Avoid Modern Witch Doctors- Do it Yourself podcast

I don’t really mean to be provocative, but I must state the obvious: the awe in which many hold medical doctors is ridiculous.  I see it constantly: doctors, and the medical clinics and hospitals that employ them, are so special and so necessary- Science brought to our lives!

Nonsense.  Most medical professionals know a very tiny amount about health.   What they do know about is disease, and that is what they focus on.  And what they do, when you come in to be examined, is basically run over a checklist that they tick off:

How old is the patient?  50 or greater?  Let me see:

Statins  High blood pressure medications   Probably a stent, next appointment…

And so it goes.  Just a checklist, written by the pharmaceutical companies, nothing more.  This is what medicine has come to.  Don’t cure the disease, just treat the symptoms, and sell drugs.  Really!

Doc, I have a pain in my knees when I kneel down in my garden.  What should I do?

Doctor-  “Knee replacement would be my advice!”  

 “And my hip hurts too!”  - Hip replacement is the answer says doc

And I have acid reflux, and I can’t sleep at night, and my gut bothers me something awful.  Also, I’m really depressed, and tired all the time, and I am about 50 pounds overweight…

Doctor nods, as he is writing.  “Here is my prescription list for you!”  He hands over a list of lengthy prescriptions, of anti-depressants, statins, a future appointment for joint replacement, and a long list of other drugs, all guaranteed to treat the symptoms named, but with no mention of the side effects which are far worse than any of the symptoms.

The further sad part about all of these medical professionals, is that the vast majority tend to be left leaning, globalist liberals.  Why is this??

Well, I think that a large part of it is guilt.  Just as Hollywood actors examine their own lives, and think ‘Hey- I am really kind of just a pampered idiot who gets paid a lot of money because I am good looking/trendy/lucky/ or in the right place at the right time/connected- I just want to be valued for my goodness!”  

So, they virtue signal that they are ‘down with the cause’- they feel the pain of minorities (always a winner), sexual deviants (who doesn’t love a deviant?), and billions of illegal immigrants who only want to relocate to the advanced West, where they can get welfare payments that vastly outstrip anything they can ever build in their own squalid, nightmare, corrupt countries…

So too with medical doctors and their clinics.  

“Wow!  We get so much money, both from pharmaceutical manufacturers whose drugs we push, and the insurance companies that reimburse our patients’ bills so much that they are eager to undergo expensive surgeries and drug treatments- because they perceive it as FREE!”

“And, truth be told, we have incredibly easy jobs, where we just follow charts, telling us which surgery/drugs go with each condition, and each age.  Just a checklist, really.  I feel guilty, kind of, since I make so much money just prescribing from a checklist, and not really curing anything at all!  

I think I’ll support the downtrodden! Then, I will be a virtuous person, and be justified in taking easy money for very little work, and really no healing whatsoever…  I will drug, and then no one will feel any pain, and my job will be done!”

Perhaps a bit oversimplified, but still I believe basically spot on.  And so, I make the common sense recommendation to avoid your doctor as much as possible.  Dentist too.  

Take care of yourself- really work at it!  Exercise daily, with strength training using your own body weight and isometrics.  Eat an ancestral diet, as close to what our ancestors ate long ago as possible.  Avoid fast food and processed foods completely.  

Walk daily, in nature, wearing minimal footwear, without cushioned insoles and raised heels.  Stretch methodically every day.  Don’t floss (it pushes the bacteria deep into your gums- bad dentist advice!), but swish coconut oil around in your mouth each day as you shower.  (Kills bacteria)

Experience the weather!  In cold weather, go out hiking.  Hot weather- sprint barefoot on the grass!  Weather extremes are like strength training for your whole body.  Get a red light to simulate a sauna, and sit under it, especially when the sun is not always available in winter.  Join a church, preferably a small one that aligns with your beliefs, and become involved- your church is your tribe, along with your neighbors, family, and like-minded folks you have befriended.  

There is a lot you can do for your health, both mental, spiritual, and physical.  The point is, it’s up to you- Doctors and Dentists and such are like the medieval priests of old, telling you what to do in life.  Intermediaries, that do not have your interests first and foremost.  It is really up to you to contact Jesus directly!

That’s it for now, but like anything worthwhile in life, the journey never really ends.  We continually strive throughout life, in our health, in making a living, and connecting with others meaningfully.  The idea that if you only make lots of money, why then you can just lie around in hedonism and luxury is a lie.  To stop improving is to start to die, both physically and spiritually.  

So listen to PaleoJay podcasts as they arrive!  I really try to address important issues that will improve your life and your outlook on the real world, as it unfolds.  This is a forum for your ideas and mine- PaleoJays Smoothie Cafe!

Podcast #130- Moving Meditation

Let’s talk about an essential ancestral life skill that I have never heard addressed:  How should you approach exercise mentally?  It really is a crucial skill that paleolithic peoples never even had to think about, just as they never had to think about what foods to eat (all foods were paleo back then), or how to exercise, (exercise, natural exercise, Perfectly Paleo Exercise, whatever you call it was just part of life!); so it was that your mind-state as you went through an early, ancestral lifestyle was also automatic.
Just what the heck am I talking about?  Just this: when you exercise, you must not be thinking about your job, or what you want to do this weekend, or anything at all, really-

You should be completely and utterly focused on the moment!

You should be thinking into the muscles being worked, feeling them contract and work beneath your skin.  Intensify the contraction, I.e. make it harder simply by willing it so!  This really does work- using this method, you can make lifting a 5 lb. dumbbell as hard as lifting a 50 pound dumbbell, or more, simply by flexing harder and more intensely, and by “putting on the brakes” internally by thinking into the muscle and willing it so.
Focus your total energy into each and every rep, each isometric contraction, and into each exercise in turn.  This is like moving meditation.  If you’ve ever meditated, (I do it pretty much daily, and recommend you do as well), you sit with your eyes shut, and concentrate on one thing only.  (I use the number “1”, repeated over and over and over.  Every time your attention starts to wander, you just pull it gently back to that mantra of “1” again.
At first, it seems quite difficult!  We are so programmed in modern life to try and multi-task constantly, to get more done, and more, and more!  But after awhile, it gets much easier, and carries over into how you approach life in general.
So too does this “moving meditation” approach to exercise not only improve your exercise performance, and especially exercise results- it starts to carry over into all of life.  Your ability to concentrate improves along with your physique, as does your mental acuity and ability.

Now, I don’t mean to say that you shouldn’t listen to podcasts while you exercise, or even watch tv while you do so.  I do often!  Just so the bulk of your attention is focused on the exercise, it is fine to have music playing, or someone talking or interviewing, or even watching a gripping movie or news program on TV.  In fact, I feel that an additional distraction or focus while exercising is additional insurance against your attention wandering to your problems, your boss, your kids problems, insurance salesmen… you get it, right?
Your workout is sacred, just as you should be totally in the moment while in church, or meditating, so should your workout time be spent in the moment.

You do need to spend time planning, not worrying, and this time too should be spent totally in the moment as well!  Then, you can plan, anticipate contingencies, decide what you will do if various scenarios occur, and then you can relax.  By staying in the moment, once again you have set yourself up of success.  You will not be distracted, because you have your plans in place- if something bad happens, you will simply deal with it, in the moment.  Whether it is something physical, or emotional, or intellectual to deal with, you will have developed the capacity to solve it.

Because you have turned your life into what it is meant to be:
A Moving Meditation

PJSC 124 podcast- Gratitude!

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others. Marcus Tullius Cicero

This may seem a somewhat strange subject to bring up here on PaleoJay’s Smoothie Cafe, but it really is not.  Gratitude is indeed, as Cicero stated, the parent of all other virtues!
We are by nature avaricious; we want this, we want that, endlessly.  Especially in the modern era, it seems our material wants are insatiable; our real needs have been met in the modern westernized world for so long that we have trouble even distinguishing “needs” from “wants”.
I just got back from a long weekend at my parent’s house in suburban Chicago, and if ever someone had reason to express gratitude it is me- both of my parents are alive and well, living together in their house of 65 years together!  I realize this is a remarkable situation, since we all gathered, all 8 of their children (of which I am the eldest) at their house, to celebrate my mother’s 90th birthday!  My father is 95…
Their health is excellent, and they both go upstairs to their bedroom each night because, as my dad says, “Stairs are healthy!”  I believe he has proved his point over the years.  I am so grateful for my parents’ continued good health, and that very state of mind, that of being grateful, increases my own sense of well being, and that of others as well when I express my gratitude.
If you express your gratitude on a daily basis, you will greatly increase your own sense of well-being and happiness.  It is impossible to sincerely express gratitude and feel angry and sad at the same time- the state of being grateful makes it impossible to also hang on to negative emotions and energy.
Even the ancients, like Cicero quoted before, had this figured out- although he undoubtedly expressed his gratitude “to the gods” of his day, the benefits of his expressing this gratitude were just as real as if these gods had existed.  It is the feeling and expressing of gratitude that is important, not so much as to just who you are expressing it to.  If you express and feel gratitude only to yourself for what you have, you will benefit just as much.
So, be like me and Cicero- express your gratitude daily.  Out loud, to yourself, to your cat- it doesn’t really matter (although if you are thankful for a certain person or for what they have done for you it is wonderful to tell them that).  Just be thankful that you have nutritious food, a healthy body and mind, wonderful weather and friends, and the opportunity to get good sleep and exercise.  Each day we have a new blank slate upon which we can start our healthy life journal anew- this alone is a wonderful gift for which we should be grateful.
I went out earlier today, and it is almost 60 degrees here, sunny and gorgeous out!  I plan to exercise with my heavy hand dumbbells as I walk through the woods later, and plan to grill out barbecued baby back ribs today as well.  I’ll do my podcast for you after that, and then plan to write a little in my latest novel.  I have a book I’m reading for after that, and lots of new pictures to look at of my little 6 month old grandson-  I am so grateful for all that I have!  I’m sure you have just as much to be grateful for if you just think about it.  So do it- think about all that you have to be grateful for!
Then, thank the gods!

Paleo Quick tip of the Day #104 Big Band Bunyan

Mailman Tales paperback

For his whole life, my father Big Band Bob, has loved to spend time outdoors!  He started out at Wolf acres, when he got out of the service, helping his sister Emma and her husband Ben to work on their wooded acres.  They cleaned up scrub trees for the big campfire pit they had built of mortared stone, planted new stands of pine that now are a beautiful forest that we all enjoy, and just stacked, moved, cut, and burned wood!

Nowadays, I do the same- my acreage on Cowbell lane seems to constantly need a tree removed, cut up, and then I need to stack the wood.  I have a wood furnace in the cellar, and I transport the wood with my  trailer behind my tractor, and then throw it down through a cellar window for burning.  It’s definitely hard physical work, but it is very satisfying, and real work, which is something most modern people don’t do anymore, to their detriment!  We all require hard physical labor to fulfill and enrich our lives, both for the health of our bodies and our minds.

I got this from my dad.  When he started working with wood, he was cutting large trees and logs, cutting, splitting, stacking, and moving.  Over the years, he has continued to do the same; the only difference is in the size of the wood.  

I went to visit him on his 95th birthday, in fact we were all there!  It was a nice party, outdoors in the big yard I remember so well, and he showed my his wood pile: where in the past it was large logs, and split logs, with a little small sticks for kindling, now it has shrunk.  

He still spends hours picking up wood from around his yard and it’s many trees, but now he 
picks up small sticks pretty much exclusively.  He had paper bags, each meticulously filled with little twigs.  These bags were stacked sideways, neatly and tidily as Big Band likes to keep everything; and the bags reached to the height of the garage!

He can take a couple of bags, put them into his fireplace or campfire pit, and he has an instant fire!  After a bit, he adds a bigger log, and he’s all set; but usually, he is out to gather more to replace the bags he burnt.  I am convinced he loves the gathering as much, or more than the burning.  

This is what I mean about real work; the physical demands, geared of course to his age, has kept him fit and flexible well into his nineties, when most folks younger than him and my mom are in nursing homes.  ‘The stairs are healthy, Mary!” is one of his favorite sayings, as he and my mother scamper upstairs to their bedroom of many, many years, even though they have a bedroom downstairs if they preferred to use that!

Mailman Tales on kindle

Check out this episode!

PaleoJay's Smoothie Cafe #115 podcast- Don't be Pushin Too Hard- Let it GO!

I can honestly say that nowadays, in modern America at least, we all pretty much are “PUSHIN’ TOO HARD”!

We work too many hours, at usually quite sedentary jobs, and while we work, we are constantly thinking about just what else we need to get done!  There are monetary goals, how we need to get this cleaned or taken care of on the house, car repairs and maintenance... and on top of that we are utterly consumed with our kids: are they in enough activities?  Do we need to enroll and drive them to even more, so that they are not deprived and not able to cope in this ever-more hyper competitive world??

And, on top of all that, we think we just need to do more!  More exercise, more stretching, more cardio, more money, more partying, more socializing, just more more more MORE!

Welcome to America today!

It was not always this way.  Back in the 1950’s, which so many hold in nostalgic regard nowadays, I am here to tell you that it was not this way.  The hyper-competitiveness existed, but it was mainly confined to the big cities, and the types of folks that are always around with fragile egos and big ambitions.  But back then, they were regarded with raised eyebrows, and seen for what they were:
Insecure people that needed outside validation.

Most people were content with a normal house, a regular secure income from a regular, real type of job.  Back then, ALL jobs were considered honorable- physical jobs were at LEAST as good as office work; actually, physical jobs paid HIGHER back in those days, and office work was reserved for those who could not, or WOULD not do harder work!

But this is all just leading up to now, when we are confronted with learning what is really important in life, now and forever.

It has become all about the money.  And the power.  It was not always thus; being well regarded was considered all important back in the day.  A man’s (or woman’s) word, honesty, and reputation were far more valuable than the money in his safe.  Imagine Scrooge: nowadays, he would be the PERFECT MAN.  Especially if he had perfect abs, a healthy life, and a huge mansion that he showed on TV.

But let’s get back on track, let’s talk about paleo diet and health!  How does this relate to that, PaleoJay my guru?

It is so important to back away from these hard-driving, hyper-competitive, super achieving mindset goals!  Just having this mindset can completely ruin your health,fitness and wellness, even while eating a perfect paleo diet, exercising in a perfectly paleo way, and achieving all of your monetary and other physical goals.

If you push unrelentingly to failure, you will fail!

In anything, and everything.

Push to failure in your career, your marriage and health will fail.
Push to failure in exercise, and you will be injured.
Push your kids to failure, and they will fail in life, even if they achieve what you push them at.
Push yourself really hard to be “perfect”, and you will wind up diseased, frail, and falling apart physically, and probably mentally as well.

Nothing really should be “pushed”.  We are just natural humans, and our needs and real wants are very simple.
We all need to be pretty much autonomous, and self validating, without some authority micro-managing us.

 This means minimal government, and it means minimal medical intervention.

On your own end, this means letting things slide a bit...

Don’t judge others for not keeping up to your “standards” of a perfect lawn and house- this actually means pouring glyphosate onto your lawns, thereby poisoning the water supply for all of your neighbors.

Leave your kids to their own devices- let them interact, and play with their friend in the neighborhood on their own! (Don’t insert yourself, ala “little league” and other adult organizations to fulfill your own unfulfilled ego from childhood!).

Above all, don’t try to be the:
richest
skinniest
most successful and our children are the most successful too!
most “accomplished”
and even HEALTHIEST

of your friends and associates.

If you do try this, rest assured: you won’t be.

Instead: Go back to the future!

You are George “Atlas” Mc Fly... nerd now, but you know to win that girl of your dreams, you just need to relax.

Just start doing pushups, and virtual, self resistance Perfectly Paleo exercise on a slow, steady, daily, regular basis!  Make it something to look forward to...
You clean up your diet, no drastic steps, just slow and common sense.  You start making a Green smoothie each morning, with TONS of green veggies, spices and kefir, and a little fruit.  This alone makes a huge difference both in your mental outlook, and your physical health!

You decide to “skip” your next medical checkup!  I mean, you are starting to feel great- why would you need someone less healthy and fit than you to “second guess” your health?  Because you know that no matter how healthy you are, they will just try to sell you drugs!!??

Now, you decide to get your kids on board!  You decide, along with your spouse, to just “Let them be kids!”

What a concept, in modern America!  Your “friends” will look askance at your just “letting them run wild, like free range kids”!  You will just ignore them, letting them run around on the grass, just like Opie Taylor in the old Andy Griffith Show!

YOU don’t care!  Everything is looking great!  Your wife can’t believe how healthy and “buff” you are. (neither can your friends)!  YOU can’t believe how great you feel, which after all is the ultimate barometer of health- much more than some cholesterol or other fake measurement of health- and you decide to continue on your journey of self determination and discovery!

You, George Mc Fly, now decide that YOU are the best determiner of your destiny!  Health wise!  Career wise!!  And in HOW TO RAISE YOUR FAMILY!!

You have determined to RID your life of the “Biffs” of this world!

You will vote for the minimum of government
You will take control of your own health
You will exercise on your own, self directed
You will work a real job, and take pride in real work
You will let your children and spouse do the same- NO INTERFERENCE
You will run your property, and your life, as the founding fathers intended.  Pursue your own happiness- NO INTERFERENCE
You will attempt to DESTROY interference of your rights with all of your heart, all of your mind, and all of your soul!
 And love your neighbor as yourself.


OK  George, or Georgette:  here is what I leave you with with this long-winded podcast.

Don’t PUSH yourself, or your kids, or your wife- don’t be a micro-manager!  God, I hate micro-managers...

Relax, and look at the big picture.  Sure, you want your son Marty not to be a big loser, but just let it go!

Did you ever consider, that MARTY might be way, way, way cooler than you, George??

Let him go.  Let Marty be Marty.  Let George be George. (The Pushups will really help, as will the green smoothie each day!!)

Let it go!

PaleoJay's Smoothie Cafe #100- Embrace manual Labor!!

 pjsc 100  Embrace Manual Labor

The common refrain in Paleo-dom is this:

Play is great!  We don’t play enough- embrace your inner child, your paleolithic tribes person and have fun!  Play games with your friends, and have fun scampering around with frisbees and on slack lines!  We all work way too hard, and deserve fun play with our friends!

All well and good, but I think that most of us that “work” too hard, are working at things like computer projects- geeky little things like podcasts, blogs, and ebooks... like I do!!  Business dealings, meetings with clients- stuff like that.  Hardly physical labor!!

Today, I was interrupted in the midst of my daily morning workout, as I bounced on the rebounder while doing my scheduled virtual resistance exercise moves.  I had done all of my stretches, and my self massage, and was enjoying the lymph stimulating cleansing and oxygenating bouncing, when I got a call, an emergency!  And so, I dashed off to deal with it, as anyone would.

Did I regret not finishing my workout?  Did I schedule a “play date” with some of my friends to do Zumba barefooted, and then toss frisbees without shirts on?  No- I carried on with my day, doing what I had to do, and then decided to do some hard manual labor in lieu of a workout.

Although I agree that we all, in modern life, probably don’t play enough, I think a far more pressing need in our lives is to do more manual labor.
Hard physical work is an almost totally missing element in our coddled modern lives, where most folks live in the city or suburbs, drive everywhere in luxury cars that are automatic everything, and make our livings talking on the phone, selling, and typing on our computer keyboards.

So, with this in mind, I decided this late afternoon to tackle an especially irksome task.  The snow has just melted, and today was a glorious sunny day with very damp ground- a perfect day to level a long stretch on my property that is very tilted- perhaps 30 degrees to the side, and then down a steep hillside!
It has always worried me, this long path that so many vehicles and pedestrians travel- tractors, atv’s, golf carts- I always am afraid that someone will tip over, and slide down the hill!  And so...

Since my utility John Deere tractor still has the chains and rear blade on, I put it into 4 wheel drive and attempted level the damp earth of this trail that bisects my land.  I took off a swath of earth, but was really afraid of sliding to the side- so I rode back to the house, got a shovel, and came back to dig!

I spent a good hour, probably more, digging a channel for my tractor tires to follow, that would keep me from sliding down the hill.  It wasn’t fun.  It wasn’t carefree pleasure, like skiing, or paddle boarding, throwing frisbees or doing the jitterbug...

But it was satisfying!

It was hard physical work, but it was not the mindless and meaningless work that is so much a part of modern life.  It was work with a clear purpose! This is what most of us in modern America now lack.

I think that a large part of what is wrong with modern America is its increasing relentless urbanization. Civilizations always eventually become largely decadent, and slide downwards to failure... I think it is because we lose sight of what is truly important and valuable, like hard physical endeavors of all sorts, and start to place more value on sophistry- the ability to use words as a kind of jiu jitsu to change perceptions, and learning to maneuver politics and finances to our advantage.

I know this is a bit wandering, in a way, but I do wish to convey to you what I believe is a truth:

Try to live as rural, and as self sufficient as you can!  GET OUT of big urban areas, if you possibly can- they are time bombs waiting to fail!

Do as much of your own work as you can, and help who you hire if you can’t do it all yourself.

Small communities, small government: this is what works, and has always worked.  Big, top-down, micro-management and dictatorial rule:

Think Imperial Rome, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Republic, and increasingly MODERN AMERICA...

This big scale will never, ever work!

And largely, I think, because those in charge start delegating, and no longer DO THEIR OWN MANUAL, PHYSICAL, HARD WORK!

PaleoJay's Smoothie Cafe podcast #93- Free at Last- Working for a Paleo America!

PaleoJay’s Smoothie Cafe #93  Free At Last- Working For a Paleo America!

Yes, my friends- PaleoJay is Free At LAST- free from work, free of time constraints, and finally in the land of critical mass, because I am officially retired!

Not retired from life, or from my pursuit of ancestral health both for myself, my family and friends, and for you my friend- for now, my JOB is paleo living research and popularizing.  Not really a job, but an avocation, something I really have a passion for!

I have been a mailman here in Southwestern Wisconsin for 38 years.  This was a job I really did love- I walked all day, every day for 30 of those years.  This was good for me, I thought; but then I figured out that too much walking is as bad for you as too little- endless walking, day after day without a break is really hard on your knees, feet, and hips.  It’s like doing chronic cardio in the form of running, jogging, or other aerobic types of endless repetitions- it’s just not good!

I switched to a driving route after those first 30 years, and that was the best of all worlds- I was still out and delivering packages all day, in and out, walking quite a bit, but not too much!  The reason I’ve retired had nothing to do with the job itself- I loved the job, the personal interaction I had with my patrons, watching the little kids grow up and knowing me as “their mailman Jay”, taking mail up to elderly patrons waiting at their door, and knowing I’d be the only one they would see that day...  It’s like being part of a close knit, “tribal” type of community.  Very paleolithic indeed!

No, it was the top down, “Big Government/Big Corporation” management that finally drove me out! Like many things in America, things used to be much smaller scale- small business, small local government determining most things, common sense types of solutions arrived at by the people who were affected by them.

Now, unfortunately, the idea of bigness has infiltrated everywhere: small, locally owned private businesses have become public corporations, run by a bunch of vastly overpaid bureaucrats and “suits” that, at least in the case of the USPS, are largely composed of those that either could not, or would not, do the actual craft work of sorting and delivering mail!  They have devised endless, ridiculous rules that get in the way of efficient operations in order to insert their own made up positions into the system.  This gives them the illusion of actually being necessary, and it is reinforced by the bonuses they give themselves for meeting nebulous “goals” that they have made up.

Last Day!

As I said, this is everywhere- Big Government in Washington is an obvious case in point, as it has come to resemble Imperial Rome in just about every way- history repeats itself again!  But even our medical clinics are now run by managers who micromanage the doctors and nurses, and their sights are now set on maximizing profit rather than curing disease or promoting wellness.  Make no mistake- there is BIG profit in disease “management”, and very little in actually curing the cause of the condition itself!

And so, what is my point in all of this?  I want to lay out the template that every problem in our own health and wellness, down to every major problem in America, can be cured by you, personally, taking charge of your life!  Don’t rely on a Doctor to fix your health- he won’t, doesn’t know how, and can’t even if that was his goal.  Make your health a study of one- learn about proper, Paleo Exercise- do it daily.  Make yourself a Green Paleo Smoothie to drink on a daily basis, jam-packed with every nutrient your body has been craving since you were weaned from your mother. Get a solid 8 hours of sleep per night.  Spend quality time with your “tribe”- family, friends, neighbors, church members- make real connections!  Buy real, God made food from a local farmer, things like pastured pork, grass fed beef and dairy, and organic veggies.  Grow your own in a garden!

And on a larger scale- vote for smaller government!   The more local the control, the better- town is better than city, city is better than state, state if far better than federal!  The smaller the government entity, the more accountable they are for their actions, and the more they are forced to share in the outcome of their decisions.

So, vote for a Paleo America!  Small town, Mayberry type of America!

Our future truly is in our past- and now, I’ll be working at achieving a Paleo America full time!

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #43- Do NOT get a flu shot!

Every Fall, like clockwork, the medical clinics and doctors start advertising and pushing for flu shots- even shopping centers and pharmacies are offering them.  Should you get one?

Well, remember a few years ago when the flu shot was recommended only for the elderly and children, especially those with compromised health...

And NOW the YEARLY flu shot is recommended to EVERYONE over 6 months of age!

Let’s see, if everyone in the United States over the age of 6 months gets a flu shot, well that’s a really big profit for the pharmaceutical companies and the medical clinics that administer it, isn’t it?

And there you have the real reason why the flu shot is being promoted- profit!

If you get a chicken pox vaccine, you supposedly become immune for your entire life to chicken pox.  But you are supposed to get a flu vaccine every single year- and that is said to be because the virus mutates, and is slightly different year to year, and this is true...

And it’s also true that the flu vaccine manufacturer has no idea what mutated form the next years virus will take- they just guess!

In addition, the vaccines are loaded with toxic substances such as aluminum, MSG, and even antifreeze!  Who wants that stuff??

And so, bottom line, it is your own body and its innate health that determines whether or not you get the flu, or for that matter any sort of disease.  The very best thing you can do for yourself in terms of protection is to follow some simple tenets of health that have been with us since paleolithic times-

Cut grains and sugars from your diet

Get adequate sleep- 8 hours per night

Consume LOTS of dark green veggies, God made real foods like:
Natural full fat dairy such as grass fed butter, pastured meats, wild caught seafood, coconut milk and natural spices such as cloves, cinnamon, turmeric and ginger

Exercise naturally, with perfectly paleo exercises like pushups, virtual resistance training or transformetrics, barefoot sprinting and other interval training, and other calisthenics

The very best way of incorporating a wonderful, real foods diet high in all of these things is with a Paleo smoothie, made in a Vitamix blender, on a daily basis.  This is a concentrated form of real, complete foods (all the fiber is there in the drink!) that is worlds better than “juicing”, which removes the fiber and concentrates the sugars in the resulting juice.

At www.paleojay.com there is a link to take you to Vitamix Corporation directly to order your own Vitamix with free shipping.

Save the yearly cost of toxic, worse-than-useless flu vaccines for each and every member of your family and put it towards a tool that will really enhance and build your health, and that of your entire family for decades- get yourself a Vitamix blender and build the health of your body from the inside out.

Check out this episode!

PaleoJay's Smoothie Cave Podcast #87 First, do no harm- AVOID your Medical Doctor!

PJSC First Do no Harm

Hippocrates

A famous saying from the founder of Western medicine, Hippocrates, it is meant to be one of the guiding principles of that modern medicine.  Unfortunately, in our time, this guiding principle seems to be largely thrown out the window!  Many thousands die yearly from iatrogenesis, which is a term meaning “Death by Doctor”... in fact, iatrogenesis is now the leading cause of death in the United States of America!

How about that in light of first do no harm?

The Nutrition Institute of America funded an independent review of “government-approved” medicine that was published in 2006. Professors Gary Null and Dorothy Smith, along with doctors Carolyn Dean, Martin Feldman and Debora Rasio titled the report “Death by Medicine.”
The researchers found that America’s leading cause of death isn’t heart disease or cancer: its conventional medicine. They found that the iatrogenic death rate in the US (death caused by doctors and/or medical treatments) is 783,936 a year. That’s 84,059 more deaths than those caused by heart disease in 2001 and 230,865 more deaths than those caused by cancer.

A large portion of these deaths are caused by the myriads of side effects from pharmaceutical drugs.  Statins are just one drug that is incredibly overprescribed.  Some of the side effects are muscle wasting, particularly of the heart muscle, severe joint pain, and being much more susceptible to cancer.  Does this sound like the kind of drug that right now about 1/3 of Americans should take?  Well, they are, and new guidelines would make 1/2 of Americans fall under the recommendations for statin prescriptions.

The reason?  The industry makes profits of around 30 Billion dollars per year!!  Strong incentive indeed to ignore the dictum first do no harm!

It is this profit motive that has taken over our medical clinics and hospitals, in fact the entire medical system.  There is blatant overuse of drugs that are loaded with side effects, blatant overuse of medical procedures like x rays and mammograms, and unnecessary surgeries- all ultimately done for increased profits.

The overuse of technology creates a “cascade effect” in treating patients: unnecessary outpatient treatment often leads to more visits, more prescriptions, more hospitalizations and deaths.
X-rays, CT scans, mammograms and other such diagnostics are costly and cumulatively dangerous, yet they are given regularly to soothe patient fears and often lead to unnecessary surgeries.

Also, to underscore the poorly conceived priorities of modern conventional medicine, we only have to look at the food and nutrition provided in a hospital cafeteria: There, you will see the worst possible foods being offered to both medical staff and patients, showing the utter ignorance and disdain nutrition is held in by the medical community.

Probably the most unsafe place to be, the unhealthiest place in the world, is within our modern “health care” institutions, which are actually disease care places, with a focus on disease, not health at all, and an emphasis on treating symptoms of diseases, not the root cause.  Health is not really the end goal they are even looking at!

Your own body is the only thing that can truly heal you, and restore you to health.  And your body doesn’t need drugs to cure itself, your body needs good, nutrient dense foods that supply the raw materials it needs to build your health from the inside out, as it has been doing in nature for millennia.

So, the next time it is recommended to you to go to see the doctor and go through a bunch of expensive tests, say you’ll pass, since first you will DO NO HARM to your health.  And remember the other Hippocratic dictum:

“Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food”

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!

PaleoJay's Smoothie Cafe podcast #83 Stress is GOOD!!

PJSC Podcast #83  Stress is GOOD for you!

I know, we all have too MUCH stress in our lives...

Stress in our jobs, our relationships, our family life, finances- the list goes on and on- but you know, we evolved to be able to handle stress!  And when that stress is missing: our bodies really can’t adapt- for certain types of physical stress, at least, we really require it to be truly healthy.


Eustress is the term for a positive stress: Eustress, or positive stress, has the following characteristics:
Motivates, focuses energy
Is short-term
Is perceived as within our coping abilities
Feels exciting
Improves performance

In contrast, Distress, or negative stress, has the following characteristics:
Causes anxiety or concern
Can be short- or long-term
Is perceived as outside of our coping abilities
Feels unpleasant
Decreases performance
Can lead to mental and physical problems

And so, with that is mind, let’s concentrate on the type of stress we need: Eustress:

We need the stress of gravity bearing down on us!  Our bodies actually require it, and are adapted to it, to be healthy.  When the astronauts went into space, all kinds of problems developed- muscle wasting, bone atrophy- we need the stress of gravity bearing down upon us, day and night!

What other stress do we need?

We need the occasional stress of exerting our muscles at a high level! Walking a lot is expected by our bodies, as are occasional bursts of high intensity exertion (as when escaping from a sabre tooth tiger, or sprinting to spear a wooly mammoth)!

Without this occasional stress (that can be duplicated by Perfectly Paleo Exercise), our bodies deteriorate, and basically “save precious calories” by getting rid of muscle, and bone mass that appear to be unneeded!

We also need the stress of working- figuring out hard mental and physical problems to remain fully human.  Just HOW do we dig that pit to entrap that mammoth, and then how do we transport it back to the tribe?

And, speaking of the tribe: we also need the stress of dealing with that tribe- How do we deal with Yag, who is challenging our leadership role in the tribe? (translate this to the office at work)...
And how about your mate, who has always been wonderful, but is now not dealing well at all with Jag-Kotha, your brother’s spouse?

You see, it has always been complicated!

And, these interpersonal things are necessary for our health, and the health of all the human tribe.

We are social animals- we are not meant to be alone and isolated.  Ever...

So-
We need the stress of physical exertion, occasionally- usually very mild, and sometimes quite demanding, to be healthy and happy, both mentally AND physically.

We need the stress of a natural environment, whether savannah, desert, woodland, or northland cold- we need to exist in nature. This means birdsong, many varieties of plant life, animal species different from human- we NEED this variety of Nature that God provided to us!

AND, it appears we need the stress of natural anti-toxins in plants, like anti-oxidants to keep us healthy as well.  The latest research tends to show that anti-oxidants are not really healthy, in and of themselves- they stimulate our own bodies to respond to the stress of them to overcompensate; much as exercise makes our muscles stronger- to to secrete the hormones necessary to overcompensate, and make us stronger in reaction to them.

This might seem like a fine point- but it is the main point I am making here: Our response to stress is what makes us strong. It’s in our DNA.  WE NEED STRESS- EUSTRESS, BUT STRESS IN THE RIGHT, NATURAL WAY.

Exercise naturally, in a natural environment, barefoot and without eyeglasses and other crutches like weights to overcompensate and ultimately injure our natural response to the eustress of overcompensation of effort- Perfectly Paleo Exercise!

We NEED nature herself: in whatever form she takes, we NEED it- we need to forest bathe, savannah bathe, just BE in Nature in whatever form, since we are PART of nature, and cannot exist apart from it.  As much as we pretend we are special and unique, WE also are just a part of Nature.  Outside of it, we might as well be in a straight-jacket, in an air-conditioned room, with only white noise for entertainment and company... Perfectly safe, comfortable- we should be perfectly happy!

Natural FOOD and WATER- we need the stress of those natural foods- the hunting, or at least the procuring from a local source- animals that are part of nature, grass fed in the case of ruminants- eating the food that they were intended to eat, not GMO grains that rupture their intestines and make them fat and sick, not chemical laden processed foods, loaded with corn syrup and other sugar, gluten from modified grains... Water that is NOT loaded with chlorine and fluoride and other chemicals to make it BETTER than natural, real water- Just Plain Water!!

Well, I guess I’ve kind of wandered into DISTRESS territory, the area you want to AVOID.

So, here you go: avoid the kinds of distresses like:

Processed foods
chemical water (Big City Water)
Weight Training=UNNatural Training
Living in a Big City if you can! (Far from Nature)
Especially Urban Violent Ghetto types of areas- as FAR from actual nature as you can get! No real nature, paving everywhere, humans the only species, no plant life, no good food- this is the worst of the worst scenario!
Working on a Night Shift!  (Slow suicide- really really UNnatural and unhealthy!) AND late night TV watching- really messes up your natural circadian rhytmns!!
Toxic family relationships- constant fights, drug use, late night TV and bar visits, conflict and criticisms

And so, there it is:

Stress is really good, and integral to our health and well-being- but only it is natural and short term and to be expected in our genome.

AND SO- only avoid negative stress, distress, that are UNnatural, and will destroy what you are meant to be- Man Made Stressors.

Accept and thrive on God Made Stressors, like:

Forest Bathing- just walking through a pine forest, letting the testosterone-laden pollen from the pines detox you from our plastics-estrogenic environmental poisons

Perfectly Paleo Exercise- Naturally exercising you body in the way that God Himself intended- using your own muscles as the resistance!

Perfectly Paleo Exercise

Anti-Oxidants- DO NOT take anti-oxidant pills, or powders or whatever potion- eat lots of natural, God made veggies!  My gosh, it’s all so simple if you think of it- eat like your Grandma did!

Sleep a LOT- at LEAST 8 hours per night!  Actually, this is an ANTI stressor-but it is that important that I put it here- SLEEP!!

Throw away your glasses, throw away your shoes!

Well I know that’s not realistic- but you should at least MINIMALIZE their use.  The LESS you wear your glasses or contacts, the better your eyes will be.

The LESS you wear your shoes, the healthier your feet, knees, back, and posture will be!!

Have a good tribe, GOOD family/people that you get along with and who support one another.

This last is incredibly important, and so often overlooked!
If you do not have a happy, vital tribal connection with a group of people that you see on a really regular basis...

YOU will not be happy, or healthy!

We are tribal, family peoples.  Without that connection, we are LOST.

No exceptions. Sorry- we are at bottom PALEO PEOPLE.

UNCHANGED.

Without our tribe, we are not only doomed to a slow death...

WE ARE NOTHING- WE DON’T EVEN EXIST!

Change your body language while you exercise! PaleoJay Podcast #53

Listen now by clicking HERE, then scroll down to the arrow that says LISTEN NOW
by tomorrow, it'll be up on iTunes...

Change your body language while you exercise!

I you haven’t seen it already, go ahead and watch the Ted Talk by Amy Cuddy:
She explains in great and convincing detail just why our body language is so important- not only as to how others see us; but more importantly- how we see ourselves!

So, now you know the crucial importance of our own body language in reshaping the way we see ourselves, and how we relate to and are seen by the rest of the people in our world.  Sure, you can just practice the poses that Amy Cuddy describes so well-

But to really enforce these poses, you need to incorporate them into your daily, visualized resistance exercise program!


I have been doing this for years, and never realized until I saw this video that what I was doing had more than just wonderful physical benefits-

I was also reshaping and practicing my body language, over and over, by flexing my muscles to their maximum potential, while simultaneously  holding an isometric pose at the end of the movement that mimics a “power pose”!

Who knew?  I knew this type of exercise had remade my physique, and at the same time cured the many small injuries I had accumulated in my years of heavy weight training and distance running- but I had also noticed a huge change in my personality, and how I interacted with the world.  I thought it was just confidence brought about by self-actualization- the achieving of many long sought physical goals, one after another.  But now I see that, by inadvertantly practicing many thousands of repetitions of “power posing”, I had actually remade my own self image, bit by bit!

I also think that, when these poses are done intentionally, with extreme concentration and muscular contraction as is used in visualized resistance ala Perfectly Paleo Exercise, that the effect of the posing is dramatically increased, and cemented into the psyche of the exerciser!

Here is a video of mois doing a brief demonstation of Visualized resistance exercises:

PaleoJay visualized resistance demo


This is from a year and a half ago, since which I have begun adding in some lat spread types of back exercise, done in the same virtual fashion- you know, like the body builders do, but you don’t need to wear tiny trunks and do it on stage!  (Although at first a mirror helps!)

Just put your fists on your hips, and spread those lats as wide as possible!  Hold a few seconds isometrically, and then repeat for 5-10 reps.

Hold your arms outstretched sideways from your body, and then flex your lats wide again, by pushing your arms bak, and flexing as widely as possible!  Make yourself huge!

So, there you go!  Change your body and your attitude and self-image by practicing visualized, Perfectly Paleo Exercise!  It’s a two-for-one, and it really works!

J

Becoming a Supple Leopard with Voodoo Flossing!

One of the best, and yet one of the most confusing protocols of Kelly Starrett's excellent recent book is that of.......   Voodoo Flossing!  Sounds scary but intriguing, doesn't it?  I have had excellent results with it, both on my badly injured shoulder, and my daughter's wrist.

The idea is to immobilize the joint to "Voodoo" with a Voodoo band- these are long strips of rubber, kind of like a long, split open bicycle inner tube (that would work as well!), that you can wrap around and around the injured joint to compress it.  Then, you need to smash the compressed tissue, with a La Crosse ball or two, a friend who will step on your injured area, or you can even do it yourself by smashing the area with a barbell!

Here is how it's done on the shoulder:

Kelly does the Voodoo Floss Shoulder Smash

It's much easier to do it on yourself on the ankle, or the wrist, or the knee.  But, however you do it or have it done- it really does restore movement and health to the joint in really fast order!
It's a little painful, but the results are so worth it- almost instantly your joint has regained it's full rotation.  The matted down tissues are unglued, and regain their suppleness. Talk about near instant therapy!

Here is a link to purchase the Floss. I also use the Floss for banded stretches and openers during my morning workout, and so it is also valuable for that.

Another key point to this book is that all of us need to, and should have the knowledge to effectively perform daily maintenance on our own bodies.  Very, very true; and with this book, the Floss, and a La Crosse ball or two you will be well equipped to do so.

The most important tool to have of all, however, is the book itself!  Almost 400 large, photo illustrated demonstrations of every exercise and therapy in Kelly's arsenal; I find this is one of those big hardcover books that I keep by my chair, and repeatedly pick up to pore over.  It is just that jam packed with useful and unique ideas to maintain your bodily health and mobility.  Oh, and here is the link to Kelly's site- lots of videos like the one above to help you focus on different techniques and parts of your body- http://www.mobilitywod.com/

My plan is to get as supple and springy as my cat Zeke-

Then, maybe I can sit in a chair like he does!

J

Fire your Doctor- Fix your Terrain!

PaleoJay podcast #35- Fire your Doctor, Fix your Terrain

Fire your Doctor!  I know- that really sounds, well... really crazy! But trust me, Doctors, when used in a manner to promote health, are terrible advisors as a general rule!

Why?  Because health is not what the modern medical industry is even about- it is about disease- treating the symptoms of disease, rather than actually curing the cause.  That's why modern, Western medicine has become exclusively allopathic in nature, which means treat the symptoms.  For instance; say you have a migraine headache- your allopathic, modern doctor will give you various combinations of drugs to allieve the pain.  There will be little or no attempt to get to the root cause of this unnatural, unhealthy condition, which in a truly healing or wellness doctor would be the approach.  There might be a little about avoiding chocolate, or caffeine, kind of a half-hearted attempt to make a tiny little thing the whole cause- but, by and large, you will get a chemical band-aid to mask your pain, and that's it.

This is like if the indicator light on your car, say the oil pressure light came on, and your mechanic simply put tape over the light on the dash to cover it up!  Getting a migraine headache just like your oil indicator light coming on- your body is telling you that something is seriously wrong- and usually, it is insufficient nutrients, too much stress, not enough sleep, a sedentary life, bad family and friends (tribe!) relations, or a combination of some or all of these factors!

There is even a medical term for cause of death by doctor: latrogenesis.  This is not just malpractice cases- this is death caused by doing exactly as the Doctor ordered!  Drug side effects, medical complications of surgery, anesthetic complications, infections picked up in the hospital- any or all of these combined are the third leading cause of death in the United States.

Kind of makes you want to avoid Doctors and hospitals right there, doesn't it!?

Forget the old, outdated idea of Louis Pasteur and the Germ theory- the idea that we must sterilize everything to abolish disease!  This is not only an impossible task- we now know that we need the "germs", or bacteria to survive ourselves- we are in an intimate partnership with the bacteria in our bodies, especially the many good forms that digest things for us in our gut!

The Terrain Theory, championed by Michael Beauchamp, who was Louis Pasteur's contemporary and rival.  This idea, which is now becoming widely accepted as the correct one, is that the health of the "terrain", i.e. the human body is what is crucial in avoiding disease- if you are really healthy, your body can easily fight off bad bacteria and keep you that way.

It is only when your health has slipped (due to the indicator light causes I spoke of before of not enough nutrients, too little sleep, etc. etc.) that the bad, invading bacteria (germs) can get a good foothold!

So, it may sound simplistic, you really need to GET HEALTHY TO STAY HEALTHY!

And, as a postscript of sorts, I will say if you are BROKEN- in a car wreck, shot with a bullet, some sort of physical extreme trauma- modern western medicine is wonderful for this-they are kind of like a human "body shop" to get you "back on the road"!

But then, it's YOUR job (not your doctor's) to get yourself back to being as healthy as you can be-

Fix your "terrain", your Doctor won't do that- he doesn't even know how!

oh, and did you know- upon his deathbed, Louis Pasteur rose up and said:

"Beauchamp was right- it is all about the terrain!"

J