Skimlinks Test

Listen to the latest episode!!

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #56 Recovering from Illness with essential oils, maximum nutrition, and REST


pqtd 56 Recovering from Illness with Essential Oils and Rest

As usual, I am doing this podcast from my own personal experience coupled along with research.  I awoke ill yesterday, on Wednesday February 25, with a bad (and worsening) sore throat, and a deep cough settled down in my chest!  I virtually never get sick, but it has been exceptionally cold here in Wisconsin, and I have been running around outside and inside stores, where I must have picked up a bug of some sort.

Yes, even Mr. PaleoJay is not immune to getting sick or injured- none of us are, no matter how much we improve our our bodily terrain or avoid bad situations.  And so, it is important to know just what to do when we do get sick!

When I realized I was sick yesterday, I got up and went downstairs,  and prepared a paleo green smoothie since the ball canning jars I had filled earlier in the week were used up.  ( I like to stock my fridge with a few days supply of the healthiest form of nutrition I can devise!)

Step 1 in recuperation: maximize nutrition, so the body can rebuild the damages and repair the defenses!

Next, I repaired to the living room with my smoothie and a cup of hot green tea in hand!  Wrapping myself in a sleeping bag that I love to sit beneath on winter days, I turned on Netflix and streamed away on my latest show- Spartacus!  I tried to stay as warm and relaxes as possible... then, remembering my essential oil diffuser, I went and got that, loaded it with water along with Frankincense and Lavender oils, and set it right beside my  easy chair, and again wrapped myself in my sleeping bag.

And that is how I spent my morning- Watching television, then dozing for awhile, then reading my iphone, then dozing... and so it went on.

If you know me at all, you know this is not my morning routine!  Normally, every single morning I start with a workout, and then I get going on stuff- writing, reading, updating, researching!  Walking, cooking, shoveling snow- just lots of movement and action.  I thrive on the feeling of accomplishment, as I believe most of us do.  But not this sick morning- the best accomplishment I could achieve would be to get WELL!

And so, that is largely how my day went- with purposeful rest, only the best in nutrition (I had little appetite), and finally going back to bed again, at a very early hour.  I set the diffuser with a fresh load of essential oils at my bedside, and went to sleep...

And by this morning, although the infection had resided deep in my chest, and I was developing a wracking cough at bedtime-

By the morning, after about 11 hours of off again, on again sleep-

My sickness had become a cold!  And now, it is 4 PM of that day, Thursday, and what had threatened to take me down for at least a week has subsided into just a stuffed up nose.

And so, I apologize for missing the podcast yesterday!  But, here it is today, only one day late, and I am largely sickness free-

Makes me feel like singing Everything is Awesome!

Check out this episode!

Sunday, February 22, 2015

PaleoJay's Smoothie Cafe #97 Tidy up your Life and your Health




I recently read a book called “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up- the Japanese are of decluttering and organizing”  by Marie Kondo.

This was actually a revelation of a book to me- in this slim volume (only about 200 pages) is a well organized prescription of just how you can totally organize your living space and all of your possessions!  It is a strange sort of book choice for me, since I didn’t even think I needed to go through my clothing, my books, and actually everything I own...but my daughter, and a couple of friends highly recommended it, and so I did.

And I am so glad that I did!  I am not a really cluttered person, but like in everything, there is always room for improvement.  I started with my outdoor shed, which is attached to my garage and just loaded with stuff- since it’s winter here in Wisconsin, I waited for a warm-ish day, and then began- I took everything out, and then, after adding a home made workbench made from old bathroom cabinets and a heavy duty slab of pressboard for a top, put it all back...perfectly ordered and with everything available, and MINUS all of the other stuff that resided there.

I would take Marie’s advice, and hold each item in my hands, and ask myself if I needed it, or truly wanted it, or ever thought I’d use it again.  If it was perfectly good, but I thought I’d never use it again, I thanked it in  my mind for serving me, but now it was time to let it go.  I got rid of so much junk, and in just a matter of several hours had a delightful workspace, even with the storage of many summer items like tillers, mowers, rakes, shovels, hoes, etc. etc.- all neatly organized and easily accessible.

I had “turned Japanese” like the old Cheap Trick song from the 1970’s, and was now enamoured of tidying!

I moved on to my closet, and learned to make decisions about every item of clothing I owned, and threw out very, very many things that were basically just encumbering me with useless, cluttered storage.  I learned to fold my t-shirts, shirts, handkerchiefs, socks, and everything else properly, and not ALL of my clothing items are available at a glance- nothing is stacked beneath something else, and every item is something I would really be sad at not having, and most importantly something that I can use and choose at a moment’s notice.  No searching or forgetting that something even exists anymore!  It makes living on a daily basis simple and pleasurable.

And what does this have to do with out HEALTH?  Actually, it is so similar in function that I couldn’t stop relating the two even as I read the book.  It is vitally important to our diet to clean out and dispose of every item in our cupboards or refrigerator that does not serve our health well!

Start with your cupboards- empty out your flour bin, your sugar bin- throw that crap OUT!  I have potato startch (to feed my gut microbes in my Paleo smoothies) in the flour bin, and I keep green and white tea bags in my sugar bin.  Go through your refrigerator- throw out anything that does not serve your HEALTH and well being- skimmed milk, anything low fat, industrial seed oils like margarine, corn, soy, canola, peanut oils- throw them away!  Salad dressings made of these oils- do NOT hang onto them in the name of frugality- these things are you health’s mortal enemies!  Throw out anything made by man, and keep what is made by God.

Make sure you have PLENTY of good, Paleo types of real foods to eat, all neatly stored and easily accessible.  To quote Marie Kondo in one of her best sayings: “The best way to find out what we really need is to get rid of what we don’t” .  This holds true for both possessions, and for foodstuffs!

And don’t stop there- “tidy up” your exercise gear as well! If you have free weights and barbells- give, sell, or throw them away!  You can keep a couple of light dumbells, and should make or buy a good kettle bell- but other than these weights are a mistake!  Heavy barbells and dumb bells can only compress your spine, gradually destroy your joints, and set you up for inevitable injury- heavy resistance is contraindicated for health.

In addition, weights are totally unnecessary for building your best strength and physique for your body type.  Go with Virtual resistance exercise, self resisted (one limb resisting against the other as in curls being resisted with the other arm), and body weight exercise like pushups, pull ups, hindu and pistol squats.  I still have all of my weights from years ago, and realize I have not touched them for over 8 years- in which time I have vastly improved my physique and strength levels  from where I was at when I was 57, and at the same time totally healed my weight lifter’s chronic knee, back, elbow, and shoulder problems!

Perfectly Paleo Exercise indeed!  Just as we are not meant by God and nature to live our lives inflamed, fat, and subject to the myriad of modern, largely autoimmune- based diseases like diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and cancer, we are also not meant to live with painful or ruined joints, chronic pain, and physiques that are bloated travesties, with bulging abdomens and fat butts (from heavy squats), and woman like “man-boobs” from heavy benches, and the many back, knee, and shoulder problems that are inevitable with such heavy training.

So, you don’t need a weight bench, squat stands, all the myriad of resistance machines and apparatus out there- get rid of them!

But, take this opportunity of newly available space and reduced clutter to get those few things that are really helpful and desirable to have in your lifelong quest for fitness- get your self a set of gymnastic rings to hang in your garage or basement, or even in your living room or to hang from a tree or playground structure.  With just these alone, you can build quite a physique and high level of
strength, easily and safely!

For my morning virtual resistance exercise, I have been using a towel on the living room carpet for years- I got myself a yoga mat, and it is a vast improvement for about $20!  I don’t need to use a pillow case to cushion my forehead on bridging anymore- also, it’s great for the yoga-like stretches I include in my morning exercise ritual.

Definitely, you will want a rebounder!  You don’t hear much about these in the “serious” fitness community- but there is no safer, more accessible, and effective way to address your overall cardiovascular health than by putting one of these in front of your television!  And vital for activating your lymph system for toxin and waste removal.

And the last thing I would add in the “Tidying Up” of your exercise equipment would be Perfect Pushup handles!  Just the safest, most ergonomically correct and friendly way to do your pushups, without putting strain on the joints of the wrist, elbows, and shoulders.

So there you go- declutter and tidy up!  Not only in your house, and garage, but in your HEALTH!



Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #55 The Clampetts were Paleo when Paleo wasn't Cool!


pqtd 55 The Clampetts were Paleo when Paleo wasn’t cool

I am old enough to fondly remember the Beverly Hillbillies!  An immensely popular show starting in 1960, when real hillbilly types of characters still existed in America, the show’s premise was that of a man, Jed Clampett, finds oil on his land “back in the hills”.  He sells if for 25 million dollars, which was even way more back in 1960 than it is now.  His kin folk convince him to move out to Beverly Hills, California, where they have “swimmin’ pools- movie stars!”  It’s a clever premise, and as I said, incredibly popular throughout the entire decade.

You might want to catch some of the old reruns, because you might pick up some “paleo tips”!  Granny is always cooking up some “vittles”, like possum stew with greens, and you know that the Clampetts certainly ate “nose to tail”!  Ellie May and Jethro were both amazingly fit and strong, presumably from eating such a wonderful natural diet, and from extremely active lifestyles.  Even Granny stayed fit and active, cooking and cleaning and washing, and even had the first “treadmill chair” in the Clampett truck- a rocking chair she’d rock as they all drove!

By contrast, the banker- Mr. Drysdale, and his wife are quite poorly adjusted, and Jane Hathaway, Mr. Drysdale’s secretary, is positively emaciated- three very neolithic, agriculture dependent people if ever there were any!  So are most of the folks you see from Beverly Hills- hyper civilized and largely phony, their so-called sophistication is shown to be hollow over and over by the authentic, early Paleo types of people that are the Clampetts!

So- men, get yourself a dirty, practical hat like Jed- the brim works as well as blue blocking glasses!  Go around bare foot like Jethro and Ellie (paleo yet again!), and do lots of physical work- hunt wild game, cook over wood fired pots in the open air, and wash your clothes by hand in the cement pond- Now, you are Hillbilly Paleo!  And, since many people don’t like the term “Paleolithic” about the ancestral diet and lifestyle, now you have another term to describe yourself and the way you live and eat:

“Me?  I guess I’m just a Hillbilly!!”

There- that’s much more socially acceptable!

Ya’ll come back now, y’hear?


Check out this episode!

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #54 Exercise is in your MIND- Virtually!


I’ll say it again, I have often enough- exercise is all about the MIND, not the exercise equipment!  The more high tech, the fancier the weight lifting apparatus; generally the less it facilitates the all important mind-muscle connection.
This last is the most important thing to achieve in developing your body!  Notice, I do not say how to lift the most weight- this is irrelevant.  What we want to do, if you think about it, is to move your body in a manner that develops you and your body to the ultimate degree possible.  NOT just “how much you can lift”, all of which is determined largely by your joint and tendon attachments, and your various limb lengths relative to your torso…

What you want is to develop your own body (and mind!) to the best, natural, strong, fit and flexible, athletic and symmetrical physique you can attain- the best possible YOU!

Lifting heavy weights will not do this- you will be led to progressive and irreversible injury, with ruined joints, weak ligaments and tendons, and lifelong pain!

Running long distances won’t do it- you will have ruined joints, low muscle mass, and a “skinny fat” body that at first can only run, but after a while, can’t even do that!

Crossfit, Olympic lifting, long distance running- they all are, long term, dead ends.

I think conventional bodybuilding is also a dead end of pain, given that nowadays heavy weights are a given, but I recently heard an interview of Arnold Schwarzenegger by Tim Ferriss that was like a tonic to me.  Arnold said that he eventually realized that, when he trained best, it was like a meditation.  He flexed his biceps, and completely connected with his mind, flexing just by imagining lifting a weight- the weight was superfluous!  By flexing, whatever muscle group he chose, and really imagining it, and making it as hard as he wanted, the stress on the muscle was ideal, and it would grow!

Virtual Resistance in action!  
This is virtual resistance training, and the best first step in building your body.  Next, add in self resistance training, where one limb opposes another by pressing against it, and now you develop your tendon and ligament strength along with your muscle strength- this is key to develop raw strength and power along with the ability to sustain it without injury.

If you use heavy barbells, for instance, to build bulky, blocky muscles- these muscles will quickly outstrip the strength of their “connectors” in the tendons and ligaments, and you are setting yourself up to have your rotator cuff, and your knee joints to rupture and tear. This is no joke!  Besides you winding up with heavy, saggy pecs from heavy bench presses (not a very masculine image, is it?) and a protruding abdomen and fat butt from heavy squats- you can also look forward to injured joints and torn tendons and ligaments from a misbalance between tendon and muscle relative strength.

There IS an easier, and better way!

Perfectly Paleo Exercise.  I mean natural, virtual resistance exercise (ala Arnold), followed by self resisted exercise, and then body weight exercise and simple stretching, all done in your living room or in your basement or garage.  Add in a once per week session using a pull up bar and/or gymnastic rings, and you will build the perfect, lifelong, functional and completely healthy and natural physique that is each of our birthrights!

And all without any injuries, expenses, commuting, or just plain PAIN that comes from things like Crossfit or other Big Gym Box experiences.  Do it yourself, at home, with your tribe, in your own cave or meadow.  It’s really not complicated, just like real health is not complicated- we don’t need medicines, we don’t need surgeries, we don’t need endless drugs and procedures!!

We need good, real, God made foods like grass fed meat and dairy- real organic veggies and fruits, real fatted calf fats like- the fatted calf!  Pastured dairy! Organ meats! A “tribe” to connect with- a belief in something greater than ourselves, OR ANY ONE GOVERNMENT!  Land to work- a garden- a space to get our hands dirty and do REAL WORK!  Not sitting in a cubicle, or driving around to meetings, or talking on the phone conferences… real work.

Our evolutionary heritage demands all of the above.  There is no escape, no one else can do it for you.  It’s simple, and it’s all do-able IN YOUR MIND.

Check out this episode!

Sunday, February 8, 2015

PaleoJay's Smoothie Cafe #96 What's wrong with vaccinations?





There is a real problem in how the Federal Government, Big Pharmaceuticals, and Big Medicine have been handling the vaccinations in this country.  Voices are shrill from those that are in power over US, the people in the U.S.- you MUST get vaccinated- if you don’t you are endangering everyone!  And so, the line of reasoning is tending in this direction- we will make you get them!  Government Control!!

This is a major problem, since those big 3 organizations of Big Government, Big Pharma, and Big Medicine are mainly concerned with PROFIT, not our health.  These are the same entities that have given us the Food Pyramid dominated by grains, sugar, and low fat everything.  Under these guidelines, the American people have become more sick and inflamed than ever before!

More importantly even than the effects of all of this bad food, and poor lifestyle of endless sitting, little sleep, and no real nutrition is what this behaviour does to our gut microbes- the tiny GOOD bacteria that we have co-evolved with, and that keep us healthy, improving the terrain of our bodies so that we can fight off BAD bacteria!

It’s similar to what happened to dairy in this country when we allowed big dairy to industrialize away from small farms, and crowd cows together in filthy conditions with no access to good grass and space to move, and instead loaded them up with spent grains from the brewing industry in the early 1900’s.  Suddenly, milk needed to be pasteurized!  Our cows were leading lives like most of us do today- not exercising properly, or sleeping, or getting out in nature as we are meant to, and being jammed all together in huge numbers- they were chronically sick animals, just as now we are all chronically sick.

Oh, and they also started to need huge amounts of antibiotics, and other medicines  and vaccines just to survive long enough to slaughter... Sound familiar?

 If we insist on living unhealthy, SAD types of lives, we will sadly have to take many medicines just to relieve the symptoms of diabesity and all related modern illnesses.  BUT, if we have tons of vaccinations when YOUNG, to ward off relatively minor diseases like measles, and mumps, etc.; we are setting ourselves up, since by compromising out immune systems and gut microbes to gain a perceived immunity to minor illnesses, we set ourselves up later for autoimmune diseases, cancer, and a host of really devastating diseases in our 50’s and 60’s, when we can’t really fight them off.

And the modern vaccine?  They are loaded with thimerosal, a mercury based preservative.  And just the sheer AMOUNT of the stuff: twenty years ago children received 18 vaccines between 2 months and 5 years .
Now they receive 49 total vaccine doses between 2 months and 5 years and during this same twenty-year time frame (as we have increased the number of vaccines) we have seen a huge increase in autism, ADD/ADHD, allergies, asthma, and chronic illness that cannot be explained on environmental factors alone. Many call it coincidence. It is not.
Russia banned thimerosal from children’s vaccines 20 years ago, and Denmark, Austria, Japan, Great Britain and all the Scandinavian countries have since followed suit.

“You couldn’t even construct a study that shows thimerosal is safe,” says a Dr.Haley, who heads the chemistry department at the University of Kentucky. “It’s just too darn toxic. If you inject thimerosal into an animal, its brain will sicken. If you apply it to living tissue, the cells die. If you put it in a petri dish, the culture dies. Knowing these things, it would be shocking if one could inject it into an infant without causing damage.”

As Kelly Brogan, MD puts it: Ancestral health enthusiasts know that immunity cannot be manufactured, that buoying us with synthesized antibiotics and steroids — best left to emergency medicine — is a practice that is only necessitated by neglect of nutrition-based immune support.

When agencies point out that vaccines have greatly lowered death rates due to common diseases, you should know that the death rate by these diseases fell by over 90% before mass vaccinations began. Sanitation practices implemented at this time are the true cause of falling rates of disease.  We should be thankful more to plumbers than to modern medicine!

Given all of the above, you probably think that I am totally anti-vaccine.  No, but like most of modern medicine I think we have gotten carried away by progress and modernity, and abdicated responsibility for our own health and wellness to hospitals and  clinics and doctors.  The only one who can ensure your own health is YOU!


 When human beings live according to their actual evolutionary biology, that is with God made foods of naturally raised animals and wild caught seafood, nuts, grass fed dairy, and organic vegetables and fruits, exercising  and sleeping appropriately they tend to get really healthy. Humans that live in this natural, ancestral type of condition are very, very resistant to disease, because they are not chronically inflamed from huge amounts of man-made modern super gluten wheats and grains, rancid industrial seed oils like margarine and soy, and they have also preserved and help keep intact a thriving microbial population inside their guts!  This last is incredibly important, as it is these gut microbes that keep us healthy and protect us from the many BAD microbes that are constantly working on infecting us.

But, since we do live in an age when disease is rampant- in addition, although this is hugely controversial just because it is politically incorrect, a time and place when mass illegal immigration from backwards countries is occurring, and exposing us to people who are carrying numerous diseases that heretofore were just about extinct in the developed world, I think a judicious, limited, and well spaced out choice of vaccines is ideal.

Get yourself a vaccine friendly pediatrician, one that really knows the pitfalls of the modern vaccine.  Consider each vaccine carefully, and so SLOWLY as you give them, with plenty of recovery time between each one.

Here is one such plan, as laid out by the Wellness Mamma:

Alternative Vaccination Schedule: Is There a Safe Way?
by The Paleo Mama
This is the alternative vaccination schedule that is recommended by our vaccine-friendly Pediatrician.
Alternative Vaccination Schedule (Select/Delay)
6 months DTaP (Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis)
9 months DTaP
12  months DtaP
15  months HIB (Haemophilus influenzae b)
18  months IPV (inactivated polio vaccine)
24  months IPV or Prevnar
27 months IPV or Prevnar
36  months MMR (measles, mumps, rubella)
48 months DTaP booster and IPV booster
5 years Whatever was not done at age 4.


Do not get the chicken pox vaccine, or the worse than worthless Flu vaccine!  And steer FAR clear of Gardasil!!  Unnecessary, and very dangerous!

Your choice- 
Don’t be one of those parents that feeds their kids cheeto’s and ding dongs, and buys them happy meals, and clears their own conscience by “ensuring” their health with plenty of vaccinations, medical visits, and medications!  Give your kids a daily Paleo green smoothie made in your Vitamix, go on family hikes, feed them bone broth, homemade stews, and real, God made foods.  These are the greatest gifts you can give to your most precious possessions, your children... and to yourself!
This?
Or this?!?

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Conan in Jail! A new audiobook story of Conan the Barbarian, a Paleo Man!

Today, I thought I'd give you all a little treat!  I wrote another Conan the Barbarian story, the character created in the 1930's by Robert E. Howard.  I am trying to be true to his original vision of the character.  I recorded it in audiobook format for your Hyborian listening pleasure, by Crom!



Jay

Remember, Conan is the ultimate Paleo Man!

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

pjsc # 95 Going to the Doctor for health, is like going to the Government for wealth!


pjsc 95  Going to the Doctor for health, is like going to the Government for wealth!

Sad, but true!  Most people today really believe that, if they don’t feel well, or even “quite right”- well, just go to the medical doctor- just pick your specialty!- and all will soon be well.  He will either give you the right pill, or injection, or give you the appropriate surgery, and voila- you are cured!

I think folks are finally starting to wake up to the ridiculousness of this general idea, but the truth is this is the way our health care system in America has been running for decades!  YOU are not responsible for your health- M.D.’s are!  So, we all have license to eat whatever we want, drive our bodies into the ground by not sleeping, not resting along with our “tribe” of family and friends, work ourselves endlessly to prove what hard-driver achievers we are- and then go to the medical clinic and say “FIX ME!”

And now, with the stupid Obamacare program, we can even make the Government pay for it!

The trouble is: the Government is US, the U.S., at least those that are the producers: the ones that pay the taxes that fund ridiculous government programs.  Like Obamacare, the government funded school lunch program mandates, and the “My Plate” FDA guidelines of insanity.

If you rely on governmental programs, which are funded by your tax dollars, to tell you how to be and remain healthy and vital- you are deluded.  These are the worst, most self-serving sorts of recommendations- of course, the Food and Drug Administration or FDA is just about protecting corporate interests in the selling of certain foods and drugs.  It has nothing to do with you, or your health.  It is just protecting the interests of huge food interests, such as big dairy, and prohibiting the competition of small, raw dairy producers in competition with huge scale, confined animal feeding operations with unsanitary and inhumane conditions.  And the DRUG enforcement is largely phony baloney- coming out against E-CIGS, that are by and large innocuous, and are a wonderful and very easy way for cigarette smokers to replace their horrible habit with one that is almost identical, and yet completely harmless!  What is not to like there???

And yet, governmental interests, via the FDA and others, are totally against e-cigs, primarily because their unstated intention is to protect the taxation of real cigarettes, which are a huge money maker.

REALLY? WHOLE GRAINS??!


AND, if you think the government will create wealth, or will provide for you in the manner of a rich uncle, you are sadly, sadly mistaken!  Your government will perhaps provide for you, but if you rely on that in the form of welfare, or any other program of governmental dependance, you will be sadly mistaken indeed.

Get on this bad train, and you will be doomed to a life of near total poverty; never having quite enough of anything, and disappointed in every aspect of your life- from control over your circumstances, to the ability to have self determination in your life; to realize your abilities and what you have to offer to your tribe!

In other words: You will never really be YOU!  You’ll only be a shriveled little husk of what “might have been”...

Determine yourself!  Ignore Big Government as much as possible- to quote Jesus: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s” - in other words: “Give Government what you must, but give what is truly important unto God, your tribe, and yourself!”

Bottom line?

Eat good, nutrient rich, God made foods!  Buy a Vitamix- drink a Paleo green smoothie daily, with good fats and greens and spices.

Exercise daily, with Perfectly Paleo Exercise!  Self resisted exercise, Visualized resistance exercise, stretching, and body weight exercise- gentle and very, very effective.  Check out my e-book Perfectly Paleo Exercise.

Sleep at least 8 hours per night- connect with your tribe of family and friends frequently- meditate or pray daily!

The strange thing is that at least 80% of the health benefits you will achieve are from just those three things!

God made foods!  No processed man made fast food crap.  Lots of greens, and real meats and seafood and good fats like coconut oil and grass fed dairy- a Paleo Smoothie is ideal!

Daily Exercise!  No canned programs like P-90 X or gyms or any other “fake” exercise- just NATURAL, gentle, real exercise- PERFECTLY PALEO EXERCISE!
 From 15-45 minutes per day, max!

Sleep and tribal interaction! Good sleep and talking, playing, and just plain goofing off with your tribal pals is really, really good medicine!!  Praying and meditating are likewise crucial parts of a truly well led life...

A life without big government- a life without big medicine- a life without pain, or endless treatments, or privation!

A Paleo Life!