Paleo Jay's Smoothie Cafe #118 Where Should a Paleo Person Live?

pjsc 118  Where should a modern day Paleo person live?

 

I have been giving this a lot of thought, and actually, it seems so obvious to me!

 

I know there are hotbeds of “paleo aficianados” in pretty urban places, like NYC, and especially Austin Texas!  And God bless ‘em, I’m sure they are doing really great there, or at least as good as they can, and I wish them luck!

 

The problem is, I think that people tend to live in the past; that is, they idolize a “perfect time” in a certain place, and subconciously convince themselves that that time is now.

 

Like so many Woody Allen fans convince themselves, like he does, that New York City is the New York of the 1940’s... the city portrayed by the New York Times and the New Yorker magazine of that era...

 

Sorry, but it’s not even close anymore!  I came from Chicago, and the crime-ridden nightmare that that city has become is not even close to what it was in the 1950’s or 60’s- even the 70’s!!

 

I hate to sound the alarm, politically incorrect as it is, but someone has to say “the Emperor has no clothes”!

 

Out BIG CITIES have become largely unlivable: racked with governmental corruption, NO real police protection, and riddled with bad water, food deserts, and no contact with real Nature anymore for any of the residents!

 

Light pollution, noise pollution, traffic pollution, and just too many people pollution have ruined our big cities!

 

And our suburbs!  Our suburbs ringed about major cities are elitist places nowadays, obsessed with “big dollar high achievement at the expense of anything else”, and likewise an obsession with status and money, since nowadays that is what it takes to remain in the suburbs.  The nice ones, that is.  The ones that retain some semblance of normal American values, that try to emulate some semblance of real, small town values...

 

God bless the suburbs, but they are fighting a losing battle against the over-the-top corruption and crime of the big cities all around them!  They are fast turning into Gated Communities, hoping to retain their character.  Big, top down government will NOT allow that to continue.  Besides, the cost of admission via housing costs is prohibitive to anyone with a normal job!

 

So where should a Paleo type of person live??

 

A smaller city (less than 500,000 people) is ok, but the ideal is to live outside of a small town, or small city of 50,000 or so.

 

In my opinion, this is ideal.  In the ancient Greek city-states, like Athens and Sparta, this was the average size of a “polis”, meaning a citizenship or body of citizens.  Anything more becomes unmanageable!  In communities of this size, every person still matters, and has a real voice.

 

So, pick out a small town, outside of a small city!  Or, if you are more urban minded, you can live right IN that small city!!  Cities of that size are kind of “small towns” in and of themselves, in this day and age.

 

The water will be better!  If you live outside of the city, you can rely on well water, which will be vastly better! 

 

The light pollution can be very little indeed, giving you wonderful sleep, without needing blackout curtains.  And the noise pollution will be virtually non-existent.

 

You will be able to afford a large acreage to live in (avoid “developments”!, which will give you an area in which to “forest bathe”, and simply to have wonderful privacy for your family and yourself to exercise outside, and expose yourself to the sunshine and the Vitamin D without anyone staring like an idiot with disapproval that you aren’t wearing sun screen...

 

You will be able to grow a large garden, digging in the pro-biotic rich earth, and reinforcing your gut microbes daily, as you run, walk, and spring around your yard barefoot!  You can have chickens for their eggs and meat if you want, and there will definitely be a farmer or rancher close by that you can befriend and have a relationship to gain real, fertile eggs (I you don’t have your own), and pastured beef, pork, and poultry!)  This is in and of itself invaluable!

 

Above all, you will have divorced yourself from the opinions of idiots.

 

In big cities especially, but also in suburbs as well, you are inundated with liberal, Big Government ideas.  What I mean by this is, the pervasive ideals that none of us can do things on our own, we need Big Government to tell us what to do, since most of us are so stupid and inept!

 

Nothing could be further from the truth!!

 

Big, Federal Government is the problem, not the solution!  We need to go “Back to the Future”- the original  promise of the American Revolution, which said that Each citizen should decide how the  country is run- NOT the Federal Government! 

 

Small government, local government should rule.  The voice of your neighbors, local voices, people you know and deal with are the ones to determine how things should be done!  NOT big bureaucrats, that have self serving agendas.

 

America was a conservative revolution, originally.  The ONLY ONE in history, really!

 

 

It was called the “Protestant Experiment” back then.

 

 

It was wonderfully successful. So successful that many worldwide want to bring us down!  (Jealousy is a terrible thing).

 

We are on the verge of losing all of our success.  The days of Andy Griffith and small town Americana are struggling against a Federal intrusion agenda that threatens to destroy our health, our wellness, and our way of life! 

 

Vote with your feet!! 

 

Just as people did in the last days of Rome, when the big government corruption was destroying the empire-

 

Leave ROME!  Find a home well outside of the big cities, and create your own paleo friendly GARDEN!

 

Be like Maximus, in The Gladiator movie!  As he moved out to Spain, building an estate there...

 

You can move to the Midwest, or the South or the West...

 

And build your own estate!  Far from Rome!!

 

 

 

 

 

Check out this episode!

pale quick tip of the day #97 Modern Medicine is NOT based on Modern Science!

pqtd 97  Modern Medicine is not based on Modern Science

 

This is a sad podcast to have to make, because it is upsetting to many folks... but, it is true, nonetheless!  We are all the victim of an unnatural allegiance to “science” at all costs- I mean science has all the answers, does it not??

 

This seems reasonable on the face of it, but in our modern day, science has been replaced, largely, with scientism. 

 

This is the insistence that all of our problems, in fact everything in our lives can be reduces to... science based answers! 

 

The problem is, most of our evidence based science has been replaced with 30 year old scientism. 

 

For instance, it has been known for decades that a low fat, high carb diet as pushed by the USDA and the Federal Government does NOT lead to health.  In fact, it is a diet that will make you FAT AND SICK, diabetic and prone to heart disease and cancer, among many other diseases. 

 

And yet, this is the recommended “My Plate” diet!  The real, evidence based science is all there: in fact, it has been there for decades.  But in an environment where medical doctors and institutions have been promoting that diet for about 40-50 years, and where most doctors are working on what they learned at least 20-30 years ago, they keep on promoting what is not real, evidence based science- they promote scientism, or the illusion of science, based on outdated ideas that have been proven wrong by the evidence.  Experimental evidence, experiential evidence, and the evidence of endless contrary outcomes!

 

Many other things spring to mind:

 

Statins are shown to be of almost no benefit to anyone who has not already had a heart attack.  (They are still very widely prescribed, although the side effects are horrific, and the benefits pretty much non-existent in the vast majority of cases).

Statins are prescribed for women, for whom there is no evidence that there is any benefit whatsoever.  In fact, as women get older, the higher their cholesterol levels, the better their life expectancy!

When Pharmaceutical companies fund over 2/3 of medical “research”, what do you think their outcomes will recommend?  A paleo type of diet?  Good exercise, solid sleep, and meditation???  No... more pharmaceutical drugs!!

Flu shots- did you know there is no real science behind these heavily marketed shots?  It’s all a big marketing scam, based on “scientism”, not real science, that is foisted on the public for profit??

Bottom line- we have a “profit based health care system”, not a “science based health care system”. 

 

If all of this doesn’t “scare you straight”, and make you want to be your own doctor, it should. 

 

No one cares about your health like you do.  Do NOT just go on about your normal lifestyle, eating fast food crap and processed junk like soybean oil salad dressings and pizza, thinking the medical system will fix you if anything goes wrong.  They won’t!

 

It is in their interest to have you destroy your own health by following their recommendations, and getting diabesity, and all of the autoimmune diseases that come along with that.  Then, you can purchase drugs, forever, for as long as your miserable, pain-wracked life goes on, as you continue to eat the disease encouraging “healthy whole grains” and low fat garbage and sugar until you give them every bit of your savings during your last few weeks in the hospital...

 

But, at least you’ll know, you did it all in the name of SCIENCE!

 

Er... I mean  SCIENTISM!

Check out this episode!

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #96 Raw dairy- the perfect food!

pqtd 96  Raw Dairy- the perfect food

 

“And the Lord said, I am come down to deliver my people out of the hand of the Egyptians and unto a good land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” 

 

Did you know that the forerunner to today’s Mayo clinic, the Mayo foundation was place where the principle treatment was using raw milk as a cure for many diseases?  It’s true- in 1929, the founder of Mayo, J.E. Crewe, M.D., wrote a book entitled Raw Milk Cures Many Diseases.

 

Here is an excerpt:  “For fifteen years the writer has employed the certified milk treatment in various diseases and during the past ten he had a small sanitarium devoted principally to this treatment. The results obtained in various types of disease have been so uniformly excellent that one’s conception of disease and its alleviation is necessarily changed.”

 

It has been substantially proved through many, many studies over many decades that the nutrient composition of raw milk from healthy cows, raised in sanitary conditions on good feed, is vastly superior to commercial, pasteurized milk.  The only reason big agribusiness milk requires pasteurization is because these cows are generally not raised in sanitary conditions, but are instead crowded together inside, in filthy conditions, to get “the most milk for the buck!” 

 

And the “milk” from these cows is not even vaguely in the same class as the real milk that most of us still cannot even buy, since in many states it is illegal.  Can you imagine: here in Wisconsin, “America’s Dairyland” (it’s right on our license plates!) it is illegal to buy raw, real milk from your neighborhood farmer!  You are supposed to consume fake, sugar-water skimmed milk, ideally, because it is “low in fat”.  What a joke!  The fat in the milk is what carries all the nutrition which makes raw milk one of the most healthy, nutritious foods on the planet.  A food that once was thought to have been consumed since 10,000 years ago, but now archeological evidence indicates that 30,000 years ago people in the High Sinai Peninsula at the north end of the Red Sea used fences to aid in confining and breeding antelope for their milk.-They likely were one of many cultures that used milk long before the beginnings of agriculture.

 

So now you see, raw milk has been a mainstay of health and wellness for a long, long, long time! 

 

In fact, there is no food better for you than raw milk- now, at last, there is a bill in front of the Wisconsin legislature to legalize raw milk once again!  I have called my state legislator, and I was told he would support it.  But why was it ever taken away is a legitimate question.

 

So let me end up with a quote from Dr. Ron-”

 

The same repressive, reactionary forces that have concentrated power and wealth into the hands of a few have outlawed raw milk and destroyed the ability of small farms to survive and thrive – and ushered in the epidemic of heart disease, cancer and other chronic problems plaguing the modern world.

Raw milk is the key to the health crisis, the farm crisis, the economic crisis, the small town crisis, even the environmental crisis, the political crisis and the educational crisis. Farmers who could freely advertise and sell raw milk and its products, and fresh quality meats, free of government intervention and hassles, could prosper, and their communities could blossom. The restoration of our individual and national health could become reality.

 

Amen to that!

Check out this episode!

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #95 Our Children are the Canaries in the Coal Mine

pqtd 95  Our children are our canaries in the coal mine

 

I’m afraid that this sad fact is the truth- our children in America, and increasingly world wide, are suffering at ever earlier ages under the scourge of autoimmune conditions.

 

I have been witnessing this process for years now; I have been paleo for about 10 years or so now.  I have evolved, and slowly added in more good things (like better exercise, higher quality food, better sleep and meditation), and benefited greatly!  I am now 63 years of age, and in far better shape than I was at 50: no more painful joints, knee or shoulder pain (from weight lifting, running, and an inflammatory diet).  No more migraine headaches (primarily, I found out, from gluten- when I eliminated gluten and in fact most grains altogether, I never got another headache again.  I threw away my pharmaceutical medicine...

 

On the other hand, most of my friends and peers, who are mostly in the 40 - 60 year age bracket, have picked up numerous diseases and conditions.  Diabetes and “diabesity”, of which the second predicts the former have happened to many, along with heart disease, gerd, acid reflux, sleep apnea and snoring, and even some cancer.  And the list goes on... 

 

These are the ones who do not listen to my advice.  They eat the standard American diet of pizza, fast foods, processed crap, bread and pasta.  Most try to “cut their fat intake” by switching exclusively away from butter and full fat dairy, and try to “cut calories” by drinking skim milk, and cereal for breakfast, along with “healthy whole grain toast” with margarine on top.

 

Almost all of them are on statins, against my arguments about it’s uselessness and extreme danger.  Many dose themselves almost daily with high doses of aspirin, tylenol and ibuprofen to deal with their many aches and pains.  Exercise?  They walk at the mall...

 

Those that have followed my lead are about as healthy as I am!  Many have reversed conditions like diabetes (type 2), skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis, and all sorts of digestive ailments.  Most don’t exercise nearly as much, but they have had wonderful results, healthwise, regardless!

 

But they are the older generation, on their way out.  What is troubling me now, is that all of the diseases that my middle-aged friends have are now turning up in children I have known since birth!

 

Type one diabetes in 13 year olds to 30 year olds.  Diverticulitis, Arthritis, hasimotos, and infertility, Hashimoto thyroiditis, type I diabetes, lupus, and vasculitis. It is starting to run rampant among young people, this taking them down by having their own immune system attacking their very own body!  Why?  And why is this new?  This stuff didn’t happen, or very, very rarely in my generation when we were young.  Now it hits younger and younger people, in more and more numbers!

 

When I was young, in the 1950’s, it really was like the movie Back to the Future.  Families ate at home, things like pot roast and vegetables, everyone got plenty of sleep before school, high fructose corn syrup had not been invented yet, and pesticides and herbicide use was very little.  Most meat was raised on small farms, and was pastured on grass, not corn.  There was the local “malt shop”, but this was just for high school socializing and things like sodas and milkshakes, real ones, which are a far cry from the chemical laden, crap-meat fast food in most fast food joints today! 

 

Fast forward to today, or even to 30 years ago: increasingly BOTH parents have to work, primarily to pay the TAXES that have escalated in this country.  Now, there is no “home maker” to make the nutritious, healthy, home cooked quality meals anymore.  The parents just rush the kids to a fast food joint, and buy them corn syrup or (worse) artificially sweetened soft drinks, fries cooked in vegetable oil, and gluten covered crap grain fed meat covered in sugar (ketchup) and mayo (vegetable crap oil)...  day after day after day after day... 

Then, when the mom does actually have time to cook, like on weekends, she buys those biscuits in tubes, and canned cheap soups, and other processed foods, throwing them together in quick recipes that make a gluten sugar bomb of a meal... over and over and over again!  And then, for a change, they order pizza!

 

10 to 20 years of this, and your gut lining is leaky and destroyed.  Toxins from this bad food, and actually from anywhere that get into your digestive system and have nothing to stop them- they go right into your bloodstream!

 

At this point, your immune system can hardly tell the difference between your own bodily cells, and all of these invaders- it goes into maximum fight response!  And it winds up attacking your own bodily parts- your digestive system is often the first to be attacked, since it is right there.  (Diverticulitis, Crohn’s disease)

 

But, it can go anywhere- attacking your joints (arthritis), your pancreas (Type 1 diabetes), your skin (eczema or psoriasis), or your thyroid. (Hashimoto’s disease)  It can even result in your own immune system attacking your brain.  This, I believe, could be one reason for the huge increase in autism, severe mood disorders like depression, and many other behavior problems in children today!

 

And so, where does that leave us? 

The state of nutrition and lifestyle in America today has reached a low ebb.  From the very hard, physical, yet nutrient richness of our great grandfathers and grandmothers we have come to this- the world of Wall.E. 

 

If you have never seen this Disney movie from 2008, I recommend you do.  It pretty much depicts where we are headed: Wall-E shows a future human race that is so lazy and decrepit that everyone just rides around all day in little electric carts, and drinking soft drinks from giant cups as they go all day.  Robots do everything for them, and all they do is to...barely exist!  Seemed so far-fetched just 7 years ago, and now- it seems like we are half way there!

 

Remember my analogy in the title of this podcast? 

 

Our children are our canaries in the coal mine!

 

If you are not aware, many years ago, coal miners would let down a basket of canaries into a coal mine shaft to determine if it was safe to breathe the air down there.  If they pulled up the basket by the rope, and the canaries were dead, or really sick, they knew they could not yet send humans down.

 

Our children are sick.  They are OUR CANARIES!

 

 

 

 

Check out this episode!

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #94 Have your CAKE, and be Healthy and Slim Too!

pqtd 94 sugar alcohols eating your cake and being healthy too

 

It has always been known that if you eat “bad” foods, things like candy, cake, and cookies, why then you were setting yourself up for dental disease, lots of fat on your body, and poor health in general.  Diabesity would be in your immediate future...

 

But did you know that, with a few judicious substitutions, you can make delicious brownies, cookies, cakes and even by candies that are not only delicious, but actually really, really healthy for you!!??

 

First, the good news:  just by substituting xylitol for sugar in your recipes, you will-

 

Improve your dental health

NOT gain weight from your desserts

Actually become super healthy by eating “treats”!

 

I’m not saying you can just add xylitol to crappy recipes using Pillsbury Doughboy biscuits and flour- far from it.  You still have to stick to a Paleo type of diet- no wheat, pastured dairy and meats, green smoothies on a daily basis for maximum results! 

 

BUT, you can add in wonderful, tasty home-baked treats indistinguishable from those that everyone else enjoys, except the ones you make will be incredibly healthy along with being delicious!

 

You can just use Xylitol, which looks just like sugar, and tastes just like sugar; but has 1/3 of the calories, and 70% less carbs- and, it doesn’t raise your blood sugar levels. (Ideal for diabetics, and for all the rest of us who don’t want to become diabetic)!

 

Erithritol is another sugar alcohol sweetener, similar to Xylitol, and both are derived from, originally, birch tree bark. And Erithritol has no calories that are absorbed!

A good solution is to use a mixture of 1/2 Erithritol, and 1/2 Xylitol... but to start, Xylitol wins hands down- it’s easy to find and purchase, and it improves dental health.

 

Actually, it’s kind of interesting: it was discovered in 1890, and was derived from birch bark. (Erithritol was discovered in 1848).  It is a completely natural substance that is included in small amounts in many products of nature.  Now, it is derived from non-GMO, organic corn cobs, which are chemically identical to those from birch bark sources!  You can still buy the birch variety, but there is really no justification.

 

Many Scandinavian, Asian and European countries use it extensively- in Finland, large quantities of Xylitol are used in chewing gum and candies provided to the Finnish children by the government, since all dental care is provided at no cost to the Finnish people-

 

Xylitol candy saves them money!

 

For whatever reason, here in the USA we went with chemical, artificial sweeteners and toxic fluoride in our drinking water. Two of many, many mistakes our government has shoved down our collective throats over the past 50 years or so...

 

But you and your family don’t need to follow blindly down this toxic nightmare path! 

 

Get some Xylitol, both of my local grocers carry it, and it’s also on Amazon.  I’m sure Thrive Market carries it as well.  Make yourself some cookies; I will post a recipe I made today at www.paleojay.com.   

 

Get some chewing gum made of Xylitol (PUR), and have a couple every day- your dental health will improve a LOT, since the xylitol makes the interior of your mouth a hostile environment for bad bacteria that love sugar.

 

If you are a new mom, chew this gum yourself, and if you are breast feeding, the benefits will transfer to your baby!  And, most research seems to suggest that the benefits of using xylitol for a year or so turn out to be...permanent. 

 

And then, when he or she starts “chewing” their own food- give them some xylitol candy!  Cookies, cakes and brownies!! 

 

Not only will they really, really like it...

 

But you are making them really, really healthy!!

 

 

 

 

This is a very healthy Chocolate Chip cookie recipe made with Coconut flour and Coconut Oil.

. . . . .

yield: 2 dozen cookies

active time: 14 -15 minutes

total time: 30 minutes

. . . . .

added by: Trevor

cuisine: Snack

Ingredients

1/2 cup Coconut Oil, melted

1 cup Xylitol

4 eggs (room temperature)

1/2 teaspoon Pure Vanilla

1/8 teaspoon Sea Salt

1 1/2 cups grated or shredded Unsweetened Coconut

3/4 cup unsweetened Chocolate Chips (or wafers quartered) 

1 cup sifted Coconut flour

Preparation

 

Melt coconut oil by putting it in the microwave for a few seconds. Make sure that the eggs are at room temperature so that the coconut oil does not solidify when mixing.

 

Mix together Coconut Oil, Xylitol, eggs, vanilla and salt. Stir in Coconut, chocolate chips and coconut flour. Drop batter in spoon-size mounds 1-inch apart on cookie sheet greased with coconut oil. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 C) for 14 to 15 minutes. Cool slightly and remove from cookie sheet. Makes about 2 dozen cookies.

 

Check out this episode!

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #93 The NEW Paleo Miracle Drug!

pqtd 93 The New Paleo Miracle Drug

 

It is often said that there is “nothing new under the sun”.  And this is no exception- the “new paleo miracle drug” is actually as old as fire- but it is a miracle drug nonetheless!

 

This paleolithic elixir is bone broth.  Not just soup stock, which is when you boil bones and ideally the marrow and connective tissues as well, but bone broth, where you simmer the bones to extract the very essence of human nutrition and healing; and you extract them for at least 12 hours, and as long as 48 hours or more!

 

This is the key for maximum health benefits, and what separates bone broth from the mere flavoring agent of simple beef or chicken stock.

 

Not only will bone broth give you all of the nutrients needed to heal problems with your joints and bones (it really works miracles in that department), bone broth also heals your gut, which is so very important.  Listen- all of us have damaged, or “leaky” guts, where bad cells can slip through our digestive tracts and right into our bloodstream. 

 

This is where all autoimmune diseases have their start!  And these are the diseases that are killing, and hurting all of us so badly.  Name the scariest diseases you know- they are all autoimmune, in which the body starts attacking itself.  Cancer, arthritis, alzheimer’s, chron’s disease, diverticulitis, type 1 diabetes, and even heart disease is initially a form of autoimmune disease. 

 

And ever since we started eating massive amounts of gluten from genetically altered wheat, and adding tons of chemicals to our environment in the form of pesticides, herbicides, fluoride and chlorine, along with antibiotics in our meats and more chemicals in our toxic cleaning products... well, back when I was young, in the 1950’s, Cancer was quite rare!  As were most diseases- I never even heard of diabetes until I was grown, and it only struck old people.  Now, autism, diabetes, cancer- almost everyone winds up with one or several of these horrible diseases. 

 

Not to be a PollyAnna, which would be to take the name of my little sister, Polly Ann in vain, but simply taking in bone broth on a near daily basis would counter most of this insult.  Bone broth heals your gut lining- better than anything else!  Along with eating LOTS of green veggies, ideally in the form of a green smoothie, and grass fed meats and pastured dairy, bone broth will heal you, and make you immune to most of our modern enemies:

 

I guarantee, if you get out your slow cooker, put in some soup bones (my favorite is a Marrow Bone!), a chicken carcass, or a combination of bones from healthy animals, add a little sea salt and apple cider vinegar (just a splash, to help get the minerals out), and let it simmer for a couple of days, and then drink a cup- you are on the road to health my friend!

 

Healthy skin (this first is actually quick, and quite remarkable, since the skin is the mirror of the gut)- clear and healthy. 

 

Healthy weight- proper digestion ensures satiety, and you will not desire junk foods like sweets and pastries

 

Above all- a healthy gut!  This is important for the whole human body- Hippocrates himself said that all health comes from the gut!

 

You can either keep the slow cooker simmering away for days and days, or you can do like I do:  I simmer a couple of days, then ladle into canning jars, leaving the sick little depleted bones behind.  Put the canning jars into the fridge, and heat up whenever- I try to have a cup or so per day.  You can even whisk an egg into the cup you have heated in the microwave, and “instant egg drop soup”!  Tastes great, too...

 

Or, you can use them as a soup base, as I did with my PaleoJay’s chili earlier this week.  OR, you can take one 16 oz jar of bone broth, and add some new potatoes, carrots, grass fed stew meat and onions- slow cook them for about 2 and 1/2 hours- and then do like I am going to do right now:

 

Go eat my beef stew!

 

So be like me; be BAD TO THE BONE!

Check out this episode!

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #92 Summertime Blues!

pqtd 92 Don’t get the Summertime Blues- Train with Rings

 

I know, this time of the year is when those of us who live in the north country get the blues- the Summertime blues- since summer is over, the leaves are changing, and the weather is getting...colder! 

 

“Omigosh!” we say to ourselves, “I have been exercising so well outdoors, carrying my little heavy hands dumb bells and pumping them as I go, and stopping for periodic pushup intervals- it’s been great!  But what do I do when it gets really cold, and snowy??”

 

Well, for me, that doesn’t stop my outdoor walks with the little weights- I just put on boots, and slog through the forest trails of snow!  But, if you like to retreat more indoors in the winter months, fear not.  Here is your answer, your salvation, your holy grail:

 

Get a set of gymnastic rings!

 

I don’t care if this seems intimidating, you think you are too big and heavy to do those crazy muscle ups and skin the cat moves- trust me, this little, inexpensive ring setup will change your physique, your life overall, and especially the way you train.

 

I got a set a few years ago, the setup was a little over $20.  I got some hardware to hang the rings up on my basement rafters, and it is the BEST money I have ever spent on training! 

 

Especially if you are somewhat de-conditioned or heavy, these are a lifesaver.  You can do pushups on them at any angle you choose- if you can’t do a regular pushup on the floor, you can do them standing up, on a slight angle!  Or at any gradation in between.  Just by moving forward or back, you make the pushup exercise harder or easier. 

 

And, doing pushups on the rings puts your body in the most joint sparing, yet total range-of-motion position that is possible.  And, if you know me, you know that the pushup is probably the ultimate exercise for total body fitness!

 

But the pushup is not all, no no no!  Rings are ideal for pullups, dips, and pistol (or one-legged) squats, which are the perfect lower body exercise.  Also, for rows, pullovers, tricep presses, and flies- all done perfectly safely, and easily graduated so that anyone, of any fitness level, can do them safely and productively.

 

The rings are kind of like a tiny, inexpensive, incredibly versatile power rack, or “cage”. I have one of these as well, from my old ill-advised weight lifting days, and it is literally a steel cube that holds your weights, so that they can never fall on you- and also, so that you can start at any point in the lift on “pins” that support the bar at various levels.  VERY hands, indispensable really, for serious weight trainers!  Also, really big, bulky, and expensive!!

 

The rings are better! Yup, not just OK, but BETTER.  You can do squats on one leg, and assist yourself with your arms a little if you can’t quite do it... same with chins, and dips, rows and even curls- just experiment, and any exercise that you could do with a power rack, mountains of weights, and specialized Nautilus and other types of machines, well you can duplicate them, and even do them one step better on a simple set of rings!

 

Rings are also convenient, and lend themselves to impromptu mini-workouts whenever you feel like it- they are just hanging there, waiting for you!  You can instantly adjust them up for squats and wonderful ab exercises like L-sits, or lower them for pushups.  You can elevate your legs to make the pushups harder, or stand more upright to make them much easier... infinitely and instantly adjustable!

 

I have totally rehabbed my shoulders, damaged from years of heavy weights, by using rings.  The total range of motion, and the ability to stretch the shoulder joints by leaning forward on the rings is amazingly therapeutic. 

 

So grab the brass ring!  Set yourself up for a Winter’s worth of fitness and health!  I know it seems a little depressing when the leaves start to fall, but once the cold arrives, you have a new “hang out”- whether it is in your basement, or your garage, or wherever you have a high place to hang a set of rings- all kinds of mounting hardware is available, so you will get the “hang” of it eventually...

 

And then, you will never, ever again have the summertime blues! 

Check out this episode!