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Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #91 Green Exercise!


pqtd 91 Green Exercise!





This is another name for something that I’ve been recommending for a long time now- I called it Forest bathing; where a person would walk about in nature, in a forest as I do almost daily, or in any natural landscape, be it a beachfront, along the river, or just in a park.  It turns out that the University of Essex, in England, has been extensively studying the benefits of exercise in Nature for over 12 years!

They have lots of studies that they have done on the benefits of exercising in nature as opposed to in a gym setting, and the benefits are manyfold.  Primarily, mental benefits come from getting out in nature- just think about it, just as our paleolithic ancestors eating an ancestral, paleo type of diet, and we have evolved to do so as well- just as they slept long hours each and every night- so too did they spent ALL of their waking hours out in nature! 

It is something we have hard-wired into us.  We are creatures of nature,and are meant to be IN nature on a daily basis.  The best way to experience nature is by exercising outside, not just sitting in a chair, say, on a beach or in a lawn. 

I like to take a hike through my woods on pretty much a daily basis.  Barefoot is best, or now, when it is getting colder here in Wisconsin, I wear my Xero sandals, which are just a slim piece of rubber between my bare feet and the ground... later, when it’s even colder, I will wear my moccasins, which are just leather between my feet and the ground, allowing my toes, and every tiny muscle in my foot to balance and strengthen as I go. 
 
I think, beyond mental benefits such as alleviating stress and preventing depression and worry, such exercise has definite physical positives as well.  The hyper-oxygenated air in a forest or any plant covered terrain is wonderfully beneficial, as is the very sounds of nature: the rustling branches, the calls of birds and small animals, and the feel and crunch of pine needles and dry leaves underfoot.  Even the pollen from the trees is something that is good for us, since we have co-evolved with it since before time began!

In addition, by being outside, we use our eyes as our ancestors did, as they are meant to be used.  We look off towards the horizon, actively as we move, not at a screen right in front of our face, and we are engaged in, and actually a PART of nature!  This is something we need reinforced, in this day of artificial, sterile environments.

I sometimes, about once per week, sprint barefoot around my property, in short interval bursts.  This is great, and something I look forward to, usually on Sundays.

But for a daily Green exercise regimen?  Take a pair of small dumb bells, lately I’ve been using a pair of 7 pounders, one in each hand.  Then PUMP them as you walk!  This makes a leisurely walk, with plenty of time to observe nature as you go, into a demanding, total body workout.

Pump with high curls each step, or do side extensions for the deltoids as you go.  Stop periodically, and do a set of pushups on the dumb bells- it keeps your hands clean, and you can go lower on each rep!

You can even stand perfectly still, and do curls, or presses for awhile, and then resume walking- a great variation is to mimic the moves of cross country skiing with the bells making the arms work as hard as the legs.  Experiment!

Have fun with this!  It is demanding enough that it could be a stand alone exercise and mental health regimen.  Oh, it has a name, this dumb bell protocol- Heavyhands.  It was very popular in the 1980’s, and somehow has fallen out of the mainstream.  I guess it is just so cheap and easy, so doable by anyone, that no one figured out how to make money off of it!  (No expensive equipment, no pricey shoes or gym memberships)...

Oh- it also doesn’t take long at all!  15 minutes is plenty; trust me, it’s very taxing, but since all the “work” is spread around all of your limbs (PanAerobics), it seems easier.
So go ahead.  Go green!  Even if you’re NOT a Packer’s fan!





Another GREEN item!
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Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #90 Choose your paleo home wisely


pqtd 90 Live in a Paleo Friendly home


I don’t know why I am so inflammatory, but I KNOW that this little podcast will be so:

I am here to suggest that you NOT live in a big city, that you NOT raise your children IN a big metropolitan city (at least in the US, I know little of those overseas which may be very different), AND I also think you should not raise your family in the suburbs that surround these cities!!

Pause to hate PaleoJay... OK, let’s start again:

I am basing all of this on history, ancient history is a particular interest of mine.  When Rome was collapsing, nothing at all was wrong with her armies, or her strategies.  It was all her POLITICS.

Corruption at the highest levels of government, and the LIVES of those at those levels, had degenerated to the point where ALL that they could think about was immediate self-advantage, and how to manipulate things for maximum profit and gain. 

The original notions of the “good of the state and the commonwealth” were utterly discarded, and self-interest in the short term was all that mattered!

The troops were called back from faraway Britain, although everything was under control there, because the back at ROME, power politics were unravelling.  Again, this had NOTHING to do with the armies, and invaders, or anything else- it was all about the collapse of morals and law and order and a consensus about how to live!

Sound familiar? 

In modern America, I believe we are about there now:  our army is second to none.  But with NERO in charge (I mean  Obama here, sorry but it’s very, very true!) our army is hamstrung.

Our moral landscape has collapsed; the Knockout Game is alive and well in our big cities, where young men purposefully KNOCK UNCONSCIOUS old women and men as a GAME!! 

And our media purposefully IGNORES and tries to suppress it! 

In ancient Rome, MY ancestors, the Germans, were constantly raiding the borders of the country, trying to invade.  And during this period, the YOUTH (the liberals of the time) in Rome idolized the Germanic barbarians, and strutted about the capital in “trousers”, (which were considered uncouth and totally barbarian!) and wore “mustaches”, which Romans abhorred!
This is right in line with what is going on now.  Let’s go back a bit, to the 1970’s when Tom Wolfe wrote a very perceptive book called “Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers”.

In this book, Tom Wolfe was pointing out how liberal guilt had destroyed the ability of the ruling class to even RECOGNIZE that their decisions were literally DESTROYING the empire, in other words destroying WESTERN CIVILIZATION ITSELF. 

All in the name of “fairness”. 

This is a mirror image of what happened in ancient Rome:

The Germans “asked” if they could “settle” in Roman territory.  After much deliberation, the Roman Senate (under Nero!), said OK- but they said only for a limited time...

AND, over time, the Germans did NOT leave, and the armies were all called back to defend the capital, and the empire fell... leading to over 1000 years of darkness and horror, basically the end of western civilization.

My point is this: 

We are treading this thin ice in civilization once again. 
Back then, anyone who could retreated into rural, idyllic types of areas.  Like Spain, England and France- back then, these were really, really “out of the way backwaters”. 

And then, they built castles- fortresses! 

And this is the start of Medieval Life, although then it was just SURVIVAL.  I believe we are at a similar juncture in history.

The barbarians have been given an open door- illegals preferred!  The Roman/US purse has been supplied for unlimited welfare, and once again Western Civilization is ripe for the plucking!

Sad but true, all because of corruption,  and unwarranted guilt over doing really, really well for millennia...

My advice?

Get OUT of major cities!  Things are bad, and looking way, way worse.  Detroit used to be a “center of culture”; most major US cities are following that path!

Sorry, I MEAN THE SUBURBS TOO!  I hate what the suburbs have become- the rampant (hyper Roman) consumerism and flagrant slavish allegiance to “fashion” has recurred time and time again, and only leads to horrible crucibles for children to survive.  You only have to read David Copperfield to understand this...

Get your families into a small town, semi-rural or rural environment.  Somewhere where you KNOW your neighbors, what they do for a living, and you know them really, and completely, not just their Linked In profile.

I know a guy who has an internet business.  He can live anywhere he wants!  He used to live in NYC, but he has little kids and a wife...

He did just what I recommended!  He moved to a small town (really small, about 1300 people), in rural Wisconsin! 

If you can do it, do it.  Move to a rural, or at least a small city environment.  This is “Paleo” in a huge way! 

The “urban shuffle” SUCKS!  If you have children, even more so. 

Now, more than ever, anyone who wants to “sustain Western Civilization” had better move beyond the areas of corruption, those areas that NERO has destroyed, and go back to SMALL TOWN AMERICANA! 

It has not yet been ruined, and is the BEST HOPE FOR US ALL IN THE FUTURE! 
ALL YOU NEED TO DO, is get as FAR from ROME (the US GOVT.) as possible! 

Wait it out.





Check out this episode!

Sunday, October 18, 2015

PaleoJay's Smoothie Cafe podcast #114 Get Slim and Healthy FAST!



I know this post might scare you- in our modern, western culture the very notion of not eating is enough to scare the heck out of us!

It was not always so; in fact, it has almost never been so.  Hippocrates, the Greek founder of modern medicine, said around 400 BC: “To eat when you are sick is to feed your illness”.  Plato and Aristotle concurred, as have most other thinkers such as Ben Franklin, who said: “The best of all medicines is resting and fasting”.

Who do you think would recommend such a thing now, when everyone is in a constant headlong rush to get everything done, especially medical doctors!?  No, you have to treat yourself in this matter, as you really should be treating yourself in all matters of health!  In  fact, did you know that the third leading cause of death today in the US is “Death by Doctor”?

That’s right, just checking into a medical clinic for treatment ups your chance of dying tremendously, either by contracting one of the “superbugs” that now run rampant in most hospitals and are largely immune to antibiotics, a mistake in surgery, or most commonly, by a correct usage of prescription drugs!!  Legal drugs are far more lethal than illegal drugs, believe it or not!!

But that is another subject, for another podcast: for now, let’s just agree to heal ourselves- by FASTING!

You don’t have to fast for a full 24 hours or more!  But you can, no problem... just so you know, it is perfectly safe and actually very very healthy to do so.  When you fast, you do NOT “lose muscle”, but you very likely will lose fat.  FAST.

LOSE FAT FAST(ING)! And that is just one benefit.  When you fast like I prefer to do, which is every day, you just eat during an 8 or so hour window, and then fast the other 16 hours.  For instance, an easy way to fast is to just have coffee upon arising in the morning, and then eat your first meal at 12:00 noon.  It’s really easy to do this, at least for most people!

You are now in your “eating window” of 12 noon til 8:00 PM in the evening.  I usually wind up just eating lunch (around noon), and supper around 6 PM.  I go to bed about 10 PM, and get up around 6:00 AM, at which time I work out... working out fasted means your body is primed to shed fat and store muscle even better!  It also suppresses, not increases your hunger.

You could also do it the other way around, by eating a big breakfast of High Fat Low Carb (HFLC), which is basically the Paleo prescription, and then another meal at 2 or 4 PM.  Just so you sleep 8 hours (at least), fast another 8 hrs either in the AM or the PM, and make sure you eat a diet of natural, paleo friendly real foods and eliminate the processed junk and wheat and most potatoes and rice and other carbs!

One of the best benefits of Intermittent Fasting as this style of eating is called, is that your body goes into “autophagy” during that 16 hours of not eating or fasting:
This means that the digestion process can rest, and the body can concentrate on cleaning house; your body can eliminate “junk cells” like pre-cancerous cells, otherwise get rid of things it does not need or want.  Your body gives itself a housecleaning, ridding itself of toxins!

This is why fasting is promoted amongst virtually every traditional culture in history- because it worked wonders!

Now, of course, Big Food manufacturers and Fast Food purveyors have a vested interest in you eating constantly, from your sugary flake crap cereal and fake orange sugar juice in the morning to your Big Gulp and Big Burger on 4 buns with fake vegetable oil cheese, to your deep dish dough-boy pizza in the evening, and all those grain chips and doodles and pretzels all day long...

Get it?  Even when everyone in the world ate healthy, paleo types of ancestral diets, and everyone exercised out of necessity on a daily basis; even then they knew the crucial role played by fasting!
Think how much more we need it now!

So start out by Intermittently fasting- not necessarily every day, but just try it out, and see how easy it is, and how it simplifies your life, cutting out one more meal of preparation, clutter, time consumption and expense.  Feel your clothes gradually begin to fit looser.

Soon, you’ll be like me, and just automatically do it every day (or most days), just out of preference, because it works so well, and makes you feel (and look) lots better.

You might even decide to occasionally do a longer fast.  24 hours is not really hard to do, and many do it as much as one, twice, or even three times in a week.  And it you have a lot of fat to burn, this is a great way to go!

Just remember this- the more fat you have to lose, the less you should eat. Especially this means carbohydrates!And the more you fast = the less you eat.

The only ones who should NOT try this are children, and pregnant and nursing mothers!

Everyone else can get healthier FAST by FAST (ing)!

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #89 The Perfect Overall Paleo Exercise?


Heavy hands- the best paleo exercise of all!



I was a heavy hands guy from the beginning, in 1982 I got Leonard Schwartz’s book “Heavy hands”, and it made real sense to me!  I wanted to be aerobically fit, and I also wanted to be strong- before this I had jogged down our country roads for a few miles most days, and then lifted weights most other days...

It did work, quite well in most ways, but (this is my pre-paleo days!), my diet was sub-standard, and I started getting lots of aches and pains.  My shoulders started aching from heavy bench presses (and other heavy lifts), and my knees and feet started hurting chronically as well from the running- remember, back then the running was “long and slow”- a perfect recipe for joint degeneration!

I also have a book by Steve Reeves, the classic era symmetrical bodybuilder, who came out with “Powerwalking” at about the same time!  Steve had come up with a similar program, using small hand weights to up the ante and exertion from walking, and they were both right on target.

Steve’s book emphasized fast walking, while swinging hand weights as you go.  Heavy Hands was more in depth, emphasizing the curling, and lifting of the weights more as you went, resulting in a real “Pan-Aerobic” exercise, as it was termed then.

Both are great concepts, but the Heavy Hands version wins out- you can mimic cross country skiing, arm and leg together walking exertion, and endless variations of multi-limbed exercise!  I’ve always done it, periodically, since it is such a satisfying and result producing way of exercise, but now I am back in a big way!

I love to do my virtual resistance exercises, where the muscle provides its own resistance- (much better than weights, which injure your joints long term)!  I do that each and every morning, along with stretching and calisthenics and then rebounding, right in front of my television... very relaxing and energizing!

My weights I have relegated to weighing down my tractor for increased traction, since I believe they create more harm than good in the long run.  Besides, bodyweight training yields actually better results!

But, each afternoon, I look forward to getting out my old heavy hands weights and handles, and walk down my forest paths pumping the weights in curls, and mimicking cross country motions, punching, pressing, and other motions that add to my walking exertion and spread it over my whole musculature. 

It is like running with my whole body!


I love to sprint barefoot, and do in the warmer months every week, usually on Sundays. (It brings me back to my childhood, and burns fat faster than anything else, while strengthening my feet, and grounding me to mother earth at the same time).

But when I pick up my little dumbells (8 lbs is about perfect for me) and walk down my forest trail, curling my arms alternately with each step, I realize that this is total body barefoot sprinting.  Every part of my body is working at a high level of effort, but ironically- the perceived exertion level, i.e. the level of discomfort is markedly reduced!!

It is really hard exertion, but because it is spread across all the limbs (not just the legs) it seems much easier.

So, I can do it daily.  I can do it barefoot. (Although, since it is getting colder here in Wisconsin I have started to wear my moccasins, which are really just like barefoot shoes, just not so obnoxious as those Vibrams with the toes...)

AND it exercises my entire body, as I move about and enjoy Nature and enjoy the sunshine, fresh air, pollen and other aspects of “Forest Bathing”!

And so, my final point is this:

If you had to choose ONE single exercise to stay healthy and fit:
I would go along with Steve Reeves, and Leonard Schwartz.   Mr. Universe, and the psychiatrist.

Get some small dumb bells, pump them as you walk, and reap the benefits of Pan-Aerobics! 

Jog with your whole body.

Check out this episode!

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Paleo Quick tip of the day #88 Cook your paleo food slowly for fast results!


pqtd 88  Heat your food slowly   

I don’t mean all the time now, no one likes a grilled steak or barbequed chicken or salmon more than me!  But, for those of you who work in an office, or work out of a vehicle (as I did for many, many years)-to get a highly nutritious meal in at work can be really hard, and quite expensive as well!

Restaurant meals are not ideal; even good restaurants that serve what would be paleo friendly types of meals like meats, veggies and salads almost always use bad vegetable oils like soy, canola, and sunflower.  This is pretty much a deal breaker for health, and for me, just driving to and from the place is a time waster leaving me very little time to eat and savor my food!

I have chanced upon the “hot logic mini” lunchbox, and it sounds wonderful- you just put in your food, let’s say meat and veggies, bring it to work (either your office cubicle or your truck), plug it in, and go about your business.  At lunch time, whether it is 2 hours later or 12- your food will be perfectly, slowly cooked! 

The nutrients will all be completely intact, since slow cooking is the very best form of cooking for health, and you don’t need to share an office microwave that is filthy, and that no one ever cleans (except maybe YOU!)...

That is my tip number one of Paleo Quick tip of the Day- here is number two:

Make yourself bone broth in a crock pot! 

This is actually crucial, right up there with getting yourself a Vitamix blender and making a daily paleo green smoothie to fortify your health and life with! 

The difference between bone broth and plain stock is in the length of time the bones are boiled.  A few hours, you have good product: stock.  This is what you can buy in the grocery store. 



Get a good grass fed beef marrow bone, like I did yesterday, and putting it in your crock pot for about 24 hours or longer...that is bone broth, and that is one of the very healthiest things you can put into your body, ever!!

Once a week is a good schedule to shoot for.  Just put your marrow bone (I’ve found that marrow is even better than a plain old soup bone, but both are good), into your crock pot, fill with water, and add a bit of Bragg’s apple cider vinegar in as well, along with a liberal amount of sea salt.

Then, just plug it in, and wait...

You can either just dip it out the next morning and drink it along with your morning coffee and smoothie, or else you can put it into Ball canning jars to store and heat up on a daily basis, 16 oz. at a time, OR- you can turn it into an instant soup!  That’s what I did today-

I added in about 4 oz. of beef stew meat, a pound of carrots, a large sliced onion, and a few sliced potatoes.  (Rice is also good). 

A couple of hours later, I had the best, tastiest, most nutritious soup in the world! 

Bone broth will literally restore your joints with its collagen and mineral-loaded nutrients, and simultaneously fortify your bones as well.  It is inexpensive, simple, easy, and highly effective.  It is very expensive to purchase, and hard to find, but very easy to make yourself!  One of the ultimate lessons of the paleo diet is that we need to learn to live more like our grandparents and great grandparent. 

Eat real food, prepared at home and obtained either by growing it yourself, or from local sources that do.  Steer clear of convenience foods and fast foods, and be like the tortoise.

Slow and steady wins the race, every time!


Check out this episode!

Sunday, October 4, 2015

PaleoJay's Smoothie Cafe podcast #113 Build your Health from the Inside Out with a green, Paleo smoothie!

pjsc 113  Build your health from the inside out

That’s right- build your health naturally, and very effectively by imbibing a magical elixir each day:

 A Paleo Green Smoothie!

Sometimes I feel a bit funny that I harp on this one thing so much, but it really is that important.  Just by whipping up several days worth of smoothie in your Vitamix blender, and then drinking one glass that morning, and saving the rest in 3 or 4 Ball canning jars in the fridge; well, that brief bit of efforts not only supplies you with the perfect breakfast for most of the week, but it also insures your perfect health for the week!

Really, you have just supplied your body (and mind!) with complete and total nutrition, in a concentrated form, and in the totally natural form of real food.  This is key, since supplements made from chemicals are just a guessing game, and can easily be too much of one and not enough of another, and so put your body out of balance in proportions of nutrients.

Let your Vitamix do the chewing for you!  It will “chew” your veggies, and all else you put into your magical smoothie elixir, even if those foods are frozen.  It will all become an easily assimilable liquid, one which your digestive system can easily break down and take immediate advantage of.
The other thing your Paleo Green Smoothie will do is to take away your hunger!  It really does this well, since it is so loaded with everything your body is constantly crying out for, and almost never gets enough of, unless you eat a diet exclusively of grass fed liver, and lots and lots and lots of dark green leafy veggies.  And that means several BIG salads per day, and LOTS of chewing... did you know Paleo people of old had really strong jaws, but their teeth, while perfectly healthy, often were worn down from the endless chewing they needed to accomplish eating enough vegetables and little root tubers? Especially since this was before anyone knew to wash veggies or roots (or animal carcasses!), and just ate them with the dirt on!  That’s a lot of stress on your poor teeth...

With a smoothie, you just- swallow!  Save your chewing for the grass fed steak you have later, perhaps with a baked potato and just ONE salad. (For fun and taste!)

The Ball jars of smoothie are also perfect to take with you for an easy lunch or snack.  I like to couple a smoothie, a tin of sardines, and a square or two of dark chocolate for dessert... what a perfect fast, cheap, and really nutritious lunch on the go- no preparation, just put in your lunch box and go.

Go to my recipe on www.paleojay.com for the Paleo Green Smoothie, and get going.  If you don’t have a Vitamix blender yet, you can get one directly from Vitamix by clicking on the link at www.paleojay.com, again- just to the right side of the page.  This gets you the Vitamix of your choice, with completely free shipping!

And if you want the entire PaleoJay recipe for paleo living, in an organized form, my ebook “Perfectly Paleo Exercise” is on sale on Amazon.com for just $2.99- that is $5.00 off the regular price.

And all of those, my friends, are my Oktoberfest Paleo gifts to you.  Take them all, in good health!

Gemutlicheit!