Sitting is the New Smoking- Paleo Quick Tip of the Day podcast #10

We’ve talked for nine weeks about how to integrate the Paleo lifestyle into our lives…

From eliminating grains, especially wheat in the first week, and then going to improving, sleep, adding in visualized resistance exercise, making and drinking a daily Paleo Green smoothie, and eliminating junk foods like soda pop, candy, cookies, and cake.  Then, we recommended getting a local source for our meats that is grass fed and pastured to replace the corn fed Confined Animal Feeding Operation meat that is standard in the grocery…

And then, we integrated a session of meditation into our daily routine, along with potato starch in our daily smoothie!  Last week, the healthy addition was pushups to our exercise sessions, and popcorn with healthy pastured butter and sea salt to our snack mix.  If you have kept up with all of this, I am certain that you have started noticing very positive changes to your body!

Most folks will have lost fat weight, and actually gained muscle, resulting in not only a healthier body, but one that is more pleasing and symmetrical , with a reduced pants size and a smaller waist and butt…One thing that happens every time is a much leaner face- if you have some photos of yourself from 10 weeks ago or more, just look back- in this day of digital photos and iPhones, almost everyone has tons of photos on their computer!  Check out some of your old “selfies”, and compare to your present photo- you will be surprised at the difference!   It’s kind of like a natural facelift- it can be quite startling!

And it doesn’t take long at all to take place, living this lifestyle!

It seems to be an indicator of all of the healthy changes that are taking place within your body, but this one shows on the outside for all to see!  A healthy glow, and much healthier skin overall is another result that you should see about now.  This should give you the impetus to do even more- like to walk instead of run, and stand instead of sit!

If you are one that worked out most days, and then went home and sat, and went to work and sat, and then drove to and from and sat, and drove to accounts sitting… this is, in my opinion, on par with smoking cigarettes!  Even if you work out hard for an hour a day or more!!

To move, to stand, to fidget even- we humans were designed to move, not sit!  That’s what humans do- move, daily, pretty much all day long!  Not run, not lift weights, but simply… move, slowly and pleasantly, most of our day.

So, after you do your morning visualized resistance exercise, which in itself qualifies perfectly as gentle movement- resolve to continue this throughout the day!  Park far from the office, or the store and walk there… take the stairs if you can!  Walk around your yard, or the park.  Hike through the hills on the weekend or in the evenings.  If you watch television, do some visualized resistance exercise, or stand up and do some self resisted curls; do a deep squat and sit like that- the Asian Squat- and build your flexibility and health by sitting without a chair, as humans did for centuries!

Walking, and just plain movement is one of the major predictors of longevity and health, it turns out… it’s not how fast you can run, or how much you can lift…  it is simply how often, and how constantly, you actually MOVE!

Life IS movement!  When the body stops moving, the body starts to… shut down!  And so, this week of #10, your mantra is to keep moving-

Not hard- Not necessarily fast- But MOVE-

Your health depends on it!!

If you really want to move on this, consider listening to my more in depth sister podcast, PaleoJay’s Smoothie Cafe, at paleojay.com and on iTunes and Stitcher- and if you really want to dig in and transform your life, as fast and efficiently as possible, go to www.paleojay.com, and click on the top banner for Robb Wolfe’s Paleo Transformation!  Robb has the whole enchilada all wrapped up for you to use, in one simple package!

But, if you are content with the step-by-step, Paleo Quick Tip of the Day way with PaleoJay- stay tuned!  We are on our way… Back- to the future of health and fitness!

Visualized Resistance training and isometrics as natural training, i.e. MOVNAT!

Here is my cat, Zeke!

When talking of MOVNAT, or natural movement training, he is my expert!  The way this little 8 month old runs, climbs, stretches and just plain MOVES is inspirational to me.  As I think it was to Charles Atlas, the comic book, mail order icon who resurrected visualized resistance training almost a century ago, after watching a lion (think ZEKE here!), who stretched, and FLEXED his muscles (as cats do!), and inspired him to think:

"Hey- if that's how cats (and other animals keep in prime physical shape... maybe that's how humans are meant to do so, as well!!"

He was right!  

You can do an arm curl (easy to visualize, that's why I use it), and consciously apply resistance, and make it as hard as you want!  Try it- see??  You just flex as you curl, and make it as hard as you'd like!

Then, you can add an isometric hold at the end of the curl- don't stint- flex with all you've got at the uppermost part of the movement!!

See what I mean? Do 7 reps or so of curls, with visualized, self-inflicted, mental resistance; top it off with an isometric hold for 4 or 5 seconds...

and you have just completed the hardest, most PRODUCTIVE,  set of biceps curls of your life!!

With no equipment, no set-up worries, and no danger of injuries!!

I think this type of training is a no-brainer!!  Do it for ALL of your body!!

Cats do.  Humans can too!  It's how the ancient Greeks trained, and the early Asian martial artists...  

It's so old, that it seems too "low tech" for us computerized, technology junkies.  But, simple training is probably (like simple eating, i.e. the Paleo diet humans have consumed for millions of years) the best for us!  

Check out visualized resistance training for a quick tutorial on visualized resistance exercise!  

Just do like John Peterson and Wendy Pett do on transformetrics.com!  They are the most current flag-bearers for visualized resistance, so pay attention!!


Zeke would help you, but he can't talk...

Movnat!

movnat.com

Check out the above link!  Erwan LeCorre is the originator of the Movnat, or "move naturally" movement.
His idea is that modern humans of civilization have become "Zoo Humans", functioning in an artificial, man-made environment.  This deprives us of much of our natural habitat, meaning the natural world, i.e. woods, fields, grass, etc. that our ancestors dealt with for millennia, and which would have been profoundly instrumental in determining how we evolved, and why we are now built and think the way we do.

Take a zoo animal out of the wild, and he is "out of his element"!

We, children of Western civilization, are physically at least, "out of our element".

At Movnat, they have classes that teach people how to move, both themselves and other objects in nature with efficiency and natural elegance.  This is great!

But I believe that we all have within us the ability to "relearn" what we need to do... naturally!

Each Sunday, I have been moving naturally around my several acres...  jogging, walking, and then sprinting!  All barefoot, and mindfully, meaning that you simply pay attention totally to what you are doing, and live in the moment!


That alone is enough to return you to an ancient "play space" that is so important to the human genome- play is where we get in touch with who we really are.

After I sprint several times, I am winded and tired, almost like doing high reps of heavy squats in the old days...
but, instead of being "totalled", I am energized and happy!


And then,  I go and throw some boulders and stones around, for distance, chin myself from tree limbs,  and walk and run more for fun...


I feel free; not like a "zoo human" at all.

The perfect Paleo Quick Start Exercise protocol?

Just move naturally!  Around a park, around your yard, even around a ROOM!
Crawl, jump, chin yourself; just explore natural movement.

Outside in real, honest-to-God nature is by far the best, though!

Through rain, sleet, snow, and dark of night...