Yeah, and so thought the person who wrote The Vegetarian Myth, yet just because she didn't have a 'correct' diet doesn't mean it's null and void for everyone else. Been vegetarian for years and recently into veganism, friends who have been vegetarian and vegan for years, even friends who been into raw food and fruit diets, as far as I know they didn't and don't have problems.
Another primal snack:
This makes a nice trail mix... but to have a break from the usual, try this in a small bowl:
If you're lactose-intolerant like me, take a lactase pill before eating it. This reminds me of a bowl of breakfast cereal ... only 10 times more awesome. When I was a kid, I used to pour a little cream into my bowl of cereal to make it taste better... I've finally discovered how God meant breakfast cereal to be... only it doens't involve any cereal. ;-)
Clayton -
Clayton:Mark Sisson presents a case against persistence hunting as the primary method by which humans obtained food sources. Clearly, it was something they did but he believes the game had to be big in order to merit such massive expenditures of energy. Instead of just blindly expending energy trying to run animals to exhaustion, we more often used our massive, energy-intensive brains to track them, surprise them and trap them.
I think part of the issue here is that different people define "long-distance running" differently. Let me clear that, when I use that term, I'm not talking about running as fast as one can for long distances (several miles or more). Jogging for long distances also counts as "long-distance running" IMO.
With that in mind, let me also say that I don't think our ancestors were strict "marathoners". At one point in Mark's article, he uses the phrase "run aggressively for long distances" - I'm in agreement with him here. What the literature calls "persistence hunting" is actually closer to (if not the same as) what Mark describes as "[tracking] and [stalking] an animal (using your superior intelligence) with walking, occasional jogging and a few sprints here and there". That's certainly the kind of thing I have in mind when I use term "persistence hunting", and it's also close to footage I've seen of African Bushmen who still do it.
Hunting is never blind. Persistence hunting could only be an effective predation strategy if it success ratio was sufficiently high to offset the energy expenditure. A smarter animal will (ceteris paribus) be more able to successfully track prey that have run off out of sight. Jogging and even just walking, when combined with skillful tracking, can apparently let persistence hunters catch up to their prey a good amount of the time. The prey animals will apparently only run far enough to avoid the immediate threat, and then rest.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
Update: I'm down 11 pounds so far (215 this morning), looking better in the mirror (still have a ways to go to get to "LGN" status, however...). Note that I've engaged in only the most minimal exercise... casual walking, going up some flights of stairs a couple times a day and that's about it. I'm taking it easy on the exercise side until I get my weight down a bit first... in the past, whenever I've jumped right into the exercise regimen, it's always felt wrong, like I'm working way too hard ... throwing around 220 pounds is a lot of work.
Last week, I had a run-in with carbs. I went for dinner with some work associates at a kebab restaurant that served this giant plate of rice with a few scraps of chicken on the side and called it "chicken kebab". I ended up eating some of the rice. We went for drinks later but since it was a weeknight, I wasn't in the mood for alcohol so I had a strawberry lemonade. Next morning, I woke with the worst, knife-in-the-gut hunger pangs. Until that morning, I'd been experiencing no hunger pangs despite significantly reduced calorie intake.
Anyway, it's good to see some of Sisson's claims confirmed. I just got the book (shipping took a while and then my apartment office didn't give me notice it had arrived...) and I've started on chapter 1. I love Sisson's life wisdom - he pointed out the problems with goal-setting, which is an idea I've only recently learned from studying Epicurus and now Buddhism. Setting challenging goals for yourself is all the rage nowadays. But what happens if you fail? Or, what happens if you succeed and realize the goal was trivial (which is why you succeeded)? Either way, you end up disappointed. If you had done exactly the same actions without setting a goal, you would have derived the same pleasures from the activity itself without the disappointment afterwards. Sisson mentions the 'post-marathon blues' which, as a professional marathoner, he probably knows a thing or two about.
@Autolykos: Well, I'll read into the book and see what he has to say in more detail. The "persistence hunting" idea is used to rationalize ultra-long distance endurance running such as marathons and half-marathons as natural; these sorts of races clearly do not conform with ancestral human behavior. The marathon is named after a military exploit and it is my view that these sorts of ultra high-endurance sports are at least partly inspired by the military culture.
Clayton:@Autolykos: Well, I'll read into the book and see what he has to say in more detail. The "persistence hunting" idea is used to rationalize ultra-long distance endurance running such as marathons and half-marathons as natural; these sorts of races clearly do not conform with ancestral human behavior. The marathon is named after a military exploit and it is my view that these sorts of ultra high-endurance sports are at least partly inspired by the military culture.
I agree with you there. Even so, humans apparently have better running endurance than any other animal of roughly similar size. The physical and physiological traits I mentioned (hairlessness, sweat glands all over, etc.) seem geared towards this.
Glad to hear you're making progress!
I hope I’m not high jacking this thread, if I am I'll start another. I've been looking into the Primal diet for awhile now but I've had problems identifying things I would eat. I'm a rather picky eater and some of the things suggested in the primal diet I've tried and not liked.
I know I'm probably going to be mocked for this but here goes. I regularly eat cereal for breakfast, I absolutely love pasta, sea food and cheese. I often go the lazy quick route in eating a few things from a frozen box, manly things like breaded tenderloins and pasta/pizza items. I know full well I'm eating poorly and would like to change that.
My main problem is that I'm picky with foods that obviously I dont have a taste for or based on texture of the food. I've ate egg whites but the spongy like texture turns me off. Meats like steaks, pork chops and others that are variations of that tough pulled stringy texture turn me off as well. Fat in meat is another problem all together for me.
I know that I probably sound deranged by all that but I wondered if anyone may have some suggestions within the primal diet that I could eat for breakfast (outside of bacon) and different meals of the day. I know I'll probably never be able to go full primal because of my love for pasta, yet my goal is to trim out the insane amount of crabs I take in, while becoming healthier overall.
I know I'm probably going to be mocked for this but here goes. I regularly eat cereal for breakfast, I absolutely love pasta, sea food and cheese. I often go the lazy quick route in eating a few things from a frozen box, manly things like breaded tenderloins and pasta/pizza items. I know full well I'm eating poorly and would like to change that. My main problem is that I'm picky with foods that obviously I dont have a taste for or based on texture of the food. I've ate egg whites but the spongy like texture turns me off. Meats like steaks, pork chops and others that are variations of that tough pulled stringy texture turn me off as well. Fat in meat is another problem all together for me.
No one's going to mock you... your diet is in line with mine about a month ago. As far as the pickiness, I think you have to think about re-wiring your own thought-processes about food. Of course these foods taste good but you're probably not really understanding why they taste so good. I dare you to go through your fridge, freezer and cupboards and look at those favorite foods and find one that doesn't have sugar (in one form or another) or HFCS or some corn syrup derivative in it. If that food tastes so good, why did they need to add sugar? Take the sugar out, and you have just another, rather mundane piece of food.
The same goes for starches and grains. Try finding any favorite food in the grocery store that doesn't have one of grains, starch or sugar. You won't find it. Yet we know these substances are all hell on your insulin levels, muck with your "gene expression" and cause continuous weight-gain unless you work your ass off on the treadmill for every bite you take.
So, the real issue isn't just taste here, it's tradeoffs. Are you OK wearing your body out on the treadmill so you can eat a few bits of sugar-filled, starch-filled, grain-based snack foods? Or (like most of us, including me a month ago) are you willing to just "let your body go" and eat what you like while not killing yourself on the treadmill?
I know that I probably sound deranged by all that but I wondered if anyone may have some suggestions within the primal diet that I could eat for breakfast (outside of bacon)
Sure, I'm having problems with bacon right now because I just can't find any that hasn't been either pumped full of sodium or sugar. I'm going to look for a butcher shop to see if I can buy some natural, uncured bacon right from the butcher. Seems to be the only option at this point. Even the "natural foods" markets don't have bacon that isn't injected with either sodium or sugar or both.
I recommend you give prosciutto and fried eggs a try. The prosciutto is expensive as hell but if you have just one slice per breakfast it works out to around a dollar. Keep the yolk... that's primal. Taking the yolk out is non-primal, it's "modern", "processed" eating. Put a dash of hot sauce and salt and pepper the eggs lightly to bring out the flavor without getting too much "egginess". If you really can't stand the egginess, then whisk the eggs and make yourself scrambled eggs.
You can also cruise Mark's Daily Apple (google it) to get recipe ideas. His forums also have a recipes section.
Open your mind to the possiblity that your distaste for meats, fats and proteins has been conditioned; try giving yourself a chance to enjoy some really delicious high-fat cooking for a while and give your body a chance to "re-program" itself. You might find a long-lost taste for those kinds of foods returning to you.
Also note that the American preparations tend to be very bland and too staple-based. Don't just grill up a steak and slap it on your plate and start chawing on it. Grill some veggies on the side, pat the steak down with dry-rub and let it stand before you begin grilling it... spend a couple extra dollars to get a really good steak that has some nice fat marbling in it (the fat melts during cooking and simply moistens and tenderizes the meat). Serve the steak with some butter-sauteed fresh green beans with pepper and a dash of salt on them. Skip the potatoes and give yourself a small leaf salad with grape tomatoes instead.
and different meals of the day. I know I'll probably never be able to go full primal because of my love for pasta, yet my goal is to trim out the insane amount of crabs I take in, while becoming healthier overall.
Everyone's different and Mark's system recognizes that. Personally, I've felt so much better since giving up the grain-based carbs completely that I recommend you give the 3-weeks system a try... it gives your body enough time to "re-program" itself from the carb-based to fat-based energy and a cold-turkey elimination of the carbs will ensure that you really get to feel the difference. If you've been eating a carb-heavy diet, you will feel some fogginess about 1 week into it but that will clear and then you'll be fine. Instead of getting that hard-stop hunger signal if you don't eat every so many hours, you'll find that you can easily skip a meal any time you like without any major hunger pangs (you might feel a little tired or less energy but you can lie down and take a nap or go to bed early or whatever). This makes the intermittent fasting (IF) easy to do and really sheds the weight fast which in turn improves your overall feeling of health and wellness.
As far as the menu selection goes, try to work out a "survival menu" ahead of time... a list of menu items that you can prepare and are palatable enough to at least choke down so you don't starve. Have plenty of nuts and (smaller amounts of) berries on hand to snack on and tide you over the hunger stretches, particularly in the first couple weeks. Later on, these just become an elective snack. This survival menu may feel a bit ascetic but just stake out 3 weeks on your calendar and imagine you've joined a monastery. It's a new experience and something you're doing as an experiment in the process of discovering your own conditions for well-being and happiness.
On another note, I just purchased The Primal Blueprint Cookbook and Primal Blueprint Quick and Easy Meals from Amazon.
... Except I forgot to go through LRC to do it, d'oh!
If your going to try the primal diet will you also try a primal lifestyle?
Do you mean abandon civilization altogether? If so, then sorry, but I'm not that primal.
@F4M: Absolutely - it's the whole package, that's why Sisson calls it The Primal Blueprint. It's about getting in touch with your primal self in the context of the modern world. The circumstances in which I was born are not up to me. But how I react to them is. I can either follow the herd and fall prey to all the maladies of the modern Western lifestyle, or I can break away and live my life in a way that conforms more closely to what my genes expect from the world. Mark has condensed it down to his "ten laws" of the primal blueprint.
Posting survivalism videos from YouTube on an Internet chat forum is not primal. Go outside and soak up some sunshine or chop some wood.
What do you think I'm doing when I'm not online? I'm outside venturing into the woods. Even in the freezing cold nature is better then the cage of civ.
Tonight's recipe:
1lb hamburger
1/2 tsp salt
1-2 tsp garlic powder
1-2 tsp onion powder
dash of red pepper flakes (optional)
fresh ground black pepper
2-3 tsp turmeric (optional)
Mix. Form 3-4 patties. Heat skillet with 2 tsp of lard. Sprinkle a dash of garlic powder or chopped garlic in the pan; wait until sizzling. Place the patties in the skillet and turn every 2-3 minutes until cooked through to preference.
Place a slice of pepper jack cheese on top, serve with side of green salad (carrots + radishes + ranch dressing). I wanted to make homemade ranch dressing with Greek yogurt but I'm out of dill weed.
http://www.30bananasaday.com/profiles/blogs/monsanto-list-of-gmo-foods-to
More reason to go on a return-to-nature diet. I still eat veggies produced from ag but once my gathering skills are better I'm going to start eating wild.
Hello I just want to add my experience to this thread.
I have been vegetarian for 4 years, and vegan for almost 3.
I'm currently working at a government agency that regulates sheep production in Canada(I was vegan before I started working here, but seeing what I have has made me more glad I don't eat meat. Even officially organic meat is not actually organic. It was when organic certication was first brought out but since then it has slowly been erroded to allow for more medications and chemicals), people are always joking that I'm going to leak information to PETA, however they are mistaken. My primary reason for being vegan is to avoid the nasty chemicals which are present in meats.
Yes, I know chemicals are also in the fruits and vegetables we eat. However bioaccumulation causes toxins to be more present in animals the higher they are on the food chain. Thus you will find more toxins in a whale then Salmon, or the fish which a whale eats. Meaning if you eat the toxic vegetables that a cow was fed rather then the cow itself you will be ingesting less toxins.
Clayton had mentioned that eating a vegan diet may be over kill as it would take exteme disipline and self-suffering. In most cases this would be true. This life style just happend to find me rather then me seeking it out. My girlfriend was vegan before I met her and her father is one of the best chefs in town, in turn she is an amazing cook. Thus she was more then happy to cook for me, so becoming vegan actually took less effort then if I had cooked my own conventional food.
Man, I've totally fallen off the wagon. I'm back up to 217. It's frustrating because food is the first thing to go out the window once life gets stressful and problems start coming up. I got to get back in the groove again. Thanks for bumping the thread, Philip.
Get up.
Dust off your knees.
Give it another go.
It was shortly after this thread began that I gave up the grains. The changes have been noticable. I have not felt this good in years.
Dairy is murder for me. I have acquired lactose intolerance.
Thanks for the encouragement guys!
Ever since going primal, I've found tomatoes, coconut, onions and mushrooms palatable. Inversely, I now find inpalatable major soda brands (Coke, etc.) and major candy brands (Hersheys, etc.) Also, I can look at anything bread and tortillas and not generate an urge to have some.
The primal lifestyle has changed how I look at food. I no longer eat till I'm full and, instead, eat till I'm satisfied, and I only eat when I'm hungry--for the most part because of hanging out with friends and dating. Btw, as far as alcohol, I can drink the "hard core"/"manly" liquors now; however, I now find the sugary drinks inpalatable.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
Man, I've totally fallen off the wagon. I'm back up to 217. It's frustrating because food is the first thing to go out the window once life gets stressful and problems start coming up. I got to get back in the groove again.
Haven't read much on this thread so maybe this has been answered; are you trying to do a diet or are you changing your fundamental philisophical approach to diet?
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
@vive: Change my approach - but that's harder than just going on a diet since it requires changing one's attitudes about food. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we're overweight and unhealthy because we assign food too little importance. Just three weeks back, I was feeling great; but I was thinking about food almost all day - what to eat for breakfast, what to eat for lunch, what new recipe to try for dinner. The quality of the food you eat is a reflection of the care and thought you put into it.
Problems have come up (as they always do) and the first thing that goes out the window is that time I was spending thinking about what to eat. But yeah, I'm going to pick up and get back on track.
OK, good
because dieting is a joke.
It's very hard to do a fundamental overhaul - and the more dramatic the more difficult. But as long as you have it as your goal (and have concrete ways to think and implement yourself towards the goal) and put it in your mind you are changing your life style in a certain way - it is very possible to do, maybe even almost inevitable.
The number one piece of advice I could give is don't get dicouraged by failure. All success is learning from and how how to deal with failure and actually "showing up" and doing something. Also, always enjoy the ride to your goal, no matter if you fall or not - it should be a fun thing to change from poorer habits to more interesting and better ones.
As far as "thinking of food all day"; that's going to happen when you do anything like this (this would even happen if someone required a new hobby, or whatever) that's just the way it works. It may be best to think of it as something of a "honey moon" phase.
Three observations: I had been fasting for about 24 hours when I went out to eat with friends. I ordered Thai beef fajitas and breaded fish nuggets, of course this came with noodles (or rice) by default, from one of those healthy food court places. I didn't plan on eating the noodles to begin with, so I started eating the beef and the fish, and about half way through I couldn't eat anymore because I felt satisfied. I then fasted for another 24 hours thereafter.
Second observation: Some people may think that going primal would be expensive because you're buying organic, grass-fed, and free range instead of cheap grain products. I certainly thought I'd go broke eating grass fed steaks everyday. But I've found that since you're actually eating less that you're actually buying less food at an overall lesser total cost to satisfy yourself.
Third observation: Has anyone else noticed that high-end restaurants mainly serve steaks and fish with butter and greens, and that sides of potatoe products and grain products are actually seperate menu items? Compare this to lower-end restaurants where the entrees include rice, beans, noodles, pastas, breading or buns.
Also, check out the following people. None of them were starving for lack of ability to purchase food; they're fit at an old age, so I wonder what they ate.
Btw, it's Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller.
i've been meaning to start the primal lifestyle. i can literally feel the inflammation in me when i eat unhealthily. i feel the best way to do a complete lifestyle change would be to have someone do it with you, and to hold each other accountable. i can't seem to find anyone who wants to do this with me. does anybody have any tips for starting and sticking to this? do you do the 80/20 or are you 90/10, or even 100% primal?
i'm going on vacation in about 3 weeks. i'd like to start this tomorrow, and keep it up until that time, and possibly even during vacation (will be a roadtrip, so i don't know how possible that will be). i think a cool idea would be to have an anonymous journal online where you can write what you have (or haven't) accomplished that day, and people can comment. the constructive criticism and/or support could probably help a lot of people do things such as this. of course, they'd have to be honest. does a site such as this exist? i think james altucher runs a website kind of similar. you put in goals, and then each day check off the goals you actually accomplished and can earn badges or stamps or something. i'm not sure of the website name, or if others can comment, but has anyone here tried it out?
I'm not exactly 100% primal/paleo but I have made efforts to try out some of what is suggested in the literature. I've reduced my carb intake with very little bread/pasta (every few weeks I may have bread during one meal), jacked up the fruit and vegetables intake (at least one serving of vegetables with a meal, daily spring mix salad, fresh fruit smoothie with banana every other day etc), increased the lean and fatty meat for protein, and added supplements like potassium, B-Vitamin and fish oil. Processed foods high in sodium, vegetable oils etc are pretty much avoided whenever possible; at the minimum I'll have a frozen supermarket meal every few weeks. Even then it's tricky figuring out what's exactly being put into your supermarket foods. For snacks I have nuts like pecans, walnuts or baby carrots/berries.
The fatigue I've had frequently from prior years has steadily been decreasing (mainly due to a high caffeine intake as well as taking prescription adderall. Now I take Vyvanse and have just reduced the dosage, looking to eventually wean off of that as well and thus be on no pharmaceuticals whatsoever) and I have ever greater amounts of energy and alertness. I've also maintained a steady weightlifting and cardio routine since the new year. And oh yeah, ending 4 years of cigarette smoking helped a bit too (quit in 2010)...
Slightly OT, but I can't stress enough the importance of keeping the body in motion even after exercise, ie stretching and maintaining flexibility. Despite the dearth of solid scientific evidence supporting stretching's usefulness, I did find that a long period of neglecting to stretch after running for a month gave me some pretty obnoxious IT band pain. While I can't conclude that this was the sole reason I developed knee pain, I reintroduced stretching exercises into my routine from a few weeks of physical therapy and it has died down. Neglect of your flexibility can debilitate you if you aren't careful and responsible with how your muscles are being treated.
ay man why not try doing parkour? flexibility is good.
“Since people are concerned that ‘X’ will not be provided, ‘X’ will naturally be provided by those who are concerned by its absence.""The sweetest of minds can harbor the harshest of men.”
http://voluntaryistreader.wordpress.org
@Cortes: Careful with the running. Running is way oversold in terms of its benefits and the costs are much higher than advertised. I've known a few people who run religiously yet always struggle with weight and are almost constantly milking mild to moderate injuries.
The simple fact is that the human body was not designed for LSD despite all the propaganda. Sisson doesn't talk about why there is so much propaganda but I have a theory (I always do!) ... I think it's the MIC. Marching, quick-stepping and jogging/running have been a mainstay of military PT and discipline at least since the time of the Romans. But we didn't evolve to march or engage in endurance battles. We evolved to mostly walk at a slow pace, lift heavy things from time to time and occasionally sprint really fast (fight or flight). We used our massive, energy-intensive brains specifically to economize on the need to use our even more energy-intensive thighs. Brains over brawn.
Anyway, I'm sure you're familiar with that info, just putting it out there for lurkers.
And I'm still stuck at around 214. Life issues keep intruding and upsetting my attempts to get a smooth daily routine. One huge positive is that I can isolate the effects of unhealthy grains and sugars on myself. It's very empowering to understand cause and effect in one's own diet. Eat X, feel good, eat Y, feel like crap. Pondering past experiences and their causes is helping to give me true motivation to make right choices.
Except cardio is the most effective way of using fat for fuel. Taken with a low carb diet, sprints and intervals during one's cardio session are even better than pure distance running for fat burning. I have no interest in proving or disproving the benefits of LSD and distance running. I am not sure what you know about your acquaintances proves, other than the fact that those people may have diet issues as well as neglect to stretch and maintain their muscle flexibility.
I just wanted to say that I think rationalising 'primal' or 'paleo' diets by invoking hunter-gatherer ancestry is somewhat misguided. There have clearly been significant evolutionary changes in human physiology in relatively recent periods. People whose ancestors came from agricultural societies and who eat a modern agricultural diet have much lower rates of diabetes, alcoholism, heart disease, iron deficiency and cancer than do those from a less agricultural background (and who eat a modern diet). Non-tropical peoples seem to have less of all these things than do tropical peoples. Those of European ancestry are also mostly lactose tolerant.
This doesn't say anything to prove or disprove any possible health benefits from primal diets, but the belief that there has not been any dietary adaptation to agriculture over the past 10,000 years doesn't really hold up.
Let me guess, you have recently read The 10,000 Year Explosion.
Nope, I haven't read it at all, though the title sounds familiar. I can't really comment on it.
Thanks, but i do the multivatims because i avoid the sugars in some fruits. On the weekends i'll have a fruit once in a while, but i mainly do it for extra vitamins. My edurance is pretty strong since i eat a lot of carbs and i swim so often. I love pork and beef but only on the BBQ grill. I live in a apartment with not patio or open windows so i can't really grill like i want to. I honestly don't know much about the primal diet. i heard Woods talking about it and it seems pretty understandable and enjoyable. What needs to be understood is that everyones body is different, and depending on goals certain foods provide different results. Now im not going after Primal (specially since i know little about is), but it took years for me to find what works for me and what i enjoy. If you could, please provide a article explaining primal eating so i can further understand.
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/primal-blueprint-101/#axzz21N0pkk8L
Thanks. Lol i was already on the site before you sent it. I'm looking up grains a little more. If i find carbs from vegatables that i enjoy i'll definitely switch. Need to read up on what vetables carry good amount of carbs.