulin sensitivity not only stays the same, but their risk factors actually improve. Markers of both liver function and adipose tissue function were improved after upping their coffee intake.

What does all this stuff mean for real world coffee fans?

Moderate your carb intake when drinking coffee. Some fruit and maybe even a bit of sweet potato hash can be okay, especially if you’re glucose tolerant, but for the most part, stick to eggs and bacon with your coffee in the morning. And whatever you do, don’t be one of those pudgy carb-loading cyclists clad in spandex I see at the cafe quaffing coffee and pounding kruellers. That’s not a good combo.
Get up and move around a bit when you drink. Since that coffee has just liberated a bunch of fatty acids from your adipose tissue, use them! Go for a walk, take a stroll around the office, do some gardening, hit the trails, ride your bike, play with your kids. Just move. If you don’t, the bulk of those fatty acids will simply be recycled back into your body fat.
Remember that coffee isn’t just caffeine. It is a whole plant food/drink with hundreds of bioactive compounds beyond just caffeine, like chlorogenic acid, which may have protective effects against type 2 diabetes. Those compounds come from and are affected by the environment, soil, elevation, climate, and region in and at which the coffee was grown. Even the roasting temperature changes the antioxidant content and composition of the beans. The taste and health effects of coffee thusly depend on dozens of factors, and that’s why coffee has different effects on different people as reflected across dozens of studies. Coffee isn’t coffee isn’t coffee. The coffee that tanked those people’s insulin sensitivity in that study may have been a mass market blend from Starbucks, while the single origin coffee from a little Guatemalan plantation could have totally different effects (or it could be the other way around).

Of course, as the ruler of Asgard, father of Thor, and a mighty Norse god, you can probably get away with eating tons of carbs with your coffee (served in a drinking horn, no doubt).

Hi Mark,

I have read somewhere that fat intake is not recommended post workout because it slows the ingestion of protein and carbs. Is it true? If yes, can I take your protein supplement post workout?

Thanks

Najam

Most training blogs recommend that post-workout fat intake be kept relatively low. There are a couple reasons usually given:

If you’re trying to gain muscle mass, you’re going to be eating big after your workouts. Assuming you’re eating a ton of protein and carbs to jack up your insulin levels for the anabolic effect (insulin, after all, shuttles all sorts of nutrients into your cells – protein and glycogen into muscles, for example, after a workout), and your calories are high (to facilitate weight gain) enough, any “extra” fat in the meal has a good chance of being shuttled into fat cells. Thus, from that perspective, fat is “wasted” calories.
If you’re trying to shuttle nutrients into muscle cells, you want insulin as high as it can get, and “everyone knows” that even a modicum of fat will blunt the post-workout insulin spike. Right? Not exactly. One study found that a mixed meal of 47% carbs, 26% protein, and 27% fat – certainly lower fat than most Primal people eat normally, but definitely not a “fat free” post-workout meal – increased insulin levels to 3x fasting at 30 minutes and 5x fasting at 60 minutes (PDF). That’s certainly enough insulin for training adaptations, I’d say. Another study found that post-workout whole milk actually led to greater levels of muscle protein synthesis than post-workout fat-free milk, even though the fat-free stuff had more protein than the whole stuff. Huh, it’s almost like milk is supposed to be whole.

Clearly, some fat after the workout isn’t going to kill you or render your workout useless (and it might even increase protein utilization, at least when it’s consumed as a whole food). And although I’m definitely biased – the fat in my protein supplement (Primal Fuel) comes from coconut milk – coconut milk is rich in medium chain triglycerides, which seems more acutely beneficial to exercise performance than longer-chain saturated fats, at least in rodents.

Stick to the fat inherent in your food – don’t fear meat, fatty fish, and whole eggs – while avoiding dumping copious amounts of butter on your post-workout meal and you’ll be okay.

That’s it for today, guys. Send along any more questions you have and feel free to leave some in the comment section. Thanks for reading!

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Weekend Link Love

Research of the Week

A new clinical entity emerges from the depths of a double-blind placebo-controlled trial: non-celiac wheat sensitivity.

Athletes who have to cross five or more time zones to compete are two to three times more likely to get sick. You mean engaging in intensely stressful physical exertion after throwing your circadian rhythms out of whack… isn’t good for you? I bet the same thing applies to frequent travelers flying halfway across the world for intense business meetings.

Interesting Blog Posts

Since the Ancestral Health Symposium was in full swing this weekend, there wasn’t much going on in blogland. But you can always follow the #AHS12 hashtag road back on Twitter to see what highlights you were missing.

Right after writing an entire blog post devoted to how the meat-eating ancestors of Homo sapiens beat out the vegetarian Paranthropus because of the former’s tendency toward animal-eating, a Scientific American blogger recommends that we eat like the extinct plant eaters. Huh?

Media, Schmedia

Caveman diabetic blogger Steve Cooksey‘s legal battle against the North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition, which I profiled a couple months ago, is heating up. The NY Times reports.

The BBC covers a topic that we’re all quite familiar with – intermittent fasting – by tracking some nutjob journalist who they somehow conned into trying the outlandish regimen. Find out if he survives the harrowing experience.

Everything Else

I’m not usually a fan of the whole “xx years young” thing, but this 90-year old pole vaulting world champion certainly deserves it. Check out Dr. William Bell’s attempt at breaking his own world record. And how about that grin at the end? That’s the smile from a man with very few regrets.

Area man Black and Decker’s his hamstrings, breaks deadlift PR. What do you think, guys? Gonna toss out your foam rollers and sports masseuses?

Recipe Corner

Everyone’s all about omelets, but where’s the love for a good scramble? Here’s a new way to do it.
Mild panang curry paste (add heat as desired). Man, I really need to get back to Thailand.

Time Capsule

One year ago (Aug 12 – August 18)

Are Oats Healthy? – Find out what to make of oats.
Does Eating Red Meat Increase Type 2 Diabetes Risk? – Everyone knows that the biggest cause of type 2 diabetes is bunless burgers and rare ribeyes.

Comment of the Week

My 9 year old daughter knows the word postprandial now. I say, after a big dinner… “It’s so lovely and light out.” “Yeah Mama, time for our postprandial walk.” We just mosey for a half hour.

- That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever heard, Joy Beer. Your writing kinda reminds me of Jack Kerouac’s.

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Primal Chilaquiles

Chilaquiles are a traditional breakfast made from last night’s feast. Leftover salsa and stale tortillas are heated up with a few eggs and any other leftovers you want to throw in the pan. Basically, it’s a scramble but one with spicy, fresh, lively flavor.

Luckily, stale tortillas don’t make or break the dish. Chilaquiles are plenty delicious with just eggs, homemade salsa, jalapenos and cilantro. If you like, slice up some homemade Primal tortillas and serve them on the side. You can also add meat, sour cream, cheese, green onions, avocado and any other ingredients you might usually put in a taco or burrito. Those who love traditional chilaquiles, however, will skip all that and just stick with a big plate of soft scrambled eggs drowning in sauce.

The sauce for chilaquiles can be green salsa or red. In this recipe, it’s red: a quick and easy homemade salsa that has the robust flavor of roasted tomatoes and garlic. The salsa is mild; it’s the sliced and sautéed jalapenos that kick up the spiciness of this dish. Add as many as you can handle. Then scramble up some eggs, mix it all together and you’ll have a breakfast you won’t soon forget.

Servings: 2-4

Ingredients:

2 large or 4 smaller tomatoes
1 garlic clove
2 heaping tablespoons (30mL) finely chopped yellow onion
A few tablespoons of oil
1 jalapeno (or more) sliced into rounds
4 eggs, whisked with a little salt
Handful of cilantro, roughly chopped

Instructions:

Place the tomatoes on a rimmed baking sheet several inches under an oven broiler on high. Roast the tomatoes for about 5 minutes on each side until the skin blackens and peels back. Let the tomatoes cool to the touch then peel the skin off, discarding both the skin and any juice that gathers.

While the tomatoes cook, toast the garlic clove (peel still on) by putting it in a hot, dry skillet over medium heat until it’s blackened on both sides. Pressing down on the clove to flatten it a little bit will help the skin blacken faster.

Peel the toasted garlic clove and put it in a food processor or blender with the onion, pulsing a few times to chop as much as possible. Add the tomatoes and pulse until you reach your desired salsa texture. Add salt to taste. (If you want a spicy salsa, add some hot sauce, serrano chiles or jalapeno).

Drizzle a tablespoon or so of oil in a pan and heat. Add the jalapenos. Saute a few minutes until lightly browned. Add the eggs and stir as they cook. Just before the eggs are set, add the salsa and cook until heated.

Transfer eggs and salsa to a plate and top with cilantro. Serve slices of Primal tortillas on the side.

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My Healthy Lifestyle Was Killing Me

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!

Amidst all of the holiday parties near the end of 2010, my BMI tipped from normal to overweight. Concerned that at age 52 my luck might be close to running out in evading the type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and heart disease that run in my family, I decided that it was time to lose weight. I’ve never had a major weight issue, but 20+ years of treatment for endometriosis, the onset of menopause, and 20+ years of living the suburban, increasingly sedentary life with an obese spouse had finally caught up with me. I set a realistic goal of losing 20 lbs by April of 2011.

I’ve never believed in “diets” since I have seen what happens in the overwhelming majority of cases – follow the “diet,” lose weight, back to the same-old-same-old, pack on more pounds than before. So I decided to be sensible and follow conventional wisdom. By instituting sustainable changes to my diet (counting calories, adding more healthy whole grains, less fat, less junk food) and a manageable exercise routine (worked up to chronic cardio!), I met my goal. By mid-April 2011 I was down 23 lbs and 2 sizes. Woo hoo! I should have been ecstatic, but I knew I had a problem.

I’d lost the weight, but I was feeling weaker and had experienced a couple of really scary incidents of severe diarrhea which lead to incapacitating dehydration compounded with hypothermia. I had to be rushed to the emergency room twice over a two-month period. After numerous tests and consultations between my GP and the ER doctors, the diagnosis both times was stomach virus. Great. They were clueless.

The second incident had been worse than the first. By the time the paramedics arrived (quicker than the first time) my veins had already started collapsing and I was non-responsive. I didn’t feel too confident about surviving a third bout. I learned to become aware of the initial signs of dehydration and was able to manage it by drinking ridiculous amounts of water (12 – 16 glasses a day!) supplemented with Gatorade. There had to be a better way. Of increasing concern to me was that over the next three months I dropped another 10 lbs without trying, and started developing sagging skin – a sure sign of muscle loss. Being small-framed and with a family history of osteoporosis, this was not good.

Somehow I stumbled upon MDA. As I started reading, a lot started making sense. The exercise portion was a lot like what I did as a kid. Having grown up in NYC with no car in the family, my feet were a basic mode of transportation. Sprints were how my friends and I got to elementary school (had to wait for mom to catch up to cross the street), lifting heavy things was how we got groceries home and up the stairs, and let’s not forget going up and down stairs (2 or 3 steps at a time weighted down with books in Jr. and Sr. high school) in the train stations, as well as regularly climbing 2-5 flights of stairs to reach family members’ and friends’ apartments (elevators were not an option).

After reading The Primal Blueprint (the only “diet” book I had EVER purchased), I came to the realization that my “healthy” lifestyle was going to kill me, literally! I must admit that even in spite of that, I had a lot of trepidation about going without the grains and legumes and increasing my fat intake. I had no problem dropping processed foods because my dad didn’t consider anything out of a can or pre-frozen to be “food,” and my mom made the distinction between real food and party (i.e. junk) food. For over 50 years I had eaten oatmeal or cream of wheat as part of my healthy breakfast almost every day. Breakfast without grains just did not seem like it would fill me up. Being of Caribbean ancestry, rice and beans had also been lifelong staples. However, on July 23, 2011, I decided to give this Primal thing a try for a week. One week later I was down another 3 lbs, but, in spite of my husband’s concerns about my “anorexia” – no worries – I was also down one full size! Using one of the online body fat calculators, I estimated that my body fat had gone down about 3%, which correlates well with the 3 lb weight loss. Over the next few weeks I took a few forays back into the world of SAD foods, because who the heck was this Mark Sisson guy to deprive me of my old comfort foods. I quickly discovered that what Mark had to say didn’t matter because my body was saying the same things loudly and clearly.

After 5 months of having said goodbye to the “healthy” whole grains and legumes, embracing the fats, dropping the chronic cardio, exercising less (but more effectively) and playing more, I lost a total of 6 lbs. Almost a year into my Primal journey, I’ve regained all of the weight that I lost since I went Primal. What has left me and all that have seen my transformation dumbfounded, is that from July 2011 to now I dropped from a size 4 to a size 0 while with a net weight loss of ZERO pounds!  Let me summarize that – I dropped 36 lbs and went from a size 8 to a size 4 following conventional wisdom. I’ve dropped a whopping 0 lbs and have gone from a size 4 to a size 0 following the Primal Blueprint.

More importantly, I’ve noticed that a lot of nuisance health issues that I had attributed to aging and/or had for so long that I accepted them as “normal,” are gone. To name just a few, the achy shins and joints, compliments of power walking (I read that it was easier on the joints than jogging, lol!), are no longer achy. I no longer feel like I am going to pass out if I don’t have breakfast within the first 30 minutes after I wake up. I no longer need to constantly pack snacks for my mid-morning and mid-afternoon hunger pangs/shakes. I no longer get in a foul mood when I’m hungry. I don’t drink anywhere near the amounts of water I drank regularly when I was constantly fighting dehydration, nor have I had a need to drink Gatorade. I have more energy than ever (I was anemic from childhood until a couple of years ago). Spicy foods no longer mess up my stomach. That stuffed feeling 10-15 minutes after a meal is gone. My pipes no longer leak.

My Primal journey continues as I try out different things and continue to learn how my body wants me to live. At age 53 I am stronger, leaner, more energetic and feel healthier than ever. Thank you, Mark, for teaching me what a healthy lifestyle really looks like.

Myra

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Why You Should Lift and Lower Heavy Things

This is a guest post from Jonathan Bailor of The Smarter Science of Slim and JonathanBailor.com.

“Eccentric training has been shown to produce greater muscle hypertrophy than concentric training as a result of greater ability for maximal force generating capacity during eccentric contractions.” – J.P. Farthing, University of Saskatchewan

In a guest post a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I’d be back to talk more about research supporting the Primal principle of “lifting heavy things.” Let’s do it.

Women Won’t Look Like Men and Men Won’t Look Like Bulldogs

Before digging into the details about lifting or lowering anything, it is important to address a common fear that exercising with heavy things makes women look like men and men look like bulldogs. The best way to address this fear is to understand our biology. Everyone has a gene called GDF-8, and that controls a substance called myostatin, which controls the amount of muscle we have and how much muscles develop naturally. The base levels of myostatin and muscle in basically all women and most men make it impossible for them to naturally build bulky muscles. It does not matter how much resistance we use. The majority of us—especially women—do not have the genes to build bulky muscles via any form of exercise.

Myostatin (GDF-8), a member of the transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) superfamily of secreted growth and differentiation factors, is a negative regulator of skeletal muscle growth. Loss of myostatin function is associated with an increase in muscle mass in mice, cows, and humans.

– M.N. Elkasrawy, Medical College of Georgia

I find it useful to think about muscle size like muscle speed. Few people are fast because few people have “fast genes.” No matter how much most people run, they will never get faster than their genes allow. However, if people do have the genetics for speed, they will naturally be faster than most people without ever training. Similarly, few people can become bulky because few people—particularly women—have “bulky genes.” No matter how much most people resistance train, they will never develop more muscle than their genes allow.

With our minds at ease let’s move on to…

Why Conventional Wisdom Fails, While Lifting Heavy Things Works

These findings indicate that type II muscle has a previously unappreciated role in regulating whole-body metabolism through its ability to alter the metabolic properties of remote tissues. These data also suggest that strength training, in addition to the widely prescribed therapy of endurance training, may be of particular benefit to overweight individuals.

– Y. Izumiya, Boston University

Why does conventional wisdom tell us to exercise via jogging, riding a bike, etc. for an hour per day? Because these activities involve our large leg muscles. The thinking is that the more muscle exercised, the better our results. At least conventional wisdom (CW) got that much right.

But here’s where CW comes up short: It is physiologically impossible for any amount of CW’s “cardio” to actually exercise as much muscle as possible. In fact, CW exercise approaches only activate one of the four types of muscle fibers we have. Doing more of it simply works that one type of muscle fiber over and over. And sadly, the singular type of muscle fiber it exercises is the least effective at triggering the hormonal reaction required to most efficiently burn body fat while preserving lean tissue…aka the hormonal reaction that enables us to look lean and fit rather than like a near-death bag of bones.

To dig a bit deeper into why CW fails, and lifting heavy things succeeds, we need to understand four principles of how our muscles function:

We have different types of muscle fibers which do different things.
The more force a fiber generates, the less endurance it has.
We cannot work more forceful fibers without also working less forceful fibers.
The more forceful a fiber, the more metabolic benefit we get from exercising it.

Different Types of Fibers, Different Levels of Force and Endurance

Like we have different muscles to do different things, we have different muscle fibers to do different things. This is critical to understand because just as we select specific exercises to work specific muscles, we can select specific exercises to work specific muscle fibers. For example, type 1 muscle fibers allow us to do low-force work for a long period of time. We work them when we do an hour of CW’s “cardio.” In contrast, our type 2b muscle fibers allow us to do a high-force work for a short period of time. We work them when we lift heavy things for a few seconds.

Well, that’s not exactly true…

Working More Forceful Fibers Works All Fibers and Is Uniquely Beneficial

First, high-intensity exercise training induces secretion of lipolytic [fat-burning] hormones including growth hormone and epinephrine, which may facilitate greater post-exercise energy expenditure and fat oxidation. Second, it has been reported that under equivalent levels of energy expenditure high-intensity exercise training favors a greater negative energy balance compared to low-intensity exercise training.”

– B.A. Irving, University of Virginia

When we do high-force and short-duration exercise we don’t exclusively work our type 2b fibers. We work all of our less forceful fibers and our type 2b fibers. We try to lift something heavy, and our muscles first try to generate enough force with our weakest type 1 fibers. Those do not generate enough force, so our muscles also activate our more forceful type 2a fibers to help. Still not enough? Keep the type 1 and type 2a fibers going and add the stronger type 2x fibers. More? Don’t stop working the other three and bring in our most powerful type 2b fibers. Thanks to this cumulative activation of all of our muscle fibers (known as orderly recruitment is physiology circles), Primal exercise actually enables us to do what CW attempts to do: exercise the most muscle possible.

Even better, recent research reveals that exercising our most forceful type 2b muscle fibers is uniquely metabolically beneficial. For instance, Y. Izumiya of Boston University studied mice in a clinical setting and learned that the development of type 2b muscle fibers:

…lead to a reduction in accumulated white adipose tissue and improvements in metabolic parameters independent of physical activity or changes in the level of food intake. These effects occur independently of muscle oxidative capacity and are associated with increases in fatty acid metabolism in liver…The results from the current study indicate that modest increases in type 2b skeletal muscle mass can have a profound systemic effect on whole-body metabolism and adipose mass.

Dr. Izumiya continues extolling type 2b muscle fiber development with:

The metabolic improvement in this model cannot be entirely explained by a reduction in fat-pad mass, indicating that type II muscle counteracts the actions of excess adipose tissue on whole-body metabolism. These findings indicate that type II muscle has a previously unappreciated role in regulating whole-body metabolism through its ability to alter the metabolic properties of remote tissues.

He also states that these muscle fibers improved “insulin sensitivity and [caused] reductions in blood glucose, insulin, and leptin levels,” and that, “these effects occurred despite a reduction in physical activity.” Sign me up!

When it comes to long-term fat loss and lean tissue preservation, CW, common sense, and science all agree that the more muscle we exercise the better. The issue is how we actually do that. It’s literally impossible via low-force CW exercise. Our muscles just don’t work that way. We need to work with more force. We need to exercise Primally. We need to lift heavy things—and as we’ll see next—lower heavy things.

Lowering Heavy Things to Maximize Muscular Force

Every exercise has two parts: lifting the resistance and lowering the resistance. Lifting the resistance is called the concentric portion of the exercise. Concentric is when the muscle contracts. Lowering the resistance is called the eccentric portion of the exercise. Eccentric is when the muscle extends. Lifting weights—the concentric action—gets the most attention, but research shows that lowering weights—the eccentric action—can get us more results since safely and slowly lowering heavy things enables us to generate more force. M. Roig at the University of British Columbia found that “Eccentric training performed at high intensities was shown to be more effective in promoting increases in muscle.” Why? E.J. Higbie at University of Georgia tells us, “Greater maximum force can be developed during maximal eccentric muscle actions than during concentric.” And N.D. Reeves at Manchester Metropolitan University echoes with, “Muscles are capable of developing much higher forces when they contract eccentrically compared with when they contract concentrically.”

If you’d like to see how much stronger you are “on the way down,” hop on a seated row or chest press machine (or any exercise that moves on a horizontal plane—to eliminate the influence of gravity) and select a weight that you cannot lift with one arm but can lift easily with two arms. Lift it with two arms and cautiously relax one arm and observe as you are able to lower the resistance with one arm. You couldn’t lift the weight with one arm, but you could lower it with one arm because your muscles are literally stronger on the way down. You muscles can generate more force eccentrically—when lowering heavy things—than they can concentrically—when lifting things.

Over the past several decades, numerous studies have established that eccentric contractions can maximize the force exerted and the work performed by muscle…that they can attenuate the mechanical effects of impact forces; and that they enhance the [good] tissue damage associated with exercise.

– R.M. Enoka, Cleveland Clinic Foundation

The takeaway here is not to stop lifting heavy things. It’s to note that our muscles generate more force eccentrically, so lowering heavy things may enable us to activate even more of our uniquely helpful type 2b fibers. It’s another great exercise option for us. Here’s how to give eccentric exercise a whirl.

How to Lower Heavy Things

Get warmed up by walking briskly or riding a bike for a few minutes.
Pick a resistance you cannot lift with one arm or leg—depending on the exercise—but can easily lift with both arms or legs. Let’s say 50 pounds.
Lift the resistance with both arms or legs. Each arm or leg is lifting about half the weight—25 pounds in this example.
Lower the resistance with only one arm or leg for ten seconds. Each arm or leg slowly—count to 10—lowers all the weight—50 pounds in our example.
Repeat until it is impossible to lower the resistance with only one arm or leg for ten seconds. If this takes more than six repetitions, gradually add resistance until it only takes six repetitions.
Smile because previously you would have stopped doing this exercise when you could no longer lift 25 pounds per limb, and now you are stopping when you can no longer lower 50 pounds per limb.

Eccentric training resulted in greater hypertrophy than concentric training. We conclude that eccentric fast training is the most effective for muscle hypertrophy and strength gain.

– J.P. Farthing, University of Saskatchewan

With this technique we can lower heavy things in the comfort of our own home or at the gym. But before we go get eccentric, there are two important rules to keep in mind.

First, if we choose to exercise eccentrically on machines at our local gym, then we should only use machines that work both of our arms or both of our legs together. This is the only way to have less resistance on the way up and more on the way down. If we pick machines working our arms and legs independently, we will lift and lower the same amount of resistance. That defeats the whole purpose. Think about it this way. Say you grab a gallon of milk in each hand, lift them above your head, and then drop the one in your right hand to increase the resistance for your left hand. That does not work because lifting milk jugs works your arms independently. However, if you lifted one milk jug with each arm, but then lowered both jugs with only your left arm, you would lower more resistance with your left arm than you lifted with your left arm. Resistance training machines which work both of our arms or both of our legs together do the same thing.

Exercise with a maximal-eccentric component can induce increases in muscle…with shorter durations of work than other modes.

– M. Wernbom, Göteborg University

Second, exercise eccentrically only when little if any balance is needed. Just as you would not pick up a giant flat-screen TV with two hands and then let go with one, you should only exercise eccentrically when no balance is needed.

Putting these two rules together, we could:

Do a push-up with our knees on the floor (to reduce the resistance), and then lift our knees and lower ourselves (to increase the resistance). Our arms work together to lift a shared source of resistance (our body), and little if any balance is needed.
Stand up and then do a body weight squat down—while hanging on to something for balance—with one leg. Stand back up with two legs.
Stand on something to assist ourselves into getting to the top position of a pull-up, and then lower our full bodyweight down. Lift ourselves back up with the help of our legs.

You can imagine all sorts of ways to adapt these principles to any sort of workout. Just apply these three simple points:

Lift resistance with both arms/legs. Lower resistance slowly with one arm/leg.
Pick a shared source of resistance.
Exercise eccentrically only when little if any balance is required.

As you start experimenting with lowering heavy things, keep in mind that…

More Muscle Worked Means More Recovery Time Needed

If we cut grass lower, we can mow our lawn less often. That is not some too-good-to-be-true gimmick. That is common sense. The more grass we cut off, the more time is needed to grow it back. Similarly, if we’re working more muscle fibers by exercising with more force, we can exercise less often. The more muscle fibers we exercise, the more time we need to recover.

How long your muscles take to recover is a great way to tell if you are exercising your type 2b muscle fibers. If you are able to lower heavy things on Monday and then lower the same heavy thing a day or two later, then your first workout didn’t work your type 2b fibers. If it did, those fibers will not be ready to go again one, two, three, four, or even five days later. Research reveals that type 2b muscle fibers need at least six days to recover.

Damage produced by eccentric exercise was more persistent than previously reported, indicating that more than 10 days may be necessary for recovery of muscle ultrastructure and carbohydrate reserves.

– K.P. O’Reilly, in the Journal of Applied Physiology

This is not to say that we should sit around in-between lowering heavy things. We should always heed the Primal principle to “move around a lot at a slow pace.” The point here is that if we’re exercising eccentrically effectively, we’ll be too sore to do much more than moving around at a slow pace for at least a few days afterward.

In Sum

My gym has two-pound weights. If you are using two-pound weights, how did you even open the door to the gym? What’s your dream? To pump up and open your mail?

– Dave Attell, Comic

CW’s “cardio” doesn’t work well because it requires little force and therefore works relatively little muscle. Lifting heavy things works because it requires a lot of force and therefore works a lot of muscle and our uniquely metabolically beneficial type 2b muscle fibers. Lowering heavy things can enable us to generate even more force and can be an excellent addition to a Primal lifestyle. Of course, do what works for you. My hope is that this research provides you with another option to assist with your long-term health and fitness goals.

Jonathan Bailor, The Smarter Science of Slim | facebook | twitter | youtube | podcast
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32 “Slow Living” Inspired Ways to Savor Summer

As we round out the last few weeks of summer, I’ve been thinking about all the potential left in the season. Although there’s admittedly less pressure to grab hold of every last warm day in my current locale, I remember savoring those final weeks of summer in Northern New England. Time was truly of the essence, and we didn’t waste a day with both fall and school on the horizon again. No matter where we live, I think summer inspires a leisure we more readily forgo in other months when routine often has greater hold of our days. In the spirit of Primal play – and last week’s Slow Living post – here are a few (dozen) ideas for savoring the upcoming weeks. Enjoy, everyone!

Have a Primal picnic. Surprise someone you love, or gather a rowdy group for a Primal inspired picnic. Throw in some Ultimate or beach volleyball, and you’ve got a party.
Go for a walk in the summer rain. Grab you wellies or – even better – go barefoot. Taste the rain. Puddle stomp. Let your mind daydream in the upside reflections of the sky.
Listen to the nighttime wildlife (e.g. the cicada, frogs, crickets, coyotes, etc.)
For the remaining weeks of summer and early fall, pick 1-2 veggies a week that are at the peak of their harvest and go to town experimenting with recipes. Bonus: buy a slew of them at the farmer’s market while they’re cheap, and freeze or can them for later in the year.
Camp.
Sit around the fire at night – fire pit, campfire, bonfire, whatever you have.
Host an impromptu dinner party or summer cocktail hour (al fresco of course). Gather some flowers from your garden for the table. Grill some shrimp in the shell and make a salad. String up some lights, set out some tiki torches, and let the party go well into the night.
Use it as an excuse to whip up your favorite Primal-friendly/-adapted summer drinks like sangria, bloody Mary, gin and tonic, vodka lemonade, or kicked up old fashioned sun tea.
Nap in a hammock.
Attend an outdoor concert or play.
Sleep as close to nature as you can. Even if you can’t camp on a given weekend, pitch a tent in the backyard, or sleep on the porch for a night.
Have some slow style “quality time” with your partner – whenever and wherever the mood strikes (don’t get caught!).
Create a piece of art – whatever you feel like doing in the moment. Don’t stifle the experience with imposed standards. Just see where your mind goes and follow it.
Visit a new park in your area every weekend. Hit all the stops from wilderness areas to botanical gardens, nature centers to arboretums.
Build toad or fairy houses with the kids.
Mud fight!
Spend a whole day (or at least an afternoon) on the water. Go surfing, rafting, water skiing, river tubing, boating, canoeing, kayaking, or any combination of the above.
Have a late summer vacation? Take a day (if not the whole time) without any agenda whatsoever. Wander, poke around, park yourself somewhere and see what happens around you. Get as far away from the tourist hustle and bustle as possible and see where the locals go. Seek out the seemingly mundane, nondescript corners of the place. You might just find yourself swept up in something that will become the best memory of the whole trip.
Take a vineyard tour.
Have an outdoor family movie night – with old family videos. (Public libraries or other facilities sometimes rent out equipment.) Pass on some family history and personal memories. Share funny and meaningful stories late into the night.
Plant something. Sure, it’s a leap of faith at this point in the season. Still, think bumper crop potential. Get in a row of lettuce, herbs, or some hearty root veggies.
Meet the dawn one morning – with a hike, a yoga practice, or a early morning fishing expedition.
Break out the water balloons.
Sit on the beach (ocean or lake shore) with nothing but a cool drink and an indulgent novel.
Spend the day among rocks. Skip stones, climb boulders, or go geode hunting.
Fly a kite.
Splurge on a few huge flower bouquets at the farmer’s market and decorate the house (and your office).
Hang your laundry out to dry. Remember (or discover) what laundry used to smell like before dryers and dryer sheets.
Build a fort (indoor or outdoor) with the kids – or for yourself.
Reclaim the art of the backyard game. I’m talking the likes of croquet, frisbee golf, flag football, volleyball, horseshoes, Kubb (Viking chess), badminton, lawn darts, or outdoor bowling.
Grill an entire four course meal, something totally new and challenging (pig roast, anyone?), or do a traditional New England clam bake.
Spend an evening stargazing. On that note, don’t forget the upcoming Perseid meteor shower this weekend! If you’re a city dweller, get out of Dodge and see the sky the way Grok did.

Thanks for reading today, everybody. Enjoy your day – and your final weeks of summer. Be sure to leave your own ideas for making the most of the time.

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When Listening to Your Body Doesn’t Work – Part 2

As I wrote last week, we can’t always trust what our bodies are telling us to do. Our bodies send us a lot of other confusing and even misleading signals – but they don’t always pertain to food. Any of our base physiological processes will manifest as messages, cravings, and desires. That’s how the body gets us to perform tasks (like eating because of hunger, drinking because of thirst, and sleeping because of drowsiness), by creating physiologically-driven desires and motivations. In theory, these motivations match up with what’s best for us in that given situation and improve our chances of survival. Our bodies mean well. When they tell us to do or not to do something, they’re doing their best with the available information. If you place yourself in an evolutionary novel environment, your body is going to interpret the situation as best it can. When it perceives a high stress office environment with free coffee on hand, or a world where doing nothing is a viable mode of subsistence, or the aforementioned bright lights in the dead of night, things get complicated and the signals can get a little screwy. Read on to find out how this can all play out.

When you’re tired but wired.

Obviously, if you’re awake-but-sleep-deprived because of excessive stimulant ingestion, you should go to sleep (or find a way to wind yourself down so that sleep is even possible), but that’s not something most health-conscious MDA readers need to worry about. However, if you’re reading this, you’re a consumer of technology, of monitors and message boards and other avenues of electronic stimulation. That’s fine, that’s totally normal and unavoidable nowadays, but overconsumption of technology can put us in a state of “tired but wired.” You’re sleepy, in that your body and mind are experiencing a serious sleep debt, but they don’t know it. As a result, you’re awake even though you should be sleeping. You’re alert even as your adrenals near their breaking point. You’re in the calm before the storm of impaired performance. You think you’re okay – because you’re not yawning left and right – but you desperately need sleep.

This is the body’s way of keeping us alert in a state of sleep debt. Your adrenal glands are called into action to perform a valuable, albeit costly service. Now, if you were to tax your adrenals every once in awhile, like during an all-night tribal dance ceremony, a nighttime hunt, or while sneaking up on an enemy encampment in the dead of night. you’d be okay. Your adrenals are there to be called upon when you really need them. But if you do it every night, or for a flippant reason (are those 2 AM infomercials really worth it?), you’re probably making a mistake. Your body won’t tell you this, of course, because it’s trying to keep you awake and alert since for all it “knows” you’re engaged in some serious stuff necessary for your survival, but you should probably ignore those feelings, turn off the screen, and get to sleep just the same.

When you never feel like exercising.

Everyone reading knows the feeling. You want to exercise, but you can’t seem to muster the strength to get up out of the chair and go to the gym, line up under the squat rack, strap on your FiveFingers, or leash your dog for even a short walk. By all accounts, you’d like to exercise. You know it’s good for you. So why don’t you? You’re not overtrained, because you haven’t been training.

The physiological mechanisms behind exercise motivation are still being teased out, but there’s at least one known “exercise motivation” hormone. A recent study found that when scientists increased the levels of a brain hormone called erythropoietin in one group of mice, those mice chose to exercise more than a group of mice with normal levels of erythropoietin. The most oft-cited role of erythropoietin is to regulate the production of red blood cells, which is why an exogenous form of the hormone is classified as a performance enhancing drug; it increases the number of red blood cells, which allows more oxygen to be delivered to the muscles during a race. As to how your levels might drop, erythropoietin is produced in the kidneys, and renal failure is characterized by severe anemia (lack of red blood cells) caused by an erythropoietin deficiency (plus severe fatigue). Anemia makes exercise pretty hard, from what I understand.

When you finally do force yourself to go for that walk or lift that weight or run that sprint, you feel better, don’t you? The remainder of the day is decidedly more pleasant, your food tastes better, your dealings with others run more smoothly, and when you do kick your feet up and rest, there is no omnipresent sense of guilt weighing heavily on your entire being. You feel better, and exercise ended up being a great choice, even though your body was telling you not to do it. We see this process displayed most prominently in clinical depression, a primary symptom of which is fatigue – a total lack of desire for exercise, fitness, and movement of any kind. But what’s one of the most effective ways to treat depression? Exercise. Depressed patients’ bodies are literally telling them not to exercise, but when they finally muster the will to do it, they’ll usually feel better. And that’s clinical depression. Imagine how just “feeling bad” (which also keeps you from wanting to exercise) can do the same.

When you feel like you need a steady influx of coffee to survive your stressful days.

The first thing many of us do when facing a stressful day at work or coming off a long night is head to the local cafe for a cup of something strong and black. Over and over again. And on some level, chugging coffee does “work.” If you need to drive without falling asleep at the wheel, or stay awake long enough to take a final exam, or go to work and be somewhat functional and receptive to outside stimuli, then yes, having that coffee will help you. But when you make it a habit, or a crutch, you’ll only make the problem worse.

The reason why is cortisol, the stress hormone. Coffee elevates it, so when you’re stressed out, which already increases your cortisol, and you start pounding the coffee, you’re going to compound the problem. Some studies have found that only hypertensive and borderline hypertensive people have increased cortisol responses to coffee at rest, but everyone appears to get the coffee/cortisol effect when under psychosocial stress.

Since coffee actually acts as a mild stressor that’s beneficial in moderate amounts (like a cup or two) at the right time (in the morning after a good night’s sleep), try to get a handle on your intake. Drink it “when you don’t need it.” Drink it when you’re not stressed.

When you’re feeling lazy.

Humans are a naturally leisurely bunch. We like (and need) sleep, play, and relaxation. These things aren’t just pleasurable indulgences; they are vital to our physical and mental health and well-being. Why, I just wrote about the pleasures of slow living last week. From time to time, when it makes sense, it can be a supremely rewarding endeavor to do absolutely nothing at all, especially if you do so consciously.

But unmitigated, uninterrupted laziness? Sloth? The complete and utter lack of desire to hunt, gather, look for a job, learn something new, go for a walk, experience the world, or even use your brain? This is not slow living. This is not “being here now.” This isn’t actually living at all. It’s understandable, of course. We’re hardwired to take it easy when the opportunity presents itself, because throughout our evolution, we needed to conserve energy as much as possible. We couldn’t step into a supermarket and obtain every vegetable imaginable plus the most perfect cuts of meat without expending a lick of energy, as we can today (doubly so if we drive to the market). We had to fight, claw, trap, ensnare, and root around for our food. Even though we were hardwired to relax, those biological drives to obtain food, shelter, and water – to survive in the here and now, really – overrode our inclinations to be lazy. Today, we can be lazy and still secure food, shelter, and water, so it’s all too easy to relax a little too much, too often.

It’s not even that laziness is a sin. It can be an effective tool. I’m all for chilling out, and I’m not moralizing here. It’s just that too much laziness is simply counterproductive to your well-being in a very utilitarian way. I look at it like I look at alcohol: If the urge to do nothing is negatively impacting your life and bringing you net unhappiness, you probably shouldn’t do nothing anymore (English majors, please don’t crucify me for that last sentence). Take an honest look at yourself and ask – should I really be listening to my body when it tells me to do nothing at all today?

Doing right by the innate physiological needs of a hairless, intelligent ape amidst rapid societal and environmental change is a big job. If your body is going to succeed, it’ll need your conscious brain’s help in deciding which messages should be heeded and which should be ignored. Together, I’m confident you can make the right choices and listen to the right ones.

So, any of these messages sound familiar? How have you dealt with them? Let me know in the comment section! Thanks for reading!

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Dear Mark: Industrial Duck, Topical Seed Oils, and Costco Rotisserie Chicken Bones

We can’t always make the perfect Primal choices. We simply don’t live in a world that affords us the opportunity, and short of being whisked away in the night by an elvish boy with green tights, a fairy companion, and the ability to fly, we’re stuck here for the duration. Let’s make the best of it, huh? I think I do a pretty good job at that, here on this blog, but sometimes there are questions that I have yet to address. Like what to make of industrially-raised duck, or whether or not you should still apply those seed oils – which you’d never eat if you could help it – to your face and body as moisturizers, or if carcasses from industrially-raised chickens are still worth using to make stock. These are questions that most people never even think about, but you have (or at least some of you), and I aim to provide a helpful answer.

Let’s go.

I know industrially raised chickens and cows are nutritionally not the best, but what about duck? Are ducks raised any better than chickens since they are eaten less frequently?

Briije

Unfortunately, ducks are also industrially raised:

Standard duck feed consists of mostly corn and soybean, with a mix of wheat “middlings” (an assortment of wheat bran, germ, and flour), vitamins, minerals, and sometimes meat and bone meal. Corn is by far the biggest contributor to calories. No bugs, greens, worms, or small fish for these ducks.

Standard operating procedure sticks ducks indoors to keep predators away (and reduce the need for open space). Ducklings (whose beaks are usually removed) get a half square foot of space, an allowance that eventually increases to two square feet as the duck grows.

In industrial duck farms, ducks generally have zero access to water (probably for the best; if they did have access to a body of water in their enclosures, it would become pretty foul very fast) save for the water they drink from nipple feeders. Ducks are water fowl; the fat which we prize so much exists to provide natural flotation. You could argue about whether or not ducks mind being in close quarters with other ducks, but I don’t think you can argue against a duck’s natural predilection for flapping around happily in a body of water.

Nutritionally, I’d wager that industrial duck might be “better” than industrial chicken. Ducks have far less PUFA and more saturated fat. I’ve also never heard of Peking chicken, so duck wins that one, too.

Dear Mark,

I’m hoping you can shed some light on the subject of seed and plant oils used for skin care. I long ago ditched chemicals and other nasties from my personal care products, but in light of what I have now learned about how unhealthy some oils are for our health, I’m wondering if the same goes for putting them ON our bodies as in them. A favorite body oil of mine contains grape seed oil, sunflower oil, apricot kernel oil, soybean oil, and rice bran oil. They’re supposedly all cold-pressed, organic, non-GMO sourced, which I know is a step in the right direction, but is it enough to make putting soybean oil on your skin a good thing? I’ll freely admit that I’ve had great results from this product, which is why I’m asking – I’d rather not give it up if I don’t have to!

Thanks, so much, for all you do!

M

PS: I can already hear the chorus from the comments… “Coconut oil!!” I’ve tried it, and it worked pretty good as far as moisturizing goes, but sadly I think I’m actually mildly allergic to it. Olive oil is a no-go for my skin, too.

I wouldn’t worry too much about your body oil. The reason why we (or at least I) recommend against eating those oils is the amount of omega-6 linoleic acid they contain. That is, introducing those oils to our digestive system leads to their digestion, incorporation, and the resultant pro-inflammatory cascade. Applying some soybean oil to your skin isn’t the same as ingesting that same soybean oil. Or is it?

Strangely enough, there is preliminary research suggesting that certain segments of the population – namely, preterm infants – might be able to absorb topically applied fats and draw upon them as a source of calories (PDF). And some older studies show that topical application of essential fatty acids (EFAs) can correct EFA deficiencies, such as with a nineteen year old patient subsisting on a fat-free nutrient infusion, or in newborns with low plasma levels of linoleic and arachidonic acids. It’s not foolproof, though, as other studies suggest that topical application is inadequate to prevent fatty acid deficiencies. It’s probably a case of the dose determining the response, as 100 milligrams/kg body weight of linoleic acid (a paltry amount) was insufficient to affect serum EFA levels in one study using infants.

If you’re bathing in the stuff, you might be absorbing an untoward amount, but I doubt you’re doing that. Plus, if it’s improving the health of your skin, I highly doubt it’s also promoting inflammation. If you’re really worried, just use some coconut oil and olive oil. (Just kidding.)

Hi Mark,

I guess this question is really about food quality:

Yesterday, I was short on time and, for convenience, I picked up a rotisserie chicken from COSTCO. I know it was still a primal choice from a meat perspective, but since it was not organic (and not even close to free-range) I threw out the carcass. A part of me wanted to use it for bone broth, but I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea since it had likely been treated with antibiotics and hormones. What do you think?

Thanks for all you do!

Beth

Ah, yes, the famed Costco rotisserie chicken. It’s $4.99, juicy, massively-breasted, pumped full of brine, and delicious in spite of your mind’s protestations to the contrary. It’s said that even Julia Child was a big fan.

It’s actually illegal to treat chickens with hormones in the US, so your chicken carcass from Costco won’t have any hormone residues.

Antibiotics are widely used in poultry farming, even the banned ones on occasion. And studies indicate that antibiotic residues do show up in animal bones. However, heating has the potential to destroy antibiotic residues in bone, although not as easily as it does in muscle meat. One study found that the only way to completely eradicate the presence of tetracycline in chicken bones was to subject it to 121 degree C autoclaving (a high pressure steaming) for 60 minutes; it did not test boiling. This study (PDF) found that boiling was effective at removing antibiotic residue from chicken meat, but I’m not sure that’s helpful for making broth, since some of the residues migrated to the boiling liquid (which you’ll be drinking, rather than discarding).

Broth is an important addition to the Primal way of eating, and I honestly wouldn’t stress about adding a Costco carcass to the pot every once in awhile. After all, the levels of antibiotic residues that show up in meat and bones from treated animals pale in comparison to the levels you’ll get from an antibiotics cycle prescribed by your doctor. And even though those chickens were reared on pesticide-laden corn and soy and antibiotic-treated water, their bones are still made of the same basic stuff as the bones of a pastured chicken. You’ll still get gelatin, calcium, and a host of other nutrients when you make broth. You just might be getting a dose of other, undesirable stuff, too. I think the value of the former outweighs the potential harm of the latter, especially if that’s the only bone-based dietary input you’re getting.

If that Costco chicken was just a blip, an aberration, and you normally make broth from better bones, I would have done the same thing you did.

Okay, that’s it for today’s questions. Let me know your thoughts on CAFO duck, soy oil moisturizers, and Costco chickens. Thanks for reading!

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