The Non Diet Parts to Being Primal

So you have the general idea of eating primal, but is that it? Can it really be so simple? Almost. Most primal philosophy believe that you need to engage in some type of exercise, the general thought is that you should be able to run fast enough, jump high enough, climb far enough to save your own A$$. If you are older, or unable to do that its completely understandable. You should however be doing as much as you can. Mr. Sassy has a soon to be 90 year old aunt who insists on climbing the stairs up and down to the basement to carry up a stick of firewood at a time. She refuses any type of help in this saying its her exercise. The woman is as sharp as a tack and funnier then heck I would dare say she is in better shape then I am.

You should also be doing some type of walking (low level aerobic exercise) just as our ancestors did to forage, hunt for food and carry water. You also need to lift heavy things, whether this means throwing your kids over your shoulder and attempting house work or pumping iron at the gym there is a need to strengthen our body to make us able to "save our own A$$".

I will start by saying this, you need to play. Have fun, chase your kids, walk the dog, make a snowman, throw a snowball and run after a Frisbee. To enjoy life to have fun just for the sake of having fun. "Specific instructions for an unstructured activity are impossible (and counterproductive), but there is a basic guideline: anything goes. That’s about all I can tell you. Any further direction from me or anyone else as to how, what, and when would compromise the spontaneous nature of true play. It’s important to discover your own particular brand of play. Indeed, I think the desire for active leisure is hardwired into our genetics (just look at the benefits), only it’s often smothered by the rigors and pressures of contemporary adulthood."

Walking, we were made to walk, we have been walking for hundreds of thousands of years.

• Kids who walk to school are fitter then kids who don't.
• Older healthy adults who walk briskly live longer than those who don’t
• Healthy adult males who engage in short bouts of brisk walking experience lower resting blood pressure and postprandial triglycerides.
• Regular walking improves working memory in older adults.
• Walking improves longevity in women over 70 years of age.
• Walking programs improve cognitive ability in people with Alzheimer’s.

Walk slowly, walk quickly, walk uphills, walk downhills, in sand, over rocks. Walk as far as you can and do it often. Get outside or if its too cold indoors somewhere and walk, move your body and dance, get your heart rate to a level that's comfortable to talk that's right below can't talk.

Lift heavy things, women carried their babies around, they moved rocks, they hauled water, they carried animals they had killed, our ancestor lifted heavy things as an ongoing part of their day. Give it a try, carry a gallon of milk around your house 3x, it gets heavy fast. They lifted themselves into trees and climbed up rocks. You only need to do it 2-3 times a week, for 30 mins at a time.

Sprint, really, really fast. Sometimes our ancestors had to run for their lives, and they needed to be ready for that, by lifting heavy things around everyday, walking all over the place and playing. They were ready when the time came to get out of the way of an angry animal. You should be able to run fast enough to save your own butt. Once a week run as fast as you can for as long as you can, walk until you cool down, do it at least 8x, in less then 10 minutes.

Rest, recover, recuperate. Historic man did not go all out all day every day. He took a break, when he was tired he had a rest. If you sprint once a week and lift heavy things three times a week, that still leaves you with three days to play in. Golf, tennis, basketball, chasing the kids, hiking, whatever makes you happy and keeps you moving. Also in this point is sleep, get it and then get more. The average person needs around 8 hours of quality sleep every night. Go to bed by 10 and be up by 6, do the math and give yourself time to adjust but make sleep a priority during the 30 day challenge. Every once in a while you will slip up and not be able to get your sleep but hopefully if you are getting good quality sleep the rest of the time its not such a big deal. Sleep deprivation causes all manner of nasty problems in our bodies, we NEED sleep to reset our bodies and for our mind to process things. Not getting enough sleep at night? Noisy neighbor, waking kids, stuffy nose keeping you up? Nap, lie down and take a siesta, if your not getting good sleep at night at least try and lie down every day and get some wakeful rest if sleep is impossible.

Get sunlight every day. Vitamin D might just be the most overly talked about vitamin in this day in age, but that's because it is SO important. If you live in the far reaches of northern no where (like we do) you might have to supplement.

Avoid trauma. A broken bone was more then likely death if not being a permanent cripple in cave man days. Getting hurt is no fun, avoid it at all costs. Eliminate destructive behaviors, start wearing your seat belt, stop smoking, do not do drugs, don't drink to oblivion.


Avoid poisonous things. This should be even MORE simple then avoiding trauma, eating things that are inherently bad for us is bad!

Use your mind, challenge yourself mentally. Make friends, connect to your spiritual side, volunteer your time somehow, join a book club. Do sudoku, crosswords challenge your mind by do trivial pursuit. Start a blog ;).

Eating Primal

So this whole primal thing can be confusing. You might say well I don't eat grains or sugars or processed foods. You are cutting out bad fats. Which is FANTASTIC but what do you do to take that a step further, to really embrace primal eating? Mark over at Marks Daily Apple has a great article on this, plus about a thousand other articles and a book covering all this. So I will sum it up for you this best I can to help break it down and tell you what we do. Tomorrow I will break down the non food parts of this lifestyle.

Step 1: Avoid grains, sugars, processed and unhealthy foods. Even if its a "real" food like dairy and you don't feel good after eating it, AVOID IT!

Step 2: Stop being scared of real foods, butter, oils, red meat, eggs. You get the point, almost every food in history has been demonized for one reason or another. The simplest thing you can do for yourself is to eat real food, the closer it is to the way it grew the better. Eat fat, eat meat enjoy and experiment.

Step 3: Eat more protein. The average American eating an average diet tends to not meet their daily protein needs often enough. " At a minimum you need .5 grams of protein per pound of lean mass/per day on average to maintain your “structure”. If you are moderately active you need .7 or .8, and if you are an active athlete you need as much as 1 gram of protein per pound of lean mass. That’s at a minimum, but it’s on a daily average. So a 155 lb moderately active woman who has 25% body fat (and thus) has 116 lb of lean body mass needs 93 grams of protein on average per day (116 x .8). If she gets 60 or 80 some days and 110 on others, she’ll still be in a healthy average range. And even if she exceeds the 110, it’s no problem if she’s eating low carb because the excess protein will convert to glucose, which will reduce her effective carbohydrate needs (see below). At 4 calories per gram, that’s between 320 and 440 calories per day in protein. It’s not that much"
Step 4: Be wary of carbs. By not eating sugars and grains it is really hard to even come close to eating over 150 grams of carbs a day. Eating under 150 and closer to 80 is a sure fire way to keep insulin levels low and help our bodies burn protein, fat and stored fat as fuel. Sure potatoes and starchy root vegetables have a good amount of carbs and so does fruit. A medium potato has 31g carbs, an apple has 17g of carbs, 1 cup of blueberries is 21g of carbs. Even if you ate all of that its only 69 grams of carbs. The problem with carbs is twofold, one they increase our insulin levels. With the outlook being that in the next 10 years 1 in every 3 Americans will be diabetic or prediabetic this is serious. Two, our bodies will use carbs as fuel first every single time, our bodies can easily access and break down carbs and use them quickly while storing all the fat and protein we eat. Which means an hour or so later we are hungry again AND you stored away the fat and protein you just ate. That equals out to weight gain. Our bodies do not do well being overweight, we are programmed to be lean and fit. That is how we thrive and prevent disease by being healthy, ironically enough when you eat healthy your body follow suits and looks healthy.

Step 5: Do not fear fat, saturated fat and learn about cholesterol. Do run scared from bad fats. Bad? Canola, corn, peanut, sunflower, safflower, cottonseed, soybean and all trans fat anything hydrogenated fats are pretty scary too. Whats left? Olive, fish, coconut, palm, avocado, walnut, macadamia, sesame seed I will add here butter and animal fats as well. Fats are an amazing source of energy for our bodies. Our bodies are made and designed to use fat as fuel.

Step 6: Try to eat more of the animal. Make your own broth or stock from animal bones. Eat liver, heart, etc. We need the vitamins and minerals associated with these pieces of the animal we usually discard. The good thing is they are generally really cheap. The bad thing is, it takes a lot of nerve to start trying it.

Step 7: Eat more seafood, all types. Avoiding the higher mercury seafood and eating not much of the medium mercury.

I think that covers the basics, I also think it helps address the "what now" when you stop eating the grains, sugars and processed foods. Start small and change one thing at a time. It can seem really overwhelming to address this all at once so start with not eating processed foods. Then move on to avoiding sugars and grains. You get the idea, do what works for you or your family. The most encouraging part of eating this way is the immediate result of feeling so much better.