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Thursday, February 26, 2015

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #56 Recovering from Illness with essential oils, maximum nutrition, and REST


pqtd 56 Recovering from Illness with Essential Oils and Rest

 

As usual, I am doing this podcast from my own personal experience coupled along with research.  I awoke ill yesterday, on Wednesday February 25, with a bad (and worsening) sore throat, and a deep cough settled down in my chest!  I virtually never get sick, but it has been exceptionally cold here in Wisconsin, and I have been running around outside and inside stores, where I must have picked up a bug of some sort.

 

Yes, even Mr. PaleoJay is not immune to getting sick or injured- none of us are, no matter how much we improve our our bodily terrain or avoid bad situations.  And so, it is important to know just what to do when we do get sick! 

 

When I realized I was sick yesterday, I got up and went downstairs,  and prepared a paleo green smoothie since the ball canning jars I had filled earlier in the week were used up.  ( I like to stock my fridge with a few days supply of the healthiest form of nutrition I can devise!)  

 

Step 1 in recuperation: maximize nutrition, so the body can rebuild the damages and repair the defenses!

 

Next, I repaired to the living room with my smoothie and a cup of hot green tea in hand!  Wrapping myself in a sleeping bag that I love to sit beneath on winter days, I turned on Netflix and streamed away on my latest show- Spartacus!  I tried to stay as warm and relaxes as possible... then, remembering my essential oil diffuser, I went and got that, loaded it with water along with Frankincense and Lavender oils, and set it right beside my  easy chair, and again wrapped myself in my sleeping bag.

 

And that is how I spent my morning- Watching television, then dozing for awhile, then reading my iphone, then dozing... and so it went on.  

 

If you know me at all, you know this is not my morning routine!  Normally, every single morning I start with a workout, and then I get going on stuff- writing, reading, updating, researching!  Walking, cooking, shoveling snow- just lots of movement and action.  I thrive on the feeling of accomplishment, as I believe most of us do.  But not this sick morning- the best accomplishment I could achieve would be to get WELL!

 

And so, that is largely how my day went- with purposeful rest, only the best in nutrition (I had little appetite), and finally going back to bed again, at a very early hour.  I set the diffuser with a fresh load of essential oils at my bedside, and went to sleep...

 

And by this morning, although the infection had resided deep in my chest, and I was developing a wracking cough at bedtime-

 

By the morning, after about 11 hours of off again, on again sleep-

 

My sickness had become a cold!  And now, it is 4 PM of that day, Thursday, and what had threatened to take me down for at least a week has subsided into just a stuffed up nose.  

 

And so, I apologize for missing the podcast yesterday!  But, here it is today, only one day late, and I am largely sickness free-

 

Makes me feel like singing Everything is Awesome!  


Check out this episode!

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #55 The Clampetts were Paleo when Paleo wasn't Cool!


pqtd 55 The Clampetts were Paleo when Paleo wasn’t cool

 

I am old enough to fondly remember the Beverly Hillbillies!  An immensely popular show starting in 1960, when real hillbilly types of characters still existed in America, the show’s premise was that of a man, Jed Clampett, finds oil on his land “back in the hills”.  He sells if for 25 million dollars, which was even way more back in 1960 than it is now.  His kin folk convince him to move out to Beverly Hills, California, where they have “swimmin’ pools- movie stars!”  It’s a clever premise, and as I said, incredibly popular throughout the entire decade.

 

You might want to catch some of the old reruns, because you might pick up some “paleo tips”!  Granny is always cooking up some “vittles”, like possum stew with greens, and you know that the Clampetts certainly ate “nose to tail”!  Ellie May and Jethro were both amazingly fit and strong, presumably from eating such a wonderful natural diet, and from extremely active lifestyles.  Even Granny stayed fit and active, cooking and cleaning and washing, and even had the first “treadmill chair” in the Clampett truck- a rocking chair she’d rock as they all drove!

 

By contrast, the banker- Mr. Drysdale, and his wife are quite poorly adjusted, and Jane Hathaway, Mr. Drysdale’s secretary, is positively emaciated- three very neolithic, agriculture dependent people if ever there were any!  So are most of the folks you see from Beverly Hills- hyper civilized and largely phony, their so-called sophistication is shown to be hollow over and over by the authentic, early Paleo types of people that are the Clampetts!

 

So- men, get yourself a dirty, practical hat like Jed- the brim works as well as blue blocking glasses!  Go around bare foot like Jethro and Ellie (paleo yet again!), and do lots of physical work- hunt wild game, cook over wood fired pots in the open air, and wash your clothes by hand in the cement pond- Now, you are Hillbilly Paleo!  And, since many people don’t like the term “Paleolithic” about the ancestral diet and lifestyle, now you have another term to describe yourself and the way you live and eat:

 

“Me?  I guess I’m just a Hillbilly!!”

 

There- that’s much more socially acceptable!

 

Ya’ll come back now, y’hear?

 


Check out this episode!

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #54 Exercise is in your MIND


I’ll say it again, I have often enough- exercise is all about the MIND, not the exercise equipment!  The more high tech, the fancier the weight lifting apparatus; generally the less it facilitates the all important mind-muscle connection.

This last is the most important thing to achieve in developing your body!  Notice, I do not say how to lift the most weight- this is irrelevant.  What we want to do, if you think about it, is to move your body in a manner that develops you and your body to the ultimate degree possible.  NOT just “how much you can lift”, all of which is determined largely by your joint and tendon attachments, and your various limb lengths relative to your torso…

 

What you want is to develop your own body (and mind!) to the best, natural, strong, fit and flexible, athletic and symmetrical physique you can attain- the best possible YOU!

 

Lifting heavy weights will not do this- you will be led to progressive and irreversible injury, with ruined joints, weak ligaments and tendons, and lifelong pain!

 

Running long distances won’t do it- you will have ruined joints, low muscle mass, and a “skinny fat” body that at first can only run, but after a while, can’t even do that!

 

Crossfit, Olympic lifting, long distance running- they all are, long term, dead ends.

 

I think conventional bodybuilding is also a dead end of pain, given that nowadays heavy weights are a given, but I recently heard an interview of Arnold Schwarzenegger by Tim Ferriss that was like a tonic to me.  Arnold said that he eventually realized that, when he trained best, it was like a meditation.  He flexed his biceps, and completely connected with his mind, flexing just by imagining lifting a weight- the weight was superfluous!  By flexing, whatever muscle group he chose, and really imagining it, and making it as hard as he wanted, the stress on the muscle was ideal, and it would grow!

 

This is virtual resistance training, and the best first step in building your body.  Next, add in self resistance training, where one limb opposes another by pressing against it, and now you develop your tendon and ligament strength along with your muscle strength- this is key to develop raw strength and power along with the ability to sustain it without injury.

 

If you use heavy barbells, for instance, to build bulky, blocky muscles- these muscles will quickly outstrip the strength of their “connectors” in the tendons and ligaments, and you are setting yourself up to have your rotator cuff, and your knee joints to rupture and tear. This is no joke!  Besides you winding up with heavy, saggy pecs from heavy bench presses (not a very masculine image, is it?) and a protruding abdomen and fat butt from heavy squats- you can also look forward to injured joints and torn tendons and ligaments from a misbalance between tendon and muscle relative strength.  

 

There IS an easier, and better way!

 

Perfectly Paleo Exercise.  I mean natural, virtual resistance exercise (ala Arnold), followed by self resisted exercise, and then body weight exercise and simple stretching, all done in your living room or in your basement or garage.  Add in a once per week session using a pull up bar and/or gymnastic rings, and you will build the perfect, lifelong, functional and completely healthy and natural physique that is each of our birthrights!  

 

And all without any injuries, expenses, commuting, or just plain PAIN that comes from things like Crossfit or other Big Gym Box experiences.  Do it yourself, at home, with your tribe, in your own cave or meadow.  It’s really not complicated, just like real health is not complicated- we don’t need medicines, we don’t need surgeries, we don’t need endless drugs and procedures!!  

 

We need good, real, God made foods like grass fed meat and dairy- real organic veggies and fruits, real fatted calf fats like- the fatted calf!  Pastured dairy! Organ meats! A “tribe” to connect with- a belief in something greater than ourselves, OR ANY ONE GOVERNMENT!  Land to work- a garden- a space to get our hands dirty and do REAL WORK!  Not sitting in a cubicle, or driving around to meetings, or talking on the phone conferences… real work.

 

Our evolutionary heritage demands all of the above.  There is no escape, no one else can do it for you.  It’s simple, and it’s all do-able IN YOUR MIND.


Check out this episode!