Real Work Matters! on Paleo Quick Tip of the Day podcast

I am a long time Paleo aficionado! I love hearing how sleep is ultra-important, how you should reduce stress and exercise daily, with stretching, meditation, and strength training specifically!

However, I do differ in some matters:  

SLEEP- no difference; just get a good 8 hours per night, in a blacked out room! OR MORE!!  I do best on 9 hours.  Your mileage may vary: just don’t fall into the trap where you think “If I only need 5 hours, I am better…”  

No, you’re not.  You are probably only delusional!

Reducing stress and meditation:  Well, this is a no-brainer- meditation is wondeful, and reducing stress can only help your life in a major way.  Just sit in a chair and meditate- don’t take drugs to achieve this otherwise laudable goal!

Exercise:  The older I get, the more I differ from standard, ancestral/Paleo doctrine here! 

Lift Heavy Things!  No.  Although this is standard dogma, it is just not so…

Do strength exercise YES- DAILY!!  Do Virtual Resistance Exercise, where you flex the muscles against themselves.  Do bodyweight exercises (pushups and pullups, especially on gymnastic rings to minimize joint damage).  Also, do isometrics against the resistance of a band or other immovable resistance- this beats heavy weights by a long way!  Situps and unweighted squats are wonderful, as is sprinting in brief ‘wind sprints’, particularly barefoot…

Heavy weights are completely unnecessary, and ultimately counterproductive.  Isometric pulls and pushes against resistance build real, functional strength- heavy weights are dangerous, leading to injury and joint damage ultimately- and are only superior in producing musle bulk.  

And this muscle ‘bulk’, while appealing as a skinny teen boy, for the remainder of your life is a detriment.  Later on, you want to live in the thinnest, yet strongest body you can!  Isometrics especially, but also virtual resistance, and bodyweight exercise can achieve this handsomely- and with a minimum investment of time.  

Weight training can bulk you up, but  should be abandoned within a year or two at most…

After that, it is a dead end- Bulk Bulk Bulk- there is no end!  And it does not strengthen the tendons and ligaments, as does bodyweight and isometrics exercise especially.  Those are the REAL DEAL.

You know what else is the real deal??

Nope, it’s definitely not aerobics/cardio/fake exercise.   STRETCHING is essential.  

Proper Paleo Diet is ESSENTIAL!     I’m not talking Keto, or Carnivore, or any other trendy diet:  Just Paleo- a smoothie heavy on veggies daily, and moderate protein also daily.   No grains!  Simple, and very, very effective for health.

And, there is one other thing that I recommend.   I know you won’t like it:

Hard Physical Work!!

It really does matter.  

I know a man who was a desk worker.  He was in his 30’s, and before he knew it his weight approached 300 pounds, although of average height.  

He started working in his families’s traditional business, which was masonry.  This involved crawling around the foundations of homes in the area, packing mortar within the stones that made up the foundations, and also lifting and fitting stones within the structure.  Isaac found that he thrived in this work, and that he really enjoyed it, hard as it was!

Within a year, his weight was 200 pounds, and this was without any change of diet at all!!

There is a strong lesson here.  Yes, diet is important.  Exercise is also very important!!  

BUT:  REAL, actual, PHYICAL WORK can transform you into what you would like to be.  

There really is no substitute for actual physical WORK, performed under duress- to get a job done!  It not only achieves the exercise stress needed for muscular and bodily improvement- it also builds the character and grit that transform you inside and out!!

Real work makes you a real MAN, or WOMAN!!  

There are no substitues.  

Just Do It!