THE PRIMAL CONCLUSION

FOOD FOR THOUGHT...

Over the past century of rapid technological progress, we've figured out how to manufacture and package food and mass-produce animals, producing huge profits without regard to the health, humane, or green consequences.  Our government's laws, subsidies, and diet education efforts are seemingly driven more by lobbyists for the beef, grain, and dairy industries than by unbiased scientific evaluation and concern for human health.  It's unsettling how much decision making power is controlled by corporations that spend billions of marketing dollars molding and shaping conventional dietary wisdom in the direction of profits with little regard for health.  Wisdom about grains is being battled by billions of dollars in corporate and government propaganda pushing us to conform to dietary habits that we are not suited for, do not nourish us, and are downright destructive to human health.  

Stepping back for a moment to grab a wide-angle view of the wide angles in the buffet line at a Vegas casino, it's evident how ridiculously out of control this situation has become.  Americans look like one giant yard of fattened cattle ready for slaughter, complete with a significant percentage of 'downers' (a term for sick cattle that can't stand up; they are dragged with forklifts to slaughter)  If you are an "above-average" American family, you can congratulate yourselves while remembering that "average" is actually borderline obese (64% of American adults are classified as overweight, of which one-third are classified as obese)  America is heading steadily down the pop charts while larger, hungrier, more strategically minded societies such as China and India will soon surpass our economy.  Poor investment in education and technology in favor of billions spent on military are some key reasons for our impending downfall.  Imagine if the money recently spent on bank bailouts had been channeled into diet, fitness, and health education.  

Career men in their 40s and 50s take prescriptions left and right, families frequently feel that life is too hectic and stressful to align with the broad definition of health, and teenagers often feel overpressured and disconnected from parents.  Today's kids have too much body fat and too little physical fitness.  We eat too much beige stuff and not enough green stuff.  We avoid exercise and sit at desks all day staring at a screen in the name of increased productivity.  We go home at night and stare at a bigger screen in the name of relaxation.  We stay up too late and then awaken to the stressful screech of an alarm clock.  We are stressed by bills, traffic, air, noise, digital pollution, the future, and all kinds of anxiety we manufacture in our restless minds.  Our first line of defense when our genes react by these lifestyle habits is prescription drugs.  

While you can clearly discern my passion throughout this book for a more Primal way of life, I don't wish to be judgmental and assert that there is a right or wrong way of life for you.  If you are drawn to a life of inactivity, big-screen TV's, lavish desserts, and microwaveable meals, we can still be friends.  While I have dedicated my career to promoting health and being a motivational force in people's lives, I want to temper my enthusiastic message with the understanding that I'm simply presenting you a specific blueprint of choices and explaining the benefits of choosing them or the possible ramifications of disregarding them.

-Mark Sisson 

For more information on Mark Sisson, please visit his website at Marksdailyapple.com

"When you see the Golden Arches, you are probably on your way to the pearly gates." -William Castelli

AND here they are....

Gosh I wish these were pictures of flowers. I hope you read my disclaimer!

I will have some better ones next month, I will have the husband take some, but for now you've got some very Sahara-esque fleshy landscapes.

I have to hunt down a seamstress's tape measure now.

PRIMAL PART DEUX

Having studied the "Primal Laws" and absorbing some wisdom from Mark Sisson, I walked away from this book with several "a-ha moments."  The first and most profound for me is the simplest of all concepts.  Are you ready...?

Corn is not a vegetable, it is a grain!

I knew that, I just forgot.  All this hatred I have for High-Fructose Corn Syrup and all the corn by-products in the processed foods, and the corn-fed cattle that is supposed to be grazing on grass, and corn being the first ingredient in our beloved pet's food, and corn, and corn, and more corn.  It suddenly all makes sense why I should be so concerned that Americans who were tested by hair follicle showed a  make-up of 69% corn, whereas are European counterparts, who eat fewer processed foods and have banned the use of HFCS, tested at only 5%.  Because corn is a grain!  If it were a vegetable, there wouldn't really be much wrong with that now would there be?!  But if grains are what are causing the rise in insulin production, Diabetes, and other related health issues as Mark claims, well it sure makes a lot of f*ckin' sense now why Americans have such a high instance of Metabolic Syndrome and Diabetes as compared to other industrialized nations.

It's like having all the pieces of a puzzle and you know they somehow all fit together, but you can't quite make out the picture.  You see how doing that sea shell puzzle is helping my reasoning...LOL
Believe me, I have plenty more to say about America's dependence on corn but I will save that for a future post.

I would say my next biggest breakthrough concerns the origin of my insulin problem.  As I've mentioned before, I have yo-yo dieted nearly my entire life.  I have been on a diet of some sort from as early as eleven years old, quite possibly age ten.  I've been trying to figure out at exactly what age, and at what point, did my dependence on carbohydrates become so strong?  Thanks to Mark, I pin-pointed the time- frame precisely!  For years I grew up on bacon and eggs, meatloaf and gravy, steaks on the grill with mushrooms and onions and a baked potato, roast beef dinners, barbecue, chef salads with turkey and hard-boiled egg.  My mom would make kettles of vegetable soup with a chunk of meat in the center that would feed a lion in the wild.  Looking back on that time and having some renewed insight, I really don't think what we were eating was that bad.  If I had a few extra pounds on me it was for one simple reason- an adult-sized portion fed to a child.

Then something happened about a year or two after I finished high-school.  I was going to school full-time and working full-time and was just beginning to slim out from my pudgy teenage years.  The low-fat, high-carb diet came on the market and made every one of us feel like fat, wolf-eating, saturated-fat, mongers.  Suddenly a dinner of roast beef and gravy was being replaced with bow-tie pasta in a light tomato cream sauce.  Go ahead, have some bread, but remember to use margarine and not butter!  The egg at breakfast time was almost completely eliminated.  People were pouring out giant bowls of cereal in the name of low-fat and high-fiber!  Suddenly pizza was a health food!  Do you remember how many "authorities" came on TV to tell you that as long as you skipped the pepperoni you could have as many slices as you'd like?  And I did!  Suddenly low-fat snacks were all the rage.  Goldfish weren't just for old people anymore!  Remember melba toast and bagel chips?!  Bagels suddenly became a "healthy" breakfast choice.  Try using cream cheese instead of butter though!  O-KAY...You got to be kidding me!  This is probably why I refuse to follow a diet plan to this day!  I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is the day my carb addiction began and I've been losing the battle ever since!  Prior to this phase, I never even heard of a bagel!

Mark says that the push of low-fat diets has produced a high-carb intake.  People have given up meats, eggs, fish, and natural fats in lieu of grains, cereals, pasta, breads, and low-cal snacks.  They've also traded natural fats for "franken-fats" like hydrogenated and other trans-fats.  I can tell you with one-hundred percent certainty that I was better off eating bacon and eggs.  It may  have been a good idea for me to switch to a hormone free/nitrite free turkey-bacon instead of Oscar Meyer, but it was certainly a better choice than Wheaties.  Carbohydrates control insulin and insulin controls fat storage.  Simple as that!

The next biggest breakthrough has me questioning my workout routine.  It really struck a chord with me when Mark said...

While exercise moderates the insulin response, burning lots of calories through chronic cardio and then eating lots of carbs will simply make you carb dependent for energy.  Your body will overcompensate by tempting you to eat slightly more than you need to refill the tank as if it's thinking, "what if this clown decides to do this again tomorrow! I better be ready!"  Bottom line, you will not lose fat effectively with exercise driven weight loss, nor will you maintain fat loss, unless your eating habits moderate insulin production.  The minute the exercise stops, the eating often continues and the weight comes back!

TALK ABOUT AN "A-HA MOMENT!"  AMEN MARK!  AMEN!

I will finish up the conclusion to the Primal Blueprint on my next post.  Here's another fabulous quote straight from the pages of Mark Sisson's book.

"When it comes to eating right and exercising there is no 'I'll start tomorrow.'  Tomorrow is disease." -V.L. Allineare 

THE PRIMAL BLUEPRINT

I finished reading The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson.  Upon being diagnosed with Insulin Resistance, The Paleo Diet (very similar in concept) was recommended to me by one of our readers.  Both books were on my Christmas list and I promised to compare and contrast both plans in this blog.  For those unfamiliar, a primal or paleo style of eating, often referred to as "The Caveman Diet," is one free of, or greatly limiting, grains, sugars, and processed foods- the nemesis of anyone suffering from an insulin problem.

The basic premise is to eat foods that were only available during the Paleolithic era, thus before the introduction of agriculture and industry.  The belief is that our bodies are designed to eat foods that exist in nature and are not genetically designed to eat modified foods.  These days, modified foods can include everything from produce to pigs.  Foods are modified to produce more "appealing" characteristics like a redder tomato that ripens without softening, a pig that contains omega-3 fatty acids, or a sugar substitute that is free of calories and cheap to produce.  If you study GMF's you will observe that there is rarely a reason outside of profit for doing this.  Any "good" reason is certainly trumped by the dangerous affects of having made these genetic changes.

The severe shift in human diet of going from eating whole, natural, foods to modified, processed, foods is believed by many to be responsible for diseases like obesity, heart disease, Diabetes, and Cancer.  Both books share similar ideals with some minor differences.  I chose to read The Primal Blueprint first, because the author embraces not just the eating style of cavemen, but rather an entire lifestyle centered around our early species development.  He highlights just how far we've drifted from the lifestyle we as a species were designed to live.  I discovered early on that his mindset aligns with much of my thinking which prompted me to read this book first.

Mark has written this book to center around ten primal laws.  They are as follows:

1.) Eat lots of plants and animals
2.) Avoid poisonous things
3.) Move frequently at a slow pace
4.) Lift heavy things
5.) Sprint once in awhile
6.) Get adequate sleep
7.) Play
8.) Get adequate sunlight
9.) Avoid stupid mistakes
10.) Use your brain

Let me break the laws down as best I can, starting with "eat lots of plants and animals."  Mark encourages a high protein, low carbohydrate diet.  What makes his philosophy different from other popular protein-based diets like Atkins, is that he is not encouraging a completely carb free diet, nor does he support the elimination of many body healing fruits and vegetables simply because they have a sugar affect.  Instead, he encourages you to eat as many fruits and vegetables as you can, while avoiding things like bread, pasta, rice, cereal, crackers, wheat flour, baked goods, corn, sugar, soda, and processed snacks.  He distinguishes between proteins like wild venison and grass fed beef, versus heavily processed, nitrite-infused bacon and corn-fed beef.

Law number two says to "avoid poisonous things."  This primal rule is pretty self explanatory.  Mark encourages staying clear of heavily processed and preserved foods, as well as, chemically altered fats and sugars and of course, GMF's.

"Move frequently at a slow pace."  I found his take on exercise to be very interesting.  He argues that most Americans live either a completely sedentary lifestyle, or conduct workouts that are too stressful and taxing on the body.  He says, put down the remote control and get outside to do some walking, hiking, swimming, and all-around playtime, and skip the regimented, chronic, high-intensity cardio that is inspiring too high an appetite for carbs, repetitive injuries, and a constant trigger of your body's fight or flight response.  This one made me pause for a minute and go...hmmm....

"Lift heavy things" is based on the idea that cavemen would often have spontaneous bursts of intense physical effort like climbing rocks, escaping a predator, hunting, and carrying firewood or a heavy animal carcass.  Mark recommends short sessions of total-body movements like squatting, lunging, pull-ups, push-ups, rock climbing, as opposed to long, repetitive, sessions spent indoors on weight machines.

"Sprint once in awhile."  Try short, quick, bursts of running on grass, the beach, uphill, etc. when energy levels are high.  Mark encourages some time spent doing this barefoot to help develop foot, ankle, and leg strength citing the constant reliance on athletic footwear has a cause for weaknesses in the feet which eventually leads to foot, heal, and arch problems.  He also recommends plyometric drills or biking intervals if sprinting is not an option for you.

Law six is epidemic for most Americans.  Too little sleep, restless sleep, and the dependence on artificial sleep aides is robbing individuals of good health and well-being and affecting public welfare in the way of stress related diseases and increased occurrence of auto accidents.  Mark recommends getting more hours of sleep including taking a daily nap, making diet and exercise changes to encourage more restful sleep, and also creating an environment in your bedroom that is conducive to sleep.  He recommends a departure from digital entertainment that can be counterproductive to calm, relaxing, transitions into sleep.

When is the last time you goofed off?  If you are anything like me you pride yourself on your ability to multi-task, but is doing four or five things simultaneously really conducive to good health??  Is going at a one hundred mile an hour pace, seven days a week, really what's best for your mental, physical, and spiritual well-being??  My husband would ask me to watch a movie on a Sunday afternoon and it would be nine at night before I finally settled down to devote two hours to something for pleasure.  Even then, I was "watching" the movie, but had one ear perched to hear the oven timer, the other perched to hear the dryer buzzer, and my hands folding wash.  I just couldn't justify two hours of doing nothing when all these things needed to be done.  How sad.  At one point, frustrated with the number of times he'd been asked to pause the film so I could move clothes from the washer to the dryer he said, "can't you just be?!"  We need to get outdoors, exercise, play with our kids, and have some unstructured fun.  Number seven law, play more.

I think we've all recently heard about the health affects of not enough Vitamin-D, but did you know a lack of being outdoors in natural sunlight can also negatively affect your eye sight, mood, and interpersonal relationships?  Let's face it, it's just not normal to be indoors all the time.  Early man ate, slept, hunted, worked, played, and lived outside.  Now we go from our house, to our car, to our office, back to our car, and home again, day after day, sometimes without being in daylight for more than five minutes.  Number eight, get adequate sunlight!

Lastly, nine and ten say to avoid stupid mistakes and use your brain.  Well that means just what it says.  Our ancestors were reliant on their keen senses to keep them alive.  One lapse in judgment and they could fall down a ravine to their death or become a wild animal's dinner.  Now, have you ever noticed how oblivious people are to their surroundings?!  They don't have a clue what's going on around them!  It's a pet-peeve of mine and something I've been complaining about long before reading this.  Most people couldn't identify a suspect if their life depended on it.  Why?  Because they got their head buried in a Blackberry, their busy chatting on the phone, or just so lost in thought that they are not even present.  For example, our local celebrity fell face first into a giant fountain at the mall because she was busy texting on her phone.  Really!?  Sorry, but I am not interested in being a victim of a crime, an auto accident, or any other avoidable misfortune simply because I have my head up my ass.  Nope!  My brother and I (scarily similar) often joke about how few people could find their way out of a burning building because they don't have the aptitude, the speed, or the awareness to even know "hey, I smell smoke!"  You don't want to know how many times I have pushed my husband out of a store, or have left a public event, because I have sensed impending danger or have observed an unsavory character about to do something I don't want to be apart of.  People, learn to avoid stupid mistakes!

Tune in next time for part two of my review of The Primal Blueprint.  'Till then I will leave you with a quote from the author himself ...


"I am increasingly disturbed by the seemingly inexorable drift farther and farther away from natural, healthy, evolutionary behavior." -Mark Sisson

Pre-Disclaimer

I will post my pictures tonight, as my camera battery was dead yesterday evening and had to be put on the charger.
I am going to apply a pre-disclaimer...just so you know what you're getting into.
The images you are about to see may be too intense for some viewers; both younger and older audiences highly cautioned. Viewing side effects may include but are not limited to startling, gasping, nervous giggling, involuntary eye-twitch in one or both eyes, stomach ache, gastric reflux, gagging, vomiting, dizziness, obsessive-compulsive urges to check one's self in the mirror, staring into space, hysterical blindness, or spontaneously sh*tting one's pants. Accidental viewing may additionally cause heart palpitations, chest pain, cold sweat, and muscle tremors followed by loss of consciousness.

So prepare yourself folks, it ain't gonna be pretty!

FAT AND BLOATED

I acknowledge your sinus infection Tera and raise you one gastrointestinal condition!  The last couple of days have been interesting to say the least.  I am not one who generally has trouble in this area, well at least not in the way I am about to describe.  When I do have "bathroom issues" it tends to consist of me running to the commode clenching my cheeks (and I don't mean my face) as a hurricane of waste exits my body.  I acknowledge that this is not great dinner conversation and has definitely crossed into the "too much information" zone, but bare with me for a moment.

The last two days I have felt bloated with abdominal pressure and no bathroom relief in sight.  If you are fat there is no worse feeling because you already feel like a balloon on feet without adding thirty pounds of pressure to the mix.  It was horrible!  I felt like when I sat down my stomach blinded my viewing path.  It was uncomfortable to stand, uncomfortable to sit, and uncomfortable to move.  I had never really experienced this before because I rarely leave my body any choice.  When you stuff food in your face at the speed of light your body often has no choice but to release things.  Today was different.  I kept envisioning someone blowing up a balloon (maybe Tera), tying it off at the end, dressing it in doll clothing, and writing "Jennifer" on it with a Sharpie before tightening 'Santa's belt' around the waist.  Sorta like a big inflatable voodoo doll but instead of pushing pins into it (which would actually bring me some relief) Tera just leans back with a pin in her hand cackling..."ah ha ha ha!"  I guess I should have thought more carefully before writing the last blog entry :-)~

This experience literally rendered me useless for a day and a half.  The good news is I hardly ate for fear of explosion.  The bad news is, I barely moved.  While I'm sure walking, going to the gym, or any kind of exercise would have helped the situation, it was simply too uncomfortable to move.  Then because it continued overnight and into the next day, I began to panic.  My thoughts started to get the best of me..."what if it's not what I think it is?"  "What if it's my appendix?"  "My ovaries?" "My kidneys?"  Yes folks, I was naming organs left and right despite the fact that I new the origin of the discomfort did not jive with any of those things.  I took some Milk of Magnesia (against better judgment) and it provided me absolutely no relief.  Way to go Pharmaceuticals, keep up the good work!

Eventually the feeling subsided and I returned to a normal size which is still a balloon, but smaller than say a "hot-air" balloon.  I'm not sure what caused this.  I can't really say anything was out of the norm in my diet.  I realize that I am eating a lot more plant fiber and a lot less carbs, but I have been doing that for over three months.  So why the discomfort now?  One of the many side effects of my medication is constipation, but then in the name of great medicine, so is diarrhea, cramps, passing a monkey...so who can tell?  I'm just glad it's over!

On a small, rather unrelated note, I must tell you about my flowers.  They are miracle pedals!  These have to be the best flowers I have ever purchased.  I have had them for eleven days and there is absolutely no change in their condition.  It's like they're frozen in time!  They have started to open but I would have half expected Tulip petals to be all over the floor of my office by now.  See what happens when you give a gift to yourself!  Not bad for thirty bucks!  I didn't even change the water!  I do talk to them.  Funny, I can kill a houseplant in twenty-four months or less, but flowers I can do!  I am done with florists!  I don't know what they're doing lately but my days of ordering eighty dollar arrangements that show up looking like they've been to Saigon and back and die in four days is over!  I always try to support local small business but enough is enough!  Go to your wholesale club and have them bring you some from the back.  Think I'm kidding, check 'em out...

"No matter who you are, no matter what you do, you absolutely, positively do have the power to change." - Bill Phillips

  

Up the Ante!

I have been under the weather with the WORST sinus headache ever. It feels like my head is stuffed with cotton and I can't breathe. But I am pushing through and trying to feel somewhat human.

LOL, Jennifer, I see your ante and I call! ; ) I will post weight and pictures tonight or tomorrow. The weight will be the one I had done last week at the clinic for my DOT physical for work, because my two darling little troublemakeers broke my house scale and I need to go buy a new one. I don't know what they did, but all I know is I about passed out when I stepped on it and weighed EXACTLY half of what I expected. (was fooled for one brief, glorious, sparkling moment...)Diagnosis = a broken spring inside. I have to purchase another scale. Boo. So now, I raise you measurements AND visiting the doctor to get your meds adjusted. They aren't going to do any good if your body has adjusted to the initial dosage and your insulin production is still high. If it makes you feel better, I will be going to the doctor on Monday. I am 99% certain that I am having symptoms of PCOS returning, a sign of insulin resistance. Which means I too will be on the prescription pony. BLAH.
I am still on the yogurting experimentation path. I am on batch number 4, and I think I may have it narrowed down to correct texture. I have been 'brewing' 2% milk for 8 hours at 110 degrees, pouring off the excess liquid, stirring, cooling for 4 hours, then spooning it into cheesecloth to drain some more (greek method.) If this batch turns out well, texture wise, I am going to start experimenting with natural sweeteners-- evaporated cane juice sugar/honey/stevia and fruit. My kids have been testing the product = )
I got a good workout the other day pulling weeds that have started to grow in my dead grass. It was 2 hours of intensive digging and pulling. The back of my legs are still feebly protesting, but not in a bad way....kind of a 'we need more of this' way. I have also reconciled my differences with the Ellie, my elliptical. I figured I'd name her since we'll be spending so much time together. = )
Stay tuned for visuals on the beast I am fighting !