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Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #38- Sleep is more important than exercise AND nutrition!


PQTD #38  Sleep is MORE important than exercise AND nutrition!

Can this really be true?  How can a little thing like sleep be so important, even more important than real, paleo type nutrition and actual perfectly paleo exercise??  What’s such a big deal about sleeping, which to most modern folks seems kind of like not being a hard-charging, drive-ahead sort of man or woman, and instead being a kind of... laid back loser, a hippie without a cause!

Au contraire my frenchophile friend!  Here is what a lack of sleep can, and will do to you:

Hamper your memory and learning ability
Cause you to gain fat weight
Makes you more accident prone
Affects your mood, and makes you depressed
Increases hypertension, stress hormone, and heart problems
Hampers your immune function, making you more prone to all diseases, including cancer and diabetes

Kind of a scary list, isn’t it?  And most people today in the modern world are not just mildly sleep deprived- MOST people are severely sleep deprived, and are really destroying their health, just as they would by eating processed, and fast food meals, twinkies, and washing it all down with soda pop!  At least that won’t KILL them in a few days- did you know that just a few days without sleep can result in DEATH?  And chronic sleep deprivation kills brain cells, and recent animal research suggests that these particular brain cells are never regained- we are just permanently made dumber.

All of this from just trying to prove what hard charging, dynamic, run rings around our competitors types we really are, by forcing ourselves to study, or work, or party hard all night, or stay up on the computer, or watching television, or all of the above...

Instead of getting ahead, we are merely making ourselves fatter, sicker, and dumber than our competition!


Think about it- we can live a really, really long time without food, or good ancestral style nutrition even, particularly if we are keto adapted, i.e. have become fat burners rather than sugar burners!  Even the leanest of us has weeks and weeks worth of fat on our bodies.  Even water can be lived without for a few days.  Without exercise we can live for many, many years- go to Wal-Mart and look at all of the living non-exercisers...

But Sleep is a different story. It is absolutely critical for not only our health, but our very survival!  And if you are striving for peak health, as I hope you are as a Paleo Quick Tip of the Dayer, it is absolutely crucial.

It is also simple, very enjoyable, completely free, and can’t be overdone, like exercise easily can be, as well as eating food can be.  It doesn’t sound that sexy as adding a chinup, or learning a handstand, but it is not only every bit as important as those goals would be, it is MORE important!

And so, look closely at my picture on your smartphone as I’m talking to you... gaze into my eyes... you are getting sle-e-e-e-e-py....

Check out this episode!

Sunday, September 21, 2014

PaleoJay's Smoothie Cafe Podcast #86- DON'T Fatten Yourself Like a Farm Animal!

It’s already happened to us all: we all have been ingesting antibiotics for years!  Primarily through medicines given us rightly, or wrongly and unnecessarily through medical doctors prescriptions since we were young, but also by eating animals that have been fed loads of it.

In the 1950’s, a new drug was developed- the first antibiotic, something that would kill microbes!  At the same time, it was discovered that this same drug, this antibiotic, would make animals gain substantial amounts of weight! Of course, this sounded great to farmers and ranchers, who are paid for the animals by the pound, and so they jumped on board.  They bought low grade, leftover antibiotic “slurry” from the manufacturing process by the tank load, and watched their cattle and chickens grow really fat, really fast.

And another thing: they noticed that the animals that were fed this antibiotic laced feed also seemed to not get infections easily, at least for the short life that they led up until their slaughter.  And so, the Confined Animal Feeding Operation or CAFO was born- animals could now survive in filthy, overcrowded conditions better, thanks to antibiotics!

In fact, in 1955 Pfizer sponsored a contest among pharmaceutical salesmen to see who could gain the most weight. (1955 was very different from today- it was a time when bigger was better, even in people!)
The salesmen who took antibiotics gained much more weight than those who did not.

The other thing that was happening, though, is that although the antibiotics were truly wonder drugs in healing bacterial infections, they were literally “carpet bombing” anyone who took them, destroying beneficial bacteria in the patients system that did helpful things like, oh, regulating weight and appetite, digesting and then releasing helpful compounds from foods that helped our mood, cognitive abilities, and many other facets of our lives.  And now, about 1/3 of Americans are obese, and about 5% are severely obese.  We weigh on average 25 pounds more than we did in the 1960’s, and children are much fatter and are even coming down with adult onset or type 2 diabetes in grade school!

So, if you want to “lean out” and go back to the 1950’s:

Only take antibiotics if you really need them for an acute infection.  Look at it as seriously as surgery!
Try to avoid CAFO animals, and go for local, pastured chicken and beef and pork.
Build  your beneficial gut microbe health by eating probiotics like real fermented sauerkraut and pickles, kimchi and kefir.  Consider taking soil based probiotics, but definitely get out gardening, and walking barefoot, and otherwise getting in touch with the soil- good soil is absolutely loaded with the microbes we evolved with, and are as much a part of us as gravity.  Without them we perish!
Feed your gut microbes by eating resistant starch!  This means undigestible parts of starchy plants like really green bananas and plantains, and potato starch in an unheated form.  Ideally, this means including these foods in a Paleo Smoothie made in your trustyVitamix on a daily, or near daily basis!
Keep the “Prebiotics for BAD bacteria” out of your system- this means keep out sugar, all forms of bread and pasta (which immediately turn INTO sugar) and all other forms of gluten, which is a harmful component of wheat.  Sugar feeds the bad bacteria that infects us, and makes us sick.   Also, skimmed milk is another form of sugar to be avoided at all costs- heavy cream is actually good for you though!

That’s about it.  If you do all of that- avoid sugar and grains, eat lots of healthy, pastured and wild caught animals, and plenty of fat from pastured animals, fatty fish like salmon and sardines, along with your daily Paleo Smoothie loaded with pastured eggs, pastured butter, coconut oil and milk, and loads of veggies and some berries, both you, and your gut microbes will be in healthy and happy synergy.

I feel it in my gut!
YOUR CHOICE- THIS?

OR THIS??










Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day 37 Save your teeth and skin naturally- with coconut oil!


pqtd 37 Save your Teeth and Skin Naturally- with Coconut Oil





Coconut oil is so good for you, internally, that to go for even a day without ingesting at least some coconut oil seems terrible to me- kind of like the old “a day without sunshine” quote! I mean, talk about a good, God made type of fat- one that nourishes every cell in your body by supplying them with lauric acid, for instance.  Lauric acid can help lower your cholesterol and blood pressure, keeps your arteries flexible and atherosclerosis free. Coconut oil is also a metabolism booster- I know when I first started adding coconut milk and oil to my Paleo smoothie, I immediately lost over 5 pounds I didn’t even know I had to lose- really!  It was all visceral fat, meaning around my internal organs, so it really didn’t show, but that is the most dangerous kind of fat for your health.  Thanks, coconut oil!

But, did you know that the external benefits of coconut oil are just as profound?

I always recommend having a jar of good, expeller pressed coconut oil in both the kitchen- and the bathroom. The one in the bathroom is a skin lotion par exellance!  If you whip it with a blender, and maybe put in a few drops of an herbal oil like peppermint or lavender, it will be airy,light and creamy- just put some on your hands when you get out of the shower, and coat your skin from face down to your toes!  NOTHING is better for your skin than this natural, coconut oil cream...AND the lauric acid and many other beneficial components of the oil will absorb into your bloodstream, right through your skin! (Makes you kind of leery of petroleum, chemical based skin lotions, doesn’t it?  It should- THEY are absorbed through your skin in the same way.)

Also, to shave with coconut oil is the best lubricant you can find- healthy and moisturizing, without feeling greasy in the slightest.  And, you can and should just leave the remainder on after shaving- men and women both! Coconut oil is both antifungal, and antibacterial...

It’s also great as a hair conditioner- just rub it into your hair and scalp, and leave in for a few hours, then shampoo.  Your hair will be soft, moisturized, and revitalized!

What about the TEETH?  Well, the antibacterial effect of a mouthful of coconut oil is amazing, not to mention that it de-acidifies your mouth, teeth and gums- this acidity is what really harms our teeth, encouraging the growth of harmful bacteria that erode our teeth and gums.  You can even brush your teeth with coconut oil... but, the very best thing you can do for your oral health period- I believe this even is more important than brushing or flossing- is coconut oil pulling!

Just take about a tablespoonful before you shower, and put it in your mouth.  Swish it around, or “pull” it through your teeth and around your mouth for the length of your shower, and shaving, and the rest of your morning routine- then, last thing before you leave the bathroom to get dressed- spit out the oil into the toilet.

That oil you just spit out is holding all of the bacteria, acidity, and just plain pollution that has accumulated inside your mouth. So now, you mouth, teeth, gums and entire oral cavity are rejuvenated, pristine, and on the way to perfect health.

And if you then take some more coconut oil in by way of your daily Paleo Smoothie, so is the rest of you on that same journey!


Check out this episode!

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day 36 The PUSHUP is the ULTIMATE exercise!

The results of pushups!

We all know about the pushup- a simple, boring means of exercise from grade school gym class- we all want to do spinning classes, Olympic lifts, Powerlifting and Pilates!!

Well, I’m here to tell you that, unfortunately for marketing, (the same marketing that tells you that saturated fat is bad, high cholesterol needs lots of drugs to “solve” it, and that whole grains are wonderful)- that the same marketing has been done to pervert EXERCISE!

Real Food is perfect food- God made foods are ideal for us and our health!  Duh!!

Grass fed meat, butter, free range eggs and pork, wild caught seafood, organic local veggies- ALL are vastly better for us than CAFO animals and eggs, pesticide riddled produce, and dairy that has been “processed” under extreme heat and deprived of its nutrients and enzymes...

BUT, REAL EXERCISE is in the same category!

The PUSHUP is the ULTIMATE EXERCISE!

Let me say that again: the pushup is the ULTIMATE EXERCISE!!

Better than p90X, better than Olympic, Power, or bodybuilding- better than spin classes, rock climbing, or Pilates- nothing is better for your health, physique, or your overall sound mind in a sound body than the simple PUSHUP!

Glad I got that out of my system.

Just like real food, the message has been lost because... there is nothing to sell!

Here is the real deal: just do pushups, twice per week!

This is like sprinting, with your upper body (your WHOLE upper body!)   And the benefits are legion.  Your rib cage and ALL of the muscles of your upper body, abs, and lower back all benefit.  Your cardio and “wind” improve as much as if you were on some stupid cardio machine.  AND your musculature develops in a totally natural and symetrical way, unlike weight lifting, which really does stimulate unnatural bulk and blockiness of the physique...


And so, for your fitness foundation, I, PaleoJay recommend:

Gymnastic rings are fantastic for pushups!
Twice per week, do a pushup workout!  Men AND women.

I do mine in front of the television... this is optional!

First, I do a set of virtual, dynamic, or self resisted exercises, which are basically a set of flexing my muscles, much as a bodybuilder would do, for repetitions...  I cover all the muscles in the body, deliberately and completely focused.  It feels great, and is the same thing that the ancient Greeks and Romans did to develop the physiques of the statues we still admire today.

THEN, on either Wednesday or Thursday, I do pushups:



Get the heavy duty version!
I do have a set of Perfect Pushups, which I think are wonderful since you can both go deeper into the movement, and also since they rotate to make it safe for the elbows and shoulders.  But, you can do it without just fine!

Do one set of pushups with your arms at shoulder, or medium width.  If you can do 5; do 5- then next time, do 6...

Next, do one set at a wider grip- whatever you can do, but do NOT go to failure- just whatever you can manage to do that leaves a little effort “still in the tank”.
You can also do L-sits on your Perfect Pushups! 

then, do a set with a NARROW grip- about 12 inches from palm to palm...  this set will be less reps!

Repeat
I like to do my pushups with my legs raised on the back of a couch, or other support, but whatever works for you at your current level is wonderful!  It’s just gradual progression...

One note: for women especially, but anyone deconditioned:

If you can’t do pushups, (as many can’t nowadays)- just do negative pushups!

If you need to, leave your knees on the floor...

But, you can also do negative pushups, which are the BOMB!

For a negative pushup, you just get into the top position of the pushup, and then just slowly lower yourself into the bottom position!  Repeat...

This simple strategy duplicates all of the results of a standard pushup- really!

I like to do this 2X per week- this gives ample recovery, and will quite simply do more for your body than hours and hours of the commonly marketed exercise systems (like crossfit, P90X, Olympic and Powerlifting) and all the other marketed and over-hyped exercise protocols I’ve heard about and seen advertised on informercials and misinformation on the internet; unfortunately even on Paleo Exercise podcasts...

I’m sorry this podcast is longer than I wanted, but I thought this information was incredibly important.  EXERCISE is being made WAY overcomplicated!

The ancient Greeks, or Hellenes as they called themselves, were the start of so many things! The founders of modern medicine, the ideal of a sound mind in a sound body, the very notion of an ideal human form!!

AND WHAT THEY DID WAS PUSHUPS!

So go ahead- be an exercise Hippocrates!  Do pushups!

Twice per week!!


Check out this episode!

Sunday, September 7, 2014

PaleoJay's Smoothie Cafe #85 Be a Paleo Redneck!



If you think about it, paleo folks are kind of old school rednecks- they tend to hunt and fish their food, are outdoors almost all the time (hence the “red neck”), tend to be rural dwellers... kind of like hillbillies used to be before welfare and Walmart.  Kind of like Jed Clampett and Jethro, or Little Abner from the old newspaper comic - quite fit and self reliant, since he provided for his own simple needs and that of his family and community all by himself!



There is a lot in small town and rural America that is the very best that this country and its civilization has to offer.  Our major cities are amazing in their size and structures, but at what cost?  They are increasingly unsafe and crime-ridden, bankrupt, and absorb most of the revenues of the country and each individual state they are in... large areas of our major cities are actual, living nightmares of smog, crime, bad chemicalized water and air, and hugely overcrowded.

Elvis is a good metaphor for what has happened to America.  The young Elvis Presley was a paleo redneck- a good kid from a rural, small town upbringing- slim and fit very good looking... and, of course, with a great ear and voice!

Then, just as all of the US started doing in those years after World War 2-

He got too much, too fast, and way too long!
Lil Abner

I mean too much of everything he thought he wanted.  And, he simultaneously lost what was really valuable to him- his privacy, his ability to walk around unnoticed, the quiet of the rural nature he was accustomed to, small town life, real friends that liked him for himself... he lost everything by gaining too much that was just glitzy and fake.

So did all of us, just to a lesser extreme.

We all take for granted in the western world now that we have enough to eat; too much actually. Too little movement, too much sitting, too much money even!  I mean, most would disagree, but think about it: in the 1960’s, families only had one car.  All meals were prepared and eaten at home.  One black and white television, and an AM radio in the car (with Elvis on it).

Now little kids have smart phones, computers, iPads, and big screen TV’s- and this includes welfare kids!  Cars are common to be owned by 16 year olds, and MOST meals are purchased at fast food and other convenience outlets.  And now, the husband AND the wife are expected to work full time, and much of the salary of the second income goes to taxes, which mainly go to support failing big cities...

And now most of us, just as Elvis did, have become fat, sick, addicted to all kinds of prescription and non prescription drugs, are depressed and feel like we have no time, so we stay up late to “have a life” and watch our big screen TVs, leaving us not enough time for quality sleep...
the Clampetts

So hey- the future is in our past!  We know what we need to to, and it is already just beginning to start to happen. The move OUT of the big metropolitan areas, back to smaller communities.  Small local farms and ranches, smaller churches, local credit unions and banks, local government over big government, state over federal, county over state...

PaleoJay Redneck
It worked wonderfully before, and it will again!  It won’t be exactly the same, but it will be quite similar, just with different and better technologies, but we will be restored and rejuvenated as- PALEO REDNECKS!

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day 34- Fat is Our Friend

Good Fats

PQTD #34  The One Paleo Food You Don’t Eat Nearly Enough of... FAT

The one thing that almost no one, including paleo lifestyle folks eats enough of is indeed FAT! Good, satisfying, God made fat, as in kill and eat the fatted calf, and cook it in cream and coconut oil!

I have just finished Jimmy Moore’s latest book Keto Clarity, and I must say that, although I am quite paleolithic in my diet, even I do not eat enough fat!  I eat a lot by normal standards, but not up to 80% of my diet by any means...  And, to get to a ketogenic (or fat burning) state where the body and brain is running on ketones, which are the human bodies perfect fuel- fat needs to make up at least 50% or so of the diet!

I mean real fat, as I said above: NOT crisco, margarine, vegetable oils, cool whip, or any other MAN made fake fat or food.  I mean heavy whipping cream, pastured butter, coconut oil, avocados, eggs (especially the yolks) full fat cream cheese, sour cream, bacon and cream cheese!  These foods, along with green leafy and cruciferous veggies and a small amount of protein from your grass fed beef, seafood, pork and chicken become the ketones that your body needs to run best on.  AND, once you get the process underway by eating enough fats to kick start your switch over to a fat burning ancestral human instead of a SAD sugar burning modern American, why then your body can supplement the process by easily accessing and burning your OWN fat stores!  Now this is a big win win.

Of course, we are also talking about limiting carbs here dramatically- but it is quite easy to do so, once you are getting enough fat, because you are never hungry - fat is that satiating.

The health benefits of a ketogenic diet are amazing- for brain health, depression, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, headaches- it’s almost as if you name it, burning ketones from fat is the cure!  Not to mention the obvious, that the more fat you eat, the more fat your body loses...counterintuitive, but completely true nonetheless.

So, make yourself a big meal of , oh, 4 pastured eggs scrambled with sour cream, a few bacon strips, paleo coffee with a teaspoon or so of coconut oil dissolved in it and topped with whipped cream...still hungry?  Oh, I forgot your daily Paleo smoothie- along with all the veggies, kefir, eggs, berries and all the rest you are also going to add in a big slab of Kerrygold butter and an avocado...

Sip that along with your little breakfast, and I absolutely guarantee you won’t be hungry for a long, long time- you won’t want of need a snack, and your body will start to get the idea that hey- Fat is our friend!  We don’t need it on our bellies and thighs because we can get it from our food anytime we want!

Check out this episode!