Perfectly Paleo Things you DON'T DO!

You don't make a daily, highly nutritious Paleo Smoothie each morning!

This is the number one top thing you can do for your health, and your fitness... Diet is about 85% of health and fitness; the hardest thing to do is to just get started each day.  

1. Start your day by making a Paleo Smoothie, and you have already "won the day".

A lot about life is simply momentum...If you start right, you have won a victory!  You will want to keep it going...

While you are at it, boil water for tea, and make some coffee while the Vitamix is blending!


2. Exercise first thing in the morning!  (After making your smoothie, that is).

Prioritize: nutrition is #1.  No doubt about it.  
But, talk about a 1 2 punch- provide yourself (and your family)top notch nutrition first thing- 

And then do your PERFECTLY PALEO EXERCISE!

Ideally, you have gotten to bed early, and the rest of your family is still asleep.  

All you need is about 45 minutes of a "head start"- 

You make your smoothie (5 minutes or so, providing maximum nutrition that will fuel your entire family's whole day), and then you toddle on into the living room or den, and do your visualized resistance exercises, and/of body weight and self resisted exercises while you watch TV and just methodically tense and stretch and energize every part of your body- 

Trust me, at the end of the 45 minutes or so- you will wish you had more time!  

The show might be exciting, you are really getting "in tune" with your body; you just feel really really good!

But, alas, you need to go to work....

So, you jump in the shower, and when you get out:

Breakfast is all ready!  Just pour out your coffee, and top it off with lots of whipped cream that you have already whipped in a tupperware container, and sweetened with cinammon and perhaps a bit of raw honey or stevia...  you can even mix in some pastured butter for added fat soluble vitamins and great, desirable nutrition! (Gasp!)

Top your whipped cream with ample cinnamon and cloves, because spices are another wonderful, perfectly Paleo thing that you are probably not doing enough of!

3.  Meditate!

I know, this sounds crazy!  You have a family to get ready for school, and work, and you just fed them really well, and exercised yourself and feel great, but- 

Let's say you woke up one hour early, and all of the nutrition is taken care of-

Your exercise is taken care of-

And you still have 15 minutes of free time!!

I know, it sounds crazy, but... wouldn't it feel great to just relax in your favorite easy chair for a bit?

DON'T waste your time watching worthless morning TV:

Meditate:  just close your eyes, and thing to yourself "1"... with each breath...

Over and over.  Don't let anything distract you: just "1"...

If something distracts you, just return to thinking "1" with each breath- concentrate mainly on your breath.  The in and out, deep breathing...

After everyone comes on downstairs, you will wish you had more time to meditate, trust me!

So, there you go- three Perfectly Paleo things that you just have to start doing!

Your life will be greatly enhanced by so doing.

J

Meditation Changes Your Brain!

We all know that exercise, especially proper, Paleo-type exercise to build strength, actually physically changes the structure of your muscles, i.e.- they get bigger and stronger!  


Now we also know that proper mental exercise, i.e. meditation also makes your brain change physically as well, in a beneficial way.  Check out the video above for a brief overview of the study that confirmed this utilizing M.R.I. brain scans.

Back already?  Good, let's continue:

What meditation truly is is not some hippie sort of "OOOOMMM" in the lotus position while sitars drone in the background... 

Meditation in it's true sense is simply giving your undivided attention to the present moment!

My basic meditation strategy is simply to sit in a comfortable chair, shut my eyes, and, whilst concentrating on my breathing, simply thinking the word "One" over and over, for each breath in and for each breath out.  Nothing else; if another thought comes up, I simply ignore it, and concentrate again on my breathing and my one word...  And other thoughts do come up, like random bubbles surfacing on an otherwise placid pond!  It really takes effort, minimal yet sustained, to keep concentrating only on the present- my breathing, the total relaxation of my body, my "one".  Especially when you are first getting started, this is hard; it is antithetical to our whole modern "ethic" of move, think, accomplish, make money, plan!!

I am sure that Paleolithic people were not like we are now; they rested much more, and lived almost entirely in the present moment.  I also believe that they were much more resistant to our modern mental problems of anxiety, depression, and many other neuroses that result from both our incredibly nutrient poor diets (particularly the Omega 3 and other good fats), and frenetic, overcrowded, and over-competitive lives.

While the actual, formal meditation process outlined here is a great way to get started in meditation and start adding the benefits to your life, there are other ways, once you kind of "get it" and learn to shut down your chimp mind, which is your wandering, thoughts-a-flitting, attention changing every second or so conscious mind, and attend to the here and now.  This is actually a process of tuning in to your right brain, which is the intuitive, feeling, creative part of your brain, and ignoring the ever chattering left brain.  We have over-emphasized the left brain in modern times, ignoring and suppressing what is in reality one half of our identity!  

Some of the other ways you can "meditate" or at least tap into the here and now and into your right brain are with things like forest bathing, or woods walking, with your attention on the present, and not thinking about taxes, or paying the power bill, or-you name it- just the here and now!  Oooom!

In church this morning, I thought about how prayer is a form of meditation- total concentration and attention to God!  We all have wandering minds; I thought about how important it is to really focus on the here and now, especially in church!

And even when driving home in my old truck, if I turn off the radio or the iPod, and simply think about driving- first gear, second, third, fourth... clutch, brake, steering... and simply am there in the moment, 

all the way home, I am the better for it!  My right brain thanks me, my hippocampus thanks me, and my  amygdala is overjoyed!  

Playing music is largely right-brained centered, and present-centered- we all know music is a thoroughly joyful endeavor!  Kind of "musical meditation" in a way..

So meditate!  The benefits are profound- just the increase you will gain in focused concentration alone is well worth it- and the quality of your life will vastly increase!  

J & Zeke